lest we forget

We passed through Gallipoli only days before the centennial, and the peninsula was full of visitors from Australia, New Zealand, and the UK. As I watched the people who were so obviously not from around here, with their sunburned skin and khaki shorts, so far away from home, I felt a knot in my gut. I don't really know what it means to them, this history; how this piece of land and its blood-soaked soil can pull so many back to it, all the way from the far ends of the Earth— and all regions of Turkey. It is terrible and heart-breaking, and yet so wonderful— wonderful that the names carved into stone monuments and tomb markers will not be forgotten, that those whose names were lost to time, will be thought of.



I do not have much of a national identity nor a tie to specific histories, and there were many times throughout my life that I envied my friends who knew they were from somewhere— they knew what they belonged to. I can only imagine what it must feel like to buy that ticket and plan the trip to Gallipoli, to arrive under a clear blue sky and walk between the immaculate white stones, gazing at the bay...

It must be overwhelming.



Though I am not a Turk, an Australian, a New Zealander, or from anywhere connected to the history of this peninsula, I am always deeply moved when I visit Gallipoli.

gallipoli

April 25th is Anzac Day, a day which honours all the Australians and New Zealanders who have fought and lost their lives in war, though the day specifically marks the landing of the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) forces in Gallipoli. This cove, renamed ANZAC Cove in 1985, is where thousands of Australians and New Zealanders travel to each April for commemorative services on the 25th.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who became a national hero during the Gallipoli Campaign and eventually founded the Turkish Republic, offered these words to the ANZACs:

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

The first time I heard this song, I was nine. We were living in Istanbul then, and a teacher played it during a history class— I don't know which version it was, but the effect it had on me was powerful to say the least. It still brings tears to my eyes.

silhouettes on the dardanelles

When you have a long weekend handed to you, you must take advantage of that extra day and do something worthwhile like taking road trip. As soon as I got home from work, the car was packed with spare clothes, sketching materials, binoculars, a telescope and a tripod— I also threw in a copy of Letters of Vincent Van Gogh for good measure. We headed west towards the Dardanelles.

After spending the night in Eceabat, we drove along the coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula, curious about this narrow piece of land where more than 130,000 soldiers lost their lives during World War I. The bloody, eight-month Gallipoli Campaign began in 1915 as the British Empire attacked the peninsula with the hopes of capturing the strategic city of Constantinople, landing thousands of Australian, New Zealand, Indian, and French soldiers on Gallipoli's shores.



Remnants of bunkers and forts like Fort Namazgâh (pictured here), still dot the countryside. It's hard to imagine the violence in this serene landscape, under such a blue sky, but among the olive trees, thousands of gleaming white headstones stand to remind. This land is a graveyard.



The advancing Allied battleships entering the Dardanelles must have looked much like the silhouettes of benign cargo ships on the horizon today. What did the Turks feel upon seeing those dark shapes? And the men on the ships— what ran through their heads?