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

On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey to secure the sea route between Britain and France in the west and Russia in the east. After eight months of terrible fighting, they would fail. Peter tells this iconic tale in GALLIPOLI. History comes to life with Peter FitzSimons. Turkey regards the victory to this day as a defining moment in its history, a heroic last stand in the defence of the nation’s Ottoman Empire. But, counter-intuitively, it would signify something perhaps even greater for the defeated Australians and New Zealanders involved: the birth of their countries’ sense of nationhood. Now approaching its centenary, the Gallipoli campaign, commemorated each year on Anzac Day, reverberates with importance as the origin and symbol of Australian and New Zealand identity. As such, the facts of the battle – which was minor against the scale of the First World War and cost less than a sixth of the Australian deaths on the Western Front – are often forgotten or obscured. Peter FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, recreates the disaster as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt.

Every Australian old enough to read and write has heard of Gallipoli, yet how many of us have encountered anything beyond the Australian viewpoint. This account from a Turkish perspective broadens our knowledge of these tragic events.

A hero returns home to a country that is riding high on victory and bolstered with pride. But anyone who has experienced war knows it can never be left behind. Return of the Gallipoli Legend continues the story, told in Hard Jacka, of Albert Jacka, VC - soldier, legend and friend. In this meticulously researched account of a hero and his comrades-in-arms, Michael Lawriwsky explores the human cost of war. Coming home is bittersweet and the memories and experiences of war are never forgotten --irrevocably changing the world view of the soldiers who returned to a nation on the brink of The Great Depression. It is through the eyes of Albert Jacka, VC that we catch a glimpse of how survival away from the trenches becomes an emotional battle on the homefront. Michael Lawriwsky vividly describes the baptism of fire Australia's young soldiers faced when they were called upon to sacrifice all for King and Country on the battlegrounds of Gallipoli, the Somme, Bullecourt and Polygon Wood. The price paid by the soldiers and their families is one that will echo through generations. Albert Jacka, VC was a hero whose legacy lives on.

'Return to Gallipoli' explores the memory of the Great War through the historical experiences of pilgrimage. It examines the significance these 'sacred sites' have acquired in the hearts and minds of successive generations and charts the complex responses of young and old, soldier and civilian.