t wonderful test of capacity and courage the Australians
have advanced from victory to victory, and have won for themselves a
splendid reputation. Details of training, raids, engagements, and
tactical features have been purposely omitted. The more serious
aspect will be written by others. In deference to Mr. Censor, names of
places and persons have been suppressed, but such omissions will not
detract from the interest of the book. 'Over the Top with the Third
Australian Division' is illustrative of that big-hearted,
devil-may-care style of the Australians, the men who can see the
brighter side of life under the most distracting circumstances and
most unpromising conditions. In the pages that follow, some incidents
of the life of the men may help to pass away a pleasant hour and serve
as a reminder of events, past and gone, but which will ever be fresh
to those whose immediate interests attach to the Third Australian
Division.

G.P. CUTTRISS.

[Illustration: The Author.
_Photo by Lafayette, Ltd._]

INTRODUCTION

At the outbreak of the World War in August, 1914, the Australian as a
soldier was an unknown quantity. It is quite true that in the previous
campaigns in the Soudan and in South Africa, Australia had been
represented, and that a sprinkling of native-born Australians had
taken service in the Imperial armies. The performances of these
pioneers of Australia in arms were creditable, and the reputation
which they had earned was full of promise. But, viewed in their proper
perspective, these contributions to Imperial Defence were no true
index of the capacity of the Australian nation to raise and maintain a
great army worthy and able in all details to take its place in a world
war, beside the armies of the great and historic civilizations of the
Old World.

No Australian, nor least of all those among them who had laboured in
times of peace to prepare the way for a great national effort,
whenever the call to action should come, ever doubted the capacity of
the nation worthily to respond; but while the magnitude and quality of
the possible effort might well have been doubted by our Imperial
authorities and our Allies, and while it was certainly regarded as
negligible by our enemies, the result in achievement has exceeded, in
a mighty degree, the most optimistic hopes even of those who knew or
thought they knew what Australia was capable of.

For, to-day, Australia has, besides its substantial contributio