Anzac Day

On 25 April every year Australians commemorate Anzac Day.  What is it Australians commemorate on Anzac Day?   On 25 April 1915 Australia was at war. With the Allies (Britain, France and Russia, Italy, Japan, and the USA [from 1917]), Australia was fighting against the Central Powers (Germany, Turkey [then known as the Ottoman Empire], Austria-Hungary).   In response to a request for help from Russia, which was being battered by the Turks in the Caucasus, the Allies decided to begin a campaign which they hoped would distract Turkey from their attack on Russia. The plan was for the Allies to attack and take the Gallipoli Peninsula, on Turkey's Aegean coast, from which point the Allies believed they could take control of the Dardanelles - a 67 kilometre (42 mile) strait which connects the Aegean Sea with the Sea of Marmara - and lay seige to Turkey's main city, Istanbul (then Constantinople).   Landing at Gallipoli   As part of the larger British Empire contingent, Australian troops were brought in from training in Egypt to participate. On April 25, 1915, the Australian troops landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Instead of finding the flat beach they expected, they found they had been landed at the incorrect position and faced steep cliffs and constant barrages of enemy fire and shelling. Around 20,000 soldiers landed on the beach over the next two days to face a well organised, well armed, large Turkish force determined to defend their country - and led by Mustafa Kemal, who later became Attaturk, the leader of modern Turkey. Thousands of Australian men died in the hours that followed the landing at that, the wrong beach. That beach would eventually come to be known as Anzac Cove.   What followed the landing at Gallipoli is a story of courage and endurance, of death, and despair, of poor leadership from London, and unsuccessful strategies. The Australian soldiers and the Turks dug in - literally - digging kilometres of trenches, and pinned down each other's forces with sniper fire and shelling. Pinned down with their backs to the water the Australians were unable to make much headway against the home country force.   A lack of success   In Britain, the lack of success of the campaign was creating arguments amongst the leaders of the time about whether the campaign should be continued.While political leaders argued, the Australian soldiers died in battle, from sniper fire and shelling, and those that lived suffered from a range of ailments due to their dreadful living conditions - typhus, lice, gangrene, lack of fresh water, poor quality food, and poor sanitary conditions all took their toll.   That is surely at the heart of the Anzac story, the Australian legend which emerged from the war. It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity.   Former Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Mr Paul Keating, at the Entombment of the Unknown Soldier at the Australian War Memorial 1993   The withdrawal   Eventually it was decided that the Allied troops would be withdrawn from the Peninsula; the attempt to control the Dardanelles had failed. The ANZACs were evacuated and returned to the Middle East and the Western Front where they were involved in other battles.The Gallipoli campaign was an enormous failure, a failure bought at the cost of an enormous number of lives, and the failure led to the resignation of senior politicians in London. Thousands of Australian and New Zealand soldiers had died, and thousands of other Allied troops from France and Britain also died. An Anzac commemorative location has been built at Gallipoli in conjunction with the New Zealand government and with the approval of the Turkish government.   They shall not grow old, As we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, Nor the years condemn.   At the going down of the sun, And in the morning. We will remember them.

Anzac quick facts   ANZAC is an abbreviation for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.   AIF is an abbreviation for Australian Imperial Force.   April 25, Anzac Day, was the day the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915.   The first dawn service on an ANZAC Day was in 1923.   The ANZACS were on the Gallipoli Peninsula for only 8 months, around 8,000 of them died there.   There is no town called "Gallipoli". It is the name of an area. Visitors to Gallipoli usually stay at nearby towns - like Ecubeat.   ANZACs were all volunteers   The Gallipoli Peninsula is very near the famous ancient city of Troy.