Dawn Service To Remember The War Dead

 Thousands of Australians and New Zealanders gathered at a dawn service on Wednesday in Turkey’s northwestern Gallipoli Peninsula to commemorate those who died in the Canakkale campaign during World War I.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard also participated in the service, which marks the 97th anniversary of the Çanakkale battle. Gillard addressed the crowd, who waited in sleeping bags for the ceremony to begin.

“A place where foes met in equality and respect and attained a certain nobility through their character and conduct,” Gillard said at a service held at Anzac Cove, named after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or the ANZAC troops, that formed the backbone of a 200,000-man, British-led army that landed at Gallipoli.

“The Turkish honored our fallen and embraced them as their own sons. … No nation could have better guarded our shrines or more generously welcomed our pilgrims,”

Gillard said.

The Çanakkale Campaign, also known as the Gallipoli Campaign, took place on Gallıpoli Peninsula in Turkey from April 1915 to January 1916 during World War I. A joint British and French operation was mounted to capture the Ottoman capital of Istanbul and secure a sea route to Russia. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) formed the backbone of a 200,000-man, British-led army that landed at Gallipoli.

The attempt failed, with heavy casualties on both sides, but it resonated profoundly among all nations involved. Nearly 1 million soldiers fought in trench warfare at Gallipoli. The allies recorded 55,000 killed in fighting with 10,000 missing and 21,000 dead from disease. Turkish casualties were estimated at around 250,000.

The campaign was the first major battle undertaken by the ANZAC troops and is often considered to mark the birth of national consciousness in both Australia and New Zealand. And Anzac Day, April 25, remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties in these countries. Each year, thousands of people, many of them Australians and New Zealanders, travel to the battlefields in northwestern Turkey on April 25, the start of the military campaign.

The battle is considered a defining moment in the history of the Turkish people. The struggle laid the ground for the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, himself a commander at Gallipoli. <Cihan/Today’s Zaman>

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