İsmet Paşa

President of the Turkish Republic (1938-1950)

• Born: September 24, 1884
• Birthplace: Smyrna (now İzmir), Ottoman Empire (now Turkey)
• Died: December 25, 1973
• Place of death: Ankara, Turkey

As the first prime minister of the Turkish Republic and as its second president, İsmet Paşa worked to maintain his nation’s neutrality in international affairs, oversaw its transformation into a modernized state, and helped form Turkey’s multiparty political system.

Early Life

İsmet Paşa (ihs-MEHT pah-SHAH) was born into a middle-class family in Smyrna (now İzmir). From an early age, his education was directed toward entering the military, which was a key vehicle for social advancement during the waning years of the Ottoman Empire. İsmet graduated from the Ottoman Army Staff College in 1906. As a junior officer posted with the Second Army in the European Turkish city of Adrianople, İsmet Paşa became one of the youngest members of a group of junior military officers determined to revitalize the decaying Ottoman realm. When some of them took power in 1908 as the Young Turks, İsmet Paşa became more politically conscious.

İsmet Paşa began to develop strategic friendships with his fellow young officers, particularly the charismatic Atatürk, who was to be İsmet Paşa’s close friend all his life. İsmet Paşa and Atatürk admired the principles of the Young Turk regime but felt that the new leaders were not fully committed to rapid modernization. Thus the two friends were regarded with growing suspicion by the regime. Nonetheless, İsmet Paşa rose through the ranks. He served in the Ottoman army during World War I, helped suppress an Arab revolt in Yemen (where, incongruously, he discovered the delights of Western classical music and glimpsed for the first time the European way of life), and fought in the Caucasus Mountains, where, as chief of staff to Atatürk, he forged a close working relationship with his comrade. İsmet Paşa, whose stability, humorous and compassionate temperament, and mastery of detail were the natural complement to Atatürk’s mercurial temperament and visionary talent, emerged as the perfect second-in-command. He was then assigned to command an army corps in Syria, where he was again working under Atatürk, who shared his resentment of Turkey’s German allies. By the time the war ended in a humiliating defeat for Turkey in 1918, İsmet Paşa had been raised to the rank of colonel and was stationed in the war ministry. Appalled by the inaction of the sultan’s government when Turkey was threatened with complete dismemberment by the victorious Allies, in late 1919 İsmet Paşa left Constantinople (now Istanbul) for the Anatolian heartland to join Atatürk in his struggle of national resistance.

Life’s Work

İsmet Paşa soon arrived in Ankara, the seat of the resistance. His intelligence and good sense were badly needed in January, 1921, because the Greek army, allowed a more or less free hand by the Allies occupying Constantinople, were advancing rapidly into Anatolia. Commanding a hastily recruited group of soldiers, İsmet Paşa managed to hold off the Greeks at the town of İnönü (from which he later derived his surname). This victory gave the Turkish forces both internal confidence and credibility in the eyes of foreign powers, who henceforth treated the nationalist movement with more respect. Undaunted, the Greeks again attempted to pass through İnönü in late March of 1921. Once again, İsmet Paşa stymied them, partially through wise management of reserve personnel. Some observers felt, though, that his role in the battle was overplayed for propagandistic reasons. İsmet Paşa continued to play a major role in the remainder of the war, in which Atatürk’s forces eventually triumphed, establishing a nationalist Turkish regime whose borders were acknowledged in the Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923. During treaty negotiations, İsmet Paşa was the chief of the Turkish delegation.

Atatürk inevitably became president of the new state, and İsmet Paşa became prime minister. Despite the republican character of the constitution, the new Turkey was an authoritarian regime where there was only one party, the Republican People’s Party (Cumhuriyetçi Halk Partisi, or CHP). Opposition was only intermittent and was never allowed to coalesce. Other than a brief dismissal in 1924 for political reasons, İsmet Paşa served as prime minister through most of Atatürk’s presidency. The new regime introduced massive changes in Turkey. Islamic law yielded to European civil codes, the Arabic alphabet gave way to the Latin, and the Turks were encouraged to adopt Western-style manners, mores, and even surnames. (Atatürk took his name at this time, which means “father of the Turks”; İsmet Paşa took the surname İnönü, after the place of his triumphs.) İsmet Paşa took an energetic role in propagating the new social model by personally conducting classes in the new alphabet in the city of Malatya, where, with blackboard and chalk, he taught the common people how to write a language whose expression was finally made accessible to them.

Ironically, İsmet Paşa and Atatürk, close friends for so many years, had a falling out shortly before Atatürk’s death in 1938. During a meeting, İsmet Paşa had called attention to Atatürk’s alcoholism in a rather brusque manner and had also evinced disagreements over economic and military policy. Nonetheless, shortly before his death Atatürk designated İsmet Paşa as his successor because he realized that no one else was willing or competent to carry on his legacy. İsmet Paşa was elected president, as well as head of the CHP, which enabled him to be the sole ruler of Turkey. İsmet Paşa’s administration was the political continuation of Atatürk’s, with the same stress on nationalism, modernization, and centralized control of the economy; if anything, İsmet Paşa was more of a state-oriented planner than his predecessor. He also exercised firm control over the press and over public discussion of political issues.

Like John Adams when compared to George Washington, his predecessor as president of the United States, İsmet Paşa never managed to transcend partisan divisions and serve as a symbol of the nation’s unity in the manner achieved by Atatürk. The potential for political factionalism in Turkey, however, was quelled by the swift approach of World War II. The Turkish military felt that they had been betrayed by German promises into entering World War I to the severe detriment of their nation and were determined not to ally with Germany or any other nation in the upcoming conflict. Turkey thus professed a strict neutrality at the outbreak of the war, although it was most afraid of Italy and the Soviet Union. Turkey was of value to both sides not only because of its size, population, and strategic position straddling Europe and Asia but also because of its large reserve of natural resources such as chrome and other minerals. As a neutral country, Turkey became a hotbed of spies, agents, and refugees, including some Jews seeking harbor from Nazi persecution.

İsmet Paşa’s policy of neutrality did not preclude an ongoing dialogue with Great Britain, particularly after Winston Churchill became prime minister. Churchill, once an adversary of Atatürk, had become an admirer of his in the 1920’s and spent much time trying to persuade İsmet Paşa to actively enter the war on the Allied side. While teasing Churchill and the Allies with ambiguous pledges to enter the war at some later date, İsmet Paşa refrained from actually doing so, partially because his protests about the Turkish army being unprepared for war were mostly true and partially because İsmet Paşa felt that Turkey’s interests were best served by staying out of the war as long as possible. After Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, there was some fear among the Allies that Turkey would join Germany to avenge itself on its Russian enemy. These rumors were lent corroboration when Turkey sold chrome to Germany in 1942 and when İsmet Paşa’s foreign minister, Numan Menemencioglu, seemed to evince pro-German sentiments. In 1944, however, when the war began to go against Germany, economic ties with Germany were severed and Menemencioglu was dismissed. İsmet Paşa formally entered the war against Germany in 1945 so Turkey could be a founding member of the United Nations and because Paşa desired British and American military support against Germany and the Soviet Union, against which Turkey finally sought protection as a member of the American-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

İsmet Paşa realized that one-party rule was no longer tenable. His wartime economic measures (especially increased taxes and inflation) had made him unpopular, and İsmet Paşa judged that Turkey was finally mature enough to have an opposition party. In 1946, the Democrat Party, led by Adnan Menderes and Atatürk’s former financial adviser Celal Bayar, was founded and quickly became popular. To maintain his political position, İsmet Paşa announced in 1947 that as president he was not a partisan figure and thus tried to dissociate himself from the CHP. İsmet Paşa also tried to regain popularity by relaxing restrictions on Islam (imposed by Atatürk to try to engender a secular national unity) and permitting labor unions to function freely for the first time in modern Turkey. However, these concessions were not enough to prevent İsmet Paşa from being turned out of office in May, 1950. Some of İsmet Paşa’s military officers wanted the president to agree to an army coup to stay in control, but İsmet Paşa refused and acceded to a democratic turnover of power to the opposition.

İsmet Paşa led the CHP in opposition for ten years, occasionally feeling the bite of the other party’s control, as when his son-in-law, Metin Toker, was arrested in 1955 and when his partisans were harassed. İsmet Paşa, increasingly concerned that the Democrats were jeopardizing the secular legacy of Atatürk by giving too much leeway to Islamic influences, acceded to the military coup that overthrew the Democrats in 1960. In the ensuing 1961 elections, İsmet Paşa’s CHP won a narrow victory but was able to secure a consensus by İsmet Paşa’s pledge not to be vindictive to his former opponents, a pledge that had the individual impact of sparing the life of Bayar, his old adversary and comrade, who would have been executed if not for a reprieve granted him by İsmet Paşa.

Significance

Though nearing eighty, İsmet Paşa served as prime minister in several CHP governments during the 1960’s, providing a striking example of continuity and infusing the spirit of modern Turkey’s founding and of Atatürk himself into its latter-day administrations. After friction broke out between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus in 1964, İsmet Paşa tried to distance Turkey from an exclusive reliance on U.S. support in foreign affairs, seeking out relationships with a diverse group of other nations. By this point, the CHP, always statist in economic terms, had become a doctrinally left-wing party, and İsmet Paşa was increasingly giving way as its most prominent figure to the young Bülent Ecevit. The final break between İsmet Paşa and Ecevit occurred when İsmet Paşa allowed some CHP ministers to serve in a government established after another, more informal, military coup in 1971. Ecevit protested and wrested control of the CHP from İsmet Paşa at the 1972 party convention. İsmet Paşa, nearing ninety by this time, resigned from the CHP and accepted a nonpartisan appointment in the Turkish senate.

İsmet Paşa died in December, 1973, having played a distinguished role in his country’s public life for more than sixty years. His son Erdal, educated as a nuclear physicist, entered into Turkish politics and remained prominent through the 1990’s.

Bibliography

Deringil, Selim. Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An “Active” Neutrality. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Good account of the foreign policy of İsmet Paşa’s presidency from the viewpoint of diplomatic history.

Kinross, Lord (Patrick Balfour). Atatürk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey. New York: Morrow, 1964. This definitive and stylishly written biography of Atatürk sheds light on İsmet Paşa’s role in the war for independence as well as his complex relationship with Atatürk. The author was a friend of İsmet Paşa and interviewed him for the book.

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. 3d ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. This survey, easily available and updated, essentially sees Atatürk and İsmet Paşa as Westernizers and modernizers.

Pope, Hugh, and Nicole Pope. Turkey Unveiled: Atatürk and After. London: John Murray, 1997. An unusually thorough and comprehensive history of twentieth century Turkey written in a literate and topical style. Covers İsmet Paşa’s wartime and presidential years, his motives in maintaining neutrality during World War II, as well as his postpresidential years, including relations with allies and adversaries such as Bülent Ecevit and Celal Beyar. The best book for the beginning student seeking a general survey.

Rubin, Barry. Istanbul Intrigues: Espionage, Sabotage, and Diplomatic Treachery in the Spy Capital of World War II. New York: Pharas, 1992. An evocative and informative survey of Turkey during World War II. Considers İsmet Paşa’s inclinations as essentially pro-Allies.

VanderLippe, John M. The Politics of Turkish Democracy: İsmet İnönü and the Formation of the Multi-Party System, 1938-1950. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005. VanderLippe examines Turkish politics during İsmet Paşa’s presidency to explain how İsmet Paşa played a key role in his nation’s transition to a multiparty political system.

Zürcher, Erik. Turkey: A Modern History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993. This responsible but sometimes inaccessibly written survey places İsmet Paşa’s career within an ideological context usually scanted by other historians. Available as a 2004 e-book.