The New Zealand Experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front

‘The best and most comprehensive book on New Zealand’s experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front.’ — Professor Tom Brooking

In this compelling illustrated history, Matthew Wright conveys the momentous impact that the First World War wrought both on the front lines and back home – changes that continue to echo in twenty-first century New Zealand.

In The New Zealand Experience at Gallipoli and the Western Front, historian Matthew Wright goes to the heart of 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, Wright 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 war’s end, hope and glory had faded, replaced by a new view of military heroism – in a country forever changed.

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