From our Fabricating History Department comes one from the Australian Advertiser, with thanks to Twostellas and RB:
THE Anzac legend is being corrupted by unlicensed Turkish tour guides who claim the Gallipoli campaign was a “holy jihad” decided by the hand of Allah.
In lectures delivered on the battlefields, the guides tell their audiences that “Muslim saints” repelled Allied artillery attacks and enemy soldiers were swallowed by a “green mist”.
The lectures have sparked outrage across Turkey and have prompted a court challenge to the guides’ right to speak about the Gallipoli campaign.
Turkish academics, historians and official guides have launched a campaign to ban the talks, which are being delivered at hallowed sites such as Lone Pine and Chunuk Bair.
The RSL has reacted angrily and vowed to raise the matter with the Turkish Government.
“There is only one Anzac history, and that’s the real one that has been thoroughly and meticulously documented,” said New South Wales RSL president Don Rowe.
“If these guides are spreading mistruths about the true deeds of any soldiers in the campaign, we would have grave concerns.”
The Turkish Government ordered a crackdown on unofficial guides last year – but The Advertiser has learned senior members of the Turkish Government are now backing them….
Let them into the EU!
And for the truth about what happened at Gallipoli, see here. An excerpt:
“The Australians rose to the occasion. They did not wait for orders, or for the boats to reach the beach, but sprang into the sea, formed a sort of rough line, and rushed at the enemy’s trenches. Their magazines were not charged, so they just went in with the cold steel, and it was over in a minute for the Turks in the first trench had been either bayoneted or had run away, and the Maxim guns were captured.”
[Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, from the first report in Australia of the Australian landing at Gallipoli, reprinted from the Hobart Mercury, 8 May 1915]