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The Gallipoli Peninsula () is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east.
Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek language name Καλλίπολις (), meaning 'beautiful city', the original name of the modern town of Gelibolu. In antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese (; ).
The peninsula runs in a south-westerly direction into the Aegean Sea, between the Dardanelles (formerly known as the Hellespont), and the Gulf of Saros (formerly the bay of Melas). In ancient Greece, it was protected by the Long Wall, a defensive structure built across the narrowest part of the peninsula near the ancient city of Agora. The isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadthHerodotus, The Histories, vi. 36; Xenophon, ibid.; Pseudo-Scylax, Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax, 67 ( PDF ) or about , but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia or about .
According to Herodotus, the Thracian tribe of Dolonci (Δόλογκοι) (or 'barbarians' according to Cornelius Nepos) held possession of the peninsula before Greek colonizers arrived. Then, settlers from Ancient Greece, mainly of and Aeolians stock, founded about 12 cities on the peninsula in the 7th century BC.Herodotus, vi. 34 ; Cornelius Nepos, Lives of Eminent Commanders, "Miltiades", 1 The Classical Athens statesman Miltiades the Elder founded a major Athenian colony there around 560 BC. He took authority over the entire peninsula, augmenting its defences against incursions from the mainland. It eventually passed to his nephew, the more famous Miltiades the Younger, about 524 BC. The peninsula was abandoned to the Persians in 493 BC after the beginning of the Greco-Persian Wars (499–478 BC).
The Persians were eventually expelled, after which the peninsula was for a time ruled by Athens, which enrolled it into the Delian League in 478 BC. The Athenians established a number of cleruchy on the Thracian Chersonese and sent an additional 1,000 settlers around 448 BC. Sparta gained control after the decisive Battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC, but the peninsula subsequently reverted to the Athenians. During the 4th century BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the focus of a bitter territorial dispute between Athens and Macedon, whose king Philip II sought its possession. It was eventually ceded to Philip in 338 BC.
After the death of Philip's son Alexander the Great in 323 BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the object of contention among Diadochi. Lysimachus established his capital Lysimachia here. In 278 BC, Celtic tribes from Galatia in Asia Minor settled in the area. In 196 BC, the Seleucid Empire king Antiochus III seized the peninsula. This alarmed the Greeks and prompted them to seek the aid of the Roman Republic, who conquered the Thracian Chersonese, which they gave to their ally Eumenes II of Pergamon in 188 BC. At the extinction of the Attalid dynasty in 133 BC it passed again to the Romans, who from 129 BC administered it in the Roman province of Asia. It was subsequently made a state-owned territory (ager publicus) and during the reign of the emperor Augustus it was imperial property.
The Thracian Chersonese was part of the Eastern Roman Empire from its foundation in 395 AD. In 443 AD, Attila the Hun invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula during one of the last stages of his grand campaign that year. He captured both Callipolis and Sestus. Aside from a brief period from 1204 to 1235, when it was controlled by the Republic of Venice, the Byzantine Empire ruled the territory until 1356. During the night between 1 and 2 March 1354, a strong earthquake destroyed the city of Gallipoli and its city walls, weakening its defenses.
In March 1854 British and French engineers constructed an line of defence to protect the peninsula from a possible Russian attack and secure control of the route to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Ottoman Government, under the pretext that a village was within the firing line, ordered its evacuation within three hours. The residents abandoned everything they possessed, left their village and went to Gelibolu. Seven of the Greek villagers who stayed two minutes later than the three-hour limit allowed for the evacuation were shot by the soldiers. After the end of the Balkan War the exiles were allowed to return. But as the Government allowed only the Turks to rebuild their houses and furnish them, the exiled Greeks were compelled to remain in Gallipoli.
In early 1915, attempting to seize a strategic advantage in World War I by capturing the Bosporus Strait at Istanbul (formerly Constantinople), the British authorised an attack on the peninsula by French, British, and British Empire forces. The first Australian troops landed at ANZAC Cove early in the morning of 25 April 1915. After eight months of heavy fighting the last Allied soldiers withdrew by 9 January 1916.
The campaign, one of the greatest Ottoman Empire victories during the war, is considered by historians as a humiliating Allied failure. Turkey regard it as a defining moment in their nation's history and national identity, contributing to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey eight years later under President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who first rose to prominence as a commander at Gallipoli.
The Ottoman Empire instituted the Gallipoli Star as a military decoration in 1915 and awarded it throughout the rest of World War I.
The campaign was the first major military action of Australia and New Zealand (or ANZACs) as independent , setting a foundation for Australian and New Zealand military history, and contributing to their developing national identities. The date of the landing, 25 April, is known as "Anzac Day". It remains the most significant commemoration of military casualties and veteran in Australia and New Zealand.
On the Allied side, one of the promoters of the expedition was Britain's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, whose bullish optimism caused damage to his reputation that took years to repair.
Prior to the Allied landings in April 1915, the Ottoman Empire deported Ottoman Greeks from Gallipoli and the surrounding region and from the islands in the sea of Marmara, to the interior where they were at the mercy of hostile Turks. The Greeks had little time to pack and the Ottoman authorities permitted them to take only some bedding and the rest was handed over to the Government. The Turks then plundered the houses and properties. A testimony of a deportee described how the deportees were forced onto crowded steamers, standing-room only, then on disembarking, men of military age were removed (for forced labour in the labour battalions of the Ottoman army).
The Metropolitan bishop of Gallipoli wrote on 17 July 1915 that the extermination of the Christian refugees was methodical. He also mentions that "The Turks, like beasts of prey, immediately plundered all the Christians' property and carried it off. The inhabitants and refugees of my district are entirely without shelter, awaiting to be sent no one knows where ...". Many Greeks died from hunger and there were frequent cases of rape of women and young girls, as well as their forced conversion to Islam. In some cases, Muhacirs appeared in the villages even before the Greek inhabitants were deported and stoned the houses and threatened the inhabitants that they would kill them if they did not leave.
In 1920, after the defeat of the White movement of General Pyotr Wrangel, a significant number of émigré soldiers and their families evacuated to Gallipoli from the Crimean Peninsula. From there, many went to European countries, such as Yugoslavia, where they found refuge.
There are now many cemeteries and war memorials on the Gallipoli peninsula.
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