It is hard to overestimate the importance of Gallipoli to the Australian national psyche. This was the disastrous first world war campaign in which thousands of Australian troops were killed while trying to wrest control of the strategically vital Dardanelles Straits from Turkey.
After storming ashore on April 25, 1915, the troops of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) spent nine months engaged in bitter trench warfare with the Ottoman Turks.
It was a colossal disaster and ended only when the order was given for the battered Allied invasion force to be withdrawn by sea. Gallipoli is the stuff of legend for Australians. It was Australia's first taste of serious combat in the war and the young nation, which had only become independent from Britain in 1901, was keen to prove itself.
The bravery and stoicism of the men who charged the scrubby cliffs of Gallipoli has been celebrated ever since as representing the best of Australia's national character.
The 90th anniversary of the start of the campaign was commemorated on Monday by record crowds, from Gallipoli itself to Sydney and the tiniest Outback town.
But the links with the doomed offensive grow fainter by the year and there is a growing feeling that the emphasis on Gallipoli is to the detriment of veterans who fought in other wars. Historians are beginning to argue that far greater recognition should now be given to another crucial battle, fought by Australians against the Japanese in what is now Papua New Guinea.