FitzSimons produced a very readable account about a pivotal battle of WW1. He toned back his jingoism of some of his other books.

FitzSimons argues that the battle of Hamel in 1918 advanced military doctrine of combined arms with infantry, armour, artillery, and aircraft working together to gain a significant victory.

FitzSimons posits that it was the character of Gen Monash that was vital in laying the groundwork for success. At Kindle Location 1,719, FitzSimons writes:

"In all of his engineering projects, he had relied on tight organisation, thorough consultation between all elements of the enterprise, use of state-of-the-art technology, exploration of all available innovations and enormous intellectual energy, with a fierce commitment to sticking to the plan that evolves."

This is the key insight.

At Kindle location 6,409, FitzSimons the following figures:

"These figures – 3200 Germans lost, against just 1600 Australians, British and Americans – are irrefutable proof of a brilliantly conducted attack."

At Kindle location 6,972, FitzSimons laments that significant events in Australian military history are overshadowed by the story of Gallipoli:

"The major factor, of course, is that like just about every other fine Australian effort over the last century, it has made very little headway against Gallipoli, which continues to dominate the popular imagination, despite the fact that much of what happened on the Western Front made Gallipoli look like a mere sideshow by comparison."

FitzSimons is doing his best to remedy this by writing his historical series of books.