Defending Turkey on Global Stages: The Young Turk Reşit Saffet’s Internationalist Strategy in 1919

Liebisch Carolin ()
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Liebisch Carolin: Cluster Asia and Europe, Heidelberg University, Voßstr. 2, Bd 4400, 69115 Heidelberg, Germany

New Global Studies, 2016, vol. 10, issue 3, 217-251

Abstract: The article investigates the internationalist activities of a Turkish nationalist during his Swiss exile at the outset of the postwar settlements in early 1919. Reşit Saffet, a devoted Young Turk and Ottoman diplomat on leave, moved in the internationalist milieus in Berne while his agenda remained utterly nationalist. Drawing on pan-Turkic, pan-Islamic, anti-imperialist, socialist, and Wilsonian ideas, he adapted his rhetoric to the internationalist conferences he attended; he thus sought to disguise and to defend his otherwise discredited nationalist cause on these global stages. The article traces Reşit Saffet’s internationalist activities as a strategy to engage with the ‘Paris moment’ and the Ottoman question beyond official politics and governmental discourse. In a time when Ottoman diplomacy was in deadlock as a result of the Empire’s exclusion from the peace conference and Reşit Saffet’s career faced an unknown future in the face of the Ottoman collapse, internationalism seemed a promising option. The case illustrates the increasingly blurred border between state diplomacy and non-governmental influence, and thus questions exclusively state-centered approaches. It reveals the appeal and potential held by civil society internationalism, not only for Western pacifists and socialists, but also for anti-imperialist nationalists confronted with the disappointment of the ‘Wilsonian moment’.

Keywords: Paris Peace Conference; internationalism; League of Nations; Second International; Ottoman Empire; pan-Turkism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
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DOI: 10.1515/ngs-2016-0022

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