Today, at dawn across Australia and New Zealand people fell silent and remembered the sacrifices of the Empire troops, which included a large contingent of Australians and New Zealanders, who fell during the Gallipoli Campaign of World War One.

The ANZACS lost a horrendous number of men on the Gallipoli Peninsular in what is today Turkey but which then was the Ottoman Empire. It is estimated that were 162,000 British Empire soldiers and sailors, from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, India and Canada lost their lives in the battle with over 90,000 wounded who were evacuated away from the theatre of operations. A further 3,700 troops died of disease contracted during the fighting.

The Gallipoli campaign, which lasted over 8 months was an utter military disaster for the Allies as the Ottoman’s were able to bring in reinforcements that were able to repulse the assault on the peninsular. The shock of the large number of losses had an immense effect on what were then the relatively sparsely populated dominions of Australia and New Zealand. It has been said that the sacrifice of so many ANZACS, and the national pride in their fighting skills, went a considerable way to forging a distinct Australian and New Zealand identity. It has also been said that before the fighting at Gallipoli Australia and New Zealand were colonies, but after the fighting they were nations.

The defeat at Gallipoli also had another affect. The fighting at Gallipoli also affected the Ottoman’s as well. It helped to hasten the demise of the sclerotic Ottoman Empire and laid the foundations for the formation of the modern nation of Turkey. It’s probably fair to say that without the push that the Gallipoli campaign gave the modernisers and secularists of the Ottoman Empire, such as Kemal Ataturk who could see the problems that the religious Ottoman state suffered from, there would be no modern day Turkey.

The ‘diggers’, as the Australian and New Zealand troops became known excelled in fighting and developed a form of egalitarian ‘mateship’ that was forged in the fires of battle and has formed part of the legacy of ANZAC forces ever since.

It is difficult for us, who are so far removed by time from the events of World War One and of the Gallipoli campaign, to imagine the sort of hardships that the ANZAC and other Allied troops went through, but go through it they did. Those who lived through the battle were changed and in turn they changed the nations that they returned to.

I salute the bravery and sacrifice of the ANZAC fighters and all those who fought for the Empire during the Gallipoli campaign. I will leave you with the words of part of the poem by Robert Laurence Binyon ‘For the Fallen’ which I believe is appropriate for this day.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.