Dimensions
160 x 242 x 50mm
The Gallipoli campaign of 1915 occupies a unique place in Australia's consciousness. Later, in France, Australians were to fight greater battles, for greater results. Yet at Gallipoli, heroism and sacrifice, incompetence and stupidity could still be measured on a human scale, unlike the industrialised carnage at Flanders. Whilst the campaign itself was bloody, tragic and ultimately futile, from it emerged the legend of the Anzacs - part myth, part reality yet almost instantly incorporated into our national identity.
Our fascination with Gallipoli has not diminished in the intervening years. The Anzac Day dawn service at Anzac Cove has become a Mecca for Australians abroad, and the bravery and tragedy of The Nek and Lone Pine are as moving today as they were to Australians over eight and a half decades ago.
This book is Les Carlyon's magisterial account of the campaign, and the greatest work to be written on this seminal Australian drama since Alan Moorehead's brilliant recreation almost 50 years ago. Researched in Turkey, Great Britain and Australia, Carlyon's book recounts the individual experience of battle, describing the characters both great and small who fought and died there, as well as clearly setting out the strategic and political background against which the campaign was conducted. It is a work of passion, scholarship and storytelling that promises to be one of the most important Australian books on the campaign yet published.
