Text 6. Atatürk

It won’t take you long to discover the national hero, Kemal Ataturk. Though he died on 10 November 1938, his image is everywhere in Turkey - his picture is in every schoolroom, office and shop a bust or statue is in every park, and quotations from his speeches and writings are on every publie building. He is virtually synonymous with the Turkish Republic.

Lord Kinross’ best-selling biography of Atatürk portrays a man of great intelligence and even greater energy and daring, possessed by the idea of giving his fellow Turks and their homeland a new lease of life. In contrast to many leaders, he had the capability and opportunity to realise his obsession almost single-handedly. His achievement in turning a backward empire into a forward-looking nation-state was extraordinary, and was taken as a model by President Nasser of Egypt, Reza Shah of Iran and other leaders of neighbouring countries.

In 1881, a boy named Mustafa was born into the family of a minor Turkish bureaucrat living in Salonika, now the Greek city of Thessaloniki, but at that time a city in Ottoman Macedonia. Mustafa was smart and a hard worker at school. His mathematics teacher was so impressed that he gave him the nickname Kemal (excellence). The name Mustafa Kemal stuck with him as he went through a military academy in Harbiye, the Ottoman war college, and his career as an infantry officer.

He served with distinction, particularly in the Tripolitanian War (1911) when Italy seized Ottoman Libya, though he acquired a reputation as something of a hothead. By 1915 he was a promising lieutenant colonel of infantry in command of the 57th Regiment, one of many units posted to the Gallipoli Peninsula. The defence of Gallipoli, which saved Constantinople from British conquest (until the end of the war, at least), was a personal triumph for Mustafa Kemal. His strategic and tactical genius came into full play when circumstances put him at the heart of the battle and he correctly divined the enemy’s strategy. He led with utter disregard for his own safety, inspiring his men with his heroism. A superior force of British, Australian, New Zealand and French armies and navies was fought to a standstill and finally forced to withdraw, and Mustafa Kemal became a popular hero.

Though he was promoted to the rank of paşa (general), the sultan and government were afraid of his brilliance and popularity, and sought to keep this ‘dangerous element’ in Constantinople under their control. When the war was lost and the empire was on the verge of being dismembered, Mustafa Kemal Paşa had himself posted to Anatolia as Inspector-General of the defeated Ottoman armies - the perfect post from which to begin his revolution.

On 19 May 1919, four days after a Greek army of invasion landed at Izmir, Mustafa Kemal Paşa landed at the port of Samsun. He reorganised the defeated Ottoman armies, and convened congresses to focus the will and energies of the people. His democratically established revolutionary government at Ankara held off several invading armies (French, Italian and Greek) with very limited resources. Several times the whole tenuous effort neared collapse, and many of his friends and advisers were ready to flee Ankara for their lives. Kemal never flinched, always ready to dare the worst - and he succeeded brilliantly.

Many great revolutionary leaders falter or fade when the revolution is won. Ataturk lived 15 years into the republican era, and directed the country’s progress with skill and foresight. The forward-looking, Westernised, secular, democratic nation-state you see today is his legacy, and his memory is truly sacred to the majority of Turks.