PANEL 7

CHUNUK BAIR – HISTORY

Before anything else this panel is a reminder that the Anzac Commemorative Site is just that – a site dedicated to the Australians and New Zealanders who fought at Gallipoli. For New Zealand, the pre-eminent battle on Gallipoli was the effort made by the men of the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and the New Zealand Infantry Brigade to take the heights of Chunuk Bair between 7 and 10 August 1915. If this assault had succeeded then the outcome of the Gallipoli campaign might have been very different. As it was, the Turkish defence of Chunuk Bair, in the last stages led by Mustafa Kemal, prevented a breakout from Anzac by New Zealand, British, Indian and Gurkha troops.

On Chunuk Bair today two great memorials face each other – the New Zealand Memorial and the (Mustafa Kemal) Ataturk Statue. Kemal’s leadership here on the night of 9–10 August was decisive in rallying the Turkish defenders of Chunuk Bair to a supreme effort at dawn on the 10^th to drive the enemy from the summit. Over the days of the ‘August offensive’ in this area thousands were killed or wounded on both sides. Australians, proud of their countrymen’s efforts at Lone Pine and the Nek during the initial stages of the great offensive, should now and then cast their eyes when visiting Gallipoli to that summit whose name was once a byword for courage and sacrifice across the Tasman.