“But the purpose of the Turkish patriots representing the will of the people was already fixed. One by one and unostentatiously they went as far away as possible from Constantinople, to Erzeroum on the borders of Caucasia, and assembling here a National Assembly, flung to the face of the surprised world the slogan of the great American patriots of 1776: “Give us Liberty, or give us Death”! “However, events proved that the selection they had made for their capital was not a wise one. The Russian Colossus now ruled by the Bolsheviki was shivering under a new fever of imperialism as acute as the endemic one it had under the Tzars. It stretched its blood-stained claws to the South, and gripping the independent Turkish republic of Caucasia, implanted its Soviets too dangerously near Erzeroum. The Turks of Anatolia, the Nationalist Turks as they now called themselves, saw the danger and shivered in dismay. Their organization was as yet nil, the Turkish armies had been disbanded, the Turkish fleet had been dismantled, and their capital--the brains of New Turkey whose double national purpose was naturally to protect Europe from a Southeastern Bolshevik invasion and the Near East from western domination--was without guns, without cannons and without bayonets, at the mercy of Russia. The dismay in the Turkish camp was, however, of short duration. From Constantinople had arrived a great man, a great leader, a great general whose genius had already once saved Turkey at the Dardanelles. Mustapha Kemal Pasha appeared in Erzeroum and the National Assembly unanimously elected him at once to its presidency. He gave immediate orders and all the members of the National Assembly, numbering nearly seven hundred, all the civilian and military chiefs accompanied by their staffs, all the employees of the temporary Government packed up their baggage and trudged their weary way to the great Anatolian plateau accessible only through easily defensible mountain passes where the Sakaria river winds its way. “Here, at the head of one of the very few railroad lines in Asia Minor, practically at the same distance from the Black Sea shores, the Russian Soviet's borders, Mesopotamia occupied by the British and Cilicia then occupied by the French--all places from which an attack could have been expected on the rear of the Nationalist armies fighting against the Greeks on the Smyrna and the Broussa front--was a small, dilapidated, half-burned village, Angora. But it was the natural center from whence the Turkish struggle for freedom could be better launched and could be defended with the greatest probability of success.