1880-1884
Reception in England--A fruitless journey--Andaman Isles and Burma
--The Madras Army--Measures for improving the Madras Army
--Memories of Madras--An allegory
On the 15th October I handed over my command to Major-General Phayre,
and started for England, making, by the desire of the Viceroy, a
diversion to Simla, where Lord Ripon received me most kindly, and,
to my great pride and pleasure, delivered to me a letter from the
Queen-Empress, written by Her Majesty's own hand, which conveyed in
the most gracious terms the Queen's satisfaction at the manner in
which the service entrusted to me had been performed, thanks to 'the
brave officers and men under my command,' sorrow 'for those of her
gallant soldiers who fell for Queen and country,' and anxiety for the
wounded. Her Majesty also wrote of 'the thrill of horror' with which
the news of the fate of Lieutenant Maclaine had been received, and
concluded with words of hope that my own health and that of the
troops would remain good, and that success might attend us 'till the
blessings of peace are restored.'
A gracious letter, truly! And to me a deeply appreciated reward for
what I had been able to do.
I landed at Dover on the 17th November. The reception I met with from
my countrymen was as enthusiastic as it was unexpected and gratifying.
After an absence of twelve years there must almost always be more or
less of sadness mingled with the pleasure of the home-coming, and two
vacant places in my family circle--those of my father and sister--cast
a deep shadow upon what would otherwise have been a most joyous
return, for my mother was alive to welcome me, and I found my children
flourishing and my wife well, notwithstanding all the anxiety she had
undergone.
I was fêted and feasted to almost an alarming extent, considering that
for nearly two years I had been restricted to campaigning diet; but it
surprised me very much to find that the kind people, by whom I was so
greatly honoured, invariably appeared to think the march from Kabul to
Kandahar was a much greater performance than the advance on Kabul the
previous autumn, while, to my mind, the latter operation was in every
particular more difficult, more dangerous, and placed upon me as the
Commander infinitely more responsibility. The force with which I
started from Kuram to avenge the massacre of our fellow-countrymen was
little more than half the strength of that with which I marched to
Kandahar. Immediately on crossing the Shutargardan I found myself in
the midst of a hostile and warlike people, entirely dependent on the
country for supplies, heavily handicapped by want of transport, and
practically as completely cut off from communication with India as
I was a year later on the march to Kandahar. The Afghans' fanatical
hatred of Europeans had been augmented by their defeats the year
before, and by the occurrences at Kabul, and they looked upon my small
column as a certain prey delivered into their hands by a sympathizing
and all-powerful Allah.
Before me was Kabul, with its large and well-equipped arsenal,
defended by an army better organized and more highly trained than that
possessed by any former Ruler of Afghanistan. On all sides of me were
tribesmen hurrying up to defend the approaches to their capital, and
had there been on our part the smallest hesitation or delay, we should
have found ourselves opposed by as formidable a combination as we had
to deal with two months later at Sherpur. Nothing could then have
saved the force, not one man of which I firmly believe would have ever
returned to tell the tale in India. Worse than all, I had in my own
camp a traitor, in the form of the Amir, posing as a friend to the
British Government and a refugee seeking our protection, while he was
at heart our bitterest enemy, and was doing everything in his power to
make my task more difficult and ensure our defeat.
The march to Kandahar was certainly much longer, the country was
equally unfriendly, and the feeding of so large a number of men and
animals was a continual source of anxiety. But I had a force capable
of holding its own against any Afghan army that could possibly be
opposed to it, and good and sufficient transport to admit of its
being kept together, with the definite object in view of rescuing our
besieged countrymen and defeating Ayub Khan; instead of, as at Kabul,
having to begin to unravel a difficult political problem after
accomplishing the defeat of the tribesmen and the Afghan army.
I could only account to myself for the greater amount of interest
displayed in the march to Kandahar, and the larger amount of credit
given to me for that undertaking, by the glamour of romance thrown
around an army of 10,000 men lost to view, as it were, for nearly a
month, about the fate of which uninformed speculation was rife and
pessimistic rumours were spread, until the tension became extreme,
and the corresponding relief proportionably great when that army
reappeared to dispose at once of Ayub and his hitherto victorious
troops.
I did not return to India until the end of 1881, six weeks out of
these precious months of leave having been spent in a wild-goose chase
to the Cape of Good Hope and back, upon my being nominated by Mr.
Gladstone's Government Governor of Natal and Commander of the Forces
in South Africa, on the death of Sir George Colley and the receipt of
the news of the disaster at Majuba Hill. While I was on my way out
to take up my command, peace was made with the Boers in the most
marvellously rapid and unexpected manner, A peace, alas! 'without
honour,' to which may be attributed the recent regrettable state of
affairs in the Transvaal--a state of affairs which was foreseen and
predicted by many at the time. My stay at Cape Town was limited to
twenty-four hours, the Government being apparently as anxious to get
me away from Africa as they had been to hurry me out there.
In August I spent three very enjoyable and instructive weeks as the
guest of His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of Germany, while the
manoeuvres at Hanover and Schleswig-Holstein were taking place.
Shortly before leaving England for Madras, I was asked by Mr.
Childers, the then Secretary of State for War, whether I would accept
the appointment of Quartermaster-General at the Horse Guards, in
succession to Sir Garnet Wolseley. The offer, in some ways, was
rather a temptation to me, for I had a great wish to take part in the
administration of our army; and had it been made sooner, before my
arrangements for going to Madras had been completed, I think I should
have accepted it at once; as it was, I begged to be allowed to join my
new command, and leave the question of the Quartermaster-Generalship
in abeyance until it was about to become vacant. This was agreed to,
and I started for Madras, taking my wife and two little daughters with
me, the boy being left at school in England.
On arriving in Madras, on the 27th November, I had the pleasure
to find myself associated as a colleague in Council with Mr.
Grant-Duff,[1] who had recently been appointed Governor of the
Presidency. We spent a few pleasant days with him and Mrs. Grant-Duff
at Government House, before proceeding to deposit our children at
Ootacamund, that Queen of Indian Hill-stations, which was to be our
home for four years. We spent Christmas there, and then went to Burma,
visiting the Andaman Islands on the way. We had on board our ship some
prisoners destined for that convict settlement, amongst whom cholera
unfortunately broke out a few hours after we left Madras. They were
accommodated just outside my wife's cabin, and their cries and groans
were most distressing. Very little could be done for them on board,
for the Native Doctor accompanying us possessed no remedy but castor
oil! and as the disease was spreading rapidly, I took upon myself to
have the party landed at Vizagapatam.
The cholera patients were put into tents on the sea-shore, under the
charge of a medical officer, and every arrangement possible for their
comfort and relief was made before we proceeded on our journey.
During our stay at Port Blair, the Head-Quarters of the Andaman
Administration, we were the guests of the hospitable Superintendent,
Lieutenant-Colonel Protheroe, who had been one of the political
officers on my staff in Afghanistan. The group of islands forming the
settlement are extremely beautiful, but it is tropical beauty, and one
pays the penalty for the luxuriant vegetation in the climate, which is
very much like a Turkish bath, hot and damp. While going through the
prisons, I came across some of the sepoys of the 29th Punjab Infantry
who deserted during the advance on the Peiwar Kotal. I was told that
they were behaving well, and might in time be allowed some remission
of their sentences.
A voyage of thirty-six hours brought us to Rangoon, where we had the
pleasure of meeting and being entertained by our old friends, Mr.
Bernard,[2] the Chief Commissioner of Burma, and his wife.
In 1882 Thyetmyo and Tonghu were the two frontier stations of Burma,
and I had been asked to consider the question of the defence of the
proposed railway termini at these places. I accordingly visited them
both, and as I thought I foresaw that the lines of railway could not
end as then contemplated, I recommended that the absolutely necessary
works only should be attempted, and that these should be as
inexpensive as possible. Ere many years had passed, the line, as I
anticipated, was completed to Mandalay.
The defences of Rangoon had also to be arranged for. An examination
of the approaches, however, satisfied me that no elaborate system of
fortification was necessary, and that Rangoon's best security lay in
her winding, dangerous river; so I gave it as my opinion that, with
two small batteries at Monkey Point and King's Point, and a couple of
torpedo-boats, Rangoon would be reasonably safe against attack.
Before leaving Burma I received letters from H.R.H. the Duke of
Cambridge and Mr. Childers, in which were repeated the offer of the
Quartermaster-Generalship at the Horse Guards. But I had by this
time begun to like my new work, and had no desire to leave Madras; I
therefore definitely declined the appointment.
From Burma we returned to Ootacamund, viâ Calcutta, where we spent a
few days with Lord and Lady Ripon and Sir Donald and Lady Stewart.
Life at 'Ooty' was very pleasant; such peace and repose I had never
before experienced; I thoroughly enjoyed the rest after the turmoil of
the preceding years, and I quite recovered my health, which had been
somewhat shattered. Unlike other hill-stations, Ootacamund rests on an
undulating tableland, 7,400 feet above the sea, with plenty of room in
the neighbourhood for riding, driving, and hunting; and, although
the scenery is nothing like as grand as in the Himalayas, there are
exquisite views to be had, and it is more restful and homelike. We
made many warm friends and agreeable acquaintances, who when our time
in Madras came to an end presented my wife with a very beautiful
clock 'as a token of esteem and affection'; we were very sorry to bid
farewell to our friends and to our Nilgiri home.
Each cold season I made long tours in order to acquaint myself with
the needs and capabilities of the men of the Madras Army. I tried hard
to discover in them those fighting qualities which had distinguished
their forefathers during the wars of the last and the beginning of
the present century. But long years of peace, and the security and
prosperity attending it, had evidently had upon them, as they always
seem to have on Asiatics, a softening and deteriorating effect; and I
was forced to the conclusion that the ancient military spirit had died
in them, as it had died in the ordinary Hindustani of Bengal and the
Mahratta of Bombay, and that they could no longer with safety be
pitted against warlike races, or employed outside the limits of
southern India.
It was with extreme reluctance that I formed this opinion with regard
to the successors of the old Coast Army, for which I had always
entertained a great admiration. For the sake of the British officers
belonging to the Madras Army, too, I was very loath to be convinced of
its inferiority, for many of them were devoted to their regiments, and
were justly proud of their traditions.
However, there was the army, and it was my business as its
Commander-in-Chief to do all that I possibly could towards rendering
it an efficient part of the war establishment of India.
Madrassies, as a rule, are more intelligent and better educated than
the fighting races of northern India, and I therefore thought it could
not be difficult to teach them the value of musketry, and make them
excel in it. To this end, I encouraged rifle meetings and endeavoured
to get General Officers to take an interest in musketry inspections,
and to make those inspections instructive and entertaining to the men.
I took to rifle-shooting myself, as did the officers on my personal
staff,[3] who were all good shots, and our team held its own in many
exciting matches at the different rifle meetings.
At that time the importance of musketry training was not so generally
recognized as it is now, especially by the senior officers, who had
all entered the service in the days of 'Brown Bess.' Some of them had
failed to note the remarkable alteration which the change from
the musket to the rifle necessitated in the system of musketry
instruction, or to study the very different conditions under which
we could hope to win battles in the present day, compared with those
under which some of our most celebrated victories had been won. It
required time and patience to inspire officers with a belief in the
wonderful shooting power of the Martini-Henry rifle, and it was even
more difficult to make them realize that the better the weapon, the
greater the necessity for its being intelligently used.
I had great faith in the value of Camps of Exercise, and
notwithstanding the difficulty of obtaining an annual grant to defray
their cost, I managed each year, by taking advantage of the movement
of troops in course of relief, to form small camps at the more
important stations, and on one occasion was able to collect 9,000
men together in the neighbourhood of Bangalore, where the
Commanders-in-Chief in India and of Bombay (Sir Donald Stewart and the
Hon. Arthur Hardinge) were present--the first and last time that
the 'three Chiefs' in India met together at a Camp of Exercise. The
Sappers and Miners were a brilliant exception to the rest of the
Madras Army, being indeed a most useful, efficient body of men, but
as no increase to that branch was considered necessary, I obtained
permission to convert two Infantry regiments into Pioneers on the
model of the Pioneer Corps of the Bengal Army, which had always
proved themselves so useful on service. Promotion amongst the British
officers was accelerated, recruits were not allowed to marry, or, if
married, to have their wives with them, and many other minor changes
were made which did much towards improving the efficiency of the
Native portion of the Madras Army; and I hope I was able to increase
the comfort and well-being of the British portion also by relaxing
irksome and useless restrictions, and by impressing upon commanding
officers the advisability of not punishing young soldiers with the
extreme severity which had hitherto been considered necessary.
I had been unpleasantly struck by the frequent Courts-Martial on the
younger soldiers, and by the disproportionate number of these lads to
be met with in the military prisons. Even when the prisoners happened
to be of some length of service, I usually found that they had
undergone previous imprisonments, and had been severely punished
within a short time of their enlistment. I urged that, in the first
two or three years of a soldier's service, every allowance should be
made for youth and inexperience, and that during that time faults
should, whenever practicable, be dealt with summarily, and not visited
with the heavier punishment which a Court-Martial sentence necessarily
carries with it, and I pointed out that this procedure might receive a
wider application, and become a guiding principle in the treatment
of soldiers generally. I suggested that all men in possession of a
good-conduct badge, or who had had no entry in their company defaulter
sheets for one year, should be granted certain privileges, such as
receiving the fullest indulgence in the grant of passes, consistent
with the requirements of health, duty, and discipline, and being
excused attendance at all roll-calls (including meals), except perhaps
at tattoo. I had often remarked that those corps in which indulgences
were most freely given contained the largest number of well-behaved
men, and I had been assured that such indulgences were seldom abused,
and that, while they were greatly appreciated by those who received
them, they acted as an incentive to less well conducted men to try and
redeem their characters.
[Illustration: THE THREE COMMANDERS-IN-CHIEF IN INDIA.
GENERAL SIR FREDERICK SLEIGH ROBERTS.
GENERAL SIR ARTHUR E. HARDINGE. GENERAL SIR DONALD MARTIN STEWART.]
The reports of commanding officers, on the results of these small
ameliorations, after a six months' trial, were so favourable that I
was able to authorize still further concessions as a premium on good
behaviour.
The Madras Presidency abounds in places of interest connected with our
earlier struggles in India, and it was possible to combine pleasure
with duty in a very delightful manner while travelling about the
country. My wife frequently accompanied me in my tours, and enjoyed as
much as I did our visits to many famous and beautiful places. Madras
itself recalled the struggles for supremacy between the English and
French in the middle of the eighteenth century. Arcot reminded one
that it was in the brilliant capture and still more brilliant defence
of the fort at that place that Clive's soldierly genius first became
conspicuous. Trichinopoly and Wandewash made one think of Stringer
Lawrence's and Eyre Coote's splendid services, and while standing on
the breach at Seringapatam, one was reminded of Wellington's early
life in India, and marvelled how heavily-armed men could have ventured
to cross the single plank which alone spanned the deep, broad ditch of
the inner defences.
I should like to dwell on the architectural wonders of Tanjore and
the Caves of Ellora; the magnificent entertainments and Princely
hospitality accorded to us by the Nizam of Hyderabad, the late
Maharajas of Mysore and Travancore, the Maharaja of Vizianagram, the
Raja of Cochin, and many other Rulers of Native States; the delights
of a trip along the west coast by the beautiful 'back-water,' and the
return journey through the glorious forests of Cannara and Mysore;
the pleasure of visiting the lovely 'White Lady'[4] and the wonderful
Kaveri falls; but to give my readers any idea of their marvels would
be to put too great a strain upon their patience, which I fear has
already been severely taxed.
The late Maharaja of Travancore was an unusually enlightened Native.
He spoke and wrote English fluently; his appearance was distinguished,
and his manners those of a well-bred, courteous English gentleman of
the old school. His speech on proposing the Queen's health was a model
of fine feeling and fine expression, and yet this man was steeped
in superstition. His Highness sat, slightly retired from the table,
between my wife and myself while dinner was going on; he partook of
no food or wine, but his close contact with us (he led my wife in to
dinner and took her out on his arm) necessitated his undergoing a
severe course of purification at the hands of the Brahmins as soon
as the entertainment was over; he dared not do anything without the
sanction of the priests, and he spent enormous sums in propitiating
them.
Notwithstanding the high civilization, luxury, and refinement to
be found in these Native States, my visits to them strengthened my
opinion that, however capable and enlightened the Ruler, he could have
no chance of holding his country if deprived of the guiding hand of
the British Government as embodied in the Resident. It is just that
control, so light in ordinary times as to be hardly perceptible, but
firm enough when occasion demands, which saves the State from being
rent by factions and internal intrigue, or swallowed up by a more
powerful neighbour, for, owing to the influence of the Brahmins and
the practical seclusion which caste prejudices entail, involving
ignorance of what is taking place immediately outside their own
palaces, the Native Princes of the less warlike peoples would have
no chance amidst the anarchy and confusion that would follow the
withdrawal of British influence.
A remark made to me by the late Sir Madhava Rao, ex-Minister of the
Baroda State, which exemplifies my meaning, comes back to me at this
moment. Sir Madhava was one of the most astute Hindu gentlemen in
India, and when discussing with him the excitement produced by the
'Ilbert Bill,' he said: 'Why do you English raise these unnecessary
questions? It is your doing, not ours. We have heard of the cry,
"India for the Indians," which some of your philanthropists have
raised in England; but you have only to go to the Zoological Gardens
and open the doors of the cages, and you will very soon see what would
be the result of putting that theory into practice. There would be
a terrific fight amongst the animals, which would end in the tiger
walking proudly over the dead bodies of the rest.' 'Whom,' I inquired,
'do you consider to be the tiger?' 'The Mahomedan from the North,' was
his reply.
[Illustration: THE MARQUIS OF DUFFERIN, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G.,
G.M.S.I., G.M.I.E., VICEROY OF INDIA.
_From, an engraving by the Fine Art Society of a portrait by the late
Frank Holl, R.A._]
[Footnote 1: Now Sir Mount-Stuart Grant-Duff, G.C.S.I.]
[Footnote 2: Now Sir Charles Bernard, K.C.S.I.]
[Footnote 3: Lieutenant-Colonel G.T. Pretyman, R.A., was
Assistant Military Secretary until 1884, when he was succeeded by
Lieutenant-Colonel R. Pole-Carew, Coldstream Guards. Lieutenant
Neville Chamberlain, Central India Horse, and Captain Ian Hamilton,
the Gordon Highlanders, were Aides-de-camp.]
[Footnote 4: The finest of the Gassapa falls.]
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