He was promoted Staff Captain, and—through under-hand channels—"recommended" to the notice of Abdul Hamid, who promptly exiled him to Syria.
In Damascus, Beyrout, and Jaffa, his more revolutionary plans matured. At last the Constitution was proclaimed, and he was able to join his mother in Salonica!—not yet, however, for the quiet of a restored home life.
At the time when the troops marched to deliver Constantinople from the reactionaries, he was appointed Chief of Staff to Mahmoud Chefket Pasha. During the Tripolitain War he was first at Syrenaique, and afterwards at Benghazi.
When the Great War broke out, he was military attaché at Sofia, but was immediately despatched to the command of a Division in the Dardanelles, and, when this had been formed and organised, marched to Gallipoli. It was he who defeated the English forces, not only in Gallipoli, but at Anafarta.
After we had been driven out of the Dardanelles, he went to the Caucasus in command of the 15th Army Corps, and recovered Bitlis and Mouche from the Russians. For a time he led the 6th Army Corps, under the German General Falkenhayn; but nothing could reconcile him to his chief's methods and the reckless loss of life they involved. He therefore resigned and went back to Constantinople.
After accompanying the present Khalif on a visit to Hindenberg and Ludendorff, he tells me that, when he thus first clearly saw into the real issue of the war; he also saw, even more clearly, the need for making his own plans in Turkey.
He was in Syria when the Armistice was signed; and returning with high hopes to Constantinople, sank broken-hearted before the treachery of Mudros! But not for long.
Never the man to nurse despair, he quickly rose again to his country's call. Offered the post of Inspector of the East (that is, High Functionary of the Eastern Villayets), he accepted at once, and hurried into Anatolia to prepare for resistance.
