Karakol Cemiyeti

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Members of the Karakol organization

Karakol ( Turkish Karakol Cemiyeti , dt. Guard organization ) was a Turkish secret service organization that fought on the side of the Turkish national movement during the Turkish Liberation War. The organization was founded in November 1918 and disbanded in 1926. The name means guard , but is also a play on words with the names of the founders Kara Vâsıf Bey and Kara Kemal.

history

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The founders of Karakol: Kara Vâsıf Bey (right) and Kara Kemal

The Karakol organization was founded in late November 1918 as the first secret organization fighting the Allied occupation of Istanbul . The organization was the successor to the secret service of the Committee for Unity and Progress and consisted primarily of members of this predecessor organization.

The founders were Colonel Kara Vâsıf Bey and the former minister and head of the Istanbul Committee for Unity and Progress Kara Kemal, who founded the organization on the instructions of the interior minister, grand vizier and leader of the Young Turks Talât Pasha shortly after his flight from the country. The Central Committee consisted of Kara Vâsıf Bey, the officer Baha Said Bey, the lawyer Refik Ismail Bey, the officer Ali Riza Bey (Bebe), the Colonel Edip Servet Bey (Tör), the officer and commander of the Caucasian troops Kemalletin Sami Bey and the Officer Galatali Sevket Bey. The organization's goals were to create and protect national unity. Revolutionary measures should be taken against oppressors of freedom and justice. The third article of the founding declaration specifically emphasized Karakol's socialist character. The group was organized in cells. The members of the cells addressed each other not by name but by numbers. Above all, Karakol was supposed to protect members of the Committee for Unity and Progress, but also to take on logistical resistance tasks, build weapons caches and start a guerrilla war. In the period that followed, the organization repeatedly smuggled nationally-minded officers from Istanbul into the Anatolian underground.

During his stay between November 1918 and May 1919, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk met Ali Fethi Bey, Kara Kemal, Ismail Canbulat and an unknown fourth person, whereupon a revolutionary committee was set up. But Mustafa Kemal declined to assume a leadership role. The committee was supposed to assassinate the sultan, overthrow the government, and put pressure on the government to succeed him. Canbulate's hesitation temporarily halted the committee's plans, which were later abandoned after its members agreed that the sultan's removal would not be enough to save the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Mustafa Kemal left for Anatolia, which was to become the center of the Turkish resistance movement.

After the Greek occupation of Izmir, Karakol and other resistance members organized a demonstration in Istanbul with 75,000 participants.

Karakol developed a communication and transport line between Constantinople and Anatolia and smuggled volunteers, weapons and armaments into Anatolia. Karakol representatives took part in the Erzurum Congress and the Sivas Congress, where they supported the unification of various resistance organizations under the banner of the Societies for Defense of National Rights and the Amasya Protocol , which is a joint approach of the Ottoman government and the Turkish national movement provided against the common enemy.

However, a rift soon developed between the Karakol leadership and Kemal. Karakol rejected Ankara as the center of national resistance and continued to operate independently of the Müdâfaa-i hukuk cemiyetleri. You saw yourself as the real core of the resistance. Kemal became suspicious and ordered that Karakol cease his activities.

On January 11, 1920 Baha Said Bey traveled to Baku , where he signed an alliance with the Bolsheviks and presented himself as the envoy of the Turkish resistance. On February 26, Kara Vâsıf informed Bey Kemal of the agreement, which Kemal dismissed as illegal because it was concluded without the knowledge and consent of the Müdâfaa-i hukuk cemiyetleri. Again Kemal asked Karakol to integrate himself into the Müdâfaa-i hukuk cemiyetleri. Karakol resisted and continued to operate until the Turkish National Assembly was dissolved by British troops on March 16. Karakol chief Kara Vâsıf was arrested.

A part of Karakol's leadership was exiled to Malta, others either came to Kemal in Ankara or went to Enver Pascha in the Caucasus. Karakol continued to exist under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Muğlalı, but was disbanded in 1926 when members of the organization were involved in a planned assassination attempt on Mustafa Kemal. Karakol's role as an intelligence agency has been replaced by a number of other organizations, including the Yavuz Group, the Zabitan Group, and the Hamza Group. They continued to operate until the end of the War of Independence. Karakol is considered to be one of the forerunner organizations of the modern Turkish secret service Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı (MİT).

Web links

Commons : Karakol Cemiyeti  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Banu Turnaoğlu: The Formation of Turkish Republicanism . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2017, p. 197
  2. ^ Only Bilge Criss: Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 1918–1923 . Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 1999, p. 100
  3. ^ Nesrin Ersoy McMeekin: Turkey's Relations with the Bolsheviks (1919–1922) . Master's thesis at Bilkent University, Ankara 2007, pp. 24–26 ( digitized as PDF )
  4. ^ Only Bilge Criss: Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 1918–1923 . Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 1999, p. 100
  5. ↑ Matthes Buhbe: Turkey. Politics and Contemporary History . (= Volume 2, Studies on Politics and Society in the Middle East), Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1996, p. 28.
  6. ^ Behlül Özkan: From the Abode of Islam to the Turkish Vatan. The Making of a National Homeland in Turkey . Yale University Press, New Haven 2017, p. 81
  7. ↑ Banu Turnaoğlu: The Formation of Turkish Republicanism . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2017, p. 201
  8. ^ Nesrin Ersoy McMeekin: Turkey's Relations with the Bolsheviks (1919–1922) . Master thesis at Bilkent University, Ankara 2007, p. 26 f.
  9. ↑ Matthes Buhbe: Turkey. Politics and Contemporary History . (= Volume 2, Studies on Politics and Society in the Middle East), Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1996, p. 31
  10. ^ Only Bilge Criss: Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 1918–1923 . Brill, Leiden / Boston / Cologne 1999, p. 113 ff.
  11. ↑ Matthes Buhbe: Turkey. Politics and Contemporary History . (= Volume 2, studies on politics and society in the Middle East), Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1996, p. 41 f.
  12. ^ History of the MİT , Millî İstihbarat Teşkilâtı , accessed on May 3, 2019