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Franco-Turkish War
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Franco-Turkish war, more often called Cilicia war (French: La guerre en Cilicie, Turkish: Güney Cephesi - the southern front), was a series of military conflicts in the aftermath of the World War I that opposed Turkish National Forces directed by Turkish Grand National Assembly governments in Ankara as of April 1920, and the French army, as well as the French Colonial Forces and the French Armenian Legion under its command.
initial French interest towards Çukurova region, although manifest since Napoleon's 1798-1800 Egypt-Syria campaign, had become more focused and concentrated since the acquisition in 1909 by French capitalists, as against part of Ottoman debts, of Sultan Abdülhamid II's vast (1100 km², the size of Martinique) Mercimek Farm (Mercimek Çiftligi), privately-owned although managed as a state farm in development since the 1880s and roughly corresponding to a stripe starting at the ports of Yumurtalik and Karatas till the vicinity of Kozan and Imamoglu.
ch army had moved into the region, based on the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, after the Armistice of Mudros.
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Encyclopedia
Franco-Turkish war, more often called Cilicia war (French: La guerre en Cilicie, Turkish: Güney Cephesi - the southern front), was a series of military conflicts in the aftermath of the World War I that opposed Turkish National Forces directed by Turkish Grand National Assembly governments in Ankara as of April 1920, and the French army, as well as the French Colonial Forces and the French Armenian Legion under its command.
Background
The initial French interest towards Çukurova region, although manifest since Napoleon's 1798-1800 Egypt-Syria campaign, had become more focused and concentrated since the acquisition in 1909 by French capitalists, as against part of Ottoman debts, of Sultan Abdülhamid II's vast (1100 km², the size of Martinique) Mercimek Farm (Mercimek Çiftligi), privately-owned although managed as a state farm in development since the 1880s and roughly corresponding to a stripe starting at the ports of Yumurtalik and Karatas till the vicinity of Kozan and Imamoglu.
Agreements
French army had moved into the region, based on the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, after the Armistice of Mudros. Sykes-Picot Agreement foresaw that, apart from Syria, the French would lay their hands on southern Anatolia, where the fertile plain of Çukurova (Cilicia), the ports of Mersin and Iskenderun (Alexandretta) and the copper mines in Ergani, to the north of upper Mesopotamia, constituted the strategic pinpoints. On the other hand, the oil fields of the Ottoman vilayet of Musul were an absolute priority for the British. According to the arrangement agreed, the British would keep the cities of Antep, Maras and Urfa till they saw the French heading to settle exclusively in the southern Anatolian regions allocated to them in the agreement.
French-Armenian agreement regarding the support of Armenian nationalist of the Armenian national liberation movement on the side of allies during the World War I was signed October 27, 1916. Foreign Minister Aristide Briand used this opportunity to provide troops for French commitments. The Armenian support which will be named as French Armenian Legion was planned under command of General Edmund Allenby, however extend to original agreement, Armenians fought in Palestine, Syria. Finally, after the armistice of Mudros in Cilicia, also. The aim in constituting the Legion was to allow an Armenian contribution to the dismemberment of southern Anatolia region from Ottoman Empire.
French Occupation of Turkey
Black Sea landings
After the armistice of Mudros, the first thing the French military did was to control the strategically important Ottoman coal mines in which French capital held significant stakes. The goal was both to take control of the energy source and cover the French military needs. It also prevented the distribution of coal in Anatolia, which could be used in activities to support insurgency.
On March 18, 1919, two French gunboats embarked respective troops to the Black Sea ports of Zonguldak and Karadeniz Eregli commanding Ottomans coal mining region. French units with the resistance they faced during the one year of their stay in the region begin to retire their troops from Karadeniz Eregli on June 08, 1920. They continue for pursue their occupation on Zonguldak, where they concentrate by occupying the city as a whole and officially on June 18.
Istanbul and Thrace operations
The main operations in this side was aimed to give support for the allied strategic goals.
A French brigade enters Istanbul on Nov 12, 1918. On February 08, 1919 French general Franchet d'Esperey, commander-in-chief of allied occupation forces in Ottoman Empire arrives to Istanbul. He will be coordinating the activities of Ottoman Government under occupation.
The city of Bursa, a former Ottoman capital of central importance in northwest Anatolia was held by French forces as well, for a brief period before the great summer offensive of the Greek army in 1920, at which time that city fell to the Greeks.
Cilicia Campaign (Cilicia war)
| Southern Front Battles | | Name | Land/Sea | side (1) | General | side (2) | General | Date | Side | Treaty | | Maras | | France | | National Forces | Ali Fuat Pasha | 20 Jan - 10 Feb 1920 | | | | Urfa | | France | | National Forces | Ali Saip Bey | 9 Feb - 11 Apr 1920 | | Cilicia Peace Treaty on March 9, 1921 | | Antep Defense | | France | | National Forces | Kilic Ali Bey | 1 Apr 1920 - 9 Feb 1921 | | | | Siege of Antep | | France | | National Forces | Sefik Ozdemir Bey | 5 August 1920 - 9 Feb 1921 | | |
The first landing took place on the 17th of November 1918 at Mersin with ca. 15,000 men, mainly volunteers from the French Armenian Legion, accompanied by 150 French officers. The first targets of that Expeditionary Force was to occupy ports and dismantle the Ottoman administration. The second landing on the 19th of November 1918 in the port of Tarsus had for mission to secure the surroundings and prepare for the establishment of the Head Quarters in Adana.
After the occupation of Cilicia proper end-1918, French troops occupied the Ottoman provinces of Antep, Maras and Urfa in southern Anatolia end-1919, taking these cities over from British troops as agreed.
At the eastern tip of the occupation zone in the south, the city of Mardin was also occupied for one day (on 21 November 1919) until the evening when the French thought it better to abandon the occupation attempt.
Cilicia governors assigned by France to the French occupation zone in the south were, from Jan 1 1919 to Sep 4 1920, Édouard Brémond and from September 1920 to 23 December 1921, Julien Dufieux.
In the regions they occupied, the French were faced with the resistance of the Turkish majority as of the first hour, especially by reason of having associated themselves with Armenian objectives.
The French wanted to settle in Syria. With a pressure against French, Cilicia would be easily left to the Turkish nationalists. The Taurus Mountains were critical for Mustafa Kemal. The French soldiers were foreign to the region and they were using Armenian militia to acquire their intelligence. Turkish nationals had been in cooperation with Arab tribes in this area. Compared to the Greek threat, the French were less dangerous for Mustafa Kemal. He proposed that if the Greek threat could be disseminated, the French would not resist.
The resistance of the national forces was a big surprise to France. They blamed the British forces which did not curb the resistance power of the local sources. The strategic goal of opening a front at the south by moving Armenians against the Turkish National forces was a failure after the defeat of the Greek-British forces on the west.
On 1 November 1919, two days after the French take-over of Maras, Sütçü Imam Incident, termed after the defender of three Turkish women who were being harassed and molested in the street by French Armenian Legion auxiliaries, sowed the seeds of tension in the city. Sütçü Imam shot one of the molesters in the skirmish and had to go into hiding. The incident triggered a series of events that led the Turkish majority of Maras to rise against the occupation forces and culminated in the wholescale urban warfare two months after the incident.
After twenty-two days of urban battle, on 11 February 1920, the French occupation troops found themselves forced to evacuate Maras faced to the resistance and assaults of the Turkish Revolutionaries, with the local Armenian community following them.
Maras militia forces pursued the war effort by taking part in the re-capture of other centers of the region, forcing the French forces to retreat gradually and town by town.
Cilicia Peace Treaty
| Cilicia | | Name | Land/Sea | side (1) | General | side (2) | General | Date | Side | Treaty | | Adana | | France | | National Forces | Ali Fuat Pasha | 21 Jan 1920 - 20 Oct 1921 | | Treaty of Ankara on October 20 1921 |
End of hostilities
The conflicts officially ended with the Accord of Ankara signed between the representative of the French government and the Turkish Grand National Assembly on October 20 1921, which was finalized with Armistice of Mudanya.
Treaty of Ankara
France held better relations with the Turkish nationals during the Turkish War of Independence, chiefly for breaking Triple Entente solidarity and signing a separate agreement with the Turkish revolutionaries. The Treaty of Ankara or the Franklin-Bouillon Agreement did not resolve the problems in connection with the sanjak of Alexandretta. However positive relations, Turkish-France, at least until the question of Alexandretta was solved, was maintained according to the principle of defending territorial integrity and national independence which these concepts were easy to negotiate (see:French Revolution). French policy that supported Turkish independence movement took a blow during the Conference of Lausanne on the abolition of the capitulations (see: Capitulations of the Ottoman Empire). The French objections during the discussions on abolition, perceived as France was contravening the full Turkish independence and sovereignty. Furthermore, the fact that the sanjak of Alexandretta , which according to Misak-i Milli should have been included within Turkish national borders, remained under French control also contributed to the tension between the two countries. The positive attitude developed with the Treaty of Ankara stayed mainly on a friendly, if limited, basis.
Withdrawal and population movements
The French forces withdrew from the occupation zone in the first days of 1922, about ten months before the Armistice of Mudanya. Beginning on January 3, French troops evacuated Mersin and Dörtyol; on January 5, Adana, Ceyhan and Tarsus. The evacuation was completed on the January 7 with the last troops leaving Osmaniye.
Chanak Crisis
In the early stages, 1919, under military cooperation, joint French-Greek troops crossed the Meriç River and occupied the town of Uzunköprü in Eastern Thrace as well as the railway axis till the train station of Hadimköy near Çatalca on the outskirts of Istanbul.
On September 1922, at the end of Greco-Turkish War (19191922), during the Greek pull-out after advance of Turkish revolutionaries, French forces pulled out from their positions near Dardanelles, but the British seemed prepared to hold their ground.
The British government issued a request for military support from its colonies. The response of its colonies to British was negative and French leaving British on the straits signaled that the Allies were unwilling to intervene on the side of Greece. Greek troops and the French withdrew beyond the Meriç River.
Result
The French interest which its financial side, Ottoman debts, were cleared by the young Republic of Turkey in line with the Treaty of Lausanne. Attempts at modifying the ethnic structure of the region, to the advantage of the Armenian minority fed with new settlers, also played a role.
See also
External links
- Site about French Cilicia Campaign, with documents (1920) and photos (2006)
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