Book description
The Gurkhas have fought on behalf of Britain and India for nearly two
hundred years. As brave as they are resilient, resourceful and
cunning, they have earned a reputation as devastating fighters, and
their unswerving loyalty to the Crown has always inspired affection in
the British people. There are also now up to 40,000 Gurkhas in the
million-strong army of modern India. But who are the Gurkhas? How much
of the myth that surrounds them is true? Award-winning historian Chris
Bellamy uncovers the Gurkhas' origins in the Hills of Nepal, the
extraordinary circumstances in which the British decided to recruit
them and their rapid emergence as elite troops of the East India
Company, the British Raj and the British Empire. Their special
aptitude meant they were used as the first British 'Special Forces'.
Bellamy looks at the wars the Gurkhas have fought this century, from
the two world wars through the Falklands to Iraq and Afghanistan and
examines their remarkable status now, when each year 11,000 hopefuls
apply for just over 170 places in the British Army Gurkhas.
Extraordinarily compelling, this book brings the history of the
Gurkhas, and the battles they have fought, right up to date, and
explores their future.
Until 2010 acclaimed historian and journalist Chris Bellamy was
Professor of Military Science and Doctrine and Director of the
Security Studies Institute, Cranfield University, based at the Defence
Academy of the UK at Shrivenham. He now holds the position of Director
of the Greenwich Maritime Institute, University of Greenwich. His
latest book, Absolute War: Soviet Russia in the Second World
War won the Westminster Medal for Military Literature. Previously
he has been Defence Correspondent at the Independent. He was
shortlisted for Foreign Reporter of the Year in the British Press
Awards and the Foreign Press Association Awards for 1996 for reporting
from Chechnya.
