refused. The Chinese were nonplussed. Prince Kung reported to a
British official as follows:
"We do not know what to do. He will not receive money from us, and we
have already given him every honor which it is in the power of the
Emperor to bestow. But as these can be of little value in his eyes, I
have brought you this letter, and ask you to give it to the Queen of
England, that she may bestow on him some reward which would be more
valuable in his eyes."
The love of this strange race of people for a foreign officer was not
idly bestowed. They were the first to recognize his highest qualities,
and though he later won high rank under the Union Jack, it is as
Chinese Gordon that his name will most frequently appear in history.
A fellow campaigner in China writes: "What is perhaps most striking in
Gordon's career in China, is the entire devotion with which the native
soldiers served him, and the implicit faith they had in the result of
operations in which he was personally present. In their eyes General
Gordon was literally a magician to whom all things were possible. They
believed him to bear a charmed life; and a short stick or rattan cane
which he invariably carried about, and with which he always pointed in
directing the fire of artillery or other operations, was firmly looked
on as a wand or talisman. These notions, especially the men's idea
that their general had a charmed existence, were substantially aided by
Gordon's constant habit, when the troops were under fire, of appearing
suddenly, usually unattended, and calmly standing in the very hottest
part of the fire."
As to Gordon's personal appearance, a pen picture by a comrade-in-arms,
Colonel Butler, deserves place:
"In figure Gordon, at forty years of age, stood somewhat under middle
height, slight but strong, active, and muscular. A profusion of thick
brown hair clustered above a broad open forehead. His features were
regular, his mouth firm, and his expression when silent had a certain
undertone of sadness, which instantly vanished when he spoke. But it
was the clear, blue-gray eye and the low, soft, and very distinct voice
that left the most lasting impression on the memory of the man who had
seen and spoken with Charles Gordon--an eye that seemed to have looked
at great distances and seen the load of life carried on many shoulders,
and a voice that, like the clear chime of some Flemish belfry, had in
it fresh music to welcome the newest hour, even though it had rung out
the note of many a vanished day."
IMPORTANT DATES IN GORDON'S LIFE
1833. January 28. Charles George Gordon born.
1849. Entered Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.
1852. Commissioned second lieutenant of engineers.
1854. Sent to the Crimea, to construct huts and trenches.
1862. Sent as major to explore Great Wall of China.
1863. Took command of "Ever-Victorious Army" in China.
1864. Crushed native rebellion and given highest rank in
Chinese army.
1874. Sent on first expedition to Egypt and the Soudan, as colonel.
1881. Made major-general.
1884. Sent in command of expedition to the Soudan.
1885. January 24. Lost his life in the massacre at Khartoum.
ROBERTS
THE WEAK BOY WITH THE STRONG WILL
When one is picking out soldiers, one usually chooses big men. You see a
strapping fellow going by in regimentals, and you say, "My, what a dandy
soldier!"
Well, there have been some big men in stature who have been big
soldiers--such as Washington--but it is interesting to note that many of
our great generals have been undersized. Such were Grant, Wellington,
and Napoleon. Such was Lord Roberts who became Earl and Marshal, and was
one of the best-loved leaders that England has produced. He was
associated with two great campaigns to extend the British Empire--in
India and South Africa--and passed away in the midst of the great World
War, within a few months of Kitchener.
And yet, as a boy, no one would have picked him out as destined to become
a famous soldier. One recent biographer (Wheeler) calls him "a weak boy
with a strong will," and we cannot do better than repeat this as giving
some sort of key to his career. Roberts himself has left an entertaining
story of his life in "Forty-One Years in India," which shows that a
soldier's life is not tinsel and parade, but is made up of infinite
hardship. The weak boy must indeed have to have a strong will in order
to pull through.
Frederick Roberts was born in India at a time when his father, Abraham
Roberts, was lieutenant colonel of infantry at Cawnpore. This fine old
soldier gave a life-time of service to the crown, and was active in the
border raids in India. His son lived to complete the task which he
began, of helping to open India to the civilized world. For his
services, Abraham Roberts became a general and was knighted. The son,
who was destined to win still higher honors, began his career, September
30, 1832.
Although the boy was born amid the smell of gunpowder, he must have been
a disappointment to his soldier father. He was puny and sickly, and for
a time it did not seem likely that he would live at all. So when he was
only a few months old, he was taken from the uncongenial air of India and
brought by his parents to England. Here he spent his boyhood, away from
the father and mother who were forced by official duties to return to the
East.
His home was a charming country house at Clifton near Bristol, where for
the first years he had private tutors. One interesting experience was in
a small school at Carrickmacross in Ireland; then, at eleven, he attended
public school at Hampton. But almost nothing is set down in detail as to
these early years, which would show that besides being a weakling, he was
in no sense remarkable. He was merely another of those small, backward
urchins that one may see at any recess, on any public school playground.
Still his father was set upon his receiving a military education. "It
will do no harm, anyway, and may straighten his shoulders a bit," he
doubtless said. And so at thirteen, young Roberts was entered at Eton,
that training ground of so many of England's soldiers. He made his first
mark in this famous school by winning a prize in mathematics. The
obscure lad was beginning to assert himself.
To the end of his days, Roberts held a warm regard for Eton. Once when
at the end of a great campaign, he was presented with a sword of honor,
on this boyhood's drill ground, he said to a younger generation then
assembled: "To you boys who intend to enter the army, the studies and
sports of this place are your best training. England's greatest general,
himself an Etonian, is reported to have said that the battle of Waterloo
was won in the Eton playing-fields. In thus expressing himself, the Duke
(Wellington) meant that bodily vigor, power of endurance, courage, and
rapidity of decision are produced by the manly games which are fostered
here."
Undoubtedly there was a personal touch to these remarks, as Roberts
recalled how he himself had begun to gain these sterling qualities on the
cricket field and gridiron.
When fifteen, he entered the Military College at Sandhurst, but remained
there only two terms. By nature he was a studious chap, doing especially
well in German and mathematics. So easily did he solve problems in
algebra and geometry, that his mates promptly nicknamed him "Deductions."
Leaving Sandhurst, he put in a few months at a preparatory military
school at Wimbledon, but his father's return to England, in 1849, marked
the first definite step in his plans. Colonel Roberts, after several
years away from his son, was delighted to see that the thin chest was
indeed filling out, and the shoulders throwing back.
"Do you think you can stand India, now, my lad?" he asked.
"Why not, sir?" replied the boy briefly.
"Then I think that the East India Company's service is the place for you."
Colonel Roberts himself had been connected with this great company, which
was the forerunner of the Government in India--and he was right in
thinking that its service offered many chances of advancement.
Accordingly the boy was entered in the Company's own military school, at
Addiscombe; and in less than two years had become a second lieutenant in
the Bengal Artillery--a military company maintained as part of this huge
commercial enterprise.
In 1852, in his twentieth year, he received his first marching orders.
They were to report for duty. He set sail by way of Suez, but there was
no canal in those days to make possible an all-water journey. Instead,
at Alexandria he changed to a small inland steamer going by canal and
river to Cairo. Thence a hot dusty trek across the desert was necessary,
in order to reach Suez.
Once in Calcutta, the young subaltern lost no time in proving that he was
not a mollycoddle. He began by riding every horse in the battery, or
"troop," as it was called in those days.
"Thus," he tells us, "I learned to understand the amount of nerve,
patience and skill necessary to the making of a good Horse Artillery
driver, with the additional advantage that I was brought into constant
contact with the men."
Roberts was early learning the secret of more than one great general's
success--to know his men. In later life he could call many a man by
name, and knew just what each could do. While they responded with a
close affection and the nickname by which he will be known to
history--"Bobs."
It is said that Napoleon expected his officers to know the names and
personal histories of every man in their command. As another result of
Roberts' fellowship with the rank and file he became a crack shot and
expert horseman. During the fighting in the mutiny of Indian sepoys, he
proved himself a good swordsman as well; and even when he became
Commander-in-chief, he would ride with a tent-pegging team of his own
staff.
It was a long and thorough service that he was destined to receive. He
joined the Quartermaster-General's office before the mutiny broke out,
and remained in it for more than twenty years. During this period he
gradually worked his way up from one post of responsibility to another,
doing it so gradually that even he himself hardly noticed the advance.
On one occasion, for example, he superintended all the arrangements for
embarking the Bengal Division, which sailed from Calcutta to take part in
an expedition against Abyssinia.
But how he must have chafed at the long delay in getting into the field.
He asked his father more than once to get him transferred to Burma, where
war had broken out and there was a chance for active service. The
transfer was not granted.
The only thing that came to break up the humdrum of those first years was
a cyclone. It was actually welcomed; anything for a change! Roberts
gives a detailed account of it in his autobiography. He and a native
servant were caught out in the open, when the storm descended with little
warning.
"I shouted to him (the servant) as loudly as I could," he relates, "but
the uproar was so terrific that he could not hear a word, and there was
nothing for it but to try and make my own way home. The darkness was
profound. As I was walking carefully along, I suddenly came in contact
with an object, which a timely flash of lightning showed me was a column,
standing in exactly the opposite direction from my own house. I could
now locate myself correctly, and the lightning becoming every moment more
vivid, I was enabled to grope my way by slow degrees to the mess, where I
expected to find some one to show me my way home; but the servants, who
knew from experience the probable effects of a cyclone, had already
closed the outside Venetian shutters and barred all the doors. In vain I
banged at the door and called at the top of my voice--they heard nothing."
In desperation he had to make his way as best he could back to his own
bungalow, about half a mile away, only to find that also barred against
him. "I had to continue hammering for a long time before they heard and
admitted me, thankful to be comparatively safe inside a house."
Another disappointment to Roberts lay in the fact that he was still away
from his father, who seemed destined all his life to remain a stranger to
him. The junior officer was stationed at Dum Dum, famous as the
birthplace of the soft-nosed bullets, now proscribed in civilized
warfare. His father had been appointed to the command of the troops at
Peshawar, and now wrote him a welcome note bidding him come to join him.
This was easier said than done, but was finally accomplished after three
months of toilsome and dangerous travel. He used every sort of native
conveyance--barge, post-chaise, palanquin, pony, and "shank's mares"--but
it was interesting and full of novelty to the barracks-bound soldier. He
went by way of Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Meerut--places destined
to win unpleasant fame in the Mutiny.
Peshawar, his destination, proved no less fascinating than the way
stations. It commanded the caravan route between India and Afghanistan,
and guarded the entrance to Khyber Pass. Lord Dalhousie described it as
"the outpost of the Indian Empire"--a very accurate title.
At Peshawar at last Frederick Roberts became acquainted with his father,
who proved a good comrade. The junior officer served as aide-de-camp on
the general's staff, and went with him on several expeditions, outwardly
peaceful, but inwardly full of danger. India then was a seething caldron
of trouble.
Nevertheless, this period with his father is described by Frederick
Roberts as "one of the brightest and happiest of my early life."
Unfortunately the senior officer's health showed signs of breaking--and
again father and son had to part. General Roberts resigned his command
and returned to England, at the end of the year 1853.
Peshawar was a notoriously unhealthy station, and young Roberts also soon
began to feel the effects of the climate. He was still far from robust,
and traded continually on his will and nerve. The native fever sapped
his energy, and he was sent to recuperate, to Kashmir. He was
enthusiastic about the scenery here, and his tramping and shooting trips
in the bracing climate soon gave back his strength and vim.
It was about this time that he realized his pet ambition of joining the
Horse Artillery. He also set himself with a will to the study of
Hindustani, as he realized that his usefulness in the
Quartermaster-General's office would be vastly increased if he could deal
directly with the natives.
This was a turning point in Roberts' career. It was to be his first
stepping stone upward, and it illustrates the point that even though
Opportunity may knock at the door--one must be ready for her. That
Roberts finally won his larger success was due not so much to his genius
as to his industry. Edison says that genius is made up of two per cent
inspiration and ninety-eight per cent perspiration.
The great Mutiny, in which Roberts and many another British soldier was
to be plunged, had its immediate cause in a strange thing--greased
cartridges! How so insignificant a thing could have started so great a
trouble is one of the strange, true stories of history. There were, of
course, other contributory factors, but this was the match that touched
off the magazine.
At this time England employed a great many native troops. To be exact,
there were about 257,000; while the British regulars numbered only
36,000. The latter were outnumbered seven to one.
The Ordnance Department adopted a new rifle, the Enfield, at this
juncture, and sent a consignment to India. The cartridges for the rifle
were greased, for easy loading, and were to be bitten by the soldiers.
This last act at once set the sepoy soldiers in an uproar. It was
against their religious scruples to touch meat of any kind, and they
heard it stated that the objectionable cartridges were greased with pig's
and cow's fat.
As soon as the commanding officers saw the trouble, they ordered that the
cartridges be withdrawn--but the mischief was done.
The Mutiny which flared up here among the native soldiers spread quickly
from city to city. Runners went from camp to camp, urging that they
throw off the hated British yoke. In some places no written or verbal
message was exchanged. A basket of unleavened cakes was brought in and
broken, by way of prearranged signal.
After the first outbreaks, councils of war were hurriedly held on the
part of the British officers, and field expeditions organized. One of
the officers, Colonel Neville Chamberlain, was assigned to the command of
what was called the "Movable Column," or chief army of pursuit.
Roberts was made one of his staff officers--"the most wonderful piece of
good fortune that could come to me," he says. Shortly afterward,
Chamberlain was made Adjutant General to the Army before Delhi, and then
came orders for all the artillery officers to join in this attack.
Roberts was to see active service at last.
He found himself under fire at Delhi for the first time on June 30, 1857.
While it was only a skirmish it was a lively one while it lasted.
With some 1,100 men and a dozen guns, Major Coke went on an expedition
against a troublesome group of rebels, and Roberts accompanied him as a
staff officer. When the enemy appeared the only way to reach them in
time was by crossing a swamp. Another troop of rebels unexpectedly
appeared in force, but were put to rout.
A few days later, a similar skirmish occurred, which for a time looked
more serious. Roberts was posted across a road with a squad of men and
two guns. The enemy attacked them with a cross-fire. How he and his
band escaped is a mystery.
During their enforced retreat, Roberts felt a stinging sensation in his
back, but managed to keep going. It was found afterwards that his life
had been saved by the slipping of his knapsack down from his shoulders.
This had been penetrated by a bullet, which had entered his body close to
his spine. Its force had been broken, but the wound was still so severe
as to lay him up for several weeks.
The almost superhuman difficulties which lay in the path of this handful
of Englishmen scattered throughout India, are summed up in a letter by
another officer, Hodson, as follows:
"The whole country is a steaming bog. I keep my health wonderfully,
thank God! in spite of heat, hard work and exposure; and the men bear up
like Britons. We all feel that the Government ought to allow every
officer and man before Delhi to count every month spent here as a year of
service in India. There is much that is disappointing and disgusting to
a man who feels that more might have been done, but I comfort myself with
the thought that history will do justice to the constancy and fortitude
of the handful of Englishmen who have for so many weeks--months, I may
say--of desperate weather, amid the greatest toil and hardship, resisted
and finally defeated the worst and most strenuous exertions of an entire
army and a whole nation in arms--an army trained by ourselves, and
supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war, laid up by ourselves
for the maintenance of the Empire. I venture to aver that no other
nation in the world would have remained here, or have avoided defeat had
they attempted to do so."
The story of the rise and fall of the Indian Mutiny is the story of the
life of Roberts--in so far as the rise is concerned. His was an
inconspicuous but well played part. Acting as staff officer and
lieutenant of a gunners' company by turns, he was always in the thick of
it. If it were the command of guns at a difficult salient before Delhi,
it was "Send Roberts." If it were an urgent message for more ammunition,
at Agra, "Send Roberts." If it were an escort for the rescued women and
children at the historic relief of Lucknow, "Send Roberts."
This slender, undersized officer, in spite of his physique, seemed
indefatigable. He had several narrow escapes from death, in hand-to-hand
encounters with sepoys. Once, a mutineer fired point-blank at him at
twelve yards away, but for some providential reason Roberts' horse reared
just at the moment of firing and received the bullet in his own head.
At another time, a fanatic danced out in front of his horse waving a
turban to frighten it, and at the same time whirling a wicked looking
scimitar around his head. Roberts drew his pistol but the weapon missed
fire. The fanatic sprang forward, and it is probable that the career of
a future Field Marshal would have ended then and there, had not a lancer
spurred his horse in between and run the fellow down.
On still another occasion, his presence of mind saved the flag from
capture and brought him the first of his many honors, the Victoria Cross.
An assault had been made on the village of Khudaganj, and the pursuit was
being followed up in brave style, when some of the rebels suddenly faced
around and took steady aim at those who were charging them. Roberts was
of the party and had gone to the rescue of a man who was on the verge of
being run through by a bayonet, when he saw two sepoys running off with
the Union Jack. He spurred his horse in pursuit, and, leaning over,
wrenched the standard out of the hands of one of the men, at the same
time sabering him. The other sepoy took advantage of the opportunity to
take steady aim at Roberts, point-blank, but the weapon missed fire.
Roberts returned with the flag, and for reward of his gallant action was
given the V. C., that most coveted of British decorations.
Another officer in writing of the event says: "Roberts is one of those
rare men who, to uncommon daring and bravery in the field, and
unflinching, hard-working discharge of duty in the camp, adds the charm
of cheery and unaffected kindness and hospitality in the tent, and his
acquaintance and friendship are high prizes to those who obtain them."
With the end of the Mutiny, Roberts was sent to England on sick leave for
a much-needed rest. In April, 1858, exactly six years after his arrival
at Calcutta, he turned over his duties of Deputy-Assistant
Quartermaster-General to his successor--though much against his will. He
felt that again he was in danger of being put upon the shelf, and his
intensely active nature longed for still further field service.
In a little over a year, however, he was recalled to India, and there
given a unique task. The first Viceroy to India, Canning, determined to
impress the natives by a pomp and display dear to their own hearts, and
show the majesty of England, by holding a series of Durbars, or triumphal
processions. These extended right across India, from city to city, for a
thousand miles. To Roberts was assigned the important task of arranging
all the details of the tour, and he did it with characteristic
thoroughness. It was like moving a mammoth circus, what with elephants,
tents, supplies of all kinds, and gorgeous trappings to be handled.
These Durbars lasted for six months, and the Viceroy not only
complimented Roberts for his work, but gazetted him for the rank of
Brevet Major.
The next few years were much of a piece--a routine of office and field
work which, if it brought nothing sensational to the conscientious young
officer, still kept his feet in the path of glory. It was not until the
year 1875, that he reached the goal for which he had long
striven--Quartermaster-General of the Army in India, which carried with
it the rank of Major General.
With this title his larger work in India may be said to have fairly
begun. For nearly twenty years longer his military career was to be
continued there, and in the neighboring country of Afghanistan. It is
all recounted in his "Forty-One Years in India"--a recital of constant
adventure and interest. For his services, he was made a peer of England,
receiving the title of Baron Roberts of Kandahar. An address presented
to him by the native and English residents, on his leaving India, is
worth repeating.