Turkish Land Forces

The Turkish Land Forces (Turkish: Türk Kara Kuvvetleri), or Turkish Army (Turkish: Türk Kara Ordusu), is the main branch of the Turkish Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. The army was formed on November 8, 1920, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Significant campaigns since the foundation of the army include suppression of rebellions in Southeast Anatolia and East Anatolia (also known as Turkish Kurdistan) from the 1920s to the present day, combat in the Korean War, the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the current Turkish involvement in the Syrian Civil War, as well as its NATO alliance against the USSR during the Cold War. The army holds the preeminent place within the armed forces. It is customary for the Chief of the General Staff of the Turkish Armed Forces to have been the Commander of the Turkish Land Forces prior to his appointment as Turkey's senior ranking officer.

Turkish Land Forces

June 28, 1363 (as the Ottoman Army)
November 8, 1920 (as the Army of the Grand National Assembly)^[1]^[2]
July 1, 1949 (as the Turkish Land Forces Command)^[3]^[4]

Turkey

Army

Land warfare

401,500 (official TAF figure)
350,000 (CIA, active duty only)[1]

Turkish Armed Forces

"Peace at Home, Peace in the World"

Gold & Maroon

İleri Marşı

June 28^[5]

List of equipment of the Turkish Land Forces

www.kkk.tsk.tr

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

Minister Yaşar Güler

General Metin Gürak

General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu

Lt. Gen. Veli Tarakcı

Alongside the other two armed services, the Turkish Army has frequently intervened in Turkish politics, a custom that is now regulated to an extent by the reform of the National Security Council. It assumed power for several periods in the latter half of the 20th century. It carried out coups d'etat in 1960, 1971, and 1980. Most recently, it maneuvered the removal of an Islamic-oriented prime minister, Necmettin Erbakan, in 1997.^[6]

From late 2015, the Turkish Army (along with the rest of the Armed Forces) saw its personnel strengths increased to a similar level as the previous decade. Factors that contributed to this growth include the Turkish occupation of northern Syria, as well as a renewal of the Kurdish-Turkish conflict.^[7]^[8]^[9]

Commanders of the Turkish Army during the Turkish War of Independence

Turkish soldiers in a trench waiting for the order to attack with fixed bayonets on their rifles

The 33rd Mechanized Brigade in on the north-west border

Kırklareli

The 7th Mechanized Brigade in /Kağızman near the eastern border with Armenia

Kars

The 10th Infantry Brigade in /Erciş on the eastern border with Iran

Van

The 9th Armoured Brigade in in central Anatolia

Çankırı

Non-Turkish speakers might like to know that OF3, OF2, and OR2 literally translates as "Head of 1000", "Head of 100", and "Head of 10", respectively.

Turkish Land Forces has NATO-compatible rank system.

List of commanders of the Turkish Land Forces

This article incorporates from The World Factbook. CIA.

public domain material

Deringil, Selim (2004). Turkish Foreign Policy During the Second World War: An 'Active' Neutrality. Cambridge University Press.

IISS (2023). . The Military Balance. 123 (1). International Institute for Strategic Studies. doi:10.1080/04597222.2023.2162716. ISSN 0459-7222.

"Chapter Four: Europe"

(2022). The Military Balance 2022. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-032-27900-8.

IISS

IISS (2008). The Military Balance 2008. Routledge for the . ISSN 0459-7222.

International Institute for Strategic Studies

IISS (1982). The Military Balance 1982-83. . ISSN 0459-7230.

International Institute for Strategic Studies

William Hale (2013). Turkish Politics and the Military. . ISBN 978-1-136-10140-3.

Routledge

Harris, George S. “The Role of the Military in Turkish Politics.” 19, no. 1 (1965): 54–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4323815.

The Middle East Journal

Landis, Dan; Albert, Rosita, eds. (2012). Handbook of Ethnic Conflict: International Perspectives. Springer. 978-1-4614-0447-7.

ISBN

(2002) [1999]. Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey (Paperback ed.). Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, Peter Mayer Publishers, Inc. ISBN 978-1-58567-334-6.

Mango, Andrew

, ed. (January 1995). A country study: Turkey. Washington DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, Country Studies/Area Handbook Program sponsored by the Department of the Army. ISBN 978-0-8444-0864-4. DA Pam 550–80.

Metz, Helen C.

Munson IV, Howard Adelbert (2012). . Washington State University.

"The Joint American Military Mission to Aid Turkey: Implementing the Truman Doctrine and Transforming U.S. Foreign Policy, 1947-1954"

(in English)

Official Turkish Army website

Ranks and insignia in the Turkish Army

Maps of current dispositions

– AARMS (Scientific Journal of the National University of Public Service, Hungary), Volume 11, Issue 1. 2012

Turkish Land Forces