Miller, Stephen M. 1964-

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Miller, Stephen M. 1964-

PERSONAL: Born 1964. Education: Tufts University, B.A., 1987; New York University, M.A., 1990; University of Connecticut, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of History, University of Maine, 5774 Stevens Hall, Room 255, Orono, ME 04469-5774. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: University of Maine, Orono, assistant professor of history.

AWARDS, HONORS: Roderick Murchison Memorial Prize, South African Military Historical Society, for "Lord Methuen and the British Advance to the Modder River."

WRITINGS:

Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa, Frank Cass (Portland, OR), 1999.

Contributor to journals, including Military History Journal.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A study of volunteer services in late Victorian South Africa.

SIDELIGHTS: Stephen M. Miller's Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa focuses on the British army and the Boer War of 1899 to 1902. Miller focuses on the career of the junior officer and career soldier who bought his commission in the Scots Fusilier Guards in 1867. Methuen served at home and abroad, including in Germany, Egypt, and India, before he was appointed commander of the 1st Division in the Boer War. Andrew Porter noted in the Times Literary Supplement that "it thus became Methuen's misfortune to bear responsibility for the relief of Boer-besieged Kimberley and its highly visible, not to say petulant, occupant, Cecil Rhodes." Methuen fought three increasingly difficult battles at Belmont, Graspan, and Modder River, then failed to overcome the Boers at Magersfontein, one of three serious British defeats that included losses at Colenso and Stormberg during the "Black Week" of December 10 to 15, 1899.

Miller notes the limitations of Methuen's military training and available resources, including inadequate maps, inefficient tactics, and the lack of mounted troops; these were all a result of a government that failed to prepare for the conflict. Porter said that in Miller's study, Methuen "comes out quite well" due to his resourcefulness, consideration of both his own troops and the enemy, and for his high level of organization. Because of these qualities, Methuen's career was not destroyed, and he remained in South Africa, further challenged by insufficient support as he attempted to pacify the Western Transvaal. Carman Miller wrote in the Journal of Military History that "Miller's assessment of the British Army's failure is not novel. His carefully researched, informed, well-written case study of Lord Methuen, however, provides a trenchant and convincing example of that failure. It also helps to restore Methuen's historical reputation."

Miller's historical research has continued; his upcoming project explores volunteer services in the late Victorian age, what patriotism meant to the late Victorians, how the volunteers were perceived by the British and Afrikaners, and how public perception shaped the volunteers' identity as soldiers and citizens. He draws on the growing literature that explores the cultural history of the late Victorian period and which reexamines the historical constructions of class, imperialism, and nationalism.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of Military History, July, 2000, Carman Miller, review of Lord Methuen and the British Army: Failure and Redemption in South Africa, p. 860.

Times Literary Supplement, July 2, 1999, Andrew Porter, review of Lord Methuen and the British Army, p. 30.