Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/194

 manner and appearance as if he had just stepped out of a drawing room.

Under Mustapha Kemal Pasha, Fevzi Pasha and Rafet Pasha ruled Anatolia for the Nationalists, their authority reaching down into the provinces through military governors whom they assigned to the more critical provincial capitals. Kiazim Karabekr Pasha who held the eastern provinces from Erzerum, ought to be mentioned with them. It had been easy enough to take over Anatolia from the Damad Ferid Government, for the Greek occupation of Smyrna undermined Ferid's hold on the country at a stroke, but to hold Anatolia against Ferid's efforts to recover it was quite another matter. Fevzi, Rafet and Kiazim were the men who held it, and whatever traditions of personal advantage they inherited from the old Ottoman Government, their personal ambitions were sunk in the common cause of defending the remnant of the country. I believe firmly that this statement holds true of Kemal as well. My impression of him is that he would have joined one of his own labor battalions and dug roads behind his own Army if he thought that by so doing he would be able more effectively to contribute to his country's defense.

These men constituted a small handful of modern Westerners in control of a vast mediaeval Eastern country, but their task was simplified by the comparative absence of the Levantinism which had poisoned Constantinople. Such as their country was, it was as homogeneous as any between Vienna and Bagdad. There were Turks, Kurds, Circassians, Turcomans, Tartars and Laz in the country, a few remaining Armenians in the interior, an increas