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Tegart's War: A Story of Empire, Rebellion and Terror
Twenty-year-old Charles Tegart is a polo-playing, Irish college student when the British Imperial Police recruit him to serve in India.
Three years later — just as Bengali political extremists launch a campaign of violence against British rule — Tegart becomes Deputy Commissioner of the Calcutta Police.
Tegart and his newly created Special Branch for political crime investigation lead the repression of the rebellion.
While Tegart struggles with the terrorists, the Empire try to negotiate political reform, keeping a tight leash on police measures.
But Tegart is torn between the rule of law and the need to stop the terrorists, at any cost.
With his contract over in Palestine, Tegart returns to London to continue his work in the war against criminality, and embarks on a new espionage mission in Dublin, which could be his last.
Set against colonial rebellions in India, Ireland and Palestine, Tegart's War is a novel based upon the famous and infamous figure of Sir Charles Tegart.
Stuart Logie is a former journalist and the author of Winging It, a history of Canada’s aerospace industry. He lives in Montreal.
Three years later — just as Bengali political extremists launch a campaign of violence against British rule — Tegart becomes Deputy Commissioner of the Calcutta Police.
Tegart and his newly created Special Branch for political crime investigation lead the repression of the rebellion.
While Tegart struggles with the terrorists, the Empire try to negotiate political reform, keeping a tight leash on police measures.
But Tegart is torn between the rule of law and the need to stop the terrorists, at any cost.
With his contract over in Palestine, Tegart returns to London to continue his work in the war against criminality, and embarks on a new espionage mission in Dublin, which could be his last.
Set against colonial rebellions in India, Ireland and Palestine, Tegart's War is a novel based upon the famous and infamous figure of Sir Charles Tegart.
Stuart Logie is a former journalist and the author of Winging It, a history of Canada’s aerospace industry. He lives in Montreal.
296 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 2, 2025
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August 15, 2025
This detailed look at the career of Charles Tegart, a prominent English/Irish police/intelligence official, fills a gap in the history of colonial functionaries, the non-political figures who ran the British Empire.
Tegart came up through the ranks in the Indian Imperial Police, after studies at Trinity College.
He was first assigned in 1904 to Patna then to Calcutta, where centuries of colonial rule and the British Raj were starting to come apart at the seams in the early 20th century.
Bengal in particular, where Tegart was based, was subject to increasing rebelliousness and violent subversion of colonial authority. Tegart was a police professional and knew that careful preparation of intelligence reports and profiles of individual and networks was a key to undermining terrorist groups. He did not hesitate at violent repression and, as the author makes clear, to prisoner abuse and torture. In this sense the author states, he was a precursor of the “War on Terror” of later decades.
At the same time, British courts and the rule of law often stayed his hand, releasing suspects who were not imprisoned according to legal rules.
Tegart’s relative success in repression of Bengali rebels made him a candidate for promotion/transfer in the Empire, and he ended up in Ireland, more precisely the Irish Free State. Poor support there at the grassroots level -- an ominous lead-indicator there -- led to him returning to London.
He was reassigned to Mandatory Palestine. It was a simmering pot similar to Bengal, where independence now with 2025 retrospect looks inevitable.
Tegart organized and reorganized British and Jewish forces and Arab police groups, often at odds with each other. He even built a fully monitored wire fence against incursions from Lebanon/Syria – which was often torn down by villagers -- and a series of police/military forts, which today are remnants of Empire.
In short Tegart was a man of his times, allergic to politics and often to civil liberties.
This book is heavily researched, with multiple original sources from British museums and archives.
Tegart’s War is a first edition and I noted a number of copy-editing errors that could be improved in a later edition: words are occasionally missing (a, the, on) where an edit had clearly taken place; maidan (a term I first heard with regard to Ukraine) is spelled two ways on one page, as is one possessive (Andrews’s, Andrew’s); there is both arms and arm smuggling, and I am not sure about the title of the Bengal Smuggling Arms Act; there are some spelling mistakes (“it was reveled”); and I am sure the “quote” near the end is from Michel, not Michael Foucault.
But overall, a detailed and insightful look at a key figure in modern police and intelligence work. A welcome element in the ongoing re-evaluation of the British Empire.
Tegart came up through the ranks in the Indian Imperial Police, after studies at Trinity College.
He was first assigned in 1904 to Patna then to Calcutta, where centuries of colonial rule and the British Raj were starting to come apart at the seams in the early 20th century.
Bengal in particular, where Tegart was based, was subject to increasing rebelliousness and violent subversion of colonial authority. Tegart was a police professional and knew that careful preparation of intelligence reports and profiles of individual and networks was a key to undermining terrorist groups. He did not hesitate at violent repression and, as the author makes clear, to prisoner abuse and torture. In this sense the author states, he was a precursor of the “War on Terror” of later decades.
At the same time, British courts and the rule of law often stayed his hand, releasing suspects who were not imprisoned according to legal rules.
Tegart’s relative success in repression of Bengali rebels made him a candidate for promotion/transfer in the Empire, and he ended up in Ireland, more precisely the Irish Free State. Poor support there at the grassroots level -- an ominous lead-indicator there -- led to him returning to London.
He was reassigned to Mandatory Palestine. It was a simmering pot similar to Bengal, where independence now with 2025 retrospect looks inevitable.
Tegart organized and reorganized British and Jewish forces and Arab police groups, often at odds with each other. He even built a fully monitored wire fence against incursions from Lebanon/Syria – which was often torn down by villagers -- and a series of police/military forts, which today are remnants of Empire.
In short Tegart was a man of his times, allergic to politics and often to civil liberties.
This book is heavily researched, with multiple original sources from British museums and archives.
Tegart’s War is a first edition and I noted a number of copy-editing errors that could be improved in a later edition: words are occasionally missing (a, the, on) where an edit had clearly taken place; maidan (a term I first heard with regard to Ukraine) is spelled two ways on one page, as is one possessive (Andrews’s, Andrew’s); there is both arms and arm smuggling, and I am not sure about the title of the Bengal Smuggling Arms Act; there are some spelling mistakes (“it was reveled”); and I am sure the “quote” near the end is from Michel, not Michael Foucault.
But overall, a detailed and insightful look at a key figure in modern police and intelligence work. A welcome element in the ongoing re-evaluation of the British Empire.
Displaying 1 of 1 review