On the Trail of the Sakarya Front around Polatlı

A two-storey farmhouse in the village of Alagöz, at the 31st kilometre of the Eskişehir road. During the Battle of Sakarya the Western Front Command set up its headquarters here; the house belonged to Türkoğlu Ali Ağa of the village. Mustafa Kemal ran the battle from this house for three weeks; on 12 August 1921 he had fallen from his horse while inspecting the front and broken a rib, and he worked in these rooms with that fracture. After the war the house remained the family's home until 1965, when the heirs handed it to the Ministry of National Education; in 1967 it passed to the Anıtkabir Museum Directorate and was restored. The upper floor opened to visitors on 10 November 1968, the lower floor in 1983.

There are twelve rooms, each arranged according to its wartime use: the commander-in-chief's room, the staff room, the signals room, the aides' room, the officers' dining room, Atatürk's bedroom and dining room, a rest room, a clothing room, a library, a memorabilia room and the orderly's room. The objects and documents on display belonged to Atatürk and the officers of the Western Front. Pause in the commander-in-chief's and signals rooms upstairs: this is where you grasp that a hundred-kilometre front was directed not from a plain but from two rooms of a small village house.

Practical: the house is small and forty-five minutes is enough; as the first stop of the route, come early in the morning. Check the current notice of the institution running the museum for visiting days and hours. It is easy to explain to children room by room, because each door says what the room was for.

Source: Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia, Alagöz Karargah Müzesi; Gordion Vakfı.

Malıköy station on the Ankara-Eskişehir railway was the most important base of the Battle of Sakarya after the headquarters itself. The front was fed from here: ammunition and troops came by train, the wounded received first treatment at this station, and the station served at the same time as an infirmary, a logistics centre and a military airstrip. It lies at the 30th kilometre of the Ankara-Eskişehir road, six kilometres in from the industrial zone turn-off, a settlement attached to Polatlı.

By a decision taken in 2007 the station was turned into a museum through the joint work of the General Staff, the Ministry of Transport and the state railways, and opened on 1 June 2008. In the yard stand a monument raised in the name of 5,713 fallen soldiers and a statue of Atatürk in civilian clothes. The real attractions are on the rails: an 1897 German-built locomotive used in the Battle of Sakarya, restored by the railways, with a 1909 German-built wagon beside it. Two replicas of aircraft of the period complete the story of the airstrip. The train and aircraft sections are toured with sound effects; inside the station building there are railway materials and images from the War of Independence.

Give this an hour; for families with children it is the favourite stop of the day, because the abstract story of the battle turns into a locomotive, a wagon and a model aeroplane. The museum belongs to the state railways; check their museums page for visiting days. As you continue towards Polatlı you are approaching the real front line; Malıköy to Duatepe is a drive of more than half an hour.

Source: Kültür Portalı; Wikipedia, TCDD Malıköy Tren İstasyonu Müzesi.

Duatepe, west of Polatlı and reached through the village of Çekirdeksiz, is one of the hills on the last defensive line of the Battle of Sakarya. It was the first hill retaken from the enemy in the counter-offensive the Commander-in-Chief launched on 10 September 1921, and it is remembered as the place where the Greek army's withdrawal from Anatolia began. Eighty-one soldiers fell on the hill; their names and details are written in brass letters on the monument walls.

The monument and its sculptures are by the State Artist Metin Yurdanur. Work began in October 1999, twenty thousand trees were planted, and the monument opened on 12 September 2000. The layout has five parts: car park, access road, walkway, ceremonial ground and the monument itself. The sculpture group brings together the people of the battle: Atatürk on his rearing horse, Atatürk with his aide watching the plain through binoculars, İsmet İnönü, Marshal Fevzi Çakmak, and Halide Edib Adıvar representing the Turkish woman in the War of Independence; the whole is composed as the people's march to victory under Atatürk.

The real reason to come is the place: from the hill you see the plain and understand why the battle was fought on these ridges; the group with the binoculars is about exactly that gaze. The trees along the walkway have grown, but the hill is windy; bring a jacket. Duatepe is in the Duatepe-Kartaltepe section of the national park; under the official schedule it is closed on Mondays and open in daytime on other days. Keep silent on the ceremonial ground and before the wall of names; the anniversary week in mid-September is crowded, so come early that week.

Source: Polatlı Kaymakamlığı; EBA Okul Dışı Öğrenme; Wikipedia, Duatepe (tepe).

Kartaltepe, six kilometres west of Polatlı and right beside the E-90 highway, is the most visible point of the front line. The 22-metre steel figure of the Mehmetçik rises, with its base, to between 32 and 40 metres depending on the source; it opened in August 2008 and the sculptor is Said Rüstem. Also known as the "Dur Yolcu" monument, it is dedicated to the 5,713 soldiers who fell at Sakarya and shows itself to every vehicle passing on the road. Kartaltepe is one of the key points of the national park where the Greek advance was halted.

Behind the monument, the Sakarya Battle and Turkish History Interpretation Centre is the longest indoor stop of the route. Its foundation was laid as a panorama museum in the same days the monument opened; today it tells the battle through display and exhibition areas, information screens, interactive exhibit tables, light and sound shows, set areas with three-dimensional models and images, and video walls. Sources describe it as five storeys; an hour inside passes easily. If you are with children, build the day around this stop; the meaning of the trenches on the plain falls into place here.

The Kartaltepe section is the most visited part of the national park; under the official schedule it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays and open in daytime on other days. Check the regional directorate's page for current hours and any fee. The ground around the monument is wide and flat, with little walking. It is a few minutes' drive from Duatepe and a short drive on to Şehitler Kaşı; the two monuments and the centre fit into a single afternoon.

Source: Polatlı Kaymakamlığı; Tarım ve Orman 9. Bölge Müdürlüğü; Wikipedia, Mehmetçik Anıtı.

On the hill of Şehitler Kaşı just outside Polatlı, eighty kilometres from Ankara. The foundation was laid on the fiftieth anniversary of the victory, 13 September 1971, and the monument opened to visitors on 28 October 1973. The Cultural Inventory record names Haluk Tezonar as the sculptor. The monument has three parts: the main body, the sculpture group and the museum. The path climbs 420 steps from 915 to 970 metres, wide at the start and narrowing as it rises. Along both sides stand 42 pairs of columns; the columns stand for the days and nights of the battle, and the narrowing path for a victory won against superior enemy forces.

At the top of the steps are reliefs telling the story of the victory, and the museum. It holds busts of Commander-in-Chief Mustafa Kemal, Chief of the General Staff Fevzi Çakmak and Western Front Commander İsmet İnönü; columns bearing the names of the officers who took part, from battalion to corps commanders; and documents and photographs of the battle. The sculpture group, with its soldier, woman and child, says that the whole nation went to war. The Sakarya Martyrs' Cemetery in Polatlı had opened in 1932; the monument came forty years later, on the scale of a town.

The 420 steps are a serious climb; older visitors and those with small children should ask at the entrance whether there is a road to the top by car. This is a cemetery ground; silence and respect are expected. For anyone reaching Polatlı by public transport this is the only stop on the route within reach; since the other sections are closed on Mondays, choose another day of the week.

Source: Kültür Portalı; Tarım ve Orman 9. Bölge Müdürlüğü; Kültür Envanteri; Wikipedia, Sakarya Zaferi Müzesi.

To close the day, turn north-west to the village of Yassıhüyük, twenty-nine kilometres from Polatlı. Gordion was the capital of Phrygia; settlement on the mound runs from the third millennium BC to the Roman period, and the plain is dotted with close to eighty-five tumuli dating from the ninth to the second century BC. The largest is the Midas Mound: over fifty metres high today and close to three hundred metres across, heaped up around 740 BC. In 1957 Rodney Young's team reached the wooden burial chamber inside it: the king lying on purple and golden textiles in an open log coffin, bronze vessels, bronze fibulae, leather belts with bronze fittings and an extraordinarily well preserved collection of carved and inlaid wooden furniture. Residue analysis of the vessels showed that the funeral guests ate lamb or goat stew and drank a mixed fermented beverage. The tomb is now generally taken to be that of Midas's father Gordias, and the mound the first monumental project of Midas after his accession.

Excavations began with the Körte brothers in the early 1900s; the University of Pennsylvania Museum continued under Young from 1950 to 1973. Gordion was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2023. The Gordion Museum, opened in 1963, displays the finds in chronological order from the Early Bronze Age to Rome; the mound and the tumulus are close to the museum. The app's trip piece on Gordion by train covers the whole site; here, give it two hours for the tumulus, the museum and the mound. Check the museums directorate's page for hours; the drive back to Ankara is about ninety kilometres, so do not leave it until dark.

Source: Wikipedia, Gordion; Wikipedia, Gordion; Wikipedia, Gordion Müzesi.