World History: First World War

The story of the four Christophers Brothers who were all killed in World War I leads to a more general discussion of the devasting effect of World War I on New Zealand

After the landings at Gallipoli, the three battles of Krithia dominated the fighting in Helles. These battles also involved troops from Australian and New Zealand, whose contribution in the area is often neglected.

Relatively unusual personal memoir of a tunnelling officer

Definitive account of three key NZ battles of the Western Front, WWI. This significant volume represents the culmination of over seven years' writing and research by esteemed military historian Glyn Harper. The book includes the revision and reissuing of his two earlier detailed ...histories of the New Zealand Divisions' major Western Front battles of World War One - Massacre at Passchendaele (2000), Spring Offensive (2003) - combined with a previously unpublished account of the third major battle of the Somme, at Bapaume, during which several VCs were awarded to New Zealand troops. Dark Journey presents the first comprehensive overview of New Zealand's involvement in World War One by one of our most highly regarded historians. It also provides deep analysis of the NZ war contribution, with startling revelations about the true scale of casualties, consistently under-reported in the past. This is Glyn Harper's master work, bringing together research and resources from his previous books, presenting the full story of New Zealand's Western Front experiences on a deservedly grand scale.
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Long before Bletchley Park, Australia had its own version of Enigma. The untold story of how a former Australian headmaster and his mostly female team cracked one of Germany's most complex codes, paving the way for the greatest Allied naval victory of World War I. On 11 August 19...14, just days after war had been declared, Australian Captain J.T. Richards boarded the SS Hobart in Port Phillip, Melbourne, suspecting the German merchant vessel fleeing Australia was carrying more than wool and wheat. He was right. After hiding under a bed for six hours and holding a German officer at gunpoint, Richards seized a top-secret naval codebook - the first to be obtained by any Allied force. The fledgling Australian Navy had an opportunity to immediately change the course of the war. But what exactly had they found? Enter the ANZAC codebreakers ... Recruited by savvy top brass, maths whizz and German speaker Frederick Wheatley worked night and day to fathom the basic principles of the code and start tracking the powerful German Pacific Fleet led by the brilliant and dashing Graf Maximilian von Spee. Soon Melbourne was a hub of international Allied intelligence, and the British Royal Navy - following a disastrous naval defeat at Coronel, off Chile, on 1 November - was sending all intercepted messages to Wheatley for decryption. In a dramatic race to neutralise the threat in the Pacific, the Anzac team grappled with the Germans' latest ingenious modifications to the code, finally unlocking all its secrets and providing vital information that set up a pivotal Allied victory in the Falkland Islands. A thrilling, fast-paced and thoroughly modern telling of one of Australia's greatest unknown military triumphs, written by our number-one true-crime writer. Welcome to ANZAC Codebreakers.
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