GALLIPOLI - A POSTWAR EPIC

by Bulent Ecevit  

• “What land were you torn away from,

  • what makes you so sad having come here”

  • Asked Mehmet, the soldier from Anatolia

  • addressing the Anzac lying near

• “FROM THE UTTERMOST ENDS OF THE WORLD I come

  • so it writes on my tombstone”

  • answered the youthful Anzac “and here I am

  • buried in a land that I had not even known”

• “do not be disheartened mate”

  • Mehmet told him tenderly

  • “you share with us the same fate

  • in the bosom of our country

• you are not a stranger anymore

  • you have become a Mehmet just like me” 

  • a paradise on earth Gallipoli

  • is a burial under the ground

• those who lost their lives in fighting

  • lie there mingled in friendly compound 

  • Mehmet then asked an English soldier

  • who seemed to be at the playing age

• “how old are you little brother

  • what brought you here at such an early stage” 

  • “I am fifteen forever” the English soldier said

  • “in the village from where I come

• I used to play war with the children

  • arousing them with my drum 

  • then I found myself in the front

  • was it real or a game before I could tell

• my drum fell silent

  • as I was struck with a shell  

  • a place was dug for me in Gallipoli

  • on my stone was inscribed “DRUMMER AGE FIFTEEN”

• thus ended my playful task and this is the record

  • of what I have done and what I have been” 

  • A distant drum bereaved of its master

  • was weeping somewhere around

• as drops of tear fell on it

  • with the soft rainfall on the ground 

  • what winds had hurled

  • all those youthful braves

• from four continents of the world

  • to the Gallipoli graves

  • Mehmet asked in wonder 

  • they were English or Scotch

• they were French or Senegalese

  • they were Indians or Nepalese

  • they were Anzacs

  • from Australia and New Zealand

• shipfuls of soldiers who had landed

  • on the lacy bays of Gallipoli not knowing why

  • climbed the hills and slopes rising high

  • digging trenches cutting the earth like wounds

• to shelter as graves those were to die 

  • Some were “BELIEVED TO BE BURIED”

  • in one cemetery or other

  • some were in “GRAVES UNKNOWN”

• all had “ENTERED INTO REST”

  • in the language of the tombstone

  • at the age of sixteen or seventeen or eighteen

  • under the soil of Gallipoli 

• thus their short-lived stories were told

  • as inscriptions on tablets of old 

  • buried there Mehmet of Anatolia

  • without a stone to tell

• consoled them saying “brothers

  • I understand you well 

  • for centuries I also had to die

  • in distant lands not knowing why

• for the first time I gave my life not feeling sore

  • for I gave it here for my own in a war

  • thus the sultan’s fief tilled for ages with my hand

  • has now become for me a motherland 

• you who died in this land you did not know

  • are no more foreigner or foe

  • for the land which you could not take

  • has taken you to her bosom too

• you therefore belong here

  • as much as I do” 

  • In Gallipoli a strange war was fought

  • cooling off the feelings

• as fighting became hot 

  • it was a ruthless war

  • yet breeding respect

  • in heart-to-heart exchange

• as confronting trenches

  • fell into closer range 

  • turning foe to friend

  • as the fighters reached their end 

• the war came to a close

  • those who survived

  • returned to their lands and homes

  • leaving the dead behind 

• wild flowers wave after wave

  • replaced the retiring soldiers

  • wild roses and mountain tulips and daisies

  • were spread as rugs on the ground

• covering trench-by-trench

  • the wounds of fighting on the earth 

  • the sheep turned the bunkers into sheds

  • the birds replaced the bullets in the sky

• nature with hands holding the plough instead of guns

  • captured back the battlegrounds

  • with its flowers and fruits and greenery 

  • and life returned to the soil

• as traces of blood were effaced

  • turning the hell of the battlefield

  • into a paradise on earth 

  • Gallipoli now abounds

• with gardensful

  • with nationsful

  • of burial grounds 

  • a paradise on earth Gallipoli

• is a burial under the ground

  • those who lost their lives in fighting

  • lie there mingled in friendly compound 

  • “lying side by side”

• as “friends in each other’s arms”

  • they may “sleep in comfort and peace”

  • in the land for which they died