The Hatay State was annexed in 1939, and Turkey was able to maintain an armed neutrality during World War II, joining the Allied powers only three months before the end of the European Theater.

The Turkish Straits crisis prompted İnönü to build closer ties with the Western powers, with the country eventually joining NATO in 1952, though by then he was no longer president.

Hacı Reşit was retired after serving as director of the First Examinant Department of the Legal Affairs Bureau of the War Ministry (Harbiye Nezareti Muhakemat Dairesi Birinci Mümeyyizliği).

[11] Through Ali Fethi (Okyar), he briefly joined the Committee of Union and Progress in 1907,[12] which wished to overthrow Sultan Abdul Hamid II.

İsmet eventually became chief of staff of the force sent to suppress the rebellion and personally negotiated with Imam Yahya in Kaffet-ül-Uzer to bring Yemen back into the empire.

[11]İnönü began climbing the ranks during World War I, becoming lieutenant colonel on 29 November 1914, and then being appointed as the First Branch Manager of the General Headquarters on 2 December.

[11] He married Emine Mevhibe Hanim on 13 April 1917, three weeks before he left for the front to return home only after the conclusion of the Armistice of Mudros on 30 October 1918.

When the 1934 Surname Law was adopted Atatürk bestowed İsmet Pasha with the surname İnönü, where the battles took place.İnönü was replaced by Mustafa Fevzi Pasha (Çakmak), who was also the prime minister and minister of defense at the time, as the chief of staff after the Turkish forces lost major battles against the advancing Greek Army in July 1921, as a result of which the cities of Afyonkarahisar, Kütahya and Eskişehir were temporarily lost.

[28] Nation building was codified into law when a new settlement regime was enacted in 1934, resettling Albanians, Abkhazians, Circassians, and Kurds in new areas in order to create a homogeneous Turkish state.

After the death of Atatürk on 10 November 1938,[30] İnönü was viewed as the most appropriate candidate to succeed him and was unanimously elected[31] the second president of the Republic of Turkey and leader of the Republican People's Party (CHP).

1940 saw the establishment of the Village Institutes, in which well-performing students from the country were selected to train as teachers and return to their hometown to run community development programs.

On 23 April 1939, Turkish Foreign Minister Şükrü Saracoğlu told Knatchbull-Hugessen of his nation's fears of Italian claims to the Mediterranean as Mare Nostrum and German control of the Balkans and suggested an Anglo-Soviet-Turkish alliance as the best way of countering the Axis.

[33] In May 1939, during the visit of Maxime Weygand to Turkey, İnönü told the French Ambassador René Massigli that he believed that the best way of stopping Germany was an alliance of Turkey, the Soviet Union, France and Britain; that if such an alliance came into being, the Turks would allow Soviet ground and air forces onto their soil; and that he wanted a major programme of French military aid to modernize the Turkish armed forces.

[36] In the first half of 1941, Germany, which was intent on invading the Soviet Union, went out of its way to improve relations with Turkey as the Reich hoped for benevolent Turkish neutrality when the German-Soviet war began.

Internal opposition to Turkish neutrality came from ultra-nationalist circles and factions of the military that wished to incorporate the Turkic-populated areas of the Soviet Union by allying with Germany.

Leading pan-Turkists including Alparslan Türkeş, Nihal Atsız, and Şaik Gökyay were arrested and sentenced to time in prison in the Racism-Turanism trials.British Prime Minister Winston Churchill traveled to Ankara in January 1943 for a conference with President İnönu to urge Turkey's entry into the war on the allied side.

Until 1941, both Roosevelt and Churchill thought that Turkey's continued neutrality would serve the interests of the Allies by blocking the Axis from reaching the strategic oil reserves of the Middle East.

But the early victories of the Axis up to the end of 1942 caused Roosevelt and Churchill to re-evaluate possible Turkish participation in the war on the side of the Allies.

[45] Shortly afterwards, İnönü allowed Allied shipping to use the Turkish Straits to send supplies to the Soviet Union, and on 25 February 1945, he declared war on Germany and Japan.

However, due to the anti-Communist hysteria brought on by the new Soviet threat, new leftist parties were swiftly banned, and rural development initiatives such as the Village Institutes and People's Rooms were closed.

Instead of inviting Şükrü Saraçoğlu to form another government, he assigned CHP hardliner Recep Peker to the task, who contributed to a polarizing atmosphere in the parliament.

İnönü had to act as a mediator several times between Peker and Bayar, who threatened to have the DP walk from parliament if they didn't have some of their demands met, such as ensuring judicial review, secret ballots, and public counting for elections.

[50] On 12 July 1947 İsmet İnönü gave a speech broadcast on radio and in newspapers that he would stand equal distance from the government and opposition, prompting Peker's resignation.

In the lead-up to the elections prepared for 1960, İnönü and CHP members faced regular harassment from the authorities and DP supporters, to the point where he was almost lynched several times.

In 1959, İnönü began a campaign tour that followed the same path he took thirty years ago as a Pasha from Uşak to İzmir and ended in victory for the Turkish nationalists.

After one year of junta rule in which the Democrat Party was banned and its top leaders executed in the Yassıada Trials, elections were held once the military returned to their barracks.

Aydemir's 1962 coup had the most potential to succeed when İnönü, President Cemal Gürsel and Chief of Staff Cevdet Sunay were held up in Çankaya Mansion by the putschists.

A subsequent meeting at the White House between İnönü and Johnson on 22 June 1964,[57] meant Cyprus' status quo continued for another ten years.

An event a couple years earlier also strained the otherwise amicable relationship İnönü held with Washington, namely the withdrawal of the nuclear-armed PGM-19 Jupiter MRBMs briefly stationed in Turkey, which was undertaken in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

İnönü was instrumental in establishing CHP as "Left of Center" on the political spectrum as a new left-wing party cadre led by his protégé Bülent Ecevit became more influential.