Introduction A multimedia box at the entrance of the trail tells how European powers in 1914 stoked friction and flexed muscles, sleepwalking to a war of unimagined horrors that would engulf the world and lead to the slaughter of tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. The enthusiastic, raw Anzacs (Australia and New Zealand Army Corps) would be tested to their limits in what proved an unwinnable Gallipoli campaign - but worse was to come.
A statue of Maryborough’s Duncan Chapman, the first Allied soldier to step ashore at Gallipoli in 1915, was the catalyst for the Gallipoli to Armistice memorial tracing the journey of the original Anzacs. The Chapman statue is now the focal point at the start of the trail in Maryborough's Queens Park, a place where hearts are tugged as the Great War story unfolds. Words, written and spoken, merge with images and the echoing footfall of marching soldiers, putting raw personal perspective into the historical frame. Here visitors can download the QR smart phone app and link to illuminating vignettes for an enriched experience.
Ahead on the trail is the symbolic recreation at the landing scene: crafted ironbark bows of the first three boats to land at Anzac Cove. Words of the 9th Battalion soldiers who stepped ashore float in the air. Footsteps lead from the first boat to the statue of Duncan Chapman, revolver drawn as he peers at unexpected towering cliffs ahead.
Anger and admiration, pride and humility are stirred in stories on panels within the stylised cliffs of Gallipoli, on the Western Front march and on the path to pitiless Pozieres, ending in a bitter-sweet homecoming after the Armistice. Sixtythousand Australians and 11,600 New Zealanders did not return.
Stones from Anzac Cove are embedded in front of Lt Chapman and sand inlaid in his footsteps.
Gallipoli Four sweeping curves of steel columns dominating the memorial trail stylise Anzac Cove’s ridges where the Anzacs clung for eight months. Ari Burnu headland is at the fore with the First Ridge soaring 8m to depict The Sphinx and falling back to the Second and Third Ridges.
Achingly beautiful harmonies rise in a hymn in the middle of the Gallipoli trail - the sound of New Zealand’s Maori Battalion about to go into battle for the first time. Movement of visitors activates the audio; a private describes the spellbinding service before Anzacs marched into the doomed August offensive.
Myths about the landing are addressed in a multi-media box at the entrance to the cliffs. Inside an interactive aerial map shows Gallipoli landmarks and plays a graphic account of Anzacs charging into battle for the first time.
Opposite the audio, one of 27 storyline panels explains the ill-fated plan to break through the Ottoman lines; the following five panels tell how the assault grimly etched the names of The Nek, Lone Pine, Chunuk Bair and Suvla Bay into Gallipoli’s bloody history.
Radiating from the cliff base, grooves form the Anzac rising sun emblem. Embedded in the base is earth from Anzac Cove’ cliffs, a Turkish Government gift.
A tree at an exit traces its lineage to pine fortifications at Lone Pine, explained in a QR code link.
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Gallipoli to Armistice Memorial A message of hope for future generations The all-abilities Gallipoli to Armistice memorial is free to visit and appeals to all ages. Its path wends through pretty, peaceful Queen’s Park in stark contrast to the relentless shelling, mud and bloody carnage of World War I. A message of hope transcends the stories of lives sacrificed in abject horror. Old enemies became friends. The Anzac Cove stones in front of the Duncan Chapman statue and the sand in his footsteps were a gift from the Queensland Turkish Consul, Turgut Manli. He also donated the sculptured relief mask of Ataturk to the Gallipoli to Armistice memorial trail.
The Maryborough community project that started with a statue has created a rare chronological, multi-layered experience of the Great War. Maryborough’s citizens donated funds for the Duncan Chapman statue unveiled in 2015. Architect Grant Calder designed the Gallipoli to Armistice memorial trail, including its creative interpretations and tranquil landscape, to create a new entrance to heritage-listed Queen’s Park. Senior funding partners were the Australian Government, the Queensland Government and the Fraser Coast Regional Council. Three Maryborough businesses, DTM Timber, Persal and Co. and Downer Group (Maryborough), were major sponsors, providing materials and labour to help build the memorial trail.
The Gallipoli to Armistice memorial was opened on 21 July 2018 by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and Fraser Coast Mayor George Seymour. Australian War Memorial Director Dr Brendan Nelson joined them in hailing it as world class.
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FOLLOW THE FOOTSTEPS, HEAR THE WORDS, FEEL THE PRIDE AND COURAGE OF THE ORIGINAL ANZACS WHO FOUGHT IN THE 1914-18 GREAT WAR, FROM THE FIRST STEP AT GALLIPOLI TO THE BRUTAL WESTERN FRONT.
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For the full Gallipoli to Armistice experience, download a QR Code reader from the App Store or Google Play.
Trail Highlights multi-media box at the entrance to the memorial ➊ Atells the background to the Great War, tracking the Anzacs to Gallipoli.
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The bows of three boats depict the Gallipoli landing. Hear the words of men in the first boat.
Chapman’s statue, surrounded by stones, ➌ Duncan sand and earth from Anzac Cove. multi-media box recalls the landing myths ➍ Another and mystery, answering old questions. soldier’s story of the first day is heard at an aerial ➎ Amap of Gallipoli. activates the spine-tingling singing of ➏ Movement a Maori hymn as troops prepare for the August assault.
"Mary Pozieres" statue represents mothers, •• The wives and girlfriends waiting in fear and treasuring letters from loved ones on the front line. Gazing at the park, her pale patina places her half a world away from the Pozieres. “Whispering Walk” to Pozieres has voices •• The describing the indescribable: the relentless barrage of shells exploding without pause or mercy in terrible trenches. looked like men who had been in hell... drawn •• "They and haggered... eyes glassy and starey." The life-size statue of the dazed Wounded Soldier carrying his comrade’s mask and helmet captures the thousandyard stare of men pounded to the brink of insanity and beyond.
be installed: A Turkish tribute - a mask of belongings of a fallen soldier in the plinth ➐ To •• Scattered Mustafa Kemal Ataturk to sit above revered words of sculpture match items found in the wasteland of comfort attributed to him.
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Start the Western Front Memorial Walk, where ghostly marching feet follow more inscribed pavers. Familiar words of battles are graven with stark phrases capturing bleak, proud, whimsical and exhausted thoughts of soldiers at the front.
double-size sculpture of Charles Bean’s portable ➒ Atypewriter and journal marks the start of the Pozieres
Pozieres. From a century ago, the dying words of a soldier call to Australians today. the Pozieres multi-media story box, images •• Inshow the village as peaceful, obliterated and rebuilt. Threaded into its tale are superstitions of the dangling Virgin statue pointing to hell at nearby Albert. Grief links back to Duncan Chapman and Mary Pozieres.
path. Cast in bronze on the typewriter and journal pages are the historian’s heartsick words describing the gruesome sacrifice of Australians in the cruel battle.
The Western Front At the start of the Western Front Memorial Walk, beside the Turkish tribute, inscribed pavers take an eastern path acknowledging the Palestine campaign and tracking the Western Front’s gruelling four years. Sombre names commemorate battles. Phrases from reports and letters convey bleakness, pride, exhaustion and a longing for home. QR codes link to the full stories. Movement triggers the ghostly sound of marching boots on the path to the nearby Cenotaph, engraved with the names of soldiers who never returned. Words of some who died are found in the memorial trail, adding poignancy to austere history. Letters from district men published a century ago in the Maryborough Chronicle were collated for the Anzac Centenary by Miss Jean Hunter and published by the Maryborough, Wide Bay and Burnett Historical Society. Excerpts from "Letters From The Front Line" give personal insights to Gallipoli to Armistice. A 200 per cent scale sculpture of the typewriter used by war historian Charles Bean marks the start of the Pozieres path. Dr Bean’s chilling description of Australian sacrifice at Pozieres is typed on the page of the sculpture. Scribbled in the journal alongside is his graphic “ghastly giant mincing machine” comment. Down the path, a pale woman, “Mary
Pozieres”, sits on the other side of the world staring at the park, holding a letter written in Pozieres by a soldier who will not return. The statue epitomises the agonies felt on the home front. A “whispering walk” of haunting phrases of soldiers’ words used to describe the merciless slaughter of 6800 Australians leads to the Pozieres memorial. From it limps the haggard Wounded Soldier with the thousand-yard stare, worn by dazed men emerging from the trenches. The stark Pozieres memorial symbolises the German blockhouse, the only recognisable landmark on the smashed terrain of the village and farms. A sculpture of scattered boots, a helmet and personal items sits on a plinth. Searing words spoken by a dying soldier, comforted by Charles Bean at Pozieres, send a powerful, poignant message. Few visitors are unaffected by the Pozieres multimedia experience, an interwoven tale of surreal incessant shelling and shattered lives. Chiselled into the floor of the memorial, a schematic representation of a Western Front map shows key points for the Anzacs. At the far end of the path, movement activates a jolly poem welcoming a hero home from the war. The cheeriness fades as the soldier’s life slides, illustrating how the appalling true cost of the Great War remains unknown.