Description

Title: Exploring Gallipoli – An Australian Army Battlefield Guide

Author: Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Wahlert

Condition: Mint

Edition: 2nd Edition

Publication Date: 2011

ISBN: 9780980814064

Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 176 pages.  

Comments: This book is intended to provide both practical touring information for the independent traveller to Gallipoli, as a guide to the amazing First World War Anzac battlefields. It includes detailed information on the key sites at Gallipoli; including recommended routes, optional walks and drives, maps, digital images, original artwork and even sound files to download on to your MP3 player. Information and suggestions on accommodation, transport, restaurants, entertainment and sight seeing are also provided to enable you to plan your holiday and make the most of the your time on the Peninsula. There is even a section on touring Istanbul should you have a few days spare.

Written by a serving Australian Army officer with over 30 years soldiering experience, and how an historian with the Australian Army History Unit, Lieutenant Colonel Glenn Wahlert presents a unique view of the campaign and of the key events that occurred on the ground. He guides you through walks along Monash Valley and up to Quinn’s Post, one of the most dangerous places at Gallipoli; places you in the light horse trench at The Nek and talks you through that fateful charge in August 1915; before directing you to some of the most beautiful sites and lookouts that witnessed so much carnage more that 90 years ago.

The Anzacs area of Gallipoli is well preserved and unique, as battlefields go. While large slices of where the British and French fought have been returned to farmland or villages, the rugged, steep cliffs that both surprised and challenged the waves of Australian and New Zealanders in 1915 remain largely untouched. It is still common to trip over a piece of shrapnel, find bullets and cartridge cases sticking out of the dirt, and, sadly, even uncover human remains.

There is so much to see that the unwary traveller is likely to miss half of the key locations (such as the lovely Shrapnel Valley and Shell Green Cemeteries and the magnificent views from Plugge’s Plateau) and waste time wandering aimlessly. So much happened in those eight months of the campaign that a quick drive around the area cannot do it justice or give the visitor a true feel for what happened here.