> There are certainly worse ones. Agreed. > Yes? That was what the Turkish war of independence was about. The turkish war of independence was merely a face s

> There are certainly worse ones. Agreed. > Yes? That was what the Turkish war of independence was about. The turkish war of independence was merely a face saving way of the west letting ataturk end the ottoman empire. It's fairly obvious if you look at it in the context of what the west wanted. > And as a matter of fact, the British, French, and Greeks fought on the side of the Ottomans in the war - almost as if the Ottomans were the Western 'vassals' here. Or we didn't want it to fall in the hands of the russians, etc. > You think the West really wanted to give up a compliant government which had already proven itself to bend to their demands for another which had proven itself strong enough to retake the land which had been ceded to the West? Yes because the goal was the end of the ottoman empire, which the ottoman government steadfastly refused to do so. > The Ottoman Empire had not been great or wealthy for the better part of a century, having been known as the Sick Man of Europe for the better part of a century prior to its collapse. It was great and wealthy enough to fend off any single european empire. It just wasn't able to fight everyone ( the british, french, US, russians, etc ) and deal with the european funded separatist movements in greece, balkans, arabia, palestine, etc. For a sick man of "europe", the ottomans did well to survive a collective assault by the greatest powers in the world at the time. But wasn't that the problem? This sick man refused to die so the west had to find someone who'd put this sick man out of his misery. But who would be able to do such a thing? A "war hero" perhaps? > Popular support was therefore on Atatürk's side, not the monarchy's; if it hadn't been, his revolution would have been impossible. No revolution has ever been won with popular support. All revolutions are revolutions of the elites. Ataturk and his elite backers ( which most likely included the west ) won over the pro-ottoman elites. Simple as that. And history is written to spin it as a "popular" victory. This applies to the american, french, russian, chinese, etc revolutions. None of them had popular support. Most of the people were either ambivalent or opposed to these revolutions. As I stated, the goal of the west was the end of the ottoman empire. The ottoman government refused while ataturk acquiesced. Ataturk's reforms feel like they were written by the west rather than a turk. At the end of the day, europe wanted the sick man dead and Ataturk killed the sick man. The only question is whether ataturk collaborated with the west to kill the sick man or not. If you aren't blinded by nationalism or "history", it's fairly obvious ataturk was a "hired gun".