Blood in the sand : more forgotten wars of the nineteenth century / Ian Hernon.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hernon, Ian.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Colonies.

History, Military.

Great Britain--History, Military--19th century.

Great Britain.

Great Britain--Colonies--History, Military--19th century.

Physical Description:

viii, 232 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Other Title:

Forgotten wars of the nineteenth century

Place of Publication:

Stroud : Sutton, 2001.

Summary:

Long forgotten colonial battles in distant lands are rediscovered through Blood in the Sand, the third in lan Hernon's Forgotten Wars trilogy. Some were mere skirmishes, others major campaigns, but all are astonishing stories of courage and occasional cowardice, dogged determination and endurance, incompetence and confusion. They were fought in some of the most inhospitable places on earth -- from the high Himalayas to the dense jungles of West Africa -- against both savage and civilised foes.

These thrilling stories bear a striking similarity to the fractured conflicts of the post-Cold War era: one Queen Mother of the Sikhs conspired with the British to destroy her own army, and saw her wish come true as a river ran red with their blood; in Sierra Leone, opposition to a poll tax sparked bloody insurrection; an Irish Republican army, veterans of the US civil war, tried -- and dismally failed -- to invade British Canada; and a headlong attack by British infantry proved to be a bigger blunder than the Charge of the Light Brigade.

The well-paced journalistic narrative ncludes many gripping eyewitness accounts through which Hernon chronicles what happened, why and to whom. Contemporary line drawings and engravings from the Illustrated London News add to many more stories of carnage, revenge and savage conflict to result in a compelling insight into some of the bloodier aspects of Britain's colonial rule in the nineteenth century.

Contents:

The Gurkha War, 1814-16

The defeat of the Borneo pirates, 1840-9

The storming of Madagascar, 1845

The First Sikh War, 1845-6

The Second Sikh War, 1848-9

Eureka Stockade, Australia, 1854

The defence of Kars, Turkey, 1855

The Fenian invasion of Canada, 1866

The Battle of Orange Walk, Belize, 1872

The Hut Tax War, Sierra Leone, 1898.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [225]-228) and index.

ISBN:

0750926147

OCLC:

46511473