57TH INFANTRY REGIMENT'S CEMETERY & MEMORIAL
57. PİYADE ALAYI ŞEHİTLİĞİ
VE ANITI
This is a symbolic cemetery in memory of the legendary 57th Regiment, with the names of many of its fallen soldiers chosen randomly to appear either on the headstones or on plaques on the surrounding walls.
IF STONES COULD SPEAK - ANZAC
During the advance of the 57th Regiment, its mountain battery, positioned at
the waterbed area was firing accurately on the Australians holding Baby 700
and the 57th. managed to push back those advancing on battleship hill.
Translated from
"The Çanakkale War - the homeland is beyond the trenches", (Istanbul 2006),
Gürsel Göncü-Şahin Aldoğan, p.
42
Mustafa Kemal manages to interpret these reports correctly : If the enemy is
making for the heights, this is to be a real point of departure, a big
attack. He therefore sends the entire 57th Regiment instead of one batallion
as advised by his superior, Colonel Halil Sami, commander of the 9th
Division- towards the ridges West of Kocadere village to meet the enemy. At
07h45, Mustafa Kemal, sets off at the head of his troops and orders Major
Hussein Avni, commander of the 57th Regiment, to follow shortly thereafter
with the 3rd batallion of the Regiment. The Regiment approaches the front
from the valleys East of Chunuk Bair and moves on swiftly to the summit. Upon
arrival the 2nd Battalion, commanded by captain Ata Efendi, immediately
followed by the 1st batallion, commanded by Captain Zeki Efendi, start moving
forwards (from the landward side of Chunuk Bair) over a distance of 600 metres
to attack the enemy who is now on battleship hill. It is 10h24.
translated from "The Çanakkale War - the homeland is beyond the trenches",
(Istanbul 2006), Gürsel Göncü-Şahin Aldoğan, p.
41-42.
It is at this moment in time that Mustafa Kemal pronounced his now famous
order, :
I
do not order you to attack, I order you to die! In the time which passes until
we die, other troops and commanders can take our place.
Those who
visit the 57th Regiment or the Kesik Dere Cemeteries should remember that the
car park next to site was built on top of Turkish front lines trenches and
those who fell in them.
"Gallipoli Battlefield Guide", (Istanbul 2006), Gürsel Göncü & Şahin Aldoğan,
p.47
"I will die for this country, but please do not bury
in any cemetery different from my comrades just because I'm a Christian. I
want to be with you in death as I was in life" are supposedly words spoken by
Captain Doctor
Dimitroyati
Regimental doctor of the 57th Regiment- a Rum (*) from Istanbul.
In June 2001 in the "History of medicine
studies" (p.78) a complete list of medical army officers who died
between 1914 and 1917 was publised and there we learn that Captain Doctor
Dimitriyadi died on 25th May 1332 (**) in Aziziye.
Last updated : 04/02/08
At the northern end
of the cemetery there is a three tiered far-eastern style monument; near the
entrance a statue of the last known surviving Turkish veteran of the campaign.
Hüseyin Kaçmaz, who died in 1994; and a relief depicting the regiment's counter
attack on April 25.
... Just below the symbolic cemetery there is a 200 metre long parking lot,
built in 2004, which unfortunately covers the entire original trench network.
"Gallipoli Battlefield Guide", (Istanbul 2006), Gürsel Göncü & Şahin Aldoğan,
p.49
This website has been prepared by
the first authentic hotel on the Gallipoli peninsula
The 57th
Regiments
second counter attack started around
16h00/16h30, simultaneously with the one
of the 27th Regiment along the Lone Pine Johnstons Jolly
German officers Trench line. The 57th Regiment had suffered heavy
casualties during the first attack in the morning, the 2nd
battalion was nearly wiped out, but by now was
reinforced by
its own 3rd battalion and a battalion of the 72nd
Regiment and on the left contact had been made with the 27th
Regiment. With this attack Battleship hill and Baby 700 were taken back.
Translated from "The Çanakkale War - the homeland is beyond the trenches",
(Istanbul 2006), Gürsel Göncü-Şahin Aldoğan, p.
45
During the
First World War, Arab troops fought on every front in what are now Egypt,
Syria, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq, as well as in
eastern Turkey and Galatia. In Ottoman times, the government in Istanbul had
a concerted policy of transferring Arab troops away from their native land,
deploying them in Anatolia ...
... With an estimated 300,000 Arabs in the Ottoman forces in 1914, a third of
the total men under arms, there were far more Arabs serving in the ranks of
the Ottoman army than those who followed the banners of the Arab Revolt ...
... Two thirds of the troops who made up his (*) 19th Division that faced the
first wave of the Allied invasion were Syrian Arabs, comprising the 72nd and
77th regiments of the Ottoman army ...
... the remembrance of both the vanquished and the victors will not extend to
the Arab soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, lost in the rewriting of history.
Nowadays, walking among the few cemeteries established by the Turkish
government on the battlefield, one comes across graves of men from Baghdad,
aleppo, Damascus and Makka. They lie in a foreign country, each headstone
marked by a flag that is not their own.
Aljazeera, The forgotten Arabs of Gallipoli, 14th January 2004, Jonathan
Gorvett.
In this symbolic memorial to
the fallen, there is an inscription both in english and Turkish on two marble
plaques. Mention is made in many sources of soldiers who died as they were
bayonetting each other. In the Turkish plaque it is written that First
lieutenant Mustafa Asım from Erzincan and Captain J. L. Woiters were found in
this position as the memorial was being built, and that they were buried
together.
As for the plaque in English, the captain's name has turned to L. J.
Walters. However there is no L. J. Woiters or L. J. Walters in the list of
the allied officers killed here.
"Gallipoli through Turkish Eyes" (Istanbul - 2007), Haluk Oral, p. 399