Cartoon from Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War, depicting the Ottoman Empire being led astray by a will o’ the wisp named William, presumably after Kaiser Wilhelm. (Image by Liz Cameron, of her Grandfather’s book likely sent to him whilst he was in the trenches in France)
The puppets are all snowed in thanks to Blizzard Juno…and in order to stave off cabin fever, Karagöz led the charge to find some good reading in our vintage book collection. Hacivad Bey, our resident history buff, came across my Grandfather’s copy of Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War.
Mr. Punch makes a brief commentary on the state of the Ottoman Empire. During this phase, the Ottoman Empire was famously referred to as “the sick man of Europe,” which the puppets find interesting given the ongoing saga around the European Union’s possible accession of Turkey and debates about whether Turkey is, or is not, European.
Reference to “the sick man of Europe” was indicative of the fact that the once-great power that was the Ottoman Empire was crumbling. For over half of a millennium, it had dominated the Eastern Mediterranean, held a tight grip on vast swathes of Central Europe, and encompassed Arab lands as far down as Egypt. By the time of World War One, however, all that remained outside of Turkey were Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
Image from the cover of Mr. Punch’s History of the Great War depicting the puppet Punch of Punch and Judy fame (Image by Liz Cameron)
The puppets wave me off, with Karagöz in the lead, saying “M’Lady, we KNOW all of this already, let’s focus on interpreting the cartoon you found in Mr. Punch’s book. He is a lover of anarchy, and a kind spirit to the Karagöz puppets, so, on with it!” And so, dear reader, take a gander at the cartoon we found in Grandpa’s old musty book.
You will note that a will o’ the wisp is referred to in the cartoon’s caption. So let me start with that, non-Brits and non-Anglophiles out there may not know of this character, so let me fill you in. As a child, my Granny warned me about the will o’ the wisp who laid in wait within the nearby marsh – to lead people astray with his glowing light. This British mythic creature made a big impression on me…and was used in this cartoon to suggest that the aging and sickly Ottoman Empire had lost its way thanks to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany (see the text from Mr. Punch at the bottom of this post).
As I thought through my interpretation of the cartoon, I couldn’t help but think of all of the talk in Turkey around the maudlin glorification of the Ottoman Empire. This glorification manifests in several ways, the first of which caught my eye in the form of window decals with the Ottoman seal on cars all over Turkey. This was a precursor to certain political figures’ attempts to glorify (themselves? No, of course not!) the nation by doing things like staging a costume show with sixteen soldiers in costumes from all of the alleged Turkic empires and generally ranting and raving on about the greatness of Turkey in some quite cringeworthy ways. I must say, at times it seems to me that the Will O’ the Wisp is back, leading Turkey astray yet again, taking it down a dangerous garden path, to be sure. Time will tell. The puppets are glad to be observing it all from afar, as are we.
Ottoman nostalgia is making a comeback…according to Joshua Walker and many others…https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140702173729-12570575-ottoman-nostalgia-a-proactive-turkey-in-the-middle-east
Mr. Punch’s commentary that went along with this cartoon:
“A new and possibly momentous chapter has opened in the history of the War by the attempt to force the Dardanelles. At the end of February the Allied Fleet bombarded the forts at the entrance, and landed a party of bluejackets. Since then these naval operations have been resumed, and our new crack battleship Queen Elizabeth has joined in the attack. We have not got through the Narrows, and some sceptical critics are asking what we should do if we got through to Constantinople, without a land force. It is a great scheme, if it comes off; and the “only begetter” of it, if report is true, is Mr. Winston Churchill, the strategist of the Antwerp expedition, who now aspires to be the Dardanelson (LOL, says Karagöz) of our age. Anyhow, the Sultan, lured on by the Imperial William o’ the Wisp, is already capable of envying even his predecessor:
Abdul! I would that I had shared your plight,
Or Europe seen my heels,
Before the hour when Allah bound me tight
To WILLIAM’S chariot-wheels!”
“Love is grabbing hold to the great Lion’s mane” or so go the words from the poet Hafiz.
Whilst exploring the small towns near the border, we came across an ancient Keystone Bridge. The puppets insisted on getting out and taking some pictures – it’s not every day you see such a relic. Check out the pictures here from the old bridge in the small hamlet of 
As we poked around the bridge, a figure emerged from the hazy green distance. He carried a hoe and wore a plaid shirt with a rolled up sleeves. His hair was silvered with the ages and his eyes were twinkly. Greeting us with warmth, we worked our way through the pleasantries – where we were from, how lovely the area was, falan filan. (i.e. yadda yadda in Turkish). His name was Fazlı.
Back in the States, as I listened to the radio on my way home from work, it was wonderful to have a face to add to the story in my ear.
Slowly-by-Slowly 