Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

“ The Governor-General of the Ottoman Bank, M. Louis Steeg, also begged me to do all in my power to stop this useless propaganda. The Armenians are begging to be ‘left alone.’”
It is manifest again that Mustapha Kemal includes Christian minorities in the “New Turkey” he has determined to save from veils, harems, and lattices; the crumbling remains of Byzantium, anti-progressive Hodjas, and the Byzantian Patriarch imposed on Constantinople! ”

“ I think that, for all these purposes, I might as well give you a description of the two principal figures who to-day stand out distinctly as the two leaders of the Turkish Nationalist Government; the two national heroes who personify better than any one else the spirit which animates so powerfully Anatolia and the whole Turkish race. One is a man and the other a woman. You surely260 have already guessed: I am referring to Mustapha Kemal Pasha, the undisputed leader of Turkish manhood, and to Halidé Hanoum, the equally peerless leader of modern Turkish women. ”

“ The establishments of various Arab states is a testimony to the many forces at work in the Arab world. The victory of the Allies in World War 1 brought about the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. Modern Turkey was established in 1920, ruled initially by a Sultan, becoming a republic in 1923 under the presidency of Kamal Atatürk. ”

“ In fact he is what might be called a self-appointed 'power prohibitionist.' and if he remains in power it is exclusively because the people want him to and, being a convinced democrat, he bows his head to the wish of the people. Of course, at the beginning of the movement, when the national aspirations of the Turks sought some one to formulate them and to organize the country, Mustapha Kemal Pasha took the lead without shunning its responsibilities and without a second's hesitation261 on account of the price that he personally would have to pay should he fail in his undertaking. ”

“ Without this universal, unstinting affection and esteem from both officers and men, Mustapha Kemal could never have established the Assembly and created a new Turkey. When he had thus realised the vision of his ardent youth, that never left him through years of exile, revolt, and disgrace; when, at any moment now, he could declare himself Dictator, he will not steal responsibility from the people’s representatives. “The Assembly,” he says, “is not one man ”

“ Enver, while he will always maintain a great prestige in the Mussulman world, will never oust Kemal. Mustapha Kemal Pasha is the great popular hero of a victorious Turkey, which but for him might never have even survived. There were times in the past when Enver was more important than Kemal, but that can never happen again in Kemal’s life. Both men rose from the ranks and both are the sons of peasants. And Kemal at this moment is more important than the [Pg 163] Sultan. Greater than that no man can be under the banners of Mohammed. ”

“ But if the situation in India disturbed him, the situation in Turkey and Iran, as he heard of these countries from his fellow travelers, upset Mohammed Beg altogether. He was told that if he thought Indian Moslems were lax, he should see the innovations which Mustafa Kamal Ataturk had introduced into Turkey. There religion had been pushed into second place, and nationalism had assumed first importance in the thinking of the people. The Turks had deposed the caliph, and Islam had been so adapted to the conditions of modern life that little more than a shadow of the former religion existed. ”

“ In the course of the day Ismail Kemal and some members of the Liberal Union went to the Yildiz and begged the Sultan to appoint Kiamil Pasha, who was a supporter of the Union, as Grand Vizier, but the Sultan refused to listen to their advice. From this time the Liberal Union lost its hold on the people, and was deserted by many members of the party who were good patriots and adherents of the Constitution, for these recognised and were horrified at the mischief that had been wrought by the self-seeking wire-pullers of this so-called “Liberal” organisation. ”

“ He had conceived the notion of uniting all Turkestan and Bokhara and Keiva to the Angora government. It places the Soviets in a strange position. They may have to give in to him, though he will not actually be an “enemy,” because neither the Turks nor the Russians can afford to break their treaty. Therefore, his private war in the south embarrasses the Soviets much more than it does Kemal, who needs only to disavow any connection with it, as do all the Turkish officials. If Enver wins he will add a nice slice to Turkish territory; if he loses, Turkey will be in the same position as before. ”

“ They were raising levies of Turkish peasants, drilling them, arming them (with French weapons!) , teaching them that if they wanted to keep their land they must fight for it. There was a fellow named Mustapha Kemal. He would be heard of later in history as a great leader. He was raiding up the coast as far as Ismid, and little companies of British Tommies had had to fall back before his irregulars. Not good for our prestige! But what could we do on the Asiatic side, with only a few battalions of boys? ”

“ Kemal is, however, a professional soldier, dismissed from the old Ottoman Army by the Damad Ferid Ministry in Constantinople and now occupying a politico-military position at the head of the new Turkish Government. He has brought to Angora the blunt directness of the soldier rather than the statesman, and his remarkable personal prestige has colored his entire Government. Yet it is not sufficient to define him as a soldier. The head of the new Turkish State happens to be a soldier because the dominant tradition of the old Ottoman Empire was the Turkish military tradition. ”

“ In any country with a great military tradition, the best brains of the country tend to flow into the Army and the best brains of the Army tend to flow into the General Staff. Kemal reached the General Staff of the old Ottoman Army at a time when the best brains in the country were attempting to carry it from those Eastern traditions of government in which it had had a long and rich experience, to the newer Western traditions at which it is still serving its apprenticeship. ”

“ The state shall take measures to ensure the training and development of the youth into whose keeping our state, independence, and our Republic are entrusted, in the light of contemporary science, in line with the principles and reforms of Atatürk, and in opposition to ideas aiming at the destruction of the indivisible integrity of the state with its territory and nation. ”

“ It is as a statesman that I met him, and I will therefore first consider his political ideals and work.
Great events create great men, and it is but once in the life of a nation that situations so grave as that which found Mustapha Kemal are ever likely to arise. 161He rose out of the terror of the Hamidian régime, the years that followed, and the humiliation of occupied Smyrna. It needed, however, the suffering and sorrow to which all reformers must serve their apprenticeship to mould his character and to bring him where he now stands. ”

“ In Turkey, national progress is undoubtedly the guiding ideal and motive for the leadership of President Kamal Ataturk. Islam as a religion appears to be of interest to the present regime at Angora only in so far as it furthers the purposes of nationalism. After all that has happened in Russia, and even in Turkey itself, it is not impossible to imagine that the Turkish rulers might even yet bow Islam completely off the stage should it appear to stand in the way of national development. ”

“ Turkey, the strongest and greatest of independent Moslem states, today refuses to have anything to do with such a proposal. On the contrary, under the guidance of their strong man, President Kamal Ataturk, the Turks appear to be far less influenced by religious than by national considerations. ”

“ And then what a glorious future awaits the Power that Europe once thought of as a sick man. 'With the crushing of Russian despotism,' exclaims Tekin Alp, 'by the brave German, Austrian, and Turkish armies, thirty to forty million Turks will receive their independence. With the ten million Ottoman Turks this will form a nation of fifty millions, advancing towards a great civilisation which may perhaps be compared to that of Germany, in that it will have the strength and energy to rise even higher. ”

“ RAILWAY CONCESSIONS IN TURKEY Shortly after the overthrow of the despotism in Turkey, the new government formulated a comprehensive scheme of public improvements intended to promote the material development of the Ottoman Empire, which was forbidden for a third of a century by Abdul Hamid, the late sultan. He seemed to think that progress and prosperity were inconsistent with the welfare of a nation, or at least a menace to the authority of an autocrat, and as long as he kept his subjects in poverty and ignorance, his sceptre was safe in his hands. ”

“ But when the astute Sultan did submit in a very graceful manner, protesting that he was a believer in a constitutional form of government, and posing as if he and not the revolutionary party had brought the boon of liberty to his subjects, the Young Turks showed their statesmanship by as graciously accepting the situation, and became once more the loyal subjects of a constitutional monarch, whose cleverness and diplomatic experience, if he would now use them rightly, might be of great service to his country and his people. ”

“ Thus we face to-day a new Balkan Peninsula, consisting of half a dozen little independent nations, all thoroughly democratic, except Turkey. And even Turkey, we should remember, has made a long stride toward Democracy by substituting for the autocracy of the Sultan the constitutional rule of the "Young Turks," These still retain their political control, though sorely shaken in power by the calamities their country has undergone under their brief régime. ”

“ Has there ever been a greater tragedy in the history of a people—and of a people that have never held any illusions as to political independence, wedged in as they are between two Great Powers, and who had no real irredentistic feelings towards Russia, and, up to the moment when the Young Turks betrayed them shamefully and broke the ties of comradeship that had bound them together as revolutionaries against the old despotic system of Abdul-Hamid, were as thoroughly loyal citizens of the Ottoman Empire as any of the other peoples of this land, excepting perhaps the Turks themselves. ”

“ Neither the geographical position nor the economic wealth of the Ottoman Empire, however, need have been a cause for its exploitation by foreigners. Had the Sultan’s Government been strong—powerful enough to present determined resistance to domestic rebellion and foreign intrigue—Turkey would not have been an imperial problem. But Abdul Hamid and his successors, the Young Turks, showed themselves incapable of governing a vast empire and a heterogeneous population. ”

“ And yet, even at that time, Ahmed Riza and his Mussulman associates were planning a scheme which was intended to bring liberty, justice, and security to the oppressed Christian subjects of the Porte, and was, moreover, destined to prove successful where all the diplomacy of the Powers and the too often misdirected efforts of the humanitarians in Europe78 had signally failed. For the Young Turks, like their great forerunner, Midhat Pasha, realised that Turkey could only be saved from disintegration by placing all her races and creeds on an equality, by giving the same rights to all. ”

“ It pointed out that the efforts of the Powers were exclusively directed to what they considered the well‐being of one portion only of the Sultan’s subjects, whereas the reforms which the new Constitution aimed at introducing did not bear a special or exclusive character in regard to province, race, creed or language. That the small account which the Powers seemed to have taken both of the great principles of equality and justice which the Turkish Government sought to introduce into the internal administration, and of its rights of independence and sovereignty, was deeply to be regretted. ”

“ The government is monarchial; the Grand Signior, or Sultan, is absolute master of the lives and fortunes of his subjects; his orders are above the laws, which are but few. If his ministers grow rich, they certainly suffer death, right or wrong, their wealth (which goes to the Sultan) being esteemed a clear proof of their guilt.
The customs and ways of the Turks are very different from ours: the left is the upper hand with them; they bury in the dark, and carry the dead head-foremost; their books are all manuscripts, for they suffer no printing among them. ”

“ He also mistrusts ability, as giving a power to be dangerous. Thus Turkish gentlemen of the official class, who possessed distinction, brains, and probity, had very little share in the administration. The Camarilla of the Sultan was mainly composed of base and illiterate though cunning people; avaricious and unscrupulous parasites, of whom the most influential were not Turks, but Syrians, Arabs, and Circassians; men who, being devoid of true patriotism and having the attainment of wealth as their one aim, would have no reason for joining in a conspiracy against the Despotism. ”

“ But of these ill-omened seditions, Turkish subjects were the arms, while the head was invisible, and kept itself in security from his blows, beyond the frontiers.
Often, even far from the noise of arms, he baffled the plots of the insidious enemies of Turkey. The most enviable of his bloodless victories was the cause of Kossuth and the Hungarian refugees, whom he met at Shumla, whither he had purposely repaired. He espoused their cause before the Sultan and the ministers of the Porte. The Sultan’s sentiments regarding them were not less noble than his own ”