Mechanical Turk

A cross-section of the Turk from Racknitz, showing how he thought

the operator sat inside as he played his opponent. Racknitz was wrong both about the position of
the operator and the dimensions of the automaton.[1]
The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess
Player (German: Schachtürke, lit. 'chess Turk'; Hungarian: A Török), or simply The Turk, was a
fraudulent chess-playing machine constructed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong
game of chess against a human opponent. For 84 years, it was exhibited on tours by various
owners as an automaton. The machine survived and continued giving occasional exhibitions until
1854, when a fire swept through the museum where it was kept, destroying the machine.
Afterwards, articles were published by a son of the machine's owner revealing its secrets to the
public: that it was an elaborate hoax, suspected by some, but never proven in public while it still
existed.[2]
Constructed and unveiled in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1734–1804) to impress
Empress Maria Theresa of Austria, the mechanism appeared to be able to play a strong game of
chess against a human opponent, as well as perform the knight's tour, a puzzle that requires the
player to move a knight to occupy every square of a chessboard exactly once.
The Turk was in fact a mechanical illusion that allowed a human chess master hiding inside to
operate the machine. With a skilled operator, the Turk won most of the games played during its
demonstrations around Europe and the Americas for nearly 84 years, playing and defeating many
challengers including statesmen such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin. The device
was later purchased in 1804 and exhibited by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel. The chessmasters who
secretly operated it included Johann Allgaier, Boncourt, Aaron Alexandre, William Lewis, Jacques
Mouret, and William Schlumberger, but the operators within the mechanism during Kempelen's
original tour remain unknown.
Construction[edit]

A signed charcoal self-portrait of Kempelen, who constructed the Turk

Kempelen was inspired to build the Turk following his attendance at the court of Maria Theresa of
Austria at Schönbrunn Palace, where François Pelletier was performing an illusion act. An
exchange afterward resulted in Kempelen promising to return to the Palace with an invention that
would top the illusions.[3]

A copper engraving of the Turk, showing the open cabinets and

working parts. A ruler at bottom right provides scale. Kempelen was a skilled engraver and may

have produced this image himself. An engraving of the Turk

from Karl Gottlieb von Windisch's 1784 book Inanimate Reason
The result of the challenge was the Automaton Chess-player,[4][5] known in modern times as the
Turk. The machine consisted of a life-sized model of a human head and torso, with a black beard
and grey eyes,[6] and dressed in Ottoman robes and a turban—"the traditional costume", according
to journalist and author Tom Standage, "of an oriental sorcerer". Its left arm held a long Ottoman
smoking pipe while at rest, while its right lay on the top of a large cabinet [7] that measured about
3.5 feet (110 cm) long,[a] 2 feet (61 cm) wide, and 2.5 feet (76 cm) high. Placed on the top of the
cabinet was a chessboard, which measured 18 inches (460 mm) on each side. The front of the
cabinet consisted of three doors, an opening, and a drawer, which could be opened to reveal a red
and white ivory chess set.[8]

An illustration of the workings of the model. The various parts were

directed by a human via interior levers and machinery. This is a distorted measurement based on
Racknitz's calculations, showing an impossible design in relation to the actual dimensions of the
machine.[1]
The interior of the machine was very complicated and designed to mislead those who observed
it.[3] When opened on the left, the front doors of the cabinet exposed a number of gears and cogs
similar to clockwork. The section was designed so that if the back doors of the cabinet were open
at the same time one could see through the machine. The other side of the cabinet did not house
machinery; instead it contained a red cushion and some removable parts, as well
as brass structures. This area was also designed to provide a clear line of vision through the
machine. Underneath the robes of the Ottoman model, two other doors were hidden. These also
exposed clockwork machinery and provided a similarly unobstructed view through the machine.
The design allowed the presenter of the machine to open every available door to the public, to
maintain the illusion.[9]
Neither the clockwork visible to the left side of the machine nor the drawer that housed the chess
set extended fully to the rear of the cabinet; they instead went only one third of the way. A sliding
seat was also installed, allowing the operator inside to slide from place to place and thus evade
observation as the presenter opened various doors. The sliding of the seat caused dummy
machinery to slide into its place to further conceal the person inside the cabinet. [10]
The chessboard on the top of the cabinet was thin enough to allow for a magnetic linkage. Each
piece in the chess set had a small, strong magnet attached to its base, and when they were
placed on the board the pieces would attract a magnet attached to a string under their specific
places on the board. This allowed the operator inside the machine to see which pieces moved
where on the chess board.[11] The bottom of the chessboard had corresponding numbers, 1–64,
allowing the operator to see which places on the board were affected by a player's move. [12] The
internal magnets were positioned in a way that outside magnetic forces did not influence them,
and Kempelen would often allow a large magnet to sit at the side of the board in an attempt to
show that the machine was not influenced by magnetism. [13]
As a further means of misdirection, the Turk came with a small wooden coffin-like box that the
presenter would place on the top of the cabinet. [3] While Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a later owner of
the machine, did not use the box,[14] Kempelen often peered into the box during play, suggesting
that the box controlled some aspect of the machine. [3] The box was believed by some to have
supernatural power; Karl Gottlieb von Windisch wrote in his 1784 book Inanimate
Reason that "[o]ne old lady, in particular, who had not forgotten the tales she had been told in her
youth ... went and hid herself in a window seat, as distant as she could from the evil spirit, which
she firmly believed possessed the machine."[5]
The interior also contained a pegboard chess board connected to a pantograph-style series of
levers that controlled the model's left arm. The metal pointer on the pantograph moved over the
interior chessboard, and would simultaneously move the arm of the Turk over the chessboard on
the cabinet. The range of motion allowed the operator to move the Turk's arm up and down, and
turning the lever would open and close the Turk's hand, allowing it to grasp the pieces on the
board. All of this was made visible to the operator by using a simple candle, which had a
ventilation system through the model.[15] Other parts of the machinery allowed for a clockwork-type
sound to be played when the Turk made a move, further adding to the machinery illusion, and for
the Turk to make various facial expressions.[16] A voice box was added following the Turk's
acquisition by Mälzel, allowing the machine to say "Échec!" (French for "check") during matches.[4]
An operator inside the machine also had tools to assist in communicating with the presenter
outside. Two brass discs equipped with numbers were positioned opposite each other on the
inside and outside of the cabinet. A rod could rotate the discs to the desired number, which acted
as a code between the two.[17]
Exhibition[edit]
The Turk made its debut in 1770 at Schönbrunn Palace, about six months after Pelletier's act.
Kempelen addressed the court, presenting what he had built, and began the demonstration of the
machine and its parts. With every showing of the Turk, Kempelen began by opening the doors and
drawers of the cabinet, allowing members of the audience to inspect the machine. Following this
display, Kempelen would announce that the machine was ready for a challenger. [18]
Kempelen would inform the player that the Turk would use the white pieces and have the first
move (note that the convention that White moves first was not yet established, so these were not
redundant statements). Between moves the Turk kept its left arm on the cushion. The Turk could
nod twice if it threatened its opponent's queen, and three times upon placing the king in check. If
an opponent made an illegal move, the Turk would shake its head, move the piece back and make
its own move, thus forcing a forfeit of its opponent's move.[19] Louis Dutens, a traveller who
observed a showing of the Turk, attempted to trick the machine "by giving the Queen the move of
a Knight, but my mechanic opponent was not to be so imposed upon; he took up my Queen and
replaced her in the square from which I had moved her". [20] Kempelen made it a point to traverse
the room during the match, and invited observers to bring magnets, irons, and lodestones to the
cabinet to test whether the machine was run by a form of magnetism or weights. The first person
to play against the Turk was Count Ludwig von Cobenzl, an Austrian courtier at the palace. Along
with other challengers that day, he was quickly defeated, with observers of the match stating that
the machine played aggressively, and typically beat its opponents within thirty minutes.[21]

The knight's tour, as solved by the Turk. The closed loop that is
formed allows the tour to be completed from any starting point on the board. [22]
Another part of the machine's exhibition was the completion of the knight's tour, a famed chess
puzzle. The puzzle requires the player to move a knight around a chessboard, touching each
square once along the way. While most experienced chess players of the time still struggled with
the puzzle, the Turk was capable of completing the tour without any difficulty from any starting
point via a pegboard used by the operator with a mapping of the puzzle laid out.[22]
The Turk also had the ability to converse with spectators using a letter board. The operator, whose
identity during the period when Kempelen presented the machine at Schönbrunn Palace is
unknown,[23] was able to do this in English, French, and German. Carl Friedrich Hindenburg, a
university mathematician, kept a record of the conversations during the Turk's time in Leipzig and
published it in 1789 as Über den Schachspieler des Herrn von Kempelen und dessen
Nachbildung (or On the Chessplayer of Mr. von Kempelen And Its Replica). Topics of questions
put to and answered by the Turk included its age, marital status, and its secret workings. [24]
Tour of Europe[edit]
Following word of its debut, interest in the machine grew across Europe. Kempelen, however, was
more interested in his other projects and avoided exhibiting the Turk, often lying about the
machine's repair status to prospective challengers. Von Windisch wrote at one point that
Kempelen "refused the entreaties of his friends, and a crowd of curious persons from all countries,
the satisfaction of seeing this far-famed machine".[25] In the decade following its debut at
Schönbrunn Palace the Turk only played one opponent, Sir Robert Murray Keith, a Scottish noble,
and Kempelen went as far as dismantling the Turk entirely following the match. [26] Kempelen was
quoted as referring to the invention as a "mere bagatelle", as he was not pleased with its
popularity and would rather continue work on steam engines and machines that replicated human
speech.[27]
In 1781, Kempelen was ordered by Emperor Joseph II to reconstruct the Turk and deliver it
to Vienna for a state visit from Grand Duke Paul of Russia and his wife. The appearance was so
successful that Grand Duke Paul suggested a tour of Europe for the Turk, a request to which
Kempelen reluctantly agreed.[28]

François-André Danican Philidor won a match against the Turk

in Paris in 1783.
The Turk began its European tour in 1783, beginning with an appearance in France in April. A stop
at Versailles beginning on April 17, preceded an exhibition in Paris, where the Turk lost a match
to Charles Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne, the Duc de Bouillon. Upon arrival in Paris in May
1783, it was displayed to the public and played a variety of opponents, including a lawyer named
Mr. Bernard who was a second rank in chess ability.[29] Following the sessions at Versailles,
demands increased for a match with François-André Danican Philidor, who was considered the
best chess player of his time.[30] Moving to the Café de la Régence, the machine played many of
the most skilled players, often losing (e.g. against Bernard and Verdoni),[31] until securing a match
with Philidor at the Académie des Sciences. While Philidor won his match with the Turk, Philidor's
son noted that his father called it "his most fatiguing game of chess ever!"[32] The Turk's final game
in Paris was against Benjamin Franklin, who was serving as ambassador to France from the
United States. Franklin reportedly enjoyed the game with the Turk and was interested in the
machine for the rest of his life, keeping a copy of Philip Thicknesse's book The Speaking Figure
and the Automaton Chess Player, Exposed and Detected in his personal library.[33]
Following his tour of Paris, Kempelen moved the Turk to London, where it was exhibited daily for
five shillings. Thicknesse, known in his time as a skeptic, sought out the Turk in an attempt to
expose the inner workings of the machine.[34] While he respected Kempelen as "a very ingenious
man",[3] he asserted that the Turk was an elaborate hoax with a small child inside the machine,
describing the machine as "a complicated piece of clockwork ... which is nothing more, than one,
of many other ingenious devices, to misguide and delude the observers". [35]
After a year in London, Kempelen and the Turk travelled to Leipzig, stopping in various European
cities along the way. From Leipzig, it went to Dresden, where Joseph Friedrich Freiherr von
Racknitz viewed the Turk and published his findings in Über den Schachspieler des Herrn von
Kempelen und dessen Nachbildung, along with illustrations showing his beliefs about how the
machine operated.[36] It then moved to Amsterdam, after which Kempelen is said to have accepted
an invitation to the Sanssouci palace in Potsdam of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The story
goes that Frederick enjoyed the Turk so much that he paid a large sum of money to Kempelen in
exchange for the Turk's secrets. Frederick never gave the secret away, but was reportedly
disappointed to learn how the machine worked.[37] This story is almost certainly apocryphal; there is
no evidence of the Turk's encounter with Frederick, the first mention of which comes in the early
19th century, by which time the Turk was also incorrectly said to have played against George III of
Great Britain.[38] It seems most likely that the machine stayed dormant at Schönbrunn Palace for
over two decades, although Kempelen attempted unsuccessfully to sell it in his final years.
Kempelen died at the age of 70 on 26 March 1804. [39]
Mälzel and the machine[edit]
Following the death of Kempelen, the Turk remained unexhibited until 1805 when Kempelen's son
decided to sell it to Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, a Bavarian musician with an interest in various
machines and devices. Mälzel, whose successes included patenting a form of metronome, had
tried to purchase the Turk once previously, before Kempelen's death. The original attempt had
failed, owing to Kempelen's asking price of 20,000 francs; Kempelen's son sold the machine to
Mälzel for half this sum.[40]
Upon acquiring the Turk, Mälzel had to learn its secrets and make some repairs to get it back in
working order. His stated goal was to make explaining the Turk a greater challenge. While the
completion of this goal took ten years, the Turk still made appearances, most notably with
Napoleon Bonaparte.[41]
In 1809, Napoleon I of France arrived at Schönbrunn Palace to play the Turk. According to an
eyewitness report, Mälzel took responsibility for the construction of the machine while preparing
the game, and the Turk (Johann Baptist Allgaier) saluted Napoleon before the start of the match.
The details of the match have been published over the years in numerous accounts, many of them
contradictory.[42] According to Bradley Ewart, it is believed that the Turk sat at its cabinet, and
Napoleon sat at a separate chess table. Napoleon's table was in a roped-off area and he was not
allowed to cross into the Turk's area, with Mälzel crossing back and forth to make each player's
move and allowing a clear view for the spectators. In a surprise move, Napoleon took the first turn
instead of allowing the Turk to make the first move, as was usual; but Mälzel allowed the game to
continue. Shortly thereafter, Napoleon attempted an illegal move. Upon noticing the move, the
Turk returned the piece to its original spot and continued the game. Napoleon attempted the illegal
move a second time, and the Turk responded by removing the piece from the board entirely and
taking its turn. Napoleon then attempted the move a third time, the Turk responding with a sweep
of its arm, knocking all the pieces off the board. Napoleon was reportedly amused, and then
played a real game with the machine, completing nineteen moves before tipping over his king in
surrender.[43] Alternate versions of the story include Napoleon being unhappy about losing to the
machine, playing the machine at a later time, playing one match with a magnet on the board, and
playing a match with a shawl around the head and body of the Turk in an attempt to obscure its
vision.[44]
In 1811, Mälzel brought the Turk to Milan for a performance with Eugène de Beauharnais, the
Prince of Venice and Viceroy of Italy. Beauharnais enjoyed the machine so much that he offered
to purchase it from Mälzel. After some serious bargaining, Beauharnais acquired the Turk for
30,000 francs—three times what Mälzel had paid—and kept it for four years. In 1815, Mälzel
returned to Beauharnais in Munich and asked to buy the Turk back. There exist two versions of
how much he had to pay, eventually working out an agreement. [45] One version appeared in the
French periodical Le Palamède.[b] The complete story does not make a lot of sense since Mälzel
visited Paris again, and he also could import his "Conflagration of Moscow". [c]

An advertisement for Mälzel's appearance with the Turk

in London[48]

Following the repurchase, Mälzel brought the Turk back to Paris, where he made acquaintances of
many of the leading chess players at Café de la Régence. Mälzel stayed in France with the
machine until 1818, when he moved to London and held a number of performances with the Turk
and many of his other machines. In London, Mälzel and his act received a large amount of press,
and he continued improving the machine,[49] ultimately installing a voice box so the machine could
say "Échec!" when placing a player in check.[50]
In 1819, Mälzel took the Turk on a tour of the United Kingdom. There were several new
developments in the act, such as allowing the opponent the first move and eliminating the king's
bishop's pawn from the Turk's pieces. This pawn handicap created further interest in the Turk, and
spawned a book by W. J. Hunneman chronicling the matches played with this handicap. [51] Despite
the handicap, the Turk (operated by Mouret at the time)[52] ended up with forty-five victories, three
losses, and two stalemates.[53]
Mälzel in North America[edit]
The appearances of the Turk were profitable for Mälzel, and he continued by taking it and his
other machines to the United States. In 1826, he opened an exhibition in New York City that slowly
grew in popularity, giving rise to many newspaper stories and anonymous threats of exposure of
the secret. Mälzel's problem was finding a proper operator for the machine, [54] having trained an
unknown woman in France before coming to the United States. He ended up recalling a former
operator, William Schlumberger, from Alsace in Europe to come to America and work for him
again once Mälzel was able to provide the money for Schlumberger's transport.
Upon Schlumberger's arrival, the Turk debuted in Boston, Mälzel spinning a story that the New
York chess players could not handle full games and that the Boston players were much better
opponents.[55] This was a success for many weeks, and the tour moved to Philadelphia for three
months. Following Philadelphia, the Turk moved to Baltimore, where it played for a number of
months, including losing a match against Charles Carroll, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence. The exhibition in Baltimore brought news that two brothers had constructed their
own machine, the Walker Chess-player. Mälzel viewed the competing machine and attempted to
buy it, but the offer was declined and the duplicate machine toured for a number of years, never
receiving the fame that Mälzel's machine did and eventually falling into obscurity. [56]
Mälzel continued with exhibitions around the United States until 1828, when he took some time off
and visited Europe, returning in 1829. Throughout the 1830s, he continued to tour the United
States, exhibiting the machine as far west as the Mississippi River and visiting Canada.
In Richmond, Virginia, the Turk was observed by Edgar Allan Poe, who was writing for
the Southern Literary Messenger. Poe's essay "Maelzel's Chess Player" was published in April
1836 and is the most famous essay on the Turk, even though many of Poe's hypotheses were
incorrect (such as that a chess-playing machine must always win).[57]
Mälzel eventually took the Turk on his second tour to Havana, Cuba. In Cuba, Schlumberger died
of yellow fever in February 1838, leaving Mälzel without an operator for his machine. Dejected,
Mälzel died at sea in July 1838 at the age of 65 during his return trip, leaving his machinery with
the ship captain.[58][59]
Final years and beyond[edit]
 A 1980s Turk reconstruction
When the ship on which Mälzel died returned, his various machines, including the Turk, fell into
the hands of Mälzel's friend, the businessman John Ohl. He attempted to auction off the Turk, but
owing to low bidding ultimately bought it himself for $400. [60] Only when John Kearsley
Mitchell from Philadelphia, Edgar Allan Poe's personal physician and an admirer of the Turk,
approached Ohl did the Turk change hands again.[3] Mitchell formed a restoration club and went
about the business of repairing the Turk for public appearances, completing the restoration in
1840.[61]
As interest in the Turk outgrew its location, Mitchell and his club chose to donate the machine to
the Chinese Museum of Charles Willson Peale. While the Turk still occasionally gave
performances, it was eventually relegated to the corners of the museum and forgotten about until
5 July 1854, when a fire that started at the National Theater in Philadelphia reached the Museum
and destroyed the Turk.[62] Mitchell believed he had heard "through the struggling flames ... the last
words of our departed friend, the sternly whispered, oft repeated syllables, 'echec! echec!!'" [63]
John Gaughan, an American manufacturer of equipment for magicians based in Los Angeles,
spent $120,000 building his own version of Kempelen's machine over a five-year period from
1984.[64] The machine uses the original chessboard, which was stored separately from the original
Turk and was not destroyed in the fire. The first public display of Gaughan's Turk was in
November 1989 at a history of magic conference. The machine was presented much as Kempelen
presented the original, except that the opponent was replaced by a computer running a chess
program.[65]
Revealing the secrets[edit]
While many books and articles were written during the Turk's life about how it worked, most were
inaccurate, drawing incorrect inferences from external observation.
The first articles on the mechanism were published in a French magazine entitled Le Magasin
pittoresque in 1834.[66] It was not until Silas Mitchell's series of articles for The Chess Monthly that
the secret was fully revealed. Mitchell, son of the final private owner of the Turk, [67] wrote that "no
secret was ever kept as the Turk's has been. Guessed at, in part, many times, no one of the
several explanations ... ever solved this amusing puzzle". As the Turk was lost to fire at the time of
this publication, Silas Mitchell felt that there were "no longer any reasons for concealing from the
amateurs of chess, the solution to this ancient enigma". [63]
The most important biographical history about the Chess-player and Mälzel was presented in The
Book of the First American Chess Congress, published by Daniel Willard Fiske in 1857.[59] The
account, "The Automaton Chess-Player in America", was written by Professor George Allen of
Philadelphia, in the form of a letter to William Lewis, one of the former operators of the chess
automaton.
In 1859, a letter published in the Philadelphia Sunday Dispatch by William F. Kummer, who
worked as an operator under John Mitchell, revealed another piece of the secret: a candle inside
the cabinet. A series of tubes led from the lamp to the turban of the Turk for ventilation. The smoke
rising from the turban would be disguised by the smoke coming from the other candelabra in the
area where the game was played.[68]
Later in 1859, an uncredited article appeared in Littell's Living Age that purported to be the story of
the Turk from French magician Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin. This was rife with errors ranging from
dates of events to a story of a Polish officer whose legs were amputated, but ended up being
rescued by Kempelen and smuggled back to Russia inside the machine.[69]
A new article about the Turk did not turn up until 1899, when The American Chess
Magazine published an account of the Turk's match with Napoleon Bonaparte. The story was
basically a review of previous accounts, and a substantive published account would not appear
until 1947, when Chess Review published articles by Kenneth Harkness and Jack Straley Battell
that amounted to a comprehensive history and description of the Turk, complete with new
diagrams that synthesized information from previous publications. Another article written in 1960
for American Heritage by Ernest Wittenberg provided new diagrams describing how the operator
sat inside the cabinet.[70]
In Henry A. Davidson's 1945 publication A Short History of Chess, significant weight is given to
Poe's essay which erroneously suggested that the player sat inside the Turk figure, rather than on
a moving seat inside the cabinet. A similar error would occur in Alex G. Bell's 1978 book The
Machine Plays Chess, which falsely asserted that "the operator was a trained boy (or very small
adult) who followed the directions of the chess player who was hidden elsewhere on stage or in
the theater ..."[71]
More books were published about the Turk toward the end of the 20th century. Along with Bell's
book, Charles Michael Carroll's The Great Chess Automaton (1975) focused more on the studies
of the Turk. Bradley Ewart's Chess: Man vs. Machine (1980) discussed the Turk as well as other
purported chess-playing automatons.[72]
It was not until the creation of Deep Blue, IBM's attempt at a computer that could challenge the
world's best players, that interest increased again, and two more books were published: Gerald M.
Levitt's The Turk, Chess Automaton (2000), and Tom Standage's The Turk: The Life and Times of
the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine, published in 2002.[73] The Turk was used
as a personification of Deep Blue in the 2003 documentary Game Over: Kasparov and the
Machine.[74]