Alexander Aitken was an ordinary soldier with an extraordinary mind. The student who enlisted in 1915 was a mathematical genius who could multiply nine-digit numbers in his head. He took a violin with him to Gallipoli (where field telephone wire substituted for an E-string) and practiced Bach on the Western Front. Aitken also loved poetry and knew the Aeneid and Paradise Lost by heart. His powers of memory were dazzling. When a vital roll-book was lost with the dead, he was able to dictate the full name, regimental number, next of kin and address of next of kin for every member of his former platoon—a total of fifty-six men. Everything he saw, he could remember. Aitken began to write about his experiences in 1917 as a wounded out-patient in Dunedin Hospital. Every few years, when the war trauma caught up with him, he revisited the manuscript, which was eventually published as Gallipoli to the Somme in 1963. Aitken writes with a unique combination of restraint, subtlety, and an almost photographic vividness. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature on the strength of this single work—a book recognised by its first reviewers as a literary memoir of the Great War to put alongside those by Graves, Blunden and Sassoon. Long out of print, this is by some distance the most perceptive memoir of the First World War by a New Zealand soldier. For this edition, Alex Calder has written a new introduction, annotated the text, compiled a selection of images, and added a commemorative index identifying the soldiers with whom Aitken served.

Alexander Aitken was an ordinary soldier with an extraordinary mind. The student who enlisted in 1915 was a mathematical genius who could multiply nine-digit numbers in his head. He took a violin with him to Gallipoli (where field telephone wire substituted for an E-string) and practiced Bach on the Western Front. Aitken also loved poetry and knew the Aeneid and Paradise Lost by heart. His powers of memory were dazzling. When a vital roll-book was lost with the dead, he was able to dictate the full name, regimental number, next of kin and address of next of kin for every member of his former platoon—a total of fifty-six men. Everything he saw, he could remember. Aitken began to write about his experiences in 1917 as a wounded out-patient in Dunedin Hospital. Every few years, when the war trauma caught up with him, he revisited the manuscript, which was eventually published as Gallipoli to the Somme in 1963. Aitken writes with a unique combination of restraint, subtlety, and an almost photographic vividness. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature on the strength of this single work—a book recognised by its first reviewers as a literary memoir of the Great War to put alongside those by Graves, Blunden and Sassoon. Long out of print, this is by some distance the most perceptive memoir of the First World War by a New Zealand soldier. For this edition, Alex Calder has written a new introduction, annotated the text, compiled a selection of images, and added a commemorative index identifying the soldiers with whom Aitken served.

This book gives a detailed account of the experiences of Australian soldiers during World War I, specifically during the Gallipoli campaign and the Battle of the Somme. It includes personal stories and letters from soldiers, and provides insights into the conditions they endured on the battlefield. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Gallipoli was a First World War tragedy, a side show that had ambitious hopes to end the war early. Despite the immense gallantry displayed by those fighting, from the beginning, this grand scale 1915 operation was plagued with mismanagement; failure in high places that betrayed the heroism in the field. Though a noble disaster with casualties of over half a million, those who visit Gallipoli today owe it to those who served and died a conscious effort to see beyond the heartbreak and futility, to appreciate the what, the how and the why. There is no better way to do this today other than walking the battlefields with this invaluable guide. From the beaches and fields of Helles, to the precipitous heights of Anzac and to the plains of Suvla, this book guides the walker to the key points of the campaign. Infamous names that are synonymous with the fighting are covered; Sedd-el Bahr, Krithia, Achi Baba, The Vineyard, Gully Ravine, Kereviz Dere, Lone Pine, The Nek, Chunuk Bair, Lala Baba, Chocolate Hill, Kidney Hill and Kiretch Tepe. All of these features are set in a haunting scene of beauty and tragedy that still pervades this eastern Mediterranean peninsula. In total there are ten walks, some challenging, others not, with a narrative that helps make sense of it all.

This book is an account of the author's battlefield experiences at Gallipoli and on the Western Front. Fallon was a pre-war regular (Northumberland Fusiliers) who, when war broke out, was a staff sergeant instructor at the Australian Royal Military College in Duntroon. Transferred to the Australian army he took part in the Gallipoli landings on 25 April 1915, which he describes in gory detail, as he does the rest of the fighting till he was evacuated in December. Back in the British army he was commisioned into the Buckingham Battalion (TF) of the O & B LI (145th Bde/48th Division) with which he fought on the Western Front till badly wounded at the end of 1916.

The noted historian’s decisive and devastating history of the WWI Battle of Gallipoli “sets a new standard for assessing the Allied Dardanelles campaign" (Mustafa Aksakal, American Historical Review). The Gallipoli campaign of 1915–16 was an ill-fated Allied attempt to take control of the Dardanelles, secure a sea route to Russia, and create a Balkan alliance against the Central Powers. A failure in all respects, the operation ended in disaster, and the Allied forces suffered some 390,000 casualties. In this conclusive study, military historian Robin Prior assesses the many myths about Gallipoli and provides definitive answers to questions that have lingered about the operation. Prior proceeds step by step through the campaign, dealing with naval, military, and political matters and surveying the operations of all the armies involved: British, Anzac, French, Indian, and Turkish. Relying on primary documents, including war diaries and technical military sources, Prior evaluates the strategy, the commanders, and the performance of soldiers on the ground. His conclusions are powerful and unsettling: the naval campaign was not “almost” won, and the land action was not bedeviled by “minor misfortunes.” Instead, the badly conceived Gallipoli campaign was doomed from the start. And even had it been successful, the operation would not have shortened the war by a single day. Despite their bravery, the Allied troops who fell at Gallipoli died in vain. A Wall Street Journal Best Book of 2009