Edward William Charles Noel
Edward William Charles Noel ( April 14, 1886 , † December 10, 1974 ) was a British espionage officer who was active in Eastern Anatolia after the Moudros armistice .
Noel joined the British Indian Army in 1908 . He served as an officer and spy in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Central Asia. In 1915 he was appointed consul in the Iranian city of Ahvaz . During his four years of service there, he found the opportunity to research the ethnic roots of the local population. In Iran he also learned the Kurdish language . After the armistice, Moudros was appointed British espionage commissioner in Baghdad . On March 12, 1919, he was commissioned to conduct investigations in the Kurdish areas. He met with the Kurdish tribal leaders in the eastern Ottoman vilayets. On June 13, 1919, the British Commissioner in Baghdad, Colonel Arnold Wilson , proposed London to take action to establish a Kurdistan under British aegis.
Major Noel traveled from Baghdad to Istanbul on July 3, 1919 and met with the British State Secretary of the High Commissioner Thomas Hohler and Kurdish nationalist leaders of the Kurdistan Teali Cemiyeti . Noel received a document from the Ottoman Minister of the Interior, Âdil Bey, which allowed him to send encrypted telegrams from all Ottoman post offices. Noel had the order to travel to Sivas and arrest Mustafa Kemal there and so to blow up the Congress of Sivas . So he would serve British interests.
On July 21, 1919, Hohler wrote in a letter to his colleague Telley in the Foreign Ministry that he had met Noel in Istanbul, that Noel wanted to be a Kurdish Lawrence , that British rule in Mesopotamia was secure and that because of the eastern border getting on well with the Kurdish tribes is required. In addition, Hohler said that, despite the decision to travel to the Kurdish area alone and separately from the Kurds, Noel went to a meeting of the Kurdish club in his uniform and was thus not acting responsibly.
Admiral Somerset Gough-Calthorpe wrote to Lord Curzon on June 10th that Noel would travel to the area alone and separately from the other Kurds so as not to attract any attention and that he would incite the people against Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Noel met with the Kurdish insurgents in Aleppo , gathered armed tribal people there and went to Malatya . There he met the group of the Mutasarrıf (administrators of a sanjak ) of Malatya, Halil Bey , and the governor (Turkish: Wali ) of Harput Ali Galip Bey. But their plan was uncovered, so that they were then pursued on the orders of Mustafa Kemal by Turkish soldiers who were loyal to his movement. Noel, Ali Galip and the rest fled towards Kâhta .
In a telegram he sent from Urfa to the British High Commissioner in Istanbul on September 19, 1919 , he said that the Kurdish tribes would welcome British occupation, that half of the population would be Kurds and that the Kurds, if in theirs Areas a Kurdish Vali would obey and become friends of Her Majesty's Government. On December 21, 1919 he received the rank of major. Noel stayed in the area until 1938. He died in 1974.
Noel had been a holder of the Distinguished Service Order since 1919 .
Private
Noel was married twice. In 1923 he married Katherine Florence Ross and in 1954 Simone Corbiau.
Works
- Kürdistan 1919 - Binbaşı Noel'in Günlüğü (Kurdistan 1919 - Major Noel's diary), Avesta Verlag, 1st edition 1999, ISBN 975-7112-60-7
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Lt.-Col. Edward William Charles Noel on thepeerage.com , accessed August 20, 2015.
- ↑ a b Sina Akşin: İstanbul Hükümetleri ve Milli Mücadele , Verlag Türkiye İş Bankası ISBN 975-458124-X
- ↑ Bilal Şimşir: Kürtçülük , pp. 326–327, Bilgi, ISBN 978-975-22-0215-3
- ↑ Erol Uluberen: İngiliz Gizli Belgelerinde Türkiye , Cumhuriyet Kitapları, 1970 in İstanbul, ISBN 978-975-6747-81-0
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Noel, Edward William Charles |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Noel, Edward Covbertin |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British officer and secret agent |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 14, 1886 |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 10, 1974 |