Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion Commanders in the Great War 1914-1918Soldiers and Gentlemen: Australian Battalion Commanders in the Great War, 1914-1918 is the first book to examine the background, role and conduct of Australian commanding officers during the First World War. Though they held positions of power, commanding officers inhabited a leadership no man's land - they exerted great influence over their units, but they were also largely excluded from the decision-making process and faced the same risks as junior officers on the battlefield. A soldier's well-being and success in battle was heavily dependent on a commanding officer's competence, but little is known about the men who filled these roles. In his groundbreaking book, William Westerman explores the stories of the vitally important, yet often forgotten, commanding officers. Theirs is a story of the timeless challenges of military leadership, and this book prevents them from slipping from the public memory to enhance our knowledge of the conflict. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Raising the AIF | 12 |
The Gallipoli Campaign 1915 | 39 |
Command Turnover | 63 |
The Western Front and Trench Warfare | 88 |
Battalion Administration | 119 |
Leadership and Personal Factors | 143 |
the Western Front 1918 | 171 |
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Common terms and phrases
14th Battalion 1st Bde active service adjutant administration Anzac appointed argued Armistice artillery attack Australian battalion commanders Australian Corps Australian Imperial Force AWM4 barrage battalion headquarters battle battlefield Bean Birdwood Braund Brigade British Army Bullecourt Burnage Carl Jess Charles Charles Bean CO's Report cohort combat company commanders Defence diary discipline Division divisional doctrine experience F.W. Taylor Field Service Regulations fire folder front line Gallipoli German Gordon Bennett historian Howell-Price HQ 1st Div HQ 2nd Div Infantry Battalion James Durrant John John Monash July June leadership Leslie Morshead Lewis gun Lieutenant Colonel machine-gun Major McNicoll McSharry Memo military MLMSS Monash morale NCOs Official History operations organisation Owen platoon Pompey Elliott Pozières quartermaster regimental rifle Senior Officers Sept service record SLNSW staff success tactical trench warfare unit Western Front William Wiltshire wrote