Gallipoli Peninsula Articles
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Gallipoli, ‘a campaign Britons are still to make peace with’.
Daily Telegraph date?
Over breakfast a retired Australian soldier offered warm words for what he called the ‘mother country’.
‘I know we like to boast how us Anzacs took the brunt of it here in 1915,’ said Grant, tucking into a plate of village eggs, homemade preserves, honey and Aegean fruits. ‘But you Poms had it as hard as anybody, whatever people might say.’
Such courtesies are the stock-in-trade of battlefield tourists; but on Turkey’s historically strategic Gallipoli Peninsula, which invaders have been grabbing since the time of Xerxes and which this year sees the centenary of the most recent attempt to do so, Grant’s words made a particular point; us Brits are still to make our peace with Gallipoli, that epic but ill-fated attempt to force the adjacent Dardanelles Strait and thereby knock Turkey out of the Great War. While the landings and the subsequent nine-month trench campaign have long been seen in Australia and New Zealand, and in Turkey alike, as a triumphant testing of the national mettle, the campaign is widely regarded in Britain as a fiasco of Winston Churchill’s making. Blame the eponymous Mel Gibson movie, for many the main point of reference, in which heroic ‘diggers’ – the nickname was inspired by the Anzacs’ trenching achievements at Gallipoli – are sacrificed to Turkish machine guns by monocle-wearing British martinets.
In fact Grant was right; of the estimated 120,000 lives lost and the 250,000 wounded during the campaign, British casualties were much higher than Anzac ones. Many died, moreover, in feats of conspicuous gallantry, with the landings on W Beach of the First Lancashire Fusiliers yielding, in the memorable phrase, ‘six VCs before breakfast’. What better time to discover this over-looked epic that turns out to be as nationally relevant to Brits as it is to Anzacs or Turks? With the wealth of description posted at many of the 40-mile peninsula’s 80 or so cemeteries, lone graves, memorials and monuments, and with almost every village boasting heart-breaking if makeshift collections of recovered war relics including uniforms, munitions, buckles, lockets, cap badges, false teeth, cigarette tins and much else, the Gallipoli experience is as richly informative as it’s stirring.
The centenary celebrations, that said, are sure to make the area busier than it has been for, well, a hundred years. With interest levels further stoked by forthcoming Gallipoli-themed movies like Russell Crowe’s directorial debut ‘The Water Diviner’, better not to compete with the record-breaking crowds expected for the main annual ceremonies of commemoration which the Turks observe on 18th March and the Anzacs on 25th April. Find a few midweek days (Turkish visitors descend in busloads at the weekends) either in the spring or autumn when you’ll find little or no traffic on the country roads which connect the separate battle zones at Anzac, Suvla Bay and Cape Helles.
The real surprise, though, is discovering the pristine landscapes, increasingly rare along much of the Turkish Aegean, of this rigorously protected ‘national history park’. The peninsula’s pine forests, scented scrublands of wild pistachio and rhododendron, almond orchards, olive groves and unspoiled beaches make it just the place to combine battlefield touring with general holidaymaking. Pack walking boots and a bird book, swimmers, and a mask for snorkelling over the coastal wrecks at the legendary Anzac Cove. Take in some ancient archaeology at nearby Troy or board ferries for the short crossings to Bozcaada or Gokceada, Turkey’s only two Aegean islands. The area even runs to a resurgent wine scene and a decent line in local fish restaurants.
Given the number of sites, with 31 cemeteries administered by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) alone, it pays to choose. I headed south to Cape Helles, site of the main British landings on 25th April 1915. At Seddulbahir, a port village slumbering beneath fortress walls at the mouth of the Dardanelles, I drove sheep-filled lanes to the hilltop grave of Charles Doughty-Wylie. Doughty-Wylie, buried where he fell, won a VC for leading the successful assault on V Beach. Doughty-Wylie is also remembered for his passionate attachment to the legendary explorer Gertrude Bell whom, local legend has it, came veiled and mysterious to kneel at his grave shortly after the allied evacuation in early 1916; a man with a story, then, and one that film maker Werner Herzog includes in his forthcoming ‘Queen of the Desert’, with Doughty Wylie played by Damian Lewis.
I followed the coast road north to the Anzac sector, thick with beautifully tended CWGC cemeteries like Shrapnel Valley. Here a low wall of inscribed Portland stone enclosed a tended sward planted with yellow irises, rosemary bushes and pink-blossoming Judas trees. Lines of low headstones (the crumbly local soil doesn’t support the crosses favoured for the northern European battle grounds) bore the names of men ‘believed to be buried’ in the cemetery; the phrase, a Gallipoli commonplace, succinctly evoked the carnage and the chaos of the campaign, and a battlefield scattered even today with countless thousands of unknown graves.
But at nearby Anzac Cove, a meagre strip of shingle which almost unimaginably had served as the main landing beach for the entire Anzac operation, the mood was of reconciliation. Tourists – Turks, Australians and Brits among them – had assembled at Ariburnu before the great stone monolith inscribed with the generous words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the commander who had inspired the Turkish defence at Gallipoli and would subsequently lead the nation out of its Ottoman past. ‘Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives,’ they read in silence, ‘You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country.’ The visitors turned away, some in tears, but not before Ataturk’s words had prompted some of them to shake hands with their former enemies.
ENDS
Getting There: Pegasus (flypgs.com) and Turkish Airlines (thy.com) fly daily to Istanbul. Occasional direct flights Istanbul-Canakkale (borajet.com.tr/index-en.php). It’s a four-hour drive from Istanbul to Gallipoli (rentalcars.com). Regular five-hour buses to Canakkale from Istanbul’s main otogar in Esenler.
Where to Stay: Gallipoli Houses (thegallipolihouses.com, 90 286 814 2650; doubles £60 B&B) is a delightful small hotel in rustic Kocadere; Hotel Crowded House (crowdedhousegallipoli.com, 90 286 814 1565, doubles from £20 B&B) is a good budget option in Eceabat; Hotel Kervansaray (canakkalekervansarayhotel.com, 90 286 217 8192, doubles from £25B&B is a period town house hotel in Canakkale; Hotel Kum (hotelkum.com, 90 286 1455, doubles from £55 H/B), a faded but friendly resort hotel near Kabatepe.
Getting Around: Half-hour Dardanelles crossings on continuous car ferry services (passengers 50p, cars £6) link Canakkale with Eceabat and Kilitbahir on the peninsula.
Tours: Holts Battlefield Tours (holts.co.uk, 01293 865000) 6-day tour departs 30 May 2015 costing £1995 including flights. Peten Tours (petentour.com, 90 212 248 9636) has a 7-day tour led by Col Peter Knox, departing Sept 19 costing £1815 not including flights. Historical Trips (historicaltrips.com, 01722 713890) 8-day Damn the Dardanelles Tour, led by historian Gary Sheffield, departs 6 September and costs £2350 including flights. 5-day tailor-made Gallipoli tours through Exclusive Escapes (exclusiveescapes.co.uk, 020 8605 3700) from £2,000pp including flights, accommodation and driver/guide.
Local guides offering regular and tailor-made tours include the knowledgeable Kenan Celik (kcelik.com, 90 286 217 7468) and ‘Tj’ Ilhami Gezici (anzacgallipolitours.com; 90 542 297 5874/286 814 3121). Contact Bulent Korkmaz (bulentbill@yahoo.com, 90 535 416 6473) for tailor-made walking itineraries.
Best Cemeteries and Memorials (always open, no charge):
Cape Helles: Doughty-Wylie Grave, Seddulbahir; Lancashire Landing Cemetery for the ‘6 VCs before breakfast’; and the massive Turkish memorial, Sehitleri Aniti, set in impressive rose gardens.
Anzac: Beach Cemetery, Anzac Cove, for peaceful shore setting and memorial to John Simpson, the legendary ‘man with the donkey’; Turkish monolith with Ataturk speech, Ariburnu; Shrapnel Valley; Lone Pine, the main Anzac cemetery; the cemetery of the 57th Regiment, commanded by Ataturk; the Nek, setting of the legendary Anzac charge immortalised in the movie ‘Gallipoli’; Chunuk Bair, for views over the beaches, intact trenches and the Turkish memorial to the bullet-stopping fob watch which famously saved Ataturk’s life; The Farm, the most remote and peaceful of the peninsula’s cemeteries.
Best Museums: of the numerous private collections of war relics the one in Ozay Gundogan’s Tea Gardens at Buyuk Anafarta village (daily, 60p) is outstanding. The contrastingly high-tech Legend of Gallipoli Centre at Kabatepe (9-11.30, 1-5 daily, £4) has swish displays and a walk-through simulation experience, complete with audio guides and 3-D glasses, giving a Turkish-Islamist version of the campaign’s key moments.
Swimming: Anywhere along the vast dune-backed A Beach at Suvla Bay, though keep an eye out for occasional jellyfish infestations.
Snorkelling: Daily tours from Crowded House Hotel (crowdedhousegallipoli.com, 90 286 814 1565, £10 pp) to snorkel over the wreck of the Milo in Anzac Cove.
Best walking: 15-minute walk from Shrapnel Valley to Plugge’s Plateau Cemetery; 30-minute forestry track from Clark’s Valley via Shell Green to Lone Pine Cemetery; 15-minute woodland walk from Chunuk Bair to The Farm Cemetery. For more demanding ridge routes, it is advisable to hire a guide.
Excursions: the archaeological site of Troy (muze.gov.tr/troia-en, £6, open daily) is a half-hour drive south of Gallipoli; 30-minute ferry crossings (£2.50pp return, timetables canakkaletravel.com/feribotingilizce.htm) to Bozcaada Island, with its picturesque port, local wineries and fine beaches, every two hours from Geyikli Yukyeri 45-minutes south of Canakkale. Tastings of local wines at Suvla winery (suvla.com, daily from 8.30am-10pm) near Eceabat.
Reading: Holts Battlefield Guide and Map, Gallipoli (£14.95, guide-books.co.uk/gallipoli.html)
Eating: Sardunya Ev Yemekleri for Canakkale home cooking (sardunyacanakkale.com, 90 286 213 9899, £5 per head): Liman (limanrestaurant.net, 90 286 814 2755, £10 per head) is a bustling fish restaurant on Eceabat’s harbour front; Doyuranlar, Kabatepe (90 286 814 1652, £5) offers outdoor gozleme (savoury pancakes). Excellent meals available most evenings at Gallipoli Houses.
Canakkale Tourism Information, Iskele Meydani 67 (90 286 217 1187). www.canakkale2015.gov.tr
www.gototurkey.co.uk