The Eleventh

Résumé du livre

Volume One - Gallipoli The story of the first battalion to be raised in Western Australia for overseas service in the First World War. The battalion was one of the first ashore at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, and was one of the last to be relieved, serving nearly seven months at Anzac. The 540 page hardback book covers the formation of the unit at Blackboy Hill Camp in August 1914, its training in Egypt and on the Greek island of Lemnos, its subsequent service at Gallipoli, the withdrawal in November 1915, and its rebuilding prior to being sent to France in March 1916.The 11th Battalion was immortalised by the January 1915 photograph of its officers and men assembled in front, and on the Great Pyramid of Cheops (Kjufu). The Eleventh, Volume 1, tells the story of many of these officers and men, and members of the battalion's reinforcement companies, who fought, laughed, cried and died at Gallipoli.Through extensive use of letters and diaries, photographs, maps and casualty lists, the reader gains full insight into what soldiering was like in 1914 and 1915. The reader is taken through the months of training and into the boats at dawn on 25 April; through nearly seven months of fighting and the grind of trench warfare; the terrible attrition and the constant need for reinforcements; the withdrawal from Anzac; and the heartbreaking realisation that the toil and sacrifice had all been in vain.