The British-led Mediterranean Expeditionary Force that attacked the
Ottoman Empire at Gallipoli in 1915 was a multi-national affair,
including Australian, New Zealand, Irish, French, and Indian soldiers.
Ultimately a failure, the campaign ended with the withdrawal of the
Allied forces after less than nine months and the unexpected victory of
the Ottoman armies and their German allies.
In Britain, the campaign led to the removal of Churchill from his post
as First Lord of the Admiralty and the abandonment of the plan to attack
Germany via its 'soft underbelly' in the East. Thereafter, it was
largely forgotten on a national level, commemorated only in specific
localities linked to the campaign. In post-war Turkey, by contrast, the
memory of Gallipoli played an important role in the formation of a
Turkish national identity, celebrating both the ordinary soldier and the
genius of the republic's first president, Mustafa Kemal. The campaign
served a similarly important formative role in both Australia and New
Zealand, where it is commemorated annually on Anzac Day. For the
southern Irish, meanwhile, the bitter memory of service for the King in
a botched campaign was forgotten for decades.
Shaped initially by the imperatives of war-time, and the needs of the
grief-stricken and the bereft, the memory of Gallipoli has been re-made
time and again over the last century. For the Turks an inspirational
victory, for many on the Allied side a glorious and romantic defeat, for
others still an episode best forgotten, 'Gallipoli' has meant different
things to different people, serving by turns as an occasion of sincere
and heartfelt sorrow, an opportunity for separatist and feminist
protest, and a formative influence in the forging of national
identities.
