Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull was joined by his French counterpart Édouard Philippe and heir to the British throne Prince Charles for Anzac Day in the French town of Villers-Bretonneux, reports Deutsche Welle.
The town just east of Amiens in northern France was chosen because the day also marked the 100th anniversary of it being taken from the Germans by Australian troops. Villers-Bretonneux is now home to Australia's main memorial on the Western Front.
"The Australians had come from the other side of the world to defend the freedom of France," said Turnbull. "We meet here 100 years later on land long healed to remember them."
Turnbull also joined his wife Lucy to visit the grave of her great-uncle Roger Hughes, who arrived at the front as a 26-year-old military doctor only to be killed five days later by a German shell in 1916.
In Australia itself, female veterans led parades for the first time in Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. Security was tight amid concerns the event might be targeted by Islamists.
In Turkey, Australian home affairs minister Peter Dutton represented the government in a service at ANZAC Cove, Gallipoli, where the Australian and New Zealand troops landed. New Zealand was represented by the country’s Governor General Patsy Reddy, and respects were also shown with a traditional haka dance.
In New Zealand on Wednesday, prime minister Jacinda Ardern marked her first Anzac day in office by placing a wreath on the cenotaph of fallen soldiers at sunrise. That was followed by the playing of bag pipes and the singing of the New Zealand and Australian national anthems.