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Shed A Tear And Raise A Beer

"The Gallipoli campaign was the beginning of true Australian nationhood. When Australia went to war in 1914, many white Australians believed that their Commonwealth had no history, that it was not yet a true nation, that it’s most glorious days still lay ahead of it. In this sense the Gallipoli campaign was a defining moment for Australia as a new nation, but also a key moment in the evolution of a particular image of Australian masculinity.”

Dr Frank Bongiorno, University of New England

I won’t be around Sunday or Monday, maybe not even Saturday, so I’ll put this together now and set it to appear Monday. I was reminded today (Friday) that it was almost time by a video at Theo’s. He posted The Fureys doing The Green Fields of France, a WWI remembrance video by this Irish folk band. The Irish fought in WWI, but under the flag of Great Britain.




ANZAC DAY

April 25, 2011



image



ANZAC Day is a big thing Down Under in Australia and New Zealand. It is their own personal Remembrance Day, in honor of their first international military engagement as commonwealth nations. It’s also a celebration of the birth of their own national spirit.

Around the turn of the 20th century Australia and New Zealand became Commonwealth Nations in the British Empire. In 1915 183,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers took part in the Dardanelles campaign, an attempt to capture Istanbul and open the passage from the eastern Mediterranean to the Black Sea. Success there would have crippled the Ottoman Empire, an ally of Germany in WWI, and taken pressure off of Russia in the Crimean. Russia held the Eastern Front against Germany. On April 25, 1915 the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) forces landed near the mouth of the Sea of Marmara at the eastern end of the Gallipoli peninsula. It was a pure cluster f*** from the beginning.

Because of a navigational error, the ANZACs came ashore about a mile north of the intended landing point. Instead of facing the expected beach and gentle slope they found themselves at the bottom of steep cliffs, offering the few Turkish defenders an ideal defensive position. Of the 1500 men who waded ashore that first day, 755 remained in active service at the end of the day. The remainder were killed or wounded. Establishing a foothold, the ANZACs found an advance to be impossible.

And there they fought, and there they died.

8 full months of hell later they were evacuated. Net achievement: zero. The campaign was one of the worst run in history, combining terrible logistics, terribly inaccurate supporting fire, criminally poor leadership, and poor food with horrible living conditions, no sanitation whatsoever, primitive medical support even for the day, and a number of virulent outbreaks of disease. In the end it was a defeat for the Allied forces, but from purely a numbers perspective it was a victory, because 3 times as many Ottomans died as did Allies.

The campaign is often referred to for its successful stealthy retreat, which was completed with minimal casualties, the ANZAC forces completed their retreat by 19 December 1915 and the remaining British elements by 9 January 1916.

Total Allied deaths were 43,000 British (10% of them Irish), 15,000 French, 8,700 Australians, 2,700 New Zealanders and 1,370 Indians. Total Turkish deaths were around 200,000. New Zealanders suffered the highest percentage of Allied deaths when compared with population size, but the percentage of Turkish deaths was almost twice theirs.

This campaign became a turning point in the national consciousness of several of the participants. Both Australia and New Zealand still celebrate Anzac Day and the Turks consider it a point of national pride. Many mementos of the Gallipoli campaign can be seen in the museum at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia, and at the Auckland War Memorial Museum in Auckland, New Zealand.







The last ANZAC veteran of Gallipoli, Alec Campell, died in 2002.



Over time ANZAC Day became not just a remembrance of those who died or were wounded in that far off event, but a day to honor all those who had served. And as the years went by, remembrance turned more to celebration, because it was in Gallipoli’s filthy sands that these two island peoples first stood up for their own nationhood.

As dawn breaks over Trinity Inlet on Anzac Day on Monday, a record crowd is expected to gather at the Cenotaph on Cairns’ Esplanade to remember our fallen Diggers. And it’s a scene that will be repeated all over Australia and the Far North – from a dawn parade in cyclone-ravaged Cardwell to a morning service at the Yorkeys Knob Boating Club.

Far Northern RSLs say the number of people who attend local services grows each year, as more residents are touched by war and the Anzac spirit cements itself in the national identity. Cairns RSL committee member David Clifton said Australia had shaken off the divide that lingered after the Vietnam War and now Anzac Day was a time to celebrate the nation’s unique spirit.

“A lot of those divisions that arose after Vietnam, which really split people’s attitudes, have healed, and that divide is less relevant today,” he said. “Now the country celebrates Anzac Day. Rather than commemorating it with great sadness, we honour the efforts of men and women in service and celebrate their spirit.”


And the old men march slowly, old bones stiff and sore. They’re tired old heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, what are they marching for? And I ask myself the same question.

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old men still answer the call,
But as year follows year, more old men disappear. Someday no one will march there at all.

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?
And their ghosts may be heard as they march by that billabong, who’ll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

*






Posted by Drew458    United States   on 04/25/2011 at 12:01 AM   
 
  1. Imagine that, Drew has a ‘Crock Pot’ to simmer articles till needed.

    cool

    Posted by Rich K    United States   04/25/2011  at  12:15 PM  
  2. Well, it’s actually a clock, but if some extra simmering helps them come out properly tasty, them I’m in favor.

    Posted by Drew458    United States   04/25/2011  at  07:39 PM  
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