Steele and his comrades expected war to be a glorious adventure, their personal intersection with events of historic importance. His diary entries convey the excitement that accompanied the passage of the "First 500" recruits across the Atlantic to England and the boredom that followed as the regiment moved from training camps to garrison towns during the first year of the war. Steele's account of the regiment's role in the ill-fated Gallipoli expedition shows how the reality of war transforms individuals, shattering illusions about glory and heroic effort and replacing them with fears of...