Tag: Announcements

PENNSYLVANIA DECLARES WAR ON TURKEY

Saturday, July 26, 2014

PENNSYLVANIA DECLARES WAR ON TURKEY

GOVERNOR CALLS TURKISH PRIME MINISTER “LOUDMOUTH LIAR”

Obama promises full support. Baseball bats are on the way

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett issues unanimous war declaration from state capital

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: July 26, 2014–

At one minute before midnight last night, an irate governor Tom Corbett issued a ringing declaration of war against Turkey. He identified the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, as the primary aggressor against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. “Let him remember the time of his doom!” yelled Corbett, “Von minut! Von minut!… before midnight!” hollered the governor, ridiculing the prime minister’s limited English vocabulary. The crowd went wild, repeatedly shouting “Pennsylvania is proud of you!’ and “We will die for you, our beloved governor!”

“I’m mad as hell and the people aren’t going to take it anymore!” noted the governor. “Every time we open the TV we see this Turkish bozo mouthing off about Pennsylvania. What’s his problem?” This brought the state lawmakers to their feet cheering. “Shut him up! “Shut him up!” they yelled. And this time they didn’t mean the governor.

The White House reported that President Obama was immediately awakened when the news broke. After being briefed he issued the following statement:

“I understand fully Governor Corbett’s decision. Any state in the United States that is slandered by the likes of this Turkish prime minister has the right to not only defend itself, but to attack without notice. I have notified the defense department to issue baseball bats to each and every Pennsylvania resident. They have my full support. And may God bless Pennsylvania. Good night.”

With 12 million people, Pennsylvania is America’s 9th most populous state. It was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a Quaker and pacifist. He immediately signed a peace treaty with the Delaware Indians which was never violated. It has police and state national guard forces and powerful athletic teams. At first it would seem like laughable competition for a NATO army like Turkey’s. At a news conference after his war declaration Governor Corbett laughed uproariously at that idea. “We know exactly what that guy did to his own army. It’ll take us two weeks to get to Ankara. And one minute, tops, to get to the bigmouth. Trust me.” The TV cameramen all shouted, “We trust you, esteemed governor.” Later, Rocky Balboa was seen running in the streets of Philadelphia.

The governor’s dramatic announcement, the first time any individual American state had ever gone to war with a foreign nation, was broadcast live on radio and television as well as streamed on social media. Millions of angry Pennsylvanians flooded into the Pennsylvania streets. Many carried, some even wore, their caskets indicating that this war would be a fight to their death. Many said that nobody has a right to falsely accuse Pennsylvania. “We will teach this creep a lesson he will never forget,” said Mary Murphy, a Philadelphia secretary.

Jerry Companello, a retired coalminer from Scranton was excited about the coming war with Turkey. “That clown blames us every time he messes up. He gets caught stealing billions of dollars. He yells, Hey Pennsylvania! A coal mine caves in. Hundreds die. He goes to the funerals and then punches out mourners. Then he yells, Hey Pennsylvania! His tunnels spring leaks and his fast trains fly off the tracks and…Hey, sabotage! Hey Pennsylvania, you did it!” Companello shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands in disgust…”Hey Turkey! What’s the matter with that guy?”

####

James (Cem) Ryan

http://www.brighteningglance.org/index.html

July 27, 2014
MEN IN MASQUERADE

Photo taken in the northern Syria town of Raqqa. (Courtesy: Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently)

In case you are one of the millions of Turks still celebrating the fact that Fenerbahçe, to no one’s great surprise, won the league football championship, well, you need to get a grip on reality, painful as that might be. The so-called “news”-papers still regurgitate this gloriously boring “news.” Tapes of the melodramatic fan and player antics after Sunday’s no-score game still runs on the sports channels. And thus all seems right with the world. Except it’s not. The world is horrible.

One really must wonder about the mentality of the Turkish people. Their government is causing a slaughter, if not a genocide, of the Syrian people. And I mean, specifically, that the Syrian Alevites are being directly targeted by Sunni Jihad proxies financed by Turkey. It’s a political “thing” dealing with pipedreams of a neo-Ottoman Sunni empire. By definition, that targeting constitutes a genocide. But the terror spread throughout Syria by Turkey and America affects all the Syrian people, Islamic, Christian, Jewish, atheist, all of them. These bankrolled gangsters are cutthroat killers. Killers kill. But cutthroat killers mutilate. All this should make one wonder. So I do.

Mostly I wonder why the allegedly good-hearted, the self-proclaimed “hospitable” Turks show such little interest and concern about the bloody massacre just next-door caused by their bloody-handed government. It’s no secret. It’s been no secret for years. After all, Seymour Hersh’s article was more affirmation than news. But in Turkey, the approved story on Syria is mostly simple-minded propaganda. Suddenly two years ago, Bashar al–Assad became a bad guy. And Erdoğan was hired by America to do what he does best. But now the truth is out. And things have moved from horrible to catastrophic.

So what consumes their interest, these Turkish people? Why do they now fixate ad nauseam, on television and in the press, on the Ottoman slaughter, if not genocide (the words all mean “mass murder”) of the Armenians in 1915? 1915! Then, a war was on. The Russians were enemies. Turkey’s eastern Armenians collaborated. War is murder. Blah-blah-blah. 100 years ago! 100 years ago! Yet today, the Turkish government openly exports death and destruction and Jihadist terrorism to their neighbor, Syria. And nothing happens. Football. Family. Life is busy. What’s for dinner?

Turkish people! What kind of a social conscience do you have? To silently sit while events of Nazi proportions are being done to the Syrian people by your government? It seems inconceivable that you can fill the streets for Fenerbahçe football but not even mumble a care about what your tax money is doing to the Syrian people. You know the story of the people who watched the freight trains come and go through the tiny town of Oświęcim (Auschwitz). They also said they didn’t “know.” But the camps were only a kilometer away. “We didn’t know.” Will that also be your alibi? Denial.

Turkish people, get real! Wake up from your football-slumber! You allowed the prime minister to appear on the Charlie Rose Show and lie, misrepresent, and double-talk to the world. He does to the world what he does at home. It is ridiculous.

He said that during legal protests every other country beats and gasses and kills its citizens. So what’s the problem? And neither you nor Charlie said anything.

He said, how can a country be corrupt when it has had such dramatic economic growth? And neither you nor Charlie mentioned that he (the prime minister) sold ALL the assets of the nation to finance the destruction of the cities and nature itself. And that everyone in favor politically has a piece of the action. That this growth “miracle” is based on plunder and crony-capitalism. And that’s the economic truth.

He said, how can he be a dictator when 45.5% of the people vote for him. And neither you nor Charlie asked about the majority of the people—54.5%—that voted against him. And why!

He said that he didn’t know Fethullah Gülen was such a threat until 17 December 2013 when he made a “coup.” And neither you nor Charlie Rose said, “Nonsense!”

Nonsense, it is. As everyone knows, Gülen disclosed his own treacherous plan 15 years ago. That’s why he escaped from his country into the warm embrace of the CIA and the Green-Card Land called Pennsylvania. Surely everyone knows that Gülen, a master of disguise, was recorded advising his treasonous followers that:

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers…. You must wait until such time as you have gotten all the state power, until you have brought to your side all the power of the constitutional institutions in Turkey.”

And fifteen years ago Erdoğan was one of his adherents. Without Gülen and the CIA, Erdoğan would never have left the Kasımpaşa neighborhood of Istanbul. And even an ordinary journalist, let alone Charlie Rose, should have known this. Does Charlie know the real reason why Gülen, no angel himself, is now Erdoğan’s sworn enemy? If Charlie only knew a few journalistic facts he would have quickly figured it all out. We all have, and we’re not respected journalists at all. We’re not even respected. So here’s the truth (and now I’m whispering): On 17 December 2013, a Gülenian wind blew the roof off the massive corruption enterprise called the government of Turkey.

Actually Charlie Rose only masquerades as a journalist, as elementary-school educated Gülen masquerades as an Islamic scholar, as Erdoğan masquerades as a statesman, as Abdullah Gül masquerades as a head of state and as the CIA masquerades as a patriotic, law abiding part of the American government. In Turkey, everyone is someone else and everyone plays dress-up. Welcome to the Mardi Gras a la Turka. It’s a political-social condition called Deceit.

Speaking of which, now the terrorists gangsters, financed, fed and armed by Turkey, are performing a new trick, crucifixion. They apparently grew tired of eating the pulsating hearts of their victims and mutilating their corpses. This is what happens when nitwits make foreign policy. False-flag Turkey supplies thugs with sarin gas. America supplies them with TOW missiles. The inmates run the asylum. Everything is out of control. Crucifixions! The mind cannot grasp the horror. Turkey no longer has borders. Turkey no longer has a viable military chain-of-command. Nor has it a viable judiciary. All of this has been brought about by the man who would now be president. Do the Turkish people know his credentials for the job? Is this the ultimate masquerade?

Turkish people, Get real! Wake up! The day will come when this Turkish government will be in the dock at The Hague for war crimes. Turkish people! By your silence, by your media’s collaboration in this criminal enterprise, by everyone passively accepting the commission of these war crimes, so too will your consciences be on trial. You and the country may never recover from these awful deeds done in your name.

Oh, what have you allowed your ballot boxes to do to your Syrian friends and neighbors and even families! How needy you must be to sell out for bribes of coal and rice, and some of you for so much more.

Oh, what have you allowed your passive, inept political opposition parties to do…and not do!

All the plunder, all the gold, all the dollars, all the shoeboxes, the airports, the money-counting machines, the tunnels, the bridges, the million-dollar wristwatches, the power plants, the shopping centers, the football frenzies and their obscenely expensive stadiums, all of this stuff that masquerades as democracy and capitalism and social value will not buy one second of relief from the coming guilt and shame. Murder, destruction, sickness, starvation, complete barbarism has been unleashed from Turkey. Turkey has raped and murdered Syria. And this is happening now, not a century ago. Crucifixion, a final act of savagery, killed a man named Christ and created Christianity. From evil came good. But in Turkey’s case…one wonders.

Would you not agree?

James (Cem) Ryan
Istanbul
1 May 2014

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SEYMOUR M. HERSH

May 1, 2014
ERMENI YALANLARINA SON VERMEK SIZIN KATILIMINIZLA BUYUK KAMPANYA BASLADI

ERMENI YALANLARINA ve bu yalanlari ABD de kanunlastirma cabalarina son vermekicin Amerikada koklesmis Turk Kuruluslari senelerdir kendilerini mudafaa edecek kampanyalar uretmektedirler .. Ve her kampanyanin sonunda Amerikan Ermeni lobisi, dunya capindaki diasporasindan destek alarak yeni bir karsi kampanya ile ve daha saglam bir sekilde harekete gecmektedir.
Buna sozde soykirimin 100 uncu yili gelmeden bir son vermek icin Turkish Forum seri halinda kampanyalar duzenlemisdir .. bunlar kismen ABD capinda ve kismende Eyalet capinda harekete gecirilmisdir ve bir gurupda en uygun zamanda baslatilacakdir .
Zamanlama muhimdir bu kampanyalarda, fakat en muhimi duydugunuz anda sizin katiliminizdir .
Turk tezini Kabul ettirecek ve dunyaya hakikati bir kere daha haykiracak , Ermenilerin 1915 de katlettigi ve kemikleri bulunmus 600 bin Turkun ve Karabagda sehit olan kardeslerimizin , irzina gecilip oldurulen Turk hanimlarinin, dogmadan oldurulen bebeklerin , sizden bekledigi bir gorevdir bu kampanyalara katilim. Bu sizin onlara olan seref ve yasam borcunuzdur. Bu sizin cocuklarinizin alinlarinin acik yurumeleri icin yapacaginiz en kutsal gorevdir.
Kampanyanin neticeleri Amerikan senatosuna tasinarak , Ermeni lobisinin baslattigi kanun tasarisi senatoda yok edilecekdir .. sayet 5 Mayisdan once 100 bini askin imzaya erisirsek.. LUTFEN BUGUNUN BU ISINI YARINA BIRAKMAYIN .. ASAGIDAKI ADRESDEN KAMPANYAYA ISIMINIZI VE KISA ADRESINIZI YAZARAK KATILIN ..

Bununlada yetinmeyin bu yaziyi ve bu adresi, adres listenizde olan tum adreslere katilmalari icin iletiniz .. 5 Mayisa kadar ve bir kac defa mumkunse .
Bu kampanyanin metni ingilizcedir , ve olaylari özet olarak ve tum ciplakligi ile ABD Senatosuna aciklamaktadir , daha cok batinin kendi kaynaklarini kullanarak.
Hakkin hakli ile olmasi , Sehitlerimizin mezarlarinda rahat uyumalari , ve bizden Gelecek neslin alni acik olarak yetismesi dileklerimle

Dr. Kayaalp Buyukataman, Baskan
Turkish Forum.. Dunya Turkleri Birligi

April 23, 2014
Armenians Should Counteract Countless Congressional Trips to Turkey

The Turkish government, its lobbying firms, and Turkish-American organizations have spent millions of dollars to take members of Congress and their staffs on all-expenses-paid trips to Turkey with the intent of buying their allegiance.

This is standard practice for Washington’s influence peddlers. Understandably, Turkish power brokers would want to sway congressional decision-making, as long as the trips follow proper legal procedures. However, as investigative journalist Shane Goldmacher revealed last week in the National Journal, members of Congress and their paymasters often manipulate the nebulous rules to accomplish their self-serving interests.

Goldmacher begins his article, ‘How Lobbyists Still Fly Through Loopholes,’ by describing the globe-trotting adventures of a pair of political odd fellows chasing the almighty dollar: “Dennis Hastert and Dick Gephardt couldn’t stand each other when they led Congress a decade ago. But now they’ve moved to K Street, where the flood of money tends to wash over such personal differences. These days, they work hand in hand as two of Turkey’s top lobbyists, with their respective firms pocketing most of a $1.4 million annual lobbying contract.” Not surprisingly, Republican Hastert and Democrat Gephardt accompanied eight members of Congress on an “all-expenses-paid journey” to Turkey last April.

The National Journal article covers congressional trips to several countries, including Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Israel. Under the subtitle, ‘Turkey Exploits the Biggest Loophole,’ Goldmacher discloses the extensive preparations made by Hastert’s firm for the congressional trip to Turkey, even though lobbyists are prevented under the rules from planning or paying for lawmakers’ visits: “Lobbyists have been intimately involved in the months of planning for the trip, with dozens of back-and-forth emails, phone calls, and meetings on Capitol Hill. As the trip neared, one lobbyist at Hastert’s firm, Laurie McKay, held conference calls and emailed daily with the schedulers of the eight House members who participated: Republicans Virginia Foxx, George Holding, Adam Kinzinger, Todd Rokita, Lee Terry, and Ed Whitfield; and Democrats Sheila Jackson Lee and Chellie Pingree. McKay even escorted three of them to Washington Dulles International Airport and helped them check in with Turkish Airlines.”

Ignoring the ban on lobbyists accompanying members of Congress on overseas excursions, Hastert, Gephardt, Robert Mangas, Janice O’Connell, and an undisclosed lobbyist with the Caspian Group joined the congressional delegation in Turkey. Goldmacher explains that “the Turkey trip was sanctioned under a 1961 law, the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act, [MECEA] which allows foreign governments to shuttle members of Congress and their staffs abroad if the State Department has approved the destination nations for ‘cultural exchange’ trips. About 60 countries have such clearances.” Azerbaijan and Turkey are among the 60, Armenia is not! The Armenian government should make the necessary arrangements to include Armenia in the MECEA program.

The National Journal further reports: “A long list of nonprofits supportive of Turkey have paid for congressional travel there.” One such prominent group is the Turkish Coalition of America (TCA). Interestingly, besides running TCA as a nonprofit, its president, Lincoln McCurdy, “dishes out campaign cash to pro-Turkey politicians as treasurer of a political action committee.”

The National Journal’s revelations are reinforced by LegiStorm.com, a website that closely monitors congressional travel and finances. It discloses that 615 congressional visits were made to Turkey since 2000, at a cost of $3.5 million, paid by the following nonprofit organizations: American Friends of Turkey, Council of Turkic American Associations, Institute of Interfaith Dialogue for World Peace, Istanbul Center, Maryland Institute for Dialogue, Mid-Atlantic Federation of Turkic American Associations, Pacifica Institute, Rumi Forum for Interfaith Dialogue, Turkic American Alliance, Turkish-American Business Council, Turkish-American Business Forum Inc., Turkish American Federation of Midwest, Turkish Coalition of America, Turkish Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists, Turkish Cultural Center NY, Turkish Foreign Economic Relations Board, and Turquoise Council of Americans and Eurasians.

In 2013 alone, 87 congressional visits were made to Turkey at a cost of $640,000, and 36 trips to Azerbaijan at a cost of $262,000. During that same period, no member of Congress was sponsored to visit Armenia. Only one trip was organized to Armenia and Artsakh (Karabagh) for California State Assemblymen and Los Angeles City Councilmen by the ANCA-Western Region, in collaboration with the Armenian Consulate.

Clearly, such trips make members of Congress more sympathetic toward their host country. Unless Armenian-Americans and Armenia begin sponsoring similar trips, members of Congress could become more favorable toward Turkey and Azerbaijan, and less supportive of Armenia and Artsakh.

January 14, 2014
TÜRKSAV- 17th TURKISH WORLD SERVICE AWARDS ANNOUNCED

12 people, institutions and organizations from 6 countries will be awarded at the end of the May, 2013 in the ceremony held within the context of the Turkish Day in the USA.

Yahya Akengin, the president of Turkish World Writers and Artists Association (TÜRKSAV), told in the press conference in Ankara that one of the most important issues taken into consideration in determining the 17^th Turkish World Service Awards was to attract attentions to the measures taken against preparations of some groups to get Turkey into difficult situations in 2015 with the unfounded Armenian claims. With this aim holding the ceremony in USA would be more appropriate, he stated.

Expressing the arrangements to organize a panel on “Turkish World Lobbying” besides participation to Turkish Parade in New York and the award ceremony, Yahya Akengin, from the standpoint of “one nation doesn’t possess two lobbies” as Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev signified time to time, underlined the importance of initiatives to inform Turkish world and draw brother countries’ attentions to the issue against malicious Armenian propagandas.

Saying that “Actually, Turkish nation needs to clarify the truths not to defend himself or to make propaganda about unfounded Armenian claims. To express regrettably, it is known that the number of those who don’t really know the background of this issue in Turkey and the Turkish world is not low.”, Chairman Akengin emphasized that they can feel the existence of institutions and non-governmental organizations that have already started to move in the U.S. and Europe with these thoughts and added that issue was considered in determining the owners of the awards. He continued his words as follows: “The groups, alleging Turkey should apologize and producing materials for Armenian diaspora’s propagandas, are supposed to understand that imperialist states of that time should apologize to both Turkish and Armenian people for the humanitarian plight that resulted from their policy of setting at odds. As TÜRKSAV, this is our thesis.”

At the press conference “Balkan Sorrows Poetry Anthology”, prepared and released by TÜRKSAV on the account for 100. Anniversary of the Balkan Wars, was introduced and presented to the press.

                                                                               Address: Fevzi Çakmak 2 Sokak 36/14 Kızılay-Ankara

                                                             Phone Number: 0532 415 76 19 – 229 74 17 – yavuzgurler@gmail.com

17^th TURKISH WORLD SERVICE AWARDS WINNERS

KYRGYZSTAN

-President Almazbek ATAMBAYEV

(his supports and services to Turkish unity and Turkish world ideal)

TURKEY

– Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey to the U.S, Namık TAN

(His supports to Turkish NGOs in the United States, his approach to provide cooperation and service coherence among them, his unifier role in cultural and social activities on Turkish world in USA)

-Artist Rauf TUNCER

(leitmotifs of Turkish history in his works)

-Orhan HAKALMAZ

(His well-qualified efforts and services for Turkish folk music)

AZERBAIJAN

-Ambassador to Washington, Elin SÜLEYMANOV

(His supports and contributions to Turkish world lobbying against Armenian diaspora’s unfounded claims)

USA

-President Ergün KARLIKOVALI on behalf of Assembly of Turkish American Associations

-President Faruk TABAN on behalf of Turkic American Alliance

-President Ali ÇINAR on behalf of Federation of Turkish American Associations

(These three umbrella organizations’ common stands, attitudes and services for the sake of Turkey’s international interests)

-Prof. Edward FOSTER

(His contributions to cooperation studies between universities in Turkey and USA and his prsentations by translation of Turkish literature)

-Prof. Hasan Bülent PAKSOY

(His studies on Turkish epics)

KAZAKHSTAN

-Poet and Writer Muhtar ŞAHANOV

(His services for Kazakhstan’s freedom and independence locally, his contribution to Turkish world culture in general and as a present for his 70^thbirthday)

Macedonia

-Prof. Numan ARUÇ

(His services for Turkish world culture and art in Macedonia Science and Arts Academia)



                                                                 Address: Fevzi Çakmak 2 Sokak 36/14 Kızılay Ankara

                                                       Phone Number: 0532 415 76 19 – 229 74 17 – yavuzgurler@gmail.com

January 5, 2013
Who Was the Greatest Commander to Face the British?
Help us decide which five military leaders are represented at Enemy Commanders: Britain’s Greatest Foes, a celebrity speaker event on Saturday 14 April 2012. Find out more about the shortlist and how to place your vote.
- Akbar Khan
- Andrew Jackson
- Eduard Totleben
- Erwin Rommel
- George Washington
- James Fitzjames, Duke of Berwick
- Louis Botha
- Maurice de Saxe
- Michael Collins
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
- Napoleon Bonaparte
- Ntshingwayo kaMahole
- Osman Digna
- Paul von Hindenburg
- Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
- Rani of Jhansi
- Riwha Titokowaru
- Santiago de Liniers
- Tipu Sultan
- Tomoyuki Yamashita
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

Dates: 1881-1938

“I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places.”

Mustafa Kemal at Gallipoli, April 1915

A seasoned veteran of the Balkan Wars, Kemal fought a tenacious defensive campaign at Gallipoli in 1915 which forced the Allied invasion force to withdraw. He would later become the ‘Father of modern Turkey’.

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Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika and began his military career as an Ottoman Army cadet, studying at the Harbiye military college in Istanbul from 1899 until 1905. His initial service was with a cavalry regiment in Syria. During this period he joined the reformist Motherland and Liberty secret society in opposition to Sultan Abd al Hamid II. Although he believed in the separation of the military from politics, Kemal was a member of the Committee of Union and Progress and played a role in the ‘Young Turk’ Revolution that ended the sultan’s absolutist rule and restored parliament.

Kemal served with distinction in Tripolitania (Libya) during the Italo-Turkish War (1911-12), repelling the Italians at Tobruk and successfully defending Derna despite being wounded in an air raid. During the Balkan Wars (1912-13), he took part in the Turkish amphibious landing in Thrace and the capture of Erdine from the Bulgarians. In 1913 he was made Ottoman military attaché to all Balkan states and promoted to colonel.

Despite opposing Ottoman involvement in the First World War, once it had started he threw himself wholeheartedly into the conflict. During the Dardanelles campaign Kemal commanded the 19th Division before being made chief of staff of the 5th Army. He displayed great leadership and tactical acumen, reacting immediately to the Allied landing at Anzac Cove in April 1915. He launched successful counter-attacks against the Australians and New Zealanders as they attempted to take the high ground surrounding the landing areas. By nightfall on 25 April they had suffered over 2,000 casualties and remained stuck on the beaches.

In the weeks that followed he led his men at many of the campaign’s fiercest engagements, including the Battle of Sari Bair (6-21 August), the Battle of Chunuk Bair at Anzac (7-19 August) and the offensive from Sulva at Scimtar Hill (21 August). Following these battles he was granted the title of ‘Pasha’. Personally brave, Kemal expected the same from his men, declaring: ‘I don’t order you to fight, I order you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places.’

Following these triumphs, Kemal was sent to command XVI Corps on the eastern Anatolian front. In August 1916 he launched a successful counter-offensive against the Russians, capturing Bitlis and Mus. When the Russian Army of the Caucasus collapsed during the Revolution of 1917, Kemal was transferred to Palestine. He was given command of the 7th Army, but following the loss of Baghdad, he became increasingly fearful that the war was lost.

He also expressed anger at a government that was unable to supply his men with adequate weapons and supplies, and resented the transfer of supreme command from Turkish generals to the German Erich von Falkenhayn and Otto Liman von Sanders. After resigning his command in protest he accompanied the Crown Prince to Germany, visiting the Western Front and concluding that the Central Powers were defeated. Restored to his command by the new sultan, Mehed VI, he ended the war in Aleppo after his army was forced to retreat following the Battle of Megiddo.

With the Ottoman capital occupied by the Allies, most of the Balkans gone and Turkey bereft of its Arab provinces, Kemal felt a personal duty to fight for the integrity of the remaining Turkish heartland of Anatolia. Posted in 1919 as inspector general of the army in northern Anatolia, he quickly started to act independently, resigning from the Ottoman Army and helping to arouse nationalist feeling in the aftermath of the Greek landing at Smyrna. The First Great National Assembly at Ankara, now a rival power bloc to the Ottoman government in Istanbul, gathered in spring 1920 with Kemal as speaker. It later elected him president.

In 1921 the Greeks advanced from Smyrna, but were held before Ankara at the Battle of Sakarya in August-September. Following this success, Kemal was made commander-in-chief with the rank of marshal. He went on the offensive the following year, capturing Smyrna in September and forcing the Greeks to evacuate Anatolia.

A skilled statesmen as well as a great soldier, at the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne (1923) Kemal was given a Turkey in Anatolia free of foreign troops and full control of the straits. Anger at the weakness and defeatism of the sultan in Istanbul led him to work for the abolition of the sultanate in 1922, the proclamation of a republic in 1923, and the abolition of the caliphate in 1924. As ‘Atatürk’ (Father of the Turkish Nation), Kemal steered Turkey through a period of turmoil, but it emerged as a modern secular state, with a neutral foreign policy, planned economy, westernised education system and a strong army.

Hard in battle, Kemal was nevertheless gracious to his enemies, later writing of the Allied soldiers killed at Gallipoli: ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives… You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours… you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well.’
March 18, 2012