PEACE WHERE THERE IS NO PEACE.
Ominous Bye-Elections--The Spangles of Imperialism--Disturbed state
of Eastern Europe--Origin of the Quarrel with the Zulus--Cetewayo’s
Feud with the Boers--A “Prancing Pro-Consul”--Sir Bartle Frere’s
Ultimatum to the Zulu King--War Declared--The Crime and its
Retribution--The Disaster of Isandhlwana--The Defence of Rorke’s
Drift--Demands for the Recall of Sir Bartle Frere--Censured but
not Dismissed--Sir Garnet Wolseley Supersedes Sir Bartle Frere
in Natal--The Victory of Ulundi--Capture of Cetewayo--End of the
War--The Invasion of Afghanistan--Death of Shere Ali--Yakoob
Khan Proclaimed Ameer--The Treaty of Gundamuk--The “Scientific
Frontier”--The Army Discipline Bill--Mr. Parnell attacks the
“Cat”--Mr. Chamberlain Plays to the Gallery--Surrender of the
Government--Lord Hartington’s Motion against Flogging--The Irish
University Bill--An Unpopular Budget--The Murder of Cavagnari
and Massacre of his Suite--The Army of Vengeance--The Re-capture
of Cabul--The Settlement of Zululand--Death of Prince Louis
Napoleon--The Court-Martial on Lieutenant Carey--Its Judgment
Quashed--Marriage of the Duke of Connaught--The Queen at Baveno.
From the bye-elections it was clear, when the New Year (1879) opened,
that the _prestige_ of the Ministry was waning. The spangled robe
and gaudy diadem of Asiatic Imperialism began to sit uneasily on
Constitutional England. The Treaty of Berlin had not brought Englishmen
much “honour.” But it had not even brought Europe “peace.” Austria
had to make good her hold of Bosnia and Herzegovina by war. Albania
was in the hands of a rebel League that executed “Jetdart justice”
on Turkish Pashas of the highest rank. Bulgaria and Thrace were only
saved from anarchy by the Russian army of occupation. Eastern Roumelia
was the scene of daily conflicts between the Turkish troops, and the
people of Greece were clamorous to know when Turkey would respond to
the invitation of the Conference, and rectify the Hellenic frontier.
The discovery that Cyprus was a poor pestilential island, infinitely
less valuable than most of the Ionian group, which Englishmen had
given to Greece as a gift, was a profound disappointment to popular
hopes, and led to an undue and exaggerated depreciation of its value
as a place of arms. The Anglo-Turkish Convention was already seen to
be a farce. The Sultan, after the resources of diplomatic menace had
been well-nigh exhausted, conceded to the agents of England in Asia
Minor a few illusory rights of surveillance. But he set on foot no
reforms, and he made it plain that he would resist to the death any
attempt to “open up” his Asiatic provinces under a British Protectorate
to the enterprise of the British projector and pioneer. The Afghan
War was unpopular, and though victory did not prove, as was feared,
inconstant to our arms, the people seemed convinced, from the history
of the first and second Afghan Wars, that a triumph would be almost
as disastrous in its cost to India as a defeat. It was impossible
now to conceal the fact that when the Indian troops were brought to
Malta, the country was placed in a position of far greater peril than
had been imagined. While Ministers were wasting their energies in
protecting more or less imaginary interests in Eastern Europe, they
were apparently quite ignorant that their policy had exposed the vital
interests of the Empire to attack in Asia. Nay, it was seen that their
policy of irritating and menacing the Afghan Ameer, and of terrifying
the Native Princes with enforced disarmament, had rendered it easy for
Russia, without doing more than giving our enemies and discontented
feudatories merely some unofficial support, to shake the fabric of
Indian Empire to its very centre. To put the Imperial Crown of India
down among the stakes in Lord Beaconsfield’s game with Russia in Europe
was magnificent. But men of sense and prudence now began to suspect
that it was not good business or good diplomacy. Never was England less
restful or less easy in mind. Abroad Lord Beaconsfield, as was said,
had created a situation which was neither peace with its security, nor
war with its happy chances. At home the classes were groaning over
the collapse of their most remunerative investments, and the masses
writhing under a fall of wages, which, in many trades, amounted to
fifty per cent. To complete the popular feeling of depression, it was
plain that the Government were fast drifting into another Kaffir War.
On the 3rd of February, 1879, in fact, it was officially announced that
hostilities with the Zulus had begun.
There is no difficulty in understanding the causes of the Zulu War. The
Zulu king (Cetewayo) had ever been a staunch ally of England. But he
had a blood-feud with the Boers of the Transvaal, and he claimed part
of their territory as having been originally stolen by them from his
race. When England in an evil moment annexed the Transvaal, she found
that she took over with it the quarrel of the Boers with the Zulus.
Cetewayo pressed his claims all the more confidently that a friendly
Power now held the land which had been taken from him. In every colony
there is a clique of land-speculators, who also, as a rule, form the
War Party, and, by a singular coincidence, net most of the profits
that are to be derived from a colonial war waged at the expense of the
British taxpayer. This Party in Natal ridiculed the notion of giving
Cetewayo his land. They also stirred up a war panic, vowing that the
Zulus were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to pounce upon
Natal and exterminate the Europeans. Sir Bartle Frere--“a prancing
pro-consul,” as Sir William Harcourt called him--was High Commissioner
at the Cape, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces there was Lord
Chelmsford. A more ominous combination could hardly be imagined. Sir
Bartle Frere even in India had been a hot annexationist. He had the
restless brain to devise schemes of conquest, whilst his military
colleague had neither the brain nor nerve to carry them out. The
Blue-books indicate that Sir Bartle Frere had been preparing beforehand
a grand project of conquest in South Africa.[141] Unfortunately, Sir
M. Hicks-Beach was not sharp enough to detect and blight this scheme
in the bud, and it is doubtful if he even suspected its existence till
he was galvanised into vigilance by the startling ultimatum which Sir
Bartle Frere suddenly sent to the Zulu king. The award of the British
Boundary Commissioners on the dispute between the Zulus and the Boers
had been in favour of the Zulus. It was given in June, 1878. Yet it
had been kept back by Sir Bartle Frere, apparently to stimulate the War
Party among the Zulus with the provocation of delay. Then when it was
communicated to King Cetewayo, there was tacked on to it an irrelevant
and menacing demand that King Cetewayo should immediately disband his
whole army. “To make the case our own,” wrote Lord Blachford, one
of the highest living authorities on Colonial Policy, “it is as if
the Emperor of Germany, in concluding with us a Treaty of Commerce,
suddenly annexed a notice that he would make war on us in six weeks
unless before the expiration of that time we burnt our Navy.”[142]
And the ultimatum was not only a crime, but a hideous blunder. To
annihilate instead of utilising the Zulu power was to relieve the Boers
of the Transvaal from the pressure on their flank that alone prevented
them from throwing off the British yoke. But it was of no use to argue
the case on the grounds of justice or common sense. “The men who had
been in the country”--who always come forward to defend every act of
folly that is about to be perpetrated in a distant colony--dinned their
defence of Sir Bartle Frere into the ears of Englishmen, who were at
last half persuaded that it must be the duty of England to exterminate
the Zulus, when a satrap like Sir Bartle Frere was eager to annihilate
them in the interests of Christianity. Moreover, as in the case of the
Afghan War, the people were kept in utter ignorance of the arrogant
ultimatum by which Frere had gone out of his way to fix a quarrel on
King Cetewayo.
But if the crime was rank, the retribution by which it was avenged was
swift and stern. Chelmsford’s advance guard crossed the Tugela on the
12th of January. A petty success was recorded at Ekowe on the 7th,
and then on the 22nd of January the English column at Isandhlwana was
smitten as with the sword of Gideon. Our troops were beaten not only in
the actual conflict, but they were out-manœuvred and out-generalled.
The barbarians under Cetewayo had fought like lions, and they had
inflicted on a British army a defeat so disgraceful that the history
of half a century supplies no parallel to it. Frere, like a reckless
gambler, had staked everything on this cast of the die. Neither he
nor Chelmsford had made provision for a disaster, and the result was
that the rout of Isandhlwana left the whole colony of Natal, even
then discounting the spoils of victory, open to invasion. Nothing, in
fact, stood between the Europeans in Natal and extermination, save the
little post of Rorke’s Drift. There Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard,
with a handful of men, stemmed the tide of invasion, and redeemed the
honour of England which had been smirched by the political incapacity
of Frere, and the military failure of Chelmsford. In vain did the Queen
and the Duke of
[Illustration: ISANDHLWANA: THE DASH WITH THE COLOURS.]
Cambridge send sympathetic messages to the seat of war. It was
reinforcements that were needed, if the English in South-East Africa
were not to be driven into the sea. Parliament, when it met on the 8th
of February, was as wrathful as the country. The Government had let
Sir Bartle Frere drag the country into a war, which in a few days the
disaster of Isandhlwana showed they were incompetent to conduct with
credit to the Empire. If Ministers were not able to emerge, without
ignominy, from a conflict with the Zulu king, what must have happened
had they been allowed to challenge the Czar of Muscovy to mortal
combat? Criticism was felt to be futile, in view of the pressing need
to retrieve the disgrace of a defeat, none the less ignominious that
the Government and their agents had courted it. But a stern demand was
heard on all sides for the recall of Frere and Chelmsford, a demand
which, like a vote of censure that was proposed in the House of Lords
by Lord Lansdowne on the 25th, and in the Commons by Sir Charles Dilke
on the 11th of March, Ministers evaded by administering a strong
rebuke to the High Commissioner. As a man of spirit, Frere would have
naturally resigned after this rebuke. But he held on to his place, and
this was so discreditable, that to account for his conduct a strange
theory was mooted. It was said that private letters were sent to
him by high personages, some of them connected with the Government,
assuring him that the censure of the Secretary of State was not meant
to be taken as real, but had been penned merely to save Ministers from
a Parliamentary defeat.[143] Sir M. Hicks-Beach’s despatch with the
censure ended with these words: “But I have no desire to withdraw the
confidence hitherto reposed in you.” Such was the feeble manner in
which the Government dealt with a satrap who had virtually usurped the
prerogative of the Sovereign to declare war. Soon after the Ministry
had warded off the vote of censure in Parliament, the country was
again agitated by tidings of further reverses in Zululand, and it was
not till the 21st of April that the Government could announce that
Pearson’s column, which had been locked up at Ekowe since the outbreak
of the war, had been able to save itself by retreat. The indignation of
the country grew apace, and at last it was found necessary to allay it
by superseding Sir Bartle Frere’s authority in Natal and the Transvaal.
Sir Garnet Wolseley was accordingly sent to take supreme command at the
scene of action. Ere he could arrive Chelmsford, stimulated into action
by Colonel Evelyn Wood, had however taken a decisive step. He gave the
Zulus battle at Ulundi on the 3rd of July, and won a victory which put
an end to the war. Cetewayo was taken prisoner on the 28th of August,
and, despite the efforts made by Sir Garnet Wolseley and others to set
up another Government for the one which had been destroyed, Zululand
lapsed into the confusion and anarchy in which it has since remained.
The Afghan War had been more skilfully managed. The British invaders
overcame all resistance, and when Parliament assembled General Stewart
was in possession of Candahar, and Shere Ali had fled from Cabul. Soon
afterwards he died, and his heir, Yakoob, came with his submission to
the British camp at Gundamuk. There, on the 25th of May, he signed
a Treaty which bound the Indian Government to give him a subsidy of
£60,000 a year and defend him against his enemies, in return for which
he ceded the “scientific frontier,” and agreed to manage his foreign
policy in accordance with the advice of a British Resident who was to
be received in Cabul. This gleam of success neutralised the effect
of the reverses in South Africa, and both Houses voted their thanks
to the Indian Viceroy and to the Generals who had carried out the
expedition. The Government had no difficulty in persuading Parliament
to sanction a loan of £2,000,000 without interest to India, to enable
her to pay the expenses of the campaign. In fact, when the Session
closed Ministers were jubilant at having upset the predictions of the
experienced Anglo-Indians, who had declared that it was impossible to
keep a British Resident at Cabul. They assured the nation not only that
the British Resident was there, but that the Cabulees were delighted to
receive him.
The severe winter of 1879 aggravated the distress which had settled
like a blight on the labouring and trading classes, and the existence
of which Ministers attempted to ignore. They were, indeed, so
ill-advised as to propose a grant of money for the relief of the Turks,
who were enduring great sufferings in the Rhodope district. But
some of the Tory borough Members threatened to rebel if this project
were persisted in, and it was withdrawn. The programme of domestic
legislation was long and ambitious, and Ministers very properly began
the Session by an attempt to guard against obstruction. They carried
a rule which prevented any amendment from being made to the motion
that the Speaker of the House of Commons leave the Chair on going into
Committee of Supply on Monday nights. This enabled a Minister who
came to explain his Estimates to do so at once, because it prevented
private Members from interposing, between him and the Committee, with
long and irrelevant debates on real and imaginary grievances. The
chief measure of the Session was a Bill to consolidate the Mutiny Act
and the Articles of War--a measure which still further extended the
Parliamentary control of the Army by incorporating these Articles into
an Act of Parliament. It was read a second time on the 7th of April;
but when it went into Committee it attracted the attention of Mr.
Parnell and his followers.
Mr. Parnell now appeared in the character of a British patriot and
philanthropist who took an absorbing interest in perfecting the
discipline of the Army and in ameliorating the condition of the
private soldier. As in
[Illustration: BAVENO, ON LAGO MAGGIORE.]
the case of the Prisons Bill, he had mastered every detail of the
subject, only he had become a much more formidable personage than
he had been in 1877. He had deposed Mr. Butt from the leadership of
the Irish party, and, for all practical purposes, he had taken his
place.[144] He had shown Ireland that he had been able to procure for
her, by one short year’s obstruction in 1877, not only the endowment
of her secondary education, but even the release of several Fenian
convicts in 1878--a year, said the _Times_, marked by the cessation
of obstruction, and the good relations which obtained between the
Government and the Home Rulers. In March he had discussed the Army
Estimates with an ability and knowledge which even the Minister for War
recognised; and when the Army Discipline Bill was sent before the House
in Committee Mr. Parnell was conspicuous for his cleverness in exposing
its anomalies, its obsolete applications of the principles of martial
law, and its prevailing bias in favour of the officers and against the
rank-and-file. When the 44th clause was reached, Mr. Parnell and his
friends made a stand against the continuance of flogging in the Army,
and at this stage Liberals vied with Ministerialists in denouncing
their obstructive tactics. But Mr. Parnell persisted. He had foreseen
that he was raising a popular cry. A General Election was at hand, and
he knew that the moment it was discovered that he had touched the heart
of the constituencies, it would be a question with the Liberals and
Conservatives who were then storming at him as to who should be the
first to fall into line with him. Mr. Parnell’s cynical prevision was
justified by events.
[Illustration: THE VILLA CLARA, BAVENO.]
Both parties, to do them justice, held out manfully night after night
against the pressure of this appeal to the sordid side of their
political character. But the longer the game of obstruction on the
flogging question was played, the stronger grew the feeling among the
populace against flogging, and night after night Mr. Parnell was at his
post with cold malice giving an additional turn to the electoral screw.
The first to succumb to the torture was Mr. Chamberlain, and something
like a faded smile flitted across Mr. Parnell’s stony visage when
that successful and practical politician scurried into his camp. Mr.
Chamberlain’s unexpected speech against flogging fell like a bombshell
in the House of Commons, where it was understood that Englishmen of
all parties had entered into an honourable understanding to meet Mr.
Parnell’s obstructive policy with a firm and united resistance. It was
a speech which, as Sir Robert Peel very justly said, “entirely upset
the calculations of the Government,”[145] a fact which was forgotten
or concealed by those critics of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration
who afterwards vilipended them for their weak and vacillating attitude
to this question. No sooner had Mr. Chamberlain deserted to the Irish
ranks than he found himself the object of unsparing obloquy which
Liberals and Conservatives impartially bestowed on him. Of course other
Radicals, if they desired to save their seats in a General Election,
were forced to follow him, and as soon as Mr. Parnell found that he had
lured nearly the whole Radical party into his net, he and the Irish
Members suddenly vanished from the scene as leaders in the struggle.
They were never absent from their posts, and they never failed to
support the cause they had espoused by their votes. But they thrust
the work of obstruction and of speaking on the Liberal and Radical
Members who had tardily become their allies. The advantage they gained
was soon apparent. Mr. Chamberlain speedily lost his temper, and not
only publicly quarrelled with Lord Hartington, but one evening he
even insulted him amidst furious cries of protest from the Liberal
benches, by describing him as “the _late_ Leader of the Liberal
Party.”[146] Nothing could be more complete than the disintegration
of the Liberal Party which Mr. Chamberlain thus produced, unless it
were the perplexity of the Ministry. The Tories did not dare to stand
by the lash as a British institution unless they got what they had
been promised--the loyal support of the Opposition. Yet under Mr.
Chamberlain’s obstructive agitation, and under popular pressure from
the constituencies, it was clear that the Opposition was going over
piecemeal to the opponents of flogging. What wonder, then, that Colonel
Stanley, the Minister of War, temporised, when Mr. Chamberlain extorted
from him a damaging schedule, giving a list of the offences for which a
soldier could be flogged?
Debates instinct with a strange kind of fierce frivolity raged as to
the sort of “cat” that should be used in flogging a soldier. Infinite
time was wasted in discussing whether the word “lashes” should be used
instead of “stripes” in the Act, Mr. Chamberlain being beaten in his
effort to get the word “stripes” inserted. Endless discussions arose
as to the maximum number of lashes that should be sanctioned. When
there was any sign of hesitancy Irish obstructionists were always ready
to join in the fray, and not only screw Mr. Chamberlain up to the
“sticking point,” but ironically suggest that Liberal and Conservative
leaders would alike find it profitable to go to the country in the
coming election, with a “new cat and an old Constitution,” as a taking
“cry.” Colonel Stanley at last gave way, and offered to reduce the
_maximum_ number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five, whereupon Mr.
Chamberlain showed that he was as dangerous to run away from as Mr.
Parnell. Indeed, all through these debates Mr. Chamberlain fought
the battle of obstruction with an amount of courage and fertility of
resource that placed him in the front rank of Parliamentary gladiators.
Friends and foes alike admitted that but for his asperity of temper he
might have disputed the palm of success even with Mr. Parnell himself.
The fight was virtually won when Colonel Stanley proposed to reduce the
number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five. Even Lord Hartington then
made haste to go over to Mr. Chamberlain whilst it was yet time, just
as Mr. Chamberlain had made haste to desert to Mr. Parnell.
On the 17th of July Lord Hartington accordingly proposed that corporal
punishment should be abolished for all military offences. Though on
a division he was beaten by a majority of 106, it was felt that the
“cat-o’-nine-tails” was doomed whenever a Liberal Government came into
power. It was foreseen that at the next election many Conservative
Members would be driven from their seats, because they had been
forced to vote in the majority, and the Ministerialists denounced
Lord Hartington’s surrender to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Chamberlain with
exceeding bitterness. As Lord Salisbury said in addressing a Tory
meeting in the City of London, Lord Hartington was like the Sultan,
because, though he had a group of political Bashi-Bazouks in his party,
whom he could not control, and whose conduct he politely deprecated,
yet his motion showed he would not hesitate to profit by their
misdeeds, when the conflict of parties was fought out at the polls.
As it was, the Government were only able to obtain their majority by
agreeing to restrict corporal punishment to those offences which were
then punishable by death.
The only other Bill of importance passed during the Session was one
dealing with Irish University education. It abolished the Queen’s
University, and substituted for it the Royal University of Ireland,
an examining body like the University of London, empowered to grant
degrees, except in Theology, to all qualified students who might
present themselves.
The Budget, as might be expected, was by no means a popular one. Since
1878 extraordinary expenditure, incurred on account of an adventurous
Foreign Policy, had simply been treated as a deferred liability. On the
3rd of April Sir Stafford Northcote, in explaining his Budget, admitted
that the revenue, which he had estimated at £83,230,000, had fallen
short of that sum by £110,000. As for his expenditure, it had exceeded
his estimate by £4,388,000. He had therefore no money in hand with
which to meet the deferred liabilities of 1878-79; in fact, he was face
to face with a fresh deficit. Comparing his actual revenue with his
actual expenditure, the deficit was seen to amount to £2,291,000. The
position, then, was this. In 1878 he had paid off £2,750,000 by bills,
which he thought he would have been able to meet in 1879. Now he found
he could not meet them. These he reserved
[Illustration: THE DUCHESS OF CONNAUGHT.]
for another year, adding to them a fresh set of bills for the new
deficit, which transferred to the future a lump sum of debt equal to
£5,350,000. Leaving this item out of account, and ignoring the cost
of the South African War, he estimated the expenditure of 1879-80 at
£81,153,000. The revenue, he hoped, would amount to £83,000,000, so
that the estimated surplus he expected would suffice to cover the cost
of the operations in Zululand. It was a dismal statement, at best.
But ere the Session ended it was discovered that the real position
of affairs was even worse than Sir Stafford Northcote had admitted.
In August he had to inform the House that the Zulu War was costing
the country £500,000 a month, and that he must get a Vote of Credit
of £3,000,000. This, with an addition of £64,000 to the ordinary
Estimates, raised the original estimate of expenditure to £84,217,000.
Thus the estimated surplus of £1,847,000 vanished, and in its place
there stood a deficit of £1,217,000 for 1879-80, which might probably
be increased. The plan of evading the payment of debt, so as to render
a costly policy palatable to the electors, was thus a failure. The
longer the payment of the debt was deferred the more it grew, and
it was clear that the finances of the country were drifting into
inextricable confusion.
[Illustration: THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT.]
Parliament was prorogued on the 15th of August, and it had hardly risen
when the predicted calamity in Afghanistan arrived. As experienced
Anglo-Indians had anticipated, Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British Envoy
at Cabul, was murdered, and his suite massacred (3rd September), by
the fanatical soldiers of the Ameer. During the short period of his
residence, Cavagnari had justified the arguments of those who averred
that a European Envoy would never be able to furnish his Government
with any valuable information from Cabul. The only intelligence worth
having that was received by the Indian Government came from native
sources, and it had consisted of warnings that Cavagnari’s life was in
grave peril.[147] It was necessary to order an Army of Vengeance to
enter Afghanistan, and this was done. But, in England, the verdict of
public opinion was that Lord Beaconsfield’s Afghan policy had proved an
irredeemable failure. It was no longer possible to dream of avoiding
the costly and harassing annexation of Afghanistan, by extending over
it a veiled British Protectorate, to be administered by a British Envoy
at Cabul as Political Resident. There was no alternative but a military
occupation, which meant that England must be ready to hold down by
the sword a country as large as France, as impracticable for military
movements as Switzerland, and inhabited by wild fanatical tribes as
fierce, lawless, and savage as the hordes of Ghengis Khan.[148] The
Army of Vengeance under Sir Frederick Roberts, after much toil and many
struggles, fought its way through the Shutargardan Pass, and captured
Cabul on the 12th of October. The Ameer, Yakoob Khan, was forced to
abdicate, and he was deported to Peshawur, and in the meantime Roberts
governed the country by sword and halter. The hillmen attacked his
communications. The attitude of the Cabulees was, from the first,
threatening, though General Roberts disregarded the warnings of the
Persian newswriters, who told him that Afghanistan was going to rise
about his ears. On the 14th of December the insurrection broke out in
Cabul, and Roberts had to leave the city and fight his way round to the
cantonments at Sherpore, where his supplies were stored, and where he
took refuge, and was soon besieged. In fact, in the middle of December
the public learnt with extreme anxiety that every British post in
Afghanistan was surrounded by swarms of fierce insurgents, and that a
rescuing army must be organised at Peshawur without delay. Cabul itself
was in the hands of Mahomed Jan, the victorious Afghan leader. Bitterly
did Englishmen recall Lord Beaconsfield’s speech a month before at
the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, in which he assured his audience that the
operations in Afghanistan “had been conducted with signal success,”
that the North-West frontier of India had been strengthened and
secured, and that British supremacy had been asserted in Central Asia.
Fortunately, ere the year closed, General Gough, who had advanced from
Gundamuk, was able to join hands with Roberts, who again made himself
master of Cabul.
In South Africa affairs began to assume a more hopeful aspect towards
the end of the year. After the victory of Ulundi the Zulu chiefs one
after another submitted to the British Government. Cetewayo--who, as
we have seen, had been captured on the 28th of August--was sent as a
State prisoner to Cape Town, and Sir Garnet Wolseley made peace with
the Zulu chiefs and people.[149] The Kaffir chief, Secocoeni, who had
defied the Government before the Zulu War broke out, was attacked and
subdued. He had been secretly aided by the Boers, who had warned Sir
Bartle Frere that they did not accept the annexation of the Transvaal.
At Pretoria Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, told the Boer leaders that
the annexation which they were resisting was irreversible, and the
Boers for a time confined themselves to obstructing the judicial and
fiscal administration of the British Government.
The Zulu War was marked by one incident that powerfully influenced
the destiny of Europe: it cost the heir of the Bonapartes his life.
The young Prince Louis Napoleon--or the “Prince Imperial,” as the
Bonapartists insisted on calling him--had resolved to serve with
the British Army in Zululand. His object was to acquire a military
reputation that might be useful to him as a Pretender. A proud and
self-respecting Government, however hard pressed, cannot accept the
services of a foreign mercenary, however high his rank might be. But,
in deference to Courtly influences, the Prince was permitted to proceed
to the seat of war in an ambiguous position. He held no commission,
but he was treated like a junior officer of the General Staff, and the
Duke of Cambridge requested Lord Chelmsford to let the Prince see as
much of the war as he could. Lord Chelmsford issued instructions to
the military authorities, which made the Prince a burden--perhaps, in
some degree, a nuisance--to them. When he joined Lord Chelmsford Prince
Louis seems to have been attached to the Quartermaster-General’s
Department. But he was not to be allowed to go out of the camp without
Lord Chelmsford’s permission, and even then he was to be guarded by
an escort under an officer of experience. On the 1st of June Colonel
Harrison allowed the Prince to make a reconnaissance for the purpose of
choosing the site of a camp, but without obtaining Lord Chelmsford’s
sanction. The Prince’s party was to consist of six troopers and six
Basutos, and though no officer was sent to accompany him, Lieutenant
Carey, an accomplished and intelligent soldier, happened, by an
accident, to join the band. Carey had been employed to survey and map
out some of the adjoining ground, and he asked leave to go with the
Prince to clear up a doubtful topographical point on which he and Lord
Chelmsford differed in opinion. Carey merely went for his private
convenience. He was not told to look after the Prince; in fact, he was
told that, if he went, he was not to interfere with him, because his
Imperial Highness, eager to re-gild the tarnished Eagles of his House,
desired to have all the credit of conducting the
[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT.
(_From the Picture by S. P. Hall._)]
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA (1887).
(_From a Photograph by Lafayette, Dublin._)]
[Illustration: THE MAUSOLEUM, FROGMORE.]
Expedition. The Prince was in command of the party,[150] and in a fit
of boyish impatience, and in defiance of Carey’s advice, ordered it to
march without waiting for the six Basutos, who were late of putting
in an appearance. He led his little troop on for some distance, and
then, without taking the most ordinary precautions against surprise, he
halted--again against Carey’s counsel--for a rest in a deserted kraal
surrounded by a field of
tall Indian corn. This was a fatal blunder, for the cover of the
cornfield rendered the place eminently convenient for the concealment
of an ambuscade. Here the Prince waited an hour, whilst the Zulus
surrounded him. Then he gave his men the order to move. The Zulus
sprang from their hiding-places and fired on the little band, whose
startled horses were difficult to mount. It was impossible to see what
was going on in the cornfield, and it was not till the troopers had
retreated for some distance that Lieutenant Carey and his comrades
discovered that the Prince was missing. To have made a stand in the
cornfield would have been to court instant death. It appeared that the
Prince had been unable to mount his horse, which was frightened and
restive, and that the Zulus overtook him and stabbed him with their
assegais. Thanks to Carey’s knowledge of the ground, the rest of the
party, with the exception of two troopers, were saved, and Carey was
able to give Colonel Wood’s force the valuable intelligence that the
enemy, contrary to the general belief, were infesting the country in
front.
The indignation of the French Bonapartists at the death of the Prince
Imperial was without limit. The ex-Empress, who had encouraged her son
to go to South Africa, was prostrated with sorrow and remorse. Even the
tender sympathy of the Queen could not console her for the loss of one
whose life was necessary for her ambition, and whose death shattered
the last hopes of Imperialism in France. It was thought desirable
that somebody should be sacrificed to appease the ex-Empress, and
Lieutenant Carey was accordingly tried by Court-martial and promptly
condemned for “misbehaviour in front of the enemy” while in command
of a reconnoitring party. There were only two reasons for attacking
Carey. He was the officer of lowest rank who had any connection with
the Prince’s ill-fated reconnaissance, and he had absolutely nothing
whatever to do with the command of that expedition, or with the
Prince’s mismanagement of it. In fact, all that Carey could be blamed
for was for saving, by his superior knowledge of the ground, four of
the six troopers whom the Prince had led into a fatal ambuscade. It
need hardly be said that, on review, the finding of the Court-martial
was set aside by the Duke of Cambridge, and Lieutenant Carey restored
to his rank. The Duke laid all the blame on Colonel Harrison, who,
however, was not tried by Court-martial. But he also complained that
Carey made a mistake in imagining that the Prince was in command of the
party, a mistake which was not only natural but inevitable, and which
was shared by all his comrades. The melancholy and stubborn imprudence
of the Prince obviously led the expedition to disaster. The Duke of
Cambridge argued that Colonel Harrison should have warned the Prince
to be guided by Carey. Having blamed Harrison for not giving Carey
sufficiently definite instructions as to the command of the expedition,
he made Carey responsible for the defects in Harrison’s instructions.
Carey, according to the Duke, should have provided that military skill
which the Prince lacked. The truth was that Carey was warned not to
meddle with the Prince, who from first to last took command, and who,
when advice was tendered to him, rejected it in a manner that did not
encourage a spirited and self-respecting officer to press it on him.
The family life of the Court in 1879 was brightened by a Royal
wedding. On the 13th of March the marriage of the Duke of Connaught
with the Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia was celebrated with
some display. The ceremony took place in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.
At noon the four processions--those of the Queen, the Princess of
Wales, the bride and the bridegroom--quitted the quadrangle. The
Queen drove in her own carriage, drawn by four ponies, the remainder
of the Royal Family occupying the gilded State coaches, driven by
the Royal coachmen in their liveries of scarlet and gold. The display
of decorations and uniforms and costumes among the august guests
was seen to be very brilliant as the Royal party took their places
round the Communion rails, where were assembled the Archbishop of
Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Worcester, and the Dean
of Windsor. As Mendelssohn’s march from _Athalie_ resounded through
the sacred building the Queen was observed to take her place, dressed
in a complete Court dress of black satin, with a white veil and a
flashing coronet of diamonds. The Princess Beatrice had discarded Court
mourning, and appeared in a turquoise blue costume with a velvet train
to match. The bridegroom, wearing the uniform of the Rifle Brigade, was
supported by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The bride
was accompanied by her father, Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia,
better known as the “Red Prince,” and the German Crown Prince, who
wore the uniform of the 2nd or Queen’s Cuirassiers. The German Crown
Princess and the King of the Belgians were also present. The Red Prince
gave his daughter away. At the close of the ceremony the Queen and
Royal Family returned to the Palace amidst a salute of twenty-one guns.
On March the 25th the Queen and Princess Beatrice, attended by General
Sir H. F. Ponsonby, Lady Churchill, Sir W. Jenner, and Captain Edwards,
left Windsor Castle for the North of Italy. The Royal departure took
place in very wintry weather, snow and sleet falling heavily. In spite
of this the railway platform was crowded by visitors, who offered many
loyal salutations as the train steamed out of the station at 9.40 a.m.
Portsmouth was reached at noon, and the Royal party embarked on board
the _Victoria and Albert_, the yacht sailing at once for Cherbourg,
which was reached early in the evening. The Queen slept on board, and
left for Paris. When she arrived in Paris she found that though crowds
had collected at the station, no one was admitted to the platform
except the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons. The Queen, who was dressed
in deep mourning, though almost invisible to the people as she drove
to the English Embassy, was, nevertheless, greeted with cheers and
waving of hats all along the way. On the 27th her Majesty left Paris
for Arona. Prior to starting, she was much affected by the receipt of
a message announcing the death of her grandson, Prince Waldemar of
Prussia. She, however, went through the appointed tasks of the day
with her customary self-possession, and received President Grévy and
M. Waddington, both visits being brief and formal. The Duc de Nemours
also paid her a friendly visit, accompanied by Prince and Princess
Czartolyski. On the 28th the Queen, preserving the strictest incognito,
arrived at Modane, and after a short interval continued the journey to
Turin and Baveno on Lake Maggiore, which was her final destination. On
reaching the Italian frontier the Queen received a despatch from the
King and Queen of Italy welcoming her Majesty upon Italian soil. The
Queen sent a reply immediately, expressing her thanks in cordial terms.
On March 31st Prince Amadeus, brother of the King of Italy, arrived at
Baveno and had an audience of the Queen. During her stay in Italy her
Majesty assumed the title of the Countess of Balmoral, and occupied
the Villa Clara, which was placed at her disposal by M. Henfrey, the
owner. At first the weather was bad, but in spite of that the Queen
made many excursions to places of interest, and as her incognito was
respected, her holiday was not burdened with the wearisome formalities
of Court etiquette. Alike in France and Italy she was received with
hearty good wishes by the people. Garibaldi and the Pope vied with
King Humbert in welcoming her with congratulatory messages. On the
17th of April King Humbert and Queen Margherita and the members of
their household left Rome for Monza, and on the 18th proceeded to the
railway station to meet the train which was to bring the Queen and her
suite from Baveno. Punctually at the time arranged the Queen arrived,
and, on alighting from her carriage, warmly greeted the King and Queen
of Italy. The party then drove to the Royal Castle, where lunch was
served, after which the Queen returned to Baveno, which she left on
the 23rd of April, arriving in Paris next day. Her return was clouded,
as her setting out had been, by the shadow of death. On her arrival
at Turin she received the painful intelligence of the death at Genoa
of the Duke of Roxburghe, the husband of one of her valued friends.
She left Paris on Friday, the 25th, and before her departure she gave
away memorial tokens to several of the members of the Embassy. She
arrived at Windsor on the 27th, where the German Empress came to spend
some days with her in May. During this visit both Royal ladies became
great-grandmothers, for the Queen’s first great-grandchild was born
on the 12th of May. This was the first-born daughter of the Princess
Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, the eldest daughter of the German Crown
Prince and Princess.
[Illustration: OSBORNE HOUSE, FROM THE GARDENS.
(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons._)]