The New York Times

ATATURK DIES AT 58; TURKS
WILL ELECT A SUCCESSOR TODAY

Wireless to New York Times.

ISTANBUL, Turkey, Nov. 10- Kemal Ataturk,
President and creator of modern Turkey, died today at Dolma Baghche
Palace at the age of 58. He had survived thirteen wounds received in
battle and a number of assassination attempts, but succumbed to
cirrhosis of the liver.

It is expected that General Ismet Inonu, former
Premier and President Ataturk�s comrade-in-arms, will be chosen
tomorrow morning by the Republican People�s party to succeed the
dictator-soldier, hero of the reborn nation.

            The
bulletin announcing the death of Ataturk and signed by eight doctors
read:

           
�The President�s general condition, the gravity of which was
announced in a bulletin published last night, grew steadily worse.
On Nov. 10, 1938, at 9:05 A.M., our great chief, in a deep coma,
breathed his last.

           
Three minutes after his death Salih Bozuk, former aide and one of
the President�s closest friends, unsuccessfully attempted suicide by
shooting. He was seriously wounded.

Premier Stays at Bedside

           
Throughout the night Ali Fethi Okyar, Ambassador to London Ataturk�s
sister and his adopted daughter Sabihi Gueukschehn Honoum, the
latter a famous airwoman, remained near the bedside. The first
indication of the President�s death came at 11:30 A.M. when it was
noticed that the flags on government buildings were at half-staff.
Soon the flags of ships in the harbor were at half-mast, and
gradually all shops and houses exhibited similar signs of mourning.

           
Later, however, the authorities requested the withdrawal of flags
except those on government buildings. Although the flags at half
staff the appearance of so much color gave the impression that
Istanbul was on fete. All places of public entertainment were closed
and no intoxicants will be sold in Turkey until further notice.

            The
government�s communiqué issued this morning states:

            �By
Ataturk�s death Turkey has lost her great creator, a nation its
great Chief and humanity a great son. We offer our people deepest
condolences in their great loss. Our only consolation in our
affliction is our attachment to his great work and our service to
our dear country. We declare that before all things his immortal
work is the Turkish Republic.

           
�Your government is at its post at this grave time through which we
are passing. The great Turkish nation will, without doubt, work as
one body with the government to preserve order.

            �In
accordance with the Consti- (continued on page eighteen) tution
Abdullah Haik Renda, president of the Kamutay [National Assembly]
has assumed the interim Presidency of the republic and the Kamutay
will proceed forthwith with the election of a new President of the
republic. The government, the glorious Turkish Army with all its
might and the whole people, which form an unshakable entity, will
gather around whoever is elected to fulfill the highest office in
Turkey and to maintain her greatness.

           
�Ataturk, whom we mourn today and always, had the confidence of the
Turkish people. The continuation of his work he bequeathed to the
Turkish nation. The Turkish people, which is eternal, will make it
live eternally. Turkish youth will always defend the Turkish
republic, its precious legacy, and will march alone the path Ataturk
traced. Kemal Ataturk will live always.�

           
Beside General Inonu, Marshal Fevzi Cakmak, Chief of Staff, and Mr.
Okyar also are in the running for the Presidency.

            The
Marshal, as Chief of Staff, holds a position of great authority in
the new Turkey and he is universally respected as the father of the
army. However, he is essentially a soldier and he is known to be
reluctant to play a political role. It is said that before President
Ataturk became seriously ill he asked the Marshal whether he would
stand for the Presidency if Ataturk resigned. The suggestion was
declined.

            Mr.
Okyar, once Prime Minister of Turkey and lately Ambassador to London
and an experienced diplomat, has been Ataturk�s most intimate
friend. Since the suppression in 1930 of the short-lived Liberal
party, of which he was a leader, he never joined the Republican
People�s party and it seems unlikely that the Kamutay, composed
almost entirely of adherents of the party the principals of which
were lately embodied in the Constitution, would elect a non-party
man President.

           
Moreover, neither Marshal Chakmak nor Mr. Okyar is a member of the
Kamutay, from which a president is elected.

Inonu Is Likely Choice

            Its
seems, therefore, that the choice will fall on General Inonu. For
many years he was a close collaborator and lieutenant of President
Ataturk and until twelve months ago he had been Prime Minister
continuously for twelve years. No man in Turkey possesses his
experience, and that is perhaps more important than his popularity,
which for long has been second only to Ataturk�s. Much has been said
about their estrangement last year when General Inonu resigned the
Premiership, but in light of subsequent events it now seems clear
that it was the result chiefly of temporary mutual irritation.
President Ataturk was a sick man and General Inonu was suffering
from the strain of the long, arduous years in office.

           
Ever since it was agreed between them that in the interest of the
country the partnership should be dissolved, the general
deliberately kept in the background, but the Turkish people, with
the possible exception of a few private enemies, continued to regard
him as the natural successor to his former chief.

Change in Policy Unlikely

ISTANBUL, Nov. 10 (AP). � There were unconfirmed
reports today that Kemal Ataturk had left a political testament to
guide his successor in his own rigid doctrine of westernization and
nationalism.

            No
one expected Turkey�s new leadership to turn in the immediate future
from the domestic and foreign balance that Ataturk achieved
for his nation, strategically situated between
the East and the West.

           
Before Ataturk became gravely ill in mid-October he was borrowing
money for Turkey with little discrimination from both Britain and
Germany, although his early struggle for power was tinged with
bitter hatred for the influence of both.

 

He was called simply Mustafa when he was born in
Salonika in 1880, the son of a Turkish custom�s officer. His
mathematic�s teacher at military preparatory school added Kemal,
meaning �rightness,� to his name.

           
When he fought his way to leadership of the Turks, the title of
Pasha was added. Most of his historic record was made as Mustafa
Kemal Pasha. 

            In
1934, when he had so modernized Turkey that titles were abolished
and he was able to decree that all Turks must thereafter have family
names, he chose for himself the family name of Ataturk, which is
translated as �Chief Turk� or �Father of All Turks.� Thenceforth he
was known as Kemal Ataturk.

            His
death comes as a blow to a nation of 14,000,000 people, although he
reformed their social customs, their religion and their economics
with dictatorial zeal and speed.

            Out
of the remains of the defeated and dismembered Ottoman Empire, he
formed in 1923 a republic, which he armed and industrialized and
made into a powerful nation. He repossessed the Dardanelles in 1936,
conciliated the Greeks and steered a course between East and West in
a manner that made Soviet Russia, Britain and Germany in turn glad
to cultivate Turkey�s friendship and lend her millions of further
development.

Women Admitted to Parliament

            In
twelve years of reform women in Turkey were transported from the
harem and the veil to membership in Parliament, to which seventeen
women were admitted in 1935. President Ataturk even gave women the
right to serve in the army, but said they would never be sent to the
front because they were too precious to the nation.

            In
another phase of reform, he stripped Mohammedan priests of their
privileges and made Sunday instead of Friday the day of rest to
conform with western usage. He devoted himself to the development of
an army and navy with which to assure the Turkish position in
dealing with the Western powers. By this year he had a modernized
army of almost 500,000 men and was spending $70,000,000 of Turkey�s
annual budget of $210,000,000 to expand the national defense . He
announced a five-year plan intended to bring Turkey�s air force up
to 1,000 of the latest military planes. He ordered twenty-five
submarines and planned to equip Turkey to manufacture arms and war
materials within her own boundaries.

           
Turkey�s control of the Dardanelles had already made her one of the
most important powers in the Mediterranean, and she was prepared to
defend her position instead of being a pawn of stronger European
nations as in the past.

Straits Pact Repudiated

            She
had gained this position finally when Ataturk decided that Turkey�s
new national stature justified the repudiation of the last remaining
restriction on her sovereignty---the Straits convention of 1923,
which forbade her to fortify the Dardanelles.

            The
President declared his belief and assembled his troops. The powers
interested in the Straits convention said it was a �grave move,� but
a hurriedly summoned conference in 1936 at Montreux, Switzerland,
gave Turkey the Straits once more.

           
Ataturk was instrumental in the formation of the Balkan Entente,
with Turkey, Greece, Romania and Yugoslavia, and thereafter in 1937
he formed the Moslem, or Middle-East bloc, with Turkey, Iraq, Iran
and Afghanistan.

           
Early in 1937 Ataturk grew impatient with long-drawn-out
negotiations with France over the Syrian mandate, which France was
about to relinquish by recognizing Syria as a republic. The Turks
wanted Alexandretta, containing Antioch and an important corner of
the Eastern Mediterranian shore leading to the Mosul oil fields.

            The
Turks had their way. Alexandretta was made an autonomous State last
July, under Franco-Turkish administration and defense forces, with
the understanding that the French would eventually withdraw, leaving
it to the Turks.

Policy Based on Expediency

            The
course of Turkey�s international relations was steered by Ataturk on
an apparent chart of expediency, based on the position that Turkey
occupies as a strong power astride the Dardanelles, separating
Russia from the Mediterranian, facing Germany on the historic route
to Baghdad and balancing Italy�s growth along Britain�s �life-line�
to the East.

           
Russia was the first to help Turkey to power. In the post-war
settlement the Soviet opposed in vain the partition of Turkey. And
when Kemal, not yet Ataturk, later undertook to drive out the Allies
Russia supplied arms, materials and funds that contributed greatly
to the final crushing of the Greeks in 1922.

            The
Soviet thereafter enjoyed a position of preferred friendship in
Turkey, but this cooled about ten years later when it became evident
that the Turkish dictator was willing to have other friends also.

           
Britain and France were eager to oblige the Turks. Last July, when
Russia held aloof, Britain lent Turkey $80,000,000, mostly for arms.

           
Germany, meanwhile, was courting Turkey. So was Italy, Ataturk could
not readily forget, however, that the downfall of the Ottoman empire
had resulted from siding with Germany in the World War and that
Turkey had been among the Entente powers that Italy had deserted to
side with the Allies.

           
Germany came bearing gifts, however. She offered a commercial
treaty. And she offered a huge credits under which she would
undertake to construct docks for Turkey along the Bosporus, deliver
a fleet of coastwise steamers and build a variety of factories.
Ataturk announced a five-year plan of industrialization.

           
Moreover, as the Czechoslovak crisis developed he suffered
disillusionment in his belief that Britain was the strongest power
in the world. Turkey concluded a commercial treaty with Germany,
accepted a loan of 150,000,000 marks and proceeded to become
Germany�s greatest foreign market. She is currently buying goods and
services from Germany at a yearly rate of about $130,000,000, while
selling to Germany at a yearly rate of $80,000,000.

            It
became evident to the world that Ataturk had brought Turkey to the
receiving end of several competing international axes and to the
profit position in the adjoining nationality blocs.

Scorned Doctors� Advice

           
During a quarter of a century of war, intrigue and the dictation of
sweeping reforms, however, Ataturk had habitually disregarded all
doctors� orders to take better care of his powerful physique.

           
Although he was stern and strict in his official life, he was known
to be convivial and carefree in his social life. He frequently
danced and drank all night, or played poker (with great success) all
night, smoking incessantly the while. Then he slept twenty-four
hours without interruption.

            A
French liver specialist ordered a complete rest for him early this
year, but he disdained it. His people heard of this and raised such
a clamor that Turkey bought him a luxurious yacht from Richard M.
Cadwaladen an American. It had gold-plated bathroom fitting and gold
door knobs. On it he caught a chill last summer while entertaining
King Carol of Rumania. He never completely recovered.

           
Almost to the day of death Ataturk struggled to disestablish the
ancient methods of Turkish thought. When the medical profession of
Turkey, which he had reorganized on modern scientific lines, wished
to express appreciation of what he had done for public health, the
best medical thought decided to present a solid gold bath-tub, eight
feet long, five feet wide and four feet deep.

            The
best Turkish doctors thought it was the only thing fitted for the
Ghazi�the Conqueror.  Ataturk ordered it melted down and the
proceeds expended on bettering the public health.

Had a Food Taster

            Yet
Ataturk could not escape being a traditional Turk in one respect; he
had an official food taster. He was served by Mohammed Mouhi, who
was paid $15,000 a year for about twenty minutes� work a day.

           
Mohamme d�s duty was to taste well of all food and drink intended
for Ataturk. Thereafter the meal was kept in a hot table for an
hour. If Mohammed did not die by that time the dictator ate and
drank.

           
Ataturk presided over a republic about as large as California and
New Mexico combined. Although he rose to power because of his
military ability, a career for which his early education destined
him, his post-war activities were those of a progressive and
energetic administrator.

           
Emil Ludwig, the German biographer once called him �a man compared
with whom Napoleon was half a dreamer.� An outstanding fact about
the dictator�s extraordinary career was his consistency and his
patience, his courage and his silence. It was he who won the peace
of Lausanne--the first time for 200 years that old Asia achieved a
victory over Europe.

            He
was a revolutionary officer who in his Salonika days had began to
oppose the committee of Young Turks; a man for whom no measure of
reform was adequate, who found the policy of Talaat and Enver
superficial, and the alliance with Germany fatal; the man who made
no capital out of the military reputation he earned at Gallipoli,
who twice withdraw from public life, who with threats warned the
last Sultan to turn over a new leaf, and who after the war,
contrived to defeat him and the people in power in Constantinople,
and who was warned, recalled, deposed and sentenced to death by the
then Turkish Government.

           
Having in his command 20,000 war-worn soldiers, he entered upon the
conflict with the great powers of Europe, and then, for four whole
years, surrounded by foes without and within, waited until he had
overthrown the Sultan, abolished the Caliphate, set free the
essential part of Turkey from the ruins of the old empire, saved it
and reestablished it as a republic. By these achievements he proved
himself a great military leader and statesman.

            The
President�s moustache and fez, prominent features in his portraits
at the time when he rose to power, were given up after he had
established himself. His medium sized, slight figure was clad in
elegant civil dress. His hair was bright and blond. His furrowed
countenance indicated what he had gone through. He lived, as the
first citizen of his country, in a villa situated among the hills
outside the new capital that he had founded.  He had built it in
that Turkish style that dates from the period when French tastes
prevailed. Almost unguarded its doors were left open in true
Oriental fashion.

Dates in His Career

            The
historical dates of the Ghazi�s career after the World War are:

            On
May 16, 1919, the Greeks landed at Smyrna. On June 21 the future
dictator called the assembly of a congress of patriots. The Sultan
dismissed him from the army service on July 8^th. Two
weeks later the Ghazi presided at the Congress of Erzerum, which
resolved that �with one accord the entire East will resist the
occupation and the interference of the foreigner.�

            On
Sept. 4 he was elected chairman of a second congress at Sivas, which
resolved �to fight for Turkish integrity.� In October national
elections were forced by him, and these resulted in the defeat of
the Sultan�s government. British troops, in March, 1920, took
possession of Constantinople, now Istanbul, and in April he was
outlawed and condemned to death by the Sultan.

           
Shortly afterward the Turkish National Assembly met, elected the
Ghazi President and adopted the national pact, the Magna Charta of
New Turkey. In May the Sultan sent a �Caliph�s army� toward Angora
to destroy the nationalist forces. This army was driven back into
Constantinople by the Ghazi.

           
When the Greeks began their invasion of Asiatic Turkey in June,
1920, he organized an army of defense. On Aug. 10 the Treaty of
Sevres partitioned the Ottoman Empire and divided it among the
European powers.

            The
Ghazi stopped the Greek army at Sakaria on Sept. 13, 1921. At the
battle of Dumla Puvar, on Aug. 26 1922, he issued an order to his
troops, �Soldiers, your goal is the Mediterranian! On to it!� A few
days later he drove the Greek army into the sea. He advanced upon
Constantinople and the Dardanelles, and on Oct. 11, 1922, authorized
the signing of the armistice treaty with the Allies at Mudovia,
which, in effect, was an other diplomatic victory for Turkey.

            On
Nov.1, 1922, the Ghazi abolished the Sultanate, and on Nov. 17 the
Sultan fled from Turkey on a British warship. Three days later the
peace conference opened at Lausanne. Ably represented and supported
by his brilliant colleague Ismet Pasha, the Ghazi won his great
diplomatic victory and on Oct.29, 1923, was elected first President
of the Turkish Republic.

           
Ataturk was born when Abdul Hamid II was Sultan. He was an only son
and he was intended by his mother for the mosque school, but  he
became fascinated by the uniforms of the army officers and was sent
to the military preparatory school at Salonika.

Plotted Against Sultan

           
 After attending the military preparatory school at Salonika, the
officers� school at Monastir and the War Academy at Constantinople,
Kemal, then a head strong youth of 22, entered the army in 1902 with
the rank of lieutenant. Through forbidden literature he became
acquainted with Western ideas of government, which soon led to his
hatred of Abdul Hamid, whom he bitterly opposed. In a small
apartment in the Stamboul section of Constantinople he founded the
secret Society of Liberty. As a result he was arrested and after
three months� confinement in a cell at the ministry of police, was
exiled, being sent to Damascus to join a cavalry regiment. There he
founded local branches of his society, but, being too isolated, fled
to Alexandria and finally reached Salonika by way of Piraeus in
Greece.

           
When his secret activities were again discovered, he flew to Akaba
and stayed for a while in Syria. He obtained a transfer to the Third
Army�s staff at Salonika, merged the Society of Liberty into the
Society of Progress and entrenched his forces in Salonika, Monastir
and Uskup. The revolution of the Young Turks in 1908 failed, but the
Sultan lost his absolute regime in the counter-revolution of 1909. A
quarrel between Kemal and Enver Pasha, whose rule succeeded that of
Abdul Hamid, followed, and Kemal withdrew from politics in bitter
disillusionment.

           
During the following years he led the life of the average Turkish
army officer. He was exiled by Enver to Tripoli, returned to
Salonika, was transferred to Albania, and again sent to Salonika.
Hated by Enver, he was military attaché at Sofia, Bulgaria, when
Turkey joined Germany in 1914 in a last desperate gamble for the
life of the empire. Kemal, convinced from the first that the empire
was in no condition to enter the war, received command of the
Nineteenth Division and was dispatched to the Dardanelles. He soon
commanded all the Turco-German forces on the peninsula, and his
success in throwing back the British before Anaforta was the most
brilliant achievement of his military career.

           
This victory made him a great hero in Germany, but it was not until
its story was told in the Committee Year Book for 1917 that Enver
permitted it to leak out in Constantinople. Two years later the
Turkish papers began printing the story of Anaforta, and Enver
caused the entire issues to be confiscated. By that time it had
become politically dangerous to mention Kemal�s name in the capital.

           
Alarmed at Kemal�s popularity, Liman von Sanders, the German
generalissimo, transferred him to the Russian front after the
British had evacuated the Dardanelles. He was appointed major
general, in command of the Sixteenth Army, but he came into conflict
with Falkenhayn, threw up his command in protest, and returned to
Aleppo, where he dispatched to Enver a remarkable statement,
outlining the entire political situation at a moment when a German
victory was expected. Pointing out Falkenhayn�s position, he warned:
�We shall lose our own country and Falkenhayn will sacrifice every
ounce of gold and every soldier he can squeeze out of us.�

Exiled to Germany

           
Enver� reply to this warning was to give Falkenhayn command of the
Palestine front and to exile Kemal to Germany. For the next year he
was on the German and Austro-Hungarian front. Then Enver recalled
him and gave him the Yilderim command (Fourth, Seventh and Eighth
Armies) on the Palestine front. But it was too late. Kemal reached
his post just as Allenby�s great break-through brought the empire
crashing down to its end.

            It
was figuratively the end of the world for Kemal. He returned to
Constantinople, which had fallen into disorder. The members of his
revolutionary committee had fled, and Damad Ferid Pasha was to
succeed Talaat and Enver. Turkey was virtually surrounded by her
enemies, the Allies forming an iron ring around the remnants of the
old empire. Under the terms of the Mudros armistice, the Turkish
Navy was interned at Constantinople and the army disarmed. With the
Allies in occupation of the capital, Kemal knew that further
attempts were useless. He fled to Asia Minor. When he ignored
Ferid�s demand to return, the latter dismissed him from the army.

            In
the following struggle between Kemal and Ferid, Kemal was the final
victor. The Anglo-Hellenic rapprochement sent whole provinces in
Asia Minor scurrying to Kemal, with the result that this part was
lost to Ferid. With the Greek occupation of Smyrna in 1919, which
led Kemal to tear up Mudros armistice, the star of the Ghazi began
to rise, and,after his strategic victories, reached its climax with
his diplomatic victory at Lausanne and his election as first
President of the Turkish Republic.

           
Kemal Ataturk, the �most terrible of all the terrible Turks,� as he
was termed by Earl Balfour, who described him as a brigand, was
always a man who insisted on having his own ideas accepted.

            The
new Turkey got rid of her Sultans in 1922 but she did not then dare
abolish the Caliphate. The abolition of the Caliphate was the first
step of importance in the life of the new republic. The next was the
reform of the laws. This was achieved in the space of only a few
weeks. The Swiss Civil Code was almost literally translated, and the
best points of the Italian Penal Code were accepted. Thus the Ghazi,
by imposing his will upon the nation, had altered within three
months the entire judiciary.

            He
ordered the first census ever to be held on Turkish territory.
Although this was not a reform in itself, it led to reforms of vast
importance which gave the country and the world a definite idea of
Turkey�s importance in Near Eastern affairs. The President also made
the Turkish language obligatory as the official language, and
ordered that it be written in Roman instead of Arabic characters.
Capitulations (foreign privileges) were abolished. The Gregorian
calendar was substituted for the Islamic, and the feast of the
Ramazan was fixed by astronomical observation. In every direction
Islamic precedence and prohibitions were broken and violated.

Changed the Old Order

            In
its special aspects the revolution attempted to model the customs of
the State upon Western fashions. The old order was changed. The
traditional fez was abandoned and the Turkish women gave up their
veils. Harems, survival of Byzantium, were forbidden, monogamy
became the law and men and women received equal rights in the matter
of divorce. In 1923 Angora, in the heart of Anatolia, became
officially the capital, as a result of a decree by the President. He
spent money freely to build it and developed a modern city.

            He
started with Angora as an unkempt little Anatolian village with
narrow streets and mud-brick houses, where the only big event was a
weekly market for the peasants.

           
According to a German architectural plan by Herman Jansen, the new
capital was laid out in detached sections over an immense site. From
a central citadel, broad paved avenues radiated, imperiously
breaking the natural lines of a hilly plain.

           
These avenues were lined with handsome edifices in broad arches and
tiles�schools, lyceums, hospitals, dwellings, factories,
laboratories. Automobile traffic moves swiftly in Angora, where
camel caravans used to plod within the memory of many of the
inhabitants. The streets are lighted by electricity. A telephone
exchange and a powerful wireless station were in operation in Angora
by 1925.

            A
typical act in the Ghazi�s endeavor to reform the country was the
changing of the name of Constantinople to the old Turkish title
Istanbul. This removed a historic reminder  of the days when
Occidentals ruled on the Bosporus. It served also to bolster Turkish
nationalistic feeling.

           
After the Ottoman dynasty, which for six centuries had been in power
in the empire, had became mere history, Article II of the
constitution of the Turkish Republic declared that �The religion of
the Turkish State is Islam.� This article had to be removed as the
final step in Ataturk�s endeavor to separate the church from the
State. In 1928 the National Assembly struck out the article and
provided that government servants should no longer swear by Allah in
taking the oath of office, but should simply swear on their honor.
Finally, an official translation of the Koran was made.

            The
President married in January in 1923, Latife Hanim, daughter of a
wealthy Turkish merchant of Smyrna. It was reported that his bride
brought him a dowry of 1,000,000Turkish lire. The Ghazi divorced his
wife in 1925 by the simple old procedure of saying in the presence
of witnesses, �I divorce you.�

(From the achives of New
York Times Newspaper)