The Original Turkish Memorial, North Beach, Anzac.

The Turkish Memorial to their dead and to their victory on North Beach, Anzac.

In one of the few regrettable acts of the AIF some Turkish memorials were destroyed by members of the Light Horse and the NZMR when they returned to the peninsular after the war. To quote the AWM

"This certificate relates to a memorial erected by the Turkish Army at Anzac Beach c.1916-1918, to commemorate 'Driving the British Forces into the Sea' on the Gallipoli Peninsula in late 1915 and early 1916.

In December 1918, a regiment of the Australian Light Horse and a regiment of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles were sent to the Gallipoli battlefields from Egypt by the War Office.

The party was distressed to find that the Turks had removed many grave markers from the earlier battles and had erected their own memorial instead.

The Australians destroyed the Turkish memorial after taking the photograph of it that appears inside this folded certificate. The statement of authenticity indicates that the certificate originally accompanied a piece of white marble from the memorial but this is not with the certificate now."

AWM REL27817

Where the Turkish trenches had stood at the Nek, Bean noticed a Turkish memorial.

This memorial–and other reminders of the Turkish soldiers’ sacrifice at Anzac–brought from the Australian official historian this tribute:

I saw now, with something of a shock … a monument put up by the Turks to mark the spot [at Lone Pine] at which they had stopped the terrific August thrust.

Away on the ridges nearly a mile beyond it, at The Nek where also we had been stopped, we could see another monument (and we afterwards noted a third at North Beach).

Obviously the Turks were very proud of their achievement. And, we reflected, those who stopped the invading spearheads on Gallipoli well deserved commemoration as soldiers and patriots.

(C E W Bean, Gallipoli Mission, Canberra, 1948)

Lone Pine

Gallipoli, Turkey. 1919.

A temporary Turkish Memorial built near the edge of the Cup at Lone Pine overlooking Anzac Cove.

(Donor Newfoundland Government)

Turkish monument erected on Lone Pine after the evacuation in memory of their men who fell in many vain attempts to recapture the position that was taken by the 1st Infantry Brigade after a fierce and bloody fight, on the afternoon of 6 August 1915.

Owen's Gully runs across centre of picture (not very noticeable).

Photograph taken on the Gallipoli Peninsula under the direction of Captain C. E. W. Bean of the Australian Historical Mission, during the months of February and March, 1919. AWM text