Books are made by readers. I thank the many people who read and commented on the manuscript during its long evolution into a book.
I acknowledge a formidable cast of historians: Harvey Broadbent, who captured the voices of Gallipoli veterans; Kevin Fewster, C.E.W. Bean’s pioneering biographer; Nathan Wise, a scholar working very much in the Bean tradition, and that talented curator of Gallipoli imagery, Janda Gooding of the Australian War Memorial. I am grateful to Melanie Oppenheimer for her valuable advice on the experience of Australian nurses and Ken Inglis for his remarkable insight into the commemorative architecture of Gallipoli, then and now. Of course, the memory of Anzac has strayed far from the hands of professional historians. I thank Lambis Engelez with whom I have often debated the unsettling memory of the Great War.
Azer Banu Kemaloğlu of the Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Karina Adil and Mehmet Adil helped me recover the Mehmetçik’s story; Steven Clark (historian of the Royal Returned Services Association) and Denise Hill kept the NZ in Anzac; and I am indebted to Annette Becker, of the Historial de la Grande Guerre, a historian imbued with all the poetry of France.
This book is about journeys, the crossing from history to fiction not the least of them. I thank Chandani Lokuge, who led the Warwick Monash Creative Writers Collaboration; playwrights Carolyn Bock and Helen Hopkins; publicists Emma Morris and Pip McGuinness and the linguist Peter Steiner. This book had benefited from the insight of those prizewinning historians and storytellers Tom Keneally and Grace Karskens and critical comment from that great communicator, Bill Bunbury of the ABC.
Writing about Gallipoli is one challenge, teaching it another. I owe a considerable debt to four inspiring teachers, Nick Hughes, Trish Symons, Mike and Roz Goodwin, and to my colleague (and fellow historian) Jenny Lawless of the NSW Board of Studies. Passages of the book were presented to my own students on the Monash Gallipoli Study Tour. I thank them for all they taught their teacher.
Katherine Armstrong (of the Shrine of Remembrance), Julie Wells, Jo Daniels and Jo Kildea read this book in its infancy; they never lost faith in it. Jen Wise and Rebecca Wheatley showed the skill and dedication necessary to bring it to completion. I am especially grateful to Bec for accessing so many of the book’s most compelling images.
The story of a family stands at the centre of this book. My own family was a tireless source of encouragement and support. Karen McKenzie, Rebecca Dowell, Bob Scates, Michael Scates, Alex Scates Frances and Will Scates Frances were engaged and sympathetic critics. I owe much to my daughter’s playful literary forays and my son’s deep insight into the Islamic faith. Much of the book was written in my brother’s house overlooking the southern oceans; his memory is inscribed forever in these words.
I thank the Australian Research Council and Monash University for supporting the scholarship that underpins this book and the many librarians and archivists who assisted me during all those years of research. I am indebted to Jay Winter, who encourages historians to explore new approaches to the past and Aydin Nurhan, a diplomat and statesman, for wise and generous counsel. I acknowledge all my colleagues at the National Centre for Australian Studies and thank Gareth Knapman, Corrie McKee and Cathy O’Brien for their various contributions to this book. A highly professional team at UWA Publishing brought this complex project to fruition. I owe much to the vision and unflagging confidence of Terri-ann White and am indebted to Linda Martin for her close and patient readings of an ever-changing manuscript. I also thank Jade Knight and Kiri Falls for taking the work of a historian to a much wider audience than it might normally reach and Anna Maley-Fadgyas who designed this book’s striking cover.
Finally, I thank Rae Frances who joined me on this journey as she has many others. She has been my guide as well as my companion. I thank her for all she has shown me.