On May 8, 1915, during World War I, the 2nd Brigade of the Allied Forces attacked Curitia at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsula of the Turkish Empire. During the single assault of the Battle of Curitia against the Ottoman forces alone, the Allied forces lost about 267 men. On the ground at the Battle of Curitia, the bodies of the soldiers who died in the battle lay scattered on the ground. The list of casualties from the Battle of Curitia, in the Melbourne Argus of May 1, 1915, gave little indication of the actual casualties in Aripoli. It showed a list of names of officers only. Furthermore, the casualties of the Battle of the Landing had already reduced the 7th Battalion to less than 600 men.
The Battle of Curitia was one of several disastrous battles that Thomas Gardner's diary did not reveal the extent of the fighting. Thomas entered World War I as an Allied soldier, volunteering for the Australian Army. It was the first full-scale Allied involvement for the Australian and New Zealand armies. The Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915, but eventually withdrew completely from Cape Helles on January 9, 1916. The casualties of the Battle of Gallipoli amounted to about 44,072 dead and 97,037 wounded for the Allied forces and about 86,692 dead and 164,617 wounded for the Turkish forces. In total, about 13,764 people were killed and 261,654 wounded in the war, and more than 140,000 people died of typhoid fever and dysentery due to the long trench warfare. Thomas drowned in the water on November 24, 1918, only six weeks after his triumphant return on October 14, 1918, the end of the war. His sister, Mabel Gardner, a peace activist, edited and published Thomas's diary.
Curitia, a small village, was occupied by Turkish troops in October 1914. Allied troops landed on April 25, 1915, and the village was severely damaged in the Second Battle of Curitia from May 6 to May 8. In the end, the Allied forces did not complete their initial advance after three days of fighting, but were routed by the Turks and abandoned the battle. The maximum advance achieved was only about 550 meters. About a third of the Allied forces were killed or wounded in action. The wounded became miserable and cruel, with no wagons to transport them to the coast, no intermediate camps, and inadequate hospital ships. In the end, the Allied forces were unable to capture the village of Curitia until April 28 for the first battle, May 6 to May 8 for the second, and June 4 for the third.
