Two comments if I may.
The first is that the stories about the fledgling RAN having landed at the wrong beach has always besmirched the Navy. But a decade ago, when Senator Nick Bolkus was promoting a greater respect for our military heritage, I heard an old soldier remark that he was on the bridge of one ship when the specific order came through to go exactly where they did go.
The order may have well been faulty but not due on any part to the Aussie navy or army.

The other matter is that I learned when formally studying military history that the Turks and Aussies held many cease fires, played sport together, shared religious festivals... It was not they who wanted the war but their political superiors back safely in their own capitals away from harm.

Khamal Ataturk and Churchill both saw their men as expendable

This is a necessary and effective challenge to the uncritical celebration of the Gallipoli defeat. As many Australians died, were wounded or captured in the first seven weeks on the Western Front as in the whole seven months of the Gallipoli campaign. Names like Fromelles (5533 casualties in 14 hours on 19 July 1916) and Pozieres are so rarely spoken in Australia, yet we continue to eulogise Australian's heroism at Gallipoli. Why?

Why do we ignore Villers-Bretonneux, Mont-St Quentin and Passchendaele and Bullecourt? (Some were actually victories under great duress.)

Why has the Anzac myth developed so strongly and why is it now becoming so de rigeur for many young Australians to do a 'pilgrimage' to Anzac Cove?

It's not before time that the truth about Gallipoli and other theatres of WW1 was exposed from the cloak of obscene secrecy thrown over it by those who gloryfy war and continue to expose our youth to untimely death in foreign lands in defence of Empires.

Both my Grandfathers, two great uncles and two second Cousins served in Europe and Palestine and I found their military records obtained from Archives absorbing reading; like one Courts Martial where a young Australian Stockman 2nd Cousin in the Light Horse when harassed by a pommy Sergeant told him to go and get F**ked... Told he would be reported to the Sergeant Major,another Pom, retorted..."Well he can go and get F**ked too."

Then , as now, the returning veterans had to fight for recognition of their sacrifices and as a Nation we have not yet woken to the fact that those who cause the wars do not fight them and troops are always 'expendable'

Anzac Day most certainly should be a day of remembrance exposing the realities of War which inlude the suffering of civilian populations, rape of women and children without the distortions to create myths.

Time has seen Turks and Anzacs respecting each others history just as time will eventually see the Vietnamese as defenders of their homeland and the Iraqi's as fighting foreign invaders.
Lest We Forget ( and dont ever learn)

Celebrating Anzac Day is as perverse as treating the vicious criminal, Ned Kelly, as a hero.

Australians were killed, not by Turks who had every right to defend their country, but by incompetent Pommy officers.

I do not wish to show disrespect for the diggers but, boy, have they been made fools of. Gallipoli was a disaster we should try to forget, rather than celebrate.

I'm an Australian and wouldn't want to be anything else. But, we sure have some funny ideas. It's about time we put aside the ignominy of Anzac Cove, and looked to the future. We have things in our past much more appropriate to be proud of.

As noted above, bravery and sacrafice was made "as a Nation". However, it was not for the country. Rather, it was for King and another country. On reflection, we were not really a nation, and, if memory serves, Defence was still under British control until into the 1920s. [Perhaps, some knows the date?] Curtin standing down Churchill (WWII) was a better example of nationhood. When we become an independent country without its servicepersons swearing allegiance to an English family of largely Germanic decent we will be truly, Australia. Relately, WWI was all treaties and monarchy, that is why the WAS "heard around the World".

As for the ANZACs themselves, the Coo-ee March and social entrapment does not detract from the courage they reported displayed, largely as a result of a moronic British military class upholding a system that has its origins in collapse of the Western Roman Empire,and, the old slave systems ultimately became Lords of the Manor and fiefdoms.

In full stops in sentences and certain words in computer programs are called, "delimiters". Brass bands and pomp and cerimony perform this role too. What are these performances delimiting? Generally, the mistakes made politicians [and for commerce wishing to re-establish business relationships.]. Moreover, we have now transitioned into an early period of religious wars, and, trade with Russia, China and Vietnam. That is macro. The micro, are those whom ride their horses into "valley of death", as would have the 60 million in the twentieth century.

Thank you for this article. I will make my children read it.

Just recently I asked my 13yo old daughter did she know the history behind ANZAC day and Gallipoli after she told me of the 'celebrations' at school. She didn't and was rather unbelieving when I told her.

And thank you for mentioning Churchill's part in the whole saga.

This is an excellent example why history should be compulsory in schools and taught completely and in context. Not the ridiculous disconnected snippets I've seen my sons do at school when I made them 'choose' history at High School.