Adrianople

I mentioned yesterday that Adrianople sat on a disputed border (particularly disputed between Turkey and Greece).  For more information on the subject, keepers may want to read the Wikipedia entry on the Greco-Turkish War.

Turkish soldiers in Constantinople after the Greco-Turkish War.

This photo could just as easily be used to represent Turkish soldiers in Adrianople to keep the peace.

Again, slightly out of the scope of this blog, but.... heres a photo of Greek irregular volunteers on the frontier during the earlier 1897 Greco-Turkish War.  Their sons who fought in 1919-1922 looked very similar.

Adrianople

Adrianople is a city in the northwestern part of Turkey, close to the borders with Greece and Bulgaria.

It was briefly occupied by the Bulgarians in 1913, following the Battle of Odrin; and by the Greeks between the Treaty of Sèvres in 1920 and at the end of the Turkish War of Independence in 1922 when it was retaken by Turkey.  The Selimiye Mosque is visible from most anywhere in the city,

Needless to say, it has a heavy Greek and Bulgarian influence in its cultural heritage, and its likely that because of border difficulties, a large garrison of military and border police types are in the area.

Selimiye Mosque