Gallipoli

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23 September 2012

Today we had the first of several guided tours we are doing on this trip. We visited the Gallipoli battlefields.

In the First World War the Allies attempted to provide an ice free relief route to Russia by opening up the Dardanelles straight and capturing Constantinople. In early 1915 a strong navel fleet attempted to force through the Dardanelles but they were stopped by Turkish cannons and mines and three battleships were sunk. On April 25 1915 a combined British, Australian, New Zealand and Indian Force landed on Gallipoli at several points, most famously Anzac Cove, hoping to capture the peninsular. They met stiff Turkish defence led by Mustafa Kemel (who later founded modern Turkey) resulting in an attritional conflict with little ground being gained. Eventually in January 1916 the Allied troops withdrew leaving 130,000 dead after one of the biggest fiascos of the war.

Today the area where the conflict took place is a preserved national park of pine covered hills surrounded on three sides by the sea and dotted with military cemeteries and memorials, several of which we visited.

Whilst doing our washing up in the evening we met a very interesting couple who were on a trip from the U.K. to Cape Town in their converted land rover.

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