GURKHAS - History of the 5th Royal Gurkha Rifles (Frontier Force) 1858 to 1928. Aldershot, Gale & Polden for the Regimental Committee, [c. 1930].
Royal 8vo. Original two-tone cloth, regimental symbol on front cover, spine lettered in gilt, top edge gilt; pp. xx, 518, portrait frontispiece of Lord Roberts of Kandahar, numerous plates after photographs and maps, including five in rear pocket; extrtemities a little spotted and marked, internally very clean and fresh; loosely inserted later note saying that this copy belonged to Col. William Heathcote Unwin.
Very rare first edition, printed for private circulation, number 41 of 200 subscripers' copies, with engraved limitation leaf. The regiment spent most of the second half of the 19th century in Punjab as part of the Punjab Frontier Force. During the First World War the soldiers saw heavy fighting at Gallipoli. Then these Gurkhas participated in the so-called Action of Khan Baghdadi, a battle in Mesopotamia, which was a success as the soldiers managed to march around Khan Baghdadi, and to dig in behind the Ottoman positions. 5000 prisoners were taken and the Gurkhas occupied the Central Iraqi town of Hit, or Heet. After the Great War these Gurkhas served in the Afghan War of 1919 and along the North-West Frontier. A large part of the book (pages 203 to 362) is devoted to action in the Middle East.
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