Monash's Masterpiece

This book is written in the present tense, which I found a little jarring at times, but overall I enjoyed how it drew me into the story. It’s full of soldier-level stories, period appropriate language and takes a lively, sometimes humorous tone. I read this book in order to understand more about military strategy during the First World War and it certainly helped. Nonetheless I also found myself paging through a lot of uninteresting sections that ruminate too long on Monash’s genius and Australian bravery. Overall a good book, I would recommend.

I continue to be amazed at how effective Gen Sir John Monash was as a leader, using all manner of innovative/new technology at his disposal eg. airplanes to drop ammunition close to the front line, tanks, London double decker buses to move the troupes etc etc and yet hardly recognized amongst the military (Poms) twits running the show. Yes, antisemitism, being from Australia (a colonial), and not being regular army was to always plague him...but most of all, what amazes me is, why are schools not covering this in Australian history lessons??

Mr Fitzsimons was talented in writing accounts of great valour by Aussies in the wars. Villers-Bretonneux, Kokoda were really great books. This is continued in this book.What is special here is, Hamel was focused on a commander who is a meticulous planner. More figures and pictures would be very helpful.

Monash was a genius. And this book is about the first battle in the history of warfare that used combined arms including armor and aircraft. If your a military history buff then you must read this book.

Sir John Monash is the mostly unsung hero of WW1 and this book is the story he deserves. It is also the stirring story of the greatness of the Australian army.

How bloody disappointing - I quote “known to his mates as “Two Guns Harry” for the fact that, ...... he insists on carrying two revolvers in his belt - a Luger and a Colt” Neither of these weapons are revolvers - there are both semi automatics - entirely different from a revolver. If the clots proofreading this can make such huge detail errors what else have they got COMPLETELY wrong. A very sad example of trash talk by someone who puts such emphasis on research. Get someone who knows something about weapons to review your book on a military man next time - but don’t expect me to correct it - I won’t be reading your rubbish

Gee guys. How did we ever manage 3 years of war without the strines. Marvellous. They won the war. Gosh! Everything in the corked hat brigade is marvellous, including their gold plated chip. Of course you might want to read something a fraction more balanced, thoughtful, discerning and insightful. All traits foreign to this Author. If you really want to waste your money read this cobblers. Otherwise there are so many better books. Up to you cobber.

Just excellent all round

Excellent book which rather blackens Charles Bean and Keith Murdoch and deservedly so.

FitzSimons produced a very readable account about a pivotal battle of WW1. He toned back his jingoism of some of his other books.FitzSimons argues that the battle of Hamel in 1918 advanced military doctrine of combined arms with infantry, armour, artillery, and aircraft working together to gain a significant victory.FitzSimons posits that it was the character of Gen Monash that was vital in laying the groundwork for success. At Kindle Location 1,719, FitzSimons writes:"In all of his engineering projects, he had relied on tight organisation, thorough consultation between all elements of the enterprise, use of state-of-the-art technology, exploration of all available innovations and enormous intellectual energy, with a fierce commitment to sticking to the plan that evolves."This is the key insight.At Kindle location 6,409, FitzSimons the following figures:"These figures – 3200 Germans lost, against just 1600 Australians, British and Americans – are irrefutable proof of a brilliantly conducted attack."At Kindle location 6,972, FitzSimons laments that significant events in Australian military history are overshadowed by the story of Gallipoli:"The major factor, of course, is that like just about every other fine Australian effort over the last century, it has made very little headway against Gallipoli, which continues to dominate the popular imagination, despite the fact that much of what happened on the Western Front made Gallipoli look like a mere sideshow by comparison."FitzSimons is doing his best to remedy this by writing his historical series of books.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Sir John Monash's Victory during this particular operation, the account was as always meticulously researched by Peter Fitzsimmons, and he is one of my favored Authors. I was particularly please to learn that agenda driven Journalists of the time were given a timely 'comeuppance' in trying to dictate what should in their minds happen, with little knowledge of the 'Art of War'. And for Sir John not play into their hands and 'get on with the job' as it were.