The Gallipoli Campaign of 1915-16, also known as the Battle
of Gallipoli or the Dardanelles Campaign, was an unsuccessful attempt by
the Allied Powers to control the sea route from Europe to Russia during
World War I. The campaign began with a failed naval attack by British
and French ships on the Dardanelles Straits in February-March 1915 and
continued with a major land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula on April
25, involving British and French troops as well as divisions of the
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). Lack of sufficient
intelligence and knowledge of the terrain, along with a fierce Turkish
resistance, hampered the success of the invasion. By mid-October, Allied
forces had suffered heavy casualties and had made little headway from
their initial landing sites. Evacuation began in December 1915, and was
completed early the following January.
Launch of the Gallipoli Campaign
With World War I
stalled on the Western Front by 1915, the Allied Powers were debating
going on the offensive in another region of the conflict, rather than
continuing with attacks in Belgium and France. Early that year, Russia’s
Grand Duke Nicholas appealed to Britain for aid in confronting a
Turkish invasion in the Caucasus. (The Ottoman Empire had entered World
War I on the side of the Central Powers, Germany and Austria-Hungary, by
November 1914.) In response, the Allies decided to launch a naval
expedition to seize the Dardanelles Straits, a narrow passage connecting
the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara in northwestern Turkey. If
successful, capture of the straits would allow the Allies to link up
with the Russians in the Black Sea, where they could work together to
knock Turkey out of the war.
Spearheaded
by the first lord of the British Admiralty, Winston Churchill (over the
strong opposition of the First Sea Lord Admiral John Fisher, head of
the British Navy), the naval attack on the Dardanelles began with a
long-range bombardment by British and French battleships on February 19,
1915. Turkish forces abandoned their outer forts but met the
approaching Allied minesweepers with heavy fire, stalling the advance.
Under tremendous pressure to renew the attack, Admiral Sackville Carden,
the British naval commander in the region, suffered a nervous collapse
and was replaced by Vice-Admiral Sir John de Robeck. On March 18, 18
Allied battleships entered the straits; Turkish fire, including
undetected mines, sank three of the ships and severely damaged three
others.
Gallipoli Land Invasion Begins
In the wake of the failed naval attack, preparations began for
largescale troop landings on the Gallipoli Peninsula. British War
Secretary Lord Kitchener appointed General Ian Hamilton as commander of
British forces for the operation; under his command, troops from
Australia, New Zealand and the French colonies assembled with British
forces on the Greek island of Lemnos. Meanwhile, the Turks boosted their
defenses under the command of the German general Liman von Sanders, who
began positioning Ottoman troops along the shore where he expected the
landings would take place. On April 25, 1915, the Allies launched their
invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Despite suffering heavy casualties,
they managed to establish two beachheads: at Helles on the peninsula’s
southern tip, and at Gaba Tepe on the Aegean coast. (The latter site was
later dubbed Anzac Cove, in honor of the Australian and New Zealand
troops who fought so valiantly against determined Turkish defenders to
establish the beachhead there.)
After the initial landing, the Allies were able to make little
progress from their initial landing sites, even as the Turks gathered
more and more troops on the peninsula from both the Palestine and
Caucasus fronts. In an attempt to break the stalemate, the Allies made
another major troop landing on August 6 at Sulva Bay, combined with a
northwards advance from Anzac Cove towards the heights at Sari Bair and a
diversionary action at Helles. The surprise landings at Sulva Bay
proceeded against little opposition, but Allied indecision and delay
stalled their progress in all three locations, allowing Ottoman
reinforcements to arrive and shore up their defenses.
Decision to Evacuate Gallipoli
With Allied casualties in the Gallipoli Campaign mounting, Hamilton
(with Churchill’s support) petitioned Kitchener for 95,000
reinforcements; the war secretary offered barely a quarter of that
number. In mid-October, Hamilton argued that a proposed evacuation of
the peninsula would cost up to 50 percent casualties; British
authorities subsequently recalled him and installed Sir Charles Monro in
his place. By early November, Kitchener had visited the region himself
and agreed with Monro’s recommendation that the remaining 105,000 Allied
troops should be evacuated.
The British government authorized the evacuation to begin from Sulva
Bay on December 7; the last troops left Helles on January 9, 1916. In
all, some 480,000 Allied forces took part in the Gallipoli Campaign, at a
cost of more than 250,000 casualties, including some 46,000 dead. On
the Turkish side, the campaign also cost an estimated 250,000
casualties, with 65,000 killed.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk Biography
President (non-U.S.) (c. 1881–1938)
Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk was a revolutionary who helped establish the Republic of
Turkey. He was Turkey's first president, and his reforms modernized the
country.
Synopsis
Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk was born in 1881 in the former Ottoman Empire. As a young
man he was involved with the Young Turks, a revolutionary group that
deposed the sultan in 1909. Ataturk led the Turkish War of Independence
and signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which made Turkey a republic.
He was elected its first president and ushered in reforms that
modernized Turkey. He died in 1938.
Early Life
Mustafa
Kemal Ataturk was born simply "Mustafa" in the early months of 1881, in
Salonika, in what was then the Ottoman Empire (his birthplace is now
known as Thessalonika, in modern-day Greece). When he was 12 years old,
Mustafa was sent to the military academy in Istanbul. There, his
mathematics teacher gave him the name Kemal—meaning "perfection"—because
he excelled in academics. He graduated in 1905.
Military Career
As
a young man, Mustafa Kemal became a member of the Young Turks, a
revolutionary movement of intellectuals. He participated in the Young
Turk Revolution of July 1908, which successfully deposed Sultan
Abdülhamid II. From 1909 to 1918, Mustafa Kemal held a number of posts
in the Ottoman army. He fought against Italy in the Italo-Turkish War in
1911 and from 1912-1913 he fought in the Balkan Wars. During the second
Balkan War he became chief of staff before being posted at the Turkish
embassy in Bulgaria. He made a name for himself as the commander of the
19th Division, where his bravery and strategic prowess helped thwart the
Allied invasion of the Dardanelles in 1915, and received repeated
promotions until the Armistice of Mudros ended the fighting in 1918.
Although
the battles had ended, the treaty gave the Allies the right to occupy
forts that controlled major waterways, as well as any territory that
might pose a threat to security. In 1919, Ataturk organized resistance
to these forces, and when the Treaty of Sèvres was signed at the end of
World War I, divvying up the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal demanded
complete independence for Turkey. The Great National Assembly—the new
Turkish parliament—engaged in a series of battles with Greek and
Armenian forces until Mustafa signed the Treaty of Lausanne on October
29, 1923. This established the Republic of Turkey, and Mustafa Kemal
became the country’s first president.
Presidency
Mustafa
Kemal's first order of business was to modernize and secularize the
country, which he did by studying Western governments and adapting their
structure for the people of Turkey. He believed that modernization
necessarily entailed Westernization, and he established a policy of
state secularism, with a constitution that separated the government from
religion.
Social and economic reforms were a crucial part of his
strategy as well. He replaced the Arabic alphabet with a Latin one,
introduced the Gregorian calendar and urged people to dress in Western
clothes. Mustafa industrialized the nation, establishing state-owned
factories around the country as well as a railway network. And a
multitude of new laws established legal equality between the sexes.
Mustafa removed women’s veiling laws and gave women the right to vote.
Although
he believed he was advancing the country, not all of Mustafa Kemal’s
reforms were warmly received. His policy of state secularism was
particularly controversial, and he was accused of decimating important
cultural traditions.
Personal Life
Mustafa
Kemal was married briefly from 1923 to 1925, and although he never
fathered children, he adopted 12 daughters and one son. In 1935 he
introduced surnames in Turkey, and he took the last name Ataturk, which
means "Father of the Turks." He died on November 10, 1938, from
cirrhosis of the liver.
Urartuların,
Başkenti Tuşpa (Van) idi. Urartu Devleti en güçlü döneminde (M.Ö
8-7.yy), günümüzdeki Doğu Anadolu, Kuzeybatı İran, Irak'ın küçük bir
bölümü ile kuzeyde Aras Vadisi'ne egemendi. Devletin başkenti Doğu
Anadolu'da Van Gölü'nün doğu kıyısında yer almaktaydı; daha geç
dönemlerdeki adıyla 'Tosp', Urartucadaki 'Tuşpaya dayanmaktadır. Van
Gölü denizden 1625 metre yüksekte olup Urmiye Gölü'nden 336 metre daha
yukarıda yer almaktadır. 3400 ve 5000 km²'yi bulan alanlarıyla her iki
gölde Anadolu-İran bölgesinin en büyük gölleridir. 'Deniz' olarak da
değerlendirilirler. Asurlar (Aşurlar, eski Asurlar)'ın coğrafi
metinlerinde Van Gölü'nden 'Nairi'nin Yukarı Denizi', Urmiye Gölü'ndense
'Nairi'nin Aşağı Denizi' olarak söz edilir. Bugün dahi Urumiye Gölü'nün
Farsçası 'Deryeça'[kaynak belirtilmeli] yani 'Küçük Deniz'
anlamındadir. Urartu yerleşim bölgesinin sınırlarını, batıda
Karasu-Fırat, kuzeyde Kuzey Ermenistan dağları, doğuda İran
Azerbaycanı'ndaki Savalan Dağları, güneyde ise Zagros Dağları'yla
birleşen Doğu Toroslar oluşturur. Efsanevi Ağrı Dağı (Ermenicedeki
adıyla Masis) bu dağlık bölgenin orta noktasındadır. İncil'deki
masoretik ünlüleştirmeden ötürü bu dağ, Urartu adının "r r t"
ünsüzleriyle yazılması sonucu "Ararat" adını almıştır. 5165 metrelik
yüksekliği ile Büyük Ağrı Dağı, Kafkasya'nın güneyindeki en yüksek
dağdır. Küçük Ağrı Dağı, Tendürek, Aladağ, Süphan Dağı ve Nemrut Dağı
gibi genelde 3000 metreyi geçen diğer dağların çoğu Van Gölü
yakınlarında yer almaktadır.
Urartu Kaleleri ve Sur Duvarları
Krallığın
sınırları içindeki yerleşim alanlarında ortaya çıkarılan kaleler
çeşitli plan ve büyüklüktedirler. Kaleler yöneticinin korunması için
askeri bir üs, tehlike anlarında halkın sığınacağı ve savunmaya geçeceği
genellikle tepelerde yer alan ve etrafı kalın yüksek surlarla çevrili
bir yapılar topluluğudur. Kaleler bulunduğu arazinin jeolojik yapısına
bağlı olarak genelde tepelere inşa edilirlerdi. Kaleler korunması
gerekli yerlere göre de değişiklik gösterir; özellikle maden ocakları
yakınlarına yapılanlar veya ticaret yolunun kenarındakiler düz arazide
de olabilirler. Su kaynağına veya yazın kurumayan bir akarsuya yakın
alanlar seçilirdi. Su ihtiyaçalrını gidermek için tepeden suya inen kısa
yol merdivenleri yapılırdı; Tercan Şirinli Kale, Mercan Çadırkaya
Pekeriç, Diyadin Toklucak vb. kalelerde kullanılmıştır. Van Kalesinde de
bin merdivenler bu amaca yöneliktir. Kale içindeki yapıların
planlarında benzerlik yoktur, arazinin durumuna göre geliştirmişlerdir.
Tepe kalenin etrafı kalın surlarla çevrilmiştir; Altıntepe kalesinde
çift sur kullanılmıştır. Surlar ya tepenin üstüne yakın yere yapılır ya
da eteğine yakın yere yapılırdı. Bazen her ikisi de kullanılmıştır.
Bölgeyi yöneten Bey’in oturduğu Kalelerin içinde saray ve yönetim
odaları, mutfak, varsa tapınak, depo binası, v.b. gibi ihtiyaç için
mekanlar yapılırdı. Halk tepenin eteğindeki düz veya yamaç arazide
otururdu. Evlerin etrafı da bir surla çevrilebilirdi Yukarı Anzaf Kalesi
ve Karmir-Blur’da olduğu gibi. Askeri amaç için yapılmış olanlar daha
küçük ve askerlerin ihtiyaçlarını karşılamak için mekanlar yer alırdı.
