The New Zealand soldiers who left these shores to fight in the First World War represented one of the greatest collective endeavours in the nation's history. Over 100,000 men and women would embark for overseas service and almost 60,000 of them became casualties. For a small nation like New Zealand this was a tragedy on an unimagined scale.Using their personal testimony, this book reveals what these men experienced - the truth of their lives in battle, at rest, at their best and their worst. Through a comprehensive and sympathetic scrutiny of New Zealand soldiers' correspondence, diaries and memoirs, a compelling picture of the New Zealand soldier's war from general to private is revealed. This is not a campaign history of dry facts and detail. Rather, it examines minutely the everyday experience of trench life in all its shapes and forms. Diverse topics such as barbed wire, the use of the bayonet, gas attacks, rats, horses, food, communal singing, infectious diseases and much more feature in this riveting account of the New Zealand soldier in the First World War. It is the story of ordinary men thrust into the most extraordinary circumstances imaginable.Written in an accessible style aimed at the interested general reader, the book is the product of a substantial amount of research. The text is complemented by a range of maps, illustrations, graphs and diagrams.

The New Zealand soldiers who left these shores to fight in the First World War represented one of the greatest collective endeavours in the nation’s history. Over 100,000 men and women would embark for overseas service and almost 60,000 of them became casualties. For a small nation like New Zealand this was a tragedy on an unimagined scale. Using their personal testimony, this book reveals what these men experienced – the truth of their lives in battle, at rest, at their best and their worst. Through a comprehensive and sympathetic scrutiny of New Zealand soldiers’ correspondence, diaries and memoirs, a compelling picture of the New Zealand soldier’s war from general to private is revealed. This is not a campaign history of dry facts and detail. Rather, it examines minutely the everyday experience of trench life in all its shapes and forms. Diverse topics such as barbed wire, the use of the bayonet, gas attacks, rats, horses, food, communal singing, infectious diseases and much more feature in this riveting account of the New Zealand soldier in the First World War. It is the story of ordinary men thrust into the most extraordinary circumstances imaginable. Written in an accessible style aimed at the interested general reader, the book is the product of a substantial amount of research. The text is complemented by a range of maps, illustrations, graphs and diagrams.

In 1914, despite being forbidden, many a Kiwi soldier's kitbag included a portable camera known as 'The Soldier's Kodak'. The images they recorded form the basis of this poignant collection of our soldiers from the First World War. In a major research project, Glyn Harper and the National Army Museum combined official war photographs with more informal images to provide a moving visual history. Originally published in 2008, this book has now been beautifully redesigned as a stunning large-format hardback. While primarily drawn from the Museum's collection, many photographs from private sources were included. From more than 25,000 photographs, just over 800 were selected - most of which had never been published before. Chosen to depict each theatre of the 1914-18 war, including Gallipoli, Sinai-Palestine and the Western Front, poignant images from the home front were included, along with graphic portraits of wounded soldiers, whose treatment marked the beginnings of modern plastic surgery.Despite the First World War being described as the most important and far-reaching political and military event of the twentieth century, pivotal in forging our national sense of identity, relatively little photographic material had been published from a soldier's perspective. This new edition contains additional information that has come to light since the first edition regarding many of the photos, as well as some new images. Poignant, stirring and at times unbearable, it records the appalling, brutalising, mundane and touching experiences of those who were there. Lest we forget.

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.

Lieutenant-Colonel William Malone is one of New Zealand's best-known First World War soldiers, having held off fierce Turkish counter-attacks for nearly two days before being killed by a shell from a British warship. The defence of Chunuk Bair has been described as one of New Zealand's finest hours. Malone and his men captured and held the heights of Chunuk Bair on the Gallipoli Peninsula in August 1915. William Malone was not only an outstanding military leader, as commander of the Wellington Infantry Battalion, but also a successful farmer, lawyer and family man. His letters reveal a man unfulfilled by peacetime pursuits, and war offered him a liberation of spirit and a new sense of purpose. Leaving for the front, he wrote, 'I leave a lucrative practice, a happy home, a brave wife and children without any hesitation. I feel I am just beginning to live.' This is the first biography of William Malone.

The New Zealand Expeditionary Force earned an elite reputation on the Western Front In World War I, and the New Zealanders' war effort was a defining moment in their national history. The statistics are astonishing: of the total population of New Zealand of 1 million, no fewer than 100,000 men enlisted, and of those, 18,000 were killed and 58,000 wounded. In other words, 15 percent of the male population of New Zealand became casualties. Famously, the NZEF was first committed at Gallipoli in 1915, but NZ cavalry regiments also helped defend Egypt and fought in Palestine with Allenby's famous Desert Mounted Corps. On the Western Front the Kiwis were called the 'Silent Division' for their fieldcraft and their uncomplaining professionalism. This book is both a tribute and a history of the contribution made by a small nation.