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Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 November 1938, Page 8

At first, as Mr John Gunther relates in “Inside Europe,” the man who became Kamal- Ataturk, Dictator of Turkey, was simply Mustafa, so called by his parents in'Salonika. At school he was given the name Mustafa Kemal to distinguish hiih from other little Mustafas, and because a teacher admired his skill in mathematics; Kemal in Turkish, rneans “perfection.” After the Dardanelles campaign, iri which he held an important command, he became Mustafa Kemal Pasha, “pasha” being a military title equivalent to general. After he crushed the Greeks in 1921 he assumed the name Ghazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha. “Ghazi” means destroyer of infidels, “an odd sobriquet for Kemal,” Mr Gunther observes, “inasmuch as he was the greatest infidel in Turkish history.” Ten years later he became Ghazi Mustafa Kemal, when he abolished military titles. In 1934 he ordered every Turk to assume a patronymic in the western fashion and chose for himself “Ataturk,” which moans “Father of Turks.” So he was simply Kemal Ataturk. Finally he modified this to the Turkish form of the Arabic, tb become Kamal Ataturk.

Kamal Ataturk was born in 1881 in Salonika. His early life was that of a rebel and revolutionary, but the skill he developed as an officer made him

invaluable and service on the most remote, hopeless and dangerous fronts enabled him to. open his way to-a great career. “That career,” it has been 'said,.is without parallel in modern times

..... He took a nation that was centuries deep in rot, pulled it to its fefet, wiped its face, reclothed it, transformed it, made it work. In 1919 Turkey was so crushed and broken that it would have welcomed renuneiatiori of sovereignty and a British mandate, tn 1922 Turkey Was the ohe enemy state ■so strong that it practically dictated its own peace terms.”

In the three years following the Great War, Kamal drove out the Sultan, abolished the Caliphate, fought and won a war against the Greeks and drove them into the sea, secured extraordinarily favourable terms from the Allies, wrote a republican constitution for Turkey, created a parliament in the new capital of Ankara, and became Turkey’s first, and while he lived, only President.

Amongst other things, Kamal Ataturk abolished the fez, made an end of polygamy, and established an educational system in Turkey. Ruthless as he was in his climb to power and afterwards, he achieved wonders in reinvigorating' his country.