Conkbayiri Atatürk Aniti (Atatürk Memorial), Conkbayiri, Gallipoli
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- The inscription on the New Zealand National Memorial at Conkbayırı (Chunuk Bair), Gallipoli.
When you see me wave my whip…
The words on a tall memorial pylon at the summit of Conbayiri (Chunuk Bair) suggest the origin of the people who put it there:
FROM THE UTTERMOST
ENDS OF THE EARTH
This is the New Zealand National Memorial and from the eastern face of the pylon, where those words are inscribed, the view takes in the very reason the Allies fought at Gallipoli. From here the Narrows of the Dardanelles are visible and whole stretches of the straits. Beyond, for kilometres, the eye sweeps across the great expanse of the ancient province of Anatolia in Asia. And it was from here, in the dawn light of 9 August 1915, that a group of Allied soldiers, all from the Wellington Infantry Battalion, New Zealand Expeditionary Force, also saw the Narrows. One of them put the reason for them being there succinctly:
Some chaps had a glimpse of the sea and all the country in between and we knew perfectly well that this hill was the key to victory or defeat on the peninsula.
[Sergeant Daniel Curham, Wellington Infantry Battalion, quoted in Christopher Pugsley, Gallipoli, The New Zealand Story, Auckland, 1998, p.286]
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- The inscription in English on the Atatürk Anıtı (Memorial) at Conkbayırı, Gallipoli.
The Turkish defenders of Gallipoli were also aware of the importance of Conkbayiri. However, it had been thought by most Turkish commanders that the steep valleys and slopes below the hill facing the sea were impassable to large numbers of troops as they would be seen and shot down from Turkish positions leading up to Conkbayiri from Anzac. Only one commander, Lieutenant-Colonel Mustafa Kemal, felt that this was exactly the way the Allies would try to break out of Anzac and seize the all-important heights. If they succeeded, then who could say how the campaign would go from there for the Turks. Their back lines of communication along the Narrows would be vulnerable and their whole line down the slope to Anzac would be turned and looked down upon by the invaders.
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- The view from the left hand wall of the Chunuk Bair Cemetery on Conkbayırı looking down towards the Straits of the Dardanelles, the Çannakale Boğazi. The straits are in the haze in the middle distance.
Kemal wanted the defences of Conkbayiri greatly strengthened but it was not done. What he had not dreamed of was that the Allies would mount a night attack here. Indeed, it was this great night attack that was the kernel of the Allies plan to take Conkbayiri and the nearby Çimentepe (Hill 971) during the August Offensive which opened on the night of 6 August 1915. It was that offensive which brought the Wellingtons, on the morning of 8 August, to Conkbayiri but it also brought Mustafa Kemal to this newly threatened part of the Turkish line.
For two days – 8 and 9 August – the battle in and around Conkbayiri raged. Both sides suffered terrible casualties and the slopes on either side of the peak were littered with the dead, dying and wounded. The Turkish commanders on the spot were fearful, even panicky. Kemal, who had been put in charge of the whole northern front, spent those two days at Suvla Bay where the British had made another landing which, if it had been pressed forward with decision, could have swept across the peninsula. From Conbayiri, Kemal received despairing reports:
The last commander of this regiment has been killed. Most of the officers are dead or wounded. I do not even know the name of the hill I am on. I can see nothing. I know nothing. I implore you for the safety of the nation to appoint someone who knows the land and us.
[Unnamed Turkish officer, quoted in Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, London, 1999, p.286]
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- The Atatürk Anıtı (Memorial) and the New Zealand National Memorial at Conkbayiri, Gallipoli.
When he felt Suvla was secure, Kemal headed up to Conkbayiri on the night of 9 August 1915. There he found all his officers asleep leaving, in his scathing words, ‘the battle to the will of God’. Apart from one battalion, there were no more reserves and the local commander, Ali Riza, had not been able to dislodge the New Zealanders and British troops from Conkbayiri. Kemal himself was tired and exhausted after sleepless nights on the battlefield but he later wrote – ‘All men, all creatures, suffer from tiredness. But men have a mental force that allows them to go on without resting’. He did not rest now but came quickly to the conclusion that only a sudden, surprise attack at dawn, before the Allied warships, artillery and machine guns could open up could retake Conkbayiri. There was no accurate map of the area and Kemal was unsure if the land on the other side of the peak did not fall away over a precipice. If his plan failed, Conkbayiri might be lost and with it the Gallipoli campaign. It was a desperate moment, and a moment of decision, for Turkey. The local commanders pleaded with Kemal not to commit everything in this reckless manner. He could see their argument but felt that he had no choice. To wait would give the advantage to the enemy and then they were lost anyway.
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- The Atatürk Anıtı (Memorial) at Conkbayiri, Gallipoli. Kemal's whip can be clearly seen behind his back. The concrete balls on the ground in front of the memorial mark the spot where Kemal was hit by shrapnel.
Thousands of Turkish soldiers were now assembled in the dark below Conkbayiri. It was 4.30 am, 10 August 1915. Kemal wrote:
The blanket of night had lifted. Now was the hour for the attack … I ran forward at once … ‘Soldiers! There is no doubt we shall defeat the enemy opposing us. But don’t you hurry, let me get in front first. When you see me wave my whip all of you rush forward together’. … Then I went to a point forward of the assault line, and, raising my whip, gave the signal for the assault.
[Mustafa Kemal, quoted in Robert Rhodes James, Gallipoli, London, 1999, p.299]
In one long seething mass of men, rifles and bayonets, the Turks rushed over the crest of Conkbayiri and swept the Allied line away. They poured down the slopes and inflicted great losses on a whole British brigade (about 3,000 men) at a location known as The Farm. Then the New Zealand machine guns opened up:
I saw a most amazing sight. A great mass of Turks coming over the hill … I had my gun trained on the very spot and all I had to do was to press the trigger and, of course, they fell all over the place.
[Sergeant Daniel Curham, Wellington Infantry Battalion, quoted in Christopher Pugsley, Gallipoli, The New Zealand Story, Auckland, 1998, p.309]
- The Chunuk Bair (New Zealand) Memorial at Conkbayırı, Gallipoli. On its walls are commemorated the names of 850 members of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force who perished in the battles in this area, but mainly in the Allied efforts to take Conkbayırı from the Turks between 7 and 10 August 1915. The names are those of the ‘missing’, soldiers who have no known grave.
With the shells of the warships, the artillery and the deadly fire of the New Zealand machine gunners, the Allied lines held on the slope leading down from Conkbayiri. The Turks retreated to the heights from which they were never again dislodged. In a sense, within an hour on that morning the Gallipoli campaign had been lost for the Allies and on the heights of Conkbayiri stood Mustafa Kemal and his exhausted but victorious soldiers.
The New Zealand National Memorial is not the only memorial on Conkbayiri. Within metres of it is a large bronze statue of Mustafa Kemal in the uniform of an officer of the army of the Ottoman Empire. Behind his back he clasps a whip, a reminder to all who know the story of that dawn when he raised it to begin the great Turkish counter-attack at Conkbayiri. Given what happened that day, no wonder Kemal is remembered and honoured here. Every year on 25 April, the New Zealanders also come to their memorial on Conkbayiri to remember the nation’s loss and achievement at Gallipoli. As the solemn words of the New Zealand service, spoken by these men and women from the ‘uttermost ends of the earth’, roll out over Conkbayiri, one wonders what Kemal’s reaction might be. Undoubtedly, he would respect the fact that the New Zealanders come in peace and with the great goodwill of the people of Turkey. But can we hear the statue quietly whisper – ‘You came, you saw, but we conquered’.