Rumelia Mecidiye Bastion and Martyrdom

About 300 m after passing the Rumeli Hamidiye Bastion; when you keep moving the sloped street on the right side of the road, you arrive at the bastion identified with the name of Corporal Seyit. It is known that the bastion, which consists of 8 bonnets and 6 cannon points, was built during the reign of Abdulhamid II. There are traces of foundation, which belong to the constructions such as headquarters, etc., behind the bastion. During the Dardanelles War, 16 soldiers on duty were martyred in the battery as a result of the fire opened by the Enemy Navy. Platforms, where the cannons were fixed, and their mechanical parts were hit. The area where these soldiers were buried was converted into the Mecidiye Martyrdom in 1919. The martyrdom, which is surrounded by walls, was built in 1969 by the Turkish Martyrdom Reconstruct Society (Türk Şehitlikleri İmar Cemiyeti) and the Benefit Society for Çanakkale Martyrs’ Monument (Çanakkale Şehitleri Abidelerine Yardım Cemiyeti).

In the inscription on the monument at the entrance of the bastion, there are the statements of ‘those who were martyred, Sergeant Ali from Isparta, Mehmet the son of İsmail İvrindili, Süleyman the son of Mustafa and his 13 friends, in this bastion during the Dardanelles War on 18 March 1915 are buried here.

The grave of Feyzi Efendi is next to the Mecidiye Martyrs’ Monument. The Dardanelles guard Fevzi Efendi, the architect, mathematician and statesman who lived within the reign of Selim III, was executed as a result of the British navy crossing the Dardanelles on February 19, 1807 during his duty. His grave was moved from Kilitbahir in 1980 to its present location. The following statements are written in the Ottoman inscription on his grave; 

It is Allah who is infinite / Fevzi Efendi, the Former Head of Financial Department / The death sentence was given to this noble person / He had gone to repair the Mediterranean Strait / He lost the Dardanelles to Stranger, and let his soul reach to heaven / Surely he was a sayyid, he got martyred in Muharram / Let Allah make his grave at the door of heaven’s garden / He had pledged, repented and cited the whole Quran once / He turned his face and walked to heaven and Allah / He dropped his tear down into history / and said that Feyzi Efendi made the afterlife river a living place / 30 March 1807.