Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1922-10-04
WHO Is RENAL?
Pen Sketch of the Turk Who is
Menacing European Peace.

Menacing European Peace.
New York Herald)
Not until the Turks captured and
burned Smyrna did the man in the
street regard Mustapha Renal
Pasha as more than one of the many
figures in Old World war and poll
tics. He was the man who had
driven the Greek army out of Asia
Minor and into the Egean Sea. To-
day he is the man who stands de-
family at the Turkish straits chal-
longing the Powers of Europe as per-
haps no other Turk has done since
Mohammed ii took Constantinople.
And allied Europe almost suppliantly
asks him to accept what he demands
and join it in conference.
Who is Mustapha Renal Pasha?
In 1919. at the end of the World war,
when Renal was first spoken of as
the leader of Turkish Nationalist
party, General Liman Won Sanders,
the German officer who trained the
Turkish army and knew it perhaps
better than the Turks themselves, at
tempted to answer the question by
saving that Renal was an ottoman
commander who had served Turkey
we'll but without distinction. Con-
stantinOple, under the protection or
the Allies, smiled at KemaIs preten-
sions and the Sultan declared that he
had never heard of him. British
officer reported that he was the
leader of a gang of half bandit An
atOlians Europe was but mildly in
terested, except Greece, which asked
that his movement be suppressed as
it threatened a guerrilla warfare.
That was three years ago.
Renal found the nucleus of his
Nationalist movement in his own
Anatolan troops. Anatolia was the
most genuinely Turkish section of
the old Ottoman Empire; it fur
nished the Turkish army with it's
most dependable troops and nowhere
else in Turkey could his plea for Tur-
kish nationalism have fallen upon
such fertile soil. He established his
capital at Angora and surrounded
| himself with government selected
| from his first advisers. A European
| who reached Angora said that lights
| burned all night in Kemals rooms in
| the old castle on the hills above An
| CORA as he laid his plans and sent his
| emissaries out into Islam and re-
|
| lands.
| Europe first realized that Renal
| was a power to be reckoned with
| when it was reported that he had en-
| tered into an alliance with Lenine
| and Trotzky regarding the division
| of the Caucasus and the control of
| the south shores of the Black Sea.
| At the same time it discovered that
| his preaching of Pan-Islamism and
Pan-Turanianism had gained him
converts from the Caspian Sea to the
Indian Ocean. 1t discovered that the
Nationalist army was no myth the
first time that it drove the Greeks
back from the Bagdad railroad, and
it became convinced that 1t was
well equipped. well organized force
when a second time it hurled Con-
stantine's forces in disorder back to
the Egean Sea.
Great Britain discovered that
Renal was versed in hereditary
Turkish diplomacy when she found
that he was dividing allied Europe by
making concessions to Europe and
Italy. She encounted his power in
the Eastern empire when the Indian
Moslems demanded the recognition
of the Nationalist movement and
revision of the Sevres treaty which
would restore power to the Caliphate
and Turkey to the Turks. And allied
Europe found that he was real fac
tor in the Near East situation when
it submitted to his consideration the
proposed treaty revisiOns.
Renal to-day is the head and front
of Turkey. 1t is immaterial whether
he rules at Angora or Stamboul.
His followers and his army are not
Nationalist but Kemalites. He has
power over the Turks such as
Enver Pasha, who held the highest
honors of the Ottoman Empire, never
had over the people. Perhaps the
reason is that they believe in his
sincerity. perhaps it is because he
had the ability to win their leader
ship. But Renal knows Europe as
did none of the Young Turks despite
their pretense to western culture;
he knows Europe's strength and
Weakness He knows, too, the OPP
portuneness of his present demands.
He is a shrewder, craftier, more ag-
gressive type of the Ottoman than
that with which Europe in the past
has had to deal Beneath his west
ern veneer he is still the unchanging
Turl,