It is 1915, and World War I had just started the year before. The Allies want a new route to Russia. Russia wants a new route out of Russia, as it was isolated geographically and lacking modern weapons, although it had one of the largest armies. Turkey is the easiest way through.
Though it was with the Central Powers, the Ottoman Empire was known to be weak. So the British and French decide to land on a little peninsula named Gallipoli:
But just then, before enough Anzac [Australian and New Zealander] troops could be brought up to consolidate what had been gained, Mustafa Kemal arrived with a single ragged battalion at his heels. Compass in one hand and map in the other, he had been leading a forced march to the shore since getting word of the landing. As soon as he saw the enemy troops, he led his men in an attack that cleared the crest.
He then ordered his men to lie down, rifles at the ready, and sent back word for the rest of the battalion to hurry forward. An epic fight for the high points called Chunuk Bair and Sari Bair was on, and what followed was a day of desperate close-quarters fighting, most of it hand to hand, with both sides constantly bringing forward more troops and launching one assault after another.
Kemal, ordering his men to make yet another charge in which no one seemed likely to survive, uttered the words that would forever form the core of his legend.
“I don’t order you to attack,” he said.
“I order you to die. In the time which passes until we die, other troops and commanders can take our place.”
Quoted from GJ Meyer’s A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914 to 1918. Chapter 16: Gallipoi.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário