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| Punch, 30 November 1878 |
Moonshadow is a fantastic commentator in this my new and humble blog. In my last entry, "Skirmishes on the Frontier 1901-1908", he has added a lot of information about the dress and weapons of the Afghan tribesmen and also about some very interesting books, so I think it can be useful to have this information here, in a new entry.
A recent adition to my collection of books, thanks to a very good friend. "The North West Frontier. British, India and Afghanistan. A pictorial history, 1839-1947" by Michael Barthop. Very good book, full of fantastic pictures and period drawings of all the fighters. Very, very good.
"Small Wars and Skirmishes, 1902-1918", by Edwin Herbert. I have talked already about this very nice book. Interesting for the operations in the Frontier previous to the Third Afghan War.
"Crisis on the Frontier", by Brian Robson. The true generator of all this. This one covers the full war, including the Waziristan Campaing.
"Operations in Waziristan, 1919-1920". An official account of the campaing.
"North West Frontier, 1837-1947". One of my first Osprey books. Very nice plates. It has a good piece of written information about this war.
"Armies of Nineteenth Century: Central Asia and the Himalaya" by Ian Heath. Background information, always useful, I think. Ordered from Amazon!
"Rising and Rebellions, 1919 to 1939" by Edwin Herbert. Looking at Moonshadow´s comment in my last entry, it is a must for me!
"The Afghan War, 1839-1919" by T.A. Heathcote. This one appears to have two useful chapters devoted to the Third Afghan War, and I think the rest of the book is also very interesting.
"The Frontier Scouts" by Charles Chenevix Trench. The history of the Frontier Scouts, Pathan tribesmen leb by young British officers; first hand accounts, I think.
Not bad group of books, and fortunately, all of them can be found in Amazon. I have some of them, and expect to buy the rest during this year (I need a pair of birthdays, I think...).
Thank you a lot for the information, Moonshadow!
thanks for the fine comments, am always happy to share any information I have, I just wish i had more and more was available. Unlike the campaigns of Victoria's reign there seems to be a shortage of personal accounts of the war. I don't know if this was because the soldiers who fought this war had just come through the first world war and were so used to fighting, hardship and violent death that they did not think it was special enough to write about, or if the general public and the British publishers were so inundated with reminisces of WW I that they had no interest in true stories of this latest conflict. For a good first hand view of soldiering on the frontier in the fist half of the 20th Century, John Masters' first volume of his autobiography -Bugles and a Tiger(ISBN 0-304-36156-9) can not be beat.Masters served as a officer of 4th Gurkha Rifles in the 30s and the whole book is filled with his love and pride in his profession and the Gurkhas he felt privileged to lead. The second volume of his autobiography(The road Past Mandalay(ISBN 0-304-36157-7))goes away from the frontier and covers his war service including his service with the Chindits - again an essential read for anyone interested in the Indian army.
ResponderEliminarFantastic, Moonshadow. Thank you very much for the recommendation.
EliminarAnother one put in my list!
ResponderEliminar