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Mustafa İsmet İnönü (
September 24 1884 –
December 25,
1973) was a
Turkish Brigadier General, statesman and the second
President of the Republic of Turkey.
He was born in
İzmir to a mixed
Bulgarian-Turkish and
Kurdish family originally from
Malatya. His father was Hacı Reşid Bey, a member of the Ottoman bureaucracy, an examining magistrate born in
Malatya, and his mother was Cevriye Hanım, daughter of
Russo-Turkish War refugees from
Bulgaria. Due to his father's assignments, the family moved from one city to another. Thus, İsmet İnönü completed his primary education in
Sivas. His son,
Erdal İnönü, was a
Wigner medal winner mathematical physicist and a former deputy prime minister of Turkey, as well as the former leader of the
Social Democracy Party and the
Social Democratic Populist Party, and the honorary leader of the
Social Democratic People's Party.
Early military career
İnönü graduated from the
Military Academy in
1903 and received his first military assignment in the
Ottoman army. He joined the Committee of Union and Progress. He won his first military victories by suppressing two major revolts against the struggling
Ottoman Empire, first in
Rumelia and later in
Yemen, whose leader was
Yahya Muhammad Hamid ed-Din. He served as a military officer during the
Balkan Wars on the Ottoman-Bulgarian front. During
World War I, he served as a
miralay (
colonel) on the Ottoman eastern front in
Syria, and was later appointed as the commander of the western fronts. He worked together with
Mustafa Kemal Pasha during his assignment at the
Caucasus front.
Independence war
After losing the
Battle of Megiddo against General
Edmund Allenby during the last days of World War I, he went to
Anatolia to join the Turkish nationalist movement and was appointed the commander of the Turkish Western Army, a position in which he remained during the
Turkish War of Independence. He was promoted to brigadier general after the "
Battles of İnönü", in which he successfully defeated the
Greek Army in western Anatolia. During the
Turkish War of Independence he was also a member of the
Turkish Grand National Assembly in
Ankara.
İnönü changed careers when he was appointed the chief negotiator of the Turkish delegation at the
Treaty of Lausanne. He became famous for his resolve and stubbornness in defending Turkey's demands while conceding very little to the other side at the negotiating table, causing the peace conference to last longer than expected. Partially deaf, İnönü simply turned off his hearing aid when the British foreign secretary,
Lord Curzon, launched into lengthy speeches opposing Turkish demands for recognition of the national pact, and then would restate the Turkish position as if the British foreign secretary hadn't said a thing.
Political career
İnönü later served as the
Prime Minister of Turkey for several terms, maintaining the system that Atatürk had put in place. He acted after every major crisis (such as the rebellion of
Sheikh Said or the attempted assassination of
Atatürk in İzmir) to restore peace in the country. He successfully managed the economy, especially after the 1929 economic crisis, 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, resembling now-defunct Soviet Union. Desiring a more liberal economic system, Atatürk fired Inönü from the government in 1937 and appointed
Celal Bayar, the founder of the first Turkish bank
Türkiye İş Bankası as Prime Minister.
National Chief period
After the death of
Atatürk, Inönü was viewed as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him, and was elected the second
President of the
Republic of Turkey. Inönü was responsible for a 1942 "wealth" tax that was specifically designed to target minorities, minted his face on coins, stamps and banknotes, made the posting of his picture in schools and government offices obligatory, and enjoyed the official title of "Milli Sef", for example "National Chief".
World War II broke out in the first year of his presidency, and both the
Allies and the
Axis pressured Inönü to bring Turkey into the war on their side. The Germans sent
Franz von Papen to
Ankara, while
Winston Churchill secretly met with Inönü inside a train wagon near
Adana on
January 30,
1943. Inönü later met with
Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill at the
Second Cairo Conference on December 4-6, 1943. Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill 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. Inönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during 11 years of incessant war between 1911 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. Inönü also 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. The fear of Soviet invasion and
Stalin's unconcealed desire to control the Turkish Straits eventually caused Turkey to give up its principle of neutrality in foreign relations and join
NATO in
1952.
It may be that Inönü's greatest political achievement was keeping his country out of
World War II until February
1945, when
Turkey entered the war on the side of the
Allies against
Germany and
Japan.
Multi party period
Under international pressure to transform the country to a democratic state, Inönü resided over the infamous 1946 elections, in which votes were cast in the open with onlookers (most probably secret police) able to observe to which party the voters had cast their votes and ballots were tallied behind closed doors by only his own party's officials. In
1950, his party lost the first free elections in Turkish history, and Inönü presided over the peaceful transfer of power to the
Democratic Party of
Adnan Menderes. İnönü served for ten years as the
leader of the opposition before returning to power as Prime Minister after the 1961 elections, held after the military coup-d'etat in 1960 in which he allegedly conspired. Although the opposition was imprisoned during the 1961 elections, he still didn't win a majority and had to form coalition governments until the 1965 elections. He lost both the 1965 and 1969 general elections to
Süleyman Demirel and then in 1972 he lost his party's leadership race to
Bülent Ecevit.
Ismet Inönü was by the standards of his time a highly educated man, speaking
Arabic,
English,
French and
German.
İnönü died in
1973. He was interred next to Atatürk's mausoleum at
Anıtkabir in
Ankara.
Legacy
A university in
Malatya is named after İnönü, as is a
stadium in
Istanbul, home of the
Beşiktaş football club.
Trivia
For more than half of his life, İsmet İnönü was known as
İsmet Pasha. He changed his name in the early 1930s when Atatürk decreed that all his countrymen had to have surnames. İsmet Pasha decided to take "
İnönü", from the Central Anatolian town where he commanded his greatest battles as a general, known as the
First Battle of İnönü and
Second Battle of İnönü, which played an important role in the Turkish victory at the
Turkish War of Independence.
Media
Image:AtaturkAndIsmetInonuAugust1922.jpg|Generals Mustafa Kemal and İsmet İnönü before the Battle of Dumlupınar, August 1922
Image:Roosevelt_Inonu_Churchill.jpg|Roosevelt, Inönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on December 4-6, 1943
Image:ChurchillandInonu.jpg|Welcoming Winston Churchill to Turkey
Image:IsmetandMevhibeInonu.jpg|With his wife Mevhibe İnönü, after dancing for the first time in his life, on his birthday, 24 September 1966
- (The sound file of the message by President İsmet İnönü on Kemal Atatürk, November 10, 1963)
- (The Text of the message by President İsmet İnönü on Atatürk)
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