Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/166

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employed in his palmiest days. The Ottoman Navy having been interned in the Golden Horn, it was an easy matter to dispatch Rauf Bey to Smyrna. He left Constantinople early in May, 1919. Kemal Pasha, however, was a senior Army officer and under the orders of the Ottoman War Office. It was assumed that the Damad Ferid Government would not object to having the capital rid of his presence, but his effectiveness in Asia Minor depended on his authority. He was ostensibly to be sent out as Inspector-General with command of the skeleton forces which General Milne had sanctioned for gendarmerie purposes at Sivas and Erzerum, and the instructions which defined his powers were shown him as soon as they had been drawn up by the General Staff. In a room at the War Office, Kemal spent three hours "correcting" them, until they empowered him with authority to act in every contingency which might conceivably arise. As thus "corrected," they were placed hurriedly before Damad Ferid's War Minister and signed without having been read. Duplicate copies, destined for subordinate commanders in Asia Minor, were signed by members of the General Staff. Thus equipped, Mustapha Kemal Pasha left Constantinople for Samsun the day after Rauf Bey had left for Smyrna.

Kemal found British craft in Samsun roadstead and a British control officer in the town with a handful of Indian troops. Greeks were being disembarked and were pushing into the villages in the immediate hinterland. A project was under way for the detachment of the Black Sea littoral, including the ports of Samsun and Trebizond, from