Anzac mythology in focus for Australia's Gallipoli centenary

After months of Anzac-themed television series, school projects and wall-to-wall media coverage, the centenary of the ill-fated landing of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps on the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25 1915 has finally arrived.

"Their spirit will never die," read the front page of Australia's Daily Telegraph on Friday, while the Sydney Morning Herald published a "Gallipoli 100" supplement detailing some of the tragic personal stories of an Allied military campaign to take the Gallipoli peninsula during the first world war.

Tony Abbott, Australia's prime minister, has joined his New Zealand counterpart John Key, Prince Charles and representatives from about 70 nations to attend services in Gallipoli.

Most events begin on Saturday, Anzac Day, when many Australians will attend dawn services and parades, drink beer and play the wartime game "two-up" in Returned and Services League clubs as they solemnly commemorate the 8,159 Australians who lost their lives in the first big military campaign fought by a young nation that had only come together as a federation in 1901.

Widely acknowledged by historians as a badly planned military catastrophe, the Gallipoli campaign gave birth to the Anzac legend - a "blood sacrifice" integral to the birth of nationhood and values such as courage and "mateship".

Contemporary chroniclers such as Charles Bean, and governments past and present, have all played their part in establishing a mythology around the Anzac campaign.

For many Anzac Day is the Australia's true national day, not Australia Day on January 26, which marks the landing of Captain Cook in 1788. Meanwhile, the valuable contribution of Australian "diggers" to the western front in the first world war has never attracted as much attention as Gallipoli. Likewise, their roles in wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan are not publicly venerated to the same extent.

No expense has been spared by the previous Labor or current Liberal governments in commemorating the war. Ben Eltham, a social affairs commentator, says the A$330m ($256m) spent on the Anzac centenary could reach A$400m. By contrast, the UK spent £55m, France €60m and Germany €4.7m on similar projects to commemorate the start of the first world war.

James Brown, in his book Anzac's Long Shadow: The Cost of Our National Obsession, criticises what he describes as an "Anzac arms race" at a time when Australian military spending is in a parlous state and not enough is being done to support veterans.

But perhaps the main barrier to invoking the spirit of Anzac this weekend lies with the blanket media coverage during the build-up and what many perceive as the increasingly crass commercialisation of the event.

This month retailer Woolworths was forced to delete its Anzac website, which invited users to share war tributes alongside its logo under the slogan "fresh in our memories". Channel Nine boss David Gyngell has described the ratings failure of its big-budget mini-series Gallipoli as his "biggest disappointment of the year".

Peter Stanley, a former Australian war memorial historian, says "commemoration fatigue" has set in. Others question whether the Anzac legend is relevant to an increasingly multicultural Australia.

"This year is probably about as good as it gets for Anzac Day," Professor Stanley told the Australian Financial Review.

© The Financial Times Limited 2015. All rights reserved.
FT and Financial Times are trademarks of the Financial Times Ltd.
Not to be redistributed, copied or modified in any way.
Euro2day.gr is solely responsible for providing this translation and the Financial Times Limited does not accept any liability for the accuracy or quality of the translation