Fahrettin Altay

Fahrettin Altay ( born January 12, 1880 in İşkodra, Albania, † October 25, 1974 in Emirgan, Istanbul) was an Ottoman officer of the rank of colonel and Turkish general.

Fahrettin Bey was the son of Ismail Bey and Hayriye Hanim from İşkodra (today Shkodër ). After his military training in Istanbul confidante Mustafa Kemal served from 1904 in the 4th Ottoman Army in eastern Anatolia, which he regarded as exile, as the regime of Sultan Abdulhamid II suspected him of liberal positions. After the seizure of power by the Young Turks in 1908, he remained in this position and led a punitive expedition against the Kurds of the Dersim region (see the later Dersim uprising ), which was part of a campaign against a number of ethnic minorities, with the new rule were dissatisfied. Fahrettin Altay stayed busy in his military career with the Kurdish question.

At the fame he got as commander of the 5th Cavalry Corps, which fought in various battles of the Turkish War of Independence. He achieved his greatest success during the famous Battle of Dumlupınar, when he managed to break through the Greek lines and thereby cut off the numerically superior enemy forces of supply and communication. At subsequent chaotic retreat of the Greeks, he succeeded in its General Nikolaos Trikoupis capture. The result of this battle is seen as the beginning of the trigger of the Greek troops from Asia Minor.

Fahrettin Altay in honor of the new main battle tank of the Turkish armed forces Altay was called.