ANZAC Day

" Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives...!
You are now lying in the soul of a friendly country, therefore rest in peace.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours...
You, the mothers who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears.
Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace.
After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."
Ataturk, group commander of Anafartalar and the founder of Modern Turkey , (1934).

ANZAC Day is the 25th of April. It is a day that is set aside in both New Zealand and Australia to think about and honour those who have fought in Gallipoli. ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. ANZAC Day is a public holiday in Australia & New Zeland.

ANZAC day is strongly linked to the landing of the ANZAC forces at Gallipoli in the Dardanelles in 1915. ANZAC Day was first celebrated in 1916 with memorial services, commemorating the lives lost in the 8 month period spent by ANZAC forces on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Pressure was brought to bear by returned soldiers and their organisations, and the day became a public holiday in the early 1920s.

Although red poppies are a symbol of Remembrance Day (Nov 11th) in New Zealand they are more closely associated with ANZAC Day. They grew wild on the European battlefields of WWI. One story has it that the soldiers were able to look out from their battle trenches across these fields of poppies and imagine that each represented a fallen soldier; another which appears more credible is that poppies grew more easily in the churned up soil of the battlefields making the blood red flowers a potent symbol of the war.
In human terms the cost of Gallipoli operation was horrendous. 26,111 Australian casualties of whom 8,141 were killed. In addition New Zealand lost 7,571 men of whom 2,431 were killed. Britain lost a total of 120,000 casualties at Gallipoli and the French 27,000. The Turkish total was probably about 220,000 with a much higher percentage killed.

A Turkish book tells of two New Zealanders taken prisoner in Gallipoli.
The Turks asked them where they were from.
"New Zealand" they said.
"Never heard of it" the Turks replied.
Germans advising the Turks overheard the exchange. They explained that New Zealand was in the South Pacific. The Turks were incredulous.
"Why are you here?" they demanded.
Well, the New Zealanders explained, they thought the war would be like playing rugby.

"Perhaps the most drastic effect of the war on Australia would never be enumerated: it was the loss of all those talented people who would have become prime ministers and premiers, judges, divines, engineers, teachers, doctors, poets, inventors and farmers, the mayors of towns and leaders of trade unions, and the fathers of another generation of Australians. It was a war in which those with the gift of leadership, the spark of courage, and the willingness to make sacrifices often took the highest risks."
Geoffrey Blainey, A Shorter History of Australia


An Australian private wrote:
"I saw an Australian and a Turk who had run each other through with their bayonets. Both apparently had fallen dead at the same instant as their bayonets had not been withdrawn. In their death struggle, their arms must have encircled each other ... They had been in that sad embrace for at least a week."

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