abolishing the Sultanate still left the Caliphate in place . Might have been a source of strength , a seed for multiparty , multietnicity democracy instead of a constitutional monarchy with working multiparty elections as originally started for . Certain army bigwigs convinced the Halife that he would have support . Turned into a slow running Ittihadist coup attempt . When in exile the last Caliphate overheard his granddaughter singing a ditty against Kemal , she would remember the chewing she got for the rest of her life . It was the Ittihadists who got the entire family exiled and looked the other way when Kemal abolished the last vestiges of the Empire . The members of the Ottoman Family have never taken part in rebellions and avoided politics . Except one who died in a hotel room in New York 1940 after forsaking Ankara's attention for Japanese offers of ruling Mongolia , ı think . Will not claim the exiles had it easy . Though the only one to be specifically targeted with all properties confiscated was the "Princess" - used here as daughters of Sultans are also called Sultans- who spurned Kemal , refusing his marriage proposals twice . Dictator's revenge ? You bet ...
though her husband , a cousin of hers , had been seconded to a Sturmtruppen battalion on the West Front during the war and he had ongoing communications with Ludendorff , the kinda inept politician who was already antagonistic to von Seeckt , the Chief of Staff of Ottoman armies sometime in 1918 and one of the few Germans Kemal was on speaking terms with . Considering the Anglo-French would be downright hostile for the duration , Italians already had Il Duce , Americans of the period were simply proxy-British unless there was some profit not to be and the Russians would come with a trainload of Communist baggage , Kemal needed German tech , expertise and whatever to modernize . Yeah , who is Ludendorff anyways ? Never heard of him ...
the training centers von Seeckt had established in the Soviets ? Anatolia of mid1920s was equally desolate but for the sake of continuety ı must move some 30 years ahead . When the coup of 1952 took place in Cairo , Menderes Goverment burning to be the Muslim overlord of the Middle East on behalf of America hurried to save the daughters of the Princess ; all 3 had married into Royalty . Turkish diplomats rushed to the Foreign Ministry Offices only to learn they were late , the Egyptians had already had a meeting on the subject .
achso , we were just two years into the young Turkish Rebuplic , weren't we ? Here come the Kurds , a portion rising in rebellion to save Islam . Much talk of a brotherhood of a thousand years , how they joined Ankara to save the country from invasion instead of asking for a seperate state . The very same leaders of the political wing of the seperatist movement talk of the autonomy that "was" in the 1924 Constitution , never mentioning how their "grandfathers" , also feodal overlords -just like their "grandkids"- had voted to be Turkish in the first place , on how the British appeared to be ready to return everything plundered from Armenians to rightful owners . Had this thing been real and not invented just now , ı would have guessed the travelling road show , the officers and the -large- military escort to be all Irish , from up North , somehow . Back then much respect for British gold , but small parties at risk of ambushes and theft of the said gold from the dead . Today even MI5 or 6 ( ı always confuse them ) works in US Dollars .
(after the rebellion surprassed , mostly by the time honoured autonomy for each chieftain over his 2 to 3 or more , far more villages method , there was to be one more round of rebellion starting over the construction of a road . Kemalists claim local chieftains didn't want it , for from the roads come the tax collector , the military commission to collect conscripts who get truly beaten up in service but see the "world" and learn stuff , leading them to suspect the feodal authority and the teacher who poison the kids against the same leadership right from the start . The newly elites contend the state was trying to assimilate the locals by making them Turkish , Sunni , secular and the troops were raping the women in the villages anyhow . )
achso , just 3 years into the young Republic . Oh yeah , it is now the Ittihadists and the Army . A plot to assassinate Kemal who answers by executions and removal of the heroes of the War of the Liberation , those who hadn't already plotted against him more than once , as far as he knew ... Anatolia was not the place for secret German Panzer research for it wouldn't remain a secret in the first place . Industrialization of the country in fits and starts , lots of reforms that seriously strenghten the one man rule , for Kemal can slip in the bathroom one day , just saying you know opening the top post for followers , pride in some , teeth gnawing in others . With Kemal seizing the day , if that is the correct thing to say . It seriously becomes unnerving to discover you have very few friends . As already said , much respect for the British gold back in the day ; one would have expected the leading Turkish officials to be negative against Britain , considering the decade of open / covert war between , but then what do we know ?
kemal was back in form later in the game , had survived that far with excessive reformist zeal . He knew the that all the languages of the world was not based on archaic Turkish , because it was him who made that up . He was a run of the mill wannabe who wanted to be followed as if he was the personification of a god , in the eyes of who thought such stuff was good for business in a day when either tin pot dictator or religious zealot was the norm .
it wasn't plain sailing all the way . When it was a weekly occurrance in Rome for the Black Shirts to organize a rally in front of the Turkish Embassy with a throng of people demanding surrender of Southwestern Turkey and the Ambrassador getting on the balcony to shout back that "It is there, go and take it!" , there were some Italian naval exercises just of the coast . Kemal arrived in Izmir , drank himself to the usual stupor and rose up in the middle of the night , only to declare now it was sailing time . People froze , the deal with Il Duce was a car accident , not by ramming of an Italian light cruiser . There they were , everybody in the hotel room , without any change of clothes , packed like sardines into the tiny ship , Kemal enjoying the morning weather . He tended to sleep by the first light ... The captain of the escorting destroyer had the guns loaded , he expected the headlong rush into the Italian formation would cause trouble and though he would surely be sunk , for posterity he had to fire a couple of shots . The Italians stopped , fell into parade formation and one way went Kemal , hat in hand returning the salutes of sailors going the other way . Nothing works in isolation in the world , sometimes time is just not right .
it was Mustafa Kemal who told MacArthur that America would win the next world war , though the mark of superior leadership would be doing it without any bloodshed . After the coup of '80 it was widely repeated that had Atatürk lived another decade , Turkey would have been much better . No doubt about it , the young Republic would have seen the rise of a new generation , officers and officials loyal to the Revolution rising to operational commands and equivalents , instead of Ittihad ve Terakki members who agreed to Mustafa Kemal's primacy among equals only because they couldn't agree on the name that would replace him . As it is , the coming of the next war got Kemal , he was no use to the prospective sides . He wouldn't sell the country , you know , he already owned it ...