Gallipoli, for the average Australian, is the most famous battle our soldiers ever fought. From the start of the 100th anniversary commemorations, its legendary status grew larger than ever, dwarfing any other battles fought by Australians over that century, no matter how decisive they were.

The national effort and expense put into the popular 2015 centennial program at Gallipoli only confirmed its overwhelming popularity in the public’s eye. Although Gallipoli was a crushing defeat, it is celebrated like a victory. It may have only lasted eight months after the 25 April 1915 landing, and it was only Australia’s opening campaign of World War I, yet Gallipoli has lodged in the nation’s psyche like no other battle. This is despite the fact that Australians not only lost that battle, but also the lives of 8,709 young men who were killed for no territorial gain. In fact, they were so badly knocked around by Turkish defenders that they were forced to retreat from the unscaleable cliffs in December 1915, with their tails between their legs. It was an ignominious withdrawal, but they had no alternative. Had they stayed, they may have been decimated by the increasingly determined Turks, who were defending their homeland with heavier artillery and ever more effective reinforcements. The winter rain and storms hitting the windswept beach would also have washed away many of their shelters, dugouts, and foxholes. Even worse, the running waters would have increased the spreading of germs from the remains of thousands of unburied soldiers, and the open-pit toilets, which was already claiming hundreds of lives. In short, the whole affair was a shocking indictment of the incompetent British war cabinet and its Australian equivalent, both blindly following imperial orders into a battle that cost nearly 50,000 Allied lives, all for nothing. Australia lost at least 8,709 lives; New Zealand, 2,701; Britain, 21,255; France, 12,000; India, 1,558; and Canada (from the province of Newfoundland), 49. Meanwhile, the Turks lost 86,692 lives defending their homeland. Why then do we revere Gallipoli as if it was one of the  defining moments in Australian history?