Octavius escribió:
Ha! The feller sitting on the hood would not last there 5 minutes once the engine was started. Cooling was the main problem of those early motor cars.
That feller was Fritz Ponsonby! You remember, Octavius, I'm sure -- the man who the Empress Frederick entrusted to secrete her personal letters out of Germany, before her son the new Kaiser had a chance to impound them. He was the son of Sir Henry Ponsonby, the private secretary of Queen Victoria before Princess Beatrice.
ANYWAY.
He left a wonderful set of memoirs of his time serving three British sovereigns. Highly recommended. The bit which relates to the photo we see is that when he finally got permission to serve in the Boer War, he took various trunks of formal clothing (because you never know when you'll need a frock coat when capturing a prisoner-of-war), plus a full hamper of foodstuff from Harrods which almost all the officers took with them too.
It included a case of Napoleon brandy and in Fritz' case, two of Veuve Cliquot.
And then they wonder why with this posse of gentlemen-soldiers, who took cases of champers to a WAR, why we didn't win a guerilla war against the Boers.
