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Title: The River War: An Account of the Re-Conquest of the Soudan (Lost Treasures Series) by Winston S. Churchill ISBN: 1-85375-264-9 Publisher: Prion Books Pub. Date: February, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.43 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Great Military History applicable to our times
Comment: This is a great history of an obscure little war that holds many lessons for the military today. I recommend it as a great read for any soldier or anyone linterested in military history or science. Churchill is a great writer and you can almost feel the heat and smell the gunsmoke in these pages.
Rating: 4
Summary: Remarkable Lessons for the 21st Century
Comment: This is a remarkable book that Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics (reviewed earlier) led me to read. Kaplan begins his book with a glowing description of the River War and argues that those of us trying to deal with 21st century Afghanistan, Africa, Bosnia, etc., would do well to study the lessons in Churchill's report.
Churchill was a British officer who wrangled his way into Kitchener's campaign up the Nile through connections in high places and against Kitchener's wishes. Kitchener was angry that a journalist-officer of Churchill's age (early 20s) would even presume to render judgment on the Generals and the government.
Churchill recounts the rise of the Mahdi, the defeat of Gordon at Khartoum, the decision of the government to retake the Sudan, and the careful preparations by Kitchener (in some ways a forerunner to Schwarzkopf's massing overwhelming force against Iraq in 1991).
There are a number of lessons in this book. Churchill talks constantly of "scientific warfare" and the inability of the Mahdist forces to cope with it. By "scientific warfare" he meant the telegraph, the railroad, the armored steamboat with cannon, the Maxim gun (an early machine gun), and the disciplined infantry squares. It is helpful to be reminded that predators, B-2s, and Special Forces on horseback with laser designators are simply our generation's version of the "scientific war".
Churchill also points out how few British troops were engaged in the campaign. The majority of the battalions were Egyptian and Sudanese with British officers. Only a minority was British. On the other hand, it was British communications, British logistics, British gunboats, and British firepower that made them dominant. These were Egyptian and Sudanese troops officered by the British and trained to British standards, a lesson for Afghanistan and elsewhere. In one expedition there were 1,300 men of whom only 7 were British.
This is a very useful book as we think about the complexities of the 21st century third world and its problems of poverty, violence, disorganization, and ruthless petty tyrants.
Rating: 5
Summary: Wonderful Early Churchill
Comment: Winston Churchill is one of the greatest figures of world history; this book, written when Churchill was in his twenties, is a wonderful book that considers the reconquest of the Sudan both from a first person point of view (because Churchill was there), and from a broader historical perspective.
Churchill begins the work some 13 years before the war, with the killing of the legendary General Gordon in Khartoum at the hands of the fanatical Dervishes. Churchill lays out in detail the reaction in Britain, the political reasons for why no action was taken at the time, and then goes into a wonderful segue about the intervening years of the wars of the Mahdi and his successor, the Khalifa.
The book is painstakingly researched; and the young Churchill is obviously trying to "get it right"; interjecting his opinions where it is relevant and introducing facts and tables where it is necessary to make his case.
The military buildup, the logistical and technical feat of the railroad built to support the army, the manufacture and employment of river gunboats, and the precise orders of battle and description of equipment -- these are details that show Churchill's immense grasp not only of the broad strategic picture but also a consummate mastery of the details of nineteenth century soldiering. One can see at work the mind that made Churchill a valuable cabinet member in the following thirty years, and an invaluable Prime Minister in wartime.
The prose style is a bit heavy, and Churchill's writing is not at the same level that won him the Nobel Prize, but it is a fine early work about an interesting, if little known, war.
The book itself also caused a rift between Kitchener and Churchill that was never really mended; as a result, Churchill's fall from the Admiralty and the failure of Gallipoli may have had this book as a very small cause. But this is not the book's fault!
A very good work of military history, and an excellent insight into the incredible mind of Winston Churchill.
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Title: My Early Life: 1874-1904 by Winston Churchill, William Manchester ISBN: 0684823454 Publisher: Scribner Pub. Date: 06 June, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: Marlborough: His Life and Times, Book One by Winston S. Churchill ISBN: 0226106330 Publisher: University of Chicago Press (Trd) Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Great Contemporaries by Winston S. Churchill ISBN: 1931313709 Publisher: Simon Publications Pub. Date: July, 2001 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: The Second World War, Volume 1: The Gathering Storm by Winston S. Churchill ISBN: 039541055X Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 09 May, 1986 List Price(USD): $19.00 |
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Title: The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester ISBN: 0316545031 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 30 May, 1983 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
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