“Bastığın yerleri toprak diyerek geçme tanı, düşün altında binlerce kefensiz yatanı” “Don’t underestimate the ground where you step. Know. Think of all those lying shroudless below.”

Whether the writer of these lines, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, also the author of the Turkish national anthem, wrote them while thinking of Gallipoli is unknown. However we must appreciate the truth of Gallipoli, called Çanakkale in Turkish, to be able to recognize our yesterdays and foresee our tomorrows. If you are ready and want to find out what was experienced in those lands less than a century ago we invite you to accompany us on this journey.

Our first stop is the Kilitbahir Castle built by Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror a few kilometers away from Eceabat. It was built immediately after the conquest of İstanbul to prevent any attempts to cross the strait toward the city. As a matter of fact it has been protecting the strait against enemies for centuries. If we continue from the castle we come across the Namazgah Fort. Though it appears quite normal when viewed from the sea, the hills themselves act as concealed shelters and arsenals hidden by an astounding natural camouflage.

Walking a few kilometers northwards takes us to the Mecidiye Fort, which was where the famous Corporal Seyit served during the sea campaign of March 18. This is where he fired the shot that sank the HMS Ocean. His statue, showing him hefting aloft the 250-kilogram projectile, is still there as a reminder of those days. Perhaps if you step on the place he managed a superhuman act, perhaps with divine help, and take a look at the strait you to may sense how the “invincible” fleet was defeated.

A little further away from the Rumeli Mecidiye Fort we come to another cemetery for martyrs named Havuzlar. We offer humble prayers for the spirit of Captain Kemal and his martyr friends and leaving the coastal area, advance toward the cape of the Gallipoli Peninsula. Immediately to our right is the Martyrs Cemetery of Soğanlıdere where lie the venerable martyrs who perished in the Kerevizdere combat. Now we are standing next to a promontory. Here is Alçıtepe, once known as Kirte. The ANZAC troops made painstaking endeavors to take this fortified hill. We suffered three major combats to protect it. Eight-thousand Turkish soldiers gave their lives to protect it during the first encounter, 10,000 during the second and 15,000 during the third; but the Turkish soldiers did not falter.

We turn right from the square of the village and go to the field hospital. This was to be Çanakkale’s greatest field hospital. It was so big that at times up to 50,000 wounded men were laid out here. However, it had one fatal setback; it was only around two kilometers inland. The enemy fleet shelled this place remorselessly with long range cannons on the night of June 28, 1915 until the dawn, though they knew very well that it was a hospital. This led some 18,000 injured Turkish soldiers to die.

A kilometer closer to the sea from the famous field hospital we see the Nuri Yamut Memorial. In the 1940s heaps of the bones of our fallen were still visible on the hills. Nuri Pasha could not stand this view and collected all of them and buried them underneath a memorial he built with his personal financial means. This memorial today sits atop around 10,000 interred bones.

Now we head back to Seddülbahir where just 67 Turkish soldiers endeavored to stop the advancement of 3,000 enemy troops backed by the cannon fire from the River Clayt and Albiom. They were so firm that they did not take even one step back. The enemy had to kill all of them to capture the place. While the British warplanes were flying over this village they wrote a report: “The landing bay looks like a lake of blood for 50 meters inward from the coastline.”

The next stop is Morto Bay where the French landed their troops. They had so many casualties during the landing campaign that they came to call this spot “morte” (dead). One can still find shrapnel fragments in the water.

We now look at the precipitous scenery before us: This is where the enemy got stuck. We remember that Winston Churchill, then first lord of the Admiralty, made plans for employing poisonous gas to surmount these steep rocks. It was July and there was a stiff landward breeze, making the conditions perfect for the employment of such a weapon. But when they brought the gas to Gallipoli the wind changed direction and began blowing seawards. Upon witnessing many extraordinary events like this, Churchill wrote this sentence in his chronicle of events, “In Gallipoli, we did not fight the Ottomans, we fought God, and were naturally defeated.”

We climb the Bloody Ridge which was attacked many times by the enemy ANZAC troops; hills that overnight turned crimson red. Just ahead of us lies the Martyrs Cemetery of the 57th Regiment. This is where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, while still serving as a colonel, sent the regiment to face the enemy -- each and every soldier of the regiment died. The tomb of the commander of the regiment, Huseyin Avni Pasha, is a little above this point on the edge of a cliff. We pray for their souls.

We come across Atatürk’s monument on the ridge of the Conkbayırı -- where a shrapnel piece hit the watch in his breast pocket. This battle was of high importance for both Atatürk and our coming War of Independence. Atatürk, who made a name for himself in the Libyan city of Tripoli, proved to be an excellent leader at Gallipoli and would soon take the task of organizing the War of Independence.

Now the Anafartalar Plain is lying before us. This place reminds us of the combats that took place in the heat of August. One recalls those days, when the ANZAC troops attacked with all their power from Anzac Bay and Suvla Bay. When the age limit for recruits dropped to as low as 14 and when Hamilton begged Britain to send him one more unit. Britain was so obsessed with taking İstanbul that they responded positively and the Norfolk Royal Regiment, which was otherwise tasked with protecting the British Royal family, was sent. They were not going to hear from that regiment again, whose soldiers disappeared amidst a gray cloud, as the eyewitnesses say.

Conkbayırı is a hill of heroes that acted as a wall preventing the enemy from advancing toward İstanbul. After all the long years that have passed we stand here on this hill and pay homage to all those brave men who lived in trenches for months during the one-year Çanakkale battle and who did not hesitate for a second to give their lives for their country.