Gallipoli: a Turkish view

Touring Exhibition

29 October 2004 to 25 April 2010

Australians call the campaign “Gallipoli”; to Turks, it is “Çanakkale Savasi”. As part of the First World War, soldiers of the Ottoman Empire, on one side, and soldiers of the British Empire and France, on the other, fought a long and bloody battle on the Gallipoli peninsula.

The Turkish defenders were victorious. After an eight-month-long campaign British Empire and French forces withdrew, having suffered 44,000 deaths. At least 85,000 Turkish soldiers died in the campaign.

Consequently, Gallipoli is of profound importance to the national identity of both Australia and Turkey. The events of 1915 created the Anzac legend, arguably the central national founding myth for Australia. For Turkey the defeat of foreign invasion under the charismatic command of Mustafa Kemal (later Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic) gave Gallipoli mythic status within Turkey's national identity. The conjunction of these powerful national stories reflects the main cultural bond between Australia and Turkey. This explains the enduring attachment of both nations to the story of the campaign, and the strong mutual interest in the other's experience and memory.

How the Turks experienced Gallipoli and how their experiences were both similar to and very different from those of their enemies, including Australians, is the subject of the Australian War Memorial’s travelling exhibition Gallipoli: a Turkish view.

Through interpretation of the Memorial’s photograph collection and a selection of Turkish relics, Gallipoli: a Turkish view enables visitors of both cultures to ponder their own and their former enemy's experience of the campaign and its continuing importance. The images selected are remarkable in that they are among the very few still in existence which document the Turkish experience of Gallipoli. They depict both the heroism and the horror of Turkey's part in the campaign, coinciding with and contrasting with familiar Australian images.

This exhibition is supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government Program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of cultural material across Australia.