Frontispiece: THE BATTERED "EMDEN" AFTER GOING ASHORE ON COCOS ISLAND.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Itis too soon to attempt the telling at large and in detail of allthat has been done by Australia and New Zealand in the GreatWar. There is much that has, for military reasons, not yet beenrevealed; and what has been told has come to us from varioussources in more or less fragmentary fashion, so that one must readseveral accounts of the same event in order to get anything of anadequate idea of it. All I have done here is to collate such documentsas are available and gather together a connected narrative,not only of the actual campaigning, but of the spiritual and mentalexperiences the Australasians have passed through since August1914, the way they have faced this crisis in their history, and theeffect the war has had on their national life. I have drawn onofficial documents, on the dispatches of Sir Ian Hamilton, thereports of the various correspondents of our English and the chiefAustralian and New Zealand newspapers, on the speeches of publicmen and letters of private citizens, and on a few conversations Ihave had with some of the wounded Anzacs whom I have met inthese latter days about London. In all which I have been littlemore than an enthusiastic and, I hope, faithful compiler, endeavouringto set down as vividly as I could the impressions I formed frommy reading and hearing of these things, and trying occasionally toguess, according to my lights, at the spirit and inner significanceof this wonderful uprising of our Australasian kinsfolk–at the idealfor which they are fighting with such glorious heroism and forwhich so many of them have ungrudgingly laid down their lives.Some, who have had no hand in the fighting, have very confidentlycriticised both the Commander-in-Chief who has led these gallantsoldiers in the sternest of their battles and the Government thathas been responsible for the campaigns they have undertaken;but I have not ventured to compete with such critics, chieflybecause I accept the judgment of the sturdy New Zealander whosaid to me, discussing the nagging diatribes of a certain newspaper:"It's all fluff. If these fellows knew a little more they wouldn'thave so much to say."

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