Anzac stories from the front line

John Milne with The Anzac Book published in 1916 - written and illustrated in Gallipoli by the men of Anzac.

The history books are full of war's struggles - strategic lines drawn, defeats measured - but few tell the tales of life behind the battlelines.

Napier's John Milne has unearthed an almost 100-year-old first edition copy of The Anzac Book - written and illustrated in Gallipoli by the men of Anzac and presented as a school prize to his father, Alex, in 1917.

Tales from the trenches were composed in poetry, prose, story and illustrative form on scraps of paper by men who were constantly under fire.

Photographic excerpts from a first-edition copy of The Anzac Book - written and illustrated in Gallipoli by the men of Anzac.

The book was the brainchild of editor Charles Bean. Its creation was a distraction from the horrors and daily grind of war lived out in a dug out hellhole.

It is said few books of such good humour have been produced in such wretched conditions.

Charles received about 150 contributions, many poignant reminiscences of home, good-humoured cartoons or mischievous send-ups of life at Gallipoli in 1915.

Here are a few excerpts:

-Lieutenant-General Sir W R Birdwood: "When I took over the command of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in Egypt a year ago, I was asked to select a telegraphic code address for my Army Corps, and then adopted the word 'Anzac'. Later on, when we had effected our landing here in April, I was asked by General Headquarters to suggest a name for the beach where we had made good our first precarious footing, and then asked that this might be recorded as Anzac Cove."

-"Our repast consisted of an exceedingly stringy rabbit, extracted from a tin of an ominous purple hue - an evil-looking dish eked out with somebody or other's baked beans, which are all very well in their way, but when used as an unvarying vegetable at all meals begin to pall; bread, with the crust like a cinder, to which fondly cling bits of sacking and mules' whisker; the corpse of a cheese; and the whole washed down with tea made in the stew dixie, and tasting more of dixie and stew than tea."

-"At the burial of Sir John Moore was heard the distant and random gun. Here the shells sometimes burst in the midst of the burial party.

"Bearers are laid low. A running for cover. The grave is hastily filled in by a couple of shovel-men; the service is over; and fresh graves are to be dug forthwith for stricken members of the party.

"To die violently in this shell-swept area is to die lonely indeed."