ANZACS AND ARMENIANS
Jim McDermott

America Nation
April 26 2009

In Australia and New Zealand April 25th is Anzac Day, a moment in
which Australians and New Zealanders remember the sacrifice made by
their soldiers in their ultimately failed attempt to overcome the
Turks at Gallipoli during World War I. It’s a day of solemnity in
some way similar to our own Veterans’ Day or Memorial Day.

This Anzac Day in the Australian Jesuit Magazine Eureka Street, rather
than reflect specifically on the cost of that battle for Australia,
author Nick Toscano looks instead at how Gallipoli functioned as the
first step in the Turkish efforts to exterminate the Armenian people.

…At the Gallipoli landing, the Turks conscripted hundreds of
Armenians in the momentous battle for nothing more than cannon
fodder. As they ran unarmed into our troops’ firing line, it was
mass-exeuction.

The Ottoman government execut ed 600 of the Armenian educated-elite in
Istanbul on 24 April, the very day before the Gallipoli landing, and,
immediately afterwards pursued the rest in the Anatolian highlands….

Toscano goes on to describe in detail the crimes perpetrated upon
Armenians in the years that followed. It’s a harrowing account. Click
here < id=12475> for
the full story.