Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/News/July 2016/Book reviews


 * By Nick-D

The Australian Imperial Force is the fifth and final volume of the Australian semi-official history produced to mark the centenary of the First World War. It provides an organisational history of the First Australian Imperial Force (AIF), the main Australian force of the war which saw extensive combat in Gallipoli, France and the Middle East, and was jointly written by veteran historian Peter Dennis and up-and-comer Jean Bou.

The book doesn't cover the battles the AIF took part in (these are addressed by other volumes in the series) and instead describes and analyses the factors which underpinned the performance of the force. It is organised into thematic chapters on the AIF's organisation, manpower, service conditions, social history and legacy. Overall, this approach works well. Bou and Dennis cover a lot of ground, and provide first-rate analysis of a remarkable range of topics. This analysis is supported by excellent maps, charts and tables. For my mind, the most important conclusion they reach is that the AIF was over-expanded and somewhat over-committed, though simply treating this much-mythologised part of Australian history as an organisation is a significant step forward, which will hopefully encourage more hard-headed analysis by other historians.

Despite these positives, I was a little bit disappointed by the book. The main shortfall is that despite its high cost ($A60), it only runs to 192 pages. As a result, no topics are really treated in depth, and The Australian Imperial Force falls short of its ambition to provide a definitive reference. This is a common failing of this series, and seems somewhat inexplicable given the otherwise very high standard of its volumes. I personally would have particularly liked to see more detail on how the AIF was trained and retrained throughout the war, and I'm sure that other readers will have similar reactions on their topics of interest.

Overall, The Australian Imperial Force is a fine work, and will be of great value to editors working on the histories of the Australian Army and Australia's contribution to the First World War. It's just a shame that cost-cutting or compressed timelines ended up selling its content somewhat slightly short.

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