Officers and Other Ranks
Edward Spiers on a new social history of the British military
For Queen and County: A Social History of the Victorian and Edwardian Army, by Byron Farwell
244 pp. (Allen Lane, London, 1981)
For Queen and Country is an interesting, though limited, account of social life in the Victorian and Edwardian Army. Byron Farwell has elegantly described the attitudes, values, and life-style of the officers and other ranks. He has captured the flavour of the customs and etiquette of life in the regimental mess, as well as the more mundane pastimes of the ordinary soldier. By culling anecdotes from memoirs and regimental histories, he explains many of the traditions in the different regiments and the fierce resistance to amalgamations and changes of regimental titles and facings.
Farewell writes sympathetically about the Army but not with a blinkered perspective. He neither derides the values and eccentricities of the officers and men nor conceals their prejudices and limitations. He reviews the snobbery and social pressures within the officer corps; the pervasive racial prejudice; and the limited education of officers and other ranks.
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