Reflecting on the ANZAC Centenary

ANZAC Day, in my mind, is the most important day in this country. Australia Day is a close second, and Remembrance Day is another moment that should be marked yearly, but there is something special and tangible about ANZAC Day. 

There is no other day where tens of thousands of people gather for dawn services and the moment that ANZAC Day marks – the first shots fired in the fateful Gallipoli campaign in the First World War – has, for better or worse, become a hugely important moment in the history of our country. It seems that the appreciation for what our diggers have done in the last century that they’ve been fighting under an Australian flag is only growing, and long may that continue!

It’s sometimes easy to forget that, after nine months on the Gallipoli peninsula, the Australians and New Zealanders were evacuated. The Turks, who lost many thousands more men, rightly claim the campaign as their victory. It was an ignominious departure, and, given the problems that the Australians and New Zealanders faced from the very first minute they splashed ashore, it’s a wonder that they weren’t evacuated sooner. I daresay, no other army in the world would have lasted as long as they did.

Gallipoli is no doubt important. We have a rich military history, and it’s particularly impressive given that, in the First and Second World Wars, we were a volunteer army. No draftees or conscripts, just blokes who wanted to be there. The only one of it’s kind at either of the two World Wars. If you can name another volunteer army who has such a sparkling resume of service, please use the comments below to make me aware.

Think of it: our volunteers survived Gallipoli against the odds (and showed incredible bravery at Lone Pine during the August offensive), then went to fight on the Western Front in France and Belgium, where they took part in some of the worst engagements that hellish place had to offer – Fromelles, Pozieres, Passchendaele and Villers-Bretonneux to name just a few – and more than held their own in comparison with the larger armies of Great Britain and France.

You can mount an argument that it was the Australians who stemmed the tide of the German Spring Offensive in 1918, and had they not been there, with shattered British and French units giving way to the initial and heavy enemy attacks, the war may well have, if not necessarily been won by the Germans, certainly lengthened. The Spring Offensive was the last gasp for the Germans. A mere five months after Villers-Bretonneux, the Armistice was declared, and our troops came home.

In the Second World War, our armies held back the Germans at Tobruk, a feat not exactly replicated by the British forces who took over that fortress town after our soldiers departed, and were responsible for stemming the flood of the Japanese advance across the Pacific, which had been rampant to that point. Milne Bay and the Kokoda Trail spring readily to mind as decisive engagements that halted the Japanese.

Remember that the Japanese had already bombed Darwin, and were on their way to more conquests, but our men stood in their way after, again, the British (in Singapore, especially) had folded in. In both World Wars, Australians really showed what they were made of, and often did so in the face of great odds and adversity. Talk about punching above our weight!

Australia’s military achievements stretch through Korea, Vietnam and into modern-day battles. It’s easy to forget, sometimes, in the midst of our busy lives, that there are still servicemen and women overseas, fighting and, sadly, dying in places like Afghanistan. May they all come home safe and soon!

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Most families have some sort of connection to the Battle of Gallipoli and the original ANZACs. My great uncle (the much older brother of my dad’s father) Frederick George Kitchener was English, but found himself enlisting in Australia with the 16^th battalion of the Australian Imperial Force, as our army was known at the time.

Sadly, he was killed at Gallipoli on May 2, 1916 – seven days after the commencement of battle.