NZ3 NZ Infantry, Gallipoli WWI

The men in this set are uniformed and equipped as at the Anzac Cove landings, with slouch hats and 1908 canvas webbing.

To break the stalemate on the Western Front, a British strategy was devised to attack the enemy flank through the Dardanelles and to allow the navy through.

To be successful key points on the Gallipoli Peninsula had to be seized, and in Egypt the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) was formed as part of the huge amphibious operation.

On 15 April 1915 the ANZACs were landed on Gallipoli and through a curtain of Turkish shrapnel a toehold 2,500 yards long by 1,000 yards was won at what is known today as Anzac Cove. To drive out the ANZAC invaders, on 27 April sixteen Turkish battalions attacked and were beaten back with heavy losses on both sides. On 8 August the New Zealanders stormed the heights above them and gained the crest of Chunuk Bair, the strategic key to the peninsula, but after three days of bitter Turkish counter attacks were forced to withdraw. Of the 760 men of the Wellington Battalion which led the assault there came out 70 unwounded men. After eight months of stalemate the peninsula was evacuated.

Between April and December of 1915, 11,600 New Zealanders served in Gallipoli, and of these 2,721 died on active service and 4,752 were wounded. Both New Zealand and Australia commemorate 25 April as ANZAC Day, our day of Remembrance.