The History of the 14th Battalion AIF – being the story of the vicissitudes of an Australian Unit in the Great War

The History of the 14th Battalion AIF - being the story of the vicissitudes of an Australian Unit in the Great War
416 pages with illustrations, maps and honour roll. Principally from Melbourne and its suburbs the 14th Bn landed at ANZAC Cove on the afternoon of 25 April 1915. On 19 May the Turks launched a massive counter-attack. During this fighting Lance Corporal Albert Jacka of the 14th was awarded the AIF's first Victoria Cross. The battalion served at ANZAC until the evacuation in December. In June 1916 they sailed for France and the Western Front. From then until 1918, the battalion took part in bloody trench warfare. In March and April 1918, the battalion helped stop the German spring offensive. It subsequently participated in the great allied offensive of 1918, fighting near Amiens on 8 August 1918. This advance by British and empire troops was the greatest success in a single day on the Western Front, one that German General Erich Ludendorff described as "..the black day of the German Army in this war...".