Anzac Day was first commemorated in 1916 to honour those lost at Gallipoli. The latter was a futile campaign cooked up by British generals in response to the stalemate on the Western Front, one with very little chance of success but with a great chance of being killed. The landscape was impossibly forbidding and the Turks, very good soldiers.

Similar incompetence was on display (yes, British generals again) at many battles on the Western Front, where decent men were sent on impossible missions, most often to their deaths. It doesn't take much of a military brain, not even average intelligence really, to understand that running into fields of machine gun fire with little or no cover is crazy and futile. This happened, doubtless to the surprise of German soldiers, on many occasions. Specifically, it occurred for the Anzacs at Fromelles, where, despite attempted interventions by Australian officers, a massacre occurred where one should not have. It is puzzling to find such  wilful stupidity on display, a callous disregard for one's own soldiers.

Nevertheless, today we remember with sadness and gratitude the sacrifice of these brave souls. The Great war was a baptism of fire, to coin a cliché, for the new nations of Australia and New Zealand. The consequences of that awful conflict were very much taken to heart. Today Anzac Day is as strong as ever and Anzacs include all those who have fought in wars since then.

I hope that in future conflicts, should they occur, that Australian forces are under the command of Australian officers, top to bottom. 

'They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.'

Lest we forget