Customer Reviews

Turn Right at Istanbul: A Walk on the Gallipoli Peninsula

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Part travel book, part study of the motivations, behaviour and effects on the legions of (mainly) young Australians who visit the Gallipoli peninsula each year, in part searching for a sense of their own identity in the actions of their forebears in a long-ago war.

The Gallipoli campaign was not by any means the main event of World War 1, but in the forging of national spirit, in the search for national identity it was critical in Australian history. In fact, many more Australians died on the Western Front in France than at Gallipoli. Nevertheless, the Gallipoli-hardened veterans assumed a special status within the defence forces and at home as early as 1915, and the term 'ANZAC' was born at the cove and in the gullies of the rugged Turkish peninsula known now as 'Gallipoli'.

My grandfather was at Gallipoli, and Flanders and the Somme in France. Like the vast majority of his comrades who were fortunate enough to return, he hated talking about the war with his family other than in the vaguest way. He roundly denounced all war as a result of the horrors he witnessed.

Most of the young travellers Wright encounters are the great-grandchildren of the WW1 soldiers. Their search for connection and inter-generational meanings is nowadays backed up with academic and family based reseacrh efforts and a superb, and accessible national archive. At the date of writing this review, there are now only 5 survivors of WW1 left alive in Australia.

Wright has managed to capture the spirit and motivations of the modern pilgrims, as well as depict the tourist industry which has grown up to service their needs. Often they arrive as ignorant as their great-grandfathers did on this Aegean shore . Hopefully they leave better informed, and with a thirst to know more.

Wright examines the criticisms of the partying and over-indulgence in alcohol accompanying the Anzac Day (April 25th - the day of the landing at Gallipoli) commemorations each year, and concludes that the young people share much of the exuberance and joie de vivre of their equally free-spirited forbears. He also portrays the sober, good-natured manner of the actual commemorative services, and the positive interactions with their modern Turkish counterparts.

This is a very good book in the 'travel writing' genre, well-written by an experienced journalist. It is easy to read, and imbued with informed opinion. It is also much more, and I thoroughly recommend it to anyone with any interest at all in understanding this particularly Australian 'pilgrimage' phenomenon.

Tony Wright says that all the great histories of Gallipoli have been written and he might be right. That will not, however, stand in the way of writers who want to tap into the Anzac legend's rich lode. Tony Wright's is one of the best book available (the other would be Mat McLachlan's) for the thousands of backpackers who travel to Gallipoli for Anzac Day. He calls it "a journey". It is subtitled "A Walk on the Gallipoli Peninsula" and offers practical advice for those planning a pilgrimage to what has become a sacred, if somewhat boozy, site. Yet it is more than a travel book.

He took with him a diary written by his great uncle, George Reuben Moore, who landed at Gallipoli on April 25th, 1915, what Manning Clark called "that sad Sabbath morn". Moore didn't write anything in his diary for 23 days. "Perhaps he was a little busy," Wright notes. His engaging book marries the people with the landscape - Great Uncle George; the dead, before whose graves he pauses; the heroes like Simpson and his donkey, and those who simply dug in and hung on; the Turks, including their great leader, Ataturk; the author's Turkish hosts and Australian travelling companions. He thinks Great Uncle George would have liked the young people he met on his "pilgrimage to the now-peaceful place that had once scared the hell out of him, and which laid such a spell on him"

Tony Wright is National Affairs Editor of The Bulletin magazine and a senior political correspondent based at Parliament House in Canberra. He'a also an Australian so much of the book is centered around Australian experiences and Australian National Identity. And Australians are definialty not the same as New Zealanders, whatever people from other countries think! Another (Kiwi) reviewer commented that this book "was great for developing my plans for traveling to Gallipoli next year, where to stay, who to use, what to take and what to expect. The list of websites at the end is very useful too."