#gallipoli

I will try and describe what a captured trench looks like. When I was in it everybody was alert awaiting a counter attack. The trench was very narrow and, of course, as it was made by the enemy it was made for men to shoot in the direction of our trenches. A working party was busily engaged in digging a ledge for our men to stand on and shoot in the direction of the enemy. The trench smelt just like a slaughterhouse in the cleanest parts of the trench, and in others it is impossible to describe the smell, in other parts of the trench dead bodies were stacked in heaps in places where there was available room and in other parts where there was no room they were left in the floor of the trench and covered with a thin layer of earth and made a soft spongy floor to walk on.

Of course as many as we could get rid of were thrown up to help make bullet proof parapets and also to make a barrier to block up communicating trenches leading from Turkish reserve trenches. As some of these bodies had been dead for some days when I went through, and were horribly swollen, remembering that the weather is so hot that one wears as little clothing as possible, is it necessary to try and describe the stench that the men were eating, fighting, and sleeping in. In the trench I counted 7965382165073982 flies who walked first on the perspiring live men and then, so as to cool their feet, they walked on the dead ones. Turkish equipment, rifles, bayonets, ammunition, etc, was strewn on all sides.

Of course as soon as the captured trench was strengthened and made strong enough to hold permanently, the business of carting out the dead bodies was commenced and so bad was the smell that it was necessary for the men to wear respirators, otherwise they could not have carried out the job. And also remember that the men are not in a position to get a hot bath or even a decent wash after such a smelly job.

This is just a brief account of a small affair which happens quite frequently, but I am writing it to give you a rough idea of what modern war is like and to help you understand why progress must of necessity be slow but remember if it is slow it is just as certainly sure.

If you wish to publish any extract from this letter be very careful but I think it is alright, as I have nothing which can possibly be of any use to our friend the enemy, but I think it would do good for people to get just a slight idea of exactly what the bald statement 'we captured a trench' means.

A letter from Captain Ivor Margetts, 12th Battalion, AIF, to his parents, 9/8/1915.

Leading Seaman Percy Bolwell, Hood Battalion, RN. Percy was a shop assistant before he joined up in April 1915. He was drafted to the Hood Bn and went out to Gallipoli on the August draft.

•

—

Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders "who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations and the contribution and suffering of all those who have served."

Observed on April 25 each year, Anzac Day was originally devised to honour the members of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) who served in the Gallipoli campaign, their first engagement in the First World War (1914–1918).

—

The Gallipoli campaign, the Dardanelles campaign, the Defence of Gallipoli or the Battle of Gallipoli was a military campaign in the First World War on the Gallipoli Peninsula (now Gelibolu) from 19 February 1915 to 9 January 1916.

The Allied powers (Britain, France and the Russian Empire) unsuccessfully attempted to make the Ottoman Empire, one of the Central Powers, capitulate by taking control of the Turkish straits.

They intended to expose the Ottoman capital at Constantinople to bombardment by Allied warships and cut it off from the Asian part of the empire.

An Ottoman Empire defeat could have led to unfettered Western control of the Suez Canal and the opening of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits to Allied supplies headed for the Black Sea and warm-water ports in Russia.

𝓖𝓪𝔃𝓲 𝓜. 𝓚𝓮𝓶𝓪𝓵

Vatan savunması haricinde savaş cinayettir.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Tüm şehitlerimizin ve cephede savaşan gazilerimizin , bir topan ekmeği cepheye yollayan annelerimizin ruhları şad olsun.