Black Sea landings After the armistice of Mudros, the first thing the French military did was to control the strategically important Ottoman coal mines in which French capital held significant stakes. The goal was both to take control of this energy source and to meet French military needs. It also prevented the distribution of coal in Anatolia, which could be used in activities to support insurgency. On 18 March 1919, two French gunboats brought troops to the Black Sea ports of
Zonguldak and
Karadeniz Ereğli to command the Ottoman coal mining region. Because of the resistance they faced during their one-year stay in the region, French troops began to withdraw from Karadeniz Ereğli on 8 June 1920. They continued to pursue their occupation in Zonguldak, where they occupied the whole city on 18 June 1920.
Constantinople and Thrace operations The main operations in
Thrace aimed to support the strategic goals of the allies. A French brigade entered Constantinople on 12 November 1918. On 8 February 1919, French general
Franchet d'Espèrey—commander-in-chief of allied occupation forces in the Ottoman Empire—arrived in Constantinople to coordinate the occupation government. The city of
Bursa—a former Ottoman capital of central importance in northwest Anatolia—was also held by French forces for a brief period before the great summer offensive of the Greek army in 1920, at which time that city fell to the Greeks.
Cilicia Campaign The first landing took place on 17 November 1918 at
Mersin with roughly 15,000 men, mainly volunteers from the
French Armenian Legion, accompanied by 150 French officers. The first goals of that expeditionary force were to occupy ports and dismantle the Ottoman administration. On 19 November,
Tarsus was occupied in order to secure the surroundings and prepare for the establishment of headquarters in
Adana. After the occupation of Cilicia proper at the end of 1918, French troops occupied the Ottoman provinces of
Antep,
Marash and
Urfa in southern Anatolia at the end of 1919, taking them over from British troops as agreed. At the eastern tip of the occupation zone in the south, the city of
Mardin was also occupied for one day (on 21 November 1919) until the evening, when the French thought it better to abandon the occupation attempt. France designated
Édouard Brémond governor of the French occupation zone in the south from January 1, 1919 – September 4, 1920, and Julien Dufieux from September 1920–23 December 1921. In the regions they occupied, the French encountered immediate resistance from the Turkish, especially because they had associated themselves with Armenian objectives. The French soldiers were foreign to the region and were using Armenian militia to acquire their intelligence. Turkish nationals had been in cooperation with Arab tribes in this area. Compared to the
Greek threat, the French seemed less dangerous to
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who suggested that, if the Greek threat could be overcome, the French would not hold their territories in Turkey, especially as they mainly wanted to settle in Syria. The strategic goal of opening a southern front by moving Armenians against the Turkish National forces was a failure after the defeat of the Greek forces to the west. On 11 February 1920, after 22 days of the
Battle of Marash, the French occupation troops, followed by members of the local Armenian community, found themselves forced to evacuate Marash by the resistance and assaults of the Turkish nationals. The loss of the city was accompanied by large-scale massacres of the Armenian population, with thousands of victims. French Armenian Legion member
Sarkis Torossian suspects in his diary that the French forces gave weapons and ammunition to the Kemalists to allow the French army safe passage out of Cilicia. Marash militia forces contributed further to the war effort by taking part in the recapture of other centers in the region, forcing the French forces to retreat gradually, town by town.
End of hostilities The Cilicia Peace Treaty between France and the Turkish National Movement was signed on 9 March 1921. It was intended to end the Franco-Turkish war, but failed to do so and was replaced in October 1921 with the
Treaty of Ankara signed by representatives of the French and the Turks on 20 October 1921, and finalized with
Armistice of Mudanya.
Atrocities During the French occupation of southern Anatolia, heavy combat took place in
Marash,
Aintab, and
Adana. Most of these cities were destroyed in the process with large civilian suffering. For example, during the
Kaç Kaç incident, French aircraft indiscriminately bombed the 40,000 fleeing Turkish civilians in the
Çukurova area, as well as the
Belemedik hospital. During the occupation and military campaigns, French troops also raped many Turkish women. French soldiers also engaged in attacks, massacres and robbery of Turkish civilians in the countryside. ==Withdrawal and population movements==