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—— ON THIS DAY ——
APRIL 25, 1915
Gallipoli, Ottoman Empire
110 years ago
ANZAC troops landing at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, April 25, 1915 — a photograph taken on the first day of a campaign that would last eight months and kill over 130,000 men on all sides.
On April 25, 1915, approximately 70,000 Allied troops — including the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) — landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Ottoman Empire as part of a British-led campaign to open a sea route to Russia, knock the Ottomans out of the war, and relieve pressure on the Western Front. The campaign was Winston Churchill's plan, as First Lord of the Admiralty. It was also, as it turned out, one of the worst planned and most catastrophically executed Allied operations of the First World War.
The ANZAC troops landed in the wrong place — their boats were carried north of the intended beach, depositing them at a narrow cove beneath steep, scrub-covered hills defended by Ottoman troops who had been expecting them. Within hours, the landing had turned from an advance into a desperate fight to hold a narrow beachhead. The campaign lasted eight months. When the Allies evacuated in December 1915 and January 1916, they had gained nothing and lost approximately 56,000 men. Ottoman and Turkish nationalist forces lost approximately 86,000.
—— MARQUEE EVENT ——
The ANZAC Cove memorial at Gallipoli today — visited each year by tens of thousands of Australians, New Zealanders, and Turks for ANZAC Day commemorations.
The campaign was shaped by what military historians call a fundamental failure of intelligence, logistics, and command. The cliffs above Anzac Cove — later named for the corps that held them — were nearly impassable. The coordination between naval and land forces was inadequate. The Ottoman defense, commanded by Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), was fierce and tactically brilliant. Kemal's famous order to his troops — 'I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that passes until we die, other troops and commanders can come and take our places' — embodied the determination that held the heights.
The evacuation, when it finally came, was the campaign's one operational success. The withdrawal of 83,000 men from the peninsula — carried out over two nights in December and January — was achieved without a single casualty, through an elaborate deception that left the Ottomans believing the trenches were still occupied. The soldiers left self-firing rifles behind, dripping water to trigger them, and withdrew to the beaches while their enemies listened to what sounded like normal activity. The Gallipoli evacuation is still studied in military schools as a model of its kind.
For Australia and New Zealand, Gallipoli became the founding national myth — not despite the failure, but because of it. The courage, resilience, and mateship of the ANZAC soldiers in an impossible situation became the story those young nations told themselves about who they were. ANZAC Day — observed on April 25 — is arguably the most significant civic occasion in both countries. The paradox of a national myth built around a defeat has been noted by many observers; the emotional truth it contains has never diminished.
—— WHY THIS MATTERS ——
Gallipoli was Churchill's plan, and his career almost didn't survive it. He resigned from the Admiralty in November 1915 and went to serve in the trenches on the Western Front. The disaster followed him for the rest of his political life and contributed to the deep distrust of his judgment that made him so difficult to promote until 1940. The man who saved Britain from Hitler was haunted for 25 years by the battle he lost at Gallipoli.
The campaign gave Mustafa Kemal his reputation and ultimately his country. Kemal's defense at Gallipoli made him the most celebrated Ottoman military commander of the war and provided the political capital he needed to lead the Turkish War of Independence and found the Republic of Turkey. Without Gallipoli, Atatürk as we know him might not have existed.
ANZAC Day demonstrates that collective identity can be built from defeat as effectively as from victory. Most national mythologies require a triumph. Australia and New Zealand built theirs from a catastrophic failure in a foreign campaign, in a country most of their soldiers had never heard of, fighting for an imperial power that didn't fully acknowledge their sacrifice. That the myth is genuine — felt, not just performed — is one of history's more interesting observations about how nations construct themselves.
—— THE TAKEAWAY ——
On April 25, 1915, young men from the far side of the world landed on a beach in the wrong place, climbed impossible cliffs under fire, and held on for eight months against an enemy defending its own homeland. They won nothing militarily. They created something that has lasted 110 years. ANZAC Day is proof that what a nation decides to remember — and how it decides to remember it — shapes identity more powerfully than what actually happened.
—— QUOTE OF THE DAY ——
"I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die."
— Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), to his troops at Gallipoli, April 25, 1915
—— OUR QUIZ OF THE DAY ——
How much do you know about Gallipoli, the ANZAC forces, Mustafa Kemal's defense, Winston Churchill's role, and the long cultural legacy of a battle that both sides remember with equal intensity?
