How Wars End: Victorian Colonial Conflicts

Previously in the Journal of Military History, Bruce Collins contended that military influences shaped the definition of victory in British colonial campaigns between 1860 and 1882. It is argued that Collins’s examples showed a greater degree of political achievement in their outcome than he suggested. Collins mostly selected successful campaigns for analysis, whereas there were also clear failures in the application of British military power. Even where soldiers defined objectives, they did not necessarily shape the agreements that terminated campaigns. In particular, the example of India’s North West Frontier demonstrated the difficulties of achieving lasting passivity where permanent military occupation was not the objective.