Books

Balfour and The British Empire The Victorian Empire The British Raj Posters of World War Two Livingstone in Africa George V The House of Windsor Edward VII Someone Has Blundered Palmerston The Crimean War Eclipse of Kings Radical Joe The Adventures of Long John Silver Return to Treasure Island The Queen; a Penguin Special Prince Philip The Evolution of the Modern Commonwealth Lord Reading Founders of the Welfare State King George VI Alison Uttley: Spinner of Tales The Traveller's Histories Modern British History Jawaharlal Nehru Victorian Values Further Tales of Little Grey Rabbit Empire The Memoirs of Sir Ian Scott Fin de Siecle The Boer War The Lion and the Tiger The Private Diaries of Alison Uttley

Someone Has Blundered

During Queen Victoria's long reign British power was at its zenith: the export trade boomed, the royal navy ruled the waves, huge chunks of the map were coloured red. Yet almost every year of the Victorian Age saw British troops in action in some parts of the globe. from the heights of the Himalayas to the South African veld, from the equatorial rain-forests of Ashanti-land to the green hills of New Zealand and the rocky ridges of the Crimea, British redcoat, Indian mercenary and colonial volunteer fought for Queen and Empire - and mostly won.

This fascinating book examines the other side of the Victorian penny - when the soldiers of the Queen stumbled and the Union Jack was trampled underfoot. Judd has written an extraordinarily readable, vivid and lucid report on those disastrous occasions when the thin red line was broken, or melted away, or was simply not there to begin with. the narrative is spiced with evocative contemporary eyewitness accounts and contains an extensive analysis of the causes of various catastrophes, including the Retreat from Kabul in 1842, the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, the Siege of Cawnpore, the 1879 Invasion of Zululand, and the Battles of Majuba Hill and Spion Kop.

Reviews

"This is a fascinating analysis of military catastrophes"
- Soldier Magazine

"Worth a look for anyone who has a healthy scepticism about the supposed moral and military superiority of Great Britain and the United States"
- Tribune

"[An] interesting and illuminating perspective on the Victorians, which will appeal to the general reader as much as to the military history enthusiast"
- Armourer