Ataturk: The Biography of the founder of Modern Turkey by Andrew Mango

Author:Andrew Mango [Mango, Andrew]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: BIO011000/BIO008000
ISBN: 9781590209240
Publisher: Overlook
Published: 2002-08-26T04:00:00+00:00

The Turkish and Greek armies in Anatolia were of roughly equal strength. The Greeks had 225,000 men, the Turks 208,000. But the Greeks were better equipped, with more machine-gums and field guns, and infinitely better motor transport.87 The Turks had two advantages: they had more heavy guns than the Greeks and a much stronger cavalry. The Greeks were holding a front 400 miles long, enveloping the whole of north-western Anatolia from Gemlik on the sea of Marmara to fortified positions east of Eskiehir, Kütahya and Afyonkarahisar, where the Greek line turned south-west to follow the Menderes (Meander) valley to the Aegean sea. The Greek army was organized in three corps – the 3rd in the north, the 2nd in the centre and the 1st in the south – under the overall command of General Hatzianestis who had his headquarters on board a ship anchored in zmir harbour. The plan worked out in smet’s western front headquarters provided for a concentrated thrust from the south against the Greek forces holding the Afyon salient; the objective was to cut off the bulk of Greek forces in and around Afyon. The sector chosen for the attack ran through difficult mountainous terrain. Here the Turks held the highest peak, Kocatepe (literally Big Hill), which rises to nearly 6,000 feet. Facing it, the Greeks held fortified positions on a series of lower, but steep and well-fortified peaks, rising to a height of some 5,000 feet. The attackers had to come down into narrow valleys and then storm up the Greek positions. Before they could do so, the Greek lines had to be softened with artillery fire. It was a daring plan aiming at what should have been the strongest section of the Greek front.

Conscious of the difficulties of resupply, the Turkish high command relied on delivering a single knock-out blow. The main instrument was to be the 1 st Army under Nurettin Paa, reinforced by units transferred from Yakup evki Paa’s 2nd Army further north. It took three weeks to move these troops and to bring up Fahrettin Paa’s 5th cavalry corps from the south-east. Yakup evki complained that his sector was left exposed to a Greek push in the direction of Ankara, but his objections were overruled. The Turkish army could not sustain an offensive along the entire front and had to achieve preponderance in one sector.88

Mustafa Kemal left Ankara by car in the night of 17/18 August, arriving in the western front headquarters at Akehir on 20 August. Great care was taken to preserve secrecy. An announcement was put out that a tea party would be held in the commander-in-chief’s residence at Çankaya on 21 August; the post office in Konya was subjected to strict censorship; all army movements were executed at night, and a decision was taken to underplay any successes in military communiqués. On 25 August when Mustafa Kemal joined the 1st Army battle headquarters, all communications between Anatolia and the outside world were cut. At dawn the following day, Mustafa

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.