Titles to Note
The Next Great War?: The Roots of World War I and the Risk of U.S.–China Conflict
Edited by Richard N. Rosencrance and Steven Miller, The MIT Press, 2015 ISBN 9780262028998, 313pp, US$27.00
A century ago, Europe’s diplomats mismanaged the crisis triggered by the murder of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, plunging the world into the First World War, which killed millions, toppled dynasties, and destroyed empires. Today, as the hundredth anniversary of the Great War prompts renewed debate about war’s causes, scholars and policy experts are also considering the parallels between the present international system and the world of 1914. Are China and the United States fated to follow in the footsteps of previous great power rivals? Will today’s alliances drag countries into tomorrow’s wars? Can leaders manage power relationships peacefully? Or will East Asia’s territorial and maritime disputes trigger a larger conflict, just as rivalries in the Balkans did in 1914? In The Next Great War?, experts reconsider the causes of the First World War adn explore whether the great powers of the twenty-first century can avoid the mistakes of Europe’s statesmen in 1914 and prevent another catastropic conflict. They conclude that only a deep understanding of the differences between today’s world and the world of 1914, and early action to bring great powers together, will enable the United States and China to avoid a great war.
Warrior Elite
Robert Macklin, Hachette Australia, 2015 ISBN 9780733632914, 375pp, $35.00
Warrior Elite is the story of Australia’s special forces and intelligence operations, ranging from the early days of Z Force in the Second World War to the establishment of the Special Air Service and Commando regiments as the elite fighters of today, and from the Australian Secret Intelligence Service to the Australian Signals Directorate and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation. It stretches from small operations of the past to the sophisticated military, police and intelligence machine of the present and future. Through dozens of exclusive interviews within special forces and intelligence agencies, Robert Macklin has uncovered daring and sometimes heartbreaking stories of Australia’s elite troops.
One Shot Kills: A History of Australian Army Sniping
Glenn Wahlert and Russell Linwood, Big Sky Publishing, 2014 ISBN 9781922132659, 220pp, $19.95
The snipers of today’s Australian Army have learned the lessons of history and are held in the same high regard by friend and foe as their Gallipoli forebears. Snipers have become an essential force multiplier and have deployed on every operation since Somalia. In this, the second of the Australian Army Combat Support Series, Glenn Wahlert and Russell Linwood, both qualified Army marksmen, tell the story of the sniper’s journey from the South African veldt to the recent battlegrounds of Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also the story of the development of the modern sniper’s combat weapon system in which technology has been harnessed to produce extraordinary results on the battlefield.
Death by Mustard Gas: How Military Secrecy and Lost Weapons can Kill
Geoff Plunket, Big Sky Publishing, 2014 ISBN 9781922132918, 228pp, $34.99
In 1943, a top-secret consignment of chemical weapons, including deadly mustard gas, arrived in Australia by ship. But there was a problem — it was leaking. Military authorities quickly realised this, but in the interests of secrecy, sent unprotected and unsuspecting wharf labourers into a lethal environment. The result was catastrophic: permanent disability and death. Almost seventy years after war stocks of chemical weapons were apparently totally destroyed, mustard gas is still present on the Australian mainland, in her oceans and along her coastal fringes.
These deadly weapons were incompletely destroyed, buried or simply lost. In this book, Geoff Plunkett, author of Chemical Warfare in Australia, brings to light how this consignment of a chemical that was not just devastating in war, but persistent in the environment, came to Australia during the Second World War, and the effect it had on those who came into contact with it. In the process, he presents a very real lesson for today’s military.
To Kokoda
Nicholas Anderson, Big Sky Publishing, 2014 ISBN 9781922132956, 236pp, $19.99
When the Japanese war machine swept through South-East Asia in early 1942, it was inevitable that conflict would reach Australian territory on the island of New Guinea. The ultimate Japanese target was Port Moresby. Conquering the capital would sever communication between Australia and her American ally and allow Japanese air power to threaten Australia’s northern cities. The fourteenth publication in the Australian Army Campaigns Series, Nicholas Anderson’s
To Kokoda explores the campaign along the Kokoda Trail that is second only to Gallipoli in the Australian psyche. Access to previously untapped Japanese records has provided a new perspective to this campaign and to the bravery and exploits of the men who fought on the Trail. The Owen Stanley Ranges constitutes one of the harshest battlefields that have ever been encountered. The Australian soldiers who bore arms in such terrain can be forever proud of their service to their country.
Centenary of Anzac
Australia commemorates the Centenary of Anzac between 2014 and 2019, marking 100 years since our nation’s involvement in the First World War. The Centenary of Anzac is a milestone of special significance to all Australians though.
The First World War helped define us as a people and as a nation. Reflecting this, the ‘Titles to Note’ section of the Australian Army Journal will highlight new publications on Australia’s participation in the ‘war to end all wars’.
The Grand Deception: Churchill and the Dardanelles
Tom Curran, Big Sky Publishing, 2015 ISBN 9781925275001, 318pp, $34.99
The Ottoman Defence Against the ANZAC Landing: 25 April 1915
Mesut Uyar, Big Sky Publishing, 2015 ISBN 9781922132994, 181pp, $19.99
Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’ Words and Photographs
Richard van Emden and Stephen Chambers, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015 ISBN 9781408856154, 352pp, $49.99
Gallipoli 1915: In an attempt to knock Germany’s ally Turkey out of the war, Allied forces secured a fringe of coastline on the sun-baked Turkish peninsula. The beaches were exposed on all sides and under continual fire. Fresh water was in desperately short supply. Searing heat, disease and exhaustion make impossible the clear-headed decisions upon which the lives of thousands depend. In total, there were more than 254,000 British, French, ANZAC and Indian casualties; the number of killed and wounded on the Turkish side is thought to have been even greater. These three books, covering differing aspects of the Gallipoli campaign, present fresh and divergent perspectives on a campaign that has been credited with forming Australia’s nationhood.
In The Grand Deception, Tom Curran presents a detailed examination of First Sea Lord Winston Churchill’s role in the decision-making process that led to the Gallipoli landings. Using unpublished British archival sources and a range of additional material, both contemporary and modern, his meticulous research casts new
light on the lead-up to a campaign that would profoundly affect Australian military history. Mesut Uyar’s book, The Ottoman Defence Against the ANZAC Landing: 25 April 1915, portrays the Ottoman experience of the landing based on previously unpublished Ottoman and Turkish sources, including military documents, regimental war diaries, personal accounts and memoires. Until now, the lack of
a Turkish perspective has made it almost impossible to construct a balanced account of the events of that fateful April day. Finallly, in Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’ Words and Photographs, leading First World War historian Richard van Emden and Gallipoli specialist Stephen Chambers combine personal accounts written by soldiers on both sides, with more than 130 photographs taken by servicemen themselves, to mark the centenary of the campaign.
Anzac Sons: The Story of Five Brothers in the War to End All Wars
Allison Marlow Paterson, Big Sky Publishing, 2014 ISBN 9781922132796, 688pp, $34.99
The Marlow brothers served in the Australian Imperial Force during the First World War – four served in the 38th Battalion and another in the 2nd Light Trench Mortar Battery. Anzac Sons follows five young Australian soldiers from Mologa, Victoria, through their experiences on the training grounds of Victoria, Egypt and England, to the Western Front battlefields – Pozieres, Bullecourt, Messines, Menin Road, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux and the village battles of 1918. Written by the granddaughter of a surviving brother, the book is composed from a collection of 500 letters and postcards that tells the story of the brothers’ Great War, but also the story of their family and the way its members coped with the tragedy that ultimately consumed their lives.
The Lost Legions of Fromelles: The True Story of the Most Dramatic Battle in Australia’s History
Peter Barton, Allen & Unwin, 2014 ISBN 9781742377117, 448pp, $32.99
On Thursday 30 July 1914, warning telegrams from London arrived in Melbourne and Wellington: a European war against Germany and Austria-Hungary appeared unavoidable; Britain was mobilising. Three days later Australia followed suit, and the Gallipoli landing was the first test of its soldiers. After Gallipoli, the Australian Imperial Force reorganised, reinforced and reconditioned in Egypt, preparing themselves for their opening engagement in France, an assault that began at
6.00 pm on 19 July 1916 near the small village of Fromelles. The subsequent fourteen hours of combat were to prove the most catastrophic of the one thousand days of ANZAC presence on the Western Front. Peter Barton was the first historian to be granted access to Germany’s war archives, and spent ten years researching the material that makes up this book. With his background as a documentary filmmaker, archaeologist and First World War expert he investigates the interrogation of Anglo–Australian prisoners, and the results of shrewd German propaganda techniques. He explores the circumstances surrounding the ‘missing’ Pheasant Wood graves, and along the way, dispels many myths surrounding one of the bloodiest battlefields of the Great War.
