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THERE HAS BEEN A SPATE OF BOOKS IN THE LAST FEW YEARS on the history and use of air power during the inter- war (1918-1940) period. Air power was one and, in some cases, the main coercive instrument of control for the British and French empires.1 There is much less known about the role of air forces and air power, especially air bombing, in the successor states of the British and French empires and in newly independent states created after World War I. This is true of the case of Turkey. In Turkey, particularly in the 1920s and for most of the 1930s, the development of the air force (TAF), was one of the most important achievements of the Turkish military forces. The most important objective of the Turkish military forces during this period was to restrain, control and destroy the Kurdish Nationalist movement. I am presently engaged in a larger study of the Kurdish rebellions of Shaykh Sa' id (1925) and Ararat (Agri in Kurdish and Aghri in Turkish) in 1930 and their impact on the development of the Turkish air force and Kurdish and Turkish nationalism.
Most histories of the Kurds dealing with the period 1925-1940 say little or nothing about the role of the TAF in crushing and defeating the various Kurdish revolts, rebellions and insurrections that took place.2 What I wish to proffer here is an account of the role and impact of the TAF in defeating the Kurdish rebellion that occurred in the Mt. Ararat region of northern Kurdistan located in eastern Turkey as related by General Ihsan Nouri Pasha, the commander-in-chief of the Kurdish forces during the revolt.3 Nouri Pasha is the only Kurdish participant in the Ararat revolt who, as far as I know, has left a lengthy eyewitness account of the revolt as well as the role of the TAF in demoralizing and defeating the Kurds. The Ararat revolt is generally considered to have commenced in 1927 and lasted to October of 1930. Most of what follows, however, deals with the year 1930 when the Turkish utilization of air power was the most intensive and successful.
In the fall of 1927, Nouri Pasha noted the increase in TAF activity: the intensity of which was to increase...