Letters and Stories
Read the stories of the brave men and women who went to war
and their connection to the region.
Disastrous August offensive
Locked into entrenched stalemates with occasional costly but inconsequential forays, the Gallipoli campaign.
In the foothills success - above the impossible
August offensive began on August 6 with a diversionary attack on Lone Pine.
Angels of mercy and brave bearers
More than 3,000 Australian civilian nurses volunteered for active service during the First World War.
Futile charges in no man's land
Indecisive battles along entrenchments on the Western Front continued in 1915
The Nek
Below to the right lay the Australian trenches at The Nek, the narrow strip of flat land about the size of a football field.
Turkish tenacity and a brilliant leader
A Turkish Lieutenant Colonel with piercing blue eyes and a powerful presence stepped forward as the Anzacs landed.
A catastrophe Pompey Elliot predicted
200 metres of open ground was twice the distance recommended for a frontal charge at defences.
A bleak winter looms
After the heat, hundreds freeze to death in trenches. ‘It has been snowing all day and my hands are like blocks of wood
British Army Graveyard Kindermord
The first battle of Ypres began on October 20, 1914, near the end of the Race for the Sea.
At the fork
‘Men passing the fork in Monash Valley used to glance at the place (as one of them said) as a man looks at a haunted house.’ – Charles Bean.
Periscopes and Rifles
The periscope rifle devised by Lance Corporal William Beech after five of his comrades were killed in the Turkish May offensive.
The first week
Unable to achieve their objectives on the heights of Chunuk Bair and Achi Baba, the Anzacs and the British dug in. Gallipoli.
Disease, heat and flies
As the summer swelter set in, the Anzacs cursed billions of flies drawn by unsanitary conditions.