File:ANZAC (13971789791).jpg

The term ANZAC was used for the first time on 8 December 1914.

The word ANZAC is part of the culture and heritage of New Zealand and Australia. People talk about the 'Spirit of Anzac'; there are Anzac biscuits, and rugby and rugby league teams from the two countries play an Anzac Day test. The word conjures up a shared heritage of two nations, but it also has a specific meaning.

ANZAC is the acronym for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. This corps was created early in the Great War of 1914–18. In December 1914 the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) stationed in Egypt were placed under the command of Lieutenant General William Birdwood. Initially the term Australasian Corps was suggested, but the Australians and New Zealanders were reluctant to lose their separate identities completely.

No one knows who came up with the term Anzac. It is likely that Sergeant K M Little, a clerk at Birdwood's headquarters, thought of it for use on a rubber stamp: 'ANZAC' was convenient shorthand. Later the corps used it as their telegraph code word.

The Anzacs first saw action at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915. The small beach and cove where the Australian and New Zealand troops landed was quickly dubbed Anzac Cove. Soon the word was being used to describe all Australian and New Zealand soldiers who fought on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Eventually it came to mean any Australian or New Zealand soldier.

www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/anzac-day/the-anzacs

The image is from the “Anzac Book”, written and illustrated by the men who served at Gallipoli, and published in 1916.

Archives New Zealand Reference: ACGR 8481, PUTTICK9, (R21124691)

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