Since 1915, one day in the year has involved the whole of Australia in solemn ceremonies of remembrance, gratitude and national pride.
That day is Anzac Day - 25th of April.
Why does a nation pause to remember this day?
It is because that day, 25 April, 1915, was the day when Australia as a nation
faced the supreme test of quality and courage, the landing on the beach at
Gallipoli of Australian and New Zealand soldiers.
When World War 1 began on 4 August, 1914, Australia's Prime Minister, Joseph
Cook, made an offer of 20 000 soldiers and ten weeks later, the first contingent
of volunteers was on ships bound for Egypt. It was in Egypt that the acronym
"ANZAC" was first used as a simple code. As they sailed, a strategy was being
formulated to capture the outlet from the Black Sea in order to relieve the
pressure on Russian soldiers in the Caucasian and influence Bulgaria to join the
Allies.
So the Gallipoli campaign was formulated. On a dark Sunday morning, 25 April,
1915, the soldiers landed in the dark and under heavy fire, climbed steep cliffs
covered in prickly scrub and won a foothold on the plateau and ridges. The next
eight months saw many feats of courage and bravery on both sides. Apart from the
heavy casualties from attack and counter attack, the lines were so close that
there was no respite from the heavy bombing, shells and mines.
On the morning of 19 May, 42 000 Turkish
soldiers launched an all-out attack against the 17 356 strong Anzac line, in
attempt to drive the invaders back into the sea. The Turks were caught out in
the open and lost
3 000 men with 10 000 wounded in repeated attacks over open ground. The Anzacs
lost only 168 men. Jack had just collected a casualty and was coming back down
Monash Valley when he was hit and killed by a machine gun bullet in the back. He
was buried amongst great gloom by the soldiers who had much admired his bravery,
and his grave was marked with a simple wooden cross.
Although Simpson was recommended for the Victoria Cross officially on 3 June,
1915, it was denied on a technicality. In July, 1967, the Prime Minister, the
Governor General, the Chief of General Staff and other leaders, sent a petition
to the British War Office on behalf of the Australian people requesting that a
posthumous Victoria Cross be awarded to Private Jack Simpson Kirkpatrick.
However this was also denied on the grounds that it would be creating a
dangerous precedent.
Finally on 20 December, 1915, the pressures of other areas of the War, led to
the evacuation of the survivors of Gallipoli, an event accomplished without
further casualties. 7 600 Australians and nearly 2 500 New Zealanders were
mortally wounded at Gallipoli and 24 000 more were wounded. Fewer than 100 were
taken prisoner. However, it was not so much that Gallipoli with all its
hardships, heroics and suffering was any worse than the other wars that
Australians have since taken part in, it was that this was the first real test
of our country as a nation. And we did not fail.
"Anzac stood and still stands for reckless valour in a good cause, for
enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never
own defeat. It has become synonymous with the determination and spirit of our
armed forces."
So every year on April 25, we have a day of remembrance where we can express our
gratitude to all those men and women then and since, who helped keep our country
free from invasion; to acknowledge our debt to these men and women, their wives
and husbands, mothers and children and our obligation to those who gave their
lives to protect our way of life.
A dawn service and Anzac parade takes place, each year, to remember those who lost their lives.
On 25 April 1915 Australia and New Zealand were at war. Along with the Allies (the major Allied Powers were the British Empire [Britain and her colonies and dominions], France and the Russian Empire), the Anzac's were fighting against the Central Powers (Germany, Turkey [then known as the Ottoman Empire], and 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 siege to Turkey's main city, Istanbul (then Constantinople).
As part of the larger British Empire contingent, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps - the Anzac's - were brought in from training in Egypt to participate. The Anzac comprised the 1st Australian Division and the composite New Zealand and Australian Division. On 25 April 1915, the Anzac's 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 Atatürk, the leader of modern Turkey. Thousands of Australian and New Zealand men died in the hours and days that followed the landing at that beach. The 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 Anzac's 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 Anzac's were unable to make much headway against the home-country force.
Landing at Gallipoli
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 and New Zealand 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.
Eventually it was decided that the Allied troops would be withdrawn from the Peninsula; the attempt to control the Dardanelles had failed. The Anzac's 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.
Dr Frank Bongiorno, ARC Research Fellow at the Australian National University, suggests, "Australians are particularly inclined to make heroes of noble failures, such as the defeated Eureka rebels, the suicidal Jolly Swagman in 'Waltzing Matilda', and Ned Kelly. Gallipoli seems to fit this pattern. On the other hand, long before the evacuation - and therefore before the Gallipoli campaign was called a 'failure' - many Australians had come to recognise 225 April 1915 as the day their young Commonwealth had come of age. This notion was fuelled by reports from journalists such as Ellis Ashmead Bartlett, an Englishman who described the Australians as a 'race of athletes', and the Australian war correspondent C.E.W. Bean.
"When Australia went to war in 1914," says Dr Bongiorno, "many white Australians believed that their Commonwealth had no history, that it was not yet a true nation, that its most glorious days still lay ahead of it. 'She is not yet', proclaimed James Brunton Stephens in 1877. In western culture, sacrificial death - blood sacrifice - was widely recognised as the foundation of nationhood, and Gallipoli seemed to fit the bill.
"At the same time, Gallipoli expressed Australians' sense of a dual loyalty: to Australia and to the Empire, of which Australia was a part. Australians were fighting for their Commonwealth, but they were also fighting for their Empire. They were 'independent Australian Britons'.
"The perception of the Gallipoli campaign as the beginning of true Australian nationhood," says Dr Bongiorno, "was also consistent with Australians' self-image as the Coming Race: the physical superiority of Australian soldiers to their English counterparts was a prominent theme in much of the contemporary writing about the Anzac's.
"This idea confirmed some popular Australian self-images about masculinity and nationhood: notably, that the typical Australian was a bold white male," says Dr Bongiorno. "The major features of an ANZAC legend were discernible very early in the campaign: Australians were bold and ferocious in battle but were unwilling to bow to military discipline. An ANZAC never flinched in battle - if he died it was with a joke, or a wry smile on his face - yet nor would he salute a superior officer.
"In the popular imagery, the ANZAC hated military etiquette and held the British officer class, and even the subservient 'Tommy' (English soldier), in contempt.
"In the legend, the Australian Imperial Force was a democratic organisation, in which there were friendly relations between officers and men, and anyone could rise from the ranks to a commission. This image was able to withstand evidence of contrary behaviour by Australian soldiers, not least because the ANZAC image was an adaptation of the image of the bushman, which had been so popular in nineteenth-century Australia.
"In this sense," argues Dr Bongiorno, "the Gallipoli campaign was a defining moment for Australia as a new nation, but also a key moment in the evolution of a particular image of Australian masculinity."
The larrikin
Professor Manning Clark in his opus "A History of
Australia" suggests a contrasting image to that of the bronzed and noble ANZAC.
From a range of sources he provides evidence of the Anzac's bad behaviour. As
recruits, before being shipped to war, some indulged in sex orgies with an
18-year-old girl at the Broadmeadows camp, others confronted police in violent
scuffles on the streets of Melbourne. Their behaviour in Egypt was no better -
they burned the belongings of local people, brawled, got drunk and rioted, and
spent sufficient time in the local brothels for many of them to suffer from
venereal disease.
Although perhaps less than heroic, this behaviour too - brawling, drinking, fighting - is part of the Australian construction of masculinity, part of the larrikin element exemplified in C.J. Dennis's characters - characters like Ginger Mick and Digger Smith - created by Dennis during the war years. Dennis's The Sentimental Bloke was published in 1915 and Digger Smith in 1918. The Sentimental Bloke sold more than 60,000 copies in less than 2 years.
Like it or not, hero and larrikin, ratbag and rebel, the Anzac's, in all their complex iconography, are an inextricable part of the Australian tradition of masculinity.
At Gallipoli, men from all backgrounds and classes from the newly federated Australia created the essence what it means to be Australian - courage under fire, grace under pressure, giving a hand to a mate.
Lest We Forget
Thanks to www.acn.com for information