Masks, wreaths and biscuits mark Anzac Day in Europe

Towns on the Western front, like Bullecourt, Pheasant Wood cemetery at Fromelles, Pozieres, and Villers-Bretonneux held intimate Anzac dawn services despite a national lockdown across France.

The Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence attended Westminster Abbey for an Anzac Day service of commemoration and thanksgiving after earlier laying wreaths at a closed dawn service at Wellington Arch on Sunday.

Prince William, meanwhile sent messages celebrating the “endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour and mateship’’ of Australian and New Zealand soldiers, accompanied with boxes of Anzac biscuits.

“This Anzac Day, Catherine and I join Australians and New Zealanders across the world to remember and honour the service men and women of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps.”#AnzacDaypic.twitter.com/qluVQfc6gQ

— The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge (@KensingtonRoyal) April 24, 2021

Across the Channel in Northern France, the towns on the Western front, like Bullecourt, Pheasant Wood cemetery at Fromelles, Pozieres, and Villers-Bretonneux held intimate Anzac dawn services amid the current national lockdown. Local villagers dressed their houses with Australian flags in a show of solidarity with the Anzacs, whom they have long remembered for their bravery.

Australian High Commissioner George Brandis and New Zealand High Commissioner Bede Corry place wreaths by the British grave of the Unknown Warrior during the annual Service of Commemoration and Thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey.

In Gallipoli, where the Anzac spirit was born, only 50 officials, well down on the thousands of Australian and New Zealand pilgrims of previous years, gathered at Anzac Cove for a pared-back wreath laying ceremony attended by Australian Ambassador to Ankara Marc Innes-Brown and New Zealand Ambassador Wendy Hinton. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s message to the families of soldiers killed in the Gallipoli campaign was read out: “having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well”.

Atatürk was the architect of the Turkish success on the peninsula, resulting in the retreat by the Anzacs, and he would later become the founding leader of the Republic of Turkey.

In central London, wearing a bright purple coat dress and matching hat, Princess Anne met with the Australian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, George Brandis, and the NZ high commissioner, Bede Corry, during the two services on Sunday. While Princess Anne is the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Corps of Signals and the Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Australian Corps of Transport, her husband, Sir Timothy, has been a hard working board member of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris with Gillian Bird, Australian Ambassador to France, and Colonel Joel Dooley, Defence Attaché to France. Picture: Simon Patching/Australian Embassy in France.

While Anzac Day has been commemorated in London since the first anniversary of the ANZAC landings at Gallipoli in 1916, when King George V attended a service at Westminster Abbey, this year’s commemorations were severely limited to a small number of invited guests because of the coronavirus pandemic and UK government restrictions.

Prince William’s message said: ‘’This Anzac Day, Catherine and I join Australians and New Zealanders across the world to remember and honour the service men and women of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Today we stand together to reflect not only on their sacrifices, but also their courage, sense of duty, and their famously indomitable spirit.

Though many will still be unable to come together in person this year, we are heartened in the knowledge that Australians and New Zealanders will continue to commemorate those who have given so much for our freedoms.

The ANZAC qualities of endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humour and mateship are admired as fiercely as ever before.

Lest we forget.