#33: Ataturk offers a ride (1919)
In June, 1919, the British decided to withdraw their soldiers,
several score in number, from Merzifon but they were kind enough
to send Colonel Anderson from Headquarters in Constantinople to
inform us of their decision. The message produced consternation
in our group. It was felt that such British withdrawal would lead
to serious disturbances in our city and region and my associates
requested me to make a special trip to Constantinople to secure
a reversal of the British military order if possible. A small
British detachment had been overpowered by a brigand band on
our road to Samsoun and had surrendered a few days before, and
Colonel Anderson and the Captain commanding the detachment in
Merzifon took 28 Hindoo soldiers as a guard, with a full supply
of bandages and weapons, including a machine gun or two, and
we set out, with three Near East Relief trucks for transport.
Before we reached Cavsa, 18 miles away, our watering place with
its famous hot spring, we came to a small stream, the bridge over
which was broken down, while the swollen waters were too deep for
the trucks to ford. So we left the soldiers and equipment to camp
there over night, and I walked with the two British officers into
the town. An odd situation for a mere missionary and American
College educator in a foreign field!
A Turkish general by the name of Mustapha Kemal Pasha, whose name
was little known then but was to become famous afterward, was
stopping in Cavsa just then, and we three men called on him that
June evening. We understood that he might have been taken by the
British in Constantinople and sent to Malta like many others, but
he had slipped through their fingers, escaped into the interior,
and was trying to start a new movement. The British officers
conversed with him in French, and I in Turkish. Turkish military
officers had visited and called on me almost daily along the years
and I knew them as a class quite intimately. He offered us the use
of his automobile for our trip to Samsoun the next day and my
companion Britishers accepted his courtesy. Their comments
afterward on Mustapha Kemal Pasha, later to become the "Ghazi",
the "Conqueror", and Ataturk, on his intended enterprise, and
the whole situation in Turkey were exceedingly interesting. That
was the only occasion when I met the strong commander, who then
hardly seemed to have even one soldier in his service. The facts
and the prospects were not realized until long afterwards.
However, the next morning at sunrise I saw a band of about
twenty horsemen come riding into town at a smart gallop with
a well-set-up young officer at their head, and I naturally
suspected some Christian village had been raided during the
night, though there was no avowed "war" then.
NEXT: Hostile supervision
(1920-1921)
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