Mustafa

### Who is Mustafa ?

Mustafa was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation.

### His Early Life

Mustafa was born (under the name Ali Rıza oğlu Mustafa which means "Mustafa son of Ali Rıza") in the early months of 1881, either in the Ahmet Subaşı neighbourhood or at a house (preserved as a museum) in Islahhane Street (now Apostolou Pavlou Street) in the Koca Kasım Pasha neighbourhood in Salonica (Selanik), Ottoman Empire (Thessaloniki in present-day Greece). His parents were Ali Rıza Efendi, a militia officer originally from Kodžadžik, title deed clerk and lumber trader, and Zübeyde Hanım.

He was born Mustafa, and his second name *Kemal* (meaning maturity) was given to him by his mathematics teacher, Captain Üsküplü Mustafa Efendi, "in admiration of his capability and maturity" according to Afet İnan, and, according to other sources because his teacher wanted to distinguish his student who had the same name as him.

### Turkish War of Independence

The Turkish War of Independence (May 19, 1919 – July 24, 1923) was fought between the Turkish nationalists and the proxies of the Allies – namely Greece on the Western front, Armenia on the Eastern, France on the Southern and with them, the United Kingdom and Italy in Constantinople (now Istanbul) – after some parts of Turkey were occupied and partitioned following the Ottoman Empire’s defeat in World War I. Few of the present British, French, and Italian troops were deployed or engaged in combat.

After a series of battles during the Greco-Turkish war, the Greek army advanced as far as the Sakarya River, just eighty kilometers west of the GNA. On August 5, 1921, Mustafa Kemal was promoted to commander in chief of the forces by the GNA. The ensuing Battle of Sakarya was fought from August 23 to September 13, 1921 and ended with the defeat of the Greeks. After this victory, on September 19, 1921, Mustafa Kemal Pasha was given the rank of marshal and the title of veteran by the Grand National Assembly. The Allies, ignoring the extent of Kemal’s successes, hoped to impose a modified version of the Treaty of Sèvres as a peace settlement on Ankara, but the proposal was rejected. In August 1922, Kemal launched an all-out attack on the Greek lines at Afyonkarahisar in the Battle of Dumlupınar and Turkish forces regained control of Smyrna on September 9, 1922. The next day, Mustafa Kemal sent a telegram to the League of Nations saying that the Turkish population was so worked up that the Ankara Government would not be responsible for massacres.

By September 18, 1922, the occupying armies were expelled, and the Ankara-based Turkish regime, which had declared itself the legitimate government of the country on April 23, 1920, started to formalize the legal transition from the old Ottoman into the new Republican political system. On November 1, 1922, the Turkish Parliament in Ankara formally abolished the Sultanate, ending 623 years of monarchical Ottoman rule. The Treaty of Lausanne of July 24, 1923, led to international recognition of the sovereignty of the newly formed “Republic of Turkey” as the successor state of the Ottoman Empire, and the republic was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923, in Ankara, the country’s new capital. The Lausanne treaty stipulated a population exchange between Greece and Turkey in which 1.1 million Greeks left Turkey for Greece in exchange for 380,000 Muslims transferred from Greece to Turkey. On March 3, 1924, the Ottoman Caliphate was officially abolished and the last Caliph was exiled.

### Illness and Death

Throughout most of his life, Mustafa was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Mustafa's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. After that, Mustafa's men called a doctor by the name Bazlama Bahtiyar, who diagnosed him with cirrhosis. During his stay in İstanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace. He was the first president of Turkey to die in office. The clock in the bedroom where he died is still set to the time of his death, 9:05 in the morning.

### Mustafa Quotes

“Peace at Home, Peace in the World”

“Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder.”

“The biggest battle is the war against ignorance.”

“Humankind is made up of two sexes, women and men. Is it possible that a mass is improved by the improvement of only one part and the other part is ignored? Is it possible that if half of a mass is tied to earth with chains and the other half can soar into skies?”

### Mustafa Trivia

His bedside book was Çalıkuşu.

All of his shirts were white.

His favorite food was "Kuru fasulye pilav".

His height was 1.74cm.

He had written a geometry book and translated some terms like "square" or "angle" into Turkish.