For 10 Minute Warm Up I did a gouache sketch of
poppies yesterday from a photograph I took in the summer. The poppy is a symbol of an important day of
remembrance here in NZ.
Today is Anzac Day
a sacred national holiday in New Zealand and Australia. Everything is closed by
law. Both countries commemorate the battle of Gallipoli in Turkey during the 1st
World War. Both countries lost so many
young men that there was a generation of women who never married or were left
widows with young children. In modern
times it has come to represent the futility of all wars. Every town in New Zealand land has a dawn
ceremony where the last post is played at the war memorial. It is also a rite of passage for New
Zealanders and Australians to go to Anzac Cove in Turkey and take part in the
dawn ceremony there. I have done it and
it wasn’t really until then standing in the place where so many young men were
slaughtered that it hit me how wasteful war is.
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| The Last Post |
So, this
post is is commemorate those young men, and a generation that never
happened. In particular, my grandfather’s
(he was fortunate that he was too young to go to war) four brothers and my grandmother
lost all of her brothers – five.
You are never forgotten.
On a
lighter note, Gallipoli produced a
national icon, Anzac biscuits! The soldiers were sent tins of these biscuits
from their families during the war.
Here is the
recipe:
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| Anzac Biscuits |
Linked to 10 Minute Warm Up
The Story of Gallipoli
For nine months in
1915, British and French forces battled the Ottoman Empire - modern Turkey -
for control of the Gallipoli peninsula, a small finger of Europe jutting into
the Aegean Sea that dominates a strategic waterway, the Dardanelles. By opening
the Dardanelles to their fleets, the Allies hoped to threaten the Ottoman
capital, Constantinople (now Istanbul) and knock the Turks out of the war.
Among the British
forces were the Anzacs - the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps - who landed
on the peninsula on 25 April. The landing, like the Gallipoli campaign itself,
was ambitious and ultimately unsuccessful: the peninsula remained in its defenders'
hands.
The campaign was a
costly failure for the Allies: 44,000 British and French soldiers died,
including over 8700 Australians. Among the dead were 2721 New Zealanders nearly
5000 wounded out of a force of approx. 8500 – while that may not sound a lot
compared to other nations, NZ pop was less than a million. Victory came at a high price for the Turks:
87,000 men died in the campaign which became a defining moment in Turkish
history.
It was also a
defining moment in New Zealand’s and Australian history, we started to draw
away from Britain and become nations in our own right. For the three nations Anzac Cove where the
Anzacs landed has been made a Peace Park by the Turks and the three Nations
every year send government members to the remembrance service at the cove.
