In lieu of an abstract: At the end of 1918, the city of Istanbul, with a population of more than one million, found itself in a particularly complex and challenging situation concerning public order and safety. The prevailing insecurity was denounced in the press: “The number of crimes [...] increases in truly frightening proportions. As soon as night falls, it becomes imprudent to leave one’s home and to cross even the Grand’rue de Péra. Not to mention most of the side streets; they have been turned into cut-throats.”1 The memoirs of contemporary actors also echo the deterioration of security in the city and its outskirts: “Our daily life was affected by increasing lawlessness in the neighbourhood of Constantinople and insufficient patrolling of the roads, which made it inadvisable to drive or ride without arms or an escort.”