The Aussie Hajj

We had the very good fortune of being in the right part of the world for Anzac Day, and with 6,800 other people met at Aya Sofia in Istanbul around lunch the day before and rumbled off in convoys of white busses for the 5 hour journey down to Anzac Cove.

Before we get into the meat of the post, just a quick shout out to the Turks. The Chinese can build anything, but if they are not available, ask the Turks. We were excited about Laos and its prospects because it had a lot going for it and we wanted them to succeed, but in Turkey you can feel that they are going to succeed because they really do have their act together. Everything works, much of it looks like Paris but with friendlier people, and right from central Turkey to Istanbul it just seems like it is well run. In particular, they know how to mount a security operation. There were companies of infantry at Gallipoli (not entirely inappropriately, we suppose, with a few thousand Aussies about) and the security measures were thorough and efficient. They even banned alcohol. But moving on.

We got on site around 8pm and then had about 10 hours to kill. The Aussie and Kiwi governments set up large stands around the main stage on the North Beach. We proceeded to spend the rest of the evening and wee hours braving the freezing wind in the stands. As it turned out we massively misjudged how cold this part of the trip would be. Not that we suffered anything near as much as the Anzacs did while there, but holy crap it was cold that night.

Just after these photos were taken we donned sleeping bags and, still feeling frost-bitten, bought blankets from a smiling assassin souvenir vendor. Only $35 for two disintegrating moth-ball odoured blankets which we promptly dumped at the end of the Dawn service. Bargain.

A bunch of people came in early and slept on the grass in front of the stage. Their cunning plan backfired when they had to stand up around 3am as streams more visitors arrived. Ha ha!

More people arrived throughout the night. There were lots of amazing things to see and listen to. There was a well organised entertainment package all night, with documentary exerpts, live interviews and military band performances. Teams of volunteers on site handed out brilliant show bags with books and postcards and bio-degradable rubbish bags. And most stunning of all, around midnight a young girl arrived, sat behind us, and managed to talk non-stop until 4am, without ever saying anything of any substance whatsoever. Fifteen seconds was the longest recorded silence, 7 seconds the average. Really erudite stuff like telling her friend twelve times his sleeping bag looks gay, the type of thing that makes you want to hurt small animals. But moving on.

As the sun came up you could see the coastline the Anzacs had to run up. Some did, and made it up the top in the morning, but those advance parties mostly did not come down again. Later in the morning we went up there and it is a really long way.

There were of course wreaths laid.

And here is the beach just north of Anzac Cove. Just to make things a bit harder for an amphibious assault, the beach is made of sharp stones and the water is freezing.

The hero of the Turkish forces at Gallipoli was Mustafa Khemal, later known as Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic. He personally led the charge that put an end to the Anzacs' August offensive. He became a national hero after that battle. This is one of the most famous speeches he gave. Quickly after the war he tried to engender a spirit of goodwill between the Brits, French, Aussies, Kiwis and Turks. Aussies are frighteningly popular around here, despite the fact that the official Ottoman casualty figures were 88,000 dead, but unofficially 250,000 dead, and a couple of hundred thousand injured. About 8,700 Australians died here.

The national park has a number of cemetaries, filled mostly with Australian troops. Many of the cemetries are at the sites of individual engagements.

The festivities include 4 services: The Dawn Service, the Aussies service at Lone Pine (below), the Turkish service, then the New Zealand service. This is also the Turkish national week, and official festivities, particularly the military ones, focus on Gallipoli.

The Lone Pine cemetary is a couple of kilometres walk up some hills, then it is nearly 2 hours up hill to the New Zealand ceremony, past the Turkish ceremony which we missed. It was hard going. On the way up you can still see the trenches.

But up the top you get a great view of Suvla Bay, the site of another assault during the Gallipoli campaign.

If Matt's overtired memory serves, part of that assault included the Aussies and Kiwis pushing up to the high ground. This is the Nek, where about 300 Australians died in a few minutes, charging machine gun positions with bayonets. The piece of land is, as they say, the size of a tennis court. That charge is the final scene in the movie Gallipoli.

At the same time the New Zealanders were to assaullt the highest hill in the area, but the New Zealand colonel refused to follow the order to assault during daylight, and waited until conditions were more sensible. A battalion started up the hill, and 700 died, with the commander being killed by a British battleship's shell when he got to the top. A day or so later Ataturk led an Ottoman charge that dislodged them, leading to the inescapable view that all those young men did for very little.

Just to add to the carnage, the Turkish tactic for dislodging Anzacs holding the high ground was human wave, so their losses were extraordinary as well. Ataturk was hit by shrapnel, but in a Blackadder-esque moment it hit is pocket watch and just left a large bruise.

This is the walk up the Chanuk Bair, the New Zealand position referred to above.

This is a farily common choice of outfit on site.

The New Zealand ceremony was probably the best. Less prayers and more personal stories from diaries and post-war accounts. It was finished with an unscripted haka from a bunch of young visitors, whiche received loud applause.

People say that this is a kind of pilgrimage, and that's what our tour T-shirts said that is what it was, hence the reference to the Hajj in the title. It's something that really helps you understand Turkey (because it created the personality cult that allowed Ataturk to completely change the country), and something that is worth doing once. Visiting Gallipoli has also made us appreciate just how incredibly difficult the conditions would have been for the Anzacs, and how futile and disastrous the entire campaign was. They were truly courageous and inspirational men.

The only downside on the brilliant organisation on site was that our bus driver tried to pick us up 10km away from where the group was waiting, so we didn't leave the site until 4pm and got back to Istanbul around 11. Those of you who have seen us tired and emotional (Sal ...) would be amazed at how we coped after 40 hours awake. We are still married, just.