Peter Weir's movie Gallipoli, starring a young Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, is based on the historical landing of Australian troops onto Turkish shores in 1915, in the area known as Gallipoli. The landing itself was one of the many strategies employed to distract the German forces from the Russian borders. .
The original idea was that allied ships would force their way into Constantinople. However, after three of the ships were destroyed and another three crippled, it was decided that they could not force their way in without first destroying the Turkish guns defending the shores. The Turkish forces have depleted their ammunition at this time and if the allied ships had sailed on they would have surely succeeded. Such is irony! However, the allied commanders were unaware of this and decided that an invasion at Gallipoli was the only answer.
However, the landing was a failure, as the troops had only their endurance training in Egypt and did not understand the concepts of discipline and order. There were also miscalculated landing areas and so instead of landing in the relatively flat terrain, they were forced to climb practically vertical cliffs, this made it easier for the Turks to fire on the troops.
This landing is now seen in Australia as a tragic but significant event in our history, the soldiers that were sent to Turkey are now known as the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS).
ii) The landscape in Gallipoli, Egypt and in Australia that is shown in this movie are all arid and desert-like landscapes with the sun held high, bright - and hot (of course) in the different countries they travel to.
The Gallipoli terrain is generally more rocky and hilly, very roughly textured. Egypt's desert is flat, there is hardly any variation in the level of land and there is far more sand, the sky shown is hazy as if there is a fog, this is due to the level of sand in the air. The Australian terrain is a little more "alive" with more vegetation and more water.
