İsmet İnönü

For other uses, see İnönü.

İsmet İnönü
2nd President of Turkey
In office 11 November 1938 – 22 May 1950
Preceded by	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Succeeded by	Celal Bayar
Prime Minister of Turkey
In office 1923 – 1924 1925 – 1937 1961 – 1965
Preceded by	Rauf Orbay, Ali Fethi Okyar
Succeeded by	Ali Fethi Okyar, Celal Bayar, Suat Hayri Urguplu
Leader of the Republican People's Party
In office 1938–1972
Preceded by	Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Succeeded by	Bülent Ecevit
Chief of the General Staff of Turkey
In office 1920–1921
Succeeded by	Fevzi Çakmak
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey
In office 1922–1924
Preceded by	Yusuf Kemal Tengirşenk
Succeeded by	Şükrü Kaya
Personal details
Born	(1884-09-24)24 September 1884 İzmir, Turkey
Died	25 December 1973(1973-12-25) (aged 89) Ankara, Turkey
Resting place	Anıtkabir Ankara, Turkey
Political party	Republican People's Party
Spouse	Mevhibe İnönü
Signature

Mustafa İsmet İnönü (24 September 1884 – 25 December 1973) was a Turkish Army General, Prime Minister and the second President of Turkey. In 1938, the Republican People's Party gave him the title of "Milli Şef" (National Chief).

Family and early life

He was born in İzmir to a family originally from Malatya with Kurdish heritage. 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.

For more than half his life, İsmet İnönü was known as İsmet Pasha. He changed his name in the early 1930s when President Atatürk decreed that all his countrymen had to have surnames. İsmet Pasha decided to take as his surname "İnönü", from the Central Anatolian town where he commanded the Turkish forces in his greatest battles as a general, known as the First Battle of İnönü and Second Battle of İnönü, victories which played an important role in the Turkish War of Independence.

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 as gunnery officer, 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) and worked under Mustafa Kemal Pasha during his assignments at the Caucasus and Palestine fronts.

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 spring 1921. During the Turkish War of Independence he was also a member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara.

Battle of Sakarya at Duatepe observation hill. İsmet İnönü with Fevzi Çakmak, Kazım Özalp, Mustafa Kemal and Hayrullah Fişek, 10 September 1921

İnönü was replaced by Fevzi Paşa, who was also the Prime Minister and Minister of Defense at the time, as the Chief of Staff of the Turkish Army after the Turkish army lost a major battle against the advancing Greek Army in July 1921, as a result of which the cities Afyon, Kütahya and Eskişehir were lost. He participated as a staff officer at the later battles and at the end of this Turkish War of Independence, he was appointed as the chief negotiator of the Turkish delegation both at the Armistice of Mudanya and 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 had not 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 tried to manage the economy with heavy-handed government intervention, 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 the now-defunct Soviet Union. Desiring a more liberal economic system, Atatürk forced İnönü to resign from the Prime Ministry and appointed Celal Bayar, the founder of the first Turkish commercial bank Türkiye İş Bankası, as Prime Minister.

"National Chief" period

File:Churchill Inonu.jpg

Churchill secretly meets with İnönü inside a train wagon at the Yenice Station 23 kilometers outside of Adana, Turkey, on January 30, 1943

After the death of Atatürk, İnönü was viewed as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him, and was elected the second President of the Republic of Turkey and enjoyed the official title of "Milli Şef", i.e. "National Chief".

World War II broke out in the first year of his presidency, and both the Allies and the Axis pressured İnönü to bring Turkey into the war on their side. The Germans sent Franz von Papen to Ankara, while Winston Churchill secretly met with İnönü inside a train wagon near Adana on January 30, 1943. İnönü 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. İnönü knew very well the hardships which his country had suffered during decades of incessant war between 1908 and 1922 and was determined to keep Turkey out of another war as long as he could. The young Turkish Republic was still re-building, recovering from the losses due to earlier wars, and lacked any modern weapons and the infrastructure to enter a war to be fought along and possibly within its borders. İnönü 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.

Starting in 1933 İnönü was greatly responsible for inviting over 190 eminent intellectuals who were at great risk in their native Germany and Austria. With families that program saved over 1000 souls from extinction. Among them was the father of nanotechnoogy Arthur von Hippel; Erich Auerbach who penned the Mimesis while in Turkey; Benno Landsberger and Hans G. Guterbock who post-war made the University of Chicago's [Oriental Institute]] world class.

Multi party period

İnönü's tomb at Anıtkabir

Under international pressure to transform the country to a democratic state, İnönü presided 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 İnönü presided over the peaceful transfer of power to the Democratic Party of Celal Bayar and Adnan Menderes. İnönü served for ten years as the leader of the opposition before returning to power as Prime Minister after the 1961 election, 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 did not 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.

İsmet İnönü was by the standards of his time a highly educated man, speaking Arabic, English, French and German in addition to his native Turkish.

İnönü died in 1973. He was interred opposite to Atatürk's mausoleum at Anıtkabir in Ankara and a massive tomb was constructed there.

Legacy

İnönü University in Malatya is named after him, as is a stadium in Istanbul, home of the Beşiktaş soccer club.

Media

• Field Marshal Mustafa Kemal and Brigadier General İsmet İnönü before the Battle of Dumlupınar, August 1922
  Field Marshal Mustafa Kemal and Brigadier General İsmet İnönü before the Battle of Dumlupınar, August 1922
• 
  Roosevelt, İsmet İnönü and Churchill at the Second Cairo Conference on December 4-6, 1943
• Welcoming Winston Churchill to Adana, Turkey in January 1943
  Welcoming Winston Churchill to Adana, Turkey in January 1943
• With his wife Mevhibe İnönü, after dancing for the first time in his life, on his birthday, 24 September 1966
  With his wife Mevhibe İnönü, after dancing for the first time in his life, on his birthday, 24 September 1966

• File:IsmetInonu1963.ogg (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)

See also

• Pembe Köşk - Private home from 1925 to 1973
• Çankaya Köşkü - The Presidency of the Republic of Turkey