Esref Kusçubasi remains controversial in Turkey over fifty years after
his death. Elsewhere the man sometimes called the 'Turkish Lawrence of
Arabia' is far less known but his life offers fascinating insights into
the traumatic, increasingly violent struggles that ended the Ottoman
Empire and ushered in the modern Middle East. Drawing on Esref's private
papers for the first time, these pages tell the story of the making of a
headstrong 'self-sacrificing' officer committed to defending the
empire's shrinking borders. Esref took on a string of special
assignments for Enver Pasha, the rapidly rising star of the Ottoman
military, first in Libya against the Italians, then in the Balkan Wars
and World War I, before being captured by the forces of the Arab Revolt
and turned over to the British and imprisoned on Malta. Released in
1920, he joined the national resistance movement in Anatolia but fell
out with Mustafa Kemal's leadership and switched sides, earning him
banishment from the Turkish Republic at its founding and exile until the
1950s. Never far from the action or controversy, Esref's dynamic story
provides an important counterpoint to the standard narrative of the
transition from empire to nation state.
Book Detail
- Publisher
- C. Hurst & Co
- Publication Date
- 30/11/-0001
- Number of Pages
- 256
- Binding
- Hard Back
- ISBN
- 9781849045780
- Category
-
Fiction , Literature
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