Australia's Bob Carr remembers First World War dead in northern France

Thousands of Australians made a pilgrimage to the killing fields of World War I on Thursday to honour those who lost their lives on the Western Front.

Reuters/Benoit Tessier

Hours after similar daybreak ceremonies to mark ANZAC day in New Zealand, Australia, at Gallipoli and in Afghanistan and Thailand, Foreign Minister Bob Carr paid tribute to the role the Great War fallen had played in forging his country's national identity.

At a service attended by more than 4,000 people, mostly Australian and including many children, Carr highlighted the fact that the commander of the Australian Army Corps in France, Sir John Monash, was a first generation Australian with German-Jewish roots.

"This reminds us that we were then and we remain today, a nation of immigrants," Carr said.

"It reminds us that the more recent arrivals are part of our living history and that all the history of modern Australia, including the story of ANZAC, belongs to them equally, wherever they were born."

Of the 60,000 Australian volunteers who died in WWI, three quarters perished in the trenches of northern France and Belgium.

Kader Arif, France's minister for veterans, said he had been greatly touched by the ceremony.

"What nation today would be capable of doing what Australia did in sending one tenth of its population to fight on the other side of the world for the values of democracy and freedom?" he said.

The French minister said he would be visiting Australia to prepare for next year's 100th anniversary of the start of the 1914-18 war.