Gallipoli

 Istanbul, Bospherous, Sea of Marmara, Dardenelles -  all these names conjure up such romantic visions of Arabian knights and magic carpets! Sadly this area has a pretty grim recent history.

The gateway between Europe and Asia had been tolerably peaceful for the last 500 years under the reign of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire. Today we regard Turkey as a rather 'second world' country but for 500 years they were a force to be reckoned with encircling more than half of the Mediterranean at their peak. 

By the end of the 19th century the empire was very much on the wane after fighting 3 successive wars in the Balkans (the  countries immediately to the north of Turkey in the Balkan mountains, principally Greece, Bulgari and Yugoslavia as was).

Just before WW1 the Turks bought and paid up front for two British battleships. When war broke out the Brits requisitioned the ship and somewhat unreasonably refused to refund the turks. As the Germans, having managed to sail two of their battleships up to istanbul, offered these ships to the Turks, the Turks took the German side in the war.

After the failure of the allied naval campaign to force passage through the Dardanelles, it was decided that a land force should be put ashore to knock out the Turkish defences on the Dardanelles and the fleet would then be in Istanbul 'in two weeks'. Taking Istanbul would open a route for the allies to attack the German rear and allow the Russians to get out of the Black Sea and join in the naval war effort.  Well, the land force was put ashore and the rest, as they say, is history.

The allies landed 80,000 men over a coastline of just 20 miles from Cape Helles at the mouth of the Dardennel straight and on past Anzac cove to Suvla Bay. Over the next 9 months the allies landed a million men. After 250,000 casualties , of which 50,000 died, we had advanced 3 km at Helles and 5km at Anzac. The only successful part of the operation was the evacuation. Incredibly, despite predictions of 30% losses if the Turks discovered the withdrawal,  the entire force was evacuated without the loss of a single life.

A tour round the battlefield, whilst on the face of it showing us nothing but an arid scrubland on a peninsular like any other actually showed us so much.

Standing on ANZAC beach, named after the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps that landed there, we could look up at the sandy cliffs that towered over the thousands of young men who came ashore and fought their way to the top.

The beach, just like so may others, but this one bore witness to such slaughter and hardship.

25 cemeteries are dotted along the coastline marking the graves of those known to be buried there. A monument stands at Cape Helles naming the many, many thousands with no known resting place, their names in a list that goes on and on all round the monument.

Back at Canakkale we came across this wizened old lady with a set of scales laid out in front of her. In all my years of travelling this is a new one on me - for a few pennies you can check how many pounds the last bag of Turkish delight added to your middle!

Mike has now left for home and I am picking up Gordon for the trip south to Rhodes where we will leave the boat for the winter.

There is some good wind forecast so we are hoping for a good couple of days sailing and as we head south, hopefully, some warmth!