Mehmetçik Monument (Kartaltepe Mehmetçik Monument) is a monumental sculpture featuring a Turkish soldier on Kartaltepe of

Polatlı Polatlı (formerly Ancient Greek: Γόρδιον, Górdion and Latin: Gordium) is a municipality and district of Ankara Province, Turkey. Its area is 3,618 km2, and its population is 128,378 (2022). It is 80 km west of the Turkish capital ...

, a rural area of

Ankara Province Ankara Province (, ) is a province and metropolitan municipality of Turkey with the capital city Ankara. Its area is 25,632 km2, and its population is 5,782,285 (2022). History The site of the modern city has been home to settlements ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The name of the monument ''Mehmetçik'' is the diminutive form of the common name Mehmet, which is used to nickname Turkish soldiers.

Location

The sculpture is situated on top of the Kartaltepe hill just west of

and west of

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

at . It is to the south of the Turkish state highway , which connects west

Anatolia Anatolia (), also known as Asia Minor, is a peninsula in West Asia that makes up the majority of the land area of Turkey. It is the westernmost protrusion of Asia and is geographically bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean ...

to Ankara. Turkish high speed train railway route passes through a tunnel under Kartaltepe.

Gordion Gordion (Phrygian language, Phrygian: ; ; or ; ) was the capital city of ancient Phrygia. It was located at the site of modern Yassıhüyük, Polatlı, Yassıhüyük, about southwest of Ankara (capital of Turkey), in the immediate vicinity of ...

the historical capital of

Phrygia In classical antiquity, Phrygia ( ; , ''Phrygía'') was a kingdom in the west-central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey, centered on the Sangarios River. Stories of the heroic age of Greek mythology tell of several legendary Ph ...

is about to the north.

History

The monument was sponsored by the

Koç Holding Koç Holding A.Ş. () is a Turkish multinational industrial conglomerate headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey. It operates as the country's largest company, and the only to be listed on the Fortune Global 500 as of 2024. Koç Holding's contributio ...

and

Tüpraş Türkiye Petrol Rafinerileri A.Ş. is a company in Turkey, operating four refineries with a total capacity to handle an annual 30 million tons of crude. Introduction Tüpraş operates four oil refineries, three of which process imported crude. T ...

company.Tüpraş news

Binali Yıldırım Binali Yıldırım (; born 20 December 1955) is a Turkish politician who served as the List of Prime Ministers of Turkey, 27th and last prime minister of Turkey from 2016 to 2018 and Speaker of the Grand National Assembly from 2018 to 2019. He w ...

, the Minister of Transport, Maritime and Communication,

Yaşar Büyükanıt General Mehmet Yaşar Büyükanıt (1 September 1940 – 21 November 2019) was the 25th Chief of the Turkish General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, from 28 August 2006 to 28 August 2008. Biography General Yaşar Büyükanıt was born in Is ...

, the

Chief of the Turkish General Staff The Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces () is the chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces (). He is appointed by the President of Turkey, who is the commander-in-chief. The position dates to the period of the ...

, the sponsor Mustafa Koç as well as a group of MPs and the mayor of Polatlı were present in the opening ceremony on 6 August 2008.Tekta company news
/ref> It is further planned to establish a museum about the Battle of Sakarya next to the monument.

Monument

The

Battle of Sakarya The Battle of the Sakarya (), also known as the Battle of the Sangarios (), was an important engagement in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). The battle went on for 21 days from August 23 to September 13, 1921, close to the banks of the Sakar ...

was one of the most important milestones in the

Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) There have been several Greco-Turkish Wars: * Orlov revolt (1770) Greeks' first major, organized Revolt against the Ottoman Empire with the support of Russia *Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), against the Ottoman Empire * First Greco-Turkish ...

. During the 22–day battle, the Greek army advanced as far as Kartaltepe hill. But during the counterattack of the Turkish forces, the Greek offence was checked. This was a critical turning point. One year later, the Greek army fell back and last of the Greek forces withdrew from

. The monument was erected to commemorate the turning point of the

Turkish War of Independence , strength1 = May 1919: 35,000November 1920: 86,000Turkish General Staff, ''Türk İstiklal Harbinde Batı Cephesi'', Edition II, Part 2, Ankara 1999, p. 225August 1922: 271,000Celâl Erikan, Rıdvan Akın: ''Kurtuluş Savaşı tarih ...

at this site. The monument is actually a tall sculpture of a soldier in 1921–uniform with a rifle in the right hand and raising the left hand as a gesture to halt the Greek advance. It is placed on a -high base. It is created by Prof. Sait Rüstem and made of copper-coated concrete. It was constructed by TEKTA Eng. Consulting Cons. & Trade Ltd. Co.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mehmetcik Monument 2008 establishments in Turkey Buildings and structures completed in 2008 Turkish War of Independence Buildings and structures in Ankara Province Monuments and memorials in Turkey Copper sculptures in Turkey Polatlı Concrete sculptures in Turkey Sculptures of men in Turkey