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From bestselling author of ‘Tommy’ and ‘Redcoat’, the rich history of the British soldier in India from Clive to the end of empire considered to be the jewel in Britain’s imperial crown.
‘Sahib’ is a broad and sweeping military history of the British soldier in India, but its focus, like that of Tommy and Redcoat before it, will be on the men who served in India and the women who followed them across that vast and dusty continent, bore their children, and, all too often, mopped their brows as they died.
The book begins with the remarkable story of India's rise from commercial enclave to great Empire, from Clive’s victory of Plassey, through the imperial wars of the 18th-century and the Afghan and Sikh Wars of the 1840s, through the bloody turmoil of the Mutiny, and the frontier campaigns at the century’s end. With its focus on the experience of ordinary soldiers, ‘Sahib’ explains to us why soldiers of the Raj had joined the army, how they got to India and what they made of it when they arrived. The book examines Indian soldiering in peace and war, from Kipling’s ‘snoring barrack room’ to storming parties assaulting mighty fortresses, cavalry swirling across open plains, and khaki columns inching their way between louring hills. Making full use of extensive and often neglected archive material in the India Office Library and National Army Museum, ‘Sahib’ will do for the British soldier in India – whether serving a local ruler, forming part of the Indian army, or soldiering with a British regiment – what ‘Tommy’ has done for the ordinary soldier in World War I.
- Sales Rank: #331609 in Books
- Brand: Brand: HarperPress
- Published on: 2006-04-03
- Released on: 2006-04-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.60" w x 5.00" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 416 pages
- Used Book in Good Condition
Review
‘For anyone interested in the Raj this book is a must.’ Observer
‘Richard Holmes’s mastery of the British Army is unequalled…A worthy memorial of one of the extraordinary experiences in British history.’ Max Hastings, Sunday Telegraph
‘Holmes is a passionate and richly entertaining champion of the rank and file.’ Daily Telegraph
‘Insightful, colourful, relevant and pithy.’ The Times
Praise for ‘Redcoat’:
‘It would be hard to exaggerate the excellence of this book. vivid, comprehensive, well writtten, pacy, colourful.’ Simon Heffer
About the Author
Celebrated military historian and television presenter Richard Holmes is famous for his BBC series ‘Rebels and Redcoats: The American Revolutionary War’; ‘Wellington: The Iron Duke’; ‘Battlefields’; ‘War Walks’ and ‘The Western Front’. He is the author of many bestselling and widely acclaimed books including ‘Firing Line’, ‘The Western Front’, ‘Redcoat’, ‘Tommy’ and ‘Dusty Warriors’. He is general editor of the definitive ‘Oxford Companion to Military History’. He taught military history at Sandhurst for many years and is now Professor of Military and Security Studies at Cranfield University and the Royal Military College of Science. His biography of the Duke of Marlborough is published by HarperCollins in 2008. He lives near Winchester in Hampshire.
Most helpful customer reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful.
A Long Deployment....
By HMS Warspite
2005's "Sahib" is the third volume of British military historian Richard Holmes' remarkable narrative of the British soldier, along with "Redcoat" and "Tommy." This volume is the story of the British soldier in India, 1750-1914.
The British conquest of its Eastern Empire of India, Burma, and Ceylon would not have been possible without the British Army, which performed remarkable feats of arms in defeating a variety of numerically superior native armies across a huge subcontinent. The long British domination of that subcontinent also would not have been possible without the adaptation of the British soldier to a variety of military and political tasks and to a complex mixture of cultures very different from the British Isles. The British Army in India in fact took on its own unique existance there, the story here celebrated in Richard Holmes' extensive narrative.
British infantry, cavalry, and artillery units of the era generally did well in combat, especially under commanders who understood its unique opponents in India, whether the mass armies of various rajas or the wild and tough tribesmen of the Northwest Frontier. The British Army interacted, usually successfully, with the hired soldiers of the East India Company who were first on the ground, and with the Sepoys, the Indian units seconded to the Army who actually made up the bulk of British forces. The company soldiers were eventually absorbed into the regular forces. The Indian contingents, despite the painful exception of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny which forms a key part of Holmes's narrative, generally performed well under British leadership and training.
"Sahib" is less a chronological history of battle than a series of vignettes in which Holmes examines how the British soldier adapted to local circumstances. British regiments were often stationed in India for years to decades, following a six month deployment by sea. The individual soldiers and officers often went native to one degree or another during their long stays. Holmes explores the resulting customs in marriage, recreation, living arrangements, promotions, discipline and indiscipline. Holmes quotes extensively from letter, diaries and memoirs to provide individual perspective on various customs.
India was a land of opportunity for the British Army. For the average soldier, increased pay and the chance for prize money meant a opportunity for personal betterment. Officers who might have been overlooked in Britain found opportunities to shine in the tough, unforgiving military climate. Those who mastered India's unique logistical, combat, and political challenges, such as Arthur Wellesley, Fred Roberts, and Garnet Wolesley, often went on to greater things. India was also a dangerous place. Tens of thousands of British soliders did not survive, killed by native warriors, wild animals, strange diseases, and extremes of climate.
Holmes highlights the experience of the families who went out with their soldiers to a strange land. Of these, some came to be at home, some never found a home, and many never went home. British families learned to live with different languages, food, servants, marriage customs and religions, traces of which are still visible in British regiments today.
The British regulars went home at Indian independence in 1947, and as Holmes notes, the whole subject has become politically incorrect in this post-colonial era. Again as Holmes notes, this lack of attention is unfortunate in that it fails to do justice to the long and remarkable service of the British soldier in India. American readers may find echoes of the United States Army's long overseas tenure in places such as Germany and South Korea.
"Sahib" is an exhaustive (and exhausting) read at over 500 pages. As with other books in his trilogy of the British soldier, the time span covered in "Sahib" is a challenge for a single volume. The cross-cutting topics produce some duplication of material. On the other hand, Holmes' extremely accessible writing style will entertain both the general reader and the specialized militay student. "Sahib" is therefore highly recommended to both.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
A great start to understanding the army of the Raj
By Stage 3
An entertaining read from Richard Holmes. It was not a heavy history but anecdotes divided along themes. The edition I have was a paperback and was 572 pages with the reading stopping on page 506. Richard Holmes has not attempted to provide a blow by blow history of the Raj but rather a read about what soldiering was like in British India for both the British East India Company soldiers as well as those from the British Army. He did, however, provide a quick history at the start to give the reader the context of the anecdotes that come afterward. He has chosen his anecdotes well, although sometimes it seemed to be a case of cut and paste with minimal thread from him. That said, the anecdotes did carry the book and they were generally just right for the point that he was making. The book was divided up into five sections based on themes and then the chapters brought out points within the themes. While it was interesting reading about the life of soldiers and officers, especially how they were supposed to outfit themselves, it was the parts about fighting that sold the book for me. Mr Holmes does not always give great detail about the fight but lets the participants tell what they saw. It worked. Understandably, he weighted his book more towards the pre-1900 India where most people see the real romance of British India. If you have read books about the British Raj and want to find out how the Army worked in India then this book is the perfect place to start.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
Another Gem from the British Soldier's Biographer
By Thomas M. Sullivan
It's relatively easy to write an account of the life of a prominent general or other wartime leader, especially if one comes late to the composition party after sufficient time has passed to allow the accumulation of encomiums, accounts of battles, maybe even the subject having written an autobiography or other reminiscence. Not so with the common soldier, you know, the poor devil who served as the pawn to the hero's chess master. But Richard Holmes has found the way, to our delight and edification.
`Sahib' is the final work in Holmes' trilogy describing the life of the British soldier in three periods: `Redcoat' during the `age of horse and musket,' `Tommy,' his life on the Western Front in the First World War, and `Sahib' in India during the ascendancy of the East India Company and the Raj. Having read the first two, I can happily report that `Sahib' is every bit their equal.
There's no particular secret to Holmes' methods. For each volume, he collected innumerable first-person accounts of the actors' lives and experiences in their respective periods, that alone being quite an accomplishment. Then he merely interweaves them into a masterfully crafted narrative recounting, in the case of `Sahib,' a comprehensive and unfailingly entertaining history of the principal events in which these actors played their parts. Pretty simple, it seems to me, though I wouldn't try it at home.
Given the other very thoughtful reviews of `Sahib,' let me add my two cents in the form of recommended reading on the British Raj in India and related subjects. First, Holmes specifically disavows presenting a comprehensive history of the variously denominated Mutiny of 1857, though of course it plays a pivotal role in the story of both `his' soldiers and the Raj. For those interested in learning more about the Mutiny, I suggest Christopher Hibbert's relatively brief but entirely satisfying `The Great Mutiny: India 1857.' For a more expansive view of the British experience in India, check out David Gilmour's `The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj,' an excellent account of both the military and political components of the period. Finally, and in the same general time frame, but with a wider scope, try Byron Farwell's `Queen Victoria's Little Wars,' which includes absolutely fascinating, and frequently hilarious, depictions of the unique eccentricities of many of the principal military players who nonetheless largely succeeded in `getting the job done.'
If you don't have the luxury of time for these related works, then at least resolve to take on the `Redcoat,' `Tommy,' `Sahib' threesome, if only to understand what we Holmes fans relentlessly rave about. You won't regret it for a reading minute.
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