Depiction of the enemy: Ottoman propaganda books in the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913

Abstract

The loss of the Rumelia in the Balkan Wars was perceived as a catastrophe by the Ottomans. Thousands of people lost their homelands and immigrated to Anatolia after overwhelming military defeat. Various actions such as public meetings, demonstrations and publications were taken in order to mobilize society and recruit volunteers against the Balkan states. In this thesis, my aim is to focus on the books which were published during the Balkan Wars. During and just after the Balkan Wars, numerous books were published in different categories, such as books writtenby Ottoman and German officers in the Ottoman army and by observers including free-lance writers, about the reasons of military defeats. Another category of published books was composed of the impressions of journalists from various countries about the home front. The third category, with which I deal in this thesis, was the so-called propaganda books that showed the “cruelties” and “atrocities” of the Balkan states, particularly Bulgaria. Three of these books are titled as follows: Âlâm-i İslâm: Bulgar Vahşetleri (Sorrows of Islam: Bulgarian Cruelties), edited and published in 1912; Âlâm-i İslam: Rumeli Mezalimi ve Bulgar Vahşetleri (Sorrows of Islam: Atrocities in Rumelia and Bulgarian Cruelties), edited and published in 1913; and Kırmızı Siyah Kitâb, 1328 Fecâyii (The Red Black Book, the Disasters of 1328), edited and published in 1913 by Ahmed Cevad (later on Ahmed Cevad Emre). These books emphasized the theme of “revenge” in order to mobilize the Muslim Ottomans. Through the photographs and drawings in the books, it was possible to reach illiterates as well. Moreover, these pictures depicted an image of the “savage enemy”,or example, Bulgarians who burned down mosques or Serbs and Montenegrins who harassed innocent women and children. The fact that these books were printed only once and were never published again after the