İsmet İnönü

Captain İsmet Bey after returning from Yemen

İnönü completed his primary education in Sivas and graduated from Sivas Military Junior High School (Sivas Askerî Rüştiyesi) in 1894. He then studied at Sivas School for Civil Servants (Sivas Mülkiye İdadisi) for a year. He graduated from the Imperial School of Military Engineering in 1903 as lieutenant gunnery officer, and entered the Military Academy to graduate as a first rank staff captain on September 26, 1906. İnönü started his duty in the Second Army based in Adrianople (Edirne) on October 2, 1906, in the 3rd Battery Command of the 8th Field Artillery Regiment. As part of his platoon officer staff internship, he gave lessons in military strategy and artillery. Captain İsmet was also part of the Ottoman–Bulgarian commissions.[10]

Through Ali Fethi (Okyar), he briefly joined the Committee of Union and Progress in 1907,[11] which wished to overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid II. During the 31 March Incident, he was on the staff of the Second Cavalry Division, which was mobilized to join the Action Army and marched on Constantinople (İstanbul) to depose Abdul Hamid II. Returning to Adrianople following the suppression of the mutiny, İnönü left the committee in the summer of 1909.[10]

He won his first military victory by suppressing Imam Yahya Muhammad Hamiddin's revolt in Yemen. İsmet eventually became chief of staff of the force sent to suppress the rebellion, and personally negotiated with Imam Yahya in Kaffet-ül-Uzer to bring Yemen back into the empire. For this, he was promoted to the rank of major. He returned to Constantinople in March 1913 to defend the capital from Bulgarian attack during the First Balkan War. İnönü was part of the Turkish delegation that negotiated the Treaty of Constantinople with the Bulgarians as a military adviser. He held a close relationship with Enver Pasha and played an active role in the reformation of the army.[10]

The Ottoman general staff of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, 1914. İsmet İnönü can be seen on the top row second from the right side.

İnönü began climbing the ranks during World War I, becoming lieutenant colonel on 29 November 1914 and then was appointed as the First Branch Manager of the General Headquarters on 2 December. He was appointed chief of staff of the Second Army on 9 October 1915 and was promoted to the rank of colonel on 14 December 1915.[10]

He began working with Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) Pasha as a corps commander on the Caucasian Front. İnönü was appointed to the IV Corps Command on 12 January 1917, upon the recommendation of Atatürk. He was recalled to Constantinople after a while, and returned to take part as a corps commander of Seventh Army. On 1 May, he was appointed to command XX Corps on the Palestine Front, and then III Corps on 20 June. He once again came in contact with Atatürk when he assumed the command of the Seventh Army. İnönü's forces received the brunt of Edmond Allenby's attack on Beersheba that ended the stalemate on the Sinai front. He was wounded in the Battle of Megiddo and was sent back to Constantinople, where he held various administrative positions in the War Ministry during the armistice period.

After the military occupation of Constantinople on 16 March 1920, İnönü decided to escape to Anatolia to join the Ankara government. He and his chief of staff major Saffet (Arıkan) escaped Maltepe in the evening of 19 March and arrived at Ankara on 9 April. He joined the Grand National Assembly (GNA) which was opened on 23 April 1920, as a deputy of Edirne. Like many others in the Turkish National Movement, he was sentenced to death in absentia by the Ottoman government on 6 June 1920. In May 1920, he was appointed chief of the general staff. The next year he was appointed commander of the Western Front of the Army of the GNA, a position in which he remained during the Turkish War of Independence. He was promoted to the rank of Mirliva (to that extent, Pasha) after winning the First and Second Battle of İnönü. When the 1934 Surname Law was adopted Atatürk bestowed İsmet Pasha with the surname İnönü, where the battles took place.

Turkish delegation after having signed the Treaty of Lausanne. The delegation was led by İsmet İsmet (in the middle) and Rıza Nur (on the left wearing the top hat).

İnönü was replaced by Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), who was also the prime minister and minister of defense at the time, as the chief of staff after the Turkish forces lost major battles against the advancing Greek Army in July 1921, as a result of which the cities Afyonkarahisar, Kütahya and Eskişehir were temporarily lost. During the war İnönü's infant son İzzet died before his victory in Sakarya and this news was only delivered to him on the spring of 1922. His wife Emine Mevhibe hid the news and the severity of his son's sickness due to the intensity of the war.[12] He participated as a staff officer (with the rank Brigadier General) in the later battles, including Dumlupınar.

After the War of Independence was won, İnönü was appointed as the chief negotiator of the Turkish delegation, both for the Armistice of Mudanya and for the Treaty of Lausanne.

The Lausanne conference convened in late 1922 to settle the terms of a new treaty that would take the place of the Treaty of Sèvres. İnönü became famous for his stubborn resolve in determining the position of Ankara as the legitimate, sovereign government of Turkey. After delivering his position, İsmet turned off his hearing aid during the speeches of British foreign secretary Lord Curzon. When Curzon had finished, İnönü reiterated his position as if Curzon had never said a word.[13]

While dealing with the Sheikh Said revolt İnönü proclaimed a Turkish nationalist policy and encouraged the turkification of the non-Turkish population.[16] Following the suppression of the Sheikh Said rebellion, he presided over the Reform Council for the East which prepared the Report for Reform in the East, which recommended to impede an establishment of a Kurdish elite, to forbid non-Turkish languages and the creation of regional administrative units called Inspectorates-General, which were to be governed with martial law.[17] He stated the following in regards to the Kurds; "we're frankly nationalists and nationalism is our only factor of cohesion. Before the Turkish majority other elements have no kind of influence. At any price, we must turkify the inhabitants of our land, and we will annihilate those who oppose"[18][19][20] Following this report, three Inspectorates-Generals were established in the Kurdish areas comprising several provinces.[21] On the direct order of İnönü[22] the Zilan massacre[23][24][25][26][27] of thousands of Kurdish civilians was perpetrated by the Turkish Land Forces in the Zilan Valley of Van Province on 12/13 July 1930, during the Ararat rebellion.[28] Nation building was codified into law when a new settlement regime was enacted in 1934, resettling Albanians, Abkhazians, Circassians, and Kurds in new areas in order to create a homogeneous Turkish state.

Atatürk and İnönü observing the Thracian Maneuvers

İnönü was responsible for most of the reformist legislation promulgated during Turkey's one party period. The Hat Law and the closure of Dervish lodges were enacted in 1925, in 1928 the Turkish alphabet switched to being written with Latin characters, and in 1934 titles such as Efendi, Bey, and Pasha were abolished, and certain articles of religious clothing were banned. 1934 was also the year that the Surname Law was adopted, with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk bestowing İsmet with the surname İnönü, the location where İsmet won the battles against the Greek army in 1921. He was also a proponent of replacing foreign loan words with "Pure Turkish" words.

İnönü managed the economy with heavy-handed government intervention, especially during the Great Depression, by implementing an economic plan inspired by the Five Year Plan of the Soviet Union. In doing so, he took much private property under government control. Due to his efforts, to this day, more than 70% of land in Turkey is still owned by the state.

Desiring a more liberal economic system, Atatürk dissolved the government of İnönü in 1937[29] and appointed Celâl Bayar, the founder of the first Turkish commercial bank Türkiye İş Bankası, as prime minister, thus beginning a decades long rivalry between Bayar and İnönü.

Celâl Bayar and İnönü visiting the Bakırköy Cloth Factory

After the death of Atatürk on 10 November 1938,[30] İnönü was viewed as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him, and was unanimously elected[31] the second president of the Republic of Turkey and leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP). He attempted to build himself a cult of personality by receiving the official title of Millî Şef, i.e., "National Chief".

One of his first actions was to annex in 1939 the Hatay State, which declared independence from French Syria. İnönü also wished to move on from one party rule by taking incremental steps to multiparty politics. He hoped to accomplish this through establishing the Independent Group as a force of opposition in the parliament, but they fell short of expectations under war-time conditions. İnönü dismissed Bayar's government because of differences between the two on economic policy in 1939. İnönü was an avowed statist, while Bayar wished for a more liberal economy. Turkey's early industrialization accelerated under İnönü but the onset of World War II disrupted economic growth.

Much reform in education was accomplished during İnönü's presidency through the efforts of Hasan Âli Yücel, who was minister of education throughout İnönü's governments. 1940 saw the establishment of the Village Institutes, in which well performing students from the country side were selected to train as teachers and return to their hometown to run community development programs.

MG08 machine gun on the minaret of the Hagia Sophia 1941

World War II broke out in the first year of his presidency, and both the Allies and the Axis pressured İnönü to bring Turkey into the war on their side.[32] The Germans sent Franz von Papen to Ankara in April 1939 while the British sent Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen and the French René Massigli. On 23 April 1939, Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu told Knatchbull-Hugessen of his nation's fears of Italian claims of the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum and German control of the Balkans, and suggested an Anglo-Soviet-Turkish alliance as the best way of countering the Axis.[33] In May 1939, during the visit of Maxime Weygand to Turkey, İnönü told the French Ambassador René Massigli that he believed that the best way of stopping Germany was an alliance of Turkey, the Soviet Union, France and Britain; that if such an alliance came into being, the Turks would allow Soviet ground and air forces onto their soil; and that he wanted a major programme of French military aid to modernize the Turkish armed forces.[34]

The signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939 drew Turkey away from the Allies; the Turks always believed that it was essential to have the Soviet Union as an ally to counter Germany, and thus the signing of the German-Soviet pact undercut completely the assumptions behind Turkish security policy.[35] With the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, İnönü chose to be neutral in World War II as taking on Germany and the Soviet Union at the same time would be too much for Turkey, though he signed a tripartite treaty of alliance with Britain and France on 19 October 1939, obligating Turkey's entry into the war if fighting spread to the Mediterranean.[36] However, with France's defeat in June 1940 İnönü abandoned the pro-Allied neutrality that he had followed since the beginning of the war.[36] A major embarrassment for the Turks occurred in July 1940 when the Germans captured and published documents from the Quai d'Orsay in Paris showing the Turks were aware of Operation Pike—as the Anglo-French plan in the winter of 1939–40 to bomb the oil fields in the Soviet Union from Turkey was codenamed—which was intended by Berlin to worsen relations between Ankara and Moscow.[37] In turn, worsening relations between the Soviet Union and Turkey were intended to drive Turkey into the arms of the Reich.[36] After the publication of the French documents relating to Operation Pike, İnönü pulled out of the tripartide pact signed with Britain and France and signed the German–Turkish Treaty of Friendship and the Clodius Agreement, which placed Turkey within the German economic sphere of influence, but İnönü went no further towards the Axis.[36]

Franz von Pappen and Şükrü Saraçoğlu signing the Turkish-German friendship treaty

In the first half of 1941, Germany which was intent upon invading the Soviet Union went out of its way to improve relations with Turkey as the Reich hoped for a benevolent Turkish neutrality when the German-Soviet war began.[38] At the same time, the British had great hopes in the spring of 1941 when they dispatched an expeditionary force to Greece that İnönü could be persuaded to enter the war on the Allied side as the British leadership had high hopes of creating a Balkan front that would tie down German forces, and which thus led a major British diplomatic offensive with the Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden visiting Ankara several times to meet with İnönü.[39] İnönü always told Eden that the Turks would not join the British forces in Greece, and the Turks would only enter the war if Germany attacked Turkey.[40] For his part, Papen offered İnönü parts of Greece if Turkey were to enter the war on the Axis side, an offer İnönü declined.[40] In May 1941 when the Germans dispatched an expeditionary force to Iraq to fight against the British, İnönü refused Papen's request that the German forces be allowed transit rights to Iraq.[41] Another attempt by Hitler to woo Turkey came in February 1943, when Talaat Pasha's remains were returned to Turkey for a state burial.[42]

Internal opposition to Turkish neutrality came from ultra-nationalist circles and factions of the military that wished to incorporate the Turkic populated areas in the Soviet Union by allying with Germany. This almost erupted into a coup d'état against the government. Leading pan-Turkists including Alparslan Türkeş, Nihal Atsız, and Şaik Gökyay were arrested and sentenced time in prison in the Racism-Turanism trials.

Roosevelt, İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on 4–6 December 1943

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill traveled to Ankara in January 1943 for a conference with President İnönu, to urge Turkey's entry into the war on the allied side.[43] Churchill met secretly with İnönü inside a railroad car at the Yenice Station near Adana. By 4–6 December 1943, İnönü felt confident enough about the outcome of the war, that he met openly with Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference. Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill had thought that Turkey's continuing neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East. But the early victories of the Axis up to the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate a possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies. Turkey had maintained a decently-sized Army and Air Force throughout the war, and Churchill wanted the Turks to open a new front in the Balkans. Roosevelt, on the other hand, still believed that a Turkish attack would be too risky, and an eventual Turkish failure would have disastrous effects for the Allies.

Winston Churchill and İsmet İnönü in conversation during a two-day secret conference in a train car at Adana, near the Turkish-Syrian border

İnönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during decades of incessant war between 1908 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. The young Turkish Republic was still re-building, recovering from the losses due to earlier wars, and lacked any modern weapons and the infrastructure to enter a war to be fought along and possibly within its borders. İnönü based his neutrality policy during the Second World War on the premise that Western Allies and the Soviet Union would sooner or later have a falling out after the war.[44] Thus, İnönu wanted assurances on financial and military aid for Turkey, as well as a guarantee that the United States and the United Kingdom would stand beside Turkey in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Turkish Straits after the war. In August 1944 İnönü broke off diplomatic relations with Germany and on 5 January 1945, İnönü severed diplomatic relations with Japan.[45] Shortly afterwards, İnönü allowed Allied shipping to use the Turkish straits to send supplies to the Soviet Union and on 25 February 1945 he declared war on Germany and Japan.[41] For this Turkey became a founding member of the United Nations.

The post-war tensions and arguments surrounding the Turkish Straits would come to be known as the Turkish Straits crisis. The fear of Soviet invasion and Joseph Stalin's unconcealed desire for Soviet military bases in the Turkish Straits[44] eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle of neutrality in foreign relations and join NATO in February 1952.[46]

Maintaining an armed neutrality proved to be disruptive for the young republic. The country existed in a practical state of war throughout the Second World War: military production was prioritized at the expense of peacetime goods, rationing and curfews were implemented, and high taxes were put in place, causing severe economic hardship for many. One such tax was the Wealth Tax (Varlık Vergisi), a discriminatory tax which demanded very high one-time payments from Turkey's non-Muslim minorities. This tax is seen by many to be a continuation of the Jizya tax paid by dhimmis during Ottoman times, or Millî İktisat (National Economy) economic policy implemented by the Committee of Union and Progress regime three decades ago. It was only repealed in 1944 under American and British pressure.[47]

A famous story of İnönü happened in a meeting in Bursa for the 1969 general elections. A young man yelled at him; "You let us go without food!" İnönü replied him by saying "Yes, I let you go without food, but I did not let you become fatherless" by implying the death of millions of people from both sides of World War II.[48]

For the Kemalists there was always a desire for Turkey to develop into a democracy. Before the Independent Group, Atatürk experimented with opposition through the Liberal Republican Party, which lasted three months before it had to be shut down when reactionaries threatened to hijack the party. In an opening speech to the Grand National Assembly on November 1, 1945, İnönü openly expressed the country's need for an opposition party. He welcomed Celal Bayar establishing the Democrat Party (DP), which separated from CHP. However, due to anti-Communist hysteria brought on by the new Soviet threat new leftist parties were swiftly banned and rural development initiatives such as the Village Institutes and People's Rooms were closed. Even with such pressure on the left, İnönü established the Ministry of Labour in 1945 and signed into law important protections for workers. Universities were given autonomy,[49] and İnönü's title of "unchangeable chairman" of CHP was abolished.[50]

İnönü allowed for Turkey's first multiparty elections to be held in 1946, however the elections were infamously not free and fair; voting was carried out under the gaze of onlookers who could determine which voters had voted for which parties, and where secrecy prevailed as to the subsequent counting of votes. Instead of inviting Şükrü Saraçoğlu to form another government, he assigned the CHP hardliner Recep Peker to the task, who contributed to a polarizing atmosphere in the parliament. İnönü had to act as a mediator several times between Peker and Bayar, who threatened to have the DP walk from parliament if they didn't have some of their demands met, such ensuring judicial review, secret ballots, and public counting for elections.[50] On 12 July 1947 İsmet İnönü gave a speech broadcast on radio and newspapers that he would stand equal distance from the government and opposition, prompting Peker's resignation.

Free and fair national elections had to wait till 1950, and on that occasion İnönü's government was defeated. In the 1950 election campaign, the leading figures of the Democrat Party used the slogan: "Geldi İsmet, kesildi kısmet" ("İsmet arrived, [our] fortune left"). CHP lost the election with 41% of the vote against DP's 55%, but due to the winner-takes-all electoral system, DP received 85% of the seats in parliament. İnönü presided over the peaceful transfer of power to the DP leaders: Bayar and Adnan Menderes. Bayar would serve as Turkey's third president, and Menderes its first prime minister not from the CHP.[50]

• Turkey: Medal of Independence, November 21, 1923[63]