Atatürk's Life: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic and its first President, stands as a towering figure of the 20th Century. Among the great leaders of history, few have achieved so much in so short a period, transformed the life of a nation as decisively, and given such profound inspiration to the world at large.

1881 Mustafa is born in Salonica. 1893 Mustafa attends Salonica Military School. 1896 Mustafa, granded the name Kemal by his teacher, attends Manastir Military School. 1899 Mustafa Kemal attends Istanbul Military College infantry division. 1902 Mustafa Kemal graduates Military College as a lieutenant and attends the Military Academy. 1905 Mustafa Kemal graduates the academy as a staff captain and is assigned for his first duty at the 5th Army in Damascus. 1906 Mustafa Kemal is posted to the 3rd Army in Salonica. 1909 Mustafa Kemal leaves for Istanbul as the Staff Commander of the Hareket Army. 1910 Mustafa Kemal joins the Albanian operations. In the same year he represents the Turkish Army at the Picardie exercises. 1911 Mustafa Kemal is assigned at the General Chief of Staff Hq in Istanbul. The same year he promotes as a staff Major. 1912 Mustafa Kemal is assigned as Dardanelles Operation Commander. 1913 Mustafa Kemal is assigned as Sofia Military Attache. 1914 Mustafa Kemal promotes as a staff Lieutenant Colonel. 1915 Mustafa Kemal builds the 19th sub division in Eastern Thrace. The same year he promotes a staff Colonel. Later the same year he is assigned assigned as Anafartalar sub division commander. By the end of this year he will have won 3 great victories against the WWI allies in Dardanelles.

1916 Mustafa Kemal promotes as a Brigadier General. 1917 In March, Mustafa Kemal is assigned as the 2nd Army Commanding General in Diyarbakir. In June, he is assigned as the the 7th Army Commanding General in Aleppo. In September, he sends his historical letter that explains the current situtation of the country and the army to the Sultan. In October he leaves Aleppo for Istanbul and in December Prince Vahdettin and Mustafa Kemal go to Germany. 1918 Mustafa Kemal and the Prince are back from Germany. In the same year, he is assigned to several duties as the Commanding General of different armies. 1919 May 16: Mustafa Kemal leaves for Samsun on the SS Bandirma. May 19: He arrives in Samsun. May 22: He calls for the Sivas Congress in Amasya. Jul 8: He resigns from his official duties and the Ottoman Army. Jul 23: The Erzurum congress meets. Sep 4: The Sivas congress meets. Dec 7: Mustafa Kemal and the 'Representatives Group' arrive in Ankara. 1919 Mustafa Kemal officially protests the invasion of Istanbul by the allies, and starts for a new assembly. 1920 April 23: Turkish Grand Assembly opens. April 24: Mustafa Kemal is assigned as the chariman of the Turkish Grand Assembly. May 11: The Istanbul Government sentences Mustafa Kemal to death. May 24: The Sultan approves this decision.

1921 Aug 21: The Grand Assembly assigns Mustafa Kemal as the Commander of the Turkish Armies. Aug 23: The Sakarya War starts. Sep 13: The Sakarya War ends with Mustafa Kemal's victory. Sep 19: Mustafa Kemal is granted the 'Marshall' and 'Veteran' titles by the Grand Assembly. 1922 Aug 26: The Great Attack starts under the command of Mustafa Kemal. Aug 30: The Great Attack ends with 'The Great Victory'. Sep 9: The War ends with the invader armies leaving Izmir.

Sep 10: Mustafa Kemal arrives in Izmir. Nov 1: The Grand Assembly decide for the abolition of the Sultanate. 1923 Sep 11: Mustafa Kemal opens the People's Party. Oct 29: The Decleration of the Republic. Mustafa Kemal elected as the 1st President of the Turkish Republic. 1924 Mar 1: The Grand Assembly decide to abolish the Caliphate. 1925 Aug 23: Mustafa Kemal intoduces the European hat and the fez is banned. 1927 Jul 1: Mustafa Kemal re-elected President. 1928 Aug 10: Mustafa Kemal gives his famous speech about the new Turkish Alphabet. 1931 Mustafa Kemal establishes the The Turkish Institute of History. 1931 Mustafa Kemal elected president for the 3rd time. 1932 Mustafa Kemal establishes the The Turkish Institute of Language. 1933 Oct 29: Mustafa Kemal gives his famous speech on the 10th anniversary of the Turkish Republic. 1934 Nov 24: The Grand Assembly grant Mustafa Kemal, the last name Atatürk, which means the father of all Turks. 1935 Mar 1st: Mustafa Kemal is elected president for the 4th time. 1938 Mar 30th: The Secretary General makes the first official announcement concerning Atatürk's illness. 1938 Nov 10th, 09.05 a.m.: Atatürk's death.

1938 Nov 21st: Atatürk's body is brought temporarily to the Ethnographical Museum in Ankara. 1953 Nov 10th: Atatürk's body is brought to the Anitkabir Mausoleum in Ankara. 1981 UNESCO announces the 100th anniversary of the birth of Atatürk be celebrated as the 'Atatürk Year' all over the world.

The War of Independence

The National War of Independence was an effort to create a new state from the ruins of an Empire which had already completed its life. These efforts lasted for four years as the imperialist states wanted to bring to life a new order suitable for their own political aims and interests from the ruins of this empire.

Mustafa Kemal, who joined the Ottoman Army as a captain on 11 January 1905, proved his military talents on almost every front during the First World War. When the Ottoman Empire was considered to be defeated following the First World War, he was appointed Commander of the Thunder Armies. However, he returned to Istanbul as this army was abolished.

Mustafa Kemal decided to travel across Anatolia and carry on his struggle, and collect a new army as he understood that a political solution against the invaders who were oppressing the Istanbul Government was not possible.

The Turkish resistance movements were transformed into a complete war of independence when Mustafa Kemal landed at Samsun as the Inspector of the 9th Army on 19 May 1919. It achieved success against the armies supported by the large countries of the world and under very difficult conditions.

The situation in Anatolia, as of May 19, 1919 when Ataturk landed Samsun was as:

1. Southeastern Anatolia: invaded by the French and Italian.

2. Central Anatolia: Left for Turks.

3. Mediterranean: Invaded by the French, Italian, and the British.

4. Aegean: Invaded by the Greeks.

5. Marmara, straits and Istanbul: Invaded by the allies.

Mustafa Kemal immediately started to organize a national resistance and got in touch with all the army units and local resistance organizations in Anatolia. The first call was made in Amasya on Jun 22, 1919. Later on this resistance was recognized officially in Erzurum and Sivas Congresses. The National Pact program which reached its final form believed that the territories where the Turks lived could not be partitioned in any form and limitations; and limitations such as capitulations which would prevent the political, legal and financial development of the country would definitely not be accepted. When the Entente Powers officially occupied Istanbul and disbanded the Parliament on March 16, Mustafa Kemal declared that the sovereignty and life of the Ottoman Empire, which had lasted for six centuries, had ended.

On April 23rd, 1920, the Grand National Assembly gathered in Ankara, the headquarters of the national movement, and the authority to represent the nation was given only to the Grand National Assembly as of this day. The assembly unanimously elected Mustafa Kemal as the chairman, and started its studies.

The last connections between Ankara and Istanbul ended with the signing of the Treaty of Sevrès on Aug 12th, 1920. The agreement included oppressive and unacceptable conditions for the Turkish Nation. The Treaty of Sevres was announcing that only a small part of Anatolia would be given to Turks, and the Turkish State would be under the financial and military control of the foreign states. The efforts to set up an Armenian state in Eastern Anatolia, by using the Treaty of Sevrès were made ineffective by the forces of the Army Commander Kazim Karabekir in this region. After the armistice was signed on 18 November 1920, peace was obtained on the Eastern front by the Gümrü Agreement which was signed on 2 December 1920. This was the first international agreement signed by the Grand National Assembly.

On the Western front, the Greek Army who invaded Izmir on May 15th, 1919, and started spreading throughout the Aegean region, was stopped by the First and Second Inönü Battles between January - April 921. The Greek Army suffered a heavy defeat during the Sakarya Battles between August - September 1921.

The Sakarya Battle victory provided significant diplomatic successes and France withdrew from Adana and the surroundings following the Ankara Agreement signed by Turkey and France in October 1921. Thus, another front was eliminated. After that, all the forces and resources of the country were gathered for a great attack to be made on the Western front. In fact, the Greek forces were defeated heavily during the Great Attack and the Commander in Chief Battle between August-September 1922.

Izmir was liberated on Sep 9, 1922. This military success would accelerate the founding of the Republic of Turkey. The Mudanya Armistice was signed between the Ankara Government and the Entente States on Oct 11, 1922 and it was decided to hold a conference in Lausanne one month later to discuss the conditions for a permanent peace treaty. However, when the Entente States also invited the Istanbul Government to send its delegation to this conference along with the Ankara Government, the Turkish Grand National Assembly declared that the Caliphate was separated from the Sultanate and that the sultanate was abolished.

Mehmed VI (Vahdeddin), the last Ottoman Sultan, secretly fled aboard a British ship on Nov 17, 1922. The Lausanne peace treaty negotiations, at which the Ankara Government participated as the sole representative, started on Nov 21, 1922. The negotiations, at which Ismet Inönü presided over the Turkish delegation, were suspended in February 1923 due to disagreements especially on the future of capitulations.

The negotiations, which restarted in April 1923, resulted in the signing of the Lausanne Treaty on July 24, 1923. The treaty recognized the creation of a Turkish State with virtually the same borders as those of the National Pact of 1920 and guaranteed her complete independence. Thus, it marked the successful culmination of the National War of Independence. On October 29, 1923, the Grand National Assembly proclaimed the Republic of Turkey. Ataturk was elected as the new Republic's first president unanimously.

Reforms

The foundation of the Turkish Republic The war was over, and on Aug 11th, 1923, a new Grand National Assembly was inaugurated. Two days later, Mustafa Kemal, delivered a speech to review the events of the recent years. In this speech, and talking about the future, he had underlined that the first essential was to assure tranquility to the people and authority to the Government.

The independence of the country must be secured against all possibilities of surprise, a task which could be entrusted to the army alone, and the perfection of the military machine must therefore be a cardinal point of the future policy.

The present form of government was based on a radical fault. It required each member of the Grand Assembly to participate in the choice and by implication control of each minister. As the first session of the Grand Assembly started on the morning of Oct 29th, 1923, the members have, with a majority, agreed to make a sudden move to change the Constitution which meant the Proclamation of the Republic. Mustafa Kemal was elected the new Republic's President by 158 unanimous votes. The news was celebrated throughout the country with a salute of 101 guns.

The Abolition of the caliphate The year 1924 saw the abolition of the Caliphate. On March 2nd, the Grand National Assembly passed a law deposing the Caliph and abolishing his office, 'the function of the Caliph being essentially included in the meaning and connotation of the Government of the Republic'. Other secularizing laws were also passed abolishing or replacing other offices and religious courts in the next few weeks. All princes and princesses would have to leave Turkey in 10 days. Mustafa Kemal preferred secular education and civilization to ancient Moslem theocracy. Under the Republic, 'Turkish religious fanaticism' had withered, and the dominating fact was that the old and the new Turkey were seperated by an 'impassable guld' wrote The New York Tribune. The New York Times observed that, when Turkish national regime was fighting for its life, the Caliphate was one of its strongest assets; if Mustafa Kemal was now prepared to discard so valuable a trump, it must be that he felt that his country's position was secure. The Hat Reform In mid August 1925, Mustafa Kemal expressed that he was determined on Westernization. Along with other changes in all stages of life, he was in favour of the introduction of the hat in place of the fez. Aug 23rd was the day he introduced the European hat in Kastamonu and underlined that this was a very important change in the way of modernization and civilization.

The Calendar At the end of December 1925, Turkey adopted the Gregorian Calendar and the 24-hour day. The official year which began on Jan 1st 1926 became 1926 and not 1324 as in the lunar Moslem calendar which was used by a few Moslem countries only, and p.m. hours were to be known officially in the 24 hour format. This was found by G.W. Rendel of the British Foreign Office as 'an important and conenient reform - though rather surprising, considering the definitely Christian character of the era. It marks a further break with the Moslem world' remarked G.W. Rendel. The Alphabet The alphabet that was used in the Ottoman Empire was a derivation of the Arabic Alphabet, using some Persian figures along with the language, which was not commonly used around the world, and would take much longer to learn compared to the Latin alphabet making the use of the European figures. On May 20th, 1928, the Grand National Assembly voted a law making the use of European figures compulsory for all official departments as of June 1st, and all private business as of Jun 1931. This is just another revolution like many others, and taking into consideration that only 10 days were given for this radical change, shows once again how fast and rapid the change in the structure had happened.

The Language As the 1920s came to an end, Turkey had fully and functionally adopted the new script, with its 29 letters (8 vowels and 21 consonants). The new alphabet had none of the complexities of the Arabic script, which was ill-suited to the Turkish language. The language reform enabled children and adults to read and write within a few months, and to study Western languages with greater effectiveness. The reform of the Turkish Alphabet was leading, logically enough, to a reform of the Turkish language, in terms of the elimination of Persian and Arabic forms which held a tight grip over Ottoman Turkish. For this purpose, Mustafa Kemal founded The Turkish Institution of Language in 1932. From then onwards he spent much of his time surrounded by piles of dictionaries, old and new, searching for 'pure Turkish words', trying to create a refined Turkish.

In the early 1930s, Atatürk spearheaded the movement to eliminate these borrowings. In replacing loan words from foreign languages, large numbers of original words, which had been in use in the earlier centuries, were revived, and provincial expressions and new coinages were introduced.

The transformation met with unparalleled success; in the 1920s, the written language consisted of more than 80 percent Arabic, Persian, and French words but by the early 1980s the ratio had declined to a mere 10 percent. Atatürk's language reform encompassing the script, grammar and vocabulary, stands as one of the most far-reaching in history. It has overhauled Turkish culture and education.

The Turkish Women Recieve The Right to Vote "A social body consists of two kinds of human beings, called men and women. It cannot advance without both. Is it possible that, while one half of a community stays chained to the ground, the other half can rise to the skies? ... by the two sexes together, as friends, and together they must accomplish the various stages of the journey into the land of progress and renovation. If this is done, our Revolution will be successful."

On April 3rd, 1930, the Grand National Assembly passed a law introducing the modifications in the powers and the constitution of municipalities in Turkey. The law granted women the right to take part in the election of members of municipal councils. Later in 1935, women were permitted to vote in the parliamentary elections and with Mustafa Kemal's support, 17 women were elected deputies to the Grand National Assembly.

What is Kemalism?

Kemalism (Atatürkcülük) is the main structure of realistic ideas and principles about the state, ideologies, economics and the society's fundamental institution that assure the Turkish Nation's full independence, peace and welfare for the present and the future, the state's being dependent on the nation's solidarity, and the Turkish culture's standing over the modern civilization with the guidance of reason and science. The individual and national identification of Kemalism and its defence against the deviative and conservative movements of the present and the future is the guarantee of the Turkish State's development, strength and gilded future.

The main principles of Kemalism are:

1. Republicanism

2. Nationalism

3. Populism

4. Etatism (State socialism)

5. Secularism

6. Revolutionism

Republicanism Kemalism believes that the Republic is the most appropriate way of government to the Turkish Nations's character and traditions. This is because the Republic organizes the National sovereignty ideal, the free will and soverignty of the nation, the rights and the responsibilities of the state and the citizen to each other, in the finest way possible. The Republic is dependent on a high level of morality, the Republic is a virtue, the Republic breeds a rewarded and honorable nation.

Nationalism The populace of Turkey that establish the Turkish republic are called the Turkish Nation. The Turkish Nation is a natural, communal, economical and political single body of citizens that are tied to each other by a unity of language, cultur, and ideals. To defend the Turkish Republic following the principles of Kemalism is the Turkish Nation's primary duty. Also, the Turkish Nation is an independent and honorable member of the community of the World's Nations, who is well aware of his responsibilities for all humanity.

Populism Along with the understanding of Kemalist Nationalism, populism defends the country against claims of privileges and fights between classes. The basis of being a populist is being a democrat. A populist shall not accept any class disputes, neither shall he acknowledge any privileges to any individual or community except for the common rights given by the law. Kemalist populism believes that all citizens are equal.

Etatism (State Socialism) The state in order to reach the dynamique ideal as soon as possible, should support and pay attention to the citizens' studies and acts, especially those which are in the field of economy, in order with the nations common benefits. Etatism is social, moral and national. The state has to assign himself for the primarily important and vital acts and end with success in all fields of life.

Secularism In the common definition, secularism is the seperation of religion and the acts of the state. Kemalist secularism believes that the state should provide and defend the citizens's free will and religion, the religious acts' being framed and limited only to the practice of the religion and the earthly institutions and acts' being lead by scientific and technological methods. Kemalist secularism is against the abuse of religion and believes in approaching religion in a rationalistic way. Although scientific and technological improvements are achieved, the need to religion remains.

Revolutionism The principle of revolutionism is based on terminating the out of date institutions and establishing instead, institutions that will facilitate improvement and progress. A society that cannot progress and modernize will collapse, thus the revolutions in the modern world are of vital essence. The basis and reason of all revolutions is to create a civilized nation.

These principles and their practice in the way they are defined in Kemalism assure that the state, the nation, individual rights and responsibilities, the fundamentals of ideas, education, culture, and economy that are the corner stones of the Turkish Republic are to be defended forever.