ceived the war medal with three clasps and the bronze star, and on 22 Feb. 1881 was promoted a knight commander of the order of the Bath, military division.
On 30 March 1881 he was appointed a brigadier-general under Sir Frederick Roberts, to command the base and line of communications in Natal in the operations proposed to be undertaken after the defeat at Majuba Hill against the Boers of the Transvaal; but the government having decided to conclude an armistice, with a view to the arrangement of terms of peace. Baker saw no active service, and returned to England the following September. On 1 April 1882 he was appointed deputy quartermaster-general in Ireland, and on 3 Sept. deputy adjutant-general in Ireland. On 10 Oct. 1884 he was nominated adjutant-general in the East Indies, with the local rank of major-general. He served in the Burmese expedition of 1886 and 1887, and was mentioned in despatches (ib. 2 Sept. 1887). On 15 Feb. 1887 he was given the command of a division of the Bengal army, which he held until 1890, when he was brought home to fill the post at the Horse Guards of quartermaster-general to the forces. His appointment dated from 1 Oct. 1890, and on 29 April 1891 he was made a temporary lieutenant-general. On 15 June 1892 he received a good service pension. He died of dropsy at Pau on 9 Feb. 1893, after a brief illness, while on leave of absence from his war-office duties. He was buried in Bishop's Tawton churchyard, Devonshire, on 18 Feb.
[War Office Records; Despatches; Times, 10 and 20 Feb. 1893; Lord Roberts's Forty Years' Service in India; Fox's New Zealand War, 1863-4; Carey's War in New Zealand; Alexander's Bush Fighting in Maori War, New Zealand; Shadbolt's Afghan Campaign of 1878-1880; Ashe's Kandahar Campaign; Kinglake's Hist. of the Crimean War; Brackenbury's Ashanti War.]
BAKER, VALENTINE, afterwards known as Baker Pacha (1827–1887), cavalry officer, a younger brother of Sir Samuel Baker [q. v.], was born on 1 April 1827 at Enfield. He was educated at the college school, Gloucester, and afterwards under a private tutor and abroad, and sailed with his brother's party for Newera Eliya in Ceylon in September 1848. He entered the army as an ensign in the Ceylon rifles in 1848, but was transferred to the 12th lancers in 1852, and took part in the Kaffir war (1852-3) with his regiment, when he distinguished himself for gallantry in action at Berea. During the Crimean war he was present at the battle of Tchernaya and at the siege and fall of Sevastopol. On obtaining his majority in 1859 he exchanged into the 10th hussars, and was appointed to command the regiment in 1860. During his command, which lasted for thirteen years, he succeeded in developing an extraordinary degree of efficiency in his men. In 1858 he had published a pamphlet on the British cavalry, with remarks on its practical organisation, and in 1860 he wrote on the national defences. His writings and the excellent condition of his regiment gained for him a reputation as an authority on cavalry tactics. During the Austro-Prussian and Franco-German wars he was present as a spectator, and during the latter was for a short time imprisoned on the suspicion of being a German spy. In 1873 he travelled through the Persian province of Khorasan, starting in April and arriving on his return at St. Petersburg in December. He failed in his attempt to reach Khiva, but collected a quantity of valuable military information, which he published in a volume entitled 'Clouds in the East' (London, 1876, 8vo), to which was added a political and strategical report on Central Asia. This work was one of the first successful attempts of its kind to draw public attention to the advance of Russia in Central Asia. In 1874 he was given the appointment of assistant quartermaster-general at Aldershot.
Baker's promising career in the English army came to a regrettable close in 1875 when he was convicted (2 Aug. 1875) at the Croydon assizes of indecently assaulting a young lady in a railway carriage on the preceding 17 June. He was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment and a fine of 500l. {Times, 3 Aug. 1875). He was consequently dismissed the army, 'her majesty having no further occasion for his services.'
On the occasion of the Russo-Turkish war (1877-8) Baker took service under the sultan, in the first instance as major-general of gendarmerie. But in August 1877, at the request of Mehemet Ali Pasha, he was appointed staff military adviser at the Turkish entrenched camp of Shumla. Subsequently he was given command of a division in the Balkans. With extraordinary skill, in the face of an immensely superior Russian force, he fought at Tashkessan one of the most brilliant and successful rearguard actions on record. In command of little more than two thousand effective troops he maintained an all-important position for ten hours and a half against the Russian guards under General Gourko. During this unequal conflict the heroic Prizrend and Touzla battalions lost more than half their strength. By this
