The Life of Edmund Musgrave Barttelot, Captain and Brevet-Major Royal Fusiliers, Commander of the Rear Column of the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, Being an Account of His Services for the Relief of Kandahar, of Gordon, and of Emin
London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1890.
First Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 413 pp, with frontis portrait, 3 plates, and 2 folding maps. Three quarter dark green leather over marbled boards; marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, gilt stamping on spine. Moderate wear to edges, leather scuffed, internally fine. Barttelot was second-in-command of Henry Morton Stanley's expedition in relief of Emin Pasha, the embattled governor of Equatoria in southern Sudan (1887-88). Tensions arose between the two men, and Barttelot was left to command the rear column while Stanley pushed ahead to meet Emin. Barttelot found it difficult to supply his force without resorting to coercion of the local population, and his increasingly authoritarian manner his subordinates. He regarded Africans with contempt, maintained discipline by flogging and execution, and suffered repeated bouts of fever that left him suspicious of others and possibly unbalanced (DNB). In July 1888 he attempted to strike a woman who had annoyed him by beating a drum during a festival and was shot through the head by her husband. Stanley blamed Barttelot and his fellow officers for the failure of the Rear Column. This book is an attempt by Bartellot's brother to rehabilitate his reputation. A previous owner has noted in pencil on the verso of the front endpaper that the book provides "extremely interesting details of H.M. Stanley's perfidy in Africa after his betrayal of Livingstone."
Item #13038
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