Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Queen Victoria’s Little Wars
    Unavailable
    Queen Victoria’s Little Wars
    Unavailable
    Queen Victoria’s Little Wars
    Ebook537 pages14 hours

    Queen Victoria’s Little Wars

    By Byron Farwell

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    This is the story of what Rudyard Kipling called ‘the savage wars of peace’. Throughout Queen Victoria’s long reign there was not a single year in which, somewhere in the world, British soldiers were not fighting for her and her Empire. It tells the fascinating story of the little known and extraordinary small wars, and of the men who fought them.

    These wars were the price on Empire, of world leadership and of national pride, and it was usually paid without qualms or regret; continuous warfare became an accepted way of life in the Victorian era, and in the process, the British Empire quadrupled in size. But, engrossing as these small wars are – and they bristle with bizarre, tragic and humorous incident – it is the officers and men who fought them that dominate the book. With their courage, foolhardiness and eccentricities, they are an unforgettable lot.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPen and Sword
    Release dateFeb 28, 2017
    ISBN9781848849327
    Unavailable
    Queen Victoria’s Little Wars
    Author

    Byron Farwell

    Byron Farwell served as an officer in the North African and Italian campaigns in World War II and also in the Korean War. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1964, and is the author of The Great Boer War, also published by Pen & Sword.

    Related to Queen Victoria’s Little Wars

    Related ebooks

    European History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Military Churchill

      Aug 2, 2018

      The Military Churchill
      8 min read

    • Article

      Book Reviews

      May 7, 2021

      Britain’s Universal War Machine By Robert JacksonISBN: 978-1526746436(Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2019) – £16.99 Bren Gun Carrier: Britain’s Universal War Machine is a broadly interesting and engaging piece of work. It is intended more for “modelmakers an

      6 min read

    • Article

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS

      Aug 8, 2019

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS
      3 min read

    • Article

      Charles Viner (1812 - 1906)

      Dec 11, 2020

      The French ‘Vieille Garde’, which is ‘Old Guard’, were the elite veteran element of Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, writes Devlan Kruck. The Emperor handpicked these soldiers personally based on their physical attributes and the experience and success of

      2 min read

    • Article

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers

      Oct 1, 2020

      Britain’s Black Trailblazers
      14 min read

    • Article

      Soldiers Of The Caribbean

      Aug 5, 2021

      Delivered in partnership with the West India Committee and supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, the West Indian Soldier exhibition at the National Army Museum (NAM) highlights the little-known military heritage shared between Britain and

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Julio-claudian Legion

      Sep 8, 2023

      By Nigel Pollard and Joanne Berry Thames & Hudson, 2012 ISBN: 978-0500251836 Parker's volume was once the go-to for an accessible history of the Roman legions. It's still a decent start, but very old. Pollard and Berry provide an up-to-date, well-ill

      3 min read

    • Article

      Professor Nigel Saul

      Jan 28, 2021

      Professor Nigel Saul
      4 min read

    • Article

      Regimental Lines

      Mar 17, 2022

      Regimental Lines
      7 min read

    • Article

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS

      Aug 9, 2018

      THIS UNIQUE BATTLEFIELD CHANGED THE COURSE OF ENGLISH HISTORY AND IS NOW PRESERVED AS AN EXCEPTIONAL HERITAGE CENTRE The events of 22 August 1485, where Richard III was killed in battle and the Tudor dynasty began, are all on full display at the Bosw

      4 min read

    • Article

      Recommended

      Apr 13, 2021

      By Alexander Clifford This book examines the International Brigades, foreigners who fought for the Republican government during the 1936–39 Spanish Civil War. The author focuses on their performance as frontline combat units, tracing the course of ea

      1 min read

    • Article

      ‘Wull I Gie Them Wund’: The Meaning Of Bagpipe Music On The Western Front

      Dec 12, 2020

      When eighteen-year-old piper Jimmy Richardson asked his company sergeant-major ‘Wull I gie them wund?’, they were in the middle of trying to cross no-man’s-land during the battle of the Somme in October of 1916. They were hunkered down in a big shell

      12 min read

    • Article

      10 Key Battles Of The Civil Wars

      Dec 29, 2020

      Between 1637 and 1640, Charles I had tried to enforce Anglican religious observances on the (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland, including a new prayer book. National Scottish resistance and defiance of the King’s orders resulted in the so-called Bisho

      6 min read

    • Article

      What Happened To Britain's Volunteer Army? Kitchener’s Mob

      Jul 9, 2020

      Popular imagination holds that the volunteer army raised by Lord Kitchener in the opening weeks of the Great War was formed in the wake of a great recruiting campaign; that thousands lined up outside the recruiting offices; and that Kitchener’s Army,

      7 min read

    • Article

      Reviews

      Mar 21, 2024

      Reviews
      6 min read

    • Article

      ANCIENT WARFARE readings BREAKAWAY KINGDOMS

      Apr 13, 2021

      By Paul Elliot Fonthill Media Limited, 2014 ISBN: 978-1781553343 Elliot explores the changes which occurred in the legions during the third century AD and the challenges they faced in terms of funding, training and the lack of a secure centralized em

      2 min read

    • Article

      Evolution Of The Knight

      Mar 27, 2020

      Evolution Of The Knight
      9 min read

    • Article

      Shattered Sharpsburg

      Nov 1, 2022

      Shattered Sharpsburg
      6 min read

    • Article

      Q&A

      Jan 23, 2020

      In some respects, the Barons’ Wars were conventionally fought. Commanded by noblemen with an emphasis on cavalry and support by large numbers of foot soldiers, the wars were conducted over a series of battles and sieges. Nevertheless, at their heart

      3 min read

    • Article

      Scouting For Success

      Jul 28, 2020

      Scouting For Success
      5 min read

    • Article

      Rethinking Famous Battles

      Oct 10, 2023

      Rethinking Famous Battles
      5 min read

    • Article

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS

      Oct 31, 2019

      MUSEUMS & EVENTS
      3 min read

    Reviews for Queen Victoria’s Little Wars

    4/5

    48 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Entertaining and informative look at the frequent small wars of great Britain thru the 1800's. Covered 80 years and myriad locations in the least confusing manner.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed this book as I did Mr. Farwell's "Eminent Victorian Soldiers". It is one of those rare books that actually can be hard to put down. Although Victorian era warfare is not my main area of interest, I will read a book on it from time to time to "cleanse" my reading "pallet". I found this book to be light, quick, entertaining and pleasantly distracting.The serious student of the Queen Victoria's army would probably find this book entertaining as well but not required reading. It moves along at a fairly fast pace, covering nearly a century and tens of thousands of miles. The reader will not be deluged with any technical minutiae on weapons and specific tactics, but will instead be treated to many many good stories.The author's description of the campaigns and battles lends a fairly good picture of the pertinent situations. Above all he has included my favorite aspect of the subject and that is the personalities involved. Exhaustively researched and expertly written, this is a very fun book to read for the military historian of any era.
    • 3/5
      A quick, episodic survey of the "little wars" (or the "savage wars of peace," to use Kipling's pungent phrase) that popped up with depressing regularity throughout Victoria's 60+ year reign, Farwell's necessarily brief and episodic survey is replete with interesting details, with anecdotes ranging from the stirring to the horrific to the mordantly humorous. The book's episodic nature makes it a fine book for browsing but a somewhat more disjointed affair if read straight through, and one should probably be forgiven for coming away from Queen Victoria's Little Wars with the impression that the British Empire under Victoria scarcely had a grand strategy, save only that of keeping India at any cost and to exemplify the sentiment of Tom Brown's School Days, that fighting is the especial "business" of man. This is not a standard military history, and Farwell omits some "famous and fascinating battles and small campaigns" in favor or certain "interesting or little-known camptaigns" which he selected "to illustrate aspects of military character or to help describe interesting personalities." In short, this is a book geared more towards the general reader looking for a general sense of Victorian Britain's attitude towards its empire and its military adventures rather than the military historian interested in strategy, tactics, or exhaustive studies of the intricacies of the British armed forces (both regular and "John Company") of the latter 19th century.
    • 3/5
      Apparently there were wars going on during every one of Queen Victoria's years on the throne from 1837 to 1901. Some were major ones that everyone has heard of - the Zulu, Ashanti, Sudanese and Boer wars in Africa, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, various campaigns in Afghanistan, etc - but many smaller conflicts have faded into the mists of time and the author admits that the list in his appendix may not be complete.The book is a bit of a hodge-podge, but none the worse for that. Farwell does not attempt to be systematic, but focuses on items of interest. At times it seems he focuses a bit too much on individual officers, and one wonders whether this book is a spin-off from another of his works, Eminent Victorian Soldiers. But he manages to give a flavour of the British officer class, the regimental system, and life in the army.One gets the impression that Farwell is intensely interested in all this, but he is no jingo and gently mocks the 19th century military establishment.
    • 3/5
      Apparently there were wars going on during every one of Queen Victoria's years on the throne from 1837 to 1901. Some were major ones that everyone has heard of - the Zulu, Ashanti, Sudanese and Boer wars in Africa, the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, various campaigns in Afghanistan, etc - but many smaller conflicts have faded into the mists of time and the author admits that the list in his appendix may not be complete.The book is a bit of a hodge-podge, but none the worse for that. Farwell does not attempt to be systematic, but focuses on items of interest. At times it seems he focuses a bit too much on individual officers, and one wonders whether this book is a spin-off from another of his works, Eminent Victorian Soldiers. But he manages to give a flavour of the British officer class, the regimental system, and life in the army.One gets the impression that Farwell is intensely interested in all this, but he is no jingo and gently mocks the 19th century military establishment.
    • 5/5
      Queen Victoria’s Little WarsThe author, Byron Farwell noted, that in the last quarter of the nineteenth century little wars came ever more frequently. There were plenty of military campaigns, plenty of revolts to quash and full scams wars, from the time of Queen Victoria’s ascension to the throne until her death, and until this book nobody had ever counted them.When the author researched this book, he noted that was not a single year in Victoria’s long reign that the British Army in its various guises was not fighting for her and the empire. The one thing of note that Farwell makes is that except for the final Boer War all the military action was small when compared to the wars of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century.Victoria’s armies were, and still are, organised on a regimental basis, and in one of the appendices he explains the system for those unfamiliar with the regimental system of the British Army. What Farwell does note though the British Army may have been officered by the British, but they were not afraid to use mercenaries in the ranks.To name all the wars that took place would end up looking like a very long list, but they are all covered in this book, so we see the theatres may change, but the idea of spreading British dominance did not. We are taken across the battles in Asia, India, Africa, the Middle East to dealing with any trouble that were on the edges of the empire in the far east, such as was Burma, some of which did not even garner any interest back home.Something that does come through rather clearly is that the continual little wars that Britain had undertaken had by the end of Victoria’s reign, become an accepted way of life for the army. In the Sixty-four years Victoria was on the throne, the British Army fought, or undertook more than one hundred ‘little’ wars, starting with the Insurrection in Canara, India in 1837 to the Ashanti War in 1900-1901. With the wars, many can name such as the Crimea and Zulu wars to those people may have heard of such as the Opium Wars or the Boxer Rebellion to far more that you may not know.Queen Victoria’s Little Wars was originally published in 1973, and has like those little wars become a forgotten book, and it is good to see this recent publication, bringing an excellent historical account back in to print, well done Pen and Sword.