"The Anzac Experience strips away the myth of the Anzacs being natural soldiers who only had to pick up a rifle to be superb fighters in battle. It tells the gripping story of New Zealanders, Australians and Canadians at war - from the Boer war in South Africa to the Empire's involvement in the cataclysmic struggle of 1914-1918. This is the story of citizen armies becoming professional as they learned the lessons of the Gallipoli landings and applied these to the battles of the Western Front in France and Flanders. By trial and error these colonial forces became expert in the business of war, so that by 1918 they were the fighting elite in the British armies in France"--P. [4] of cover.