Dust on My Feet: Anzac Day: A Time of Reflection

Irises now flower on the beach at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli Peninsula - island of Imbros on horizon.

A gentle Mediterranean breeze blows through the purple irises now flourishing along the Anzac Cove foreshore. The waters, aquamarine close inshore, graduate to a deep ultramarine where Imbros, now the Turkish island of Gökçeada, appears, smudge-like on the horizon. It is hard to believe that 105 years ago this benign stony beach was one of blood, noise and death.
I turn around as the gentle Aegean zephyrs waft inland, stirring the scrub covering former battlefields with evocative names, such as Plugge's Plateau, Quinn's Post, the Nek, Baby 700, Battleship Hill, Johnston's Jolly and, further up the Sari Bair Range, Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair. I can see the steep escarpment leading up to the ridge, dominated by the high distinctive bluff known as the Sphinx. I cannot even try to imagine the hell that the Australian and New Zealand soldiers went through, trying to gain a foothold, under fire, on this ridge which, through sheer grit, tenacity and the loss of many mates, they eventually did.

The Nek & the Sphinx dominates Anzac Cove

I have visited the Gallipoli battlefields many times since my first visit in 1979. I have always found it deeply moving to walk among the gravestones, especially when one sees the ages of some of these Anzacs. I have seen the graves of 16. 17, 18 year olds, Victoria Cross winners, Captains, Lieutenants, soldiers of the Indian mule corps, Newfoundlanders, Gurkhas and Sikhs, many with thought-provoking epitaphs: 'He Sleeps where Anzac heroes came to do or die'; 'He died a man & closed his life's brief day ere it had scarce begun'; 'Sunset and evening star and one clear call for me'; 'We know that it is well with you among the very brave, the very true'.

A selection of Anzac & British graves in the different cemeteries on the Gallipoli Peninsular

The Ottoman soldiers fought with a tenacity that surprised all the Allied soldiers who landed on the Peninsula and a healthy respect for 'Johnny' Turk soon developed. There was also the realisation that the Turkish soldiers were defending their Homeland from foreign invaders. Turkish losses were colossal and most of their graves are now located at the Çanakkale Martyrs Monument neat Cape Helles.

Graves of Turkish soldiers at the Canakkale Martyr's Monument on the Gallipoli Penusla

For Australians Lone Pine is their special memorial, with the names, not just of Australians but also of many New Zealand whose resting places are 'known only to God.' The original 'lone pine' (Pinus brutia) was destroyed during the fighting of August 1915, but today's tree, now part of the monument, is from a seed of the original tree. Many seeds were taken back to Australia, and a tree in the gardens at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne is one of these.

Lone Pine memorial and cemetery on the Gallipoli Peninsula

Further along Sari Bair ridge is the New Zealand monument at Chunuk Bair, which was one of the crucial objectives of the Battles of August 1915. Inscribed on the monument are the words 'From the Uttermost ends of the Earth', which are really most appropriate. It brings to my mind a passage from Maurice Shadbolt's Once on Chunuk Bair: "Imagine some Eskimo archaeologist four thousand years from now – Digging here and finding a barbarian tribe from the Pacific really did fight here."

Also inscribed on the Chunuk Bair monument are the names of the Maori dead of the battle, this being the first major action fought by the Maori Contingent, which later became the Maori Pioneer Battalion. There had been some controversy about the Maori Contingent being kept in Malta by the British War Office, who were not keen on 'native races' being involved in a 'European' conflict. Sir Ian Hamilton, overall commander at Gallipoli, records in his Gallipoli Diary: "Have asked that the Maoris may be sent from Malta to join the New Zealanders at Anzac. I hope and believe that they will do well. Their white comrades from the Northern Island are very keen to have them."

Monument to the New Zealand Expeditionary Force with Maori Contingent names, Chunuk Bair.

Turkish losses during the campaign were colossal. The Turks fought with a tenacity from the beginning, that caught the invaders by surprise, and was quite contrary to what they had been led to believe before the Campaign began. The Anzacs soon built up a healthy respect for the Ottoman soldiers and there was the realisation that the Turks were fiercely defending their homeland from foreign invaders. Most of the Turkish graves are now at what is known as the Çanakkale Martyrs Monument, further down the Peninsular towards Cape Helles.

The nearest town to the battlefields, on the European side of the Dardanelles, is Eceabat, a town that in recent years has thrived on the Anzac story. The main ferry crossing of the Dardanelles is between Eceabat and the larger town of Çanakkale on the Asian side and it is in the Çanakkale Consular Cemetery that the last New Zealand soldiers, 11 men of the Canterbury Mounted Rifles, were buried in December 1918. The Canterbury Mounted Rifles had been sent to Gallipoli in December 1918 to assist in locating and burying the allied dead but unfortunately another killer struck - that of the 'plague of the Spanish Lady', the horrific Spanish influenza pandemic that swept the world at the end of World War One.

The town of Eceabat has one of the largest and most interesting memorials of the conflict. Both Australian and Turkish trenches, complete with bronze soldiers from both sides, oppose each other in a static battle in the middle of town. Busts of Turkish heroes of the conflict line the waterfront, and the entire diorama is overlooked by a large statue of Mustapha Kemal (later Atatürk), the overall Turkish commander. It is a most impressive memorial.

The Australian trenches of the large War Memorial in Eceabat.

Today large container ships now pass unhindered through this strategic waterway, heading through to Istanbul and the Black Sea ports of Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia.

A container ship enters the Dardanelles heading towards Istanbul and the Black Sea

As they head along the Strait they cannot fail to see, on a hillside above the village of Kilitbahir, the Dur Yolcu monument of a soldier beneath a Turkish flag with the words by the poet Necmettin Halil Onan, which translated from the Turkish, reads: