That's a very interesting question! Some scholars doubt this but I agree with you that without Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (and a limited number of people who shared similar worldviews), Turkey would have been a much different country. The reason some doubt this is they wish to argue against what they deem to be an excessively voluntaristic vision of individual agency against 'structures'. At the end of this comment, we will revisit this issue and see to what extent Ataturk's ideas were 'exceptional' in his time and culture. But first, let us go over how and where he became familiar with Western cultures.

You are right in observing that unlike some of his contemporaries or near-contemporaries (like, say, Ahmed Riza and Yusuf Akcura in the Ottoman Empire) Ataturk was not educated in Paris or in another glamourous Western cultural powerhouse. He was not a non-Muslim citizen of the Empire, who have long been enjoying more extensive contact, commercial and cultural, with Western nations. Some Armenians, for instance, studied in Russian universities and came to the Ottoman Empire with all the ideological baggage you would expect from the Russian university circles in the 1880s and 1890s. Others remained in large Ottoman cities but attended schools founded by Western educators, say, the Robert College (founded by American Protestant ministers, now Bogazici University) or one of the many French high schools. Those that attended Armenian schools could benefit from teachers knowledgeable in Western affairs and cultures as well. Mustafa Kemal as a child was to have none of these.

BUT, he grew up in the city that was arguably the most suitable for a Muslim child to become acquainted with Western cultures and ideas in the whole empire: Salonica. Salonica was a large city with thriving commerce, which, predictably, led many Westerners to the city. It was already home to a large Jewish community, as well as a significant Greek minority. Nearly all contemporary sources describe Salonica as a vibrant city and as a sort of intellectual capital of the Empire. It is no coincidence that the city would later serve as the main bastion and headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress. So, for an individual with curiosity and, apparently, a desire to better others in argumentation, Salonica was the place to be.

After his father managing to outmaneuver his mother and making sure he went to a modern school rather than a traditional Islamic one, Mustafa Kemal later enrolled in the military school in Salonica. This was the beginning of a long military education that would be followed in Manastir, Bitola in modern-day North Macedonia, and Istanbul. During all this, Abdulhamid II was the Sultan of the Empire. Contrary to public opinion, Abdulhamid II did much to modernise the Ottoman military education system, allow poor Muslim kids to join these schools, and grow up to be royal officers loyal to their Sultan, state, and religion. Though there was indeed a growing emphasis on 'values of loyality' and religious education, these schools were among the top institutions in the country and provided their graduates with quite some skills. For instance, most students learned one or two European languages. We know that Mustafa Kemal learned French there. Though it is difficult to be sure to what extent his French got fluent as a student, there is no denying that it was the foundations laid out at this time that made him comfortable understanding and reading, and to a somewhat lesser extent, speaking French. The schools were also the home of much patriotic and modern thought, despite Abdulhamid II's best efforts to depoliticise the students and punish those involved in politics. The poetry of Namik Kemal, a Tanzimat poet and thinker who translated and popularised ideas of 'homeland', 'constitution' and 'freedom', were avidly read among students. Political journals of the time also found their way into young minds in these schools. Moreover, the curriculum itself included much modern information about modern sciences, with forms of materialism having some popularity among young military cadres as a result. Finally, students' courses not only included European history but, as told by Ataturk's friend from the school Ali Fuat Cebesoy, some enjoyed reading about French history and, in particular, about the French Revolution! In fact, you can see the influence of the French Revolution in many of his contemporaries: in the way the CUP used La Marseillaise as the placeholder Ottoman national anthem for a while or the way the CUP's motto was an obvious translation of the French 'liberty, equality, fraternity'. This French influence became obvious in Ataturk's own life on many occasions later on; from debates on JJ Rousseau in the Turkish Grand National Assembly to Ataturk's decision to publish the French Declaration of Human Rights in his daily Hakimiyet-i Milliye in Ankara, in order to point out how the Westerners were acting in contradiction to their principles by supporting the invading Greeks.

Among the journals adumbrated above was Ictihad, the flagship journal of the isolated circle that was the radical Westernisers, led by Abdullah Cevdet. We have good reason to think that Ataturk was familiar with this journal. One of his childhood friends and a fellow officer, Kiliczade Hakki wrote a quite radical blueprint for Westernisation to Ictihad in 1913, during the Balkan Wars. The journal advocated for a radical Westernisation of the Empire and presented this as the sole recipe for the salvation of the Empire and its inhabitants. There are many anecdotes that show how young officers were aware of the journal with some becoming avid readers.

Finally, while not being a student in Paris or London, Ataturk did have some direct experience in the West. He went to France to participate in a series of military maneuvers in Picardie in 1910. There is an interesting anecdote about him (impossible to independently verify or falsify, unfortunately) dropping the red Ottoman fez and replacing it with some quite spectacular Western attire that was perhaps a bit too formal for the occasion. The story goes that after his friend was mocked by some children at a train station because of his fez, Ataturk decided to dress up 'properly', only to be warned by Fethi (Okyar), another friend of his, that he was overdressed for the occasion at hand and was given other, but still Western, attire.

After the Balkan Wars, Ataturk was sent to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, as a military attache. At the time, Bulgaria was known as the Prussia of the Balkans due to its rapid modernisation (and militarisation!) movement. To what extent did Ataturk learn from the Bulgarian experience? One anecdote is that Ataturk visited the recently-founded Bulgarian national opera and was sufficiently impressed with their organisational and musical capabilities to remark that their skills in opera were the reason the Bulgarians managed to beat the Ottomans in the First Balkan War. The idea, of course, was not that Bulgarian soldiers sang their way to Istanbul, but that opera was a reflection of the Bulgarian determination to enter Western civilisation tout court without hesitation or without a selective adaptation process. In this, it seems, Ataturk was not alone. Kiliczade Hakki and Abdullah Cevdet were among those who observed the Bulgarian success and called attention to the way Bulgarians widely employed female teachers (unlike Ottomans, they implied) and underwent rapid Westernisation. For someone else, being in Sofia could have been absolutely irrelevant. But for Ataturk, it does not seem to have been so. It should come as no surprise that when in power, Ataturk sought to quickly Westernise Turkish music and established the Turkish State Opera.

Finally, Ataturk spent some time in Karlsbad, in today's Czechia, then part of Austria-Hungary, in July 1918. He was there to benefit from the healing effects of the world-famous springs of Karlsbad. We are lucky that he left us with a diary from this time, where he recorded some of his interactions with Westerners (and others, though that is not very relevant to us now) and his own thoughts. Some of his observations, for instance, regard Western women dancing with men and the possibility of such things ever occurring among Muslims being discussed. It seems that the fate of the Ottoman Empire during WWI strengthened Ataturk's thoughts on how to fix it (or Turkey, rather than the whole Empire?). In one of his notes, he remarks that he finds the idea that one could wait for the country to attain a higher civilisational level in an evolutionary manner repellent. There was no time for waiting. He said something in his soul was rebelling against such ideas and, if he were to have the power, he would revolutionise the social life in the country with a 'coup'.

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