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Book review: Fighting Elites: Fighting Elites: From The Spartans To The SAS
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February 25, 2010
By James Mitchell
Fighting Elites: From The Spartans To The SAS
by Nigel Cawthorne
Quercus R304.95
Most who've served will have been told at one time or another: "You don't have to be uncomfortable to be a soldier." Many of these "elites" (the term is used generously) made a virtue of it, though. Of the three ancient Greek selections - the Spartans, the Sacred Band of Thebes and Alexander the Great's Companion Cavalry - the first certainly lived roughest... and from the age of seven, no less.
South Africa is well represented by the Zulu impis, well summed up in British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli's comment: "A magnificent people, the Zulus. They convert our bishops, beat our generals and write 'finis' to a French dynasty." (Bishop Colenso, Isandhlwana, and the death of the Prince Imperial.)
Well illustrated, with enough inclusions and omissions to get the arguments going, this will be enjoyed by schoolboys and military "when we's" alike. - James Mitchell
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