THE REAL GALLIPOLI
- Bill Watt
- Jul 14
- 6 min read
GALLIPOLI HOLDS A UNIQUE POSITION IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY BUT IT TAKES A JOURNEY TO THE TURKISH PENINSULA TO BRING ITS TRAGIC PAST TO LIFE, WRITES BILL WATT
Gallipoli ... the name alone means so much to so many Australians. So, to visit the place where Australia as a nation confronted head-on the overwhelming challenges of modern warfare for the first time is a moving and enlightening experience.
Virtually from your first school history lesson in Australia you hear the tales of the heroic but futile World War I campaign waged by Australian soldiers and their New Zealand comrades on Turkiye's Gallipoli peninsula.
Legends abound from this campaign - the first landing of Anzac troops on April 25, 2015; Simpson and his donkey rescuing wounded soldiers; the battles of Lone Pine, Sari Bair and The Nek etc etc.
The stories young Australians are told seem to come from another world, one populated by a race of legendary, if ultimately tragic, heroes. At times, they can seem as remote as the mythological battle for the ancient city of Troy, the ruins of which are just 50km south of Anzac Cove.
But, travelling to the Gallipoli battlegrounds and seeing what confronted so many young men from Australia little more than a century ago ... by seeing their graves and those of their enemies ... by seeing the trenches they lived in ... by seeing the unforgiving cliffs and ravines they were asked to overcome, this makes things real.
The first thing that strikes you on entering the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park is, ironically, how peacefully beautiful it seems. Clear skies, the deep blue of a pondlike Aegean Sea and the wooded hills and cliffs rising high above. It really is quite idyllic.
But, a first stop at Beach Cemetery, also known as Hell Spit Cemetery, near Anzac Cove brings you back to the reality of invasion, death, destruction, brutality, heroism, chaos and the futility of war.
The cemetery contains the graves of 391 Commonwealth troops, most of them Australian servicemen, who lost their lives invading a foreign land in an ultimately futile endeavour doomed from the very beginning. The burial ground is a peaceful and quiet place of contemplation now but in its first days as a war cemetery - from April 25, 1915 - it was a brutal location within range of Turkish artillery, and soldiers often had to rebury their dead compatriots after their bodies were literally blown out of their graves,
In the cemetery you can find the last resting place of Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, who is famously remembered for carrying wounded men down to safety from the front line on a donkey. He was just 22 years old when a Turkish sniper took his life.
When you step on to the meagre beach at Anzac Cove, it is hard to imagine how anyone thought it was wise to send the Anzacs - part of a huge Commonwealth invasion force - to land here. Although the topography has been altered by a roadway and beach wall, standing on that infamous stretch of sand and looking inland reveals how daunting the task of scaling the surrounding hills under fire would have been.
At Ari Burnu cemetery, at the opposite end of Anzac Cove to Beach Cemetery, more young Australians lie in eternal peace. It is really too much to contemplate. But, perhaps some hope for a better world is evidenced nearby where a memorial remembers the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, leader of the Turkish forces at Gallipoli and later the first President of Turkiye. Part of the memorial reads: "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."
And, as we make our way towards the famous Lone Pine battleground, we find another little bit of light emanating from the dark shadow of history. It comes in the form of a statue of a Turkish soldier carrying a wounded Anzac Digger to safety. The incident commemorated here was witnessed by one-time Australian Governor-General Lord Richard Casey while serving in the Gallipoli campaign.
The primary Australian memorial on the Gallipoli peninsula is at Lone Pine. Standing on the site of a famous Australian victory, the memorial commemorates the 3724 Australian and New Zealanders who died in the Gallipoli campaign who have no known grave, as well as the 1212 buried at sea.
The memorial sits on the site of the Battle of Lone Pine, which is remembered for the bayonet charge by the 1st Australian Infantry Brigade on strongly fortified Turkish trenches.
Lone Pine Cemetery, which adjoins the Australian memorial, is located directly above the Turkish trenches and tunnels taken by the Australians in that battle in which around 2300 Australians were killed or wounded along with more than 6000 Turks. Seven Australians were awarded the Victoria Cross for valour for their roles in the action.
Just north of Lone Pine, what it was like for the Anzac soldiers during nearly eight months of intense fighting is revealed. Here you find a line of trenches still clearly visible which were occupied by Australian troops for nearly the entire campaign.
Walking among these relics of warfare you can well imagine the horror of having this as your home for weeks, if not months, on end, under constant fire from your Turkish enemy, entrenched just a few dozen metres away.
In fact, just across the modern road from the Australian trenches, is Johnston's Jolly Cemetery, which sits on an area captured by the Australian 2nd Infantry Brigade on April 25, 1915, but lost to the Turks the following day and never recaptured. It is literally a stone's throw away.
Johnston's Jolly was the Diggers' name for the Turkish position because it sat in the firing line of Colonel George Johnston's field artillery which used to "jolly up" the enemy stationed there.
Something we tend to forget when we commemorate the heroism and sacrifice of the Anzac forces at Gallipoli, is that tens of thousands of Turkish families lost loved ones in these brutal battlefields.
But, as an Australian visitor to Gallipoli, the Turkish losses cannot be forgotten so easily. For, despite the many Aussies and Kiwis touring the site (a week before Anzac Day), we were outnumbered by local people, including busloads of school children, attending the various memorials for the Turks killed in the campaign.
Indeed, trying to get a picture of a lovely statue of the campaign's oldest war veteran Huseyin Kacmaz and his grandaughter at Turkiye's 57th Infantry Regiment Memorial, proved almost impossible as family after family had their picture taken there. Huseyin, who was wounded in fighting at Chunuk Bair in August, 1915 died in 1994 aged 110 years. Eventually I snuck back and got the photograph I wanted, just before another group descended for selfies.
And, it's not only our one-time enemy that we often forget in Australia ... we also often forget the role of our allies in that campaign. As well as Aussies and Kiwis, the Allied invasion force included thousands of soldiers from England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, India, Newfoundland, France and the French colonies.
In fact, my grandfather Charles Munro Watt, a Scotsman, having survived the torpedoing and sinking of his troop ship the Royal Edward in the Aegean Sea in July, 1915, was sent to Suvla Bay (north of Anzac Cove) before eventually being evacuated with frostbite in December of the same year.
I didn't get to Suvla on this trip but it was quite emotional looking out from near the New Zealand memorial at Chunuk Bair across the peninsula's rugged interior to the bay where my grandfather's Kings Own Scottish Borderers regiment was based all those years ago.
LEST WE FORGET
Up to 58,000 Allied soldiers died in the futile attempt to take the Gallipoli peninsula from the Turks in 1915. Of these, 8709 were Australian troops.
Around 87,000 Turkish (Ottoman Empire) soldiers were killed or died of illness during the campaign.
My wife Marie and I travelled to Gallipoli from Istanbul with Crowded House Tours (https://www.crowdedhousegallipoli.com/). Our tour guide, Charles, was brilliant. His detailed knowledge of - and passion for - all aspects of the Gallipoli campaign made our visit so very special.
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