“A Nation in Arms”

A Nationalist-Military ideology: German-made Ottoman Execution

The German General Baron Colmar von der Goltz, a Prussian Field Marshal and military writer, and the French physicist Gustave Le Bon, a leading French polymath figure, had the most effects on Ottoman and Turkish elites.

Goltz was part of the German mission that arrived in the Ottoman capital in 1882 at the request of Sultan Abdülhamid II, and his ideas on military strategy and modernization greatly influenced Ottoman military elites. According to Le Bon, democracy is just dumb mob rule, and a scientific elite rules the best type of government.

In Goltz’s opinion, “born rulers are also great soldiers; and it is easy to conceive that the greatest military leaders must be looked for among the occupants of thrones.”

Goltz’s most significant concept – the “Nation in Arms” phrase that was initially coined by Kaiser Wilhelm I in 1860 – had a substantial impact on the Ottoman-Turkish Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) party and later the formation of the Turkish Republic. He believed that the side that could best mobilize its society’s resources would be more likely to win future modern wars. As a result, militarizing one’s society during times of peace would ensure that it would be a “nation in arms” when the inevitable war occurred.

Goltz revealed in many of his writings how he had a tremendous love for the Turks as an innately warlike people, in contrast to his country (Germany), where, in his opinion, hedonism was making the next generation of young German men unsuitable for battle. Goltz also urged the Ottoman authorities not to enlist non-Muslims in the military, as he saw this action as an imperative for Ottoman Muslims to preserve themselves. It was another overt nod to the concepts Goltz had outlined in his treatise using Social Darwinist terminology. An ideological framework that could strengthen the relationship between the new rulers and the populace was necessary to create a nation in arms. However, such a structure could not appeal to the mixed-ethnic communities inside the empire. Therefore, the chances of a nationalist ideology succeeding would undoubtedly be substantially higher if the population were ethnically homogeneous.

By 1908, almost the entire senior Ottoman officer corps concluded that it was their responsibility to arm the empire monolithically.

I would argue that the concept of the “nation in arms” was closely related to the grim Social Darwinist worldview held then, which held that nations had to fight to survive and earn their right to exist. As a result, Turkism became increasingly popular among Ottoman commanders, and by the last part of the nineteenth century, it was a prevalent sentiment. This sentiment is expressed succinctly through what Young Turk authors had to say about the Ottomans’ defeat in the Balkans or the Armenian Genocide.

For instance, these authors contended that the Ottomans’ defeat in the Balkans resulted from their failure to teach their children to despise the enemy and how to be fighting soldiers.

For example, the CUP’s chief thinker Mehmet Ziya Gökalp (1876–1924), embraced Social Darwinism, the völkisch ^[1]völkisch ethno-nationalist ideology that became later influential in the development of Nazism , and scientific racism that was widespread at German universities in the late 19th century. Therefore, the establishment of Turkish national identity—referred to even then as Turkishness—resonated during the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In Gökalp’s opinion, a nation must have a “common consciousness,” and “the individual becomes a genuine personality only as he becomes a genuine representative of his culture”. He thought a contemporary state had to become homogeneous regarding culture, religion, and national identity. He was convinced that Turkishness came first as a uniting attribute to enhance the sense of national identity. He argued that Turks are the “supermen” that German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had in mind in an article from 1911. The CUP was significantly influenced by the racist Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau, whose ideas significantly influenced the German völkisch thinkers of the 19th century. According to the Turkish historian Taner Akçam, the CUP were willing to blend pan-Islamic, pan-Turkic, and Ottoman ideologies to achieve their goals. At the same time, the Unionists occasionally accentuated one over the other depending on the circumstances. 

The restoration of the Ottoman Empire to greatness and the continued dominance of the Turks within the empire were ultimately all that mattered to the CUP. Returning to Goltz, his German concept of Weltanschauung had a great reception among the young Ottomans when he taught in Istanbul military schools about this German ‘worldview’, as it offered them hope and made the military class enjoy special social privileges. In his book, Goltz argued that war would be unavoidable for the Germans and that the country ought to be entirely ready for it. The book became so prevalent in Ottoman military circles that The Nation in Arms (‘Millet-i müsellaa’) became required reading in military schools after being translated into Ottoman Turkish as early as 1884. In contrast to his own nation, where Goltz feared that hedonism was making the next generation of young German men unsuitable for war, he expressed enormous admiration for the Turks as a naturally warlike people. [2]Nazi concept of  “supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities” by which both "worthy" and "unworthy" individual bodies were defined

Hence, if the Ottoman Weltanschauung deemed Armenians to be vermin to be exterminated, that would only be partially true, as long as Armenians were still allowed to be human and alive.

The Young Turks also promoted extreme Turkish nationalism in the Arab world, and a wave of persecution of Arab nationalist activists began in 1916 under the leadership of Cemal Pasha while he was governor of Syria during the First World War.

Cemal ordered the execution of those activists in Beirut and Damascus. To this day, a central square in the Lebanese capital is named ‘Martyrs Square’, honouring Arab nationalists sent to the gallows by him. The Young Turk leader is notoriously remembered as ‘Jamal Basha as-Saffah’ in Arabic or ‘Cemal Pasha the Bloodthirsty’.

As previously mentioned, the Ottoman intellectual elite and many military officers were intensely drawn to Gustave Le Bon’s theories of crowd psychology, which gave the military pride of place as an essential component of the ruling class.

“the Armenian vermin gathered tonight from the townships and villages have been led to the predetermined places.” Because  “They said the Armenians were killed because they were vermin.”[3]Archive of the Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem, Box 17, Dossier H, Document no. 616. Telegram from Mustafa, Commander of the Boğazlıyan regiment to Halil Recai, dated 5 August 1915.

We read this in the Turkish Soldier’s Textbook, which was published in 1934 as a textbook given to army Officers:

Soldier Who are you? YOU ARE TURKISH! You are from the greatest nation on earth; Your nation was born when the so-called (history) writings that we will tell you were not there; His blood is pure, his heart is unyielding, and he came to the earth brave. You lived like that for tens of thousands of years; you will live like that again; The dormitories that your grandfathers and grandmothers established long ago became the heaven on earth for you. Know that; Your nation is the GREAT TURKISH NATION, the first example, support and adviser of other nations in manners and structure.

YOU ARE TURKISH!

Twelve thousand years ago, while other nations of the world were living like wild men in caves and stone cavities, your grandfathers lived in the cities they founded in the heart of their homeland called CENTRAL ASIA. Your ancestors gave the festival and civilization to the earth, your nation is the GREAT TURKISH NATION, who took the horse down from the mountain and made it look like a lamb, who climbed on it and climbed the mountains and made other nations look at themselves in bewilderment!

In terms of the transition to the Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) era, most of the Kemalist Turkish Republic’s founders were ex-members of the CUP, the party that ruled Turkey dictatorially from 1913 until October 1918.

Evner, Cemal, and Talaat’s CUP served as the founding pillars for the A-RMHC (Anadolu ve Rumeli Müdafaa-i Hukuk Cemiyeti), also known as the First Group, which was established in 1921. The Kemalist Republican Party of People, the state’s dominant party, was born from this group in 1923.

As a member of the Young Turks’ second generation, Atatürk adopted the main features of weltanschauung that were held by many young Ottomans.

Atatürk, too, was fond of Le Bon’s elitism, nationalism, and racial anthropology. A combination of scientism, materialism, social Darwinism, Turkism, and other popular theories provided Ataturk with a grand utopian framework for understanding the past and anticipating the future.

Gustave Le Bon’s beliefs were one of the ideological continuities between the Ottoman and Kemalist-Republican periods.

Atatürk’s regime had no break from the Ottoman’s past in the case of the Armenians. The killing continued after the War, partially because of Ataturk’s need to find allies among the CUP supporters, and the genocide continued. Under Ataturk, Ankara ordered General Kiazim Karabekir to ‘physically annihilate Armenians’.

Atatürk advocated for the voluntary dissolution of the Ottoman Empire as early as 1907 to open the door for population transfers that would establish a Turkish state.

He reasoned that only a state supported by a strong national identity could raise a mighty army. Instead of an Ottoman nation, he saw a “Turkish nation in arms.”

As the Nazi party gained power in Germany, the inspiration of “nation in arms” reversed. In his 1928 Nuremberg speech, Hitler cautioned the Germans of a bleak völkisch future if the Germans did fight for their liberation and higher population growth— if they stayed the way they were, “we will slowly become a nation of Armenians.”

Now we have Max von Scheubner-Richter (1884-1923), Hitler’s early comrades in the Nazi party. While he was the German consul in Erzerum (eastern Anatolia) during WWI, he documented the genocide for the Kaiser’s government. In October 1920, Scheubner-Richter first met Hitler. He quickly became his foreign policy advisor and a banker who helped the party by finding more revenue streams. Hitler likely received a first-hand account of the mass murders from a vital eyewitness. Scheubner-Richter was killed by police gunfire during the Beer-Hall Putsch in Munich in 1923. Walking arm in arm with his leader, he dragged Hitler to the ground, possibly saving his life. Mein Kampf is dedicated to Scheubner-Richter (and the other Nazi dead.)

Support for Atatürk and his New Turkey movement turned into a cult after the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933. Hitler stated the official position on Atatürk in an interview with the Turkish daily Milliyet during the first year of the Third Reich. During the depressing 1920s, Hitler had referred to Atatürk as his “shining star.”

One biographer, for example, wrote about Atatürk: “With such eyes, one is born for something greater. . . . He was a born master.” Others claimed that even at a young age, Atatürk could feel the spirit of the “grey wolf” (the national/mystical animal of the Turks), of eternal Turkendom, of his blood awakening within himself. He was “inspired” by the “difference in blood,” which he could feel vis-à- vis the “lesser races” (referring to the Greeks, Armenians, and Levantines) who were controlling the Ottoman Empire.”

The Nazis attributed the primary success of Atatürk to “the destruction of the Armenians.” In his Atatürk biography, Fritz Rössler (January 1912 – October 1987), a leading figure in German neo-Nazi politics, highlighted that there had not been persecutions of Christians but the “neutralization of life-threatening foreign bodies.” His book also included a chapter titled “Liquidation of Annoying Armenia.” As long as they were there, various authors stressed, the Armenians remained a constant threat to the Turks: “And every time the hearts and weapons of the Armenians found themselves on the side of the enemy.”

At the time of the Turkish War of Ankara – the capital of the Kemalist movement – Ankara was already well-known in Germany. The Kemalists were also known as Ankara-Turks, and every reader was supposed to understand what the name “Ankara” meant. The right and far-right discussed Ankara in Munich.

The theme of triumphant Ankara, as developed during the Turkish War of Independence in the early 1920s, inspired the Führer and revived völkisch. Kemalist Turkey was now a völkisch model state domestically and by its foreign policy.

The Kemalist Turkey “völkisch” version offered even more disturbing inspiration to the Nazis regarding the treatment of minorities with Hitler’s famous quote “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?” The Armenian Genocide and the deportation of the Greeks were Third Reich lessons learned from the New Turkey; they were considered critical prerequisites for Germany’s völkisch success story. By now, the völkisch revolution of state, society, economy, “ethnic cleansing,” and the preparation for the coming “ultimate war” fueled Nazi policies and ideology.

Atatürk’s successor mounted a total monopoly with their totalitarianism policies, where right-wing Kemalism amplified authoritarian developmentalism and societal transformation under a single-party system. It was centred on a strong personality cult, a scientific weltanschauung, and a new vision of Turkish nationalism primarily based on race anthropology

The similarities between the Unionist government of the 1910s and the Recep Tayyip Erdoğan regime of the 2010s are striking.

Erdoğan has also adopted the most extreme and radical brand of Turkish nationalism as the official ideology of his government. His policy shows so many striking similarities to what Goltz lectured about:

It [war] is an expression of the energy and self-respect which a nation possesses… Perpetual peace means perpetual death!

Erdoğan maintains that Turkey has a historical duty to rule the globe to defend Sunni Islam and provide peace and order. According to him, this duty has been disrupted by both internal and external opponents’ betrayals of one another. In his nostalgic speech, he reminisced about the Ottoman nationalism of

When the soil is kneaded with the blood of martyrs homeland, otherwise it is a field, the land cannot become a fatherland [ vatan ], nor the cloth a flag’ unless it be ‘drenched in the blood of martyrs

Erdoğan dared the ‘Vatan”s enemies in his public statement by referencing the survivors of the killings of Christians in his nation as “the remains of the sword.” ^[4]Erdoğan uses leftovers of the sword anti-christian hate speech

Like CUP, Erdoğan has also integrated numerous radical paramilitary components into the web of his coercive apparatus such as:

• Special Forces of the Police
• The Gendarmerie Special Operations
• The Grey Wolves of the radical right, the militants of the association known as the Ottoman Hearth;
• The ultra-Islamist private security company SADAT A.S.–International Defence Consulting (known as Erdoğan’s Black Water-type private militias)

In his speech in Baku on December 10, 2020, Erdoğan declared, “Today, may the souls of Nuri Pasha, Enver Pasha, and the brave soldiers of the Caucasus Islam, be happy” – referring to Baku’s 2020 war aggression on Armenia to Ottoman Turkey’s genocidal invasion (1918) of Armenia.

The radical organisation Grey Wolves; the extreme right-wing Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), whose stated objective was to unite all Turkic peoples in one state, founded the Grey Wolves in the 1960s as its youth wing.  The Grey Wolves took its name from a Turkish folktale in which a wolf guided and protected the perilous Turkish tribes from the Altay Mountains in Central Asia in pre-Islamic times.  Colonel Alparslan Turkes, an avowed supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, first led the Grey Wolves.  The fanatical pan-Turkish ideology that Turkes promoted called for the reunification of ex-Soviet Union Turan Republics under the control of a revived Turkish kingdom. 

Over time, the Grey Wolves evolved into a nationalist terrorist group and a death squad that murdered numerous “objectionable” government figures, including communists, trade unionists, journalists, and Kurdish activists.

The Grey Wolves remain active in Turkey today, and their ideology has influenced other far-right nationalist groups in the country. The group’s members have been involved in clashes with left-wing and Kurdish activists, as well as with Syrian refugees in Turkey. The group’s history of violence and extremism continues to be a source of concern for human rights groups and political observers in Turkey and beyond.

A final note about, The “Nation in Arms” ideology had a lasting impact on the Ottoman Empire and its successor states. It contributed to the emergence of a modern Turkish nationalism, which was based on the idea of a united and homogeneous Turkish nation. The implementation of this ideology has proven to be dangerous because it involved the glorification of war, militarization of society, and the suppression of individual freedoms in the name of national unity. The “Nation in Arms” ideology was used to mobilize the population for war and to create a sense of extreme national identity. It also led to the formation of paramilitary groups and the suppression of ethnic and religious minorities who were seen as a threat to the Ottoman state.