KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's greatest moment in this campaign - one that could have dramatically altered the course of the war - came in August on the heights of Chunuk Bair. Chunuk Bair was one of the major peaks in the Sari Bair range - a knot of hills inland
from Anzac Cove - which the Allies desperately wanted to capture and drive the Turks from the slopes.
Commander-in-chief General Sir Ian Hamilton ordered the large-scale offensive of almost 100,000 troops to open on 6 August at Helles and Anzac's Lone Pine, where the British scored a rare victory.
At 9.30pm, the New Zealand Mounted Rifles and the 500-strong Maori Contingent began their assault to capture the foothills allowing columns of follow-up troops to move through. By dawn the leading men had reached The Apex, 500m below the crest of Chunuk Bair, and there they waited for other troops to arrive before moving to the top.
But the left-side column of British and Indian troops had got lost in the dark; the right column never formed. In the confusion and delay, the Turks had time to reinforce. Mid-morning, the assault went ahead regardless and the Auckland Battalion got within 200m of the summit, but lost 300 men in 20 minutes.
When the Wellington Battalion was told to continue, commander Lieutenant Colonel William Malone refused to have his men involved in a "suicide" act, and argued to wait until dark.
Just before dawn, the Wellington Battalion reached the top of Chunuk Bair, to find it abandoned. The Turks had moved to other peaks to fire on them and began their counterattack at dawn. The Wellington men, joined by some of the Auckland Mounted Rifles, were exhausted and almost out of ammunition but held on. From the summit they got their first glimpse of the Dardanelles, and their first scent of victory.
As the fierce fighting raged on, the Wellington Battalion suffered monumental losses - the 760-strong contingent was down to 70 men when it was finally relieved by the Otago Battalion and Wellington Mounted Rifles at midnight.
The New Zealanders battled on for two days under constant fire, until two new British battalions stepped in on August 9. Mustafa Kemal, weakened by malaria and four sleepless days, rode from Helles to Chunuk Bair to launch a massive secret counterattack. If it had failed, the Turks would have no more immediate reinforcements.
But they succeeded, sweeping the Allies off the slopes - and with it, their hopes of victory. Many believe today the New Zealanders' brave 36-hour assault on Chunuk Bair could have won the campaign - and possibly even the war - for the Allies.
Less than two weeks later, the men of the Otago and Canterbury Mounted Rifles made a move on the small Hill 60, but again with no triumph. It was to be the last major assault by New Zealand troops in Gallipoli - in mid-September, the battle-scarred New Zealanders were withdrawn and taken to the Greek island of Lemnos to rest.
Soon after they returned in November to dreadful winter conditions in the trenches, the war authorities in London finally agreed it was time to leave Gallipoli for good.
The New Zealanders left Anzac Cove on December 19-20; the last British soldiers left Helles on January 8, 1916. The Anzacs' evacuation was the most successful military operation of the campaign - 80,000 troops left the beaches under the cover of darkness without a single life lost.
The New Zealanders returned home to a country that could not comprehend the magnitude of what they had endured in Gallipoli. They were expected to resume life as normal. Some went on to serve in the Western Front. A special medal was designed for the Gallipoli campaign but was never handed out.
Online link: The Auckland War Memorial Museum has a Book of Remembrance on its website for people to post messages on to remember those who served and died in war.
