stylistic:tone, structural:expansion
Historiography

The orthodox Turkish perspective on the war is based primarily on the speeches (see Nutuk) and narratives of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a high-ranking officer in World War I and the leader of the Nationalist Movement. Kemal was characterized as the founder and sole leader of the Nationalist Movement. Potentially negative facts were omitted in the orthodox historiography. This interpretation had a tremendous impact on the perception of Turkish history, even by foreign researchers. The more recent historiography has come to understand the Kemalist version as a nationalist framing of events and movements leading to the republic's founding. This was accomplished by sidelining unwanted elements which had links to the detested and genocidal CUP, and thus elevating Kemal and his policies.

In the orthodox Turkish version of events, the Nationalist Movement broke with its defective past and took its strength from popular support led by Kemal, consequently giving him the surname Atatürk, meaning "Father of Turks". According to historians such as Donald Bloxham, E.J. Zürcher, and Taner Akçam, this was not the case in reality, and a nationalist movement emerged through the backing of leaders of CUP, of whom many were war criminals, people who became wealthy with confiscated equities and they were not on trial for their crimes owing to the accelerating support for the National Movement. Kemalist figures, including many old members of the CUP, ended up writing the majority of the history of the war. The modern understanding in Turkey is greatly influenced by this nationalist and politically motivated history.

The claim that the Nationalist Movement emerged as a continuation of the CUP is based on the fact Nationalist leaders such as: Kâzım Karabekir and Fethi Okyar had been former members of the committee. However, their conduct during and after the war shows that various movements were competing with each other. Kazım Karabekir had Halil Kut (Enver Pasha's uncle) deported from Anatolia during the war. Suspecting that he may reorganize the CUP through Enver Pasha 's directives, Mustafa Kemal appointed Ali Fuat Cebesoy as a representative to Moscow after learning Enver Pasha was lobbying in the RSFSR as he made promises to return Anatolia during Baku Congress. In July 1921 Enver Pasha organized a congress in Batumi for former CUP members who were now Grand National Assembly deputies. They intended to seize power and expected the Kemalists would lose the Battle of the Sakarya. Due to Enver's leadership of the Basmachi movement and Djemal's visit to Afghanistan, Fahri Pasha was appointed ambassador to Afghanistan to minimize their efforts; Turkey and Afghanistan signed a friendship treaty. After the war former high-ranking CUP members were semi-active in politics until they were purged following an alleged assassination attempt on Mustafa Kemal's life. Former Finance minister Mehmed Cavid and Politician Ziya Hurşit were found guilty and executed and former members like Kâzım Karabekir were put on trial but acquitted

According to Mesut Uyar, the Turkish War of Independence was also a civil war which took place in Southern Marmara, Western and Eastern Black Sea, and Central Anatolia regions. He states that its aspect as a civil war is pushed into the background in official and academic books as 'revolts'. The losers of civil war who neither supported sultan nor Ankara Government, which they considered a continuation of CUP, did not consider themselves rebels. He further emphasizes that casualties and financial losses that occurred in the civil war is at least as catastrophic as the war that was fought against the enemies in other fronts. Thus, he concludes that the war was similar to the Russian Revolution.

Preference of the term "Kurtuluş Savaşı" (lit. Liberation War) has been criticized by Corry Guttstadt as it causes Turkey to be portrayed as "a victim of imperialist forces". In this version of events, minority groups are depicted as a pawn used by these forces. Turkish Islamists, right-wing faction and also leftists regard this historical narrative to be legitimate. In fact, Ottoman Empire had joined the First World War with expansionist goals. The CUP government intended to expand the Empire into Central Asia. When they were defeated, however, they depicted themselves as the victims, even though war brought dire consequences for non-Muslim minorities. Guttstadt states that Turkish War of Independence, which was conducted against Armenian and Greek minorities, was an Islamist campaign as National Defense Committees were organizations founded with Islamist characteristics. On the other hand, the embrace of the Turkish War of Independence by Islamists is not common. During the war, Islamists such as Ottoman Shaykh al-Islām Mustafa Sabri accused the Ankara-based Nationalist Movement of being a rebellion against the caliphate and the monarchy. After the war, Islamists, disturbed by Mustafa Kemal's secularist reforms in Republican Turkey, put forward various conspiracy theories to try to discredit both the war and Kemal, the commander-in-chief of the Turkish side.

However, from the Turkish perspective, the term "Kurtuluş Savaşı" is widely defended, as the overwhelming majority of Turks view the event as a liberation from a foreign occupation. A speech delivered by Mustafa Kemal on 24 April 1920, to the newly established Ankara government, summed up the Turkish perspective of the situation: "It is known to all that the seat of the Caliphate and Government is under temporary occupation by foreign forces and that our independence is greatly restricted. Submitting to these conditions would mean national acceptance of a slavery proposed to us by foreign powers." The Treaty of Sèvres further promoted the Turkish narrative of the need to "liberate" the country. Should no action be taken, the Turkish state would be reduced to rump state in central Anatolia under heavy foreign influence.

Armenian historian Richard G. Hovannisian writes that the Italians were "currying favor" with Turkish Nationalist forces by allowing "clandestine sale and shipment of arms" to them.