Thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Turkish visitors made the pilgrimage to Gallipoli for a service marking the 91st anniversary of the Anzac landing.
Speaking to those gathered at Anzac Cove in the pre-dawn darkness, New Zealand's Major-General Clive Lilley said people were drawn to Gallipoli on Anzac Day not to celebrate war but to honour the soldiers' courage.
"Anzac Day has a simple theme - it is about remembrance," Maj-Gen Lilley told the gathering.
"We are here this morning to remember those who served our countries during conflict and crisis.
"We are not here to celebrate battle today or to applaud carnage or to glorify war.
"However, to overlook the deeds of those before us would in some way devalue them and leave us poorer for failing to acknowledge them."
The Anzacs' courage in the face of adversity confirmed their place in history, Maj-Gen Lilley said.
Australian Governor-General Michael Jeffery also called on the audience to recall the sacrifices of all Australians at that time.
"Today, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, at this most moving of places, we are summoned to recall the battle sacrifices of Australian farmers and teleclerks, teachers and labourers (who fought) and to commemorate outstanding courage and strength of character in the face of incredible and sustained adversity," he said.
"But in losing the campaign, they won us a greater prize -- an enduring sense of national identity.
"Let us never forget."
A letter by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, was also read to the gathering.
"Those heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives, you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country, rest in peace," it said.
Australian commemorations
Dawn services were also held around Australia, however memorials in Darwin and Perth were cancelled over bad weather.
At the dawn service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, more than 20,000 people gathered in the early morning darkness.
Principal Air Force chaplain Royce Thompson said the thousands of Australian men and women serving overseas were continuing the Anzac tradition by facing evil at every turn.
"It is a time to be inspired by their sacrifice and courage, so that we might play our part in seeking to confront the evil in our world," he said.
In Sydney, thousands of people at the dawn service in Martin Place were also urged to direct their Anzac Day thoughts to Australians currently serving overseas.
Air Vice-Marshall John Quaife said that while the day paid respect to the events of 1915 and those who fought and died in subsequent conflicts would never been forgotten.
While war veterans were in attendance it was a predominantly young crowd that stretched over three blocks and spilled into nearby streets.
Australian casualty
In Victoria, Australia's first casualty of the Iraq conflict has been honoured at Melbourne's Anzac Day dawn service.
Private Jake Kovco, 25 -- who accidentally shot himself while cleaning a pistol in Baghdad last Friday -- was mentioned among Australia's wartime heroes in the service at the Shrine of Remembrance.
Up to 30,000 people huddled in the Shrine's forecourt for the service, some draped in the Australian flag or wearing service medals on their chests.
The service heard heroic tales of Australia's war dead and battle combatants, whose "gallantry was in the highest tradition of the Australian army".
The service ended with a sole piper playing above the forecourt as members of the public were invited into the shrine to lay wreaths.
A small and informal ceremony was also held in the Solomon Islands' capital Honiara, where additional Australian and New Zealand troops were posted last week.
Formal Anzac Day services have been cancelled following the riots and a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed as troops and police work to restore calm.