Mateship was one of the most important traits of an Anzac soldier. It meant to risk your life in order to save a friend. While researching I found a photo (see; below) taken in 1915 on the hights of Gallipoli with the Aegean Sea in the background. The caption reads "A digger caries a wounded comrade down to a dressing station near North Beach" - this picture clearly shows the core of mateship and the Anzac legend. To be an Anzac is to hold headfast into battle, to do what's best for your country against all odds and, to die, with a smile. .
Wartime correspondents whose reports reached not only Australia but also the world aided the creation of the Anzac legend. Among the many reports that reached Australia were those of Ellis Ashmead Bartlett who wrote of the "magnificent victories" made by the Anzac soldiers. "Then the Australians found themselves facing an almost perpendicular cliff of loose sandstone Somewhere half way up, the enemy had a second trench, strongly held Here was a tough proposition to tackle in darkness, but those colonials, practical above all else, went about it in a practical way They stopped for a few minutes got rid of their packs, and charged up their magazines.
Then this race of athletes proceeded to scale the cliffs without responding to enemy fire. They lost some men In less than a quarter of an hour the Turks were out of their second position, either bayoneted or fleeing- wrote Ashmead Bartlett (Argus, 8 May 1915). This extract demonstrates how Ashmead Bartlett glorified and exaggerated the victories made by the Anzacs and romanticized the horrors of the Gallipoli campaign. His articles and those written by other corespondents such as C.E.W. Bean and John Masefields did however help the birth of the Anzac legend. .
The Anzac legend has continued to form part of Australia's identity throughout the 88 years following the Gallipoli campaign. After the Allied soldiers were withdrawn from Gallipoli in December 1915 the Anzac spirit lived on in the Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought on the Western Front.
