The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #40287   Message #3723242
Posted By: JeffB
13-Jul-15 - 05:19 AM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Suvla Bay
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Suvla Bay
Sorry Lighter. You're wrong about the the Anzacs landing at Suvla Bay on 25th April. That was the date they landed at Anzac Cove, and it is commemorated every year in Australia as Anzac Day, probably the most important day in the Australian events calendar (after the Melbourne Cup of course).

The Suvla Bay landing was in early August. It was a purely British affair, and was a dismal fiasco.

The accounts I've read of both landings say that, despite the myths of storms of shot and shell, they were relatively unopposed by the Turks; in fact the Australian author Alan Moorehead (in his excellent book Gallipoli) says that on the afternoon of the 25th an Australian unit almost made a significant break-through which would have opened the way to an advance into the interior of the peninsula. It was one of the couple of occasions on which the campaign very nearly succeeded, but unfortunately the Aussies came up against a platoon of Turks commanded by Kemal himself.