ANZACS of GreecePrint Page

Consulate General of Greece in Sydney
ANZACS of Greece

The marble plaque is offered as a gesture of gratitude from the Greek-Australia community for the Australians and New Zealanders - ANZACS - who defended democracy in its birthplace during both World Wars.  More than 64,000 ANZACs set off from the Greek island of Lemnos for the 1915 Gallipoli campaign.  More than 500 Australian and New Zealander nurses served along the Macedonian Front (1916 - 1918).  More than 45,000 ANZACs fought in Greece during World War II.  Of these extraordinary men and women, 795 Australians and 1,200 New Zealanders lie in Greek soil ; nearly half of the Australian war dead have never been found or their remains identified.

The original inscription in classical Greek is part of a longer inscription commemorating the sacrifice of the Athenian warriors who died fighting at the Hellespont (Dardanelles) in the mid 5th Century BCE.  In 1932, Australian poet and classical Greek scholar Christopher Brennan brought the inscription to the attention of Robert Innes Kay.   He in turn, bought to to the attention of Charles Bean.  All three were struck by how aptly the inscription related to the ANZAC experience despite being written over 2,000 years earlier.  A plaster replica was arranged by John Treloar in 1935 and placed on display in the Australian War Memorial.

Lemnos  Macedonia  Crete

ANZACS of Greece

(Inscription in Greek)

Doing battle beside the Hellespont these men lost their shining youth.  

They brought honour to their homeland, so that the enemy groaned as it carried off the harvest of war, and for themselves  they set up a deathless memorial of their courage.

Lemnos  Macedonia  Crete