The victory of the Turkish forces in the Battle of Dumlupinar marks the beginning of the end of the era of the Greek occupation of Turkish lands in the Anatolian plateau, as well as being one of the most important wars of independence and liberation that Turkey fought between 1919 and 1922.
Tuesday 30 August marks the 100th anniversary of the Turkish Victory Day, which witnessed the victory of the Turks led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk over the occupying Greek forces in the battles that took place along the road between Manzikert and Domlupinar regions, from August 26 to 30, 1922, which ended with the liberation of the city of Izmir On September 9, 1922, the era of Greek occupation of Anatolian lands was officially ended.
The Battle of Dumlupinar, which took place near the city of Kütahya, is the last and most important epics of the Turkish war of independence and liberation that took place between 1919 and 1922, and paved the way for the establishment of the modern Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and his companions in arms about a year after its occurrence.
Following the great victory of the Turkish resistance forces in the Battle of Dumlupinar, also known as the Battle of the Great Commander because it was conducted under the leadership of Ataturk himself, the Greek armies were pushed to Izmir, western Anatolia, their last stronghold, in preparation for the liberation of the country from Greek occupation.
Despite the liberation of Izmir on September 9, 1922, and the resulting expulsion of the Greeks from Turkish lands, the day of August 30 of each year has become a victory day to symbolically represent the day when the country's lands were restored after the victory.
It is noteworthy that Turkey began celebrating Victory Day (Zafer Bayramı) starting in 1926, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus has also been participating in Victory Day celebrations since its founding in 1983.
Greek occupation
After the defeat of the "Axis Powers" of which the Ottoman Empire was a part along with the German Empire and its allies in World War I, the "Allied Powers" forced the Ottoman government to accept the signing of the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920, which established its harsh and unfair terms for the beginning of the occupation era The western side of the Turkish lands, which coincided with the start of the Turkish national struggle led by Ataturk and his comrades in arms for freedom and independence.
In implementation of the terms of the unfair treaty, the Allied countries shared the lands of the Ottoman Empire among themselves, and in the same way that Britain, France, Italy and Armenia occupied parts of Turkish lands, Greece seized the city of Izmir in the west and the cities located in the northwest of the Sea of Marmara represented by the region of Thrace.
Greece was not satisfied with seizing these areas, but moved to occupy Ankara, the city declared by Ataturk as the capital of the Turkish resistance and in which the Turkish Parliament was established in 1920, to control them and close the Turkish Parliament after the defeat of the Turkish resistance and forcing it to accept the terms of the Treaty of Sevres, which recognizes Western occupation and prohibits all Forms of resistance, but the loss of the Greeks in the Saqqara War that took place near the city of Ankara between August 23 and September 13, 1921 was the beginning of the end of the era of Greek occupation, which actually ended with the victory of the Turkish resistance in the Battle of Dumlupinar one year later, specifically August 30, 1922.
The period between Sakarya and Dumlupinar
As a result of the fierce battle of Saqqara, and the great victory achieved by the Turkish resistance led by Ataturk, representatives of the Greek side visited London for a long visit in the beginning of 1922, and asked for an increase in military aid to their country, but the English government headed by Lloyd George rejected the Greek request and left them alone in the face of the Turkish resistance, which became Stronger materially and morally after the victory of Saqaria.
One of the most important results of Sakkara’s victory was the emergence of differences between the Allied countries occupying Turkish lands, as Paris signed a peace agreement with the Ankara government on October 20, 1921, through which it separated its way from England, which followed a strict policy against Turkey, and entered the path of cooperation with the Turkish government In Ankara, the Italians withdrew from Antalya in July 1921 and took a position supporting the Turkish side against Greece.
In February 1922 the Turkish Grand National Assembly sent its foreign minister, Yusuf Kemal Bey, to London and Paris to discuss the withdrawal of the Greeks from Turkish territory. Following that visit, representatives of England, France and Italy met in Paris in March 1922 and made proposals for some changes to the Treaty of Sèvres, including a cease-fire, without mentioning the Greek withdrawal, which the Turks rejected. When these negotiations failed to achieve any real results, the Turkish government decided to close the way to the absurd negotiations and to continue the military resistance.
The Battle of Dumlupinar, the great victory
After the large number of martyrs in the ranks of the Turkish resistance during the Saqqara War, which lasted for 22 days between August and September 1921, a general mobilization was announced to strengthen the ranks of the Turkish army from various sources, including civilians. While France provided the Turkish resistance with arms and ammunition after signing the peace treaty that ended France's occupation of Çukurova, the Soviet Union provided financial aid to develop the Turkish army.
In June 1922, preparations for the major offensive began to liberate all the lands of Anatolia, and the Turkish army units, which numbered more than 200 thousand soldiers on the western front, were ordered to secretly prepare for the attack, which would begin as a raid from southern Afyon towards Domlupinar on the night of August 26, and then turn into a field battle. Through it, the enemy forces are completely destroyed in the Battle of Dumlupinar, which Ataturk himself led.
The great attack and the Battle of Dumlupinar represented the first offensive war that ended with the victory of the Turks in more than 200 years, in contrast to the Turkish victories in the wars of Çanakkale and Saqqara, in which the Turkish forces were on the defensive rather than the offensive, as the Turkish army was able to completely destroy the enemy army and liberate an area of approximately 150,000 km Square in a short period of 14 days, after which the major attack turned into a war of pursuit and flight, which ended with the evacuation of Greek forces from Izmir on September 9, and from Bandirma on September 17.
By the end of 1922, the era of Western colonization of Turkish lands had effectively ended, and diplomatic preparations for the Lausanne negotiations began, which the Ankara government entered in force, following successive victories over the occupying Greek forces, and resulted in the declaration of the establishment of the independent Turkish Republic on October 29, 1923.
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