Gallipoli

The Gallipoli campaign began one fateful Sunday morning in April 1915. It was to be Australia's test of nationhood. The Allied soldiers landed in the dark, crossing beaches tangled with barbed wire, passing mines under shell fire, cutting through the wire under machine-gun fire and climbing the precipitous cliffs covered with prickly oak scrub. An intense five-month campaign ensued, the lines so close that there was no respite from the bombs, shells and mines. With access to military documents, the poet John Masefield published this moving account of the Allied efforts in Dardanelles less than a year after the defeat. The book was a huge success, as it gave glory to the bravery and determination of the young men who endured heat, toil, thirst, disease and pestilence but were always ready and willing to die in exultation for their cause.