Emin Avundukluoğlu
18 March 2020•Update: 18 March 2020
ANKARA
Turkey’s parliament speaker on Wednesday marked the 105th anniversary of the Canakkale Victory and Martyrs’ Day and commemorated the fallen soldiers who lost their lives during naval and ground battles in Canakkale, also known as the Gallipoli Campaign, during World War I.
The victory at Canakkale, a pivotal battle for Turkish forces in northwestern Turkey, was "a huge epic, and enormous resistance that rewrote history," said Mustafa Sentop in a statement.
"Canakkale is a place where a nation which [others] wanted to ignore before history was reborn from its ashes," he said.
He added: "Canakkale is a consciousness, faith and will [of the Turkish nation]."
Sentop also commemorated Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, and martyrs during battles in Canakkale in World War I.
- Gallipoli Campaign
Tens of thousands of soldiers died in one of the world's most ferocious battles 105 years ago in the Gallipoli Campaign in Ottoman Turkey during World War I.
The battle stretched from April 25, 1915 to Jan. 9, 1916.
Britain and France wanted to secure their ally Russia, as the Gallipoli peninsula provides a sea route to what was then the Russian Empire.
Their aim was to capture the capital of the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul.
The events leading up to the momentous battle started in February 1915, when Britain and France decided to launch the Gallipoli Campaign to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war as quickly as possible by reaching and capturing Istanbul.
The Allied Forces started their attack on March 18 – the day commemorated as Canakkale Naval Victory Day – but the waters were filled with a network of mines laid by Ottoman vessels and some greatest battleships sank as a result.
On April 25, 1915, nine months into World War I, Allied soldiers landed on the shores of the Gallipoli Peninsula. The troops were there as part of a plan to open the Canakkale Strait on Turkey's Aegean coast to Allied fleets, allowing them to threaten Istanbul.
Turks repelled a naval attack, and there were many casualties on both sides during the eight-month offensive. When the land campaign also failed, the invading forces withdrew.
The Allied Forces encountered strong and courageous resistance from the Turks, and the campaign turned out to be a costly failure. Tens of thousands of Turkish nationals and soldiers died, along with tens of thousands of Europeans, plus around 7,000-8,000 Australians and nearly 3,000 New Zealanders.
Victory against the Allied forces boosted the morale of the Turkish side, which then went on to wage a war of independence in 1919-1922, and eventually formed a republic in 1923 from the ashes of the old empire.
