the first "hotel de charme" on the Gallipoli peninsula
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(Liman) Von
Sanders : “What is your opinion of the present situation.”
Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) : “very critical. We still have a little time left to
us to save it, but if we do not use our moment we shall loose everything.
Conditions on the whole front are chaotic. The enemy is still landing men in
the Suvla area.”
Von Sanders : “What can be done to save the situation ?”
Atatürk : “We must unite all the commands under one commander.”
Von Sanders : “Is there no alternative ?”
Atatürk : “No. No alternative. You must place all the forces under my
command.”
Von Sanders : “But surely they are too many.”
Atatürk : “Too few.”
Supposedly a telephone conversation between Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Liman
von Sanders than took place on the 8th August quoted in “Atatürk” (London
1962), Irfan & Margarete Orga, p. 85
The
inscription on the panel -a famous paragraph of a divisional order written by Atatürk on
May 3- reads as follows :
All
soldiers fighting with us here must realise that to completely carry out the
honourable duty entrusted to us there must not be one step towards the rear.
Let me remind you all that your desire to sleep and rest does not merely mean
that you are deprived of your rest but may lead to our whole nation being
similarily deprived for all eternity.
The real Scrubby Knoll,
where Mustafa Kemal's headquarters were located between April 25 and May 17 is
right behind the slope, some 70 to 80 metres to the northeast. This place
was named "Kemalyeri" by a Turkish staff officer, Lieutenant Colonel Fahrettin
Altay, to honour Mustafa Kemal.
"Gallipoli
Battlefield Guide", (Istanbul 2006),
Gürsel Göncü & Şahin Aldoğan, p. 81