Gallipoli Peninsula Battlefields

Gelibolu Peninsula Historical Site, A Protected National Historical Area; Commonwealth Cemeteries Maintained By The CWGC · Eceabat, Canakkale

For eight and a half months in 1915 and 1916, a peninsula on the European side of the Dardanelles absorbed one of the worst campaigns of the First World War. Allied troops - British, French, Indian, Newfoundland, and the Australian and New Zealand corps that gave the place its other name - landed on beaches overlooked by high ground and never got off them. Something like half a million casualties were taken on both sides. The campaign made a national hero of a Turkish colonel called Mustafa Kemal, later Ataturk, and it is the foundational story of two countries eleven thousand kilometres away. What is here now is quiet: pine and scrub, a coast road, and small white cemeteries at Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair and Anzac Cove, with the Turkish memorial at Morto Bay above them all. The ground is the exhibit - the trench lines at The Nek are metres apart, and that explains more than any museum panel can.

Anzac Koyu, Gelibolu Yarimadasi Tarihi Alani, Eceabat, Eceabat, Canakkale, Turkiye

The battlefields, cemeteries and memorials are open ground and can be visited at any reasonable hour, free of charge. The visitor and simulation centres keep museum hours and have their own tickets. Anzac Day on 25 April is a controlled event with its own access arrangements, in some years by ballot or ticket. Check well ahead if that is your date.

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