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Cargando... Forty-one years in Indiapor Frederick Sleigh Roberts
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[Includes over 140 maps, portraits and illustrations] Field Marshal "Bob" Roberts was one the most successful and well-loved generals of the British Army, decorated and distinguished in many actions and holder of the highest award for valour in action the Victoria Cross. He fought and commanded in Abyssinia, the UK and South Africa to great acclaim; however the majority of his life was spent on service in India and Afghanistan. His history and that of the British Raj entwined from his birth at Cawnpore in 1832 [modern day Kanpur] son of General Abraham Roberts, until he left India in 1895. Only a scant six years of service experience could not prepare the future Field Marshal for the irruption of the Indian Mutiny in 1857, in which he was conspicuous for his bravery and won his V.C.. Almost half of his autobiography is given over to the actions that he was involved in during the Sepoy Revolt; such as the siege of Delhi and the relief of Lucknow. He served in the second Anglo-Afghan War with distinction and received the thanks of Parliament; and commanded the punitive expedition to Kandahar in 1879 winning the decisive battle of Kandahar in September 1880. By this time he was a pillar of the British Empire and one of its foremost generals, and served on with distinction for many years in the sub-continent. An excellent, well-written memoir of a legend of the British Empire. No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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Things I learned:
-In the 1850s, regulations required that recruits served a decade in India before becoming eligible for leave
-The new cartridges really were made with pig and cow grease, something Roberts excoriates as infuriating incompetence
-Roberts' two preoccupations: logistics, and keeping the initiative. (and selection of his officers, I should add)
-On the former, his constant attention to the procurement, treatment, and loading of pack animals.
-On the latter, it's remarkable how frequently he chooses to attack against superior numbers in order to retain initiative and break the morale of the opposition -- the attack on the Afghan position on the was to Kabul as an example
-Most of his attacks employed some form of indirection
-His advice on the Burma expedition that it's fruitless for any column to go after dacoits unless they are provisioned the march 10 days or more
-The camaraderie between the highlanders and the ghurkas
-The quality of English education -- Roberts' prose style is superb
-Small insane details: hiking to his snowed in house in tibet, his son's nanny trying to murder her charge to get out of the job (her husband wouldn't let her leave because of the wages), carrion birds too fat to fly in the aftermath of the capture of Delhi, the native soldier losing a hand propping open the door of a fortified position which they then storm, overwhelming the defenders, the man who blew the gates of delhi being killed later by a misjudging a delayed low fuse. ( )