Francis Rawdon Chesney

Francis Rawdon Chesney ( born March 16, 1789 in Annalong in Northern Ireland, † January 30, 1872 in Newry and Mourne ) was a British general and researchers.

Life and work

Francis Rawdon Chesney was a pioneer of the overland route from Europe to India. In 1815 he was named after his education at the Military Academy in Woolwich, to the Captain of Artillery, and served on it for some time in Gibraltar. In 1829 he visited the battlefields of the just concluded by France, Great Britain and Russia supported the Greek War of Independence against the Turks. This journey led him in 1854 to be significant historical work "Narrative of the Russo - Turkish campaigns of 1828-29 " to published.

From Turkey to Chesney went to Asia Minor and Egypt, to solve the problem of a direct steamship connection with India, and handed on October 20, 1830 at the British government issued a report, in which he advocated the piercing of the isthmus of Suez. This report was ignored and was not until the construction of the Suez Canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps was already in the making, brought by a London journalist to light.

Chesney continued his research journey through the deserts of Arabia and Palestine continued, reached the Euphrates at Anah, in today's Iraq, and rode the stream on a self- built raft down to the Persian Gulf, where he arrived in January 1831. About this travel reimbursed Chesney 1833 report to the Ministry, after which he was appointed head of an expedition was transferred, through which penetrated to the Euphrates and the Indian Ocean in 1835 through the middle of Arabia and determined the feasibility of postal communication with India on the Euphrates and Tigris.

Chesney was in 1855 appointed Major-General in 1860, he became lieutenant- general in 1866. He died in 1872 at his country house in Ireland.

Works

• Observations on the past and present state of firearms, etc. (London 1852)
• The expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris (London 1856, 2 vols )
• Narrative of the Russo - Turkish campaigns of 1828-29