22 Days 22 Nights: The Sakarya - The Great Bloody Battle

103 years ago, on Tuesday, August 23, 1921…

The day the Battle of the Sakarya began…

The War of Independence phase of the National Struggle began with the occupation of İzmir by the Greeks on May 15, 1919, and ended with the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24, 1923.

The Greek Army of Asia Minor, supported by the British and driven by an unlimited ambition for occupation, was dealt a heavy defeat at the Battle of the Sakarya.

The Battle of the Sakarya lasted 22 days and 22 nights. It was the longest and bloodiest pitched battle in the history of warfare... It was a time of scarcity, famine, and the nation's last remaining ammunition…

In 22 days, approximately 15 thousand soldiers were martyred. The total casualties were around 40 thousand. Every day, 700 heroes gave their blood to make the homeland flourish... In the words of Mustafa Kemal Pasha, it was the “Great Bloody Battle”...

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The Battle of the Sakarya is an important turning point in Turkish history... The “Great Offensive” that began on August 26, 1922, and the “Commander-in-Chief’s Battle” on August 30, 1922, which completed this victory, saved the Turkish nation from extinction. The “Treaty of Sèvres,” which aimed for the destruction of the Turks, was thrown into the trash by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and the heroes who fought alongside him, and in its place, the Treaty of Lausanne, the title deed of the Republic of Turkey, was signed on July 24, 1923.

The loss of Turkish territory and the retreat that began with the Second Siege of Vienna in 1683 lasted for 238 years... This retreat was halted in 1921 with the Battle of the Sakarya. By Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Pasha...

Mustafa Kemal Pasha gave his famous order here: “There is no line of defense. There is a field of defense. That field is the entire homeland. Every inch of the country cannot be abandoned to the enemy until it is soaked with the blood of the citizens...”

This order was a new understanding of defense that had not been applied in the history of warfare until that time.

And this order was given by a 40-year-old commander. The commander who stopped a 238-year retreat... Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who wrote his name in golden letters in the history of warfare...

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The following words, spoken by Papoulas, Commander of the Army of Asia Minor, explain the impact of the defense strategy applied by Mustafa Kemal Pasha at the Battle of the Sakarya: “The enemy has not scattered. They are fighting with a military understanding we do not know… We must admit that we cannot defeat the enemy's tactics or their determination…”(1)

General Stratigos, Deputy Chief of the Greek General Staff, said in his report after the war: “The Greek will bowed before Mustafa Kemal.”(2)

In seven words, he had summarized the defeat of the Army of Asia Minor and the Great Britain behind it…

And history is not ungrateful; it gives Mustafa Kemal Pasha his due…

A mastery of war that would make Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Caesar, and Napoleon jealous…

The master of war, the lord of peace… Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Pasha…

And the three Mustafas; Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal at 40, Western Front Commander Mustafa İsmet at 38, and Chief of General Staff Mustafa Fevzi at 45…

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The Greek Army occupied Bursa on July 8, 1921. Sophocles, one of the commanders of the Greek army and the son of Greek Prime Minister Venizelos, who launched the Anatolian campaign with the dream of realizing the Megali Idea, came to see the tomb of Osman Gazi.

Sophocles began to kick the sarcophagus of Osman Gazi, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. In front of the journalists taking photos, he shouted loudly: “Rise and save your nation.”

The newspapers embellished and wrote about this historical outcry by Sophocles, the son of the Greek Prime Minister. They hung a picture of King Constantine on the tomb of Osman Gazi. Greek soldiers used Muslim graves and the shrines of saints as toilets.

Osman Gazi had passed away 595 years earlier, in 1326. Of course, he could not answer…

The answer would be given by Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Pasha. And in a very heavy way… The answer would go down in history as a document of shame in Greek history… The Asia Minor Catastrophe…

Not long after, just a month later, the Greek commanders who would suffer a great defeat would experience the greatest catastrophe in history… Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal Pasha would save the memory of the ancestors…

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On September 1, 1921, during the Sakarya battles, the Turkish Army had lost 82 officers and 900 privates. Migration to Kayseri had begun against the danger of the enemy capturing Ankara. On such a day, on September 1, 1921, Sultan Vahdettin was making his fifth marriage to 18-year-old Nimet Nevzad Hanım with a magnificent wedding at Yıldız Palace…

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The Battle of the Sakarya is the work of that generation that knew no lover other than the homeland and the nation… If the Battle of the Sakarya had not been won, there would have been no victory on August 30, 1922… There would have been no Republic… Remove the Sakarya and August 30 Victories from Turkish history, and what remains is an occupied Turkey without Turks. Remove Atatürk from Turkey, and what remains is Afghanistan…

I commemorate with respect and gratitude the three Mustafas; Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), Mustafa İsmet (İnönü), and Mustafa Fevzi (Çakmak), and that generation that knew no lover other than the homeland and the nation.

Bibliography:

Babüroğlu, Naim, 22 Days 22 Nights Sakarya, İnkılap Kitabevi, Istanbul, 2020.

(1) Papoulas, The Memoirs of General Papoulas, Yeni İstanbul Publications, 1969; Papoulas and Trikoupis, Confessions of Greek Generals, (Ed.: Suat Akgül), Berikan Publishing, Ankara, 2004.

(2) Şimşir, Bilal N., From Sakarya to İzmir with British Documents, Milliyet Publications History Series: 21, Sıralar Printing House, Istanbul, 1972.