Yusuf Karamanli Quotes
I would rather bury myself under the ruins of my country than basely yield to the wishes of the enemy.
Response to an offer by Commodore Preble to exchange prisoners.
Yusuf Karamanli, 1766-1838, Pasha [ruler] of Tripoli, Message to Edward Preble, Commodore of U.S. Naval Forces in the Mediterranean, Tripoli Harbor, August 6, 1803, Quoted in Whipple, To the Shores of Tripoli
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
On October 31, 1803, Tripolitan forces captured the ship Philadelphia and imprisoned the whole crew. The Pasha (provincial governor) of Tripoli, Yusef Karamanli demanded that the United States not only pay a ransom for the prisoners but an annual tribute to Tripoli.
Ataturk was a young major at the time commanding troops of a weak and corrupt Ottoman regime. However a combined English and French (the strongest military powers in Europe) invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula threatened to capture the Turkish capital, Constantinople. Ataturk alone rallied the Turkish defenders and fought the invaders to a standoff in long drawn out battle with huge casualties on both sides. Ataturk became a national hero. Although Ataturk thereafter was very reluctant to use military force or endanger troops, the thing he always thought worth the supreme sacrifice (including his own) was the independence and sovereignty of the nation. See {584502} for his continuing belief in this type of sacrifice.
At that point the Japanese were losing the war on every front. It is not clear whether Hirohito would actually have done such and not tried to escape in the end, however he certainly expected his subjects, military and civilian to do so. That expectation and the behavior of the Japanese troops fighting to the death on many islands was a powerful factor in leading Truman, Marshall and other key American leaders to use the Atomic Bomb. See Marshall: {641063}
Yusuf (ibn Ali) Karamanli, Caramanli or Qaramanli or al-Qaramanli (most commonly Yusuf Karamanli), (1766 – 1838) was the best-known Pasha (reigned 1795–1832) of the Karamanli dynasty (1711–1835) of Tripolitania (in present-day Libya).
