Gallipoli Diary [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

Even during the horrors of the brutalizing industrialised slaughter of the First World War the Gallipoli campaign stands as a benchmark for the awful conditions and savage fighting that occurred. The narrow strips of land that the British, Australian, New Zealand and other Dominion troops tried to wrest from the dogged Turkish defenders was under constant shellfire and every item had to be dragged to the frontline under this hellish barrage. Captain (as at the time) Gillam was part of the supply service who risked their lives to get, food, clothing and ammunition up to the troops in the front-line. Gillam gives a clear, concise account not only of the dangers that he faced, but also the men that he served so ably in the front-line. His diary covers his time on the Gallipoli Peninsula from his landing at Capes Helles (W Beach-Lancashire Landing) on April 25th 1915, and the landing at Suvla Bay, until the eventual evacuation of the troops in early 1916. There have been many Author —Major John Graham Gillam DSO d. June 1937 Text taken, whole and complete, from the edition published in London, George Allen & Unwin, ltd. 1918. Original Page Count – 328 pages. Illustrations — 10 illustrations.




Gallipoli Diary Vol. I [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

udes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack –71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of hostilities. The desperate losses and ultimate failure of the Gallipoli campaign are legendary even among the holocaust of the First World War. The man ultimately held responsible for the failure was General Ian Hamilton, the officer in charge of the operation; criticism has been heaped on him since the last Allied soldier left the Turkish peninsula in 1915. His diaries however paint a different picture; that of a General struggling with a task that was night-on impossible to begin with; Thrust in to a mad-cap operation he was given the scantest of details; “But my knowledge of the Dardanelles was nil; of the Turk nil; of the strength of our own forces next to nil. Although I have met K. almost every day during the past six months, and although he has twice hinted I might be sent to Salonika; never once, to the best of my recollection, had he mentioned the word Dardanelles.” Short of men, supplies and most all ammunition; his failure was not from a lack of effort. Fighting uphill against an entrenched enemy, the ground that he and his men fought over was some of the toughest on Earth to attack. Always too close to the fighting line he was out of his depth with the strategic thinking necessary in an army commander. There is much in his diaries that is of interest the serious student of the Gallipoli campaign and the casual reader of the story of the First World War.




Gallipoli Diary Vol. II [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

Includes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack –71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of hostilities. The desperate losses and ultimate failure of the Gallipoli campaign are legendary even among the holocaust of the First World War. The man ultimately held responsible for the failure was General Ian Hamilton, the officer in charge of the operation; criticism has been heaped on him since the last Allied soldier left the Turkish peninsula in 1915. His diaries however paint a different picture; that of a General struggling with a task that was night-on impossible to begin with; Thrust in to a mad-cap operation he was given the scantest of details; “But my knowledge of the Dardanelles was nil; of the Turk nil; of the strength of our own forces next to nil. Although I have met K. almost every day during the past six months, and although he has twice hinted I might be sent to Salonika; never once, to the best of my recollection, had he mentioned the word Dardanelles.” Short of men, supplies and most all ammunition; his failure was not from a lack of effort. Fighting uphill against an entrenched enemy, the ground that he and his men fought over was some of the toughest on Earth to attack. Always too close to the fighting line he was out of his depth with the strategic thinking necessary in an army commander. There is much in his diaries that is of interest the serious student of the Gallipoli campaign and the casual reader of the story of the First World War.




Gallipoli Diary 1915


Book Description

“We had a look around, through periscopes, at the remains of recent fighting. The dead were on top, and we, the living, were below the general ground-level. The usual order of life and death were reversed.” So wrote Alec Riley in his account of an ordinary soldier in an extraordinary conflict, the Gallipoli campaign of 1915. A signaller with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, Riley was well placed to serve as an eyewitness to the sharp end of the campaign, being with the infantry but not of it. His task, and that of the small unit he served with and whose story he tells, was to maintain communications between the forward trenches and senior commanders in the rear, a conduit for at times unrealistic orders one way, and all-too-real situation reports the other. During his time on the peninsula, Riley kept meticulous notes, which form the basis of this account. He also took his camera to war, the resulting photos—some of which were used in the British official history of the campaign—flesh out his detailed story of life in and behind the lines. After four months on the peninsula, suffering from jaundice, septic sores and dysentery, Riley was evacuated sick, destined first for Mudros and then Blighty. He made sure to save his diary and camera. Although Gallipoli had done for Riley, Riley was not done with Gallipoli. Even while on the peninsula, he and his comrades had looked beyond the war. “We tried to imagine what the place would be like when the armies had gone. Achi Baba would be green again, the trenches would fall in and flatten; communication-trenches, through which thousands of men had passed, would be long and shallow depressions, and frogs and tortoises the only inhabitants of gully and nullah.” Remarkably, Alec Riley returned to find out, revisiting the peninsula at least twice. In 1930, he spent ten days wandering across the now overgrown fields of battle on a lone pilgrimage, revisiting places he knew intimately 15 years before. This pilgrimage, and a subsequent second visit, was intended to form the basis of a book, again illustrated with his trusty camera. Sadly, the original manuscript has been lost. But the editors have identified two extracts that appeared in print, which they present alongside a faithful transcript of Riley’s diary and notes. Also included is an unpublished introduction by General Sir Ian Hamilton, commander of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force of which Riley had been a small part, and with whom Riley had a decade-long correspondence. The editors of the diary, Michael Crane and Bernard de Broglio, have added copious footnotes and detailed biographical notes on the officers and men who come to life in Riley’s writings, as well as an order of battle and summary of arms for the 42nd Division at Gallipoli. Fourteen maps illustrate the actions, large and small, that Riley describes, alongside 47 black and white photographs, most showing the battlefield in 1915 and 1930. Gallipoli Diary 1915 will appeal to readers of WW1 and military history, but especially to those with an interest in the Gallipoli campaign. It will be bookended by two further diaries that record Alec Riley’s mobilisation and training in Egypt, and his time in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley. Collectively they offer a unique window into the experiences of a pre-war Territorial soldier, before, during and after Gallipoli.




NEW ZEALANDERS AT GALLIPOLI [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

Contains over 55 photos and 10 maps. “Someone once remarked that the ‘NZ’ in ANZAC is silent, and perhaps people associate ANZAC especially with Australia with its ANZAC Day parade and commemorative services. This book, part of the Official History of New Zealand’s effort in the Great War, clearly shows the extent of New Zealand’s part in that ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. The NZEF sailed from Wellington on 16th October 1914, in all 351 officers and 7410 other ranks making four infantry battalions, four mounted rifles regiments, an artillery brigade, sappers, signals, medical and other divisional troops. They disembarked in Alexandria on 3rd December and the infantry battalions were attached to the Canal defence force where, in February 1915 they had their first brush with the Turks, repelling an attack on the Canal. In Egypt they combined with Australian troops to form the New Zealand and Australian Division, landing on Gallipoli on 25th April 1915. By the end of the campaign they had suffered 7,197 battle casualties (Medical History of the War ) or almost one hundred per cent of the original expeditionary force. [It] gives a clear picture of the terrain over which the battles were fought, the climate, the conditions, the intensity of the fighting and a realistic account of the horrors of the battlefield. The easy-to-read text is supported by a wealth of contemporary photos and clear maps. There is a list of honours ... (one VC) including Mention in Despatches .... The appendices also contain tables showing ships transporting the NZEF and which units each carried; the ships carrying the division to Gallipoli; the detailed strengths, by units, of the original expeditionary force and subsequent units raised during the Gallipoli campaign. There is a very useful glossary of all the place names mentioned in the text with translation of some of the Turkish features e.g., Tepe, a hill; Kale, a fort; and there is a Gallipoli Diary.” —N&M Print Ed.




Suvla Bay And After [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

Includes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack -71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of hostilities. A moving and wittily written account of an officer of the 5th Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers of the 10 (Irish Division) during their heroic but futile campaign on the Gallipoli Peninsula. He landed with his men of ‘D’ company into the storm of shot, shell and death at Suvla Bay and fought hard against the elements and the Turks. He was wounded in August 1915 and evacuated to Lemnos and thence back to England, where he wrote his recollections during his convalescence. As acclaimed expert Cyril Falls wrote of Juvenis’ “...book is far ahead of the majority of disjointed accounts of warfare which appeared in those in those early days and has literary merit.”




Hell of a Time


Book Description

One of the last undiscovered personal accounts of an Australian soldier fighting to survive WWI




From Gallipoli To Baghdad [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

Includes Gallipoli Campaign Map and Illustrations Pack -71 photos and 31 maps of the campaign spanning the entire period of hostilities. The epic story of a Chaplain attached to the 4th Battalion the Royal Scots during the First World War; ministering to his flock amid the shot and shell of the bloody failures at Gallipoli and onward to the victorious march to Baghdad. “British (Scottish) author and clergyman. He was born at Corsock, near Kircudbright in the South-West of Scotland, the second son of John Ewing and Marion McCulloch, and was educated at the Universities of Glasgow and Leipzig. Following his ordination, he served as a minister in Palestine, Birmingham, and his native Scotland, He was married twice, both times to women from Hartlepool in County Durham; firstly, in 1888, to Margaret Jane Park, and, secondly, in 1896, to Elizabeth Mary Black, with whom he had one son and two daughters. In 1910, he was appointed Territorial Chaplain to the 4th. Battalion of the Royal Scots Regiment, and served as Chaplain to the Forces on Gallipoli for eight months including the evacuation, for which he was awarded the Military Cross and was mentioned in despatches. Later in the War, he was at the Suez Canal for three months and in Mesopotamia for a year, in the course of which which he was wounded at Baghdad and, again, mentioned in despatches, and a third such mention occurred with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in the advance from Gaza to Jerusalem. After the Armistice, he became the Chaplain of St. Andrew's Church in Jerusalem. He was the author of seven books, most of which, such as "Arab and Druze at Home" (1907) and "Cedar and Palm" were concerned with the Middle East. The final line of his inscription reads, "A comforter of many."”-Memorial




Love Letters From An Anzac [Illustrated Edition]


Book Description

“Oliver Hogue (1880-1919), journalist and soldier, was born on 29 April 1880 in Sydney ... He enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force in Sep. 1914 as a trooper with the 6th Light Horse Regiment. Commissioned second lieutenant in Nov., he sailed for Egypt with the 2nd L.H. Brigade in the Suevic in Dec.. Hogue served on Gallipoli with the Light Horse (dismounted) for five months, then was invalided to England with enteric fever. In May 1915 he was promoted lieutenant and appointed orderly officer to Colonel Ryrie, the brigade commander. As ‘Trooper Bluegum’ he wrote articles for the Herald subsequently collected in the books Love Letters of an Anzac and Trooper Bluegum at the Dardanelles. Sometimes representing war as almost a sport, he took pride in seeing ‘the way our young Australians played the game of war’. Hogue returned from hospital in England to the 6th L.H. in Sinai and fought in the decisive battle of Romani. Transferred to the Imperial Camel Corps on 1 Nov. 1916, he was promoted captain on 3 July 1917. He fought with the Camel Corps at Magdhaba, Rafa, Gaza, Tel el Khuweilfe, Musallabeh, and was with them in the first trans-Jordan raid to Amman. In 1917 Hogue led the ‘Pilgrim’s Patrol’ of fifty Cameliers and two machine-guns into the Sinai desert to Jebel Mousa, to collect Turkish rifles from the thousands of Bedouins in the desert. After the summer of 1918, spent in the Jordan Valley, camels were no longer required. The Cameliers were given horses and swords and converted into cavalry. Hogue, promoted major on 1 July 1918, was now in Brigadier General George Macarthur-Onslow’s 5th L.H. Brigade, commanding a squadron of the 14th L.H. Regiment. At the taking of Damascus by the Desert Mounted Corps in Sep. 1918, the 5th Brigade stopped the Turkish Army escaping through the Barada Gorge. As well as the articles sent to Australia, and some in English magazines, Hogue wrote a third book, The Cameliers,...”-Aust. Dict. of Nat. Bio.




Walking Gallipoli


Book Description

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.