History of Anzac Day

Introduction

Anzac Day is observed on April 25 as a national day of commemoration in Australia and New Zealand. The date marks the anniversary of the 1915 landing on the Gallipoli peninsula by troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the First World War. The military campaign failed to achieve its strategic objectives, but the experience acquired enduring importance in the public memory of both countries.

The meaning of Anzac Day has changed substantially since the first wartime commemorations. It began as a response to Gallipoli and the losses of the First World War, then expanded to recognize service and sacrifice in later wars, conflicts, peacekeeping missions, and military operations. Its history includes mourning, national identity, veterans’ rights, religious ritual, political disagreement, Indigenous service, changing attitudes toward war, and continuing debate about the place of military remembrance in public life.

Australia and New Zealand before the First World War

Australia became a federation in 1901, while New Zealand developed as a self-governing dominion within the British Empire. Both societies retained strong political, cultural, and military connections with Britain. When Britain declared war on Germany in August 1914, Australia and New Zealand entered the conflict as parts of the empire.

Thousands of men volunteered for military service. Their motivations varied and included loyalty to the empire, local patriotism, adventure, employment, family expectation, and belief in the justice or necessity of the war. Public enthusiasm was significant, but support was never completely uniform, and attitudes changed as casualty lists grew and the conflict continued.

The formation of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps

Australian and New Zealand troops were transported to Egypt, where they trained before being committed to combat. Units from the two countries were grouped within the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The initials produced the name ANZAC, which initially described a military formation rather than a national philosophy or holiday.

The term soon acquired wider meanings. It could refer to soldiers who had served at Gallipoli, to Australian and New Zealand troops more generally, and eventually to a set of qualities associated with endurance, courage, loyalty, initiative, and comradeship. These ideas became known collectively as the Anzac legend.

Why the Allies attacked Gallipoli

The Gallipoli campaign formed part of an Allied attempt to force passage through the Dardanelles, weaken the Ottoman Empire, and open a maritime supply route to the Russian Empire. A naval effort failed to secure the strait, leading to plans for amphibious landings on the Gallipoli peninsula.

The campaign involved troops from Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, India, Newfoundland, and other parts of the Allied forces. Ottoman troops defending their homeland also came from diverse regions of the empire. Gallipoli should therefore not be reduced to a conflict involving only Australians and New Zealanders.

The landing of April 25, 1915

Before dawn on April 25, Australian and New Zealand troops began landing on the Gallipoli peninsula. Many came ashore north of the intended landing area in steep and difficult terrain. Ottoman defenders resisted strongly, and the invading forces were unable to secure the rapid advance their commanders had hoped to achieve.

The beachhead became known as Anzac. Fighting continued through the day as units attempted to move inland and hold exposed positions. Confusion, inaccurate maps, difficult ground, communication problems, and determined resistance contributed to heavy losses.

Eight months at Gallipoli

The campaign developed into a costly stalemate. Troops lived in trenches under fire and endured heat, cold, flies, disease, poor sanitation, limited water, and the presence of unburied or hastily buried dead. Major operations, including offensives in August, failed to break the deadlock.

Australian and New Zealand troops fought alongside other Allied forces, while Ottoman soldiers defended the peninsula under commanders including Mustafa Kemal, later known as Atatürk. The campaign caused enormous casualties on both sides and left lasting memories in Australia, New Zealand, Türkiye, and the wider former Ottoman world.

The evacuation and military failure

Allied leaders eventually decided to withdraw. The evacuation from the Anzac and Suvla areas took place in December 1915 and was completed with comparatively few casualties. Careful planning and deception helped conceal the withdrawal from Ottoman forces.

The successful evacuation did not change the campaign’s strategic outcome. The Allies failed to control the Dardanelles or remove the Ottoman Empire from the war. Gallipoli became influential not because it was a military victory, but because societies interpreted defeat, endurance, loss, and sacrifice as sources of national meaning.

The first Anzac commemorations

Commemorative events appeared while the First World War was still being fought. In 1916, ceremonies were held in Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Egypt, and military camps. They included church services, marches, public meetings, recruiting appeals, patriotic speeches, and fundraising.

The first anniversary did not yet follow one standardized program. Some events celebrated military courage and imperial loyalty, while others emphasized mourning for the dead. Wartime governments also used the anniversary to support recruitment and national commitment to the conflict.

Mourning after the First World War

The First World War caused profound loss in Australia and New Zealand. More than 60,000 Australians and more than 18,000 New Zealanders died during the conflict. Many were buried overseas, leaving families without a nearby grave to visit.

Memorials, honor boards, avenues of trees, monuments, ceremonies, photographs, and personal objects helped communities mourn. Anzac Day became a symbolic funeral for people whose relatives remained buried in distant cemeteries or had no known grave.

The development of the dawn service

The dawn service became one of the most distinctive Anzac Day rituals. Its exact origin is disputed, and several communities and individuals have been associated with early dawn ceremonies during the 1920s. The form may have drawn on military “stand-to,” when soldiers were alert before sunrise because attacks were considered more likely at dawn.

Early services were often simple and solemn. Participants gathered before sunrise, stood in silence, listened to prayers or readings, and remembered the dead. Over time, dawn services became more formal and widely attended, while retaining an atmosphere different from the later public march.

The Anzac Day march

Daytime marches allowed returned service personnel to walk together through towns and cities. Veterans gathered by unit, ship, service, or conflict, often carrying banners and wearing medals. Crowds watched, applauded, and remembered relatives who had served or died.

Participation rules changed over time. As First World War veterans aged, veterans of later conflicts joined the march. Descendants and representatives sometimes began marching in place of deceased relatives, producing debate about how to preserve the event’s focus while allowing family remembrance.

The Ode, the Last Post, and silence

Anzac Day ceremonies developed a recognizable sequence of words, music, and silence. The Ode of Remembrance is drawn from Laurence Binyon’s poem “For the Fallen.” The Last Post, originally a military bugle call, became associated with the completion of duty and the commemoration of the dead.

A period of silence allows collective reflection without requiring participants to share one religious belief or political interpretation. Reveille or the Rouse may then be sounded, symbolically calling the living back to duty and everyday life.

Public holiday recognition

Legal recognition developed differently across Australian states and in New Zealand. Veterans’ organizations campaigned for the day to be protected from ordinary commerce, entertainment, and work. In Australia, every state observed some form of public holiday on Anzac Day by 1927.

The rules were not identical everywhere. Questions included whether sporting events, shops, cinemas, hotels, or public entertainment could operate and whether the holiday should cover the whole day or only the morning. These debates reflected uncertainty about whether Anzac Day was primarily sacred mourning, patriotic education, veterans’ reunion, or a general public holiday.

Two-up and veterans’ reunions

After formal ceremonies, veterans often gathered socially in hotels, clubs, halls, and private reunions. Storytelling, drinking, meals, and companionship allowed former service members to remember experiences that were not always expressed during public ceremonies.

The gambling game two-up became associated with Australian Anzac Day culture. Laws in some jurisdictions later permitted it under limited conditions on Anzac Day, even where it was generally restricted. The custom is social and historical rather than a central element of the commemorative service itself.

The Anzac legend

The Anzac legend describes qualities commonly attributed to Australian and New Zealand soldiers, including courage, endurance, practical skill, humor, loyalty, equality, and mateship. Journalists, official historians, politicians, veterans, teachers, filmmakers, and families all contributed to its development.

The legend helped the two young dominions describe themselves as distinctive nations rather than distant extensions of Britain. At the same time, historians have questioned whose experiences it includes and excludes. The image of the Anzac was often centred on a white male infantryman, leaving less space for nurses, Indigenous personnel, migrant communities, civilians, objectors, and people affected by war outside the military.

Indigenous service and unequal citizenship

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people served in Australian forces despite discriminatory laws and policies. Some recruiters rejected Indigenous volunteers, while others were accepted when officials considered them sufficiently of European descent or overlooked restrictions.

Indigenous service members often received more equal treatment while serving than they experienced in civilian life. After returning, many continued to face restrictions involving wages, voting, movement, land, housing, and access to veterans’ benefits. Modern commemorations increasingly recognize Indigenous service while also examining this contradiction.

Women and Anzac remembrance

Women served as military nurses and in other wartime roles, cared for wounded personnel, supported families, raised funds, worked in voluntary organizations, and maintained households and industries. Nurses faced danger, illness, trauma, and death, but early Anzac narratives frequently treated combat soldiers as the principal representatives of service.

Women were also essential to commemoration. They created memorials, organized ceremonies, preserved letters and photographs, supported veterans, and mourned relatives. Later wars expanded women’s formal roles in the armed forces, reshaping the public image of who could be a veteran.

Anzac Day during and after the Second World War

The Second World War broadened Anzac Day beyond remembrance of the 1915 generation. Veterans of new campaigns joined marches and ceremonies, and public attention shifted toward conflicts in Europe, North Africa, the Pacific, and Asia.

After 1945, Anzac Day increasingly commemorated all Australian and New Zealand military service. Veterans of Korea, Malaya, Indonesia, Vietnam, peacekeeping missions, the Gulf wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other operations were gradually incorporated into its rituals.

Protest and debate during the Vietnam era

During the 1960s and 1970s, opposition to the Vietnam War, compulsory military service, and traditional nationalism affected Anzac Day participation. Critics argued that ceremonies could glorify war, reinforce militarism, or exclude people whose experiences did not fit the dominant national story.

Veterans of the Vietnam War also struggled for recognition and support. Many felt that public hostility toward the war had been directed at those who served. Their later inclusion in marches and commemorative institutions contributed to a broader understanding of service, trauma, and veterans’ welfare.

Renewed public participation

From the late twentieth century, attendance at dawn services and commemorative events increased in many places. Younger Australians and New Zealanders began participating in larger numbers, and travel to Gallipoli became a significant form of historical pilgrimage.

Television, education, museum exhibitions, family-history research, digitized service records, and anniversaries helped renew public interest. This revival also generated debate about whether Anzac remembrance had become overly commercial, politically managed, or detached from critical study of the First World War.

Gallipoli and relations with Türkiye

The Gallipoli peninsula is a place of remembrance for Türkiye as well as Australia and New Zealand. Ottoman victory became closely connected with Turkish national history and the reputation of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

Modern ceremonies frequently emphasize respect between former enemies. This language of reconciliation is meaningful, but it should not obscure the violence of the campaign or the different national memories attached to the landscape.

Anzac Day in New Zealand

New Zealand shares the Gallipoli anniversary and many commemorative traditions with Australia, including dawn services, marches, wreath-laying, the Ode, bugle calls, and silence. The scale of New Zealand’s First World War losses gave the day deep national significance.

New Zealand commemoration has its own legal history, local practices, Māori participation, military experiences, and debates about national identity. Anzac Day is a shared observance, but it should not be treated as an exclusively Australian holiday copied unchanged across the Tasman Sea.

Historical timeline

August 1914: Australia and New Zealand enter the First World War following Britain’s declaration of war.

Late 1914: Australian and New Zealand troops train in Egypt and are organized within the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

April 25, 1915: Allied troops, including the Anzacs, land on the Gallipoli peninsula.

December 1915: Anzac and other Allied forces evacuate their Gallipoli positions.

April 25, 1916: The first anniversary is marked by ceremonies, marches, services, and wartime gatherings in several countries.

1920s: Dawn services, marches, veterans’ reunions, and formal memorial rituals become increasingly established.

1927: Every Australian state observes some form of public holiday on Anzac Day.

1930s: The major ceremonies and cultural practices now associated with Anzac Day are firmly established.

After 1945: The day expands to include service and sacrifice from the Second World War and later conflicts.

1960s–1970s: Vietnam War opposition and changing social attitudes generate criticism and debate about Anzac commemoration.

Late twentieth century: Dawn-service attendance, family-history research, and travel to Gallipoli increase.

Twenty-first century: Anzac Day commemorates service across wars and peacekeeping operations while debate continues about inclusion, nationalism, and the interpretation of military history.

Anzac Day today

Anzac Day is now observed through dawn services, marches, wreath-laying, music, readings, silence, veterans’ gatherings, educational programs, and ceremonies at war memorials. It commemorates those who served and died while also acknowledging the continuing effects of war on veterans, families, and communities.

The day’s importance does not depend on treating Gallipoli as a victory or accepting one uncritical version of the Anzac legend. Its continuing value lies in the opportunity to remember loss, examine military history, recognize diverse forms of service, and consider how national communities choose to interpret sacrifice and war.

Sources and further reading

• Australian War Memorial, Anzac Day
• Australian War Memorial, The Anzac Day Tradition
• Australian War Memorial, In the Cold Light of Dawn
• Australian War Memorial, Customs and Ceremony
• Australian War Memorial, Gallipoli
• National Archives of Australia, Defence and War Service Records
• National Archives of Australia, Anzacs in the Archives
• New Zealand History, Anzac Day
• New Zealand History, Making Anzac Day, 1920–1929
• Australian Government Department of Veterans’ Affairs, Anzac Day