About this ebook
As a cipher officer within General Headquarters (GHQ), Orlo possessed privileged access to the secret communications that shaped the ill-fated 1915 expedition. He gives an insider’s account of life at GHQ, detailing the planning and execution of crucial moments – the landings, key battles, and the final evacuation. Witness the complex interplay between military commanders and politicians, illuminated by Orlo’s candid, often critical, assessments of figures like Hamilton, Churchill, and Kitchener.
This diary is an essential primary source, revealing the internal machinations, strategic debates, and political pressures defining one of the First World War’s most controversial campaigns.
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About the author
Civil servant, First World War officer, author and literary critic. An Oxford graduate who served at Gallipoli as GHQ cipher officer, then in Egypt and Palestine.
Dr Rhys Crawley is a senior lecturer in history and member of the War Studies Research Group at UNSW Canberra, and the author of the Official History of Australian Operations in Afghanistan, 2005-10.
From 2016-2023, he worked at the Australian War Memorial, and before that, from 2010-16, at the Australian National University.
A member of the editorial boards for War & Society and the Australian Army Journal, and a specialist in Australian military and intelligence history, his books include Climax at Gallipoli: The Failure of the August Offensive (University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), The Secret Cold War: The Official History of ASIO, 1975-1989 (Allen & Unwin, 2016), Intelligence and the Function of Government (Melbourne University Press, 2018), Gallipoli: New Perspectives on the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force 1915-16 (Helion, 2018), and The Long Search for Peace: Observer Missions and Beyond, 1947-2006 (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Stephen Chambers is a qualified IT, security and privacy professional, having worked in the computing and cyber security industry for over 25 years. He is also an accredited battlefield guide, author and researcher whose passion is British and Commonwealth military history from 1815 to 1945, from Waterloo to the end of the Second World War.
His passion for the study of the Gallipoli campaign has led to the publication of several books by Pen & Sword, Bloomsbury, Schiffer and Helion that include Gully Ravine (2002), Anzac The Landing (2008), Suvla: August Offensive (2011), Anzac: Sari Bair (2014), Gallipoli: The Dardanelles Disaster in Soldiers’ Words and Photographs (2015), Krithia (
Stephen has contributed to several other books and magazines, including Gallipoli: New Perspectives On The Mediterranean Expeditionary Force, 1915-16 (2018), and Two Sides of the Same Bad Penny? Gallipoli and the Western Front, a Comparison (2018).
Stephen is the historian of the Gallipoli Association and director of Great War Digital Ltd, home of the GPS mapping product – Linesman.
Ashleigh Brown is an historian on the Official History Project at the Australian War Memorial, where she is part of a team writing the Official History of Australian Operations in Iraq & Afghanistan and Australian Peacekeeping Operations in East Timor.
Ashleigh holds a Master of Philosophy, and is a PhD candidate at the University of New South Wales, Canberra, researching Australian military aviation during the interwar period. Her thesis investigates the formation of the Royal Australian Air Force in 1921, its initial developments and challenges, and the period of rapid modernisation leading up to the Second World War.
