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The Great War
'An Australian soldier wandered about near the German lines after the battle of Fromelles. He had been hit in the forehead and skin hung over his eyes. He was blinded and out of his mind. He would blunder around in circles, hands outstretched, then fall down. Then he would get up and stumble around again. This went on for days. The Germans eventually killed him. It is unclear whether they did this out of cussedness or kindness. This was the Great War and men did terrible things and did not always understand why they did them.'
Australians in the 1920s could explain the loss of a husband or a son with one word. They simply said Pozieres or Passchendaele and everyone understood. The men who fell at these and other places on the western front were part of the largest tragedy in Australian history - 179,000 dead and wounded, 'one long national funeral' that lasted into the 1930s.
Now, in The Great War, Les Carlyon tells the story of these men. The narrative shifts effortlessly from the huge to the human, from the political salons of London and St. Petersburg to trenches that smell of mildew on sandbags and old blood. Carlyon describes the grand strategies, but never loses sight of ordinary soldiers caught up in the first big war of the industrial age, a war that turned out to be nothing like they thought it would be. With a novelist's eye for detail and anecdote, he takes us back to their world and their war. Meticulously researched and authoritative, The Great War gives us all an understanding of how and why we lost a generation of Australians between 1916 and 1918.
Carlyon wanders the battlefields of France and Belgium and recreates the hellish landscapes of ninety years ago. He again demonstrates a unique ability to present history as mesmerising narrative. The Great War is a superb sequel to the number one bestseller Gallipoli. It will stand as the most brilliant account of what is still the major event in Australia's military history.
Australians in the 1920s could explain the loss of a husband or a son with one word. They simply said Pozieres or Passchendaele and everyone understood. The men who fell at these and other places on the western front were part of the largest tragedy in Australian history - 179,000 dead and wounded, 'one long national funeral' that lasted into the 1930s.
Now, in The Great War, Les Carlyon tells the story of these men. The narrative shifts effortlessly from the huge to the human, from the political salons of London and St. Petersburg to trenches that smell of mildew on sandbags and old blood. Carlyon describes the grand strategies, but never loses sight of ordinary soldiers caught up in the first big war of the industrial age, a war that turned out to be nothing like they thought it would be. With a novelist's eye for detail and anecdote, he takes us back to their world and their war. Meticulously researched and authoritative, The Great War gives us all an understanding of how and why we lost a generation of Australians between 1916 and 1918.
Carlyon wanders the battlefields of France and Belgium and recreates the hellish landscapes of ninety years ago. He again demonstrates a unique ability to present history as mesmerising narrative. The Great War is a superb sequel to the number one bestseller Gallipoli. It will stand as the most brilliant account of what is still the major event in Australia's military history.
863 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2006
48 people are currently reading
394 people want to read
About the author
Les Carlyon
13 books14 followersLes Carlyon was born in northern Victoria in 1942. He has been editor of the Age, Melbourne, and editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times group. He has twice won the Walkley Award. His Gallipoli was published in 2001 to enormous critical and commercial success in Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain, and is now widely regarded as the definitive history of that campaign. Gallipoli won the Queensland Premier's Literary Award for Best History Book and the Australian Publishers' Association Readers' Choice Award. He died in March 2019.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
June 20, 2009
Another inspiring book by Les Carlyon, following on from his best selling account of Gallipoli comes this book, this time covering the Australian involvement on the Western front from 1916 till 1918. During this period the Australian troops fought in all the major battles, from the Somme to the breaching of the Hindenburg Line and become, along with the Canadian Corps one of the most feared and respected troops on the Western Front. During WW1 Australia's small population sent over 332,000 men to serve overseas and of those 215,000 or more became casualties, (of which 60,000 died). A casualty rate of 65 per cent! If you have an interest in the Great War then this book should be in your library.
April 25, 2013
"We are lousy, stinking, ragged, unshaven, sleepless. Even when we're back a bit we can't sleep for our own guns. I have one puttee, a dead man's helmet, another dead man's gas protector, a dead man's bayonet. My tunic is rotten with other men's blood and partly splattered with a comrade's brains...Courage does not count here. It is all nerve. Once that goes one becomes a gibbering maniac." - Lieutenant John 'Alec' Raws, 4 August 1916, quoted in The Great War
On the 28 February 1916, 28-year-old farm labourer, Edwin Gale, from Yacka, South Australia, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. A week later his older brother, Samuel, followed suit. The brothers were sent to the Western Front, the former as part of the Infantry, the other as a Gunner. They lived through some of the harshest conditions imaginable, surviving gas attacks and endless defeats. Neither saw the end of the war: Edwin died on the 21 October 1917 from wounds he received during the (disastrous) Passchendaele Campaign; his brother, Samuel, was killed in action on the second day of the German 'Kaiserschlacht' Offensive, five months and one day after his younger brother (22 March 1918). Their widowed mother lost both her sons. The brothers are buried in Belgium, in separate cemeteries not so far apart, but still thousands of miles from home.
If Edwin and Samuel weren't two kinks in my Family Tree, I probably would never have read Les Carlyon's The Great War, but as it was (and still is), I needed to know more about the battlefields of the First World War so that I could greater understand the lives of these two brothers during such a pivotal moment in history. As it turns out, The Great War was the ideal place to start.
At around 800 pages in length, The Great War is an epic collation of the people, places and events that made the Western Front during the peak of World War I. Its central focus is the young, adventurous Australians who volunteered to fight (for reasons known only to them) on the other side of the world, and the British military commanders and politicians who held their fate. It covers in great, horrific detail all the major battles: Fromelle, Pozieres, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, and then some lesser known ones as well. Not one hellish moment is skipped.
Yet this is not a book bogged down in technical detail; it is not simply "tactics" or a regurgitation of time and place. What makes The Great War such a phenomenal read is the effort that Carlyon has put into creating a personalised recollection, to make it feel as if it is the Fallen who are telling this tale. It contains excerpts from journal entries and letters, photographs and maps. It tells the stories of these men not only as they were during the war, but also what life was like before it and - if they were lucky enough to survive - what happened after.
Yet at the same time, The Great War does not glorify war or make heroes out of ordinary men, instead recognising that they were, in fact, just men. The The Great War may be an epic and phenomenal book, but it is also emotionally wrecking. It made me cry - a lot. It lays bare the horrors of war - the destruction, the desperation and the waste. The reader is thrust into the nightmarish existence of the rancid mud-flats that became the Western Front, and reminds one of the brutality that humans are capable of. It peels back the layers of legend and myth and reveals to the reader the true, human aspect of the war, and explains how a nation lost an entire generation of men - a loss that remains an absolute tragedy, even after the passing of nearly 100 years.
On the 28 February 1916, 28-year-old farm labourer, Edwin Gale, from Yacka, South Australia, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force. A week later his older brother, Samuel, followed suit. The brothers were sent to the Western Front, the former as part of the Infantry, the other as a Gunner. They lived through some of the harshest conditions imaginable, surviving gas attacks and endless defeats. Neither saw the end of the war: Edwin died on the 21 October 1917 from wounds he received during the (disastrous) Passchendaele Campaign; his brother, Samuel, was killed in action on the second day of the German 'Kaiserschlacht' Offensive, five months and one day after his younger brother (22 March 1918). Their widowed mother lost both her sons. The brothers are buried in Belgium, in separate cemeteries not so far apart, but still thousands of miles from home.
If Edwin and Samuel weren't two kinks in my Family Tree, I probably would never have read Les Carlyon's The Great War, but as it was (and still is), I needed to know more about the battlefields of the First World War so that I could greater understand the lives of these two brothers during such a pivotal moment in history. As it turns out, The Great War was the ideal place to start.
At around 800 pages in length, The Great War is an epic collation of the people, places and events that made the Western Front during the peak of World War I. Its central focus is the young, adventurous Australians who volunteered to fight (for reasons known only to them) on the other side of the world, and the British military commanders and politicians who held their fate. It covers in great, horrific detail all the major battles: Fromelle, Pozieres, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux, and then some lesser known ones as well. Not one hellish moment is skipped.
Yet this is not a book bogged down in technical detail; it is not simply "tactics" or a regurgitation of time and place. What makes The Great War such a phenomenal read is the effort that Carlyon has put into creating a personalised recollection, to make it feel as if it is the Fallen who are telling this tale. It contains excerpts from journal entries and letters, photographs and maps. It tells the stories of these men not only as they were during the war, but also what life was like before it and - if they were lucky enough to survive - what happened after.
Yet at the same time, The Great War does not glorify war or make heroes out of ordinary men, instead recognising that they were, in fact, just men. The The Great War may be an epic and phenomenal book, but it is also emotionally wrecking. It made me cry - a lot. It lays bare the horrors of war - the destruction, the desperation and the waste. The reader is thrust into the nightmarish existence of the rancid mud-flats that became the Western Front, and reminds one of the brutality that humans are capable of. It peels back the layers of legend and myth and reveals to the reader the true, human aspect of the war, and explains how a nation lost an entire generation of men - a loss that remains an absolute tragedy, even after the passing of nearly 100 years.
April 2, 2022
It's taken me around 4 years, or roughly the same length as the war itself, to finish this book. And also like the war, I finished it in a flurry over the past few weeks. I had been reading this as I'd read so much about the Second World war, that I felt I had an obligation to expand on my less in depth knowledge of the first. It took me a long time because during the reading of this book, I got sidetracked with Peter Fitzsimons various books on the same subject. They had a different quality, a story telling yarn feeling to them. This book by contrast is your traditional history and comparatively dry.
The book itself is an amazing feat of history writing, and tries to be balanced in its observations. I came away with a new understanding of Australia's part we played in the war, in particular around the events in the closing weeks around St Quentin. It brought to mind the lessons in history from high school, and reminded me of happy times listening to one of my favourite teachers. It also reminded me that he had said that World War 2 was too big to be adequately studied in a 3 month option, and I suspect he'd say the same for World War 1. We did however study World War 1 and having read this book, I can safely there is always more to learn.
This book although long, by necessity is short on detail around the actions themselves because of the large timeline it needs to cover. Having read this book, and flicking through the selected bibliography, I can see myself going further down the rabbit hole as it were.
Despite the long time it took me to really get into this book, I would still recommend it, particularly if you're interested in Australia's involvement.
The book itself is an amazing feat of history writing, and tries to be balanced in its observations. I came away with a new understanding of Australia's part we played in the war, in particular around the events in the closing weeks around St Quentin. It brought to mind the lessons in history from high school, and reminded me of happy times listening to one of my favourite teachers. It also reminded me that he had said that World War 2 was too big to be adequately studied in a 3 month option, and I suspect he'd say the same for World War 1. We did however study World War 1 and having read this book, I can safely there is always more to learn.
This book although long, by necessity is short on detail around the actions themselves because of the large timeline it needs to cover. Having read this book, and flicking through the selected bibliography, I can see myself going further down the rabbit hole as it were.
Despite the long time it took me to really get into this book, I would still recommend it, particularly if you're interested in Australia's involvement.
September 1, 2021
It's only after finishing this book that I have realized why I have been feeling melancholy for the last week. The Great War is a distillation of tragedy and waste: 800 pages of sadness. Les Carlyon used all of his skill to portray the story of the Australian Army on the Western Front, both from the view of the soldier at the front, and the commanders behind the lines, while also including vignettes that explain how the Australian experience fitted into the wider experience of War.
By the time Carlyon came to writing this book, he had already written a book about the Gallipoli Campaign. I do wonder about the choice of title: The Great War to my mind, is somewhat misleading given the subject matter. For this book is strictly a campaign history of the Australian forces from Fromelles - their first foray on the Western front - to the final act of the AIF, the taking of Montbrehain in October 1918. For many people my age Carlyon is better remembered as a journalist who mostly wrote about horse racing. The cognitive dissonance of who I thought Carlyon was and the misleading title of this book took me a little time to overcome. While not a pedant (well maybe a bit), I think the title was poorly chosen, especially as there is no blurb or any other material to alert the reader to the fact that this book is not actually a history of the whole of World War One.
Once I understood the limits of this book, I found it a good read. Carlyon not only writes well about the battles that the Australians fought, but uses his journalistic skill to provide a flavour of what it must have been like, using extracts from diaries and letters to give the reader a sense of the horrors, but also of the personalities of the Australian troops. He has ended most chapters with a view of the battlefields in the present day, contrasting the generally bucolic countryside of the 21st century with the vision of hell that most of it was in 1916-1918.
Like all histories of Australian exploits in the Great War, Carlyon is following in the footsteps of Charles Bean. While Carlyon is not a doe-eyed admirer of the official historian, quite often criticizing his conclusions and his distaste for General Monash, he is influenced as all writers have been by Bean's magnum opus. The Great War is mostly a history from the Battalion level, a narrative of small actions within the wider War.
Carlyon is more readable than Bean, and does try to provide some context for the Australian battles. He intersperses his battlefield descriptions with short essays on the strategic outlook and the political intrigues that swirled around the British forces during the War. He has much to say about Haig, Gough, Plumer, Lloyd George, Nivelle, Foch and Clemenceau. Most of it is not very flattering, and suited to Carlyon's story of the war. This causes him some problems during the book: Plumer is a genius at modern battle, until he isn't, Haig is a tongue-tied nincompoop until he is a rock of determination, and so on. The wish to characterize people simply is something that Carlyon tries to avoid throughout the book, but sometimes he can't help himself and his journalistic desire for a good story overwhelms the more nuanced narrative that may be closer to the truth.
The one character he does map with some complexity is Monash. Carlyon shows us that he was almost certainly the ablest officer in the Australian forces, but also points out clearly that there were others, both British and Colonial, who were his equal. Not only did he lead masterstrokes such as Hamel but there were also times when he pushed his men too far with too little support. What Carlyon shows is that Monash not only had a great tactical mind, he also had the ruthlessness required to sacrifice lives when he felt is was necessary.
While Carlyon describes battles well, there is very little in The Great War about the lives of the troops behind the lines, except when it can add an amusing anecdote to bring out the nature of the troops. Carlyon's descriptions of the AIF tend to follow the template of an army that was short on barrack-room discipline, but good at fighting - the mythical Aussie digger. There is a kernel of truth to all myths, and there is no doubt that the AIF had a more democratic nature than the British army as a whole, but sometimes the good story takes over from the duller reality.
I feel like I'm writing a bad review for this book, which is not my intention. The Great War is a very well written account of the Australian battlefield experience on the Western Front. Carlyon does well to bring out the waste and horror of war, and his trope of ending the chapters with a description of the countryside as it is today, perhaps also describing the cemeteries in which some of the soldiers he writes about lay, evokes the pity of war as well as any book I have read.
The advantage, if I can call it that, of writing a book from the battalion view is that the writer does not have to linger too much on what it was all for. The final few pages lay out the Australian achievement on the Western Front - considerable territory captured, some vital battles, and an honorable part played in a bigger picture. By the end of the war, the AIF was dangerously low on numbers (Carlyon writes pithily and well on the two conscription campaigns run in Australia during the war, as he also does more generally on the machinations of Billy Hughes as Prime Minister, and Keith Murdoch as stirrer), but as one of the most experienced corps of troops on the front, was in demand as a shock force. By the time of its last battle it was spent - the war ended not a moment too soon for the Australians.
If, as a reader, you would like to know about the battles Australia fought on the Western Front, I can recommend The Great War. It's well-written, and gives just enough context to what was going on so that the uninitiated can understand where the Australians fitted into the bigger picture. The maps included in this paperback edition were at best adequate, but there are endnotes, bibliography and a reasonable index.
The strength of the book is in Carlyon's evocation of the average soldier: he is successful in helping the reader get into - as much as one can - the shoes of those who were there. While Gallipoli has become the overarching military myth of Australia, most Australians who died in World War One did so on the Western Front - even the term "digger" was coined on that front in 1917. The lasting effects of the War trickle down to the present day: my Great-Grandfather was killed at Menin Road, one of his brothers was invalided home to Australia in the same year, another had already been killed at Lone Pine, and his other brother, one of the original ANZACS, and someone who participated in every battle listed in this book except the last, was sent home early, one of only 6,000 left from those men who landed at ANZAC Cove in 1915. Their memory, and the memory of the trauma that they suffered, lingered in the minds of the family they had left, and has been passed down to the present day.
I can recommend this book.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
By the time Carlyon came to writing this book, he had already written a book about the Gallipoli Campaign. I do wonder about the choice of title: The Great War to my mind, is somewhat misleading given the subject matter. For this book is strictly a campaign history of the Australian forces from Fromelles - their first foray on the Western front - to the final act of the AIF, the taking of Montbrehain in October 1918. For many people my age Carlyon is better remembered as a journalist who mostly wrote about horse racing. The cognitive dissonance of who I thought Carlyon was and the misleading title of this book took me a little time to overcome. While not a pedant (well maybe a bit), I think the title was poorly chosen, especially as there is no blurb or any other material to alert the reader to the fact that this book is not actually a history of the whole of World War One.
Once I understood the limits of this book, I found it a good read. Carlyon not only writes well about the battles that the Australians fought, but uses his journalistic skill to provide a flavour of what it must have been like, using extracts from diaries and letters to give the reader a sense of the horrors, but also of the personalities of the Australian troops. He has ended most chapters with a view of the battlefields in the present day, contrasting the generally bucolic countryside of the 21st century with the vision of hell that most of it was in 1916-1918.
Like all histories of Australian exploits in the Great War, Carlyon is following in the footsteps of Charles Bean. While Carlyon is not a doe-eyed admirer of the official historian, quite often criticizing his conclusions and his distaste for General Monash, he is influenced as all writers have been by Bean's magnum opus. The Great War is mostly a history from the Battalion level, a narrative of small actions within the wider War.
Carlyon is more readable than Bean, and does try to provide some context for the Australian battles. He intersperses his battlefield descriptions with short essays on the strategic outlook and the political intrigues that swirled around the British forces during the War. He has much to say about Haig, Gough, Plumer, Lloyd George, Nivelle, Foch and Clemenceau. Most of it is not very flattering, and suited to Carlyon's story of the war. This causes him some problems during the book: Plumer is a genius at modern battle, until he isn't, Haig is a tongue-tied nincompoop until he is a rock of determination, and so on. The wish to characterize people simply is something that Carlyon tries to avoid throughout the book, but sometimes he can't help himself and his journalistic desire for a good story overwhelms the more nuanced narrative that may be closer to the truth.
The one character he does map with some complexity is Monash. Carlyon shows us that he was almost certainly the ablest officer in the Australian forces, but also points out clearly that there were others, both British and Colonial, who were his equal. Not only did he lead masterstrokes such as Hamel but there were also times when he pushed his men too far with too little support. What Carlyon shows is that Monash not only had a great tactical mind, he also had the ruthlessness required to sacrifice lives when he felt is was necessary.
While Carlyon describes battles well, there is very little in The Great War about the lives of the troops behind the lines, except when it can add an amusing anecdote to bring out the nature of the troops. Carlyon's descriptions of the AIF tend to follow the template of an army that was short on barrack-room discipline, but good at fighting - the mythical Aussie digger. There is a kernel of truth to all myths, and there is no doubt that the AIF had a more democratic nature than the British army as a whole, but sometimes the good story takes over from the duller reality.
I feel like I'm writing a bad review for this book, which is not my intention. The Great War is a very well written account of the Australian battlefield experience on the Western Front. Carlyon does well to bring out the waste and horror of war, and his trope of ending the chapters with a description of the countryside as it is today, perhaps also describing the cemeteries in which some of the soldiers he writes about lay, evokes the pity of war as well as any book I have read.
The advantage, if I can call it that, of writing a book from the battalion view is that the writer does not have to linger too much on what it was all for. The final few pages lay out the Australian achievement on the Western Front - considerable territory captured, some vital battles, and an honorable part played in a bigger picture. By the end of the war, the AIF was dangerously low on numbers (Carlyon writes pithily and well on the two conscription campaigns run in Australia during the war, as he also does more generally on the machinations of Billy Hughes as Prime Minister, and Keith Murdoch as stirrer), but as one of the most experienced corps of troops on the front, was in demand as a shock force. By the time of its last battle it was spent - the war ended not a moment too soon for the Australians.
If, as a reader, you would like to know about the battles Australia fought on the Western Front, I can recommend The Great War. It's well-written, and gives just enough context to what was going on so that the uninitiated can understand where the Australians fitted into the bigger picture. The maps included in this paperback edition were at best adequate, but there are endnotes, bibliography and a reasonable index.
The strength of the book is in Carlyon's evocation of the average soldier: he is successful in helping the reader get into - as much as one can - the shoes of those who were there. While Gallipoli has become the overarching military myth of Australia, most Australians who died in World War One did so on the Western Front - even the term "digger" was coined on that front in 1917. The lasting effects of the War trickle down to the present day: my Great-Grandfather was killed at Menin Road, one of his brothers was invalided home to Australia in the same year, another had already been killed at Lone Pine, and his other brother, one of the original ANZACS, and someone who participated in every battle listed in this book except the last, was sent home early, one of only 6,000 left from those men who landed at ANZAC Cove in 1915. Their memory, and the memory of the trauma that they suffered, lingered in the minds of the family they had left, and has been passed down to the present day.
I can recommend this book.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
August 8, 2017
"Sprawling epic sometimes struggling to provide a consistent narrative voice" stands as a description both of the conflict and of the book.
As the grandson of an Australian combatant I applaud the single minded focus on the AIF; more detail on the parallel lives of their foe would have given more balance in a work that does err on the side of ANZAC worship from time to time.
A positive contribution to the history of the war. Not exhaustive nor complete, yet this is a new narrative for a new generation.
As the grandson of an Australian combatant I applaud the single minded focus on the AIF; more detail on the parallel lives of their foe would have given more balance in a work that does err on the side of ANZAC worship from time to time.
A positive contribution to the history of the war. Not exhaustive nor complete, yet this is a new narrative for a new generation.
October 21, 2025
A must-read for any Australian interested in what the Australians and New Zealanders went through in the Great War. When thought of today, the plight of the Australian divisions on the Western Front is unimaginable. It makes for tragic reading, serving as a poignant reminder of how lucky we all are. Carlyon's book cover says it all. I have read it twice, and the effect was no less than the first time.
March 26, 2019
A really well written book which manages to evoke a lot of emotions. It made you realise the impact this war had on the world as it is today. The author died recently and this is the first book of his I have read and I am eager to read his other works. It is a very long book but it is really worth the effort to get through it. Anybody interested in Australian War History would love this.
February 23, 2021
The quality of the writing is evident in the fact that it’s around 750 pages long but not a book that you need to take a break on. For mine its unique feature is its ability to critically analyse the actions and character of many of the key characters of the Western Front, such as Haig, Wilhelm, Monash and Ludendorff.
October 1, 2018
This is an excellent book giving a well written history of Australia’s involvement in WW1. It is a wonderful companion to Les Carlton’s Gallipoli and includes stories of famous and lesser known exploits of Aussies in WW1. Thoroughly recommended.
June 9, 2021
Les Carlyon has done it again and produced a cracker. I have read this tome three times and each time I get a new perspective about the Aussies' contribution to the victory after many hard fought and hopeless battles.
July 26, 2021
Firstly, the Australian contribution to the war on the Western Front cannot be understated. In the German official history of the battle of Amiens, August 8th 1918, the Germans rate the combat ability second only to the Canadian expeditionary forces.
There are two volumes of work commonly available and accessible on this subject in mass publication. This work and the 3+1 volume work by Fitzsimons.
It should be clarified that both of these volumes of work are narrative histories full of many eye-witness testimonials and flowing easy to digest stories. They are, therefore, important works in gaining an overall understanding of Australian involvement on the Western Front and a good starting point for further research.
The Great War stands out from the other work in two ways. It is more concise yet still a lovely, flowing narrative with plenty of first hand accounts. Though, perhaps not enough maps. Secondly, it is more complete, glaringly Fitzsimons' work does not cover Bullecourt, for example.
So, I highly recommend this as an introductory price on the Australian contribution on the Western Front or as the basis for further research into brigade or battalion histories.
Thanks for reading
There are two volumes of work commonly available and accessible on this subject in mass publication. This work and the 3+1 volume work by Fitzsimons.
It should be clarified that both of these volumes of work are narrative histories full of many eye-witness testimonials and flowing easy to digest stories. They are, therefore, important works in gaining an overall understanding of Australian involvement on the Western Front and a good starting point for further research.
The Great War stands out from the other work in two ways. It is more concise yet still a lovely, flowing narrative with plenty of first hand accounts. Though, perhaps not enough maps. Secondly, it is more complete, glaringly Fitzsimons' work does not cover Bullecourt, for example.
So, I highly recommend this as an introductory price on the Australian contribution on the Western Front or as the basis for further research into brigade or battalion histories.
Thanks for reading
July 24, 2024
A long book but detailed and enjoyable. I particularly liked the personal journal entries from regular Australian soldiers, it really added to feel that these men were teachers, tradesmen, farmers and all other walks of life.
June 13, 2017
A fantastic read. Every Australian should read this to understand the sacrifices made by the Diggers on the Western Front.
November 16, 2018
More precisely ww1 western front from exclusively Australian perspective. Exhaustive but I was hoping for something more balanced showing the enemies perspective.
April 5, 2025
Although largely about the Australians efforts on the Western Front, the best book on WW1 I've read
December 21, 2025
A superb , moving telling of the Australian experience on the western front.
April 4, 2015
This book was very easy to read as far as war history goes. However I found the sporadic author notes confusing and without context. It was also only when I got to the end I discovered end notes which were not denoted throughout the book. Nor did they make a lot of sense, especially when trying to correlate them later.
However, the majority of the book was easy to read and written in a style that was both interesting and factual.
I have a particular interest in the 10th and later 50th battalion though there was little information, this is not the fault of the writer.
Excellent overview of the Great War!
However, the majority of the book was easy to read and written in a style that was both interesting and factual.
I have a particular interest in the 10th and later 50th battalion though there was little information, this is not the fault of the writer.
Excellent overview of the Great War!
May 3, 2015
Wonderful book, well-written, with an eye for detail and a strong connection with the corporeality of the war experience. Carlyon looks at both the microcosm and the macrocosm of the soldiers' world.
The narrative style encourages you to read it like a series of stories and makes you not want to put it down.
Thoughtful use of maps and photographs and interesting interjections into the main line of thought, by entries of soldiers' diaries and letters.
Writing in chronological order helps you to understand the sequence of events and understand how each event relates to the next and the previous.
The narrative style encourages you to read it like a series of stories and makes you not want to put it down.
Thoughtful use of maps and photographs and interesting interjections into the main line of thought, by entries of soldiers' diaries and letters.
Writing in chronological order helps you to understand the sequence of events and understand how each event relates to the next and the previous.
August 21, 2014
I gave this book four stars because the detail may put off many readers.
Written from an Australian point of view, it details not only the savagery and futility of this conflict, but also the evident incompetence and ignorance of the British Generals, Haig in particular. Unusually for an Australian history of this war, it is much broader than simply the Gallipoli disaster, and includes great detail about the Western Front. Thank goodness the General John Monash was eventually given command of Australian forces. Well worth a read, but it is very long.
Written from an Australian point of view, it details not only the savagery and futility of this conflict, but also the evident incompetence and ignorance of the British Generals, Haig in particular. Unusually for an Australian history of this war, it is much broader than simply the Gallipoli disaster, and includes great detail about the Western Front. Thank goodness the General John Monash was eventually given command of Australian forces. Well worth a read, but it is very long.
October 20, 2008
An account of the Australian Imperial Force on the Western Front, 1916-1918. Carlyon is a retired newspaperman and shows it by skilfully avoiding getting caught up in unit designations, instead relying largely on first-hand accounts of the kind that official histories omit on propaganda grounds. The looting and sometimes shooting of prisoners would be a case in point. The material is intrinsically compelling, and Carlyon adds a layer of accessibility.
May 14, 2009
A well written and absorbing book despite it's daunting size. It left me alternating between being deeply sad to incredibly angry that the Generals and governments could be so inept and callous. Books like this should be required reading for all that we might remember the sacrfices that were made by so many.
March 16, 2012
Despite the length of this book (and it is very long!), it wasn't a grind at all. Carlyon is a fantastic write who really knows how to write history. The personal histories of the men and women involved were very moving.
July 7, 2012
I found this book to be most informative - especially for someone who has little to no knowledge of WWI. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to learn about Australia's involvement in the Western Front.
May 22, 2011
What an extraordinary book. The detail and the stories of utter waste and despair as young Australians fought in the great war are wonderfully told yet horribly all too real.
June 1, 2011
Loved it, any WW1 fan would.
Read
October 8, 2011This book is amazing - I couldn't put it down it. When Carlyon starts telling you about folk you just wish "please don't die".
November 6, 2013
Necessary correction to many WWI myths. I found his appraisal of Bean most interesting as well as the detailed, forgotten story of the diggers he chronicled.
January 23, 2014
A definitive journal of the war where thrill seeking men were slaughted because the English used them as cannon fodder.
June 29, 2016
found his writing style difficult to read
Read
January 31, 2016Good. Very long.
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