1938: Turkey

Turkish policy progressed in 1938 along the lines laid out fifteen years ago by Mustafa Kemal. The country continued its internal reforms, its process of industrialization and its speedy building up of an efficient army. The foreign policy of Turkey was based, as it has been constantly since 1920, on a firm friendship with the Soviet Union. At the same time Turkey showed herself most eager for an understanding with Great Britain and for friendly relations with the newly emerging great power of Germany. This three-fold attitude expressed itself in the fact that during the year 1938 Turkey accepted credits from the Soviet Union, from Great Britain and from Germany. These credits were used for speeding up the industrialization and armament program of Turkey.

Neighborly Pacts.

Maintaining her friendly relations with the principal great Powers, Turkey at the same time strengthened the system of neighborly alliances of which she was the pivotal point, the Balkan Pact and the Near Eastern Pact. The Balkan Pact uniting Greece, Yugoslavia, Rumania and Turkey, gained even greater importance after Germany's victory over the Western democracies at Munich and the renewed German pressure towards the Balkans. The Near Eastern Pact including Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, besides Turkey, aims at giving Turkey a security on her Asiatic frontiers similar to that offered by the Balkan Pact for her European frontiers.

Autonomy for Alexandretta.

During the past year Turkey was able to achieve her aim of controlling the important district of Antioch and Alexandretta. Since the Peace Treaties, this district has formed a part of Syria and was placed under French mandate with the rest of Syria. Turkey has continuously claimed this adjacent territory where the Turks form about 40 per cent of the population. Protracted negotiations ended in the signing, on July 3, of a Franco-Turkish agreement whereby an autonomous government was established for the district. At the ensuing elections to the Legislative Assembly of the Alexandretta district, the Turks were assured of a majority. The new autonomous state retained only a purely formal connection with Syria. In all other respects it became entirely coordinated with Turkey, accepted the Turkish name of Hatay, derived from the name of the ancient people the Hittites, and adopted a flag very similar to the Turkish flag. All the Turkish reforms in the Islamic religion and in oriental ways of life were introduced into Hatay.

Death of the President.

The most important event in Turkish history during 1938 was the death, on Nov. 10, of the President and founder of the Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk, at the age of fifty-eight, after an illness of several months. Kemal, or as he was recently called, Kamal, had assumed office as President of the Republic on October 29, 1923, and had been reelected three times, the last time on March 1, 1935, for another four year period. Born in Salonika, which now forms part of Greece, he had been a successful officer in the Turkish army during the World War. After the War he organized the resistance of the Anatolian peasants against the Greek invasion of Asia Minor and against the ratification of the Peace Treaty of Sevres. He organized the revolutionary government of the Great National Assembly in Angora, a small provincial town in the northern part of Anatolia. From there he succeeded in 1922 in defeating the Greeks, in driving them out of Asia Minor, in reoccupying Constantinople, and in forcing the Allies to declare invalid the Peace Treaty of Sevres and to replace it in 1923 by the Peace Treaty of Lausanne. This Peace Treaty reduced the frontiers of the former Turkish Empire to the territory inhabited by Turks and Kurds, but it established, for the first time, a Turkey homogeneous within her national frontiers and completely independent of all foreign interference and foreign privileges.

Having thus become the liberator of his native country, Mustapha Kemal, as he was then called, set out to modernize his country. His program was the transformation of a backward, agrarian, oriental country into a modern, industrialized, progressive republic. He abolished the Sultanate and Caliphate, proclaimed Turkey a republic and gave her a most modern democratic Constitution. He started a ruthless and successful fight against the Islamic traditionalism of his countrymen. All aspects of life in Turkey were fundamentally changed. The close relations between the Turkish State and the Islamic religion were dissolved; Islam was disestablished and modernized. In Turkish writing, Latin characters were introduced instead of the old Arabic ones; the language was adapted to modern use; a modern and progressive school system was established, and special emphasis was put upon scientific and industrial training. Instead of the existing laws, dating back to the Middle Ages, the most modern European codifications of law were introduced. The whole economic life of Turkey was overhauled. New and more productive methods were introduced into agriculture, modern industries were established, the Turks for the first time created their own banks and shipping companies, built by their own means important new railways, enlarged their existing ports and concentrated their efforts upon the full exploitation of the natural resources of their country.

Behind all these efforts stood the driving energy of Kemal Ataturk who will be recalled by history as not only the founder of the Turkish Republic, but as the man who entirely transformed the social and economic structure of Turkey and the intellectual and moral outlook of its inhabitants. He gave Turkey a new Capital, Angora or Ankara, the population of which has grown from about 20,000 to 125,000, and which he transformed into a city laid out on modern lines with many monumental buildings, parks, statues and public places. It is easy to understand that his death plunged the whole of Turkey into deep sorrow.

The New President.

The Great National Assembly met immediately after Kemal's death and elected ISMET INONE President of the Turkish Republic. The new President was well-known as a general in the Turkish war against the Greeks in 1922. He had been for many years the closest collaborator of Kemal Ataturk and had been Prime Minister for a long time prior to November 8, 1937. Under the new President the Turkish Cabinet, with Bey Jelal Bayar at its head, remained in office. Some minor changes were made, of which the most important was the resignation of Rushtu Aras who had been for many years Turkish Minister for Foreign Affairs. It is generally expected that public policy will be continued along the lines laid down by Kemal Ataturk. See also FRANCE; Foreign Relations.