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BRAW LADDIES AMIDST THE CLASH OF THE EMPIRES
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THE KING’S OWN SCOTTISH BORDERERS, 1915
Gallipoli,perhaps more directly than any
other campaign of the First World War,
was a clash of Empires. Its geographic
significance, specifically with regards
to access to Russia’s only warm-water
ports, provided a key focus for Britain,
France and Russia as they debated and
reviewed their strategies for 1915. For
the Central Powers of Germany and
Austria-Hungary,
the
Ottoman
Empire provided a route to the world
beyond Europe and so enabled them
to strike at their enemies’ overseas
Empires. This gave it such strategic
significance that for some it was more
promising than the western or eastern
fronts in Europe. Gallipoli was a
peninsula on the
E
uropean shore of
the Dardanelles, the straits linking
the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.
The casualties of this conflict were, of
course, ordinary young men from as
far away as Australia and New Zealand
and also as close to home as Hawick,
Kelso, Duns, Dalbeattie, Portobello,
Kilmarnock and Leith.
A C L A S H O F E M P I R E S