The Turkish soldiers and the ANZACs had a respect for each other. There was even an agreement to stop the fire so both sides could bury the dead. It was an amnesty.
On the 24 May a Turkish soldier met with the Australians to arrange the amnesty, this photo in the museum shows the Turk blindfolded and led to talk to the General Birdwood.
ANZAC medical officers supervised burying the dead, and although the Turks and the ANZACs were meant to stay away from each other, they didn't.
Sergeant William Alfred Cross, a New Zealand-born chaplain noticed a changed attitude in the two sides after the amnesty.
"While engaged burying the dead I came in contact with a number of Turks, one or two of whom could speak French, and I chatted to them while I had about 40 others around me. I found them decent fellows - simple country peasants, who had no grievances with anybody, and they regretted they had to come out and fight the English. We exchanged cigarettes and they lit ours”
Gallipoli campaign was a disaster
Because Australia didn't really have a say in joining the way, the were automatically involved because they were a dominion of Britain, it also meant the senior Australian officers didn't officially challenge the British and neither did the Australian politicians.
Keith Murdoch was an Australian journalist who went to Gallipoli during the campaign. He was horrified with what he saw. He decided, with the British journalist Ashmead-Bartlett, to let the British and Australian prime ministers know what was happening because Hamilton wasn't. It wasn't easy to get the letters through past the censors, but they did and on 8 December the British government decided to evacuate.
The only success of the Gallipoli campaign was the evacuation when there was NO loss of life.
Each night thousands of men crept away until the whole 90,000 men, 200 guns and 5000 horses had departed (they even wrapped the horses hooves with fabric to muffle their sound).
Only a few were left and kept firing from the trenches so the Turks weren't aware of the departure. Ataturk wasn't at Gallipoli at the time, he was in Constantinople because he was having issues with the German co-commander Von-Saunders and he wanted to sort it out. Ataturk was furious the evacuation happened so successfully.
One Australian whispered as he moved to the waiting boat:
"walk softly when you pass those graces so they won't know we have gone".
In so many letters from the soldiers to family at home, that leaving 10,000 ANZACs in shallow graves was very hard and that they wanted to get their 'own back' one day.
According to Bean, the Australians were ' very sore at heart' about forsaking their dead, leaving them below rough sods of earth of scattered on the rugged Turkish headland.
The last Australian soliders were evacuated on 19-20 December.
Although the campaign was a disaster, and many ANZACs went to the Western Front or the Middle East to fight afterwards, the ANZACs were known for their courage and ingenuity and creativity.
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