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1 " I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. "
― Andrew Mango , Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey
2 " Sovereignty and kingship are never decided by academic debate. They are seized by force. The Ottoman dynasty appropriated by force the government of the Turks, and reigned over them for six centuries. Now the Turkish nation has effectively gained possession of its sovereignty… This is an accomplished fact… If those assembled here … see the matter in its natural light, we shall all agree. Otherwise, facts will still prevail, but some heads may roll. "
3 " Greatness means that you won’t try and please anyone, that you won’t deceive anyone, that you will discern the true ideal for the country, that you will strive for it, that everyone will turn against you and will try to make you change your course. You will have no means to resist. They will pile up endless obstacles in your path and you will surmount them, knowing all the time that you are not great, but little, weak, resourceless, a mere nothing, and that no one will come to your aid. And if after that they call you great, you’ll laugh at them.65 "
4 " Harbord and his mission arrived in Sivas on 20 September. They were told by Mustafa Kemal that Turkey realized that it needed the aid of an impartial foreign country. ‘After all our experience we are sure that America is the only country able to help us,’ Mustafa Kemal acknowledged in a statement on 15 October. "
5 " After visiting the Krupp factories, the Turkish party spent ten days in Berlin, where Vahdettin told a German journalist that women had begun to work in public in Turkey, and that although progress was slow, ‘we are making the effort to give equal rights to our women’.88 Mustafa Kemal was not alone in favouring women’s emancipation in the Ottoman state. "
6 " Another lesson, which Mustafa Kemal was to remember vividly, was given by Lieutenant-Colonel Nuri. It concerned guerrilla warfare, a subject made topical by risings in the Ottoman state. ‘It is difficult to wage guerrilla war,’ Nuri declared, ‘but it is equally difficult to suppress it.’ He set the students a task based on a rising on the outskirts of the capital, saying, ‘In practical work one must aim at maximum verisimilitude. A rising can come from inside, as well as outside.’ It was a daring suggestion, which drew from Mustafa Kemal the question: ‘Can such guerrilla war come to pass?’ ‘It may,’ replied Nuri; ‘but enough said.’40 "
7 " The assembly expressed its Islamic feelings on 14 September when it passed a law prohibiting alcohol. This did not stop Mustafa Kemal from obtaining his regular supply of raki. "
8 " As for Mustafa Kemal, he was to tell the English journalist Grace Ellison in 1923: ‘I don’t like Napoleon at all. He intruded his person into everything. He fought not for a cause, but for himself. That’s why he came to a bad end. It’s inevitable for such people.’45 "
9 " Mustafa Kemal was convinced, and ordered that the theory should be taught at the new university in Ankara. He told a young French financial expert, Hervé Alphand, that his name was Turkish as it comprised the words alp (champion) and han (or khan, a ruler). In confirmation, Mustafa Kemal felt Alphand’s skull: it was, he decided, brachycephalic, the characteristic skull-shape of the Turkish race.11 "
10 " The new secular republic reflected Mustafa Kemal’s personal philosophy. In a book published in 1928, Grace Ellison quotes him as saying to her, presumably in 1926–7: I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow-men.31 Yet, like many rationalists, Mustafa Kemal was himself superstitious and sought omens in dreams.32 When he inspected the front in March 1922, during the War of Independence, he had portions of the Koran recited during evening gatherings with commanders.33 But now he was out of the wood. "
