What is Anzac Day? Meaning behind the Gallipoli memorial and how it's celebrated in Australia and New Zealand

On Monday 25 April, Australia and New Zealand will commemorate Anzac Day.

Anzac is the acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.

Anzac Day is always marked on 25 April because it is the anniversary of the Gallipoli landings during the First World War.

However, it serves to commemorate all Australians and New Zealanders “who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations” and “the contribution and suffering of all those who have served”.

On 25 April 1915, Anzacs joined the Allied Forces and entered the First World War, launching an expedition to the Gallipoli peninsula.

The plan was to capture the land and gain access to the Dardanelles, a thin strip of water between Gallipoli and mainland Turkey.

It was a key location, as capturing it would have meant Allied ships would be able to get through to the Black Sea, and also Constantinople (now Istanbul, Turkey), the then capital of the Ottoman Empire, which was fighting alongside the Germans.

But while the attack was supposed to be a surprise and victory achieved quickly, the fighting continued for eight months and finished in a stalemate, with huge losses on both sides. Of the 56,000 Allied troops who died, 8,709 were from Australia, and 2,721 from New Zealand.

Australia marks Anzac Day with marches by veterans, as well as serving members of the Australian Defence Force and Reserves, allied veterans, Australian Defence Force Cadets and Australian Air League.

New Zealand marks the day in a similar way, with marches attended by the New Zealand Defence Force, the New Zealand Cadet Forces, members of the New Zealand Police, New Zealand Fire Service and Order of St John Ambulance Service.

Paper poppies are worn as symbols of remembrance, as they are on Remembrance Sunday in the UK and other Commonwealth countries.

Australians gathered for dawn services on Monday morning, the return to full-scale commemorations for the first time since 2019.

People begun gathering at Currumbin on the Gold Coast, Martin Place in Sydney, the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, the Cenotaph in Brisbane and the Australian War Memorial in Canberra from 4.30am.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison led commemorations in Darwin, telling the crowd: “War does strike Europe again, coercion troubles our region once more, an arc of autocracy is challenging the rules-based order our grandparents secured and democratic free peoples are standing together again.

“In facing this world, we must remember again, it is only then we truly appreciate what these times require of us all.”