Gallipoli Peninsula – Day 16

Dur yolcu! Bilmeden gelip bastığın,

Bu toprak, bir devrin battığı yerdir.

That is written in large letters on the cliff- face across the water. So large that you can read it from Cannakale – where I was staying – on the opposite side. The pinch point of the Dardanelles, less than two kilometres wide, guarded for centuries by matched forts.

It’s part of a poignant poem about the tragedy of war. The first stanza reads…

Whether or not you are interested in the campaign that was fought here by loyal Australian and New Zealand troops… mainly. What happened in the nine month’s of trench warfare was the very birth of a nation. It was to lead the fading Ottoman empire into the nation state of Turkey.

A brilliant Turkish commander, battle-hardened by campaigns in the Balkans and elsewhere was to change the course of the First World War. If the allies had won here it might have been over by the end of 1915…maybe. But they would have captured Istanbul and opened supply lines to Russia to create a properly forceful second front. But that was not to be.

High-handedness by the British brought the Ottomans out of their neutrality against the allies. With tragic consequences. 

Ironically, the Allies’ only successful operation of the campaign was the eventual withdrawal and evacuation of nearly 90,000 troops without a single loss. But among them were thousands of wounded and suffering from frost-bite. In total 97 thousand dead on both sides by the end of the campaign.

The allied survivors – who had already endred months of awful privations with a weak supply line – were then sent to fight in the nightmare of the Western Front in France and Belgium. A long road home for them.

Mustapha Kemal was a brilliant  commander. He pushed his troops and led from the front. When he was hit by shrapnel he was saved by his pocket watch. He was destined to become a national hero, to become Mustapha Kemal Attaturk and to create the republic of Turkey. A most brilliant and modern man. He overhauled the country and brought it together in an almost Solomonic way.

Our Turkish guide – Bulent – had been doing this for twenty years. He spoke English with a ‘strine’, accent. But he said he could also do a decent ‘ Nah Zeelund’.

We found out that Australian troops were nick-named ‘diggers’ due to the number of earthworks they were forced to excavate. That the trenches were sometimes only 15 yards apart. That the youngest to die was James Martin, only 14.

But the graveyards saId it all really. They were sad but beautifully maintained. The wind sighing through their pines. 

The whole bottom half of the peninsula is covered in trees now and kept as a memorial. Nobody can build here. But at the time there was no cover, all timber having been logged for firewood against the hard winters. Coming ashore  in the amphibious landings was deadly. I took a photograph of the first beach to take casualties.  

At the Lone Pine cemetery that marks a famous battle, the eponymous pine had been reduced to a stump by shellfire.

ANZAC troops had taken home pine cones as souvenirs and in 1990 a seedling from a cone from the original pine – grown by an Australian relative – was returned to the site to replace the original. The guide had remembered the planting and looked upon it almost like a brother.

An affecting day then and a lesson to reject hubris if you can see it in yourself.

After it was all over, Attaturk returned. He made a  poignant speech that showed his statesmanship.