How The Khilafah Was Destroyed by Abdul Qadeem Zallum

Nevertheless, the rebellion continued with ebbs and flows, and the British were forced to come to Mustafa Kemal’s rescue whenever he was about to fall. The rebellion was at first successful, for the young officers joined Mustafa Kemal and declared their readiness to follow him. Some of the high ranking officers also joined him, but on condition that he would not undermine the Khilafah. Once the officers joined, thus gathering a considerable force, he immediately wanted to set up a government. Hence, he invited Rif ’at Pasha from Sivas. Rif ’at Pasha had been seduced by the Western thoughts and was a great admirer of the Europeans. Mustafa Kemal also invited Ali Fuad, the army commander of the Ankara region, who was a brilliant military academic and one of the shrewdest politicians.

Ali Fuad was also accompanied by Rif ’at Pasha who had resigned from the Naval ministry.

A meeting between the officers was held with a secretary assuming the role of writing the minutes for the delegates. Mustafa Kemal expressed his viewpoint and explained his opinions. Everyone agreed with him that resistance was the only hope. Hence, they designed a strategy to be executed, which was summarised as multiplying and organising the militias facing Izmir, in order to hinder and thwart the advance of the Greek forces. Then building up from these skirmishes, they would restructure a strong and unified national regular army, on the ruins of the divided armies.

It was also necessary to design a strategy aimed at leading the resistance; thus they agreed that Fuad would assume the command of the troops in the west, that Kathim Qura Bakir would assume the command of the troops in the east and Mustafa Kemal would command the troops in the centre.

Mustafa Kemal then went on to say : “The central government and the Sultan are under the influence of the enemies, hence, we ought to establish a temporal government here in Anatolia.” No sooner had he finished saying this than everyone flinched and expressed anger and resentment.

Ra’uf expressed his opposition to the undertaking of any measure that could upset the Khaleefah or his central government. All the others also opposed Mustafa Kemal and said to him as long as he was serving the country and sacrificing in the way of the country, and that although they had trust in him, their only condition was that he refrained from undertaking any action that would undermine the Sultan’s rights or impair his feelings. They also stressed to him that the Khilafah should be above everything else and that the Sultanate should not come to any harm.

In the face of this consensus and this persistence Mustafa Kemal was forced to back down and agree to the people’s opinion. Hence he declared that the Khilafah would not come to any harm and he gave them all the guarantees they wanted. Then the rebellious activity started.

However, since the rebellion was to the majority of those who joined Mustafa Kemal a rebellion against the allied occupiers, and only nominally against the Sultan, and since it was in reality for Mustafa Kemal and a fistful of his supporters a rebellion against the Sultan, Mustafa Kemal was forced to conceal his intentions and gave his assurances that he would not harm the Khilafah. Therefore, clashes with the allies were inevitable.

At this juncture two strange incidents took place :

The British declared that they were determined to fortify Samsun with a stronger garrison to prevent the rebels from reaching it by sea and seizing Sevas. Mustafa Kemal ordered Rif ’at to defend Samsun at any cost. He ordered him to stand up to the British and prevent them from disembarking their troops. Hence, Rif ’at obeyed and headed towards the seaport accompanied by a hundred Muslim men. A British colonel had reached the seaport with a small force. However, Rif ’at and his troops entered the city and encountered this force but no fighting took place between them. Then the British colonel and those with him returned to the British ship that was anchored in the port and left. Then it was declared to everyone that the British force had become scared and that its commander realised that it was hopeless to resist so he retreated; thus they declared that Samsun was salvaged from the British occupation and that Sivas remained in the hands of the local people.

The second incident occurred with the Greeks. The British were preparing the Greeks to engage the Turks in a host of skirmishes, which could evoke the fervour of the locals. The British were reluctant to allow British blood to be shed for this purpose since there was another blood that could be shed in order to achieve it’s aims; thus the Greeks were chosen as the scapegoats in these battles. The elaboration of this event was as follows : The Greeks would not settle for staying in Izmir and the governor of Izmir violated the instructions given to him to remain in Izmir; thus the Greeks moved to seize the neighbouring areas. The Greek commander heading his troops, marched towards the district of Aideen, and as soon as the army moved, a hail of bullets rained down on them repeatedly.

Accordingly, the Greek troops were shocked and panic stricken, and they lost their composure. They opened fire on the civilians, and the Turks replied in kind. As a result of this random fighting, the Greeks were vanquished and the Turks forced them away and set fire to the Greek district. The Greek army came back once their numbers had risen and once their military preparations had increased, and they in turn occupied the city and set fire to the Turkish district. Then they started savagely killing the civilians in order to reduce the number of Turks in order to become the majority in Izmir. As a result, every Turk who was able to fight took up arms, headed for the hills and started fighting the invaders.

This guerrilla warfare went on sporadically. The feeling of resentment towards the British and the Greeks was triggered as a result, and the officers started rallying under the banner of Mustafa Kemal, and he for his part started sending them to the villages to kindle their fervour. The news of this was magnified and relayed to the capital and the British feigned their protest to the Sultan. The Sultan’s telegrams sent to Mustafa Kemal and his summons were to no avail, for he flagrantly displayed his disobedience. In response, the Sultan ordered his dismissal and issued orders to all the military and civilian authorities to disobey Mustafa Kemal’s instructions. News of his dismissal was broadcast all over the country and the Sultan struck off his name from the list of army officers and threatened anyone who contacted him with summary dismissal. Upon this Mustafa Kemal issued his instructions to the army officers, stating that in case they were dismissed, they should not stop working, provided they told the Sultan that the newly appointed officer did not gain the confidence of the army nor that of the people, and thus he remained unemployed. Mustafa Kemal continued for weeks to exhort the masses to rebel, and to exhaust all of his efforts to foil the governmental measures and to resist all of its moves.

On 23rd July 1919, several men gathered in a tiny building similar to a village school, in a remote district of Mesapotamia. Those delegates were the deputies of the eastern provinces. They were of a strange mixture.

Among them were former deputies, Sheikhs, senior civil servants, Kurdish tribal leaders and officers. The conference opened in the name of the Ummah, and the first item in the agenda was the issue of chairing the conference. One of the delegates stood up and said : “Could the honourable delegates give their opinion on whether Mustafa Kemal would be suitable to chair this meeting?” knowing that he had never in his life been a deputy over any of the eastern provinces. The deputy was abruptly interrupted and Mustafa Kemal was voted with an overwhelming majority as chairman of the conference. The conference lasted fourteen days and the discussions were conducted in a disorderly and agitated manner. A host of resolutions were adopted then the conference was wound up.

Some of the resolutions were as follows :

“The Ummah is a unit that is not subject to fragmentation or division, and all the eastern Wilayas are determined to resist any type of occupation and to stand up to foreign interference. If the Istanbul government refused to side with the people and to protect them from the foreign invasion, there will be no other option but to call for another interim government to shoulder the running of the country’s affairs, now that the situation has reached this critical point.” The delegates also declared unequivocally that they were still loyal to the Khalifah Wahid-ud-Deen and that his Baya’a was still on their necks. It had also been decided to establish an apparatus which was named the “Executive Parliamentary Committee”, and whose task was to execute the resolutions adopted by the conference. Mustafa Kemal was elected as Chairman of this committee and the resolutions were immediately broadcast to the Ummah and copies were despatched to the European countries. Then it was decided to hold the conference of Sivas.

However, when the Istanbul government learnt of the “Ardh-Rum” conference, it issued a communiqué which it circulated to all the newspapers; it was also reported by newspapers world-wide. To quote from the communiqué: “Some disturbances took place in Anatolia, during a host of meetings aimed at breaching the system and flagrantly violating the constitution. It was claimed that those meetings were constitutional and parliamentary, but in fact they were not parliamentary. Therefore, all the military and civilian authorities should put an end to this movement completely and crush those rebels in the severest of manners.” These government leaflets reached the authorities in “Ardh-Rum”, and they replied to the Astana government by saying: “The holding of parliamentary sessions has become a pressing necessity, and if parliament were held, there would be no need for these types of meetings.” The government pondered over its critical situation and realised that its dissolution of parliament was unconstitutional and that it had not made provisions for fresh elections. However, it set about undertaking a host of urgent and decisive measures in order to quell the rebellion. Hence, it decided to form an army that would only comprise those who had shown genuine loyalty. Then the army was dispatched to Anatolia.

When the British learnt of this army, they prevented the Sultan, on behalf of the allies, from forming the army, arguing that one of the clauses in the terms of the truce stipulated the disbandment of the troops, and their non-reformation. The Sultan attempted to give himself a free hand in crushing the rebellion but the allies categorically prevented him from doing so. When it is said the allies, it is meant in this context the British, for they dominated the country and it was the British High Commissioner and his office, together with Harrington, the Commander in Chief of the allied forces, who used to act on behalf of the allies.

When the Sultan realised that the allies were adamant in their refusal to allow him to send a task force to quell the disturbances, he requested their opinion as to who would be able to put an end to the disturbances. He strongly persisted in his request, until they answered him by saying that they were taking a neutral stand and that it was beyond their competence to interfere in Turkey’s domestic affairs. They told him that he alone was responsible for maintaining law and order if he wanted to rule over the country.

Damad Farid Pasha felt let down by the British and the Sultan resorted to using his own means, so he plotted to have Mustafa Kemal arrested while on his way to Sivas from “Ardh-Rum”, but the plot failed because Mustafa Kemal was informed of the plot and managed to take precautions and change the time of his journey. The soldiers gathered to arrest him but failed to find him in the place designated to them, for he had reached Sivas before then.

Thereupon the Sultan asked Ghalib Beik, who was one of the Sultan’s greatest supporters, to head some of the Kurdish tribes and invade the city of Sivas, and arrest all the members of the conference. However he failed. The members of the conference had arrived to Sivas from all over Anatolia and the conference was held on 4th August 1919 and was chaired by Mustafa Kemal. However, his chairmanship was subject to objection. Shortly before the conference began, Ra’uf Beik, who was one of Mustafa Kemal’s closest friends, came to him and said : “We have looked into the chairmanship of the conference and consented that you should not accept it no matter what.” When the conference was convened under Mustafa Kemal’s chairmanship, some stood up and objected to his autocratic actions, for he had appointed himself chairman of the conference without a ballot. Upon this Mustafa Kemal stood up to defend himself. To quote from what he said : “We are not today in conferences which allow us to fight and dispute with each other, otherwise the star of the Empire would eclipse and her influence would be inevitably obliterated.” This emotional talk had its effect and his supporters stood to applaud and cheer him; then everyone kept quiet over his chairmanship. When the vote was taken, it was announced that Mustafa Kemal had gained a majority.

No sooner was Mustafa Kemal elected chairman than he stood up to deliver a speech. He started by clearly voicing his loyalty to the Sultan, then the sessions of the conference started and went on for several days in an atmosphere of clamour, heated debates and a great deal of whispering. Then several objections surfaced and one of the deputies stood up to say : “The Executive Committee of the conference had no right to claim that it is the government; and what would they do if the Europeans interfered in the affairs of Anatolia and occupied it all? Where would they find the funds to pay the expenses of the troops and the salaries of the employees?” Another deputy stood up and said : “The United States have no colonialist ambitions, she is the only state who can save Turkey from the critical deadlock that she has fallen into. The only way that Turkey could follow if she were genuine about avoiding degeneration and extinction would be to throw herself into the embrace of America.” Then Ra’uf Beik, Bakr Sami Beik, Kathim Qura Bakir, Rif ’at, Ali Fu’ad and the three Pashas stood up and voiced their approval of this opinion and defended it wholeheartedly. Another deputy stood up and said : “The American mandate does not kill off independence. By this we can rid ourselves from the British protectorate; this British protectorate is going to turn Turkey into a humiliated colony and bring her standing down to the level of slavery.” The conference proceeded in this trend, foiling all of Mustafa Kemal’s endeavours, and after all these deliberations, the conference adopted a host of resolutions which did not differ from those adopted in “Ardh- Rum”. However, the conference was wound up with its members angry with Mustafa Kemal. Kathim Qura Bakir Pasha, who was the only army commander to retain his status and not to hand over his equipment to the allies and not to surrender to them, approached Mustafa Kemal and said to him : “The undertaking of communications on your behalf has raised criticism O Pasha, you can imagine, your excellency, the consequences of such an action and of treading such a difficult path. So please, let the Committee from now on speak on its own behalf.” Therefore, Mustafa Kemal was very annoyed when he left the conference.

However, he incited the delegates during the conference to defend themselves, for he informed them that Ghalib Beik, who was loyal to the government, had come at the head of some Kurdish tribes to arrest the delegates of the conference. Hence, they demanded a direct contact with the palace but their request was turned down. They were outraged by this and issued an ultimatum to the Prime Minister Damad Farid Pasha stating that if they were not allowed to contact the palace directly within an hour, they would sever all their links with the central government, and they would be free to act as they pleased. The deadline passed in the morning of 12th August 1919, thus they carried out their threat and all links between the deputies and the palace were severed.

Mustafa Kemal seized the opportunity and intensified his activity. He managed to alienate Istanbul from the rest of the country. Since he failed to achieve anything during the conference, and since he could not dare to form a government in Anatolia, he settled for convincing those with him to demand a change of the government in Istanbul. They remained silent and it was not reported whether they backed or resisted such an initiative.

Mustafa Kemal deemed that he could not control the army unless the officers were at the head of his supporters, and that he could not subjugate those who rebelled against him unless he was backed by the army. The army was with the Khaleefah and not him. They also made it absolutely clear to him that it would be impossible to do away with the Khaleefah no matter what the circumstances were. Hence, he decided to come to terms with the Khaleefah rather than with Damad Farid Pasha.

This was on the one hand; on the other hand, news of the Sivas conference reached Istanbul in a different light, as if it were a victory to Mustafa Kemal. This was backed by the conference’s boycott of the Istanbul government. Although this boycott was triggered by what the Prime Minister had perpetrated, when he prevented direct contact between the conference and the palace, and also when Ghalib Beik headed the Kurdish tribes to arrest the delegates, this boycott in itself and the success in holding the conference had portrayed events in a different light.

Furthermore, the allies, namely the British recommended to the officials in Istanbul to come to terms with Mustafa Kemal, and amidst this atmosphere, one of Mustafa Kemal’s closest friends, from the days of Salonika, and whose name was Abdul-Karim, came forward and proposed to the Khaleefah to act as a mediator between him and Mustafa Kemal. He told him that Mustafa Kemal had always been loyal to the Khilafah and to the Khaleefah, and to him personally. He also told him that he was ready to persuade him to come to terms. In the light of this reflective mood, Sultan Wahid-ud-Deen agreed with Mustafa Kemal propounding his demands to end the rebellion for good. Upon this Abdul-Karim telephoned Sivas and spoke to Mustafa Kemal, who agreed to end the rebellion and demanded the dismissal of Damad Farid Pasha’s government and the forming of a new parliament to replace the parliament that the Sultan had dissolved. Accordingly, Sultan Wahid-ud-Deen agreed to this.

Three days after these telephone contacts had been made, lasting one night only, on 2nd November 1919, Farid Pasha resigned from the government. He talked openly to people and told them that he had been let down by the British, who in the past used to back him, but then they washed their hands of him. Thereupon Ali Ridha Pasha, the war minister, formed the new government. This was regarded as a victory for Mustafa Kemal.

Hence, Mustafa Kemal declared to the Ummah through a leaflet that the Executive Committee of the nationalists had recognised the new government headed by Ali Ridha and that it supported him unconditionally. He also praised his Excellency the Sultan for being gracious enough to dictate his honourable ordinance and dismiss the government of Damad Farid Pasha.

However, the Sultan was angered by this leaflet and expressed his disapprobation of Mustafa Kemal’s discourse on behalf of the Ummah.

The rebellion was almost resumed but Mustafa Kemal prevented those inclined to rebel from doing so. The Sivas Committee decided to avoid a confrontation with the government and most of the officers heaved a deep sigh of relief, because the overwhelming majority from amongst them were averse to the renewal of the rebellion and they were all loyal to the Khaleefah.

However, Mustafa Kemal started to stall the dissolution of the Committee, for his aim was to establish a republic and abolish the Sultanate and the Khilafah, but he had failed in this phase. Therefore he had to maintain this Committee as a weapon to undertake another attempt. He started to fabricate all types of excuses and pretexts in order to defer the dissolution of the Committee. He was not seeking excuses for not dissolving it, he rather agreed to do so but he was using delaying tactics in order to delay its dissolution. These delaying tactics angered his supporters and many of them expressed to him openly that the continued functioning of this committee was unnecessary now that the Ummah had declared her approval of the government. Some of Mustafa Kemal’s supporters and friends, such as Marshal Izzet Pasha, went even further and raised their voices in protest and admonition, demanding vehemently the end of this internal feud and shameful division. They deemed that the continuity of the Committee meant the continuity of the disunity. However, Mustafa Kemal’s answer to them was that the new government had to prove first that it was worthy of the confidence given to it by the Ummah, and that this could not be established until ample time was given, allowing it to put forward its programme and to practically prove its sincerity. He said : “The point at issue at present can only be the preparation for the new parliamentary elections so that the overwhelming majority becomes that of the nationalist deputies.” This was the first phase of Mustafa Kemal’s rebellion and these were its events. It indicates that it was the British who were responsible for prompting and protecting it. The farce of the British attempt to occupy the city of Samsun then their consequent withdrawal from the city was clearly seen as a show aimed at gathering people around Mustafa Kemal.

Otherwise, how could the British be incapable of occupying Samsun at that time, while they were sitting heavily on the heart of the Ottoman State and occupying the most impregnable of its areas? Besides, who informed Mustafa Kemal that the British were determined to occupy Samsun, thus allowing him to dispatch Rif ’at to prevent her occupation?

Were the hundred men led by Rif ’at enough to prevent the British from occupying a city such as Samsun had they really been determined to do so? Furthermore, was Samsun really saved from the British occupation due to this force that he had dispatched? Was this not a deliberate farce aimed at making people believe that Mustafa Kemal was against the British and against the allies and that he wanted to expel them from the country?

Furthermore, why did the clash with the Greeks take place? The instructions given to the Greek commander by his government were to confine his operation to Izmir, so why did he overstep these instructions and attempt to occupy the surrounding areas of Izmir? Was it his own initiative or was he instructed by the General Commander of the allied forces? Why did this happen? Was it not to establish militias and give the rebellion the character of armed struggle against the occupiers by fighting the Greeks thus making people come under the banner of Mustafa Kemal to fight the occupying allies? Was this not a prompting and a kindling of the rebellion? If Britain managed to keep a low profile while prompting and flaring up the rebellion, because she had proceeded by twisted means, was her decision to prevent the Khaleefah from preparing a task force to quell the disturbances not a flagrant protection and backing of the rebellion? It would have been possible to crush the rebellion in the summer of 1919, and the Sultan had started to prepare a task force but the British, representing the allies, prevented him under the pretext that this was in violation of the terms of the truce which stipulated that the troops should be disbanded. Therefore why this interdiction from preparing a task force to quell the disturbances, even though there was no clause within the truce terms to stipulate that troops should be disarmed and disbanded or that they should surrender their ammunitions? It only stipulated that the Turkish army should be disbanded as soon as possible but excluded the troops necessary to protect the borders and maintain law and order in the country.

So where did their claim that the forming of a task force to crush the rebellion was in contradiction of the truce terms come from?

Besides, it was the British, representing the allies, who at the beginning of May 1919 claimed that disturbances had broken out in the Eastern provinces and demanded from the Sultan to send a commander to quell them, and they proposed Mustafa Kemal. Why did they suggest the dispatching of a task force to quell disturbances they had fabricated and which did not exist, and then prevented the Khaleefah from preparing a task force to crush a declared rebellion the events of which the world press and telegrams were covering ? Furthermore, when the Khaleefah gave them the option of either assuming for themselves the quelling of the rebellion in their quality as occupiers, or allowing him to prepare a task force to crush it, they replied : “We are taking a neutral stand.” So where is the neutrality in preventing the Khaleefah from preparing a task force to crush a domestic rebellion which on the surface was against the allies and which clashed with one of their states, namely Greece? Was this a neutral position, or was it a flagrant support and protection of the rebellion?

There is no doubt about the fact that by preventing the Sultan from preparing a task force to crush the rebellion, while the truce terms enjoined the deployment of the necessary troops to maintain law and order, the allies, the British, wanted to protect the rebellion and neutralise the Khaleefah, thus preventing him from crushing the rebellion. Nevertheless, the rebellion could not achieve its objective and establish a government to rival the Sultan, thus it was forced to come to terms with him and come under his authority. However, the rebels succeeded in inciting people against the allies and in giving the impression that they had prevented the British from occupying Samsun. Also, their clash with the Greeks helped them to generate the idea of fighting occupation and gave Mustafa Kemal its leadership.

Therefore, Mustafa Kemal emerged as the winner, because he succeeded in gathering people around him on the basis of an idea that everyone was convinced of, that is the expulsion of the Allies from the country and her liberation from the nightmare of their occupation. He managed to evoke in them the possibility of fighting occupation and of undertaking actions against it. Hence, he became the object of the masses’ hope and the army officers’ admiration, although they all harboured doubt about his intentions towards the Khaleefah, and they considered these intentions to be against their sanctification, because the post of the Khaleefah was to them a sanctity.

Hence, people’s hope was for Mustafa Kemal to come to terms with the Khaleefah, so that the sanctified post of the Khaleefah remained intact and so that they could achieve the expulsion of the occupying enemies. This was especially so after sensing through the preventing of the British from occupying Samsun and the fighting of the Greeks, the possibility of resisting the occupiers. Thus they clung to that hope for which they deemed Mustafa Kemal to be its hero, and they could not see in the Khaleefah this possibility.

Therefore, all eyes were on Mustafa Kemal. The majority of people could not discern the complexities of political activity and its reaches, and it was difficult for the ordinary man to comprehend them, and also difficult for the military officers if they did not undertake political activities. Hence, they failed to perceive these British games. They were also not familiar with international relations, thus they could not appreciate the British persistence to deprive her allies from the spoils, even if this meant giving them or keeping them in the hands of the vanquished state, so that the international balance of power remained in Britain’s favour and so that they remained the leading power. They did not also know that Italy’s or France’s occupation of any part of the Turkish coastline would undermine the British influence in the east and their forces in the Mediterranean. Thus they did not allow them to take anything. The people also could not discern that Britain did not remove the Italians and the French away by her own force, nor by overt actions, but by inciting others and through manoeuvres and deceit.

Furthermore, none of the Muslims quite realised the extent of the fear in the hearts of all the states, especially the British, of the preservation of the Khilafah, which was considered a constant threat to them. Thus the Muslims did not realise the filthy conspiracy which the British were plotting through Mustafa Kemal’s rebellion in order to abolish the Khilafah at the hands of the Muslims. As Mustafa Kemal took over the leadership of Turkey to fight the occupiers he was considered to have won the first round.