If sniper fire didn’t get you, then gangrene, typhus, and no fresh food or water probably would. This dragged on for the next eight months and cost 8,000 Australian lives alone before the decision was made at the end of 1915 to abandon the beach heads. The Allied forces withdrew the remaining troops leaving their fallen comrades behind.

At that time Australia had been a Federated Nation for only 15 years. So while the landing of Gallipoli was not a success, it did bring the nation together as a whole for the first time.

Australia has a tradition of cutting down Tall Poppies, people who succeed, yet defending the underdog and making heroes of those who fail in noble causes despite great effort. Some examples of these are Ned Kelly, our most famous Bush Ranger, the Eureka Stockade, the closest Australia has ever come to civil war, and of course the famous Swagman popularised in the song Waltzing Matilda.

Thus has become the ANZAC spirit; bold and ferocious in battle but … unwilling to bow to military discipline. To be an ANZAC is to hold headfast in battle, to die with a smile, and yet never to succumb to authority.

To be an Australian is to do your best for your family and country against all odds with not a small amount of disdain and irreverence for the authorities.