Deserved salute to this war classic
Readers will not find a better description of the New Zealand experience on the Somme. writes Glyn Harper, from Massey University.
New Zealand, as with the other combatant nations of World War I, has spent considerable time and effort commemorating significant events that occurred 100 year ago. However, one of the most critical and important battles of the war passed with barely a mention in New Zealand in 2016.
This was surprising, as the battle of the Somme – fought from July to November 1916 – was a watershed experience for New Zealand. Its first offensive operation on the Western Front resulted in the heaviest casualty list of any battle in New Zealand’s military history. It is therefore fitting that Auckland University Press has republished Alexander Aitken’s classic account of the battle Gallipoli to the Somme, edited and introduced by Alex Calder.
Alexander Aitken was studying languages and mathematics at Otago University in 1914. In April 1915, probably in response to news of the Gallipoli landing, Aitken joined the New Zealand Expeditionary force. He sailed from New Zealand with the 6th Reinforcement and served with the 1st Otago Battalion during the last months of the Gallipoli campaign and then with this battalion in France.
There on the Somme, during the battle of Morval at the end of September, Aitken was badly wounded, just one of nearly 8000 New Zealand casualties suffered in September/October 1916. Aitken’s wounds were severe and he was invalided out of the NZEF in early 1917. Gallipoli to the Somme was first written from memory between AprilSeptember 1917. Aitken revised it in 1930 and the manuscript was finally published in 1963.
The book was widely acclaimed on its release, being recognised as a new classic in the literature of World War I. No less a luminary than the historian AJP Taylor singled it out as one of the best books of 1963, writing that it ‘‘eclipsed all others as a book both true and moving’’. On the strength of this book Aitken was elected to the Royal Society of Literature.
Gallipoli to the Somme has not lost its power to influence and inspire others. In 2016, the Dunedin Symphony Orchestra performed and recorded Gallipoli to the Somme based on Aitken’s book. The recently published The Anzac Violin, by Robyn Belton and Jennifer Beck, was also inspired by Aitken’s book and is currently on the bestseller list for children’s books. Gallipoli to the Somme thoroughly deserves its reputation as a war classic. Readers will not find a better description of the New Zealand experience on the Somme. Nor will they find a better examination of what Aitken called ‘‘the gossamer thinness of the partition between life and death’’ which was the lot of the New Zealand soldier of World War I.