Now, in an annual event that grows in mythology and status in proportion to the passing of the years, is celebrated the shared combat ordeal of gallant "Johnny Turk" and the Bronzed Anzac.

And why not?

The Turkish forces, well prepared behind excellent defences, used their tactics to good effect, ably led by a professional officer who was to go on to bigger things, such as the fire destruction of Smyrna - namely, Kemal Ataturk.

But, pause for one moment to consider a slightly different scenario.

Let us suspend historical reality for the purposes of this exercise.

What if, say, instead of Gallipoli, the Anzac forces were going into combat with an SS Battalion somewhere in Poland during the Second World War?

Would we then, decades later, be joining up with our comrades in battle to celebrate what both sides had gone through, our enmities forgotten?

Can one commemorate the shared experiences with enemy forces who acted as the military arm of a state carrying out a terrible genocide at the same time?

For it was the night before the landing at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915 in the capital of the Ottoman Empire, then called Constantinople, when occurred the arrest, detention and subsequent liquidation of 625 intellectuals, priests and leading figures of the Armenian Empire.

This event is widely held to signal the onset of the first major genocide of the twentieth century, the most blood-drenched period in human history.

What followed was a mass murder of an entirely innocent group of citizens in the Ottoman Empire by means that are still horrifying to contemplate.

By the time Turkey sued for peace in 1918, up to 1.5 million Armenians had been slaughtered, decimating the population of a group of people who had lived in the Fertile Crescent since the dawn of human settlement. Continue reading

Sources

• ABC Religion & Ethics
• Image: The Guardian

He tried to stop the war but in vain.

The first public speech Pope Benedict XV gave after the Conclave which elected him as Pius X's successor on 3 September, marked the start of his mission to end hostilities, convincing the great powers to resolve pending questions through dialogue and negotiation.

This was the spirit of his first four public wartime speeches.

On 8 September 1914 Benedict XV "repeated his predecessor's call to people to pray for an end to the war," urging powers to put down their weapons.

But his calls fell on deaf ears.

He made another attempt at moral persuasion on 1 November 1914 with the "Ad Beatissimi" encyclical.

In it, Benedict XV denounced the general cultural barbarisation of the time: "the lack of reciprocal love between men," material wellbeing "becoming the only aim of human action" and the nationalistic hatred which led to paroxysm.

According to the Pope this was all rooted in a culture of positivism which exalted hatred, instinct and the fight for survival.

In the face of all this it was necessary to return to the "principles of Christianity" so that the exaltation of hatred can be replaced by "fraternal love".

Hence his appeal to Catholics to take humanitarian action. Another appeal was then made to the warring sides to put an end to the violence and find "other ways to ensure violated rights were respected."

This second appeal also fell on deaf ears.

A third attempt to persuade sides to put down their weapons was made at Christmas: "Benedict XV asked for a twenty-four hour ceasefire to remember the "Prince of Peace".

But the Russians and French said no.

On 10 January 1915 Della Chiesa published his Prayer for peace but Belgian and French clergy twisted its meaning to fit their own political and patriotic interests. Continue reading

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• Image: Times of Malta

The crucifix belonged to Bishop Henry Cleary, the Catholic Bishop of Auckland from 1910 to 1929, who took his duties right to the frontline.

In 1916, Bishop Cleary travelled from Auckland to London to seek medical treatment, intending to resign because of poor health.

Instead, he discovered there was no Catholic chaplain with the New Zealand 2nd Brigade in France and volunteered to serve on the frontline near Fromelles.

After just a night and a day of fighting at Fromelles, 1500 British and 5533 Australian soldiers were killed, wounded or taken prisoner by the Germans.

The soldiers' bodies and many wounded were left on the battlefield in no man's land - unable to be recovered and buried.

Although a temporary truce had been made with the Germans to allow the wounded to be rescued it was vetoed by senior officers, and the New Zealand troops were deeply troubled by their inability to recover and bury their comrades.

Bishop Cleary and an officer crawled out and lay in the snow amid the remains of the dead. In his diaries, Bishop Cleary comments several times on the dead lying "out there" and how the Germans used to shoot burial parties.

Just 50m from the enemy line he said a "De Profundis" over the bodies - a psalm which normally forms part of the prayers for the dead recited at Catholic funerals.

However, Bishop Cleary's wooden crucifix was badly damaged while he was in the trenches so the Kiwi soldiers gathered up spent shell cases and cobbled together a new crucifix for him. Continue reading

Sources

• New Zealand Herald
• Image: Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, Te Ara