The 1912–13 Balkan Wars and the Siege of Edirne

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes A Turkish word meaning a mountain range containing wooded passes. H.C. Armstrong, Grey Wolf (An Intimate Study of a Dictator) (London: Arthur Barker, 1935) in which the following is stated on p.52: ‘All the four Christian states, suddenly, and for the only time in their history, attacked Turkey’. S. Kocabaş, Balkan Harbi–Son Haçlı Seferi [The Balkan War–The Last Crusade] (Kayseri: Vatan Yayınları, 2001). R.C. Hall, The Balkan Wars 1912–1913 – The Prelude to the First World War (London: Routledge, 2000). This sentiment is also expressed by Talat Pasha, one of the CUP ‘triumvirate’ and later Grand Vizier, in Talat Paşa‘nın Anıları [Memoirs of Talat Pasha] (Istanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 1994), p.24, wherein he states: Without considering that the majority element in a large part of Albania and Macedonia was Turkish, the 1913 London conference wielded the scalpel like a deadly surgeon and freely cut up the map of the Balkans. This operation not only did not yield the desired results, but caused the sickness to spread to other parts. Thus all of Europe was affected by an incurable illness. The Balkan War gave birth to the World War. W. Miller, The Ottoman Empire and its Successors, 1801–1927 (London: Frank Cass, 1966) has an extensive and excellent bibliography, pp.568–93. See also the works cited at the end of R.C. Hall (note 4). Turkish sources on the Balkan Wars are treated fully in a relatively recent copiously annotated and documented work: M. Naim Turfan, Rise of the Young Turks (London: I.B. Tauris, 2000), ch.3 and 4. Italy's quest for ‘a place in the sun’ has been set down by Bosworth: Despite Libya's lack of natural appeal…, Italy had long enunciated her special interest in the area. She did so initially on the beggars-can't-be choosers principle that, after the establishment of the French protectorate in Tunis (1881) and the rejection of British overtures about Egypt (1882), there was no other ‘vacant’ territory left. See R.J.B. Bosworth, ‘Italy and the End of the Ottoman Empire’ in Marian Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire (London: Frank Cass, 1996), p.57. Trablusgarp, now the Republic of Libya. W. Miller, The Ottoman Empire and its Successors, 1801–1927 (London: Frank Cass, 1966), p.501. B. Lewis, The Middle East – A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p.107. H.C. Armstrong, Grey Wolf (London: Arthur Barker, 1935), p.54. Properly Çatalca. The second capital (between 1365 and 1453) of the Ottomans, Adrianople is called Edirne in Turkish. In the less dramatic words of Miller: Thus, in a few weeks, nothing was left of the Turkish empire in Europe but the cities of Adrianople, Scutari and Jóannina, which still resisted the Bulgarian, Montenegrin and Greek besiegers, the promontory of Gallipoli, and the narrow peninsula which stretches from the lines of Chatalja to the Bosphorus. William Ewart Gladstone, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East (London: John Murray, 1876), 32 pp.The most quoted passage from this pamphlet is as follows: I entreat my countrymen, upon whom far more than perhaps any other people of Europe it depends, to require and to insist, that our Government, which has been working in one direction, shall work in the other, and shall apply its vigour to concur with the other States of Europe in obtaining the extinction of the Turkish executive power in Bulgaria. Let the Turks now carry away their abuses in the only possible manner, namely by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and their Yuzbachis, their Kaimakams and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province they have desolated and profaned. It may be pointed out that Benjamin Disraeli, as Prime Minister, received a complimentary copy of this booklet. Disraeli was Gladstone's foremost political rival and is reputed to have said that Gladstone's pamphlet was ‘of all the Bulgarian horrors perhaps the greatest’. Bilâl Şimşir, Rumeli‘den Türk Göçleri [Turkish Migrations from Rumeli] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1968–1970), two vols. Ahmet Halaçoğlu, Balkan Harbi sırasında Rumeli‘den Türk Göçleri (1912–1913) [Turkish Migrations from Rumeli during the Balkan War (1912–1913)] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1995). Halidé Edib (1884–1964) , a well known female Turkish novelist, known in Turkey as Halide Edip Adıvar. She was first married to the mathematician Salih Zeki and later to Dr Adnan Adıvar. She played a part in Turkish politics before the establishment of the Republic and, in later years, was a professor of English at Istanbul University. Her books written in English include The Clown and his Daughter (London: Allen & Unwin,1935), Memoirs of Halidé Edib (note 18) and Inside India (London: Allen & Unwin, 1937). Halidé Edib, Memoirs of Halidé Edib (London: John Murray, 1926), p.334. Joan Haslip, The Sultan – The Life of Abdul Hamid II (London: History Book Club, 1973), p.292. Also mentioned in Ayşe Osmanoğlu, Babam Sultan Abdülhamid [My Father, the Sultan Abdülhamid] (Istanbul: Selçuk Yayınları, 1984), pp.219–21. Ali Fuad Türkgeldi, Görüp İşittiklerim [What I have Seen and Heard] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1987), p.70. Mehmet Şükrü Pasha was born in Erzurum in 1857 as the only child of an army officer. He was marked out for a military career and became a Lieutenant in the Artillery in 1879. He was also a student at the French military academy in St Cyr. With his all-round success and especially his talent in mathematics, he was sent to the famous Prussian garrison at Potsdam for four years. He achieved the rank of Major in 1887 and married the daughter of a Lieutenant-General in the Turkish cavalry. His promotions were swift, as he became a Brigadier-General in 1893. In addition to his regular duties, he also taught mathematics and ballistics in the War Academy and other institutions of Istanbul. An eminent Turkish mathematician, Salih Zeki (note 17), was among his students. A strict disciplinarian in the Prussian manner, Şükrü Pasha was famous as an officer who did not mince his words. He was appointed General commanding the fortifications at Edirne in early 1912. Although his written orders were to enable the defence of Edirne against Bulgarian and Serbian forces for up to 50 days, he held out in the face of dwindling rations against vastly superior forces for 5 months and 5 days, surrendering only because he feared that further bombardment would destroy the historic structures such as the famous Selimiye mosque in the former Ottoman capital. However, such being the nature of war, the Pasha, on his return to Istanbul, was constrained to opt for retirement. Şükrü Pasha died in 1916, but the family adopted the surname Edirne after the law related to surnames was passed in 1934. The name Şükrü may often be found transcribed as Shukri or even Choucri. This was the period envisaged in the mobilization plan for the fortress of Edirne as reported by Yiğitgüden (note 40). In Turkish, the Enez-Midye hattı. Known in Turkish as İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti; later, the word Cemiyet [Association] was replaced by Fırka [Party]. Originally founded in 1889 as an anti-Hamidian organization by a disgruntled group of medical students in Istanbul, the Committee of Union and Progress (usually abbreviated as CUP) had a chequered career, with a chapter in Paris. The name was appropriated by the Osmanlı Hürriyet Cemiyeti [Ottoman Freedom Society] in Salonica in 1907 on the advice of Dr Nazım, an enterprising revolutionary who was one of the prime movers in both societies. The CUP acquired a political following in Istanbul and İzmir as well as Salonica, and was in the forefront of Turkish politics for a decade between 1908 and 1918. See E.E. Ramsaur, The Young Turks (Prelude to the Revolution of 1908) (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957). Known in Turkish history as the Bâb-ı Alî Baskını, or the Raid on the Sublime Porte. Kâmil Pasha (1833–1913), born in Cyprus, an astute civil servant and politician; four times Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire who generally adopted a pro-British stance; lies buried in the courtyard of the Arap Ahmet mosque in Lefkoşa [Nicosia]. A story by Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) which, although first published in 1916 in a collection entitled The Toys of Peace, very much transcends its time is The Cupboard of the Yesterdays from which the following excerpt remains as relevant as ever: I remember a sunburnt, soldierly man putting little pin-flags in a war-map, red flags for the Turkish forces and yellow flags for the Russians. It seemed a magical region, with its mountain passes and frozen rivers and grim battlefields, its drifting snows, and prowling wolves … And there was a battle called Plevna that went on and on with varying fortunes for what seemed like a great part of a lifetime; I remember the day of wrath and mourning when the little red flag had to be taken away from Plevna – like other maturer judges, I was backing the wrong horse, at any rate the losing horse. And now to-day we are putting little pin-flags again into maps of the Balkan region, and the passions are being turned loose once more in their playground. Rumeli [literally, the land of Roum; often Rumelia or Roumelia in English] is traditionally used to denote the European dominions of the Ottoman empire. Feroz Ahmed, ‘The Late Ottoman Empire’, in Marian Kent (ed.), The Great Powers and the End of the Ottoman Empire (London: Frank Cass, 1996), wherein he states (p.15): It is not possible to understand Unionist policy and behaviour after 1913 without realizing what a traumatic effect the disaster of the Balkan Wars had on the Turkish psyche. The Turks had lost the very lands that had provided the life-blood of the Empire for centuries. Moreover, the capital had come within an ace of falling to the enemy, spelling the end of their Empire. Throughout this entire catastrophe the Great Powers had stood by, even though at the outbreak of hostilities they had declared that they would not permit a change in the status quo. Yahya Kemal Beyatlı (1884–1957), a celebrated writer who is often considered to be the last great Ottoman poet writing in the classical style. He spent many years in the diplomatic service, and was Turkey's first Ambassador to Pakistan. Yahya Kemal Beyatlı, Çocukluğum, Gençliğim, Siyasî ve Edebî Hatıralarım [My Childhood, Youth, Political and Literary Memories] (Istanbul: Baha Matbaası, 1976), p.146. Mehmed Cavid (1875–1926), prominent member of the inner circle of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), several times Minister and an expert on Economics, was executed in 1926 on the grounds of involvement along with others in a conspiracy to assassinate Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first President of the Republic. Quoted in Tevfik Çavdar, Talât Paşa – Bir Örgüt Ustasının Yaşam Öyküsü [Talat Pasha – The Life Story of a Master Organizer] (Ankara: Kültür Bakanlığı Yayınları, 1995), p.231. A very brief list of such memoirs would include: Halil Menteşe‘nin Anıları [The Memoirs of Halil Menteşe] (Istanbul: Hürriyet Vakfı Yayınları, 1986); Ali Fuad Türkgeldi, Görüp İşittiklerim [What I have Seen and Heard] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1987); Mithat Şükrü Bleda, İmparatorluğun Çöküşü [The Collapse of the Empire] (Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1979); and Cemaleddin Efendi, Siyasi Hatıralarım [Political Memoirs] (Istanbul: Nehir Yayınları, 1990). References also exist in the diaries attributed to the sultan Abdülhamid such as: İsmet Bozdağ, Sultan Abdülhamid‘in Hatıra Defteri [The Journal of Sultan Abdülhamid] (Istanbul: Pınar Yayınları, 1996)]. Abdülhamid had been exiled to Salonica but had to be transferred hurriedly from Salonica to the Beylerbeyi palace on the Asian shores of the Bosphorus in 1912. A courtier, Rasim Bey, wakes him up in the middle of the night to inform him that Greece, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia have combined to attack the Ottomans, and that he must leave at once as Salonica is on the verge of falling. The sultan (p.150) is quoted as shouting with rage: Four states unite against us and we are caught unawares! What negligence is this? Those states could never become united – they have quarrels over their churches! A town in present-day Bulgaria, Plevna (Plevne or Pilevne in Turkish) was defended against vastly superior Russian forces in the 1877 Russo-Turkish war by Osman Pasha (1832–1900) who earned the title of Gazi [Warrior for the Faith]. See, for example, Captain F.W. von Herbert, The Defence of Plevna (Ankara: Ministry of Culture, 1990). Yanya and İşkodra in Turkish. Kâzım Karabekir (1882–1948), a celebrated Turkish general whose later contributions to the Turkish War of Independence were of the utmost importance; he later served in the Turkish parliament and was also the author of several books dealing with the events in late Ottoman history in which he participated. Remzi Yiğitgüden (?–1965), subsequently rose to the rank of General in the Armed Forces of the Republic of Turkey. He lies buried in the Cebeci graveyard in Ankara. Remzi Yiğitgüden, Balkan Harbinde Edirne kale muhasaraları [The Sieges of the Fortress of Edirne during the Balkan War] (Istanbul: Askeri Matbaa, 1938–1939), 2 vols. Fevzi Çakmak (1876–1950), the only officer to have served as Chief of the General Staff in both the Ottoman Armed Forces and those of the Turkish Republic. Born into a family of soldiers, Fevzi Çakmak became a Staff Captain at the age of 22, and saw action on many fronts from Gallipoli to the Caucasus. He left Istanbul in 1920 to join the Turkish Resistance in Ankara. After the battle of Sakarya in 1921 he was elevated to the rank of Field Marshal. He retired as Chief of General Staff in 1944. Yiğitgüden writes that the valour shown during the long siege of Edirne bears out the judgement of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk that the Turkish army would always defeat an army of equal strength, would successfully defend itself against an enemy twice its strength, and even resist a much larger enemy for a long time. Ratip Kazancıgil, Balkan Savaşında Edirne Savunması Günleri (Hafız Rakım Ertür‘ün Anılarından) [The Days of Edirne's Defence during the Balkan Wars (from the memoirs of Hafız Rakım Ertür)] (Edirne: Türk Kütüphaneciler Derneği, 1999). Rakım Ertür (1883–1961) was a Hafız [one who has memorized the Qur'an] and came from a family of religious scholars in Edirne. Like his father, Hafız Mehmet Efendi, Hafız Rakım served for many years as the Imam of the Eski Cami [Old Mosque] in Edirne. He was also a member of the Mevlevi order of whirling dervishes and for their ceremonies used to play the ney [the reed pipe]. Ertür's journal gives the dates as Sunday, 16 Sept. 1912 and 13 March 1913, following not the Gregorian but the Julian (old style) calendar. Raif Necdet Kestelli, in Esra Keskinkılıç (ed.), Ufûl [The Sinking] (Istanbul: Benseno Yayınları, 2002). Kestelli's notebook consists of military items interspersed with the self-communion, jottings, remarks of a sensitive soul. The first entry is dated 3 Oct. 1912 and there are a few entries until September/October 1913 including some excerpts from the period of his incarceration in Bulgaria. Raif Necdet Kestelli (1880–1937) was born into a well-known family in Izmir. He graduated from the Kuleli Military School in Istanbul and passed out from the War Academy as a Lieutenant in the Infantry in 1899. He was also quite a prolific writer, with several volumes of essays and letters, translations of some of the works of Tolstoy, a couple of novels, a play, and even a dictionary to his credit. He took part in the defence of Edirne with the rank of Captain and, after the fall of Edirne, was taken to Sofia where he was kept as a prisoner of war for 6 months. He returned to Istanbul to pursue an active career in teaching and writing until his death in 1937. Rifat Osman Tosyavizade, Edirne Rehnüması [Guide to Edirne] (Edirne: Trakya Üniversitesi Rektörlüğü, 1998), p.77. An issue that complicated the military situation was the large-scale desertion of non-Muslim Ottoman soldiers from the front. According to Ertür, based on reports he heard from junior army officers, Şükrü Pasha should have set an example by sentencing a few deserters to death by hanging, in accordance with martial law. The text of the leaflets is given in greater detail by Yiğitgüden, q.v., pp.122–3 and by Kestelli, q.v., p.48. These proclamations referred to leaflets dropped from the Bulgarian plane and asked citizens not to accept their fictitious contents. They mentioned successes that had been gained against the Bulgarians and the Greeks, and reiterated that the safety of the fortress of Edirne against all assaults would be ensured. The leaflets were signed by Division General Mehmet Şükrü Pasha, Corps Commander, Edirne Fortified Post. Seeing little but destruction around him, Kestelli compares Edirne to a poor orphan who could not even afford the new dress traditionally worn for this great religious feast. The Pasha mentioned that the dangers of the bombardment should not be exaggerated but ordered that citizens should not assemble outdoors during periods of bombardment as that would only increase casualties. He advised citizens to continue with their daily business and to show both patience and fortitude, and issued a warning that misbehaviour would be punished. Hostilities continued, however, with the Greek forces in their sector of the conflict. The name of several types of dessert, made from flour or semolina with oil, milk, sugar and nuts. See note 27. The assault was led by Enver and a band of rioters, resulting in the shooting of Nazım Pasha, and the forced resignation of Kâmil Pasha. A few more details are given in S.T. Wasti, ‘Feylesof Rıza’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, No.2 (2002), pp.83–100. Ertür, in his journal entry of 23 Feb. 1913 when the food shortage was unprecedented, scathingly criticizes the owners of flour mills whose main duty was to provide flour for the Armed Forces. In times of hunger and starvation, according to Ertür, the loyalty of a man may be purchased with a loaf of bread. Villagers who had supplied wheat to the factories would be turned away from the gates of the factories when they asked to be paid. The well-fed minions of the factory owners would prevent the villagers even from approaching the rich factory owners and in any case would delay any payments. He goes on: ‘The mill owner is not afraid of the government, of martial law or of anyone in this world. The orders of the government affect him not; he works only to his own satisfaction.’ Sultan Mehmed Reşad (Mehmed V) (1844–1918), penultimate Ottoman sovereign. More information on him may be obtained from S.T. Wasti, ‘The Last Chroniclers of the Mabeyn’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.32, No.2 (1996), pp.1–29. Ertür goes on to explain how even the workings of this commission could not stem the tide of irregularity that inevitably takes over in such critical situations. There were delays in payments to poor people whereas those with connections were paid promptly. Problems arose over whose signatures from among the special commission members were to override others. Another problem was that mill owners would purchase large quantities of wheat, barley, corn, broom corn and other grain and it was difficult to establish whether there was adulteration in the grinding of these for bread flour. A kaymakam is the administrative head of one of several districts into which a province headed by a Governor is divided. King George I of the Hellenes, shot by one of his servants. Although Ertür's memoirs draw to a close with this cataclysm, the entry for 26 March is perhaps the longest in Kestelli's notebook, of which a few lines may be quoted here: The fortress was being surrendered. Was this sacred earth, leavened with the glorious history of our ancestors, slipping out of our hands? O Lord, what a painful and terrible sinking, unrelieved by any rebirth!! But no…No! Sometimes the sunset brings a brighter sunrise … The depths of my soul, my very being, shriek out: ‘Revenge! Revenge!’ Ferdinand (1861–1948), first king of modern Bulgaria, who proclaimed Bulgarian independence in 1908. After the First World War, in which Bulgaria was on the losing side, he abdicated in 1918 to be succeeded by his son, Boris III. According to a contemporary report, the king stood up to receive Şükrü Pasha, and said: ‘There appears to have been a mistake. You have presented your ceremonial sword during the surrender of the city. Swords cannot be taken from soldiers like yourself. You have written a glorious page in the war. Please accept your sword. I am proud not only to receive you, but to have fought against soldiers like yourself who have turned an impossible defence into a reality.’ Hall, p.87. The names given in the text may be transliterated as Marcel Coigne and Major Samson, respectively. The activities of the Bulgarian and British consulates are criticized by Yiğitgüden, who mentions that under the pretext of hunting, the foreign consuls left few areas in the region unvisited. Mim Kemal Öke (born 1955), is a prominent professor, writer and broadcaster in Turkey. Mim Kemal Öke, Bilinmeyen Tarihimiz [Our Unknown History] (Istanbul: İrfan Yayımcılık, 1998), pp.228–9 and 253–5. ‘If I should die after the enemy crosses the lines, I shall not consider myself a şehit [martyr]. Do not put me into a grave. Let the wild dogs and the birds pluck my flesh and eat it. But if I die while our lines of defence are unbroken, my winding sheet, washcloth and soap are in my bag. You will bury me in this place and future generations will raise a monument above me.’ Maulana Mohamed Ali Jauhar (1878–1931), Poet, Journalist and Political Activist. For an account of Maulana Mohamed Ali's involvement with the fortunes of the Turks, reference may be made to Afzal Iqbal, The Life and Times of Maulana Mohamed Ali (Lahore: Institute of Islamic Culture, 1979), 457 pp. Dr Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari (1880–1936), doctor of medicine, educationist, writer and politician, was born in the United Provinces of India. He studied medicine in Madras and the UK, becoming House Surgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London, but returned to Delhi after 1910. He was leader of an Indian Muslim medical mission organized by Mohamed Ali and sent to Turkey in December 1912 during the Balkan Wars after an appeal was made by the Turkish Red Crescent Society. The mission (Hindistan Tıp Heyeti) treated war patients, generated much goodwill and returned to India in July 1913. See Azmi Özcan, Panislamizm: Osmanlı Devleti Hindistan Müslümanları ve İngiltere (1877–1914) [Pan-Islamism: The Ottoman State, the Indian Muslims and England (1877–1914)] (Istanbul: TDV İslâm Araştırmaları Merkezi, 1992), pp.218–24. Özcan devotes a whole section to the activities of the Indian medical mission, mentioning how the members were received by high-ranking Turkish officals such as Enver and Talat Pashas and were decorated by the Sultan-Caliph. In later life Ansari worked with both Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, becoming President of the Indian National Congress in 1927. For further information reference may also be made to Halidé Edib, Inside India (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1937), which is dedicated in memory of Dr M.A. Ansari. Mohamed Ali wrote: ‘In joy and in grief the heart of Islam beats in unison, but this is the first time in the history of Indian Mussulmans that their sympathy had taken shape as a humane and beneficent measure to relieve the sufferings of their brethren abroad who lie torn and bleeding. The moral value of this fact can hardly be overestimated.’ Mirza Abdul Qayyum died in battle, but Abdurrahman Peshawari joined the Military Academy and fought on the Turkish side in the First World War. He was killed in 1925 – possibly as a result of mistaken identity. Choudhry Khaliquzzaman, Pathway to Pakistan (Karachi: Longmans, 1961), pp.20–7. Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938), who also bore the titles of Dr, Sir and Allama [learned scholar] was, in addition to being a lawyer and politician, an outstanding poet in both Urdu and Persian, as well as a versatile writer on many subjects in English. In his presidential address to the All-India Muslim League in Dec. 1930 at Allahabad, he made the following prediction about the political future of the Indian Muslims: I would like to see the Punjab, North-West Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state … The formation of a consolidated North-West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India. See Muhammad Iqbal, Kulliyat-e-Iqbal, Urdu [The Poetical Works of Iqbal in Urdu] (Lahore: Sheikh Ghulam Ali, 1973), p.216. The poem is entitled Muhasara-ye-Edirne [The Siege of Edirne], and an English rendering is given below: When in Europe began the clash of false and trueTruth was in defence forced to pick up its sword too.Encircled the crescent was, by dust from the crossIn Edirne besieged Shukri was at a loss.Exhausted for the Muslims was all their food storeThe hidden face of hope was to be seen no more.And so the Turkish army commander laid downThat martial law henceforth was ordered in the town.Foodstuff was then shifted to army stores in needThe falcon had become a beggar of bird seed.The moment the lawgiver of the town heard whyHe was like a thunderbolt on Mount Sinai:‘Dhimmi goods to Muslim soldiers are not allowed !’His fatwa spread through the town at once clear and loud.Jew and Christian's property all untouched remained,For God's command ensured that Muslims were constrained. In the above, Shukri refers, of course, to Şükrü Pasha. Dhimmi is a term employed for the non-Muslim citizens in a Muslim country. A fatwa is a religious decision or decree given on a particular issue by the faqîh [religious magistrate]. See S. Tanvir Wasti, ‘Two Muslim Travelogues: To and From Istanbul’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.27, No.3 (1991), pp.457–76. Syed Hashmi Faridabadi (1890–1964), poet, translator and writer, buried in Lahore. Ahmad Shawqi (1870–1932), one of the best-known of modern poets and playwrights in Arabic; born in Egypt. See M.M. Badawi, A Short History of Modern Arabic Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), p.29. At the fall of Islamic Macedonia (1912) Shawqi wrote a poem … where the crescent moon is used as the obvious symbol of Islam: Farewell, sister of Andalusia,Islam and the caliphate have fallen from theeThe crescent moon has gone down from thy sky.Would that the heavens had folded upAnd darkness enveloped all the globe. Miller (note 5), p.510. The behind-the-scenes discussions may be followed in several sources, e.g. Kocabaş (note 3), pp.216–24. Writing years later, Celâl Bayar, President of the Turkish Republic between 1950 and 1960, points out that this decision made to placate the Great Powers resulted in the surrender of large areas in Western Thrace whose population was 85% Turkish. See Kocabaş (note 3), p.219. Kestelli, incarcerated in Sofia, wrote in his notebook: ‘ July the 22nd… This date will form the most unique, exuberant and happy day in the history of our lives. My being, racked with pain, buffeted by imprisonment, by disgrace and danger, suffering from the pessimism and nervous fatigue that arose from not being able to receive the long-awaited good news, today regained both life and pride.’ The swift capture of Edirne was a feather in the cap of Enver Bey (see note 89), who had earlier won great fame in 1908 as the ‘hero of freedom’ in the struggle that led to the Revolution of 24 July, 1908 whereby the Constitution was restored. Given in İsmet Görgülü, On Yıllık Harbin Kadrosu 1912–1922 [The Cadres of the Ten Year War 1912–1922] (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1993), pp.33–5. Mehmet Enver (1881–1922), who later became famous as Enver Pasha, one of the ‘triumvirate’ of the Committee of Union and Progress and Ottoman Minister of War. He died while fighting the Bolsheviks in Central Asia and was buried in the present-day Tajikistan. Mustafa Kemal (1881–1938), who later became celebrated as Gazi Pasha, fought heroically at Gallipoli and later organized the Turkish Resistance. He became the first President of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and took the surname Atatürk [Father of the Turks] in 1934. Mehmet Ömer Fahreddin (1868–1948) who also earned fame later as Fahreddin Pasha, the defender of Medina. See S. Tanvir Wasti, ‘The Defence of Medina 1916–19’, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.27, No.4 (1991), pp.642–53. Fethi Okyar (1880–1943), born in the Balkans, graduate of the War Academy as a class fellow of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. Served in many positions with distinction in the early years of the Turkish Republic, as Ambassador in Paris and London and as Prime Minister.