Situated between the Vigla and Amorves mountains, Sarantaporo was a narrow mountain pass, the only one connecting Thessaly with central Macedonia; it spanned some . Having ceded Thessaly to Greece in the Convention of Constantinople (1881), the Ottomans had been methodically reinforcing their positions around Sarantaporo in anticipation of a future war. The Ottomans had organized their defenses under the guidance of German military advisors, placing their artillery batteries and infantry in sheltered, camouflaged trenches on the ravine's steep slopes, allowing them to accurately fire along its entire length. Considered to be nearly impenetrable it was dubbed "the graveyard of the Greek Army" by the Prussian Field Marshal Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz.