Picto Diary - 11 November 2018 - Lest we forget

WWI ended 100 years ago, today. 11 November 1918. Park City, UT. 11 November 2018.

Above: The Bishop standing at forward ANZAC trenches (eroded significantly over 100 years). Quinn's Post. 1 km inland from landing beach atop 2nd Ridge. Gallipoli Battlefield. Turkey. 15 June 2015. Turkish trenches only 10 meters away at this point.

Above: The Bishop. Serre Road #2 British Cemetery. Somme battlefield. France. 29 September 2015.

July 1916... a bit of context. Gallipoli, an Allied effort to force the Dardanelles, has been a fail... Allied troops were successfully evacuated from Gallipoli by January 1916. Many of the Gallipoli evacuees were redirected to nearby Salonica to mount a resistance to German assisted Austro Hungarian assaults on Serbia.

I spent two weeks touring the Gallipoli battlefield in June of this year (2015).

It is satisfying while I tour the Western Front to now be able to place the Gallipoli initiative in broader context. For example, Neuve Chappel was fought only a couple of weeks before the British/ANZAC Gallipoli landings in April of 1915. Loos was fought only a month after the mishandled landing at Suvla Bay in August 1915.

The failed Gallipoli invasion, urged by the Russians, and initiated by the British, cost 250K allied casualties.

But for the grace of God, I was able to visit Gallipoli and Somme, each hallowed ground, as a grateful, humbled spectator and not participant soldier.

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget.