Түрік маршалы және саяхатшысы Мұстафа Февзи Чақмақ

Turkish field marshal and politician (1876–1950)

Mustafa Fevzi Çakmak (12 January 1876 – 10 April 1950) was a Turkish field marshal (Mareşal) and politician. He served as the Chief of General Staff from 1918 and 1919 and later the Minister of War of the Ottoman Empire in 1920. He later joined the provisional Government of the Grand National Assembly and became the Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of National Defense and later as the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1921 to 1922. He was the second Chief of the General Staff of the provisional Ankara Government and the first Chief of the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey. Graduating from the War College as a Staff Captain and assigned to the 4th Department of the General Staff, Mustafa Fevzi participated in numerous battles during the prolonged downfall of the Ottoman Empire, such as the First Balkan War and the Battle of Monastir. He was engaged as the Commander of the V Corps throughout the defence of Gallipoli, during which his younger brother was killed in the Battle of Chunuk Bair. He became a Pasha and the Chief of General Staff of the Ottoman Empire after the First World War and was appointed as the commander of the First Army Troops Inspectorate in 1919 by Grand Vizier Ahmet Tevfik Pasha. After briefly serving as War Minister in 1920, Fevzi left to join the dissident Grand National Assembly in Ankara as a Member of Parliament for Kozan. He was appointed as National Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister by Mustafa Kemal Paşa in 1920, commanding numerous military successes throughout the Turkish War of Independence, notably during the Battle of Sakarya. He succeeded Mustafa Kemal as Prime Minister in 1921, resigning in 1922 to engage in the successful Battle of Dumlupınar. He was appointed Field Marshal (Mareşal) in 1922 at the recommendation of Mustafa Kemal. He had succeeded İsmet İnönü as the Chief of General Staff in August 1921 and continued serving after the Turkish Republic was declared in 1923. Adopting the surname 'Çakmak', he was a candidate to succeed Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as the President of Turkey after Atatürk's death in 1938, but stood down in favour of İnönü. He continued to serve as Chief of General Staff until 1944, after which he became a Member of Parliament for Istanbul from the Democrat Party. He later resigned from the Democrats and co founded the Nation Party headed by Osman Bölükbaşı. Fevzi Çakmak remains, alongside Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as one of the only two field marshals of Turkey.

Mustafa Fevzi was born on 12 January 1876 in Cihangir (Istanbul, Ottoman Empire) His family is of Turkish origin. Their ancestors came to Istanbul from Balıkesir , Çakmak. to mother Hesna Hanım, daughter of Varnalı Hacı Bekir Efendi, who was the youngest son of Ömer Ağa, and father Ali Sırrı Efendi, who was the son of Çakmakoğlu Hüseyin Derviş Kaptan. Ali Sırrı Efendi had served for Tophane (Arsenal) as secretary. In 1879 Ali Sırrı Bey was appointed to Black Sea Artillery Regiment (Karadeniz Topçu Alayı) at Rumeli Kavağı, and the family moved there. Thus, Fevzi's name in the Army became "Kavaklı Fevzi Pasha". He studied at Sadık Hoca Mektebi in Rumeli Kavağı between 1882 and 1884. He continued to study at Tedrisiye i Haybiye Mektebi in Sarıyer between 1884 and 1886, at Salonica Military School (Selânik Askerî Rüşdiyesi ) between 1886 and 1887, at Soğukçeşme Askerî Rüşdiyesi between 1887 and 1890. He learned Arabic and Persian languages from his grandfather Hacı Bekir Efendi, who had studied in Egypt and Baghdad and was one of the prominent intelligentsia at the time. After graduating from the Kuleli military high school, he entered Ottoman Military College on 29 April 1893. He completed the military school as the seventh of the class on 28 January 1896 and joined the Ottoman military as an infantryman where he saw combat during the 1897 Greco Turkish War. Second Lieutenant (Mülâzım ı Sani). On 28 January 1898, he entered the Imperial War Academy and on 16 March 1897, he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant.

On 11 April 1899, he became the staff officer of 18th Regular Division under the command of Şemsi Pasha at Metroviça (present day Mitrovica) of the Third Army. On 3 July 1908, Senior Captain Ahmed Niyazi Bey stationed at Resne (present day: Resen), an ethnic Albanian, took to the hills with 200 soldiers and a number of civilians, and issued a manifesto which demanded the restoration of constitutional government. Şemsi Pasha, an ethnic Albanian, was ordered to crush the rebel and went to Monastir with two battalions. But he was shot and killed by then Second Lieutenant Bigalı Atıf Bey. On 19 August 1909, he was demoted to major, because of the Law for the Purge of Military Ranks.

In 1930, he complained that the Kurds would still demand their right for self determination like it was described in the Fourteen Points provided by US president Woodrow Wilson following the end of World War I, and demanded the exclusion of any member of Kurdish race from the administration in Erzincan.

His name was mentioned as a possible successor of Atatürk and as a Turkish war hero he was very respected amongst the Turkish political and civil society. But he denied his interest of becoming president mentioning Ismet Inönü as the official candidate. He retired on 12 January 1944. His funeral service was held at the Beyazıt and he was laid to rest in Eyüp Cemetery, Istanbul, on 12 April 1950. His family rejected an effort to exhume his body and effect a transfer to Turkish State Cemetery in Ankara. He knew French, English, German, Russian, Persian, Arabic, Albanian, and Bosnian.

Fevzi Çakmak (Mareşal), Garbî Rumeli'nin Suret i Ziya ı ve Balkan Harbinde Garp Cephesi Hakkında. Konferanslar, Erkan ı Harbiye Mektebi Matbaası, İstanbul, 1927. Mareşal Fevzi Çakmak, Büyük Harpte Şark Cephesi Hareketleri, Gen. Kur. Basımevi, Ankara, 1936.

Adnan Çakmak, "Fevzi Çakmak'ın Hatıraları", Hürriyet Gazetesi, 10 April – 20 May 1975 (41 volumes).