Misplaced Pages

Gallipoli

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Zisa (talk | contribs) at 14:07, 18 March 2002. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 14:07, 18 March 2002 by Zisa (talk | contribs)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Peninsula in southern Turkey. With the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles straits to the east.

Scene of a bloody Allied campaign during WW I, an attempt to push through the Dardanelles straits and capture Constantinople. The campaign ended in stalemate with the Allies evacuated after fighting from April 25 to December 19, 1915. There were around 180,000 Allied casualties and 220,000 Turkish casualties. While ultimately unsuccessful the campaign did become something of a founding myth for both Australia and New Zealand, and ANZAC day is still commemorated as a holiday in both countries.

The attack also gave an important boost to the career of Mustafa Kemal, an little known army comander who exceeded his authority and contravened orders to halt the ANZAC advance and eventually drive them back. Kemal eventually changed his name to Kemal Ataturk and became the founder of the modern Turkish state after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

Gallipoli is also a small city in the province of Lecce in Southern Italy.