El Leopardo y la Montaña

by Wallace Breem

"Wallace Breem pertenece a la breve lista de escritores cuya obra eleva la ficción histórica más allá del género y la sitúa al nivel de la mejor literatura de cualquier clase y de cualquier periodo."Steven Pressfield, autor de Puertas de fuegoEl inglés Charles Sandeman comanda una unidad de milicia local en Waziristán, en los confines del Imperio británico. Contra todo pronóstico, el experimento de reclutar elementos de las tribus pastunes para mantener el orden en la frontera ha sido un éxito, especialmente al lograr la cooperación de wazires y mahsuds, notoriamente poco fiables y dados a las rencillas.El lugar es la Frontera Noroccidental de la India británica, donde el Imperio choca periódicamente con Afganistán. Los administradores imperiales imponen la paz mediante una juiciosa combinación de sobornos, conocimiento de las costumbres locales y flema inglesa. Pero la situación es precaria.Cuando el emir de Kabul proclama la yihad, comienza la Tercera Guerra Afgana. Los enemigos del Imperio buscan sumar a las tribus pastunes a su causa. Sandeman y sus oficiales desearían quedarse y luchar, pero reciben la humillante orden de retirarse. Con razón, Sandeman piensa que tal cosa significará el fin de su milicia, pues en cuanto los lugareños vean que los británicos se retiran, llenarán el vacío de poder.Pero peor que eso es la amenaza constante de que sus hombres deserten en masa, y que la milicia se descomponga a lo largo de las líneas tribales. Sandeman y sus oficiales tendrán que hacer uso de todo su ingenio y todo su profesionalismo para retirarse ordenadamente, en una agónica acción de retaguardia sobre un terreno adverso y rodeados por tribus hostiles.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Military Fiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Wallace Wilfred Swinburne Breem was a British librarian and author, the Librarian and Keeper of Manuscripts of the Inner Temple Law Library at his death, but perhaps more widely known for his historical novels, including the classic Eagle in the Snow (1970).

At the age of 18, Breem entered the Indian Army's Officers Training School, and in 1945 was commissioned as an officer of the Corps of Guides, an elite Cavalry detachment of the North West Frontier Force.

After the Partition of India in 1947, Breem returned to England and held a variety of jobs which included labourer in a tannery, assistant to a veterinary surgeon, and rent-collector in the East End of London. He eventually joined the library staff of the Inner Temple in London, in 1950.

Breem was a founder member of BIALL (British and Irish Association of Law Librarians), and at various times held the offices of Secretary, Treasurer, Chairman, Vice-President, and President in that organization.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

My review's short, since I read it over a year ago. I enjoyed this dispassionate look at Afghanistan and fight with the British in 1919, through the eyes of a British Indian Army officer. It was depressing, eventually tragic, but eye-opening, showing the ineffectiveness of outsiders fighting in that hostile terrain. The tribesmen hate and resent outsiders. This novel is another of Breem's that drips with his mood of futility. The title derives from an Afghan saying with the meaning of 'Between Scylla and Charybdis' or 'Between a rock and a hard place'. There are hard choices to be made, in this novel.

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

A finely-crafted, coldly realistic, and tragic military tale. There on the Afghan frontier in 1919, a unit of the British Indian army must retreat from an exposed outpost while tribal loyalties fray and the landscape becomes increasingly hostile. Breem served on the Afghan frontier at the end of the 1940s, in the last days of the Raj, and he knows the countryside and the tribes first-hand. His hero is I rather think much like Breem himself--- an intellectual who is still a professional soldier (Breem was later law librarian at one of the Inns of Court in London). His hero is a man aware of how he must carry an increasing burden as his fellow British officers are picked off one by one and his Pathan soldiers desert, a quiet, thoughtful man determined to get his surviving loyal native troops to safety in an increasingly hopeless situation.

It would be too easy to link Breem's Afghanistan 1919 to the same landscape in 2010, and I'll avaoid that. I'll just say that this is a fine and powerful book that bears reading for its own sake.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is ultimately a fairly depressing read, as the (near) futility of a retreat from isolated forts in Waziristan during the brief Anglo-Afghan War of 1919 and the resulting sacrifice of men and animals maintained a sombre mood in an always engaging story based on a real incident. Sandeman, a pensive, intellectual, rather unsuccessful officer leads the retreat making mistakes and reviewing his life as the few fellow British officers die around him and men desert. Keeping track of tribal affiliations was challenging, but it is a powerful novel

[Abby Schwartz · Rating 3 out of 5]

English try to colonize Afghanistan.

[Andre' Thibodeaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hated the ending… but wow. What an incredible journey this book was.

[Alfonso Alvarez de Mon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un oficial militar inglés en la India a principios del siglo XX se encuentra en medio de un levantamiento de las tribus fronterizas con Afganistán y se ve obligado a una retirada casi imposible.
La novela me resultó un poco difícil de leer, sobre todo al principio, porque hay mucho nombre propio, mucho vocabulario local y las frecuentes e importantes referencias geográficas son difíciles de entender.
Me gustó mucho la sobriedad con la que narra y la atmósfera que consigue crear.