The narrow, hilly streets of Istanbul are filled with men pushing carts. There is the occasional overloaded human porter with an impossible weight on his head or back, but almost anything movable is moved by men pushing carts. They become mobile bakeries, mobile hardware shops, greengrocers, drapers, fishmongers, florists – even chemist shops. I have seen carts that specialise in hot corn and in catfood, pies and pide, tea and trinkets. There are carts that are just for collecting empty plastic waterbottles, some for bottles filled with iced water.  I have seen a cart carrying a cart.  I think at Gallipoli we probably needed more carts.

True, the Turks got advice from Otto von Sanders to help organise their defence but we had to have Winston Churchill planning our campaign, they had Kemal Attaturk on the ground and we had General Bridges.  They had forts but we had the tragedy of the River Clyde.  The Turkish navy had lots of very effective mines to use against our fleet of aging ships.  They were fighting to protect their homeland and we were trying to invade.

However we only had Simpson and his donkey.  But they would have had lots and lots of little carts I reckon.  This would have been the real tipping point for the Gallipoli campaign. I suppose we’ll find out the truth about their secret weapon on our guided tour tomorrow.