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The Story of the Malakand Field Force: Churchill's Frontier War Episode Kindle Edition
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War by Winston S. Churchill: Winston S. Churchill, known for his eloquent prose, recounts his experiences as a young British army officer during a lesser-known but significant conflict in the Malakand region. The book offers a vivid firsthand account of the challenges, strategies, and the cultural intricacies of frontier warfare, shedding light on Churchill's early adventures and his perspective on colonial conflicts.
Key Aspects of the Book "The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War":
Frontier Warfare: Churchill provides a detailed narrative of the complexities and dynamics of warfare on the British colonial frontier.
Youthful Insights: The book offers a glimpse into the formative years of Winston Churchill and his early observations on military matters and geopolitical issues.
Cultural Exploration: Churchill's observations and interactions with the local tribes offer insights into the cultural nuances and challenges of the region.
Winston S. Churchill was a British statesman, military officer, and writer. Born in 1874, he became one of the most iconic figures of the 20th century. Churchill's political leadership during World War II is widely celebrated, but his early experiences as a soldier and writer shaped his worldview. "The Story of the Malakand Field Force" captures Churchill's youthful adventures in the military and his early exploration of the geopolitical landscape.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPrabhat Prakashan
- Publication date20 March 2018
- File size1576 KB
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About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B07BKXTCKW
- Publisher : Prabhat Prakashan (20 March 2018)
- Language : English
- File size : 1576 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 233 pages
- Best Sellers Rank: #704,386 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #9,371 in Classic Fiction (Kindle Store)
- #11,396 in Anthologies (Kindle Store)
- #21,576 in Anthologies (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Winston S. Churchill (1874-1965) has been called 'the greatest Briton'. An international statesman, orator, biographer, historian, author and Nobel Prize winner, his works remain in print with the world's leading publishers.
Educated at Harrow and Sandhurst, Winston spent several years in the army before becoming a newspaper correspondent and then an MP. His cabinet positions included First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of the First World War and later Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940 and for five years led Britain though its 'finest hour'. Defeated in the July 1945 election, he was Leader of the Opposition until re-elected Prime Minister in 1951. He was knighted in 1953, the same year he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He stepped down as Prime Minister in 1955 and remained an MP until 1964.
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If I told you I was reading a book about a mountain war in the Swat Valley region of Afghanistan against religious extremists whom no matter how much talent and treasure you throw at them ever seems able to conquer or defeat them and that most of the arms given to any Afghan allies just winds up being used against you at the end of the day, you would be forgiven for thinking I was talking about a contemporary book and not one written over 100 years ago with Winston Churchill as the narrator. And this is what is so striking about the book: that the same war is still going on today.
This book is one of the ultimate examples of there being nothing new under the sun. Literally every single point Winston Churchill makes about his observations about his time in the forward push into the Afghan region at the end of the 19th century can be applied to today's war in the region. From religious extremism that fuels an endless wave of brave young men to literally throw themselves against the bullets and steel of a vastly more powerful enemy, to the splintered alliances and feuds of the local tribes which everyone takes advantage of to keep them from uniting less they become a truly formidable foe, to the moral dilemmas of burning villages to starve out combatants, or the light years wide gulf between Western values and Eastern Islamic values.
And when I wasn't shaking my head at the similarity to today's conflict, I was in awe of the absolute and astounding ignorance and racism that is so idly tossed about by Churchill. Here are an entire population of human beings written off mostly as savages. He makes no bones about this, he sees all these people as less than human. Yes there are exceptions when some of the tribesmen act honorably, but he mentions this not as a matter of course, but almost as if he's shocked to find an honest man from Afghanistan.
But I'm not going to write this book off as useless because in its ignorance we can learn quit a lot.
This is a work of nationalistic propaganda. Churchill doesn't even try to hide this fact and he does an excellent job of turning his experiences into the fuel that fires the imaginations and romanticism of young British men to go fight for glory and honor. Everywhere in the book are the brave, stoic, and cheerful British fighting against dangerous odds, but always victorious. Yes some men die, but there is still glory in it all and no young man will be forgotten. And through this propaganda we can begin to understand the propaganda used on the tribesmen themselves. Where Churchill calls men up to the flag out of a sense of duty, the Afghan uses religion as their fire to fight.
Yet he fails to see any real similarity between the two opposing ideologies even when he clearly draws the distinctions. He explains the courage of the young British soldier is rooted in sentiment and even vanity. Yet the tribesmen find courage in religion and their conviction of eternal reward will always be stronger than the abstract constructs of race or military division. The British must invent methods to induce courage; the tribesmen are born with it.
And after all these mountains are their home, they fight and die for their own land whereas the British are, in the grand scheme of things, just trying to maintain a buffer region between British India and Russia. The British couldn't care less about the Afghans or their history or their struggles. When he muses of the ancient history of the land he remembers Alexander the Great leveling whole great cities that are now completly forgotten. In fact he believes everything in this region, once dead, is forgotten to time. It never occurs to him that the people living her might actually have long memories.
Churchill also fails to understand why the tribesmen are so willing to stand up before all those terrible British guns time after time after time only to be mowed down instantly. He seems to think they are idiots, but what do the tribesmen think? They see a bunch of cowards with guns hiding in trenches and behind stone barriers instead of charging out gloriously onto the field of battle. Where Churchill wonders how the tribesmen could possibly be so 'savage' as to mutilate the body of an injured soldier, where he wonders why they only attack when the British retreat, why they only take advantage of weakness, aren't they wondering just the opposite?
He speaks of the virtue and vitality of military camp life, of no worries for the future, of the memories and friendships formed in the British army, of the good it does the body, and then adds how much everyone wants to go home regardless of these positives. But don't the tribesmen love the former as much as we the later?
It's this gulf of understanding that after over 100 years has still not been crossed or even properly surveyed. He believes dealing with the tribes on an individual basis, of utilizing silver over steel (as he puts it), of playing one tribe against the other will pacify them, make them desire comfort and western values. And this has been the policy ever since and it hasn't had any effect we were hoping for. We fundamentally misunderstand these people because we believe in order and comfort whereas they do not. They live in the most rugged spot on earth, why would they suddenly want comfort and stability? And using them as a buffer against Russia has only exacerbated the issues for us by arming these tribes who then after saying "thank you" use those weapons to fight us. They know they are being taken advantage of and they resent us for it - as they should.
And while we may scoff at the Islamic idea of religious superiority, here in this book, without any political correctness to temper what we still know to be true, is the racist attitude we still hold over these people, what he refers to as "... the prestige of the dominant race ". We may not say so in that language today, but that ancient racism, that terrible misunderstanding and division between cultures is what fuels this fight and will continue to do so for another 100 years.
For as glorious as the battle seems in this book, for all the bravery he writes here and all the moral high-ground he believes he rides his polo ponies on, this is a very sad book. It's a sad book because it exposes how little we all understand each other, how much hatred and ignorance fuels our imagination just as much as romantic visions of glorious heroism can. There are no winners here.
1) Churchill takes for granted near the dawn of the 20th century that technologically and militarily advanced European nations have an evident right to rule people in distant lands who lack effective means to resist the Empire. In one passage, he laments the fact that British conscripts are young men in their early 20s, not yet at their peak in his estimation, who serve next to Indian troops who are considerably older and therefore at their peak of physical power and courage. He worries about what would happen should the Indians ever arrive at the idea that they are the equals of Europeans.
He defends the practice of burning villages and destroying their crops in their fields, reasoning that the threat of starvation during the subsequent winter is a useful tool in securing the peace.
2) This must have been one of the last non-mechanized wars fought by a world power on our planet. The troops relied on mule and camel trains for transit. The only wheeled traffic, made possible only with great exertion, were artillery batteries. Cavalry in this account still appear to rely on lances and sabers more often than their carbines. Efficient communications were made with heliographs from one mountaintop to the next, and the nearest telegraph station was days away back in India proper.
It is astonishing to imagine the same military organization making the leap into World War I less than 20 years after this account, and learning under pressure to employ motorized transport, aircraft, wireless sets, chemical warfare, and even primitive tanks. The image of horse cavalry trotting across Belgium and France in 1914 makes a little more sense to me considering it had been a decisive arm in open ground in living memory.
I appreciate Churchill's writing style for the most part. He is generally clear-headed and unsentimental, and unafraid of writing what is on his mind. He presents a vivid account of the campaign from the campaigners' point of view, and even as a young officer turned correspondent he analyzes the effort and the wider implications for the Empire.
I read the Kindle version, which did not include a single map. For this reason, and because the book does not consider the opposing point of view, I give it 4 stars. If one had an atlas in hand, and was only interested in the military campaign divorced from its political roots and long-term outcomes, it would be a 5-star book in my opinion.
Churchill tells the story of the Malakand expedition in which he took part. This was a British punitive force sent to supress a rising on the North Western frontier of India and punish those who disputed the British right to rule. The work shows his very considerable abilities as a reporter. He is particularly good at describing a scene or landscape as he piles up detail on detail and builds up a real sense of place. He is also good at vivid narrative and gives am exciting account of engagements with the native insurgents.
As it stands, it is quite a “good read” and holds the attention but it is also valuable as a picture of the British upper class attitude to empire at that time. In a final reflective chapter, Churchill states his belief that in holding the northern frontiers of India it would be best to mobilise “a nice field force and operate at leisure in the frontier valleys until they are as safe and civilised as Hyde Park Nor need this course necessarily involve the extermination of the inhabitants”. Military rule was the one best suited to the character of the natives.
A book well worth looking through as a vivid picture of another age.