Ninety-three years on, the Anzac spirit continues to grow in Canberra, with new records set yesterday for the dawn service and national ceremony.
It was a similar story around the country, with Australians gathering at memorials and cenotaphs in cities and towns, each to remember and honour in their own way.
About 30,000 sat and stood quietly outside the Australian War Memorial on a cool Canberra morning for the dawn service. Later, 20,000 clapped and cheered as 4000 veterans and their descendants marched proudly along Anzac Parade.
It was Kevin Rudd's first Anzac Day as Prime Minister, and, with the Governor-General in Afghanistan, he took the official salute as the marchers paraded by and presented the commemorative address.
Mr Rudd said Anzac Parade was silent and still, but spoke softly with the voices of the 100,000 souls of those who had given their lives for their nation. He wondered what those men and women would say.
"I think it is this. That whatever the comforts of our modern age ... there is something unique about this land Australia and the ideals for which we Australians stand," he said.
That Australians were good people, with a deep sense of liberty "which should never be surrendered whatever the cost".
Similar services were held in Gallipoli, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam, Malaysia, London, and, for the first time officially, in a small French town. About 5000 people turned up for a service at the rural town of Villers-Bretonneux, which Australian soldiers recaptured 90 years ago yesterday, helping turn the German advance and the course of the war.
About 10,000 more made the annual pilgrimage to Gallipoli, where the Anzac legend was born 93 years ago.
People throughout the country tried to define that legend yesterday.
Salvation Army Major Rodney Ainsworth delivered the dawn service address in Canberra.
"Anzac stood, and still stands, for reckless valour in a good cause, for enterprise, resourcefulness, fidelity, comradeship and endurance that will never own defeat," he said.
"It is not the responsibility or assigned to our governments or leaders. Nor is it confined to those who serve in the rank. It is you and me. It is me realising and saying this morning what the Anzacs did was important and they did it all for us."
In Sydney, Land Commander of Australia Major-General Mark Kelly said the term Anzac "has transcended the physical meaning to become a spirit".
"[It is] an inspiration which embodies the qualities of courage, discipline, sacrifice, self-reliance and in Australian terms, mateship and a fair go," he said.
In a reminder that those sacrifices continue today, Nicole Pearce and her daughters, Stephanie, 12, and Hanna, six, laid a special wreath at the memorial at the Oxenford-Coomera RSL on the Gold Coast.
Their husband and father, Trooper David Pearce, 41, was one of three Australians killed in Afghanistan last year.
Dutch and Australian soldiers serve side by side in the dangerous Afghanistan province of Oruzgan. The son of newly installed Dutch defence chief General Peter van Uhm was one of two Dutch soldiers killed in a roadside bomb a week ago.
About 1.5million Australian men and women served in eight major wars or conflicts during the 20th century. More than 100,000 died, another 200,000 were wounded and more than 30,000 taken prisoner..