Victoria's long and illustrious reign saw Britain ruling the world's biggest Empire - but it came at a heavy cost.
A myth has grown up that apart from involvement in the Crimean, a heroic stand against Zulus at Rorke's Drift, and the Boer War which was raging as she died, this was an age of peace together with prosperity. Not a bit of it. In reality her armed forces were locked in deadly conflict across the globe, from the Punjab to New Zealand, from Abyssinia to Belize.
Political journalist and military historian Ian Hernon brings to life these conflicts as they appeared to those fighting them and to those they left at home. He has brought together illustrations from the time eagerly devoured by an anxious public but largely unseen since. They show Victorian warfare in all its horror and glory together with the advances in an increasingly mechanised age to transport and supply the troops. And it pays tribute to those war artists and correspondents who risked their lives alongside the troops.
IAN HERNON has been a reporter since 1969, reporting from the Middle East during the mid-70s. From 1978 he was a lobby correspondent in the House of Commons and until 2000 Westminster editor of Central Press, covering for Scottish editions of Daily Express, Sunday Times, and News of the World He was 2010 Avanta Regional Journalist of the Year. He is the author of Massacre and Retribution (1998) The Savage Empire (2000) and Blood in the Sand (2001) for The History Press, amongst other books.