Armageddon

Almost a century after the Australian Light Horse fought a series of epic and bloody battles against the Turkish Army across the deserts of the Middle East, Paul Daley and Mike Bowers retrace the steps of the men and boys who fought there. From enemy trenches where they charged the Turks on horseback, to narrow mountain passes where, exhausted, they slept in their saddles in retreat, Paul and Mike visit the hostile and lonely places where soldiers lost and buried their mates. Through battlefields still littered with shrapnel, bullet casings and even the odd human bone, they reflect on how the turbulent Middle East politics of the present collides with the past. Illustrated with archival and contemporary photographs, their story is part travelogue, part reportage and part history. Evocative, sometimes funny, sad and disturbing, Armageddon is two men on a fading Anzac trail.