Gallipoli 1934 1

When one visits the Peninsula now, many of the old trenches are still there, but most of the other relics of the campaign have disappeared. Over the years, they were salvaged by the local population, who returned after the war and started to rebuild their villages and, where possible, began to cultivate their fields again. Only what was too heavy, like the big guns in the Helles and Anafarta sectors, remained in place, and life slowly returned to normal.

Which makes one wonder how Gallipoli looked, say, 50 years ago. Were the beaches still littered with abandoned military material then, and how did the people of Seddul Bair cope with the devastation caused by the big naval bombardments? Questions like that.

Well, there is an answer : in 1934 a pilgrimage was organized to the old battlefields. Stanton Hope, who was among the participants, published a report of that trip and added a number of pictures that were taken then. Some of these clearly show the situation in the Helles sector. Not then, not now, but somewhere in between.

A general view of V beach, with the Old Fort and the cemetery of the Dubliners and Mun- sters. The small village of Seddul Bair, which now almost stretches to the coastline, is still in ruins. The old piers, built in 1915, still serve as an artificial harbour, although the River Clyde herself has gone : after the campaign, the ship was refloated, towed away and repaired, to start a second career as a freight ship.

"The years have rolled by and the kindly hand of Nature has clothed the ugly nakedness of the Gallipoli once familiar to us. The same benificent hand has mingled the tang of brine and the fragrance of growing flowers, to help remove the memory of the putrescent stench which one had belched from the land and contaminated even the sea."

A closer view of V beach, near the piers. Clearly visible are the carriage of a heavy gun, rails of the light railway that ran along the beach and masses of rusting scrap iron. In the background is the side wall of the Old Fort, showing the traces of bombardment, first by the Allied Fleet, and later by the Turkish batteries that kept firing at the beach throughout the campaign.

" No bursting shells or bombs, no crackling rifle-fire. Goats and sheep graze in the valleys. The sea is empty of warships, minesweepers and hospital ships.

How quiet it is ..."

Near the centre of Seddul Bair, which af-ter twenty years has all but been rebuilt : many primitive dwellings have been con- structed from corrugated iron, salvaged from the battlefields. Notice also the makeshift minaret in the background.

"There has been no reconstruction of this front as in France and Flanders; only the hand of Nature, the representatives of the Imperial War Graves Commission and the Turkish peasants, have changed the aspect of the land."

The participants of the 1934 pilgrimage, disem- barking from a Turkish vessel at V beach. The jetty is an original one from the 1915 campaign. It ran alongside the River Clyde which served as a breakwater and offered protection from incoming shells, fired by "Asiatic Anny" at the other side of the Dardanelles. As can be seen in the picture, not only the stone foundations, but also the planking on top of that are still in place and in a reasonably good condition.

The pilgrims, walking on V Beach, among the scattered remains of the campaign. In the background, the jetty still protruding from the beach, in the foreground, a semi-demolished water tank, probably used as a kind of shelter by local shepherds.

"But the haunting spirit of the Peninsula cannot be recaptured on such excursions as ours. One day I hope to return and camp among those familiar hills and nullahs, and ramble at leisure in this land of bitter and sacred memories."

And last but not least the River Clyde herself. Most of the damage, caused by the hundreds of shells that continuously hit her sides for more than eight long months has been repaired, and she is proudly sailing again, under a Spanish flag as the "Maruya y Aurora".