Tweeting the Gallipoli landings - 100 years on

Senior Journalist - crime and justice·NZ Herald·

24 Apr, 2015 05:00 PM2 mins to read

Today the Herald will be using Twitter to familiarise readers with how events unfolded at Gallipoli when the Anzac troops landed 100 years ago.

The Anzacs landed at dawn on 25 April 1915. Turkey is nine hours behind New Zealand so the landing started in the afternoon for us.

The Herald will be tweeting, in real time, all of the major events that happened within the first 24 hours of the campaign.

OUr tweets are based on various documentations including a comprehensive breakdown of the first 24 hours collated the MInistry of Culture and Heritage based on information in the book Gallipoli: The New Zealand story by Christopher Pugsley.

Diaries kept by ANzacs also provided insight to the first 24 hours of the failed campaign. These were also published by the MInistry of Culture and Heritage on its website www.nzhistory.net.nz.

The Alexander Turnbull Libraries war diaries project was another source of information for the Herald's #GallipoliFlashback tweets.

In the past real time tweeting has been used to tell the story of other historical events.
In 2013 The History Press chronicled the doomed sailing of the Titanic posting minute-by-minute tweets as if from on board the ship itself.

They tweeted from the perspective of the captain, crew members, engineers, officers and first, second and third class passengers.

They timed the tweets perfectly, marking the moment the ship struck an iceberg - exactly 100 years to the minute after the real-life collision.

Among the tweets describing the scene was one from the bandmaster: "No questions, I have received an order to play, and play we will."

It was followed by a first class passenger, who lamented: "This is tiresome, but I suppose one has to show willing. Come along darling, out on deck as they say."

The @TitanicRealTime feed was also based on real experiences from survivors.