Gallipoli

Anzac Cove

Even though I had a very long day today, I'm choosing to keep this post short. There's a lot I could write, but it's a topic I'm sure most of my readers will be familiar with. I visited Gallipoli today - pretty much a must for any Australian tourist in this part of the world. Gallipoli, obviously, ıs the place where the ANZACs - the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - fought in World War I. It's a little penninsula on the European side of the Dardanelles. The Dardanelles is a waterway connecting the Aegean sea to the inland sea of Marmara - a very important strategic point at the time. Turkey, at that time the Ottoman Empire, was dragged somwhat unwillingly into the war by the Germans, and the British and ANZACs basically tried unsuccessfully to gain the Dardenelles and Istanbul thereby removing Turkey from the war and getting access to the sea of Marmara. The whole campaign is identified with mistakes, the biggest one for the ANZACs or course being they landed about a mile too far north of their intended point.

Lone Pine Cemetary

The beach they had planned to take was a long beach from which it would be an easy, gentle climb to Chunuk Bair, the high peak that commanded a superior view of the peninsula. Where they ended up landing on the 25th of April 1915, later known as ANZAC Cove, has just a short beach of about 600 metres and the way up to Chunuk Bair from there is over steep, difficult terrain.
A short time after landing on the beach the campaign hit a stalemate with both sides dug into trenches, not budging. About 9 months later, realizing it was futile to continue, the ANZACs pulled out.

What's left of one of the trenches

All up there were about a quarter of a million soldiers killed and twice as many wounded in this campaign. Even so it's often referred to as the last 'gentleman's war' - throughout the course of the campaign there were numerous cease-fires called in whice both sides would do things such as help each other collect their dead or, as during Christmas, even have a football match in nomans land. Even while there was fighting, each side would throw into each others' trenches presents and exchanges such as tobacco and rations. And then they would shoot at each other.