World War One parades a grim roll-call of military disasters, but few still resonate as much today as Gallipoli. Ambitious from the outset, it promised much but delivered one of the most punishing setbacks of the whole conflict for the Allies. Within the grand scale of the overall drama, however, are the individual tales of heroism and tragedy: the lives and deaths of the men who fought on both sides on that hot, dusty, bitterly contested peninsula in Turkey.
The campaign saw hundreds of thousands of troops from Britain, Australia, New Zealand, France, and beyond journey to the Eastern Mediterranean to take on a German-Turkish alliance on a strip of thin but strategically important land. The Western Allies assumed victory would be theirs for the taking – instead it turned into a humiliating defeat and a combined loss of half a million casualties for both sides.
This book tells the full story, recalling with vivid detail the build up to the campaign, the desperate months of combat, and the long and painful march to defeat. Superb illustrations combine with incisive text to show how the battle forged defined identities in Australia and New Zealand, playing a significant part in their emergence as independent countries, and rendering Gallipoli one of the most evocative names in their shared history.
