Reconciliation in Action | Anzac Day

But instead, the Australian and New Zealand troops faced fierce resistance from the Ottoman Turkish defenders and the situation soon became a stalemate.

Rather than achieving their objectives, the campaign dragged on for eight months.

The ANZACs were finally evacuated at the end of the year and by January 18, 1916 — at the end of the campaign — 8709 Australians had died and 17,924 officers and men had been wounded.

A shocking toll for a young nation.

The bravery of the troops left a powerful legacy – the “ANZAC legend”.

This became an important part of the identity of both the Australian and New Zealand nations, shaping the way they viewed both their past and their future.

But there was another story — one that was not as well known.

A story of men who were forgotten and not named in the numerous memorials across the nation.

Forgotten and excluded from soldier settler land grants.

Forgotten and precluded from support services for returned veterans.

Forgotten and denied membership of servicemen’s clubs.

Forgotten and excluded from Anzac Day marches and gatherings.

Forgotten by all except their families and communities — families and communities who deeply mourned their losses and whose hopes — that this wartime service would be reflected in changed attitudes in the wider community — were continually dashed.

Part of this story is told in Shepparton, told in the image of Yorta Yorta man Private Daniel Cooper who looks down from the wall of Eastbank in Welsford St, Shepparton, and on the accompanying information plaque.

It is the story of Australian men who enlisted, hoping that their service would result in greater equality and acceptance.

Men such as the five Lovett brothers from Lake Condah mission in south-west Victoria, who served in World War I and were descended from a long line of heroic warriors — the “fighting Gunditjmara”.

Warriors who saw conflict from the earliest days of European settlement in Victoria in the forgotten — and only war — fought on Australian soil.

Known as the Australian Frontier Wars, they are accepted as having lasted from the arrival of the British in 1788 to as late as 1934 and as having occurred across the entire continent.

These conflicts in defence of Country were some of the bloodiest actions of Australia’s history.

But official recognition of the existence of these protracted conflicts has been part of the great Australian silence.

A part of our history that we have turned away from, ignored.

Pretended that it did not happen.

In 1979, the noted historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey, engaged by the Australian War Memorial as a consultant, suggested that the memorial should also include “irregular warfare” such as the Eureka Stockade, the Vietnam War (not then included in the AWM) and the Frontier Wars.

Recently, the new war memorial chair and former federal Labor politician, Kim Beazley stated: “We do need to have a proper recognition of the Frontier Wars.”

“When European settlement came to Australia, wars resulted,” he said.

He acknowledged that this recognition would be included as part of the renovations being undertaken at the war memorial.

Noting that Australians generally believed that there was no Aboriginal resistance to the taking of lands, Mr Beazley emphasised the importance of this recognition as part of truth-telling and to “give the Aboriginal population the dignity of resistance”.

To recognise the widespread fight by many First Nations peoples against the ever-encroaching colonisation of Country.

As research into the Frontier Wars has continued, there is now evidence of over 400 massacres across the country.

Since 2014, the University of Newcastle has been involved in a research project that includes an online map and database that records massacre site locations, details of the individual massacres and the sources corroborating evidence of these massacres.

Led by Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan, the project used settler diaries and letters, newspaper reports, Aboriginal evidence and official government records and reports in recording this part of our history.

She believes the research project is incredibly important to help all Australians change their understanding of the past.

“It’s clear that my generation has been protected from this kind of information,’’ she said.

“When I do talk to people of my generation about these events, they’re looking at me in amazement, and shock and horror.

“Some people don’t want to know any more, but many others do.

“I think we need to know what happened. We need to know more.”

In October last year, the then war memorial chair, former Howard government minister Brendan Nelson, revealed the memorial’s governing council had decided they would have a “much broader, a much deeper depiction and presentation of the violence committed against Indigenous people, initially by British, then by pastoralists, then by police, and then by Aboriginal militia’’.

Mr Beazley, recently reflecting on the inclusion of the Frontier Wars as part of the war memorial’s future exhibits, stated: “How can we have a history of Australian wars without that?”

“You have to have the Frontier Wars depicted in it because it is by that means that we established ourselves,” he said.

As Indigenous Australians Minister Linda Burney said late last year: “Including the Frontier Wars in the Australian War Memorial will tell a fuller story of Australia’s history.

“Telling the truth should be above politics and the former chair of the war memorial, Brendan Nelson, initiated this project several years ago.

"Even though it is painful, knowing more about our past will help us forge a stronger future together.“

The story of the Frontier Wars is part of our history, as important and nation-defining as the Anzac stories of battles far away.

It is something we all need to know about and understand.

It is part of our maturing as a nation.

To find out more about the Frontier Wars, visit your local library and borrow Henry Reynold’s book, Forgotten War.

Watch Rachel Perkin’s three-part documentary series, The Australian Wars on SBS on Demand.

To find out more about the University of Newcastle’s research project visit: https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/colonialmassacres/