The Turkish National Movement (Turkish: Türk Ulusal Hareketi) encompasses the political and military activities of the Turkish revolutionaries that resulted in the creation and shaping of the modern Republic of Turkey, as a consequence of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the subsequent occupation of Constantinople and partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the Allies under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros. The Ottomans saw the movement as part of an international conspiracy against them. The Turkish revolutionaries rebelled against this partitioning and against the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920 by the Ottoman government, which partitioned portions of Anatolia itself.
This establishment of an alliance of Turkish revolutionaries during the partitioning resulted in the Turkish War of Independence, the abolition of the Ottoman Sultanate on the 1st November 1922 and the declaration of the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923. The movement declared that the only source of governance for the Turkish people would be the democratic Grand National Assembly of Turkey.
The movement was created in 1919 through a series of agreements and conferences throughout Anatolia and Thrace. The process was aimed to unite independent movements around the country to build a common voice and is attributed to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, as he was the primary spokesperson, public figure, and military leader of the movement.
The Amasya Agreement was important in many respects. It was the first call to the national movement against the occupying powers. It consisted of talks about national independence, based on provinces, not race. Even in this declaration we saw the roots of what constitutes the "Turk" as a political term, there was no distinction or reference to race or religion. The message read as follows: