Attempts to Keep the Eastern Tribes in the side the Ottoman State after the First World War

Abstract

When the Ottoman Empire entered to the First World War, the English wanted to get advantage of it through using different elements within this state. Among these elements, there were tribes living in Iran, Iraq and the eastern part of Anatolia. After the October Revolution in Russia in 1917, a vacuum appeared in Iran to be filled up by the Ottoman forces. When the Ottoman State was finally defeated in this war, however, these forces had to withdraw from Iran and Iraq. Time seemed to be ripe for the English to establish an order in the Middle East to their expectations, and they started their endeavours to establish "Kurdistan", containing part of Iraq and the eastern part of Anatolia. First the Ottoman governments and then the government of Turkish Grand National Assembly planned and executed some measures to prevent this English plot. One of them is to attract these tribes into the Turkish government side. For this purpose, Ali Ihsan Pasa, the commander of the 6(th) army, and Haydar Bey, the governor of Van, got in touch with these tribes. In this study, we will examine the activities of Haydar Bey who was the governor of Van in 1919 and the member of the Parliament in 1922 in Iran, Iraq and the eastern part of Anatolia concerning these tribes in the light of the archival documents and the other sources.