This index to the Records of the Department of State relating to internal affairs of Turkey, 1910-29, collection provides the dates each reel covers. Government Information MAY NOT hold all of these reels. The record in the library catalog describes the extent of our holdings. For help, or to make an appointment to view a reel, email rad@colorado.edu
On the 88 rolls of this microfilm publication are reproduced the records from the decimal file of the Department of State, 1910-29, that relate to internal affairs of Turkey, Turkey in Europe, Crete, Turkey in Asia, Palestine, and Tripoli. The records, consisting of bound volumes and unbound documents, are mostly instructions to and despatches from diplomatic and consular officials; the despatches are often accompanied by enclosures. Also included in these records are notes between the Department of State and foreign diplomatic representatives in the United States, memoranda prepared by officials of the Department, and correspondence with officials of other Government departments and with private firms and. persons. The Lists of Documents-or "purport sheets" filmed on Rolls 1-3 give brief abstracts of the documents reproduced in this microcopy and serve as a finding aid to the documents themselves. The arrangement of the entries on these lists generally corresponds to the arrangement of the documents in the file.
From 1910 to 1963 the Department of State used a decimal system for its central files, assembling and arranging individual documents according to subject and assigning file numbers. The decimal file consists of nine primary classes numbered 0 through 8, each covering a broad subject area. The records reproduced in this microcopy are in Class 8, Internal Affairs of States. The country number assigned to Turkey is 6; thus the documents bearing the file number 86 relate to internal affairs of Turkey. The several areas included in this series were each assigned a letter, which is placed after the first three digits of the file number. Documents bearing the file number 86n, for example, relate to internal affairs of Palestine. The number after the decimal point represents a specific subtopic. This number, in turn, may be followed by a slant mark (/). In such cases the numbers after the slant mark were assigned to individual documents as they were accumulated on a specific subject. For example, a decimal file number taken from a document reproduced in this microcopy is 867.6363/132. The number 6363 signifies that the subtopic is petroleum, and the number after the slant mark indicates the number of documents on this subtopic.
The documents under one subject classification are generally in chronological order, coinciding with the document number assigned (which follows the slant mark). There are instances, however, when a document file number was not assigned until a date considerably later than the one on which the document was received.
Cross-reference sheets referring to related records under other subject classifications in the decimal file have been reproduced as they occur, and appropriate cross-reference notations appear in the Lists of Documents. Other cross-reference notations are to documents in the "numerical file," a system used for the central files of the Department of State for the period 1906-10. The checkmarks that appear by most entries in the left hand column of the Lists of Documents indicate that the papers are in the file; entries •without marks, it is believed, refer to documents that were not among the records when they were received from the Department of State.
Some of the documents that have been checked in the Lists of Documents do not appear in this microcopy. The file contains security-classified documents and communications received from and classified by foreign governments and Federal agencies, in addition to those classified by the Department of State. Documents that have not been declassified are not available as part of this microcopy. The National Archives and Records Service does not have authority to make reproductions of such documents available to searchers.
The largest group of records reproduced in this microcopy relate to Turkish political affairs. Among the subjects covered are reports on general political conditions and activities in Turkey and in several areas of the Ottoman Empire; the Turkish- Italian ¥ar, 1911, and the war with the Balkan League, 1912-13; the union of Mytilene with Greece, 1913; political disturbances in the vilayets of Beirut and Smyrna, 1914; and Turkey's part in World War I. Some of the subjects covered in the postwar period are the role of the U.S. Peace Mission in relation to Turkey, 1919; other U.S. activities in postwar Turkey; the rise of the "Young Turks" under Mustafa Kemal Pasha; the Allied occupation of Turkey; reports from U.S. High Commissioners; the conflict between Nationalist forces and the French in Cilicia and the Italians in Southern Anatolia, 1920; U.S. naval forces in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1923; appointment of Mustafa Kemal Pasha as President of the new Turkish Republic, 1923; changes in Government personnel and practice under the new Republic; effects of the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923; politico-religious problems, 1924; Turkish relations with Greece, 1925; the Kurdish revolt, 1925; legislation and reforms under the new Government, 1925; activities of the Standard Oil Co. in Turkey, 1927; and alleged plots against the Turkish Government, 1929.
The records reproduced in this microcopy are part of the records in the National Archives designated as Record Group 59* General Records of the Department of State.
The spreadsheet attached below contains a reel-by-reel description of the complete collection.