The Life of Sir Stanley Maude

The General Who Restored British Arms in Mesopotamia

In April 1916 a British-led army surrendered at Kut. The defeat cast a long shadow over the Mesopotamian campaign and revealed the terrible consequences of an advance undertaken without adequate reserves, transport and supplies.

Eight months later another British and Indian army moved forward along the Tigris.

Its commander was Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude.

A soldier of the Coldstream Guards, a veteran of imperial campaigns and a commander who had served in France and at Gallipoli, Maude possessed the rare faculty of transforming organisation into military power. In Mesopotamia he rebuilt an army whose prestige had been broken, restored its offensive capacity and led it through a deliberate campaign against determined Ottoman resistance.

Kut was recovered. The advance continued. On 11 March 1917 his troops entered Baghdad.

Written by Major-General Sir Charles Edward Callwell, distinguished military theorist and author of Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice, this biography follows Maude from his early regimental service to the achievement which established his enduring place in British military history.

The AETERNUS edition preserves Callwell's original work and frames it with new studies of the Persian Gulf, imperial strategy, the Mesopotamian campaign and the military principles underlying Maude's victory.

A career formed by duty. An army restored by method. A victory won upon the Tigris.

• Complete text of the London edition of 1920, word for word
• Photographs and plates of the original London edition
• General Publisher’s Foreword and Foreword to This Edition
• The Strategic Theatre and The Soldier Before Baghdad
• The Tigris as an Instrument of War and The Army of India
• Baghdad and the Political Object, Editorial Afterword and Editorial Note

First published: Constable and Company Limited, London, 1920

GREEN SERIES · The British Empire Collection