CONTENTS
Maps / Charts of formations and commanders
Formations in the military hierarchy
Abbreviations in the text / Conversions
The family tree
One: ‘Awkward Bush Shyness’:
Straitened upbringing, 1878–1894
Two: ‘A Very Glutton for Work’:
Striving for glittering prizes, 1894–1900
Three: ‘Your Brilliant Record’:
The Boer War, 1900–1902
Four: ‘Utmost Energy and Concentrated Perseverance’:
Solicitor and militiaman, husband and father,
1903–August 1914
Five: ‘He Knows How to Make Soldiers’:
Preparing the 7th Battalion, August 1914–April 1915
Six: ‘Hardly Any Left of the Poor Old 7th Battalion’:
Initiation at Gallipoli, April–May 1915
Seven: ‘May I Never See Another War’:
Steele’s Post and Lone Pine, June–August 1915
Eight: ‘Great and Fearful Responsibility’:
Evacuation and elevation, September 1915–June 1916
Nine: ‘The Slaughter Was Dreadful’:
The battle of Fromelles, June–July 1916
Ten: ‘I Really Cannot Imagine How They Live Through It’:
Winter at the Somme, August 1916–March 1917
Eleven: ‘Simply Paralysing the Old Boche’:
Pursuit to the Hindenburg Line, March 1917
Twelve: ‘Too Weary and Worn for Words’:
Bullecourt and a well-earned rest, April–August 1917
Thirteen: ‘I Would Have Gladly Welcomed a Shell to End Me’:
The battle of Polygon Wood, September–November 1917
Fourteen: ‘Terribly Depressed and Pessimistic’:
Another gloomy winter, November 1917–March 1918
Fifteen: ‘Never So Proud of Being an Australian’:
Resisting the German onslaught, March–April 1918
Sixteen: ‘The Most Brilliant Feat of Arms in the War’:
The battle of Villers-Bretonneux, April 1918
Seventeen: ‘A Profound Sense of Injustice’:
The supersession grievance, May 1918
Eighteen: ‘As Usual My Boys Were … Just Splendid’:
Relentless offensive, June–November 1918
Nineteen: ‘Very Sad About Everything’:
Painful adjustment to peace, November 1918–June 1919
Twenty: ‘No Obligation at All to the National Party’:
Into parliament, June 1919–July 1920
Twenty-One: ‘A Special Desk in This Chamber’ for the War Historian:
Period of ‘Elliott’s Exuberance’, July 1920–1921
Twenty-Two: ‘Finest and Most Authoritative Advocate’ for Returned Soldiers:
The aftermath of war, 1921–1925
Twenty-Three: ‘We Feel It Was Long Overdue’:
Major-General at last, 1925–1929
Twenty-Four: ‘The Injustice … Has Actually Colored All My Post War Life’:
Disintegration, 1929–March 1931
Twenty-Five: ‘Thousands of Diggers Will Truly Mourn for Pompey’:
Afterwards, March 1931–