Great Regulars: "Gallipoli", the opening poem in [Ciaran] Carson's

sequence, is about the Dardanelles campaign of 1915--16--a byword for spectacular military incompetence--in which Allied forces attempted to capture Constantinople, as it was then known. The six-month campaign produced appalling casualties--almost half a million dead or wounded. The Royal Dublin Fusiliers suffered particularly heavily from the machine gun fire of the Turkish defenders as they attempted to land; most either never made it out of their boats or drowned under the weight of their equipment.

from The Times Literary Supplement: Poem of the Week: From "The War Correspondent"--"1. Gallipoli"

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