Samsun Bombardment in the National Struggle

After the signing of the Mudros Armistice Treaty, the Entente states, based on the provisions of the treaty, first took control of Istanbul and then launched a navy in the Black Sea and started inspections in the coastal cities through the navy. Britain was the leading state that assumed an active role in the navy of the Entente states that started to control the Black Sea coasts and ports. The others were France and the USA respectively. The Italian navy was mostly active in the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. From 1919 onwards, the Greek navy also joined the control of the Entente states in the Black Sea. With the participation of the Greek navy, the British and Greek navies were sharing intelligence and information to control all movements on the Black Sea coast in cooperation. With Mustafa Kemal Pasha’s departure to Anatolia and the organization of the National Struggle movement, British-Greek cooperation continued to increase both on land and at sea. The route that the Ankara government, which was established after the opening of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, could use for all kinds of military ammunition and materials for the war it conducted on Anatolian lands was the Black Sea ports. Therefore, at every stage of the war waged by the Turkish Grand National Assembly government on the western front after 1920, to prevent the military supply routes of the Ankara government, the British and Greek navies increased their activities in the Black Sea and wanted to control the ports and all kinds of naval vessels in the coastal areas between Batum-Zonguldak. During the 1920-1922 period, the naval forces of the two states in the region occasionally bombarded the ports and small piers in the region outside of normal control. These activities increased especially before the Battle of In. nü and Sakarya and the Great Offensive. The ports of Kastamonu, Sinop, and Samsun were the main ports of entry for the Union of Soviet Socialists, from which the Turkish Grand National Assembly government received logistical support in its war against the Greek occupation, and for ammunition supplied from Istanbul or via Ukraine and Romania. In addition, Trabzon-Samsun and Kastamonu coastal ports were used for the transfer of military forces in the Eastern Anatolia region to the western front after the Gyumri treaty with the Armenian government in the fall of 1920. The subject of this study is the Greek ports to cut the security and logistic support of the Turkish Grand National Assembly government in the Black Sea, which was at war with Greece on the western front during the National Struggle.

Click to cite.

Note: You can access the citation text via the ‘Actions’ tab in Crossref.