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HISTORY;
BEFORE THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
:
Turks are the principal descendants of
large bands of nomads who roamed in the Altai Mountains
in nothern Mongolia and on the steppes of Cneteral Asia
during the eary centuries of the Christian era. They
established some great emperors such as Gokturk and
Uigur. Later, Turks came to Anatolia in migration and
established the Great Seljuk Empire. The Turks were the
first people who invaded Anatolia completely. The
previous invading peoples captured only parts of
Anatolia. Although Persians and Romans invaded
completely, they kept it under their political control
rather than settling. Political unity in Anatolia was
disrupted with the collapse of the Anatolian Seljuk
state at the beginning of the 14C. As a result, some
regions fell under the domination of Beyliks
(Principalities) until the beginning of the 16C. The
Ottoman Empire is an extension of one of these
principalities.
The Ottoman Empire was a Moslem
Turkish state that encompassed Anatolia, Southeastern
Europe, the Arab Middle East and North Africa from the
14C to the early 20C. At the end of the 13C, Osman I
(from whom the name Ottoman is derived) asserted the
independence of his small principality in Sogut near
Bursa, which adjoined the decadent Byzantine Empire. In
1453, Mehmet II conquered Constantinople, the last
Byzantine stronghold. The empire reached its peak in the
16C. Sultan Selim I (r. 1512-20) conquered Egypt and
Syria, gained control of the Arabian Peninsula and beat
back the Safavid rulers of Iran at the Battle of
Caldiran (1514). He was succeeded by Suleyman I (the
Magnificent, r. 1520-66), who took Iraq, Hungary and
Albania and established Ottoman naval supremacy in the
Mediterranean. The decline of the empire began late in
the 16C. During the next centuries, Ottoman’s regression
continued and finally European diplomacy focused on the
so-called Eastern Question how to dispose of the rest of
the Empire. In this period Sultans attempted reforms,
however they were not enough to rescue the Empire. In
1876, Sultan Abdulhamit II granted a constitution and
parliament, but he soon abondoned them and ruled
autocratically. He became so despotic that liberal
opposition arose under the leadership of the Young
Turks, many of whom had to leave the country from
Abdulhamit's police. In 1908 a revolution led by the
Young Turks forced Abdulhamit to restore the parliament
and constitution. After a few months of constitutional
rule, however, a counterrevolutionary effort to restore
the sultan's autocracy led the Young Turks to dethrone
Abdulhamit completely in 1909. He was replaced by Mehmet
(Resit) V (r. 1909-18), who was only a puppet of those
controlling the government.Rapid modernization continued
during the Young Turk era (1908-18), with particular
attention given to urbanization, agriculture, industry,
communications, secularization of the state and the
emancipation of women. The empire was involved in World
War I to take sides with Germany and Austria-Hungary.
The defeat of these Central Powers led to the breakup
and foreign occupation of the Ottoman Empire.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF
TURKEY
 The attempt of the victorious Allies to
control the Anatolian territory led to the Turkish War
of Independence (1918-23). The sultan was kept in the
custody of the Allies to ensure the cooperation of an
Ottoman administration, which had effective jurisdiction
only in Istanbul and part of northern Anatolia, while
they disposed of the rest of his empire. At the same
time, a Turkish nationalist movement was organized under
Ataturk's leadership to resist the dismemberment of
Turkish-speaking areas. Ataturk had been sent to eastern
Anatolia as inspector general, ostensibly to supervise
the demobilization of Ottoman forces and the disposition
of supplies, but more particularly to remove him from
the capital after he had expressed opposition to the
Allied occupation there. Upon his arrival at Samsun in
May 1919, Ataturk proceeded to rally support for the
nationalist cause and to recruit a nationalist army. In
July 1919, a nationalist congress met at Erzurum with
Ataturk presiding to endorse a protocol calling for an
independent Turkish state. In September the congress
reconvened at Sivas. Negotiations continued between the
nationalist congress and the Ottoman government, but to
no avail. Ataturk resigned from the army when relieved
of his duties.
During the summer and fall of 1919,
with authorization from the Supreme Allied War Council,
the Greeks occupied Edirne, Bursa, and Izmir and they
soon moved as far as Usak, 175 kilometers inland from
Izmir. Military action between Turks and Greeks in
Anatolia in 1920 was inconclusive, but the nationalist
cause was strengthened the next year by a series of
important victories. In January and again in April,
Ismet Pasha defeated the Greek army at Inönü, blocking
its advance into the interior of Anatolia. In July, in
the face of a third offensive, the Turkish forces fell
back in good order to the Sakarya River, eighty
kilometers from Ankara, where Ataturk took personal
command and decisively defeated the Greeks in a
twenty-day battle.
An improvement in Turkey's
diplomatic situation accompanied its military success.
Impressed by the viability of the nationalist forces,
both France and Italy withdrew from Anatolia by October
1921. Treaties were signed that year with Soviet Russia,
the first European power to recognize the nationalists,
establishing the boundary between the two countries. The
final drive against the Greeks began in August
1922.
At the end of October 1922, the Allies invited
the nationalist and Ottoman governments to a conference
at Lausanne, Switzerland, but Ataturk was determined
that the nationalist government should be Turkey's sole
representative. In November 1922, the Grand National
Assembly separated the offices of sultan and caliph and
abolished the former. With the Treaty of Lausanne,
concluded in July 1923, the Allies recognized the
present-day territory of Turkey and the new boundaries
are created.
On October 29, 1923, the Grand National
Assembly proclaimed the Republic of Turkey. Ataturk was
named its president and Ankara its capital, and the
modern state of Turkey was born.
THE REPUBLIC OF TURKEY
Ataturk’s Life
and Reforms :
 He
was born in Salonika in 1881 and named Mustafa. Kemal
was a nickname meaning "perfection" given by a tutor. He
was a good student and did well at the military
academy.
He was one of the early members of the Young
Turks movement and a front-runner in the revolution
which demanded a constitutional government for the
Ottoman Empire.
During the First World War, he fought
on many fronts. In 1915, then a Lieutenant Colonel,
Mustafa Kemal was commanding a division of troops on the
Gallipoli Peninsula. His actions in the Dardanelles as a
soldier of determination, bravery and brilliance gave
him great standing amongst the soldiers. His successes
against the Allies were well received by the civilian
population and he was acclaimed as the "Hero of
Gallipoli".
This man, a military genius, soon showed
himself as a great statesman too. After calling national
congresses, he was elected President of the Turkish
Grand National Assembly in April 1920. From then until
his death in 1938, he remained in power in Turkey.
In
1934 everyone had to take a surname and Mustafa Kemal
received the surname ATATURK which means "Father of the
Turks". With all that he did for his country, he really
deserved this title.
Ataturk initiated a series of radical reforms of
the country's political, social, and economic life that
were aimed at rapidly transforming Turkey into a modern
state. A secular legal code, modeled along European
lines, was introduced that completely altered laws
affecting women, marriage, and family relations. In 1924
the Grand National Assembly adopted a new constitution
to replace the 1876 document that had continued to serve
as the legal framework of the republican government. The
1924 constitution vested sovereign power in the Grand
National Assembly as representative of the people, to
whom it also guaranteed basic civil rights. Under the
new document, the assembly would be a unicameral body
elected to a four-year term by universal suffrage. Its
legislative authority would include responsibility for
approving the budget, ratifying treaties, and declaring
war. The president of the republic would be elected to a
four-year term by the assembly, and he in turn would
appoint the prime minister, who was expected to enjoy
the confidence of the assembly. Throughout his
presidency, repeatedly extended by the assembly, Ataturk
governed Turkey essentially by personal rule in a
one-party state. He founded the Republican People's
Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi--CHP) in 1923 to
represent the nationalist movement in elections and to
serve as a vanguard party in support of the Kemalist
reform program.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's reforms can be summarized
as follows:
- Abolition of the Sultanate and
Caliphate; establishment of the Republic.
-
Implementation of secularism nationwide.
- Abolition
of the religious courts.
- Suppression of religious
brotherhoods; closing of sacred tombs as places of
worship.
- Replacement of traditional clothing by
Western styles; abolition of the fez.
- Abolition of
Medreses, unification of education, renovations of
school programs according to contemporary and national
needs, opening of new universities.
- Adoption of
new Civil Law code.
- Adoption of the solar calendar
and changing of the Moslem holy day of the week, Friday,
into a weekday with Sunday becoming the official day of
rest.
- Introduction of Latin alphabet.
-
Purification of Turkish language from foreign words.
- Implementation of "Peace at home, Peace in the
world" as Turkish foreign policy.
Inonu, who is
known “The Second Man”, had an important mission during
the strugle of independence. He also was the Turkish
representative at the Lausanne Conference which
overturned the wartime settlement and established the
Turkish Republic in 1923.
He was twice prime
minister during Ataturk's presidency. As the second
president (1938-50), Inonu kept Turkey neutral during
World War II and prepared the country for democratic
elections, which resulted in the removal of his
Republican People's party from power (1950). He then led
the opposition to the Democratic party's regime until
its overthrow by a coup in 1960. After the coup, the new
constitution was proclaimed in 1961 and after the
another coup in 1980, the last constitution was
proclaimed in 1982.
Today, with a lot of political parties and civil
society organizations; democratic elections and the
Grand National Assembly, Turkish people have adopted the
system and reforms.
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