Early Kurdish nationalism
Deaths and displacements occurred on a large scale among Kurdish civilians due to wartime conditions and deliberate ethnic cleansing policies.
The nationalist movement among the Kurds first emerged in the late 19th century with the uprising of Sheikh Ubeydullah, a Kurdish landowner and head of the powerful Şemdinan family.
In 1880, Ubeydullah demanded political autonomy or outright independence for Kurds and the recognition of a Kurdistan state separate from both the Ottoman Empire and Qajar Persia.
They worked with other Turks and Ottoman subjects who were in opposition to the policies of Sultan Abdul Hamid and in 1889 formed the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP).
Abdul Hamid responded with a policy of repression, but also of integration, co-opting prominent Kurdish opponents into the Ottoman power structure with prestigious positions in his government.
Educated Kurds, primarily from Istanbul, sought a political solution largely within the confines of the Ottoman Empire and one that did not rest solely on an ethnic basis.
[3] In the short time of its existence, the Kurd Society for Cooperation and Progress (Kürt Terraki ve Teavun Cemiyeti) was a leading force in supporting the Kurdish nation.
That same year, Said Nursi traveled through the Diyarbakir region and urged Kurds to unite and forget their differences, while still carefully claiming loyalty to the CUP.
During this time, the Badr Khans had been in contact with discontented Shaykhs and chieftains in the far east of Anatolia ranging to the Iranian border, more in the framework of secession, however.
The British vice-consul in Bitlis reported that "Could the Kurds combine against the government even in one province, the Turkish troops in their eastern part of Asia Minor would find it difficult to crush the revolt."
Elsewhere, members of the Badr Khan family held close relations with Russian officials and discussed their intentions to form an independent Kurdistan.
[7][9] Nevertheless, at this time the Ottoman Kurds still had the legal right to conduct their affairs in Kurdish, celebrate unique traditions, and identify themselves as a distinct ethnic group.
[10] The Kurdish ethnonationalist movement that emerged following World War I and the end of the Ottoman Empire was largely in reaction to the changes taking place in mainstream Turkey, primarily radical secularization which the strongly Muslim Kurds abhorred, centralization of authority which threatened the power of local chieftains and Kurdish autonomy, and rampant Turkish nationalism in the new Turkish Republic which obviously threatened to marginalize them.
In his Fourteen Points Programme for World Peace, US President Woodrow Wilson included the statement that non-Turkish minorities of the Ottoman Empire should be "assured of an absolute unmolested opportunity of autonomous development".
These included the operational breakup of the Ottoman Empire, the Kemalist movement, Russia's territorial ambitions, the status of the Christian Armenian population, and Britain's desire to preserve stability in and around its colonial possessions.
[7] Elsewhere, anti-British sentiment was developed by 'Ali Beg and his Turco-Kurdish independence party, and the Kurdish Club, which Edward William Charles Noel claimed was plagued with corruption and self-seeking individuals who were also members of the Turkish CUP.
By the end of 1918, Shaykh Abd al Qadir of the Badr Khans and others reconstituted the Kurdish Club under the new title of Society for the Rise of Kurdistan.
After the Greek attempts in Anatolia, the rise of the Kemalists, and a growing perceived Armenian threat, Anatolian Kurds lacked nationalistic, secessionist desires.
The treaty excluded the Kurdish territories in Syria, the part of the Dersim region lying west of the Euphrates, and the failure to demarcate a boundary between the Kurds and the Armenians.
Under article 62, British, French, and Italian officials were assigned to draft within six months of the implementation of the treaty "a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas".
Halid Beg Cibran traveled throughout parts of eastern Anatolia garnering support for his cause, at times using violent coercion against non-supportive Kurdish Alevi tribes.
During this time, the Kemalist government in Ankara was attempting to influence Kurds to join the Turkish nationalistic cause by offering jobs and bribes.
During the summer months, Kurdish armed forces in the region began attacking Turkish ammunition sites and police stations.
Strategically, Kurdish organizers and forces in the region thought they could take advantage of the fledgling Kemalist government as well as its preoccupation with the Greek conflict in the west.
The newly formed Middle East Department concluded that "purely Kurdish areas should not be included in the Arab state of Mesopotamia".
Following this rebellion, however, Major Noel tried, unsuccessfully, to bring together Simko and other Kurdish nationalist leaders, including Shaykh Mahmud.
[7] After it became apparent how vehemently the government in Ankara opposed the Treaty of Sèvres and with the rising power of the Kemalists, Major Noel and the British began seriously considering supporting a Kurdish rebellion.
British policymakers again began contemplating assisting a wide-scale Kurdish rebellion against the Turks in order to counter their growing strength and influence in the region.
[3][13] Yet it still appeared that the British favored Kurdish autonomy in Iraq when they issued a Joint Declaration with the Iraqi government in 1922 that was communicated to the League of Nations.
[15] In the end, as Kemalist forces spread and grew in strength, "the British desire for peace with Turkey, on the best terms for itself, of course, subordinated Britain's Kurdish policy to this objective."
