An Outline of Ataturk’s Speech at the National Convention of the People’s Party of the Republic

By Brian James

Purpose: To cover his tracks and to explain to the people of Turkey his methodology after the fall of the Ottoman Empire

Audience: People at the National Convention of the People’s Party of the Republic, those who may be looking to Ataturk for a source of guidance, those who are angry at him for the downfall of their home

Context: The Ottoman Empire has fallen after WW1 and Ataturk did his best to do damage control in order to maintain a stronger Turkey, but his actions were frowned upon and in one case even resulted in revolt

Section 1: Introduction

Purpose: to give a little history, maybe the background stuff that people didn’t really know, then to lock down and shed some blame on a group of people

Appeals: History = hardcore logos. Frequent references to things he did makes him seem like he had his act together, building ethos. Biting words at the end against Society of the Friends in Britain adds to pathos, fear and anger being big emotions

Technique: Sequential, breaking into lists to help the audience understand the situation. Emotion slowly builds throughout the section, making it seem more urgent at the end.

Effectiveness: Does its job to set up the speech, but few instances of faltering authority make it a little weak

Section 2: “The Army Situation”, “My Decision”, and “Independence or Death”

Purpose: To give a little history, then follow it up with the crux of the speech, the real emotion

Effectiveness: Moderate. Emotion at the end is quite strong, but once again, there is too much inconsistency in tone. Bouncing back and forth between “I” and “we” leads to a juxtaposition that really confuses the reader

A.      “The Army Situation”

Appeals: Lots of ethos, calls the audience out on a question they may have for him before he even gets asked. Rhetorical question in the middle adds to logos. No pathos

Techniques: Rhetorical Question, used to illustrate his point that a decision was hard to make

Whole section leads up to the following section, making the transition very smooth and easy

B.      “My Decision”

Appeals: Ethos, victimizing himself to help himself out. Pathos, heavy word choice, starting to see real emotion, fear and anger primarily

Techniques: once again employs rhetorical questions, varying sentence structure helps illustrate his feelings, yet the addition of an either-or fallacy at the end takes away from his credibility

C.      “Independence or Death”

Appeals: Pathos. The harshest language in the speech is found in this section of it. Phrases like “…to admit to a lack of all human qualities; it is to admit to weakness and incapacity” really capture his true feelings on the matter

Techniques: Nothing other than sheer word choice. The strength there is enough to carry the rest of the section

Section 3:  “Educating the People” and “Contacting the Army”

Purpose: To bring it back to history. Falls away from the emotion and quickly gets back into capturing the series of events

Effectiveness: Moderately high. Does its job of “Educating the people” efficiently and clearly without giving much to the imagination. This gives the reader the feeling that they are reading an article, and not a speech, but it accomplishes its goal well nonetheless.

A.      “Educating the People”

Appeals: back to logos in this section. Ataturk becomes more concerned with letting the people know what happened than with explaining how what happened is good or bad

Technique: Brings it from “I” to we, trying to attract the people once more, but he goes back to “I” shortly after, leading to a little inconsistency. Not many rhetorical devices used in this section, but it is mainly transitional, so it’s okay.

B.      “Contacting the Army”

Appeals: Heavy logos, minor ethos. Entire section is based around recent history, so no real emotion shines through. As this is the bulk of the speech, it is a shame to see so much emotion early on only for it to be followed up with next to nothing

Techniques: Lots of varying sentence structure is used to keep the audience interested, but a reader of the speech is left hanging after all the emotion in the beginning.

Section 4: “Going to Sivas” and “Going to Erzurum

Purpose: To wrap up the story and to explain himself.

Effectiveness: Low. Finishes the history lesson as soon as it can, but leaves the reader with a confusing end that results in a loss of hold on the true intention of the speech.

A.      “Going to Sivas”

Appeals: Logos, Ethos. Same deal as “Contacting the Army” with maybe a hint of blame towards the very end

Techniques: see “Contacting the Army”

B.      “Going to Erzurum”

Appeals: Logos, Ethos, Pathos. Same fate as “Contacting the Army” till the end, which gives us a combination of vicious word choice and confusing ideas force the reader to question the motives of the leader, and make the speech altogether seem less organized.

Techniques: Rhetorical questions and harsh word choice form an emotional way to end a speech, if only for the confusing nature of the context.

General Evaluation

Ataturk knows how to tell a story. That much is clear in this speech. However, it seems as though he tried so hard to tell the people the order of events after the Ottoman Empire’s demise that he forgot to add any real emotion. This leads to an inconsistent speech, jumping back and forth from logos to pathos and back to logos, and more logos to boot. The ending leaves the reader questioning the point of the speech, which is the worst thing one could do if they’re trying to convince a person of an idea. Not a great speech, but a decent story.