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The Turk was a chess-playing machine created in 1770 by Wolfgang von Kempelen, which played against human opponents and won the majority of games. It was later revealed to be operated by a hidden human operator. The machine was destroyed by fire in 1854 but was recreated by a magician’s equipment manufacturer in 1989.
The Turk was a chess-playing machine created by German inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770 and exhibited for 84 years. The machine could execute elaborate puzzles and strategies and play a strong game of chess against human opponents, winning the vast majority. The Turk was destroyed by fire in 1854 and revealed as a hoax in a series of magazine articles in The Chess Monthly three years later.
Von Kempelen’s machine consisted of the life-size upper torso of a man in a Turkish costume behind a large cabinet with a chessboard on top. The closet had many doors, which opened to reveal a complicated clock-like array of gears and a clear view through the closet. The machine also came with a small coffin-shaped box that Von Kempelen allegedly placed on top of the cabinet and peered into mysteriously, suggesting that he had a supernatural power over the workings of the machine.
The Turk nodded twice when his opponent’s queen was threatened and three times when his king was in check. If the opponent has made an illegal move, the machine will shake its head, return the incorrectly moved piece, and take its next turn. In its later years, the machine was equipped with a voice box, which allowed it to say Échec! (French for “cheque”). Besides playing chess, the Turk could also communicate via a message board to answer questions from viewers.
Although the Turk was shown as an automaton, an early type of robot, articles in The Chess Monthly showed him as a machine operated by a human operator hidden inside the box. Many aspects of the machine were designed to mislead observers. For example, there was a clock-like sound whenever the Turk moved.
The Turk was fitted with a sliding seat so that the operator could evade detection as the cabinet doors were opened in turn. The chessboard on top of the cabinet was thin and the chess pieces were magnetic, allowing the operator to see every move as the corresponding magnets inside the machine were attracted to the active squares. The operator controlled the Turk with a perforated chessboard that made the Turk’s left arm move across the chessboard above the cabinet. With a dial, the operator could open and close the Turk’s hand on the chess pieces, and further machinery controlled the Turk’s facial expressions. There were also two brass discs, one inside and one outside the machine, which allowed the operator and presenter to communicate.
Turkish was created and first exhibited at Schönbrunn Palace for the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. In 1783, von Kempelen took the machine on a European tour starting in Paris, where Benjamin Franklin played a game against it. Von Kempelen died in 1804 and his son sold the machine three years later to the musician Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, who improved the machine and exhibited it until his death in 1838. Shortly after Mälzel bought the machine, Napoleon paid a visit to Schönbrunn Palace to try your luck against it.
Mälzel toured the Turkish in Italy, France and the whole of the United Kingdom before debuting it in America in 1826. He also exhibited the machine in Cuba. In 1838 he died at sea, leaving the Turkish to the ship’s captain. Once back in Europe, the car changed hands a few times, eventually ending up in the Peale Museum in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. It was destroyed by fire on July 5, 1854.
John Gaughan, a Los Angeles magician’s equipment manufacturer, began building a recreation of the original Turk, using the original chessboard, in 1984. It took him five years to complete, and was first exhibited in November 1989. Gaughan’s version differs from the original Turkish in that it is controlled by a computer.
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