Battle of Marash

Battle part of the Franco Turkish war

French troops abandon Marash
| combatant1 = Turkish National Movement
Kuva yi Milliye
| combatant2 = French Third Republic
( ) French Armenian Legion
| commander1 =
Arslan Bey
"Kılıç" Ali Bey
| commander2 =
Henri Gouraud
General Louis Albert Quérette
Lieutenant Colonel Robert Normand
Major Jean François Henri Corneloup
Captain Pierre Jean Daniel André
| strength1 = Varies throughout battle as numbers of supporters grow

French claim : 30,000 armed guerrilla fightersTurkish claim : 2,500 Kuva yi MilliyeLocal support
| strength2 = Max. ~2,000 engaged in battle at one particular moment (as seen in order of battle)

Turkish claim:4,000+ total French Senegalese troops
| casualties1 = 4,500 killed500+ wounded(Including civilians)
| casualties2 = 160 killed 280 wounded 170 missing
|casualties3= 5,000–12,000 dead Armenian civilians took place in the early winter of 1920 between the French forces occupying the city of Maraş in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish National Forces linked to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. It was the first major battle of the Turkish War of Independence, and the three week long engagement in the city ultimately forced the French to abandon and retreat from Marash and resulted in a Turkish massacre of Armenian refugees who had just been repatriated to the city following the Armenian Genocide.

After the surrender of the Ottoman Empire to the Allies in October 1918, the city of Marash had come under the joint occupation of the British and French armies (the latter largely composed of Armenians from the French Armenian Legion). In February 1919, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby appointed a number of French officers to oversee the administration of the region of Cilicia and the repatriation of tens of thousands of Armenians who had been deported during the war in the course of the Genocide. Within a few months, approximately 150,000 Armenians had been repatriated, including 20,000 natives from Marash. In the months following the end of the war, Cilicia had also become a source of dispute between the British and French, who both aspired to establish influence in the region. The British government, however, was under strong domestic pressure to withdraw and demobilize its forces in the Middle East and on 15 September 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George begrudgingly accepted a proposal by Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau to have the French formally assume control of Cilicia. The transfer of command took place on 4 November, but Field Marshal Ferdinand Foch's promise to reinforce the existing forces in the area with at least 32 infantry battalions, 20 cavalry squadrons and 14 artillery batteries went unfulfilled. The French units were thus deprived of armoured cars and air support and lacked automatic weapons, heavy artillery and even wireless transmitters and carrier pigeons. Sütçü İmam incident also contributed to sparking of public unrest.

The Anglo French rivalry had led to the coalescence and strengthening of the Turkish National Movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha. Atatürk had denounced the Allied occupation of Cilicia in November 1919 and the forces loyal to him were tenaciously preparing to launch a major insurrection against the thinly spread French units garrisoned in Marash, Antep and Urfa. Experienced officers, including the captain Ali Kılıç, were sent by Mustafa Kemal to organize the tribal units and bands of chete (irregular fighters) in the region. The Turkish nationalist movement was able to gain the support of local Muslims in Cilicia who had benefited from stolen Armenian properties and did not want to return them to the original owners. The Turkish forces in Marash numbered 2,500. Those without firearms armed themselves with rifles acquired from dead French soldiers. The French attempted to mollify the minority Muslim elements (Circassians, Alevis, Kurds) in Marash by creating gendarmerie units but this only emboldened the Turkish Nationalists to hoist the Turkish flag over Marash's abandoned citadel and to intimidate those Muslims who cooperated with the French. The French troops in Marash included many Algerians, and also Armenians who had been recently enlisted, and it was stated that the latter had supposedly "annoyed the local population, by their arrogant attitude as they strolled on the streets in their French uniforms." Seeing all this, Captain Pierre Jean Daniel André, the head of the Marash detachment, requested additional reinforcements but, due to the indecisiveness of his superior, Lt. Colonel Jean Flye Sainte Marie, he was ordered to go to Adana to apprise the division commander, Brigadier General Julien Dufieux, of the situation. Dufieux agreed to send extra men under the command of General Quérette to Marash but by 17 January when the reinforcements arrived, the French had already lost the initiative: supply convoys in Bel Punar and El Oghlu had come under attack and a relief column led by battalion commander Major Corneloup had been ambushed. On 21 January, General Quérette summoned the Muslim notables of Marash to his headquarters at a barracks in the north of the city and presented them with evidence pointing to their complicity in the attacks and demanded that they put an end to the hostilities. As the leaders departed, Turkish police chief Arslan Toğuz drew out his pistol and fired five rounds into the air, signalling the beginning of the uprising.

The first French units to come under attack were those officers accompanying the local gendarmerie, or standing guard. The contingents of the French garrison at Marash, numbering only 2,000 men, were separated from one another in the citywide siege. Direct communications did not exist between Marash and division headquarters and General Dufieux was only informed of the insurrection on 31 January, after several Armenians from the French Armenian Legion managed to disguise themselves as Muslims and cross the battle lines. He immediately appointed Lieutenant Colonel Robert Normand to lead a relief expedition to Marash, composed of three infantry battalions and half a squadron of cavalry, and dispatched aerial recon flights, giving hope to the besieged French, Armenians and American relief workers who were assisting the local population. By 3:00 in the morning of 11 February, Quérette had destroyed the remaining ammunition dumps and was preparing to slip out under the cover of darkness. They were, however, unable to do so and 3,000 Armenians managed to flee with the French troops in a three day, 75 mile (121 km) long march to İslahiye. A thousand of the Armenian refugees had died from exhaustion and from the bitter cold by the time they reached İslahiye on 13 February. The French casualties of the battle included 160 killed, 280 wounded, 170 missing and 300 severely frostbitten.

The three week siege of Marash was also accompanied by the massacre of the Armenian repatriates. Early reports put the number of Armenian dead at no less than 16,000, although this was later revised down to 5,000–12,000, which were considered far more likely figures. A surgeon at the German hospital reported that around 3,000 Armenians in the area around the Church of Saint Stephen had been killed by Turkish, Kurdish and Cherkess villagers. The American relief hospital came under fire on January 22. The Armenian legionnaires attempted to put up a defense but were ultimately overwhelmed. All the churches and eventually the entire Armenian districts were put to flames. The plight of the Armenians was only exacerbated when the French decided to pull out on 10 February. When the 2,000 Armenians who had taken shelter in the Catholic cathedral attempted to follow the retreat, they were cut down by Turkish rifle and machine gun fire. The French High Command however did not publicly indicate that anything serious had taken place. Internally, however, they were astonished by this move launched by the Turkish Nationalists. Lloyd George was concerned that Atatürk's army of regulars existed, blaming poor military intelligence. French Colonel Édouard Brémond, the chief administrator of the occupation zone, reflected on the decision in his memoirs:

A few years later, he stated frankly, "Colonel Normand did not bring an order for the evacuation; he gave it [emphasis in the original]." In Constantinople, Allied military representatives pushed to threaten the Ottoman government for the affair, while the French simultaneously explored the possibility of reaching a modus vivendi with Atatürk. The Allied Supreme Council deliberated on how best to respond; some of the delegates present, including Lloyd George, insisted that strong pressure should be brought to bear against the Ottoman government to prevent new atrocities. Other diplomats were sceptical of the idea. The officials also agreed that the Ottoman government should dismiss Atatürk from office, although they admitted that such a move was impractical, since the Ottoman government held no control over Atatürk, who was leading a counter Turkish government in Anatolia. Despite objections made by the British War Office, a decision was finally reached on 10 March. British, French and Italian leaders agreed to authorize the formal occupation of Constantinople, which was carried out by the forces under General George F. Milne's command on the morning of 16 March. The decision was carried out

On 7 April 1925, Marash became one of two cities in Turkey to receive a Turkish Medal of Independence (the other city being İnebolu).