ANZAC Day - April 25, the Australia and New Zealand national day of remembrance

ANZAC Day on April 25 is the principal national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand. It honours the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps and all subsequent service, anchored on the Gallipoli landings of 1915.

The one-line summary

A national day of remembrance on 25 April in Australia and New Zealand, anchored on the 1915 Gallipoli landings. Dawn services, marches, gun breakfasts, and two-up gambling. The principal holiday on the Australian and New Zealand public calendars outside of Christmas and Easter.

Gallipoli and the founding narrative

The 25 April 1915 landings at Gallipoli remain the foundational moment of ANZAC identity. The ANZAC corps - formed in Egypt from volunteers in 1914 - was tasked, alongside British and French forces, with a surprise landing on the western coast of the Gallipoli peninsula in what was then the Ottoman Empire. The aim was to seize the Dardanelles strait, open a sea supply line to Russia, and knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. The landings met fierce resistance from entrenched Ottoman forces under Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk), the terrain was far more rugged than expected, and Allied logistics collapsed under the weight of casualties. By August 1915 the campaign had become a stalemate; by December 1915 the Allied forces were evacuated. Casualty counts were stark: 28,150 Australian and 7,435 New Zealand casualties, of which roughly 10,500 died (about 8,700 Australian, 2,500 New Zealander). The campaign's strategic failure was later framed, in Australian national memory, as a crucible of identity - the moment when the two young dominions made their first independent contribution to a major war and earned a place at the table of mature nations.

Origin and the rise of ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day was first observed on 25 April 1916, the first anniversary of the landings, with marches and memorial services in Australian and New Zealand capitals. The date coincided with the 1915 Allied evacuation from Gallipoli having been completed the previous December. The "ANZAC" identity had crystallised during the Gallipoli campaign itself: Australian and New Zealand troops had fought at the same beachhead, shared trenches, and been evacuated together in late 1915. By 1916, official recognition of 25 April as ANZAC Day was in place in both countries. The date was codified as a public holiday across Australia and New Zealand in the 1920s, with state-by-state legislation in some cases adopting it immediately (Western Australia in 1920; New Zealand through the Anzac Day Act 1920) and others taking decades (Tasmania officially renamed its 25 April public holiday to ANZAC Day only in 1953).

Dawn services

Dawn services are the defining ritual of ANZAC Day. The first official Australian dawn service was held on 25 April 1930 at Albany, Western Australia - the departure point for the ANZAC convoys in 1914 - at the Padre of the Victorian Bushmen's Brigade (later Canon P. L. Crawford) and the State War Memorial Committee. The Albany ceremony has been held annually since. The Sydney dawn service at the Cenotaph in Martin Place has been broadcast nationally since the 1950s and is the largest ANZAC service in the southern hemisphere, drawing 80,000-120,000 attendees. New Zealand's National War Memorial in Wellington hosts the largest New Zealand dawn service. The timing - shortly before sunrise - commemorates the pre-dawn Gallipoli landings. Most services follow a fixed pattern: a march-in of veterans and standard-bearers, an address, the laying of wreaths at the cenotaph, the playing of the Last Post, a minute of silence, the Rouse, and the national anthems of Australia and New Zealand.

Two-up and the gambling tradition

Two-up is a coin-tossing gambling game with roots in early colonial Australia and strong associations with the ANZAC experience. Two coins are tossed into the air by a "Spinner" with a flat stick ("kip"); players bet on whether both coins land heads up ("Heads"), both tails ("Tails"), or mixed. The game was popular among Australian soldiers at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, where it was often played in the rear trenches during lulls in fighting. Its continued legality on ANZAC Day is a token of cultural recognition of the ANZAC experience: most Australian states expressly legalise two-up at RSL clubs and other licensed venues only on 25 April. Outside ANZAC Day, two-up is illegal in most of the country with the exception of the Northern Territory and a handful of permitted venues in other states.

Marches and gun breakfasts

ANZAC marches are held in cities, regional towns, and small communities across Australia and New Zealand following the dawn service. The largest Australian march is the Sydney March in Elizabeth Street, drawing roughly 25,000-40,000 veterans and descendants. The march is led by the Australian Defence Force, with veterans of subsequent conflicts following behind. Gun breakfasts - community breakfasts hosted by local RSL branches at RSL halls after the dawn service - are a companion tradition, particularly in regional Australia. The breakfasts often pair a hot breakfast with ANZAC history talks and commemorative readings.

Legal status and recent shifts

ANZAC Day is a public holiday in every Australian state and territory and across New Zealand. Both Australian and New Zealand governments observe an additional substitute day when April 25 falls on a weekend. In 2009, the Australian Capital Territory legislated a special ANZAC commemoration that requires Australian-born and naturalised citizens to be present at the Civic dawn service as part of citizenship ceremonies, an unusual provision that has become a model for some other Australian councils. Modern observances extend beyond the original Gallipoli framing: ANZAC Day increasingly honours service in subsequent conflicts (including the Second World War, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan) and peacekeeping deployments.

Contested framings

ANZAC commemoration has periodically been contested, particularly with respect to the day's relationship to contemporary Australian defence policy. The Stop the War Coalition has run counter-marches on ANZAC Day, arguing that the day has been incorporated into military recruitment messaging that underplays the human cost of recent deployments. The Australian Muslim community has engaged in internal debate about ANZAC participation, particularly around the 2015 centenary, when Turkish-Australian communities marked the 100th anniversary alongside Australian commemorations. The day's commercial associations - ANZAC-themed chocolate biscuits, ANZAC-themed fashion promotions, and gambling-themed merchandise - have drawn criticism from RSL officials concerned about the dilution of the day's solemn content.

In other countries

ANZAC Day is observed by Australian and New Zealand diaspora communities in the UK, France, Germany, the US, Canada, and most Pacific Island nations. The Gallipoli landings are marked officially in Turkey at the ANZAC Cove memorial site, in the presence of the Australian and New Zealand prime ministers and the Turkish president. France marks Australian and New Zealand service at the Australian War Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux and the New Zealand memorial in Le Quesnoy. ANZAC Day is one of the few days on which the Australian War Memorial in Canberra is open to the public before noon.

ANZAC Day by the numbers

Sources

• Australian War Memorial, "ANZAC Day": awm.gov.au
• Wikipedia, "ANZAC Day": en.wikipedia.org
• NZ Ministry for Culture and Heritage, "ANZAC Day": teara.govt.nz