After dancing the night away with Turkish families and each other in the Kum Hotel dining room, we began the day eating breakfast with our new Turkish friends before getting onto the bus to head south down the Peninsula. Our first stop was the Turkish Memorial, dedicated to the men from across the Ottoman Empire who died defending their homeland.
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| Bruce explains the Turkish memorials to the group |
The vast size of the memorial came as a shock with a ‘graveyard’ of glass memorials containing the names of the 60,000 men known to have been killed in the war (although some estimates say upwards of 100,000 died on the Turkish side). The site also contained a huge stone memorial of four columns supporting of a roof painted with the Turkish flag. This memorial was built by the Turks to dominate the peninsula as it could be clearly seen from across the Straits.
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| SOAPs below the sculpted relief on the Turkish memorial |
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| The Turkish memorial |
When we arrived it was easy to see how we missed the memorial the first time we went past, as it was surrounded by a high, whitewashed wall on the top of a hill. Once inside we were struck by the difference to the Australian memorials we had seen previously. The French memorial was filled with fleur-de-lis shaped crosses, fashioned out of star pickets and wire painted black with a large art-deco style tower that commemorated the thousands of French men who died there. This memorial is one of the more neglected on the Peninsula and the French’s involvement remains a lesser-known chapter in the history of the Gallipoli Campaign.
We stopped in a small village to warm up with some Turkish cay (tea) and coffee. Some of us enjoyed it more than others – namely Tom - who downed three cups of the stuff, which bore a strong resemblance to mud. Our next stop was the British memorial which consisted of an obelisk on a very windy hillside. It had been constructed with a shiny, white rock as to be clearly seen by boats passing through the Dardanelles. On its sides, the names of the British soldiers and sailors killed in the campaign were inscribed in the stone. Just down the hill from the memorial was the landing site of the British ship the Clyde which was pinned down by fire from two forts on either side of the beach, trapping the men attempting to land from the boat. It was said in one account that the water had run red with blood for 50 metres.
We then headed to Krithia for lunch, which featured a rather interesting drink made of yogurt, water and salt that was nearly as ‘tasty’ as the Turkish coffee. We headed into the countryside to the site of the Battle for Krithia. Bruce then led us on a field excursion into a pine plantation to show us one of the hidden gullies that had made the Allies advance toward Krithia so difficult.
After exploring the south of the peninsula we headed to the Northern Sector past ANZAC Cove, stopping at Hill 60 (no, not the one you’re thinking of which was made into a film) and Hill 10, braving the chilling winds to pay our respects at the cemeteries. As we went north past Suvla Bay, Bruce was shocked to notice the size of the birds next to the road until he realized that they were actually goats (guess that’s why he doesn’t teach vet science).
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| SOAPs on the balcony of Attaturk's Bigali house |
Our final stop for the day was the villages of Bigali where Ataturk stayed during the war and where his house is preserved as a tourist attraction to this day. It was interesting to see the inside of a traditional Turkish house with its rickety wooden stairs and low ceilings. We had a cup of tea with the locals and a game of super ninja in the village square before heading back to the Kum for a night of secret rehearsals (see tomorrow’s entry to find out more).
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