Ismet Inönü (1884-1973) was a Turkish military man and statesman who became the country's second president and played key roles in Turkey's internal and external political affairs.

Mustafa Ismet (Inönü), known generally in Turkey as Ismet Pasa, was born in Izmir at the time his father, Haji Resid, was serving in the local judiciary there. His mother Jevriye, of the Temelli family, was an immigrant from Bulgaria. After his graduation from grade school, Inönü entered the preparatory military school in Sivas in eastern Anatolia, from which he went on to the artillery school and was graduated in 1903 as a second lieutenant. Eventually he managed to enter the staff officer's school (Erkan-i-Harbiye) in Istanbul, then the Ottoman capital. In this establishment--the institution that produced many of the country's elites--he met and studied with the future leaders of the Young Turks...