Word: ottoman
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Father of All the Turks (who left no legitimate heirs) was born in 1881 in Salonika, then part of the Ottoman Empire, of a mild Albanian father and a forceful Macedonian mother. Mustafa was a rebel from the start. His pious Mohammedan mother urged him to become a holy man, but he became a soldier; at 22, a captain, he rebelled against the Sultan and was nearly executed; at 27, he joined the Young Turks rebellion, then rebelled against the Young Turks. The army, fearful of him, shunted him from post to post, but could neither shake him nor subdue...
...hearers, it was well-remembered history. Turkey in 1919 was crushed, defeated from without, disintegrating within. Gone was the fury and might which, beginning in 1299, had sent Ottoman legions smashing at Vienna's gates and made Budapest a suburb of Constantinople. Gone was the conquering fervor that created a tri-continental empire the size of the U.S., encompassing what are now 20 modern nations stretching from the Dniester to the Nile, from the Adriatic to the Persian Gulf. In 1919, British warships still rode in the Bosporus and British troops held Constantinople; Italy, France and Greece were secretly...
...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...
...past had to be felt, simply and simultaneously, by all Turks. Ataturk looked about for the significant gesture. In India it had been salt-making in defiance of the British monopoly; in China it was cutting off the queue. Ataturk chose to attack the fez, traditional symbol of Ottoman citizenship. "The fez is a sign of ignorance," said he. He laid down a deadline: after that date, no brimless headgear. Some Turks, unable to find hats with brims, wore their wives' hats: better to look silly than to risk losing your head...
During World War I, Great Britain commissioned the proud Hashemites, an old Mecca family, to lead the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks. To reward the Hashemites at war's end, the British carved up the Turkish empire, installed Hashemites as rulers over two vast chunks of it. Thus were Jordan and Iraq (formerly Mesopotamia) brought awkwardly into the world. The grateful Hashemites have remained loyal to Britain. Until 1948, they remained loyal to each other as well. Then Jordan's Abdullah, warrior hero of World War I, defied the Arab League by annexing Arab Palestine for himself...