Anzac Day 2024 – Traditions and rituals on Anzac Day: a quick guide


19 April 2024

PDF Version [838KB]

David Watt and Karen Elphick
Foreign Affairs, Defence and Security

They will never come back – our stalwart men!
They will never come back – our splendid men!
And beauty weeps in the land of the morn,
For the flower of love that will never be born.

Wolla Meranda (Gertrude Poyitt)
First published in a collected volume of Anzac war poetry in 1916

The significance attributed to Anzac Day and the popularity of participating in its rituals has waxed and waned through more than a century in response to political, economic and social changes. Its survival is perhaps reflective of its capacity to draw and include a wide range of participants, from veterans to peace activists, and from children to centenarians.

The Australian War Memorial’s (AWM) website has information on its commemorative program for the day. It also contains links to material on the history and tradition of Anzac Day, details and photographs of ceremonies, sound recordings of the Last Post and the Rouse, and educational resources, including film of the Gallipoli campaign on Anzac TV. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) also has resources to assist with event planning, including orders of service and speech outlines with a downloadable Anzac Day Kitbag and an Anzac Day commemorative package containing teaching resources and posters for download.

Contents

Participating in Anzac Day
Dawn Service
Gunfire breakfast
Anzac Day march
Follow-on and two-up
Protocol and traditions
Resources for speeches and activities
Select national speeches on Anzac Day
Poetry
Different perspectives
Is it Anzac Day or ANZAC Day?
The first Anzac Day
The meaning and spirit of Anzac

 

Participating in Anzac Day

Dawn Service

The first commemorative event of Anzac Day is the Dawn Service between 4:30 and 5:30 am. This is about the time men of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps approached the Gallipoli beach. However, the origin is the traditional ‘stand-to’, in which troops would be woken in the darkness to assume defensive positions so that by the first rays of dawn they were ready and alert, in case of an enemy attack in the eerie half-light. It is a ritual and moment heavy with memories for many veterans.

Still, for unforgetting hearts, the grief comes first.

A. G. Stephens
The Grief and Glory of Gallipoli: Anzac Poetry

The Dawn Service is a solemn service attended by veterans, serving military personnel and the public. It is common for participants to hold a lit candle. Larger ceremonies may mount a uniformed catafalque party at the start of the service, emphasising the focus on remembering those who have died. The national Dawn Service at the Australian War Memorial is broadcast live on ABC TV.

A common order of service involves a welcome, including an Acknowledgement of Country; a short address noting the historical action and sacrifice in Gallipoli and the more general purpose of commemorating service personnel who have died; wreath-laying, reading of the Ode of remembrance; sometimes a prayer; then the playing of the Last Post followed by a period of silence (traditionally 2 minutes) which is ended by playing Reville or the Rouse.

Some debate exists about the first Dawn Service. Nevertheless, early dawn services such as that held in 1923 at Albany (Western Australia) conducted by the Reverend Arthur White – Rector of St John’s Church, and formerly a padre with the 44th Battalion on the Western Front – were the forerunners of the modern tradition. The first official Dawn Service was held at Sydney’s Cenotaph in 1928. The simple ceremony was for veterans to assemble before dawn for ‘stand-to’ and 2 minutes of silence.

Resources

Gunfire breakfast

Many communities follow the dawn service with a ‘traditional’ gunfire breakfast, often at the local services club. ‘Gunfire’ is a British tradition and was:

... the usual term for the early cup of tea served out to troops in the morning before going on first parade, whenever possible. In the War [WWI] recruits in training always had ‘Gun Fire’ supplied to them, the work before breakfast being found particularly trying. The morning gun in a garrison town suggested the name probably.

(E. Fraser and J. Gibbons, Soldier & Sailor Words & Phrases (London: Routledge, 1925), 113.)

The ‘gunfire breakfast’ seems to have evolved from the above and comprises whatever is available at the time – it could be ‘coffee and rum’ or ‘stew, sausage and bread’, or even ‘bacon and eggs’ (which has been served by the AWM for its ‘gunfire breakfast’ on Anzac Day).

Anzac Day march

From cities to small towns, the march has long been the centrepiece of Anzac Day. In contrast to the Dawn Service, the mood of the march is celebratory. Marches were held during the Great War, and became popular with veterans in the 1920s, to honour lost friends and publicly express comradeship. The state and territory branches of the Returned & Services League (RSL) organise the marches and issue guidelines for participants. The largest marches are often televised. The march in Canberra ends at the Parade Ground of the AWM and is followed by the National Service.

While it began as a march for veterans who saw active service, rules were later relaxed to include those who served in Australia in the armed services or ‘land armies’ during the Second World War. It has been relaxed further, with some encouragement or acceptance of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren marching, to assist aged veterans or to represent relatives. Former soldiers from allied armies have also been allowed to march.

Follow-on and two-up

The march may be followed by reunions and lunches put on by local establishments. Most of the licensed pubs and clubs around Australia will hold Anzac Day activities. This is also the one day that the traditional Australian gambling game of ‘two-up’, or ‘swy’, may legally be played at venues. Bets are placed on how 2 pennies thrown into the air will fall. The ‘Ringer’ (in charge) will explain rules and betting procedures. Any persons of legal gambling age are welcome to participate. The entry on ‘two-up’ from the Australian encyclopaedia describes the ‘game’ and its origins.

Protocol and traditions

The protocol for standing during the Ode, laying wreaths, saluting, and the flag protocol can be found on DVA’s Anzac Portal. Only serving personnel who are on duty wear uniform. Only personnel in military uniform salute during the ceremony. The AWM suggests smart/business attire as the ‘norm’ at Anzac Day ceremonies, though there is no formal protocol.

Wearing medals

Service members and veterans wear full-size, court-mounted medals on Anzac Day (not miniatures or ribbons only). Only the person awarded or issued medals may wear those medals on their left breast. It is an offence for a person to wear medals they have not been awarded or to falsely represent that they are a veteran.  

A relative of a person who earned the medals may honour their service by wearing medals on the right breast. Some veterans may be seen wearing medals on both breasts – their own on the left, and a relative’s on the right. Unit citations are worn according to individual service instructions, but are usually worn on the right. Lifesaving medals are also worn on the right.

The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (which manages medal policy) suggests that unofficial medals – that is, those not in the Australian Honours system (including privately made, unapproved foreign medals and state and territory awarded medals) – not be worn at public ceremonial and commemorative events; when worn as the occasion demands, the convention is that they are worn on the right breast.

Wearing rosemary and lapel pins

Rosemary is an emblem of remembrance. It is traditional on Anzac Day to wear a sprig of rosemary pinned to a coat lapel or to the breast (it does not matter which side, but left seems most common), or held in place by medals. Rosemary has particular significance for Australians on Anzac Day as it grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Lapel pins featuring a poppy (formerly worn only on Remembrance Day) have become more common. Different colours of poppy may signify particular groups of veterans (see Figure 1 below). Purple memorialises animals that went to war. ‘Battlefield Blue’ raises awareness of post traumatic stress disorder. An infinity loop of yellow ribbon wrapped around a rosemary sprig memorialises military and emergency personnel who have taken their own lives.

Figure 1    A variety of lapel pins available from the AWM

A variety of lapel pins available from the Australian War Memorial shop showing poppies and rosemary.

Source: Australian War Memorial, Memorial Shop

Laying a wreath or flowers

A wreath or a small bunch of flowers is traditionally laid on memorials or graves in memory of the dead. They might contain laurel, a traditional symbol of honour, and rosemary, or they may be native or other flowers. In recent years, it has also become popular to lay a wreath of red poppies – formerly associated with Remembrance Day, 11 November. Any of these wreaths or flowers are acceptable as a gesture of remembrance. Relatives of those memorialised on the Roll of Honour at the AWM sometimes place a poppy next to their relative’s name.

The Ode

The Ode comes from the fourth stanza of the poem For the fallen by the English poet and writer, Laurence Binyon (see Figure 2 below). It was published in London in The winnowing fan: poems of the Great War in 1914. By 1921, it was used in association with commemorative services in Australia.

Figure 2    The Ode engraved at a memorial in Cornwall, England

Memorial plaque set atop a cliff face, showing the fourth stanza of Laurence Binyon's poem For the Fallen: They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

Source: Australian War Memorial collection

At the Anzac Day ceremony, an invited speaker often recites the Ode and upon his or her completion of the recitation, those present repeat the last words ‘We will remember them’. After a short pause this is followed by ‘Lest we forget’. When the Ode is recited at a commemorative service, visitors should stand, remove headwear and refrain from talking (military personnel do not remove headwear).

The Last Post

This is one of a number of bugle calls in the military tradition to mark phases of the day. Traditionally, it marked the end of the day. The Last Post was incorporated into funeral and memorial services as a final farewell; it symbolises that the duty of the dead is over and that they can rest in peace. On Anzac Day, it is followed by one or two minutes of silence, then a second bugle call, Reveille (it is also acceptable to use the Rouse, which is shorter).

The story of the Anzac bugle calls is told in Valley Voice, 19 April 2002.

The Anzac biscuit

The original Anzac biscuit, also known as the Anzac wafer or tile, was a hardtack biscuit or long shelf-life biscuit substitute for bread. These were not necessarily popular with soldiers at Gallipoli, but there are now recipes for more edible domestic versions.

Resources for speeches and activities

The AWM’s ‘Anzac at home’ webpage has a wide variety of resources to assist with Anzac Day activities and a collection of transcripts of speeches given at the AWM. The Department of Veterans’ Affairs also provides a simple outline for speeches and a downloadable Anzac Day Kitbag. DVA also has handy links for researching Australians war service (for more information about researching military service, see the Parliamentary Library’s publication, Military history online resources: a quick guide).

Charles Bean’s official history covering the Gallipoli Campaign is available online at the AWM: Official history of Australia in the War of 1914–1918.

Select national speeches on Anzac Day

Anzac Day 2023

By veterans

100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings

Others

Poetry

While there is a range of Australian war poetry, much of the poetry associated with Anzac Day is not Australian. Laurence Binyon, from whose poem, For the fallen, the Ode is taken, was English; John McCrae, author of In Flanders fields, was Canadian; William Butler Yeats, author of An Irish airman foresees his death, was Irish. Other great British war poets who served include Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke (who died en route to Gallipoli) and Wilfred Owen.

Select Australian war poetry

Examples of Australian war poetry include The grief and glory of Gallipoli: Anzac poetry, an article by A. G. Stephens that quotes extracts of contemporary poetry published in the Brisbane Courier, 27 April 1929. Stephens was editor of a collection of poetry, Anzac memorial, first published in 1916.

Australian poet Kenneth Slessor was a war correspondent during the Second World War and spent time with Australian troops in England, Greece, the Middle East and New Guinea. His famous war poem Beach burial depicts the burial of anonymous sailors lost at sea during the Gulf of Aden operations of the Second World War.

In the 2002 Sydney Morning Herald article, ‘They also served – and wrote’, author Jill Hamilton discusses her research on Anzac poetry, commenting particularly about Banjo Paterson’s service as a war correspondent in the Boer War and then as an officer in a Remount Unit looking after the horses of the Light Horse in the First World War. Paterson wrote several poems with a war theme, including We’re all Australians now.

Other examples of Australian war poetry include:

Different perspectives

The Anzac girls: the extraordinary story of our World War I nurses, Peter Rees (Allen & Unwin, 2016). By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated.

Not for glory: a century of service by medical women to the Australian Army and its allies, Susan Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare (Boolarong Press, 2014). From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of Southeast Asia, Australian women have served as doctors and medical specialists from the First World War until the present day.

Our mob served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories of war and defending Australia, Alison Cadzow and Mary Anne Jebb (eds) (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019). This edited volume presents the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wartime and defence service, told through the oral histories and family images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It shares stories of war, defence service and the impact on individuals, families and communities, sometimes for the first time.

For love of country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service personnel from South Australia since Federation, Ian Smith (Provost Research & Writing Services, 2022). This book seeks to record the names and brief biographical details of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man and woman with strong connections to South Australia who has served the nation in peace and war.

Pride in defence: the Australian military and LGBTI service since 1945, Noah Riseman and Shirleen Robinson (Melbourne University Press, 2020). Pride in defence features accounts of secret romances, police surveillance and discharges from service by LGBTI members who served their country in the face of systemic prejudice. 

The forgotten: the Chinese Labour Corps and the Chinese Anzacs in the Great War, Will Davies (Wilkinson Publishing, 2020). This book tells the stories of the Chinese settlers who volunteered to fight for Australia and worked under the British and French on the Western Front during the First World War in the Chinese Labour Corps. See also, Chinese Anzacs by Jo Clyne, Richard Smith and Ian Hodges (Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 2015) and Chinese Anzacs : Australians of Chinese descent in the defence forces 1885–1919 by Alastair Kennedy (2013).

Bravo zulu: honours and awards to Australian naval people, volume 1: 1900–1974, Ian Pfenningwerth (Echo Books, 2016). This book tells the story of the Colonial Naval Forces, the Commonwealth Naval Forces and the Royal Australian Navy, including the honours and awards received by Australian naval personnel from the Australian Government and Allied governments.

‘Symposium: commemoration in Australia: a memory orgy?’, Joan Beaumont, Australian Journal of Political Science 50, no. 3 (September 2015): 536–544. This article questions whether Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds engaged with the centenary commemorations of the landing at Gallipoli, and how strongly they identify with the Anzac legend as the dominant narrative of Australian nationalism.

Is it Anzac Day or ANZAC Day?

The Anzac acronym comes from the initial letters of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, into which Australian and New Zealand troops were formed in Egypt before the landings at Gallipoli in April 1915. The official historian, Charles Bean, wrote of a day in early 1915 when a staff officer arrived at HQ seeking a codename for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Having noticed ‘A&NZAC’ stencilled on cases and also rubber stamps bearing this mark, a clerk suggested:

‘How about ANZAC?’ Major Wagstaff proposed the word to the general, who approved of it, and ‘Anzac’ thereupon became the code name for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

(CEW Bean, The Story of ANZAC from the Outbreak of War to the End of the First Phase of the Gallipoli Campaign, May 4, 1915 (Volume 1 of The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, 124–25.)

As a proper noun, as well as an acronym, ‘Anzac’ entered the vernacular of the diggers and Kiwis. At Gallipoli, they called their position, simply, Anzac; and the famous cove, Anzac Cove. They started referring to each other as Anzacs too. Eventually, any Australian or New Zealander who served in the war could be called an Anzac – although to them a true Anzac was a man who served at Gallipoli (later issued with a brass ‘A’ to stitch onto their unit colour patches).

The first Anzac Day

The first day to be called Anzac Day was 13 October 1915 and occurred in Adelaide as a replacement for the Eight-Hour Day holiday (a forerunner of Labour Day and already a public holiday). This event was more of a patriotic carnival designed to raise awareness of, and funds for, the war effort, than the solemn commemoration it was to become.

Anzac Day as we know it was first observed on 25 April 1916, as people came together to honour those lost at Gallipoli. Some 2,000 Anzacs honoured their fallen mates in 1916 in London; marching through the streets and then attending a commemorative service at Westminster Abbey. In Australia, some state governments organised events to commemorate the occasion – but the Commonwealth, other than officially naming 25 April as Anzac Day, did not.

By the late 1920s, Anzac Day was a public holiday in every state and territory. In the 1930s, there was rhetoric about the need to pass the ‘Anzac spirit’ down to the next generation. This was partly politically motivated, as there was a feeling that people needed steeling for another war. In the Second World War, the ‘sons of the Anzacs’ were welcomed, and the day now honoured veterans of all wars. But despite greater numbers of veterans, by the 1960s its popularity had waned, and many wondered whether Anzac Day would survive.

The resurgence started in the 1980s and 1990s. The RSL had been slow to welcome ‘others’ – notably those who did not serve overseas, which at that time included the majority of ex-servicewomen, and veterans of the ‘small’ wars. With a younger leadership, it relaxed its rules to be more inclusive. Governments have reinforced the day’s significance with commemorative programs that reach out to the community.

The meaning and spirit of Anzac

The history of the commemoration of Anzac and debate over its meaning has been discussed at length over many years.

The entries in the Oxford companion to Australian military history on Anzac Day and the Anzac legend provide good summaries of the importance of the day and of the legend.

In ‘A possession for ever: Charles Bean, the ancient Greeks, and military commemoration in Australia’, Peter Londey argues that the Australian official war historian drew parallels between the deeds of the Australian Imperial Force and ancient Greece in the 5th century BC (Australian Journal of Politics and History 53, no. 3 (September 2007): 344–349).

In ‘Re-reading Bean’s last paragraph’, Martin Ball discusses the last paragraph of C. E. W. Bean’s official history which has ‘long been appreciated as a concise yet effective statement about Australia’s response to its war experience’. Although the volume which contains it was published in 1942, the last paragraph was actually the first to be written in 1919 (Australian Historical Studies 122 (October 2003): 231–247). Bean’s last paragraph reads:

What these men did nothing can alter now. The good and the bad, the greatness and smallness of their story will stand. Whatever of glory it contains nothing now can lessen. It rises, as it will always rise, above the mists of ages, a monument to great-hearted men; and, for their nation, a possession for ever.

(C. E. W. Bean, Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918, vol. VI, chapter XXII (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1942), 1096).

In his 1988 article, ‘Anzac and the Australian military tradition’, historian Ken Inglis describes the essential meaning of the word Anzac, its early use, the Anzac tradition in schools between the wars, the relationship between the Anzac concept and social class and between the Anzac tradition and feminism, the continuity of the tradition from the Second World War through to the Vietnam conflict, and the observations of writers, scholars, artists and film makers (Current Affairs Bulletin 64, no. 11 (April, 1988)).

In ‘ANZAC: the sacred in the secular’, Graham Seal argues that the resurgence of interest in Anzac Day has ‘only served to emphasise the strongly secular nature of Anzac and its centrality to widespread notions of Australian nationalism’ (Journal of Australian Studies 91, (2007)).

In ‘Reflections: a symposium on the meanings of Anzac’, to mark the 75th anniversary of the landings at Gallipoli, 10 Australians discuss various aspects of the meaning of Anzac to Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples and Vietnam diggers, the place of Anzac in Australian society and the future of Anzac (Journal of the Australian War Memorial 16, (April 1990)).

‘Anzac’s influence on Turkey and Australia’ was the keynote address given to the 1990 War Memorial History Conference by Bill Gammage. In it he explored the different ways in which Turks and Australians remember Canakkale (Gallipoli), and how they regard each other as a result of the campaign (Journal of the Australian War Memorial 18, (April 1991)).

In ‘The unknown Australian soldier’, Ashley Ekins discusses the symbolic significance of the return of the remains of an unknown Australian soldier (Wartime 25, (January 2004): 11–13).

In ‘Lest we forget the cult of the digger’, Nick Horden discusses how the memory of past wars continues to shape the Australian nation (Australian Financial Review, 20 January 2000).

‘What is Anzac Day? It is the embodiment of the national ethos’, retraces the history of 25 April and the traditions of Anzac (Stand To, (April–May 2002): 4–5).

In ‘Why we will never forget’, Graham Cooke talks about how, even after 4 generations since Gallipoli, the Anzac spirit is still alive (Canberra Times Magazine, April 2003).

In ‘They shall not grow old’, Ken Inglis discusses how the Anzac legend grows rather than recedes (Age, 30 April 2004).

In ‘The mystique of Gallipoli’, Les Carlyon explains what makes Gallipoli so important to Australians (Canberra Times, 13 November 2004).

Critical approaches

In ‘Bean’s “Anzac” and the making of the Anzac legend’, David Kent argues that the image of the Anzac was the careful creation of the official historian, C. E. W. Bean, who, as editor of the enormously popular 1916 publication, The Anzac book, acted as a prism through which Australians were presented with an oversimplified view of the realities of war and its effect on men (War: Australia’s creative response, eds, Anna Rutherford and James Wieland (1997): 27–39).

In ‘History should respect realities’, authors Craig Barrett and Martin Crotty argue that it is possible to balance a questioning approach towards the Anzac tradition with respect for the men who fought at Gallipoli (Australian, 1 February 2006).

In ‘The Anzac myth: patriot act’, Mark McKenna argues that ‘since the early 1990s Australians have lost the ability (or inclination) to debate Anzac Day’ (Australian Literary Review, June 2007).

The debate about the use of the history of Anzac and what kind of commemorative activities are appropriate gained pace after the publication of Henry Reynolds and Marilyn Lake’s book What’s wrong with Anzac? The militarisation of Australian history in 2010. In a 2010 article ‘Myth over what matters’, Reynolds and Lake summarised their criticism of ‘the relentless militarisation’ of Australian history and argued that it is no longer appropriate to have a military event playing such an important role in defining the Australian identity.

In a review of What’s wrong with Anzac, Geoffrey Blainey rejected many of the arguments made by the authors, and stated that the popularity of Anzac Day has fluctuated, and in all probability will continue to do so (‘We weren’t that dumb’, Australian, 7 April 2010).

The website Honest History contains a section entitled ‘Anzac analysed’, which attempts to promote more critical voices.

Defence analyst and former Army officer James Brown contends in the Age article ‘Anzac centenary a mission gone wrong’ that, although important, commemorating those Australians who served and lost their lives during war should not take resources away from currently serving personnel. The article summarises the argument of his 2014 book, Anzac’s long shadow: the cost of our national obsession. A similar theme is taken up in the book by Patrick Lindsay, Home front: the never-ending war within our veterans.

In ‘The minefield of Australian military history’, Martin Crotty and Craig Stockings discuss the sometimes difficult relationship between academics and popular history (Australian Journal of Politics and History 60, no. 4 (2014)).

Anzac Day then and now, edited by Tom Frame (UNSW Press, 2016), contains a variety of essays which reflect on the history and meaning of Anzac Day. In his introduction to the book Frame discusses the tension that exists between differing viewpoints about Anzac Day in contemporary Australia.

 

For copyright reasons some linked items are only available to members of Parliament.

© Commonwealth of Australia

Creative commons logo

Creative Commons

With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms, and to the extent that copyright subsists in a third party, this publication, its logo and front page design are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia licence.

In essence, you are free to copy and communicate this work in its current form for all non-commercial purposes, as long as you attribute the work to the author and abide by the other licence terms. The work cannot be adapted or modified in any way. Content from this publication should be attributed in the following way: Author(s), Title of publication, Series Name and No, Publisher, Date.

To the extent that copyright subsists in third party quotes it remains with the original owner and permission may be required to reuse the material.

Inquiries regarding the licence and any use of the publication are welcome to webmanager@aph.gov.au.

This work has been prepared to support the work of the Australian Parliament using information available at the time of production. The views expressed do not reflect an official position of the Parliamentary Library, nor do they constitute professional legal opinion.

Any concerns or complaints should be directed to the Parliamentary Librarian. Parliamentary Library staff are available to discuss the contents of publications with Senators and Members and their staff. To access this service, clients may contact the author or the Library‘s Central Entry Point for referral.