The long career of a great soldier This is the autobiography of Smith-Dorrien, one of the most notable British military figures of the mid-Victorian and Edwardian ages. The author's first experiences of military life were nearly his last and in this book we are given a vital and chilling account of what it was to be one of the few surviving officers to flee from the Zulu impis at Isandlwhana. Interesting service in Egypt, the Sudan, and the Boer War follows as Smith-Dorrien's career develops and he becomes a talented and highly regarded staff officer. His works during the opening campaigns of the Great War are now properly regarded as superb generalship which probably saved the army, but it also earned the enmity of French, his superior, who all but ended his career. A brilliant autobiography by a fine soldier who every reader will come to admire as a military man and a person with each turn of the page.