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The wars fought against revolutionary, consular and imperial France under Napoleon Bonaparte came to an end in June, 1815 at the Battle of Waterloo. Britain did not fight again in western Europe for almost another 100 years. However, in an age which took its name from the long reign of Queen Victoria, conflicts large and small, raged across the globe in often remote and exotic countries against determined indigenous enemies. This Leonaur two volume set focusses on the battles fought by the British Army from the close of the Napoleonic Wars until the early years of the 20th century. Wellington had built his renown in India and this ’jewel in the imperial crown’ occupied the British Empire for first half of the 19th century as it struggled to establish its dominance. First, however, came a war with neighbouring Burma followed by a disastrous expedition into Afghanistan. By the middle years of the century the sub-continent was all but conquered with the exception the redoubtable armies and territories of the Emirs of Scinde and the Sikhs of the Punjab. Troubles once again broke out in Burma, shortly followed by one of the largest collisions of arms of the century between European and Turkish allies and Imperial Russia.This became the Crimean War with fearsome battles fought at the Alma, Balaclava and Inkerman as Sebastopol was besieged. This great conflict somewhat overshadowed the Anglo-Persian War which ignited because Persia (under the Qajar dynasty) attempted to reacquire the city of Herat. The most monumental shock of the 1850’s was the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny when native troops of the Bengal Presidency Army rose to slaughter their officers, families and other British and European civilians. The event shook the British to the core and the numerically inferior and unprepared British initially suffered serverely. The tide would soon be turned and those battles appear in volume two of this set. Blackwood and Hay’s views of these events benefits from their ability to draw upon sources contemporary to the events described which are sometimes missing from later works. This means that their views are predictably imperial in keeping with their times. Contains images that did not accompany original texts.
