No Pasaran... Canakkale (Dardanelles) Cannot be Passed Through!
were the mottos of underarmed, underfed, undermen troops defending the gates of our homeland at Dardanelles.So many heroic stories written...

March 18 is the anniversary of our victory at Dardanelles, and is the Day of Martyrs. Thank you grandpas, thank you very much... Thank you for following the orders of Mustafa Kemal:

I do not order you to attack, I order you to die...

I'd like to add just one photo, a photo from TuAF, 1st Airplane Regiment mechanics. This is the photo of how we could have attained victory despite severe shortages of men, arms, food, water, sanitary staff etc. etc.

Victory comes at a price. Turkish nation lost more than 1.5 million man , women and children during the WWI , lost almost all of its educated elite who voluteered and fought in all the fronts. The results were devastating but gave birth to our country. My grandpa never saw his father who never returned home from Galipoli.. And every family in Turkey has such a tale aboout a relative lost in a front..

I bow with respect in front of them. Thank you for all the tihngs you have done for us.. Thank you for showing that we can be humans even during a war.. Thank you..

My grandfather was among the lucky ones. He returned home. However, hundreds of thousands of children never saw their fathers back, hundreds of thousands of parents newver saw their sons. They served their country. I hope one day we can be worthy of their sacreficies.

Just to clearify it for our Greek friends, March 18th is the anniversary of naval victory. After loosing several capital ships, the allied forces understood that no surface ship could pass through Canakkale. The real victory in my opinion was January 8/9, 1916 when the last of the enemy troops left the Turkish land.

Some interesting notes:

Churchill was the mastermind behind the invasion. He learned his lesson and invaded French coast successfuly on D-Day in 1944.

I found it is note worthy that thousands years after Trojan war, Dardannelles saw a similar tragedy (Troy is burned 8 or 9 times through out the history). But this time, the defenders were victorious. After thousands of year, I hope this war is going to be remembered along with Trojan war.

Here are some words illustrate the magnificence of the Gallipoli Wars.



I do not order you to attack, I order you to die...

-Ataturk


It is impossible for me without mentioning the fights on the Bomb Hill. Distance between trenches is about eight metres, That's to say, death is certain... The soldiers in the first trench are completely dying and the second group replaces them immediately with such great resignation and coldness that noone can imagine. A Soldier sees those dying soldiers and knows that he will die in a few minutes but doesn't show any hesitation and fear at all. By reading Kuran, some are ready to go Heaven and others are fighting and praying to God. This is one of the instances that shows the astonishing high spirit of Turkish soldiers. This is the high spirit that won Canakkale Wars.

-From the diaries of Ataturk - group commander of Anafartalar




Those heroes that shed their blood and
lost their lives...! You are now lying in
the soul of a friendly country, therefore
rest in peace. There is no differences between
the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they
lie side by side here in this country of ours...
You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away
countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now
lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having
lost their lives on this land they have become
our sons as well."

-Ataturk, (1934)





regards,
CDTRF

Respect to the Turkish soldier simple man who fought under good leadership...and prevented the enemy Wining the Battle...

I add my respects to the fallen soldiers..on both sites..But mostly to them who fought with honor and for there Fatherland.

Regards

May the souls of those fallen in Canakkale find peace.

Modus that picture is really impressive, do you have more colour pictures of regular mehmetcik.

Milsoft will soon publish a book about Turkish air campaign in Gallipoli , i have seen several pictures from it and it looks awesome. This picture is also in that book.. Its one of the two books i am impatient to lay my hands on..

Second one is about late Ottoman navy.. It has detailed info about all late Ottoman ships and several B&W pix.

I see, well I not much of a navy fan but is it about Ottoman Fleet during WW1? I didnt know we still had an effective navy after the Russian attack at Sinop.

But regarding the Turkish air campaign, could you scan the pictures if it is possible .

Dont want to be hijacking the thread but, the navy one is from 1823s to 1923s and very very detailed. Although Ottoman navy was not very successfull in those years it was due to the lack of brilliant commanders and late introduction of big battleships due to the British hostality against Ottomans.

A good example of what a good commander would have achived if supplied with a good ship is the Hamidiye and her commander Rauf Orbay during the Balkan wars.


Detailed info abt the book in Turkish..
http://www.pandora.com.tr/urun.asp?id=73564

When i get my hands on the milsoft book i will scan and post some pix from there..

No matter how many times one studies World War I, the question arises and remains unanswered: why were the combatant nations willing to sustain such heavy casualties for so little purpose? Did it have something to do with nationalism? Did the increase in population in previous decades, consequent on growing prosperity and public health, make people less sensitive to losses? Did the combatants feel helplessly caught in the insane grip of some irresistible higher force that wanted blood as a sacrifice?

Battalions, regiments, brigades, divisions, corps and armies maintained their cohesiveness despite casualties that would have collapsed World War II armies, losses so heavy they are akin to those that might be suffered on an atomic battlefield. In earlier wars, battles were fought over the span of a day or two or three, but now cohesiveness stood up through weeks and months of the most fearful combat. How did this happen?

We have no answers to these questions. We can however, describe some of the history of World War I. Gallipoli 1915 was just a sideshow in World War I. "Only" 800,000 men became casualties, 500,000 of them Turkish, in an area measured in a handful of square kilometers. It is doubtful most people would know anything about Gallipoli - any more than they know about the immense Italian-Austrian-German campaigns in the Alps - but for the ANZACs. Australians and New Zealanders keep alive the memory of Gallipoli because the young men of these young nations sacrificed more at Gallipoli than they had sacrificed before or after, and the terrible losses bonded the people at home, strengthening nascent national identities. For Turkey, Gallipoli saw the rise of Mustafa Kemel, who went from division commander to corps commander to army commander in less than two years, and then continued to overthrow the Turkish government and lay the foundations of modern Turkey. Conversely, it was the high point in the final act of the last play of the old, glorious Ottoman empire. We have the simultaneous play of decay and regeneration, the age old themes of human history.

______________________________________

Allied official historians ascribed the failure of the Allied offensive at Gallipoli in 1915 to inadequate intelligence, insufficient forces on hand, and the steadfastness of the Turkish defense. Apologists later placed heavy blame on poor Allied leadership at the strategic and operational levels. The German commander of the Ottoman Fifth Army, Major General Otto Liman von Sanders, further muddied the historical waters by exaggerating his own role in planning the defense. Unfortunately, the resulting historiography of the campaign tends largely to ignore the question of Ottoman military effectiveness.

This essay is based on hitherto unused Turkish official histories. It seeks to assess the effectiveness of the Turkish commanders and formations engaged in the campaign and offers new insights about the Turkish defensive campaign. The capabilities of the Ottoman commanders and the effectiveness of the Ottoman infantry divisions participating in the Gallipoli Campaign are examined, along with the development of the Ottoman defensive plans for the peninsula dating back to the First Balkan War in 1912. Finally, the essay concludes with force ratio comparisons at selected points in the campaign.

The Allies landed against the most heavily defended and best-prepared position in the Ottoman Empire. Furthermore, the defending infantry divisions and commanders, although outnumbered, were the best available in the Ottoman Army, a factor which significantly affected the outcome of the campaign. Finally, the essay advances the idea that man-for-man, the Turks were as effective as their Allied counterparts.

Gallipoli: Turkish Defense, March 25th, 1915

HQ 5th Turkish Army [Vehip Pasha]

HQ 3rd Army Corps, Gallipoli

HQ ?? Army Corps

Canakkale Fortress Command (includes 115 guns in 15 forts)

1st Aircraft Squadron (later in the campaign a German detachment joined the Turkish squadron, still later, in early 1916, as the Allies were withdrawing, the 6th Aircraft Squadron joined.)

[Turkish Navy deployments are given separately]

5th Division, Bulair

7th Division, Bulair

3rd Division, Kum Kale

11th Division, Kum Kale

9th Division, Cape Hellas

19th Division, Gaba Tepe (in reserve) [Mustafa Kemal]

Notes

When 3rd Army Corps reinforced the Gallipoli Peninsula defenses, it arrived with the 7th and 18th Divisions. We have no knowledge of what happened to the 18th Division.
The shadowy presence of Liman von Sanders, the legendary general who was chief German advisor to the Turkish Army, hovers everywhere.
__________________________________________________

Gallipoli: Turkish Counteroffensive, August 1915
[Not only are details scarce about units and formations - we consulted approximately 30 websites just to get the little we have - because the battle arena was geographically small, Turkish regiments and divisions were all mixed up, with the situation getting worse as the counteroffensive progressed. Reconstructing an accurate orbat is difficult under these circumstances. We have put down such corps, divisions and regiments as was possible.]

3rd Turkish Army [Kemal Yer]

5th Turkish Army [Vehip Pasha]

3rd Army Corps [Ehad Pasha; Chief-of-Staff Fahrettin Bey] Deployed opposite ANZAC

5th Division

- 14th Infantry Regiment

9th Division

- 25th Infantry Regiment

- 64th Infantry Regiment

16th Division

- 47th Infantry Regiment

- 48th Infantry Regiment

- 77th Infantry Regiment

- 125th Infantry Regiment

19th Division [Mustafa Kemal]

- 18th Infantry Regiment

- 27th Infantry Regiment

- 57th Infantry Regiment

- 72nd Infantry Regiment

4th Cavalry Brigade [deployed north, to protect Tayfi area]

16th Army Corps (also called Saros Group) [Fevzi Bey] Reinforces and takes position in

area Bulair-Enez-Kavak

6th Division

7th Division

12th Division

??th Army Corps (is the Asian group of three divisions?) [Faik Pasha] Might have been

an ad hoc formation

4th Division

8th Division [Ali Reza Beg]

- 10th Infantry Regiment

- 23rd Infantry Regiment

- 24th Infantry Regiment

11th Division

Unidentified Regiments
- 13th, 15th, 28th, 30th, 41st , and 64th Regiments are mentioned in the 3rd Corps Area

- 11th and 25th Regiments are mentioned, as are 16th and 19th Regiments

_____________________________

How accurate are this infos above ...about the units?

Again my respect to the Turkish soldier who fought bravely for hes homeland...

My second question would be how possible could be the defense if the allies didnt made so much mistakes,plus the involment of the Greek Army,and Greece in generall...
(Political pressure from the allies to participate in this campaign and the War was harsh...)
But for not ruining this thread i would gladly open a new thread abouted...

Regards

There are also some interesting battle myths and legends that were made famous in both Turkish and British folklore. One that comes to mind is the British 1/5 Norfolks Regiment's "Sandringham's" company that mysteriously dissapeared in a cloud with no traces of it's men.

An excerpt of the story goes:

Some historians even went to the extreme of categorizing this event as a UFO occurence through eyewitness accounts of 4 dark clouds hovering over the battlefield. Winston Churchill himself declared this event as a great mystery. While Turkish sources claim it was divine intervention.

Whatever the case, it has now come to acceptance that most realistically the company was ambushed and completely annihaleted in the dark mist with the bodies left uncollected and never to be found.

Dear Lord,
Turkish causalities in the war is around 250 K. this includes dead,injured(unable to fight aymore),pow,runaway etc. When you consider that Ottoman army kept a fighting force of 550 K soldiers at the front during the 8,5 months of battle the losses are great. Similar numbers apply for the allies. Due to the harsh enviroment of the Galipolli peninsula it was even a worse place for attackers and diseases killed more men than bullets..

Unfortunately you are right, including the fights on western front WWI was horrible. It was the first fight where men delibertaely used gases on each other for a few kms of advance. There was cruelty on all fronts..

The reason we Turks praise this war is not that we won it, We have captured a whole British army in Iraq after this campaign which was even a greater success. The praise in this war is to the humanity displayed through the campaign. Although under the severe pressure of loosing their homeland in this campaign Mehmet shared his bread and water with Tommy.

A French general i forgot his name now, says this story which affects me whenever i read it. A small clash has just ended and the dead and injured lay betwen the trenches only few meters apart. Suddenly they see a Turk jump out of the trench and try to tend the wounds of an enemy soldier. Then he carries the guy and brings to the Allied trenches. The general asks via translators. Why are you helping your enemy?. He says.. "I saw this soldier injured. Then he showed me a picture, a picture of an old woman.. I assumed that is his mother. I never saw my mother.. So i said , let this poor guys mother not feel the loss of his son.. I never had a mother.." The general says he couldnt hold himself from crying..

In an enviroment where human lives were spent like the coin in an atari game, it was this sense of honour and respect shown by both sides to eachother that makes this campaign special in wwI..

About the professional aspects of the battle. You know i dont like to comment much on this. But there are some documentaries out there. From history channel, discovary channel etc. Abt this campaign. I can say that bad commandership was also a problem for Turks.. Especially at Enver Pashas commands and despite Ataturks refusals a few attacks were made at wrong time which spent most of Turkish reserves, and prevented from an assault that could have been made during the withdrawal which could have made the campaign even a more embarrasing defeat for the allies. The allies lacked access to fresh water supplies and i can say that was their biggest problem. Water was shipped from Egypt..

The finall attack prepared and planned by Gen. Hamilton landed in a suitable position to destroy Turkish forces (60K men in suvla bay), but the General who were commanding the men hold his man not attacking saying his men were tired (they hadnt even began). Had they pressed there were only 3000 men against them. It would have been a disaster for Turks.. When they decided to attact, the positions had been strenghtened with reserves and situation quickly turned there into a trench war as well..

So it was war with stupid mistakes from both sides and heroic actions by both sides..

@efeler,
i think the palace regiment was destroyed by Turkish troops except one man.. There was a post regarding this in savunma-strateji forum as well..

Thanks Beleg. (Incidently I could not find the post you were referring to in the S&S forum).

I recall some other supernatural myths still talked of today. For instance of ghostly Ottoman horsemen riding through villages towards the battlefield, or sword wielding, bearded men with turbans and green robes assisting Turkish troops in battle (there was even a legend that a group of British soldiers retreated upon encountering 3m tall axe brandishing apparitions...)

You must love the human imagination.... :drink: