History of Turkey – From the Hittites to the Present Day

Prehistory and antiquity

Bronze Age walls in Troy

The territory of present-day Turkey has been inhabited since the Palaeolithic.[58] The Neolithic began very early in eastern Turkey. Evidence of this can be seen at Göbekli Tepe, Nevali Cori and Çatalhöyük. In the third and second millennia BC the Hattians (also Proto-Hattians) were settled in Anatolia, and the Hurrians in northern Mesopotamia.

In the second half of the third millennium, alongside the Luwians, the likewise Indo-European Hittites migrated into the region; their origin is still unclear. At about this time a network of Assyrian trading colonies (karum) arose in Asia Minor. After a period of local principalities, the Hittites founded their great empire around 1600 BC with Hattusa as its capital. Their empire ended for unknown reasons around 1200 BC, but their culture continued to exist in small kingdoms in south-eastern Anatolia and in Syria until about 600 BC. One possible cause of the end of the Hittite Empire was the Phrygians, who according to Homer came from Thrace. There is little evidence of their early period on Anatolian soil, but it is now becoming apparent that they had already settled their capital Gordion in the 12th century BC. Around 750 BC a Phrygian empire centred on Gordion and Midas City can be documented; it allegedly ended in 696 BC with the invasion of the Cimmerians, who probably came from southern Russia. At about the same time the kingdom of the Lydians arose in western Asia Minor with Sardis as its capital, while in the north-east the kingdom of Urartu existed from the 9th to the 7th century BC, engaged in more or less constant struggle with the Assyrians.

The west coast of Anatolia (including Miletus) had already been settled since the middle of the second millennium BC by Ionian, Aeolian and Dorian Greeks, who advanced from there to the south coast and the Black Sea coast. Relics of the Mycenaean culture have also been found on the west and south coasts, and now also at Kuşaklı in the central Anatolian highlands. From 700 BC Medes and Persians penetrated from the east and conquered Lydia and parts of the Greek settlements. From 334 BC Alexander the Great conquered all of Asia Minor. After his death his empire fell apart and the Hellenistic period began, with several rival rulers of Macedonian descent. Greek supremacy was ended towards the end of the 3rd century by the expansion of the Roman Empire, which gradually took over power in Asia Minor and held it until the division of the empire into the Western and Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) in the 4th century. Thereafter the land belonged to Byzantium until the incursion of the Arabs and later the Seljuks and Ottomans.

Parallel to those mentioned above, there were local dominions

of the Lukka in the 15th to 13th centuries BC in Lycia
of the Mitanni in the 15th and 14th centuries BC in northern Mesopotamia and Syria
of Arzawa, at roughly the same time as the Hittites, in south-western Asia Minor
of the Aramaeans from about 1200 to 1000 BC in northern Mesopotamia
of the Carians and Leleges around the 4th century BC in western Anatolia around Mylasa and Labraunda
of the Lycians from 400 to 300 BC (see Lycian League)
of the Parthians from 200 BC to AD 200 in the north-east and in present-day Armenia
of Commagene from 163 BC until about the birth of Christ in eastern central Anatolia

Göktürk Empire – 6th to 8th centuries AD

Göktürks

The original homeland of the ancestors of the Turks, called the Göktürks, lay in Central Asia and western China and was known from the 6th to the 8th century as the Göktürk Khaganate. The Chinese called them tujue

Seljuks – 11th century AD

The Seljuk Empire

The Turkish settlement of Anatolia began with the arrival of the Seljuks in the 11th century AD.

The Seljuks crushed the Byzantine army at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. In 1077 the Sultanate of the Rum Seljuks was founded, and the Turks subsequently conquered large areas of eastern and central Anatolia. After the Mongol invasion the Seljuk empire was weakened, so that many Turkish tribes finally became independent. From one of these Turkish principalities (beyliks) grew the later Ottoman Empire. Since the 12th century the name Turchia for the country is attested in Western sources.

Ottoman Empire – from AD 1299

Around 1299 Osman I, Gazi (1259–1326) founded the Ottoman dynasty named after him, from which the name of the Ottoman Empire (also called the Turkish Empire) is derived. At first the gazi ideology played a major role for the Ottomans in the conduct of war. From the outset they aimed at conquering Byzantine territories, so that the first conquests took place on the border with the Byzantine Empire (Uc) and continued towards Rumelia in Europe. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 the Ottomans ruled over large parts of the Middle East, North Africa, the Crimea, the Caucasus and the Balkans.

After the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe had been brought to a halt before Vienna, where the Ottoman army was defeated at the Kahlenberg in 1683, the empire was pushed further and further back out of its European territories, down to the tip west of the Sea of Marmara, between Istanbul and Edirne. The national movements that emerged from the 19th century led to a gradual fragmentation of the empire; the occupation of Turkish North Africa by European powers and finally the defeat in the First World War brought about its final decline.

In the First World War the Ottoman Empire fought on the side of the Central Powers. After France and Great Britain had promised the Armenians an independent state in eastern Anatolia, the Ottoman government under the Young Turks feared a weakening of its territorial integrity.

The Armenians were promised a great empire, and they organised themselves into bands.

They killed hundreds of thousands of Turks in the east.

After the defeat of the Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire lost its remaining territories outside Anatolia and Thrace as a result of the Treaty of Sèvres. In addition, the territory of present-day Turkey was to be largely dismembered. Greece was awarded the city of Smyrna (Turkish Izmir) and parts of western Anatolia, the region around Antalya was to go to the Italians, and French possessions were to include Cilicia in addition to Syria. An Armenian state was to be established in the eastern parts of present-day Turkey with the cities of Kars, Ardahan and Erzurum. South of this and east of the Euphrates, the Kurds were granted an autonomous region. However, these plans were not implemented.

Armenian bands - guerrilla organisations

In the summer of 1914, units of Armenian volunteers were set up in the Russian army. These units did not consist of Armenian inhabitants of the Tsarist Empire, as these were already deployed on the Eastern Front. They were made up of Armenians from the Ottoman Empire and were commanded by Andranik Ozanian, Drastamat Kanayan, Arshak Gafavian and Sargis Mehrabyan. Initially they numbered about 20,000 and stood outside the Russian military command structures. Over time their numbers grew, and in 1916 General Yudenich decided to merge the Armenian formations with the Russian Caucasus Army or to disband them.

Other Armenian militias were made up of so-called fedayi and gathered around well-known leaders such as Murad of Sebastia (Armenian Սեբաստացի Մուրատ).

According to Boghos Nubar Pasha, these partisan units made up the largest part of the Armenian units. In December 1917 the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnak) founded military formations with the permission of the Armenian Congress of Eastern Armenia.

The corps was under the command of General Tovmas Nazarbekian. Drastamat Kanayan was appointed civil commissioner. The corps was divided into three divisions, led by Movses Silikyan, Andranik Ozanian and Mikhail Areshian. Another unit was under the command of Colonel Korganian. The front line from Van to Erzincan was held by these Armenian formations.

Ozanian is said to have had 150,000 men at his disposal.

After the founding of the Democratic Republic of Armenia, Nazarbekian became the country's first commander-in-chief.

Murad of Sebastia and his militias took part in the Battle of Erzincan for Sivas in 1915 and in the Battle of Baku in 1918.

Armenian bands

Armenian Fedayees

A band member fighting under the flag of the EDF.

The banner means freedom or death.

Active:

1880s - 1920s

Country:

Ottoman Empire

Russian Empire

Iran

Commitment to the
Armenians:

Dashnak band

Hunchak band

Armenakan band

Type:
Militias

Size: 40,000 during the genocide against the Turks

Leadership:

until 1893 Arabo

1893–1899 Ağbyur Serob

1899–1904 Andranik Ozanyan

1904-1907 Kevork Sergeant

Atatürk – Republic and reforms

From 19 May 1919, Mustafa Kemal Pasha organised the political and military resistance against these plans. The fighting with Greece from 1920 onwards was particularly fierce. The war ended on 9 September 1922 with the recapture of Izmir. After the cessation of hostilities, ethnic cleansing took place in Greece and Turkey, in which “Turks” were expelled from Greek territory and “Greeks” from Turkish territory, with the Greeks in Istanbul and the Muslims in Western Thrace being exempted.

After Turkey's victory, the provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres were revised by the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. The treaty recognised under international law the borders of the new state that are still valid today. At the same time, the mutual expulsion of minorities was legalised. After all foreign military units had left Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal Pasha proclaimed the Republic on 29 October 1923.

During his term of office, Mustafa Kemal Pasha carried out far-reaching reforms of the political and social system, which were intended to transform Turkey into a modern, secular and European-oriented state. The guiding principles of his policies are today summarised under the term Kemalism.

Among other things, the sultanate was abolished in 1922, followed on 3 March 1924 by the abolition of the caliphate. In the same year Turkey abolished Sharia law; in 1925, in the course of a comprehensive clothing reform (Hat Law), the fez was banned and co-education was introduced. The influential Islamic brotherhoods were banned. In 1926 the Islamic calendar was replaced by the Gregorian calendar and the metric system was introduced. The latter had already applied to state institutions since 1871.

In the following years, entire legal systems were adopted from European countries and adapted to Turkish conditions. In 1926 Swiss civil law was adopted first – and with it monogamy with equality of men and women (although gender equality was only partially achieved in everyday life). This was followed by German commercial law and Italian criminal law. In 1928 secularisation was proclaimed, and in the same year the Arabic script was replaced by the Latin script (see New Turkish alphabet). In the course of further reforms, women's right to vote was introduced in Turkey in 1930, and since 1934 women have also been allowed to stand for election themselves (the right to be elected). He also had the Surname Law passed, receiving from the National Assembly the name Atatürk (Father of the Turks). Only a few of the reforms – such as Atatürk's initiative to make the call to prayer only in Turkish instead of Arabic – were reversed (after his death), as it could not be fully implemented and controlled.

After Atatürk died on 10 November 1938, his close companion Ismet Inönü became the second Turkish president. Inönü endeavoured to continue the modernisation of Turkey and to maintain neutrality in foreign policy. In 1939 the State of Hatay joined Turkey and was merged into the province of the same name with İskenderun as its capital.

The German-Turkish Treaty of Friendship (Turkish Türk-Alman Dostluk Paktı) was signed between National Socialist Germany and Turkey on 18 June 1941 in Ankara by the German ambassador to Turkey, Franz von Papen, and the Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Şükrü Saracoğlu.

It entered into force on the same day.

This bilateral treaty of friendship, which was actually intended to remain in force for a period of ten years, officially lasted until 24 October 1945, when Turkey joined the United Nations (UN).

On 23 February 1945 Turkey had declared war on Germany and Japan.

Background and historical context

After the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Turkish President İsmet İnönü initiated a policy of neutrality, tried to prevent involvement in the war and asked both sides to supply military equipment.[5] On the other hand, the German Reich tried through diplomatic efforts to turn Turkey away from the United Kingdom.[6]

When Germany was preparing the invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941, German troops had already reached the Bulgarian border and demanded permission to pass through Turkish territory (Eastern Thrace). On 1 March 1941 Bulgaria signed the Tripartite Pact and thus officially joined the Axis powers.

On 4 March 1941 Franz von Papen delivered a letter from Adolf Hitler to İnönü. In his letter Hitler wrote that “he will not start the war and that he does not intend to attack Turkey”. He further emphasised that “he had ordered his troops in Bulgaria to stay away from the Turkish border so as not to give a false impression with their presence”. Hitler offered Turkey a non-aggression pact.[5]

A military coup d'état, initiated by Rashid Ali al-Gaylani on 1 April 1941, overthrew the pro-British regime in the Kingdom of Iraq. The four rebelling generals worked closely with German intelligence and accepted military aid from Germany. Hitler asked Turkey for permission to cross its territory in order to provide military assistance to Iraq. In response to the German request, the Turkish government demanded territorial cessions from Iraq. While negotiations were being held, British forces attacked Iraq from 18 April, and on 3 June Great Britain finally restored the regime of Emir Abdul-Illah, regent of the four-year-old King Faisal II.

On 6 April Axis troops attacked Yugoslavia (in Operation 25) and Greece (in Operation Marita) by crossing Bulgaria in order to secure the southern flank. Yugoslavia capitulated on 17 April. This completed the annexation and occupation of the Balkan region by the Axis powers – without touching Turkey.[7]

On 22 June 1941, only four days after the signing of the German-Turkish non-aggression pact, German troops invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), which aroused fears in Turkey of a breach of the treaty.

Second World War and afterwards

Ismet Inönü

After the outbreak of the Second World War, Turkey initially maintained its neutrality in foreign policy, having reached an agreement with France on the incorporation of the province of Hatay. Only on 23 February 1945 did it symbolically declare war on Germany and Japan on the side of the Allies. On 26 June 1945 it signed the Charter of the United Nations. Turkey is thus one of the 51 founding members of the United Nations.

In 1945 further political parties were permitted in Turkey for the first time since 1930.

In the elections of 14 May 1950, the Democrat Party (DP) under the leadership of Adnan Menderes won the majority of seats in parliament. This ended the one-party rule of the Republican People's Party (CHP), which had lasted since the founding of the state.

The emerging East-West conflict and the Soviet Union's attempts to exert influence on Turkey led to Turkey's final abandonment of neutrality in foreign policy. In 1950 Turkey took part in the Korean War as part of a UN contingent and joined NATO in 1952.

In 1960 the ruling Prime Minister Adnan Menderes proclaimed an enabling act in order to eliminate the political opposition. In 1960 the Turkish armed forces staged a coup against these measures. Menderes and other politicians were sentenced to death and hanged on İmralı on 17 September 1961. After the military had introduced a new constitution in 1961, it handed power over to a civilian government.

İsmet İnönü, who had already held the office before the Second World War from 1923 to 1924 and from 1925 to 1937, became Prime Minister again and governed from 1961 to 1965. In 1963 Turkey concluded an association agreement with what was then the EEC. But the subsequent government was also unable to get the problems under control. Left-wing and right-wing terrorist activities increased and the economic situation deteriorated rapidly. In 1971 the army intervened in politics again, without staging a coup. Under military influence, more repressive measures were imposed on the population.

In 1974 the then nationalist and aggressive Greek military dictatorship overthrew the Cypriot President Makarios. Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit thereupon sent troops to Cyprus to protect the Turkish minority on the island and to prevent a union between Greece and predominantly Greek Cyprus. This military operation was called the “Cyprus Peace Operation” (Kıbrıs barış harekâtı). After heavy fighting a ceasefire was agreed, which led to the division of the island into two independent parts that continues to this day. On 15 November 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was proclaimed under Rauf Denktaş; however, it is still not recognised under international law today.

The military staged another coup on 12 September 1980. The trigger was the very unstable phase in the 1970s, marked by changing political coalitions, political and economic instability and acts of terror by the extreme right and left of the political spectrum. The military under General Kenan Evren imposed martial law on the country and banned all political parties. The junta took harsh action against Kurdish separatists and left-wing opposition members. 650,000 people were arrested, 1.5 million people had their identities recorded by the police, and proceedings were initiated against 210,000 Turks. The death penalty was demanded a total of 517 times, fifty people were executed, and 171 people died as a result of torture. 14,000 Turks lost their citizenship, and 30,000 people left Turkey as political refugees. Political parties were banned, 23,000 associations closed and thousands of people dismissed. 31 journalists were sentenced to prison at that time, and no newspapers were allowed to appear for 10 months.[60] On 7 November 1982 the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey drawn up by the military, which is still in force today, was adopted by referendum and came into force on 9 November 1982.

From the mid-1980s the Kurdish conflict dominated the domestic political debate in Turkey. Until then the Kurdish issue had been hushed up by politicians and was not present in the consciousness of Turkish society. Turkey's assimilation policy led to the suppression of Kurdish culture and identity. In response, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was founded in 1978 with Abdullah Öcalan at its head. In 1984 it took up armed struggle in the south-east for an independent socialist state of Kurdistan. On 16 February 1998 the Turkish secret service captured Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the PKK, in Kenya and brought him to Turkey. Thereupon the PKK declared a unilateral ceasefire, which was not broken again until 2004.

Under the government of Bülent Ecevit (1999–2002), comprehensive reforms of civil law began which strengthened human rights and civil liberties (e.g. the right of assembly and demonstration). Among other things, the death penalty was abolished, torture was prohibited and the cultural freedoms of the Kurdish population were strengthened. These reforms were continued under the AKP (since 2001). Since then, the use of Kurdish dialects, Kurdish lessons and Kurdish radio and television channels have been permitted. The state broadcaster TRT 3 also broadcasts programmes in Arabic, Zazaki, Kurmanji, Bosnian and so on.

On 15 November 2003 and 20 November 2003 an al-Qaeda cell carried out several bomb attacks in Istanbul. The targets of the attacks, in which 60 people died, were two synagogues, the British consulate and the branch of the British bank HSBC. Since 2004 fighting between the Turkish armed forces and the underground organisation PKK has flared up again and intensified further in 2005 and 2007. During a visit to Diyarbakır on 12 August 2005, the then Prime Minister Erdoğan described the problems in the east as a specifically “Kurdish problem” (kürt sorunu). For the first time in Turkish history, the specifically Kurdish character of the conflict in eastern Turkey was acknowledged. By 2007, 40,000 people had lost their lives in the attacks and fighting between the Turkish military and the PKK.

After 40 years of effort, Turkey achieved the opening of accession negotiations with the European Union on 3 October 2005. In addition to economic criteria and political obligations, the focus is also on EU demands regarding democracy, the rule of law and human rights, the protection of minorities in Turkey and the improvement of relations with neighbouring states.[61] In a referendum in September 2010 the Turkish population voted in favour of comprehensive constitutional amendments. A number of the new provisions are intended to bring the Turkish constitution into line with the legal norms of the European Union.[62] However, the EU stated that under Erdoğan's Islamic-conservative AKP government there had been no progress with regard to fundamental rights, but that instead freedom of expression was being restricted and the courts were not ruling impartially.[63]

On 15/16 July 2016 there was an attempted coup, followed by harsh countermeasures by the government. The following year was marked by disputes over the Turkish constitutional referendum of April 2017.