Crowds of Australians and New Zealanders attend 100th anniversary event
ADVERTISEMENTA dawn service has been held on the Gallipoli peninsula to remember the thousands of soldiers who died there.
Crowds of Australians and New Zealanders have attended the event, for the 100th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of World War One.
Thousands of ANZAC soldiers from the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps were gunned down as they struggled to come ashore on a narrow beach.
The Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott and the New Zealand Prime Minister John Key led tributes.
Britain’s Prince Charles and his son Prince Harry were also present.
About 11,500 Australian and New Zealand troops died in the battle and it was the first time they fought under their own flags.
The fighting claimed more than 130,000 lives, 87,000 of them on the Ottoman side.
There was a performance by Maori singers at today’s dawn service and an Australian didgeridoo wind instrument was played.
Tony Abbott told the service: “Ordinary men did extraordinary things. They lived with death and dined with disease because that was where their duty lay.
“In volunteering to serve, they became more than soldiers, they became the founding heroes of modern Australia.”
John Key said: “Both sides were doing what they believed was right and what they believed was necessary.
“There was something else that the ANZAC troops landing here at Gallipoli did not know as they first struggled on to this foreign soil – it was that their bravery and unity would help to forge the ANZAC bond and reputation that endures to this day.
“I salute that, as I do the troops that opposed them and all that fought on the peninsula.”
Commemorative events for the first Gallipoli landings have also been held in Australia and New Zealand.
Some 200,000 people turned out for a parade in central Sydney, and thousands turned out for dawn services in New Zealand.
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Posted by euronews on Friday, 24 April 2015
Australia PM hails Gallipoli soldiers on Anzac Day http://t.co/wjfmt2mmiDpic.twitter.com/kEj2A10Y4C
— Agence France-Presse (@AFP) April 25, 2015
An estimated 250,000 people turn out for #AnzacDay march through Sydney. http://t.co/roh80EpG1G
— smh.com.au (@smh) April 25, 2015
Is the Anzac legend relevant to an increasingly multicultural Australia and New Zealand? http://t.co/aRC9uIkVEspic.twitter.com/RezRWigDRb
— Financial Times (@FT) April 25, 2015
Are you commemorating #Gallipoli100? Share your stories and photos with us #anzacdayhttp://t.co/jvS3defmVOpic.twitter.com/CdExu0MIGd
— The Guardian (@guardian) April 25, 2015