Standard, working anchor links:

<a href="#foo">Link text</a>
... [page content]
<a id="foo"></a>
<h1>Headline</h1>
[more content]

That works fine. Now I introduce a template partial somewhere:

<script type="text/ng-template" id="test-include.html">
  <p>This text is in a separate partial and inlcuded via ng-include.</p>
</script>

which is invoked via:

<div ng-include="'test-include.html'"></div>

The partial is included properly, but the anchor link no longer works. Clicking on "Link text" now changes the displayed URL to /#/foo rather than /#foo and the page position does not change.

My understanding is that using ng-include implicitly tells Angular that I want to use the routes system and overrides the browser's native anchor link behavior. I've seen recommendations to work around this by changing my html anchor links to #/#foo, but I can't do that for other reasons.

I don't intend to use the routes system - I just want to use ng-include without it messing with browser behavior. Is this possible?

My understanding is that using ng-include implicitly tells Angular that I want to use the routes system and overrides the browser's native anchor link behavior. I've seen recommendations to work around this by changing my html anchor links to #/#foo, but I can't do that for other reasons.

Routing system is defined in a separate module ngRoute, so if you did not injected it on your own - and I am pretty sure you did not - it is not accessible at all.

The issue is somehow different here.

ng-include depends on: $http, $templateCache, $anchorScroll, $animate, $sce. So make use of ng-include initiate all these services.

The most natural candidate to investigate would be $anchorScroll. The code of $anchorScroll does not seem to do any harm, but the service depends on $window, $location, $rootScope. The line 616 of $location says:

 baseHref = $browser.baseHref(), // if base[href] is undefined, it defaults to ''

So basically the base href is set to '', if it was no set before.

Now look HERE - from BalusC answer :

As to using named anchors like , with the tag you're basically declaring all relative links relative to it, including named anchors. None of the relative links are relative to the current request URI anymore (as would happen without the tag).

How to mitigate the issue?

I do not have much time today, so cannot test it myself, but what I would try to check as the first option is to hook up to '$locationChangeStart' event and if the new url is of #xxxxxx type just prevent the default behaviour and scroll with $anchorScroll native methods instead.

Update

I think this code should do the work:

$scope.$on("$locationChangeStart", function (event, next, current) {

    var el, elId;

    if (next.indexOf("#")>-1) {
        elId = next.split("#")[1];
        el = document.getElementById(elId);
        if(el){
           // el.scrollIntoView(); do not think we need it
           window.location.hash = "#" + elId;
           event.preventDefault();
        }    
    }
});