L C Dunsterville
Dunsterforce and its campaign across the CaucasusMost readers know that the principal adolescent who appeared in Rudyard Kipling’s tale,’Stalky and Co’, was based on an actual person, Lionel Dunsterville, who was a school friend of the author. Stalky, the ring-leader of a roguish trio, was destined for a military career in India and so it was for Dunsterville. He served on the North-western Frontier and during the Boxer Rebellion in China. In 1917, during the First World War, Dunsterville was a major-general put in command of a small allied force originally of less than 500 effectives (including British, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand troops- later joined by the 39th Infantry Brigade ) together with 500 vans and armoured cars. The mission of this unit was to advance 350 km from Hamdan in the Zagros Mountains across Qajar Persia to gather intelligence and train local forces to replace Tsarist troops following the Russian revolution. In fact, the force actually came into action itself against Jingali rebels at Manjil. Dunsterville was subsequently instructed to assist in the defence of the important oil fields and port of Baku, though compelled to withdraw in September 1918 in the face massively superior advancing Ottoman Turkish forces. This Leonaur edition contains two linked accounts by Dunsterville. The first is his own account of the Dunsterforce mission whilst the second is a more intimate view of the affair extracted from his autobiography ’Stalky’s Reminiscences’.This is a little reported aspect of the Great War, so fascinating to students of the conflict’s ’side-show’ theatres. Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket.
