Current Opinion

Ways of Remembering

by Bernard KENNEDY

Among Australians and New Zealanders, the national myths associated with Gallipoli appear as strong as ever after 90 eventful years. Much the same holds true for the Turkish side, although the pattern of remembrance may be changing under various influences.

Preparations are well under way for celebrations marking the 90th anniversary of what the Turks call the Battle of Çanakkale – and is better known further afield as Gallipoli. For diplomats from Australia and New Zealand, it is the busiest time of the year. For as fate would have it the role played - and heavy losses suffered by - “Anzac” troops in the unsuccessful First World War landings on Turkey’s Gelibolu peninsula turned into a founding myth for both countries.

Questions without answers

What the Australasians celebrate can be – and is - debated endlessly. Are the Anzac Day public holidays a celebration of war or a condemnation of it? Did the nations which the young men of Australia and New Zealand discovered in themselves at around that moment in history constitute nations within and consistent with British Empire which they fought for in their trenches? Or were they nations seeking independence from the British, whose leadership cost them so much, and even whose ordinary soldiers they rather despised? If Anzac Day is a “commemoration of defeat”, why does it fall on April 25 – the day of landing - rather than eight months later when the remnants of the invaders withdrew? What makes the famously athletic, brave, brawling, disobedient, drinking, loyal, matey, self-sacrificing Anzac soldiers the icons of educated nations consisting of both men and women? How, for that matter, could they be both loyal and disobedient?

What didn’t happen

There is another set of questions which begin with the words “What would have happened if ..”. If London hadn’t fantasised about outflanking Germany and decided on the “Dardanelles campaign” in the first place. If the British (and French) Admiralty hadn’t dragged its feet, or had risked everything to blast through the Ottomans’ sea defences, or had at least kept going a little longer, until the Turks ran out of ammunition. If London hadn’t then landed troops to clear the coast. If the Anzacs had come ashore at the right spot. If German officers had not – as some allege – deliberately delayed the Ottoman victory. Would the War have ended sooner and with less bloodshed? Would the Turkish commander Mustafa Kemal ever have earned the reputation which prompted a defeated and exhausted Anatolia to flock to his camp four years later? Would tsarist Russia have been relieved and the 1917 revolutions averted?

Power of myth

Neither set of questions matters much. Just as history has spoken on the latter, the former has been rendered obsolete by the power of myth. Regardless of their opinions, the Australians and New Zealanders of today will share in overwhelming numbers the emotionality of their national holiday – the Dawn Service, the parades, the Last Post, the Rising Sun badge, the poetry of Kipling and Binyon. A contingent of almost 20,000 young latter-day Anzacs will travel half-way across the globe to the long-memorised geography of their nation’s founding carnage. And Australian Prime Minister John Howard will be on hand to ensure that commemorations are dignified and appropriate – no drunken rites of passage as in the recent past. Paradoxically, as the veterans of World War II as well as World War I thin out, the legend seems to go from strength to strength.

The Turkish story

On the surface, the Turkish myth of Çanakkale is more straightforward. The campaign left 87,000 dead – a man from every village, dwarfing the number of Anzac casualties. But unlike other major Ottoman military sacrifices of those years, it was a successful defence of a homeland. An ill-supplied, half-starving and recognisably Turkish army confronted an imperial power and won. And if the War was eventually lost, the battles nevertheless sowed seeds of eventual success in a smaller independence campaign. It is not surprising that the campaign is well remembered in Turkey; the only striking idiosyncracy is the choice of March 18 – date of victory in the so-called “sea battle” (Western ships versus Turkish artillery, nets and mines) - as the date on which to do so.

That said, the pattern of Turkish remembrances has changed. Memories have always been kept alive within the armed forces, in families and in schools. But as more Turkish people travel and take holidays, the battleground has received more and more visitors all year round. Meanwhile, monuments and tours have multiplied in apparent imitation of the grave-tending and pilgrimages of the former enemy. Today, Turks are writing historical novels on Anzac lines, and 24 years after Australian Peter Weir’s screen epic Gallipoli, this month sees the launch of a Turkish movie by Tolga Örnek.

Choice of perspectives

At the same time, some civilians have arguably started to see Çanakkale not as the birth of the Turkish nation but as a late victory of the Ottoman Empire. National holidays in this country recall the War of Independence and the founding of the Republic, but it would come as no surprise to hear calls for a public holiday on March 18 before the 100th anniversary comes round.

Pharmaceuticals company Deva Holdıng, a sponsor of Örnek, offers a different perspective on the campaign. In support of a national pharmaceuticals industry, it is publishing a volume entitled Çanakkale: Acı İlaç (Çanakkale: the Bitter Pill), which tracks the “struggle against lack of medicines and medical equipment”. We are reminded – not without some horrific details - that a third of the 120,000 deaths could have been avoided but for disease, germs, lice, bacteria, bad surgery and insufficient health staff, equipment, disinfectant and drugs.

The end of the day

While not often required, a certain extra willingness to understand persists between Turkey and Australia/New Zealand. The mutual respect goes back to the endearing term “Johnny Turk” coined by the Empire soldiers themselves, and to M.K.Atatürk’s much-quoted 1934 rhetoric, in which he described the enemy’s dead heroes as “our sons too”. So much for the past; in present time the pointlessness of hails of bullets and piles of corpses continues without the respect.

(DIPLOMAT – March 2005)