As a child, listening to my father talking to my grandfather and my uncles, I sometimes heard the words Gallipoli and Salonika, and although I didn't understand, they intrigued me because they were different and usually spoken in such solemn voices.Like so many other World War 1 soldiers my father seldom mentioned his experiences and it was only long after his death in 1963 that I became interested - perhaps addicted is a better word - in everything concerning that war. I came to believe that he had taken part in the &Gallipoli campaign and it was only after my mothers death when I found among his papers his diary for 1917 that I realised the dates didn't fit, and that he had served briefly on the Western Front in 1916 and was then sent to Salonika, one of the so-called sideshows of the war. In Salonika he contracted malaria and heart trouble and spent most of the remainder of the war in and out of hospital in Egypt.
But the Gallipoli tragedy haunted me and I began to read all I could about it. I always hoped but never really expected, to be able to go there. Finally, this summer, I joined a tour organised by Martin Middlebrook, author of one of the best Great War books. "The First Day on the Somme". I have been on many of Martin's Western Front tours over the past ten years and, not being in the first flush of youth, I asked him frankly if he thought I could cope with the heat and what I knew would be a very strenuous five days. He assured me that I could do as much or us little as I felt I could manage and, in the event, I was able to do every thing except some of the really difficult climbs.
And so, after the three hour flight to Istanbul, we broke the coach journey to the peninsula with an overnight stay at Kesan. on the Sea of Marmara. Then it was on to Gelibolu. the Turkish name for the little town on the Dardanelles that gives its name to the Gallipoli peninsula, and finally to Canakkale, on the Asian side, our base for the week An hourly ferry service connects Canakkale with the peninsula at Eceabat (formerly Maidos) and each morning we boarded it for the 20 minute crossing.
What follows is purely a personal view and not in any way an attempt to deal with the details and battle strategy which can be found in many excellent books.We visited the three main areas of the bottle - Helles, Anzac and Suvla - and, with the exception of Helles, which has seen a certain amount of development in the last few years, the terrain has changed very little and is easily recognisable from photographs taken during the war. There was a very destructive fire on the peninsula in 1994 which cost the life of one fire-fighter, but it restored much of the devastated area to its appearance during the war and before an extensive afforestation programme was started thirty years ago. The scrub has now recovered naturally and only certain parts are being re-afforested.
There were wild flowers everywhere - I remember especially the rock roses and the yellow broom - though apparently may is the time to see them at their brilliant best. We saw many tortoises, some of which had been squashed, and there are also snakes though none are particularly venomous. We heard that jackals had returned but are very unlikely to be seen.
At Helles there were five landing beaches and they have been likened in shape to the outspread fingers and thumb of a right hand. Perhaps the best-known was 'W' beach or Lancashire Landing as it came to be known, after the Lancashire Fusiliers who came ashore here. Close by is 'X' beach where the old steamship "River Clyde" was run aground and used as a modern day Trojan Horse through which the troops were landed. Traces of where she was beached are still visible today but unfortunately a rather ugly motel has been built within yards of the beach which rather poils the atmosphere.
How much better if the old war horse had been preserved and kept there, as the remains of the Mulberry Harbour have been retained off the Normandy beaches at Arromanches. Instead she was sold after the war and used as a coaling ship plying the Mediterranean for many years and then ignominiously broken up, much to the disgust of the author Compton Mackenzie, who was an intelligence officer with GHQ during the campaign and who wrote a very good account of his experiences "Gallipoli Memories".
The Lancashires sustained the highest casualties here with 1246 names recorded on the British Memorial at Cape Helles, where there are a many Naval personnel commemorated because, of course, Gallipoli began with a great naval battle. It was hoped that this action might be sufficient to force the Dardanelles and it was only after this failed with the sinking of several large ships on 18th that the Army became involved in April 1915.
One of the most attractive British cemeteries in the Helles area is the Redoubt with a long avenue of trees leading up to it, and an English oak tree planted by his relatives in memory of 2nd Lt. Eric Duckworth of the 6th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, who was killed din August 1915. Quite by chance a member of our group had met one of his descendants a few days before the tour and was lent family photographs of Eric Duckworth for us all to see. The tree is a beautiful specimen, certainly the only one of its kind on the peninsula, and this lady will be returning to Gallipoli in the autumn when she hopes to collect acorns from it and plant them in other cemeteries.
Not far from the British Memorial at Helles is a comparatively recent Turkish one, starkly white, and clearly visible across the entry to the Dardanelles from the Asian side. In this area, there is also a French Memorial and very large cemetery; I had not realised just how many casualties the French suffered here.
Then we moved on to Anzac where the Australians and New Zealanders really came into their own as nations and fought superbly against overwhelming odds and appalling conditions. Anzac beach itself astonishes by its tiny size and the sheer cliffs above it. Why the landings took place here and not on a long sandy beach with easy access to relatively flat land only a mile or so along the coast is a mystery. Possibly it was due to errors made by the crews of the landing tows, and not to adverse currents as was originally suggested. The terrain is even more rugged than at Helles and it was here that the Australians earned their nickname of "diggers" as they dug themselves into the deepest trenches possible. Some of these remain, reasonably intact, as do the Turkish ones, so near to them.
The main Australian memorial at Lone Pine, so called after a popular song of the day and the fact that there was a solitary pine tree near one of their objectives, is very impressive as is the New Zealand memorial at Chunuk Bair. Hre there is also a Turkish memorial and on the day we were there two coach-loads of Turkish school children arrived. The youngsters swarmed around us, eager to try out their English, and to tell us their names. In fact, I am sure they were much more interested in us than in the object of their history outing!
Walking around the peninsula in the heat and always carrying bottles of water because there are not cafes or shops made us realise a little of what the troops in full kit endured in that spring and summer as they struggled to reach their objectives Even by local standards 1915 was extremely hot. Water was always in short supply and their ration for the day was usually no more than a pint per man which had to suffice for everything.I tried to imagine the-feelings of these young untried soldiers, all of them thousands of miles from home and wondering why they were there and what they were fighting for, and how long it took for the adrenaline of excitement and anticipation to wear off
Suvla and its plain are perhaps the most attractive and least visited of the three main battle with with the almost land-locked Salt Lake. Here in August the British began a bitter battle for the high points - Chocolate Hill, Green Hilt, and Lata Baba - in reality just low hills, and again the casualties were huge. We had a picnic lunch in the bay, coded "A" beach, and some of us swam or paddled in the incredibly blue sea. It was so beautiful there, extremely peaceful, with only the sound of larks singing above, that it was hard to imagine how it must have been 86 years ago.
Several members of our group had lost relatives at Gallipoli and some were able to place crosses on named graves, but many of the markers bear the inscription "believed to be buried in this cemetery", so many of the dead could not be identified. The CWGC cemeteries are different from those on the Western Front, with low flat grave markers and in most cases no Cross of Sacrifice, but they are equally well maintained and planted with indigenous shrubs and flowers. Considering how remote many of them are it is a great tribute to the Turkish employees that they are so well cared for. Two of the cemeteries were being re-turfed and refurbished white we were there.
There is a widespread perception that the Gallipoli campaign was an almost totally Australian affairs dismissing even the New Zealand contribution. This ignores the fact that the French suffered more casualties there than the Australians and the British more than those of all the Allies put together. Of course, the Australian losses were enormous in proportion to the size of their population at the time and they have every reason to be intensely proud, but it seems sad that the heroic efforts of all the participating nations cannot be recognised for what they were.
The brooding presence of Mustapha Kemal, the great Turkish war commander, and later known as Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, is everywhere on the peninsula. His moving message, displayed on a large stone slab at the main Turkish memorial, to the relatives of his former enemies, whoever they were, is that their sons lie in a friendly country and that the Johnnies and Mehmets are one in death.
I felt very privileged to follow in the footsteps of all these brave men and would love to go again. When friends ask me why I am so interested in Gallipoli, in explanation, I think I cannot do better than to quote the Official History written by Brigadier-General C.F. Aspinall-Qglander in his Epilogue:
The drama of the Dardanelles campaign by reason of the beauty of its setting, the grandeur of its theme, and the unhappiness of its ending, will always rank amongst the world's classic tragedies, The story is a record of lost opportunities and eventual failure; yet it is a story which men of British race may ponder if not without pain yet certainly without pride; for amidst circumstances of unsurpassed difficulty and strain the bravery, fortitude and stoical endurance of the invading troops upheld most worthily the high traditions of the fighting services of the Crown.
