TheEye and St Crispin were on the G&T’s for a decent percentage of yesterday and one-fingered blogging was just not practical afterwards. So TheEye is a day late recalling Anzac Day.

The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps were formed in 1915 and took part in one of Churchill’s not-so-good ideas; liberating Gallipoli to open up the route to the Black Sea. This would have led to the capture of Istanbul and the toppling of Kemel Ataturk who had allied Turkey with Germany.

8,000 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders died in that campaign and it became indelibly marked in the memories of those two countries – and many others.

The British war correspondent Ellis Asmead-Bartlett provided the first reports of the landing at Anzac Cove, published in Australia on 8th May 1915:

They waited neither for orders nor for the boats to reach the beach, but, springing out into the sea, they waded ashore, and, forming some sort of rough line, rushed straight on the flashes of the enemy’s rifles.

Ashmead-Bartlett’s account of the soldiers was unashamedly heroic:

There has been no finer feat in this war than this sudden landing in the dark and the storming of the heights… General Birdwood told the writer that he couldn’t sufficiently praise the courage, endurance and the soldierly qualities of the Colonials (The Australians) were happy because they had been tried for the first time and not found wanting.

Also in 1915, in response to the reporting of the efforts of the Australian troops, the Australia poet Banjo Paterson wrote “We’re All Australians Now“, including the verse:

The mettle that a race can show
Is proved with shot and steel,
And now we know what nations know
And feel what nations feel.

Australia had, obviously, only been an independent country for 13 years at this point.

The Anzac spirit was particularly popularised by Charles Bean, Australia’s official war historian. From his publication Anzac to Amiens:

Anzac stood, and still stands, for reckless valor in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat.

For the soldiers at Gallipoli, Bean wrote, life would not have been worth living if they had betrayed the ideal of “mateship”. Despite the loss at Gallipoli, Australian and New Zealand soldiers were seen to have displayed great courage, endurance, initiative and discipline. The stereotype developed that the Anzac rejected unnecessary restrictions, possessed a sardonic sense of humour, was contemptuous of danger, and proved himself the equal of anyone on the battlefield.

For “breakfast” before the battle they drank coffee mixed with rum. St Crispin and TheEye will be doing the same thing this weekend in memorium.