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Illustration: A PRUSSIAN COURT-PAINTER EARNING AN IRON CROSS BY
PAINTING PICTURES IN PRAISE OF THE FATHERLAND FOR NEUTRAL CONSUMPTION.
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"CHARLIE" BERESFORD.
By TOBY, M.P.
"LORD CHARLES has broken his chest-bone--a piece of which was cut out in
his boyhood leaving a cavity--his pelvis, right leg, right hand, foot,
five ribs, one collar-bone three times, the other once, his nose three
times." Thus Mr. COPE CORNFORD in one of the notes with which he
illuminates the _Memoirs of Admiral Lord Charles Beresford_, published
by Messrs. METHUEN in two volumes, illustrated with a score of plates,
the portrait of Lady CHARLES adding the charm of rare beauty to the
collection.
For many years I have been honoured by the friendship of Lord CHARLES,
and have had frequent opportunity of witnessing his multiform supremacy.
Till I read this amazing catalogue of calamities, I never dreamt that
among other claims to distinction he might have been billed as The
Fractured Man, principal attraction in a travelling show, eclipsing the
One-Legged Camel, the Tinted Zebra, and the Weird-Eyed Wanton from the
Crusty North, who can sing in five languages "It's a Long, Long Way to
Tipperary." Ignoring the monotony of experience suffered by the ribs,
and noting the obtrusiveness of one collar-bone, we may, with slight
variation from a formula in use by the SPEAKER in the House of Commons,
declare "The Nose has it." Happily no one regarding Lord CHARLES'S
cheery countenance would guess that its most prominent feature had been
"broken three times."
Here is a man whose life should be written. Fortunately the task has
been undertaken by Lord CHARLES himself, and the world is richer by a
book which, instructive in many ways, valuable as throwing side-lights
on the slow advance of the Navy to the proud position which it holds
to-day on the North Sea, bubbles over with humour.
Record opens in the year 1859, when Lord CHARLES entered the Navy,
closing just half-a-century later, when he hauled down his flag and
permanently came ashore. Within the space of fifty years there is
crammed a life of adventure richly varied in range. A man of exuberant
individuality, which has occasional tendency to obscure supreme
capacity, of fearless courage, gifted with a combination of wit and
humour, Lord CHARLES is the handy-man to whom in emergency everyone
looked not only for counsel but for help. It is a paradox, but a
probability, that had he been duller-witted, a more ponderous person, he
would have carried more weight alike in the councils of the Admiralty at
Whitehall and of the nation at Westminster.
As these memoirs testify, behind a smiling countenance he hides an
unbending resolution to serve the public interest, whether aboard ship
or in his place in Parliament. Perhaps the most familiar incident in his
professional career is his exploit during the bombardment of Alexandria,
when the signal flashed from the flag-ship, "Well done, _Condor_." A
more substantial service was his command of what he describes as "the
penny steamer" _Safieh_, whose manoeuvring on the Nile amid desperate
circumstances averted from Sir CHARLES WILSON'S desert column, hastening
to the rescue of GORDON, the fate which earlier had befallen STEWART.
Another splendid piece of work was accomplished when, after the
bombardment of Alexandria he was appointed Provost-Marshal and Chief of
Police, and had committed to his charge the task of restoring order. His
conspicuous success on this occasion bore fruit many years later when he
was offered the post of Chief Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis.
His story of the Egyptian and Soudan Wars, carried through several
chapters, is a valuable contribution to history. It suggests that, all
other avenues to fame closed against him, Lord CHARLES would have made
an enduring name as a war correspondent.
It is a circumstance incredible, save in view of the authority upon
which it is stated, that, as part of the reward for his splendid service
in the Soudan, Lord CHARLES narrowly escaped compulsory retirement from
the Service before he had completed the time required to qualify for
Flag Rank. The Queen's Regulations ordained that before a captain could
win this prized position he must have completed a period of from five to
six years of active service. In 1892, Lord CHARLES, the flag almost in
reach of his hand, applied for permission to count-in the 315 days he
was strenuously and brilliantly at work in the Soudan. The Board of
Admiralty, invulnerable in their environment of red tape, refused the
request, repeating the _non possumus_ when on two subsequent occasions
the request was preferred.
It must be admitted that the Board had no reason to regard Lord CHARLES
with favour or even with equanimity. When returned to Parliament, the
man who had superintended the mending of the boiler on the penny
steamboat on the Nile, devoted himself to the bigger task of mending the
Navy, at that time in an equally pitiful condition. During his brief and
solitary term of office as Junior Lord of the Admiralty, Lord CHARLES,
who thought he was put there to do some work, drew up a memorandum on
the necessity of creating at the Admiralty a Naval Intelligence
Department. The memorandum was laid before the Board, and the Junior
Lord was told he was meddling with high matters that did not come within
the scope of his business. A few weeks later a Naval Intelligence
Department (of a sort) was created. _Sic vos non vobis._
'Twas ever thus. Lord CHARLES, whether in office, on active service, or
from his familiar place above the Gangway in the House of Commons,
bringing to bear upon Naval affairs the gift of keen intuition and the
endowment of long practical experience, has, with one exception, done
more than any man living to deliver the Navy from mistakes inevitable in
the case of the over-lordship of a civilian who is subject to currents
of political and party feeling. By way of reward he has received more
kicks than ha'pence.
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Illustration: GERMANISED TURKEY.
"DERE YOU ARE, MEIN FRIENDT; DER SAME OLD FLAG MIT A _LEEDLE_
DIFFERENCE."
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