Two east-west wars in history
 

The Trojan War 1200 BC

Troy was a great civilisation based on the south of the Dardanelles. The epic poem The Iliad by Homer, believed to have been be written around 800 BC, tells of the merciless war in 1200 BC between the invaders coming from Greece and its islands besieging the city in order to seize its treasures and the Trojans and other Anatolian communities coming to their aid. In the legend the hero of the Greeks, Achilles, kills Hector, son of the Trojan king and Troy's greatest warrior.
Academics are divided in their views regarding Troy, with some claiming that there was no Trojan War and the mythical legend by Homer was not based on fact. Some go even further, saying that in fact no poet such as Homer lived.
As the debate goes on there is one clear fact, that there was a city of Troy and that since 3000 BC it had been destroyed and rebuilt nine times on the very same location.
The amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann found the location of Troy based on Homer's epic legend The Iliad and began excavations on the site in 1870

The Gallipoli Campaign

A The Strait has been important throughout history, as the gateway to Istanbul that was the capital for the Ottoman and the Byzantine Empires, for its being the route that leads through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus to the Black Sea and thus to a great continent and the fertile lands of Anatolia.
It was 30 centuries after the invasion to capture Troy that the Allied forces in World War One, namely Britain, France and Russia, first bombarded the defences of Çanakkale, on 3 November 1915. The plan was to transit the Dardanelles, defeat the Ottomans and to open way to give support to Russia.
There was a long and painful campaign where both sides suffered great losses. Approximately 250,000 soldiers were killed or wounded on either side, giving a total casualty toll of some 500,000.

From the myth of Troy

Hekaba, the wife of Priam, the King of Troy, had a dream in which flames came from her stomach and smoke covered the city walls. She sought the advice of the oracles about the dream. It came about that the Queen was pregnant and the oracles said the child would bring disaster to the city. When the child was born, in order to protect the city, he was left on Mount Ida. However, the child was found by a shepherd who raised him and named him Paris. In the meantime the goddess of disputes, Eris, had been angered by not being invited to a wedding and threw an apple that had written on it the words "for the most beautiful goddess of all" before the gods and goddesses. None could agreement on whom deserved to have the apple. In the end they agreed on the candidates to be Athena, Aphrodite and Hera. They consulted the supreme god Zeus and he told them to refer to Paris's judgement as referee.
The three beautiful women came to Mount Ida to face Paris. Athena promised Paris victory in all wars, Hera the kingdom of all the world and Aphrodite the most beautiful woman on earth.
The most beautiful woman on earth that Aphrodite promised happened to be Helen, the wife of the King of Sparta. Paris fell in love with Helen, abducted her and took her to Troy.
This is how, in mythology at least, the beginning of the merciless ten year long Troy War is explained.
The Athenians attacked Troy with the support of the other states in Greece and the islands, beginning a war that lasted so long that at times Zeus and other gods and goddesses would intervene. One day the Athenian hero Achilles and the Trojan hero Hector fought a duel to their death, with Achilles winning.
However, the story and the war did not end there, with the shepherd of Ida, Paris, then slaying Achilles.

The wooden horse of Trojan a
nd the horse from the movie Troy
The Athenians came to realise that they could not conquer the city by force so, after consulting with the gods, they prepared a ruse.
They built a horse from wood and hid their bravest soldiers in it, left the horse near the gates of the city and then embarked on ships and set sail for the open seas. In fact, the ships were hidden offshore at the nearby island of Tenedos. The Trojans dragged the horse into the walls of the city as a war tribute and held a feast of victory. Due to their exhaustion from the long years of war and the effect drinking much wine everyone fell asleep. The Athenian warriors inside the wooden horse got out quietly and opened the gates of the city. The Athenian fleet had returned in the night, the troops disembarked and entered Troy, slaughtering most of the inhabitants. Those women who were not killed were taken as slaves, the Athenians winning the war by a trick where force had failed.

There is a symbolic wooden horse at the entrance of the historical ancient site of the city of Troy.
The first horse, sited outside Troy and which visitors can climb into, was built by a local carpenter using information gathered from archaeologists. In 2004 a rival horse arrived.
The wooden horse made for the movie Troy to represent the Trojan horse was brought to Çanakkale and erected in Morrabin Park on the waterfront in the centre of Çanakkale.
In one year's time the horse will relocated on the top of 18 March Hill above the city so that it can be seen from the Dardanelles and there are plans to turn this area into the Troy Park.

Trojan culture in Anatolia
Professor Manfred Korfmann, who for many years has led the excavations at Troy, describes the Troy IV and V periods as the "Anatolian Troy Culture". There is very little in information about this period, which extended for 500 years. When each successive Troy was being built the previous one was destroyed to a great degree.
Troy had its brightest period after this. The time of Troy VI-VII was the period that the fortress that draws admiration even today was built, but there is no information on where the settlers came from. Their language was not Hellenic, they did not come from west by sea. Their language was Luvi.
Due to the city's position as a port it appears that many merchant ships used to come here. One of the cemeteries discovered shows the characteristics of an "international mariners cemetery" which backs this thesis. The finds reveal that there were people in the region who came from very different places.
In the decades around 1700 BC there were important transitions experienced that set the tone for the next 500 years. In this same period, King Hammurabi of Babylon, famed for setting written codes of law, was in power. By uniting a series of small kingdoms, Anitta formed the great kingdom of the Hittites. In current Greece the Mycean culture was developing and in Crete the Minoeans were having their bright period. In western Anatolia cities such as Iasos, Milet and Knidos were been built.
Maritime trade was developing. It is not believed that the Trojans were great mariners though it has been shown that they earned good money from the port, providing piloting services, and from trade as a marketplace.
It is obvious that the wealthy and busy cities whetted the appetite of invaders. In the Troy VI (1700-1300 BC) higher and wider fortress walls were built. Once this wall was gone an even stronger one was constructed. Finally walls five metres thick and with a ramp were built. These were not only resistant to enemy attacks but also to earthquakes.

Was there really a Trojan War?
Schliemann found the city of Troy by following the story in Homer's Iliad. However, the there has always been debate over whether there had been a Trojan War or even if a person called Homer had existed.
According to some experts the Trojan War was a product of the imaginative skills of Homer and indeed there was no such city as Troy. Instead, Homer was telling the story of a war some 450 years after it occurred, a war in which the gods and the goddesses often intervened. Did Zeus, Hera, Athena and Apollo get involved in the war?
On 15-16 February 2004 at the Tübingen University there was a scientific symposium attended by more than 1,000 people. Under the title "Troy's importance in the late Bronze Age" experts again debated the issue.
This debate is not a new one, it has run since Homer first wrote his tale. However, then the debate more about not whether war took place but more on when it happened.
In our days the prevailing view is that there was not just one war but many battles fought for Troy, that the first Trojan War, by far the latest, was fought in the Troy II period and moreover that the last one was the Gallipoli Campaign of1915.
This view held by some historians stems from the fact that this last campaign at the Dardanelles to seize the control of the seaway opening up to the Marmara and the Black Sea also including the land where the ancient Troy was.
Homer was a poet, an epic narrator, not a writer of history but of literature. He would have certainly included gods and goddesses. He possibly wrote of the many wars that were fought for Troy as one epic. And this legend has been united with other stories that were told over the four and half centuries.
To those who question what is the place of gods and goddesses in the tale, it would be well to remember that after the Ottoman Sultan Fatih the Conqueror seized İstanbul in 1453, and in many other wars including the Gallipoli Campaign, many myths spread among the public about the heroic stories of religious wise men, blessed figures, and dervishes that transited the Golden Horn with flying prayer mattress.
As the excavations continue at Troy and more finds are unearthed the glamorous palaces, temples, wide streets, gates, defence works and ditches and many other things that were very similar to those told of in The Iliad are coming to light. The archaeologists and the scientists are giving credence to Homer.

The Gallipoli Campaign

One the greatest conflicts of the recent history, the Gallipoli Campaign of World War One, started when the Allied Forces, consisting of England, France and Russia, used part of their large navy force to bombard the defences of the Dardanelles on 3 November 1914. The objective was to pass through the Strait, defeat the Ottoman Empire and to open the way to support Russia.
As the Allied fleet could not force the Strait, British forces and troops from the British Empire landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula on the morning of 25 April 1915. French troops briefly landed on the Asian side of the Dardanelles before being transferred to the Cape Helles sector. The first to come ashore were 1,500 Australians who landed at the Arıburnu, on the Aegean shore of the peninsula. There was only some 160 Turkish troops stationed in the area, most becoming casualties early in the battle. The Australians were soon reinforced by other troops, including New Zealanders.
The landing on 25 April was carried out rapidly. As the Australian forces reached Hill 261, Mustafa Kemal, a Turkish officer who was later to become the founder of modern Turkey, lead the 57th Regiment in this direction, holding the high ground and stopping the Allied advance. The Allied commander, General Sir Ian Hamilton, realising the landing had failed, ordered his troops to digin.
The fighting spread to the whole area. Strategic points would change hands a number of times in a day. Millions of bullets were used and hand to hand combat was common. However, the Ottoman forces could not be driven from their positions. One result of this failure by the Allies was that Winston Churchill, Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, in effect the British Naval Minister, and Admiral Jackie Fisher, the navy's senior admiral, both left office.

The war on this front started on 25 April 1915 and ended on 20 December, when the Allied forces successfully evacuated their positions. The British suffered a total loss of 205,000, killed, wounded and missing, including 1,745 officers. The losses of the French were about 47,000. The Turks lost at least 57,000 killed in action, between 30,000 and 80,000 missing or died of illness or wounds and a further 100,000 wounded.
Later a series of Allied cemeteries and monuments were constructed in the Arıburnu sector and at the tow of the peninsula at Cape Helles.

And the end of the war
During the eight months of the land campaign months, up to 200,000 lives were lost. The number of injured was never known for sure. No news was received of fate of many of the missing soldiers.
The families of those who fell or were listed as missing suffered great pain. As in all wars this conflict too left much pain behind.
In 1934, nineteen years after the campaign, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who had fought at Gallipoli and later became the President of the Turkish Republic wrote a message for those who were sent from far away to capture this land and whose graves remained. To those soldiers, and their families who came from lands to fight a nation they knew nothing about, he wrote: