PANEL 8

EVACUATION – HISTORY

From the point of view of the British Empire and Dominion forces on Gallipoli no operation there was so successfully carried out as the evacuation of 8 to 20 December 1915. For that reason alone it deserves a panel to itself. The panel text concentrates on the reasons for the withdrawal and the simple facts of how many were successfully taken off the peninsula without the Turks becoming aware what was happening.

The feeling of the soldiers about leaving Gallipoli is well summed up in the prefatory quotation from a New Zealand soldier. Basically, many of the men were greatly saddened by having to leave behind the graves of their dead comrades. Bean tells us their reaction to the news of the evacuation:

For days after the breaking of the news there were never absent from the cemeteries men by themselves, or in twos and threes, erecting new crosses or tenderly ‘tidying-up’ the grave of a friend. This was by far the deepest regret of the troops. ‘I hope,’ said one of them to [General] Birdwood on the final day [19 December], pointing to a little cemetery, ‘I hope they won’t hear us marching down the deres [gullys]'.

[Charles Bean, The Story of Anzac, Vol II, Sydney, 1924, p.882]