Fighting Mac: The Downfall of Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald

On a spring morning in 1903, Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, one of Britain's greatest military heroes, took his life in a hotel room in Paris. A few days later he was buried hastily in an Edinburgh cemetery as his fellow countrymen tried to come to terms with the fact that one of Scotland's most famous soldiers had ended his life rather than face charges against his character. The suicide and its aftermath created a national scandal and one which still reverberates long after those dramatic events—it is now clear that the official files dealing with his case, the papers of the Judge Advocate, have been destroyed. Fighting Mac tells the true story behind his disgrace and sheds new light on the myths and legends which grew up after his death. It also provides a compelling insight into what it was like for a ranker like Macdonald to enter the privileged territory of the officers mess in an elite Highland regiment, The Gordon Highlanders. Finally it examines the political and military background to Queen Victoria's little wars of empire and the conditions facing the ordinary soldier at home and abroad.