Dominic Sandbrook

Then there's the French, the Orient Expeditionary Corps, as they're called.

And a lot of these people are colonial troops from Algeria and from Senegal.

So they're there too.

And then most famously, the ANZACs, the Australian Imperial Force and the New Zealanders Expeditionary Force.

And these had been made up of volunteers sent by the two dominions of Australia and New Zealand at the outbreak of war.

They thought they were going to fight in Europe and they have been training in the desert outside Cairo.

So that'll prepare them for the mud of Flanders.

Right.

So after the war...

Australian writers in particular absolutely lionized these guys.

And they said these were the embodiments of the Anzac spirit.

They are free-spirited, manly sons of the outback and of the outdoors.

What a contrast between our brave boys and the sort of sickly, pallid products of Britain's industrial cities.

It's like a kind of Australian ashes preview.

Exactly, exactly.

Now, actually, this is slightly misleading.

a quarter of the Australian imperial force had actually been born in Britain.

So these are people who were British but have emigrated to Australia and now have decided that they will sign up.

And actually, a lot of the others were not sons of the outback at all.

They came from cities themselves, cities like Sydney and Melbourne.