Our great-hearted men. Peter Brune. 2021.

Battlefields such as Gallipoli, Fromelles, Pozieres, Bullecourt and Passchendaele are burnt into the Australian Great War psyche.

Unfortunately the sheer guts, fortitude and sacrifice of the diggers in those battles had often been wasted by poor leadership and planning. From an Australian perspective, such sacrifice engendered a bitterness and frustration that resulted in an emergent sense of Australian nationalism: by 1918 the AIF sought a unification of its five divisions to fight under its own command and administration.

After the calamitous German March offensive in 1918 in which 1200 square miles of hard-won territory had been lost, the British Expeditionary Force had begun to learn its lessons. In just 100 action-packed days between August and November 1918, Germany was brought to its knees. Playing a crucial role in that stunning victory was Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash and his Australian Corps.

In this authoritative account of the 100 days, Peter Brune traces the painstaking BEF acquisition of its tactical doctrine with regard to ita artillery, tanks and Air Force, the consequence of which was a sophisticated interlocking all-arms approach to war, incorporating coordinated firepower rather than futile expenditure of manpower.