threatened in a most vulnerable place. For a time it seemed as though
we might lose India. The revolt of the native or sepoy army burst out
so suddenly--it was marked with such base treachery, disgraced by such
cold-blooded atrocities--that the world still shudders at the details.
The English were everywhere outnumbered; our hold on India depended
greatly on prestige; implicit faith had been placed in these very
mutineers. The force of white troops at hand was very small; very soon
Upper India was in the hands of the insurgents: only here and there
little groups, generally isolated and surrounded, fought with desperate
courage against overwhelming odds, almost against hope. No page in
our national annals is more glorious than that which enshrines the
heroism of those who then saved India. Not only were soldiers brave,
but civilians, unused to arms, showed dauntless pluck--frail women
performed, too, great deeds in defence of their honour.
Although the whole country was more or less involved in the struggle,
the principal interest was centred in the three great cities which were
the scene of the fiercest efforts: at Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow the
conflict was long-sustained. Delhi, the seat of the new Empire, was
thronged with mutineers from many neighbouring garrisons. It was held
by numbers of disciplined, well-armed troops, with powerful artillery,
to the use of which they had been fully trained, and it stood a long
siege in which, at first, owing to the weakness of our forces, the
besiegers were themselves besieged. But the little army was a band of
braves led by heroes. Such men as the Nicholsons and the Chamberlains
roused them to superhuman efforts; and when the place was captured,
after a three months’ siege, it was carried by the assault of four weak
columns of barely a thousand each.
Cawnpore was another large station, which fell at once into the power
of the miscreant, Nana Sahib, who has earned for himself undying
execration as the most cruel and unprincipled of our foes. But the
handful of Europeans would not easily yield; many were only women
and children; the fighting men were few; yet they held out in rough
entrenchments for nineteen days, standing a siege under the tropical
sun of June, and displaying a calm fortitude beyond all praise. Gentle
ladies gave their stockings to make cartridge-cases; they nursed the
wounded, fed the troops. One brave woman--a soldier’s wife--mounted
sentry, sword in hand, over a number of sepoy prisoners. The roll
of heroes was well filled at Cawnpore. Such soldiers as Moore (of
the 32nd), Jenkins, Mowbray Thomson; such civilians as Heberden and
Moncrieffe, make us proud of our race. Who shall forget the cool
courage of Delafosse, who stood over a tumbril of ammunition, the
woodwork of which had been set alight by the enemy’s fire--stood
over it in imminent peril, while he tore off the burning timbers,
and stifled the danger with earth? And yet the defenders could not
escape their fate. When resistance became hopeless, they capitulated
under promise of a safe conduct to Allahabad, and a general massacre
followed, from which only two or three of these devoted martyrs
escaped.
[Illustration: SIR JAMES OUTRAM.]
The story of Lucknow is very similar; it is no less harrowing, but a
source of equal pride in our race. The siege of the Residency, into
which Sir Henry Lawrence retired with all his force and all their
dear ones, was protracted to the utmost limits of endurance. Lawrence
himself was struck down by an exploding shell; but the legacy he left
his comrades was the watchword “No surrender!” His dying words were:
“Let every man die at his post, but never make terms. God help the
women and children!” Lucknow held out till it was relieved by Havelock
and Outram in September, only to be again besieged when the relieving
force had got within the lines. It was not until November, when Sir
Colin Campbell advanced with all the reinforcements that could be
got together at Calcutta--bluejackets from the men-of-war, regiments
detained on their way to China, a small band of volunteer cavalry
recruited in the capital. He had to fight his way in. First, there was
the relief of the Alum Bagh, which was held, although the enemy were in
an entrenched position before it; then the capture of the Dilkhoosha
Palace; then the Martinière Palace, which the enemy occupied with guns
in position; after that the Secundra Bagh, where the 92nd and the Sikhs
raced up to the breach neck-and-neck. Other buildings were stormed--the
Mess House, the Moti Mahal--and from the latter an entrance was
effected into the Residency, which at last was relieved.
[Illustration: SIR HENRY HAVELOCK.]
Assuredly there has been no falling off in the spirit of the British
soldier, singly or collectively, whatever his rank. Our most recent
military annals record episodes as gallant and as creditable to the
pluck and manhood of our race as any that have gone before. Every
form of courage has been displayed: reckless daring enterprise, calm
self-reliant heroism in the most despairing situations. Who shall
forget the 24th at Insandlwana, massacred to a man by the countless
Zulu hosts? A brave, pitiless, but chivalrous foe, who could pay
the following tribute to their fearless demeanour in that unequal
conflict: “Ah, those red soldiers! How few they were, and how they
fought! They fell like stones, each man in his place.” There is
nothing finer, again, in war than the manner in which another British
regiment--the 66th (Berkshire)--met death to a man at Maiwand, in
Afghanistan. The general reporting it wrote that “history does not
afford a grander instance of devotion to Queen and country.” The
66th, although outnumbered a hundred to one, received undaunted the
furious attacks of the Ghazis or Mohammedan fanatics vowed to slay the
infidel, and were gradually slaughtered till only eleven officers and
men remained. This small band stood back to back, unconquerable, still
facing and keeping the foe at bay, until they were finally shot down
from a distance.
Another famous story is that of Rorke’s Drift, when two young
subalterns, Chard and Bromhead, holding a river ford which was the only
possible line of retreat for Lord Chelmsford’s force, were threatened
by overwhelming numbers. The Zulus were quite 3,000 strong, and the
little English garrison no more than 139, of whom thirty-five were
on the sick list. But there was no thought of surrender. A line of
trenches was hastily contrived with biscuit-boxes and flour-bags,
behind which our men fought gallantly the whole night through. At one
time the hospital was a sheet of fire, and the feeble breastwork had
been penetrated in more than one place. But the garrison never quailed:
their heroic subaltern leaders never despaired, and they had beaten off
their assailants when at daylight relief arrived.
The only parallel to Rorke’s Drift is the gallant defence of Arrah
during the Indian Mutiny, when a handful of English civilians defended
a detached two-storeyed house for seven days against an army of sepoy
mutineers. The collector, Mr. Wake, with fifteen other civilians, fifty
Sikh police and one faithful Mohammedan, composed the garrison, and the
assailants numbered 3,000, with two field-pieces. They had but little
food, a motley lot of arms, unlimited ammunition, and there was not a
military man among them. But they held out till they were relieved by
a man as gallant as themselves, Major Vincent Eyre, who was ascending
the Ganges with a battery of artillery when he heard of the siege. He
steamed back at once to Buxar, collected a small force of infantry,
154 bayonets in all, marched fifty miles to Arrah, was met by the
enemy, twenty times his strength, but at once attacked them, and put
them to flight. The sepoys could not face us in the open, even in such
disproportionate numbers.
[Illustration: “‘THIS GUN BELONGS TO MY REGIMENT--2ND
GOORKHA, PRINCE OF WALES’S!’”]
The spirit shown collectively has, perhaps, been outdone by
individuals. Endless instances of personal heroism exhibited singly
might be quoted. What British boy can read without a thrill of the
little Scotch drummer on the march with Roberts to Cabul, who, weary
and footsore, refused to fall out, saying, “Nae, nae, I’ll nae fall
out till I’ve washed my hands in the waters of the Caspian”? What of
Major White, of the 92nd Highlanders, the present commander-in-chief in
India, who cried to his men in the battle of Candahar: “Highlanders!
will you take those guns”--which were galling them terribly--“if I give
you the lead?” What of the men who followed him to their very mouth?
What, especially, of the little Goorkha warrior who went up with his
Scotch friends, and who took one of the first of the guns, shouting as
he thrust his cap into the muzzle in sign of proprietorship, “This gun
belongs to _my_ regiment--2nd Goorkha, Prince of Wales’s!” What
of Sergeant Cox, of the 72nd, bringing in wounded officers to Sherpur,
and who, with only ten men, faced the whole garrison of the Bala Hissar
and forced his way through, advancing firing, till the enemy broke and
fled? The _dhoolie_ bearers (the natives carrying the officers)
would have set down their loads and fled, but Cox threatened to shoot
them if they did not do their duty. Sergeant Cox, by his coolness
and intrepidity, set such a good example that his men seconded him
admirably, and all the wounded were brought in safe to the cantonments.
Cox had already received the distinguished service medal for his
gallantry in the campaign.
* * * * *
We have, of course, no monopoly in brilliant feats of arms. Other
nations have shown equal prowess, whether against us or each other.
Bravery, indeed, will never go out of fashion; the will and power to
show it, as well as the spirit to appreciate it, may be met with in
every civilised country. Other nations, moreover, have been tried
more seriously than ourselves in longer, larger, and more portentous
struggles. France sacrificed much treasure and many men in assisting
the Italians to throw off the Austrian yoke, and the campaign of 1859
was distinguished by at least two great battles. Both are, perhaps,
better remembered by the colours called after them; but Magenta was a
narrowly lost battle, and Solferino was gained by the devoted gallantry
of the French troops. Austria was an intruder, and had no heart in the
struggle.
[Illustration: THE MAORI WAR: ATTACK UPON THE ORAKAO BAH.]
The War of Secession between the Northern and Southern States of
America was a deplorable civil struggle fought out to the bitter
end, but it was full of pregnant military lessons, full of strange
vicissitudes in which victory inclined to either side, of tremendous
conflicts over a vast extent of country. It was a war which embraced
almost a whole continent: the whole of America was affected, from the
gulf of Mexico to the Rocky Mountains. The campaigns and battles were
commensurate with the territory affected. In the first instance the
two capitals of the opponents--Washington and Richmond--were chiefly
threatened. Both lay comparatively near their respective frontiers;
both were in imminent danger more than once. McClellan, after
Fredericksburg was in striking distance of Richmond and Lee, but for
Gettysburg, would have swooped down on Washington.
But as General Grant rose in fame and authority through his splendid
successes in the west, he urged upon the Federal Government the
necessity for more comprehensive operations. The Confederates, as the
Southerners were called, could only be conquered by something like
extermination; they must be attacked with equal vigour on every line,
isolated alike from supplies and from supports. The North commanded
endless resources, unlimited credit, the means of purchasing recruits
without number, any quantity of munitions of war. The South, shut in
within narrow limits, saw its population drained of fighting men, and
was dependent upon blockade runners for powder and shot. Grant was
absolutely right, as the end proved. When Sherman, having triumphed
in the west, made the famous flank march from Atlanta to the sea,
he could swing round and threaten Richmond from the south. This
was the beginning of the end. Grant now reaped the benefit of his
long-protracted, bitterly-contested campaign in the “Wilderness,” north
of Richmond, and the armies closing round Richmond, the surrender of
Lee became inevitable, and the Confederacy collapsed.
The war had brought forward many heroes, and several great commanders:
Grant, Lee, “Stonewall” Jackson--the name he earned, some say (for
there is another version of the story), because once, when hardly
pressed, he said his men would stand like a stone wall--Stuart, the
Southern cavalry raider; Sheridan, a cavalry leader, hardly inferior
to Seidlitz or Murat; Sherman, Johnson, Hooker, and many more. Some of
them were recurring types--Grant, silent as Moltke, and as tenacious
and prescient; Robert Lee, the patriot soldier, who thought only of
his country, a man of duty like Wellington; Jackson, who might have
been a Puritan Cromwellian, praying and fighting by turns, a Charles
Gordon in his absolute trust in Divine help, an Ironsides in his
eagerness to smite the foe. The rank and file comprised all classes
of the community--artisans, handicraftsmen, scientists--and not the
least remarkable features in the war were its engineering achievements:
miles of road made in a single night, bridges built, forests removed,
extensive entrenchments thrown up as if by magic when the order was
given.
The “Seven Weeks’ War,” as it has been styled by its historian,
Colonel H. M. Hozier, was the first of the short, sharp, and decisive
conflicts which are to be the rule in modern campaigns. It was between
the Prussians and the Austrians, and it was fought for the future
supremacy in the great empire of Germany. Before it no one knew how
marvellously the Prussians had improved in the science and practice of
war; how admirably their troops were trained, how splendidly armed,
and with weapons of the newest invention. Still less was it expected
that untried Prussian leaders would develop such unexpectedly superior
generalship. From first to last this rapidly successful war was a
surprise. It was carried into the enemy’s country with extreme boldness
and celerity; the young soldiers of Prussia, under grey-haired but
mostly inexperienced officers, soon established a marked superiority
over Austrian veterans who had served in many hard-fought campaigns.
It was proved in the earliest engagements that the possession of the
needle-gun, the breech-loading rifle long carried by a portion of the
Prussian army, but never hitherto used, put the Austrians, with their
muzzle-loaders and their traditional belief in the bayonet, on very
unequal terms. In the fight Austrian soldiers could not stand before
the Prussians at all. Then the Prussian generals always out-manœuvred
the Austrian; they largely used a system of flanking attack, of turning
the enemy’s position at one end or side of it, while he was occupied
and engaged by another attack on the front.
These were the tactics that led to the crowning victory of Sadowa, or
Königgrätz, as it is sometimes called. After it the Austrians had no
hope of success, and a retreat began, which soon after was completed
by the ending of the war. At this battle the Austrians lost 40,000
men, the Prussians barely 6,000. Such is often the effect of superior
generalship and better _morale_.
Not the least interesting part of this great battle was that Englishmen
assisted in it as something more than mere spectators. The war
correspondents of the _Times_ on either side were both English
officers. Captain Hozier rode with the Crown Prince of Prussia through
the day, sharing his dangers as he noted the varying fortunes of the
fight. On the Austrian side, Colonel C. B. Brackenbury was close by
Benedek’s side from first to last; and the Austrian commander-in-chief,
in spite of his misfortunes, found time to ask for “his Englishman,”
and to praise him for his gallantry in facing the risks of the battle.
War is said to be full of surprises; and, again, that success is earned
by the general who makes fewest mistakes. Napoleon III felt the bitter
truth of both these sayings. The Franco-German war was a terrible
surprise to him, and both the Emperor and his generals made innumerable
mistakes. The French began by expecting a “walk over”--a parade march
to Berlin; they found they had caught a Tartar, and that they could
not keep the Germans out of France. Napoleon had been assured that
everything was ready for the campaign: not a “single button was wanting
on a single gaiter” was the boast of his War Minister, General Le Bœuf.
Yet, when the first blow was struck, inextricable confusion still
reigned within the French army--neither men nor supplies were properly
organised; while, from the very first collision, it was clear that
the science was all on the German side. Man to man, the French fought
as well as their opponents; but they were never manœuvred wisely nor
judiciously led.
On the other hand, from the moment war became inevitable, everything
worked with clocklike precision. It is said that von Moltke, the famous
chief of the Prussians, had only to touch a bell and all went forward.
Anyhow, the Prussians and their allies were quickly mobilised, and able
to take the field long before the French. The Crown Prince fell upon
the French general when still unprepared, won the first battle, and
held the advantage from then to the end.
It was a strategical advantage; in other words, the general movements
of the armies put them in superior strength at decisive points, and
this secured success all along the line.
[Illustration: [_Photo.: Reichard & Lindner, Berlin._
FREDERICK, CROWN PRINCE OF PRUSSIA (AFTERWARDS GERMAN
EMPEROR).]
Marshal MacMahon, beaten at Worth, had to retire, and become separated
both from Bazaine about Metz and the army of the South. In between,
the “Red Prince,” with the 1st German army, held Bazaine; and, after
a series of fierce conflicts, the famous battles of Vionville,
Gravelotte, and Mars La Tour drove him under the walls of the great
fortress. MacMahon, frantic to regain communication with Bazaine,
made a long detour--a dangerous flank march, as it was called--and
found himself “headed off” at Sedan, with the Germans circling round
him, and the neutral territory of Belgium, which he was forbidden to
enter, in his rear. The surrender of the French army at Sedan, with the
Emperor Napoleon at its head, was a disaster from which France never
recovered. It was followed by the surrender of Metz and the whole of
Bazaine’s army. Within five weeks France had been defeated in eight
pitched battles; the bulk of the French regular troops were prisoners
of war. France was not yet conquered. While the Germans pressed on to
invest Paris--while their armies moved north, south, and west--the new
Government which had replaced the fallen Emperor made the most heroic
and unheard-of efforts to improvise new levies. To place recruits
and moblots--youths half-trained and inexperienced civilians--in
the front line against regular troops flushed with victory, seemed
hopeless enough. It is to the undying credit of the French nation
that it was able to maintain the struggle for so many months longer,
and to the sturdy patriotism of such men as Thiers and Gambetta, who
never despaired. France fought it out alone: she had no allies, or the
result might have been different. There are those who say that the
intervention of a couple of English army corps in favour of France
would have changed the situation. But it was not our quarrel, and
England could not have thrown her weight into the scale, except on the
most sentimental and insufficient grounds.
Nearly five-and twenty years have elapsed since this great struggle
occurred, and its legacy of hate still rankles unappeased. France is
once more as strong as her late foe--stronger, perhaps--and she is
still pining to regain her provinces and her prestige. It may be that
her rulers and her people are loth to be the first to draw the sword:
the cost of unsuccessful war is a dear price in these latter days; and
when she fights again it will be at the most fitting opportunity, when
chance and a better cause than last time may be on her side. But that
she will fight some day is nearly certain; and it is this conviction
which keeps Europe on tenter-hooks, and converts the whole Continent
into a standing camp.
England, happily, has been spared any life and death contest, any war
on the gigantic scale of the foregoing. But while her neighbours have
been at each other’s throats, she has been engaged in numerous “little
wars”--wars misnamed little, indeed, for the issues have often been
immense and the efforts made most severe. In an empire so extensive
as ours, causes of conflict abound, and fighting must be frequent.
Since the Crimea and the Indian Mutiny, we have had at least half a
dozen campaigns. A diplomatic war with China, a war for supremacy
in New Zealand, a war for the deliverance of captives in Abyssinia,
of retaliation in Ashanti, of self-defence in Zululand, against
a too-powerful neighbour, of aggression followed by “scuttle” in
Afghanistan, of interference in Egypt, followed by the dire necessities
of occupation.
[Illustration:
[_Photo: Fradelle & Young, Regent Street._
SIR GARNET (AFTERWARDS VISCOUNT) WOLSELEY.]
In many of these the chief work lay in combating the physical and
climatic difficulties. There was not much fighting in the march to
Magdala, but it was a stupendous undertaking to convey a British
army across the “mountains of Rasselas,” to the nearly inaccessible
stronghold of King Theodore. When Sir Robert Napier reached his goal,
his troops had only four days’ rations left, other than meat, and
everything had been carried up from the sea on mule- or donkey-back.
In Ashanti there was the same urgency as regards supplies, but as no
four-legged animals will live on the Gold Coast, the only means of
conveyance was on the heads of native men and women. The organisation
of transport was one of the greatest, although not the only difficulty.
There was also the climate, which was at times, and in most places,
pestilential. There was the absence of all means and appliances, almost
of food, and there was the certainty of encountering a brave, if
savage, enemy in the field. How well the Ashantis fought was shown by
their stubborn stand at Amoaful, and again in front of Coomassie.
The most trying phases of the campaign were those anticipatory to the
arrival of the white troops. A small and select band of staff-officers,
under the then new and little tried General Sir Garnet Wolseley, were
sent out to prepare the way, to make roads and bridges, secure native
allies, carriers, and last, not least, to hold their own as best they
could against the enemy, who was close at hand and threatening the
very existence of the Cape Coast Colony. Within five months the whole
of the arrangements were completed; two good black regiments had been
organised and drilled under Colonels Evelyn Wood and Baker Russell,
Rait’s artillery was an effective body, and with these and a few
sailors and marines from the fleet, the Ashantis had been driven back
to the bush.
A good hard road had been made to the Prah, a rapid river which the
engineers--under the indefatigable Colonel Home--had bridged, and when
the English regiments arrived they had simply to go in and win. Two
sharp engagements checked their progress, but only for a time, and
Coomassie fell directly our army arrived before it.
[Illustration: THE “BLACK WATCH” (42ND ROYAL
HIGHLANDERS) AT BAY AT QUATRE BRAS.
(_From the Painting by W. B. Wollen, R.I._)]