Thread: WHO ARE OUR REAL ENEMIES?

Certainly the campaign was a monumental failure, as we're many other battles, but I think Anzac Day is now more about honouring those who served.

I don't agree either.
A very simplistic view, picking out some stuff, & ignoring so much more.
Pickles.

i think its main failure is that it ignores that australia was part of the empire and everyone was a volunteer.

The truth is not complicated, but It's often almost impossible to find.

Gallipoli was Australia's Baptism of Fire. It was also the dawning of a realisation that the Land and it's People were of no importance to the rulers of Britain, other than what could be exploited. The dawning of a realisation that we had grown up and we where on our own.

To me ANZAC Day is a Day is a day to honour and show our gratitude to all who serve, and to mourn and thank the fallen.

It is also a good time to contemplate conflict in all its forms.

Yes I think of my uncle, who served in PNG, but was never the same again and became an alcoholic because he couldn't cope with his memories.

If Whitlam hadn't ended conscription in December 1972 my birthdate might have been in the ballot for Vietnam the next year, so that's a sobering thought. I certainly respect those who went when called up.

I do not march for glorification of war but for my mates and all before us. War is not glory and ANZAC day is not a celebration. It is a show of respect for those who are dead or injured due to their service and their families who suffered often even when people return from wars with invisible wounds.

Yes some drink to much and retell yarns we do not share outside our mates. Chatting with a old digger yesterday who was crying his heart out put more than a few tears in my crews eyes. He was alone this year for the first time.

Lots of our history has been a military disaster or very close to it and yes often due to arrogant and stupid politicians who played with young lives as if it is game of cards. Incompetent Poms have killed a lot of us in the past. Part of the yarn above is true. Read this one if you doubt poms are often stupid. They covered up for a traitor as he was part of the 'establishment'. Churchill tried to sack him but backed down.

Lest We Forget is to me never make the same mistakes again.

As the above posters have pointed out, Anzac Day is not about Gallipoli - that is just the action that supplied the date, as it was the first major action involving Australia as a nation. It is about those who have served, and often given their all for us as a nation, and for that matter, those still serving.

Having said that, and referring to the quote in the first post, what is often confused is "learning from experience" and "finding a scapegoat". Further, looking back over a hundred years and second guessing decisions made under pressure and with limited information is not likely to get a useful result.

Like, for example, an aviation accident, the Gallipoli disaster did not have a single cause, but was the end result of a long series of actions and circumstances. The same applies of course to the whole WW1 disaster. Germany started their invasion of France and Belgium with visions of a repeat of 1870, and reasonably certain that Britain would stay out of it. But Britain could not see the Prussian Empire expanded to include France, and with its navy and empire behind it (and they were - all Australians at Gallipoli were volunteers) they were convinced, as was Wilhelm, that it would be "over before Christmas". What none of them had done was taken to heart the details of the American Civil War, which was, in many respects, a foretaste of the Great War, with industrial might supplying technically advanced armies, leading in many places to stalemate, as happened on the Western Front, as well as producing battlefield casualties on an unprecedented scale.

The Ottoman Empire entered the war on the German side mainly because they thought it would be the winning side, but also because of the British (understandably in the circumstances) cancelling the delivery of a battleship they had ordered (and they thought this would be an opportunity to reclaim Egypt). The Ottomans were thought in Europe to be disorganised and thoroughly corrupt, with little chance of standing up to a western army, and this attitude informed the Gallipoli venture. But not only were they more capable than expected, but they fought fiercely when on home soil. The earlier judgement of them was perhaps seen to show in some of the actions in the later Palestine campaign, which moved from one disaster to another for the Ottomans.

Thank You John for the FACTS, not someones politically biased "öpinion" to which they are obviously entitled, but which is totally irrelevant, and inadmissable as far as I'm aware, unless in C.A.
Pickles.