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It's quiet now...
The Nek Memorial and CemeteryFive hours after leaving Istanbul (monday 14th May) I arrived in the small port town of Eceabat, which lies on the eastern edge of a long and slender peninsula that extends down from Thrace (European Turkey) and is separated from Anatolia (Asian Turkey) only by a narrow strait known as the Dardanelles. The reason for visiting this area would be instantly obvious to any Australian upon mentioning the name of the peninsula on which Eceabat sits: Gallipoli. For it was here in Gallipoli almost one hundred years ago that the Anzac legend was born.
Sometime in early 1915, when the Great War was still in it's first year and Russia was doing battle with Germany over a vast front in eastern Europe, the Russians sent a request to their British allies to gain control over the Dardanelles and Bosphorous straits that lead all the way from the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea, in order to open up the Russians' only ice-free supply route to the Mediterranean Sea and beyond. When the British Royal Navy failed to break through the Turkish defences on the Dardanelles (the Turkish having joined the war on the side of the Germans) in March of
Brighton Beach
Where the Anzacs were supposed to have landed 1915, it was decided that a joint naval and military operation would be required, in which troops would firstly be deployed on land in order to gain control of the Gallipoli peninsula, thereby rendering the Turkish defences on both sides of the strait ineffective, and allowing the naval fleet to force their way through.
The plan called for troops to land both on the southern tip of the peninsula (British and French forces) and halfway up the western coast (Australians and New Zealanders), with both contingents then forging their way inland across the peninsula before meeting up somewhere around Eceabat and clearing away the last of the Turkish threat. It was believed it would take only one day for the Allied forces to gain high ground after landing, and no more than a week to complete their mission. But what the Allied generals had failed to take into account was the fierce determination with which the Turkish troops would defend this small but strategically significant part of their homeland.
The campaign would turn out to be a disaster from the very beginning. Whilst four of the five Anglo-French regiments that each landed separately on the southern end of
Anzac Cove
Where the Anzacs actually landed the peninsula were able to make quick progress inland, one regiment met with fierce resistance and became bogged down in combat. While this was happening, the other four regiments were ordered to sit and wait rather than continue their advance. It would prove to be the first of many questionable and potentially fatal decisions made by the Allied commanders throughout the campaign. As the four British and French regiments continued to wait, the Turks were able to send reinforcements to the south who would halt the Allied advance - when it eventually did come - and prevent the Anglo-French contingent from ever joining up with their Australasian counterparts.
Meanwhile further north the Anzacs (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) were facing an even worse fate. Having landed three kilometres north of their intended landing point, at what was then known as Arıburnu (but would later become known as Anzac Cove) the Anzacs initially faced only token opposition from a contingent of just 160 Turkish troops, and were able to begin scaling the steep cliffs that lay immediately in front of them. However, fate would intervene on behalf of the Turks when their rapidly retreating troops would run into one
North Beach
Where the Anzacs were camped during the campaign Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal (the future Atatürk) who at that time was in command of the 57th infantry regiment. Having anticipated the Allied attack when his commanders had not, and without orders to do so, Kemal had moved his regiment towards Arıburnu, and upon encountering his retreating compatriots had ordered them to stand their ground and fight.
It was at this time that Kemal gave his now-famous order to the 57th infantry regiment, telling them 'I am not ordering you to fight; I am ordering you to die. In the time it takes you to die, reinforcements will arrive who will carry on the fight.' His troops did exactly as they were told: everyone of them (apart from their illustrious commander - for whom fate clearly had other plans) fell that day, but with reinforcements arriving to continue the battle in their place, the Turks were able to hold off the Anzacs and force them back towards the beach from which they had come. The Turks had halted the Allies momentum, and in doing so had perhaps sealed the Anzacs fate on that very first day. The date was April 25th, 1915; and the course of history - for
Anzac Memorial
North Beach, Gallipoli Peninsula not only Turkey but also the fledgling nations of Australia and New Zealand - had been altered forever.
Despite lauching massive and sustained counter-attacks in August of 1915 - this time with the aid of 25,000 British troops who had landed just north at Suvla Bay - and only after having had to endure three-and-a-half months of the same brutal trench warfare that would come to define the battlefields of the Somme on the western front in France throughout the First World War, the Anzacs would only ever be able to wrest control of the much sought-after high ground atop the ridges of Sarı Bair for a day or two at the most, before the next Turkish counter-offensive would drive them back again. Yet incredibly it would be another three months before the decision was finally taken by Allied commanders to withdraw their forces from the peninsula - and only after many thousands more troops had died not from the battle itself but from the horrendous conditions they faced in the subzero winter temperatures.
In perhaps the only successful operation of the entire Allied campaign in Gallipoli, 40,000 troops were evacuated from North Beach and Suvla Bay on
The Sphinx
View from North Beach of the cliffs of Ariburnu the nights of the 20th and 21st December; followed by the remaining 50,000 troops from near Cape Helles at the southern end of the peninsula on the 8th and 9th of January; without any further loss of life. The entire campaign had lasted over eight months, resulted in more than half-a-million casualties, and taken the lives of 130,000 men - two-thirds of which were Turkish, which surely proves beyond any doubt that in war there are no winners. Of the 45,000 Allied deaths, almost 9,000 were from Australia and 3,000 from New Zealand. But the true cost of the battle could never be measured by numbers alone, nor the suffering endured by everyone involved in a campaign that ultimately would have no bearing on the outcome of the war.
For the Turks it was sadly only the latest in a seemingly never-ending sequence of battles that had been waged for control over the Dardanelles - long considered to be the key to taking Istanbul - with no less than fourteen significant battles having taken place throughout it's history. However it would also prove to be a critical turning point in Turkish history, with the Ottoman empire having collapsed by
Resting in peace
Beach Cemetery at Hell Spit war's end, to be replaced by a republic filled with pride in the successful defence of their homeland and confidence for the future - especially with the man who had so heroically and successfully led the defence of the Gallipoli peninsula, Mustafa Kemal (later bestowed with the name Atatürk - meaning literally 'Father Turk'😉 having been elevated to the position of the country's first prime minister.
But just as significantly, the bloodiest chapter in the history of both Australia and New Zealand had been written in the sands of a faraway land - one which would forevermore be inextricably linked to the collective consciousness of both nations. It is said that the identities of both Australia and New Zealand were forged in the sands of Gallipoli, where the brave and selfless actions of the 'diggers' - many of whom were barely old enough to vote, let alone go off to war - set the standard by which future generations would measure themselves. For almost one hundred years, on the 25th of April (Anzac Day), memorial services have been held at dawn - the time of the first landings at Anzac Cove - across Australia; and in more recent times
at Gallipoli as well, where thousands of Australians and New Zealanders gather for the most poignant service of all on the shores of North Beach itself.
After settling into my hostel in Eceabat on monday evening, I enjoyed a much needed sleep-in the following morning before joining one of the hostel's guided tours of the Gallipoiı battlefields that afternoon. Starting the tour at Brighton Beach - the Anzacs' intended landing spot - we headed three kilometres north to where they had actually landed at Anzac Cove (and where sadly there is almost nothing left of the beach, due to the sealed road that has been laid alongside the coastline). From there we visited the Anzac commemorative site at North Beach, where the troops had been based for the entire duration of the campaign; before stoppıng off at the Arıburnu Cemetery and nearby Coastal Memorial, where the words of peace and reconciliation offered by Atatürk himself - upon his return to Gallipoli in 1934 - have been immortalized in stone:
'Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country; therefore rest in peace. There is no difference
between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom, and are at peace. Having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.'
With our extremely knowledgeable Turkish guide (who had studied history in nearby Çanakkale) doing an excellent job of keeping us all informed of the impotance of each site, we then headed up the inland road that follows the crest of the Sarı Bair ridge - which had been the Anzacs' constant objective throughout the campaign, and upon which so much of the fighting had taken place. Not far along this road stands the Mehmetçık Monument, commemorating the courageous actions of a Turkish soldier who carried a wounded Australian soldier behind enemy lines to the Anzacs' medical post, and was then allowed to return to his position in the Turkish trenches without having a single shot fired in his direction - one of many examples why the battle at Gallipoli ıs remembered as being the 'last true gentleman's war'.
As we continued along the ridge-top road, the remains of Allied trenches on one side of the road and Turkish trenches on the other - in the vicinity of the cemetery at Johnston's Jolly - demonstrated all too clearly just how close the two opposing forces had ended up being positioned; wıth the dıstance between the two sets of trenches having been reduced from two-hundred-and-fifty metres at the beginning of the fıght to just six metres by the end. Gaining in elevation as we continued, we soon came to the Lone Pine Cemetery and Memorial, marking the site of a particularly brutal battle in which seven thousand men lost their lives in just four days of fighting, in an area smaller than a football pitch.
There could be no more beautiful or poignant memorial to such a savage moment in human history than the sight of this single pine tree - itself the sole survivor of a devastating fire that swept through the area in 1994 - bearing silent witness to the unspeakable horrors of the past; while a descendant of the original lone pine tree that gave the battlefield it's name almost a century ago can be seen
Highest point of the battle
New Zealand Memorial and Ataturk Monument swaying gently in the breeze by the entrance to the cemetery. And with a view of the surrounding landscape that is every bit as beautiful as the cemetery itself, it really is hard to imagine these days that such a peaceful place could ever have been so terrifying.
By comparison, the simple cemetery at The Nek - where, on the morning of August 7th 1915, the 8th (Victorian) and 10th (West Australian) regiments of the Light Horse Brigade leapt from their trenches and charged at the Turkish defences; only to be cut down before they could reach the enemy line - offers little more than a modest memorial, a half-dozen headstones, and an outstandıng view of the gorgeous curve of North Beach. If only the brave men involved in the battle could have had the opportunity to appreciate the natural wonders around them.
The final stop on our guided tour was Chunuk Bair, where the New Zealand Cemetery and Memorial marks the spot where, during the August offensive, a regiment from New Zealand had wrestled control from the Turks of the highest point along the Sarı Bair ridge; only to lose it again the following day in the
Lest we forget
Lone Pine War Memorial face of a determined counter-attack led by none other than Mustafa Kemal - a fact which is also commemorated by the Monument to Atatürk which stands alongside the New Zealand Memorial.
And appropriately enough - for what was not only the final stop on our tour but also the furthest point inland that the Anzacs were able to reach during their ill-fated campaign - the view from Chunuk Bair takes in not only the magnificently-scenic western coast of Gallipoli, but also right across the peninsula to the Dardanelles strait; which, after all, is what all of those brave men from both sides of the war had fought and died for.
Lest we forget.
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