On this day 96 years ago, soldiers of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps together with soldiers from a range of other allied countries landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. The objective was to secure the Dardanelles, a narrow strait connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara which in turn connects to the Black Sea, in order to open an effective supply route to Russia.
Despite the heroic efforts of the soldiers, the Gallipoli campaign was unsuccessful. The resistance put up by the Ottoman defenders was too great, and the campaign was finally abandoned some eight months later. As the first great international conflict experienced by Australia, the Gallipoli campaign has acquired special significance and is commemorated each year on 25 April as a national day of remembrance, ANZAC Day.
The failure of the Gallipoli campaign was very costly for Armenian Christians. The Armenian Genocide had started on Red Sunday, the day before the Gallipoli landing, with the arrest of Armenian leaders in Constantinople. A deliberate program of annihilation of Armenians followed over the next several years including mass burnings, drowning, poisoning, and lethal injections, resulting in the deaths of more than one million people.