WHEN this work originally appeared in 1973 it was probably seen as bursting the balloon of the Boy's Own image of invincible Victorian heroes defending the empire against hostile hordes.

The 2007 paperback edition, of a book describing how a world power can plunge into disastrous military commitments, perhaps serves a slightly different purpose, as Professor Judd suggests in the preface.

Most of the six calamitous campaigns chosen were "colonial", with only one fought in Europe. But half were against enemies of European origin - Russians and Afrikaners (twice).

In addition, only one of these opponents, the Zulus, suffered from hugely inferior weapons.

But most of the Tommies' opponents had other advantages, particularly in leadership. This was especially true of the Afrikaners, whose elected, part-time commando leaders regularly outwitted their British counterparts.

Of course, the Victorians launched literally dozens of campaigns and expeditions, most of which succeeded, and even in the cases explored in this book they usually achieved their policy aims.

The tragedy was that so many lives were lost and so few lessons learned.