January 30, 2005

Gallipoli

Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey

"I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die. In the time it takes us to die, other troops and commanders will arrive to take our place."

These were the words of divisional commander Mustafa Kemal to the Turkish 57th Infantry Regiment as the Australian and New Zealand troops landed on the 25th of April, 1915, in an ill-fated attempt to take the Gallipoli Peninsula. The 57th Regiment was indeed wiped out, but they checked the ANZAC advance and reinforcements were able to arrive.

Over the next few months fierce trench warfare raged as the Allied troops tried to take the high ground of Chunuk Bair. The opposing trenches are still visible, often only eight or ten metres apart.

I walk from the beach where the ANZACs landed past numerous cemetaries. They have surprisingly few gravestones as most of the dead were never identified when they were recovered from the battlefield. Poignant epitaphs are inscribed: "Could I clasp your hand once more, just to say well done".

From the landing point to Chunuk Bair is no more than three or four kilometres yet the fighting raged for four months. The final battle lasting from the 6th to the 9th of August, when more than 28000 men died.

In the end the Turks held the ridge and the allies withdrew from the peninsula. Attempts to control the strategic Dardenelles were abandoned.

Following Turkey's ultimate defeat in World War I, Mustafa Kemal led the challenge to the rule of the Ottoman Sultan, culminating in the foundation of the Turkish Republic with Mustafa Kemal, now Kemal Atatürk (Father Turk) as it's President.

In 1934 Atatürk returned to Gallipoli with these words for the ANZACs:

"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 far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

Posted by David at January 30, 2005 08:19 AM