Word: kemal
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...victorious Allies, of course, favored the complaisant Sultan, but in their greed they served to further Kemal. The Sultan and the Grand Vizier went to Versailles to plead not to be denuded of all land and power. Clemenceau, the Tiger, said coldly: "Be silent, Your Highness! Relieve Paris of your presence." The Allies handed the Sultan the Treaty of Sevres, which split Turkey six ways. The Greeks marched in to enforce the Diktat, and Kemal roared: "Turks! Will you crawl to these Greeks who were your slaves only yesterday?" He raised an army of peasants, veterans, criminals, patriots. Two years...
...Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned from his skillful but useless defense of Syria and asked for a job. "Get this man away-anywhere-quickly," the Sultan cried. The government hoped to save itself by submission to the conqueror; Kemal's unyielding patriotism endangered these schemes. So Mustafa got magnificent and meaningless titles-Inspector General of the Northern Area and Governor General of the Eastern Provinces-and was put aboard a leaky Black Sea steamer bound for Samsun, in remote Anatolia...
This suited Kemal fine. Arriving in Anatolia, he convoked a congress and proclaimed: "The aim of the movement is to free the Sultan-Caliph from the clutches of the foreign enemy." Desperately, the Sultan, who did not want to be so freed, wired: "Cease all activity!" Replied Kemal: "I shall stay in Anatolia until the nation wins its independence." Turkey, or what was left of it, had two governments: Kemal's and the Sultan...
...Sevres. The last British admiral boarded the last British battleship in the Bosporus, snapped a respectful salute to the crescent flag and steamed off. The most defeated of enemies became the first to defy the victorious Allies, to scrap one of their treaties. The Ataturk miracle had begun: Mustafa Kemal, soldier, was master of Turkey...
Only Turks. The nation he put back together was slightly larger than Texas-296,000 sq.mi.-its vast bulk nestled in Asia Minor, with 9,000 sq.mi. wedging into Europe's southeastern corner. Kemal was satisfied. "We are now Turks-only Turks," he exulted. He wanted none of the old overextended Ottoman empire. "Away with dreams and shadows; they have cost us dearly," he said...