Kurdish Nationalism: 1830-1930

Nevertheless, all of Kemal’s measures considered, according to the A.R.F. central organ “Droshak” within only two months– end of March 1925– Kurdish rebel forces had occupied almost all of the twelve districts constituting Turkish Kurdistan. (67)

Kemal and his government could not envisage such a Kurdish victory. A Turkish army of eighty thousand men was deployed within the areas engulfed by the rebellion. Moreover, with the permission of French authorities in Syria, the Northern Syrian railroad was utilized to transport new Turkish infantry regiments to Kurdistan. Soon, these two Turkish armies besieged the mountainous town of Diarbekir. They shelled it day and night until it fell in April 1925. Most of the Kurdish rebels were either murdered or captured. Others, however, still managed to escape and to seek refuge with the Kurdish tribes of Iran and Iraq.

After the Turkish seizure of Diarbekir, atrocities began to multiply in the Kurdish territories. On September 4, 1925, the government hanged the rebel Sheik Said Ali and fifty-two of his followers. Thousands of Kurds were massacred, and scores of towns and villages were pillaged and reduced to ashes. Not content with these measures, the Turkish government instituted yet a new court martial that after only short and staged trials condemned hundreds of Kurdish rebels to death.

It took the Turkish army months, even years to cleanse the rebel areas and to cut all supply and communication lines between the rebels. Turkish Kurdistan was put under military rule. Deportation measures were reintroduced to uproot Kurdistan from its original inhabitants. Kurds were relocated to eliminate all fears of future rebellions.

Kurds had to fight for their existence. To do so they had only their rifles and their mountains with which to continue the uneven battle. Sasuni writes that: –

“Now Kurds had finally realized that the Turks were after them for good. They were no more the victims of Turkish lies. The Kurdish National Revolution had acquired a general character. Internal conflicts and personal enmities were all forgotten in the face of Turkish danger. The notion of a united Kurdish national organization was spreading quickly into every corner of Kurdistan. The Turkish brutality indirectly helped in the development of this new spirit. Thus, every Kurd realized that unity was a necessity rather than a tactic or a political maneuver.” (68)

During the last stages of Sheik Said Ali’s Rebellion, some Kurdish rebels had escaped to Iran and Iraq. From, there they reentered Kurdistan in small groups and gathered in the region of Ararat which seemed to be the final refuge–and also the new center of rebellion– for all Kurdish freedom fighters.