Anzac Day - the 25th of April - is a national public holiday in Australia and New Zealand. The term itself, "Anzac", is practically sacred in Australia and New Zealand, and has even been copyrighted by the RSL to protect it from potential 'misuse' [website: Using Anzac] Most of you know why it is so significant. If not, have a look at the Australian War Memorial site. In a nutshell, Anzac Day commemorates the landings of the Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops on the far north-west coast of Turkey at dawn on the 25th of April, 1915. It was a complete disaster, in terms of tactics, intelligence, and above all, loss of life on both sides. However, out of this unthinkably horrible battlefield, the national character of all three countries was born.
Since 2000, my Anzac tradition is to sleep at my grandparents like I used to when I was a kid. My grandfather and I get up at 4am on the 25th to get the bus from the local RSL to the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne with tens of thousands of others for the Dawn Service. I’m not sure when I first considered making the trip to Turkey. Maybe it was at the first Dawn Service I went to… maybe years before that. Either way, I’d been researching the logistics of this for quite a few years, and without a doubt, the easiest way to do it was to join a tour group. So I did.
I’m definitely someone accustomed to doing their travel homework, and in this case, I hit gold. The wonder that is Google brought me to the website of Istanbul travel agency True Blue Tours - without a doubt the best travel agency I’ve ever dealt with. I could not fault them. Yes, they are that good. Yilmaz, the owner/manager, will quite literally do almost anything for his clients. And so I found myself abandoning school for two days, claiming an Australian national cultural pilgrimage, and set off for Istanbul, the only city in the world to span two continents, possibly the city with the greatest number of official names over the years, and even a song to commemorate this feat. Almost as soon as I arrived in Istanbul, I fell in love with it. Before I’d even got to the centre of the city, Istanbul had well and truly got under my skin. I think it might have been a combination of the warm weather, the sunshine and the magnificent harbour, reminiscent of St Kilda Esplanade, that entranced me. Then again, I think the immortal words of Darryl Kerrigan capture it much more succinctly: “It’s just the vibe”.
The 4-day round trip from Istanbul started on the Wednesday night with a Turkish cultural evening - a belly dancer reminiscent of Amy Winehouse and a very entertaining singer, whose linguistic skills spanned not only Turkish and English, but also German, Hindi, Mandarin and French. His repertoire included musical masterpieces and cultural cornerstones from all nationalities present - a Chinese ballad, a groovy Bollywood number, a Latvian folk song, and “Muss I Denn” for the Germans. He unfortunately overlooked the Kiwis, and instead chose to include them in a Turkish-accented rendition of “Waltzing Matilda”.
The following morning was a bright and early 6am start for the five-hour drive down to the Gallipoli peninsula. About three hours into the drive, we began to realise with every passing truck stop just how many Australian and Kiwi expats had chosen 2008 to make the pilgrimage. The number of giant white luxury coaches in each and every carpark continued to grow (I stopped counting at twenty - at one truck stop!). For many reasons, we were indeed fortunate that our tour company had chosen a 30-seater minibus with all the luxuries of a coach, in addition to being painted a spectacular shade of bronze. Not only did this make our group a lot easier to keep together, and to get to know a lot more people on the tour in the few days we had together, but it also made it a lot easier to both park the bus and find it in the fleet of over 400 (!!!) total coaches.
Eceabat, the major town on the peninsula, appeared to have been transformed into Manly/Torquay for the weekend. The streets were filled with Australians and Kiwis, wearing Socceroos, All-Blacks and various AFL jerseys (Essendon and Collingwood were the frontrunners), Havaiana thongs/flip flops, Billabong boardies, Oakleys on their heads and all manner of commemorative Gallipoli landing t-shirts. First up was an essential Turkish lunch - a real Turkish döner (similar to a Greek souvlaki). Since Berlin apparently has the largest Turkish population of any city outside Turkey, döner is the unofficial dish of Berlin, and goes down a treat at around 3-4am. There are some great döner places in Berlin, but nothing compares to the real thing. I also caved to the local entrepreneurs and bought myself a souvenir t-shirt, and managed to get my first practice at haggling - got the guy down from 20YTL to 15YTL (1YTL (lira) = approx AUD$1.10). Felt very proud.
We left Eceabat behind and began our tour of the battlefields. First stop was the Dardanelles coast, followed by Lone Pine, the site of a major battle between the Australian and the Turkish armies in August of 1915. At times, the front lines were within metres of each other, forcing the soldiers to abandon their rifles and bayonets, and instead use rocks, knives, and their bare hands. For more information, have a look at the AWM website. This is now the location of the major Australian memorial on the peninsula. The entire site is no larger than your average suburban footy ground. At one end is a low wall covered in the names of the fallen; behind this is an immense granite monument, and in front of it is another low wall with the inscription “Their name liveth for evermore”. We had about twenty minutes here, and I walked around the monument first, then wandered between the rows and rows of gravestones. All had names, birthdates, and dates of death, but for some, those were the only pieces of information known. Many had also been inscribed with an epitaph; some reflected those waiting at home for the dead, some were biblical verses, others poignantly simple: “He laid down his life for his friends”, “Could I just clasp your hand one more time to say well done”, “Until we meet again”, “Peace perfect peace”. I could have spent hours there, but unfortunately more and more people were streaming in as tour groups arrived from Istanbul, and we still had a lot of ground to cover before heading over to Anzac Cove.
Next stop was Chunuk Bair, the New Zealand official commemorative site. As with Lone Pine for Australians, Chunuk Bair was the site of a major battle, this time between New Zealand and Turkish forces. The entrance is a wide open hilltop with a spectacular view up the coast towards Suvla Bay, and there are five massive concrete blocks mounted here in a circle, each with quotes from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk or similar; all in Turkish, but nevertheless spectacular. The focal part of the site is a small commemorative area, again with spectacular views of the coast, and between the two areas there is a maze of old trenches. Chunuk Bair, while spectacular, and the New Zealand equivalent of Lone Pine, wasn’t as moving for me as Lone Pine, or indeed Anzac Cove. While both of the others have areas of marked graves, Chunuk Bair seemed more to me like a construction site, and unfortunately we didn’t have the time here to walk around and explore more.
From there, we moved on to a site which most of the big tour groups simply skip over; the Turkish 57th Infantry Regiment Memorial. It’s right on the tour route, very close to The Nek, Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair, but as an Anzac group, we were without a doubt in the minority. The atmosphere here is similar yet also different; where the other monuments are rectangles of white granite, the red-tinged Turkish memorial has a distinctly oriental design, and while crosses and the occasional star of David mark the graves of fallen Anzacs, here each headstone is engraved with a star and crescent moon, and all point south-southeast towards Mekkah, with inscriptions in both Turkish and Arabic script. While this was a significant enough change, it wasn’t until we were leaving that I noticed something that gave me a very personal connection with this place. A group of about twenty school-age children were gathered in front of a wall of remembrance engraved with hundreds of Turkish names, while two adults attempted to wrangle them for a group photo. It was then that I noticed that not only were they all similarly dressed, but that they were also wearing blue neck scarves very similar to the ones we had worn as Guides and Scouts in Australia. They were a Turkish Scout group, visiting a war memorial for the fallen soldiers of their country, just as I had done many times with school and Guide groups in Australia, and it suddenly hit home that although this site was considered almost sacred for the descendants of the Anzacs who had lost their lives here, it is just as significant for the Turkish people for exactly the same reason. As I wrote in an email to the travel agent who organised the tour, I could relate to those kids; suddenly it didn't matter which uniform the soldiers had worn, which flag they saluted or if their home was thousands of kilometres away on the other side of the world, or a small village in a nearby valley. None of them should have died there.
We left the Turkish memorial and slowly made our way back toward Anzac Cove, where we would spend the night. The entire area was declared an alcohol-free zone in 2003, although I cannot imagine how the organisers ever saw fit to allow drinking at the site. Approaching the main entrance, we noticed two long queues for security, and so joined on the end, and waited. Then my phone rings. Some back story required here - check one of the previous entries. Anyway, security was tight, involving rigorous body and luggage searches, then we finally made it inside. Seeing the area itself for the first time I have to admit, I was surprised by the small size. I had expected an area the size of a city block, although I think, in my imagination, having heard stories about this battle for as long as I can remember, I had built it up in my mind to be an expansive area to fit the immense significance of the battle which took place here. In reality though, the area is probably the size of two football fields - a similar size to Lone Pine.
It was only 4pm and already the grassed area was almost completely full, and the empty seats in the grandstands were rapidly disappearing. We managed to find a group of seats together and settled in for the night. The light was slowly fading, and considering we’d be in the grandstands all night, I left the group to explore the area for myself about an hour before sunset. I wandered back up the entrance road towards Ari Burnu, a small point marking the south end of Northern Beach, and made my way down onto the beach. On the way down, I saw a large granite block, again with Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's famous quote on it. I love the sentiment behind it.
There were a few others weaving between the graves, pausing here and there for a moment, and after reading some of the inscriptions myself, I moved further down onto the beach itself and settled on the rocky beach to watch the sunset. Although I grew up in suburban Melbourne, a lot of my childhood was spent at the beach or on the water, and just sitting on the shore at Ari Burnu, away from the crowded chaos of Northern Beach, watching the waves gently wash over the pebbles, I finally had a chance to reflect on why I was actually there and the significance of the place. One song kept running through my head - And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, by Eric Bogle. I'd taught some of my year 11s in Berlin about the history of Anzac through this song, and I love it. Watching the waves on the shore, the line "And their blood stained the sand and the water" had newfound meaning. It was this beach that he was talking about. The clear blue water gently ebbing and flowing, and the yellow grainy sand mixed with grey pebbles that I was so calmly relaxing on had once been stained scarlet with the blood of my ancestors. Truly food for thought.
I stayed there for a good hour, and only long after the sun had set over the Aegean and the stars had begun tracing their path towards the west, I gradually made my way back to the rest of the True Blue Tours gang. And then began the long wait for dawn. I had read some previous extracts from online travel reviews about the Anzac experience, and so knew it would be cold, but I had no idea it would be the kind of cold that froze you to the bone, so that no amount of moving could get you warm, that cups of piping hot Turkish tea straight out of the urn seemed merely lukewarm, and that your own shivering kept you awake, even at 5am after having been awake for almost 24 hours. Many people had brought sleeping bags, but unfortunately I neither had a one in Berlin, nor was inclined to buy one just for this trip. Even our tour organiser had expected a significantly less Antarctic overnight experience, having advised me against bringing a sleeping bag and assuring me that a warm jacket and a beanie would suffice. Unfortunately it did not. Sitting in my ski jacket with my jeans tucked into my socks and boots, two scarves tightly wrapped around my neck and a fleece blanket snugly around my legs to keep the wind blowing through the back of the grandstand from turning my lower legs into iceblocks, I began to appreciate the soldiers’ experiences of arriving at Gallipoli that morning in the boats, wearing not much more than a military uniform, and certainly not having the luxury of high tech fleece or good old hot tea to ward off the hypothermia.
To be fair, the organisers made a fair attempt to distract us from the cold; they had set up massive screens around the area and throughout the night showed personal documentaries relating to both Anzac and Turkish soldiers, which included extracts from diaries and letters home, and interviews with Gallipoli historians from both Australia and New Zealand, as well as intermittent performances of music from that era by the Australian and NZ military band.
Then finally around 5am, there began to be movement at the station. Well, at the podium anyway. I have to admit, although the service itself was the main reason for making the trip to Turkey in the first place, by this stage I was so overtired that I had discovered I have the skill of being able to nap standing up. I literally could not keep my eyes open any longer, and during some of the readings at least, I know I drifted off for a few minutes here and there. I was however awake long enough to see a truly magnanimous gesture from the Turkish military. Behind the stage, the flags of all three nations were fluttering gently in the early morning breeze - the Australian and New Zealand flags both at half-mast in accordance with military tradition. However within the first few minutes, a senior Turkish military officer directed one of his subordinates to lower the Turkish flag to match the Australian and New Zealand. Turkish military tradition differs slightly from Australian in that the flag is either fully raised or fully lowered, and breaking tradition to acknowledge the customs of the military forces of two then-enemy countries may have been a small gesture, but its significance was not lost on the crowd.
The service itself was similar to the Melbourne service, and all of the elements that I love about the service at home were there. I’m not sure what I would choose as my favourite part though. I think just hearing all of the readings and hymns that I’m so used to hearing in Melbourne actually read and sung at Gallipoli, at Northern Beach, was the best part: Abide With Me, which always reminds me of my grandpa - I don’t know the words, but he does, and when they play it in Melbourne, I love to listen to him sing along with the other veterans. One thing that I don't recall hearing in Melbourne is Ataturk's speech - the one I mentioned before. Here, it had special significance. The original Mehmets and Johnnies may have long since passed away, but their descendents continue to remember their sacrifices, and have an incredible amount of mutual respect. And his words still hold true.
The Ode of Remembrance had particular importance - after all, the 17,000-strong crowd gathered on the shore was all the evidence anyone would need that to clearly demonstrate that “We will remember them.” The Last Post echoed around the hills and valleys and reflected off the cliffs behind us, then Advance Australia Fair was played. At the time, I was extremely moved by this, but that was before Lone Pine.
And suddenly it was all over. Almost without anyone realising, the sun had risen and was starting to bring some warmth to the chilly morning air, and gradually the huge crowd dispersed for the separate services. Again, full credit to our travel agent - Yilmaz and our driver had managed to demonstrate strategic genius in finding a space for our bus, and after a quick breakfast, we got back onto the bus and headed up to Lone Pine [photo].
This was the other service I’d been looking forward to; a service with just Australians, in a place that has a significance for our country and our history like no other place on Earth. Where yesterday the site had been relatively calm and spacious, the grandstands along both sides of the memorial and all of the grassed area between the graves and around the Lone Pine were now filled with people, still obviously very close to being either frostbitten or asleep - in many cases, both - from the Dawn Service. The service here was different to Anzac Cove - for me, it was much more personal. By this stage, I’d been away from Australia for nine months, and aside from my mum’s visit and a few random eavesdropping opportunities in the trains in Berlin, I’d had very little contact with Aussies here. And now, to be surrounded by Australians, and to stand at a place like Lone Pine, seeing the Australian flag at half mast and hearing Advance Australia Fair - that was something that I will never forget as long as I live. I’m not a huge fan of the anthem - Adam Hills most definitely had a point when he said that it’s not the most inspiring anthem in the world. The tune shares a greater resemblance with a funeral dirge than an inspiring ballad, and some of the words are linguistically obsolete - exhibit A: girt. However, it is still our national anthem, and standing in the grandstand, my flag wrapped around my shoulders just like hundreds of other people, hearing those first few notes, seeing everyone get to their feet, and then listening to the 10,000 strong crowd sing along (of course, majority for the first verse only - then there was a great flurry of activity as people dove for their Order Of Service booklets for the words to the second verse); that is a moment that will stay with me forever. In the middle of Turkey, I felt like I was at home.
The rest of the day is something of a blur. Following the Lone Pine service was the Chunuk Bair service for the New Zealanders. By this stage, I was getting to the point of saturation with military services and official commemorative memorials, and like many of the others in the group, I chose the warmth and wind-free shelter of the bus. By that afternoon, we were on the highway back up to Istanbul, and that night in the hotel, I think I probably got one of the best nights sleep ever.
And with that, I’m going to bring this entry to a somewhat premature close. I think I managed to fit two completely different trips into the space of a weekend - the craziness of Istanbul, and the monumental historical and cultural significance of the Anzac Day Dawn Service on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and hence I’ve chosen to separate the two in my blog. Ok, you’ve got me: I’ve only managed to finish the first part. Yes, I admit - I take my time with blogs. Either way, the Anzac part is done, so enjoy that, and I hope to not keep you all waiting too long with the Istanbul experience. Ciao -A
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