Francis Loraine Petre (22 February 1852 – 6 May 1925) was a British civil servant in India and a military historian upon his retirement. He wrote a two-volume regimental history of the

Norfolk Regiment The Royal Norfolk Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army until 1959. Its predecessor regiment was raised in 1685 as Henry Cornwall's Regiment of Foot. In 1751, it was numbered like most other British Army regiments and named ...

, but is best known for his works on the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

. The grandson of the 11th

Baron Petre Baron Petre (), of Writtle, in the County of Essex, is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1603 for Sir John Petre. His family has since been associated with the county of Essex. He represented Essex in parliament and served ...

, he was educated at

Oscott College St Mary's College in New Oscott, Birmingham, often called Oscott College, is the Roman Catholic seminary of the Archdiocese of Birmingham in England and one of the three seminaries of the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Purpose Oscott Coll ...

and joined the

Bar Bar or BAR may refer to: Food and drink * Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages * Candy bar * Chocolate bar Science and technology * Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment * Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud * Bar (u ...

in 1880. He took the civil service exam and subsequently joined the

Indian Civil Service The Indian Civil Service (ICS), officially known as the Imperial Civil Service, was the higher civil service of the British Empire in India during British rule in the period between 1858 and 1947. Its members ruled over more than 300 million p ...

. He retired as Commissioner of Allahabad in 1900. Subsequently, he chose a literary career, pursuing interests in the history of the Napoleonic Wars. He wrote five books on the Wars, most of which are in use a century later. His studies of ''Napoleon's conquest of Prussia 1806–1807'' (1901) and ''Napoleon's Campaign in Poland, 1806–1807'' (1901) were among the first such books in the English language. He also wrote several regimental histories, a study of

Simon Bolivar Simon may refer to: People * Simon (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name Simon * Simon (surname), including a list of people with the surname Simon * Eugène Simon, French naturalist and the genu ...

, and a descriptive study of Colombia.

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

interrupted his literary pursuits; he served in the Finance Branch of the Ministry of Munitions. In 1920, Petre was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

Family

F. Loraine Petre descended from an aristocratic English

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

family, the House of Petre. His father, the Honourable Edmund George Petre,Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881. Class: RG11; Piece: 47; Folio: 116; Page: 43; GSU roll: 1341011. was born 23 June 1829 (d. 1 September 1889), in London's Marylebone district; he was the son of

William Petre, 11th Baron Petre William Henry Francis, 11th Baron Petre (22 January 1793 – 3 July 1850) was an English nobleman, based in Essex. He was the first Baron Petre to take his seat in the House of Lords after the passing of the Catholic Relief Act 1829. Family ...

, and his second wife, Emma Agnes Howard. Edmund married Marianna Jane Kerr, born in 1831 in Midlothian (Edinburgh), Scotland,Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871. Class: RG10; Piece: 161; Folio: 83; Page: 34; GSU roll: 823299. the daughter of the accountant and stock broker Lorraine M. Kerr, Esquire, They married 3 June 1851, at her home at 26 India Street in Glasgow,

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotl ...

. Edmund Petre worked as a stockbroker.Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861. Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England. Class: RG9; Piece: 458; Folio: 82; Page: 11; GSU roll: 542642. Petre was born at

Netherley House Netherley House is a mansion built by Alexander Silver in the late 18th century in Netherley, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is situated near the northerly flowing drainage of Crynoch Burn (Groome, 1885). The home was sold to Horatio Ross by Jame ...

, in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

on 22 February 1852, Loraine Petre's younger sister, Rosamund Catherine, was born on 25 August 1857, at the High Elms, in Hampton Court (now

Hampton, London Hampton is a suburban area on the north bank of the River Thames, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, and historically in the County of Middlesex. which includes Hampton Court Palace. Hampton is served by two railway station ...

). She married in 1884 to William Henry Hare Hedges-White, an

Irish Peer The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...

, the fourth and last

Earl of Bantry Earl of Bantry, of Bantry in the County of Cork, was a title in the Peerage of Ireland. It was created in 1816 for Richard White, 1st Viscount Bantry, who had helped repelling the French invasion at Bantry Bay in 1797. He had already been crea ...

. Petre maintained his connections to his illustrious family; in 1873, his cousin married

George Forbes, 7th Earl of Granard George Arthur Hastings Forbes, 7th Earl of Granard KP (5 August 1833 – 25 August 1889), styled Viscount Forbes from 1836 to 1837, was an Irish peer and soldier. Background and education He was the son of Major-General George Forbes, Viscount Fo ...

, and he was listed as a guest. In 1887, Petre married Maud Ellen Rawlinson, the daughter of a clergyman; their son, Roderic L(oraine), born 1888 in

Indore Indore () is the largest and most populous city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. It serves as the headquarters of both Indore District and Indore Division. It is also considered as an education hub of the state and is the only city to ...

, India; Roderick attended school near Midsomer Norton and

Stratton-on-the-Fosse Stratton-on-the-Fosse is a village and civil parish located on the edge of the Mendip Hills, south-west of Westfield, north-east of Shepton Mallet, and from Frome, in Somerset, England. It has a population of 1,108, and has a rural agricultu ...

, where he sang treble in the boys choir. Roderick served in the South Wales Borderers in the Gallipoli campaign of

, and was awarded the

Military Cross The Military Cross (MC) is the third-level (second-level pre-1993) military decoration awarded to officers and (since 1993) other ranks of the British Armed Forces, and formerly awarded to officers of other Commonwealth countries. The MC ...

. Eventually he achieved the rank of

major-general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

. A daughter, Enid, was born in 1890, and a second daughter was born in 1894 and died the same year.

Education and career

Petre was educated at

, and called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn in 1873. The next year he competed in the examinations for the

, in which he was placed fourth of the top thirty. Initially he served in the

North-Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1858, the nawab-ruled kingdo ...

, and later in

Oudh The Oudh State (, also Kingdom of Awadh, Kingdom of Oudh, or Awadh State) was a princely state in the Awadh region of North India until its annexation by the British in 1856. The name Oudh, now obsolete, was once the anglicized name of ...

. From 1885 to 1889, he was at

Hyderabad Hyderabad ( ; , ) is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Telangana and the ''de jure'' capital of Andhra Pradesh. It occupies on the Deccan Plateau along the banks of the Musi River, in the northern part of Southern India ...

, in the Political Department. He also served in the Secretariat of the Indian Board of Revenue. Upon his retirement in 1900, he was Commissioner of Allahabad.''Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review''. II:2. April 1901. np. While serving in India, he published several articles on Indian politics and culture, and on the progress of the central states of India. In 1888, his article on "Progress and Prospects of Native States of Central India" was published in the ''Asiatic Quarterly Review.'' After retirement, he maintained his interest in India Affairs: he regularly attended the meetings of the East India Society, a group of civil servants and military men who had served in the Far East and India, and of which he was a member of the governing council. In 1901, he presented a paper, ''The Indian Sectarists and their Relation to the Administration'', which was published in the Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review. In 1907, during the civil turmoil in India, he wrote to the editor of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' (London) to clarify the problems faced by local police forces in maintaining civil order in the Indian Provinces.

Military historian

On his retirement from the Indian Civil Service, his interest in the

led him to seek out studies of the European campaigns. The lack of English language studies on the wars, particularly the campaigns of 1806 and 1807, encouraged him to write both ''Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia 1806'' and ''Napoleon's campaign in Poland, 1806–1807''.Petre. ''...campaign in Poland...'', pp. ii, viii. The latter, originally published in 1910, has been reprinted in several additions, the most recent in 2001 by Stackpole and Greenwood Press. His ''Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia 1806,'' first published in 1901, entered three editions: in 1907, by J. Lane and in 1914; its 1907 and subsequent editions contained an introduction by the Field Marshal

Earl Roberts Earl Roberts, of Kandahar in Afghanistan and Pretoria in the Transvaal Colony and of the City of Waterford, was a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1901 for Field Marshal Frederick Roberts, 1st Earl Roberts, Frederic ...

. Both of these campaigns, Petre surmised, were Napoleon's greatest achievements: never again did he organize so great a campaign, nor did his political or military power reach such heights. Similarly, his ''Napoleon & the Archduke Charles; a history of the Franco-Austrian campaign in the valley of the Danube in 1809'' reflected the dearth of English language material on the subject. For Petre, the campaign was of particular interest as the one of two campaigns in which Napoleon was opposed by arguably his most able continental opponent. In 1809, that opponent was the

Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen Archduke Charles Louis John Joseph Laurentius of Austria, Duke of Teschen (german: link=no, Erzherzog Karl Ludwig Johann Josef Lorenz von Österreich, Herzog von Teschen; 5 September 177130 April 1847) was an Austrian field-marshal, the third s ...

; the other campaign, in Italy 1797, that opponent was

Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser Dagobert Sigismund, Count von Wurmser (7 May 1724 – 22 August 1797) was an Austrian field marshal during the French Revolutionary Wars. Although he fought in the Seven Years' War, the War of the Bavarian Succession, and mounted several succes ...

. His son Roderick assisted with the map-making.Petre. ''Archduke Charles'', p. v–vi. The volume entered three reprints–1916, 1976, 1989—and a second edition in 1991, reprinted in 2001, reflected the ongoing fascination with the Napoleonic wars. Both ''Napoleon's last campaign in Germany, 1813'' and ''Napoleon at Bay 1814,'' were translated immediately into German, and both had 1970s reprints. In ''Napoleon's Last Campaign'', Petre posits that the Emperor Napoleon abandoned the guiding principles of his previous success, which lay in his relentless pursuit of his opponent's main army. In the Saxon Campaign, Napoleon lost sight of his primary objectives, becoming mired in secondary achievements. Petre noted also the vast increase in sheer numbers, on both sides of the contest, and predicted that in terms of numbers, "we must wait for the wars of tomorrow to see those numbers exceeded."

interrupted his work as a military historian; he was recalled from retirement to work in the Finance office of the Munitions Ministry. On 26 March 1920, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire. Petre wrote a two-volume history of the Norfolk Regiment, the second volume of which was published a month before his death. In addition, he also wrote histories of the Royal Berkshire Regiment (Royal Berks), the 1st Gurkha Rifles, and the ''Scots Guards in the Great War 1914–1918''. His regimental histories also included ''The 1st, King George's Own, Gurkha Rifles-The Malaun Regiment, 1815–1921''. Petre also wrote two books on

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...

, responding to the need for investors to find additional information in a convenient form in English. In it, he maintained, he simply collated information and in his tour of the country he remained on what he called "the beaten tracks", principal cities, and the countryside. Furthermore, he maintained, he used statistical information supplied by the President of Columbia. The book includes photographs that he took himself. His second book on South America was ''Simon Bolivar—El Libertador; a life of the chief leader in the revolt against Spain in Venezuela, New Granada and Peru.''

List of books

* ''Napoleon's conquest of Prussia 1806–1807,'' London: S. Low, 1901. OCLC: 457586317. * ''Napoleon's Campaign in Poland, 1806–1807.'' London: John Lane, 1907. OCLC: 504519385 * ''Napoleon & the Archduke Charles; a history of the Franco-Austrian campaign in the valley of the Danube in 1809''. London, J. Lane; New York, J. Lane Co., 1909

908 __NOTOC__ Year 908 ( CMVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * May 15 – The three-year-old Constantine VII, the son of Emperor L ...

OCLC: 511002. * ''Napoleon's last campaign in Germany, 1813,'' London & New York, John Lane Co., 1912. OCLC: 3677122. * ''Napoleon at bay 1814.'' New York, John Lane Co., 1914. OCLC: 503529 and OCLC: 252434389.

References

Notes and citations

Sources

; Periodicals * "Death of Right Honourable Lord Petre." ''The Ipswich Journal.'' ( Ipswich, England), Saturday, 6 July 1850; Issue 5800. * "Births." ''The Aberdeen Journal'' (Aberdeen, Scotland), Wednesday, 3 March 1852; Issue 5434. * "Births." '' The Era'' (London, England), Sunday, 30 August 1857; Issue 988. *"Marriage of the Earl of Granard." ''The Belfast News-Letter'' (

Belfast, Ireland Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

), Saturday, 6 September 1873; Issue 55738. *"Indian Civil Service Competition." ''

The Pall Mall Gazette ''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed in ...

'' (London, England), Saturday, 27 April 1872; Issue 2247. * "Library Table". ''The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post'' (Bristol, England), Monday, 2 July 1888; Issue 12523. * "The Quarterlies." ''

Glasgow Herald ''The Herald'' is a Scottish broadsheet newspaper founded in 1783. ''The Herald'' is the longest running national newspaper in the world and is the eighth oldest daily paper in the world. The title was simplified from ''The Glasgow Herald'' in ...

'' (Glasgow, Scotland), Thursday, 2 August 1888; Issue 184. * "Death of the Earl of Bantry." ''Manchester Times'' (

Manchester, England Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

). Friday, 4 December 1891; Issue 1792. * F. Loraine Petre (obituary). ''

'', Monday, 11 May 1925; pg. 8; Issue 43958; col C. ; Databases *''Census Returns of England and Wales, 1861.'' Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1861. Data imaged from the National Archives, London, England. Class: RG9; Piece: 458; Folio: 82; Page: 11; GSU roll: 542642. *''Census Returns of England and Wales, 1871.'' Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1871. Class: RG10; Piece: 161; Folio: 83; Page: 34; GSU roll: 823299.& *''Census Returns of England and Wales, 1881.'' Kew, Surrey, England: The National Archives of the UK (TNA): Public Record Office (PRO), 1881. Class: RG11; Piece: 47; Folio: 116; Page: 43; GSU roll: 1341011. * Scotland. ''1851 Scotland Census.'' Reels 1–217. General Register Office for Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland. Parish: Barony; ED: 54; Page: 2; Line: 26; Roll 389; Year: 1851 ; Books * Lodge, Edmund. ''The peerage of the British empire as at present existing.'' London: Saunders and Otley, 1850, OCLC 457524910. * Petre, F. Loraine. ''Napoleon's conquest of Prussia 1806–1807,'' London: S. Low, 1901. OCLC: 457586317. * Petre, F. Loraine. ''Napoleon's Campaign in Poland, 1806–1807.'' London: John Lane, 1907. OCLC: 504519385 * Petre, F. Loraine. ''Napoleon & the Archduke Charles; a history of the Franco-Austrian campaign in the valley of the Danube in 1809''. London, J. Lane; New York, J. Lane Co., 1909

OCLC: 511002. * Petre, F. Loraine. ''Napoleon's last campaign in Germany, 1813,'' London & New York, John Lane Co., 1912. OCLC: 3677122. {{DEFAULTSORT:Petre, F. Loraine 1852 births 1925 deaths Francis Loraine Indian Civil Service (British India) officers English historians British military historians Members of Lincoln's Inn Officers of the Order of the British Empire Historians of the Napoleonic Wars