Çimpe Castle ( ota, جنبی, ''Cinbi''; el, Τζύμπη, ''Tzympē'') was a medieval fortification on the Gallipoli peninsula in modern

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

. Its site is located along the Istanbul Caddesi between Bolayir and

Gallipoli The Gallipoli peninsula (; tr, Gelibolu Yarımadası; grc, Χερσόνησος της Καλλίπολης, ) is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles ...

, commanding the narrowest point on the peninsula. Erected by the Byzantines as Tzympe, Çimpe Castle was traditionally held to have fallen in a moonlight attack to Suleyman Pasha and 39 of his chosen guard in 1356. However, modern scholarship holds that it was granted to the Ottoman Turks by the

Byzantine emperor This is a list of the Byzantine emperors from the foundation of Constantinople in 330 AD, which marks the conventional start of the Eastern Roman Empire, to its fall to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. Only the emperors who were recognized as le ...

John Kantakouzenos around 1352 for their use during his war against his erstwhile charge and co-emperor John Palaiologos.Nicolle, David and Hook, Adam.
Ottoman Fortifications 1300-1710
'' Osprey Publishing, 2010. Accessed 3 Sept 2011. A major earthquake in 1354 then permitted Suleyman's forces to move from Çimpe to the far more important stronghold of Kallipolis (

, modern

Gelibolu Gelibolu, also known as Gallipoli (from el, Καλλίπολις, ''Kallipolis'', "Beautiful City"), is the name of a town and a district in Çanakkale Province of the Marmara Region, located in Eastern Thrace in the European part of Turkey on th ...

), which they quickly rebuilt and fortified. Although the medieval castle no longer stands, its position remained important. The same narrow stretch it commanded — the "Lines of Bulair" — was fortified by the French and English during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

; the Turkish

X Corps 10th Corps, Tenth Corps, or X Corps may refer to: France * 10th Army Corps (France) * X Corps (Grande Armée), a unit of the Imperial French Army during the Napoleonic Wars Germany * X Corps (German Empire), a unit of the Imperial German Army * X ...

during the

First Balkan War The First Balkan War ( sr, Први балкански рат, ''Prvi balkanski rat''; bg, Балканска война; el, Αʹ Βαλκανικός πόλεμος; tr, Birinci Balkan Savaşı) lasted from October 1912 to May 1913 and invo ...

; and the Turkish 5th Army during the Gallipoli Campaign in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

.Masefield, John. ''Gallipoli.''
The Dardanelles Campaign
" Accessed 3 Sept 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cimpe Castle Byzantine fortifications in Turkey History of the Gallipoli Peninsula Buildings and structures in Çanakkale Province

See also

References