Count Gleichen

With the Camel Corps up the Nile (Abridged, Annotated) Count Gleichen

By turns hilarious and thrilling, Lord Albert Gleichen's account of his time with the Camel Corps in the ill-fated attempt to rescue Gordon of Khartoum in 1884 will keep you turning pages. At the time a mere 21-year-old lieutenant, this son of nobility captured the tragedy and humor of a campaign through relentless desert in a vivid and highly-readable memoir.

He provides a detailed account of the desperate battle at Abu Klea against a huge force of Arabs that became a hand-to-hand struggle. Though fully invested in the chauvinism of his day, Gleichen shows a surprising sensitivity to some of the natives he meets and for the poor beasts that carried the Camel Corps up and back down the Nile. He and his mates keenly felt the deaths of the comrades who did not make the trip home.

Lord Gleichen served the crown all the way through the First World War and was the author of several other works detailing the life of a soldier.