Manning Clark famously said that the first investment any historian should make was a good pair of boots. Nothing could be more pertinent to the military historian or aficionado intending to visit the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Much has been made of the crowds of backpackers making their secular pilgrimage to this hallowed ground. Certainly few arrive with relief maps or photocopies of the battlefield maps from the official histories in their kit, though some doubtless carry copies of Cupper and Taylor’s informative battlefield guide. Most will follow the much-travelled road from Eceabat (formerly Maidos, a village virtually razed by naval gunfire during the campaign) to the visitors’ centre at Kabatepe.
Kabatepe immediately raises questions to the inquiring military mind. It was a Turkish observation post at the time of the Allied invasion. The position offers a superb view of the coast along the strip known as Brighton Beach, the officially designated landing spot. Anzac Cove is not visible from this position. For those drawn to the theory that the Anzacs were not landed at the wrong beach this view offers the first salivating morsel.
From Kabatepe you can drive along the coastal road all the way to Fisherman’s Hut and the North Beach. On a clear day the Island of Imbros rises boldly against the horizon to the west. The tranquillity of the place belies the awful slaughter that befell some of the 7th Battalion on the morning of the landing when they came under fire from Turkish machine-guns. A walk north past the Commonwealth War Grave Cottages and workshop will take you to a number of small cemeteries and lead you into the area of the August offensive.
As in all Commonwealth war grave cemeteries, visitors can gaze upon the headstones of young soldiers and read the heartfelt epitaphs. Some are pithy while others are couched in the Imperial dogma of a bygone era. It is easy to slip into a clichéd melancholia about the folly of war.
The dominating feature of the landscape in this part of the battlefield is the escarpment known to the soldiers as the Sphinx. Its features have clearly been eroded over time. Impossible to climb, it stands glowering like a stony sentinel. Soldiers moving in the northern sector would have marked their positions from it. Equally formidable to the eye is the position of Russell’s Top and Plugge’s Plateau. Together, they look like a giant anvil or axe head