At the Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli in Turkey, Defence Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles has recounted the stories of Australian families who lost entire generations in the First World War.
Almost 9,000 Australians lost their lives here at Gallipoli, 60,000 across the entirety of World War I, more than 150,000 were injured.
And that’s why you cannot visit a town in our country with more than a couple of hundred people without finding in it a monument to those who served and died in the First World War.
These remembrances are ageing. But they are still there. Look at the names. Look at how many names in such small places.”
About 1800 people were expected to attend the service at Gallipoli, where the Anzac legend was forged on April 25, 1915.
At dawn that day, 16,000 Australian soldiers landed on the Gallipoli peninsula alongside troops from Britain, France and India. Their goal was to help a naval effort to seize control of the Dardanelles and to draw Turkish troops away from Russian soldiers on the Caucasus front.
But the Anzacs met fierce resistance from Turkish forces and 2000 Australians were killed or wounded on the first day of fighting. The allied troops eventually withdrew from the peninsula before Christmas that year.