Politicians use the Gallipoli landings to justify wars, past and present. They also use them to conveniently define our national history. But this isn’t what the centenary should be about

Time eventually heals old battlefields. A gentle, grassy furrow might indicate where men once hacked a trench and the verdant expanse beyond where they eviscerated each other with bayonets.

But what happened a long time ago is rarely evident on the surface of old war grounds.