The Earthquake, Initiative and Mustafa Kemal

When the First World War broke out, Mustafa Kemal, then serving as military attaché in Sofia, applied to take an active part in the war and received the reply “stay where you are”. In his second letter to Enver Pasha, then Deputy Commander-in-Chief, he insisted: “There can be no duty more important and higher than active duties in defence of the homeland. While my comrades are on the battlefronts, on the firing lines, I cannot serve as a military attaché in Sofia!” As a result of this insistence, he took part in the Battle of Çanakkale (Gallipoli) as commander of the 19th Division.

As a true soldier and commander, Atatürk, still only a lieutenant colonel, used every means at his disposal to be wherever he would be most useful to his homeland and nation at the right place and time, and he was present at the Battle of Çanakkale, where he would change the ill fate of a nation.

On the morning of 25 April 1915, when the Entente forces began landing on the Gallipoli peninsula, Atatürk followed the overall situation very closely, “took the initiative” and, without waiting for orders, threw himself at the enemy with the 57th Regiment of the 19th Division under his command. For it was a moment for instant decisions; every passing second was precious, and every metre the enemy advanced on our soil could soon lead to a great catastrophe. In that first state of fear and panic, in the turmoil when the enemy was at its strongest and freshest, he stopped the soldiers who were retreating at Conkbayırı (Chunuk Bair), had them fix bayonets and lie down, and from a routed unit established a new line of defence there.

When the enemy saw the Turkish forces regrouped and in position before them, they stopped their pursuit and tried to make sense of the situation, while the units of the 57th Regiment, which Atatürk had readied in that area in just two hours, drove back the enemy at the cost of heavy losses and halted the advance of the Entente forces. In his later memoirs of the Battle of Çanakkale, Atatürk would say of this event: “This is the moment we won the war!”   

Turkey’s War with Earthquakes and the Sorry State of Those Who Govern the Country

Yes, this is why preparing plans in advance and taking quick decisions in sudden situations are so important in war and large-scale disasters. Because even short delays in decisions produce very large deviations in outcomes. Had Atatürk not taken a regiment from his division and cut off the enemy within two hours, had he stayed where he was simply because no order had come and thought of stopping the enemy there, it could have been the start of events leading to the loss of this war.

Although we are not at war with guns and rifles these days, our war with earthquakes in this land that is our homeland is nothing new. The state must therefore have institutions and plans to fight disasters. The managers who run these institutions are also obliged, when the time and place come, to automatically take the steps they have rehearsed in advance. For it is precisely for this that the nation keeps those institutions standing with the taxes it pays by scrimping and saving. Naturally, at their most difficult moments citizens ask the question that is their most natural right: “Where is the state?”

The question most debated in public in recent days is: “What happened in the first 48 hours of the earthquake, and why in particular did the Turkish Armed Forces not take to the field?” Those obliged to answer this question continue to remain silent and act as if nothing had happened and they had done their duty properly. While Erdoğan is busy insulting the nation and holding out for one more year’s grace, Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu and Defence Minister Hulusi Akar have set about saving the situation with statements meant to clear themselves. In a catastrophe like this, in which, according to official figures, nearly 50,000 of our people lost their lives, not a single state official resigned. Far from resigning, Erdoğan, who runs the country holding all powers in his hands, rains insults on his citizens in front of the cameras instead of apologising to them.

Atatürk Must Be Ashamed of You…

The questions turning over in my head, whose answers I am curious about, are quite different…

What has happened to the Turkish Armed Forces?

How was our army, which stands by its nation in situations like this, brought to this state?

Erdoğan may be preoccupied with the election and those around him with keeping their positions, quietly feuding with one another. They may also be taking the steps they take not because they benefit the homeland and the nation but when they see them as suitable for their own futures. One would wish the country were governed not by the orders of a single man but by meritorious leaders freely using the powers the constitution gives them under the roof of democratic institutions, but this may not be possible at present.

In this great army, the “Hearth of the Prophet”, was there not a single commander who would sacrifice everything and, at the risk of being dismissed, take his unit and rush to the earthquake zone without waiting for anyone’s orders, as Atatürk did at Çanakkale?

All you commanders who were not by your nation’s side at such a moment and could not move out of your units!

Shame on you all!

Had you dispatched your units to the earthquake zone at the first moment, in spite of Hulusi Akar and in spite of Erdoğan, had you set off urgently at the head of your forces, near or far, and rushed to help the citizens under the rubble, this nation would have embraced you and let no one harm you…

Because you could not show this courage, we lost more of our people in a single night than we lost in thirty years of the fight against terrorism…

Perhaps thousands of our people who could have been saved died of cold or because the response came too late…

Atatürk, who left his post as attaché in Sofia with the rank of lieutenant colonel to rush to the front line of the war and changed the fate of the war by throwing himself into Conkbayırı with a force the size of a regiment, must be ashamed of you!

This state was founded by brave people who, when necessary, took the greatest risks and could sacrifice their lives for their homeland, and it can only be raised up again by people of that same quality…