When was the first Anzac Day? Was it on April 25, 1916, as is supposed, or or was it in Adelaide on October 13, 1915, a century ago this week?
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The admirable Honest History points to the Adelaide event and to how it blended a traditional Labour Day holiday with a fundraising occasion for the Wounded Soldiers Fund.
The Adelaide Advertiser of 100 years ago today waxed lyrical.
"ANZAC DAY. A STIRRING DEMONSTRATION. STREETS BRIGHT WITH COLOUR. CITIZENS GIVE GENEROUSLY."
"Anzac Day dawned as bright as the deeds [on Gallipoli] which made its name famous. Anzac Day was one of good spirit rather than of merriment. The purpose of the occasion was never lost sight of; the many ladies of Adelaide who pinned the blue official ribbons [of donation collectors] across dainty white frocks saw to that. The melody of the day was pitched in a key of patriotism."
The paper's writer's thoughts kept wandering from idyllic Adelaide to hellish Gallipoli.
"Perhaps at the moment when coins were falling into the boxes of fair collectors, the machine guns were spitting forth their death rattle devastating bursts of lead . . ."
Caricatures of that swine the Kaiser were a popular part of the grand procession.
"[There was one] effigy of the Kaiser with an enormous head – a swelled head, presumably – that proved too great a temptation for Britishers to resist, and his Imperial Majesty the King of the Huns was subjected to a bombardment of coins, and sometimes of other less acceptable missiles."
