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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too short for the subject matter, October 31, 2000
This review is from: Queen Victoria's Little Wars (Paperback)
Let me start by saying Farwell is one of my favorite military historians. His modern writing style makes for an easy and enjoyable read and his books are full of interesting and often humorous anecdotes. But the subject of this book really deserves more space than this book offered. I will grant that the problem is partially due to lack of documentation, i.e. many of the Victorian conflicts were so small and so obscure that no official history has ever been written. Regimental histories offer the British point of view while their opponents often didn't have a written language let alone official historians for their side of the story. So primary sources are indeed lacking. Nevertheless, this is the first book I have found that goes into any sort of detail regarding the many wars on the Northwestern Fontier, the conflicts in Burma, the Ashanti rebellions, and the many wars of the British East India Company. At least two 600+ page volumes of Sir John Fortescue's monumental "History of the British Army" cover approximately this same period of time but they are nearly impossible to obtain. So those who are interested in Victorian military history will be pleased even though they are left wanting more. But in the limited space Farwell does a magnificent job. One begins to see the participants as real people with eccentric personalities, personal failings, heroic exploits, and depth of character. Battles I had never heard of (and aren't even mentioned in Chandler's Dictionary of Battles) come to life as Farwell describes the adventures on the fringes of the British Empire; Conflicts that were almost as unknown to contemporary Britons as they went about their mundane lives back in England as they are to us today. One major drawback of this edition is the editing. The index is often useless since the page numbers (I'm guessing) must reflect an earlier edition and were not updated. There are also some textual errors, such as the wrong date being given for the British attack on Jakarta, which a good editor should have caught. But I bought this book to read while sitting by the fireplace and drinking India Pale Ale, not as source material for a doctoral degree.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I thought I would hate this book, but ended loving it!, January 6, 2000
This review is from: Queen Victoria's Little Wars (Paperback)
When I first began reading this book, I was disappointed, thinking that it was little more that an account of the various military campaigns undertaken during the reign of Queen Victoria, with no attempt to connect these wars with events within Britain itself. However, very shortly indeed, I realized that this book was nothing short of a tour de force! The author uses wit and a thorough understanding of his subject to draw the reader in, both informing and entertaining!
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting and useful work on the British colonial wars, November 13, 2003
This review is from: Queen Victoria's Little Wars (Paperback)
Magnificent job,describes the various military expeditions, little wars, rebellions, mutinies(well only one was the only big threat to the Queen Victoria Empire, the Indian Mutiny)and all the small affairs to repel a proboked attack, to save or to protect resident Britons, to avenge an insult or to stop any other Empire from extending it. A lively and compelling study of the Savage wars of peace and the eccentric personalities who fought them,from 1837 to 1901 continuos warfare to protect British Interest in Asia, Canada, Africa, Arabia, this is not a complete work but is one of the best, Mr. Farwell gave us a fascinating overview highly readable with many entertaining historical anecdotes of British colonial wars and bloody confrontations, well written. I know that there are other works that name all the battles or small campaigns(like the work of Philip J. Haythornthwaite "The Colonial Wars Source Book")but a fascinating and exciting story that was omitted was the Fashoda Incident,this was going to be one of the greatest collision of rival imperial ambitions, the French with their historic claims of the Nile try to take control of a small town call Fashoda and this was a big threat to the British control of the Suez Canal and Egypt so after the famous battle of Omdurman Kitchener was send to stop the young Colonel Marchand, at the end the Fashoda crisis was eventually resolved, the British gave the French a free hand on Morrocco and the French forget about Egypt. Even with out this the author made an exciting book and a valuable addition to military history, maps and pictures,well laid out, nice appendix, one on the British Regiment system essential to understand the British Military Mind and the other a easy to follow list of the Little wars from 1837 to 1901 this is a partial record of the conflicts for the "PAX BRITANNICA"
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