Today is Anzac Day, arguably the most solemnly sacred day in the Australian calendar. At dawn on this day in 1915, as part of an Anglo-French operation, men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps landed on a rocky beach on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula in the face of murderous fire from Turkish defenders. Many died then and there. Many more were doomed to fight, suffer and die in a losing campaign, pitted against an enemy they scarcely knew, in a European war that could have, should have, been averted in July 1914.
The greatest Anzac military achievement of the Gallipoli campaign was a masterly overnight withdrawal, without a single casualty, after eight months of bloody stalemate. Today, Australians and New Zealanders therefore commemorate a significant defeat, not a glorious victory. In doing so, we reflect on, and acknowledge, the futility of war as well as the courage and sacrifices of all who fought, those who never returned, and those whose lives were forever blighted by their experience.
Young Australians are subjected to the ‘black armband’ school of history
This morning, I attended a dawn service at the war memorial in my Melbourne suburb of Mentone.
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