Moudros and the Anzac Story

We spent ten days in Lesvos, attending to the necessities of life. I broke a tooth, so we located a dentist by asking a random stranger where they went to the dentist. We bought spare fuel filters and toilet parts and all the sundry items that a yacht consumes voraciously. We wandered everywhere in town, rode our bikes and rented a car, seeing what we could see. But as always, the time came to leave.

The Admiral at the ready

Headland at Sifna

Last rays of the sun

Our first jump was to Sifna, the most south-western port on Lesvos. This was a 55 nm sail, so we arrived in the late afternoon and settled to anchor behind the town port.

A still night at Sifna

Sifna town by night

fishing harbour

We live in a blue world

Our rear veranda

Next morning we weighed anchor to set out for Limnos, perched right out in the middle of the Aegean sea. Limnos is the closest Greek island to the Dardanelles and Gallipoli.

Tiny fishing caique

Early dawn departure

It was an uneventful crossing of about 50 nautical miles, with some long periods of motoring.  Moudros is a large harbour in the centre of the island of Limnos. We saw the wreck of a yacht perched high and dry on a rock just above the waterline, just at the entrance to the harbour. I would love to know the story of that particular tragedy.

An abandoned yacht on a rock in the entrance to Moudros harbour

Islands fringing Limnos, and the wrecked yacht

We chose to make our landfall at Moudros for the same reasons that the ANZAC forces chose this harbour to stage the attack on Gallipoli in 1915. It is a large natural harbour with many protected anchorages.

Pavlov alongside on the dock

We went alongside on the dock, on the upwind side as directed by the port police. This turned out to be an error, as we were mercilessly pinned on this dock the next day in 25 knot winds.

Pretty fishing harbour

View to the dock and Pavlov

Lovers at sunset

Sunset at the dock

Moonrise at the dock

Moudros was a delightful place, a Greek village that time forgot. There was no evidence of any tourist activity, the pace of life was slow, but the village had a grace and beauty often absent from some of the more populated Greek towns. We had a great seafood meal of sardines and squid at the dock taverna, and a sound night's sleep. It was a pity about the 25 knot winds that started early in the morning, crashing into our previously secure anchorage.

Moudros town

The main church

Old tavern in Moudros

Beautiful local stone work

Megan feeds her bread addiction.

We left the hopelessly pinned yacht and walked to the military cemetery, about 1 km out of town.

Greek cemetery adjacent to the military cemetery

Road out of Moudros

Entrance to the military cemetery

The main military cemetery on Limnos is located at East Moudros. It is situated on rising ground on the north east side of the village of Mudros and is about 1 km out of the village, next to the Greek Civil Cemetery. The ANZAC forces staged out of Moudros into Gallipoli, and established elaborate docks and mooring facilities for the naval fleets.

Australian War Memorial image of the cemetery

At the conclusion of the Imperial campaign to take Istanbul, many of the wounded were removed back to Moudros. Many of those wounded died there, and were buried in a local military cemetery. The cemetery was begun in April 1915 and used until September 1919. It contains 885 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 86 of them unidentified, and one Second World War burial. There are also seven non-naval graves and 32 burials of other nationalities in the cemetery, 29 of them Russians who died in the evacuation of Novorossisk in 1921, who are remembered on a memorial plaque set into the boundary wall.

Memorial to Imperial and ANZAC casualties

Individual headstones for identified soldiers

A headstone from an Australian private in the AIF. 

A monument to fallen French soldiers.

The cemetery also includes separate memorials dedicated to Indian, French and British dead and a memorial erected to sailors of HMS Agamemnon who died in service during the Gallipoli campaign. There are 98 Australians and 47 New Zealanders identified and buried in this Military Cemetery.

Collective memorial for Muslim fallen

Memorial for Russian soldiers

Commemorative plaque describing the cemetery

The cemetery is supported by a grant from the Commonwealth War Graves Tribunal. We enjoyed wandering around the site, imaging the staging of forces from this small Greek island, the hospital bases that were established in the bay, and the wounded men who returned to this sanctuary. It connecting me with more of the ANZAC story, rather than just heroic loss and failure on the battlefield.

Road back to Moudros

And then it was time to take the country lane back to Moudros, and try to figure out a way to extricate Pavlov from its dire predicament, and get it to safety. This we did manage, with some ropes and ingenuity, and a bit of daring. Onward next to Mirina, the capital of Limnos.