Description

The Gallipoli campaign was planned in early 1915 – an imaginative, but flawed attempt to overcome the stalemate in France and Flanders. The idea was Churchill’s: to force the narrow straits of the Dardanelles by naval power alone – a romantic notion for a generation schooled in the great myths of the Ancient World and the omnipotent power of the British Empire. The reality was different: the navy failed to get through the straits. The only option was to land troops on the Gallipoli Peninsula to destroy the Turkish guns, but even then it was thought that all of this could be achieved without much effort. Gallipoli was seen as a sideshow, where the benefits of victory were never matched by the resources needed. The British underestimated their enemy – assuming that old naval ships, inexperienced troops and senior commanders from an era of colonial warfare was all that was needed; they were wrong. Gallipoli was abandoned by the British in early 1916. Given the nature of the fighting, it might be assumed, following such a short campaign, the evidence of war has long since disappeared, but it has not: the natural features over which the fighting took place remain, as do the shadows of trenches; the skeletal-like hulls of landing craft on the shoreline; and the wrecks of more than 200 ships on the seabed beyond. There is a discernible presence here; the landscape has absorbed the events that took place here a century ago. Gallipoli lies at the gates to the East and just a few miles north of the ancient City of Troy. For just a short time in early 1915, it seemed that this place held the key to an imagined world beyond; it did not, and the only true victors were the Turks. For the British, it was a dreadful defeat with no consolation, while for the Australians and New Zealanders, it was a defining moment in their journey to national identity. Today, the battlefield is almost untouched by time – a lonely and haunted place… remote under an idyllic Aegean sky. 108 colour photographs, 3 colour maps, 1 table