CANAKKALE
Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders gathered at a dawn service on Wednesday in Turkey's northwestern Gelibolu Peninsula to commemorate their ancestors who died in the Canakkale Campaigns of the First World War.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard also participated in the service and she addressed the crowd who waited in their sleeping bags for the ceremony to begin which marks the 97th anniversary of Canakkale battles.
"This place where rivals met in equal terms and in respect shines with valor," Gillard told the service at a bay named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or the ANZAC, that formed the backbone of a 200,000-man British-led army that landed at Gelibolu.
"Turks have honored our losses and owned them as their children. No other nation could have protected our sanctuaries better and hosted us here more generously in our sacred visits," Gillard said.
-Canakkale Campaign-
"Canakkale Campaign", also known as "The Gallipoli Campaign", took place at Gelibolu peninsula in Turkey from April 1915 to January 1916, during the First World War.
A joint British and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and secure a sea route to Russia. Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) formed the backbone of a 200,000-man British-led army that landed at Gelibolu. The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides. The campaign resonated profoundly among all nations involved.
Nearly 1 million soldiers fought in the trench warfare at Gelibolu. The allies recorded 55,000 killed in fighting with 10,000 missing and 21,000 dead of disease. Turkish casualties were estimated at around 250,000.
The campaign was the first major battle undertaken by ANZAC and is often considered to mark the birth of national consciousness in both Australia and New Zealand. As "ANZAC Day", April 25 remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties in these countries. Each year, thousands of people, many of them Australians and New Zealanders, travel to the battlefields in northwestern Turkey on ANZAC Day, the anniversary of the April 25th, 1915, start of the campaign.
The battle is considered as a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people. The struggle laid the grounds for the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under Ataturk, himself a commander at Gelibolu.
