Gallipoli: Pros & cons of being an ANZAC / Turk?

Question

What are the pros and cons of being an ANZAC or a Turk during Gallipoli? eg anzacs paid 6 shillings, turks 3shillings. Please help. Thanks!!

dont call me stupid ... i'm not that old you know! still at school, still learning .....thanks for the great answers, for some of you ..:)

Answer 1

There were no real cons to being a Turk. Despite the discrepancy in pay you mention, the Turkish army was well led and fully committed to defending its home territory.The biggest pros of being a Turk were;-

a - the fact that they were fighting on fairly easily defended, very rough, home ground, with the enemy mostly pinned down on beaches at the bottom of cliffs.

b - supplies and reinforcements could be brought in easily

The biggest cons to being in the ANZAC forces were;-

a - having to land on easily defended beach heads under heavy fire

b - being unable to break out from the beaches for anything more than costly forays a few hundred yards inland

c - difficulty of reinforcements and fresh supplies being landed

d - the hot summer weather, when shortages of water and food, allied to the fact that it was almost impossible to bury the dead because of the stony ground, led to diseases such as dysentry becoming rife

e - inconsistent and inadequate leadership throughout most of the Gallipoli campaign

The pros of being an ANZAC are hard to think of. Perhaps pay was some consolation for the appalling losses and conditions they suffered but, somehow, I doubt it.
The only real pro came when the Gallipoli campaign was abandoned and they were finally evacuated.

Answer 2

There were no significant pros or cons of being ANZAC or Turkish during the war of Gallipoli. Both sides suffered from diseases and shortage of logistic support. But Turkish had the morale advantage as they were defending their homeland, which is not to be under estimated. Knowing that you are the only wall standing between the bullets of the enemy and your family, you just keep battling.

I could not find any document which expresses that the Turkish officers did not care about who their men had been, but it is true that there are many "unnamed deaths"on the Turkish side. The reason behind this is low percentage of Turkish who could read and write on the battlefield.

The soldiers were "peasants" who were not educated (read/write, math, etc.) well, but not without proper war training. Ottoman Empire requested all men attend to military service during both war and peace. (military service is also the case for Republic of Turkey at the moment, but for a shorter period). This is the real reason behind the number of unnamed deaths.

In the end, the battles for Gallipoli took away about 1/4 million of men, roughly half Turkish and half ANZAC; which can emphasize the first sentence above: "There were no significant pros or cons of being ANZAC or Turkish during the war of Gallipoli."

Answer 3

You really think it was about being paid, go and read some more history on the subject.

The Australians & New Zelanders were fighting to gain a foothold on the shores of Turkey, there by taking some of the preasure of other fronts by hopefully forcing Germany & Prussia Turkeys allies to send troops to help.

At best they might have forced the capitulation of Turkey, but were surprised at how much zeal the Turkish displayed fighting for their country.

The ANZACs were deprived of good equipment, shelter, fresh water supplies, suffered from dysantry and other dieseses caused by dehydration and the millions of flies that infested all the dead bodies lying in the sun without burial.

The Turkish soldiers were in similar circumstances and getting far less than 3 bob, The officers were mainly from the upper classes and the men peasents, many Turkish soldiers died and their names unknown as the officers did not care to know who their men were.

Answer 4

The Turks had those cool baths.

Answer 5

Oh dear