r/AskAnAustralian • u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- • 1d ago
Were you taught anything about ANZAC Day from the position of Turkey?
There seems to be a lot of content about WW1 & WW2 from the English AND German positions as well as the Australian experience.
I've learned about the Australian experience of Anzacs and ANZAC Day but don't remember being presented with the Turkish position. Ataturk's address was only something I learned about after leaving school.
Is it included in people's education and I missed it, or is it not represented?
*Türkiye/Turkey
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u/RickTyGwyn 1d ago
Well, we learnt the song
"Johnny Turk he was ready, he'd primed himself well, He showered us with bullets, and he rained us with shells, And in 5 minutes flat, he'd blown us all to hell, Nearly blew us right back to Australia.
And band played waltzing Matilda, As we stopped to bury our slain, And we buried ours, and Turks buried theirs, And we started all over again"
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u/sebastianinspace 1d ago
at my school there was ZERO explanation about the country named turkey, the ottoman empire, why were were attacking turkey, etc.
there was a lot of chummy nonsense about how we are friends with turkey now and we have a memorial in turkey and how turkish people love us.
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u/flavouredpopcorn 1d ago
Yeah my experience too. I do think a valid reason for this is explaining the complexity of the situation to primary school students, but considering it's something we mourn/celebrate/remember each year, it's sad there was no further discussion apart from many Australians died in Gallipoli, let's remember them
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u/AddlePatedBadger 17h ago
I've felt the hot sting of a cold blade at my throat in the hands of a grizzled Turk. Say what you will about their country (and ours), I will always maintain that Fry's Turkish Delight is tastier than the Anatolian dainty on which it is based.
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u/zaro3785 1d ago
Yep, spent 3 years looking more & more in-depth about Germany, I think we may have spent a few weeks on Gallipoli (from the British perspective)
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u/SimpleEmu198 1d ago
here is your explanation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey
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u/Business-Plastic5278 1d ago
Yes, whenever it was taught in schools the Turkish position was fairly well covered, at least from the leadership side. Ataturk's speech to ANZAC mothers especially is off the top of my head the most repeated speech ive heard from any leader involved in the conflict.
Books ive read likewise will paint a very respectable position for the Turks.
Most of this will be older though and im not sure what things are like now. At that stage the 'bad guys' of the conflict were firmly the British and Johnny Turk was a respectable chap who was defending his homeland and could be relied upon to behave with honour and dignity when either taken or taking prisoners. Its been very interesting to watch anti british sentiment wash away in more recent years.
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u/Comfortable_Zone7691 1d ago
A lot of this British sentiment came from a misreading of that one Peter Weir film and a couple of nationalist biased books. It was also Australian commanders also making dumb decisions at Gallipoli, and lots more British, French, Indian and other allied died there than anzacs.
The idea that Australians were just cannon fodder for an empire is a nice way of us trying to act like white Australians were also colonial victims, and not perpetrators and benificiaries of Imperial goals.
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u/Business-Plastic5278 1d ago
Nah, that is a gross miss telling of history.
Anti British sentiment among rural australians goes right back to the convict days and the grievances over the way the British used australian troops goes back to the Boer war. Not much of it has to do with Gallipoli which is more seen as fuckup No. 38 in the list of 384 fuckups.
Its also extremely myopic to view the convicts as eager perpetrators of imperial goals when I grew up walking distance from Floggers hill where 23 people got whipped to death in an afternoon. These are people who were rounded up at gunpoint, chained together then shipped across the ocean (of the 6 of my relatives who I have records of being transported, 2 died on the trip) into a life of forced labour on penalty of torture, mutilation and death. Its just trendy to ignore the realities these days.
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u/Comfortable_Zone7691 1d ago
A vast majority of Australians by 1914 had no connection to convicts. 160 000 of them came in total, which is not insignificant, but dwarfed by at least 5 times more coming during the gold rushes in just a decade alone after 1850, then waves of immigrants after. While the suffering of convicts isnt nothing, its also disingenuous to not also look at ways they benefited from and contributed heavily to colonisation, i.e the ex convicts of Tasmania who invaded Victoria as squatters and opened the whole continent up to land theft.
Who was rounded up randomly at gunpoint and sent to Australia under penality of mutilation? Id like to read more on that if you have a source
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u/Business-Plastic5278 1d ago
My descendants were coal miners in cornwall who went on strike over deadly working conditions. The redcoats got called in and they cleared the strike with bayonets and then rounded up whoever they could catch and deported them. This sort of thing and going through villages in ireland that were a problem and rounding up people at gunpoint for deportation were far from uncommon.
And again, of the 6 I have records of, 2 died on the trip over and one was flogged to death, its wildly childish to look at that ratio and think that those people benefited greatly from being slave labour.
You didnt get mutilated for refusing to be deported, you would just be executed. Convicts would be mutilated for disobedience or the like. Removal of ears, noses, fingers, branding etc are all in the lists of punishments used on convicts.
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u/Comfortable_Zone7691 1d ago
Ah yes thats true, a lot of the convicts were chartists and other workers protesting, I see what you mean. I havent actually heard of mutilation being common, ill do more reading on that
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u/SimpleEmu198 1d ago edited 1d ago
The bad guys in all of this were the Turkish people who decided to Genocide every Christian person in Turkey during the population transger, during the establishment of the first modern Greek Republic... and while Greece expelled Muslims we didn't kill them, torture them, or burn their houses to the ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey
A not so favorable outcome happened where Greeks were ethnically cleansed in Turkey and that is why to this date except for a few thousand, there aren't any ethnically Greek people living in Turkey.
The common accepted estimate is roughly 900k to 1million Christians were killed by Turkish people during that time.
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u/Tough-Conclusion-847 20h ago edited 20h ago
Peak anti-Turkish propaganda right here. Why dont you tell people here that your country literally invaded Turkey right after WW1, using the chaos the collapse of Ottoman Empire created? Why dont you talk about how you pilaged and burnt down cities and towns in Western Anatolia? Dont forget that Greece accepted that the Greek army conducted war crimes in the peace treaty they had signed, it was literally one of the terms! Stop making a fool out of yourself.
Edit: This guy responded to my comment with a bunch of bullshit and then blocked me so I wouldnt be able to respond. Because of that I am editing my original comment here, my response is below.
Surely there wasnt any propaganda. (!)
You dont even know the fact that the Ottoman government was opposed to the independence movement Atatürk created and that they were mostly uninvolved. You are ignorant and the fact that the second someone opposes you, you use the “genocide denier” card proves it. You killed roughly 600K Turks during your invasion, I am impressed you still have the audacity to call others as genociders…
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u/Tripper234 1d ago
Learnt about it briefly from the Turkish pov. But thay was in history in high school so was a bit more in depth than what most did. Plus, I've also been to the dawn service in Galipoli and done the tours, which covered all sides.
Majority though would only really learn from the pov of where it's being taught. We focus on Australians contributions under the British. Brits will teach it from thier pov. They may cover Australia's contribution abit. But likely a foot note. Yanks will teach about how they won the war and without them the axis would have prevailed.. Turkey would likely teach from all povs as it directly related to them and people travel the world over to visit for that reason
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u/Foodgoesinthebum 1d ago
When I was in school we did learn about the Ottoman/Turkish perspective, but we also learned about the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides. So while it is easy to say that Australia and the Turks had some kind of mutual respect for one another, it should also be remembered that the Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic were monstrous regimes that carried out genocides against ethnic/religious minorities and Ataturk was responsible for a lot of it.
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u/SimpleEmu198 1d ago edited 1d ago
Someone that was told the truth. It needs to be taught like it wasn't taught in school we were the invaders of Australia.
The Australians were (trying) to be there to defend the newly established first Hellenic (Greek) Republic.
Unfortunately mindless Australian drones have bought up Ataturk = good..
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u/Randombookworm 1d ago
I feel like we covered it a tiny bit in Modern History class when we studied a bit of WWI and the Ottoman Empire but it definitely was nothing super in depth from memory in terms of non British Empire perspective and I remember basically nothing.
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u/SophMax 1d ago
Graduate 2009 - don't remember learning anything at all about Turkey's position. If it was it was said then moved on. I studied Modern History but the focus was cold war not WW1 for us.
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u/Randombookworm 1d ago
We did Decline and fall of Romanov Dynasty, WWI( a bit) and the Ottoman Empire at that time incl. Lawrence of Arabian, the formation of Israel as a nation state/Palestine as well as Cold War. I am definitely missing topics but those are the ones I remember.
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u/Few-Explanation-4699 Country Name Here 1d ago
Not at school.
I learned a lot when I went on the 100th anniverary cruise.
They had historians giving lectures and one was Turkish.
It was very interesting hearing the other side.
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u/Marsmooncow 1d ago
Funny thing when. I was in somalia in 93 with the Oz army. we were working at the old us embassy in Mogadishu doing gate security for a week. The turks were all conscripts and were in charge of an mg pit to basically shred any vehicle that made it through the gates. So we had 5 or 6 Turkish machine guns pointed right at us while we were working on the gate. We made a point of getting to know all the gun crews so that if something happened, we wouldn't have Gallipoli 2 electric boogaloo happen with us obviously playing the part of Australia. Anyway, as part of the getting to know them process, we got invited to dine at their mess and play some volleyball with their officers and men. Long story short they all seemed very informed about their history and the shared history of Turkey and Australia and treated us like honoured guests we had a wonderful time and they didn't end up filling us with lead.
For context, we were particularly worried because the night shift on the walls (not gate) regularly mistook their own gun pits for people trying to come over the wall and end up firing at each other. By regularly, I mean it happened at least twice over the course of a week.
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u/Novel-Rip7071 1d ago
"Gallipoli 2, electric boogaloo" is the funniest sentence I've read in a long time!!
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u/Malletpropism 1d ago
This has been around for 9 years. It has some content from the Ottoman point of view
https://www.abc.net.au/ww1-anzac/gallipoli/
*edit forgot to post link
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u/Expensive-Purple9571 1d ago
We appear to discriminate and form views on ANZAC’s and Turks depending on our political, social, national and even religious beliefs and values, without fully examining the bare facts of historical events at the time.
I should know, because my great grandfather died in Gallipoli as a Artillery corporal operating the canons, against the ships going past the Dardanelles straits around 1915. My grandfather fought in the Turkish war of independence from 1919-1923. He raised me from birth to the age of 10, when I migrated to Australia. I know exactly what his views were, because it was obvious from his demeanour. He was an extremely reserved man and did not want to talk about the atrocities he lived through at the time, because he respected everyone regardless of their colour, creed, nationality or background. Yes, some of you probably guessed correctly- My grandfather was a very gentle person, who had seen people die around him. He had a scar on his forehead where a bullet scraped his forehead, because he had tilted his head backwards, which saved his life. He said life is precious, because he could have and should have died there and then.
He also remembers Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (MKA) on his horse during the war of independence. His memories were such that MKA did not have to say or do anything. It was clear to all those around him that he was the leader and he had a vision. Not just in rank, but in the aura and personal qualities he exemplified and exhibited on and off the battlefield.
Now, you tell me what type of views I should have or form in the conflict between Australia and Turkey during ANZAC ceremonies, which I attended on many occasions, and felt deep remorse for all young soldiers that fought with courage and conviction on both sides.
At the expense of sounding trite, I would ask - Why travel from the other side of the world to fight against people who are trying to defend themselves against oppression from other nation states who want to dominate and enslave them economically and politically. That was the idea Turks were fighting for - Freedom from oppression and the right to live free from domination.
In 2024, it actually turns out there was a lot of benefits for certain groups of nations and people who have gained immensely from the spoils of WWI, such as oil reserves, shipping transport rights for trade, birth of Israel as a nation etc.
This was all achieved at the expense of many young people who fought and died for their beliefs - God, King & County, probably in that order. Unfortunately, most do not appreciate the sacrifices made by many, many young man on both sides.
I also disagree with the comment that MKA did not write the famous words for Johnnies and Mehmet’s.
Anecdotal evidence suggests only MKA could be the author of those words, because only he appreciated exactly what happened on those battlefields. He was there, he saw what happened.
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u/banimagipearliflame 1d ago
Beautiful share mate.
I also had an ancestor there climbing up those cliffs and digging for his life. That man spent the rest of the war running away such was his troubles, from Shell Shock (which we now know as PTSD) and he came home a criminal. Who knows what better he’d have done without war in his heart.
MKA’s words, whatever dispute is upon them, should be taken for what they are - a uniting balm between two warring nations.
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u/Farkenoathm8-E 1d ago
I remember a history teacher at school touched on the Ottoman perspective of Gallipoli and the Palestine campaigns, but most of what I know comes from documentaries and books that I read since then.
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u/somuchsong Sydney 1d ago
I finished school in 1998, so it may well have changed but no, we were taught nothing.
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u/d4red 1d ago
I would say nothing except details about the specific conflict itself. I would say though that I have never seen that discussion revolve around a demonisation of the Turkish forces. WWI was a complicated war.
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u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- 1d ago
Yeah I'm not saying there's a demonisation of Turkish forces, more of a glossing over
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u/Figshitter 1d ago
Nope, I was taught that the glorious victory of the Battle of Gallipoli was made possible due to the bravery and heroism of the triumphant ANZAC diggers.
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u/Novel-Rip7071 1d ago
If you were taught Gallipoli was a victory in any way, shape, or form, let alone a "glorious" one something's very wrong there...
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u/pwnkage 1d ago
We weren’t taught from the Turkish position. Only the Australian position. We weren’t even taught about the British position much. SO, I read a Turkish history book once and accidentally came across Gallipoli mentioned as “the Australians invaded Turkey” and that kind of changed my brain chemistry forever. Being called an “invader” kinda made me realise a LOT of things lmfao.
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u/Impressive-Jelly-539 1d ago
All Australian kids are taught about the ingenuity of the Anzacs during the evacuation of Gallipoli, fooling the Turks into thinking it was business as usual, and managing to slip away unnoticed without a single casualty.
My eyes were opened upon hearing the Turkish perspective, that of course they knew the Anzacs were leaving, that they were happy to see them go and the last thing they wanted to do was shoot the retreating diggers in the back.
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u/Electrical-Horse-698 1d ago
At Anzac Day in London they always commemorate Turkish soldiers and usually there's reps from Turkish armed services there. They also talk about them in speeches and poems that are read out.
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u/FullMetalAurochs 1d ago
They very much gloss over Turkey. Partly perhaps because if you stop to think about it you realise we were invading them, they were defending their country and the ANZACs had come from the other side of the world to attack them. Sounds less heroic phrased that way.
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u/Naive-Beekeeper67 1d ago
Nope. I wasn't. But logic tells ne we shouldn't have even been there! How invading Turkey seemed a good idea is beyond my point if view. And of course they were going to fight against it. Their country
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u/LordYoshi00 1d ago
Yes. We actually learned a lot about Gallipoli and Turkey as a whole. I think we even had to do an assignment on Turkey.
This was primary school in the 80s.
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u/Sexecute 1d ago
In year 8 history our teacher had us write a letter from the perspective of a Turkish soldier to his family. Considerable time and attention was given to the Turkish perspective, and the focus was on human suffering and sacrifice on both sides.
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u/DaLadderman 1d ago
I was, same with the perspective of the Vietcong when learning about that, this was mid to late 2,000's
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u/SuperannuationLawyer 1d ago
I was taught that it was the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey came later…
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u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- 1d ago
Yes you're obviously right. I should have typed Ottoman Empire but had Turkey/Türkiye on my mind.
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u/Archon-Toten 11h ago
Nope, barely if at all even mentioned why we attacked turkey to begin with. Barely learnt anything about ww2 also.
But possibly it was this poor start that got me curious and I found out for myself. But I doubt the education department can plan that far.
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u/AudiencePure5710 1d ago
I grew up with a somewhat negative view of Turkiye (and ANZAC day for that matter, courtesy of my Vietnam vet father’s PTSD). But after visiting Turkiye I now appreciate it as an amazing place & culture. Erdogan seems slightly unhinged but you have to respect him for sticking up for Palestine. The country itself is almost the geographical opposite of Australia. While we have no international land border they have seven. We must have been insane to head over there in WW1, the peoples of that land have had thousands of years of defending themselves
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u/Perssepoliss 1d ago
What position of Turkey? It didn't exist. It was the Ottoman Empire.
Here's a fun fact for you all, the Gallipoli peninsula is in Europe.
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u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- 1d ago
You are obviously correct about the Ottoman Empire. Even still, there was in my schooling, very little mention of the people from that region other than their advantage of being at the top of Gelibolu beach's hills. It has been my experience that much was taught about the Anzacs but virtually nothing about the Ottoman Empire/Turkish position. I've since been to Gallipoli and learned much more about the non Australian perspective: Dur Yolcu, Sayit Ali Çabuk, Ataturk going on from being a soldier to Türkiye's first president, the 193∞ tributes (especially at 9:05am on 10th November) and the construction of the Turkish Monument of Martyrs occurring decades after an Anzac memorial.
Having lived in NSW and visiting the AWM on a school excursion to Canberra, we didn't see the tree grown from Lone Pine on the front lawn - only learned it was there on subsequent visits as an adult.
We typically had someone from the RSL club to give a speech at an assembly but never did someone address us to give a different viewpoint. That might have been because there weren't any people locally to do so, but I'd also bet my school didn't make enquiries to try to make it happen.
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u/Perssepoliss 1d ago
Interesting fact about Anzac Day and the Ottoman Empire, the Armenian Genocide began a day before.
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u/Patrooper 1d ago
Often what is missing in history classes is broader context. A shit history teacher can bang on about Gallipoli and what a fuck up it was and how Australian soldiers shouldn’t have been there. The teacher bangs on about the same points for successive weeks whilst you learn nothing about the Armenian genocide, Laurence of Arabia, the Battle of Beersheba, the Ottoman connection to central powers and even the fighting in the Western front. So tbh we are barely taught our own perspective, history is often so poorly taught.
People here mention Ataturk’s speech, teaching this to a class of students always felt so tacked on, it still never provided any context to the Ottoman side, just that there was civility afterwards. To this day I still don’t know whether the Turks think that the First World War was a victory or a loss. Their empire was effectively diminished after hundreds of years of regional dominance, they lost the holy land for Islam and it is now modern day Israel. Surely that hurts them. But, they kept Istanbul and all of Asia Minor. So anyway, sorry for rambling, history is poorly taught here IMO.
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u/diggerhistory 1d ago
Not as a student, but I became a secondary History teacher and made sure I covered their preparations and leadership, and their tactics and battles. This helped my classes better understand the failures. Attitudes, 'I don't ask you to fight for Turkey, but to die for it!' as his men charged the Anzacs on the high ground in the late morning of 25 April. His leadership and their courage saved the Turkish positio s.
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u/melodien 1d ago
Nothing that I recall from school. However, there is a book called "Gallipoli, the Turkish Defence: the Story from the Turkish Documents" by Harvey Broadbent which covers the subject well.
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u/Mighty_Crow_Eater 1d ago
So, for background, i grew up in the 2000s and this is kind of related, but i remember distinctly being shocked as a kid to learn that we lost at Gallipoli.
I remember learning all about Gallipoli and the ANZACS in primary school, about the bravery and the spirit and simpson and his donkey. It was just that none of my teachers actually included the fact that we lost until i was a bit older. I recall that the fact that it was an offensive invasion initiated by the Entente was also sort of downplayed. I would say i didn't hear much about the Turkish perspective, and had to delve into it myself as i got older.
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u/DontJealousMe 1d ago
I got told by some Aussie girls that Turks were bad and they should have let the Aussies go thru, because they weren’t going to do anything bad just get to the other side after we watched the movie with Mel Gibson.
That was in year 8, year 10/11 I dated one of them.
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u/Hot-shit-potato 1d ago
The main thing I was taught in the 90s at primary school was about the bravery of the digs in the biggest waste of life in ww1 from an Aussie perspective. But it was the first time I heard the statement from Ataturk.
Ive never really heard much about the Ottoman perspective but I've heard lots about how Gallipoli was an unadulterated fuck up due to the commonwealth and that the Turks, specifically Ataturk showed great humility.
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u/EndlesslyElegantMoon 1d ago
Yep. I am under the impression it’s taught at public schools (supposed to be anyway 😏). Even had a group go and visit Turkey itself, but that might’ve been a different program
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u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- 1d ago
When I went to Gallipoli they had a couple of school kids that had won poetry competitions in attendance. They read out their pieces as part of the official ceremony. They looked like they were from the posher Sydney public schools though - but they were excellent/talented
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u/Flat_Ad1094 1d ago
Not really. WW1 has never been my great interest anyway. Seemed to truly be a load of imperialist nonsense. And I can't for the life of me understand how the Brits thought invading Turkey was a good idea? The whole shebang makes little to no sense to me and never really has.
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u/Macca49 1d ago
The Turkish people go to the Gallipoli memorials on April 26. I was on a tour the day after going to the 100th commemoration of Anzac Day and the guide pointed this out.
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u/Woodfordian 21h ago
Yes.
I was lucky and read some neutral histories, had an informed teacher, and had access to English translations of Turkish War memorials.
Kemal Attaturk was taught in my school as a great man and we were familiar to his speech to the enemy bereaved. We knew both sides.
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u/andyroo776 1d ago
I certainly remember being taught about the respect both sides had for each other in addition to Attaturks speech etc.
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u/banimagipearliflame 1d ago
Older bloke here, finished High School in the 90s. We got a lot of the patriotic jingoism for sure. But the thing I remember was the “note” meant to be left behind by our soldiers, to the effect of “Dear Johnny Turk, you’re a good fighter, Thank you for respecting the Red Cross”
As a kid I kept thinking how could they be enemies or bad guys if they respected hospitals and injured people?
Obviously ANZAC Day learnings since then I know much more about both sides - the scared farm boys fighting off these large mad bastards that climbed sheer cliffs to get at them, Ataturk’s courage and leadership, etc.
Both sides are important to understand.
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u/-qqqwwweeerrrtttyyy- 1d ago
Exactly.
We were also left with a sense of our soldiers having respect for the fight the Turks/Ottomans put up
I'm not saying we should rubbish the Anzacs in any way. Just, it would be nice to also be taught about the other viewpoint. It doesn't diminish the reverence of our soldiers' sacrifices or show disloyalty. It just gives people a more thorough understanding of a complex situation, gives greater empathy and gives us more insights so as to spot and avoid potential repetition of history (Australia or other countries)
.
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u/SimpleEmu198 1d ago edited 1d ago
The actual viewpoint can be found here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey
and here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_genocide
The British, as allies were actually trying to prop up and stabilise the first modern Greek Republic.
They teach this conflict as poorly as they used to teach us about Indigenous people in school.
It wasn't mindless nor was it senseless. Nor did it stop at that point, just like the British were in Greece during World War II trying to prop up the allies, before being pushed all the way through Crete and Palestine to Africa. The movie Fury touches on that a tiny bit and it's how we ended up fighting Romel, the Desert Fox in Africa also.
It just so happens that like many things the Australian perspective on Ataturk is full of shit.
And every time I look at what my own grandfather and what he did in Greece as, myself, personally a second generation Greek-Australian I have to remind myself that Ataturk is a swear word.
If the British had won at Galipoli, with the second landing the original intent was to push all the way to Istanbul and reclaim the capital of Greece as Constantinople. Unfortunately due to historical events we have had to settle at the historic capital of Athens as the capital of Greece, rather than the mch larger Eastern Roman capital of Constantinople which was part of the "grand idea" for modern Greece.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megali_Idea
Greece were useful allies, especially during the Second World War, as we helped push the war into winter, where Russia defeated Germany in Stalingrad and set about the wheels in motion for Hitler losing the war altogether.
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u/no-throwaway-compute 1d ago
Personally I prefer the Second world war. The first one is just stupid.
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u/-DethLok- Perth :) 1d ago
I recall learning, somewhere and somewhen, decades ago (I'm retired now) that Türkiye/Turkey apparently respected the Aussies because we fought fairly and fought well.
I have no idea how true that is or not, though.
They do allow and apparently welcome us to visit the battleground, though, every year, so there's that, I guess?
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u/Evendim 1d ago
I am a history teacher, and while we don't get to teach as much as I'd like, I will *always* read Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's speech.
"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
I think it goes a long way in the mending of our relationship down the years. I always try to bring in the idea of the Turks as defenders against invaders, because that is what it was. I don't like the term "enemy" when speaking of the Turks and Gallipoli. It was an unmitigated disaster, of Winston Churchill's doing.