Dominic Sandbrook

So book your tickets now.

Well, we will discover.

Churchill says to them, and I quote, there should be no difficulty in effecting a landing.

It doesn't occur to him that it will be at all tricky to land thousands of troops on enemy territory a long way from home, you know, what will effectively be an amphibious landing facing modern weaponry.

This is something that has never been done before.

Egypt, yeah.

So they have troops in Egypt.

And as we will see, those are the Anzacs.

Who are they going to bring over?

So the man who was chosen to command the operation is one of Churchill's closest friends in the army.

He's a guy called Sir Ian Hamilton.

Sir Ian Hamilton is often given a very bad press in books about Gallipoli.

You know, you mentioned lions led by donkeys.

I mean, he's definitely not a donkey.

If you were being very critical of him, you'd say he was a bit of a dilettante.

And in fact, that's the criticism that people make.

He fought in both Boer Wars, decorated.

He's a novelist.

He's a poet.

He is regarded as, you know, the most cerebral, the most intellectual of the British Army's senior officers.