A biography of Ian Hamilton, chiefly famous for the devastating failure of the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.In this riveting new biography, John Lee shows that this distinguished soldier in fact had a far more successful and influential military career than history has so far related. In the years before the First World War, Hamilton was widely acknowledged as possibly the most experienced soldier in the world, noted for his advanced ideas in both social and military affairs. All this was to be shattered by Gallipoli. Through painstaking study of archive material and contemporary sources, John Lee reveals that Gallipoli was a doomed exercise almost from the start and that Hamilton, though largely exonerated by the Dardanelles Commission which investigated the campaign, deserves to have his entire career re-assessed. A soldier's Life is a fascinating and long overdue account of a remarkable man and a brilliant soldier.