26 August 1922
Great Offensive: the barrage at dawn
Mustafa Kemal has massed the First Army under Nurettin Pasha against the southern face of the Greek salient around Afyon, a gamble that leaves the Turkish right weak. The Western Front's headquarters is on Kocatepe, 15 km south of the city. In the night of 25 to 26 August the V Cavalry Corps under Fahrettin Pasha passes through the Kırka gorge into the rear of the Greek line, and by 18.00 on 26 August it has cut the railway and the telegraph between Afyon and İzmir.
Mustafa Kemal Pasha at Kocatepe, 26 August 1922Wikimedia Commons, Turkish Armed Forces, Public domain (Atatürk at Kocatepe.jpg)
At dawn the artillery opens fire. The Turkish heavy guns knock out the light Greek batteries, and some Greek front battalions lose half their men in the barrage alone. Seven divisions of the I and IV Corps attack two Greek divisions, the 1st and the 4th, and by noon the I Corps holds the trenches of the Greek 1st Division. The Second Army attacks north of the city and keeps the Greek III Corps at Eskişehir pinned.
Sources
- Michael Llewellyn-Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919–1922 (1973).
- Andrew Mango, Atatürk (1999).
- Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, Nutuk (1927).
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