Screening time: ABC, 8:30 Wednesday 2^nd May, 2001

Two months after the first Anzacs landed on Gallipoli, an Australian soldier found time to fill in his diary.

“Of all the bastards of places” he wrote, “This is the biggest bastard of all.”

His feelings were typical of the men stuck on that craggy outcrop of rock and scrub at the every edge of Turkey. They had enlisted to fight the Germans, save the British Empire and show the world what Australians could do. The reality was somewhat different.

Episode Two of Australians at War looks behind the legend of this, our first real test of war, and by using the words of the men who fought and died there, puts a human face on a great Australian symbol.

All the men who initially landed on 25 April 1915 are now gone, but their letters, diaries and journals remain; the despair, endurance and horror they experienced clinging to them still.

It’s always been difficult for contemporary Australians to gain a real sense of what it was like on Gallipoli. By using young Australian actors, on-screen and delivering unsentimental and powerful performances of these long forgotten words, we are placed back in that time of heroism and futility.

Alongside those young faces are centenarian Australians, witnesses to the story. People like Lance Corporal Ted Smout, who was to endure even greater horrors on the Western Front; Sergeant Jack Lockett, 109 years old, an Australian national treasure and Annie Sturzaker who watched as day after day the local parson, like a black messenger, delivered the news of death to home after home.

With rarely-seen archival footage, stills, feature films and an original orchestral score, Episode Two, “Who’ll come a-fighting the Kaiser with me” brings to the screen an Australia we have forgotten or simply did not know existed, and by its end, we are brought to a belief that it was an Australia we should continue to cherish.

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