Gerekli Tarama

Röportajın İngilizce metni:

Kemal Pasha
October 20, 1923
by Isaac F. Marcosson
Kemal Pasha
Kemal Pasha as Field Marshal of the Turkish Army

THERE was a time when Angora was famous solely for cats and goats. Today the shambling, time-worn town far up in the Anatolian hills has another, and world-wide significance. It is not only the capital of the reconstructed Turkish Government and the seat therefore of the most picturesque of all contemporary experiments in democracy, but is likewise the home of Ghazi Mustapha Kemal Pasha—to give him his full title—who is distinct among the few vital personalities revealed by the bitter backwash of the World War.

Only Lenin and Mussolini vie with him for the center of that narrowing stage of compelling leadership. Each of these three remarkable men has achieved a definite result in a manner all his own. Lenin imposed an autocracy through force and blood. Mussolini created a personal and political dictatorship in which he dramatized himself. Kemal not only led a beaten nation to victory and dictated terms to the one-time conqueror, but set up a new and unique system of administration.

Lenin and Mussolini have almost been done to death by human or, in the case of the soviet overlord, inhuman interest historians.  Kemal Pasha is still invested with an element of mystery and aloofness largely begot of the physical inaccessibility of his position.  To the average American, he is merely a Turkish name vaguely associated with some kind of military achievement. The British Dardanelles Expedition know it much better, for he frustrated the fruits of that immense heroism written in blood and agony on the shores of Gallipoli. The Greeks have an even costlier knowledge, because he was the organizer of the victory that literally drove them into the sea in one of the most complete debacles of modern times.

At Angora I talked with this man in a critical hour of the war-born Turkish Government.  The Lausanne Conference was at the breaking point. War or peace still hung in the balance. Only the day before, Rauf Bey, the Prime Minister, had said to me: “If they [the Allies] want war they can have it.” The air was charged with tension and uncertainty. Over the troubled scene brooded the unrelenting presence of the chieftain I had traveled so far to see. Events, like the government itself, revolved about him.

In difficulty of approach and in the grim and dramatic quality of the setting, Anatolia was strongly reminiscent of my journey a year ago to the Southern Chinese front to see Sun Yat-sen. Between him and Kemal exists a certain similarity. Each is a sort of inspired leader. Each has his kindling ideal of a self-determination that is the by-product of fallen empire. Here the parallel ends. Kemal is the man of blood and iron—an orientalized Bismarck, as it were—dogged, ruthless, invincible; while Sun Yat-sen is the dreamer and visionary, eternal pawn of chance, and with as many political existences—and I might add, governments—as the proverbial cat has lives.

Turkey for the Turks
As with men, so with the peoples behind them.  You have another striking contrast. While China flounders in well-nigh incredible political chaos, due to incessant conflict of selfish purpose and lack of leadership, Turkey has emerged as a homogeneous nation for the first time in its long and bloody history, with defined frontiers, a real homeland, and a nationalistic aim that may shape the destiny of the Mohammedan world, and incidentally affect American commercial aspirations in the Near East.  ”Turkey for the Turks” is the new slogan. The instrument and inspiration of the whole astonishing evolution—it is little less than a miracle when you realize that in 1919 Turkey was as prostrate as defeat and bankruptcy could bring her—has been Kemal Pasha.

He was the real objective of my trip to Turkey.  Constantinople with its gleaming mosques and minarets, and still a queen among cities despite its dingy magnificence, had its lure, but from the hour of my arrival on the shores of the Golden Horn my interest was centered on Angora.

I had chosen a difficult time for the realization of this ambition. The Lausanne Conference was apparently mired, and the long-awaited peace seemed more distant than ever. A state of war still existed. The army of occupation gave the streets martial tone and color, while a vast Allied fleet rode at anchor in the Bosporus or boomed at target practice in the Sea of Marmora. The capital in the Anatolian hills had become even more inaccessible.

Every barrier based on suspicion, aloofness and general resentment of the foreigner—the usual Turkish trilogy— all tied up with endless red tape, worked overtime. It was a combination disastrous to swift American action. My subsequent experiences emphasized the truth of the well-known Kipling story which dealt with the fate of an energetic Yankee in the Orient whose epitaph read: “Here lies a fool who tried to hustle the East.”

To add to all this handicap begot of temperament and otherwise, the Turks had begun to realize, not without irritation, that the consummation of the Chester Concession was not so easy as it looked on paper. The last civilian who successfully applied for permission to go to Angora had been compelled to linger at Constantinople seven weeks before he got his vessica—as a visa is called in Turkish.  Two or three others had departed for home in disgust after four weeks of watchful and fruitless waiting. The prospect was not promising.

When I paid my respects to Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the American High Commissioner, on my first day in Constantinople, I invoked his aid in getting to Angora. He promptly gave me a letter of introduction to Dr. Adnan Bey, then the principal representative of Angora in Constantinople, through whom all permits had to pass.

I went to see him at the famous Sublime Porte, the Foreign Office and the scene of so much sinister Turkish history. Here the sordid tools of Abdul-Hamid, the Red Sultan, and others no less unscrupulous, lived their day. I expected to find the structure almost as imposing as its richer mate in history, the Mosque of St. Sophia. It proved to be a dirty, rambling, yellow building without the slightest semblance of architectural beauty, and strongly in need of disinfecting.

In Adnan Bey I found my first Turkish ally. Moreover, I discovered him to be a man of the world with a broad and generous outlook. An early aid of Kemal in the precarious days of the nationalist movement, he became the first vice president of the Angora Government.  Moreover, he had another claim to fame, for he is the husband of the renowned Halide Hanum, the foremost woman reformer of Turkey, whom I was later to meet in interesting circumstances at Munich, and whose story will be disclosed in a subsequent article. Adnan Bey, however, is not what we would call a professional husband in America. Long before he rallied to the Kemalist cause he was widely known as one of the ablest physicians in Turkey.

He at once sent a telegram to Angora asking for my permission to go. This permission is concretely embodied in a pass—the aforesaid vessica—which is issued by the Constantinople prefect of police. Back in the days of the Great War it was a difficult procedure to get the so-called white pass which enabled the holder to go to the front. Compared with the coveted permission to visit Angora, that pass was about as inaccessible as a public handbill, as I was now to discover.

Adnan Bey told me that he would have an answer from Angora in about three days. I found that three days was like the Russian word seichas which technically means “immediately” but when employed in action or rather lack of action on its own ground, usually spells “next month.”

Red-Tape Entanglements
After a week passed, the American Embassy inquired of the Sublime Porte if they had heard about my application, but no word had come. A few days later Turkish officialdom went mad. An order was promulgated that no alien except of British, French or Italian nationality could enter or leave Constantinople without the consent of Angora. People who had left Paris or London, and they included various Americans, with existing credentials, were held up at the Turkish frontier, despite the fact that the order had been issued after they had started. Thanks to Admiral Bristol’s prompt and persistent endeavors, the frontier ban was lifted from Americans. Angora became swamped overnight with telegraphic protests and requests, and I felt that mine was completely lost in the new and growing shuffle.

Meanwhile I had acquired a fine upstanding young Turk, Reschad Bey by name, who spoke English, French and German fluently, as dragoman, which means courier and interpreter. No alien can go to Angora without such an aid, because, save in a few isolated spots, the only language spoken in Anatolia is Turkish. Reschad Bey was really an inheritance from Robert Imbrie, who had just retired after a year as American consul at Angora. Reschad Bey had been his interpreter. Much contact with Imbrie had acquainted him with American ways and he thoroughly sympathized with my impatience over the delay. He had a strong pull at Angora himself and sent some telegrams to friends in my behalf.

At the expiration of the second week Admiral Bristol made a personal appeal to Adnan Bey to expedite my permission, and a second strong telegram went from the Sublime Porte to Angora. Other Turkish and American individuals whom I had met added their requests by wire. Of course I was occupied with other work, but I had only a limited amount of time at my disposal and when all was said and done, Kemal was the principal prize of the trip and I was determined to land him. Early in July therefore I sent Reschad Bey to Angora to find out just what the situation was. He departed on the morning of the Fourth. When I returned to my hotel from attending the Independence Day celebration at the embassy I found a telegram from Angora addressed to Reschad Bey in my care from one of his friends in the government, saying that my permission to go to Angora had been wired nine days before! Yet on the previous morning the Sublime Porte had declared that Angora was still silent on my request.

Upon investigation I found that in the tangle of red tape at the prefecture of police, the coveted telegram had been shoved under a pile of papers and no one knew anything about it until a long search, instigated at my request, had disclosed the anxiously awaited message. It was a typically Turkish procedure, and just the kind of thing that might have happened at an official bureau anywhere in China. Before Reschad Bey reported to me after his return I had the vessica in my possession and was getting ready to start.
Difficult as was this first step, it was matched in various handicaps by nearly every stage of the actual journey. Again I was to run afoul of Turkish official decree.

In ordinary circumstances, if I had been a Turk I could have boarded a train at Haidar Pasha, which is just across the Bosporus by ferry from Constantinople and the beginning of the Anatolian section of the much-discussed Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway, and gone without change to Angora in approximately twenty-seven hours. It happened, however, that the whole Turkish Army of considerably more than 250,000 men was mobilized beyond Ismid and along the railroad right of way. No alien was permitted to make this journey. Instead of the comparatively easy trip by rail—I say “comparatively” advisedly—he was compelled to go by boat to Mudania, then by rail to Brusa, and subsequently by motor all day across the Anatolian plain to Kara Keuy, where he would pick up the train from Haidar Pasha. Instead of twenty-seven hours, this trip—and it was the one I had to make— took exactly fifty-five hours.

Going to Angora these days is like making an expedition to the heart of China or Africa. In the first place you must carry your own food. There are other preliminaries. One of the most essential, even if it is not the most esthetic, is to secure half a dozen tins of insect powder. The moment you leave Constantinople—and for that matter even while you are within the storied precincts of the great city—you make the acquaintance of endless little visitors of every conceivable kind and bite. Apparently the average Turk has become more or less inured to the inroads of vermin, but even long experience with trench warfare does not cure the European of aversion to it.

It was on a brilliant sunlight Monday morning that I left Constantinople for Angora. Admiral Bristol had placed a submarine chaser in command of Captain T. H. Robbins at my disposal and we were therefore able to dispense with the crowded and none too clean Turkish boat. Accompanied by Lewis Heck, who had been the first American High Commissioner to Turkey after the Armistice, and who now had a business mission at Angora, and the faithful Reschad Bey, I made the journey to Mudania across the Sea of Marmora in four hours, arriving at noon. Until November, 1922, Mudania was merely a spot on the Turkish map. After the Greek debacle, and when the British and Turkish armies had come within a few feet of actual collision at Chanak, and war between the two powers seemed inevitable, General Sir Charles Harington, commander of the British forces in Turkey, and Ismet Pasha—the same Ismet who led the Allied delegates such a merry diplomatic chase at Lausanne—met here and arranged the famous truce that was the prelude to the first Lausanne Conference.

Kemal
Kemal with his puppies

Madame Brotte and Her Hotel
OVERNIGHT the village became famous. The small stone house near the quay where the conference was held is now occupied by a Turkish family and is overrun with children.  Instead of making the forty-mile journey to Brusa in the toy train that runs twice a day, we traveled in a brand-new American flivver just acquired by a Brusa dealer, which had been ordered by telegraph and which awaited us at the dock. The hillsides were dark with a mass of olive trees, while in the valleys tobacco and corn grew in abundance. The Anatolian peasant is a thrifty and industrious soul and apparently had got back on the job of reconstruction even while the Greek transports were fading out of sight.

Long before the muezzins sounded from the minarets their musical calls to sunset prayer we arrived in Brusa, the ancient capital of Turkey, and still a place of commercial importance. Here we stopped the night at the Hotel d’Anatolie, where I bade farewell to anything like comfort and convenience until my return there on my way back to Constantinople.

This hotel is one of the famous institutions of Anatolia.  It is owned by Madame Brotte, who is no less distinguished than her hostelry. Out in her pleasant garden, where we could listen to the musical flow of a tiny cataract, this quaint old lady, still wearing the white cap of the French peasant, told me her story.

She had been born in Lyons, in France, eighty-four years ago, and came to Anatolia with her father, a silk expert, when she was twenty-one. Brusa is the center of the Turkish silk industry, which was founded and is still largely operated by the French. Madame had married the proprietor of the hotel shortly after her advent, and on his death took over the operation. Wars, retreats and devastations beat about her, but she maintained her serene way. She had lived in Turkey so long that she mixed Turkish words with her French. Listening to her patter in that fragrant environment, and with the memory of the excellent French dinner she had served, made it difficult for me to realize that I was in Anatolia and not in France.

Anatolia, let me add, is bone-dry so far as alcohol is concerned. The one regret that madame expressed was that the Turks sealed up her wine cellar, and only heaven and Angora knew when those seals would be lifted. It is worth mentioning that during the eight days I spent in Anatolia I never saw a drop of liquor. It is about the only place in the world where prohibition seems to prohibit. Constantinople is a different, and later, story.

In Madame Brotte I got another evidence of a curious formula of colonial expansion. When you knock about the world, and especially the outlying places, you discover that certain races follow definite rules when they are implanted in foreign soil. The first thing that the English do is to start a bank. The Spanish invariably build a church, while the French set up a café. So it was in Anatolia.

It was with a certain regret that I bade farewell the next morning to the dear old French dame. In the same flivver that brought us up from Mudania we started on the all-day run to Kara Keuy. At the outskirts of Brusa I saw the first tangible signs of the Greek disaster. Ditched along the roadside were hundreds of motor trucks—unwilling gifts from the Greeks—which the Turks had not even taken the trouble to remove or salvage. As we swung into the open country, ruined farmhouses met the gaze on every side. Whole villages had been wiped out when the Greeks had pressed on for what they had fondly believed to be the capture of Angora. They came back much faster than they advanced.

Kemal home
The Kemal home at Angora

Travel by Oxcart
We were in the real Anatolia. This mellifluous name, rivaled in beauty of sound only by Mesopotamia, means “the place where the sun rises.” It had long shone on people and events bound up in the narrative of all human and spiritual progress, for we now skirted what might be called the rim of the cradle of mankind. Across these plains had stalked the stately and immortal figures of Biblical days. Here the armies of Alexander and Pompey had camped, and the famous Gordian knot was cut. Here, too, passed the mailed crusaders on the road to Jerusalem, and amid the green hills that rose to the left and right the civilization of the Near East was born.

I now had my first contact with what has been well called the Anatolian oxcart symphony. It is the weirdest perhaps of all sounds, and is emitted from the ungreased wood-wheeled carts drawn by oxen or water buffalo, which provide the only available vehicle for the Turkish farmer. There has been no change in its noise or construction since the days of Saul of Tarsus. It is a violation of etiquette for the driver of one of these carts—the roads are alive with them—to be awake in transit, incredible as this seems when you have heard the frightful noise. He awakes only when the screech stops. Silence is his alarm clock. These carts do about fifteen miles a day. When the Greeks had the important southern Turkish ports bottled up, all of Kemal’s supplies were hauled in these carts for over two hundred miles to Angora.

The farther we traveled, the more did the country take on the aspect of Northern France after the war. Hollyhocks were growing in the shell holes, and there were always the gaunt, stark ruins of a house or village sentineling the landscape. We passed through the village of In Onu, where the Greeks and the Turks had met in bloody battle, and just as the sun was setting we drew up at Kara Keuy, which is merely a railway station flanked by a few of the coffeehouses that you find everywhere in Turkey. A contingent of Turkish troops was encamped nearby. Before we could get coffee we had to submit our papers for examination by the police.

An hour later, the train that had left Haidar Pasha that morning pulled in. We bagged a first-class compartment and started on the final lap to Angora. Midnight found us at Eski-Shehr, once a considerable town, where the Greeks and the Turks were at death grips for months. After the Turkish retirement in 1921 the town was burnt by the Greeks. No sooner was I on the train and trying to get some sleep on the hard seat, for Pullmans are unknown in Turkey, than I began to make the acquaintance of the little travelers who had put the itch into Anatolia. They are the persistent little Nature guides to discomfort.

For hours the country had become more and more rugged. The fertile, lowlands with their fields of waving corn and grateful green were now far behind. As we climbed steadily into the hills we could see occasional flocks of Angora goats. It was a dull, bleak prospect, but every inch of ground, as far as the eye could see, and beyond, had been fought over.

At nine o’clock the next morning we crossed a narrow stream that wound lazily along. Although insignificant in appearance, like most of the other historic rivers, it will be immortalized in Turkish song and tradition. In all the years to come the quaint story-tellers whom you find in the bazaars will recount the epic story of what happened along its rocky banks.  This inconsequential-looking river was the famous Sakaria, which marked the high tide of the Greek offensive and the place where Kemal Pasha’s army made its last desperate stand. Very near the point where we crossed, the Greeks were hurled back and their offensive broken. What the Marne means to France and the Piave to Italy, that is the Sakaria to the new Turkey. It marks the spot where rose the star of hope.

Almost before I realized it a pall of smoke, the invariable outpost of a city, loomed ahead. Then I saw scattered mosques and minarets stark and white in the sunlight, and before long we were in Angora. The railway station is in the outskirts of the town and I had to drive for more than a mile to get to my lodging.
Despite the discomforts of the trip I must confess to something of a thrill when I stepped from the train. At last I was in a capital without precedent, perhaps, in the history of civilization. After their temporary sojourn first at Erzerum and then at Sivas, the Kemalists had set up their governmental shop in this squalid, dilapidated, and half-burned village at one railhead of the Anatolian road. It was not without its historical association because once the crusaders camped here, and later Tamerlane the Terrible had overwhelmed the Sultan Bayezid in a famous battle and carried him off to the East as prisoner.

Angora, the Strange Capital
Almost overnight the population had grown from ten thousand to sixty thousand. With the advent of the Grand National Assembly, as the Turkish parliament is called, came the cabinet, all the members of the government, and the innumerable human appendages of national administration. Until the overthrow of the Greeks last year, Angora was also the general headquarters of the Turkish Army and its chief supply base.

Then, as now, Angora was more like a Western mining town in the first flush of a boom than the capital of a government whose future is a source of concern in every European chancellery. Every house, indeed every excuse for a habitation, is packed and jammed with people. Imbrie, the American consul, was forced to live for a year in a freight car which was placed at his disposal by the government. Moreover, he had to struggle hard to hang on to this makeshift home. The shops are primitive, and there are only two restaurants that a European could patronize.

Hotels as we know them do not exist. The nearest approach is the so-called han, which is the Turkish word for house. The average Turkish village han for travelers is merely a whitewashed structure with a quadrangle, where caravan drivers park their mules or camels at night and sleep upstairs on platforms. It is full of atmosphere, and other things more visible.

If you have any doubt about the patriotism which animates the new Turkish movement you have only to go to Angora to have it dispelled. Amid an almost in describable lack of comfort you find high officials, many of them former ambassadors who once lived in the ease and luxury of London, Paris, Berlin, Rome or Vienna, doing their daily tasks with fortitude.

Happily I had taken out some insurance against the physical discomfort that is the lot of every visitor to Angora.  After Kemal’s residence, about the only one fit to occupy is the building remodeled for the use of the Near East Relief workers, which had lately been acquired by the representatives of the Chester Concession. Before leaving Constantinople I got permission to occupy this establishment, and it was a godsend in more ways than one.  By some miracle, but due mainly to the three old Armenian servants whom I kept busy scrubbing the floors and airing the cots, I had no use for my insect powder.  In fact I carried it back with me to Constantinople and exchanged it for some other and more aesthetic commodities.

This reference to the Chester Concession recalls a striking fact which was borne in upon me before I had been in Angora half a day. Everybody, from the most ragged bootblack up, not only knows all about the concession but regards it as the unfailing panacea for Turkish wealth and expansion.  Ask a Turkish peasant about it and he will tell you that it means a railroad siding on his farm next month. There is a blind, almost pathetic faith in the ability of the Chester Concessionaires to work an economic transformation. This is one reason why in Angora as elsewhere in Turkey the American is, for the moment, the favorite alien. But the whole Chester matter will be taken up in a later article.

Reasons for the Choice
By this time you will have asked the question, Why did the Turks pick this unkempt apology of a town as their capital?  The answer is interesting. The first consideration was defense. Angora is more than two hundred miles from the sea, and any invading army, as the Greeks found out to their cost, must live on the country. Even in case of immediate attack there is a wild and rugged hinterland which affords an avenue of escape. But this is merely the external reason.

If a Turk is candid he will tell you that perhaps the real motive for all this isolation is to keep the personnel of the government out of mischief. At Constantinople the official is on the old stamping ground of illicit official intercourse. The Nationalist Government is taking no chances during its period of transition. It was Kemal Pasha who selected Angora, and in this choice you have a hint of the man’s discretion. Although the Turks maintain that Angora is the permanent seat of government and that the unwilling foreign governments must sooner or later establish themselves there, it is probably only a question of years until Constantinople will come back to its own as capital. Meanwhile Angora will continue to be the Washington of the new Turkey, while Constantinople will be its New York.

The principal thoroughfare of Angora is unpaved, rambling, and the fierce sun beats down upon its incessant dust and din. At one end is a low stucco building flying the red Turkish flag with its white star and crescent. Here, after the personality of Kemal, is what might be called the soul of the Turkish Government. It is the seat of the Grand National Assembly. In it Kemal was elected president, and here the Lausanne Treaty was confirmed.

Over the president’s chair hangs this passage from the Koran: “Solve your problems by meeting together and discussing them.” In Kemal’s office just across the hall is another maxim from the same source, which says: “And consult them in ruling.” In this last-quoted sentence you have the keynote of Kemal’s creed, because up to this time he has carefully avoided the prerogatives of dictatorship, although to all intents and purposes he is a dictator, and could easily continue to be one, for it is no exaggeration to say that he is the idol of Turkey. His picture hangs in every shop and residence.

The Grand National Assembly is unique among all parliamentary bodies in that it not only elects the president of the body, who is likewise the executive head of the nation, but it also designates the members of the cabinet, including the premier. By this procedure a government cannot fall, as is the case in England or France, when the premier fails to get a vote of confidence.  If a cabinet minister is found undesirable he is removed by the legislative body, a successor is named, and the business of the government goes on without interruption.  The delegates to the Assembly are, of course, elected by the people.

But all this is by way of introduction. I was in the ken of Kemal and the job now was to see him. I had arrived at noon on a Wednesday and promptly sent Reschad Bey to see Rauf Bey, the premier, to whom I had a letter of introduction from Admiral Bristol. The cabinet was in almost continuous session on account of the crisis at Lausanne, and I was unable to see him until the following morning at nine.

I spent three hours with him in the foreign office, a tiny stucco building meagerly furnished, but alive with the personality of its chief occupant. Rauf Bey is the sailor premier—he was admiral of the old Turkish Navy—and has the frank, blunt, wholesome manner of the seafaring man. He is the only member of the cabinet, by the way, who speaks English, and he told me that he had visited Roosevelt at the White House in 1903. He was one of the prominent Turks deported by the British to Malta in 1920. In exile, he said, his chief solace was in the intermittent copies of THE SATURDAY EVENING POST which reached him through friendly naval officers. He had read these magazines so thoroughly that he quoted long extracts from them. He had been particularly interested in an article of mine about General Smuts, whose ideal of self-determination has helped to shape the new Turkish policy.

It was Rauf Bey who made the appointment for me to see Kemal Pasha at his house on the following afternoon at five o’clock. The original plan was for both of us to dine there that evening. Subsequently this was changed because, as Rauf Bey put it, “The Ghazi’s in-laws are visiting him, and his house is crowded.” By using the term “in-laws” you can see how quickly Rauf Bey had adapted himself to Western phraseology.

The premier’s reference to the Ghazi requires an explanation. Ordinarily Kemal is referred to in Angora by the proletariat as the Pasha. The educated Turk, however, invariably gives him his later title of Ghazi, voted by the assembly, which is the Turkish word for “conqueror.” Since that fateful day in 1453 when Mohammed the Conqueror battered down the gates of Constantinople and the Moslem era on the Bosporus began, the proud title has been conferred on only three men. One was Topal Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevna; the second was Mukhtar Pasha, the conqueror of the Greeks in the late ’90′s, while the third was Mustapha Kemal.

Friday, the thirteenth, came and with it the long-awaited interview with Kemal.  He lives in a kiosk, as the Turks call a villa, at Tchau Kaya, a sort of summer settlement about five miles beyond Angora.  Motor cars are scarce in Angora, so I had to drive out in a low-necked carriage. Reschad Bey went along. He was not present at the talk with Kemal, however.

The Ghazi’s Residence
As we neared Kemal’s abode we began to encounter troops, who increased in numbers the farther we went. These soldiers represented one of the many precautions taken to safeguard Kemal’s life because he is in hourly danger of assassination by some enraged Greek or Armenian. Several attempts have already been made to shoot him, and in one instance his companion, a Turkish officer, was seriously wounded by the would-be assassin.
Two previous Turkish leaders, both of them tools of the Germans, the notorious Talaat Pasha and his mate in crime, the no less odious Enver Pasha, met violent deaths after the World War. But Kemal represents a different kind of stewardship.

Soon an attractive white stone house, faced with red, surmounting a verdant hill, and surrounded by a neat garden and almond orchard, came into view. At the right was a smaller stone cottage. Reschad Bey, who had been there before, informed me that this was Kemal’s establishment, which was the gift of the Turkish nation.  I might have otherwise known it because the guard of sentries became thicker. When we reached the entrance we were stopped by a sergeant and asked to tell our business.  Reschad Bey told the man that I had an appointment with the Ghazi and he took my card inside.

In a few moments he returned and escorted us into the little stone cottage, which Kemal uses as a reception room.  Here I found the Ghazi’s father-in-law, Mouammer Ouchakay Bey, who is the richest merchant of Smyrna and who incidentally was the first Turkish member of the New York and New Orleans cotton exchanges. He had visited America frequently and therefore spoke English. He told me that Kemal was engaged in a cabinet meeting and would see me shortly.

Meanwhile I looked about the room, which was filled with souvenirs of Kemal’s fame and place in the Turkish heart. On one wall was the inevitable Koran inscription. This one read, “God has taught the Koran.” There were various memorials beautifully inscribed on vellum, expressing the homage of Turkish cities, and also magnificent jeweled gift swords. But what impressed me most was the life-size portrait of a sweet-faced old Turkish woman that had the most conspicuous place in the chamber. I knew without being told that this was Kemal’s mother. It was on her grave that he swore vengeance against the Greeks, who had once driven her out of her home. I had heard this tale many times, and Mouammer Bey and others confirmed it. Happily for the mother, she lived long enough to see her son the well-beloved of the Turkish people.

Kemal’s Steely Eye
I had just launched into a discussion of the Turkish economic future with Mouammer Bey when Kemal’s aid, a well-groomed young lieutenant in khaki, entered and said that the Ghazi was ready to see me. With him I crossed a small courtyard, went down a narrow passage, and found myself in the drawing-room of the main residence. It was furnished in the most approved European style. In one corner was a grand piano; opposite was a row of well-filled bookcases, many of the volumes French, while on the walls hung more gift swords. In the adjoining room I could see a group of men sitting around a large round table amid a buzz of rapid talk. It was the Turkish cabinet in session, and they were discussing the latest telegrams from Lausanne, where Ismet Pasha, minister of foreign affairs, and the only absent member, had, only the day before, delivered the Turkish ultimatum on the Chester Concession and the Turkish foreign debt. Economic war, or worse, hung in the balance.

As I advanced, Rauf Bey came out and escorted me into the room where the cabinet sat. There was a quick group introduction. I had eyes, however, for only one person. It was the tall figure that rose from its place at the head of the table and came towards me with hand outstretched. I had seen endless pictures of Kemal and I was therefore familiar with his appearance. He is the type to dominate men or assemblages, first by reason of his imposing stature, for he is nearly six feet tall, with a superb chest, shoulders and military bearing; then by the almost uncanny power of his eyes, which are the most remarkable I have ever seen in a man, and I have talked with the late J. P. Morgan, Kitchener and Foch. Kemal’s eyes are steely blue, cold, stony, and as penetrating as they are implacable. He has a trick of narrowing them when he meets a stranger. At first glance he looks German, for he is that rare Turkish human exhibit, a blond.

His yellow hair was brushed back straight from the forehead. The lack of coloring in his broad face and the high cheek bones refute the Teutonic impression. He really looks like a pallid Slav. Few people have ever seen Kemal smile. In the two hours and a half that I spent with him his features went through the semblance of relaxation only once. He is like a man with an iron mask, and that mask is his natural face.

I expected to find him in uniform. Instead he was smartly turned out in a black morning coat with gray striped trousers and patent-leather shoes. He wore a wing collar and a blue-and-yellow four-in-hand tie. He looked as if he was about to pay his respects to a fashionable hostess at a reception in Park Lane, London, or Fifth Avenue, New York. Kemal, I might add, has always been a stickler for dress. He introduced the calpac, the high astrakhan cap which has succeeded the long-familiar red fez as the proper Turkish headgear, and which is a badge of Nationalism.

Rauf Bey introduced me to Kemal in the cabinet room. After we had exchanged the customary salutations in French he said, ” Perhaps we had better go into the next room for our talk and leave the cabinet to its deliberations.” With this he led the way into the adjacent salon. With Rauf Bey at my right and Kemal on the left, we sat down at a small table. A butler, no less well groomed than his master, brought the inevitable thick Turkish coffee and cigarettes. The interview began.

Although the Ghazi knows both French and German, he prefers to talk Turkish through an interpreter. After I had expressed, again in my alleged French, the great pleasure I had in meeting him, Rauf Bey interposed the statement that perhaps it might be best for the great man to carry on in his own language. This was agreed upon, and henceforth the premier acted as intermediary.

Kemal had somehow heard of the difficulties and delays which had attended my trip to Angora. He at once apologized, saying that in the handicaps that beset administration in such a place as Angora such things were liable to happen. Then he added, “I am very glad you came. We want Americans in Turkey, for they can best understand our aspirations.”

Then, straight from the shoulder, as it were, and in the concise, clear-cut way he has of expressing himself —it is almost like an officer giving a command—he asked, ” What do you want me to tell you?”

“First of all,” I replied, “can you give me some kind of message to the American people?”

There was method in this query because I knew that he felt friendly toward Americans and that it would immediately loosen the flow of speech. It is a maneuver in interviewing taciturn people that seldom fails to launch the talk waves.

Admiration for Washington
Without the slightest hesitation—and I might add that throughout the entire conversation he never faltered for a reply—he said:

“With great pleasure. The ideal of the United States is our ideal.  Our National Pact, promulgated by the Grand National Assembly in January, 1920, is precisely like your Declaration of Independence. It only demands freedom of our Turkish land from the invader and control of our own destiny. Independence, that is all. It is the charter and covenant of our people, and this charter we propose to defend at any cost.

“Turkey and America are both democracies.  In fact the Turkish Government at present is the most democratic in the world. It is based on the absolute sovereignty of the people, and the Grand National Assembly, its representative body, is the judicial, legislative and executive power. Between Turkey and America as sister democracies there should be the closest relations.

“In the field of economic relations, Turkey and the United States can work together to the greatest mutual advantage.  Our rich and varied national resources should prove attractive to American capital. We welcome American assistance in our development because, unlike the capital of any other country, American money is free from the political intrigue that animates the dealings of European nations with us.  In other words, American capital does not raise the flag as soon as it is invested.

“We have already given one concrete evidence of our faith and confidence in America by granting the Chester Concession. It is really a tribute to the American people.

“All my life I have had inspiration in the lives and deeds of Washington and Lincoln. Between the original Thirteen States and the new Turkey is a curious kinship. Your early Americans threw off the British yoke. Turkey has thrown off the old yoke of empire with all the graft and corruption that it carried, and what was worse, the selfish meddling of other nations. America struggled through to independence and prosperity. We are now in the midst of travail which is witnessing the birth of a nation. With American help we will achieve our aim.”

Then leaning forward, and with the only animation he displayed throughout the whole interview, he asked:

“Do you know why Washington and Lincoln have always appealed to me?  I will tell you why. They worked solely for the glory and emancipation of the United States, while most other Presidents seemed to have worked for their own deification. The highest form of public service is unselfish effort.”

“What is your ideal of government?” I now asked. ” In other words, do you still believe in Pan-Islam and in the Pan-Turanianism idea?”

“I will tell you briefly,” was the response. ” Pan-Islam represented a federation based on the community of religion. Pan-Turanianism embodied the same kind of community of effort and ambition, based on race. Both were wrong. The idea of Pan-Islam really died centuries ago at the gates of Vienna, at the farthest north of the Turkish advance in Europe. Pan-Turanianism perished on the plains of the East.

“Both of these movements were wrong because they were based on the idea of conquest, which means force and imperialism.  For many years imperialism dominated Europe. But imperialism is doomed. You find the answer in the wreck of Germany, Austria, Russia, and in the Turkey that was. Democracy is the hope of the human race.

“You may think it strange that a Turk and a soldier like myself who has been bred to war should talk this way. But this is precisely the idea that is behind the new Turkey. We want no force, no conquest.  We want to be let alone and permitted to work out our own economic and political destiny. Upon this is reared the whole structure of the new Turkish democracy, which, let me add, represents the American idea, with this difference—we are one big state while you are forty-eight.
“My idea of nationalism is that of a people of kindred birth, religion and temperament. For hundreds of years the Turkish Empire was a conglomerate human mass in which Turks formed the minority. We had other so-called minorities, and they have been the source of most of our troubles.  That, and the old idea of conquest. One reason why Turkey fell into decay was that she was exhausted by this very business of difficult rulership. The old empire was much too big and it laid itself open to trouble at every turn.

“But that old idea of force, conquest, and expansion is dead in Turkey forever.  Our old empire was Ottoman. It meant force.  It is now banished from the vocabulary. We are now Turks—only Turks. This is why we want a Turkey of the Turks, based on that ideal of self-determination which was so well expressed by Woodrow Wilson.  It means nationalism, but not the kind of selfish nationalism that has frustrated self-determination in so many parts of Europe. Nor does it mean arbitrary tariff walls and frontiers. It does signify the open door to trade, economic regeneration, a real territorial patriotism as embodied in a homeland. After all these years of blood and conquest the Turks have at last attained a fatherland. Its frontiers have been defined, the troublesome minorities are dispersed, and it is behind these frontiers that we propose to make our stand and work out our own salvation. We propose to be masters in our own house.”

Kemal’s Constructive Program
Again he leaned toward me and said in his sharp staccato fashion:

“Do you know what has obstructed European peace and reconstruction?  Simply this—the interference of one nation with another.  It is part of the selfish grasping nationalism to which I have already referred.  It has led to the substitution of politics for economics. The German reparations tangle is only one example. The curse of the world is petty politics.

“There are nations who would block our hard-won Turkish independence; who decry our nationalism and say it is merely a camouflage to hide the desire for conquest of our neighbors on the east, and who maintain that we are not capable of economic administration. Well, they shall see.

“The first and foremost idea of the new Turkey is not political but economic. We want to be part of the world of production as well as of consumption.”

“What specific aid can the United States render this new Turkey of yours?” I asked.

“Many things,” came from the blond giant at my left. “Turkey is essentially a pastoral land. We must stand or fall by our agriculture. In the program for regeneration three main activities stand out. They are agriculture, transportation, and hygiene, for the death rate in our villages is appallingly large.

“First take agriculture. We must develop a whole new science of farming, first through the establishment of agricultural schools, in which America can help; second through the introduction of tractors and other modern farm machinery. We must develop new crops, such as cotton, and expand our old ones, such as tobacco. The motor, whether on the highway or the farm, will be our first aid.

“Transportation is equally vital. Before the World War the Germans had laid out a comprehensive scheme of transportation for Turkey, but it was based upon economic absorption of the country by them. Happily we are rid of the Germans, and so far as I am concerned, they will never get back to authority. We look to America to develop our much-needed railroads. This is one reason why we gave them the Chester Concession. I hope that the Americans realize what this concession means to us. It is not only the hope of adequate transport, but the building of new ports and the exploitation of our national resources, principally oil.

“In the matter of hygiene we have already installed a ministry of sanitation as part of the cabinet and every effort will be made to prevent the infant mortality. Here America can again help.

“While I am on the matter of economics let me deal with another question of vital importance to the new Turkey. The tragedy of Turkey in the past was the selfish attitude of the great European powers towards one another in respect of her commercial development. It was the inevitable result of the great game of concession grabbing. The powers were like dogs in a manger. If they failed in their desires they made it their business to keep rivals out as well. It is precisely what has been going on in China for years, but they will make no China out of Turkey. We will insist upon the open door for everybody, as it was enunciated by John Hay, and equality of opportunity for all. If the European powers do not like this procedure they can keep out.”

“What is your panacea for the present world malady?” I next asked.

“Intelligent cooperation and not unintelligent suspicion and distrust,” was the swift retort.

“Is the League of Nations the remedy?”  I continued.

“Yes and no,” came from Kemal. “The League’s error lies in that it sets up certain nations to rule, and other nations to be ruled. The Wilsonian idea of self-determination seems to be strangely lost.”

When I asked Kemal if he was in favor of allying Turkey with the League of Nations he answered: ”Conditionally, but the League as at present operated remains an experiment.”

On two significant subjects Kemal has views of peculiar interest. They are Germany and Bolshevism.

A Subtle Game
I am betraying no confidence when I say that long before the Great War, which proved so costly to his. country largely because of German conspiracy, he persistently opposed the German intrigue at Constantinople.  It was his violent objection to everything German that caused Enver Pasha, who with Talaat Pasha divided the mastery of government during the war, to seek to break him in the army service and get him out of the way.

Instead of ending Kemal’s career, Enver provided him with the means of redeeming Turkey and making himself the national hero. Kemal’s antagonism to the Germans today is no less pronounced.

With the Bolshevists Kemal played a subtle and winning game. In the early days of the Nationalist movement he had urgent need of arms and munitions. He angled with Moscow until he got what he wanted in the shape of supplies, and then gave them the cold shoulder. At that time the Bolshevists looked upon the new Turks as heaven-born allies for the red conquest of the whole Near East. They were the first to recognize the Angora Government, and still maintain an elaborate mission there.

Kemal and his chief colleagues are convinced that Bolshevism has passed the peak and is on the down grade. If the ” Bolos”  think that they have a willing tool in Kemal they have another guess coming.

Upon one subject of universal interest, the emancipation of Turkish women, Kemal has definite opinions. He not only favors the ultimate banishment of the veil but wants woman to be part and parcel of the public life. His views run in this wise:

“Our women ought to be the equal of men in education and activity. From the earliest times of Islam there have been women savants, authors and orators, as well as women who opened schools and delivered lectures. The Moslem religion even orders women to educate themselves to the same standard as men. In the war with the Greeks, Turkish women replaced the absent men in all kinds of work at home, and even undertook the transport of munitions and supplies for the army. It was done in response to a true sociological principle— namely, that women should collaborate with men in making society better and stronger.

“It is supposed that in Turkey women pass their lives in inactivity and in idleness. That is a calumny. In the whole of Turkey, except in large towns, the women work side by side with the men in the fields, and participate in the national work generally. It is only in large towns that Turkish women are sequestered by their husbands. This arises from the fact that our women veil and cloister themselves more than their religion orders. Tradition has gone too far in this respect.”

During the whole interview, save for the two occasions when he leaned forward to emphasize his points, Kemal had sat erect in his chair, smoking cigarettes continually. The only time there was the slightest indication of a break in those stony features was when we started to discuss more or less personal affairs at the end of the talk, and when I told him that I had not married because ‘I traveled so much and that no wife would stand such incessant action. He thereupon said: “I have only lately married myself.”

Madame Kemal
Madame Kemal

Madame Kemal
This naturally leads to the romance in Kemal’s life. Like other men of iron he has his one vulnerable point, and having met Madame Kemal I can understand why he succumbed. I heard the whole story at first hand and in this fashion: While we were in the midst of the interview the butler entered and whispered something in Kemal’s ear. Instantly he turned and said, not without pride, “Madame Kemal is coming down.”

A few moments later the most attractive Turkish woman I had yet met entered—I should say glided—into the room. She was of medium height, with a full Oriental face and brilliant dark eyes. Her every movement was grace itself. Although she wore a sort of non-Turkish costume—it was dark blue—she had retained the charming headdress which is usually worn with the veil and which, according to the old Turkish custom, must completely hide the hair. The veil, however, was absent, for madame is one of the emancipated ones, and some of her brown tresses peeped out from beneath the beguiling cover. A subtle perfume emanated from her. She was a visualization of feminine Paris literally adorning the Angora scene.
Kemal presented me to his wife, employing Turkish in the introduction. I addressed her in French and she replied in admirable English; in fact, she had a British accent. The reason was that she had spent some of her school life in England. Later she studied in France. Madame Kemal at once took her seat at the table and listened to the cross examination of her husband with interest.

Shortly after her arrival Kemal was summoned into the next room, where the cabinet was still in session, and during his absence she told me the story of her life, which is a charming complement to the narrative of her distinguished husband’s more strenuous career.

Her father, as I have already intimated, is the richest merchant of Smyrna, which has been for years the economic capital of Turkey. Her name is Latife. To this must be added the word hanum, which in Turkey may mean either “Miss” or ” Mrs.” Thus before her marriage she was Latife Hanum.  If she employed her full married name now it would be Latife Ghazi Mustapha Kemal Hanum.

During the early days of the Greek war she was alternately in Paris and London.  In the autumn of 1921 she returned to Smyrna, which was then in the hands of the Greeks, who had imprisoned her father and who eventually arrested her on the charge of being a Turkish spy. She was sentenced to detention in her own home with two Greek soldiers on guard before the door. Here she spent three months.

One day the Greek sentries suddenly vanished. There was the bustle and din of hasty retreat, and early the next morning the conquering Turks rode into Smyrna.  A few days later Kemal entered in triumph at the head of his victorious army. Let me tell the rest in madame’s own naïve words, which were:

“Although I had never met Mustapha Kemal, I invited him to be our guest during his stay in Smyrna. I admired his courage, patriotism, and leadership, and he accepted our invitation. I found that we had common ideals for the reconstruction of our country, and later we discovered that we had something else in common.  Not long afterwards forty to fifty of our friends were invited to the house for tea. The mufti, as the Turkish registrar is called, was summoned, and without any previous announcement we were married. Our wedding ring was brought to us later from Lausanne by Ismet Pasha.”

Madame Kemal spoke with frank admiration about her husband. “He is not only a great patriot and soldier but he is also an unselfish leader,” she said. ” He has built a system of government that can function without him. He wants absolutely nothing for himself. He would be willing to retire at any time if he were convinced that his ideal of the self-determined Turkey will prevail.

“I am acting as a sort of amanuensis for him. I read and translate the foreign papers for him, play the piano when he wants relaxation, and I have started to write his biography.”

“What are your husband’s diversions?” I asked.

He loves music and when he does find time to read he absorbs ancient history,” was the reply. Then pointing to three playful pups that gamboled on the floor at our feet she added: “I have also provided him with these little dogs, to whom he has become much attached.” The snapshot of Kemal reproduced in this article shows the pups.

Education Before Suffrage
Madame Kemal has definite ideas about the future of Turkish women. Like Halide Hanum, she is strong for emancipation. Along this line she said:

“I believe in equal rights for Turkish women, which means the right to vote and to sit in the Grand National Assembly. I maintain, however, that before suffrage and public service must come education.

It would be absurd to impose suffrage on ignorant peasants. We must have schools for women eventually, conducted by women. It is bound to be a slow process. I am in favor of abolishing the veil, but this will also be a gradual development. We want no quick changes. It must be evolution instead of revolution.

“On one subject I have strong views:  Education and religion in Turkey must be separate and distinct. This is my ideal of the mental uplift of the women of my race.”

We began to discuss books. Much to my surprise I found that Madame Kemal was a great admirer of Longfellow. She quoted the whole of the Psalm of Life. I was equally interested to find how well she knew Keats, Shelley and Byron. I referred to the fact that in the old days Byron’s books were forbidden in Turkey on account of his pro-Greek sentiments, whereupon she remarked vivaciously, “All such procedures are now part of the buried Turkish past.”

At this juncture Kemal returned, and the threads of the interview with him were picked up. When we concluded, twilight had come and it was time to go. I had brought with me a photograph of the Ghazi that I had obtained in Angora. It was taken in the early days of 1920. As he looked at it he said wistfully, “That reminds me of my youth.” He signed it and then gave me two others at my request.

The farewells were now said, and I left. As I drove back to Angora through the gathering night, hailed at intervals by cavalry patrols, for the watch on Kemal increases with the dark, and with bugle calls echoing across the still air, I realized that I had established contact with a strong and dominating personality, a unique leader among men.

It remains only to reveal the somewhat brief and crowded span of Kemal’s life so far. He is the son of an obscure petty government official and was born forty-three years ago at Saloniki, which was then under the Turkish flag. The fact of his birth here has given rise to the widespread belief that he is a Jew, which is not true. The surmise was natural because during the Spanish persecutions Saloniki became the haven of innumerable oppressed Israelites. Here, as elsewhere in the Turkey that was, and is, they have become important factors in both the commercial and the political life. The Turks are a mixed race, however, because of the old itch for conquest, and Kemal’s mother had a strain of Albania in her.

Kemal was destined for the army and at the proper age entered the military school at Monastir. Once in the army, he impressed his colleagues by a real love of soldiering. Then, as now, he was a nationalist. In those days this was heresy, because Turkey was in the grip of a corrupt stewardship which combined control of both church and state in the sultanate. In other words, the sultan was not only ruler but, as grand caliph, was also defender of the faith.

A comrade of Kemal’s early soldiering days told me in Constantinople that when the Committee of Union and Progress, which was controlled by Enver Pasha, and which brought about the revolution of 1908 and the counter revolution of 1909, was at the height of its power, the future emancipator of his country said: “These politicians are bound to fail because they represent a class and not a country. Their motives are purely political.  Some day I shall help to redeem Turkey.” Like Napoleon, he believed that he was a man of destiny, and his subsequent achievements have confirmed that early belief.

Kemal at the Dardanelles
It is interesting to add that at a time when smart officers in Turkey had brilliant prospects in politics Kemal stuck to his profession. He fought in Tripoli against the Italians, but it was not until the World War that he emerged from the more or less anonymity of the average officer’s life.

With his antipathy for the Germans, he naturally opposed Turkey’s entrance into the war on the side of the Central Powers. At once he incurred the bitter enmity of Enver Pasha, and this hostility became more acute during the years of the conflict.  Enver tried in every way to humble him, but he was too good a soldier to be sacked.  At one time he temporarily left the front to accompany the future Sultan Mohammed VI, then the crown prince, on a state visit to Germany.

Prior to the Dardanelles campaign Kemal was a colonel of infantry. Even before the British and French made their ill-fated landing he had been given a command on Gallipoli. Soon after, he was made a brigadier general—this gave him the title of Pasha—and he took over the 19th Division. When the notorious Liman von Sanders fell from favor, he became one of the chief ranking Turkish officers on the peninsula.

Most people do not know that it was largely through Kemal’s quick judgment that the Dardanelles expedition failed. On the day that the Australians made their historic attack at Anzac Beach, Kemal had ordered the two best regiments of his division on parade, fully equipped for a maneuver against the very heights where the Anzacs, as the Australians were known, were about to operate. When the news of the landing and of the defeat of the Turkish troops along the coast first reached him it was coupled with the information that the movement was merely a feint, and with a request that he would detach only one battalion to deal with it.

Kemal judged from the firing, and from the direction of the advance, that this was no mere feint but a serious attack. He took it on himself at once to order all three battalions standing on parade to carry out their prearranged maneuver. They were followed by the whole of a second regiment and by a mountain battery which Mustapha himself posted and directed. He had committed the commander of the other division as well as his more cautious superiors, and had, in fact, saved the situation.
At the close of the World War, Turkey lay prostrate. The British Fleet was in the Bosporus, and the Sultan and his advisers were under the thumb of the Allies. When the Armistice of Mudros was signed in 1918 and the Turks surrendered, Kemal had just returned from Palestine, where, after a heroic struggle, he saved the Turkish rearguard. He was now made inspector-general of the remnants of the Turkish forces in Asia Minor with a view to bringing order out of the chaos into which the defeated Turkish Army had been plunged.

In May, 1919, the Greeks occupied Smyrna, which they had long coveted.  This ill-advised procedure was due almost entirely to Lloyd George, and, although the British premier did not realize it at the time, was the first of the events that hurled him from power.

Just as it marked the beginning of ultimate disaster for the Greeks, and the final overthrow of Lloyd George, so did it at the same time mean that Kemal’s great hour had come. The occupation of Smyrna by the Greeks, together with the brutal way they imposed their will, was the spark, as it were, that started the flame of the new nationalism in Turkey.

Far up beyond Erzerum was Kemal with the remnants of an army which he had been sent to demobilize and disarm.  As news of the Greek outrages in and around Smyrna, and accounts of the deportation of many of his Constantinople colleagues by the British filtered in, he realized that the time to strike was at hand. Instead of demobilization and disarmament he sent out a call for arms and volunteers with which to resist what he believed was the inevitable extinction of his country. He began to organize a counter government whose platform was the liberation of Turkey from foreign domination. Since he was the head and front of the movement his followers came to be called Kemalists. The first capital of this new nationalist movement was Erzerum, in what was Turkish Armenia. Later it was moved to Sivas, and early in 1920 to Angora.

Meanwhile the Sultan’s government at Constantinople, at Allied dictation, had sent peremptory word to Kemal to return. When he refused he was outlawed and sentenced to death. This only added to his growing popularity.

Kemal’s task was twofold: One phase was to “Drive out the Greeks,” as the slogan became; the other was to perfect the Nationalist Government. Both consummations were achieved. They required the genius and strategy of military leadership on the one hand, and keen, organizing statesmanship on the other. Kemal combined all these necessary qualities in himself.

There is no space here to recount the story of those two years of fighting in which the Greeks advanced as far as the Sakaria River, which means that they were forty miles from Angora, and how under Kemal and the no less astute Ismet Pasha, who is a soldier and not a diplomat by training, the invaders were driven back into the sea. It is an oft-told tale.

Turkey’s New Constitution
What concerns us mainly is the system of government that Kemal created amid the hardship and discomfort of Angora, and with every alien hand except ours raised against him. It is really a striking adventure in democracy. Although not so technically designated, it is for all practical and working purposes a republic.

Under the so-called National Pact adopted by the Grand National Assembly in Angora in 1920 the Turks paralleled the American Declaration of Independence. It declared, among other things, that “it is a fundamental condition of our life and continued existence that we, like every country, should enjoy complete independence and liberty in the matter of assuring the means of our development, in order that our national and economic development should be rendered possible.”

The -new Turkish Constitution is embodied in what is known as the Fundamental Law, which decrees that the sovereignty of the nation rests with the nation as elected by the people. This assembly alone can declare war or make peace. It elects its president—the office now held by Kemal Pasha—who is the first official of the state. As I have already pointed out, the assembly also chooses the members of the cabinet.

Far more significant than these innovations, when you consider the past history of Turkey, is the absolute separation of church and state. The sultan business is finished, and the head of the Moslem faith reposes in a caliph named by the Grand National Assembly. He continues as spiritual chief of the Mohammedan world but has no influence upon Turkish affairs. In brief, he is the pope of the Moslems.

This separation of church and state has a big meaning for the foreigner and his business interests. Until the Nationalist movement a sort of extraterritoriality under the name of capitulations existed. These were necessary under the old regime because religion and law were closely related. The church throve upon the ignorance and superstition of the masses. The Pious Foundation—the Evkaf, as it is called—which controls all church property, is one of the richest trusts in the world. Hence, as in China, the alien had to have his own courts. One of the first things that Kemal did was to abolish the capitulations. With the courts purged of religious influence the alien now has a square deal.

Personal Characteristics
By this time you will have realized that Kemal is no ordinary person. When you study the man and his method, you discover that two qualities underlie his astounding performance. One is doggedness of purpose which marches at the behest of an iron will; the other is his profound respect for public opinion. Although the adored of his people, who have implicit faith in his judgment, he has, from the start, consulted them in every step. When he wants to put over a proposition he goes to the masses and through the agency of what we should call a town meeting states his case. So in his relations with the Grand National Assembly.

Although he is a stickler for smart clothes and etiquette his whole life has been marked by a direct simplicity. When he went to the front to lead the last stand of the Turks against the advancing Greeks the only document that he left behind was the following brief note for Dr. Adnan Bey, who was then vice president’, of the Grand National Assembly: “To the Vice President of the Grand National Assembly: I am leaving for the front and I ask you kindly to take care of my affairs during my absence. MUSTAPHA KEMAL, President of the Grand National Assembly.

Compare the failure of Enver Pasha with the success of Kemal Pasha and you can see how they differed in strategy. Enver went straight ahead to the fulfillment of his purpose. If he struck a stone wall he tried to batter it down. Eventually he succumbed. Kemal, when he meets an obstacle, waits patiently until he can get around it, and he usually gains his ends.

The patience to which I have just alluded stood him in good stead at Sakaria, which represents the peak of his military career. For days the outlook was desperate. Regiment after regiment had been hurled against the Greeks, who fought them back with terrible loss. Three divisional generals were killed in the first day’s fighting. Turkish disaster seemed inevitable. An orderly dashed up to Kemal saying that another position had been lost. Turmoil raged all round him, but the commander in chief stood unmoved and without the slightest expression on that sphinx like face.

At the critical hour he gave a quiet word of command and five thousand picked troops, which he had kept in reserve and under cover, leaped into action. Their instructions were not to fire until they saw the whites of the enemy’s eyes. They turned the tide and the Greek retreat began.

For the moment Kemal is secure on the dizzy eminence where the tide of his accomplishments, aided by the almost frenzied acclaim of his people, has landed him. On August fourteenth last he was reelected president of the Grand National Assembly. Only one vote was cast against him. It was for Ismet Pasha, and the impression is that Kemal so honored his eminent associate. Thus for two years his post is safe.

Meanwhile his troubles will begin. Just now he dominates—in fact he is—the so-called Defense of Rights Party, which is the People’s Party, and which has practically no opposition. Another wing must eventually develop and the inevitable political division will arise.

More immediate is the task of translating that kindling formula of economic and political self-determination, the Magna Charta of the new Turkey, into cold and practical reality. The tumult and shouting have died out. Peace is signed. The wounds of conflict must now be bound up. Kemal’s real test as national leader, therefore, will be to bring order and prosperity out of the rack and ruin wrought by twelve years of almost continuous warfare.

Whether as economic messiah he will duplicate his astounding record in field and forum remains to be seen. Whatever fate holds out for him, he has already written himself large in the history of his time.

Ropörtajın Prof. Dr. Ergun Özbudun tarafından yapılmış kısmi Türkçe çevirisi:

Bir zamanlar Ankara, sadece kedileri ve keçileriyle ünlüydü. Bugün, Anadolu’nun uzak tepelerindeki bu eski, hantal şehrin, dünya çapında başka bir önemi var. O, sadece yeniden kurulmuş Türk Devletinin başkenti ve dolayısıyla bütün çağdaş demokrasi deneyimlerinin en renklisinin merkezi değil, aynı zamanda Dünya Savaşının acı sonuçlarının ortaya çıkardığı birçok önemli şahsiyet arasında sivrilen -tam unvanıyla- Gazi Mustafa Kemal Paşa’nm da yaşadığı yer.Savaş içinde doğmuş olan Türk Devletinin kritik bir saatinde, bu kişiyle Ankara’da konuştum. Lozan Konferansı dağılmak üzereydi. Savaş veya barış hâlâ boşlukta sallanıyordu. Daha dün Başvekil Rauf Bey bana şunları söyledi: “Eğer Müttefikler savaş istiyorlarsa, istediklerini elde edebilirler”. Hava, gerginlik ve belirsizlik doluydu. Sıkıntılı çevrenin üzerinde, kendisini görmek için bu kadar yol gittiğim şefin tâviz vermez varlığı dolaşıyordu. Hükümetin kendisi gibi, olaylar da onun etrafında dönüp duruyordu.Seyahatin güçlüğü, çevrenin çetin ve dramatik karakteri açısından Anadolu, bir yıl önce Sun Yat-sen’i görmek için yaptığım Güney Çin cephesi gezisini çok andırıyordu. Onunla Kemal arasında belli bir benzerlik vardır. Her ikisi de, bir çeşit ilhamla dolu liderlerdir.Her ikisinde de, yıkılmış imparatorlukların yan ürünü olan o alevli bağımsızlık ideali mevcuttur. Paralellik burada sona eriyor. Kemal, kan ve demirden bir insan, bir doğu Bismarck’ı; sebatkâr, acımasız, yenilmez. Oysa Sun Yat-sen, rüya ve hülya içinde, kaderin ebedî oyuncağı; atasözündeki kedinin ne kadar çok canı varsa, onun da o kadar çok siyasal hüviyeti -hattâ ekleyebilirim ki, o kadar çok hükümeti- var.
Türkiye TürklerindirBu kişiler ne kadar farklıysa, arkalarındaki milletler de o kadar farklı. Çarpıcı bir karşıtlık da burada. Çin, bencil amaçların bitmek bilmez çatışması ve liderlik yokluğu yüzünden, inanılmaz denilebilecek bir siyasal kaos içinde çalkalanırken; Türkiye, uzun ve kanlı tarihinde ilk defa, belirli sınırlara, gerçek bir vatana ve Müslüman dünyasının kaderine şekil verebilecek -bu arada Amerika’nın Yakın Doğudaki ticarî özlemlerini de etkileyebilecek- bir milliyetçi hedefe sahip, homojen bir millet olarak ortaya çıktı. Yeni slogan, “Türkiye, Türklerindir”. Bütün bu hayret verici evrimin aracı ve ilham kaynağı Kemal Paşadır; 1919’da Türkiye’nin, yenilgi ve iflâs sonucu, olabileceği kadar düşkün olduğu hatırlanırsa, bu neredeyse bir mucizedir.Türkiye gezimin gerçek hedefi oydu. Parlayan cami ve minareleriyle perişanlık içindeki haşmetine rağmen hâlâ şehirlerin kraliçesi olan İstanbul’un kendine özgü cazibesi vardı ama, Haliç kıyılarına vardığım andan itibaren benim ilgim Ankara’da toplanmıştı.Bu tutkunun gerçekleştirilebilmesi için güç bir zaman seçmiştim. Görünüşe göre, Lozan Konferansı çıkmaza girmişti; uzun zamandanberi beklenen barış, her zamankinden dana uzak görünüyordu. Savaş hali, hâlâ devam ediyordu. İşgal ordusu, sokaklara savaşçı bir renk ve hava verirken, büyük bir Müttefik donanması da ya Boğazda demirli duruyor veya Marmara denizinde atış tatbikatına çıkıyordu. Anadolu tepelerindeki başkente ulaşmak daha da güçleşmişti.Her engel, sonu gelmez bürokratik bağlarla sürüp gidiyordu. Çabuk iş görmek isteyen bir Amerikalı için böyle bir kombinezon bir felâketti. Daha sonraki deneyimlerim, Kipling’in, Doğu ülkelerindeki enerjik bir Yankee’nin akıbetini anlatan ünlü hikâyesindeki gerçeği doğruladı. Adamın mezar taşında şöyle yazılıydı: “Doğuyu acele ettirmeye çalışan ahmak, burada yatıyor.”Mizaçtan ve diğer şeylerden kaynaklanan bütün bu engellere ek olarak Türkler, Chester imtiyazının gerçekleştirilmesinin, kağıt üzerinde göründüğü kadar kolay olmayacağını anlamaya başlamışlardı ve bu da onları tedirgin ediyordu. Ankara’ya gidiş izin alabilmiş en son sivil, vesikasını -vizenin Türkçe adı- alabilmek için, İstanbul’da yedi hafta beklemek zorunda kalmıştı. Diğer iki üç kişi ise, dört haftalık meraklı ve sonuçsuz bekleyişten sonra, öfkeyle ülkelerine dönmüşlerdi. Başarı ümidi parlak değildi.İstanbul’daki ilk günümde, Amerikan Yüksek Komiseri Amiral Mark L. Bristol’e saygı ziyaretinde bulunduğumda, kendisinden Ankara’ya gidebilmem için yardım istedim. Bana hemen, o zamanlar Ankara’nın İstanbul’daki baş temsilcisi olan Dr. Adnan Beye bir takdim mektubu verdi; bütün izin belgeleri ondan geçiyordu.Dışişleri Bakanlığının bulunduğu ve Türk tarihin pek çok uğursuz olayına sahne olan ünlü Babıâli’de kendisini görmeye gittim. Kızıl Sultan Abdülhamid’in kirli âletleri ve işbirlikçileri, günlerini burada geçirmişlerdi. Yapının, tarihteki zengin kardeşi Ayasofya Camii kadar heybetli olacağını umuyordum. Oysa, mimarî güzellikle en küçük ilgisi olmayan ve temizlenmeye şiddetle muhtaç, kirli, düzensiz yayılma gösteren, sarı bir bina karşıma çıktı.Adnan Beyin şahsında ilk Türk müttefikimi buldum. Üstelik, kendisinin geniş ve cömert görüşlü, tecrübeli bir kişi olduğunu da keşfettim. Milliyetçi hareketin güç günlerinde Kemal’in ilk yardımcılarından biri oluşu nedeniyle, Ankara Hükümetinin ilk başkan vekili olmuştu. Ayrıca, başka bir nedenden dolayı da şöhreti vardı; Türkiye’nin önde gelen kadın reformcusu ünlü Halide Hanımın kocasıydı.Gidiş iznim için Ankara’ya hemen bir telgraf çekti. Somut olarak bu izin, İstanbul Polis Müdürlüğünce verilen bir belgede -yukarıda değinilen vesikada- ifadesini buluyordu. Dünya Savaşı günlerinde, sahibine cepheye gitme imkânını veren ve beyaz paso adı verilen bu belgeyi elde etmek güç bir işti. Şimdi anlayacaktım ki, peşinde koştuğum Ankara’yı ziyaret izniyle kıyaslandığında bu paso, halka dağıtılan el ilânları kadar kolay sağlanır birşeydi.Adnan Bey, Ankara’dan yaklaşık üç gün içinde cevap alacağını söyledi. Anlıyordum ki, üç gün, Rusça seichas kelimesine benziyordu; bu kelime, sözlük anlamı olarak “hemen” demekti ama, kendi ülkelerindeki faaliyetler, daha doğrusu faaliyetsizlikler, hakkında kullanıldığı zaman genellikle “gelecek ay” anlamına geliyordu.
Bürokratik GüçlüklerBir hafta geçtikten sonra Amerikan Elçiliği, Babıâli’den, müracaatıma bir cevap gelip gelmediğini sordu; hiçbir cevap gelmemişti. Birkaç gün sonra Türk memurları çılgına döndüler. İngiliz, Fransız ve İtalyan vatandaşları dışında hiçbir yabancının, Ankara’nın rızası olmadıkça İstanbul’a girip çıkamıyacakları hakkında bir emir çıkarılmıştı. Mevcut izin belgeleriyle Paris veya Londra’dan yola çıkmış kişiler, -ki içlerinde bazı Amerikalılar da vardı- Türk sınırında bekletiliyorlardı; oysa emir, onlar yola çıktıktan sonra çıkarılmıştı. Amiral Bristol’ün vaktinde ve ısrarlı çabaları sonucu, sınır yasağı Amerikalılar için kaldırıldı. Bir gün içinde Ankara, protesto ve başvuru telgraflarına boğulmuştu; ben de, kendi dilekçemin, yeni ve artan kargaşa içinde tümden kaybolmuş olacağını düşünüyordum.Bu arada, İngilizce, Fransızca ve Almancayı akıcı şekilde konuşan Reşat Bey adında iyi, dürüst bir Türk gencini dragoman, yani kurye ve tercüman olarak sağlamıştım. Hiçbir yabancı, böyle bir yardımcı olmaksızın Ankara’ya gidemez; çünkü tek tük yerler dışında, Anadolu’da konuşulan tek dil Türkçedir. Aslında Reşat bey, Ankara’da bir yıl Amerikan konsolosluğu yaptıktan sonra daha yeni emekliye ayrılmış bulunan Robert Imbrie’den miras kalmıştı. Reşat Bey onun tercümanıydı. Imbrie ile yakın temasları sayesinde Amerikan âdetlerini öğrenmişti; gecikmeden dolayı duyduğum sabırsızlığı da gayet iyi anlıyordu. Onun da Ankara’da büyük etkisi vardı; benim için arkadaşlarına birkaç telgraf çekmişti.İkinci haftanın sonunda Amiral Bristol, iznimin çabuklaştırılması için Adnan Bey’e kişisel bir müracaatta bulundu ve Babıâli’den Ankara’ya sert bir ikinci telgraf gitti. Tanıştığım diğer Türkler ve Amerikalılar da telgrafla başvurularını buna eklediler. Şüphesiz başka işlerim de vardı ama önümdeki zaman kısıtlıydı ve herşey bir yana, Kemal bu gezimin başlıca ödülüydü; onunla görüşmeye kararlıydım. Bu yüzden Temmuz başlarında Reşat Beyi, durumun ne olduğunu öğrenmek için Ankara’ya gönderdim. Ayın dördüncü gününün sabahında yola çıktı. Elçilikteki Bağımsızlık Günü töreninden otele döndüğümde, Reşat Bey’e hitaben Ankara’da hükümetteki arkadaşlarından birinden benim adresime gönderilmiş bir telgraf buldum; Ankara’ya gidiş iznimin, dokuz gün önce tellendiğini söylüyordu. Oysa önceki gün Babıâli Ankara’dan isteğim hakkında hâlâ ses çıkmamış olduğunu bildirmişti.Araştırınca anladım ki, Polis Müdürlüğündeki bürokrasi yumağı içersinde önemli telgraf, bir kağıt yığınının altına atılmıştı; talebim üzerine başlatılan uzun bir arama, sabırsızlıkla beklenen mesajı ortaya çıkarana kadar da kimse, onun hakkında bir şey bilmiyordu. Bu, tipik bir Türk usûlüydü; tam Çin’in herhangi bir yerindeki “bir resmî dairede vuku bulabilecek cinsten. Reşat Bey dönüp de durumu bana bildirmeden önce, vesika elime geçmişti ve harekete hazırlanıyordum.Bu ilk adım güçtü ama, asıl seyahatin hemen her merhalesi de eşit derecede güçlüklerle doluydu. Gene resmî bir Türk kararnamesiyle başım derde girecekti.Eğer bir Türk olsaydım normal şartlar altında, araba vapuruyla İstanbul’un hemen karşısında Boğazın karşı kıyısında olan ve çok tartışılmış Berlin-Bağdad Demiryolunun Anadolu bölümünün başlangıç noktasını teşkil eden Haydarpaşa’dan trene binebilir ve yaklaşık yirmiyedi saatte vasıta değiştirmeksizin Ankara’ya varabilirdim. Oysa, 250.000 kişiden hayli fazla olan tüm Türk Ordusu, İzmit’in ötesinde demiryolu boyunca seferber edilmişti. Hiçbir yabancıya bu seyahati yapma izni verilmiyordu. Nisbeten -”nisbeten”i bile bile söylüyorum- kolay olan bu demiryolu yolculuğu yerine yabancı, gemiyle Mudanya’ya sonra trenle Bursa’ya, daha sonra bütün gün otomobille Anadolu ovasını geçerek Karaköy’e gitmek, orada da Haydarpaşa trenini beklemek zorundaydı. Yirmiyedi saat yerine, benim de yaptığım bu yolculuk, tam ellibeş saat sürdü.Parlak güneşli bir pazartesi sabahı İstanbul’dan Ankara’ya hareket ettim. Amiral Bristol, Yüzbaşı T.H. Robbins komutasındaki bir denizaltı avcı botu’nu emrime vermişti; böylece kalabalık ve hiç de temiz olmayan yolcu vapurundan kurtulabildik. Yanımda, Mütarekeden sonra Türkiye’deki ilk Amerikan Yüksek Komiseri olan ve şimdi de Ankara’da ticarî bir görevi bulunan Lewis Heck ve sadık Reşat Bey olduğu halde, Marmara denizini geçerek Mudanya yolculuğunu dört saatte yaptım ve öğleyin oraya vardım. 1922 Kasımına kadar Mudanya, Türkiye haritasında bir noktadan ibaretti. Yunan yenilgisinden sonra, İngiliz ve Türk Orduları Çanakkale’de fiilî bir çatışmadan birkaç metre uzaktayken ve iki devlet arasında savaş kaçınılmaz görünürken, Türkiye’deki İngiliz Kuvvetleri Kumandanı General Sir Charles Harrington ve İsmet Paşa -Lozan’da Müttefik delegeleriyle böyle neşeli bir kovalamaca oynayan İsmet- burada buluştular ve birinci Lozan Konferansı’nın öncüsü olan ünlü mütarekeyi burada gerçekleştirdiler.
Madam Brotte ve OteliKöy, bir gece içinde üne kavuştu. Konferansın yapıldığı rıhtımın yanındaki küçük taş evde halen bir Türk ailesi oturuyor ve çocuklar evi doldurup taşırıyor.Kırk millik Bursa yolculuğunu, günde iki kere sefer yapan oyuncak trenle yapacak yerde, Bursalı bir tüccarın yeni almış olduğu yepyeni bir Amerikan arabasıyla seyahat ettik; gelmesi telgrafla emredilmiş olan bu araba, limanda bizi bekliyordu. Tepeler, zeytin ağacı yığınlarından görünmüyordu; vadilerde ise bol bol tütün ve mısır yetişiyordu. Anadolu köylüsü, tutumlu ve çalışkan bir kişidir; herhalde daha Yunan askerî araçları gözden kaybolurken, yeniden inşa faaliyetine başlanmış olmalıdır.Müezzinler minarelerden akşam namazı çağrısını yapmazdan çok önce Bursa’ya, hâlâ ticarî önemini koruyan Türkiye’nin eski başkentine vardım. Gece Hotel d’Anatolie’ye indik; orada İstanbul’a dönerken tekrar konaklayacağım güne kadar rahata ve lüksün her türlüsüne veda ettim.Bu otel, Anadolu’nun ünlü kurumlarından biri. Sahibi, en az otelin kendisi kadar seçkin bir kişi olan Madam Brotte. Küçük şelâlenin şarkılı akışını dinlediğimiz güzel bahçesinde, hâlâ Fransız köylülerinin beyaz kepini giyen bu garip yaşlı hanım, hikâyesini bana anlattı. Fransa’nın Lyon şehrinde seksendört yıl önce doğmuş ve yirmibir yaşındayken bir ipek uzmanı olan babasıyla birlikte Anadolu’ya gelmişti. Bursa, Fransızlarca kurulmuş ve halen de büyük ölçüde işletilmekte bulunan Türk İpek endüstrisinin merkezidir. Madam, gelişinden az sonra otelin sahibiyle evlenmiş ve onun ölümünden sonra işletmeyi üstlenmişti. Savaşlar, çekilmeler, yıkımlar, üzerinde etkisini bırakmıştı ama, vakarlı tavrını korumaktaydı. Türkiye’de o kadar uzun zamandır yaşıyordu ki, Fransızcasına Türkçe kelimeler karıştırıyordu. Bu güzel kokulu çevrede onun konuşmalarını dinleyip, sunduğu mükemmel yemeği hatırladıkça, Fransa’da değil Anadolu’da olduğumu idrak etmekte güçlük çekiyordum.Şunu da ekleyeyim ki, alkol bakımından Anadolu, kupkurudur. Madamın bir üzüntüsü, Türklerin şarap mahzenini mühürlemiş olmalarıydı; bu mühürlerin ne zaman kaldırılacağını bir Allah bir de Ankara bilirdi. Anadolu’da geçirdiğim sekiz gün içinde tek damla içki görmediğimi belirtmeye değer. Dünyada içki yasağının içkiyi gerçekten yasaklar göründüğü belki tek yer burası. İstanbul ise, daha sonra anlatılacak başka bir hikâye.Madam Brotte’de sömürge yayılmasının başka bir kanıtını gördüm. Dünyayı, özellikle uzak ülkeleri dolaşırken şunun farkına varırsınız ki, belli ırklar, yabancı topraklara yerleştiklerinde belli kuralları izlerler. Bir İngilizin ilk yaptığı şey bir banka kurmaktır. İspanyol mutlaka bir kilise yapar, Fransız da bir kahve açar. Anadolu’da da durum böyledir.Ertesi sabah samimî ihtiyar Fransız hanımefendiye biraz üzüntüyle veda ettim. Bizi Mudanya’dan getiren otomobille Karaköy’e bütün gün sürecek olan yolculuğa başladık. Bursa’nın eteklerinde Yunan felâketinin ilk gözle görülür işaretlerini gördüm. Yol kenarlarında terkedilmiş yüzlerce kamyon -Yunanlıların zorakî hediyeleri- vardı. Türkler bunları kaldırmak veya kurtarmak zahmetine bile girmemişlerdi. Kırlara açıldıkça, yıkılmış çiftlik evleri her tarafta göze çarpıyordu. Yunanlıların Ankara’yı zaptedeceğine içtenlikle inandıkları saldırı sırasında tüm köyler baştan aşağı yokedilmişti. Oysa, ilerlediklerinden çok daha hızlı olarak geri döndüler.
Kağnı YolculuğuGerçek Anadolu’daydık. Ses güzelliği bakımından ancak Mezopotamya ile yanşan bu tatlı isim, “güneşin doğduğu yer” demektir. Güneş, beşeri ve manevî tüm ileri atılımların hikâyelerinde geçen kişi ve olaylar üzerinde uzun zamandır parlamıştı; çünkü şimdi insanlığın beşiğinin kenarları diyebileceğimiz yerlerden geçiyorduk. Kitab-ı Mukaddes günlerinin muhteşem ve ölümsüz simaları bu ovalarda yürümüşlerdi. İskender ve Pompey’in orduları burada ordugâh kurmuş, ünlü Gordion düğümü burada kesilmişti. Gene zırhlı haçlılar, Kudüs’e giderken buralardan geçmişlerdi; sağımızdaki ve solumuzdaki yeşil tepelerin arasında Yakın Doğu medeniyeti doğmuştu.Yerinde olarak Anadolu kağnı senfonisi adı verilmiş şeyle ilk temasım burada oldu. Türk çiftçisinin tek aracı öküz veya manda tarafından çekilen arabaların yağlanmamış tahta tekerleklerinden çıkan bu ses, belki dünyanın en acayip sesi. Tarsuslu Saul çağından bu yana, bu arabaların ne yapım şekli, ne de gürültüsü değişmiş. Gerçi korkunç gürültüyü işittiğinizde insana inanılmaz geliyor ama, yolları dolduran kağnı arabalarının sürücüleri için, yolculuk sırasında uyanık olmak, görgü kurallarına aykırı bir şey. Ancak gıcırtı durduğunda uyanıyorlar. Sessizlik, onların çalar saati. Yunanlılar Güneydeki önemli Türk limanlarını tıkadıkları zaman, Kemal’in bütün malzemeleri, Ankara’ya kadar iki yüz milden fazla bir mesafede bu arabalarla taşınmıştı.Yolculuğa devam ettikçe memleket, gitgide Kuzey Fransa’nın savaştan sonraki görünümünü almaya başladı. Gülle çukurlarında hatmi çiçekleri büyümüştü; her tarafta, bir ev veya köyün kuru, katı harabesi, çevreye gözcülük ediyordu. Yunanlılarla Türklerin kanlı bir savaşa tutuştukları İnönü köyünden geçtik; tam güneş batarken de Karaköy’e vardık; burası, Türkiye’nin her tarafında görebileceğiniz, birkaç kahvehaneyle çevrili bir tren istasyonundan ibaretti. Türk ordularının bir birliği yakınlarda çadır kurmuştu. Kahvelerimizi içmeden önce, kağıtlarımızı polis incelemesine sunmamız gerekiyordu.Bir saat sonra, o sabah Haydarpaşa’dan kalkmış olan tren vardı. Birinci mevki bir kompartımana kendimizi atarak, Ankara yolculuğumuzun son bölümüne başladık. Geceyarısı, bir zamanlar önemli bir kasaba olan ve Yunanlılarla Türklerin aylarca bir ölüm kalım savaşına tutuştukları Eskişehir’de bizi buldu. Türklerin 1921’deki çekilişinden sonra, kasaba Yunanlılarca yakılmıştı. Trene binip de sert koltuk -çünkü Türkiye’de Pulmanlar bilinmiyor- üzerinde biraz uyumaya çalıştığım anda, Anadolu’yu kaşındıran küçük seyyahlarla tanışmaya başladım. Bunlar, insanlara rahatsızlığın ne olduğunu gösteren küçük, inatçı tabiat rehberleridir.Birkaç saattir etraf gitgide yalçınlaşmıştı. Sallanan mısırları ve şükran dolu yeşillikleriyle bereketli ovalar, çok geride kalmıştı. Durmadan tepelere tırmandıkça, zaman zaman Ankara keçisi sürüleri görüyorduk. Kasvetli, çıplak bir manzaraydı ama, gözle görülebilen bütün arazinin ve daha da ötesinin her santimi için dövüşülmüştü.Ertesi sabah saat dokuzda, tembelce kıvrılan dar bir ırmağı geçtik. Diğer tarihî nehirlerin çoğu gibi önemsiz görünmekle beraber, bu nehir, Türk şarkılarında ve geleneğinde ölümsüzleşecek. Gelecek tüm yıllarda, pazarlarda rastlayacağınız ilginç hikayeciler, onun kayalık kıyılarında olup bitenlerin destanını anlatacaklar. Bu önemsiz görünüşlü nehir, Yunan taarruzunun zirve noktasını teşkil eden ve Kemal Paşa’nın ordusunun son bir ümitle gayretini gösterdiği ünlü Sakarya’ydı. Nehri geçtiğimiz noktanın pek yakınında, Yunanlılar geri atılmış ve taarruzları kırılmıştı. Fransa için Marne, italya için Piave neyse, yeni Türkiye için de Sakarya odur. O, ümit yıldızının doğduğu noktayı göstermektedir.Daha ne olduğunu pek anlayamadan, kara bir duman örtüsü, bir şehrin değişmez ileri karakolu, uzakta göründü. Sonra, güneş ışığında dik ve beyaz duran tek tük cami ve minareler gördüm; az sonra Ankara’daydık. Demiryolu istasyonu şehrin eteklerinde olduğundan, kalacağım yere gitmek için, otomobille bir milden fazla yol almam gerekti.Yolculuğun sıkıntılarına rağmen, trenden indiğimde bir çeşit heyecana kapıldığımı itiraf etmeliyim. Nihayet, belki de medeniyet tarihinde emsali olmayan bir başkentteydim. Önce Erzurum’da, sonra Sivas’taki geçici konaklamalardan sonra Kemalistler, hükümetlerini, Anadolu demiryolunun bir yol başındaki bu bakımsız, harap, yarı yanmış köyde kurmuşlardı. Ankara, tarihsel ilişkilerden yoksun değildi; bir defa haçlılar burada konakladıkları gibi, korkunç Timurlenk de ünlü bir savaşta Sultan Bayezid’i yenip esir alarak Doğuya götürmüştü.
Ankara, Garip BaşkentNerdeyse bir gecede nüfus, onbinden altmışbine çıkmıştı. Türk parlâmentosuna verilen adla Büyük Millet Meclisinin doğusuyla birlikte, kabine, hükümetin bütün üyeleri ve millî yönetimine katılan pek çok insan gelmişti. Yunanlıların geçen yıl yenilgiye uğratılışına kadar Ankara, aynı zamanda Türk Ordusunun genel karargâhı ve başlıca ikmal üssüydü.O zaman da, şimdi de Ankara, her Avrupa elçiliğinde geleceğine ilgi duyulan bir devletin başkentinden çok, ilk zenginlik dalgasını yaşamakta olan bir Batı madencilik kasabasına benziyordu. Her ev, hattâ oturulabilecek her delik, insanlarla dolup taşıyordu. Amerikan konsolosu Imbrie, bir yıl, hükümetin kendisine tahsis ettiği bir yük vagonunda oturmak zorunda kalmış; üstelik, bu uyduruk evi elinden kaçırmamak için bütün gücüyle uğraşmaya mecbur olmuştu. Dükkânlar ilkeldi ve bir Avrupalının gidebileceği gibi sadece iki restoran vardı.Bildiğimiz anlamda otel yoktu. Otele en yakın şey, Türkçe anlamı ev olan, sözde han’dı. Yolcuların konakladığı ortalama bir Türk köy hanı, ortada avlusu olan beyaz badanalı bir yapıdan ibarettir; kervan sürücüleri, geceleri, katırlarını veya develerini bu avluya bağlayıp yukarı katta yerde yatarlar. Hanın kendine özgü bir havası ve gözle daha iyi görülebilir başka şeyleri vardır.Eğer yeni Türk hareketine can veren vatanseverlik duygusu hakkında şüpheniz varsa, Ankara’ya gitmeniz bunu dağıtmaya yeter. Tasvir edilmesi hemen hemen imkânsız bir konforsuzluğun içinde, çoğu bir zamanlar Londra, Paris, Berlin, Roma veya Viyana’mn lüks ve rahatlığında yaşamış eski elçiler olan yüksek memurların, sabırla günlük görevlerini yapmakta olduklarını görürsünüz.Neyse ki ben, Ankara’ya gelen her ziyaretçinin kaderi olan bu maddî konforsuzluğa karşı bir tür sigortalanmıştım. Kemal’in konutundan sonra, oturulmaya elverişli hemen tek yer, Yakın Doğu Yardım Misyonu mensuplarının kullanımı için yenilenmiş, son zamanlarda da Chester İmtiyazı temsilcilerine satın alınmış binaydı. İstanbul’dan ayrılmadan önce, burada kalmak için izin almıştım ki, bu birçok yönden Allahın bir lûtfuydu. Bir mucize kabilinden, fakat daha önemlisi, yerleri ovdurup yatakları havalandırttığım üç yaşlı Ermeni hizmetkâr sayesinde, haşerat tozuna ihtiyacım olmadı. Gerçekte, bunları beraberimde İstanbul’a geri getirdim ve daha çekici başka mallarla değiştirdim.Chester İmtiyazından söz ederken, Ankara’da daha yarım gün geçirir geçirmez içime doğan şu çarpıcı gerçeği hatırlıyorum. En fakir kundura boyacısına varıncaya kadar herkes, sadece bu imtiyaz hakkında bilgi sahibi olmakla kalmıyor, aynı zamanda onu, Türkiye’nin gelişmesi ve zenginleşmesi için şaşmaz bir ilâç sayıyor. Bir Türk köylüsüne bu imtiyazı sorun; size bunun, gelecek ay çiftliğinin kenarından bir demiryolu geçmesi demek olduğunu söyler. Chester imtiyazcılarının, bir ekonomik dönüşümü gerçekleştirebilecekleri yolunda, körcesine ve âdeta insanın içine dokunan bir inanç var. Türkiye’nin her tarafında olduğu gibi Ankara’da da, Amerikalının şu anda en makbul yabancı oluşunun bir nedeni bu. Ancak Chester sorununun tümü, daha sonraki bir makalede ele alınacak.
Tercihin SebepleriŞimdiye kadar kendinize şu soruyu sormuş olmanız gerekir: Niçin Türkler, bu bakımsız kasabayı başkentleri olarak seçmişler? Cevap ilginç. İlki, savunma düşüncesi. Ankara, denizden iki yüz küsur mil uzaklıkta ve Yunanlıların ıstırapla keşfettikleri gibi, her istilâcı ordu ülkede yaşamak zorunda. Anî bir saldırı halinde bile, kaçış yolu sağlayan vahşi ve sarp geri bölgeleri var. Ama bu, sadece dış sebep.Eğer konuştuğunuz Türk samimîyse, bu tecridin gerçek amacının, belki de hükümet personelini dalaverelerden uzak tutmak olduğunu söyleyecektir. İstanbul’da memur, gayrımeşru resmî işlemlerin alışılagelmiş oyun alanındadır. Milliyetçi Hükümet, bu geçiş döneminde işi şansa bırakmıyor. Ankara’yı seçen Kemal Paşa; bu tercihi, onun takdir gücü hakkında fikir veriyor.Ankara’nın ana caddesi, kaldırmışız, düzensiz bir sokak; yakıcı güneş, sokağın bitmek bilmez toz ve gürültüsü üzerinde parlıyor. Bir ucunda, üzerinde beyaz yıldız ve hilâliyle kırmızı Türk bayrağı dalgalanan alçak, sıvalı bir bina var. Kemal’in kişiliğinden sonra, Türk Hükümetinin ruhu sayılabilecek olan şey, burada yer alıyor. Büyük Millet Meclisinin çalışma yeri burası. Kemal Paşa burada Başkan seçilmiş, Lozan Andlaşması burada onaylanmış.Büyük Millet Meclisinin bütün parlâmentolar arasında bir eşi yok; şu nedenle ki, aynı zamanda milletin yürütme gücünün de başı olan kendi başkanını seçmekle kalmıyor, fakat başbakan da dahil olmak üzere, hükümetin bütün üyelerini de seçiyor. Bu usûle göre bir hükümet, İngiltere veya Fransa’da olduğu gibi, başbakan güvenoyu alamadığı zaman düşmez. Eğer bir vekil istenmiyorsa, yasama organınca görevden alınır, yerine bir yenisi seçilir ve hükümet işleri, kesintiye uğramaksızın devam eder. Meclis üyeleri, şüphesiz, halk tarafından seçilmişlerdir.Bütün bunlar, konuya giriş niteliğinde. Artık Kemal’in sahasındaydım ve şimdi işim onu görmekti. Bir Çarşamba günü öğle vakti Ankara’ya varmış ve hemen Reşat Beyi, kendisine Amiral Bristol’dan bir takdim mektubu getirdiğim Başvekil Rauf Beye göndermiştim. Lozan’daki kriz nedeniyle kabine, hemen sürekli toplantı halindeydi ve onu ancak ertesi sabah saat dokuzda görebildim.Sıvalı, küçük, yetersiz döşenmiş, fakat baş sakininin kişiliği sayesinde canlı bir bina olan Hariciye Vekâletinde kendisiyle üç saat geçirdim. Denizci bir Başbakan olan Rauf Bey -kendisi Türk Donanmasında amiraldi- bir denizcinin samimî, açıksözlü, sağlam tavırlarını taşıyordu. Üstelik, kabinenin İngilizce bilen tek üyesiydi; bana, 1903’te Beyaz Saray’da Roosevelt’i ziyaret ettiğini söyledi. İngilizlerin 1920’de Malta’ya sürdükleri ileri gelen Türklerden biriydi. Bana söylediğine göre sürgündeki tek tesellisi, denizci arkadaşlarından arasıra kendisine ulaşan Saturday Evening Post’tu. Bu dergileri o kadar etraflı okumuştu ki, onlardan uzun alıntılar yapıyordu. Benim General Smuts hakkındaki bir makalemle özellikle ilgilenmişti; Smuts’un self-determinasyon’la ilgili düşünceleri, yeni Türk politikasının şekillenmesine yardımcı olmuştu.Ertesi gün öğleden sonra saat beşte Kemal Paşayı evinde görmek üzere randevuyu bana Rauf Bey aldı. İlk plâna göre, orada o akşam ikimiz birlikte yemek yiyecektik. Daha sonra bu değişmiş, çünkü Rauf Beyin sözleriyle “Gazinin kayınları kendisine misafir, ev kalabalık”. ‘Kayınlar’ (in-laws) deyimini kullanmasından, Rauf Beyin Batı deyimlerine ne kadar çabuk adapte olduğunu görebilirsiniz.Başvekilin Gazi’den söz etmesini açıklamak gerek. Genellikle Ankara halkı, Kemal’den Paşa olarak söz eder. Okumuş Türkler ise, onun için daima, daha sonraki unvanı olan Gazi unvanını kullanırlar; Meclisin oyuyla verilmiş olan bu unvan, Türkçede “fatih” anlamına geliyor. Fatih Mehmet’in İstanbul kapılarını çökertip Boğazda İslâmiyet çağını açtığı o tarihî 1453 gününden bu yana, bu azametli unvan, sadece üç kişiye verilmiş. Biri, Plevne kahramanı Topal Osman Paşa; ikincisi, 90’ların sonlarına doğru Yunanlıları hezimete uğratan Muhtar Paşa; üçüncüsü de, Mustafa Kemal.Ayın onüçü Cuma günüyle birlikte, Kemal’le uzun zamandır beklediğim mülakat da geldi. Kendisi, Ankara’dan yaklaşık beş mil ötede bir çeşit yazlık yeri olan Çankaya’da, Türklerin villâ dedikleri bir köşkte oturuyordu. Ankara’da otomobil az olduğu için, bir nakliye aracıyla gitmek zorunda kaldım. Reşat Bey de benimle geldi ama, Kemal’le konuşmamızda hazır bulunmadı.
Gazi’nin KonutuKemal’in konutuna yaklaştıkça askerlere rastlamaya başladık; ilerledikçe, bunların sayıları arttı. Bu askerler, Kemal’in hayatını korumak için alınan birçok tedbirlerden biriydi; çünkü kendisi, her an kızgın bir Yunanlı veya Ermeni tarafından öldürülme tehlikesindeydi. Onu öldürmek için birkaç teşebbüste de bulunulmuş, bir seferinde yanındaki bir Türk subayı, suikastçı tarafından ağır yaralanmıştı.Az sonra, yeşil bir tepe üzerinde, düzenli bir bahçe ve badem ağaçlarıyla çevrili, cephesi kırmızı, güzel bir beyaz taş bina göründü. Sağda daha küçük bir taş evcik vardı. Daha önce buraya gelmiş olan Reşat Bey, bunun Türk milletince Kemal’e hediye edilmiş ev olduğunu söyledi. O söylemeseydi de, nöbetçilerin sıklaşmasından bunu anlayabilirdim. Giriş kapısına vardığımızda bir çavuş bizi durdurup ne işimiz olduğunu sordu. Reşat Bey, adama, Gazi ile randevum olduğunu söyledi; o da, kartımı alıp içeri götürdü.Çavuş birkaç dakika sonra dönerek bizi beraberinde küçük taş evciğe götürdü; Kemal burayı kabul odası olarak kullanıyordu. Burada, Gazi’nin kayınpederi olan Muammer Uşakî Beyi gördüm; kendisi, İzmir’in en zengin tüccarı, aynı zamanda New York ve New Orleans pamuk borsalarının ilk Türk üyesiydi. Amerika’yı sık sık ziyaret etmiş olduğundan ingilizce biliyordu. Kemal’in kabine toplantısında olduğunu ve beni az sonra göreceğini söyledi.
Kemal’in Çelik GözleriTam Muammer Beyle Türkiye’nin ekonomik geleceği hakkında bir tartışmaya başlamıştım ki, Kemal’in yaveri, hâkî üniformalı, iyi giyimli genç bir teğmen içeri girerek, Gazi’nin beni görmeye hazır olduğunu söyledi. Onunla birlikte küçük bir avludan ve dar bir geçitten geçtik ve kendimi esas konutun kabul salonunda buldum. En makbul Avrupa stilinde döşenmişti. Bir köşede bir kuyruklu piyano vardı; onun karşısında, birçok ciltleri Fransızca bir sıra, dolu kitap rafı bulunuyordu; duvarlarda da başka hediye kılıçlar asılıydı.Bitişik odada, geniş yuvarlak bir masa etrafında oturmuş, hızlı hızlı konuşan bir grup insan görüyordum. Bu, toplantı halindeki Türk kabinesiydi ve Lozan’dan gelen son telgrafları tartışıyorlardı; Hariciye Vekili ve kabinenin orada bulunmayan tek üyesi olan ismet Paşa, bir gün önce, Chester imtiyazı ve Türk dış borçları hakkındaki Türk ültimatomunu vermişti. Ekonomik savaşın akıbeti, havadaydı.Ben yaklaşınca Rauf Bey dışarı çıktı ve beni kabinenin toplandığı odaya götürdü. Grupla kısa bir tanışma oldu. Ama benim gözlerim tek bir kişinin üzerindeydi. O da, masanın başındaki yerinden kalkıp elini uzatarak bana doğru gelen uzun boylu kişiydi. Kemal’in sayısız resimlerini görmüş olduğumdan, görünüşüne aşinaydım. O, insanlara ve meclislere hâkim olacak tipteydi: Bir defa, hemen hemen 1.80’lik boyu, mükemmel göğsü, omuzları ve askerce tavrıyla insanı etkileyen fizik yapısıyla; sonra, bir insanda gördüğüm -ki ben, merhum J.P. Morgan, Kitchener ve Foch’la görüşmüştüm- en dikkate değer gözlerin esrarengiz kudretiyle. Kemal’in gözleri, çelik mavisi, sert, taş gibi, affetmez olduğu kadar nüfuz ediciydi.Pek az kişi, Kemal’i gülerken görmüştür. Kendisiyle geçirdiğim ikibuçuk saat içinde hatları, ancak bir defa bir parça gevşer gibi oldu. Demir maskeli bir adama benziyordu; maske de, onun tabiî yüzüydü.Onu üniformalı göreceğimi zannediyordum. Oysa, çizgili gri pantolon ve rugan ayakkabılarla siyah bir jaketataydan oluşan çok şık bir kıyafet içersindeydi. Kanat yaka ve mavili sarılı bir kravat taşıyordu.Rauf Bey, kabine odasında beni Kemal’e takdim etti. Mûtad selamlaşmaları Fransızca olarak teati ettikten sonra, şöyle dedi: “Belki, konuşmak için bitişik odaya geçip, kabineyi tartışmalarıyla başbaşa bıraksak daha iyi olur.” Bunları söylerken bitişik salonu gösterdi. Rauf Bey sağımda, Kemal solumda, küçük bir masaya oturduk. Efendisinden daha az şık olmayan bir erkek hizmetkâr her zamanki gibi koyu Türk kahvelerini ve sigaraları getirdi. Mülakat başladı.Gazi, Fransızca ve Almanca bilmekle beraber, bir tercüman aracılığıyla Türkçe konuşmayı tercih ediyordu. Ben, gene sözde Fransızcamla, onunla tanışmaktan duyduğum büyük memnuniyeti ifade ettikten sonra, Rauf Bey araya girerek, büyük adamın kendi diliyle konuşmasının belki en iyisi olacağını söyledi. Bunda mutabık kalındı ve o andan itibaren Başvekil, tercümanlık yaptı.Kemal, nasılsa, benim Ankara yolculuğumun başına gelen güçlükleri ve gecikmeleri işitmişti. Ankara gibi bir yerde yönetimin etrafını saran güçlükler içinde böyle şeylerin olabileceğini söyleyerek hemen özür diledi. Sonra şunları ekledi: “Geldiğinize çok memnun oldum. Biz, Amerikalıları Türkiye’de görmek istiyoruz; çünkü özlemlerimizi en iyi onlar anlayabilirler.”Sonra, dobra dobra, kısa ve açık ifadesiyle, adetâ emir veren bir subay gibi, sordu: “Size ne söylememi istiyorsunuz?”“İlkin” diye cevap verdim, “bana, Amerikan halkı için bir mesaj verebilir misiniz?”Bu, metodik bir soruydu; çünkü onun Amerikalılara karşı dostça duyguları olduğunu ve böyle bir sorunun, konuşmanın akışını serbestleştireceğini biliyordum. Bu, az konuşan kişilerle mülakat yaparken kullandığım ve konuşma dalgaları doğurmakta nadiren başarısız kalan bir manevraydı.
Washington İçin Takdir DuygusuEn ufak bir tereddüt geçirmeksizin -şunu da ekleyebilirim ki, bütün konuşma sırasında bir cevap için hiçbir zaman duraklamadı- şöyle dedi:“Memnuniyetle. Birleşik Devletlerin ideali, bizim de idealimizdir. Büyük Millet Meclisinin 1920 Ocağında ilân ettiği Millî Misakımız, sizin Bağımsızlık Beyannamenize çok benzer. O, sadece, Türk ülkesinin istilâdan kurtulmasını ve kendi kaderimize hâkim olmamızı ister. Bağımsızlık, hepsi bu. O, halkımızın misakı, anayasasıdır ve ne pahasına olursa olsun, bu misakı korumaya kararlıyız.Türkiye de, Amerika da, demokratik rejimlerdir. Gerçekten, şu andaki Türk Hükümeti, dünyadaki en demokratik hükümettir. Halkın mutlak egemenliğine dayanır ve onun temsilcisi olan Büyük Millet Meclisi, yargı, yasama ve yürütme organıdır. Kardeş demokrasiler olarak, Türkiye ile Amerika arasında en sıkı ilişkiler olmalıdır.Ekonomik ilişkiler alanında Türkiye ile Birleşik Devletler, her iki taraf için de en büyük yarar sağlayacak şekilde, birlikte çalışabilirler. Zengin ve çeşitli millî kaynaklarımızın, Amerikan sermayesi için çekici olması gerekir. Biz, gelişmemizde Amerikan yardımını memnuniyetle karşılarız; çünkü bütün başka ülkelerin sermayesinden farklı olarak Amerikan parası, Avrupa milletlerinin bizimle ilişkilerine can veren siyasal entrikalardan uzaktır. Başka bir ifadeyle Amerikan sermayesi, yatırılır yatırılmaz bayrağını çekmeye kalkmaz.Amerika’ya olan inanç ve güvenimizin somut bir delilini, Chester İmtiyazını vermek suretiyle gösterdik. Gerçekten bu, Amerikan halkına bir teveccühtür.Hayatım boyunca, Washington ve Lincoln’ün hayat ve eserlerinden ilham aldım. İlk onüç devletle yeni Türkiye arasında ilginç bir benzerlik vardır. Sizin atalarınız, İngiliz boyunduruğunu kaldırıp attı. Türkiye de, üzerindeki bütün rüşvet ve yiyicilikle birlikte taşıdığı eski imparatorluk boyunduruğunu, daha da kötüsü başka milletlerin bencil müdahalelerini kaldırıp attı. Biz şimdi, yeni bir milletin doğuşuna şahit olan bir doğum sürecinin içindeyiz. Amerikan yardımıyla amacımıza ulaşacağız.”Sonra, öne doğru eğilip, bütün mülakat sırasında yaptığı tek hareketle şunları söyledi:“Biliyor musunuz, Washington ve Lincoln niçin beni daima etkilemişlerdir? Söyliyeyim size. Onlar, sadece Birleşik Devletlerin şerefi ve kurtuluşu için çalıştılar; oysa, öbür başkanların çoğu, öyle görünüyor ki, kendilerini tanrılaştırmaya çabaladılar. Kamu hizmetinin en yüksek şekli, bencil olmayan çabadır.”Bunun üzerine sordum: “Sizin için devlet yönetiminde ideal nedir? Başka bir deyişle, Pan-İslâmizm ve Pan-Turanizm fikirlerine hâlâ inanıyor musunuz?”“Kısaca söyleyeyim” dedi. “Pan-İslâmizm, din ortaklığına dayanan bir federasyon demekti. Pan-Turanizm ise, ırka dayanan aynı çeşit bir çaba ve ihtiras ortaklığını temsil ediyordu. Her ikisi de yanlıştı. Pan-İslâmizm fikri, asırlar önce Viyana kapılarında, Türklerin Avrupa’da ulaştıkları en kuzey noktada öldü. Pan-Turanizm de, Doğu ovalarında mahvolup gitti.Bu hareketlerin her ikisi de yanlıştı; çünkü, kuvvet ve emperyalizm anlamına gelen fetih fikrine dayanıyorlardı. Uzun yıllar emperyalizm, Avrupa’ya hâkim oldu. Ancak emperyalizm ölüme mahkûmdur. Bunun cevabını, Almanya’nın Avusturya’nın, Rusya’nın ve geçmişteki Türkiye’nin yıkılışında bulursunuz. Demokrasi, insan ırkının ümididir.Bir Türkün ve savaş için yetişmiş benim gibi bir askerin böyle konuşması size garip gelebilir. Oysa, yeni Türkiye’nin temelindeki fikir aynen budur. Biz, zor kullanma, fetih istemiyoruz. Yalnız bırakılmamızı ve kendi ekonomik ve siyasal kaderimizi kendimizin tayin etmesine müsaade edilmesini istiyoruz. Yeni Türk demokrasisinin tüm yapısı, bunun üzerine kuruludur; şunu da ilâve edeyim ki, bu demokrasi, Amerikan düşüncesini temsil eder; şu farkla ki, siz kırksekiz devletsiniz, biz bir tek büyük devletiz.Yüzlerce yıl boyunca Türk İmparatorluğu, Türklerin azınlıkta olduğu karmaşık bir insan yığınıydı. Daha başka sözde azınlıklarımız da vardı ve bunlar, sıkıntılarımızın büyük kısmının kaynağı olmuşlardı. Bu, ve eski fetih düşüncesi… Türkiye’nin gerilemesinin bir sebebi, bu güç yönetim işi yüzünden kendisini tüketmiş olmasıydı. Eski İmparatorluk çok büyüktü ve her an kendisini problemlere açık buluyordu.Oysa, eski kuvvet, fetih ve yayılma fikri, Türkiye’de ebediyen ölmüştür. Eski İmparatorluğumuz, Osmanlıydı. Bu da, kuvvet ve zor demekti. Bu artık anlamını kaybetmiştir. Biz şimdi Türküz, yalnızca Türk. İşte bunun içindir ki, Woodrow Wilson’un gayet iyi ifade ettiği self-determinasyon idealine dayanan, Türklere ait bir Türkiye istiyoruz. Bu, milliyetçilik demektir ama, Avrupa’nın pek çok yerlerinde self-determinasyon’u engelleyen bencil türden bir milliyetçilik değil. Ne de keyfî gümrük duvarları ve sınırlar demek. Bizim milliyetçiliğimiz, ticarette açık kapıyı, ekonominin yeniden canlandırılmasını, bir vatanda beliren gerçek anlamda ülkesel bir vatanseverliği ifade eder. Kan ve fetihle dolu bunca yıldan sonra nihayet Türkler, bir anavatana kavuşmuşlardır. Bunun sınırları belirlenmiş, dert kaynağı olan azınlıklar dağıtılmıştır; işte bu sınırların içinde mevkiimizi korumak ve kendi kurtuluşumuz için çalışmak istiyoruz. Kendi evimizin efendileri olmak istiyoruz.”
Kemal’in Yapıcı ProgramıGene bana doğru eğildi ve keskin, kesik kesik üslubuyla şunları söyledi:“Biliyor musunuz, Avrupa’da barışı ve yeniden inşayı engellemiş olan şey nedir? Sadece şu: Bir milletin diğerine müdahalesi. Daha önce bahsettiğim, haris, bencil milliyetçiliğin bir parçası. Bu, ekonominin yerine siyasetin geçmesi sonucunu doğurmuştur. Alman tamirat tazminatı kördüğümü, bunun yalnızca bir örneğidir. Küçük çaplı siyaset, dünyanın baş belasıdır.Bizim güçlükle kazandığımız Türk bağımsızlığını engellemeye çalışan, milliyetçiliğimizi kötüleyen, bunun doğu komşularımızı fethetme arzusunu maskeleyen bir kamuflajdan ibaret olduğunu söyleyen, ekonomiyi yönetecek yetenekte olmadığımızı ileri süren milletler var. Bakalım, göreceğiz.Yeni Türkiye’nin ilk ve en önemli düşüncesi, siyasal değil, ekonomiktir. Biz, dünya üretiminin de, tüketiminin de bir parçası olmak istiyoruz.”“Birleşik Devletler, sizin bu yeni Türkiye’nize somut olarak ne gibi yardımlarda bulunabilir?” diye sordum.Solumdaki sarışın dev, “birçok şeyler” dedi. “Türkiye, temelde bir tarım ülkesi. Başarı veya başarısızlığımız tarıma bağlı. Canlandırma programında başlıca üç faaliyet önde geliyor. Bunlar, tarım, ulaştırma ve sağlık; çünkü köylerimizdeki ölüm oranı, dehşet verecek kadar yüksek.İlkin tarımı alalım. Birincisi, tarım okulları açmak ki bunda Amerika yardımcı olabilir, ikincisi traktör ve diğer modern tarım makinelerine yer vermek suretiyle, tamamen yeni bir tarım bilimi geliştirmek zorundayız. Pamuk gibi yeni ürünleri geliştirmemiz, tütün gibi eski ürünleri de yaygınlaştırmamız gerekiyor, ister karayolunda, ister çiftlikte olsun, motor bizim ilk yardımcımız olacaktır.Ulaşım da aynı derecede hayatîdir. Dünya Savaşından önce Almanlar, Türkiye’nin ulaşımı için kapsayıcı bir plân hazırlamışlardı; ancak bu, ülkenin onlar tarafından ekonomik bakımdan sömürülmesi fikrine dayanıyordu. Almanlardan kurtulduğumuza memnunum; benim açımdan da, hiçbir zaman bu otoriteyi tekrar ele geçirebilecek değillerdir. Çok ihtiyaç duyduğumuz demiryollarımızı geliştirmek için gözlerimizi Amerika’ya çevirdik. Onlara Chester İmtiyazını vermemizin bir sebebi bu. Bu imtiyazın bizim için ne ifade ettiğini Amerikalıların anlayacaklarını ümid ediyorum. Bu, sadece yeterli bir ulaşım değil, aynı zamanda yeni limanların inşası ve millî kaynaklarımızın, özellikle petrolün işletilmesi ümididir.Sağlık konusunda zaten, kabinemizin bir unsuru olarak, bir Sağlık Bakanlığı kurduk; çocuk ölümlerini önlemek için her türlü çaba gösterilecektir. Bu konuda da gene Amerika yardımcı olabilir.Ekonomiden söz ederken, yeni Türkiye için hayatî önem taşıyan başka bir soruna da değineyim. Geçmişte Türkiye’nin trajedisi, büyük Avrupa devletlerinin, onun ticarî gelişmesi konusunda birbirlerine karşı olan bencil tutumlarıydı. Bu, büyük imtiyazlar koparma oyununun kaçınılmaz sonucuydu. Devletler, ahır yemliğindeki köpekler gibiydiler; kendi istediklerine ulaşamadıkları zaman, rakiplerini de bundan uzak tutmaya çalışıyorlardı. Yıllardır Çin’de olup bitenler de aynen böyledir; ancak onlar, Türkiye’yi Çin’e çeviremeyeceklerdir. John Hay tarafından ortaya atılmış bulunan, herkese açık kapı ve herkes için fırsat eşitliği üzerinde ısrar edeceğiz. Eğer Avrupa devletleri bu usûlden hoşlanmazlarsa, bunun dışında kalabilirler”.Bundan sonraki sorum şuydu: “Dünyanın bugünkü hastalığı için ilâcınız nedir?”Hemen cevapladı: “Aptalca şüphe ve güvensizlik değil, akıllıca işbirliği”.“Milletler Cemiyeti bir çare mi?” diye devam ettim.“Hem evet, hem hayır” dedi Kemal. “Cemiyetin hatası, bazı milletleri yönetmek, diğer milletleri de yönetilmek üzere ayırmış olmasıdır. Wilson’un self-determinasyon fikri, garip şekilde ortadan kalkmış görünüyor”.Kemal’e, Türkiye’nin Milletler Cemiyetine girmesine taraftar olup olmadığını sorduğumda, şu cevabı verdi:“Şarta bağlı; ancak şu andaki işleyiş şekliyle Cemiyet, bir deneme niteliğini sürdürmektedir”.Şunu söylemekle bir sırrı açığa vurmuş olmuyorum ki, Kemal, Alman entrikası yüzünden ülkesine çok pahalıya mal olmuş bulunan Büyük Savaştan çok daha önceleri, İstanbul’daki Alman entrikalarına sürekli şekilde karşıydı. Almanlarla ilgili herşeye karşı şiddetli muhalefeti yüzünden, savaş sırasında hükümetin kontrolünü Talât Paşa ile paylaşan Enver Paşa, onu ordu hizmetinde harcayıp kurtulmaya çalışmıştı. Oysa Enver, Kemal’in kariyerini sona erdirecek yerde, ona Türkiye’yi kurtarma ve kendisini millî kahraman yapma fırsatını vermişti.Evrensel ilgi çeken bir konuda, Türk kadınının kurtuluşu konusunda Kemal’in kesin fikirleri var. Yalnız peçenin kesinlikle yasaklanmasına taraftar olmakla kalmıyor, kadının kamusal hayatın bir parçası olmasını da istiyor. Bu konudaki görüşleri şöyle:“Kadınlarımız, eğitimde ve çalışmada erkeklere eşit olmalı. İslamiyetin en eski günlerinden beri, kadın bilginler, yazarlar, hatipler ve bunun gibi okul açıp ders veren kadınlar olmuştur. Hatta İslam Dini, kadınlara, kendilerini erkeklerle aynı derecede eğitmelerini emreder. Yunanlılarla olan savaşta Türk kadınları, cephedeki erkeklerin yerine geçerek evlerinde her türlü işi yapmış, hattâ ordunun ikmal ve mühimmat taşınması işini üstlenmişlerdir. Bu, gerçek bir sosyolojik prensibin, yani toplumu daha iyi ve daha güçlü kılmak için kadınların erkeklerle işbirliği etmesi gerektiği prensibinin bir sonucu olmuştur.Türkiye’de kadınların hayatlarını tembellik ve aylaklık içinde geçirdikleri sanılmaktadır. Bu bir iftiradır. Büyük şehirler hariç, Türkiye’nin tümünde kadınlar, erkeklerle yanyana tarlalarda çalışmakta ve genel olarak millî çalışmaya katılmaktadırlar. Sadece büyük şehirlerde Türk kadınları kocalarınca kapatılmaktadır. Bu da, kadınlarımızın, dinin emrettiğinden daha fazla örtünüp kapanmalarından ileri gelmektedir. Gelenek, bu noktada fazla ileri gitmiştir.”Bütün mülakat sırasında, sözlerini vurgulamak için öne doğru eğildiği iki an dışında Kemal, koltuğunda dimdik oturmuş ve sürekli olarak sigara içmişti. Bu taş gibi hatlarda en ufak bir yumuşama belirtisinin görüldüğü tek an, konuşmanın sonunda az çok kişisel nitelikte meseleleri tartışmaya başladığımız zamandı; kendisine, evlenmemiş olduğumu, çünkü çok seyahat ettiğimi ve hiçbir kadının böyle sonu gelmez bir faaliyete tahammül etmeyeceğini söyledim. Bunun üzerine, “Ben de, ancak son zamanlarda evlendim” dedi.
Bayan KemalBu, doğal olarak, bizi Kemal’in hayatındaki romansa götürüyor. Bütün diğer demir adamlar gibi, onun da hassas bir noktası var; Bayan Kemal’e rastlayınca, onun nasıl olup da teslim olduğunu anladım. Tüm hikâyeyi ilk ağızdan ve aşağıdaki şekilde işittim:Mülakatın ortasındayken hizmetkâr içeri girdi ve Kemal’in kulağına birşey fısıldadı. Kemal derhal döndü ve gururla “Bayan Kemal geliyor” dedi.Birkaç saniye sonra, şimdiye kadar rastladığım en çekici Türk Kadını odaya girdi. Orta boylu, tam doğulu yüzlü ve parlak siyah gözlüydü. Her hareketi zerafetin ta kendisiydi.Kemal, beni eşine Türkçe olarak takdim etti. Kendisine Fransızca hitap ettim ve mükemmel bir Ingilizceyle cevap verdi; aslında, İngiliz aksanıyla konuşuyordu. Bunun sebebi de, okul hayatının bir kısmını İngiltere’de geçirmiş olmasıydı. Daha sonra Fransa’da okumuştu. Bayan Kemal hemen masanın yanındaki koltuğa oturdu ve eşiyle karşılıklı görüşmemi ilgiyle izledi.Onun gelişinden az sonra Kemal, kabinenin hâlâ toplantı halinde olduğu bitişik odaya çağrıldı; onun yokluğu sırasında Bayan Kemal, bana hayat hikâyesini anlattı; bu, seçkin kocasının daha zahmetli kariyerinin hikâyesini, çekici şekilde tamamlıyordu.Daha önce bahsetmiş olduğum gibi, babası, uzun yıllar Türkiye’nin ekonomik başkenti olan İzmir’in en zengin tüccarı. Kendi ismi Latife. Buna, Türkçede evli veya bekâr bayan anlamına gelebilecek “hanım” kelimesini eklemek gerek. Böylece, evlenmeden önceki ismi Latife Hanım’dı. Eğer şimdi tam evlilik ismini kullanırsa, Latife Gazi Mustafa Kemal Hanım “olması gerekir.Yunan Savaşının ilk günlerinde kâh Paris’te kâh Londra’daydı. 1921 güzünde, o zaman Yunanlıların elinde olan İzmir’e geri döndü; Yunanlılar babasını hapsetmişlerdi, daha sonra kendisini de Türk casusu olma iddiasıyla tutukladılar. Kapıda iki Yunan askerinin nöbetçiliğinde kendi evinde göz hapsine mahkûm oldu. Burada üç ay geçirdi.Bir gün Yunan nöbetçileri ansızın ortadan kayboldular. Ortada, hızlı çekilişin telâş ve gürültüsü vardı; ertesi sabahın erken saatlerinde muzaffer Türkler İzmir’e girdiler. Birkaç gün sonra Kemal de gelip ordularının başında muzafferane İzmir’e girdi. Bundan sonrasını Lâtife Hanımın kendi saf kelimeleriyle anlatayım:“Mustafa Kemal’le hiç tanışmamış olmakla beraber, onu İzmir’deki ikameti sırasında bizim misafirimiz olmaya davet ettim. Cesaretini, vatanseverliğini ve liderliğini takdir ediyordum; davetimizi kabul etti. Memleketimizin yeniden inşası için ortak ideallerimiz olduğunu gördüm; daha sonra başka ortak şeylerimiz olduğunu da keşfettik. Çok geçmemişti ki, dostlarımızdan kırk elli kadarı eve çaya davet edildi. Müftü çağrıldı ve önceden hiçbir haber verme olmaksızın evlendik. Nikâh yüzüğümüzü daha sonra İsmet Paşa Lozan’dan getirdi.”Bayan Kemal, kocasından samimî takdir duygularıyla söz ediyordu: “O, sadece büyük bir vatansever ve asker değil, aynı zamanda bencilliği olmayan bir liderdir” dedi. “Kurduğu hükümet sistemi, onsuz da işleyebilir. O, kendisi için asla hiçbir şey istemez. Kendi kaderine hâkim Türkiye idealinin yürüyeceğine emin olsaydı, her zaman çekilmeye istekli olurdu.”“Ben onun bir çeşit sekreteri görevini görüyorum. Yabancı gazeteleri onun için okuyup tercüme ediyorum; dinlenmek istediği zaman piyano çalıyorum; biyografisini de yazmaya başladım.”“Eşinizin eğlenceleri nelerdir?” diye sordum.“Müziği sever; okuyacak zaman bulduğu zaman eski çağ tarihiyle meşgul olur” dedi. Sonra ayaklarımızın dibinde yerde sıçrayıp duran üç cilveli köpek yavrusunu göstererek ilâve etti: “Ona bu küçük köpekleri de aldım; onları çok sevdi.”
Oy Hakkından Önce EğitimBayan Kemal’in, Türk kadınlarının geleceği konusunda kesin fikirleri var. Halide Hanım gibi o da, kadınların hürriyete kavuşmalarına kuvvetle inanıyor. Bu konuda şunları söyledi:“Türk kadınları için eşit haklara inanıyorum; bu, oy verme ve Büyük Millet Meclisine seçilme hakkı demek. Ama şuna da inanıyorum ki, eğitim, oy hakkından ve kamu hizmetinden önce gelmeli. Cahil köylülerin sırtına oy hakkını yüklemek saçma olur. Uzun vâdede, kadınlar için kadınlarca yönetilen okullarımız olmalı. Bunun, yavaş bir süreç olması kaçınılmaz. Peçenin kaldırılmasına taraftarım.Kitaplardan konuşmaya başladık. Bayan Kemal’in Longfellow’un büyük hayranı olmasına çok hayret ettim. Hayat İlâhisinin tümünü ezberden okudu. Keats, Shelley ve Byron’u ne kadar iyi bildiğini görmek de, benim için aynı derecede ilginçti.Bu esnada Kemal döndü ve mülakatımız, bıraktığımız yerden tekrar başladı. Bitirdiğimizde akşam oluyordu ve gitmek zamanı gelmişti. Gazi’nin Ankara’da ele geçirdiğim bir fotoğrafını yanımda getirmiştim. 1920’nin ilk günlerinde çekilmişti. Baktığında, düşünceli şekilde, “bu bana gençliğimi hatırlatıyor” dedi. Fotoğrafı imzaladı ve isteğim üzerine iki başka resmini daha verdi.Veda edildi ve ayrıldım. Gece olmaktayken Ankara’ya geri döndüm; aralıklarla süvari nöbetçilerince selâmlandım, zira karanlıkta Kemal’in güvenlik tedbirleri artırılıyordu; durgun havada borazan sesleri yansırken, güçlü ve hükmedici bir şahsiyetle, insanlar arasında eşi olmayan bir liderle tanışmış olduğumu idrak ettim.Bundan sonra yapılması gereken şey, Kemal’in şu ana kadarki hayli kısa ve dolu hayatını anlatmak. O, bir küçük devlet memurunun oğlu ve kırküç yıl önce o zaman Türk Bayrağı altında olan Selanik’te doğmuş.Kemal’in kaderinde ordu vardı; yaşı gelince, Manastır’daki askerî okula girdi. Orduda iken çalışma arkadaşlarını, askerliğe karşı duyduğu gerçek aşkla etkiledi. Şimdi olduğu gibi, o zaman da bir milliyetçiydi. O günlerde bu, sapık bir düşünce sayılıyordu; çünkü Türkiye, din ve devletin kontrolünü saltanatta birleştiren çürümüş bir yönetimin pençesindeydi. Başka bir deyişle, sultan sadece hükümdar değil, aynı zamanda ulu halife olarak dinin de savunucusuydu.Kemal’in eski askerlik günlerinden bir arkadaşının bana İstanbul’da söylediğine göre, 1908 İhtilâlini ve 1909 karşı ihtilâlini yapmış olan ve Enver Paşa’nm egemenliğinde bulunan İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti İktidarının zirvesindeyken, Türkiye’nin gelecekteki kurtarıcısı şunları söylemişti: “Bu politikacılar başarısız kalmaya mahkûmdurlar; çünkü ülkeyi değil, bir sınıfı temsil ediyorlar. Sadece siyasî saiklerle hareket ediyorlar. Birgün Türkiye’nin kurtuluşuna yardım edeceğim.” Napolyon gibi o da, kendisinin kaderin gönderdiği bir insan olduğuna inanıyordu; sonraki başarıları da bu eski inancını doğrulamıştı.
Kemal Çanakkale’deTürkiye’de zeki subayların siyasetteki istikballerinin parlak olduğu bir dönemde Kemal’in mesleğine bağlı kalmış olması da ilginçtir. Trablus’ta İtalyanlara karşı savaşmakla birlikte, orduda isim yapmaya başlaması, ancak Dünya Savaşıyla olmuştur.Almanlara antipatisi dolayısıyla, şüphesiz, Türkiye’nin mihver devletleri yanında savaşa girmesine karşıydı. Bu yüzden derhal Enver Paşa’nın düşmanlığını çekti ve savaş yılları sırasında bu husumet daha da had noktaya ulaştı. Enver onu her yoldan küçümsemeye çalıştıysa da o, işten atılamıyacak derecede iyi bir askerdi. Bir ara, o zamanlar veliaht olan müstakbel Sultan VI. Mehmet’e Almanya’ya yaptığı resmî ziyarette refakat etmek üzere, geçici olarak cepheden ayrıldı.Çanakkale savaşları öncesinde Kemal, piyade albayıydı. İngilizlerle Fransızların kötü bahtlı çıkarmalarını yapmalarından önce bile, kendisine Gelibolu’da bir komuta mevkii verilmişti. Kısa zaman sonra tümgeneralliğe yükseltildi -bu ona paşa unvanı kazandırdı- ve 19’uncu Tümenin komutasını üstlendi. Liman Von Sanders gözden düşdüğünde, yarımadadaki en yüksek rütbeli Türk subaylarından biri oldu.Çoğu kimse, Çanakkale Seferinin, büyük ölçüde Kemal’in süratli karar verişi sayesinde başarısızlığa uğratıldığını bilmez. Avustralyalıların Anzak Plajına tarihî saldırılarını yaptıkları gün Kemal, tümenin en iyi alayına Anzak adı verilen Avusturalyalıların saldırmak üzere olduğu tepelerde tam teçhizatlı olarak manevra yapma emrini vermişti. Çıkarmanın yapıldığı ve kıyıdaki Türk birliklerinin yenilgiye uğradığı haberi kendisine ilk ulaştığında, bir yandan da bu hareketin sadece bir aldatmaca olduğu bildiriliyor ve buna karşı sadece bir tabur ayırması isteniyordu.Kemal, ateşin niteliğinden ve ilerlemenin yönünden, bunun bir aldatmaca değil, ciddî bir saldırı olduğunu anladı. Teşebbüsü ele alarak derhal, geçit resmindeki her üç tabura, önceden kararlaştırılmış manevralarına girişmelerini emretti. Bunları, ikinci alayın tümü ile, Kemal’in bizzat yerleştirdiği ve yönettiği bir dağ bataryası izledi. Kemal, diğer tümenin komutanı ile daha ihtiyatlı üstlerini de işe sokmuş ve böylece durumu kurtarmıştı.Dünya Savaşının sonunda Türkiye bitkin bir haldeydi. İngiliz Donanması Boğazdaydı; Sultan ve danışmanları da, Müttefiklerin elinde oyuncaktı. 1918’de Mondros Mütarekesi İmzalanıp Türkler teslim olduğunda Kemal, kahramanca bir mücadeleden sonra Türklerin ardçı kuvvetlerini kurtardığı Filistin’den daha yeni dönmüştü. Bundan sonra, Küçük Asya’da arta kalan Türk kuvvetlerine umumî müfettiş tayin edildi.1919 Mayısında Yunanlılar, uzun zamandır göz diktikleri İzmir’i işgal ettiler. Bu akılsızca eylem hemen tamamen Lloyd George’un eseriydi ve İngiliz Başbakanı o zaman anlamamışsa da, kendisini iktidardan düşüren olaylar zincirinin ilk halkası buydu.Bu olay, nasıl Yunanlıların nihaî felâketinin ve Lloyd George’un nihaî düşüşünün başlangıcını ifade ediyorsa, aynı zamanda da Kemal’in büyük anının geldiğini anlatıyor. Yunanlıların İzmir’i işgalleri ve iradelerini vahşice hâkim kılmak istemeleri, sanki Türkiye’deki yeni milliyetçilik ateşini başlatan kıvılcım oldu.Uzaklarda Erzurum’un ötesinde Kemal, terhis etmek ve silâhsızlandırmak üzere gönderildiği ordunun kalıntılarıyla beraberdi. İzmir ve civarındaki Yunan tecavüzlerinin haberi ve İstanbul’da birçok arkadaşlarının İngilizlerce sürülmesinin hikâyesi oraya ulaştığında; hareket zamanının geldiğini anladı. Terhis ve silahsızlandırma yerine, silâh ve gönüllüler için çağrıda bulundu; bunlarla ülkesini mutlaka yokedeceğine inandığı saldırıya karşı direnecekti. Programı Türkiye’nin yabancı hakimiyetinden kurtulması olan bir karşı hükümet örgütlendirmeye başladı. Kendisi hareketin başı ve cephesi olduğundan, taraftarlarına Kemalist denilmeye başlandı. Bu yeni milliyetçi hareketin ilk merkezi, Erzurum’du. Sonra Sivas’a, 1920 başlarında da Ankara’ya nakledildi.Bu arada İstanbul’daki Padişah hükümeti, Müttefiklerin zoruyla, Kemal’e kesin dönüş emri göndermişti. Bunu reddedince kanun-dışı ilân edilerek ölüme mahkûm edildi. Bu, sadece onun artan şöhretini daha da yaygınlaş tirdi.Kemal’in görevi iki yönlüydü: Bir aşama, “Yunanlıları kovma” biçiminde sloganlaşmıştı; diğeri, Milliyetçi Hükümeti geliştirmekti, her iki özlem de gerçekleştirildi. Bunlar, bir yandan askerî liderlik deha ve stratejisini, öte yandan da güçlü ve örgütlendirici devlet adamlığını gerektiriyordu. Kemal, bütün bu gerekli nitelikleri kendisinde toplamıştı.Bu iki yıllık savaşın hikâyesini burada anlatacak yerimiz yok: Yunanlıların, Sakarya Nehrine, yani Ankara’nın kırk mil yakınına kadar gelmeleri, Kemal Paşa ve onun kadar zeki olan İsmet Paşa (kendisi meslekten bir diplomat değil bir askerdir) tarafından istilâcıların nasıl denize döküldükleri… Bu hikâye çok kez anlatılmıştır.
Türkiye’nin Yeni AnayasasıBizi burada en çok ilgilendiren şey, Ankara’nın güçlük ve rahatsızlıkları içerisinde ve bizimki hariç bütün yabancı eller ona düşmanca kalkmışken Kemal’in kurduğu hükümet sistemidir. Bu, gerçekten, etkileyici bir demokrasi serüvenidir. Teknik bakımdan böyle adlandırılmamakla beraber, pratik açıdan tam anlamıyla bir cumhuriyettir.1920’de Ankara’da Büyük Millet Meclisince kabul edilen Millî Misak’a göre Türkler, Amerikan Bağımsızlık Beyannamesinin paralelindedir. Misak, diğer hususlar arasında şunu da ilân etmiştir ki, “hayatımızın ve varolmaya devam edebilmemizin temel şartı, millî ve ekonomik gelişmemizin araçlarını sağlama konusunda, bütün diğer ülkeler gibi, tam bir bağımsızlık ve hürriyete sahip olmamızdır.”Yeni Türk Anayasası, Temel Kanun adı verilen kanunda ifadesini bulmaktadır. Bu kanun, milletin egemenliğinin millette olduğunu ve halk tarafından seçilen Büyük Millet Meclisince kullanılacağını belirtmektedir. Savaş ve barış yetkisi, sadece bu meclise aittir. Meclis kendi başkanını kendi seçer (halen Kemal Paşa’nın işgal ettiği mevki); başkan, devletin en yüksek görevlisidir. Daha önce işaret ettiğim gibi, meclis kabine üyelerini de seçer. Türkiye’nin geçmiş tarihini düşündüğünüzde, bu yeniliklerden çok daha önemlisi, din ve devletin mutlak ayrılığıdır. Sultan sorunu bitmiştir.
Kişisel NiteliklerKemal’in alelade bir insan olmadığını şimdiye kadar anlamış olmanız gerekir. Kişiyi ve yöntemini incelediğinizde, onun hayret verici başarısının gerisinde iki niteliğin yattığını farkedersiniz. Biri, demir bir iradenin emrinde yürüyen şaşmaz bir gaye; öbürü, kamuoyuna karşı derin saygısı. Gerçi halkı ona tapmaktadır ama, o başlangıçtan itibaren attığı her adımda halkına danışmıştır. Bir öneride bulunmak istediği zaman kütlelere gitmekte ve halka görüşünü açıklamaktadır. Büyük Millet Meclisiyle olan ilişkileri de aynı niteliktedir.Giyim ve muaşeret âdabı konusunda çok titiz olmasına rağmen, bütün hayatına dolambaçsız bir basitlik hakimdir. İlerleyen Yunanlılara karşı Türklerin son mukavemetini yönetmek için cepheye giderken arkasında bıraktığı tek belge, o zaman Büyük Millet Meclisinin Başkan Vekili olan Dr. Adnan Bey’e yazdığı şu kısa nottu:“Büyük Millet Meclisi Başkan Vekiline: Ben cepheye gidiyorum. Yokluğum sırasında işlerimle meşgul olmanızı rica ederim.”
MUSTAFA KEMALBüyük Millet Meclisi Başkanı
Enver Paşa’nın başarısızlığıyla Kemal Paşa’nın başarısını karşılaştırılanız, bunların strateji yönünden ne kadar farklı olduklarını görebilirsiniz. Enver, amacını gerçekleştirmek için dosdoğru gider; bir duvara çarptığı zaman onu yıkmaya çalışırdı. Sonunda yenik düştü. Kemal ise, bir engelle karşılaştığı zaman, onu aşana kadar sabırla bekler; genellikle de amaçlarına ulaşır. Şimdi sözünü ettiğim sabır, askerî kariyerinin zirvesini teşkil eden Sakarya’da ona büyük hizmet etmiştir.Şu an için Kemal, halkının neredeyse çılgınca sevgisiyle birlikte, kendi başarı dizisinin onu getirdiği başdöndürücü yükseklikte emniyet içinde bulunuyor. Geçen Ağustosun ondördünde yeniden Büyük Millet Meclisi Başkanlığına seçildi. Ona verilmeyen tek bir oy vardı; o da ismet Paşa’ya verilmişti ve Kemal’in seçkin arkadaşını bu şekilde onore etmiş olduğu sanılıyordu.Bu arada, sıkıntıları başlayacaktır. Halen, Müdafaa-i Hukuk Partisi olarak adlandırılan partinin hakimidir (aslında, bu partinin ta kendisidir); şimdi Halk Partisi olan bu partinin karşısında bir muhalefet hemen hemen yok gibidir. Ancak zamanla başka bir kanat mutlaka belirecek ve kaçınılmaz siyasal bölünme ortaya çıkacaktır.Daha yakın ödev, bu ateşli ekonomik ve siyasal self-determinasyon formülünü, yeni Türkiye’nin bu Magna Charta’sını, kesin ve pratik realiteye tercüme etmektir. Gürültü, patırtı bitmiş, barış imzalanmıştır. Şimdi savaşın yaralarının sarılması gerekmektedir. Dolayısıyla, Kemal’in millî lider olarak gerçek sınavı, oniki yıllık nerdeyse kesintisiz savaşın getirdiği harabiyetten, düzen ve refah elde edebilmektedir.Savaş meydanındaki ve toplum hayatındaki hayret verici başarısını, ekonomik kurtarıcı olarak da tekrarlayıp tekrarlayamıyacağını görmek için beklemek gerekir. Kader onun için ne saklıyorsa saklasın, o çoktan çağının tarihine kendisini büyük harflerle yazmıştır..

Isaac F. Marcosson'ın otobiyografinin röportaj hakkındaki kısmı:

 

Alıntı metni:

First Published 1938 Reprinted 1969
-
STANDARD BOOK NUMBER:
8369-1305-1
LIBRARY OK CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER
71-90661
PRINTED IN" THE VNITED STATES OF AMERICA
lurbulent years
CHAPTER VII
KEMAL ATATURK
The least publicized of old world dictators—Kemal Ataturk, The Turkish Messiah—is the most picturesque and the most ruthless. Moreover, his status among the mail-fistcd gentry is unique. What Mussolini and Hitler say and do is front page news. The peace of the world intermittently quivers under the impact of their actions. Not so with Kemal. His name seldom appears in alien print. His activities have not extended beyond the confines of his own country. Yet no other dictator anywhere so completely embodies personal government or exercises such complete mastery over his domain.
In the phraseology of business, the leaders and spokesmen for Fascism and Nazism had going national concerns to bend to their political will once they stepped into authority. Italy and Germany represented a high degree of civilization. Kemal had no such material with which to work. He had to start from scratch. The land was ravaged by years of bitter conflict. The people were mainly illiterate peasants, apathetic and prostrate under defeat. Such nationalism that prevailed under the Sultanate had completely vanished in the face of Allied occupation and the bitter struggle to live. Racked by war and rent by peace Turkey was the remnant of the once powerful Ottoman Empire whose watch-fires had gleamed from the Rave to the Persian Gulf; whose legions had smashed at the gates of Vienna; whose prowess had made Budapest a suburb of Constantinople.
With a price on his head Kemal rallied the tattered survivors of the Turkish armies, drove the Greeks into the sea, and made peace with the great western powers on his own terms. Through his defeat of the Greeks he was largely instrumental in bringing about the downfall of Lloyd George. His service as victorious general was merely the prelude to his larger achievement in creating a national entity out of debris and debacle. From battleground the bleak Anatolian plain became the nursery of a reborn nation. With a will almost unmatched in
«43
i44 TURBULENT YEARS
brutality he drove his own people into acquiescence to reforms which changed the laws, character, habits, language, and even the dress, of the people. Kemal the dictator became Kemal the schoolmaster wielding a rod of iron instead of a wooden ferule.
Kemal has escaped the usual dictator exploitation for two reasons. One is temperamental and the other geographical. Although he has become a leader of men he is inclined toward an aloof and almost solitary life, giving intimacy fleetingly to a few boon companions. Voluble in public—he once spoke for six consecutive days before the Grand Assembly stopping only for food and sleep—he is grim and taciturn by nature. These qualities have contributed to his inaccessibility. He rebuffs approach and has been interviewed less than half a dozen times. Even if Kemal were sociable his physical environment is not calculated to attract people from afar. He lives at Ankhara, capital of the new Turkey, remote from Istanbul, the Constantinople that was. It is the one-time Angora where he established headquarters in his early days of stress and struggle to become the deliverer of his people.
Kemal was 43 when I met him in the summer of 1923. Into that relatively brief span he had crowded several lifetimes of adventure. He was born at Saloniki at the head of the Aegean Sea. His parents named him Mustafa which is a common Turkish cognomen. There were so many little Mustafas in the school that he was called Mustafa Kemal. The word "Kerna!" in Turkish means perfection. The future dictator of Turkey led his class in mathematics. Hence the name attached to him. His father, Ali Riza, an Albanian, was an obscure customs official. The person who probably influenced Kemal's career more than any other was his mother Zubcida, the daughter of a Turkish peasant. It is said of Kemal that she was the only woman to whom he has been faithful. As was the case with Stalin, Mussolini, Pilsudski, Hitler, and nearly every other strong personality, this reverence of mother stands out asainst the many forbidding traits in them. Kemal's home was a poverty-stricken household. All the other children died young. Kemal became the pride and joy of his mother's life. Deeply religious herself she was eager that he enter the priesthood.
In his childhood Kemal displayed the qualities so manifest in his later life. At the Saloniki school he was proud, boastful, harsh, and
KEMAL ATATURK 145
truculent. On one occasion he thrashed his teacher. He was then only twelve years of age but of strong and sturdy physique. His mother persisted in urging him to study for the priesthood. Finally he said to her: "I won't be a priest. I want to be a soldier."
At the proper age Kemal entered the Cadet Academy in Saloniki and afterwards went to the Senior Military School at Monastir. Here for the first time he was caught up in the web of revolutionary intrigue which enmeshed Turkey. Himself an intriguer by instinct he readily fell into the plan of the so-called Vatan, a revolutionary group fostered by officers for the overthrow of Abdul Hamid, the Red Sultan. No contemporary ruler was so cordially hated. It was against him that Gladstone hurled his bitterest denunciations because of the atrocities that he and his minions inflicted upon the unhappy Armenians and other minorities. Kemal had no eleemosynary ideas on the subject of the Armenians. What stirred him even then was the vision of a Turkey freed from despotism. He scarcely realized then that he had within himself the makings of a first-class despot, which he later proved to be.
Kemal got his first taste of war in 1911 when Italy, without warning, seized Tripoli then part of the Turkish Empire. In that inglorious campaign which lost Tripoli to the lurks and in the Balkan War of the following year, he showed his qualities of soldierly leadership. Then, as in his triumphant war against the Greeks, he proved himself to be a leader of forlorn hopes. He was never a behind-thc-lines-officer but always in the van of the fighting with a superb defiance of death.
Nationalism was always strong in Kemal. It naturally provoked a strong resentment of German influence in Turkey. In the years prior to 1914 the Germans achieved what amounted to almost complete economic control of the Ottoman Empire. Turkey was an important milepost on what the Teutons had planned as the road to the economic and political conquest of the East. The "Drang am Ostcn*9 (the push to the East) rolled on every German tongue. The German-owned Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway traversed Turkey. The Constantinople branch of the Deutsche Bank was an important political observation post of the German Foreign Office. Germans were thick at the Sublime Porte where the Sultan held forth and high in his confidence. In
i46 TURBULENT YEARS
rvrhp-k tin-nrt*t*.il
arms, discipline, and technique the Turkish Army showed the strong German influence.
All this irked Kemal who, from the time he was able to think straight, had the ideal of a Turkey for the Turks. His irritation became more acute when Germany pressed for Turkey's entrance in the World War on her side and prevailed. It was enhanced when the hard-headed Prussian General Liman von Sanders arrived on the scene to supervise the Turkish war operations.
Kemal's antagonism to Liman von Sanders was the natural expression of his deep-seated distrust of the Germans. More violent was his growing hatred of what came to be known as the Young Turk Triumvirate composed of Envcr, Talaat, and Jemal. These men had helped to organize the Committee on Union and Progress which fostered the revolt against the Sultan in 1909. Although they brought about some degree of constitutional reform and expelled Abdul Ha-mid, their corrupt instincts and their insatiate ambition for power, Enver's in particular, completely sterilized such patriotism as had inspired their movement. They were generally regarded as German tools. Kemal held them in profound contempt and the feeling was reciprocated.
When the World War broke Kemal realized that his great opportunity had come. He had risen to the rank of colonel and asked for an important command. Enver did his utmost to frustrate this desire. Liman von Sanders, however, realized the qualities that lay in the stalwart young man whose piercing eyes and grim face commanded respect and even fear. Over Enver's protest Kemal was given a post in Gallipoli with the rank of brigadier general.
It was largely due to Kemal's quick judgment that the British Dardanelles expedition failed. On the day the Australians made their attack on Anzac Beach, Kemal had ordered two of his best regiments on parade fully equipped for a maneuver against the very heights where the Australians were about to operate. When news of the landing and of the defeat of the Turkish troops along the coast first reached him it was with the information that the movement was merely a feint, and with the request that he detach only one battalion to deal with it. Kemal judged from the firing that this was no mere feint but a serious assault. On his own initiative he ordered all the battalions
KEMAL ATATURK 147
standing on parade to carry out their prearranged maneuver. They were followed by an entire regiment and a mountain battery which Kemal himself posted and directed. This prompt action saved the situation for the Turks.
Henceforth Kemal was practically in command on the Dardanelles. His vigilance, swift coups, and the inspiration of his personal courage, maintained the morale of the Turks and harried the British. With the British withdrawal from their ill-fated adventure in 1915 Kemal stood forth as the hero of the campaign, hailed throughout Turkey as the "Saviour of the Dardanelles." He was given the title of Pasha. His full name now was Mustafa Kemal Pasha.
This first popular acclaim did not prevail against the machinations of Enver who now saw in Kemal something of a rival. Enver decided to get Kemal as far away from Constantinople as possible. He therefore had him posted off to the Caucasus Army. Here Kemal found the Turkish troops ill-equipped and disorganized. When his frantic appeals for food and supplies were refused he threw up the command and went back to Constantinople in disgust. Here he brooded over his wrongs.
Enver now found another opportunity to get Kemal out of the way. He was instrumental in having him appointed to the entourage of the Crown Prince Vaheddin, afterwards Sultan Mohammed VI, who made a state visit to Germany. Kemal was in no mood for platitudes and compliments. He shocked Hindenburg with his sharp criticism of the Germany Army and even treated the Kaiser with scant respect. The Germans set him down as a boor because they did not like to hear the truth. Always the soldier first, Kemal went on record in Germany with the prophecy that the Teutonic cause was riding for a fall.
When Vaheddin succeeded to the Sultanate Kemal sought to have himself made Minister of War. Instead, he was once more the victim of an Enver intrigue and sent to the army in Syria where he clashed with the Arabs under Emir Feisal who had joined the British cause largely under the stimulation of Lawrence of Arabia. When the armistice was signed at Mudros Kemal was in command of all the troops in south Turkey. By a curious coincidence he had taken over a few months before from Liman von Sanders, whom he had once resented
148 TURBULENT YEARS
so fiercely, but whom he came to admire for his soldierly qualities.
The armistice marked the crossroads in Kemal's life. He returned to Constantinople obsessed by despair bred by the spectacle of his broken country. From the fury of fighting he turned to a fury of mind. He became morose and embittered. The iron drove deep into his system. To mental agony was added the rack of an almost incessant pain. In the early days of the war he contracted a kidney trouble. He could never receive proper care amid all his incessant fighting. Despite the warning of physicians he continued his excessive drinking which, from his young manhood, had been one of the banes of his life. Alcohol gave him the only relief from the anxieties that oppressed him. In one respect Kemal is an interesting psychopathic study. His most restless periods of action have synchronized with his most intense bouts of pain. This analysis may serve to reveal much of Kcmal's almost habitual moroseness. I felt it the moment I met him.
There was only one ray of light in the encircling gloom. Enver had fled to Germany where he was assassinated a few years later. From one source of intrigue and antagonism Kemal was at least secure.
Kcmal's bitterness was intensified by what he saw before him in Constantinople. British warships rode at anchor in the Bosphorus. English troops held the capital, occupied the forts along the Dardanelles, and were stationed at every other strategic point in Turkey. French soldiers had been mobilized in Stamboul, the old section of Constantinople, while Italian brigades were in Pera and along the railways. All Turkey was under Allied supervision. The Sultan was a virtual prisoner in his palace. The Turks had ceased to be masters in their own house. Then flamed Kemal's implacable hatred of the British which has remained with him ever since.
Once more the Kemal brain began to plot. Back of Kemal's mind was the idea of wresting control of Turkey from the conquerors. It was a forlorn hope but in the field he had always led forlorn hopes. The nucleus of the old revolutionary Committee on Union and Pro-gram remained. Kemal began to pick up the threads and bind them together into a conspiracy that would bring about Turkish independence somehow, some way. In the makeshift cabinet were two men destined, with Kemal, for high place in shaping the fortunes of the new Turkey. One was Ismet Pasha, wizened, wiry, deaf, who had
KEMAL ATATURK 149
fought shoulder to shoulder with Kemal in the war and who was now Under-Secretary for War. The other as Rauf Bey, bluff, hearty, rotund, Turkey's outstanding naval officer whose exploits as commander
of the battleship Hamidieh had given the Allies ample reason for worry during the war.
There were other and more obscure potential partisans. Far up in Anatolia were the remnants of the Turkish army more or less ragged, under-nourished, but still maintaining a semblance of organization despite the Allied occupation. Some of these units began to loot and pillage. The Allied control at Constantinople determined to make short shift of these Turkish units.
Meanwhile British secret service agents had gi-ined knowledge of KemaTs intrigue at the capital. As an aide-de-camp to the Sultan he was more or less immune to arrest. When the British persisted in their demand that the Turkish troops in Anatolia be demobilized the Sultan suggested that Kemal was best equipped for the task. The British demurred but the Sultan won his point. Instead of being arrested Kemal was named Inspector General of the Northern Area and Governor General of the Eastern Provinces. His specific task was to demobilize the Turkish Army units still at large in Anatolia. Fate had intervened to place into his hands the agency for the consummation of his great desire.
Once among his old comrades Kemal began to rekindle what was almost the dead flame of nationalism. No man ever faced a more disheartening task. The Turkish troops were not only ill-fed and ill-equipped but disheartened as well. Most of them had fought all the way from the Dardanelles to Syria. They yearned for their home farms and peace.
In Angora, which was then little more than a straggling village of mud huts, Kemal established himself. To him came Rauf Bey, Ismet Pasha, Arif his war-time comrade and intimate of Constantinople days, Ali Fund, Adnan Bey, Turkey's foremost physician, and his wife Halidc Edib who was to contribute a romantic chapter to the serial of the new Turkish freedom.
Halide Edib was the first woman of Turkey in everything that this phrase implies. A graduate of the Constantinople Woman's College she had become the old empire's outstanding novelist and pioneer
i5o TURBULENT YEARS
feminist. Before the World War she agitated for the emancipation of Turkish woman from the veil and the other physical and social encumbrances that made them subservient. During the war she headed the Green Crescent, the Turkish equivalent of western Red Cross. Like Kemal she was a passionate believer in the ultimate destiny of Turkey. She kindled to his enthusiasm and became a devoted adher-ent to the nationalist cause. In disguise, for she was already suspect, she made the greater part of the journey from Constantinople to Angora on horseback. Subsequently she served in the field under Kemal as sergeant in the Turkish army. When I dined with her in 1923 in Munich I could scarcely realize that the beautifully turned-out woman across the table from me who spoke with such charm and cultivation had worn a soldier's uniform and had been through the turmoil and slaughter of the Battle of Sakaria which checked the Greek advance in Anatolia.
Now began the superhuman effort which stands out most creditably in Kemal's life. Up to this time the quality of dynamic leadership had not been associated with him. He had led troops but that was part of his profession. Kemal now became the impassioned prophet and preacher of nationalism. Up and down Anatolia he rode and talked. He cajoled, threatened, exhorted, with a fiery fanaticism. The going was not easy. Deep down, his war-racked people wanted peace. Moreover, the simple Anatolian peasants still regarded the Sultan as the supreme authority. Some of them were inclined to look upon Kemal as an interloper. Kemal then proclaimed his loyalty to the Sultan which had the effect of appeasing most of the people. There were other troubles. The Kurds, a fierce and war-like tribe, rose in revolt. He crushed them ruthlessly. Amid these anxieties Kemal had his brooding hours of blackest depression with the inevitable solace of drink.
Kemal had two trump cards which he played for all they were worth. One was the Greek occupation of Smyrna late in May 1919 just as he set out on his journey to Anatolia as Inspector General. In a life marked by bitter hatreds Kemal's pet hate was against the Greeks. In the first Balkan War they had interned his mother in a concentration camp in Saloniki where she suffered great hardship. Then he vowed vengeance against everybody and everything that
KEMAL ATATURK 151
was Greek. The second was the Treaty of Sevres which Kemal con-strued, and with truth, as the death warrant of his beloved Turkey. Under it Smyrna was detached from the country and Turkey made a vassal to the western powers.
Meanwhile the Sultan's government at Constantinople, at Allied
dictation, had sent peremptory word to Kemal to return. When he refused, he was outlawed and sentenced to death. This only added to his popularity. His growing army of adherents now called themselves Kcmalists.
Kemal's first task was to build up an army with which to drive the Greeks out of the country. Again his almost incredible energy was mobilized. Allied supply and ammunition dumps along the coast were raided to equip his troops which he infused with his own fire and fervour. Meanwhile the Allies had tightened their grip on Constantinople, arresting every nationalist upon whom they could lay hands. Rauf Bey, Fethi Bey, and other colleagues of Kemal were trapped in the capital where they had gone on Kemal's business and deported to Malta.
By the spring of 1920 Kemal had an army. The next step was to formulate a government. Kemal organized what he called the Grand National Assembly which met for the first time in Angora in April. It voted itself the legally constituted government of Turkey. Kemal subsequently became its President.
The so-called National Pact, which Kemal wrote and the Assembly adopted, paralleled the American Declaration of Independence. It declared, among other things, that "it is a fundamental condition of our life and continued existence that we, like every country, should enjoy complete independence and liberty in the matter of assuring the means of our development, in order that our national and economic development should be rendered possible."
Then came the Allied blunder which quickened the faltering Turkish hopes, unified all the factions, and gave Kemal the slogan for victory. Up to this time the Greek army of occupation at Smyrna had been more or less quiescent so far as invasion of the hinterland was concerned. Within the confines of the city they were lords and mas-ters subjecting the inhabitants to pillage and worse.
Venizclos, the Greek statesman, had for years cherished the dream
i5z TURBULENT YEARS
of a Greek empire which would include the coast of Anatolia. It had been largely due to his urging that the Greek army had been sent to Smyrna which he saw as the first outpost of his greater Greece. When the Allied peacemakers in Paris learned of the Kemal adventure they were first amused and then annoyed. Here, in their opinion, was an interloper who had the temerity to flout the victors of the World War and who would not sign a peace treaty. They looked at the map and saw that there was a Greek army in Smyrna. Why not use this agency to rid them of their new anxiety and let Greece have what she wanted in Anatolia? Venizelos's dream might come true.
The Greeks now advanced into Anatolia. The Allies had provided them with the most modern equipment. It looked like a push-over for this well-trained host to rout the poorly clad and ill-equipped Turkish troops. Ismet Pasha led the first Turkish advance against them. They clashed in January 1921 at InEunu where the invaders were driven back. Only a comparatively small Greek army had been involved in this action. The Greeks now pushed forward with their main army driving the Turks before them and ravaging the countryside. The peasants fled in terror before them. All that spring and early summer of 1921 the Greeks devastated the Anatolian plain.
Kemal now imposed his will upon the Grand National Assembly. He had himself made commander-in-chief of the Turkish army with
the powers of a dictator. He over-ruled Ismet's suggestion to risk battle at Eski-Shehr and ordered the entire Turkish army to retire along the Sakaria River which wound its way through a mountainous country. Here he determined to make his stand.
What history knows as the Battle of Sakaria began at dawn on August 24th, 1921. For twelve days the conflict raged under an almost intolerable sun. Both sides fought with desperate valour. Kemal hurled regiment after regiment against the Greeks who fought them back with terrible loss. Three divisional generals were killed in the first day's fighting. On the last day an orderly dashed up to Kemal saying that another position had been lost. Turmoil raged all round him, but the commander-in-chief stood unmoved and without the slightest tremor on his inscrutable face. At the critical hour he gave a quiet word of command and five thousand picked troops, which he had kept in reserve and under cover, leaped into action. Their instructions
KEMAL ATATURK 153
were not to fire until they saw the whites of the enemy's eyes. They turned the tide and the Greek retreat began.
The victory at Sakaria made Kemal a world figure. The morose, taciturn Turk was now a person to be reckoned with by the powers who had regarded him as a vainglorious upstart. The French with their eye, as usual, on the main chance made a secret treaty with him. Through it more than 40,000 Turks were released from the Syrian front. Kemal was able to get equipment for almost as many more troops from France. He obtained arms from Italy and Russia. He had to pledge his word and his prospects for most of these supplies but he got away with it.
All these preparations meant that Kemal had no illusions about Sakaria. He well knew that it was not a decisive victory. He rebuffed suggestions for a separate peace. All his restless energy was now concentrated behind the determination to drive the Greeks out of Turkey. For months he planned and worked. The Greeks viewed Kemal's inaction in the field as indifference. They were soon to be rudely awakened.
It was not until August 1922 that Kemal felt he was in a position to deliver what he believed to be the telling blow. Although Ismct was
in command of the field army Kemal now went into the field and as-
sumed supreme direction. On August 26th the Turks attacked Dumlu Punar, the key to the Greek position. Within 24 hours the Greek Army had been cut in two with its lines of supply and communication broken. The defeat became a rout as the invaders fled back to their base on the coast. When Kemal entered Smyrna in triumph, acclaimed by the frenzied populace as deliverer, the last of the Greek transports bearing the demoralized Greek army were disappearing over the horizon. The Greeks fired the city before their evacuation.
After establishing order in Smyrna Kemal went back to Angora which was now secure from the invader. The capital was delirious with joy. Among the honours showered on Kemal was the title of Ghazi, which means "The Conqueror" in Turkish. Since that fateful day in 1453 when iMohammed the Conqueror battered down the gates of Constantinople and the Moslem era began, the proud title had been conferred on only three men. One was Topal Osman Pasha, the hero of Plevna; the second was Mukhtar Pasha, conqueror of the Greeks
i54 TURBULENT YEARS
in the late '90*5; while the third was Kemal.
Kemal was not finished with the Greeks. Their dream of a greater Greece persisted. The Greek army was reorganized in Thrace. Kemal determined to crush them once for all. Since he had no transports it was necessary to march over land against them. This brought him into almost physical collision with the British under General Charles Har-ington at Chanak. Kemal decided to bluff it out. He ordered his troops to march with arms reversed through the British lines. When news of this contemplated move reached France and England consternation reigned. A conflict at Chanak might easily lead to another world upheaval. The Allies hastily agreed to bring about the evacuation of the Greek army whereupon Ismet and General Harington signed an agreement at Mudania. Turkey was now cleared of the hated Greeks. Kemal could now take up the task of erecting a real government. He csconced himself in Angora there to embark upon a process of nation-making almost unparalleled in history.
In 1923 Kemal was an aloof and almost inaccessible figure masked by mystery. The world had read of his achievement in delivering Turkey from the Greeks and his aspirations for a new Turkey. It knew little about the Ghazi himself. I went to Turkey to see him and to make some appraisal of the man and his background.
In my boyhood two storied capitals had intrigued my imagination. One was Peking which I had seen the year previous. The other was Constantinople. Now I realized my other dream. Despite my years of world travel I must confess to a thrill when Constantinople, with its gleaming mosques and graceful minarets lifting their slender loveliness to the sky, burst upon my view. In spite of her dingy magnificence she was still a queen among cities.
I had not chosen an auspicious time to see Kemal. A state of war without actual conflict existed. The British, French, and Italian armies
of occupation gave rhe streets a martial appearance while the huge
Allied fleet, which included a dozen American destroyers, was anchored in the Bosphorus or boomed at target practice in the Sea of Marmora. The Lausanne Conference, which held the fate of Turkey in relation to the other powers, was at the breaking point. Kemal, through Ismet Pasha his chief representative, was making demands which the conference deemed almost extortionate. The British-
KEMAL ATATURK 155
Turkish clash at Chanak had just been settled. The air of Constantinople was not only charged with its usual odours but with tension and uncertainty as well.
In difficulty of approach and in the grim and dramatic quality of the setting my Anatolian adventure was strongly reminiscent of the journey less than a year before to the southern Chinese front to see Sun Yat-sen. Between him and Kemal existed a certain similarity. Each became a sort of inspired leader. Each had his kindling ideal of self-determination that was the by-product of broken empire. Here the parallel ended. Kemal was the man of blood and iron—an orientalized Bismarck—dogged, determined, invincible, whereas Sun Yat-sen was the dreamer and visionary, eternal pawn of chance and with as many political existences, and I might add governments, as the proverbial cat has lives.
The last civilian who successfully applied for permission to go to Angora had been compelled to linger at Constantinople seven weeks before he got his vessica, as a visa is called in Turkish. Two or three others had departed for home in disgust after four weeks of fruitless waiting. The prospect was not promising.
Every barrier based on suspicion, distrust, and general resentment of the foreigner—the usual Turkish trilogy—all tied up with endless red tape, worked overtime. It was a combination disastrous to swift American action. My subsequent experiences emphasized the truth of the well-known Kipling story which dealt with the fate of an energetic Yankee in the Orient whose epitaph read: "Here lies a fool who tried to hustle the East."
When I paid my respects to Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the American High Commissioner, on my first day in Constantinople I invoked his aid in getting to Angora. He promptly gave me a letter of introduction to Doctor Adnan Bey, then the principal representative of Angora in Constantinople, through whom all permits had to pass.
I went to see him at the famous Sublime Porte, which was the Foreign Office and the scene of so much sinister Turkish history. Here the sordid tools of Abdul Hamid and others no less unscrupulous, lived their day. I expected to find the structure almost as imposing as its richer mate in history, the Mosque of St. Sofia. It proved to be
i56 TURBULENT YEARS
government.
Adnan Bey at once sent a telegram to Angora asking for my permission to go. This permission was concretely embodied in a pass— the aforesaid vessica—which was issued by the Constantinople prefect of police. Back in the days of the Great War it was a difficult procedure to get the so-called white pass which enabled the holder to go to the front. Compared with the coveted permission to visit Angora, that pass was about as unattainable as a public handbill, as I was now to discover.
Adnan Bey told me that he would have an answer from Angora in about three days. I found that "three days" in Turkey was like the Russian word seichas, which technically means "immediately" but when employed in action or rather lack of action on its own ground, usually spells "next month."
After a week passed the American Embassy inquired of the Sublime Porte if they had heard about my application but no word had come. A few days later Turkish officialdom went mad. An order was promulgated that no alien except of British, French, or Italian nationality could enter or leave Constantinople without the consent of Angora. People who had left Paris or London, and they included various Americans, with existing credentials were held up at the Turkish frontier despite the fact that the order had been issued after they had started. Thanks to Admiral Bristol's prompt and persistent endeavours the frontier ban was lifted from Americans. Angora became swamped overnight with telegraphic protests and requests and I felt that mine was completely lost in the new and growing shuffle.
Meanwhile I had acquired a dragoman which means courier and interpreter. He was a fine, upstanding young Turk, Reschad Bey by name, who spoke English, French, and German fluently. No alien could go to Angora without such an aid because, save in a few isolated spots, the only language spoken in Anatolia is Turkish. Reschad Bey
a dirty, rambling, yellow building without the slightest semblance of architectural beauty, and strongly in need of disinfecting.
In Adnan Bey I found my first Turkish ally. Moreover, I discovered him to be a man of the world with a broad and generous outlook. An early aide of Kemal in the precarious days of the nationalist movement, he became the first Vice-President of the Angora
KEMAL ATATURK 157
r**r I'^M K\» rwKv*»
was an inheritance from Robert Imbrie, who had just retired after a year as American consul at Angora. Reschad Bey had been his interpreter. Much contact with Imbrie had acquainted him with American ways and he thoroughly sympathized with my impatience over the delay. He had a strong pull at Angora himself and sent some telegrams to friends in my behalf.
I had ample compensation for the delay in getting the visa for I was enabled to explore Constantinople. Like Budapest it is really two cities. Pera, where I lived, is the so-called Christian quarter where the embassies, legations, and hotels are located. My favorite stamping ground was old Stamboul with its mosques, bazaars, and coffee houses across the fabled Golden Horn. The Galata Bridge, which connects Pera with Stamboul, was a sort of Peacock's Alley of the East. A dozen nationalities from fezzed and turbaned Orientals to bowler-hatted Westerners mingled in the throng that crowded it every hour of the day and night. What interested me most in Stamboul were the mosques, St. Sofia in particular. I delighted to watch the Turks remove their shoes and wash their feet in the trickling fountains outside before they entered for prayer. I also observed that the clean feet were about the only sanitary precaution that the average Turk took.
I had an amusing adventure the first time I went to St. Sofia. One of the familiar stories heard everywhere in Constantinople was that when Mohammed II broke through the fortifications of Constantinople most of the surviving priests took refuge in St. Sofia, then one of the greatest of all Byzantine cathedrals. As the tale went, Mohammed dashed up to the church on a white charger, his hands and battle axe dripping with blood, rode into the interior of the edifice and stopped the slaughter. He was also said to have wiped his gory hands on one of the great pillars. For centuries afterwards, and for that matter up to the time of my visit, those bloody stains were still pointed out. The truth of the matter was that the stains had been carefully renewed each year with red paint for the benefit of tourists but this did not disturb the legend.
On the day I visited St. Sofia I found a young Turk just inside the entrance. Much to my surprise he said in good English:
"Would you like to see the sights?"
i58 TURBULENT YEARS
I replied that I was curious to see Mohammed's sanguinary fingerprints. He led me to one of the splendid columns and sure enough I saw red stains. Then to my utter amazement my guide said:
"That Mohammed was some guy!"
When I asked him how he happened to acquire a knowledge of so distinct an American slang word as "guy" he replied that he had worked for four years for the Ford automobile company in Detroit.
The most picturesque feature of Constantinople, in some respects, was its fire department. Although a great world capital the fire fighting force was still volunteer. No year in Stamboul is complete without a serious conflagration because, with the exception of the mosques, all the buildings are built of wood. The volunteer force therefore had rather a busy time. Their sole apparatus was an antiquated hand-pump that looked like a glorified syringe.
When a fire was discovered sirens were sounded. The volunteers then rushed home and changed into uniform. Arrived at the scene of the fire they did not start to quench the flames. Instead, they began to haggle for money in true Turkish fashion. Their first objective was the unhappy owner of the house on fire. If he failed to produce the sum demanded his dwelling or shop, as the case might be, was left to its fate. The chief fireman then began to dicker with the owners of the adjacent houses. If they, in turn, declined to come across the firemen dragged the apparatus away. Only a cash consideration induced the Constantinople fire department to get on the job. When money was forthcoming it was divided among the firemen. Interesting to relate is the fact, so another Constantinople story ran, that Sir Basil Zaharoff who became Europe's principal man of mystery and its outstanding munitions magnate, earned his first money as a member of the Constantinople fire department.
Early in July I sent Reschad Bey to Angora to find out just what had happened to my application for a visa. He departed on the morning of the Fourth. When I returned to my hotel from attending the Independence Day celebration at the American Embassy I found a telegram from Angora addressed to Reschad Bey in my care from one of his friends in the government. It stated that my permission to go to Angora had been wired nine days before! Yet on the previous morning the Sublime Porte had declared that Angora was still silent
KEMAL ATATURK
'59
on my request.
Upon investigation I found that in the tangle of red tape at the prefecture of police the coveted telegram had been shoved under a pile of papers and no one knew anything about it until a long search, instigated at my request, had disclosed the anxiously awaited message. It was a typically Turkish procedure and just the kind of thing that might have happened at an official bureau anywhere in China or Russia. Before Reschad Bey reported to me after his return I had the vessica in my possession and was getting ready to start.
Difficult as was this first step, it was matched in various handicaps by nearly every stage of the actual journey. Again I was to run afoul of Turkish official decree.
If I had been a Turk I could have boarded a train at Haidar Pasha, which is just across the Bosphorus from Constantinople and the beginning of the Anatolian section of the Berlin-to-Bagdad Railway, and gone without change to Angora in approximately twenty-seven hours. It happened, however, that the whole Turkish army of considerably more than 250,000 men was mobilized beyond Ismid and along the railroad right of way. No alien, not even an ambassador, was permitted to make this journey. He was compelled to go by boat to Mudania, then by rail to Brusa, and subsequently by motor all day across the Anatolian plain to Kara Kcuy, where he would pick up the train from Haidar Pasha. Instead of twenty-seven hours, this trip—and it was the one I had to make—took exactly fifty-five hours.
Going to Angora those days was like making an expedition to the heart of China or Africa. In the first place you were compelled to carry your own food. There were other preliminaries. One of the most essential, even if it were not the most aesthetic, was to secure half a dozen tins of insect powder. The moment you left Constantinople—and for that matter even while you were within the precincts of the city—you made the acquaintance of endless little visitors of every conceivable kind and bite. Apparently the average Turk had
become more or less inured to the inroads of vermin, but even long
experience with trench warfare does not cure the European of aversion to it.
It was on a brilliant sunlit Monday morning that I left Constantinople for Angora. Admiral Bristol had placed a submarine
160 TURBULENT YEARS
chaser in command of Captain T. H. Robbins at my disposal and we were therefore able to dispense with the crowded and none too clean Turkish boat. Accompanied by Lewis Heck, who had been the first American High Commissioner to Turkey after the armistice and who now had a business mission at Angora, and the faithful Reschad Bey, I made the journey to Mudania across the Sea of Marmora in a few hours, arriving at noon. Until November 1922, Mudania was merely a spot on the Turkish map. After the Greek debacle and when the British and Turkish troops had come within an ace of clash at Chanak the eyes of the world were focused on it. Overnight the tiny village became famous. The small stone house just off the quay where Har-ington and Ismet held their historic conference was occupied, I found, by a Turkish family and overrun with children.
Instead of making the forty-mile journey to Brusa in the toy train that ran twice a day we traveled in a brand new American flivver just acquired by a Brusa dealer, which I had hired by telegraph and which awaited us at the dock. The hillsides were dark with a mass of olive trees while in the valleys tobacco and corn grew in abundance. The Anatolian peasant is a thrifty and industrious soul and apparently had got back on the job of reconstruction even while the
Greek transports were fading out of sight of Smyrna.
Long before the muezzins sounded their musical calls to sunset prayer from the minarets we arrived in Brusa, the ancient capital of Turkey, and still a place of commercial importance. Here we stopped the night at the Hotel d'Anatolie, where I bade farewell to anything like comfort and convenience until my return there on my way back to Constantinople.
The hotel was one of the famous institutions of Anatolia. It was owned by Madame Brotte, who was no less distinguished than her hostelry. Out in her pleasant garden where we could listen to the musical flow of a tiny cataract this quaint old lady, still wearing the white cap of the French peasant, told me her story. She had been born in Lyons, in France, eighty-four years before, and came to Anatolia with her father, a silk expert, when she was twenty-one. Brusa had long been the center of the Turkish silk industry which was founded and was still largely operated by the French. Madame had married the proprietor of the hotel shortly after her advent and
KEMAL ATATURK 161
on his death took over the operation. Wars, retreats, and devastations beat about her, but she maintained her serene way. She had lived in Turkey so long that she mixed Turkish words with her French. Listening to her patter in that fragrant environment, and with the memory of the excellent French dinner she had served, made it difficult for me to realize that I was in Anatolia and not in France.
Anatolia was bone-dry so far as alcohol was concerned. The one regret that madame expressed was that the Turks had sealed up her wine cellar and only heaven and Angora knew when those seals would be lifted. During the eight days I spent in Anatolia I never saw a drop of liquor except at Kemal's house which made up for the deficiency. It was about the only place in the world where prohibition seemed to prohibit. Constantinople was a different story.
Within six months Kemal delivered his first body blow at Islam. As most people know, the Koran forbids the use of intoxicating liquor. In one of his first national acts Kemal lifted the ban on alcohol. Anatolia became wet and has dripped ever since.
In Madame Brotte I got an evidence of an interesting formula in colonial expansion. When you knock about the world, and especially the outlying places, you discover that certain races follow definite rules when they are implanted in foreign soil. The first thing that the English do is to start a bank, the Spanish invariably build a church, the Americans launch a Chamber of Commerce or a Rotary Club, while the French set up a cafe. So it was in Anatolia.
It was with regret that I said au revoir the next morning to the dear old French dame. In the same flivver that brought us up from Mudania we started on the all-day run to Kara Keuv. In the out-skirts of Brusa I saw the first tangible signs of the Greek disaster. Ditched along the roadside were hundreds of motor trucks—unwilling gifts from the Greeks—which the Turks had not even taken the trouble to remove or salvage. As we swung into the open country ruined farmhouses met the gaze on every side. Whole villages had been wiped out when the Greeks had pressed on for what they had fondly believed to be the easy capture of Angora.
We were in the real Anatolia. This mellifluous name, rivaled in beauty of sound only by Mesopotamia, means "the place where the sun rises." It had long shone on people and events bound up in
i6i TURBULENT YEARS
the narrative of all human and spiritual progress. We now skirted the rim of the cradle of mankind. Across these plains had stalked the stately and immortal figures of Biblical days. Here the armies of Alexander and Pompcy had camped, and the famous Gordian knot was cut. Here, too, passed the mailed crusaders on the road to Jerusalem. Amid the green hills that rose to the left and right the civilization of the Near East was born. I now had my first contact with what has been well called the
w
Anatolian ox-cart symphony. It is the weirdest perhaps of all sounds, emitted from the ungreased wood-wheeled carts drawn by oxen or water buffalo, which then provided the only available vehicle for the Turkish farmer. There had been no change in its noise or construction since the days of Saul of Tarsus. It is a violation of etiquette for the driver of one of these carts—the roads were alive with them— to be awake in transit incredible as this seems when you have heard the frightful noise. He awakes only when the screech stops. Silence is his alarm clock. These carts do about fifteen miles a day. When the Greeks had the important southern Turkish ports bottled up, all of Kemal's supplies were hauled in these carts for over two hundred miles to Angora.
The farther we traveled the more did the country take on the aspect of northern France after the war. Hollyhocks were growing
in the shell holes and there were always the gaunt, stark ruins of a house or village sentineling the landscape. We passed through the village of InEunu, where the Greeks and the Turks had met in bloody battle. Just as the sun was setting we drew up at Kara Keuy which is merely a railway station flanked by a few of the coffee houses that you find everywhere in Turkey. A contingent of Turkish troops was encamped nearby. Before we could get coffee we had to submit our papers for examination by the police.
An hour later the train that had left Haidar Pasha that morning pulled in. We bagged a first-class compartment and started on the final lap to Angora. Midnight found us at Eski-Shchr, once a considerable town, where the Greeks and the Turks were at death grips for months. After the Turkish retirement in 1921 the town was burnt by the Greeks. No sooner was I on the train and trying to get some sleep, for the 'wagon lit had temporarily vanished from Turkish rail
KEMAL ATATURK 163
transport, than I began to make the acquaintance of the little travelers who had put the itch into Anatolia.
For hours the country had become more and more rugged. The fertile lowlands with their fields of waving corn and grateful green were now far behind. As we climbed steadily into the hills we could see occasional flocks of Angora goats. It was a dull, bleak prospect but every inch of ground, as far as the eye could sec, had been fought over.
At nine o'clock the next morning we crossed a narrow stream that wound lazily along. Although insignificant in appearance, like most other historic rivers, it will be immortalized in Turkish song and story. In all the years to come the quaint story-tellers in the bazaars will recount the epic story of what happened along its rocky banks. For this trickling stream was the Sakaria which marked the high tide of the Greek advance and where Kemal made his last, desperate, and victorious stand. What the Marne means to France and the Piave to Italy, that is the significance of the Sakaria for the New Turkey.
Almost before I realized it a pall of smoke, invariable outpost of a city, loomed ahead. Then I saw scattered mosques and minarets stark in the brilliant sunlight. Before long we were in Angora, a capital without precedent. The Kcmalists had set up their patch-work government here first and foremost because of its inaccessibility. It was then a squalid, dilapidated village at one rail-head of the Anatolian railway, not without other historic association. Once the crusaders had camped here and later Tamerlane the Terrible had overwhelmed the Sultan Bayezid in a famous battle nearby and carried him off to the East as prisoner.
Overnight the population had grown from ten thousand to sixty thousand. It was more like a mining camp in the first flush of a boom than a national capital. Every house, indeed every excuse for a habitation, was packed and jammed with people. Imbrie, the American consul, was forced to live for a year in a freight car, and had to struggle hard to hang on to it. There were only two restaurants that a European could patronize. Hotels, as we know them, did not exist. The nearest approach to a hotel was the so-called ban which is the Turkish word for house. The average Turkish ban for travelers is a white-
i64 TURBULENT YEARS
washed, or rather once white-washed, structure with a quadrangle where caravan drivers park their mules or camels at night and sleep upstairs on platforms.
Happily I had taken out insurance against the discomfort which was then the lot of every visitor to Angora. After Kemal's residence, the only other house fit for a European to occupy was the building remodeled for the use of the Near East Relief workers. It had lately been acquired by representatives of the Chester Concession, so named because Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, U.S.N. retired, had obtained a concession from Angora to build railways and public works in Turkey. Because of lack of capital it never got beyond the paper permission to operate. Before leaving Constantinople I got permission from Admiral Chester's agent to occupy this establishment. It was a godsend in more ways than one. By some miracle, but due mainly to three old Armenian servants whom I kept busy scrubbing floors and airing the cots, I had no use for the insect powder that I had brought with me.
The principal thoroughfare of Angora was unpaved, rambling, and crowded with men, beasts, and ox-carts. A fierce sun beat down relentlessly upon its dust and din. At one end was a low, stucco building flying the Turkish flag. It was the seat of the Grand National Assembly. Here Kemal was elected President and the Lausanne Treaty confirmed. Over the President's chair hung this passage from the Koran: "Solve your problems by meeting together and discussing them." In Kemal's office just across the hall was another Koran maxim: "And consult them in ruling." Before many years Kemal had made it more of a joke than a precept.
I had arrived at noon on a Wednesday and promptly sent Reschad Bey to see Rauf Bey, the Premier, to whom I had a letter of introduction from Admiral Bristol. Rauf Bey was a thorough-going man of the world. Educated in England and Germany he early became a naval officer. As I have stated, his most famous command was the Hamidiek, the Turkish battleship that had caused the Allies almost as much worry as the German raider Eviden. She was always reported at half a dozen different places at the same time. Rauf Bey had visited Theodore Roosevelt at the White House. It was to him that Roosevelt said: "If Turkey had six more men like you she would
KEMAL ATATURK 165
be a world power."
I spent three hours on Thursday with Rauf Bey in the Foreign Office, a tiny, plaster building alive with the personality of its chief occupant. He was the only member of the cabinet who spoke English. I found him a frank, blunt, wholesome person, tremendously interested in the United States and with the innate Turkish distrust of England. Rauf Bey made the appointment for me to see Kemal at his house the following afternoon at five o'clock. The original plan was for both of us to dine with Kemal. Subsequently this was changed because, as Rauf Bey put it, llthe Ghazi's in-laws are visiting him and his house is crowded." By using the term "in-laws" it was evident that Rauf Bey had adapted himself to western phraseology.
Friday, the thirteenth, came and with it the long-awaited interview with Kemal. He lived in a kiosk, as the Turks call a villa, at Chankaya, a sort of summer settlement about five miles beyond Angora. .Motor cars were scarce in Angora so I had to drive out in a "low-neck" carriage. Reschad Bey went along. He was not present at the talk with Kemal, however.
As we neared Kemal's abode we began to encounter troops who increased in numbers the farther we went. These soldiers represented one of the many precautions taken to safeguard Komi's life because he was in hourly danger of assassination by some enraged Greek or Armenian. Several attempts had already been made to shoot him. In one instance his companion, a Turkish officer, was seriously wounded by the would-be assassin.
Soon an attractive white stone house, faced with red, surmounting a verdant hill and surrounded by a neat garden and almond orchard, came into view. At the right was a smaller stone cottage. Reschad Bey, who had been there before, informed me that this was Kemal's establishment, the gift of the Turkish people. I might have otherwise known it because the guard of sentries became thicker. When we reached the entrance we were stopped by a sergeant and asked to tell our business. Reschad Bey told the man that I had an appointment with the Ghazi and he took my card inside.
In a few moments he returned and escorted us into the little stone cottage which Kemal uses as a reception room. Here I found the Ghazi's father-in-law, Mouammer Ouchakay Bey, who was the rich-
TURBULENT YEARS
est merchant of Smyrna and who was the first Turkish member of the New York and New Orleans Cotton exchanges. He had visited America frequently and spoke English fluently. He told me that Kemal was engaged in a cabinet meeting and would see me shortly.
Meanwhile I looked about the room which was filled with souvenirs of Kemal's fame and place in the Turkish heart. On one wall was the inevitable Koran inscription. This one read, "God has taught us the Koran." There were various memorials beautifully inscribed on vellum, expressing the homage of Turkish cities and also magnificent jeweled gift swords. What impressed me most was the life-size portrait of a sweet-faced old Turkish woman that had the most conspicuous place in the chamber. I knew without being told that this was Kemal's mother.
I had just launched into a discussion of the Turkish economic future with Mouammer Bey when Kemal's aide, a well-groomed young lieutenant in khaki, entered and said that the Ghazi was ready to see me. With him I crossed a small courtyard, went down a narrow passage, and found myself in the drawing-room of the main residence. It was furnished in the most approved European style. In one corner was a grand piano. Opposite was a row of well-filled bookcases, many of the volumes French, while on the walls hung more gift swords.
In the adjoining room I could see a group of men sitting around a large round table amid a buzz of rapid talk. It was the Turkish cabinet discussing the latest telegrams from Lausanne where Ismet Pasha, Minister of Foreign Affairs and the only absent member, had the day before delivered the Turkish ultimatum embodying Kemal's demand for a free Turkey.
As I advanced, Rauf Bey came out and escorted me into the room where the cabinet sat. There was a quick group introduction. I had eyes, however, for only one person. It was the tall figure that rose from its place at the head of the table and came towards me with hand outstretched. I had seen many pictures of Kemal and I was therefore familiar with his appearance. He is the type to dominate men or assemblages, first by reason of his imposing stature for he is nearly six feet tall, with superb chest and shoulders, and military bearing; second by the almost uncanny power of his eyes which are
KEMAL ATATURK 167
the most remarkable I have ever seen in a man. Kemal's eyes are steely blue, cold, stony, and as penetrating as they are implacable. He has a trick of narrowing them when he meets a stranger. At first glance he looks German for he is that rare human exhibit, a blond Turk.
Kcmal's yellow hair was brushed back straight from the forehead. The lack of colouring in his broad face and the high cheek bones refute the Teutonic impression when you study him. He really looks like a pallid Slav. Few people have ever seen Kemal smile. In the two hours and a half that I spent with him his features went through the semblance of relaxation only once. He is like a man with an iron mask. That mask is his natural face.
I expected to find him in uniform. Instead, he was smartly turned out in a black morning coat with gray-striped trousers and patent leather shoes. He wore a wing collar and a blue-and-yellow four-in-hand tie. He looked as if he was about to pay his respects to a fashionable hostess in Park Lane or Park Avenue. Kemal, I might add, has always been a stickler for dress. He introduced the calpac, the high astrakhan cap which for a time became the badge of Turkish nationalism.
After we had exchanged the customary salutations in French Kemal said, "Perhaps we had better go into the next room for our talk and leave the cabinet to its deliberations." With this he led the way into the adjacent salon. With Rauf Bey at my right and Kemal on the left, we sat down at a small table. A butler, no less well groomed than his master, brought the inevitable thick Turkish coffee and cigarettes. The interview began.
Although the Ghazi knows both French and German, he prefers to talk Turkish with a foreigner. After I had expressed, again in French, the great pleasure I had in meeting him, Rauf Bey interposed with the suggestion that perhaps it might be best for the Ghazi to carry on in his own language. This was agreed upon and henceforth the Premier acted as intermediary.
Kemal had somehow heard of the difficulties and delays which had attended my trip to Angora. He at once apologized saying that in
the handicaps that beset administration in a place like Angora such things were liable to happen. Then he added, "I am very glad you came. We want Americans in Turkey for they can best understand
168
TURBULENT YEARS
our aspirations."
Kemal not only personified the new Turkey but a new type of Turk as well. Despite western wearing apparel and knowledge of French and German the Turk is fundamentally an Asiatic although he resents the imputation. When you meet him in a club and begin a conversation you are at first inclined to believe that here is a man of your own world. Before long a little mental shutter drops and you find yourself face to face with an Asiatic. It becomes difficult to get the direct yes or no. You combat evasion which is one of the basic characteristics of the Oriental. Kemal proved to be an exception. Throughout the entire interview which lasted nearly three hours he was frank and straightforward. He never shied at a question. For a soldier he displayed an unusual knowledge of world politics, people, and events.
At the outset of the interview Kemal outlined his theory of government. Leaning forward he said in his sharp, staccato utterance:
"Do you know what has obstructed European peace and reconstruction? Simply this—the interference of one nation with another. It is an expression of selfish grasping nationalism. It has led to the substitution of politics for economics. The German reparations tangle is only one example. The curse of the world is petty politics. There are nations who would block our hard-won Turkish independence; who decry our constructive nationalism and say it is merely a camouflage to hide the desire for conquest of our neighbours on the cast, and who maintain that we are not capable of economic administration. Well, they shall see. The first and foremost idea of the new Turkey is not political bur economic. We want to be part of the world of production as well as of consumption."
The Ghazi's idea of nationalistic self-containment, the cornerstone of his creed, was revealed when I asked him if he still believed in the Pan-Islam formula. He said:
"Pan-Islam represented a federation based on the community of religion. Pan-Turanianism embodies the same kind of community of effort and ambition based on race. Both were wrong. The idea of Pan-Islam really died centuries ago at the gates of Vienna, at the farthest north of the Turkish advance in Europe. Pan-Turanianism perished on the plains of the East.
KEMAL ATATURK 169
"Both of these movements were wrong because they were based on the idea of conquest, which means force and imperialism. For many years imperialism dominated Europe. But imperialism is doomed.
"You may think it strange that a Turk and a soldier like myself who has been bred to war should talk this way. But this is precisely the idea that is behind the new Turkey. We want no force, no con-quest. We want to be let alone and permitted to work out our own economic and political destiny. Upon this is reared the whole structure of the new Turkish democracy which, let me add, represents the American idea M'ith this difference—we are one big State while you are forty-eight.
"My idea of nationalism is that of a people of kindred birth, religion, and temperament. For hundreds of years the Turkish Empire was a conglomerate human mass in which Turks formed the minority. We had other so-called minorities and they have been the source of most of our troubles. That, and the old idea of conquest. One reason why Turkey fell into decay was that she was exhausted by this very business of difficult rulership. The old empire was much too big and it laid itself open to trouble at every turn.
"But that old idea of force, conquest, and expansion is dead in Turkey forever. Our old empire was Ottoman. It meant force. It is now banished from the vocabulary. We are now Turks—only Turks. This is why we want a Turkey for the Turks, based on that ideal of self-determination which was so well expressed by Woodrow Wilson. It means nationalism, but not the kind of selfish nationalism that has frustrated self-determination in so many parts of Europe. Nor does it mean arbitrary tariff walls and frontiers. It does signify the open door to trade, economic regeneration, a real territorial patriotism as embodied in a homeland. After all these years of blood and con-quest the Turks have at least attained a fatherland. Its frontiers have been defined, the troublesome minorities are dispersed. It is behind these frontiers that we propose to make our stand and work out our own salvation. We propose to be masters in our own house."
While we were in the midst of the interview the butler entered and whispered something in Kemal's ear. Instantly he turned and said, "Madame Kemal is coming down."
i7o TURBULENT YEARS
A few moments later the most attractive Turkish woman I had yet met entered—I should say glided—into the room. She was of medium height, with a full Oriental face and brilliant dark eyes. Her every movement was grace itself. Although she wore a sort of non-Turkish costume—it was dark blue—she had retained the charming head-dress which is usually worn with the veil and which, according to the old Turkish custom, must completely hide the hair. The veil, however, was absent for Madame Kemal was one of the emancipated ones. Some of her brown tresses peeped out from beneath the beguiling cover. A subtle perfume emanated from her. She was a picture of feminine Paris literally adorning the Angora scene.
Kemal presented me to his wife employing Turkish in the introduction. I addressed her in French and she replied in English with a British accent. She had spent some of her school life in England. Later she studied in France. Madame Kemal at once took her seat at the table and listened to the cross-examination of her husband with interest.
Shortly after her arrival Kemal was summoned into the next room, where the cabinet was still in session. During his absence she told me the story of her life which was a charming complement to the narrative of her distinguished husband's more strenuous career. It proved to be a brief interlude.
Madame Kemal's father, as I have already indicated, was the richest merchant in Smyrna, which has been for years the economic capital of Turkey. Her name was Latife. To this must be added the word Hanouw? which in Turkish may mean either "Miss" or "Mrs." Thus before her marriage she was Latife Hanoum. When she employed her full married name she was Latife Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Hanoum.
During the early days of the Greek war she was alternately in Paris and London. In the autumn of 1921 she returned to Smyrna which was then in the hands of the Greeks. They imprisoned her father and eventually arrested her on the charge of being a Turkish spy. She was sentenced to detention in her own home—"protective custody" as the Nazis later termed it—with two Greek soldiers on guard before the door. Here she spent three months.
One day the Greek sentries suddenly vanished. There was the
KEMAL ATATURK 171
bustle and din of hasty retreat. Early the next morning the conquering Turks rode into Smyrna. A few days later Kemal entered in triumph at the head of his victorious army. I will tell the rest of the story in Latife's own naive words which were:
"Although I had never met Mustafa Kemal I invited him to be our guest during his stay in Smyrna. 1 admired his courage, patriotism and leadership, and he accepted our invitation. I found that we had common ideals for the reconstruction of our country. Later we discovered that we had something else in common. Not long afterwards forty to fifty of our friends were invited to the house for tea. The mufti, as the Turkish registrar is called, was summoned. Without any previous announcement we were married. Our wedding ring was brought to us later from Lausanne by Ismet Pasha."
Within twelve months Kemars romance foundered on the rock of incompatibility. Latifc was not only summarily dismissed from the Ghazi's household but was kept virtually a prisoner in Turkey for more than a year. The plain truth was that the overlord of Turkey had tired of her as he has tired of every other woman. Essentially a man's man he rebelled against feminine environment. The only softness that he henceforth displayed toward women was to adopt legally a dozen daughters of fellow officers who had been killed in the serv-ice of the country.
In the midst of my conversation with Madame Kemal the Ghazi returned and the interview was resumed. When we concluded twilight had fallen. I had brought with me two photographs of the Ghazi which I had obtained at Angora. One was taken in the summer of 1920. As he signed it he said wistfully: "This reminds me of my youth."
The farewells were now said. I drove back to Angora in the gathering dusk hailed at intervals by cavalry patrols. Bugle calls echoed across the misty hills. The memory of the forceful personality I had left behind me was to remain with me always.
It was not until after my visit to Ancorn that rhc Turk became master in his own house. The physical victory over the Greeks was matched before I left Turkey by diplomatic triumph at Lausanne where the Treaty of Sevres was scrapped. The Treaty of Sevres had set up a scheme of local autonomy for Turkestan in Turkey, estab-
i72 TURBULENT YEARS
lished a free and independent state of Armenia, given Italy the islands of the Aegean and rich zones of influence around Adalia and Konieh, bestowed Thrace and Smyrna on Greece, recognized the mandate for Palestine, and the independence of the Hedjas.
The Treaty of Lausanne wiped out all this except the detachment of the mandated states of Syria, Palestine and, what in a few years became the independent State of Irak. Eastern Thrace was restored to Turkey thus making her a European nation on a footing of equality with western powers although nine-tenths of the territory rests in Asia. Constantinople was once more Turkish. All the foreign troops were withdrawn. Turkey, therefore, consists of a considerable strip of eastern Thrace, Constantinople, and the whole of Anatolia with a population of not exceeding 9,000,000 people. It became strictly a Turkish dominion one hundred per cent homogeneous enabling Kemal to proclaim his gospel of "Turkey for the Turks" from the fastnesses of the capital at Angora.
In only one highly important detail affecting Turkish nationalism did the Turks fail to score at Lausanne. The Dardanelles were made subject to an international commission responsible to the League of Nations. It thus became a free and unfortified waterway. Because of this mandate Kemal moved the Turkish capital from Constantinople to Angora.
For centuries the Dardanelles, more commonly known as The Straits, have been the world's most historic and strategic waterway. They include the Dardanelles proper, the Sea of Marmora, and the Bosphorus. Since the historic day in the fifteenth century when Mohammed II battered down the gates of Constantinople these storied Straits—the Hellespont of Hero and Leander—have been coveted by the great powers. Russia, in particular, has always desired them because the Dardanelles are the link between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. It was to open the Straits and enable the British fleet to get through for a decisive blow at Russia that England spilled her blood and treasure on the rocky beaches of Gallipoli.
Although it is running a little ahead of the consecutive narrative, Kemal retrieved the Dardanelles ten years later at the Conference of Montreux. This was an accomplishment not achieved through the usual ruthless force of the Ghazi. He made polite overtures to the
KEMAL ATATURK 173
western powers declaring that the Dardanelles were essentially Turkish and should be under Turkish control. At long range his will prevailed.
To return to the situation in 1923, not only was the Armenian Free State dumped into the discard but the Armenians were required to leave Turkey. One of the most amazing human movements in all history was brought about by the section of the treaty relating to the exchange of populations. It provided that the Turkish population in Greece migrate back to Anatolia while the Greeks in Turkey were obliged to return to a Greece already burdened with refugees. Every Christian instinct revolted against this performance on humanitarian grounds alone but it had a larger meaning which the Turks, in all their nationalistic pride, were soon to learn.
For decades the Armenians, the Greeks, and the Jews, had carried on ninety per cent of the commerce of Turkey. The best tobacco in Turkey, which finds its way into cigarettes consumed the world over, is grown around Samsun. Practically all of it was raised by the Greeks now compelled to migrate to Macedonia or Greece proper. The Turkish agriculturist had confined himself to primitive farming —he used the crude wooden plow pulled by oxen or water buffalo —maintaining a primitive self-sufficiency. Many thousands of the Armenians and Greeks had been born in Turkey. Turkish was the only language they knew. In the days of the Ottoman Empire these minorities comprised the commercial majorities. It meant that Kemal must build an entirely new economic and commercial structure operated by, and for, the Turks.
No less drastic were the impositions on the foreign business man. Gone now were the capitulations which enabled the alien to be tried in consular courts, to have his own postoffices, and to be immune from personal taxation. Henceforth he had to live under the Turkish law. One of the original incentives for foreign investment in Turkey was the protection afforded capital under the capitulations. They were now removed.
In October 1923 Turkey was declared a republic with Kemal President. As a matter of fact, he had functioned as chief executive long before he acquired the official title. Once President, Kemal began the scries of reforms which shook the social, legislative, and spirit-
i74 TURBULENT YEARS
ual structure of the country to its roots.
By this time the dictator complex was strong in Kemal. He is not the type to brook divided authority. Eleven months before he became President he instituted the first drastic change by abolishing the Sultanate. Only a semblance of opposition was raised in the Grand National Assembly against the sacking of the Sultan. Since the close of the World War he had been a feeble figurehead.
Kemal's next step toward complete dictatorship was the abolition of the Caliphate. For four hundred years Constantinople had been the seat of Islam, sheltering the Caliph who was spiritual head of the millions of Moslems the world over. The Caliph, to employ his imposing title, was Pope of All the Faithful of Islam and Shadow of God on Earth. In Constantinople reposed the green turban, the beard, and the staff of the Prophet. Only Mecca rivaled the city on the Golden Horn in sacred significance. What Rome is to the Catholics so was Constantinople to the Mohammedan. Overnight Turkey became a secular state, stripped of all the religious glamour and reverence that had made the capital the object of countless exhortations.
Kemal did not get away with the Caliphate business as easily as the wiping out of the Sultanate. Deep down the Turks have a strong religious feeling. They knew that the sultans were weak and corrupt. The Caliph represented a different and spiritual embodiment. Men like Rauf Bey and Arif Bey, as well as millions of Turks of more humble status, naturally regarded the exile of the Caliph as a sacrilege to be resented. They voiced their protest. Despite strong opposition in the Grand National Assembly Kemal had his way. The Caliph went into lonely exile in Switzerland.
By this time Kemal was a complete megalomaniac. Alcohol and pain drove him to frenzies in which he became unbearable and almost unendurable. He began to pay the price that every dictator pays for concentrated power. His ruthlessness begot bitter enmity. In 1926 a plot against his life was hatched at Smyrna. It was no new menace for the Ghazi. This time the peril was different. The other attempts had been made by fanatical Greeks or Armenians. The Smyrna conspiracy was one hundred per cent Turkish.
Kemal discovered the plot. He decided to rid the country of all intrigue and opposition. Much of it was fancied for Kemal had be-
KEMAL ATATURK 175
come increasingly the victim of obsessions many of them bred by hate and habitual suspicion. He had the constitution amended so as to give him absolute authority as a dictator. Now began the traitor hunt, prelude to the first of the dictator purges. Kemal's emissaries scoured the country, imposing the third degree and extorting confessions in precisely the same way that Stalin's minions worked to obtain the victims for his series of spectacular mass trials. When the jails were filled Turkey's bloody assizes began. Kemal signed almost as many death warrants as did Djerzhinsky in the days of the Chcka terror in Moscow.
The tragedy of the Kemal purge was that he spared neither friend nor foe. Rauf Bey, Adnan Bey, and Halide Edib escaped from the country with the police actually at their heels. Less fortunate were old-time comrades notably the able Djavid Bey, Turkey's foremost financier who had juggled finances in the precarious revolutionary days so that Kemal's armies might be fed and supplied. Years of service and loyalty were swept aside by the blood lust of the dictator. These old associates were in no sense involved in the conspiracy against Kemal's life yet they, with a dozen other Turks of high official position, were sentenced to be hanged.
Kemal now displayed the sadistic side of his nature. On the night of the executions of the principal victims he gave a ball at his official residence. While the dictator's guests drank, danced, or played poker, a dozen of his closest friends who had worked or fought by his side in the dark days dropped through the trap doors on the scaffolds in the public square in Angora. Death and drink held orgy in the capital that awful night.
Less cruel and inhuman than the purge were the subsequent Kemal reforms which crowded thick and fast. They revealed the facets of a many-sided being. Practically everything in Turkey became subject to change except the character and temperament of the Ghazi himself.
Having disposed of the Sultan and the Caliph, Kemal determined to rid the country of evcrv remaining semblance of Islam. The fez was not only the badge of the Turk but of the Moslem as well. Without his fez the average Turk thought he was undressed. Everv coffee house in Constantinople and the other larger communities had
176 TURBULENT YEARS
its fez presser who pressed the customers' head-pieces while they sipped their coffee or pulled at the nargileb, the water pipe of the East.
The fez became the next victim of Kcmal's displeasure. By his command the Assembly passed a law making the wearing of the fez illegal and violation of this law a criminal offense. Traitor-hunting was now followed up by fez-hunting. Every Turkish gendarme had his eyes peeled for a fez.
Kemal did not eliminate the fez with the dramatic suddenness which had marked so many of his revolutionary measures. He made a gradual approach. The first step was to provide the army with peaked caps. One day he appeared in his garden wearing a sun helmet. He followed this up by shocking an audience at Samsun by appearing in a panama hat. When the anti-fez edict fell there had been at least some previous warning that a change in the national head-dress was imminent.
Once the law was invoked, runs started on every hat shop in Turkey. Prior to the promulgation of the mandate the only customers in Turkey for caps, bowlers, and straw hats were aliens. Since they had been rapidly eliminated from the country by the sweep of nationalism, the shops carried scant stocks. Turkish men for months were obliged to go hatless or wear what in some cases were grotesque
makeshifts. Wives improvised headgear for their husbands and sons out of cloth, straw, or paper. One man acquired a cast-off Parisian bonnet with strings attached.
The eclipse of the fez, while rich with humorous incidents, was not without its tragic side. Thousands of aged Turks who regarded the fez as an almost sacred detail in their lives refused to comply with the law. Some were subjected to punishment and imprisonment while others who stubbornly refused to bow to the new deal were executed, incredible as it may sound.
Kemal's passion for change became a mania. Back of his mind was the desire for a complete Europeanization of Turkey. The steamroller of ruthless reform continued its devastating way.
Kemal now made a foray into learning. For years the Turkish language had been a jumble of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish. The script was largely Arabic in which the Koran is written. Kemal de-
KEMAL ATATURK 177
cided to substitute Latin script, eliminating as many Arabic words as
possible. Here was a reform which could not be brought about by
overnight decree. Under the instigation of the Soviet Government
Latin script had been introduced for all the Tartars in Central Asia. Kemal studied this system. With the aid of Turkish scholars he
made an adaptation for use in Turkey. The word "Allah" was scrapped and "Tanru" substituted. The musical call of the muezzin from minarets calling the faithful to prayer soon sounded "there is no God but Tanru" instead of the almost immemorial "there is no God but Allah."
Once he embarked on the language reform Kemal kept to the task unremittingly, mobilizing his immense powers of concentration. When he had perfected the system he converted the entire nation into a class. It was at this juncture in his career that Kemal the dictator became Kemal the schoolmaster.
With the showmanship which seems to be the prerogative of all dictators Kemal launched his educational campaign at a grand ball which he gave at the Dolma Bahche Palace, the old residence of the Sultans in Constantinople. The Ghazi had not been in the city on the Golden Horn since that momentous day in 1919 when as Inspector General he set forth for Anatolia ostensibly to mobilize the defeated Turkish army but in reality to rally it to his standard. He received the welcome accorded only to deliverers. Constantinople was frantic with enthusiasm as he made a triumphal progress through the streets.
Kemal gave his first lesson in the revised alphabet clad in full evening dress on a platform with a blackboard before him and chalk in his hand. For two hours he discoursed on the reform. With a patience not usually associated with his dynamic personality he laboured to press his points home. Once the lesson was completed the music blared forth and everybody danced and drank until dawn. It was a spectacle unique in the history of dictator regime.
Kemal became the traveling schoolmaster. With his blackboard and chalk he went from community to community. Often in the vil-lages he held his school in the open air, sometimes in the marketplace. When there was no market-place he used an open field. The task was difficult because less than ten per cent of the population of
178 TURBULENT YEARS
Turkey could read or write when the Ghazi came into power. Always the dictator, Kemal compelled illiterate peasants to fashion their names laboriously in the new language often guiding their fingers himself.
In 1934 Kemal commanded every Turk to take a surname instead of using only a first name which had so long been the custom. He set the fashion by choosing for himself "Ataturk" which means "father of Turks." His name therefore became Kemal Ataturk. There was a general shuffling of all names. Constantinople became Istanbul and Angora was changed to Ankhara.
One of the most historic of the transformations wrought is the ban on the veil that for centuries had hidden the face of the Turkish woman. With the veil went all the other inhibitions on the sex. Suffrage became universal. The emancipation of women included the right to hold office, in short, complete equality with the male.
Kemal introduced model farms. The old wooden plows that dated back to the Biblical days were supplanted by steel implements. Cooperatives and banks sprang up to replace the ancient barter. Schools superseded the professional letter-writers in the bazaars and market places. Kemal jazzed up Ankhara with night clubs where the young Turks were compelled to dance the modern dances. Taxicabs jostled the creaking ox-carts in the capital. The ban gave way to the well-equipped hotel. Cabaret saxophones blared where once the shepherd pipes had played.
Such is the Kemal dictatorship which has reached to every innermost detail of Turkish life and work. One man's dominant will is the law of the land. The Ghazi is the twentieth century George Washington in that he is literally the father of his country. Turkey is Kemal Ataturk and Kemal Ataturk is Turkey.
Two bronze statues in Ankhara tell the story of the complete national evolution. One shows Kemal in a dinner coat. The other reveals a Turkish woman without the veil and the flowing charshaf, so long the symbols of the bondage of her sex. She wears pantaloons, carries a water jug, and is poised for a step forward.