Victoria's Wars: The Rise of Empire, and: The Victorians at War (review)

The imperial exploits undertaken by British colonial and military officials during the reign of Queen Victoria continue to fascinate reading audiences today. In an increasingly insecure world where international terrorism and calls for jihad against the West hang over many nations like a poisonous cloud, the ongoing counter-insurgency operations and the so-called "War on Terror" conducted by coalition forces and their proxies in parts of the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian sub-continent are a deadly reminder of how complex, unstable, perplexing, and dangerous these areas were more than 150 years ago when Britain expanded her imperial reach in these regions.

Saul David is one of a younger generation of private scholars-cum-broadcasters who have successfully cashed in on this rekindled interest in the early part of Victoria's reign, when Britain allegedly acquired a huge imperial stake in a "fit of absence of mind." This massive book, which unsuccessfully uses the young queen as a lens through which the reader peers into the numerous colonial conflicts that marked the first twenty-five years of her monarchy, offers nothing new or innovative. Rather, this grand and sweeping narrative takes the reader to Afghanistan, the Punjab, Burma, the Crimea, India, and China, where British forces were engaged against "despotic" rulers almost uninterruptedly between 1837 and 1861.

Experts on the regions touched upon in this book will not find fresh insights into the geopolitical and economic dynamics of these vast expanses. Similarly, there is little that postcolonialists will enjoy, let alone endure or tolerate. This is a book about Victorian heroes and villains; it is about dash and élan, courage under fire, cold British steel, and the brutality of the Empire. Seemingly taken from the pages of the Boy's Own Paper or the adventure novels of H. Rider Haggard, it is a book about the bloody exploits of men: strong-willed, fiercely independent administrators and military commanders who carved out huge swaths of territory and responded to circumstances on the imperial fringe. In most cases, these "men on the spot" simply reacted to (and in some cases manipulated) perceived threats to British power that needed immediate attention, without consulting London.

Does this mean that this book, lacking scholarly apparatus, such as proper footnotes, should be ignored? No, it does not. This book was first and foremost written for a wider audience. It succeeds in grabbing one's attention: the narrative is lucid and masterful, and the reader is swept up and carried along at great pace. Although at times one gets bogged down by the language and paraphernalia of military campaigning, this is more than compensated by the book's ability to transport the reader into the thick of the action. In the end, if Victoria's Wars gets more people reading more history and inspires them to dig deeper into the specialist literature, then all is to the good.

Ian Beckett's The Victorians at War is a different proposition. One of the "old school" of military historians, Beckett has brought together twenty-two essays, many of which are based upon two decades of previously published academic articles and chapters or substantially reworked public lectures. According to Beckett, one of the fundamental reasons behind republishing these rewritten pieces, again with a minimum of footnotes and no comprehensive bibliography, is to reach a broader readership. In other words, like David, he is attempting to cash in on the "rediscovery" of the Victorian era and its rich military heritage. The essays themselves are clustered under three overarching themes: reputations, generals and politicians, and the ways of war. The overall aim is to provide an in-depth but not necessarily comprehensive view of the men and officers who lived and fought in the name of Queen Victoria.

In "Reputations," the reader is introduced to...