Duty, Honor, Empire: The Life and Times of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen

New York: Random House, 1970. First edition. First Edition [stated]/. Hardcover. Very good/very good. xi, [1], 412, [6] p. 25 cm. Occasional Footnotes. Maps. Bibliography. Index. From WIkipedia: "Colonel Richard Henry Meinertzhagen, CBE, DSO (3 March 1878 17 June 1967) was a British soldier, intelligence officer and ornithologist....Lacking the desire to make a career in merchant banking, Meinertzhagen took the examinations for a commission in the British Army, and after training at Aldershot was commissioned in 1899. He was sent to India to join a battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. Other than routine regimental soldiering, he participated in big-game hunting, was promoted, sent on sick leave to England, and after recovery posted to the relocated battalion at Mandalay in Burma. He then started his zealous campaign for a transfer to Africa, and finally, in May 1902 he arrived at Mombasa in British East Africa. Meinertzhagen was assigned as a staff officer with the King's African Rifles (KAR). Again, he participated in big-game hunting, but regarded himself as scientist-explorer first, and only incidentally as a soldier. His maps, landscape and wildlife drawings proved him an artist of exceptional talent. In 1903 he was delegated to conduct a wild animal census in the Serengeti and Athi plains. During Meinertzhagen s assignment to Africa, frequent native 'risings' and 'rebellions' occurred. By 1903 KAR s retaliatory ventures focused on confiscation of livestock, a highly effective form of punishment, and "the KAR had become accomplished cattle-rustlers." One such punitive expedition was commanded by a Captain F. A. Dickinson of the 3rd KAR with participation by Meinertzhagen, where more than 11, 000 stock were captured at the cost of 3 men killed and 33 wounded. The body count on the African side was estimated at 1, 500 from the Kikuyu and Embu tribes. In the east African Kenya Highlands in 1905, Meinertzhagen crushed a major revolt by murdering the Nandi Orkoiyot (spiritual leader) Koitalel Arap Samoei who was leading it. He shot Koitalel, who had come to negotiate, on 19 October 1905, while shaking his hand. Initially he had been able to orchestrate a cover-up and he was to be commended for the incident in which two dozen Nandi were machine-gunned. Eventually, after a third court of inquiry, he was cleared by the presiding officer, Brigadier William Manning. Meinertzhagen collected tribal artifacts after this revolt. Some of these items, including a walking stick and baton belonging to Koitalel, were returned to Kenya in 2006. Pressure from the Colonial Department on the War Office eventually brought about Meinertzhagen s removal from Africa, as "he had become a negative symbol" and on 28 May 1906 "he found himself on a ship being trundled back to England in disgrace and in disgust." Captain Meinertzhagen then spent the latter part of 1906 at "dreary administrative War Office desk jobs pushing papers." However, "...by making full use of his wide network of contacts in high places" he was able to rehabilitate himself and was assigned to his regiment s [the Fusiliers] Third Battalion in South Africa, arriving at Cape Town on 3 February 1907. He served there in 1908 and 1909, then on Mauritius. By 1913 he was again in India. At the beginning of World War I he was posted to the intelligence staff of the British Indian Expeditionary Force. His map making skills were much valued and recognized; his assessments of the German Schutztruppe strength and other contributions to the conduct of the Battle of Tanga and the Battle of Kilimanjaro were a complete miss. From January 1915 through August 1916 Meinertzhagen served as chief of British military intelligence for the East Africa theater at Nairobi. His diaried records of this campaign contain harsh assessments of senior officers, of the role played by the Royal Navy and of the quality of the Indian units sent to East Africa. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in February 1916. In November of that year General J.C. Smuts ordered him invalided to England....Meinertzhagen was frequently credited with a surprise attack known as the Haversack Ruse in.