The Story of the Malakand Field Force

As a 22-year-old subaltern in the 4th Hussars stationed in Bangalore in 1897, Winston Churchill was an ambitious young soldier. Seeking military distinction, he talked his way onto the Malakand Field Force to battle restless frontier tribes after meeting the commander, Sir Bindon Blood, at a social engagement. There were no openings for junior officers—but Churchill convinced the commander to allow him to come along as a war correspondent. And thus a great career was born.

This book shows the determination and spirit that would later mature into the indomitable personality of Winston Churchill in his prime. While not as polished as his later work, it is still elegantly crafted—and shows a brash willingness to criticize military leaders, including Lord Kitchener himself. It is one of Churchill’s more rare works; until a new edition was published in 1990, it had been out of print in English since 1916.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sir Winston Churchill was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1953 “for his mastery of historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in defending exalted human values.”

Over a 64-year span, Churchill published over 40 books, many multi-volume definitive accounts of historical events to which he was a witness and participant. All are beautifully written and as accessible and relevant today as when first published.

During his fifty-year political career, Churchill served twice as Prime Minister in addition to other prominent positions—including President of the Board of Trade, First Lord of the Admiralty, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Home Secretary. In the 1930s, Churchill was one of the first to recognize the danger of the rising Nazi power in Germany and to campaign for rearmament in Britain. His leadership and inspired broadcasts and speeches during World War II helped strengthen British resistance to Adolf Hitler—and played an important part in the Allies’ eventual triumph.

One of the most inspiring wartime leaders of modern history, Churchill was also an orator, a historian, a journalist, and an artist. All of these aspects of Churchill are fully represented in this collection of his works.

ABOUT THE SERIES

Well before he began his political career, Winston Churchill was a war correspondent and a soldier in the British Army, starting in 1895. He saw action in conflicts such as the Second Boer War and the Mahdist War, as well as in World War I. His writings during this time are insightful eyewitness accounts of war—fascinating both for their historical significance and the insights they offer into Churchill as an author and a future world leader.