The campaign began with a failed naval attack by British and French ships on the Dardanelles Straits in February-March 1915 and continued with a major land invasion of the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, involving British and French troops as well as divisions of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC). The Gallipoli campaign was intended to force Germany’s ally, Turkey, out of the war. It began as a naval campaign, with British battleships sent to attack Constantinople (now Istanbul). This was expected to eliminate the Turkish land and shore defences and open up the Dardanelles for the passage of the navy. The tables were turned in the midst of the campaign, due to the superior military strategy and motivation of the Turks. The brave Turkish forces eventually managed to force the Allied forces to retreat in December 1915. Tens and thousands of British, French, Australian, and New Zealanders were left humiliated. The British troops also consisted of the bravest Gurkha and Sikh sepoys from the cavalries of British India.
The rout was so complete that the British naval commander in the region suffered a nervous collapse, and Great Britain had to urgently sue for peace; (Battle of Gallipoli, April, 2020) What makes this Turkish victory so significant is the number of enemy troops, drawn from the best fighting forces in the world, and equipped with the state-of-the-art naval equipment, were prevailed over by the Turkish forces. (History.com, last updated April, 30, 2020. https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/battle-of-gallipoli-1)
The second part of this article that follows is primarily based on _Empire and War: Turkish and Indian Experiences and Remembrance of the First World War_, Burcu Çevik-Compiègne, A thesis submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 2016, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences University of Technology, Sydney.
The victory of the naval battle of Gallipoli on 18 March 1915 was the first victory that broke the long chain of defeats in the late Ottoman period. Ömer Seyfettin, a Balkan War veteran and a Turkish nationalist writer, in his short story “After Gallipoli” [“Çanakkale’den Sonra”], metonymically describes the morale boost that Gallipoli gave to the nation through the main character’s coming back to life after a long depression (2005, pp.159-66, originally published in 1917).
“With the Turks blood was kneaded this clay, My mother bore me for this day”.
Reportedly, this was the most cited lyrics of a song during the battle of Gallipoli which inspired the Turk soldiers on the battlefront. In the early 1980s, Mustafa Aksoy, a Gallipoli veteran, also said that before an offensive, the captain of his unit told them “your mothers bore you for this day” (in Önder 1981, p.77)
Mehmet Zekeriyya, in his article entitled “The Psychology of the Battle of Gallipoli,” argues that in modern warfare courage and heroism became secondary to technical means and fortifications (2006, p.289). However, he explains, although the Turkish army was technically inferior, they won the battle because of their spiritual superiority.
Despite Mustafa Kemal
Speaking at a seminar entitled “Gallipoli: Turkish Perspectives,” organised on 24 April 2014 in Sydney by the Bayram Cultural Association, academic historian Harvey Broadbent, who focused on the Turkish side of the war from a military perspective, remarked that “Mustafa Kemal did not win the war all by himself, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back”. He implied that the outcome of the campaign would have been the same with or without Mustafa Kemal.
Gallipoli. Ottoman soldiers offer prayers on the successful completion of the Gallipoli Battle where they defeated the combined Western naval forces
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