This is a most interesting, readable and, in a larger context, valuable book. It deals with written recollections collected from some 215 living veterans from the First A.I.F. (some have since died) – a list of their names is included as an Appendix – detailing how they felt about the War as it approached and when it commenced, and also what led them to enlist at the time. Each informant is allowed to speak for himself, with his own peculiar spelling, punctuation end style of writing; in effect, the outcome provides a broad picture of the social origins and nature of this cross-section of soldiers.

They are separated into occupational and related groups – farmers, itinerants, country townsmen, city dwellers, sailors and immigrants – in Part I, where a vivid picture is painted of conditions of life in ‘Edwardian Australia’. Part II provides a mass of detailed material describing the various reasons given for enlisting; while Part III deals with the views put forward in the past by the official war historian, C.E.W. Bean relating to the changing attitudes towards enlistment as the war proceeded, and so to the different types ‘of commitment involved, and alleged to lie behind the decisions made by successive groups to enlist.