text: If a golf course were to be created in Hell it might resemble the now serene landscape of Gallipoli, where the blood of thousands was spilled a century ago in one of World War I’s most spectacular Allied failures. An eerie serenity pervades the rolling landscape of this peninsula and, in the bright spring sunshine, there could scarcely be a more peaceful spot for a Sunday afternoon stroll. But a chill is never far from the spine, whatever the temperature. Scroll down for video . Sulva Bay, Gallipoli Peninsula, Turkey, where in the World War I there were nearly 400,00 Allied casualties . In the early hours of today, 25 April 2015, a bugle sounded a haunting dawn chorus to mark the moment when, at 0430, Allied troops landed at a point where Asia meets Europe, Anzac Cove, to commence the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign. Thousands of visitors from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, India and France have gathered to honour the fallen at one of the biggest commemorations of the Great War. Today this beautiful Turkish isthmus, facing the Aegean to the west, the Dardanelles Straits and the Sea of Marmara to the east, is a patchwork of monuments and memorial stones linked by country lanes, mountain tracks and undulating greenery. Allied soldiers land and begin the attack at Gallipoli, sometimes known as the Dardanelles Campaign . People have been gathering the graves at Beach Cemetery at Gallipoli to mark the campaigns's centenary . Allied cemeteries at Gallipoli are kept immaculately by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission . A cross left by a visitor at a graveside in Gallipoli bearing a personal thanks to the one of the soldiers killed . On a visit ahead of the poignant anniversary, we wandered among Anzac’s sea-facing white headstones before heading down to the tip of the peninsula. Here stands one of the most magnificent of the cemeteries, the Helles Memorial to the British. Troops are remembered in row upon row of immaculate Commonwealth war graves and huge expanses of dazzling white marble, etched with the names of the fallen, which circle the cemetery. Accompanied by a feral dog and her puppies, we strolled down the dirt track to V Beach cemetery where the sea laps below the walls and where two Irish battalions were laid to rest. The mighty ruined fortress of Seddülbahir, brought to its knees by Allied naval firepower in 1915, overlooks the cemetery. The ruins of the fortress at Seddülbahir in Gallipoli - its name in Turkish means 'barrier to the sea' Seaside homes dot the flat sands and yellow sandstone bluffs rise out of the Aegean. In the valleys between the cliffs, olive and tamaris trees grow down the steep escarpments. We stopped for a stiff coffee at a modest coffee house on the square, opposite the mosque at Sedd al Bahr, and watched the fishermen’s tiny rowing boats bobbing in the slack waters of Cape Helles. A far cry from the fateful morning of April 25 1915, when one of the bloodiest and most ill-conceived campaigns of the First World War kicked off, a campaign which almost brought to an end the career of its main instigator, Winston Churchill, and which witnessed almost 400,000 casualties. The Allied plan was as brilliantly simple in conception as it was hopeless in execution: secure the Straits and take Constantinople, giving access to the Black Sea to supply the Russians in order to free up a new line of attack on the Germans. It would also pull in the Greeks and Bulgarians, ancient enemies of the Ottoman Turks, and hey presto, the stalemate of the Western Front would be suddenly transformed into a glorious victory from the East. Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty, had underestimated the strength of the Turkish troops, under the command of modern Turkey’s founding father, Kemal Atatürk, and had overestimated the potency of his own superannuated fleet, which fell easy prey to the mines and coastal gun batteries. Churchill (left) had been a soldier, but in 1916 underestimated the Turkish  forces led by Atatürk (right) If the naval thrust was a failure, his attempt to consolidate on land was a calamity, and after nine months of blistering summer heat and frostbitten winter nights the ragbag army of dysentery-ridden men was evacuated the following December and January, and Churchill was forced to resign his post. The easiest way to access the peninsula is from the port of Canakkale, which is a quick ferry ride across the narrowest section of the Straits. The Gallipoli War Museum (Canakkale Destani Tanitim Merkezi), is well hidden from view but well worth finding. This 5,600 square metre visitor centre, on the road to Kabatepe, was commissioned by the army and the Ministry of Defence and was only recently finished. It is an architectural triumph that does justice to its subject. The Gallipoli War Museum has many relics from the campaign from both the Allies and Turkish sides . In addition to 11 rooms, with cinema screens shockingly simulating what it was like in the trenches of Gallipoli. There are also some rather more prosaic offerings which carry poignant memento mori: bullets with bullet holes in them as well as Atatürk’s waistcoat and dress shoes. There are also letters, watches, mangled boots and water canteens that would be inadequate for a summer school trip to Longleat safari park. Items of clothing worn in battle by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk who commanded the Turkish forces at Gallipoli . The battle sites and 31 memorials to the 130,000 dead covers a surprisingly small area. This is because Allied troops were unable to make much headway against the ferocious onslaught of Atatürk’s men. Heat, exhaustion, illness and difficult terrain also dogged every step. With an impressive flourish of national pride, the Turkish government has declared the whole area a Historic Park, to show the futility of war. Up at Chunuk Bair, where the Allies enjoyed a shortlived victory, the trenches have been preserved. You can look down on Suvla Bay 540m below, where British troops landed, and walk a few hundred metres along the preserved dug-outs in the footsteps of New Zealand’s Wellington Battalion, before visiting the New Zealand monument. Here, a statue to Atatürk, the Allies’ nemesis, celebrates the moment when a fob watch covering his heart prevented a bullet from possibly changing the course of modern history. From the Australian monument at Lone Pine there are views across the peninsula, from the Aegean to the Dardanelles. Nearby is Kiliçbayiri, the memorial to the Turkish 57th Infantry Regiment, which was wiped out following the Allied landings at Anzac. Atatürk, the 19th Division commander, famously told his men: "I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. During the time before we die other forces and commanders will take our place." The great man, of course, lived to tell the tale. Before taking the 10-minute ferry back across the Straits to Canakkale we walked through the French Memorial at Morto Bay. Lined by rosemary bushes, baytrees and well-ordered flowerbeds, this is perhaps the biggest and most atmospheric of them all, with 3,236 graves and four ossuaries containing the bones of 12,000 unidentifiable soldiers. It surprises many to learn that more French soldiers were killed at Gallipoli than Australians and New Zealanders combined. Mark Porter was a guest of the Turkish Culture and Tourism Office. For more information on Turkish holiday, visit www.gototurkey.co.uk . Turkish Airlines flies form the UK to various Turkish destinations. Hotel Tusan organises trips to the battlefields. Such a pity that so few French visit. We returned to the Hotel Tusan, near Canakkale, haunted by a hellish vision of the past made all the more poignant by the tranquillity which pervades the present. While the 100th anniversary itself is going to be a tad too busy for most, the museum and Historic Park are open to all 365-days a year. For those unable to make the celebrations on the day, there is always a fallback position: Russell Crowe’s film about it, The Water Diviner, is out now .
target: 25 April is the centenary of the  ill-fated Gallipoli invasion by Allied troops .
  Allies sustained heavy loses, mown down by a better-equipped Turkish army .
  Beautiful peninsula is a magnet to relatives of soldiers killed in the battle .
  The Water Diviner, Russell Crowe's directorial debut, is set in its aftermath .