The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Day 4
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me arse over tit.
And when I awoke in my hospital bed,
and saw what it had done,
Christ I wished I was dead.
Never knew there were worse things than dying.
And no more I’ll go Waltzing Matilda

I’m pretty sure that I first become aware of the Pogues at Xmas 1987 when they conspired with Kirsty McColl to produce the greatest Xmas song of all time™. Their Dirty old Town cover and reading some Greatest Albums of All Time list led me to Rum, Sodomy and the Lash, which really does belong in such lists. It concludes with The Band played Waltzing Maltida, instantly and still my favourite song on the record. It wasn’t till 2005 flying back from Boston, appropriately enough, with the Noonster that I discovered this wasn’t even the Pogues own song. While clearly about WW1, it took me a while to realise it was specifically about Gallipoli and it took nearly 6 months in Australia and New Zealand for the import of Gallipoli to really hit me. It’ll be interesting to see how many Anzacs are with me tomorrow when I go to visit the area.

To get to Canakkale I am travelling down the European side of Turkey, before a quick boat crossing to the town on the Asian side: Gallipoli is back on the European side, but Troy is on the Asian side, so you need to pick one side or the other. Only 3% of Turkey’s area is in Europe (it’s still 6 hours by bus); it does make you wonder about Turkey’s application for EU membership, its presence in such prestigious European events as the Euro soccer and the singing competition that Wogan presents. The large number of Oriental tourists is noticeable and emphasises Turkey Asian base. What is beyond all argument is that it belongs in Europe more than Israel. No one has talked to me about Turkey and the EU yet, but the EU is well known to be wary. Interestingly the other main of tourist nationality I have seen is American. However, I’m not sure how many of them are on holiday: yesterday I saw 30 or so very bored looking Americans being lectured for 10 mins on the obelisk in the Hippodrome. They mostly wore sunglasses, almost all had very short hair and were all men. I think they may have been military.

This bus is setting some high standards. Costing less than £15 it is very nice indeed and there’s no one standing in the aisles and the music/movie is pretty quiet. I thought it might be more akin to South America, but not yet. In fact any Turks travelling by bus in the UK (and most other ‘Western’ countries) would probably get a shock. A nasty one. In addition to Drives, there are 2 people looking after us. We’ve had cake and tea and I’m now just waiting for the game of cricket to start. I do wish I spoke more Turkish. I’d love to know if the girl sat next to me (in her assigned seat) was moved on because of my privileged tourist status (marked on my ticket as well as my face) or to save her from a voracious sexual predator.

One thing that is the same on public transport throughout the world, yet still surprises me is the number of people with nothing to do. A newspaper, crossword, maybe even a Jeffrey Archer has got to better than staring at the back of the head of the guy in front. There are a lot of people looking at the back of heads.

Almost inevitably this is the nicest day since I arrived. It’s sunny and would have been an excellent time to go on a boat on the Bosphorus. Still, I think I shall be back to Istanbul.

At one pit stop I was accosted by the very friendly guy who ran the Turkish delight section of the ‘market’ (think shop at petrol station with local prouce and smiles). So after a taster, I walked out with a couple of varieties-there were plenty. Mighty tasty too, unlike that’s Fry’s shite.

I’ve been flicking through the LP and seen some interesting things. Istanbul to Cairo is about 4,000km-though I’m sure my route will be a good bit further. It sounds a lot, but then I just drove over 2,000km in France in a week, so I guess it’s not so bad. Many people have given me wary looks when I say I’m going to the Middle East, told me to keep safe, expressed their reluctance to travel here independently and so on (sentiments I am thankful for).I’m not going to the Golan Hieghts, Gaza Strip or Iraq so I’m pretty relaxed, while hoping that statement doesn’t come back to bite a big chunk out of my arse. So I’ve trotted out standard lines about there being hotspots of travel and media coverage of the region, which I massive, being focused on narrow areas. Imagine if you lived in a country when media coverage of the UK in the past 30 years only discussed bombings (IRA or Al Qaeda), riots race or other (Brixton, Oldham, Toxteth) and political corruption (postal votes, most 1990s Tories, most nominees for the Labour Deputy Leadership). Well, you might not be rushing to visit London.

Then I read this story

Once in Tehran we stood, obviously Westerners, with cameras and pasty complexions, and watched a crowd march by chanting ‘Death to America! Death to Britain!’-several marchers grinned, waved and broke off to come over and ask how we liked Iran.

Which somehow summarises it all rather better.

On the minus side, the regional history has made significant mention of Babylon, so now I’m earworming Boney bloody M.

The final leg of the journey was a half hour ferry crossing- I think this is the first time I’ve moved from one continent to another without flying. Just done something I hate doing-booked my ticket out of a place almost as soon as I arrive; still tomorrow I’m going to be out about all day and I’ve not worked out yet what impact weekends have.

One of the most clichéd traveller scams is the ‘hello Sir, your hotel has burnt down, gone bust, is crap, is being redecorated. {but in an amazing and fortuitous twist of fate} my brother/cousin/father/son/bloke I met in the pub owns a place that is better. It’s just round the corner.’ India specialises in this. Anyway, it’s obvious a load of bull. Except this time…..

I found my hostel, where I had booked in for a 13 Lira a night dorm bed in a 14 bed dorm (rather larger than my usual tastes, but I was figuring it wouldn’t be full). Turns out business is so quiet that they’re decorating (if it had been a scam, the guy coming down the stairs covered in paint would have been a masterstroke). So I’m now in their sister hotel round the corner in a 85 lira a night single. Naturally, at no extra charge. I really do travel by spawn.

Day 5
An early start and off to Troy. Or should I say Troys as there are 9 cities of Troy on the site. Troy was settled, destroyed/abandoned and resettled between 3,000 BC and Roman times in such a way that 9 identifiable cities. The Roman essentially flattened some of the highest bits when they built the Temple of Athena there. It’s easy to understand why a fortified city was deemed desirable 5,000 years ago and why the Trojans persisted. Troy was set on a fairly substantial hill, overlooking a fertile plain, which could support it and be used for fighting Greeks on and also overlooking the narrow part of the Dardenelles. You can see Europe on a misty day.

Troy 2 was built of mud brick and topped with wood in 2,500 BC. When the word burnt, it fired the bricks and made them last till today. The entrance was made of stone.



Earthquake (or Poseidon’s wrath) also took it’s toll on Troy and the walls of later Troys are built to allow for earth movements, Troy 6 or 7 was the one of Homeric legend, and you have to give the Greeks credit, when they built a wooden horse, they built it to last.



A reminder of what a total muppet Paris was. Offered the choice being the cleverest man, most powerful man or having the most beautiful woman he chose the later. Ignoring that either of the former would probably have given him all 3 prizes.

Troy is now what I’d have to call archaeological remains-there’s no height to it, no real buildings, but in the company of our guide Mustafa it was nonetheless fascinating. In fact the city had to be found again before the Indiana Joneses could start digging. One of the things they found was jewellery with Lapis Lazuli, proving a direct or indirect trading connection with Afghanistan. I liked the way the entrance from Troy 7 hooked 90 degrees left at the last moment-meaning you couldn’t get at the gate with a battering ram. Not seen that before. Unfortunately, it’s not massively photogenic.



Gallipoli
Now I’m not one to rant, but the First World War makes me mad. We had a few Aussies along for the ferry back to Europe to visit the Gallipoli sites. We probably had the best part of a dozen stops and it got very quiet in the minibus. Even by the standards of war, WW1 just seems so pointless and wasteful. Not to mention idiotic.

Linger not, Stranger shed no tear
Go back to those that send us here
We are the young they drafted out
To wars their folly brought about
Go tell those old men safe in bed
We took their orders and are dead

That’s by A.D. Hope and was on a postcard I bought in Troy. One of two good summaries I heard today. Gallipoli is a very depressing story and I shall try not to relate too much. The error in the landing beach seems less significant than I had thought-the Anzacs got off their beach the same day, took some ground, dug in trenches and the rest is fairly standard WW1 buffoonery/bravery.

There are 31 cemeteries on the Gallipoli peninsula; one of the things that struck me walking round the cemeteries was the number of dead whose regiments had descriptions such as light horse. One of the great lunacies of WW1 was the generals’ failure to grasp mechanised warfare-cavalry against tanks and so on (not that it happened here). Some of the Indians were from the 22nd Mule Division-you couldn’t make it up. One story we were told was the British general whose troops said the Turkish machine gun would negate his offensive (and kill all his troops). Doubtless bristling his moustache, he sent them anyway. When the first wave lasted 30 seconds, he sent the second. After the third wave was mown down, the Turks were shouting Stop, Stop. The enemy could tell lunacy when they saw it. 800 men died on a bit of ground the size of a football pitch.

It makes you realise again just how brilliant Blackadder goes Forth was.

Another tale was of the Turkish soldier who waved a white flag to emerge from his trench to pick up and treat a wounded British soldier. Ataturk’s words show some of the Turkish attitude.



Is WW1 the most depressing conflict of all? Ask people today what they were fighting for. WW2, Falklands, Iraq, maybe even Vietnam you might get an answer that at least on the surface sounds like the war may have been necessary. But for WW1?

One thing that really riles me in when the ‘Role of Honour’ is grouped together by rank, even in death the idiocy and pomposity of the Empire and the class system cannot be escaped. Perhaps the family of a Colonel feel more than the family of a Private? There wasn’t so much of that as there were a lot of individual grave markers, they’re too small to be called gravestones,



many of which had individual messages on, most of which just made you want to cry. References to only sons, ‘They Never Fail who die in a Great Cause’, ‘To live in the hearts of those we love is not to die’, and this



130,000 men died on the peninsula. Died on it. 500,000 died as a result of the fighting at Gallipoli. More British than Anzacs died and more Turkish than commonwealth soldiers died. In places the trenches were 8 metres apart (to prevent the enemy shelling). Perhaps worst of all is that Gallipoli’s name resonates as it was a loss of innocence for the Anzacs and not because it was an outstanding aberration. Like the North Africa campaign, Gallipoli is not at the forefront of European minds when we think of WW1 and that is because greater horrors awaited in France. Gallipoli and Anzac Day (marked each year in NZ and OZ on April 25th, the day of the first landings) provide a real focal point for the countries in a way Remembrance Sunday simply doesn’t. Length of history and the sheer amount of fighting has something to do with it; the scarring of young countries is also a part, but I think Britain needs to find a way of doing better than November 11th. Think on this, in Australia they have Australia Day, Anzac Day, Labour Day and the Queen’s Birthday. We have August Bank Holiday Monday-not one of our public holidays hold any meaning or provokes any thought beyond ‘let’s go shopping and do some DIY’. I believe we have quite a lot of history to reflect on.

Marat, our guide, handed out the details of the campaign, the numbers of the dead, the dates of offensive and the evacuations, but most tellingly said ‘they died for nothing’, all of them. A lot of them seemed to know. The words on many of the graves seemed for the living, not the dead. The living need to know that sacrifice has a purpose, that pain and grief have been worthwhile. Many talk of country, many of God. How anyone could have believed in God after that is beyond me. The most poignant grave I saw simply said At Rest.

Death is only a sadness
Tragedy lies in waste

Anyone thinking of starting a war should come here and think again. Shame on you John Howard, you were here.