On December 19, 1915, Allied forces began the silent evacuation from Gallipoli. After eight months of bloody stalemate, the campaign was doomed. Under cover of darkness, thousands of ANZAC, British, Irish, Indian and Newfoundland troops withdrew from trenches at Suvla Bay and Anzac Cove, leaving behind decoys like self-firing rifles to fool the Ottomans. The operation was a rare success in an otherwise disastrous campaign; not a single life was lost during the retreat.

Many of the units evacuated from Gallipoli would later fight on the Western Front, including in the Ypres Salient. The 29th Division, which had stormed Cape Helles at V Beach in April 1915, was redeployed to France in early 1916 and fought at the Somme and Passchendaele. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment, decimated at Beaumont-Hamel, traces its roots back to the Gallipoli fighting. The Connaught Rangers, 10th (Irish) Division and Indian regiments also saw service in Flanders. Remembering their journey from Mediterranean beaches to Flanders mud highlights the truly global nature of the war.

Today, visitors can follow the trail of these soldiers from Gallipoli to Flanders. Begin at the Cape Helles memorial on the Dardanelles, where the names of 20,765 Commonwealth servicemen with no known grave are inscribed. The recently restored trenches at Anzac Cove and Suvla Bay show the terrain where the evacuation took place. Then travel to Flanders to visit memorials to the same units: the 29th Division memorial at Newfoundland Park near Beaumont-Hamel, the Connaught Rangers memorial at Nieuwpoort and the Menin Gate in Ypres where many are commemorated. At the Memorial Museum Passchendaele and In Flanders Fields Museum, you can learn how veterans from Gallipoli adapted to trench warfare in Belgium.

A personal story ties the two theatres together. Captain Leslie Morshead of the 2nd Australian Infantry Battalion helped organise the evacuation from Gallipoli and later commanded Australian brigades at Passchendaele and the Somme. In his diary he wrote of the relief at leaving Gallipoli’s dust and thirst but confessed he felt he was abandoning fallen comrades. When he arrived in Flanders he was shocked by the mud and shell-churned landscape. Visiting both sites and reading letters like Morshead’s emphasises that these were the same men, grappling with different but equally harrowing conditions. Their resilience and sacrifice are central to any remembrance tour.