With August this year marking the centennial of the beginning of WW1, books about it have flooded the new release tables in bookstores - and we have added our own contribution with Voyage to Gallipoli.
War is always horrible, but WW1, dominated by soldiers digging trenches and living in squalid conditions for extended periods, before running through no-man's land to be mown down by machine guns, or to experience regular clouds of poison gas, was particularly bad. The stupidity of generals on all sides ensured that death tolls ran into millions.
And what was it all about, you ask - well, the recruitment poster above gives you a good idea. According to Canadian/American economist John Kenneth Galbraith, "King and Country" was "roughly the Ruling Class and the System". More than that though, it was all about imperial glory. As can be seen in the pictures of lavish bunting whenever a member of the monarchy visited NZ, that was was the mindset of the time which didn't really begin to change until the late 1950s when the British empire was well and truly defunct.
More posts to come in the next few months.
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