Abstract:

When the Ottoman Empire entered the war with Germany, it took some precautions against the psychological preparation of the public for war and any threat of espionage that could be directed against it. One of these precautions is the resolution of the censorship. By means of the Censorship Inspectors established, it has been started to conduct strict control of communication and press. Each type of telegraphs, posts and journals etc. had been tracked and those found to be inconvenient were scrutinized. Within this scope, all the foreigners who were spying in the Ottoman lands fostered some methods for transmitting news without fastening upon this control of censorship and used all means for this purpose. In particular, all kinds of information identified by the representatives of the foreign press in Istanbul were requested to be sent to the news centers of the newspapers they were affiliated with the encrypted letters. In this article, the General Staff Strategic General Staff Military History and Strategic Studies Presidency Archive (ATASE) benefiting of the collection which belongs to the First World War; in the letters of some reporters of the foreign press working in Istanbul, the Istanbul Censorship Inspectorate will determine the information about the Straits and Istanbul for espionage and the orders and correspondence will be evaluated.

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