Voyage to Gallipoli

[Matrim]

 

Voyage to Gallipoli

 

By Peter Plowman

Dural Delivery Center: Rosenberg Publishing, 2013

7-1/4” x 9-1/2”, softcover, 304 pages

Photographs, maps, tables, bibliography, index. $34.95

ISBN: 9781922013538

Distributed in the United States by International Specialized Book Services, Portland,

Oregon

 

 

The Commonwealth of Australia was born on January 1, 1901. Fourteen years

later, Australian troops made up a large part of the Allied force that assaulted Gallipoli in

Turkey. Australia’s involvement in the subsequent campaign became a defining moment

for the new nation, witnessed today by its most important national holiday: Anzac Day

(April 25).

 

Maritime historian Peter Plowman’s book, Voyage to Gallipoli, is a masterly

account of the nation’s naval and maritime response to the outbreak of the Great War

and its early operations that culminated with the landings on Gallipoli. The Royal

Australian Navy was very small: a battlecruiser, three modern light cruisers, three

destroyers, and two submarines were its only up-to-date warships. Australia’s merchant

fleet was tiny, too, and its army virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, Australia took on

assignments throughout the Pacific in order to counter German forces there, eliminate

German colonial assets, and assist in terminating effort to raid Allied shipping in the

area.

 

The major task, however, was arranging to transport the new Australian and New

Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) of two divisions (about 40,000 men) to war. The tale of

this undertaking is the core of Plowman’s book. He relies on a mass of source

material—newspaper articles, letters, memoirs, official documents, and secondary

writings—for his narrative. The use of so many letters, memoirs, and newspaper stories

makes his presentation particularly compelling and personal without diminishing its

historicity in the slightest. This is social history at its best.

 

Plowman also displays a masterly use of illustrations to enhance his narrative.

His delving into private and public collections to supplement his own material pays off in

a fascinating array of photographs, few of which have been published before.

Voyage to Gallipoli is both exciting reading and an important contribution to the

literature of World War I. It is particularly interesting for those outside Australia, for

whom much of the story will be new. I highly recommend it.

 

James McFarland

Albuquerque, New Mexico

 

 

 

 

[uss frolick]

Matrim, you have one nice library!