Kâzım Karabekir

Karabekir was born in 1882 as the son of an Ottoman general, Mehmet Emin Pasha, in the Kocamustafapaşa quarter of the Kuleli neighborhood of Constantinople, in the Ottoman Empire. The Karabekir family traced its heritage back to the medieval Karamanid Principality, in central Anatolia.[2]

Karabekir toured several places in the Ottoman Empire while his father served in the army. He returned to Istanbul in 1893 with his mother after his father died in Mecca. They settled in the Zeyrek Quarter. Karabekir was put into Fatih Military Secondary School the next year. After finishing his education there, he attended the Kuleli Military High School from which he graduated in 1899. He continued his education at the Ottoman Military College, which he finished on 6 December 1902 at the top of his class.

Kâzım Karabekir was appointed the commander of the Ottoman XV Corps and landed at Trabzon on 19 April 1919

As a junior officer, he was commissioned in January 1906 after two months to the Third Army in the region around Bitola in North Macedonia. There, he was involved in fights with Greek and Bulgarian komitadjis. For his successful service, he was promoted to the rank of senior captain in 1907. In the following years, he served in Constantinople and again in the Second Army in Edirne.

On 15 April 1911, Kâzım applied to change his family name from Zeyrek to Karabekir. Until then, he had been called Kâzım Zeyrek, after the place in which he lived with his mother, a custom in the Ottoman Empire as family names were not used. From then on, he adopted the name Karabekir, the name of his ancestors.

Turkish War of Independence

Kâzım Karabekir during the Turkish War of Independence

Main articles: Eastern Front (Turkey) and Turkish–Armenian War

In compliance with the Treaty of Sèvres, which ended World War I, Ottoman Sultan Mehmet Vahdettin gave Karabekir the order to surrender to Entente powers, which he refused to obey. He stayed in the region and, on the eve of the Erzurum Congress, when Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) had just arrived in Erzurum, he secured the city with a cavalry brigade under his command to protect him and the congressmen. He pledged with Mustafa Kemal to join the Turkish national movement and then took the command of the Eastern Front during the Turkish War of Independence by the Kuva-yi Milliye.

In early September 1920, Karabekir commenced the first military operations against the Democratic Republic of Armenia. There were brief small-scale skirmishes in the region of Olti, but as the Turkish offensive elicited virtually no reaction from the Allied Powers, Karabekir opened up the offensive. On 28 September, he sent four divisions from the XV Army Corps across the Armenian border with the objective of capturing the strategic fortress of Sarikamish.[5] Sarikamish was taken the following day, and the rest of the Turkish advance continued unchecked. Throughout October, Armenian resistance progressively collapsed, and the Turkish armies captured Kars on 30 October and occupied Alexandropol, a major centre of the new Armenian Republic, on 6 November.[6] A ceasefire was concluded on 18 November, and negotiations were carried out between Karabekir and a peace delegation, led by Alexander Khatisian, in Alexandropol. Although Karabekir’s terms were extremely harsh, the Armenian delegation had little recourse but to agree to them. Karabekir affixed his signature under the peace agreement, the Treaty of Alexandropol, which was signed on 2/3 December 1920.[7]

He was designated by the new Grand National Assembly in Ankara to sign also the friendship agreement Treaty of Kars with the Soviet Union on 23 October 1921.

Kâzım Karabekir as the speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey

After the defeat of Greek forces in Western Anatolia, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed. Kâzım Karabekir Pasha moved to Ankara in October 1922 and continued to serve in the parliament as Deputy of Edirne. He was still the acting commander of the Eastern Army when he was elected Deputy of Constantinople on 29 June 1923. Six months later, he was appointed Inspector of the First Army. The received the highest Turkish award by the parliament, the "Order of Independence" for his meritorious and distinguished service in the military and politics during the War of Independence. He retired from military service in October 1924 and then entered politics.[8]

Karabekir had differences of opinion with Mustafa Kemal about the realization of Atatürk's Reforms, one of the most important being the abolition of caliphate. Even though he agreed with Mustafa Kemal on the subject, he did not agree with him on immediate action. For Karabekir, the timing was inappropriate because British forces stood at the border of southeastern Turkey and claimed Kirkuk, now in Iraq. Karabekir did not believe that the caliphate should be abolished before the was solved. Kurds, more radical in their Shafi Sunni beliefs, began to rise against the government because they thought that the government would abolish religion after it ended the caliphate. Struggling with the rebellion, Turkey agreed to leave Kirkuk to Iraq, which was under the British mandate. Such conflicts prompted tensions between Karabekir and Mustafa Kemal.

On 17 November 1924, several politicians around Karabekir and Ali Fuat Cebesoy founded the political movement Progressive Republican Party (Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkası),[9] which had several prominent current and former military commanders in his members.[10] Afterwards, the party's recent members were blamed for the Sheikh Said rebellion and the assassination attempt made against Mustafa Kemal in İzmir.[11]The party was closed on 5 June 1925 by the government, and Karabekir was imprisoned by the Independence Tribunals with many of his party members but later acquitted and released.[11] Following those developments, all relations were broken between Karabekir and Mustafa Kemal.

Retiring temporarily from politics, Karabekir devoted himself to writing his memoirs of the Turkish War of Independence and Atatürk's Reforms. After Kemal Atatürk died in 1938, Karabekir's close friend İsmet İnönü rehabilitated him.

In 1939, Kâzım Karabekir returned to politics and re-entered parliament as an MP from Istanbul. He was elected speaker of the parliament on 5 August 1946. He died in office at the age of 66 on 26 January 1948 in Ankara after a heart attack. His remains were later relocated to the Turkish State Cemetery in Ankara.

Kâzım Karabekir was survived by his wife İclal and three daughters Hayat, Emel, and Timsal. The four-story mansion in the Erenköy quarter of Kadıköy district in Istanbul, where he lived for almost 15 years, was converted into a museum in 2005.

• Ankara'da Savaş Rüzgarları (Winds of War in Ankara), 448 pp.
• Bir Düello ve Bir Suikast (A Duel and An Assassination), 272 pp. ISBN 975-7369-39-X
• Birinci Cihan Harbi 1–4 (World War I 1–4), 4 books 1320 pp. ISBN 975-7369-21-7
  • Birinci Cihan Harbine Neden Girdik? (Why Did We Enter the World War I?), 199 pp. 1st book ISBN 975-7369-21-7
  • Birinci Cihan Harbine Nasıl Girdik? (How Did We Enter the World War I?), 464 pp. 2nd book ISBN 975-7369-22-5
  • Birinci Cihan Harbini Nasıl İdare Ettik? (How Did We Manage the World War I?), 272 pp. 3rd book ISBN 975-7369-23-3
  • Birinci Cihan Harbini Nasıl İdare Ettik? (How Did We Manage the World War I?), 384 pp. 4th book ISBN 975-7369-24-1
• Cumhuriyet Tarihi Set 1 (History of the Republic Set 1), 13 books
• Cumhuriyet Tarihi Set 2 (History of the Republic Set 2), 12 books
• İstiklal Harbimiz 1–5 (Our War of Independence 1–5), 5 books
• Paşaların Kavgası (Struggle of the Pashas)
• Paşaların Hesaplaşması (Revenge of the Pashas)
• İzmir Suikastı (Assassination in İzmir)
• Çocuklara Öğütler (Advice to Children)
• Hayatım (My Life)
• İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti 1896–1909 (Committee of Union and Progress 1896–1909)
• Ermeni Dosyası (Armenian Dossier)
• İngiltere, İtalya ve Habeş Harbi (British, Italian and Ethiopian War)
• Kürt Meselesi (Kurdish Problem)
• Çocuk, Davamız 1–2 (The Child, Our Problem 1–2), 2 books
• İstiklal Harbimizin Esasları (Principals of Our War of Independence)
• Yunan Süngüsü (Greek Bayonet)
• Sanayi Projelerimiz (Our Industrial Projects)
• İktisat Esaslarımız (Our Principals of Economy)
• Tarihte Almanlar ve Alman Ordusu (Germans in the History and German Army)
• Türkiye'de ve Türk Ordusunda Almanlar (Germans in Turkey and in the Turkish Army)
• Tarih Boyunca Türk-Alman İlişkileri (Turkish-German Relations Throughout the History)
• İstiklal Harbimizde İttihad Terakki ve Enver Paşa 1–2 (Union Progress and Enver Pasha in Our War of Independence)
• İstiklal Harbimizin Esasları Neden Yazıldı? (Why Was the Principals of Our War of Independence Written?)
• Millî Mücadele'de Bursa (Bursa During the War of Independence)
• İtalya ve Habeş (Italy and Ethiopia)
• Ermeni Mezalimi (Armenian Outrage)
• Sırp-Bulgar Seferi (Serbian-Bulgarian Campaign)
• Osmanlı Ordusunun Taarruz Fikri (Attack Concept of the Ottoman Army)
• Erkan-i Harbiye Vezaifinden İstihbarat (Intelligence from the Service at General Staff)
• Sarıkamış, Kars ve Ötesi (Sarıkamış, Kars and Beyond)
• Erzincan ve Erzurum'un Kurtuluşu (Liberation of Erzincan and Erzurum)
• Bulgaristan Esareti - Hatıralar, Notlar (Captivity in Bulgaria - Memories, Notes)
• Nutuk ve Karabekir'den Cevaplar (The Address and Replies From Karabekir)

• List of high-ranking commanders of the Turkish War of Independence