of the woods to sniff at the ghastly heaps; the white dogs, no longer
lean and famished, wrangled with each other for the choicer morsels,
finding the mother and the babe more to their liking, and leaving the
war-worn veteran to the carrion crows.
When spring thawed the ice, _thirty thousand_ bodies were found
and burned on the banks of the Berezina; and happy they whose troubles
had ended there. For the weather grew colder, the storms were more
frequent, hundreds of miles had yet to be traversed; the Old Guard had
lost from cold and missing a _third_ of its diminished numbers,
the Young Guard _half_, and the army was reduced to a wandering
mob of _nine thousand_, twenty-one thousand having fallen in three
days and four actions.
Over the marshes in the keen north wind they hurried, Ney still
commanding the rear-guard; on the 30th, Oudinot, badly wounded,
defended himself in a wooden house with _seventeen men_ for
several hours, and drove the Russians out of the village.
The sun shone out to mock them; there was hard fighting almost every
day; and at length, when the main body reached Smorgoni, the Emperor
resolved to put in practice an intention he had formed some time before
of hurrying secretly to Paris to forestall the real truth of his
disasters.
[Illustration: “IN A TOWERING PASSION THE MARSHAL DREW
HIS SWORD” (_p._ 329).]
He has been unjustly accused of deserting his men when they were at
their last gasp; but in reality no blame attaches to him, as his
presence in France was absolutely necessary, and had he remained with
the army he could have done nothing to restore it, for things had gone
too far. To what extent he had contributed to those disasters is, of
course, another matter.
After revising his 29th Bulletin, and appointing Murat to the chief
command, he got into his carriage with Caulaincourt (brother of
Auguste), Rustan the Mameluke, and Captain Wukasowitch sitting on the
box, Duroc and Lobau following in a sledge, and escorted by some Polish
lancers, drove off in the dark on the night of the 5th December.
Later on he exchanged the carriage for another sledge, the peasant
driver of which died in Bavaria as recently as 1887, preserving to the
last some of the coins Napoleon had given him.
On the 18th the Emperor arrived in Paris. The day after his departure
the cold increased to a frightful degree; men lost their reason, and
sprang into the burning huts. At Wilna, where there were great stores
of food, they pillaged without check; and even the Old Guard paid no
heed to the _générale_. All Napoleon’s linen and his state tent
were burned there, and the few remaining trophies, drawings being made
of them before their destruction by his orders.
The Jews committed nameless cruelties on the French wounded, and
although Durutte’s division increased the army by 13,000, they died by
hundreds, immense numbers having been frozen and suffocated at the gate
of the city in their mad attempt to get in.
The day after their arrival the Russians were on them again. De Wrede’s
Bavarians were routed, Murat lost his head and bolted, and everything
devolved on the heroic Ney, who volunteered again for rear-guard duty,
keeping Kutusoff at bay while the army retreated on the road to Kowno,
the last Russian town before they could reach the Niemen, 4,000 men
alone preserving an orderly demeanour under arms.
At the hill of Ponari the Cossacks fell foul of them, and, while under
fire, Napoleon’s private treasure was portioned out equally among such
of the Guard as remained, every man who survived afterwards accounting
for his share to the last coin.
The final scene may be summed up by a brief narration of the fabulous
gallantry of Marshal Ney.
It had been his invariable custom to halt and rest from five in the
evening until ten, and then resume the march; but at Evé, near Kowno,
he woke up to find his _fourth_ rear-guard gone, their arms still
piled, and glistening in the frosty night.
When he overtook them they were in disorder, and could not be rallied,
Ney entering the town attended only by his aides, but instantly setting
to work to form a _fifth_ guard.
He found 2,000 drunken men dead on the snow, and the fugitives gone
on to the river; but with 300 German Artillery and 400 others, under
General Marchand, he set about to defend Kowno.
The last remnant, having crossed the Niemen, were flying through the
Pilwisky forest, from which they had issued five months before in very
different plight, only 13,000 in reality mustering behind that river.
Kowno was attacked on the morning of the 14th December, and hastening
to the Wilna Gate, Ney found the German artillery had spiked their guns
and fled.
In a towering passion the marshal drew his sword and rushed at the
officer in command, who still remained there, and, but for his
aide-de-camp averting the blow, would have slain him. The officer
escaped, and Ney summoned one of his two weak battalions, also German,
and after a spirited address, formed them behind the snow-capped
palisade as the enemy approached, but fate was against him.
A ball broke the colonel’s thigh, and he blew out his brains before his
men, who instantly threw down their guns and fled, leaving Ney alone.
Gathering all the muskets he could reach, the marshal fired them
through the palisade--_one_ man against _thousands_--until
others came to his help; the town was attacked on the opposite side at
the same time, and though he maintained his post with thirty ragged
scarecrows until dark, he had to retreat step by step, through the town
and across the Niemen, the last man, after forty days’ and nights’
incessant fighting with the rear-guard, to leave the Russian shore.
* * * * *
In Gumbinnen, Mathieu Dumas was sitting down to breakfast, when a man
in a brown coat entered, his beard long, his face blackened and looking
as though it had been burnt, his eyes red and glaring.
“At length I am here,” he exclaimed. “Don’t you know me?” “No,” said
the general. “Who are you?” “I am the Rear-Guard of the _Grande
Armée_; I have fired the last musket-shot on the bridge of Kowno;
I have thrown the last of our arms into the Niemen, and come hither
through the woods. I am Marshal Ney.”
* * * * *
Macdonald, in the North, was reduced by hardship and the defection
of the Prussians; Schwartzenberg, in the South, had been obliged to
retire, and the magnificent army of the Centre, led by masters in the
art of war, under the Emperor himself, we have seen dwindled down to
13,000 in less than six months. It was not altogether the Russians,
it was not entirely the frost, although both contributed to its
destruction: when all laws, physical and moral, are transgressed, when
flesh and blood are tried beyond the limits of possible endurance, and
wild ambition takes the place of common-sense, something will give, and
disaster is certain in the long run.
By one of the most careful of contemporary computations it is concluded
that 552,000 unfortunate creatures who had marched under the eagles of
Napoleon never returned from that campaign, and the medal struck by
Alexander to commemorate it, sums up the whole case in a sentence of
singular piety.
On one side, in a triangle surrounded by rays, is the Eye of
Providence, with the date beneath it; on the other, the inscription:
“_Not unto us; not unto me; but unto Thy Name_.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_RORKE’S DRIFT_
_BY C. STEIN_.]
At the end of 1878 there stood upon a rocky terrace on the Natal side
of the Buffalo River two stone buildings with thatched roofs, which had
formed a Swedish mission station, one of them having been used as a
church and the other having been the dwelling of the missionary. These
two humble edifices were destined to be, on the 22nd January, 1879, the
scene of the most brilliant feat of arms performed during the whole
Zulu War--a defence by a small determined force against the attack of
vastly superior numbers, an exploit whose lustre, relieving a period of
disaster, maintained the prestige of British arms, and whose success,
there can be little doubt, secured Natal from invasion when failure
would have laid the colony open to the advance of a savage enemy.
So perfect was the conduct of the officers and men concerned in the
episode, and so well conceived and executed were the measures adopted,
that even foreign military books quote the exploit as an example of the
value of improvised fortifications when they are held by brave men.
When war was declared by Sir Bartle Frere, the High Commissioner
for South Africa, against Cetewayo, the Zulu king, the conduct
of operations was placed in the hands of Lieutenant-General Lord
Chelmsford, K.C.B., as Commander-in-Chief. It was determined to invade
Zululand, and all the forces available for this purpose were moved
to the frontier. They were divided into five columns, of which three
were to advance into the enemy’s country from different points, with
the intention of finally concentrating at Ulundi, the Zulu capital,
while the other two were in the first instance to guard the frontier
against possible Zulu raids. The third column, under the command of
Colonel Glyn, C.B., the centre of the three columns of invasion, was to
assemble near Rorke’s Drift and cross the Buffalo River at that spot,
within a mile of the old Swedish mission station.
The river at Rorke’s Drift was, like most African streams, an
impassable torrent after rain, but the flood quickly ran off, and a
passage could then be effected by the “drift,” or ford. There had also
been established two ponts, or big, flat-bottomed ferry-boats, each of
which could transport an African wagon or a company of infantry.
Colonel Glyn’s column crossed the river on the 11th January, 1879,
and from that time was engaged in operations in Zululand. Its line
of communications with Pietermaritzburg, the chief city of Natal,
was through Rorke’s Drift to Helpmakaar, and thence by Ladysmith and
Estcourt, or by the shorter, though more difficult, route through
Greytown. Rorke’s Drift, as the actual starting-point of invasion,
was formed into a depôt of stores and a hospital. The deserted
mission-station buildings were utilised for this purpose, the old
church being converted into a storehouse and the missionary’s dwelling
forming the hospital. As a garrison for this important post and to
secure the passage across the river, Colonel Glyn left B Company of
the second battalion of the 24th Regiment, under command of Lieutenant
Gonville Bromhead. With him were also Major Spalding, who was in
general charge of the line of communications, Lieutenant Chard, Royal
Engineers, Surgeon Reynolds, Army Medical Department, and other
officers. This garrison was encamped near the store and hospital.
For some days after the departure of the third column, which was also
accompanied by Lord Chelmsford and the Headquarter Staff, the quiet
routine of duty was pursued. Letters were passed to and from the front,
necessary stores and supplies were sent on, and the men wounded in the
first engagements were received into the hospital. Among these last
was one of the enemy, who had been shot through the thigh at Sirayo’s
kraal, and who was treated and nursed with the same care and attention
as the Englishmen against whom he had fought. On the 20th January,
however, a large portion of the second column, under Colonel Durnford,
Royal Engineers, arrived at Rorke’s Drift and encamped. Their stay
was brief, for they were summoned to the fatal camp of Insandhlwana
on the morning of the 22nd, Colonel Durnford leaving a company of
the Natal Native Contingent, under Captain Stephenson, to strengthen
the little post. It became evident from various circumstances that
Colonel Glyn’s column was encountering a stronger resistance than
had been anticipated, and that, as the enemy were in force within a
few miles, they might make a rapid descent upon the weakly-guarded
line of communications. It was known that two companies of the
first battalion of the 24th were at Helpmakaar, ten miles distant,
and Major Spalding resolved to go there at once in order to bring
them up as a reinforcement to Lieutenant Bromhead’s force. In his
absence, Lieutenant Chard became senior officer at Rorke’s Drift, and
responsible for its well-being.
Although on the 22nd January there was thus a feeling of uneasiness at
the river post, nothing had occurred till some hours after midday to
cause any special alarm to its garrison. We may believe that a general
plan of action had been considered if an attack should be made upon
it, but in the meantime all the officers and men were engaged in their
usual employments. Lieutenant Chard was at the ponts, and Lieutenant
Bromhead was in his little camp hard by the store and hospital.
Shortly after 3 p.m. two mounted men were seen galloping at headlong
speed towards the ferry from Zululand. There is little difficulty in
recognising messengers of disaster, the men who ride with the avenger
of blood close on their horses’ track, and Chard, as he met them, knew
that something terrible had happened. His worst anticipations were
more than realised when the two fugitives--Lieutenant Adendorff, of
the Native Contingent, and a Natal volunteer--told their story: the
camp at Insandhlwana had been attacked and taken by the enemy, of whom
a large force was now advancing on Rorke’s Drift. The Natal volunteer
hurried on to give the alarm at Helpmakaar; but one man was enough for
this service, and Adendorff--gallant fellow!--said that he would remain
at Rorke’s Drift, where every additional European would be a valuable
reinforcement, and cast in his lot with its defenders. Chard at once
gave orders to the guard at the ponts to strike their tents, put all
stores on the spot into the wagon, and withdraw to the main body of
the post. Now occurred the first incident which testified to the
spirit which animated the small force on the banks of the Buffalo. The
ferryman--Daniells--and Sergeant Milne, of the 3rd Buffs (who was doing
duty with the 24th), proposed that they should be allowed to moor the
two ponts in the middle of the river, and offered, with the ferry-guard
of six men, to defend them against attack--a brave thought, indeed, but
it was put aside. Chard was too good a soldier to divide his few men in
any way. He saw at once that the commissariat stores and hospital would
require every available rifle for their defence, and that the safety of
every other place was comparatively a very minor consideration.
While he was giving his orders an urgent message came from Bromhead
asking him to join him at once. To Bromhead also had come several
mounted men fleeing from Insandhlwana, bearing the same dread
intelligence which Adendorff had brought to the ferry, and the trained
officer of engineers was required to concert and decide upon measures
of defence. But when he joined the infantry subaltern he found that the
latter, aided by Assistant-Commissary Dunne and Assistant-Commissary
Dalton, had already set to work, and that there was nothing to change,
if much was still left to complete. The three officers held a hurried
consultation, and prompt use was made of all ordinary expedients of
war, while materials never before employed in fortification were
pressed into service. The store and hospital were loopholed and
barricaded, the windows and doors blocked with mattresses; but it was
necessary to connect the defence of the two buildings by a parapet.
There were no stones at hand with which to build a wall, and if there
had been, there was no time to make use of them; the hard rocky soil
could not be dug and formed into ditch and breastwork; but there was a
great store of bags of mealies, or the grain of Indian corn, which had
been collected as horse provender for the army. Assistant-Commissary
Dalton suggested that these should be used in the fashion of sandbags
for the construction of the required parapet. Everybody laboured
with the energy of men who know that their safety depends on their
exertions. Chard and Bromhead, Reynolds, Dunne, and Dalton not merely
directed, but engaged most energetically in the work of preparation.
When the alarm was first given it was intended to remove the worst
cases from the hospital to a place of safety, and two wagons were
prepared for the purpose; but it was found that the attempt to move
the patients at the slow pace of ox-teams when the Zulus were so close
at hand would only result in offering them as easy victims to the
murderous assegai. The two wagons were therefore used as part of the
defences, and mealie bags were piled underneath and upon them, so that
each formed a strong post of vantage.
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT CHARD.
(_Photo, J. Hawke, Plymouth._)]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT BROMHEAD.
(_Photo, Elliott & Fry, Baker Street, W._)]
The ferry-guard had joined the rest of the force at 3.30 p.m., and a
few minutes later an officer of Durnford’s Natal Native Horse, with a
hundred of his men who had been heavily engaged at Insandhlwana, rode
up and asked for orders. Chard directed him to watch for the approach
of the enemy, sending out vedettes, and when he was pressed, to fall
back and assist in the defence of the post. So far it seemed certain
that when the threatened Zulu attack developed itself against the
Rorke’s Drift fortifications they would be found, though hurriedly
devised and executed, to be adequately defended by the company of the
24th, Captain Stephenson’s company of the Native Contingent, and about
a hundred Basutos of the Natal Native Horse. But if the gallant English
officers who had striven so hard and with so much military genius to
make their position tenable looked forward to this amount of support,
they were destined to grievous disappointment and mortification. At
4.15 p.m. the sound of firing was heard behind a hill towards the
south, and told that the vedettes of the Native Horse were engaged with
the enemy. Their officer returned, reporting that the Zulus were close
at hand, and that his men would not obey orders. Chard and his comrades
had the sore trial of seeing them all moving off towards Helpmakaar,
leaving the garrison to its fate. Nor was this all. The evil example
was only too soon followed. Captain Stephenson’s company of the Native
Contingent also felt their hearts fail, and, accompanied by their
commander, also fled from the post of duty. For the Native Horse there
is some excuse to be made. They had been in the saddle since daybreak;
they were the survivors of a terrible defeat and massacre; they had
seen a large number of their comrades slain, and they were demoralised
by the loss of their beloved commander, Colonel Durnford. If on this
occasion their valour failed them, it is to be remembered that they had
behaved nobly in the early part of the day, and that in later episodes
of the war their gallantry and self-devotion were proverbial. But for
the Native Contingent company nothing can be said. They were fresh,
and as yet unscathed by war; they had the best example in the calm
demeanour of their English comrades, and they had many causes of feud
and quarrel with the enemy. But, as in all other occasions of the war
where Natal Kaffirs were employed, they gave way in time of stress,
and the greatest shame of the matter was that their colonial European
officer now shared their misconduct.
[Illustration: RORKE’S DRIFT AT THE PRESENT TIME.
(_From a Photo by Mr. G. T. Ferneyhough, Pietermaritzburg,
South Africa._)]
The garrison at Rorke’s Drift was now reduced to Bromhead’s company
of the 24th--about eighty strong--and some men of other corps, the
total number within the post being 139, of whom thirty-five were
sick or wounded men in hospital. The original scheme of defence had
provided for a much larger force, and Chard recognised that it would
now be impossible long to occupy effectively the range of parapets and
loopholes which had been prepared. There was nothing for it but to form
an inner line of defence, to which the garrison might fall back when
the outer line became untenable. He decided that, if necessary, the
hospital must be abandoned, and that the defence must be restricted to
the store and the space in front of it, including a well-built stone
kraal or enclosure which abutted on it to the eastward. To carry out
this plan he commenced an inner retrenchment, forming a parapet of
biscuit-boxes across the larger enclosure. This was only about two
boxes high when the expected flood of attack hurled its first waves
against the frail solitary bulwark which stood between Natal and savage
invasion.
About 4.30 p.m. five or six hundred of the enemy appeared, sweeping
round the rocky hill to the south of the post, and advancing at the
swift pace characteristic of the Zulu warriors against the south wall
which connected the store and hospital. But they had to deal with
stern men who were braced up for the encounter by feelings of duty,
patriotism, and the long habit of regimental discipline and comradeship
which makes each feel assured and confident that all are striving
shoulder to shoulder, and that none will blench from his appointed
place. From the parapet of mealie bags and from the hospital poured
forth a heavy and well-sustained fire, which was crossed by a flanking
discharge from the store. No man wasted a shot, and the aim was cool
and deliberate. Even Zulu valour and determination could not face the
deadly leaden hail, and the onslaught weakened and broke within fifty
yards of the British rifles. Some of the assailants swerved to their
left, and passed round to the west of the hospital; some sought cover
where they could, and occupied banks, ditches, bushes, and the cooking
place of the garrison. But this first attack was only the effort of the
enemy’s advanced guard. Masses of warriors followed and flowed over the
elevated southward ledge of rocks overlooking the buildings. Every cave
and crevice was quickly filled, and from these sheltered and commanding
positions they opened a heavy and continuous fire. It was fortunate
that the spoil in rifles and ammunition taken at Insandhlwana was not
yet available for use against the English, as at Kambula and later
engagements, but the enemy’s firearms were still the old muskets and
rifles of which they had long been in possession. Even so, at the short
range these were sufficiently effective, and, in the hands of better
marksmen than Zulus usually are, might have inflicted crushing losses.