Why+did+the+ANZACS+land+where+they+did+at+Gallipolli?

 This information comes from: http://www.anzacsite.gov.au/1landing/why.html Why did the Anzacs land at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915? 

Events leading up to the landing
The attack on Gallipoli was one of the more imaginative strategies of the First World War. The German army had delivered a crushing blow to Russia at Tannenberg at the start of the war and had been driving eastwards. The Russians were threatened by a Turkish advance through the Caucasus and appealed to their allies for assistance. Gaining control of the Dardanelles would re-establish communications with Russia and release wheat and shipping locked in the Black Sea by Turkey. Besides this, British strategists had for many years before the war believed that the best defence of Egypt and the Suez Canal was an attack on Turkey. The British Royal Navy could have gone a long way towards achieving these goals by steaming through the Dardanelles straits in November 1914 and shelling Constantinople (now Istanbul) and perhaps putting the government to flight. Instead, they cautiously tested the range of the Turkish guns by bombarding the shore batteries. The Turkish commanders immediately became aware of their vulnerability to further attacks and strengthened their defences to include carefully laid minefields, well-sited guns and searchlights that swept the narrows at night. Three months later, a British and French fleet that included 18 battleships, attempted to force its way through to Constantinople. Three capital ships were lost and three crippled. Unknown to the Allies, the Turkish gun batteries had almost exhausted their ammunition supplies in this effort, and the fleet could have sailed on through the straits with little further damage. Instead, the naval commanders came to the conclusion that they could not force their way through the Dardanelles unless troops were first sent to occupy the Gallipoli Peninsula in force to silence the Turkish guns. Planning for the landing of troops on Gallipoli commenced.  

 [|25 APRIL 1915: ANZAC COVE, GALLIPOLI]
Historians still debate whether the Anzac troops were landed at the correct place. Why did the Allied commanders send Australian troops to land on a beach before rugged hills, ridges and steep gullies? What was the objective? What happened? ‘The attack on Gallipoli was one of the more imaginative strategies of the First World War ... Gaining control of the Dardanelles would re-establish communications with Russia and release wheat and shipping locked in the Black Sea by Turkey.’ [|Trace events in the War which led up to the landing] at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. [|more ...] ==== [|A BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE ANZAC LANDING...] ==== It was only shortly after the landing that high command let it be known that an error had been made – the landing should have been made on Brighton Beach, south of Anzac Cove and in a locality of relatively friendly topography. > The boat I was in landed on the point. There were three boats to the left of us containing 9th Battalion men, most of whom were killed or wounded in the boat on the extreme left. If Commander Dix states that he was on the extreme right, he is wrong, because the l0th Battalion and one of the 11th were on the right of my boat. I met Drake-Brockman after attacking and reaching the top of the point and he came up from the right side of the hill. The whole of the boats landed between the point and where afterwards the pier was built. My company was on the extreme left of the attack but the 9th Battalion boats landed to the left of us. [|Read a brief description of the landing] – an excerpt from Denis Winter's book, //25 April 1915 – The Inevitable Tragedy//. [|more ...]

Special feature: war correspondents at the landing
== [|Reports by war correspondents] == War correspondents [|Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett] and [|Charles Bean] both provided first-hand accounts of the landing. Ashmead-Bartlett's [|first report] in Australia of the Anzac landing at Gallipoli was reprinted in the Hobart //Mercury// on 12 May 1915. The Australian Prime Mininister, Andrew Fisher made public Bean's [|first report] of the Anzac landing on 17 May 1915. Ashmead-Bartlett became increasingly frustrated with the military censorship of his reports on the Gallipoli campaign. Read his [|views on censorship] in an extract from his diary and the [|behind the scenes story] of his attempts to reveal what he saw as the truth about the campaign. Other [|excerpts] from Ashmead-Bartlett's War Diary also reveal the truth behind the highly censored reports that the public read. [|more ...]

 [|‘First to Fall’]
The dawn 'Landing' was carried out by the four infantry battalions of the 3rd Brigade, First Australian Division. These men came from what Charles Bean, Australia's official historian, called the 'outer states' – Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and Queensland. The 11th Battalion, from Western Australia, came ashore not at Anzac Cove, but on the beach beneath the slopes leading down from Ari Burnu Point and Plugge's Plateau. [|more ...]

 [|A 'duty clear before us']
> Ere another entry is made in this book we will have passed through a very trying time. We are leaving almost everything behind; whether we see it again or not will be a matter of luck. And now we go forward in the full consciousness of a 'duty clear before us', and ... we can only say 'Thy will be done'. God grant comfort to those in anxiety and sorrow and give our leaders wisdom." Read the book [|A 'duty clear before us'] - North Beach and the Sari Bair Range, Gallipoli Peninsula 25 April – 20 December 1915.

<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Signaller Silas at Anzac]
> <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">In this work I have not touched upon the big historical facts, but have endeavoured to portray War as the soldier sees it, shorn of all its pomp and circumstance; the War that means cold and hunger, heat and thirst, the ravages of fever; the War that brings a hail of lead that tears the flesh and rends the limb, and makes of men, heroes. <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">In his book of drawings //Crusading at Anzac, A.D. 1915//, Signaller Ellis Silas of the 16th Battalion rendered dramatic scenes of the Battle of the Landing. [|more ...] <span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">

<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">GALLIPOLI TODAY
> <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">Find out about the key events held at Gallipoli including the Anzac Day Services which are held each year and which since 2000 have been conducted at the Anzac Commemorative Site. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">On the Gallipoli Peninsula today are 31 war cemeteries, and a number of memorials to the missing. The cemeteries contain 22,000 graves. However, only 9,000 of these are of identified burials with grave markers. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">The Anzac Commemorative Site is 300 metres north of Ari Burnu at North Beach. Explore the site and its [|Interpretive Panels], as well as how it was [|constructed] , including [|interactive site plans]. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">Take guided audio tours of the whole Gallipoli region, including a tour of the Anzac Battlefields, a tour of Cape Helles, and an Asian shores tour including Çanakkale, Fort Dardanos and Kumkale. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">Take a tour of the the Turkish monuments and memorials at Gallipoli including those at Kilitbahir and Çanakkale, the Kanlisirt and Atatürk Memorials, Seddülbahir Fort and Atatürk's house at Bigali. [|more ...] <span style="display: block; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Anzac Day at Gallipoli] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|War grave sites at Gallipoli] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Anzac Commemorative Site] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Gallipoli tour] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Turkish memorials] ====

<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">ANZAC ART, IMAGES AND DESIGNS
> <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">Hundred of soldiers in Gallipoli recorded their experiences in diaries and letters. Major Hore recorded his sense of Gallipoli in drawings using at different times ink, pencil, wash and watercolour. Hore's drawings reveal a personal view of Gallipoli through the eyes of a man sensitive to the beauty and drama of his surroundings and the tragedy of war. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">In the collections of the National Archives of Australia there are many files dealing with applications to use the word ‘Anzac’ or to copyright material associated with Gallipoli and the remembrance of the campaign. Look at some of the applications that Australians made, from requests to name their children and homes 'Anzac' to using the word in songs, photographs, cards, designs and product names. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">Explore the interactive site plans for the Anzac Commemorative Site created in Flash. The plans include elevation drawings, site and drainage plans and structural details. The new site, with its informal low stone walls, paths to the beach and information panels, will become a focal point for visitors to this heritage area of special significance to Australians and New Zealanders. [|more ...] > <span style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 0.8em;">View a selection of images of Gallipoli including scenes as they were when photographed in 1915 and as they appear today. There are detailed looks at two famous paintings depicting major events at Gallipoli – "Anzac, The Landing 1915" and "The charge of the 3rd Light Horse Brigade at the Nek, 7 August 1915". [|more ...]
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|The drawings of Major Hore] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|‘Anzac’ - a national heirloom] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|Interactive plans - Commemorative Site] ====
 * ====<span style="color: #a79f70; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 1em;"> [|‘Anzac - the landing 1915’] ====