The Political Consequences of Defeats in Wars.pdf - Lalev

The Political Consequences of Defeats in Wars
By
IBRAHIM ZABAD
B.A. (The American University of Beirut) 1989
M.I.P.P. (School of Advanced International Studies-Johns Hopkins University) 2003
DISSERTATION
Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
in
Political Science
in the
OFFICE OF GRADUATE STUDIES
of the
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
Approved:
Miroslav Nincic, Chair
Jeannette Money
Larry Berman
Sudipta Sen
Committee in Charge
2012
i

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Acknowledgements
Many individuals contributed to the inception, development and completion of
this project. First and foremost, I would like to thank the members of my dissertation
committee: Miroslav Nincic, Jeannette Money, Larry Berman and Sudipta Sen for their
support and guidance. I am more than fortunate to have Professor Miroslav Nincic, a
first-rate scholar, serve as the chair of my committee. Through and through, he has been
an unfailing mentor, an inspiring advisor, a superb teacher. Without his moral and
intellectual support, boundless generosity and limitless care, I would not have completed
this project. Professor Jeannette Money provided invaluable feedback and constructive
criticism that greatly enriched my work and kept me alert to its shortcomings. She
consistently challenged my ideas and prodded me to consider alternative theories and
approaches. She provided timely, detailed and instructive advice that significantly helped
clarify the logic of my arguments. I am deeply grateful.
Professor Sen took time to debate, talk and instruct; his ideas, suggestions and
criticisms enriched my graduate experience and my understanding of history and
historiography. He deserves special thanks. Professor Larry Berman has been remarkably
generous with his time and insights. His meticulous scholarship and towering presence
provided invaluable intellectual inspiration.
I also thank Milosz Kucharski for his friendship and all the help he provided. I
would also like to thank Matt Weiss, Monti Datta, Jennifer Ramos, and Alicja Jac-
Kucharski for their friendship and support. Finally, I take this opportunity to express my
heartfelt gratitude to my family for supporting me.
ii

The Political Consequences of Defeats in War
Ibrahim Zabad
December 2011
Political Science
Abstract
In this dissertation, I formulated a theory about the conditions that make defeats in
war radicalizing experiences, both domestically and in foreign policy. I present a twostage
model that explores the impact of defeat on the likelihood of domestic
radicalization and then show how the resultant domestic political configurations lead to
either inward-oriented political movements and moderate foreign policies or outwardoriented
revisionist movements and aggressive foreign policies.
My research shows that although defeats in wars are humiliating experiences,
those sentiments do not necessarily trigger aggressive nationalism, empower radical
parties and create revisionist foreign policy. Defeat and the emotions it generates only
create a fertile ground for radicalization—a potentiality that will be actualized only if it is
filtered through three intervening variables: national self-images (inflated or realistic),
political parties (strong or weak), and international opportunities and constraints.
More specifically, my theory posits that national self-images are permissible
variables that facilitate or obstruct the emergence of domestic radical politics: they are
the storehouse of collective memories upon which elites could build their case for
radicalism or moderation. The prevalence of inflated national self-images could
potentially fire up revenge sentiments and facilitate the rise of radical parties calling for
aggressive nationalism and revisionist foreign policy. However, tempered self-images
obstruct radicalization. This is so because not all nations are socialized into myths of
iii

national power and grandeur, nor do all nations have a history of imperial expansion or a
record of cumulative successes and grandiose expectations. A realistic, tempered national
self-image makes it harder for predatory elites to recruit into their radical agenda.
In addition to the ideational factor of national self-images, I use an institutional
variable: political parties/organizations translate the permissibility that national images
create into concrete politics. Existing strong political parties obstruct radicalization but
weak political ones allow predatory elites to use public fears, insecurities and humiliation
sentiments to radicalize the domestic political landscape.
This is the first stage of the theory: the radicalization, or lack thereof, of domestic
politics. Defeats thus create changes in the configuration of the domestic political
landscape, discrediting some ideologies and political parties but elevating others; and
those changes then feedback into foreign policies. Domestic radicalization will enhance
the chances that a state pursues aggressive/revisionist foreign policies—given that the
international environment presents an opportunity for revision or aggression—for even if
the state wishes to be revisionist, it must either have the material resources or the support
of a major ally. That is, the actual behavior, not the intention, is determined by the
presence of opportunities and constraints at the international level. On the other hand,
when the domestic political landscape is not sufficiently radicalized, the state could
pursue moderate/status quo foreign policies.
I test my theory on four case studies, Egypt (1967), Turkey/Ottoman Empire,
Hungary and Bulgaria (WWI).
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. ii
Abstract ............................................................................................................................. iii
Table of Contents ...............................................................................................................v
Chapter 1: Introduction and Theoretical Framework
1. Introduction ...............................................................................................................1
2. Why Defeat? ............................................................................................................10
3. Significance of the Research Question ....................................................................18
4. Literature Review ....................................................................................................19
A. The Recovery Strand .........................................................................................20
B. The Political Disturbances Strand .....................................................................23
C. The Psychological Strand ..................................................................................28
5. Theoretical Framework ...........................................................................................35
A. National Self-Images ........................................................................................38
B. Political Parties .................................................................................................52
C. International Environment ................................................................................66
6. Methodology ..........................................................................................................71
Chapter 2: Egypt—Defeat and the Transformation of State and Society
1. Introduction .............................................................................................................83
2. Notes on Whether Defeat is a Catalyst or a Causal Variable ..................................88
3. Various Explanations of the Causes of Defeat ........................................................91
4. Egypt‘s National Self-Image ...................................................................................93
5. Political Organizations ..........................................................................................105
6. Strong Presidency ...................................................................................................120
7. Public Pressures After Defeat ...............................................................................122
8. Domestic Changes .................................................................................................127
A. Left Radicalism ...............................................................................................136
B. Islamic, Militant Radicalism ...........................................................................140
C. Conclusions on Domestic Changes and Radicalism .......................................145
9. Changes in Foreign Policy ....................................................................................146
A. Nasser‘s Foreign Policy ...................................................................................146
B. Sadat‘s Foreign Policy .....................................................................................151
C. Regional Effects/Strategic Environment .........................................................154
v

D. Concluding Remarks on Egypt‘s Foreign Policy ............................................156
10. Conclusion .............................................................................................................160
Chapter 3: Bulgaria—Defeat and Nationalist Demobilization During the Peasant
Era
1. Introduction ...........................................................................................................163
2. The Balkan Wars ...................................................................................................172
3. The First World War ..............................................................................................174
4. Bulgaria‘s National Self-Image .............................................................................177
5. Political Organizations/Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU )………….190
6. The Impact of Defeat ..............................................................................................200
A. BANU Consolidation and Discrediting Established Parties ............................... 201
B. Turn Away from Irredentism ...........................................................................203
C. Domestic Reforms ............................................................................................207
D. Cooperative Foreign Policy ..............................................................................209
7. The Descent: The June 1923 Coup .......................................................................213
8. Conclusion .............................................................................................................218
Chapter 4: Hungary—The Cult of Defeat
1. Introduction ............................................................................................................219
2. Hungarian National Self-Image ............................................................................228
A. Doctrine of the Holy Crown: Hungarian Exceptionalism ...............................231
B. The Age of Rising Expectations ......................................................................233
3. Political Organizations .................................................................................................. 249
4. The Aftermath of Defeat .......................................................................................256
A. Trianon and the Psychology of Defeat ............................................................256
B. Domestic Radicalism and Revisionist Movements .........................................266
C. The Transitional Period (1918-1921) ..............................................................272
I. The Liberal Bourgeois Republic .........................................................273
II. The Republic of Councils/The Kun Regime .......................................278
III. Conclusion—The Transitional Period .................................................281
D. The Horthy Regime .........................................................................................283
I. The Consolidation Period/Patient Anticipation ...................................289
a. The Creation of a Government Party .................................................291
b. The Manipulation of Electoral Rules .................................................292
II. Assertive Foreign Policy .....................................................................298
III. The Descent: Radicalization/The Ascent of Gömbös .........................300
5. Conclusion .............................................................................................................303
vi

Chapter 5: The Ottoman Empire/Turkey—Defeat and the Birth of a Nation
1. Introduction .................................................................................................................. 310
2. Potential Causes of Irredentism ..........................................................................316
3. National Self-Image ............................................................................................321
A. The Age of Mounting Losses .............................................................................. 323
B. Tempered National Self-Image ........................................................................... 328
4. Political Organizations ............................................................................................... 335
A. Institutional Continuity ......................................................................................... 337
B. The Formation of the Republican People‘s Party and its Structure ................ 341
C. The Opposition‘s Strength ................................................................................... 346
5. Nation-State-Oriented Turkish Nationalism ............................................................ 349
A. The Fate of Ideologies ......................................................................................... 351
B. Post-Independence Foundational/Transformational Reforms ........................ 358
6. Foreign Policy .............................................................................................................. 360
7. International Environment ......................................................................................... 363
8. Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 366
Chapter 6: Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 371
1. Contributions ............................................................................................................... 371
2. Summary of Findings and Theory Evaluation ........................................................ 376
3. Shortcomings ................................................................................................................ 384
4. Suggestions for Future Research ............................................................................... 390
Works Cited ............................................................................................................................. 396
vii

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1. INTRODUCTION
And let us know our limits.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
December 1, 1920 1
After its defeat at the hands of Prussia in 1864, Denmark turned inward and embarked
on a journey of internal reforms, cultural revival, and national education. The Danes
transformed their devastating defeat into a ―moral victory‖ based on their motto ―what we
lost externally, we shall gain internally‖ (Hedetoft 1993, 291). Instead of viewing their
grave defeat as a fatal blow to their national honor, the Danes framed it as a departure
point for creating a new national identity and building peaceful relations with their
former adversaries.
On December 1, 1920—before the birth of modern Turkey, and while the
Ottomans/Turks were still struggling against Great Power occupation, Greek invasion
and the loss of Empire—Kemal Ataturk delivered an iconic speech that exemplified what
an internally-oriented reaction to defeat and loss meant:
1 Quoted in Lewis (1980, 30-31).

2
―…The Grand National Assembly and government of Turkey…are very modest, very far
from fantasies, and completely realistic... Gentlemen, we are not men who run after great
fantasies and present a fraudulent appearance of doing things which in fact we cannot do.
Gentlemen, by looking as though we were doing great and fantastic things, without
actually doing them, we have brought the hatred, rancour, and malice of the whole world
on this country and this people. We did not serve pan-Islamism. We said that we had and
we would, but we didn't…We did not serve pan-Turanianism. We said that we could and
we would..There you have the whole problem... Rather than run after ideas which we did
not and could not realize and thus increase the number of our enemies and the pressure
upon us, let us return to our natural, legitimate limits. And let us know our limits.
Gentlemen, we are a nation desiring life and independence. For that and that alone may
we give our lives‖ (quoted in Lewis 1980, 30-31).
In this speech, Kemal Ataturk laid the basic parameters of Turkey‘s antiirredentist
foreign policy. He called upon his nation to recognize its limits and
specifically mentioned Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turanianism (pan-Turkism) as two illusory
ideologies that brought harm to the Turks and strengthened the hands of their enemies.
Leaving behind imperial illusions and turning inward to state and nation building were
paramount. This was the stamp of the Turks‘ reaction to their losses and defeat.
After their loss in WWI, Hungarians, on the other hand, became haunted by a defeat
syndrome, whose most manifest sign was the irredentist cult, ―which occasionally
reached astonishing proportions‖ (Caples 2005, 57). When the Treaty of Trianon was
signed, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in protest against this injustice. Newspapers
were published in black mourning margins (Bihari 2006b, 166). As a gesture of
abhorrence and collective sorrow, Hungarian church bells tolled and all traffic and work
stopped for ten minutes (Pastor 2000, 106). The slogan Nem, Nem, Soha (―No, No,
Never‖) was repeated by all societal and political stratifications and in every schoolroom
for the entire interwar period. Other slogans that were coined included ―Everything
back!,‖ ―Thus it was, thus it shall be!,‖ ―Mutilated Hungary is no country; integral

3
Hungary is a heavenly county.‖ Indeed, slogans were selected through a ―revisionary
competition‖ (Bihari 2006b, 167). Similarly, Egyptians tirelessly repeated the slogan
―what was taken by force could be retrieved only by force.‖ The German case of loss,
humiliation and revenge after WWI, and the French attachment to Alsace-Lorraine after
their crushing defeat in 1870, are well-known cases of defeats in wars leading to
humiliation and generating incentives for revenge and recurrence of wars.
Thus, we observe two broad reactions to defeat: an inward-oriented response that
accepts defeat as a reality and utilizes it as an opportunity for a new beginning and an
outward-oriented response that rejects defeat and invests national energies in restoring
what was lost—most likely by force. The former suppresses sentiments of humiliation
and revenge and re-focuses the nation‘s attention on more important issues of nation and
state building. The later absorbs and internalizes sentiments of humiliation and revenge
and focuses the nation‘s energy on wars of redemption. The titles of two recent
impressive publications explain this variation in national reactions to defeats: Embracing
Defeat: Japan in the Wake of WWII (Dower 1999) and Defeat, National Humiliation and
the Revenge Motif in International Politics (Harkavy 2000). This variation in national
reactions to defeats in war is the subject of my study.
Do defeats in wars lead to moderation and prudence or do they lead to revisionism
and aggressive foreign policies? Defeats generate feelings of shame, guilt, humiliation
and desire for revenge, but they also reveal information about the limits of material
capabilities, engender feelings of desperation, and bring to light the futility of
adventurism and the utility of shrewdness and humility.

4
Defeat sometimes leads to the creation of radical domestic movements in some
countries, with varying effects on foreign policies, but generates prudence, selfexamination
and reforms and might even pave the way for democratization in others.
What conditions facilitate the emergence of radical/extreme nationalist movements and
when and how do they radicalize a state‘s foreign policies? Why do some defeated states
become status quo powers pursuing moderate and cooperative foreign policies while
others become revisionist and pursue risky and aggressive foreign policies? How and
why did Turkey after WWI leave its imperial legacy behind, forgo revisionist
opportunities and become an example of a status quo power that pursued a strategy of
assimilation into the international order? How and why did Hungary, after the collapse of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire, become jam-packed with radical political parties and end
up a revisionist state allied with Nazi Germany? What explains this variation in the
aftermath of defeats? Why did defeat put Greece (1974) and Argentina (1982) on the road
to democratization? Why did religious and secular radical movements spread in the Arab
world in the wake of the 1967 defeat? What, despite domestic radicalization, enabled the
Sadat regime to make a rightward shift in foreign policy?
The political trajectories that states and societies experience in the wake of defeat
diverge widely. The aftermath of defeats has been associated with social and political
instability, revolutions, mass rebellions, regime overthrow, revisionism, and radical
ideologies. Defeat in many respects is a crucial event in the collective memory of a nation
that leaves imprints far beyond the battlefield. Defeats weaken institutions, create a
legitimacy crisis, and discredit the dominant ideology and the social order it supports.
Most often successful wars unite polities, but lost ones divide them. However, defeats

5
could also have beneficial and reformative effects as they create political opportunities
for sweeping institutional reforms, both military and civil. They discredit the existing
dominant ideologies but they also lay the groundwork for alternative ideologies and
belief systems. They destroy institutions, but alternative institutions must be found. They
lead to regime overthrow but the new leaders may redefine and reevaluate their beliefs
and ideas. If validation is the hallmark of victory, questioning is the hallmark of defeats;
hence, soul-searching begins in earnest: intellectuals and policymakers begin to look
deeper into the causes of loss and the means to achieve recovery. As defeats lay to rest
the uncertainty of what could or could not be accomplished, the vanquished nation learns
the lessons of humility, prudence, moderation and the benefits of reconciliation.
Defeats force nations to ask serious questions about the future of the polity, its
political trajectory, whether to prepare for another round of wars of revision or to accept
defeat and redefine national identity, whether to live in the past or move forward into the
future, to remain captive to the ideas that plunged the nation into war or to renounce ideas
of greatness and expansion and embark on a path of peace and reconciliation. A major
question that the vanquished have to grapple with relates to whether defeat could be
treated as a new beginning, a point of departure for the creation of a new polity or
whether to reject the reality of defeat and invest the nation‘s energies in reversing the
calamity; in other words, whether the nation turns inward to renew its energies and attain
redemption or outward to seek revenge and restore lost status.
How does defeat affect domestic politics and national identity and how does it
feedback into foreign policies? Does defeat lead to institutional reforms or to the
emergence of radical movements? Does it lead to revisionism or moderation? Which one

6
predominates depends on a constellation of domestic variables, along with international
opportunities and constraints. I present a two-stage model that explores the impact of
defeat on the likelihood of domestic radicalization and then show how the resultant
domestic political configurations lead to moderate or aggressive foreign policies.
Summary of the Argument
There have been two major propositions on how to treat the vanquished. ―Peace
by empire‖—as Raymond Aaron (1966) termed it—is the preferred and tested method.
Impose a restrictive settlement, deprive the vanquished from the possibilities of
mobilizing resources, and peace will prevail. On the other hand, others recommend
treating the vanquished with prudence, by imposing, for example, a lenient settlement
and avoiding the humiliation of the enemy. There is a causal theory that underlies the
lenient settlement proposition: defeat creates humiliation, which in turn, creates
incentives for revenge; and when the vanquished perceive an opportunity, they will
pursue revisionism and aggressive foreign policy, making wars more likely. Moreover,
humiliating the enemy implies that the vanquished will be radicalized and empowered
and those (the radicalized) will eventually seize the reins of power—if they are not
already the governing party—and translate their desires into policies. That defeat in wars
is a humiliating experience is beyond contestation (Schivelbusch 2003, Midlarsky 2006,
Lu 2008, Harkavy 2000), but those sentiments need not necessarily find resonance among
the wider public and might instead remain limited to certain aggrieved groups; that is,
national humiliation does not necessarily trigger aggressive nationalism, empower radical
parties and create revisionist foreign policy. Therefore, defeat is insufficient to radicalize
the domestic political landscape and to allow radicals to seize the reins of power. Defeat

7
and the emotions it generates only create a fertile ground for radicalization. This
radicalization potentiality will be actualized only if it is filtered through three intervening
variables: national self-images, political parties, and international opportunities and
threats. More specifically, the theory posits that national self-images are permissible
variables that facilitate or obstruct the emergence of domestic radical politics. This
variable is only permissible in that it is a storehouse of collective memories that defeat
triggers and activates and that coalesce into a narrative and discourses upon which elites
could build their case for radicalism or moderation. Inflated national self-images facilitate
radicalization whereas realistic and tempered self-images obstruct radicalization. The
presence of a set of discourses, myths, and collective memories only enhances the
chances that political elites would resort to radicalizing politics. However, political
parties/organizations translate this potentiality into actual politics. Existing strong
political parties obstruct radicalization but weak ones allow predatory elites to exploit
public fears, insecurities and sentiments of humiliation and rage—that defeat generated—
to radicalize the domestic political landscape. This is the first stage of the theory: the
radicalization, or lack thereof, of domestic politics. Defeats thus create changes in the
configuration of the domestic political landscape, discrediting some ideologies and
political parties but elevating others; and those changes, in turn, feedback into foreign
policies. Domestic radicalization will enhance the chances that a state pursues
aggressive/revisionist foreign policies—given that the international environment presents
an opportunity for revision or aggression—for even if the state wishes to be revisionist, it
must either have the material resources or the support of a major ally or a major great
power. That is, the actual behavior, not the intention, is determined by the presence of

8
opportunities and constraints at the international level. On the other hand, when the
domestic political landscape is not sufficiently radicalized, the state could pursue
moderate/status quo foreign policies.
I will now present a more detailed review of the three explanatory variables:
national self-images, strength of political parties, and international opportunities and
constraints.
The presence of exaggerated and inflated national self-images could potentially
fire up revenge sentiments and facilitate the rise of radical parties calling for aggressive
nationalism and revisionist foreign policy. A nation that has an inflated self-image is
more vulnerable to calls for revenge and passions for national power. A nation that has
been socialized for decades, sometimes for centuries, into myths of national grandeur and
entitlement to expansion is more likely to be receptive to the calls of extremists.
Weak political parties exacerbate the legitimacy crisis that defeat causes, and
increase the possibilities of exploiting the humiliation that defeat generated and permit
predatory elites to mobilize the masses around malevolent nationalism and aggressive
foreign policies. Policy debates will be focused on humiliation and rage caused by defeat
and on the need to restore self-respect and self-esteem through revenge and war. Elites
utilize radical discourses to rally the public around; they provoke threats, imagined or
real, and depict them as existential and propose wars or other radical measures to protect
the nation. Weak political parties indicate the presence of fractured elites and
consequently create a political space for multiple and contradictory visions for how to
deal with the aftermath of defeats. This environment is particularly fertile for the growth

9
and diffusion of radical ideas. Weak political parties provide an ‗unoccupied political
space‘ for predatory elites to attract recruits into their cause.
On the other hand, not all nations are socialized into myths of national power and
grandeur, nor do all nations have a history of imperial expansion or a record of
cumulative successes and grand accomplishments. Some nations have realistic
assessment of their power and their capacities to challenge the status quo. A
realistic/tempered national self-image makes it harder for predatory elites to recruit into
their radical agenda: radical calls for expansion and grandeur will be frowned upon as
suspicious, maybe even delusional and detrimental to the national interest. There were no
prior expectations of expansion and greatness—through military accomplishments and
victories; thus, when defeat visits, its impact will be tolerable. Calls for virulent and
malevolent nationalism will be muted—or not loud at least.
Strong political parties contain the legitimacy crisis that ensues in the wake of
defeat since they have the capacity to retain their constituents and supporters and thus
limit the pool of recruits available for radical parties and predatory elites. Strong political
parties diminish the political space—which defeat opened up—available for
radicalization; predatory elites will have harder time mobilizing potential supporters
around radical discourses and virulent nationalism.
Finally, no revision is possible without the availability of material resources,
either domestically grown or through external alliances. The international system offers
opportunities and constraints. Absent material resources and/or willing and capable allies,

10
a nation, even if it possesses the desire for vengeance and revision, will not be able to
translate its desires into actual policies.
2. Why Defeat?
The purpose of this section is (1) to explain why I selected defeat, not war
experience in general, for examination; (2) to clarify a range of possible outcomes that
might follow defeat and (3) to narrow down variation into two particular outcomes, an
inward-oriented aftermath and moderate foreign policies and outward-oriented reaction
and aggressive/revisionist foreign policies.
There is very little research on the dynamics of defeat in International Relations
and Comparative Politics. There is a rich literature; however, on war outcomes (Jaggers
1992, Colaresi 2004; Kasza 1996; Maoz 1984, 1990; Marwick 1988; Porter 1994;
Organski and Kugler 1977) but not specifically on defeat and the subsequent political and
social changes. I am, therefore, trying to fill a lacuna in the literature. The research
question will also shed light on the broader question of political and social changes, how
nations deal with collective trauma, and the various ways an exogenous shock impacts
the domestic political landscape, especially dominant ideas and institutions, and how
these changes shape a state‘s foreign policy behavior.
Most studies of war outcomes include both the defeated and the victorious. This
obviously has the advantage of broadening the universe of cases and allowing for more
generalizable findings and could be justified on the grounds that the defeated and the
vanquished might display similar behavioral patterns, such as aggressive foreign policies
and radical political parties. However, I argue below that defeat is a unique experience
that needs to be differentiated from victory when studying war outcomes.

11
Victory and defeat tell different stories, have different dynamics, implications and
repercussions, and generate different reactions from those experiencing them. Victory is
largely a validating experience: institutions, including the army, will receive applause for
their victorious performance. Governments that led war efforts will gain further
legitimacy—if voted out of office, that must be for reasons other than winning the war.
Dominant ideologies and belief systems will gain further legitimacy. However, there is
the possibility that the victorious might become more aggressive because they might fall
under the spell of elation and overconfidence, which provides them with strong
incentives for further adventures in foreign affairs (Johnson 2004; Oren 1982). Although
war weakens the physical capabilities of warring states, the victorious might get
compensation, acquire lands rich in resources, gain respect and powerful allies. In short, a
victorious state most likely becomes more powerful. Victory also engenders and
reinforces sentiments of national pride and inflates national self-esteem. Probably,
overwhelmed by these sentiments, the victorious might develop a norm of aggression
(Pickering 2002, 315). But, there is also the possibility of complacency that a resounding
victory creates, where the victorious believe that what they already have is sufficient to
help them realize their goals and deter potential aggression. However, it is hard to
imagine that the institutions of the victorious will be under strain or that dominant ideas
would be discredited.
Defeats, on the other hand, are distressing experiences and have quite different
dynamics and implications. According to Porter (1994), defeat ―destabilizes government
and paralyzes administration‖ and even when it is not followed by a revolution, it is often
followed by a ―prolonged period of political and social crisis.‖ He further asserts that ―if

12
successful wars unite polities, unsuccessful wars may divide them.‖ The victorious in
wars are more likely than losers to experience institutioanl consolidation and coherence.
War losers are more prone to political instability: defeat in wars discredits institutions
and makes the masses and elites lose faith in the legitimacy and efficiency of the ruling
regime and its institutions of social control (Stein and Russet 1980, 402; Stohl 1980,
317). Besides discrediting existing institutions and exposing their failure and inadequacy,
defeat also discredits the dominant ideology and the social order that it supports.
The aftermath of defeat is often associated with political disturbances that shake
the political system. Unlike victories, lost wars ―might be the midwife of successful mass
rebellion and revolution‖ (Lacquer 1968). Examples abound: the French defeat in the
Franco-Prussian war (1870) led to the Paris Commune; Russian shocking defeat at the
hands of Japan—stereotyped as an inferior—directly contributed to the Russian
Revolution in 1905; Russian involvement in WWI hastened the rise of Bolshevism in
1917; German defeat in WWI led to the German revolution of 1918 and numerous other
examples. In a class of political disturbances following defeat, mass rebellions and
revolutions are at the forefront.
Political disturbances also incorporate reactionary politics. Defeats threaten
collective identities and wound highly esteemed national self-images. One possible
response to these shocks is denial and solidified attachment to threatened identities; in
other words, defeats could generate a reactionary response by retaining old values and
identities and precluding the potentially reformative effects of the experience of defeat
(Lu 2008, 369-70). Germany is a case in point where the identity of an expansionist
Germany towering above other nations remained intact—for many Germans—after its

13
defeat in WWI. After experimenting with liberal democratic and communist governments
in the immediate aftermath of WWI, the old social classes in Hungary were able to
impose their rule once again and restore the old social order, almost in its entirety.
Another manifestation of reactionary politics is frustration-displacement—and search for
a domestic enemy. This is the well-known defense mechanism of political scapegoating.
The pain of defeat is unbearable, immediate redemption is unavailable, self-examination
is a hard task and aching experience. In order to alleviate the pain of defeat, a nation
might search for a scapegoat and redirect its anger and fury against a domestic and
available enemy: the German myth of stab-in-the back is a classic example.
Defeats in wars often lead to revisionism and aggressive foreign policy.
Humiliation leads to anger and rage, which in turn create urges for revenge and militant
foreign policy. This is what Scheff and Retzinger (1991) termed shame-rage spiral.
German Nazism partially built its platform on calls for revenge and restoration of sullied
honor; in the wake of the 1967 Arab defeat, there were numerous calls for wars of
revenge; there even emerged an organization called ‗revenge.‘ Glidden (1972, 100)
mentions few names of Arab organizations such as ―Vengeance Partisans,‖ and ―Youth
for Revenge.‖ A wave of humiliation swept Hungary after its loss in WWI and was
followed by calls for a war to avenge the nation‘s honor and restore its lost status and
territories. Indeed, national humiliation and defeats have become in some instances
intertwined. In many cases, the victors insist on symbolic and behavioral manifestations
of defeat such as the signing of a punitive treaty, recognition of guilt, acceptance of

14
responsibility and the scenes of victorious armies marching through the capitals of the
vanquished (Horne 2008, 13). 2
But defeat could also generate incentives for reforms. It goes without saying that
the vanquished have many incentives to initiate and implement reforms to deal with the
perceived shortcomings and deficiencies that plunged their nation into its debacle.
Following defeat, soul-searching begins in earnest as thinkers, intellectuals, writers and
politicians begin to ask deeply-felt questions about the causes of the fall and propose
solutions to reform what they perceive as the shortcomings and deficiencies that plunged
their nation into the status of the beaten. The defining experience of the defeated is that
―everything turned out other than they hoped. They labor under…a greater burden of
proof for having to show why events turned out as they did—and not as planned.‖ Defeat
for some nations becomes ―a purifying and renewing force‖ as they mine their collective
memories for historical experiences that could possibly provide a measure of solace and a
‗point of orientation‘ (Schivelbusch 2003, 28-29).
Olson (1982) argues that war expereince in general undermines the power of
existing socioeconomic and political groups within society. He suggests that wars create
a broader ―political space,‖ in which institutional reforms become feasible. The argument
could be applied to defeat in wars more persuasively. Since losses weaken the legitimacy
of the ruling regime and its institutions, there would be a better opportunity for reform
2 The Germans, for example, marched on the Champs-Elysee in 1871, as a confirmation and demonstration
of their victory. Bismarck did not forget the humiliation France inflicted on Prussia in 1807; his response
came in 1870 when he used the indemnity that the French imposed on the Prussians—in the Treaty of
Tislit—as the basis for the indemnity that he now imposed on the French. After WWI, the Allies forced the
Germans to sign the peace treaty in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, where the German Reich had been
declared in 1871. Hitler was later to answer back when he forced the French to sign a humiliating treaty in
1940 on the same railway carriage that was used when the Germans signed their humiliating treaty in 1918
(Horne 2008).

15
and change. There would also be less resistance to change from vested interests along
with a broader societal acceptance of reforms. As such, defeat becomes a springboard for
major economic, political and social reforms. States that lost wars rebuild their
economies at a faster rate than the winners (Organski and Kugler 1977). A notable case
of reform occurs when a regime that launched war and lost is overthrown and a new and
more democratic regime emerges (Maoz 1990).
One of the greatest lessons to be learned from defeats in wars is the inevitability
of the reform of the army. Nathan Toronto (2007) posits that ―states are most likely to
begin professionalizing the military in response, not to war or the threat of war, but to
dire military defeats…The humiliation associated with these dire defeats seems to spur
political systems into action.‖ Furthermore, in the aftermath of defeat, nationalist
discourses inevitably involve ―striving to regain lost territory, and/or advocating
significant changes to military or even societal institutions.‖
Wars are the ultimate tests of national institutions and strengths; in the wake of
defeat, it is inevitable that elites and masses demand reforms. Czar Alexander II initiated
serious reforms only after the debacle of the Crimean War. 3 Russian defeat in 1905 led to
the Russian Revolution, which in turn, led to the October Manifesto, which established a
national representative body. Prussia after Jena (1805) initiated total reforms
(Scharnhorst reforms) that went beyond simple military questions and touched the basis
of the social order (Goerlitz 1953). The Third French Republic emerged in France after
its 1870 defeat. 4 The Egyptian leadership after the 1967 loss implemented sweeping
3 Russian serfs were emancipated in 1864 and a new institution, the Zemstvo—a form of local government
that permitted minimal political participation—was created to manage the new social order.
4 Historian Robert Tombs (1996, 46) maintains that the defeat ―began a long process of self-examination
and conscious self-regeneration that would profoundly affect the lives of all French people.‖

16
reforms that aimed at professionalizing/depoliticizing the army. After the Mexican dire
defeat at the hands of the much superior U.S. armies, and the signing of the peace treaty
that deprived Mexico of nearly half of its territory, Mexican leaders invested their
energies in the ‗reforma,‘ hoping to put their country on the road of development and
modernization. The Danes built folklore schools after their defeat at the hands of Prussia
in 1864. The effects of the British poor performance in the Boer War (1899-1902) went
beyond simple military reforms: a ―national efficiency movement‖ emerged that
eventually led to substantial reforms and even foreign realignments. 5
The Austrian
Empire similarly lost its war with Prussia in 1866 and, instead of building alliances to
counter the new hegemonic power of Prussia, turned inward and focused on the political
development of the crumbling empire.
Defeats could also discipline and tame a nation by imbuing it with a sense of
realism in its assessment of what is possible and what is not. Defeat provides clear
information with respect to the military capacity of nations: the lesson is learned that
overshooting might bring misfortune; instead, humility and restraint are more rewarding.
Consequently, changes in behavior toward moderation and cooperation might become
more acceptable and even normative. Radical ideas, and the aggressive behavior that such
ideas spawn, will be marginalized and even stigmatized. Changes might not be limited to
institutions but might even become ingrained in the nation‘s psychic fabric; in other
words, changes in attitudes, norms and culture might follow defeat, especially the
devastating ones. Here a nation accepts its defeat and looks inward to renewal and
redemption. Instead of harping on grievances, the nation looks forward and focuses on
5 Porter (1994, 157) maintained that the war ―spawned a powerful reform movement bent on restructuring
the entire economic, social and political arrangement of Great Britain.‖

17
internal reconstruction and peaceful relations with its adversaries and seeks integration
into the international community. Calls for revenge are muted; revisionist movements are
ineffectual; political elites do not exploit feelings of humiliation that accompany defeat as
causes for mobilization. Turkey after WWI left behind its imperial legacy and potential
revisionism and turned inward and invested its energies in nation-building; Germany and
Japan after WWII went through ‗coercive socialization‘ and dealt constructively with the
legacy of defeat (Fritz 2006). Similarly, Denmark after its defeat in (1864) turned inward
and embarked on a journey of internal reforms, cultural revival, national education and
modernization (Hedetoft 1993). Spain in the wake of the American-Spanish war (1898)
accepted its defeat and a major cultural rejuvenation—Generation of 98—emerged as a
response to this trauma (Ortega 1980; Balfour 1995). Mexico after the American-
Mexican war (1847) turned inward as well to ‗reforma.‘
To sum up, it is clear that defeat has distinct implications and repercussions and
that it generates reactions and outcomes different from those generated by victory. Even
when behaviors are similar, such as aggressive foreign policy, the causal pathways that
generated such similar behaviors are radically different. In addition, there are some
outcomes that are possible only when a country is defeated, such as mass rebellions,
revolutions, and desire for revenge.
On the other hand, defeat generates a wide range of outcomes that spans
revisionism, aggressive foreign policy, reactionary politics, reforms, humility and
prudence. It is also clear that although defeat is a humiliating experience, it does not
necessarily lead to domestic radicalization and aggressive foreign policy. I focus on two

18
particular outcomes: inward-oriented reaction that includes acceptance of defeat and the
status quo and outward-oriented reactions of revision and aggression.
3. Significance of the Research Question
Thompson (1995) asserts that the literature on war consequences is thin—relative
to the ample literature on causes of war. This is so because war outcomes may be
―permanent or temporary…direct or indirect…positive or negative.‖ Different groups
within society experience war outcomes differently. War outcomes are also different for
participants and non-participants, for winners and for losers. Because of these formidable
obstacles that deter scholars from studying war outcomes, Thompson (1995, 161)
concludes that there is a relative absence of theory of war outcomes.
The research question I ask aims at clarifying the social and political
consequences of defeats in wars and their impact on domestic politics and foreign policy.
Scholars of war outcomes have been debating whether defeated states experience
overthrow or not but without clarifying the consequences of such a change in
leadership—how war outcomes change leaders‘ beliefs, for example. Others debate
whether restrictive settlements imposed on defeated states create incentives for peace or
war recurrence but the domestic dynamics at play that facilitate or obstruct such
incentives are not touched upon. Generally speaking, the impact of defeats on ideas,
ideologies and belief systems is not well elaborated on. Since theories of war outcomes
are thin, this is a step towards further theoretical understanding of the effects of defeats
on domestic and foreign policies.

19
The question also has policy implications. Defeating a state aims at creating
stability and revealing information about the military balance of power. Sometimes, a
nation is subdued by its defeats but in other instances it becomes more aggressive and
intent on revenge. This research aims at clarifying the conditions that explain the
variation in the political trajectories of defeated nations. As the American War in Iraq
revealed, preparing, planning and executing the war might be done meticulously while
the aftermath might receive only scant attention. The outcome could be devastating. The
objectives of the war will not be realized if war preparations do not account for the
aftermath of defeating a country. Thus, understanding the aftermath of defeats and the
conditions that lead one defeated nation to seek reform and moderation and another to
pursue revisionism is necessary for policy purposes.
4. Literature Review
Political scientists have not treated defeat as a separate phenomenon worthy of
studying on its own, which explains the dearth of literature on the aftermath of defeats. I
divide the literature into several strands: the psychological strand, which brings in the
emotive aspects of defeats: mythmaking and backstabbing, humiliation and revenge. The
second strand covers the political effects—the disturbances that hit the political system in
the aftermath of defeats: revolutions and mass rebellions, changes in leadership, military
coups, and war recurrence. Finally, the economic and political recovery strand, which
focuses on positive outcomes: economic recovery and growth embodied in the phoenix
factor; the various military and institutional reforms; and mass and elite learning.

20
A. The psychological Strand
This literature focuses on the psychology of defeat, the emotional motivations that
generate domestic changes in institutions and ideas and subsequently cause changes in
foreign policy.
The cultural historian, Wolfgang Schivelbusch (2003), presents a theory of how
societies react to defeat in wars. Schivelbusch is interested in the myth, memory, and
mass psychology generated by defeat, the inner values and demons of the American
South (after the Civil War), the French (1870), and German (WWI) societies after their
military losses. Each country experienced its defeat differently, but all did share,
according to Schivelbusch, a set of patterns that recurred across time and national
cultures. The major pattern was "a state of unreality—or dreamland" where depression,
following defeat, turned to euphoria that was usually the result of an internal revolution.
All blame shifted to the deposed leader or to others, and subsequently the losing nation
felt free of any guilt. To reconcile themselves with the shock of loss, defeated nations
create a myth that constitutes the psychological mechanism which enables them to come
to terms with defeat: the Lost Cause in the American South, the French idea of revanche,
and the German belief of being im Felde unbesiegt (undefeated on the field of battle).
Each country, according to this theory, recovered from its defeat by creating a myth,
which helped transform defeat into ‗victory.‘ The theory is interesting but lacks sufficient
empirical support. Schivelbusch chose to study three cases that experienced this
particular myth and recovery pattern—selection on the dependent variable. There are
many other nations that experienced defeat but that neither went through the processes he
identified nor transformed their defeat into victory. Although Schivelbusch‘s theory

21
provides some insights into the psychology of defeat, its treatment of causality and
dynamics at work are very vague and not clearly defined.
Robert E. Harkavy (2000) presents a simple model of the causal connection
between defeat and revenge. Defeat is a collective shock that generates intense feelings of
humiliation and shame, which in turn generate rage and needs for vengeance. He
provides many examples of conflicts in which humiliation and revenge were apparent:
the Arab-Israeli wars, French grievances over their loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany
in 1870, Peru-Ecuador wars, etc. He cites studies that attribute French aggressiveness in
selling nuclear weapons technology to a need for compensation, which was generated by
a series of national defeats from Napoleonic wars to Algeria. Many scholars attribute the
wars in former Yugoslavia to the bitterness and humiliation of the Serbs at the Kosovo
defeat five hundred years ago. Historical examples, therefore, are abundant. Significantly,
his model allows for alternative responses to defeat—acceptance and internal revolution.
Unfortunately, Harkavy does not specify the conditions that explain this variation in
responses to defeat. He offered only suggestions, such as the intensity of defeat, cultural
distance between warring parties, cultural attributes of defeated societies. Nor does he
test his theory. He offers only illustrations and examples. Harkavy‘s is a review article
and his model is not well-elaborated. Why do some states become bent on revenge while
others accept their defeat and yet others turn to internal revolution? While probably
nobody would contest the proposition that defeats create humiliation, we do not know
why humiliation in some cases empowers radical movements and radicalize foreign
policies while in other cases humiliation is contained and rage is tamed. My research

22
aims at answering this question by specifying conditions that lead nations to become
vengeful and revisionist or internally-focused and conciliatory.
Another scholar who focuses on the emotive aspects of defeat, humiliation, rage
and revenge is Midlarsky (2006). Midlarsky does not focus on foreign policy and his
major purpose is to explore the origins of fascism in countries that experienced defeat. He
is not particularly interested in how nations or societies react to defeat. His major interest
is in explaining the origins of political extremism. He specifies ‗loss,‘ particularly
territorial loss in wars, as a major variable that explains the emergence of fascism. He
hypothesizes that the emotional tribulations that accompany severe losses, or perceptions
of losses, such as anger, humiliation, and the desire for revenge, account for the
emergence of political extremism. Besides tapping the emotional dimensions and the
psychology of loss, Midlarsky incorporates collective memories of the distant past,
particularly the collective memories of loss and victory. He builds on the J-Davis curve,
which posits that sudden downturns in an individual‘s well-being—after a period of need
satisfaction and rising expectations—create frustration and discontent. When applied to
collective setting, this would be Davies‘ explanation for social unrest and the increased
potential for unrest in countries that experience sudden decline or downturn in their wellbeing.
The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the American
Revolution are all cited as examples. Midlarsky maintains that ―in the case of a previous
loss prior to the existing one, an individual can explain the current defeat by referring to
the earlier one…but in the case of an earlier gain prior to the current loss, especially if
substantial, then the present loss becomes puzzling, even frightening and then angering,
for there must be a special reason for the current defeat.‖

23
Midlarsky‘s theory is a major contribution to the literature on radicalism and
defeats in war. It is daring in bringing in the emotive aspects of defeat, despite the
empirical difficulties in defining and measuring such variables. Yet, he fails to account
for other significant variables such as the strength of political institutions, the kind of
dominant ideas existing at the time of defeat, the different ways defeats could be framed
and interpreted by different nations, and by different actors within the same nation, and
the impact this variation in perceptions might have on subsequent political developments.
Nor does he mention the positive/reformative consequences of defeats in wars, such as
the institutional reforms that might occur. He also focuses on victories and defeats in
wars—to measure rising expectations—ignoring the fact that a nation‘s collective
memory is not restricted solely to war memories and that an age of rising expectations
involves other dimensions such as economic prosperity, cultural renaissance, social
advancement, scientific accomplishments, etc…Additionally, real and concrete events,
such as victories and defeats, are socially constructed and framed. Finally, for Midlarsky,
the alternative to the emergence of radical movements following defeats in wars is nonemergence
of radicalism—without specifying what alternative pathways states and
nations might take. I intend to fill this gap by exploring the ―purifying and renewing
force‖ of defeats.
B. The Recovery Strand
Most of the literature on humiliation naturally focuses on radicalism. The
recovery strand covers the reformative effects of wars. The phoenix factor theory
(Organski and Kugler 1977, 1980) states that losers in war grow more rapidly than
winners mainly because countries that experienced more devastation will have to start far

24
reaching reconstruction projects, which, in turn, yield an increase in investments in new
technology. Consequently such countries will experience higher rates of economic
growth than the winners—that are still operating with the older machinery and means of
production. Another approach comes from Mancur Olson‘s theory (1965, 1982) of vested
interests: Since vested interests fight for their own narrow interests, and not for the
interests of the country as a whole, they will create a silting up of economic rigidities that
gradually stifle economic growth. External shocks such as wars and revolutions
substantially weaken these vested interested. Consequently, economic and political
institutions will be reshaped, and the country will be given a new fresh start. Olson‘s
dynamics work regardless of whether the state at war is a loser or a winner.
The basic message that the above literature conveys is that wars might have
beneficial effects, particularly regarding rates of economic growth and development. Its
basic insight is that losers in wars might actually benefit from defeat. However, the
dependent variable of this literature is economic growth, and its references to social and
political changes and foreign policy are tangential at best. I do not contest the hypothesis
that defeated states experience economic recovery faster and at higher rates than the
victorious, but I also focus on political recovery and disturbances, particularly, the effects
that defeats have on domestic political institutions, ideas, and foreign policy.
Zeev Maoz (1990, 275) identifies the loser’s fortune paradox where ―losing a war
can do a nation a lot of good.‖ Maoz briefly explores how defeated nations could recover
faster than winners. Defeat in wars could become the ―springboard of major economic
and political development processes that supersede not only those that had characterized
the nation‘s history, but also those of the winner.‖ Maoz explains this paradox by arguing

25
that ―disaster causes a common sorrow and a feeling of communality that leads to a high
motivation to rebuild the society.‖ Obviously, both winners and losers are motivated to
rebuild their societies; however, as the defeated experienced more devastation than
winners, their mobilization will be more pronounced. This argument is similar to the
phoenix factor theory. But, Maoz identifies another paradox, that of ―democracy,‖ where
political recovery is addressed directly, but briefly as well. His starting point is the
diversionary theory of war, which posits that regimes that suffer from domestic troubles
,try to divert the attention of their domestic constituents by involving the state in an
external conflict hoping that rally-round-the-flag effect would turn the tide of domestic
opposition to domestic support. But, then the crisis might escalate into actual war and the
outcome of the war might be defeat. In this case, the public will be angry, not only at the
particular government that caused this needless humiliation and loss, but against the
regime itself: ―Hence, because the nation lost the war, it gained freedom. Had it won the
war, the regime would have at least gained some breathing time, benefiting from the
spirit of elation following the victory‖ (Maoz 1990, 304). Maoz gives only one example
of the “Sweet Defeat”: the Falkland War and Argentina‘s subsequent democratization.
This is a very fruitful approach and directly addresses my research question, but Maoz‘s
treatment of the ―sweet defeat‖ is very brief and doesn‘t clarify the dynamics, processes
and causal pathways that produced such an outcome, nor does he provide other examples
or contradictory cases. How did the defeated nation digest humiliation? Why didn‘t
humiliation stir political extremism? Maoz does not claim that his explanation of the
Argentine case is generalizable. Moreover, he warns that the ―causal effect‖ of defeat on
regime change is unclear and difficult to establish. There might have been some social

26
and political processes underway, before the start of war, which caused subsequent
political developments. All defeat would have done is to accelerating these processes.
However, other scholars deny the link between democratization and defeats in
wars. Reiter (2001) finds that defeat does not make transition to democracy more likely.
He tests the proposition that an authoritarian state that loses war is more likely to
transition to democracy and finds it lacking. Gates and Strand (2004) investigate whether
countries that transitioned to democracy after losing a war are politically stable. They
find that ―if intervention is associated with military defeat, the post-conflict regime is
markedly less likely to survive, ceteris paribus.‖ They conclude that defeating a country
in war and imposing a regime change—whether a democracy or not—is politically
destabilizing.
The dependent variables of the literature reviewed so far vary from economic
recovery and growth to democratization and political stability. However, they all try to
assess the prospects of recovery from defeat. The economic growth hypothesis receives
plenty of support but the democratization effect is less supported. Nevertheless, even if
countries that experience transition to democracy following defeat in wars are outliers,
they are still worthy of studying. In addition, the mechanisms and processes that lead to
democratization, political stability/instability are not specified or sufficiently traced. This
remains an area of interest that warrants further research.
Another part of the literature focuses on military reforms and recovery after the
experience of loss in wars. Nathan Toronto (2007) explores how ―dire defeat,‖ along with
an advanced division of labor, lead to the professionalization of armies. His theory is

27
insightful for its treatment of defeat as a causal factor in creating professional armies.
However, his study is restricted to the professionalization of armies. His research does
not touch upon other important outcomes of defeat or how defeat impacts societies or
states in general. He measures dire defeats in terms of casualties and territories lost.
However, perceptions matter, and losses that might seem minor to scholars, such as the
fewer than one thousand casualties in the case of Argentina, or the much fewer in the
case of the Turkish-Greek/Cypriot war in 1974, might be perceived as ‗dire‘ by the
vanquished. Perceptions of defeats are a major variable of my approach; my point of
departure thus differs from that of Toronto‘s.
There is a small literature on the impact of war on mass and elite learning
patterns, especially with respect to future involvement in wars. One strand of this
literature focuses on the war weariness hypothesis: war is costly, and the greater the cost,
the less likely a state is to engage in future wars. However, memories fade, especially
over long periods of time, and consequently, weariness will similarly fade (Singer and
Small, 1972; Farrar, 1977; Siverson, 1980). Pickering (2002, 315) reviews this literature
and concludes that ―it is plausible that a war loss will instill a broadly pacifist sentiment
or at least a form of war-weariness within a population and among political leaders and it
is equally plausible that it will instill Revanchism.‖ The literature is very inconclusive.
Another related hypothesis focuses on leadership learning and the impact past
experiences have on subsequent decisions. Decision-makers respond to current crises,
disputes, and problems by drawing on their perceptions of the performance of policy
tools in the past. However, these lessons could work either to increase or decrease the
probability of war. The underlying theme of the mass and elite learning hypothesis is that

28
both the public and the elites learn the lessons of wars, especially if they were defeated.
Probably, conflict propensity diminishes as the public and the elite come to realize the
costs associated with wars. Although the victors also draw lessons from wars and learn to
appreciate the costly nature of war, the burden falls more on the shoulders of the
vanquished. However, intractable and enduring conflicts, which make up the vast
majority of conflicts in the world, do not lend support for the war weariness hypothesis.
In addition, leaders learn different lessons from the same event. The kind of lessons to be
learned depends upon the nature of defeat itself, the costs incurred, the prospects of future
conflicts, the ideological beliefs of the leadership and the elites. As the literature shows,
lessons could either increase or decrease conflict propensity. My theory builds on these
findings, but I go a step further in trying to determine the conditions that prompt leaders
to opt for aggressive or moderate foreign policy and the role of national self-images,
domestic institutions and ideas in facilitating learning from defeats.
C. Political Disturbances
The political disturbances strand focuses on the turbulences that follow defeats in
wars, such as the occurrence of revolutions and mass rebellions, leadership changes and
war recurrence.
For Walter Lacquer (1968) war is the decisive factor in causing revolutionary
situations in modern times, ―lost campaigns and wars might be the midwife of successful
mass rebellion and revolution.‖ Examples abound: the Paris Commune of 1871, the
Russian Revolution of 1905, and the many revolutions after the two world wars. Other
scholars such as Greene (1974), Huntington (1968), Skocpol (1979) support this causal

29
connection between defeat in wars and revolutions. Yet others, such as Eckstein (1980),
do not find empirical support for this hypothesis: Revolutions occur with or without war.
There are revolutions that are not connected to war experience at all, such as the
Revolutions of 1848, the Mexican, Nicaraguan and the Iranian revolutions, and more
recently (2011) the Tunisian, Libyan, Yemeni and Egyptian revolutions. Thus, defeats in
wars are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for revolutions. Goldstone (2001)
maintains that statistical studies of the relationship between revolutions and war find
weak or flat-out zero connection whereas qualitative case studies consistently find causal
connection. However, for him the best answer to the question of the connection between
wars and revolutions is ―that revolutions are sometimes caused by war, but only in states
already vulnerable to revolution‖ (2001).
Similar arguments could be made regarding defeats in wars and mass rebellions.
Several of Diana Russel‘s (1974) successful mass rebellions—Mexico, Portugal, Bolivia
(1930), Brazil, Cuba (twice) and Tanzania—were not preceded by militray defeats and
thus do not lend support to the link between rebellions and military defeats. Her other
five cases include some links between defeat and mass rebellion. Turning to attempted—
as opposed to successful—mass rebellions, 13 out of 28 cases she cites are somehow
linked to previous military defeats or military involvement. Thus, defeats are not a
necessary condition for mass rebellion. But, are they a sufficient condition? A look at the
number of military defeats and the number of mass rebellions that followed defeats
clearly establishes that defeats are not sufficient conditions eitehr. However, the link
cannot be simply ingonred. Goldstone‘s conclusion regarding revolutions and wars

30
applies here as well: mass rebellions are more likely to follow defeats only in courtries
that are vulnerable to mass rebellions.
I build on Goldstone‘s findings that political distrubances such as revolutions and
mass rebellions occur in defeated countries that are vulnerable to such disturbances. My
research focuses on delineating the conditions that make certain outcomes more likely
than others following defeats in wars; that is, I try to assess the extent to which defeated
countries are vulnerable to disturbances. This is also in line with Maoz‘s contention that a
strict causal link between defeats in wars and political outcomes is difficult to establish
and that all defeat could have done is to accelarate such outcomes.
The next political outcome that the literature deals with is regime survival and
leadership tenure. Stein and Russet (1980: 411) show that all great powers that lost wars
between 1870 and 1945 experienced regime change. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita,
Randolph M. Siverson, and Garry Woller (1992) find that regimes that lost wars,
especially war initiators, are more likely to face higher risks of violent regime change
than winners. However, they do not mention whether the regimes that lost wars were
weak and vulnerable regimes to begin with, which might have caused their leaders to
gamble for resurrection, and consequently lose wars, or whether those regimes became
weak and vulnerable to overthrow only because they lost wars.
Goemans (2000a) goes a step further and asserts that war outcomes, along with
domestic political institutions, play a role in leadership survival. There are two variables
at work: the intensity of war losses and regime type. He divides regime types into three:
democratic, mixed and dictatorial; and it is only in democratic or mixed regimes that

31
leaders will be replaced after losing a war at a moderate cost. However, leaders of all
regime types are more likely to lose office if defeated in a costly war. The logic behind
these findings is that leaders of democratic and mixed regimes are not entrenched in
power and are more likely to yield to pressures emanating from moderate losses in wars.
Dictators, on the other hand, are more entrenched and could resort to repression to retain
office after losing a war. But, in dire defeats even dictators are more likely to be replaced.
He supports these findings with both statistical and case-study methods.
Colaresi (2004) adds the international dimension, particularly, international
rivalry, or external threat situation a regime faces after defeat, to the formula. ―Therefore,
the relative cost of postwar leadership turnover is a function of the external environment
a state faces.‖ The costs of regime change could be higher for states that experienced
defeats in war if the external environment is threatening. Because leadership turnover
might create instability that could be exploited by the enemies, leaders of defeated states
would marshal arguments against regime change so that stability could be maintained.
Nasser of Egypt resorted to this tactic after 1967. So did Siad Barre of Somalia after his
defeat in the Ogaden war—he specifically cited the possibility of revolution and state
breakdown (Laitan and Samatar, 1987). From these arguments, Colaresi (2004, 176)
hypothesizes that ―states that have lost a war and are faced with an external rival after the
conflict will be less likely to see leadership turnover.‖
Regime change sometimes ends wars and rivalries, as shown by the cases of
Japan and Germany after WWII. But, these are exceptional cases; they are unique
because of the U.S. attitudes and the generous provision of aid, guidance and protection
against emerging threats from communism. However, regime change is not always

32
consequential for foreign policy changes or at least for the relationship with the
rival/victor. The change in regime in Germany after WWI (Weimer Republic) did not
restore trust with France nor did it ameliorate French perceptions of German threats. On
the other hand, regimes that stay in power after their defeat might also pursue moderate
foreign policies as they learn the lesson of defeat and the risks of war.
The literature on regime change has advanced over time from simply specifying
whether regime changes occur or not following defeat to more specific arguments about
the conditions that make change more/less likely. Intensity of loss, regime type and the
international threat environment have been introduced as variables that account for
regime change. However, the literature remains limited in investigating the aftermath of
defeats. It simply aims at finding why regime change does or does not occur. This is a
significant question but it is equally significant to learn about the impact of defeats on
domestic and foreign policies, ideas and institutions. The above literature does not
explain whether the regimes that lose power after defeat experienced overthrow because
they specifically lost wars or because they were vulnerable to overthrow before the war.
My research goes a step further in exploring the nature of change itself, and the impact
that defeat has on domestic institutions and leaders‘ ideas and beliefs and subsequently
on foreign policy. Those are questions that the above literature does not touch upon.
A major strand of research on war outcomes focuses on the impact of settlement
type on post-war behavior, specifically on the recurrence of war between the victorious
and the vanquished. Conventional (realist) wisdom recommends prudence in victory; that
is, imposing some form of lenient settlement on the defeated. Two paradigmatic cases are
often cited in the literature to illustrate the wisdom of prudence in victory: The Treaty of

33
Paris (the defeat of France in 1815) which aimed at reintegrating France into the
European balance of power system, and the Versailles settlement (Germany 1919) which
imposed humiliating and demanding conditions on Germany. However, other scholars
did not find empirical evidence to support the conventional wisdom. Maoz (1984) found
that there is no positive correlation between restrictive settlements and war initiation but
that ―decisive outcomes and imposed settlements tend to yield longer periods of stability
than tied disputes and formal settlements that are associated with mutual concessions.‖
Similarly, Hensel (1994), Grieco (2001), and Senese and Quackenbush (2003) find that
imposed settlements tend to increase the time between all levels of conflicts compared to
negotiated settlements.
On the other hand, Werner (1999), Box-Steffensmeier, Reiter and Zorn (2003)
argue that the evidence that associates imposed settlements with longer periods of
stability is statistically insignificant. Singer and Cusack (1981) analyze the impact of war
outcome on subsequent war involvement—for the period between 1816 and 1965—and
find out that the vanquished tend to be involved in subsequent wars more rapidly the
victor but their finding is not statistically significant. Others (Fritz 2006) argued for the
need for a more nuanced dissection of settlement type. He differentiated the ―level of
restrictiveness‖ of settlement types along four measures of economic, military, territorial
and general political restrictions placed on the defeated. He found that restrictive
settlements do indeed lead to more stability but only if the vanquished lacked military
power and/or if the victor enforced the settlement. Moderate settlements most often lead
to post-conflict stability. He concludes that ―restrictive settlements do in fact lead to
postwar stability at least as often as lenient ones.‖ However, from the aforementioned,

34
one is tempted to conclude that settlement type itself does not matter. Instead, the
determining factors for post-war stability are ―relative power‖ and ―enforcement of the
settlement.‖
The literature on the impact of settlement type on postwar behavior is
inconclusive. Probably, there are other omitted variables that better explain how defeated
states behave in the aftermath of defeat. Overall, the literature mostly focuses on
correlations between settlement types and postwar behavior without specifying the causal
mechanisms of how settlement type lead states to behave in certain ways. What happened
to the domestic political landscape—institutions and ideas—is mostly ignored. In-depth
case studies are needed to specify the causal pathways that connect defeat, settlement
type and state behavior.
Conclusion of the Literature Review
The literature clearly demonstrates that defeats in wars could be ‗beneficial.‘
There is sufficient empirical evidence to back up the claims of a phoenix factor in
economic growth. The reformative effect is less well-developed. There are few cases that
experienced democratization after losing a war. But, war is a rare occurrence anyway,
and such cases still warrant further research. The literature regarding the impact of
settlement type on war recurrence is inconclusive though the hypothesis that restrictive
settlements and decisive outcomes are more conducive to peaceful relations than lenient
settlements and indecisive outcomes receives more support in the literature. However, the
literature does not explain the processes and the causal pathways that lead states to act in
one way or another. The literature that deals with leaders‘ tenure mostly stops at the point

35
of leadership turnover, but it would be more interesting to understand what kind of new
leaders emerge, what kind of lessons they learned from past defeats, and what their
foreign policies would be. The most obvious shortcoming of the literature is the absence
of detailed understanding of the impact of defeats on domestic politics and how the
aftermath of defeats is shaped by prior conditions such as national self-images and
effective political parties. Changes in ideas, belief systems and ideologies are almost
absent.
5. Theoretical Framework
It is a basic assumption here that states formulate their foreign policies and adapt
to the changing external environment in terms of their domestic institutions, structures
and political environment. Changes in relative power first make an impact on domestic
politics and are translated later into changes in foreign policy. Thus, a state‘s power status
in the hierarchical system only establishes a parameter of a country‘s foreign policy. In
order to properly understand the impact of systemic factors on foreign policy behavior,
we need to understand the domestic setting and domestic intervening variables that
condition how states perceive systemic pressures and respond to them. States are
constrained by both systemic and domestic factors.
Defeat in war is a systemic pressure: it is a clear indication of a shift in relative
power and status; its impact on foreign policy is necessarily filtered through intervening
domestic variables. Foreign policy of defeated states is not simply an outcome of defeat
itself; nor is it a response to the type of war-ending settlement—be it restrictive or
conciliatory; it is rather an outcome of complex domestic political processes and

36
conditions, already in place at the time of defeat, such as political parties, mass
politicization, the strength of the opposition and its mobilizational capacity, national selfimages—particularly
inflated or tempered—and finally, the material resources available,
which include opportunities and constraints of the international environment.
Therefore a special attention must be paid to the pre-defeat political landscape, for
the impact of defeat on ideas, institutions, and foreign policies is necessarily mediated by
pre-war conditions, social conflicts and the different prevailing ideologies. These
conditions shape the aftermath of defeat; in other words, we cannot study the impact of
wars on societies without accounting for the pre-war nature of state and society and the
processes that might have been already underway. War, in the words of Marwick (1988,
xiii) is necessarily a trigger, a facilitator. Similarly, W.A. Robson (1950, 303) describes
war as the ―midwife of change‖ since ―the changes which war brings to birth are those
whose seeds have long been germinating in the womb of time.‖ Stanley Hoffman, who
studied the effects of WWII on French society, proposed that what the ―war did was to
bring to a climax a number of trends which had appeared in the last years of the Third
Republic‖ (1961 28). War cannot be used as a ‗single variable‘ to explain its aftermath;
instead, it facilitates or hastens the occurrence of certain outcomes without singlehandedly
shaping them or pre-determining the course of events.
The dependent variable of the first stage of the model is segmented into two
outcomes: domestic radical movements and institutional reform movements.
Domestic Radicalism connotes departure from that which is usual or traditional and
refers to unorthodox or revolutionary outlooks. The word ―radical‖ simply emphasizes

37
that which is extreme, particularly in relation to social or political traditionalisms—this is
the reason why the words ―moderate‖ and ―radical‖ are used as antonyms. ―To be radical
is to be extreme relative to something that is defined or accepted as normative,
traditional, or valued as the status quo‖ (Mandel 2010). Practically, radicalization refers
to a rise in political extremism and opposition to the establishment and the status quo. It
is the active pursuit of far-reaching changes that constitute a threat to the status quo and
the existing socio-political order. We know that there is significant radicalization when a
society experiences a rise in the number or popularity of radical parties or when it
witnesses an increase in the diffusion of radical ideas. However, radicalism is not limited
to a desire for a ‗radical‘ restructuring of state and society but also includes an element of
revanchism and revisionism. After all, I am referring to radicalism in the wake of defeats
in wars. That is, radicalism must be associated with a desire to return lost territories, to
avenge the nation‘s honor, to launch a war of redemption. In other words, the foreign
policy element is an integral part of revisionist movements. In this work, for radical
movements to be counted as revisionist/ revanchist, they must be outwardly oriented.
An alternative to outwardly-oriented revisionist/revanchist movements is the
inwardly-oriented political parties and societal and institutional reform movements and
ideologies. The purpose of such trends is to invest the nation‘s energies in domestic
politics, to stay away from foreign entanglements, to pursue peaceful relations with
neighbors and former enemies and to be incorporated into the regional and international
order.
A. National self-image

38
National self-image is a variable that shapes and determines political behavior: how
people and groups within nations see themselves influences their subsequent political
engagements and their reaction to defeat. Kaplowitz (1990, 39) argues that national selfimages
include ―how a people sees itself, that which it most likes about itself, that about
which it is most disturbed, the ways in which it may want to change, perceptions of the
nation‘s history, conceptions of national purpose and interest, and views of the nation‘s
power and limits.‖ This definition captures several aspects of national self-images but is
too broad; instead, in this dissertation, I focus on two basic components of national selfimages:
(1) the ideational, which consists of collective memories and myths 6 and (2) the
material, which consists of the perceived records of past accomplishments achievements,
frustrations and setbacks, including the actual record of victories and defeats.
Smith (1983) argues that public intellectuals play a crucial role in delineating a
nation‘s self-image. Mendeloff (2008, 35) mentions that historical memories
independently shape ―perceptions and policies in ways beyond mere analogical reasoning
and misapplication of historical lessons.‖ Similarly, Shimko (1994) maintains that
fantastical and mythologized conceptions of history are a major source of images and
ideas that shape behavior in profound ways. If historical narratives are sufficiently
internalized, they become part of the political culture of the nation and would influence
its foreign policy objectives.
6 Bruce Lincoln (1989, 24-25) defines a myth as ―a discursive act through which actors evoke the
sentiments out of which society is actively constructed.‖ Myths are powerful and authoritative and their
authority is ―akin to that of revolutionary slogans and ancestral invocations, in that through the recitation of
myth, one may effectively mobilize a social grouping.‖ For George Schopflin (1997, 19) a myth ―creates an
intellectual and cognitive monopoly in that it seeks to establish the sole way of ordering the world and
defining world views. For the community to exist as a community, this monopoly is vital.‖

39
Besides the ideational components, the actual record of accomplishments and
frustrations matter for national self-images. A nation that experienced a recent history of
triumphs, successes, deeds, feats, exploits, conquests must have a different national selfimage
from a nation that experienced a recent record of failures, frustrations, setbacks,
dissatisfactions, disappointments, letdowns. The former thrives in an age of rising
expectations: success breads confidence and optimism. The later survives under the
ghosts of diminishing expectations: successive failures and frustrations are incubators of
resignation and lower self-esteem. I focus on both longer and recent periods and records.
The idea is intuitive and simple: Cumulative frustrations and cumulative successes
generate different expectations and different moods. Cumulative victories create and
reinforce exaggerated national self-images, but cumulative defeats and frustrations
generate prudence and compromise. When ‗another‘ defeat strikes, expectations are
already tempered; but when defeat hits while expectations of achievements and victories
are high, the shock is sudden and painful. A nation with a record of significant past
achievements and a series of straight successes will likely have an elevated self-esteem
and towering self-image. In this case, the nation imagines a linear trajectory of
achievements. With this imagined and expected trajectory, sudden defeats cause severe
shocks to self-image. When such a nation confronts defeats, frustrations and failure, it
does not lower its expectations and aspirations; instead, it raises them; it looks for
opportunities to prove self-worth and to engage in risky and aggressive behavior. On the
other hand, for states and nations that did not experience such great expectations, defeats
should be more tolerable. A defeat that is only a continuation of past occurrences would
not be as shocking; the nation would show more tolerance and probably prudence and

40
humility in reacting to what might be called ‗just another defeat.‘ It is hard to imagine
that the public would be receptive to calls for more wars, expansion and grandeur. There
isn‘t much room in the public imagination for such dreams. The mood had already been
tempered by previous performance. 7
I identify two types of national self-image: tempered and inflated.
Tempered national self-image is one that views the self realistically, recognizes and
acknowledges its limitations, boundaries, margins, shortcomings, and confronts or
accepts them. It is an image that is saturated with self-discipline, which allows it to
formulate realistic goals, and is cognizant of its similarity to others, which helps it avoid
sterile and dangerous flights of fantasy.
An inflated national self-image, on the other hand, is obsessed with grandiose dreams
and illusions, of glories to come, of boundless aspirations that reach beyond the skies. It
does not recognize its limits and capabilities and is thus more inclined to overestimating
its strengths and underestimating its weaknesses and more willing to resort to risky
behaviors. Its ambitions do not match its capabilities. An overbearing national self-image
suffers from overconfidence, expansionist dreams, a constant and restless search for pride
of place. I emphasize two dimensions of overblown national self-images: (1) selfglorifying
myths (grandiose collective memories, exaggerated and contested
achievements), and (2) national superiority claims (claims to regional leadership and
hegemonic aspirations, intervening in other state‘s internal affairs, support for opposition
7 Those arguments derive from Davies J-curve. Davies (1962) argues that serious problems occur when
there is a sudden downturn in fortunes while expectations are on the rise. There arises, therefore, a gap
between expectations and reality, which creates frustrations and subsequent anger and social conflicts and
unrest. For a separate treatment of the ‗collective weight of consecutive war wins and consecutive war
losses‖ see Pickering (2002).

41
movements in other countries, spreading one‘s own ideology and one‘s own vision of
statehood into other countries). These two elements might motivate a nation to
overestimate its strengths and underestimate its adversaries‘ power and resilience. If
images do not match reality, the outcome will be particularly ruinous: disillusionment
and disarray prevail.
Self-understandings are not strictly based on ‗facts on the ground.‘ Even when
confronted with contradictory evidence, self-images do not necessarily change, since they
―have no corollary attached to them… stipulating the conditions under which they could
be abandoned. [They are] part of the framework within which, and the lens through
which, events are perceived and judgments made‖ (Lustick 1999, 339). Thus, a gap
between reality and expectations is not sufficient to change ideas as those ideas assume a
‗hegemonic‘ status, at least for those individuals who deeply hold them (Gramsci 1971).
Indeed, contradictory evidence might rather motivate individuals to push their deeplyheld
beliefs into the extremes.
It is true that all nations believe themselves to be unique and distinct, but not
necessarily superior to other nations or entitled to supremacy and domination. Every
national self-image contains elements of exaggeration and elements of resignation. Here,
I really emphasize the degree to which either element is more prevalent and domineering.
An exaggerated national self-image is more likely to be found when a nation
overemphasizes its uniqueness relative to others, when elites propagate national myths
that delegitimize others and overemphasize national values and their nation‘s superiority.
There is plenty of room for aggressive foreign policy when a nation suffers from such
chauvinistic national self-images.

42
Volkan (1997, 48) specifies two essential elements in the construction of national
identities: ―chosen trauma,‖ the torments of the past that leave their impact on the present
and future, and ―chosen glory,‖ grandiose imaginings of a splendid future. A nation‘s
―chosen trauma‖ is the set of experiences and memories that ―symbolize this group‘s
deepest threats and fears through feelings of hopelessness and victimization.‖ A nation
would thus select a certain trauma and incorporate it into its identity.
When a nation experiences a severe crisis, such as defeats in wars, it resorts to its past
memories for solace and guidance: ―when identity is problematized, memory is
valorized‖ (Megill 1998, 39-40). Anthony Smith (1996, 383) accords collective
memories essential place in forming a nation and its national identity: ‗‗one might almost
say: no memory, no identity, no identity, no nation.‖ Defeats in wars activate historical
memories and bring to the fore discourses of grievances, victimization and humiliation.
When such discourses overwhelm the nation and dominate its perceptions, the
consequences could be grave. Pennebaker (1997, vii) theorizes that collective memories
are one of the deeper sources of conflicts. Historical memory is often used by politicians
to legitimize political behavior and collective goals.
Psychology has demonstrated that individuals with high self-esteem are more
prone to aggressive behavior when confronted with frustration and humiliation than those
with low self-esteem (Baumeister et al. 1996). 8 A similar logic could be extended to
collectivities: a nation with overstated, embellished, larger-than-life, inflated national
self-image is more likely to be receptive to radicalism (risky and aggressive behavior)
8 This goes against folk wisdom that an individual with a positive self-image will be better equipped to deal
with difficulties and frustrations whereas one with low self-esteem will collapse or lash out when
confronted with frustration and defeats.

43
when it encounters defeats and frustrations, but a nation with a realistic, resigned,
sensible, and tempered national self-image is more likely to respond to defeats with
prudence and reconciliation. 9
Scholars of psychology have identified ‗threatened egotism‘ as a major drive of
human violence and aggression. This is particularly true when self-images ―consist of
favorable self-appraisal that may be inflated or ill-founded and that are confronted with
an external evaluation that disputes them.‖ The word ‗self-esteem‘ might create some
confusion as it enjoys universal positive connotations. However, high self-esteem as used
here is associated with ―pride, egotism, arrogance, honor, conceitedness, narcissism, and
sense of superiority….‖ In addition, there is a related set of concepts that refer to the
evaluations of others of one‘s self-esteem and these include images such as ―prestige,
admiration, public esteem, and respect‖ (Baumeister et al. 1996, 5-6).
High self-esteem generates higher expectations and aspirations than low selfesteem
(Baumeister and Tice 1985). In studying terrorism, Long (1990, 18) demonstrates
that terrorist individuals ―tend to place unrealistically high demands on themselves, and
when confronted with failure, to raise rather than lower their aspirations.‖ 10 This pattern
of raising one‘s expectations and aspirations following frustration has also been identified
by McFarlin and Blascovich (1981); a finding that was further replicated by Baumeister,
Heatherton and Tice (1993) who demonstrated that individuals with high self-esteem who
9 Admittedly, some might raise objections about treating the nation-state as an entity that has emotions,
feelings, etc.. However, it is so often that scholars, pundits, politicians and others refer to the nation as an
individual/human entity. For example, the state made a decision; it took action, it felt offended; fearing
reactions, it stood neutral, and so on and so forth. Morgenthau (1985, 53) refers to three types of foreign
policies: ―a policy of the status quo,‖ ―a policy of imperialism‖ and a ―policy of prestige,‖ the latest is
clearly an individual level and human attribute. For a full treatment of similar questions, see William
Bloom‘s Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (1990).
10 Though Long reaches a different conclusion, basically arguing that low self-esteem leads to violence.

44
confront failure and ego threats are more prone to risky behavior. Baumeister et al. (1996,
8) do not argue that high self-esteem in and by itself causes violence; this is not sustained
empirically; they argue that the combination of high self-esteem and ego threats produces
violent and risky behavior—directed at the source of the threat.
An individual might resort to violence because of the gap that emerges when selfimages
do not match actual performance, or when self-images are not recognized and
respected by others; that is, when there is a substantial disjuncture between images and
reality. Those with low self-esteem would respond to failure by withdrawing, lowering
their aspirations and avoiding conflictual situations that are potentially fraught with
dangers and risks—a flight response; but those with high self-esteem would raise their
expectations and seek opportunities for the confirmation of their inflated self-image—a
fight-like reaction. Thus, the latter‘s rejection to lower their expectations and aspirations
and adjust their overblown self-esteem causes dissonance between images and reality,
and this dissonance is a major source of risk-taking, radical behavior and resort to
violence.
Defeat has a negative impact on national self-esteem. Wars are the ultimate tests
of a nation‘s mettle and a nation that fails the test will suffer from an injured self-image.
Before defeat, there were hopes of victory and steadfastness, dreams of achievements and
grandeur; in the aftermath, there prevailed frustration, anger, fury, shame and guilt. This
is particularly pronounced for a nation that has an exaggerated national self-image, for a
nation that hedged its bets on winning a war, achieving grandeur and attaining a place in
the sun. Overstated and embellished national self-images motivated nations throughout
history and pushed them towards adventurism and risky behavior.

45
Stephen Van Evera (1997, 278) has argued that ―the effects of nationalism depend
heavily on the beliefs of nationalist movements especially their self-images and their
images of their neighbors.‖ He goes on to explain the kind of images that are more prone
to producing conflicts, ―if nations embrace self-justifying historical myths, or adopt
distorted pictures of their own and others‘ current conduct and character that exaggerate
the legitimacy of their own cause,‖ then these images become a compelling motive for
the pursuit of aggressive foreign policies. If these myths are carried to the extreme, they
―can also transform nationalism….from a purely self-liberating enterprise into a
hegemonistic enterprise.‖ Obviously, the opposite should be true. That is, a nation that is
not obsessed with self-aggrandizing myths, and that adopts an objective and fair image of
its neighbors, and that does not exaggerate the legitimacy of its own causes, but
recognizes limits and boundaries and demonstrates willingness to compromise and
reconcile, is more likely to have moderate nationalism and better relations with its
neighbors. That is, those benign images of the nation‘s self and Others, will work as
protective shields against risky behavior, adventurism, entanglements.
This is similar to the social-psychological theory of group myths and their impact
on extreme ethnic violence. Group myths, especially those that ―justify hostility, fears of
group extinction, and a symbolic politics of chauvinist mobilization‖ cause ethnic
conflicts and violence (Kaufman 2006, 47). When these myths are strong, they lead to
hostile mass attitudes, which in turn, nurture an environment conducive to aggressive and
violent politics. Similarly, national-self images that emphasize victimization, entitlement
to greatness and superior status—self-glorifying and grand national myths—are more
likely to produce an environment that is more receptive to radicalism and revisionism.

46
This is particularly pronounced in under-institutionalized environment where outbidding
becomes a daily practice. These national self-images provide the necessary narratives and
vocabulary for mass mobilization. Defeats are emotionally infused situations and offer a
political space amenable to myths and illusions.
The contention that national self-images have an independent effect on state
behavior and political outcomes derives from the ideational paradigm in IR, which posits
that ideas have an independent effect on state behavior. Belief systems theories, for
example, focus on the power of ideas—not simply cognitive processes—as sources of
behavior and causes of misperceptions. However, even such theories still treat historical
memories instrumentally as signs of elites‘ operational codes—the philosophical and
instrumental beliefs that shape decision making processes—but not as deeper sources of
behavior. Thus, historical ideas become mere reflections of pre-existing philosophical
and instrumental foreign policy beliefs (Mendeloff 2008, 36). I do not treat self-images as
reflections of decision-makers‘ operational codes but as deeper sources of behavior—for
both the elites and the masses. Formally-sanctioned collective histories and popular
historical ideas are treated here as having independent causal effect on probabilities of
domestic radicalization and aggressive foreign policies.
The discourses that elites employ to manipulate their audience and to recruit
constituents do not descend from heaven but sprout from the nation‘s repertoire of
collective memories, historical narratives and images. When a society experiences a
serious crisis, elites develop compelling symbolic frames 11 that ―resonate with underlying
11 Frames are interpretative schemata that allow people to ―locate, perceive, identify, and label‖ social and
political realities they are confronting (Goffman 1974, 21). They are instruments that allow people to define
their situations. As Edelman (1993, 232) put it, ―The social world is…a kaleidoscope of potential realities,
any of which can be readily evoked by altering the way in which observations are framed and categorized.‖

47
emotions, obscured collective memories, and ostentatious national aspirations‖ (Pappas
2008, 1122). These symbolic frames are constructed for instrumental reasons by political
leaders who, ―in their pursuit of power, engage in creative symbolic action for recruiting
adherents, building political organizations, and, ultimately, bringing about political
change.‖ The role of elites is greatly facilitated when society experiences a traumatic
experience where political leaders ―have an opportunity to create new visions and state
new truths‖ (Laitin 1986, 91).
Arabs believe that they are entitled to grandeur: when dwelling on their current
situation—littered with humiliations and lackluster achievements—they remember
glorious histories, conquest of faraway lands, scientific and cultural contributions to
civilizations. The ‗burden of history‘ imposes itself when Osama bin Laden mentions
Andalusia as an Islamic land lost to the infidels. 12 Collective memories of the glorious
past resonate deeply with Arab collective self-image—as a great nation that once was the
master of its fate and the purveyor of a great civilization. 13
Germans understood the language used by Hitler; his invocation of racial
superiority and prosperous future of expansion and grandeur reflected and reinforced the
German collective self-image. After defeat in WWI, German intellectuals, policymakers
and elites began spreading myths about betrayal and stab in the back—ideas that found
Frames are made up of symbolic narratives that help interpret the meaning of reality in a confusing world
of meanings, facilitate the emergence of new identities and social roles, determine the political agenda and
―challenge existing authority relationships‖ (Pappas 2001).
12 Andalusia is the name of the Iberian territories that came under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492.
13 After 9/11, Osama bin Laden‘s mother was interviewed by the Saudi editor in chief of ‗al Madina‘
newspaper. She mentioned that Osama had turned to violence because of his frustrations with the current
condition of Arabs and Muslims and their failures to liberate Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya, and Southern
Philippines. His main purpose, according to his mother, was to ‗restore the old glory of Muslims‘
represented by the golden age of the Prophet and his guided companions (Cited in Al-akhbar newspaper,
May 5 th , 2011). This argument is common to all Islamic fundamentalist movements.

48
support among large sections of the population. According to one scholar (Feuchtwanger
1993, 318-319) there emerged a consensus among Germans that the German national
objectives should be the ―restoration of Germany‘s Great Power position.‖ Pakistanis
have constructed myths of a Muslim soldier worth numerous Hindu ones—along with
exact numbers—one to five! The image of a martial and superior ‗religious‘ race was part
and parcel of how Pakistanis imagined themselves, and was decisive in the partition plan
and later on in the successive wars and the consolidation of a hardened and
uncompromising Islamic identity. Even after defeats, Pakistani leaders remained locked
up and entrapped in their commitment to a radical ideology.
Hungarians believed in some one-thousand-year kingdom, in the myth of
Hungarians standing sentry to protect the gates of Europe against Muslim invaders. There
prevailed certain images and myths—as could be seen from historiography, popular
histories, intellectuals‘ writings, and political discourses in general—that made up a
pompous, overbearing national-self image: unflinching belief in some sort of a manifest
destiny; a ―maniacal insistence on Hungarian greatness‖ (Deák 1992,1047); a
commanding sense of cultural superiority over other minorities—co-existing with
Hungarians or living on what is perceived to be the Hungarian realm; a belief in a ―predestined
Hungarian preeminence in the Carpathian Basin‖ (Vardy 1976, 208-09); an
unwavering sense of Exceptionalism, reinforced by the Holy Crown Doctrine; and a
passionate attachment to glorious historical memories, real or imagined. Hungarian elites,
especially in late nineteenth century, displayed ‗imperial thinking,‘ and became haunted
with a vision of Hungary as a great power. Historical memories are integral to national

49
identity and this is particularly true when there is a perceived glorious past entrenched in
collective memories. Perceptions of a glorious past nourish present national goals.
―Patriotic feelings are buried deeper in the Bulgarian heart, for there is not much
to be praised in our past, less even in the present‖(Georgiev 2007, 7). Bulgarian history—
up till WWI—was a series of frustrations and defeats with only few dispersed
achievements. This history must have had its toll on Bulgarian national self-esteem and
must have made it unpalatable for Bulgarians to ‗imagine‘ a glorious future of expansion
and regional hegemony. This historical legacy shaped how Bulgarians viewed themselves
and how they set their national priorities. A nation whose history is plagued by
frustrations and defeats would subsequently adjust its self-esteem and formulate
objectives that are achievable. For a nation that experienced cumulative defeats, the
shock of ‗another‘ defeat should be more tolerable, as expectations had already been
tempered by previous performance. The agrarians, who ruled Bulgaria in the immediate
aftermath of defeat, did not immigrate into history to dig out imagined empires, glorious
past and old kingdoms, but instead promoted a national self-image that was compatible
with the capacities and the resources at hand, perceived neighbors—former enemies—as
possible future allies and envisioned a Balkan federation based on cooperation and
conciliation. The prevalence of a realistic national self image allowed the agrarian party
to promote statist/moderate nationalism, formulate anti-irredentist ideology, implement
sweeping domestic reforms and pursue cooperative foreign policy. The agrarian
movement did not see defeat as another occasion for more adventures and territorial
redemption; instead, redemption was sought in domestic reforms, internal reconstruction
and peaceful cooperative relations with former enemies. The Bulgarian Peasant Party

50
dissociated itself from Bulgarian myths of expansion and grandeur—the images of
greatness that some elites tried to market did not resonate with the peasants, who formed
the majority of the population.
On December 1, 1920 14 —before the birth of modern Turkey, and while the
Ottomans/Turks were still struggling against Great Power occupation, Greek invasion
and the loss of Empire—Kemal Ataturk delivered an iconic speech that exemplified a
tempered/resigned national self-image, which subsequently generated an internallyoriented
reaction to defeat:
…The Grand National Assembly and government of Turkey…are very modest, very far
from fantasies, and completely realistic... Gentlemen, we are not men who run after great
fantasies and present a fraudulent appearance of doing things which in fact we cannot do.
Gentlemen, by looking as though we were doing great and fantastic things, without
actually doing them, we have brought the hatred, rancour, and malice of the whole world
on this country and this people. We did not serve pan-Islamism. We said that we had and
we would, but we didn't…We did not serve pan-Turanianism. We said that we could and
we would..There you have the whole problem... Rather than run after ideas which we did
not and could not realize and thus increase the number of our enemies and the pressure
upon us, let us return to our natural, legitimate limits. And let us know our limits.
Gentlemen, we are a nation desiring life and independence. For that and that alone may
we give our lives (Kemal‘s speech, December 1, 1920, cited in Lewis 1980, 30-31).
The Turks, having experienced successive military defeats and reform failures
and national frustrations, left behind their imperial legacy and expansion, and so did the
Danes and the Spanish after their crushing defeats at the hands of Prussians and
Americans.
Referring to the allegedly tempered popular German enthusiasm after WWII,
Diehl (1989, 389) argues that since the war was ―Begun with lower expectations, the
14 Notably, this speech was delivered before the height of the Greek invasion in the summer of 1920—
clearly indicating that Kemal‘s ideas came in the wake of imperial collapse, and long before the Turkish
victory in the war of national liberation and independence.

51
war‘s loss produced less disillusionment.‖ On the other hand, a nation that has high
expectations from its wars would be gravely shocked and disillusioned if it loses the war.
Horne (2008, 17) argues that higher expectations would produce intense disillusionment,
―When defeat came after such episodes of national mobilization, the psychological shock
was all the greater since it cancelled the collective enterprise in which much of society
had been engaged, required self-examination by groups and individuals (or myths and
mechanisms that avoided this) and, in the case of total defeat, necessitated the
obliteration or reinvention of the past.‖
Differentiating between only two types of national self-images is too simple but
necessary for my analysis. I ask questions such as whether the nation perceives its history
in grandiose terms and whether it desires to recreate perceived periods of past glory.
Does the nation focus on the military aspects of its history, on its national military
accomplishments, its military heroes, conquests and other militant elements of its
collective memories. 15
Or does the nation focus on civilizational and cultural
accomplishments and peaceful coexistence with neighbors? How much is the nation
concerned with its honor, status and prestige? How does it view its potential and actual
capabilities? What kind of national myths are prevalent? In order to determine the kind of
national self-image/self-esteem prevalent, I examine elites‘ statements, especially
decision-makers‘ and the opposition leaders‘ statements. I also rely on memoires,
biographies, and a vast array of secondary sources that documented the era under study.
15 Militarism, for example, was at the heart of aggressive German nationalism with some ultranationalists
arguing that military conquests bring forth the best qualities of the German nation (Snyder 1969).

52
Hypothesis: a nation with exaggerated national self-image is more prone to domestic
radicalism and aggressive foreign policy whereas a nation with tempered national selfimage
is more likely to respond to defeats with prudence and reconciliation.
B. Strong/Weak Political Parties
Coupled with the permissibility of radicalism that the prevailing type of national selfimages
creates, political parties either facilitate or obstruct the emergence of radicalism.
In this section, I focus on political parties as political institutions that condition reactions
to defeats in wars. Huntington (1965, 394) defines institutions as ―stable, valued,
recurring patterns of behavior‖ and institutionalization as ―the process by which
organizations and procedures acquire value and stability.‖ Kay Lawson (1976, 1-2)
specifies the functions that political parties perform in a political system,
Parties are almost always central suppliers of political information—accurate, false, or a
convenient blend of both—to a nation‘s citizenry. Parties are also important social agencies,
continuously making the arrangements necessary to bring together unacquainted individuals
who share political beliefs, interests, and aspirations. Further, parties are the great
synthesizers of that amorphous entity, public opinion. To them falls a large share of the job of
combining, compromising, repressing, distorting , and expressing the multitude of vague
hopes, considered schemes, and utopian projects that are the political contribution of any
nation‘s active citizenry. And Parties are often a nation‘s most important personnel service.
They recruit, process, and send forth a continuous stream of applicants for the top jobs in
government…In short, the domain of parties may be equal to the domain of politics itself, and
every function that political systems perform may be performed by party.
Parties are ―organizational instrumentalities‖ that are crucial to political life—not
because of their centrality to elections, policy making, patronage practices or capacity to
make decisions that leave deep marks on the nation‘s welfare—but because they mobilize
mass publics, foment revolutions, turn ideologies into moral imperatives, organize public
opinion, channel and transmit demands from society to decision makers and vice versa,

53
and recruit political leaders (LaPalombara and Anderson 1992, 393). 16 For those reasons,
parties are crucial in any account of the aftermath of defeats in wars. This is because
defeats in wars are distressing experiences and mobilizing events. They provoke sharp
differences within the body politic. I am particularly interested in one specific aspect of
political parties: the degree to which they could contain the stress generated by defeat;
that is, the degree to which a party succeeds in preventing the emergence and
consolidation of radical/predatory elites and demagogues by blocking their pathways to
power and authority. As we will see shortly, strong political parties obstruct
radicalization and weak ones facilitate the emergence of political extremism.
I distinguish between weak and strong political parties. The following indicators
would be used to determine the strength of political parties—derived basically from
Huntington (1968):
(a) Year of origin—older parties are more institutionalized than newer ones
(b) Name changes: changes in party names are clear indicators of weak
institutionalization because those changes are normally made in order to renew links with
the party‘s constituency, to attract new recruits, or to reflect the adoption of new
ideologies. When it comes to changes in names of parties, ―the greater the change in
magnitude, frequency, and recency, the less the institutionalization‖ (Janda 1980, 22).
16 But some offer a rather narrow definition of political parties. Fred Riggs (1968, 51) defines a party as
―any organization which nominates candidates for election to a legislature.‖ Similarly Joseph Schlesinger
(1968, 428) argues that a political party is ―the political organization which actively and effectively
engages in the competition for elective office.‖

54
(c) Organizational discontinuity: this refers to mergers and splits. Parties that experience
splits and merges are weak since such endeavors imply changes in ideologies,
organization, mobilization, etc…
(d) Leadership competition: an institutionalized party enjoys unambiguous identification
of the legitimate party leadership and regular changes of leadership through overt
processes specified by party procedures.
(e) Autonomy: the more autonomous an organization, the stronger it is. This variable
refers to "the degree to which organizations function free of others and thus generally
occupy an independent place in society‖ (Anderson 1968, 391) and it thus basically
measures the independence of political organizations from other non-party groups. When
a political organization is susceptible to the influence of money, other non-party groups,
or to state elites, it is insufficiently institutionalized. Following Huntington (1968), I use
several variables to measure autonomy: (i) source of funds; (ii) source of members; (iii)
source of leaders; (iv) relations with domestic parties; (v) relations with foreign
organizations. The higher parties score on these values, the less autonomous they are, and
consequently, the weaker.
(f) Adaptability: institutions that change functions are adaptable. For example, the
Congress Party in India transitioned from anti-colonial struggle into a governing
coalition.
(g) Coherence: the more coherent and unified an organization, the more institutionalized
it is. Rapid or substantial expansion in membership of an organization weakens its
coherence. For example, the Ottoman Ruling Institution remained coherent as long as

55
new recruits were ―put through an elaborate education, with selection and specialization
at every state‖ but the institution weakened and eventually died when ―everybody pressed
in to share its privileges…Numbers were increased; discipline and efficiency declined‖
(note 31, cited in Huntington 1965, 403).
Strong Political Parties
Strong institutions, an essential characteristic of a socio-politically strong state,
shelter the state from radical tendencies that might emerge in the aftermath of defeat.
Institutional structures are protective shields against radicalism and revolutionary
overthrow because they ensure a reasonable degree of state autonomy from societal
pressures, regulate social conflicts, and allow for the newly mobilized sectors of the
population to be incorporated into existing institutions. War experience in general is
known to mobilize the public and to stimulate interest in politics. Skocpol and her coauthors
(2002) erroneously argue that victory causes a rise in political participation
whereas defeat lowers it. After victory ―former combatants may have renewed energy
and will to cooperate with their allies and friends. But groups that mobilize and then
suffer defeat may well dissolve and fragment, as participants downplay their
unsuccessfully realized identity.‖ However, Kage (2006) refutes this claim and shows
that both victories and defeats lead to a rise in political participation. He provides
evidence that ―wartime mobilization is likely to propel a rise in civic engagement in the
wake of the conflict, irrespective of whether the ultimate outcome of that war is victory
or defeat.‖ Putnam (2000) maintains that wars promote an increase in participation for
those affected by wars for the rest of their lives. Overall, the rise in mass mobilization
and mass participation following wars has been particularly true since the French

56
Revolution of 1789, which caused the emergence of mass nationalism—resulting in new
principles of national loyalty and legitimacy, new modes of resource extraction and
military organization (Cederman, Warren and Sornette, 2010). With the increase of
participation in politics, the presence of strong institutions becomes more pronounced in
order to regulate, normalize and channel such participation and its accompanying protests
and demands. Defeats in wars are particularly distressing experiences and the presence of
strong political parties helps tame passions through institutionalized channels.
When strong political parties exist, extremists will be tamed, contained, excluded
or socialized into the system. The presence of strong political parties creates fewer
opportunities for political entrepreneurs to resort to direct appeals to the masses and to
engage in radical discourses. When political parties are strong, aspiring elites will, most
likely, choose the safer institutionalized ways—through existing political parties—of
engaging in politics. The rank and file who decide to pursue political participation
through institutionalized channels will have to comply with the party‘s principles, ideas
and practices, which would in turn temper radical inclinations. In addition, strong parties
have easier time narrowing down divisions and achieving minimal consensus among
competing elites than multiple, fractured and weak political parties. A highlyinstitutionalized
environment makes it easier to marginalize radical politics and to
generate reforms and inward-focused responses to defeats. Even if demagogues and
predatory elites try to exploit the crisis to their advantage, the presence of
institutionalized modes of interest articulation and aggregation would eventually facilitate
the incorporation of those elites into the system or, alternatively, marginalize them. As
radical ideas become marginalized, reform ideas and moderation prevail.

57
A regime that manages to maintain its legitiamcy in the eyes of the public will be less
succeptible to radical politics and will have more leeway in managing demands for
reforms. Policy debates will be focused on creating reforms that help the nation recover
from its malaise. A regime incapable of handling the legitimacy crisis will have harder
times containing the emergence of radical demands and is more vulnerable to extreme
politics.
A strong governing political party implies that state leaders are insulated from
public pressures and capable of pursuing more rational and deliberate foreign policies. In
the aftermath of defeats, a strong leadership backed up by a strong political party, will
still experience a crisis, but a leadership that retained its domestic strength is more likely
and more willing to pursue moderate, status quo foreign policies. Generally, the more the
leadership is capable of insulating itself from public pressures, the more likely moderate
policies would follow. Even if radical movements emerged in the aftermath of defeats,
the regime would still be able to avoid radical, aggressive foreign policy—as long as
those movements remain incoherent and weak in the face of an already entrenched, wellestablished
and strong political organization.
The presence of strong domestic institutions has implications for the kind of
ideas, policy debates, diagnoses of the causes of defeat and prescriptions for reforming
the system that failed and the attitudes towards war and negotiations. Where there are
strong political parties, policy debates would be internally-focused on diagnosing the
defeat as a crisis whose resolution dictates institutional reforms, nurturing prudence and
eschewing adventurism. Under these circumstances, defeat would be treated as a positive
learning experience. For defeat in wars is a type of national crisis, and conditions

58
associated with crisis facilitate learning and change. Learning occurs through multiple
routes. One such path is through the ―cognitive openness conducive to individual and
collective learning…crises experiences tend to re-order the political agenda, stimulate an
appetite for change and reform on the part of the electorate and the mass media and, thus,
create moments of political possibility, ‗policy windows‘‖ (Kingdon 1984).
Where political debates are internally-oriented and focused on reform and the
lessons of defeat, foreign policy will not be radical or aggressive but will be used to
buttress reform efforts and domestic regeneration. Reforms will be easier to formulate
and implement because the legitimacy of the existing regime is weakened, which in turn
weakens its resistance to reforms and/or because one way of restoring or repairing
lost/weakened legitimacy is to initiate reforms that address the causes of defeat. In
addition, changes in leadership positions—not necessarily regime overthrow—entails the
introduction of new leaders with new policy ideas. Elites and state leaders will be more
interested in creating a proper environment conducive to implementing the proposed
reforms that would heal the wounds of defeat and lessen the intensity of the post-war
crisis.
Defeated nations look for their own historical experiences of recovering from
hardships, but they could also learn from the experiences of other nations that once
experienced defeat but were able to recover. Defeats provide clear information about the
military capacity of a nation. Now, a nation knows what is possible and what is not.
Restraint becomes more rewarding and adventurism rejected. The nation becomes
imbued with a sense of realism and humility (Oren 1982). In principle, one would expect
all defeated states to look for historical experience and draw the proper lessons for

59
recovery. What differentiates one state from another are its strong institutions,
particularly strong political parties, that enable the learning process along with the
presence of cohesive elites who share a consensus over core national values.
Weak Political Parties
Participation and mass politicization increase pressures on the state: in the
absence of strong political parties and other strong institutions to contain and absorb
these pressures, there will be more opportunities for radicals to determine the terms of
political debates, usually around radical discourses such as malevolent nationalism.
Huntington (1968) argues that violence and instability that prevailed in the post-WWII
era were ―in large part the product of rapid social change and the rapid mobilization of
new groups into politics coupled with the slow development of political institutions."
When the rates of political participation exceed the rates of institutional formation, the
political system will decay because it lacks the capacity to meet and absorb the new
demands. The crumbling of political institutions under pressure of new groups seeking to
enter a political system is more than likely to create disorder, and radicalism thrives in an
environment of disorder and decay. Hence, in an under-institutionalized environment,
political actors have incentives to hijack weak parties, create their own parties, focus the
debate on the fundamentals of the polity, and even strive to change the fundamental rules
of society and state.
For example, Mansfield and Snyder (2002, 298-299) argue that belligerent
nationalism is likely to arise in transitional democracies for two reasons: (1) ―political
leaders try to use nationalism as an ideological motivator of national collective action in

60
the absence of effective political institutions‖ and (2) the fall of authoritarian regimes
affects several groups, such as military bureaucracies and economic actors that derive
benefits from fallen regimes. These disgruntled groups have incentives to resort to radical
rhetoric in order to whip up mass support for their cause. ―Leaders of various stripes find
that appeals to national sentiment are essential for mobilizing popular support when more
routine instruments of legitimacy and governance—parties, legislatures, courts, and
independent news media—are in their infancy.‖ I argue that when defeats create a
legitimacy crisis and prolonged period of social and political instability, discredit and
weaken institutions and ideas, the environment becomes—similar to that of transitional
countries—fertile for radicalization. When institutions weaken, they provide incentives
for elites to compete around identity myths and radical political ideologies.
Weak political parties imply the presence of divided elites; indeed, as political
opportunities increase—and defeats in wars broaden political opportunities—there would
be many elites who would try to exploit the emerging opportunities, to gain political
influence and power, and to control the state and its resources. The presence of weak
political organizations simply means that there is a large pool of potential recruits—
empty political space—left out of political control and are rich targets for mobilization.
The absence of strong institutions, a marker of a socio-politically weak state, will
thus create opportunities for radicalization. An under-institutionalized environment
provides the incentives that propel leaders and elites to engage in outbidding (Snyder
1993) and to pursue radical politics. Even if elites later realize the dangers and risks of
their radical stances, it might be too late to retract as they themselves become ‗entrapped‘
in their own rhetoric. ―Even if elite coalitions worry that the costs and risks of their

61
belligerent foreign policies are beginning to get out of hand, they can find themselves
locked into these policies by the tactics they have used to recruit mass support‖
(Mansfield and Snyder 2002, 303). What started instrumentally becomes entrenched in
expectations and hard to do dispense with. In other words, rhetoric has path dependence
qualities.
In a socio-politically strong state, ideological cleavages and struggles remain
within the boundaries of the system. But, in a socio-politically weak state, there is a
higher degree of ideological polarization and elite fragmentation, which makes
consensual politics hard to attain. In his study on the effectiveness of regional governance
in Italy, Putnam (1993) has argued that ideological polarization became less severe and
contributed to political stability because political parties became more institutionalized,
developed some sort of consensual politics over core societal values, and agreed on
pursuing accommodation to resolve political conflicts.
In an environment of mass politics, elites have many opportunities to mobilize the
masses around radical discourses and national myths in order to create and expand
support for expansionist foreign policies. Thus, in a frenzied environment of institutional
weakness, elites would resort to hyper-nationalisms, which eventually makes wars more
likely. This is the argument advanced by Mansfield and Snyder (2002) to explain why
democratizing states are more prone to aggressive and militant foreign policies.
Weak political parties make it easier for malevolent nationalism (and other
extreme ideologies) to spread across the population and elites. The fragmentation of the
political landscape implies a higher degree of instability. The incapacity of elites to unite

62
around unified policy goals, especially in such emotional and stressful times in the
aftermath of defeats, creates opportunities for the opposition to rally the public around
radical and ultra-nationalist goals (kellas 1991, 81-85). Even a government that retains
office in a weakly institutionalized environment will have incentives to resort to radical
discourses, especially when confronted with crises and a threatening challenge from a
competitive opposition. When a government finds itself compelled to appeal directly to
the masses, radical and extreme politics seem readily available.
Domestic radicalization feeds back into foreign policy making by forcing existing
and weakened leaders to respond to the increasingly radicalized domestic political
configurations. Defeated regimes that suffer from debilitated legitimacy will have
incentives to pursue diversionary foreign policies. Alternatively, domestic institutions
might collapse; a new regime might emerge; and the new leaders pursue aggressive
foreign policies in response to the new emerging radical parties that brought them to
power. Elites who utilize radical discourses to rally the public around elaborate a national
role conception where fears will be exaggerated and the nation depicted as confronting
existential threats from its neighbors, which justifies aggressive foreign policies. 17 These
discourses also serve the purpose of unifying a nation that has experienced social
fragmentation and ideological polarization.
Legitimacy is a significant issue in the aftermath of defeats and is intimately
related to the strength of institutions. All defeated regimes in principle will experience
17 Holsti (1970, 245-246) was a pioneer in classifying national role conceptions in the systematic study of
foreign policy behavior. For him ―A national role conception includes the policymakers‘ own definitions of
the general kinds of decisions, commitments, rules and actions suitable to their state, and of the functions, if
any, their state should perform on a continuing basis in the international system or in subordinate systems.
It is their ‗image‘ of the appropriate orientations or functions of their state toward, or in, the external
environment.‖

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some form of a legitimacy crisis. However, how the legitimacy crisis materializes hinges
upon the strength and capacity of institutions. Defeat in wars generates legitimation crisis
with several repercussions and implications for the domestic political landscape and
might even result in the reconstruction of domestic political institutions and/or regime
change. Political legitimacy refers to the terms by which people ―recognize, defend and
accept political authority.‖ This is a critical component of the socio-political strength of
states. A government or a regime that lost legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens usually
confronts greater difficulties in governance and exercising social and political control and
eliciting compliance from its citizens. The weakened government will lose some of its
political capital and authority in dealing with domestic challenges or competing on the
international stage. Indeed, a legitimacy crisis could escalate and result in a shift in the
terms of political debate away from policy issues into the more polarizing identity
questions, and let us not forget that the ―terms by which people define political
legitimacy also constitute the polity‖ (Bukovansky 2002, 2).
Victory in wars is a validating experience: A regime that won a war enhances its
legitimacy in the eyes of the public but that which lost a war suffers from frayed
legitimacy. That is why regimes that lose wars are more susceptible to overthrow and
change. The victorious in wars have far better chances for rebuilding their institutions and
achieving institutional coherence; their resources will be under less strain; and
institutional disruption will be minimal. It is hard to call for major changes in the
aftermath of victory. War losers, on the other hand, usually experience political
instability as defeat in wars causes the elites and the masses to cast doubt on the
legitimacy of the institutions that caused the defeat and to lose faith in the effeciency of

64
the ruling regime and its institutions (Stein and Russet 1980, 402; Stohl 1980, 317). Such
an environment provides plenty of incentives for the opposition to step in and mobilize
the masses. When delegitimation occurs, elites find it more feasible to resort to militant
nationalism. When a regime is discredited and delegitimized, it becomes weaker,
increasingly insecure and vulnerable to radical calls. But weak leaders also have more
incentives to exaggerate threats, foment hyper-nationalism, and create, demonize and
dehumanize enemies by appealing to the masses through ultra-nationalist rhetoric. This
situation will be more pronounced when there are other domestic players who resort to
hyper-nationalism: Opposition elites will seize on radical discourses and push the ruling
elites to follow suit, creating an outbidding war (Mansfield and Snyder 2002). Alastair
Smith (1996) demonstrates that weakened regimes utilize emerging opportunities to
achieve what could be foreign policy successes to boost up their fraying domestic
legitimacy.
Weakened legitimacy and regime vulnerability might motivate the regime to seek
outside enemies to divert attention from domestic problems, which also reinforces the
tendencies to end up in radical/revisionist foreign policies. These situations have path
dependency attributes: a regime that engages in such rhetoric might not be able to retreat
at later points. Legitimacy becomes tied to radical/revisionist foreign policies.
Strength of Opposition Forces
When a radical political party emerges, its success depends on the character of the
opposition it encounters: whether there are already strong political parties that know how
to maintain their constituency and preserve their ideological coherence, or whether
existing parties are weak and fragmented—and their followers show greater willingness

65
to shift allegiance to other parties. Even if the insurgent party enjoys technical skills and
other advantages, it will make little headway in gaining mass following as it confronts
existing strong parties. There is neither sufficiently large political space/vacuum nor a
significant pool of potential recruits. Thus, the Nazis, for example, were not successful in
recruiting among the Socialists, Communists and Catholic Zentrum but were successful
against the old and decaying parties of the notables, liberals and conservatives (Hamilton
1982). In explaining the breakdown of democracy, Linz (1980) argues that Fascist parties
made their greatest successes where they encountered ‗unoccupied‘ political space. He
shows that fascists did not experience distinct successes where Catholic associations were
in firm control of their followers.
For the insurgent party to have a notable impact on policy making, it needs to
attain a certain degree of mass constituency support in order to either seize the reins of
power or to pressure the governing party to pursue a different national program. Ideas
alone are insufficient to achieve power; there must be a constituency that is willing to
adopt, nurture and support such ideas (Roudometof 2000, 145-146). This is mostly
available in societies that enjoy high degrees of mass politicization since a country whose
population is not amenable to political participation and mobilization will not be able to
sustain domestic radicalization and mass movements or to pursue revisionist policies.
Hypothesis
The strength of political parties determines the political trajectory of the defeated
state. If a state has strong political parties, it will pursue institutional reforms and

66
moderate foreign policy. If a state lacks strong political parties, it will experience
domestic radicalization and will advance revisionist foreign policy.
C. International Environment
Otto Von Bismarck once mentioned that politics is the art of the possible: A state
can do only what it could, not what it wants. The international environment charts a set of
opportunities: certain courses of action are possible while others are not. In order to
pursue aggressive or revisionist foreign policies, a state must have sufficient material
resources, especially military power that enables it to challenge the status quo. Absent
these material resources, a state would search for allies that possess higher levels of
capabilities, willing to support the revisionist venture and have compatible interests.
Without these resources, a revisionist policy is akin to suicide. On the other hand, when
the international environment does not offer any opportunities for wars of revision, and
when great powers or the international society encourage institutional reforms and
democratization, a defeated state might find it easier to pursue a moderate foreign policy
and its public might find it more rewarding to stay away from radicalism.
For long, realists have argued that systemic pressures determine state behavior
and that states pursue particular courses of action for strategic reasons. State behavior is
thus an outcome of ―international pulls and pushes‖ (Zakaria 1992, 179) and states‘
interests are shaped by their power (Morgenthau 1973, 5). Generally, realists believe that
―across time and space, states' positions in the anarchic international system prove to
provide the simplest, shortest guide to international relations‖ (Zakaria 1992, 198). This
is not to suggest that realists completely deny the impact of domestic politics on state
behavior but to highlight that they do insist that international competition and pressures

67
―weigh more heavily than ideological preferences or internal political pressures‖ (Waltz
1986, 329). Liberals and Marxists, on the other hand, have argued that states are
dissimilar in their institutional and social structures and that international conflicts are
often caused by domestic politics (Waltz 1954, 80-159) while constructivists argue that
interstate relations are constrained by the diverse and wide-ranging ways identities are
socially constructed.
A theory of foreign policy can‘t only count on systemic pressures since those do
not exert influence on foreign policy without mediation. In order to properly understand
the impact of systemic factors on foreign policy behavior, we need to understand the
domestic setting and domestic intervening variables that condition how state leaders
perceive systemic pressures and respond to them. The realist model, which posits that
state leaders are insulated from domestic pressures, must be modified. Defeated states
experience serious legitimacy crisis and social and political instability, and in some cases,
suffer from an identity crisis; as such, state leaders can‘t be insulated from the wounds
inflicted on their state and its diminishing status and on the collective identities of their
publics.
One could argue that, in principle, as state leaders acquire autonomy from society,
they acquire more leeway in conducting their foreign policies—constructing interests and
translating interests into concrete behavior according to reason of state. Complete
autonomy from societal pressures and domestic institutions is obviously an ideal
situation, an ideal type, for as my theoretical framework shows, state behavior is largely
constrained by the domestic setting. The model specifically states that defeat is an
interstate event that causes changes in ideas and institutions of the domestic political

68
landscape and then those changes feedback into the foreign policy arena. Most defeated
states lose territories—and this is one criterion for selecting my cases—which implies
that an element of ‗irredentism‘ is engraved into interstate relations. This incongruence
(occupied territories and population subject to foreign and enemy rule) between state and
nation exerts additional pressures on decision-making, and particularly on interest
formulation. Those pressures eventually translate into serious dilemmas and predicaments
and force state leaders to make difficult decisions. Thus, defeated states, almost by
definition, contest borders, interfere in other state‘s internal affairs by supporting
irredentist movements across the border, but they also have to account for the
international setting.
Drawing on Huntington‘s work on modernization and political decay, Joel Migdal
(1974, 510) noted that foreign policies of Third World countries should be understood in
light of the ―degree of their political institutionalization.‖ Studying the foreign policies of
Japan, the U.S. Western Germany and France, Risse-Kappen (1991, 480) showed that
―differences in political institutions, policy networks, and societal structures account for
different foreign policy outcomes when the impact of the international environment is
controlled for and public attitudes follow similar patterns across countries.‖ Similarly,
Carlsnaes (1992, 267) called for a ―thoroughly institutional perspective‖ in studying
foreign policy because domestic institutions are ―structures constraining and enabling
foreign policy actions.‖
Neoclassical realist theory claims that systemic pressures, and particularly
changes in relative power, do not alone explain states‘ foreign policies. Systemic

69
pressures are necessarily filtered through domestic institutions. 18 Christensen (1996),
Friedberg (1988), Schweller (1998), Snyder (1993), and Zakaria (1998) demonstrate that
states formulate their foreign policies and adapt to the changing external environment in
terms of their domestic institutions, structures and political environment. As Schweller
(2004, 164) put it, ―complex domestic political processes act as transmission belts that
channel, mediate, and (re)direct policy outputs in response to external forces (primarily
changes in relative power)‖. 19 In other words, changes in relative power first make an
impact on domestic politics and later are translated into changes in foreign policy. Thus,
neoclassical realism incorporates variables from both the domestic and systemic setting.
However, it should be mentioned that neoclassical realism, like all realist theories,
accords ‗power‘ the decisive role in formulating states‘ interests and generating foreign
policy behavior. The theory‘s proponents begin with the relative position of a state in the
hierarchical international system. I begin with the domestic setting, which determines a
state‘s interests, but without turning a blind eye to the fact that the foreign policies of
defeated states are constrained by the opportunities that the international system presents.
My purpose here is not to judge which theoretical paradigm offers more leverage
but rather to demonstrate that state interests are formulated, first and foremost, at the
domestic level. However, translating desires/interests into actual foreign policy behavior
is contingent on opportunities that the international system presents. In other words, a
18 For a review of this literature see Gideon Rose (1998) and Randall L. Schweller (2003).
19 There have been several empirical studies evaluating the neoclassical tenets—mostly case
studies/narratives investigating the different modes of great powers‘ responses to changes in relative power.
See Lobell, Ripsman, and Taliaferro (2009).

70
state could still express intentions but without translating those intentions into concrete
behavior. Take Hungary as an example. Almost all domestic players and all state leaders
expressed strong desires to upend the regional order and to eradicate the Trianon Treaty.
How state leaders pursued those intentions depended on material resources that the state
possessed, on alliances it could forge, and opportunities for revision that the international
and regional systems provided. Thus, the Hungarian spectrum of revisionist behavior
spanned peaceful wishes to right wrongs—using ethical arguments and moral pleas—to
alliances with Italy and eventually with Nazi Germany. What accounts for this variation
in behavior, partly, is the set of opportunities and constraints that the international system
offered; however, interests and policy objectives were first and foremost constructed and
formulated by how Hungarians perceived themselves, their national self-image and by
their fragmented, weak political parties, which created nationalist outbidding. State
leaders couldn‘t conceive or formulate an alternative set of interests; but they also had to
select a feasible behavior to achieve their proclaimed goals of revision—given the limited
resources at hand. Egypt expressed time and again its desire to launch a war to restore
lands lost and to redeem honor wounded, but it went to war only after acquiring sufficient
military resources and after realizing that opportunities are slipping away—if not now it
might never be. Thus, it is useful to think of foreign policies of defeated states as shaped
by conflicting forces coming from domestic pressures and demands but also constrained
by the opportunities and constraints that the international environment offers. What the
international environment does, therefore, is to shape the range of choices for states as it
presents either an opportunity-rich environment or a highly-constrained one. This
variable is context-sensitive: in order to understand its impact, one has to have a full

71
understanding of the interests and capabilities of the parties involved, the potential allies
available, and windows of opportunity that present themselves.
6. Methodology
My essay has two main purposes: exploring the social and political consequences of
defeats in wars and uncovering the causal mechanisms and pathways that produced these
effects. In order to accomplish this, I employ case studies. The advantage of case studies
is that they allow one to peer into the box of causality to locate the causal pathways that
lie between a cause and its effects (Gerring 2007, 45).
The cases I select employ variables of theoretical interest for purposes of explanation.
The three variables I test—institutions (political parties), self-images and the
international environment—and their impact on state behavior—are variables of interest
in comparative and international politics. I use an eclectic approach to theory building:
Instead of extending the debate on the relative significance of ideas or institutions, I posit
that the two are causally significant.
Case Selection
Random selection is not an appropriate strategy for qualitative research and might
even have counterproductive effects (Keohane, King, and Verba 1994) as there is no
guarantee that random selection of cases will provide leverage into qualitative research.
As Gerring (2007, 87) put it, ―[t]he sample might be representative, but uninformative.‖ I
selected four cases that exemplify the two broad responses to defeat. Indeed, the cases
represent clear-cut outcomes; that is, they are very informative and representative of the
variation in national responses to defeats in wars.

72
Criteria for Case Selection
My universe of cases is all countries that experienced defeats in wars after WWI.
There are 60 such cases. I selected the following cases for study and divided them into
two sets: (Turkey and Bulgaria) and (Egypt and Hungary). I will specify criteria for
exclusion and inclusion. Before I explain in details why I selected those cases, I will
present a simple typology of defeats—derived mainly from Horne (2008)—which will
clarify the logic of case selection.
Typology of Defeat/Intensity of Defeat
Not all defeats are equal: some are minor, some are dire and the most intense are
those that end in total surrender to the enemy and sometimes even state death. The impact
that defeat leaves on state and society is contingent upon the nature and magnitude of
defeat.
Total Defeat
Total defeat—which includes but not limited to surrender—involves the belief, by
both leaders and the masses, that there is no hope for revisionism. Defeat is perceived as
ultimate, final and irreversible—qualities that preclude revisionism and renders desires
for revenge or revision delusional. Most likely, the response to defeat would be
internally-focused. It seems that total defeats are more likely to lead to ‗acceptance‘ and
reconciliation, a ‗reflexively compliant‘ foreign policy, and sometimes even identity
transformation. Total defeats imply that there is a vast and unbridgeable gap in power
resources between the vanquished and the victor. The vanquished realizes that it has no
chance of rebuilding its military power or finding a reliable and willing ally. The defeated
nation comes to its senses, accepts its fate, and tries to find ways to be reintegrated into

73
the international system and to rebuild its state and society. Germany and Japan 20 (after
WWII) were socialized into the Western liberal democratic tradition. These two countries
present a classic example of total defeat/unconditional surrender. After the end of the
war, their energies were depleted for a resurgence of aggressive/revisionist nationalism.
When a nation still has energy, resources and opportunity for revision, it is unlikely to
willingly accept to be re-invented by its conquerors or to willingly submit to coercive
socialization. Denmark (1864) realized that fighting mighty Prussia would bring even
more losses—it actually turned down an offer made by the victorious of WWI to reclaim
parts of the Schleswig-Holstein province for fear of antagonizing Germany and inviting
future aggression. ―The Danes‘ temperate stance at Versailles is noteworthy as one of the
lesser-known but outstanding examples of judiciousness in the international politics of
this century‖ (Oren 1982, 8-9). Mexico (1848) similarly left behind its claims to the lands
it lost to its Northern colossus. In none of these cases of total defeat were there
noteworthy popular or mass rebellions/revolutions/ or even mass movements that
organized and called for the restoration of honor or for revenge. Such cases of total defeat
will be excluded from case selection.
Dire/Decisive defeat
Not all is lost; defeat has been devastating but the nation still retains hope that it
could resurrect from its debacle and rebuild its military machine, mobilize resources to
retrieve lost territories and redeem injured status and heel wounded pride. Egypt (1967),
Pakistan (1965, 1971), Hungary (WWI), and Bulgaria (Balkan Wars and WWI) are
20 Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (1999) is the apt title of a book by the historian
John W. Dower. The same title could have been used to describe the German experience and many other
experiences of total defeats.

74
examples of dire and decisive defeats. There is an obvious gap in power resources;
intuitively, a defeated state must end up with fewer power resources than the victor. But
the gap is potentially bridgeable, allies are available, possibilities of revision are feasible.
The impact of defeat on domestic politics is most obvious in these cases. Humiliation is
most severe as it survives in hopes of recovery. There exists a feeling that war could have
been won, that a second round of fighting might redeem the nation. Opportunities
presented by the international system are also most acute here, for the nation is in dire
need of an opportunity to fight again, prove its mettle and restore its territories. Unlike
total defeat where the menu of options for the vanquished is extremely limited, dire
defeats present a broader set of options: a call for revisionism, for rebuilding the armed
forces, searching for reliable, capable and willing allies are not delusions but real
possibilities. This is where most of the variation should be observed. My case studies
would be selected from this type of defeat. The four cases I selected for investigation:
Egypt (1967), Ottoman Empire/Turkey, Hungary, and Bulgaria (WWI) are all decisive
defeats.
Colonial Defeats
When an empire loses imperial possessions, the impact is manageable and, in
principle, humiliation should not be intense. The nation still has a glorious history that it
could fall back on; losses do not pose existential threats to the nation—since they
occurred on imperial territories and not in the metropolis; after all, lost territories belong
to colonial subjects. Justifications for losing, for not trying to hold on to colonies—from
cost/benefit calculations to moral and normative considerations—are easy to come up
with. Moreover, some pride could still be salvaged by marshalling moral arguments in

75
support of imperial decline, by claiming that the task of civilizing imperial subjects had
been accomplished and must pay some dividends in the future. There is always the
possibility of building unique relations between the imperial metropolis and former
colonies—the British Commonwealth and the International Organization of the
Francophone (OIF) are examples. There must be some constituency, as the history of the
British and the French Empires demonstrates, who are willing to buy into those
arguments. Such defeats do not generate intense feelings of humiliation and consequently
only minor radical movements might emerge. Those cases are not fit for testing my
theory.
Temporary Defeats
During war, a state might lose a battle but eventually wins the war. Although
humiliation emerges, it is only temporary and fleeting. It is very unlikely for a state that
experienced temporary defeats to experience revisionism or to pursue aggressive foreign
policy; what matters eventually is the ultimate outcome: victory. Examples abound: the
Italian crushing defeat at Caporetto in November 1917; the Israeli first days of the 1973
war; the French at the beginning of WWII; the many losses that the Soviet Union
tolerated during WWII. Temporary defeats lead to strategy and tactics reformulation; but
rarely do they lead to societal transformation; they might remain part of the collective
memory of a nation but the stigma of defeat at battle will be soon removed by final
victory.
Criteria for exclusion
States that have completely authoritarian/totalitarian regimes, such as Saddam‘s
Iraq (1991), where there is no room for domestic politics.

76
States that were defeated, occupied, and subjected to constraints on armed forces,
foreign policy conduct and domestic politics, along with defeated states that
became satellites. This includes cases such as Germany, Japan, Bulgaria,
Rumania, Hungary (after WWII), and Hungary (1956). Generally, when defeated
states do not have political parties, when questions of legitimacy are not relevant,
when no chance for public mobilization exists, when public debates are moot, the
theory could not be tested.
Criteria for Inclusion
Territorial Loss: A major criteria for selection would be the loss of territory—
and relevant perceptions that such loss occurred—which provides the most
significant incentive for mobilization.
Institutional Politics: States must also have some form of institutional politics—
where political parties or collective organizations are absent, the theory might not
be tested.
Different Regions
o Turkey and Egypt (Middle East)
o Hungary (Central Europe)
o Bulgaria (the Balkans)
Based on the above mentioned criteria and to ensure a wide variety of contexts
and variation on both the dependent and independent variables, I employ the most
different systems design and I select the following cases, divided into two sets: (Turkey
and Bulgaria) and (Egypt and Hungary). I selected cases that varied along strong/weak
political parties, types of national self-images and different international opportunities

77
and constraints (independent variable) and inward-turn (Turkey and Bulgaria) an
outward-turn (Egypt and Hungary). In addition, the cases vary in terms of geography,
historical eras, relative strength, levels of economic development, regime type and
strategic environment.
Structured Focused Comparison
This is a comparative historical analysis that uses structured-focused comparison
(George and Bennett 2005, 69-70). It is structured because it uses a specific set of general
questions regarding all cases in order to obtain comparable data that facilitate theory
testing. It is focused because it touches upon theoretically relevant aspects of the
historical cases—domestic radicalization, if it occurs, and the potential impact on foreign
policy.
This is the list of standardized, general questions that will be asked of each case; these
questions are formulated in order to achieve the research objective and to reflect the
theoretical focus of the inquiry.
1. What kind of national self-images the defeated states had? Were there selfglorifying
myths? Exaggerated historical narratives and memories? Tempered
assessment of capabilities and resources?
2. Were there political parties at the time of defeat? Were they strong or weak? What
changes these parties experienced in the wake of defeat? Was there a radical
wing? Did it gain more strength or did it grow weaker?

78
3. Did new political parties emerge that provided leadership and organization for
opposition to the state? Were they radical? Moderate? Did they focus on
moderation or on Revanchism?
4. Were the elites united? Divided? What kind of policy debates did defeat generate?
Was defeat perceived as a ritual of humiliation, a cause for revenge? Or as a
stimulus for institutional reforms and moving towards democracy?
5. Was the legitimacy of the regime questioned?
6. Did foreign policy change in the wake of defeat? In what direction—aggressive or
moderate?
These questions will help me construct, within the proposed theoretical framework, a
narrative of defeat and its aftermath—its social and political consequences and foreign
policy implications. However, since the purpose is not the explanation of individual
cases, a cross-case comparison will be conducted in order to ―transform the specific
explanation into the concepts and variables of the general theoretical framework‖
(George and Bennett 2005, 92).
Method of Comparison: Most Different Systems Design
I employ the most different systems design to examine my cases, which I divide into
two sets: (Turkey and Bulgaria) and (Egypt and Hungary).
In the most different system design, variation on x is prized and variation on y is
ignored. Ideally, one finds a single variable, or more realistically, a configuration of
variables, that remains constant across different cases, indicating a plausible causal
relationship with the outcome of interest which these cases share—each set shares a
similar outcome. One asks what is sufficiently common among these varied systems to

79
produce similar political events? Therefore, the most important task in this design is to
find relationships among variables that still hold across a range of different countries.
This research design tries to determine how robust the causal relationship among the
posited variables and whether the uncovered relationship holds up in a large number of
varied places and contexts. If it does, then one has greater confidence that there is indeed
a causal relationship among the variables, not one produced by some omitted variable. In
other words, this design allows multiple tests for the theory in a wide range of settings.
The First Set: Turkey after WWI became an exemplary status quo state that tamed its
revisionist tendencies and embarked on institutional reform, state building and moderate
foreign policy geared towards integration into the international system in general and the
Western European alliance more specifically. The aftermath of defeat induced both
identity changes followed by a redefinition of state interests. Bulgaria (1918) did not
experience home-grown fascist movements and the ruling agrarian leaders in the
aftermath of defeat initiated a series of drastic policy reforms, pursued a conciliatory
foreign policy, and abandoned Bulgaria's territorial claims—generally associated with the
army and the monarchy. The hallmark of the new Bulgarian foreign policy was
rapprochement with all European powers, membership in the League of Nations, and
friendship with the new Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (later the Kingdom
of Yugoslavia). These two cases had strong political parties and realistic tempered
national self-images.
The Second Set: Hungary (1918) experienced a rise in revisionist political parties,
movements and organizations and eventually allied with Nazi Germany in the run-up to
the Second World War. Egypt (1967) experienced the decay of secularism and

80
modernization that were dominant until the 1967 war; radical Islamic fundamentalists
gained further popularity, and Egypt eventually went to war with Israel—the war of
attrition and the 1973 War. Both of these cases had fragmented, weak political parties and
inflated national self-images.
However, like all most different systems design, there is the possibility that similar
configuration of variables could be present in other cases—that are not included in the
study—but without producing the same outcome of interest. Thus, causality could not be
claimed. However, I take several steps to avoid this shortcoming and to increase the
confidence in my findings.
The first step is to examine cases where the independent variables change their values
and produce a different outcome; this design helps clarify the impact of these variables on
state behavior. I included two sets of cases to examine the impact of these explanatory
variables on domestic politics and foreign policy—the two sets have different dependent
variables but similar explanatory variables that take on different values. That is, I have
variation in both the explanatory and dependent variables. This adds more confidence to
the theory proposed since I trace the impact of the explanatory variables as they change
their values across a variety of contexts and countries.
The other step I take is to conduct a before/after research design. This is basically
achieved by dividing the case longitudinally into before/after design, which provides
control over as many variables as possible and is ―often the most readily available or
strongest version of a most-similar case design‖ (George and Bennett 2005, 81). The
advantages of this design were recognized by Lijphart who called for ―maximizing
comparability,‖ that could be achieved by analyzing a single country diachronically, a

81
procedure which ―generally offers a better solution to the control problem than
comparison of two or more [cases]‖ (cited in George and Bennett 2005, 166).The purpose
of such a design is to isolate the difference in the observed variable as an outcome of the
variance in the independent variable. However, ―Such an inference is weak, if the posited
causal mechanisms are probabilistic, if significant variables are left out of the
comparison, or if other important variables change in value from the ―before‖ to the
―after‖ cases.‖ Nevertheless, even if two cases or before/after cases are not perfectly
matched, process tracing will make the comparison more fruitful and relevant to theory
development and theory testing by assessing whether the observed differences in the
dependent variable are outcomes of the posited explanatory variables or whether other
variables produced such outcomes (George and Bennett 2005, 81).
Another serious challenge for the before-after design is the possibility that variables,
other than those posited by the theory, might change in value. However, this challenge
could be overcome by doing careful within-case analysis and process tracing of both the
main causal variables of interest and the other potential causal variables that experienced
a change in value. This procedure helps establish whether the causal variables produced
the posited outcome and whether the other variables that changed at the same time were
not significant in producing the outcome of interest (George and Bennett 2005, 167).
Thus, the design allows for both within-case analysis and cross-case comparisons
(Gerring 2007; George and Bennett 2005) 21
which provides significant inferential
leverage from the study of few cases (Bennett and Elman 2007, 176).
21 ―These tools do not seek to replicate the logic of scientific experimentation. Instead, they seek to increase
our confidence in a theory‖ (George and Bennett 2004, 153).

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Remarks on Theory and Evidence
After explaining the individual cases, a cross-case comparison will be conducted.
It is not realistic to expect all the cases to fit the theory perfectly. I expect to have
variability in results across cases. ―More likely, the typical situation is that some cases fit
a subset of the elements of a theory; while other cases fit another subset of the theory‖
(Maoz 2002). I take steps to ensure that the theoretical findings are evaluated in light of
the evidence: I will list all evidence, strong, weak, mixed or against the theory. At last, I
will evaluate the theory in light of this evidence along with whatever qualifications
deemed necessary.

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CHAPTER 2
EGYPT: DEFEAT AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF STATE AND SOCIETY
1. Introduction
The June 1967 defeat was so traumatic that the Moroccan historian Abdallah
Laroui (1976) conceptualized it as the fourth phase of modern Arab history. 22 In the
words of Fouad Ajami (1978, 357) the June war was "the Waterloo of Pan- Arabism." It
was a defeat that opened the floodgates of self-doubts and cultural questioning.
Muhammad Hassanein Haikal (cited in Shamir 1978, 189) argued that the June defeat
shook the foundations of the Egyptian polity and created an aftermath in which
everything was ―disintegrating, crumbling and falling.‖ The ideology of pan-Arabism,
with all its promises of grandeur and splendor, suddenly crumbled to the ground. Shamir
(1978, 189) mentioned that the Egyptians used the phrase—‗civilization challenge‘ often
to describe the crisis that the defeat left in its wake, a phrase that aptly captured Egyptian
perceptions of their debacle. Civilizational challenge implied that the crisis wasn‘t simply
a question of institutional failure or leadership flaws but a matter of national existence.
Indeed, a look at literary productions during the period that extends from 1967 till 1973
reveals that the shock was deep, traumatic and transformative. 23 In a speech on July 23,
22 The first phase began in 1850 with the Arab Renaissance—the reconciliation of Arab/Islamic traditions
with European progress; the second phase began right after WWI with decolonization and the struggle for
independence; the third phase began in the 1950s with the consolidation of Arab states and the emergence
of pan-Arabism and the fourth phase began with the 1967 crushing defeat plunging the Arab world into a
crisis that persists till this day.
23 This was evident in works of fiction, plays, songs, movies and various artistic expressions. Plays that
dealt directly with the shame of defeat were heavily censored; writers who were able to publish had to use
allegories; some writers were arrested and others had to flee to other Arab capitals, especially Beirut--

84
1967, Nasser (cited in Meital 1997, 11) described the crisis of defeat as ―one of the
deepest we have faced in the history of our revolutionary action.‖ Sadat (1978, 181) later
affirmed Nasser‘s anxiety and the perception of defeat as an existential crisis, ―[a]lthough
externally uneventful, the period from June 1967 to September 1970 was one of intense
suffering, unprecedented, I believe, in the entire stretch of Egyptian history. The suffering
was engendered by a sense of frustration on the national, political, and military levels—
so much so that a struggle for survival was the period‘s most distinctive feature.‖
―Ordeal,‖ ―cruelty of our situation,‖ ―our great pains,‖ ―the greatest test and crisis of our
modern history‖ were common phrases used to describe the agony of national defeat. In
November 1967 Nasser emotionally expressed the worries that mercilessly struck the
Egyptian and Arab psyche, ―After this great catastrophe, we were like a man who went
out in the street to be hit by a tram or a car and lay both motionless and senseless on the
ground" and in his April 25, 1968 speech, he described himself as ―a man walking in a
desert surrounded by moving sands not knowing whether, if he moved, he would be
swallowed up by the sands or would find the right path‖ (Korany (1984, 50). Nasser
described the aftermath of the defeat as ―one continuous nightmare‖ (Nutting, 430).
In 1972, the Egyptian novelist and intellectual Tawfiq al Hakim (Akhbar al Yawm
April 15, 1972) drew a broad image of the two opposing reactions to the defeat: there
were those who wanted to carry on the fight till victory was achieved and those who
where artistic expressions were less censored. Mikhail Ruman, Youssef Idris and Mahmoud Diab wrote
dozens of plays that dealt with the trauma of defeat. These artistic expressions represented part of the
Egyptian efforts for morale recovery. Literature Nobel laureate, Naguib Mahfouz, wrote several pieces on
the defeat—works that were tellingly published only in 1973. The Egyptian government itself was involved
in producing some movies that showed the human and heroic aspects of the 1967 war to raise the morale of
its citizens and to demonstrate the resolve of the Egyptian government to fight an honorable war to retrieve
occupied Sinai (Aboul-Enein 2002).

85
accepted the realities and limits of power and wanted a conciliatory foreign policy that
ends the futile and exhausting conflict with Israel. 24
One has to make a clear distinction between radicalization of states and radicalization
of societies. States that have just emerged from a debilitating defeat—which clearly
demonstrated the costs and risks of losing a war—can‘t afford the luxury of revenge
motifs and questions of dignity and pride; there are more solemn things to attend to:
regime survival, instability, legitimacy crisis, foreign policy alignments, political
recovery and economic reconstruction. In Egypt, the most significant outcome of the war
was a rightward shift in domestic and foreign policies. Contrary to what some societal
forces desired, there occurred neither a shift to the left nor revolutionary transformation.
The ignominious fall forced the ruling elites to re-define the ‗nation‘ of Egypt, away from
a transnational ideology, that of Pan-Arabism, into the fold of raison d‘état and Egyptian
‗state‘ nationalism. This re-definition, an outcome forced by defeat, entailed restructuring
the social basis of the ruling elites, away from peasants, the urban poor, leftists and
socialists, in order to incorporate capitalists, industrialists and the upper classes of
Egyptian society. Those changes in the social structure of the ruling elites allowed Egypt
to pursue an alternative foreign policy, one focused on compromises and alignment with
the United States. Changes in the definition of the nation had clear foreign policy
implications. 25
However, the impact of defeat on societal actors is a totally different story; the
aftermath witnessed increasing leftist radicalization and the resurgence and consolidation
24 Egyptian radicals would call this ‗defeatism.‘
25 Egypt presents an exemplary case of the impact of ‗exogenous shocks‘ on the fall and rise of ideologies.
It also presents a clear case of how changes in the definition of the nation precede changes in foreign
policy.

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of Islamic fundamentalism. The radical left pushed for a complete break with the past,
sought total secularization, revolution and popular war, and held religion itself
responsible for the defeat, while Islamic fundamentalists looked for historical roots,
advocated a return to the fundamentals of religion and dreamed of the restoration of an
imagined golden age.
The decade and a half that preceded the war were eras of excitement and
accomplishment. Nasser himself coined the slogan, ―raise your head, you are an
Egyptian,‖ to express the optimistic spirit of the age. Historical memories of conquest
and expansion, of civilization and culture, were resurrected and grafted into daily
discourses and expectations. National self-esteem reached the skies. The record of
success (mostly perceptions) inflated Egyptian national-self image and distorted
perceptions of the real balance of power. Reality was a different story; the gap between
national imaginings and real capacities would be shockingly revealed in six days. It must
have been hard for those whose expectations ran so high. Downgrading self-esteem and
adjusting national self-images are not easy tasks. When confronted with frustrations and
defeats, individuals with inflated self-images tend to raise their aspirations—instead of
adjusting to reality. The radical leftists found solace in dreams and delusions of
revolutionary transformation and wars of national liberation; whereas the Islamists found
theirs in religion and dreams of re-creating perceived and constructed Islamic greatness
and lost glories. Despite the high degrees of radicalization, the radicals were never
allowed and/or were never able to unite and seize the reins of power; consequently, their
effects were indirect and served the purpose of reminding the regime of the intolerable
costs of the status quo and the need for a war of redemption.

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The pressures were too many to handle and Nasser‘s regime, which had been in
power since 1952, never built strong institutions that could contain the legitimacy crisis
and tame the passions for a war of redemption. The Arab Socialist Union (Nasser‘s
political organization/party) was merely a party from above, a pseudo political party,
whose function was to convey the leaders‘ wishes and desires but not to permit genuine
popular political participation. In the wake of defeat, there was a dire need for such a
political party that could channel grievances and contain the potential for radicalization
that national humiliation generated. There was none. While the ‗state‘ acted rationally
and pursued foreign policy realignment to extricate itself from future costly
confrontations, major societal forces were radicalized but were never able to crystallize
into serious political forces that presented credible challenges to the entrenched regime.
The weakness of the political organizations that the state created permitted the
radicalization of society, but the fragmentation of the opposition precluded the translation
of societal desires into tangible policies.
Egypt had to work under severe international constraints where opportunities for war
were meager: Soviet desires to further entrench their influence in Egypt and later Soviet-
American détente restricted Egyptian options. Nasser launched the war of attrition (1967-
1970) but pursued a diplomatic track for resolving the conflict. He understood the limits
of Egyptian power. But, ‗some‘ fighting was necessary to demonstrate the Egyptian
intolerance of the status quo, their willingness to incur costs, and their resolve deprive
Israel from enjoying the fruits of her victory. Sadat, who preferred a political solution,
saw no hope for a political resolution and had to go to war in 1973—after Nasser died of
heart attack in 1970. A war to break the stalemate was necessary.

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Summary of Hypotheses
Hypothesis (1): Weak political parties lead to the emergence of radical movements,
which in turn would radicalize foreign policy.
Sub-hypothesis (1a): Radical domestic forces shape foreign policy only when they
acquire sufficient organizational and mobilizational capacities to seize the reins of power
or to overwhelm the regime and force it to change its foreign policy
Hypothesis (2): Inflated self-images facilitate the radicalization of society and
subsequently an expansionist and aggressive foreign policy
Hypothesis (3): Aggressive foreign policy is possible only when the defeated state
acquires sufficient material resources, either home-grown or through a reliable and
capable ally.
2. Notes on Whether Defeat is a Catalyst or a Causal Variable
It is hard to claim that defeat in war single handedly brought about the changes in
ideas (discrediting pan-Arabism, rise of leftist revolutionary movements, and
consolidation of Islamic fundamentalism), institutions and social coalitions that occurred
in the aftermath of 1967. Those changes were already underway: Defeat accelerated
them. The war couldn‘t have come at a worse time; indeed, many observers believe that
Nasser‘s provocative and confrontational moves that preceded war—providing Israel
with a casus belli—were born out of domestic desperation. Those were diversionary
tactics: Nasser gambled for resurrection but lost. The regime at the time of the war was
already weakening; in the aftermath, its energies were almost completely focused on

89
dealing with the trauma and its consequences. Unfortunately, the system that Nasser had
built proved incapable of containing the shock, of self-reforming; ―instead the defeat
accelerated the forces undermining it‖ (Hinnebusch 1985, 35-36). Dawisha (1986, 11-12)
mentioned that ―although the decline had set in earlier, the demise was considerably
accelerated by what can only be described as the seminal event in contemporary Arab
history, the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War.‖ Similarly Haddad (1992, 266) pointed out that
the June war did not cause the rise of Islamic fundamentalism but rather reinforced
perceptions that were validated by subsequent events.
The early 1960s witnessed major societal transformation in Egypt as the fruits of
Nasser‘s policies began to surface: the state expanded substantially between 1960 and
1967, the corps of civilian and military personnel doubled, free education was
implemented and produced tens of thousands of university graduates looking for jobs,
secondary education registration nearly doubled, nationalization and industrial expansion
began to bear fruits and hundreds of thousands of employees were now on the state
payroll (Beattie 1994, 190).
Shukrallah (1989, 56-57) explained that ―a structural crisis of the Egyptian
capitalist economy had already been in the making.‖ Per capita spending on education,
health, housing, utilities, and welfare went down dramatically and reached their lowest
point in 1967—after rising in the past one and a half decade. The irresponsible policies of
borrowing continually to fund both consumption and investment at the same time drained
the Egyptian coffers of both private and government savings by 1965 (Vatikiotis 1978,
217-219). Prior to the debacle, Egypt was burdened with unserviceable foreign debt of
over 2 billion dollars (James 2006, 126). There were increasing signs of domestic unrest

90
and instability. The funeral of the Wafd Party leader, Mustafa Nahas in 1965 was
surprisingly impressive and developed into a mass demonstration against the regime.
These protests and demonstrations carried on throughout the summer.
The symptoms of the crisis that Nasser confronted were abundant: There was a
serious rift between the civilian and the military wings of the regime. Elite factionalism
became a hallmark of political competition: Nasser purged the conservative Free Officers
Abd Baghdadi and Kemal Hussein; the reputed moderate and pragmatic Zakaria
Muhieddin openly competed with the leftist and pro-Soviet Ali Sabri; and Amer‘s (first
vice-president and deputy supreme commander) quarrels with Nasser became harder to
hide and contain. Nasser himself, in a speech in the fall of 1965, expressed his frustration
at the rise of what he called the ―centers of power‖ that stymied his policies (Baker
1978). The war in Yemen wasn‘t yielding its expected results and had instead become a
burden, a sort of Egyptian Vietnam. The bourgeoisie, including the newly emerged
bureaucratic bourgeoisie, were becoming impatient with sluggish growth and socialist
policies and were eager to restructure the economy, to encourage the private sector and to
access the world capitalist market.
The crisis that Egypt suffered from was first felt in 1964 and the war simply
brought it to the surface. The crisis was caused by the spectacular inefficiency of a
bloated public sector, its corruption and its mismanagement of Egypt‘s resources.
Throughout the sixties, the public sector had been over-burdened with so many tasks: it
was supposed to produce goods and services and sell them at lower than market prices; it
had to employ university graduates beyond its actual needs and had to earn hard currency
to finance investments and satisfy rising local demands. Above all, the agricultural sector,

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which still employed over fifty percent of Egypt‘s labor at the time, never delivered and
fell short of expectations. Thus, the Egyptian state clearly experienced an economic crisis
and political factionalism, weak institutionalization, and a measure of popular discontent.
The war brought the crisis into its climax.
3. Various Explanations of the Causes of Defeat
For liberals and secularists, defeat was an inevitable outcome of Arab attachment
to archaic cultural traditions, enshrined in the values of familialism, tribalism and
patriarchy and the Arabs‘ incapacity to leave those mores behind and adopt a more
modern, liberal and secular outlook. 26 Tradition was a bondage that restrained Arab
creativity and assured the continuity of Arabs‘ backwardness. Simply, Arabs need to put
behind their half-hearted reform efforts, embark on total societal transformation and
wholeheartedly adopt Westernization, modernization and democratization (Haddad 1992,
267). Liberal democrats, according to Beattie (1994, 213) held the authoritarian nature of
the regime responsible for defeat and called for multi-party democracy, individual rights
and freedoms along with the liberalization of society, state and the economy. 27
For the radical left, it was the Arab half-hearted adoption of socialism and the
compromises the regime made with Islamic forces which gave birth to deformed
socialism—the so-called, ―Islamic socialism.‖ For those radical leftists, the only way
26 In an Interview with Ghada Talhami (1997), the Syrian philosopher, Sadiq Jalal Al-Zam, author of Self-
Criticism after Defeat and the Critique of Religious Thought—two seminal works of the defeat era—
reiterated his suspicion of what the attachment to tradition would do, ―I was becoming very conscious of
the ability of this body of thought to continually reproduce the values of ignorance, myth-making,
backwardness, dependency, and fatalism, and to impede the propagation of scientific values, secularism,
enlightenment, democracy, and humanism.‖
27 Yusuf al-Seba‘i, a major intellectual and novelist, expressed this view. We should also keep in mind that
at the time of the crisis, the opposition had no easy access to mass media to express their viewpoints.

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forward was to renounce Islamic socialism and Arab nationalism and embark on a
Marxist, secularist revolutionary path. The whole state and society need to be hauled 28
(Haddad 1992, 267). Al-Azm summed up the leftist radical attitudes by explaining that
―All intellectual and cultural energy at the time revolved around different means of
renewing Marxist thought and the call for an overall revolution, particularly a national
war of liberation‖ (Al Azm 1997 in Ghada Talhami Interview).
For the Islamists, the defeat was an outcome of the lack of piety, of turning away
from religious practices, of Arab fascination with modern Western practices: ―we left
God so God left us.‖ Judging from the events that followed the defeat, this explanation
seems to have been the most popular—especially given that defeat was inflicted by a
religious-Jewish state. Indeed, Ayubi (1980, 489) observed that most neo-fundamentalist
Islamic groups ―saw their beginnings sometimes during those days of agony and
torment.‖ The war was a punishment from God because Arabs renounced their religious
beliefs and adopted alien ideologies: it was a well-deserved defeat. But, no desperation
should follow for this was also a test and an opportunity for redemption if one went back
to the fundamentals of the faith (Haddad 1992, 267). An Islamist scholar summed up the
disenchantment with secular ideologies and the necessity of returning to religion: ―We
tried a Western model between 1919 and 1952, then we tried nationalism and Marxism.
They didn‘t work. Only Islam can provide the answer‖ (al-Khayyal 1977, 17-19).
28 An example of leftist writings would be found in al-Tali‘a editorials, especially the ones written by Lutfi
al-Kholi.

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4. Egypt’s Self-Image
National self-image is a variable that shapes and determines behavior: how people
and groups within nations see themselves influences their subsequent behavior and their
reaction to defeat. National self-image has many components and features such as ―how
the nation views its history, the resultant lessons it has learned, its aspirations and desires,
the ways in which it may want to change, its conception of national purpose and interest,
and its perceptions of its power and limits‖ (Kaplowitz 1990, 47). I focus on two
components of national self-image (1) Self-glorifying myths (grandiose collective
memories, exaggerated achievements), (2) national superiority claims (claims to regional
leadership and hegemonic aspirations, intervening in other states‘ internal affairs, support
for opposition movements in other countries, spreading one‘s own ideology and one‘s
own vision of statehood into other countries).
National-self images that emphasize entitlement to greatness and superior status, a
deserved place in the sun—self-glorifying and grand national myths—are more likely to
lead to hostile mass attitudes, which in turn, nurture an environment conducive to
aggressive and violent politics and receptive to extremism. This is particularly
pronounced in under-institutionalized environment where outbidding becomes a daily
practice. These national self-images provide the necessary narratives and vocabulary for
mobilization. Defeats are emotionally infused situations and offer a political space
amenable to myths and illusions.
The period between 1956 and 1967 was an era of excitement and
accomplishments that solidified Egypt‘s self-image and raised its self esteem as a nation
that was about to take its place in the sun. In his speeches, Nasser repeatedly emphasized

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how Egypt should strive to take its proper place among the great nations, to restore
deserved glory and to embark on fulfilling the dream of Arab unity, which—given the
vast natural and human resources and geographical expanse of the Arab world—was
thought to be a panacea for all Arab ills. Creating unity among the Arab states and the
Arab peoples would transform them into a world power—led by Egypt. Drysdale and
Blake (1985, 225) estimated that a Pan-Arab state would have a total area of 13.7 million
square kilometers and would be,
[S]econd only to the Soviet Union and considerably larger than Europe, Canada, China,
or the United States. . . . By 2000 it would have more people than either of the two
superpowers. This state would contain almost two-thirds of the world‘s proven oil
reserves. It would also have enough capital to finance its own economic and social
development. Conceivably, it could feed itself. . . . Access to a huge market could
stimulate rapid industrial growth. Present regional inequalities could ultimately be
lessened and the mismatch between labor-surplus and labor-short areas corrected. The
aggregate military strength and political influence of this strategically located state would
be formidable. . . . It is easy to comprehend why this dream has long intoxicated Arab
nationalists.
Nasser (1959) actually specified three circles whose centers Egypt occupied: The
Arab, the African, and the Islamic. In the Arab Socialist Union platform and ideology
manifestoes, in the speeches of the various Egyptian elites, in Egyptian mass media,
Egypt was depicted as a nation that had already begun its march into glory (Haikal 1983).
Clearly, those were national superiority claims. Nasser‘s times were full of apparent and
promising accomplishments: This was the era of daring policies: the nationalization of
the Suez Canal; the humiliation—at the hands of the Egyptians—of two great empires
(the French and British in 1956) 29 , the construction of the Aswan dam, Egyptian support
29 Nasser was shrewd in depicting what was actually a military defeat in 1956--as the Egyptian armed
forces showed no competence in fighting—as a victory, boosting his legitimacy and leadership of the Arab
world. However, a probably surprising effect of the 1967 defeat was a revisionist reading of the 1956 war,
which was now discovered to have been a defeat (Shukrallah 1989). After 1967, many Egyptians thought
that the Suez War (1956) had actually been a forerunner of what were to come in 1967.

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for progressive forces in the Arab world and in Africa, Egyptian contributions to the
Algerian war of national liberation, and the great crusade for non-alignment and Egypt‘s
leading role in it. The new image that Nasser tried to instill in the minds of Egyptians was
full of glamour and promise: Nasser‘s order could mobilize the masses, promise
economic prosperity, socioeconomic justice, universal education, clean, efficient and
competent bureaucracy, social ascendancy, and above all, the new order could promise to
take on the outside world (Ajami 1981).
The image that Nasser projected and that many Egyptians were socialized into
was inflated because it glossed over reality. It neither accounted for the constraints that
determine the range of possible achievements nor for the domestic difficulties that had to
be overcome before Egypt could even think of foreign policy adventures. It did not factor
in the resistance against Arab unity (and Egyptian regional leadership role) from the
multitude of sovereign Arab states and powerful conservative social forces. Eventually,
the gap between reality and image would be tragically revealed in six days. For Ajami
(1995, 79) ―The pride of modern Egypt has been far greater than its accomplishments.‖
An Egyptian intellectual (Al-Hakim 1985) captured this gap:
Whatever the fact, those glowing images of the accomplishments of the revolution
[Nasser‘s military coup] made out of us instruments of the broad propaganda apparatus
with its drums, its horns, its odes, its songs and its films. We saw ourselves as a major
industrial state, a leader of the developing world in agricultural reform, and the strongest
striking force in the Middle East…No one argued, checked, verified or commented. We
could not help but believe, and burn our hands with applause.
The image that Nasser and his elites popularized found receptive ears among
Egyptians and Arabs in general; those grandiose dreams of Egyptian greatness, which
Egypt‘s resources could not support, were ―shared by many citizens‖ (Barnett 1992, 82).

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Assertive foreign policies that affirmed Egypt‘s place in the sun were appealing to both
Egyptian masses and elites; and it was just surprising that it took Nasser three years—
after assuming power—to embark on such a course (Lorenz 1990, 25). Much of the
Egyptian elites‘ framing of their national self-image was ―rhetoric of course, but people
accepted, approved and encouraged it.‖ Defying imperialists and great powers, even if
only rhetorically, stirred pride in people‘s spirit. Which Egyptian nationalist would not
feel proud when Nasser addressed imperial powers in such a tone of defiance and
confidence, ―We shall cut the tongue of anyone who dares to insult us…We do not
tolerate pressure and we do not accept humiliation. We are a people whose dignity cannot
be sacrificed‖ (cited in Dawisha 1986, 22-23). This was just a sample of exaggerated
claims to power estimates and capabilities and a clear indication of the inflated national
self-image that prevailed in Egypt at the time.
Nasser confronted the British and French empires, ‗defeated‘ them and hastened
their demise; a ‗feat‘ that catapulted Egypt into the international scene and granted her
moral and political authority in the Arab world along with a leading role in the nonalignment
movement. Although the decline of European imperialism had many reasons,
Egypt framed its ‗victory‘ in 1956 as a historic achievement that heralded a new age and
that accelerated the demise of imperialism in the Middle East and worldwide. Nasser,
who acknowledged the lackluster performance of the Egyptian army in 1956, became
even more determined to create a powerful army that would ―signal Egypt‘s greatness
and might in regional affairs‖ (Barnett 1992, 84). Egypt was transformed overnight from
a playground of great powers into a player that great powers had to contend with. Nasser
resisted and frustrated Western attempts at creating security pacts in the Arab and Islamic

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worlds (the Baghdad Pact) and made Egypt into an actor whose interests must be taken
seriously in any regional security structure. Egypt seemed to be marching from one
victory to another. National self-esteem shot up. Victories and accomplishments are
validating experiences that create expectations and reinforce deeply-held national selfimages.
Egypt‘s modern achievements—some real, some constructed and other
exaggerated—created a set of expectations and reinforced a national role conception of
Egypt as a great regional power. 30 A country without high degrees of self-esteem does
not persistently seek regional domination. Projecting ―Egypt‘s importance in regional and
global politics‖ (Barnett 1992, 83) had been a major objective of Nasser. The Free
Officers‘ movement, especially after Nasser made a tilt towards pan-Arabism, translated
long-held public feelings about Egypt‘s proper leading role in the region. Nasser sought
to reshape his immediate environment but also played a leading role in third world
politics, especially in the non-alignment movement; he lent support for national liberation
movements throughout the Arab world and in Africa; he played the two superpowers off
one another; manipulated and maneuvered and enjoyed considerable prestige as the
leader of the Arab world.
30 ―Egypt‘s ‗great power‘ role in the region has been the result of a number of circumstances, both
permanent and temporary.‖ No doubt that Egypt population size was a major variable in determining Egypt
great power status; but Egypt‘s population was also, relative to other Arab countries, well-educated and
professional. Egypt‘s geographic central location between the eastern and Western Arab world gave her
increasing power; Egypt‘s military force and intelligence—no matter how bogus they turned out to be—
caused Arab leaders many worries. The Arabs grew dependent on Egypt—a fact obvious even nowadays
and throughout the modern history of the Arabs—no war (against Israel) without Egypt, the Arabs never
tired of saying—the truth remained that no Arab country seriously contemplated war with Israel as long as
Egypt wasn‘t on board. This also meant that Egyptian leadership could always find and count on Egyptian
supporters in various Arab countries; Egypt‘s reach seemed natural and not contrived (Kerr 1971, 37-38).

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The projection of national power had been a hallmark of Egyptian history:
whenever a powerful state emerged in Egypt, it inevitably tried to extend its power and
hegemony into the larger Arab and Islamic worlds. This image of Egypt as a great (or
potentially) great regional power became an integral part of Egyptians‘ national selfimage.
Nasser‘s rhetoric, his ideology of pan-Arabism, and Egypt‘s apparent
achievements all raised national self-esteem, reinforced and solidified Egyptians‘
perceptions of their history. Egypt struck alliances and engaged in competition as far
away as Iran and Morocco, in Africa and Asia. There is a long history of Egyptian preeminence
among Arabs and in the broader Middle East. 31
The first post-Islamic
demonstration of primacy began with the Fatimid Caliphate (A.D. 909-1171) whose
influence reached Syria, Yemen and Hejaz—including the two holy cities of Mecca and
Medina. The second period came with the Ayyubid rule (1169-1252) and later the
Mamluk (1252-1517); these two dynasties extended their influence to much of the Arab
world and achieved the final expulsion of the Crusaders from Palestine. For over 600
years, Egypt enjoyed a leading position in the Arab and Islamic worlds (Dawisha 1976,
2).
The potential of Egypt to achieve regional hegemony must have haunted
Muhammad Ali Pasha, the army officer who was appointed by the Ottoman Sultan Selim
III as Viceroy of Egypt in 1805. Muhammad Ali, who many Egyptians believe to be the
31 Kerr (1971) maintained that Egypt had a ―universal presence‖ in the Arab world, akin to the American
presence in Europe or Latin America. The Arabs, from the 1950s till the 1970s, were socialized into the
belief that Egypt was a major regional power, entitled to this role by virtue of its history and
accomplishments. It was a normal scene to see Egyptian professionals in Arab capitals. All Arabs used to
watch Egyptian movies and soap operas, listen to Egyptian music and songs and read Egyptian books and
newspapers. All Arabs understand the Egyptian dialect. What transpired in Egypt mattered for all Arabs;
but, for Egyptians, what happened in other Arab countries might be marginal—a fact that became also
apparent during the recent Arab Revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya.

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founder of modern Egypt, sought to achieve Egyptian hegemony over the Arab world.
Muhammad Ali built an arms industry that produced warships and a wide variety of
weapons and ammunitions (Barnett 1992, 89) that enabled him to carry out his ambitious
plans for transforming Egypt into a powerful regional power and a natural successor to
the decaying Ottoman Empire. The Viceroy of Egypt began his military conquest with a
successful campaign against the Wahhabis of the Arabian Peninsula in 1811. By the end
of the war, Muhammad Ali imposed his hegemony over Arabia, after which he turned to
Sudan successfully incorporating it into his domain. He later would do what other
Egyptian leaders before him did: try to expand Egyptian influence into the heart of the
fertile crescent, Syria, for its strategic significance, rich resources and its thriving
international trade community. Every time Egypt tried its hands at regional leadership,
Syria would be a natural target: the Pharaohs, the Fatimids, the Ayyubids and the
Mamluks all treaded the same routes in their expansionist campaigns. Syria, for
Muhammad Ali, could have been prized because it offered a buffer zone between Egypt
and the Ottoman Empire but it could have also served as an advanced station towards the
conquest of the Ottoman capital itself. However, international politics and great powers
competition would not allow Muhammad Ali to threaten and take over the Ottoman
Empire. The founding moments of the modern Egyptian state were moments of
expansion. Such grandiose collective memories became powerful drives for Egypt‘s
foreign policy.
The image that Nasser and his elites popularized was that of a sleeping giant (the
Arab world led by Egypt) waiting to be reawakened. This historical narrative—which the
ruling elites disseminated and socialized the public into—inflated the national self-esteem

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and raised expectations of continual victories leaving no room for setbacks and
frustrations. The high national self-esteem that Nasser‘s ―accomplishments‖ generated
combined with the perceived glorious past of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, the Fatimids,
the victory over the Tatars and the Crusaders, the emergence of Cairo and al-Azhar
University as the center and leading learning institution of the Muslim world, the Suez
War, and the desires of Arab states (and Arab people) to unite with Egypt, to create an
inflated national self-image of past greatness, present accomplishments and a golden age
of splendor to come.
Beginning in the mid-1950s, Egyptian propaganda was in full throttle socializing
Egyptians into self-glorifying myths, raising their self-esteem, solidifying their national
superiority claims, and intensifying their hegemonic aspirations. The nationalized media
and regime propagandists glamorized Nasser and his heroic role as a savior who would
restore Egypt‘s and the Arabs‘ glory. One author, Taha Abdul Baqi Srur, wrote a book
praising Nasser as a hero who would change the face of history and claiming that God
chose Nasser for this mission of salvation and restoration of lost glory. ―More than a
political leader, a statesman, and a national hero, Nasser was viewed as the providential
being predestined by God to be a second Saladin to remove the humiliation endured by
the Arab and Muslim World‖ (Haddad 1973, 81).
Egyptian radios (Cairo Radio and the Voice of Arabs Radio) 32 flooded the waves
in the 1950s and 1960s with fervent nationalistic rhetoric that contributed to the creation
of jingoistic hyper-nationalism. The glorious past of the Arabs was invoked time and
32 Both Cairo Radio and Voice of the Arabs Radio were successfully utilized as propaganda tools because
the early fifties witnessed the spread of cheap transistor radio which allowed the peasants and the urban
poor to buy many of these radios and which in turn meant that peasants and the poor had become available
for mobilization.

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again; the Arabs‘ cultural and civilizational accomplishments and the promises of
realizing dormant potentialities were repeated day and night. After the Suez War,
Egyptian propaganda evoked the image of Muslim warriors defeating the Crusaders in
the holy lands. 33 Broadcasting revolutionary propaganda for 18 hours a day, the Voice of
Arabs Radio continually blared out hyper-nationalist images and instilled overconfidence
and unrealistic expectations. As an instrument of socialization, it proved tremendously
successful. It strived to create a nationalist image of a united Arab nation; it popularized
Nasserist ideology, emphasizing anti-colonialism, anti-Zionism and anti-imperialism.
Here are few examples of how the Voice of Arabs framed the conflict with Israel in the
days leading up to the war of 1967, ―We challenge you, Israel. No, in fact, we do not
address the challenge to you, Israel, because you are unworthy of our challenge. But we
challenge you, America‖. The Egyptian minister of defense, Shams Badran, likened the
US Sixth Fleet to a ―can of sardines,‖ and claimed that Egypt had a ―weapon that can deal
it a lethal blow.‖ Haikal wrote in al-Ahram that ―imperialism has built up an image of
Israel as a ferocious power which no Arab could challenge. But this is a myth, because
the UAR [Egypt] can eliminate Israel single-handed‖ (James 2006, 96, 99). Such ideas
were so oft-repeated that by 1967 even high-level Egyptian leaders became entrapped in
their rhetoric (Riad 1981). This glowing overconfidence in Egypt‘s capacity to defeat
Israel and to confront the United States is a strong indicator of an inflated national self-
33 Nazih Ayubi (1980, 486) argued that ―Middle Easterners have a strong sense of history‖ and thus
invoking historical memories of religious wars resonated deeply with the public.

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image, which leads an actor to overestimate his strength and to underestimate his
enemy‘s capabilities. 34
The predicament was in the gap between expectations, grandiose dreams and
material resources. A simple analysis of Egypt‘s resources would reveal the gulf:
Egyptian consistently unimpressive military performance—1948 (first Arab-Israeli war),
1956 (Suez War), intervention in the civil war in Yemen (1962-1966), and the 1967 and
1973 defeats—all testified to the limited military power that Egypt possessed. Its
population growth was not matched by equal economic growth—a constant refrain of
Nasser, Sadat and Mubarak was to how to find resources to feed the ever increasing
population. When Egypt sought to build the Aswan Dam, a vital project for the Egyptian
economy, it had to rely on foreign financing. After 1967, Egypt became dependent on
financial help from the oil-rich countries—its traditional adversaries.
Defeat was shocking and traumatic; its suddenness exacerbated the intensity of
humiliation. The element of surprise in this case was particularly significant. A disaster
without warning is likely to have more serious effects. An anticipated crisis enables
individuals and communities to erect material and psychological defenses. Much of the
force of a disaster emanates from the sudden manner in which it visits unprepared
societies, institutions and psyches (Barkun 1974, 57).
Sentiments of humiliation, rage and anger—that defeats generate—would be
multiplied in societies that had been socialized into self-glorifying myths, extravagant
34 Foreign military estimates concluded that the Egyptian army would lose the war against Israel. While
visiting the Egyptian army on May 12, 1967, the British war hero, Field Marshal Montgomery, frankly said
that the Egyptian army would lose a war with Israel. American estimates (CIA) concluded that Israel
enjoyed qualitative military superiority over all Arab forces combined (James 2006, 99).

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expectations, and unfounded promises of glorious future. The reason an individual might
resort to violence is the gap that emerges when self-images do not match actual
performance or when self-images are not recognized and respected by the others; that is,
when there is a substantial disjuncture between images and reality. Those with low selfesteem
would respond to failure by withdrawing, lowering their aspirations and avoiding
conflictual situations that are potentially pregnant with dangers and risks; but those with
high self-esteem would raise their expectations and seek opportunities for the reconfirmation
of their inflated and wounded self-image; thus, the latter‘s rejection to lower
their expectations and aspirations and thus adjust and temper their inflated self-esteem
causes further dissonance between images and reality, and this dissonance is a major
source of risk-taking, radical behavior and resort to violence.
Egypt was such a society. The political landscape was radicalized: on the left,
there emerged powerful movements and groups, especially among unviersity students
and intellectuals, that demanded total revolution. Indeed, Sadat was so obssessed with,
and aware of, the dangers that the left presented to regime stability that he created a
permissive environment for the growth of militant Islamist groups—as a counterforce.
Islamic fundamentalist organizations demanded a return to the fundamentals of the faith,
which, in their view, was an assured way of restoring past glories that the nation had once
experienced when it was a nation of believers. Without a collective narrative of past
glories, a reasonable—even if only a matter of framing and perception—record of
success, and a promise of glorious future, defeat would have been more tolerable.
It is noticeable in the case of Egypt that, at least initially, radicalization struck
university students, who had been the subjects of Nasser‘s regime mobilization and

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socialization since its assumption of power, and who also possessed high degrees of selfesteem—and
are thus more likely to be receptive to radical ideologies. University
students were an effective ―socio-political force that acted principally as an element of
pressure on the ruling power to restore the country‘s self-esteem through the recovery of
its lost territories‖ (Abdallah 1985, 218). Immediately following the 1967 war, students
took to the streets and demonstrated on campuses and established a multiplicity of social
and political clubs. Students‘ unrest erupted into full fledged protests in Cairo,
Alexandria and Asyut universities, where the army had to intervene to quell the violence.
The student uprising of February 1968 was the most vocal expression of public unrest
following the 1967 defeat (Abdallah 1985, 153).
I hypothesized that a nation with exaggerated national self-image is more prone to
domestic radicalism and aggressive foreign policy whereas a nation with tempered
national self-image is more likely to respond to defeats with prudence and reconciliation.
I find evidence that supports the contention that defeated societies that have exaggerated
national self-images are more susceptible to the radicalization of the domestic political
landscape. But, this radicalization does not necessarily materialize into aggressive foreign
policy unless the radicalized opposition gathers momentum and either seizes the reins of
power or overwhelms the capacity of the regime to resist radical demands. In Egypt, there
was radicalization—leftist and Islamist—but the two brands never evolved into powerful
political organizations capable of overtaking the government. Despite the fact that the
regime made a rightward shift in its foreign policy, it still had to go through a war of
attrition and later, in 1973, a war of liberation. These wars were necessary to heal

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wounded pride and to contain mounting domestic opposition and later to enable the Sadat
regime to completely break with Nasser‘s ideology and chart a new path for Egypt.
It remained true though that if major societal actors, leftists and Islamists, were
radicalized, the ruling elites were not. Instead, they became more tempered and prudent;
they adjusted their estimates of their power, tempered their inflated self-images and
adopted a new, more realistic one. Obviously, power holders have different calculations;
carrying on with a foreign policy of expansion and hegemonic aspirations could have
meant suicide and was no longer feasible anyway as defeat in war revealed the real
balance of power. But, societal actors, who do not face such constraints, could afford
extremism and the preservation of their inflated self-images. Escaping the harsh reality
into the solace of total revolution or into mosques remained a comfortable option.
5. Political organizations
The three political organizations (The Liberation Rally, the National Union and
the Arab Socialist Union) that Nasser established during his tenure were weak—
according to the criteria I specified: they never survived enough to gain longevity and
stability; they changed ideologies (although the organizations‘ ideologies were never
clearly articulated); they experienced organizational discontinuity and had no specified
rules for leadership change through established party procedures; they lacked any
autonomy from state institutions and were subject to the whims of state leadership; they
lacked coherence, as they all experienced unmanageable expansion in membership and
lost what semblance of discipline and efficiency they had; they were not adaptable—that
is, they had no capacity to change their roles as the situation demanded. These

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organizations had a sole objective: to suppress genuine political participation and to
maintain the regime in power.
Although the 1950s and 1960s witnessed high degrees of mass politicization and
social mobilization, political participation was only minimal and institutional channels
were not open to the masses. 35 Instead, most of political contestation took the form of
intra-elite rivalry. Nasser stood at the helm of political power, secured by his sweeping
charisma, impressive rhetorical skills, and his office (the presidency).
Despite Nasser‘s claims to represent the masses, he actually made sure that they
were excluded from effective political participation. Nasser was to pay a high price for
such domestic policies: when there was an urgent need for mass political support, there
was no institutional structure to back him up. Nasser knew that he needed a political
organization that could provide stronger and more permanent legitimacy and support than
what charisma alone could guarantee, but he couldn‘t, ―accept a political party in real
behavioral terms‖ (Heaphey 1966, 191). Indeed, the personalistic, charismatic and
bureaucratic quality of Nasser‘s regime might have precluded any serious
institutionalization of mass political participation. 36
Nasser‘s charisma was so
domineering that it elevated him, ―to a position of dominance over the legal-institutional
structure, thus making the perceived legitimacy of the political system wholly dependent
on Nasser‘s authority alone‖ (Dawisha 1976, 107). He felt that he only needed to provide
35 The era was one of heightened mobilization. Indeed, from 1956 to 1967 there was a feverish propaganda
campaign to whip up pan-Arabism, anti-Westernism, and anti-colonialism sentiments. Nasser‘s speeches
carried the message loud and clear; Sawt al Arab (Voice of the Arabs) radio broadcasting from Cairo was
the most popular news outlet at the time as mentioned previously.
36 Hopwood (1982, 102) mentioned that Nasser‘s energies were mostly focused on creating and
consolidating ―bonds between himself and the Egyptian masses.‖

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nominal—as opposed to effective—political participation; and this implied that no
serious efforts needed to be invested in creating political parties, not even for his own
supporters. This is not to suggest that Nasser completely ignored political organization;
far from it, he created ‗nominal‘ political organizations to structure mass-elite linkages
but without allowing these to achieve any significant level of institutionalization
(Hinnebusch 1985, 18).
Indeed, Shukrallah‘s thesis (1989, 62) that Nasser‘s hegemony was built on the
twin pillars of the ―systematic destruction of all forms of political and social organization
of the popular classes on the one hand, and their direct relationship with the leader of the
nation, on the other‖ was not far from reality. Nasser‘s charisma assured him an
impressive level of political and ideological hegemony over his masses. This was not
without some objective bases and favorable circumstances: Nasser‘s rhetoric of antiimperialism
coupled with actual policies of defying Western powers, his successes in
fighting the French and the British (1956) and lending support to independence
movements and progressive forces in the Arab world, his domestic policies of liquidating
feudalism and big capital, industrialization, land reforms, expanding university education
and state employment—all created some form of an ―identity of interest‖ between large
segments of the Egyptian masses and the leader/regime. The consequent broad base of
support provided the regime with impressive stability and gave it the appearance of a
strong state and strong regime (Hinnebusch 1985, 29).
Nasser‘s experience with decaying political parties during the monarchical era
must have had its toll for he had serious doubts about the viability and utility of political

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parties. 37
He once said, ―when I hear the word organization, I draw my sword,‖ a
statement that clearly depicted his suspicions of political organizations (cited in Shoukri
1981, 38). To be fair, one can‘t discount the sincerity of Nasser‘s belief in his own unity
with his own people and his capacity to sense his people‘s desires and aspirations. But,
one shouldn‘t either forget that Nasser was successful in building internal security
organizations and wasn‘t lacking in organizational skills. Indeed, his repeated attempts at
creating ‗organizations‘ from early on clearly demonstrated his understanding of the
crucial significance of political organizations for regime survival and social control.
Nasser created three political organizations during his tenure in office. 38 The first
was the Liberation Rally (1953-1956), the second was the National Union (1959-1961),
and the most famous and enduring was the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) established in
1962, and which outlived Nasser till Sadat dissolved it in the late 1970s. Their major
function was to render all other forms of political organizations illegal and to eliminate
any potential for forming alternative political parties; that is, their purpose was rather to
liquidate genuine political participation. More dangerously, these ‗state‘ political
organizations ‗institutionalized‘ non-participation. Similar processes were underway in
other potential areas of popular political mobilization, such as trade unions and
professional syndicates. Another function of these parties was to ‗discipline‘ the ruling
elites as these organizations could be used against the powerful entrenched business
interests and the economically dominant classes—without granting these organizations
any autonomy from the state. These organizations were thus meant to be ―a passive tool,
37 None of the three different political organizations that Nasser created was labeled a ‗party.‘ Instead,
Nasser called them ―rally,‖ and ―union.‖ Political parties back then did not enjoy good political
reputations—based on the performance of political parties during the monarchical era.
38 Shoukri (1981, 38) called these organizations ―pseudo-popular‖

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to be wielded by the president only as and when he himself saw fit‖ (Shukrallah 1989,
62-63).
Shortly after Nasser assumed power in Egypt, he suspended all political parties
and created the Liberation Rally on January 23, 1953. 39 This first and early attempt at
institutionalizing political support demonstrated Nasser‘s awareness of the significance of
political parties in organizing political activity and securing regime survival. The Rally
was mostly needed to grant legitimacy to the newly formed military regime and to
confront and counteract the opposition it encountered—the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)
and the Wafd party. In addition, the Rally was used to penetrate civil society groups such
as the professional associations and syndicates. The Rally was too broad to become an
effective political organization and too short-lived (less than three years) to fulfill the
crucial functions of political parties, especially those of socialization and recruitment.
The only condition for joining the Liberation Rally was an ―expression of loyalty to the
Free Officers‖ (Harik 1973, 85). Eventually, the Rally failed in obtaining sufficient
support and attention from the public and the mobilized social forces. Sayegh (1965, 38-
39) harshly but accurately described the Rally as a ―formless body hastily contrived to fill
the void created by the dissolution of political parties...it was a clumsy creature which
died in infancy, hardly anyone knowing exactly when or how, or caring to know.‖ The
organization expired in 1955 after the ouster of Nasser‘s competitor in the Revolutionary
Command Council (RCC), Naguib (Huntington 1968, 247).
39 Nasser accused existing parties of representing ―class interests‖ and an ―alliance between feudalism and
exploiting capital‖ (Abdel-Malek 1968, 343).

110
Nasser subsequently formed the National Union (NU) as an alternative political
organization. 40 The 1957 Constitution, stipulated the creation of the National Union,
which did not fare better than its predecessor—and would soon be replaced by another
organization, the Arab Socialist Union (ASU). The NU was not a particularly active
organization; its main objectives, just like its predecessor, the defunct LR, was to rally
the masses behind Nasser and to provide them with an institutional means to participate
in the policy process and to combat Nasser‘s opponents. It also had more specific goals;
its Executive Committee was tasked with screening party cadres, and especially
candidates for the National Assembly. However, Binder (1966, 232-233) found that the
NU played a minor role in the parliamentary elections in a period where representation in
the parliament was still the most significant recruitment tool for the political elites of
Egypt. During the short lifetime of the NU, it was the national government made all
policies (Harik 1973, 86). The National Union lacked a well-articulated, coherent
ideology, any rules for recruitment or any socialization programs, and had a membership
of five million. 41 Like its predecessor, it was too clumsy and massive to be counted as a
serious political party. Indeed, there is no evidence whatsoever that the NU made any
substantial policy input. Communication proceeded from the top to the base. The
organization survived only till 1961 without any memorable performance (Huntington
1968, 247; Dawisha 1976, 119-120).
The Arab Socialist Union (ASU) was originally conceived by Nasser as a cadre
party—only those who believed in the Charter‘s socialist principles would be allowed to
40 The National Union was formally announced in 1956 but was actually organized in 1959 (Binder 1966,
220).
41 An absurdly high number for a population of 30 million at the time

111
join. However, when Nasser delivered a speech in the city of Port Sa‘id, his thinking
radically changed. He was asked by the attendees why the ―masses,‖ who risked their
lives in the fight against the tripartite aggression (the Suez War) would be excluded from
membership. Nasser became worried that exclusion could generate alienation, and
alienation would make the aggrieved easy targets for recruitment by opposition groups.
Subsequently, he permitted ―mass recruitment‖ to the ASU, similar to the loose
recruitment patterns practiced by the defunct NU and the Rally (Beattie 1994, 165-166).
This basically sealed the fate of the ASU. With open recruitment, membership soured to
above 6 millions. During the first round of registration, around 4,885,932 members
registered (Binder 1978, 310). This permissive membership profile allowed the enemies
and adversaries of the regime and various opportunists to join, which undermined the
party‘s ideological coherence and political utility. 42
Obviously, an organization that
claimed to represent the whole population couldn‘t be a powerful organization. Nasser
claimed that he wanted the ASU to represent an alliance of workers, peasants,
intellectuals, non-exploitative capitalists and the security forces. However, he ignored
that these social forces might represent a wide variety of conflicting interests and that the
inclusion of all those competing interests would render the size of the organization too
big and completely unwieldy.
Fifty percent of the ASU seats were given to the peasants and workers to
camouflage its security-like structure and functions. Despite the fact that the purpose of
the organization was to ‗co-opt‘ the various social classes and the politically active
42 A popular Egyptian newspaper, Rose al-Yusuf, sarcastically spoke of ASU rallies in the countryside in
which individuals wearing fine suits participated, saying that those were the ‗popular working classes‘ that
Nasser wanted to recruit (cited in Beattie 1994, 166).

112
sectors of the population, none of these social forces—the five sectors mentioned
above—were at any point allowed autonomy, nor were there any attempts at creating
harmony among the competing classes and interests (El-Hasan 2005, 35). Indeed, the five
segments that Nasser defined as the ‗working forces‘ were not permitted to have a
corporate existence within the ASU; actually very few workers were even organized in
trade unions. In other words, representation was accepted on individual basis only and
there was simply no ―recognition of organizational autonomy for each group‖ (Harik
1973, 87; Baker 1978, 89-92).
The ASU was a state-controlled institution and its structure was pyramid-like. 43 It
was used as a tool to control the masses but not to allow them to channel their grievances,
to aggregate their interests or to participate effectively in the political process. It
successfully provided the appearance of political participation but not the substance. It
failed in its two major functions, recruitment and socialization. For those reasons, the
ASU never gained the popular legitimacy and credibility as a forum for channeling
political preferences. Indeed, there were popular protests even before the defeat in the
early sixties. 44 When the Ikhwan ‗conspiracy‘ was uncovered in the fall of 1965, it
revealed the failure of the ASU in recruiting and socializing the classes it was supposed
to represent. The aborted conspiracy was vast and revealed that the MB still enjoyed
43 In organizational terms the ASU resembled a single party in totalitarian systems; it had a pyramidal
structure that consisted of four levels: The Basic Units were at the bottom (7000 in total), which operated
and organized the public in each village, factory, town and city; the second level consisted of 26 units—
corresponding to 26 Governorates—which grouped the basic units. The third level was the General
National Congress, which convened every two years. Finally, there was the Supreme Executive Committee,
which consisted of 25 members and which actually controlled decision making. This elite unit consisted of
Nasser and his best allies in the regime (Dekmejian 1971, 145-152).
44 Another indication of the frailty of the ASU and other political organizations that Nasser created was the
fact that public protests took the form of street demonstrations, sit-ins, and strikes—since the public didn‘t
have access to institutionalized channels of articulating their protests either through the party or through
free and fair elections.

113
tremendous popularity among those classes that the ASU claimed and aspired to
represent and to recruit. Key members of the conspiracy were young members of the new
middle class—engineers, chemists, scientists, pilots and students. These individuals were
the products of the system that Nasser built and were educated in its schools but
apparently were not successfully socialized into the new nationalist, pan-Arabist and
socialist values. Nasser‘s reaction to the alleged conspiracy clearly demonstrated that he
understood the gravity of the situation. For example, he purged sixteen out of twenty-six
governorate, a clear sign that the crisis was nation-wide and not limited to localities
(Dekmejian 1971, 233).
Up till 1968, most of the ASU leadership was appointed and not elected—a
classic authoritarian means of controlling political recruitment. The top leadership was
selected for its loyalty. This fact meant that the ASU did not have independent-minded
individuals who would offer alternative visions, making the potential input of the ASU
into policy making marginal at best (Baker 1978, 89-92). Because the regime maintained
its privileges of appointing ASU top leaders, the party never became a successful
recruitment mechanism—a major function of parties is to recruit elites and the politically
active segment of the population. Most of the Egyptian leadership at the national level
was not recruited from the ASU. Out of 131 ministers who served between 1952 and
1968 only two ministers held political positions in Nasser‘s political organization before
their ministerial appointments; eighty three held party positions only either during or after
retiring and others held no such party positions at all (Dekmejian 1971, 192, 199). The
implication should be clear: the political organizations that Nasser built were not used to
recruit elites into leadership positions.

114
Organizationally, the party did not have any coherence either; it looked as an ad
hoc assemblage of various interests. To give some examples of the organizational
problems that bedeviled the party: at the sub-national levels, higher party officers had no
direct authority over lower-echelon party officials; the province, district and basic
committees were independent from each other. Communication within the ASU
resembled the ―tradition of Harun al Rashid and the princes of early Islam‖ and not the
institutionalized channels of ―an organized mass movement‖ (Harik 1973, 100).
Communication flowed from the top to the bottom and no feedback or inputs were sought
from the base. Ali Sabri (cited in Harik 1973, 93), a major figure during both Nasser‘s
and early Sadat‘s years, provided a firsthand account of the workings of the ASU and its
basic committees—from 1960 till 1965—which "acted at the mass level like post offices.
They waited for complaints and problems to come to them and were simply satisfied to
transmit these complaints and petitions in their original form to the executive branch of
government or to their ASU superiors at the district or provincial levels, who in turn
would do nothing more than pass them on to the executive and administrative bodies.‖
Nasser would appeal directly to the masses, who would then return Nasser‘s calls
circumventing any institutional channels-except that of the charismatic president
(Dawisha 1976, 122). Harik (1973) called the ASU a ―collaboration movement‖ as it was
able effectively to transmit the regime‘s desires and policy preferences, but not the other
way around. It enabled the cooptation of the local elites and it was instrumental in
controlling the opposition and neutralizing it. But, it never became a true ―vanguard‖
party (Binder 1978, 35-64; Harik 1973).

115
Nasser realized the weakness of the organization he created and came up with
some measures to strengthen it. He tried to create vanguard organizations within the
ASU. Two such organizations were born, the Vanguard Organization, which was
supposed to play the vanguard role at the elite level, and the Youth Organization, whose
purpose was to socialize the youth into the principles of socialism and revolution and to
recruit younger cadres who would proselytize the masses (Beattie 1994, 166). Even the
―avant-garde organization‖ that sprouted from the ASU was headed by the Minister of
the Interior, who served as its general secretary (Shoukri 1981, 38). However, these
organizations were supposed to be secret organizations and recruitment was selective.
Yet secrecy itself undermined the two organizations and rendered them ineffective as
recruitment tool, the vanguard organizations fell victim once again to the vagaries of
personal and regime loyalty. This is an accurate description of what kind of organizations
the regime wanted to prosper.
In the mid 1960s, Nasser‘s regime moved to the left—after the failure of unity
with Syria which demonstrated to Nasser the strength of the Right and their capacity to
regain their political control. Subsequently, the ASU moved left as well and the wellknown
leftist and pro-Soviet Ali Sabri became the head of the ASU. There were some
changes introduced into the ideology of the party by transforming it into a more leftleaning
organization. Nasser appointed Marxist intellectuals to mid-level positions; and
the local power elites were replaced by peasant and working classes and youth cadres.
Only during Ali Sabri‘s tenure were there serious attempts at recruitment and
socialization; the whole party was restructured and there were even ‗socialization‘
institutes where party cadres would receive training. Several such party educational and

116
training institutes were established: the Higher Institute of Socialist Studies, the Socialist
Institute in Helwan city and the Socialist Institute of the Giza Pyramids; many other
similar institutes were created at the local, district, and even village levels. These reforms
transformed the ASU from a collaboration movement into mobilizational one. However,
this experiment lasted only for two and a half years and ―had to be abandoned, not as a
result of failure but of success‖ (Harik 1973, 96-97).
Along with the shift to the left came a crackdown on former non-leftist allies.
This was a clear example of the lack of ideological clarity and coherence and a sure sign
of the weakness of a political party in search of an ideology, constituency, organization,
and support (Harik 1973, 88).
After the 1967 defeat, the most fundamental change was introduced in the March
30 th Statement whose purpose was the re-organization of the party. Nasser laid the blame
at the doors of the so-called the ‗centers of power.‘ Those were individuals around which
a group of elites coalesced and formed coalitions of interests and parochialism and had
the capacity to impede decision making. Haikal, Nasser‘s confidant, also accused the
‗centers of power‘ of causing the defeat and stymieing policy and progress. He
specifically pointed out that recruitment procedures, which were appointments by the
leadership, had not contributed to the functioning of the ASU and instead led to the
accumulation of influence and the diffusion of parochialism: party leaders themselves
became centers of power. The March 30 th Statement promised political liberalization, rule
of law and complete re-structuring and re-organization of the ASU (Ansari 1986, 144-
145).

117
Despite claims to the contrary, following the 1967 defeat Nasser became more
reluctant of allowing the ASU to become a powerful political organization: he was
worried that a strong ASU might become an opposition force itself or might be hijacked
by those opposed to him (Hurewitz 1974, 142-143). After the February 1968
demonstrations and the observable increasing radicalization of the masses, Nasser
ordered Ali Sabri to contain the Youth Organization (YO) by eliminating vertical
communications within the hierarchy, effectively neutralizing the YO as a potential
organization. When the activist Ahmed Kamel was asked to give the YO leadership to
Mufid Shihab, the organization lost its efficiency altogether and eventually became
defunct. 45 Some leftists watched in disbelief as the once promising YO was dissolving;
some called for its renewal and autonomy by reinvigorating its membership,
democratizing it and augmenting its socialization functions (al-Tali‘a, No. 5, May 1969,
p. 26). However, other disenchanted YO members defected to form new radical
organizations or to join existing radical leftist and Marxist organizations, such as the
Followers of the Palestinian Revolution, the Society of Tomorrow‘s Writers, Usrat misr,
and Usrat al-fatat (Beattie 1994, 219).
Although Nasser had many supporters in the army, the bureaucracy, among the
peasant and in various other social classes, he somehow failed to develop the institutions
necessary to mobilize and organize his constituency. 46 Critics of Nasser like to point out
45 By mid 1968 Nasser almost restored the party to what it had been prior to Ali Sabri‘s experiment (Harik
1973, 97).
46 Huntington (1968, 248-249) maintained that ―the Egyptian organizations were [not] able to perform the
functions required of political institutions. They included everyone while power remained concentrated in a
few. They neither reflected the structure of social forces nor served as vehicles through which the dominant
social force could extend, moderate, and legitimize its power.‖

118
that he tried to build ―socialism without socialists‖ (Ayubi 1980: 439-45; Binder 1978:
326-71). Those who supported Nasser sadly didn‘t find many opportunities to be
recruited and to make any contribution to the policy process. To clarify with an example,
many peasants benefited from Nasser‘s land reforms and naturally supported him, but
when the government became less enthusiastic about cooperatization, the once promising
agricultural cooperatives withered away, elections were canceled, corruption became
rampant and the same local notables regained their influence over the poor peasants and
became once again empowered to exploit the decaying institutions to their benefits. The
peasants who could have supported Nasser had no institutionalized means to organize and
mobilize and reach decision making circles.
The weakness of political institutions in general should be evident from the
criticisms in the aftermath of defeat, which focused on the necessity of ‗creating
institutions.‘ Haikal, for example, proposed countering the power centers in the ASU
with a system of checks and balances and emphasized that power should be molded into
―institutions‖ and not ―feudalities.‖ 47 These were not orphan calls; indeed, the first policy
document that President Sadat issued clearly stated that the task of the nation was to build
―institutions.‖ 48
When in May 1971 Sadat removed the small apparat that controlled the ASU, the
organization itself almost dissolved because it had no autonomy from the state, no
political life of its own. Despite appearance to the contrary, the ―whole experiment of the
ASU has thus demonstrated that it is relatively easy—through slogans and
47 M. H. Haikal, ―Bi Sarah‖, Al-Ahram (18 and 25 October 1968).
48 Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, Birnamij al-‗amal al-watani (Programme for National Action] reproduced
in Al-Tali‘a, vol. 7, no. 10 (October ,1971), pp. 164-177.

119
organizations—to draw crowds, but difficult to make committed followers and living
political institutions‖ (Ayubi 1980, 450-451).
The political organizations that Nasser created were more like ―Administered
Mass Organizations‖ (AMO) than traditional political parties. A major function of an
Administered Mass Organization is ―to subordinate its members to a political elite that
already controls the government‖ (Kasza 1993, 85). AMOs do no emerge from within
civil society nor are they organized autonomously by civil society leaders; instead, they
are established by the ruling regimes to ensure the regime‘s control over society. These
are most dominant in Single-party and military-bureaucratic regimes. A common trait of
these regimes is that they do not allow AMOs to have much input into policy making and
their ranks are not used for recruitment to fill offices. In short, ―People found parties to
win political power; officials found AMOs to serve the powers that be‖ (Kasza 1993, 85).
All of the three political organizations, the Liberation Rally, the National Union
and the Arab Socialist Union, experienced continuous reshuffling and restructuring
precluding the possibilities of transforming them into real institutions. None of these
organizations became the main recruitment tool for political elites. An organization that
aspired to embody the legitimacy of the regime cannot be so radically changed over such
short periods of time; the stock of its legitimacy would be soon depleted. It is hard to
imagine a political party to be legitimate and strong if it did not provide effective means
for popular political participation.

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6. Strong Presidency
A major legacy of Nasser was the establishment of a powerful presidential
system—the presidency would become the most powerful institution in Egypt enjoying
overwhelming authority, privileges and popular and elite respect. The presidency became
the locus of authority and decision-making whereas the legislative branch, the courts, the
press, civil society organizations and political parties were weakened and had no power
to challenge presidential authority (El-Hasan 2005, 31). Egyptians treated the presidency
as the ―seat of the highest responsibility…and the President, whether loved or hated, has,
in the eyes of the Egyptians throughout history, enjoyed the immunity of the master of
‗the‘ decision‖ (Shoukri 1981, 48-49).
Although the Egyptian state, which Hinnebusch (1985, 44-45) called a ‗semiinstitutionalized
authoritarian-bureaucratic polity‘‘ never became strong enough to
penetrate civil society and establish full corporatist organizations, it registered some
success in achieving minor or partial institutionalization, plainly evident in the legal
supremacy of the presidency, the sweeping powers it wielded and the broad acceptance of
presidential authority by both the elites and the public. True, the post-defeat crisis
revealed the overall weakness of the Egyptian state; but even during this period when
Egypt was most vulnerable to elite competition and domestic instability, the crisis
demonstrated that the Egyptian presidency enjoyed sweeping powers and respected legal
authority. The predictable, if not altogether smooth, transition of power after Nasser‘s
death—and later after Sadat‘s assassination—demonstrated the coherence of presidential
authority and its capacity to resist chaos. Indeed, there was a consensus that Sadat was
chosen—and accepted by the different factions of the ruling elites—because he was

121
perceived to be a weak actor incapable of imposing his will and lacking supporters in the
army, among the elite and in state institutions overall. The choice of Sadat would allow
various competing factions, it was thought, to exploit his weakness, impose their agendas
and supposedly dispose of him when the right time comes. However, once Sadat became
president, by virtue of the institutional powers the presidency granted him, he was able to
consolidate his powers, eliminate his rivals and implement his preferred policies. Sadat
was empowered not only by the polarization of the elites and their incapacity to form a
minimal consensus but also by the institutional powers and legal authority of the
Presidency. What also attested to the power of the presidency was the fact that once
presidential decisions were made, there was an overall societal and elite acquiescence and
acceptance. In short, Egyptian elites showed ―loyalty to the legal supremacy of the
Presidency‖ (Hinnebusch 1985, 44-45).
Thus, one of Nasser‘s legacies was his consolidation of the legal powers of the
presidency and in generating popular and elite respect and acceptance for its institutional
privileges. During Nasser‘s tenure, one might have been justifiably tempted to conflate
the powers of the presidency with those of the charisma of Nasser. However, after
Nasser‘s death and the assumption of presidential powers by the uncharismatic Sadat, it
became clear that there was a powerful institution, relatively immune from public
pressures, capable of autonomous decision making, of imposing its will on other branches
of the government and establishing its hegemony over the whole state apparatus. 49
49 It is telling that there were no calls in Egypt after the Egyptian Revolution (2011) to trim Presidential
powers.

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However, this partial institutionalization remained largely bureaucratic and
included only the presidential structure without trickling down to the remaining organs of
government and without including popular political participation. Indeed, when Ali Sabri
became increasingly dissatisfied with Sadat‘s policies, he tried to mobilize mass support
through appealing directly to the masses—as Nasser used to do—instead of using the
ASU, where Sabri enjoyed tremendous support among the rank and file. This is another
indication that Ali Sabri knew better than everybody else how weak the ASU was and
how it was necessary to resort to direct appeals to the masses in order to win the power
contest with Sadat. Had the party been ideologically and institutionally coherent,
maintained decent support among the masses and retained its constituents, Sabri would
have fared better in the power contest and wouldn‘t have had to resort to mass
mobilization (Hinnebusch 1985, 44-45).
7. Public Pressures after Defeat
Just few days after the resounding defeat, a Lebanese novelist, Layla Ba‘lbaki,
expressed the frustration and shame that engulfed the Arab world and the need to avenge
lost honor, ―We have been living a great lie, treachery and disgrace…only war will regain
for us our honor‖ (cited in Shamir 1975, 186). Many observers believed that public
pressures forced Nasser to come up with the slogan that was repeated time and again in
Egypt in the wake of defeat, ―what was taken by force could be recovered only by force.‖
Mahmud Fawzi (1986) maintained that the public desire for a war of redemption was
what made the Egyptian people cooperate and identify with the army. A strong sign of
public determination to go to war came with Nasser‘s funeral on October 1, 1970 where
millions chanted ―we shall fight‖ (Shukrallah 1989). Such sentiments in favor of war

123
were common even among Arabs living abroad. 50 Defeat deeply wounded Egyptian selfesteem
and hurt their inflated national-self image. War, for many, seemed to be the
answer, the way to redeem honor lost.
An observable effect of defeat was increasing public pressures for a war of
redemption and revenge. Discontent was so widespread that it spanned most of the
societal actors, from students and professionals to the army. Even writers and
intellectuals had their share of frustration and impatience. 51 The pervasiveness of the
protests and the different forms they took must have reflected a deeper societal
discontent, frustration, anger and shame at the status quo but also an exaggerated national
self-image. As the theory posited, nations with overblown self-images tend not raise, not
lower, their expectations and to seek opportunities for confrontation and self-worth
confirmation. A flight reaction is not for them. There were three strands of public
protests: students‘ protests, workers‘ strikes, and the urban poor riots (Shukrallah 1989,
70).
A series of protests began on February 20, 1968 when the workers of the aircraft
factory in Helwan began a strike after the courts handed down what was perceived as
light sentences to the air force commanders deemed responsible for defeat. But, protests
spread into university campuses, especially to Cairo University and later spread further
50 Suleiman (1973, 485) conducted a public opinion survey of Arabs in the U.S. He found that Arabs in
general were in favor of war. He mentioned that Arabs found it hard to accept the fact of defeat. In
response to a question regarding the best way to deal with Israel, about two thirds expressed willingness to
‗continue the struggle to eventual victory‘ and only 8% were ready for a settlement.
51 The Writers‘ Association and a group of prominent intellectuals wrote an open letter in which they
prodded their government for action and protested the intolerable status quo (Barnett 1992, 126).

124
into state institutions. 52 The parliament held a stormy session on February 28 in which
voices were loud in calling for the dismantling of the coercive apparatus of the regime
and for institutional reforms. A month later, the judges expressed their anger at
politicizing the courts, just two days before Nasser‘s March 30 th
political reform
statement. University professors had their share in the protests as well.
A hallmark of the 1968 student movement was its increasing leftist radicalization:
simple answers were insufficient as students wanted a ‗search for the defects in the entire
political-economic system‖ (Beattie 1994, 214). They also demanded immediate action or
a clear-cut timeline for war, something that the government was unwilling to provide
because it knew that its resources were limited and precluded such an option. Those
demands increasingly made the government wary of action: expectations were high, but
war preparation was costly. Lack of domestic resources meant that the government would
have to place increasing burdens on the public, which in turn would make the
government more vulnerable to public pressures. Subsequently, mounting economic
hardships would unleash a powerful current of public protests that would undermine the
government‘s efforts for war preparation: the ―balancing act‖ had become much more
difficult (Barnett 1992, 106-107).
The shock was sharp for the Youth Organization, whose members perceived
themselves as integral parts of the government and the regime. Many YO members
resigned and established leftist organizations, but others remained within the fold of the
ASU believing that they could reform the regime from within. YO students were active
participants and leaders of the demonstrations at the Helwan aircraft factory and many of
52 Nasser was so interested in University students‘ protests that he requested an analysis of the slogans they
raised (Beattie 1994, 232).

125
them led the massive mobilization at Cairo University. Indeed the increasing
politicization of university students and the dialogue and harmony that seemed to emerge
between leftists and Marxists alarmed the regime, which now began to question the
wisdom of creating youth organizations and the whole process of mobilizing university
students (Beattie 1994, 214).
Political agitation rose again in 1971. Protests began with the workers‘ strike at
the Helwan steel complex against state policies that were eroding socialist gains. Students
soon joined the protests, which were in many ways a continuation of the 1968 movement.
The protests reached their apogee in January 1972 (Ansari 1986, 175). Despite all of
Sadat‘s efforts to subdue the left, leftism and radicalism still prevailed and dominated
university campuses. A major cause of the crisis was directly related to 1967: the failure
of Sadat to deliver on his earlier promise to make the year 1971 ―the year of decision‖—
meaning the year of liberation of occupied land and war with Israel. Sadat still felt that
Egypt was not ready for such wars, but his reluctance and prudence found no resonance
among the impatient and the young. The status quo of ‗no peace, no war‘ was simply not
sustainable; university students in particular were angry, not only because of their overall
political enthusiasm and mobilization, but also because they had to serve in the army
until occupied lands were liberated. However, their demands were not limited to war and
liberation but extended to social issues: they demanded the state to further and accelerate
its war mobilization efforts and to release the workers who were imprisoned for strikes
and demonstrations; they attacked the capitalists and bourgeoisie in the regime, especially
the more conspicuous ones such as Sayyid Marei, who was branded a ‗feudalist and
capitalist.‘ They also had foreign policy preferences: they demanded Egypt increase its

126
support for Palestinian guerrillas and militant movements; they asked the government to
back up attacks against US interests in the region since the US was perceived as
complicit in Israeli aggression and in supplying Israel with aircraft that was attacking
Egyptian civilian targets (Hinnebusch 1985, 51-52). Students‘ protests therefore should
not be viewed narrowly since the student body that led the protests belonged to all
Egyptian classes and their movement thus embodied broader grievances in society.
Protests were not limited to students and urban workers but encompassed the
professional classes as well. The Engineers, Lawyers‘ and Journalists‘ professional
organizations and syndicates joined and had similar demands. The protests were led by
those sectors of the population who the regime thought had already tamed and
incorporated. The regime felt grave dangers approaching as the protesters began to
establish links with one another—students coordinating their activities with workers and
professionals.
There were even junior officers who joined the protests. The army was
particularly restive and on edge. After all, it was the armed forces whose incompetence
caused the defeat and whose members were mocked by Egyptians of all walks of life.
The stakes were higher for the army. One serious incident shed light on the psychology of
discontent and impatience within the armed forces. A junior officer led a column of
tanks into a central square in Cairo and urged the public to prod the regime to go to war
immediately. Another serious incidence occurred when a renegade group of military
officers, frustrated at the government‘s inaction and the intolerable status quo, made an
attempt to arrest top Egyptian leaders, including Sadat. Lack of action on the military
front reached even the parliament where its members began to criticize the regime for its

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slow-moving pace and inaction. Sadat, as usual, would respond with double measures of
coercion and conciliation; he harshly criticized leftist students on university campuses but
he also appointed a government of ‗austerity and confrontation‘ headed by a Nasser‘s
supporter, Aziz Sidqqi, who promised to intensify mobilization and preparation for the
coming war and to restrain consumption (Baker 1978: 129-30).
The wave of protests that swept over Egypt clearly indicated a desire for a war of
redemption, for rejection of the status quo. This was not only an outcome of the failure of
political institutions but also of the puffed up national self-image that prevailed in the last
few decades. Before defeat, expectations were lofty. A more tempered national selfimage
might have caused expectations to fall down to become compatible with resources
and capacities. Such an outcome was hard to contemplate and accept for the majority of
Egyptians who had been extensively socialized into the belief in grandiose objectives and
the ‗real‘ possibility of realizing them. To downgrade aspirations immediately was not
really an option.
8. Domestic Changes
Defeat transformed the Egyptian domestic political landscape discrediting some
actors and ideologies and uplifting others; the realignment in foreign policies that
followed was an outcome of changes in domestic politics. Egypt‘s political system itself
underwent a drastic restructuring, including the composition of the social forces and the
support base of the regime. Nasserism, as an ideology, collapsed. Left radicalism became
the main ideological attraction for a while—later to be replaced by Islamic
fundamentalism. The social composition of the ruling classes changed. Nasser had relied
on the peasants, the urban proletariats, and a class of army officers and technocrats to

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manage the state. By the mid 1960s, Nasser had succeeded in alienating many social
classes and forces in Egypt: the Muslim Brotherhoods, intellectuals, the bourgeoisie,
communists, upper classes, landowners and the aristocracy. After the defeat, Nasser had
to make concessions to the bourgeoisie and the capitalists. Similarly, in foreign policies
Nasser gave up his ‗adventurism‘ and regional leadership aspirations and revolutionary
appeals. He bowed to the Arab conservatives, withdrew his troops from Yemen, asked for
financial help from the oil-rich countries, tried to restrain Palestinian radicalism and
contemplated a peaceful resolution to the Arab-Israeli conflict—an early gesture was the
acceptance of the Roger‘s Plan. Nasser‘s mild shift to the right was later perfected by
Sadat with his ―open-door‖ liberalization of the economy and repositioning Egypt within
the American and Western orbit. The opposition to both Nasser and Sadat suffered from
internal divisions, incompetence, and inability to unify its ranks and to present credible
and viable alternatives. However, domestic pressures for a war of redemption could not
be completely ignored for the public, through different acts of protests, demonstrations,
letters, sit-ins, riots and strikes, continually reminded the regime of the defeat, its
consequences and the intolerable status quo.
The populist coalition that Nasser built and that ruled Egypt since the fifties began
to crumble. There were unprecedented mass demonstrations and protests in 1968 which
were clearly a reaction to the defeat; the public had simply lost patience with the regime.
Because the public had no access to institutional channels to express their grievances and
demands, they took to the streets. The protesters realized that they had no voice and
subsequently demanded effective political participation. The crisis of political
participation was a clear outcome of the weakness of the ASU and the failure of other

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political organizations that Nasser created. Nasser‘s response was the March 30 th
Statement of 1968 in which he practically laid his socialist policies to rest, in addition to
promising a series of major reforms. The demonstrations paid off some dividends in the
form of relaxed political atmosphere as political expressions of dissent became more
tolerable. Nasser had a meeting with university professors on March 6 after which he
decided to appoint six professors as ministers in his cabinet--which was dubbed the
―cabinet of intellectuals.‖ However, there was no indication whatsoever that Nasser had
changed his mind regarding democratization. He refused to democratize the system in
times of prosperity, uncontested popularity and leadership; to allow the emergence of
opposition political parties and to institutionalize political participation in times of crisis
carry grave risks for stability and regime survival, which Nasser was not willing to take.
However, Nasser‘s capacity to resist change experienced a serious blow as his
supporters weakened and their capacity to challenge those who were determined to turn
the clock back— away from socialist policies—unraveled. There were also rumors and
indications that the regime itself was fracturing into competing coalitions—elite
fragmentation that characterized the Egyptian leadership for few years before the war
became more pronounced. 53 After the war, it was just natural for the fractured top elites
to sharply differ over how to deal with the aftermath.
Defeat clearly discredited and weakened what remained of the Free Officers core.
But, it also validated others, especially pragmatic, non-ideological, Westernized civilian
elites. The two pillars of Nasser‘s state management were the military officers and the
53 The Free Officers‘ Movement was divided and fractured along ideological lines; some officers
subscribed to traditional, conservative Islamism (Kemal ad-Din Hussein), some were simply technocrats
(Abd al-Latif Baghdadi), others held more radical, mostly leftist, populist stances (Ali Sabri, Kemal ad-Din
Rifa‘at).

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technocrats. The technocrats, who thought of themselves as the professional classes
tasked with developing Egypt and modernizing it, accused the military of bringing Egypt
to economic bankruptcy through their incompetent intervention in what should have been
purely civilian affairs. Those interventions distracted the military, politicized them, and
rendered them incompetent. Nasser, who already had rifts with the military leadership,
sided with the technocrats and took a series of steps to return the army to the barracks--
away from the administration and the bureaucracy. In short, the moves that Nasser
carried out following his March 30 th speech signified the emergence of a different Nasser,
tempered, more pragmatic, non-radical, non-populist, tamed, and focused on gaining
domestic stability and strengthening and professionalizing the army (Barnett 1992, 104).
This is a consequential outcome of the war. Nasser‘s beliefs and his foreign policy
priorities had changed. This could be easily explained by Nasser‘s desire to preserve his
rule. However, the problem was also in how to convince the Egyptian people, who had
been socialized into myths of grandeur and regional leadership, of tempering their
expectations and taming their passions for a war of redemption. This proved to be nearimpossible.
Eventually, Nasser had to engage the Israelis directly in a bloody and costly
war of attrition.
The left, which supported Nasser, became increasingly radicalized and repeatedly
called for a total revolutionary change, for the arming of the masses, for a popular war of
liberation and for an end to the privileges of the bourgeoisie and their penetration of
Nasser‘s rule. But, the Right gloated over their adversaries‘ misfortune. The right, which
emerged victorious and felt vindicated, was opposed to military rule, socialism, alliance
with the Soviet Union and pushed for economic and political liberalization and

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realignment with the West. Indeed, the domestic political landscape was completely
polarized. Nasser did his best to balance the polarizing forces and to achieve consensus.
He expressed his aversion for class struggles in times of war mobilization and
preparation: leftist ideas of revolutionary and class warfare were not particularly
attractive for him and had no chance of gaining institutional support. Besides, his rule
was a coalition of various forces and a turn to the radical left would have cost him
substantial loss of support from other social forces. A radical turn to the right, on the
other hand, which meant that Nasser had to renounce his own beliefs, accomplishments
and rhetoric, was costly as well. In particular, a rightward shift in foreign policy—an
alliance with the U.S.—wasn‘t feasible given American unmistaken preferences for
supporting Israel (Dekmejian 1971, 252-54, 309; Stephens 1974, 511-533-37). A gradual,
slower, shift to the right proved to be more feasible.
Nevertheless, maintaining the domestic status quo was not an option: the earth
was shaking under Nasser‘s feet and he could clearly feel the coming storm; he had to
make some concessions. The war burdens simply forced the regime and the ruling elites
to rethink the utility of the socialist economic policies they pursued. The economic
impact of defeat was severe and left Egypt in a serious economic crisis for many years to
come. The Israeli occupation of the Sinai deprived Egypt of revenue sources from the
Canal, the Sinai oil fields and tourism. Egypt had to allocate substantial portions of its
budget for military buildup and had to support war-displaced communities. The war only
exacerbated an already existing resource gap. Some development projects had to be given
second priority and others had to be shelved for better times; investment went down and
so did hard currency reserves. The outcome was economic stagnation, which halted

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Egypt developmental path (Waterbury 1976). It is not hard to imagine how the public and
the elite would perceive Nasser‘s whole project of modernization and development; the
model received a fatal blow from which indeed it never recovered. Egypt had to find
other sources of income: foreign aid from oil-rich conservative regimes and domestic
liberalization policies.
It would have been futile to continue on with the former socialist policies that
brought Egypt to the brink of collapse. This change in the elites‘ beliefs—away from
socialism--strengthened the socially conservative forces within the regime, who had
doubts about the virtues of socialist policies to begin with, and who would later form a
major pillar of Sadat‘s ruling coalition.
Nasser chose what he perceived to be safe and feasible: a modest shift to the right.
The populist policies and radicalization programs of the 1960s were abandoned; the
Socialist Youth Organization was dissolved; political mobilization of the peasants was
halted and peasant cooperatives were ignored. Nasser dissolved the Higher Committee
for the Liquidation of Feudalism (HCLF), a notorious institution that allegedly engaged
in numerous abuses, halted sequestration policies and called off other restrictions on rural
elites. Naturally with the weakening of government support for peasants‘ programs, the
older classes, the middle peasants and landlords, experienced a resurgence of power and
felt emboldened and more assertive. Nasser offered concessions to the upper classes and
the bourgeoisie and allowed a small capitalist class to re-emerge, hoping that these
classes would be convinced to increase their investments in the economy and to

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contribute to economic recovery and war efforts. 54 These developments clearly indicated
that the etatist and popular forces, which formed the backbone of Nasser‘s rule, were
losing their power and that conservative forces, which bore the brunt of Nasser‘s socialist
policies, were gaining momentum (Dekmejian 1971, 253-309; Harik 1974, 222-41).
Furthermore, the projection of national power and the attempt to challenge
American predominance in the Middle East proved to be too costly and harmful. The
1967 defeat, which exacerbated the economic burdens and exposed the failure of the
projection of national power, strengthened those who were opposed to these foreign
policies and who now saw an opportunity for recovery through foreign policy
realignment. Sadat and his supporters championed this ideology—which clearly would
not have gained substantial acceptance without the June defeat.
Sadat built on what Nasser had begun but eventually achieved a clean break with
Nasser‘s earlier revolutionary policies. Sadat‘s slogan of the 15 th of May (1971) that ―the
state of institutions‘ and ―the sovereignty of law‖ would prevail was a clear message to
the bourgeoisie that revolutionary times expired. Soon afterwards, Sadat began to
implement policies that strengthened the propertied and capitalist classes—policies that
culminated in his ‗Infitah‘ or liberalization of the economy (Shukrallah 1989, 66). These
policies were not only reflections of Sadat‘s ideological preferences but also instruments
for the creation of a social base of support to prop up his perceived weak legitimacy.
Sadat spurned mobilizing the masses and instead incorporated the landed elites
and the industrial capitalists into his governing coalition. He implemented a series of
54 In June of 1968 Nasser issued the Law of Encouragement of Capital

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policies that would empower the bourgeoisie: he returned sequestered property, allowed
richer families to return back to politics after annulling ―political isolation‖ practices,
closed detention camps, restrained his coercive apparatus and reinstated judges whom
Nasser had fired. Sadat realized that the only social class that would provide him with
domestic legitimacy and strength was the bourgeoisie, who also shared his ideological
preferences for realignment with the West, privatization, liberalization, anti-leftism, and
anti-socialism. During Sadat‘s reign, Nasser‘s ideological beliefs were buried; Nasserism
proved incapable of delivering on its lofty promises both on domestic and foreign policy
affairs.
After 1967, new elite emerged that was at odds with Nasser‘s beliefs of socialism
and populist authoritarianism. Thus, the change in policies, from socialism into mild
capitalism and then into total liberalization, was also accompanied by a change in the
composition of the social elite—from socialists, military and technocratic elites into
private and state bourgeoisie, propertied and capitalist classes. Sadat thus re-structured
the social basis of the regime itself. Most of the top/core elite during Nasser‘s era came
from the Free Officers‘ Movement. After defeat, which weakened the legitimacy of the
armed forces and the Officers‘ rule, there was a conviction that the army needed to be
professionalized and depoliticized. Even among the officers‘ corps there grew a
sentiment in favor of depoliticisation. In 1971, Sadat succeeded in removing his military
rivals and in establishing the ―principle of a depoliticized military‖ (Hinnebusch 1985,
107-108). This change in the composition of the ruling social classes was possible only in
the wake of defeat. A victory in war would have strengthened the ruling classes—
Nasser‘s supporters—and validated their ideology and the social order it underpinned.

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Thus, the change in the composition of the social classes of the ruling coalition
represented a link in the causal chain leading to changes in foreign policies—towards
realignment with the West.
However, breaking completely and suddenly with Nasser‘s legacy wasn‘t a
judicious move. Indeed, Sadat called his policies ―correction of the revolution‖ in order
to stay within the fold of Nasirist legacy while appealing to different social classes. He
claimed that revolutionary policies were mishandled and denounced attacks on personal
property and the bourgeoisie as deviations from the correct revolutionary path and
excesses that undermined the revolution and created new divisions within Egyptian
society.
Sadat‘s turn to the right continued slowly but steadily. When he saw increasing
leftist activity on university campuses in 1973, he closed the campuses and then removed
the remnants of the leftists, especially Sabri‘s supporters, from the ASU, media outlets
and university faculties. Those policies were marketed against the ‗adventurist left,‘
which, as Sadat claimed, was trying to drag Egypt into a war she was not ready for. Sadat
then sacked Aziz Sidqi as premier and assumed the position himself after sensing Sidqi‘s
rising influence and ambitions. Sadat also wanted to send a gesture of goodwill to the
bourgeoisie and to Western capitals—Sidqi wasn‘t enthusiastic about Sadat‘s domestic
economic policies or about his overtures to the West, had no confidence in American
mediation efforts and was critical of ‗defeatism‘ that was apparent in conservative circles
at the time (Marei 1978).

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Sadat‘s strength in part emanated from his institutional powers as president but
also from the divisions that rent his enemies; his institutional powers allowed him to
remove his adversaries one by one whereas they were never able to overcome their
ideological differences and conflicts of interests or to focus their challenge and unify
their ranks.
Sadat also sought to formulate an ideology that would replace the ‗defunct‘
Nassirist faith. The October Paper (1974) performed this function; in it Sadat said that the
revolutionary principles that Nasser championed are still the guiding spirit of the state but
that there have occurred some deviations from those principles that need to be rectified.
Sadat couldn‘t immediately discredit, Nasser who was still revered by the masses, so he
chose a tortuous road. Sadat said that constitutional institutions must be built and
liberalization of the economy and a more open and conciliatory foreign policy that
realizes Egypt‘s national interests must be pursued. Sadat was fully aware of the fact that
he undertook to formulate new ideological and political order—different from and at
odds with that of Nasser; so, he needed a more formal statement and clear ideological
formulation; thus, ―democratic socialism‖ was born. This new doctrine was marketed as a
middle of the road ideology that would shed away the excesses of unrestrained capitalism
and totalitarianism. Later in 1980 Sadat produced a White Paper defining Egypt‘s new
policies and its position in the emerging regional order (Hinnebusch 1985, 112).
A. Left Radicalism
The second half of the 1960s were ‗revolutionary times‘ worldwide—an
environment that must have impacted the kind of ideas that the Arab leftists nurtured.

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Those were the times of Che Guevara‘s guerilla forces and students‘ protest movements.
Not unexpectedly, the aftermath of the 1967 war witnessed the emergence of several
Marxist and radical leftist organizations and trends. Political discourses employed by the
left rejected limited and partial reforms and insisted on total societal transformation. 55 A
multitude of Arab leftist organizations sprang up or gained more popularity in this crisis
environment and spread all over the Arab world: the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP), and the Democratic Front (DFLP), the Organization of Socialist Action
and the Union of Working People‘s cells in Lebanon, the Iraqi Communist Party-Central
Command, the League of Communist Action in Syria, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of the Arab Gulf in Bahrain, and the National Liberation Front in Southern
Yemen are just few examples. These organizations were obviously diverse in origins and
objectives; however, they shared a total rejection of the status quo, a common desire for
total societal transformation, and a preference for armed struggle as the most fruitful
means to achieve their goals (al-Khafaji 1994, 35). These radical movements, especially
the aforementioned Palestinian groups and the Lebanese National Movement (LNM),
were the most active and most expressive of the reaction to the defeat as they ―sought to
present a revolutionary alternative both to the defeated regimes and their successors‖
55 Two particularly prominent works, Self-Criticism after the Defeat (1968) and Critique of Religious
Thought (1969) were penned by the Syrian philosopher Sadiq Jala al-‗Zam‘s. He basically criticized the
half-hearted secularism of the Arab world and attributed backwardness to the powerful impact religion and
other traditions and mores held on political thinking and practices and called for a total revolution in ideas
and practice in order to pull the Arabs out of their stagnation and incompetence. The Syrian playwright
Saadallah Wannoos wrote a shocking play entitled ―A Joy Party for the 5 th of June,‖ mocking the security
apparatus and the secret policy. Adonis, a Syrian poet and intellectual, mockingly likened the way Arab
pilots treated their MIGs firefighters like a Bedouin treated his camel. Nizar Qabbani, the most revered
Arab poet, wrote of the repression of women in the Arab world and called Arab ways with women the
‗harem mentality‘ and wondered what this mentality would generate compared to the phenomenon of
Israeli female soldiers (al-Khafaji 1994, 35).

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(Beinin 1983, 16). The Arab Nationalist Movement called upon Nasser to transform his
regime into a genuine Marxist-Leninist system and to recognize the need and utility of a
popular war of national liberation. The Cuban Revolution, the North Vietnamese and
North Korean regimes were cited as successful examples of impressive revolutionary
achievements. The alleged successes of those regimes were compared to the alleged
failures of the half-hearted/adulterated socialism that was adopted by Sukarno in
Indonesia and Nkrumah in Ghana. However, the Arab Nationalist Movement eventually
had to divorce itself from Nasser, his ideology and regime to declare its firm belief in
national liberation wars‖ (Talhami 1992; Mattar 1984).
In Egypt, secular radicalism found its most receptive audience on university
campuses and among intellectuals. Ali Sabri stood as the figurehead of the left within
Egyptian society and the ruling elites. He had few squabbles with Nasser but his fortunes,
and the radicalism he represented, came to an end shortly after Sadat assumed power.
Within the ASU, there was a broad base of support for radicalism as well, especially in
the Youth Organization. Egyptian authorities were particularly alarmed at the radical
language used by the Youth Organization leaders, where there were calls for arming the
masses. In order to placate the youth, to contain their radicalization and to demonstrate its
willingness and resolve to fight, the government conceded to the protestors‘ demands and
formed Popular Defense Army, which offered paramilitary training and weapons
provision on November 2, 1968 (Beattie 1994, 218).
Most of the student activists who mobilized in protest of the regime‘s
performance had little with the older left—which was mostly Nasirist—and formed what
came to be known as the new left. They were, according to Shukrallah (1989, 74), ―a

139
product of the post-1967 era, of the defeat of Nasserism.‖ Marxists gained more
popularity and credibility after the war, which provided them with an opportunity to
become more vociferous in expressing their viewpoints. A prominent Marxist leader,
Lutfi al-Kholi and his fellow Marxists on the pages of al-Talia‘, never tired of calling for
mass mobilization, total societal transformation and the adoption of scientific socialism.
These voices were very critical of the centrist and conciliatory attitudes taken by Nasser
and expressed by his confidant, Haikal, on the pages of al-Ahram.
It should be noted that the overall thrust of the radical left was total societal
transformation but also assertive foreign policy that would stand up to imperialism and its
agents in the Middle East. Again, an overblown national self-image created readiness to
move from one utopia to the next. If modernization and half-hearted secularization
proved to be futile, the answer would be in total modernization and secularization. One
utopia was dead. Another was born. A nation that was fed so many dreams found it hard
to give up and adjust its expectations and aspirations.
Sadat sensed the dangers coming from the leftist opposition and knew that
something had to be done. The most effective way to combat them, he thought, would be
to nurture a countervailing ideological force that was completely at odds with secularism
and leftism and whose supporters would be willing and capable of using violence to
intimidate the left. Thus, the Sadat government sometimes encouraged and sometimes
turned a blind eye to the formation of radical Islamist groups, hoping that Islamist
activism would distract the leftists and eventually destroy them. The Sadat regime also
gradually abandoned the secularist policies and adopted a more conservative Islamist
outlook.

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B. Islamic, Militant Radicalism
A grave sense of demoralization overwhelmed Egypt and the Egyptians after
the surprising and sudden shock of defeat. Egyptians lost confidence initially in their
capacity to measure up to their expectations and dreams; indeed, there were strong
feelings that the nation-state had failed, and it was time to search for new loyalties and
new identities. Religion probably presented the easiest answer to post-defeat anxieties
and agony for it offered solace and promised redemption and evoked a glorious past. A
quarter of a century after defeat, it seemed that the ideological landscape of the Arab
world completely changed: Arab nationalism and socialism were pronounced dead and
―revivalist Islam‖ became the major ideological trend. Defeat did not cause the rise of
Islamic fundamentalism but discredited its major ideological contender, Arab
nationalism—the ideology that mobilized and captivated the masses, the workers, the
peasants, the elites, the middle classes, the military and the security forces (Haddad 1992,
266). Defeat cleared the road for Islamic fundamentalism. But the turn to religion was not
for purposes of psychological catharsis. The turn had momentous political dimensions.
Islamic fundamentalism, as perceived and disseminated by its proponents, had ‗imperial‘
quality—yet another utopia that would satisfy Egyptian, and overall Arab, overbearing
self-image and their unrealistic expectations of political expansion and great power
status, expectations that were not compatible with actual capacities and resources.
The fact that Islam represented a native ideological approach was especially
important; the ability to "frame" contemporary grievances through religious discourses
and language allowed the Islamists to eclipse the ability of other potential critics of the
regime, such as Marxists, socialists, Nasserists, and liberals. Islamic fundamentalism

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provided a fall back ideology, badly needed in stressful times when the dominant
‗national identity‘ provided by the prevailing ideology had proven illusive.
There emerged a greater reliance on Islam in the daily lives of Egyptians and in
political discourses immediately after defeat. 56
Manifestations of piety became
widespread all over Egypt. Even technocrats, some socialists and presumably secular
groups, became more accepting of religious symbols and language. 57
There grew
increasing pressures on the state to adopt Islamic legislation as well (Ayubi 1980, 487-
88).
Nasser himself became a devout Muslim after defeat, as evident by the rising dose
of religion in his speeches. 58 In a letter to his Minister of Defense, Muhammad Fawzi,
dated August 23, 1969—after the burning of al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem—Nasser
wrote that Egyptian soldiers in their ―next battle are not the soldiers of their nation only,
but the army of God, the protectors of His religions, His houses, and His Holy Books,‖
(cited in El-Hassan 2005, 181). President Nasser agreed to join the Organization of the
56 There were several reports of the appearance of the ―Virgin Mary.‖ Al-Ahram newspaper even published
what it claimed to be an authentic photo of Mary on its front page; Egyptians of all walks of life became
obsessed with the story until authorities became worried that this was spinning out of control and decided
to play down the story (Ayubi 1980, 489-90).
57 There was a noticeable increase in the use of salient religious imagery, particularly that of the Crusades.
Two alleged statements were recalled: General Allenby, who after victoriously entering Jerusalem after
WWI, allegedly said, ―The Crusades are at an end‖ and General Gouraud of France who after entering
Damascus allegedly visited Saladin‘s tomb and said, ―Saladin, we have returned.‖ The 1973 War was a
vivid example of the rising salience of religion for both state and society; the war itself was called
―Ramadan,‖ after the holy month of fasting for Muslims; the operational code name for crossing the Suez
Canal was ―Badr,‖ a reference to a famous battle fought by the prophet against infidels. Of course, myths
about divine intervention, miracles, and white angels fighting alongside the Egyptian army were rampant.
The emergence of this imagery was part of the efforts to historicize the loss and depict defeat as part of a
universal struggle against unrelenting modern Crusaders who undermined the Ottoman Empire, created
secular nation-states and established Israel in the heart of the Arab world‖ (Haddad 1992, 281-82). Similar
image of the Mongols invasion of Baghdad in 1258 were to be evoked after the American invasion of Iraq
in 2003.
58 Before 1967 Nasser had abolished Sharia‘ courts (Islamic courts), nationalized Islamic endowments,
repressed the Muslim Brotherhood, refused to join pan-Islamist international organizations, and censored
the Friday prayers (El-Hassan 2005, 181).

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Islamic Conference (OIC) which was founded in 1969 to address perceived increasing
threats to the Islamic holy places in Jerusalem. This decision was a sign of the increasing
weakness of Nasser, who had resisted similar organizations previously. For example, he
completely rejected a Saudi-proposed ―Islamic pact‖ before the war on the grounds
that—just like the Baghdad Pact—this would be just another instrument deployed by the
reactionary regimes and their American backers. But those days when Nasser‘s word
would stir and mobilize the youth in the Arab world and bestow legitimacy on
organizations and regimes were gone; Nasser now had to search for any and all sources
of political and financial support from the conservative Arab regimes and the broader
Islamic world (Haddad 1992, 269).
Sadat as well increasingly exploited religion as a legitimization instrument. He
labeled himself the ‗faithful President,‘ claimed ‗Muhammad‘ as his first name, sprinkled
his speeches with Koranic verses, and championed a ―science and faith‖ society. Sadat
amended the Constitution in early 1971 to make Islamic Sharia ―the principle source of
legislation,‖ instead of being only one such source. Under Sadat‘s rule, state media
attacked the left and accused it of atheism and communism. Burning books and bashing
communists became daily practices (Shukrallah 1989, 93-94).
Rashid al-Ghannoushi, a prominent Tunisian Islamic thinker and activist,
expressed the general mood of Islamists regarding the war, ―The 1967 war took away the
scales from our eyes. We realized that neither Russia nor America cared about principles
and that their policies proceeded from their hatred and contempt. Only a new order, an
Islamic order, can bring back the potency and will necessary to revitalize the Muslim
community. Imitation of either East or West is of no avail‖ (cited in Haddad 1992, 273).

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One clear manifestation of the withering of secularism and the spread of religious
belief was the profusion of Ahli mosques throughout Egypt. There were no rules for
constructing new mosques and the Sadat government had little qualms about the spread
of mosques and the emergence of independent preachers. Out of a total of 46,000
mosques in Egypt in the early 1980s, only 6000 were run by appointed officials, subject
to government regulations and supervised by the Ministry of Religious Endowments; the
remaining were private (Ansari 1986, 218).
The 1967 war and its aftermath therefore set the stage for the growth and
expansion of Islamic radicalism. The movement ―initially evolved in the universities in
close co-operation with the police organs‖ and became the most effective and wellorganized
vehicle for the expression of political grievances among the popular masses.
An increasing number of religious associations and social clubs emerged. Initially, their
activities were restricted to social and faith issues, such as religious readings and
recreational activities but later expanded to include religious slogans, organizing
collective breakfasts and inviting religious clerics to talk. Most impressive of all was that
Islamic groups have managed to win most of student union posts and were able to mostly
put an end to the Nasserite era by the mid 1970s. However, once the Islamists defeated
the left, they themselves grew stronger and more radical (Shukrallah 1989, 79-80). The
Islamists were very successful in spreading their beliefs and agenda on university
campuses and outside as well. This spread was facilitated by the complicity of the state
and its police organs; simply put, the growth of Islamist fundamentalists was fostered by
the institutional instruments of the state.

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In addition to creating a permissive environment for the emergence of religious
groups, Sadat sometimes directly supported them hoping that they could form an
ideological countervailing force against Nasserism and the radical left. Uthman Ahmad
Uthman and Muhammd Uthman Ismail, presidential advisor and ASU Secretary for
Organizational Affairs, were architects of these policies, which even included arming
Islamists with light weapons (Beattie 1999, 103). During the Nasser‘s era, many of the
Islamist leaders were imprisoned while others fled state repression to the oil-rich Gulf.
Sadat released some prominent Islamist activists such as Umar al-Tilmasani and Shukri
Mustafa, who would later become the leader of the Takfir and Hijra terrorist
organization; he also allowed exiles to come back to Egypt; some whom had become
affluent and began financing various religious activities (Sullivan and Abed-Kotob 1999,
59-65).
The most dangerous groups that emerged and operated during the Sadat
presidency were al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation), which conducted a military
attack on the Technical Military Academy in 1974, al-Takfir wal-Hijra (Repentance and
Holy Flight), which killed the former minister of Islamic affairs in 1977, and the
infamous Tanzim al-Jihad (the Holy War Organization) which assassinated Sadat in 1981
(Dawisha 1986, 90). Egyptian authorities estimated that there were many other
organizations such as Hizb al-tahrir al-Islami, Jama‘at al-Muslimin, and Jund Allah, just
to name a few (N. N. Ayubi 1980, 492).
Despite the commonalities between the various Islamist groups, one should keep
in mind that they comprised a wide variety of organizations, organizational cohesion and

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popularity. They did present a security challenge to the regime but were far from forming
a powerful opposition that was capable of toppling the regime and replacing it.
C. Conclusions on domestic changes and radicalization
In the wake of defeat, there emerged a serious legitimacy crisis; Arab nationalism
was discredited; and an ‗ideological and national identity vacuum‘ arose. The Arab
Socialist Union (ASU) did not pass the test of mass political participation. Most of the
protests occurred outside the supposedly ‗hegemonic‘ political organization that allegedly
represented a coalition of most of Egypt‘s social forces. The organization‘s weaknesses,
inefficiency and bureaucratic nature were in full display. It proved to be a façade
organization incapable of containing the wave of protests that naturally emerged in the
aftermath of such a shocking defeat. The ASU was neither able to keep its own members
nor recruit the new social forces that emerged. There was a large pool of recruits
available for radical entrepreneurs; that is, there was an ‗empty‘ and ‗unoccupied‘ space.
New ideas emerged: leftist radicalism first took hold and appeared as the most serious
threat to regime stability. But later Islamic fundamentalism, especially the militant brand,
fascinated the masses and came to be the most powerful societal opposition force that the
regime had to contend with. Neither the radical left nor radical Islam developed into a
coherent political organization or a front that could present an alternative to the regime.
Too many forces were blowing in at the same time. Institutional constraints on forming
parties were too obvious, but internal fragmentation and multiplicity of voices were
equally significant. Islamists were divided into small violent and militant groups that
branched out from the Muslim Brotherhood. Leftists never developed a political
organization on their own; their ranks within the ASU and state institutions were purged.

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Regime manipulation—support for the Islamists as an ideological countervailing force
against leftist radicalism—played no insignificant part in paralyzing the secular and
leftist opposition and containing it. However, domestic instability was a constant
reminder of the need to do something on the Egyptian-Israeli front. The status quo was
simply intolerable. The Egyptian imperious national self-image was instrumental in
replacing the dying Arab nationalism with similarly over ambitious ideologies. It was still
too early to downgrade into a state-based, moderate, constrained Egyptian nationalism.
So far I have shown that the 1967 defeat was a humiliating and traumatic
experience and generated instability, changes in the relative power of social classes,
ideological vacuum, national identity crisis, and radicalization of the domestic political
landscape—secular revolutionary leftism and militant Islamism—but it remains to see
whether this radicalization had an impact on foreign policy.
9. Changes in Foreign Policy
A. Nasser’s Foreign Policy
Egypt as a revolution was dead. Egypt as a state was born. 59 Nasserism as a
foreign policy—spreading the revolution, seeking regional influence, playing the role of a
peacock in the Arab Middle East, and assuming a major role on the world stage—had to
be shelved. Arab reactionary and oil-rich conservative and monarchical regimes emerged
victorious. The two major states that advanced populism, socialism and pan-Arabism—
Egypt and Syria—turned out to be mere paper tigers that were mocked as the ―regimes of
59 Haikal who championed the argument that Egypt was a state with national interests but also a revolution
that knew no boundaries and that embodied "an idea, a tide, a historical movement" now ―grudgingly
conceded that the state has triumphed over the aspirations of pan-Arabism‖ (Ajami 1978, 356).

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defeat.‖ They lost the war. The ideologies they nurtured were discredited. The
revolutionary had given way to the reactionary.
Changes in the regional distribution of power and the distribution of ideas were
on stark display in the summit conference that was held in Khartoum, Sudan on August
29-31, 1967. There, Nasser, who for over a decade had towered all other Arab leaders,
appeared broken, subdued and humbled. Indeed, he showed more moderation than other
Arab radical regimes, such as Iraq and Algeria—Syria refused even to participate. In the
Summit, Nasser agreed to lift the oil embargo on Britain and the U.S., opposed further
economic sanctions against the states that supported Israel, and agreed to withdraw
Egyptian troops from Yemen by December 15, 1967—a serious concession to Saudi
Arabia. In return, Nasser received financial help from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Kuwait
(Haddad 1973, 132-133). Indeed, with Egypt‘s loss, the Arab world lost its center and the
Middle East became more fragmented and increasingly susceptible to foreign penetration
(Tibbi 1998, 85). Nasser never formally stated that he was no longer the leader of the
Arab world, but reality told a different story.
Signs of serious changes in foreign policy were unmistakable. Egypt reestablished
its diplomatic relations with Tunisia after they had been cut off in 1966.
Nasser agreed that the PLO should have a different leadership, other than the demagogic
Shuqairi. Egypt gave up its radical rhetoric against conservative Arab regimes and shut
down one of the most vociferous and effective tools of Nasser‘s pan-Arab mobilization,
Sawt al-Arab (Voice of the Arabs Radio). Egypt began cooperating and coordinating
policy moves with the new Arab powers and seemed to be in agreement more with
monarchical and conservative, pro-American Jordan than with fellow progressive and

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socialist Syria! Nasser tried to mend rifts in Arab ranks, agreed to leave Jordan out of his
military plans, and called for Arab unity, coordination and the avoidance of squabbles
and skirmishes that might detract from Arab efforts to liberate occupied territories and
reverse the consequences of defeat. Nasser simply wanted to consolidate the Eastern front
with more cooperation and coordination between Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. He
was looking for any measure of Arab consensus and even intervened as a mediator in
domestic Syrian politics to prevent a domestic implosion and asked Asad to freeze his
impending military coup. Nasser helped broker a ceasefire and reach an agreement
between the PLO and the Lebanese government in 1969 (Haddad 1973, 133-134).
Nevertheless, Egypt felt deeply humiliated and had to show some resolve and
willingness to fight, not only to demonstrate to the Israelis the Egyptian intolerance of the
humiliating and oppressive status quo and willingness to incur high costs, but also to
satisfy domestic demands for a war of redemption. The war of attrition was Nasser‘s
answer to the Israeli challenge. At least, the fight went on. However, the low-intensity
war had its costly toll on the Egyptians, especially after Israel‘s deep penetration
bombing campaigns. Israeli losses were around 700 soldiers and 2,700 wounded but
Egyptian losses were almost five times greater. The continuous bombing of the Suez
cities caused massive exodus of refugees to Cairo, complicating the government‘s efforts
of internal reconstruction and economic recovery (Bar-Siman-Tov 1980). Nasser realized
that the costs outweighed the benefits and the Egyptians had to cease fighting until better
times. The war of attrition demonstrated to the Egyptians the limits of their casualty
tolerance and the willingness, capacity and resolve of Israel to inflict severe damage on
Egyptian infrastructure and civilians. Here, we see clear signs of Egyptian prudence and

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humility. Despite the wounds inflicted and mounting domestic pressures for a war of
redemption, Nasser had to swallow his pride and contemplate diplomatic channels to
resolve the conflict. The 1967 war and the War of Attrition alerted Nasser and later Sadat
to the heavy costs that Egypt would have to incur if they were to continue with their pan-
Arab agenda. In the short run, it wasn‘t conceivable to withdraw from the Arab-Israeli
conflict—Egyptian lands were occupied—but in the long run many thought that Egypt
had to turn inward and to focus on her own affairs, Egypt for Egyptians. The logic of
state interest will have to win if Egypt were to avoid the costly and worthless conflicts
and confrontations that brought her nothing but occupation and shame. Nasser‘s
acceptance of the Roger‘s Plan for peace and ceasefire was an explicit expression of the
recognition of Israel as a Middle Eastern power and of American role as the only credible
arbiter of the thorny regional politics. 60 These seemingly simple conciliatory steps that
Nasser took at the time eventually laid the groundwork for Sadat‘s major and decisive
rightward shift in foreign policy orientation (Ahmad 1975; Stephens 1974, 511-20;
Waterbury 1976, 317, 340-1).
Nasser‘s approach seemed confusing for those who wanted to carry on the fight,
for it implied concessions and peaceful settlement. But it was equally confusing and
frustrating for those who were pushing for moderation and acceptance of the disparity of
power between Arabs and Israel since Nasser and his supporters repeated day and night
60
In response to Nasser‘s conciliatory policies, the radical Palestinian factions launched large
demonstrations against the ceasefire and against Nasser whom they called a ―coward.‖ Iraq denounced
Nasser as well. Nasser responded by imposing some sanctions on Palestinian guerrillas and by mocking
those who were trying to outbid him by calling upon them to send their armies and join the struggle.

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their slogan ―what was taken by force could only be redeemed by force.‖ 61 But an
examination of Egypt‘s foreign policy at the time reveals that it was pursuing a two-track
approach, both diplomatic and military. Nasser expressed the essence of his policy when
he stated that ―At the present time, Egypt did not possess the military strength to recover
the occupied territories by armed action. To try and do so before the army was ready was
tantamount to courting another defeat. Therefore, Egypt would support a political
initiative…But if political activity becomes possible, while we go on preparing militarily,
and [the political moves] are going to realize our principles, liberate our lands, and
restore our lost rights, that is something we shall not reject out of hand‖ (cited in Meital
1997, 29-30). Nasser clearly recognized domestic pressures coming from the army for a
war of redemption, for another round of fighting that would avenge the sullied honor of
the Egyptian armed forces. During an ASU meeting in November 1968, Nasser said that
―I have preferred the political solution, even though the armed forces reject it from a
sense of their, and Egypt‘s honor. But I told them that war is not made for war‘s sake, but
is a means for the attainment of political and strategic aims‖ (cited in Farid 1979, 119).
Again Nasser maintained that since Egypt was ―unable to launch an attack to liberate the
land, we have no alternative at the present time except a political initiative‖ (Farid 1979,
136). Nasser was under serious popular pressures for a more militant foreign policy, for a
people‘s war of liberation and for popular participation in the war efforts, but he resisted
all these pressures and refused to pick up the poisoned chalice of adventurism: the lessons
of defeat were clearly learned.
61 Only three days after accepting UN Resolution 242 Nasser addressed his military commanders that
―Everything you hear us say about the UN resolution is not meant for you…Please remember what I have
said before—what has been taken by force can only be recovered by force. This is not rhetoric: I mean
it….so you don‘t need to pay any attention to anything I may say in public about a peaceful solution‖ (cited
in James 2007, 93).

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B. Sadat’s Foreign Policy
It wasn‘t Nasser alone who suffered from public impatience; Sadat too had to
carry the same burden. In the opening of the Third Session of the National Assembly in
November 1970—following Nasser‘s death—Sadat stated that ―The tasks of the coming
stage—I think—can be defined as follows: First, the battle first, second and last.‖ He
even promised to make the year 1971 the ―year of decision‖ (Barnett 1992, 107).
Impatience prevailed even within the military: On October 12, 1972, a military officer
drove a column of tanks into a mosque in Cairo and demanded immediate war with Israel
(Shazli 1980, 192-195); young army officers also participated in the 1972
demonstrations.
Evidence of what Shukrallah called a ‗crisis from below‘ was abundant. Mussa
Sabri, former chief editor of the government daily al-Akhbar, mentioned that during a
meeting between Sadat and his military leaders, who expressed caution regarding war
prospects with Israel, Sadat cited the seriousness of the domestic crisis as a motive for
war. He specifically mentioned the students‘ movement and the dangers it posed to the
regime and its viability. For Sadat, the students‘ movement represented general societal
discontent with the status quo. Sadat knew that he had to go to war if he were to avoid
domestic implosion; he knew that the costs of inaction far outweighed the costs of action
(Shukrallah 1989, 70). He knew that Egypt was experiencing a dire economic crisis and
the Arab oil-rich countries were becoming impatient with his reluctance to go to war. If
war was not coming soon, external funding for the Egyptian state might be in jeopardy
(Barnett 1992, 119). The status quo was continually eroding what little legitimacy Sadat
had.

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But, Sadat was also fully cognizant of the limits of military power at his disposal
and the overwhelming superiority of his enemy. He, like Nasser, had to try the diplomatic
channel. On February 4, 1971, Sadat himself proposed a peace initiative for a ‗partial‘
Israeli withdrawal from the Suez and in May he held talks with William Rogers, the first
U.S. Secretary of State to visit Egypt in two decades. Sadat‘s anxieties at the increasing
and the more conspicuous Soviet presence in Egypt and his desire for a rightward shift in
foreign policy became increasingly clear. He made several policy moves that contributed
to the deterioration of Soviet-Egyptian relations and which clearly signaled Sadat‘s desire
for realignment with the U.S. A major objective of Sadat‘s Corrective Movement of May
1971 was to eliminate his rivals, especially Ali Sabri, who was considered the ―Soviet
Man‖ in the government. Sabri‘s removal was a worrying setback in Soviet-Egyptian
relations which brought Kosygin to Cairo few days later, a visit that led to a Friendship
Treaty. However, none of that were to last; Sadat‘s shift to the right in domestic politics
and foreign affairs was unmistakable, determined and well-calculated. Later, Egypt‘s
relations with the Soviets would deteriorate even further when Sadat made the stillpuzzling
move of expelling Soviet military experts from Egypt in July 1972—at a time
when Egypt was still completely dependent on Soviet arms and support. 62
In early 1973, Sadat had already figured out that the Americans had no intention
of pressuring the Israelis to accept any peace initiative. 63 Sadat (1978, 238) himself
62 Nobody knew exactly the rationale for this move; some believed that this unexpected decision was an
expression of Egyptian displeasure at Soviet reluctance to provide them with sophisticated weapons; others
would say that the move reflected Egypt‘s increasing worries over Soviet influence within Egypt; still other
explanations depicted the move as part of Sadat‘s strategic plan of deception—a weak Egypt would not
dare launch a war against Israel without Soviet support. Israel would thus be lax in its vigilance providing
Egypt with an opportune moment for war.
63 Sadat sent his envoy Hafiz Ismail to hold secret and open meetings with the Americans.

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reported that his envoy‘s secret and open meetings with the Americans ―failed to produce
any results. It was impossible…to make a move if we ourselves did not take military
action to break the deadlock. The drift of what Kissinger said to Ismail [Sadat‘s envoy]
was that the U.S. regrettably could do nothing to help—as long as we were the defeated
party and Israel maintained her superiority.‖ Sadat would later (April 1973) tell the
American journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave that ―the time has come for a shock ....
Everything in this country is now being mobilized in earnest for the resumption of the
battle-which is now inevitable.... One has to fight in order to be able to talk" (Cited in
Korany 1984, 52). It was clear to Sadat that unless he took some decisive action ―the
world will forget our problem‖ (Sadat 1978, 237).
Sadat‘s objectives were not to liberate all of the Sinai. Egyptian military leaders
were fully aware of their limitations and still had doubts about initiating what might turn
out to be a premature war, but Sadat insisted that he ran out of options and war was the
only way to break the stalemate. 64 Sadat‘s objectives were therefore limited: to cause a
shock to the regional order, to send a strong message to the Israelis about Egypt‘s resolve
to change the status quo, to drag the superpowers into a confrontation and to force them
to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table. Domestically, he needed to restore
confidence to the exhausted and demoralized Egyptians, to redeem some honor, to outbid
his opponents and to consolidate his legitimacy and create a legacy that would enable him
to sign a peace treaty with Israel and to completely move Egypt into the American and
pro-Western orbit. Kissinger (1982, 460) wrote that ―Sadat aimed not for territorial gain
64 Egyptians understood their limitations and were careful in formulating limited objectives for their war.
They also identified Israeli weaknesses: lengthy borders and multiple fronts; long interior lines of
communications; limited capacity for prolonged wars; Israel‘s overconfidence and underestimation of
Egyptian capabilities and resolve. This understanding formed the basis for the Egyptian military plans.

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but for a crisis that would alter the attitudes into which the parties were then frozen—and
thereby open the way for negotiations. The shock would enable both sides, including
Egypt, to show a flexibility that was impossible while Israel considered itself militarily
supreme and Egypt was paralyzed by humiliation. His purpose, in short, was
psychological and diplomatic, much more than military.‖ 65
Defeat transformed the domestic political landscape and had an certain impact on
Egypt‘s foreign policy. The first immediate effect was to reveal the true balance of power
and to expose Egyptian claims to regional leadership. Adventurism and regional
aspirations were no longer seriously sustainable. It was time for humility and restraint.
But, there were also domestic pressures to contend with. Both Sadat and Nasser had to
resort to wars to satisfy domestic demands for a war of redemption. Nasser launched the
War of Attrition despite the heavy costs incurred. Sadat had to go to war in 1973.
C. Regional Effects/Strategic Environment
No serious account of changes in foreign policies could be taken without
considering the opportunities and constraints that the international environment
presented. All Egypt‘s efforts were invested in ‗reversing the consequences of defeat‘ and
in liberating occupied lands. However, it was starkly clear for the Egyptians that the
Israelis had no intention to withdraw their troops from Egyptian territories any time soon.
Apparently, short of a diplomatic miracle, the only real way to roll back occupation was a
65 However, going to war was not simply due to popular demands and protests, or to break the diplomatic
stalemate; there were also tremendous economic pressures that exacerbated the political predicament. Sadat
mentioned that ―Securing a loaf of bread in 1974 was not on the horizon. We had debts due for payment in
December according to international regulations, and there was no way we could repay them. We did not
have 1 mil‘s worth of hard currency. This was one of the factors that contributed to my decision to go to
war, because if 1974 were to come with us in that state, Israel would not have needed to fire a single shot‖
(cited in Barnett 1992, 118).

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military campaign. Thus, with Soviet assistance, Egypt embarked on total reforms of its
armed forces; professionalism was advanced and patronage networks dismantled. The
Soviet provided military equipment, training and human resources but their efforts fell
short of Egyptian demands and expectations and roused suspicions regarding their true
intentions. Nasser gave the Roger‘s plan, an American peace initiative a shot
(Hinnebusch 1985, 35-36). Sadat later would propose a peace initiative on his own, only
to be ignored.
Although the Soviets felt offended at Egypt‘s defeat, they hoped that Egypt would
only grow more dependent on them, which would subsequently strengthen their
hegemonic position within Egypt. Suspicions were rampant in Egypt regarding the real
Soviet attitude and their reluctance to provide Egypt with badly needed more advanced
weapons. At one point, Nasser tried to drag the Soviets into direct confrontation with
Israel, but the Soviets resisted. Thus, in the first three years following the war, Egypt
lacked sufficient military power to launch a war. Without a clear Soviet commitment to
arm Egypt and support war, there was really no chance of a successful military option.
That is, Egypt did not have favorable international environment. During Sadat‘s first
three years, opportunities dwindled even further. The threat was coming from the
American-Soviet rapprochement which convinced Sadat that the Soviets most likely
would not support an Egyptian decision to go to war, which meant that the unfavorable
status quo would be consolidated. The Soviets and the Americans would, by all accounts,
avoid hot conflicts that might spiral out of control and endanger their rapprochement. The
new spirit of Soviet-American relations reduced the capacity of Egypt to exploit the
opportunities that conflicting relations normally provided.

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The Egyptians also blamed the poor performance of Soviet arms—relative to the
superior American ones. These thoughts strengthened anti-Soviet forces within Egypt and
convinced many that better relations with the U.S. and the West should be instead
pursued. The active American diplomacy and Soviet acquiescence and implicit
understanding of vital American interests in the Middle East also persuaded many
Egyptians that the U.S. had the upper hands and the capacity to solve the issues or to
obstruct any resolution that did not satisfy American interests.
D. Concluding remarks on Egypt’s foreign policy
There was no question that the logic of raison d‘état won the day in Egypt. Nasser
updated his beliefs after the crushing blow that he received and no longer sought radical
foreign policies. He wanted an honorable peace but his enemies had no incentives to save
him for the sake of it. While Israel was basking in the glory of its victory, the U.S. felt
secure watching the spectacular loss of Arab ‗radical regimes‘ and the cheerful
emergence of their allies, the Saudis and their conservative fellows, as victors in the
Arab Cold War. Domestic pressures were overwhelming: there were demonstrations in
major cities, on university campuses, and in industrial complexes; voices of protests of
intellectuals, journalists, artists were loud. Nasser had to do something. He thus pursued a
war of attrition. Rationality would have impelled him not to venture into a protracted war
of attrition exposing major Egyptian cities and the weakened and demoralized armed
forces to Israeli fire. The international environment was not friendly and the Soviets were
cautious not to be dragged into a direct confrontation with Israel and the U.S. Domestic
pressures must have played a significant role in convincing Nasser to engage the enemy
in such a costly conflict. Nonetheless, Nasser‘s charisma was still powerful enough to

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placate the masses; and the opposition never developed into a coherent force capable of
challenging the regime. This enabled Nasser to make a slight shift to the right. To break
completely with the past wasn‘t probably a feasible option for personal and domestic
politics reasons. But, a shift had to be made.
Sadat confronted similar domestic pressures for a war of redemption and similar
material constraints. But, he had the advantage of a rejuvenated, rebuilt and eager-to-fight
army. After three years in power and six years after defeat, Sadat was wholeheartedly
convinced that the only way out was a limited war. All diplomatic initiatives had failed in
the face of Israeli intransigence and American unwillingness to pressure its worthwhile
ally. If Sadat‘s regime enjoyed a better-equipped army, it also had to confront a more
serious domestic crisis, worse economic conditions, and a dearth of opportunities for
another war--the Soviet-American détente.
I hypothesized that defeats generate intense feelings of humiliation, rage and a
desire for revenge; that is, defeats radicalize the domestic political and ideological
landscape. However, those ‗radicalizing‘ sentiments would only materialize into concrete
political forces in an under-institutionalized environment. All the political organizations
that Nasser built—and lived on for a while under Sadat‘s rule—were weak façade
organizations that lacked the capacity to retain their constituents and empower their
supporters. These organizations blocked, instead of facilitating, mass political
participation. Of particular importance was the Arab Socialist Union (ASU) as it
represented the political organization in place at the time of defeat and continued to be
the only political party for a few years afterwards. By the criteria I specified, the ASU
was a very weak political party: it lacked a coherent ideology, it made a turn to the left

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and then, after the war, went back to moderation. It experienced organizational
discontinuity—sudden shifts in leadership—and had no specified rules for leadership
change through established party procedures. It lacked any autonomy from state
institutions and was subject to the whims of state leadership. It suffered from openmembership
policies, which made it lose what semblance of discipline and efficiency it
had. It was not adaptable—that is, it had no capacity to change its roles as the situation
demanded. It failed in the major task of socialization and recruitment. When
demonstrations and protests broke, and when conspiracies were uncovered, it turned out
that the social classes that the ASU was supposed to represent were not on board. It failed
in ordering political activities in Egypt after the defeat, thus leaving out many of the
politically active available for recruitment by opposition forces. The two decades of the
fifties and sixties were eras of intense political mobilization. There was a noticeable
increase in demands for mass participation in the political process. As the ASU proved
incompetent, the masses became available for radical entrepreneurs: the extreme leftists
and later militant Islamic fundamentalists took advantage of the ‗institutional‘ and
‗identity‘ vacuums exacerbated and exposed by defeat.
However, I also hypothesized that radical sentiments and a radical domestic
political landscape need not necessarily translate into aggressive/revisionist foreign
policy. Unless opposition forces acquire mobilizational capacities and become
resourceful in recruiting top elites into their organization so that they could either seize
the reins of power or overwhelm the regime and force it to change its foreign policy, their
impact would be marginal. The opposition in Egypt was substantial and the regime had to
respond to domestic pressures for a war of redemption. Nasser initiated the war of

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attrition and Sadat conducted the October war in 1973. However, Nasser made a slight
shift to the right and Sadat completed the shift and repositioned Egypt within the
American orbit. This couldn‘t have been accomplished in the presence of a strong
opposition that demanded an aggressive foreign policy. In addition, while Nasser was
constrained in how much a shift he could effect, Sadat was free to make a wholesale shift
but only after initiating a war of limited objectives, which freed him and his regime from
the burdens of defeat. The shifts in foreign policy would not have been possible without
the relative shift in the social forces ruling Egypt. The change in the structure of the
governing elites was a step in the causal chain that permitted foreign policy realignment.
There were two contradictory effects on foreign policy. On the one hand, both
Nasser and Sadat had to pursue moderate foreign policies, look out for diplomatic
opportunities to resolve the conflict, give up aspirations for regional leadership and give
in to the now gloating, stronger, richer and victorious Arab conservative regimes. The
Egyptian leadership had to swallow its pride and accept humility and restraint as guiding
forces of its foreign policy. On the other hand, the domestic landscape was radicalized,
polarized and fragmented; top leadership fractured—centers of power, purges, trials for
conspirators, etc….spoke to the fractionalization of the leadership. Domestic pressures
were blowing in from all directions and something had to be done. Both Nasser and Sadat
made promises of decisive action. Eventually, there was a war of attrition and later a
limited war to break the stalemate. Although opposition forces were weak, they still had
an impact on foreign policy by continually reminding the regime of the war loss.
It is undeniable that the Egyptian leadership had to go to war to shake the status
quo and force Israel to come to the negotiating table. Soviet-American détente threatened

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to drain opportunities to go to war. However, one also had to ask why the regime wanted
to break the stalemate in the first place! Absent serious domestic pressures, the Egyptian
leadership could have waited for more favorable conditions without taking the risks of
losing a war once again. That is, domestic pressures were paramount in pushing the
regime to engage in risky behavior as the regime could have waited to grow more power,
to hunt for more opportunities, or to pursue diplomatic means.
10. Conclusion
I began with the assumption that defeats in wars generate humiliation, rage and
desires for revenge. I hypothesized that national humiliation only creates a fertile ground
for radicalization and that this radicalization potentiality will be actualized only if it is
filtered through three intervening variables: inflated national self-images, weak political
parties, and available international opportunities and threats. I also hypothesized that
even though defeat might lead to the radicalization of the domestic political landscape,
this radicalization does not automatically translate into aggressive foreign policy unless
the radical opposition becomes strong enough to either seize the reins of power or to
overwhelm the government and force it to change its foreign policy. Finally, no
aggressive foreign policy is possible without some material resources, willing and
capable allies and an opportunity.
The case of Egypt offered strong evidence in support of the impact of defeats on
domestic radicalization. Defeat discredited the dominant ideology of Nasser and created
an ideological and national identity vacuum. Inflated national self-images that were
dominant prior to defeat further enhanced the chances for radicalization; self-glorifying
myths and national superiority claims created expectations and aspirations that were not

161
easy to leave behind; grandiose collective memories provided the necessary vocabulary
and idioms for political extremism. It is no coincidence that radical leftist and militant
Islamist movements and ideologies replaced Pan-Arab nationalism and became the two
major ideological powers that appealed to the disgruntled masses and elites. It should be
noted that both ideologies, particularly, Islamic fundamentalism, possess ‗imperial
qualities.‘ The Egyptian overbearing national self-image did not permit an easy
downgrading of national aspirations. Instead, alternative, equally or more assertive,
ideologies had to be nurtured.
The political organizations that Nasser created were weak and incapable of
absorbing the shock of defeat or offering a protective shield against political extremism.
There was an ‗unoccupied space‘ that the radicals tried to fill. Defeat also shifted the
relative power of the social classes; leftists, peasants, urban poor were weakened;
conservatives, industrialists, capitalists, landowners were empowered. This shift was a
significant step in the causal chain that permitted a rightward shift in foreign policy as
well.
For different reasons—state manipulation, lack of resources, internal friction,
multiplicity of voices—the opposition did not develop sufficient mobilizational and
organizational capacities to present a viable alternative to the regime. Somehow, the
ruling elites were able to manage the legitimacy crisis that defeat left in its wake. The war
of attrition and the October War played decisive roles in repairing the frayed legitimacy.
This repaired legitimacy and the fragmentation of the opposition allowed the ruling elites
to adjust their estimates of national power, to lower their aspirations for regional
leadership, and to become more tempered and prudent in their foreign policy objectives.

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It is not true that defeats generate universal feelings of humiliation. In Egypt,
some segments of the population, the ideological enemies of Nasser and the social classes
that were hurt by the socialist policies—the capitalists, industrialists, upper classes and
landowners—were empowered as they perceived an opportunity to regain their strength,
property and role in national politics. The military/technocratic elites, the poor peasants,
the urban poor, all lost. That is, defeat changed the relative power of social classes.
Nasser began a slight shift to the right, hoping to convince his former enemies of
financing reconstruction and war mobilization efforts, but Sadat perfected the shift and
restructured the social basis of the ruling coalition. Therefore, the assumption that defeats
are ‗humiliating experiences‘ must be modified to account for the possibility that defeats
are humiliating only for some segments of the population and the ruling elites but
empowering for others. My theoretical framework did not specify this possibility. A
theory of defeat must be able to specify exactly which groups would be humiliated and
experience urges for revenge and which groups would utilize the opportunity that defeat
offers.

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CHAPTER 3
BULGARIA: DEFEAT AND NATIONALIST DEMOBILIZATION DURING THE
PEASANT ERA
1. Introduction
The immediate aftermath of Bulgarian defeat in WWI brought to light an
exceptional and unique experiment in national humility, providing an example of why
defeats in wars need not create a collective identity crisis, irredentism, revanchism and
subsequently aggressive foreign policies. The short-lived experiment of the peasant rule
(1919-1923) clearly demonstrated that although defeats generate feelings of humiliation
and resentment, those feelings do not necessarily translate into irredentist, revanchist
radical movements and subsequent revisionist foreign policy. During this Agrarian era,
Bulgaria was unique in accepting its defeat, moving beyond the torments of humiliation
and embarking on a course of internal development and reconstruction and moderate,
peaceful, anti-irredentist and anti-revanchist foreign policy. In response to the
predicament of defeat, mounting tensions with neighbors and domestic political
instability, there emerged a national discourse critical of the country‘s past foreign
policies that stubbornly sought the restoration of San Stefano Bulgaria (Figure 1). 66 These
66 The Treaty of San Stefano was signed by the Ottomans and Russians to conclude the Ottoman-Russo
War of 1877-78. The Treaty established an extended Bulgarian state, that came to be known as San Stefano
Bulgaria, Greater Bulgaria or Historic Bulgaria. Indeed, the day the Treaty was signed, March 3, 1878, was
celebrated by Bulgarians as Liberation Day. However, Bulgaria‘s neighbors and the Great Powers became
worried that such an extended state would become a forward bastion of Russian influence and hegemony in
the Balkans. Subsequently, they rejected the Treaty and replaced it, few months later, with the Berlin
Treaty, which truncated San Stefano Bulgaria and returned some territories to the Ottoman Empire.
Bulgarians remember the Berlin Treaty as that which dismembered historic, greater, San Stefano Bulgaria.

164
Figure 1: Bulgaria under San Stefano vs. Bulgaria under the Berlin Treaty.
Indeed, much of Bulgarian foreign policy became obsessed with the restoration of San Stefano borders, an
obsession that led to Bulgarian involvement in several wars and further loses.

165
discourses discredited the existing political parties that pushed Bulgaria down the path of
war and subsequent loss and raised to new political heights the Agrarian Party that
renounced territorial claims and sought domestic reforms and peaceful relations with
neighbors. Bulgaria presents an exemplary case where a strong political party—the
Agrarian Party—enjoying broad political support from the majority of the population,
coherent ideology and organizational structure could frame and utilize defeat as an
opportunity for internal reconstruction, domestic reforms and cooperative moderate
foreign policy. Radical nationalism did not take hold of the masses or national elites nor
did it overwhelm state institutions. A country that experienced two defeats within five
years (Second Balkan War and WWI) and whose history was a series of national
frustrations must have at some point realized its limited capacity to reverse its fortunes.
Instead of harping on defeats, lost territories and shattered dreams of expansion and
grandeur, the Peasant Party found it far more expedient and productive to be satisfied
with the status quo, to focus on domestic politics and to nurture a national identity that
was at odds with revenge and revisionism. In Bulgaria, notably, ‗anti-irredentism‘ was
homegrown and was not imposed by foreign occupiers or the victorious allies.
No doubt that interwar Bulgaria was turbulent. Even its formative moment, the
Berlin Treaty of 1878, was a traumatic and humiliating experience that thwarted the
fleeting dream of San Stefano. From that moment on, it seemed that irredentism had been
grafted into the national psyche of Bulgarians and Bulgarian politics seemed destined to
become revanchist and aggressive. Indeed, interwar Bulgaria experienced conditions
similar to those of Germany and Hungary after WWI and yet did not experience the
emergence of powerful revisionist/revanchist movements. The generally accepted theory

166
of the emergence of fascism—as an example of extreme, radical political parties—is that
war and crises create fertile ground for the dissemination and adoption of Fascist ideas.
This argument predicts that, as Bulgaria confronted similar conditions of defeat,
humiliation, national crisis, lost territories, war reparation and severe economic crisis, it
should have had similarly strong fascist movements and extreme irredentist political
parties. 67 Stanley Payne (1995, 326) counted Bulgaria as a good candidate for fascist
mobilization, ―Bulgaria…seemed to possess a number of the prerequisites for significant
fascist mobilization. As the so-called Prussia of the Balkans, it had been at war almost
continuously between 1912 and 1918, suffering great social and economic stress as well
as loss of life. Defeated twice within five years, it was despoiled of territory after both the
second Balkan War of 1913 and World War I. Yet the only mass movement to emerge in
post-war Bulgaria was the Agrarian Union—a peace movement par excellence.‖
One would at least expect the emergence, solidification and warm reception of
revisionist ideas—alternatively, one would not expect the emergence and popular
reception of anti-irredentism and anti-revanchism. 68 However, even though most parties
on the right still called for the restoration of lost territories, those few rightist/extremist
organizations that emerged in the 1930s largely avoided ―outright promises of direct
67 These conditions have been cited by historical research as the conditions necessary for the emergence of
radical/extremist/revanchist politics (Evans 2005; Linz 1980).
68 There were few fascist organizations, the most important of which were the National Social Movement
(NSD), Union of Bulgarian National Legions (SBNL), and Warriors for the Advancement of the Bulgarian
Spirit (RNB or Ratniks). However, these movements ―remained unable to secure sufficient popular support
to take power or to threaten the security of the state apparatus, as these movements did in Romania. As
such Western scholarship has broadly regarded the Bulgarian case as one in which fascism was not a viable
political force‖ (Frusetta 2010, 281-82). Fascism did not ―assume its state-like basis in Bulgaria‖ and
attempts to create fascist organizations proved unpopular and were met with ridicule in various satirical
publications during the 1920s (Obretenov 1987, 59).

167
violence to reclaim lost territories‖ and promised instead ―struggle against injustice‖
(Frusetta 2010, 288-289). Moreover, Bulgaria‘s fascist groups were weak, unappealing,
divided and incompetent in articulating a coherent fascist ideology and even had a
‗positive worldview‘ in stark contrast to the ideologies of Fascism and Nazism (Frusetta
and Glont 2009, 556-550). The two devastating defeats of 1913 and 1918 weakened
nationalist appeals and delegitimized calls for aggressive foreign policies (Todorova
2009, 504-13). This is contrary to the view that defeats generate humiliation and boost
radical nationalism and wars of revision—as happened in Germany and Hungary.
Another unique feature of interwar Bulgaria was its treatment of its Jewish
population. Despite all the social upheavals, national confusions, tribulations, political
instability and economic meltdown, Bulgaria stood out in saving its Jewish minority.
Anti-Semitism, which reared its head in most European countries, failed to take roots in
Bulgaria. Indeed, a public opinion survey in 1937 of a group of prominent Bulgarians that
included premiers, ministers, parliament members, bankers, writers, intellectuals, public
figures and artists clearly demonstrated that Bulgarian opinion makers rejected anti-
Semitism and racism. Those were not solely theoretical views as they later materialized
into concrete behavior during WWII when Bulgarians generally stood by their Jewish
compatriots and refused to deport them to concentration camps (Kosseva et al. 2009, 9-
1).
After the twin defeats and a long history of national frustrations, irredentism was
restricted to a small circle of the military and the bureaucratic establishments with
dispersed support among the population and intelligentsia. Bulgarian national self-image
was not particularly enabling of revanchist and irredentist inclinations. After centuries of

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suffering under Ottoman Turks, it was Russian help, not Bulgarian uprisings, that granted
Bulgaria its independence. Bulgarian nationalism was ‗defensive‘ in nature and aimed at
transforming shame into pride. The defensive nature of nationalism, its lack of a single,
principal, enemy—which kept shifting according to changing circumstances, from Turk
to Greek to Serbian and Romanian—did not permit the emergence of a coherent
historical narrative that was focused on re-creating past glories or aspiring to regional
hegemony. The cumulative historical frustrations and the two consecutive defeats didn‘t
leave much room in the public imagination for illusions of grandeur and expansionist
nationalism. It is notable that the discourses of the Agrarian Party, the most
representative political organization that attained supreme power in the immediate
aftermath of defeat, were devoid of revisionist themes, sentiments of humiliation or calls
for revenge. Instead, the Party held the dominant elites responsible for dragging Bulgaria
into costly and unnecessary wars. For the Agrarians, the blood of Bulgarians is more
precious than the dream of re-creating the fleeting dream of Greater Bulgaria. They thus
embarked on a program of domestic restructuring hoping eventually to create a peasant
utopia. In foreign policy, the Agrarian Party opposed the adventurist policies of the
monarchy from the outset. After the war, it was vindicated. Its leadership renounced
territorial demands and sought peaceful relations with former enemies and even a south
Slav federation. The war accelerated the rise and solidification of the Agrarian Party and
enabled it to assume the leadership of Bulgaria from 1919 till 1923. The overall thrust of
agrarian domestic and foreign policies was nationalist demobilization.
In short, the breeding grounds of political radicalism were present but not the
predicted outcome. Instead, the most powerful and representative political organization,

169
the Agrarian Movement, embarked on what might be called nationalist demobilization.
What explains this outcome?
I will start by describing the historical background of the two wars that Bulgaria
fought and lost. It should be noted that this chapter is about the aftermath of the WWI
defeat and that the Balkan Wars and other losses serve as a background that contributed
to the creation of a tamed, resigned Bulgarian national self-image that prevailed at least
among the peasants, their leaders and their political organization. I will then explain the
type of national self-image that prevailed in Bulgaria at the time of defeat and tease out
its implications for domestic radicalism and aggressive foreign policy. This will be
followed by an explanation of the emergence and consolidation of the Agrarian
Movement, its ideology, domestic reforms and foreign policies.
Before I proceed, some clarification on the concept of radicalism is in order. In
this dissertation, political radicalism refers to the emergence of revanchist/revisionist
political movements and aggressive foreign policies. Most scholars would call the
Agrarian Movement radical, since it called for a complete restructuring of state and
society along peasant principles—leading, as the peasant leaders hoped, to the creation of
a peasant utopia. Indeed, the Agrarian Movement perceived itself as a new breed of
revolutionary movement. However, the Party was quite unique in that it held the
dominant political classes, the monarchy, the bureaucratic and military establishment
responsible for dragging Bulgaria into war, renounced territorial ambitions, and called for
peaceful relations with former enemies and even invested energies into the creation of a
south Slav federation. This was quite different from the radical, revisionist movements
that emerged in Hungary, Germany, and Egypt and other countries that experienced

170
defeat. Thus, the movement was radical only in its desire to create a peasant utopia but
without promoting extreme nationalism; instead, it genuinely abided by the Neuilly
Treaty (Figure 2), 69 and promoted good-hearted relations with its former enemies. It was
not outwardly-oriented and never sought alliances that would upset the status quo in the
Balkans. Its anti-irredentism was home-grown.
Another point that bears mentioning is that the Internal Macedonian
Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was the most vehement advocate of irredentism; this
should not be surprising given that it was a Macedonian organization. However, it lost its
appeal among Bulgarians and most Bulgarian governments tried to appease, contain or
repress it, especially after it resorted to excessive violence within Bulgaria. In addition,
infighting, especially on the streets of Bulgarian cities and towns, turned the population
against the organization and relegated Macedonia to a secondary priority.
69 The Treaty of Neuilly (November 1919) was the peace settlement that concluded Bulgarian involvement
in WWI and confirmed its status as a loser. Bulgaria lost its Aegean coastline to Greece and most of its
Macedonian territory to Yugoslavia. It also had to give back Dobruja to Romania and to pay heavy
reparations. The dreams of Bulgaria as a potential regional power in the Balkan ended.

Figure 2: Territories lost in WWI, dark areas.
171

172
2. The Balkan Wars
Full independence (1908) provided Bulgaria with a high dose of self-confidence
transforming it into a more aggressive country in search of uniting its ‗lost‘ territories. 70
The heightened ambitions led Bulgaria down the road of three costly and disappointing
wars within a short period of five years (1912, 1913, 1915). By 1912 Bulgaria had
become the ―most advanced of the Balkan states‖ as it had an advanced infrastructure,
stable government structure and institutions, established political parties and practical—
but far from ideal—parliamentary life. Bulgarians believed that it was high time that they
retrieve lost territories and re-establish San Stefano Bulgaria (Kostadinova 1995, 22).
Subsequently, Bulgaria allocated around 44% of its budget for military purposes at the
turn of the twentieth century and maintained this rate of spending up till the eve of the
First Balkan War—military engagements have subsequently increased spending. On a per
capita basis Bulgaria had become ―one of the most thoroughly militarized countries in the
world‖ earning the country the nomenclature ―Prussia of the Balkans‖ (Bell 1991, 21-22).
As of 1908, the Young Turks heightened their efforts to consolidate their presence
and control in the Balkans. As an Albanian revolt against the Turks ensued, Italy and
Austria threatened to intervene. Fearing the rising influence of Italy and Austria in the
Balkans, Russia called upon Serbs and Bulgarians to form an alliance to halt Italian and
Austrian encroachments and to preserve Slavic dominance. Following long and hard
negotiations, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro formed the Balkan League, which
declared war on Turkey on October 5, 1912. However, the fragile alliance of the Balkan
70 Bulgaria achieved its ‗autonomy‘ as a principality of the Ottoman Empire in 1878 but declared its full
independence in 1908.

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League collapsed over the spoils of war, particularly over the issue of Macedonia.
Bulgarians claimed that they scored the greatest military successes in the war and
deserved to be equally rewarded. Instead of maneuvering politically to gain what they
could, they raised the slogan ―All or Nothing‖ (Obretenov 1987, 45).
Greeks and Serbs had different calculations as they dreaded Bulgarian hegemony
in the Balkans and demanded adjustment to the 1912 treaty so that the balance of power
in the region could be maintained. Romanians entered the fray and demanded territorial
compensation for their benign neutrality. However, and even before the dust of the First
Balkan War settled, extremists within Bulgaria had already been calling for a swift war
against Serbia to secure Macedonia. Prince Ferdinand eventually sided with the
extremists and Bulgaria attacked Serbia and Greece on June 29, 1913. This was a
strategic blunder that would haunt Bulgarians for a long time to come. Turkey, Greece
and Romania declared war on Bulgaria, which was squarely defeated. The Treaty of
Bucharest (1913) granted Bulgaria only a small part of Macedonia and Thrace while the
rest of the contested territories were divided between Serbia and Greece. This war had a
tremendous impact on the Bulgarian psyche. Bulgarians sacrificed blood and treasure for
realizing some gains (First Balkan War) only to lose them within a short period of time.
The Balkan wars were costly and catastrophic and made the population ―increasingly
agitated and resentful. Tension was growing. Deprived of the fulfillment of the dream for
a United Bulgaria, people were angry and impatient; their greatest wish was that justice
would triumph‖ (Kostadinova 1995, 22).
In the summer of 1913, even before the conclusion of the Bucharest treaty, a new
liberal government led by Radoslavov was appointed. The Conservatives and the

174
Progressives, who were ruling at the time, had to pay the price of losing the Balkan Wars
and had to endure all kinds of accusations and blunders, diplomatic and military. New
elections were called for on November 24the, 1913. The Conservative Party (CP) and the
Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) lost decisively: The CP received 4.5% and the PLP 2.2%
of the vote. Liberal parties formed a coalition and won around one third of the vote
(38.2%). The Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU) received 20% and the two
socialist parties, the Narrows and the Broads, each received 10% of the vote. Thus,
BANU retained a solid 2 nd place in Bulgaria at the time. Defeat did not cause loss of hope
for reunification; the public cast its lot with the Liberal Government and the other rightwing
parties (Kostadinova 1995, 33-37).
3. The First World War
At the beginning of WWI, Bulgaria declared neutrality. Stamboliski, the leader of
the Agrarian Party, welcomed this posture saying that the ―policy of the folded hands, of
peace, is approved by the entire Bulgarian nation…The Bulgarian nation is exhausted; it
needs a rest….‖ He made it clear that he was not opposed to the unification of Bulgarian
lands but categorically rejected war as a means of doing so: ―if it is achievable, ask for it;
if it is not then do not reject that which is offered as the price of neutrality…to us the
blood of Bulgaria‘s sons is more dear and more precious than any form of unification or
expansion‖ (cited in Crampton 2009, 54).
However, the Bulgarian government was effectively waiting on the sidelines to
see who would win the war and offer Bulgaria more concessions. Eventually, as it
watched Germany make impressive advances and as the Central Powers made a more

175
acceptable offer, Bulgaria joined on their side. Radoslavov, the then minister-president,
clearly articulated Bulgaria‘s goals in joining the war during a parliamentary session in
1917 as uniting the Bulgarian nation in historic Bulgaria and erasing the treaty of
Bucharest (Mamatey 1953). However, even as Bulgaria achieved immediate victories—
the taking of Macedonia—the public did not show much enthusiasm for the war. Overall,
the decision to join the Central Powers ―was not met with popular approval‖ (Rakoske
2011, 16). Many Bulgarians viewed the act of joining Germany as a betrayal of Russia,
whose efforts contributed to their liberation (Seton-Watson 1967, 241-242).
As the Allied forces approached Bulgarian frontiers, mutinies surfaced and
several thousand soldiers decided to vote for peace with their feet (Rothschild 1959, 76-
7). By the end of the war, the Bulgarian army ―ceased to exist as an organized military
force‖ (Bell 1977, 130). King Ferdinand appealed to the leader of the Peasant Party,
Alexander Stamboliski, who had staunchly and consistently opposed Bulgarian
adventurism, to assist in saving the country from its social and political upheavals and to
employ his authority with the peasant soldiers to desist from mutinies. Ferdinand later
realized that it was impossible to continue his rule and so decided to abdicate in favor of
his son, Boris III. Bulgaria subsequently signed an armistice and formed a coalition
government. After receiving amnesty, Stamboliski joined the coalition government in the
summer of 1919. In the August elections of 1919, the Agrarian Party achieved a majority,
which enabled Stamboliski to assume the premiership in October of the same year
(Seton-Watson 1967, 241-242).
The Treaty of Neuilly was signed on November 27, 1919 at Neuilly Sur-Seine,
France. This was a costly, punitive and restrictive treaty: it forced Bulgaria to cede

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Western Thrace to Greece—which meant that Bulgaria lost its direct outlet to the Aegean
Sea—along with large areas on the Western frontier to Yugoslavia, in addition to
Southern Dobruja to Romania. The Treaty limited Bulgarian armed forces to only 20,000
soldiers and imposed reparations in the amount of over $400 million. 71
Bulgaria experienced two devastating and shocking national catastrophes within a
decade—the twin defeats of the Balkan Wars (1913) and the First World War (1918).
Human losses were horrendous: between 1912 and 1918 Bulgaria suffered 177,000
casualties and 254,000 wounded (equivalent to one in five adult males) in addition to
150,000 casualties of the great influenza of 1918. By the end of WWI, 900,000 men—
approximately 40% of the total male population—had been conscripted (Rothschild
1959, 1983). Furthermore, over 112,000 citizens became refugees from the Balkan Wars;
another wave of tens of thousands soon followed after WWI (Frusetta 2010, 284-285).
Popular discontent became widespread and food shortages were rampant affecting both
the homeland front and soldiers on the battlefield. 72 Higher living costs and soaring
inflation impacted nearly everybody and brought the economic order to near collapse
(Crampton 1983). The physical and human losses were compounded by territorial losses.
Bulgaria‘s adventurism alienated all of its neighbors, rendering it the only country in
modern Europe that experienced invasion on every frontier from its neighbors (Hall
2000, 140).
71 Treaty of Peace Between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria, and Protocol and Declaration
signed at Neuilly-sur-Seine, 27 November 1919: http://wwi.lib.byu.edu/index.php/Treaty_of_Neuilly
72 A Bulgarian officer wrote of the harsh conditions on July 20, 1918, ―We are naked, barefoot and hungry.
We will wait a little longer for clothes and shoes, but we are seeking a quick end to the war. We are not
able to last much longer. And here (at the front) it is difficult, but we shall endure it; however, we are not
able to endure what is happening in our villages. There they are ransacking and confiscating everything,
and we are going barefoot and hungry (Hall 2004, 219).

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Before I proceed, let me explain why I selected the Bulgarian defeat in WWI for
examination and not the other defeats that Bulgaria experienced. A major criteria for
selecting cases for this study is that defeat has to be dire/decisive. This would exclude all
the defeats that Bulgaria experienced—to be detailed below—except the one in the
Second Balkan Wars. However, the 2 nd Balkan War was deeply intertwined with WWI;
indeed, Bulgarian involvement in WWI was in many respects a continuation of the
Balkan Wars. In addition, the aftermath of the 2 nd Balkan Wars was short and lasted
approximately two years. 73 The 2 nd Balkan War ended on July 31, 1913 and Bulgaria
joined WWI on October 15, 1915.
4. National Self Image
―Patriotic feelings are buried deeper in the Bulgarian heart, for there is not much
to be praised in our past, less even in the present‖ (Georgiev 2007, 7). Bulgarian
history—up till WWI—was a series of frustrations and defeats with only few dispersed
achievements. This history must have had its toll on Bulgarian national self-esteem and
must have made it unpalatable for Bulgarians to ‗imagine‘ a glorious future of expansion
and regional hegemony. This historical legacy shaped how Bulgarians viewed themselves
and how they set their national priorities. Coupled with the predominance of peasants in
Bulgarian society, frustrating historical memories made Bulgaria less receptive to radical
expansionist nationalism.
I hypothesized that a nation with an inflated national self-image, particularly, its
national self-esteem—as embodied in its collective memories and myths and its record of
past victories—is more likely to respond to frustrations with radicalism, but a nation with
73 The 2 nd Balkan War ended on July 31, 1913 and Bulgaria joined WWI on October 15, 1915.

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tempered/realistic self-image is more likely to react with humility and prudence to
misfortunes and defeats. Inflated national self-images generate higher expectations
whereas tempered self-images generate sensible expectations compatible with structural
constraints and with the nation‘s capabilities. Historical memories are a major drive of
nationalist objectives and policies. A nation whose history is plagued by frustrations and
defeats would subsequently adjust its self-esteem and aim at objectives that are
achievable. For a nation that experienced cumulative defeats, the shock of ‗another‘
defeat should be more tolerable, as expectations have already been tempered by previous
performance. As Stephen Van Evera (1997, 278) argued there are certain national selfimages
that are more likely to produce conflicts: ―if nations embrace self-justifying
historical myths, or adopt distorted pictures of their own and others‘ current conduct and
character that exaggerate the legitimacy of their own cause,‖ then those images become a
compelling motive for the pursuit of aggressive foreign policies. If those myths are
carried to the extreme, they ―can also transform nationalism….from a purely selfliberating
enterprise into a hegemonistic enterprise.‖
Bulgaria presents a counter-example of nationalism turned into a hegemonistic
enterprise; it is a positive case of nationalism as a self-liberating enterprise. Bulgarian
nationalism that the Peasant Movement and its leadership advocated was moderate,
tempered, and conciliatory nationalism that turned away from expansionism, aggression
and foreign entanglements. If the content of nationalist ideologies shapes state behavior,
the agrarian ideology becomes a showcase of benign nationalism and consequent
cooperative foreign policy. The agrarians did not immigrate into history to dig out
imagined empires and old kingdoms, but instead promoted a national self-image that was

179
compatible with the capacities and the resources at hand, perceived neighbors—former
enemies—as possible future allies and envisioned a Balkan federation based on
cooperation and conciliation. The prevalence of a realistic national self image allowed the
Agrarian Party to promote statist/moderate nationalism, formulate anti-irredentist
ideology, implement sweeping domestic reforms and pursue cooperative foreign policy.
I begin with an explanation of Bulgaria‘s cumulative frustrations, as embodied in
Bulgarians‘ repeated failures to liberate their homeland from Ottoman rule and how those
frustrations tempered expectations and did not leave much room for illusions of national
grandeur.
Bulgaria was one of the last two nations (the 2 nd
is Albania) to achieve
independence from Ottoman rule in 1878, almost half a century after Greece. 74 There
were several unfavorable conditions that made attaining independence a difficult matter:
Bulgaria had a large number of Muslims and was not exposed to Western ideas—and
when exposed, it was through Greek intermediaries, making it subject to religious and
intellectual Greek dominance. It came under complete and tight Ottoman control for its
proximity to the heart of the empire. It had more powerful neighbors who gained
independence earlier and was surrounded by Great Powers‘ competing interests and
shifting alliances. These conditions admittedly complicated Bulgarian independence
efforts (Clarke 1945, 141). Indeed, Bulgarian independence was not an outcome of
74 The Ottoman occupation of Bulgaria ended the last period of national independence. Clarke (1945, 141-
142) observed a ―progressive decline of national consciousness‖ in the aftermath of the Ottoman conquest
of Bulgaria in 1393; from that time on, Bulgarians had minimal contacts with the outside world, contacts
that nonetheless served to reawaken ―fading memories of former independence.‖

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Bulgarian uprisings but of Turkish defeat at the hands of Russians in the Russo-Turkish
war of 1877-78 (Mouzelis 1976, 92-93).
Historic disappointments in Bulgaria form a recognizable pattern. Expecting a
Wallachian or Austrian invasion south of the Danube in 1585, Bulgarians rebelled in
Turnovo area—a rebellion that was immediately and ruthlessly suppressed by the
Ottomans. In 1686, another bout of expectations of a Russian invasion came upon the
Bulgarians who rebelled again only to be crushed cruelly. In 1737, there occurred an
uprising in Bulgaria after Russian and Austrian troops made advances, but the uprising
was soon suppressed. In 1810-11, Russians helped Bulgarians organize the Bulgarian
Territorial Army, an act that delivered little practically (Sardamov 1998, 231-232, 236).
Indeed, after the French threatened to invade, the Russians retreated and halted their
involvement in the war against the Turks, thus leaving Bulgarians alone to confront the
vengeful Turks. In the aftermath, around three thousand Bulgarian families sought refuge
in Romanian principalities. In the Treaty of Bucharest that followed, Russia obtained
Bessarabia but Bulgaria came out empty-handed (Petrovich 1967, 91).
Bulgarians aided the Russians in the Russo-Turkish wars of 1806-12 and 1828-29,
but that only brought Ottoman revenge without contributing to Bulgarian liberation. The
Russo-Turkish War of 1828-29 furnishes another example of this pattern—rising hopes
and shattered expectations. As the war was picking up steam, Bulgarians raised their
hopes of imminent triumph and liberation and formed armed groups led by Ivan
Seliminski in Slivensko. The groups‘ objectives were to train and arm the populace,
acquire, store and distribute weapons to fighters. When Russian troops approached the
Balkan Range, Bulgarian peasants cheered. However, as an imminent Russian victory

181
became more probable, Western powers issued warnings to the Russians. Subsequently,
the war stopped. Greece came out as a solid winner and gained its independence;
Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia gained autonomy. Bulgarians came out empty handed
again—although they believed that they had contributed enthusiastically to war efforts.
Worse, when a Bulgarian leader, Georgie Mamarcheve, led a rebellion in the hopes of
gaining recognition for the Bulgarian cause, Russians themselves suppressed the
rebellion and arrested him. This doubled the disappointment and deepened the
frustrations. When the Russian army was ordered to withdraw from Bulgaria on April 15,
1830, around 100,000 Bulgarians fled with them (Petrovich 1967, 93). The Ottomans
subsequently ruthlessly suppressed Bulgarian uprisings in 1835 (in Turnovo), 1841 (in
Nis), and in 1850-51 (in Vidin). All were unsuccessful and resulted in further Ottoman
oppression.
The Bulgarian Volunteer Corps that was formed in the 1850s provides another
tale of despair and loss. As Russians still retained interest in utilizing Bulgarian
collaboration in their war efforts against the Ottomans, a Russian Military commander in
Bucharest took it upon himself to persuade Bulgarian émigrés and refugees to organize a
movement to prepare for rebellion. The Bulgarian Volunteer Corps was born with around
4000 men. However, those plans were frustrated with the Russian defeat in the Crimean
War turning hope into despair. The Peace of Paris of 1856 75 affirmed the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire and whittled away at Russian primacy in Orthodox affairs as the Great
Powers declared themselves collectively responsible for Christians of the Balkans: Great
Power politics and calculations once again intervened to frustrate Bulgarian hopes of
75 The Congress of Paris was held in 1856 to conclude the Crimean War

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independence. This put an end to Bulgarian hopes of Russian assistance in their liberation
efforts. Bulgarians became persuaded that another objective should be set in place;
subsequently, they turned inward and in the next decade and a half focused on liberation
from Greek domination of their church (Petrovich 1967, 98-99).
Bulgarian efforts paid off in 1870 when Bulgaria achieved its ecclesiastical
independence from the Greek Orthodox Church after the Ottoman Porte issued a ferman
(edict) recognizing an autonomous Bulgarian church—the Bulgarian Exarchate.
Ecclesiastical autonomy represented a remarkable victory that was followed by more
enthusiastic movement for political independence: national revival couldn‘t be complete
without political independence (Clarke 1945, 145). However, soon Bulgarians realized
the limits of their power and their unfavorable strategic location. In addition, the
experiences of Italian, German and Romanian unification brought home the lesson that
Bulgaria alone through its internal efforts couldn‘t achieve independence: outside help
was necessary. Russia once again offered the only serious hope. Journalist, revolutionary
and politician, Liuben Karavelov, wrote in 1874:
I have given the matter much thought and have come to a painful conclusion, namely,
that left to their own resources, our people can hardly free itself through revolution or by
way of progress and education, but only Matushka can free us, as she has liberated
Serbia, Rumania, Greece. Turkey is a mighty state, and were we Bulgarians to rise up
without outside support, it would crush us in three days, especially given modern
perfected firearms, for in numbers, development, and culture we are a big zero, but as a
people of the Slavic race, Russia will not abandon us to the Turkish yoke, and it is, if you
please, in her interest to liberate us, for she will thereby come a step closer to
Constantinople…Only the Russians will liberate the Bulgarian people. This is their task,
their mission‖ (cited in Petrovich 1967, 103).
Before Russian succor would arrive, Bulgarians had two ―unsuccessful and
fearfully costly uprisings‖: the 1875 September uprising and the 1876 April uprising
(Petrovich 1967, 103). However, like its predecessors, the Spring uprising was

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suppressed. The excessive violence that the Ottomans used stirred public opinion in
France, Britain and Russia—a reaction that the uprising leaders had anticipated. During
this time, Russia itself was undergoing a domestic crisis and had to respond to its own
domestic public pressures, especially pan-Slavic propaganda. Eventually Russia began
mobilization and declared war in April 1877. The war was successful and ended with the
San Stefano Treaty signed in March 1878 (Sardamov 1998, 234-44). After five centuries
of Ottoman rule, historic Bulgaria was ‗re-born.‘ The new state was expansive, extending
from the Black Sea to Lake Ohrid and from the Danube to the Aegean (Todorova 1995,
76). However, once again great power politics reversed Bulgaria‘s good fortunes: barely
three months had passed before another conference, the Berlin Conference, practically
annulled the San Stefano Treaty and partitioned Bulgaria into three parts—an
independent Bulgaria, an autonomous East Rumelia under Ottoman suzerainty, and
Macedonia that was to remain part of the Ottoman Empire. A Bulgarian contemporary
wrote, ―We were left crushed, thunderstruck, stunned‖ (Petrovich 1967, 104-105). Thus,
the founding moment was one of frustration: the year of Bulgarian nationalism –1878—
was ―its greatest triumph and its greatest defeat‖ (Todorova 1995, 76). After gaining
independence, optimism took hold of Bulgarians for this was a period of high
expectations and hopes, especially regarding restoring Macedonia. But, the winds blew in
the opposite direction and everybody could notice the frustrations of the failure to unify
Bulgaria and to attain Macedonia, a failure that ―eventually was to breed a severe
defeatist complex‖ (Bozeva-Abazi 2003, 52).
The long history of Ottoman domination and minimal contact with the outside
world left its legacy on the Bulgarian people; they were ―timid and unsure of their social

184
behavior; they were suspicious and mistrustful, prone to suspicion and disrespectful of
state institutions due to their automatic linking of the institutions with foreign rule‖
(Kostadinova 1995, 7). As Bulgarians began to revitalize their national consciousness,
they had to contend with ―twofold stigma: a social one within the Ottoman hierarchy
(coupled with a traumatizing collective memory) and a cultural one vis-à-vis the Greeks.‖
What antagonized and irritated Bulgarians more was not the Greek proclaimed ‗cultural
supremacy‘ but the tendency to ―transform this supremacy into an essentialist register of
‗formative absences‘ (of ‗high culture,‘ ‗glorious past,‘ ‗illustrious ancestors‘)‖ a register
that was later ‗reconfirmed when they [Bulgarians] gazed at themselves in the mirror of
Europe‖ (Mishkova 2008, 241).
Hilendarski Paisii wrote his revivalist book, the so-called bible of Bulgarian
nationalism, in 1762. A major purpose of Paisii was the revival of Bulgarians‘ national
consciousness and the restoration of their self-esteem by reminding them of their culture,
language, and the glories of their medieval states and their Church (Volgyi 2007):
―So I wrote down for you what was known about your race and language. Read and know
so that you would not be ridiculed and reproached by other tribes and peoples…I wrote it
for you who love your people and Bulgarian homeland, and who like to know about your
people and language…But there are those who do not care to know about their own
Bulgarian people and turn to foreign ways and foreign tongue; and they do not care for
their own Bulgarian language but learn to read and speak Greek and are ashamed to call
themselves Bulgarians. O, you senseless fool! Why are you ashamed to call yourself
Bulgarian and do not read and speak your language? Or had the Bulgarians no kingdom
and state?...In the entire Slavic race the Bulgarians have had the greatest glory, they first
called themselves tsars, they first had a patriarch, they first became Christians, and they
ruled over the largest territory…But why, you fool, should you be ashamed of your
people and linger after a foreign tongue. …You, Bulgarian, so do not be deceived, but
know your people and language, and learn your language!‖ (cited in Volgyi 2007, 11-12).
When Paisii began his campaign for national independence, it seemed that his
voice was a cry in a ―wilderness of ignorance and neglect‖ (Clarke 1945, 145). Paisii‘s
History was therefore a call for Bulgarians to have pride and to fight off their ―inferiority

185
complex‖ (Volgyi 2007, 11-12). In describing the speech and its meaning for Bulgarian
nationalism, Todorova (1995, 75) mentioned that ―There is an intensive defensiveness, a
feeling of humiliation, and a struggle against an inferiority complex. At the same time,
there is also an acute counter-offensiveness, based on intensive pride in the glories of the
past‖ (Todorova 1995, 75). Alleged historic accomplishments, glories and pride are quite
common among nationalist writers across the globe, but not the sense of shame,
inferiority, and weakness. The ‗defensive‘ quality would remain a characteristic of
Bulgarian nationalism and would be confirmed time and again with various sorts of
encounters and conflicts.
Bulgarian nationalism was defensive in nature because it had to contend with
already established nations and states and ―because the Bulgarians were defining
themselves in opposition against the earlier nationalisms and previously articulated
irredentist programs of its neighbors‖ (Todorova 1995, 74-75). This ―preponderantly
defensive‖ quality was also evident in the fact that Bulgarian nationalism, unlike other
nationalisms, which are usually articulated against one particular enemy that forms the
essential other/principal enemy figure, had no such eternal enemies. First, the enemy
fluctuated between the Greek and Ottoman Turks only to become later Serbia and
Romania. This shifting of enemies implied that nationalist propaganda and discourses
would necessarily shift according to new alliances and new emerging geostrategic facts;
that is, discourses focused on the moment, the threat that came from the latest enemy.
There was no fixed, constant formula for an eternal enemy; consequently, Bulgarian
nationalism ―putatively defined the national self in terms of a permanent exposure to

186
external threat, rather than in terms of a glorious project of incorporating all the contested
territories into a resuscitated Bulgarian empire‖ (Trencsenyi 2003, 2-3).
Like other nations, Bulgaria produced different kinds of national ideologies,
especially in eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; however, ―their general purpose was
one and the same—to transform the shame of being Bulgarian into the pride of calling
oneself Bulgarian and of belonging to the national community. The overcoming of the
shame and its transformation into pride, self-respect, dignity, cultural significance, and so
forth is a constant trend in the Bulgarian national ideology‖ (Kiossev 1995, 204). This
―constant trend‖ meant that there wasn‘t much room in the national imagination,
particularly among the peasants, for tales of national superiority and for aspirations of
regional hegemony. Even though some elites did construct such tales, the chances that
these would strike a chord among Bulgarian masses were minimal. Bulgarians‘ historical
experiences created a readiness for a more realistic assessment of the capacities of their
nation and its potential for expansionist nationalism and regional hegemony. The
difficulties that Bulgarians confronted in attaining national and ecclesiastical
independence made it more likely that grandiosity would not be easily accepted and that
the public would not be easily receptive to brazen dreams and illusions. There emerged,
at least among the peasants, a tempered national self-image that was compatible with
reality. It is not coincidental that the Agrarian Party‘s ideology of anti-irredentism would
find warm reception among the peasants, a reception that allowed the party to upend the
former regime, to consolidate its power and to confront the dominant social classes—the
bureaucratic and military elites.

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The job of nationalist historians of establishing historical continuity in a country
that came under Ottoman rule and that had minimal contacts with the outside world is a
difficult task. There were scattered moments of glory and it takes a historian lots of
imagination to come up with a history of a glorious past. Lots of social construction will
have to be done. In Paisi‘s work, the enemy—the Greek and to a lesser extent the Serb,
used to ―mock Bulgarians for not having a history of their own‖ (Ditchev 2002, 2). It is
true that a ―national awakening‖ necessarily implies some evocation of a grand National
narrative—in the case of Bulgaria, this was medieval greatness—yet the actual
knowledge of this period was ―sketchy.‖ In addition, the cultural manifestations/evidence
of this period were inseparable from Byzantium. You add to this the long period of
Ottoman rule, a period of total domination by the Turks up till the 19 th century, and those
facts made any attempt to come up with arguments for ―normative continuity‖ feeble
(Trencsenyi 2003, 3).
There are two ways of knowing oneself: by looking in the mirror or by knowing
what others think of oneself (Ambareva 2007). That is, ―national identity is largely
shaped by perceptions of self and other‖ (Engström 2002, 4). Strashimirov, who wrote
another major work on narodnopsichologia in the 1910s (Book for Bulgarians) and who
was concerned with ―others‘‖ perceptions of Bulgarians mentioned that those perceptions
were unfavorable: the English perceived Bulgarians as devoid of ―social patriotism,‖ and
the Germans referred to the slow motion of the Bulgarian state in responding to military
demands. He even claimed that a national Bulgarian culture had not been formed yet and
that Bulgarians lacked a unitary national character (Trencsenyi 2003, 9).

188
―Over the course of the Balkan Wars and WWI, the basic paradigm of Bulgarian
culture changed.‖ The change in attitudes towards wars became most apparent and
striking among the intellectuals and artists classes. War experiences, losses, frustrations
of national goals led to a transformation in worldviews, cultural values and new selfawareness.
The process of transformation and reaction to the wars ―challenged the
established pre-war value system‖ and brought no less than an end to the period of
Bulgarian national revival (Kelbetcheva 1999, 215). The period that preceded the Balkan
War witnessed mass mobilization and some enthusiasm for war; however, in the wake of
WWI defeat, there emerged significant changes in the nature and the type of nationalism
that prevailed in Bulgaria at the time. Nationalism lost its mass appeal and survived ―in
numerically small pockets such as the officers‘ corps, segments of the intelligentsia and
the bourgeoisie and, of course, the refugees‘ organizations‖ (Pundeff 1969, 145). Indeed,
there was no consensus over the meaning of Bulgarian nationalism as it lost its
―unanimous voice‖ and received numerous articulations that varied in intensity and pitch
(Todorova 1995, 84).
Sofia remained the capital of a defeated and rump state, but even though
irredentist sentiments still existed among the elites, the flames of irredentism were rather
put down by the infighting of Macedonian organizations: Macedonia became associated
with violence, chaos and havoc. ―A sense of national failure or frustration hung over the
city.‖ In café conversations, Bulgarians spoke of Bulgarska rabota, in reference to an
initially auspicious work or a plan but which eventually fails because Bulgarians had
their fingers in it (Lampe 2006, 100-102). Besides a steep decline in ―Bulgarian
expansionist nationalism‖ there was a ―parallel growth of mass skepticism about

189
Bulgarian social and cultural achievements‖ in the wake of the twin defeats (Sardamov
1998, 225-226)
Folk songs provide us with an insight into the meanings attributed to wars and
losses. The most common theme was that of pain, anguish and despair over the fates of
families. One such symbolic and iconic folk song was about the widow Milkana, a song
that spanned the two Balkan Wars and WWI. This was a typical story of a mother of
seven children, who lost her husband in the Balkan wars and later lost her eldest son,
Ivancho, in WWI. The singer denounced ―these terrible wars, which ruin human destiny.‖
She lamented her fate in a sorrowful mood which stood in sharp contrast to the
enthusiasm and glorification of war that prevailed in the run up and during the Balkan
Wars. ―After 1918, folk songs were full of sorrow, despair and pain for the loss of war,
along with many victims—orphans and widows—who remained as a result.‖ This shift in
mood was indicative of an equal shift in the attitudes of the public towards war
(Kelbetcheva 1999, 218). In other nations, losses would generate desires to fight further
and to redeem lost honor and restore lost lands.
Self-esteem does not descend from heaven but comes from historical memories
and achievements. In a country that was bereft of such accomplishments, and whose
history was a series of frustrations, defeats and broken dreams, it is hard to imagine that
the public would be receptive to calls for wars, expansion and grandeur. There isn‘t much
room in the public imagination for such dreams. When another defeat visits, this would
be just another misfortune. The mood had already been tempered by previous
performance. These collective memories did not create a fertile ground for the emergence
of revisionist and irredentist movements. Instead, there emerged a different kind of

190
radical movement—radical and revolutionary only in the sense that it wanted a clean
break with the past, a new beginning away from irredentism and revision. The agrarian
movement did not see defeat as another occasion for more adventures and territorial
redemption; instead, redemption was sought in domestic reforms, internal reconstruction
and peaceful cooperative relations with former enemies.
5. Political Organizations/Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU )
It is worth mentioning that most Bulgarian political parties, except the Agrarian
and the Socialist/Communist parties, were discredited by the end of WWI. They lost their
pubic appeal and were on the defensive. Thus, whether they maintained a coherent
ideology and powerful organizational structure didn‘t matter a lot in the period under
study. What mattered most was the strength that the Agrarian Party, which ruled Bulgaria
from 1919 till 1923, had acquired, significantly as a result of the war outcome. However,
it is also worth mentioning that most of those parties were actually weak. In classical
parliamentary theory, representative parties form governments, but in Bulgaria ‗royal
ministers would create parties to sustain their portfolios.‖ These parties, which assumed
names such as liberal, democratic, progressive, radical, and populist 76
―lacked any
ideological or social rationale and were predicated exclusively on the office-hunger of
their leaders and cohorts.‖ Suffice it to say that 40 such parties won seats in various
parliaments at various times (Rothschild 1977, 333). It also bears mentioning that a
certain degree of political competitiveness emerged in pre-war Bulgaria and that although
Bulgaria already had one or two reactionary governments, it still exhibited some
democratic properties. A proportional system was introduced in 1910 in order to allow
76 while no party carried the conservative label

191
for the representation of smaller parties, such as the Radical and the Socialist, making
parliament the locus of political life (Tchitchovsky 1929, 283).
One of the distinctive features of Bulgarian society was its predominantly peasant
structure. At the time of independence, around 80% of the population were peasants and
rural dwellers, a figure that barely changed by the end of WWI—this meant little social
mobility and little immigration from rural to urban areas. Surprisingly, despite all the
social crises and the momentous events in the interwar period, the peasants still made up
around three quarters of the population even in 1946. Among the rural dwellers, most
were peasant farmers who mostly were small landowners—with landownership under 10
hectares (Crampton 2009, 19). The villages that Bulgarian peasants inhabited were small
and isolated, making these locales unfit for the rapid spread of nationalist ideologies.
Probably, they were more likely receptive to socially conservative ideas—preserving the
community‘s language, mores, traditions and religion. In short, this environment could
not have been very hospitable for the diffusion of nationalist ideas/or extremist
ideologies. Thus, rural Bulgaria was late in welcoming the nationalist fervor that swept
Europe and the Balkan region; indeed, it was even ―late in developing its own
intelligentsia.‖ The spread of nationalism was gradual and limited to the elites, especially
the well-to-do families who sent their sons to schools abroad, in Europe and Russia, to
receive education and culture and who would become later the promoters of nationalism
(Oren 1973, 3).
Another distinctive feature of Bulgarian peasants was their egalitarian structure,
which had significant implications for mobilization, the kind of parties and ideas that
would be welcome in peasant society. The absence of major cleavages of class,

192
ownership, and lordship meant that communist/socialist/and workers‘ parties would find
it hard to market themselves among the peasantry—by calling for the eradication of
private property for example. Similarly, right wing and extreme political organizations
would be hard pressed to make their ideology appealing in a largely egalitarian setting.
The absence of social, and to great extent income inequalities, created a favorable
environment for communal solidarity (Mouzelis 1976, 97). After all, patrimonial values
dominated social life and societal polarization was limited—if existing at all
(Karasimeonov 1999, 39).
The mobilization potential and capacities of the peasants were limited but not
non-existing. 77 Despite all the disadvantages of communication, education and the dearth
of financial resources that plagued their lives, peasants still managed to attain some levels
of political awareness and a semblance of political organization before the war. Once
defeat in WWI was assured, the Agrarian Union escalated its mobilization activities and
began its march to restructure state and society (Oren 1973, 5-7).
However, some (Mouzelis 1976, 96) argued that by the end of the nineteenth
century and the beginning of the twentieth, the egalitarian structure began to wane with
the emergence of economic differentiation that was caused by the prevalence of large
scale usury. A substantial number of peasants lost their properties after accumulating
77 The egalitarian structure did not mean that peasants completely lacked political organization or political
awareness. Indeed, when Bulgaria received its independence in 1878, some newspapers (for example,
Marista of August 8, 1878) reported peasant activities protesting the Berlin Treaty. Peasants also met the
French ambassador and presented him with a formal protest upon which he inquired as to how the peasants
were familiar with events in Berlin; they responded by saying that ―We always read the newspapers and
learned from them about the injustice done to Bulgaria.‖ Indeed, there was a ―stream of petitions‖
demanding the liberation of Macedonia and its independence along with memoranda to the Great Powers
written and signed by the peasants and sent to European consuls in Russia and Istanbul (Bozeva-Abazi
2003, 50-52).

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debts and subsequently had to work as renters and sharecroppers. By this account, the
agrarian union emerged as an outcome of those practices and the perceived threats to
peasant landownership.
Peasants and their habitats were not isolated from political events that shaped life
in Bulgaria before and after independence. There were many upheavals that engulfed
Bulgaria at the end of the 19 th and the beginnings of the 20 th centuries, especially in
1870s and 1880s: the Russo-Turkish war, the political campaigns to defend the proposed
constitution between 1881 and 1883, the historic unification of Bulgaria and eastern
Rumelia in 1885, and the political crisis of 1886 and 1887, these all somehow found their
way into peasant life and rural regions. Peasants became aware that what happened in
Sofia affected their lives; they talked about politics and demanded laws on taxes, credit,
protection and public administration and services. When deputies in the National
Assembly debated issues related to peasant life, they frequently referred to and
complained of peasants‘ high expectations and increasing demands for protection from
the state (Mishkova 1994).
Wars also coincided with slower rates of economic growth and created increasing
difficulties and intolerable costs for the peasants but without any obvious gains. This laid
the groundwork for the emergence of the Agrarian Union as the most powerful political
party in the country. Two major factors facilitated this process: (1) the absence of any
meaningful class of large landowners that might have stood in the way of creating a
political party that represented the interests and aspirations of the less endowed peasants

194
and (2) the failures and fragmentation of the established political parties. 78 The liberal or
conservative ideological leanings of the established parties did not particularly appeal to
the peasants; nor did the parties themselves work hard to recruit supporters form among
this large unrepresented population. They were too fragmented, weak or simply had no
serious links with the peasants, thus making the peasants available for recruitment into
the Agrarian Union. The existing parties proved impotent in halting or weakening the
large-scale mobilization of the peasantry at the hands of the Agrarian Union; that is, the
doors were left wide open for the emergence of peasant populism, a political movement
that was readying itself to assume power and to create a peasant state (Mishkova 1994).
The Bulgarian Agrarian National Union (BANU) was unique in its ideas,
program, popularity and influence and has barely received the scholarly attention it
deserves (Crampton 2009, vii-viii). This was a political party that dominated Bulgarian
politics during the beginnings of the twentieth century—between 1900 and 1923. The
movement to organize the peasants began in the 1890s but efforts intensified in the wake
of the government‘s decision to impose a tithe and culminated in a peasant congress that
established a peasant union (Bell 1996, 24). The congress was convened at the end of
78 Political divisions were even apparent at the time of independence; there were the traditional conflicts
between the young and the old—what roughly translated into liberals and conservatives. The liberals/the
young were radical nationalist revolutionaries who believed in Bulgarians‘ capacity to govern themselves
and to realize the dream of historic Bulgaria. This trend later grew into the Liberal Party. The ―Old‖ or
conservatives were suspicious of radical change and more interested in education, schools and church; they
believed in receiving help from abroad and did not have much confidence in Bulgarian capacities for selfgovernance;
indeed, some even called for a ―dualistic kingdom within the framework of the Ottoman
Empire.‖ These men were ―more cautious, more reasonable and more difficult when it came to making
decisions for changes.‖ They eventually established the Conservative Party (Kostadinova 1995, 5-6).
Towards the end of the 19 th and the beginning of the 20 th century, the Bulgarian left had four political
parties, the two social-democratic parties—the left wing and the right wing socialists; the Bulgarian
People‘s Agrarian Union, and the Radical Democratic Party. There were six bourgeois parties but without
fine distinctions or clear cut differentiation as their domestic politics platforms were similar (Karasimeonov
1999, 41).

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December 1899 and was attended by 1500 delegates and adopted a Charter that specified
the Union‘s goal as ―the intellectual and moral betterment of the peasant and the
improvement of agriculture in all its branches.‖ Thus, the agrarian movement emerged
first as a professional organization tasked with resisting higher taxes but immediately
won wide acclaim among the peasants. However, government crackdown on peasant
protests convinced the peasant leaders that staying away from politics was not a practical
option. Thus in the third Congress in 1901, leaders voted to transform the Union into a
political party and to legitimize ―participation in all local, provincial, and national
elections‖ (Bell 1996, 24-26).
In 1900 Konstantin Stoilov, a leading Bulgarian politician and twice prime
minister, realized that the existing parties had lost touch with the majority of Bulgarians
and that political power will eventually be in the hands of the peasants. Stoilov believed
that peasants would soon become the most powerful political force in Bulgaria. By 1908
the predictions of Stoilov proved accurate. A significant factor that contributed to the
rapid rise of the agrarians was the assumption of the leadership of the peasants by the
dynamic and charismatic leader Alexander Stamboliski. During the 1908 elections, the
Union received over 100,000 votes—11.2% of the total, translating into 23 deputies in
the new assembly. The numbers might seem small but indeed the agrarians were the
largest of the non-government parties in the Bulgarian legislature—the Subranie. The
picture becomes even clearer when we account for the agrarian performance in the
important local elections as the party secured over 300 local councils (Crampton 2009,
30-32).

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But, the success of BANU was substantially related to the structural reforms that
the organization carried out. The reforms streamlined the organization and relocated its
headquarters into the capital, Sofia and enhanced part discipline (Crampton 2009, 33).
Stamboliski proved to be a masterful organizer for he believed that ideas alone are
insufficient to effect changes and that their success is contingent on the strength and
organization of those who uphold and advance them. He wrote, ―A social organization
which wishes to live and wants to be fit for combat must have iron discipline (Crampton
2009, 37). He worked hard to create a coherent organizational structure for his party in
the villages by establishing village druzhba as ‗estatist bodies.‘ Those evolved to become
1,123 chapters in 1908. The party and its local chapters became more disciplined as the
leadership placed restrictions on membership and expelled those members whose
convictions were not firm and who had connections to the old established parties. The
party also held regular meetings and distributed the BANU newspaper—Stamboliski was
a regular contributor to the newspaper. Party candidates were forbidden ―to lie or mislead
the people‖ and had to comply with the party‘s regulations and account for their behavior
before the druzhba (Bell 1996, 32). Thus came the 1905 ―Code for the Participation of
the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union in Legislative Elections.‖ The code organized the
selection of candidates who would run for office under the banner of the agrarians and
came in response to the elections of 1901 in order to enhance party discipline and to
consolidate the authority of the party over its candidates to local and national elections.
Prior to this code, agrarian party candidates who won elections became an easy prey for
other more established political parties—who would recruit them to their ranks through
material and other incentives. In order to ensure the loyalty of candidates, it was

197
stipulated that only those who had been BANU members for at least two years could run
for office—the period was extended to five years in 1911. ―The agrarian deputies were no
longer easy prey to the jackals of the old parties‖ (Crampton 2009, 37). These reforms
paid off as shown from the elections of 1908. The party now had become more
disciplined and its members strictly adhered to its ideology and policy platform.
Structural reforms would have just been less effective had it not been for the
coherent ideology that the party now evolved, an ideology that was simple, but appealing
and effective, and that proved to be one of the most original and interesting of the
political doctrines that appeared in Europe at the turn of the 20 th century (Crampton 2009,
33). The ideology of the movement remained clouded until Stamboliski wrote Political
Parties or Estatist Organizations—a collection of his writings published in 1909—in
which he articulated the basic tenets of the ideology of the peasant political party.
Stamboliski later refined his ideas and elaborated on his agrarian ideology in a new
treatise, the Principles of the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union. No doubt that his
thinking was radical but it was also different from the dominant ideologies of the day—
conservatism, liberalism, socialism and communism. The ideology was ‗populist, antiurban,
anti-industrialist,‘ that highlighted the main fault lines between the peasants and
the urban elites (Karasimeonov 1999, 43). Traditional national priorities and ideals: San
Stefano Bulgaria, animosity to and suspicion of neighbors, exaggerations of threats and
grandiose national dreams were all left behind. The party‘s ideology articulated an
alternative and complete vision of Bulgaria that was at odds with the previously
disastrous and failed ones that the established parties pursued. The agrarians enjoyed
substantial support from the majority of Bulgarians, since their ideology ―fit the mood

198
and feelings of many Bulgarians of that period‖ (Groueff 1987, 75). Stamboliski‘s ideas
were simple, sometimes exaggerated, and often oversimplified; however, those were the
qualities of an ideology that would appeal to the peasant masses. His ideas were daring as
they challenged deeply-held national beliefs and aspired to national renewal on new
grounds. Those ideas—renouncing territorial demands, the primacy of the peasant,
populism, anti-bourgeois beliefs and animosity to the dominant classes, friendship with
neighbors/former enemies—made the agrarians and their leadership an easy prey for
accusations of betrayal, but ―in the wake of the national disaster, the popularity of an
ideology opposed to all previous values was only natural.‖ (Groueff 1987, 75-76). Since
the agrarian party was not well-prepared to govern Bulgaria, mistakes were inevitable.
However, its simplistic and coherent ideology provided the party with the self-assurance
and confidence that the peasants were the masters of their destiny and homeland and
supplied them with the energy to carry out a program of fundamental societal reforms
(Oren 1973, 9-10).
The ideology of the Peasant Movement was inward-looking and not outwardoriented,
advanced statist and moderate nationalism and emphasized ―the role of the
state, the primacy of the peasant and agriculture, and the supportive but subordinate role
of industry, attempted to promote modernization by turning away from the outwardlooking,
nationalistically motivated territorial ambitions of previous parties‖ (Augustinos
1991, 5). The seventh point of the Principles of the Agrarian National Union, called for
the promotion of friendly relations with other Balkan states on federative basis, ―The
agrarian union favors durable and peaceful relations between Bulgaria and her
neighbors…it seeks to strengthen these good relations by uniting Bulgaria with the other

199
Balkan states on a federative basis.‖ Stamboliiski mentioned that his peaceful intentions
and renunciations of irredentist claims led to his persecution and that he felt that it was
his ―imperative duty to raise my voice in favor of rapprochement among the Balkan states
(Stavrianos 1942, 40).
The agrarian party experienced only minor splits and no mergers. It refused to
compromise on its ideology or policy principles even when it needed coalitions for
governance purposes. The peasant party was self-financed and suffered from no
dependence on other societal groups—other than its constituents, the peasants—or nonparty
groups. It preserved its leadership position, even on the international level, where
the Bulgarian Agrarian Party played a leading role in organizing the Green International.
It was sufficiently adaptable as it moved smoothly from an opposition to a governing
party, and despite its lack of experience, it proved skillful in initiating and implementing
reforms.
Its rapid ascension and later assumption of power through its significant electoral
victories—until it was removed from power through a military coup—testified to its
strength and broad representativeness. Its audacity in presenting new ideas and advancing
a counter-establishment ideology and taking on the urban strata, the military-bureaucratic
establishment and the monarchy, all spoke to its centrality in Bulgarian politics. The fact
that it took a broad coalition of competing political forces, the conservatives, the liberals,
the military establishment—strange bedfellows—to topple the agrarian government
clearly demonstrated its strength and its entrenchment in power, despite the short
duration of its rule. 79 That those various social forces came together clearly attested to the
79 The communists stood watching while the agrarians were being toppled; the monarch almost certainly
knew of the coup.

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extent they felt threatened by the tenacity of the Agrarian Movement. All this while the
agrarian party lacked experience in governance, remained in power only for less than four
years, had no foreign backers, and no complete control over the coercive apparatus of the
state. The party recovered rapidly after 1923—the moderate wing of the party allied with
a group of liberal bourgeois politicians and succeeded in coming to power until a second
coup removed them once again (Mouzelis 1976, 89-90). Even the murder of Stamboliski
and the suppression of the Agrarian movement by the new military regime did not
terminate popular support for the BANU; indeed, it remained the ―principal democratic
opposition to the royal/military regime of the 1930s, and after WWII it was the main
obstacle to the communist seizure of power‖ (Bell 1996, 21). Even after WWII, and as a
sign of its continuing relevance and strength, the Bulgarian communist regime halted its
plans to liquidate the agrarian movement and settled on co-opting it instead and treating it
as ―little brother‖ to the communists. The image of Stamboliski was rehabilitated; he was
now re-framed as a ―forerunner of communism‖ and an icon of working class/peasant
cooperation (Bell 1996, 21).
6. The Impact of Defeat
There were four major notable changes that defeat caused:
A. BANU Consolidation and Discrediting Established Parties
B. Turn away from Irredentism
C. Domestic Reforms
D. Cooperative Foreign Policy

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There occurred a major change in the composition of the ruling elites—liberals,
conservatives, the military and the bureaucratic elites lost their privileges and political
authority moved to the peasant classes. Those parties that supported the war were
discredited and those that opposed it won the day: Communists, socialists and agrarians
came on top as solid winners. There occurred a change in the national mood away from
irredentism and longing for historic Bulgaria into acceptance of the status quo and the
promotion of statist nationalism. In foreign policy, there were fundamental changes as the
Agrarians tried to extract Bulgaria from its international isolation and to build peaceful,
cooperative relations with former enemies.
A. BANU Consolidating and Discrediting Established Parties
Bulgaria, like all defeated countries after WWI, experienced a severe economic
and social crisis, along with a legitimacy one. A series of strikes and uprisings exhausted
the capacity of the political order to resist change. The major political parties that were
still struggling for political primacy were the radicals—socialists and agrarians—the old
political parties and the crown. Political parties that were in power, those that supported
the war and those that formed an integral part of the established political order, were all
discredited. The two leftist parties, the socialists/communists and the agrarians were
competing for the ―vacancy‖ left behind by the collapse of the established parties
(Crampton 2005, 144). The sentiments that prevailed at the war outcome changed the
political mood of the country and boosted the fortunes of the left. After the war, ―the
country‘s political culture was nurtured more by the left than by the right‖ (Lampe 1991,
36). This was evidenced by the election outcomes where the vote share of both parties,
the Communist and the Agrarian, grew steadily over the years until the military coup of

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1923. Defeat in war obviously caused this ―wild swing of public opinion towards the
left.‖ The Bulgarian army was particularly demoralized—especially given that a
substantial proportion of its soldiers were peasants whose anti-war political organization
had been socializing them into distrusting their governments and its expansionist
objectives. It is not surprising therefore that the loss of war would reinforce the soldiers‘
ideas about the futility of adventurism and irredentism. The communist movement in
Bulgaria enjoyed some support prior to the war, but its firm stance against participation
in war further boosted its support (Tchitchovsky 1929, 284-85), especially among the
ranks of the growing industrial and transport workers in Sofia and other cities, making
the Communist Party, for the time, the largest urban-based party in Bulgaria (Lampe
1991, 36).
The outcome of the first post-war elections was well predicted by the parties
themselves: leftist parties were in a hurry to hold elections as soon as possible while the
liberal and right/conservative parties wanted to postpone elections so that they could
reconstruct their tarnished image and discredited credibility.
King Ferdinand, who was held responsible for foreign policy blunders, had to
abdicate in favor of his son, Boris III. Malinov‘s party and the Radicals, who came to
power two months before the end of the war for the purpose of effecting an honorable
exit from the war, had also to pay a price; the Gesov and Danev groups were also held
accountable as the architects of the Balkan War debacle. There was a brief revolutionary
situation that arose and threatened to topple the monarchy and declare a republic, but the
abdication of King Ferdinand, the flight of Radoslavov and the arrest of his supporters
alleviated the tensions. A coalition government—excluding the ‗war‘ parties and the

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communists—was formed (Tchitchovsky 1929, 285) and helped calm down
revolutionary passions and bring back order and tranquility.
The first postwar elections (1919) clearly demonstrated a ―massive anger‖ against
the parties that were held responsible for the defeat and wide support for those who
opposed the war. The Agrarians received 28% of the vote (85 deputies); the ‗Narrows‘—
the more radical wing of the Socialists who later (May 1919) became the Bulgarian
Communist Party (BCP)—received 18% (47 deputies) and the Broad Socialists received
13% (36 deputies) while the Democrats received only 10% of the vote (Bell 1977;
Kostadinova 1995). In the next elections, held in 1920, BANU improved its electoral
fortunes and received 38.2% of the vote (110 deputies), BCP received 20.2% (51
deputies) and Democrats and Nationals a combined 16.7% of the vote (48 seats). In the
last election for this period (1923) BANU received 53.7% of the vote (212 seats), the
BCP maintained 19.2% (16 seats), and the Constitutional Bloc 15.7% (15 seats) (Bell
1977; Kostadinova 1995).
B. Turn away from Irredentism
Whereas ethnic self-assertion remained the most dominant ideology in the
Balkans following WWI, the costly defeats of the Balkan Wars and the First World War
generated different reactions in Bulgaria turning Bulgarian ―consciousness away from the
ethnic self-assertion so central to [their] neighbors.‖ Recent Bulgarian scholarship has
shown that the intensity of defeats put an end to the period of ―national revival‖ that
stretched back to the nineteenth century. Defeat caused a major shift in ideas, discrediting
some and elevating others: this was particularly true in Sofia, where ideology still
retained its prestige and significance but where ‗cultural authority‘ shifted away from the

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―apologists‖ to the ―humanists‖ who had opposed the war (Lampe 2006, 100-102). This
shift in cultural authority and ideas had a parallel shift in the political sphere, at least in
the five-year period following WWI, where political authority moved to the Peasants.
Throughout the years, various Bulgarian groups denounced the dream of a Greater
Bulgaria as a ―cancerous tumor‖ (Zbuchea 2001, 240).
Defeat and the protracted political and social crisis that followed persuaded the
peasants of the futility of revisionism and irredentism. The peasant masses lost what
interest they might have had in the cause of Macedonia. Even though politicians,
intellectuals, historians and some fervent nationalists continued to write books and
treatises on Bulgarian unfulfilled rights and the unjust treaties, it remained true that
―rather abruptly Bulgarian nationalism lost most of its previous popular appeal‖
(Sardamov 1998, 266). Pundeff (1969, 145) eloquently summed up the demobilizing
impact that defeat had on Bulgarian nationalism, ―Defeated on the battlefield, discredited
by two national debacles, and abandoned by the bulk of the people, it [nationalism]
survived in numerically small pockets such as the officers‘ corps, segments of the
intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie, and, of course, the refugees‘ organizations.‖
Irredentist ideas alone are insufficient to generate political behavior; the key
factor remains the existence of constituency that is receptive to such ideas and willing to
carry on the mission of expansionist nationalism. This constituency was lacking in the
case of Bulgaria. From 1880 until 1920, the carriers of irredentist ideology were the
urban-bureaucratic strata and the military establishment. The army in particular stood at
the forefront of irredentism for it was the armed forces that lost the war and that failed to
liberate historic lands. The military officers had a decisive impact on state policies,

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especially its irredentist inclinations, and were able to a large degree to shape political
developments in Bulgaria in the years leading up to the twin defeats. The fact that these
two classes led Bulgaria into two wars should not be taken to mean that all segments of
the population supported irredentism and aggressive nationalism. The military and the
urban establishments failed to deliver on their promises of modernization and historic
accomplishments or to create conditions that would improve the livelihood of the
peasantry. Instead wars brought misery and suffering, disenchantment and
disillusionment. When the urban strata tried to mobilize the peasantry to carry out the
grandiose mission, their efforts fell on deaf ears; peasants simply did not support such
missions (Roudometof 2001, 158). The government needed funds to finance its
adventures and ill-advised policies but peasants were squeezed to provide these funds.
Those policies and the accompanying disenchantment led the Agrarians to take
eventually a ―strong anti-militarist stand‖ and to target those who allegedly plunged
Bulgaria into war (Roudometof 2000, 158, 2001, 175). However, as a counterfactual, it
would be hard to imagine that the public would have become anti-irredentist had Bulgaria
won the war and achieved the dream of San Stefano. Anti-irredentist sentiments became
widespread among the peasants in the aftermath of defeats.
Popular suffering from the two wars and the crushing disappointments and
sorrows opened the doors wide open for all kinds of possibilities. Although it is natural
for defeats in wars to create a fertile ground for revolutions, rebellions and radicalism, no
revolutionary tide swept across the country. Instead, ―the revolutionary energies released
by the general military collapse were deflected and temporarily contained by the forces of
peasant populism‖ (Oren 1973, 5-7). This was one of the distinct features of Bulgarian

206
politics in the immediate aftermath of defeat. The potential for revolution and radicalism
was tamed, contained, and subdued by the powerful peasant movement and its
institutional capacity to contain the masses and to channel their energies inward toward
state-building and social and institutional reforms and eventually to deprive any
radical/revisionist movements from recruiting among them. The peasants presented
themselves, not as counter-revolutionaries, stabilizers or status quo defenders, but as a
new breed of revolutionaries intent upon transforming Bulgarian state and society. They
thus strove to create their own hegemony as a barrier against the forces of the right and
the extreme left. They carried a total program of reform, restructuring and renewal; this
prompted Oren (1973, 5-7) to call the immediate aftermath of the war ‗the Agrarian era‘
since the agrarians ―developed new forms of political action and introduced a new style
of political dominion.‖ In short, the Agrarian movement played a significant role in
deflecting revanchist impulses and in containing the restless and the agitated.
The agrarian government had at its disposal state power to execute those who
were held responsible for the war. In 1919, it arrested several parliamentary deputies,
even pro-war journalists, government officials and officers who were charged with
crimes in occupied territories (Bell 1977, 146). Another telling move was the referendum
on national war-guilt held in 1922 to decide whether war cabinet members should be tried
by people‘s courts. The outcome was overwhelmingly for the trials (74% voted in favor).
Given that it was held when the BANU was in control and politically ascending, the
referendum showed that the government and its policies played a great role in framing the
war as a colossal failure and unnecessary adventure that cost Bulgaria blood and treasure.
The public approval of the referendum demonstrated that Bulgarians largely shared and

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accepted those perceptions and that the public had an institutional means, through the
government and the Agrarian Party, to channel their demands and to address their
grievances against those leaders who plunged their country into wars (Rakoske 2011, 21-
22).
C. Domestic Reforms
Stamboliski‘s four year regime basically treated state power, not as an end, but as
a means to restructure political culture and practice and to recreate Bulgarian society
(Lampe 1991, 36). In the immediate aftermath of defeat, when elections were largely
genuine, the peasant government embarked on a series of modernizing domestic
reforms—the most serious attempt for reforms before the Communist rule (Bell 1991,
20). We have to keep in mind that institutional reforms were initiated despite the
unfavorable financial squeeze that the Neuilly Treaty imposed on Bulgaria. Immediately
after taking power, the Agrarians began their program of state building and institutional
reforms; they turned inward at the expense of traditional state priorities—especially army
build-up. 80
Education became a priority and tremendous resources were invested in
expanding the country‘s school system. 81 Traditionally, there were only four years of
compulsory elementary education but the Agrarians added three more years of study at
the middle school level. Over 800 such schools were built within a couple of years—in
80 The Agrarian government set a precedent in its refusal to be subservient to or dominated by the military
bureaucracy, which until the Agrarian experiment had been the single most important influence on
Bulgarian political culture. The military bureaucracy was the largest occupation group in Sofia before the
war and it represented an end for the aspiring; but also had a corrupting power through the practice of
partisanstvo (placing political allies in civilian positions).
81 Podeh (2000, 66) mentioned that a state education system is often used as an instrument of collective
socialization; the purpose is to raise a generation of young people into certain beliefs as those beliefs are
expected to shape collective identities and behavior.

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addition to 311 new elementary schools. To improve the quality of professional teachers,
five institutes of teacher training were established. At higher educational levels, the
government placed special emphasis on practical and scientific subjects in the curriculum
and created new faculties of veterinary medicine, agronomy and medicine and academies
of forestry and commerce. The study of literature and religion was de-emphasized and a
larger proportion of the curricula was dedicated to extensive training in languages,
natural science and bookkeeping (Bell 1991, 23).
One of the most significant, original and demobilizing measures was the
Compulsory Labor Services (CLS), which imposed labor on the youth—instead of
drafting them into the military (Groueff 2001, 76). CLS was introduced in June 1920 as a
socially transformative measure; its preamble stated that its objective was ―To stimulate
in all citizens, irrespective of their social and material condition, devotion to public things
and love for physical labour‖ and ―[t]o elevate the people morally and economically by
cultivating among the citizens the sentiment of duty to themselves and society, and by
teaching them rational methods of national economy‖ (Crampton 2009, 95). The code
intended to invigorate the modernization of Bulgaria by mobilizing labor for construction
projects, such as road building, and to provide laborers with technical skills and work
experience (Bell 1991, 23).
The Agrarian Movement also introduced military reforms. The harsh terms of the
Neuilly Treaty were respected, especially those related to disarmament and military
buildup. Indeed, these terms were even welcomed by the Agrarians as they
complemented their ideology of turning away from foreign entanglements and expansive
nationalism. Not only did the government implement the requirements of maintaining a

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very small army but went even further and created an army whose numbers were below
the limits set by the treaty. In November 1920, the parliament stripped the monarch of his
control of the armed forces and placed it under civilian control; some major posts in the
ministry of war that were traditionally held by military men were also civilianized (Bell
1991, 24).
Even though Bulgaria was largely an egalitarian peasant society, land reform was
still introduced. A land state fund was set up to handle properties that exceeded 30
hectares; but large families were allowed to exceed this limit, which did not apply to
unproductive lands either. Absentee landlords were permitted only to own four hectares.
Initially, land reforms included crown properties but were extended to include monastic
lands not worked by individual monks after 1921. The land fund would redistribute the
appropriated lands to needy peasants. But, the government also intended to compensate
dispossessed owners by granting them government bonds (Crampton 2009, 113-114).
Other reforms included an eight-hour work day and a progressive income tax—measures
that were well received by both the peasants and the urban strata.
D. Cooperative Foreign Policy
Stamboliski framed defeat, not as a loss of honor and prestige, nor as a stimulus
for revenge or an occasion for future wars but as an outcome of Bulgarian traditional
quest for expansionist nationalism through military means and foreign entanglements. He
consistently argued that those pursuits proved futile and costly and diverted resources
from domestic reforms and economic development. Those pursuits had placed power in
the hands of the military and helped create a class of military officers who shaped

210
Bulgarian politics for many decades. Such a role for the military was not fit for an
egalitarian Bulgarian society (Crampton 2009, 121-122). Turning inward to embark on
reforms and modernization was a costly endeavor and could not be done without
sacrificing expansionist and traditional foreign policy goals.
The Agrarian government pursued policies that were pacifist, international and
republican rather than irredentist, nationalist, or monarchist. The most important foreign
policy it advocated was its willingness to renounce territorial claims against neighboring
countries and to pursue peaceful and cooperative, friendly relationship with ‗former‘
enemies, especially Yugoslavia. The Agrarians were emphatically supportive of a Balkan
federation. Stamboliski insisted that ―The great majority of the Bulgarian people are for
union with Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia and for the formation of a great Yugoslav state‖
(cited in Stavrianos 1942, 40).
In 1922, Stamboliski‘s words to a journalist‘s question about Macedonia and the
Macedonians sounded like heresy to believers: ―Since you‘ve taken Macedonia, why
don‘t you also take all Macedonians who still remain in Bulgaria? You can have them,
good riddance! … The Macedonians were harming us as much as they could…I have
been an adversary of the Macedonians. I fought against them. All political atrocities in
Bulgaria are the doing of the Macedonians. I would never wage war with you for the
Macedonians!‖ (cited in Groueff 2001, 76). Stamboliski‘s renunciation of all Macedonian
claims was a daring attitude—the first time a Bulgarian state leader renounced Bulgarian
claims to Macedonia since the Treaty of Berlin (1878). A Balkan federation, a main
objective of Stamboliski, was inconceivable without settling the question of Macedonia
(Crampton 2009, 107-108).

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The greatest threat to future peaceful relations with Bulgaria‘s neighbors was the
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO), which started as a liberation
movement against Turkish rule and projected itself as the champion of Macedonian
legitimate national aspirations but eventually descended into a ―band of unprincipled
adventurers.‖ The outcome of WWI might have seemed as the end of the Organization;
instead defeat served as an occasion that boosted the organization‘s fortunes and
intensified its resort to violence. In 1920, the Organization renewed its armed attacks
against Yugoslavia. On May 19, 1922, and in order to show good will, Stamboliski
proposed that Bulgaria and Yugoslavia form a joint frontier guard, a proposal that led to
negotiations that ended up in the conclusion of the Nis Treaty (April 1923). Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia pledged to cooperate in their fight against Macedonian extremists. Bulgarian
government banned all terrorist organizations, closed down their newspapers and
imprisoned some of their leaders and made serious efforts to control the borders.
Subsequently, the number of attacks declined (Stavrianos 1942, 41; Crampton 2005, 150-
151).
Stamboliski‘s policies of renouncing territorial claims placed him and his
government in good standing among Western powers/victorious allies. Stamboliski did
not ally with the Communists and his party‘s ideology was not Marxist or socialist—both
facts must have helped his image and that of his government among the Western powers.
After Stamboliski toured European capitals for one hundred days in 1920, Bulgaria was
rewarded for her peaceful initiatives by granting her membership in the League of
Nation, making it the first defeated country to join the League. Stamboliski never tired of
repeating his willingness to foster and pursue good relations with his neighbors, a policy

212
that would help preserve the status quo, an objective that the victorious allies cherished
(Crampton 2005, 151-152). The one-hundred day tour of European capitals was intended
to impress the public and elites in Western capitals and to project the new face of
Bulgaria that Stamboliski‘s government represented. Stamboliski wanted to re-establish
diplomatic relations with the victorious allies, to end Bulgaria‘s European isolation, to
demonstrate and confirm that Bulgaria had emerged anew from its wars. He clearly
articulated his message that Bulgaria had given up on the ―gun and cannon‖ and was
instead brandishing ―slogans of peace,‖ and desired cooperative relations with its
neighbors, European capitals and the international community. Given the originality of
his ideology and program, which created suspicions and doubts, Stamboliski desired to
lay those doubts to rest and to assure his interlocutors that agrarian ideology and
communism were far apart. He was also interested in establishing Bulgarian economic
access to the Aegean, which was promised in Article 48 of the Neuilly Treaty (Crampton
2009, 88-89).
The possibility of a rapprochement between Bulgaria and Yugoslavia provoked
Italy who was opposed to a united front in the Balkans. In order to obstruct such
possibilities, the Italian minister to Sofia, Baron Aliotti, proposed to Stamboliski an
Italian-Bulgarian alliance directed against Yugoslavia. Stamboliski completely rejected
such a proposal, along with a similar proposal later on by Baron Aliotti‘s successor,
Count Aldrovandi. The same offer was made again in 1922 during the Genoa
Conference, but Bulgarian/agrarian government adamantly turned down those offers,
which went against the grain of its foreign policy of rapprochement (Stavrianos 1942,
40).

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Those policies must have provoked the animosity of the ultra-nationalists who
couldn‘t conceive of a foreign policy that was responsive to structural constraints and the
unfavorable balance of power—a policy that entailed compliance with the status quo and
investing national energies in domestic reforms and state building. What made territorial
renunciation even less popular was the arrival of thousands of refugees from Macedonia,
and those refugees, for emotional and economic reasons, were the most zealous
nationalists and were entirely opposed to concessions (Crampton 2009, 121-122).
7. The Descent: The June 1923 Coup
The agrarian government policies and its totalistic attitudes alienated almost every
other social class and political party in the country, including the Communists (Frusetta
2010, 285). The elections of 1923 were decisive for the turn of events. The Agrarian
Party was able to achieve absolute majority through a combination of rising popularity
and electoral manipulation. 82 The BANU secured 212 seats and the Bulgarian Communist
Party (BCP) 16 seats only whereas the Constitutional Bloc—a coalition of conservative
parties—gained only 15 seats. The National Liberal Party made its debut in the elections
of 1923 by uniting the efforts of both the People‘s Liberal and the Young Liberal Parties
but obtained only 5.3% of the vote without gaining any seats (Kostadinova 1995, 55).
Stamboliski was oversaturated with confidence as he appeared at an Orange Guard
parade ―seated upon a white charger‖ (Crampton 2009, 122-122).
82 The new electoral law made the administrative counties, not the districts, the electoral college, which
gave advantages to the agrarian constituents; the law also ended the PR system.

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With the outcome of the elections, the opposition‘s worst nightmare of isolation
and irrelevance had been realized; their fate seemed to be sealed and they had to act fast
before it was too late. A Few words about the opposition forces are in order.
The Military League was founded in 1919 as an expression of protest against the
Treaty of Neuilly, which forced Bulgaria to cede Bulgarian lands and to disband its
armed forces. Its initial objective was to subvert the clauses of the Treaty, particularly by
hiding weapons and ammunitions from the Allies‘ occupation authorities. Since the
Treaty forced the Bulgarian government to dismiss a large number of its officers, it
provided further incentives for disgruntled officers to form the Military League. Add to
this the fact that the Stamboliski government didn‘t have much interest in promoting the
armed forces or financing and expanding them. Stamboliski appointed a civilian to the
war ministry post, adding to the frustration of military officers. Overall, the left-oriented,
extreme measures taken by the agrarian government alienated many officers. Eventually,
the purpose of the Military League became nothing less than the overthrow of the peasant
regime.
The opposition tried to unite its disparate forces. There was the National Alliance,
an elitist organization of military officers from the Military League. The Radical
Democratic Party, like other opposition parties, feared the uncertainty of the future and
the increasing assertiveness of the agrarians and decided to side with the forces intent
upon toppling the agrarian regime.
After the elections of 1920, where the conservatives scored minor gains and the
liberals barely any gains at all, a new conservative organization, Sgovor was founded—as

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a new political formation. Then in 1922, political forces from the Right coalesced in a
new bloc, the Constitutional Block, which comprised the Democratic party, the United
Conservative-Progressive Party—itself a merger of the Conservative Party and the
Liberal Progressive Party-and the Radical Democratic Party. Their major purpose was to
unite their ranks in order to fight off the increasing influence of the Agrarians and their
revolutionary movement.
There were also four liberal Parties 83 , three of whom were held responsible for the
national catastrophe. Those were the Liberal Party, the People‘s Liberal Party (the
Petkovists)--, the People‘s Liberal Party—(the Genadievists)—and the Young Liberal
Party. Since they were discredited by the war, their only chance of survival was to merge
and form one front—the National Liberal Party. The extreme left, the Communists, who
viewed the Agrarian Party as a petty bourgeois phenomenon, remained neutral—waiting
for the ripening of a Marxist revolution.
Thus the plot to remove the Agrarians from power included the Military League,
the National Alliance, IMRO, some Social Democrats and old parliamentary parties. But,
the larger and more concrete role was played by the IMRO, which brought to the plot its
violent credentials, and the elitist Military League, which brought discipline and
organization. Allegedly the King was aware of the conspiracy and gave a tacit approval
83 The liberals at the turn of the Century were split into three political factions that subsequently became
fully fledged political parties; the split began in 1883-84; one wing solidly Russophile established an
independent political party, the Progressive Liberal Party‖ (PLP) in 1899. Another group, the followers of
Radoslavov in 1886-88 formed a party—the Liberal party (LP). Then Stambolov‘s liberals created their
own, the Stambolov‘s People‘s Liberal Party (Kostadinova 1995, 14) which called for an independent
Bulgaria, especially from Russia and supported the monarchy as a necessary step along the road to
modernization. This party actively ruled Bulgaria from 1887 till 1894. In 1896, some liberals led by Petko
Karvelov created another party, the Democratic Party (DP).

216
(Crampton 2009, 113-122). Eventually, the ―Rightist coalition‖ proved powerful enough
to finish the agrarian rule (Oren 1973, 5-7).
The coup was successful but bloody. Stamboliski himself was arrested, murdered
and his body mutilated. Not much opposition was confronted in the capital, Sofia. There
was sporadic resistance in the countryside. Although it is beyond question that the
Agrarian party had the support of the peasants, the fact remains that the villages were
disconnected and had no resources to confront the organized machinery of the central
state (Oren 1973, 11).
No radical discourses emerged despite the fact that the opposition was weak and
parties were legion. The only group that maintained its frenzied rhetoric and violent
opposition to ‗anti-irredentism‘ was the IMRO. However, the violence of the IMRO that
wreaked havoc in Bulgarian cities and disrupted Bulgarian relations with neighboring
countries alienated most of the population. For the vast majority of political parties, the
locus of political competition moved away from the question of Macedonia and the
dream of San Stefano Bulgaria into domestic politics and the increasing idiosyncrasies
and assertiveness of the agrarian party and its passionate attempt to restructure state and
society along agrarian principles. That is, national priorities were domestic and foreign
policy issues took only a second place.
Describing the sort of competition that emerged in Bulgaria among the seven
political parties that dominated the political landscape at the turn of the twentieth century,
Kostadinova (1995, 14-15) observed that it was based ―on personal grounds among their
[parties‘] leaders.‖ It should also be noted that liberals and conservatives experienced

217
several rifts, defections and mergers. It is true that they formed blocs and fronts but that
wasn‘t motivated by common ideological leanings or common vision. It was motivated
by the fears that the agrarians provoked, especially in the 1923 elections and their
aftermath. Opposition parties participated in or acquiesced to the putsch because they
realized that they had no chance of gaining power through elections. On top of that, it
wasn‘t the coalition that toppled the regime: two major players, the IMRO and the
Military League, accomplished the task.
The consolidation of the power of the middle-class alliance, after 1923, needed
intense resort to violence and coercion and risked plunging the country into civil war.
Massive violence had to be used against the agrarians and the communists—who few
months later rebelled but were soon crushed—in order to stabilize the political landscape.
However, as things settled by the end of the twenties, a moderate faction of the agrarians
had been integrated into the system and formed an electoral alliance with a moderate
middle class and achieved electoral victory. A new regime was created, an urban-peasant
alliance. However, this stability was once again overwhelmed by the opposition of the
army, which intervened in 1934. Although the army was able to conduct a military coup
that removed the urban-peasant alliance, it was not able to consolidate its power, which
opened the way for an authoritarian monarchical rule that lasted till the end of WWII.
During this era, political parties were banned and the King seemed to be the only
powerful political force in the nation as he ruled by decree rendering the parliament a
mere façade (Oren 1973, 5-7).

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8. Conclusion
I began with the assumption that defeats in wars generate humiliation, rage and a
desire for revenge; however, those sentiments would not materialize into concrete
policies and revisionist political movements unless they are filtered through three
intervening variables: an inflated national self-image, weak political parties, and a
favorable international environment. On the other hand, a tempered national self-image,
strong political party, and unfavorable international environment would deter the
emergence of revanchism and aggressive foreign policy. Bulgaria, during the agrarian
era, presents a clear case of defeats not necessarily leading to an identity crisis, revisionist
movements and aggressive foreign policy. After a history of national frustrations and two
crushing defeats, there wasn‘t much room in the public imagination for extreme
nationalism. The presence of a political movement that was able to organize the peasants,
take on the urban and military bureaucratic establishment, acquire supreme political
power through elections, meant that there was a little chance for predatory elites and
demagogues to organize political movements and affect political decision making. For
even if such powers still existed, their effect would be marginal. Established political
parties, mostly the conservatives and the liberals, were devastatingly discredited as they
led Bulgaria down the road of two costly and losing wars. The international environment
did not offer any opportunities for aggression and Bulgaria came out of the war brittle
and constrained. However, even in the presence of an opportunity, the agrarian
government wouldn‘t have taken it since it appreciated the blood of Bulgarian citizens
over acquiring territories. Anti-irredentism was home-grown.

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CHAPTER 4
HUNGARY: THE CULT OF DEFEAT
1. Introduction
Hungary‘s defeat in WWI stands as a collective and enduring traumatic shock for
Hungarians who refused to resign themselves to the consequences of their defeat, a
reaction that became a defining element in their self-understanding and a cornerstone of
their foreign policy. 84 Throughout the interwar period, Hungarians focused their energies
on reversing the outcomes of the war: Revisionism became the clarion call for rallying
the masses—a call that completely absorbed Hungarian political classes, distorted
political judiciousness, and induced illusions and unfounded hopes and promises
(Romsics 2000, 95). The failure of elites to probe the real historical processes that led to
the collapse of the Monarchy and to the secession of the nationalities contributed to the
emergence of Hungarian nationalism that was reactionary, aggressive, and militarist and
a concomitant revisionist foreign policy. Hungarian nationalism—grievance-based and
emotional—was a major cause behind the emergence of a host of secret and patriotic
societies and associations, paramilitary groups and national defense leagues. Indeed,
revisionism became the main driving force of Hungarian foreign policy throughout the
entire interwar period and drove Hungary to become an early ally of Fascist Italy and
later of Nazi Germany, thus actively contributing to the creation of a fascist front (Fenyes
1988, 5). Early revisionist attempts were constrained by the little material power that
84 Formally, it was the Austro-Hungarian Empire that lost the war; but both Hungarians and Austrians were
severely punished after ‗their‘ empire was dismantled. As will be seen later, this particular war and the
punitive Trianon Treaty that followed became enduring collective traumatic shocks.

220
Hungary had, but as soon as a willing and capable ally emerged—Germany, the efforts
materialized.
First, let me point out the main characteristics of the Hungarian reaction to their
defeat. By and large, Hungarian reaction to defeat was outward-looking with an obsessive
fixation on territorial revision and the restoration of Historic Hungary. 85
Whether
peaceful, assertive or aggressive, revisionism characterized interwar Hungarian foreign
policy. 86 Complete denial of guilt and responsibility triumphed. 87 Self-exculpatory
explanations were legion and popular. 88 Intense feelings of humiliation, diminution, and
resentment prevailed. 89 Desires for revenge took hold of Hungarian masses and elites. 90
85 Historic Hungary, alternatively the Kingdom of Hungary, St. Stefano Hungary, the Crown Lands of St.
Stefan, is a political concept that refers to what Hungarians perceived as their historic lands, which
included present-day Hungary, Slovakia, most of Croatia, Transylvania (in present-day Romania), and
Burgenland (in Austria).
86 For an account of how Hungarians attempted to secure treaty revision peacefully, see Eva S. Balogh
(1983).
87 The behavior of the Hungarian delegation to the Peace Conference clearly documented Hungarians‘
unwillingness to resign themselves to the consequences of defeat, to take responsibility and to look forward
to the future. Instead, they held on to the notion of historic Hungary—which included non-Hungarian
ethnicities and territories. This came at a time when Hungary was at near total collapse. For example, the
delegation ―tendered eight notes, with enclosures running into volumes, trying to disclaim Hungary‘s
responsibility for the war and adducing historical, ethnic, political and economic reasons to justify her
demands for the possession not only of areas with homogeneous Magyar populations beyond the new
frontiers, but also of territories inhabited by national minorities and dis-annexed already in 1918, for
domination over the whole of historical Hungary‘. This introduced the activity of the Hungarian delegation
to counteract the intentions of the Entente Powers‖ (Juhasz 1979, 44). Hungary was innocent and
everybody else was guilty, ―the story continues, Hungary would have emerged victorious had other states,
that had nothing to do with the entire matter, not interfered..Poor innocent Hungary was victimized in that
peace treaty (Fenyes 1988, 129).
88 Here is an example of how defeat was explained: the causes of the collapse originated ―in the ingratitude
and in the false propaganda of the minorities in Hungary, in the empire-building endeavors of the
neighboring countries, in the ignorance, malevolence, and political blindness of the victorious powers and
in the excessive trustfulness of the Hungarian nation‖ (Zeidler 2007, 4).
89 Hajdu and Nagy (1990, 310) observed that ―To accept being a member of a small state, with everything
this implied, proved to be a difficult task for every Hungarian.‖

221
Figure 1: Hungary Before and After Trianon.
90 ―The younger generations are raised in a spirit of revenge. It is downright hilarious to watch the spirit of
revenge against the world powers in so small a nation (Fenyes 1988, 140).

222
Instead of looking to the future, Hungarians sought solace and orientation in the
past. They located scapegoats, internal and external enemies, to blame and demonize. The
nation took primacy over the state: there were few institutional reforms and even less
state building. When political preeminence was lost with defeat, Hungarians brandished
their alleged ‗cultural superiority.‘ After signing the Trianon Treaty (Figure 1),
Hungarians developed rituals to commemorate their loss. 91 The cult of Trianon became a
daily practice, a profession of faith that overwhelmed the masses and elites and shaped
the dynamics of domestic and foreign policies in interwar Hungary.
But, why would one wonder at the Hungarian intense revisionist reaction? Why
would one expect Hungary to be more accepting of its new status and to reconcile itself
with the new realities of power? Given Hungary‘s limited resources, its reduced
boundaries, it economic burdens, and its precarious geographic position amidst enemy
states who viewed Hungary with suspicion and who themselves had further territorial
ambitions, one expects Hungary not to be aggressive but rather to accept its fate and live
with the new configuration of power that the war revealed. In other words, because of the
constraints that Hungary had to grapple with, both at the domestic and international
levels, its foreign policy should have been pacific and conciliatory. Aggressive foreign
policy was beyond its reach and might bring further tragedies. Similarly, domestic actors
should have understood those constraints and shied away from extremist ideas,
adventurous irredentism and focused instead on internal reconstruction and state building.
91 The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement that concluded Hungarian involvement in WWI. The
Treaty was signed between the victorious Allies of WWI and Hungary. The Treaty delineated the borders
of Hungary and resulted in the loss of approximately two thirds of the population and territory of the prewar
Kingdom of Hungary.

223
Other countries experienced similar grave losses but their reactions varied. Turkey and
Denmark, for example, stand as a proof that defeat in war need not lead to identity crisis
or to German-type aggressive nationalism and revisionist foreign policy. The Turks
resigned themselves to their defeat, accepted their losses, left their imperial thinking
behind, constructed state-based nationalism, and focused their energies on state-building,
internal reconstruction, and foreign policy reconciliation. The Danes transformed their
crushing defeat in 1864 into a ―moral victory‖ based on their motto ―what we lost
externally, we shall gain internally (Hedetoft 1993, 291). This stands in sharp contrast to
Hungary‘s slogan, ―no, no, never,‖ which framed defeat as an enduring traumatic shock
the healing of which could be realized only if Hungarian fortunes in the war were
reversed, honor redeemed and lands restored. 92
Thus, defeat created and reinforced radical trends within Hungarian society,
further entrenched and solidified extremist nationalism, created a multitude of revisionist
groups—radical, revanchist and moderate—held Hungarian state and society captive to
visions of historic Hungary and dreams of redemption and restoration. However, the
translation of domestic pressures and desires into foreign policy is more complicated and
needs to factor in the constraints that Hungary had to grapple with and that precluded any
possibilities of aggressive foreign policy in the first decade in the aftermath of defeat—
lack of domestic resources, the absence of a powerful and willing ally, and lack of
international opportunities. For example, most of Hungarian foreign policy during the
first two post-war years was simply negotiating or pleading with the victorious powers to
grant Hungary a more lenient treatment. The efforts went unanswered. Between 1921 and
92 A similar attitude was taken by Nasser of Egypt as revealed in a famous slogan after the 1967 traumatic
defeat ―what was taken by force could be restored only by force.‖

224
1926—a period of domestic stabilization and consolidation—Hungarian foreign policy,
led by the shrewd Prime Minister Bethlen, focused mainly on extracting Hungary from
her international isolation, gaining membership in the League of Nations, and securing
economic aid to boost the decaying economy. During this period, Hungary was still
reeling from the war, suffering from economic downturns, had no potential allies and no
domestic military power to initiate any serious revisionist moves. But, domestic pressures
during this period were also contained through several institutional measures. Bethlen
realized the dangers inherent in multiple political parties competing in times of
uncertainty and transition and the risks involved in the high degrees of political
participation and mobilization that characterized Hungarian politics at the time. His major
purpose was to tame Regent Horthy‘s extremist passions and to de-radicalize the
Hungarian political landscape. 93 He tried to accomplish those objectives by taking two
major steps: (1) creating a government party that would hold near-monopoly over
political resources and (2) amending electoral laws in order to limit political participation
and to ensure comfortable majority for his party. Bethlen‘s efforts were partially
successful, which enabled him to pursue a more peaceful foreign policy—consistent with
Hungary‘s capacities and existing opportunities—while radical trends remained latent
and simmering underneath, waiting for more opportune times. This conciliatory tone of
foreign policy should not blind us to the real intentions of Hungarian statesmen and the
objectives of Hungarian foreign policy. Through and through, revisionism remained the
93 Admiral Horthy served in the Dual Monarchy‘s navy as its commander-in-chief and later became Francis
Joseph Adjutant. His most salient political beliefs are his unwavering anti-communism and hostility
towards the Soviet Union, his aversion to all revolutions in general and his desire to restore Historic
Hungary. Horthy became the most powerful man in Hungary and served as a regent from 1920 till 1944.
The events that unfolded and placed him at the helm of power in Hungary clearly demonstrated that the
Great Powers at least acquiesced in his election as Regent.

225
cornerstone and the animating force of domestic and foreign policies. Besides, there were
also some adventurous and risky behaviors associated with revisionism even during this
stable period. Overall, it is accurate to say that the ―official policy of every interwar
government aimed at integral revision or at least something approaching that, while the
Hungarian public at large clamored uncompromisingly for a restoration of the country's
historical borders‖ (Caples 2005, 60).
After achieving a reasonable degree of stability in the first half of the 1920s,
Bethlen focused his effort in the second half of the decade on achieving the final act of
consolidation of the counter-revolutionary regime: territorial revision. 94 His efforts led
him down the adventurist path and he eventually signed a friendship treaty with Fascist
Italy and tried to create an alliance with Germany. The primacy of irredentism over
internal development and reconstruction persisted despite the evidence that the revision
of borders was a distant possibility. Throughout the interwar period, Hungarian foreign
policy was used as a tool to achieve nationalist irredentist goals by trying to play regional
and Great powers off against each other and by trying to exploit rifts and opportunities. 95
Bethlen resigned from office in 1931 after the economic crisis had hit Hungary hard.
With Bethlen‘s resignation, the radical right reared its head again and was able to control
the government party. Gömbös, one of the most radical leaders, was formally appointed
94 The journal Magyar Szemle (1927-1944), founded by Bethlen and edited by the prominent and influential
historian Gyula Szekfïï, became the major forum for disseminating ideas about revision. Generally, the
journal stayed away from the concept of ‗ethnic revision‘ and instead embraced ‗integral revision,‘ that is,
the restoration of historic Hungary, which included territories inhabited by non-Magyar populations.
Between 1928 and 1940, a mild version of integral revision was promoted, which included promises of
autonomy of ethnic minorities within historic Hungary (Caples 2005, 51).
95 In contrast, Turkish foreign policy was used as a tool to bolster the regime‘s efforts of state-building and
internal reconstruction.

226
prime minister in 1932. He re-activated the revisionist groups that formed in the
immediate aftermath of defeat and used them to appeal directly to the masses utilizing
revanchist and extreme nationalist discourses and promising total revision. The
government party weakened and the political landscape became dotted with various
parties and revisionist groups competing for power. Radicalism reached its apogee with
the creation of the Arrow Cross party. 96 The path to WWII had been set.
How do we explain Hungarian reaction to defeat? Why did so many revisionist
groups form and how did they affect foreign policy and why did Hungary end up a
German ally?
I argue that Hungarian inflated national-self image distorted political prudence
and constrained alternative visions of domestic and foreign policies. For most of the
nineteenth century Hungarians believed that they were experiencing a stream of
accomplishments and a series of victories that culminated in the Compromise of 1864,
which transformed the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire—a major
accomplishment. Hungarians perceived themselves as ―a great power, the key part of the
Dual Monarchy, the thousand-year-old Empire of Saint Stephen‖ (Bihari 2006b, 166).
Their extravagant celebrations of their millennial history at the turn of the twentieth
century signaled overconfidence, exaggerated and expansionist dreams, and hopes of
grandeur and pride of place. Some even thought that the era of Austrians was coming to a
close and that of Hungarians was about to begin. Those inflated self-images were
dominant among the masses and elites—even liberals believed in the supremacy and
96 The party was founded by Ferenc Szálasi in 1935 as the Party of National Will and later in 1939 became
the Arrow Cross Party.

227
cultural superiority of Hungarians—and set the stage for a rejectionist attitude, a radical
reaction against compromise and conciliation, and a determination to restore Historic
Hungary. Inflated national self-images had a constraining effect on the kind of ideas that
circulated during the interwar period; alternative voices were drowned out, accused of
betraying the national interest. Eventually, there emerged some sort of a consensus that
revision is sacred.
Additionally, fractured, multiple, ideologically incoherent, organizationally weak
political parties allowed the extreme, revanchist, radical right to emerge victorious in its
struggle for political power and to drag Hungary into another round of costly wars. The
only political party that temporarily achieved a semblance of strength was the
government party (the Party of Unity) that Prime Minister Bethlen created. However,
even this party had some fissures and fractures that were difficult to mend and only
succeeded in containing radicalism for a short period during which Hungary was
extremely constrained by resource depletion and lack of opportunities or allies.
Finally, I also show that the international environment was prohibitively
restrictive during the first decade in the aftermath of defeat. No regional or great powers
were available to support Hungary‘s desires for revision. Needless to say, Hungary was
still reeling from the war and had to grapple with instability and debilitating economic
crises. It was in the late twenties and early thirties that the international environment
began to show some opportunities. This is when Hungary‘s foreign policy became more
assertive.

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I begin by explaining the nature and type of national self-image that prevailed in
Hungary in the run up to the war and in the aftermath of defeat and explicate its effects
on domestic politics and foreign policy. I will then demonstrate the weakness of political
parties. Later, I will explain the nature of the Hungarian reaction to defeat and the
domestic and foreign policy changes that defeat induced.
2. National Self-Image
Hungarian national self-image could be described as inflated, self-absorbed,
obsessed with greatness and pride, always in search of a place in the sun. There prevailed
certain images and myths--as could be seen from historiography, popular histories,
intellectuals‘ writings, and political discourses in general—that made up this inflated
national-self image: unflinching belief in some sort of a manifest destiny, a ―maniacal
insistence on Hungarian greatness‖ (Deák 1992, 1047), a commanding sense of cultural
superiority over other minorities, co-existing with Hungarians or living on what is
perceived to be the Hungarian realm, a belief in a ―pre-destined Hungarian preeminence
in the Carpathian Basin‖ (Vardy 1976, 208-09), an unwavering sense of Exceptionalism,
reinforced by the Holy Crown Doctrine, 97
and a passionate attachment to glorious
historical memories, real or imagined. Hungarian elites, especially in late nineteenth
century, displayed imperial thinking and became haunted with a vision of Hungary as a
great power.
97 The doctrine of the Holy Crown is a Hungarian nationalist tradition based on the idea that the state of
Hungary is constituted by the Holy Crown—the historical coronation crown of the kings of Hungary since
Stephen I.

229
The Hungarian traumatic, grievance-based reaction to their defeat and loss is
deeply related to the blown-up pre-war expectations and the grandiose, inflated national
self-image that prevailed among the elites and that gave birth to those exaggerated
expectations. The period preceding the war was one of heightened expectations of
realizing the dream of St. Stefano and the creation of a ―thirty-million Magyar‖ nation.
The failure to realize those expectations, the element of suddenness and unexpectedness,
exacerbated and deepened the trauma of defeat and the disillusionment that struck
Hungarians after their loss. 98
Historical memories are integral to national identity and this is particularly true
when there is a perceived glorious past entrenched in collective memories. Perceptions of
a glorious past nourish present national goals. Until the end of WWI, Hungary perceived
itself as ―a great power, the key part of the Dual Monarchy, the thousand-year-old Empire
of Saint Stephen‖ (Bihari 2006b, 166). Hungarians perceived Hungary as one of the
oldest states in Europe, the largest Habsburg territory that enjoyed a ―privileged status‖ in
the Empire. 99 Hungarians believe that they had a glorious history of a thousand-yearkingdom—the
first Hungarian King, Stephen I, received the Crown from the head of the
Roman Catholic Church in the year 1000 A.D. Hungarian ancient history provided
Hungarians with basis for their belief in empire. By the end of the 12 th century, the
98 Research on traumas shows that suddenness and unexpectedness exacerbate the extent of trauma whereas
expecting a coming disaster enables individuals and communities to prepare and to build actual and
psychological defenses. For example, Barkun (1974) argued that much of the power of a disaster emanates
from the ―sudden manner in which it assaults unprepared societies, institutions, and psyches.‖
99 For example, the Habsburgs could only legislate in Hungary with the Hungarian diet. Prior to WWI,
Hungary had been an autonomous part of the Habsburg Empire for nearly four hundred years but
eventually attained the status of an ‗equal‘ partner with Austria in 1867 in what officially became the
Austro-Hungarian Empire (Laszlo 1983, 41). It is worth mentioning that no other minority or ethnicity in
the entire Empire attained a comparable status.

230
Hungarian Kingdom became one of the largest states in Europe as its borders were
―washed by three seas‖ (Glatz 1983, 36). The ancient Kingdom reached its peak during
the reign of King Matthias Corvinus (1485-1490) during whose time, the Hungarian
monarch was equal in rank with other European monarchs and the Hungarian state
marveled in its organization and army (Glatz 1983, 36-37). 100
Hungary evolved to
become one of the most advanced countries of Central Europe between the eleventh and
the fifteenth centuries after it adopted Christianity and became involved in the political
and intellectual currents of the age (Jeszenszky 1995, 100). Once Hungary adopted
Christianity as its religion, it was brought into the tangle of regional politics. The Mongol
invasion of Hungary in 1241-1242 was followed by several centuries of conflict with the
Ottoman Empire and resulted in the consolidation of the idea of Hungary as the last
bastion of Christianity, antemurale christianitatis, which ―became a building block of
national identity.‖ 101 The Hungarian medieval kingdom survived the Mongol invasion of
the thirteenth century and even grew to become a regional power, especially under the
Renaissance-spirited rule of the House of Anjou and then of Matyas Hunyadi. But, the
image of Hungary as a regional power during the Middle Ages gave way to that of a
struggling state that sustained severe losses as parts of her territory came under Ottoman
rule for a century and a half. Hungary happened to be at the forefront of the confrontation
with the Ottoman Empire but its frontier role was recognized by the Pope who rewarded
Hungarians by introducing the ―noonday bell‖ in honor of their resistance to Muslim
100 A 2000 Gallop public opinion survey asked a sample of Hungarians about their perceptions of Hungary
and their national identity. Most respondents agreed that Hungary had a bright past and most of them
cherished the period of the Renaissance King Matthias and the founder of the Hungarian state, Stephen
(Istvan) I (Hunyady and Kiss 2003, 189).
101 For studies on the antemurale myth, see Pal Kolsto (2005).

231
invasions. 102 Even after the ‗heroic loss‘ to the Turks in 1526, Hungary still found solace
and relief in the fact that it ―had fulfilled its duty to Christianity by absorbing the main
force of the onslaught—indeed, the Turkish advance stopped in Hungary‖ (Hunyady and
Kiss 2003, 173-176).
A. Doctrine of the Holy Crown: Hungarian Exceptionalism
Hungarians had a distinct doctrine (the Holy Crown doctrine) which reinforced
their sense of ―Exceptionalism.‖ The claim to Exceptionalism first reared its head in the
late eighteenth century and was based on some parallels and affinities between Hungarian
public laws and the English Constitution. 103 There were several parallels drawn between
the Magna Carta and the Hungarian Golden Bull, mostly used to bolster Hungarian
claims to independence and autonomy from the Austrian Empire and to contrast
Hungarian constitutionalism with Austrian absolutism. Kossuth, the celebrated leader of
the 1848 Revolution, himself believed that Hungarians were the only true constitutional
nation in Europe. Hungary saw the early appearance of public law in its realm while
Western European nations were allegedly still mired in despotism and feudal divisions
(Péter 2003, 488-89). Many other Hungarian scholars even argued that Hungarian laws
were superior to English constitutional laws. An independentist deputy declared that
―Nowhere else in the world exists the ideal content of the (Hungarian) crown‖ (Péter
102 ―On July 22, 1456, John Hunyadi won a decisive victory at Belgrade over the armies of Sultan Mehmed
II. Hunyadi‘s feat—carried out with a small standing army combined with peasants rallied to fight the
infidel by the Franciscan friar St John of Capistrano— had the effect of putting an end to Ottoman attempts
on Hungary and Western Europe for the next seventy years, and is considered to have been one of the most
momentous victories in Hungarian military history. The bells ringing at noon throughout Christendom are,
to this day, a daily commemoration of John Hunyadi‘s victory. The year 2006 saw historians observe the
550th anniversary of that event as well with an international conference and an exhibition‖ (Kerny 2008).
103 'No other nation apart from the English and the Hungarian can be called free' -declared County Zemplen
in its I784 address to the monarch‖ (Péter 2003, 487).

232
2003, 489). For Count Apponyi, the Holy Crown doctrine was the 'masterpiece of the
nation's constitutional genius', that had no parallel in the world. 104 Those ideas formed the
basis for the claims that Hungary had a distinct history, particularly a ―thousand-year-old
constitution‖ (Péter 2003, 489). However, even after the dissolution of the Austrian
monarchy, Hungarian philologists were still busy trying to dig out parallels with English
constitutionalism in the Middle Ages. It should be noted that the questions that the Holy
Crown debate raised, particularly state rights/independence and the rights of the monarch,
became irrelevant after the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire—a fact that clearly
showed that the Holy Crown had uses beyond those of autonomy and rights. Thus, the
Hungarian regime adopted the doctrine in 1920, after the collapse of the monarchy
following WWI, as its official ideology. For example, the Law of 1930 stipulated that
judges should issue verdicts in the ―name of the Hungarian Holy Crown.‖ More
importantly, after the Trianon Treaty, revisionism, which became the hallmark of
Hungarian politics, was usually invoked within the context of the Holy Crown and the
one-thousand-year-old kingdom. When Hungary restored some of her lost territories in
1940, they were ―returned to the body of the Hungarian Holy Crown‖ as well (Péter
2003, 487-492). The significance of the Holy Crown should not be underestimated in
Hungarian political culture as it provided a basis for historical ‗distinction‘ and
104 It should be mentioned that not everybody accepted those claims and some observers called them merely
an ‗idee fixe‘ of Hungarian nationalists. Hungarian philosopher Jozsef Hajnoczy pointed out the great
differences between the two experiences [British and Hungarian] while others rejected those claims as
absurd and some called them the ―product of fantasy fed on national presumptuousness‖ (Péter 2003, 486-
488).

233
‗legitimate‘ claims to empire. The doctrine survived the centuries, victories and defeats,
triumphs and frustrations. 105
B. The Age of Rising Expectations (19 th century)
Generally speaking, the nineteenth century represented an era of promise and
accomplishments for Hungarians: the emergence of national consciousness, the
revolution (1848(, and the Compromise—the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867
(German, Ausgleich) established the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. 106 In the 1820s
and 1830s, Hungary experienced a sort of renaissance, a period of rising expectations.
There was a notable rise in the number of literary critics, poets, writers and essayists, who
took it upon themselves to popularize the idea of national awakening and to raise the
level of national consciousness. Literary and historical writings, societies and journals
flourished. By and large this was an era of prosperity and promise: Hungarians were busy
fantasizing about the glory that was yet to come. Probably, the decline of the Austrian
Empire would naturally lead to the ascendance of the Hungarians. 107
105 It is true that visitors to European and other capitals would encounter a vast number and a wide variety
of regalia that played prominent roles in the historical consciousness of nations but the Hungarian Holy
Crown is unique in that it is ―still a living part of the political discourse‖ even today (Péter 2003, 505).
106 Signs of growing assertiveness and aspirations showed up earlier. For example, Hungarian early calls
for the creation of a Hungarian army, within the Austrian Empire, which fit the pattern of high self-esteem
and grandiose aspirations, began as early as 1790. Following Joseph II‘s discomfiture during the Turkish
War, the Diet openly demanded the creation of a national army that would be commanded by Magyar
officers and repeated those demands in 1802. During the Diet of 1839-40, there were demands that
indigenous troops wear Hungarian insignia, use Magyar language and be commanded by Hungarian
officers only. Eventually, Hungary‘s assertion of military independence in 1848 was one major cause for
the break with Vienna (Rothenberg 1972, 805-06).
107 A similarity could be drawn between the German and Hungarian cases: both experienced a nineteenth
century of accomplishments and rising expectations followed by a twentieth century of defeats.

234
Although the Revolution of 1848 failed, Hungarians generally framed it as a
glorified revolution that paved the way for the consolidation of the emerging Hungarian
national consciousness and that eventually led to the Compromise of 1867 and the
creation of the Dual Monarchy. For Hungarians, 1848 represented a decisive moment in
the transformation of their country—comparable to the formative moment of the
founding of the Christian Kingdom by Saint Stephen around the year 1000 A.D. 108 For
those who wanted to frame a glorious event in modern Hungarian history, the 1848
Revolution, like most revolutions, provided a great symbol and myth (Bihari 2006a, 53).
The revolution was so malleable that liberals, revolutionaries and nationalists could all
find something in the revolution and all could frame it in a manner that vindicated their
ideologies and aspirations. It is no easy task to evaluate the Revolution and its outcome:
Hungarians resisted, withstood their grounds, and performed bravely against their
adversaries; they fought longer than any other nationality; and they fought valiantly
against two fearsome tyrannies and military powers: the Russian Romanovs and the
Austrian Habsburgs. True, they were eventually defeated—but only after Russian armies
intervened. This was a near-run. The revolution boosted the Hungarian elites‘ and the
mass public sense of self-confidence. 109 Even after their victory over the Hungarians, the
Austrians were careful not to undo all that the Hungarians had already achieved. Indeed,
it is almost a foregone conclusion that the revolution and the war of independence led
directly to the Ausgleich (the Compromise) of 1867 (Bihari 2006a, 53). Thus, even
108 Indeed, recent public opinion polls demonstrate that Hungarians still attach glamour and glory to 1848:
March 15, the day of the 1848 Revolution, remains the most popular day in Hungary (Bihari 2006a, 47).
109 Their bravery and perseverance earned them good reputation in the eyes of international public opinion
as a ―shining example of humanity‘s unquenchable thirst for individual rights and national freedom‖ (Deák
1990, 209).

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though the revolution failed in its ultimate objective, Hungarians still framed it as an
accomplishment, as part of the auspicious nineteenth century. 110
The greatest accomplishment of Hungarians in the 19 th
century was the
Compromise: the Empire became the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 111 Effectively, Hungary
gained substantial autonomy in running its affairs and in ‗claiming‘ to have a say in the
affairs of the empire. If aspirations to regional hegemony and great power status were
fictions or illusions before, the Compromise provided hope that the promise was real. It
granted Hungarians a measure of pride and a place in the sun of the empire. 112 Nationalist
Hungarian historians depicted autonomy more like independence, disregarding the fact
that other lands within the empire enjoyed some special rights (Weaver 2006, 78).
Thus, in the couple of decades preceding defeat, ―Hungarian society had become
convinced that it was Hungary‘s destiny to supplant Austria as the true center of power
both within the Habsburg Monarchy and in the region‖ (Caples 2005, 59). For those
110 There was so much commemoration of the heroic deeds of the Revolutionaries all over Hungary.
Allegedly, the most celebrated Hungarian national poet, Petofi, recited his Song to the nation ―rise up
Hungarians‖ at the steps of the national museum on March 15 th , which has become an important national
holiday. One needs only take a look at the adulation and praise heaped on Kossuth, the charismatic and
articulate leader of the revolution, to realize how gigantic his figure had been, ―our father Kossuth,‖ ―the
Moses of the Hungarians,‖ ―the Messiah of the nation,‖ and the ―new Washington‖ (Bihari 2006, 48).
Indeed, upon his death in 1894, over 75 statutes were erected to honor him, including 32 full-length figures.
Those made Bihari (2006, 48) claim that the cult of Kossuth for Hungarians resembled that of Bismarck for
Germans. Major figures of the Revolution were commemorated in public official memory, and in a variety
of vernacular forms such as folk songs and tales. Generals Klapka and Bem were celebrated for their
military accomplishments along with the 13 generals who were executed by the Austrians in Arad in
October 1849 (Brubaker and Feischmidt 2002, 706-707).
111 Although Hungary received autonomy, it had no control over foreign or military affairs and the
Monarch occasionally dissolved the parliament, cancelled elections and used otherwise extensive
privileges. For an account of the Emperors‘ extensive authority over Hungarian affairs, see Henry
Wickham Steed (1913).
112 Sir Lewis Namier (1962, 147) wrote of the period following 1867, ―the Magyar system in international
politics, a marvelous machine which through multitude of wheels and levers made one of the smallest
nations in Europe into a Great Power.‖

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Hungarians who no longer demanded complete independence, there was the hope that,
―given the county‘s geographic position and the relative homogeneity they hoped to
achieve, Hungary would in time become the dominant partner in the
monarchy…Magyarization and economic progress, predicted the publicists, would lead
to the rebirth of the empire of Matthias Corvinus, which, with its thirty million
Hungarians, would dominate the Balkans‖ (Jeszenszky 1990, 269-270).
The emerging Hungarian state began immediately to assert its sovereignty, not
only externally against Vienna, but internally against the range of ethnic minorities of
Historic Hungary. Hungarian nationalists now aimed at creating a powerful, modern,
unitary and centralized nation-state. However, given the multi-ethnic make-up of the
Hungarian state, those attempts obviously generated counter-reactions from minorities—
Romanians, Serbs, Croatians, Slovaks, and Transylvanians (Brubaker and Feischmidt
2002, 705). After the Compromise, most of the Slav minorities fell under the hegemony
of the Hungarian government and its national assertiveness; naturally, most were not
comfortable with or receptive to Magyar brazenness and hegemonic aspirations.
Minorities thus strove to gain their own independence in turn. Even before the
Compromise, a major shortcoming of the Hungarian revolution, and probably a major
cause of its failure, had been the unwillingness of the revolution leaders to grant national
rights to the minorities living within the boundaries of Hungary; such minorities
subsequently supported Vienna‘s efforts for suppressing the Hungarian revolution; they
simply wanted to ―protect their rights against the encroachments of Hungarian liberal
nationalism‖ (Weaver 2006, 39).

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Indeed, instead of building on the liberalism of Count Istvan Szechenyi (1791-
1860), the Hungarian ruling classes dragged Hungary into an era of reaction,
conservatism and ethnic self-assertion. A major manifestation of those leanings was
observed in the policies of Magyarization 113 (Congdon 1974, 302). Language policies are
‗identity‘ policies: A spokesperson for the Hungarian Liberal Party offered a
straightforward justification for the policies of Magyarization: that of citizenship and
loyalty to the state. ―Since patriotism is inconceivable without a common language, our
task must be to create one . . . What we expect from them [minorities] is not only that
they speak the Magyar vernacular but that they start to feel like Magyars themselves‖
(Cohen 2007, 263). Magyarization policies were meant to ‗transform‘ other minorities
into Magyars and to even instill in them feelings of being Magyars. 114
The Hungarian belief in the superiority of their Magyar language over other
languages is another indicator of inflated national self-image. Although it is true that
every linguistic community makes similar claims in principle, the difference in Hungary
lies in the policies enacted; that is, those beliefs were not mere bragging but rather
determined policies aimed at imposing Magyar on other ethnicities within the Hungarian
realm. 115 In a multi-ethnic country, where Magyars are a bit over 50% of the population,
113 Language reform began when the Austrian Empire tried to impose German as the national language of
the Empire, as specified in the Language Decree of 1784. Hungarian nobility objected intensely and
rejected the new decree. Afterwards, Hungarians began their efforts at enlivening and reforming their
language and using it as an instrument of national consciousness (Gal 2001, 161).
114 Even Ministers often preached that speaking Magyar was a ―holy moral commandment‖ and that one
must become Magyar not only in name but in substance and soul in order to ―live on Hungarian soil, eat
Hungarian bread, and enjoy the protection of Hungarian laws‖ (Deme 1984, 634).
115 There were serious efforts by Hungarian governments since mid 1870s to Magyarize the population;
school education was a prime arena for such policies. For example, the government demanded that all
school teachers demonstrate competence in Magyar before employment in public schools. Magyar was
made a subject in higher forms of elementary and secondary schools. The government even asked non-

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policies of Magyarization posed special difficulties and stoked fears and created
insecurities; after all, the major purpose of such policies was ‗homogenizing‖ the
population, which implied eradicating the cultural markers of other minorities. 116
Essential to Hungarian nationalism, whose overall thrust was expansionism and selfassertion,
was the Magyarization of cultural and national life, which also implied denationalizing
non-Magyar ethnic minorities (Deme 1984, 632).
Even liberal conceptions of language and nationality had their shortcomings:
liberals wanted Hungarian to be the official and unifying language, while allowing
minorities only the rights to use theirs in the private sphere; however, the ―idea of the
monolingual nation of Joseph II and the French Revolution is easy to detect here.‖
Szechenyi 117 mentioned in his presidential address of 1842 to the Academy of Arts and
Letters that linguistic Magyarization would naturally provoke other nationalities; instead,
the Magyars‘ primary task should be the acquisition of a superior civilization, which in
turn would attract other nationalities (Denes 1993, 840-841). Notice that even such a
benign proposition implied that Hungarians were either superior or should be superior to
others and that others should follow the example set by Magyars. A liberal conception
still indicated a high degree of self-esteem that treated other minorities as potential
targets for Magyarization and Magyars as the carriers of the mission of civilizing others.
Magyar schools to make Magyar a required subject in their curriculum and even withheld subsidies from
schools that refused to comply. Eventually, by 1914, 78% of primary schools and 90% of secondary
schools in Hungary used Magyar as the primary language of instruction (Cohen 2007, 262).
116 Although formally, there was a supposedly ‗liberal‘ nationality law of 1868 that did guarantee rights to
individuals to speak their own languages in elementary and secondary schools, in communicating with
government and in religious practices; in practice, the picture was different. The Law, for example, did not
recognize national groups as collective political entities.
117 A politician, theorist, writer, reformer (1791-1860) celebrated as one of the greatest statesmen of
Hungarian history.

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We will see that this idea of cultural superiority will be invoked in educational policies
and propaganda campaigns after defeat. Some writers, for example, even urged the use of
coercion and the power of the state to impose Magyar on other ethnic groups.
Magyarization policies were justified by resorting to another set of self-glorifying myths,
such as the historic rights of Magyars in the crown lands of St. Stephen, and even by the
right of conquest where some writers went as far as quoting the example of the Romans
who coerced the use of Latin upon the conquered populations (Deme 1984, 634-35). The
condescending attitudes were apparent in all those policies and the ideas that underpinned
them. 118 Towards the end of the 19 th century, Hungary continued its achievements as it
attained significant economic progress; its population size had increased by 34% and
industrialization was advancing steadily (Gluck 1980, 131). Advanced communications,
economic growth, prosperity and increasing literacy rates changed the backward nature of
Hungary, transforming Budapest into a cosmopolitan center of over a million
inhabitants—larger than that of Belgrade, Zagreb and Sofia. ―Modernization provided the
sinews whereby an emerging intelligentsia felt encouraged to revive purported past
greatness, matching the national self-assertiveness of larger nations to the west.‖ The
acquisition of autonomy and partnership in the Empire provided the political framework
and institutional structure for the dissemination of such ideas, which drew on the image
118 The articles written in Tudomanyos Gyiijteme'ny contributed to the creation of a nationalistic climate;
government officials recognized the significance of those writings and admitted that they shaped education
policies. Some arguments from those writings were quoted directly in the Diet; even police officials from
Vienna recognized the significance of those writings and the centrality of this journal in promoting
patriotism and generating ‗patriotic bigotry‖ and went as far as blaming the journal for the whole trend of
Magyarization that took hold of Hungarians (Deme 1984, 635).

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of Hungary as a great medieval state, a major player in European affairs before
Hungarian loss in Mohacs in 1526. There also emerged a small circle of Hungarian
Balkanists who emphasized the fact that the Croatian Kingdom had been incorporated
into the realm of the Hungarian Crown and that Medieval Hungary laid claims to Bosnia
and Dalmatia and tenaciously fought the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans (Okey 2002,
234-235).
Indeed, in the year 1896 Hungarians celebrated, with much fanfare, the country‘s
foundation, the one thousandth anniversary of ―the Conquest‖ of the Carpathian Basin.
They held a spectacular national exhibition that impressed local and foreign visitors
(Jeszenszky 1995, 101).
Intoxicated with the heady wine of nationalism, they seemed almost to believe that their
millennium prefigured the thousand-year reign of Christ prophesied in the book of
Revelation. Public officials loudly proclaimed Hungary to be the best of all possible
worlds and extolled the virtues of patriotism in the most extravagant terms. Publicists
eulogized the Hungarian national genius and lamented that all of Eastern Europe was not
ruled by Magyars. The most enthusiastic patriots confidently predicted yet another
thousand years of national glory (Congdon 1974, 302).
―Symptomatic of this illusory ‗Great Power‘ status was the spate of monumental
building projects planned for the millennial celebrations of 1896‖ (Caples 2005). Those
included grand statutes in Heroes‘ Square, Saint Stephen‘s Basilica and the spectacular
and large neo-Gothic parliament. The Millennium Exhibition in the City Park celebrated
with grand splendor the historic accomplishments of Hungarians over a thousand year
period in the Carpathian Basin. However, this didn‘t‘ go well with the ethnic minorities,
who sensed ‗arrogance,‘ ‗grandiosity,‘ disrespect and condescension towards their own
existence. The Exhibition ―juxtaposed a vision of the heroic Magyar past alongside an

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unflattering portrayal of the nationalities and their assigned place in the hierarchy of the
Kingdom.‖ Journalists and writers contributed to this frenzy of expectations, selfcongratulations
and the vision of Hungary as a great power. The ultranationalist
journalist, Jenő Rákosi (1842-1929), spoke of an ―empire of thirty million Magyars,‖ at a
time when Hungary‘s total population barely exceeded twenty million, including
Croats—while ethnic Magyars numbered only around ten million‖ (Caples 2005, 59).
Celebration is not the issue here nor the narrative for most nations have some
version of a ‗manifest destiny‘ and most have their own imaginings of a glorious past;
however, ―it was a foolish luxury for the Hungarians, in their politically and
geographically exposed position, to alienate the people with whom they had lived for
centuries in pursuit of illusory national goals. This attitude distorted political thinking,
diminished the nation‘s prestige abroad, and, in the long run, proved very detrimental‖
(Jeszenszky 1990, 270). Recall that Hungary had not become a fully independent nation
yet. Indeed, such imaginings of the past and aspirations for the future were far from
reality. Grandiose dreams and aspirations would soon be crushed. Defeat, and the cult of
irredentism that emerged afterwards, the radical nationalist trends that dominated
Hungarian society, and the revisionist foreign policies that made Hungary an ally of Nazi
Germany, should be understood in light of those inflated national self-images,
exaggerated expectations of a glorious future and inflated hopes of a grand state and
empire.

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It wasn‘t easy in this environment to redefine Hungarian nationalism as this meant
a clash with the dominant classes. 119 This did not imply, however, that there were no
attempts to redefine the content of Hungarian nationalism and its objectives. Nationalist
reformers (at the turn of the 19 th and the beginnings of the 20 th centuries), who were
referred to as radicals, articulated a vision that was both humane and progressive but
which still suffered from limitations and debilitating compromises. This radical outlook,
notwithstanding its progressive elements, shared commonalities with the conservative
vision, first and foremost among them was the belief in the ―concept of the political and
cultural hegemony of the Magyars within a centralized Hungarian state‖ (Gluck 1980,
136-37). Radicals did not ignore the problematic of the minorities but they simply treated
it as a question of economic grievances, a cultural and administrative matter—not as a
national or ethnic problem—and thus stripped it of its political nature. For such a
problem, there was always the standard recommendation: economic reforms would
119 A serious question has to be asked about the fate of liberalism in Hungary and the impact it had on
policies and the kind of nationalism that emerged before and after the war and why Hungarian nobility
concepts of nationalism won the day. Hungary‘s social and economic structure that prevailed in the 19 th
century fit the overall pattern of ―Central and East European type of social development,‖ where the
conflict between the ‗aristocratic-feudalistic‘ and the ‗bourgeois-capitalistic‘ social forces failed to produce
a definitive outcome of victory for either side. Instead, what emerged was a hybrid society that somehow
retained the dominance of the gentry and the aristocratic classes and implied the absence of a powerful and
coherent middle class, which in turn led to the weakening of the emerging trends of liberalism (Vardy
1976, 209). A unique feature of Magyar nationalism was, therefore, its identification with the cultural,
social and political supremacy of the Hungarian nobility: The national ideal and myth ―had been associated
with the chivalrous exploits of the Magyar nobility, who were portrayed as the chief protectors of national
existence against foreign incursions.‖ Any attack on the privileged position of the upper classes was
perceived as an attack on the sacred values of Hungarian traditions. Up till this point, Hungarian
nationalism ―meant the hegemony of the historic classes as well as hostility to the nationalities‖ (Gluck
1980, 136). The Hungarian celebrated poet, Ady, expressed this tragedy of the conflict between liberalism
and progress in 1903 when he wrote that ―the pursuit of national rights and the fate of liberalism find
themselves in opposing positions‖ (cited in Gluck 1980, 135). It was this class, the ―bourgeois gentry class‖
which dominated the country‘s politics after the 1867 compromise and which also exercised hegemonic
influence on the cultural and intellectual development of the nation; but this class also experienced a shift
from mid-nineteenth century liberalism—with all its limitations in the Hungarian particular context—
towards the ―pseudo-liberalism of the turn of the century‖ (Vardy 1976, 210).

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improve the lot of minorities and demonstrate to them that their resentment was caused
by economic exploitation and injustice and not by the cultural hegemony of the Magyars.
Jaszi, a major Hungarian nationalist leader, himself spoke of transforming Hungary from
a ‗unilingual class rule‖ into a ―multilingual democracy‖ but ―under the peaceful cultural
hegemony of the Magyars‖ (Gluck 1980, 136-37). Thus, for the radicals, nationalism and
progress were intimately related to the fate of Magyars in the new state, ―whom they
considered the most politically and culturally advanced group in the Danube basin (Gluck
1980, 136-37). When other nationalities rebelled against Hungarian hegemonic enterprise
and won the battle, ―the answer was to flaunt Hungarian cultural superiority. If historic
Hungary was dismembered, the answer was that the formerly existing political unit was
greater than itself, it was a unit formed by nature itself (Gero 2008, 43).
Finally, I would explain how historiographers viewed Hungarian history. István
Deák (1992, 1041) wrote that ―it is no accident that, at the moment these lines are being
written [1992], the prime minister, the foreign minister, the minister of defense, three
deputy ministers, the president of the parliament, and a good many deputies of newly
democratic Hungary are all professional historians.‖ Probably, few other nations have as
many historians/politicians. Smith (1983) argued that public intellectuals play a crucial
role in delineating a nation‘s self-image. Mendeloff (2008, 35) mentioned that historical
memories independently shape ―perceptions and policies in ways beyond mere analogical
reasoning and misapplication of historical lessons.‖ Similarly, (Shimko 1994) argued that
fantastical and mythologized conceptions of history are a major source of images and
ideas that shape behavior in profound ways. If historical narratives are sufficiently
internalized, they would become part of the political culture of the nation and its foreign

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policy objectives. Historians in Hungary were among the most vocal intellectuals who
propagated national myths and glorious collective memories. Hungary presents a case
study of historical memories constraining political behavior. A student of the question of
Hungarian historiography, Emma Lederer, (cited in Vardy 1976, 208-09) maintained that
a major quality that dominated Hungarian historiography of the dualist era had been the
dominance of Magyar nationalism over historical studies and a reinvigorated emphasis on
the idea of a ―Hungarian Empire,‖ and on a ―pre-destined Hungarian preeminence in the
Carpathian basin.‖ This should not be surprising: given that Hungarian liberalism was
really shallow and Hungarian society was gentry-dominated, historical scholarship must
mirror this dominance; that is, ―Hungarian historiography was also under the ideological
influence of a gentry-oriented and nationalist social philosophy‖ (Vardy 1976, 208-09).
The observation that Hungarian historians of the dualist era had an ―exaggerated
emphasis on the historical justification of Magyar national hegemony within the borders
of historic Hungary‖ is generally considered valid by most current historiographers
(Vardy 1976, 211). Hungarian historians applied the concept of a Hungarian ―political
nation‖ which was created by Eotvos and Deak during the 1860s, not to the past but
extended it to the present and the future. The concept was anathema to other minorities as
it blatantly implied the negation of the existence and rights of other ethnicities and an
express desire on the part of the Magyars for hegemonic existence within the kingdom
(Vardy 1976, 208-210; 212-213). Nationalist history was not the only kind of history
written; however, ―at least as far as the public was concerned,‖ the most dominant was
the ―national romantic school, characterized by a maniacal insistence on Hungarian
greatness.‖ This type of histories resonated with public sentiments and was congruent

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with ―Hungary‘s post-1900 politics, which aimed at complete independence from Austria
and the creation of a Great Hungarian Empire‖ (Deák 1992, 1047).
In this section, I will say few words on Hungarian historiography during the
interwar period to point out the continuity of the same self-images that prevailed in the
nineteenth century. The function of Hungarian historiographers during the interwar
period was to instill a belief in the injustice done at Trianon and to propagandize the
necessity of revising the borders to re-establish historic Hungary. Historians became busy
providing historical evidence in support of the Hungarian perspective; their revisionism,
indeed, was a mirror reflection of the society they came from (Vardy 1976, 56). This
revisionist worldview was adopted by government officials, especially the minister of
education, Count Kuno Klebelsberg, who also served as the President of the Hungarian
Historical Association beginning in 1917. In Peter Pastor‘s (2000, 108) words,
Klebelsberg‘s dual role, as a government official and as a historian, ―clearly indicated the
intimate relationship between politics and interwar historiography.‖ Klebelsberg had set
out to disseminate new political ideas believing that historians were in a position to
transmit those ideas to the public. 120
120 Around the second half of the 1920s, Count Klebelsberg made public his philosophy of national and
cultural renewal, which he called ―neo-nationalism,‖ and which, he hoped, would imbue the disillusioned
Hungarians with fresh ideas and energies to pursue their national goals and to erase the debilitating effects
of Trianon. In an article in the daily, Pesti Napló on January 1, 1928, he wrote, “[...] the national feeling
and idea which I am trying to nurture through Hungarian schools, I have to call neo-nationalism. [...]
Hungarian nationalism has lost its main content, and therefore new goals must be set before the old
sentiment. [...] we want to be an educated and well-to-do nation, and therefore more substantial
(fajsúlyosabb) than the nations surrounding us...‖. Thus, the minister of education who initiated serious
educational reforms still held views that depicted Hungarians as ‗superior‘ to their neighbors; indeed, a
major objective of the regeneration was to ‗attract‘ minorities to Hungarian Exceptionalism and superiority.
This was why he repeatedly emphasized Hungarian cultural superiority as a way of wining back the lost
populations: Regenerating Hungarian culture would eventually ensure the ‗leading role‖ of Hungarians
among the various peoples of the Carpathian (Caples 2005, 62-63). Neo-nationalism refocused the attention
of Hungarians on the nation instead of the state—since one third of Hungarians now live under the control

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The general framework that dominated historical investigations after Trianon
were characterized—as defined recently by the historian Romsics (2001)—by ―imperial
thinking,‖ which called upon Hungary to retrieve all her lost territories, the Crown lands
of St. Stephan, because of its ―millenary, historical right‖ that emanated from the
Hungarian rule over the Carpathian region (Bottoni 3-4).
We can see here the continuity with pre-war historiography and with the same
ideas that underpinned Hungarian beliefs in their superiority over other minorities and
their ‗natural‘ rights to rule over all of historic Hungary. A Titular Bishop of the Catholic
Church, János Karácsonyi, insisted that only Hungarians had full rights in the Carpathian
by virtue of their conquest of a no man‘s land. Count Albert Apponyi marshaled
unabashedly, in support of total revision, the arguments of Hungarian cultural superiority
and Hungarian impressive political skills, which endowed them with a civilizing mission
and empowered them as the protectors of Christianity (Romsics 2001). Count Apponyi
(1928, 3-20) further likened the Hungarian Kingdom to that of pax Britannica and pax
Romana, stressing the multiethnic character of the Hungarian Kingdom and implying that
chaos and instability would wrack the region unless Historic Hungary was restored. He
contended that ―humanity‖ would be poorer without Hungarian contributions and that no
small nation ―stands above us‖ and ―only a few can ―equal us.‖
Historians were busy innovating arguments, mostly unrealistic and ahistoric. One
such argument stated that the Saint Stephen State Concept emphasized the harmonious
and peaceful coexistence of the various ethnic groups within the state; thus, proponents of
of other states. In light of the loss of political preeminence, Hungarians needed to reassert their cultural preeminence
in the Carpathian region (Vardy 1983, 34).

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this argument proposed the establishment of some form of a federation of ethnicities in
which Hungarians, nonetheless, enjoyed a status of primus inter pares. Benign as this
might seem, it was adopted even by the Fascist Arrow Cross leader, Ferenc Szálasi
(Romsics 2001).
I hypothesized that a nation with inflated self-image is more likely to be receptive
to radicalism and more likely to become aggressive when confronted with defeats and
frustrations as opposed to a nation with tempered national self-image, which is more
likely to respond to defeats with prudence and reconciliation. Hungarians had very
positive self-images, inflated indeed, which comprised self-glorifying myths and national
superiority claims. Their dreams of grandeur couldn‘t be mistaken as evidenced by their
historiography, celebrations of the millennium, treatment of minorities, shallow
liberalism, hopes of replacing the departing Austrian Empire with the more deserving
Hungarians, their theory of the Holy Crown and their sense of Exceptionalism.
Inflated national self-images motivated nations throughout history and pushed
them towards adventurism and risky behavior and led them to overestimate their
strengths and underestimate those of their adversaries—an outcome that was clearly
evident in Hungarian attitudes towards minorities and their beliefs in their destiny to
dominate the Carpathian and to replace the Austrians. Historians in Hungary were major
proponents of the inflated national self-image and had their share in inflating self-esteem;
even liberals, or radicals, at the turn of the century, still believed in the superiority of
Hungarians, or at least, advocated a status of first among equals, or the big brother. 121
121 It is true that all nations believe themselves to be unique and distinct but not necessarily superior to
other nations or entitled to supremacy and domination; an inflated or exaggerated national self-image is
more likely to be found when a nation overemphasizes its uniqueness relative to others. In such cases, elites

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Defeat generates a negative impact on self-esteem, for wars are the ultimate tests
of a nation‘s mettle, its resolve and worth. Prior to defeat, there were hopes and dreams
of achievements and promises of prosperity and grandeur; after defeat, there would be
frustration, anger, shame, humiliation and guilt. This is particularly pronounced for a
nation that has an inflated national self-image, for a nation that hedged its bets on
winning a war, achieving grandeur and attaining a place in the sun: Hungary is an
exemplary case. Throughout the nineteenth century, there were sustained hopes that
Hungary, after becoming a partner in the Empire, would eventually replace the
weakening Austrians as the dominant partner. The Hungarian sense of cultural superiority
was repeatedly emphasized; their rights to rule over other minorities in the Carpathian
were not doubted. Their celebrations of their millennium offered a visual evidence of an
inflated self-image—the bombast, the fanfare, the exquisite buildings and monuments—
all were vivid signs of a nation dreaming of a grandeur to come and an empire to emerge.
Imperial thinking prevailed. Their memories of the Holy Crown provided them with a
sense of exceptionalism; their belief in their one-thousand-year Kingdom was provoked
time and again by all stripes of society—the liberals and the conservatives alike—to
justify Hungarian aspirations for national superiority and hegemony. All those beliefs,
ideas, images created an environment that was easily receptive to radicalism,
adventurism, and aggression. When defeat visited, Hungarian ―egotism‖ became
seriously threatened—psychologists argued that a combination of a ‗threatened egotism‘
will propagate national myths that delegitimize others and overemphasize national values and the nation‘s
superiority. There is plenty of room for aggressive foreign policy when a nation suffers from chauvinistic
self-images.

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and inflated self-esteem is more likely to lead to aggression and risk-taking in the face of
frustrations and defeats. (Baumeister et al. 1996).
The images and discourses that the elites employ to recruit and manipulate the
masses sprout from the nation‘s repertoire of collective memories, historical narratives
and images that resonate deeply with the public. When a society undergoes a crisis, elites
develop, evoke or revive symbolic frames that ―resonate with underlying emotions,
obscured collective memories, and ostentatious national aspirations‖ (Pappas 2001).
Indeed, the most used images in interwar Hungary were those of a thousand-year-old
Kingdom, the Holy Crown, historic rights to rule the Carpathian, Magyar cultural
superiority and leadership skills. Those images resonated deeply with the public and kept
the question of irredentism alive and converted it into the most animating force of
national aspirations throughout the interwar period.
3. Political Organizations
Contrary to the fossilized party system that was dominant during the dualist
period, the post-war party system displayed an ―exceptionally heterogeneous, amorphous
aspect‖ (Berend and Ranki 1975, 458). Political parties in post-war Hungary were weak
as evidenced by the constant change in parties‘ names, the mergers that took place at
every turn in Hungarian politics, and the emergence, withering away and dissolution of
new political parties. It is indeed hard to keep track of the number of parties that emerged
and dissolved. I will focus on few major parties, such as the Social Democratic Party, the
Smallholders‘ Party and the Party of Unity, that played decisive roles in Hungarian
politics. Their stories were typical and should provide a reasonable idea about the status
of parties in interwar Hungary.

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When the Károlyi government realized its failure and incapacity to rule in mid
1919, it resigned and supported the formation of a new government led by the Social
Democratic Party (SDP). The left-wing of the SDP began negotiations with communist
leaders hoping to reach an agreement on future cooperation; the events that were
unfolding, especially the Vyx note, 122 facilitated the agreement among the two parties.
Subsequently, the two workers‘ parties signed an agreement for merger and cooperation
in forming a government (Nagy 1975, 433). The new party was named the Socialist Party
of Hungary. However, after the Communists (Kun regime) failed to consolidate their
power, the Socialists would re-form and the right wing within the party would come to
dominate its politics. Eventually, the party would become a ‗loyal‘ opposition for the
Horthy regime. This was an example of the ease with which parties merged and then
fractured, how certain wings dominated the party machine only to be overturned and
taken over by a different wing—sometimes its polar opposite. The fast pace with which
those behaviors occurred was also indicative of the fragility of those political parties that
underwent such experiences.
Despite its undeniable authoritarian features, the Horthy regime retained
functioning parliamentarism, multiple-party system, and ensured a certain degree of
freedom of expression and political activities. There were regular elections throughout
the interwar period and several political parties—representing various shades of political
opinion and ideologies from the extreme right to the left. However, ―most of these parties
went through various mergers, splits, and re-mergers as dictated by their ideological
122 This was the note issued on March 21, 1919, by the Entente military representative to the Hungarians
demanding more and more territorial concessions.

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convictions and goals, or by the personal and national aspirations of their leaders‖ (Vardy
1983, 27-32). Juhasz (1979, 38) similarly observed that during this period, ―parties
merged, fused, and were reorganized.‖ The phenomenon of creating, dissolving and
merging parties became a daily practice in Hungarian politics (Poloskei 1980, 18-20).
Many of the parties that emerged (and dissolved) were small, short-lived and centered on
their leaders‘ personalities. Conservative parties, especially those on the right, used labels
such as ―Christian,‖ and/or ―National,‖ while those on the left labeled themselves
―Liberal,‖ ―Democratic,‖ or Socialist.‖
In the elections of 1919, there were two major parties competing for power—in
addition to many other smaller parties and organizations. One major party was the
Christian National Unity Party, itself a fusion of two major groups/parties: the Christian
National Party, comprised of pro-Habsburg big landowners, and the Christian Social
Party, a party of petty bourgeoisie. Despite their merger/fusion, the two factions remained
active and the Party itself retained its two faces: the legitimist and the Socialist character.
Similarly, the other major party went through fusions and merger. The National
Smallholders‘ Party, headed by Istvan Nagyatadi Szabo, was basically a party of well-todo
peasants but with considerable popularity among the peasants. However, the large
landowning circles of the National Hungarian Economic Association, headed by Gyula
Rubinek, organized a countervailing group called the Agricultural party. The two parties
merged but the new party nevertheless retained its twofold character: a peasant wing and

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a large landowning one. 123
These two parties constituted what could be called the
Christian Bloc (Berend and Ranki 1975, 457).
When Istvan Bethlen, the Prime Minister who would dominate Hungarian politics
from 1921 till 1931, decided that he needed a government party, he turned his eyes
towards the Smallholders‘ Party. He joined the party on January 5, 1921 only to be
followed by a large number of non-party politicians. The take-over was remarkable in
that ‗outsiders‘ could join a party en mass, neutralize its leadership, assume key positions
in the party, and eventually take it over. This was also unique in that the ideology, and the
interests that the Smallholders‘ Party represented, were not identical with Bethlen‘s
political beliefs. It was only a short time before Bethlen exercised complete control over
the party machine (Berend and Ranki 1975, 469). On February 23, 1922, these two
parties, the conservative nationalist Christian Unity Party and the Smallholders‘ Party,
merged to become the Catholic-Christian Smallholders‘, Peasant, and Bourgeois Party,
better known as the Party of Unity. For the next two decades, the Party of Unity that
Bethlen created, served--sometimes under different names—as the government party.
The party‘s name—the Party of Unity—is unrepresentative for the party was far from
being a monolithic and tight organization; instead it was an amalgam of various smaller
parties and interest groups, each with its distinct interests and policy goals. The party
included a wide range of social forces: agrarians, legitimists, free election royalists,
radical revisionists as well as proponents of compromise and moderation in foreign
policy (Vardy 1998, 28-33). Despite this, the Party of Unity—as the government party—
123 The Smallholders‘ Party will soon undergo another merger

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was able to stabilize the volatile Hungarian domestic political scene, at least in the first
few years during the consolidation period (1921-1927).
The Party of Unity began splintering in the early 1930s. In June 1932, Zoltan
Mesko left the party and founded the Hungarian National Socialist Peasant and Workers
Party—this was the first fascist party to follow a fascist model in ideology and
organization (Ormos 1990, 331). When the radical leader Gömbös, who had a long career
in government, the governing party and the opposition, disagreed with Prime Minister
Bethlen in 1923, he, along with some deputies who supported him, left both the
government and the Party of Unity. He formed a new racist party called the Party of
Hungarian Independence (Ormos 1990, 321). However, Regent Horthy insisted that
Gömbös retain his seat in the elections of 1926, despite Bethlen‘s objections. Eventually,
Gömbös returned to the party as a cabinet minister of defense (1926), a remarkable
achievement for somebody who was so radical in his views. Gömbös eventually would
succeed in taking over the Party of Unity and in changing its name into the Party of
National Unity in early 1930s. Thus, leaders leave parties, establish new parties that
wither away, only to return to their older party, while all along maintaining their
ideologies. After Gömbös weakened, his followers never disappeared. They appeared ―in
the many new fascist parties, organized along foreign models, which multiplied,
dissolved, regrouped, and reorganized constantly after 1932‖ (Ormos 1990, 336).
Throughout the twenties, the Smallholders‘ Party lost its relevance and almost
became nonentity as the ―government party of István Bethlen succeeded in liquidating
and incorporating the [it].‖ However, the Smallholders‘ Party would re-emerge in 1930

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and its influence would grow and extend to the urban middle class and the professionals
(Nagy 1983, 9-10).
Alliances in those continually shifting grounds might seem confounding and
difficult to account for. For example, after Gömbös took over the government party in
mid 1930s, he made an alliance with the smallholders party. Bethlen, who was worried of
the further drift to extremism and fascism, vehemently objected, left the government
party, and joined the opposition. However, after 1935, the Smallholders‘ party broke with
Gömbös and joined ranks with Bethlen. Bethlen‘s followers within the Party of National
Unity along with members of opposition parties joined ranks to create a common
platform against the Gömbös‘ government. Indeed, Gömbös himself had to confront a
sort of defection from within the extreme Right of his own party as sixty members
created their own parliamentary group/bloc—believing that Gömbös wasn‘t radical or
competent enough (Ormos 1990, 334-335).
The evidence is overwhelming of the weakness and instability of the political
parties that occupied the Hungarian political landscape in the interwar period. This
weakness implied several things: (1) parties were not confident of their capacity to
maintain their members‘ loyalties—the mushrooming of new parties, the mergers, the
changes in names all indicate the fluidity of membership loyalties; (2) new parties were
ready to emerge and compete for voters and supporters; (3) political elites could easily
resort to direct appeals to the masses using extremist discourses and thus radicalizing the
political landscape; and (4) the institutional rules that regulated the relationship between
parties and their constituents and between political parties and the state were fragile and
brittle. The weakness of political parties facilitated the radicalization of the political

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landscape especially after the expansion of political participation in the immediate
aftermath of defeat. The only party that attained semblance of strength was the United
Party of Bethlen that ruled Hungary from 1922 till 1931. But even this party was not able
to contain the rising currents of irredenta and Revanchism. The multiplicity of political
parties, their weakness and their conflicting ideologies also indicated a high degree of
ideological polarization, making it less likely for moderation to prevail.
Party weakness also meant that non-party political formations, such as the secret
and patriotic associations, militant organizations, and paramilitary groups, could have a
significant say in setting the boundaries of political discourses. In this environment of
party weakness, outbidding could easily prevail as parties would not be willing to take
moderate attitudes that might be unpopular among the masses or inconsistent with the
dominant national narrative. After Bethlen resigned from office, the extremists, who were
part of the governing party but who remained mostly latent, regained their strength and
were able to maneuver their way to the top leadership of the party, changing its ideology
and paving the way for the eventual drift towards an alliance with Nazi Germany.
4. The Aftermath
A. Trianon and the Psychology of Defeat
The purpose of this section is to explain and analyze the nature of Hungarians‘
reaction to their defeat and to demonstrate how intense, obsessive and haunting the idea
of loss had become, how it consumed Hungarian thinking, constrained beliefs, limited the
possibilities of reconciliation, trivialized domestic reforms, and reduced foreign policy
into a desperate quest for revisionism.

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On June 4, 1920 in the Trianon Palace in Versailles, Hungary signed the Peace
Treaty, which cost her the loss of around 70% of her territory and 60 % of her
population. 124 Historic Hungary has been mutilated, its territory reduced from 282,000
square miles to 93,000, and her population went down from 18 million to under eight. 125
The treaty reduced, ―the once proud and powerful country to a militarily and
economically weak pauper of the continent for the next two decades‖ (Szilassy 1969,
106). The Hungarian reaction to loss and defeat was intense, overwhelmingly passionate
and enduring. There was the suddenness element--all social classes, the public in general
and the elites--were shocked at the defeat and the subsequent harsh and restrictive
treaty. 126 There was the reduction in ‗status‘ from a ‗great power‘ and a key player in the
dual monarchy to a weak, mutilated and besieged state. Indeed, Hungarians themselves
had now become citizens of other countries and subject to the rule of those who were
Hungarian subjects themselves. The lost territories, especially Transylvania and Upper
Hungary, enjoyed some historical significance as areas from which great iconic
Hungarian characters, such as Matthias Corvinus and Bela Bartok, came (Bihari 2006b,
166).
124 The claims that Hungary lost around two thirds of her territory and population are exaggerated in
substance. The old, historic Hungary was multiethnic in character—unlike Germany or France, for
example. No matter that the areas taken away from Hungary were inhabited by Romanians, Slovaks, and
other nationalities, Hungarians perceived the loss of those territories ―as frustrating as if they had been
inhabited by ethnic Hungarians‖ (Romsics 2000, 90).
125 The Peace Treaty added other restrictions such as prohibition on compulsory military service, limited
the armed forces to 35,000 soldiers and imposed reparations.
126 Expressing typical shock, surprise and disbelief, a right-wing Jesuit, Bela Bangha, wrote in 1920, ―And
how suddenly did this end arrive! Five years ago, two years ago we would have laughed at anyone, even
beat up anyone predicting that Hungary in 1920 would consist of merely 14 to 20 counties instead of
63…Who could have thought that so little is needed to ruin a thousand-year-old country, a country which
had resisted Turks, Tartars and Western invaders – now being drifted to the brink of national abyss!‖ (cited
in Bihari 2006b, 166).

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Pal Teleki (1923, 3), who served as prime minister twice (1920-1921 and 1939-
1941) claimed that the effects of Trianon on Hungarians were similar to the effects of the
loss of Alsace-Lorraine on the French in 1871: both nations became united in their desire
for vengeance. 127 Hungarians perceived the Treaty to be the most serious loss that they
had suffered since the sixteenth century and called it the third great calamity that befell
their nation—after the Mongol invasion of 1241 and the Turkish conquest of 1526. They
found it difficult to resign themselves to the consequences of defeat and to live in a small,
mutilated and shrunken state (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 310). The perceived injustices that
the Trianon Treaty inflicted became the clarion call for aggressive nationalism that won
the support of the intelligentsia, petty bourgeois, peasants and even some workers (Ranki
1971, 67).
Successive governments, almost all political parties, and intellectuals repeatedly
preached the gospel of revisionism. Hungarians were deeply overwhelmed and overtaken
by the revisionist message to the extent that Western observers believed that ―the
Hungarian people were not quite sane on that subject‖ (Montgomery 1947, 54).
Hungarians became haunted by a Trianon syndrome whose most manifest sign was the
irredentist cult, 128 ―which occasionally reached astonishing proportions (Caples 2005,
127 Here is an example of the spirit of revenge nurtured in history school textbooks: ―Those who caused
WWI are mainly Russia, France and England. The past decades could not obliterate from French memories
their defeat at Sedan and their loss of Alsace, Lorraine, and Strasbourg. Ever since the entire French nation
has been fostering a spirit of revenge…After her defeat in Asia, at the hands of the Japanese, Russia was
contemplating the conquest of the Hellespont and of Constantinople. Serbia was nothing but a Russian tool
in Balkan policies. Had Russia witnessed quietly Serbia‘s humiliation at the hand of Austro-Hungary,
Serbia would have abandoned her protectress‖ (cited in Fenyes 1988, 147).
128 To understand the extent of the cult and how deeply entrenched and popular it had become, one could
only look at the commemoration of revisionism in everyday objects: ashtrays, pencil cases, national
drawing pins, irredentist watches, clothing and even advertisements for shoe polish. There were a
revisionist foot-race, playing cards, and an irredentist board game called, ―Let us regain Hungary.‖ School

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57). When the Treaty was signed, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in protest against
this injustice. Newspapers were published in black mourning margins (Bihari 2006b,
166). As a gesture of abhorrence and collective mourning, Hungarian church bells tolled
and all traffic and work stopped for ten minutes (Pastor 2000, 106). All official flags in
Hungary were lowered. 129 The slogan Nem, Nem, Soha (―No, No, Never‖) was repeated
by all societal and political stratifications and in every schoolroom for the entire interwar
period. 130 The cult was so pervasive that almost every ―historian, sociologist and political
thinker has written his own ―Trianon book‖ or a ―Trianon pamphlet.‖ Indeed, even
progressive and leftist writers, such as the leftist and cosmopolitan intellectual Oscar
Jaszi and the progressive literary critic Hugo Ignotus—both associated with progressive
journals and intellectual movements—have written on the treaty (Vardy 1998, 28).
curricula, especially history, literature and geography, were permeated with irredentist themes (Bihari
2006b,168) that emphasized the idealization of historic Hungary and the Christian national ideal. Irredentist
themes were repeatedly brought up in matriculation exams—almost one third of written matriculation
essays on history were related to irredentism. The world of music wasn‘t immune to irredentism either;
there were popular dances, plays and songs with irredentist themes (Zeidler 2002, 79-82). The humiliation
of defeat also generated a ‗genre of protest literature‘ that inundated bookshelves by the day (Fiona M.
Dow 2002).
129 They were only partially raised after Hungary recovered some of her territories, following the Munich
Conference in 1938.
130 Other slogans that were coined to cope with Trianon included ―Everything back!,‖ ―Thus it was, thus it
shall be!,‖ etc… Take another famous slogan, ―Mutilated Hungary is no country; integral Hungary is a
heavenly county‖ and you observe that the same spirit that animated pre-war Hungary was still alive and
well. One can simply detect the golden-age myth in this slogan. Indeed, slogans were selected through a
‗revisionary competition‖ (Bihari 2006b, 167). Hungarian school children had to recite the Hungarian
Credo at the beginning of each class:
I believe in one God,
I believe in one Homeland,
I believe in one divine eternal truth,
I believe in Hungary's resurrection.
Amen.

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A huge number of monuments were erected to commemorate the losses and to
remind Hungarians of their historic lands. 131 Often, Hungary was depicted as crucified
soul wearing a crown of thorns. Religious imagery was generally pervasive: a victimized
and suffering Hungary will eventually be resurrected (Caples 2005, 57-58). Hungarian
suffering was equated with that of Jesus Christ while Hungarian enemies were depicted
as devils. A famous Hungarian book, Justice for Hungary, had as its cover Hungary
crucified. The well-known writer, Ferenc Herczeg, president of the Hungarian
Revisionary League, wrote in 1932 that ―We, Hungarians are the most sorrowful people
on earth, because everything holy for us was mocked, whipped and crucified. And the
mercenaries played dice over the inheritance of our ancestors. Our nation has been buried
several times in the past, but it resurrected again on the third day‖ (cited Bihari 2006b,
167-168).
Defeat, therefore, represented a grave psychological shock and identity-shattering
experience as it unsettled the very basis of the Hungarian definition of national identity.
Historian Peter Hanak (quoted in Vardy 1983, 23-24) best expressed some of the
psychological dimensions of loss as embodied in the Treaty of Trianon:
…without examining the lasting shock impact of Trianon, we can neither approach, nor
hope to understand the Hungarian Weltanschauung and the Hungarian national
consciousness in the twentieth century…Our collapse in the war and the terms of the
Treaty of Trianon have found the nation unprepared. Everything that up to that point used
to be absolute, concrete and unambiguous was suddenly shattered. The unity of our
country and of our nation vanished, and so did all our fictitious conceptualizations, as
131 ―The most ambitious of these irredentist monuments was undoubtedly the assemblage of statues
arranged on the northern end of Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) in Budapest. Four larger-than-life
allegorical sculptures representing North, South, East and West were erected in January 1921. These were
complemented in 1928 by the unveiling of the reliquary national flag (ereklyés országzászló). A twentymeter
high flagpole emerged from a pedestal, which formed a reliquary containing soil from each of the
counties of historical Hungary. The pole was topped with a one-meter hand‖ (Caples 2005, 57-58).

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well as all historical and geographical realities…The trauma of defeat was so terribly
deep, and it shook the nation‘s life-foundations to such a degree that for years and even
for decades we could hardly expect anyone…to come up with an objective assessment of
this whole affair. After all (Trianon meant) not only the dismemberment of a nation, but
also the sudden relativization of such formerly absolute concepts as the nation and
national destiny…One can hardly be amazed, therefore, that the initial reaction was an
intense desire to revise the whole peace system….
Social psychology provides us with a useful analytical tool to understand
Hungarians‘ framing of loss and their avoidance of taking responsibility. Hungarian
passionate attachment to the ―idea‖ of St. Stephen served certain psychological functions.
In the wake of defeat, the nation became shattered, polarized and disunited: irredentism
probably remained the only unifying force at that critical moment. For one young
historian, ―revisionism was practically the only force to create national consensus in
inter-war Hungary‖ as ―it bore the functions of a socio-psychological self-therapy‖ (cited
in Bihari 2006b, 169). When a nation suffers a humiliating experience, its self-esteem is
wounded, its self-respect doubted. The group‘s social cohesion itself might become
questionable or shaky: but instead of further opening up internal cleavages and causing
further rifts, finding a perpetrator—a scapegoat—might be invaluable in restoring the
self-image and self-esteem of the group and in preserving its social coherence. Besides
offering a psychological relief from stress, scapegoating has mobilizing functions as well.
Focusing the blame on certain outside actors, domestic groups or even individuals, would
assist in mobilizing national efforts and energies to ward off perceived dangers (Pok
2006, 377). Pointing the fingers at inside enemies helps self-exoneration while pointing

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the fingers at outside enemies allows the ruling classes to divert attention from domestic
failings. 132
The social and political upheavals and convulsions that followed the defeat had a
deep psychological and ideological impact on shaping the counter-revolutionary
regime—that ruled Hungary during the interwar period—and its social basis. Instead of
turning to self-examination of the causes of the collapse, the dismemberment of historic
Hungary, and the inevitable secession of the nationalities, counter-revolutionary elites
preferred to turn-inward towards domestic scapegoats and outward towards the ill-will
and malice of neighboring countries and the Allied Powers. This narrative was appealing
for it spared the elites the painful task of national self-examination and allowed the
counter-revolutionary elites to pin down the blame for the national catastrophe on the
liberal revolution, the communist regime and the Allied Powers (Juhasz 1979, 39). 133
Scapegoats were not limited to liberal bourgeois and Communists; Jews, like in most of
132 The elections of 1920 provide us with an image of the effects of the Trianon on the national mood that
dominated Hungarian politics and campaigning at the time. The campaign was entirely ―negative in
content‖ and focused on accusations leveled against the communists, who invited the occupation of
Budapest, and on the liberal bourgeois whose pacific policies did not offer any effective resistance to the
successor states‘ mutilation of historic Hungary. Thus, the ―Communists, the Social Democrats and the
cosmopolitan liberals were deemed responsible for the crushing defeat of the country and nation‖
(Dreisziger 2003). This negative campaigning focused on finding an internal scapegoat for the calamity that
befell the nation. The framing of defeat as such discredited previous ideas and ideologies and set the
ground for the re-emergence of the older ruling classes—abetted by the occupation forces and the Allied
Powers‘ dread of Bolshevism. Perceiving the defeat this way also generated another necessity, which the
election campaign uncovered: the need to restore and maintain a ―Christian and national Hungary‖ (Markus
1998, 21).
133 This myth concealed some obvious and plain facts: the blame for the dismemberment of historic
Hungary should not be attributed to the liberal bourgeois revolution, which followed and did not cause the
collapse of the Monarchy. The desire of the nationalities for independence was part of the nationalist
sentiment for self-determination that swept Europe and was not limited to Hungary. The liberal bourgeois
government completely rejected the terms of peace that would dissolve historic Hungary; the Communist
regime indeed fought hard against various occupation forces and rejected the proposed borders. Finally, the
frontiers of Hungary were determined for the most part by the victorious parties and for rather grand
strategic reasons—creating defensible frontiers against German resurgence.

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Europe at the time, presented the eternal scapegoat; they were over-represented in both
regimes as well as in the financial, commercial and professional strata, especially in
Budapest. 134
There is also an element of escapism in fixating on historical lands and dreams.
The invoked and repeated narratives focused on providing self-absolving explanations for
the loss while at the same time insisting on the inevitable moral victory of Hungarians
over their cruel enemies. Moralizing politics moved the question of revision from the
realm of rational calculations and reason of state into the more abstract moral plane. As a
consequence, no genuine soul-searching occurred and no committed probing of the
causes of defeat and loss was undertaken.
Thus, defeat reinforced the trend of ―underdog status‖ and ―grievance politics‖
which became the language of dominant discourses (Gero 2008, 26). Fenyes (1988, 130)
observed that the ―The traditional policy of the Hungarian nation has been the policy of
continuous complaint.‖ Although Hungary had been at the forefront in defending
European civilization and the Christian faith, Europe had always let down Hungary; the
dismemberment of Hungary was just the latest example (Juhasz 1979, 52). The loss, the
feelings of betrayal by Europe, the same Europe that Hungarians claim to have protected
134 Pal Teleki, who served as a Prime Minister from 1919-1921 and again from 1939 till 1941, two
particularly crucial periods in interwar Hungary, attributed Hungary‘s defeat in the war and its subsequent
collapse to the ―victory of Jewish influence over Christianity in all national spheres.‖ Thus, the remedy
would be to solidify the Christian national character of Hungary and to limit Jewish influence in various
spheres of Hungarian social and political life. Dezso Zsabo (1879-1945), one of the most influential
Hungarian writers in the 1920s, attributed Hungary‘s defeat to, among other factors, ―immoral, wild Jewish
imperialism.‖ Gyula Szekfu (1883-1955), published the most influential account of Hungary‘s turmoil in
the 1920s,Three Generations, in which he saw defeat as an outcome of the ―mirage of Western liberalism‖
that attracted a wide swath of the Hungarian elites. This attraction to Western liberalism in turn allowed
Jews to have influence in the internal affairs of Hungary (Pok 2006, 380-381).

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against the invading Turks, had led the Hungarians to some radical reactions, such as the
emergence and rising popularity of the Turanian Movement—an expression of the search
for a totally new social and political identity, a blunt rejection of European identity and
its Christian heritage and a quest for historical roots in the old pre-Christian Magyar
traditions and values. Another consequence was what Vardy (1983) referred to as the
―new paganism‖; that is, the radical irredentist and fascist movements that supposedly
offered a solution to all of Hungary‘s ills.
The revisionist arguments reflected other subtle psychological dynamics
regarding Hungarian collective self-image: Hungarians, at least since the Dualist system,
have been ruling other nationalities. After defeat, roles had been reversed. Minorities that
were Hungarian subjects had now become the rulers of Hungarians themselves. This
caused great indignation. Integral revision implied the return to old tradition of placing
other nationalities under Hungarian rule once again. Gero (2008, 41) suggested that when
the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, Hungarians should have rejoiced as they were
now free to have their own state, unencumbered by the Austrian yoke or the presence of
restless nationalities. However, they ―experienced the coming of independence as a
disaster‖ because the axioms of Hungarian nationalism were not realized: historic
Hungary and its territorial integrity were shattered and became a remembrance. It
necessarily followed that Hungarian supremacy—relative to the nationalities they ruled—
disappeared as well (Gero 2008, 41-42).
What was the overall effect of this reaction on policymaking and to what extent
did this nationalist, obsessive reaction to loss pre-destine Hungary to become a Nazi ally?

264
To what extent did this type of reaction constrain political developments, the articulation
of alternative visions for Hungary and more conciliatory foreign policies?
Describing the atmosphere of propaganda and the setting of discourse limits in
Hungary in the 1920s and 1930s, Fenyes (1988, 8), a parliament member and a historian,
wrote in 1935 that ―not only is it dangerous to speak against revisionism; it is dangerous
to even omit to make daily revisionist professions of faith.‖ It is indeed hard to find a
Hungarian political party, association or social organization that accepted the idea of loss.
This preoccupation with revision generated a tendency to blame all Hungary‘s social,
political and economic ills on the treaty and its gross injustices. That is why Hungary‘s
real problems were not ―effectively debated and solved‖ in the interwar period
(Dreisziger 2003, 34-35; Fiona M. Dow 2002). Treating defeat as an opportunity for
learning and an occasion for national renewal were not permitted in the frenzied
environment of revisionist nationalism. As Zeidler (2002, 71) mentioned, ―Pain over the
loss and a desire for revenge permeated political, economic and social discourse.‖ Those
sentiments were emphasized by those institutions that control public speech—state
institutions and social organizations of the extreme and vocal right and they resonated
deeply with the prevalent public sentiments.
Eventually, all social strata and all political parties rejected the treaty and
demanded its revision. Those on the left, the Social Democrats, and the democratic
liberals based their demands for revision on ethnic lines—territories that were
overwhelmingly inhabited by Magyars should be restored. But, this moderation was
costly and led to accusations of betrayal of the national sentiment. The conservatives and
the radical right, on the other hand, insisted on the restoration of historic, pre-war

265
Hungary (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 314-315; Romsics, 2000, 94). Any voices that could
propose an alternative foreign policy course would be dampened; any suggestion of
moving away from revisionism would be called treason. Alternative voices will thus be
called deviant and treated as harmful to national unity. Perceiving defeat as a humiliating
experience and a cause for revenge diverted national efforts from the concept of the state
to that of the nation—which hampered state-building efforts and squandered national
energies and resources on retrieving an irretrievable past.
Concluding Remarks on Trianon
The major problem that struck Hungarian elites and masses was their incapacity
to resign themselves to the consequences of defeat and the reality of loss. The image of
an old, historic Hungary was so entrenched in collective memories and linked to future
national aspirations of regional hegemony, greatness, and pride, that it wasn‘t really
possible to give it up in favor of a more realistic assessment of what is possible or not.
The Trianon syndrome and its rituals further exacerbated the situation and rendered the
mere idea of inching away from the dream of St. Stephan Hungary treason. In the words
of Vardy (1983, 39-40), ―At the beginning of this period, the Hungarian reaction to
Trianon was emotional, haphazard, misdirected and outright wrong.‖ It is true that
Hungarian leaders tried to ‗persuade‘ world leaders to revise the treaty, but they also kept
an eye on possibilities of military alliances that would improve their chances of revision
by force if needs be.
Indeed, it is telling that most of the arguments that the Hungarians marshaled to
support their revisionist cause rested on some historic claims--ignoring the fact that the

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principle of self-determination, so popular and compelling at the time, lay at the heart of
the justification of the dismemberment of Hungary. This counterproductive attitude was
an outcome of the nature of beliefs dominant at the time in Hungary and that constrained
the possibilities of a more rational approach. The same principle of national selfdetermination
that was used to support the secession of the minorities could have been
used by Hungarians to present a more compelling and humane case by pointing out the
fundamental injustice of placing a large number of ethnic Hungarians in other states, thus
flagrantly violating the noble principle itself. There is no guarantee that such an argument
would have delivered a more positive outcome—the dismemberment was done for
strategic reasons and promises made to nationalities during the war. The shock of loss
was such an overwhelming and shattering experience that Hungarians felt powerless to
pursue a path of compromise (Vardy 1983, 39-40). ―The problem was rather that
Hungarian policy makers, obsessed with the desire to recover Transylvania, went beyond
the limits of prudence and common sense‖ (Balogh 1983, 44). Framing defeat and loss in
such a manner had debilitating effects on possibilities of recovery and reconciliation; it
ruled out alternative paths. The ultimate effect was to render Hungary an ally of Nazi
Germany and to push her down the ruinous path of war.
B. Domestic Radicalism/Revisionist Movements
Revisionism began to rear its head once the dismemberment of historic Hungary
appeared to be inevitable, and that was even prior to the Bolshevik interlude. University
students and middle class intellectuals and refugees would gather at meetings of the
―Awakening Magyars‖ to express their outrage, frustration and disillusionment at the
coming loss; some even denied that Hungary had been defeated and began to blame the

267
liberals, pacifists, Jews, socialists and Free Masons for the catastrophe (Vambery 1942,
481).
In the immediate aftermath of the occupation of Transylvania and Upper
Hungary, a number of small and independent political and military organizations were
established by old regime politicians, local officials and demobilized officers for the
purpose of resisting the occupation forces. Whereas the Károlyi government realized
bitterly that some Hungarian territories would have to be lost, these radical groups
rejected such an idea and held on to the belief that all historic Hungary must be kept
intact. However, their resistance was weak and fragile since they lacked the
organizational and material resources necessary to put up a sustained fight against the
much superior armies of the successor states; they also realized that their movement
would soon falter without a radical government willing to stand behind them. Ultimately
they had to withdraw to Budapest and other inner cities where they joined other radical
groups in denouncing the Károlyi‘s regime perceived collaboration and pacifism.
Eventually, they resorted to direct mobilization of the conservative and patriotic elements
in the country against the weak regime of Károlyi. Several social groups formed the core
of the counterrevolutionary movement. Prominent among these were the refuges who
flooded Budapest in the wake of defeat, many of whom were ―reckless, radicalized men‖
willing to serve as the counter-revolutionary shock troops. The refugees faced extremely
harsh conditions as government institutions were overwhelmed with their influx and
incapable of responding to their demands. Under these conditions refugees became
radical and active groups that were willing to lend their support to any revisionist parties
that promised their return to their lost lands and homes (Mócsy 1983, 91).

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Due to the extreme repressive measures that the Kun government—the
communist government which followed the Károlyi regime—resorted to in order to
stabilize the country and suppress the peasant revolt and counter-revolutionary
disturbances, many Hungarians fled to Szeged and Vienna. These refugees who fled from
the Red Terror—perpetrated by the Communists—and those who fled from the successor
states formed a major social base for the radical right that was to rule Hungary in both its
varieties, conservative and extremist, up till WWII. These two groups also merged their
ideologies: the extreme irredentist nationalism of the refugees from the successor states
and the virulent anti-communism of the refugees who fled from the red terror (Mócsy
1983, 102-103). Military officers, civil servants, and petty bourgeois circles also formed
an essential part of the social base of the radical right groups, which were receptive to the
use of demagogy, anti-Semitism and direct appeal to the public in order to gain mass
support (Poloskei 1980, 16). Thus, the ideology of the counter-revolutionary movements
was accepted by these groups as it offered them ―a reliable life-belt‖ that spared them the
painful task of soul-searching. Class interests, fierce patriotism, racialism, anxiety over
loss of individual and national status, and individual material losses shaped the ideology
of these counter-revolutionary movements (Juhasz 1979, 39-40).
The many revisionist, right wing, extremist groups and secret and patriotic
associations that were established in the aftermath of defeat formed the backbone of the
political forces that brought Admiral Horthy and his counter-revolutionary regime to
power (March 1 ,1920). Their overriding concern was defending the frontiers of Historic
Hungary—and after the Trianon Treaty, restoring the lost territories. These organizations
included the Hungarian League of Territorial Defense (Tevel), the White House Fraternal

269
Association, the Twelve Captains, Etelkoz Alliance, MOVE, Hungarian National
Alliance, the Association of Awakening Hungarians, Turul Alliance, Blood Brotherhood
of the Double Cross and others as well. They all ―determined the ideology of the
counterrevolution and established its cadre.‖ Refugees also had their own organizations:
Highland League, Southland League, Transylvanian Szekler-Hungarian Alliance—which
merged into the Alliance of Defense Leagues and which published the journal Magyar
Irredenta in November 1920. Tevel was particularly active in propaganda and published
the East European Problems series in 1920-21 and initiated in February 1920 The
Hungarian Nation and later Les pays du Danube. ―In all of these publications the
principal subject was the illustration of the injuries done to the country with emphasis on
the cultural superiority of the Hungarians‖ (Zeidler 2007, 93-95). However, the activities
of this organization were getting out of control and the government of Bethlen later
disbanded it and transferred its resources to the Hungarian National Alliance. The latter
also became an influential organization and through ―its newspaper, Greater Hungary, its
cultural competitions and other activities, it became an omnipresent organization and
contributed significantly to the idea of revision remaining in the forefront of domestic
scene‖ (Zeidler 2007, 96-97).
The influential Szekely National Council was formed by Hungarian prominent
leaders such as Count Istvan Bethlen (prime minister from 1921 till 1931), Gabor Ugron
and Count Pal Teleki (twice prime minister, from July 19, 1920 to April 14, 1921 and
from February 16, 1939 to April 3, 1941). The purpose of this organization was to
mobilize the public for the restoration of Transylvania and to procure military equipment
and resources for the Szekely Division. After the coming of the radical right to power, the

270
group invested its energies in public education and propaganda for domestic and foreign
audiences. Another very influential group was the Hungarian Christian Cultural League,
which was the parent organization of the National Christian Unity Party (KNEP), which
was formed between 1919 and 1920. The League later shifted its focus away from
military confrontation against the Romanian forces to the more pressing issue of counterrevolutionary
activities (Mócsy 1983).
The most widely known and the most influential and radical of these groups was
the Hungarian National Defense Association (MOVE), which was established on
November 30, 1918. Its membership was open to commissioned and non-commissioned
officers from the imperial army—and at the time, Budapest was overcrowded with
unemployed army officers. On January 19, 1919, Gyula Gömbös, one of the most radical
leaders and a future Minister of Defense (1929) and Prime Minister (1932 to 1936) and
who later paved the way for the Hungarian alliance with Nazi Germany, was elected as
the president of MOVE. Gömbös set out to organize the group and to make it one of the
most powerful counterrevolutionary organizations that provided many of the leaders of
the extreme right for the next two decades. It promoted the creation of a Christian state
and economy and a foreign policy of Revanchism. Around the same time, another
revisionist group, the Association of Awakening Hungarians (EME) was formed and its
membership comprised radical right wing university students, refugees, gentry officers,
and civil servants (Mócsy 1983, 85-95). The League of Defense of the Territorial
Integrity of Hungary, the Association of Etelkoz and the Blood Oath Society of the
Double Cross, the more extremist Hungarian Cultural League led by Pal Pronay,
probably the most notorious white terror leader, and the Federation of the Nameless were

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also established around the same time. These groups were ―action-oriented‖ and shared
vehement opposition to Communism, various shades of anti-Semitism, but most
importantly uncompromising irredentism (Vardy 1998, 35). Most of these organizations
were paramilitary groups and shared ideological and organizational affinities attested to
by the ease with which their members could move from one organization to another and
by the fact that many individuals participated in the leadership of several organizations
simultaneously (Poloskei 1980, 14-15).
Besides these secret and patriotic organizations, there emerged also non-secret
irredentist organizations, whose main focus was propaganda and establishing connections
with Western political circles. The Hungarian Territorial League, which began its
propaganda campaign in early 1919, was the most prominent and the most active among
them. Other organizations included the National Association of Defense Leagues whose
primary function was coordinating the activities of the irredentist organizations, the
Hungarian National Federation, which brought most of these organizations under its fold,
and the Hungarian Revisionist League, established in 1927 and which was an umbrella
organization of about three dozen irredentist associations (Vardy 1998, 35-36). 135
The counterrevolutionary movement had as its basic goal the restoration of the
pre-war elites to power and the restoration of the thousand-year-old frontiers of the
Kingdom of Saint Stephen‖ (Mócsy 1983, 124). The strongest and most clear bond that
tied these organizations together was their irredentism. They also all shared a ―Christian
nationalist ideology‖ and perceived parliamentarism and the bourgeois parties as
135 Revisionist agitation was also carried out by scholarly associations such as the Hungarian Historical
Association, the Hungarian Geographical Association, and the Hungarian Foreign Affairs Association. This
was in addition to a number of research institutes (Vardy 1998).

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compromised, obsolete and detrimental to Hungarian national interest. For them,
bourgeois parties facilitated the fragmentation of Hungary and contributed to its
dismemberment and the erosion of its Christian national values (Poloskei 1980, 16).
Although these organizations shared ideological affinities, they failed to unite into a
single party or to form a coherent national front (Mócsy 1983, 93-96). However, their
impact was more subtle: they set the boundaries of policy debates on territorial issues and
national sentiment; their program of revisionism made it much harder for other leaders to
act more realistically in the face of the harsh constraints that Hungary confronted. Any
move away from irredentism, from the idea of historic Hungary and the Crown of Saint
Stephen, will open the way for these groups to mobilize the public, to appeal directly to
the masses and to accuse the proponents of more realistic foreign policy objectives of
collaboration and treason. Weak domestic institutions, especially weak political parties
and the grandiose national self-images that dominated Hungarian discourses in the run up
to WWI, created an ideal environment for the emergence of these domestic radical
movements and the diffusion of radical ideas.
C. The Transitional period (1918-1921)
This period is divided into two sub-periods: (1) the liberal democratic regime, (2)
the communist regime.
The first two and a half years of the aftermath of defeat were characterized by
uncertainty, instability, increasing mobilization and expanding political participation,
multiplicity of weak and discredited political parties and actors and competing ideologies.
Defeat weakened state institutions and created a legitimacy crisis—three successive

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regime changes within the first two years. It created a prolonged social and political crisis
and divided the nation and sharpened the already existing cleavages among the various
social classes. The political landscape became ideologically polarized as there was a
noticeable absence of elite consensus regarding regime type, form of government, and
social and economic policies. In this environment, political entrepreneurs and predatory
elites had plenty of opportunities to resort to mass-mobilizing extreme nationalist
ideology. This is why so many revisionist groups emerged at the moment when it became
clear that Hungary would lose its historic frontiers. The country became infested with
rebellions, bands, and radical, paramilitary and revisionist groups. Irredentism became a
national value, a measure of Hungarians‘ patriotism and national loyalty. Thus, the first
two regimes, the Károlyi and the Kun regimes, collapsed, partly at least, for their failure
in protecting the territorial integrity of Hungary and in confronting foreign
encroachments. The failures of the two regimes discredited the ideologies they promoted
as well and led to a lash out against liberalism and communism, which in turn
consolidated the multitude of the revisionist, militant and radical right groups that set the
stage for the eventual alliance with Nazi Germany.
I. The Liberal Bourgeois Republic
The collapse of the imperial authority was followed by a liberal democratic
government headed by the prominent progressive and liberal leader, Michael Károlyi,
who argued that the only way to halt Hungary‘s seemingly unstoppable slide towards

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dissolution and anarchy was to transfer power to a new liberal government. 136
On
October 25, 1918, Károlyi, along with his supporters, established the Hungarian National
Council, which comprised Károlyi's Party, the Social Democratic Party and the Radical
Bourgeois Party. 137 After riots and disturbances broke out, the King felt compelled to ask
Károlyi to take over the government. Later, On November 16, a revolutionary mass
meeting was held and proclaimed the Hungarian People‘s Republic. 138
Károlyi had to confront two major tasks: domestic stabilization and foreign policy
reconciliation. All classes and social forces—the leftists, socialists and conservatives—
expected the new regime to realize their goals and interests. Károlyi‘s program of
domestic stabilization called for liberal economic reforms and democratization measures.
He expanded the franchise, which led to a surge in political participation and
mobilization, positively responded to the workers‘ demands, and called for land
redistribution. 139
However, the chaos that defeat and imperial collapse engendered
stymied the implementation of social reforms and forced the regime to invest its energies
136 He was a progressive and left-wing leader who was elected to the parliament in 1910 as a member of the
opposition Party of Independence. When the war started, he supported it but as the war progressed, he
moved to the opposition and became one of the most serious critics of Hungary‘s involvement in war. As
his position became incompatible with that of the Party of Independence, he left and formed his own party,
the United Party of Independence and of 1848, but also popularly known as the Károlyi Party. This is
another example of the weakness of political formations in Hungary.
137 Károlyi ‘s party was supported by some aristocrats, some noble landlords, traditional intellectuals and
some members of the petty bourgeoisie but lacked mass support. The Radical party had only elitist support
and mostly coming from modern intellectuals and radical bourgeoisie, but likewise had no mass support.
The Social Democrats were thus the strongest party in the coalition and they mainly represented skilled
workers and enjoyed the support of the labor unions (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 296).
138 Károlyi was later elected provisional President of the Hungarian Republic on January 19, 1919.
139 He actually gave all of his family estates to the tenants in order to create an example but failed in
making land redistribution an official policy.

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in restoring domestic stability and order. As the government failed in its reform efforts, it
had to confront the radical socialists, the communists and the radical right at once—who
were all disappointed at the half-hearted reform measures and demanded radical
transformation (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 301-302). The government was bedeviled by
conflicting demands, interests and expectations. Its weakness and vulnerability stemmed
from the multiplicity of the political actors in the newly constituted political landscape,
from the high degree of political and social mobilization and from the conflicts over core
values that were to guide the new independent nation. The weakness was also an outcome
of the regime‘s lack of mass base of support, its brittle control over the decaying
institutions and the disintegration of police force and military institutions. On top of that,
its failures in foreign policy compounded its already fragile hold on power (Mócsy 1983,
84-85).
With respect to foreign policy, even during those turbulent times, Károlyi ‘s
government initiated some revisionist propaganda. In November 1918, it established the
National Propaganda Commission, whose task was to disseminate information and to
exert political pressures for revisionist objectives. Propaganda was directed at both the
nationalities and the Entente powers. Indeed, the slogan: ―Nem! Nem! Soha!‖ was coined
by the Commission (Zeidler 2007, 93). However, those efforts were most likely meant to
placate public opinion. Károlyi‘s regime foreign policy was otherwise one of conciliation
and cooperation with the victorious powers. His major objective was to avert the coming
losses and the harsh treatment of Hungary as a defeated state. Indeed, one of Károlyi‘s
main political resources was his alleged good relations with the Allied Powers and his
presumed capacity to secure a favorable settlement for Hungary. Károlyi took several

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measures to present his government‘s pacific and cooperative credentials to the Allied
Powers: He complied with the terms of the armistice and voluntarily ordered the
reduction of the armed forces—a costly measure that eventually rendered the country
defenseless against the increasing military pressures from the successor states. He later
complemented this step by leading a delegation to Belgrade, the headquarters of the
southern Allied Forces, where he was met with contempt by the French commander,
general Franchet d‘Esperey, who presented him with harsh instructions to cede large
territories to satisfy Serbian and Romanian demands. Thus, Károlyi‘s pacific policies did
not deliver and the steps he took to placate the Allied Powers proved to be costly and
engendered the perception that his compliance made Hungary rather more vulnerable.
The credibility, legitimacy and the capacity of Károlyi to govern effectively were
subsequently undermined (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 299).
On December 2, 1918, the Allied Powers asked the Károlyi government to
evacuate Transylvania, Slovakia and Ruthenia. 140 With the Hungarians forced to evacuate
further territories, Romanian forces advancing deep into Transylvania, and the
government standing impotent in the face of these hardships and losses—by January
1919, Hungary had lost more than half of her territory and population—public opinion
became gloomy and agitated after a short period of optimism: the public held, not only
the victors and the aggressors, but more importantly, the Károlyi government‘s
―pacifism‖ responsible for the mounting hardships. The regime was mostly and
vehemently criticized by the old ruling classes, who in the early days of the new
140 These territorial losses were significant—they included the industrial and mineral-producing territories
as well as the grain-producing districts of Hungary. Consequently, the economic crisis worsened and led to
a rise in civil unrest and protests.

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government perceived the new revolutionary regime as a ―guarantor of order, private
property and territorial integrity.‖ They lost faith in the new government as it threatened
to introduce further radical reforms without producing any tangible gains in foreign
affairs (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 299-300). As the fragility of the Károlyi regime became
evident, supporters of the pre-war regime and the radical left began to mobilize and
organize their forces; both believed that only radical reform and transformation would
save Hungary the wretched fate awaiting her (Mócsy 1983, 89).
But, the fatal strike came on March 20, 1919, with the Vyx note, which asked for
the evacuation of all the areas between the Tisza River and the mountains on the eastern
edge of the Hungarian plains. 141 Accepting the note meant no less than threatening the
territorial integrity of Hungary. The note clearly demonstrated that the pacific policies
pursued by Károlyi had miserably failed. 142 Allied Powers‘ pre-war commitments and
secret pacts with ethnic minorities and exile governments forced them to consent to the
demands of the Romanians, Serbs, Croats and Czechs, and consequently made the
Hungarian calls for the preservation of the territorial integrity of Hungary fall on deaf
ears. On top of that, strategic reasons convinced the Allied Powers that the best protection
against potential German resurgence and Russian revolutionary upheavals would be the
strengthening of the defensive frontiers of Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia
141 When the note became known, ―mass hysteria engulfed everybody from Károlyi to the lowliest
private…such mass feelings are the stuff from which revolutions and wars are made‖ (Hajdu and Nagy
1990, 302-303).
142 Károlyi believed that his pacific policies would help dissociate Hungary from responsibility for the war
and convince the Allied Powers to treat Hungary fairly. Until February 1919, the government‘s domestic
and foreign policies had been in accordance with the wishes, or so the Károlyi regime thought, of the
Entente Powers. However, these pacific policies proved fruitless, if not outright counterproductive. Indeed,
Károlyi‘s disappointment was double as he expected some support from the Entente Powers but instead
received further humiliating demands that threatened the dismemberment of historic Hungary. Eventually,
these demands would bring down the bourgeois democratic government (Juhasz 1979, 18).

278
(Juhasz 1979, 50). Károlyi‘s failure to resist foreign encroachments made him into a
collaborator in the eyes of the public and elites. His regime was thoroughly discredited
and subsequently lost its legitimacy. 143
II.
The Republic of Councils/The Kun Regime
On the evening of March 21, 1920, Károlyi
learned that the Workers‘ and
Soldiers‘ Councils of Budapest declared the dictatorship of the proletariat--with Sandor
Garbai as the president, while the effective power was in the hands of the Communist
leader Bela Kun. 144 The communist regime at first enjoyed public support because it was
believed to be fighting ―Entente imperialism‖ in alliance with the Soviet Russian Army
(Pastor 2000, 107). Even those who were opposed to the communists and socialists
―accepted the proclamation of the Soviet Republic as the rejection of the demands of the
Great Powers, the rejection of the Vyx note‖ (Nagy 1975, 435). However, it wouldn‘t be
long before the public became disenchanted again with this short but brutal experiment
with communism. 145
143 In a cabinet meeting in March 1919, Károlyi proposed that what Hungary needed in order to halt its drift
towards dismemberment was a power transfer to a government that enjoyed the support of the working
classes—the single most organized political force in Hungary at the time—which promised radical social
transformation and could secure the support of the masses and receive help from the Russian Revolution
(Juhasz 1979, 19).
144 During the first few days, difficult negotiations went on for hours between Communist and Social
Democratic leaders who eventually agreed to merge their parties and to assume power after proclaiming a
Republic of Councils (Juhasz 1979, 19). The arguments that Károlyi presented as Wilsonian proved to be
an illusion; now that ―the illusion of Wilsonism was shattered, the possibility of a Russian alliance became
the new miracle‖ (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 303).
145 For example, the expropriation of the large estates—without distributing them to peasants—left the
peasants angry and frustrated turning them into fierce anti-communists (Deák 1965, 370). The regime‘s
terrorist detachments (red terror) also turned many other sectors against communism. Those failures,
among many others, led into increasing support for counter-revolutionary movements.

279
However, the existence of a communist government in Hungary created some
confusion among the Allied Powers, who sent General Jan Christiaan Smuts to Budapest.
Smuts offered a more favorable deal to the Kun government, including moving the Vyx
line sixteen miles east. 146
Emboldened by his success, Kun responded by a
counterproposal: he asked for a conference in which the concerned parties meet and agree
on borders and other related matters. Smuts didn‘t bother to respond and left Budapest
the next day. However, he conveyed his impressions to the Allied Powers that Hungary
had fallen into the hands of a truly Bolshevik government. At this time, the peacemakers
in Paris expressed their worries about the possibility of seeing another Bolshevik
government in the heart of Europe and their willingness to resort to extreme measures to
stem the tide of Bolshevism in Hungary. The French in particular assured the Romanians
of their full support and encouraged them to move to the new demarcation lines. On April
16, 1919, the Romanian army began a full attack along the entire front. Indeed, besides
the support given to the Romanian troops, the Allied Powers were happy to support the
counter-revolutionary radical right government that was forming in Szeged, despite its
known radical attitudes--far more radical than those of the communists or the liberal
bourgeoisie.
In the meantime, the Kun regime began implementing a radical program of social
transformation aiming at the introduction of socialism: means of production, banks,
wholesale trade, etc…all came under direct state control; indeed, the entire economy was
146 Károlyi, the former president who resigned for fears of the dire consequences of compliance with the
Vyx note, was exacerbated by the fact that the Allied Powers responded to Kun‘s tough rejection of the
note by a more favorable proposal—reducing the withdrawal 16 miles east—and led him to write bitterly:
―So what my Government had not been able to obtain in five months was granted to the Communists after a
week, proving that the idea of standing up to the West was not such a bad one‖ (Károlyi 1956, 158).

280
nationalized—measures that went beyond the Soviet model. The Kun government took
severe measures to contain domestic disturbances, riots and protests, measures that
became known as the Red Terror, which further alienated most of the social classes in
Hungary, except the laborers. Thus, the middle classes, the conservatives, business
owners, the landowning classes, and the peasants became opposed to the new regime.
However, these reform measures soon were relegated to the background as Romanian
forces kept advancing deeper into Hungarian territories.
Karoly Peyer, an official in the Kun government, declared on June 21 1919 that
the new frontiers of Hungary meant its death and were consequently unacceptable
(Szilassy 1969, 95). On July 21, the government of Kun ordered an offensive against
Romanian forces. This was a surprising move—given the lack of sufficient military
resources, international support, or any serious chance of pushing back the Romanians.
Indeed, the counter-offensive ended with Romanian forces in Budapest. This decision
―was simply a move born of desperation‖ (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 309). The Kun
government began mobilizing its forces against the Romanians by capitalizing on social
and nationalist discontent. The call to arms against the invading Romanians was
appealing for the workers, the refugee peasants, and more surprisingly, for the officers
and middle class refugees. The later joined the offensive despite their ideological
opposition to communism because they saw in it a ―replacement of a foreign policy based
on pacifism with one of national resistance, even if Communist‖ (Mócsy 1983, 98).
Seeing the hopelessness of the situation after the Romanian forces began their
marsh towards Budapest, the communist government decided to resign and to transfer
power to a more moderate trade unionist government, which was formed on August 2,

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1919. On August 4, the Romanian army began its occupation of Budapest (Nagy 1975,
449).
The Kun government came to power with the promises of putting up a more
effective resistance against the imperialist West and its plans to devour historic Hungary.
This required a total shift in domestic and foreign policies. Domestically, the
nationalization of the economy was performed rapidly which satisfied the workers‘
demands but alienated most of the other social classes, all without solving Hungary‘s
economic problems. In foreign policy, the Kun government built its legitimacy on
resisting foreign encroachments and receiving support from fellow communists in Russia;
both turned out to be false promises.
III.
Conclusion: The Transitional Period
Thus, the situation in the immediate aftermath of defeat was abysmal. First came
the crushing defeat, imperial collapse and the loss of territory and population to the
successor states; then came the disillusioning experience of Károlyi ‘s democratic
liberalism and his inadequate pacific foreign policies. Communism, red terror, and abrupt
radical reforms followed. There were various ideologies and political parties and
organizations competing to fill the void of power that defeat had left in its wake. State
institutions collapsed and were barely functioning. Refugees from the successor states
inundated the interior, especially Budapest, but there were also internal refugees who fled
the communist repressive measures to Szeged and Arad—both cities to become major
centers of radicalism. There was no time for either the Károlyi or the Kun regimes to
build institutions or to consolidate their fragile rule and brittle hold on power. The

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political landscape was prepared for the coming to power of the right-wing counterrevolutionary
groups, in both their extremist and conservative versions. 147
Foreign
interventions, occupation and successive pressures for further territorial concessions
delegitimized the two regimes and discredited the social orders they were trying to build.
Probably, the most important outcome of these two short experiments was discrediting
the ideologies of liberal bourgeois democracy and Communism, which implied that the
only viable alternative left was conservatism, with its passionate attachments to historic
Hungary, imperial thinking, belief in cultural superiority, and coalition with the radical
right and revisionist movements. One would normally expect defeats in war to discredit
the ideologies of those who were defeated and to legitimize oppositional forces and
ideologies and to offer an opportunity to restructure the socio-political order and to break
away from past and its shackles. Initially, defeat and imperial collapse did discredit the
ruling elites and their ideologies; indeed, those were replaced by the liberal bourgeois
government and then by the Communist regime. However, these two short-lived regimes
failed and this failure re-energized and re-legitimized the old social classes and allowed
147 In the summer of 1919, there were three major competing political ideologies regarding state structure
and system of government. These ideas were embodied by the political parties that were competing for
power. The old ruling classes, composed mainly of large estate owners and capitalists and most of the
middle class, wanted to re-establish the old order that privileged their interests; they saw the parliamentary
system as the most viable and most suitable, especially if additional guarantees were made to obstruct the
political hegemony of the extreme left and the extreme right. István Bethlen and Pal Teleki best represented
this trend. An ―aggressive group‖ composed of state and administrative employees, army officers, and
owners of medium-sized landholdings and a substantial number of the Christian lower middle class—the
capitalist-bourgeoisie- believed that the old ruling classes‘ sole objective is the restoration of the pre-war
social and political order. This group believed that the old parliamentary system had been tried and failed,
that the old ruling class is responsible for the turmoil Hungary is experiencing and that it is incapable of
governing responsibly. What they wanted was a centralized state, even a dictatorship, that eliminates the
influence of the Socialists/Communists and the bourgeois left and preserves the Christian character of
Hungary. These ideas were advocated by the multitude of radical right movements that emerged in
Hungary in the aftermath of the defeat: Gyula Gömbös and his ―race-protector‖ fellows‘ best exemplify this
group. The third group rejected the re-establishment of the old regime but also abhorred the proposed
rightist dictatorship and instead preferred to create a bourgeois capitalist system and to broaden and deepen
liberal and democratic reforms and institutions. This was a coalition of Social Democrats and liberals
(Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 316).

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them to return to power and to impose their hegemony for the duration of the interwar
period.
D. The Horthy Regime
The era of the Horthy regime would be divided into two periods: that of Prime
Minister Bethlen‘s era, which comprises the consolidation period (1921-1926) and active,
assertive foreign policy period (1927-1931). 148 The second period of the Horthy regime is
the ―descent/fall‖ and is characterized by increasing radicalism in society and state.
The period from 1921 till 1931 was dominated by two leading characters,
Admiral Miklós Horthy (who became regent for the entire interwar period) and Prime
Minister István Bethlen. This period—especially after the summer of 1922—witnessed
regime consolidation, domestic stabilization and more or less moderate foreign policy—
up till 1926—which still supported revision but through peaceful means. Regime
consolidation occurred through two steps: (1) the creation of a single government party
and (2) manipulation of electoral rules. The relatively stable environment that ensued
enabled Bethlen to pursue moderate and realistic foreign policies whose main objectives
were extricating Hungary from its international isolation, incorporating it into the League
of Nations and securing loans to jumpstart the ailing economy. However, revision
remained a constant in Hungarian foreign policy throughout the entire interwar period.
The second period—that of assertive foreign policy—witnessed more open attempts at
territorial revision and Bethlen began efforts to build alliances with Italy and Germany.
148 The year 1927 marked a new beginning: a new currency was introduced—which signaled the substantial
economic recovery that Hungary had achieved—and international military observers who were still
observing Hungary‘s compliance with the terms of the peace treaty left in March (Caples 2005, 70).

284
The constant drive for revision also pushed the Horthy regime to engage in some
adventurism and risky foreign policy behavior.
After moving from Arad into Szeged, the counter-revolutionary government was
headed by Dezso Abraman, with Count Pal Teleki as its foreign secretary and Admiral
Miklós Horthy as the minister of Defense. Admiral Horthy was the main leader who
organized the armed forces of the counter-revolution (Juhasz 1979, 23-24) which was
supplemented by various semi-fascist military organizations such as the National Defense
Force Association, the Association of Vigilant Hungarians and other organizations whose
recruits came mainly from reserve officers, students, disposed civil servants and even
some disreputable elements. Gyula Gömbös, who either led or was associated with these
groups, became Horthy‘s right-hand man in organizing the Szeged counterrevolutionary
forces (Berend and Ranki 1975, 455).
Allied Powers, in principle, had no interest in seeing an extremely nationalist and
reactionary government in Hungary. They were rather interested in seeing a government
that enjoyed reasonable mass support and had some democratic institutions. But the
liberal bourgeois groups and parties had already been weakened and were incapable of
forming a stable future regime. The Socialist Democratic Party survived the transitional
crisis--but only after its left wing was neutralized and its right wing became dominant.
Generally, the forces of the left became disorganized and ineffective for they either fled
the country or were persecuted and hunted down by the reactionary forces. A period of
white terror ensued and was accompanied by waves of anti-Semitism that swept over the
country. Those parties that wanted to survive had to renounce the liberal bourgeois and
the communist experiments (Juhasz 1979, 28). The Allied Powers also rejected the

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restoration of a Habsburg to the Hungarian throne for fear of broader regional
repercussions.
When Admiral Horthy began his political career after defeat, he adopted the
―Szeged idea‖ which championed anti-communism, totalitarianism, anti-Semitism and
virulent nationalism. He was the ―embodiment of the principle of Christian Nationalism
that animated the Hungarian counter-revolutionaries in Szeged and Vienna‖ (Sakmyster
1989, 100). However, as his political career evolved, he moderated some of his beliefs
and ended in maintaining a foot in both camps of the right—the traditional conservatives
and the radical right. The supporters of Horthy were united in their territorial revision,
anti-Bolshevism and ―Christian national‖ sloganeering. However, they were split
between an old, conservative right, which consisted of aristocrats, senior civil servants,
and capitalists whose major purpose was the restoration of the pre-war social and
political order and a ―larger but less influential‖ new right that was anti-Semitic,
authoritarian, militant and revanchist (Deák 1992, 1053). Overall, the Horthy regime was
marked by the return to Habsburg conservatism embodied in the institutional features of
the Hungarian part of the Monarchy. Its determination to maintain tradition was largely
justified by the urgent need to maintain ―internal tranquility‖ in those times of crisis
(Tokes 1970, 83-84). The conservative reactionary nature of the regime and its irredentist
ideology meant that all progressive forces were outside the regime and political life in
general. This also meant that those who could have perceived the war, its causes and
tragic consequences as outcomes of historical processes and those who could make the
distinction between the real grievances of Hungarians and the nationalities‘ rights of
national independence, were excluded from political life and decision making circles.

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Horthy, like many other Hungarians, was appalled by the failure of the Károlyi
and Kun governments in resisting aggression and defending the Kingdom of St. Stephen,
which convinced Horthy and his supporters that democracy and socialism were ―bankrupt
ideologies.‖ There were two constants in Horthy‘s foreign policy: unrelenting anticommunism
and constant agitation for the restoration of the lost territories (Berend and
Ranki, 477). He pursued a policy of keeping the public hopeful of possible revisions by
appointing government officials who publicly repeated that the Treaty must be revised
thus socializing the public into entrenched convictions of the ‗temporary‘ nature of the
Treaty (Pastor 2000, 108).
Horthy was elected as Regent on March 1, 1920, after the Hungarian parliament
decided to keep Hungary a kingdom. 149 Many in Hungary by now—after the democratic
bourgeois revolution and the republic of the Soviets--supported keeping Hungary a
Kingdom. The two previous experiences left the ruling classes bitter and opposed to
republican constitutional forms; more importantly probably, the creation of a republic
meant the ‗dissolution‘ of historic Hungary and the loss of legitimate claims to the lands
of the Crown of Saint Stephen (Juhasz 1979, 35).
The foreign policy of the counter-revolutionary regime showed early signs of
intense nationalist-irredentist tendencies. ―Of one thing Horthy was convinced: sooner or
later the Treaty of Trianon would be overturned, even if this had to be done by military
force.‖ Horthy was obsessed with finding ways to evade the armament limitations and
149 The deputies who opposed Horthy did not have any credible candidate and the military units that
surrounded the parliament made sure that Horthy was elected as Regent overwhelmingly (132 votes out of
141 votes).

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restrictions on military conscription imposed by the Peace Treaty. One solution, devised
in the 1920s, was to create a compulsory youth organization that provided military
training and compensated for the absence of military conscription (Sakmyster 1989, 107-
108). Horthy issued a memorandum on October 1919 on Hungarian foreign policy
challenges demonstrating that Horthy and his supporters ―were seized with the desire for
a prompt war of revenge‖ (Juhasz 1979, 42). The lessons that the Horthy regime drew
from the previous rocking events was that the government that satisfies the interests of
the Allied Powers, particularly in suppressing Bolshevism, will be rewarded. Horthy‘s
argument was that Romania is the single most threatening enemy of Hungary and the
country that received the largest share of Hungarian territories. Thus, the major objective
of Hungarian foreign policy should be ―to get square with the Rumanians by recourse to
arms.‖ Horthy estimated that the opportune moment will come sometimes in 1921, but
until then Hungary should do its best to isolate Romania and to preserve peaceful
relations with other neighboring countries. In addition, a revisionist organization must be
supported in Transylvania; Hungarian armed forces must be rebuilt and prepared for the
upcoming war and armaments limitations should be circumvented by all means. Hungary
must also demonstrate to the Great Powers that it could play a central role in maintaining
security and order in Central Europe. Although this memorandum was not based on
realistic assessments of Hungary‘s own material capabilities or on an accurate reading of
the strategic environment in Central Europe, it ―was to have a definitive bearing on some
of the foreign policy issues throughout the coming decades of counter-revolutionary
rule.‖ A major foreign policy issue that the memorandum recommended and that was
actively pursued was the necessity of establishing connections with and lending support

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to counter-revolutionary groups in neighboring countries. Hungarian politicians
established connections with such groups in Austria, Croatia, and Slovakia from the 1920
onward. At the same time, connections were sought with a host of German extreme,
right-wing revanchist groups and organizations. Hungarians also participated in efforts to
topple the Renner government in Austria and provided help to the schemes of Ludendorff
and the Bavarian Kahr Government (Juhasz 1979, 43-44). In 1919-1920 Horthy gave his
approval to military plans to remove the left-wing government in Vienna and to retake
lands that Czechoslovakia and Romania had occupied. 150 Indeed, the Radical Right, the
Army, and Horthy strongly believed that the territories that were taken by force could
only be restored by force. They disregarded the fact that the international constraints and
military weakness mean that further losses, not victories, would be forthcoming (Mócsy
1989, 137).
Regent Horthy first appointed Count Teleki prime minister on 19 July 1920. 151
Teleki was relentless in advocating territorial revision though he eschewed direct
aggressive stands in foreign policy. His conservative worldview moved him away from
liberalism and the radical right. However, the extremists were still able to fill a multitude
of administrative and executive jobs in the government, which gave them power over
decision making and policy implementation. The Teleki government outlawed the
Communist Party in 1921 and initiated land reforms in the hopes of containing the
restless peasants and disarming the Smallholders. However, these reforms, like several
150 Bethlen later would persuade Horthy of the risks involved in such adventures
151 He resigned less than a year later on 14 April 1921 when the former emperor, Karl IV, attempted to
retake Hungary's throne.

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before them, did not succeed in alleviating the social ills of Hungary and the structure of
society remained almost the same (Hajdu and Nagy 1990, 317).
The major dilemma that Hungary faced in this critical period was its complete
isolation in the international arena and the impending peace treaty. Incapable of resigning
itself to the loss of territory, the Teleki government was still hopeful that something could
be done in order to avert the looming losses. Thus, it invested its energies in trying to
persuade the French to be more lenient and promised serious economic concessions in
return for a favorable settlement but to no avail (Berend and Ranki 1975, 462).
Despite those signs and intentions, the actual foreign policy was more or less
compliant. Once again, Hungary had no substantial resources to draw on and no powerful
ally to support its causes. No matter how much domestic pressures there were—
emanating from ideational forces or political parties—the lack of opportunities and allies
doomed foreign policy to compliance. But, the important thing to show is that ‗intentions
and desires‘ for revision and revenge existed; their translation into actual foreign policy
was another matter.
I. Consolidation Period/Patient Anticipation
On April 14, 1921 Horthy asked Count István Bethlen to form a government.
Bethlen ruled Hungary for ten years—from 1921 till 1931—during which he repeatedly
dissociated himself publicly from the extreme militant revisionist organizations, ―while
tacitly giving them his blessing‖ (Seton-Watson 1934, 53). 152
152 Two years after he retired, Bethlen became an eloquent spokesperson of the revisionist movement and
did two lecture tours in Nazi Germany and England in which he presented Hungary‘s case for revision.

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Bethlen‘s activities were focused on two fronts: domestic consolidation and
foreign policy revision. He was a classic statesman, with political acumen, and a keen
awareness of the international balance of power and the limitations that small states had
to consider when confronting greater powers. He was also a master of domestic political
manipulation and fully aware of the dangers that weak parties and competing ideologies
pose for the stability of Hungary. The consolidation of the Horthy regime, at least
partially, is an outcome of Bethlen‘s efforts (Berend and Ranki 1975, 467). He tried
relentlessly to build a strong party machine to dominate the political landscape and to
control the dynamics of political contestation. He achieved a reasonable degree of
success. However, he was also a revisionist, still reeling from the intolerable losses that
Hungary experienced in the wake of its defeat. He was also active in many revisionist
groups before his ascendance to political power. He fully understood the gravity of the
situation and the intensity of loss that Hungary had to grapple with. Bethlen once said
that the ―dismemberment of the country, its defeat during the World War, the repeated
revolutions and foreign occupation—all created a trauma of a magnitude unmatched in
the history of this nation and unparalleled in other nations, even during the World War‖
(cited in Mócsy 1989, 124). His political beliefs would sometimes push him down the
adventurist path. Despite his moderate stands in foreign policy and his attempts to revise
the Treaty of Trianon through peaceful means, he pushed for a close alliance with Fascist
Italy—eventually formalized in a Treaty of Friendship in 1927--and paved the way for an
alliance with Nazi Germany.
Domestically, he believed in the rightful restoration of the landed nobility to its
preeminent position in Hungarian politics; he focused on restoring the rule of the so-

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called historic classes since he believed that the preservation of historic Hungary could
only be attained through the patience and perseverance of the aristocracy. His major aim
was thus the restoration of the pre-war social and political system which was based on an
alliance of capitalists, industrialists and aristocratic agrarians under the leadership of the
historic classes (Mócsy 1989, 124-128). As part of his consolidation efforts, he also
struck a deal with trade unions and the Social Democrats—what became known as the
Bethlen-Peyer Pact—in which the Socialists agreed to refrain from mobilizing the
peasants and public officials and to avoid politically motivated strikes.
a. The Creation of a Government Party
Bethlen was fully aware of the necessity of a government party to help him rule
the country and stabilize its volatile politics. Instead of creating a new party, he decided
to ‗appropriate‘ and transform an existing party that had some mass support at the time:
the Smallholders Party. Although not ideologically affiliated with the party, he, along
with some of his loyal supporters, joined it on February 1922. Formally, the party became
known as the Christian Smallholders and Bourgeois Party and informally as the Party of
Unity (Ormos 1990, 320). Bethlen succeeded in forcing a merger of the Smallholders‘
Party with the remnants of the KNEP, who were loyal to him. Even one of the most
radical leaders in Hungary at the time, Gyula Gömbös, was elected deputy of Nagyatadi
Szabo, the leader of the Smallholders‘ Party. This indeed, ensured that the radical right is
integrated into the regime, which was one way of bringing radical factions under
Bethlen‘s direct watch. As members of the radical right increasingly realized that their
aspirations to a dictatorship diminished, they began to side with Bethlen in order to
secure their political future and to gain some material benefits, such as employment in the

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inflated bureaucracy (Mócsy 1989, 132-133). Thus, the creation of the party lessened
political competition and ensured that the radical right elements are either integrated into
the party, and will have to play by the rules set by Bethlen, or are marginalized and
placed outside decision-making and benefits circles. While this arrangement worked for
the first few years, the radical right never truly lost influence and would emerge stronger
in the second half of the 1920s— Gömbös, for example, would be appointed minister of
defense in 1926.
No doubt that Bethlen succeeded remarkably in achieving a high degree of
political stability—given the turmoil that Hungary experienced in the few years in the
immediate aftermath of its defeat. However, the success was not complete and fell short
because of the intensity of the inflated national self-images that still dominated
Hungarian outlook and because of the presence of a large number of radical right groups
and associations, some of which were incorporated into the government party, but some
of which remained outside the system. These radical groups implied two things: (1) they
could undermine stability from within—they were eventually able to take over the party
in the early 1930s; (2) they created parameters of discourses and ideas: any deviation
from extreme nationalism and total revision falls outside the normatively acceptable.
b. The Manipulation of Electoral Rules
On January 25-26, 1920, new elections were held according to universal secret
balloting electoral rules, which introduced three million more voters creating a surge in
political participation. The Smallholders Party won the majority of seats (91), Christian
National Unity Party, which was supported by Horthy, won 59 seats; the left secured 6
deputies (Hadju and Nagy 1990, 312). New elections were scheduled for 1922 but

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Bethlen figured out that the existing electoral rules—which expanded the franchise—the
presence of multiple parties, and a host of radical right organizations would destabilize
Hungary and create an environment of populist radicalism. He decided to change the
electoral rules—by limiting the suffrage and introducing open ballots. The purpose of
these changes was not simply to secure power, for power was already firm in the hands of
Regent Horthy who enjoyed almost absolute authority. The purpose was rather to ward
off the danger of radicalization, to contain all these minor, but influential groups, which
were radicalizing discourses and destabilizing the political landscape. According to the
1919 electoral rules, about 40% of the population were eligible to vote; the new decree
reduced the number to around 29%. This was done by imposing age restrictions (24 years
and older for men and 30 years and older for women—except for college graduates).
Additional restrictions in the form of minimal educational and residency requirements
were also imposed. Restricting the franchise was designed in a manner that favored the
middle class—supposedly the class that sought stability (Mócsy 1989, 133). But the most
restrictive feature of the electoral rules decree was related to the introduction of open
balloting in rural areas, which gave the government a high degree of control over election
outcomes—by exposing the peasants to the pressures of election officials. Secret
balloting was granted only to large cities and the capital (Ormos 1990, 320). Thus,
coupled with the creation of a government party, electoral rules would secure Bethlen‘s
party a decent majority in the parliament, which would permit him to rule comfortably
without any effective opposition. Bethlen‘s efforts of domestic consolidation paid
dividends during the elections of 1922 when his party won 143 seats out of a total of 245;

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his opponents, the Christian Nationalists won 35 seats and the Socialists 24 seats.
Similarly, in 1926 Bethlen secured a majority as well. 153
The stabilization policies enabled Bethlen to extract Hungary out of her
international isolation, to join the League of Nations, to conduct negotiations with the
Little Entente and the Great Powers, and to get foreign loans to boost the troubled
Hungarian economy. Bethlen was successful in subduing the radical right, in tempering
Horthy‘s more extremist passions and attitudes, and in isolating Gömbös, and even
forcing him out of the government party--at least for a while. 154
The radical right,
represented by Gömbös, wasn‘t in favor of the stabilization measures. When Gömbös
disagreed with Prime Minister Bethlen, he, along with some of his affiliated deputies, left
the government and formed a new racist party called the Party of Hungarian
Independence (Ormos 1990, 321).
Given the international constraints that Hungary had to grapple with, actual
foreign policy had to be adjusted in order not to provoke an aggressive response from
neighboring countries or from the Great Powers. Indeed, the international environment
presented neither an opportunity nor a partner for any revisionist adventure in the early
1920s. First came the Little Entente on August 14, 1920, through which the governments
153 In the four elections held between 1922 and 1935, the government party won approximately two thirds
of the votes. This ensured that it had comfortable majority. But, the party secured more votes in rural areas,
where the electoral rule was open ballots, ensuring a certain degree of control over election outcomes.
Where the ballot was secret, such as in major cities, the outcomes were different: The government party
won only 27% of the votes in the same four elections (Janos 1982, 213-214). This is significant in that it
showed that political mobilization was still high and more wide-ranging in the cities, where most of the
political action took place; it also showed that the government party, with its somehow pacific policy, was
not popular enough and that there was real electoral competition.
154 Gömbös would retain his seat in the 1926 elections upon the insistence of Horthy and would be
appointed a minister of defense the same year. This clearly shows that the radical right still had power even
within the party itself.

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of Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) signed
an agreement promising collective response to any Hungarian aggression. Then, an
agreement between Italy and Yugoslavia was signed on November 12, 1920, ending their
border disputes. The Rapallo treaty produced rapprochement between Italy and
Czechoslovakia. Thus, between 1920 and 1921, Italy seemed to be on a different path
from that of Hungary. Although Germany was a potential ally from the outset, Weimer
Germany was not amicable to revisionism or risky alliances that would upset the WWI
victors. The support of Austria was not feasible at the time, given the Hungarian-Austrian
dispute over Burgenland. Thus, Hungary lacked opportunity, partner or military
capacities to pursue revisionist foreign policy. Despite all the rhetoric, and the
overwhelming domestic ideational and political pressures, the government truly had no
chance except to pursue a policy that would extricate Hungary from her international
isolation and build some kind of working relations with her neighbors and the Great
Powers--until better times. Bethlen first tried to create friendly relations with
Czechoslovakia but failed. He turned his eyes towards Yugoslavia, whom he perceived as
the country most likely to sign an agreement with Hungary. It seemed that an agreement
with Yugoslavia was within reach (Ormos 1990, 325); however, the price for such a deal
would be the termination of Hungarian claims against Yugoslavia--a price that generated
heated debates within the Hungarian leadership with some ardent nationalists rejecting
any such concessions. Negotiations with Yugoslavia broke down when Italy objected and
offered an Italian-Hungarian friendship treaty instead (Mócsy 1989, 138-139).
As the international system achieved more stability in the early 1920s, Hungary
couldn‘t afford to remain outside of it. It secured a loan to jumpstart its failing economy

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and to attract investment capital into its needy markets; it signed a series of trade
agreements, and settled a number of disputes peacefully. In addition, Bethlen responded
to international pressures and reduced the intensity of Hungarian irredentist propaganda
(Juhasz 1979, 72-73). Hungary joined the League of Nations in 1922. A notable but
minor achievement was Bethlen‘s success in settling the question of Burgenland (German
West Hungary) with Austria through a plebiscite: Hungary received only the city of
Sopron in return for giving up its claims against the rest of Burgenland. The completion
of the consolidation came in 1926 when Hungary gained its full sovereignty after the
permanent financial and military control of the country was terminated.
II.
Assertive Foreign Policy
Although it is true that by the mid 1920s, Bethlen was able to stabilize Hungary
and to achieve a reasonable degree of domestic political and economic stability; he still
needed to realize the ―final consolidation of the counter-revolutionary regime‖: the
restoration of the lost territories. Thus, Bethlen‘s energies were focused in the second half
of the 1920s on this final act (Berend and Ranki 1975, 478). Indeed, one could describe
the first stage of Bethlen‘s tenure (1921-1926) as one of ―patient anticipation,‖ while the
second (1926-1931) is properly called a period of assertive and active revisionist foreign
policy (Caples 2005, 70).
Bethlen succeeded in creating a government party that held near-monopoly on the
distribution of political resources; however, radicals were still a significant component of
the party itself, and they were able to maintain revisionism at a near boiling point.
Bethlen‘s personal beliefs also pushed him towards revisionist foreign policy. Regent

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Horthy never truly gave up on his extremist tendencies—as demonstrated by his
friendship and support for Gömbös. In mid 1920s, the international environment slightly
changed: Italy emerged as an active revisionist power. Bethlen knew the limits of Italian
power but at least a try had to be made.
The moderate foreign policy that Bethlen apparently pursued did not accord with
some behaviors—that could not be called deviant—since they were also focused on
realizing the same goals of revision. In the summer of 1926, the high profile Franc
forgery scandal erupted. Hungary needed funds to finance her irredentist activities,
revisionist propaganda and subversion in neighboring countries (Berend and Ranki 1975,
480). The forgery was not the act of some renegade elements within the regime; it was
rather state-sponsored and done on an industrial scale. The operation was carried out with
the knowledge of Prime Minister Bethlen, Prince Lajos Windischgraetz and Chief
Commissioner of Police Imre Nadosy. When Germany approved of the plan, it
commissioned engineer Arthur Schulze to go to Budapest and assist in the forgery. In
Budapest, the geographer and former prime minster, Pal Teleki, offered the counterfeiters
the premises of the cartographical institute 155 (Juhasz 1979, 79). The whole operation was
uncovered during an attempt to exchange the first bank-note and the international police
conducted an investigation into the operation. This scandal could have rocked Hungary‘s
domestic politics but somehow the government rode out the storm and the Great Powers
didn‘t pursue the case to its conclusion. Its significance lies in showing the willingness of
the regime to resort to unusual and risky measures in support of its irredentist activities.
155 The Cartographic Institute was part of the Chief-of-Staff‘s establishment; two of its commanders were
arrested for their involvement in the printing and distribution of the fakes. Imre Nadasy, the chief-of-police
was also sentenced for assisting the counterfeiters of obtaining passports (Ormos 1990, 322).

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The affair also demonstrated that despite Bethlen‘s success in pushing the radical right
out of the limelight, he was unable to eradicate their influence. The ―symbiosis‖ between
the extreme right and the conservatives, which was formed during the counter-revolution,
was still alive and well. At any rate, it should be clear now that ―right wing extremism
had become an integral part of the Horthy regime‖ (Ormos 1990, 322).
In the later part of the 1920s the Great Powers began to experience growing
differences among each other. Italy‘s dissatisfaction with the Versailles Treaty made her
a good candidate to support Hungary‘s cause. In addition, the fascism of Italy provided
ideological affinity to Hungarian counter-revolutionary regime. An Italian-Hungarian
treaty of friendship was signed on April 5, 1927 (Juhasz 1979, 81). The Hungarian
government signed the treaty because Italy was the only country—approaching the status
of a great power—willing to support, at least partially, Hungarian efforts for revision.
Armed with this agreement, Bethlen declared that ―he did not consider the Trianon Treaty
final‖ (Ormos 1990, 326). The formalization of the Italo-Hungarian friendship was the
beginning of Hungarian efforts to create ―new system of alliances‖ (Berend and Ranki
1975, 478) that would eventually link Hungary‘s foreign policy to the aggressive and
revanchist powers in Europe (Juhasz 1979, 84). In April 1928, Mussolini and Bethlen had
another meeting in which both agreed to offer support for the Heimwehr in Austria and to
Croatian separatists. 156 Bethlen also promised to offer his support for Mussolini in setting
up a Tripartite Pact between Italy, Greece and Bulgaria in order to encircle Yugoslavia.
After his return to Hungary, Bethlen publicly expressed his convictions that peaceful
156 The Heimwehr, German Home Guard, were paramilitary nationalist groups operating within Austria
during the 1920s and 1930s—similar in ideology to the German Freikorps.

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revision of the frontiers was not possible (Ormos 1990, 327-329). In a speech at
Debrecen in March 1928, he stated that the ―frontier questions are not merely a matter of
justice and law; they are usually questions of power‖ (Juhasz 1979, 86).
Concomitant with the Italo-Hungarian treaty, Bethlen invested his energies in
trying to establish an alliance with Germany. He understood that Italy—given its limited
resources and capabilities--could offer little help for Hungary and that alliance with
Germany would make revision more likely. Bethlen‘s efforts at creating an Italian-
German-Hungarian alliance were not realized at this moment but the attempt itself
created a basis for a second more successful attempt.
Following the Italian-Hungarian alliance, Hungary embarked on a revisionist
propaganda campaign. Lord Rothermere, a British media magnet, set about to launch a
campaign to support Hungary‘s irredentist claims. 157 He opened the campaign with an
essay published on June 21, 1927, entitled, ―Hungary‘s Place under the Sun.‖ Rothermere
met with Mussolini and Bethlen after which he promised to launch his campaign in which
he emphasized the injustice done to the Hungarians in the current frontiers. He
propagated the idea that peace and security in Central Europe were contingent on
rectifying this injustice. The same year, and with Rothermere‘s support, the Hungarian
Revisionist League was established; its goal was to influence international public opinion
and to consolidate Hungarian irredentist nationalism (Juhasz 1979, 86).
157 A good illustration of the reaction of the Hungarians to the Rothermere campaign is provided by a
comment made by Dr. Folders, a former minister of agriculture who compared Rothermere‘s campaign to
Luther‘s attaching his theses to the church door at Wittenberg; another example is provided by Eugene
Rakosi, a famous editor and dramatis and public intellectual, who likened Rothermere to Christ: God has
sent his only son to save Hungary (cited in Seton-Watson 1934, 50-51).

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When Rothermere launched his campaign, he emphasized ethnic revision--only
those lands that were overwhelmingly inhabited by Hungarians should be returned to
Hungary. This meant that some concessions would have to be made, but there were limits
on what could or could not be argued in public. Thus, even Bethlen, one of the most
realistic foreign policy makers in inter-war Hungary, issued a statement in May 1929
warning that those who wish to limit revision to ethnic frontiers ―forget that this
assumption precludes in advance any serious prospect of revision if occasion arises in an
unforeseeable political constellation‖ (Juhasz 1979, 86). For Bethlen, the major aim
remains total/integral revision. This little incidence also demonstrates the power of
irredentist nationalism to preclude realistic and alternative foreign policy options.
Ference Herczeg, president of the Hungarian Revisionist League, reminded all that ―"the
so-called Rothermere-line is not a Hungarian proposal ... the Hungarian nation does not
surrender its right to territories it held for a thousand years" (cited in Romsics 2001).
III.
The Descent: Radicalization/The Ascent of Gömbös
The governmental majority began to fracture and political groups began to appear
within the party: Bethlen led the capitalists and large estate owners; another faction
represented the aggrieved agrarian population and a third group belonged to the radical
right leader, Gömbös. The government had become paralyzed and couldn‘t reach an
agreement on a certain issue without having to confront one or another group. The
economic crisis worsened the friction. There was even a right wing coup d‘état attempt
(Ormos 1990, 330-331).

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By 1930, the economic crisis had hit hard in Hungary and Bethlen‘s government
faced insurmountable problems; unemployment rates soared and prices of agricultural
exports plunged. Bethlen was fully aware that he needed to take serious action to deal
with the economic crisis. Realizing that such policies would destabilize his government,
he preferred to step down and subsequently resigned on August 16, 1931. This paved the
way for the radical right to take over the government and the party. Also, one should note
that Bethlen left the government but without abandoning politics—as he tried to influence
politics still from the outside.
After Bethlen‘s resignation, the radical right faction within the government party
reared its head and came forth with gusto. With the void in political power, Gömbös
seemed ready to assume the mantle. One should not forget that Regent Horthy himself
maintained faith in aggressive stances in foreign policy; after all, it was Horthy who
persuaded Bethlen to appoint Gömbös minister of defense in 1926. The Government
party itself co-opted many radicals who remained on the sidelines but were now ready to
break into the mainstream.
New elections were held in 1931 and the government party won the vast majority,
207 out of 245 seats. Horthy appointed Gyula Károlyi prime minister. Károlyi ‘s short
tenure—around a year-- was only a transitional period: it was completely routine and
there wasn‘t even a change in government portfolios or in power structure.
In the meantime, support for the radical right mounted and this included not only
the peasants and workers but also substantial number of the middle class. Opposition
parties also grew more popular and became more assertive. At this time, the same

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patriotic associations that remained latent or in the background throughout the
consolidation period began to reappear and to boast increasing public support. Through
these associations and organizations, Gömbös introduced a ―populist style‖ into
Hungarian politics (Janos 1982, 245-247) and resorted to direct appeal to the masses thus
contributing further to the radicalization of the political landscape (Macartney 1956,
116). Gömbös became the focal point of political activity in Hungary at the time and a
―champion of popular participation in politics‖ (Janos 1982, 257). Notice that this was
exactly the opposite of Bethlen‘s strategy of depoliticizing the political landscape through
disenfranchisement and changes in electoral rules.
On October 5, 1932, Horthy decided to formally appoint Gömbös prime minister.
Gömbös‘ program called for radical transformation of state and society, modeled along
the Italian and later German examples. His rise to power signaled the beginning of the
period of radical right ascendancy. He gradually increased his power by appointing his
supporters into government positions (Janos 1982, 251-252) and choosing all his
ministers from among the radical associations (Macartney 1956, 119). He also received
the support of the disgruntled army officers. By now the radical groups succeeded in
completing their path of recognition and breaking into the mainstream. The radical right
intensified its efforts to control the government party, which showed signs of weakness—
a major change in its ideological platform—move further to the right, a change in top
leadership (from Bethlen to Gömbös) and a change in its name—renamed the Party of
National Unity. In October 1934, Gömbös finally succeeded in consolidating his power
and removing Bethlen from the leadership of the party.

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However, the parliament was still largely conservative and bore the stamp of
Bethlen which placed obstacles in the face of Gömbös. In 1935, new elections were held
and the Party of National Unity won the majority of seats (170); the Smallholders‘ party,
under Eckhart, who was allied with Gombos, won 24 seats.
In the mid 1930s, radicalism was on the rise, and never stopped until after WWII;
once the government party weakened with the departure of Bethlen and the ascendancy
of Gömbös, and political participation and mobilization increased, it was unstoppable. It
should be noticed at this point that Hungary had weathered the economic crisis and its
national economy has already recovered but that radicalism continued its upward surge—
an outcome that is difficult to explain using economic arguments or the diversionary
theory.
Gömbös‘ rise to power also coincided with the emergence of the first Hungarian
National Socialist groups and political parties, including Ferenc Szalasi‘s Party of
National Will. This party was founded in March 1935, and served as the forerunner of the
infamous Arrow Cross Party, which succeeded in unifying most of the Hungarian Nazi
and Fascist organizations by October of 1937 (Vardy 1998, 34). Radicalism now reached
its apogee and within a couple of years, Hungary would become a German satellite.
5. Conclusion
It is a foregone conclusion that defeats in wars are humiliating experiences;
however, national humiliation does not necessarily trigger aggressive nationalism,
empower extremist parties and lead to a revisionist foreign policy. Defeat only creates a
fertile ground for radicalization—which will be actualized only if it is filtered through

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three intervening variables: national self-images, political parties, and international
opportunities and threats. Inflated national self-images facilitate radicalization whereas
tempered self-images obstruct radicalization. The presence of a set of discourses, myths,
and collective memories greatly enhances the chances that political elites would resort to
radicalizing politics. However, political parties/organizations are still needed to translate
potential radicalization into actual politics. Existing strong political parties obstruct
radicalization but weak political parties allow predatory elites to use public fears,
insecurities and humiliation sentiments—that defeat generated—to radicalize the
domestic political landscape. This is the first stage of the theory: the radicalization, or
lack thereof, of domestic politics. Domestic radicalization will enhance the chances that a
state pursues aggressive/revisionist foreign policies—given that the international
environment presents an opportunity for revision or aggression—for even if the state
wishes to be revisionist, it must either have the material resources or the support of a
major ally or a major great power. That is, the actual behavior, not the intention, is
determined by the presence of opportunities and constraints at the international level.
Thus, I formulated three hypotheses:
1. A nation with exaggerated national self-image is more prone to domestic
radicalism and aggressive foreign policy whereas a nation with tempered national
self-image is more likely to respond to defeats with prudence and reconciliation.
2. The strength of political parties determines the political trajectory of the defeated
state. If a state has strong political parties, it will pursue institutional reforms and
moderate foreign policy. If a state lacks strong political parties, it will experience
domestic radicalization and will advance revisionist foreign policy.

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3. Foreign policy behavior is shaped by the opportunities and constraints of the
international environment.
Hungary clearly demonstrated the consequential effects of defeats on state and
society, on ideas and institutions, on domestic and foreign policies. There is a strong
evidence to back up the national self-image hypothesis. Hungarians refused to resign
themselves to the consequences of their defeat, and this reaction became a defining
element in their self-understanding, which in turn had a formative impact on domestic
and foreign policies. Their inflated self-image, imperial thinking, dreams of grandeur,
belief in cultural superiority and manifest destiny created a fertile environment for the
dissemination of radical ideas and political extremism and constrained the ways defeats
in wars could be framed and internalized. Instead of treating defeat as an opportunity for
renewal and learning, Hungarians framed it as a humiliating experience and a stimulus
for revenge. The slogan, ―no, no, never,‖ best exemplified the Hungarians‘ reaction:
defeat was perceived as an enduring traumatic shock the healing of which could be
attained only with the restoration of lost territories. This attitude facilitated and
popularized revisionist, extremist and revanchist movements which carried the banner of
revisionism, made it into a daily practice, a profession of faith for citizens and elites, a
daily prayer for school children. Revisionism became the clarion call for rallying the
masses—a call that completely absorbed Hungarian political classes, constrained
alternative ideas, visions and policies, and reinforced unfounded hopes and promises. The
nation became a prisoner of its irredentism. Thus, throughout the interwar period,
Hungarians focused their energies on reversing the outcomes of the war. Defeat
contributed to the emergence of a Hungarian nationalism that was reactionary,

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aggressive, militant and subsequently generated revisionist foreign policy that eventually
made Hungary into a German ally. Inflated national-self images which generated
grandiose expectations suffered a painful narcissistic injury when defeat struck. Selfdefense
mechanisms kicked in: denial of responsibility, searching for scapegoats, escape
into the past, and dreams and illusions of a greatness that was yet to come. Multiple
militant, revanchist, revisionist organizations and groups dotted the political landscape.
The political parties hypothesis also fares well as there is sufficient evidence to
back it up. Parties merged and re-merged, weathered away and re-appeared. They lacked
strict control over their members. There was an ‗unoccupied space‘ that permitted radical
leaders to keep pushing the agenda and to constrain alternative ideas—other than total or
optimal revision. The weakness of political parties allowed elites to translate revanchist
impulses into actual policies. Given the socialization of the public into the idea of total
revision—and which the Horthy regime actively participated in—the public became more
willing to listen to simple but powerful voices that made such promises: restoration of
historic Hungary, avenging honor and the healing of wounded pride. The situation
offered plenty of opportunities for such ideas to emerge and solidify. Political parties had
to go along. There emerged in Hungary a multitude of revisionist and revanchist
movements that utilized the weakness of existing political parties to exert influence on
domestic and foreign policies. Although these organizations never became a monolithic
body or succeeded in uniting their efforts into one front, their numbers, activities, and
their discourses, which resonated deeply with the wider public and elites, all ensured that
their influence was substantial. In particular, their connections to decision-makers and
alliance, and sometimes symbiosis with the ruling circles, and their strong presence in the

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government party, enabled them to have a substantial say in Hungary‘s domestic and
foreign policy trajectories.
Hungary pursued peaceful and tamed foreign policy during the first few years of
Bethlen‘s tenure, during a time when the government party he established, the Party of
Unity, was still strong enough to contain radical trends, incorporate the extremists, and
isolate opposition parties. Bethlen understood the constraints that Hungary suffered from
and the limits of its freedom of action, but he also understood the volatile nature of
domestic politics and decided to implement institutional changes that would create a
more favorable environment for the implementation of a peaceful revisionist policy.
Bethlen realized the dangers inherent in the presence of weak political parties competing
for power in times of uncertainty and the risks that high degrees of social and political
mobilization and participation posed for domestic stabilization. So, he took measures to
de-radicalize the domestic political landscape by forming a political party that ruled
Hungary for over ten years and by changing the electoral rules to reduce political
participation and secure a comfortable majority for his party. Bethlen‘s efforts paid off
and he was able to pursue a peaceful foreign policy and even scored some successes:
admission to the League of Nations, loans to boost the troubled economy, and better
relations with the victorious powers. This period attested to the power of institutions to
contain stresses and radical trends, but it also showed that unless the political party in
power was coherent and enjoyed broad support, it will eventually breakdown and lose its
capacity to regulate political contestation. That is, Bethlen‘s efforts proved partially
successful because the party he created wasn‘t a monolithic body, nor did it have a
coherent organizational structure or a coherent ideology. Thus, despite the fact that

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Bethlen was able to stabilize domestic politics and to pursue peaceful means of revision,
he also participated in some risky revisionist acts, such as the forgery scandal, and had to
escalate his revisionist policies in the second half of his tenure—moving his foreign
policy from patient anticipation into a more assertive and active revisionist policy. In
addition, his government, especially the education and culture ministries, implemented
educational policies that aimed at inculcating the values of total revision, the same values
that the radical right wanted to inculcate in the population. In other words, he was unable
to move away from the agenda set by the radical right. In addition, his political party
incorporated elements of the radical right but when Bethlen‘s hold over the party
loosened—especially after the economic depression of the 1930s—the radicals reemerged
and eventually took over both the party and the government. The radicals also
re-energized the multitude of revisionist organizations that emerged in the aftermath of
defeat and consequently the political landscape became once again dotted with multiple
political parties, organizations and associations competing for power. By this time,
fascism had taken hold in Hungary and radicalism reached its apogee.
Defeat therefore did indeed create a fertile environment for radicalization.
National self-images were inflated and political parties were weak. However, the
international environment was very restrictive, which meant that desires were not easily
translated into actual foreign policy behavior. Because of the instability and volatility that
defined the transitional period, politics was in constant flux and there barely existed a
consistent foreign policy. However, the overall thrust of the liberal bourgeois regime was
to pursue a compliant foreign policy hoping to build friendly relations with the war
victors to avoid harsh treatment and restrictive treaties. During the Kun regime, foreign

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policy was a bit more confrontational, a fact that could be explained by Bela Kun‘s
Communist ideology and the more threatening environment that Hungary confronted.
The first few years of Bethlen‘s tenure witnessed moderate and cooperative foreign
policy. This is simply explained by the creation of a government political party that
stabilized the domestic political landscape but also by the lack of domestic resources for
militant revision, the lack of allies or great powers willing to support Hungary‘s
revisionist cause. In the second half of the 1920s, when Italy expressed the willingness to
lend support to Hungary, Bethlen signed a friendship treaty and endeavored to create an
alliance with Germany as well. Generally, when the international environment seemed to
offer better opportunities, Hungary tried to exploit them; thus, Bethlen shifted his foreign
policy from patient anticipation into an assertive revisionist foreign policy; the shift will
be perfected to an alliance with Nazi Germany after the 1930s.

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Chapter 5
The Ottoman Empire/Turkey: Defeat and The Birth of a Nation
1. Introduction
Let me begin the chapter with a speech that Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), the founder
of modern Turkey delivered on December 1, 1920—before the birth of modern Turkey
and while the Turks were still struggling against Great Power occupation and the Greek
invasion:
Every one of our compatriots and co-religionists may nourish a high ideal in his mind; he
is free to do so, and no one will interfere. The government of the Grand National
Assembly of Turkey has a firm, positive, material policy, and that, gentlemen, is directed
to the preservation of life and independence... within defined national frontiers. The
Grand National Assembly and government of Turkey, in the name of the nation they
represent, are very modest, very far from fantasies, and completely realistic... Gentlemen,
we are not men who run after great fantasies and present a fraudulent appearance of
doing things which in fact we cannot do. Gentlemen, by looking as though we were doing
great and fantastic things, without actually doing them, we have brought the hatred,
rancour, and malice of the whole world on this country and this people. We did not serve
pan-Islamism. We said that we had and we would, but we didn't, and our enemies said:
'let us kill them at once before they do!' We did not serve pan-Turanianism. We said that
we could and we would, and again they said: 'let us kill them!' There you have the whole
problem... Rather than run after ideas which we did not and could not realize and thus
increase the number of our enemies and the pressure upon us, let us return to our natural,
legitimate limits. And let us know our limits. Gentlemen, we are a nation desiring life and
independence. For that and that alone may we give our lives (Kemal‘s speech, December
1, 1920, cited in Lewis 1980, 30-31).
This was a speech by Kemal Ataturk in which he laid the basic parameters of
Turkey‘s anti-irredentist foreign policy. The government of Turkey, he said, was very
―modest, very far from fantasies, and completely realistic.‖ Kemal called upon his nation
to recognize its limits and specifically mentioned Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turanianism

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(pan-Turkism)
as two illusory ideologies that brought harm to the Turks and
strengthened the hands of their enemies. Theoretically, the speech posited profound
questions about how nations should deal with their lost territories and cope with shattered
dreams. ―Never, never, never‖ the Hungarians proclaimed after Trianon. ―What was lost
by force would be retrieved only by force,‖ declared Nasser after 1967. Kemal would
have none of that. His main concern in the speech was not only foreign policy but also
beliefs, ideas, ways of thinking, coping with loss, and the construction of national
interests. Men are free to have whichever ideas in their heads but implicitly the
collectivity should not. Ideas that might bring harm to the nation must be shunned. For
him, the limits of discourses and ideas should coincide with the limits of nation and its
natural borders. Leaving behind imperial illusions and turning inward to state and nation
building were paramount. The Turks should sacrifice treasure and blood only in defense
of their independence and not chasing illusory dreams of grandeur and empire. This was
the stamp of the Turks‘ reaction to their losses and defeat. The other side of their reaction
was collective identity transformation—the social construction of a new nation and new
loyalties: Ottomans vanished. Turks were born.
Through the period of the late nineteenth century till the end of WWI, the
Ottoman Empire experienced a series of defeats and went through many convulsions and
tribulations that transformed it from a powerful and sprawling empire stretching from
North Africa across the Middle East to Europe into a truncated republic deprived of all of

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its imperial possessions and some. By the end of WWI, the Republic of Turkey was built
on what became a fraction of the empire. 158
The many years of sustained war efforts and grave losses in WWI, followed by
declining economic fortunes, could have led to the emergence of nationalist, revanchist
political movements, a grievance-based nationalism and subsequently aggressive and
militant foreign policies (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 373). There are various possible
reactions to defeat: humiliation, anger, radicalism and Revanchism; searching for
scapegoats to pin the blame on and to deflect attention away from domestic failings;
grievance-based politics coupled with escapism and nostalgia for a glorious past. The
Turks would have none of that: the defining feature of their reaction to defeat and loss
was acceptance of the new realities of power, of the impossibility of retrieving an
irretrievable past. They simply resigned themselves to the consequences of defeat, to their
loss of territory, population and the sentiments of pride and prestige that used to radiate
from imperial possessions. In their loss, the Turks perceived new opportunities for
national renewal and state building, radical social transformation, the creation of a new
158 The Moudros Armistice of October 30, 1918 marked the final defeat of the Empire and imposed harsh
conditions: Ottoman armies will be demobilized; Allied Powers will control communication and
transportation networks and other strategic locations and will enjoy the right to occupy any region to
restore order and stability; and Allied warships will have unhindered access to the Straits. The Arab
provinces of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine had already been occupied by either the French or the
British. When the Moudros Armistice was signed, the Ottoman Empire had been practically reduced to
Anatolia, including Eastern Thrace and Istanbul. Things didn‘t improve in the following year: Istanbul and
certain parts of Anatolia came under Allied powers occupation. In December 1918, the French occupied the
south eastern Anatolian province of Adana (Cilicia) and the British occupied Antep, Birecik, Mara and
Urfa in the southeast, Batum and Kars in northeast, and Samsun in the Black Sea coast of Anatolia. This
was followed by direct occupation of Istanbul on March 16, 1919. Italians also had their share and on
March 28, 1919 occupied the Western Mediterranean city of Antalya and its surroundings; and on May 15,
1919, the Greek army began its occupation of the city of Izmir and the Aegean region (Yilmaz 1996, 93-
94). As we can see these losses were enormous and brought the question of the existence of the nation itself
to the forefront.

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Turk, a new Turkish society and departure from a decadent past. Indeed, Kemal Ataturk,
the founder of modern Turkey, described the year the Allies occupied the Turkish
heartlands as the ―first national year‖ (Ahmad 1993, 77). No conspiracy theories were
advanced; no stories of backstabbing or betrayal were told. None thought that defeat was
caused by misfortune, malice of neighboring states or the ill-will of the victorious
powers.
Instead of bemoaning their losses and harping on the misfortunes that had befallen
the Empire, the Turks adopted a positive ―self-image‖ and ―optimistic assessments‖ of
their future (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 373). The Turkish national pact, as conceived by
Kemal Ataturk in 1919, accepted the frontiers determined by the 1913 peace treaty—that
put an end to the Balkan Wars—and the Moudros armistice of 1918—that ended WWI—
as the final frontiers of the Republic of Turkey (Rustow 1981, 57). The new leadership
that led the war of national liberation renounced imperial ambitions, eschewed
revanchism and irredentism, strived to maintain peaceful relations with neighboring
countries and to be incorporated into the international system. Reaction to defeat and loss
was almost exclusively inward-oriented: political energies were focused on internal
reforms, state building, nation building and social and cultural transformation. Instead of
utilizing defeat as an instrument to mobilize the masses for the restoration of lost
territories and the healing of wounded pride, Turkish leaders perceived it as an
opportunity for national regeneration and internal reconstruction. No radical mass
movements emerged. Rebellions were few and inconsequential. Mass revolution was a
remote possibility.

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Besides conveying clear and unambiguous information about the material
capabilities of the Empire and its successor state, defeat discredited the dominant
ideologies of Pan-Ottomanism, Pan-Islamism and Pan-Turkism and the dreams of glory
they fed, and paved the way for the emergence of a constrained, moderate, state-based
nationalism that limited its ambitions to the creation of a state within known and
defensible borders. The foreign policy that the Turkish leaders pursued was an exemplary
status quo policy, moderate and cooperative, whose main objective was to make Turkey a
respectable member of the international community and to solve all her problems through
peaceful means. Thus, Turkey solved its outstanding issues with Greece peacefully and
agreed to mutual population exchange. Likewise, it resolved the thorny question of Mosul
and Kirkuk with Britain in 1926 peacefully. Turkey also signed a Treaty of Neutrality
and Friendship with the U.S.S.R. in 1925. In short, the new Republic pursued very
cooperative and peaceful, neutral and anti-revisionist foreign policy (Jung 2005; Okman
2004), which in many respects became a tool to buttress the new leaders‘ efforts of
internal reconstruction and social transformation. One could say that foreign policy took
a second place to state-building and internal reconstruction.
That Turkey pursued anti-irredentist foreign policy and republican nation-statebased
nationalism needs to be explained. This outcome was particularly puzzling given
the amount of losses—in territory and population, both of which could potentially
become irredentist targets—the way the victors treated the Turks and their attempts to
devour even the Turkish heartland, Anatolia, their violation of the armistice terms, and
support for Greek attempts to humiliate the Turks and annex their lands. As Okyar (1984,
47) demonstrated, despite the fact that the Empire was on its way to collapse even before

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WWI, few people within the Empire accepted retrenchment. 159 Entertaining such ideas
―represented treason to the Ottoman ideal in the eyes of most of the Turkish majority.‖
Abandoning the idea of empire, its cultural traditions and symbols was not only difficult
for elites but also for the public because the imperial idea represented a cultural tradition
by which people viewed their lives, their relation to the state and their place in the world.
The Caliph-Sultan was not only a ruler but a religious and spiritual symbol (Okyar 1984,
47-49). So, what explains the audacity of the nationalists?
I contend that there were abundant causes to make post-imperial politics in
Turkey radical and revanchist. That a moderate, republican, constrained, state-based
nationalism and pacific, status-quo foreign policy emerged were neither predictable nor
easy. What made this outcome possible were the tempered, resigned, realistic self-image
that the Ottoman/Turkish elites had developed over the past decades and the emergence
of a unified and institutionalized national resistance movement that formed the backbone
of a strong political party, which, in turn, ruled Turkey till WWII. This strong political
party was capable of containing the stress generated by defeat and imperial collapse and
precluded the emergence of radical, revanchist discourses. Although the international
environment offered some opportunities for a potentially more assertive foreign policy,
the Turkish leadership remained steadfast in the face of any temptations. Anti-irredentism
was home-grown and not conditioned by international opportunities and constraints.
159 When Sultan Abdelhamid‘s attempts at pan-Islamic integration had failed, some of the Turkish ruling
elites of the Union and Progress group, such as Enver Pasha and Cemal Pasha, moved on to another utopia,
Pan-Turkism. Only very few leaders, such as Mustafa Kemal, realized that the empire‘s collapse was
irreversible, that the best solution would be ―retrenchment into the basic Turkish homeland,‖ abandoning
the imperial fantasies of pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism, and focusing completely on state building.

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I will first explain the conditions that would have made Turkey a likely case for
revisionism and political extremism. I will then explain the three variables, the tempered,
resigned national self-image and the creation of a strong, coherent political party, and
international constraints and opportunities. Finally, I will explain the domestic and
foreign policy outcomes—moderate, state-based nationalism and peaceful foreign policy.
2. Potential Causes of Irredentism
When the Ottoman Empire entered WWI, it was the first time since the 17 th century
that it had done so without direct provocation or threat to its security (Okman 2004).
Hostler (1957, 146-147) argued that ―Turkey‘s action in the war was directed toward
union with those of the same religion, i.e. Pan-Islamism, and toward union with
ethnically and linguistically kindred peoples, i.e. Pan-Turkism.‖ Karsh and Karsh (1999,
138) maintained that ―Greed rather than necessity drove the Ottoman Empire into the
First World War. Its war aim was to realize the imperialist vision of the powerful minister
of war Enver Pasha: a tangled web of grievances and revanchist hopes geared toward
reassertion of Ottoman imperial glory and unification of the Turkic peoples within an
expanded empire.‖ Ak in (2007, 95) contended that the slogan ―Revenge for the Balkan
war‖ prevailed in the country in the run-up to WWI. This was apparently an ambitious
and expansionist policy reflecting the dominant thinking and ideals of some of the ruling
classes. 160 But, it was indeed the last gasp before final collapse. As we will see later,
160 This is what Halil Bey, the speaker of the chamber deputies, said on May 19, 1914 regarding losses and
irredentism: ―I now have one plea to my people: Not to Forget! Don‘t forget the cradle of our freedom and
our constitution: our beloved Salonika, verdant Manastir, Kosovo, I kodra, Yanya, the entire beautiful
Rumeli. I ask of our teachers, of our writers and poets, of all our leaders of thought to use their lessons,
their writings, their poems, and their spiritual influence to keep alive in this generation and in future
generations, the memories of our brothers and sisters who have remained on the other side of our borders

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those sentiments expressed in the run-up to the war were more an expression of
desperation and despondency than a strategic plan to capture further lands. Underneath
those sentiments lay thick layers of imperial frustrations and consecutive defeats. World
War One presented an opportunity to salvage ‗something‘ and to halt the decline of the
Empire. However, the War ended in disaster and in its aftermath there emerged several
causes that could have potentially provided impetus for irredentism and aggressive
foreign policy:
1. Lost Territories: These included many provinces such as Kirkuk and Mosul in
present-day Iraq and the Sanjak of Alexandretta (Hattay)—occupied by the
French but claimed by the Syrians. 161 There were several other provinces and
territories in Eastern Europe and the Balkans that the Turks perceived as integral
parts of their empire, as well as many other islands that were given to Greece but
the Turks claimed as theirs.
2. Lost Populations: Turks who lived outside the traditional boundaries of the
Ottoman Empire offered a powerful incentive for expansionist policies. Those
were mostly around 20 odd million Turkish speaking Muslims in the Russian
Empire—which itself was experiencing revolution and civil war and thus offered
―a tempting field for political adventure‖ (Lewis 1968, 255). Indeed, during the
final days of the war, ―the Unionists even saw the mirage of a new empire in the
Caucasus‖ (Ahmad 1993, 46).
and who must be saved; and to keep alive the memories of the limbs of our homeland on the other side of
our borders that must be liberated‖ (Cited in Aksakal 2008, 27).
161 The Turks, through negotiations with the French and a plebiscite, eventually restored the province of
Alexandretta (Hattay) in the late 1930s.

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3. Islamic Empire: Turks have always identified themselves with the Islamic Empire
and in the run-up to, during, and after WWI, Islamic sentiments saturated political
life and discourses and attracted substantial part of the Turkish elite and their
socially conservative supporters. This also included many potential supporters of
Arabs and Muslims in various parts of the lost provinces who still hoped to
preserve the Islamic caliphate.
4. Opportunities: several opportunities for more assertive foreign policy and
possibly more territorial demands presented themselves especially towards the
end of the Turkish war of independence (1919-1923) when the Allies were
disunited and fragmented and seemed unwilling to resist Turkish advances. The
Allied forces that devoured the imperial possessions and occupied significant
portions of the Turkish heartland were divided in purpose and action and showed
no common interest in bridging their differences and confronting the Turkish
nationalists (Ahmad 1993, 50). Thus, the Turks seemed to have opportunities to
increase their demands and to exploit their neighbors and rifts among Allied
Powers.
5. Competing Ideologies
In order to understand variations in states‘ reactions to defeats, one cannot examine
institutional variables alone, but must also examine the particular ideas and beliefs
dominant at the time and the historical forces that reinforce or discredit them. In addition
to the material causes of an irredentist foreign policy, such as territory and population,
there existed aggressive and expansionist ideologies that could also have fuelled domestic
radicalism and foreign policy adventurism. During the last decades of the Ottoman

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Empire, three major pan-ideologies competed for the hearts and minds of the Empire‘s
subjects. These were pan-Ottomanism, pan-Turkism and Pan-Islamism.
Pan-Islamism: Needless to say that many of the Ottoman bureaucrats, administrators,
intellectuals and officers were Islamists who believed that the Empire and all future
reforms should be based on religion. For example, Namik Kemal, a prominent poet and
intellectual, and a forerunner of this approach, argued that Islam would prevail if it
adopted a modernist outlook (Ak in 2007, 82). Many soldiers who were fighting during
WWI believed they were fighting for their faith and Empire (Lewis 1968). Sultan Abdul-
Hamid II (1876-1909) supported Islamism as a political ideology. Islamists argued that
the decline of the Empire was caused by the abandonment of the fundamentals of the
faith and that Islam could still meet the demands of modern life and therefore should be
the wellspring of laws regulating social and political life. Only Western technology
should be borrowed. Ideas and values should remain Islamic. This ideology found broad
support among the Ulema (clerical establishment), the bureaucracy, the dervish orders
and the masses. 162
162 The supporters of pan-Islamism included ―officials and army officers who had been dismissed and
former palace spies. Soon joining them were the mass of Istanbul‘s Muslim population—artisans and
merchants, proprietors of coffeehouses and public baths, porters, fishermen, peasants in the capital to sell
their crops, recent refugees—all easily susceptible to a religious appeal‖ (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 278-279).
The main Islamist group, the Society for Islamic Unity, came to an end after the failure of the
counterrevolution in the Spring of 1909. Another influential group was the Society of Islamic Learning,
established in 1908, disseminated its ideas through the monthly publication ―Presentation of the Truth‖, it
was led by Mustafa Sabri, who became famous for his attempt, during the allied occupation of Istanbul
(1918-1923) to abrogate the secularizing measures that were introduced by the Young Turks. This group,
like other Islamist groups, believed that Islam should guide and animate the process of modernizing the
Empire. A more intellectual group was led by the poet Mehmet Akif (1870-1936), along with a group of
conservative intellectuals; they too believed in the compatibility between Islam and democracy but
condemned the ideologies that emphasized Turkish instead of Muslim brotherhood (Shaw and Shaw 1977,
304)

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Ottomanism: was a reformist idea that aimed at creating civic Ottoman nationalism: the
Empire‘s citiznes would become loyal to the Ottoman ideals irrespective of their religion
or ethnicity. 163 That is, Muslims and non-Muslims would be granted full equality before
the law, which would secure their loyalty to a constitutional empire (Okyar 1984). This
ideal went back to the 1860s and was adopted by the Ottoman constitution of 1876 and
the constitutional revolution of 1908 (Deverux 1964, 74). However, this ideology ran into
practical problems as Christian citizens of the Empire were agitating for national
independence and Arab nationalism was sweeping the Arab provinces. Practically, non-
Turks rejected the Ottomanist ideology and chose instead a nationalist one. Eventually,
the Turks themselves couldn‘t escape the charm of nationalism. To be fair, Ottomanism
was a powerful ideology that fascinated many reform-minded elites and formed the
intellectual basis upon which many of the reforms in the 19 th and early 20 th centuries
were based. In addition, many Turkish elites were socialized as Ottoman subjects and
their worldview was formed when Ottoman ideals still held sway. Davison (1977, 52)
affirmed that ―To the end of the empire…the concept of Ottomanism persisted.‖
Pan-Turkism: This was another ideology of imperial quality, which originated among
the Turkish speaking population of the Russian Empire. Turks there suffered at the hands
of Russian authorities but they also encountered pan-Slavism—which provided them with
a model to emulate. This ideology aimed at uniting the Turkish people, who live in vast
areas across Eastern Europe and Asia from the Aegean to China Sea encompassing large
populations in Iran, Afghanistan, China, and the Russian Empire. In the scheme of this
ideology, Turkey, the imperial center, will be the leader and the protector of this Pan-
163 We should not underestimate the audacity of this ideology as it stood ―in diametrical opposition to the
traditional view that non-Muslims deserved only a second-class status‖ (Tachau 1984, 65).

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Turkish unification. Many intellectuals (and adherents) who advanced Pan-Turkism and
later Turkish nationalism did not make a clear distinction between the two—this should
not be surprising given that both ideologies were based on the twin pillars of nationalism:
ethnicity and language. The difference would be basically in including and defining the
territorial boundaries of the state to be formed. This became clear only in the aftermath of
WWI (Lewis 1980).
Those were the three most significant ideologies present in the run-up to War and its
immediate aftermath. They provided the ideas that gave strength to political groups and
parties competing for power. Mostly, those were ideas that circulated among the upper
echelon of the ruling and intellectual classes and the politically active in the Empire.
Turkish nationalism, as it developed later, wasn‘t as prevalent as other ideologies
before WWI—if existed at all. ―It was the defeat of 1918 and its consequences that
created the deep nationalist sentiments which gave rise to modem Turkish nationalism‖
(Hostler 1957, 85) and which produced a drastic change in the Turks‘ perceptions of
themselves and of their place in the world (Lewis 1980, 29). Indeed, up till WWI, the
word Turk was closer to an insult (Lewis 1968, 1). Defeat had a devastating impact on
existing ideologies for none of them stood the test of war. Some fundamental change was
in order: The ground was fertile for the growth of a new ideology and new ideas that
would replace discredited ones and nourish new energies in the successor state.
3. National Self-Image
Losses began to mount and frustrations to accumulate as the Empire lost more and
more wars and felt the brunt of its military inferiority, especially throughout most of the

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19 th century and the early beginnings of the 20 th . Those losses left their toll on
Ottoman/Turkish leadership whose self-image had been wounded and self-esteem tamed.
As we will see below, there was sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the Ottomans
took a defensive posture, acknowledged, early on, their inferior status relative to their
European enemies, and began a series of reform efforts to halt the decline of their
Empire. Beginning in the late 17 th century, Ottoman history had become a history of
defeats and frustrations making it unlikely that Ottoman elites would harbor visions of
glory, expansion and hegemony. This history, with all its traumatic collective memories,
must have left its imprints on the elites‘ self-esteem and must have shaped how they
viewed themselves, set their national priorities and perceived their place in the
international system. This tamed, resigned, and realistic self-image goes a long way in
explaining why Turks coped with their losses realistically, why no illusions were
harbored, no fantasies run after and why national energies turned inward to absorb the
shock of defeat, loss and decline and to build a new nation and state.
I hypothesized that a nation with an inflated national self-image—as embodied in
its collective myths and its record of past victories—is more likely to react to defeats and
frustrations with political extremism. But, a nation with a tempered, resigned, realistic
national self-image is more likely to react with humility and prudence to defeats. Inflated
national self-image generates higher expectations whereas realistic self-image generates
reasonable expectations compatible with structural constraints and with the nation‘s
capabilities. A nation that suffered successive defeats and frustrations will subsequently
adjust its self-esteem and national objectives so that they become more compatible with
domestic resources and international opportunities and constraints. For a nation that had

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already experienced several defeats, another defeat neither be shocking nor intolerable. It
would be just another national blow. Expectations had already been tempered. Turkey
presents a solid case of defeats in wars turned into self-liberating enterprise and national
regeneration. After defeat, the Turkish leadership refused to indulge in fantasies of
revenge. The prevalence of a realistic national-self image allowed the Turkish leadership
to promote statist/moderate nationalism, formulate anti-irredentist ideology, implement
sweeping domestic reforms and pursue cooperative foreign policy.
In the following section, I will first explain the actual defeats that the Empire
suffered and their meanings, how they were perceived, and how they impacted national
self-image.
A. The Age of Mounting Losses
For the Ottoman Empire, the nineteenth century was an era of tribulations,
convulsions, mounting losses, cumulative frustrations and defeats. During the Russo-
Turkish War (1806–1812), one of many wars fought between Imperial Russia and the
Ottoman Empire, Ottoman armies suffered successive defeats, setbacks and substantial
human losses. In the Treaty of Bucharest (1812) that ended the war, the Ottomans ceded
Bessarabia to the Russians. Less than two decades later (1828-1829) another ruinous war,
sparked by the Greek War of Independence, broke out during which Russian forces
advanced into Bulgaria, the Caucasus, and northeastern Anatolia itself and came closer
than ever to Istanbul, causing fear in the imperial capital and prompting the Ottomans to
sue for peace. The war ended with great Ottoman losses: The Treaty of Adrianople
granted Russia most of the eastern shores of the Black Sea and the mouth of the Danube.
The Ottoman Empire had to recognize Russian sovereignty over Georgia and some parts

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of Armenia. Serbia received autonomy. The two defeats (1812 and 1829) and their
attendant losses and concessions clearly demonstrated the Ottomans' weakness and
incapacity to defend their possessions and foreshowed what was yet to come.
At about the same time, another war, from within the Ottoman domain, rocked the
Empire. Egyptian forces attacked Ottoman armies in 1831-33 and even threatened
Istanbul—which was saved only after the Great Powers decided to put an end to the rise
of Muhammad Ali of Egypt. Ottoman officials stood in awe as they realized that the
Egyptian army was effective and successful mainly because Mohammad Ali modernized
it along European lines (Davison 1990, 77).
The British occupied Cyprus in 1878 and Egypt in 1882. Austria occupied
Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878. The French occupied Tunisia in (1881). Russia was to have
its share of the falling possessions: it declared war on the Ottoman Empire in 1877—only
one year after Sultan Abdülhamid ascended the throne. The Ottomans had no choice but
to acknowledge their losses and recognize the independence of Romania, Serbia, and
Montenegro, and the autonomy of Bulgaria. They even had to pay a 30-million ruble
indemnity to Russia (Brummett 2000, 1-2).
Immense Ottoman losses continued: they lost Crete and Kuwait in 1889. Austria
annexed Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Bulgaria declared its independence in October 1908—
the same month, after the Great powers evacuated Crete, Greece exploited the vacuum
and annexed the island. All Ottoman authorities could do was to protest to the Great

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Powers, who had promised to uphold the Berlin Treaty, 164 but to no avail (Shaw and
Shaw 1977, 276-77).
The trail of losses continued with the Italo-Turkish war (1911-1912). The
Ottoman Empire lost the provinces of Tripolitania, Fezzan and Cyrenaica—today‘s
Libya—and the Dodecanese Islands in the Aegean Sea. This defeat demonstrated to the
Balkan states—that were experiencing heightened nationalism—how easily Ottoman
forces could be overcome. Indeed, the Balkan League would attack the Ottoman Empire
even before the official conclusion of the Italo-Turkish war. Montenegro, Bulgaria,
Greece and Serbia, who by the beginning of the twentieth century, had all achieved
independence from the Ottoman Empire, formed the Balkan League (1912) and attacked
the Ottomans on October 8, 1912—the first Balkan War. During the war, Bulgarian
forces reached the outskirts of Constantinople at the Çatalca line and the isthmus of the
Gallipoli peninsula and occupied parts of Western Thrace and Macedonia. Serbia
captured Kosovo. Greek forces captured Thessaloniki and advanced on Ioánnina. The
Treaty of London (May 30, 1913) ended the war and practically the Ottoman presence in
the Balkans, including all of Macedonia and Albania.
Losses in the Balkans were grievous and amounted to human, cultural, social,
economic and emotional disaster no less. The Empire lost most of its European
possessions—around 60,000 square miles in total, which had a population of nearly 4
164 This was the treaty that ended the Balkan wars of 1877 and led to the independence of the principalities
of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and the autonomy of Bulgaria. The Treaty of Berlin basically
amended the Treaty of San Stefano, which few months earlier had created a sprawling Bulgarian state,
which the British and Austrians feared would be a Russian base in the Balkans.

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millions. Many Muslims left the Balkans and became refugees in Istanbul; diseases, like
typhoid and cholera, only exacerbated the human disaster and raised mortality rates
among the refugees. The Empire had difficulties resettling the population and many
refugees spent years in squatter towns. However, the loss was not only material but also
symbolic: areas lost had formed the European core of the Empire for nearly 500 years
(Macedonia, Albania, Thrace) and those were rich, well-developed regions. A large
number of Ottoman elites hailed from those European provinces. Salonika, for example,
was the birthplace of the Committee of Union and Progress (Silverstein 2003, 503).
Mustafa kemal himself came from Macedonia. 165
The terms that were used by Ottomans and Arabs to describe the Balkan War
provide a sense of the intensity of loss and its meaning. Those were ―most apocalyptic‖
terms such as ―disaster, catastrophe, defeat and maelstrom,‖ whereas Arab journals
described the loss as a ―disastrous calamity‖ (Ginio 2005, 169). The fact that the Ottoman
Empire was resoundingly defeated by its former colonies in the Balkan Wars added insult
to injury: had defeat come at the hands of superior European Great Powers, the impact
would have been less shocking, less humiliating, more tolerable (Berktay 2006, 122).
This was how a writer from Cairo described the intensity and depth of defeat and
humiliation,
…and today the Bulgarians are in the outskirts of Çatalca! What a disgrace! You, the
offspring of ´Uthma-n, the descendants of Bayezid, the children of Muhammad the
Conqueror, the successors of Sulayma-n! The [ability to] rule became too extended for
you and you are not able to master its management anymore! Consequently even those
who were your slaves only yesterday covet what you have (cited in Ginio 2005, 169).
165 Kemal once said ―I am Macedonian. But I make no territorial claims‖ (cited in Kinross 1965, 520).

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The Balkan defeat left its toll on Ottoman morale and psyche sending the
Ottoman elites searching for answers and looking for solutions that might save what
remained of their Empire. The aftermath of this particular defeat ―drew the Ottomans into
a complex of sensations, shame, grief, anger and a questioning about their own identity‖
for they were defeated by their own subjects, by ―former shepherds and servants‖ (Boyer
2007, 2). Berktay (2006, 122-123) even contended that it was not British occupation of
Istanbul after WWI that made the Turkish nationalists—during the war of
independence—decide to take their last stand in Anatolia, but the arrival of the Bulgarian
army at the Çatalca line during the Balkan War, which exposed the frailty of Istanbul,
five years earlier.
Then came the ultimate defeat, not unexpectedly. By the end of WWI, the
Ottoman Empire had disappeared. Except for few battles, such as Gallipoli, there was no
glory to remember. Only the War of Independence would restore confidence to the Turks
after over a century of decay, frustrations and unending losses. Defeat was indeed
catastrophic, gradual, slow, steady and cumulative ―with each individual disaster adding
its own spoonful of bitterness to an already overflowing cup‖ (Berktay 2006, 122).
True, there were some victories amidst the dizzying defeats. However, an era of
darkness, interrupted momentarily by an occasional and fleeting splash of sunshine,
won‘t eradicate the stigma of defeat nor induce forgetfulness. The Ottoman ‗victory‘ in
the Crimean War (1856) was only possible thanks for the Empire‘s allies; even Ottoman
‗apparent‘ admission into the club of European Great Powers in 1856 was only symbolic
for Ottoman officials knew the limits of their power and were aware of the little leverage

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their Empire had (Davison 1990, 82). Minor victories over Greece in 1897 and Bulgaria
in 1913 (the Ottomans got back Edirne, their old capital) were marginal and by no means
potent enough to offset unending defeats and humiliations. There was an awareness that
if the Empire hadn‘t fallen yet, it was ―only because no European Power would permit its
conquest by any other‖ (Mansfield 1973, 494).
All those losses must have had their toll on Ottoman elites‘ morale and selfimage.
It is hard to imagine dreams of grandeur and aspirations for hegemony amidst all
those losses. The times when Ottomans knocked at the doors of Vienna (twice in 1529
and 1683) were gone; now, Istanbul itself, the capital of the ―well-protected domains‖
had become a potential target for the Russian enemy and former subjects, Bulgarians—
and later Greeks after WWI.
B. Tempered National Self-Image
Agonized to see their status deteriorate steadily, tormented by impotence to halt
the decline, tortured by painful memories of past losses and haunted by a future fraught
with uncertainties, Ottoman elites displayed a self-image that could be surely described
as tempered and resigned. Ottomans survived but continually under the ghosts of
retrenchment and last-ditch defense. The above cumulative defeats produced a mood of
fear and insecurity rendering Ottoman policies defensive in nature: To preserve the
remnants of Empire and to hold on to what little prestige had been left. There were no
dreams of expansion or confronting, leave aside defeating, Great Powers. Cumulative
defeats uncovered a deeper crisis of decay within the Empire itself to which the Ottomans
reacted with a series of reform projects in order to regenerate the Empire. The turn to

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Europe—the enemy, the other, the foreigner—for inspiration and emulation clearly
demonstrated that the Ottomans became fully aware of their declining capabilities and
status. Those two things, awareness of decline and the turn to Europe, do not indicate a
self-image of grandiosity or an inflated national self-esteem. If anything, they are
powerful indicators of a sense of responsibility and political realism.
For example, in response to the increasing missionary zeal and activities of
Christian missionaries in Ottoman realms, especially towards the end of the nineteenth
century, the Sultan himself said that ―…if open opposition [to the missionaries] is
brought to bear, the Sublime Porte will suffer the vexing intervention of the three powers‘
ambassadors. Thus, the only way to fight against them is to increase the Islamic
population and spread the belief in the Holiest of Faiths‖ (Deringil 1993, 15). The
Sultan‘s response to such ‗violations‘ of Ottoman sovereignty and religious sensibilities
unmistakably showed the fears of confronting superior powers but also the sense of
helplessness in one‘s own realm and the ―well-protected domain,‖ that the Sultan himself
couldn‘t apparently protect. There was much realism in this response. 166
The crushing and cumulative defeats caused a fall down of morale. Some
worrying signs and some self-deprecating ideas came to the surface. Mizanci Murat, an
intellectual, activist and journalist, wrote in November 1912 that the Empire might have
better fortunes if it were to become a protectorate of one of the European Great Powers
166 Besides the obvious feelings of inferiority that were acknowledged, there prevailed sentiments of
despondency. An observer of the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century noticed that ―In 1880 to
1882 a hopeless despondency about the future of the country reigned everywhere in Turkish society…
Abd-ul-Hamid had to create a feeling of hope among his Moslem subjects…Abd-ul-Hamid introduced the
new religious idea: revived the idea of the khalifate….[as a scheme for] strengthening Mohammedan
feeling and making Turkey the center of Mohammedan revival‖‖ (cited in Deringil 1993, 11). Escape from
humiliation into the fold of religiosity is a theme that would be repeated time and again in the Middle East.

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for at least a quarter of a century. 167 Kamil Pasha himself accepted the idea of the Empire
becoming a British protectorate. 168 Mahmut Şevket Pasha entertained similar ideas and
even went further: since the Empire lacked technical skills to re-organize the army, it
would be better if the whole army were placed under an active German command. 169 A
German general, Von Sanders, would later be appointed as the Commander of the First
Army Corps—a move that provoked other European powers, especially the Russians and
the British. In response, Ottomans proposed more concessions to appease the British—
appointing advisors to the Ministry of internal affairs and a General Inspector and
Inspector of public works, etc… (Ak in 2007, 91-92). It became evident that the
Ottomans were willing to give up their effective sovereignty over their internal affairs in
exchange for help in reforming the army and the bureaucracy. The willingness to ask
foreign powers to organize the Ottoman army and former adversaries to reform the
bureaucracy, with all the concessions in sovereignty that went along,
provided a
powerful evidence of the low self-esteem that struck the Ottoman leadership and of the
tempered national self-image that prevailed at the time.
Indeed, there were prominent Turks—after WWI—who believed that the most
beneficial route to national salvation would pass through the gates of an American
mandate. The famous writer, intellectual and activist, Halide Edip, said that Turkish
people possessed neither financial resources nor the expertise, knowledge or power
necessary for the creation of a modern and healthy nation state. She explained that,
167 Mizanci Murat (1853-1912), a teacher of history and an idol of progressive students, known for his
literary activities; he also published a newspaper, the Nizam.
168 An Ottoman statesman and a four-time Grand Vizir, last term from October 1912 to January 1913.
169 An Ottoman military general and later a Grand Vizir in 1913

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Even if today‘s government does not appreciate the fact, America, which knows how a
people and a people‘s government is constituted and which has brought a country as
primitive as the Philippines to a state where it is capable of managing itself with a
modern administration, suits us very well in this respect. Only the talents of the New
World can create, after fifteen or twenty years of hardship, a new Turkey in which every
individual, thanks to his education and mentality, will carry true independence in his head
as well as in his pocket‖ (Cited in Ahmad 1993, 55-56).
There was no doubt that since the mid-nineteenth century ―among the officials
and intellectuals, the idea of labeling the Ottoman Empire as the ‗sick man of Europe‘
was internalized‖ (Tutuncu 2007, 29). Some scholars employed the concept of ―selfcolonization‖
in order to demonstrate that Turkish modernization project implied a
strategy of cultural survival and the ―acceptance of the dominance of the West as a
different and ‗unfortunately superior‘ civilization‖ (Tutuncu 2007, 45). Besides the
concept of self-colonization, Makdisi (2002) explored ―Ottoman Orientalism‖ by which
he meant “a complex of Ottoman attitudes produced by a nineteenth-century age of
Ottoman reform that implicitly and explicitly acknowledged the West to be the home of
progress and the East, writ large, to be a present theater of backwardness.‖ There was
indeed a consensus that the Ottomans were fully aware of their inferior status, of the fact
that their power had been declining while that of their enemies rising.
Brummett (2000, 66) showed in his study of Cartoons in the Ottoman Empire
between 1908 and 1911 that a major trend of satire was the ‗descriptive, fatalistic mode‘
in which the satirist drew a picture of a problem or event while at the same time showing
skepticism of the possibilities to resolve the problem depicted, ―the recommendation and
mood were complicated by apprehension that neither the new order nor the old were
calculated to offer salvation from European imperialism‖ (Brummett 2000, 66).
Generally, the satirists did not disseminate the illusions of an idealized Ottoman past but
instead depicted it as backward and irretrievable. The Ottomans, were also mocked, for

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their imitation of Europeans, for being ―morally bankrupt‖ and for ―squandering the
meager resources of the empire‖ (Brummett 2000, 190).
Probably, the heartfelt words of Cemal Pasha, the navy minister, on November 2,
1914, present an accurate description of the overall mood of Ottoman elites in the run-up
to the first world war, ―When I contemplate all that Russia has done for centuries to bring
about our destruction, and all that Britain has done during these last few years, then I
consider this new crisis that has emerged to be a blessing. I believe that it is the Turks‘
ultimate duty either to live like an honorable nation or to exit the stage of history
gloriously‖ (Cited in Aksakal 2008, 19). This was reflective of the sense of desperation
that had taken hold of the Ottoman/Turkish leadership at the time. Entering the Great
War was a gamble for survival. Losing meant departure, and so it was.
Because of the mounting evidence of inferiority, Ottoman elites felt the need to
project a positive image abroad. 170 Two areas were particularly identified: to halt or
minimize negative images and stereotypes hurled at Ottomans in international media
outlets and in other forums, such as theater, which ―sought to project the Ottoman state as
a degenerate nest of bloodthirsty tyrants at worst, or a decaying fleshpot of ‗Oriental‘
vice at best‖ (Deringil 1998b, 135-136). The second area was more active and sought
opportunities to project a positive image in all areas possible, particularly in world
events. Thus, the Ottomans kept a watchful eye on what was being written about them
abroad and made protests even against trivial issues at times. Notably, they sent
170 Efforts to combat European perceptions of Ottoman inferiority clearly demonstrated that the Ottomans
were aware of how others perceived them. The Other‘s attitude is integral to one‘s self-conception and
there was really no question as to who the Other for the Ottoman Empire was. For centuries, multiple and
continual interactions, exchanges, wars, battles, tensions, rivalries, alliances with the European adversary
became integral to the Ottomans‘ sense of self (Worringer 2004, 221).

333
financial/humanitarian aid to both sides of the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) and to
the victims of forest fire in the United States (Deringil 1998b, 135-136). 171 Another
example of the efforts to project a positive image and to combat the demeaning
perceptions of foreigners was the collection of photographs elegantly presented as gifts to
the Library of Congress in 1893 and the British Museum in 1894. Those included photos
of buildings, monuments, schools, armies. An eye-catching collection comprised a host
of photos entitled ―Horses, Imperial Stables, and Yachts.‖ This was a direct message to
the outside world that the Sultan understood the trappings of power and that he was a
member of royal families. However, as Deringil (1998b, 152) says, ―The emphasis on
yachts and horses was part of Sultan Abdulhamid‘s effort to be part of what Benedict
Anderson has called ‗the semi-standardized style‘ of ‗civilized‘ monarchy in the later
nineteenth century.‖ Notably, those efforts were focused on projecting an image of the
Ottoman Empire as a member of the Club of Great European Powers, and not a image of
a competing civilization intent on resisting, confronting, or conquering. They were
clearly defensive in nature and tried to hide the sentiments of inferiority that
overwhelmed the Empire in the entire 19 th
century. This ―obsession with prestige‖
(Deringil 1998b, 154) did not reflect self-confidence and grandiose national aspirations;
instead, the obsession was a clear sign of insecurity and compliance. As I mentioned
before, identity is intimately related to how others view one‘s self-image; the need to
fight off negative depictions and stereotypes and the need (and efforts) to project an
171 For a detailed analysis of the Ottomans‘ concern for their image in foreign press and foreign
publications, see Selim Deringil (1998b) especially chapter 6, Ottoman Image Management.

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alternative, more acceptable and more dignified image were powerful indicators of
conscious feelings of insecurity.
Conclusion
I mentioned previously that the suddenness of defeat accentuates the trauma and
deepens the shock that follows. In the absence of suddenness, states, individuals,
collectivities ready themselves for anticipated consequences; at a minimal, their reaction
would be tempered by the knowledge of what was coming. The Ottoman Empire
experienced a series of defeats over a long period of time, especially in the nineteenth
century and the beginning of the twentieth, that clearly presaged the disintegration of the
Empire. As Lewis (1980, 34) put it, ―The Decline of the Ottoman Empire was slow and
was resisted step by step; its end was clear and unequivocal.‖ Losses were gradual and
incremental but they were also certain. Ottomans were completely aware of those losses,
of their waning military power, their incompetent bureaucracy and ineffectual
management of their ―well-protected domains,‖
and overall of their inferior status
relative to their enemies. This awareness became embodied in the famous and oftrepeated
question, ―what went wrong with the Empire?‖ Indeed, this question became
urgent, early on, during the seventeenth century at the gates of Vienna (the 1683 siege)
when the Empire began to lose its vigor for conquest and to feel its fading capacity to
achieve victories over its enemies. Soon, a series of defeats afflicted the empire from the
late seventeenth century onwards. Gradually, incapacity to conquer became incapacity to
defend. This gradualism and accumulation ensured that Ottoman elites became
accustomed to realistic assessments of their capabilities and to eschewing grandiose
dreams of expansion, conquest and Empire.

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National self-images do not descend from heaven; they emanate from historical
memories and achievements. In a country that was bereft of such accomplishments, and
whose history was survival under the fear of retrenchment and decay, it would be hard to
imagine that elites would ignore all the ample signs and nurture inflated national-self
images or inflated national self-esteem or that the public would be receptive to calls for
more wars, expansion and grandeur. The accumulation of defeats, broken dreams and
their memories did not create a fertile ground for the emergence of revisionist and
irredentist movements. Instead, there emerged a different kind of radical movement—
radical and revolutionary only in the sense that it wanted a clean break with the past, a
rejection of Islamic/Ottoman identity and acceptance of Westernization. The Kemalist
leadership did not see defeat as another occasion for more adventures and territorial
redemption; instead, it sought redemption in domestic reforms, internal reconstruction
and peaceful cooperative relations with former enemies.
4. Political Organizations
The Republican People‘s Party (RPP) was a powerful, coherent, stable
organization that ruled Turkey from independence till WWII. It maintained monopoly
over the distribution of political resources and thus offered plenty of incentives for the
politically active to join the party. It was an elitist party that enjoyed the support of the
bureaucratic and military elites and that most often avoided mass mobilization efforts,
which insulated it from public pressures and enabled it to implement identitytransforming
reform measures with minimal coercion. Kemal led the party until his death
on November 8, 1938 upon which his first lieutenant Inonu took over the leadership of
the party and the Republic (Esfahani 1996, 9). A distinct quality of the RPP was its

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institutional continuity: it built upon existing groups, networks and organizations. Its
lineage went back to the Committee of Union and Progress (CPU), whose offices and
branches played a formative role in creating national resistance groups, which formed the
backbone of the Republican People‘s Party. This continuity solidified the legitimacy of
the RPP and enabled it to impose its hegemony on state and society for a long period of
time and was probably a major reason behind the emergence of a single party system—
with two short experiments with multipartyism. This institutionalization, I contend, left
no space for demagoguery, no room for radical groups to emerge, and deprived the
opposition of any institutional platform that could have been used by political
entrepreneurs and predatory elites to generate radicalism and extremism.
Besides creating a powerful national liberation movement to fight occupation
forces, Kemal‘s strategy aimed at establishing a set of institutions, which eventually
evolved into a full-fledged government (Turan 1984, 101). Multiple regional and national
congresses were held, a parliament and a political party were established, and a smooth
and orderly transfer of administrative, bureaucratic and military institutions from the
defunct Empire to the new Republic was effected. Kemal distinctly chose not to
implement his political program through a ‗revolutionary council,‘ or a ‗plebiscitarian
presidency‘ (Ozbudun 1987, 336), a measure that played no small part in the moderation
of the nationalist movement. This, of course, set the Turkish movement apart from many
conventional national liberation movements, which normally resorted to such measures
and adopted radical domestic and foreign policy stands.

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A. Institutional Continuity
Kemal took several steps to organize national resistance. He used existing
political networks bequeathed by the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), many of
which were transformed into national resistance groups—the Defense of Rights
Groups—which would be used to create the ruling party—the Republican People‘s
Party. 172 He organized two congresses in order to unify various nationalist groups and to
create a united front and a single national program; he delegitimized the collaborating
government in Istanbul but created an alternative government to conduct negotiations
with the Allied powers.
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), which effectively ruled the
Ottoman Empire from 1908 until the end of WWI, had branches and offices throughout
Turkish towns and cities. 173 Given its popularity at the time among the military and
bureaucratic elites, and its near monopoly on Ottoman politics—most of the ideological
debates moved around the CUP ideas of modernization and reform—it is safe to say that
172 Continuity existed on many levels between the CUP and the RPP or between the Young Turks‘ era and
that of the Kemalist/nationalists‘ era. Although Zürcher (1992, 240) acknowledged the many differences
that existed between the Kemalist era and the Young Turks‘, he also argued that no matter how ―great these
differences may have been, politically there was a large measure of continuity, because there was such a
close resemblance between the two ruling groups of the period, the Young Turk Committee of Union and
Progress (" ttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti"), which ruled the Ottoman Empire for the last ten years of its
existence, and the Turkish nationalist, or Kemalist movement, which first re-established Turkish
independence after the War and then went on to create the Republic of Turkey.‖
173 In 1909 the CUP was forced out of power by a counter-revolution led by the Society of Mohammad
Party, which was loyal to Sultan Abdülhamid. Many CUP leaders had to flee Istanbul but soon returned
after the army intervened, restored the Young Turks to power, and exiled the Sultan to Salonika
(Geyikdage 1984). It was also forced out of power again for three months in 1913 but continued its rule
until the end of the war.

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it was a quite powerful political party that enjoyed wide support. 174 Although the CUP
itself was dissolved and its leadership fled the country at the end of WWI, many of its
local chapters and branches remained active and subsequently played a formative role in
creating the Defense of Rights Groups—the local resistance organizations that sprang up
in Anatolia following the news of the Greek invasion. Indeed, ―Kemal was himself a
Unionist of long standing‖ (Ahmad 1993, 48-49). Zürcher (1992, 248) argued that it was
the CUP that initiated the war of national independence while Ataturk ―only gradually
emerged as the unchallenged leader of what was essentially a Unionist organization.‖
Moreover, many leaders of the nationalist movement were former Unionist members
(Zürcher 1984, 11-13). Some scholars even noted that many CUP branches were simply
transformed into resistance groups (Macafie 1994, 57; Payaslioglu 1964, 417) thus
providing the institutional infrastructure and organizational foundation for the national
resistance movement (Kazancigil 1981, 50; Ahmad 1993, 48-49). The Unionist regime
also left a strong legacy among craftsmen, manufacturers, and trades across cities and
towns in Anatolia by encouraging the formation of nationalist guilds, which later
supported the war of national liberation by providing financial resources and a large and
effective network of supporters. There also existed ‗gangs‘ that were mostly led by
former CUP members and agents and which also actively participated in the war (Canefe
2002, 144-45). Institutional continuity granted solid legitimacy to the national liberation
movement and made it much harder for alternative movements to emerge. In many
respects, this set the stage for the emergence of the single party system that Kemal built
and that set limits on political discourses and ideas.
174 It won a majority in the elections of 1908 and 1912 (Ozbudun 1987). Although it faced strong
opposition from the liberals in the April 1912 elections, the CUP managed to win decisively (269 out of
275) seats (Lewis 1968, 222).

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When Mustafa Kemal was sent away to Samsun in May 1919 to demobilize the
Ottoman army, he immediately began organizing the national resistance movement and
refused to obey orders to demobilize. He was also encouraged by senior commanders and
military officers and officials. But resistance to the schemes of occupation wasn‘t limited
to the nationalist army commanders. As the word spread that the victors were about to
partition Anatolia and Thrace, local resistance groups formed in the early months of 1919
in various Turkish towns (Zürcher 1991, 13). 175 The possibility of granting Western
Anatolia to Greece and creating a Kurdish state in the east caused lots of fury and anger
(Ahmad 1993, 73). These national resistance groups would later adopt the national
charter pronounced at the Erzurum Congress in August of 1919 and which, among many
other things, determined the minimally accepted national borders of the future state of
Turkey. 176
The Congresses of Erzurum, and later the Congress of Sivas, united the
various associations and groups that sprang up to fight the partition of Turkey into the
―Association for the Defense of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia.‖ Mustafa Kemal
was elected chairman of both Congresses and the head of the executive committee. With
the help of senior military commanders and local leaders, he set out to transform these
groups from local into regional and later national ones and eventually into a political
party that ruled Turkey until WWII.
175 Some local groups that organized resistance were mostly interested in protecting local and not national
interests. Indeed, local notables were quite willing to cooperate with the Great Powers in return for
parochial benefits. ―To such people who organized the so-called ‗Defence of Rights Societies‘ in various
parts of the country, the notion of national struggle was of secondary importance. They simply wanted to
salvage what they could from a seemingly hopeless situation‖ (Ahmad 1993, 73). Thus, the task of creating
a unified national resistance wasn‘t a simple task.
176 The Erzurum Congress is considered the ―starting point of the resistance movements‖ (Zürcher 2000,
164). The Congress had delegates from five Ottoman Eastern provinces and was held under the auspices of
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and Kazim Karabekir Pasha and took several decisions that shaped the Turkish War
of Independence.

340
Avoiding debates over contentious issues and lessening the degree of political and
ideological polarization were essential for taming passions, uniting the disparate political
groups and creating a united and substantially institutionalized national resistance
movement. Since the Sultan-Caliph still retained public support among many national
resistance groups, the nationalist leadership found it imperative to avoid direct
confrontation with the Sultan, who was largely cooperating with the occupying forces. 177
Thus, the leadership declared that its purpose was to take on the burden of liberating the
Sultan‘s government from foreign oppression and to liberate the Sultan himself from
captivity. Nationalist efforts at this time were still carried out under the banner of the
sultan-caliph (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 345). Generally, the Nationalists maintained a rather
―moderate and cautious‖ attitude towards the Sultan/Caliph (Okyar 1984). This was a
necessary step in order to unite the domestic front around an objective that all groups
aspired to realize and in order to avoid escalating internal rifts, which might have led to
defections, multiple agendas and an environment susceptible to radicalization.
Unlike the Erzurum Congress, which united only five delegates from five
provinces, the Congress of Sivas (September 4 till September 11, 1919) included
representatives from all the Anatolian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Leaders of the
national movement met to discuss an action plan and a platform for the future. To
indicate the nationally unifying nature of resistance groups, the leadership decided to
change their name into the ―Society to Defend the Rights and Interests of the Provinces
of Anatolia and Rumelia.‖ Thus, a significant step in uniting and institutionalizing the
national resistance movement was accomplished by moving from a regional congress in
177 ―The majority saw the national struggle as a means to restore the sultan back to power‖ (Ahmad 1993,
52).

341
Erzurum, which was sponsored by the Society for the Defense of Rights of Eastern
Anatolia, to a nation-wide congress in Sivas, where various groups were officially united
into a single organization. 178 These efforts would culminate in the opening of the Turkish
Grand National Assembly in Ankara on April 23, 1920—after Istanbul was officially
occupied by the Allied forces and the Ottoman parliament dissolved (Ozbudun 1991, 80).
The institutionalization of resistance networks and incorporating them under a
unified command was greatly facilitated by fact that the whole project of national
resistance was an elite-led project. Another factor was the treaty of Sevres (May 1920). 179
B. The Formation of the Republican People’s Party (RPP) and its Structure
During the Lausanne negotiations (1923), it became clear to Kemal that he had to
confront strong opposition at home. 180 A large group of deputies in the national assembly
coalesced into what became known as the ‗Second Group,‘ which began criticizing
Kemal‘s policies and openly accusing him of being too lenient in negotiations, of
surrendering precious territories to foreigners. Worried that he might not be able to secure
the necessary votes to ratify the Lausanne Treaty, Kemal decided to dissolve the first
National Assembly—which he did on April 16, 1923 (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 380-381;
178 The first nationwide congress at Sivas would be later framed and claimed as the first congress of the
People‘s Republican Party, which was actually created only in 1923—four after the Sivas Congress
(Zürcher 2000, 162).
179 The terms of the treaty were harsh: Allied forces will control the straits, Greeks will hold on to the
European part of the imperial capital, Arab provinces will be awarded to Britain and France, Thrace will go
to Greece, an independent state for Armenians will be created and another one for the Kurds, and financial
and economic penalties and concessions will be imposed (Vere-Hodge 1950, 20-22).
180 This was the conference that met to amend the Sevres Treaty that the Turks completely rejected. The
Lausanne Treaty was signed on July 24, 1923. Participants were Turkey, France, Great Britain, Greece,
Italy, Rumania, Yugoslavia, United States and Japan, while Bulgaria and the USSR attended as observers.
The Treaty formally recognized the boundaries of the Republic of Turkey and the legitimacy of the
Kemalist regime.

342
Yilmaz 1996, 103). Kemal ensured in the next elections (June 1923) that his opponents
were defeated: the second Assembly that met on August 11, 1923 was basically
composed of his supporters. On September 9, 1923, only a month after the new Assembly
went into session, Kemal decided to form a political party (Yilmaz 1996, 103). Both the
elections of the new Assembly and the creation of a political party were preemptive
moves as Kemal was about to launch a series of radical reforms that he correctly
predicted would be controversial and would be opposed by members of the former
assembly (Macfie 1994, 130-131).
The ―People‘s Party‖ was born on September 9, 1923 —two months later, it was
renamed the ―Republican people‘s Party‖ (RPP) and Mustafa Kemal Pasha was elected
chairman (Yilmaz 1996, 103). The RPP was a strong political party. No major defections
from the party had been reported. It maintained a coherent ideology (secularization,
modernization and sate-based republican nationalism) and a coherent social base for the
whole inter-war period. 181 For Huntington, (1970, 6) a party would be considered strong
if it ―monopolized (1) the legitimation of the political system; (2) the recruitment of
political leadership; and (3) interest aggregation and policy-making.‖ The Republican
People‘s Party, by those standards, was a strong party as it monopolized all legitimation
of the political system; recruitment into higher offices (distribution of political resources)
181 The Party‘s ideology comprised six principles, which were later introduced into the Constitution and
became known as Kemalism. These were republicanism, populism, statism, revolutionism, secularism and
nationalism. Republicanism simply meant that the public elect the leader—unlike in Ottoman times when
authority was based on hereditary principles. Populism was posited as counter-principle to the Ottoman
social order of privilege and class; now, government belonged to the Turkish people who would work
together to secure the good life. Statism was really state capitalism: the government will have to take a
direct role in economic development and planning. Reformism referred to modernization (Fisher 1964;
Goldschmidt 1991). Secularism and nationalism remained the focal points of Kemal‘s ideology for they
implied a shift in the basis of political legitimacy, self-definition, and a cultural revolution.

343
and interest aggregation (no other party or organization was permitted to form and
solidify). There were only two short experiments with opposition parties—to be detailed
below—but which simply demonstrated the wisdom of maintaining a single-party system
for the implementation of the radical reform program.
The RPP was a cadre party of government officials and local notables that
eschewed mass mobilization even during the national liberation war—when this was
most likely to occur. Basically, the leadership of the party was a loose alliance between
the military-bureaucratic professionals, the rising bourgeoisie whom the Unionists
supported, along with the notables and landlords of Anatolia (Ahmad 1993, 52). This was
an elitist/top-down party (Webb 2005, 2). 182 Party membership ―was limited to the elite
of Turkish society, who were admitted through a complicated system of introductions and
examinations and were required to accept strict party discipline, regularly attend party
meetings, and work as the party directed‖ (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 383). Most of the
traditional peasantry were excluded from participation, which was in many ways limited
to the ―Westernized, urban classes‖ (Huntington 1970, 16). Political participation was
expanded only after the RPP consolidated its rule, but during the early years of the
Republic, it was ―entirely controlled by the ruling group‖ (Eisenstadt 1984, 9). 183 Given
the symbiosis created between party and state, this had serious policy implications.
Isolating the decision-making apparatus of the state from public pressures enhances the
182 ―…the republican political elite had been mainly imperial functionaries, particularly military officers:
predominantly of urban background, a Turkish-speaking bureaucratic class educated in the elite institutions
of the Empire, almost all Sunni Muslims‖ (Web 2005, 2).
183 Ozbudun (1987, 340), for example, observed no intense electoral campaigning aimed at reaching down
the masses prior to elections. This could also be taken to refer to the absence of efforts to mobilize the
masses and encourage political participation.

344
autonomy of the elites and their capacity to pursue foreign and domestic policies based
on rational calculations and national interests—as constructed and perceived by the elites.
This insulation explains the capacity of the ruling elites to break away from the past, to
restructure the socio-political order and to engineer identity-transforming reforms with
minimal coercion or repression.
Linz‘s (1975) argued that authoritarian regimes encourage apathy and
depoliticisation in contrast to totalitarian ones that invest significant efforts in
mobilization and participation. The RPP made no serious efforts at enlisting the support
of the peasants—the largest sector of the Turkish population at the time—and instead
focused almost exclusively on recruiting and attracting the small westernized elites.
Huntington (1970, 15-16) described the party as an example of ―exclusionary one party
systems‖ which focused its mobilization efforts only on its constituency while
suppressing or restricting political activities and participation of other social forces. This
stands in contrast to the revolutionary party systems which try either to assimilate or
eliminate subordinate social forces or classes.
Political mobilization in the Republic, especially in its early years, was noticeably
low and sometimes even lacking. 184 Low degrees of political mobilization left out many
sectors of the Turkish population outside of active political participation. This was
double-edged. It relieved the country of the probable experience of political disturbances
184 There was some evidence that the CUP nurtured populism and resorted to mass mobilization in order to
use public pressures against the caliph and for war mobilization efforts. This was especially true in the
decade leading up to WWI when there were demonstrations, protests, boycotts, collective collection of
subscriptions for the fleet, along with public celebrations in the wake of the abolition of the capitulations
and the declaration of Jihad in November 1914 (Ahmad 46). However, generally speaking these were the
exception, not the norm.

345
such as mass rebellions and radical mass movements and allowed political elites to
manage political affairs with minimal domestic constraints. But, at the same time, it left a
large number of people outside the control of the political party in power. This implied
that there existed a serious risk in allowing opposition political parties to grow and to
operate freely as they could attain the tools of political mobilization by highlighting
important and salient issues that the ruling party compromised on, by proposing an
alternative set of core values, and by resorting to extremist discourses that would be more
appealing to the masses. Kemal had two experiments with opposition political parties that
clearly brought those dangers to light.
Similar to other authoritarian and single party systems, top leadership of the RPP
controlled all levers of power within the party apparatus. There were semiannual
elections for top positions but most changes came only through Kemal‘s leadership. The
executive committee, the main decision-making apparatus of the party, was completely
controlled by Kemal, who staffed it with his loyal supporters. The Council of the
Presidency of the Party, composed of three leaders—Party President, Vice President, and
the Secretary General—was tasked with policy-making decisions and forming party lists
of candidates who would run for national assembly elections (Ozbudun 1987, 337). The
implications of this system should be clear: top leadership of the party controlled the
nominations (and subsequently the elections) of party members into the national
assembly, which ensured that the party controlled legislative authority. That the party
exercised significant control over the National Assembly was illustrated by the fact that
most high officials in the party organization and its General Executive Committee were
also assembly members (Frey 1965, 11). Indeed, Frey (1965, 302-303) concluded his

346
study of political elites in Turkey by confirming that all the politically active and
ambitious in Turkey ―usually rose to eminence and power through party activity and with
party support.‖ Finally, Presidential elections were held through the Assembly and the
elected president appointed the prime minister. Kemal thus imposed his control over the
Assembly and the government through his control of the party.
C. The Opposition’s Strength
It was essential for the RPP, if it were to carry out its social transformation policies,
not to facilitate the creation of an opposition party or other institutional platforms from
which opposition elites could mobilize the public. The two parties that were allowed to
function were disbanded once they began to acquire mass following.
Kemal took several drastic measures that would pose formidable challenges for
the formation of a counter-elite. He declared Turkey a Republic and stripped the
Caliph/Sultan of his political power over state institution, thus making him a nominal
figure, a spiritual leader with no effective power. Besides abolishing the caliphate, which
provided a religio-political symbol around which political opposition could have rallied,
Kemal closed the Tekkes and zaviyes, banned religious orders and placed religious
endowments under state control—all these measures were meant to eliminate any ―semiautonomous
institutions where traditionalist counter-elites might organize to challenge
the political domination of society by westernizing bureaucratic elites‖ (Turan 1984, 105-
106).
It was after abolishing the Caliphate that opposition to Kemal‘s policies evolved
into a political party, the Progressive Republican Party, which included leading military

347
figures and civilian nationalists (Kiazem Karbekir and Ali Faut for example). The new
party opposed the radical secularization program that Kemal had just started, his
authoritarian bent and the symbiosis he was creating between party and state. The
opposition party declared its support for other policies and principles, such as
republicanism, democracy and liberalism. Once formed, the Progressive Party began to
create nation-wide networks to secure mass following. Apparently Kemal allowed the
opposition to form a political party because he believed that it could not grow to gain
mass support. He was mistaken since ―… the new party‘s existence unleashed such a
torrent of willing supporters from all sides of the political spectrum that the president and
his associates soon were forced to recognize their error. It was the party‘s very success
that doomed it‖ (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 380-381). Seeing that it began to gain mass
support, Kemal decided to dissolve it—the Council of Ministers ordered the party to be
dissolved on June 3, 1925 after its leaders refused to do so voluntarily. By 1927, all
serious opposition to Kemal‘s regime had been silenced. When new elections for the third
National Assembly were held in 1927, the only party that participated was the RPP
(Lewis 1968, 276).
Kemal had another run with another opposition party five years later. After initial
reforms were successfully implemented, he felt confident that Turkey had become ready
for another limited and ‗loyal‘ opposition party that would function as a conduit for
channeling public discontent and pave the way for a multi-party system. Ali Fethi Okyar,
a friend of Kemal, agreed to take on the job of creating an opposition party. The Free
Republican Party was born. Its program differed from that of the ruling party only on
policy issues, mainly financial and economic policies, while it explicitly declared its

348
allegiance to the core principles of the Republic. Kemal was careful not to allow core
values and identity issues to be brought up to public debates. The new party‘s leaders
attempted to build a national organization—similar to that of the defunct Progressive
Party—in order to secure mass following. However, once again the new opposition party
became a magnet for all those who were opposed to Kemal‘s policies, including
nationalists, who were critical of Kemal‘s radical transformation program and his
apparent authoritarian bent, along with Islamists who were vehemently opposed to the
secularizing policies and the restricted role of religion in public life. The party gained
such mass support that the Turkish government decided to disband it altogether. Similar
to its predecessor, its success doomed it to failure (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 382). 185
Conclusion
The RPP derived its strength from its institutional continuity, a near monopoly
over the distribution of political resources—it refused to share political power with any
other party or opposition groups—a coherent ideology, an exceptionally charismatic
leadership, and the symbiosis between state and party. Its consistent and daring efforts to
eradicate any potential institutional platform for an opposition to form largely restricted
the options of the opposition and limited its capacities to mobilize the masses or to
organize supporters. Its secularization and modernization programs, and absolute
185 From the two previous and short experiences of multi-partyism, Kemal became convinced that the
public had not accepted, leave aside internalized, his modernization and secularization policies. And so he
decided to utilize his political party (RPP) to start a nation-wide program of mass political education and
indoctrination into the ideas of the Republic and the Party. The Party created what it called the People‘s
Houses—built on the earlier organizational foundation of the Turkish Hearth Movement—to carry out the
program. These houses spread into cities and large towns. The party also created the People‘s Rooms in
smaller towns and villages. The main objective of these Houses was to indoctrinate the public, to bridge the
gap between the Party and the public and to create some form of ideological unity and conformity. These
were serious efforts on the part of Kemal‘s party to gain mass support and to deprive future opposition of
possible mass support (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 383).

349
determination to successfully implement them, limited the kind of ideas that could be
disseminated and debated in public. The party maintained a coherent organization even
after the death of its founder—leadership moved to Kemal‘s first lieutenant, Ismet Inonu,
in smooth and ordered way. It maintained and disseminated a coherent ideology based on
moderate, republican nationalism, modernization, and secularization. In short, the party‘s
politics defined Turkey‘s post-war politics.
5. Nation-State-Oriented Turkish Nationalism
The changes that defeat gave impetus to were historic and transformative. An
empire had died. A Republic was born. The most notable outcome was the emergence of
a ―Republican, nation-state-oriented Turkish nationalism‖ (Canefe 2002), a major
transformation that defined post-imperial politics. Before the war, it was really infeasible
to express ‗ethnic‘ Turkish sentiments as a political ideology—when both Islam and Pan-
Ottomanism were still viable and attractive ideologies and when sizeable non-Turkish,
non-Islamic communities lived in the Empire (Kushner 1997, 221). Defeat in WWI
relieved Turkey of both burdens and helped in creating a restrained Turkish nationalism
that ―entailed the abandonment of old loyalties: to Islam, to the Ottoman Empire, and to
people of Turkic origins beyond the borders of the new republic‖ (Landau 1984, xii).
Nationalism unified the Turkish people around common goals and created an
essential element for nation building—a feeling of solidarity that replaced the discredited
ideologies of Ottomanism, Pan-Turkism and Pan-Islam. 186
It focused on internal
186 When did Turkism really begin? It is not clear, and there is no consensus on when Turkism began.
However, one can safely say that up till the Balkan Wars, Turkism was not truly a viable political force in
the Empire. Unionist reforms were Ottoman and not Turkish. Only after the ignominious defeat in the
Balkan War and the trail of devastation and heartbreak it left behind did Turkism appear as a serious
contender in the world of ideologies and ideas (Canefe 2002, 143). Feroz Ahmad (1969) demonstrated that

350
development and state/nation building while eschewing aggressive and irredentist
aspirations. Despite the fact that the Turks had been living under imperial rule for many
centuries, the nationalism that emerged after the disintegration of the Empire lacked any
imperial quality. Kemal successfully liberated Turkish nationalism ―from the imperial
aspirations attached to it and stripped off its less realistic features, tailoring it so that it
better would fit the historical reality‖ (Azarian 2011, 81). Kemal, who led this collective
identity transformation, became totally convinced that the only practical solution to the
predicament of the Empire was ―retrenchment into the basic Turkish homeland,
abandonment of the imperial concept of rule over different communities, concentrating
on developing the homogeneous Turkish element in Anatolia, and leaving the rest to take
care of themselves‖ (Okyar 1984: 47). Turkish nationalism discouraged irredentist
claims, frowned upon them, and perceived them as detrimental to the national spirit and
national interests. Its sole purpose was to create and maintain a nation-state within the
boundaries of the state created by the Treaty of Lausanne.
Indeed, what facilitated this kind of nationalism, and the cooperative, pacific,
non-revanchist foreign policy that emanated from it, are the institutionalization of the
national resistance movement, the subsequent creation of a strong political party (the
RPP), and the tamed, resigned national self-image that prevailed at the time of defeat.
CUP leaders were believers in Ottomanism and its power to re-energize the state. However, it was the
Balkan Wars that basically caused the demise of Ottomanism and elevated Turanist nationalism and pan-
Islamism. Kushner (1997, 221) argued that expressions of Turkish sentiments became widespread at the
turn of the century and claimed that most educated Turks came to identify themselves as Turkish (racially
or ethnically). Kushner cited a writer in the Ikdam newspaper who wrote—what appears to have been the
norm back then—that, ―By our social order, we are Ottomans, by our religion Muslims, and by our ethnic
nationality we are Turks.‖ Rashid Khalidi (1991, 55-57) believed, on the other hand, that the CUP
leadership retained its belief in Ottomanism after the Balkan Defeats and only turned to Turkish
nationalism after WWI Defeat.

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While the war of national liberation secured the independence of Turkey and ended the
short-civil war in favor of the nationalists, 187 the trajectories of state development, regime
type, ideological conflicts, foreign policies and alliances had not been settled yet. I will
begin by explaining the fate of the competing ideologies and the victorious emergence of
Turkish nationalism. Then, I will explain the basic revolutionary transformative reforms
that solidified Turkish nationalism. And finally I will explore Turkish foreign policy and
the international environment in the post-war period.
A. The Fate of Ideologies
Ottomanism was mostly dead and no longer offered any appeal for the emerging
Turkish elites. This was certainly an outcome of defeat in war but also of the spread of
nationalism among the different non-Turkish nationalities of the Empire, including the
Arabs. Indeed, Ottomanism itself was essentially an ideology meant to mend fences with
the various nationalities that comprised the empire and to preserve its fragile multiethnic
character. With the death of Empire, that ideology expired.
Pan-Turkism still retained some appeal among Turks, especially among those
who fled the Russian empire and the Balkan regions. After Enver Pasha fled the Ottoman
Empire in the wake of its defeat, he spent the rest of his life mobilizing Turks outside the
empire in Central Asia hoping to resurrect pan-Turkism and transforming it into a
powerful ideology capable of winning hearts and minds within the newly-found
Republic. Turkish nationalism, like most other nationalisms, is based on the two pillars of
ethnicity and language, and this naturally leads to perceiving those of Turkish origins
(ethnicity) and those speaking Turkish (language) as part of the Turkish nation. Kemal
187 The civil war took place between the nationalists led by Kemal and the Sultan‘s forces; after few
months, Kemal‘s forces defeated the Sultan‘s army (Macfie 1994, 97-99).

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and his colleagues completely rejected this ideology, most likely because of its territorial
dimensions and future irredentist implications. That the most passionate advocates of
Pan-Turkism were defeated in WWI did not bode well for the ideology (Zurcher 1984,
68-73). However, it is worth mentioning that Pan-Turkism paved the way for the
emergence of Kemal‘s ―non-imperial nationalism‖ (Azarian 2011, 81).
The other ideology that held more appeal and constituted a more serious threat to
the emerging secular nationalist ideology was pan-Islamism. ―Islamic lands‖ and
―Muslim populations‖ constituted historical cultural foundations of Ottoman identity. A
sudden transformation into a constrained ―Turkish‖ nationalism, based on ethnicity and
language, might not be easily digested by the bulk of the subjects/citizens of the newly
founded Republic. The fact that Kemal himself never revealed his true intentions of
creating a secular state or his plans of radical social transformation either to the Turkish
public or to his colleagues speaks to the strength of pan-Islamism and Islamic loyalties of
the Turks. Despite the deep fissures that separated the nationalists from the Sultan, Kemal
claimed that the purpose of the war of national liberation was liberating the Sultan and
his government in Istanbul from colonial captivity. Kemal was obviously worried that
revealing his true intentions might fracture the national liberation movement and offend
and alienate many of his supporters.
The most important implication of pan-Islamism was that it called for the
incorporation of non-Turk Muslims into the future state, an act that naturally creates
constraints on foreign policies—the foreign policy of a state that claims to represent the
Islamic faith must have broader audience and broader interests beyond its national
frontiers. Those kinds of obligations and potential entanglements were exactly what

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Kemal and his comrades desired to avoid. At any rate, Pan-Islamism, as an ideology
capable of sustaining the new emerging social order and of building a new state in the
wake of defeat, proved not to be too attractive or appealing. Defeat discredited this
ideology and demonstrated its weaknesses and failure in mobilizing the necessary
resources to win a war. Indeed, when the nationalists embarked on their program of
secularization—after consolidating power—they blamed religion as a major cause of the
backwardness and decline of the Empire. The ground was cleared now for the emergence
of an alternative ideology. As Mehmet (1990, 116) put it, Kemal succeeded in liberating
―the Turkish identity as much from the clutches of great power imperialism as from an
anti-national Ottoman-Islamic past.‖
Not only did the Ottomans/Turks accept their losses but they also displayed an
attitude of ―positive revulsion‖ towards their imperial past. The establishment of the new
capital in Anatolia, the heartland of ethnic Turks, signified an unmistakable desire to
distance the new Republic from the defunct Empire and to project an image of a newness
(Lewis 1980, 32-33). Turkish nationalists viewed Ankara as more representative of the
―native Turkish genius‖ than the imperial, and in many ways, the non-Turkish, Istanbul
(Spencer 1958, 644). The choice of the new capital represented an unequivocal break
with the past and ―a rejection of the cosmopolitan Byzantine and Ottoman past in favor of
an Anatolian Turkish future‖ (Goldschmidt 1991: 206). 188 For many years following the
establishment of the Turkish Republic, imperial history had been ignored in history
188 ―Such was the bitterness between Ankara and Istanbul – between the Kemalists and the conservatives –
that Kemal refused to visit Istanbul after its liberation and went there only in 1928 after his triumph [over
the conservatives‖ (Ahmad 1993, 53-54).

354
textbooks, connoting a strong desire to detach the Turkish self-image from imperial
memories of decay, wars and loss. One could even say that there was an ―officialised and
popularized forgetfulness‖ and ―an alarming degree of amnesia institutionalized by the
Turkish nation-state regarding both the origins of Turkish nationalism and the history of
Turkish people in Asia Minor‖ (Canefe 2002, 139). Coming to terms with the imperial
past was a difficult process that demanded substantial framing of history—the Ottoman
dynasty, for example, became only one in a series of Turkish dynasties (Lewis 1980, 32-
33). Peyami Safa, a well-known writer and journalist, summarized the aim behind this
attempt to write a new ―Turkish history‘:
to break up the inferiority complex which gnaws at the roots of the national
consciousness of the Ottoman child who thinks of himself as a dried, crooked and
shrunken branch of an underdeveloped Asian race, a consciousness which was half
awakened after the disasters of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Tripoli, the Balkans and Sevres,
after proving to him in one instance that he can enter the European civilized world and
making him believe in the possibility of a transition from the single and imposing mass of
his history as old as man to a great living organism, to place the stamp of the huge and
eternal truth of Turkey on his soul. Well, this is one of the most fundamental bases of
Ataturk‘s nationalist and civilizational revolutions (cited in Boyar 2007, 20).
It became clear that the vast majority of Turkish elites believed that they needed
to leave behind the Ottoman past, which was overwhelmingly perceived as dissolute and
degenerate. In the new narrative, it was claimed that Ottoman elites despised the ethnic
Turks, which provided psychological excuse for Turkish elites to denounce Ottomanism
and to present themselves as the defenders of the Turkish race and heritage (Deringil
1998a, 217-218). Turkish history, according to the new narrative, went further back than
that of Ottoman history and its origins lie in pre-Islamic times. 189 Links to the yellow race
189 ―But to bestow validity upon such ideas, history had to be re-told, and in search of new sources of
identity the past had to be created anew. The most notable Turkish ideologies of the late 19th century thus
reached out to the pre-Islamic roots of their lost Turkish national identity, seeking to unearth it not in

355
and to Mongols were discarded; Turks became Aryans. The Ottoman empire was rife
with corruption, except for the period of expansion—from 1450 till 1600—and
consequently a new beginning was needed, a complete break with the past (Ersanli 2002,
115-116). 190
A significant impact of the loss of the Balkans was to shift the focus of Turkish
elites into Anatolia as the future state. Halide Edib—providing another example of how
defeat and loss could be positively framed—argued that losing the Balkans could be
thought of as a positive sign,
That the Balkan defeat leading to the final withdrawal of Turkey from the Balkans was a
blessing in disguise, no one realized at the moment. Consciousness that all the Anatolian
manhood, the energy, and the resources of the empire spent hitherto on the Balkans
would now be spared, dawned only gradually upon Turkish minds. Perhaps the early
withdrawal of Turkey from the Balkans is one of the fundamental reasons for hope in a
firmer future development of New Turkey (Edib 1930, 109).
Thus the collapse of the Ottoman Empire itself ―proved to be a blessing for the
Turks were now free to rediscover themselves and to make a fresh start by abandoning a
decadent past‖ (Ahmad 1993, 77). There was no pessimism even in the most dire
moments of the aftermath of imperial collapse. The Turkish nationalist leadership did not
perceive the occupation of Istanbul in March of 1920 as the beginning of occupation and
humiliation but rather as the beginning of national liberation and what Kemal described
as the ―first national year.‖ (Ahmad 1993, 77). The nationalist leadership did not perceive
Anatolian Turkey or Turkestan but in ―the vast and eternal Turan‖, the hypothetical-mythical ancestral
homeland of the Turkic people in the Central Asia. They in other words turned to their mythical and
legendary ancient empire before Islam in order to demonstrate that their Turkishness was historically prior
to their Musllimness‖ ( Azarian 2011, 80)
190 It is worth mentioning that not all Turkish intellectuals accepted those controversial assumptions
(Ersanli 2002, 116).

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or frame defeat as a calamity that befell the nation but as an opportunity for national
renewal: a new Turkey and a ―new type of Turk very different from the Ottoman would
have to be created; just as the revolutionaries in France had had to create the Frenchman
and the Bolsheviks were in the process of creating the new Soviet or socialist man‖
(Ahmad 1993, 77). In the aftermath of defeat, Turks need not waste their energies on
maintaining a decaying empire but instead could invest their resources in building a new
state and creating a new nation. The nationalist leadership simply accepted the truncated
state as delineated by Kemal‘s original political program of 1919—the National Pact.
Those regions would fall within the lines drawn by the 1913 peace treaty (Balkan Wars)
and the armistice of 1918 (WWI) (Rustow 1981, 57). There is no doubt that this
renunciation of territorial ambitions and irredentist claims set the stage for state
construction, nation building and peaceful relations with neighbors (Kazancigil and
Ozbudun 1994).
Let me emphasize that in this section I am not solely referring to actual state
behavior, which is constrained by available domestic resources and capabilities and
opportunities that the prevailing international environment and international structure of
power offer; but I am also referring to intentions and the desired self-images that the
nationalist leadership wanted to project, the kind of nationalism that emerged, the sort of
ideas that circulated before, during and after the war. In the Turkish case, like that of
Peasant Bulgaria, anti-irredentism was home-grown and self-imposed. In the minds of
Ottoman elites, the Empire became associated with losses, decay, wars, famine,
hardships, frustrations but the Republic with victory and promise (Lewis 1980, 32).

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Turkish nationalism was not the brainchild of Mustafa Kemal or his comrades in
the army. An ideational basis is necessary for such ideology to spread and appeal to the
public and the elites and to penetrate state and societal institutions. Ziya Gokalp‘s ideas
provided the ideational basis for Turkish nationalism. 191 Dr. Abdullah Cevdet (1869-
1932) became another intellectual who made major contributions to the emergence of
Kemalist nationalism. He was uncompromising in his critique of the half-hearted reforms
in the Empire that had left much of the old intact for the new to emerge and solidify;
reforms simply had not gone far enough. The old must be destroyed so that the new could
grow and prosper. For him, the only route to progress was Western, European
civilization. Gokalp and Cevdet both became ideational inspiration for the nationalists
(Shaw and Shaw 1977, 305).
It is true that the nationalism adopted by Mustafa Kemal was radical in its
embrace of total social and identity transformation; yet, it wasn‘t created ―as part of a
search for truth.‖ Nationalism was only a tool to achieve the Republic‘s goals of
secularism and modernization; once nationalism accomplished its purposes of creating a
stable state recognized by the international community, its more radical elements were
abandoned. 192 Nationalism was simply instrumental in order to achieve certain policy
goals. This constrained, moderate, state-based nationalism stood in sharp contrast to the
191 ―His ideas [Gokalp‘s] created an intellectual movement that provided the inspiration needed for a
change in popular mentality from empire to nation, from religious to secular, from East to West‖ (Shaw and
Shaw 1977, 302).
192 This is in line with Huntington‘s (1970, 27) assertion that ―In periods of intense, rapid, and violent
change and conflict, ideology naturally plays an important role. Once the society settles down, the need for
ideology declines, and the ideology itself begins to ―erode.‖‖

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radical nationalism of Nazi Germany, inter-war Hungary and to some extent the pan-
Arabism of Nasser.
B. Post-Independence Foundational/Transformational Reforms
Once Kemal felt confident enough of his hold on power, he set out to implement
wide-reaching, identity-transforming reforms. On March 3, 1924, Kemal abolished the
Caliphate. This was one of the most profound and foundational reforms that consolidated
Kemal‘s power and that paved the way for subsequent reforms. The Caliphate was a
religious office that held religious symbolism for Turks and Muslims all over the World.
Although Turkey had already been declared a republic and the powers of the Caliph had
been restricted to religious issues, the symbolism and the historical legacy of the office
were still powerful sources of allegiance that stirred anxiety among the nationalists.
There were also many Muslims outside Turkey who still owed allegiance to the Caliph.
With the abolishment of the caliphate, Kemal no longer needed to hide his real agenda of
completely secularizing the state and subsequently implemented a series of reforms that
would accomplish his goal. These were the years of reform and the creation of
Turkishness. To justify his secularizing policies, Kemal declared that there was an urgent
need to ―cleanse and elevate the Islamic faith, by rescuing it from the position of a
political instrument, to which it has been accustomed for centuries‖ (Ahmad 1993, 54).
The law that abolished the Caliphate also banished the members of the House of Osman
from Turkish territories, abolished other Islamic institutions such as the Seyhulislam, and
created a state institution, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which assumed legal
authority over all religious matters. In March and April of 1924, other laws were passed

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to close down all religious schools and religious courts (Yilmaz 1996, 104). 193 History
was re-written in order to facilitate the creation and construction of the new ideological
basis of legitimacy; pre-Islamic roots were emphasized and resurrected to construct the
new Turkish national identity and to provide ―an ideological glue for national unity‖
(Ergil 2000). The new ideology of state-based nationalism left behind the loyalties to
community and empire and constructed loyalties based on ―nation and country‖ (Lewis
1980, 29). Arabic alphabet was replaced with Latin alphabet and the Turkish language
was purged from Arabic and Persian words. Ottoman legal and civil laws were
reformed—new laws were based on Western European codes.
Conclusion
That a republican, nation-state-oriented Turkish nationalism emerged wasn‘t the
only possibility in post-Empire Turkey. Defeat in war facilitated the emergence of this
type of nationalism—after discrediting its competitors and their proponents and raising
Mustafa Kemal and his supporters to new political heights, especially after winning
Turkish independence. This particular outcome was possible only because of the
prevalence of a realistic, tempered and resigned national self-image among
Ottoman/Turkish elites and the dominance of a strong, reasonably coherent and united
national resistance movement that eventually evolved into the ruling party. Probably, the
most interesting aspect of Turkish nationalism was its renunciation of territorial
ambitions, its willingness to give up territories that some Turks perceived to be theirs and
the moderate status quo foreign policy that it animated.
193 The 1924 Constitution still recognized Islam as the religion of the state; however, this provision was
revoked four years later in 1928 (Yilmaz 1996, 104).

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After defeat in WWI, Russia found legitimacy in its Revolution and Turkey in its
―Republican, nation-state-oriented Turkish nationalism‖ (Canefe 2002). This was an
ideological relief in times of stress and crises. Germans, on the other hand, ―were left
humiliated, orphaned, deprived of their Kaisar idea, Reich idea, deprived and at the same
time haunted by them, and once again abandoned to their own disharmony, or as a French
publicist put it in the 1920‘s, their ‗incertidues‘‖ (Klemperer 1975, 23-24). Ataturk
provided certainty and confidence and optimism to his people. This was a most difficult
task. He never tired of encouraging the Turks to have national pride, especially after their
victory in their war of national liberation. The new nationalism created a meaningful and
certain sense of purpose.
6. Foreign Policy
For the first two decades of the Republic, Turkey was jealous of its independence
and sovereignty, careful to maintain neutral positions, and to avoid any stands that might
antagonize any of the great powers or its neighboring states. It consistently pursued a
cooperative, peaceful, anti-irredentist, and non-revanchist foreign policy despite the grave
losses incurred in the fateful war. To be sure, ―That Turkey mended its fences very
capably and has managed to remain at peace is no mean achievement considering its
geopolitical situation‖ (Landau 1984, xi). Turkish nationalists renounced the ideologies
of pan-Turkism, pan-Ottomanism and pan-Islamism, along with any aggressive foreign
policies that might be associated with them (Berktay 2006, 127). They accepted the
severely reduced boundaries that resulted from imperial collapse and surrender. Thus, in
1919, they formulated the National Pact, which defined the regions to be included in the
new state as those that were delineated by the peace treaty of 1913 and the armistice of

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Moudros of 1918. Foreign policy would basically be directed towards incorporating those
regions into the Turkish Republic (Rustow 1981, 57).
Even the loss of Mosul—in present-day Iraq—did not force the Turks to
antagonize the British. There was a heated debate in the Turkish parliament protesting the
concession of Mosul: some deputies expressed their fierce objections to the peace treaty
(Lausanne Treaty, 1923) if it meant giving up the province while others showed
willingness to resort to war again. The Turkish press also showed plenty of anger at this
concession (Kinross 1965, 463-66). Nevertheless, the Turkish leadership preferred to
refer the question to the League of Nations. When the decision came in favor of Britain,
Turkey accepted the resolution and gave up its rights in Mosul (Vere-Hodge 1950, 63-
64).
Similarly, the Turks preferred to defer the question of the Sanjak of Alexandretta
(Hatay province), which the French occupied and the Syrians claimed, until further
negotiations with the French. Negotiations lasted for a long time and a resolution was
possible only after a referendum was held in 1939 and whose results favored the Republic
of Turkey. The same applied to the Island of Cyprus. The Turks also gave up some of
their legitimate and justified claims in Thrace and agreed to withdraw all their reparation
claims against the Greeks. As these examples clearly demonstrate, the Turkish leadership
preferred to solve all problems with neighboring states through legal and diplomatic
channels (Lewis 1980, 30; Yilmaz 1996, 102).
Thus, signing treaties with former enemies, referring disputes to the League of
Nations, and prolonged negotiations to resolve disputes were unmistakable signs of the

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peaceful intentions and practice of Turkish diplomacy. Even as early as March 1921,
Turkish Nationalists‘ pragmatism was in full display when they signed a treaty with the
Soviet Union in which they promised not to support any pan-Turkish activities within the
Soviet Union in return for a Soviet promise not to support Turkish communists (Winrow
1995, 7). Turkey eventually signed a Friendship Treaty with the Soviet Union in 1925,
which formed a major pillar of its efforts to establish peaceful relations with neighbors
and former adversaries and remained in effect until the Soviets abrogated it in 1945. The
Treaty stipulated that the two signatories would remain neutral if the other was at war
with other parties. Moreover, it stated that neither party would form alliances that
threaten the security of the other or engage in hostile activities. This agreement
strengthened the hands of the Turks in their negotiations with the other Great Powers and
was an example of how the Turks benefited from the structure of the international
system.
In return for Allies‘ recognition of the new borders of Turkey in the Lausanne
Treaty, Turkey renounced ―all rights and title whatsoever over or respecting the
territories situated outside the frontiers laid down in the present Treaty and the islands
other than those over which her sovereignty is recognized by the said Treaty.‖ This
agreement formally established an anti-irredentist policy that constituted a core element
of Turkish foreign policy ever since (Shaw and Shaw 1977, 366).
Turkey signed a treaty with Great Britain on June 5, 1926 which ended the
animosity between the two countries. The Turks carried on their policy of reconciliation
even with the enemies they had recently fought and concluded a treaty of friendship with
Greece on December 30, 1930, in which the two parties settled the questions of

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boundaries and agreed on naval equality in the Mediterranean. Other agreements of trade
and friendship followed with several countries, such as Britain, Hungary, Germany, and
Bulgaria. Turkey was at last admitted into the League of Nations on July 18, 1932 (Shaw
and Shaw 1977, 376-77).
Turkish foreign policy during the interwar period was distinguished by its
insistence on settling conflicts and establishing peaceful relations with neighbors and
former enemies and to be incorporated into the international system and its organizations
as a respectable member. It achieved all that and some. One could go all the way till
WWII and describe all the peaceful moves that Turkey made. But, the few examples I
provided do clarify the overall thrust of Turkish foreign policy in interwar period.
7. International Environment
The international structure of power wasn‘t yet clearly defined in the immediate
aftermath of the war. After achieving victory, the allies began to show disagreements on
many fronts. The Turks were still fighting their war of independence, in which the major
powers, especially the British, substantially supported the Greeks. During this time the
Turks had good relations with the Soviets which evolved into formal treaties. However, it
was eventually Turkish victory over Greek forces that convinced the Allies, who were not
willing to engage in the hostilities themselves, to halt their support for the Greeks and
negotiate with the Turks. The French signed a treaty with the Turks in 1921 (Davison
1963, 193). The Italians were worried about Greek victory and rising power and even
contacted the Turks to prod them to confront the Greeks. As the Turkish forces continued
their advance towards Istanbul, they found themselves face to face with the British forces

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that were occupying the capital. The British subsequently asked for help from the other
Allied Powers but received only token assistance. The lack of seriousness on the part of
other Allied Powers to confront the nationalist forces clearly demonstrated to the British
the futility of their efforts and the lack of any chance of creating a united front against the
Turks. Risking British soldiers‘ lives, opening a new front, and investing resources in
such a battle were not things that the British favored. Since Turkish demands were not
excessive—they were just interested in entering the imperial capital—the British
conceded. The Turks controlled Istanbul now and agreed to negotiate a new treaty with
the British at Mudanya (Yilmaz 1996). All hostilities ended with the Lausanne Treaty in
1923: Turkey would withdraw all her territorial claims and the Allies would recognize
Turkey‘s borders and the legitimacy of the Kemalist regime.
There weren‘t many opportunities for expansion during these turbulent and
uncertain times. Kemal simply harbored no irredentist claims and clearly stated that he
had no interest in exploiting any opportunities for expansion. Even when his forces were
advancing towards Izmir to drive away the invading Greek forces during the war of
independence, Ataturk refused to advance to Salonika—into Greek territory—as some of
his more zealous soldiers and officers were prodding him to do. There were other
enthusiastic followers who perceived an opportunity for the Turkish army to advance into
the weak and brittle Iraq and Syria to restore lost territories, but they were equally
rebuffed (Lewis 1980, 30). These two examples show that Turks refused to be more
assertive or dragged into adventures by opportunities.
The international environment prevalent after independence (1923) could be
described as multi-polar and non-hegemonic. While this specific configuration of

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international politics could, in theory, offer opportunities for bargaining and alliances,
Turkish nationalists unmistakably chose to pursue a conciliatory foreign policy, to
peacefully settle conflicts, and avoid entanglements and adventures. Thus, the nationalists
actually benefited from this international structure of non-hegemony by playing Great
Powers off against one another in order to balance challenges when confronted but never
to seek opportunities for expansion. Indeed, as mentioned before, anti-irredentism was
home-grown and not conditioned by international opportunities and constraints. Thus, in
principle, a change in the structure of the international system which might offer an
opportunity for expansion should not tempt the Turks to deviate from their preferences
for status quo policies. Indeed, even though the Nazis and WWII offered such an
opportunity, the Turks did not show any inclination whatsoever towards dragging
themselves into such reckless adventures. The Turks maintained their neutrality until
seven months before the end of the war at which point they joined the victorious allies.
Following the Lausanne Treaty (1923), Turkey stayed out of military alliances for
the next 16 years. Its strategy remained the same: to solve outstanding issues and
conflicts with bilateral or multilateral agreements. In 1934, the Turks signed the Balkan
Pact with Greece, Rumania and Yugoslavia; in 1937, they signed the Saadabad Pact with
Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan. 194 But, the most important multilateral agreement, and which
solved a long standing and strategic issue—the Turkish Straits—was the Montreux
194 Saadabad Pact was signed on July 8, 1937 by Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey and included mutual
security guarantees.

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Convention. 195 Turkey now restored its full sovereignty over the Straits and had the rights
to militarize them and fully supervise activities there.
8. Conclusion
The most defining feature of post-imperial politics was not anguished longing for
an imperial past nor a passionate yearning for re-building an empire (Klemperer 1975,
29). Unlike other cases where defeat and loss generated feelings of frustration and calls
for revenge and led to the emergence of mass radical movements and revisionist foreign
policy, Turkish leaders turned inward and focused their political energies on state
building and internal reconstruction and eschewed revisionist foreign policies. The Turks
resigned themselves to the consequences of defeat and learned the necessary lessons.
Their lands did not become infested with rebellions, chaos and radicalism. They did not
seek consolation in escapist fantasies or impossible revisionism, nor did they nurture
nostalgia for a vanished empire. They left their heritage of religious legitimacy, imperial
legacy and dynastic authority behind. They did not search for scapegoats to blame and to
deflect attention away from domestic failings. Their reaction to defeat was
overwhelmingly positive and inward-oriented reaction.
Defeat drastically changed the Turks‘ perceptions of themselves and led to the
emergence of state-based nationalism, characterized by moderation and self-imposed
constraints. Although the Turkish national liberation movement emerged and operated in
a chaotic environment of civil war, foreign occupation, and economic depression, it
successfully navigated this turbulent environment and avoided radicalization; indeed, the
195 The Treaty of Lausanne demilitarized the Straits and placed them under the supervision of an
international commission.

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Turkish national liberation movement was unique in its moderation, political realism, and
institutional strength. 196
One would be hard pressed to find evidence of the Ottomans/Turks treating the
series of defeats they suffered, and particularly the last one that terminated the empire, as
rituals of humiliation or outcomes of misfortunes. There prevailed a clear
acknowledgement of the shortcomings of the empire, its deficiencies, and ultimately the
inevitability of collapse. Defeat became an opportunity for national renewal, social and
identity transformation. This attitude must have played a decisive role in paving the way
for accepting the status quo that emerged after defeat.
Two variables explain this outcome: Tempered and resigned national self-image
and a strong political party. Around the middle of the eighteenth century, Ottomans
became fully aware of their declining status which was in full display in their continual
losses of battles and wars against their enemies, particularly, the Russians and Austrians
and later their subject populations. Thus, their defeat in WWI was neither sudden nor
unanticipated. It was rather a symptom of a disease of decay that had been gnawing at the
Empire for a while now. The consecutive losses only exacerbated and accentuated the
painful awareness that all previous reform efforts came to naught. Disintegration was
inevitable.
By the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the 20 th , especially after
the first Balkan wars (1912), Ottoman losses had accumulated and enemies began
knocking at the doors of their capital. Ottoman elites‘ self-esteem must have been
196 Most national liberation movements have fallen prey to radicalization, mass politicization and high
degrees of social and political mobilization, resort to direct appeal to the mass—mass politics—and high
degrees of political mobilization and rigid, uncompromising ideologies.

368
wounded. Another defeat will not be traumatic. Their expectations would be lowered to
become compatible with structural constraints and domestic resources. In short, a
tempered, resigned national self-image made acceptance of loss less painful.
The creation of a political party that was built on pre-existing political networks
and that monopolized the distribution of political resources facilitated this type of
introverted reaction to defeat and loss. Institutional continuity, including bureaucratic and
administrative continuity, ensured a smooth transition from empire into republic and
facilitated the shift of loyalties from community to nation. The national liberation
leadership was a coalition of bureaucratic and military elites—these two institutions were
the main sources of power in the Ottoman Empire and their loyalty to the national
liberation movement provided it with institutional strength, continuity and legitimacy.
The most politically active and organized groups in the Empire were the offices and
branches of the Community of Union and Progress (CUP) that ruled the Empire since
1908 until its demise and those formed the backbone of the national liberation movement,
which in turn evolved into the ruling party, the RPP. The fact that army officers,
bureaucratic elites, the politically active and mobilized (CUP) were all part of the
national liberation movement meant that political opposition was deprived of any
institutional platform from which to mobilize the masses and spread its message or
disseminate a counter-ideology. The nationalist leadership also avoided internal rifts by
taming conflicts over core issues, such as the nature of the state and its affiliation to
religion and all the secularizing and modernizing reforms, until it consolidated its power
and felt confident that it could impose its will without effective resistance and with
minimal coercion. This, again, deprived potential opposition from the possibility of

369
rallying the masses around polarizing issues early on, before consolidation, during
turbulent and uncertain times—a very dangerous situation that could spiral out of control.
On top of that, political mobilization was noticeably low in the Empire and in the early
years of the Republic.
In order to explain the Turkish reaction to defeat, one needs to examine not only
institutional variables but also ideas, beliefs and ideologies competing for hearts and
minds at the time and the historical forces that change, consolidate or discredit them.
Defeat discredited the three pan-ideologies present at the time of war, along with their
proponents, paving the way for the emergence of a new ideology: Turkish state-based,
moderate and constrained nationalism.
Finally, there are two problematic points that deserve attention in the case of
Turkey. The first is the victory that followed defeat. The national liberation movement
led a bitter but successful struggle to defend the Turkish heartland in Anatolia against
Greek predations. The second point is the type of treaty that concluded the war. Turkey is
the only country after WWI that successfully rejected the restrictive and harsh Treaty of
Sevres and negotiated a more lenient treaty at Lausanne in 1923.
That Turkey won a war of national independence is consequential. At least, it
instilled and restored a sense of confidence. However, the actual substance of this victory
and its relationship to previous defeat(s) need to be carefully considered. This victory
does not obliterate the trauma of the previous crushing defeats. The Ottoman Empire
went to war hoping to preserve the Empire, if not actually expanding it. To gain a
homeland for the ―Turks‖ on a fraction of what was, just a couple of years ago, the

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Ottoman Empire does not strike the observer as an ultimate accomplishment. Indeed,
losing the Turkish heartland would have been the ultimate defeat. Thus, the Turks were
actually making their last stand. Their gains were minimal to what their Empire initially
set out to accomplish. However, we should also keep in mind that the ideas that Kemal
was advancing emerged before the victorious national liberation war and while the Turks
were still struggling against occupation and dismemberment. That is, the effects of this
victory should not be overestimated. The same argument applies to the Treaty issue.
Indeed, the Turkish leadership showed moderation and anti-irredentism while the
restrictive Treaty of Sevres was effective—and long before it was adjusted. The signing
of a more lenient treaty did not change much for that matter.

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CHAPTER 6
CONCLUSION
In this section I will (1) summarize my contributions; (2) evaluate the theoretical and
empirical findings and the performance of the theory; (3) identify shortcomings and
various issues that came up in the course of the research and (4) propose future research
avenues.
1. Contributions
In 1999, historian John W. Dower wrote his seminal work, Embracing Defeat:
Japan in the Wake of WWII. The title is strikingly thought-provoking: how could a nation
‗embrace‘ its defeat. Isn‘t defeat in wars embarrassing, humiliating, shameful, degrading.
My intuition dictated that, after defeat, a nation should become furious, bitter, resentful,
vengeful. Embracing defeat was not a possibility I thought of. Dower‘s title posed and
provoked some significant theoretical questions that cast doubt on a uniform reaction to
defeat and humiliation.
In 2000, Robert E. Harkavy wrote an eye-opening review article titled Defeat,
National Humiliation, and the Revenge Motif in International Politics in which he
posited a simple but common model that
depicts a relationship between military defeat, the psychological absorption of such
defeat by a collective body, subsequent widespread and persistent shame and humiliation,
and a resulting collective rage and an almost ineradicable need for vengeance. The model
allows for some variants of ―defeat,‖ for the nuanced distinction between deep
psychological humiliation and ―mere‖ revisionism, and the possibilities for alternative
responses other than vengeance, i.e. withdrawal (acceptance) or internal revolution
(Harkavy 2000, 346).

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However, Harkavy did not elaborate on what explains variation in responses to
defeat—a major concern for this dissertation. 197 Indeed, this model underpinned much of
the oft-repeated advice, received wisdom and insistence on the lenient treatment of the
defeated by the victors: avoid humiliating the vanquished, for humiliation generates rage
and revenge incentives and subsequently leads to further conflicts and aggression. In this
dissertation, I went beyond this common model to explain variation in responses to defeat
and to demonstrate that for defeats to generate aggressive and revisionist behavior, other
intervening variables must be present. I specified conditions that explain when nations
turn inward, focus on internal reconstruction and institutional reform, and pursue
reconciliation with former adversaries and peaceful foreign policies and when, on the
other hand, nations focus on losses and become obsessed with revenge and revision. I
showed that even though defeat in wars is a humiliating experience (Schivelbusch 2003,
Midlarsky 2006, Lu 2008, Harkavy 2000), humiliation sentiments need not necessarily
find resonance among all population segments and might instead remain limited to
certain aggrieved groups; that is, national humiliation does not necessarily trigger
aggressive nationalism, empower radical parties and create revisionist foreign policy.
Therefore, defeat is insufficient to radicalize the domestic political landscape and to
allow radicals to seize the reins of power. Defeat and the emotions it generates only
create a fertile ground for radicalization. This radicalization potentiality will be actualized
only if it is filtered through three intervening variables: national self-images, political
197 Harkavy (2000, 358) specifically mentioned that ―[s]eemingly missing in the literature is a discussion of
cases at the other end of the extreme, i.e., those of cultures or nations deemed relatively less inclined to
collective narcissistic rage and vengeful behavior.‖ He also went on to suggest, but without elaborating,
possible explanations such as the nature of the state/nation, ―modern‖ or ―liberal‖ or ―democratic‖ cultures‖
or even ―a history of successful diplomatic and military endeavors?‖ He also proposed, but again without
much elaboration, some other answers that could explain variation in reactions to defeat, such as the
intensity of defeat, the cultural distance between the warring parties, or collective cultural attributes of a
society—the Arab shame-oriented culture for example.

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parties, and international opportunities and threats. More specifically, I showed that
national self-images are permissible variables that facilitate or obstruct the emergence of
domestic radical politics. This variable is only permissible in that it is a storehouse of
collective memories that defeat triggers and activates and that coalesce into a narrative
and discourses upon which elites could build their case for radicalism or moderation.
Inflated national self-images facilitate radicalization whereas realistic and tempered selfimages
obstruct radicalization. The presence of a set of discourses, myths, and collective
memories only enhances the chances that political elites would resort to radicalizing
politics. However, political parties/organizations translate this permissibility into actual
politics. Existing strong political parties obstruct radicalization but weak ones allow
predatory elites to use public fears, insecurities and humiliation sentiments—that defeat
generated—to radicalize the domestic political landscape. This is the first stage of the
theory: the radicalization, or lack thereof, of domestic politics. Defeats thus create
changes in the configuration of the domestic political landscape, discrediting some
ideologies and political parties but elevating others; and those changes then feedback into
foreign policies. Domestic radicalization will enhance the chances that a state pursues
aggressive/revisionist foreign policies—given that the international environment presents
an opportunity for revision or aggression—for even if a state wishes to be revisionist, it
must either have the material resources or the support of a major ally or a major great
power. That is, the actual behavior, not the intention, is determined by the presence of
opportunities and constraints at the international level. On the other hand, when the
domestic political landscape is not sufficiently radicalized, the state could pursue
moderate/status quo foreign policies.

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In this dissertation, I rejected a purely rationalist and hard-core realist/neorealist
accounts of state behavior by showing that emotions, ideas, and national self-images
create constraints and incentives for state leaders to act in certain ways. Both Nasser and
Sadat had to resort to high-cost (war of attrition) and high-risk (1973 war) behavior
partly, at least, to contain public pressures that the loss and humiliation created. Although
Hungarian ruling elites tried to pursue peaceful revision, they eventually succumbed to
domestic obsession with loss and overwhelming desires for revision. Theoretically, I
utilized an institutional (political parties) and an ideational variable (national selfimages):
instead of engaging in the futile debate on which variable—institutional,
material, or ideational—matters more or shapes and constrains state and elite behavior, I
argued that both matter. Ideas prepare the ground, create a potentiality; institutions
constrain behavior and contain stresses generated by defeat.
I also rejected strictly cultural explanations that explain desires for revenge as
cultural attributes of a society. Some scholars describe Arab society, for example, as
shame-oriented and revenge-obsessed. Binder (1965) characterized Egypt as a ―shame
culture,‖ collectively obsessed with avoiding shame. Glidden (1972, 99) explained Arab
attitudes towards Israel as rooted in the Arab culture of shame and the Arabs‘ intense
societal conformity because ―[f]ailure to conform, however, brings shame. Shame is
intensely feared among the Arabs, and this fear is so pervasive that Arab society has been
labeled a shame-oriented one. This contrasts sharply with Judaism and with Western
Christian societies, which are guilt-oriented.‖ Arabs thus are incapable of reconciling
with Israel because of their needs for revenge, rooted in their shame culture. Glidden
(1972, 100) believed that, for Arabs, defeat, ―does not generate a desire for peace; instead

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it produces an emotional need for revenge, and this need is deepened rather than
attenuated by each successive defeat.‖
However, my research demonstrated that although Egypt experienced a
devastating and traumatic defeat, it did not differ from Germany, Hungary, or other
nations in expressing desires for avenging its honor and restoring lost lands. But, I also
showed that sentiments of humiliation and revenge did not have overwhelming and
domineering effects on state leaders—who rather preferred to avoid further adventures
and pursue a peaceful resolution of the conflict. The case of Egypt clearly demonstrated
that what explained Egyptian reaction to defeats, was not a strictly unique cultural
quality, but the same institutional and ideational variables that explain other cases such as
those of Bulgaria, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey. Indeed, when compared to
other cases, such as the German or the Hungarian, the Egyptian drive for revenge seems
mild. On the other hand, no noticeable or substantial sentiments of revenge were
observed in the Turkish case, or even in the long history of Muslim Ottomans‘ defeats at
the hands of their Christian enemies. Instead, one could say that a culture of
responsibility emerged and prevailed in the Ottoman Empire (Lewis 1980). In short, I did
not find desires for revenge to be culturally-determined. One need only think of the
German and French disputes and loss/humiliation/revenge that suffused their relations
throughout the 19 th and early 20 th century, sentiments that disappeared later as the two
countries reconciled after the emergence of a proper international environment,
institutions and norms.
I contributed to an area that has not been sufficiently explored before: How
societies and states react to their defeats in wars. There have been few studies on why

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victories in war create overconfidence (Johnson 2004) but only little on why defeats
generate different reactions: prudence and an inward-turn or adventurism and externallyfocused
responses. Much of the literature on how the aftermaths of wars shaped state
behavior (usually operationalized as involvement in future wars) focused on the role of
treaties—whether they were restrictive or non-restrictive (Fritz 2006; Maoz 1984; Hensel
1994; Grieco 2001; Senese and Quackenbush 2003). But treaty type is only one factor
that shapes the aftermaths of defeats. Additionally, engaging or avoiding subsequent wars
is only one response in the broad spectrum of behaviors observed in the aftermath of
defeats: what does it mean not to engage in war: acceptance of war outcome (defeat),
internal revolution, civil war, embracing defeat, internal reforms, nationalist
demobilization. Those are questions that the ‗treaty literature‘ did not address.
But, I also made a substantive contribution for I brought attention to a case that
had not been much studied in international relations or comparative politics, the
nationalist demobilization of the peasant era in Bulgaria, one of the most exciting
experiments in political innovation in interwar Europe. Sadly, the experiment was too
short and too immature and subsequently did not last for a long time.
2. Summary of Findings and Theory Evaluation
From the outset let me say that I do not make claims that my findings could be
extended to explain and predict all other cases of defeat across time, space and culture.
Qualitative work has its limits, especially with respect to generalizations. However, I
believe that I presented a coherent theory that explained how states and societies varied in
their reactions to defeats in wars based on a conjuncture of ideational and institutional

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variables. This theory, and the hypotheses derived from it, could be applied to other cases
for further testing.
I found that defeats left imprints far beyond the battlefield, especially on ideas and
foreign policies. Indeed, most often defeats in wars discredited the dominant ideologies,
or at a minimum, weakened them. But defeats also empowered and legitimated
alternative ways of thinking, allowed new ideologies to prosper, and new belief systems
to rise—things that were not likely prior to this exogenous shock. Thus, in the cases I
examined, Egypt, Turkey, Bulgaria and Hungary, defeats did generate powerful trends of
change. I also found that those domestic changes did leave significant impacts on foreign
policies as well.
How did the aftermath look like in the four cases?
In Egypt, radical ideas and movements spread on the left and right, among the
communists, socialists, leftists and Islamic fundamentalists. The domestic landscape was
substantially radicalized. But the opposition was too weak to mobilize the masses, to
organize its ranks or to overwhelm the regime. Nevertheless, public pressures were too
strong and the regime felt compelled to do something and eventually had to resort to war
to break the deadlock of the intolerable status quo. Although the desires to avenge the
honor of the nation were clearly expressed from the first day of defeat, Egypt was
seriously constrained in its foreign policy by its limited resources and the unwillingness
of its major supporter, the Soviet Union, to go all the way in supporting its war efforts.
In Bulgaria, from 1918 till 1923, the Peasant Movement made heartfelt and
genuine efforts to leave irredentism behind, to focus on nation and state building, to

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peacefully resolve issues with neighboring states and former adversaries and to be reintegrated
into the international system. However, the experiment was short-lived and a
coalition of various alienated social groups coalesced and removed the peasants from
Power.
In Hungary, radical, revanchist, irredentist and extremist political organizations
mushroomed. They were somehow a bit contained after Bethlen came to power and
created a ruling party that controlled Hungarian political resources; however, the forces
of irredentism were too strong to ignore and were eventually able to shape state behavior
in more than one way.
In Turkey, there emerged a moderate, republican state-bound nationalism that was
neither irredentist nor revanchist. There were no mass rebellions or mass revolutions.
Foreign policy was equally moderate and temperate; its main objective was reintegration
into the international system and the peaceful resolution of all problems and issues with
neighbors and formers enemies. This outcome should be surprising given that Turkey had
plenty of reasons—loss of population, territory and prestige and the presence of some
opportunities—to pursue a more assertive, and even irredentist, foreign policy and to
nurture a more aggressive nationalism.
Overall, as the theory posited, nations and states varied in their reactions to defeat,
depending on a constellation of three variables: the type of prevailing national self-image,
the strength of political parties and international opportunities and constraints.
National self-images did filter how defeats were perceived, interpreted and
framed and thus had a considerable impact on the overall reaction to defeats. A nation‘s

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perceived record of military victories and various accomplishments—economic
prosperity and success, cultural renaissance, etc…—created and fired up expectations of
further and probably higher accomplishments. A nation that recently experienced
achievements and victories will have a higher self-esteem and defeat would simply be
more shocking, traumatic and momentous as it interrupted what appeared to be a smooth
and linear trajectory of promise and accomplishment. On the other hand, a nation that
experienced cumulative defeats and frustrations will develop a sense of political realism,
and its expectations will be tempered: Another defeat would still be hard-hitting but not
existentially shocking. Besides this material component of national self-images, there are
ideational components: that is, how a nation perceived and framed its past, its collective
myths and memories, traditions, lore, sensibilities all contributed to the creation of its
national self-image. I divided national self-images into two categories, inflated and
tempered. This was too simple but necessary for purposes of analysis. Radicalism would
be hard, though not impossible, to emerge without a set of self-glorifying myths, national
superiority claims and memories that could support political extremism. On the other
hand, a nation that did not have such myths will have harder time nurturing
radicalism/revanchism. But, the actual record, that is, past achievements or failures,
proved to be equally important.
Type of national self-image therefore set the stage for the emergence of political
radicalism or its lack thereof. However, in order for sentiments and ideas to be translated
into political action and behavior, institutions are needed. Where powerful, capable,
ideologically coherent political parties existed, reactions to defeat were tempered, but

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where no such institutions existed, that is, when there was a political vacuum, an
unoccupied space, chances of radical, revanchist ideas spreading were greatly enhanced.
The 1950s in Egypt were particularly promising, or rather were perceived as such.
Egypt rose from miserable places into unknown heights. It became the leader of the Arab
world and a major leader of the third world; it built the Aswan dam—an Egyptian pride;
it ‗defeated‘ two empires, the French and the British, and frustrated Israeli objectives; it
inspired revolutionaries in the Arab world and beyond; and tellingly, it claimed a central
place for itself in its three circles: Arab, African and Islamic. Egyptian elites, especially
Nasser‘s supporters, were vocal in disseminating illusions, unjustified capabilities,
imagined victories, a false promise of more to come. There was no doubt that an inflated
national self-image prevailed in Egypt at the time. The suddenness of defeat left Egypt
shocked, traumatized, lost in the wilderness for a while. Radical ideas, both in their leftist
and Islamic fundamentalist versions, spread all over Egypt. Genuine political parties—
after Nasser assumed power—did not really exist. The organizations that Nasser created
were mere façade organizations that lacked discipline, coherence or effective capacity to
contain the masses that were mobilized. When defeat struck, the Egyptian political
landscape suffered from a political vacuum that the radicals tried to fill. The regime
resorted to war—partly to contain and to deflect public pressures, and partly to legitimize
a complete rightward shift in both domestic politics and foreign policy.
Bulgaria, on the other hand, had a history of frustrations, littered with a litany of
failures. Grandiose ideas were limited to some classes and its egalitarian peasant society
made it hard to mobilize the public around radical ideas. Bulgaria, for example, won its
independence after many frustrating and costly attempts and only after Russians

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intervened. True, Bulgaria won the first Balkan War, but only to lose it all after getting
dissatisfied at its share of spoils. Bulgarians basked in the euphoria of San Stefano—
which created historic Bulgaria—for only a fleeting moment (few months) followed
immediately by ‗dismemberment‘ at the Berlin Congress. One could barely claim that
high expectations particularly prospered in Bulgaria at the time. Instead of rising
expectations, Bulgarians survived under the ghosts of diminishing expectations. In
addition, there weren‘t many schemes of grandiosity or imperial illusions—although
admittedly they existed but were not prevalent or dominant. The peasant movement
demonstrated that defeats need not necessarily end in an ‗identity vacuum‘ waiting to be
filled with radical imaginings and grandiose illusions. The case for a tempered Bulgarian
national self-image is a solid one. Anti-irredentism was indeed home-grown and was not
imposed by foreign occupation. But, the experiment was too short to have left an
indelible mark on Bulgarian state building. Although the case received scant attention in
studies of war outcomes, it demonstrated that when a large segment of the population had
not been socialized into myths of grandeur and dreams of empire and hegemony, and
when there existed a political organization/movement willing to offer daring ideas that
contradicted the dominant narrative, it would be possible for anti-irredentism to prevail,
for nationalist de-mobilization to occur, for defeats to be experienced as an opportunity
for national renewal. The Peasant Party proved formidable in popularity and daring in
ideas. However, alienating the powerful military and bureaucratic classes had its costs.
Eventually many forces that were troubled by the Peasants‘ identity-transforming reforms
coalesced and removed the peasants from power. One of the most exciting experiments of
nationalist demobilization in interwar Europe abruptly came to an end.

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When Hungary lost WWI and was subsequently harshly penalized, political
extremism prevailed. Defeat came in the wake of a series of accomplishments and
promises: the revolution (1848), the compromise (1867), literary renaissance, and overall
general prosperity and optimism, making the 19 th century one of rising expectations. In
addition, most elites, including the liberals, had been feeding the public grandiose ideas
about the great destiny of Hungary, its superiority over other nations, and even hopes and
dreams of taking over the Austrian Empire. The millennial celebrations stood as a
testimony to the promise of the 19 th
century. Collective myths of grandeur were
resurrected and given new vigor and new meaning. Hungarian national self-image was
substantially inflated. 198 Institutionally, there were multiple weak, fragmented political
parties, and a multitude of non-party political formations that all exerted tremendous
pressures on the government and kept the question of revision alive and haunting. Even
the ruling political party that Bethlen built proved to be only partially strong and for only
a few years before it came down under the pressures of irredentism and radical forces.
Turkey had a history of frustrations and defeats as well; the Ottomans were fully
cognizant of their declining status and capabilities and made several attempts at
remedying the ills of their decaying Empire, all to no avail. Elites developed a culture of
responsibility, of responding to crises realistically and reasonably: they had become
experts at dealing with losses. Their self-image was well-tempered and resigned. Thus,
when the ultimate loss came in WWI and the Empire collapsed, its inheritors—the
Turks—left behind their imperial legacy and embarked on a project of cultural
198 Both Hungary and Germany shared a promising nineteenth century but a disappointing and frustrating
early twentieth—the first half at least. It is not surprising then that these two countries were particularly
receptive to radicalism and revanchism.

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revolution, social engineering, history reconstruction, identity making. Probably, this is
one of the few examples in modern history where elites decided to abandon collective
memories, past history, and re-invent themselves after their former enemies. Unlike Japan
and Germany, which were coercively socialized into the post-WWII American-led
Western, liberal order, Turkey chose to do so on its own, uninvited. This was an instance
of self-propelled socialization—in contrast to the coercive socialization of Germany and
Japan. Victory in the national liberation war, no doubt, provided the Turks with
psychological relief from the innumerable defeats, frustrations, setbacks they had
endured. The emergence of a strong political party, the RPP, with its institutional
continuity, coherent organization, discipline, and monopoly over political resources, all
ensured that the opposition had no serious chance of radicalizing the domestic political
landscape. No serious radical movements emerged in Turkey; party strength and depleted
psychological resources to withstand further losses made those movements unlikely.
No account of state behavior is possible without factoring in international
constraints and opportunities, which significantly constrain and shape a state‘s actual
behavior. For even when desires and intentions for revenge, for war and revision were
overwhelming, a state could only do what its resources permitted it to do. However, one
should also distinguish between states that were constantly looking for opportunities for
revision and national assertion—Hungary for example—and cases where even when such
opportunities existed, elites remained impervious—Turkey for example. Similarly, in
Bulgaria, the Peasant leadership was constantly looking and working for opportunities for
reconciliation and compromise and genuinely complied with disarmament and other
conditions to show Bulgaria‘s goodwill and to present its credentials for re-admission

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into international society. Egypt is a more complicated case. There were no real
opportunities for war with Israel in 1973; indeed, Sadat fired the Soviet experts from
Egypt before the war. He pursued the war option for domestic reasons—partly to contain
and deflect domestic pressures for changing the intolerable status quo and partly to break
the stalemate in order to begin serious negotiations to settle the conflict. Indeed, Egypt
launched the war for fear of apparent signs of Soviet/American satisfaction with the
status quo, something that Egypt was unwilling to tolerate. Thus, the Soviet-American
rapprochement and Soviet reluctance to fully support Egypt in its war endeavors
accelerated Egypt‘s decision to go to war.
Overall, the cases did conform to the theory and confirmed the posited
hypotheses. Thus, it was true that defeat was insufficient to radicalize the public and to
generate incentives for revenge. For this potentiality to materialize into actual behavior,
defeat had to be filtered through three variables: national self-images, political parties and
international constraints and opportunities. However, in the course of the research
project, there emerged some aspects that needed further work and refinement.
3. Shortcomings
I believe that a theory of defeat that incorporates the strength of the opposition as
a major variable will better explain the aftermath of defeats. I included the strength of the
opposition in the political parties section but this variable proved to be so crucial in
shaping the reaction to defeat that it warrants a more refined and detailed treatment as an
independent variable. More work should be done in this area, both theoretically and
empirically. Initially, I hypothesized that the lack of strong political parties would

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radicalize the political landscape and will offer plenty of opportunities for predatory elites
to radicalize discourses. But, I found out that unless there emerged some form of a
coherent and competent opposition, radical sentiments might not be articulated fully and
might even fail to leave a significant impact on state policies. For example, there was
much instability in the aftermath of defeat in Egypt and much radicalization of political
discourses and trends, both on the left—communists and other extreme leftists calling for
a complete break with the past—and Islamic fundamentalists calling for a return to the
fundamentals of the faith, a return sure to bring salvation and redemption. Yet, the two
trends, especially the leftist, remained constrained and contained. Although both posed
some threats to the regime, neither developed the institutional strength or mustered the
necessary financial or organizational resources that could have enabled them to
successfully challenge the regime. Assassinating Sadat was really a desperate act of
revenge not accompanied by a strategic and practical plan for the aftermath of the kill. In
short, the opposition was radicalized, the ruling party was weak and brittle, and national
self-images were inflated, yet state leaders succeeded in turning away from radicalism
and pursued a rationally calculated rightward shift policy—a slight shift under Nasser and
a complete one under Sadat. It is true that the regime had to resort to a war of attrition
and later a full-fledged war to break the stalemate, but those were calculated moves
meant to contain domestic pressures so that the regime elites could pursue a negotiated
resolution of the conflict. This outcome could be only explained by the failure of the
opposition to grow in strength and to completely change the domestic political landscape.
Similarly, in Hungary, there were plenty of revisionist movements and extreme
political parties but those became powerful and influential only in the 1930s. Prior to that

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period, Prime Minister Bethlen and his ‗semi-strong‘ political party were able to contain
those groups and incorporate their elites into the ruling party apparatus, which enabled
the Bethlen government to pursue a peaceful strategy of revision—in the early 1920s.
That is, containing the opposition and co-opting some of its leaders had a significant
impact on containing radical trends.
In Turkey, Kemal did not mind the emergence of opposition parties as long as
they did not gain sufficient strength to challenge his modernizing, secularizing,
European-oriented identity project. The two short experiments with opposition political
parties clearly demonstrated to Kemal the dangers of allowing the opposition to grow and
develop national networks and national following. The two experiments were ended
soon.
Another example comes from another fascinating case: Spain (1898). Indeed,
some observers claimed that this disastrous defeat ―seemed to change nothing.‖ What
explains this outcome? One account cited the lack of any reasonable or viable political
alternative to the two-party constitutional monarchy in place at the time (Balfour 1995,
407).
Another issue that deserved more attention was the dichotomization of variables.
Admittedly the international environment variable could be reasonably dichotomized—
presence or absence of opportunities or allies—but when it came to dichotomizing
political parties strength and national self-images, few difficulties emerged. For example,
I coded both the Peasant Movement in Bulgaria and the Republican People‘s Party in
Turkey as strong, but the truth is that the RPP was much stronger, with more ideological

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coherence, more discipline over recruitment and promotion and more control over
political resources. There was some difficulty in coding Bethlen‘s Party of Unity in
Hungary: according to the criteria I specified, the party should be coded as ‗weak‘ all
along; however, despite its weakness, it was still able to hold its own for the first few
years and demonstrated some functional strength—it was able to contain radical trends,
almost monopolized the distribution of political resources in the country—factors that
explain why Bethlen was able to pursue peaceful foreign policy without much concern
for disturbance on the domestic front.
Things might become even more complicated when it comes to the national selfimage
variable. Dichotomization might have been wise for this project but reality is way
more complicated to be captured by a dichotomous national self-image. There might be
other categories besides inflated/tempered, or some gradation, that I ignored. A
continuous variable might have complicated my research a lot and might have required
time and resources that went beyond the limits of my research. However, it is fair to say
that a more elaborate classification of the values of the two independent variables, the
strength of political parties and the type of national self-images, will improve the research
a lot.
Similarly the dichotomization of the dependent variable might not have captured
the complex reality of the cases. Take the case of Egypt. If one were to code a country
that initiated a war as ‗revisionist,‘ or aggressive, Egypt should be so coded. Yet, the
truth is that Egypt launched the 1973 war in order to break the stalemate, to facilitate the
initiation of the negotiation process, to prepare the ground for a complete rightward shift
in foreign policy, and to contain and deflect mounting domestic pressures. Egypt‘s

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motives and objectives cast serious doubt on a simple coding of cases. Similar logic
could be applied to Hungary, which demonstrated constraint and apparently desired
peaceful revision while implicitly was constantly searching for opportunities for revision,
by whatever means. A more nuanced coding or a relaxation of the dichotomy might have
been a better choice.
A significant question that came up in the very beginning of my research project
was causality. Do defeats in war cause fundamental changes or do they merely accelerate
the processes of social and political changes that were underway before the war began? I
do not contend that defeat, single-handedly, ‗caused‘ its aftermath. In any society, there
must be some social processes and changes underway before the war began. Generally
speaking, wars facilitate and accelerate the emergence of a certain phenomenon and
hasten the demise of another. Marwick (1988, xiii) put it succinctly ―there would be no
point in studying the effects of war on any society without first grasping firmly the
essential features of that society, the processes of change already in motion within that
society on the eve of war.‖ Thus, some consideration of pre-defeat must be accounted for.
As W. A. Robson (1950, 303) said, ―War is the midwife of change. But the changes
which war brings to birth are those whose seeds have long been germinating in the womb
of time.‖ This, of course, easily yields itself to a before/after research design. Although I
tried in this dissertation to examine the pre-war situation, I believe that a more refined
and more detailed investigation and presentation of the pre-defeat social and political life
would have enhanced the quality of the findings and clarified the causality issue in a
more nuanced way.

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To what extent could we apply the concepts, lessons, findings of literature on
individual or small-group psychology to collectivities in the study of defeat, national
humiliation and revenge motives? The assumption that a national collective identity
exists, for example, is actually a projection from individual or small-group psychology to
the nation-state level. Status discrepancy is another common theme in studies of power
transition and war occurrence. Indeed, there are so many concepts, such as national honor
and national prestige, that attribute personal qualities to states and to collectivities, and
which many social scientists repeatedly use. Even those who recognize the issues
involved sometimes find it unavoidable: In his study on revenge, Thomas Scheff (1994,
75) admitted that he was challenging an ―article of faith of modern social science‖ when
he claimed ―an isomorphism between interpersonal and international relations.‖ I made
the assumption that nations, just like individuals, could suffer a trauma and somehow
experience the same symptoms. This is admittedly not easily done. However, let me
quote William Langer (1958, 291),
As historians we must be particularly concerned with the problem whether major changes
in the psychology of a society or culture can be traced, even in part, to some severe
trauma suffered in common, that is, with the question whether whole communities, like
individuals can be profoundly affected by some shattering experience. If it is indeed true
that every society or culture has a ―unique psychological fabric,‖ deriving at least in part
from past common experiences and attitudes, it seems reasonable to suppose that any
great crisis, such as famine, pestilence, natural disaster, or war, should leave its mark on
the group, the intensity and duration of the impact depending, of course, on the nature
and magnitude of the crisis.
The assumption that whole communities experience collective traumas or shocks
and that those shocks leave imprints on the psyche of the collectivity are not new ideas.
Examples abound: Jews, the holocaust and the experience of alienation in general and
how those experiences shaped the behavior and outlook of whole Jewish communities are

390
barely contested. The Shi‘a, for example, still commemorate the martyrdom of Hussein,
the prophet‘s grandson, with much passion and devotion and sometimes physically
painful, bloody rituals and processions. A tragedy that happened a millennium and a half
ago is still commemorated and still shapes the behavior of individuals and communities.
Serbs and the battle of Kosovo, six hundred years ago. Many other examples testify to the
plausibility of this idea.
4. Suggestions for Future Research
It is possible to create a typology of defeats 199 —based on a set of indicators, such
as the intensity of defeat, its overall perception, the kind of losses (territory, population,
etc)—then create a typology of reactions—broader than the simple two alternative
response I utilized: an internally-oriented response focused on reforms and reconciliation
and an externally-oriented response obsessed with losses and intent on revenge and
revision. There are other types of possible responses, such as social revolutions,
rebellions, military coups, and even few cases of democratization. Thus, two typologies
could be created: one on the kind of defeat and the other on the aftermaths of defeats. A
significant contribution could be made if a causal connection between the two typologies
could be established; that is, if variation in defeat type could explain variation in type of
responses. I utilized a simple typology of defeat—from which I selected my cases—but
did not create a typology of the aftermath. I believe this to be a very promising avenue of
future research.
199 Horne‘s typology of defeats (2008) provides a solid start.

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In my research, elites‘ perceptions emerged as the most interesting and exciting
variable to investigate. I believe this to be a very promising avenue for future research.
How defeat is framed proved to be consequential. So, let me present a case for studying
elites‘ perceptions. Changes that occur in the aftermath of defeat need to be understood in
their larger context through an analysis of the terms of the broader political debates.
Thus, in order to understand the aftermath of defeats in wars, it is necessary to develop an
in-depth understanding of the political and intellectual context within which debates take
place. ―Policy struggles in the aftermath of crises have important political re-distributive
effects,‖ (Stern 1997, 75) since various political and social groups are unequal in their
capacity to impose a certain interpretation of events and to benefit from the
implementation of their proposals or their programs.
Elites play a decisive role in shaping domestic politics, in creating mass
movements, in offering narratives that help interpret the complex reality which emerges
in the wake of defeats in wars. Elites are agents who play an essential role in constructing
identities and defining interests. Through their acts and discourses they set a radical or a
moderate tone to which masses respond. This is particularly important in times of crisis
when the average citizen and the newly mobilized population search for clues to help
interpret the complex reality they are confronting. The role of elites becomes even more
pronounced in the absence of strong institutions, such as political parties and weak civic
associations, and when the ruling regime becomes debilitated by a weakened legitimacy.
The role of opposition elites is particularly important as an alternative source of epistemic
authority: defeat is not a only loss on the battlefield but also a failure of an ideational
structure that sustains existing institutions. In the aftermath of defeats, existing ideas will

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be discredited and an alternative belief system will be needed. This is a fertile
environment for the growth of new ideas and new ideologies.
My research showed that how elites frame defeat is consequential: Defeat has
variable meanings and is subject to differential interpretations, and these variations in
interpretations can affect whether and how they are acted upon. 200 Therefore, the mere
fact of defeat by itself does not necessarily generate action but what matters more are the
various ways defeat is interpreted and the generation and diffusion of those
interpretations. Elites could frame defeat as an opportunity for self-reflection and national
renewal (as both the Turkish and the Bulgarian cases demonstrated) that could eventually
lead to political reforms and moderate, conciliatory foreign policy. But, elites could also
frame defeat as a ritual of humiliation and as a stimulus for revenge (Egypt, Germany,
Hungary) and an occasion for aggressive foreign policy.
Obviously, regime supporters will look for excuses to justify the dismal performance
in war and might propose some minor or façade reforms. Regime opponents, on the other
hand, will look for deeper causes and will exploit defeat as an opportunity to undermine
the existing regime. It is inevitable that there would be policy debates within countries
that experience defeat. The question is what kind of ideas dominates the policy debate
arena, which ideas are more appealing, and which ideas receive popular support. The
point here is that there is variation within defeated regimes—besides the variation
between states—regarding the ways defeats are explained. In short, policy debates and
the ideas that emerge in the wake of defeat have an impact on the nature of domestic
politics that emerge in the aftermath of defeat. When elites disseminate radical ideas, they
200 As Edelman (1993, 232) put it, ―The social world is…a kaleidoscope of potential realities, any of which
can be readily evoked by altering the way in which observations are framed and categorized.‖

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facilitate the emergence of radical politics, but when they focus inward on institutional
reform, they dampen the emergence of radical movements.
Examination of the political debates on the opinion and editorial pages of major
newspapers or other mass and elite media, in parliament, in political parties‘ publications,
and political speeches of major political figures will provide a good sense of the major
interpretations and framings of defeat, its causes and recovery prospects. However, other
sources could be tapped, especially cultural ones, such as literary and artistic productions,
folksongs, historiography, etc…these sources would provide us with a better assessment
of the mood of the public and the elite at the time before, after, and during defeat. Such
data will provide us with a solid idea about how defeat was framed. We will be looking
at variation of perceptions not only across countries but within countries, which will
enable us to discern those who felt humiliated, remained neutral or received some
measure of satisfaction from defeat. Indeed, this constitutes a very promising and fruitful
approach to the question of how nations deal with defeats in wars. However, comparative
work might be difficult because of language requirements. There might be a substantial
translated literature in some cases such as that of Turkey (WWI), France (1870),
Germany (WWI and WWII), and Egypt (1967). However, in other cases, such as that of
Bulgaria for example, there might be much less. A way of overcoming this difficulty
would be to focus on a single country with multiple cases, for example—for native
speakers of Arabic—Egypt offers several cases (1956, 1967, war of attrition, 1973).
Another research question, which would require a different set of cases and
different case selection criteria, is when defeats in wars lead to fundamental changes in
the collective identity of nations and how. The cases of Japan and Germany are well-

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known cases of defeated states socialized into the world of the victors, its institutions and
core values. 201 But, there are other countries, such as that of the Ottoman Empire/Turkey
(WW), probably Russia after the Soviet Union collapse, which make self-propelled
efforts to socialize themselves voluntarily into the Western Liberal world. Thus, we have
coercive socialization (Japan and Germany after WWII) vs. self-motivated socialization
in the aftermath of defeats. But, we even have cases of no socialization or minimal
reaction such as that of Spain (1898), where in the words of Balfour (1995, 407) defeat
―seemed to change nothing.‖ Portugal, after its imperial losses in Africa, the military
coup and the EU membership presents another potentially interesting case. Thus, in the
aftermath of defeats in wars, there is variation in the modes of incorporation and
socialization into the international system. This is a subject worth of further and more
detailed examination.
Another area of research that could potentially shed more light on what explains
the various reactions to defeat is ‗state institutions.‘ This implies that the focus should not
be restricted to political parties only but should rather be extended to the overall level of
the institutionalization of a state—based on a set of institutional indicators such as the
bureaucracy, the administration, political parties, civil society organizations and other
state and societal organizations. The purpose would be to examine to what extent strong
institutions stand as barriers against political extremism. I did use the term sociopolitically
strong state to refer to a state with strong political parties but the concept could
be extended to include other institutions. Egypt is a case in point: its presidency stood, in
201 Socialization is another concept that is borrowed from individual psychology and applied to state
behavior, in studies of the aftermath of revolutions, for example, or as in the examples just cited, Japan and
Germany‘s socialization into the American-led order.

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contrast to other weak institutions, as strong, respectable and invested with authority and
privilege; the Regency in Hungary is another example.
Yet, another area of research that might offer additional insights is the study of
Leadership. We notice that in all the cases I studied, there was a major dominant figure/s:
Nasser and Sadat in Egypt, Regent Horthy and Prime Minister Bethlen in Hungary,
Stamboliski in Bulgaria, and Mustafa Kemal in Turkey. It would be nearly impossible to
consider how those nations dealt with their losses by examining structural and
institutional variables alone. Probably, one might argue that the leadership variable
explains most of the events; thus, an examination of the political leadership beliefs,
leadership styles, legitimacy, etc…might be necessary to have a better handle on the
events that followed defeat.

396
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