Abstract
The counterinsurgency campaigns in the empire’s periphery were unlike those fought in the core areas of Macedonia and Anatolia and demonstrate another side of Ottoman counterinsurgency practices. This was because, as Ottoman military strength was drawn to, and concentrated in, the core areas, it became possible in the distant provinces for traditional tribal and leader-centric rebellion to take root. Moreover, unlike the committee-led insurgencies in the core areas, which failed to engage a majority of the respective populations, insurgencies in the periphery found broad popular support. This changed the dynamic in favor of the insurgents and, in the end, made it impossible for the Ottomans to succeed. These hard-fought counterinsurgency campaigns in the periphery ended in military failure leading to negotiated settlements.
He assembled the tribes from the entire country, and they agreed to obey him … and … to besiege the cities in which there were Turks.
—Mehmet Tevfik Bay about Imam Yahya, Yemen, 19051
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Notes
Ahmed İzzet Pasha, 4Feryadım, Ciltı (Istanbul: Nehir Yayınları, 1992), 27.
Caesar E. Farah, The Sultan’s Yemen, Nineteenth-Century Challenges to Ottoman Rule (London: I.B.Tauris, 2002), 226.
Turkish General Staff, Balkan Harbı (1912–1913), I Cilt, Harbin Sebepleri, Askeri Haıirlıklar ve Osmanlı Devletinin Harbe Girişi (Ikinci Başki) (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1993), 86.
See Edward J. Erickson, Defeat in Detail, the Ottoman Army in the Balkans, 1912–1913 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003), 15–24, for detailed information on the Ottoman army in this period.
Ahmed Izzet Pascha, Denkwürdigkeiten des Marschalls Izzet Pascha (Leipzig, Germany: Verlag von K.F. Koehler, 1927), 165–712.
Ibid., See Appendix B, “Ottoman Regular Army Order of Battle, 1911,” 371–84, for complete listings of where units were garrisoned in Yemen and where the 13 battalions came from in other army areas. See also Metin Ayışığı, Mareşal Ahmet İzzet Paşa (Askerî ve Siyasî Hayatı) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, 1997), 33–46.
George W. Gawrych, The Crescent and the Eagle: Ottoman Rule, Islam and the Albanians, 1874–1913 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 140–49.
Owen Pearson, Albania and King Zog; Independence, Republic and Monarchy1908–1939 (London: The Centre for Albanian Studies, 2004), 12.
Renato Tittoni, The Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912) (Kansas City, MO: Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1914), 25.
Şükrü Erkal, Birinci Dünya Harbinde Türk Harbi, VIncı Cilt, Hicaz, Asir, Yemen Cepheleri ve Libya Harekatı 1914–1918 (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1978), 6.
Hamdi Ertuna, Türk Silahlı Kuvvetleri Tarihi, Osmanlı Devri, Osmanlı-İtalyan Harbi (1911–1912) (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1981), 49–57.
William H. Beehler, The History of the Italian-Turkish War, September 29, 1911 to October 18, 1912 (Annapolis, MD: The Advertiser-Republican, 1913), 18.
Yavuz Abadan, Mustafa Kemal ve Çetecilik (Istanbul: Varlık Yayınları, 1964), 30–35
Cemal Kutay, Trablus-Garb’de Bir Avuç Kahraman (Istanbul: Tarih Yayınları, 1963), 14–51, 86–111; and Ertuna, Osmanlı-İtalyan Harbi (1911–1912), 152–58.
Hamdi Ertuna, 1911–1912 Osmanlı-İtalyan Harbi ve Kolağası Mustafa Kemal (Ankara: Genelkurmay Basımevi, 1985), 95–122.
Halil Kut, İttihat ve Terakki’den Cumhuriyete Bitmeyen Savaş: Kutülamare Kahramanı Halil Paşanın Anıları (İstanbul: 7 Gün Yayınları, 1972), 83–114; and Ertuna, Osmanlı-İtalyan Harbi (1911–1912), 171–77, 184–85, 188–213.
Timothy W. Childs, Italo-Turkish Diplomacy and the War over Libya 1911–1912 (Leiden, NE: E.J. Brill, 1990), 59.
Bayram Kodaman, “The Hamidiye Light Cavalry Regiments, Abdülhamid II and the Eastern Anatolian Tribes,” Yavuz, M. Hakan and Peter Sluglett (eds.), War and Diplomacy, The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and the Treaty of Berlin (Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2011), 23.
New Regulations for the Tribal Light Cavalry of August 1910 (English Translation of Aşiret Süvari Alayları Nizamnamesi, 1326) from Janet Klein, “Power in the Periphery: The Hamidiye Light Cavalry and the Struggle over Ottoman Kurdistan, 1890–1914,” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2002, 385.
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© 2013 Edward J. Erickson
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Erickson, E.J. (2013). Counterinsurgency in the Periphery. In: Ottomans and Armenians. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137362216_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137362216_4
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