Mustafa Kemal Who Couldn't Awaken at the Military Academy

Mustafa Kemal described his inner troubles and worries at that time as follows:

“I am an officer at the Military Academy in Istanbul. I am only twenty years old.”

He himself was caught up in a set of thoughts and feelings that he didn't quite understand what they were. He is resentful. He is rebellious. Against what and against whom? Why? If you ask them, they can hardly answer these questions. One day one of his friends asked:

'You don't wake up on the rise pipe. You don't get up until the duty officer shakes your bed. What is wrong with you?'

The young officer said:

'After going to bed, I can't fall asleep like you do. My eyes are open until morning. Just when you're about to go to sleep, the wake-up call is about to sound."

At that time, one of the military instructors asked the students a question in the classroom one day:

“Now you know what war is, he said, but there is also something called 'guerrilla'. This is not an easy thing. Making and suppressing the guerrilla is also difficult. Then he tested his disciples on an example:

The state center of the Ottoman Empire was Istanbul. Imagine that for one reason or another, the people revolted against the state between the eastern side of the Bosphorus and the Gulf of Izmit. Why would people make such a revolt? How can the state suppress this revolt with its army?'

The best answers to these questions were given by Mustafa Kemal, the pensive boy who could not sleep. Because his mind had been stuck in such dreams for a long time.” ^1e

¹ Falih Rıfkı Atay, Babamız Atatürk, 2. Baskı, İstanbul 1966, s.14-15.

Source: Atatürk’ten Gençliğe Unutulmaz Anılar, Ahmet Gürel, Mayıs 2009