Mustafa Kamal thought that there was no need for old titles and nobilities, so he abolished the word ' Pasha ' . Every man became Bay, hitherto to a title of some honour, women become Bayan.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a revolutionary who helped establish the Republic of Turkey. He was Turkey's first president, and his reforms modernized the country.
Synopsis
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 in the former Ottoman Empire. As a young man, he was involved with the Young Turks, a revolutionary group that deposed the sultan in 1909. Ataturk led the Turkish War of Independence and signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which made Turkey a republic. He was elected its first president and ushered in reforms that modernized Turkey. He died in 1938.
Early Life
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born simply "Mustafa" in the early months of 1881, in Salonika, in what was then the Ottoman Empire (his birthplace is now known as Thessalonika, in modern-day Greece). When he was 12 years old, Mustafa was sent to the military academy in Istanbul. There, his mathematics teacher gave him the name Kemal—meaning "perfection"—because he excelled in academics. He graduated in 1905.
Military Career
As a young man, Mustafa Kemal became a member of the Young Turks, a revolutionary movement of intellectuals. He participated in the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908, which successfully deposed Sultan Abdülhamid II. From 1909 to 1918, Mustafa Kemal held a number of posts in the Ottoman army. He fought against Italy in the Italo-Turkish War in 1911 and from 1912-1913 he fought in the Balkan Wars. During the second Balkan War he became chief of staff before being posted at the Turkish embassy in Bulgaria. He made a name for himself as the commander of the 19th Division, where his bravery and strategic prowess helped thwart the Allied invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915, and received repeated promotions until the Armistice of Mudros ended the fighting in 1918.