By the end of the First World War the combat formations of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) in both France and the Middle East were considered among the British Empire's most effective troops. While sometimes a source of pride and not a little boasting, how the force came to be so was not due to any inherent national prowess or trait. Instead it was the culmination of years of training, organisational change, battlefield experimentation and hard-won experience-a process that included not just the Australians, but the wider British imperial armies as well. This book brings together some of Australia's foremost military historians to outline how the military neophytes that left Australia's shores in 1914 became the battle winning troops of 1918. It will trace the evolution of several of the key arms of the AIF, including the infantry, the light horse, the artillery, and the flying corps, and also consider how the various arms worked together alongside other troops of the British Empire to achieve a remarkably high level of battlefield effectiveness.

The Sykes-Picot Agreement was one of the defining moments in the history of the modern Middle East. Yet its co-creator, Sir Mark Sykes, had far more involvement in British Middle East strategy during World War I than the Agreement for which he is now most remembered. Between 1915 and 1916, Sykes was Lord Kitchener's agent at home and abroad, operating out of the War Office until the war secretary's death at sea in 1916. Following that, from 1916 to 1919 he worked at the Imperial War Cabinet, the War Cabinet Secretariat and, finally, as an advisor to the Foreign Office. The full extent of Sykes's work and influence has previously not been told. Moreover, the general impression given of him is at variance with the facts. Sykes led the negotiations with the Zionist leadership in the formulation of the Balfour Declaration, which he helped to write, and promoted their cause to achieve what he sought for a pro-British post-war Middle East peace settlement, although he was not himself a Zionist. Likewise, despite claims he championed the Arab cause, there is little proof of this other than general rhetoric mainly for public consumption. On the contrary, there is much evidence he routinely exhibited a complete lack of empathy with the Arabs. In this book, Michael Berdine examines the life of this impulsive and headstrong young British aristocrat who helped formulate many of Britain's policies in the Middle East that are responsible for much of the instability that has affected the region ever since.