ANZAC Day

On 25 April every year, Australians commemorate ANZAC Day. It commemorates the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The date, 25 April, was officially named ANZAC Day in 1916.

ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. In 1917, the word ANZAC meant someone who fought at Gallipoli and later it came to mean any Australian or New Zealander who fought or served in the First World War. During the Second World War, ANZAC Day became a day on which the lives of all Australians lost in war time were remembered. The spirit of ANZAC recognises the qualities of courage, mateship and sacrifice which were demonstrated at the Gallipoli landing.

Commemorative services are held at dawn on 25 April, the time of the original landing, across the nation, usually at war memorials. This was initiated by returned soldiers after the First World War in the 1920s as a common form of remembrance. The first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927, which was also the first year that all states recognised a public holiday on the day. Initially dawn services were only attended by veterans who followed the ritual of 'standing to' before two minutes of silence was observed, broken by the sound of a lone piper playing the 'Last Post'. Later in the day, there were marches in all the major cities and many smaller towns for families and other well wishers.

Australia and New Zealand at war
Australia and New Zealand were at war from 4 August 1914 when Britain declared war on Germany. Both Australia and New Zealand, and other colonies and dominions of the British Empire, supported Britain, France and the Russian Empire (later known as the Allied Powers) against Germany, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary (later known as the Central Powers) when the Ottoman Empire entered the war on 29 October 1914.

The plan was that the Allied fleet (British and French) pass through the Dardanelles Straits to lay siege to Constantinople (now Istanbul) to help the Russians. It was intended that the navy seize the Turkish batteries on both sides of the Strait, sweep away the Turkish mines and allow the Allied fleet safe passage through the Dardanelles. The initial British war plans against the Ottoman Empire in Turkey did not involve a land invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli. The need for such a major landing in force at Gallipoli was only finally endorsed after the failure of the great naval attack on the Dardanelles defences of 18 March 1915.

The Gallipoli campaign

As part of the larger Imperial Force, the ANZACs were brought in from training in Egypt to participate in the Gallipoli landings. The ANZACs comprised the 1st Australian Division and the composite New Zealand and Australian Division. Unlike the European armies of the period, the Australian Imperial Force was formed from volunteers. Most of the volunteers came heeding duty's call. Others looked for excitement or were escaping drought conditions at home.

The ANZACs landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula at dawn on the 25th April and met fierce resistance. Instead of finding the flat beach they expected, they found they had been landed at an 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. They faced a well organised, well armed, large Turkish force determined to defend their country - led by Mustafa Kemal, who later became Atatürk, the leader of modern Turkey.
1st Australian Division in Belgium


Fighting on Gallipoli soon settled into a stalemate. The ANZACs and the Turks dug in - literally - digging kilometres of trenches, and pinned down each other's forces with sniper fire and shelling. Thousands of Australian and New Zealand men died in the hours and days that followed the landing at that beach. The surviving diggers, as the Australians called themselves, hung on waiting for reinforcements. The stalemate ended in retreat with the evacuation of the ANZACs on 20 December 1915. By then, 8,141 had been killed or died of wounds and more than 18,000 had been wounded.

Following the Gallipoli campaign, Australian soldiers went on to France to participate in some of the major battles of the First World War, including the battles of Pozieres and the Somme. Soldiers at Gallipoli and at the other trench battles in France and Belgium suffered conditions such as typhus, lice, poor food, poor sanitary conditions and lack of fresh water as well as the all encompassing mud.
The ANZAC Legend

The landing at Gallipoli was seen as a story of courage and endurance amongst death and despair, in the face of poor leadership from London, and unsuccessful strategies. War correspondents, such as Charles Bean, hailed the Australians for their dash in attack and doggedness in defence and the ANZAC legend was born.

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 ANZACs were on the Gallipoli Peninsula for only 8 months, around 8,000 of them died there.
• The ANZACs were all volunteers.
• The Gallipoli Peninsula is very near the famous ancient city of Troy.
• The first dawn service on an ANZAC Day was in 1923 and first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927.
• The ritual of 'standing to' for soldiers is when they take up their assigned posts in readiness for inspection or battle usually before dawn, so that by the time the first dull grey light crept across the battlefield they were awake, alert and manning their weapons.
• The 'Last Post' gave one last warning to any soldiers still at large that it was time to retire for the evening. The 'Last Post' is incorporated into funeral and memorial services as a final farewell and symbolises that the duty of the dead is over and that they can rest in peace.