“There is no defense line, but defense territory. This territory is the whole of the motherland!”

— Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

His order to the Turkish army at the Battle of Sakarya (26 August 1921); Turkish, as quoted in Bugünkü Türkiye (1937), by Stephan Ronart, p. 127
Variant translation: There is no defense line, but a defense territory, and that territory is the whole of the motherland. Not even an inch of the motherland may be abandoned without being soaked in the blood of her citizens...
English translation, as quoted in History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (1976) by Stanford Jay Shaw

Original

Hattı müdafaa yoktur, sathı müdafaa vardır. O satıh bütün vatandır.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 25, 2024. History

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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk 38

Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first Presiden… 1881–1938

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