- They Called it Passchendaele, Lyn Macdonald, 1978. An English historian details the daily lives and struggles of the much maligned British Tommy on the Western Front. - Man Alone, John Mulgan, 1939. A novel based around a man named Johnson, a British soldier who was billeted with Kiwis on the Western Front. After the war he came out to New Zealand looking for a better life. Instead, he finds a “grim” country struggling to recover economically from the impact of the war. - We Will Not Cease, Archibald Baxter, 1939. If there is a book that dispels the myth that New Zealand was fighting for democracy or freedom, this is it. A conscientious objector, Baxter was tortured and sent to a mental hospital for opposing the war.