Ypsipyli proceeded with respect to the graves. She, who knew so well the pain of loss, anted to pay tribute to the dead ANZAC soldiers laid to rest in the Allied Cemetery at Moudros.
More than 100 years have passed since April 1915, when the modest harbor of Moudros was flooded with Allied fleet ships landing thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers, coming from the other side of the world to fight on the Gallipoli Peninsula against the Ottomans, who had aligned themselves with the Central Powers. Despite the objections of King Constantine, who called for strict neutrality, Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, a supporter of the Entente, gave the Allies permission to make the Gulf of Moudros a base for the Allied fleet. The battles that followed were fierce and combat unequal for the untrained and inexperienced Australians and New Zealanders. Vast numbers of soldiers were killed on the other side and large numbers of the wounded were cared for by British nurses in the makeshift military hospitals set up on the island. Many did not survive. They were forever left to be covered by Lemnian soil. 148 Australians and 76 New Zealanders rest in the Allied Cemetery at Moudros, along with British, French and Indian soldiers. In one corner are the graves of Russian soldiers of the Wrangel army that temporarily fled to Lemnos after the fall of the Tsar.
