Battle of the Sakarya

On 23 August 1921 on the Sakarya river (Greek Sangarios) in central Anatolia the Greek army came up against advanced Turkish positions. The largest battle of the Greco-Turkish War had begun. It lasted until 13 September, “22 days and 22 nights” in Turkish tradition. The Greeks wanted to destroy the army of Mustafa Kemal’s national movement and to take Ankara (PL), the seat of his government and of the Grand National Assembly. The battle stopped their advance and turned the tide of the war.

The road to the Sakarya

After the Armistice of Mudros the Greek Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, claimed western Asia Minor at the peace conference, where many Greeks lived. Smyrna, which the Entente had promised to the Greeks as early as 1915, was occupied by Greek troops on 15 May 1919 with the consent of Clemenceau and President Wilson and with the full support of the British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George. The Treaty of Sèvres of 10 August 1920 gave Greece the Smyrna district and Eastern Thrace, but Kemal’s national movement, with its government in Ankara, did not recognise it. In November 1920 Venizelos lost the election and Constantine I returned to the throne. France and Italy, ill-disposed towards the Greeks, began to distance themselves from them.

Two Greek offensives, in January and at the turn of March and April 1921, were stopped by the Turks at İnönü. In July the Greeks struck once more, outflanked the Turks and took Eskişehir (PL) and Kütahya, junctions of the Anatolian railway. İsmet Pasha’s Western Army, however, escaped encirclement and withdrew to the east bank of the Sakarya, some 80 kilometres from Ankara. In this situation the National Assembly gave Kemal supreme command with extraordinary powers for a fixed period. On 5 August Fevzi Pasha became chief of the general staff. In Ankara preparations were made in case the government had to move further east.

The battle

The offensive was approved by King Constantine. General Anastasios Papoulas’s army marched for many days across dry, empty plateaus short of water and fodder. On 23 August it made contact with the Turks south of the Gök river, and on 26 August it attacked along the whole front, some 100 kilometres long. The Turks defended the ridges east of the Sakarya. Every hill had to be stormed, and some changed hands more than once. On 2 September the Greeks took the commanding heights of Mount Çal and broke through the second Turkish line. The most advanced Greek units came within some 50 kilometres of Ankara, near Haymana. Meanwhile Turkish cavalry raided the Greek rear and supply lines, and fresh conscripts kept arriving in the Turkish army.

The Greek attack ran out of steam. For several days neither side had the strength to attack. On 8 September Kemal counter-attacked near Çal. The Greeks held, but their command, fearing envelopment and the approaching winter, broke off the offensive. From 13 September Papoulas’s army withdrew across the Sakarya to the positions it had left a month earlier. On the way it blew up bridges and railway lines and burnt villages.

The losses of both sides ran into tens of thousands killed and wounded. The Turkish historian Elçin Macar states that the Greeks lost 20,000 men.

Consequences

On 19 September the Grand National Assembly awarded Kemal the rank of marshal and the honorary title of Gazi, the victor. Papoulas resigned some time later. Ankara’s success hastened the withdrawal of the Italians from Asia Minor, and in October 1921 France concluded an agreement with Kemal’s government and also withdrew. The Greeks’ only ally was now Britain, or rather Lloyd George himself. The Greek army went over to the defensive on a line from Eskişehir to Afyonkarahisar and remained there for almost a year, until the Turkish offensive of August 1922.