Figure 1.-- Here we see a Turkish group described as a Scour troop in 1918. Unfortunately we know nothing else about the group.

Turkish Scouting began in the final years of the Ottoman Empire. Gym teachers Ahmet and Abdurrahman Robenson had read about British Scouting. They were gym teachers at the Galatasaray and Kabataş high schools in Constantinople/ İstanbul l (1909). Nafi Arif Kansu and Ethem Nejat were also involved at the same time. They organized the first Scouting units. This was done at Darüşşafaka, Galatasaray, and İstanbul high schools. We see similar activity in the Arab provinces of the Empire (Lebanon and Syria). Additional units were founded during World War I. The Österreichischer Pfadfinderbund (Austrian Scout Assciation) was involved. The Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers which include the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. An Austro-Hungarian Scout unit was founded in Constantinople (1915). This unit was instrumental in founding Scout units, again in Arab areas, Damascus, Beirut and Aleppo. We note a photograph of a Scout group (1918). Unfortunately we know nothing else about the group (figure 1). One report, however, tell is only after the founding of the Republic of Turkey were further Scout units founded in Turkey (1923). We see Scouting units beginning to appear in schools (1926). In 1923, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire. In 1926, Scouting activities began to be organized nationwide in schools. After World War II, Ahmet Han, the Director of Scouting, and Muhittin Akdik, the Director of Education in İstanbuul, made a fact-finding tour of France, the United Kingdom and Switzerland to study the Scouting movenent (1946). They set out to renew the Turkish Scouting movement along Western lines. Sıtkı Sanoplu founded the Cub Scout program (1950). We have found very little current informarion on Turkish Scouting. We are unsure how ihe ongoing more intense Islamization of Turkish society is affecting the Scouting movemnent.