Rice University Turkish Student Association
> ATATÜRK's ADDRESS TO THE TURKISH YOUTH
ATATURK DIES AT 58; TURKS WILL ELECT A SUCCESSOR TODAY
National Assembly Expected to Name Gen. Inonu, Former Premier, as President
NATION GOES IN MOURNING
Peaceful Transition to New Era Seen---Unity is Stressed Under Ideal of Founder
Wireless to New York Times.
ISTANBUL, Turkey, Nov. 10- Kemal Ataturk, President and creator of modern
Turkey, died today at Dolma Baghche Palace at the age of 58. He had survived
thirteen wounds received in battle and a number of assassination attempts,
but succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver.
It is expected that General Ismet Inonu, former Premier and President Ataturk’s
comrade-in-arms, will be chosen tomorrow morning by the Republican People’s
party to succeed the dictator-soldier, hero of the reborn nation.
The bulletin announcing the death of Ataturk and signed by eight doctors
read:
“The President’s general condition, the gravity of which was
announced in a bulletin published last night, grew steadily worse. On Nov.
10, 1938, at 9:05 A.M., our great chief, in a deep coma, breathed his last.”
Three minutes after his death Salih Bozuk, former aide and one of the President’s
closest friends, unsuccessfully attempted suicide by shooting. He was seriously
wounded.
Premier Stays at Bedside
Throughout the night Ali Fethi Okyar, Ambassador to London Ataturk’s
sister and his adopted daughter Sabihi Gueukschehn Honoum, the latter a
famous airwoman, remained near the bedside. The first indication of the
President’s death came at 11:30 A.M. when it was noticed that the
flags on government buildings were at half-staff. Soon the flags of ships
in the harbor were at half-mast, and gradually all shops and houses exhibited
similar signs of mourning.
Later, however, the authorities requested the withdrawal of flags except
those on government buildings. Although the flags at half staff the appearance
of so much color gave the impression that Istanbul was on fete. All places
of public entertainment were closed and no intoxicants will be sold in Turkey
until further notice.
The government’s communiqué issued this morning states:
“By Ataturk’s death Turkey has lost her great creator, a nation
its great Chief and humanity a great son. We offer our people deepest condolences
in their great loss. Our only consolation in our affliction is our attachment
to his great work and our service to our dear country. We declare that before
all things his immortal work is the Turkish Republic.
“Your government is at its post at this grave time through which we
are passing. The great Turkish nation will, without doubt, work as one body
with the government to preserve order.
“In accordance with the Consti- (continued on page eighteen) tution
Abdullah Haik Renda, president of the Kamutay [National Assembly] has assumed
the interim Presidency of the republic and the Kamutay will proceed forthwith
with the election of a new President of the republic. The government, the
glorious Turkish Army with all its might and the whole people, which form
an unshakable entity, will gather around whoever is elected to fulfill the
highest office in Turkey and to maintain her greatness.
“Ataturk, whom we mourn today and always, had the confidence of the
Turkish people. The continuation of his work he bequeathed to the Turkish
nation. The Turkish people, which is eternal, will make it live eternally.
Turkish youth will always defend the Turkish republic, its precious legacy,
and will march alone the path Ataturk traced. Kemal Ataturk will live always.”
Beside General Inonu, Marshal Fevzi Cakmak, Chief of Staff, and Mr. Okyar
also are in the running for the Presidency.
The Marshal, as Chief of Staff, holds a position of great authority in the
new Turkey and he is universally respected as the father of the army. However,
he is essentially a soldier and he is known to be reluctant to play a political
role. It is said that before President Ataturk became seriously ill he asked
the Marshal whether he would stand for the Presidency if Ataturk resigned.
The suggestion was declined.
Mr. Okyar, once Prime Minister of Turkey and lately Ambassador to London
and an experienced diplomat, has been Ataturk’s most intimate friend.
Since the suppression in 1930 of the short-lived Liberal party, of which
he was a leader, he never joined the Republican People’s party and
it seems unlikely that the Kamutay, composed almost entirely of adherents
of the party the principals of which were lately embodied in the Constitution,
would elect a non-party man President.
Moreover, neither Marshal Chakmak nor Mr. Okyar is a member of the Kamutay,
from which a president is elected.
Inonu Is Likely Choice
Its seems, therefore, that the choice will fall on General Inonu. For many
years he was a close collaborator and lieutenant of President Ataturk and
until twelve months ago he had been Prime Minister continuously for twelve
years. No man in Turkey possesses his experience, and that is perhaps more
important than his popularity, which for long has been second only to Ataturk’s.
Much has been said about their estrangement last year when General Inonu
resigned the Premiership, but in light of subsequent events it now seems
clear that it was the result chiefly of temporary mutual irritation. President
Ataturk was a sick man and General Inonu was suffering from the strain of
the long, arduous years in office.
Ever since it was agreed between them that in the interest of the country
the partnership should be dissolved, the general deliberately kept in the
background, but the Turkish people, with the possible exception of a few
private enemies, continued to regard him as the natural successor to his
former chief.
Even if none of three is elected to the Presidency and the Kamutay decides
to choose another who has not played a prominent part in the life of the
republic, the loyal cooperation that is now manifesting itself between Marshal
Chakmak, Mr. Okyar and General Inonu, toward Jelal Bayar, the present Prime
Minister, should be sufficient to guarantee a peaceful transition to the
new era.
Change in Policy Unlikely
ISTANBUL, Nov. 10 (AP). – There were unconfirmed reports today that
Kemal Ataturk had left a political testament to guide his successor in his
own rigid doctrine of westernization and nationalism.
No one expected Turkey’s new leadership to turn in the immediate future
from the domestic and foreign balance that Ataturk achieved for his nation,
strategically situated between the East and the West.
Before Ataturk became gravely ill in mid-October he was borrowing money
for Turkey with little discrimination from both Britain and Germany, although
his early struggle for power was tinged with bitter hatred for the influence
of both.
The British and German Foreign Offices were known to have keen interest
in his successor and the future course of Turkey.
KEMAL ATATURK
Ataturk, a Military Hero, Formed surging Nation
He was called simply Mustafa when he was born in Salonika in 1880, the son
of a Turkish custom’s officer. His mathematic’s teacher at military
preparatory school added Kemal, meaning “rightness,” to his
name.
When he fought his way to leadership of the Turks, the title of Pasha was
added. Most of his historic record was made as Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
In 1934, when he had so modernized Turkey that titles were abolished and
he was able to decree that all Turks must thereafter have family names,
he chose for himself the family name of Ataturk, which is translated as
“Chief Turk” or “Father of All Turks.” Thenceforth
he was known as Kemal Ataturk.
His death comes as a blow to a nation of 14,000,000 people, although he
reformed their social customs, their religion and their economics with dictatorial
zeal and speed.
Out of the remains of the defeated and dismembered Ottoman Empire, he formed
in 1923 a republic, which he armed and industrialized and made into a powerful
nation. He repossessed the Dardanelles in 1936, conciliated the Greeks and
steered a course between East and West in a manner that made Soviet Russia,
Britain and Germany in turn glad to cultivate Turkey’s friendship
and lend her millions of further development.
Women Admitted to Parliament
In twelve years of reform women in Turkey were transported from the harem
and the veil to membership in Parliament, to which seventeen women were
admitted in 1935. President Ataturk even gave women the right to serve in
the army, but said they would never be sent to the front because they were
too precious to the nation.
In another phase of reform, he stripped Mohammedan priests of their privileges
and made Sunday instead of Friday the day of rest to conform with western
usage. He devoted himself to the development of an army and navy with which
to assure the Turkish position in dealing with the Western powers. By this
year he had a modernized army of almost 500,000 men and was spending $70,000,000
of Turkey’s annual budget of $210,000,000 to expand the national defense
. He announced a five-year plan intended to bring Turkey’s air force
up to 1,000 of the latest military planes. He ordered twenty-five submarines
and planned to equip Turkey to manufacture arms and war materials within
her own boundaries.
Turkey’s control of the Dardanelles had already made her one of the
most important powers in the Mediterranean, and she was prepared to defend
her position instead of being a pawn of stronger European nations as in
the past.
Straits Pact Repudiated
She had gained this position finally when Ataturk decided that Turkey’s
new national stature justified the repudiation of the last remaining restriction
on her sovereignty---the Straits convention of 1923, which forbade her to
fortify the Dardanelles.
The President declared his belief and assembled his troops. The powers interested
in the Straits convention said it was a “grave move,” but a
hurriedly summoned conference in 1936 at Montreux, Switzerland, gave Turkey
the Straits once more.
Ataturk was instrumental in the formation of the Balkan Entente, with Turkey,
Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia, and thereafter in 1937 he formed the Moslem,
or Middle-East bloc, with Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Early in 1937 Ataturk grew impatient with long-drawn-out negotiations with
France over the Syrian mandate, which France was about to relinquish by
recognizing Syria as a republic. The Turks wanted Alexandretta, containing
Antioch and an important corner of the Eastern Mediterranian shore leading
to the Mosul oil fields.
The Turks had their way. Alexandretta was made an autonomous State last
July, under Franco-Turkish administration and defense forces, with the understanding
that the French would eventually withdraw, leaving it to the Turks.
Policy Based on Expediency
The course of Turkey’s international relations was steered by Ataturk
on an apparent chart of expediency, based on the position that Turkey occupies
as a strong power astride the Dardanelles, separating Russia from the Mediterranian,
facing Germany on the historic route to Baghdad and balancing Italy’s
growth along Britain’s “life-line” to the East.
Russia was the first to help Turkey to power. In the post-war settlement
the Soviet opposed in vain the partition of Turkey. And when Kemal, not
yet Ataturk, later undertook to drive out the Allies Russia supplied arms,
materials and funds that contributed greatly to the final crushing of the
Greeks in 1922.
The Soviet thereafter enjoyed a position of preferred friendship in Turkey,
but this cooled about ten years later when it became evident that the Turkish
dictator was willing to have other friends also.
Britain and France were eager to oblige the Turks. Last July, when Russia
held aloof, Britain lent Turkey $80,000,000, mostly for arms.
Germany, meanwhile, was courting Turkey. So was Italy, Ataturk could not
readily forget, however, that the downfall of the Ottoman empire had resulted
from siding with Germany in the World War and that Turkey had been among
the Entente powers that Italy had deserted to side with the Allies.
Germany came bearing gifts, however. She offered a commercial treaty. And
she offered a huge credits under which she would undertake to construct
docks for Turkey along the Bosporus, deliver a fleet of coastwise steamers
and build a variety of factories. Ataturk announced a five-year plan of
industrialization.
Moreover, as the Czechoslovak crisis developed he suffered disillusionment
in his belief that Britain was the strongest power in the world. Turkey
concluded a commercial treaty with Germany, accepted a loan of 150,000,000
marks and proceeded to become Germany’s greatest foreign market. She
is currently buying goods and services from Germany at a yearly rate of
about $130,000,000, while selling to Germany at a yearly rate of $80,000,000.
It became evident to the world that Ataturk had brought Turkey to the receiving
end of several competing international axes and to the profit position in
the adjoining nationality blocs.
Scorned Doctors’ Advice
During a quarter of a century of war, intrigue and the dictation of sweeping
reforms, however, Ataturk had habitually disregarded all doctors’
orders to take better care of his powerful physique.
Although he was stern and strict in his official life, he was known to be
convivial and carefree in his social life. He frequently danced and drank
all night, or played poker (with great success) all night, smoking incessantly
the while. Then he slept twenty-four hours without interruption.
A French liver specialist ordered a complete rest for him early this year,
but he disdained it. His people heard of this and raised such a clamor that
Turkey bought him a luxurious yacht from Richard M. Cadwaladen an American.
It had gold-plated bathroom fitting and gold door knobs. On it he caught
a chill last summer while entertaining King Carol of Rumania. He never completely
recovered.
Almost to the day of death Ataturk struggled to disestablish the ancient
methods of Turkish thought. When the medical profession of Turkey, which
he had reorganized on modern scientific lines, wished to express appreciation
of what he had done for public health, the best medical thought decided
to present a solid gold bath-tub, eight feet long, five feet wide and four
feet deep.
The best Turkish doctors thought it was the only thing fitted for the Ghazi—the
Conqueror. Ataturk ordered it melted down and the proceeds expended on bettering
the public health.
Had a Food Taster
Yet Ataturk could not escape being a traditional Turk in one respect; he
had an official food taster. He was served by Mohammed Mouhi, who was paid
$15,000 a year for about twenty minutes’ work a day.
Mohamme d’s duty was to taste well of all food and drink intended
for Ataturk. Thereafter the meal was kept in a hot table for an hour. If
Mohammed did not die by that time the dictator ate and drank.
Ataturk presided over a republic about as large as California and New Mexico
combined. Although he rose to power because of his military ability, a career
for which his early education destined him, his post-war activities were
those of a progressive and energetic administrator.
Emil Ludwig, the German biographer once called him “a man compared
with whom Napoleon was half a dreamer.” An outstanding fact about
the dictator’s extraordinary career was his consistency and his patience,
his courage and his silence. It was he who won the peace of Lausanne--the
first time for 200 years that old Asia achieved a victory over Europe.
He was a revolutionary officer who in his Salonika days had began to oppose
the committee of Young Turks; a man for whom no measure of reform was adequate,
who found the policy of Talaat and Enver superficial, and the alliance with
Germany fatal; the man who made no capital out of the military reputation
he earned at Gallipoli, who twice withdraw from public life, who with threats
warned the last Sultan to turn over a new leaf, and who after the war, contrived
to defeat him and the people in power in Constantinople, and who was warned,
recalled, deposed and sentenced to death by the then Turkish Government.
Having in his command 20,000 war-worn soldiers, he entered upon the conflict
with the great powers of Europe, and then, for four whole years, surrounded
by foes without and within, waited until he had overthrown the Sultan, abolished
the Caliphate, set free the essential part of Turkey from the ruins of the
old empire, saved it and reestablished it as a republic. By these achievements
he proved himself a great military leader and statesman.
The President’s moustache and fez, prominent features in his portraits
at the time when he rose to power, were given up after he had established
himself. His medium sized, slight figure was clad in elegant civil dress.
His hair was bright and blond. His furrowed countenance indicated what he
had gone through. He lived, as the first citizen of his country, in a villa
situated among the hills outside the new capital that he had founded. He
had built it in that Turkish style that dates from the period when French
tastes prevailed. Almost unguarded its doors were left open in true Oriental
fashion.
Dates in His Career
The historical dates of the Ghazi’s career after the World War are:
On May 16, 1919, the Greeks landed at Smyrna. On June 21 the future dictator
called the assembly of a congress of patriots. The Sultan dismissed him
from the army service on July 8th. Two weeks later the Ghazi presided at
the Congress of Erzerum, which resolved that “with one accord the
entire East will resist the occupation and the interference of the foreigner.”
On Sept. 4 he was elected chairman of a second congress at Sivas, which
resolved “to fight for Turkish integrity.” In October national
elections were forced by him, and these resulted in the defeat of the Sultan’s
government. British troops, in March, 1920, took possession of Constantinople,
now Istanbul, and in April he was outlawed and condemned to death by the
Sultan.
Shortly afterward the Turkish National Assembly met, elected the Ghazi President
and adopted the national pact, the Magna Charta of New Turkey. In May the
Sultan sent a “Caliph’s army” toward Angora to destroy
the nationalist forces. This army was driven back into Constantinople by
the Ghazi.
When the Greeks began their invasion of Asiatic Turkey in June, 1920, he
organized an army of defense. On Aug. 10 the Treaty of Sevres partitioned
the Ottoman Empire and divided it among the European powers.
The Ghazi stopped the Greek army at Sakaria on Sept. 13, 1921. At the battle
of Dumla Puvar, on Aug. 26 1922, he issued an order to his troops, “Soldiers,
your goal is the Mediterranian! On to it!” A few days later he drove
the Greek army into the sea. He advanced upon Constantinople and the Dardanelles,
and on Oct. 11, 1922, authorized the signing of the armistice treaty with
the Allies at Mudovia, which, in effect, was an other diplomatic victory
for Turkey.
On Nov.1, 1922, the Ghazi abolished the Sultanate, and on Nov. 17 the Sultan
fled from Turkey on a British warship. Three days later the peace conference
opened at Lausanne. Ably represented and supported by his brilliant colleague
Ismet Pasha, the Ghazi won his great diplomatic victory and on Oct.29, 1923,
was elected first President of the Turkish Republic.
Ataturk was born when Abdul Hamid II was Sultan. He was an only son and
he was intended by his mother for the mosque school, but he became fascinated
by the uniforms of the army officers and was sent to the military preparatory
school at Salonika.
Plotted Against Sultan
After attending the military preparatory school at Salonika, the officers’
school at Monastir and the War Academy at Constantinople, Kemal, then a
head strong youth of 22, entered the army in 1902 with the rank of lieutenant.
Through forbidden literature he became acquainted with Western ideas of
government, which soon led to his hatred of Abdul Hamid, whom he bitterly
opposed. In a small apartment in the Stamboul section of Constantinople
he founded the secret Society of Liberty. As a result he was arrested and
after three months’ confinement in a cell at the ministry of police,
was exiled, being sent to Damascus to join a cavalry regiment. There he
founded local branches of his society, but, being too isolated, fled to
Alexandria and finally reached Salonika by way of Piraeus in Greece.
When his secret activities were again discovered, he flew to Akaba and stayed
for a while in Syria. He obtained a transfer to the Third Army’s staff
at Salonika, merged the Society of Liberty into the Society of Progress
and entrenched his forces in Salonika, Monastir and Uskup. The revolution
of the Young Turks in 1908 failed, but the Sultan lost his absolute regime
in the counter-revolution of 1909. A quarrel between Kemal and Enver Pasha,
whose rule succeeded that of Abdul Hamid, followed, and Kemal withdrew from
politics in bitter disillusionment.
During the following years he led the life of the average Turkish army officer.
He was exiled by Enver to Tripoli, returned to Salonika, was transferred
to Albania, and again sent to Salonika. Hated by Enver, he was military
attaché at Sofia, Bulgaria, when Turkey joined Germany in 1914 in
a last desperate gamble for the life of the empire. Kemal, convinced from
the first that the empire was in no condition to enter the war, received
command of the Nineteenth Division and was dispatched to the Dardanelles.
He soon commanded all the Turco-German forces on the peninsula, and his
success in throwing back the British before Anaforta was the most brilliant
achievement of his military career.
This victory made him a great hero in Germany, but it was not until its
story was told in the Committee Year Book for 1917 that Enver permitted
it to leak out in Constantinople. Two years later the Turkish papers began
printing the story of Anaforta, and Enver caused the entire issues to be
confiscated. By that time it had become politically dangerous to mention
Kemal’s name in the capital.
Alarmed at Kemal’s popularity, Liman von Sanders, the German generalissimo,
transferred him to the Russian front after the British had evacuated the
Dardanelles. He was appointed major general, in command of the Sixteenth
Army, but he came into conflict with Falkenhayn, threw up his command in
protest, and returned to Aleppo, where he dispatched to Enver a remarkable
statement, outlining the entire political situation at a moment when a German
victory was expected. Pointing out Falkenhayn’s position, he warned:
“We shall lose our own country and Falkenhayn will sacrifice every
ounce of gold and every soldier he can squeeze out of us.”
Exiled to Germany
Enver’ reply to this warning was to give Falkenhayn command of the
Palestine front and to exile Kemal to Germany. For the next year he was
on the German and Austro-Hungarian front. Then Enver recalled him and gave
him the Yilderim command (Fourth, Seventh and Eighth Armies) on the Palestine
front. But it was too late. Kemal reached his post just as Allenby’s
great break-through brought the empire crashing down to its end.
It was figuratively the end of the world for Kemal. He returned to Constantinople,
which had fallen into disorder. The members of his revolutionary committee
had fled, and Damad Ferid Pasha was to succeed Talaat and Enver. Turkey
was virtually surrounded by her enemies, the Allies forming an iron ring
around the remnants of the old empire. Under the terms of the Mudros armistice,
the Turkish Navy was interned at Constantinople and the army disarmed. With
the Allies in occupation of the capital, Kemal knew that further attempts
were useless. He fled to Asia Minor. When he ignored Ferid’s demand
to return, the latter dismissed him from the army.
In the following struggle between Kemal and Ferid, Kemal was the final victor.
The Anglo-Hellenic rapprochement sent whole provinces in Asia Minor scurrying
to Kemal, with the result that this part was lost to Ferid. With the Greek
occupation of Smyrna in 1919, which led Kemal to tear up Mudros armistice,
the star of the Ghazi began to rise, and,after his strategic victories,
reached its climax with his diplomatic victory at Lausanne and his election
as first President of the Turkish Republic.
Kemal Ataturk, the “most terrible of all the terrible Turks,”
as he was termed by Earl Balfour, who described him as a brigand, was always
a man who insisted on having his own ideas accepted.
The new Turkey got rid of her Sultans in 1922 but she did not then dare
abolish the Caliphate. The abolition of the Caliphate was the first step
of importance in the life of the new republic. The next was the reform of
the laws. This was achieved in the space of only a few weeks. The Swiss
Civil Code was almost literally translated, and the best points of the Italian
Penal Code were accepted. Thus the Ghazi, by imposing his will upon the
nation, had altered within three months the entire judiciary.
He ordered the first census ever to be held on Turkish territory. Although
this was not a reform in itself, it led to reforms of vast importance which
gave the country and the world a definite idea of Turkey’s importance
in Near Eastern affairs. The President also made the Turkish language obligatory
as the official language, and ordered that it be written in Roman instead
of Arabic characters. Capitulations (foreign privileges) were abolished.
The Gregorian calendar was substituted for the Islamic, and the feast of
the Ramazan was fixed by astronomical observation. In every direction Islamic
precedence and prohibitions were broken and violated.
Changed the Old Order
In its special aspects the revolution attempted to model the customs of
the State upon Western fashions. The old order was changed. The traditional
fez was abandoned and the Turkish women gave up their veils. Harems, survival
of Byzantium, were forbidden, monogamy became the law and men and women
received equal rights in the matter of divorce. In 1923 Angora, in the heart
of Anatolia, became officially the capital, as a result of a decree by the
President. He spent money freely to build it and developed a modern city.
He started with Angora as an unkempt little Anatolian village with narrow
streets and mud-brick houses, where the only big event was a weekly market
for the peasants.
According to a German architectural plan by Herman Jansen, the new capital
was laid out in detached sections over an immense site. From a central citadel,
broad paved avenues radiated, imperiously breaking the natural lines of
a hilly plain.
These avenues were lined with handsome edifices in broad arches and tiles—schools,
lyceums, hospitals, dwellings, factories, laboratories. Automobile traffic
moves swiftly in Angora, where camel caravans used to plod within the memory
of many of the inhabitants. The streets are lighted by electricity. A telephone
exchange and a powerful wireless station were in operation in Angora by
1925.
A typical act in the Ghazi’s endeavor to reform the country was the
changing of the name of Constantinople to the old Turkish title Istanbul.
This removed a historic reminder of the days when Occidentals ruled on the
Bosporus. It served also to bolster Turkish nationalistic feeling.
After the Ottoman dynasty, which for six centuries had been in power in
the empire, had became mere history, Article II of the constitution of the
Turkish Republic declared that “The religion of the Turkish State
is Islam.” This article had to be removed as the final step in Ataturk’s
endeavor to separate the church from the State. In 1928 the National Assembly
struck out the article and provided that government servants should no longer
swear by Allah in taking the oath of office, but should simply swear on
their honor. Finally, an official translation of the Koran was made.
The President married in January in 1923, Latife Hanim, daughter of a wealthy
Turkish merchant of Smyrna. It was reported that his bride brought him a
dowry of 1,000,000Turkish lire. The Ghazi divorced his wife in 1925 by the
simple old procedure of saying in the presence of witnesses, “I divorce
you.”