Turkish troops' 1922 offensive most successful example of all-out war: President

ANKARA

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday hailed the country’s Great Offensive marking the resounding defeat of the occupying Greek armies at the hands of Turks in the Battle of Dumlupinar in 1922.

“The Great Offensive and the succeeding clashes went down in the military history of the world as the most successful example of all-out war," Erdogan said at the centenary celebrations of the Aug. 30 Great Victory in Kutahya province.

Erdogan said the Great Offensive, which started from Kocatepe to Dumlupinar and from there to Izmir, was the "first offensive" operation of the Turkish army after a long break.

Speaking at a separate event in the western province of Afyon, Erdogan said: "We embrace our victories, which we see as the cornerstones of our nation's millennium-long existence in these lands, without distinction."

Türkiye was occupied by allied forces after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War (1914-1918).

The foreign occupation prompted Türkiye’s War of Independence in 1919, in which Turkish forces -- led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- eventually drove the invaders from Anatolia.

From Aug. 26 to Aug. 30 of 1922, Turkish forces fought the Battle of Dumlupinar (considered part of the Greco-Turkish War) in Türkiye’s western Kutahya province, where Greek forces were decisively defeated.

By the end of 1922, all foreign forces had left the territories which would collectively become the new Republic of Türkiye one year later.