Customer Reviews

Queen Victoria's Little Wars

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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!

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"

The reign of Queen Victoria was the high water mark of the British Empire, and during her reign,dozens of little wars were fought throughout her empire. Mr. Farwell is able to take the highlights of these little wars and string them together into a fascinating and very readable story. Throughout, he gives little character sketches and interesting-and sometimes amusing asides-while not getting too far from the main flow of the narritive. A colorful look into an era when prestige and honor sometimes counted for more than expediency. My only criticism is that there was a lack of maps to go with the accounts of the various campaigns, the three maps included being of Northern India, Afganistan, and North-East Africa. While many of the campaigns did take place in these locals, a third of the wars in this book took place in South Africa, West Africa, China, the Crimea, and even Canada. Perhaps putting a map of the area of the campaign at the beginning of each chapter would have helped.

As with all of Mr. Farwells's other books, this is a classic. Rich in detail, unique characters and incredible events that spanned the British empire. I recommend this and any of his other works, I have read them all, and some day soon, I plan to begin reading them all once again. I even had the opportunity to speak with him on the phone once, a real class gentleman.

This was my first reading of the military history of the victorian era and what an truly interesting era it was! This book wonderfully evokes the amazing, if now politically incorrect, exploits of a small number of victorian military adventurers in the rapidly expanding, exotic realms of the empire. I highly recommend this book to anyone interesting in militaria and 19th century history. I am on-line now to pick up two more of Farwells books!

There are plenty of excellent books on British Colonial Wars, some general, some specific. If you only want to read one of them, this is it. Farwell's research is impeccable and his writing is without doubt the best in the field. BUY THIS BOOK!

In this little book, Mnr Farwell gives a good overview of 'the savage wars of peace' fought by the British empire in the 19th century. The reason for some we would find ridiculous today. Get this and the other works like Eminent Victorian Soldiers. A necessity for anyone interested in 19th century warfare

I am frankly surprised that some have criticized Farwell's book for being too concise, or lacking details. He obviously wanted to present, in one volume, an overview of the many "little wars" that occurred during Victoria's reign. It was exactly what I wanted. I had read about some of the campaigns in a little more depth before (The Great Mutiny, the Crimean War, the Zulu War, etc), but I really wanted to see how these wars were related (if they were), and I wanted to see how some soldiers' careers progressed in the context of all the wars.

At opportune moments, Farwell, halts the narrative to give a thumbnail sketch of some of the more notable participants (Wolsley, Gough, Napier, Roberts, et al), and shows how many young officers in the early campaigns led the later campaigns. Because the campaigns fly by so fast in this overview format, I sometimes had to re-read some sections because I had forgotten what had happened to whom in certain of the little wars.

I only have one major complaint (and I can level this one at the other 3 Farwell books I have read) and that is not enough maps. As usual, Farwell provides a few maps of the general areas at the start of the book, but I felt that specific campaigns and marches deserved maps of their own. It did not need to be much- just a blow-up of portions of his larger maps, with certain routes marked would have helped. Nevertheless, I suggest that anyone with an interest in this era start with Farwell as an introduction to the era (with some extra maps at hand). One can always read further detailed accounts of the campaigns and battles (some by Farwell himself) if one wants to delve deeper.

This is simply a terrific book for those who wish an overview of British military involvements in the 19th Century without having to sort through the literally thousands of works which have been written about them. It is not, and was plainly not intended to be, an exhaustive history of the subject, but rather a terse and readily digestible summary, made vital and appealing by Farwell's engaged and engaging writing style. As is true of his several other, and equally well-crafted, books, the author tells this story through the lives and exploits of the principal military leaders involved, from the brilliant but ultimately frustrated (and, he thought, betrayed) Garnet Wolseley, to that Hapless Hero, Evelyn Wood, who appears not to have been able to eat dinner without stabbing himself with his fork. They're all here, leading the finest soldiers in the world at the time, through a seemingly endless thicket of minor and major conflicts, many the product of hasty and defective thinking by their political masters, but nonetheless invariably costly in blood and treasure. Every time I read one of Farwell's books, I picture him as having picked up his pen (he died in 2000) thinking, "I'll write what I find interesting, and see if readers agree." We do.