1909 Yılı İngiliz Askeri Ataşe Raporlarında Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve Türk Ordusu
Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Army in the British Military Attaché Reports of 1909

Summary/Abstract: In Ottoman history, military attaché reports are among the first-hand historical sources that shed light on the military and political history of the period from a different perspective. This article analyses the situation of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish army through the British military attaché reports of 1909, published for the first time in Turkish literature. In 1909, the main events that marked the attaché’s reports were the 13 April military uprising, the siege of Istanbul by the 3rd army, the dethronement of Abdülhamid II on 27 April 1909 and his replacement by Mehmet Reşad V, the conscription of non-Muslims, purges and replacement of rankers (alaylı) officers by ‘school officers’ (mektepli). With the exception of the 31 March incident, the siege of Istanbul by the 3rd Army corps, called as Movement/Liberation Army, and the attitudes of non-Muslims towards conscription, the 1909 reports of the British military attaché are treated in full in this study. From the power struggle between Mahmud Şevket Pasha and members of the Committee of Union and Progress after 27 April to the reorganisation of the Turkish army in 1909, the attachés' reports detail events in seven army corps districts of the Ottoman Empire. These reports, which cover topics such as the Hatt-ı Hümayun of Mehmed Reşad, the ‘first constitutional sovereign’, and the visit of 57 Bulgarian officers to Istanbul to mark the anniversary of the constitutional monarchy after the Ottoman Empire recognised Bulgaria’s independence in 1909, are important in shedding light on 1909 from a British perspective.

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