Anzac Day occurs on 25 April. It commemorates all New Zealanders killed in war and also honours returned servicemen and women.
Anzac Day
Background - the Gallipoli campaign
Within a few months of the outbreak of war (August 1914) a line of trenches stretched from Switzerland to the Belgian coast. The Germans and their Austro-Hungarian allies were on one side of the line, and on the other there were the French and British forces and their allies. Things had reached a stalemate.
Search for a strategy
The British were keen to find ways to break the German lines. Superior sea power seemed to be the answer. The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, suggested several ways to use British naval resources. One of these was an assault on the Dardanelles. This 50-kilometre-long strait, which separates the Aegean Sea from the Sea of Marmara, was, at its narrowest point (the Narrows), less than 2 kilometres wide. The aim was to pass a force into the Sea of Marmara and threaten Constantinople, which was the capital of Germany's ally, the Ottoman Empire (modern Turkey). The city guarded the Bosphorus, which is a narrow waterway that leads into the Black Sea, so the city was open to attack from the ocean.
Landing plans - the Gallipoli campaign
The grand plan
General Sir Ian Hamilton, in charge of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, had about a month to finalise plans for the landing of troops on the rough coastline of the Gallipoli Peninsula. There was much improvisation in the weeks preceding the landings and little time to practise.
Conditions on Gallipoli - the Gallipoli campaign
The Gallipoli peninsula is a spectacular place: steep valleys, deep ravines and high cliffs towering above long, narrow beaches. It can be searingly hot in summer and bone chillingly cold in winter. For most of 1915, this impressive and unforgiving landscape was home to thousands of young men; many of whom, like the New Zealanders, were far from home.
The August offensive - the Gallipoli campaign
The attack on Chunuk Bair in August 1915 was one of New Zealand's key events on Gallipoli. Here, on one of the three peaks in the Sari Bair range, the New Zealanders fought hard to win the summit. The victory was short-lived and costly, like so much of this August offensive.
The end of the campaign - the Gallipoli campaign
The August offensive was the last major throw of the dice for the British allies in the Gallipoli campaign. In mid-September the weary New Zealanders were withdrawn to Lemnos for rest and reorganisation. By the time they returned to Anzac in November, the future of the campaign had been set.
