WarezCenter

Name: the gold fields of alaska-how to reach and operate them 1896
Format: pdf
Size: 1.52 MB

Title: The gold fields of Alaska; how to reach and operate them
Author: Wellington, John L. [from old catalog]
Language: angielski
Year: 1979
Subjects: N/A
Publisher: Wydawnictwo: Leo Cooper
ISBN: 0850522471
Total pages: 68

'History does not record a finer example of courage and devotion to duty than that displayed by the Royal Berkshire Regiment.' So reads the inscription on the Maiwand memorial in Reading and others have been no less fulsome in their praise, one author describing the stand of the 66th at Maiwand as 'one of the grandest examples of heroism in the annals of war'. But, for all that Maiwand was probably the most crushing defeat ever suffered by the British Army in India. Of a total force of over 2,500 men, no less than 962 were killed and 161 wounded.
It is not surprising that the various inquiries which were subsequently set in hand to ascertain the cause of the disaster did more to obscure the issue than to explain it. Each man naturally remembered the battle in the light that reflected the least blame upon his own conduct, so the picture that emerged was confused and contradictory. It suited both the political and the military authorities to sweep the nasty mess under the carpet - where it remained for nearly a hundred years.
Leigh Maxwell has now rolled back the carpet, sorted out the facts and produced a remarkable and fascinating book which, at long last, sets the record straight. In this task he was much assisted by a visit to, and detailed study of, the battlefield which not only helped to iron out the anomalies in the accounts of several participants in the battle but lends to his own account an immediacy and sense of atmosphere which vividly conjure up the hell and the heat of that fateful day in July, 1880.
Although Maiwand is the focal point of the story, Colonel Maxwell also covers in detail the military and political background to the campaign and the events leading up to it. The result is an excellently balanced book which gives at once a vivid reconstruction of life on the North-West Frontier in the late nineteenth century and also as brilliant and dramatic account of a battle as one is likely to find.