The Life of Kemal Ataturk Mustafa Kemal This paper will examine the life

This paper will examine the life of Mustafa Kemal, later known as Kemal Ataturk ("Father of the Turks"). The first part of the paper will describe his life in general, including his childhood and his military record in the Balkan Wars and the First World War. The second part of the paper will examine his political ideas which led to the revolution which established him as leader of Turkey. The third part of the paper will discuss the changes he brought to Turkish society and the method in which they were brought about.

Mustafa Kemal was born in 1881 in the town of Salonika in Macedonia, a Balkan provinces controlled by Turkey. His family would have been considered lower-middle class by the standards of the day: his father, Ali Riza, started as a minor clerk in a Turkish government office and later attempted, unsuccessfully, to establish himself as an independent businessman in the lumber trade. Ali Riza died when Mustafa was seven years old. Mustafa inherited his blue eyes and unusually fair features from his mother, Znbeyde, who was of a devout Muslim peasant family. Most biographers have agreed that Mustafa's mother was one of his main influences throughout his life, triggering both devotion and conflict. At the same time, some have suggested that Mustafa spent his life trying to reconcile the idealized image of his father as an independent and adventurous businessman with the reality of his father's ultimate business failure.

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n March of 1915; in April, the British landed strong forces on the peninsula in an attempt to eventually open the straits to Allied shipping. For nine months the Turkish army under the command of Kemal fought the British, Australian, and New Zealand troops to a standstill; every attempt to expand the beachhead was met by Turkish counterattacks, some brilliant and others suicidal. The legend of Mustafa Kemal grew as he insisted upon exposing himself to enemy fire; on one memorable occasion he was hit by a piece of shrapnel, but it was stopped by his watch in his breast pocket. As the campaign wore on, he grew weak from malaria, but he continued to work with little sleep; he maintained a strong and tireless image in order to inspire his troops. As December, 1915 approached, he became convinced that the British were going to withdraw their troops and he began asking for permission to launch a great offensive to destroy the Allied army. But this permission was refused by his superiors on the grounds that there could be no waste of Turkish troops. On hearing this, he asked to be relieved of his command, as his poor health prevented him from working such a non-stop schedule any longer. Ten days after he arrived in Istanbul he was

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