MONASH & ME

Walkley award-winning investigative journalist  and war correspondent Peter Greste goes in search of the real man behind the Australian General, who changed the way the world fights wars; Sir John Monash.

Monash is a towering figure in Australia’s story of the Great War. The revolutionary approach to combat that he commanded was key to the allied victory. Armies still fight on his model today. 

While examining the battles that made Monash famous, Peter also discovers his own family’s previously unknown role in Monash’s First Australian Imperial Force. Four Great Uncles, the Fankhausers, fought in WW1. For Peter, Monash’s war becomes personal.   

Across two episodes Greste plays detective and military analyst, unearthing private letters, diary entries and unit histories from Monash and protagonists on each side of the conflict. These intimate accounts reveal a much richer and more detailed picture of the man himself, and this terrible conflict in which 60,000 Australians were killed.  By shining a fresh light onto Monash’s triumphs and tragedies, Greste will offer up his assessment on Monash’s legacy for contemporary Australia. A complex, talented and enigmatic man, fiercely intelligent and a brilliant tactician, Monash’s engineering background put him in a unique position to see and solve problems on the battlefield. This approach saved thousands of lives on the Western Front, and also set the stage for how war is still conducted today.