Contact Leah Humphrys Media and Communications Officer La Trobe University Victoria 3086 Australia T + 61 3 9479 5353 E [email protected] twitter.com/latrobenews latrobe.edu.au MEDIA RELEASE Tuesday 17 March 2015 What really happened at Gallipoli? A La Trobe University forum will attempt to separate the facts from the myth surrounding what really happened at Gallipoli, as the nation prepares to mark the centenary of Anzac forces landing on the Peninsula. Robin Prior, author of Gallipoli: The End of the Myth, will join La Trobe Emeritus Professor and Ideas and Society Convenor Robert Manne in a special Anzac event - “What Really Happened at Gallipoli? Separating the History from the Myth”. The landing of British, French and Anzac forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula has long been regarded as one of the most significant events in the history of Australia, but Dr Prior believes much of the history is veiled in mythology. Professor Manne said Professor Prior’s six books, written or co-authored on the political and military history of the First World War, involve a brilliant, entirely scholarly refutation of the mythology that has been created around the Gallipoli campaign. “Robin Prior’s meticulous research reveals that the Gallipoli campaign was founded on a string of implausible strategic judgments and had no chance of achieving the objective – shortening the course of the Great War by knocking the Ottoman Empire out – for which its architects, including Winston Churchill, hoped,” Professor Manne said. “Our conversation will also investigate the central puzzle of Gallipoli: why, despite its abject failure and the needless deaths of so many young Australians, the Gallipoli campaign is still believed to have given birth to the Australian nation.” Professor Jay Winter of Yale, the doyen of First World War studies, has called Prior’s Gallipoli “the best account by far” of the Gallipoli campaign. The Ideas and Society program is La Trobe University’s leading intellectual forum for debate, which brings together high-level thinkers to deliberate society’s top issues. EVENT DETAILS What: Ideas and Society event: What really happened at Gallipoli? Separating the History from the Myth When: 6-7.30pm, Thursday 23 April 2015 Where: Clemenger Theatre, National Gallery of Victoria Additional information: This is a free event, however RSVPs are recommended. Media contact Leah Humphrys Media and Communications Officer ABN 64 804 735 CRICOS Provider 00115M T + 61 3 9479 5353 E [email protected] 2/2