ANZACS: In the Face of War

In the years leading up to World War 1, Australia and New Zealand were still finding their identity as nations, and still looked to the mother country – Britain – for political guidance. When Britain went to war in 1914 in the Middle East, Australia sent troops to Egypt. On April 25th, 1915, ANZAC troops were ordered to land along the Gallipoli coastline, which was later named ANZAC Cove. A navigational error meant that the Turks had the advantage, and tragically the campaign was an unmitigated disaster. Over three years, Australia lost almost 9000 men, New Zealand twice as many. The heroism of the ANZACʼs is celebrated every year on the 25th of April, in a day that was named in their honor. It seems hard to imagine what those soldiers went through, but listen to their stories, which have been immortalized in print as well as voice recordings, and you canʼt help but notice the constant threads of mateship, bravery, sacrifice and of course, fear. It is in listening, or reading these stories that we are reminded of just how much the ANZACS suffered, and sacrificed, to ensure the safety of Australia and New Zealand from invasion and attack from our enemies. Knowing what we now know of the horrors of war, it is hard to believe that the leaders of our country at the time sought to glamorize it with propaganda, in order to encourage still more young men to enlist, to fight for their country. Many other battles have followed that fateful day in Gallipoli, and many thousands of ANZACS have given their lives on foreign soil since. But WWI sets itself apart in that barely a family was touched, in some way, by the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops. Conscription would again raise its ugly head during the Vietnam War, igniting mass protests over Australia, America and Britain, calling for it to be scrapped, and our soldiers – who often were eighteen year old boys barely trained to load a gun, brought home. Perhaps whatʼs most important in the lessons of the past is that we learn from them, in order not to repeat them in the future.