Australia to Commemorate 105th Anniversary of Gallipoli Evacuation

A game of cricket was played on Shell Green in an attempt to distract the Turks from the imminent departure of allied troops. Major George Macarthur Onslow of the Light Horse in batting, is being caught out. Shells were passing overhead all the time the game was in progress. Australian War Memorial

On Sunday, Dec. 20, Australia will commemorate 105 years since the last of its troops evacuated the Gallipoli Peninsula, the site of one of the most well-known campaigns of the First World War.

Newly reappointed Minister for Veterans’ Affairs Darren Chester said that on April 25, 1915, the ANZACs set out to seize the ridges running off the Sari Bair Range to cut off the Turks defending the Gallipoli Peninsula. The objectives were not taken and the campaign to take Turkey out of the war soon became a stalemate, and turned into an eight-month-long battle of attrition.