Gallipoli
Gallipoli itself is a heartrending place. We were almost alone to wonder the graveyards and look at the memorials and the old battlefields. There were worse places to land the Anzacs than Anzac cove but they would be hard to find. Just five kilometres to the south and they could have walked across the peninsula; unimpeded by cliffs. Ten to the north and they could have at least landed unimpeded. The goal was to silence the Turkish guns that dominated the Dardanelles straight. Had the Turks been taken by surprise it might have been a walkover.
History would have been changed and I would not be here to write this account; nor you here to read it. But the sands and cliffs of Canakkale would not be soaked in as much Australian; New Zealand; French; British and Turkish blood.
Ataturk sacrificed his entire 57th regiment to halting the initial Allied advance. He famously said: ‘I don’t expect you to attack (the enemy) I expect you to die’.
There is also a large memorial on the peninsula to the 34 British ships sunk or damaged with huge loss of life. The lower plaque reads: 'In honoured memory of the units and ships that fought on Gallipoli or in the Dardanelles and of those 20,504 British sailors and soldiers and 248 Australian soldiers who fell in this neighbourhood and have no known graves' .
It is appropriate that annually Australians mourn nearly 62,000 dead in World War One at Gallipoli and to ask: 'why we were here?' But it is also important to remember that, contrary to myth, other combatants' losses were far higher. British military deaths were 42% higher as a percentage of population and far higher in numbers; nearly 900,000 over the duration of the war.
As a percentage of population, French military deaths were double those of Britain. Both suffered significant civilian casualties. In addition to its young soldiers, France lost some 300,000 civilians dead. Serbia, with a population almost identical to Australia's, lost 275,000 soldiers and 450,000 civilians. On the other side, Germany lost over two million young men as combatants while Austria-Hungary lost over a million.
The Turkish, Ottoman Empire, military losses were 771,844 killed. In addition, over 2.1 million civilians died. To bring that into perspective, their population then was less than ours is today; about four and a half times that of Australia in 1915.
How would we cope today with 800,000 of our young men dead; in addition to loosing the entire population of Brisbane?