
Esref Kusçubasi remains controversial in Turkey over fifty years after his death. Elsewhere the man sometimes called the "Turkish Lawrence of Arabia" is far less known but his life offers fascinating insights into the traumatic, increasingly violent struggles that ended the Ottoman Empire and ushered in the modern Middle East. Drawing on Esref's private papers for the first time, these pages tell the story of the making of a headstrong "self-sacrificing" officer committed to defending the empire's shrinking borders. Esref took on a string of special assignments for Enver Pasha, the rapidly rising star of the Ottoman military, first in Libya against the Italians, then in the Balkan Wars and World War I, before being captured by the forces of the Arab Revolt and turned over to the British and imprisoned on Malta. Released in 1920, he joined the national resistance movement in Anatolia but fell out with Mustafa Kemal's leadership and switched sides, earning him banishment from the Turkish Republic at its founding and exile until the 1950s.Never far from the action or controversy, Esref's dynamic story provides an important counterpoint to the standard narrative of the transition from empire to nation state.
This biography investigates the life and political trajectory of Esref Kusçubasi to understand the violent collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the subsequent formation of the modern Middle East. Benjamin C. Fortna utilizes previously inaccessible private papers to reconstruct the career of a man often compared to T.E. Lawrence. The author argues that Esref’s experiences as a special agent and insurgent provide a critical alternative perspective to the conventional state-centric narratives of the transition from imperial rule to the Turkish Republic.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Historians and scholars of the late Ottoman period recognize this work as a significant contribution to the study of irregular warfare and intelligence operations. Readers frequently note the meticulous use of primary source material, which provides a nuanced look at a figure often obscured by nationalist myth-making.
Page Count:
256
Publication Date:
2016-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
0190492449
ISBN-13:
9780190492441
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