Victoria's Little Wars: Best/Favorite Commanders (2 Viewers)

"I am at a beach resort at the moment" - for Pete's sake Jack, get off the forum and go for a swim!
 
Isandlwana said:
Hi Jack

Yes that's right. Did you do a Zulu/Boer War tour?

Michael
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Michael

Yes...and No. My wife and I made friends with a couple of South Africans while on our honeymoon in 1992. They heard me complaining about the price of some onion rings in Tel Aviv and we connected over the great care I take with my money. I am not tight, just canny! We have stayed friends with one of them now for twenty years. He is a dentist in London and we visit every year or so...when I need a filling!

While he still had family in J'Burg we went there for a couple of Christmas visits, although to be fair, J'Burg is not the city of love.

We had a week and a VW Golf (the best car I have ever driven even though I love my MG) and I drove through all the Boer War sites I could get to but my real aim was the Zulu War battlefields. I had a day at Rorke's Drift which was magic.

Jack
 
Jack said:
Michael

Yes...and No. My wife and I made friends with a couple of South Africans while on our honeymoon in 1992. They heard me complaining about the price of some onion rings in Tel Aviv and we connected over the great care I take with my money. I am not tight, just canny! We have stayed friends with one of them now for twenty years. He is a dentist in London and we visit every year or so...when I need a filling!

While he still had family in J'Burg we went there for a couple of Christmas visits, although to be fair, J'Burg is not the city of love.

We had a week and a VW Golf (the best car I have ever driven even though I love my MG) and I drove through all the Boer War sites I could get to but my real aim was the Zulu War battlefields. I had a day at Rorke's Drift which was magic.

Jack
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Michael, if you throw a dart at a map of the world chances are that Jack has been there.....:wink2::)
Wayne.
 
I wasn't brave enough to drive myself around SA. I paid for the pleasure of having someone else to do it for me!!

That was certainly my holiday of a lifetime - just about paid it off after seven years!! In the main I went there to see iSandlwana and Hlobane and beforehand had relatively little interest in the Boer War part of the holiday but Spion Kop will stay with me just as much as the other two.

Strangely magical places.
 
Isandlwana said:
I wasn't brave enough to drive myself around SA. I paid for the pleasure of having someone else to do it for me!!

That was certainly my holiday of a lifetime - just about paid it off after seven years!! In the main I went there to see iSandlwana and Hlobane and beforehand had relatively little interest in the Boer War part of the holiday but Spion Kop will stay with me just as much as the other two.

Strangely magical places.
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My friends had me do all the driving but they gave plenty of advice from the backseat once I stopped laughing at their reference to the lights at intersections as 'robots'. This was, apparently, a hangover from their days in Rhodesia.

Lesson one was a few streets from the airport. I stopped at a red light and they asked me if I was insane. The idea was to approach intersections in second gear and move through once you saw the way was clear. Never stop dead if it could be avoided. Car jacking was such a threat that when they bought a BMW (or Mercedes?) they received lessons in how to be car jacked safely.

We never had any problem but being vigilant became second nature.

Jack
 
I've always been a big fan of Sir Colin Campbell, but I'm going to proffer another man for greatest victorian commander: the ranker general, Hector "Fighting Mac" MacDonald. He rose from the ranks (a very difficult, almost impossible task in that era) to become a general, and eventually save Kitchener's bacon at the battle of Omdurman. For those who don't know the story, at Omdurman, after slaughtering thousands of the Anwar (what the Mahdists called themselves), Kitchener (never a battlefield tactician) declared victory and had his forces line up for a triumphant march into Omdurman. About 8,000 Mahdists, who were hidden in a dry wahdi directly adjacent to the line of march, rose up and charged the exposed flank of the British column. MacDonald, in command of a regiment of native African troops, briliantly executed a wheeling maneuver to meet the Mahdist charge and shoot them flat. It was a very close run thing - his troops had an average of 6 rounds left when the last of the Mahdists fell - but he saved Kitchener from a humiliating disaster. Considering his combat history, and the fact that he rose from private to general, he is my choice for est victorian commander.

As a post-script, sadly, MacDonald committed suicide after he was accused of being a sexual deviant. While the details were never confirmed, and the white wash was he made inapproriate advances to a woman in a train car, it was widely believed that the scandal arose out of MacDonald being a homosexual.
 
Oh boy! Another great thread with a bottomless amount of possibilities. In addition to the afore-mentioned Byron Farwell's excellent book, I would like to add a couple by Brian Bond that I found very well done. 'Victorian Military Campaigns' is a book similar to Farwell's in concept, brief studies of campaigns, but isn't a study of the same ones. Also a book titled 'The Victorian Army and the Staff College 1854-1914'. Bond has done military leadership studies of other periods, as well.
My favorite leaders have all been mentioned; Wolseley, Wood, Roberts. Hard to find men more involved in the period and more important to the Empire.
One of the most interesting aspects of the Victorian military period is the alarming regularity in which Great Britain would start any given involvment with a stunning military disaster, or suffer one during the progress of one of the 'little wars'. The history of the period is just replete with one disaster after another, almost all followed by a more focused involvment and then ultimate victory. -- Al
 
I don' t know which commanders were the best, but all colonial wars were a war crime, whatever country did them( also Italy, France,Germany, Belgium).Which one of these countries made more crimes that would be for another thread. Colonization was made by organized, modern armies against local, almost disarmed and often primitive people.Writing the story of crimes, atrocities made by europeans would be too long to make here, just as an example in Belgian Congo they cut africans' hands and feet for minor crimes, italians even gassed Ethiopians....

Great Britain attacked South Africa when they discovered there diamonds, killed peaceful boer farmers, destroyed their free republics, and then the Zulus. in India were also made massacres during Gandhi' s life. In South Africa and in India locals were treated in the best case in a kind of paternalism, and in the worst with racism.

Today, we have other forms of colonialism, more hidden, more sophisticated.
 
Poppo said:
I don' t know which commanders were the best, but all colonial wars were a war crime, whatever country did them( also Italy, France,Germany, Belgium).Which one of these countries made more crimes that would be for another thread. Colonization was made by organized, modern armies against local, almost disarmed and often primitive people.Writing the story of crimes, atrocities made by europeans would be too long to make here, just as an example in Belgian Congo they cut africans' hands and feet for minor crimes, italians even gassed Ethiopians....

Great Britain attacked South Africa when they discovered there diamonds, killed peaceful boer farmers, destroyed their free republics, and then the Zulus. in India were also made massacres during Gandhi' s life. In South Africa and in India locals were treated in the best case in a kind of paternalism, and in the worst with racism.

Today, we have other forms of colonialism, more hidden, more sophisticated.
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Great! so this thread will go downhill from now on! :mad:

Jeff
 
aujj65 said:
Great! so this thread will go downhill from now on! :mad:

Jeff
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Only if you let it Jeff. I'm enjoying it so far but don't know enough to meaningfully contribute so gentlemen, please continue.
 
Most of the ones featured in this appropriately named book :wink2: ^&grin

commanders_zps80e4bcd9.jpg



Cheers

Martyn:)
 
Poppo said:
I don' t know which commanders were the best, but all colonial wars were a war crime, whatever country did them( also Italy, France,Germany, Belgium).Which one of these countries made more crimes that would be for another thread. Colonization was made by organized, modern armies against local, almost disarmed and often primitive people.Writing the story of crimes, atrocities made by europeans would be too long to make here, just as an example in Belgian Congo they cut africans' hands and feet for minor crimes, italians even gassed Ethiopians....

Great Britain attacked South Africa when they discovered there diamonds, killed peaceful boer farmers, destroyed their free republics, and then the Zulus. in India were also made massacres during Gandhi' s life. In South Africa and in India locals were treated in the best case in a kind of paternalism, and in the worst with racism.

Today, we have other forms of colonialism, more hidden, more sophisticated.
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Is this kind of post necessary? This rant adds nothing and certainly won't stimulate any useful conversation. -- Al
 
lancer said:
Is this kind of post necessary? This rant adds nothing and certainly won't stimulate any useful conversation. -- Al
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Well, I don' t know, I just find that these " little wars" were not wars between "states", but very often just agression wars from an organized army against rather primitive locals, so I wouldn' t call them " wars", maybe just "military operations of colonization".
If you don' t feel stimulated enough, you can just ignore my posts...:)
 
This is about the best commanders and only that.
Mark
 
Poppo said:
Well, I don' t know, I just find that these " little wars" were not wars between "states", but very often just agression wars from an organized army against rather primitive locals, so I wouldn' t call them " wars", maybe just "military operations of colonization".
If you don' t feel stimulated enough, you can just ignore my posts...:)
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Well, you made a pretty good job of getting a very rousing ACW discussion going, but this statement can't do anything but cause problems. -- Al
 
GICOP said:
Most of the ones featured in this appropriately named book :wink2: ^&grin

"Vicky's Commanders"


Cheers

Martyn:)
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Martyn,

For the sake of discussion would you care to elaborate a little bit.

Shane
:)
 
War in and of itself could be considered a crime against humanity. But, guess what? It happens. Am I condoning the innumerous brutal actions and policies implemented by every victorious nation against the foe it defeats? No, but if the reasons for success or failure are ignored how do we learn anything that might become relevant in future conflicts. From the Ancient Greeks to the Atomic bomb, the use of force has been a nasty bloody business. That’s part of its appeal and part of the reason we all are drawn to this hobby. Because we all appreciate the intestinal fortitude required for those men, who our miniatures represent, to stand there and look death in the face. It was a great accomplishment for anyone who participated in a battle to simply be alive at the end of it.

Do civilians die in military conflicts? Unfortunately, yes. Again war is a contest between societies. It is an extension of policy by other means. Did the British do some bad stuff? Sure, but then someone else can say that dropping the Atomic Bomb on civilians might be less than scrupulous. The point is, that governments entrust their militaries with the use of force to accomplish policy objectives in order to benefit their societal expectations. That’s just how it goes. If you don’t like it then come back as a plant in your next life.

Can we please control the inflammatory language? Using words such as war crime, atrocity and massacre etc… only serve to defame and denigrate the positive aspects of the subject matter that could be focused on and discussed. I merely posted this thread to engage in stimulating and enjoyable conversations with members of the forum who are interested in the personalities and military operations of the Victorian era.

Thank you.

Shane
 
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