Anzac spirit

Lore & Background

The concept was first expressed in the reporting of the landing at Anzac Cove by British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, whose account published in Australia on 8 May 1915 described soldiers springing into the sea and rushing enemy rifles. He wrote that General Birdwood praised the courage, endurance, and soldierly qualities of the Colonials. The poet Banjo Paterson also responded in 1915 with the verse 'We're All Australians Now'. The ANZAC spirit was particularly popularised by Charles Bean, Australia's official war historian, who argued that for soldiers at Gallipoli, life would not have been worth living if they betrayed the ideal of mateship. Bean encapsulated the meaning as 'reckless valor in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat.'

Reader's Guide

The ANZAC spirit has been central to Australian and New Zealand national identity, with the Gallipoli Campaign often described as the moment of birth of nationhood for both countries. Coming just fourteen years after the Federation of Australia, the campaign was one of the first international events where Australians participated as Australians. Historian Ernest Scott linked European settlement of Australia with nationhood on the battlefields of Gallipoli, and Charles Bean extended the notion to New Zealand. The concept faded during the 1960s and 1970s due to anti-war sentiment but resurged in the 1980s, possibly linked to the film Gallipoli. Today, the spirit is invoked at ANZAC Day Dawn Services and is sometimes said to be exhibited during civilian crises such as cyclones, floods, and bush fires. Critics, including Professor Manning Clark, have provided evidence of soldiers' bad behaviour, such as sex orgies, violent scuffles, and brawling, contrasting the innocent image. A body of Australian scholarship argues the legend functions as a national origin myth that displaces frontier violence and Aboriginal dispossession.

Did You Know?

• The first reports of the landing at Anzac Cove were by British war correspondent Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, published in Australia on 8 May 1915.
• Charles Bean, Australia's official war historian, wrote that ANZAC stood for 'reckless valor in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship, and endurance that will never own defeat.'
• The concept faded in the 1960s and 1970s but resurged in the 1980s, possibly linked to the release of the film Gallipoli.
• Professor Manning Clark documented evidence of soldiers' bad behaviour, including sex orgies, violent scuffles, and brawling.

The First Words: How the Legend Was Born

The concept of a shared ANZAC spirit did not emerge from a single deliberate act of nation-building. It arose organically from the front lines of Gallipoli, filtered through the eyes of a British war correspondent. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, reporting on the landing at Anzac Cove, published his account in Australia on 8 May 1915. His dispatches painted the soldiers as leaping from boats into the sea, wading ashore without waiting for orders, and charging toward enemy rifle flashes in a rough, improvised line. He called it the finest feat of the war and quoted General Birdwood praising the courage and endurance of the Colonials. That same year, poet Banjo Paterson responded with We're All Australians Now, crystallising the moment in verse. But it was Charles Bean, Australia's official war historian, who gave the concept its lasting architecture, arguing that mateship was the ideal these soldiers would not betray, and that their sardonic humour and contempt for danger made them equals to any soldier on earth.

Birth of a Nation on a Distant Shore

Fourteen years after the Federation of Australia, the Gallipoli campaign offered something the young Commonwealth had not yet possessed: a shared story of collective purpose on the world stage. History professor Frank Bongiorno has argued that when Australia entered the war in 1914, many white Australians felt their nation had no real history and that its finest days were still ahead. Gallipoli, in that reading, filled the void. Ernest Scott captured this sentiment in A Short History of Australia, a text that remained a standard schoolbook for nearly four decades and ran through six editions. In its preface, Scott framed the entire narrative as beginning with a blank space on the map and ending with a new name on the map, that of ANZAC. Charles Bean extended the same logic to New Zealand, writing in 1924 that the consciousness of nationhood was born on 25 April 1915. Even in 2006, Governor-General Michael Jeffery invoked the campaign as the source of an enduring national identity built on mateship, courage, compassion, and practical intelligence.

A Spirit That Faded and Returned

The ANZAC spirit has never occupied a fixed position in public consciousness. Russel Ward's 1958 book The Australian Legend, which linked the egalitarianism of the bush to the character of the soldiers, became a landmark in Australian historical writing and helped cement the idea. Yet by the 1960s and 1970s, public observance of ANZAC Day had waned considerably. Among baby boomers, interest hit its lowest ebb in the wake of anti-war protests against Australia's involvement in Vietnam, a conflict that complicated the clean heroic narrative. The tide turned in the 1980s, a resurgence that many observers connect to the release of the film Gallipoli. That cinematic moment re-energised political discourse around the ANZAC spirit and, over subsequent decades, drew increasing numbers of young Australians and New Zealanders to Dawn Services, where the qualities of mateship, endurance, and irreverence toward authority continue to be invoked as living values rather than mere historical memory.

The Legend and Its Critics

The ANZAC spirit is not without its detractors, and the language used to describe it reveals a genuine tension. Supporters call it a legend; critics prefer the word myth, suggesting a constructed narrative rather than an organic truth. The most pointed scholarly challenge comes from Australian historians who argue that the legend functions as a national origin story that deliberately displaces and silences the history of frontier violence and the dispossession of Aboriginal Australians. In this reading, the narrative of innocent, fit, stoical, and naturally egalitarian soldiers—disdainful of British class differences and irreverent toward authority—serves to anchor a version of national identity that excludes the continent's first peoples. The qualities attributed to the ANZACs, from larrikinism to good humour, from ingenuity to mateship, are presented as universal and timeless, yet their selection and framing inevitably shape what a nation remembers and what it chooses to forget.

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