It was just before dawn on April 24th 1915 when troops from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) waded ashore on Gaba Tepe beach to begin an eight-month ordeal that would test them to their very limits.
They were followed by the British and French in more allied landings all across the Gallipoli peninsula. The ensuing campaign would involve over 500,000 allied troops in all and would leave 141,000 laying injured or dead by its end.
When World War One broke in 1914, Australia and New Zealand were both fledgling countries. Australia became an independent nation in 1901, while New Zealand was granted independence from Britain in 1907. Australia still saw itself as part of the British Empire and there was no question it would fight for the mother country. A fifth of those who flocked to the signup stations in 1914 had actually been born in Britain.
The war gave the Australia’s ordinary men, or 'diggers', the chance to 'do their country proud', and by joining the global conflict, Australia and New Zealand would establish themselves on the world stage. Many young men were inspired to join up out of a sense of adventure and a desire to be in on the action. These young men had no concept of the horrors that lay ahead.
After months of planning and under the cover of darkness the ANZACs faired better than their allied counterparts who suffered huge losses as they crossed the heavily-mined enfilade under Turkish machine guns in the morning light. The Royal Navy had bombarded the beachheads in the hours before the landings. This was the knock on the door; the Turks were ready for whatever was coming. The landing crafts came under heavy fire from the shore and men piled over the sides into the deep water and sank to their death under the weight of their equipment. The preliminary bombardment had failed to cut the wire along the shore and the surviving British Fusiliers were fired on from three sides as they tried to cut the wire or crawl underneath to take the defending trenches.
Over at Gaba Trepe, the ANZACs had landed a mile off course and were now faced with steep cliffs but the mistake had put them ashore at a relatively undefended area with good cover. The troops from the first wave began to move inland and fifteen minutes after the landing, the Royal Navy began bombarding enemy targets in the hills.
As the allies moved inland the ANZAC plans were discarded. In the confusion, the companies and battalions were thrown into battle piece-meal, and received mixed orders. Some units advanced to their objectives while others were diverted to other areas as reinforcements, then ordered to dig in along defensive ridge lines.
As night fell on the longest day, the spearhead was in disarray and there were thousands dead on both sides. And so began eight months of hell. A protracted campaign of uphill battles, stagnant trench warfare and miserable destruction for both sides would rage on through the summer. The campaign was perhaps our greatest defeat.
The courage and gallantry displayed by the allied troops is legend. The infamous 'six before breakfast’ saw six Victoria Cross medals earned in the initial hours of the landings by the 1st Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers alone. It was in the fight for Gallipoli that Australian and New Zealand troops proved their mettle alongside their battle-hardened British allies, side by side and man to man.
As night fell on the longest day, the spearhead was in disarray and there were thousands dead on both sides. And so began eight months of hell. A protracted campaign of uphill battles, stagnant trench warfare and miserable destruction for both sides would rage on through the summer. The campaign was perhaps our greatest defeat.
The courage and gallantry displayed by the allied troops is legend. The infamous 'six before breakfast’ saw six Victoria Cross medals earned in the initial hours of the landings by the 1st Battalion, the Lancashire Fusiliers alone. It was in the fight for Gallipoli that Australian and New Zealand troops proved their mettle alongside their battle-hardened British allies, side by side and man to man.
The campaign is often considered as marking the birth of national consciousness in Australia and New Zealand and the date of the landing, 25 April, is known as "Anzac Day" which is the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veterans in those two countries, surpassing Remembrance Day.
“Not a sign of life was to be seen on the peninsula in front of us. It might have been a deserted land we were nearing in our little boats. Then crack!… The signal for the massacre had been given; rapid fire, machine-guns and deadly accurate sniping opened from the cliffs above, and soon the casualties included the rest of the crew and many men.
The timing of the ambush was perfect; we were completely exposed and helpless in our slow-moving boats, just target practice for the concealed Turks, and within a few minutes only half of the 30 men in my boat were left alive. We were now 100 yards from the shore, and I gave the order ‘overboard’. We scrambled out into some four feet of water and some of the boats with their cargo of dead and wounded floated away on the currents still under fire from the snipers. With this unpromising start the advance began. Many were hit in the sea, and no response was possible, for the enemy was in trenches well above our heads.
We toiled through the water towards the sandy beach, but here another trap was awaiting us, for the Turks had cunningly concealed a trip wire just below the surface of the water and on the beach itself were a number of land mines, and a deep belt of rusty wire extended across the landing place. Machine-guns, hidden in caves at the end of the amphitheatre of cliffs, enfiladed this.
Our wretched men were ordered to wait behind this wire for the wire-cutters to cut a pathway through. They were shot in helpless batches while they waited, and could not even use their rifles in retaliation since the sand and the sea had clogged their action. One Turkish sniper in particular took a heavy toll at very close range until I forced open the bolt of a rifle with the heel of my boot and closed his career with the first shot, but the heap of empty cartridges round him testified to the damage he had done. Safety lay in movement, and isolated parties scrambled through the wire to cover. Among them was Sergeant Richards with a leg horribly twisted, but he managed somehow to get through.”
- Captain Richard Willis VC
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