100th anniversary wwi Battle of Gallipoli (25Apr1915-09Jan1916): Queen and Prince Philip, each placed a wreath at war memorial

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dailymail.co.uk -Gallipoli anniversary ceremony: with solemnity and quiet dignity Queen and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, each placed a wreath at the war memorial. The ceremony marked the 100th anniversary of the end of the disastrous First World War campaign on the Gallipoli peninsula. During the ceremony the Queen and Philip, who is patron of the Gallipoli Association, stood still as the Last Post was played by a bugler and a minute's silence was observed. Then, with solemnity and quiet dignity, they each placed a wreath at the war memorial dedicated to local men who fought in the Great War and paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The Battle of Gallipoli was a campaign of World War I that took place on the Gallipoli peninsula (Gelibolu in modern Turkey) in the Ottoman Empire between 25 April 1915 and 9 January 1916. The peninsula forms the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a strait that provided a sea route to the Russian Empire, one of the Allied powers during the war. Intending to secure it, Russia's allies Britain and France launched a naval attack followed by an amphibious landing on the peninsula, with the aim of capturing the Ottoman capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul). The naval attack was repelled and after eight months' fighting, with many casualties on both sides, the land campaign was abandoned and the invasion force was withdrawn to Egypt. The Gallipoli land campaign against Turkey was one of the major engagements of the First World War, involving more than 400,000 British and around 140,000 Commonwealth and Irish servicemen. Around 58,000 Allied troops died, including 29,500 from Britain and Ireland, over 12,000 from France, 11,000 from Australia and New Zealand and 1,500 from India. Conditions were hellish as more than half a million Allies faced heat, flies, dysentery and eventually, extreme cold. The Turks suffered 300,000 casualties, with an estimated 87,000 killed.

The last Allied troops were withdrawn on January 9 1916.
The war memorial was erected by the monarch's grandparents King George V and Queen Mary, and among the men from the 5th Battalion Norfolk regiment it honours are some who died in the Gallipoli campaign.

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Photos courtesy Telegraph and Mail Online UK