Sütçü İmam Incident

Sütçü İmam incident ("Sütçü İmam olayı" in Turkish) was the first action against the French occupying forces in Maraş, Turkey on 31 October 1919. It is considered as the beginning of the Battle of Maraş.

Initial Events

After the Armistice of Mudros, Maraş, Antep and Çukurova were allocated as the French occupation zone, after an initial presence by British expeditionary forces for the first year (end-1918 until end-1919). On 29 October 1919, French forces entered Maraş, accompanied by French Colonial Forces and French Armenian Legion troops. The Armenian Legion, comprising 2000 armed auxiliaries entered the city the day after, on 30 October.

Incident

According to converging versions, on the night of 31 October, 3 women who were coming out of a public bath (hamam) were intercepted by an Armenian from the Legion and harassed and molested. The soldier attempted to open the veil of the women stating, "This is no longer the land of the Turks, you cannot walk around with a veil in French territory". The women started to scream and asked for help. A neighbor, Çakmakcı Sait, who ran forth without carrying a weapon was shot to death by the Armenian Legion soldiers. Soon after, Sütçü İmam (literally, "İmam the Milkman", since he made a living by selling milk) opened fire on the Armenians, killing one of the soldiers and seriously wounding another.

After the incident, Sütçü İmam escaped and took refuge in a village nearby. French Armenian Legion soldiers who arrived opened fire in retaliation at the civilians present on the spot and also killed a certain Hüseyin, son of Zülfikar Çavuş. French soldiers arrested Sütçü İmam's cousin, Kadir, and tied his hands and feet from behind submitting him to torture and mutilation, by cutting his nose and ears. He died of suffocation while in custody.

The tension sparked by these incidents increased gradually and led to total urban warfare in Maraş as of February 1920 (Battle of Maraş).

In memory of this incident, Kahramanmaraş University is named after Sütçü İmam, who died in the last year of the Turkish War of Independence (1922).

ee also

* Battle of Maraş
* Cilicia War
* Turkish War of Independence
* Chronology of the Turkish War of Independence

References

* [http://www.ksu.edu.tr/index.php?afile=genelbilgi&hid=78 Kahramanmaraş Sütçü İmam University - Sütçü İmam Kimdir?] tr