Lemnos - Where the War Ended

HMS Agamemnon at Mudros Harbour

With the decision to abandon the Gallipoli campaign in late 1915, troops were evacuated from the peninsula.

By early 1916 the last Australians had departed Lemnos, following the evacuation of the Gallipoli peninsula. The 1st Royal Naval Brigade remained on Lemnos, Imbros and Tenedos for the first few months of 1916. Throughout the rest of the war a small garrison remained on the island.

The Anzac soldiers and Australian nurses would now leave Lemnos, the majority for service in northern France. A small allied presence remained on the island until the end of the war.

However the island received further fame with its being chosen as the location for the signing of the armistice with the Ottoman Empire at the end of the war. It was in Mudros Harbour on 30th October 1918 on board HMS Agamemnon that the defeated Ottoman Empire signed the armistice with the victorious Allies, signaling the end of the war in that theatre.

The terms of the Armistice signed at Mudros are here.

Yet some of the thousands of Anzacs who had travelled through Lemnos would remain on the island.

The enduring memorial to Lemnos’ role in the Gallipoli campaigns remains the two major Allied military cemeteries on the island.  Around 2,000 allied soldiers (including 148 Australians) are buried in Lemnos’ 2 Commonwealth War Graves (at Mudros and Portianou). There are 887 soldiers buried at East Mudros, including 98 Australians and 47 New Zealanders. There are 348 soldiers buried at Portianou, including 50 Australians and 29 New Zealanders.

Evacuation of sisters and staff and officers from No. 3 Australian General Hospital on a barge Australian War Memorial image J01510