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The Indian Uprising of 1857 was the largest colonial insurrection the British had to face in the nineteenth century. Indian troops of the Bengal Native Army rose up in revolt, as did many Indian civilians, making 1857 both a military mutiny and a civil rebellion. This paper examines how the British authorities stationed at Benares (the modern city of Varanasi) managed to see off the multiple threats to their local governance. Not only were these dangers overcome, but Benares itself was to play a vital role in ensuring that the British possessed the military resources needed to defeat the insurgency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The British launched numerous punitive expeditions in the decades before the international scramble for Africa. Often portrayed as 'wars against nature', such campaigns in fact posed considerable challenges, not least because they were conducted to tight deadlines and were expected to result in low-cost victories. Yet it was often difficult to define clear military objectives. This article explores punitive expeditions' demands upon their commanders and the ways in which commanders found suitable culminating points, in the absence of decisive battles, when victory might be declared and celebrated. Victory had to be defined for the intervening army, for the people and leaders of the country being attacked, and for politicians and the public at home. Defining victory was thus a complex process, reflecting the range of military, political and public pressures upon commanders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysing Albert Smith's and Charley Dickens's 1858 and 1860 trips to the sites of the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the article suggests that the experience of war, especially of wars fought abroad, is characterised by affective unease and epistemological breakdowns. Smith and Dickens enact war tourism in Hong Kong, Canton and Shanghai as they perform incongruous and tone-deaf cross-cultural relations in a 'theatre of war'. Similarly, contemporary novels reveal the complicated entanglements of the Sino-British (opium) relationship as writers try to make sense of a world in which cultural contact is fraught with violence and cognition is brought to its limits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the nineteenth century European powers employed "natives" perceived to be inherently "martial" as the mainstay of their imperial armed forces. This theory of "martial races" undergirded the composition, for example, of Britain's Indian Army. An attempt in the 1890s to apply "martial races" theory to the formation of an indigenous defence force in Cyprus, however, proved to be an unqualified failure. Although the British government claimed that the scheme fell through because of inadequate funds, the main reason was that the decision to recruit the force exclusively from among the presumably more "martial" Turkish Muslim population of the island contradicted local ideas of identity by dividing Cypriots into "Greeks" and "Turks," with unhappy consequences for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1834 and 1853 the British colonial army fought three wars with the Xhosa peoples who resided on the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony of South Africa. Based on the published and unpublished diaries, journals, correspondence, and memoirs of British soldiers who served in these wars, this paper examines how these wartime experiences led to the creation of a military knowledge system of the Xhosa that stereotyped them as treacherous savages and merciless barbarians. Further, this essay argues that these stereotypes played a crucial role in the conquest of the Xhosa by justifying policies of dispossession and subjugation in the name of colonial security, and allowing British soldiers to conduct unlimited warfare against them. In this regard, the British military knowledge system of the Xhosa casts long shadows of violence and distrust over the history of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Provides information on the history of air defense in Great Britain. When air defense in Great Britain started; Factors that prompted air defense; Views of Hugh Dowding and Robert Watson-Watt on air defense; Doctrine that the Royal Air Force has on air defense.

The article analyzes the absence of Great Britain's military power during the time when the U.S. started to achieve massive territorial expansion in North America between 1836 and 1848. Topics discussed include Britain's responses to the U.S. during the period of the U.S. acquisition of Louisiana from France in 1803, concern about the shifting balance of power in North America including the security of the British possessions in the region, and factors which sharply limited Great Britain's ability to enforce its military power including its distance from the Western Hemisphere, the large population of the U.S., and the lack of industrial and human resources in Canada.

Focuses on the loss of the British battleships the HMS Queen Mary, the HMS Invincible and the HMS Indefatigable in the Battle of Jutland in May, 1916, examining the verdict reached by officials as to the cause of the explosions that destroyed the ships. Who the ships were engaged in battle with when they were destroyed; What official conclusion was reached by British officials as to the destruction of the ships; Who blame was placed on for the loss of the ships.

Examines the history of Royal Marines of Great Britain, which was raised in 1664. Connection with British Army; Statistics on parental profession; Transfers and resignations in the Royal Marines; Image of Marines.

Many of the numerous monumental cannon which adorn British cities are Crimean War trophies: something little discussed in the historiography of the war. Focusing on the trophy cannon at Ludlow, in the Welsh Marches, the article looks at both the national and the local scene. It describes first the Allied operation in Sevastopol to gather prize Russian cannon and their removal to England. The utility of shipping the guns home and the uses to which they might be put were both controversial, but whether intact or melted down the cannon formed a significant part of the multifarious memorials and mementos generated by the war and Allied victory. The focus then switches to the Marches and the acquisition of trophy guns by Ludlow and neighbouring towns; the political background to Ludlow's application for a cannon is also explored, and the subsequent fate of the region's prize guns. Finally the article examines the origins of the Ludlow cannon and the identity of its founder, a British expatriate ironmaster working in Russia at the turn of the eighteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the British army’s decision to adopt the Lee-Metford magazine rifle in 1888. Examining the perspectives of a number of constituencies in the services shows that the magazine arm was not adopted out of an ambition simply to produce greater volumes of fire. Instead a number of factors shaped the decision to abandon the previous service arm, the Martini-Henry, many of which were contingent and reflected the particular attitudes of those groups with an interest in the infantry’s equipment. What ultimately becomes apparent is that the Lee-Metford was embraced primarily because it did not force any one constituency in the army to adopt the tactical preferences of any of the other groups involved. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1879, during the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80), General (later Lord) Frederick Roberts found himself in occupation of the defeated sovereign state of Afghanistan. Initially he claimed his authority stemmed from the Afghan amir and that he was acting on his behalf to suppress rebels, but the abdication of the Afghan ruler amid a popular insurgency and pressure from his political masters meant that Roberts had to establish his own military authority and implement martial law. This article examines the liberties and restrictions of occupation forces during protracted insurgencies, the difficulties in making the transfer of military command to political authority, and the tensions between commanders, political advisers, and civilian authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article comprises a reply to those who seek to use the British historical experience in Afghanistan in order to draw parallels with current operations in that country. It argues that, while the conceptual and physical response to the issue of Afghanistan on the part of Empire policy-makers during the period 1839-1919 was characterised by periods of indecision and mistaken assumptions, their grasp of strategic principles allowed the formulation of a series of Afghan policies that would serve to protect and indeed enhance British interests in the region for over a century and which stand in stark contrast to the seemingly incoherent Afghan strategy articulated by the current British government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at British policy in the Mediterranean in the late nineteenth century, and the importance and role of Cyprus as an island under British administration at that time. Specifically, it aims to investigate the neglected role of Cyprus during the Arabi revolt and ensuing Egyptian campaign in 1882. In order to highlight this less-examined aspect, it examines the reasons why Cyprus had not been transformed into a suitable naval station by 1882. It also looks at the effect of the lack of military facilities on the island's use, and the politicians' perception of the usefulness of Cyprus during these events in Egypt, vis-à-vis the reaction of the British and Cyprus press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Anglo-Nepali War of 1814 to 1816 was one of Britain's least distinguished military performances. It was just about a victory, but it produced no heroic feats and thus it was duly forgotten by the Victorians as it failed to fit into the cult of imperialism and the British Raj. But subsequently, as the exploits of Empire became unfashionable, the wars dear to the Victorians were forgotten. But the memory of the Anglo-Nepali War was resurrected as it formed an integral part of the enduring legend of the Gurkhas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on three British commanders who operated in various colonial campaigns of the 1870s. These are Garnet Wolseley, Evelyn Wood and Lord Chelmsford, each of whom had different attitudes towards intelligence, particularly that gleaned from the local inhabitants. It will be argued that the successes or failures of each of these men in command were directly linked to their understanding of the importance of gathering and using intelligence in the field. For Wolseley and Wood, their ability to lead men to victory in battle, operate in harsh environments and adapt their operations with the intelligence they received resulted in the 1870s being a springboard for future fame and glory. For Chelmsford, his disdain for intelligence, and the enemy, was to result in infamy when troops under his command suffered the most comprehensive defeat the British army was ever to experience at the hands of an African colonial foe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The small colonial wars of the late nineteenth century were first and foremost 'campaigns against nature'. They involved surmounting difficulties of terrain and climate, frequently over immense distances that were often more formidable than the challenges posed by enemy forces. Commanding officers usually embarked on campaigns with clear strategic aims (often directed at high-value targets, like an enemy's capital city) and an operational purpose (of bringing the enemy to battle as soon as possible), but needed intelligence to plot routes and prepare tactically for military engagements. In reviewing the lessons from two very different campaigns - the reconquest of the Sudan (1896-99) and the South African War (1899-1902) - there were striking differences in the quality of the intelligence gathered, the way in which it was used, and in the overall contribution of intelligence to the success of the respective campaigns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the resignation of the Duke of York as commander-in-chief of the British army in 1809 in relation to patriotism during the Napoleonic war. Utilization of patriotism in defending the political order; Invocation of patriotism in criticizing the royalty; Conservative use of wartime patriotism.