Touring battlefields

The battlefields of wars that have shaped a country's history are national symbols of that country. In the specific case of Turkey, this category includes the Gallipoli Peninsula, where the Gallipoli Campaign took place, and the battlefields of the War of Independence. These regions are places that everyone interested in the War of Independence and the Gallipoli Campaign approaches with sensitivity and special interest.

Some take this interest a step further, wishing to interpret history on-site by visiting battlefields. Touring battlefields, or in other words, battlefield tourism, is one of the growing hobbies worldwide. History enthusiasts are no longer content with books and documentaries; they desire to see history where it actually happened.

The popularization of battlefield tourism occurred after the First World War. Because the First World War saw unprecedented losses, an emotional bond was established between the public and the battlefields, and commemorating the fallen on the fields of battle has become a tradition that has lasted from that day to this. Gallipoli is one of the cornerstones of this tradition. The ANZACs and their descendants who come to Gallipoli every year have played an important role in the maturation of this tradition.

After the 1990s, a significant group of people who travel the battlefields inch by inch to gain information about the combat joined the visitors who came to the battlefields for commemoration purposes. Today, Turkey is not lagging behind this trend.

In Turkey, the Gallipoli Campaign battlefield has become a favorite for battlefield tourism for many years. However, in the specific case of Gallipoli, battlefield tourism largely encompasses individuals who are curious about the history of the Gallipoli Campaign and wish to commemorate the martyrs, rather than those who have made this a hobby and travel to battlefields regularly. The spread of battlefield tourism as a hobby in Turkey has occurred in recent years. Today, this activity is carried out much more consciously than in the past, and in addition to the occasional individuals doing this on their own, we are now seeing groups of history enthusiasts coming together for war tourism.

Mürettep Müfreze (The Provisional Detachment) is currently the only group in Turkey focused on battlefield tourism. The name "Mürettep Müfreze" comes from the "Provisional Divisions" (Mürettep Tümen), which were ad-hoc units hastily formed during the War of Independence due to lack of resources. As the name suggests, the detachment's area of interest is the battlefields of the War of Independence.

Mürettep Müfreze is an extremely organized and very active group. They take their work very seriously and carry out their trips specifically on the anniversaries of the days the battles were fought. They are very determined. They do not let snow, winter, or the July heat stop them. Their last trip was carried out between January 9 and 11, the 103rd anniversary of the First Battle of İnönü, in sub-zero temperatures. The regions they visit do not have official status like Gallipoli. Therefore, the areas visited are pristine and consist of places where there is no service whatsoever for battlefield tourism. Since the areas of interest to the detachment are not "museumized" like Gallipoli, they identify the areas to be visited themselves from history books and maps, and plan the trip down to the finest detail. Although the lack of infrastructure makes battlefield tourism quite challenging, the group easily overcomes the difficulties they encounter with their expertise in camping. Thanks to their camping skills, they enjoy spending the night in desolate places where no infrastructure exists and traverse difficult and quite long routes without any problems.

When the trips are completed, the targeted part of the battlefield has been fully explored (since battles take place over square kilometers, only a small area can be visited in a single day) and no detail has been overlooked. The routes sometimes include an area where bloody clashes took place, sometimes a fortified position, and sometimes the path followed by a unit. If the unit in question infiltrated enemy positions in the darkness of night, the detachment advances to the target point along the exact same path at the exact same time. Let us underline that most of the fortified positions visited are located on high hills. Climbs can sometimes take hours. Since the trips are based on the movement directions and positions of Greek and Turkish units, they are extremely educational. Seeing the terrain correctly makes topics that remained ambiguous in history books easily understandable.

In addition to dealing with issues related to the combat, the members of the detachment do not neglect to commemorate the martyrs of the War of Independence. One of the missions of the detachment is the identification of martyr graves in the field and visits to martyr cemeteries. A short commemoration is held by pausing the walk in front of all graves identified in the field or known beforehand, and if there is a martyr cemetery near the region being visited, it is definitely visited before or after the trip.

In short, this group truly does justice to what they do.