Turkish tree is a poignant tourist attraction for WW1 buffs

An oak tree planted on the battlefields of Gallipoli by a grieving father is a symbol of the sacrifice of the tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth troops who died there 100 years ago.

In life, Eric Duckworth never had time to make a mark. He had barely finished school when war broke out and he, like hundreds of other boys from his home town of Rochdale, England, signed up to fight.

Only a few months passed before he was shipped out to Gallipoli with the 1/6th Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers and given the impossible task of taking the Turkish peninsula from the sea, scrambling up scrub-laden cliffs under heavy fire.

There, cleaning his rifle in the fierce August heat, the 19-year-old was killed.

In death, he will never be forgotten. His father James made sure of that.

After more than six years of grieving and questioning, he had still not learnt exactly how - and where - his son had died. So, in March 1922, he, too, sailed for Gallipoli. The 58-year-old, who ran a chain of greengrocers, crossed Turkey on a donkey, holding a parasol against the sun. Dressed in white linen, he clutched an oak sapling all the while. When he eventually found the cemetery closest to the battle - Eric's body was never recovered - he planted the oak in his memory.

Today, it thrives still. At the foot of Redoubt cemetery, where 634 of Second Lieutenant Duckworth's comrades are buried, is a row of two dozen pines.

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At the opposite end stands the lone oak, sprawling out from among the daffodils, with a silver plaque reminding every visitor of his name.

Few remember the boys alongside whom he fought. The tree is the only personal memorial on the peninsula and even it is visited more often by Australians than Britons.

A new Australian film about Gallipoli, The Water Diviner - directed by and starring Russell Crowe - tells the story of an Australian farmer who travels to Turkey after the war to discover what happened to his sons. His mission echoes that of James Duckworth, but the story of the Gallipoli oak seems unlikely to get its moment on the big screen. For, a century after the campaign began, the British contribution has largely been forgotten.

Busloads of Turks make the five-hour journey from Istanbul every day and 10 000 Australians were expected at the centenary commemorations this weekend. Australians and New Zealanders often fly 14 500km to find the grave of a relative.

Few historians doubt the bravery of the Australian and New Zealand troops who fought here, suffering first sunstroke and then frostbite, in their first campaign of the war. Some 11 000 Australians and New Zealanders died here, and 12 000 Frenchmen, compared with 35 000 Britons.

The campaign was the brainchild of Winston Churchill, who thought an assault on the peninsula would open up the Sea of Marmara to the British, creating an ice-free trading route with Russia.

Had it succeeded, it might also have knocked Turkey out of the war, allowing Britain and France to carve up the spoils of the crumbling Ottoman Empire.

In the event, it proved to be one of the most disastrous chapters of the First World War. Rather than breaking the deadlock of the Western Front, it replicated it as thousands of men endured stifling heat in hastily-dug trenches to achieve only a stalemate. After only seven months, an evacuation was ordered.

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In Australia and New Zealand, which were forging their identities as independent countries, Gallipoli served as shorthand for the supposed incompetence and cowardice of the British ruling class, happy to risk thousands of their ill-equipped sons on a sideshow campaign that never seemed likely to succeed.

It is this version of the story that was popularised for the world by Mel Gibson in his 1981 film, Gallipoli. The contribution of the Anzacs - Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - has been so emphasised that some are unaware that any Britons fought at all.

Lyn Edmonds, a retired librarian who was organising centenary preparations for Britain's Gallipoli Association, said: "We want to raise awareness of British involvement.

"Those men volunteered to do what they thought was right, and we should remember it whether it was a disaster or a triumph."

In an effort to "redress the balance", she had arranged for 15 descendants of soldiers and seamen who fought in the campaign to fly out for a commemorative event organised by the British Government this week, as the men were preparing to storm the beaches exactly 100 years before.

The Prince of Wales and Prince Harry were set to attend the service at Helles memorial, where the names of 20763 British servicemen whose bodies were never found are chiselled into marble.

There, on one of 200 panels that have each been replaced in time for the centenary by a team of six stonemasons from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, is the name of 2nd Lt Duckworth.

One of the descendants is Sir James Dunbar-Nasmith, 88, who was to travel to Helles with his nephew.

His father, Admiral Sir Martin Dunbar-Nasmith, was awarded the Victoria Cross after the submarine he commanded sank 97 Turkish ships and blew up a railway viaduct.

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"In the history books, one learns about British victories, not defeats," he says. "But the Dardanelles were very important and, had it been successful, it would have made an enormous difference to the whole progress of the war.

"If you look up from a ship, it is impossible to imagine how anybody thought you could effect a landing on those mountains, covered in scrub. They were incredibly brave."

One Turkish commander - the father of the nation that emerged after the war - clearly agreed. When Kemal Ataturk met Sir James's brother, a midshipman, many years later he quipped: "Your father was the King of the Marmara so you must be the crown prince."

The National Museum of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth is also attempting to restate the British role, opening an exhibition "challenging the historical perception" of the campaign.

"The British side of the story has become a bit lost and we have slipped into a lazy habit of just repeating the Anzac story," says curator Nick Hewitt. "It was not Churchill's finest hour and he was not inclined to promote it."

But the most poignant commemoration is the most personal. On August 7, exactly a century after his great uncle died, Paul Duckworth, 57, who lives in France, will stand under his oak tree, recalling that sacrifice. He will bring with him a fresh plant and a note from his sister, who lives in York.

The tree, though, has not been neglected these last 93 years. In fact, the legacy of one British family has been preserved by one Turkish family.

The tree is pruned once a year by the cemetery's head gardener, Suleyman Sevinc. Before he joined the commission in 1990, his father had the same job, and before that his grandfather, who began caring for the oak in the '30s.

"I'm proud of my work," he says. "In every country, there are good and bad people. I don't think about their nationality, I consider what kind of person they were.

"It was Ataturk who said, 'After losing their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.' We're the young ones now, so they are all our grandfathers." - The Sunday Telegraph