[4] Townshend was a well-known "playboy" officer in his youth, famous for his womanizing, drinking, for playing the banjo while singing very bawdy songs and for spending an excessive amount of his time in the music halls.
[7] As a Royal Marine officer, he strictly speaking should not had been part of an Army expedition, but he wrote to Field Marshal Garnet Wolsely asking if he could go, and his request was granted.
[7] The power of the press and its ability to rouse public opinion in favour of heroic generals besieged by Islamic fanatics was noted by Townshend at the time.
[5] The American historian John Semple Galbraith wrote that "Townshend was an inveterate self-advertiser, constantly and actively promoting his own brilliance in the hope of recognition by a grateful country, preferably in the form of a KCB.
"[9] A passionate Francophile who spoke fluent French, Townshend preferred to be addressed as "Alphonse" – something which often annoyed his colleagues, who regarded his "Frenchified" manners as extremely snobbish and off-putting.
[5] Sean McKnight, the Deputy Head of War Studies at Sandhurst, called him "just about the most dramatically ambitious senior officer I think I've ever come across.
[15] In 1894, while commanding the newly built fort at Gupis, he entertained the visiting George Curzon, "through a long evening with French songs to the accompaniment of a banjo.
[4] The North-West Frontier of India comprised what is now the "badlands" that make up the border between today's Pakistan and Afghanistan, a remote, backward area inhibited by Muslim Pashtun hill tribes that were in a state of more or less permanent low-level warfare with the tribes on the British side of the frontier, constantly revolting against the authority of the Raj under the banner of jihad, while raiders from Afghanistan were crossing over to wage jihad against the British infidels.
The British never fully controlled the North-West Frontier, and from 2 March – 20 April 1895 an Indian force under the command of Captain Townshend sent to maintain a friendly ruler in remote Chitral was besieged instead by the local tribesmen.
[17] After being defeated by the tribesmen following an attempt to storm the village, despite being outnumbered, Townshend ordered a retreat into the fort, writing: We had a long way to go; and from all the hamlets as we approached Chitral we were fired into from orchards and houses right and left, front and rear!
"[15] After a siege of forty-six days by Muslim Hunza tribesmen, the fortress was relieved by Captain Fenton Aylmer, and Townshend returned to Britain a national hero.
[10] Upon his return to London, Townshend had dinner with Queen Victoria at Buckingham Palace, who publicly thanked him as a hero of the recent campaign, an experience that helped to increase the size of his already ample ego.
[10] Afterwards, he was personally made a member of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath by Queen Victoria, which was a rare honor for a captain in the Indian Army.
[17] His fame allowed him to develop friendships with the two social groups whose approval he most craved-the aristocracy and actors, especially the stars of the West End theatre scene.
[17] During battles with the Islamic fundamentalist Ansar of the Sudan from 1896 to 1899, culminating in Omdurman, he was promoted by Kitchener to major and was mentioned in dispatches for outstanding bravery for the fourth and fifth time.
All the tribes danced to the music of tom-toms and the accompaniment of singing in perfect time....In the end they all got very drunk [men and women] and abandoned themselves to fiercer orgies.
[21]Thoughts of Cahen D'Anvers only took up part of his time as Townshend often found engaged in fierce fighting with the Ansar as he wrote about the Battle of Atbara on 8 April 1898 that: Alternately firing and rushing forward, I rapidly approached the Dervish position.
He has repainted the map from Halfa to Khartoum, and has thrown open wide the gate to the mysteries of Central Africa and the Lakes.
The masses of the enemy began rushing and cheering, the Emirs leading them with flags just as one sees with the Pathans on the North-West Frontier of India.
I now began to think that it would not do to wait until this mass got much closer, so I sang out for sights to be put at 600 yards, and then opened with heavy independent fire, and in a short while our line was all smoke and a ceaseless rattle of Martini rifles.
Struck by a leaden tempest, they bundled over in heaps, and soon they stood huddled over in groups under the retaining power of the Martini Henry.
[5] After Omdurman, he went to France and on 22 November 1898 married Alice Cahen D'Anvers in a Church of England ceremony at Chậteau de Champs, despite the fact she was Jewish.
[17] The Second Boer War began in October 1899, and Townshend left England to go to South Africa, which was a violation of the rules, as he held a commission the Indian Army at the time and should have returned to India.
[22] Townshend left Southampton on board the SS Armenian in early February 1900,[23] and it was announced a couple of days later that he had been "selected for employment on special service in South Africa".
[24] He was appointed Assistant Adjutant General on the staff of the Military Governor for the Orange Free State in 1900 and then transferred to the Royal Fusiliers later that year.
[25] He was supposed to be researching possible invasion routes by which the United States might invade Canada, which led him to travel the length and breath of Canada, but most of his time was spent in the province of Quebec researching the role of his famous ancestor, George Townshend, 1st Marquess Townshend, in fighting the French in the Seven Years' War for a biography he was writing.
[4] On 4 May 1911 during a visit to Paris, Townshend met Foch, who was quite critical of British policy towards Europe, warning that Germany was out to dominate the world and was Britain prepared to take a stand or not?
Townshend wrote in his diary: General Foch asked me if I knew how many army corps the Germans will put into line....Did England contemplate the annexation of Belgium and the sea-board with equanimity?
In November 1914, the Ottoman Empire entered the war, and the Sultan-Caliph issued a declaration of jihad urging upon Muslims everywhere to fight against Britain, France and Russia.
[21] Townshend as a man who had proven he could command Indians successfully and as someone who knew the North-West Frontier well was being kept in India in case of trouble, much to his own fury as he desperately wanted to go join the British Expeditionary Force.