Everything about Gallipoli totally explained
Gallipoli peninsula is located in
Turkish Thrace, the European part of
Turkey, with the
Aegean Sea to the west and the
Dardanelles straits to the east. The name derives from the
Greek Kallipolis (
Καλλίπολις), meaning "Beautiful City".
History
Antiquity, Byzantium and crusaders
Kallipolis, or in Greek
Callipolis, was a city in the eastern part of the
Thracian Chersonese ("Chersonesus Thracica" in Greek, now known as the Gallipoli Peninsula), on the right shore, and at the entrance of the Dardanelles.
The Byzantine Emperor
Justinian II fortified the city and established there important military warehouses for grain and wine.
In 1304, Kallipolis briefly came under the control of the renegade
Catalan group of mercenaries known as the
Catalan Company, who, at that time, had just previously revolted against their Byzantine clients. In 1307, the
Catalan Company, fearing retaliation by Byzantine forces, razed the city to the ground, and retreated to the relative
safety of the area surrounding the city of
Cassandria, leaving the city in ruins.
Ottoman era
After the devastating 1354 earthquake, the Greek city was almost abandoned, but swiftly reoccupied by Turks from
Anatolia, the Asiatic side of the straits, making Gallipoli the first Ottoman possession in Europe, and the staging area for their expansion across the
Balkans.
The peninsula which was inhabited by populations of the
Byzantine Empire was gradually conquered by the
Ottoman Empire starting from
13th century onwards until
the 15th. The
Greeks living there were allowed to continue their everyday life.
Gallipoli (in Turkish,
Gelibolu) was made the chief town of a
Kaymakamlik (district) in the
vilayet (a Wali's province) of
Adrianople, with about 30,000 inhabitants, Greeks, Turks, Armenians and Jews.
Gallipoli became a major
encampment for British and French forces in
1854 during the
Crimean War, and the harbour was also a stopping-off point on the way to
Constantinople.
The peninsula didn't see any more wars up until
World War I when the
British Empire allies trying to find a way to reach its troubled ally in the east,
Imperial Russia, decided to try to obtain passage to the east. The Ottomans set up defensive fortifications along the peninsula with
German help.
In 1920 after the defeat of the
Russian White army of General
Pyotr Wrangel, a significant number of
emigre soldiers and their families evacuated to Gallipoli from the
Crimea. From there many went to European countries where they found refuge, such as
Yugoslavia. A stone monument was erected and a special "Gallipoli cross" was created to commemorate the soldiers who stayed in Gallipoli. The stone monument was destroyed during an earthquake, but in January of 2008 reconstruction of the monument had begun with the consent of the Turkish government.
Battle of Gallipoli
The
Allied landing and subsequent campaign on the peninsula during
World War I is usually known in
Britain as the
Dardanelles Campaign and in Turkey as the
Battle of Çanakkale. In
Australia,
New Zealand,
South Africa and
Newfoundland, the term
Gallipoli alone is used to describe the 8 month campaign.
In early 1915 Russia was fighting a multi front war against Germany, Austria/Hungary, and Turkey. While it had a sizable army it struggled to deliver sufficient supplies to the troops. The landings at Gallipoli were an Allied attempt to clear a supply path through the Dardanelles to Russia. This would also assist them by putting pressure on Turkey by threatening Istanbul. On
April 25,
1915, after failed attempts to force a passage through the Dardanelles by naval forces alone, a force of British Empire and
French troops landed at multiple places along the peninsula. The battles over the next 8 months saw high casualties on both sides due to the exposed terrain, weather and closeness of the front lines. The invasion forces were successfully blocked by the Turkish troops and the subsequent Allied withdrawal meant the Russians wouldn't be receiving supplies through the Dardanelles.
The battle is often referred to for its successful stealthy retreat which was completed with minimal casualties, the
ANZAC forces completely retreating by
December 19,
1915 and the remaining British elements by
January 9,
1916.
Overall, there were around 300,000 Allied casualties including around 100,000 deaths and 150,000 Turkish casualties including around 20,000 deaths. This campaign has become a "
founding myth" for both
Australia and
New Zealand, and
Anzac Day is still commemorated as a holiday in both countries. In fact, it's one of those rare battles that both sides seem to remember proudly. The Turks consider it a great turning point for their (future) nation and Australians and New Zealanders see it as the beginnings of the
ANZAC spirit.
Many mementos of the Gallipoli campaign can be seen in the museum at the
Australian War Memorial in
Canberra, Australia, and at the
Auckland War Memorial Museum in
Auckland, New Zealand. This campaign also put a dent in the armour of
Winston Churchill, then the
First Lord of the Admiralty, who had commissioned the plans to invade the Dardanelles. He talks about this campaign vividly in his memoirs.
The Gallipoli campaign gave an important boost to the career of
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, a little-known army commander who became a national hero, was promoted to
Pasha, and became the founder of the modern Turkish state with the collapse of the
Ottoman Empire, at the end of World War I. Kemal halted and eventually repelled the Allied advance, exceeding his authority and contravening orders to do so. His famous speech "I don't command you to fight, I command you to die. In the time it'll take us to die we can be replenished by new forces" shows his courageous and determined personality.
Anzac Day
On April 25, 2005, to mark the 90th
anniversary of the Gallipoli landing, government officials from Australia and New Zealand, most of the last surviving Gallipoli veterans, and many Australian and
New Zealand tourists travelled to Turkey for a special dawn service at Gallipoli. ANZAC Day is the most important national day of commemoration for Australians. The then Prime Minister of Australia, John Howard, and the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark were also in attendance, and Clark was accompanied by the official NZ defence force party, veterans of several past wars and 10 New Zealand college students who won the New Zealand 'Prime Minister's Essay Competition' with their work on Gallipoli. Attendance at the
ANZAC Day dawn service at Gallipoli has become popular since the 75th anniversary. Upwards of 10,000 people have attended services in Gallipoli.
Until
1999 the Gallipoli dawn service was held at the Ari Burnu war
cemetery at
Anzac Cove, but the growing numbers of people attending resulted in the construction of a more spacious site on
North Beach, known as the "Anzac Commemorative Site".
In the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, an 11,000 people capacity portable tribune has been built in the Anzac Cove and Lone Pine Memorial region. The preparation work for the Anzac Day Ceremonies in the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park has been going on.
In the run up to the 2007 Anzac Day service, the Turkish authorities said that they'd be expecting about 15,000 Australian and New Zealand Citizens for the ceremonies which would take place in the Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park. Extensive preparatory works had been undertaken prior to then.
Influence on the arts
The Battle of Gallipoli is the subject of a
1981 movie, entitled
Gallipoli, directed by
Peter Weir and starring
Mel Gibson. The film has been criticised for portraying the campaign as a mainly Australian one. In fact around 21,000 British died, 10,000 French, 8,700 Australians, 2,700 New Zealanders and 1,370 Indians. Nearly twice as many Turks died (85,000) as all the Allies combined. However it must also be noted that, relative to its population, Australia suffered more losses than any other nation in World War I.
Eric Bogle wrote in
1972 his famous
And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda after having watched, in Australia, a parade of elderly veterans of the Gallipoli campaign. Versions of this song were later separately recorded by
June Tabor and
The Pogues, as well as Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy.
The
BBC produced a feature-length television drama,
All the King's Men, (not to be confused with the
novel of the same name by
Robert Penn Warren), that focused attention on a unit (the "
Sandringham Company") that was decimated at Gallipoli and which included men from
King George V's estate at
Sandringham House.
The campaign is also the subject of a 2005
documentary, also named
Gallipoli, by the Turkish filmmaker
Tolga Örnek, showing the bravery and the suffering on both sides through the use of surviving diaries and letters of the soldiers. For this film he's been awarded an honorary medal in the general division of the Order of Australia.
(External Link
)
Gallipoli is also a basis for the story "Solomons Song" by Bryce Courtenay
Swedish heavy metal band
Sabaton, who typically writes music about famous battles, based their song
Cliffs of Gallipoli on the Battle of Gallipoli. It was released on their 2008 album
The Art of War.
Ecclesiastical history
Callipolis remains a Roman Catholic
titular bishopric in the former Roman province of
Thrace.
Callipolis was a suffragan of
Heraclea.
Lequien (I, 1123) mentions only six Greek bishops, the first as being present at the
Council of Ephesus in 431, when the See was united to that of
Coela (Coelia or Coele), the last about 1500. His list could easily be increased, for the Greek Orthodox See still exists; it was raised in 1904 to the rank of a
metropolis, without suffragans, after the manner of most Greek metropolitan Sees.
Lequien (III, 971) also gives the names of eight Latin bishops, from 1208 to 1518. (See
Eubel, I, 269, note.) There are numerous schools and a small museum; a large cemetery is the resting place of many French soldiers who died of disease (chiefly cholera) during the
Crimean War. The port is poor and trade unimportant, for want of roads. A Catholic mission was conducted in the Ottoman days by
Assumpionist Fathers; there are also a number of Armenian and Greek Catholics, with priests of their respective rites.
Further Information
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