Duty, honour, empire: The life and times of Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen - Lord

1971 hardcover with dust jacket and 412 pages in good condition. R45 postage in SA. name in ink in front. "Richard Meinertzhagen's life began at the high noon of Victorian power, and his remarkable career coincided with England's gradual loss of mastery over one fifth of the earth's surface. Born in the spring of 1878, Meinertzhagen endured the harsh schooling of the Victorians at a sadistic private establishment and at Harrow. He went first to India as a career infantry officer, and then for four years he roamed Kenya pacifying tribesmen and shooting big game. He served the Empire in South Africa, Mauritius, and again in India, managing one furlough during which he spied on the Russian defenses of Sevastopol, rescued a little Jewish girl from a pogrom, and delivered a baby on a Greek train. By 1914 he had become a staff officer and sailed to East Africa for the disastrous and forgotten campaign against the extraordinary von Lettow Vorbeck. He emerged a superb intelligence officer and later helped Allenby smash the Turks at Gaza and free Jerusalem. At the peace conference at Versailles, he urged the Jewish case against his close friend Lawrence of Arabia and continued his vigorous championship as Allenby's chief political officer in Palestine. After he quit the army in 1925, he became one of Europe's leading ornithologists, but he also remained one of the chief proponents of Zionism in England and a confidant of Chaim Weizmann.Unflagging in its narrative, this magnificent biography - drawn from Colonel Meinertzhagen's exhaustive personal diaries and papers - portrays a memorable man whose sometimes violent and always significant life reflects, but does not necessarily mirror, the disintegration of a fascinating age.