Little Gully

09/10/2025

This month, we'll release a new, expanded edition of Colonel Sir Henry Darlington's 'Letters from Helles'. This edition includes a wealth of previously unpublished photos taken by the author.

To be notified upon release, subscribe to our email newsletter: https://littlegully.com/newsletter/

03/10/2025

A valuable source. And one of several thousand voices orchestrated by Jim Grundy for his day-by-day account, giving you a close, first-hand understanding of the Gallipoli Campaign.

Perhaps the best memoir by a general officer who served at Gallipoli is “Memories of Four Fronts” by Lieutenant-General Sir William Marshall.

Already a veteran of the Western Front, as a Brigadier General Marshall was wounded on 25th April 1915 while commanding 87th Brigade. Promoted to Major General in June, he went on to command, 29th, 42nd (East Lancashire) and 53rd (Welsh) Division at Gallipoli and 27th Division at Salonika.

His next appointment was to Mesopotamia, ending the war as theatre commander after Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Maude's death from cholera.

I quote Marshall in “Alive With Death,” the first volume of my history of the Gallipoli campaign. You can read about that book, what others have written about it, at the link in the comments below.

03/10/2025

A great opportunity and prize!

Gallipoli Essay Competition

The Gallipoli Essay Competition is run by the Gallipoli Association and is supported by Helion and Company, the prominent military history publishing company and sponsors of the competition.

The Gallipoli Association is the foremost Association for the Gallipoli campaign who, with genuine passion and enthusiasm, help to keep its memory alive.

Our key focus today is education, in particular of the young of all those countries that once took part in this tragic campaign. By raising public awareness of the Gallipoli Campaign, encouraging and facilitating study, we keep the memory of the campaign alive, ensuring that all who served in it and those who gave their lives are not forgotten.

The competition is open to anybody who has an interest in the Gallipoli Campaign

The Essay should be on any subject related to the Gallipoli Campaign and should be an absolute maximum of 4,000 words

All entries should be sent to [email protected]

Prizes

First prize: £200, A book kindly supplied by Helion & Company and a year's digital subscription to the Gallipoli Association
Second prize: £100, A book kindly supplied by Helion & Company and a year's digital subscription to the Gallipoli Association

For more information on the competition and the rules of entry please click the link below.

https://www.gallipoli-association.org/news/2025/gallipoli-essay-competition/

24/09/2025

Earlier this month, LGP’s own Michael Crane led the Gallipoli Association Helles Battlefield Study Project on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

During his time there, he was able to positively identify Little Gully, the namesake of our publishing house. ‘I can now boast I have definitely been in Little Gully!’ says Mike.

This location is significant as it is where Alec Riley, a signaller with the 42nd (East Lancashire) Division, spent his last days on the peninsula. His experiences are detailed in his ‘Gallipoli Diary 1915’, which we had the honour of publishing in 2021.

Riley's diary describes Little Gully as a ‘blind alley’ with ‘steep paths up the sides near the head’, which provided shelter and a place to work on the signal wires. Mike’s fieldwork has connected Riley's detailed account to the physical landscape as it exists today.

Read more on our blog: https://littlegully.com/blog/we-called-this-place-little-gully/

08/09/2025

While writing the second volume of my Gallipoli history, “Always Nearly Winning,” two of the most useful sources are the second volumes of the British and Australian official histories.

Both authors witnessed the campaign: Cecil Aspinall-Oglander, the author of the British work, was an officer on Sir Ian Hamilton's Staff; Charles Bean was the official Australian war correspondent on the peninsula.

They are different in scope and style. Bean's task was to document the Australian experience of the campaign, while his British counterpart was required to write more broadly about the campaign, covering all the British, Commonwealth and Empire contingents.

Perhaps reflecting his journalistic background, Bean made greater use of veterans' accounts than Aspinall-Oglander. Both have their merits and both have their detractors.

My own work is closer in style to Bean's, given my focus on telling the story in the words of those who were there.

As I say, I'm working on the second volume of my own history. The first volume, covering the period from 1st August 1914 to 30th April 1915, “Alive With Death,” can be ordered from the link in the comments below. You can also read some reviews of the work there.

08/09/2025

Reader, subscribe to our occasional email: https://littlegully.com/newsletter/

We'll keep you updated on new titles and research relating to Gallipoli and the First World War in the Middle East.

Little Gully Publishing - Independent Book Publisher

04/09/2025

First review of our latest title, “Floatplanes over the Desert,” posted on The Aerodrome forum by Carl J. Bobrow, Quondam Alfred Verville Fellow, Smithsonian.

Bobrow describes the book as “a unique and comprehensive study” and “the most archivally grounded treatment yet of Anglo-French naval aviation in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East during the First World War.” It features over 400 photographs and detailed theatre maps forming “something resembling an operational atlas,” and appendices that “stand as research contributions in their own right.”

His conclusion: “Floatplanes over the Desert is a work of unusual scope and fidelity… It restores to the historical record a campaign too long overshadowed, and demonstrates how naval aviation, operating from fragile floatplanes, projected force across seas and deserts with strategic consequence.”

Full review on The Aerodrome forum: https://theaerodrome.com/forum/showthread.php?p=781966

Book link: https://littlegully.com/books/floatplanes-over-the-desert/

02/09/2025

“A belt of wire, at least 9 feet in depth, stretched from cliff to cliff... Along the beach were some 60 to 70 dead or severely wounded... The water’s edge was red with blood as it lapped against the shore.”

Read Captain Charles A. Bolton’s account of the landing at W Beach on 25 April 1915.

https://littlegully.com/blog/the-great-amphibious-adventure

Captain Bolton’s retrospective complements the more detailed portrait found in the diary of Orlo Williams - Gallipoli Cipher.

29/08/2025

Intrigued? Buy Ian Burns' new book 👉 https://littlegully.com/books/floatplanes-over-the-desert/

26/08/2025

Soon to be available from all good bookshops, a statistically significant number of mediocre bookshops, and presumably a few bad bookshops as well.

Should be released in about one month.

25/08/2025

A recommendation: Dr Mesut Uyar tackles the Anzac legend, a talk delivered in Sydney in April 2025.

https://youtu.be/br94BBBYbdw

Key points from his lecture:

- Strategic context: The ANZAC landing at what became Anzac Cove was planned as a secondary landing to divert Ottoman reserves away from the main British force at Helles.

- A story of empires: The conflict was not just between two nations, but a global clash between the multinational British and Ottoman Empires, involving soldiers from many different backgrounds.

- Focus on the individual: The Anzac legend, shaped by official historian Charles Bean, concentrates on the stories of individual soldiers. Dr Uyar notes this focus on the "single trees" can sometimes obscure the "forest," or the broader strategic picture of the campaign.

- The Ottoman military: Dr Uyar emphasises that the Ottoman army was a conventional, modern force with its own complex defense strategies, a factor often simplified in popular histories.

- Shared heritage: The Gallipoli campaign is also a foundational story for modern Turkey, which has its own national legend focused on the battle's role in the birth of the Turkish Republic.

Dr Mesut Uyar @2:14 is a Turkish-Australian military historian. On Tuesday 29 April 2025 he spoke to the Royal United Services Institute of New South Wales....

23/08/2025

Following our new book announcement, we’re sharing an exclusive extract on our blog. Read how ‘three inefficient rather antique seaplanes took Jeddah’.

During the Great War, seaplane carrier HMS ‘Ben-my-Chree’ battled Turkish forces from the Red Sea. Read one of many remarkable accounts of pioneering naval aviation in the furnace-like heat of the Arabian coast.