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THE BATTLE OF DORKING
With an Introduction by G. H. Powell
[Illustration]
London
Grant Richards Ltd.
MDCCCCXIV
PREFACE
The warnings and prophecies addressed to one generation must prove very
ineffective if they are equally applicable to the next. But in the
eloquent appeal published forty-three years ago, by General Chesney,
with its vivid description and harrowing pathos, few readers will not
recognize parallel features to those of our own situation in September,
1914.
True the handicaps of the invasion of August, 1871, are heavily piled
upon the losing combatant. Not only the eternal Anglo-Irish trouble
(so easily mistaken by the foreigner for such a difference as might be
found separating two other countries) but complications with America,
as well as the common form seduction of the British fleet to the
Dardanelles, a general unreadiness of all administrative departments,
and a deep distrust of the “volunteer” movement, involve the whole
drama in an atmosphere of profound pessimism.
But there are scores of other details, counsels, and reflections (of
which we will not spoil the reader’s enjoyment by anticipation) which,
as the common saying is of history when it repeats itself, “might have
been written yesterday.” The desperate condition of things is all the
more remarkable as Englishmen had just witnessed the crushing defeat of
their great ally--supposed to be the first military power of Europe--by
the enemy they are supposed to despise. The story is otherwise simple
enough. The secret annexation of Holland and Denmark is disclosed.
People said we might have kept out of the trouble. But an impulsive
nation egged on the Government who, confident that our old luck would
pull us through, at once declare war. The fleet, trying to close with
the enemy, is destroyed in “a few minutes” by the “deadly engines” left
behind by the evasive enemy; our amateurish armies are defeated on our
own soil, and _voilà tout_.
Remarkable must have been the national insouciance, or despondent the
eye which viewed it, to explain the impassioned actuality of such a
_reveillematin_.
For one thing it may be remarked that _The Battle of Dorking_,[A]
though in a sense the “history” of the pamphlet is already “ancient,”
is really the first of its kind. The topic, then of such inspiring
freshness, has since become well worn.
_Mutatis mutandis_, doubtless, much of General Chesney’s advice and
warning might have been repeated on the occasion of the Boer War. If
that were not a practical “alarum to the patriotic Briton,” we ask
ourselves what could be so called. Perhaps it combined the maximum of
alarm with the minimum of national risk, but its beneficent influence
can scarcely be questioned.
At the date of the republication of this pamphlet we face a peril
immeasurably greater than that, if not equal to the Napoleonic terror
of 1803; and we face it, as concerns the mass of our population, with a
calmness which--to critical eyes and in view of the appeal made by the
Government to the country--is at least susceptible of an unsatisfactory
explanation.
If surprise, misunderstanding, may in a measure account for that, it
would be idle to pretend that the national mood and temper (and the
moods and tempers of nations will vary) were altogether--if they could
ever be--such as encouraged the most sanguine hopes of our success when
exposed to an ordeal of suddenness, extent, and severity unknown in the
world’s history.
In estimating the risks of our situation, thoughtful criticism may be
said to run naturally into two channels.
Firstly, in the political world--for reasons which cannot here be
considered--the past decade has seen a predominance of idealist
activity and ratiocination scarcely known before.
Hence the State has exhibited, to some extent, a _Utopiste_ attitude
likely to mislead foreign nations--it may be said with mild
brevity--alike as to our real views of their conduct, and as to our
national belief in the right or duty of self-assertion.
If, in 1871, we were represented as the helpless dupes of foreign
diplomacy, in 1914 we rather appear to have deceived the enemy to our
own hurt. A humane aversion to War--though, for that matter, it is only
by a philanthropic “illusion” that the extreme stage of self-assertion
can be morally differentiated from those that precede it, may tempt
politicians by a too sedulous avoidance of the unpleasing phrase to
invite the dreadful reality. But, again, in the private life of the
nation, other traits (some noted in the pamphlet of ’71) have given
cause for critical reflection. Besides Luxury--remarkable enough in
its novel and fantastic forms, though a commonplace complaint of
tractarians in all ages--a generally increased relaxation of all
old-established ties of religion, convention or tradition, a tendency
noticeable in general conduct, art and letters alike, a sort of
orgy of intellectual and literary Erastianism, a _blasé_ craving
for sensational novelty (encouraged perhaps if not sated by the
startling novelties of the age) have given scope for anxiety as to
the conservation in the English nature of that solid _morale_, that
“gesundes und sicheres Gefühl” defined by an eminent thinker as the
source of all worthy activity.
These words can but very crudely sketch a complex sense of uneasiness
and dissatisfaction familiar to most of us.
Mr. Kipling has sung long since of athletic excesses and indolence.
More recent critics have dwelt on the extravagant time and expense
devoted to golf. General Chesney would have branded the sensationalist
effeminacy of our football-gloating crowds of thousands who might be
recruits. Reviewers laugh wearily over the horrors or absurdities of
the latest poetic monstrosity or “futurist” nightmare. But in one phase
or another the consciousness is present to all, and not unnoticed by
our enemies.
And it adds a sting to our inevitable anxiety if we cannot yet feel
sure how far we can “recollect” our true best selves in the very moment
of action, how far there has been given to us that saving grace of a
storm-tost nation, “_l’art de porter en soi le remède de ses propres
défauts_.”
Every race, doubtless, has its own special weaknesses and delusions,
the “idols” of its patriotic “cave,” and it is a commonplace of history
that the moral, physical, or intellectual “decadence” of one age is
revived and actualized by the material cataclysm of another.
And the readiness, spiritual and material, of the nation _in utrumque
paratus_ is the index of its harmony with its environment.
On the other hand there are wars to be fully prepared for which would
almost mean to be a partner in their criminality. There is an attitude
of defence which, if successful, would lose all dignity were it allied
with a permanent distrust in the morality and humanity of other
nations.
If only an inhuman pride could be free from uneasiness at such a
moment, at least warm encouragement comes to us _ab extra_. Whatever
our weaknesses now, our sins or blunders in the past, no historian
will question the motive, nay, the severe moral effort with which the
English nation enters upon this war of the ages.
It is scarcely conceivable that any people could be called upon to make
a greater or more sudden exhibition of--their peculiar qualities.
What will be the verdict upon our own? That we are wilfully
misunderstood, misrepresented, must matter little to us, if we have the
moral support of a public opinion which will, if we triumph, be more
powerful for good than ever before.
Nor need we fear its ultimate perversion by interested slander. The
hostile demonstrations of the German intellect during the early stages
of this war have scarcely been on a par with those of its material
force.
One of the latest of sophistical Imperialist ebullitions complains with
somewhat forced pathos of our waging war with our former allies of
Waterloo!
But we did not fight the French then because they were French, nor
ally ourselves with Prussians because they spoke a guttural tongue.
We fought then, as now, against the erection of an impossible and
unbearable European tyranny, the local origin and nationality of which
would have been quite immaterial to the main question.
Can we believe for a moment that the great German intellect has ever
been under the slightest misapprehension of so very simple a matter?
War, honest war, may be Hell, as General Sherman described it. It
is, at least, a form of Purgatory in which personality, nationality,
are forces that count but little, while principle and motive (as was
tragically exhibited in the great American struggle) are everything.
Did not Christianity itself preach this kind of sanctified discord in
which a novel sense of right, or the perception of higher ideal, should
divide even the nearest and dearest, and set them at war not, as in old
days, by reason of any “family compact,” or mere racial tie, but for
the sake of “Right,” and--so far as ordinary friendly or neighbourly
relations were concerned--in utter “scorn of consequence.”
There, indeed, is the poignant tragedy of the case. To be at war with
the countrymen of Schumann and Beethoven, of Goethe and Ranke, is not
that an affliction to the very soul of England, an outrage to feelings
and instincts tangled up with the very core of our civilization?
Terrible, indeed, is it that there should be amities which, at such
crises, we must
“tear from our bosom
Though our heart be at the root.”
No man or nation expects perfection in his friends. Honestly we have
loved and respected the German. We have not wormed ourselves into
his confidence, nursing through long years secret stores of explosive
jealousy. His art, his learning, have had their full meed of admiration
from his kindred here.
But we recognize--dull, indeed, would they be who needed a more
striking reminder that beneath the defective “manner” of the Teuton
lurks an element of crude barbarity with which we cannot pretend to
fraternize.
The violence of the Goths and Huns had its place in history; but that
would be a strange international morality which would give the rein now
to mediæval instincts of egoistic tyranny and perfectly organized brute
force, as against the gentler instincts, the higher social civilization
largely associated with the Latin and Celtic races.
In these matters the Balance of Power is no less vital to international
life and the evolution of true cosmopolitan ideals than in mere
Politics. And if we stand up in battle for the smaller races it is not
merely because they are small and need defence, but because an element
of the right, a share in the civilization which we mean to prevail, is
with them and a part of their heritage.
The technical bond may be, as the scoffing enemy remarks (in words
which will surely, as curses, return some day to roost), a mere “scrap
of paper” signed with England’s name.
But the civilized world will recognize that it is only by the increased
sanctity of such ties that Europe advances towards intelligent
cosmopolitanism, and leaves behind the vandal wild beast den after
which woe to those who still hanker!
* * * *
There were critics, even English critics, who have taken so superficial
a view of history and humanity as to ask why we should support France,
with our blood and treasure, when in _morale_ and intellect it is
perhaps the candid truth that we are more on the side of her enemy.
It is scarcely necessary to urge in reply that France, if not the
one great continental nation, is the one great people of parallel
and contemporary development to our own, our comrade, our rival,
our nearest social (if not racial) kin, and that, spite of all her
decadence and even degradation, upon the arena of Europe she stands for
Humanity and Civilization against Absolutism and Brute Force.
And as we raised the world against her, when dominated by the tyrannous
egoism of Bonaparte, the monstrous fungoid growth that overlaid her
great Revolution and obscured her services to freedom, so now we stand
as foes, not, we would fain believe, of the German people, but of
the militarist clique, the Napoleonic nightmare that overpowers her
moral instincts and clouds her honesty and intelligence. But here,
again, let us not deceive ourselves as to the extent--perhaps to be
all too fatally revealed--of “the force behind the Kaiser.” Germany
of to-day stands for a compact mass of highly energized (though not
yet politically conscious) material and intellectual vigour. That a
group of principalities, obsessed by militarist and petty-aristocratic
traditions, should within half a century of their amalgamation form a
politically great and united people, could scarcely be expected.
But if not fully organized on the representative lines to which
we attach so much importance, Germany presents a united front of
intelligence, commercial industry and ambition with which her rapidly
increasing population pushes on, eager for new worlds to conquer.
That she demands an “Elizabethan age” of her own is the tragic
platitude of our time.
That she is aggrieved that we have had one, while we can only
imperfectly (in her estimation) utilize its modern fruits, is her true
theoretical _casus belli_ against us.
The immorality of the position consists in her belief that the Sun
of Civilization must stand still, the currents of Law and Order
run backwards to satisfy her _entêtée_ and unscrupulous jealousy.
Englishmen have been so innocent as to believe she would be satisfied
by a share, nay an extensive monopoly of the trade we once thought our
own. They have urged that the German has all the advantages enjoyed by
a native throughout the British Empire, that in spite of a constant
agitation by a large and powerful party, no English Government has ever
used its power to impose any artificial restraints upon German trade;
that the fullest hospitality of these Islands has been extended to our
Teuton brethren; while they were invited to successfully compete on
their merits with one English industry after another.
That they would not rest content with these advantages, this political
and commercial equality, that they would want to organize secret
treachery, to spy out our weaknesses and hide bombs in their bedrooms,
that--to the simple Briton of a few weeks ago--would have seemed
impossible.
He now knows what primitive passions may lurk behind a plausible
commercialism secretly disappointed in its immoderate greed.
It is in the alliance of despotic militarism with bureaucratic
intellectual sophistry that has lain a new peril for the world, and
one yet to be fully realized by the German people, when many of the
hasty and speculative structures of her self-conscious and academic
Protectionism are discovered to be as unsound as the quasi-religious
aphorisms of the Kaiser.
In spite of these confident assurances it may be the fate of that
arrogant leader to find himself at war with “things,” stony facts,
economic laws that crush the transgressor, as well as with an indignant
world.
Meanwhile--our armies have fought bravely and held their own in the
greatest battle, the most ferocious conflict the world ever dreamed of.
Our unconquered fleet, after the tradition of four centuries, is still
“looking for the enemy.” All around us, as we write, is evidence that
this nation is bracing herself for a new and stupendous effort of
courage, perhaps of imaginative strategy, and even _Weltpolitik_ which
will in startling fashion bring the forces of half the world to meet
and crush a world-menacing peril, and place our England, the mistress
of the seas, on a pinnacle where she will be justified of all her
patriotic children, counsellors, critics and heroes alike.
G. H. POWELL.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Contributed by Genl. Sir Geo. T. Chesney (1830-1895) to
_Blackwood’s Magazine_ (May, 1871). It created a great sensation and
appeared in pamphlet form the same year.
THE BATTLE OF DORKING
You ask me to tell you, my grandchildren, something about my own share
in the great events that happened fifty years ago. ’Tis sad work
turning back to that bitter page in our history, but you may perhaps
take profit in your new homes from the lesson it teaches. For us in
England it came too late. And yet we had plenty of warnings, if we
had only made use of them. The danger did not come on us unawares.
It burst on us suddenly, ’tis true; but its coming was foreshadowed
plainly enough to open our eyes, if we had not been wilfully blind. We
English have only ourselves to blame for the humiliation which has been
brought on the land. Venerable old age! Dishonourable old age, I say,
when it follows a manhood dishonoured as ours has been. I declare, even
now, though fifty years have passed, I can hardly look a young man in
the face when I think I am one of those in whose youth happened this
degradation of Old England--one of those who betrayed the trust handed
down to us unstained by our forefathers.
What a proud and happy country was this fifty years ago! Free-trade
had been working for more than a quarter of a century, and there seemed
to be no end to the riches it was bringing us. London was growing
bigger and bigger; you could not build houses fast enough for the rich
people who wanted to live in them, the merchants who made the money
and came from all parts of the world to settle there, and the lawyers
and doctors and engineers and others, and tradespeople who got their
share out of the profits. The streets reached down to Croydon and
Wimbledon, which my father could remember quite country places; and
people used to say that Kingston and Reigate would soon be joined to
London. We thought we could go on building and multiplying for ever.
’Tis true that even then there was no lack of poverty; the people who
had no money went on increasing as fast as the rich, and pauperism was
already beginning to be a difficulty; but if the rates were high, there
was plenty of money to pay them with; and as for what were called the
middle classes, there really seemed no limit to their increase and
prosperity. People in those days thought it quite a matter of course
to bring a dozen children into the world--or, as it used to be said,
Providence sent them that number of babies; and if they couldn’t always
marry off all the daughters, they used to manage to provide for the
sons, for there were new openings to be found in all the professions,
or in the Government offices, which went on steadily getting larger.
Besides, in those days young men could be sent out to India, or into
the army or navy; and even then emigration was not uncommon, although
not the regular custom it is now. Schoolmasters, like all other
professional classes, drove a capital trade. They did not teach very
much, to be sure, but new schools with their four or five hundred boys
were springing up all over the country.
Fools that we were! We thought that all this wealth and prosperity were
sent us by Providence, and could not stop coming. In our blindness we
did not see that we were merely a big workshop, making up the things
which came from all parts of the world; and that if other nations
stopped sending us raw goods to work up, we could not produce them
ourselves. True, we had in those days an advantage in our cheap coal
and iron; and had we taken care not to waste the fuel, it might have
lasted us longer. But even then there were signs that coal and iron
would soon become cheaper in foreign parts; while as to food and other
things, England was not better off than it is now. We were so rich
simply because other nations from all parts of the world were in the
habit of sending their goods to us to be sold or manufactured; and
we thought that this would last for ever. And so, perhaps, it might
have lasted, if we had only taken proper means to keep it; but, in our
folly, we were too careless even to insure our prosperity, and after
the course of trade was turned away it would not come back again.
And yet, if ever a nation had a plain warning, we had. If we were the
greatest trading country, our neighbours were the leading military
power in Europe. They were driving a good trade, too, for this was
before their foolish communism (about which you will hear when you are
older) had ruined the rich without benefiting the poor, and they were
in many respects the first nation in Europe; but it was on their army
that they prided themselves most. And with reason. They had beaten the
Russians and the Austrians, and the Prussians too, in bygone years, and
they thought they were invincible. Well do I remember the great review
held at Paris by the Emperor Napoleon during the great Exhibition, and
how proud he looked showing off his splendid Guards to the assembled
kings and princes. Yet, three years afterwards, the force so long
deemed the first in Europe was ignominiously beaten, and the whole army
taken prisoners. Such a defeat had never happened before in the world’s
history; and with this proof before us of the folly of disbelieving
in the possibility of disaster merely because it had never fallen
upon us, it might have been supposed that we should have the sense to
take the lesson to heart. And the country was certainly roused for
a time, and a cry was raised that the army ought to be reorganized,
and our defences strengthened against the enormous power for sudden
attacks which it was seen other nations were able to put forth. And a
scheme of army reform was brought forward by the Government. It was
a half-and-half affair at best; and unfortunately, instead of being
taken up in Parliament as a national scheme, it was made a party matter
of, and so fell through. There was a Radical section of the House,
too, whose votes had to be secured by conciliation, and which blindly
demanded a reduction of armaments as the price of allegiance. This
party always decried military establishments as part of a fixed policy
for reducing the influence of the Crown and the aristocracy. They could
not understand that the times had altogether changed, that the Crown
had really no power, and that the Government merely existed at the
pleasure of the House of Commons, and that even Parliament-rule was
beginning to give way to mob-law. At any rate, the Ministry, baffled on
all sides, gave up by degrees all the strong points of a scheme which
they were not heartily in earnest about. It was not that there was any
lack of money, if only it had been spent in the right way. The army
cost enough, and more than enough, to give us a proper defence, and
there were armed men of sorts in plenty and to spare, if only they had
been decently organized. It was in organization and forethought that
we fell short, because our rulers did not heartily believe in the need
for preparation. The fleet and the Channel, they said, were sufficient
protection. So army reform was put off to some more convenient season,
and the militia and volunteers were left untrained as before, because
to call them out for drill would “interfere with the industry of
the country.” We could have given up some of the industry of those
days, forsooth, and yet be busier than we are now. But why tell you
a tale you have so often heard already? The nation, although uneasy,
was misled by the false security its leaders professed to feel; and
the warning given by the disasters that overtook France was allowed
to pass by unheeded. We would not even be at the trouble of putting
our arsenals in a safe place, or of guarding the capital against a
surprise, although the cost of doing so would not have been so much as
missed from the national wealth. The French trusted in their army and
its great reputation, we in our fleet; and in each case the result of
this blind confidence was disaster, such as our forefathers in their
hardest struggles could not have even imagined.
I need hardly tell you how the crash came about. First, the rising in
India drew away a part of our small army; then came the difficulty
with America, which had been threatening for years, and we sent
off ten thousand men to defend Canada--a handful which did not go
far to strengthen the real defences of that country, but formed
an irresistible temptation to the Americans to try and take them
prisoners, especially as the contingent included three battalions of
the Guards. Thus the regular army at home was even smaller than usual,
and nearly half of it was in Ireland to check the talked-of Fenian
invasion fitting out in the West. Worse still--though I do not know
it would really have mattered as things turned out--the fleet was
scattered abroad: some ships to guard the West Indies, others to check
privateering in the China seas, and a large part to try and protect
our colonies on the Northern Pacific shore of America, where, with
incredible folly, we continued to retain possessions which we could not
possibly defend. America was not the great power forty years ago that
it is now; but for us to try and hold territory on her shores which
could only be reached by sailing round the Horn, was as absurd as if
she had attempted to take the Isle of Man before the independence of
Ireland. We see this plainly enough now, but we were all blind then.
It was while we were in this state, with our ships all over the world,
and our little bit of an army cut up into detachments, that the Secret
Treaty was published, and Holland and Denmark were annexed. People say
now that we might have escaped the troubles which came on us if we had
at any rate kept quiet till our other difficulties were settled; but
the English were always an impulsive lot: the whole country was boiling
over with indignation, and the Government, egged on by the Press, and
going with the stream, declared war. We had always got out of scrapes
before, and we believed our old luck and pluck would somehow pull us
through.
Then, of course, there was bustle and hurry all over the land. Not
that the calling up of the army reserves caused much stir, for I think
there were only about 5,000 altogether, and a good many of these
were not to be found when the time came; but recruiting was going on
all over the country, with a tremendous high bounty, 50,000 more men
having been voted for the army. Then there was a Ballot Bill passed
for adding 55,500 men to the militia; why a round number was not fixed
on I don’t know, but the Prime Minister said that this was the exact
quota wanted to put the defences of the country on a sound footing.
Then the shipbuilding that began! Ironclads, despatch-boats, gunboats,
monitors,--every building-yard in the country got its job, and they
were offering ten shillings a day wages for anybody who could drive a
rivet. This didn’t improve the recruiting, you may suppose. I remember,
too, there was a squabble in the House of Commons about whether
artisans should be drawn for the ballot, as they were so much wanted,
and I think they got an exemption. This sent numbers to the yards;
and if we had had a couple of years to prepare instead of a couple of
weeks, I daresay we should have done very well.
It was on a Monday that the declaration of war was announced, and in a
few hours we got our first inkling of the sort of preparation the enemy
had made for the event which they had really brought about, although
the actual declaration was made by us. A pious appeal to the God of
battles, whom it was said we had aroused, was telegraphed back; and
from that moment all communication with the north of Europe was cut
off. Our embassies and legations were packed off at an hour’s notice,
and it was as if we had suddenly come back to the middle ages. The dumb
astonishment visible all over London the next morning, when the papers
came out void of news, merely hinting at what had happened, was one of
the most startling things in this war of surprises. But everything had
been arranged beforehand; nor ought we to have been surprised, for we
had seen the same Power, only a few months before, move down half a
million of men on a few days’ notice, to conquer the greatest military
nation in Europe, with no more fuss than our War Office used to make
over the transport of a brigade from Aldershot to Brighton,--and this,
too, without the allies it had now. What happened now was not a bit
more wonderful in reality; but people of this country could not bring
themselves to believe that what had never occurred before to England
could ever possibly happen. Like our neighbours, we became wise when it
was too late.
Of course the papers were not long in getting news--even the mighty
organization set at work could not shut out a special correspondent;
and in a very few days, although the telegraphs and railways were
intercepted right across Europe, the main facts oozed out. An embargo
had been laid on all the shipping in every port from the Baltic to
Ostend; the fleets of the two great Powers had moved out, and it was
supposed were assembled in the great northern harbour, and troops were
hurrying on board all the steamers detained in these places, most of
which were British vessels. It was clear that invasion was intended.
Even then we might have been saved, if the fleet had been ready. The
forts which guarded the flotilla were perhaps too strong for shipping
to attempt; but an ironclad or two, handled as British sailors knew how
to use them, might have destroyed or damaged a part of the transports,
and delayed the expedition, giving us what we wanted, time. But then
the best part of the fleet had been decoyed down to the Dardanelles,
and what remained of the Channel squadron was looking after Fenian
filibusters off the west of Ireland; so it was ten days before the
fleet was got together, and by that time it was plain the enemy’s
preparations were too far advanced to be stopped by a _coup-de-main_.
Information, which came chiefly through Italy, came slowly, and was
more or less vague and uncertain; but this much was known, that at
least a couple of hundred thousand men were embarked or ready to be put
on board ships, and that the flotilla was guarded by more ironclads
than we could then muster. I suppose it was the uncertainty as to the
point the enemy would aim at for landing, and the fear lest he should
give us the go-by, that kept the fleet for several days in the Downs;
but it was not until the Tuesday fortnight after the declaration of
war that it weighed anchor and steamed away for the North Sea. Of
course you have read about the Queen’s visit to the fleet the day
before, and how she sailed round the ships in her yacht, and went on
board the flag-ship to take leave of the admiral; how, overcome with
emotion, she told him that the safety of the country was committed to
his keeping. You remember, too, the gallant old officer’s reply, and
how all the ships’ yards were manned, and how lustily the tars cheered
as her Majesty was rowed off. The account was of course telegraphed to
London, and the high spirits of the fleet infected the whole town. I
was outside the Charing Cross station when the Queen’s special train
from Dover arrived, and from the cheering and shouting which greeted
her Majesty as she drove away, you might have supposed we had already
won a great victory. The leading journal, which had gone in strongly
for the army reduction carried out during the session, and had been
nervous and desponding in tone during the past fortnight, suggesting
all sorts of compromises as a way of getting out of the war, came out
in a very jubilant form next morning. “Panic-stricken inquirers,” it
said, “ask now, where are the means of meeting the invasion? We reply
that the invasion will never take place. A British fleet manned by
British sailors, whose courage and enthusiasm are reflected in the
people of this country, is already on the way to meet the presumptuous
foe. The issue of a contest between British ships and those of any
other country, under anything like equal odds, can never be doubtful.
England awaits with calm confidence the issue of the impending action.”
Such were the words of the leading article, and so we all felt. It was
on Tuesday, the 10th of August, that the fleet sailed from the Downs.
It took with it a submarine cable to lay down as it advanced, so that
continuous communication was kept up, and the papers were publishing
special editions every few minutes with the latest news. This was the
first time such a thing had been done and the feat was accepted as a
good omen. Whether it is true that the Admiralty made use of the cable
to keep on sending contradictory orders, which took the command out
of the admiral’s hands, I can’t say; but all that the admiral sent
in return was a few messages of the briefest kind, which neither the
Admiralty nor any one else could have made any use of. Such a ship
had gone off reconnoitring; such another had rejoined--fleet was in
latitude so and so. This went on till the Thursday morning. I had just
come up to town by train as usual, and was walking to my office, when
the newsboys began to cry, “New edition--enemy’s fleet in sight!” You
may imagine the scene in London! Business still went on at the banks,
for bills matured although the independence of the country was being
fought out under our own eyes, so to say, and the speculators were
active enough. But even with the people who were making and losing
their fortunes, the interest in the fleet overcame everything else; men
who went to pay in or draw out their money stopped to show the last
bulletin to the cashier. As for the street, you could hardly get along
for the crowd stopping to buy and read the papers; while at every house
or office the members sat restlessly in the common room, as if to keep
together for company, sending out some one of their number every few
minutes to get the latest edition. At least this is what happened at
our office; but to sit still was as impossible as to do anything, and
most of us went out and wandered about among the crowd, under a sort
of feeling that the news was got quicker at in this way. Bad as were
the times coming, I think the sickening suspense of that day, and the
shock which followed, was almost the worst that we underwent. It was
about ten o’clock that the first telegram came; an hour later the wire
announced that the admiral had signalled to form line of battle, and
shortly afterwards that the order was given to bear down on the enemy
and engage. At twelve came the announcement, “Fleet opened fire about
three miles to leeward of us”--that is, the ship with the cable. So far
all had been expectancy, then came the first token of calamity. “An
ironclad has been blown up”--“the enemy’s torpedoes are doing great
damage”--“the flagship is laid aboard the enemy”--“the flag-ship
appears to be sinking”--“the vice-admiral has signalled to”--there the
cable became silent, and, as you know, we heard no more till, two days
afterwards, the solitary ironclad which escaped the disaster steamed
into Portsmouth.
Then the whole story came out--how our sailors gallant as ever, had
tried to close with the enemy; how the latter evaded the conflict at
close quarters, and, sheering off, left behind them the fatal engines
which sent our ships, one after the other, to the bottom; how all this
happened almost in a few minutes. The Government, it appears, had
received warnings of this invention; but to the nation this stunning
blow was utterly unexpected. That Thursday I had to go home early
for regimental drill, but it was impossible to remain doing nothing,
so when that was over I went up to town again, and after waiting in
expectation of news which never came, and missing the midnight train, I
walked home. It was a hot sultry night, and I did not arrive till near
sunrise. The whole town was quite still--the lull before the storm; and
as I let myself in with my latch-key, and went softly upstairs to my
room to avoid waking the sleeping household, I could not but contrast
the peacefulness of the morning--no sound breaking the silence but the
singing of the birds in the garden--with the passionate remorse and
indignation that would break out with the day. Perhaps the inmates of
the rooms were as wakeful as myself; but the house in its stillness
was just as it used to be when I came home alone from balls or parties
in the happy days gone by. Tired though I was, I could not sleep, so
I went down to the river and had a swim; and on returning found the
household was assembling for early breakfast. A sorrowful household it
was, although the burden pressing on each was partly an unseen one.
My father, doubting whether his firm could last through the day; my
mother, her distress about my brother, now with his regiment on the
coast, already exceeding that which she felt for the public misfortune,
had come down, although hardly fit to leave her room. My sister Clara
was worst of all, for she could not but try to disguise her special
interest in the fleet; and though we had all guessed that her heart was
given to the young lieutenant in the flag-ship--the first vessel to
go down--a love unclaimed could not be told, nor could we express the
sympathy we felt for the poor girl. That breakfast, the last meal we
ever had together, was soon ended, and my father and I went up to town
by an early train, and got there just as the fatal announcement of the
loss of the fleet was telegraphed from Portsmouth.
The panic and excitement of that day--how the funds went down to 35;
the run upon the bank and its stoppage; the fall of half the houses
in the city; how the Government issued a notification suspending
specie payment and the tendering of bills--this last precaution too
late for most firms, Graham & Co. among the number, which stopped
payment as soon as my father got to the office; the call to arms and
the unanimous response of the country--all this is history which I
need not repeat. You wish to hear about my own share in the business
of the time. Well, volunteering had increased immensely from the day
war was proclaimed, and our regiment went up in a day or two from its
usual strength of 600 to nearly 1,000. But the stock of rifles was
deficient. We were promised a further supply in a few days, which
however, we never received; and while waiting for them the regiment
had to be divided into two parts, the recruits drilling with the
rifles in the morning, and we old hands in the evening. The failures
and stoppage of work on this black Friday threw an immense number of
young men out of employment, and we recruited up to 1,400 strong by the
next day; but what was the use of all these men without arms? On the
Saturday it was announced that a lot of smooth-bore muskets in store
at the Tower would be served out to regiments applying for them, and
a regular scramble took place among the volunteers for them, and our
people got hold of a couple of hundred. But you might almost as well
have tried to learn rifle-drill with a broom-stick as with old brown
bess; besides, there was no smooth-bore ammunition in the country.
A national subscription was opened for the manufacture of rifles at
Birmingham, which ran up to a couple of millions in two days, but,
like everything else, this came too late. To return to the volunteers:
camps had been formed a fortnight before at Dover, Brighton, Harwich,
and other places, of regulars and militia, and the headquarters of most
of the volunteer regiments were attached to one or other of them, and
the volunteers themselves used to go down for drill from day to day, as
they could spare time, and on Friday an order went out that they should
be permanently embodied; but the metropolitan volunteers were still
kept about London as a sort of reserve, till it could be seen at what
point the invasion would take place. We were all told off to brigades
and divisions. Our brigade consisted of the 4th Royal Surrey Militia,
the 1st Surrey Administrative Battalion, as it was called, at Clapham,
the 7th Surrey Volunteers at Southwark, and ourselves; but only our
battalion and the militia were quartered in the same place, and the
whole brigade had merely two or three afternoons together at brigade
exercise in Bushey Park before the march took place. Our brigadier
belonged to a line regiment in Ireland, and did not join till the very
morning the order came. Meanwhile, during the preliminary fortnight,
the militia colonel commanded. But though we volunteers were busy with
our drill and preparations, those of us who, like myself, belonged to
Government offices, had more than enough of office work to do, as you
may suppose. The volunteer clerks were allowed to leave office at four
o’clock, but the rest were kept hard at the desk far into the night.
Orders to the lord-lieutenants, to the magistrates, notifications, all
the arrangements for cleaning out the workhouses for hospitals--these
and a hundred other things had to be managed in our office, and there
was as much bustle indoors as out. Fortunate we were to be so busy--the
people to be pitied were those who had nothing to do. And on Sunday
(that was the 15th August) work went on just as usual. We had an early
parade and drill, and I went up to town by the nine o’clock train in my
uniform, taking my rifle with me in case of accidents, and luckily too,
as it turned out, a mackintosh overcoat. When I got to Waterloo there
were all sorts of rumours afloat. A fleet had been seen off the Downs,
and some of the despatch boats which were hovering about the coasts
brought news that there was a large flotilla off Harwich, but nothing
could be seen from the shore, as the weather was hazy. The enemy’s
light ships had taken and sunk all the fishing boats they could catch,
to prevent the news of their whereabouts reaching us; but a few escaped
during the night and reported that the Inconstant frigate coming home
from North America without any knowledge of what had taken place, had
sailed right into the enemy’s fleet and been captured. In town the
troops were all getting ready for a move; the Guards in the Wellington
Barracks were under arms, and their baggage-waggons packed and drawn up
in the Bird-cage Walk. The usual guard at the Horse Guards had been
withdrawn, and orderlies and staff-officers were going to and fro. All
this I saw on the way to my office, where I worked away till twelve
o’clock, and then feeling hungry after my early breakfast, I went
across Parliament Street to my club to get some luncheon. There were
about half-a-dozen men in the coffee-room, none of whom I knew; but in
a minute or two Danvers of the Treasury entered in a tremendous hurry.
From him I got the first bit of authentic news I had had that day. The
enemy had landed in force near Harwich, and the metropolitan regiments
were ordered down there to reinforce the troops already collected in
that neighbourhood; his regiment was to parade at one o’clock, and he
had come to get something to eat before starting. We bolted a hurried
lunch, and were just leaving the club when a messenger from the
Treasury came running into the hall.
“Oh, Mr. Danvers,” said he, “I’ve come to look for you, sir; the
secretary says that all the gentlemen are wanted at the office, and
that you must please not one of you go with the regiments.”
“The devil!” cried Danvers.
“Do you know if that order extends to all the public offices?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said the man, “but I believe it do. I know there’s
messengers gone round to all the clubs and luncheon-bars to look for
the gentlemen; the secretary says it’s quite impossible any one can be
spared just now, there’s so much work to do; there’s orders just come
to send off our records to Birmingham to-night.”
I did not wait to condole with Danvers, but, just glancing up Whitehall
to see if any of our messengers were in pursuit, I ran off as hard as I
could for Westminster Bridge, and so to the Waterloo station.
The place had quite changed its aspect since the morning. The regular
service of trains had ceased, and the station and approaches were
full of troops, among them the Guards and artillery. Everything was
very orderly: the men had piled arms, and were standing about in
groups. There was no sign of high spirits or enthusiasm. Matters had
become too serious. Every man’s face reflected the general feeling
that we had neglected the warnings given us, and that now the danger
so long derided as impossible and absurd had really come and found
us unprepared. But the soldiers, if grave, looked determined, like
men who meant to do their duty whatever might happen. A train full of
guardsmen was just starting for Guildford. I was told it would stop at
Surbiton, and, with several other volunteers, hurrying like myself to
join our regiment, got a place in it. We did not arrive a moment too
soon, for the regiment was marching from Kingston down to the station.
The destination of our brigade was the east coast. Empty carriages were
drawn up in the siding, and our regiment was to go first. A large crowd
was assembled to see it off, including the recruits who had joined
during the last fortnight, and who formed by far the largest part of
our strength. They were to stay behind, and were certainly very much in
the way already; for as all the officers and sergeants belonged to the
active part, there was no one to keep discipline among them, and they
came crowding around us, breaking the ranks and making it difficult to
get into the train. Here I saw our new brigadier for the first time.
He was a soldier-like man, and no doubt knew his duty, but he appeared
new to volunteers, and did not seem to know how to deal with gentlemen
privates. I wanted very much to run home and get my greatcoat and
knapsack, which I had bought a few days ago, but feared to be left
behind; a good-natured recruit volunteered to fetch them for me, but he
had not returned before we started, and I began the campaign with a kit
consisting of a mackintosh and a small pouch of tobacco.
It was a tremendous squeeze in the train; for, besides the ten
men sitting down, there were three or four standing up in every
compartment, and the afternoon was close and sultry, and there were
so many stoppages on the way that we took nearly an hour and a half
crawling up to Waterloo. It was between five and six in the afternoon
when we arrived there, and it was nearly seven before we marched up
to the Shoreditch station. The whole place was filled up with stores
and ammunition, to be sent off to the east, so we piled arms in the
street and scattered about to get food and drink, of which most of us
stood in need, especially the latter, for some were already feeling the
worse for the heat and crush. I was just stepping into a public-house
with Travers, when who should drive up but his pretty wife? Most of
our friends had paid their adieus at the Surbiton station, but she
had driven up by the road in his brougham, bringing their little boy
to have a last look at papa. She had also brought his knapsack and
greatcoat, and, what was still more acceptable, a basket containing
fowls, tongue, bread-and-butter, and biscuits, and a couple of bottles
of claret,--which priceless luxuries they insisted on my sharing.