The “Father of the Turks”. That’s what Ataturk means, and it was the title and surname given
to Mustafa Kemal to honor him as the leader and driving force behind the creation of modern
Turkey. His exploits in the First World War are legend, and it was his tactical skills
that were the real secret in both his military and political career. So… Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
My name is Indy Neidell. Welcome to another special episode of Who Did What in World War One.
Mustafa was born in May 1881 in Saloniki, today’s Thessaloniki in what is now Greece,
but was then part of the Ottoman Empire. His actual birthdate is unknown, but he chose
May 19th himself. His father was a timber dealer and a former customs lieutenant who
died when Mustafa was seven years old while his mother came from a long-established rural
family. He grew up in fairly modest circumstances and had five siblings, but only one- a sister-
survived childhood. After the death of the father, the family moved to the countryside
to live with one of Mustafa’s uncles and Mustafa did not attend school regularly until
he moved back to Saloniki at the age of nearly ten. He wasn’t there for long, though, dropping
out at the age of 12, but he eventually applied to a middle school, was accepted, and graduated
in 1895 as one of the top students. This is apparently where he was given his surname
Kemal from his math teacher. It was in praise of his skills; Kemal means perfect in Arabic.
After graduation, he attended cadet school in Manastir, now in Macedonia. In 1899, he
moved to Constantinople, the capital of the Empire, now Istanbul, and became an officer
at the military academy. He remained there until 1902, but was arrested shortly after
leaving by government intelligence and spend several months in prison for opposition to
the government. See, Mustafa had joined the opposition party while at the academy, which
supported western style reform movements and wanted greater self determination and autonomy
in the empire, rather than the absolute power of the Sultan. The academy’s director intervened
and got Mustafa released and soon enough he was a captain employed by the War office.
In Damascus, he founded a secret organization called “Fatherland and Freedom” and shortly
afterward himself became a member of the Committee for Union and Progress, otherwise known as
the Young Turks, a large opposition organization. In 1908 as an army chief of staff he supported
the Young Turks revolution, which deposed the Sultan and restored a constitutional government.
In 1910, Mustafa visited Western Europe for the first time. His famous quote, “There
are different cultures, but only one civilization, the European one.“ comes from that visit.
In 1911 and 12, he fought as a major in the Italian-Turkish war. This war showed cracks
in the foundations of the Empire and in 1912 Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria formed
an alliance to exploit those cracks and attacked the Empire in October. This was the First
Balkan War, and Mustafa fought in Gallipoli and Bolayir. After the war, he worked as a
military attaché and in 1914 he became Lieutenant Colonel in the Ottoman embassy in Sofia so
when the first World War broke out, Mustafa Kemal lived in Bulgaria.
The Ottoman Empire fought with the German Empire during World War One, and In January
1915, the 19th Division of the 5th Turkish army was assigned to Mustafa Kemal - he transferred
to Gallipoli, and his fantastic exploits against the Allies while defending at Gallipoli brought
him worldwide fame and attention, as well as military glory. His forces beat back the
British and French forces time and again, and as the Gallipoli campaign ended in defeat
for the Allies, Mustafa Kemal was praised throughout the empire, even with the hundreds
of thousands of Ottoman lives lost. After Gallipoli, he was stationed in Edirne and
Diyarbakir. Promoted to major general in April 1916, he fought to recapture Mush and Bitlis
from the Russians, and after short battles in Damascus and Aleppo, he returned to Constantinople.
In early 1918, he visited the Ottoman Crown Prince Vahideddin, later Sultan Mehmet VI,
also meeting German Kaiser Wilhelm II, German quartermaster general Erich Ludendorff, and
Field Marshall Paul von Hindenburg as they planned spring offensives. That’s pretty
heavy company.
In June 1918, Mehmet became Sultan of the Empire, the last one as it turned out. Mustafa
was made Commander of the 7th Army with the task of defending Syria against the British
advance. This would prove to be an impossible task, and Mustafa Kemal could only organize
a coordinated retreat until the Treaty of Mudros on October 31 ended the campaign.
After the war, Mustafa returned to Constantinople. The Empire collapsed after the war and the
peace Treaty of Sévres in 1920 actually partitioned the Empire among the victors and the indigenous
peoples. The treaty was never ratified, though, because the Turkish War of Independence brought
everyone back to the negotiating table. Mustafa Kemal was both the political and military
leader during the war, defending his country against foreign incursion and cementing his
position as the man in charge, even when turmoil in the country resulted in massacres of both
Armenians and Greeks. Okay, this is way too brief to do any justice to the story of the
war or the civilian tragedies, but to cut it even shorter, after four years of war the
Modern Republic of Turkey was founded with Mustafa Kemal as its first president, a post
he would hold for 15 years, being honored with the surname Ataturk in 1934. He was,
and is, the symbolic figure of Turkish national consciousness. I lived in Istanbul for a bit
back in the mid 1990s, and even then, every house, shop, or restaurant had a photograph
of Ataturk displayed prominently, to a degree that I personally have never seen of any other
figure in any other country.
It’s not really my job to talk about his career as President, since, much like the
War for Independence, that is well outside of the scope of this show, but I encourage
you all to read more about one of the 20th century’s legendary figures.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died of cirrhosis of the liver November 10th, 1938. He was initially
laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum in Ankara, the new capital of Turkey, but in
1953 was moved to a huge mausoleum that overlooks the city. He was admired worldwide by virtually
every great politician of his era, and in 1981, UNESCO declared the “year of Ataturk”
in honor of his 100th birthday. Here’s a bizarre but cool piece of trivia- one of Ataturk’s
adopted daughters was the world’s first female fighter pilot. Really.
So there you have it, a man who in many ways was larger than life, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
the father of all Turks, and the driving force behind the creation of modern Turkey.
If you want to see how the whole Gallipoli mess really got going, check out this episode
about the first landings and how Mustafa Kemal was involved in the defense.
And let us know if there is another important figure from the war you would like to know