GALLIPOLI

The cluster of World War I battlefields collectively known as Gallipoli are just 15 kilometers west of Çanakkale. Soldiers from around the world were stationed here for about eight months in 1915 and fought against the Ottomans to open the Dardanelles Strait to Allied warships.  The Ottoman army eventually prevailed, but the losses on both sides were enormous.  More than 250,000 soldiers died in the fighting, in trenches often only ten meters apart..  Gallipoli is often visited by Australian, New Zealand, and British travelers, as their forefathers comprised the bulk of the Allied troops.  Especially on Anzac Day, April 25th, thousands of Australians and New Zealanders travel to the Gallipoli Peninsula to commemorate the dead on both sides.  A visit to the battlefields, cemetaries, and museum has become something of a pilgrimage for Australians and New Zealanders.

Today, the Gallipoli battlefields are silent, preserved as a national park adorned with marble and bronze commemorative monuments.