Peter Stanley. Quinn's Post.

Peter Stanley. Quinn's Post, Allen and Unwin, pbk, ISBN 1 74114 332 2, $29.95

Any work by the Australian War Memorial's principal historian, Peter Stanley carries an expectation of high quality. In this case he has ventured into an area that will forever be associated with his most esteemed predecessor, Charles Bean. That association is recognised from the first page of this fine book, yet it is a measure of Stanley's confidence in his own ability that he charts an independent course on one aspect of the campaign and writes a book using many sources that Bean did not access for his own writings on Quinn's Post.

The qualities of Stanley as a historian are clearly shown here. Paramount is the depth and variety of research that he has undertaken. Considerable merit can be given to the Australian Army History Unit for making available a research grant for Stanley to access key archives in New Zealand and the United Kingdom that are vital to this story. Allied to this is Stanley's recognition that aside from the Australian War Memorial and major state library collections there are other significant Gallipoli records throughout Australia and he has taken the trouble to find them and thus enrich his story.

Stanley's extensive research could easily have been directed at producing a weighty tome with extensive quotations that would delight those who believe that volume is the key measure of a book's worth. However one of the rare qualities of Stanley's work as an historian is an appreciation that the value of his work can be magnified by putting it in a form that is easily digestible for the majority of potential readers. Given the current publicity associated with the 90th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, that means just about every Australian and New Zealander.

Stanley achieves this in a number of ways. Foremost is his belief that such a book should be limited to an easily handled size, in this case some 200 pages. With the resources of the excellent War Memorial internet site available, Stanley is also able to place all his footnote references there in electronic form for those who wish to dig deeper into his sources and thus read and research further points of interest. He has also has kept abbreviations to a minimum and has quoted verbatim without changing the errant spelling of the time. This all contributes to a very readable and focused account.

Though there will be many new books on the shelf over this anniversary period one will find no more valuable contribution than this one mainly because no other brings so much new material to the table. Quinn's Post was the cornerstone of the Anzac defence, lose it and whole battlefield would be untenable. By examining in detail the campaign at Quinn's where the fighting did not cease for the entire period the Anzacs were on the Peninsula, one is given a rare insight into the nature of both life and warfare on Gallipoli.

The fighting at Quinn's Post was harsh and continuous, 'the worst & most trying position in these trying parts.' Units sent there rapidly lost their strength and were replaced by others until they too eroded away like the original Quinn's Post now has. Though named after a Queenslander, Captain Hugh Quinn from the 15th Battalion, it was a New Zealander, Lieutenant Colonel William Malone and his crack Wellington battalion that transformed Quinn's Post into a veritable fortress. Though not as well known as the light horse charge at the Nek, the concurrent attacks from the area around Quinn's Post had just as tragic an outcome. Stanley takes us there, his qualities with the pen to the fore.

My only criticism of the book would be the lack of the type of small maps that Charles Bean used so effectively to support his narrative. They would be particularly useful in detailing the great number of separate actions that took place across the deadly yards that separated the two front lines at Quinn's Post throughout the campaign. This book is a fine read and will find its place as a key reference on a critical aspect of the Gallipoli campaign. As such it can comfortably sit alongside Bean's volumes and be read in concert with them.

Phillip Bradley