The sacrifice of Captain Abdulmecid would be an epic of Turkish folklore for decades to come; reprinted in books, novellas, film and radio shows, though the full truth of the matter would lie only in a single folder within a dusty archive off limits to the public. It would be on the last day of August that what many would consider the last true successful bayonet charge in history would happen. His company, out of munitions, food, and radio contact, would charge uphill into the defended position of the Armenian aggressor. His company was largely cut down with combined arms from machine guns to grenades, yet enough men passed through the barbed wire, such that the Transcaucasian post was decimated. Well, or so the Turkish correspondents given the seen relayed. Abdulmecid was the only one who’s feet passed the barbed wire, but it was true that his saber did bring down one of the foe. Coincidentally, it was the only foe that the charge had slain. Yet, revenge was had in the night. 

The Mountaineer platoon had stumbled onto the corpses of their comrades in the night, marking them down for burial with full honours later. But work had to be done first. The barbed wire was clipped and carefully removed, not the slightest of steel jingling coming from the action. The Mountaineer platoon would spend entire hours crawling ever so quietly to the different posts of the sentries, but all would come to the same conclusion of strangling their targets with garrottes. This similarly was not done without forethought, for it was done just after the changing of the guard, ensuring that the rows of men sleeping peacefully in barracks were helpless against the slaughter to come. As rows of men were brought to the blade, eventually a slip happened as a man woke from a call of nature. He exclaimed as any would upon the sight of an invader carving the trachea of his comrades, a factor that lead to the flight of the Turkish special forces from the building. As panicked screams emanated from within, the Turks closed the doors of the building, gusts of fire licking the sides of the building as a burst from the flamethrower operator came. Some men struck upon the doors with fire axes, but bursts of bullets came through the wood of the door to bring down the men attempting the escape. More wise men tried to find windows to escape through, but these similarly only lead to the embrace of more Turkish warriors. 

Men in adjacent barracks, convinced of a far larger assault than truly was taking places sprinted out with hands upraised upon multi-lingual cry to surrender rather than the doomed efforts to fight back that they had briefly witnessed from short exchanges at the nearby building; it was far more difficult to fire at someone in the dark, than it is to fire upon someone illuminated by the pyre their building has become.

Rather unceremoniously, these men were marched at gunpoint down the hill and towards the camps of the Turks.

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The camp they were brought to was a rather small affair, for it was only for temporary holding and direction of different prisoners. Profiling was done of each man for their ethnicity, religion, ideological motivations, and the severity of their conviction in them. The Azeris were made to take interviews describing how they were forced at gunpoint to fight for the oppressive and tyrannical regime of Transcaucasia, and offered citizenship in Turkey where they would find freedom even if the government occupying their home threatened their families. The Azeris that did not agree that all of these things were true, also happened to have succumbed to their injuries on the brief march. Not too dissimilar was treatment of Russians, Persians, and Georgians. All told (or at least, were made to tell) stories of how they did not want to fight the Turk liberating them from their oppressors, and how though they have had historical differences they all appreciated the unity of peoples against sadism of the bloody red banner. They were given Turkish diplomatic passports, such that they could be handed over to respective governments within Iran and the vaguely functional parts of the Russian Empire. The Armenians? Well, some certainly were put before cameras, dictaphones and typewriters to record the fact that the Turkish Republic was coming with peace and muse in arms. However, just as many were left in ditches or pushed down ravines after complicity in the Transcaucasian communist party was discovered. But perhaps the most sinister treatment was given to foreign volunteers. There were single digits from all across the globe, but having not been recognized as legitimate combatants there were not found under any protections of law international or Turkish. It is thus mass graves rather far from the mountains would be dug, where archaeologists would one day discover peculiar specimens of biped without heads. 

Though heroic, the sacrifice of Abdulmecid would yield a change in localized doctrine. Most infantry would henceforth cease offensive operations, simply defending positions - namely those bearing artillery that was so crucial to the operations. Offensive operations to break through and take territory would now only be done by special forces.

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Within the South front, things were surprisingly to the inverse. Though the area of combat was far wider, far less territory passed hands as both sides grew wary of the other’s abilities. While for the most part the Turkish side hardly cared about losses to the civilian population of the Kurds and Arabs, they nevertheless would not shell villages and tribal bands for the simple concern of intensifying resistance to them, especially amongst the tribes and communities largely neutral in the conflict for the moment. Gradually, the concern of the Southern vultures was replaced by that of the enemy within. Though the varied socialist movements within Turkey did not bare particularly great popularity, the (relatively, on the global stage) open press and democracy had allowed for the student movements and other bearers of such ideology unhindered ability to disrupt the state. Though such men and women were often beaten by nationalists of all sorts without even necessitating the intervention of police, they were nevertheless able to block many critical roads and otherwise interfere with institutions in protest of the war that was seen as a mere step before a crackdown upon them directly.

The war of course, was not the sole reason for their protest. Though the early years of the Turkish Republic could have easily have been described as under a social democrat’s economic policy, many ideas taken from Frunze and the other influence of the North that came during the Turkish revolution and shortly after. However, though the geopolitics of the Republic have largely remained motivated purely be realpolitik, the hostility of the European internationale had lead to Turkish interest in greater autarky, but also distanced integration with broad economic institutions not standing against the birthright of the Turkic people.
Engineers from abroad were lured with promises of grand wages, for the oil fields that Turkey held had to be exploited for more than their mere value in export of their black gold. The native intellectual caste that would typical work upon this, certainly felt the pressure as their failure to help advance some sort of industry out of the oil fields was finally noted on all stages. 

Thus, even as bullets flied in the Caucasian mountains and the deserts of the Levant heard the whistling of bombs, refineries began to be erected across the Turkish republic as the first stage of the economic plan to revitalize Turkey’s income streams; though the eye of potential competitors was to be averted for now, many even now would be able to predict that soon the republic of the crescent moon would be selling plastics made within its borders.