The story of the Lone Pine in the Gallipoli Campaign..

Lone Pine

The Gallipoli Land Campaign had begun.

The British landed at Ari Burnu on the morning of April 25, 1915. However, they were met with the resistance of Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal and the soldiers of the 19th Division under his command. Nevertheless, they managed to hold their ground on the beach. Subsequently, a portion of the British forces headed toward Kanlısırt (Bloody Ridge). When they arrived at Kanlısırt under difficult conditions, they encountered a single pine tree in the middle of the plain, amidst the scrub. That is why they named this location 'Lone Pine'.

Lone Pine meant 'Yalnızçam'

Yalnızçam (Lone Pine) was right in the middle of the Turkish positions at Kanlısırt. This area was under the command of Colonel Rüştü Bey, commander of the 16th Division. The British had been stopped at this point as well. For this reason, they were conducting harassing fire on the Turkish positions. While aiming, they used this pine tree as a reference point, allowing them to make more accurate shots.

Gladiator combat...

The battle took place in the form of mutual clashes.

The Turks had built solid and sheltered positions at Kanlısırt. However, by August, the British wanted to achieve results. They prepared a general attack plan. On August 6, 1915, they would first attack the Turkish positions in the Yalnızçam region located at Kanlısırt, but the main force, General Birdwood's unit, would advance toward Kocaçimen Hill via Sazlıdere. In this way, the British would have surrounded the Turks from several fronts and caught them off guard. Furthermore, the British were numerically superior. The number of soldiers at Ari Burnu was 37 thousand, while the Turks had 19 thousand.

When August 6, 1915, arrived, the British first pounded the Kanlısırt and Kırmızısırt regions with artillery fire. The Turks' sheltered positions made of trees were destroyed. When the artillery fire ceased, the British 1st Anzac Brigade (AIF - Australian Imperial Force) attacked and advanced. And bloody clashes began in the Turkish positions at the level of Yalnızçam.

Because the Turks had covered their own positions with logs, they were trapped inside. The British entered through the open embrasures and attacked the Turks mercilessly. There was no time to fire weapons. They began to wrestle with each other. It was as if they were taking revenge for all the wars fought until that day, and they were fighting in a cage like the gladiators of antiquity. After a while, the trenches were filled with lifeless bodies. The soldiers of the entire Gallipoli campaign were fighting with great ferocity. After the bloody struggles, the Turkish trenches fell; the Anzacs had won. The British suffered 2,300 casualties and the Turks 7,000, and the British had captured the Kanlısırt positions.

Corporal Benjamin Smith of the 1st AIF Anzac Brigade, 3rd Battalion, came under the Yalnızçam in the middle of Kanlısırt. The trunk of the Yalnızçam had been shattered and toppled by the bullets and shrapnel it had received. Corporal Benjamin was looking for his brother, Mark Smith. However, his brother had died. Extremely saddened, the older brother Benjamin took two pine cones that had fallen from the Yalnızçam as a memento of his brother. And he sent them to his mother, Mac Mullen, who lived in New South Wales, Australia. Upon receiving the news of her son's death, Mrs. Mullen put the pine cones in a drawer and began to keep them as a memento of her son who lay under the Yalnızçam. The two pine cones of the Yalnızçam remained in the drawer for exactly 13 years. 13 years later, in 1928, Mother Mac Mullen planted one of the pine cones in Inverell, the place where her sons had gone to join the army.

She planted the other one in 1934, 19 years later, on the grounds of the Australian War Memorial built by Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, in Canberra. The Yalnızçam that was destroyed in Gallipoli had given seeds in Australia. In a short time, it became a sapling and began to grow.

The pine was an Aleppo pine and had likely been brought to Gallipoli from another region years ago.

Some time later, a severe storm broke out, and everything in the area, including the bridge, was destroyed. However, nothing happened to the Yalnızçam sapling. After this storm, the Australian Government took even greater care of this pine, and starting from the 1940s, it began to propagate the seeds at the state-owned Yarralumla Nursery. As the Yalnızçam became even more important for Anzac history, demand for the Yalnızçam saplings at the Yarralumla Nursery increased. And they were planted all over Australia. Thousands began to be planted in school gardens with ceremonies. And thus, it was ensured that new generations would not forget the Gallipoli Campaign. Today, every year, students ceremoniously plant Yalnızçam saplings in school gardens, and the memory of the Gallipoli Campaign is kept alive. Planting trees with Yalnızçam saplings has turned into a national commemoration in Australia.

The story of the Yalnızçam does not end here.

In 1990, a group of Anzac veterans brought a sapling of the Yalnızçam, which had been propagated in Australia, to Gallipoli and ceremoniously planted it in the place where the original Yalnızçam, broken under a rain of bullets and shrapnel, had stood. 75 years later, the Yalnızçam had come to life again at Kanlısırt in Gallipoli. The tree in Australia, which came from the first seed of the Yalnızçam, is now aged. Wars are also being forgotten. But "Lone Pine", that is, Yalnızçam, is not forgotten.

Today, hundreds of thousands of hectares of our forests are burning every year. They are being destroyed with cyanide due to gold mining. Let us all take the story of the Yalnızçam as an example, and let us re-green our forests with Yalnızçam saplings in places where the climate and soil are suitable, without disrupting the ecological balance. Let us do this with a national commemoration.

Come on, all together...