Topal Osman
Topal Osman Ağa, was a Turkish officer, a militia leader of the National Forces, a volunteer regiment commander of the Turkish army during the Turkish War of Independence who eventually rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and was a perpetrator of the Armenian and Pontic genocides. Besides the Greeks and Armenians, he also terrorised the local Muslim population who opposed him.
He was the commander of Mustafa Kemal's special Bodyguard Regiment. He showed usefulness in the War of Independence, but in 1923, when it was decided that he was the instigator of Trabzon Deputy Ali Şükrü Bey's murder, he was detained. He was captured and injured during clashes with military police, but he was killed by İsmail Hakkı Tekçe.
Early life and Balkan Wars
He was born in Giresun in 1883 and was of Turkish origin, more particularly the Chepni tribe. His father, Feridûnzâde Hacı Mehmed Efendi, was a hazelnut merchant. In his youth he helped with the family business and became a partner in a sawmill. He married and had two sons. Despite his father's offered paying his military service price, he refused to stay and joined the 1912–1913 First Balkan War with his 65 friends. They fought in Çorlu. A Bulgarian cannonball wounded his right kneecap during the war. He refused to have his leg amputated, so the doctors only took out the shrapnel from his knee without anesthesia, causing him to become lame.World War I
While still limping, Osman Ağa joined World War I with 93 friends, later joined by 6 prisoners in Trabzon. They charged the Russian army, causing many casualties for the Russians but also the death of 6 friends of Osman Ağa. During the war, he caught typhoid, leading to him returning to Giresun. After recovering, he returned to the war. He joined the 37th Division in Bayburt, which eventually retreated to Harşit. The Russians couldn't go any further. Osman Ağa returned to Giresun to recruit more soldiers and went back to fight with 1500 young volunteers. After the October Revolution took place, the Russians withdrew from the battle, leading the Turks to reconquer Batum. Osman Ağa's battalion was the first one to enter Batum.Armenian and Greek genocides
Topal Osman was known to have been responsible for massacres against Armenians and Greeks in the Pontus region where he was stationed during World War I and post-war years. While in Trabzon, Osman made a name for himself in the spring of 1915 as commander of a squadron of gangs. Osman, along with Ishak Çavuş, was known to have partaken in the drowning and massacres of the local Armenian population. During this time, Osman had also profited from the confiscation of assets and property belonging to the Armenians.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 surviving villagers had to sign a document saying that the attackers were Armenian.
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.
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. 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." In Merzifon that same year, Osman and his men broke into Christians' 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. Osman later traveled to Trebizond and began robbing houses, but was driven off by a Turkish gangster called Yahya.
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.
A local Greek survivor recalled that when his village attacked in 1921 by Osman and his men, who were armed with guns and axes: "They gathered people in the middle of the village. They separated off the children. They stripped them and threw them into wells. Then they threw stones on top of them. The wells groaned. They filled the church, the school, and the barns with the old people and set fire to them."
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.
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. In addition, the Daily Telegraph's correspondent called him the "terror of the Pontus" adding that: "his career of crime and violence, for the equal of which one must go back to the Dark Ages".
According to an Ottoman administrator, Osman was infamous for murdering "10-15 Orthodox Christians a day".
His activities against the Greeks were so brutal that even Adnan Bey sent a letter to the government in Ankara asking to take measures against Topal Osman.
Andrew Mango, in his Atatürk's biography, described Osman as "a sadistic ethnic cleanser of Armenians and Greeks, and the hammer of Mustafa Kemal's Muslim opponents".
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 Christian Pontic Greeks.Osman Ağa declared himself mayor of Giresun in order to fight the Pontic paramilitary forces, and exact his gang's ethnic cleansing of the region.
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.
According to non-Turkish reporters and historians, he was cruel towards Greek civilians. 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." 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, Ünye, Havza and Bulancak. He was however refused arms and cooperation by the government and inhabitants of Trabzon. According to Bruce Clark, it was because in Trabzon multicultural pro-Ottoman ideals were stronger due to inter-ethnic and religious family ties. According to Turkish historians, it was because of the tension between Osman Ağa, who wasn't obeying Trabzon and was taking orders only and directly from Mustafa Kemal, and the Trabzon governors, many of whom were pro-Ottoman who believed Osman Ağa's activities would cause the Allies to occupy the Black Sea region. Together with his subsequent murder of Trabzon deputy Ali Şükrü Bey this led to long standing animosity between the nationalist government of Mustafa Kemal and the population of Trabzon.
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 İpsiz Recep, another 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.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 Hüseyin Avni Alparslan, 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, 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. Of the dead from both regiments, 234 were managed to be identified. After the victory, Osman Ağa rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel and was honored with the Medal of Independence.
On 8 June 1922, by the Orders of National Taxes, Osman Ağa attempted to sell all his real estate to fund the army, but was prevented by the wealthy people of Giresun who said he "served enough" by joining the fight and all he has done.
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. At least 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. 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. 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.
According to some sources, Topal Osman said: