Brigadier-General Herbert Hart commanded the NZ Wellington Battalion during the closing stages of the Gallipoli campaign, then served on the Western Front. Throughout the war he kept a diary, in which he recorded his experiences in the great battles on Gallipoli, the Somme and Passchendaele. As a first-hand account of life in the firestorm of WWI, Hart's diary is widely regarded as one of the most important personal sources relating to the war, both combat and life behind the frontline.