30 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal from German military officers who had been sent to train the Ottoman armies ALLIED DEFEAT AT GALLIPOLI The CUP-led Ottoman Empire fared badly in both the Balkan Wars and World War I The only major victory was at Gallipoli, where Mustafa Kemal soundly defeated the British invasion In 1915 the British army and navy valiantly fought to open the Dardanelles in a plan created by Winston Churchill It was essential for the Allies to take Istanbul in order to reopen the Bosphorus Strait The Allied defeat in Gallipoli compromised that situation and possibly lengthened the war Mustafa Kemal was heralded as a hero among the Turks during a war that saw few victories and many defeats for the Ottomans At the conclusion of the war, the remaining Ottoman territories were divided amongst the Allied powers France was given control of southern Turkey (near the Syrian border), Italy was given the Mediterranean region, and Greece was given Thrace and the Aegean coast of Turkey Istanbul was to be an internationally controlled city (mainly French and British) The Kurds and Armenians were also granted territory under the Treaty of Sèvres The Turks would have only a small, mountainous territory in central Turkey Mustafa Kemal was outraged, as were most Turks Of all the occupying armies, he viewed the Greek army as the most dangerous threat Greek nationalism was at an all-time high, and many wanted to reclaim all of ancestral Greece (which extended well into Asia Minor) This fear was confirmed by the Greek invasion of Smyrna (present day Izmir) in 1919 In May 1919 Mustafa Kemal secretly traveled to Samsun (on the Black Sea coast) and journeyed to Amasya, where he issued the first resistance proclamation He then formed a national assembly, where he was elected chairman Next he organized a resistance army to overthrow foreign occupation and conquest Under his leadership the Turkish resistance easily drove out the British, French, and Italian troops, who were weary of fighting and did not want another war The real conflict was with the Greek troops and culminated in horrible atrocities committed by both sides In September 1922 the Turkish army drove the Greek army into the sea at Izmir as the international community silently observed In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne was signed and replaced the Treaty of Sèvres This treaty set the borders of modern-day Turkey On October 29, 1923, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed, with Mustafa Kemal as president and Ismet Inönü as prime minister Even though the government appeared democratic, Mustafa Kemal had almost absolute power However, he differed from several rising dictators of the time in several respects He had no plans or ideology pertaining to expansionism His primary focus was the modernization and domestic reform of his country He wanted to make Turkey self-sufficient and independent He believed that the only way to save his country was to modernize it, and by force if necessary He moved the capital from Istanbul to Ankara, a centrally located city He then abolished both the sultanate and the caliphate, and his fight against religion became one of his most contested reforms He believed that Islam’s role in government would prevent the country from modernizing He was not antireligion but against religious interference in governmental affairs He closed the religious schools and courts and put religion under state control He wanted to lessen the religious and ethnic divisions that had been encouraged under the Ottoman system He wanted the people of Turkey to identify themselves as Turks first He established political parties and a national assembly based on the parliamentary system He also implemented the Swiss legal code that allowed freedom of religion and civil divorce and banned polygamy Atatürk banned the fez for men and the veil for women and encouraged Western-style dress He replaced the Muslim calendar with the European calendar and changed the working week to Monday through Friday, leaving Saturday and Sunday as the weekend He hired expert linguists to transform the Turkish alphabet from Arabic to Latin script based on phonetic sounds and introduced the metric system As surnames did not exist until this time, Mustafa Kemal insisted that each person and family select a surname He chose Atatürk, which means “father of the Turks.” Some of his most profound reforms, however, were in regard to women Atatürk argued that no society could be successful while half of the population was hidden away He encouraged women to wear European clothing and to leave the harems Turkey was one of the first countries to give women the right to vote and hold office in 1930 He also adopted several daughters One of them, Sabiha Gokcen, became the first woman combat pilot in Turkey These reforms did not come easily and in many cases garnered little support Many religious and ethnic groups such as the Sufi dervishes and Kurds staged rebellions and