Prussians kept up a tremendous fire on the forts, but the Danes showed
their good sense by lying quietly in their casemates and scarcely
noticing the storm of missiles directed against them. These missiles
did them and their earthworks very little harm, and they were not to be
terrified by mere noise. Before the Prussians had settled down to their
trench-work, their batteries over the bay at Gammelmark firing day and
night had in the course of a fortnight thrown about 7,500 shot and
shell into the Danish redoubts, yet not more than seventy-five officers
and men had been killed or disabled by all this roaring volcano of
heavy guns; and, indeed, it was computed about this time that the
Prussians were purchasing the lives of their enemies at about 500
cannon-shots per head. “The huge earthen mounds or humps (of forts),”
wrote a correspondent, “might have marked the graves of an extinct
race, or been the result of some gigantic mole’s obscure toil,” for all
the signs of life which the Prussian bombardment drew from the redoubts.
[Illustration: PRINCE FREDERICK CHARLES.]
One night a curious thing happened to a company of the 60th Prussian
regiment. In the course of some skirmishing it got too far forward,
and, when day broke, it found itself in a slight hollow of the ground
so near to Forts 1 and 2 that, had it tried to return to its own
lines, it must have been annihilated by the grape-shot of the Danes.
The shelter afforded it by the nature of the ground was so trifling
that the men were forced to lie down flat upon their bellies to avoid
being shot. In this unpleasant position they lay the whole day, for the
Danes, strange to say, did not seek to sally out and capture them; and
it was not till late in the evening that the company, under cover of
the darkness, was able to rejoin their friends. They had eaten nothing
in the interval, for, though they had provisions in their pockets,
or haversacks, the least movement they made to get at this provender
exposed them to the enemy’s fire.
The first parallel had been opened on the 30th of March, and the
second was accomplished in the night of the 10th of April. It was now
expected that the “Red Prince,” without more ado, would make a rush
for the forts and be done with them--the more so as there now began
to be whisperings of a political conference of the Powers which might
meet and baulk the Prussian soldier of the final reward of all his
toil. But still Prince Frederick Charles gave not the signal for the
assault, and then it oozed out that this delay was simply due to the
command of his royal uncle, King (afterward Kaiser) William, a very
humane monarch, who, wishing to spare as much as possible the blood of
his brave soldiers, had directed that still another--a third--parallel
should be made, so as to shorten the distance across which the stormers
would have to rush before reaching the redoubts. Meanwhile the
Prussians prepared themselves for the assault, among other things by
getting up sham works in imitation of those they had to attack, where
the battalions destined for the purpose were practised in breaking
down palisades and using scaling-ladders, as well as in disposing of
_chevaux de frise_ and other impediments usual in the defence of
forts. The Danish redoubts were known to the Prussians as Nos. 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, beginning from their--the Prussian--right on
the sea, and their foremost parallel fronted this line of forts from
1 to 6. Against these forts the Prussians had thrown up twenty-four
batteries mounting ninety-four guns, and now at last these guns were to
give voice in a chorus such as had not rent the sky since the fall of
Sebastopol.
But just as every storm is preceded by a strange delusive silence,
so the day before the assault on the Düppel redoubts--the 17th of
April--was a beautifully calm, sunny Sunday, with earth and sky
embracing in a common joy over the birth of spring, and the encircling
sea smooth as glass--a lovely day, and the last but one that many a
brave man was doomed to see. For the order had gone forth from Prince
Frederick Charles that at 10 o’clock precisely on the following
(Monday) morning the redoubts should at last be stormed. At dawn of day
the whole line of Prussian batteries should open fire on the forts,
pouring upon them one continuous cataract of shot and shell till 10
o’clock, when the storming columns would start out of their trenches
and “go for” the redoubts with might and main.
At 2 o’clock a.m. these columns--six in number, drawn by lot from the
various brigades so that all might have an impartial share in the
honour of the day--emerged from the Büffell-Koppel wood well in the
rear, and silently marched in the darkness to the parallels. Each
of these six columns was thus composed:--First of all a company of
infantry with orders to take extended front about 150 paces from its
particular redoubt, and open fire on the besieged. Following these
sharpshooters, pioneers and engineers with spades, axes, ladders, and
all other storming gear, including bags of blasting powder, and after
them, at 100 paces distance, the storming column itself, followed at
150 paces by a reserve of equal strength, together with a score of
artillerists for manning the captured guns of the Danes.
[Illustration: THE GERMAN SOLDIERS MAKING SENTRIES OUT OF
CLAY (_p._ 227).]
The Danes, in the darkness of the night, knew nothing whatever of all
these preparations, and it was only when the first streaks of dawn
began to chequer the eastern sky that they were aroused out of their
sleep by such an infernal outburst of cannon-thunder all along their
front as had never before, in lieu of the twittering and chirping of
birds, greeted the advent of a beautiful day in spring. For six long
mortal hours did the Prussians continue this terrific cannonade, of
which the violence and intensity may be inferred from the fact that
during this time no fewer than 11,500 shot and shell were hurled at and
into the Danish redoubts. The material damage done to these redoubts
was less, perhaps, than the demoralisation thereby caused to their
defenders; but the latter was the result which the Prussians, perhaps,
aimed at and valued most.
Shortly before ten the awful cannonade suddenly ceased, and was
followed by a few minutes’ painful silence. During this brief interval
the field-preachers, who had given the Sacrament to all the stormers
the night before, now again addressed to them a few fervid words of
religious encouragement, and then at the “_Nun, Kinder, in Gottes
Namen!_” (“Now, my children, away with you in God’s name!”) of their
commanders, the six storming columns, raising a loud and simultaneous
cheer, dashed out of their trenches and across to their respective
redoubts to the stirring music of the _Preussenlied_ played by
the bands of three regiments--“_Ich bin ein Preusse: kennt Ihr meine
Färbe?_” (“I am a Prussian: know ye then my colours?”)
For a few seconds the Danes seem to be taken aback by this sudden
onrush of their foes, and then they recognise that this is no mere
outpost affair such as caused them some time before to boast that they
had repulsed a Prussian attack all along their line. They look and
comprehend; and by the time their Prussian assailants have half covered
the distance between the trenches and the forts, their parapets are
fringed with the smoke of sharp-crackling volleys of musketry, for,
strange to say, they do not use their guns and dose their assailants
with destructive rounds of grape. The Prussians rush forward, and many
of them fall. Their pioneers cut down the wires, hack and blow up the
palisades, tug, strain, and open up a passage for the stormers, who
swarm down into the ditch and up the formidable face of the breastwork.
The Crown Prince, at the side of “Papa” Wrangel, is looking on from
the Gammelmark height on the opposite side of the bay, while his
cousin, the “Red Prince,” and his staff have taken their stand on the
Spitzberg, well to the rear of the line of zigzags. The stormers swarm
up the breastworks like ants, and some of them fall back upon the heads
of their comrades mortally struck by Danish bullets. At last they reach
the top of the parapets and see the whites of their enemies’ eyes, and
a short but desperate hand-to-hand encounter ensues. Many of the Danes,
seeing the foe thus upon them, throw down their arms and surrender,
but many will not give in, and are shot or struck down with bullet,
bayonet, and butt.
At Fort 2 the Prussians cannot force their way through the palisades,
and are consequently slaughtered as they stand. “Better one of us than
ten!” cries a pioneer, Klinké by name (for a monument now stands to
his memory on the exact scene of his heroism), who rushes forward with
a bag of powder and blows at once the palisades and his own person
into atoms--sacrificing himself to save his comrades, and thus secure
himself a golden register in the annals of the Prussian army. The
stormers now dash on and up, and presently the black-and-white flag
of Prussia is seen waving on the parapets of the redoubt. It sinks
again, but is once more raised to remain, and in less than a quarter of
an hour from the time that the stormers sprang out of their trenches
they are masters of six redoubts. It was all done, so to speak, in the
twinkling of an eye--short, sharp, and decisive. From the six redoubts
thus so swiftly rushed, the Prussians made a sweep to the rear of the
others, and captured them in much the same manner, though one fort
spared them the necessity of fighting for it by surrendering.
As it was at Fort 2 where the highest act of individual heroism had
been performed on the side of the Prussians by brave pioneer Klinké,
so it was also within this redoubt that Danish courage found its most
brilliant exponent in the person of Lieutenant Anker. The Prussians
were quite aware that a man of more than usual bravery was posted
here, for they had admired the stubborn valour with which the redoubt
had always been defended. And when at last they had stormed their
way behind its parapets, they beheld the man himself whose acts had
hitherto moved their admiration. He had spiked some of his guns, and
was in the act of firing another when a Prussian officer sprang upon
him, and, clapping a revolver to his breast, cried, “If you fire, I
fire!” Anker hesitated, and finally desisted. But just afterwards he
took up a lighted match and was making for the powder magazine, when
the Prussian officer cut him over the head with his sword, only just in
time to prevent him from blowing up himself and a considerable number
of his foes. He was then taken prisoner, and his lifelike figure may
now be seen on the fine bronze bas-relief of the Storming of the Düppel
Redoubts, which adorns the Victory Column in Berlin.
The Danes had been defeated--not so much because the Prussians were
braver men, which they were not, as because the latter were armed with
better guns and rifles, and more expert at handling them; but, above
all things, because they had taken their foes by surprise. For it
cannot be doubted that this was the fact. Said a Danish officer who
was taken prisoner: “We waited all morning, thinking the assault might
still be given, although we had expected that it would take place still
sooner; we waited under the terrific cannonade kept up against us,
while hour after hour passed slowly away. At last we said to ourselves
that we must have been misinformed, or that the Prussians had changed
their minds, and the reserves were withdrawn. It was past nine o’clock
when I left the forts and went back to breakfast. While thus engaged,
I heard somebody utter an exclamation of dismay. ‘What is that? The
Prussian flag floats over Fort 4!’ And so it was--the forts were lost.”
But there was still another and a better reason for concluding that the
Danes had not yet awhile expected the Prussian assault, and that was
the circumstance that the _Rolf Krake_, most daring and deviceful
of warships, did not immediately appear upon the scene to pour its
volleys of shell and shrapnel into the flanks of the storming columns.
True, it was lying at the entrance to the bay (Wenningbund), like an
ever-vigilant watch-dog; but by the time it had got its steam up and
come to where it was most wanted, the Prussians were already within
the Danish redoubts, and, after firing a few ineffectual rounds, the
monitor had to retire again well battered with Prussian cannon-balls,
but by no means beaten yet like the battalions which had held the forts.
Yet even these battalions, when beaten out of the redoubts, continued
to cling tenaciously to the ground behind them, and once or twice they
even made a counter-attack with the object of recovering their lost
positions. But Prussian ardour proved too much for Danish obstinacy;
and at last the Danes in the country behind the forts, after several
hours’ fighting, were all swept back to the bridge-head in their rear,
and then over into the island of Alsen, leaving their foes undisputed
masters of all the field.
This latter phase of the fight was well described by a correspondent
with the Danes, who wrote:--“Düppel was lost, but the battle was by
no means at an end. Indeed, as we watched the terrible cannonade
from 12 at noon till 3 or 4 p.m., the violence of the fire seemed to
increase at every moment. Anything more sublime than that sight and
sound no effort of imagination can conjure up, and we stood spellbound,
entranced, rooted to the spot, in a state that partook of wild
excitement and dumb amazement--a state of being which spread equally
to the dull hinds, ploughmen, woodmen, and the foresters, and their
families of wives and children, as they emerged from fields, woods,
and huts, and clustered in awestruck, dumbfounded groups around us.
The flashes of the heavy artillery outsped the rapidity of the glance
that strove to watch them; the reports were far more frequent than
the pulsations in our arteries, and the reverberation of the thunder
throughout the vast spreading forest lengthened out and perpetuated the
roar with a solemn cadence that was the grandest of all music to the
dullest ear. The air seemed all alive with these angry shells. I have
witnessed fearful thunderstorms in my day in southern and in tropical
climates; but here the crash and rattle of all the tempests that ever
were seemed to be summed up in the tornado of an hour. Nor was all that
noise by any means deafening or stunning. It came to us lingering far
and wide in the still air, softened and mellowed by the vastness of
space, every note blending admirably and harmonising with the general
concert--the greatest treat that the most consummate pyrotechnic art
could possibly contrive for the delight of the eye and ear.”
Many of the Danes surrendered, but many more were taken prisoners; and
as they came along the Prussian soldiers shook them good-naturedly by
the hand and tried to cheer them up. Few of the men seemed to want
cheering up, being only too glad, apparently, to have escaped with
their lives, though their officers looked gloomy enough over their
defeat. The Prussians found these captive Danes “sturdy fellows, but by
no means soldierly-looking,” with their “rich sandy hair reaching far
below the nape of their necks.” And, to tell the truth, their victors,
no less than their admirers throughout Europe, expected that they would
have made a far more vigorous defence; for desperate a defence could
scarcely have been called which resulted in the capture of their chief
redoubts within the brief space of about ten minutes.
The Prussians had won a glorious victory, but a dear one; for in dead
they had lost 16 officers and 213 men, and in wounded 54 officers and
1,118 men. Among the officers who were wounded--mortally, as afterwards
proved--was the brave General von Raven, who, as he was being borne to
the rear, exclaimed: “It is high time that a Prussian General should
again show how to die for his King.” On the other side General du
Plat was also killed, while in dead and wounded officers and men and
prisoners the Danish loss otherwise amounted to about 5,500. Among the
trophies of victory which fell into the hands of the Prussians were 118
guns and 40 colours.
On being informed of all this, King William telegraphed from
Berlin--“To Prince Frederick Charles. Next to the Lord of Hosts,
I have to thank my splendid army under thy leadership for to-day’s
glorious victory. Pray convey to the troops the expression of my
highest acknowledgment and my kingly thanks for what they have done.”
On seeing that victory was his, the “Red Prince” had bared his head
and muttered a prayer of thanksgiving to the Lord of Hosts, while some
massed bands played a kind of _Te Deum_. “In the broad ditch
to the rear of Fort No. 4,” wrote Dr. Russell, “the bands of four
regiments had established themselves, and while the cannon were firing
close behind them, they played a chorale, or song of thanksgiving,
for the day’s success. The effect was striking, and the grouping of
the troops and of the musicians, with their smart uniforms and bright
instruments, standing in the deep trench against the shell-battered
earthwork, and by palisades riven and shattered and shivered by shot,
was most picturesque.”
[Illustration: THE PRUSSIANS ATTACKING THE DANISH
BREASTWORKS (_p._ 230).]
But King William was not content with telegraphing to his troops,
through his nephew Prince Frederick Charles, his acknowledgment of
their bravery. Following hard on his telegram his Majesty himself
hurried to the seat of war, with his “blood-and-iron” Minister,
Bismarck, at his side, and passed in review the troops who had so
stoutly stormed the redoubts of the Danes. These troops appeared on
parade in the dress and equipment they had worn on the day of their
great feat, and in the course of their march past jumped a broad drain
to show his Majesty how nimbly they had stormed in upon the Danes. A
fortnight later a select number of the Düppel stormers escorted into
Berlin the guns--more than a hundred in number--which they had captured
from the Danes, and were received with tremendous enthusiasm.
But this popular jubilation grew louder still when a few weeks later
the war was ended altogether by the storming of the island of Alsen,
into which the Danes had retired after their defeat at Düppel and
entrenched themselves down to the water’s edge. In the deep darkness
of a summer night (June 29th) the Prussians, in 160 boats, crossed the
channel--about eight hundred yards broad--between the mainland and the
island, though not without the usual amount of harassing opposition
from the _Rolf Krake_, and under a murderous fire jumped ashore
and made themselves master of the position in a manner which made some
observers describe the affair as a mere “skirmish and a scamper.”
But all the same it was a feat which recalled the “Island of the
Scots,” as sung by Ayton, and will always live in military history as a
splendid feat of arms.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT ANKER TAKEN PRISONER
(_p._ 230).]
[Illustration:
ROBERTS’ BATTLES ABOUT CABUL
BY ARCHIBALD FORBES
LORD ROBERTS OF CANDAHAR & WATERFORD]
The Afghan War of 1878–79 was terminated by the completion of what is
known as the “Treaty of Gundamuk,” which was signed at that place in
May, 1879, by Yakoub Khan--who, on the flight of his father, Shere Ali,
had succeeded that ill-starred potentate as Ameer of Afghanistan--and
by Major (afterwards Sir Louis) Cavagnari, representing Lord Lytton,
the Viceroy of India. This treaty gave practical--although, as it
turned out, only temporary--effect to the “scientific frontier”
of North-Western India, on the attainment of which the late Lord
Beaconsfield, when Prime Minister, greatly plumed himself. The
“scientific frontier” detached from Afghanistan and annexed to British
India for the time being a large tract of territory. The Treaty of
Gundamuk stipulated that a British envoy should thenceforth be resident
in the Afghan capital; and to the onerous and dangerous post, at his
own request, was assigned the resolute and cool-headed officer to whose
wise and calm strength of will was mainly owing the accomplishment of
the treaty. Sir Louis Cavagnari took with him to Cabul a subordinate
Civil Servant, a surgeon, and a small escort of the famous “Guides,”
commanded by the gallant Hamilton.
On the night of September 4th, 1879, a weary trooper of the Guides--one
of the few who had escaped the slaughter--rode into a British outpost
on the Shutargurdan height, with the startling tidings that Sir Louis
Cavagnari, the members of his mission and the soldiers of his escort,
had been massacred in the Balla Hissar of Cabul on the 3rd. The news
reached Simla by telegraph on the morning of the 5th, and next day Sir
Frederick Roberts, accompanied by Colonel Charles Macgregor, C.B.,
was speeding with relentless haste to the Kurum valley, the force
remaining in which from the previous campaign was to constitute the
nucleus of the little army of invasion and retribution, to the command
of which Roberts was appointed. In less than a month he had crossed the
Shutargurdan, and temporarily cutting loose from his base in the Kurum
valley, was marching swiftly on Cabul, whence the Ameer Yakoub Khan had
fled and thrown himself on Roberts’ protection.
All told, the army which Roberts led on Cabul was the reverse of a
mighty host. Its entire strength was little greater than that of a
Prussian brigade on a war-footing. Its fate was in its own hands,
for, befall it what might, it could hope for no timely reinforcement.
It was a mere detachment marching against a nation of fighting-men
plentifully supplied with artillery, no longer shooting laboriously
with jizails, but carrying arms of precision equal or little inferior
to those in the hands of our own soldiery. But the men of Roberts’
command, Europeans and Easterns, hillmen of Scotland and hillmen of
Nepaul, plainmen of Hampshire and plainmen of the Punjaub, strode along
buoyant with confidence and with health, believing in their leader,
in their discipline, in themselves. Of varied race, no soldier who
followed Roberts but came of fighting stock; ever blithely rejoicing
in the combat, one and all burned for the strife now before them
with more than wonted ardour, because of the opportunity it promised
to exact vengeance for a deed of foul treachery. Roberts’ column of
invasion consisted of a cavalry brigade, commanded by Brigadier-General
Dunham Massy, and of two infantry brigades, the first commanded by
Brigadier-General Macpherson, the second by Brigadier-General Baker,
with three batteries of artillery, a company of sappers and miners, and
two Gatling guns.
The soldiers had not long to wait for the first fight of the campaign.
At dawn, of October 6th, Baker marched out from Charasiah towards
his left front, against the heights held by an Afghan host in great
strength and regular formation. Sweeping back the Afghan hordes with
hard fighting, Baker wheeled to his right, marched along the lofty
crest, rolling up and driving before him the Afghan defence as he moved
towards the Sung-i-Nagusta gorge, which the gallant Major White[5]
had already entered. While Baker had been turning the Afghan right,
White and his little force had been distinguishing themselves not a
little. After an artillery preparation, the detached hill covering
the mouth of the pass had been won as the result of a hand-to-hand
struggle. Later had fallen into the hands of White’s people all the
Afghan guns, the heights to the immediate right and left of the gorge
had been carried, the defenders driven away, and the pass opened up.
Artillery fire crushed the defence of a strong fort commanding the road
through the pass. The Afghans were routed, and on the following day the
whole division passed the defile and camped within sight of the Balla
Hissar, and the lofty mountain chain overhanging Cabul. In the fight of
Charasiah less than half of Roberts’ force had been engaged, and this
mere brigade had routed the army of Cabul and captured the whole of the
artillery the latter had brought into the field. The Afghan loss was
estimated at about three hundred; the British loss was twenty killed
and sixty-seven wounded.