Gurkhas: Better to Die Than Live a Coward
4/5
()
Currently unavailable
Currently unavailable
About this ebook
When we think of Gurkhas we think, not only, of brave soldiers fighting for Britain but also of a race of people. However, there is no such thing as a Gurkha in the ethnic sense – the word is, in fact, a corruption of Goorkha, a small town and one-time state in north-west Nepal.
Nepal has always been a religiously and ethnically diverse nation; the Rajputs and Aryans who arrived during the fighting against the Mongols brought Hinduism with them, while the rest of the country – represented by the Magar, Gurung, Limbu and Rai tribes of Mongolian origins – are generally of the Buddhist religion.
Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Able Army : The first soldiers whose ancestors would go on to be known as Gurkha soldiers were from a small but well-instructed and behaved contingent of troops raised by the leader of the Goorkha state, Prithvi Narayan Shah. Shah had watched and learnt from the Europeans who were infiltrating the Indian sub-continent in the first half of the 18th century, realizing that by following their standard of conformity and discipline he could overthrow other Nepalese chiefdoms that were dotted around his state. He and his Goorkha soldiers did just that, and by the time he died in 1775 they had conquered the majority of present-day Nepal.
For the next 30 years Shah’s successors followed in his glory and built up a fearsome state. Even though they were relatively small in comparison to the states that surrounded them, and rather archaic in terms of weaponry, they made up for it tactically and mentally. This meant they continued to make in-roads further and further into Nepal and closer to areas of British-occupied India. The East India Company had arrogantly attempted to get the tribe on side, but the Goorkhas knew that this was for the benefit of the British as opposed to themselves, therefore they refused to bow.
Related to Gurkhas
Related ebooks
Burma: The Turning Point Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Last of the Bengal Lancers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMalayan Emergency: Triumph of the Running Dogs, 1948–1960 Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Tao of Soldiering: The Chinese Paradigm - The Shift in Human Resources Development in PLA and Lessons for India Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSun Tzu's The Art of War Made Easy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Small Scale Raiding Force Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Embassy Siege Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA BOOK OF FIVE RINGS by Miyamoto Musashi: A Modern Translation for the 21st Century by T. L. Carlyle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCommand and Morale: The British Army on the Western Front 1914–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeadhunters of Borneo Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBattle Tales from Burma Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsImpossible Victories: Ten Unlikely Battlefield Successes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Armoured Warfare in the British Army 1945-2020 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTank Warfare: A History of Tanks in Battle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPerfect Gentleman: Sir Wilson Whineray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5SAS: Secret War in South East Asia Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Handful of Hard Men: The SAS and the Battle for Rhodesia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When Counterinsurgency Wins: Sri Lanka's Defeat of the Tamil Tigers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsInfantry Attacks Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5War, Coups and Terror: Pakistan's Army in Years of Turmoil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Out of Nowhere: A history of the military sniper, from the Sharpshooter to Afghanistan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Country and Corps: The Life of General Oliver P. Smith Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBeyond No Mean Soldier: The Explosive Recollections of a Former Special Forces Operator Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Joys of War: From the Foreign Legion, the SAS and into Hell with PTSD Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5World War 2: Great Wars of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Soviet-Afghan War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taliban Don't Wave Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSoldier Mountaineer: The Colonel who got Siachen Glacier for India Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Outpost Berlin: Cold War 1961–1964 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Russo-Japanese War, Lessons Not Learned Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Wars & Military For You
Churchill's Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare: The Mavericks Who Plotted Hitler's Defeat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The God Delusion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Daily Creativity Journal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Killing the SS: The Hunt for the Worst War Criminals in History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mein Kampf: The Original, Accurate, and Complete English Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnit 731: Testimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Art of War: The Definitive Interpretation of Sun Tzu's Classic Book of Strategy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Unacknowledged: An Expose of the World's Greatest Secret Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Art of War & Other Classics of Eastern Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Wager Disaster: Mayem, Mutiny and Murder in the South Seas Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Kingdom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5"The Good War": An Oral History of World War II Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise of the Fourth Reich: The Secret Societies That Threaten to Take Over America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5When I Come Home Again: 'A page-turning literary gem' THE TIMES, BEST BOOKS OF 2020 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Gurkhas
1 rating0 reviews