Turkey and the League of Nations: From Empire to Nation State

Bibliographical Essay

 

By Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş

 

Understanding the complex relationship between the League of Nations and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey necessitates an exploration of the Ottoman experiences with internationalism and international organizations since the nineteenth century. However, the early history of Ottoman internationalism remains understudied. A younger cohort of scholars has recognized this gap in research and slowly begun to offer approaches for addressing it. For instance, Andrew Arsan takes a transnational perspective, examining Ottoman actors abroad who engaged in political mobilization across borders in the context of World War I, while Omer Faruk Topal focuses on state actors showing how, before the war, the Young Turk tried to foster international cooperation beyond the West as a way to guarantee the independence and territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Andrew Arsan, “‘This age is the age of associations’: committees, petitions, and the roots of interwar Middle Eastern internationalism,” Journal of Global History 7, no. 2 (July 2012): 166-188; Omer Faruk Topal, “Ottoman internationalism,” The International History Review 45, no. 3 (2023): 445-461.

 

In addition, there exist excellent contributions that shed light on specific manifestations of nineteenth century internationalism in Ottoman history. Among these topics, international law and humanitarianism—both shaped by European imperialistic mentalities—have received relatively more attention, most prominently by Davide Rodogno, Against Massacre: Humanitarian Interventions in the Ottoman Empire, 1815-1914: The Emergence of a European Concept and International Practice (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Turan Kayanoğlu, Legal Imperialism. Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); and Aimee M. Genell, “The Well-Defended Domains: Eurocentric International Law and the Making of the Ottoman Office of Legal Counsel,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies 3, no. 2 (November 2016): 255-275.

 

Another strand of scholarship has shed new light on the engagement of Ottoman actors with non-Western international organizations and networks: Alp Yenen, “Internationalism, Diplomacy and the Revolutionary Origins of the Middle East’s ‘Northern Tier,’’’ Contemporary European History 30, no. 4 (November 2021): 497-451; of course Cemil Aydın’s seminal work, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia: Visions of World Order in Pan-Islamic and Pan-Asian Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007) and above mentioned Omer Faruk Topal. Comprehensive studies that deeply examine the Ottoman Empire’s engagement with the many technical, scientific, and intellectual international organizations that originated in Europe and elsewhere since the 1860s have yet to be written.

 

This current scholarship on Ottoman experiences with internationalism prior to 1919 aligns with a persistent trend in the field of International History that emphasizes the significance of non-Western actors and their encounters with international order and international organizations. The same trend has influenced scholarly perspectives on relations between Turkey and the League of Nations during the transformative period between 1919 and 1923 (Mütareke dönemi). Earlier studies primarily focused on diplomatic negotiations at the Peace Conferences, the Allied partition plans involving the League of Nations, and their political consequences for the Ottoman Empire: Laurence Evans, United States Policy and the Partition of Turkey, 1914-1924 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965); Paul C. Helmreich, From Paris to Sèvres: The Partition of the Ottoman Empire at the Peace Conference of 1919-1920 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1974); Harry N. Howard, The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History, 1913-1923 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966). More recent works have shifted the focus from high-level diplomacy to a broader spectrum of Ottoman-Turkish voice, actors, and media showing how they responded to the peace negotiations as well as the foundation of the League of Nations: Cabir Doğan, “Cemiyet-i Akvam’ın Kuruluşunun İstanbul Basınına Yansımaları,” Journal of Ottoman Civilization Studies/Osmanlı Medeniyet Araştırmaları Dergisi 2, no. 3 (July 2016): 33-47; Hazal Papuççular, “The Wilsonian Ideas of the Ottoman Turkish Intelligentsia in Post-World War I Turkey,” in The Turkish Connection Global Intellectual Histories of the Late Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey, ed. Deniz Kuru and Hazal Papuççular (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 197-218; as well as: Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, “Defending Turkey on Global Stages: The Young Turk Reşit Saffet’s Internationalist Strategy in 1919,” New Global Studies 10, no. 3 (2016): 217-251; “Unlikely Internationalists: Ottoman-Turkish Views on the League of Nations during the Paris Peace Conference,” in The Making of a World Order: Global Historical Perspectives on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, ed. Albert Wu und Stephen W. Sawyer (London: Routledge, 2023), 100-121.

 

Regarding works that explore further connections between Turkey and the League in the interwar decades, two research fields have proven to be particularly productive in the English-speaking academic landscape. The first field focuses on the League mandates in the Middle East, shedding light on the intricacies of this system. The second field delves into the study of non-Turkish minorities, examining issues of minority rights and instances of discrimination, forced migration, and violence.

 

When it comes to the mandate system and its impact on the Ottoman Empire, research obviously focuses on the Arab provinces that were placed under British and French League of Nations mandates, namely Palestine, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon. Prominent studies delve into the complexities of citizenship and nationality as well as into the challenges faced by minority populations within the framework of Mandate administration in these regions: Lauren Banko, The Invention of Palestinian Citizenship, 1918-1947 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017); Benjamin Thomas White, The Emergence of Minorities in the Middle East: The Politics of Community in French Mandate Syria (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2011). Very helpful for a general overview of the Middle East mandates and the League mechanisms in the background are, Cyrus Schayegh and Andrew Arsan, eds., Routledge Handbook of the History of the Middle East Mandates (New York: Routledge, 2015); and Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). It is important to note that although Turkey was not placed under a mandate, during the Peace Conference the Allies considered establishing mandates over Armenia, Istanbul, and Anatolia – these schemes had real consequences in so far that they provoked resistance among Turks and Muslims in the Ottoman Empire and beyond. While often omitted in literature on the Mandate System, this aspect is addressed in the aforementioned classic studies on the Peace Conference by Evans, Helmreich, and Howard, as well as in newer works that explore the United States’ role in postwar peace planning: Andrew Patrick, America’s Forgotten Middle East Initiative: The King-Crane Commission of 1919 (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015); Leonard V. Smith, “Wilsonian Sovereignty in the Middle East: The King-Crane Commission Report of 1919,” in The State of Sovereignty: Territories, Laws, Populations, ed. Douglas Howland and Luise S. White (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 56-74.

 

The field of research exploring the League’s role vis-à-vis non-Turkish and non-Muslim minorities and their fates during the postwar transformations is the most thriving area of study on Turkey and the League in English-speaking academia. Keith Watenpaugh and Lerna Ekmekcioglu have conducted significant research on the League’s minority protection and humanitarian aid provided to Armenians. Their findings highlight both the Western-centric viewpoint of the League towards the Middle East and, on the other hand, the Turkish government’s endeavors to homogenize their population. In pursuit of this goal, the Turks selectively employed certain mechanisms and principles offered by the League of Nations while consciously avoiding others. Lerna Ekmekcioglu, “Republic of Paradox: The League of Nations Minority Protection Regime and the New Turkey’s Step-Citizens,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 4 (November 2014): 657-679; Keith David Watenpaugh, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland, University of California Press, 2015).

 

Similarly, scholarly works examining the Greek-Turkish population transfer shed light on the League’s crucial involvement in the coerced resettlement of people and the region’s drive towards homogenization, which was also pursued by the Kemalists: Sarah D. Shields, “Forced Migration as Nation-Building: The League of Nations, Minority Protection, and the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange,” Journal of the History of International Law 18 (2016): 120-145; as well as, more generally on the topic, Mark Mazower, “Minorities and the League of Nations in Interwar Europe,” Daedalus 126, no. 2 (Spring 1997): 47-63; and Umut Özsu, Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). Laura Robson, like Mazower and Özsu, expands the perspective beyond the Turkish-Greek case and provides a broader examination of population transfers as a whole, encompassing the transition from such transfers to the idea of creating separate states: Laura Robson, States of Separation: Transfer, Partition, and the Making of the Modern Middle East (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017). Finally, Sarah Shields’ examination of the League’s involvement in demarcating national borders in the regions between Turkey, Syria, and Iraq also brilliantly demonstrates how national belonging became a powerful category used in competing ways by the Turkish government and League’s representatives to relocate individuals whose identities often surpassed simple notions of nationality: Sarah D. Shields, Fezzes in the River: Identity Politics and European Diplomacy in the Middle East on the Eve of World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); “Mosul, the Ottoman Legacy and the League of Nations,” International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies 3, no. 2 (2009): 217-230. All of these authors share a common focus on investigating the interplay between the mechanisms of the League of Nations and Turkey’s population policies in the context of nation-building (an attempt to consolidate these different aspects within a synthesizing framework is: Liebisch-Gümüş, “Embedded Turkification: Nation Building and Violence within the Framework of the League of Nations,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52, no. 2 (May 2020): 229-244.)

 

In addition to the works focusing on minorities and population politics, there exists a distinct body of research that delves into the diplomatic relations, cooperation, and conflicts between Turkey and the League of Nations, including its different bodies, sub-sections, and special committees. Notably, there is a more substantial presence of studies conducted in Turkish within this realm whose assumptions have changed over time. For a long time, experts in Turkish diplomatic history have held the assumption, as articulated by Cem Sar and Mehmet Gönlübol, that Turkey in the 1920s was primarily preoccupied with internal politics and the transformation of society, resulting in an alleged absence from Geneva internationalism: Ahmet Şükrü Esmer, Siyasî Tarih 1919-1939 (Ankara: Güney Matbaacılık, 1953); Mehmet Gönlübol and Cem Sar, Atatürk ve Türkiye’nin Dış Politikası (1919-1938) (Istanbul: Millî Eğitim, 1963). Building on archival records, a more recent article by Şayan Ulusan disproved this assumption, showing that the Turkish government followed the activities of the League of Nations closely and, in some cases, actively from 1923 onward: Şayan Ulusan, “Türkiye’nin Milletler Cemiyeti’ne Girişi: Öncesi ve Sonrası,” Çağdaş Türkiye Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi 7, no. 16-17 (2008): 237-258.

 

Ulusan’s text is one of three important Turkish-language articles devoted to an overview of Turkish relations with the League during the interwar decades. Using correspondence from the Republic Archives, she reconstructs the participation of Turkish diplomats in different committees and conferences under the auspices of the League, such as the Straits Commission, the League of Codification Conference on international law and nationality laws, or the Disarmament Conference. Though mainly a chronological overview, Ulusan’s article highlights the Turkish involvement in various League initiatives prior to 1932. This aspect is neglected in the other two articles, making it a valuable contribution. Özden Alantar, while also covering the entire Republican period, focuses on major diplomatic events, such as the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations, the Mosul Dispute (1925-1926), Turkish-Soviet relations, the League of Nations accession in 1932, and the Hatay Question: Özden Zeynep Alantar: “Türk Dış Politikasında Milletler Cemiyeti Dönemi,” in Türk Dış Politikasının Analizi, ed. Faruk Sönmezoğlu (Istanbul: Der Yayınları, 1994), 99-129. In contrast to Ulusan’s and Alantar’s articles, which give a chronological overview of important events, Dilek Barlas, the most distinguished expert on Turkish foreign economic relations in the interwar period, provides a more analytical piece that interprets relations between Ankara and Geneva in the 1930s, with security interests and border issues at the forefront of her analysis. Her main thesis is that Turkish relations with the League of Nations in the 1930s were ambivalent, characterized on the one hand by an optimistic belief in an institutionally secured world peace and on the other hand by doubts about the enforceability of its principles in the face of aggressions such as Mussolini’s annexation of Abyssinia. Dilek Barlas, “Milletler Cemiyeti’nde Türkiye: İyimserlik ve Kuşku Arasında,” Uluslararası İlişkiler/International Relations 14, no. 55 (2017), 93-111.

 

Another article on the subject from Yücel Güçlü, written in English, provides an overview of official foreign policy toward the League of Nations and Turkish entry into the League: Yücel Güçlü, “Turkey’s Entrance into the League of Nations,” Middle Eastern Studies 39, no. 1 (January 2003): 186-206. This piece, however, draws extensively on a 1961 Carnegie Foundation study of Turkey and the UN, which still offers the best overview of events in Turkish League of Nations policy and also takes into account the contemporary reception of the League of Nations in the Turkish press: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Turkey and the United States (New York: Manhattan Publishing Company, 1961).

 

Most of the above-mentioned articles that focus on Turkish foreign policy tend to view the League as primarily a diplomatic platform for national interests, bi- and multilateral negotiations, and dispute settlement. Their primary focus is Turkey’s accession to the League in 1932 and major international disputes of the 1920s and 1930s. They thus neglect the League’s other dimensions – such as humanitarianism, minority protection, cultural relations, and technical cooperation – so aptly summarized by Susan Pedersen in her article that inspired the renewed interested in research on the League fifteen years ago: Pedersen, “Back to the League of Nations,” The American Historical Review 112, no. 4 (October 2007): 1091-1117.

 

In line with this new interest in the League’s transnational activities, Dilek Barlas and Serhat Güvenç have written an important article on the idea of a European Union entertained by actors in and around the League of Nations during the interwar years, thus historicizing the more recent debates about Turkey and membership in the European Union: Dilek Barlas and Serhat Güvenç, “Turkey and the Idea of a European Union during the Inter-war Years, 1923-39,” Middle Eastern Studies 45, no. 3, 425-446. Also focusing on transnational activities and questions of exclusion and inclusion, the following article foregrounds Turkey’s engagement with different League initiatives as well as with the International Labour Organization during the 1920s. It argues that the Kemalists used a well-balanced internationalization strategy to boost Turkey’s sovereignty globally, aiming to embrace internationalism without risking dependencies or partnerships that might weaken its national sovereignty: Carolin Liebisch-Gümüş, “Intersecting Asymmetries. Turkey’s Internationalization in the 1920s and the Limits of the Postcolonial Approach,” AUC Studia Territorialia 19, no. 1 (2019): 13-41. Other studies succeed in blending the study of diplomatic conflicts with a profound analysis of the League’s mechanisms and normative inclinations. In addition to Sarah Shields’ aforementioned works on the Mosul and Hatay Questions, Jordi Tejel Gorgas, in an article on the border dispute between the Turkish and the British governments, does so. Centering on local views and agency, he convincingly shows how the borderland population influenced the border regime planned by the League and its commission: Jordi Tejel Gorgas, “Making Borders from Below: The Emergence of the Turkish-Iraqi Frontier, 1918-1925,” Middle Eastern Studies 54, no. 5 (2018): 811-826. Hazal Papuççular, too, demonstrates the possibility of combining the study of an international diplomatic issue (in her case the Straits Question), with a nuanced exploration of the complexities surrounding a League Commission, thus transcending traditional views on diplomacy: Hazal Papuççular, “Contested Sovereignties: Turkish Diplomacy, the Straits Commission, and the League of Nations (1924-1936),” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 25, no. 2 (2023): 207-221.

 

After this necessarily selective literature overview, an important question remains: what are the future directions for research? In her pathbreaking discussion of the state of research on the League of Nations, Susan Pedersen, has suggested three areas that scholars could focus on: 1.), the area of security, conflicts, and peacekeeping; 2.), the management, settling, and overseeing of issues regarding sovereignty, mandates, and minorities; as well as 3.), the realm of international cooperation on global issues ranging from international law, economics, science and culture, humanitarian questions, epidemiology and global health, and the global trade in drugs, to transnational traffic and infrastructure. Over the years, research on Turkey and its relationship with the League has primarily focused on international conflicts. While this area has a long-established tradition of study, the exploration of the League’s role in the second field, i.e. in managing borders, sovereignty, and minorities as they relate to Turkish nation- and state-building, has witnessed a surge in research over the past decade. The last area – transnational cooperation on social, economic, legal, and technical global issues – has received considerably less attention. Despite challenges in sourcing materials, examining Turkey’s involvement in these international endeavors remains a promising avenue of research. This would also be a chance to trace connections between forms of transnational cooperation in the interwar period and Ottoman internationalism in the nineteenth century, as well as to consider legacies in the post-1945 United Nations system. On the other hand, in light of the current global landscape marked by the resurgence of both new and existing international crises, wars, and the constrained effectiveness of United Nations entities, emphasis could also be directed toward exploring novel avenues within the first field (like Papuççular’s article cited above) to gain fresh insights into the sphere of peacekeeping, transnational conflict resolution, and the capacities and limits of liberal internationalism from the perspective of Ottoman/Turkish history.