View allAll Photos Tagged Secure
www.geograph.org.uk/photo/74254
By Langden Brook this former ruined building looks like it is now used for some agricultural or shooting purpose. It is said that in the past it was used to secure prisioners en route to Lancaster Castle. The sheep keep the lawn immaculate at the front.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_of_Bowland
The Forest of Bowland, also known as the Bowland Fells, is an area of barren gritstone fells, deep valleys and peat moorland, mostly in north-east Lancashire, England. A small part lies in North Yorkshire, and much of the area was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire. It has been designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) since 1964, and is used for grouse shooting, walking and cycling, though it is relatively unfrequented by tourists. One of the best known features of the area is Pendle Hill, which is separated from the main part of the Forest of Bowland AONB by the Ribble Valley.
13% of the AONB is designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest for its important areas of heather moorland and blanket bog. The area is nationally and internationally important for its upland bird populations – the hen harrier is the symbol of the AONB. There are over 500 listed buildings and 18 scheduled monuments within the AONB.
The name 'forest' is used in its traditional sense of 'a royal hunting ground', and much of the land still belongs to the British Crown as part of the Duchy of Lancaster. In the past wild boar, deer, wolves, wild cats and game roamed the forest.
Heather moorland on Clougha, in the north west of the Forest of Bowland, looking towards the Yorkshire three peaks
Bowland remains as the northwestern remainder of the ancient wilderness that once stretched over a huge part of England, encompassing the Forest of Bowland, Sherwood Forest (Nottinghamshire), the New Forest (Hampshire) and Savernake Forest (Wiltshire). While the Trough of Bowland (the valley and high pass connecting the Wyre (at Marshaw) and Langden Brook and dividing the upland core of Bowland into two main blocks) represents the area, to many, on account of its popularity, it is in fact only a small part of the wider Forest of Bowland area.
The hills on the western side of the Forest of Bowland attract walkers from Lancaster and the surrounding area. Overlooking Lancaster is Clougha Pike, the western-most hill. The hills form a large horseshoe shape with its open end facing west. Clockwise from Lancaster the hills are Clougha Pike (413 m), Grit Fell (468 m), Ward's Stone (561 m), Wolfhole Crag (527 m), White Hill (544 m), Whins Brow (476 m), Totridge (496 m), Parlick (432 m), Fair Snape Fell (510 m), Bleasdale Moor (429 m), and Hawthornthwaite fell (478 m).
The area is home to the geographic centre of Great Britain which is close to the Whitendale Hanging Stones, around 4 miles (6.4 km) north of Dunsop Bridge.
The Forest of Bowland is home to an annual challenge event: The Bowland Challenge where teams of walkers navigate around a series of grid references over a ten hour period. Proceeds of the event go to support Bowland Pennine Mountain Rescue Team.
This was the highlight and reason for my Southern Arizona Adventure 2024. This is stage 8 of 9.
I was lucky to secure permits for the once monthly photography tour of Kartchner Caverns. Kartchner Caverns State Park strictly forbids any cameras or cellphones in the Caverns. Except for one trip per month for 12 to 15 photographers currently $125. I planned a 4 day 3 night road trip around Southern Arizona anchored by my Kartchner Cavern permit.
In this photo you can see the fancy scientific equipment they use to monitor and adjust the humidity in the Caverns. A table covering a pie tin and turkey baster. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid. They adjust the humidity with a misting system.
I was expecting dark conditions. The State Park turned on all the lights in the Big Room. They don't like turning on all the lights since it can cause an increase in algae. This is the reason they only have one photography tour a month.
I found myself adjusting my histograms to not clip the highlights. Adapt, Improvise, and Overcome. Next time I am going to bracket my shots. I almost wish I had brought a ND filter or tried a handheld GND filter.
I don't know speleothems so I won't even try to identify. If anyone can help me with the identification, I will appreciate it.
www.nps.gov/subjects/caves/speleothems.htm#:~:text=The%20...)%20when%20needed.
The features that arouse the greatest curiosity for most cave visitors are speleothems. These stone formations exhibit bizarre patterns and other-worldly forms, which give some caves a wonderland appearance. Caves vary widely in their displays of speleothems because of differences in temperature; overall wetness; and jointing, impurities, and structures in the rocks. In general, however, one thing caves do have in common is where speleothems form. Although the formation of caves typically takes place below the water table in the zone of saturation, the deposition of speleothems is not possible until caves are above the water table in the zone of aeration. As soon as the chamber is filled with air, the stage is set for the decoration phase of cave building to begin.
The term speleothem refers to the mode of occurrence of a mineral—i.e., its morphology or how it looks—in a cave, not its composition (Hill, 1997). For example, calcite, the most common cave mineral, is not a speleothem, but a calcite stalactite is a speleothem. A stalactite may be made of other minerals, such as halite or gypsum.
Classifying speleothems is tricky because no two speleothems are exactly alike. Nevertheless, speleologists have taken three basic approaches: classification by morphology, classification by origin, and classification by crystallography. All three of these approaches have their problems (Hill, 1997), so cavers often take a more practical approach that primarily uses morphology (e.g., cave pearls) but includes whatever is known about origin (e.g., geysermites) and crystallography (e.g., spar) when needed.
nocache.azcentral.com/travel/arizona/southern/articles/20...
The Kartchner Caverns, rated one of the world's 10 most beautiful caves, is an eerie wonderland of stalactites and stalagmites still growing beneath the Whetstone Mountains 40 miles southeast of Tucson.
The limestone cave has 13,000 feet of passages and hundreds of formations built over the past 200,000 years, including some that are unique and world-renowned. It's a "living cave," with intricate formations that continue to grow as water seeps, drips and flows from the walls and slowly deposits the mineral calcium carbonate.
The caverns were discovered by amateur spelunkers Randy Tufts and Gary Tenen in 1974 on land owned by the Kartchner family. They kept the cave a secret until 1988, when the Kartchners sold it to the state to become a state park.
The highlights of the Big Room tour are a stretch of strawberry flowstone, which has been colored red by iron oxide (rust) in the water, and a maternity ward for 1,800 female cave myotis bats, with black grime on the ceiling where the bats hang and piles of guano on the floor. Visitors who look closely will see a bat's body embedded in one of the cave's formations.
Though not all are available on the tours, the caverns' unique features include a 21-foot, 2-inch soda straw that's one the world's largest (Throne Room), the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk (Big Room), the first reported occurrence of "turnip" shields (Big Room), the first cave occurrence of "birdsnest" needle quartz formations (Big Room) and the remains of a Shasta ground sloth from the Pleistocene Age (Big Room).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kartchner_Caverns_State_Park
Kartchner Caverns State Park is a state park of Arizona, United States, featuring a show cave with 2.4 miles (3.9 km) of passages.[1] The park is located 9 miles (14 km) south of the town of Benson and west of the north-flowing San Pedro River. Long hidden from view, the caverns were discovered in 1974 by local cavers, assisted by state biologist Erick Campbell who helped in its preservation.
The park encompasses most of a down-dropped block of Palaeozoic rocks on the east flank of the Whetstone Mountains.
The caverns are carved out of limestone and filled with spectacular speleothems which have been growing for 50,000 years or longer, and are still growing. Careful and technical cave state park development and maintenance, initially established by founder Dr. Bruce Randall "Randy" Tufts, geologist, were designed to protect and preserve the cave system throughout the park's development, and for perpetuity.[3]
The two major features of the caverns accessible to the public are the Throne Room and the Big Room. The Throne Room contains one of the world's longest (21 ft 2 in (6.45 m))[5] soda straw stalactites and a 58-foot (18 m) high column called Kubla Khan, after the poem. The Big Room contains the world's most extensive formation of brushite moonmilk. Big Room cave tours are closed during the summer for several months (April 15 to October 15) each year because it is a nursery roost for cave bats, however the Throne Room tours remain open year-round.[8]
Other features publicly accessible within the caverns include Mud Flats, Rotunda Room, Strawberry Room, and Cul-de-sac Passage. Approximately 60% of the cave system is not open to the public.[9]
Many different cave formations can be found within the caves and the surrounding park. These include cave bacon, helictites, soda straws, stalactites, stalagmites and others.[12] Cave formations like the stalactites and stalagmites grow approximately a 16th of an inch every 100 years.[13]
Haiku thoughts:
Beneath earth's cool veil,
Stalactites in silence grow,
Whispers of stone deep.
Kartchner
Southern Arizona Adventure 2024
July 19, 2018
9:00 am - 10:00 am
Doerr-Hosier Center
Kirstjen Nielsen, Peter Alexander
Property of the Aspen Institute / Photo Credit: Dan Bayer
Mural on the Fayette County Water Plant, Georgia
Russian swing-lens camera with Kodak Ultramax 400 film.
Red Oktober series.
The female falcon, carrying a pigeon, lead its daughter(I think) to a location where pigeons often gather. The fledgling followed and secured the prey.
When the crane operator has completed a safe and correctly placed hoist, the column form is received and bolted into place by a team of skilled riggers.
Another oldie I had forgotten about, until somebody happened upon it and hit the Fave button. This is from 13 years ago, when I was more fascinated with all things railroad. Nice to see it again. Original title: A Firm Handshake.
Leica M4-P
Voigtländer Nokton 35mm f/1.4 VM II MC
Fomapan 400 Action EI400
Kodak HC-110 + ars-imago #9 45min @20° in Jobo1520
DSLR-Scan
Digitaliza on Essential Film Holder
Negative Lab Pro
These windows in the back of an abandoned commercial building in a small West Texas town, remind me of some of the cyber security issues we hear about much too often.
Pretty solitaire ring set in an 18k white gold band with the centre diamond weighing 0.80carats, F colour with an Si clarity secured in a classic four claw setting. Ring Ref:SR1001, €4,950. www.bespokediamonds.ie/certified-0-80-carat-engagement-ri...
I do like the complicated "granny knots" people use - here on a narrowboat on the Macclesfield Canal near Bosley, Cheshire.
It looks good in monochrome - but detracts attention from the green nylon knot.
Pararescuemen with the 83rd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron secure the area after being lowered from an HH-60 Pave Hawk during a mission in Afghanistan on Nov. 7, 2012. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Jonathan Snyder)
KIDWELLY was originally the name of the district which included part of the coastlands lying between the estuaries of the Towy and the Loughor. In 1106, after the death of Howell ap Gronw, Henry I granted these lands to his minister, Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, who erected a castle at the mouth of the Gwaendraeth Fach. This formed one of a series of Norman strongholds designed to secure their newly won conquests in South Wales and to command the passage of the rivers across which the road to the west passed. A mention of the hall of the Castle in a document of 1115 or earlier shows that the building of Kidwelly must have been practically completed by that year. During the rising which followed the death of Henry I, the Battle of Maes Gwenllian was fought a short distance away from the castle (1136). The account speaks of Maurice de Londres, Lord of Kidwelly, and Geoffrey, Constable of the Bishop, as leaders of the Norman army. Maurice, who is mentioned for the first time in connection with this district, already possessed Ogmore in Glamorgan, where his father William de Londres appears to have been one of the original conquerors. The coupling of the two names suggests that Roger of Salisbury, while retaining possession of the castle, had granted the lordship of the district to Maurice de Londres, who probably acquired the castle also when the bishop died in the following year.
The Welsh chronicles record that, in 1190, the Lord Rhys built the castle of Kidwelly. This entry probably reflects a native conquest of the settlement, but the Normans must have recovered it before 1201, when Meredith, son of Rhys, was slain by the garrison of the castle. In 1215 Rhys Grug, another son of the Lord Rhys, captured Kidwelly and burnt the castle. He remained in possession until 1220, when Llywelyn the Great forced him to restore these conquests. The male line of the de Londres had become extinct during these troubles, and Kidwelly had passed to an heiress, Hawise. In 1225 she married Walter de Braose, who died during the campaign of 1233-4. Kidwelly Castle was by that date again in the possession of the Welsh as a result of the rising of 1231, when Llywelyn the Great, previously a supporter of the royal authority, had turned his arms against Henry III. Hawise de Londres, left a widow, was unable to regain possession of Kidwelly which, in 1242, was still held by Rhys's son Meredith. Two years later Hawise married Patrick de Chaworth, who seems to have recovered these lands soon after this date. The Welsh rising of 1257 involved the destruction of the settlement at Kidwelly, but the invaders failed to capture the castle. Patrick was slain during the campaign of the following year, and the wardship of his lands was granted to Hawise during the minority of their son Payn.
Payn de Chaworth must have attained his majority about 1270, as in that year he and his younger brother Patrick took the Cross. Hawise survived until 1274, and her death was soon followed by that of her two sons, Payn in 1279 and Patrick four years later. The elder brother died childless, and the younger left only an infant daughter, Matilda, who inherited Kidwelly and Ogmore. In 1291 the marriage of the young heiress was granted to the king's brother, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, for the use of his second son, Henry, the union being celebrated in 1298.
The prominent part taken by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, in the civil wars of Edward II's reign led to his execution after the Battle of Boroughbridge in 1322, but the forefeited title and estates were later restored to his younger brother, Henry. The extinction of the male line in 1361 caused a temporary partition of the Lancastrian possessions, but on the death of the elder co-heiress, Matilda, in the following year, the whole inheritance fell to her sister Blanche, wife of John of Gaunt, who became Earl and later Duke of Lancaster. On the accession of Henry IV, Kidwelly, together with the other Lancastrian possessions, passed into the hands of the Crown, and was of little importance during the fifteenth century. Henry VII granted the castle to Sir Rhys ap Tudor, whose grandson Rhys ap Griffith forefeited it in 1531. Later it was again alienated and passed to the Earls of Cawdor. The castle had long ceased to be habitable, but certain repairs were carried out during the nineteenth century. In 1927 the owner placed the ruins under the guardianship of the Commissioners of Works (now the Department of the Environment).
Since that date extensive works of preservation have been undertaken. In 1930 and 1931 excavations were carried out by Sir Cyril Fox and the writer in order to recover the earlier history of the castle. The results are embodied in the present guide, and the interesting series of relics recovered may be seen in the National Museum of Wales.
PERIODS OF CONSTRUCTION
THE earliest remains at Kidwelly, dating from the beginning of the twelfth century, are the semi-circular moat surrounding the castle together with the rampart under the outer curtain, the true meaning of which was revealed by the investigations of 1930-1. Of the hall mentioned in the deed of 1115 and the other buildings of the twelfth century no trace remains, though it is possible that an extensive search under the 2ft to 7ft of debris with which the whole interior of the castle was levelled in the early fourteenth century would lead to the recovery of their plan. The only tangible relic of Norman buildings is a small capital belonging to an attached column and probably forming part of a fireplace. This was found walled into the masonry of the hall of c1300, and may be ascribed to a date at the end of the twelfth century. The ramparts and moats surrounding the northern and southern outworks cannot be exactly dated, but analogy with other sites shows that they may well belong to this early period.
The oldest surviving masonry is that of the towers and the curtain enclosing the inner ward. This occupies a rectangular area with a circular tower at each angle. There are two gates, on the south and north sides, each protected by a portcullis. The erection of these defences within the circuit of the original bank and stockade marks the beginning of the refortification of the castle in accordance with the ideas of the late thirteenth century. The awkward way in which the two western towers are brought close to the foot of the earlier bank can only be understood when the pre-existence of this defence is realised, while the simple character of the gates, so different from the elaborate gatehouses of the normal concentric castle, must be similarly explained. The south-east tower was designed for occupation, but the hall and other structures of the earlier castle probably remained in use. Most of the dressed stonework of this period has disappeared, but the few remaining details are of thirteenth-century character, and this taken in conjunction with the plan suggests that the construction of the inner ward was carried out by Payn de Chaworth, c1275.
The replacement of the older buildings by a new hall, solar and kitchen and the erection of a chapel, form the next stage in the development of the castle. The different character of the masonry and the unusual position of the best-appointed private apartments in the southeast tower behind the screens of the hall prove that these additions were planned and built after the completion of the inner ward. The mouldings of the doors and windows belonging to this stage are all of late thirteenth- century character, and none need be earlier than 1300. The absence of glass grooves in the trefoiled lancet windows of the hall and chapel is also an early feature. It is perhaps unlikely that an extensive building programme would have been carried out during the minority of Matilda de Chaworth (1283-98), and a date before the death of her father Patrick is earlier than the architectural evidence would justify. The work should therefore in all probability be attributed to c1300, directly after the marriage of Matilda to Henry of Lancaster.
The design of the inner ward at Kidwelly presupposes an outer defensive zone, and the replacement of the original stockade with a stone curtain followed the completion of the living-quarters. The main gatehouse, the lesser northern gate, the outer curtain with its four flanking towers, and the mantlet between the north-eastern tower and the chapel, are part of a single design intended to bring Kidwelly into line with other concentric castles of this period. The position of the elaborate gatehouse, which could in case of need act as a separate defensive unit, on the line of the outer instead of the inner curtain is an abnormal feature imposed by the pre-existing layout of the site. The new masonry curtain of the outer ward was higher than the original stockade and necessitated the addition of a further storey to the towers of the inner ward in order that they might still command the outer defences. The details of this reconstruction are all of early fourteenth-century character, and the fortification of the outer ward must have been carried out during the first quarter of that century. On the completion of this work the surplus material from the bank and other rubbish was used to level up the interior of the castle, which it now covers to a depth varying from 2ft to 7ft. The closing of the open gorges of the towers of the outer curtain marks the last stage in the military development of Kidwelly and may also be ascribed to the fourteenth century. The existing gate in the south wall of the town also appears to be of fourteenth-century date, and it might be expected that the erection of these walls would have followed rather than preceded the reconstruction of the castle. But grants of murage in 1282 suggest an earlier date, and the solution of this problem must await further research.
There is reason to think that the great gatehouse may have stood unfinished through most of the fourteenth century and that the opening of a quarry `for the work of the new tower', recorded in 1388-9, may mark the beginning of the works needed to complete it. Ten years later, between 1399 and 1401, when the lord of the castle had become king in the person of Henry IV, there is another record of nearly £100 being spent ‘on the new work of the tower over the gates of the castle’, the near completion of which at this time can be inferred from an order of 1402 for it to be roofed in lead. But in the autumn of the following year the castle was besieged by the Welsh rebels, aided by a naval force from France and Brittany, and subsequent documents leave very little doubt that they succeeded in setting fire to the gatehouse and inflicting serious damage to it; so much so that between 1408 and 1422 a further £500-£600 had to be spent on it, and only in the latter year was it finally roofed with lead shipped from Bristol. A superficial indication of the new work may be seen in the patches of thin flat slabs which contrast with the irregularly coursed boulders of the original masonry. To it belong the triple machicolis high up on the outward face, the upper part of, the wall towards the courtyard, all the square-headed windows, the rectangular stair turret at the north-west corner, and the stone vaults inserted at different levels in the flanking towers as a protection against fire.
The last significant addition to the castle, probably made towards the end of the fifteenth century, was a large hall placed on the west side of the outer ward. This was connected with a kitchen in the south-west corner of the inner ward by the enlargement of a thirteenth century embrasure so as to form a passage-way. Buildings placed against the outer curtain reflect the increased complexity of life in the Tudor period, but the provision of an entirely new hall and kitchen suggests that the earlier hall was already ruinous.
KIDWELLY is one of the Norman foundations strung out along the coastal plain of South Wales. There is no evidence of any occupation before the grant to Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, and even if a small Celtic settlement existed, it has been without influence on the subsequent development of the site. Like many other Norman settlements which were then continually threatened by a hostile attack from the mountains, Kidwelly stands at the head of an estuary where the river was still navigable at high tide. This situation ensured a line of communications when the castle was surrounded and the roads cut by a Welsh rising.
THE SETTLEMENT
The settlement consists of two parts, the castle and the walled town on the west bank, and the priory church with the new town on the other side of the river. The two are joined by a two-arched bridge of fourteenth- or fiftecnth-century date. This carried the great road to West Wales, probably replacing an earlier structure. Modern development has greatly altered the appearance of the new town, the last of the picturesque medieval houses having recently been destroyed (1931). The priory church of St. Mary was founded by Bishop Roger before 1115, and became a cell of the abbey of Sherborne. Such foundations are typical of the Norman settlements in South Wales, the alien monks being introduced as a counterpoise to the patriotic sentiments of the native monasteries which too often served as focuses of anti-Norman feeling. The present building dates from the fourteenth century.
From the bridge the road to the castle leads through the defences of the old town. The walls have mostly disappeared, but the main gateway, apparently of early fourtheenth-century date, still spans the road. The line of the defences can still be traced by the earthen bank which preceded the walls. It encloses about eight acres including the castle which it surrounds on all sides except the east. A transverse ditch running west from the castle moat divides it into two nearly equal halves, of which it is probable that only the southern was walled. The defences consist of an earth bank and ditch except on the east, where the steep scarp above the river formed a natural protection. The date of these ramparts is not certainly known, but as the walling of the southern part is to be connected with grants of murage, c1280, and the erection of the gatehouse during the following century, there is good reason for suggesting that they form part of the original Norman settlement.
Although the medieval buildings within the walls have been replaced with modern houses, the line of the existing roads probably follows the original layout. Another feature of exceptional interest is the ruins of the medieval mill which with the contemporary weir and leat can be traced on the low ground between the old town and the river. At a comparatively modern date this was replaced by a more efficient type of mill, which in its turn is now disused.
THE CASTLE
After passing through the south gate of the town the road crosses the settlement and turning to the right reaches the gatehouse of the castle. The original bridge has been replaced by a causeway, the outer end of which starts from a small knoll. Trial excavations failed to recover the plan of the structure which this represented, and as the castle stood within the walled settlement, it is possible that the builders considered a barbican unnecessary.
The gatehall was closed at each end by a double gate preceded by a portcullis. On entering the outer ward the inner gate is seen in the centre of the south curtain of the inner ward. It is a simple structure, a mere arch through the curtain defended by a gate and a portcullis. The inner ward is rectangular with a circular tower at each angle. The earlier hall and solar lie on the east side, with the kitchen between the former and the gate. Behind the hall is the chapel, contained in a bastion projecting down the steep scarp above the river. A later kitchen occupies the south-west corner of the courtyard. The outer defences form a semi-circle based on the river. The masonry curtain and towers date from the fourteenth century, but they follow the lines of the original rampart which was disclosed by the 1931 excavations, and which can still be traced on the north and west sides. The Tudor hall standing free on the west side and several later buildings have encroached on the already restricted area of the outer ward. On the east, where the outer defences do not surround the inner ward, a small mantlet joins the north-east tower and the chapel.
The earlier domestic buildings
The thirteenth-century domestic buildings occupy the whole of one side of the inner ward. The hall and the solar together form a long range connecting the two eastern towers which are of slightly earlier date. The principal chambers were on the upper floor, below which were low rooms probably used as storehouses. The latter were lighted by narrow widely splayed windows looking on to the courtyard. The present divisions date from the period when the castle was put to base uses, as does the doorway piercing the east curtain and leading to the mantlet and the chapel. The entrance from the courtyard appears to be original. The upper part of the building is almost entirely destroyed. In the outer wall of the solar two trefoiled lancets and a fireplace with quoins and a hood of dressed Sutton stone are preserved. The splay of another window opening into the courtyard can be traced in the west wall, while a recess in the same side marks the position of the door leading into the hall. At the other end of this wall, where it joined the south curtain, the jamb of the doorway leading to the kitchen is visible. The kitchen is a small room with a large fireplace in the thickness of the south curtain. Outside the walls of the kitchen an irregular block of masonry marks the base of the stairs leading up to the hall. The exact position of the screens cannot be determined. From the passage behind them are doors leading to the chapel and the rooms below it, while further entrances give access to the tower.
The south-east tower
The south-east tower consists of five storeys. The lowest, a basement lighted by narrow loops, is reached by a door from the storeroom under the hall. The next stage, which has two narrow windows and a fireplace with quoins and hood of Sutton stone, seems originally to have been intended for residence, though after the hall was erected its position would suggest that it served as a buttery. This is confirmed by the contemporary blocking of the archway leading directly from the entrance passage to the circular staircase by which the upper rooms are reached. Like the ground floor, the next two storeys of this tower are decently appointed and seem to have been the private apartments of the castle. One of the narrow windows on the first floor was widened in Tudor times, the jambs of Sutton stone being replaced with a more perishable sandstone. The highest stage is a fourteenth century addition, the earlier battlements being traceable about eight feet below the existing parapet.
The chapel
The chapel is in two stages, the semi-octagonal eastern end rising above massive spurs. The clerestory has an unbroken range of trefoiled lancet windows. They are rebated for shutters, but there is no groove for glass. In the lower stage a double piscina and a wide sedile occupy the angle south of the altar. On this side of the building a small rectangular projection forms a sacristy, of which the groined vault is covered with a cruciform roof of stone. Below the chapel are two further storeys. The upper is reached by stairs descending from the passage behind the screens. It has a fireplace on the north side. The small room under the sacristy probably formed the living-quarters of the priest, for whom a garderobe was contrived in the south wall of the main room. The lowest storey was reached by a stair in the thickness of the north wall. The northern entrance to the room below the chapel is later.
The north-east tower
The arrangement of this tower differs little from that already described. From the ground floor a narrow passage leads to the outer face of the east curtain. This was designed to give access to the mantlet, and was formed by an alteration of the passage which had led to the wall walk along the eastern curtain. The addition of the hall and the consequent heightening of the curtain has blocked this passage. Here, as in the other towers, access to the wall walk on the remaining sides is obtained from the first floor. The curtain between the two northern towers is pierced by a small postern, closed by a gate and portcullis, and by two embrasures.
The north-west tower
The inner side of this tower is recessed so that on plan it appears heart-shaped instead of circular. In this and the following tower the higher level of the courtyard prevented the provision of a separate entrance to the basement, which must have been reached by a trapdoor. The upper part of this tower is particularly well preserved. Not only can the main battlements be traced, but some of those surrounding the small turret which covers the stairs are still in position.
The south-west tower
This tower is distinguished from the others by the flat saucer vaults with which each stage is covered. At some period, probably in the sixteenth century, the bottom of the circular staircase was blocked so that access to the upper rooms could only be obtained from the wall walk. This corner of the inner ward is occupied by the Tudor kitchen, which will be described in connection with the hall of that period. Above the inner gate the south wall walk passes through a small ruined chamber from which the portcullis was worked.
The gatehouse
The gatehouse is a building of three storeys. The plan is rectangular with two semi-circular towers flanking the entrance, while an elliptical projection on the eastern side commands the defences above the river. The ground floor is occupied by small vaulted chambers lighted by narrow loops through the outer walls. Below the rooms in the two flanking towers are vaulted cellars similarly lighted and approached by stairs opening out of the gate passage. Originally the upper storey was reached by a circular stair leading out of the front room on the west side of the gate, but this was replaced in the early fifteenth century rebuilding by a more convenient staircase in an added turret at the north-west angle.
The principal chambers were on the first floor. The inner side formed the hall lighted by windows with cusped heads looking into the courtyard. Early in the fifteenth-century these were enlarged and traces of the hood-mould surmounting the new rectangular-headed windows can be seen. Originally this hall could only be reached by the inconvenient stairs already mentioned, but later, probably as part of the general remodelling of the gatehouse, a wide external stairway was added leading up from the outer ward and entering the hall by a doorway inserted behind the screens. To the east of the hall lay the vaulted kitchen with a large fireplace and oven. The towers were occupied by two smaller rooms, while a third filled the space to the west of the hall. From the kitchen a door led to the wall walk along the eastern ramparts, while that to the west was reached from a small lobby opening out of the narrow room beyond the hall. Above the hall and stretching over the vault of the kitchen was the solar, reached originally by a small staircase contrived in the inner wall of the hall. The rest of this storey contained three smaller rooms corresponding to those on the floor below. With the exception of the solar all the rooms on the highest storey are covered with flat stone vaults, but the former, like the hall and the smaller chambers on the first floor, had wooden ceilings. From the hall the circular stairs in the added northwest turret led up to the solar and the roof.
The outer curtain
The curtain enclosing the outer ward follows the crest of the earlier rampart, on which it is built with very shallow foundations. There is a smaller gatehouse with two flanking towers through which the northern outworks could be reached. The western curtain between the two gates was reinforced by three semi-circular towers, while a fourth covered the north-eastern angle of the defences. There is evidence that the shallow foundations built on the top of an artificial bank were already giving trouble during the Middle Ages, and that the western and north-eastern towers with a portion of the adjacent curtain had collapsed before 1500. The latter was replaced by a thinner wall built slightly behind the line of the fourteenth-century curtain, but the slight wall closing the gorge was considered sufficient to replace the former. Access to the wall walk was through the gatehouses or by stairs leading up from the west side of the outer ward. The northern gatehouse is too far ruined to allow its internal arrangement to be reconstructed, but like the towers it was of three storeys. Of the latter that on the south-west is the best preserved. Originally this must have had a half-timbered inner wall, but during the fourteenth or fifteenth century this was replaced by a stone wall which projects beyond the inner face of the curtain. The ground floor was entered from the outer ward, but the upper floors could be reached from the wall walk. The presence of a fireplace on the first floor shows that the towers were intended for occupation.
The later domestic buildings
Changes carried out towards the close of the fifteenth century, probably by Sir Rhys ap Tudor, included the provision of more spacious buildings in the outer ward. On the west side a large hall with a high-pitched roof was erected parallel to the inner curtain. Of this only the two gables and the base of the side walls remain. The kitchen to serve this new hall was placed in the south-west angle of the inner ward, a passage being driven through the curtain by the enlargement of one of the original embrasures. The kitchen, a simple rectangular building, has two large fireplaces occupying the whole of each end of the room.
To the same period belong the buildings standing against the east, north and west curtains of the outer ward. The purpose of the first, a large chamber which is very similar in appearance to the late, hall, cannot be determined. The building to the west of the north gate has a large oven built in the thickness of the side wall and was the bakehouse. The remaining structure by the south-west towers has two long narrow rooms, one of which is provided with a fireplace.
The invading Normans took only a few years to conquer England after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. But Wales held out for two-and-a-half centuries.
Kidwelly Castle is a symbol of this enduring conflict. And it was here in 1136 that a warrior princess turned herself into one of Welsh history’s greatest heroines.
Gwenllian was authentic Welsh royalty – sister of the northern prince Owain Gwynedd and wife of Gruffudd ap Rhys, lord of Deheubarth. But she definitely didn’t live the life of a pampered princess.
Under constant threat from the Normans she was forced to hide away in the deep forests, where she raised four sons. Her husband was busy building an army and plotting lightning raids. But he chose the wrong time to head north for help.
In his absence Maurice de Londres, lord of Kidwelly Castle, began to gather forces for a counter-attack. He had to be stopped. So Gwenllian donned her battledress and entered the field herself.
She was ‘like some second Queen of the Amazons’, said the admiring historian Gerald of Wales. Some call her the Welsh Boudicca – the only woman to lead a medieval Welsh army into battle.
But they were no match for the Normans. She was captured and beheaded for treason. It’s said a spring welled up where she died – still known as Maes Gwenllian, or the Field of Gwenllian.
Her death wasn’t in vain. She inspired a popular uprising that swept the Normans out of West Wales. Finally true poetic justice was achieved by her youngest son, Rhys ap Gruffudd, who was just four years old when his mother died.
The Lord Rhys, as he was later known, captured Kidwelly Castle in 1159 and was recognised by King Henry II as the undisputed ruler of the region. But his death in 1197 provoked a power struggle. Just four years later the castle was back in Anglo-Norman hands.
You can pay tribute to brave and beautiful Princess Gwenllian at her monument near the castle gatehouse. You might even spot the headless ghost that’s reputed to stalk the grounds.
Carmarthenshire is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Carmarthenshire has been inhabited since prehistoric times. The county town was founded by the Romans, and the region was part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth in the High Middle Ages. After invasion by the Normans in the 12th and 13th centuries it was subjugated, along with other parts of Wales, by Edward I of England. There was further unrest in the early 15th century, when the Welsh rebelled under Owain Glyndŵr, and during the English Civil War.
Carmarthenshire is mainly an agricultural county, apart from the southeastern part which was once heavily industrialised with coal mining, steel-making and tin-plating. In the north of the county, the woollen industry was very important in the 18th century. The economy depends on agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism. West Wales was identified in 2014 as the worst-performing region in the United Kingdom along with the South Wales Valleys with the decline in its industrial base, and the low profitability of the livestock sector.
Carmarthenshire, as a tourist destination, offers a wide range of outdoor activities. Much of the coast is fairly flat; it includes the Millennium Coastal Park, which extends for ten miles to the west of Llanelli; the National Wetlands Centre; a championship golf course; and the harbours of Burry Port and Pembrey. The sandy beaches at Llansteffan and Pendine are further west. Carmarthenshire has a number of medieval castles, hillforts and standing stones. The Dylan Thomas Boathouse is at Laugharne.
Stone tools found in Coygan Cave, near Laugharne indicate the presence of hominins, probably neanderthals, at least 40,000 years ago, though, as in the rest of the British Isles, continuous habitation by modern humans is not known before the end of the Younger Dryas, around 11,500 years BP. Before the Romans arrived in Britain, the land now forming the county of Carmarthenshire was part of the kingdom of the Demetae who gave their name to the county of Dyfed; it contained one of their chief settlements, Moridunum, now known as Carmarthen. The Romans established two forts in South Wales, one at Caerwent to control the southeast of the country, and one at Carmarthen to control the southwest. The fort at Carmarthen dates from around 75 AD, and there is a Roman amphitheatre nearby, so this probably makes Carmarthen the oldest continually occupied town in Wales.
Carmarthenshire has its early roots in the region formerly known as Ystrad Tywi ("Vale of [the river] Tywi") and part of the Kingdom of Deheubarth during the High Middle Ages, with the court at Dinefwr. After the Normans had subjugated England they tried to subdue Wales. Carmarthenshire was disputed between the Normans and the Welsh lords and many of the castles built around this time, first of wood and then stone, changed hands several times. Following the Conquest of Wales by Edward I, the region was reorganized by the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 into Carmarthenshire. Edward I made Carmarthen the capital of this new county, establishing his courts of chancery and his exchequer there, and holding the Court of Great Sessions in Wales in the town.
The Normans transformed Carmarthen into an international trading port, the only staple port in Wales. Merchants imported food and French wines and exported wool, pelts, leather, lead and tin. In the late medieval period the county's fortunes varied, as good and bad harvests occurred, increased taxes were levied by England, there were episodes of plague, and recruitment for wars removed the young men. Carmarthen was particularly susceptible to plague as it was brought in by flea-infested rats on board ships from southern France.
In 1405, Owain Glyndŵr captured Carmarthen Castle and several other strongholds in the neighbourhood. However, when his support dwindled, the principal men of the county returned their allegiance to King Henry V. During the English Civil War, Parliamentary forces under Colonel Roland Laugharne besieged and captured Carmarthen Castle but later abandoned the cause, and joined the Royalists. In 1648, Carmarthen Castle was recaptured by the Parliamentarians, and Oliver Cromwell ordered it to be slighted.
The first industrial canal in Wales was built in 1768 to convey coal from the Gwendraeth Valley to the coast, and the following year, the earliest tramroad bridge was on the tramroad built alongside the canal. During the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) there was increased demand for coal, iron and agricultural goods, and the county prospered. The landscape changed as much woodland was cleared to make way for more food production, and mills, power stations, mines and factories sprang up between Llanelli and Pembrey. Carmarthenshire was at the centre of the Rebecca Riots around 1840, when local farmers and agricultural workers dressed as women and rebelled against higher taxes and tolls.
On 1 April 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, Carmarthenshire joined Cardiganshire and Pembrokeshire in the new county of Dyfed; Carmarthenshire was divided into three districts: Carmarthen, Llanelli and Dinefwr. Twenty-two years later this amalgamation was reversed when, under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, the original county boundaries were reinstated.
The county is bounded to the north by Ceredigion, to the east by Powys (historic county Brecknockshire), Neath Port Talbot (historic county Glamorgan) and Swansea (also Glamorgan), to the south by the Bristol Channel and to the west by Pembrokeshire. Much of the county is upland and hilly. The Black Mountain range dominates the east of the county, with the lower foothills of the Cambrian Mountains to the north across the valley of the River Towy. The south coast contains many fishing villages and sandy beaches. The highest point (county top) is the minor summit of Fan Foel, height 781 metres (2,562 ft), which is a subsidiary top of the higher mountain of Fan Brycheiniog, height 802.5 metres (2,633 ft) (the higher summit, as its name suggests, is actually across the border in Brecknockshire/Powys). Carmarthenshire is the largest historic county by area in Wales.
The county is drained by several important rivers which flow southwards into the Bristol Channel, especially the River Towy, and its several tributaries, such as the River Cothi. The Towy is the longest river flowing entirely within Wales. Other rivers include the Loughor (which forms the eastern boundary with Glamorgan), the River Gwendraeth and the River Taf. The River Teifi forms much of the border between Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion, and there are a number of towns in the Teifi Valley which have communities living on either side of the river and hence in different counties. Carmarthenshire has a long coastline which is deeply cut by the estuaries of the Loughor in the east and the Gwendraeth, Tywi and Taf, which enter the sea on the east side of Carmarthen Bay. The coastline includes notable beaches such as Pendine Sands and Cefn Sidan sands, and large areas of foreshore are uncovered at low tide along the Loughor and Towy estuaries.
The principal towns in the county are Ammanford, Burry Port, Carmarthen, Kidwelly, Llanelli, Llandeilo, Newcastle Emlyn, Llandovery, St Clears, and Whitland. The principal industries are agriculture, forestry, fishing and tourism. Although Llanelli is by far the largest town in the county, the county town remains Carmarthen, mainly due to its central location.
Carmarthenshire is predominantly an agricultural county, with only the southeastern area having any significant amount of industry. The best agricultural land is in the broad Tywi Valley, especially its lower reaches. With its fertile land and agricultural produce, Carmarthenshire is known as the "Garden of Wales". The lowest bridge over the river is at Carmarthen, and the Towi Estuary cuts the southwesterly part of the county, including Llansteffan and Laugharne, off from the more urban southeastern region. This area is also bypassed by the main communication routes into Pembrokeshire. A passenger ferry service used to connect Ferryside with Llansteffan until the early part of the twentieth century.
Agriculture and forestry are the main sources of income over most of the county of Carmarthenshire. On improved pastures, dairying is important and in the past, the presence of the railway enabled milk to be transported to the urban areas of England. The creamery at Whitland is now closed but milk processing still takes place at Newcastle Emlyn where mozzarella cheese is made. On upland pastures and marginal land, livestock rearing of cattle and sheep is the main agricultural activity. The estuaries of the Loughor and Towy provide pickings for the cockle industry.
Llanelli, Ammanford and the upper parts of the Gwendraeth Valley are situated on the South Wales Coalfield. The opencast mining activities in this region have now ceased but the old mining settlements with terraced housing remain, often centred on their nonconformist chapels. Kidwelly had a tin-plating industry in the eighteenth century, with Llanelli following not long after, so that by the end of the nineteenth century, Llanelli was the world-centre of the industry. There is little trace of these industrial activities today. Llanelli and Burry Port served at one time for the export of coal, but trade declined, as it did from the ports of Kidwelly and Carmarthen as their estuaries silted up. Country towns in the more agricultural part of the county still hold regular markets where livestock is traded.
In the north of the county, in and around the Teifi Valley, there was a thriving woollen industry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Here water-power provided the energy to drive the looms and other machinery at the mills. The village of Dre-fach Felindre at one time contained twenty-four mills and was known as the "Huddersfield of Wales". The demand for woollen cloth declined in the twentieth century and so did the industry.
In 2014, West Wales was identified as the worst-performing region in the United Kingdom along with the South Wales Valleys. The gross value added economic indicator showed a figure of £14,763 per head in these regions, as compared with a GVA of £22,986 for Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan. The Welsh Assembly Government is aware of this, and helped by government initiatives and local actions, opportunities for farmers to diversify have emerged. These include farm tourism, rural crafts, specialist food shops, farmers' markets and added-value food products.
Carmarthenshire County Council produced a fifteen-year plan that highlighted six projects which it hoped would create five thousand new jobs. The sectors involved would be in the "creative industries, tourism, agri-food, advanced manufacturing, energy and environment, and financial and professional services".
Carmarthenshire became an administrative county with a county council taking over functions from the Quarter Sessions under the Local Government Act 1888. Under the Local Government Act 1972, the administrative county of Carmarthenshire was abolished on 1 April 1974 and the area of Carmarthenshire became three districts within the new county of Dyfed : Carmarthen, Dinefwr and Llanelli. Under the Local Government (Wales) Act 1994, Dyfed was abolished on 1 April 1996 and Carmarthenshire was re-established as a county. The three districts united to form a unitary authority which had the same boundaries as the traditional county of Carmarthenshire. In 2003, the Clynderwen community council area was transferred to the administrative county of Pembrokeshire.
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Carmarthen and Wrexham were the two most populous towns in Wales. In 1931, the county's population was 171,445 and in 1951, 164,800. At the census in 2011, Carmarthenshire had a population of 183,777. Population levels have thus dipped and then increased again over the course of eighty years. The population density in Carmarthenshire is 0.8 persons per hectare compared to 1.5 per hectare in Wales as a whole.
Carmarthenshire was the most populous of the five historic counties of Wales to remain majority Welsh-speaking throughout the 20th century. According to the 1911 Census, 84.9 per cent of the county's population were Welsh-speaking (compared with 43.5 per cent in all of Wales), with 20.5 per cent of Carmarthenshire's overall population being monolingual Welsh-speakers.
In 1931, 82.3 per cent could speak Welsh and in 1951, 75.2 per cent. By the 2001 census, 50.3 per cent of people living in Carmarthenshire could speak Welsh, with 39 per cent being able to read and write the language as well.
The 2011 census showed a further decline, with 43.9 per cent speaking Welsh, making it a minority language in the county for the first time. However, the 2011 census also showed that 3,000 more people could understand spoken Welsh than in 2001 and that 60% of 5-14-year-olds could speak Welsh (a 5% increase since 2001). A decade later, the 2021 census, showed further decrease, to 39.9% Welsh speakers -- the largest percentage drop in all of Wales.
With its strategic location and history, the county is rich in archaeological remains such as forts, earthworks and standing stones. Carn Goch is one of the most impressive Iron Age forts and stands on a hilltop near Llandeilo. The Bronze Age is represented by chambered cairns and standing stones on Mynydd Llangyndeyrn, near Llangyndeyrn. Castles that can be easily accessed include Carreg Cennen, Dinefwr, Kidwelly, Laugharne, Llansteffan and Newcastle Emlyn Castle. There are the ruinous remains of Talley Abbey, and the coastal village of Laugharne is for ever associated with Dylan Thomas. Stately homes in the county include Aberglasney House and Gardens, Golden Grove and Newton House.
There are plenty of opportunities in the county for hiking, observing wildlife and admiring the scenery. These include Brechfa Forest, the Pembrey Country Park, the Millennium Coastal Park at Llanelli, the WWT Llanelli Wetlands Centre and the Carmel National Nature Reserve. There are large stretches of golden sands and the Wales Coast Path now provides a continuous walking route around the whole of Wales.
The National Botanic Garden of Wales displays plants from Wales and from all around the world, and the Carmarthenshire County Museum, the National Wool Museum, the Parc Howard Museum, the Pendine Museum of Speed and the West Wales Museum of Childhood all provide opportunities to delve into the past. Dylan Thomas Boathouse where the author wrote many of his works can be visited, as can the Roman-worked Dolaucothi Gold Mines.
Activities available in the county include rambling, cycling, fishing, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, horse riding, caving, abseiling and coasteering.[7] Carmarthen Town A.F.C. plays in the Cymru Premier. They won the Welsh Football League Cup in the 1995–96 season, and since then have won the Welsh Cup once and the Welsh League Cup twice. Llanelli Town A.F.C. play in the Welsh Football League Division Two. The club won the Welsh premier league and Loosemores challenge cup in 2008 and won the Welsh Cup in 2011, but after experiencing financial difficulties, were wound up and reformed under the present title in 2013. Scarlets is the regional professional rugby union team that plays in the Pro14, they play their home matches at their ground, Parc y Scarlets. Honours include winning the 2003/04 and 2016/17 Pro12. Llanelli RFC is a semi-professional rugby union team that play in the Welsh Premier Division, also playing home matches at Parc y Scarlets. Among many honours, they have been WRU Challenge Cup winners on fourteen occasions and frequently taken part in the Heineken Cup. West Wales Raiders, based in Llanelli, represent the county in Rugby league.
Some sporting venues utilise disused industrial sites. Ffos Las racecourse was built on the site of an open cast coal mine after mining operations ceased. Opened in 2009, it was the first racecourse built in the United Kingdom for eighty years and has regular race-days. Machynys is a championship golf course opened in 2005 and built as part of the Llanelli Waterside regeneration plan. Pembrey Circuit is a motor racing circuit near Pembrey village, considered the home of Welsh motorsport, providing racing for cars, motorcycles, karts and trucks. It was opened in 1989 on a former airfield, is popular for testing and has hosted many events including the British Touring Car Championship twice. The 2018 Tour of Britain cycling race started at Pembrey on 2 September 2018.
Carmarthenshire is served by the main line railway service operated by Transport for Wales Rail which links London Paddington, Cardiff Central and Swansea to southwest Wales. The main hub is Carmarthen railway station where some services from the east terminate. The line continues westwards with several branches which serve Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven and Fishguard Harbour (for the ferry to Rosslare Europort and connecting trains to Dublin Connolly). The Heart of Wales Line takes a scenic route through mid-Wales and links Llanelli with Craven Arms, from where passengers can travel on the Welsh Marches Line to Shrewsbury.
Two heritage railways, the Gwili Railway and the Teifi Valley Railway, use the track of the Carmarthen and Cardigan Railway that at one time ran from Carmarthen to Newcastle Emlyn, but did not reach Cardigan.
The A40, A48, A484 and A485 converge on Carmarthen. The M4 route that links South Wales with London, terminates at junction 49, the Pont Abraham services, to continue northwest as the dual carriageway A48, and to finish with its junction with the A40 in Carmarthen.
Llanelli is linked to M4 junction 48 by the A4138. The A40 links Carmarthen to Llandeilo, Llandovery and Brecon to the east, and with St Clears, Whitland and Haverfordwest to the west. The A484 links Llanelli with Carmarthen by a coastal route and continues northwards to Cardigan, and via the A486 and A487 to Aberystwyth, and the A485 links Carmarthen to Lampeter.
Bus services run between the main towns within the county and are operated by First Cymru under their "Western Welsh" or "Cymru Clipper" livery. Bus services from Carmarthenshire are also run to Cardiff. A bus service known as "fflecsi Bwcabus" (formerly just "Bwcabus") operates in the north of the county, offering customised transport to rural dwellers.
Carmarthenshire has rich, fertile farmland and a productive coast with estuaries providing a range of foods that motivate many home cooks and chefs.
Recently secured for preservation during 2025, Merseybus Leyland Atlantean / MCW 1811 was one of a handful of this batch of 45 to see further service, being one of a pair purchased by Border Tours in 1993. Seen at their Heasandford base soon after arrival, it had been pressed into service in full livery, complete with its former owner's legal lettering and even after repaint, it retained its metal fleetnumber plate, which it still carried when rescued last year.
This image is copyright and must not be reproduced or downloaded without the permission of the photographer.
Heritage Class Race Rover
Securing the mining rights to a barren ice world on the outskirts of the galaxy known as Ice Planet # 2002 seemed to the galactic community to be a foolish move. But when the Ice Planet Hydro Mining Corporation began extracting pure frozen H2O and shipping it by advanced rocket technology to resource scarce planetary systems, the galaxy took notice. Controlling such an important commodity, the Ice Planet HMC became one of the most powerful entities in the galaxy. With the success of their ventures, they were able to hire the brightest engineering minds and build advanced equipment.
After enduring long deployments on the frozen plains of the Ice Planet, a group of those engineers built the race rover known as Hydro Rocket. With its eye catching colors, unique wheel arrangement, and ice-extracted hydrogen fuel cell, the Hydro Rocket was a popular, if a bit unusual addition to the Galactic Terrestrial Rover Racing League. On low traction surfaces, the Ice Planet team's racer was unbeatable.
For more on the origin of the GTR-RL, watch the video trailer.
The GTR-RL is organized into three classes of racing rovers.
Heritage class rovers are built using only elements available to the theme of the racer. (i.e. a space police 1 race rover would be built using only parts from the 1989 space police theme.) Heritage class rovers represent Lego space themes up through the insectoid theme of 1998-99.
Modern class rovers are built in the same way, but represent Lego space themes from the 2001 theme Life on Mars, through present day space themes.
Unlimited class rovers are built with an unrestricted element palette and can represent Collectible Minifig themes or fan themes such as Pinktron and Suntron, etc
Check out more Race Rovers
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, also known as Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 until the Surname Law of 1934 (c. 1881 – 10 November 1938), was a Turkish field marshal, revolutionary statesman, author, and the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first president from 1923 until his death in 1938. He undertook sweeping progressive reforms, which modernized Turkey into a secular, industrializing nation. Ideologically a secularist and nationalist, his policies and socio-political theories became known as Kemalism.
Atatürk came to prominence for his role in securing the Ottoman Turkish victory at the Battle of Gallipoli (1915) during World War I. During this time, the Ottoman Empire perpetrated genocides against its Greek, Armenian and Assyrian subjects; while not directly involved, Atatürk's role in their aftermath has been controversial. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, he led the Turkish National Movement, which resisted mainland Turkey's partition among the victorious Allied powers. Establishing a provisional government in the present-day Turkish capital Ankara (known in English at the time as Angora), he defeated the forces sent by the Allies, thus emerging victorious from what was later referred to as the Turkish War of Independence. He subsequently proceeded to abolish the sultanate in 1922 and proclaimed the foundation of the Turkish Republic in its place the following year.
As the president of the newly formed Turkish Republic, Atatürk initiated a rigorous program of political, economic, and cultural reforms with the ultimate aim of building a republican and secular nation-state. He made primary education free and compulsory, opening thousands of new schools all over the country. He also introduced the Latin-based Turkish alphabet, replacing the old Ottoman Turkish alphabet. Turkish women received equal civil and political rights during Atatürk's presidency. In particular, women were given voting rights in local elections by Act no. 1580 on 3 April 1930 and a few years later, in 1934, full universal suffrage. His government carried out a policy of Turkification, trying to create a homogeneous, unified and above all secular nation under the Turkish banner. Under Atatürk, the minorities in Turkey were ordered to speak Turkish in public, but were allowed to maintain their own languages in private and within their own communities; non-Turkish toponyms were replaced and non-Turkish families were ordered to adopt a Turkish surname. The Turkish Parliament granted him the surname Atatürk in 1934, which means "Father of the Turks", in recognition of the role he played in building the modern Turkish Republic. He died on 10 November 1938 at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, at the age of 57; he was succeeded as president by his long-time prime minister İsmet İnönü and was honored with a state funeral.
In 1981, the centennial of Atatürk's birth, his memory was honoured by the United Nations and UNESCO, which declared it The Atatürk Year in the World and adopted the Resolution on the Atatürk Centennial, describing him as "the leader of the first struggle given against colonialism and imperialism" and a "remarkable promoter of the sense of understanding between peoples and durable peace between the nations of the world and that he worked all his life for the development of harmony and cooperation between peoples without distinction". Atatürk was also credited for his peace-in-the-world oriented foreign policy and friendship with neighboring countries such as Iran, Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Greece, as well as the creation of the Balkan Pact that resisted the expansionist aggressions of Fascist Italy and Tsarist Bulgaria.
The Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after parts of the Ottoman Empire were occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially national self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire; the Ottoman monarchy and the Islamic caliphate were abolished, and the Republic of Turkey was declared in Anatolia and Eastern Thrace. This resulted in a transfer of vested sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for Republican Turkey's period of nationalist revolutionary reform.
While World War I ended for the Ottoman Empire with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allied Powers continued occupying and securing land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, as well as to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman military commanders therefore refused orders from both the Allies and the Ottoman government to surrender and disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil throughout the remainder of the empire, sultan Mehmed VI dispatched Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), a well-respected and high-ranking general, to Anatolia to restore order; however, Mustafa Kemal became an enabler and eventually leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance against the Ottoman government, Allied powers, and separatists.
In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force into Anatolia and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allied powers. The Allies soon pressured the Ottoman government in Constantinople to suspend the Constitution, shutter Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.
In the ensuing war, Turkish and Syrian forces defeated the French in the south, and remobilized army units went on to partition Armenia with the Bolsheviks, resulting in the Treaty of Kars (October 1921). The Western Front of the independence war is known as the Greco-Turkish War, in which Greek forces at first encountered unorganized resistance. However, İsmet Pasha (İnönü)'s organization of militia into a regular army paid off when Ankara forces fought the Greeks in the First and Second Battle of İnönü. The Greek army emerged victorious in the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir and decided to drive on the Nationalist capital of Ankara, stretching their supply lines. The Turks checked their advance in the Battle of Sakarya and eventually counter-attacked in the Great Offensive, which expelled Greek forces from Anatolia in the span of three weeks. The war effectively ended with the recapture of İzmir and the Chanak Crisis, prompting the signing of another armistice in Mudanya.
The Grand National Assembly in Ankara was recognized as the legitimate Turkish government, which signed the Treaty of Lausanne (July 1923), a treaty more favorable to Turkey than the Sèvres Treaty. The Allies evacuated Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, the Ottoman government was overthrown and the monarchy abolished, and the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (which remains Turkey's primary legislative body today) declared the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. With the war, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, and the abolition of the sultanate, the Ottoman era came to an end, and with Atatürk's reforms, the Turks created the modern, secular nation-state of Turkey. On 3 March 1924, the Ottoman caliphate was also abolished.
The ethnic demographics of the modern Turkish Republic were significantly impacted by the earlier Armenian genocide and the deportations of Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian Rum people. The Turkish Nationalist Movement carried out massacres and deportations to eliminate native Christian populations—a continuation of the Armenian genocide and other ethnic cleansing operations during World War I. Following these campaigns of ethnic cleansing, the historic Christian presence in Anatolia was destroyed, in large part, and the Muslim demographic had increased from 80% to 98%.
Following the chaotic politics of the Second Constitutional Era, the Ottoman Empire came under the control of the Committee of Union and Progress in a coup in 1913, and then further consolidated its control after the assassination of Mahmud Shevket Pasha.[citation needed] Founded as a radical revolutionary group seeking to prevent a collapse of the Ottoman Empire, by the eve of World War I it decided that the solution was to implement nationalist and centralizing policies. The CUP reacted to the losses of land and the expulsion of Muslims from the Balkan Wars by turning even more nationalistic. Part of its effort to consolidate power was to proscribe and exile opposition politicians from the Freedom and Accord Party to remote Sinop.
The Unionists brought the Ottoman Empire into World War I on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary, during which a genocidal campaign was waged against Ottoman Christians, namely Armenians, Pontic Greeks, and Assyrians. It was based on an alleged conspiracy that the three groups would rebel on the side of the Allies, so collective punishment was applied. A similar suspicion and suppression from the Turkish nationalist government was directed towards the Arab and Kurdish populations, leading to localized rebellions. The Entente powers reacted to these developments by charging the CUP leaders, commonly known as the Three Pashas, with "Crimes against humanity" and threatened accountability. They also had imperialist ambitions on Ottoman territory, with a major correspondence over a post-war settlement in the Ottoman Empire being leaked to the press as the Sykes–Picot Agreement. With Saint Petersburg's exit from World War I and descent into civil war, driven in part from the Ottomans' closure of the Turkish straits of goods bound to Russia, a new imperative was given to the Entente powers to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war to restart the Eastern Front.
World War I would be the nail in the coffin of Ottomanism, a monarchist and multicultural nationalism. Mistreatment of non-Turk groups after 1913, and the general context of great socio-political upheaval that occurred in the aftermath of World War I, meant many minorities now wished to divorce their future from imperialism to form futures of their own by separating into (often republican) nation-states.
In the summer months of 1918, the leaders of the Central Powers realized that the Great War was lost, including the Ottomans'. Almost simultaneously the Palestinian Front and then the Macedonian Front collapsed. The sudden decision by Bulgaria to sign an armistice cut communications from Constantinople (İstanbul) to Vienna and Berlin, and opened the undefended Ottoman capital to Entente attack. With the major fronts crumbling, Unionist Grand Vizier Talât Pasha intended to sign an armistice, and resigned on 8 October 1918 so that a new government would receive less harsh armistice terms. The Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October 1918, ending World War I for the Ottoman Empire. Three days later, the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP)—which governed the Ottoman Empire as a one-party state since 1913—held its last congress, where it was decided the party would be dissolved. Talât, Enver Pasha, Cemal Pasha, and five other high-ranking members of the CUP escaped the Ottoman Empire on a German torpedo boat later that night, plunging the country into a power vacuum.
The armistice was signed because the Ottoman Empire had been defeated in important fronts, but the military was intact and retreated in good order. Unlike other Central Powers, the Allies did not mandate an abdication of the imperial family as a condition for peace, nor did they request the Ottoman Army to dissolve its general staff. Though the army suffered from mass desertion throughout the war which led to banditry, there was no threat of mutiny or revolutions like in Germany, Austria-Hungary, or Russia. This is despite famine and economic collapse that was brought on by the extreme levels of mobilization, destruction from the war, disease, and mass murder since 1914.
Due to the Turkish nationalist policies pursued by the CUP against Ottoman Christians by 1918 the Ottoman Empire held control over a mostly homogeneous land of Muslims from Eastern Thrace to the Persian border. These included mostly Turks, as well as Kurds, Circassians, and Muhacir groups from Rumeli. Most Muslim Arabs were now outside of the Ottoman Empire and under Allied occupation, with some "imperialists" still loyal to the Ottoman Sultanate-Caliphate, and others wishing for independence or Allied protection under a League of Nations mandate. Sizable Greek and Armenian minorities remained within its borders, and most of these communities no longer wished to remain under the Empire.
On 30 October 1918, the Armistice of Mudros was signed between the Ottoman Empire and the Allies of World War I, bringing hostilities in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I to an end. The Ottoman Army was to demobilize, its navy and air force handed to the Allies, and occupied territory in the Caucasus and Persia to be evacuated. Critically, Article VII granted the Allies the right to occupy forts controlling the Turkish Straits and the vague right to occupy "in case of disorder" any territory if there were a threat to security. The clause relating to the occupation of the straits was meant to secure a Southern Russian intervention force, while the rest of the article was used to allow for Allied controlled peace-keeping forces. There was also a hope to follow through punishing local actors that carried out exterminatory orders from the CUP government against Armenian Ottomans. For now, the House of Osman escaped the fates of the Hohenzollerns, Habsburgs, and Romanovs to continue ruling their empire, though at the cost of its remaining sovereignty.
On 13 November 1918, a French brigade entered Constantinople to begin a de facto occupation of the Ottoman capital and its immediate dependencies. This was followed by a fleet consisting of British, French, Italian and Greek ships deploying soldiers on the ground the next day, totaling 50,000 troops in Constantinople. The Allied Powers stated that the occupation was temporary and its purpose was to protect the monarchy, the caliphate and the minorities. Somerset Arthur Gough-Calthorpe—the British signatory of the Mudros Armistice—stated the Triple Entente's public position that they had no intention to dismantle the Ottoman government or place it under military occupation by "occupying Constantinople". However, dismantling the government and partitioning the Ottoman Empire among the Allied nations had been an objective of the Entente since the start of WWI.
A wave of seizures took place in the rest of the country in the following months. Citing Article VII, British forces demanded that Turkish troops evacuate Mosul, claiming that Christian civilians in Mosul and Zakho were killed en masse. In the Caucasus, Britain established a presence in Menshevik Georgia and the Lori and Aras valleys as peace-keepers. On 14 November, joint Franco-Greek occupation was established in the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis until the train station of Hadımköy on the outskirts of Constantinople. On 1 December, British troops based in Syria occupied Kilis, Marash, Urfa and Birecik. Beginning in December, French troops began successive seizures of the province of Adana, including the towns of Antioch, Mersin, Tarsus, Ceyhan, Adana, Osmaniye, and İslâhiye, incorporating the area into the Occupied Enemy Territory Administration North while French forces embarked by gunboats and sent troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Ereğli commanding Turkey's coal mining region. These continued seizures of land prompted Ottoman commanders to refuse demobilization and prepare for the resumption of war.
The British similarly asked Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) to turn over the port of Alexandretta (İskenderun), which he reluctantly did, following which he was recalled to Constantinople. He made sure to distribute weapons to the population to prevent them from falling into the hands of Allied forces. Some of these weapons were smuggled to the east by members of Karakol, a successor to the CUP's Special Organization, to be used in case resistance was necessary in Anatolia. Many Ottoman officials participated in efforts to conceal from the occupying authorities details of the burgeoning independence movement spreading throughout Anatolia.
Other commanders began refusing orders from the Ottoman government and the Allied powers. After Mustafa Kemal Pasha returned to Constantinople, Ali Fuat Pasha (Cebesoy) brought XX Corps under his command. He marched first to Konya and then to Ankara to organise resistance groups, such as the Circassian çetes he assembled with guerilla leader Çerkes Ethem. Meanwhile, Kazım Karabekir Pasha refused to surrender his intact and powerful XV Corps in Erzurum. Evacuation from the Caucusus, puppet republics and Muslim militia groups were established in the army's wake to hamper with the consolidation of the new Armenian state. Elsewhere in the country, regional nationalist resistance organizations known as Şuras –meaning "councils", not unlike soviets in revolutionary Russia– were founded, most pledging allegiance to the Defence of National Rights movement that protested continued Allied occupation and appeasement by the Sublime Porte.
Following the occupation of Constantinople, Mehmed VI Vahdettin dissolved the Chamber of Deputies which was dominated by Unionists elected back in 1914, promising elections for the next year. Vahdettin just ascended to the throne only months earlier with the death of Mehmed V Reşad. He was disgusted with the policies of the CUP, and wished to be a more assertive sovereign than his diseased half brother. Greek and Armenian Ottomans declared the termination of their relationship with the Ottoman Empire through their respective patriarchates, and refused to partake in any future election. With the collapse of the CUP and its censorship regime, an outpouring of condemnation against the party came from all parts of Ottoman media.
A general amnesty was soon issued, allowing the exiled and imprisoned dissidents persecuted by the CUP to return to Constantinople. Vahdettin invited the pro-Palace politician Damat Ferid Pasha, leader of the reconstituted Freedom and Accord Party, to form a government, whose members quickly set out to purge the Unionists from the Ottoman government. Ferid Pasha hoped that his Anglophilia and an attitude of appeasement would induce less harsh peace terms from the Allied powers. However, his appointment was problematic for nationalists, many being members of the liquidated committee that were surely to face trial. Years of corruption, unconstitutional acts, war profiteering, and enrichment from ethnic cleansing and genocide by the Unionists soon became basis of war crimes trials and courts martial trials held in Constantinople.[citation needed] While many leading Unionists were sentenced lengthy prison sentences, many made sure to escape the country before Allied occupation or to regions that the government now had minimal control over; thus most were sentenced in absentia. The Allies encouragement of the proceedings and the use of British Malta as their holding ground made the trials unpopular. The partisan nature of the trials was not lost on observers either. The hanging of the Kaymakam of Boğazlıyan district Mehmed Kemal resulted in a demonstration against the courts martials trials.
With all the chaotic politics in the capital and uncertainty of the severity of the incoming peace treaty, many Ottomans looked to Washington with the hope that the application of Wilsonian principles would mean Constantinople would stay Turkish, as Muslims outnumbered Christians 2:1. The United States never declared war on the Ottoman Empire, so many imperial elite believed Washington could be a neutral arbiter that could fix the empire's problems. Halide Edip (Adıvar) and her Wilsonian Principles Society led the movement that advocated for the empire to be governed by an American League of Nations Mandate (see United States during the Turkish War of Independence). American diplomats attempted to ascertain a role they could play in the area with the Harbord and King–Crane Commissions. However, with the collapse of Woodrow Wilson's health, the United States diplomatically withdrew from the Middle East to focus on Europe, leaving the Entente powers to construct a post-Ottoman order.
The Entente would have arrived at Constantinople to discover an administration attempting to deal with decades of accumulated refugee crisis. The new government issued a proclamation allowing for deportees to return to their homes, but many Greeks and Armenians found their old homes occupied by desperate Rumelian and Caucasian Muslim refugees which were settled in their properties during the First World War. Ethnic conflict restarted in Anatolia; government officials responsible for resettling Christian refugees often assisted Muslim refugees in these disputes, prompting European powers to continue bringing Ottoman territory under their control. Of the 800,000 Ottoman Christian refugees, approximately over half returned to their homes by 1920. Meanwhile 1.4 million refugees from the Russian Civil War would pass through the Turkish straits and Anatolia, with 150,000 White émigrés choosing to settle in Istanbul for short or long term (see Evacuation of the Crimea). Many provinces were simply depopulated from years of fighting, conscription, and ethnic cleansing (see Ottoman casualties of World War I). The province of Yozgat lost 50% of its Muslim population from conscription, while according to the governor of Van, almost 95% of its prewar residents were dead or internally displaced.
Administration in much of the Anatolian and Thracian countryside would soon all but collapse by 1919. Army deserters who turned to banditry essentially controlled fiefdoms with tacit approval from bureaucrats and local elites. An amnesty issued in late 1918 saw these bandits strengthen their positions and fight amongst each other instead of returning to civilian life. Albanian and Circassian muhacirs resettled by the government in northwestern Anatolia and Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were engaged in blood feuds that intensified during the war and were hesitant to pledge allegiance to the Defence of Rights movement, and only would if officials could facilitate truces. Various Muhacir groups were suspicious of the continued Ittihadist ideology in the Defence of Rights movement, and the potential for themselves to meet fates 'like the Armenians' especially as warlords hailing from those communities assisted the deportations of the Christians even though as many commanders in the Nationalist movement also had Caucasian and Balkan Muslim ancestry.
With Anatolia in practical anarchy and the Ottoman army being questionably loyal in reaction to Allied land seizures, Mehmed VI established the military inspectorate system to reestablish authority over the remaining empire. Encouraged by Karabekir and Edmund Allenby, he assigned Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk) as the inspector of the Ninth Army Troops Inspectorate –based in Erzurum– to restore order to Ottoman military units and to improve internal security on 30 April 1919, with his first assignment to suppress a rebellion by Greek rebels around the city of Samsun.
Mustafa Kemal was a well known, well respected, and well connected army commander, with much prestige coming from his status as the "Hero of Anafartalar"—for his role in the Gallipoli Campaign—and his title of "Honorary Aide-de-camp to His Majesty Sultan" gained in the last months of WWI. This choice would seem curious, as he was a nationalist and a fierce critic of the government's accommodating policy to the Entente powers. He was also an early member of the CUP. However Kemal Pasha did not associate himself with the fanatical faction of the CUP, many knew that he frequently clashed with the radicals of the Central Committee like Enver. He was therefore sidelined to the periphery of power throughout the Great War; after the CUP's dissolution he vocally aligned himself with moderates that formed the Liberal People's Party instead of the rump radical faction which formed the Renewal Party (both parties would be banned in May 1919 for being successors of the CUP). All these reasons allowed him to be the most legitimate nationalist for the sultan to placate. In this new political climate, he sought to capitalize on his war exploits to attain a better job, indeed several times he unsuccessfully lobbied for his inclusion in cabinet as War Minister. His new assignment gave him effective plenipotentiary powers over all of Anatolia which was meant to accommodate him and other nationalists to keep them loyal to the government.
Mustafa Kemal had earlier declined to become the leader of the Sixth Army headquartered in Nusaybin. But according to Patrick Balfour, through manipulation and the help of friends and sympathizers, he became the inspector of virtually all of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, tasked with overseeing the disbanding process of remaining Ottoman forces. Kemal had an abundance of connections and personal friends concentrated in the post-armistice War Ministry, a powerful tool that would help him accomplish his secret goal: to lead a nationalist movement to safeguard Turkish interests against the Allied powers and a collaborative Ottoman government.
The day before his departure to Samsun on the remote Black Sea coast, Kemal had one last audience with Sultan Vahdettin, where he affirmed his loyalty to the sultan-caliph. It was in this meeting that they were informed of the botched occupation ceremony of Smyrna (İzmir) by the Greeks. He and his carefully selected staff left Constantinople aboard the old steamer SS Bandırma on the evening of 16 May 1919.
On 19 January 1919, the Paris Peace Conference was first held, at which Allied nations set the peace terms for the defeated Central Powers, including the Ottoman Empire. As a special body of the Paris Conference, "The Inter-Allied Commission on Mandates in Turkey", was established to pursue the secret treaties they had signed between 1915 and 1917. Italy sought control over the southern part of Anatolia under the Agreement of St.-Jean-de-Maurienne. France expected to exercise control over Hatay, Lebanon, Syria, and a portion of southeastern Anatolia based on the Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece justified their territorial claims of Ottoman land through the Megali Idea as well as international sympathy from the suffering of Ottoman Greeks in 1914 and 1917–1918. Privately, Greek prime minister Eleftherios Venizelos had British prime minister David Lloyd George's backing not least from Greece's entrance to WWI on the Allied side, but also from his charisma and charming personality. Greece's participation in the Allies' Southern Russian intervention also earned it favors in Paris. His demands included parts of Eastern Thrace, the islands of Imbros (Gökçeada), Tenedos (Bozcaada), and parts of Western Anatolia around the city of Smyrna (İzmir), all of which had large Greek populations. Venizelos also advocated a large Armenian state to check a post-war Ottoman Empire. Greece wanted to incorporate Constantinople, but Entente powers did not give permission. Damat Ferid Pasha went to Paris on behalf of the Ottoman Empire hoping to minimize territorial losses using Fourteen Points rhetoric, wishing for a return to status quo ante bellum, on the basis that every province of the Empire holds Muslim majorities. This plea was met with ridicule.
At the Paris Peace Conference, competing claims over Western Anatolia by Greek and Italian delegations led Greece to land the flagship of the Greek Navy at Smyrna, resulting in the Italian delegation walking out of the peace talks. On 30 April, Italy responded to the possible idea of Greek incorporation of Western Anatolia by sending a warship to Smyrna as a show of force against the Greek campaign. A large Italian force also landed in Antalya. Faced with Italian annexation of parts of Asia Minor with a significant ethnic Greek population, Venizelos secured Allied permission for Greek troops to land in Smyrna per Article VII, ostensibly as a peacekeeping force to keep stability in the region. Venizelos's rhetoric was more directed against the CUP regime than the Turks as a whole, an attitude not always shared in the Greek military: "Greece is not making war against Islam, but against the anachronistic [İttihadist] Government, and its corrupt, ignominious, and bloody administration, with a view to the expelling it from those territories where the majority of the population consists of Greeks." It was decided by the Triple Entente that Greece would control a zone around Smyrna and Ayvalık in western Asia Minor.
Most historians mark the Greek landing at Smyrna on 15 May 1919 as the start date of the Turkish War of Independence as well as the start of the "Kuva-yi Milliye Phase". The occupation ceremony from the outset was tense from nationalist fervor, with Ottoman Greeks greeting the soldiers with an ecstatic welcome, and Ottoman Muslims protesting the landing. A miscommunication in Greek high command led to an Evzone column marching by the municipal Turkish barracks. The nationalist journalist Hasan Tahsin fired the "first bullet"[note 4] at the Greek standard bearer at the head of the troops, turning the city into a warzone. Süleyman Fethi Bey was murdered by bayonet for refusing to shout "Zito Venizelos" (meaning "long live Venizelos"), and 300–400 unarmed Turkish soldiers and civilians and 100 Greek soldiers and civilians were killed or wounded.
Greek troops moved from Smyrna outwards to towns on the Karaburun peninsula; to Selçuk, situated a hundred kilometres south of the city at a key location that commands the fertile Küçük Menderes River valley; and to Menemen towards the north. Guerilla warfare commenced in the countryside, as Turks began to organize themselves into irregular guerilla groups known as Kuva-yi Milliye (national forces), which were soon joined by Ottoman soldiers, bandits, and disaffected farmers. Most Kuva-yi Milliye bands were led by rogue military commanders and members of the Special Organization. The Greek troops based in cosmopolitan Smyrna soon found themselves conducting counterinsurgency operations in a hostile, dominantly Muslim hinterland. Groups of Ottoman Greeks also formed contingents that cooperated with the Greek Army to combat Kuva-yi Milliye within the zone of control. A massacre of Turks at Menemen was followed up with a battle for the town of Aydın, which saw intense intercommunal violence and the razing of the city. What was supposed to be a peacekeeping mission of Western Anatolia instead inflamed ethnic tensions and became a counterinsurgency.
The reaction of Greek landing at Smyrna and continued Allied seizures of land served to destabilize Turkish civil society. Ottoman bureaucrats, military, and bourgeoisie trusted the Allies to bring peace, and thought the terms offered at Mudros were considerably more lenient than they actually were. Pushback was potent in the capital, with 23 May 1919 being largest of the Sultanahmet Square demonstrations organized by the Turkish Hearths against the Greek occupation of Smyrna, the largest act of civil disobedience in Turkish history at that point. The Ottoman government condemned the landing, but could do little about it. Ferid Pasha tried to resign, but was urged by the sultan to stay in his office.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his colleagues stepped ashore in Samsun on 19 May and set up their first quarters in the Mıntıka Palace Hotel. British troops were present in Samsun, and he initially maintained cordial contact. He had assured Damat Ferid about the army's loyalty towards the new government in Constantinople. However, behind the government's back, Kemal made the people of Samsun aware of the Greek and Italian landings, staged discreet mass meetings, made fast connections via telegraph with the army units in Anatolia, and began to form links with various Nationalist groups. He sent telegrams of protest to foreign embassies and the War Ministry about British reinforcements in the area and about British aid to Greek brigand gangs. After a week in Samsun, Kemal and his staff moved to Havza. It was there that he first showed the flag of the resistance.
Mustafa Kemal wrote in his memoir that he needed nationwide support to justify armed resistance against the Allied occupation. His credentials and the importance of his position were not enough to inspire everyone. While officially occupied with the disarming of the army, he met with various contacts in order to build his movement's momentum. He met with Rauf Pasha, Karabekir Pasha, Ali Fuat Pasha, and Refet Pasha and issued the Amasya Circular (22 June 1919). Ottoman provincial authorities were notified via telegraph that the unity and independence of the nation was at risk, and that the government in Constantinople was compromised. To remedy this, a congress was to take place in Erzurum between delegates of the Six Vilayets to decide on a response, and another congress would take place in Sivas where every Vilayet should send delegates. Sympathy and an lack of coordination from the capital gave Mustafa Kemal freedom of movement and telegraph use despite his implied anti-government tone.
On 23 June, High Commissioner Admiral Calthorpe, realising the significance of Mustafa Kemal's discreet activities in Anatolia, sent a report about the Pasha to the Foreign Office. His remarks were downplayed by George Kidson of the Eastern Department. Captain Hurst of the British occupation force in Samsun warned Admiral Calthorpe one more time, but Hurst's units were replaced with the Brigade of Gurkhas. When the British landed in Alexandretta, Admiral Calthorpe resigned on the basis that this was against the armistice that he had signed and was assigned to another position on 5 August 1919. The movement of British units alarmed the population of the region and convinced them that Mustafa Kemal was right.
By early July, Mustafa Kemal Pasha received telegrams from the sultan and Calthorpe, asking him and Refet to cease his activities in Anatolia and return to the capital. Kemal was in Erzincan and did not want to return to Constantinople, concerned that the foreign authorities might have designs for him beyond the sultan's plans. Before resigning from his position, he dispatched a circular to all nationalist organizations and military commanders to not disband or surrender unless for the latter if they could be replaced by cooperative nationalist commanders. Now only a civilian stripped of his command, Mustafa Kemal was at the mercy of the new inspector of Third Army (renamed from Ninth Army) Karabekir Pasha, indeed the War Ministry ordered him to arrest Kemal, an order which Karabekir refused. The Erzurum Congress was a meeting of delegates and governors from the six Eastern Vilayets. They drafted the National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which envisioned new borders for the Ottoman Empire by applying principles of national self-determination per Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points and the abolition of the capitulations. The Erzurum Congress concluded with a circular that was effectively a declaration of independence: All regions within Ottoman borders upon the signing of the Mudros Armistice were indivisible from the Ottoman state –Greek and Armenian claims on Thrace and Anatolia were moot– and assistance from any country not coveting Ottoman territory was welcome. If the government in Constantinople was not able to attain this after electing a new parliament, they insisted a provisional government should be promulgated to defend Turkish sovereignty. The Committee of Representation was established as a provisional executive body based in Anatolia, with Mustafa Kemal Pasha as its chairman.
Following the congress, the Committee of Representation relocated to Sivas. As announced in the Amasya Circular, a new congress was held there in September with delegates from all Anatolian and Thracian provinces. The Sivas Congress repeated the points of the National Pact agreed to in Erzurum, and united the various regional Defence of National Rights Associations organizations, into a united political organisation: Anatolia and Rumeli Defence of Rights Association (A-RMHC), with Mustafa Kemal as its chairman. In an effort show his movement was in fact a new and unifying movement, the delegates had to swear an oath to discontinue their relations with the CUP and to never revive the party (despite most present in Sivas being previous members).[120] It was also decided there that the Ottoman Empire should not be a League of Nations mandate under the United States, especially after the U.S Senate failed to ratify American membership in the League.
Momentum was now on the Nationalists' side. A plot by a loyalist Ottoman governor and a British intelligence officer to arrest Kemal before the Sivas Congress led to the cutting of all ties with the Ottoman government until a new election would be held in the lower house of parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. In October 1919, the last Ottoman governor loyal to Constantinople fled his province. Fearing the outbreak of hostilities, all British troops stationed in the Black Sea coast and Kütahya were evacuated. Damat Ferid Pasha resigned, and the sultan replaced him with a general with nationalist credentials: Ali Rıza Pasha. On 16 October 1919, Ali Rıza and the Nationalists held negotiations in Amasya. They agreed in the Amasya Protocol that an election would be called for the Ottoman Parliament to establish national unity by upholding the resolutions made in the Sivas Congress, including the National Pact.
By October 1919, the Ottoman government only held de facto control over Constantinople; the rest of the Ottoman Empire was loyal to Kemal's movement to resist a partition of Anatolia and Thrace. Within a few months Mustafa Kemal went from General Inspector of the Ninth Army to a renegade military commander discharged for insubordination to leading a homegrown anti-Entente movement that overthrew a government and driven it into resistance.
In December 1919, an election was held for the Ottoman parliament, with polls only open in unoccupied Anatolia and Thrace. It was boycotted by Ottoman Greeks, Ottoman Armenians and the Freedom and Accord Party, resulting in groups associated with the Turkish Nationalist Movement winning, including the A-RMHC. The Nationalists' obvious links to the CUP made the election especially polarizing and voter intimidation and ballot box stuffing in favor of the Kemalists were regular occurrences in rural provinces. This controversy led to many of the nationalist MPs organizing the National Salvation Group separate from Kemal's movement, which risked the nationalist movement splitting in two.
Mustafa Kemal was elected an MP from Erzurum, but he expected the Allies neither to accept the Harbord report nor to respect his parliamentary immunity if he went to the Ottoman capital, hence he remained in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal and the Committee of Representation moved from Sivas to Ankara so that he could keep in touch with as many deputies as possible as they traveled to Constantinople to attend the parliament.
Though Ali Rıza Pasha called the election as per the Amasya Protocol to keep unity between the "Istanbul government" and "Ankara government", he was wrong to think the election could bring him any legitimacy. The Ottoman parliament was under the de facto control of the British battalion stationed at Constantinople and any decisions by the parliament had to have the signatures of both Ali Rıza Pasha and the battalion's commanding officer. The only laws that passed were those acceptable to, or specifically ordered by the British.
On 12 January 1920, the last session of the Chamber of Deputies met in the capital. First the sultan's speech was presented, and then a telegram from Mustafa Kemal, manifesting the claim that the rightful government of Turkey was in Ankara in the name of the Committee of Representation. On 28 January the MPs from both sides of the isle secretly met to endorse the National Pact as a peace settlement. They added to the points passed in Sivas, calling for plebiscites to be held in West Thrace; Batum, Kars, and Ardahan, and Arab lands on whether to stay in the Empire or not. Proposals were also made to elect Kemal president of the Chamber;[clarification needed] however, this was deferred in the certain knowledge that the British would prorogue the Chamber. The Chamber of Deputies would be forcefully dissolved for passing the National Pact anyway. The National Pact solidified Nationalist interests, which were in conflict with the Allied plans.
From February to April, leaders of Britain, France, and Italy met in London to discuss the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and the crisis in Anatolia. The British began to sense that the elected Ottoman government was under Kemalist influence and if left unchecked, the Entente could once again find themselves at war with the Empire. The Ottoman government was not doing all that it could to suppress the Nationalists.
Mustafa Kemal manufactured a crisis to pressure the Istanbul government to pick a side by deploying Kuva-yi Milliye towards İzmit. The British, concerned about the security of the Bosporus Strait, demanded Ali Rıza Pasha to reassert control over the area, to which he responded with his resignation to the sultan.
As they were negotiating the partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Allies were growing increasingly concerned about the Turkish National Movement. To this end, the Allied occupational authorities in Istanbul began to plan a raid to arrest nationalist politicians and journalists along with occupying military and police installations and government buildings. On 16 March 1920, the coup was carried out; several Royal Navy warships were anchored in the Galata Bridge to support British forces, including the Indian Army, while they carried out the arrests and occupied several government buildings in the early hours of the morning.
An Indian Army operation, the Şehzadebaşı raid, resulted in 5 Ottoman soldiers from the 10th Infantry Division being killed when troops raided their barracks. Among those arrested were the senior leadership of the Turkish National Movement and former members of the CUP. 150 arrested Turkish politicians accused of war crimes were interned in Malta and became known as the Malta exiles.
Mustafa Kemal was ready for this move. He warned all the Nationalist organisations that there would be misleading declarations from the capital. He warned that the only way to counter Allied movements was to organise protests. He declared "Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future".
On 18 March, the Chamber of Deputies declared that it was unacceptable to arrest five of its members, and dissolved itself. Mehmed VI confirmed this and declared the end of Constitutional Monarchy and a return to absolutism. University students were forbidden from joining political associations inside and outside the classroom. With the lower elected Chamber of Deputies shuttered, the Constitution terminated, and the capital occupied; Sultan Vahdettin, his cabinet, and the appointed Senate were all that remained of the Ottoman government, and were basically a puppet regime of the Allied powers. Grand Vizier Salih Hulusi Pasha declared Mustafa Kemal's struggle legitimate, and resigned after less than a month in office. In his place, Damat Ferid Pasha returned to the premiership. The Sublime Porte's decapitation by the Entente allowed Mustafa Kemal to consolidate his position as the sole leader of Turkish resistance against the Allies, and to that end made him the legitimate representative of the Turkish people.
The strong measures taken against the Nationalists by the Allies in March 1920 began a distinct new phase of the conflict. Mustafa Kemal sent a note to the governors and force commanders, asking them to conduct elections to provide delegates for a new parliament to represent the Ottoman (Turkish) people, which would convene in Ankara. With the proclamation of the counter-government, Kemal would then ask the sultan to accept its authority. Mustafa Kemal appealed to the Islamic world, asking for help to make sure that everyone knew he was still fighting in the name of the sultan who was also the caliph. He stated he wanted to free the caliph from the Allies. He found an ally in the Khilafat movement of British India, where Indians protested Britain's planned dismemberment of Turkey. A committee was also started for sending funds to help the soon to be proclaimed Ankara government of Mustafa Kemal. A flood of supporters moved to Ankara just ahead of the Allied dragnets. Included among them were Halide Edip and Abdülhak Adnan (Adıvar), Mustafa İsmet Pasha (İnönü), Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), many of Kemal's allies in the Ministry of War, and Celalettin Arif, the president of the now shuttered Chamber of Deputies. Celaleddin Arif's desertion of the capital was of great significance, as he declared that the Ottoman Parliament had been dissolved illegally.
Some 100 members of the Chamber of Deputies were able to escape the Allied roundup and joined 190 deputies elected. In March 1920, Turkish revolutionaries announced the establishment of a new parliament in Ankara known as the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNA) that was dominated by the A-RMHC.[citation needed] The parliament included Turks, Circassians, Kurds, and one Jew. They met in a building that used to serve as the provincial headquarters of the local CUP chapter. The inclusion of "Turkey" in its name reflected a increasing trend of new ways Ottoman citizens thought of their country, and was the first time it was formally used as the name of the country. On 23 April, the assembly, assuming full governmental powers, gathered for the first time, electing Mustafa Kemal its first Speaker and Prime Minister.
Hoping to undermine the Nationalist Movement, Mehmed VI issued a fatwa to qualify the Turkish revolutionaries as infidels, calling for the death of its leaders. The fatwa stated that true believers should not go along with the Nationalist Movement as they committed apostasy. The mufti of Ankara Rifat Börekçi issued a simultaneous fatwa, declaring that the caliphate was under the control of the Entente and the Ferid Pasha government. In this text, the Nationalist Movement's goal was stated as freeing the sultanate and the caliphate from its enemies. In reaction to the desertion of several prominent figures to the Nationalist Movement, Ferid Pasha ordered Halide Edip, Ali Fuat and Mustafa Kemal to be sentenced to death in absentia for treason.
On 28 April the sultan raised 4,000 soldiers known as the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye (Caliphate Army) to combat the Nationalists. Then using money from the Allies, another force about 2,000 strong from non-Muslim inhabitants were initially deployed in İznik. The sultan's government sent the forces under the name of the Caliphate Army to the revolutionaries to arouse counterrevolutionary sympathy. The British, being skeptical of how formidable these insurgents were, decided to use irregular power to counteract the revolutionaries. The Nationalist forces were distributed all around Turkey, so many smaller units were dispatched to face them. In İzmit there were two battalions of the British army. These units were to be used to rout the partisans under the command of Ali Fuat and Refet Pasha.
Anatolia had many competing forces on its soil: British troops, Nationalist militia (Kuva-yi Milliye), the sultan's army (Kuva-yi İnzibatiye), and Anzavur's bands. On 13 April 1920, an uprising supported by Anzavur against the GNA occurred at Düzce as a direct consequence of the fatwa. Within days the rebellion spread to Bolu and Gerede. The movement engulfed northwestern Anatolia for about a month. On 14 June, Nationalist militia fought a pitched battle near İzmit against the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye, Anzavur's bands, and British units. Yet under heavy attack some of the Kuva-yi İnzibatiye deserted and joined the Nationalist militia. Anzavur was not so lucky, as the Nationalists tasked Ethem the Circassian with crushing Anzavur's revolt. This revealed the sultan did not have the unwavering support of his own men and allies. Meanwhile, the rest of these forces withdrew behind the British lines which held their position. For now, Istanbul was out of Ankara's grasp.
The clash outside İzmit brought serious consequences. British forces conducted combat operations on the Nationalists and the Royal Air Force carried out aerial bombardments against the positions, which forced Nationalist forces to temporarily retreat to more secure missions. The British commander in Turkey, General George Milne—, asked for reinforcements. This led to a study to determine what would be required to defeat the Turkish Nationalists. The report, signed by French Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch, concluded that 27 divisions were necessary, but the British army did not have 27 divisions to spare. Also, a deployment of this size could have disastrous political consequences back home. World War I had just ended, and the British public would not support another lengthy and costly expedition.
The British accepted the fact that a nationalist movement could not be defeated without deployment of consistent and well-trained forces. On 25 June, the forces originating from Kuva-i İnzibatiye were dismantled under British supervision. The British realised that the best option to overcome these Turkish Nationalists was to use a force that was battle-tested and fierce enough to fight the Turks on their own soil. The British had to look no further than Turkey's neighbor already occupying its territory: Greece.
Eleftherios Venizelos, pessimistic of the rapidly deteriorating situation in Anatolia, requested to the Allies that a peace treaty be drawn up with the hope that fighting would stop. The subsequent treaty of Sèvres in August 1920 confirmed the Arab provinces of the empire would be reorganized into new nations given to Britain and France in the form of Mandates by the League of Nations, while the rest of the Empire would be partitioned between Greece, Italy, France (via Syrian mandate), Britain (via Iraqi mandate), Armenia (potentially under an American mandate), and Georgia. Smyrna would hold a plebiscite on whether to stay with Greece or Turkey, and the Kurdistan region would hold one on the question of independence. British, French, and Italian spheres of influence would also extend into Anatolia beyond the land concessions. The old capital of Constantinople as well as the Dardanelles would be under international League of Nations control.
However, the treaty could never come into effect. The treaty was extremely unpopular, with protests against the final document held even before its release in Sultanahmet square. Though Mehmed VI and Ferid Pasha loathed the treaty, they did not want Istanbul to join Ankara in nationalist struggle. The Ottoman government and Greece never ratified it. Though Ferid Pasha signed the treaty, the Ottoman Senate, the upper house with seats appointed by the sultan, refused to ratify the treaty. Greece disagreed on the borders drawn. The other allies began to fracture their support of the settlement immediately. Italy started openly supporting the Nationalists with arms by the end of 1920, and the French signed another separate peace treaty with Ankara only months later.
Kemal's GNA Government responded to the Treaty of Sèvres by promulgating a new constitution in January 1921. The resulting constitution consecrated the principle of popular sovereignty; authority not deriving from the unelected sultan, but from the Turkish people who elect governments representative of their interests. This document became the legal basis for the war of independence by the GNA, as the sultan's signature of the Treaty of Sèvres would be unconstitutional as his position was not elected. While the constitution did not specify a future role of the sultan, the document gave Kemal ever more legitimacy in the eyes of Turks for justified resistance against Istanbul.
In contrast to the Eastern and Western fronts, it was mostly unorganized Kuva-yi Milliye which were fighting in the Southern Front against France. They had help from the Syrians, who were fighting their own war with the French.
The British troops which occupied coastal Syria by the end of World War I were replaced by French troops over 1919, with the Syrian interior going to Faisal bin Al-Hussein's self-proclaimed Arab Kingdom of Syria. France which wanted to take control of all of Syria and Cilicia. There was also a desire facilitate the return of Armenian refugees in the region to their homes, and the occupation force consisted of the French Armenian Legion as well as various Armenian militia groups. 150,000 Armenians were repatriated to their homes within months of French occupation. On 21 January 1920, a Turkish Nationalist uprising and siege occurred against the French garrison in Marash. The French position untenable they retreated to Islahiye, resulting in a massacre of many Armenians by Turkish militia. A grueling siege followed in Antep which featured intense sectarian violence between Turks and Armenians. After a failed uprising by the Nationalists in Adana, by 1921, the French and Turks signed an armistice and eventually a treaty was brokered demarcating the border between the Ankara government and French controlled Syria. In the end, there was a mass exodus of Cilician Armenians to French controlled Syria, Previous Armenian survivors of deportation found themselves again as refugees and families which avoided the worst of the six years violence were forced from their homes, ending thousands of years of Christian presence in Southern Anatolia.[146] With France being the first Allied power to recognize and negotiate with the Ankara government only months after signing the Treaty of Sèvres, it was the first to break from the coordinated Allied approach to the Eastern question. In 1923 the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon under French authority would be proclaimed in former Ottoman territory.
Some efforts to coordinate between Turkish Nationalists and the Syrian rebels persisted from 1920 to 1921, with the Nationalists supporting the Faisal's kingdom through Ibrahim Hanunu and Alawite groups which were also fighting the French. While the French conquered Syria, Cilicia had to be abandoned.
Kuva-yi Milliye also engaged with British forces in the "Al-Jazira Front," primarily in Mosul. Ali İhsan Pasha (Sabis) and his forces defending Mosul would surrender to the British in October 1918, but the British ignored the armistice and seized the city, following which the pasha also ignored the armistice and distributed weapons to the locals. Even before Mustafa Kemal's movement was fully organized, rogue commanders found allies in Kurdish tribes. The Kurds detested the taxes and centralization the British demanded, including Shaykh Mahmud of the Barzani family. Having previously supported the British invasion of Mesopotamia to become the governor of South Kurdistan, Mahmud revolted but was apprehended by 1919. Without legitimacy to govern the region, he was released from captivity to Sulaymaniyah, where he again declared an uprising against the British as the King of Kurdistan. Though an alliance existed with the Turks, little material support came to him from Ankara, and by 1923 there was a desire to cease hostilities between the Turks and British at Barzanji's expense. Mahmud was overthrown in 1924, and after a 1926 plebiscite, Mosul was awarded to British-controlled Iraq.
Since 1917, the Caucasus was in a chaotic state. The border of newly independent Armenia and the Ottoman Empire was defined in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (3 March 1918) after the Bolshevik revolution, and later by the Treaty of Batum (4 June 1918). To the east, Armenia was at war with the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic after the breakup of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic, and received support from Anton Denikin's White Russian Army. It was obvious that after the Armistice of Mudros (30 October 1918) the eastern border was not going to stay as it was drawn, which mandated the evacuation of the Ottoman army back to its 1914 borders. Right after the Armistice of Mudros was signed, pro-Ottoman provisional republics were proclaimed in Kars and Aras which were subsequently invaded by Armenia. Ottoman soldiers were convinced not to demobilize lest the area become a 'second Macedonia'.[149] Both sides of the new borders had massive refugee populations and famine, which were compounded by the renewed and more symmetric sectarian violence (See Massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia (1917–1921) and Muslim uprisings in Kars and Sharur–Nakhichevan). There were talks going on with the Armenian Diaspora and Allied Powers on reshaping the border. Woodrow Wilson agreed to transfer territories to Armenia based on the principles of national self-determination. The results of these talks were to be reflected on the Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920).
Kâzım Karabekir Pasha, commander of the XV corps, encountered Muslim refugees fleeing from the Armenian army, but did not have the authority to cross the border. Karabekir's two reports (30 May and 4 June 1920) outlined the situation in the region. He recommended redrawing the eastern borders, especially around Erzurum. The Russian government was receptive to this and demanded that Van and Bitlis be transferred to Armenia. This was unacceptable to the Turkish revolutionaries. However, Soviet support was absolutely vital for the Turkish Nationalist movement, as Turkey was underdeveloped and had no domestic armaments industry. Bakir Sami (Kunduh) was assigned to negotiate with the Bolsheviks.
On 24 September 1920, Karabekir's XV corps and Kurdish militia advance on Kars, blowing through Armenian opposition, and then Alexandropol. With an advance on Yerevan imminent, on 28 November 1920, the 11th Red Army under the command of Anatoliy Gekker crossed over into Armenia from Soviet Azerbaijan, and the Armenian government surrendered to Bolshevik forces, ending the conflict.
The Treaty of Alexandropol (2—3 December 1920) was the first treaty (although illegitimate) signed by the Turkish revolutionaries. The 10th article in the Treaty of Alexandropol stated that Armenia renounced the Treaty of Sèvres and its allotted partition of Anatolia. The agreement was signed with representatives of the former government of Armenia, which by that time had no de jure or de facto power in Armenia, since Soviet rule was already established in the country. On 16 March 1921, the Bolsheviks and Turkey signed a more comprehensive agreement, the Treaty of Kars, which involved representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan, and Soviet Georgia.
Throughout most of his life, Atatürk was a moderate-to-heavy drinker, often consuming half a litre of rakı a day; he also smoked tobacco, predominantly in the form of cigarettes. During 1937, indications that Atatürk's health was worsening started to appear. In early 1938, while on a trip to Yalova, he suffered from a serious illness. He went to Istanbul for treatment, where he was diagnosed with cirrhosis. During his stay in Istanbul, he made an effort to keep up with his regular lifestyle, but eventually succumbed to his illness. He died on 10 November 1938, at the age of 57, in the Dolmabahçe Palace.
Atatürk's funeral called forth both sorrow and pride in Turkey, and 17 countries sent special representatives, while nine contributed armed detachments to the cortège. Atatürk's remains were originally laid to rest in the Ethnography Museum of Ankara, but they were transferred on 10 November 1953 (15 years after his death) in a 42-ton sarcophagus to a mausoleum overlooking Ankara, Anıtkabir.
In his will, Atatürk donated all of his possessions to the Republican People's Party, provided that the yearly interest of his funds would be used to look after his sister Makbule and his adopted children, and fund the higher education of İsmet İnönü's children. The remainder was willed to the Turkish Language Association and the Turkish Historical Society.
The fire station provided a secure reprieve.
I kicked down a metal locker into the stairway,and blocked it off with chairs. Nothing could make it through without a lot of noise and a fair amount of trouble, while i mended myself. a small, almost useless medical kit was all that was left. After cleaning and trying to stop the bleeding, i couldn't find anything worth making stitches with .. so i pinched my skin together, and filled it with super glue.
Once that pleasant process was done,and the stinging was subdued enough i could keep my eyes open .. i searched for something to drink and eat. A lunchbox in the rec room contained several rotten items,but 3 cans of spam, a can of sprite and some Saltine crackers. It was a veritable feast.
Repairing the gas mask seems useless. I taped up the eye hole and made it as tight as possible.. but it limits my vision. And the filter quit working right awhile ago, i just kept it on because it made me feel less .. diseased, i think. Less like I'm dying. The things i try to ignore and not think about at all...
I found some dust masks in a bedroom ... i drew a frowning face on it .. something resembling a sense of humor must still exist in me... at least a spark. I packed up my things and took one last look around before i went out a window and back onto the street. The air everywhere was saturated with that stench. The dead. The rotting. I didn't even have time to try and remove my mask when my stomach decided to eject a mouthful of bile and blood. I coughed and gagged, a panicked chill coming over me. The front door to a Cafe was locked, which could mean a lot of things, but i decided to not break it, and instead find another way in. As i inspected and prodded at the alley entrance, a sound caught my attention... I put my hands out, palms down .. as if instructing the world to be very quiet and listened for more ...
Silence ... then a crack ... it .. it sounded like gunfire. After several minutes it happened again, and this time i was sure. It had to be gunfire. A rifle maybe.
And gunfire meant other survivors.
Previous episode ---- ---- The Beginning ---- ---- Next Episode
.
Brisbane August 10, 2014 Queensland, Australia. We fly home later today.
After four years working closely with Yayoi Kusama and the Public Art Unit in Brisbane, Sydney based Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery were finally able to announce the opening of the epic outdoor sculpture Eyes are Singing Out at Brisbane’s Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law on the 30th of August.
Composed of 350 enamelled steel eyes secured onto a 90 metre long arcing concrete wall, the sculpture is the only permanent artwork of Yayoi Kusama’s in Australia and is the largest artwork by this significant artist internationally.
The various eye designs that are utilised for the installation were created by Kusama using ink and brush and then translated into the steel and enamel pieces that cover the wall which spans one entire city centre block between Roma and George Streets.
Installed in conjunction with the construction of the new Queen Elizabeth II Courts of Law building as designed by Professor John Hockings of the highly acclaimed architectural firm Architectus, Eyes are Singing Out is a poignant reminder of the power and responsibility bestowed upon the guardians of law and justice.
”In a time when public accountability is of the utmost importance Kusama’s eyes not only look back at you, they surround the courts with looking” explains Jay Younger, the curator of the project. “Metaphorically the process of justice is made transparent through the building’s glass façade to the unblinking eyes, forever watching.”
Often described as the “window to the soul”, the eye is presented by Kusama as not only for looking out from within, but also for looking in from without. In her artist’s statement, Kusama says that “There is no end to the glorification of the peoples around the world. Their beautiful souls, having turned into hundreds of millions of eyes, continue to watch our future.”
Artist’s Statement:
"The numerous eyes that we dreamed about have spread into the whole sky, carrying with them a message of visual sensation.
It is a message of world peace and the overflowing happiness of humankind we have been praying for all the time.
There is no end to the glorification of the peoples around the world.
Their beautiful souls, having turned into hundreds of millions of eyes, continue to watch our future.
These eyes will keep on singing out louder and louder that love is forever and infinite, to the ends of the universe."
For more Info: www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/829205/yayoi-kusamas-epi...
Melanitta fusca / Velvet scoter / Sjøorre.
Northern Norway
All photos (C) Ronny Årbekk - arcticphotography.no/
Don't forget to visit me on other social media if you use any :
plus.google.com/+Ronny%C3%85rbekk/posts
www.facebook.com/RonnyaaPhotography
instagram.com/arcticphotography.no
If you would like to buy any of my works i have put some out here :
fineartamerica.com/profiles/ronny-aarbekk.html
If you can't see the one you would like to buy, send me a message and i'll put it online.