The tows came in after the moon had set, steam pinnaces dragging strings of rowing boats packed with men who had never been under fire. Shortly before half past four, a single shot cracked from the dark ridgeline above the shore, then a scattering more, and the boats grounded on shingle in a rising storm of rifle fire. Australians and New Zealanders splashed through the shallows, fixed bayonets, and began clawing up slopes far steeper than anyone had promised them. Within hours, an Ottoman lieutenant colonel named Mustafa Kemal would send a regiment up those same heights with an order not to attack but to die. Neither the ANZAC legend nor Kemal’s extraordinary rise to power would exist in the form the world remembers without that single morning on the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Gallipoli: The Road to Battle
The Ottoman Empire had entered the war on Germany’s side in late 1914, closing the Dardanelles and cutting Russia off from its Western allies. By early 1915 the Western Front had settled into a deadly trench stalemate, and Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, championed a bold alternative: force the Dardanelles strait with naval power alone, knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war, and reopen the sea route to Russia through the Black Sea. Its supporters hoped that the mere appearance of an Allied fleet off Constantinople might bring down the Ottoman government. The naval assault failed badly on March 18, when Ottoman mines and shore batteries sank three Allied battleships and crippled several more. Rather than abandon the campaign, Allied commanders shifted to a full amphibious invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula, a decision that handed the Ottoman defenders weeks of warning to fortify the very beaches the Allies intended to land on.
The invasion force assembled under General Sir Ian Hamilton included British, French, and Indian troops alongside the newly formed Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, soon known simply as the ANZACs. Most were volunteers from young countries that had never before fought as distinct national forces in a major war, and few had seen combat of any kind. On the other side, the German general Otto Liman von Sanders, appointed to command the Ottoman Fifth Army, used the lull after the naval defeat to dig in along the high ground overlooking the likely landing beaches and to hold mobile reserves inland, ready to strike wherever the Allies came ashore. The stage was set for an invasion force to land directly beneath prepared defenses rather than catching the Ottoman army by surprise.
The Battle of Gallipoli
The ANZAC landing went in shortly before dawn on April 25, 1915, about two kilometers north of the intended beach, at a narrow cove that would soon bear their name. It was smaller and more exposed than planned, and steep, broken terrain rose almost immediately behind it, giving the defenders commanding views of the sand below. Men struggling up a maze of gullies and knife-edged ridges lost contact with their units almost at once. Charles Bean, Australia’s official war correspondent, came ashore that same morning and stayed through the campaign, even after being wounded, recording the observations that later shaped how his nation remembered it. Mustafa Kemal, commanding the Ottoman 19th Division, grasped within hours how important the high ground was and rushed his troops to seize it. Committing his 57th Infantry Regiment to the counterattack, he reportedly told its men that he was not ordering them to attack but ordering them to die, so that other troops could take their place in the time they bought. By nightfall some 16,000 ANZACs were ashore, and around 2,000 had already become casualties.
Kemal’s defense held, pinning the ANZACs to a cramped beachhead for the rest of the campaign. A planned rapid advance inland became an eight-month stalemate, with trench lines eerily reminiscent of the Western Front the whole operation had been designed to bypass, in places only a few meters apart. At the most exposed posts, the opposing trenches were so close that hand-thrown bombs passed back and forth across them day and night. Private John Simpson Kirkpatrick, a British-born stretcher bearer with the Australian Army Medical Corps, spent those first weeks leading a donkey up Monash Valley and bringing wounded men down to the beach under sniper and shrapnel fire, until he was killed by machine-gun fire on May 19. That same day a massive Ottoman counterattack broke against the ANZAC line at a cost of roughly 10,000 casualties, leaving so many dead in no man’s land that both sides agreed to a truce on May 24 to bury them. Through the summer, heat, flies, and dysentery took a steady toll alongside enemy fire.
The largest attempt to break the deadlock came with the August Offensive. A fresh British landing at Suvla Bay on the night of August 6 met only light opposition but stalled under hesitant command, and at the Nek on August 7 successive lines of dismounted Australian Light Horsemen were cut down within yards of their own trenches. At Lone Pine, Australian troops seized the Ottoman trenches in savage close-quarters fighting that earned seven Victoria Crosses, while New Zealanders of the Wellington Battalion reached the summit of Chunuk Bair on August 8, only to be driven off two days later by a counterattack Kemal led in person. When the Allies finally evacuated the peninsula in December 1915 and January 1916, the withdrawal was carried out with almost no losses and is often called the most successful operation of the entire campaign. By then the fighting had produced roughly a quarter million casualties on each side, including more than 8,700 Australian and nearly 2,800 New Zealand dead, without achieving any of the campaign’s original strategic objectives.
The Legacy of Gallipoli
The failure carried real political consequences. Winston Churchill became the chief scapegoat despite not bearing sole responsibility for the decision to invade, leaving the government in November 1915 to command an infantry battalion on the Western Front before slowly rebuilding his career. For Mustafa Kemal, the defense of the peninsula’s high ground launched a rise that within a decade made him the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, later known to the world as Atatürk. For Australia and New Zealand, neither of which had fought as an independent national force in a major war before 1915, the campaign forged a national identity built around the ANZAC legend. Few battlefields have turned a military defeat so completely into a story of national character, for two young nations on one side of the line and for the officer who would found a republic on the other.
Visiting Gallipoli Today
The battlefields lie within the Gallipoli Historical Site, a protected area of more than 33,000 hectares at the southern end of the peninsula, managed by Turkey’s Çanakkale Wars Gallipoli Historical Site Directorate, and its cemeteries and memorials are free to visit. ANZAC Cove, Lone Pine, the Nek, and Chunuk Bair all sit along the ridges above the old beachhead, and in places preserved trench lines still show just how close the opposing sides fought. The 31 Commonwealth war cemeteries on the peninsula hold some 22,000 graves, many of them unidentified, while memorials at Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, and Cape Helles record the thousands who have no known grave. Near the water’s edge, Beach Cemetery holds the grave of Private Simpson, the stretcher bearer whose donkey made him a legend. Turkish cemeteries and memorials stand across the same ground, including the memorial to Kemal’s 57th Regiment.
Most visitors join a guided day tour from Çanakkale or from Eceabat, two towns facing each other across the Dardanelles and linked by regular car ferries. It is a sensible choice given how spread out the sites are and how much context a knowledgeable guide adds to what would otherwise be a series of quiet fields and cemeteries. Independent visitors with a car can reach the main ANZAC sector easily, though the British and French sectors at Cape Helles and the later landing ground at Suvla Bay lie farther afield. ANZAC Day, observed each April 25, draws large dawn-service crowds from Australia and New Zealand and requires significant advance planning, typically including attendance registration arranged through the Australian and New Zealand governments, but outside that period the site is open and accessible year-round.
Remembrance of Gallipoli
Gallipoli is remembered by both sides that fought there. Each April 25, ANZAC Day begins with a dawn service at the Anzac Commemorative Site on North Beach, where many in the crowd keep an overnight vigil in the open to be there when it starts, followed by an Australian service at Lone Pine and a New Zealand service at Chunuk Bair, while Turkish commemorations that day include a ceremony at the 57th Regiment memorial. Turkey’s own principal commemoration falls on March 18, marking the defeat of the Allied fleet in the Dardanelles, with ceremonies centered on the towering Çanakkale Martyrs’ Memorial near the tip of the peninsula. On the shore at ANZAC Cove, a memorial carries a 1934 message attributed to Atatürk, offering comfort to the mothers of the invading soldiers and describing their sons and Turkey’s own fallen as resting side by side in Turkish soil. It is quoted at memorial services in all three countries, though historians have found no solid documentary evidence that he wrote it in the form usually circulated, so it is best understood as cherished reconciliation lore rather than a verified quotation.
Further Exploration: Documentary titled “Gallipoli” (Ekip Film, dir. Tolga Örnek, 2005); Film titled “Gallipoli” (Associated R&R Films, dir. Peter Weir, 1981)
Location: ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park, Canakkale Province, Turkey
Site Status: National Park / Managed Historic Site
Visitation Notes: The Gallipoli Peninsula Historical National Park is a UNESCO-listed, government-managed site covering over 33,000 hectares, run by Turkey’s Canakkale Wars and Gallipoli Historic Region Directorate. Free to enter, it includes ANZAC Cove, Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair, and dozens of cemeteries with 23,000 individually marked graves, along with the 2-kilometer ANZAC Walk connecting eleven key sites and preserved trench lines close enough in places to show how near the two sides fought. Most visitors come on a guided day tour from Canakkale or Eceabat, which is worth it given how spread out the sites are and how much context a good guide adds. ANZAC Day (April 25) draws large dawn service crowds from Australia and New Zealand and requires advance planning, but the park is open and free year-round otherwise.
Google Map
Visitor Comments
This is a near-sacred site for New Zealanders and Australians says AllanJGJ from Wellington, New Zealand. It was especially moving for me since my grandfather died here in 1915. The Turkish authorities maintain the cemeteries and memorials beautifully, it’s clear they take real care of the site.
— from TripAdvisor
Aaron K found the cove breathtaking, quiet and peaceful, offering a visceral sense of what young men on all sides went through there.
— from Google Reviews
This was a real bucket list item for me says Kerri C of Dubbo, Australia. Seeing the wildflowers growing along the roadside and the remains of the trenches still visible was genuinely surreal, it felt like a fitting way to honor everyone who fought there, on both sides.
— from TripAdvisor
shaneoh1980 from London, United Kingdom says that visiting during the ANZAC Day commemorations is something every Australian or New Zealander should try to do at least once, it’s genuinely surreal in a way words don’t really capture. The hike up to Lone Pine and then Chunuk Bair is unlike anything else I’ve experienced. Strongly recommend it.
— from TripAdvisor
