Did Atatürk ask the British for a governorship in Anatolia or not?

Before explaining the subject, let us state this immediately: Atatürk had many superior qualities. And at the same time, he was a very good tactician.

When we look at the conditions of that day, Atatürk was fundamentally against all occupiers. He was so opposed that he was even against the Ottoman Empire entering the First World War by forming an alliance with the Germans. Moreover, this was at a time when everyone else was pro-German.

Atatürk knew that the Germans, with whom we formed an alliance and who supposedly came to help us, intended to exploit the Middle East through us. And he openly stated that we would lose the war because of them. When? Before Baghdad had fallen. When? Before Mecca, Gaza, Jerusalem, Jordan, Damascus, etc., had fallen.

And Atatürk was proven right in his concerns, and unfortunately, the entire Middle East, including Gaza, Jerusalem, and Damascus, fell because of the Germans. Atatürk saw this 2-3 years in advance, and one night in 1916 in Silvan, while İnönü was also with them, he proposed to the 2nd Army Commander Ahmet İzzet Pasha: "Let us break the alliance with the Germans, draw our swords against them, sit at the table with the British, and protect our existing lands."

Of course, how would he do this?

By staging a coup against the Unionist Prime Minister of that day, Sait Halim Pasha, and the pro-German Minister of Defense and the only person with a say in the government, Enver Pasha.

But 2nd Army Commander Ahmet İzzet Pasha did not even dare to listen to this proposal. He saw this suggestion of Atatürk's as an adventurism born of his youth.

At that time, Atatürk was only 35 years old, and this proposal of his was certainly not the product of an adventure. If Ahmet İzzet Pasha had accepted this, the 3rd Army Commander was also ready to provide support. The alliance with the Germans would have been broken, they would have sat at the table with the British, and if they did not accept, they would have fought alone to try to protect our existing lands.

Why not?

Despite the wrong policies of the German Limon von Sanders, the Battle of Gallipoli had been won, the victory of Kut al-Amara had been achieved, and we had dealt a heavy blow to the Russians, who were in the British Alliance, on the Caucasian front by taking Bitlis and Muş. Moreover, we would not have entered the Sarikamish Operation, which we lost due to German imposition, and we would have significantly preserved our military presence. In other words, despite the Germans, we had scored 3 goals against the British, and we had conceded 1 goal because of the Germans.

Furthermore, Turkish commanders were quite successful in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign despite the Germans. The British still saw us as very strong.

Drawing swords against the Germans and sitting at the table with the British.

Why not?

This idea of Atatürk's to protect Ottoman lands was quite correct. But since Ahmet İzzet Pasha did not accept it from the start and did not have the courage, it did not happen, of course.

And let us say immediately what happened next;

The British crossed the Canal, and because of our German admiration and alliance, Gaza fell, Jerusalem fell, Baghdad, Deraa, Damascus fell, and so on. British military units, led by General Allenby and accompanied by the Emir of Mecca, Sharif Hussein, and his son Faisal, tore away the Palestinian, Arab, and Syrian lands in Ottoman hands one by one.

Atatürk tore himself apart during that time. He said, "Do not let German commanders defend Jerusalem and Gaza, let us defend them; in fact, give the defense of Jerusalem to me, if not, give it to Cemal Pasha, if that is not possible, give it to a Turkish, a Muslim commander. Do not leave the defense of Jerusalem to the Christian Germans." But he could not make them listen.

Moreover, he also said this.

"Come, meet with the Emir of Mecca and Sharif Hussein, meet with his son, let us draw them to our side, let us take this Arab card out of the hands of the British," he said. He even said to Talat Pasha in Gallipoli, "Let us give the Arabs autonomy, let us give them independence."

But again, he could not make them listen.

King Faisal also lost hope in Enver Pasha, who did not meet with him, and went and joined the British to fight against the Ottomans, against his co-religionists.

After explaining these, let us come to the Minber newspaper and the issue of Atatürk asking the British for a governorship. Yes, he founded the Minber newspaper together with his friend Ali Fethi and gave it the name "Minber" himself. Because Atatürk knew very well that the Armistice of Mudros, signed on October 30, 1918, was a treaty of captivity, that this treaty of captivity needed to be torn up and thrown away, and for this, it was essential to establish a press, a newspaper that was not in favor of the occupation, in defiance of the pro-government press in Istanbul.

He spent the remaining money in his pocket for this as well.

Atatürk was against all forms of occupation.

When he took over the Yıldırım Army Group, which had come out of the war defeated and exhausted, he resisted the occupation both in İskenderun and Adana and did not allow the British and French fleets to land. The first bullet against the enemy was fired in Dörtyol, and the commander of that armed resistance was also Atatürk.

Especially, his use of weapons against the British in Adana despite government orders was something that could not be forgiven. For this reason, he wanted to start the first National Struggle from Adana. However, when he came to Adana on March 15, 1923, he said, "The first National Struggle initiative was born in this land, in this beautiful Adana." But he could not do it. Because the Yıldırım Army Group Command did not last long and was disbanded. Atatürk was also sidelined in Istanbul and called to Istanbul.

Atatürk arrived in Istanbul on November 13.

When he saw the enemy warships in Istanbul and the scene of the occupation, he said, "I made a mistake, I should not have come."

In other words, he felt regret for not staying in Anatolia, in a suitable region of Anatolia, for the National Struggle. But he had already come to Istanbul.

First, he wanted to become the Minister of War. But he could not. Later, he wanted to meet with Sultan Vahdettin and convince him to join the struggle, but he did not succeed. If Atatürk had become the Minister of War, he would have drawn the Sultan to Anatolia and would have started the National War of Liberation from Anatolia with a force in his hand. That was his idea.

But this was not possible. Because Vahdettin was practically a puppet in the hands of the British.

As soon as Atatürk arrived in Istanbul, he settled in the Pera Palace. He met with Ali Fethi, he met with Prime Minister Ahmet İzzet Pasha, and in the meantime, on November 14, 1918, he met with Ward Price, a correspondent for the British newspaper Daily Mail, who was staying at the same hotel. He himself requested the meeting. Because Ward Price was a journalist who met with the world's most important statesmen and was quite influential on the British Government. Mustafa Kemal was thoughtful and pessimistic. He had weakened and his cheeks had sunken. It was not easy. He had come out of an intense war. His kidneys were also aching. He explained the situation the country was in to Price. He spoke in a calm and measured voice. In his speech, he frequently said, "This cannot go on like this, it is necessary, necessary to change the homeland from top to bottom."

Price came to Istanbul in 1939 and gave an interview to the Cumhuriyet newspaper. In his statement, referring to the meeting he had with Atatürk in 1918, he said, "At that time, to tell the truth, I did not pay much attention to these words. The great mistake of my profession that I will always remember is that I could not discover this unparalleled genius at that time."

That is all. He did not say anything else of substance.

However, in 1957, Price's book titled "Extra-Special Correspondent" was published.

In this book, he touched upon a subject he had never mentioned before and claimed that Atatürk said: "If the British were to accept responsibility for Anatolia, they would feel the need to work with experienced Turkish governors under British administration. I would like to know if there might be a suitable place where I could offer my services within the framework of such an authority."

It is at this very point that all hell breaks loose. Some writers deliberately blow this out of proportion and write that "Atatürk asked the British for a 'governorship'," and they show the Minber newspaper, which Atatürk himself founded, as the source.

First of all, let us state that this meeting was reported as news in the Minber newspaper on November 17, 1918, but there is not a single sentence in it stating that Atatürk asked the British for a governorship.

So why did Atatürk request this meeting? The reason is quite simple. He wanted to use every card to go to Anatolia. Because, in accordance with the Armistice of Mudros, the appointment of an authorized governor by the British to important centers in Anatolia was on the agenda and was being discussed in those very days.

Moreover, the reason that sent Atatürk to Samsun on May 16 was the justification of "sending a strong Governor or a strong commander to stop the Turkish gangs in the Black Sea and collect their weapons," and this was implemented as a result of the British imposing it on Sultan Vahdettin. Atatürk gladly accepted this duty, and he was already expecting such a duty.

In fact, Atatürk was sent to Samsun for this reason, but he did the exact opposite; he united the gangs and ignited the fire of the National Struggle with the Erzurum and Sivas Congresses.

Now, with the same logic, can we say that Atatürk expected a duty from the British to go to Samsun as an Inspector?

We can never say that.

Returning to the meeting with the British journalist W. Price, this meeting of Atatürk did not carry much importance, and Atatürk did not dwell on it much either. Later, he thought of going to Anatolia via Gebze on his own with his aide-de-camp. In this sense, he even received support and promises from Yahya Kaptan. He met with the Freedom and Accord (Hürriyet ve İtilaf) ministers who were in power, put people in between, and even asked them for a duty in Anatolia. And he opened the road to Samsun on May 19 in this way himself. When the British asked for a Governor-Commander to be sent to neutralize the Turkish gangs there, the "Inspectorship" duty was given to Atatürk, who was on the agenda that day.

The 9th Army Inspectorship.

There is no strong evidence that Atatürk asked the British for a governorship. When we look at the temperament of the British Atatürk, this does not seem possible. It is highly probable that this is a one-sided claim put forward by the journalist W. Price in 1957 to break the nationalist public opinion during a period when Imperialism was trying to take over Turkey. After all, as the Greek historian Dimitri Kitsikis also said, Ward Price was a propaganda journalist who took on the task of spreading Imperialism. And he received his salary from the British Government's Foreign Relations Propaganda Department.

The British historian Andrew Mango says that in this meeting, Atatürk was looking for a "soft peace" with the British for a defeated Ottoman Empire and states that he wanted to appeal to the British public with this interview.

Andrew Mango writes, regarding the request for a governorship, that "even if Atatürk had really made such an offer, he might have done so to attempt to divide the allies, as he knew the ambitions and competition of the British, French, Greeks, and Italians for the sharing of Anatolia."

This is within the realm of possibility.

Because it is not a bad thing that Atatürk, who proposed to "draw swords" against the Germans and sit at the table with the British in 1916 to protect the remaining Ottoman lands, was looking to sit at the table with the British on a stronger ground at a time when the Armistice of Mudros had just been signed.

Furthermore, while Atatürk was in Istanbul, he used the Italian card against the British attempts to arrest him and search his house, rejected the Italians' offer to "be a resistance leader in Anatolia," conducted a separate diplomacy with the French, and frequently resorted to tactics of pitting his enemies against each other throughout the National Struggle.

Therefore, it is quite normal for him to resort to diplomatic tactics and to have met with a British journalist to save the Turkish homeland, which was defeated in the World War and was on the verge of losing all its lands with the Armistice of Mudros.

In those days, Atatürk knocked on many doors to achieve his goal and get to Anatolia.

Since he knew that there would be British dominance in the country's administration from then on, his giving a "message to Price that he could accept if the British wanted to appoint a governor to Anatolia" does not show that he was a man of the British. Atatürk was determined and would try every way to be able to cross into Anatolia again.

Because the situation was quite dire.

It was necessary to do something as soon as possible. That day, the last Turkish soldier had been removed from Mosul, occupation commanders and forces had come to Istanbul, hundreds of enemy soldiers had filled the streets of Istanbul, the Bosphorus had been equipped with enemy fleets, a protocol had been prepared regarding the use of the Bosphorus fortresses by the British and French, and that day even Ali Kemal felt pity for the Turks and put the following headline on his article in the Sabah newspaper;

"Poor Turks"

Now, shouldn't one sit and think about who saved those poor Turks from the hands of the enemy, how, and in what way? Why be a tool for the false propaganda of a group of British agents?