PDF Dosyası - Ankara Üniversitesi Kitaplar Veritabanı

At nightfall on 26 October the Turks resumed their march to a positionin the hiils about 30 kilometers northwest of Aleppo on the iskenderunroad and they held the southern gateway to Anatolia. Beyond thisline, to the north, the Turks organized a formidable position of greatstrength along the Anatolian frontier under the direct and dynamic controlof Atatürk 16 .The position proved too strong for the single depleted British divisionand armoured cars. The task of breaking through was beyond the capacityof Major-General Macandrevv. He was obliged to cali up reinforcementsfrom Damascus. Supply and medical services could not keep upwith an advance över devastated and malarial terrain. Disease was nowrampant in the British cavalry. Macandrevv's division was incapable offurther effort and it was decided to avvait the arrival at Aleppo of the AustralianMounted Division before resuming the offensive. The presence ofthe 7th Army was enough to prevent any further advance by this onevveakened division. Had the Turks not been about to sign the armisticeBritish 5th Cavalry Division would have been in a perilous position. Despiteali diffıculties the 7th Army proved to be a formidable fıghting machine,commanded and led by a Turkish general of outstanding abilityand of great personal courage. 7th Army, repeatedly attacked but neverdefeated, was for the fırst time defending, not Arab territory, but the soilof Anatolia itself, of which this was the natural frontier. Recognizing thatnot only that Syria was lost but that the Ottoman Empire would have tosue for peace, Atatürk revealed his thoughts to Cebesoy that out of thisdebacle might come the birth of a new nation comprising those regions ofthe empire populated by Turks. It was in Asia Minör, behind this range ofmountains, that both the past and the future of the Turkish nation lay. Heheld the idea of defending the independent existence of the Turkish nationfrom the stronghold of Anatolia and accepting the loss of Turkishrule of Arab lands 17 .The fıghting at Haritan was the final fıerce combat betvveen the Ottomansand the British - actually the last pitched battle of the First WorldWar - and it could in addition be considered as the first military operationof the Turkish War of Independence. In fact, several events vvhichlater took place proved that the ideas of Atatürk as regards the liberationof the country by an armed national struggle were already defınite at thetime and it was again at Haritan that he had started to apply them effectively.The conviction was formed and action flowed from it.On 30 October, at 9.40 p.m., negotiations that had begun three daysearlier betvveen the representatives of the Ottoman Empire and Britain,16. Atay (1965), pp. 64-65.17. Cebesoy (1953), pp. 13-14. Henry Somer Gullett, The Australian Imperial Force inSınai and Palestine: 1914-1918, Sydney, 1984, pp. 778-779.630