Britannia's Shield: Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton and Late-Victorian Imperial Defence

by Craig Stockings

Overview

Britannia's Shield: Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton and the Late-Victorian Imperial Defence presents an in-depth, international study of imperial land defence prior to 1914. The book makes sense of the failures, false starts and successes that eventually led to more than 850,000 men being despatched from the Dominions to buttress Britain's Great War effort – an enormous achievement for intra-empire military cooperation. Craig Stockings presents a vivid portrayal of this complex process as it unfolded throughout the late-Victorian Empire through a biographical study of Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Hutton. As a true soldier of the Empire, the difficulties and dramas that followed Hutton's career at every step – from Cairo to Sydney, Aldershot to Ottawa, and Pretoria to Melbourne – provide key insights into imperial defence and security planning between 1880 and 1914. Richly illustrated, Britannia's Shield is an engaging and entertaining work of rigorous scholarship that will appeal to both general readers and academic researchers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781316276372
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/29/2015
Series:	Australian Army History Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	11 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Craig Stockings is an Associate Professor of History at the University of New South Wales, Canberra. His areas of academic interest concern general and Australian military history and operational analysis. He has published a history of the army cadet movement in Australia entitled: The Torch and the Sword (2007), a study of the First Libyan Campaign in North Africa 1940–41: Bardia: Myth, Reality and the Heirs of Anzac (2009), and a re-interpretation of the German invasion of Greece in 1941 entitled: Swastika over the Acropolis (2013; with Dr Eleanor Hancock). He has also edited Zombie Myths of Australian Military History (2010), Anzac's Dirty Dozen: 12 Myths of Australian Military History (2012) and Before the Anzac Dawn (2013; with Dr John Connor).

Table of Contents

Introduction: imperial defence: one man within an empire; 1. 'The common duties of the Empire': developments in the imperial defence idea, 1848–92; 2. 'An intelligent and most active officer': Hutton's formative years, 1848–92; 3. 'I suppose he sent me a blister': a colonial commandant, 1893–96; 4. A 'Trojan Horse' in the colony?: federal and imperial defence in Australia, 1893–96; 5. 'One general policy – elastic as it may be': back in Britain, 1896–98; 6. 'Making soldiers of them rapidly': reforming the Canadian militia, 1898–99; 7. 'I am here as one of yourselves': political difficulties and imperial imperatives, 1898–99; 8. 'Pregnant of great results': Canada and an Imperial War, 1899–1900; 9. 'Quite as much political and Imperial, as it is military': Hutton's war in South Africa and raising an Australian army, 1900–03; 10. 'Unfortunately not in touch or sympathy': difficulties and disappointments, 1903–04; 11. 'Hopelessly ignorant of our self-governing colonies': the New Australian Army and imperial defence, 1902–04; Epilogue: 'how far his vision ranged': the twilight years, 1905–23.