Mustafa Kemal’s Reaction To The Treaty Of Mondros

Under the command of Mustafa Kemal Paşa, the Seventh Army went into history by stopping the assault of the combined British and Arab armies at Katma north of Damascus on 26 October 1918 and which also marked the last battle fought on the Palestinian Front. However, the defeat of the Axis Powers (Bulgaria, Austria-Hungary and Germany) by the Allied Forces on the European Front and, in particular, parallel to the surrender of Bulgaria on 29 September 1918, the beginnings of the British threat to the soft belly of Anatolia after the Syria and Iraq Fronts, left no choice to the Ottoman State but to surrender by signing the Treaty of Mondros on 30 October 1918. Mustafa Kemal Paşa displayed a harsh reaction to the area of his responsibility under the Mondros Treaty but the Grand Vizier Ahmet İzzet Paşa arriving from northern Aleppo to Adana on 31 October 1918 disbanded the ‘Lightening Armies Group’ that included the Seventh Army led by Mustafa Kemal Paşa in Palestine as well as from the German Marshal Liman Von Sanders and brought Mustafa Kemal to Istanbul. From his departure to Samsun for the start of the War of Independence, the route, cadre, army and military strategy of Mustafa Kemal Pasha rests in large part on the knowledge, skills and experience gained at Çanakkale, the Caucasus and, in particular, the Palestinian Front, in achieving his objective.