2014 50c Australia At War Gallipoli Campaign Unc Coin

On 25 April 1915, Australian and New Zealand troops came ashore on Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula as part of a wider British effort to seize control of the Dardanelles straits. After the landing, the fighting ground to a stalemate, with Turkish forces holding the ridges of the precipitous terrain for the entire eight-month campaign.

The brutal and intense battles the Anzacs fought on Gallipoli were defining actions for the newly federated nation. For a century, the Anzac spirit has endured as the aspirational ideal of service, mateship and sacrifice for all Australians.

“It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity,”
                    The Honourable Mr Paul Keating, 1993.

Part of the Royal Australian Mint’s Official Anzac Centenary Coin Program and the Australia at War Program.