Malta exiles

In late January 1919, the Allied forces began to arrest CUP leaders and military commanders accusing them of war crimes.{{Cite book|last1=Dadrian|first1=Vahakn N.|title=Judgment at Istanbul: The Armenian Genocide Trials|last2=Akçam|first2=Taner|date=2011|publisher=Berghahn Books|isbn=978-0-85745-251-1|page=65}} On 120 leaders of the Ottoman Empire were issued arrest warrants. These included several high ranking CUP notables such as Tevfik Rüştü Aras, Mithat Şükrü Bleda, Hüseyin Cahit Yalçın or Mustafa Rahmi Arslan and military commanders such as the Generals of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus Nuri Killigil and Mürsel Pasha and Halil Kut a military officer of the Ottoman Army in the Eastern front. Following the occupation of Smyrna by the Greek forces in May 1919, large manifestations in protest occurred on the Anatolian mainland raising pressure upon the courts martial. The judges then ordered the release of 41 suspects in order to calm the situation. The release was not what the allied forces had in mind, causing them to consider a better detention facility than the Bekirağa military prison, well aware that the prison might be captured by the protestors and its prisoners released.{{Cite journal|last=Dadrian|first=Vahakn N.|date=1991|title=The Documentation of the World War I Armenian Massacres in the Proceedings of the Turkish Military Tribunal|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=23|issue=4|pages=554–555|doi=10.1017/S0020743800023412|jstor=163884|issn=0020-7438|doi-access=free}} After this release the prisoners deported to Malta.Klaus-Detlev Grothusen:"Türkei", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985

The prisoners were deported to Malta on board of SS Princess Ena Malta and {{HMS|Benbow|1913|6}} starting in 1919, where they were believed to be held for some three years while searches were made in the archives of Constantinople, London, Paris and Washington to find a way to prosecute them.{{cite book|last=Detlev Grothusen|first=Klaus|title=Die Türkei in Europa: Beiträge des Südosteuropa-arbeitskreises der…|publisher=Berghahn Books|year=197|page=35|language=de|author-link=Klaus Detlev Grothusen}} Most of the prisoners were held for three years on Malta.

Initially, the Allied Government sent sixty-seven war criminals to Malta in a prosecution attempt coordinated by the British forces. Later, more suspects followed. The prisoners were secluded in three different groups.{{Cite book|last1=Üngör|first1=Uğur Ümit|title=Confiscation and Destruction: The Young Turk Seizure of Armenian Property|last2=Polatel|first2=Mehmet|date=2011-08-11|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=978-1-4411-3578-0|page=153}}

• A: for people suspected of having taken part in massacres
• B: for people suspected of having tolerated massacres
• C: for people who were not suspected of having taken direct action in massacres

Those exiled included people unrelated to war crimes such as historian Adnan Adıvar, pharmacist Mehmet Eczacıbaşı, journalists Velid Ebüziyya, Yunus Nadi Abalıoğlu, Minister of Education Ahmet Sükrü Bey and Ziya Gökalp, showing the Malta Exiles were focused on purging Turkish intellectuals who would support the Kemalist forces in spite of the Ottoman cooperation with the Allied Government.{{Cite journal |last=Grassi |first=Fabio L. |date=2015-01-01 |title=The Turkish Intellectuals and the Great War |url=https://www.academia.edu/21882407 |journal=Antonello Biagini / Giovanna Motta (Eds.), the Great War. Analysis and Interpretation, Newcastle, Cambridge Scholars Publishing}}{{Cite book |last=Criss |first=N. B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SpofCsEZ0lkC&dq=malta+exiles+turkish+intellectuals&pg=PR7 |title=Istanbul Under Allied Occupation, 1918-1923 |date=1999-01-01 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-11259-9}}{{Cite book |last=Parla |first=Taha |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=63weAAAAIAAJ&dq=malta+exiles+turkish+intellectuals&pg=PP9 |title=The Social and Political Thought of Ziya Gökalp: 1876-1924 |date=1985-01-01 |publisher=BRILL |isbn=978-90-04-07229-9}}

At that time, the Turks had two competing governments, one based in Constantinople, the ancient capital of the Ottoman Empire now under Allied (mostly British) occupation, the other was based in Ankara, deep in the interior and away from Allied forces. The Constantinople government supported the inquiries with more or less seriousness depending on the current government. Nominally headed by the Sultan, the Turkish government based in Constantinople was politically the same state that had surrendered to the Allies at the end of WWI, accepting humiliating terms that included ceding or accepting the occupation of most of what had been the Ottoman Empire, including western Anatolia and complying with the exile of Turkish intellectuals to Malta.

These circumstances sparked a nationalist backlash, leading a clique of Army officers commanding the remnants the Ottoman Army to form a rival independent government based in Ankara. This Kemalist Government was pro-western in overall outlook and did not seek to re-establish the Ottoman Empire but rejected the humiliating terms of surrender agreed too by Constantinople, including the surrender of the Malta exiles.{{Cite journal |last=Sancaktar |first=Mehmet Fatih |date=2014 |title=Milli Mücadele'nin Farklı Bir Yüzü: Malta Sürgünleri (Ocak 1919 – Ekim 1921) |url=https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=142730 |journal=Asia Minor Studies|issue=3 |pages=63–81 |doi=10.17067/ams.20224 |issn=2147-1673|url-access=subscription }} While grand vizir Damad Ferid Pasha (4 March - 2 October 1919, and again 5 April - 21 October 1920) stood behind the prosecuting body, the government of grand vizir Ali Riza Pasha (2 October 1919 - 2 March 1920) barely mentioned legal proceedings against the war criminals.Taner Akçam: A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Metropolitan Books, New York 2006 {{ISBN|978-0-8050-7932-6}}, p. 296 The trials enabled the Freedom and Accord Party to expel the Committee of Union and Progress from the political arena.Klaus-Detlev Grothusen:"Türkei", Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985, page 35

The Kemalist Ankara Government was strictly opposed to trials against the Malta exiles and their portrayal as criminals for opposing the occupation of Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal reasoned about the detainees in Malta on the occasion of the congress in Sivas on the 4 September 1919: "...should any of the detainees either already brought or yet to be brought to Istanbul be executed, even at the order of the vile Istanbul government, we would seriously consider executing all British prisoners in our custody." From February 1921 the military court in Istanbul begun releasing prisoners without trials.Spencer, Robert F. "Culture Process and Intellectual Current: Durkheim and Atatürk 1." American Anthropologist 60.4 (1958): 640-657.{{Cite journal |last=Teti̇k |first=Ahmet |date=2004-03-01 |title=Exiled Letters from Malta |url=https://dergipark.org.tr/en/pub/aamd/issue/53354/703396 |journal=Ataturk Research Center Magazine |language=tr |volume=20 |issue=58 |pages=83–104 |doi=10.33419/aamd.703396 |s2cid=216163775 |issn=1011-727X|doi-access=free}}Taner Akçam: A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility, Metropolitan Books, New York 2006 {{ISBN|978-0-8050-7932-6}}, p. 354

The exiled later returned to Turkey in stages during 1921–1922. The release of the Turkish detainees in Malta was accomplished in exchange for 22 British prisoners held by Mustafa Kemal{{cite book |last=Bonello |first=Giovanni |author-link=Giovanni Bonello |title=Histories of Malta - Confessions and Transgressions, Vol.9 |publisher=Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti |year=2008 |url=http://www.patrimonju.org/content.aspx?id=130889&subId=114434 |isbn=978-99932-7-224-3 |access-date=2015-03-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180710011057/http://www.patrimonju.org/content.aspx?id=130889&subId=114434 |archive-date=2018-07-10 |url-status=dead}}[http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2012-04-19/news/turkeys-eu-minister-judge-giovanni-bonello-and-the-armenian-genocide-claim-about-malta-trials-is-nonsense-308828/ Turkey’s EU Minister, Judge Giovanni Bonello And the Armenian Genocide - ‘Claim about Malta Trials is nonsense’]. The Malta Independent. 19 April 2012. Retrieved 10 August 2013 amongst which figured Alfred Rawlinson, a relative of the British General Henry Rawlinson.{{Cite book|last=Zürcher|first=Erik J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P7qKDwAAQBAJ&q=Kemal+atat%C3%BCrk+took+british+hostages+rawlinson&pg=PA379|title=Turkey: A Modern History|date=2017-12-21|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|isbn=978-1-78673-183-8|page=379|author-link=Erik-Jan Zürcher}} Several of the Malta Exiles then joined the Turkish Nationalist Movement around Mustafa Kemal in Ankara.{{Cite book|last=Göçek|first=Fatma Müge|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xHcRDAAAQBAJ&dq=ali+cenani&pg=PA613|title=Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789-2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2015|isbn=978-0-19-933420-9|page=364|author-link=Fatma Müge Göçek}}

• Simsir, B. Malta Surgunleri (The Malta Exiles). Istanbul, 1976.
• {{cite book

| last = Ata

| first = Ferudun

| title = The Relocation Trials in Occupied Istanbul

| place = Offenbach am Main

| publisher = Manzara Verlag

| year = 2018

| page = 357

| isbn = 9783939795926}}

• {{cite book

| last = Uluç

| first = Gürkan

| title = Understanding the Armenian Question: Malta Tribunal (1919-1921)

| place = Offenbach am Main

| publisher = Manzara Verlag

| year = 2024

| page = 304

| isbn = 9783911130004}}

{{reflist}}

{{Turkish War of Independence}}

{{International criminal law}}

Category:Politics of the Turkish War of Independence

Exiles

Category:1919 in Malta

Category:1920 in Malta