The New York Times
NEW YORK, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 1938
ATATURK DIES AT 58; TURKS WILL
ELECT A SUCCESSOR TODAY
National Assembly Expected to
Name Gen. Inonu, Former Premier, as President
NATION GOES IN MOURNING
Peaceful Transition to New Era
Seen---Unity is Stressed Under Ideal of Founder
Wireless to New York Times.
ISTANBUL,
Turkey, Nov. 10- Kemal Ataturk, President and creator of modern Turkey, died
today at Dolma Baghche Palace at the age of 58. He had survived thirteen wounds
received in battle and a number of assassination attempts, but succumbed to
cirrhosis of the liver.
It is
expected that General Ismet Inonu, former Premier and President Ataturk’s
comrade-in-arms, will be chosen tomorrow morning by the Republican People’s
party to succeed the dictator-soldier, hero of the reborn nation.
The bulletin announcing the
death of Ataturk and signed by eight doctors read:
“The President’s general
condition, the gravity of which was announced in a bulletin published last
night, grew steadily worse. On Nov. 10, 1938, at 9:05 A.M., our great chief, in
a deep coma, breathed his last.
Three minutes after his
death Salih Bozuk, former aide and one of the President’s closest friends,
unsuccessfully attempted suicide by shooting. He was seriously wounded.
Premier Stays at Bedside
Throughout the night Ali
Fethi Okyar, Ambassador to London Ataturk’s sister and his adopted daughter
Sabihi Gueukschehn Honoum, the latter a famous airwoman, remained near the
bedside. The first indication of the President’s death came at 11:30 A.M. when
it was noticed that the flags on government buildings were at half-staff. Soon
the flags of ships in the harbor were at half-mast, and gradually all shops and
houses exhibited similar signs of mourning.
Later, however, the
authorities requested the withdrawal of flags except those on government
buildings. Although the flags at half staff the appearance of so much color gave
the impression that Istanbul was on fete. All places of public entertainment
were closed and no intoxicants will be sold in Turkey until further notice.
The government’s communiqué
issued this morning states:
“By Ataturk’s death Turkey
has lost her great creator, a nation its great Chief and humanity a great son.
We offer our people deepest condolences in their great loss. Our only
consolation in our affliction is our attachment to his great work and our
service to our dear country. We declare that before all things his immortal work
is the Turkish Republic.
“Your government is at its
post at this grave time through which we are passing. The great Turkish nation
will, without doubt, work as one body with the government to preserve order.
“In accordance with the
Consti- (continued on page eighteen) tution Abdullah Haik Renda, president of
the Kamutay [National Assembly] has assumed the interim Presidency of the
republic and the Kamutay will proceed forthwith with the election of a new
President of the republic. The government, the glorious Turkish Army with all
its might and the whole people, which form an unshakable entity, will gather
around whoever is elected to fulfill the highest office in Turkey and to
maintain her greatness.
“Ataturk, whom we mourn
today and always, had the confidence of the Turkish people. The continuation of
his work he bequeathed to the Turkish nation. The Turkish people, which is
eternal, will make it live eternally. Turkish youth will always defend the
Turkish republic, its precious legacy, and will march alone the path Ataturk
traced. Kemal Ataturk will live always.”
Beside General Inonu,
Marshal Fevzi Cakmak, Chief of Staff, and Mr. Okyar also are in the running for
the Presidency.
The Marshal, as Chief of
Staff, holds a position of great authority in the new Turkey and he is
universally respected as the father of the army. However, he is essentially a
soldier and he is known to be reluctant to play a political role. It is said
that before President Ataturk became seriously ill he asked the Marshal whether
he would stand for the Presidency if Ataturk resigned. The suggestion was
declined.
Mr. Okyar, once Prime
Minister of Turkey and lately Ambassador to London and an experienced diplomat,
has been Ataturk’s most intimate friend. Since the suppression in 1930 of the
short-lived Liberal party, of which he was a leader, he never joined the
Republican People’s party and it seems unlikely that the Kamutay, composed
almost entirely of adherents of the party the principals of which were lately
embodied in the Constitution, would elect a non-party man President.
Moreover, neither Marshal
Chakmak nor Mr. Okyar is a member of the Kamutay, from which a president is
elected.
Inonu Is Likely Choice
Its seems, therefore, that
the choice will fall on General Inonu. For many years he was a close
collaborator and lieutenant of President Ataturk and until twelve months ago he
had been Prime Minister continuously for twelve years. No man in Turkey
possesses his experience, and that is perhaps more important than his
popularity, which for long has been second only to Ataturk’s. Much has been said
about their estrangement last year when General Inonu resigned the Premiership,
but in light of subsequent events it now seems clear that it was the result
chiefly of temporary mutual irritation. President Ataturk was a sick man and
General Inonu was suffering from the strain of the long, arduous years in
office.
Ever since it was agreed
between them that in the interest of the country the partnership should be
dissolved, the general deliberately kept in the background, but the Turkish
people, with the possible exception of a few private enemies, continued to
regard him as the natural successor to his former chief.
Even if none of three is elected to the
Presidency and the Kamutay decides to choose another who has not played a
prominent part in the life of the republic, the loyal cooperation that is now
manifesting itself between Marshal Chakmak, Mr. Okyar and General Inonu,
toward Jelal Bayar, the present Prime Minister, should be sufficient to
guarantee a peaceful transition to the new era.
Change in Policy Unlikely
ISTANBUL,
Nov. 10 (AP). – There were unconfirmed reports today that Kemal Ataturk had left
a political testament to guide his successor in his own rigid doctrine of
westernization and nationalism.
No one expected Turkey’s new
leadership to turn in the immediate future from the domestic and foreign balance
that Ataturk achieved for his nation, strategically
situated between the East and the West.
Before Ataturk became
gravely ill in mid-October he was borrowing money for Turkey with little
discrimination from both Britain and Germany, although his early struggle for
power was tinged with bitter hatred for the influence of both.
The British and German Foreign Offices
were known to have keen interest in his successor and the future course of
Turkey.
Ataturk, a Military Hero, Formed surging Nation
He was
called simply Mustafa when he was born in Salonika in 1880, the son of a Turkish
custom’s officer. His mathematic’s teacher at military preparatory school added
Kemal, meaning “rightness,” to his name.
When he fought his way to
leadership of the Turks, the title of Pasha was added. Most of his historic
record was made as Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
In 1934, when he had so
modernized Turkey that titles were abolished and he was able to decree that all
Turks must thereafter have family names, he chose for himself the family name of
Ataturk, which is translated as “Chief Turk” or “Father of All Turks.”
Thenceforth he was known as Kemal Ataturk.
His death comes as a blow to
a nation of 14,000,000 people, although he reformed their social customs, their
religion and their economics with dictatorial zeal and speed.
Out of the remains of the
defeated and dismembered Ottoman Empire, he formed in 1923 a republic, which he
armed and industrialized and made into a powerful nation. He repossessed the
Dardanelles in 1936, conciliated the Greeks and steered a course between East
and West in a manner that made Soviet Russia, Britain and Germany in turn glad
to cultivate Turkey’s friendship and lend her millions of further development.
Women Admitted to Parliament
In twelve years of reform
women in Turkey were transported from the harem and the veil to membership in
Parliament, to which seventeen women were admitted in 1935. President Ataturk
even gave women the right to serve in the army, but said they would never be
sent to the front because they were too precious to the nation.
In another phase of reform,
he stripped Mohammedan priests of their privileges and made Sunday instead of
Friday the day of rest to conform with western usage. He devoted himself to the
development of an army and navy with which to assure the Turkish position in
dealing with the Western powers. By this year he had a modernized army of almost
500,000 men and was spending $70,000,000 of Turkey’s annual budget of
$210,000,000 to expand the national defense . He announced a five-year plan
intended to bring Turkey’s air force up to 1,000 of the latest military planes.
He ordered twenty-five submarines and planned to equip Turkey to manufacture
arms and war materials within her own boundaries.
Turkey’s control of the
Dardanelles had already made her one of the most important powers in the
Mediterranean, and she was prepared to defend her position instead of being a
pawn of stronger European nations as in the past.
Straits Pact Repudiated
She had gained this position
finally when Ataturk decided that Turkey’s new national stature justified the
repudiation of the last remaining restriction on her sovereignty---the Straits
convention of 1923, which forbade her to fortify the Dardanelles.
The President declared his
belief and assembled his troops. The powers interested in the Straits convention
said it was a “grave move,” but a hurriedly summoned conference in 1936 at
Montreux, Switzerland, gave Turkey the Straits once more.
Ataturk was instrumental in
the formation of the Balkan Entente, with Turkey, Greece, Romania and
Yugoslavia, and thereafter in 1937 he formed the Moslem, or Middle-East bloc,
with Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
Early in 1937 Ataturk grew
impatient with long-drawn-out negotiations with France over the Syrian mandate,
which France was about to relinquish by recognizing Syria as a republic. The
Turks wanted Alexandretta, containing Antioch and an important corner of the
Eastern Mediterranian shore leading to the Mosul oil fields.
The Turks had their way.
Alexandretta was made an autonomous State last July, under Franco-Turkish
administration and defense forces, with the understanding that the French would
eventually withdraw, leaving it to the Turks.
Policy Based on Expediency
The course of Turkey’s
international relations was steered by Ataturk on an apparent chart of
expediency, based on the position that Turkey occupies as a strong power astride
the Dardanelles, separating Russia from the Mediterranian, facing Germany on the
historic route to Baghdad and balancing Italy’s growth along Britain’s
“life-line” to the East.
Russia was the first to help
Turkey to power. In the post-war settlement the Soviet opposed in vain the
partition of Turkey. And when Kemal, not yet Ataturk, later undertook to drive
out the Allies Russia supplied arms, materials and funds that contributed
greatly to the final crushing of the Greeks in 1922.
The Soviet thereafter
enjoyed a position of preferred friendship in Turkey, but this cooled about ten
years later when it became evident that the Turkish dictator was willing to have
other friends also.
Britain and France were
eager to oblige the Turks. Last July, when Russia held aloof, Britain lent
Turkey $80,000,000, mostly for arms.
Germany, meanwhile, was
courting Turkey. So was Italy, Ataturk could not readily forget, however, that
the downfall of the Ottoman empire had resulted from siding with Germany in the
World War and that Turkey had been among the Entente powers that Italy had
deserted to side with the Allies.
Germany came bearing gifts,
however. She offered a commercial treaty. And she offered a huge credits under
which she would undertake to construct docks for Turkey along the Bosporus,
deliver a fleet of coastwise steamers and build a variety of factories. Ataturk
announced a five-year plan of industrialization.
Moreover, as the
Czechoslovak crisis developed he suffered disillusionment in his belief that
Britain was the strongest power in the world. Turkey concluded a commercial
treaty with Germany, accepted a loan of 150,000,000 marks and proceeded to
become Germany’s greatest foreign market. She is currently buying goods and
services from Germany at a yearly rate of about $130,000,000, while selling to
Germany at a yearly rate of $80,000,000.
It became evident to the
world that Ataturk had brought Turkey to the receiving end of several competing
international axes and to the profit position in the adjoining nationality
blocs.
Scorned Doctors’ Advice
During a quarter of a
century of war, intrigue and the dictation of sweeping reforms, however, Ataturk
had habitually disregarded all doctors’ orders to take better care of his
powerful physique.
Although he was stern and
strict in his official life, he was known to be convivial and carefree in his
social life. He frequently danced and drank all night, or played poker (with
great success) all night, smoking incessantly the while. Then he slept
twenty-four hours without interruption.
A French liver specialist
ordered a complete rest for him early this year, but he disdained it. His people
heard of this and raised such a clamor that Turkey bought him a luxurious yacht
from Richard M. Cadwaladen an American. It had gold-plated bathroom fitting and
gold door knobs. On it he caught a chill last summer while entertaining King
Carol of Rumania. He never completely recovered.
Almost to the day of death
Ataturk struggled to disestablish the ancient methods of Turkish thought. When
the medical profession of Turkey, which he had reorganized on modern scientific
lines, wished to express appreciation of what he had done for public health, the
best medical thought decided to present a solid gold bath-tub, eight feet long,
five feet wide and four feet deep.
The best Turkish doctors
thought it was the only thing fitted for the Ghazi—the Conqueror. Ataturk
ordered it melted down and the proceeds expended on bettering the public health.
Had a Food Taster
Yet Ataturk could not escape
being a traditional Turk in one respect; he had an official food taster. He was
served by Mohammed Mouhi, who was paid $15,000 a year for about twenty minutes’
work a day.
Mohamme d’s duty was to
taste well of all food and drink intended for Ataturk. Thereafter the meal was
kept in a hot table for an hour. If Mohammed did not die by that time the
dictator ate and drank.
Ataturk presided over a
republic about as large as California and New Mexico combined. Although he rose
to power because of his military ability, a career for which his early education
destined him, his post-war activities were those of a progressive and energetic
administrator.
Emil Ludwig, the German
biographer once called him “a man compared with whom Napoleon was half a
dreamer.” An outstanding fact about the dictator’s extraordinary career was his
consistency and his patience, his courage and his silence. It was he who won the
peace of Lausanne--the first time for 200 years that old Asia achieved a victory
over Europe.
He was a revolutionary
officer who in his Salonika days had began to oppose the committee of Young
Turks; a man for whom no measure of reform was adequate, who found the policy of
Talaat and Enver superficial, and the alliance with Germany fatal; the man who
made no capital out of the military reputation he earned at Gallipoli, who twice
withdraw from public life, who with threats warned the last Sultan to turn over
a new leaf, and who after the war, contrived to defeat him and the people in
power in Constantinople, and who was warned, recalled, deposed and sentenced to
death by the then Turkish Government.
Having in his command 20,000
war-worn soldiers, he entered upon the conflict with the great powers of Europe,
and then, for four whole years, surrounded by foes without and within, waited
until he had overthrown the Sultan, abolished the Caliphate, set free the
essential part of Turkey from the ruins of the old empire, saved it and
reestablished it as a republic. By these achievements he proved himself a great
military leader and statesman.
The President’s moustache
and fez, prominent features in his portraits at the time when he rose to power,
were given up after he had established himself. His medium sized, slight figure
was clad in elegant civil dress. His hair was bright and blond. His furrowed
countenance indicated what he had gone through. He lived, as the first citizen
of his country, in a villa situated among the hills outside the new capital that
he had founded. He had built it in that Turkish style that dates from the
period when French tastes prevailed. Almost unguarded its doors were left open
in true Oriental fashion.
Dates in His Career
The historical dates of the
Ghazi’s career after the World War are:
On May 16, 1919, the Greeks
landed at Smyrna. On June 21 the future dictator called the assembly of a
congress of patriots. The Sultan dismissed him from the army service on July 8th.
Two weeks later the Ghazi presided at the Congress of Erzerum, which resolved
that “with one accord the entire East will resist the occupation and the
interference of the foreigner.”
On Sept. 4 he was elected
chairman of a second congress at Sivas, which resolved “to fight for Turkish
integrity.” In October national elections were forced by him, and these resulted
in the defeat of the Sultan’s government. British troops, in March, 1920, took
possession of Constantinople, now Istanbul, and in April he was outlawed and
condemned to death by the Sultan.
Shortly afterward the
Turkish National Assembly met, elected the Ghazi President and adopted the
national pact, the Magna Charta of New Turkey. In May the Sultan sent a
“Caliph’s army” toward Angora to destroy the nationalist forces. This army was
driven back into Constantinople by the Ghazi.
When the Greeks began their
invasion of Asiatic Turkey in June, 1920, he organized an army of defense. On
Aug. 10 the Treaty of Sevres partitioned the Ottoman Empire and divided it among
the European powers.
The Ghazi stopped the Greek
army at Sakaria on Sept. 13, 1921. At the battle of Dumla Puvar, on Aug. 26
1922, he issued an order to his troops, “Soldiers, your goal is the
Mediterranian! On to it!” A few days later he drove the Greek army into the sea.
He advanced upon Constantinople and the Dardanelles, and on Oct. 11, 1922,
authorized the signing of the armistice treaty with the Allies at Mudovia,
which, in effect, was an other diplomatic victory for Turkey.
On Nov.1, 1922, the Ghazi
abolished the Sultanate, and on Nov. 17 the Sultan fled from Turkey on a British
warship. Three days later the peace conference opened at Lausanne. Ably
represented and supported by his brilliant colleague Ismet Pasha, the Ghazi won
his great diplomatic victory and on Oct.29, 1923, was elected first President of
the Turkish Republic.
Ataturk was born when Abdul
Hamid II was Sultan. He was an only son and he was intended by his mother for
the mosque school, but he became fascinated by the uniforms of the army
officers and was sent to the military preparatory school at Salonika.
Plotted Against Sultan
After attending the
military preparatory school at Salonika, the officers’ school at Monastir and
the War Academy at Constantinople, Kemal, then a head strong youth of 22,
entered the army in 1902 with the rank of lieutenant. Through forbidden
literature he became acquainted with Western ideas of government, which soon led
to his hatred of Abdul Hamid, whom he bitterly opposed. In a small apartment in
the Stamboul section of Constantinople he founded the secret Society of Liberty.
As a result he was arrested and after three months’ confinement in a cell at the
ministry of police, was exiled, being sent to Damascus to join a cavalry
regiment. There he founded local branches of his society, but, being too
isolated, fled to Alexandria and finally reached Salonika by way of Piraeus in
Greece.
When his secret activities
were again discovered, he flew to Akaba and stayed for a while in Syria. He
obtained a transfer to the Third Army’s staff at Salonika, merged the Society of
Liberty into the Society of Progress and entrenched his forces in Salonika,
Monastir and Uskup. The revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 failed, but the
Sultan lost his absolute regime in the counter-revolution of 1909. A quarrel
between Kemal and Enver Pasha, whose rule succeeded that of Abdul Hamid,
followed, and Kemal withdrew from politics in bitter disillusionment.
During the following years
he led the life of the average Turkish army officer. He was exiled by Enver to
Tripoli, returned to Salonika, was transferred to Albania, and again sent to
Salonika. Hated by Enver, he was military attaché at Sofia, Bulgaria, when
Turkey joined Germany in 1914 in a last desperate gamble for the life of the
empire. Kemal, convinced from the first that the empire was in no condition to
enter the war, received command of the Nineteenth Division and was dispatched to
the Dardanelles. He soon commanded all the Turco-German forces on the peninsula,
and his success in throwing back the British before Anaforta was the most
brilliant achievement of his military career.
This victory made him a
great hero in Germany, but it was not until its story was told in the Committee
Year Book for 1917 that Enver permitted it to leak out in Constantinople. Two
years later the Turkish papers began printing the story of Anaforta, and Enver
caused the entire issues to be confiscated. By that time it had become
politically dangerous to mention Kemal’s name in the capital.
Alarmed at Kemal’s
popularity, Liman von Sanders, the German generalissimo, transferred him to the
Russian front after the British had evacuated the Dardanelles. He was appointed
major general, in command of the Sixteenth Army, but he came into conflict with
Falkenhayn, threw up his command in protest, and returned to Aleppo, where he
dispatched to Enver a remarkable statement, outlining the entire political
situation at a moment when a German victory was expected. Pointing out
Falkenhayn’s position, he warned: “We shall lose our own country and Falkenhayn
will sacrifice every ounce of gold and every soldier he can squeeze out of us.”
Exiled to Germany
Enver’ reply to this warning
was to give Falkenhayn command of the Palestine front and to exile Kemal to
Germany. For the next year he was on the German and Austro-Hungarian front. Then
Enver recalled him and gave him the Yilderim command (Fourth, Seventh and Eighth
Armies) on the Palestine front. But it was too late. Kemal reached his post just
as Allenby’s great break-through brought the empire crashing down to its end.
It was figuratively the end
of the world for Kemal. He returned to Constantinople, which had fallen into
disorder. The members of his revolutionary committee had fled, and Damad Ferid
Pasha was to succeed Talaat and Enver. Turkey was virtually surrounded by her
enemies, the Allies forming an iron ring around the remnants of the old empire.
Under the terms of the Mudros armistice, the Turkish Navy was interned at
Constantinople and the army disarmed. With the Allies in occupation of the
capital, Kemal knew that further attempts were useless. He fled to Asia Minor.
When he ignored Ferid’s demand to return, the latter dismissed him from the
army.
In the following struggle
between Kemal and Ferid, Kemal was the final victor. The Anglo-Hellenic
rapprochement sent whole provinces in Asia Minor scurrying to Kemal, with the
result that this part was lost to Ferid. With the Greek occupation of Smyrna in
1919, which led Kemal to tear up Mudros armistice, the star of the Ghazi began
to rise, and,after his strategic victories, reached its climax with his
diplomatic victory at Lausanne and his election as first President of the
Turkish Republic.
Kemal Ataturk, the “most
terrible of all the terrible Turks,” as he was termed by Earl Balfour, who
described him as a brigand, was always a man who insisted on having his own
ideas accepted.
The new Turkey got rid of
her Sultans in 1922 but she did not then dare abolish the Caliphate. The
abolition of the Caliphate was the first step of importance in the life of the
new republic. The next was the reform of the laws. This was achieved in the
space of only a few weeks. The Swiss Civil Code was almost literally translated,
and the best points of the Italian Penal Code were accepted. Thus the Ghazi, by
imposing his will upon the nation, had altered within three months the entire
judiciary.
He ordered the first census
ever to be held on Turkish territory. Although this was not a reform in itself,
it led to reforms of vast importance which gave the country and the world a
definite idea of Turkey’s importance in Near Eastern affairs. The President also
made the Turkish language obligatory as the official language, and ordered that
it be written in Roman instead of Arabic characters. Capitulations (foreign
privileges) were abolished. The Gregorian calendar was substituted for the
Islamic, and the feast of the Ramazan was fixed by astronomical observation. In
every direction Islamic precedence and prohibitions were broken and violated.
Changed the Old Order
In its special aspects the
revolution attempted to model the customs of the State upon Western fashions.
The old order was changed. The traditional fez was abandoned and the Turkish
women gave up their veils. Harems, survival of Byzantium, were forbidden,
monogamy became the law and men and women received equal rights in the matter of
divorce. In 1923 Angora, in the heart of Anatolia, became officially the
capital, as a result of a decree by the President. He spent money freely to
build it and developed a modern city.
He started with Angora as an
unkempt little Anatolian village with narrow streets and mud-brick houses, where
the only big event was a weekly market for the peasants.
According to a German
architectural plan by Herman Jansen, the new capital was laid out in detached
sections over an immense site. From a central citadel, broad paved avenues
radiated, imperiously breaking the natural lines of a hilly plain.
These avenues were lined
with handsome edifices in broad arches and tiles—schools, lyceums, hospitals,
dwellings, factories, laboratories. Automobile traffic moves swiftly in Angora,
where camel caravans used to plod within the memory of many of the inhabitants.
The streets are lighted by electricity. A telephone exchange and a powerful
wireless station were in operation in Angora by 1925.
A typical act in the Ghazi’s
endeavor to reform the country was the changing of the name of Constantinople to
the old Turkish title Istanbul. This removed a historic reminder of the days
when Occidentals ruled on the Bosporus. It served also to bolster Turkish
nationalistic feeling.
After the Ottoman dynasty,
which for six centuries had been in power in the empire, had became mere
history, Article II of the constitution of the Turkish Republic declared that
“The religion of the Turkish State is Islam.” This article had to be removed as
the final step in Ataturk’s endeavor to separate the church from the State. In
1928 the National Assembly struck out the article and provided that government
servants should no longer swear by Allah in taking the oath of office, but
should simply swear on their honor. Finally, an official translation of the
Koran was made.
The President married in
January in 1923, Latife Hanim, daughter of a wealthy Turkish merchant of Smyrna.
It was reported that his bride brought him a dowry of 1,000,000Turkish lire. The
Ghazi divorced his wife in 1925 by the simple old procedure of saying in the
presence of witnesses, “I divorce you.”
(From the achives of New York Times Newspaper)
Presented by Barış İnanç / Aydın