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TURKEY, 95 YEARS AGO TODAY
Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 19 2014
by MURAT YETKÄ°N
Ninety-five years ago today a group of young officers of the defeated
Ottoman army set out for the Black Sea port of Samsun, in a three-day
voyage from Istanbul under the intimidation of British, French and
Greek warships.
Their team leader was Army Inspector Mustafa Kemal Pasha (equivalent
to Lieutenant General at the time). His mission was to inspect whether
the army was abiding by the conditions of the Mudros Armstice of 1918,
marking the defeat of the six-century old Ottoman Empire at the end
of World War I.
The Greek minority in the eastern Black Sea rose up and took up arms
for the revival of the historic Pontus Kingdom, complaining that
Turkish groups and parts of the Turkish military were still resisting
and trying to stop them. Vahidettin, the Sultan, sent Mustafa Kemal,
his former chief-of-cabinet to take the rebel Turkish groups and obey
the Sultan's orders, not to be troublemakers despite the victorious
armies invading national territory.
Kemal and friends had other plans. A day before they moved from the
Sublime Porte, the Greek armies had landed in Ä°zmir, Turkey's Aegean
Port, which had been considered a major humiliation.
The moment that Kemal and friends arrived at Samsun, they started to
organize a resistance of their own; a much more organized one than the
individual efforts of small groups across the country. When Kazım
(Karabekir) PaÅ~_a, the commander of the East Army, joined Kemal,
it was possible to have a base for resistance. The conventions in
the eastern cities of Erzurum and Sivas paved the way to set up a
Parliament in Ankara on April 23, 1920, right after the Parliament in
the (then) capital of Istanbul was dissolved by the invading British
and French armies on March 16. It was then that Defense Minister of
Sultan Fevzi (Cakmak) Pasha and his Chief of Staff İsmet (İnönu)
Pasha joined in Ankara for the War of Liberation.
The Russian Armies withdrew after the Soviet Revolution in 1917
and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, but invading Armenian and
Georgian forces were still in Eastern Anatolia. Greeks were invading
the Aegean region and Thrace (with the help of native Greek groups),
Italians in the western Mediterranean, the French in southern Turkey
(with the help of native Armenian groups), and the British had captured
(apart from Istanbul), the oil-rich upper Mesopotamia; roughly the
federative Kurdistan area of today's Iraq.
The fight went on for three difficult years. But the really difficult
part of the War of Liberation, which actually evolved into a War for
Independence, was the civil-war nature of it, which Turkish historians
do not like to talk about. The effort that Kemalist armies expended
against the (mostly religiously motivated) rebellions against them,
on behalf of the sultan, still being the Caliph of Islam and the
invading - ironically Christian - armies was much greater than the
effort in stopping the advancing invaders.
For the sultan, an objection to his unquestionable, divine authority
was much worse than the disarmament of his armies, the occupation of
the country, the seizing of all natural resources, and the dissolving
of the Parliament. For the Sultan to keep the title of the Caliphate
and stay safe in his palace were the things that mattered, not the
people and their future.
So the independence armies actually fought a double war: One against
the actual invaders and another against the forces loyal to the sultan,
or the caliph who was playing the religion card.
Perhaps that's why Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his fellows (not all
of them, though) found it inevitable to give all the authorities of
the caliph to Parliament in 1924, right after the regime change from
Sultanate to Republic in order for a new Turkey to be born again from
its own ashes in 1923.
Turkey became the first Muslim populated country to go secular,
adopting democratic rule in time - with a lot of ups and downs -
adopted the market economy, and made it into the top 20 economies
despite its lack of energy resources. Yes, it is still an example to
Muslim peoples in that sense...
That's why it is important to keep Turkey's secular and democratic
system and enrich it with full implementation of the rule of law, not
the opposite, as the Turkish Republic heads to its 100th anniversary
in 2023.
May/19/2014
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-95-years-ago-today.aspx?PageID=238&NID=66636&NewsCatID=409
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 19 2014
by MURAT YETKÄ°N
Ninety-five years ago today a group of young officers of the defeated
Ottoman army set out for the Black Sea port of Samsun, in a three-day
voyage from Istanbul under the intimidation of British, French and
Greek warships.
Their team leader was Army Inspector Mustafa Kemal Pasha (equivalent
to Lieutenant General at the time). His mission was to inspect whether
the army was abiding by the conditions of the Mudros Armstice of 1918,
marking the defeat of the six-century old Ottoman Empire at the end
of World War I.
The Greek minority in the eastern Black Sea rose up and took up arms
for the revival of the historic Pontus Kingdom, complaining that
Turkish groups and parts of the Turkish military were still resisting
and trying to stop them. Vahidettin, the Sultan, sent Mustafa Kemal,
his former chief-of-cabinet to take the rebel Turkish groups and obey
the Sultan's orders, not to be troublemakers despite the victorious
armies invading national territory.
Kemal and friends had other plans. A day before they moved from the
Sublime Porte, the Greek armies had landed in Ä°zmir, Turkey's Aegean
Port, which had been considered a major humiliation.
The moment that Kemal and friends arrived at Samsun, they started to
organize a resistance of their own; a much more organized one than the
individual efforts of small groups across the country. When Kazım
(Karabekir) PaÅ~_a, the commander of the East Army, joined Kemal,
it was possible to have a base for resistance. The conventions in
the eastern cities of Erzurum and Sivas paved the way to set up a
Parliament in Ankara on April 23, 1920, right after the Parliament in
the (then) capital of Istanbul was dissolved by the invading British
and French armies on March 16. It was then that Defense Minister of
Sultan Fevzi (Cakmak) Pasha and his Chief of Staff İsmet (İnönu)
Pasha joined in Ankara for the War of Liberation.
The Russian Armies withdrew after the Soviet Revolution in 1917
and the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918, but invading Armenian and
Georgian forces were still in Eastern Anatolia. Greeks were invading
the Aegean region and Thrace (with the help of native Greek groups),
Italians in the western Mediterranean, the French in southern Turkey
(with the help of native Armenian groups), and the British had captured
(apart from Istanbul), the oil-rich upper Mesopotamia; roughly the
federative Kurdistan area of today's Iraq.
The fight went on for three difficult years. But the really difficult
part of the War of Liberation, which actually evolved into a War for
Independence, was the civil-war nature of it, which Turkish historians
do not like to talk about. The effort that Kemalist armies expended
against the (mostly religiously motivated) rebellions against them,
on behalf of the sultan, still being the Caliph of Islam and the
invading - ironically Christian - armies was much greater than the
effort in stopping the advancing invaders.
For the sultan, an objection to his unquestionable, divine authority
was much worse than the disarmament of his armies, the occupation of
the country, the seizing of all natural resources, and the dissolving
of the Parliament. For the Sultan to keep the title of the Caliphate
and stay safe in his palace were the things that mattered, not the
people and their future.
So the independence armies actually fought a double war: One against
the actual invaders and another against the forces loyal to the sultan,
or the caliph who was playing the religion card.
Perhaps that's why Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his fellows (not all
of them, though) found it inevitable to give all the authorities of
the caliph to Parliament in 1924, right after the regime change from
Sultanate to Republic in order for a new Turkey to be born again from
its own ashes in 1923.
Turkey became the first Muslim populated country to go secular,
adopting democratic rule in time - with a lot of ups and downs -
adopted the market economy, and made it into the top 20 economies
despite its lack of energy resources. Yes, it is still an example to
Muslim peoples in that sense...
That's why it is important to keep Turkey's secular and democratic
system and enrich it with full implementation of the rule of law, not
the opposite, as the Turkish Republic heads to its 100th anniversary
in 2023.
May/19/2014
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/turkey-95-years-ago-today.aspx?PageID=238&NID=66636&NewsCatID=409
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress