I am seated by the large window in my fifth floor hotel room in the Turkish city of Canakkale, looking out over the picturesque Dardanelles Strait at the hills of the Gallipoli peninsula.
Gallipoli lies on the European side of the Dardanelles — close to where 3,000 years ago, the ships of the Achaean Greeks arrived to cross the waterway and begin the Trojan War. The ruins of Troy lie in Canakkale province on the Asian side of Turkey, some 30-km southwest of where I now am.
It was in these now tranquil waters that on March 18, 1915, a fleet of British and French battleships — Irrestible, Inflexible, Queen Elizabeth and Charlemagne — tried to force their way through the strait towards Constantinople. Bombarded from the Turkish shore batteries on either side of the strait they sailed into a newly laid minefield — and by the end of day three, their battleships were sunk and several others crippled. “The day,” according to Britain’s official naval historian Captain Cecil Aspinall, “ended in compete failure for the Allied fleet.”
The day before, I had taken the ferry from Canakkale to the town of Eceabat on the other side and visited the century-old battlefields of the First World War on the Gallipoli peninsula.
In April 1915, Britain decided to land a force of soldiers, for the most part colonial troops (the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps or ANZACs, drawn mainly from Australia and New Zealand but with a fair number from the Indian subcontinent), on the west coast of Gallipoli with the intent of capturing the peninsula and moving north to conquer Constantinople, the prize capital of the Ottoman empire.
By the time they evacuated their troops in December 1915, they had lost almost 45,000 men — 8,000 from Australia, 2,800 from New Zealand and 1,400 from India. The Turks paid a heavy price for their victory — over 86,000 Ottoman soldiers lost their lives. One regiment, the Turkish 57 Regiment, lost almost all its men during the Gallipoli war — there is a magnificent monument and memorial cemetery here to remember their sacrifice.
My visit to Gallipoli coincided with the Australian remembrance ceremonies that took place on August 6 this year at the Lone Pine cemetery. The Gallipoli campaign looms large in Australia’s national consciousness, because it was here that Australians first fought as an independent nation in a major war. ANZAC Day (April 25, when the ANZACs first landed here) is commemorated annually in that country with services and military parades.
Many of those who died on Gallipoli were buried en masse and have no known resting place. There are well-maintained cemeteries today all over the peninsula, but the monuments do not mark actual graves — they are merely gravestones that document the names of those who were killed here.
Sadly, there is no memorial on Gallipoli for the more than 1,400 Indians who died here. “The average Indian knows very little about the Gallipoli World War I campaign,” says Wing Commander Rana Chhina (retd).
Up to 15,000 Indians fought at Gallipoli, and in addition to those who lost their lives, about 3,500 were wounded — but their contribution remains relatively unknown and unrecognised. They comprised the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, a mountain artillery brigade and — of particular significance — the Mule Corps which consisted of 650 men and more than 1,000 mules that were used to transport supplies to the front-line troops.
The Mule Corps established themselves in an area known as Mule Gully, which came under constant sniper and machine gunfire during the day, as a result of which most supplies were carried to the front lines by night. “The Mule Corps were the unsung heroes of Gallipoli,” adds Wing Commander Rana “If it hadn’t been for them, the ANZACs would not have been able to hold on in the manner that they did.”
The relationship between the Indians and the ANZACs appears to have been good, judging from photographs and sketches from the time, which show Indian and Australian soldiers together. The ANZACs would come and share the Indian soldiers’ rations because the roti and daal was more palatable than their own salted bully beef and biscuits. Today, the memorials and gravestones here are a poignant reminder of the young men, not only from the lands of the Ottoman Empire but also from Britain and her colonies, who fought and died on this barren peninsula.
