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May 1919 - September 1922Reputable source · 2 sourcesWell documented

Mustafa Kemal Wins the Turkish War of Independence

A general the sultan's government wanted arrested organizes a new army and drives the occupying Greeks into the sea

On the timeline · around May 1919 - September 1922 · Late Ottoman and WarLate Ottoman and WarThe Republic of TurkeyMustafa Kemal Wins the Turkish War of Independence191519201925

Quick facts

Greek landing at Smyrna
15 May 1919
Kemal lands at Samsun
19 May 1919
Turning-point battle
Sakarya River, August-September 1921
Turkish forces retake Smyrna
9 September 1922

What happened

Greek troops landed at Smyrna, modern Izmir, on 15 May 1919 with Allied backing, occupying western Anatolia as the defeated Ottoman Empire faced partition. Mustafa Kemal, a general who landed at Samsun days later on 19 May 1919 ostensibly as an Ottoman military inspector, instead organized a Turkish nationalist resistance movement that rejected both the Allied occupation and the Ottoman government's compliance with it. After years of fighting, Kemal's forces won a defensive victory at the Battle of the Sakarya River in August and September 1921 that broke the Greek offensive's momentum, then launched a decisive counteroffensive in August 1922 that routed the Greek army. On 9 September 1922, Turkish forces entered Smyrna; a catastrophic fire that broke out amid the fighting killed an estimated tens of thousands of people in the city over the following days.

Why it matters

The War of Independence is the founding military event of modern Turkey: it reversed the Allied partition plans laid out in the Treaty of Sevres, established Mustafa Kemal as the unquestioned leader of a new Turkish national movement independent of the Ottoman sultan, and cleared the way for the negotiations at Lausanne and the proclamation of the republic the following year. Without this war, the state that exists today would not exist in anything like its current form or borders.

How we know

The Greek landing at Smyrna, Mustafa Kemal's arrival at Samsun, the Battle of Sakarya, and the Turkish capture of Smyrna are documented in Ohio State University's history department archive of the conflict alongside the Library of Congress's Turkey country study, both drawing on contemporary military and diplomatic records from Turkish, Greek, and Allied sources.

Sources

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Part of a timelineHistory of Turkey27 events · A land bridge fought over by Hittites, Greeks, Romans, and Turks, and the republic that Mustafa Kemal built on its ashes in a single decadeView all →
Mustafa Kemal Wins the Turkish War of Independence · History of Turkey · SourcedStory