and I shall not pretend that he could claim that particular distinction,
though he wrote easily and well. Of his best books I shall have
something presently to say. But I think it is known to only a very few
survivors that he had a predilection and even a passion for literature,
which he shared, I should think, with no man of action of his time. He
was an insatiate reader, and his reading covered a surprising range. For
a man to whom life offered excitement and animation in almost every
direction, it was notable how much time he found to spare for
intellectual amusement. He attributed his love of reading to the
influence of his Irish mother. He said once to me, "I would sooner live
upon porridge in a bookroom than upon venison and truffles where books
were not," and this meant much from one who was by no means indifferent
to the truffles and the venison of life. The curious thing is that this
obsession with literature nowhere peeps out in his published works, and
is notably absent in his autobiography, _The Story of a Soldier's Life_,
where we should particularly expect to find traces of it. For this
defect in the general portraiture of that book there are reasons, upon
which I may touch later on. It is a useful chain of military records,
but it is a portrait of its author in full uniform, with cocked hat and
sword. It was my good fortune to see him always in mufti, and if I essay
a snapshot of him I am bound to show him with a book in his hand.
My acquaintance with Lord Wolseley began in 1888, and I owed it to a
common friend whom I never cease to deplore, the ever-ingenious Andrew
Lang. I have forgotten how these two came together, but they had a great
appreciation of each other's company. Wolseley was now just fifty-five,
but he looked much younger, and he flashed about as though the spirit of
April still laughed at him. The first thing which struck an observer on
meeting him was that he had the gestures of a boy; the elastic
footstep, the abruptly vivid movements, one would almost say were those
of a happy child. In 1888 Lord and Lady Wolseley were still inhabiting a
small house in Hill Street, but immediately after I first knew them they
moved to the Ranger's House in Greenwich Park, the scene for me of
delightful memories during the next two years. Wolseley was at that time
Adjutant-General of the Forces, under Stanhope, and afterwards
Commander-in-Chief in Ireland under Campbell-Bannerman. He worked hard
every day at the War Office, and came down to Greenwich in the afternoon
like any civil servant or bank clerk. His life at that time was marked
by the serene and unaffected simplicity which always seemed to me the
cardinal feature of his personal character. Much in Wolseley had an
appearance of inconsistency. For instance, it cannot be questioned that
he demanded a great deal from those who worked under him professionally,
nor that he was careful of his own prestige. But when he was released
from his military work, he became the least assuming of mankind.
Moreover--and this makes the attempt to paint him particularly
difficult--he was not, to the public eye, conspicuous, as other great
generals have been, through demeanour or appearance. I used often to be
surprised, when we were walking together in the street, to notice how
few people recognized him, although he was then at the height of his
celebrity.
In September, 1889, when my wife and I were going over to the Continent,
we observed a shortish gentleman, in tourist dress, pacing the deck of
the steamer, and we said to each other: "Does not that man remind you of
somebody?" Presently he stopped before us, smiling, and it was Wolseley.
He was going alone to Metz, from which point he proposed to make a tour
of personal observation round all the battlefields of 1870. He said that
there were inconsistencies in the published accounts, and that he had
meditated over them till it was impossible for him to rest until he had
settled his difficulties by independent inspection. He told us not to
say we had met him, and it was an example of that want of
conspicuousness, which I have noted, that, although it was broad
daylight, and he then one of the most famous figures in England, no one
else did seem to recognize him. He had theories about the Franco-German
campaign for which he sought confirmation. I begged him to let me know
what the result might be, and so he wrote to me, from Brunswick, on
October 4th:
I postponed writing to you until my tour round the battle-fields
should have finished, as I could not tell what to write upon the
subject until I had studied the ground. I need scarcely tell you
that I knew the chief episodes of each great fight very well before
I came abroad. The German account of the events is so full and
truthful that no student of war has any excuse for ignorance. With
that book, and maps and plans, I have carefully studied every phase
of every battle-field from Sedan in the North to Strasburg in the
South, and I find I could not write upon the subject without
expressions of opinion that would be very unpleasant to many men
now alive. The Germans outnumbered the French in nearly all those
battles to a large extent, and though the French allowed themselves
to be surprised, and their leaders committed every possible
mistake, the errors of the Germans were very glaring upon many
occasions. Almost all their battles were not only fought in a
manner entirely different from what was intended, but, in nearly
every case, they were brought on without, and on some occasions
contrary to, the positive orders and intentions of the Generals.
When I saw him at Greenwich soon after his return he spoke more plainly
still. He said that he had found, to his great surprise, that the
Germans, whose luck, he declared, had been incredible, had been very
nearly defeated more than once or twice. He had been particularly
excited by his inspection of the battlefield of Gravelotte. If that
battle had not, he said, been won by what was really "a fluke," the day
would have closed upon the German Army in about the most unfortunate
position an army could possibly be placed in. All this struck me,
ignorant of tactics as I am, as so very interesting that I entreated
him to change his mind and write a complete record of his observations
on the battlefields. But he said that the praise of German strategy had
reached such a pitch of infatuation in England that he should be
"accused of all sorts of things." Nevertheless, I pressed him to write
down his experience, even if he kept it private. He finally promised
that he would do so that winter, but I never heard any more about it.
His last words were "I dare not publish my views," and presently he had
to go off to Newcastle on military business, which quite diverted his
thoughts. It must be observed that we trusted in those days wholly to
German historians, and that the French account, which confirmed Lord
Wolseley to the letter, was not published until ten years later.
It was while I was walking with him in Greenwich Park one afternoon
about this time that I first realized that he had any literary ambition.
He acknowledged a constant temptation to use his pen. I had thought of
him as a reader, but hardly as a writer, although he had published his
soldiers' _Pocket-Book for Field Service_ some twenty years before. I
learned afterwards, from Andrew Lang, that Lord Wolseley had produced a
novel, under a feigned name; this I had never seen, and Lang did not
encourage me to hunt for it. But now, with considerable leisure, he was
ready to be encouraged to write on matters at the fringe of his daily
occupation. He did not, however, see any particular theme lying in wait
for him. During a visit I had lately paid to the United States I had
enjoyed a good deal of conversation with two of the leading generals of
the Civil War, with Philip Henry Sheridan and with William Tecumseh
Sherman. It was Sherman who made the celebrated march to the sea from
Atlanta to Savannah at the end of 1864; his tenacity and clairvoyance
delighted Wolseley, who was nevertheless inclined to blame Sherman for
an excess of ruthlessness in his methods. He laughed when I told him
that I had heard Sherman, when teased at a supper-party for destroying
some town, first deny the charge, and then, when it was daringly
repeated, turn round on the railer like an old snow-leopard, and cry:
"Next time I'll burn the whole darned city to the ground."
With Sheridan, Wolseley was in much more complete sympathy. He set him
on the very summit as a fighting general, and he said that he had
contrived a mobility of cavalry in action which was unprecedented. I
think he had known Sheridan personally in his early days on the
frontier. I remember his saying that, if he himself were conducting a
great battle, he should like nothing better than to have the victor of
Opequam on a camp-stool by his side. His memory took fire at what I was
able to recall of the conversation of the two great American generals.
His chief hero, however, was Lee, and I remember that he put the
Confederate general by the side of Marlborough and far above Wellington.
I used the occasion to suggest to him that he should write down his
ideas regarding the strategic careers of these Americans. He liked the
notion, and Mr. Rice, who was then editing the _North American Review_,
having been communicated with, an invitation came to Wolseley which he
accepted, and wrote, in 1889, one or perhaps several articles, which
have never, I think, been reprinted. The life at Ranger's House was very
quiet; the Wolseleys rarely dined in town, and the General's existence
was almost that of a recluse. I remember we were all very much amused
when his valet, a dashing character, suddenly gave warning, his sole
cause of complaint being that he was losing caste by remaining in the
service of "so very quiet a nobleman, who does not even go to the
races!"
All this was completely changed in 1890 when Wolseley was appointed
Commander of the Forces in Ireland. He wrote to announce the fact to me
in July, and said that it was "rather a wrench going," but that he felt
he should like it when he got to Dublin. "A more active, out-of-door
life will be good for me," he opined. It was a great business moving all
the family possessions, for both husband and wife were ardent collectors
of bric-a-brac, and the treasures went by sea. The gallant couple, whose
nostrils snuffed adventure as wild horses do their pasture, thoroughly
enjoyed their position at the beautiful Dublin house, depressingly known
as the Royal Hospital. Wolseley took to getting up at 5.30 every
morning, and no day was long enough for his activities and his
hospitalities. The political crisis was more severe than usual, but
Wolseley cared very little about politics, and his buoyant energy and
boundless good nature made his house the one bright spot in an otherwise
dismal Dublin. That, at least, is how it struck me during an enchanting
visit I paid to the Royal Hospital in the midst of the resistance to
Lord Rosebery's "predominant partner." Wolseley gave up any thought of
periodical literature; when I urged it he said he was "always being
attacked for writing." I do not quite know who can have "attacked" him
or why, but he had other things to attend to.
He was not, however, unoccupied. It was while he was in Ireland that he
composed his _Life of the Duke of Marlborough_, of which he finished two
volumes in the spring of 1893 and published them a year later. The notes
for it had occupied him for many years, he said, "on board ship, in
camp, and often at long intervals of time when on duty abroad and in the
field." He made a tour, as I well remember, to the scenes of Churchill's
childhood, before he left Greenwich in 1890, and his descriptions of Ash
House and the valley of the Axe were jotted down on the spot. The _Life
of Marlborough_ is Wolseley's principal contribution to literature. It
is characteristically written, with that buoyancy and freshness which
were inherent in his nature, but which do not appear so vividly in his
other publications. The account of the Battle of Sedgemoor, which
occupies an entire chapter, is almost a masterpiece; this is Wolseley,
the writer, at his highest level. Unfortunately, this admirable book is,
and will remain, a fragment, and posterity has a prejudice against what
is unfinished. The second volume closes in 1702, when Marlborough's
political intrigues had come to an end and William III. was placing him
at the head of the allied forces in Flanders. This was, of course, the
division of his career, and naturally closed a volume. But the military
fun was only just going to begin, and what everybody wanted from Lord
Wolseley, of all men in the world, was an account of the great
campaigns.
This, however, was never performed, why, we can only conjecture. The
book was, on the whole, very well received, but, naturally, everyone
noted that it stopped in the middle of the story. In answer to an
anxious inquiry which I sent off on receiving my copy of the two
volumes, Wolseley wrote:
I hope the book will pay the publisher. If it does, I shall write
the military part of Marlborough's life, which, of course, would be
to me a more interesting undertaking than describing my hero
through a period already well known from the pages of our greatest
historical novelist, Macaulay.
This shows that, in April, 1894, no part of the continuation was
actually written, but I doubt not that he had made copious notes of some
of the 1702-1710 campaigns. Indeed, on one occasion much later, when I
was trying to urge him to return to so congenial an enterprise, he told
me that the Battle of Malplaquet was actually finished; and Mr. Richard
Bentley informs me that this MS. was actually at one time in his
father's hands. Wolseley also is known to have described the march along
the Danube in 1705, but not reaching the Battle of Blenheim. These
fragments must surely exist among Lord Wolseley's MSS., and I urge Sir
George Arthur to make careful search for them. They ought to be well
worthy of publication. That, at the age of sixty-one, and in active
State employment, Lord Wolseley did not feel able to pursue his hero
over the innumerable battlefields from Venloo to Oudenarde is easily
comprehensible, but that he should have stopped just where he did is
lamentable. We may wish that he had been inspired to start, instead of
stopping, at 1702.
A side of Lord Wolseley's mental temperament which was little known was
his sympathy with the imaginative literature of the East. He could not,
I suppose, be called a scholar, but he had more acquaintance with
Oriental languages than was generally suspected. In particular, the
poetry of Persia exercised a great fascination over him. He studied both
Persian and Hindustani for a couple of years, and kept a learned Munshi
with him all that time as a travelling tutor. This man had a passion for
the poets, and, as Wolseley told me, constantly held him in conversation
on the subject of Persian history and made him read Persian books.
Wolseley learned quotations from the poets by heart, and afterwards, in
speaking with exalted or highly-educated natives of India, he found that
the apt introduction of such tags from the classics was greatly
appreciated, and was made the subject of compliment. Wolseley was very
amusing about this.
As I happened to be President of the Omar Khayyam Club in 1897, I
thought that a speech from the Field-Marshal at the annual banquet would
introduce a charming novelty into that mild orgy of red wine and red
roses. Although very busy, for he had lately been made Commander-in-Chief,
he "jumped," as we say, at the invitation, and made his appearance as
the Guest of the Evening. It was not for me to hint procedure to so
illustrious a visitor, but I confess I dreaded lest the clash of swords
might jar a little on our floral festivity. I need have had no fear.
When the moment came for Lord Wolseley to rise (he had told me that he
felt so shy that his "heart was in his mouth," but he showed no sign of
discomposure) he assured the company that he had been misrepresented as
a man of blood, but that he was, on the contrary, a lover of roses and
red wine. He confessed that he knew Omar only in the translation of
FitzGerald; I was aware--but kept my counsel--that he had only known
that since his invitation to dine. He said that in India he had never
heard the name of Omar pronounced, but he expatiated largely on those of
Hafiz and Firdousi. The rules of the Club excluded reporters, and I have
always been sorry that no record survives of this charming little
discourse. What does survive is a delicious poem in Austin Dobson's
best vein, which was handed round to the guests in privately printed
form. This piece described the scene and those present, beginning with
I note
Our _Rustum_ here, without red coat,
a touch which pleased the Field-Marshal.
Lord Wolseley had taken an active part in the Chinese War of 1860, and I
remember his telling me that on his appointment as deputy to accompany
Sir Hugh Grant to Hong-Kong he ransacked every library and bookshop in
Calcutta for books about China. His account of the campaign, up to the
surrender of Pekin in November, 1860, was published in his _Narrative of
the War with China_, a work founded on the letters he sent home by each
successive mail; it can conveniently be read in chapters XXVII. to XXXI.
of _The Story of a Soldier's Life_. But what is not told there is that
he preserved to the end of his days a very sympathetic interest in the
civic manners of the Chinese, whom he preferred to any other Oriental
race, having at one time or another tested them all. In his published
writings Lord Wolseley dwells mainly on the perfidy of the ruling
classes in China, and on the ease with which Lord Elgin allowed himself
to be taken in by the treacherous Chinese Ministers. He expressed horror
at the crime of the escort who beheaded Captain Brabazon at the
Pa-li-cheaou Bridge, an event which had a peculiar effect on Wolseley,
because it was by a mere accident that Brabazon, at the last moment, had
taken Wolseley's place in his absence on another business. The want of
elementary scruple in the Chinese authorities was shocking to a
straightforward British soldier. But, after all, we were at war with
them.
On the other hand, what Wolseley loved to expatiate on in private
conversation was the sterling virtue of the ordinary Chinese civilian. I
recollect how on one occasion, when Sir Francis de Winton was dining at
Ranger's House, and expressed some views over-indulgent to the Turks,
Lord Wolseley turned upon him, sparkling with indignation, and swore
that no Turk could hold a candle to a Chinaman, the cleanest, the most
temperate, the most philosophical creature in the world. In vain did De
Winton protest that he meant no dishonour to China. Wolseley was started
on his hobby-horse, and gave us no peace till he had delivered quite a
little oration on the wonderful merits of the disciples of Confucius.
This was in 1889, and long afterwards the zeal for China was eating him
up at intervals. I find a letter to myself, dated April 17th, 1901, in
which he tells me that he is reading Professor H. A. Giles's _History of
Chinese Literature_:
I wonder how deep he has gone in it. The only man I ever knew who
had more than dipped into that vast subject was Sir T. Wade, an old
friend of mine. I have known many men who spoke Chinese well, some
even spoke it fluently--Sir Harry Parkes, for instance--but Wade
was the only Englishman I ever met who had probed down deep into
the Chinese classics. He often laughed at the notion of any Fan qui
being well acquainted with them, so great was their volume and so
numerous the works to be studied. Indeed very few Chinamen are
thoroughly well read in their own classical literature. When we
moved upon the Summer Palace in 1860, the Emperor fled in haste,
leaving upon a little table the book he had just been reading. I
always regretted not having taken possession of it, instead of
letting it be destroyed. It was a classical work.
On the night of October 12th, 1899, when the Boer war was declared, my
wife and I shared with Lord and Lady Wolseley a box at the performance
of Shakespeare's _King John_. Like almost everyone else except
Kitchener, the Commander-in-Chief assured us that the war would be a
short one; he was radiant and calm on that memorable evening. There were
many verses in the play which seemed appropriate to the occasion, and
when King John declaimed--
Here have we war for war, and blood for blood,
Controlment for controlment.
Wolseley whispered "and Victoria for Mr. Krueger!" It was exhilarating,
though as it turned out not wholly satisfactory, to listen to King
John's proud reply to Chattilion:
For ere thou canst report, I will be there;
The thunder of my cannon shall be heard--
So hence!
But I must not trespass within the circle of our coming disenchantment.
A few months later Lord Wolseley handed over the Command-in-Chief to
Lord Roberts, and he presently retired to a farmhouse at Glynde, near
Lewes, where he resided for a number of years, more and more secluded
from the world, but devoted to his garden and his books. Once more he
became a voracious reader of miscellaneous literature. Here he liked to
be informed of what was going on in the world of letters, and to see as
frequently as he could a few friends who wrote. Among these, I think
there was none whom he valued more than Henry James, a very old friend,
earlier, I think, than Andrew Lang or myself. It might be supposed that
there was little in common between the active soldier and the exquisite
and meticulous dreamer, but, on the contrary, their mutual esteem was
persistent, and Wolseley delighted in the conversation of Henry James,
although he sometimes allowed himself to smile at the novelist's halting
and deliberate utterance. Wolseley, on the other hand, was an emphatic,
spontaneous talker, not very particular in selecting the very best word
or in rounding the most harmonious period. It was amusing to hear them
together, the one so short and sharp, the other so mellifluous and
hesitating, yet their admiration, each for the other, was continuous.
I do not think that Wolseley was ever more happy than in the first
years of his residence at Glynde, the world forgetting, by the world
forgot. But a certain insidious melancholy soon began to invade him. He
gradually cut himself off from all his round of London engagements, and
he never once, if I remember right, attended the House of Lords after
his retirement from the War Office. He was not in the least degree
invalided or deprived of nervous energy, but he felt that in the long,
strenuous years of service he had earned a holiday, and now he took it.
He made, perhaps, few new friends, but he was careful to cultivate the
old ones, and no one was ever more assiduous in the art of friendship.
He clung to old associations and to old faces--"they can't escape me," I
remember his saying. He liked to see them at Glynde, where they always
received a glowing, almost a boisterous, welcome. The house lies in a
sort of glen between two ranges of the beautiful Sussex downs, and
Wolseley loved to climb these eminences with a familiar companion. He
was particularly apt to take such a friend eastward along the lanes to
Firle and then up to the summit of the beacon above Alciston. This was
one of his favourite afternoon excursions, and from this vantage he
would sweep the coastline from Seaford to Pevensey, and dilate on its
strategic capabilities.
Of such excursions as these I have the happiest memory. The exercise
always seemed to stir the General's brain to especial activity. His
rapid, vehement voice rang out in full sonority in the silence of the
great rolling Down, and his thoughts seemed to move with more ease than
usual in the high, cold air of autumn. His imagination worked with a
vitality which almost persuaded his ignorant companion that he also was
a strategical genius, so easy did the problems of military movement seem
when outrolled by Wolseley's warm voice and punctuated by the sweep of
his walking-stick. It was impossible not to feel that "this exceptional
combination of mental gifts with untiring physical power and stern
resolution" made our wonderful friend unique in his class and time. One
was amazed to find one's self entrusted with the professional secrets
of which one was really so unworthy a recipient. But it was
characteristic of Wolseley that, with all his fire and abruptness, he
was incapable of the smallest element of patronage. He lifted his
friends, in a whirl of generous illusion, up to a level with himself,
and insisted on their sharing his conceptions. No one ever possessed a
more fascinating gift for persuading the person he talked with that the
friend's powers and capacities were equal to his own. The impression
could only be momentary, but it was extremely grateful while it lasted.