Gallipoli's significance was already obvious a year later, writes Peter FitzSimons.
Loving it.
After the horrors of Gallipoli, they have arrived in this wonderland called France, and are simply stunned by the beauty of it all. Landing in Marseille, they march through the streets to Marseille-Saint-Charles railway station, where they are cheered to the echo by the people, including many beautiful young women.
"Bienvenue, les Australiens! Merci! Merci!"
Old men remove their hats and stand to attention as they pass. Then, as they arrive at the station, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that even the most beautiful of the young French women throw their fragrant arms around the Australian soldiers and kiss them on both cheeks. "Merci, merci!" 
The bad news is that so too do even the most gnarled and sweaty of men.
This time, it is the Australians who say it: "Mercy! Mercy!"
The Diggers extricate themselves with their kit still in tow, pile into the railway carriages and are soon under way.
Meanwhile, up at the Western Front itself, up around Fromelles, the vanguard of the Australian soldiers are already in position, getting used to their new digs and working out just how best to hold this network of trenches against the attentions of the Germans, who are in their own trenches over there, a couple of hundred yards or so across no man's land.
And the Germans know they're there all right, and just who they are up against. On the morning of   April 23, on the parapet opposite the AIF's 2nd Battalion, a flashing light suddenly appears.
And for most of the soldiers it is just a flashing light. But not for the "spooks", the signallers. For they instantly recognise it as Morse code.
Quickly, the signallers write the German message down:
AUSTRALIANS GO HOME.
GO ... IN MORNING.
YOU WILL BE DEAD IN THE MORNING.
Charmed, they are sure. Still, why not reply? No matter that the English officers of GHQ severely discourage any communication with the enemy, a signaller of the 2nd Battalion cannot resist, and flashes back:
WHY?
A minute later, the rather feeble German answer comes:
WE ARE GOOD.
As always, the great official war correspondent, The Sydney Morning Herald's own Charles Bean, is never far away from the front-line Australians, and visits them on this day. Both in the front lines and in the billets, Bean finds happy Australians, and perhaps even happier French.
"From these first days in France," he would later note, "it was obvious that the Australian soldier, in whom natural friendliness was untrammelled by any consciousness of social distinctions, was much nearer to the mass of the French people than the shyer and less expansive men of the British Army."
Of course, Bean spends time reminiscing with those very few who had been the most esteemed breed of all, the "original Anzacs" who'd been there from the first, about what it had been like that extraordinary dawn a year ago as they approached the fatal shores.
Do you remember how it was? The soft moonlight? The convoy, slowly arrowing its way through the phosphorescent waters of the Aegean? The first scattered sounds of rifle fire coming from the Turkish shore? The first deaths?
They remember.
And now, here they are, in this place, against a different enemy.
Strange - back then it had all been terrifying, but now they can talk of it with something very close to nostalgia. There had been just something about Anzac that had got to them all - and Bean, particularly, hopes it will always be remembered as the place Australia and Australians came of age.
The following evening, back in his billet, Bean tries to work, but it is no good. Too many memories of Gallipoli. Too many good men gone to their graves, or crippled, or mentally shattered. And how many more, here, to go the same way? How many families yet to be bereaved? He rises and goes to the door.
In the distance, on the horizon, coming from near Richebourg or perhaps Neuve Chapelle, he can see the gloomy flashes from the artillery reflected on the low clouds, followed several seconds later by the boom of dirty thunder rolling to him through the damp night air.
And what is that he can hear now? ...
There it is again.
It is a nightingale singing! A series of perfect, high-pitched chords, each one with a different intonation, snatches of a different song. The first nightingale of the season! And now, other nightingales in the wooded night answer the first 'un, entirely untroubled by the artillery and machine-gun fire coming from the north.
Somehow, despite it all, life goes on.
There is much to report. At least, for the moment, the Australian troops have not been in harm's way, as this part of the Western Front is relatively calm.
At dawn the next day, for so many veterans of that extraordinary sunrise one year ago, it is hard to believe that the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landing is already upon them.
And yet none are in doubt. It is a day for commemoration, for remembrance, for bowing your heads to pray for the souls of dear departed comrades.
Back in Egypt, where the last of the Australians are getting ready to come to France and to the Western Front, church parades are held "to commemorate the landing and the lads who fell on the Peninsula".
All those Diggers who were at the landing on the day have a red ribbon hanging from above the left breast pocket, while those who had seen service in the Dardanelles are entitled to a blue ribbon worn above the left breast pocket. With the services completed, the troops are given the rest of the day off from training to participate in sporting events and enjoy concerts.
The grandest commemoration, however, is in London, on a balmy day, where a memorial service is held in Westminster Abbey, attended by 3000 people. These include none other than the Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, known as the "Little Digger" for his endless championing of their lot, Australia's high commissioner to Great Britain, the Right Honourable Andrew Fisher, and some 2000 "Knights of Gallipoli", as the newspaper refers to the 1300 Australian and 700 New Zealand veterans who march from Aldwych in full ceremonial dress for the occasion, through streets lined a dozen deep.
The able-bodied sit on the right side of the Abbey, while those on crutches or in wheelchairs, and those carried in on stretchersare on the left.
The blind sit with the only man in the gathering who does not stand when God Save the King is played: King George V. With him are Queen Mary, Lord Kitchener, General Sir William Robertson, General Sir Ian Hamilton, General Sir William Birdwoodand Mrs Asquith, the wife of the Prime Minister, among many other notables.
It is an ocean of khaki and black, the latter worn by the many grieving widows in attendance. At the conclusion of the magnificent service, many of the Australian soldiers are invited back to the Hotel Cecil, where their Prime Minister addresses them:
"On this day, called Anzac, one short year ago, the Australasian soldier leapt unheralded into the arena of war, and by a display of courage, dash, endurance and unquenchable spirit, proved himself worthy of kinship with those heroic men who throughout the history of our race have walked unafraid into the jaws of death, thinking it glorious to die for their country."
In Sydney's Martin Place, one veteran who is missing an arm does his best to attract interest. "Australia was there!" he cries, waving around his stump, almost by way of proof. "Look at me. I have lost an arm and can fight no more, but I tell you what, boys - if I had my arm back I'd be over there again. Now I want someone to take my place - who will volunteer?"
No one answers. Not one of the many men streaming past even looks him in the eye.
Tears come into the soldier's eyes. "No one?" he asks, plaintively.
On this day, for him, no one.