Etiket monument

Niyazi Dalyanci Why don’t we have war monuments for the fallen Greeks during the Anatolian Campaign 1919-1922 as the monuments in Gallipoli for more than 44,000 British, French and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) who lost their lives fighting the Turks in 1915? This question came from an unexpected source, namely a retired Colonel A. Ihsan Gurcan who currently lives in Izmir and writes articles for a local magazine. Gurcan who landed on Cyprus with the Turkish Army in July 1974 believes that such monuments and tombs bring peace and friendship between the foes of the past. “When I landed in Cyprus in 1974, the area given under my command was inhabited only by women and children. I remember the fear in their eyes. They were scared that we were going to harm them,” wrote Gurcan in his article published in Izmir Life. “Fear of death emanated from these eyes, especially the young. After seeing those images I started thinking, ‘What are we making war for?’” says Gurcan. The retired army colonel is serious about his project. He is so serious that he even proposes three separate locations in Western Anatolia for the monuments to be built in the memory of the fallen Greeks during the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922 which ended with the defeat of the Greek Armies. Unlike the Gallipoli Campaign, the Greek casualties of the Anatolian Campaign are not known definitely. Since civilians also perished during the fighting estimates put the number of dead from 300,000 to 700,000. The locations Gurcan is proposing for the erection of three monuments are quite symbolic too. The first location is the Allioren area of Kutahya where a concentration of Greek army camped, the second is the Kiziltas stream where the 5th Brigade of the Greek Army was encircled […]