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.
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.
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
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
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
- Michael Ruffin, a veteran of Malaya, Borneo and Vietnam, Anzac Day
Commemorative Address Dawn Service, Australian War Memorial,
Canberra, 25 April 2022.
- Wing Commander Sharon Brown (Rtd), a nursing
officer and veteran of Afghanistan, Pre-Dawn
Service Address, Australian War Memorial, Canberra, 25
April 2014.
100th anniversary of the
Gallipoli landings
Others
- Warren Snowdon (Minister for Veteransí Affairs), Speech,
Anzac Day Dawn Service, Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux,
France, 25 April 2012.
- Julia Gillard (Prime Minister), Address at the
Dawn Service, Lone Pine Ceremony, Gallipoli, 25 April 2014.
- Quentin Bryce (Governor-General), National
Ceremony Commemorative Address, Australian War Memorial,
Canberra, 25 April 2009.
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.