In the mine-strewn Dardanelles
and upon the sun-baked, blood-drenched rocky slopes of Gallipoli, death
always partnered every sailor and soldier. As at Balaklava, virtually
everyone knew that some one had blundered, but the army and the navy as
one man fought to the bitter end to make the best of a bad bargain, to
tear triumph out of impossibilities.
France co-operated with the British in the naval engagement, but the
greater sacrifice, the supreme charnel house of the war, the British
race reserved for itself. There, the yeomanry of England, the unsung
county regiments whose sacrifices and achievements have been neglected
in England's generous desire to honor the men from "down under," the
Australians and New Zealanders grouped under the imperishable title of
the Anzacs--there the Scotch, Welsh and Irish knit in one devoted
British Army with the great fighters from the self-governing colonies
waged a battle so hopeless and so gallant that the word Gallipoli shall
always remind the world how man may triumph over the fear of death; how
with nothing but defeat and disaster before them, men may go to their
deaths as unconcernedly as in other days they go to their nightly sleep.
On November 5, 1914, Great Britain declared war upon Turkey.
Hostilities, however, had preceded the declaration.
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