The Anzac Cemetery

Abstract

How did the Anzac battlefield of 1915 become what we see today? Why were Anzac's scattered graves declared one cemetery? This article looks at how the 1923 Lausanne peace treaty, still in force, made the Anzac area a single war cemeterya significant difference from all other Commonwealth war cemeteries. It shows that the difference stemmed from a sense of the nation-making importance of Anzac to Australia and New Zealand. It argues that this sense is absent from Australia's recent care of Anzac, and that Australia has breached Lausanne and its obligations in surrendering much control of the Anzac site to Turkey. Show more