While I'm familiar with the fact that many of the Ottoman leaders opposite the Expeditionary trenches would go on to lead the Republican forces in the early twenties, I heard the suggestion today that the 'idea' or the 'spark' of reform was planted at Gallipoli.
How much of this can be considered factual, if there is truth to it, is it an overstatement? Spare no details, my thanks in advance.
It's an overstatement at best. I mean, the battle of Gallipoli did help two prominent figures in the Turkish Independence War rise through the ranks in the Ottoman military, Mustafa Kemal and Kazım Karabekir; but aside from that, nothing really came out of it in terms of revolutionary thought.
For the Ottoman Empire and its people, the battle that had the most political and ideological effect on both the military leadership and general public was Sarikamish, in World War I. It practically saw an end to the newly-adopted Pan-turkism policies, and led the nationalist movement to focus their efforts on Anatolian borders.