Our Great Hearted Men

The AIF and the Hundred Days Battlefields such as Gallipoli, Fromelles, Pozières, Bullecourt and Passchendaele are burnt into the Australian Great War psyche. Unfortunately the sheer guts, fortitude and sacrifice of the diggers in those battles had often been wasted by poor leadership and planning. From an Australian perspective, such sacrifice engendered bitterness and frustration, which resulted in an emergent sense of Australian nationalism. The AIF now sought a unification of its five divisions to fight under its own command and administration.By mid-1918, after the calamitous German March offensive in which 1200 square miles of hard-won territory had been lost, the BEF (British Expeditionary Force) had begun to learn its lessons. In just 100 action-packed days Germany was brought to its knees. And Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash and his Australian Corps played a critical role in that stunning victory. In this authoritative account of...