Claims About Liman von Sanders and Mustafa Kemal at Gallipoli

When he arrived at Gallipoli he found the Ottoman army digging trenches along the shore.

Now he says: stop digging trenches — what will we do? We'll pull back behind the hills.

Now he says you're digging trenches here, digging trenches on the shore — for this we will line up the troops.

The enemy fleet will come and, without firing a single shot, will cut us to pieces.

By artillery fire?

Of course, by artillery fire — a very powerful enemy fleet too.

Now there are some old-timers who say the order he gave was wrong.

In other words, there are those who claim Limanfon Sanders made a wrong decision and then didn't have the Ottoman soldiers dig trenches.

That was the right decision, by the way.

It was definitely the right decision.

He positions them behind the hills.

That way he determines the enemy positions.

They can't see.

When they land on the shore we swoop down on them.

With a counterattack, okay?

He was, after all, using a method that had never been tried or seen anywhere in the world.

We owe the victory in the Gallipoli land battles to Liman von Sanders.

I mean, he really knew his job and did it well.

Now everyone wonders: what was Mustafa Kemal's role in these battles?

Didn't he win them single-handedly, sir?

Here's the thing: Mustafa Kemal did not have any role in these battles like it's been said or described.

He was the commander of the right wing in the May 19 attack.

19th Reserve Division.

In fact, Mustafa Kemal was part of the reserve force — the backup for the Ottoman units.

So he wasn't on the main front.

He was, after all, somewhere way back in Maydos.

Now, in the May 19 attack, 40,000 Ottoman soldiers attacked 13,000 Anzacs.

At Arıburnu.

Mustafa Kemal's 19th Division was on the right-hand side of the front.

Mustafa Kemal fought extremely reluctantly in this war.

In that war — in the May 19 battle — the Second Division made up of child soldiers was completely destroyed.

Because Enver had placed the Second Division, under the command of Colonel Süleyman Askeri, at the very front of the line.

3,500 of the child soldiers were killed immediately.

Within a few hours.

How old were they, sir?

Enver drafted all high-school students who weighed 50 kilograms.

They were at most 15 or 16 years old.

Of course, 15 or 16 years old.

So if they weighed 50 kilograms, he recruited them as soldiers.

They might not even have weighed that much.

He drafted them.

The Second Division — 10,000 soldiers — was composed of 10,000 child soldiers.

At their head was Colonel Süleyman Askeri.

They suffered a very heavy blow.

Mustafa Kemal fought reluctantly.

The Ottoman army was forced to retreat.

They couldn't defeat 13,000 ANZACs.

That is, 13,000 soldiers.

The ANZACs fired more than 1,000,000 rounds in that May 19 battle.

The battle lasted only about three hours.

That's how long it lasted.

A battle where soldiers, lined up in ranks, were ordered to attack at three a.m., and in front of the machine guns they were all cut down in their ranks.

Um, singing the Vatan Marşı.

When I read the memoirs of ANZAC soldiers and officers about this attack,

they said we fought among ourselves to take the machine guns and shoot more Turks.

They even say we paid one another.

I had read the memoirs of a few such soldiers.

Later, there was a three-day ceasefire to remove and bury the mountain of corpses that had formed there.

Yes, the firing stopped.

This was Mustafa Kemal's first battle, at Gallipoli.

But meanwhile, the fighting continues.

For example: the First Battle of Kirte, the Second Battle of Kirte, the Third Battle of Kirte.

Mustafa Kemal is not in any of them.