On 25 April 1915, Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in present-day Turkey, with the hope of securing the Dardanelles and thus allowing the Imperial Fleet to go all the way to Constantinople. If all went well, it was Winston Churchill and Lord Kitchener's impassioned view that the Ottoman Empire would be knocked out of the war.

It did not quite go as they planned. Of course, the story has been told before, but in this book FitzSimons, with his trademark vibrancy and expert melding of writing and research, not only recreates the disaster as experienced by those who endured it or perished in the attempt, he takes us everywhere: from the secret deliberations of the British War Council, to the Ottoman leadership, to the trenches on both sides of no-man's-land.

True as ever to his mantra of 'Make it live and breathe!', FitzSimons conveys us to the centre of the story each step of the way; and is able to shine new light on the whole campaign, in this its Centenary year.