ABSTRACT
The ways in which European armies conducted their colonial operations have received little attention. The great period of imperialism, the ‘scramble for Africa’ of the 1880s and 1890s, and the simultaneous realisation that many of the wars of the nineteenth century had been fought outside Europe, all coincided with the emergence of German military hegemony. The study of strategy and military history was therefore centred on the writings of the Germans, but the Germans themselves had precious little experience of colonial fighting. It was as a continental power that Germany founded her claim to attention. This in itself is an indicator of where the priorities of the more truly colonial powers-pre-eminently Britain and France-lay. Orthodox war was European war. Theory and staff work were derived from Frederick and Napoleon. Between 1815 and 1914 the British army fought a European opponent only once, in the Crimea: outside Europe it barely ever stopped fighting. And yet a search in the Staff College texts of Hamley or Clery for a discussion of such operations proves vain.
