Gallipoli Trauma

and psychological traumas that individuals and families faced as a result of the Gallipoli campaign 1915-1916 (Lindsay, 2006). From the diaries of Australia’s Official War Correspondent, C.E.W. Bean, letters and diaries of soldiers and nurses who served at Gallipoli, and books painstakingly comprehended by historians, one can catch a glimpse of their human suffering. Combatants of Gallipoli faced extremely harsh conditions, high casualties, and the physical and psychological consequences of prolonged trench warfare. The Australian Army Medical Service and the Australian Army Nursing Service are detailed as having endured long stressful months of caring for their horribly wounded and sick fellow men in the sub-standard conditions of hospital ships. Whilst back at home families anguished over the worry of losing their loved ones to an indiscriminate war. 8709 Australian men lost their precious lives and almost 20,000 were physically wounded, however many more individuals and family members of those that served suffered on with psychological scars from the trauma that such a shockingly violent war can leave (Lindsay, 2006).
It is well documented that the combat at Gallipoli was a bloody and traumatic encounter. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACs) were hurriedly assembled in Egypt in April 1915, the troops went ashore in Gallipoli on the 25th of April. The landings met with fierce Turkish resistance and the attacking forces suffered heavily (Weist, 2001). Around 2000 Anzac troops were killed and at least 1700 wounded on that day (Lindsay, 2006). Those surviving hastily dug their trenches which were attacked ferociously by Turkish defenders and trench warfare stalemate was the result. The Turkish occupied the high gro...

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...ode 800 miles in the bush after he was demobilised and never applied for his service medals and refused for almost 40 years to admit that he had fought at war. Men like him were trying to forget, to blot out the gruesome sights and the waste of a horrible past.” (Gammage, B. 1974 p272).
To conclude, many individuals and their families experienced severe physical and mental trauma as a result of the calamitous Gallipoli Campaign due to the extremely high and unexpected amount of casualties, the unprecedented harshness of prolonged trench warfare, the technology of the artillery and the psychological trauma that such violent combat induces. The general logistics of the campaign including the sad fact that bodies were not able to be returned to their loved ones. As well as the era of the campaign as so many suffered psychological wounds that were unable to be treated.