IAN HAMILTON
London: August 10, 1900.
Ian Standish Monteith Hamilton was born at Corfu in 1853. His father,
the late Colonel Christian Monteith Hamilton--then a captain, but who
eventually commanded the 92nd Highlanders--was the eldest son of John
George Hamilton and of Christina Cameron Monteith, daughter of Henry
Monteith of Carstairs, sometime Member of Parliament for Lanarkshire.
His mother, the late Maria Corunia Vereker, was daughter of John, third
Viscount Gort, by Maria O'Grady, daughter of Viscount Guillamore.[#] The
Hamilton family is one of the elder branches of the Scottish Hamiltons,
and represents the male line of the Hamiltons of Westport. One of his
ancestors on his father's side, a Colonel Hamilton, was for several
years an aide-de-camp of the first Duke of Marlborough, and it was
therefore something in the nature of a coincidence when Ian Hamilton
found the present Duke of Marlborough serving in a similar capacity on
his staff. It would not be quite correct to call him a pure Celt, but
some notice should be taken by those interested in these questions that
his blood is mostly Celtic: both of his grandmothers, Monteith and
O'Grady, being of Celtic stock, Scottish and Irish respectively.
[#] _Vide_ Peerage, Gort and Guillamore.
When Ian Hamilton was born his father was serving with a detachment of
the 92nd Highlanders at Corfu. His mother died in 1856, and for the
next ten years, the father being constantly on duty with the regiment,
he and his younger brother, Vereker Hamilton, who was born in 1856,
lived with their grandparents at Hapton, in the Holy Loch in
Argyllshire. Such a childhood on moor and loch in a fine wild country
was likely to develop and brace nerve and muscle, and stir the keen
blood inherited from many generations of warlike ancestors. He was
educated first at Cheam, and as he grew sufficiently old at Wellington
College. Here he was very happy, and although he was not especially
noted for industry, his success in the examinations at the end of each
term excused any neglect in its course. In 1872 he passed the tests for
the army, and, according to the system at that time in force, was
offered the choice of going to Sandhurst or living for a year abroad to
learn a foreign language thoroughly. The cadet chose the latter, and
was sent to Germany. Here he had the good luck to make the close
friendship of a most distinguished old man. General Dammers was a
Hanoverian who had fought against the Prussians at Langesalze, and who,
refusing a very high command under the Prussians, lived at Dresden.
Although he himself remained aide-de-camp to the ex-King of Hanover, he
became the centre of a group of Hanoverian officers who had entered the
Saxon service. He was thus in touch with the latest school of military
thought, stimulated to its utmost activity by the lessons of the great
war which had lately been concluded. From General Dammers, Ian Hamilton
learned the German language, military surveying, something of military
history, and something doubtless of strategy and the art of war. The
year thus passed very profitably. On his return to England, however,
the War Office announced that they had changed their minds and that for
the future everybody must go through Sandhurst. Such protests as his
father, himself an officer, was entitled to make were overruled by the
authorities, and Ian Hamilton embarked upon his military career having
lost, through no fault of his own, one year of seniority--a year which
Fortune had perhaps even then determined to restore to him manifold.
In 1873 he entered the 12th Foot, and after some months joined his
father's old regiment, the 92nd. At first with the 92nd, and after 1881
with the 2nd battalion of the regiment, the Gordon Highlanders, Ian
Hamilton followed the drum from garrison to garrison, going through the
military routine, and plodding slowly up the first few steps of the long
ladder of promotion. From the very first he interested himself in
musketry. He became himself a keen and good rifle shot, and not with
the military rifle alone. He spent a long leave in Kashmir on the
fringe of the snows, and made a remarkable bag. Indeed, some of his
heads attained nearly to the record dimensions, and one big
single-horned markhor enjoyed the actual supremacy for several months.
Then came the Afghan war. Ian Hamilton, although only an infantry
soldier, became aide-de-camp, with Brabazon as Brigade Major, to the
unfortunate commander of the British Cavalry Brigade. Early in the
campaign he was stricken down with fever, and so avoided being drawn
into the controversy which raged for several years in military circles
around the actions in the Chardeh valley. It would indeed have been
unfortunate if at this early stage in his career he had been led into
any antagonism to the great General with whom his fortunes were
afterwards so closely associated.
The Boer war of 1881 found Hamilton still a subaltern. He was ordered
to South Africa with his regiment, and went full of eager anticipation.
The regiment, composed almost entirely of soldiers inured to the
hardships and disdainful of the dangers of war, was in the most perfect
condition to encounter the enemy, and, as is usual in British
expeditions on the outward voyage, they despised him most thoroughly.
It was not to be dreamed of that a parcel of ragged Boers should stand
against the famous soldiers of Kabul and Kandahar. They discussed
beforehand the clasps which would be given upon the medal for the
campaign. They were to be Laing's Nek, Relief of Potchefstroom, and
Pretoria 1881. No one had then ever heard the name of Majuba Mountain.
Yet there was to be the first encounter between Highlanders and
Dutchmen.
The dismal story of Majuba is better known than its importance deserves.
Had that action been fought in this war it would perhaps have gone down
to history as the affair of the 27th of February. Instead, it was
accepted as a stricken field, and might, such was the significance that
was attached to it, have changed the history of nations. It needs no
repetition here save in so far as it is concerned with Ian Hamilton.
Majuba Mountain may in general terms be described as a saucer-topped
hill. Sir George Colley and his six hundred soldiers, picked from
various units (that all might share the glory), sat themselves down to
rest and sleep, and dig a well in the bottom of the saucer. One weak
picket of Gordon Highlanders was thrust forward over the rim on to the
outer slope of the hill to keep an eye on those silent grey patches
which marked the Boer laagers far below. Hamilton was the subaltern in
command. As the day gradually broke and the light grew stronger, he saw
from the very lifting of the curtain the course of the tragedy. Boers
awoke, bustled about their encampments; looked up just as Symons'
Brigade looked up on the morning of Talana Hill, and saw the sky-line
fringes with men. More bustle, long delay, much argument and hesitation
below, a little boasting rifle fire from some of the British soldiers:
'Ha, ha! got you this time I think!'--and then, straggle of horsemen
riding in tens and twenties towards the foot of the mountain. Hamilton
reported accordingly. The action of Majuba Hill had begun. Pause.
There was--so it has been described to me--a long donga that led up the
steep slope. Into the lower end of this the Boer horsemen disappeared.
Hamilton moved his score of men a little to their right, where they
might command this zig-zag approach as much as the broken ground would
allow, and reported again to the General or whoever was directing
affairs--for Colley, wearied with the tremendous exertion of the night
climb, was sleeping--'Enemy advancing to attack.' He also made a few
stone shelters. Pause again. Suddenly, quite close, darting forward
here and there among the rocks and bushes of the donga--Boers! Fire on
them, then. The Gordons' rifles spluttered accordingly, and back came
the answer hot and sharp--a close and accurate musketry fire pinning the
little party of Regulars to the earth behind their flimsy shelters. No
one could show his head to fire. Soldiers would hold a helmet up above
the sheltering stone and bring it down with two and three bullets
through it. Could half a company fight a battle by itself? What were
others doing? Hamilton felt bound to send another report. He left the
half company in charge of the sergeant, got up, ran up the slope, and
dropped into safety the other side of the saucer-shaped rim. The
distance was scarcely forty yards, yet two bullets passed through his
kilt in crossing it. Where was the General? A staff officer, ignorant
and therefore undisturbed, said that the General was sleeping. 'He
knew,' said the staff officer, 'what was going on. No need for a
subaltern of Highlanders to concern himself.' Hamilton returned,
running the gauntlet again, to his men. The fire grew hotter. The Boers
began to creep gradually nearer. Their front attack widened and drew
around the contours of the hill. Were all the force asleep? One more
warning at any rate they should have. Again he darted across the open
space with the swish of bullets around him. Again he found the staff.
But this time they were annoyed. It is such a bore when young officers
are jumpy and alarmist. 'It's all right,' they said: and so it was
within the saucer. The bullets piped overhead as the wind howls outside
the well-warmed house. But a sudden change impended.
Hamilton rejoined his men just as the Boers attacked at all points. The
little picket of Highlanders, utterly unable to withstand the weight of
the enemy's advance, ran back to the rim of the saucer intermingled with
the Boers, who fired their rifles furiously at them, even putting the
muzzles to the men's heads and so destroying them. In Sir William
Butler's book, written almost entirely with the view of exonerating Sir
George Colley, it is suggested that his advanced picket fell back in a
panic. The truth is that they were swept backward by overwhelming force
after they had three times reported to the General the development of a
heavy attack. Of the seventeen men under Ian Hamilton in this advanced
position twelve were shot dead.
The survivors of the picket with the pursuing Boers reached the rim
together, and became visible to the main force. Astounded by this
apparition, the troops who were lying down in the saucer rose up
together, and, some accoutred, some with their coats off, Highlanders,
sailors, and linesmen, ran forward and fired a ragged volley. The Boers
immediately lay down and replied, causing heavy loss. A furious
musketry fight followed between the Dutch in cover along the rim and the
British among the rocks across the centre of the saucer. This was ended
by the appearance of other Boers on the high ground at the northern end
of the plateau. Without orders or order, exposed to a terrible fire,
ignorant of what was required of them, the soldiers wavered. One last
chance presented itself. Hamilton rushed up to the General in the
impetuosity of youth: 'I hope you'll forgive my presumption, sir, but
will you let the Gordon Highlanders charge with the bayonet?'
'No presumption, young gentleman,' replied Colley, with freezing
calmness. 'We'll let them charge us, and then we'll give them a volley
and a charge.'
On the word the whole scene broke into splinters. The British troops
abandoned their positions and fled from the ground. The Boers, standing
up along the rim, shot them down mercilessly--sporting rifles, crack
shots, eighty yards' range. Hamilton saw a figure scarcely ten yards
away aiming at him, raised the rifle he found himself somehow possessed
of to reply. Both fired simultaneously. The British officer went down
with his wrist smashed to pieces. He rose again: the rear crest was
near. The last of the fugitives were streaming over it. One dash for
liberty! The fire was murderous. Before the distance was covered his
tunic was cut by one bullet, his knee by another, and finally a splinter
of rock striking him behind the head brought him down half stunned to
the ground--luckily behind the shelter of a small rock.
The firing stopped. The Boers began to occupy the position. Two
discovered the wounded man. The younger, being much excited, would have
shot him. The elder restrained him. 'Are you officer, you damned
Englishman?' said they.
'Yes.'
'Give your sword.'
Now Hamilton's sword had belonged to his father before him. He replied
by offering them money instead.
'Money!' they cried; 'give it up at once,' and were about to snatch it
away when a person of authority--it is said Joubert himself--arrived.
'Voorwarts,' he said to the burghers, and in spite of their desire to
plunder he drove them on. Hamilton thanked him. 'This is a bad day for
us.'
'What can you expect,' was the answer characteristic of the Boer--the
privileged of God--'from fighting on a Sunday?'
Then they collected the prisoners and helped Hamilton to walk back to
the British position. Colley lay dead on the ground. The Boers would
not believe it was the General. 'Englishmen are such liars.' Hector
Macdonald--grim and sad--hero of the Afghan war, now a prisoner in the
enemy's hand, watched the proceedings sullenly. The Boers picked out
the surrendered prisoners. They looked at Hamilton. He was covered
with blood from head to foot They said: 'You will probably die. You may
go.' So he went; staggered, and crawled back to camp, arrived there
delirious the next morning. The wrist joint is composed of eight
separate bones. The bullet, breaking through, had disarranged them
sadly, had even carried one or two away. If he had consented to
amputation he would soon have been convalescent. But a soldier must
preserve all he can. What with fever and shock he nearly died. For six
months he was an invalid. But the hand was saved, so that now the
General can hold an envelope between his paralysed and withered fingers,
and sometimes hold a cigarette. For all other purposes it is useless,
and when he rides it flaps about helplessly--a glorious deformity.
After some months of doubt as to whether he should leave the army and
throw himself entirely into the literary pursuits which had always
possessed for him a keen attraction, Hamilton decided to remain a
soldier.
He next saw service in the Soudan: he was not intended to make this
campaign, for the battalion to which he belonged was serving in India,
and there has always been much jealousy between the Indian and the
Egyptian British officer. But he happened to be coming home on leave,
and when the steamer reached Suez it occurred to him to ask himself why
he should not go up the Nile with the columns which were being formed.
He got out of the ship accordingly and ran across the sands to the train
which was standing in the station. Had he not caught it he would have
returned to the ship. But he was in time. Next day he arrived in
Cairo, and while waiting there for his luggage he applied for
employment. It was refused, officers were not allowed to volunteer.
The Gordon Highlanders, his only hope, had their full complement of
officers. They had no vacancy for him. Hamilton did not, however, give
up his idea easily. He resolved to travel as far as Wady Halfa and renew
his application there. He journeyed south with Colonel Burnaby, and
after a week of train and river-boat arrived at the whitewashed mud huts
in the midst of a vast circle of sand which marked the base of the
British Expeditionary forces, both desert and river columns.
What followed has happened so often that it is well worth the attention
of young officers. Be it always remembered that the regulations of the
army are formed to make all people quite alike one uniform pattern and
on one level of intelligence--not yet the highest. You do not rise by
the regulations, but in spite of them. Therefore in all matters of
active service the subaltern must never take 'No' for an answer. He
should get to the front at all costs. For every fifty men who will
express a desire to go on service in the mess or the club, and will
grumble if they are not selected, there is only about one who really
means business and will take the trouble and run the risk of going to
the front on the chance. The competition is much less keen when you get
there. I know something of this myself, and am convinced of its truth.
The subaltern really stands on velvet in the matter. If he succeeds all
is well. If he gets rebuked and ordered down, he must try again. What
can the authorities do? They cannot very well shoot him. At the worst
they can send him back to his regiment, stop his leave for six months,
and some choleric old martinet who was a young man once, though he had
half forgotten it, will write in some ponderous book in Pall Mall
against the offender's name: 'Keen as mustard--takes his own line--to be
noted for active service if otherwise qualified.'
Of course everyone was delighted to see Hamilton at Wady Halfa. They
appointed him to a vacancy which had meanwhile occurred in the Gordon
Highlanders, and gave him a company and a boat in the River Column.
Through all the hard campaign that followed he served with credit. The
fortunes of the troops who worked their way up the Nile have not been so
closely studied as those of the columns which plunged into the desert
and fought at Abu Klea and Abu Kru. But it was nevertheless one of the
most picturesque enterprises of our military history. The broad boats
toiling forward against the current of the river, making perhaps three
miles a day, obstructed by frequent cataracts and menaced continually by
the enemy, the scouts on the banks, the lines of men on the tow ropes,
the red sand of the desert, the hot steel sky, and the fierce sunlight
slanting in between rocks of the Nile gorge, are materials from which a
fascinating sketch might be painted. Hamilton's boat became somehow the
head of the rear column. At length there came a day when they told of
expected opposition, dervish encampments, and a certain rocky ridge said
to be lined with riflemen. The leading column of boats was hurried
forward. By some mischance Hamilton's boat became the rear boat of the
leading column. At any rate, his company alone of the Gordon
Highlanders fought in the action of Kirbeckan next day. Nothing
succeeds like success. Hamilton received the Distinguished Service Order
for his services.
After the Nile Expedition of 1885 had reached its sad conclusion,
Hamilton returned to India and became an aide-de-camp on the staff of
Lord Roberts, who was then commanding the Madras army. The question of
musketry training for Infantry was at that time much discussed, and Lord
Roberts was determined to do something to improve the shooting of the
British army. In his book 'Forty-one Years in India' he tells us how he
and his staff formed themselves into a team and had many exciting rifle
matches with the regiments in the Madras command. In all this
Hamilton's skill with the rifle and the keen interest he had always
shown for musketry--his first regimental appointment had been to be
Musketry Instructor--stood him in good stead, and when Lord Roberts
became Commander-in-Chief in India his aide-de-camp, who had meanwhile
served in the Burmah campaign, was made Assistant Adjutant-General for
Musketry.
In 1886 he married Jean, daughter of Sir John Muir, Baronet, of
Deanston, Perthshire. He had now determined to persevere in the
military profession, and devoted himself to it with great assiduity. His
literary talents were turned to military subjects. He published a book
on musketry in the army entitled 'The Fighting of the Future.' It was
strong and well written. The introduction of the magazine rifle has
modified many of his conclusions, but at the time the book attracted a
great deal of attention. He found time, however, to write on other
things, and there are still extant from his pen: 'A Jaunt in a Junk,' an
account of a cruise which he made with his brother down the west coast
of India; a volume of verses, 'The Ballad of Hadji and the Boar'; and
one or two other writings. He preserved and extended his acquaintance
with literary men, particularly with Andrew Lang, whom he powerfully
impressed, and who inscribed a volume of poems to him in the following
compulsive lines:
_TO COLONEL IAN HAMILTON_
To you, who know the face of war,
You, that for England wander far,
You that have seen the Ghazis fly
From English lads not sworn to die,
You that have lain where, deadly chill,
The mist crept o'er the Shameful Hill,
You that have conquered, mile by mile,
The currents of unfriendly Nile,
And cheered the march, and eased the strain
When Politics made valour vain,
Ian, to you, from banks of Ken,
We send our lays of Englishmen!
After doing much useful work in the Musketry Department he became one of
the Assistant Quartermaster-Generals in India. From this office he
managed to sally forth to the Chitral Expedition, for his services in
which on the lines of communication he was made Commander of the Bath.
He next became Deputy Quartermaster-General, and it was evident that if
he chose to continue to serve in India he would ultimately become the
head of the Department. In 1897 the Great Frontier War broke out.
Hamilton was appointed to command one of the brigades of the Tirah
Expeditionary Force. He was at the time on leave in England. He
returned at speed, assumed command, and led his brigade through the
Kohat Pass in the first movement of the general advance. It looked as
if his chance in life had come. He had a magnificent force under him. He
enjoyed the confidence of the General-in-chief, Sir William Lockhart,
and only a few miles away the enemy awaited the advancing army on the
heights of Dargai. The next morning his horse shied suddenly. He was
thrown to the ground and broke his leg. They carried the brigadier away
in a doolie, his brigade passed to another, and the campaign in Tirah
was fought without him.
Ian Hamilton took this bitter disappointment with philosophical
composure. 'Perhaps,' he said to me one day in Calcutta, 'I should have
lost my reputation had I held my command.' But it was easy to see how
much he felt the lost opportunity and the enforced inaction. At length
his leg was mended--after a fashion. He persuaded a medical board to
pass him as sound. The campaign continued. There was, however, no
vacancy at the front. For several weeks he waited. Presently Sir
Bindon Blood--who was preparing for his invasion of Buner, and who knew
Hamilton well--applied for him to command his lines of communication.
Obstacles were, however, raised by the Indian War Office, and the
proposal fell through. At last, in February, when it seemed certain
that a spring campaign must be undertaken against the Afridis, Sir
William Lockhart decided to replace General Kempster by some other
brigadier, and Ian Hamilton was again sent to the front. The hopes or
fears of a further campaign proved unfounded. The Afridis gradually
paid their toll of rifles, and their jirgahs made submission. The
fighting was practically over. Yet in much skirmishing as occurred
while Hamilton's brigade were holding the advanced posts in the Bara
valley his care and eagerness attracted attention, and, small as was his
share in the campaign, Sir William Lockhart gave him an honourable
mention in the despatches.
On the restoration of order along the North-West Frontier Hamilton was
offered the temporary position of Quartermaster-General in India.
Anxious, however, for home employment, and fully alive to the importance
of not becoming too closely identified with any particular military set,
he declined this important office and proceeded to England on a year's
leave. After some delay he was appointed commandant of the School of
Musketry at Hythe, and from this post he was twice withdrawn to command
brigades at the Manoeuvres. When Sir George White was sent to Natal in
September 1899 Hamilton accompanied him as Assistant Adjutant-General.
The War Office are therefore entitled to plume themselves upon his
successes, for he is one of the few men originally appointed who have
increased their reputation.
Ian Hamilton's part in the Boer war is so well known that it will be
unnecessary to do more than refer to it here. He displayed a curious
facility for handling troops in close contact with the enemy, and
practically from the beginning of the fighting he held the command of a
brigade. It was Hamilton whose influence went so far to counteract the
astounding optimism of the gallant Penn Symons. It was Hamilton who was
to have led the bayonet attack by night on the Boer laagers two days
before Talana Hill was fought. It was Hamilton to whom French entrusted
the entire disposition of the Infantry and Artillery at Elandslaagte,
who arranged the attack, rallied the struggling line, and who led the
final charge upon the Boer entrenchment. Again after Lombard's Kop, when
the army reeled back in disorder into Ladysmith, it was Hamilton's
brigade which, judiciously posted, checked the onset of the victorious
enemy. During the defence of Ladysmith Hamilton's section of the
defence included Caesar's Camp and Wagon Hill. He has been censured in
the Press for not having fortified these positions on their outer
crests, and it was said in the army after the 6th of January that this
neglect caused unnecessary loss of life. How far this criticism may be
just I do not now propose to examine. The arguments against entrenching
the outer crest were that heavy works there would draw the enemy's
artillery fire, and that the Imperial Light Horse, who were to have
defended this section, said they preferred to avail themselves of the
natural cover of rocks and stones. The reader would be well advised to
defer judgment until some serious and historical work on the campaign in
Natal is published. At present all accounts are based on partial and
imperfect evidence, nor do I think that the whole true account of a
single action has yet been written.
Whatever the rights of this question may be, it is certain that on the
6th of January Ian Hamilton, by his personal gallantry and military
conduct, restored the situation on Wagon Hill. Indeed, the Homeric
contest, when the British General and Commandant Prinsloo of the Free
State fired at each other at five yards' range, the fierce and bloody
struggle around the embrasure of the naval gun, and the victorious
charge of the Devons, may afterwards be found to be the most striking
scene in the whole war.
After the relief of Ladysmith, Roberts, who knew where to find the men
he wanted, sent for Hamilton, much to the disgust of Sir Redvers Buller,
who proposed to keep this good officer for the command of one of his own
brigades. On reaching Bloemfontein he was entrusted with the
organisation of the Mounted Infantry division, a post from which he
could conveniently be drawn for any service that might be required. Of
the rest some account will be found in these letters.
Ian Hamilton is, as the fine portrait by Sargent, reproduced as the
frontispiece of this book, shows him, a man of rather more than middle
height, spare, keen eyed, and of commanding aspect. His highly nervous
temperament animating what appears a frail body imparts to all his
movements a kind of feverish energy. Two qualities of his mind stand
forward prominently from the rest. He is a singularly good and rapid
judge of character. He takes a very independent view on all subjects,
sometimes with a slight bias towards or affection for their radical and
democratic aspects, but never or hardly ever influenced by the set of
people with whom he lives. To his strong personal charm as a companion,
to his temper never ruffled or vexed either by internal irritation or
the stir and contrariness of events, his friends and those who have
served under him will bear witness. He has a most happy gift of
expression, a fine taste in words, and an acute perception of the
curious which he has preserved from his literary days. But it is as a
whole that we should judge. His mind is built upon a big scale, being
broad and strong, capable of thinking in army corps and if necessary in
continents, and working always with serene smoothness undisturbed alike
by responsibility or danger. Add to all this a long experience in war,
high military renown both for courage and conduct, the entire confidence
and affection of the future Commander-in-Chief, the luck that has
carried him through so many dangers, and the crowning advantage of being
comparatively young, and it is evident that here is a man who in the
years that are to come will have much to do with the administration of
the British Army in times of peace and its direction in the field.