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Victorian Colonial Warfare: Africa : From the Campaigns Against the Kaffirs to the South African War
Book by Featherstone, Donald
- GenresMilitary FictionHistory
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
About the author
Donald F. Featherstone
95 books12 followersFeatherstone (who sometimes used his middle initial and sometimes didn't) served in the Royal Armoured Corps in World War II before becoming a physiotherapist. He worked for Southampton Football Club and Hampshire County Cricket Club, writing books on sporting, dancing, and industrial injuries.
Later, he turned his attention to his childhood hobby of toy soldiers, writing dozens of books on the subject and becoming instrumental in the development of wargaming as a pasttime. He also wrote books on military history.
Later, he turned his attention to his childhood hobby of toy soldiers, writing dozens of books on the subject and becoming instrumental in the development of wargaming as a pasttime. He also wrote books on military history.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
February 21, 2025
Full of first-hand accounts of action during Victoria's 'little wars' and illustrated throughout with contemporary pictures and maps, reprinted from newspapers.
On the surface, it's a great book covering a great many conflicts. However, as Featherstone relies almost uniquely reprinting sections from diaries and newspaper accounts, there is often a lack of overview to the campaigns and battles.
All of the accounts are from the British perspective, and Featherstone copies sometimes pages of diaries at a time without any effort to add his own thoughts, notes etc - allowing the accounts to speak for themselves and tying each different account together with a couple of lines of text. The result is that very little of this book is actually written by the author, who is more of an editor in this case. Only in the last 10 pages does Featherstone cover the conflicts in his own words, and is very brief in doing so - the Benin campaign is covered in two paragraphs, and the other conflicts of the 1890's are given equally concise mention.
The focus on first-hand accounts is fine, but with no narrative patching them together, there are huge gaps, being as each soldier relates of course only what he saw from his own limited battlefield perspective. It's a decent read, but it feels like a missed opportunity to have written something more thorough. I am reminded that Featherstone is better known as a wargaming pioneer than a historian, and I suppose it shows somewhat in this book.
On the surface, it's a great book covering a great many conflicts. However, as Featherstone relies almost uniquely reprinting sections from diaries and newspaper accounts, there is often a lack of overview to the campaigns and battles.
All of the accounts are from the British perspective, and Featherstone copies sometimes pages of diaries at a time without any effort to add his own thoughts, notes etc - allowing the accounts to speak for themselves and tying each different account together with a couple of lines of text. The result is that very little of this book is actually written by the author, who is more of an editor in this case. Only in the last 10 pages does Featherstone cover the conflicts in his own words, and is very brief in doing so - the Benin campaign is covered in two paragraphs, and the other conflicts of the 1890's are given equally concise mention.
The focus on first-hand accounts is fine, but with no narrative patching them together, there are huge gaps, being as each soldier relates of course only what he saw from his own limited battlefield perspective. It's a decent read, but it feels like a missed opportunity to have written something more thorough. I am reminded that Featherstone is better known as a wargaming pioneer than a historian, and I suppose it shows somewhat in this book.
March 11, 2022
A very fascinating read. It gives a brief overview of the major "small wars" that took place in Africa during the reign of Queen Victoria. The snippets come from soldiers diaries, letters, newspapers, and books of the time. Which gives you a great feel for what happened. It gives lots of references for other books. I will be looking into those as well. Good first introduction for this topic.
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April 11, 2010Victorian Colonial Warfare: Africa : From the Campaigns Against the Kaffirs to the South African War by Donald Featherstone (1993)
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews