In Volunteers on the Veld, Stephen M. Miller focuses on the connection between Britain's auxiliary forces--volunteers, militia, and yeomanry--and its imperial mission during the late Victorian era, looking especially at why the British war effort came to depend on their performance. Miller examines motivations for enlistment, the use of citizen-soldiers in guerrilla warfare, and the effects of combat on the soldiers themselves, weaving together the sense of national emergency, the influence of popular culture, and images of manhood that propelled so many Britons into the ranks of volunteers.
By revisiting one of the most significant guerrilla wars of the modern age--and one of the earliest examples of the use of modern media to promote mobilization for a foreign war--Volunteers on the Veld lends fresh insight into British imperial warfare while suggesting unmistakable parallels between these citizen-soldiers and today's American volunteers in Iraq.