The Battle of Gallipoli was the first campaign Australia and New Zealand fought as independent nations.
They joined the Allies in an attempt to knock Germany’s Turkish allies out of World War One.
But the ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) forces barely advanced a mile inland.
10,000 ANZACS died while 23,000 were injured, which had a devastating impact on the male population of the fledgling nations.
Princes William and Harry have met relatives of veterans on HMS Bulwark, ahead of a service on the Turkish peninsula.
Australia, New Zealand and Turkey leaders will also attend the events.
About 131,000 people – 45,000 Allied forces and 86,000 from Turkey – died in the campaign, which began in 1915.
The fatalities included about 25,000 British forces, 10,000 from France and 10,000 from Australia and New Zealand.
The series of events – to mark the 100th anniversary of the landings – will begin with a Commonwealth and Irish commemoration.
Warships from Allied nations will fire a salute in honor of the sailors who died.
There will also be an international ceremony organized by Turkey and a service to mark France’s participation in the battle.
The events will commemorate the World War One campaign when allied forces landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in modern-day western Turkey – then part of the Ottoman Empire – in April 1915.
However, the invasion failed, with the Allied forces unable to advance more than a few miles inland.
A bloody stalemate ensued which lasted until Allied troops evacuated the peninsula eight months later in January 1916.
Events will continue on April 25 with services to mark ANZAC Day, which is widely marked in Australia and New Zealand.
The centenary is expected to be the largest ever commemoration of the battle, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Australian PM Tony Abbott, New Zealand PM John Key and Prince Charles leading the ceremonies.
Thousands of Australians, New Zealanders and Turks are also expected to make the journey to Gallipoli for the anniversary, including relatives of those who fought and died at Gallipoli.
There are no longer any surviving veterans of the campaign.
In London, Queen Elizabeth, the Duke of Edinburgh – who is patron of the Gallipoli Association – and Prince William will be joined by senior government and military figures to lay wreaths at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.
The archive of 23 journals and two notebooks of poetry have been digitized by the Cambridge University Library, which bought the collection in 2009.
Until now only Siegfried Sassoon’s official biographer – Max Egremont – has had access to the complete 4,100-page archive due to its fragile state.
Librarian Anne Jarvis said the war diaries were of “towering importance”.
The journals, which are made freely available online from Friday, offer a unique insight into life on the front line during World War One.
Writing in a “distinctive” but clear hand, the war poet describes life in the trenches, including the moment he was shot by a sniper at the Battle of Arras, and his depiction of the first day of the Battle of the Somme as a “sunlit picture of hell”.
Siegfried Sassoon’s writing was inspired by his first-hand experience as a serving officer in the Great War (photo Wikipedia)
Siegfried Sassoon’s observations are often accompanied by pencil or ink sketches, notes on military briefings, and diagrams of the trenches – and bear the ravages of war, including mud and candle wax on the pages and binding.
“From his <<Soldier’s Declaration>> to his eyewitness accounts of the first day of battle on the Somme, the Sassoon archive is a collection of towering importance, not just to historians, but to anyone seeking to understand the horror, bravery and futility of the First World War as experienced by those on the front lines and in the trenches,” said Anne Jarvis.
“We are honored to be able to make them available to everyone, anywhere in the world, on the 100th anniversary of the First World War,” she added.
English poet Siegfried Sassoon, whose writing was inspired by his first-hand experience as a serving officer in the Great War, is now recognized as a leading war poet of his generation.
Poems included in the collection include previously unpublished material, such as Absolution, understood to be his war poem, written before he was posted to the front line. There are also early drafts of some of his best-known works such as The Dug-Out – with an additional verse which Siegfried Sassoon later removed.
The journals, which intersperse both prose and poetry, cover both the war years – when Siegfried Sassoon was stationed on the Western Front and in Palestine – and post-war years up to 1927, and from 1931-1932.
Cultural and sporting events, including a concert by the Vienna Philharmonic, will mark the occasion in Sarajevo.
Gavrilo Princip, who shot the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, continues to be a divisive figure in Bosnia.
The shots fired by the Bosnian Serb on June 28, 1914, sucked Europe’s great powers into four years of warfare.
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand occurred on June 28, 1914 while he was visiting the city of Sarajevo in the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina (photo Getty Images)
Bosnia’s Serbs, Croats and Muslim Bosniaks are still divided over the role Gavrilo Princip played in bringing tensions to a head in Europe in 1914, with counter-commemorations planned by Bosnian Serbs.
Leaders of Serbia and some Bosnian Serbs are boycotting official events, which they say are designed to incriminate Serbs.
On Friday, Serbs in Bosnia unveiled a statue of Gavrilo Princip in eastern Sarajevo, seen by them as a national hero who ended years of occupation of the Balkans by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In the eastern town of Visegrad, actors will re-enact the murder of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, and the Belgrade Philharmonic will play music by Vivaldi.
In Sarajevo, the Vienna Philharmonic will play a selection harking back to Hapsburg days, including Haydn’s Emperor Quartet.
The concert is being held at the newly-restored national library, which was destroyed during the 1992 siege of the city by Bosnian Serb forces in the Bosnian War.
Austrian President Heinz Fischer will be attending the concert, which is the centerpiece of official events marking the anniversary.
Commemorations are due to close with an open-air musical memorial event in Sarajevo.
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