The Veterans' home was an interesting place where some officers were
wrestling and fighting like unruly teenagers to pass the time. There were some
serious ones like Major Naji, despite being blinded at the war he was working
on his archive. His aide was reading reports to him and he was telling him to
where to store the information, he was trying to find out what has happened in
Caucasian Front once the Russians have left the war. There were reports that
the Turkish and German troops start fighting each other over Baku.
Baku
Aware of the oil fields of
Azarbaijan both the British and the Germans tried to control the area. And the
Turks were trying to protect the area for the Azarbaijanies, from the Armenians who were being encouraged
by the Russians.
During these sessions, Lieutenant Selim felt that he couldn’t continue
to work on the subject of the Sarikamish disaster and left the room in anger.
Because the reports were not telling the truth about the soldiers who died of
cold. The events had taken place during the months of December 1915 and January
1916 however the reports were talking about someone dying because of the
heath. That was impossible.
When Jamil left the room to check on Selim he ran into Ismail his old
friend. Ismail greeted him warmly by saying his name. Jamil’s cover was over, since
he registered at Veterans Home under a false name, now he has to leave.
Ismail suggested him to go to Anatolia and fight alongside the Nationalists.
Ahirkapi lighthouse, Istanbul
Bottom of Darkness
May 1919
The first section of the book which was called the Binoculars of von
Kress and ended at the Veterans Home in Istanbul. Now, following the advice of
his friend Ismail, Jamil took a boat from Ahirkapi to cross the Marmara Sea and
land on Bandirma on its southern shores.
Bandirma was a region where Turks and Greeks were living peacefully together.
Upon the news of the Greek Army’s invasion of Izmir, local Greeks put up Greek
flags and started celebrating. On the way, the Captain of the boat had told
this to Jamil. However, Jamil knew that the Commander of the 17th
Army, Bekir Sami was in the area and he wouldn’t let the Greek flags to fly in
Bandirma. Like he thought there were no flags when they landed. There was no
one to check his travel documents either.
At the time, the nationalists were living in fear of being arrested in
Istanbul and getting out of the British control zones required permit. However,
the newly founded Karakol organization was helping the Unionists to leave the
city to join the Nationalists in Anatolia. They were also helping the army to
transport the weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of the
Greeks.
When Jamil reached Bandirma he had to be careful not to say his motives
to anyone because there were British spies around.
Luckily he was able to join Commander Bekir Sami without incident and to
his surprise, he found an old friend Selahaddin there. Lieutenant Farouk also
came from Istanbul to fought against the invasion. The nationalists' main duty
was to recruit soldiers for their cause and bring weapons from Manisa before
the Greek Army reach there.
However. Their only problem was not the Greek Army. A civil war was about to break. Since the
Sultan in Istanbul was a puppet for the British invading forces, he was trying
to prevent the Nationalists to take action. Now, that the Freedom and Accord Party
which was the arch-enemy of the Unionists was in power the Nationalists were
declared unruly warlords.
The army was already dismantled and the Greeks were given go-ahead for
the massacres of the Turks, the situation was really looking bleak.
On top of that, the Shaihl ul Islam had issued a fatwa to qualify the
nationalists as infidels calling for the death of the leaders of the revolution.
The Government passed a death sentence for Mustafa Kemal and his friends.
That, together with the British money was enough reason for some to join
the reactionaries. An army formed in Istanbul with a Circassian man Anzavour as
his leader.
Now the nationalists would use another Circassian man, a warlord by the
name of Ethem to fight against Anzavur troops.
There were some reasons for this, first, the army is western Turkey was dismantled, to form a new army by the nationalists would take some time and also it would be hard to get the regular army to fight against the Sultan's troops. And also this kind of war was deemed best fought by Guerilla warfare.
Luckily, as we will see, in the end, Ethem was able to defeat Aznavour.
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