The British Army in Queen Victoria's reign had to fight a series of separate and unrelated regional campaigns across the northern half of Africa. The local conditions and peoples varied greatly, from the forest-dwellers of Asante to Moslem fundamentalists in the burning desert wastes of the Sudan, requiring considerable flexibility and professionalism from an Army often popularly held to be rigid and traditionalist. From the story of Gen. Lord Napier's engagement with the 'mad' Emperor of Abyssinia, Tewdros, and the storming of his mountain fortress, to the struggle against the Mahdi in the Sudan, this addition to Osprey's Men-at-Arms series makes for fascinating reading indeed.