The Great Gallipoli Escape by Jackie French

Title: The Great Gallipoli Escape

Author: Jackie French

Genre: Historical

Publisher: HarperCollins Australia

Published: 5^th April 2023

Format: Hardcover

Pages: 224

Price: $19.99

Synopsis: Renowned for her historical fiction titles, Jackie French now tells the story of the brilliant and famous evacuation of Gallipoli.

Sixteen-year-old Nipper and his Gallipoli mates Lanky, Spud, Bluey and Wallaby Joe are starving, freezing and ill-equipped. By November 1915 they know that that there is more to winning a war than courage. The Gallipoli campaign has been lost.

Nipper has played cricket with the Turks in the opposing dugout, dodged rocket fire and rescued desperate and drowning men when the blizzard snow melted. He is one of the few trusted with the secret kept from even most of the officers: how an entire army will vanish from the Peninsula over three impeccably planned nights.

Based on first-hand accounts of those extraordinary last weeks of the Gallipoli campaign, this is the fascinating ‘lost story’ of how 150,000 men – and their horses and equipment – were secretly moved to waiting ships without a single life lost. An unforgettable story told through the eyes of a boy who lied about his age to defend his country.

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Sixteen-year-old Nipper joined up when Australia when to war – and is now at Gallipoli with his friends Lanky, Spud, Bluey, and Wallaby Joe. They’re hungry and lack equipment and have been for much of the months-long campaign since they arrived in April. It’s now November 1915v- and they know they have lost the Gallipoli campaign – they have courage but not much else to try and win it on. Throughout the campaign, in between battles, Nipper has played cricket with the Turks, dodged bullets, and rescued men from melted snow – and now, he is one of a few who know about the secret evacuation plan of the men on the peninsula – a plan that will take place over three nights.

Jackie French has found another ‘lost story’ – one that I think very few Australians would know about. It is one that I never remember learning about in school – I remember learning the campaign ended but not about the secrecy surrounding the evacuation of those troops who had survived the campaign, nor did I know about Churchill’s Boys – the young recruits who were offered the chance to serve in the army instead of staying in jail. But it is Nipper’s story that drives this narrative, formed using first-hand accounts of Gallipoli and the evacuation from those who served there – and all of this was done without losing a single life – 150,000 men evacuated and saved, some to be sent home due to injury, and others to go onto serve in other theatres of the war.

Nipper was one of the youngest recruits who lied about his age to serve his country, and whose story helps build this narrative, who gives the men and boys a voice, as do the people whose first-hand accounts were used. Because the first-hand accounts were used, we see the war and Gallipoli through the eyes of the men on the frontline, and the messages they got, or never got, and how they understood what was happening – it is their experience of the war that makes this book powerful, because it gives us more than just the official records which will have some differences. And all these accounts are valid – we need all accounts from everyone involved – official, unofficial, first-hand – to fully understand that there were layers of complexity in times like this. Gallipoli occurred at a time when there was little to no communication between trenches or bases like in later years of the war or later wars, and books like this show that the messages may not have been getting through, so people’s understanding of what happened was based on how they experienced it, or maybe even what they were told. We can never be sure, but we can know how these men felt when they didn’t get supplies, didn’t get messages, or felt like they were forgotten -and these accounts are valid.

They are valid because they add to our understanding of the war – what it meant to be on the frontline and only have what you were sent with, what you had, and what could get through. We all know the honourable stories, and the names of VC winners, for example. As someone who loves history, I love it when the official account can be given life and more detail with the first-hand accounts from those who were there – it means that it makes the facts and statistics real, it gives them a human face. Someone we can imagine in that circumstance and gives the people who might not have been as high up or recognised by their name or may not have ever made it home – a voice as we remember what they did and how they shaped the ANZAC legend on ANZAC Day. It gives the stories power and emotion and ensures that everyone can know or come to understand that there are so many different stories about the Gallipoli campaign than we have heard, and there are possibly more than we might never hear. The ones we can access can help build our understanding and show that there is always more to history than what we learn in history class from our text books. This powerful story will be great for all readers – to hear those voices, to see how they felt. To understand that war is more than just courage and heroics.