We will remember them…
At the end of last week a group of young students presented their thoughts on Gallipoli at a special school assembly. It was a moving experience. The Gallipoli Campaign in World War I was a valiant, but flawed attempt to bring about victory for the British and allied forces from France, Australia and New Zealand. In 1915, attempting to seize a strategic advantage, the British planned an attack on the Gallipoli peninsula (since the peninsular narrowed to an important and tightly controlled passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean). The first soldiers landed, exactly a 100 years ago, on 25 April 1915. After eight months of heavy fighting, the troops were withdrawn around the end of the year.
The Australian and New Zealand forces became known as the ANZACS (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) and today marks 100 years since this military offensive took place. This Centenary is a special memorial with thousands attending services at Anzac Cove in Turkey, as well as the large crowds at dawn parades in New Zealand and Australia.
This picture is the northern end of the Gallipoli peninsula and gives some idea of the huge advantage that Turkish troops had over the forces that were exposed below them on the beach and lower slopes. (The Anzacs had not embark at Anzac Cove and this spot was some 2kms from the planned landing).
The final battle statistics were grim. The British sent 468,000 men to the battle and over 33,000 killed; the Anzacs lost 8,000 men at Gallipoli with a further 18,000 wounded. The French lost the second most number of soliders. It was a tragedy.
However, this post is not just about the mathematical statistics of war, grim as they are. Rather, it is to remember the great sacrifices made by so many and to highlight the age of some of the soldiers. After all, any war is really about people. The youngest Australian soldier had just turned 13! Many others were not much older that the high school readers of this blog. For example,
In his book Soldier Boy: The True Story of Jim Martin the Youngest Anzac, Anthony Hill explains how young Jim was imbued at school with pride in being part of the British Empire and was keen to join the military training scheme for boys of twelve and above.
Jim enlisted at 14, giving a false age, and had not reached his fifteenth birthday when he died of typhoid fever in a hospital ship off Gallipoli in October, 1915.
“We will remember them”