Notes

Gallipoli and the Western Front
390 pages
illustrations, maps
First published in 2010 as: Shattered glory : the New Zealand experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front Contents: Jingoism -- Massey's tourists -- A 'wild cat' expedition -- Innocence destroyed -- Enduring the unendurable -- Chunuk Bair -- Withdrawal -- Scales of war -- Mechanised death -- Biting and holding -- Passchendaele -- Storm fronts -- Armistice -- A land for heroes? -- Myth and memory
Summary: The author discusses how the First World War affected the lives of ordinary New Zealanders. The book analyses what it was like for New Zealand soldiers at the two main battle fronts where they fought, and frames it with the social effects back home. Beginning with an outline of pre-war New Zealand society, the author portrays the extraordinary world of war into which its young men plunged as they entered the baptism of fire at Gallipoli. The end of innocence that the withdrawal from the Dardanelles implied led to a harder, more fatalistic approach in the theatre of mechanised death that was the Western Front. By the end of the war, hope and glory had faded, replaced by a new view of military heroism in a country forever changed