Soldiers of the Queen (SOTQ) Issue 190

The latest issue of the Victorian Military Society's SOTQ (Soldiers of the Queen) arrived by post just before the end of last year, and I have been reading it on and off ever since.

The articles included in this issue are:

• The Dooar War, a British Expedition into Bhutan 1864 by David Howell
• 'Polishing the Handle of the Big Front Door': W.H.Smith at the War Office by Professor Ian F W Beckett
• The Incident at Bushman's River Pass: 'The expedition can scarcely be called a success' by David Snape
• Sir Ian Hamilton (1853-1947): The Limits of Leadership by Kevin Lockyer
• Book Reviews by Jim Tanner, Steven Broomfield, Roger T Stearn, and Andy Smith
• Officers of the Victorian Military Society

Yet again there is lots in this issue for anyone with an interest in Britain's military history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article about W.H.Smith brought back memories of my schooldays. Every year we put on a Gilbert and Sullivan light opera, and I well remember the song that included the line 'Polishing the Handle on the Big Front Door; from HMS Pinafore.

The article about 'The Incident at Bushman's River Pass' gave some interesting insights into Major (later Colonel) Durnford's attitudes to the native people of South Africa, and the one about Sir Ian Hamiliton gave me food for thought about the relationship between leadership - a quality much prized among British generals during the latter part of the nineteenth century - and command. It certainly goes some way to explain why those general who had the former in abundance in 1914 did not always do well when commanding troops during the First World War.

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The annual cost of membership of the Victorian Military Society is:

• UK: £30.00
• Overseas: £40.00 (except for Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore: £43.00) for a printed issue and £20.00 for an electronic issue.

As I have written many times before, in my opinion it is well worth it.

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Coincidentally, yesterday I was watching the Redcoat History channel on YouTube ...

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... and Chris Parkinson, who created the Redcoat History channel, endorsed Victorian Military Society. He is a filmmaker, journalist, and qualified battlefield tour guide based in South Africa. He has a particular interest in the campaigns of the British army between the Napoleonic wars and World War Two.