battlefields gallipoli campaign

Needless to say I could not have done this on my own and I thank all pals, mates, arkadaşlar, Freunde, cáirde, vrienden, amis and friends who have been patient and willing enough to answer all my questions ... Thank you all ...

A special thanks goes to Colette and Austin Fennessy for all the proofreading.

My first visit in 1997 to the Gallipoli Peninsula was brief, only a couple of hours. In 2002 I responded to the famous “Dur Yolcu” (Stop Traveller) which sits on the hillside above Kilitbahir and “stopped”, “stayed” and “was conquered” ... It was the first of many returns to “the Peninsh” till in 2005 I decided I wanted to live there ... and that's what I am doing now ...

At first it was simply the beauty of the area that attracted me but soon the interest for “what has happened here” grew as well.
On my initial trip to Australia I bought my first book, ”Gallipoli” by Les Carlyon at “Angus & Robertson” in Flinders Street, Melbourne. ”Defeat at Gallipoli” by Nigel Steel & Peter Hart, purchased at a Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, soon followed ... Since than I’ve spend quite a lot of money buying bookshelves ...

What impresses and overwhelms me over and over again when I walk -alone or with friends- through Monash Valley or sit at V beach is the screaming contrast between these places today and in 1915...I prefer today’s “Heaven” but reminders of the 1915 “Hell” appear everywhere ...

This inspired my "kaleidoscope of the Gallipoli campaign". In no way is this an attempt to give an overview of the campaign, nor is this an online guidebook. It is a collection of pictures taken during my numerous walks, complimented -wherever suitable- with passages from the many books that have been written on this ill-fated campaign.

Eric Goossens

Perhaps the rules of war, which I did not even pretend to know, allowed humans to suffer. People are inclined to turn a blind eye on individual suffering, especially if the suffering is out of sight. Maybe some day when war is brought to everyone’s door step then, and only then, will the peoples of the world wake up to the folly of mass slaughter as a means of settling international disputes.

"Gallipoli 1915", ( London-1977), Joe Murray, p. 60-61

By then, well into May, I was no longer elated about war, especially about Gallipoli. I’d seen it all as easy, a walkover. Now I was into the reality of the thing. And it was no walkover, no holiday even in Cape Helles. Nerves started playing up- there was the thought of being badly wounded or killed at any moment. You could see the casualty lists growing longer. You could see the dead being brought down from the heights and carried from the trenches. You could see men shot in the head, with their brains hanging out, yet unable to die. You could see men die suddenly from shrapnel bursts, even while they were bathing on the beach at Anzac. Above all you were seeing friends die all the time. Comrades carted away with sickness or wounds. You felt a regret deep down, but didn’t weep. Soldiers don’t weep anyway.

Russell Weir (WIB) quoted in "Voices of Gallipoli", (Auckland 1988), Maurice Shadbolt, p. 37

Once in a generation a mysterious wish for war passes through the people. Their instinct tells them that there is no other way of progress and of escape from habits that no longer fit them. Whole generations of statesman will fumble over reforms for a lifetime which are put into full-blooded execution within a week of a declaration of war. There is no other way. Only by intense sufferings can the nations grow, just as a snake once a year must with anguish slough off the once beautiful coat which has now become a strait jacket.

Ian Hamilton in his "Gallipoli Diary"

The following guidebooks have been of enormous help and without them this part of the website would not have existed :

Gallipoli- A battelefield Guide, (East Roseville 2000), Phil Taylor & Pam Cupper.

Gallipoli Battlefield Guide/Çanakkale Muharebe Alanlari Gezi Rehberi, (Istanbul 2006), Gürsel Göncü & Şahin Aldoğan.

Gallipoli Battlefield Guide, (Barnsley 2000), Tonie & Valmai Holt.

In 1968 my wife and I were camping on a Turkish Aegean beach in a grass hut. There was no electricity, and the evenings were spent telling stories and listening to music. One evening our Turkish host, who had just finished whistling a plaintive Turkish tune, quietly asked us if we knew what had happened in that place in 1915. He then told a story of stubborn and determined defense, and the forging of a new mythology around first president of the new Turkish Republic, Kemal Ataturk, who in 1915 was a divisional commander who opposed the advanced parties of Australians at Gallipoli and effectively halted them. The emphasis was on Turkish successes and when I came to Australia, I found the mirror image in the Anzac story – the same hyperbole, the same chivalric prose that is common to descriptions of battles everywhere.
The other common factor was the omission in the respective national legends of real detail beyond cursory mention of the other side’s involvement in or influence on the events. It was as if to mention even an equality of suffering, courage and endurance on behalf of the other side was somehow to detract from one’s own national performance; and in some perverse way unpatriotic, even after the passage of a generation.

"The boys who came home", (Crows Nest 1990), Harvey Broadbent, p. viii.

All pictures have been taken by Özlem Gündüz & Eric Goossens, except the aerial pictures which are the property of the Gallipoli National Park. All pictures are available for research and personal use at no cost but note that the express written permission of Gallipoli Ltd must be sought.