Welcome in. It is fantastic to have you joining
us for a brand new deep dive today. We have a
massive stack of sources to get through. We really
do. Yeah, it covers a story that spans continents,
world wars, and even international intellectual
property law. Which is quite the leap. Right.
To pick things off, I want you to just imagine
a simple acronym. Picture something created by
a group of exhausted administrative clerks who
were just, you know, tired of writing at a really
long cumbersome title on endless stacks of paperwork.
A very relatable feeling. Oh, absolutely. But
now imagine that exact same clerical shortcut
becoming so universally sacred that it gets strict
international legal protection. It dictates the
precise terminology you are allowed to use when
naming a baked good and fundamentally defines
the national identity of two countries. It really
does sound like a premise for a bizarre historical
fiction novel. It does. But we are looking at
absolute historical fact here. And what's really
fascinating here is how a military grouping born
out of a rather pragmatic desire to avoid bad
weather evolved into this enduring, almost untouchable
symbol. I mean, the journey from an administrative
abbreviation to a legally protected national
hallmark is a perfect example of how the mechanics
of history are rarely as neat and tidy as the
legends that follow them. Spot on. So our mission
today is to dig into the actual historical sources
and unpack the real, incredibly surprising history
behind ANZ A2C, the Australian and New Zealand
Army Corps. Most of us are familiar with the
standard Gallipoli narrative. You know the legends
surrounding it. Right, but these sources reveal
a completely different operational reality on
the ground. We are going to look at the fascinating
logistical quirks that started it all, the massive
multinational diversity, the troops who actually
fought under that banner, and those fierce modern
-day legal battles over the word itself. Okay,
let's unpack this, because the bad weather angle
you just mentioned is something we really have
to start with. It's the catalyst for everything.
Yeah. The year is 1914. It's November. Thousands
of Australian and New Zealand troops are sailing
in a massive convoy. They are fully expecting
to land in Europe to fight on the Western Front.
But looking at the records, that plan changes
abruptly. What exactly caused that sudden diversion?
To understand that pivot, we have to look at
the environmental reality in England at that
specific moment. The British authorities were
closely observing the Canadian Expeditionary
Force. Right. They had already arrived. Exactly.
They were stationed on Salisbury Plain. And Salisbury
Plain is this large exposed chalk plateau in
southern England. And the Canadians were suffering
terribly. Just freezing. Oh, yeah. Dealing with
severe shortages of proper accommodation. They
were living in tents right in the middle of a
freezing, wet, deeply miserable English winter.
The mud and the cold were just decimating their
morale and their health before they even saw
combat. So Horatio Kitchener, the British Secretary
of State for War, he looks at that situation
and makes a call. A purely logistical call. He
did not want to subject the newly arriving Australians
and New Zealanders to that same freezing misery.
So he diverted their entire convoy to Egypt.
Wow. The strategy was simply to let them complete
their training in the warm, dry Egyptian climate
before eventually moving them to the European
front. So the entire trajectory of these nations'
military histories shifted just to avoid an English
winter. Pretty much. That is wild. So once they
arrive in Egypt, Kitchener appoints Lieutenant
General William Birdwood to command this newly
combined force. He was an officer of the British
Indian Army. but the initial naming convention
caused quite a bit of friction in the records.
It did. The original proposal was to call them
the Australasian Army Corps. From the perspective
of the British administrators, why do they think
Australasian was the right fit? Well, in the
broader British cultural lexicon of the time,
Australasian was a very common, convenient sporting
term. Like for tennis and stuff. Right. It was
frequently used when Australia and New Zealand
fielded combined teams for international competitions
like tennis or the Olympics. So it seemed like
a natural unifying label to the officials sitting
over in London. But the New Zealand recruits
forcefully rejected it. They absolutely hated
it. The sources show active, organized complaints
from the New Zealanders who felt the term Australasian
completely swallowed up their distinct national
identity. They were adamant about receiving separate,
distinct recognition within the title of the
military formation. You wanted their name on
the door. Exactly. And because of that sustained
pushback, the military authorities relented.
The name was officially cemented as the Australian
and New Zealand Army Corps. a major victory for
representation. But looking at the sheer volume
of logistics required to run an army, that must
have been a nightmare for the clerks. Oh, a total
nightmare. I mean, every single requisition form,
medical record, and payslip suddenly required
writing out, Australian and New Zealand Army
Corps. How did the clerks handle that administrative
burden? They simply didn't. They just refused.
They took the path of least resistance. The clerks
in Egypt found writing out that massive title
entirely too cumbersome for the sheer volume
of daily paperwork they were processing for thousands
of troops. To save time and ink, they started
abbreviating it using a rubber stamp, or just
handwriting A and NZ AC. That administrative
shortcut quickly blurred into the single word
ANZAC. I love that. The big aha moment of this
deep dive is realizing that one of the most famous
military acronyms in history wasn't a PR masterstroke.
It was literally just clerks trying to get through
their shift. Just trying to go home on time.
And we should clarify a timeline detail that
often gets lost here too. While the military
officially adopted it as a code name for the
Corps shortly after those clerks started using
it, the word ANZSE did not enter common everyday
usage among the troops themselves until well
after the famous landings at Gallipoli. So they
weren't calling themselves ANZACs on the boats.
No, not at all. It began as an administrative
convenience. It only acquired its profound emotional
weight after those soldiers had endured the crucible
of combat together on that peninsula. Here's
where it gets really interesting, because there
is a massive historical misconception about Who
actually fought under that banner at Gallipoli?
A huge misconception. When you hear the word
ANZAC today, the immediate image is a force exclusively
made up of Australians and New Zealanders. But
the source material paints a radically different,
highly complex picture of the forces on the ground.
The diversity of the force at Gallipoli is staggering
when you actually look at the order of battle.
The name has become completely synonymous with
two specific nations, but the ANN &CC force was,
in operational reality, a highly multinational
body. break that down for us. For instance, British
officers served in command roles all throughout
the corps and division staffs. And beyond the
command structure, you had units like the 7th
Brigade of the Indian Mountain Artillery operating
right alongside them. I also noticed in the records
there is mention of the Zion Mule Corps and the
Salon Planters Rifle Corps. Yes. What were their
specific roles within the ANZC structure? The
Zion Mule Corps is a fascinating piece of this
puzzle. They were a Jewish volunteer unit. primarily
made up of Russian Jews who had been deported
from Palestine by the Ottoman Empire. They provided
essential, highly dangerous logistical support.
They were leading mules loaded with water, ammunition,
and supplies up these steep cliffs under heavy
enemy fire. Incredible. and the Ceylon Planters.
The Ceylon Planters Rifle Corps was a unit composed
mostly of British tea and rubber planters living
in what is now Sri Lanka. They served as the
general officer commanding's guard and provided
escort duties. So you have Russian exiles from
Palestine and British planters from Sri Lanka.
And it wasn't just specialized support or guard
units either, right? The infantry battalions
themselves were heavily mixed. Oh, absolutely.
We have to factor in the sheer volume of infantry
from outside Australia and New Zealand. At various
points during the campaign, the ANZAC forces
included several battalions from the Royal Naval
Division, the British 13th Western Division,
an entire brigade from the British 10th Irish
Division, and the 29th Indian Brigade. That is
a massive amount of non -Australian and non -New
Zealand troops. It is. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, it fundamentally changes
how we understand the mechanics of the Gallipoli
campaign. The popular legend over the last century
has really streamlined the narrative into a story
of two emerging colonial nations forging their
identity. Right, it simplifies it. But the historical
truth of the operation was a deeply integrated,
highly collaborative multinational operation
utilizing the full breadth of the British Empire.
It makes me think of massive modern international
joint ventures. How so? Well, you see one primary
brand name on the outside of a massive architectural
project, right? And it feels like it belongs
to one specific entity. But when you look at
the blueprints, you realize it was constructed
by a wildly diverse, interconnected global workforce.
The ANZAC name effectively overshadowed the reality
of the diverse personnel carrying out the operation.
That's a great analogy. Let's track the evolution
of this force after that campaign. Following
the evacuation of Gallipoli in December 1915,
the forces withdraw to Egypt and undergo a massive
reorganization. The sources show the New Zealanders
finally get their own distinct New Zealand division.
Which they had wanted from the start. Exactly.
And the Australian forces expand, forming the
INZ AC Corps, which heads to the trenches of
France with General Birdwood, and the second
ANZ AC Corps under Lieutenant General Alexander
Godley. But they weren't just fighting in the
mud of the Western Front. I'm seeing references
to camels and wireless squadrons in completely
different theaters of war. Yeah, the reorganization
spun off some highly specialized units that are
so often overlooked. A prime example is the Imperial
Camel Corps, formed in early 1916. Literally
writing camels. Literally writing camels. Within
this corps, you had the fourth ANZAC battalion.
The structural breakdown was quite specific too.
The first and third battalions were Australian,
the second was British, and they fought on camelback,
navigating the harsh, arid conditions of the
deserts across Egypt and Palestine. Furthermore,
you had units like the first ANZ -SC Wireless
Signal Squadron, which was a highly technical
communications unit deployed all the way over
in Mesopotamia throughout 1916 and 1917. The
geographic spread is just incredible. Yeah. Now
let's jump forward in the timeline to the Second
World War, because the original ANZ -SC Corps
was disbanded after World War I. But in the spring
of 1941 during Operation Luster, the name officially
returns. How did that resurgence happen? Operation
Lester involved moving allied forces to reinforce
Greece against an impending Axis invasion. The
Australian I Corps headquarters, under the command
of Lieutenant General Thomas Blamey, was deployed
to the Greek mainland. Okay. Because Blamey's
corps controlled not just Australian troops,
but also the New Zealand Second Division, alongside
various Greek and British formations, the historical
weight of the combined force was recognized.
So on April 12th, 1941, it was officially renamed
the AN Zesic Corps. of the name happens under
incredibly desperate circumstances. The Battle
of Greece was brutal and over in a matter of
weeks. The headquarters is forced to evacuate
the mainland by late April, and that official
ANZAC Corps title is dropped again almost immediately.
It was very short -lived. But the story of the
soldiers during that subsequent retreat is astonishing.
Many of these troops were sent to the Greek island
of Crete. to reinforce the garrison there. What
were the conditions on the ground during the
Battle of Crete? The conditions were chaotic
and deeply harrowing. On May 20th, 1941, the
German forces launched a massive airborne and
amphibious invasion of Crete. The Anzacii, British
and Greek forces fought fiercely for 10 days,
but the sheer scale of the aerial assault overwhelmed
the defenders. They just couldn't hold it. No.
When the island inevitably fell, the surviving
troops were forced into a desperate withdrawal.
They had to traverse the incredibly rugged, mountainous
terrain of Crete, heading south to toward a small
coastal town called Sfakia, all while under constant
threat from Stuka dive bombers. Their only hope
was evacuation by the Royal Navy under the cover
of darkness. And for the thousands of troops
who didn't make it onto those ships, they faced
an agonizing choice. Surrender or head into the
wilderness. The sources detail how many hid in
the harsh mountain caves for months. They did.
They relied entirely on the local Cretan population,
who risk execution by German patrols to provide
these stranded soldiers with food, shelter, and
guidance. The survival networks that formed are
a true testament to human endurance. And even
more remarkable is the fate of some of the ANZAC
troops who were captured on Crete or in mainland
Greece. They were loaded onto transport trains
bound for Axis prisoner of war camps in central
Europe. Right. While moving through the complex
geography of the Balkans, specifically Yugoslavia,
several of these Australian and New Zealand soldiers
managed to break out of the trains. They escaped
right into the dense Yugoslav wilderness. The
idea of breaking out of a moving POW train deep
in enemy territory is cinematic enough on its
own. But who did they encounter once they were
out there in the wilderness? They found themselves
right in the middle of a deeply fractured, multilayered
guerrilla war. These escaped Aeans Azaeus linked
up with local resistance movements. Some found
refuge with the Chetniks, who were a Yugoslav
royalist and Serbian nationalist movement. Others
integrated with the Yugoslav partisans, the communist
-led resistance. These soldiers, far from home,
learned to survive in the freezing Balkan mountains
and, in many documented cases, actively fought
alongside these local resistance groups against
Axis occupation forces until they could either
be repatriated or, tragically, were re - captured.
Just visualizing that journey from enlisting
in Sydney or Auckland, fighting in Greece, escaping
a train in the Balkans, and then fighting a guerrilla
war in the mountains of Yugoslavia alongside
local partisans, it highlights a level of global
entanglement that this simple acronym ANZAC barely
captures. It really is staggering when you trace
the actual footsteps of these individuals. And
that spirit of joint integration continued long
after the World Wars ended. Moving into the Vietnam
War era, The sources outline a structure called
the four ARRNZ and ENZEB battalion. How did that
integration function on a practical level? It
was a deeply interwoven command structure. Instead
of fighting as separate allied forces in the
same theater, New Zealand rifle companies were
integrated directly into Royal Australian regiments.
So they weren't just allied forces operating
nearby? No, this wasn't just a high -level administrative
pairing. These troops were living, training,
and fighting side -by -side on the ground, sharing
the exact same daily operational realities. This
model of integration kept the ANZAC legacy a
functional military reality. We even saw this
continue into the 21st century with the of the
combined ANZASE battle group to Timor -Leste
during Operation Astute in 2006. The operational
military use of the word clearly never stopped
adapting. But as the military utility evolved,
so did its cultural footprint. The sources track
a massive shift. ANZC started as a unit designation,
then became a shorthand for the soldiers themselves,
then a physical place on the map with ANZAC Cove,
and finally transitioned into a highly protected,
almost sacred national symbol. And whenever something
gains that level of cultural power, exploitation
usually follows. Exactly. I was reading through
the stack of documents and found this bizarre
event from 1916 involving a real estate development
called New ANZAC on Sea. How did developers attempt
to monetize a military acronym while the war
was still actively being fought? It is a striking
example of war profiteering. In 1916, a property
development company in the United Kingdom sought
to exploit the immense patriotic fervor and emotional
weight surrounding the Gallipoli campaign. They
launched a massive promotional campaign for a
new coastal housing development, holding a highly
publicized naming competition. Oh boy. The winning
name selected by the developers was, predictably,
New Anzac on Sea. But the name was just the hook.
The actual mechanics of the real estate offering
were entirely fraudulent. Precisely. They ran
this competition in the newspapers and then essentially
notified nearly everyone who entered that they
had achieved the status of runner -up. How convenient.
Right. The prize for being a runner up was the
exclusive opportunity to purchase plots of land
in New Anzac -on -Sea at a supposedly discounted
rate. The severe catch, which the buyers only
realized later, was that the plots of land being
sold were impossibly small. They were tiny fractions
of acres, completely unsuitable for building
a house or living on. Wow. It was a blatant scam
designed to extract money from a grieving patriotic
public. When the reality of the scam was exposed,
the public backed backlash was immense and the
development was hastily renamed to Peace Haven
to avoid further outrage. That specific kind
of exploitation is exactly what triggered the
initial legal crackdown. The Australian and New
Zealand governments were watching this happen
and began heavily lobbying the United Kingdom
to step in. The result was a piece of UK legislation
passed in 1916 that strictly prohibited the use
of the word ANZAC in any trade or business without
explicit direct government approval. And this
wasn't a warning. It was an immediate cancellation
of existing businesses. Right. The law instantly
wiped out roughly 29 registered trademarks. Companies
trying to sell Anzac soap or launch the Anzac
Motor Company were completely shut down overnight.
That 1916 legislation laid the foundational precedent
for the astonishing level of intellectual property
protection the word enjoys today. This has moved
far beyond a local trademark dispute between
two nations. In 2003, Australia and New Zealand
took the extraordinary step of applying to register
the word under the Paris Convention for the protection
of industrial property. For those of us who aren't
international patent lawyers, what does the Paris
Convention actually do in practice? The Paris
Convention is one of the foundational international
treaties dealing with the protection of intellectual
property globally. By having ANZAC registered
as an official sign, hallmark or emblem under
this convention. The word is currently granted
legal protection in over 180 signatory countries
around the world. 180 countries? Yes, it mandates
that those 180 nations are legally required by
treaty to refuse the commercial registration
of the word under their own domestic trademark
laws. A bureaucratic shortcut invented by clerks
in Egypt is now protected by an international
treaty across 180 countries. It really puts it
into perspective. Which brings us to the domestic
rules in Australia today, which are incredibly
rigid. You cannot legally use the word for trade.
You can't use it to name a business. You can't
use it in entertainment. You can't even legally
paint it on the side of your personal boat. But
buried in this strict legal code is one very
specific, very famous culinary exception. The
exception is granted by the Minister for Veterans
Affairs and it strictly pertains to the sale
of Anzac biscuits. However, this permission is
heavily conditional. The baked good being sold
must fundamentally adhere to the traditional
recipe. No deviations allowed. None. This recipe
is historically significant. It uses a specific
ratio of oats, flour, sugar, and golden syrup
ingredients specifically chosen during the First
World War because they wouldn't spoil on the
long, unrefrigerated sea voyages to the front
lines. The recipe mandate is strict, but the
terminology mandate is even stricter. According
to the regulations, the product must only ever
be referred to as an Anzac biscuit, or occasionally
an Anzac slice. It is a strict violation of the
guidelines to ever market them as an Anzac cookie.
I mean, there is a real gravity to seeing baked
good terminology enforced at the federal government
level. Why is the government so deeply concerned
with whether someone uses the word cookie? While
it might sound trivial on the surface, the distinction
is rooted in a deep -seated desire to protect
the solemnity of the word's origin. Biscuit is
the traditional vernacular of the soldiers who
fought and died. Cookie represents modern commercial,
often imported slang. By strictly policing the
language down to the packaging level, the government
is attempting to ensure that modern commercialization
and cultural drift don't dilute or disrespect
the historical sacrifice that those five letters
represent. So what does this all mean? We started
this deep dive looking at a group of soldiers
who were simply diverted to Egypt to avoid a
miserable muddy English winter on Salisbury Plain.
That one logistical detour led to an exhausted
administrative clerk inventing a hastily stamped
acronym. From there, we traced that word as it
stretched across the globe from multinational
forces managing supply mules under fire to men
riding camels through Palestine to troops escaping
POW trains to fight a guerrilla war alongside
Yugoslav partisans. And finally, we saw it transform
into a fiercely protected piece of international
intellectual property that legally dictates exactly
what you can call your afternoon snack. The broader
takeaway for you listening is the realization
that language and history are highly active,
living things. They are constantly in dialogue,
shaping one another. Now, whenever you hear the
word ANZAC mentioned in a documentary, or you
see a tin of traditional Anzac biscuits on a
store shelf, you understand the absolute labyrinth
of military bureaucracy, the hidden multinational
cooperation, and the century of intense legal
wrangling that stands behind it. It is never
just a simple acronym. It is a massive complex
legacy. And that leaves us with the final lingering
thought for you to ponder long after we wrap
up this discussion today. When a government so
strictly regulates a piece of language, locking
it down with international treaties across 180
countries, and literally forbidding the word
cookie from sitting next to it, does that rigid
regulation successfully preserve the sacred memory
of the soldiers? Or does it artificially freeze
the word in time, preventing it from evolving
naturally within the very culture that created
it in the first place? It's an incredibly fine
line between preservation and control. Thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive
into the sources today. We hope unpacking this
stack of history gives you a totally new perspective
on the legends we think we know. Keep asking
questions and always stay curious. Catch you
next time.