Gallipoli 1915 ..Whose action were noble, Turks' or Anzacs' ?

Question

Anzacs ;Directed & urged by their British masters ; knowing nothing about what they were fighting for ; just stimulated by feeling of adventure , resulted in waste & slaughter of the young generation thousands miles away from their home, a land that had no hostility to Australia before.
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Turks; defending their country , their homeland from invadors as they did for centuries.

Answer 1

The Turks defended their land which is to be expected. The Anzac's did their best and were brave. From the very outset the Gallipoli campaign was bound to fail.

The Gallipoli campaign was the brainchild of Winston Churchill. Following it's failure, Winston retired from government and took a military commission and fought in the trenches of WW-One.

Answer 2

You seem to have some strange ideas.It was no way as simple as that .The Australians were much closer to their 'mother' country then and had a feeling of duty to serve their King where that may be.The Turks had not defended their homeland for centuries apart from the Crimean war they had always been the aggressors,they declared Jihad against the allies.Gallipoli was a mistake on a grand scale and thee allies totally underestimated the fighting skills and determination of the ottomans as they were then .Turkey had no hostility to Britain before the war and had usually fought on the same side in the 19th century .The soldiers at Gallipoli were as I have said Ottoman and from numerous country's the Arabs ended up changing sides to the British.Even Ataturk the father of the modern Turkish Republic was from Macedonia,he been most probably the most able commander in the battle.Both sides were noble as in as much as they both did their duty as they saw it and did it with great valour and if you read the letters of soldiers who were there most parted with a much greater respect for their enemies than they had at the start.

Answer 3

Hello Andromeda, the answer depends upon what you mean by the word 'noble', and whether you are looking for an answer that describes the 'spirit' and intentions of the people involved 'at the time', or how we look back on it now.

If we look at how the Australians and Turks (and British and French) regarded their 'mission' at the time there was a strong sense of 'noble' purpose about it on both sides. The invasion of Gallipoli was seen as part of a strategy by Britain to bring a quick end to the War with Germany (which most on the 'British' side would have seen as a way of saving lives and restoring peace to the world). On the other hand the Turks were simply defending their homeland. Very few Turks I'd imagine saw themselves as fighting on behalf of Germany.

It would be fair to say that the Australians were at the beginning somewhat naive in the ways of war, but also that they learnt quickly to respect Mustafa Kemal Attaturk and the bravery of the Turks in defence of their homeland, and in the end understood that they would have done as much - and have been proud to have done as much - in defence of their own homeland.

So you could say that the Gallipoli was the occassion where the Australian Army began to understand that real nobility was not a matter of Kings or Empires, but of common decent men - on both sides of a conflict - doing their best to live, and if necessary die, honourably. Nobility - a tradition of noble thoughts and deeds - has to be start somewhere, and for the Australians I think you could say it started with Gallipoli.

Now looking at the Turkish side, it might be fair to say that their initial impulse was an old-fashioned nobility - to defend the Ottoman Empire against the British invader. But it seems to me that the Turks then began to question 'what sort of a country are we fighting for anyway?'. And that to my mind it is a truer sort of nobility, to fight for not just your country's 'past' but also for its future, and a future you would want your children to grow up in. So it seems to me that on the Turkish side the notion of nobility also 'grew' and deepened, and that where Mustafa Kemal Attaturk led, millions of Turks were then ready to follow.

This might go some way to explain the profound respect Australia and the Turks had for each other following the War. That it took a 'clash' between two peoples that would otherwise have been (and have been since) best friends, for each to learn these lessons was tragic, and there was a genuine sense of regret on both sides that so many young lives were lost and blighted.

Answer 4

A small fact, generally unrecognised:

More British troops died than Anzacs at Gallipoli.

Answer 5

problem: in basic terms Nos. 3 & 5 are everywhere close to ascertainable. Nos. 2 & 4 are gross exaggerations, the figures pulled out of skinny air, or somebody's butt. Yours? No.one million flies spitefully in the face of settled fact. no question. Turkey is a member--alongside the Nazis--of the genocide club. the stable ingredient mutually as the Nazis in no way have been given the possibility, Turkey has no longer achieved something infamous when you consider that. it quite is ethical progression.

Answer 6

There is nothing noble about war, especially when the officers sitting in their nice little safe huts send men over the trenches into a battle they have no hope of winning.

There is nothing noble about being hacked to pieces, or disappearing completey as what happened to a complete regiment.

Answer 7

The Turks did a great job at Gallipoli; killing 205,000 out of 400,000 Brits, 47,000 out of 79,000 Frenchies, while their losses were around 200,000. Gallipoli was the campaign that tarnished the names of Kitchener, Churchill, and Hamilton.

The Turks were undoubtedly the good guys, while the Allies were the very very bad guys.

Answer 8

The actions of the soldiers on both sides were noble but their commanders (except Ataturk)for placing them in that position were not.