attempt, when the boats were towed in by the _Opossum_ and the
_Toey ’Wan_, a little Chinese steamer. Captain Shadwell took
command of the landing party, which was made up of bluejackets under
Captain Vansittart, and Commanders Heath and Commerell, R.N. Sixty
French sailors, under Commander Tricault, of the French frigate
_Duhalya_, the marines under Colonel Lemon, and a party of sappers
with scaling-ladders, under Major Forbes, R.E.
As the boats pulled in to the shore, the fire from the North Fort had
ceased, and only an occasional shot was fired from the long rampart
of the South Fort. The landing place was five hundred yards in front
of the right bastion of this fort. The tide had fallen so far that it
was not possible to get any nearer, and the column had to make its way
across these five hundred yards of mud covered with weeds and cut up
with ditches and pools, the ground being so soft in places that the men
sank to their waists in it. And as the first boat’s crew landed on this
mud bank, suddenly, to the surprise of everyone, the whole front of the
South Fort burst into flame.
The silence of its guns was only a clever _ruse_, to lure the
British to a closer attack. Now every gun opened fire again, while the
Chinese, regardless of the covering fire from the gunboats, crowded on
to the crest of the rampart, and opened fire with small arms upon the
landing party. As they struggled onwards to the river bank round shot
and grape, balls from swivels and muskets, rockets, and even arrows,
fell among them in showers. Captain Shadwell was one of the first to be
wounded; Vansittart fell, with one leg shattered by a ball; dead and
wounded men lay on all sides, and the wounded had to be carried back to
the boats to save them from being smothered in the mud.
Three broad ditches lay between the landing place and the fort.
Not 150 men reached the second of these, and only fifty the third,
which lay just below the rampart. Several of this gallant band were
officers--Tricault, the Frenchman, Commerell and Heath, Parke and
Hawkey of the Marines, and Major Forbes of the Engineers. Their
cartridges were nearly all wet and useless, and they had only one
scaling-ladder. It was reared against the rampart, and ten men were
climbing up it, when a volley from above killed three and wounded five
of them, and then the ladder was thrown down and broken. There was no
help for it but to retire.
It was now dark, but the Chinese burnt flaring blue lights and sent
up rockets and fire-balls, and by their light fired on their retiring
enemies. Sixty-eight men were killed and nearly 300 wounded, in the
advance and retreat of the landing party. Several of the boats had been
sunk, and many of the men had to wait up to their waists, and even
their necks, in water, on the river’s brink, till they could be taken
off.
It was 1 a.m. before Commanders Heath and Commerell, the two last of
the party, reembarked. Then the gunboats slipped down to the bar, a
party being sent in next day to blow up or burn those of the grounded
ships that could not be got off.
So ended the disastrous battle on the Pei ho. Next year an allied force
of British and French troops, under General Sir Hope Grant and General
de Montauban, taught the Chinese that, notwithstanding their victory
over Admiral Hope’s little gunboats, they were in no position to cope
with the great Powers of the West. While the allied fleets watched the
entrance of the river, 11,000 British and Indian troops and between
6,000 and 7,000 Frenchmen were landed at Peh-tang, some eight miles
north of Taku. A wide expanse of marshes separated Peh-tang from the
forts which were to be the first object of the allied operations; but
these obstacles were turned by a march inland, in which the allies
defeated the Chinese field-army at Sin-ho, on August 12th, and coming
down the north bank of the Pei-ho, seized the walled town of Tang-ku,
three miles above the forts, on the 14th.
These forts were four in number. There were, first, the North and South
Forts, which Admiral Hope had attacked the year before, and a little
higher up the river there were two others, known as the small North
Fort and the small South Fort. They stood on opposite banks of the
river, and were both alike--square structures enclosed by embattled
walls of sun-dried mud, a few heavier guns being placed on a high
platform in the centre, and the whole being surrounded with a double
ditch, full of water, too deep to ford. Between the inner ditch and the
rampart were broad belts of sharpened bamboo spikes, about fifteen feet
wide. The swampy nature of the country rendered the approach to the
forts difficult for artillery.
At first there was a difference of opinion between the two generals
as to how the forts were to be attacked. It was agreed that as they
were built to protect the river mouth, and their strongest fronts were
toward the sea, they should be assailed from the land side; but General
de Montauban wanted to cross the river, and take the great South Fort
first of all. Sir Hope Grant, however, insisted that a much better plan
would be to begin with the small North Fort, and predicted confidently
that if it were taken all the other forts would be quickly surrendered,
as each of them in turn could bring its fire to bear upon those still
in the hands of the Chinese. Happily, this plan was adopted, though
the French general was so dissatisfied with it that he only sent a few
hundred men to help in the attack of the fort, and came to look on
himself, without even wearing his sword, as if he wished to disclaim
all part in the business.
The swamps so narrowed the available ground in front of the small North
Fort that the attacking force was limited to 2,500 English and some 400
French. On the evening of the 20th of August, forty-four guns and three
8-inch mortars had been placed in battery before the fort.
At five a.m. on the 21st they began the bombardment, which was to
prepare the way for the storming party. The English fire soon began
to silence the Chinese guns, and about an hour after the bombardment
began, a shell from the mortar battery penetrated into one of the
magazines of the fort. It blew up with a deafening explosion, and so
dense was the cloud of smoke that settled down upon the scene of the
disaster, so utterly silent was every Chinese gun in the work, that at
first it seemed as if the fort had ceased to exist; but as the smoke
cleared the Chinese bravely reopened fire.
Down at the mouth of the river, Admiral Hope’s ships were once more
engaging the two outer forts; but this was done merely to keep their
garrisons well occupied, and to prevent them sending help to the
smaller fort. Here, too, fortune helped the British, and one of Hope’s
shells blew up a magazine in the South Fort, doing a fearful amount of
damage to its defenders.
Soon after six o’clock the storming column was ordered to advance
against the small North Fort, the English force being mainly composed
of the 44th and 67th regiments. In front of the column a party of
marines carried a pontoon-bridge for crossing the ditches; but as they
approached the walls they were met with such a heavy fire of musketry
that the attempt to bring up the pontoons was abandoned. Fifteen of the
men carrying them fell under a single volley.
The French had adopted a simpler plan. They had bamboo ladders, which
were carried for them by Chinese coolies. Heedless of the fire of their
own countrymen, the coolies laid the ladders across the ditches, and,
standing up to their necks in water, supported them while the Frenchmen
scrambled across. “These poor coolies behaved gallantly,” wrote Sir
Hope Grant in his journal, “and though some of them were shot down,
they never flinched in the least.” The fact is, that a Chinaman does
not seem to know what the fear of death is; and while these men were
exposing their lives for a few pence, their countrymen on the ramparts
were just as recklessly standing up on the very crest of the wall in
order to get a better shot at the stormers.
The English crossed the ditches, partly by swimming and struggling
through the muddy water, partly by the French ladders, partly over a
drawbridge which Major Anson of the Staff very gallantly brought into
use by crossing the ditch almost alone, and cutting through with his
sword the ropes that held it up.
The stormers were now crowded together between the inner ditch and the
rampart. The Chinese could no longer fire on them with their muskets,
but they dropped cannon shot, big stones, explosive grenades, jars of
lime, and stifling stink-pots on to their heads. The scaling ladders
were replaced against the rampart, but the Chinese caught them and
pulled them into the fort, or threw them down, spearing and shooting
all who mounted them.
[Illustration: “ROGERS GOT IN, HELPED UP BY LIEUTENANT
LENON” (_p._ 34).]
Men and officers tried to scramble in where the bombardment had broken
down the embrasures for the guns. One brave Frenchman reached the top
of the wall, fired his rifle at the Chinese, took another which was
handed up to him and fired it, and then fell speared through the face.
Another, pickaxe in hand tried to break down the top of the wall. He
was shot dead, but as he fell Lieutenant Burslem, of the 67th, seized
his pick and went on with the work.
He and his comrade--Lieutenant Rogers, of the same regiment (now
Major-General Rogers, V.C.)--climbed into an embrasure, only to be
thrown out; but Rogers got in through another, helped up by Lieutenant
Lenon, who made a stepping-place for him by driving the point of his
sword well into the mud wall, and holding up the hilt. Rogers helped
up Lenon and the others near at hand, and at the same time Fauchard, a
drummer of the French storming party, got in close by.
Behind him came the standard-bearer of his regiment (the 102nd of
the Line), and as the Chinese gave way there was a race between the
Frenchman and young Lieutenant Chaplin (now Major-General Chaplin,
V.C.), who carried the colours of the 67th, to see who would first get
a standard fixed on the top of the fort. Chaplin, though he was wounded
in three places, won this gallant race, and planted the British flag on
the high central battery of the fort.
“The poor Chinese now had a sad time of it,” writes Sir Hope Grant.
“They had fought desperately, and with great bravery, few of them
apparently having attempted to escape. Indeed, they could hardly have
effected their retreat by the other side of the fort. The wall was
very high, and the ground below bristled with innumerable sharp bamboo
stakes. Then intervened a broad deep ditch, another row of stakes, and
finally another ditch. The only regular exit--the gate--was barred by
ourselves. Numbers were killed, and I saw three poor wretches impaled
upon the stakes, and yet a considerable number succeeded in getting
off. The fort presented a terrible appearance of devastation, and
was filled with the dead and dying. The explosion of the magazine
had ruined a large portion of the interior. Many of the guns were
dismounted, and the parapets battered to pieces.”
The Chinese lost 400 men out of a garrison of 500. The English loss
was 21 killed and 184 wounded. The loss would have been heavier if
the Chinese had had better cartridges. Thus, for instance, Sir Robert
Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala), who led the advance of the
storming column, was hit in five places by bullets, but none of them
had force enough to do more than inflict a bruise.
The capture of the remaining forts was an easy matter. The smaller
South Fort, only 400 yards from the North Fort, and commanded by its
guns, was at once abandoned by the Chinese, and white flags were
hoisted on the two larger forts; but on the great North Fort being
summoned to surrender the garrison sent back a refusal. The guns of
the captured fort were turned on it; other guns were brought up from
the English batteries, and the attack was about to be begun by a
bombardment, when General Collineau, of the French army, noticing that
there was no one on the rampart nearest him, marched forward rapidly
with 600 men, sent a lot of them in through a big embrasure, opened a
gate, and took the fort without firing a shot. About 2,000 prisoners
were taken here, and, to their great delight, they were simply disarmed
and told to go home. They evidently expected to be massacred. In the
fort were some of the guns taken from the ships lost in the fight of
June 25th, 1859.
In the afternoon the fort on the south bank was summoned to surrender,
and, after some parleyings, Hang-Foo, the officer in command, agreed
to hand it over next day. Early on the 22nd Sir Robert Napier took
possession of the southern forts, in which he found no less than 600
guns, large and small.
The same day Admiral Hope’s gunboats steamed up the river, and cleared
away the barriers below which the fierce fight of the year before had
raged so long, and thus the defeat on the Pei-ho was avenged and the
way to Tien-tsin and Pekin was open.
A few weeks later, the armies of England and France marched in triumph
into the imperial city.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
PALERMO:
THE COMING OF GARIBALDI
BY STODDARD DEWEY]
The night of the 26th of May, 1860, came down on the city of Palermo,
on the plains around it and on the hills which close it in beyond,
amid anxious uncertainty everywhere. Everyone was asking, “Where is
Garibaldi?”
The city itself was held in a state of siege by its king, Francis
II. of Naples. The sympathies of the great mass of the inhabitants
were known to be with the Thousand men of Garibaldi and the Sicilian
insurgents who had joined him in his march from the western coast to
the hills above Palermo.
No one was allowed to leave the city, or to walk through the streets
by day in company with others, or by night without a lighted torch or
lantern.
Soldiers were picketed at the corners of the unlighted streets;
companies of soldiers guarded each of the city gates which had not been
walled up; and two lines of military outposts surrounded the whole city
without.
On the plain to the west and north of the city 20,000 soldiers of the
king were in camp; 4,000 more had for some days been pushing back the
insurgents in the hills. Their general imagined it was Garibaldi who
was retreating before them. No military man could understand how a
thousand foot-soldiers, aided only by a few thousand ill-armed and
untrained recruits, could give the slip to the pursuing columns of
regular troops, and surprise the entrance to a city guarded at every
point by battalions of trained men and commanded by the artillery of
the forts and the warships in the bay.
Even now the descent of the Thousand into Palermo does not become plain
until we go over carefully the condition of the city on that fateful
night, the situation of the various bodies of troops that were guarding
it, and the movements down the mountain side of Garibaldi and his men.
I.--IN PALERMO.
The Bourbons had now ruled over Naples, with the whole southern part of
Italy and the island of Sicily, for 125 years.
Ferdinand II., who was dead but a single year, had been peculiarly
unfortunate through the whole of his long reign. During its first
years, after 1830, the secret societies of _carbonari_ conspiring
against him multiplied everywhere in Sicily. The cholera year of 1837
reduced the pride of Palermo; but in 1848, when France again gave the
signal of revolution, the city rebelled and held out for a year and
four months. For four weeks King Ferdinand had the city bombarded from
his fort in the harbour. This did not help to make the citizens love
him the more when he finally conquered, and his name was handed down as
“King Bomba.”
In 1859, his young and inexperienced son, Francis, found things in the
worst possible condition.
In the north, Italians had united under the King of Sardinia against
the Austrians and the petty princes who had so long divided up their
country. With the help of France, the war was soon over. The Austrians
were driven out of Lombardy; the Duchies of Parma, Modena, and Tuscany
expelled their reigning houses; and a good part of the States of the
Church was taken from the Pope.
All these, with Sardinia, now made up the one kingdom of Italy, with
Victor Emanuel as constitutional monarch.
It was a long step forward toward the realisation of what had hitherto
been but a dream--a united Italy. And Garibaldi had been the one hero
of its making.
In Sicily a secret committee had been formed, under the name of
the _Buono publico_ (commonweal), to collect subscriptions
among the nobles and property-holders for the purchase of arms and
other munitions of war. It was in constant correspondence with the
revolutionary committee existing at Genoa, of which Garibaldi was the
soul. King Victor Emanuel was bound not to give open aid to any revolt
against his cousin, the King of Naples, with whom he was supposed to be
at peace. But it was known that his Government would put no hindrance
in the way. Everyone knew also that no revolution would break out in
Southern Italy except in the name of Victor Emanuel and Garibaldi.
[Illustration: “THE PICCIOTTI PICKED OFF THEIR MEN”
(_p._ 38).]
The counsellors of Francis II. had but one remedy for this evil state
of things--the remedy of King Bomba and all the Bourbons before
him. The city of Palermo was strongly garrisoned by troops from the
mainland--Neapolitans or Swiss and Austrian mercenaries. Then fuller
powers than ever were given to Maniscalco, the director of police,
and his spies were placed everywhere. At Santa Flavia, eleven miles
from Palermo by the sea, an armed insurrection suddenly broke out. It
was crushed at once; but it was made the pretext for throwing several
notable citizens into prison. Next Maniscalco was grievously wounded
at the door of the cathedral, and, in spite of all the efforts of the
police, the would-be assassin escaped with the help of the people. A
reign of terror was now begun, especially against the nobles and the
rich. In every house searches were made by Maniscalco’s _shirri_,
or detectives, for guns and swords and bayonets. It was felt that,
among the 200,000 inhabitants of Palermo, only the soldiers, the host
of Government employés, and the countless members of the secret police
were loyal to the king.
At last the Committee of Sicilian Liberties, as it was henceforth
called, decided that the time had come to summon the citizens to
revolt. Rizzo, a master mechanic of means, organised the movement. The
rendezvous was given for the night between the 3rd and 4th of April,
at the Franciscan convent of La Gancia, in the heart of the city.
Rizzo’s house was next door, and the arms which had been gathered were
secreted in an unused well of his courtyard. A communication had been
broken through the wall of the convent church. The friars were in the
secret and in full sympathy with the conspirators. There was but one
exception. He carried the news of what was going on to Maniscalco.
It was eight o’clock in the evening when the betrayal was made. General
Salzano, who was in command at Palermo, was notified at once, and the
convent was soon surrounded by troops. Rizzo and twenty-seven of his
companions were already inside waiting for the coming of the others.
Day broke, and no one had arrived. Looking out through the shutters,
the little band saw the soldiers under arms, and understood that they
had been betrayed. They resolved to sell their lives dearly, and Rizzo
opened fire from the windows.
The troops brought their cannon to bear on the great door of the
convent. Two shots were enough to batter it down, and the soldiers
charged with their bayonets. They were met by the father superior,
and ran him through on the spot. The insurgents held them back for a
time, firing from the shelter of the friars’ cells along the narrow
corridors. Another friar was killed, and four more were wounded. Then
Rizzo with his band made a last effort to escape in a determined sally
through the courtyard, by the great door which the cannon had burst
open. The troops were beaten back, but Rizzo fell with his leg broken
by a bullet above the knee. The soldiers discharged their guns at him
where he lay, inflicting lingering but mortal wounds. A dozen of his
companions were taken prisoners with him; the others made good their
escape.
[Illustration: PALERMO HARBOUR.
(_From a Drawing by J. W. McWhirter A.R.A._)]
The citizens, without arms and without a leader, kept to the shelter of
their houses. The soldiers shot at anyone showing himself at a window.
All who were connected with the conspiracy fled from the town into the
fastnesses of the hills. The insurrection was again over in Palermo.
The _picciotti_--young men from fifteen to twenty-five years of
age--had long been ready to join in the uprising. In the large town
of Carini, ten miles to the west of Palermo, the impatience was so
great that they anticipated the signal to be given at La Gancia. On
the 3rd of April the tri-coloured flag of United Italy was unfurled,
and barricades were thrown up across the mountain roads. Misilmeri, a
few miles to the east of the city, next took up the cry. With the two
priests at their head, the insurgents drove out the Neapolitan garrison
of four soldiers, eight mounted gendarmes, and eight of Maniscalco’s
_sbirri_. On the 11th of the month the _picciotti_ swept
down on a body of troops and forced them back to the bridge over the
Oreto, almost within gunshot of the city. Soon all the villages along
the coast and in the surrounding country were in full insurrection. The
city began suffering from this blockade on the side of the land. All
its provisions had to be brought in the king’s vessels from Naples.
At Naples the news of the revolt led to the taking of extreme measures.
The vessels of the royal marine, along with merchant ships appropriated
by the Government for the occasion, were despatched to Palermo. All
were filled with soldiers and munitions of war. In a few days there
were 13,000 of the king’s troops in and around the city, to face the
insurrection.
In spite of the vigilance of the police, a newspaper from northern
Italy had been smuggled into Palermo, making known to the inhabitants
that the committee at Genoa was organising an expedition to come to the
aid of the Sicilian patriots. On the 10th of April a secret messenger,
Rosolino Pilo, who had been under proscription in his native land for
ten years, succeeded in landing safely at Messina. He made his way from
village to village by night. In the morning the sign of his presence
was found written on the walls--
“_Viene Garibaldi! Viva Vittorio Emanuele!_”
Soon, in Palermo itself, the very children cried after the _sbirri_ as
they passed--“Garibaldi is coming!”
Word was passed around that, on a certain day, all whose sympathies
were with the revolution should walk in the fashionable promenade of
the Via Maqueda--the broad, straight street that divides the city in
two halfway up from the sea. Even the greatest ladies came on foot;
there was no room for the splendid equipages for which Palermo has
always been noted. No one was armed. All kept an ominous silence.
Maniscalco was at his wits’ end. He sent a band of soldiers and
_sbirri_ along the promenade to cry from time to time, “_Viva Francesco
Secondo!_” There was no response from the crowd. Then the _sbirri_
surrounded a group of the citizens and ordered them to repeat the cry,
“_Viva Francesco Secondo!_” After a moment of deep silence one of the
group, tossing his hat in the air, shouted, “_Viva Vittorio Emanuele!_”
The soldiers bayoneted him on the spot, and then discharged their guns
into the crowd. Two men were killed, and there were thirty women and
children among the wounded. The mounted gendarmes charged on their
horses, and swept the streets clear. But the next morning Maniscalco
could read in huge red letters on every dead wall of the city,
“_Garibaldi viene!_”--“Garibaldi is coming!”
II.--WITH THE KING’S ARMY.
The regular troops were now kept constantly on the alert, and daily
and nightly drawn by new alarms from the city toward the mountains, it
was useless for them to give chase to the _picciotti_ in their
retreat along the winding goat-paths of the hills. In return, they
brought their artillery against houses sheltering the helpless women
and children of the insurgent villages.