Remember! Remember the 5th November Gunpowder, treason and plot. Do not forget 10th November either, Atatürk Memorial Day! Or 11th November! Armistice Day. On a personal note 12th November marks the passing of my father, Cdr Stanley Davies DSC** in 1960.
That’s a lot of November remembering. I have not got enough memory left.
What was I saying?
Oh yes! November. I was born in November. On 10th, which gives me a small but important-to-me bond with Atatürk, about whom I want to bore you this week.
Atatürk (from Ata father), the founder of modern Turkey, was a soldier statesman of genius. As a commander at Gallipoli his tactics and sheer courage inspired his troops to ultimate victory. His eve of battle speech is a slightly disconcerting example
“I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places”
Few survived. His own Hour nearly came (excuse the pun. I cannot help myself) when the pocket watch in his breast pocket deflected a chunk of shrapnel. If not for this piece of luck where would Turkey or indeed the world be today?
The Turks won at Gallipoli but ultimately lost the war. In 1918 the Ottoman empire was carved up between the victors. The capital, Constantinople, was jointly administered by the British, French and other allies. Atatürk, defying the defeated Sultan, left to start a rebel government in exile in Ankara. From there he led a four year fightback on all fronts, throwing the Greeks from Smyrna (now Izmir) and winning back all Turkish lands at the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1922. Turkey in return gave up its claim to the Ottoman empire.
Atatürk sent the Sultan in to exile and in 1923 declared the beginning of the Turkish Republic (Türkiye Cuhüriyeti or TC).
So Atatürk the soldier gave way to Atatürk the statesman.
“The centuries rarely produce a genius. Look at this bad luck of ours that the great genius of our era was granted to the Turkish nation.”
– Lloyd George British Prime Minister 1916-22
His ideals were modern, based on democracy, science and the emancipation of women. But he was a very human hero. Atay, a famous republican journalist of the time, observed that Ataturk went against his natural inclinations in championing the emancipation of women as his ‘taste was towards the harem’.
His reform of the language adopting, where possible, Latin characters was one of his major and abiding works. His willingness to take up a blackboard and teach the new alphabet in village squares earned him the sobriquet (I love a big word) Başöğretmen or First Teacher.
Atatürk could be ruthless when the pursuit of his revolutionary agenda demanded it. He had 13 people executed in Erzurum for rioting in opposition to the law banning the wearing of the Fez. For more on this read Jeremy Seale’s A Fez of the Heart (a worse pun than any I have ever made). Apologies if this is all old hat to you.
Mustaf Kemal in his own words (my selection)
“I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap.”
“Unless a nation’s life faces peril, war is murder”
“Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women.”
“If one day, my words are against science, choose science.”
“I am mortal. I want the nation to get used to freedom before I die.”
Mustafa Kemal held absolute power but used it in the service of what he saw as the greater good. He never enriched himself and left all his possessions to the party he had founded, the Republican party. “I am my own policeman” as he himself put it.
My favourite Atatürk story is probably apocryphal, but it captures his acerbic wit. When a political opponent complained that Turkey was ruled by two drunks (the second being Atatürk’s deputy, and Prime Minister, Ismet Inönü), Atatürk riposted
“That is a lie. Turkey is ruled by one drunk.”
Serefe!
May the force of his ideas and the strength of his light continue to guide the Republic and illuminate Turkey’s darkest corners.
“Democracy Dies in Darkness” Washington Post