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Synopsis
The new series of Spellmount Military Memoirs provides rare and sought-after texts for the collector of classic historical works, together with rigorously selected personal narratives never before in print – destined to become classics in their own right. Letters from the Empire is one such work. From 17 trunks of correspondence and photographs in a Lakeland attic comes this eyewitness account of a soldier’s life at a pivotal moment in the history of the British Empire. Allan Marriot Hutchins, handsome, quick-witted and adventurous, was one of thousands of young men who, in 1900, volunteered to fight the Boers in a war that foreshadowed the later carnage of the twentieth century, fought with maxim guns, heavy artillery and bitter reprisals against guerrillas and civilians. Allan served as a yeomanry trooper in South Africa and later as a commissioned officer in India where he distinguished himself in the Abor campaign to secure the little-explored frontier between Assam and China. His letters home and the letters he received, his diaries and thoughts paint a picture of both the man and the wheels of history turning.
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