Yes well nice take, even if much of that legend was fiction created by our official war correspondent of the time, Mr bean. Who reported among other things that the (totally incompetent) Brits at Sovala Bay were taking tea while we bled!

From his reported position in the hills behind Anzac Cove, it would, even with the most powerful binoculars, have been impossible to see anything as detailed as anyone taking tea! Moreover, the referenced troops landing at Sovala bay were mostly Irish!

In any event, if we had some actual leadership, we wouldn't have wasted so much time wandering around like Brown's cows, but landed ready to actually storm very lightly held Turkish positions before they could be reinforced; thousands of wasted lives could have been saved.

Furthermore, most of our troops were hopeless city slickers and not the natural warriors of the rural areas.

It was a proper shambles from the get go, and we and our so called leaders were responsible for the virtual bloodbath and the massive defeat that it became; rather than the reportedly incompetent Brits!

Even so, the real legends must be those civilian soldiers who stood their ground time after time, in a legendary battle of strategic withdrawal; stand and fight to fall back and fight over and over again!

Thereby effectively preventing the Japanese from employing their favorite tactic of outflanking those who thought all they needed to do was stand and fight!

So we created a legend based on myth and patent BS on the one hand, and all but ignore the real legends, who were a pitiful few fighting to keep the Nipponese army from these very shores! With almost impossible deeds of daring do!

A vastly more impressive Kakoda, teaches us how to win and also conserve lives; and in so doing earn the grudging admiration of a foe, who for the first time had been repelled; and furthermore, by a smaller less well armed force; or if you will, our Samurais; led by our best WW11 general, a former banana farmer!
Rhrosty.

"One hundred years ago, the world was divided amongst different empires.Then power meant acquiring more land, and therefore the war was the norm rather than an exception."

What's changed? That's the Middle East for ya and Australia always attends a constant war or two in it.

And yes all Australians will toast the Diggers as immortalised by the Prime Minister of beer "Bow" Hawke.

War is not "futile" Alice. It has protected the free world from Nazism, Communism (to a large degree); stopped slavery; brought about self- determination for many people, and presently it is preventing Islamists from taking over the whole world.

It is terrible business, war; but like fossil fuels, it is going to be around for a long time yet.

For instance, after a 100 years of good relations between Australia and Turkey - including Turkey's tolerance of Australians tramping over their country annually - some Turks have retrospectively come up with the idea that Australia's and New Zealand's defeat at Gallipoli was a 'victory for Allah'. More inflammatory blah.

There will always be war and rumours of war. They will have to be fought whether we like it or not. There is no choice if we wish to survive.

Some random points ...

Frankly, I suspect the Turks think we're completely barmy descending on their country every year to celebrate ... oh, sorry, commemorate ... the fact that they beat the crap out of us for invading their country 100 years ago. Of course, they're too polite to tell us they think we're barmy and we're too polite to mention the Armenians.

Secondly, while hundreds of thousands of young Australian men ran off to war 100 years ago, several hundreds of thousands refused to sign up because they could see it was a hypocritical power struggle between a bunch of imperial nations on the other side of the world, who ended up tripping all over their hopelessly confused system of power alliances.

Thirdly, Australia's labour and suffrage movements achieved, and defended, many more of our freedoms than the Anzacs ever did ... without firing a single shot.

ttbn

'War ... has protected the free world from Nazism, Communism (to a large degree); stopped slavery; brought about self- determination for many people ...'

War actually CREATED Nazism in the first place. And the spoils of WWII simply handed the Soviet Communists almost half of Europe on a silver platter, after supposedly 'saving' that same half of Europe from Fascism/Nazism.

War didn't stop slavery; the abolitionist movement did, without having to go to war. The American Civil War was not about slavery (as the propaganda myth machine keeps regurgitating), but about federalism - in particular, smashing the Confederacy's slave-based economic system, which was compromising the profits of the Yankee industrialists.

War has actually DESTROYED the self-determination of billions and billions of people over many centuries and continues to destroy people's self-determination.

The only advantage war ever brings is greater profits for the already super wealthy - who also happen to control the propaganda mechanisms that keep telling us that war is necessary, benevolent and glorious.

Killarney,

Any thoughts on the Korean War?

Was South Korea better off for the defeat of the Communist North?

Did the US benefit from the Korean oil fields?

Do General Motors and Ford love Daewoo and Hyundi?