Gallipoli (Çanakkale)
Ottoman forces defeat a British and French attempt to force the Dardanelles and take Istanbul; Mustafa Kemal makes his name as a commander.
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East — Eugene Rogan, Basic Books (2015)
- Gallipoli Campaign 1915 — Australian Government, Department of Veterans' Affairs (Anzac Portal)
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
- Turkey: A Modern History (4th edition) — Erik J. Zürcher, I.B. Tauris (2017)
In early 1915 Britain and France tried to knock the Ottomans out of the war by forcing the Dardanelles strait and seizing Istanbul. On 18 March their battleships were turned back by mines and shore batteries, a date Turks celebrate as victory day. On 25 April Allied troops, including Australians and New Zealanders (the ANZACs), landed on the Gallipoli peninsula.
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East — Eugene Rogan, Basic Books (2015)
- Gallipoli Campaign 1915 — Australian Government, Department of Veterans' Affairs (Anzac Portal)
A young lieutenant colonel, Mustafa Kemal, rushed his division to the heights above Anzac Cove and held them; he later recalled ordering his men, “I don’t order you to attack, I order you to die.” Months of trench warfare followed in heat, flies and disease, until the Allies withdrew in January 1916.
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East — Eugene Rogan, Basic Books (2015)
- Gallipoli Campaign 1915 — Australian Government, Department of Veterans' Affairs (Anzac Portal)
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East — Eugene Rogan, Basic Books (2015)
The victory came in the same months as the deportation of the Armenians, a connection Turkish commemoration rarely makes. Words of reconciliation attributed to Atatürk, telling the mothers of fallen Allied soldiers that their sons “are now lying in our bosom”, are inscribed on a memorial at Anzac Cove, although their exact authorship has been questioned.
- The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East — Eugene Rogan, Basic Books (2015)
- Atatürk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey — Andrew Mango, John Murray (1999)
Why it matters today
"Çanakkale geçilmez", "Çanakkale cannot be passed", is one of the most powerful phrases in Turkish. The battle is remembered as a heroic national sacrifice in which ordinary Anatolian soldiers saved the homeland, and almost every town has a monument to its "martyrs". It is also where Atatürk's legend began. Every 18 March Turks mark the naval victory, and the peninsula is a place of pilgrimage for Turks and for Australians and New Zealanders alike.