In Australia and New Zealand, Anzac Day on 25 April is the most important anniversary in Australia, the day when the Anzac Army was launched during the Battle of Gallipoli in World War I. On this important anniversary, flag-raising ceremonies and parades are held across Australia to commemorate the ANZAC soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country. To raise charitable donations for veterans, businesses and families make Anzac cookies to sell.
■ Gallipoli Peninsula
At the beginning of world war I in August 1914, Australia and New Zealand were both dominions of the British Empire and decided to send a coalition army under the command of the British army. The combined forces are the Austrain and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC Corps for short. The items given to soldiers were printed with ANZAC, and the initial word ANZAC became synonymous with every soldier. The troops were originally scheduled to arrive in Britain in December 1914, but the destination was changed and it was decided to train in Egypt. They thought it would be better to wait until the weather improved, so the advance team met the rest of the troops in Egypt and spent several months there.
According to the original plan, the Army of Anzac was supposed to be sent to the Western Front. By the time they reached Egypt, however, trench warfare had been stalemate on the Western Front. As a result, Britain began to develop some plans to expand the theater of operations away from the Western Front. One of them was the plan strongly advocated by Winston Churchill, then Secretary of the Navy, to attack the Dardanelles. The narrow Strait of Dardanelle, the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus Strait, the Turkish Strait, is the gateway to the Mediterranean and Black Seas and the dividing line between Europe and Asia. The aim of the plan was to break through the narrowest part of the Darnell Strait protected by the artillery positions of the Ottoman Army in the Gallipoli Peninsula and invade the Sea of Marmara. If they were from the Sea of Marmara, they could capture Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, so that the Allied forces of Germany and austria-Hungary could be excluded, and different fronts and ideas could be drawn up in southern Europe.
In February 1915, the British and French fleets began to attack, and on March 18 attempted to break through the strait. And, at least at first, it seems to be successful. However, 6 of the 10 warships that invaded the Sea of Marmara were attacked by mines, and 3 of them were sunk. Therefore, the commander of this small fleet ordered a retreat, and to Churchill's annoyance, they later refused to attack again. Britain also decided to stop warship attacks and the Navy and Army were fighting jointly. First landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula to capture the artillery positions of the Ottoman Army, and then marched on Constantinople. At the same time, it is planned to send minesweepers to the Dardanelles Strait, followed by warships.
At the time, the Anzac Legion was still training in Egypt, but they also participated in the landings because the legions were part of the British Army stationed near the Gallipoli Peninsula. The following month, as the battle plan was drawn up, the Ottoman army was also defensive. Commanding the Ottoman army was General Otto Liman von Zanders of the German army, and the reserve officer who played a decisive role in this defense and led the army to victory was Colonel Mustafa Kemal, later the "father of Turkey" Atatürk, the first president of Turkey.
The landings began in the early hours of April 25. The Anzac Army landed in the bay on the western side of the Gallipoli Peninsula (now Anzac Bay), and the British launched an active attack on the five coastal areas around Cape Hayes at the front of the peninsula, and the French army launched an active attack on the Aegea side of the Dardanelles. The Ottoman army spread all over the coast, covering everything thought might be a landing point, so both the British army and the Anzac army were fiercely defended.
■ Pictured here is the bay where the Army of Anzac landed, taken in 1915. In 1986, the Turkish government officially renamed the bay Anzac Bay.
As planned, the British moved along the peninsula, with the Anzac Army crossing the peninsula to cut off the Ottoman army's logistical line, and then the British army rendezvoused with the Anzac Army to seize the highlands in the middle of the peninsula. From this high ground, it was possible to attack the artillery positions of the Ottoman army from behind. However, just as the Anzac Army was successfully landed and headed inland, close combat began. It was a place of complex terrain, with steep hills and deep canyons. The situation was in disarray, the logistics line was no longer functioning properly, and the attack began to stall.
It was at this time that Mustafa Kemal mobilized the Turks' reserves and issued the following order, which would later become famous in Turkey: "I am not ordering you to fight, I am ordering you to die!" "Mustafa Kemal became a hero of Turkey, probably because the battle prevented the defeat of the Ottoman army."
Due to the movement of the Turkish reserves, the Anzac Army was unable to enter the central highlands of the peninsula. The British suffered the same difficulties, and although they successfully landed, both the British and Anzac armies were forced into brutal trench warfare and had to continue fighting in unfavorable positions. Instead, the Ottoman army has been occupying high ground.
■ The stalemate situation was not broken, and another attack at Gallipoli only built a western front in Turkey.
In the 3 months since then, both armies have launched attacks on enemy trenches, but the trenches have strengthened their defenses with barbed iron lines and machine guns, causing a large number of casualties and still unable to advance. People with diarrhea continue to appear due to the harsh living environment caused by extreme heat and flies. In August, new British forces landed at Suvera Bay, north of the Anzac Army position. The Army of Anzac attacked the ottoman trenches and sealed off the enemy's movements, during which time the British army successfully landed. The first phase of this attack was the Battle of Lone Pine, which lasted 3 days from August 6. During this battle, several particularly fierce battles were fought, and although the Ottoman trenches were captured, the British army did not advance inland from Suvira Bay. If there is any result, it is only the extension of the trench line, and the overall situation has not changed.
As the British army and the Anzac Corps approached December in the Galilee Peninsula, they received orders to retreat. London's army cadres and politicians finally had to admit defeat, a conclusion that had been clearly drawn long ago. Nevertheless, in order to withdraw up to 120,000 soldiers from the operation on the peninsula, the retreat was carried out in the form of a model. The real success of the retreat was the retreat, which sacrificed the lives of 44,000 Coalition soldiers, including 8,700 Australians and 2,700 New Zealanders.
■ This is a photograph of the Allied forces before their retreat from the Gallipoli Peninsula, australian soldiers of the Army of Anzac who launched an attack on ottoman positions during the military operation.
The Anzac Legion returned to Egypt from Gallipoli, reinforcing the Legion in preparation for the next battle. This time the enemies were palestine and the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, then the Western Front. The Army of Anzac, mobilized by the Western Front, under the command of the British, took part in major battles such as the Somme and Pachandale. The Anzac Legion was heavily shelled at Gallipoli and thrown into the most severely sacrificed battlefield of the First World War, dealing a huge impact on the people of their homeland in Australia and New Zealand. This time, for the first time, the two countries are united. Although the relationship between the two countries and Britain is still stuck in the colonial past, from that moment on it was thought that the future would be different, and the two countries developed a sense of identity as nations at this time.
Nationals of Australia and New Zealand, as well as soldiers sent overseas, commemorated the start of the Battle of Gallipoli on 25 April 1916. There, memorial marches and prayers were held to mourn the soldiers who died in battle, and fundraisers were held for the wounded. One way to raise money is to sell handmade cakes and biscuits. It is here that the tradition of making Anzac biscuits, which continues to this day, is said to have been sent by family members to Anzac's legions overseas. There is little empirical evidence, but judging by the peculiarities of this biscuit—a recipe that can be preserved for months—it is not impossible that an Anzac biscuit was sent to the garrison of any legion from Australia and New Zealand to the western front of France and Belgium.
Anzac Day
■ The march in Blizzben on April 25, 1916, was a celebration of the first anniversary of the landing of the Gallipoli Peninsula.
Anzac cookies are sometimes confused with hard cookies. Hard biscuits were the standard ration for the British army in World War I, also known as military biscuits. In addition, the soldiers of the Anzac Legion came up with the nickname hard tucker, probably because the hard biscuits were so hard that some soldiers broke their teeth while eating, which of course was a joke. This is a joke to compare the hard pieces of hard biscuits with the light and crispy wafers, presumably to say that the Anzac Legion is very tenacious, and even the hard tucker can eat them as easily as the wafers. In any case, the families of the Anzac soldiers did send packages containing food to the soldiers. If there had been cookies like those made by Anzac Day, they would have been in the package.
■ Traditional Anzac biscuits
The traditional ingredients for Anzac biscuits are rolls of oats, coconut milk flour, wheat flour, butter, gold syrup, sodium bicarbonate and water. If eggs and other ingredients are added, the preservation time of cookies may be shortened, so do not use. This was originally a recipe made to deliver biscuits to the soldiers of the Anzac Legion on the other side of the globe without spoiling them. Both the Australian and New Zealand governments have passed laws to regulate the use of the name "ANZAC" by businesses, which is to make the cookie stay the same forever and let the profits be used for charitable activities.
It is important to note that the use of the term "ANZAC" in cookie products is permitted on the premise that the product generally follows traditional production methods and forms and is not used in a form related to the term "cookie" and its non-Australian meaning. — Statement from the Australian Department of Veterans Affairs.
After the war, memorials were held in their current form, with Both Australia and New Zealand designating April 25 as a national holiday. Anzac Day begins with a morning prayer ceremony that coincides with the landing in Anzac Bay, with formal memorial services such as wreaths of flowers offering to the memorials of the fallen, followed by worship and other memorial services, and military parades are held in various places. In the past, such military parades have also caused controversy, because some people believe that military parades are not memorials to the victims of the past, but praise war. This sentiment was particularly strong during the Vietnam War, when Australia and New Zealand also participated in the Vietnam War, during which time anti-war demonstrations were held on "Anti-War Day".
One of the traditional events of Anzac Day is the "Breakfast of Flames" taken by military and civilian people who attend the morning prayer ceremony. Coffee with rum added was the coffee that soldiers of the Army of Anzac drank in World War I before the battle began. In addition to this tradition there are twigs and games of wearing wild rosemary on the Gallipoli Peninsula. "2 -up" is a gambling game often played by soldiers in the trenches, throwing two coins and betting on whether it will appear on the back or the front.
Recently, there has been renewed interest in the Anzac Legion in World War I, and in particular their role in the Battle of Gallipoli. Although the reasons are not quite clear, in the present day when the war has become a distant past, even if we think of the soldiers who died in the First World War and the wars that followed, and even if we thank the people who returned home from the war, it is perhaps clearer than before that we cannot support the war. At this time, the activities of Anzac Day have to admit that the national celebration ceremony has a strong celebration color than the mourning of the dead. Nevertheless, people from different times and in different social fields are still commemorating this day in some form. The tradition of baking or buying Anzac biscuits for charity for veterans has continued, so you can really feel the connection to the past. What the soldiers in the trenches of Gallipoli actually looked like, and what their families were like in their homeland, although it is impossible to know, can at least recall them in this form.