Guide
The monument in the Tarsus district of Mersin was raised to keep the memory of the victory at Karboğazı, won against the French occupation during the War of Independence.
French forces trapped at Pozantı were being harried daily by the Kuvayı Milliye. Realising they could not hold there, they decided to break out, cross the Namrun and Gözne uplands and reach Mersin. The battalion commander, Major Menil, set that plan in motion on 25 May 1920 and took as guides two people he came across on the road, Kumcu Veli and Gülekli Hatice.
At Tekir the French left the made road and, at Kumcu Veli's insistence, followed the track toward the Elmalı gorge — a narrow stream bed between steep slopes. Word carried by Gülekli Hatice let seventeen men lie in ambush on each side of the stream, with ten more behind to cut off any retreat. After the fighting of 27 and 28 May 1920 the French, by then concerned only with getting out alive, abandoned their ammunition and their mules and fled toward the Teke upland and the Yılan plain. They surrendered the next day to Major Hasan Akıncı — known as Kara Afet — who had come from Karaisalı. The men of Gülek brought the prisoners they had taken to the Gerlez quarter and gave them bulgur pilav with meat, and ayran.
The battle at Karboğazı was a turning point in the liberation of Çukurova and formed the basis of the Treaty of Ankara later concluded with the French government. A painting representing this victory is displayed in the Anıtkabir Museum.
