Mafeking – A Victorian Legend – Brian Gardner

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Mafeking – A Victorian Legend – Brian Gardner

This is the story of an incident that became a legend. No feat of arms has ever been greeted with anything like the outburst of nationalistic hysteria that swept Britain during the days which followed the famous night of 18 May 1900, Mafeking Night.

Mafeking was Relieved!—and the seven-month-long stout-hearted defence of the small British garrison was hailed as the supreme victory of the British characteristics of pluck and phlegm over impossible odds, a symbol which ushered in the glorious new century of the British Empire.

The commander of the garrison, Colonel R. S. S. Baden-Powell, became the most popular national hero since Wellington. His audacity, his invention, and above all his sense of humour and his sportsmanship became the image in which the nation strove to mirror her young people.

For those nurtured in this stirring tradition—and they are many—Brian Gardner’s account of the Siege of Mafeking will come as a considerable surprise. Seeking the answers to a bevy of baffling questions around the siege, the result is a thoroughly unconventional military epic.