Khaki and Gown

Field Marshal William Riddell Birdwood, 1st Baron Birdwood, was a British Army officer. He saw active service in the Second Boer War on the staff of Lord Kitchener and action again in the First World War as Commander of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the Gallipoli Campaign in 1915, leading the landings on the peninsula and then the evacuation later in the year, before becoming commander-in-chief of the Fifth Army on the Western Front during the closing stages of the war. An autobiography by an old soldier with tales of adventure from all over the world. The “gown” refers to his later years as Master of Peterhouse at Cambridge. Winston Churchill served with Lord Birdwood in the Boer War, and writes a glowing two-page foreword.