history of rize city

7/31/2019 History of Rize City

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CULTURAL DETAILS OF RIZE -- An Overview of Rize's History

The ancient geographer Strabo of Amasya (66 B.C.-21 A.D.) states in his famous treatise, Geography,

that in the mountains south of Trabzon and Giresun lived the Tibarenes and in former times the

Tzans, also known as the Macrons. He goes on to write that after Trabzon comes the Colchis region,

in the upper stretches of which lies the highly rocky Mt. Skydises, joined to the Moskhia range and itshills occupied by the tribe of Heptakometes.

The first written mention of Rize is made by Arrianus in a work named Periplo (Ship's Voyage). Dated

at 131-132 B.C., the work records how its author, the governor of Cappadocia, made an inspection

tour of the Eastern Black Sea territories that were part of his jurisdiction, first visiting the Roman

Empire's Eastern Anatolian frontier garrisons before pushing on to the Black Sea coast in the Trabzon

(Trebizond) region.

Although Arrianus describes the entire coast east of Trabzon, we will confine ourselves to his remarks

on the region that concerns us here.

Sailing east of Trabzon with three vessels, on the first day Arrianus cast anchor in the harbor of

Issiporto/Hyssos/Sürmene or as it is known today Arakli, and he inspected the Roman garrison,

consisting of some 20 cavalry and a number of footsoldiers, in a fortress on the southern edge of

Arakli's marketplace. Setting sail eastward once again they met with a storm blowing from the

southeast, and after many tribulations made land at Athens, today's county seat of Pazar.

The author tells us that he believes the name of the town derives from that of the goddess Athena;

but in A History of the Georgian People (London, 1932) W.E.D. Allen asserts that many Black Sea

place names thought to be Greek in origin are actually Laz, and that in this language Athenai means

“place of the shade.”Rhizaion (Rize), generally taken as Greek for “brass,” according to Allen is in fact

a Laz word meaning "place where people and soldiers gather," while Mapavri (today's Çayeli)

signifies “leafy.”

Listing the rivers and streams eastward from Trabzon, Arrianus names the Isso/Hyssus (tody's

Karadere) 33 km. distant, the Ofi (Solakli Deresi) 17 km. further east, the Psicro (Baltaci Deresi) some

5 km. east of that, still 5 more km. further the Kalo (lyidere), the Rizio some 23 km. east of the Kalo,

the Ascuro/Askaros (Taþlidere) roughly 5 km. further on, and the Adieno (Çayeli Deresi) some 1 2 km.

east of that. From here he reports that it is another 34 km. to Athens (Pazar), and thence no more

than 1300 m. to the Zagati (Pazar-Zuga Deresi).

Reporting that the Ofi (Solakli) River divides the land of the Colchis from Tsannica, Arrianus states

that the Tzans were even at that time a fiercely warlike people and sworn enemies of the Greek

colonialists who inhabited Trabzon. Paying tribute to the Romans, and governed by no king, the

Tzans occupied the territory stretching from Gümüþhane/Canca south of the city to the Solakli River

on the east, being concentrated in the Karadere Valley roughly in the center.

Xenephon, in travelling from the Bayburt region to Trabzon, had descended into the Karadere Valley

from Mt. Thekhes/Madur, and there had entered the country of the Makrons; said by Strabo to be

identical with the Tzans. Place names which preserve a trace of this people are Zanike/Canike (now

the village of Yiğitözü, in the same valley close to the shore near Arakli) and Canayer (now the village

of Buzluca), site of the medieval Sürmene/Sousoumania. Arrianus relates how the Tzans live armed



to the teeth and devote themselves to banditry, not even bothering to pay the tribute they owe the

Romans.

The author denotes the territory east of the OF-Solakli River as the land of the Colchis, whereas

Xenephon, who reached Trabzon from Eastern Anatolia in February of 400 B.C., gave Trabzon and

Giresun as their country. This is important, for it shows that during the intervening five centuries theColchis had been forced to withdraw eastward.

There have been numerous examples of this phenomenon in the course of history. For instance,

Arrianus records that the Laz people lived around Taupse at that period. Furthermore, he says that

the country beyond Pazar is not worth visiting, being nameless and deserted, implying not only that

the Colchis lived mainly to the west of Pazar, but also that in later centuries the Laz, under pressure

from neighboring peoples, were constrained to migrate into the relatively quieter lands east of

Taupse.

Based on the information supplied by Arrianus we can list the peoples living east of Trabzon as (inorder eastward from the lands of the Tzans and Colchis) the Machelones, Heiniochis, Zydritaes, Laz,

Absilaes, Abhaz, and the Sanigaes who lived around Sohum.

After eliminating the Pontus Kingdom and gaining sway over the central and eastern Black Sea as

well as the Crimea, Rome at first governed the region that includes Rize as part of the province of

Cappadocia. Later it was to be part of another province, Pontus Polemoniacus. At the outset securing

the empire's eastern borders through small, sponsored kingdoms, the Romans later changed this

policy and sent out legions.

Rize was one of the regions guarded directly by Roman garrisons. Murdered in the Rize citadel by

Romans during the early days of Christianity and later canonized, St. Orientos was declared the

patron of the site where he had been killed. The fact that there is a church in his name in the citadel

shows how important the latter was to the region. Furthermore the Notitia Dignitatum, a Byzantine

document from the first half of the 5th century, lists Rize as a military base in Trabzon with a cavalry

division in the Pontic II Legion.

The Rize citadel gained further in importance during the time of the Eastern Roman/Byzantine

Emperor Justinian (527-565) when the realm was at war with Persia. The Tzans living south and east

of Trabzon revolted and the Byzantine forces took refuge in the city fortresses. The folk inhabiting

the southeasterly Black Sea region known as Colchis were also disaffected with Roman rule, being

particularly disgruntled that commerce was a Roman monopoly. The Lazica people living between

the Fash and Rion rivers rose up against Byzantium and requested support from the Sassanids. Seeing

that all passes in the region were in hostile hands, the Byzantine garrison in the regional center Petra

were forced to burn their homes, tear down the walls, and retreat toward Trabzon. In the aftermath,

the southeastern stretches of the Black Sea coastal region became a theater of war between

Byzantium and Iran, and the Byzantine frontier retracted to Asparos west of the Çoruh.

To make this frontier secure Justinian devised a line of defence, repairing the Rize citadel and placing

a series of small fortresses between it and the legion headquarters at Trabzon, manning the redoubts

with Bulgar Turks whom the Byzantine army had defeated in 530 in the Balkans.



During the reign of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius (610-641) Anatolia again became the scene of

war between Byzantium and Persia, particularly important developments occurring when Heraclius

marched on Iran in 622-28, and when he formed an alliance with the Khazar Turks. Reinforcing his

might with Liz, Abhaz and Georgian troops, in 626 Heraclius wintered at Sürmene in the village of

Canayer/Buzluca two km. south of Kalecik, which is west of the county of Arakli. Here he met with

the Khazar King Yabgu, and the two formed a pact whereby the king was promised Heraclius'

daughter Eudocia in return for 40,000 troops to be used as an ancillary force against the Persians.

Shortly after the Battle of Manzikert (1071) the Trabzon area became the target of Turkish raids, in

1073 and 1074 falling into the hands of the raiders. With the collapse of Byzantine power in the

region, the territory east of Rize also suffered raids and pillaging on the part of the Georgians. In

1075 Byzantium sent an army under Thedore Gavras, who wrested the region from the Turcomans

and restored Byzantine supremacy, for which he was rewarded with the Dukedom of Haldiya and

made governor of Trabzon.

Ruling the Trabzon area independently of Byzantium, Thedore Gravas halted the pillage-bentGeorgian incursions in 1089 and then succeeded in taking Bayburt from the Turks. Following his

defeat near Bayburt by the army of Ismail, son to Gümüþtekin Ahmet Daniþmend Gazi, in a battle

where Thedore Gavras lost his life, his son Gregory Gavras was made governor in Trabzon, a post

thereafter held by Costantine Gavras, both men ruling independently of Byzantium and sometimes

collaborating with the Turcoman emirates in the region to maintain their status.

Ruling Trabzon independently of Byzantium for three generations, cooperating with the Turcomans

in doing so, the Gavras family, some of whom, like Hasan ibni Gavras, converted to Islam and served

the Seljuk state, are seen by a number of historians as forerunners of the Comnenos dynasty which in

1204 was to pro- claim an empire in Trabzon and found a state.

When the Comnenos family was toppled from the Byzantine throne in a revolution, two of its scions,

small children, were spirited from the capital by followers of their relative, Queen Thamara of

Georgia, and taken to the Cholchid region. At the time of this escape the elder of the two, Alexius,

was four years old. Eighteen years later, in 1204, when Istanbul was plundered by the Crusaders, the

Byzantine rulers fled to territories as yet unoccupied by the Latins. While this was happening in the

west the Comnenos brothers, Alexius and David, had appeared on the eastern coast of the Black Sea

with an army given by Thamar and largely manned by Cuman Turks. Capping a successful westward

march they seized Trabzon.

During the reigns of the Georgian King George III (1156-1184) and Queen Tamara (1184-1212) the

Kipça-Cumans had fallen on hard times because of the disintegration of the northern Black Sea

states, and thereby been available as mercenaries, armies formed of which enabled Georgia to

expand. Highly-ranked Cumans in the Georgian Army later converted to Orthodox Christianity and

were posted to frontier regions confronting Muslim Turks.

The Kumbasars living at present in the mountain villages of Rize's Ikizdere county belong to the

Kubasar family which, having commanded the Georgian army and then in advanced age been the

subject of intrigue at the hands of Queen Thamar, left their freehold and withdrew into the Rize

Mountains. And the Curtan/Cordans, who have given their name to an Arhavi village, the Arhaviuplands, and the mountains of this region, are members of another Cuman clan of that name.



Villages with the name Cuman in the counties of Sürmene and Of also are relics of the Cumans who

settled here at that epoch.

From 1214 onward this state founded by the Comnenos family maintained its existence by paying

tribute to the Seljuks, Ghaznavids, Mongols and Ilhanids. When the emirates appeared, it was via

alliances formed through marriage to the Turcoman emirs that the state subsisted.

A center for textiles and commerce at this period, Rize was at the same time administratively tied to

the Greek Kingdom in Trabzon. The lands to the east of Rize were a separate administrative unit of

the empire.

On his return from a journey as envoy to Tamerlane for the king of Spain, Clavijo passed in

September of 1405 through the Hemþin region, which he called Arakuel and says paid fealty to Pir

Hodja Bey, the Emir of Ispir. Clavjo reports that the inhabitants of the Hemþin region, dissatisfied

with their ruler, had plotted with the Emir of Ispir to whom they dispatched said ruler after capturing

him. The Emir, after throwing the man in prison, had sent a Muslim ruler to the region with aChristian lieutenant.

Asserting that “although they claim to be Christians and Armenians the people of the region are in

fact barbarian tribes, a pack of thieves and bandits,” Clavijo provides information which in fact can

shed light on the history of these parts. As the present article is not concerned with exploring the

ethnic history of the region, we will content ourselves with pointing out that the Hemþens who lived

here prior to Ottoman rule had their ancestor in common with the White Sheep Turks, and that they

converted to Islam at a later date than the latter.

Among the strongest pieces of evidence for this thesis is the statue of a ram/sheep on the site of an

ancient tomb where a forest now stands, on a small hill overlooking the Furtuna Deresi Valley in

Çamlihemþin's Aþağiçamlica (Aþağiviçe) neighborhood. Another ram/sheep statue in the valley is

that found in Ülküköy. One branch of the sheepherding White Sheep Turks was the Pornak/Purnak

tribe, from whom derives the name Purnak which is so widespread in the uplands of Hemþin, also

famous for sheepherding. There is an interesting type of large hinge attached to doors and still found

in Hemþin houses dating back several centuries. The product of skillful iron-working, one side is a

wolf's head and the other a stylized ram's head; and this is but one of the ethnographic materials in

the region which, stemming from a very ancient culture, have survived to the present day.

When Uzun Hasan came into the Çoruh river valley in 1458, then held by the Atabeks, he added the

Ispir region directly to the territories of the state, so that Hemþin also came under White Sheep

sway. The country as far as the coastal town of Rize and Pazar, however, belonged to the Trabzon

Kingdom. Then in 1461 Mehmet II personally led a campaign to conquer Trabzon, and the territory as

far as the Çoruh River, including Hemþin, came undei Ottoman rule.

Prior to this conquest an alliance had been forged among the Trabzon Greek Kingdom, the Megrel

Dadyan, the King of Kartli and the Çoruh Atabek, with the White Sheep Turks, rivals to the Ottomans,

included as protectors. The plan was for the alliance to join forces with other Turcoman emirs and

with a crusade to be organized by the Pope, to swoop down upon the Ottoman and destroy him. It

was when he became aware of this plot that Mehmet mounted a campaign in 1461 and struck at the

nerve center of the alliance, the Trabzon Kingdom.



Before leaving the region Mehmet gathered together the Greek denizens of Trabzon, loaded them

onto ships, and sent them to Istanbul.Then, because the surrounding fortresses and towns had been

conquered along with Trabzon, he appointed men to rule them and only then departed. The first step

taken by the new governor of Trabzon, fleet admiral Kasim Bey, was to revise the local system of

government along Ottoman lines.Thus the territories comprising the presentday province of Rize

were organized into three nahiyes: Rize, Atine (Pazar) and Lazmağal. In addition the nahiye of Rize,

having a fortress, was endowed with a cadi, thus becoming a jurisdiction known as a kaza.

The oldest extant Ottoman document concerning Rize is a register dated 1483 which lists various

administrators of the region.

In reorganizing the territory Kasim Bey deported certain persons to Rumelia, in addition to those

Mehmet II had deported to Istanbul, and this too is recorded in the 1483 register. Among those

deported were a Turkish Christian named Todoros Altemur and one Cori Sasmasnos, both of whom

“owned vineyards,” as well as one Şemseddinoğlu who had been “prominent in the region” prior to

the conquest.

Another functionary to effect deportations from Rize to Rumelia was Umur Bey, who before his

posting to the Trabzon area had been governor of the province of “Rum.”

As these deportations gradually took place, the conquest of Trabzon was immediately followed by

resettlement of another kind, as families were brought from provinces along the Central Black Sea

and in Central Anatolia and given homes in the fortresses and towns of the newly acquired territory.

In addition to these forced relocations there were those who voluntarily left those areas and came to

settle in Trabzon and its environs.A handful of mostly Chepni families began to trickle in following the

conquest, and this turned into a larger influx of Chepni groups in the 16th century.

But the influx was not confined to these. When Mehmet II conquered Karaman and eliminated the

Karamanian Emirate, families were deported en masse to Istanbul, with some being sent to the

Trabzon and Rize area where the luckier ones were given fiefs.

During Mehmet II's reign fairly large populations were relocated from Rumelia to this region,

Albanians constituting the most numerous group. Inspection of the same register shows that many of

these Albanians were given fiefs in the Rize area, and also that families arrived from such Balkan

cities as Kosova, Siroz, Yeniþehir and Kalkandelen, in Rize as in other places being endowed with fiefs.

During Yavuz Sultan Selim's term as Trabzon governor (1481-1511) the events taking place in Eastern

Anatolia marked a new phase in the history of the region. Little knowing that one day the Saffevids

would pose a great threat to their own nation, the Ottomans had stood by indifferent as the

Saffevids destroyed their mortal enemies the White Sheep Turks, massacring the populations; but

Yavuz Sultan Selim recognized the danger and as White Sheep Turks fled the slaughter he welcomed

and setlled them in the Trabzon Sanjak, a great many of them ending up in the Rize area.

When Yavuz became sultan his victory at Chaldiran was followed by the conquest of Eastern and

Southeastern Anatolia, and the elimination of the Dulkadir Emirate from the country around Marash.Many families from this emirate were relocated to the Trabzon Sanjak, being settled in the nahiyes



east of the city, and in large part in and around Rize. As many surnames in that region are simply

taken from ancestral places of origin, they reveal much about where families came from during

Yavuz's term as governor and his reign as sultan.

These records, pertaining to the first two decades following the Ottoman conquest, also make it

possible to answer vain historical speculation concerning the region. The registers prove, forexample, that there is no substance to claims that following the conquest the local people were

forced by the Ottomans to convert to Islam

This record also makes it possible to state, contrary to claims made in Laz histories by those with

ulterior motives, the Baltaoğullari were not originally a Laz family but one of those brought to the

region from the Balkans and endowed with a fief. There is also proof that prior to the conquest the

Laz of this region voluntarily coexisted with the Ottomans, that Ottoman rule left the guarding of its

frontier to Laz who had not yet become Muslim, and that thanks to the Ottoman umbrella the Laz

were finally able to resist the Georgians and Abhaz who for centuries had robbed, oppressed and

plundered them. The Ottoman records mention three great plundering raids made in the region (Rizeand Pazar) between 1 461 and 1483. The first was carried out by the Georgians, the second by

Georgians and Armenians, and the third by Megrels (denoted in the register as Mamiyan Infidels).

There is also mention of villagers who fought alongside the Ottoman soldiers in repelling infidel raids,

and were rewarded with exemption from certain taxes. As for defence of the frontier, it was left to

the Laz of the region, while other local Christians were enlisted as irreaulars to help defend the

region and join in campaingns.

In order to put a halt to this pillaging, while still Trabzon governor Yavuz Sultan Selim conscripted

locals, marched on Georgia, and made a number of conquests, being aided in this campaign by an

Orthodox Christian, the Atabek of the Þavþat-Ispir region, Mirza Çabuk, who acted as guide. Thiscomradeship persisted during the Chaldiran campaign. This peaceful coexistence in later centuries

would be furthered when the local peoples voluntarily converted to Islam, with an even closer

merging. Thanks to the security provided by Ottoman rule, the folk of the region no longer

experienced the frustration of working all year only to see the harvested crops taken from them in

raids.

This was the situation until such time as the Ottoman Empire began to wane, when the Abhaz crew,

plagued by famine and poverty, set their sights on the prosperous lands under Ottman rule along the

Eastern Black Sea coast. Their method was to approach in caiques, plunder the shoreline villages, and

return.

In 1571 Abhaz pirates came in ships to raid the village of Sidere/Derecik near Arhavi.After looting the

village and killing some of its inhabitants, the pirates took 47 of them prisoner and sailed away. At

about the same time two shiploads of Abhaz raided the village of Makriyalu/Kemalpaþa in the same

manner. The Porte commanded the Cadi of Arhavi, the Bey of Trabzon and the Bey of Batum to join

forces, muster the vessels of the region, and put paid to these Abhaz depredations.

Meanwhile the Megrel Dadya had twice come with his subject Abhaz to raid Ottoman territory in

nine great caiques fit out with guns and large cannon. When it was learned that both the pirates and

the Megrel Dadya were procuring powder and weapons through trade with Kefe an action wasmounted, and a force carried in caiques dispersed the buccaneers.



The Bey of Batum, who had commanded these troops, advised the Porte that Iskender Bey and the

Abhaz pirates had made a habit of plundering the province of Gurel every year. Send me a thousand

men, he said, and I will have the lands beyond Sohum pillaged in reprisal. The answer came that until

the war with Cyprus and the Venetians were concluded no men could be spared; that the region

must be defended using whatever troops were available locally, while those who supplied the pirates

with arms and provisions, whether by sea or via Kefe, should be tracked down and captured. Among

the measures taken was to forbid sea travel to the region.

To counter this coastal threat, caiques were mustered, the property of the state, to patrol the

offshore waters constantly. But the problem was never completely solved; the Abhaz were indeed

brought under control, but in the following century the Russian settlement policy meant that

Cossacks relocated along the Ottoman- Russian frontier fulfilled the same nefarious role.

In 1647, the Cossacks having seized the fortress of Gönye, the governor of Erzurum attacked them

with a force that included the famous traveller Evliya Çelebi, who in his renowned journal gives

detailed information about the Cossack pirates' coastal raids, the measures taken to oppose them,and the action mounted to take back the fortress.

World War I and the Occupation of Rize

Since the conquest Rize had always been a nahiye and kaza of the sanjak of Trabzon, while Pazar,

Hemşin, Arhavi and Hopa were part of the sanjak of Batum once that city was conquered. Are

organization of vilayets (provinces) in 1865 changed the name of Batum, as a sanjak, to Lazistan and

made it part of the vilayet of Trabzon. After the Ottoman-Russian War of 1877-78 Batum was ceded

to the Russians and Rize became the seat of Lazistan sanjak.

Although territory was lost to the Russians under terms of the Berlin Treaty which ended that war,

Russian designs on the straits and Eastern Anatolia were thwarted. To obtain free passage through

the former Moscow went so far as to propose a Turco- Russian alliance, and during the Balkan War of

1912 supported the Bulgar-Serbian alliance with the larger aim of founding a greater Slavic state; yet

when in November of 1912 the Bulgarian army advanced as far as Çatalca, Moscow presented Sophia

with a note requesting that they stay out of Istanbul.

At this time there were two major obstacles to the Russian plan of occupying Istanbul; the first

Western reaction, and the second the inadequacy for this Purpose of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Calculating that the imminent general war in Europe would take care of t he fırst obstacle, the

Russians instituted a program for upgrading their Black Sea naval force to the point where it would

surpass that of the Ottomans.

Spurred to a counter-campaign the Ottoman government collected donations in gold for the

populace with the aim of purchasing new warships.As the prospect of general war loomed larger, the

cornerstone of defence plans for Istanbul became the purchase of two battleships from the British,

payment to be made in gold, and Turco-German cooperation which would involve a German military

mission to Turkey.

War was heralded in Europe by the pact formed between Britain and France to oppose the new

power on the continent, Germany, and her ally Austria. To secure their territories, the Ottomans



intensifıed their quest for allies, but were spurned by every country including Britain, France, Russia

and Germany.

Russia's inclusion in the Franco-British alliance was an important step in carrying out her designs on

Turkey. On August 1, 1914 Germany declared war on Russia and the following day signed a pact of

alliance with the Ottomans, whose objective in this was to obtain support in repulsing a probableRussian invasion of the straits. The Germans meanwhile hoped to keep part of the Russian forces

engaged on the Ottoman borders.

By terms of the Turco-German Alliance the Ottoman Empire was expected to fıght on behalf of

Germany against the Russians, but the Ottoman Army was not yet prepared for such a venture.

Mobilization had indeed been announced, but time would be required for the weapons and materiel

sent by Germany to reach Istanbul and be distributed to the troops. This being the case, the Ottoman

rulers were able to covince Germany that entering the war immediately was impracticable.

When, however, Austria was unsuccessful against the Russian and Serb armies, and following thedefeat versus France at the Marne, Germany increased its pressure on the Ottomans to declare war

on Britain and Russia, to divert part of the latters forces from their own front to an attack on Turkey.

When the two already-paid-for battleships mentioned previously were seized by the British

government, the power of the Ottoman navy remained weak vis-a-vis the Russian. In consequence

two German warships set sail, outspeeding enemy boats to effect a passage of the straits and arrive

in Istanbul, and the Ottoman flag was hoisted on them the 16th of August. Although they did not give

the Ottomans clear superiority in the Black Sea, at least they established a balance.

The German admiral Souchon was put in command of the Ottoman navy, as reinforced by the

addition of these two ships (the Yavuz and the Midilli), and commenced a course of training.This was

the most vital link in the chain of intrigue that would set the Ottomans and Russia at each other's

throats.

First, on the pretext that the Marmara and straits were unsuitable for adequate training, Souchon

requested permission to sail the fleet into the Black Sea, a request which was turned down by the

cabinet on September 20, 1914. But German pressure induced Enver Pasha to give verbal orders in

the affirmative, provided that the ships stay close to the Bosphorous and return to it on the same

day. Thus on October 5th training maneuvers began in the Black Sea.

Unable to withstand German insistence any longer, on October 21st Enver Pasha signed a secretprotocol pledging to include the Empire in the war. By terms of the protocol the Russian fleet was to

be destroyed in a surprise attack, the timing of the operation to be at the discretion of Admiral

Souchon.

Receiving a secret order to this effect on October 25th, Souchon sailed into the Black Sea at the head

of the Ottoman Fleet and on the 29th shelled the Russian ports, thus marking the commencement of

an Ottoman-Russian war. The news stunned Istanbul, where many ministers only learned of the

Turkey's entry into the war after the fact. In a fınal effort to avoid conflict, the government offered to

pay reparations, but this was rejected by the Russians, who on November 1st attacked the Ottoman

border in Eastern Anatolia, making a breach at Sarıkamış and advancing toward Köprüköy.



The Turco-Russian border prior to the war had been drawn in the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, starting just

east of Hopa on the Black Sea coast and leaving Kemalpaşa, Borçka, Murgul, Artvin, Şavşat and

Ardanuç under Russian occupation. Following the war of 1877-78 many people in this region had fled

to Anatolia to escape Russian rule, and to change the population profile the Russians had settled

Armenians there and Greeks. Nevertheless there were still numerous Turkish Muslims living in the

region, and an organization set up by Enver Pasha on the eve of the war, the Teşkilat-i Mahsusa, was

active in organizing volunteers to help liberate these territories.

On the coast the border was guarded by the Hopa Border Company. With mobilization,

reinforcements had upgraded this unit to a battalion, and with the outbreak of war there had been

further reinforcements. Facing them was a Russian force consisting of afourbattalion foot regiment,

two other fighting battalions plus a battalion of engineers, eight artillery companies and one of

cavalry. When fıghting began this might was iricreased with a corps and a regiment.

When they launched their attack on the border the Russians acted not on the coast but by taking

defensive positions in and around Batum, planning to counter the guns of the Ottoman fleet, andparticularly of the Yavuz, with two 25 cm.pieces emplaced at Batum, and other preparations to meet

a possible Turkish landing.

Because of inadequate road connections on the Caucasian Front, the Ottoman High Command had to

reinforce and supply its fighting units via the Black Sea, with the fleet providing cover, and in this

matter the greatest confıdence was placed in the newly purchased battleships Yavuz and Midilli. It

was true that, although with their long-range guns and speed they could somewhat outperform the

Russian ships, nevertheless no overall advantage had been gained in the Black Sea. But the Russians

were wary of these two vessels, the Yavuz in particular being highly effective in the Bosphorus.

Finally, on November 17th, word came that the Russians had bombarded Trabzon and wereproceeding westward.The Yavuz and Midilli sailed out of the Bosphorous to meet them, and in a

battle off Balıklava the Yavuz, despite being hit, demonstrated that she was a formidable adversary.

On November 1, 1914, when the Russian offensive in Eastern Anatolia began, the Turkish forces

stationed along the coast were instructed to observe and provide cover. Later they received an order

to attack Russian outposts along the border, thus distracting some Russian units and preventing

them from being sent to Eastern Anatolia as reinforcements. Teaming up with inhabitants of the

occupied zone, who had been organized by the Teşkilat-i Mahsusa, these coastal units began to

Conduct forays against the Russian positions.

After much ebb and flow, during which Rize was at one point used as a staging area for

reinforcements and supplies, the Russians succeeded in occupying important parts of Eastern

Anatolia, ultimately as far west as Erzincan and Bayburt. But the winter of 1917 inflicted considerable

losses on the Russian units in Anatolia, which at any rate were weary with the long fıghting. Then

revolution broke out on March 8, 1917, with the deposition of the Czar, and resultant disintegratiori

of discipline among the Russian troops in Anatolia. When the Bolsheviks toppled the Kerensky

government (Nov. 5th) and disclosed all the secret agreements made by the Czarist regime, followed

by the initiation of peace talks with Germany, the Turkish High Command proposed an armistice,

which was indeed signed in Erzincan on December 18, 1917.



In the quietude that followed along the front the Russian troops began to drift away from their units

and go home, which led the Russian commanders to form Georgian and Armenian units with the idea

of turning over the occupied zone to persons of those nationalities

At 3rd Army headquarters intelligence was received that in the occupied territories Russian troops

had indeed been replaced by Armenian, and that these were massacring the Muslim populace. Thecommander of the 3rd Army then received orders to conduct an operation to save these Turks, at the

same time avoiding confrontation with the Russians.The operation began on February l2th, 1918,

and on the 24th Trabzon was delivered up to the Turkish 37th Caucasian Division in a ceremony that

included a brass band. By evening of the 25th the Turkish troops had reached Of, the same day that

eleven Russian ferries and one torpedo boat were taking on Russian soldiers for transport back to

their homeland.

Meanwhile the Turkish units, having waited iri Of for reinforcements, continued their advance,and

on March 2nd, 1918, delivered Rize from Russian occupation.As the Russians began to withdraw,

Armenians in their ranks set fire to a number of mosques and to the downtown area, plundering thecountryside as they went.

With the liberation of Rize the people of the region as far as Artvin formed mlitias to prevent the

vacuum left by the Russians from being fılled by Armenians, and also to put a stop to the massacres.

Meanwhile the military operation continued, entering Batum on the 1 4th of April.

Once freed from occupation, Rize did not face easy times, as deprivation amounting to famine

combined with epidemic disease to kıll off people in the hundreds. As occupation of the homeland

began following the Armistice of Mudros Greek bands became active in the region and, under local

leadership, the people of Rize sought to counteract them.

At the start of the National Struggle Rize sent two delegates to the Congress of Erzurum, enrolling in

the Resistance Force to join the War of Independence. In particular the efforts of Ipsiz Recep and his

comrades in the early years of the struggle, transporting weapons from Istanbul to Anatoliâ and

operating around Adapazarı, constitute an epic chapter in the annals of the war.

Atatürk's Visit to Rize

With victory in the War of Independence came the proclamation of the Republic on October 29,1923, and the election as president of the war's greatest hero and leader, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

Rize, which in Ottoman times had been a kaza, seat of the sanjak of Lazistan, on April 20, 1924,

became a vilayet.

Ten months after the proclamation of the Republic, on August 29, 1924, Atatürk and his wife Latife

hanım began a tour of the nation which took them fırst to Dumlupınar and thence via Bursa to

Mudanya, where they boarded the battleship Hamdiye and, passing Istanbul by, went through the

Straits to land on September 15th in Trabzon.



After a triumphant stay of two days, the Gazi left Trabzon the afternoon of Wednesday, September

l7th, and sailed into Rize at about 5 p.m. There the people were waiting for him on the shore,

celebrating his imminent arrival. This was the victorious commander of the War for Independence,

the founder of the Republic, and its fırst President, Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha; and accordingly,

although the sea was choppy, the governor, mayor and certain lesser lights went out in boats to

meet him where he stood on deck. Once landed, the Gazi inaugurated a fountain and avenue named

for him, and passed that night in the home of a Rize notable, Mataracı Mehmet Bey, as public

celebrations were continued with a nocturnal parade.

During this visit to Rize a number of religious clerics, with the muftis of Pazar and Rize at their head,

approached the Gazi and requested that the recently closed madrasas (Islamic seminaries) be

reopened. In a ringing voice the Gazi replied that such institutions, the root of so many woes in the

country, would not be reopened, and that what the nation required were schools; and he sent a

telegram to Prime Minister Ismet Pasha instructing him to have the Rize High School renovated. Then

on September l8th he boarded the Hamdiye and sailed for Giresun.

November 25th, 1925 was the day a law went into effect making western-style hats the only

permissable form of headgear in Turkey. In reaction, and as the result of provocation, rebellions

broke out in certain places, one of which was Rize's county of Güneysu. Beginning in December, the

incidents escalated until armed groups attacked government offıces and National Guard outposts.

When news came of trouble in Rize the Hamdiye was sent to the region immediately and thanks to

strict measures the rebellion was put down before it could spread too far. The roar of the battle ship

guns played a large role in keeping the size of the rebellion down and inducing its armed supporters

to relinquish their weapons. After trial by a court sent out from Ankara eight of the ringleaders were

hanged, and thanks to these determined measures on the part of the Republic peace returned once

more to Rize

history of rize city

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