Picked up a first edition (1932) of the
Grey Wolf by H.C Armstrong in immaculate condition.
The greatest biography of Ataturk, founder of the secular Turkish republic.
Here's the fantastic cover (the colors are different on the cover of the first edition)
Here's the introduction.
In the thirteenth century after Christ there came the Great Drought. From the Wall of China throughout all Central Asia the land was cracked and parched for want of rain, and
the tribes were on the move searching for new pastures for their flocks. Among them were the Osmanli Turks, whose chief, Sulyman Shah, carried on his banner the head of the Grey Wolf. They were cruel and primitive, these Osmanli Turks, animal-strong with slit eyes in flat Mongol faces. They were as brutal and relentless as the grey wolves which hunted over the wide steppes of the fierce countries of Central Asia. Yet they were disciplined, by the dangers and risks of their nomad life, to rigid obedience under their leaders.
For centuries they had pitched their black horse-hair tents in the Plains of Sungaria on the edge of the Gobi Desert. Forced by lack of water and grass, Sulyman Shah led out his people and made westward. Finding the Hordes of Tartars to his north and pressing in behind him, he turned south, and so came, through Armenia into Asia Minor, into Modern
History.
Sulyman died and Ertoghrul reigned in his stead, and after him came Emir Othman and Sultan Orchan, and from father to son ten generations of sultans followed each other. Often brutal and vicious, often unjust and bestial, they were rulers, leaders of men, and generals.
They found in front of them a world of dying empires, the decayed Seljuk, the worn-out Arab Empire of Baghdad and of the Caliphs, and the corrupted Byzantine. These they smashed
and conquered.
Within three hundred years of the death of Sulyman Shah, his tenth descendant, Sultan Sulyman the Magnificent, the Law Giver, ruled with justice and strength an immense empire which stretched from Albania on the Adriatic coast to the Persian frontier, from Egypt to the Caucasus. Hungary and the Crimea were his vassals. The sovereigns of Europe came with presents asking his help in their quarrels. His armies stood across the road to the East. His fleet sailed supreme in all the Mediterranean. North Africa acknowledged his suzerainty. Constantinople was his. He made one great bid for World domination. In 1580 he hammered on the gates of Vienna and seized Christendom by the throat.
He failed, and after him came corruption. His heir was Selim the Sot. It was said that the royal blood changed and that Selim was a bastard by an Armenian servant. After him, with
but one exception, came twenty-seven sultans each more degenerate than the last. The palace harem, the pimps and eunuchs took control. Without leaders the Turks went the way of all flesh. The steel fibre went out of them. Their energy, hardiness and vitality disappeared. They became corrupt in blood and morals. Their subject people revolted against them. Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria declared their independence.
Within three hundred years of the greatness of Sulyman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire lay bankrupt, decrepit and rotting.
Convinced that it must break up, the Christian Powers pressed in eager to grab and annex where they dared. Russia seized the Crimea and the Caucasus, and laid claims to Constantinople and the road through the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean. France laid hands on Syria and Tunis. England occupied Egypt and Cyprus. The new and expanding Germany championed the Sultan, Abdul Hamid, against the rest of Europe, planning to annex as soon as the other rivals had been beaten off. All the
nations claimed special rights and economic privileges.
As greedy for their meal as vultures, the Christian Powers sat waiting for the end. Afraid of each other, preparing for the stupendous catastrophe of the World War, they watched each other jealously. No one Power dared rush in. And so the dying Ottoman Empire lived on, while the Red Sultan, Abdul Hamid, from his palace on the Bosphorus, cunningly played the nations one against the other.
In 1877 Russia decided to make an end of all this, declared war and advanced to within ten miles of Constantinople. Led by Disraeli at the Congress of Berlin, the rest of Europe warned her back : the integrity of the Ottoman Empire must be maintained.
Four years later there was born in the town of Salonika at the head of the Aegean Sea, of a Turk called Ah Riza and of Zubeida his wife, a boy whom they named Mustafa.
and finally, the blurb from the back cover.
The
Study of
A
MAN
Cruel, Bitter, Iron-Willed,
who
Overthrew the Sultan
in 1908
Battered the British Empire off Gallipoli
in 1915
Chased the Greeks into the Sea at Smyrna
in 1922
Harried the Victorious Allies out of
Constantinople
in 1923
Destroyed the Power of the Caliph
in 1924
Hanged the Entire Opposition
in 1926
and
by 1932
Has made out of a crumbling empire
A
NATION.
