Facing the Victorious Turks: How the French Misread the Turkish War of Independence

At the end of World War I, parts of the defeated Ottoman Empire were seized and partitioned by the Allied Powers. In response, the newly formed Turkish National Movement waged a military campaign to win Turkey’s independence, eventually leading to the declaration of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

In Facing the Victorious Turks, Andrew Orr argues that French military, intelligence, and diplomatic officials’ Orientalism and racism led them to misinterpret the Turkish War of Independence by placing Europeans at the center of their analysis of the Middle East. French observers’ flawed understanding of Muslims and Islam fed conspiracy theories that distorted their understanding of Germany, the emerging Soviet Union, Middle Eastern politics, and colonialism. It allowed them to perceive and report the danger of Middle East-wide revolts without questioning whether it was European rule itself that was causing the political turmoil. French military leaders were thus able to escape the sort of self-reflection that might have exposed the exploitative nature of colonialism and pushed them to question the moral and strategic justifications for colonial rule.

Orr’s study draws on French and British military, diplomatic, and intelligence documents, published Turkish sources, journalistic accounts, and combatants’ and aid workers’ journals. It also takes advantage of US intelligence and diplomatic papers that included correspondence with French military and diplomatic officials in Constantinople.

Facing the Victorious Turks is valuable reading for anyone interested in nationalism and imperialism, intelligence studies, French involvement in the Middle East, and modern Turkish history.