Pompey Elliott
Ross McMullin
'One of the best three or four books ever written by an Australian on the Great War.'
Les Carlyon'For readers interested in military history, and more broadly the society that shaped the first AIF, the book is close to a masterpiece of traditional biography, specific in scope and monumental in structure … McMullin's book provides a great deal — at 700 odd pages, a great, great deal — to delight in.'
Stephen Matchett (Sydney Institute Quarterly)'In the ultimate sentence of the book McMullin says: "an Australian as famous, inspirational, and historically significant as "Pompey" Elliott deserves to better remembered." With this book, the first fully researched account of Elliott's life and times, McMullin makes a significant contribution to ensuring that this happens.'
Geoff Pryor (Canberra Times)Pompey Elliott was a remarkable Australian. During the Great War he was a charismatic, controversial, and outstandingly successful military leader. An accomplished tactician and ‘the bravest of the brave’, he was renowned for never sending anyone anywhere he was not prepared to go himself. As a result, no Australian general was more revered by those he led or more famous outside his own command. An officer on his staff even concluded that ‘no greater soldier or gentleman ever lived’.
A man of unimpeachable integrity and unwavering commitment, ‘as straight as a ruled line’, he was also forthright and volatile. His tempestuousness generated a host of ‘Pompey’ anecdotes that amused his men and disconcerted his superiors.
Yet surprisingly little has been written about Elliott until now. This comprehensive, deeply researched biography finally tells his fascinating story. It vividly examines Elliott’s origins and youth, his peacetime careers as a lawyer and politician, and his achievements as well as the controversies he aroused during his years as a soldier.
Ross McMullin’s masterly work retrieves a significant Australian from undeserved obscurity. It also judiciously reassesses notable battles he influenced — including the Gallipoli Landing, Lone Pine, Fromelles, Polygon Wood, and Villers-Brettoneux — and illuminates numerous aspects of Australia’s experiences during his lifetime, particularly the often-overlooked period of the aftermath to the Great War.
'A striking aspect of Ross McMullin's scrupulous biography is how little Elliott has been exaggerated by posterity ... Pompey Elliott is a large book, and rightly. It encompasses a period and individuals of more than mere military significance. It is difficult to dissent from McMullin's judgment that Fromelles — an engagement not one in a thousand Australians would know of today, because it hasn't occasioned a movie or mini-series — remains "perhaps the most tragic 24 hours ever experienced by Australians", its losses being equivalent to the entire Australian casualties of the Boer War, the Korean War and the Vietnam War put together.'
The assiduous McMullin has scored several scoops, including the revelation that Elliott argues successfully against an appallingly misconceived advance on St Denis Wood shortly after the battle of Mont St Quentin in September 1918—in the lives preserved, an achievement as considerable as any great battlefield coup.'
Gideon Haigh (The Age)‘Australians who don’t read this book are short-changing themselves’.
Peter Ryan (The Australian)‘Ross McMullin argues rightly that an Australian who achieved so much “deserves to be better remembered”. His vivid, thorough biography is the first full account of Elliott’s life — surprising, given Pompey’s eminence, popularity and personality .… Elliott's story — the great-hearted captain broken by life's blows — is a tragedy of Shakespearean dimensions, and our history is the richer for McMullin's telling of it.’
Peter Fuller (Australian Book Review)‘Ross McMullin’s biography is an engrossing and capable study of this outstanding figure, who was undoubtedly one of the great Australian characters of the First World War … McMullin is to warmly commended for a major contribution to the body of work documenting this country's military past.’
Chris Coulthard-Clark (Wartime)Pompey Elliott 'may be the best Australian military biography yet to appear'.
Stephen Loosely (Sunday Telegraph)Ross McMullin
Ross McMullin is a historian and biographer whose main interests are Australian history, politics and sport. He has researched and written extensively about the impact on Australia of its involvement in World War I. His books include the ALP centenary history The Light on the Hill: The Australian Labor Party 1891–1991, the award-winning biography Pompey Elliott, and So Monstrous a Travesty: Chris Watson and the World’s First National Labour Government. He has also contributed chapters to many other books.
His most recent book is Will Dyson: Australia’s Radical Genius.
Extent: 736
Size: 234mm x 153mm
ISBN (10): 0908011 709
ISBN (13): 9780908011704
RRP: $49.95
Pub date: April 2002
Status: Out of print
World
News