The First World War and ANZAC

Remembrance Day (also known as Poppy Day or Armistice Day) is observed on 11 November each year to recall the end of hostilities of World War I in 1918. Hostilities formally ended『at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month,』in accordance with the Armistice, signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente at about 5:15a.m. that morning. The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles on 28 June 1919.

On 11 November 2013, former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating delivered a Commemorative Remembrance Day Address which began with the words『Nine months from now, one hundred years ago, the horror of all ages came together to open the curtain on mankind’s greatest century of violence – the twentieth century.』Mr. Keating was, of course, referring to the start of the First World War, which began on 28 July 1914. He then went on discuss Australia's participation in many of the wars of the twentieth century.

At Project Gutenberg Australia we have a number of ebooks dealing with Australians in the Fist World War. Other of our ebooks cover the war in a more general way. The Internet Archive also has a number of ebooks on this subject. Below are links some of those ebooks and some links to other sites which might be of interest.

Thanks to Pamela Rose for suggesting the creation of a page covering the First World War.

First World War Official Histories — online at The Australian War Memorial

The Official History of Australia in the War of 1914–1918 is a 12-volume series covering Australia’s involvement in the First World War. The series was edited by the official historian Charles Bean, who also wrote six of the volumes, and was published between 1920 and 1942. The books, with their familiar covers, “the colour of dried blood” in the words of one reviewer, rapidly became highly regarded internationally. Bean’s work established the tradition and set the standard for all subsequent Australian official war histories.

ebooks at Project Gutenberg Australia

• Five Months at ANZAC (1916) by Joseph Lievesley Beeston — A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force (Illustrated)
• There and Back: The Story of an Australian Soldier 1915-35 (1935) by Edward Lording (a.k.a. A Tiveychoc)
• Generals Die in Bed (1928) by Charles Yale Harrison
• The Australian Victories in France in 1918 (1920) by Sir John Monash (Illustrated with Maps and Photographs)
• My Army, O, My Army! and Other Songs (1915) by Henry Lawson
• Collected Prose of Andrew Barton Paterson by A B Paterson — The article "The Great War", and those following, are about the First World War)
• The Middle Parts of Fortune: Somme and Ancre, 1916 (1929) by Frederic Manning — a novel
• The Red Night of Germany (1927) by Floyd Gibbons — The Story of Baron von Richthofen, Germany's Great War "Bird"
• War Birds: Diary of an Unknown Aviator (1926) by John M Grider
• Falsehood in War-time: Propaganda Lies of the First World War (1928) by Arthur Ponsonby
• Kitchener's Army and the Territorial Forces (1915) by Edgar Wallace
• The Standard History of the War (1914-1916) (4 volumes) by Edgar Wallace
• A History of the Great War (1916-1920) (Six Volumes) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
• A Short History of Australia (Chapters XXX and XXXI) by Ernest Scott
• Notes of a Camp-Follower on the Western Front (1919) by E W Hornung
• The Little Book of the War (1918) by E M (Eva March) TAPPAN (1854-1930)

ebooks from the Internet Archive and and Trove

• The ANZAC Book: written and illustrated in Gallipolli by the men of Anzac (1916)
• An Anzac Muster (1921) by William Blocksidge [pseudonym of William Baylebridge] (Privately Printed)
• Anzac and After by Frank E Westbrook (1916) — A Collection of Poems
• Anzac Commemoration, 1921 compiled by H J Diddams -- Sermons and Addresses Delivered Throughout Queensland (Illustrated)
• Snapshots and Reminiscences of Anzac (c.1918) by E H Best (Includes photographs)
• For the Sake of the Soldier (1917) by Rita Macleod — Voluntary Work of Brisbane women
• Mons, Anzac and Kut (1919) by an M.P. (Aubrey Herbert) — The War Diary of a Soldier
• On the Anzac Trail (1916) by "Anzac" — Extracts from the Diary of a New Zealand Sapper

ebooks from Project Gutenberg (United States)

• Australia in Arms (1916) by Phillip Schuler — A Narrative of the Australasian Imperial Force and their Achievement at Anzac
• From the Australian Front (1917) — Photographs reproduced from Australian and British official negatives taken by the following official photographers — Capt. F. Hurley, Lieut. E. Brooks, Lieut. H. F. Baldwin, and Lieut. G. H. Wilkins, A.F.C.
• The Australian Army Medical Corps in Egypt (1918) by James W. Barrett and Percival E. Deane — An Illustrated and Detailed Account of the Early Organisation and Work of the Australian Medical Units in Egypt in 1914-1915
• The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19 [Vol. I] (1922) by Col. H. B. Collett — Egypt, Gallipoli, Lemnos Island, Sinai Peninsula
• History of the 11th Field Company Australian Engineers by Anonymous
• Australia at War by Will Dyson. — Drawings at the front: A winter record on the Somme and at Ypres, during the Campaings of 1916 and 1917
• The Diggers by Patrick MacGill. — The Australians in France
• Over the Top With the Third Australian Division by G P Cuttirss

Other Links 

• World War IatWikipedia
• Sir John MonashatPeople Australia
• Trove -- Australian Newspapers