Sultan Mehemet VI, by doing so, endeavoured to restore calm and order in Turkey, and also to enhance his prestige and authority over the Nationalist rebels in Anatolia who, at the Congress of Sivas, had plainly stated they refused to make any compromise either with the Porte or the Allies. The choice of the new Ministers marked a concession to the Nationalist and revolutionary spirit. About the end of 1919 there were serious indications that the Nationalist movement was gaining ground in Cilicia, and in January, 1920, disturbances broke out in the Marash area. In September, 1919, some armed bands, wearing the khaki uniform of the regular Turkish Army, had been recruited at Mustafa Kemal’s instigation. A French officer had been sent to Marash for the first time to watch over the Jebel Bereket district, which commands all the tunnels of the Baghdad Railway between Mamurah and Islahie. In December one of those armed bands, numbering about 200 men, occupied the road leading from Islahie to Marash, and intercepted the mail. As the conditions that were likely to be enforced upon Turkey were becoming known, discontent increased. General Dutieux, commanding the French troops of Cilicia, determined to send a battalion as reinforcement. The battalion set off at the beginning of January and arrived at Marash on the 10th, after some pretty sharp fighting on the way at El Oglo. As the attacks were getting more numerous and the Nationalist forces increased in number, a new French detachment, more important than the first, and provided with artillery, was dispatched to Islahie, which it reached on the 14th. This column met with no serious incident on the way from Islahie to Marash; it reached Marash on the 17th, at which date it was stated that all the district of Urfa, Aintab, Antioch, Marash, and Islahie was pacified. That was a mistake, for it soon became known that the chiefs of Bazarjik, a place lying halfway between Marash and Aintab, had gone over to the Kemalists, and had just sent an ultimatum to the French commander demanding the evacuation of the country. On February 3 the French troops at Marash were attacked by Turkish and Arabian troops coming from the East, who intended to drive them away, and join the main body of the Arabian army. A French column under the command of Colonel Normand reached Marash, and after a good deal of hard fighting with the Nationalists, who were well armed, relieved the French. But Armenian legionaries had most imprudently been sent; and after some squabbles, which might have been foreseen, between Moslems and Armenians, the French commander had bombarded the town, and then had been compelled to evacuate it. These events, later on, led to the recall of Colonel Brémond, whose policy, after the organisation of the Armenian legions, had displeased the Moslem population.