Awards

• Short-listed for Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Award 2001
• Shortlisted for Book Data/ABA Book of the Year Award 2001.
• Winner of Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Best History Book 2002
• Winner of Queensland Premier's Literary Awards: Best History Book 2002.

Overview

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9780553815061

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Reviews

'Superb...Carlyon's writing is so vivid that you almost imagine yourself present. A stunning achievement' -- Saul David * Daily Telegraph * 'Incisive, emotionally-charged and visceral...blends a real feel for the fighting soldier with a firm grasp of the strangely beautiful countryside which saw such a bewildering mix of tragedy, missed opportunity and wasted heroism. A hard-hitting and heart-breaking book' -- Richard Holmes 'Carlyon is a gifted writer...his book deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of Gallipoli. He conveys the beauty of the place and its ugliness 90 years ago' -- John Keegan * Daily Telegraph * 'The book of the year...the most stunning account of the Anzac boneyard' -- Alan Ramsey * Sydney Morning Herald * 'A brilliantly managed narrative and remarkably even-handed...a superb account' -- Trevor Royle * Glasgow Herald *

'A brilliantly managed narrative and remarkably even-handed...a superb account' -- Trevor Royle * Glasgow Herald * 'The book of the year...the most stunning account of the Anzac boneyard' -- Alan Ramsey * Sydney Morning Herald * 'Carlyon is a gifted writer...his book deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of Gallipoli. He conveys the beauty of the place and its ugliness 90 years ago' -- John Keegan * Daily Telegraph * 'Incisive, emotionally-charged and visceral...blends a real feel for the fighting soldier with a firm grasp of the strangely beautiful countryside which saw such a bewildering mix of tragedy, missed opportunity and wasted heroism. A hard-hitting and heart-breaking book' -- Richard Holmes 'Superb...Carlyon's writing is so vivid that you almost imagine yourself present. A stunning achievement' -- Saul David * Daily Telegraph *

'Superb...Carlyon's writing is so vivid that you almost imagine yourself present. A stunning achievement' -- Saul David Daily Telegraph 'Incisive, emotionally-charged and visceral...blends a real feel for the fighting soldier with a firm grasp of the strangely beautiful countryside which saw such a bewildering mix of tragedy, missed opportunity and wasted heroism. A hard-hitting and heart-breaking book' -- Richard Holmes 'Carlyon is a gifted writer...his book deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of Gallipoli. He conveys the beauty of the place and its ugliness 90 years ago' -- John Keegan Daily Telegraph 'The book of the year...the most stunning account of the Anzac boneyard' -- Alan Ramsey Sydney Morning Herald 'A brilliantly managed narrative and remarkably even-handed...a superb account' -- Trevor Royle Glasgow Herald

'Superb...Carlyon's writing is so vivid that you almost imagine yourself present. A stunning achievement' -- Saul David * Daily Telegraph * 'Incisive, emotionally-charged and visceral...blends a real feel for the fighting soldier with a firm grasp of the strangely beautiful countryside which saw such a bewildering mix of tragedy, missed opportunity and wasted heroism. A hard-hitting and heart-breaking book' -- Richard Holmes 'Carlyon is a gifted writer...his book deserves to take its place alongside other classic accounts of Gallipoli. He conveys the beauty of the place and its ugliness 90 years ago' -- John Keegan * Daily Telegraph * 'The book of the year...the most stunning account of the Anzac boneyard' -- Alan Ramsey * Sydney Morning Herald * 'A brilliantly managed narrative and remarkably even-handed...a superb account' -- Trevor Royle * Glasgow Herald *

L A Carlyon takes one of the saddest, most tragic, yet most celebrated campaigns of the Great War as the subject of this dense and oddly pitched military history. The remembrance services for the Gallipoli campaign today draw over 15,000 people to the Turkish peninsula. It was the very last of the Empire's genteel adventures, conceived in haste by Lord Kitchener, a War Minister well out of his depth, and regretted at leisure by almost 250,000 dead men, Brits and Turks, who fought to a stalemate in horrifying conditions. Carlyon, an Australian, focuses on the Antipodean role in the conflict - it is often forgotten that the Anzacs suffered the highest rates of casualty - and tells the story in a curious mix of purple prose, glib commentary and earnest factual description. Charming in its own way, it reads like a road trip through history. He collects perspectives from almost every written source from both sides of the battle to weave a dense tapestry that cares less for the usual technical details of war common to military memoirs and more for the lives of the men who fought it and the human acts that have since grown into legend. Ultimately, after conspiring in a fair amount of mythmaking himself, Carlyon acknowledges that for all the folklore that surrounds the battles of Gallipoli, it was a 'true tragedy in three acts'. The sheer incompetence displayed in its conception and execution led directly to the fall of the Lloyd George government and Winston Churchill's first exit from the Commons. Kitchener himself escaped prosecution only because he drowned in a shipwreck before an inquisition could be held. But it is perhaps a lesson that, today, none of the English, Australian, New Zealand, Indian, German, French and Turkish peoples bear anger toward the others for the lives lost on the Gallipoli peninsula. There is a deep wisdom that blames governments for the wars that ordinary men are forced to fight, and leaves the soldiers themselves as honourable comrades. (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

L.A. Carlyon was born in northern Victoria, Australia, in 1942. He has been editor of the Melbourne Age, editor-in-chief of the Herald and Weekly Times group and a visiting lecturer in journalism in a career that has established him as one of his country's most respected journalists, receiving the Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award in 1993. Gallipoli was researched in Australia, Britain, New Zealand and, most importantly, on the Gallipoli Peninsula itself.

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