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  • British Military Operations in Egypt and the Sudan: A Selected Bibliography
  • Edward M. Spiers
British Military Operations in Egypt and the Sudan: A Selected Bibliography. By Harold E. Raugh Jr. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-8108-5954-8. Historical background (introduction). Author/editor index. Pp. xxx, 345. $80.00.

Writing an annotated bibliographical guide on any major historical topic is a formidable undertaking, requiring extensive knowledge of the relevant published and archival material, a capacity to present material in a useful, accurate and informative manner and an ability to express succinct and informative commentary on the material. This extensive volume, focusing upon British military operations in Egypt and the Sudan (1882-99), passes most of these standards and describes hundreds of contemporary and current books, articles, government documents, personal papers and correspondence. Raugh provides an introductory overview of these operations and then presents material chronologically and thematically, covering the various campaigns, major battles, leading military personalities including Wolseley, Gordon and Kitchener, and adding a particularly useful section on the contributions of the imperial nations. The strengths of the volume lie in the sheer range of the coverage, encompassing political, diplomatic, religious, journalistic and social aspects of these operations; the level of detail (including material on Mahdist organization, weapons and costume and an interesting section on the postal service) which will please most readers; and a helpful section on government, official, [End Page 963] personal and unofficial documents held in the major repositories within the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, the Sudan and the United States. Generally the level of accuracy is extremely high, although there are a couple of interesting theses mentioned [numbers 122 and 943] without their dates of publication.

Less helpful perhaps is the level of commentary that rarely distinguishes between major works of scholarship, based upon innovative and archival research, and those campaign narratives and popular biographies that rely primarily upon the extensive array of secondary source material. For example, while many scholars would agree with Raugh that Preston's edition of Wolseley's campaign journal, In Relief of Gordon, 'is indispensable for an understanding of Wolseley', they might be surprised to learn that The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, edited by Sir George Arthur, 'is an interesting and worthwhile collection of Wolseley's correspondence' (p. 141). Most scholars have to visit the Wolseley archive or consult the microfilm of these letters to find all the material omitted and sanitised in Arthur's highly selective and hagiographical edition. Surprisingly, too, there is not a separate section on intelligence. Although the volume may have been in press before the special issue of Intelligence and National Security (October 2007) appeared, with commentary upon the extensive collection, analysis and use of intelligence in the Sudan, Raugh only refers briefly to intelligence material, notably in the papers of Wingate and Ardagh. Readers, though, might have welcomed the inclusion and commentary upon the vast official reports on intelligence gathered over many years prior to the reconquest and retained in The National Archives (with copies in the Sudan Archive at Durham University). Had Raugh referred to the Maxse papers in the West Sussex Record Office, this would have added further insights upon this crucial dimension of Britain's military operations. Finally, it might have been helpful for the reader had the editor provided attribution for the books from which he compiled his long lists of soldiers' letters (especially Chapter 13), if only to alert the reader to the many reference libraries beyond the British Newspaper Library at Colindale that have to be consulted to discover the original items.

Nevertheless, this a welcome source of reference that is easy to use, often fascinating in its wealth of detail, and comprehensive in its coverage of the all the major personalities and the military operations themselves.

Edward M. Spiers
University of Leeds
Leeds, United Kingdom
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