Prominent Ottoman military commander of World War I.
When the Ottomans entered World War I in late 1914, he, then a colonel, was tasked with defending the Dardanelles from a probable Allied landing.
By 1918 he was convinced that the Allies would win the war, so his interests turned towards securing the future of his homeland.
He is best known for his leadership of the Turkish War of Independence (1919-22) and his long tenure as Turkey’s first republican president.
His surname, meaning ‘father of the Turks’, was bestowed on him in 1934.
