So Saud David's book covers a fascinating period of social and military transformation. It is accessible, well-written and entertaining. At times the author is prone to turns of phrase that are somewhat uncouth. Were the mutinying soldiers in 1857 joined by "the rabble from the bazaar" or did ordinary people join them? Is it fair, relevant or even appropriate for David to describe Queen Victoria as "far from unattractive (if you liked your women plump and homely, more milkmaid than courtesan)"?
This is very much a military history. The various campaigns are described in detail, particularly some of the key battles. David dwells on the heroism of British (and occasionally allied) troops, particularly given the relevance of the Victoria Cross to the Queen's personal interest in the military. This isn't a particularly left wing or socialist history of the period, though David highlights how the British government's involvement around the world was driven by their desire to protect commercial interests. This is most clear perhaps, in David's chapter on the Opium Wars, he comments, for instance, that Prince Albert feared that the fall of the Chinese Emperor would "usher in the anti-capitalist Taipings, with all the dire consequences that would have for British commerce". In the event, following the end of four years of war, vast quantities of opium were brought from the British Empire - a vastly profitable industry which proves, once again, that capitalists are quite happy to make money from appalling trades if they are able.
One of the good things about David's book is that he demonstrates just how useless the British command could be. Not a few of the chapters (Afghanistan and the Crimea are cases in point) deal with the debacles that followed British imperial arrogance. It was these that drove military reform, and Albert had a peripheral role in that.
I was less convinced by David's thesis that Victoria played the central role he attributes to her. He argues that she was "shaping, supporting and sometimes condemning her government's foreign policy - but never ignoring it. And through all this she was helped and guided by her talented and hugely underrated husband, Prince Albert". The evidence that David presents does show the Queen closely following events and putting an argument, but I didn't quite feel that he proved his point. In fact, his epilogue where he describes Victoria's Wars as "the flexing of Britain's imperial muscle" and continues to quote Robert Lowe on Imperialism: "the assertion of absolute force over others... to impose our own conditions at the bayonet's point." In other words Victoria's influence may have shaped particularly responses (her indignation during the Crimean War certainly helped transform Britain's activity in the latter half) but the wars arose out of the needs of British capitalism, and were driven by those interests first and foremost.
Readers who are looking for an accessible account of Britain's military actions in the mid to late 19th century will find this a good start, particularly the accounts of the Crimea and the Opium Wars (I was less taken by his analysis of the 'Indian Mutiny' which David appears to see solely as the consequence of conspiracy, rather than the outcome of British rule). But having read this, I'd highly recommend Mike Davies' Late Victorian Holocausts and John Newsinger's The Blood Never Dried - two books that properly put the wars into the context of the emergence of British capital as an international force.
Related Reviews
Macrory - Signal Catastrophe: The Story of the Disastrous Retreat from Kabul 1842
Dalrymple - Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan
Ward - Our Bones Are Scattered: The Cawnpore Massacres & the Indian Mutiny of 1857
Davies - Late Victorian Holocausts
Newsinger - The Blood Never Dried
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