The siege of Aintab (; ; ) was a military engagement between the Turkish National Forces and the French

Army of the Levant The Army of the Levant () identifies the armed forces of France and then Vichy France which occupied, and were in part recruited from, the Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, French Mandated territories in the Levant during the interwar period and ...

occupying the city of Aintab (present-day

Gaziantep Gaziantep, historically Aintab and still informally called Antep, is a major city in south-central Turkey. It is the capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Medi ...

) during 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 ...

(specifically its southern front, known as the Franco-Turkish War). Fighting began in April 1920, when French forces opened fire on the city. It ended with the Kemalist defeat and the city's surrender to the French military forces on 9 February 1921. However, despite a victory, the French ultimately decided to retreat from the city leaving it to Kemalist forces on 20 October 1921 in accordance with the Treaty of Ankara. According to Ümit Kurt, born in modern-day Gaziantep and an academic at Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies, the resistance movement not just sought to regain the control of the city but also aimed at keeping the loots from the local Armenians and eradicating the Armenian community of the city.Ümit Kurt, ''Destruction of Aintab Armenians and Emergence of the New Wealthy Class: Plunder of Armenian Wealth in Aintab (1890s-1920s)'', Ph.D. Dissertation, Clark University, Worcester, MA, Strassler Center of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 19 April 2016, quoted in

Robert Fisk Robert William Fisk (12 July 194630 October 2020) was an English writer and journalist. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. As an international correspo ...

,
A beautiful mosque and the dark period of the Armenian genocide
, ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'', 15 October 2016

Timeline

1920

* 1 - 16 April: 1st Turkish siege * 30 April - 23 May: 2nd Turkish siege * 30 May - 18 June: 1920 armistice * 29 July - 10 August: 3rd Turkish siege * 11 August: beginning of French siege * 21 November - 18 December: Goubeau column participation

1921

* 7 February: last exit attempt * 8 February: sending of a city parliamentary mission - cease fire * 9 February: capitulation

Timeline

1920

1921

Notes

References

Further reading