Anzac Day, on April 25, marks the first major battle involving troops from Australia and New Zealand in Gallipoli, Turkey in 1915.
While the campaign against the Ottoman Turks was ultimately unsuccessful, the day has since become a major annual holiday in Australia and New Zealand and one of remembrance for both countries' troops who have served and died in war.
Prince Harry lays a wreath on behalf of The Queen at the Cenotaph in central London for #Anzac day. pic.twitter.com/0V3Oml59Ob
— Kensington Palace (@KensingtonRoyal) April 25, 2016
Marking 101 years since the arrival of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps on a narrow Gallipoli beach, soldiers from both countries marched to the beat of drums at a dawn service at Anzac Cove on the Gallipoli peninsula on Monday.
Australian Minister for Veterans Affairs Dan Tehan and New Zealand Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee paid their respects by laying wreaths at the service attended by at least 1200 people.
Royal NZ Air Force chief Air Vice-Marshal Tony Davies told those gathered the Gallipoli landings gave the Anzac nations a defining page in their histories.
"The achievements of the Anzacs who came ashore here and held these ridges for eight months, in awful and trying conditions, are rightly to be honoured, their endeavours remembered," he said.
"The shock of the first true experience of war was for some almost overwhelming, giving rise to feelings of guilt, grief and loss that for many would last the rest of their lives.
In London, Prince Harry laid a wreath on behalf of the Queen at the Cenotaph war memorial after attending a commemorative dawn service.
In Belgium a service was held in Mesen.
New Zealand National Anzac Day service at Mesen/Messines #Anzac2016 pic.twitter.com/bE9yehGlgV
— NZDF Heritage (@NZDFHeritage) April 25, 2016
In France, a dawn service was held at Viller-Bretonneux to mark those who lost their lives on the Western Front during World War 1.
Australian Chief of Air Force Air Marshal Leo Davies delivered the commemorative address, describing the 1917 battles at Bullecourt that left 10,000 Australian soldiers dead or wounded.
"This afternoon, as we stand together almost a century later, we do not think of strategic gains, rather we remember the men who waited in the freezing snow for the signal to attack and who risked their lives to save wounded comrades," he said.
"Today we pay tribute not to battles lost or won, but to our diggers, who endured so much on the Western Front. The digger behind me remains to forever watch over the fields of Bullecourt, and our lads, who remain in the care of the people of France."
ANZAC Day Dawn Service at Hell Fire Pass in Kanchanaburi #Thailand (Photos @BKingNZ @GlynTDavies @AusAmbBKK) pic.twitter.com/LuCXniypXf
— Richard Barrow (@RichardBarrow) April 25, 2016
In Thailand, where Anzac Day is observed to also remember those who served and died during the Japanese occupation in the early 1940s, Australian and New Zealand nationals gathered at a memorial service in the western Kanchanaburi Province.
Earlier in the day, former Australian prisoners of war had returned to the Hellfire Pass memorial for a dawn service to remember those forced to worked in harsh conditions to build the Thai-Burma railway track during World War Two.
The Hellfire Pass holds part of the infamous railway track.
The Gallipoli battle was one of the bloodiest of the war, claiming more than 130,000 lives, 87,000 of them from the Ottoman side before the Turks repelled the poorly planned Allied campaign.
Thousands of people attended dawn services throughout New Zealand and Australia on Monday.
- Reuters and AAP
