The cemetery and monument of the 57th Infantry Regiment were designed by the architect Nejat Dinçel and built by the ministry on 12 December 1992, beside the Kabatepe–Conkbayırı road at the southern end of Kılıçbayır. Foreign soldiers called this place the Chessboard during the fighting.
It should be said plainly that this cemetery is symbolic. The real one lies at the southern end of Bomba Sırtı, inside the Çataldere valley.
The 57th Regiment belonged to the 19th Division and was commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Hüseyin Avni Bey. On the first day of the landings it was the Turkish force that met the advancing Anzac troops on the Arıburnu front and pushed them back. It was on this front that the qualities of leadership and courage of the divisional commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mustafa Kemal, first showed themselves.
The site consists of an ablution fountain, an open prayer area, the main cemetery and the monument. The chief material is Kevser stone, generally used in Seljuk and Ottoman caravanserais. The entrance is an opening in the east wall beside the road, and immediately by it stands a bronze statue of Hüseyin Kaçmaz holding his grandchild's hand — the oldest surviving veteran in the country when he died on 10 September 1994 at the age of 108. Directly opposite the entrance, on the east wall, a relief covering about 45 square metres shows the counter-attack of the regiment on 25 April 1915. The fountain and the open prayer area are on the south side, and the main cemetery has an arched entrance from which a path runs to the north wall.
When to go
- Climate
- Across Çanakkale as a whole, monthly mean temperatures run from 6.4 °C in January to 25.2 °C in August; the mean stays between 15 and 25 °C in May, June, September and October; rainfall is heaviest in December (105 mm) and lightest in August (11 mm). Long-term means for 1929-2025 from the Turkish State Meteorological Service (MGM).
