Gallipoli
I've just been watching another story about Gallipoli -- a WW1 battle in Turkey with horrendous losses for the British, Australians, and New Zealanders. (The Dardanelles Campaign -- 250,000 Allies dead/wounded/missing, 300,000 Turks.) This was retelling the story of a company of men from Sandringham, a residential estate of Queen Alexandra (widow of Edward VII).
V. The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
-- Rupert Brooke, 1914
One of the most affective experiences in all my travels was a visit to the National War Memorial in Wellington, New Zeland. The memorial isn't specific to Gallipoli or even to World War One, but what I learned about that campaign left a deep impression. I was on a 6-week tour with a large group, but that day I was on my own. And there was hardly anyone else at the memorial that day; perhaps 2 or 3 other visitors, and I don't recall seeing any staff. That added to the sense of emptiness and loss that Gallipoli has come to mean to me. [More on Gallipoli here and here.]