From the shores of the Black Sea down to Broussa and Smyrna, Anatolia is an armed camp, bristling with activity. That much every one knows. How well organized these activities are is evidenced by the success the Turks have secured against such great odds. But behind the guns and bayonets, behind the steel wall which has stemmed the invasion of foreigners, there is a whole country whose borders extend as far as Caucasia and whose influence extends beyond, to the arid steppes of Turkestan and the snow-covered mountains of Afghanistan. Within this country there are millions of Turks who, besides their military activities, the immediate needs of their armies and the political requirements of their country are living a life throbbing with enthusiasm and hopes. This is the rejuvenated Turkey, not intent in imitating, like a monkey, the customs of the West or in adopting wholesale the now antiquated political structure of Europe. It is a Turkey which realizes fully the harm that too indiscriminating a copying of western customs has brought and is liable to bring to nations whose temperament and moral standards are different, a Turkey which is well aware that its past greatness in history was due exclusively to its own unadulterated racial qualities, a Turkey which is convinced that by reviving its own customs and modernizing them to fit the requirements of the time it will better and more quickly revive its racial qualities and the grandeur of the East than by imitating aliens; a Turkey convinced that it should adapt and not adopt those of the western customs which make for modern progress and culture.
The heart and brains of this Turkey have been set up in a small village on top of the fertile plains which dominate the rugged mountains of Anatolia.
Thrice presumptuous enemies have tried with machine guns, tanks and aeroplanes, with all the destructive paraphernalia of modern armies, to seize and destroy this village in the hope that under its ruins would be smothered the new Turkey. Thrice the Turks of Anatolia have answered: “Thou shalt not pass,” and have preserved intact the sanctity of their mountains, their plains and their country from the desecration of its western foes and despite all, thousands of Turks, leaders of the Anatolian movement, continue to live, hope and work in Angora, the village on top of the plains dominating the rugged mountains, the free capital of a free and independent new Turkey which ever since its inception has been progressing in leaps and bounds toward the leadership of the East.
An account of modern Turkey and of the modern Turks would not be complete without an account of these Turks, their mode of living, their ideals and ideas and to obtain first-hand information on them I have written to a childhood friend of mine, Djemil Haidar Bey, who is now visiting Angora. I have received a letter from him and for fear of omitting the smallest detail or detracting from its vivid pictures vibrating with youthful vitality, I am giving here its textual translation. I have only left out those parts which had to do with matters of personal interest.
“I will now endeavour to give you the description you have asked of the Angora of to-day and of the people who are living here. I believe you visited Angora before the war. Anyhow you know that it was nothing but a village which could boast of no more than about fifteen thousand inhabitants living in wooden shacks and mud huts, good Anatolian peasants and their families, satisfied with leading a good, peaceful life, working in their fields during the day and meeting in prayer at night.
“The general war came and as in every other village of Anatolia it drained Angora of all its male inhabitants who could bear arms and with the signing of the armistice those of the surviving inhabitants who were lucky enough to come back found nearly half of their village destroyed by fire. “It was written,” they said with a sigh, and settled down to their usual life. Little did they know that soon the most momentous events in the Near East were to make of their unknown little village the powerful center of a whole nation in open rebellion against the imperialistic desires of powerful enemies.
“But somewhere in the limitless space of the infinite the powers that rule the destinies of the world were silently acting. Events were taking shape. Turkish patriots, practically all members of the House of Representatives duly elected by the people, winced on reading the terms of the treaty of peace which the enemies of Turkey wanted to impose on their country. To accept them would have been to sign the death warrant of the country. But to refuse them and remain in Constantinople was not to be thought of. Several of their leaders who had openly given vent to their feelings in Constantinople had been arrested and exiled to a little island in the Mediterranean where they could leisurely think over the emptiness of war formulas such as the one which enunciated as inalienable the rights of small nationalities. To organize an open rebellion in Constantinople would have been impossible; the guns of the most powerful fleets of the world were turned on the city.
“But the purpose of the Turkish patriots representing the will of the people was already fixed. One by one and unostentatiously they went as far away as possible from Constantinople, to Erzeroum on the borders of Caucasia, and assembling here a National Assembly, flung to the face of the surprised world the slogan of the great American patriots of 1776: “Give us Liberty, or give us Death"!
“However, events proved that the selection they had made for their capital was not a wise one. The Russian Colossus now ruled by the Bolsheviki was shivering under a new fever of imperialism as acute as the endemic one it had under the Tzars. It stretched its blood-stained claws to the South, and gripping the independent Turkish republic of Caucasia, implanted its Soviets too dangerously near Erzeroum. The Turks of Anatolia, the Nationalist Turks as they now called themselves, saw the danger and shivered in dismay. Their organization was as yet nil, the Turkish armies had been disbanded, the Turkish fleet had been dismantled, and their capital—the brains of New Turkey whose double national purpose was naturally to protect Europe from a Southeastern Bolshevik invasion and the Near East from western domination—was without guns, without cannons and without bayonets, at the mercy of Russia. The dismay in the Turkish camp was, however, of short duration. From Constantinople had arrived a great man, a great leader, a great general whose genius had already once saved Turkey at the Dardanelles. Mustapha Kemal Pasha appeared in Erzeroum and the National Assembly unanimously elected him at once to its presidency. He gave immediate orders and all the members of the National Assembly, numbering nearly seven hundred, all the civilian and military chiefs accompanied by their staffs, all the employees of the temporary Government packed up their baggage and trudged their weary way to the great Anatolian plateau accessible only through easily defensible mountain passes where the Sakaria river winds its way.
“Here, at the head of one of the very few railroad lines in Asia Minor, practically at the same distance from the Black Sea shores, the Russian Soviet's borders, Mesopotamia occupied by the British and Cilicia then occupied by the French—all places from which an attack could have been expected on the rear of the Nationalist armies fighting against the Greeks on the Smyrna and the Broussa front—was a small, dilapidated, half-burned village, Angora. But it was the natural center from whence the Turkish struggle for freedom could be better launched and could be defended with the greatest probability of success.