by EC Buley

Rare 1915 book on CD

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A book which describes the long and fascinating history of the Dardanelles (Hellespont) putting into context the campaign of 1915. Covers the attempt to force a passage through the straits and the landings at Cape Helles and ANZAC.

A very popular account at the time but now very hard to find. Includes several interesting plates of the Castle at Sedd-ul-Bahr and maps.

A must have for the Gallipoli collection

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Contents

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BULEY, ERNEST CHARLES (1869-1933), journalist and author, was born on 4 July 1869 at Ballarat West, Victoria. Buley established himself as a writer, producing for George Newnes Ltd the well received Australian Life in Town and Country (1905) and for Andrew Melrose, publisher for the Sunday School Union and founder of the Boys' Empire League, Into the Polar Seas: The Story of Sir John Franklin and The Hero of India: The Story of Lord Clive (both published in 1909). Working as a journalist and by 1908 living at Dulwich, London, he wrote and edited for publications including the Sunday Dispatch, Reynolds, the British-Australasian and Alfred Harmsworth's Daily Mirror. He set a killing pace, producing as many as 35,000 words a week for weeks on end. Two volumes on the physical geography and natural resources of Brazil followed in 1914 for Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons but, with the outbreak of war, Buley discovered a new and more lucrative vein. The Real Kaiser (1915), published anonymously so as not to embarrass his German relatives, was praised by The Times, and lauded by the Times Literary Supplement as the best book on the subject. It quickly went through three editions.


He followed in June 1915 with The Dardanelles: Their Story and their Significance in the Great War, which was reprinted twice within weeks, and substantially enlarged in October, by which time Melrose had also released his Glorious Deeds of Australasians in the Great War. Buley had interviewed scores of Australians in hospital in London, fashioning their narratives—'delivered with a modesty which I have not sought to reproduce'—into an account of Gallipoli up to early autumn. Hailed as 'the first Anzac book', Glorious Deeds was reprinted three times before the end of the year and issued in an enlarged edition within weeks of the Gallipoli evacuation. The Bulletin praised it as a 'record of a valiant adventure undertaken by a new sort of soldier'.


 

Illustrations here are reduced in scale for web - ebook is large scale high resolution PDF