Nablus Muharebesi’nde Mustafa Kemal Paşa: İthamlar ve Gerçekler

Nuri KARAKAŞ

Nablus Muharebesi’nde Mustafa Kemal Paşa: İthamlar ve Gerçekler

Makaleler > Tam Makale · 2018

TARIH INCELEMELERI DERGISI, SCI Expanded İndekslerine Giren Dergi, Uluslararası, Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI), 2018, cilt 33, ss 481-519

Özet

The battle referred to as the Battle of Nablus in the literature of the Turkishmilitary history, which took place during the World War I (from the 19th to 22ndSeptember, 1918) is the last greatest battle that happened between the Ottoman armiesunder the command of the Yildirim Army Group led by General Liman von Sanders andthe corps and other military troops under the command of the Egyptian ExpeditionaryForce led by General Edmund Allenby. Due to the serious defeat of the Ottoman armyagainst the British army, the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire in Palestine ended withthis battle. The military troops of the Ottoman State couldn’t establish a new line ofdefense against the British, which caused them to withdraw until the north of Aleppoand to lose Syria. All these developments with the Bulgaria’s withdrawal from theWorld War I in September 29, 1918, caused the Ottoman State had to sign the Armisticeof Mudros with the Allies.Mustafa Kemal Pasha participated in this significant Battle of Nablus, whichcaused the Ottoman State to lose its hegemony in Palestine and Syria, as theCommander of the Seventh Army and he suffered defeat in the battle. For years, anti-Atatürk groups in Turkey have argued, both orally and in writing, that Atatürk wasmainly responsible for the defeat of Nablus. They try to open up a new area of criticismagainst Atatürk besides the others, claiming that he was not a successful or heroiccommander, indeed. In this respect, they sometimes imply and sometimes clearly statethat Mustafa Kemal Pasha was in betrayal during the Battle of Nablus. These argumentsare primarily based on Cevat Rifat Atilhan’s article titled “Görünmeyen İnkilâp” whichwas published in Büyük Doğu Magazine in 1950. According to these claims, MustafaKemal Pasha deliberately remained weak against the progressing British attack duringthe Battle of Nablus and withdrew to the area of Bisan. Due to the lack of authoritycaused by this withdrawal, British troops easily progressed toward the Eight Army ofthe Ottoman State, destroyed that and thus, the whole Ottoman line of defense wasbroken.On the other hand; the accusations and claims made by Atilhan against MustafaKemal Pasha about his action during the Battle of Nablus do not conform to the facts,indeed. Considering the information available in the military literature and the maps wehave presented in this research, which clearly show the routes of progress for the Britisharmy, it can be observed, as opposed to Atilhan’s claim that, the Turkish line of defensedid not break from the line of the Seventh Army led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, but fromthe line of the Eighth Army. Once the line of the Eight Army was broken, the Britishforces progressed fast, which caused the invasion of the withdrawal areas of the Eighthand Seventh Armies on the west of the Jordan River, leading to almost completedestruction of the Eighth Army and nearly complete destruction of the Seventh Army.This situation about the Battle of Nablus and the true reason for the collapse of theTurkish frontier were actually presented by Atilhan in another article he wrote in 1918,which were totally different from those he claimed in his article dated 1950. In hisarticle dated 1918, Atilhan stated that the frontier was not broken from Mustafa KemalPasha’s line, indeed. However; he claimed just the opposite in 1950, which clearlyshows the hatred he felt for Mustafa Kemal Pasha in the conditions of the year 1950.There is nothing strange about this attitude of him. He has sharp instabilities in hispolitical life, indeed. Atilhan served as the lead writer and publishing manager of themagazines İnkilâp and Milli İnkilâp published from 1933 to 1934, where he wrote underthe influence of the Revolutionary/Kemalist approach. In the first issue of İnkilâp,which was published in April 1933, he emphasized that the general publishing policy ofthe Magazine would be to introduce and promote the “Revolution of the Gazi (MustafaKemal Pasha)” and expressed his loyalty to the Revolutions of the Gazi. In his articletitled “Gazi”, which was published in Milli İnkilâp Magazine on 15th of May 1934, hepraised Mustafa Kemal Pasha almost as much as a prophet, presenting himself, togetherwith Salih (Bozok) and Ali Sevket (Öndersev) as being one of the “three apostles” ofthe Gazi (Mustafa Kemal Pasha).With the great defeat in the Battle of Nablus, those remaining from the Eighthand Seventh Army troops of the Ottoman State went to Damascus first. Upon the loss ofthis city on October 1, 1918, they had to withdraw to Aleppo with serious loss and asfrequently stated in British sources that the British had captured 75,000 prisoners.Undoubtedly this is the greatest defeat of the Ottoman Army in World War I, as it isworse than the disaster of Sarıkamış. Some of the causes of this inevitable defeat were;the strategic policies adopted by the British army, their superiority in terms of thecavalry-infantry-air forces, the inability of Yildirim Army Command to predict theplace of the British attack, the scarcity of the Ottoman combat elements, the moraldistress and weariness of the Ottoman soldiers and the hostile behaviours of the localArab people who easily surrendered as they didn’t want to live under the ruling of theOttoman State.It wouldn’t be a scientific approach to try to get a military achievement story forMustafa Kemal Pasha from this great defeat. Indeed; Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who wasdeterminate enough to order his soldiers “to die” in the first and the most criticalmoments of the ground battle of the Dardanelles, had to give a strategic decision in theBattle of Nablus in order to save its army, as he had seen that the right line had becomedefenseless against the enemy attack due to the destruction of the Eighth Army. As hetried to get the Seventh Army under his command to the east of the Jordan River byfighting against the British troops, he suffered from a great loss of people and materialsparticularly due to the British air attack. This shows that; if he had been a little late intaking the decision of withdrawal, almost all his army would have been taken ashostage, just like the Eight Army troops. According to Cyril Falls, the writer of theofficial British military history book, Mustafa Kemal Pasha did not lead his army frombehind. He fought a machine gun in the affair at Haritan (north-east of Aleppo) and thatthe fire was controlled and directed by Kemal in person.

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