The entertaining memoirs of a British soldier of the empire As the eighteenth century turned to the nineteenth the rise of Napoleon and the First Empire of France engaged British military prowess on land and sea. Study of the British Army of the time focuses, inevitably, on its struggles with the French and especially upon the conflict in the Iberian Peninsula. Yet this was also a time when the rapid expansion of the British Empire was inexorably turning the map of the world "red" and there were military adventures to be had in many lands. John Shipp, the author of this well regarded military memoir, was engaged in one of the Kaffir-or Caffre, as he terms them-Wars in early 19th century South Africa before being sent to India. There Lake and Wellesley, the future Wellington, fought hard won battles with small, mixed armies of British regiments and the native troops of the Honourable East India Company, against the dominant martial races of India. Shipp joined the 22nd...