Hidden under the shadow of Gallipoli for decades, the
breathtaking story of what really happened on the Western Front has finally been
brought into the bright light of day.
And here is what the story is ... The Anzac's Western Front
campaign has a greater impact than Gallipoli in almost every respect:
- five times more soldiers (250,000 rather than 50,000)
- more than five times the amount of men killed (46,000 compared to 8,709)
- more than five times as many battles, with troops serving there for four
times longer, and
- five times the sum of Victoria Crosses were awarded to Australians (a
total of 52).
The Diggers serving on the Western Front also helped win the
war, but it was at an almost unfathomable cost.
Using hundreds of brutally honest and extraordinary eyewitness
accounts of the diggers in the muddy and bloody trenches, 'Western Front
Diaries' reproduces their private diaries, letters, postcards and photographs to
tell of their heart-rending experiences, battle by bloody battle. With its
gallery of unpublished photographs, 'Western Front Diaries' is straight from the
mouths of men who fought there ... it doesn't get more honest, raw or
breathtaking that this ...
Contents:
Foreword
- Steve Gower, AO, AO(Mil)
- Australian War Memorial
- In Flanders Fields and the Menin Gate Reply
Preface
- Five times greater than Gallipoli
Introduction
- All too quiet on the Western Front
Part 1: 1914-1915
The stage is set for the Anzacs' arrival
- A seemingly inexorable buildup
- 1914: The first year of war
- 1915: The second year of war
Part 2: 1916
Out of the frying pan into the fire
- Battle of Verdun
- The first Anzacs start leaving Egypt
- First frontline experience
- First Australian raid
- The Battle of the Somme: history's worst battlefield toll
First big battle
- Fromelles: the worst one-day death toll
Second big battle
- Pozieres: the worst killing field of all
- Pozieres: Percy Smythe's account
Third big battle
- Mouquet Farm: dying in the mud
Part 3: 1917
The year of neck-and-neck struggle
- January 1917: winter report
- Germany's strategic retreat
- Battle for Lagnicourt
- Battle of Arras
- America joins the fray
- Battle of Vimy Ridge
Fourth big battle series: Bullecourt (1) and (2)
- Bullecourt (1): abandoned by tanks in no-man's land
- Lagniciourt: losing and regaining a village on the same day
- Bullecourt (2): no thanks to the tanks
Fifth big battle series: Ypres in Flanders
- Messines
- (i) Menin Road
- (ii) Polygon Wood
- (iii) Broodseinde
- (iv) Poelcapelle
- (v) Passchendaele
- Battle of Cambrai
Part 4: 1918
Year of victory on the Western Front
- The German Spring Offensive
Sixth big battle series: Battles that halted the German offensive
- Halting battle (i): Hebuterne village
- Halting battle (ii): first Dernancourt
- Halting battle (iii): first battle for Morlamcourt
- Halting battle (iv): first Villers-Bretonneux
- Halting battle (v): second Dernancourt
- Halting battle (vi): Hangard Wood
- Halting battle (vii): Hazebrouck (aka Battle of the Lys)
- Battle of Zeebrugge
Seventh big battle series: Villers-Bretonneux and beyond the Somme
- Turning point battle (i): second Villers-Bretonneux
- Turning point battle (ii): second Morlancourt
- Turning point battle (iii): Ville-sur-Ancre
- Battle of Ainse
- Battle of Cantigny
- Battle of Belleau Wood
- Battle of Noyon-Montdidier
- Turning point battle (iv): third Morlancourt
Eighth big battle: the long-awaited breakthrough Hamel
Ninth big battle: Amiens, Germany's 'black day'
Tenth big battle series: post Amiens mop-ups
- Mop-up battle (i): Lihons
- Mop-up battle (ii): Etinehem
- Mop-up battle (iii): Proyart
- Mop-up battle (iv): Transloy-Loupert system
- Mop-up battle (v): Chuignes
Eleventh big battle series: final victory roll
- Victory roll (i) & (ii): Mont St Quentin and Peronne
- Victory roll (iii): Hindenburg outpost line (aka Hargicourt)
- Victory roll (iv): St Quentin Canal
- Victory roll (v): Montbrehain, the Australians' last battle
Part 5: Post War
The high prices of peace
- Combatants killed
- Total killed
- Civilian deaths
- Apres la guerre
- Farewell to old France
- Returning to Australia
- Tragedy and triumph
- Success stories
- He sent his son
Appendix
Timeline of World War I
Who was who
Territorial recruitments of the AIF in WWI
Allied formations in WWI
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Picture Credits
Bibliography
Index
