Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows the links that were forged between Australia and Turkey during the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War. A scene showing a busload of Australians on their way to Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey and a scene of the tour guide reading them the words of Kemal Ataturk are intercut with black-and-white archival footage of Ataturk in his uniform as a Turkish soldier and officer, as well as still photographs of allied soldiers in a trench and of Turkish soldiers in trenches. There is also a shot of a statue of Ataturk alongside the Turkish flag. The voice-over narration is by journalist Geraldine Doogue, presenter of the Compass series.

Educational value points

• Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, features in this clip. Mustapha Kemal (as he was then known) formed a secret society in 1905 in opposition to the repressive Sultan Abdül Hamid II. This society later merged with other opposition movements to form an alliance known as the Young Turks. Mustapha Kemal was a highly successful military commander during the Gallipoli campaign and went on to lead the Turkish national liberation struggle. In August 1922 the rule of the Ottoman Empire was abolished and in 1923, when the national government signed the Treaty of Lausanne with the UK, France, Italy and others, the Republic of Turkey was proclaimed and Mustafa Kemal became the first President of post-Ottoman Turkey.

• Kemal Ataturk made a number of important laws that helped to transform Turkey into a modern, Western-style nation. By the end of the First World War and after six centuries of hegemony, the Ottoman Empire, of which Turkey was part, was in decline and colonial powers such as Britain and France were intent on making territorial claims. Kemal (1881–1938) determined to turn Turkey into the first republic in the Muslim world and into the model of a new secular state. He transformed the legal system, abolishing religious laws and introducing a secular system of jurisprudence. Education was made free, non-religious and co-educational; religious faith became a matter of conscience and the equal rights of women were recognised. In 1934 the people gave him the name Ataturk, meaning 'father of the Turks’.

• When the Ottoman Empire entered the War on the side of Germany in 1914, Kemal’s area of command included the Gallipoli Peninsula, and he was thus the Ottoman commander against the invading allied forces during the Gallipoli landings in April 1915. Kemal’s military leadership inspired the Turkish forces to hold off the allied forces at Chunuk Bair and on the Anafarta Hills. After eight months the British Empire and French forces were forced to evacuate. Owing to his success Kemal was hailed as a war hero and at the age of 35 was made a general.

• Anzac Cove, the destination of the coach shown in the clip, is named after the acronym devised by a signaler in Egypt in the First World War for 'Australian and New Zealand Army Corps’. The word Anzac has come to have many applications. Anzac Day itself commemorates 25 April 1915, the day Anzac troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula at the start of a campaign that lasted for eight months and resulted in 25,000 Australian casualties. The site of that first landing was Anzac Cove, a 600-m-long beach that became the main base for the Anzac troops. On Anzac Day in 1985 the name Anzac Cove was officially recognised by the Turkish Government.

• The Gallipoli campaign was a disaster for both sides in terms of loss of life. The Turkish defenders may have been victorious but it is estimated that at least 85,000 Turkish troops died during the eight-month campaign. In comparison, the total number of allied deaths (including British and French soldiers) was 50,000, with more than 8,000 of these being Australians. Many of the men died from disease.

• The dawn service that the group of Australians are travelling to Turkey to commemorate is one in a long tradition of Anzac Day commemorations dating from 1916. The first anniversary of the landing was commemorated in Australia, NZ and England in 1916. In that year 25 April was officially named 'Anzac Day’ by the Acting Australian Prime Minister, George Pearce. By the 1920s Anzac Day commemorations were being held annually throughout Australia. The dawn service commemoration stems from an army tradition called 'stand-to’. This denotes the waking of soldiers shortly before dawn to ready themselves for attack. With symbolic links to the dawn landings at Gallipoli, the first Anzac dawn stand-to was held in Sydney in 1927.

• The clip shows an example of a comparatively recent and increasingly popular phenomenon, the Gallipoli pilgrimage. On Anzac Day each year thousands of Australians gather at Gallipoli to commemorate the landings of Anzac forces in 1915. In 2005 there were an estimated 20,000 attendees, the largest number since 1923 when the commemorations began. Since the mid-1990s young Australians have revived what was a declining interest in the Anzac legend. This revival has been ascribed to personal interest in family history rather than to nationalistic or ideological reasons.

• The film commemorates the Gallipoli campaign, devised by British First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill, the objectives of which were to advance through the Dardanelle Straits and capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), capital of Turkey. Turkey was allied to Germany in the First World War. Australia had pledged support to Britain at the outbreak of war in 1914, and in 1915 Australian and NZ soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula, making way for the advance on Constantinople. the Turks put up an unexpectedly strong defence and within days after the landings the fighting was at a stalemate. This was only relieved by the evacuation of the allied troops in 1915 after eight months of fighting.