EMPEROR'S CHAMBERMAIDS - The Story of the 14th / 20th King's Hussars, 1715-1969

by Oatts, Lt.Col. L.B., DSO

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London, 1973, Ward Lock , first Uk edition, hard bound in dust jacket, 7 1/2 x 10, Fine/Fine cond, 518 pp, many illus & maps. Emperor's Chambermaids is the story of two Cavalry regiments, the I4th and 20th Light Dragoons, which were eventually amalgamated after the First World War to form the 14th/20th King's Hussars.Colonel Oatts has written a fascinating and often amusing story of the two Regiments in peace and war, deftly intertwined, and presented against a background of the history of Europe and the development of the British Empire. He takes us from the Jacobite Rebellions through the long struggle with Napoleon, the Indian Wars, with both Regiments fighting the Boers in South Africa at the turn of the nineteenth century. The horrors and discomforts of the Great War in France and Mesopotamia are fully described. With the rise of Hitler's Germany the horse gave way to the tank and the amalgamated Regiment went through its frustrating period of the Second World War and the post-war period as part of the Royal Armoured Corps.The Author takes us up to 1970, with the first visit to the Regiment of its newly appointed Colonel-in-Chief, H.R.H. The Princess Anne. Part of the Regiment was shortly destined to serve, for the first time, in the Far East and after 197 1 play its part in turbulent Ulster.What has made this Regiment so distinguished, even among its illustrious Light Cavalry fellows, has been that its members have always put themselves out to be particularly good at their job. The title of the book is the nickname of the 14th dating from 1813 when the Regiment captured the silver chamber-pot, originally owned by Napoleon, from King Joseph Bonaparte's carriage after the battle of Vittoria It has since been a valued possession of the Officers' Mess. . ISBN: 0-706-310012.