On Sea & Land

The second volume of a three volume history of the Royal Navy at war in the 19th century

For a century, from the close of the Napoleonic Wars to the Battle of Jutland during the First World War, the Royal Navy fought very few major battles. Indeed, as the 19th century progressed and the British Empire inexorably expanded its global holdings and influence the role of the British navy became defined by three principal activities. The first—which is not the subject of these books—concerned exploration and discovery; the second focussed on international maritime policing particularly in the eradication of piracy and the slave trade; and the third concerned the Royal Navy’s engagement in a plethora of small expeditions, campaigns and wars, which either involved short decisive actions afloat or employed naval brigades in shore actions with or without naval guns. In this period there were, of course, some larger conflicts and these are included in these three volumes as the chronology unfolds. The Royal Navy’s military activities are covered in these volumes—edited from a multi-volume history of the Royal Navy—concisely but thoroughly, making them essential resources for all those with an interest in the subject. All volumes include maps and illustrations original to these Leonaur editions.

Volume two comprehensively covers the period 1856 to 1881, when the Royal Navy was in action during the Second Opium War, the Indian Mutiny, the Maori Wars of the 1860s, the Abyssinian Expedition, the conflict against Madagascar and the Zanzibar Pirates, the Zulu War, the First Boer War among others, together with many minor expeditions and actions.

Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles; each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket; our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands.