Mustafa Kemal and Enver in conflict, 1919–22

Abstract

On the night of 8 November 1918, nine days after the signature of the Armistice of Mudros (Mondros) by the accredited plenipotentiaries of the defeated Ottoman Empire and Britain, those responsible for dragging Turkey into the Great War, the Talat-Enver-Cemal triumvirate of the Committee of Union and Progress,1 together with some of their henchmen, escaped from Istanbul in great secrecy on the German torpedo boat U-67. According to British sources,2 their destination was Constanza; according to Turkish sources,3 it was Odessa or Eupatoria (Gozleva) on the Crimean coast, near Sebastopol. They were wanted by the Allies and by the new Ottoman government in Istanbul for alleged war crimes.4 They were to be condemned to death in absentia in July 1919 by the special court martial appointed by the Anglophile Damat Ferit Cabinet for offences connected with the war.5 Two of them, Talat and Cemal, would later die at the hands of Armenian assassins, while Enver would be killed in action by the Russians in Bokhara while leading the Muslim 'Basmaji' (marauders) insurgents. Of the three, only Enver became a thorn in the flesh of Mustafa Kemal (the future Ataturk), and his supporters the Turkish Nationalists, who organized a national resistance and a war of liberation in the heartland of Anatolia against the enemies occupying their country.6 Enver desired to share, or rather to usurp, any glory that Mustafa Kemal and his supporters would achieve in Anatolia. However, at first, his unlimited megalomania pushed him into greater things; either to ally with Britain and fight to overthrow the Bolshevik 'yoke' in Muslim Central Asia; or, failing that, to side with the Bolsheviks and struggle for Islamic freedom and independence from the British and French Empires in Africa and Asia. Soon after his escape from Istanbul, and following a number of personal adventures in the Crimea,7 Enver arrived in Berlin towards the end of 1919 and began to intrigue with German, British, French and Russian elements. One of his earliest contacts was Karl Radek, a Bolshevik revolutionary, who put him in touch with Moscow.8 According to a secret British report, dated 3 February 1920, Enver was working hard to establish a military alliance between the Germans and the Bolsheviks, and to unite the Arab, Turkish and Egyptian movements so as to consolidate all efforts before he undertook 'the invasion' of Asia Minor and Azerbaijan with 'Bolshevik army'. He even sought the sympathy of Emir Feisal, who was amenable, but who would take no definite action until such time as 'the independence of