The chess machine that defeated Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon

Despite the controversy surrounding it, the Turkic chess-playing machine, invented hundreds of years ago, was once famous throughout the world .

The Turk chess-playing machine consists of a dummy and a system of machinery underneath. Photo: Amusing Planet

In the late 18th century, a Hungarian inventor named Wolfgang von Kempelen presented Empress Maria Theresa of Austria with an extraordinary robot. Unlike any other automated machine of the time that could perform intricate tasks such as playing a musical instrument or writing with ink on paper, Kempelen's machine displayed human-like intelligence; it could play chess against any human opponent and defeat them. This miraculous machine captivated audiences across Europe and America for over a century, even challenging and defeating famous figures such as Napoleon Bonaparte and Benjamin Franklin, according to Amusing Planet .

The machine, called Mechanical Turk, consists of a large cabinet containing many complex mechanisms, topped with a chessboard. A wooden mannequin wearing an Ottoman robe and a turban sits behind the cabinet. Kempelen begins the performance by opening the cabinet door to reveal the entire system of wheels, gears, levers, and intricate clockwork mechanisms. After reassuring the audience that nothing is hidden inside, Kempelen closes the door, turns the machine with a key, and invites a volunteer to play Turk's opponent.

A game of chess begins with Turk making the first move. It uses its left hand to pick up pieces and move them to a different square before placing them down. If an opponent makes an invalid move, Turk shakes its head and returns the offending piece to its original square. If a player intentionally cheats, as Napoleon did when facing the machine in 1809, Turk reacts by removing the piece from the board and making the next move. When a player attempts to break the rules a third time, the robot sweeps its arm across the board, knocking all the pieces down and ending the game.

Chess players all recognized that Turk was an exceptionally skilled player, consistently winning matches against equally skilled opponents. During a tour of France in 1783, Turk played against François-André Danican Philidor, the best chess player of the time. Although Turk lost that match, Philidor described it as "the most exhausting game he had ever played."

As chess-playing robots gained popularity, people began to debate how they worked. Some argued that Kempelen's invention was genuinely capable of self-understanding and playing chess. However, the majority were skeptical, believing the machine was actually a sophisticated hoax, its movements controlled by Kempelen himself, using magnets or remote wiring, or at least by a hidden operator inside a cabinet. One of the strongest skeptics was the British writer Philip Thicknesse, who wrote a treatise on the subject titled "Talking Characters and Automated Chess-Playing Robots – Discovery and Deception." But Thicknesse offered no convincing evidence.

Kempelen died in 1804, and his son sold Turk and its secrets to Johann Nepomuk Malzel, a Bavarian musician from Germany. Malzel took it on tour throughout Europe and America. The famous writer Edgar Allan Poe saw it perform and wrote a lengthy analysis, speculating about how this automatic machine worked. He argued that a truly effective machine would have to win every chess game and exhibit a characteristic playing style, such as making moves within a fixed time frame, something Turk couldn't do. Poe concluded that Turk must be operated by a human.

After Mazel's death in 1838, the chess-playing robot was acquired by John Kearsley Mitchell, Edgar Allan Poe's personal physician and admirer of Turk. He donated the machine to the Charles Willson Peale Museum in Philadelphia. There, it sat neglected in a corner and completely forgotten until it was destroyed by fire in 1854.

The chess-playing robot remained a mystery for over 50 years until Silas Mitchell, son of John Kearsley Mitchell, wrote a series of articles in The Chess Weekly, revealing the inner workings of Turk. According to Mitchell, once Turk was destroyed, he "had no reason to hide the answer to this ancient mystery from amateur chess players." Mitchell stated that Turk was the work of a clever magician. Inside the spacious wooden cabinet, a controller pulled and pushed various levers to make the dummy above move and play chess.

The machine's owner can conceal the operator from view because the door only opens on one side, away from the audience, allowing him to quickly slip inside. The chess pieces, each with a small but powerful magnet attached to a base, attract a corresponding magnet in the wires beneath the board and inside the box. This allows the operator inside the machine to track which piece moves where on the board.

Kempelen and Turk's later owner, Johann Malzel, selected skilled chess players to secretly operate the machine at various times. When Malzel showed the machine to Napoleon at Schonbrunn Palace in 1809, an Austrian-German named Johann Baptist Allgaier operated the Turk robot from within.

In 1818, for a brief period, Hyacinthe Henri Boncourt, France's leading chess player, became the operator of the Turk. Once, while hiding inside the automatic machine, Boncourt sneezed, and the sound was heard, causing Malzel to panic and hastily try to distract him. After that incident, Malzel added several noise-making components to the Turk to eliminate any sound that might emanate from the operator.

When Malzel took Turk to America for performances, he hired the European chess player William Schlumberger to operate the machine. Once, after a performance, two boys secretly hiding on the roof saw Schlumberger emerge from the machine. The next day, an article appeared in the Baltimore Gazette exposing the incident. Even Edgar Allan Poe noticed that Schlumberger was always missing during performances but was frequently seen when Turk wasn't competing.

Despite the exposure, the fascination with the Turk chess-playing robot did not diminish among the majority of the audience. Several scholars studied and wrote about Turk in the 19th century. Numerous other books on Turk were also published in the late 20th century. Turk also inspired several inventions and imitations, such as Ajeeb, a copycat version of Turk, created in 1868 by Charles Hooper, an American cabinetmaker. Ajeeb's rivals included Harry Houdini, Theodore Roosevelt, and O. Henry.

When Edmund Cartwright saw Turk in London in 1784, he was curious and wondered whether "it would be more difficult to build a machine that could weave cloth than a machine that could perform all the necessary movements in that complex game?". Within a year, Cartwright was granted a patent for a prototype of an electrically powered loom.

In 1912, Leonardo Torres y Quevedo in Madrid built the first truly automated chess machine, called El Ajedrecista, which could play an entire game with only three pieces without human intervention. It took researchers another 80 years before computers could play full chess games and defeat the world's best players.

An Khang (According to Amusing Planet )

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