The Return of Atatürk
The following is a blog post that I had written in 2020. Due to its timeless topic, I have left the entire article unchanged.
A photograph of Anıtkabir, which means “memorial tomb” in Turkish. This is the official resting place of Atatürk, the founder of Turkey, in its capital Ankara.
Istanbul. Today is the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Turkey. To mark the occasion, I have started a blog series that focuses on the seemingly ubiquitous person of a very specific Turkish statesman. Only those who know him and his ideas will understand why Turkey is as it is. The streets of Beyoğlu are festively decorated. Turkish flags hang down along the narrow residential quarters. Occasionally, the official logo of the Istanbul Municipality with the blue mosque and the four tapering minarets can also be seen. One might think that a vaccine against the coronavirus had been released these days and that the the city’s 16 million inhabitants wanted to celebrate the occasion joyfully. Or that today was the celebration of a national holiday. October 6th is not an official holiday, neither in Beyoğlu nor anywhere else in Turkey. But what is actually being “celebrated” is a major event that is rather emotional for the Turkish people: the liberation of Istanbul from the British occupiers during the Turkish War of Liberation, also known as the National Struggle, from 1919 to 1922.
Obviously, the authorities of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, who last year with the help of his Republican People's Party CHP took the city in a spectacular double victory against all opposition from the Justice and Development Party AKP, have made good provisions for the "day of liberation," as he says in a livestream to his viewers. The current pandemic still causing problems for the Turks. But just because of the general mask obligation and the commandments for "social distancing" the city would like to set a special sign on this day for that glorious event. Even the Minister of Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, has made an effort to ensure that the festivities are carried out in an appropriate manner. And so, in the early evening, the Galata Tower in the center of Beyoğlu shines in a very special splendor. Several spotlights and projectors illuminate the portrait of a very specific man on the outer wall. Since the tower is located in the hilly center of Beyoğlu and rises some 67 meters into the sky, the man's countenance can also be seen from the ships on the Bosphorus that transport cargo and passengers to or from Istanbul.
This man is the most powerful Turkish politician of our times. His thoughts and ambitions had catapulted him to the top of the state within two decades. He built a new Turkey out of an almost disintegrated and extremely unstable country, the former Ottoman Empire, and created a politically stable, economically strong and outwardly self-confident state for the Turks. His promotion of Turkish culture was reflected in the new confidence of many Turks, proud of their country and their leader. Without his actions, there would not be so many skyscrapers adorning the Istanbul skyline today. And many a resident would now speak not Turkish but another language, perhaps Greek. Because this personality became famous as a revolutionary statesman, and above all as the liberator of the Turkish nation. Now his face shines in new splendor, on October 6 in the heart of Istanbul and on any other day in any other place, and it shows every native, immigrant and tourist who is confronted by his face, who has say in this country. Then again, this man has not been with us for more than 80 years. We are talking about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. The father of the Turks, constructor of the Turkish nation and paragon for many people even outside of Turkey. But why is that so? What is it that makes Atatürk so special, so different from many statesmen (and stateswomen) of the 20th century? To understand the personality cult around Atatürk, we must go back in time.
From regional power to empire and back
For years, friends and acquaintances have been telling me about their vacations in Turkey and almost always address me about the fact that in every supermarket, in every hotel, at every crossroads somewhere a small, but clearly visible portrait of Atatürk can be spotted. On the question whether this would be an example for exaggerated personality cult - because one had not seen such a thing in Germany for 70 years - I reply with a long essay about the history of the young Turkish republic. There are no short answers.
When Atatürk was still a young lad and was not called Atatürk, but addressed as Mustafa Kemal, he was enrolled at the military school in Bitola, modern-day North Macedonia. At that time, at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire which back then included Macedonia had long been in a process of disintegration. In the 17th century, this empire had extended from Crimea to Egypt and from Persia to the gates of Vienna. The rulers descended from the dynasty of Osman, an ambitious Turkish prince who, with his victories over the Byzantine Empire and other Turkish principalities in western Anatolia, laid the foundation on which his descendant Mehmet II could build when he conquered Constantinople in 1453. From that moment on, the Ottomans had risen to become the great power in Eurasia. There was no way around them - literally, because the Ottoman blockade of Portuguese traders to Persia had led indirectly to a certain Christopher Columbus exploring the "sea route to India" across the Atlantic and ultimately coming across the Caribbean next to America.
But in Mustafa Kemal’s era, there was nothing left of the old glory and power of the Ottoman Empire.. The once-feared world power had become a poorly governed and technologically backward state, ruling only over parts of the Balkans and parts of the Middle East. Gone were the days of the Sultans’ glory abroad and splendor at home. This process did not come overnight, it did not start after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 or the failed Siege of Vienna in 1683, like European historians like to tell you. There was no official “start date”. At the beginning of the 20th century, this process had been going on for two centuries, due decades of military coup attempts and rulers who simply did not want to see their realm be modernized - for whatever reason. I am looking at you, Abdülhamit. Just when Mustafa Kemal tried to enter politics after his education was complete, the Ottomans lost large parts of his old homeland Macedonia, so that the border of the empire reached only as far as Bulgaria in the west. At the same time, the Ottomans also lost their North African crown jewel, Libya, to the Italians. Mustafa Kemal had led his first major campaign as an officer there and could not prevent the defeat of the poorly equipped Ottoman divisions by the Italians. And in the Middle East, the British were fooling around big time. They promised both local inhabitants and European Jews their own lands independent of the Ottomans, in Palestine. The British empire had been trying to incite Arabs and Jews to revolt against Turkish rule for quite a while.
“Turkish?”, I hear some of my readers asking curiously. Just now we were talking about the "Turkish" Osman, but can Turkish be equated with "Ottoman"? It’s an interesting question. We must keep in mind that "Ottoman" referred only to the state of the Ottomans: "Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye" which means “sublime state of Osman” This state had been, as one might guess, literally built by Turkish princes. However, as their empire expanded many Ottoman sultans married foreign women who were precisely not of Turkish origin. This was a common method in human history, for example to seal an alliance with another state through offical state-marriages. But the Ottomans mostly looked for poor slave women as their concubines. Diplomatic actions were not their focus. And unlike the Habsburgs, the Ottomans did not care about keeping their noble blood "pure." They hadn’t been “pure” for centuries, anyway.
An engraving from the 18th century depicting the life of the common people in Anatolia.
But this had consequences at the court of Constantinople. As early as the 16th century, the term "Turk" was used as a swear word by a lot of figures: princes and generals, princesses and harem women, simple servants and even artists. No one wanted to refer to themselves as a "Turk," as the actual Turkish-speaking inhabitants had now largely been the workers and peasants in Anatolia within the vast Empire. And since the empire encompassed more than just Anatolia - it stretched from Vienna to Persia, remember - there was no longer any reason for the sultan to see himself as a poor peasant "Turk". Thus, the Ottomans saw themselves as a new form of royal blood line. Not pure, but as a mix of many different ethnicity. Many, except the Turkish one.
But now, we are back in Mustafa Kemal’s time, the situation had changed dramatically. With the empire encompassing only Anatolia, Thrace and the Levant, the focus on "Turkishness" returned. The language, the traditions, the culture of the Turks had never disappeared from Anatolia, despite all the repressive actions by the ruling dynasty. But the humiliation that Turkish artisans, workers, merchants, farmers and soldiers had endured - on the one hand at the hands of foreign powers, and on the other at the hands of their own rulers - ran deep. The soldiers were the group that now had the most responsibility. They had to protect the Ottoman Empire, the Turks, from further territorial losses. But two Balkan wars later, Macedonia and other provinces also fell away from the empire, and the front line of the Ottoman state was no longer in Vienna or Belgrade, but just outside Constantinople.
Young Turks at the Crossroads
Mustafa Kemal, as a cadet in military school along his companions, obviously had witnessed this process. He had also been on some minor missions apart from Italy and was unhappy with the country's leadership. By now, this "leadership" was no longer consisting of Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II, who had ruled until 1908, holding his empire back from modernization and reform. The country's leaders were now young officers who took power after having been influenced by Western ideas. The abdication of the sultan marked the beginning of "Young Turk" rule. This term was used to describe the aforementioned caste of modern-minded, disaffected officers who wanted to put an end to the economic, cultural and political stagnation in Anatolia. They continued the modernization plans that had once been swept away by Abdülhamid II, then introduced a parliament and a new constitution drawn up for the people. Women were to be granted more civil rights and the army was allowed and invoked to modernize its equipment.
But all this "modernization" was all kippers and curtains. One coup later, Enver Pasha, the most powerful of the Young Turks, and two other men ruled the country with an iron fist. It was Enver who wanted to develop good relations with the German Empire, and he also allowed the Ottoman Empire to side with the Germans and Austrians when World War I broke out. Many young officers who later made their contribution to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey supported the government, as Enver and co. preached the "re-Turkification" of the Ottoman Empire. If Europeans were allowed to live in their countries relatively homogeneously and with pride in their language and culture, why not the Turks? It was time to put an end to the anti-Turkish attitude of the Ottoman dynasty and emphasize the Turkish character of the empire. Only then would the Turks be able to break their century-old chains and free themselves from any kind of foreign intervention. That was the train of thought.
This Greek lithography sets the scene for the ambitions of the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. The woman with wings in the sky carries a banner with the slogan "hürriyet, müsavat, uhuvvet" - Turkish for "freedom, equality, brotherhood".
In World War 1, the Ottoman Empire had suffered millions of deaths. Any massacres against the civilian population or intellectuals that took place along the way were directly attributable to Enver Pasha and his associates. This includes the massacres of the Armenians, who had on a political level sided with the Russian Empire against the Young Turk Ottoman government during the war, as well as actions against Greek and Assyrian people. Enver even allowed a squad of 80,000 young soldiers who had volunteered for the war against Russia to march blindly into the snowy mountainous region of the Caucasus in the middle of winter - only to be either slaughtered by the Russians or fall victim to disease and the cold. The Ottoman Empire experienced many more terrible things during the Great War. Fighting took place on all fronts - in the Aegean, in Palestine and Syria, in the Caucasus - and there was a shortage of rations, ammunition, medicines. Nonetheless, there was no lack of people who sacrificed themselves for their country. It is amazing to see how strong the Turks' willingness to sacrifice was at that time. In a way, this is also understandable, because the empire was surrounded on all sides, and for the Turks it was no longer about any distant lands, with the exception of Palestine - it was about their homeland. If they did not win the war and kept the foreigners at bay, Anatolia would be occupied and the Turks would be enslaved. This was the train of thought of the civilians and certainly of some distinct servicemen in the military, too.
The Turks did not win the war. They lost the Middle East to the British, the Caucasus to the Russians and, above all, millions of compatriots to the Entente powers. Now all the fighting of the previous decades seemed to culminate. Since the Balkan Wars and the Libya campaign, the Turks had been constantly at war. The World War broke their back, ended after four years and the Young Turk government signed the Treaty of Sèvres. In it, the Ottoman or Young Turk leadership accepted the division of the Empire into zones of occupation. The British, French, Italians, Greeks and Armenians all cut their share of the Turkish cake. Only a small area in central and northern Anatolia was to be granted to the Turks as an independent country. However, since the treaty including the total control of the Ottoman budget by the Entente, a de facto abolition of the Ottoman army and the right of the British and French to intervene militarily within Turkish territory at any time, the Ottoman Empire would neither have been politically "independent" nor would it have possessed an ounce of foreign policy sovereignty.
The spirit of the republic awakens
The decade-long nightmare of the ordinary Turkish population thus became even worse. In 1918, French and Italian occupation forces were already invading southeastern and southwestern Anatolia. Constantinople, called "Istambol" by its inhabitants, came under British control. The official term “International Mandate” is pure conmanship. Meanwhile, the Greeks who had stayed neutral during the Great War were preparing to invade western Anatolia and set their their dream of the "Megali Idea”, Greater Greece, in stone. The Entente powers almost put this plan into action. But they did not reckon with the tenacity and abilities of a certain Turk who had made a name for himself during the War. This Turk had prevented the invasion of British and Australian troops at the Dardanelles during the Battle of Galipolli, inflicted a humiliating defeat on the enemies of the Ottoman Empire. This Turk then had enough time during a spa stay in Germany to think about a Turkey that he wanted to shape according to his ideas of freedom, progress and sovereignty. Now this Turk, when the British had just invaded the Ottoman capital, was on his way to Samsun, an old port city in northern Turkey. The "Sultan" had actually ordered this Turk to coordinate on-site "inspections" of British "overseers". The Turk had followed the Sultan's order to travel to Samsun aboard the ship Bandırma - but he had a completely different plan in mind, which he would put into action once he arrived.
One of Mustafa Kemal’s most important quotes may be his message to the British, Australian and New Zealanders regarding the ANZAC campaign in Galipolli:
“The heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives on this country's soil! You are in the soil of a friendly country now. Therefore rest in peace. You are side by side with the little Mehmets. The mothers who send their sons to the war! Wipe your tears away. Your sons are in our bosom, are in peace and will be sleeping in peace comfortably. From now on, they have became our sons since they have lost their lives on this land.”
With the arrival of Mustafa Kemal in Samsun on May 19 1919, all the plans of the Entente powers to divide Turkey among themselves were basically nullified. The common people had not given up hope of resisting the occupiers, and in no time Mustafa Kemal mingled with the people, rallied the intellectuals and influentials and encouraged the small resistance movements of the rural population to link their groups into one big struggle: the National Struggle. His arrival in Samsun in 1919 not only began the undoing of the Treaty of Sèvres. It also began the great war of the Turks for political independence and freedom. Mustafa Kemal had not only initiated Anatolia's resistance against its occupiers, but had also ushered in a new era for Turkish culture. One might think that his ideals were somewhat similiar, perhaps even congruent with those of the Young Turks, but as we will see, this was not really the case. Enver Pasha had prevented Mustafa Kemal from entering political circles early on. But he turned away from the Young Turks anyway, even before the Young Turks’ coup against Abdülhamid. He was to be proved right. His ideas differed from those of the Young Turks in one thing in particular: Mustafa Kemal wanted to fight with and for the Turkish people. Not fatalistic, but balanced. Not emotionalized, but rational. Not pan-Turkish, but pro-Turkish. He would break with pan-Turanist factions and disallow any of the fatalist ideologies of the early 20th century. For all the objectivity and calm with which he advanced the resistance movement, he lashed out at his enemies with such force that today, more than a hundred years later, we can rightly claim: May 19, 1919 marked the beginning of the history of the modern Republic of Turkey. But Mustafa Kemal and his comrades had a long, steep road ahead of them. They would have to make many sacrifices and take difficult decisions to achieve their goal.
Was it worth it in the end? How did Mustafa Kemal rise from officer to leader of the Turkish National Movement? How did he defeat his enemies on the battlefield, and did he already have plans to renew and reform Turkey from the ground up? We will look at this and much more in Part 2 of this blog series.