World War I Tragedy Brings Friendship in Gallipoli

29/04/2005

Turks, Australians and New Zealanders gathered on the Gallipoli peninsula on 25 April to honour and remember hundreds of thousands of soldiers who died 90 years ago in one of history's bloodiest battles.

By Allan Cove for Southeast European Times -- 29/04/05

Australian sailors attend the Anzac Day dawn ceremony at Anzac Bay in the Gallipoli Peninsula on Monday (25 April). [AFP]

Earlier this week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark, Britain's Prince Charles and other officials gathered to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli with a minute of silence at the southern entrance to the strategic Dardanelles Strait.

The event marks the anniversary of the first landing of Australian and New Zealand forces, collectively known as the Anzacs, at Gelibolu (Gallipoli) during World War I. Australians and New Zealanders attend the traditional dawn service every year, visiting the graves and spending hours in front of the headstones.

Volunteers from Australia and New Zealand provided the bulk of the manpower for the British-led army that landed in 1915, in an attempt to capture Istanbul, 300km away. The Allies intended to knock the German-allied Ottoman Empire out of the war and open the Turkish straits as a supply route to Russia. The mission was supposed to take 11 days. In the end, the Turks held strong for more than eight months, driving the Allies off their land in a bloody campaign. The heavy fighting claimed the lives of 250,000 Turkish soldiers. More than 100,000 Allied soldiers, mostly Australians and New Zealanders, also died. The Allied forces retreated on 20 December 1915.

Erdogan said the battle in Gallipoli taught those who followed to work harder to prevent war. "The fact that we gather together every year here shows that we have learnt the necessary lessons from this bloody struggle, which revealed the dark side of the war in the clearest way possible, and that we have inserted the high value of peace into our hearts," he said. "We should exert more efforts to prevent wars and act with co-operation and determination against elements threatening peace in any place of the world."

During the ceremony, Clark said the Gallipoli battle remains deep in the collective memory of the nations that fought there. "What happened at Gallipoli, despite the passage of 90 years, still has the power to shock," she said, adding that the event "played a role in shaping us as the people and nation as we are today".

Australian Minister for Veteran Affairs Anne Kelly described the Anzac landing at Gallipoli as a "defining moment" in the history of the nations involved in the war.