From the Ottoman Chamber of Deputies, which bore the name of the dynasty, to the Grand National Assembly of Turkey

Journalist-Author Adnan YILMAZ 

The situation of the last Ottoman Sultan, Vahdettin, exhibited a state similar to the Seljuk Sultanate in Konya, which lost all its prestige and became destitute following the Mongol invasion of 1243, as the Mongols took control of the administration, turned them into subjects, and used them as a convenient tool for the financial exploitation of Anatolia. 

This process is so similar to the process where the puppet Konya Seljuk Sultanate collapsed and wore out under the Mongol invasion, and in the landscape of Anatolia being fragmented by various regional states, the spirit of 'gaza' (holy war) revived in Anatolia, and the distressed Turkmens migrated to the frontiers and gave strength to the Ottoman Principality…

  Despite the situation of the last sultan, who was reduced to a puppet in occupied Istanbul; those who came from Istanbul and the people of Anatolia created a new type of Turkish State through a life-or-death National War of Independence around the "sacred rebellion" ignited by Mustafa Kemal. 

According to Vahdettin, Turkey could not expect help from England unless Mustafa Kemal and his companions were punished. 

Throughout the war years, a portion of the clergy and the Sharia supporters were in Istanbul under the Caliph, and another portion was under the orders of the British and the Greeks. As soon as the vast empire and the state collapsed, they raised their voices, first bringing up issues of "women and veiling" and "Sharia Courts," and even a cleric deputy in the TBMM (Grand National Assembly of Turkey) left for his hometown after taking the podium the moment the "Law of Fundamental Organization" mentioned the Grand National Assembly making laws, saying, "I cannot remain a member of an assembly that claims to make laws while the book of God exists." During the debate on the "Law on the Prohibition of Intoxicants," two clerics opened the window of the assembly facing the street and shouted at the top of their lungs, "O community of Muhammad, the religion is being lost." 

Under the roof of the Assembly, all such reactionary rhetoric converged with the provocations of the Istanbul palace government, and in the midst of the resistance being organized with all its might on the western front against the Greek occupation, there was a struggle against reactionary internal rebellions where religion was used as a tool in the name of loyalty to the Caliph and the Sultan.

Despite the widespread belief in Anatolia of loyalty to the Sultan and the Caliph—and furthermore, that one could not oppose them—and their hostile attitude, Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his friends were viewed not just with interest and affection, but as saviors during the 5 days they spent in Kırşehir between December 21–26, 1919. Indeed, knowing this, Mustafa Kemal Pasha, in his speech at the Youth Association in Kırşehir, which left a mark on history, made an overt reference to the Sultan, the Caliphate, and their Istanbul government, saying: "Respect for one's elders is a good moral trait. However, time, events, and experience have shown that the nation itself must be expert and thoughtful. It is necessary not to leave it to others in any form or capacity; if one does, the result of today is produced." 

Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who told the people of Kırşehir on December 24, 1919, 3 days before coming to Ankara, "We will not go to Istanbul. Anatolia is the greatest treasure. We will try to find and secure the means of salvation in the bosom of the homeland together until we die," was never lured into the trap of being pulled to Istanbul to surrender.

When Mustafa Kemal arrived in Ankara, occupation activities were developing rapidly; the Greeks were advancing in the Aegean and the French in the Southeast. Things were getting tougher. Moreover, the problem was not just with the enemy; Damat Ferit, in cooperation with the British, sentenced Mustafa Kemal and his friends to death. On May 24, 1920, Sultan Vahdettin approved this verdict.

The gathering of the last Ottoman Parliament in occupied Istanbul, rather than in Anatolia or Ankara, was in a sense a trap prepared for the Kemalists. The British thought they could lure the Kemalists, whom they could not catch in Anatolia, to Istanbul and capture them all at once, and they succeeded to some extent. When the nationalist deputies elected from Anatolia gathered in the Istanbul Chamber of Deputies, they fell right into the British net. 

Indeed, when Istanbul was occupied on March 16, 1920, some of Mustafa Kemal's close friends among the deputies were arrested as the British police stood at the door of the Parliament, and in the following days, Kemalists were hunted down one by one in Istanbul; those exiled to Malta in 1920 were primarily names close to Mustafa Kemal. 

The nationalist "manhunt" in Istanbul fueled the crossings to Anatolia. Many people, rather than falling into the clutches of the British, saw jumping to Anatolia as a salvation for themselves and joined the War of Independence. Many more deputies than those captured and exiled by the British crossed into Anatolia and contributed to the opening of the first Grand National Assembly of Turkey in Ankara. Ottoman Turkish intellectuals, and even the undecided, who felt the breath of the British police on their necks, ran to Ankara to join Mustafa Kemal Pasha. 

While the seating areas for the deputies of the Ankara assembly were equipped with wooden student desks collected from schools, lighting at night was provided by the dim and insufficient light of kerosene lamps. In many ministries, wooden crates were used instead of desks, and among the sight of horse- and donkey-drawn vehicles in Ankara, there was only one old automobile belonging to the President of the TBMM.

The TBMM of Turkey in this state would be at the forefront of the very rare assemblies in the world that have no equal.

The fact that national sovereignty is embodied in the TBMM is so important to Mustafa Kemal Pasha that in a statement he made to the German-language newspaper Neue Freie Presse in Vienna on October 2, 1923, even before the official proclamation of the Republic, he emphasized: "The first of the provisions covered by the Constitution is that sovereignty belongs to the nation, and the second is that the people are represented only by the Grand National Assembly," while saying, "The soul of the new Turkish State is national sovereignty. It is the unconditional sovereignty of the nation... There is no crowned head in the Turkish State and among the Turkish people who founded the Turkish State! The whole world should know that there is no longer any power, no authority at the head of this state and this nation. There is only one power. That is national sovereignty..."

The Grand National Assembly of Turkey emerged with flying colors from the extremely perilous and heavy burden of managing a war within democracy and overcoming crises with democracy; it is the first and perhaps the only example in the history of national liberation wars in the world that was realized and succeeded through an assembly and within a union of powers. 

While the "Assembly" during the Ottoman period was referred to as the "Ottoman Chamber of Deputies" with the name of the country's dynasty, the name of the country was used by saying "Turkey," and the word "Grand" was also used to express the high democratic status of this body, naming it the "Grand National Assembly of Turkey." In the Ottoman era, the names "Heyeti Mebusan" (Chamber of Deputies) and "Heyeti Ayan" (Senate) were abolished as a requirement of a democratic breakthrough, and no place was given to the "Ayan" (Senate).   

The truth is; throughout the Ottoman period until 1876, within the "monarchy regime" where the sultan's absolute sovereignty over the people continued, although the republic began to be pronounced for the first time among intellectuals after this date with the Tanzimat, the processes covering the 1876-1878 and 1908-1918 periods could not go beyond a "constitutional monarchy."

When it gathered in Ankara on April 23, 1920, with 390 people and extraordinary powers under the name "Grand National Assembly" following the dissolution of the "Chamber of Deputies," the president of this Assembly also held the identity of "head of government and state" until the proclamation of the republican administration..

The new "Assembly," which opened with the principle "Sovereignty belongs unconditionally to the nation," became the headquarters on behalf of the nation for the war of independence on one hand, and on the other hand, in a sense, contrary to the "sultanate," it was a process that also sidelined the "sultanate initiative" by saying "national sovereignty."

This assembly in Ankara did not only become the management center of the "National Struggle," but at the same time represented a major break from the "sultanate regime."  

…And this Assembly was never an ordinary assembly opening that would fade and disappear in a short time as they looked from the palace in Istanbul and interpreted it.

Our war of independence, which began under the leadership of the great savior Mustafa Kemal Pasha, did not only drive out the occupiers; it also liberated the nation from the yoke of the "sultanate" expressed in the monarchy, and gradually realized the manifestation of national sovereignty and the will of the people, which is expressed in the republican regime.