Gallipoli

The Vegemite should have tipped us off. The hotel website declared proudly that they served a proper breakfast, including Vegemite. (for those of you who don’t know, Vegemite is the horrifically gross spread Australians put on toast in the morning). The second hint should have been the name of the hotel, ANZAC. We were a little slow on the up take. For our first foray out of Istanbul we decided to stop in the Dardanelles and visit the WWI battlefield of Gallipoli. (Andrew had heard about Gallipoli before, but eventually he admitted that really he remembered it because he thought Gallipoli was a fun word to say. For those of you who appreciate the movie Elf, Andrew thinks saying the word Gallipoli is even more fun then saying Francisco) We had missed the WWI battlefields in France and thought we should give these a go. The plan was to combine a battle field tour with a tour of Troy and then move on to the next town.
Because marriage and traveling is compromise, we traveled by ferry and then by bus to the Dardanelle town of Canakkale. I would have flown, skipping a bus ride (we all know how much I love my bus rides, and flying doesn‘t cost much more than a bus), Andrew would have taken the bus the 6+ hour trip, anything to avoid an airport. When we discovered we could combine a 2 hour ferry with a reasonable 3 hour bus ride, we found compromise. This meant we took a cab, a ferry, a cab to the bus station, a bus, and then a cab from the bus station to our hotel. We took as many cabs in one day as we have taken during the rest of the trip. It was kinda fun.

The next day we took a ferry to Eceabet and then met our tour group for the Gallipoli tour. Everyone else on the tour was Australian. The tour guide was sad there were no Kiwis. As the tour began it started to hit us, we were tagging along for a national pilgrimage of Aussies and we had no idea what anyone was talking about. To start, the tour guide wanted to quickly dispel some myths about Gallipoli. Since we didn’t know any myths about Gallipoli this was a strange experience. Also, since the guide had what I guessed was a Turkish/Australian accent, I really struggled at first to follow along. I finally wrote myself a little guide to help myself:
When I heard…….he meant
Cows chaos
Roving rowing
Sucked shocked
Cruise lander Queenslander (Andrew thought he was saying Kiwi-lander)
Eventually I pretended that I was in Scotland, and that helped me follow along.

In case you didn’t know, Gallipoli was a very important place for Australians and New Zealanders. It is part of their national story and the development of their national identity. ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corp. During World War I the Allies tried to take control of the Dardanelles and thus the water route to the Black Sea and Istanbul by using British, Australian and New Zealand troupes. This was the first major battle undertaken by ANZAC and apparently it marks the birth of national consciousness in both of these countries. Gallipoli created what became known as an "Anzac legend" which includes endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism, and mateship. That last little bit is from Wikipedia, I don’t know what larrikinism, and mateship means, but I am sure they are good and that ANZAC soldiers had them. They were defeated, but that is not the point. Australians come here to honor their ancestors and learn about this formative part of their history. The hotel serves vegemite because that is good business. We seemed to have tagged a long for another school’s pep rally.

War is horrid, particularly trench warfare and the battle fields of Galipoli are full of horrifying stories of pain and misery. People are also remarkable and good, and the battlefields have those stories as well. This campaign became known as the Gentleman’s war because apparently when they were not killing each other, they were shockingly human to each other. The other members of our tour were solemn and interested and the tour guide comforted them that the Turks were taking good care of their ancestors. There is a famous quote from Ataturk on display at one of the memorials:
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…
You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…
You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
We visited graves and memorials, the beaches where the soldiers landed and a trench not yet filled in by erosion. It was cold and windy on the ridge and that night it rained like crazy and I was very glad I was not stuck in a trench up there for months.