HAMILTON, Sift Ivan Standish Mon teith, British general: b. Corfu, 16 Jan. 1853 of Scottish parents. Educated at Welling ton College, he entered the army in 1873 as lieutenant; served in the Afghan War, 1878 80; Boer War, 1881 ; became captain 1882; served with the Nile expedition in 1884-85 and promoted major; in 1886-87 he accompanied the Burmese expedition and rose to lieutenant colonel; became colonel in 1891; served with the Chitral relief force in 1895, and commanded a brigade in the Tirah campaign 1897-98. On his return home he acted as commandant at Hythe for about a year when the South African War broke out. Colonel Hamilton was "ordered south? first as chief of staff in Natal, then placed in command of a mounted infantry divi sion as major-general. He was barely 47 years old when Lord Roberts trusted him with the command of that part of the main army which entailed most responsibility and independence. The veteran commander-in-chief recognized two great merits in Hamilton: an eye for lay of country which amounted almost to genius and a capacity for pushing on and imposing his will upon the enemy instead of waiting for them to develop their plans. He was also at all times willing to take responsibility, run risks and stake a budding reputation on the venture, a quality too rarely found among officers. Three months after the close of the war Ham ilton was promoted lieutenant-general (1902), and full general in 1907. In the Russo-Japanese War 1904-05 he served as British attache with the Japanese army in Manchuria. His experi
ences of that campaign are recorded in 'A Staff Officer's Scrap Book' (2 vols., London 1905), a work displaying not only a mastery of military technique, but a high literary style and a keen sense of humor. In 1910 General Ham ilton was appointed commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean and inspector-general of Oversea forces, which post he held at the outbreak of the European War in 1914. For nearly 40 years he had served with distinction in every British war; he held a great number of medals and had been wounded frequently. In India he had practi cally lost the use of his left arm by the pre mature bursting of a shell; another time a shell splinter hit him in the face; bullets found their billets in him on numerous occasions, and in South Africa he was thrown from his horse and broke his collar bone. After the naval at tack on the Dardanelles had proved a failure without the co-operation of land troops, the British expeditionary force to the Gallipoli Peninsula was placed under the command of General Hamilton (1915). The disastrous end ing to that campaign was in no wise due to the officer in command, but to the delay and mis calculations of the higher authorities. Besides his British orders, General Hamilton holds Japanese, Spanish, Russian and German decora tions, and is a grand officer of the Legion of Honor. See WAR, EUROPEAN: DARDANELLES; GALLIPOLI PENINSULA.