Gallipoli

Alan Moorehead's book traces the Gallipoli campaign of 1915, one of the most tragic episodes of the modern era. When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on Germany's side, Winston Churchill, then First Sea Lord, proposed forcing the Dardanelles. The aim was to reopen the Straits to Russian shipping and to knock Turkey out of the war.

On the night of 18 March 1915 the operation came close to succeeding, and the Turkish defenders were nearly overwhelmed. Poor communication kept the Allied commanders in the dark, however. The Turks held their ground, and the Allies suffered losses of around a quarter of a million men.

Moorehead, an Australian-born journalist who had covered wartime events, writes the story as a vivid account of adventure, suspense, suffering, and courage. He conveys the look, sound, and smell of the fighting and the physical horror of the battlefield. The book also shows the enormous waste of life and the folly of pursuing goals that could not be achieved with too few resources, across unfamiliar and unmapped ground.