The Great Leader Series No. 5 - Atatürk

If you have ever been to Ankara, capital of Turkey and seen his mausoleum you will understand how much our “great leader” is revered by modern day Turks. Indeed his name was Father of the Turks. I am talking about Atatürk, Kemal Mustafa.

In the time of my grandparents, Europeans would probably not have seen Kemal Mustafa as a great leader, particularly after the allied defeat at Gallipoli in 1916. But he has to be seen in context for his leadership qualities to be truly understood.

The Ottoman Empire in 1683 covered Algeria, Libya, Cyrenica, Egypt, Arabia (including modern day Syria, Iraq, Israel, and Palestine), Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Bosnia, Hungary, Romania, Armenia, Georgia and the Black Sea. Its capital was Constantinople. The Sultan ruled over six of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

In 1520 Suleiman the Great acceded to the Sultanate. He was a great, if cruel, man. His great wealth and power gave him a life of great luxury; a luxury taken to excess in all areas. Everything from soldiers and concubines to the size of turbans and the number of people massacred in war is numbered in tens, if not, hundreds of thousands. His cruelty to anyone who displeased him was unspeakable.

His excesses debauched him and his advisors, and led to a slow decline of the Empire. Over the next 250 years there were sixteen sultans, one of whom was murdered, one strangled (executed) and five deposed. Each change of sultan brought about murders of rivals and siblings. Corruption increased. Of the next nine sultans all but two were deposed. The practice of imprisoning heirs until their succession produced a series of leaders who were mentally ill, if not insane.

In the early 1800s Europe realising that the Ottoman Empire was becoming weaker: and Russia under Czar Nicholas, was eyeing up its territory. Turkey’s leader was so ill advised and mentally ill that wars were badly run. Enter an organisation called Young Turks.

This organisation was illegal. Its members were not “reckless revolutionaries”. They tried to open the way to reform. Their leader was Pasha Midhat, and Kemal Mustafa was one of its members.

Reform was slow to come; the horrors of a war against Russia in Bulgaria shocked the world with its brutality. And Pasha Midhat became the scapegoat of the sultan’s fears. After a farcical trial he was executed.

Between the years 1908 and 1918 the Young Turks were blindly trying to deal with democracy. They became the Committee of Union and Progress. The power was held by Talaat Bey, Djemel and Enver. Talaat was a ruthless man of great stature and Djemel Bey was a hard drinking, gambler. Enver Bey was different; he became a ruthless manipulator who dismissed 1200 officers in a twenty four hour period.

At twenty seven Enver captured the imagination of the people and became Minister of War by murdering his predecessor after the Italians attacked Tripoli and Turkey. After defeating them, he went to war with the Bulgarians, Serbians, Greeks and Montenegrans. When an armistice was mooted Enver disagreed.

One man was missing during all this. Mustafa Kemal; he and Enver hated each other.

For years Germany had been peacefully penetrating the empire’s territory. She had invested heavily in transportation, electricity, mining and agriculture and 1914 was approaching. Enver Bey backed the Germans and, after much negotiation about war ships and the control of the access to the Black Sea, Turkey entered the war on the side of the Germans.

At this time Kemal Mustafa was Turkish Military Attaché in Sofia. He decided to support Turkey during the war: he returned as a private soldier. He was posted to Gallipoli in 1915.

If it hadn’t been for Mustafa Kemal, there is little doubt that Churchill’s plans to gain control of the Bosporus would have been realised.

When leading his troops in Gallipoli he inspired them by saying that he was not asking them to fight for their country but to die for it: thousands did in very bloody battles. Details of the battle for Gallipoli would take up about ten pages. You can find information on www.allaboutturkey.com/Ataturk.htm .In many ways Kemal Mustafa was a cruel man but he was leading men who passionately wanted to live in a free Turkey. He led from the front, just as the Sultans prior to Suleiman had. He was a great strategist and is one of few who maintained a perfect military record which consisted solely of victories.

In 1919 Kemal started a campaign to oppose the Allied actions to divide the old Ottoman Empire. He was now the Inspector of the Third Army in Anatolia and he started to act against the Sultan in Istanbul. He gathered support from other powers within Turkey.

In 1920 the Sultan signed an agreement to hand over parts of Anatolia to the Greeks. This had been agreed in the Treaty of Sevres. In July Kemal set up a government in Ankara (formerly Angora). Ankara was closer to the centre of Turkey.

In 1921 battles were fought at Sakkaria against the Greeks. There were three weeks of bloodshed along a sixty mile front. Neither side gave way. Again Kemal was at the front with his men, in the trenches. One Turkish division lost seventy five per cent of its men. Seven divisional Majors were lost in fierce fighting. When the Greek supply lines broke down, the Greeks retreated two hundred miles with the Turks in close pursuit. Kemal, a leader from the front, had again inspired his troops. He shared their passion for their country.

1922 saw bloody battles at Smyrna (now Izmir). Turkish behaviour, led by Kemal Mustafa, horrified most of the Western world. Thousands of Armenians, Greeks and Americans were slaughtered. In all it is estimated that at least 100.000 people died. No one can justify these sorts of losses amongst the civilian population. But the Turks were fighting for their country and its freedom, just as Britain fought in World War 2. As I said Kemal Mustafa has to be looked at in context.

Following this there were standoffs between Kemal Mustafa and the Allied powers across the Bosporus. The allies were separating the Greeks and the Turks. Churchill’s machinations led to the French and the Italians extricating themselves leaving only the British defending the buffer zone. Kemal advanced with 100,000 men. War was only averted by Lieutenant General Sir Charles Harrington. After the agreements at the end of the negotiations there was only one obstacle between Kemal and absolute power…the Sultan.

On 1 November 1922 the Sultanate was abolished by the powers around Kemal, after an engineered campaign. The Sultan was given protection by the British. He ended his days in exile in San Remo, Italy.

In 1929 Kemal Mustafa became Atatürk, the father of the Turks.

But his leadership didn’t end there. He was not just a strong military leader.

He set about modernising Turkey.

Modern Turkey was defined by six principles, Republicanism, Nationalism, Populism, Statism (State control over the basic means of production where the banks were used as administrative officials), Seculism and Revolutionism.

In 1928 a law was imposed which meant that Islam was no longer the state religion. Turkey was the first Moslem nation to become a republic.

Kemal Mustafa continued to lead Turkey and her people.

“We must liberate our concepts of justice, our laws and our legal institutions from the bonds which hold a tight grip on us although they are incompatible with the needs of our century.”

He believed that education was the answer to Turkey’s survival. He spared no effort to stimulate education at all levels and all areas of society. An ambitious programme was set up for children and adults. Education became free, secular and co-educational. Primary education became compulsory. In fifteen years, literacy rose from less than 9% to more than 33%. Women’s education was embraced with a passion and Kemal raised the importance of women’s learning to be equal with that of men. Outside of Europe and North America, modern day Turkey has one of the world’s highest ratios of university graduates to population.

“The cornerstone of education is an easy system of reading and writing. The key to this is the new Turkish alphabet based on the Latin script.” It had to be changed.

Atatürk led the modern world’s swiftest and extensive language reform in five months. In doing so he had overhauled Turkish education and culture.

He also banned the fez.

Atatürk also saw the importance of women in society and gave women equal rights in divorce, custody and inheritance: polygamy was abolished. In the mid-1930s eighteen women were elected into the national parliament and Turkey had the world’s first Supreme Court justice.

Kemal Mustafa, Atatürk, was a complex man. In many ways he was selfish. He married, divorced, had lovers. He was an alcoholic; he died of cirrhosis of the liver. He was cruel and ruthless; he was egocentric. And yet, he led a passionate race from mediaeval autarchy to republicanism. He led the Turks to become a modern country.

On 10 November 1938 Kemal Mustafa, known as Atatürk, died in Istanbul.

His mausoleum is, as I said at the start, magnificent in its size and lies in Ankara, the modern capital.

The scope of the change he wrought on Turkey is astonishing. He is widely revered as the Father of modern Turkey.

Research resources were Noel Barber’s “Lords of the Golden Horn” and http://www.Ataturk.com/ , http://www.turizm.net/ and http://www.leader-values.com/ .

Date : 23-05-2006