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 their surprise, both advances encountered organized Turkish forces of considerable strength. The Southern Army, against stiff opposition, succeeded in occupying Afium but the Northern Army, following the route it had walked over in January, ran into a murderous battle at Inë-Onü and had to fall back to its old position at Brussa, the Southern Army falling back from Afium to Ushak with it. That battle was the first meeting of Greek and Turkish troops in Asia Minor and is today one of the epics of the new Turkey.

Inë-Onü was the first evidence the Greeks had of what Fevzi Pasha and Rafet Pasha had been doing at Angora, and Athens began feverishly to increase its forces in order to administer a "knockout" before Ismet Pasha's command should be built up into a regular Army. Athens was ready by July and three Armies, starting from the southern, center and northern fronts, were ordered to converge on Kutahia, about half-way between Eski-Shehr and Afium. The operations developed according to plan, Kutahia fell, Eski-Shehr was evacuated under the threat of encirclement and, although Ismet Pasha pounded at the exhausted Greeks in Eski-Shehr for ten days, the Greeks held and Ismet Pasha withdrew to the Sakaria River, covering Angora itself. The Greek command had won the railway junctions of Eski-Shehr and Afium and now possessed the bend of railway line which connects Constantinople and Smyrna. The Turkish command had lost its interior railway line and the only connection between Angora and Konia was now a carriage road over which the two towns were five days apart.