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A fact from Occupation of Istanbul appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 11 December 2006. The text of the entry was as follows: Did you know... that after World War I, Istanbul was occupied by the Triple Entente in the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire? A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2006/December.

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Comments Information

Yet another fine work of Turkish propaganda, let down by being written in bad English (an unfortunate but inevitable side-effect of verbatim copying from Turkish books). Meowy 00:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC) reply

Apart from the overal tone of the entry, which appears to me to be POV, a serious problem I have with this entry is its supposed sources. Many sources are listed, including original documents held in British Foreign Office records. However, I think it is highly improbable that the editors of this page have seen such original documents, and is more likely that a lot of the information in the entry is taken from a single, uncited, source and not from the multiple sources that are cited. This is against [ [1]] which says that it is improper to copy a citation from an intermediate source without making it clear that you saw only that intermediate source. Meowy 00:27, 19 October 2007 (UTC) reply

In October I asked ottomanreference to respond to my concerns. Using that editor's talk page I wrote "I have problems with the references you have cited in this page: Occupation_of_Istanbul. Basically, I have a suspicion that much of the information in the entry is taken from a uncited source and not from the multiple sources that are cited. I am particularly concerned about the F.O. documents you cited, since it would be unusual for an editor to have access to such material. Can you confirm that you have indeed consulted such materials, and, if you have, say why it would not be counted as original research. If however, there is actually an uncited source, you should mention it: it is improper to copy a citation from an intermediate source without making it clear that you saw only that intermediate source. There has been no response. For this reason I have now added a disputed tag to the article. Meowy 16:53, 1 January 2008 (UTC) reply

An editor removed the disputed tag, without giving any explanation. I have now re-inserted it. It is justified, and it will remain justified until the points I have raised have been answered.

We see on another page on Wikipedia, Turkish_Courts-Martial_of_1919-20, again produced mostly by OttomanReference, a similar listing of British Foreign Office documents. However, this time they are correctly attributed to their original source - a book by Bilal Simsir. Simsir is a former Turkish diplomat who sits on the board of the "Institute for Armenian Research", an Ankara-based organisation that is financed by the Turkish State and exists to produce propagandistic tracts that seek to deny the Armenian Genocide. Simsir is, in other words, an author well-known for producing propagandistic works. It would appear to be a fair assumption that this article also makes extensive (uncredited) use of a work by Simsir. Meowy 17:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC) reply

I read your response. It is your position that "Bilal Simsir" is Turkish. You claim "he is basied and propagandistic like the rest of the Turkish people." Consequently, you reject his position. The article have other citations as you personally argued in your first response. The Wikipedia demands citations as the source of the statements. POV based statements (gut feelings) are not accepted like "I have a suspicion that much of the information". Your personally position is your POV. I totally agree that you have the right to hate "Simsir" and consequently all Turkish people. That is another point, which is not relevant with the article.
POV from yours or consequently others (which you say Ottoman..something) are not credible. What is credible is cited information. The article is full of it. You can claim that the reported "fact" is wrong or misleading based on ....(author, publication, page). You have not brought any forward. You have to bring substantiated citations to establish your arguments. Currently only citation you brought is your gut feelings and statements like "I have raised".
Also, Wikipedia is not the place to build or destroy cited sources. That is applicable to "Bilal Simsir." You can not attack personalities. Your personal issues with Bilal Simsir, is irrelevant. As the statements are cited, the use of factual taq is invalid, until you brought citations proves otherwise. -- Rateslines ( talk) 22:47, 6 April 2008 (UTC) reply

You had better learn how to behave properly on Wikipedia. I hope you do not make a habit of fabricating quotes in order to claim that editors have said things they have not actually said. I will not reply further to your above comments since there is no point in talking to a liar. Meowy 01:25, 9 May 2008 (UTC) reply

Please explain how the fuck did this fascist asshole Meowy have his bullshit insults not removed by the admins?

I suspect neutrality of some works of Bilâl N. Şimşir, for example Kürtçülük, (1787-1923), Ermeni Meselesi, 1774-2005. Because even if he used official foreign documents, he wrote by his POV. But I don't find any drawbacks in his British Documents on .... series. Takabeg ( talk) 09:49, 3 July 2011 (UTC) reply

Heavy corrections to syntax are needed; additionally, portions have discordant structure and poorly grouped fragments of thought. Mavigogun ( talk) 08:22, 11 July 2008 (UTC) reply

• Yes, indeed, its not really English, but I'm not sure enough of what they mean to change it more than I have.

IceDragon64 ( talk) 20:34, 15 July 2014 (UTC) reply

Unbelievable that they just abandoned the city and gave it up whit out a fight. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.87.73.104 ( talk) 20:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC) reply

Someone is believing the Turkish propaganda, I think. The stuff that goes along the lines of "the nasty expansionist European Powers, plotting and conniving for a century to grab control of Constantinople from the innocent and peaceful Ottoman Empire". The truth is that no European Power ever wanted it, and they were there only reluctantly and halfheartedly as a result of the Ottoman Empire's activities in WW1. That is why they gave it up "without a fight". Meowy 20:27, 14 November 2008 (UTC) reply

No european power ever wanted it? That is really absurd.

The truth is meowy is a moron. Everyone wanted it for the strategic position at least.

De facto occupation would be occupation by force of arms, like the Russian occupation of Trebizond in 1916. The occupation of Constantinople was subject to the provisions of an armistice, and is insofar de jure.

The sentence The occupation had two stages: the de facto stage from November 13, 1918 to March 16, 1920, and the de jure stage from March 16, 1920 to the days following the Treaty of Lausanne ( signed July 24, 1923 ). is therefore wrong (as well as mispunctuated). Citing it to the identical wording in this source is citing a Wikipedia mirror, an unreliable source. The authors are a team of three who make a practice of selling Wikipedia echoes; they appear to be the sole "outside" source for this imaginary distinction. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:14, 19 September 2011 (UTC) reply

This line of discussion also makes the parliament of 1920 look feckless, which is both POV and unsupported. Failing to recognize that a de facto occupation exists would be pretending that the Allied forces weren't present; failing to recognize an occupation is asserting that they had no right to be present, a different assertion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 20 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Do not think that I am acting dogmaticly insistant but this is not the only source speaking about a de facto occupation. See [2]. I did not understand how you found out that the Surhone et al are making a living by selling Wikipedia echoes. Filanca ( talk) 21:32, 21 September 2011 (UTC) reply

That isthe view of a polemicist who offers a new view of "reality" to oppose the standard notions; "in reality" is diagnostic. That such polemics exist may deserve notice (especially if they have been noticed by anybody outside some small circle of the like-minded); WP:UNDUE applies. However, WP:UNDUE also forbids us to express controversial views as though they were consensus of the sources.

I do not know that Surhone and his friends are making a living by reprinting Wikipedia; they may not be doing that well; but they are certainly reprinting Wikipedia. Their works are findable at Google Books and elsewhere, and visible in snippets; where I have been able to check, they cut and paste articles (such as this one) in forms that ar older than their publication. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:06, 22 September 2011 (UTC) reply

That was exactly it, I was hoping that you may give an example, like from this article, where an older Wikipedia edit was used verbatim in a newer publication. Well, do not bother if you do not have it handy. About the other book, I do not think that use of the phrase "in reality" is enough to differentiate or even indicative of a polemical argument. However, as I said I am not insistant on this. Thanks. Filanca ( talk) 19:03, 22 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Consider first the cited source, as represented on Google Books here. The Occupation of Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) (November 13, 1918 - September 23, 1923) was the occupation of the capital of the Ottoman Empire, following the Armistice of Mudros by the Triple Entente of World War I That is precisely the first sentence of this article (although I shall be moving the misplaced by the Triple Entente shortly). Its publication is dated 2010; therefore this is Surhone's mirroring Wikipedia, not a Wikipedia copyright violation. Many of Surhone's booklets say they are largely from Wikipedia, including one from a talk page - titled accordingly. Many of them claim to be " High Quality Content" because they are from Wikipedia - which, as far as I am concerned, is consumer fraud. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Thank you. If Surhone's source was Wikipedia, what is the source of Wikipedia -- this did not look like an imaginary comment. Another book questioning the legal status of the occupation: [3] Filanca ( talk) 09:44, 25 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Is that really what Johnson says? It is conventional to describe the non-Islamic population of the Ottoman Empire as divided into millets. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC) reply

No, it isn't. He does not use the word millet, and these figures are estimates from the 1911 Britannica - before the war; they are part of a passage which makes clear that estimates of the total range from 800,000 to 1,200,000 - and that none of those estimates allow for the floating and refugee population. False precision, all the way around. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 20 September 2011 (UTC) reply

Johnson does describe the Interallied Control Commission in some detail, pp. 113-120. The United States was not a member of it (the United States was not an Allied Power, and had not been at war with Turkey); Italy was. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:22, 26 October 2011 (UTC) reply

I added some info about the Italian presence in the City, which was put on a par with that of France and Great Britain, but went completely forgotten in this article. Alex2006 ( talk) 14:02, 8 November 2012 (UTC) reply

It's obvious that the infobox should change since the article isn't about a battle. Alexikoua ( talk) 13:32, 8 March 2014 (UTC) reply

Such a statement. Nations are fighting wars; issues like occupation are settled by force rather than by "legality." IMHO, this article has one major need: It needs to present the cause of the Turks giving up Istanbul for occupation. The Turks seem so proud of the Battle of Gallipoli when they beat the Brits earlier in the war, as if it made a bean of difference. Yet how did it come to pass that they didn't fight for Istanbul - or did they? There doesn't seem to have been anything like the A-bomb that made the Japanese give up. Was this a failure of nerve? What happened? ( EnochBethany ( talk) 00:34, 26 April 2015 (UTC)) reply

The war was already over by the time the Allies arrived in Constantinople; the Ottomans had dropped out of the war by the Armistice of Mudros two weeks earlier. I think a more accurate word than "illegal" would be "extralegal"; the Armistice didn't forbid the occupation, but neither did it explicitly allow it. Binabik80 ( talk) 18:09, 18 May 2016 (UTC) reply

Under the Armistice of Mudros, Allied forces had the right to occupy any settlement in the Ottoman Empire if it felt there were minorities at risk of massacre or persecution. So there seems to be no basis on the surface for this "illegal" claim, and there is no explanation in the content about why it was illegal. For that reason I am going to delete that content. If it is to be returned in some other form, there needs to be some explanation as to why the two sources consider the occupation to be "illegal", and whether it is just the opinion of those sources or was the contemporary opinion. In other words, this content needs much more than a brisk and unelaborated assertion of illegality. NB; One of the cited sources, Eden to Armageddon, is a footnote saying that the de facto status of the occupation was altered on 16 feb, "giving it a legal basis". This does not mean that the occupation was "illegal" before that, and the footnote makes no such illegality claim or give any explanation about what exactly was altered. In short, there are insufficient sources, and insufficient clarity in the two sources presented, to support content with a sweeping claim of "illegality". Tiptoethrutheminefield ( talk) 19:11, 23 May 2016 (UTC) reply

The last sentence of the second paragraph is misplaced; it jerks the timeline back five years for no apparent reason. It (or at least some of the information in it) should probably be moved nearer the beginning of the paragraph, before the first reference to 1920. -- Haruo ( talk) 14:59, 7 November 2015 (UTC) reply

Why does it say The first French troops entered the city on 12 November 1918, but it is dated from 13 November? - Owain Knight ( talk) 00:03, 13 November 2015 (UTC) reply

Can we move this article back to Occupation of Istanbul? Article titles are not supposed to be based on what was in use a century ago, but what the recognizable title is today. There are plenty of WP:RS that use Occupation of Istanbul (and some that use Constantinople) but I think this should be based on what is recognizable today. I stumbled on this article while looking for the Occupation of Constantinople (which we have called the Siege of Constantinople - Occupation of Constantinople should redirect there.) Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 05:55, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply

Absolutely not. Proposal violates WP:COMMONNAME and is simply anachronistic revisionism. Dr. K. 06:14, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply

It's really not, but WP:COMMONNAME is the policy I was looking for. Constantinople is not the common name of the city, it is the common name only for the Byzantine city which fell in 1453:

• Brill ^[1]
• Brill ^[2]
• Tauris ^[3]
• OUP ^[4]

I understand the point that Constantinople was still in use until 1930, but scholars don't prefer it because it is confusing. As it was confusing for me because I was looking for this: [4] [5] [6] - the issue is that it's not in use today as a common name for the city after 1453, even though it may have been in use in previous centuries. These are two separate issues. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 07:58, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply

Please excuse me for tidying up your entry a bit for easier reading. Constantinople was still in use until 1930. Well, not only that, but actually official until that time, but the main point is common usage in English. As late as in 1953, The Four Lads could make a point of the name change with their Istanbul, not Constantinople. And Constantinople would be the preferred usage when describing events from before 1930. (Similarly, we do not talk about the Battle of Volgograd, but of Stalingrad.) A preliminary Google search indicates that even today "Occupation of Constantinople" is somewhat more used than "Occupation of Istanbul", but that may need some more exploration. In any case, if you really want to suggest a change of title for this article, you have to do it as a requested move, since there is a formal consensus for the current title, see above. -- T*U ( talk) 09:35, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply

• Oppose per Dr. K. Khirurg ( talk) 16:20, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply
• Against replacing names of old historical events based to current names for these places. That a city has a different official name now, does not mean the past events have to be renamed. Period. --❤ SILENT RESIDENT ❤ 19:22, 21 November 2017 (UTC) reply

I would really prefer this title to redirect to the common usage in sources of the 13th century occupation. This would serve the interests of our readers better then imposed archaic language on them that is obviously guided by personal POV. There are far fewer WP:RS that use this term, and most of them are primary or dating to the 1970s, whereas the sources for "Occupation of Istanbul" are from the best academic publishers and were written between 1999-2014. Positions on a move discussion should be based on policy and common usage in sources not personalized. It is really an embarrassment to the encyclopedia to be using a 19th century term that is no longer used in academic publications. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 05:27, 22 November 2017 (UTC) reply

Those unfamiliar with the topic may not notice it, but in several of our articles dealing with WWI and the Ottoman Empire the general tone and detectable POV of the articles is similar to turn of the century propaganda, including in this case calling the city by its Greek name and not the name used by the Muslim population. It is not called the "Occupation of Constantinople" anymore and this is deliberate. It is not for us to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS or debate the mainstream position of current scholarship, which treats this subject carefully because of how sensitive it is for so many people. It does not make the articles better, it makes the articles unreliable. On Turkish Vikipedi, I am supporting changing "Greek Uprising" to "Greek War of Independence" - both terms are equivalently in use, but "Greek War of Independence" is a bit more modern, and more reflective of scholarship as a whole (including Western scholarship). There is nothing wrong with updating language to reflect current scholarship - in fact, we are supposed to under our policies. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 05:41, 22 November 2017 (UTC) reply

( edit conflict × 2) "Occupation of Constantinople" About 33,000 results (0.38 seconds), "Occupation of Istanbul" about 4,890 results (0.37 seconds). Google Ngrams: Ngrams not found: Occupation of Istanbul. Your arguments are bizarre. Dr. K. 05:42, 22 November 2017 (UTC) reply

I'm looking at the same search results the vast majority of which are not about the Occupation of Istanbul. Most are about the 13th century occupation I mentioned, others are 19th century deliberations of a possible occupation, there are a few sources from the 70s-80s, and one from 1929. Very few current sources are using this term, and none on the level of Brill, Tauris or OUP from what I have seen. You can't just rely on search results without actually looking at the sources. Seraphim System ^{( talk)} 05:57, 22 November 2017 (UTC) reply

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The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• Birleşik Krallık Osmanlı koloni bayrağı.png

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 05:01, 18 February 2021 (UTC) reply

Istambul was the name of the city when it was first occupied by the Allies, since the Ottoman Empire conquered the city in 1453 and renamed the city. User:Tetizeraz. Send me a ✉️ ! 08:58, 29 August 2021 (UTC) reply

@ Tetizeraz: In English and French, "Constantinople" was used as the name for the whole city, and "Stamboul" was only used for the historic core. French language Ottoman documents from the time period used "Constantinople." English and French sources switched to Istanbul circa 1928-1930, especially when the US State Department started using Istanbul. WhisperToMe ( talk) 22:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC) reply