A History Of The British Cavalry Volume.3 1872-1898

Cover Type: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Jacket Condition: Very Good
Publisher: Leo Cooper
Publisher Place: Uk
Publisher Year: 1982
Edition: First Edition

Description: 478 pages. Book and Jacket are both in Very good condition throughout.

Publishers Description: Ironically the nearer the mounted branch of the army approached the day of its extinction, the more professional became its officers, its men, its arms and equipment. This aspect of the British cavalry in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s is well brought out in this the third and central volume of Lord Angleseys definitive five-volume history.It covers the high noon of the British Empire, beginning with the Zulu War of 1879 and ending with Kitcheners River War nineteen years later. Between those two conflicts came the Second Afghan War and the catastrophe of Maiwand; the First Boer War of 1881; Wolseleys Egyptian campaign of 1882, which ended in the occupation of Cairo and his Nile campaign of 1884-1885, which failed to rescue Gordon from Khartoum. Also described in some detail is the cavalrys part in the neglected but highly interesting campaigns against Osman Digna in the Eastern Sudan.Not the least absorbing aspects of these small wars brought out in this book are the increasing use in them of mounted infantry and the slowly dawning realisation that the rapidly improving fire-power of small arms was making traditional cavalry practices obsolescent.Lord Anglesey peppers his fast-moving accounts of the numerous engagements with short biographical sketches of many of the leading cavalrymen of the say: such men as Colonel Burnaby of the Blues, whose ebullient, eccentric career was cut short at Abu Klea; Valentine Baker Pasha, convicted of assaulting a young lady in a railway carriage; Herbert Stewart, who was Wolseys right hand man, and the up-and-coming leaders such as Evelyn Wood, Redvers Buller, the young Douglas Haig and Wully Robertson.Readers of this volume will also find a compelling picture of what social life in the mounted branch was really like during the final decades of Queen Victorias reign. This is based upon evidence culled from a wide range of sources, including a number of hitherto unpublished letters and diaries as well as upon a large number of Government Blue Books and other reports.The effects upon cavalry officers of Cardwells abolition of purchased commissions and upon the rank and file of his introduction of short service are fully explored. So too are the problems connected with keeping up the Empires military strength overseas, especially in India under the system of voluntary enlistment and in the face of parliamentary parsimony.Lord Anglesey demonstrates that there was a great deal more to the British cavalry than its alleged role in war of lending tone to what would otherwise be a vulgar brawl.

ISBN: 0436273276