UCLA Historical Journal

This essay addresses the central role of the Gallipoli campaign (WWI) in the Australian national narrative. It focuses particularly on the ambivalent quality of this narrative, referencing as it does the paradoxical historical relationship between Britain and Australia, and the latter's fundamental role in Australian national identity. It suggests that the Australian national narrative remains open-ended, and that future understandings of the significance of Gallipoli may differ from those of the present.