Topal Osman
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Topal_Osman_Agha.jpg/200px-Topal_Osman_Agha.jpg)
Hacı Topal Osman[a] Ağa (1883 – 2 April 1923) was an Ottoman officer, a militia leader of the National Forces, a lieutenant colonel of the Turkish army during the Turkish War of Independence, and perpetrator of the Armenian genocide and Pontic genocide.[1][2]
He was the commander of Mustafa Kemal's special Bodyguard Regiment. He showed usefulness in the War of Independence, and in 1923, when it was decided that he was the instigator of Trabzon Deputy 's murder, he was detained. He was captured and injured during the clashes, but he was killed by İsmail Hakkı Tekçe.[3]
Early life and Balkan Wars[]
He was born in Giresun in 1883. He is of Chepni origin.[4] His father is Feridûnzâde Hacı Mehmet Efendi, a hazelnut merchant. In his youth he helped with the family business, became a partner in a sawmill. He married and had two sons.[5] Despite his father paying his military service price, he refused to stay and joined the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars with his 65 friends. They fought in Çorlu. A Bulgarian cannonball wounded him from his kneecap during the war, making him lame (Turkish: topal).[6]
World War I[]
While still limping, Osman Ağa joined the World War I with his 93 friends, joined by 6 prisoners in Trabzon. They charged to Russian army, causing many casualties for Russians but also death of 6 friends of Osman Ağa. During the war, he caught typhoid, leading him return to Giresun. After recovering, he went back to fight. He joined the 37th Division in Bayburt, which retreated to Harşit eventually. Russians couldn't go any further. Osman Ağa returned to Giresun to recruit more soldiers and went back to fight with 1500 young voluntaries. After the October Revolution took place, Russians withdrew from the battle, leading the Turks to reconquer Batum. Osman Ağa's battalion was the first one to enter Batum.[7]
Armenian and Greek genocides[]
Topal Osman was known to have been responsible for massacres against Armenians and Greeks during the Ottoman civil war in the Pontus region where he was stationed during World War I.[8][3][9][10][11] While in Trabzon, Osman made a name for himself in the spring of 1915 as commander of a squadron of gangs.[12] Osman, along with and , was known to have partaken in the drowning and massacres of the local Armenian population.[13] During this time, Osman had also profiteered from the confiscation of assets and property belonging to the Armenians.[9]
In 1916, Osman and a band of men attacked a Pontian Greek farming village, named Prossori, in Trebizond Vilayet. The men raped village women, killed young men, stole what they wanted from the houses, and beat a priest to death. On threat of death, the villagers had to sign a document saying that the attackers were Armenian.[14]
Osman made similar attacks on Pontian Greeks after the war. In 1920, he and his men imprisoned all the Christian men of Giresun and held them for ransom. They raped the Christian women while their husbands and fathers were imprisoned. Every evening, Osman's team killed five or six prisoners.[15]
In Çarşamba in 1921, Turks rounded up the Christian women. The majority were sent on a death march, while a selected minority of "good-looking women...were being held for the pleasure of the troops under Osman Ağa," according to an American observer serving aboard the USS Overton.[16] Such attacks by Osman and his men were overt and frequent. An American serving aboard the USS Williamson spoke to a local man, who said that "what had happened made him ashamed to be a Turk."[16] In Merzifon that same year, Osman and his men broke into Christian's houses at night, raping, killing, or kidnapping the inhabitants. They also stole what they wanted from the townspeople. Many Christians took shelter in the local French school; Osman's brigands abducted and raped the women and girls, killed the men and boys, and later burned the school. Osman's band abducted many women and girls as they left the town. Some Turkish townspeople took part in the attacks, while those sympathetic to their Christian neighbors found themselves unable to stop the slaughter.[17] Osman later traveled to Trebizond and began robbing houses, but was driven off by a Turkish gangster called Yahya.[3]
Again in 1921, Topal Osman and his men traveled to Giresun and nearby Tirebolu. The same pattern repeated: They killed or deported the majority of local Pontian Greeks, but selected some women and girls for the troops' use.[18]
In 1922, Osman led his men to Ordu. Few Christian men remained, but many women and children did. Osman and his men picked the women and girls they wanted from the crowd. They forced all the other Christians into two buildings, which they set on fire. Osman and his men raped the selected women throughout the night, then "butchered" them the next day. Osman's men did the same in nine nearby villages.[19]
Turkish War of Independence[]
As the mayor of Giresun[]
After the First World War, Topal Osman Ağa continued his operations in the Black Sea region, this time targeting rebellious Christian Pontic Greeks during the Turkish War of Independence.
Osman Ağa declared himself mayor of Giresun in order to fight the Pontic paramilitary forces more easily. He wasn't prevented by anybody, as he was believed to be the only one who could protect Turks against these bands.[20]
An Association for Defence of National Rights was formed in Giresun. On 27 May 1919, a death sentence issued for Topal Osman by the Ottoman government. He escaped for a while. While Osman Ağa was escaping, he ordered a meeting to be arranged in Giresun to protest the Occupation of İzmir. He met Mustafa Kemal in Havza. Mustafa Kemal ordered Osman Ağa to fight Pontic bands no matter what the Ottoman government orders. The death sentence abolished on 8 July 1919.
Osman Ağa's first notable act was tearing apart and walking over the Pontic flag raised by Pontic bands while he was escaping from Ottoman government. He executed the Greek man who raised the Pontic flag, as well as one of his collaborators. He continued his acts by raiding the Greek cinema for insulting Turks inside, attacking Mavridi Mansion to destroy the "Haçika gang", preventing Pontic irregulars coming from various places, including Batum and Ukraine, from entering Giresun. He made Coast Guards more organized to prevent other Pontics to enter.
An assassination attempt against him was plotted by pro-Ottoman governor Badi Nedim, but Osman Ağa learned about this plan and had him out from Giresun. Later, Badi Nedim was dismissed.
Osman Ağa's activities included preventing the citizens from throwing away trash to keep the city clean, forbidding alcohol and prostitution, founding a worker's quarry to help orphans and bringing electricity to some parts of the city. He was quite harsh towards prostitutes. He cut their hair off and forced them to leave Giresun. Those who couldn't would drown in the sea.
In January 1920, Osman Ağa started publishing the newspaper Gedikkaya.
In February 1920, six British battle ships came close to Giresun, but prevented by Osman Ağa from landing. British commander invited him to ship to meet, but Osman Ağa understood that it was a trap and didn't go. British ships went off after a British soldier attacking a girl and getting wounded by his foot.
In March 1920, Osman Ağa captured a powerboat coming from Greece and took everything inside; which was 1800 Turkish liras, 700 Russian slivers, 600 American dollars and 400 jerry cans. All of these were sent to Association for Defence of National Rights. The powerboat was used during the Turkish War of Independence. He later executed a pro-Pontic agency clerk named Yorgi as well as two Greek doctors who malpracticed Turkish patients. He arranged a meeting and after the meeting; he, along with the people who joined the meeting, forced the Greek metropolitan to pray for Turks. Later, a postman named Atmacidi was also executed for spreading Greek propaganda.
He took part of shipping weapons from Soviet Union and sending these to the Western Front. He sold hazelnut and wine to Soviets and bought weapons from them.
He sent a battalion, consisting of 1050 men from Ordu, Giresun, Görele, Tirebolu and Akçaabat, to Eastern Front but the battalion joined at the end of the fight. Nevertheless, the battalion stayed there for 4 months, ultimately to return to their home in January 1921.[21]
According to non-Turkish reporters and historians, he was cruel towards Greek civilians as well. According to Mustafa Kemal's recent biographer Robert Shenk of the US Naval Institute, Topal Osman was a sadistic ethnic cleanser of Armenians and Greeks."[22] Osman along with his militia forces, were responsible for massacres, deportations, destruction and confiscation of property, extortion, rapes and other atrocities throughout this region including the cities, towns and villages of Samsun, Marsovan, Giresun, Tirebolu, Unye, Havza and Bulancak.[23] He was however refused arms and cooperation by the government and inhabitants of Trabzon, where multicultural pro-Ottoman ideals were stronger due to inter-ethnic and religious family ties. Out of anger for this refusal, Topal Osman sacked some houses in a Christian neighborhood before being forced out of the city by armed Turkish port workers and officials. Together with his (alleged) subsequent murder of Trabzon deputy Ali Şükrü Bey (leader of the first Turkish opposition party) this led to long standing animosity between the nationalist government of Mustafa Kemal and the population of Trabzon.[24]
Foreign correspondents accused him as the principal organizer of the persecution against the Greeks at the Pontus region and also that he made a great fortune from the plundering of the churches.[25][26]
Guard platoon of Mustafa Kemal[]
Since there were no forces to protect the Grand National Assembly in Ankara, Ali Şükrü suggested formation of a guard platoon, which was accepted. Mustafa Kemal invited Topal Osman to Ankara. While in road, Osman Ağa destroyed a Greek band in Gerze and made another flee in İnebolu. Mustafa Kemal took 10 men from Osman Ağa to protect him. These guards prevented two assassinations against Mustafa Kemal, both carried by Çerkez Ethem. The guards were replaced by 20 new guards. Çerkez Ethem attempted a third assassination, which was prevented by these guards as well as Osman Ağa himself. Osman Ağa planned to kill Ethem later but was stopped by Kılıç Ali, who said to Osman Ağa that Mustafa Kemal wouldn't like it. Later, he met with and helped , who was also a militia leader in the Black Sea region, mainly active in Rize. Another guard unit of 100 men were sent to Mustafa Kemal by Topal Osman.[27]
42nd and 47th Giresun Volunteers Regiments[]
Topal Osman, upon the order he received from Ankara, left the command of the guard unit to Gümüşreisoğlu Mustafa Kaptan in 1921 and went to Giresun. He formed two regiments consisting of volunteers. Volunteers also took part in the suppression of the Koçgiri Rebellion in March–April 1921. During the rebellion, the regiment commanded by Osman Ağa was named 47th Regiment and the other regiment, commanded by , was named 42nd Regiment.
He commanded the 47th Regiment during the Battle of the Sakarya. On his way, Osman Ağa and his regiment fought with Greek bands in Erbaa, Çakallı and Bafra. Osman Ağa's regiment was ambushed by Pontic bands in Havza and Merzifon, but ultimately destroyed by the regiment. During the war, almost all of the 42nd Regiment, consisting of 2000[citation needed] people, lost their lives, including the commander Hüseyin Avni Alparslan. About 80–90 soldiers survived from the 42nd Regiment, who merged with 58th Regiment. 47th Regiment was ordered to capture a hill the army couldn't, but they didn't even have bayonets since they wore their traditional clothes. 47th Regiment attacked with their knives and succeeded to throw back Greeks, but sixty percent of them died. After the victory, Osman Ağa was honored with the rank of lieutenant colonel and the Medal of Independence.
Topal Osman joined the Great Offensive as the commander of the 47th Regiment, which was reinforced after the Battle of Sakarya. His forces captured a front, which Greeks claimed Turks couldn't capture even in 7 years, in 2 days. 14 soldiers died from the 47th Regiment. His forces entered Manisa, Turgutlu, Akhisar, Kırkağaç, Soma, Ayvalık and Edremit respectively. In Ayvalık, all Greek men between age 15–45 were sent as Amele Taburları to İvrindi. Almost all of them ending up dying.[28] 47th Regiment later went to Balıkesir, where Osman Ağa, with help of local civilians, executed Greek bands for tormenting Turks there, no matter their age, as well as raping young girls.[29] 47th Regiment eventually returned to Salihli. Osman Ağa stayed in Istanbul for a while, where a failed assassination attempt committed against him. On his way to Giresun, he burned 3 Pontic rebels to death. He was greeted with great enthusiasm in his hometown Giresun, when he returned on 21 December 1922.[30]
Later life and death[]
Osman Ağa was invited to Rize to the opening of a secondary school. After the opening is over and he returned to Giresun, he went to Ankara after he got a telegram. Osman got the information by Mustafa Kaptan that in the Grand National Assembly, there were heated discussions about the Lausanne Conference and Ali Şükrü was opposing Mustafa Kemal. Osman Ağa said he will talk to Ali Şükrü and persuade him to give up his opposition.[31]
Murder of Ali Şükrü Bey[]
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He was held responsible for the murder of deputy Çankaya ridges on 1 April, an arrest warrant was issued for him. Mustafa Kaptan took Ali Şükrü from Kuyulu Kahve to Osman Ağa's house. Rauf Orbay, in his memoirs, claimed that Mustafa Kaptan confessed Ali Şükrü was murdered in Osman Ağa's house. However, during the trial, Kaptan said he knows nothing about the murder. A witness claimed she heard sounds of begging and screaming. Osman Ağa said to her that his two men were drunk and he punished them by beating. Kaptan and other guards from Giresun were released since there wasn't enough evidence.[32]
, who suddenly disappeared on 27 March 1923 in Ankara. After the body was found in the vicinity of Mühye village on theMany have claimed that Topal Osman's men killed Ali Şükrü. The government also concluded that it was him. However, historian Ümit Doğan argues that it is not possible, because the murder is too amateur for him, and also because of the close friendship between Osman and Ali Şükrü grown during and after Battle of Sakarya. Doğan also claims that İsmail Hakkı Tekçe possibly killed him and left it on Topal Osman, as he did before in the murder of Yahya Kahya, which was stayed on Topal Osman until Tekçe's confession close to his death. Ali Şükrü's son Nuha Doruker as well claimed that it wasn't Topal Osman who killed his father.[33]
Death[]
![Mausoleum overlooking the Black Sea with flag of Turkey flying nearby](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e8/Yarbay_Osman_A%C4%9Fa_An%C4%B1t_mezar%C4%B1_%28mausoleum%29_-_panoramio.jpg/220px-Yarbay_Osman_A%C4%9Fa_An%C4%B1t_mezar%C4%B1_%28mausoleum%29_-_panoramio.jpg)
Topal Osman and his men, who were trapped in his house in Priest's Bound on the night of 1 April 1923, by the newly formed guard unit, clashed all night. Topal Osman was captured wounded.[34] Later that day, under İsmail Hakkı's orders, he was executed by a shot to the head.[35] Some claimed İsmail Hakkı cut Osman's head off but this is not true, as on the newspaper Tevhid-i Efkâr, 4 April 1923, it was written that Osman's head was leaned to back.[36]
On 2 April, at the insistence of the "Second Group", his body was dug up and hung at the gate of the parliament building (today War of Independence Museum) for exhibition to the public.[37] According to some sources, his decapitated corpse was hung in the Ulus Square.[38][39] His body was buried on the top of Giresun Castle by the order of Atatürk in 1925, where he still rests.[40][41]
Legacy[]
Toktamış Ateş of Istanbul University claims that former Prime Minister Tansu Çiller had once promised to open a university in Topal's name.[42]
A statue of him was erected in his home town of Giresun in 2007.
Notes[]
- ^ en. Lame Osman
References[]
- ^ "Ağa, Topal Osman". Violence de masse et Résistance (in French). Sciences Po. 9 December 2015. Retrieved 15 April 2021.
- ^ "Topal Osman". www.biyografya.com. Retrieved 19 July 2021.
- ^ Jump up to: a b c Clark, Bruce (2006). Twice a stranger : the mass expulsion that forged modern Greece and Turkey. Cambridge (Massachusetts): Harvard University Press. p. 113. ISBN 0674023684.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 19. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ "Giresun Postası". www.giresunpostasi.net. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 20-21. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 24-29. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Fatma Müge Göçek (2016). Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present, and Collective Violence Against the Armenians, 1789-2009. Oxford University Press. p. 335. ISBN 9780190624583.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Gawrych, George W. (2013). The Young Atatürk: From Ottoman Soldier to Statesman of Turkey. I.B.Tauris. p. 180. ISBN 978-0857733276.
- ^ Gerlach, Christian (2010). Extremely Violent Societies: Mass Violence in the Twentieth-Century World. Cambridge University Press. p. 118. ISBN 978-1139493512.
- ^ Jerjian, George (2003). The truth will set us free: Armenians and Turks reconciled. GJ Communication. p. 26. ISBN 9780954459901.
- ^ Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, I.B.Tauris, 2011, ISBN 9781848855618, p. 221.
- ^ Raymond Kévorkian, The Armenian Genocide: A Complete History, I.B.Tauris, 2011, ISBN 9781848855618, p. 486.
- ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 390. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 401. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Jump up to: a b Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 409. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 412. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 413. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Morris, Benny; Ze'evi, Dror (2019). The Thirty-Year Genocide. Harvard University Press. p. 416. ISBN 9780674916456.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 47. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 44-123. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Shenk, R. America's Black Sea Fleet: The U.S. Navy Amidst War and Revolution, 1919–1921". Naval Institute Press 2012. 50–51
- ^ Black Book: The Tragedy of Pontus, The Central Council of Pontus, Athens 1922, 20–21
- ^ Twice a Stranger: The Mass Expulsions that Forged Modern Greece and Turkey, p.112-116 Bruce Clark, 2006, Harvard University Press.
- ^ "Osman's career". Kalgoorlie Miner. 29 (7430). Western Australia. 5 April 1923. p. 5. Retrieved 20 February 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ "The Turk at Work". The West Australian. XXXVIII (6, 153). Western Australia. 6 January 1922. p. 9. Retrieved 20 February 2021 – via National Library of Australia.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 102-164. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Elias Venezis (2006). González Rincón, Manuel (ed.). Number 31328: The Book of Slavery (in Spanish). Universidad de Sevilla. p. 12. ISBN 9788447210565.
From Ayvalik town, there were three thousand prisoners heading to the interior. At the end of 1923, once the armistice was signed, and with the consequent population exchange, only twenty-three of those three thousand prisoners came back alive.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 237. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 165-246. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 246-247. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 263-295. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 295-297. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ "PONTUS: Antikçağ'dan Günümüze Karadeniz'in Etnik ve Siyasi Tarihi". 1 June 2013. Archived from the original on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 17 July 2021.
- ^ "1923 Timeline". Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 312-313. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Ergün Aybars, İstiklâl Mahkemeleri: 1923–1927, Kültür ve Türizm Bakanlığı, 1982, p. 14. (in Turkish)
- ^ Uğur Mumcu, Kürt-İslam Ayaklanması, 1919–1925, Tekin Yayınevi, 1991, p. 194. (in Turkish)
- ^ Vahakn N. Dadrian, Taner Akçam, Tehcir ve Taktil: Divan-ı Harb-i Örfî Zabıtları İttihad ve Terakki'nin Yargılanması: 1919–1922, p. 214. (in Turkish)
- ^ Teoman Alpaslan, Topal Osman Ağa efsanesi, Kum Saati Publishing, 2007.[page needed]
- ^ Doğan, Ümit (2014). Mustafa Kemal'in Muhafızı Topal Osman. Kripto Kitaplar. p. 287. ISBN 9786054991143.
- ^ Ateş, Toktamış (15 June 2006). "Topal Osman ya da Osman Ağa". Bugün (in Turkish). Archived from the original on 6 December 2008. Retrieved 4 September 2008.
Sayın Tansu Çiller başbakanken, Giresun'a bir 'Topal Osman Üniversitesi' vadetmesi, doğrusu canımı çok sıkmıştı.
External links[]
- 1883 births
- 1923 deaths
- People from Giresun
- People from Trebizond Vilayet
- Ottoman military personnel of the Balkan Wars
- Ottoman people of World War I
- Armenian genocide perpetrators
- Turkish militia officers
- Turkish people of the Turkish War of Independence
- Members of Kuva-yi Milliye
- Greek genocide
- Deaths by firearm in Turkey