Notes

In early August 1915, after months of stalemate in the trenches on Gallipoli, British and Dominion
troops launched a series of assaults in an all-out attempt to break the deadlock and achieve a decisive
victory. The 'August offensive' resulted in heartbreaking failure and costly losses on both sides. Many
of the sites of the bloody struggle became famous names: Lone Pine, the Nek, Chunuk Bair, Hill 60,
Suvla Bay. Debate has continued to the present day over the strategy and planning, the real or illusory
opportunities for success, and the causes of failure in what became the last throw of the dice for the
Allies. Some argue that these costly attacks were a lost opportunity; others maintain that the outcomes
were simply inevitable.This new book about the Gallipoli battles arises out of a major international
conference at the Australian War Memorial in 2010 to mark the 95th anniversary of the Gallipoli
campaign. The conference drew leading military historians from around the world to bring multi-national
viewpoints to the many intriguing questions still debated about Gallipoli. Keynote speaker, Professor
Robin Prior of the University of Adelaide, author of Gallipoli: the end of the myth (2009), led a range
of international authorities from Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, Germany, India and Turkey to
present their most recent research findings. The result was significant: never before had such a range
of views been presented, with fresh German and Turkish perspectives offered alongside those of British
and Australasian historians. For the resulting book, the papers have been edited and the text has been
augmented with soldiers' letters and diary accounts, as well as a large number of photographs and maps.