Did Mustafa Kemal Pasha go to Samsun of his own accord, or was he sent there by Sultan Vahideddin? May 19, 1919, perhaps one of the most extensively debated dates in the history of the Turkish republic, has long been discussed largely around these two questions. On the one hand, there is the narrative that Mustafa Kemal went to Anatolia independently of the Istanbul government's will and launched the National Struggle. On the other hand, there is the claim that Sultan Vahideddin specifically assigned Mustafa Kemal the mission of going to Anatolia to save the country. In his book "Bir Devlet Operasyonu: 19 Mayıs" ("A State Operation: May 19"), Turkish writer Murat Bardakçı argues that both narratives oversimplify the issue and proposes a third perspective on a debate that has continued for nearly a century.

Undoubtedly, May 19 is not merely the date on which Mustafa Kemal Pasha landed in Samsun. It is one of the most powerful symbols of the historical process that extended from the organization of the National Struggle in an occupied country to the establishment of a new state. It is therefore hardly surprising that, over time, the date has acquired meanings beyond its historical significance and become the subject of different political and ideological narratives. As Bardakçı points out, at one end of the spectrum are claims that transform Mustafa Kemal's journey to Samsun into an almost legendary voyage undertaken under seemingly impossible conditions: that the Bandırma steamer had no compass, that its captain was unfamiliar with the Black Sea, or that its rudder was defective. In some accounts cited by Bardakçı, the journey has even been likened to the Prophet Muhammad's miraculous Night Journey and Ascension (Miraj). At the other end of the spectrum is an interpretation that attributes the entire episode to Sultan Vahideddin's secret plan for national salvation and portrays Mustafa Kemal as a commander dispatched to Anatolia to carry out that plan.

Bardakçı's central thesis is that both narratives excessively simplify the historical process. According to him, the journey to Samsun was neither solely Mustafa Kemal's personal initiative nor the implementation of Vahideddin's secret plan for national salvation. Rather, Mustafa Kemal's dispatch to Anatolia was a comprehensive "state operation" involving numerous components of the Ottoman state apparatus, from the Ministry of War to the Ministries of the Interior and the Navy, from the Ottoman General Staff to the Grand Vizier's Office and ultimately to the Imperial Palace. The expression "state operation" in the book's title refers precisely to this extensive institutional involvement.

To understand this thesis, we must return to the circumstances prevailing in the spring of 1919. Following the Armistice of Mudros, the Ottoman Empire faced extremely difficult military and political conditions. A substantial part of its army had been demobilized, control over weapons and ammunition had become one of the principal demands of the Allied Powers, and various regions of Anatolia had been occupied. Istanbul was effectively under Allied control. Meanwhile, clashes between Turks and Greeks in the Black Sea region, together with growing public security problems, intensified British pressure on the Ottoman government. The British demanded that order be restored in the region and kept the possibility of direct intervention on the agenda should the situation remain unresolved. Consequently, the Istanbul government faced a serious problem that required an urgent solution. Public order had to be restored, military units brought under supervision, weapons and ammunition placed under control, and developments that might provide the Allied Powers with a pretext for further intervention had to be prevented. Under these circumstances, the idea emerged of dispatching to Anatolia an experienced and authoritative military commander equipped with extensive powers.

Mustafa Kemal's assignment to Anatolia was therefore not a sudden decision made by a single individual. Rather, it was prepared through a bureaucratic process involving various institutions of the Ottoman state apparatus. There was an official decree, a set of mission instructions, the Ministry of War, the government and ultimately the sultan's approval. A headquarters staff was assembled to accompany Mustafa Kemal, the Bandırma steamer was allocated for his journey, and he was granted extensive powers that would enable him to operate in Anatolia. Moreover, Interior Minister Mehmet Ali Bey personally came to see off the Bandırma steamer on behalf of the government.

Thus, when Mustafa Kemal Pasha departed from Istanbul on May 16, 1919, he was not a soldier fleeing the state or secretly crossing into Anatolia without the authorities' knowledge. He was an Ottoman general setting out on an official mission authorized by the Ottoman state, bearing his official title, traveling aboard a vessel provided by the state, accompanied by his headquarters staff, and equipped with extensive powers formally entrusted to him. Whether this authorization also encompassed a direct mission to save the country remains unclear. Nevertheless, in Atatürk’s account recorded in Falih Rıfkı Atay’s memoirs, the dialogue from his final meeting with Sultan Vahideddin contains an explicit reference to the possibility of a broader mission: "‘Forget all that,’ he said. ‘The service you are about to render now may be more important than all the others. Pasha, you can save the state!’ I was astonished by these final words.” In this context, what has actually fueled the debate is the fact that the powers granted to Mustafa Kemal extended beyond the stated scope of his official assignment. These powers went considerably further than those required for a routine military inspection mission. Mustafa Kemal was authorized not merely to inspect particular military units but also to establish direct relations with military and civilian authorities across a vast geographical area.

However, the most critical aspect of the issue emerges precisely at this point. Demonstrating that Mustafa Kemal was officially dispatched to Anatolia by the Ottoman state does not necessarily establish that the Ottoman state had planned the subsequent National Struggle and, ultimately, the establishment of the republic from the very beginning. Here, it is necessary to distinguish between several questions that are frequently conflated: Who sent Mustafa Kemal to Anatolia? For what purpose was he sent? Did all the state actors involved in his appointment share the same objective? And toward what ends did Mustafa Kemal subsequently use the authority and resources entrusted to him?

The answer to the first question is relatively clear: Mustafa Kemal was sent to Anatolia by the Ottoman state. The answer to the second question, however, requires considerably greater care. From the perspective of the Istanbul government, the official objectives were to resolve public security problems in the Black Sea region and eastern Anatolia, inspect military units, bring weapons and ammunition under control, and prevent developments that might provoke further intervention by the Allied Powers. Nevertheless, a distinction must be made between the written justification for the official assignment and the expectations that the various actors involved in arranging it may have had of Mustafa Kemal. In contrast, accounts of Vahideddin’s meeting with Mustafa Kemal, Sabiha Sultan’s statements and Ahmet Izzet Pasha’s recollections suggest that at least some of the actors involved regarded Mustafa Kemal’s departure for Anatolia as an opportunity to pursue a much broader objective: the salvation of the country, extending beyond the formal framework of his assignment.

Regarding the third question, it is not possible to conclude that all the state actors involved in Mustafa Kemal’s appointment shared the same objective. The minimum common ground on which the state apparatus agreed was the restoration of public order in Anatolia, the inspection of military units and the prevention of developments that might provide the Allied Powers with a pretext for further intervention. However, there is no evidence demonstrating that the palace, the government, the military bureaucracy and Mustafa Kemal Pasha had entirely identical expectations regarding the broader consequences of this assignment.

The fourth question, on the other hand, brings us to the true historical significance of May 19. Within a very short period, Mustafa Kemal began using his official status, extensive powers and freedom of action to initiate a political process that went beyond the boundaries of his originally defined official mission. Consequently, the question of who sent Mustafa Kemal to Anatolia and the question of what he subsequently did there are not the same. When this distinction is overlooked, we inevitably gravitate toward one of two competing historical narratives. If we acknowledge that Mustafa Kemal was dispatched by the state, we conclude that Vahideddin must have planned the entire National Struggle from beginning to end. Conversely, if we reject the idea that Vahideddin planned the National Struggle, we assume that Mustafa Kemal went to Anatolia entirely on his own initiative and without the state’s knowledge. Yet the historical reality appears considerably more complex than either of these interpretations suggests. Mustafa Kemal was indeed dispatched by the state, but he soon redirected the mission and authority entrusted to him toward a new political course that extended beyond the officially defined boundaries of his original assignment.

Perhaps the most appropriate way to understand the debate opened up by Bardakçı’s book is to recognize this continuity and rupture simultaneously. The Ottoman state provided Mustafa Kemal with the legitimate status, transportation and exceptionally broad authority that enabled him to reach Anatolia. Yet Mustafa Kemal took these powers far beyond the boundaries initially envisaged by the state. The continuity lay in the Ottoman Empire’s military and bureaucratic institutions, its trained personnel and the authority it conferred. The rupture lay in redirecting this institutional capacity beyond the existing Istanbul-centered political order toward a new project founded on national sovereignty. Within a matter of weeks, the emerging movement began to diverge from the mission officially defined by the state authorities in Istanbul, ultimately leading to the establishment of a new center of political legitimacy in Ankara. Therefore, perhaps the most accurate interpretation is this: Mustafa Kemal’s dispatch to Samsun was a state operation, but the National Struggle that emerged from this operation soon transcended both the officially defined framework of the original assignment and the boundaries of the Istanbul-centered political order. Yet history rarely unfolds in this manner. Major historical transformations often emerge as different actors, pursuing different objectives, taking actions that produce unforeseen consequences over time.

In this context, Bardakçı’s book can be read not only as a study of May 19 but also as an examination of how states transform in the face of major crises. In 1919, the institutions of the collapsing Ottoman Empire had not disappeared entirely. Officers trained in the same military academies, officials who had served within the same bureaucracy, the existing provincial administrative structure, established communication networks and the accumulated experience of state administration would, only a few years later, constitute a substantial part of the human and institutional capital of the new Turkish state. In a sense, while the republic left behind the political structure of the Ottoman Empire, it inherited a significant portion of its institutional and human capacity. May 19 stands precisely at the intersection of this continuity and rupture. From this perspective, May 19 marks far more than the beginning of a journey. It represents an extraordinary historical turning point at which the institutional capacity of one state became the driving force behind a transformation that would ultimately give rise to another.