Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (born with Salonique in May 1880 or 1881 - died with Istanbul the November 10th 1938) is the founder and the first president of the Turkish République.
After the First World War and the allied occupation of the Ottoman Empire, this military career refuses to see the Ottoman Empire being dismembered by the Traité of Sevres. Accompanied by partisans, he revolts against the imperial government and creates a second political power with Ankara. It is of this city that it leads the war against the occupants to the head of Turkish resistance.
Under its command, the Turkish forces overcame the armies Arménie, French and Italy. Then it demolishes the Greek armies which occupy the city and the area of Izmir, the Eastern Thrace and certain islands of the Aegean Sea. After the battle of Sakarya, the Grande National Assembly of Turkey gives him the title of Gazi (the victorious one); he then manages to push back the Greek armies out of Turkey. Following these victories, the British forces choose to sign a first armistice with him and begin to leave the country.
Mustafa Kemal also affirms a savage will of rupture with the Othoman imperial past and of radical reforms for its country.
It benefits from the treason of the Sultan with the Armistice of Moudros to put a term at the Sultanat on November 1st 1922. It founds kind a separation between the political power (sultanate) and spiritual (Califat).
After the proclamation of the Republic, it moves the capital of Istanbul to Ankara and it occidentalizes the country through several reforms. In particular, it laicizes Turkey, gives the right to vote with the women and replaces the Arabic alphabet by the Latin alphabet. Under its authoritative presidency, Turkey carried out a social revolution without precedent, which one generally calls revolution kemalist . The November 24th 1934, the Parliament gives him to the name of Atatürk “father of the Turks. ”
He dies of a cirrhosis of the liver the November 10th 1938. During national funeral it is buried with the ethnographic museum of Ankara. Its skin rests today in the mausoleum known as of the Anıtkabir.
Youth and political activities
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in May 1880 or 1881 (the doubt coming from the transition since the two calendars then in force, the Calendrier Rumî and the Moslem Calendrier towards the Gregorian Calendrier) which occurred Islâhhâne in the district from Kocakasım, in Salonique (current Thessalonique). The exact day of its birth is unknown. Its native house is currently the seat of the Turkish consulate and also shelters a museum.His/her father names Ali Rıza Efendi and his mother Zübeyde Hanım. His/her paternal grandfather Hafız Ahmet Efendi goes down from the tribes Nomade S Kocacık (Turkmènes Yürüks), originating in Konya and Aydın, which was established in Macedonia at the 14th century and 15th century. His/her mother belongs to an old family established with the borough of Langaza in the surroundings of the same city. Of the five brothers and sisters of Atatürk, four die in low age and only Makboulé lived until in 1956.
Mustafa Kemal begins its education with the Koranic school of the district of Hafız Mehmet Efendi; then, according to the will of his father, it enters to the private public school Şemsi Efendi. It is at that time that his/her father dies, in 1888. His/her mother settles then to about thirty kilometers of Thessalonique in a farm where his/her brother works. Mustafa Kemal must cease its schooling to become Berger. In front of her refusal to receive the teaching of a Greek pope, then of an Imam, his/her mother then decides rescolariser with Thessalonique where it is lodged in his aunt.
In 1893, whereas it is twelve years old, it is presented to the entrance examination to the military college without in speaking with whoever. His/her mother fears the vicissitudes and the difficult conditions of the military life in the Ottoman Empire. It is in this school that its mathematics professor Mustafa Bey decides to add “Kemal” (perfect, complete) to his name for his talents in mathematics, because “two Mustafa in the same class, it is too”.
In the years 1896 with 1899 it finishes second of its promotion to the military college of Manastir. At that time, the only possible higher learning was the studies of Théologie and the studies military. It enters to the school of war of Istanbul and these studies of officer to Western insert it in the intellectual elite ottomane.
It discovers there the Littérature and the Poésie. Its preferred authors are Voltaire, Rousseau, Auguste Count, Camille Desmoulins and Montesquieu. Thus he becomes an admiror of the Lumières, but also of revolutionary France and he does not hide his admiration for Napoleon.
In 1902 it leaves this school with the rank of lieutenant. He undertakes then studies with the military academy, which he completes the January 11th 1905 with the rank of Capitaine.
In this academy, he becomes member of a secret committee which diffuses a newspaper protestor with regard to the imperial capacity, Vatan . He frequently organizes the meetings of the committee. But little accustomed to the methods of clandestine agitation, it is made stop with his friends of the committee the December 29th 1904. They are imprisoned with the red prison of Istanbul where there remains locked up several weeks.
With its release, it is dispatched with Damas. , which will poke Turkish rancour. The calls to the fight are done increasingly insistent following this deployment. Kemal is pointed out to subdue the rebellion.
It embarks with colonel Arif and Refet on Bandırma in direction of Samsun, but a police report submitted to Mehmed VI denounces it as sympathizer of the rebellious cause. This one orders its arrest. Kemal unloads in Samsun the May 19th 1919 where it is narrowly supervised by the British. To escape this spinning mill, it transfers its general headquarter to Kavas then with Amasya.
The June 22nd, Refet, Ali Fuat and Rauf Orbay take the party of Kemal and decide to unify the organizations of resistance under the orders of a single staff.
Kemal then ceases any relationship to the imperial capacity and constitutes a new political power in Anatolia. It makes sure the support of the initially restive officers for his policy. A congress is convened with Sivas for October and all the Empire is invited to send delegates to it. Kemal obtains there the support of the military main leaders of the country.
Extremely of this new statute and assisted by the regional inspectors and commanders, it organizes the popular movements. In each city and each village, the popular resistance committees are created. The demobilized officers are the first to answer this call, involving with them a growing number of volunteers.
The sultan Mehmed VI requests explanations from Kemal on his activities. Kemal requires of him to be put at the head of the new resistance movement. Furious, the sultan raises it of his functions the July 8th 1919 and breaks his rank of general. He means with the military authorities and civil not to obey the orders of Kémal more.
Kemal announces with its officers this open crisis between the sultan and him:
We arrived at crossroads. If we continue our fight, we will have to count henceforth only on ourselves. The imperial government will be against nous. It receives the support of his companions, in the condition which it does not carry not reached to the authority or the prestige of the sultan.
It advances at September the date of the behavior of the congress of Sivas and meanwhile convenes a congress with Erzurum July 23rd with the August 7th 1919 during which Kemal obtains the support of Kazim Karabékir which is with the head of the 2nd army of the Békir general.
The Congress of Sivas
The first plenary session takes place the September 13rd 1919. Mustafa Kemal has a clear vision of the future to give to the ex-empire, on the policy to be implemented and on the attitude to be adopted with respect to the sultan. The Congress decides for an absolute and total independence of the Turkish people within a restricted framework, rather than with a relative autonomy within a broader framework.The sultan tries to put an end to the congress by ordering to the governor Malatya, Ali Galib, to arm with the Kurdish militiamans and to make them walk on Sivas. Two regiments of infantry assembled of the Békir general demolish these militia.
Kémal being now strong of a new authority, nobody dares any more to call into question his decisions. The assembly quickly constitutes an Executive committee of which it is named president. He makes set up this committee in provisional government which obtains the right to act as any independence of the imperial capacity.
Kemal causes general elections in all the country and requires of the Congress to send an ultimatum to the Sultan, intimating to him to return the Top dog, Damad Férid Pasha, culprit to have caused the Kurdish rebellion. Not receiving any answer, it decides to isolate Istanbul from the remainder from Anatolia. It makes requisition the telegraph lines, seize the taxes and the official mail and replaces the civils servant faithful to the sultan by civils servant won over to the revolutionary ideas. Those which hesitate to apply its directives are threatened of execution.
Mehmed VI retorts by applying the strategy of his/her uncle, Abdülhamid II. He dismisses his Top dog, reopens the Parliament and convenes new elections. He signs a secret agreement in addition placing the entire Ottoman Empire under British mandate and stipulating that the sultan, puts the moral and spiritual power Caliphate at the service of the United Kingdom in all the Moslem countries where its influence is exerted.
In waiting of the elections, the assembly transfers her seat from Sivas to Ankara the September 27th 1919. Mustafa Kemal is seen very quickly insulated politically, including by its close relations such as Rauf Orbay. The deputies ask for the departure of the occupying forces. The British answer is shingling: 100 000 soldiers walk on Istanbul and stop more than one hundred fifty deputies whom they off-set with Malta and close the Parliament. İsmet İnönü and Fevzi Çakmak manages to escape and to join Kemal.
The Large National Assembly of Turkey
Far from condemning the British action, Mehmed VI puts on the contrary the head of Kemal at price. During this time, Kemal organizes new elections. The new deputies meet in Ankara and the April 23rd 1920, a new step towards the creation of the Turkish republic is accomplished with the foundation of the Grande National Assembly of Turkey (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi) . The April 29th 1920, an Executive committee is elected. This committee declares that the new Parliament is the legal and provisional government country.
Mustafa Kemal is elected president of the assembly unanimously. It reaches an additional stage towards the end of the sultanate by declaring without legal authenticity the decisions of the legal government of Istanbul because occupied by the British. In answer to the nationalists, the Minister for the war Soliman Chevket Pasha sees himself entrusting by the sultan, with the support of the British, the command of the Armée with the Caliph .
The civil war
See also: Armed with the Caliph
The sultan, relayed by the Hodja and the Priest S, exhorts the Turks to take the weapons against the nationalists of Kemal, introduced like the enemies of God. The inevitable civil war bursts in all its brutality. With Konya, the insurrectionists tear off the nails and quarter the envoys of Kemal. In reprisals, the notable ones of the city are hung publicly by the forces kemalists.
The nationalists essuient several defeats, and the army of the Sultan approaches Ankara, seat of the new Parliament. Desertions take place at the troops most faithful to Mustafa Kemal. This last is seen constrained to be folded up.
Treaty of Sevres
With the great stupor of the Turks, the Treated of Sevres which devotes the cutting-up of the Empire is signed by Mehmed VI the August 10th 1920. In Anatolia, the territories ethniquement Armenian before the massacres of the war become independent. The partially Greek zones of the coast (Smyrna) are attached to the Greece, the Kurdistan becomes autonomous. The zones ethniquement Turkish are divided into zones of influence of the western powers. The army is dissolved, and a system of foreign supervision set up. For Norbert de Bischoff, Thus crumbled after a fall without equal, one of the greatest empires than knew the modern history . The rejection is very sharp in the Turkish population. If this document were signed by the Othoman government of Istanbul, the majority of the Turks, in almost the totality of the country, recognize only the authority of the government of Ankara directed by Mustafa Kemal which, categorically refuses this treaty and its clauses to him.
The Turks take make and cause for the nationalists. Of all the Anatolia, men, women and children flow towards Ankara. Belong to the movement civils servant, former deputies, generals and officers, engineers, agents of railroad, etc Mustafa Kemal constitutes a government of public hello at once, and it charges with the generals with organizing national defense.
The army of the Caliph disaggregates itself in a few days, except with Ismit where it is used as cover with the British garrison.
The spectrum of the civil war moving away with the massive swing in its favor, Mustafa Kemal attacks the foreign troops. In September 1920, Kemal charges Kazım Karabekir tackling and with pushing back the forces Arménie beyond the Turkish borders. Follow the resumptions of the towns of Sarıkamış the September 20th 1920, of Kars the October 30th 1920 and of Gumri the November 7th 1920. A peace treaty with Arménie is signed with Gumri.
The Turks are supported by the Soviet which delivers weapons to them. Lénine and Trotski sends the vice-police chief Frounze to support and advise the Turkish army.
The following objective of the troops kemalists is of subduing the claims Kurdish separatists, which is quickly regulated.
In January 1921, the towns of Kahraman Maraş and Şanlı Urfa (1919 - 1921) then of Bozanti are taken again to the French. The government of Ankara signs a provisional peace treaty with France releasing the Cilicie. Thereafter, the army of Kemal pushes back the Italian forces, forced to flee the country.
Lastly, Mustafa Kemal decides to release Istanbul. After an attack fulgurating against the British forces, the British High-Commissioner prepares his men with the evacuation. The sultan promises with the powers signatories of the treaty of Sevres to accept the protectorate of that of them which would be laid out to lend assistance to him .
As the allies do not have any more the means of sending men to fight the forces of Mustafa Kemal, the Greek politician, Eleftherios Venizelos proposes with the allies to entrust the catch of the Ottoman Empire to Greece. Its goal is to reconstitute large Greece.
Gréco-Turkish war
See also: gréco-Turkish War
The pact is concluded in less than 48 hours, and Greece sends a first army in Eastern Thrace. It encircles and disarms the 1st Turkish army ordered by the general Jaffar Tayar. Then, this same army unloads with Edirne and disarms the Turkish forces. Other Greek armies also intervene.
In 1921, the Turks lose ground and Kemal, conscious of the weakness of the irregular troops, raises in spring a regular army by integrating there the men of the maquis and the green army of Edhem. But Edhem categorically refuses to join the regular army, and he proposes on the contrary his services with the Sultan. Mehmed VI refuses, and Edhem then puts at the service Greeks, and makes send to the Parliament of Ankara a proclamation in which he declares: the country is tired of the war. The only one which still wishes it is Mustafa Kemal. Return this rough bloodthirsty man and conclude peace immediately. I am made the interpreter of the wishes of the nation.
Kemal has of another choice only to entrust to İsmet İnönü the mission of fighting the green Army. The regular forces of Refet Pasha capture the state major d' Edhem and disarm his soldiers with Kütahya. Edhem flees and joined the Greeks, with whom it establishes a collaboration. The Greek general Papoulas decides to lead his attack to the month of January 1921.
The January 6th, the Greeks take the town of Afyonkarahisar. İsmet İnönü launches its 61e division and a group of cavalry on Kütahya, then it counter-attack victoriously with the height of Inönü. It is the first victory of İnönü (6 - January 10th 1921) and of the new forces kemalists against the Greek forces. This battle has an enormous repercussion in all the country. Mustafa Kemal uses this victory with its advantage by convening in plenary session the Parliament the January 20th 1921. The constitutional law affirming the base of the Turkish State is the sovereignty of the people. there is voted.
Norbert de Bischoff written on this subject: the declaration of January 20th, 1921 was the first blow of axe carried in the old Othoman constitution, the first time that was opposed to the sovereignty of the Sultan-Caliph the democratic principle which makes derive all the constitutional law and all the political power of sovereignty from the people. The law of January 20th, 1921, did not create a provisional statute, a statute of fortune: it posed permanent constitutional standards, completely different from those which had governed Turkey until this jour. In same time, the government ceases being called Provisional government and takes the name of Government of the National Assembly .
The March 30th, the Greeks take again the initiative and attack the town of Eskişehir with 40.000 men. The Turks push back them during the second victory of İnönü (March 30th April 1st 1921). This victory is accommodated with much enthusiasm with Ankara.
Drawing the conclusions from the Greek military failures, the allies are declared officially neutral in the conflict and withdraw de facto their support for the Greek offensive. The French encourage even the forces kemalists to continue the war, and the Italians secretly provide weapons to the army kemalist. The change of attitude of France and Italy is especially justified by the concern of preventing that Great Britain does not become the only mistress of the Eastern Mediterranean through Greece. Especially, Italy was opposed to the invasion of Anatolia Western by Greece as of the beginning.
The Turkish army remains however lower of number and equipment than the Greek army. Vis-a-vis the Greek offensive of the July 7th, Kemal is seen constrained to be folded up with Sakarya. The Parliament evokes the replacement of Kemal by a less authoritative general. This last assembles to the platform of the assembly the August 5th 1921 to require the full powerss of it:
Once more Turkey is in danger of death! Once more, the hour is not with the speeches, but with the acts! I require to be named commander-in-chief, with dictatorial capacities!
But the deputies are not favorable to this proposal. A deputy asks to him whether it would not be preferable that it gives up his civil functions to be devoted entirely to his military functions. Mustafa Kemal answers him:
I repeat you that Turkey is in danger of death, and it is all that you find to answer? To be able to save it, it is necessary that I exert an absolute control on the civil cases, as on the military businesses, and that I would not constantly be obliged to give an account of my acts to you. I did not say: " I ask you full for the pouvoirs." I said to you: " I require them! " If you refuse them to me, I will act consequently. Be quiet: Turkey will not perish! But if you put to me in the sad obligation to choose between Turkey and you, then will know that my choice is already made, and that my soldiers the approuveront.
The assembly grants the full powerss to Mustafa Kemal the same day. But it specifies that those will expire with the signature of the peace treaty. It leaves Ankara for the face then.
The August 14th 1921, a terrible battle engages between the Greek and Turkish forces. Mustafa Kemal established its general headquarter with Went-Geuz, a little with the back of the Turkish lines. The September 13rd 1921, after a long battle, the Turks are victorious and oblige the Greeks to fold up themselves towards the west. During their escape, they adopt the policy of the burned ground . The villages are set fire to and ransacked harvests.
Of return to Ankara, Kemal is accommodated as a triumphant victor. The September 19th 1921, the National Assembly grants to Mustafa Kemal the title of Maréchal and Gazi (hero veteran).
The victory of Sakarya is greeted by the Heads of State of the Russia, of the Iran, the Afghanistan, the the Indies, the the United States and Italy. The French government is the first to draw the political consequences from them. The October 10th 1921, France sends Mr. Henry Franklin-Bubble for the signature of a treaty with the government of Ankara. This treaty (known as treaty of Ankara) has an major importance, because not only it is the first time that a western power treats directly with the government of Ankara by forsaking the sultan Mehmed VI, but also because the France withdraws official list of the enemies of Turkey, and that she considers the Traité of Sevres no one and nonwhich occurred. Moreover, she declares herself laid out to grant to the Turkish people an equitable peace and independence. The additional protocol of the treaty makes it possible Kemal definitively to release the Cilicie and to have the support of: 80000 soldiers Turkish, and the armament necessary for: 40000 other soldiers.
But it needs even more men to continue the war and it undertakes with İsmet İnönü and Fevzi Çakmak the reconstitution of the Turkish army. With this intention, it empties all the arsenals, gathers all stocks, makes give in state all the material which can still be useful, and buys weapons with the Bulgaria, the United States and Italy, which it pays with money borrowed from Moscow and the financial aid sent by the Moslems of the India, then British colony. Thereafter, it orders the general mobilization: any old man of more than 18 years must join the new national army. He devotes himself to this task during all of winter 1921 until spring 1922, while working more than eighteen hours per day in his office.
During the summer 1922, the new Turkish army is ready to enter to shift. The August 26th, it launches the “Great offensive” ( Büyük Taarruz ) against the Greek forces. At the end of ten days of engagements, the 103.000 soldiers Turkish come to end from the 132.000 Greek soldiers who are quickly obliged to flee and to hide in the neighbouring mountains to escape the Turkish cavalry. The others are ruent per tens of thousands towards Izmir to gain the islands of Egée.
The commander-in-chief penetrates in Izmir (Smyrna) the September 9th 1922. The Turkish population of the city makes him an ovation, and thanks it for having released it from the Greek occupation. But the catch of Izmir does not put fine at the war. The Greeks indeed reformed an army in Thrace. Kemal tries an attack but is seen prohibiting the crossing of the Dardanelles by the British. Determined, it receives the officers of two regiments of elite and asked them to make go their soldiers towards the British positions and to cross in silence the enemy trenches without drawing the least shot. The September 29th 1922, the soldiers receive the order to get under way. The plan takes place as envisaged, and an agreement is found between the two parties at the last time.
The British are not supported any more by the French who fear the bursting of a new world war where the Russia would be side of Turkey. The France sends in all haste Franklin-Bubble again. This one pledges all possible with respect to the Gazi , and even promises to him that the Greeks will evacuate Thrace quickly. A conference opens the October 6th with the town hall of Mudanya. Four generals take part in the conference: a British, a French, an Italian and the Turk İsmet İnönü. By this convention, the allies are committed obliging Greece to withdraw itself from Thrace, and promise to evacuate the Ottoman Empire as soon as possible. An armistice based on these principles is ratified in Mudanya the October 11th 1922.
This victory makes it possible Mustafa Kemal to start its combat on the political field, for the abolition of the sultanate and the proclamation of the republic.
Displacement of populations
The civil populations must pay a heavy tribute with the war. First of all, the populations Greek-orthodoxe and Armenian whose leaders lined up as regards Greek underwent heavy losses, as well material as in human lives.
Then, the agreements of armistice envisage the transfer in Turkey of the Anatolia, the Eastern Thrace and the islands of Imvros and Ténédos. It follows from there a forced exchange of populations between the Greek communities of Asia Mineure and the Turkish communities of Greece. The Greek Christians - same Turkish-speaking of Anatolia interior and the Moslems crétois - even grécophones- are constrained with the exile. It is nearly 1.500.000 Greeks and 500.000 Turks who are transferred between these territories.
An agreement however is found for the Turkish communities of Western Thrace (Greece) which are authorized to remain on their ancestral grounds in exchange of the same right granted to the orthodoxe Greek community of Istanbul with the safeguarding of their patriarchate.
These events will remain engraved in the Greek collective memory under the name of “catastrophe of Asia Mineure” ( Mikrasiatiki Katastrofi ). This transfer will also be used as argument at the time of the Guerre of Palestine of 1948 to justify the Israeli positions being opposed to the return Palestinian refugees and defending an exchange between the 750.000 Palestinian Arab refugees of Palestine and the 800.000 Jewish refugees of the Arab world.
The survivors of the Armenian genocide see their hope of an independent state crumbling, and must for the majority leave in exile.
Mustafa Kemal, president of the republic
Atatürk is elected with the presidency of the National Assembly twice, the April 24th 1920 and the August 13rd 1923. It was then about a load cumulating the functions of head of state and government. When the Republic is proclaimed the October 29th 1923, Atatürk is elected by it the first president for four years, in accordance with the constitution.The Turkish Republic builds around principles inspired of the French revolution. The unit of the Republic, the Secularization, but also the occidentalization and the modernization of the country. Indeed, the mode kemalist the shortly after the fall of the Ottoman Empire wants to recreate a new national identity, etatist and layman on the model rigorously followed in any point of the French Republic. With this intention, Mustafa Kemal must cut down the last institutions of the old Ottoman Empire.
Lastly, the national unit wants to be structured around a strong ethno-cultural unit. The alien minorities (Armenian, Greek and Kurdish) must leave the country or be assimilated.
Plot of Smyrna
Starting from 1924 and 1925, the trade unions and the opposition parties are prohibited. True a Culte of the personality then surrounds the President of the Republic. Mustafa Kemal becomes increasingly authoritative. It is disputed more and more, even within its own party, CHP. The principal opponents are Rauf Orbay, Kazım Karabekir and Ali Fuat. They resign together of the CHP to found their own party, the Republican party progressist ( Terakkiperver Cumhuriyet Fırkasi ). Kazım Karabekir becomes its first president about it. But the June 3rd 1925, the party is interdict following the Kurdish revolt carried out by the Sheik Said. After an economic serious attack which touches Turkey in 1925 and 1926, a plot is born to assassinate Mustafa Kemal.The old cells of the Committee Union and Progress are reconstituted in secrecy. The former friends of Kemal, Rauf, Refet, Ali Fuad, Kazım Karabekir and other leaders of the opposition were combined to reverse the government. The police reports of the time indicate that the chief of the plot is Djavid Pasha, former minister for finances under the government Young person-Turks.
In July 1926, Mustafa Kemal goes in official visit to Smyrna. Two days before its visit, the police force stops three suspect individuals. She discovers several bombs in their house. The defendants acknowledge to have wanted to assassinate Mustafa Kemal under the order of several members of Parliament. One of the members of Parliament, questioned in his turn acknowledges that the assassination of the President should have allowed the four large Pashas, Refet, Ali Fuad and Kazım Karabekir and Adnan, to seize the power with Rauf and Djavid. Mustafa Kemal makes them stop at once and appear before a court of independence.
The least important defendants are considered and hung the very same day. Among them colonel Arif, the confidant of always of Mustafa Kemal is. Kemal signs its death warrant without sourciller. The second part of the lawsuit takes place with Ankara. All the chiefs of the opposition are then locked up in a small box. Refet, Ali Fuad and Kiazim Kara Bekir are condemned to military degradation and national unworthiness with life. They will find their freedom later a few days. As for Djavid, he is condemned to death.
Mustafa Kemal uses this plot to give the vision of Turkey threatened by enemies of the interior.
Turkey kemalist
After being itself removed from any opposition, Mustafa Kemal modifies the operating process of the National Assembly. Henceforth, the deputies will be selected exclusively among the members of the Republican party of the people, which become in fact sole party. The members of the party are designated by the president of the party which is Mustafa Kemal, and the President of the Republic is elected by the deputies of the Parliament. The electoral system is consequently closed and more no opposition appears then within the Parliament.The Parliament renews the presidential mandate of Mustafa Kémal in 1927, 1931 and 1935 which refuses to become life president. In 1930, he declares:
“I will not die by leaving the pernicious example of a personal capacity. I will have founded before a free Republic, as far away from the Bolchevisme as of the Fascisme. ”
The political locking of the country enables him to carry out the revolution which it wishes to implement: the Revolution with any vapor . He undertakes the construction of the news Turkey but he encounters a problem of financing: the cases of the State are empty. He sees himself advised to resort to the foreign credit. However according to him, the best means of losing its independence, it is to spend the money which one does not have. It has in memory the effects which had the Othoman debt on the Ottoman Empire and the economy of the country, and it thinks that by having recourse to the foreign assets, Turkey would lose part of its independence.
To finance its projects, it decides to create several banks, like the Sumer Bank and the Eti Bank sponsored by the Merkez Bankasi (the bank power station-1930). These banks drain the capital to implement development plans economic.
Thanks to these funding sources, thousands of kilometers of roads are built like several hundreds of bridges, a network railways is created, which makes it possible to disenclose the Anatolia to reach a homogeneous economic development. The Agriculture is revalorized, the peasants lay out of more than means and agricultural tools, their farms become more roomy and cleaner. And for the first time of their history, they can save to prepare the future of their children.
The government kemalist undertakes with the assistance of the the USSR of important plans of industrialization. Tens of powerplants are thus built for the emergent industry. Tens of factories of Sugar S and Ciment S are created. Followed by Glassmaking S and factories of Ceramic S, Foundry S, steel-works and factories of chemicals.
A flexible opposition
At the beginning of the Years 1930, the abstention increases in Turkey. Indeed, the people which cannot express itself freely prefer to abstain from. Mustafa Kemal feeling that him, the party and the Parliament cut themselves little by little of the people decides to create a opposition party of all parts. This party must at the same time be independent and flexible, it must be critical without attacking the prestige of the president.The liberal Republican party is thus set up for the legislative elections of August 1930. It is his/her friend Fethi Okyar who becomes president of the party. It is joined by a dozen former deputies with among them Adnan Menderes and Makboulé Atadan, sister of Mustafa Kemal. The latter takes care to explain to Fethi what it awaits from him, in particular on the attacks against its government and entrusts to him I do not want to die before to have seen, in Turkey, the disappearance of a personal capacity. I want that the Republic becomes entirely democratic .
Extremely support of Mustafa Kemal, Fethi arises to the district Izmir and a meeting is due to it where it attacks the government. But from the blows of guns were drawn, panic makes a death, the police force intervenes, disperses the audience and stops all the leaders of the new party. Mustafa Kemal must intervene in person to make release Fethi and the opponents and it gives the order to the police force from now on to protect the meetings.
A few days later, Fethi assembles to the platform of the National Assembly and critical the economic policy of Ismet Inonu. But a brawl bursts quickly within the Parliament between deputies of the two parties, Mustafa Kemal is constrained to make evacuate the room. In its work of “democratization” of Turkey, it decides to remove the Censure whose the press was victim.
A true opposition
Freedom of expression will make it possible to the journalists to strongly criticize Kemal and its policy through articles or caricatures. monarchists, the old ones of Union and communist Progrès and gather around Fethi to criticize the government. In same time, a strike carried out by Communists touches Izmir and of the riots burst in the Kurdistan. Mustafa Kemal decides to dissolve the party the November 17th 1930 following the events of Izmir. The model remains that of an authoritative modernization of the country, without single ideological reference.On the international plan, Turkey approaches the Iran of the Chah Reza Pahlavi and of the Afghanistan which saw with admiration the reforms carried out by Atatürk. Reza Pahlavi will try to carry out a revolution comparable with the revolution kemalist in his country.
In addition, Atatürk is based against the Soviet Union on the semi-liberal policy followed by Celal Bayar and its Hirsch adviser. Against the Nazism, it is reconciled with the Greece of Venizélos - which will propose Atatürk with the election of the Nobel Prize of peace at the end of the years 1930 - and of the France. It also approaches to the Yugoslavia and the Romania to lock the Balkans with the influence of the Nazi Germany. For " irriter" still a little more the Nazis, it names a Jew Dönme H with the head of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
When a large Austrian journalist , Emil Ludwig reports to him in 1935 that Mussolini has much sympathy to him, Atatürk is put in anger and treats the Head of Italian State of “hyena” because of the Guerre of Ethiopia. You dare to compare to me with this hyena! Do you realize of what you known as! Never I will accept that one compares to me with this man who crushes Ethiopia under the bombes.
Mustafa Kemal pronounces at the time several speeches which will remain famous: that reporting the War of independence and the foundation of the Republic (nutuk) 15 and November 20th 1927 like its speech of the 10th year on October 29th 1933.
Vis-a-vis the riots in certain cities of Thrace like Edirne, Tekirdag, Kırklareli and Çanakkale aiming at vigorously the Jewish community, Mustafa Kemal intervenes and orders that the order is restored quickly. Seeing in these riots anti-Jews the direct influence of the German secret agents, it states that the anti-semitism will never be tolerated in Turkey. Moreover it is him which opened the door in 1933 with 150 German academics of Jewish origin, who had lost their stations in Germany, in their proposer to settle and work in Turkey. These academics largely contributed to the university reform of 1933 which allowed the creation of the Université of Istanbul.
In accordance with the law on family names, the Parliament gives the November 24th 1934 to Mustafa Kemal the patronym of Kâmal (what wants to say, fortress) Atatürk , which means “father of the Turks not” but rather “Turkish ancestor”, “Turkish father”; it gives up the Mustafa first name then to name Kemal Atatürk . The Turkish people will follow the movement by taking to him also family names. In the tread, the government re-elects the Turkish main cities, Ankara becomes Ankara, Smyrna becomes Izmir, etc
Health issues
Atatürk was never concerned much with its health. It does not take with serious the recommendations of its doctors advising to him to take rest. Thus after the battle of Dardanelles it is constrained to pass part of the year 1918 in a hospital of Vienna to follow a cure following renal problems. In 1927 it is victim of several coronary spasms. Later its renal problems catch up with it, and it however decides to continue to work during its cure, which the doctors disadvised to him doing.
He undertakes voyages in remote countries while at the same time its close relations ask him to remain not to deteriorate its health. Following an important voyage to Adana its health condition worsens. The September 6th 1938 it writes its will where it affirms: I leave, as a spiritual heritage, no verse, no dogma, no petrified and solidified rule. My spiritual heritage, it is science and the reason (…). All in this world evolves/moves quickly. The design of happiness and misfortune changes, with the wire of time, at the people and the individuals. To affirm, in this context, which one knew to invent of the eternally valid receipts would be equivalent disavowing the ceaseless evolution of the ideas and science. (…) No one is not unaware of what I tried to do, which I endeavoured to make a success of for the good of the Turkish nation. Those which, after me, will want to advance in my wake, without never moving away from the reason and science, will become my heirs spirituels.
He dies of a Cirrhose the November 10th 1938 with 9:05, in the palate of Dolmabahçe to Istanbul. Its last words are Au-revoir before plunging in a deep coma. It is buried with the ethnographic museum of Ankara the November 21st 1938. The Heads of State of the whole world come to present their homages during its funeral. Since November 10th 1953, its body rests with the Anıtkabir, Ankara.
Important reforms towards secularization
See also: Reforms kemalists
The Turkish republic
To start, Mustafa Kemal makes vote with the National Assembly the abolition of monarchy and makes expel the last Othoman sultan Mehmet VI on November 1st 1922. The title of caliph is given by the National Assembly to Abdulmedjid, the elder one of the Othoman house. But the most important reform of Mustafa Kemal is the introduction of the Turkish republic the October 29th 1923, giving to the Turkish nation the right to exert popular sovereignty through a representative democracy. So that the new hatched republic, Mustafa Kemal abolishes the caliphate, which is held by the Othoman sultans since the incorporation of Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in 1517, the March 3rd 1924. This same date, the members of the Othoman house are deposed Turkish nationality and expelled of the country.Mustafa Kemal considers the port of the fez, that the sultan Mahmud II had set up in vestimentary code of the Ottoman Empire in 1826, like a feudal symbol and ends up prohibiting it to the Turks who are incited to wear hats. He asks the Turks to also adopt the European vestimentary code. Mustafa Kemal does not prohibit the port of the Hijab, fearing a civil war, but its port is strongly disadvised. It also prohibits the musics and the Eastern dances. And starting from 1934, the radio emits nothing any more but Western rates/rhythms. It supports the development of an Occidental culture and invests with the opera, the ballet and the classical music.
After the abolition of the Caliphate, it makes come to Turkey a college from Western lawyers. It adopts on their councils the German commercial code, the Italian penal code, and the Swiss civil code, with certain modifications or adaptations. The Polygamie is prohibited, the men and the women become equal in rights, and the citizens Turkish become in front of the law as free as a Swiss citizen.
In 1926, the Moslem Calendrier is replaced by the Gregorian Calendrier.
In 1928, the government issues that the Arabic alphabet will be replaced by the Latin alphabet. The change of alphabet was to take several years according to the councils of the linguists and academics, but Mustafa Kemal decides that the change will be done in three months or will never be done. All the 6 years old Turks to 40 years must thus turn over to the school to learn the new alphabet. This colossal change is the symbol of the will to leave the cultural sphere arabo-Moslem woman replaced then by the Occidental culture.
The elementary school becomes obligatory, and of new schools are open in all the country. The school becomes mixed, republican and laic according to the French model of Jules Ferry. The schooling of the girls is fixed like a national priority.
In 1934, it promulgates a law obliging the Turks to obtain a family name. The Grande National Assembly of Turkey gives him on this occasion the name of Atatürk or Turkish father .
Seeking to limit the influence of the Islam on the political establishments and cultural Turkish, it decides to remove the Califat the March 3rd 1924, person in charge in his eyes of the deceleration of the development of Turkey. It adopts the system of the French secularity; the religion is not disputed, but it is limited to the strictly private sphere.
The Kurdish question
Following the Laicization and with the occidentalization of the country imposed by Mustafa Kemal, the problems of the religious minorities and cultural are posed, in particular that of the Kurdish community. The wish of the government kemalist is to have homogeneous Turkey ethniquement and religieusement. Mustafa Kemal sees the addition of various nationalities in Turkey like a weakness, of which could serve Europeans and in particular the British to divide and destroy Turkey.
The Kurds are Moslem, without being Sémite S. They are thus not Arab populations, this is why Turkey affirms that they are “populations authentically Turkish”. The will is thus to compare them to the majority group.
Nevertheless, the Kurds have nationalist and separatist claims, and their language belongs in fact to the group of the Indo-European Langues (Iranian family). The problem still becomes more and more complex by the Turkish claims on the vilayets of Mosul and Kirkuk, two areas of Iraq rich in oil and where a majority of Kurds and Turkmènes live.
The latter are in a state of permanent insurrection as of 1921. Within the framework of the Kurdish assimilation, the government of Kemal votes in 1924 a law which prohibits the use of Kurdish in the written publications and the schools. A great Kurdish revolt carried out by the Sheik Saïd bursts then. The Kurdish tribes attack Elazığ, Maras and Bitlis and openly support the old mode of the Sultan (which had signed the Traité of Sevres which guaranteed Kurdish autonomy) against the Republic. The revolt is supported by Islamic secret societies and large newspapers. On their side, to prevent the fastening of Mosul and Kirkuk in Turkey, the the United Kingdom encourages the Kurdish rebels with the revolt and provides them weapons and subsidies.
Mustafa Kemal decides to send nine divisions in Anatolia, by giving the order to its soldiers to repress the insurrectionists. It creates courts known as of independence and courses martial imprison all the Kurds found guilty of “attack to the interior safety of the State”. Forty six leaders are hung on the great place of Diyarbakir. The goal of the government of Ankara east to make them examples and to dissuade the Kurds with the revolt. It consequently decides occasion to remove turbés and the dervicheries, the sects nuns, the convents and the confraternities which it shows of support towards the Kurdish nationalists. The revolt is subdued but Turkey ends up recognizing the authority of Iraq on Mosul in June 1926.
In 1930 the revolt bursts again and the Turkish army mobilizes nearly 70.000 men and 100 planes to subdue the rebellion. In 1932, the martial law is issued on the Kurdish territory, the deportation and the dispersion of part of its population in Anatolia Eastern is organized. The June 14th 1934 a law known as “a Law n°2510” promulgates inter alia displacements of populations for the assimilation of the Kurdish population. The Kurdish population opposes it and other revolts will burst in 1937 - 1938 which will extend to Iraqi Kurdistan.
At the time of a speech held on November 1st 1936, Mustafa Kemal recognizes that the Kurdish problem is one of the most serious interior problems of Turkey
Private life
Mustafa Kemal knows the French, the English and the German and is impassioned by the French revolution and the ideas of the Lumières. It is partly on these principles that was built the Turkish Republic.
During its youth, Kemal has a very free lifestyle. During its permissions, it is able to him to go in the famous European districts for their theaters, their bars and their closed houses. At the end of its military studies, it passes its life to the face, it then shares its life between Turkish or foreign mistresses. It meets a young person Bulgare, Dimitrina, with which it plans to marry. His father being the minister of a potentially enemy country, he prefers to stop the relation.
During the war of liberation, he attends Fikriye, a remote cousin who Suicide a few years later by learning the marriage from Kemal with Latifé.
The January 29th 1923, it marries Latifé Uşaklıgil which accompanies it in its rounds in the country. This marriage lasts until the August 5th 1925.
He then marries an ideal, he sees in his Latifé wife the model of the Turkish woman. He adopts seven girls, all adults, the historian Afet İnan, the first fighter pilot woman in the world Sabiha Gökçen, Ülkü Adatepe, Nebile, Rukiye, and Zehra. For the Historian French Alexandre Jevakhoff, this choice fell under a political kind of marketing , his daughters who occupied of the prestigious stations were to give to the world a modern and émancipée vision of the Turkish woman, and were in addition to encourage the Turkish women to follow this way. He also adopts a young boy, Mustafa and he takes under his protection two boys, Abdurrahim and İhsan.
Heritage
More than Mustafa Kemal itself, it is its successor İsmet İnönü, who strongly encouraged a worship of the personality postmortem, a worship which survived so far: the portrait of Atatürk is everywhere, in all the offices of the public administration, the classes, on all banknotes and in the houses of much of Turkish families which regard it as a national hero.Many places bear its name like the international airport of Istanbul or the Olympic stadium Atatürk in this same city.
One or more statues of Atatürk are in the majority of the towns of Turkey. The first statue set up with its name goes back to 1926 and is in Sarayburnu in the town of Istanbul. Each schoolyard in Turkey has a bust of Ataturk.
And, single case in the world, every year at the exact time of its death, i.e. on November 10th with 9:05, the sirens resound through all the country, two minutes of silence are observed, the audiovisiuelle diffusion is stopped during these two minutes. The flags are put in Bern for this day. Previously, the manifestation of mourning was marked, the newspapers had titles black, the cinemas, the restaurants remained closed this day. These practices were abandoned in 1989, to rather stress the commemoration than mourning.
The vast majority of the political parties claim heritage kemalist, however the pushes extremists are quickly tempted to dispute the myth founder: in this direction this one constitutes a historical rampart which proved to be effective against the drifts extremists.
Object of a worship of the certainly single personality in a democracy, Atatürk set up a modern system for the years 1930, but which completely solidified thereafter in memory of the “eternal chief”. In parallel, the State kemalist carried out a Moslem country of 70 million inhabitants towards the democracy and stability, which is rare in this area of the world; he also fought successfully for the secularity and against the too significant development of the movements islamistes. For Alexandre Adler, Atatürk had one goal: The rise in the country towards the European democracy and prosperity, where the French culture and the German precision were going to play the same part as at one time the metaphysical depth and splendor imagière of Iran.
The course of Kemal has this of singular which it is pressed largely on the army like instrument with the service of higher objectives: secularity, democracy, political stability, place of the woman in the company… Its example deeply will influence the culture of the Turkish army which will intervene on several occasions during the periods of political instabilities for finally restoring the capacity at the institutions once the crisis passed, whereas in other circumstances of the dictators would have settled.
In the world, Atatürk influenced many Head of State and nationalist leaders.
With the Morocco the independence revolution of Abdelkrim (first war of decolonization of the 20th century) had proceeded during the same time as the revolution kemalist. Abdelkrim thus followed with interest the evolutions to Turkey and took as a starting point certain ideas kemalists to direct transitory the République of Rif (1920-1926). Later the nationalists of left such Abderrahim Bouabid and Mehdi Ben Barka and the party of the independence and the democracy of Mohamed Hassan El Ouazzani will take the kemalism like example to draw up a society project for Maroc. The president Tunisia N Bourguiba did not hide his admiration for the kemalism and the reforms which it installation in Tunisia are comparable with the reforms kémalistes. The Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, and the Head of Afghan State , Mohammed Zaher Shah, directly took as a starting point the Kémalisme to carry out reforms in their country.
Mustafa Kemal also had influence on nationalist chiefs, as on the nationalist Algérie N Messali Hadj who said: The first military prowesses of Mustapha Kemal Pasha had on the Islamic world a great resonance, a deep comfort and immense a encouragement.
The combatant of FLN Ferhat Abbas also took as a starting point the work of Mustafa Kemal to write proclamation of the February 12th 1943. He had taken besides for pseudonym the name of Kemal Abencérage .
He was used as model also with Husni Al-Zaim in Syria.
The Indian freedom fighter Jawaharlal Nehru also admired Mustafa Kemal: Kemal Atatürk was my hero in my youth. At the time, we dealt with our own movement of independence. (…) I will never forget the moment of joy and the manner of which we celebrated in prison the great victory that it had gained. (…) It is one of the large manufacturers of the modern time in the East. I continue to be one of his large admirors.
Mustafa Kemal in a general way encouraged the people of the Tiers-monde to take their independence and to be caught in hand.
References
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