A friend of Atatürk has been honored
By Filiz Odabas-Geldiay

Major General M. Hayri Tarhan, father of ASA's Vice President M. Orhan Tarhan, was recently honored in a ceremony in which his name was given to Kahramanmaras barracks for his courageous defense of the Southern front in 1920 and 1921.

Recently, I had the great privilege of sitting down with Mr. Tarhan and interviewing him about his father's great service to his country. It was very exciting to hear Mr. Tarhan talk not only about the General's brilliant military career during the War of Independence and important role in developing the ideas and principles that eventually formed the basis of the Republic of Turkey, but it was especially moving to learn about his father's close and unique friendship with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. I felt deeply honored to hold this discussion with a man who has, himself, been a life-long defender of the principles and ideals of Atatürk and who, to this day, at age 79, remains an active participant in the work of ASA as its Vice President.

Q: What role did your father play in the formation of the Turkish Republic?

A: My father played an intellectual role in the early days at the turn of the Century through his friendship with Atatürk, and then he played a distinct military role during the First World War and Independence War. He played his intellectual role in the period when early concepts of saving the Ottoman Empire were developed. These concepts eventually became the bases for the founding of the Republic of Turkey. My father was a classmate of Atatürk at the general staff school, from 1902 to 1905. All the lieutenants in that class were carefully selected among the best of the War College graduates. They were all terribly frustrated to observe the continuous deterioration of the Ottoman Empire and as young idealists, were, of course searching for solutions. They all spoke French and German and read the French Enlightenment writers Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Rousseau as well as the inflammatory poetry of such Turkish patriotic poets as Namik Kemal and Tevfik Fikret who were revolting against the existing despotism of Abdulhamit and were singing hopeful songs of the day the Turks will be a free people.

Q: How easy was it to find such books in those days?

A:All books containing these "dangerous ideas" were banned in the Ottoman Empire and yet, most enlightened Turks found and avidly read these books. My father was especially fond of a patriotic poem by Tevfik Fikret, called "The Fog" that he had copied from the pocket book of Mustafa Kemal. Mustafa Kemal recited that poetry so many times that my father ended up knowing it by heart, too. Atatürk, Ali Fuat Cebesoy, my father, and several others often got together to discuss a variety of scenarios on saving the country. This special group of young military idealists had made it a sport of arguing about all sorts of ideas. Mustafa Kemal was an absolute master in winning these arguments. To challenge him, his friends gave him subjects that were very hard to defend, and yet every time he was able to defend them successfully. They would then ask him to argue and prove the contrary, and incredibly, he would just as successfully do that too.

Q: Is it true that your father and friends were reported and imprisoned for their "dangerous" activities?

A: Yes, it is. Upon graduating from the General Staff College in 1905, my father and friends did not immediately get their assignment to new posts. The gears of the Ottoman Empire bureaucracy turned very slowly. Mustafa Kemal and several other friends rented a room to meet and read their collection of "dangerous books." During this time, they felt pity for a cadet who was expelled from the War College and they permitted him to use one of the rooms in that meeting house. That cadet bit the hand that had fed him by reporting his hosts to the Yildiz Palace, where Abdulhamit, one of the most oppressive sultans, lived. My father, Mustafa Kemal, Ali Fuat and another captain were arrested, taken to Yildiz Palace and singly interrogated for seven weeks. Of course, their families were worried sick. Finally, after a strong defense by their teachers, the interrogators concluded that these men were simply "young and foolish" and hadn't really committed any crime. So they were soon exiled to Syria, the empire's boon docks. There, of course, they continued to look for solutions. Several of them, including Mustafa Kemal and my father, founded a secret revolutionary society called "The Fatherland" (Vatan) which eventually became a nucleus of freedom and constitutional principles in the empire.

Q: When did your father return from the exile?

A: In 1906, my father was able to exchange places with an officer stationed in Edirne who wanted to come to Syria. My father and Mustafa Kemal did not see one another again until 1915.

Q: Under what circumstances did they meet again and did they ever fight in the same battle?

A: They met again in the Dardanelles (Gallipoli) War in 1915. My father was the general staff chief of an army corps in reserve. When the Allies landed in Suvla Bay, the command of the reserve corps was given to Mustafa Kemal who appointed my father as the general staff chief of the entire group of armies under his command. The two fought together during the Anafartalar and Chunuk Bair battles and were victorious. My father was near Mustafa Kemal and the German General Liman von Sanders when Mustafa Kemal was hit by shrapnel and was saved by his pocket watch. After the Dardanelles War, my father went to Galicia and Atatürk went elsewhere, so their path did not cross again until 1918. My father was commanding the 26th Division of the 7th Army in Palestine against the British. Mustafa Kemal was brought in as the change of command of the last resort. His evaluation of the situation determined that the war in Palestine was lost. So he decided not to defend every inch of the land but to conserve his troops as well as possible, so that the real fatherland could be defended later on. After the big British offensive and the Turkish retreat to the Southern slopes of Anatolia, the Turkish forces were reorganized and did carry out a brilliant defense of the fatherland. My father stayed with the 7th Army until the end of the War. Then he had no job and returned to Istanbul to his family.

Q: Were you born at the time?

A: Yes, I was about 8 months old and my father had hardly seen me. After the armistice, Allied forces occupied Istanbul. There, life for a Turkish officer was pure hell because everyone was under the surveillance of the British Intelligence Service who did not want good officers going to Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal Pasha, however, did manage to be sent to Anatolia in May 1919, as we all know. My father could not find a way to follow him for another year. Finally, in June 1920, he made arrangements for his family to visit the "waters" in Bursa for "health reasons." We didn't pack or sell anything in order not to arouse peoples' suspicions. We just fled. My father rubbed his face with coal dust and passed through British check points in a flimsy motor boat, a "taka," shoveling coal to the boat's boiler. He landed in Mudanya on the Marmara Sea where he soon joined his family who arrived with another ship. We traveled to Ankara by land, where my father visited Mustafa Kemal Pasha and was appointed Chief of General Staff of the Southern Front. My father proceeded to the Syrian front while we stayed with my maternal grand father in Silifke. Grand father was the governor of that province. In August, he was appointed the commander of the 9th Division which was terribly weakened from the Palestine retreat. The 9th had only one battery of four field guns. Yet, my father's division fought the French in the Ayntap (now the Gaziantep) region and succeeded in stopping them. For this he was awarded "The appreciation of the Turkish National Assembly for his extraordinary services on the Ayntep Front" and was promoted to full colonel.

Q: Is this the reason your father is being honored today?

A: Yes, I think so. A good name was needed for the Kahramanmaras barracks. The Turkish General Staff must have thought that he was the person most deserving such an honor, because of his defense of the Southern Front 77 years ago. After the French made an armistice with the Turkish National Forces for reasons of their own and the shooting stopped, my father became Chief of the Commission to fix the frontier between Turkey and Syria. The French wanted to simply put a ruler on the map and draw a straight line, but my father would not have it. He said that this land is not the Sahara, but is our land, and cannot be divided like that. He wanted the French to follow a natural demarcation. Finally, both sides settled on making the existing railroad line as the frontier. The French found him too hard a bargainer. Of course, he was going to be hard on the French because he had defended all that earth with the lives of his men. The French asked Ankara to remove him from the Commission and, to please the French, Ankara replaced my father but changed none of his work.

Q: Is it true that your last name "Tarhan" was given to your family by Atatürk and that your father asked your opinion before accepting it?

A: Yes, My father had visited Atatürk on Business. Then he was kept for dinner and the evening, during which he was asked, whether he had decided on a family name. That was the year when all Turks were adopting family names. My father said that he had a few names in mind, but had not decided yet. Atatürk said that there is a name "just fitting him," it is "Tarhan." Then he explained: "Among ancient Turks, Tarhan was a title given to a very trusted friend of the Khan. He could go visit the Khan any time without special permission, he was not tried before making nine mistakes, and he usually commanded a force of ten thousand." This was, of course, a great compliment and expression of trust. At that time I was 16. Although I was very close to my father, I would never have expected him to write to me and ask my opinion. I could not believe my eyes in reading his letter: He was saying: "What do you think? You will be carrying this name much longer than I will. Should we take it?" I said "Of course, go ahead, take it." it was such a great honor to be given such a name that it would have been unthinkable for me to have said anything else. My father died unexpectedly in 1934. He was only 54. His remains were eventually moved to the National Cemetery in Ankara. I was very touched to see that his uniform, saber, a few books, and other personal items are exhibited in five cases in the museum of the cemetery. Of all his jobs, apparently the most outstanding was his command of the 9th Division. Even his tombstone names him as commander of the 9th. These great intellectual and military achievements are the reasons for his being honored today 77 years after his defense of the Southern front.