More than one quarter of the Australian soldiers chosen to land on Gallipoli at dawn on 25 April 1915 were Western Australians. Four years later, only one in four of them had escaped death or severe injury. But that morning, by climbing the cliffs under a hail of Turkish bullets, they won a permanent place in Australia’s most celebrated national legend. At Gallipoli that was all any of the attacking troops won.
The British and French, whose armies also suffered heavy losses at the Dardanelles, regarded the campaign as nothing but a humiliating military disaster best forgotten. In Australia Gallipoli was hailed as ‘the proving of a nation’s soul’ and the day of the landing became sacred.
This book is not only a military history but a regional history about Western Australians who volunteered for the 1914-18 War. The Great War experience, rather than changing the nature of society, became a climactic, symbolic expression of much of what Australians already understood about life. The war acted as a myth, where life situations recognised by white Australians were brought together in one catastrophic whole, to create a story of unrivalled emotional impact. pp. 240 illusts #0119/0221