Amasya entered the history of the Turkish national struggle twice in 1919. The first occasion was the Amasya Circular, issued on 22 June. The second was the Amasya Talks, held in the city in October of the same year, which differ from the circular in character; in the documents of the period and in the Nutuk the meeting is called the "Amasya Mülâkatı" (the Amasya Interview). Often confused with one another, the two events mark separate phases of the Anatolian movement. The circular was an appeal turned inward, a call to organize. The October talks were the first moment at which the movement sat down at an official table with the other side, the Istanbul Government. The protocols written at the end of three days of negotiation did not deliver the expected results in the short term, yet these texts, which the Representative Committee had a minister of state sign, became the documents in which the new political will born in Anatolia was first placed on record as an equal party facing Istanbul.

Background to the Talks

After the June circular, the congresses of Erzurum and Sivas had met, and the resistance organized under the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia had come under the leadership of the Representative Committee (Heyet-i Temsiliye). The declaration issued by the Sivas Congress on 11 September 1919 set out the movement's political programme. When an attempted raid on the congress came to nothing, the Representative Committee broke off all ties with the government of Damat Ferid Pasha and decided that communications between Istanbul and Anatolia should be cut until a legitimate government took office. The silence of the telegraph lines effectively ended the capital's control over the provinces. Unable to withstand this pressure, the Damat Ferid government was forced to withdraw, and on 2 October 1919 a cabinet under Ali Rıza Pasha took its place; some sources date the resignation to 30 September.

The new grand vizier looked on the national movement far more moderately than his predecessor and issued a statement saying that the government was not indifferent to the Anatolian movement. Mustafa Kemal at once telegraphed Ali Rıza Pasha that if the new government respected the national organization and aims formed at the Erzurum and Sivas congresses, the Kuvâ-yı Milliye (the National Forces) would stand by it. In the same telegram he asked that, until parliament opened and took up its supervisory role, the government enter into no commitment binding the nation's future, and that delegates who understood the national cause and could be trusted be chosen for the peace conference. The Representative Committee announced that it would support the government as long as it did not oppose the national decisions. The government, for its part, sent Mustafa Kemal a telegram through the War Minister Cemal Pasha in order to establish contact with Anatolia. Correspondence between the two sides thus began, and it was agreed that they should meet face to face to reach a common view and settle the details.

The sources place their emphasis differently on who proposed the meeting. According to one account, it was the grand vizier Ali Rıza Pasha who put forward the idea of meeting in Amasya. Studies of Salih Pasha's life, on the other hand, record that it was the Navy Minister Salih Pasha who proposed in cabinet that a representative be sent to Anatolia to resolve the disputes with the Kuvâ-yı Milliye, and that the government entrusted the task to the man who had made the proposal. The two accounts can be reconciled; although the sources do not say so explicitly, the cabinet decision may well have been taken with the grand vizier's approval and the mission given to the minister who had brought the proposal. Amasya was chosen as the meeting place. The city where the circular had been issued was now receiving the representative of the state.

Istanbul's Envoy, Salih Pasha

The minister sent to Amasya was one of the figures in the Istanbul politics of the day who stood closest to Anatolia. Salih Hulusi Pasha was born in Istanbul in 1864, the son of Dilaver Pasha, harbour master of Istanbul. He completed the Kuleli military high school, the War College and the Staff Academy, becoming a staff captain in 1888, and in 1891 he was sent to Germany to complete his military training. On his return he taught at the Staff Academy and took part in the Ottoman-Greek War of 1897. His marriage to the daughter of Marshal Deli Fuad Pasha carried him into exile in Diyarbekir in 1903, when his father-in-law fell from favour. After the proclamation of the Second Constitutional Era he rose quickly: he was appointed second chief of the General Staff, then, with the rank of lieutenant general, commander of the Second Army at Edirne, and he supported the Action Army that came to suppress the 31 March Incident.

In the following years he served as War Minister in the cabinets of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha and Hüseyin Hilmi Pasha, and as Navy Minister in the cabinet of Hakkı Pasha. In 1911 he was appointed to the Senate (Âyan Meclisi), became Minister of Public Works in the government of Gazi Ahmed Muhtar Pasha, and attended the London Conference convened for the Balkan peace as a delegate. Throughout the First World War he held no office other than his seat in the Senate. When the Armistice of Mudros was signed he was in Switzerland, where he had gone for his wife's medical treatment, and the terms of the armistice kept him from returning to Istanbul for some time. In July 1919 Damat Ferid Pasha took into his third cabinet three elderly soldiers sympathetic to the national struggle: Ali Rıza, Ahmed İzzet and Salih pashas. It was thought that these pashas, not much tainted by Unionism and liked by both the army and the civil bureaucracy as academy-trained officers, could act as a kind of arbiter in the passage from the old order to the new. Until Salih Pasha returned from Switzerland, Ali Rıza Pasha deputised for him at the Navy Ministry; when Ali Rıza Pasha became grand vizier, Salih Pasha remained Navy Minister in the new cabinet.

This background matters for understanding the atmosphere of the negotiations in Amasya. Mustafa Kemal, who would sit across the table from him, was seventeen years his junior, a soldier of the next generation. Salih Pasha was a nationalist statesman, but a constitutionalist loyal to the rights of the sultanate. Those who have studied his life describe him as an honest man whose word could be trusted. His failure to keep some of the promises he made in Amasya is explained less by these personal qualities than by the pressure of the cabinet in Istanbul and the occupying powers.

The Delegations and the Journey

In the Nutuk, Mustafa Kemal relates that there was a likelihood of discussing with Salih Pasha such matters as the government's foreign policy, its internal administration and the future of the army, and that it would therefore be very useful for him to know the views of the army corps commanders in advance. In an encrypted telegram dated 14 October 1919 he had asked the commanders for their views on these three points. The commanders' reports appear in the documents section of the Nutuk. The Representative Committee thus went to the talks prepared, speaking not only in its own name but having also sought the opinion of the army's command.

Salih Pasha set out from Istanbul on 15 October. Mustafa Kemal Pasha left Sivas on 16 October together with Rauf Bey (Orbay) and Bekir Sami Bey, and was in Amasya on 18 October. According to the Nutuk, instructions had been given for the national organizations to hold splendid welcoming ceremonies at the ports where Salih Pasha would call, and for him to be greeted with a "welcome" on behalf of the Representative Committee. When the minister reached Amasya on 19 October he was received with a great ceremony. The Representative Committee had assigned Staff Lieutenant Colonel Arif Bey (Karakeçili) to accompany Salih Pasha. The Istanbul Government was represented by the Navy Minister Salih Pasha; it is recorded that the sultan's aide-de-camp, Colonel Naci Bey, was also with him. The Anatolian movement was represented by Mustafa Kemal, Rauf and Bekir Sami as members of the Representative Committee. The talks opened on 20 October and lasted until 22 October; some sources stress that the negotiations went on over three nights.

The ceremonies and demonstrations had a purpose. The point Mustafa Kemal emphasized in the Nutuk was to make it plain that the parties had acknowledged that the national organizations and the Representative Committee were a political entity officially recognized by the Istanbul Government, that the talks were official in character, and that their results were to be acted upon. It was therefore important to him that the minutes containing the results be regarded as "protocols" and be signed by the minister acting as the government's delegate. The welcomes staged at the ports and in Amasya proclaimed, on the one hand, the respect shown to a minister of the state and, on the other, that those showing this respect were now an organized national will. The legal weight of the meeting is to be sought in this question of form rather than in the articles discussed.

The Number and Nature of the Protocols

According to the Nutuk, at the end of the three days of talks five protocols were drawn up, each in two copies. Three of them were signed: the copies kept by Salih Pasha were signed by Mustafa Kemal and his colleagues, and those kept by the Representative Committee were signed by Salih Pasha. The two protocols regarded as secret were never signed. The results of the talks were also communicated to the army corps.

The first protocol, dated 21 October 1919, contained, in Mustafa Kemal's words, a number of articles consisting almost entirely of Salih Pasha's proposals, which there was no objection to accepting. The second protocol, dated 22 October 1919, is the summary minute of a long discussion and debate, and carries the real weight of the negotiations. The third protocol sets out, as a separate formula, how the Representative Committee would mediate in the parliamentary elections. It is recorded that the first and third protocols were based on Salih Pasha's proposals and were not put into effect. The fourth and fifth protocols, deemed secret, remained unsigned; one of them dealt with sensitive matters of the army, the judiciary and internal security, the other with the delegation to be sent to the peace conference.

The Content of the Second Protocol

The second protocol opens with an introduction setting out the parties' mutual assurances on the caliphate and the sultanate. After a lengthy explanation that the true aim of the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia was to secure the existence and inviolability of the caliphate and of the Ottoman sultanate, it moves on to the articles of the Sivas Congress declaration of 11 September 1919. It was jointly accepted that the frontiers envisaged and adopted in the first article of the declaration had to be obtained as a minimum demand. It was stated that these frontiers covered the lands inhabited by Turks and Kurds, and that the separation of the Kurds from the Ottoman community was not possible. To allow the Kurds to develop freely, and to forestall agitation carried on from outside under the guise of Kurdish independence, it was thought fitting that the Kurds be made aware of this point now.

Regional concerns were also taken up in detail. Attention was drawn to the fact that, among the regions under foreign occupation, Cilicia was sought by the French and the British to be detached from the homeland in order to form a buffer state between Arabia and Turkey. The principle was generally adopted that no separation of these lands, among the most densely Turkish and most fertile regions of Anatolia, would be accepted by any means, and that Aydın too was regarded with the same firmness as an indivisible part of the homeland. A similar concern was voiced about Thrace: it was thought that, through the creation of a nominally independent government that would in reality be a colony, there might be a demand to detach the part of Eastern Thrace up to the Midye-Enez line. The principle of not giving up Edirne and the Maritsa frontier, even for the purpose of joining an independent Islamic government, was jointly approved. It was added that on all these matters the final decision of the legislative body, the National Assembly (Meclis-i Millî), would be followed.

The fourth article of the declaration stated that non-Muslim elements could not be granted privileges of a kind that would upset political sovereignty and social balance. This article was discussed with care. It was taken into account that the non-Muslim elements had enjoyed certain privileges for centuries and that, in the helpless circumstances the state found itself in, abolishing them would be difficult. Nevertheless it was argued that this provision must be regarded as an indispensable demand if independence was to be secured in practice, and that even the slightest concession on it would shake independence to its foundations. The principle that Christian elements should not be given excessive privileges was accepted as an aim to be realized. Here too, and in the other demands concerning the defence of the right to exist, a proviso was added that the opinion and decision of the National Assembly would be followed.

The seventh article concerned how technical, industrial and economic needs were to be met on condition that independence was fully preserved. It was thought that a state investing large amounts of capital in the country would demand some right of control over its finances, and that the extent of such a right could not be foreseen. It was agreed that, once experts had drawn the limits of this right so that it would not harm independence or genuine national interests, the form deemed suitable by the National Assembly would be adopted. The remaining articles of the Sivas Congress decisions were also found acceptable in principle, on condition that they be submitted to the approval of the Chamber of Deputies (Meclis-i Mebusan).

The Future of the Association and the Question of Parliament

The most delicate part of the negotiations concerned the eleventh article of the Sivas Congress decisions of 4 September 1919, dealing with organization, that is, with the status of the association. This article provided that once the National Assembly, which would make the national will sovereign, had secure and free possession of its legislative and supervisory rights, the form of the association would be determined by a congress decision. The protocol explained that this congress need not be a separate meeting like those held at Erzurum and Sivas. Deputies who adopted the association's programme would count as delegates under its statutes, and a special meeting held by them could take the place of the congress.

The question then turned to where the National Assembly would meet. It was essential that parliament be able to work in Istanbul in complete security and freedom. Yet Istanbul was under foreign occupation and hardly seemed suitable for deputies to carry out their legislative duties properly. According to the minutes, it was considered appropriate that, as the French had done at Bordeaux in the war of 1870-71 and the Germans recently at Weimar, parliament should meet temporarily in Anatolia, at a secure place that the government would find suitable, until peace was concluded. One published version of the minutes has Lyon in place of Bordeaux; the text in the Nutuk gives Bordeaux. Once parliament had met, the degree of security and immunity would become clear, and if full confidence was seen, the abolition of the Representative Committee and the definition of the organization's working aims at the special meeting would be decided.

In the Nutuk, Mustafa Kemal says that the most important point among the principles established in these talks was the meeting place of parliament. They had persuaded Salih Pasha to accept their long-held conviction that it was wrong for parliament to meet in Istanbul. The pasha, however, while sharing this view, added that his agreement was personal and that he could not yet give a promise on behalf of the cabinet. He said he would do everything in his power to convince the cabinet members, and that if he failed there would be nothing left for him but to withdraw from the cabinet. According to Mustafa Kemal's brief note, Salih Pasha did not succeed in this. It is striking that the question debated longest at the Amasya table was the very one that later parted the ways of Anatolia and Istanbul.

Since the government had ordered that the elections be entirely free, it was stated that the Representative Committee did not interfere in them. Even so, it was thought that if there were among the deputies members of the Committee of Union and Progress, persons who had played a part in the politics of the day, or men who had disgraced themselves in the army, they would not be well received by the Entente Powers. It was considered proper for the Representative Committee to offer suitable suggestions by way of guidance so that such persons would not be elected. The method to be followed for this was laid down in a separate formula as the third protocol. The minutes were written in two copies in Amasya and exchanged between Salih Pasha and, on behalf of the Representative Committee, M. Kemal, Hüseyin Rauf and Bekir Sami.

The Secret Protocols

Mustafa Kemal lists the articles of the unsigned fourth protocol one by one in the Nutuk. First among them was the correction of the imperial decrees and other orders concerning the dismissal of certain commanders from the army and the court-martialling of a number of officers. Ways were to be sought of bringing those exiled to Malta back to Istanbul to be tried in Ottoman courts, while the trial of those held to be connected with the Armenian events was to be left to the National Assembly. The Istanbul Government would once again protest for the evacuation of İzmir and, if necessary, have public rallies held through secret instructions. The replacement of the commander of the gendarmerie, the commander of the Istanbul garrison, the director of police and the undersecretary of the Interior Ministry also appeared in this protocol.

Another group of articles was aimed at circles cooperating with the occupation authorities. The Society of the Friends of England was to be prevented from going door to door having people put their seals to papers, and an end was to be put to the activities of associations bought with foreign money and to the harmful publications of newspapers of that kind; officers and officials were to be strictly forbidden to join such associations. The Aydın Kuvâ-yı Milliye was to be strengthened and its supply made easier, and for this purpose as much as necessary could be set aside from the 400,000 liras of the Navy Society. Officials who had joined the national struggle were not to be removed from their posts until general calm had been restored, and the cases of officials whom the people had dismissed for acting against the national cause were to be discussed separately before they were appointed to new posts. The transport of emigrants from Western Thrace and support for Âcimî Sadun Pasha and his men were also among the articles.

The unsigned fifth protocol contained the names of those who might go to the peace conference. The list named Tevfik Pasha as head of the delegation, Ahmed İzzet Pasha as military representative, and the Foreign Minister and Reşat Hikmet Bey as political representatives. Experts in finance, military affairs, political affairs, public works, statistics, history, law and commerce, together with a secretariat, had also been designated; among the experts the name of Colonel İsmet Bey appears for military affairs. The government was nonetheless left free in this matter, on condition that it observed the main principles. The list shows that in Amasya, alongside principles, the question of who would have a say in the state's representation abroad was also discussed.

Where the Sources Diverge

In describing the results of the Amasya talks, the sources diverge on certain points. According to the common account, the principles agreed in the talks were these: that Turkish provinces not be abandoned to the enemy; that no protectorate or mandate be accepted; that the unity and independence of the homeland be preserved; that non-Muslim communities not be granted privileges that would upset the country's political sovereignty and social balance; that the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia be recognized by the Istanbul Government as a legal body; that persons whom the Representative Committee also found suitable be sent to the peace conference with the Entente Powers; and that it was not appropriate, for reasons of security, for the Chamber of Deputies to meet in Istanbul. Another summary adds that the Istanbul Government would sign no peace treaty without the knowledge of the Representative Committee, and that the Representative Committee would not interfere in the government's affairs so long as the integrity of the homeland was not harmed. The historian Mehmet Evsile of Amasya University groups the agreed principles under five headings and gives the last of them as the acceptance of the association as a legal body together with the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies at a secure place in Anatolia.

The last item of these accounts is disputed. According to this account, the Istanbul Government rejected the idea of parliament meeting outside Istanbul as unconstitutional, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha did not insist. The wording of the minutes, however, is that it was "considered appropriate" for parliament to meet temporarily in Anatolia. The minutes record the view put forward during the talks; that the government did not afterwards adopt this view emerges from the other accounts and from the note in the Nutuk that Salih Pasha "did not succeed".

Another account states that Salih Pasha also accepted certain secret decisions that could be applied when conditions allowed. According to these, efforts would be made to liberate İzmir, censorship of the national press would be lifted, associations and publications collaborating with the occupiers would be prevented from operating, and public officials engaged in such conduct would be removed from office. Most of these articles coincide with those listed in the Nutuk as the content of the unsigned fourth protocol. The lifting of press censorship, however, does not appear in those words in the Nutuk's list; which minute this detail rests on could not be verified. The same account adds that the only decision of the talks to take effect was the holding of elections and the opening of the Chamber of Deputies. Articles such as the full acceptance of the Sivas Congress decisions and the closure of associations regarded as harmful, though counted among the general principles, were not reflected in practice.

Reception in the Press

The outcome of the talks was soon made public. Istanbul newspapers of 24 October 1919 presented the meeting in Amasya as "a complete agreement". Mustafa Kemal's statement, in a telegram sent to the newspaper Vakit, that the purpose of the national organization would end when parliament opened was a public reflection of the protocol's article on the future of the association. A remark in the same statement on the Armenian question, that an Armenia could be established outside the Ottoman frontiers, also attracted attention. Within a few months this optimistic tone in the press would meet the harsh reaction of the occupation authorities.

The Meaning of Recognition

The chief gain of the talks was legal and political rather than a matter of concrete articles. For the first time the Istanbul Government officially treated the Representative Committee, the decisions of the Sivas Congress and the Association for the Defence of the Rights of Anatolia and Rumelia as a counterpart. This amounted to an acknowledgement at government level that the national struggle could not be regarded as a problem of public order or as an irregular movement. The political influence of the Representative Committee grew, and relations between the two sides eased for a time. Mehmet Evsile draws particular attention to one point among the results of the talks: many who had been hesitant about the national cause were freed of their doubts when they saw a minister of the Istanbul Government come to terms with the representatives of the Kuvâ-yı Milliye, and took their place beside the national movement.

The Entente Powers, too, began to see that they could not keep the Anatolian movement under control through Istanbul. Some sources also interpret the situation as the Istanbul Government having been obliged to fall into line with Anatolia. In textbooks the talks are cited as the second political success of the Representative Committee. It is also often stressed that the texts use the concept of independence in place of sovereignty, that is, that the office of the sultanate and caliphate was left untouched while the independence and integrity of the country were brought to the fore. The Amasya protocols are regarded as the first official texts showing that the new political authority formed in Anatolia had acquired the strength to bargain with Istanbul on equal terms.

Years later Mustafa Kemal himself spoke in Amasya of the importance he attached to the talks. In the speech he gave when he visited the city as president on 24 September 1924, he recalled that he had been the head of the Representative Committee formed after the Sivas Congress to represent the will of the nation, and related how a member of those who then held power had agreed to face the nation's representatives and had come from Istanbul to Amasya. "Here I made that member sign an agreement whose essential condition was respect for the existence of the nation and observance of its will. In this respect Amasya has acquired a place that will always keep its importance in the history of the Revolution and the Republic." These words show plainly the value he gave to the signature itself rather than to the articles of the protocols.

After the Talks

Salih Pasha returned, saying that he would get the Istanbul Government to accept the decisions reached in the talks or else resign. It is reported that, although he failed to have the decisions accepted, he did not resign. Most of the points agreed in Amasya found no acceptance in Istanbul's political circles; the holding of elections and the convening of the Chamber of Deputies were accepted, but Istanbul was again chosen as parliament's seat. The reopening of the chamber, which had been closed on 21 December 1918, was in this respect a gain for the Anatolian movement. While the elections were under way, Mustafa Kemal and the members of the Representative Committee set out from Sivas on 18 December 1919 and arrived in Ankara on 27 December 1919. The fact that the railway reached the city and that it had a telegraph office was decisive in Ankara's becoming the centre of the struggle from then on.

Parliament opened in Istanbul on 12 January 1920. The Defence of Rights Group that Mustafa Kemal wanted could not be formed, and the Felah-ı Vatan (Salvation of the Homeland) Group emerged in its place; Reşat Hikmet Bey, named in the secret protocol at Amasya as a political representative for the peace conference, was elected president of the chamber. On 28 January 1920 parliament adopted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî) and announced it to the world on 17 February. These developments pushed the Entente Powers towards a harsher policy. Under pressure from the occupying powers, who were disturbed by the rapprochement between Istanbul and Anatolia, the grand vizier Ali Rıza Pasha was forced to resign on 3 March 1920. This weakened the wing in Istanbul that favoured cooperation with the Representative Committee.

The sultan, convinced that a government along the lines of Ali Rıza Pasha's was indispensable, offered the grand vizierate to Salih Pasha, the negotiator of Amasya. It is said that on learning why he had been summoned he began to weep and declared that he would not accept, and that the chief secretary of the palace, Ali Fuat Bey (Türkgeldi), all but forced him into the sultan's presence. Raised to the rank of vizier and marshal, Salih Pasha formed a cabinet of neutral figures on 8 March 1920. On 16 March 1920 the Entente Powers formally occupied Istanbul; nationalist deputies and statesmen were arrested and exiled to Malta. The note handed to the grand vizier demanded that the Sublime Porte immediately repudiate Mustafa Kemal and the other nationalist leaders. Salih Pasha held out for a time and sent a delegation of deputies to Ankara in order to act together with Anatolia, but under the occupiers' pressure for an open condemnation of the Kuvâ-yı Milliye he resigned on 2 April 1920. With this government of twenty-five days, the rapprochement between Anatolia and Istanbul established at Amasya six months earlier also came to an end. The Chamber of Deputies was dissolved by the sultan on 11 April, and on 23 April 1920 the Grand National Assembly opened in Ankara.

Salih Pasha's path crossed Anatolia's once more. Again Navy Minister, in the cabinet of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, he was sent to Anatolia in December 1920 with a delegation headed by Ahmed İzzet Pasha to negotiate with the Ankara government. Mustafa Kemal, who met the delegation at Bilecik, declared that he did not recognize the Istanbul government, took its members to Ankara and kept them there for about three months. The pasha resigned together with the cabinet on 4 November 1922 after the abolition of the sultanate, took the surname Kezrak in 1934, and died in poverty at his home in Göztepe, Istanbul, on 25 October 1939. The protocol he signed in Amasya remained the best-remembered document of his long career. The Amasya Circular had announced the birth of the movement. The Amasya Talks mark the date on which that movement was first treated as a counterpart at the level of the state.

Chronology

22 June 1919: The Amasya Circular is issued.

4-11 September 1919: The Sivas Congress meets; its declaration of 11 September becomes the basis of the Amasya talks.

2 October 1919: The government of Damat Ferid Pasha resigns (30 September according to some sources), and the government of Ali Rıza Pasha is formed.

14 October 1919: Mustafa Kemal asks the army corps commanders for their views on foreign policy, internal administration and the future of the army.

15 October 1919: Salih Pasha sets out from Istanbul.

16-18 October 1919: Mustafa Kemal, Rauf and Bekir Sami set out from Sivas and reach Amasya.

19 October 1919: Salih Pasha is received in Amasya with a ceremony.

20-22 October 1919: The talks are held; after three days five protocols are drawn up, three of them signed. The first protocol is dated 21 October, the second 22 October.

24 October 1919: Istanbul newspapers announce the talks as "a complete agreement".

18-27 December 1919: The Representative Committee leaves Sivas and arrives in Ankara.

12 January 1920: The Chamber of Deputies meets in Istanbul.

28 January 1920: The National Pact is adopted.

3 March 1920: The government of Ali Rıza Pasha resigns.

8 March 1920: Salih Pasha forms a government as grand vizier.

16 March 1920: The Entente Powers formally occupy Istanbul.

2 April 1920: The government of Salih Pasha resigns.

23 April 1920: The Grand National Assembly opens in Ankara.

24 September 1924: Atatürk, visiting Amasya, speaks of the importance of the talks.

Bibliography

Official sources

  • Republic of Türkiye Amasya Governorship, Amasya Protokolleri page (quotations from the Nutuk and a summary of the second protocol).

Other sources

  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Nutuk (section on the Amasya Talks and protocols).
  • Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Nutuk, "İstanbul Hükümeti ile İlişkiler: Amasya Mülâkatı" (text in modern Turkish), National Defence University, Turkish Military Academy, Harbiyeli Atatürk pages.
  • Mehmet Evsile, "Millî Mücadele Döneminde Amasya", Millî Mücadele'nin Yerel Tarihi 1918-1923, Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA), chapter 14, pp. 431-450.
  • Cevdet Küçük, "Sâlih Hulûsi Paşa", TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, vol. 36, Istanbul 2009, pp. 39-41. islamansiklopedisi.org.tr
  • Ankara University Institute of Turkish Revolution History, ATA-115 Atatürk's Principles and History of the Turkish Revolution course contents, week 11: "Amasya Görüşmesi, Son Osmanlı Mebusan Meclisi'nin Toplanması ve Misak-ı Milli'nin İlanı".
  • Amasya Protokolü article (text of the minutes and results of the talks), Wikipedia.
  • Tarih Vakti, Amasya Görüşmeleri (20-22 Ekim 1919).
  • Milliyet, Amasya Görüşmeleri Nedir? (7 June 2021).

Online sources