Let us reflect on what is means when we say the Anzacs. We should know that it means the Australian New Zealand Army Corps, but did it begin with the landing at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915? Was this the first time that Australian soldiers and sailors began fighting in World War I?

Let us begin with why First World War started when most of the royal houses of Europe were related to each other. Their governments had pacts and alliances with each other but the most important was the defence agreement between Britain and France.

The Archduke Ferdinand Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, which brought Austria to fight a war with Serbia/Bosnia. The pact between Britain and Serbia caused Britain to declare war against Austria, which was aligned with Germany and so, it all started.

In July 1914, the Australian Fleet was steaming north on its winter cruise when Germany invaded Belgium on August 4, and at midnight the British Empire was at war with Germany. It was thought that the powerful German pacific fleet was in the vicinity of Rabaul, therefore the Australian Fleet turned towards Rabaul and that town was quickly captured.

Admiral Count von Spee proved to be elusive and made for Cape Horn only to be caught by the British Navy and destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. The only German ship left in the area was SMS Emden, a light cruiser, sent to raid British territories.

The first Australian convoy had sailed from Albany towards England when near the Cocos Island a SOS was heard about a strange ship shelling the islands and HMAS Sydney was dispatched and after a short but ferocious fight overcame the Emden, which beached itself. The RAN Bridging Train serving in the South West Pacific was victorious in capturing the German territories and they became the territories of Papua and New Guinea.     

We know about the heroic fights between the Australians and the Turks at Gallipoli. That campaign turned out to be one of the biggest bungling made by the British general staff and their planners. While the Gallipoli campaign raged, other units of AIF were effective in Egypt, Palestine and to a point in Mesopotamia.

So Australia went to help the motherland and as such became part of the Western Front Armies. In the beginning, the French were decibel beaten by the advancing German Armies and it was not until British and Australian and New Zealand troops augment the front lines that the advance was more or less halted. From that moment on, it became a battle of attrition both in man power, material and more so the landscape was completely, in most places, obliterated, never to be the same again.

Losses in life were not counted by tens or hundreds but in tens of thousands and by the end of the war it reached into millions on all sides of the contestants. Australia had more casualties, either killed in action, missing in action or wounded compared with the populations of the United States of America, France, Canada, Great Britain and Germany. The casualties for the campaigns between Russia and German and Russia and Japan are not really known.

In 1915 during the second battle of Ypres – April 22-May 25 – the 1st tank battle the losses were 50,000 for the Germans and 45,000 for the British. The battle of the Somme, July 1-November 18, 1916, cost the British 60,000 in one hour.

So we have arrived in the year 1918, still on the Western Front. Some of the most veracious battles were fought in that year. Names like Vimy Ridge, Messines, Passchendaele, 3rd Battle Aisne, Cantigny, Belleau Wood and The Marne spring to mind.

The Allied High Command recognised the outstanding fighting capability of the Australian and New Zealand troops and used them in some of the most hard-fought battles at terrible costs but mostly in obtaining ground that had been fought over and over until finally being taken and held.

This ferocity went on and on until all sides on the Western Front came to an agreement to call a halt to the campaign. Germany was racked with strikes, rebellion, material and shortages of manpower and food, and England and France by the great loss of manpower and shortages of food and material.

All of a sudden there was silence – no more shells, no more screams, no more gas attacks; the only sound came from the wounded, mates praying for lost comrades.

At last peace.

So, let us think about the lost and living that fought for our country so the following generations could be free and live in peace. But as history tells us, and a lot of us can still remember those two decades after “the war to end all wars”, our nation was at war again.

Even today we have defence personnel still fighting, training and observing, with peace-keeping duties to perform and they do it well in the true fashion of remembering the first Anzacs.

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