Living History With Mat Mclachlan

In March 1885, thirty years before Gallipoli, 770 men from New South Wales sailed for the deserts of Sudan — the first Australian soldiers ever sent to fight in a foreign war.In this episode, Mat McLachlan tells the forgotten story of Australia's Sudan Contingent — the part-time soldiers, weekend volunteers and colonial clerks who marched through Sydney in scarlet jackets to a crowd of 200,000, then crossed the world to serve alongside the Scots Guards and Grenadier Guards at Suakin. Through the soldiers' own words, we follow their journey from the excitement of departure to the brutal reality of an African desert — where the nights were more dangerous than the days, the enemy poisoned the waterholes, and the real killer wasn't bullets but disease.From Acting Premier William Bede Dalley's extraordinary decision to send troops without consulting parliament, to the Guards' bewildered reaction to their colonial allies, from Private Robert Weir's father farewell — "I look upon you as going to your grave" — to the