ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC day, the official memorial day in Australia and New Zealand. It marks the launch of the Gallipoli campaign during the First World War.

The First World War was a total waste and nothing good was achieved at an enormous cost.

The Gallipoli campaign was the mad plan of a crazy young warmonger called Winston Churchill. He seemed to have an obsession for war, but did not care about the human cost.

The war was a battle between the four, dying, Christian empires of Europe. Turkey had no interest in the dispute, but Britain and Germany bullied it into taking sides, because they wanted access to its resources. The Ottoman Empire was already on its last legs. The war killed the last Moslem empire, and the new nation state of Turkey emerged in its place.

The leaders of Europe blundered into war because they made threats against each other and then were too arrogant to back down. France and England had dominated Western Europe since the Spanish Empire collapsed, and they were threatened by the rising star of the united German nation. They seemed to want beat it up before it became too strong. All pointless posturing of pompous politicians.

The British reasons for joining this strange terrible war are even more obscure. They had the world’s largest empire, so they might look weak, if they did not join the fight.

The embarrassing question that no one dares to ask is why young Christian men from New Zealand, a small nation in the South pacific were attacking and invading a Moslem nation just off the Mediterranean. New Zealand soldiers had no justification for invading and killing the Turkish people defending their homeland. We should be embarrassed by this event. If a Moslem army from the Middle East tried to invade New Zealand, we would kick up a great fuss, so why was it alright for us.

I presume it was justified for us to invade a distant Moslem nation, because we are British, and God is on our side.

Despite our legends, the Turks proved to be the better fighters, and after months trapped on the beach and clinging to the rough hillsides above it, the British forces had to withdraw after the Turks inflicted massive casualties on the trapped armies.

The official line is that they gave their lives for their nation, but their lives were stolen for a political lie.

New Zealand celebrates a defeat by people we considered inferior for our national day. What does that say about us as a nation? If we had learned from our mistake and were looking back with humility, that would be okay, but to look back on a defeat and pretend that it makes us a great nation is a bit warped.