BBC News Online: World: Europe

Memorial for Gallipoli dead

By Chris Morris in Gallipoli

The prime ministers of Australia and New Zealand have unveiled a new memorial on the Gallipoli peninsula in western Turkey to commemorate thousands of their countrymen who died fighting at Gallipoli against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.

The dawn service, on the 85th anniversary of the first Gallipoli landings, was attended by thousands of people.

A piper's lament before dawn was followed by a solemn ceremony of hymns, prayers and wreath-laying by the water's edge as the sky began to lighten.

Below the cliffs which Anzac troops first tried to storm 85 years ago today, a simple stone memorial has been built in the Gallipoli peace park.

This has become an annual place of pilgrimage for thousands of people who want to pay tribute to the soldiers who died here.

The Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said the Gallipoli generation was almost gone, but it would never be forgotten.

Both Australia and New Zealand forged their sense of national identity on this isolated peninsular.

Larger numbers of Turks, Britons and Frenchmen died here. But the ultimately futile heroics of the Anzac campaign have passed into legend.