ANZAC Day eve is a sobering time.
It’s the eve of ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand – 25th of April – for most people a day more solemn than Easter, or even the anniversary of the death of a family member.
It’s a weird thing.
100 years ago the ANZACs (an abbreviation on a rubber stamp made to ease army clerks’ tasks of writing Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in long hand on official documents) landed on the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey under the command of the British. The idea was to storm across the peninsula and capture the guns that guarded the Dardanelles.
We’ve been there. It’s horrible, beautiful and renders you without words all at once.
The ANZAC forces and everyone else were trapped in a terrible theory.
The theory was that the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire would yield to the onslaught and then in a flick of the fingers, the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara and the Straits of the Bosphorus would open up the Black Sea so British and French shipping could supply allied Russia with men, machines, armaments and supplies and attack Germany from the South East. The fall of Istanbul would also aid Britain’s plan to boost the Arab revolt in the Middle East.
It was a bun fight. A disgusting, horrible, wicked game dreamed up by people in high places and played out by peasants, underlings, ordinaries and common and or garden citizens – neighbours, brothers, dads, sons.
About 11,000 ANZAC troops were killed. 10,000 French, 34,000 British and all up the Bristish/French allies suffered 187,00 casualties. The Turks had 174,000 casualties including 56,000 dead.
After eight months the British forces (Including all the ANZAC survivors) who hadn’t gained an inch retreated in the dead of night.
What kind of people commemorate their first and greatest defeat in war?
That’s what people in other countries don’t understand. The other participants, the British, French, Canadian and Indians pass over our ANZAC day as a shadow.
Millions of words have been written trying to answer the question. What is it about us that ranks this day higher in importance than victorious occasions like V.E. Day or V.J. Day or even Armistice Day?
My take on it is that our forebears were so disgusted, exasperated and infuriated about the pointless and inglorious loss of local men and boys whom they knew and loved, that they agreed they would never fall in with other people’s wars again.
When we say ‘Lest we forget’ on ANZAC day, that’s what are are supposed not to forget.
My offer: Just an arm around your shoulder as we both bow our heads and renew our vow not to forget the crass stupidity of mankind that crouches at the door of every human heart.
