Editorial: A needless conflict over Anzac Cove

Opinion

Turkey is in an unenviable position over the Gallipoli battlefield. On the one hand, it is clearly determined to preserve the essence of a site that played a pivotal role in its modern history, as well as imprinting itself on the national consciousness of New Zealanders and Australians. On the other, both it and the Anzac nations are keen to improve access for the increasing number of people attracted there every year. These conflicting ambitions will always create tensions, one of which has surfaced this year with the widening of the road at Anzac Cove and creation of new parking areas.

According to Melbourne's Sunday Age, this work has radically reshaped the coastline and removed historic features. Now, says the newspaper, the landscape immediately around the 600m-long cove bears only a passing resemblance to that stormed by the Anzac troops in 1915. The report follows earlier, particularly disturbing, suggestions that human remains had been dug up during the work, and that rubble had been dumped carelessly on the beach.

Any alteration to Gallipoli's appearance is, of course, regrettable, and it appears the work of the roading contractors could have been monitored more closely. Nonetheless, it is important to keep the changes in perspective. This work has not wrought the sort of dramatic transformation that will take much from the experience of visiting Gallipoli. In fact, the natural flow from the strikingly narrow beach to the peninsula's network of ridges and valleys has been disturbed ever since the original narrow road was built. Anzac Cove, like most scenes of former battle, has always required a sense of imagination.

The outstanding feature of Gallipoli is that this is not the case for the vast majority of the rest of the battlefield, which has been preserved outstandingly well. The Turks have gone to great lengths to ensure Gallipoli is probably the most authentic of all World War I battlegrounds. Certainly, the widening of the road at Anzac Cove does nothing to detract from the major New Zealand memorial at Chunuk Bair, or the centre of Australian commemoration at Lone Pine. Both are a considerable distance inland, as are other key sites, such as Quinn's Post and The Nek.

Nor does the roading work take anything away from the Turkish memorials that are scattered across the battlefield. Last year, these attracted more than a million Turks, many of them schoolchildren - a number that puts the visits by New Zealanders and Australians into perspective. Gallipoli thrust Kemal Ataturk, the architect of modern Turkey, to prominence and is every bit as emblematic to Turks as to New Zealanders and Australians.

It is unthinkable, therefore, that the Turkish authorities are guilty of careless desecration. This is part of their heritage, and has been safeguarded as such. Indeed, the Turks were pressured by the Australian Government to initiate and complete the road-widening before an estimated 25,000 people descend on Gallipoli for this month's 90th anniversary commemorations. They had, in fact, little choice. The former road at Anzac Cove was not only inadequate but unsafe. Given the size of modern tour buses, of which dozens will be at Gallipoli this year, there was the potential for tragedy if the road and parking areas proved too fragile to cope.

Given the increasing number of visitors, there will, inevitably, be further work to improve access. Already, New Zealand has pressured Turkey to extend a walking track, and there are plans to upgrade the narrow road running along the ridge that formed the Anzac frontline. Always, there will be the threat of disturbing the remains of fallen soldiers; always, there will be the need to balance preservation and access.

The lesson from Anzac Cove is that this tension should be acknowledged, and tact and technique employed to dilute it. All the time remembering, of course, the overarching question of Turkish sovereignty.