Baby 700 Cemetery is a
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mil ...
cemetery on the
Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. It contains the bodies of some of the soldiers killed during the
battles at Gallipoli. During an eight-month campaign in 1915, Commonwealth and French forces sought to force Turkey out of the war, which would relieve the deadlock on the
Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to:
Military frontiers
*Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany
*Western Front (Russian Empire), a majo ...
and open a supply route to
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
through the
Dardanelles and the
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Roma ...
.
Nomenclature
The name ''Baby 700'' originated in cartographic notes on Allied maps. One of the hills in the
Sari Bair
The Battle of Sari Bair ( tr, Sarı Bayır Harekâtı), also known as the August Offensive (), represented the final attempt made by the British in August 1915 to seize control of the Gallipoli peninsula from the Ottoman Empire during the Firs ...
range was shown as being 700 feet above sea level, and its summit was marked with a small circle. Maps showed another 700 foot hill immediately north of it, marked with a larger circle. These notations led to the names Baby 700 and Big 700 being assigned to them by the Commonwealth forces. Baby 700 retained its name throughout the campaign. Big 700 was later renamed Battleship Hill.
Action
The 3rd Australian Brigade
landed at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915 and successfully reached the summit on the morning of the landing. It was driven off the summit in a Turkish counterattack in the afternoon. Allied forces made several attempts to recapture it over the following months, with major assaults on 2 May and 7 August but it remained in Turkish control for the rest of the campaign.
Cemetery construction
The cemetery was constructed in 1919, and the remains recovered from the surrounding area here buried there. Special memorials commemorate ten Australian soldiers thought to be amongst its 449 unidentified burials.
See also
*
Gallipoli campaign
*
Australian and New Zealand Army Corps
References
*
*
External links
* {{Find a Grave cemetery
Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemeteries in Gallipoli