Graves at Helles again

[Guest CGI]

Gallipoli : while turning the Old Krithia Road into a sealed one, Turkish labourers found a French grave, near the Kereviz Dere front. Not surprisingly, but all the same another example of total disrespect , the gravestone was simply discarded at the side of the road.

The inscription offers minimal information, but if anyone wants to have a go at it, who was this officer?

[Guest CGI]

Here's the inscription in greater detail :

[Paul Reed]

Found a Lieutenant Robert here on the Memorial-Genweb pages:

http://www.memorial-genweb.org/html/fr/res...1800&numpage=10

The details for him are scant, not even a date:

ROBERT

Guerre : 1914-1918

Date de décès :

Lieu de décès :

Autres informations :

Lieutenant - Inhumé dans la tombe n° 1296

N° identification : 1092492

I will check the SGA site to see if he is there.

[michaeldr]

I cannot throw any light upon the soldier in question, however the following from the Holt’s guide book may help explain the why the stone was discarded

“To cope with the heavy French losses, four wartime cemeteries were created behind the front line. One called Galinier was in the interior of Seddulbahir fort, another was beside the Kilitbahir road. 1st Division had a cemetery at the foot of the Eski Hisarlik cliff and 2nd Division’s was 30 metres to the north of Morto Bay…………….After the war the bodies left on the battlefield were moved to the necropolis created in 1915 and in new cemeteries made at Zimmerman’s Farm and at Kereves Dere (Celery Valley). Thousands of unidentified remains were placed in ossuaries called Masnou (Kereves Dere) and Ganeval (after commanding officers). In 1922 a mission was sent out from France to repatriate the identified bodies claimed by their families. After the Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923 this vast cemetery [the French National Cemetery and Memorial at Morto Bay – the land for it which was given to the French under the treaty terms was 28,000 square metres] was constructed and all the French dead on the Peninsula were reinterred in it. It was inaugurated on 9 June 1930 by General Gouraud.”

Regards

Michael D.R.

[Paul Reed]

I tried the SGA site but without an initial it is difficult: there are 2,200 men with this name on their database!

[baby700]

There is no doubt that this gravestone was made after the war, during the occupation period of Turkey. But this practice (making and erecting special gravestone for the dead man) was rare in the time. This was certainly an exception, made by a family member or by some closest mates of officer Robert.

Also the information in the Holt's book is a little bit misleading. The ossuaries yes; but the French doesn't made regular cemeteries in Gallipoli after the war. In the points given by the book, there were no cemeteries but only small monuments with plaques; commemorated generally the French deads.

There were only 2235 identified french, senegalaise and zouaves soldiers under 21000 KIA. So in 1930, during the inauguration of the french cemetery in Morto Bay, the french authorities decided to put together all the bones in this area and also put together all the plaques of small monuments in the big wall (mur-souvenir) just behind the cemetery.

The point is, that the some gravestones and old monuments were left by French in time; not destructed by Turks.

Another point: The French authorities were not very sensible about their man in the eastern front (but the Turks were and are the worst of this category, there is no doubt!). Le poilu d'orient was one of the great oublie of WW1. Even today, look at the website, cited below (www.memorial-genweb.org/html/fr/resultcommune2.php3?id_source=7581&pays=Turquie&limite=). They said that the monument in cemetery erected by the Turks and for the memories of all fallen soldiers quelque soit their nationalities. That is totally wrong.

In attachment, one of the base of old French post-war monuments. I found six in the French sector.