From a middle class, Muslim family came the founding father of today’s modern Turkey. Mustafa Kemal was born in 1881 in the city of Salonika, now located in Greece, but at the time considered to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Exceptional in academics, he received the name Kemal from his mathematics teacher as a teenager, meaning “perfection.” Not only did Kemal excel in academics, in school he also demonstrated diligence and ambition, and most importantly of all, strong drive and leadership qualities. All the while showing his charisma by still being able to form close friendships. Kemal was well respected by both teachers and peers, and continued to be throughout his life. He later became known as Atatürk, meaning “father of the Turks.” Atatürk was an outstanding military officer, as well as Turkey’s first president, serving from 1923 until he died in 1938. As president, he put in place a number of reforms which completely changed and modernized Turkey. These reforms are the basis on which modern …show more content…
The Treaty of Sèvres was signed in August of 1920, after the end of the first World War. This treaty allowed the Allies to divide up Turkey by separating the Arab provinces which were under the Ottoman Empire, the path for Armenia’s independence and Kurdistan’s autonomy was paved, asserted Greek control over a region in the Empire, and of the country’s remains they claimed economic control. To counter this, Mustafa Kemal had formed an independence movement, which wanted to end the partitioning of Turkish areas under foreign occupation. This became known as the Turkish War of Independence. Because of this, the sultan of Istanbul sentenced him to death. However, he still succeeded in gaining support from many. Soviet Russia gave Kemal and his supporters weapons and money, with which they were able to crush the Armenians and force France and Italy to