Battle of Sakarya The Battle of Sakarya ( ) , also known as the Battle of the Sangarios ( ) , was an important engagement in the Greco - Turkish War ( 1919 – 1922 ) and Turkish War of Independence . The battle went on for 21 days from August 23 to September 13 , 1921 , close to the banks of the Sakarya River in the immediate vicinity of Polatlı , which is today a district of the Ankara Province . The battle line stretched over 62 miles ( 100 km ) . It is named as the " Officers ’ Battle " ( " Subaylar Savaşı " ) in Turkey because of the unusually high casualty rate ( 70 - 80 % ) among the officers . The Battle of Sakarya is considered as the turning point of the Turkish War of Independence . A Turkish observer , Turkish writer and literary critic İsmail Habip Sevük , later described the importance of the battle with the words , " " the retreat that started in Vienna on 13 September 1683 stopped 238 years later " " . Operational theater . The Greek offensive under King Constantine as Supreme Commander of the Greek Forces in Asia was committed on July 16 . 1921 , and was skilfully executed . A feint towards the Turkish right flank at Eskişehir distracted Ismet Pasha just as the major assault fell on the left at Kara Hisar . The Greeks then wheeled their axis to the north and swept towards Eskişehir , rolling up the Turkish defence in a series of frontal assaults combined with flanking movements . Eskişehir fell on July 17 , despite a vigorous counter - attack by Ismet Pasha who was determined to fight to the finish . The saner counsels of Mustafa Kemal prevailed , however , and Ismet disengaged with great losses to reach the comparative safety of the Sakarya River , some 30 miles ( 48 km ) to the north and only 50 miles ( 80 km ) from Ankara . The determining feature of the terrain was the river itself , which flows eastward across the plateau , suddenly curves north and then turns back westwards describing a great loop that forms a natural barrier . The river banks are awkward and steep , and bridges were few , there being only two on the frontal section of the loop . East of the loop , the landscape rises before an invader in rocky , barren ridges and hills towards Ankara . It was here in these hills , east of the river that the Turks dug in their defensive positions . The front followed the hills east of the Sakarya River from a point near Polatlı southwards to where the Gök River joins the Sakarya , and then swung at rightangles eastwards following the line of the Gök River . It was an excellent defensive ground . For the Greeks , the question on whether to dig in and rest on their previous gains , or to advance towards Ankara in great effort and destroy the Army of the Grand National Assembly was difficult to resolve , posing the eternal problems that the Greek Staff had to deal since the beginning of the War . The dangers of extending the lines of communications still further in such an inhospitable desert land that killed horses , caused vehicles to break down and prevented the movement of heavy artillery were obvious . The present front that gave the Greeks the control of the essential strategic railway was tactically most favourable . But because the Army of the Grand National Assembly had escaped encirclement at Kütahya , nothing had been settled ; therefore the temptation of achieving a “ knock - out - blow ” became irresistible . Battle . On August 10 , Constantine finally committed his forces to an assault against the Sakarya Line . The Greeks marched hard for nine days before making contact with the enemy . This march included an outflanking manoeuvre through the northern part of Anatolia through the Salt Desert where food and water scarcely existed , so the advancing infantry had to rifle the poor Turkish villages for maize and water or obtain meat from the flocks which were pastured on the fringe of the desert . On August 23 , battle was finally joined when Greeks made contact with advanced Turkish positions south of the Gök River . The Turkish Staff had made their headquarters at Polatlı on the railway a few miles east of the coast of the Sakarya River and the troops were prepared to resist . On August 26 , the Greeks attacked all along the line . Crossing the shallow Gök , the infantry fought its way step up onto the heights where every ridge and hill top had to be stormed against strong entrenchments and withering fire . By September 2 the commanding heights of the key Mount Chal were in Greek hands and once a Greek enveloping movement against the Turkish left flank had failed , the Battle of the Sakarya River descended to a typical head - on confrontation of infantry , machine - guns and artillery . The Greeks launched their main effort in the centre , pushing forward some 10 miles ( 16 km ) in 10 days , through the Turkish Second Line of defense . Some Greek units came as close as 31 miles ( 50 km ) to the city of Ankara . This was the summit of their achievement in the Asia Minor Campaign . For days during the battle neither ammunition nor food had reached the front , owing to successful harassment of the Greek lines of communications and raids behind the Greek lines by Turkish cavalry . All the Greek troops were committed to the battle , while fresh Turkish drafts were still arriving throughout the campaign in response to the Nationals mobilization . For all these reasons the impetus of the Greek attack was gone . For a few days there was a lull in the fighting in which neither exhausted army could press an attack . The Greek king Constantine I , who commanded the battle personally , was almost taken prisoner by a Turkish patrol . Astute as ever at the decisive moment , Mustafa Kemal assumed personal command and led a small counter - attack against the Greek left and around the Mount Chal on September 8 . The Greek line held and the attack itself achieved a limited military success , but in fear that this presaged a major Turkish effort to outflank their forces as the severity of winter was approaching , Constantine broke off the Greek assault on September 14 . 1921 . Consequently , Anastasios Papoulas ordered a general retreat towards Eskişehir and Kara Hisar . The Greek troops evacuated the Mount Chal which had been taken at such cost and retired unmolested across the Sakarya River to the positions they have left a month before , taking with them their guns and equipment . In the line of the retreating army nothing was left that could benefit the Turks . Railways and bridges were blown up , the same way villages were burnt . Aftermath . The retreat from Sakarya marked the end of the Greek hopes of imposing settlement on Turkey by force of arms . In May 1922 General Papoulas and his complete staff resigned and was replaced by General Georgios Hatzianestis , who proved much more inept than his predecessor . On the other hand , Mustafa Kemal returned in triumph to Ankara where the Grand National Assembly awarded him the rank of Field Marshal of the Army , as well as the title of Gazi rendering honours as the saviour of the Turkish nation . According to the speech that was delivered years later before the same National Assembly at the Second General Conference of the Republican People ' s Party which took part from October 15 to October 20 , 1927 ; Kemal said to have ordered that " . . . " not an inch of the country should be abandoned until it was drenched with the blood of the citizens " . . . , " upon realizing that the Turkish army was losing ground rapidly , with virtually no natural defenses left between the battle line and Ankara . Lord Curzon argued that the military situation became a stalemate with time tending in favour of the Turks . The Turkish position within the British views was improving . In his opinion , the Turkish Nationalists were at that point more ready to treat . After this , the Ankara government signed the Treaty of Kars with the Russians , and the most important Treaty of Ankara with the French , thus reducing the enemy ' s front notably in the Cilician theatre and concentrating against the Greeks on the West . For the Turkish troops it was the turning point of the war , which would develop in a series of victorious clashes against the Greeks , driving out the invaders from the whole Asia Minor in the Turkish War of Independence . The Greeks could do nothing but retreat and this would almost inevitably decline into a rout characterized by the most appalling atrocities : rape , pillage and arson rendering up to one millon Turks homeless . As by August 26 . 1922 Turkish offensive started with Battle of Dumlupınar . Kemal dispatched his army on a drive to the coast of the Aegean Sea pursuing the shattered Greek army with an increasing ferocity including the massacres of many prisoners , which would culminate in the direct assault of Smyrna between September 9 and 11th 1922 . The war would be over and sealed with the defeat of the Greeks , formalized by the Treaty of Lausanne on July 24 . 1923 .