Refet Bele

Refet Bele (1881[2] – 3 October 1963), also known as Refet Bey[3][4][5] or Refet Pasha was a Turkish military commander. He served in the Ottoman Army and the Turkish Army, where he retired as a general.

Refet Bele
1314-P. 39[1]
Born1881 (1881)
Selanik, Ottoman Empire
Died3 October 1963(1963-10-03) (aged 81–82)
Istanbul, Turkey
Buried
Zincirlikuyu Mezarlığı
State Cemetery
Allegiance Ottoman Empire
 Turkey
Years of serviceOttoman Empire: 1899–1919
Turkey: 13 July 1919 – 8 December 1926
RankMajor general
Commands heldDivision of the intelligence of the headquarters of the Fourth Army, 10th Division, 3rd Division, 11th Division, Inspector of the Rear Area of Jerusalem, 53rd Division, XXII Corps (deputy), XX Corps, Gendarmerie General Command, III Corps
Minister of the Interior, Southern Part of the Western Front, Minister of Interior, Minister of National Defense, Representative of the TBMM government in Istanbul
Battles/warsItalo Turkish war Balkan Wars
First World War
War of Independence
Other workMember of the GNAT (Izmir)
Member of the GNAT (Istanbul)

Life

He was born to a Turkish family in Selanik in 1881. He took the surname Bele because of his grandfather who was originally from Byala/Bele, Bulgaria. Because of the troubles in the Balkans his family moved first to Istanbul but settled later back to Thessaloniki when he was an infant. He studied in the Ottoman Military College, enrolled in the army and became a member of the Committee of Union and Progress. He took part in the Italo-Turkish War (1911) and then in the First Balkan War (1912–1913) in which his hometown was lost to the Greeks.

He took part in World War I where he fought in the rank of a Lieutenant Colonel under the command of Kress von Kressenstein in the Battle of Romani where the Ottoman forces were defeated.[6] In the Palestine front and during the Second battle of Gaza he served with distinction. First refusing a surrender and then successfully organizing the withdrawal of the Ottoman and German forces with their weaponry.[7] Nevertheless, Bele was blamed together with Ismet (Inönü) for the defeat of the Ottomans by Erich Von Falkenhayn.[8] After the British advance in 1918 he was cut off by his troops but managed to reach the Ottoman base at Tyre 75 miles north, after traveling one week through British lines.[9] He did not speak English but because he moved at night and responded to questions with saluting and riding on a walk he avoided being captured.[9] He returned to Istanbul after the Armistice of Mudros in 1918.

While in Istanbul, most of Anatolia began to be occupied by foreign powers, the Greeks landed at İzmir in 1919. In response to the occupation he decided to join the Turkish nationalist movement and crossed over to Anatolia to organize resistance and join the Turkish War of Independence which was being led by Atatürk. He took part in the Amasya Circular of 1919 and then also in the Erzurum Congress, Alaşehir Congress and Sivas Congress. He later served as minister and later as commander at the Western Front against the Greek armies. He put down several local revolts against the Ankara government. However he had several political disputes with Atatürk and became out of favor. He was tried in court but acquitted of the attempted assassination of Atatürk in 1926. In 1926 he retired from the army and parliament deputy. In his later life he took several different occupations including a second deputy time. He died in Istanbul in 1963.

Accusations

Austrian consul of Samsun claimed that a certain "Rafet Bey" supposedly stated “We must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians… today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight…” There is no evidence that this really happened and there is no evidence that "Rafet Bey" is connected to Refet Bele.[10]

See also

Sources
  1. T.C. Genelkurmay Harp Tarihi Başkanlığı Yayınları, Türk İstiklâl Harbine Katılan Tümen ve Daha Üst Kademelerdeki Komutanların Biyografileri, Genkurmay Başkanlığı Basımevi, Ankara, 1972, p. 91. (in Turkish)
  2. Smith, Elaine Diana (1959). "Turkey: Origins of the Kemalist Movement and the Government of the Grand National Assembly, 1919-1923".
  3. Sonyel, Salahi Ramadan (2008). Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) ve Kurtuluş Savaşı: yeni belgelerle, 1918-1923, Volume 1. Türk Tarih Kurumu. p. 296. ISBN 9789751620118. Rafet (Refet) Bey
  4. Great Britain. Foreign Office, Sir Ernest Llewellyn Woodward (1970). Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919-1939. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 528. Refet Pasha is the most powerful personality in Mustapha Kemal's government and has complete control over Mustapha Kemal himself.
  5. Sami, Böcüzade Süleyman (1983). Kuruluşundan bugüne kadar Isparta tarihi. Serenler Yayını. p. xxx. Rafet Bey (= General Rafet Bele).
  6. Uyar, Mesut (2020-12-30). The Ottoman Army and the First World War. Routledge. pp. 228–231. ISBN 978-0-367-47177-4.
  7. Uyar, Mesut (December 30, 2020), pp.320–321
  8. Uyar, Mesut (December 30, 2020), pp.324–325
  9. Falls, Cyril (2003). Armageddon, 1918: The Final Palestinian Campaign of World War I. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 54. ISBN 9780812218619.
  10. Midlarsky, Manus I (2005). The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century. Cambridge University Press. pp. 342–43. ISBN 978-0-521-81545-1. Under these conditions, genocide of the Ottoman Greeks simply was not a viable option. Many (Greeks), however, were massacred by the Turks, especially at Smyrna (today's İzmir) as the Greek army withdrew at the end of their headlong retreat from central Anatolia at the end of the Greco-Turkish War. Especially poorly treated were the Pontic Greeks in eastern Anatolia on the Black Sea. In 1920, as the Greek army advanced, many were deported to the Mesopotamian desert as had been the Armenians before them. Nevertheless, approximately 1,200,000 Ottoman Greek refugees arrived in Greece at the end of the war. When one adds to the total the Greeks of Constantinople who, by agreement, were not forced to flee, then the total number comes closer to the 1,500,000 Greeks in Anatolia and Thrace. Here, a strong distinction between intention and action is found. According to the Austrian consul at Amisos, Kwiatkowski, in his 30 November 1916 report to foreign minister Baron Burian: "on 26 November Rafet Bey told me: 'we must finish off the Greeks as we did with the Armenians…' on 28 November Rafet Bey told me: 'today I sent squads to the interior to kill every Greek on sight.' I fear for the elimination of the entire Greek population and a repeat of what occurred last year, Or according to a 31 January 1917 report by Chancellor Hollweg of Austria: the indications are that the Turks plan to eliminate the Greek element as enemies of the state, as they did earlier with the Armenians. The strategy implemented by the Turks is of displacing people to the interior without taking measures for their survival by exposing them to death, hunger, and illness. The abandoned homes are then looted and burnt or destroyed. Whatever was done to the Armenians is being repeated with the Greeks. Massacres most likely did take place at Amisos and other villages in Pontus. Yet given the large number of surviving Greeks, especially relative to the small number of Armenian survivors, the massacres apparently were restricted to Pontus, Smyrna, and selected other 'sensitive' regions.

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