Australian Penthouse

The Western Front Diaries
Jonathan King
Simon & Schuster

An incredibly enlightening and exciting book that takes the reader to the front lines and into the war room.  Interspersed, in order throughout the almost three years of battles, with stunning and vivid accounts of the actions by Australian soldiers who secured a Victoria Cross for heroism in action, The Western Front Diaries is as far from a dry military read as you can imagine.  Life on the front lines is captured effectively, with the horrors and mercies of war and men under pressure brought to life throughout its the pages.

Australian commander, Major General John Monash, was long overlooked for promotion, being of Jewish and German descent, but today remains one of the war’s most influential leaders of strategy and of men—Monash introduced the blitzkrieg mode of attack, and some of his battle strategies (Hamel) are to today used by militaries throughout the world as text book examples of perfect manoeuvring.

The Western Front Diaries also puts to rest the notion the battle of Gallipoli was Australia’s defining battle of WWI. While 50,000 soldiers died at Gallipoli, 250,000 died on The Western Front—with 52 Victoria Crosses awarded.  The bloody and brutal battles of Fromelles, Passchendaele, Pozieres, Flanders, and Mouquet Farm are  illuminated brilliantly and weaved with urgency.

But this book isn’t about mathematics and body-counts, it’s about the men who served—their character, their sense of humour, their hopes and their follies.  Author Jonathan King displays as much skill as restraint in the Herculean task of collating the hundreds of personal letters, diaries and photographs borrowed from returned servicemen and their families and distilling the information into sharp day-by-day, month-by-month accounts of what life on The Western Front was truly like.

An excerpt taken from a letter by William Fincham to his sister, in June 1918, reads:

“I must say something about the man walking back from the line.  More than once I have seen two men, an Australian and a German, both wounded, limping toward the dressing stations—each with his arm around the other.  They could scarcely walk alone, but, supporting one another, were going to be dressed by the same Doctor—they who less than an hour previously had rushed together with bayonets or bombs trying to kill each other.”

One of the few assets of war is the camaraderie it engenders between men on the firing line, and the personal stories of our many Victoria Cross winners will have you laughing as much as grieving for the men of our past who fought so valiantly for our country.

The Western Front Diaries brings to life the personalities of the men who fought The Great War as clearly as if you were sharing a trench with them yourself.  This is an outstanding and exceptional book.