On an autumn day in 1768, an evening of magic was staged at the Vienna court. A French illusionist performed in Schönbrunn Palace, entertaining the guests with explosions, chemical reactions and self-propelled machines. The hostess of the event, Maria Theresia, invited Wolfgang von Kempelen, a renowned engineer and inventor, to perform. She expected him to reveal the background to the tricks performed by the guest illusionist.
Von Kempelen followed the performance closely and explained to the Empress what was behind each point. Every illusion, however convincing, had a perfectly logical, scientific explanation. Von Kempelen was not particularly impressed by the stranger’s acrobatics and confidently declared that he could give the Empress a much more entertaining evening. He announced that he would build a machine so sophisticated and extravagant that it would certainly astonish Her Majesty. No magic, no illusions – his machine will be a triumph of science and technology. For six months he shut himself up in his workshop and assembled his invention from wires, wood and wheels.
When he returned to court, the Empress was truly astonished. Von Kempelen had built a robot that could play chess. What’s more, he was almost unbeatable in the royal game. Napoleon, among others, had competed against him – and lost comfortably. The thinking machine took on a life of its own and continued to baffle people long after its inventor had died.
God from the machine
The relationship between man and machine goes back a long way. The ancient Egyptians made mechanical statues of the gods, which contained a man who operated them with levers and pulleys. In ancient Greece, machines were also used in the theatre, where the actor portraying the god was lowered onto the stage by means of a crane, called a “mechene” in ancient Greek. This is the origin of deus ex machina, or “the god from the machine”, a famous saying that has survived in its Latin version to the present day. The ancient Greeks were also masters of mechanics, with wind-powered organs, various moving sculptures and even a primitive steam engine.
After antiquity, the development of mechanics died down for more than a thousand years and man’s interest in machines was only reawakened in the Renaissance. It was then that the spring, weights and gears were developed, giving rise to the watchmaking industry as we know it today. It was in watchmaking that the greatest advances in mechanics took place. The clockwork mechanism, which watchmakers crammed into the case of a pocket watch from church bell towers over several centuries, gave rise to increasingly complex devices.
For example, around 1500, Leonardo da Vinci built a knight-like robot that could stand up, sit down and move its arms using a system of pulleys and cables. He wanted to impress Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, a great lover of weapons and military equipment. The Renaissance genius had created a sophisticated automated machine that had only one function – to entertain.
Two hundred years after Leonardo’s death, the automata boomed even more. In the 18th century, engineers and illusionists performed at European courts and entertained rulers with music boxes, self-winding machines and sophisticated clocks. Although designed for entertainment, automata were the pinnacle of technology and a sign of prestige for a particular court.
European monarchs, or rather scientists under them, competed to see who could build the most extravagant and convincing machine. Popular mechanical paintings, for example, had a special clockwork mechanism built into the frame, which moved the images around the canvas and made the painting seem to come to life. Even more popular were music boxes with figures of ballerinas, singing birds and all sorts of other animals. They were also given life by the winding mechanism, which in the 18th century was no longer the preserve of clockmakers. Increasingly, engineers and scientists were also experimenting with wheels and springs.
The golden age of vending machines
The most famous of these was certainly the Frenchman Jacques de Vaucanson. As a young man, he wanted to become a monk, but after a few years at Jesuit college, he decided to devote his life to science. He dreamed of one day creating nothing less than an artificial man. He immersed himself in anatomy and studied the body’s organic systems, from digestion and respiration to blood circulation. As the creation of a robot human was not only an obvious technical challenge, but also a considerable financial one, de Vaucanson had to earn some money first. So he started making mechanical toys to order, which became more and more sophisticated over the years.
In 1737, he designed a self-propelled automaton in the shape of a boy with a flute, which was able to play twelve different melodies. This would have been nothing special if Vaucanson had not equipped his robot with mechanical elements that mimicked the functioning of human organs. The lungs were made up of three small bladders that were compressed and expanded by means of a crankshaft. Valves were fitted in the trachea to regulate the air flow from the lungs to the mouth, where sound was produced. The robot used the same method as a human – blowing air – to play the flute. In addition, it moved its skin-covered fingers and sewed its mouth so that it also looked like a human.
The Flute Boy was a highly sophisticated set of levers, tubes and springs, and brought de Vaucanson instant fame. He also made a lot of money by exhibiting it in a Paris gallery, which was visited by thousands of curious people willing to pay to see this marvel of engineering.
De Vaucanson did not rest on his laurels and the following year produced a new, even more sophisticated automaton, named the Digesting Duck for its shape, which is considered his greatest masterpiece. Its casing was open, revealing the interplay of wires, valves and tubes that made up the internal organs of the mechanical animal. The inventor wound up the machine and the duck came to life. The eyewitnesses could not believe their eyes.
The wings alone were made up of more than 400 parts and moved around. The duck also ate corn kernels, digested them and excreted them as dark green balls through an artificial anus. In reality, the inventor had resorted to a trick, as the kernels were stuck in the stomach and the excrement was previously hidden in another container, from where it was “ejected” at the appropriate moment. But that did not matter at all – if it quacks, digests and moves like a duck, it cannot be anything other than a duck.
“Without de Vaucanson’s duck, there would be nothing left to remind you of the glories of France,” Voltaire told his compatriots.
But it wasn’t only in Paris that the genius inventor was admired, and this is where our story returns to Vienna.
A man of science
Wolfgang von Kempelen, who promised Maria Theresa that he would build the most amazing machine in the world, knew his French colleague’s work well. Born in Bratislava, he studied law and philosophy, but his great love was science. He studied hydraulics and mechanics and spent all his free time in his workshop, dismantling and assembling various devices.
He worked in the civil service, where his father had worked as a customs inspector. He was considered a conscientious official and an expert in many fields, which enabled him to rise quickly up the career ladder. He was a polyglot and is credited, among other things, with the German translation of the Hungarian Civil Code. At the age of 30, he was already director of the royal salt mines in Transylvania, and at the age of 40, Maria Theresa gave him even greater responsibility, as he was in charge of coordinating the colonisation of the Banat, where tens of thousands of Germans from all corners of the monarchy had settled after the withdrawal of the Turkish population.
Despite his brilliant career in the imperial administration, Wolfgang von Kempelen was above all a man of science. His life’s project was to build a device that could mimic the human vocal tract to perfection. After more than three decades of experimentation in the fields of anatomy, mechanics and phonetics, an accordion-like machine was born that could utter simple sentences in a monotonous, robotic voice.
The talking machine was a brilliant and revolutionary invention, but von Kempelen made history for something else. The promise he made to Empress Maria Theresa that evening in Schönbrunn was fatal.
Why a successful civil servant decided to jeopardise his reputation by announcing the production of a toy can only be guessed. He probably just wanted a challenge, a side project on which he could practise his design skills, because it was then that he started toying with the idea of building a talking machine. But the side project unexpectedly turned into the biggest event of his life. On the very day he presented it for the first time to the Empress and her inner circle in Vienna. His invention was, at first sight, quite unusual.
Thinking machine
It consisted of a cabinet a little more than a metre long and half a metre wide, behind which sat a human-sized wooden figure dressed in a kind of oriental costume, with a turban on his head and wearing a robe of ermine. Although von Kempelen never officially named his machine, the fittings gave it the name ‘Turk’.
The cupboard was equipped with four castors so that the Turk could be moved back and forth at will. Doubters could look at it from all sides and see that it was a working machine, not a magic trick. At the front of the cabinet were three doors of the same size, under which was a full-length drawer. The Turk was holding a long pipe in his left hand, and his right hand was resting on the cupboard, where a chess board was attached.
When von Kempelen announced that the Empress was facing a machine that could play chess, the hall roared. The inventor opened the front left door of the cupboard and shone a candle into the interior, where the “motor” of the machine was – a tangle of wires, springs and belts. He then opened the other doors and the back of the cabinet to show the onlookers that they were looking at a highly complex machine driven by an even more complex mechanism. In the bottom drawer were the pieces that the inventor had placed on the chessboard and the wooden box that he had put in his pocket.
After the inspection, von Kempelen cheerfully announced that the machine was ready to play. He asked for volunteers and was joined on stage by a brave and curious Count named von Cobenzl.
Von Kempelen then inserted the lever into the opening on the side of the cabinet and wound up his invention. As it wound up, a mechanical sound was heard and the Turk suddenly came to life. His head began to move left and right, as if he were looking at a chess board. Sighs could be heard in the hall.
The first chess match between man and machine did not start with a particularly innovative move. The Turk, playing with the white pieces, grabbed the peasant on d2 with his left hand and moved him to d4. The machine even acted naughty at times. He nodded three times when he announced a check, and shook his head if his opponent made a forbidden move.
Von Kempelen watched the fight among the spectators and occasionally approached the machine just to wind it up. The courtiers wondered what was hidden in the wooden box he was peeping into, but the action on stage was more interesting.
A life of your own
The Turk played very aggressively and left the astonished Count no chance. The Empress, more than impressed by the thinking machine, scolded von Kempelen the same evening not to dare leave Vienna. Over the following weeks, the Turk appeared every evening before Italian princes, English lords and the Empress’s relatives. And each time the guests left Schönbrunn Palace with a mixture of fascination and bitterness. Because the machine won every time.
Word of the ingenious inventor and his miracle machine soon reached foreign countries. The Empress tripled his salary and partially exempted him from the pressure of the civil service. Von Kempelen was finally able to devote himself to science. The unexpected success also had unforeseen consequences. Von Kempelen became a slave to his invention. Whenever a foreign delegation visited Vienna, he had to disguise himself as an entertainer and take to the stage. He therefore experienced the Turk as a burden, an annoyance that took away his time for more serious projects.
Fortunately, interest in the thinking machine eventually waned and von Kempelen, without undue sentimentality, dismantled it, thinking it had served its purpose. For ten years, the Turk sat in a corner of the workshop, when its inventor was again summoned to court. The monarchy was then already ruled by Joseph II, the son of Maria Theresa. The son of Catherine the Great, Tsarina of Russia, was in Vienna and the Habsburg host remembered an elaborate toy that was sure to impress the delegation from the East.
After many years, Von Kempelen had to reinvent himself as an entertainer. His performance was so convincing that he was ordered by the Emperor to tour European cities with his invention. The civil servant did not dare to contradict him and set off at the beginning of 1783. When he gave Turk his life, he probably did not imagine that the machine would one day become the master of his destiny.
A Turk in Paris
Paris was the first stop, as the French capital was considered the chess centre of Europe. Every evening, the most prominent intellectuals of the time gathered at the famous Cafe de la Regence to compete for the chess board. Among the regulars were the philosophers Voltaire and Rousseau and the young Corsican officer Napoleon Bonaparte. In Paris, for the first time, the Turk performed in front of an audience of non-blue blood, and for the first time encountered worthy rivals. His performances were very well attended and the enthusiasm for the thinking machine was no less than in Vienna.
Von Kempelen was particularly pleased by the interest shown in his invention by Benjamin Franklin, the diplomatic representative of the young USA in France. Franklin was not only one of the most famous inventors of the era, but also a great chess enthusiast, and von Kempelen arranged for him to have a private meeting with the Turk. He had hoped to exchange a few words with him about his life’s project, the talking machine, but the plan did not work out. The Turk did not show the slightest awe of his famous guest and defeated him soundly. The founding father, however, did not take defeat well and stormed out before von Kempelen could start talking about the machine he was most proud of.
The Turk in Paris was not only the focus of chess enthusiasts, but also of many scientists trying to unravel its workings. Representatives of the French Academy of Sciences also looked at the machine and came to the conclusion that von Kempelen was a very skilful engineer. They agreed that the machine could not think and that it was all a sophisticated deception, but even after a thorough examination they could find no evidence that this was the case. Von Kempelen wound up the machine and the Turk came to life, that was all.
While the best French scientists dissected the Turk’s internal organs, ordinary people had no doubt that they were looking at an artificial intelligence machine. It was at this time that the Montgolfier brothers made the first hot-air balloon flight in Paris, and it seemed that the development of technology had no limits. If machines can fly, they can play chess.
So thought Fancois-Andre Philidor, French composer, father of nineteen and the world’s best chess player. He too played the Turk and defeated him without much difficulty. At the end of the match, he admitted that he had never sweated so much at the chessboard. The great Philidor was relieved to have defended the honour of humanity, but the experience left a bitter taste in his mouth. He was convinced that the day was not far distant when machines would be invincible, and the thought of it was terrifying.
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Death and resurrection
After the successful Paris episode, the Habsburg scientific-diplomatic delegation had to hit the road again. In the following months, the Turk entertained and frightened the English, and in the autumn of 1784 he toured Germany. Even the best German scientists did not discover his secrets, and the Turk continued to amuse the curious and to defeat them one by one. After two long years, the delegation returned to Vienna and von Kempelen was relieved. He did an excellent job as a travelling technological ambassador for the Habsburg Monarchy. He was still in the civil service, but at last he no longer had to perform and the Turk landed in the corner of the workshop for a second time.
Evil tongues said that the inventor couldn’t wait to get rid of him, because over the years, many scientists have come forward claiming to have debunked his deception. Some believed that the cunning inventor was operating the machine with the help of magnets in a mysterious box, while others were convinced that a ten-year-old chess grandmaster was hiding in the cupboard.
Anyway, von Kempelen retired the Turk and forgot about him. In 1798, he himself retired and spent the rest of his life in his Viennese house, which became a meeting place for lovers of science and the beautiful word. In his old age, he wrote poems and amused himself with etching. He also managed to complete his life project, a talking machine.
Wolfgang von Kempelen died in 1804, and his second, even more famous machine was resurrected shortly afterwards.
Other arrivals
The Turk appeared where his story began – at Schönbrunn Palace. It was 1809 and Napoleon was in Vienna. Not as a guest, but as the new master of the Danube monarchy. That summer, he defeated the Habsburgs and forced them to sign a humiliating peace treaty.
On 15 August, he turned 40 and a great celebration began in Vienna, with fireworks, concerts and ballet performances. Engineers also fought for Napoleon’s attention, entertaining him with more or less useful devices in Schönbrunn. Among them was Johann Maelzel, a Bavarian inventor, who piqued the Emperor’s interest with a machine that could play chess.
Napoleon was a great chess aficionado and gladly accepted the invitation to play with the miracle automaton. Maelzel had become the owner of the famous Turk only a few years before. It was sold to him by von Kempelen’s son, who had inherited it after his father’s death. Maelzel bought the machine because he was a fan of technological innovations, but he didn’t know exactly what to do with it. But a duel against the most powerful man in Europe was the perfect opportunity to try and revive Turk’s second life.
Napoleon adopted a tactic that no machine could imitate. He relied on a distinctly human trait – cunning. Shortly after the inauguration, he deliberately pulled an unauthorised stunt. The Turk shook his head and returned the figure to the starting field. A few minutes later, he repeated the trick, but the machine was not thrown off track – it shook its head and took the figure from him. He then tried a third unauthorised move, at which point the Turk got upset. He swept the pieces off the chessboard with his hand and the game was over.
Napoleon, impressed by the fighting spirit of his opponent, immediately demanded a rematch. In the second duel, Napoleon put aside his tricks and relied solely on his chess knowledge. The famous warlord was much less skilful at the chessboard than on the battlefield, and after less than twenty moves he had to concede defeat.
The Man of Music
After the prestigious victory, the Turk soon changed hands. The owner of the machine was Napoleon’s adopted son Eugene de Beauharnais, who, like his stepfather, was a passionate chess player. The bargain brought Maelzel a hefty sum of francs. The Bavarian, who was a brilliant engineer but a below-average businessman, earned enough from the sale of the Turk to realise some of his more ambitious ideas in the following years.
He befriended Beethoven, who was, incidentally, an even worse businessman, and made a hearing aid especially for him. He also patented the metronome and the Panharmonicon, a highly sophisticated music box that reproduced the sound of practically all musical instruments accurately. He also produced the diorama The Burning of Moscow, a mechanical painting which, with moving images and a musical accompaniment, gave a plastic representation of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia.
The Turk, meanwhile, has faded into oblivion. Its owner was not interested in having fun. Eugene, Napoleon’s adopted son, lived in Bavaria after the fatal French defeat at Waterloo. There, Maelzel visited him and bought the famous machine. At least that is what he claimed, as he never revealed the details of the bargain. All we know is that he expanded his collection of machines with the Turk and went on a tour of European cities. In the autumn of 1818, the Turk, the Burning of Moscow and the Panharmonikon were on display in London.
This time, the Turk was not a member of the diplomatic mission, but the star of a travelling entertainment troupe. The Thinking Machine performed six days a week and attracted thousands of curious onlookers. The credit for this goes to Maelzel, who freshened up his image a little. The machine was now able to speak and when he announced chess to his opponent, he exclaimed in French: “Échec!”
In addition, Maelzel announced that the machine will now play without one farmer. By introducing a handicap, he also wanted to attract poor players to the chess board, who would otherwise have spent their pennies elsewhere. Maelzel’s marketing ploy was successful, with the Turk playing hundreds of games and appearing in many English cities. If the Bavarian master is to be believed, the machine lost only six times during that time.
The Turk was also under the scrutiny of scientists in England, who argued that no machine was capable of thinking and that it was all a deception that only the most naive could fall for. There is a man hiding in the cupboard operating the machine, there can be no other explanation.
Maelzel did not respond to the accusations, as there were more than enough suckers on the Island willing to pay to see a thinking machine. The Turk entertained them for three years, after which its master dismantled it, put it in wooden crates and set off again.
A Turk conquers America
At the time, Maelzel was heavily in debt, having lived on a shoestring for too long. He was also being persecuted by Eugene, Napoleon’s stepson, who claimed that he had never sold him the machine, but only rented it. He threatened to sue him and demanded payment. Maelzel spent the next few years on the road, or rather on the run. He cycled between Paris and London before boarding a ship for New York in December 1825, thinking he had put his worries behind him.
In the New World, people were incredibly interested in the Turk, and Maelzel was working at full speed – Americans were even bigger fans of mechanical toys than Europeans. Maelzel was delighted with the good response, but there was another side to the American enthusiasm for novelty toys. “When I was in Germany with the Turk, people were so amazed that they were speechless. In France, they shouted ‘Magnifique!’ behind me. But when I got to New York, a Yank came up to me and tried to sell me a copy of the Turk for five hundred dollars,” Maelzel lamented the overzealous business zeal of the locals. The Bavarian was right, copycats and impostors were skimming off his money. He was even forced to buy off the more elaborate fakes.
The incredible popularity of the miracle machine has taken its toll. The Turk has never received so much attention from the (quasi-)experts everywhere and Maelzel has had to constantly fend off accusations of being a fraud. He defended himself, as he always had, with silence. There were still plenty of people in the US who went to see Turk perform with open mouths and open wallets, far more than the sceptics.
Any businessman with any business acumen would have made a fortune in his place long ago, but the Bavarian was a lost cause in this respect. He made a very good living from his vending machines, but he was chronically broke. He had creditors breathing down his neck and too often embarked on projects that failed miserably.
Farewell tour
These included a tour of South America, which he undertook at the end of 1837. He entertained North Americans for more than ten years and saw no reason why South Americans should not also be enthusiastic about his troop of mechanical toys. But he got it badly wrong and the tour ended before it had even begun.
The first and last stop was Havana. The Cubans showed little interest in European machines and Maelzel didn’t have enough money to try his luck elsewhere. For the unfortunate inventor, it was too much of a blow. He borrowed a few dollars from a friend and boarded a ship for the USA. He spent the six days of the voyage in the cabin, alone with his thoughts and a case of wine.
At 65, he clearly no longer had the strength to take on new challenges. Before the ship reached the American shore, he was dead. All that was left behind, apart from the boxes of slot machines, were a few letters, a chessboard and twelve gold pieces he had borrowed. “He has gone to a world where, hopefully, music at least as beautiful as his Panharmonikon will be played,” said the Philadelphia United States Gazette on the inventor’s death.
Maelzl’s modest estate, including the Turk, ended up at auction. Kearsley Mitchell, a doctor from Baltimore, became its last owner. He raised the money for the purchase by setting up a society and inviting admirers of the Turk to join it. Each member contributed a few dollars and in return was given access to a secret that had puzzled Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon.
The amateur engineers read all the available books on the Turk and dug into the boxes left behind by Maelzel. After several months, they managed to reassemble the machine and the Turk briefly came back to life.It made its first appearance in Mitchell’s office, in front of some of his closest friends. The late Maelzel must have been turning in his grave, because the new owner was a desperate entertainer. The worst part was that after the show he revealed Turk’s secret.
Once this was revealed, the magic dissipated and the members of the Society lost interest in the Turk. It was donated to the local museum, where it remained on display for a few months before ending up in storage. Fourteen years later, in 1854, the museum was engulfed by fire and the famous machine burnt down. Before it was consumed by the flames, Turek managed to utter his last words. Legend has it that “Échec!”, “Échec!” echoed through the museum.
Endspiel
The Turk has entertained and puzzled people for more than 70 years. During that time, many hair-raising theories have emerged about how the mysterious machine really works, but most sceptics agree that there must be a man hiding in the cupboard. Von Kempelen and Maelzel responded to the accusations with silence, and it was not until many years after their deaths that the sceptics were vindicated. Three years after the fire at the museum, Silas Mitchell, the son of the last owner of the Turk, published a book describing its workings.
There was a man hiding in the cupboard, and that was pretty much the secret. But how come not a single curious person noticed him? The Turk, after all, was thoroughly checked before every performance. Von Kempelen, and later Maelzel, opened the cupboard door each time and allowed the doubters to rummage around in the bowels of the machine at will.
The answer is simple – von Kempelen was a top engineer. He installed a sliding seat in the cabinet that allowed the operator to move in all directions. When the inventor opened one door, the operator retreated to the other corner. It was a well-coordinated dance, as there was very little space in the dark and stifling cupboard.
Von Kempelen was also a good illusionist. The wires, wheels and belts that made up the “motor” of the machine had only one function – to deceive. Just like the mysterious box he peeped into between shows. The Turk’s hand, which moved the pieces around the chessboard, was a reflection of engineering mastery. It was moved by a complex system of levers built into the Turk’s torso.
Sceptics were also puzzled by another question. How is it that the Turk was virtually invincible? Where did von Kempelen find such good chess-players? The inventor took this secret to his grave, but the names of the people who operated the machine when it passed into Maelzel’s hands have survived. Quite a few of them frequented the Cafe de la Regence in Paris, and all of them were top chess players. They were rewarded for their efforts, but only financially. If they had given up the secret of the Turk, they would certainly have become famous, but nobody did that in the 1970s.
As von Kempelen predicted to Maria Theresa, the Turk was a true triumph of technology and science, but with a dash of magic. And therein probably lies the answer to why he entertained people around the world for years. We all know that a magician does not really saw his assistant in half and that he does not have five white rabbits in his hat – man is, after all, a rational being. But magicians still exist, which, like the story of the Turk, shows that one of man’s basic needs is to be taken for a ride every now and then.
