Central inland sites
A one-way road, roughly following what was the front line, leads uphill from the Kabatepe Information Centre to the former strongholds (now cemeteries) scattered around Çonkbayırı hill.
Beside the road, a massive statue depicts a purported incident from the first day of landings – a Turk carrying a wounded Australian officer back to his lines – supposedly witnessed by another officer who later, as Lord Casey, became Governor-General of Australia. However, Casey didn’t mention the incident in his memoirs, and wasn’t even at that sector of the lines, so the statue is best viewed as an allegory of the chivalry that (sometimes) prevailed in the campaign.
Just beyond is Lone Pine (Kanlı Sırt), lowest strategic position on the ridge and the largest graveyard-cum-memorial to those buried unmarked or at sea. Action here was considered a sideshow to the main August 6–9 offensive further up Çonkbayırı; 28,000 men died in four days at the two points. Just up from Lone Pine is the Mehmetcik memorial to the Turkish soldiers who perished, while at Johnston’s Jolly (named after an artillery officer who liked to “jolly the Turks up” with his gun) there’s a heavily eroded section of trench beneath the pine trees. Most of the trenches on display are reconstructions; the originals are hidden and little visited. British/Anzac ones followed a zigzag course, while the Turks adopted the German dogtooth pattern. All along the ridge, opposing trenches lay within a few metres of each other; the modern road corresponds to the no-man’s-land in between.
Further along, on the right, is the 57th Turkish Regiment cemetery, whose men Mustafa Kemal ordered to their deaths, thus buying time for reinforcements to arrive. Here the religious aspect of the campaign for contemporary Turks is made clear, with an inscription eulogizing martyrdom and a small open-air prayer area. Just beyond, a left fork leads to The Nek – the scene of the futile charge and massacre of the Australian Light Horse Brigade at the conclusion of Peter Weir’s 1981 film Gallipoli.
To the right, the main road continues uphill past Baby 700 cemetery – marking the furthest Allied advance on April 25 – and to the massive New Zealand memorial obelisk and the five-monolith Turkish memorial atop Çonkbayırı hill (Chunuk Bair). An inscription chronicles Kemal’s organization of successful resistance to the August Allied attacks, and marks the spot where Atatürk’s pocket-watch stopped a fragment of shrapnel, thus saving his life.
The Gallipoli Campaign
Soon after World War I began, the Allies realized that Russia could not be supplied by sea, nor a Balkan front opened against the Central Powers, unless Ottoman Turkey was eliminated. Winston Churchill, then the British First Lord of the Admiralty, decided that the quickest way to accomplish this would be to force the Dardanelles with a fleet and bombard İstanbul into submission. A combined Anglo-French armada made several, repulsed attempts on the straits during November 1914, before returning in earnest on March 18, 1915, when they reached 10km up the waterway before striking numerous Turkish mines, losing several vessels and hundreds of crew.
The Allied fleet retreated and regrouped on the Greek island of Límnos to prepare an amphibious assault on Turkish positions along the peninsula. The plan involved an Anglo-French landing at Cape Helles, Seddülbahir and Morto Bay at the mouth of the straits, and a simultaneous Anzac (Australia-New Zealand Army Corps) assault at Kabatepe beach, 13km north. The Australians landed first at dawn on April 25, 1915, with the British and French landing an hour afterwards, followed by the New Zealanders later in the day.
This hare-brained scheme ran into trouble immediately. Anglo-French brigades at the southernmost cape were pinned down by Turkish fire, and the French contingent virtually annihilated; after two days they had only penetrated 6.5km inland, just before Krithia (Alçıtepe) village, and never got any further. The fate of the Anzac landing was even more horrific: owing to a drifting signal buoy, the Aussies and Kiwis disembarked not on the broad sands of Kabatepe, with gentle terrain inland, but at a cramped cove by Arıburnu, 2km north, overlooked by Turkish-held cliffs. Despite heavy casualties (around 2000 on the first day alone), the Australians advanced inland, as the Turks initially retreated. The next day, they threatened the Turkish stronghold of Çonkbayırı, where lieutenant-colonel Mustafa Kemal told his poorly equipped, illiterate troops: “I am not ordering you to attack, I am ordering you to die.” Turkish reinforcements soon arrived, and the Anzac force never made it further than 800m inland.
A supplementary British landing at northerly Cape Suvla was followed by ferocious assaults on the summit in the middle of August, which the Turks repulsed. Otherwise the confrontation consisted of stagnant trench warfare; neither side had sufficient artillery to gain a decisive advantage. Finally, in November 1915, the Allies gave up. The last troops left Seddülbahir on January 9, 1916. Churchill’s career went into temporary eclipse, while that of Mustafa Kemal was only just beginning.
The reasons for the Allied defeat are many. In addition to the chanciness of the basic strategy, the incompetence of the Allied commanders – who often countermanded each other’s orders or failed to press advantages with reinforcements – was significant. Much credit for the successful Turkish resistance goes to Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk, whose role in the two Turkish victories at Çonkbayırı is legendary (countrywide, he’s depicted hunched over in silhouette, patrolling that ridge). Enjoying a charmed life, he narrowly escaped death on several occasions and, aside from his tactical skills, succeeded – by threats, persuasion or example – in rekindling morale among often outgunned and outnumbered Ottoman infantrymen.
At various times, half a million men were deployed at Gallipoli; over fifty percent were killed, wounded or missing. Allied deaths totalled around 46,000, while the Turkish dead are estimated at 86,000. Fatal casualties among the Anzacs in particular – around 11,500 – were severe compared to the island-nations’ populations, but would be dwarfed by the 48,000 or so Anzacs killed on the western front later in the war. Claims that the Allied top brass regarded Anzac “colonials” as expendable cannon fodder – a major thesis of Peter Weir’s Gallipoli – don’t bear scrutiny; two Irish battalions suffered over fifty percent casualties on the first day, and the 42nd Manchester Division was almost completely wiped out. However, this baptism by blood had several long-term effects: a sense that Australia and New Zealand had come of age as sovereign countries; the designation of April 25 as Anzac Day, a solemn holiday in Australia and New Zealand; and a healthy antipodean scepticism about joining international adventures – though both countries were press-ganged by the US into sending troops to Vietnam.
Southern peninsula sites
Beyond the rural hamlet of Alçitepe, at the entrance to the southern section of the peninsula, assorted cemeteries, consequences of the landing at Cape Helles, and the huge British Cape Helles Memorial, lie scattered towards Seddülbahir. The views are magnificent, with abundant Ottoman fortifications hinting at the age-old importance of he place. Tucked between the medieval bulwarks is the V Beach of the Allied expedition, behind which lies the biggest of the local British cemeteries.
There’s not much to ALÇITEPE, other than a museum and a few souvenir stands. War graves in the immediate vicinity, however, include the British Pink Farm cemetery, named after the reddish soil on which the site lies, and the Turkish Sargı Yeri cemetery.
The small Salim Mutlu War Museum houses the private collection of the late Salim Mutlu, a local farmer who turned his house into a museum to display objects found in the battlefields by fellow farmers. While slightly amateurish and a bit rustic, the collection affords an insight into the sheer amount of artillery that was let loose during the 1915 battle.
The sleepy village of SEDDÜLBAHİR, at the far southern tip of the peninsula, consists of a few basic pansiyons and restaurants, and an Ottoman-era fortress overlooking a quaint harbour. A fine specimen of Ottoman military architecture from the early modern era, the fortress – like its sister fortress, Kumkale, across the Dardanelles on the opposite shore – was built in 1658 by the mother of Sultan Mehmed IV, Hadice Turhan Sultan.
A southeast turning just before Seddülbahir leads to the striking French Cemetery, above the sandy Morto Bay, with its massive ossuaries, rows of black metal crosses (with North and West African troops disproportionately represented), and memorial to the sailors of the Bouvet, sunk on March 18, 1915. At the end of this road, the 41.7m-high Çanakkale Şehitler Anıtı, or Çanakkale Martyrs’ Memorial, which resembles a stark, four-legged footstool, commemorates all the Ottoman dead.
Visiting the battlefields and cemeteries
Whether you visit the battlefields independently or on a tour, Çanakkale, and Eceabat in the south of the peninsula, make the best bases; modern Gelibolu town at the northern end of the peninsula is too far away.
The numerous open-air sites have no admission fees or fixed opening hours. Even with your own transport, you’ll need a day – two for enthusiasts – to see the major cemeteries and cenotaphs. You’ll also want time to wander a little, take in the natural beauty and, in season, swim. Outside the villages of Eceabat and Seddülbahir there are few amenities, so lunch stops must be carefully planned.
It’s also possible to visit the sites using a combination of minibus rides and walking. Minibuses run from Eceabat to Kabatepe dock, via the Kabatepe Information Centre/Museum, and from Eceabat to Kilitbahir. From the information centre, you can walk around the main sites just north within a couple of hours. At Kilitbahir, minibuses meet the Çanakkale car ferries in summer and take passengers to Seddülbahir via Alçıtepe, from where you can tour the surrounding cemeteries and memorials on foot. It’s also usually possible to rent mountain bikes in Eceabat, but some roads are steep, and secondary tracks can be rough and muddy in winter.