Walshe, Frederick William Henry (sold)
Frederick William Henry Walshe (1872 - 1931) was a senior British Army officer during the First World War. He was educated at Bedford School and at Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery in 1892, was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Horse Artillery in 1897, and rose to the rank of Captain in 1899 - his unit having been changed to the Royal Field Artillery in 1899. His duties took him to India, where in the first decade of the 20th century he received intelligence training and himself became an instructor in that art in the years leading up to the Great War. During the First World War, he would serve in the Gallipoli Campaign, Egypt and in France. Surviving the war, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. The Russian Civil War would find the Brigadier in southern Russia, part of the expeditionary force supporting White Russian forces against the Bolsheviks. He would become Aide-de-camp to King George V between 1920 and 1928, with further postings in Turkey, Mesopotamia, and again in India, between 1924 and 1928.
Unique first person espionage archive of the Great Game.
This is a fascinating, unrecorded archive of secret British Indian Army espionage documentation, dating from first decade of the 20th century, providing the modern reader a unique fly-on-the-wall view of the geopolitical, military, and social history of the frontiers of British India as the Great Game came to a close and as the Great War loomed. The documents predominantly date from 1906 to 1910, contain privileged information intended for an audience of prospective intelligence officers in the British Indian Army, and were mainly produced in Peshawar, headquarters of the British Indian army on the frontier with Afghanistan. Peshawar was an espionage hub, crucial to British efforts to counter threats by Russia and China to destabilize India, the Jewel in the Crown of the British Empire. (more details)