Why was Gallipoli one of the worst fighting fronts of the First World War?

Of all the varied parts of the world where British and Commonwealth forces were deployed during the First World War, Gallipoli was remembered by its veterans as one of the worst places to serve. It was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Allied troops landed there in April 1915 and spent months on the small peninsula of land guarding the Dardanelles Straits in modern-day Turkey. The military aims of the campaign were not achieved and it was eventually called to a halt; the final Allied troops were evacuated in January 1916.

There were heavy casualties, not only from the fighting, but from the extremely unsanitary conditions. Of the estimated 213,000 British casualties, 145,000 were from illness. Surviving combatants also recalled the terrible problems with intense heat, swarms of flies, body lice, severe lack of water and insufficient supplies.

Some of the thousands of men who served at Gallipoli recall what conditions there were like in their own words.

He went on to explain that, ‘a little while after that, we had potatoes but as we had no means of cooking and there was nothing organised, they couldn’t be cooked.’

Torrential rain hit the peninsula in November which flooded the trenches, broke down the parapets and soaked the men.