I ^' >^^^ "teSIs ■ 4f >'[ *'■' ■lY) DA •3SL (JaritcU ItttnerBitg SIthratg ilt^aca, S^eni ^orh BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 *,' .The date shows when this volume was taken. To renew this book copy the call No. and give to the librarian. , .g^p..27-l92t HOME USE RULES I All Books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books must be re- turned at end of college year for inspection and repairs. Limited books must be returned within the four week limit and not renewed. Students must return all books before leaving town. Officers should arrange for the return of books wanted during their absence firom town. Volumes of periodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as much as possible. For special pur- poses they are given out for •A limited time. Borrowers should not use their library privileges for the benefit of other persons. Books of special value and g^ft books, when the giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. Readers are asked to re- port all ccises of books marked tr lautilated. Do not deface books by marks uid writing. Cornell University Library DA 68.32.W87A4 Winnowed memories / L 1924 028 001 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028001778 WINNOWED MEMORIES Photo/raph : Central A/en's, Litl ^^--c.c^%uJ<^ Winnowed Memories BY FIELD-MARSHAL SIR EVELYN WOOD V.C., G.G.B., G.G.M.G., D.G.L. Author of "The Crimea, 1854-94," '•Achievements of Cavalry," "Cavalry in the Waterloo Campaign," "The Revolt in Hindustan," "From Midshipman to Field-Marshal," "Our Fighting Services " WITH EIGHT PHOTOGRAVURE PLATES GASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne 1917 i t lull -kitn Y /\-it^6a.'^ ^ ;4te. MY SISTER, A. G. S. A sage counsellor in literature, an apt pupil in the hunting field. CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER I MISCELLANEOUS STORIES A Lesson in Telling the Truth— The Champion Liar of the World — Home Education for the Army — A Conservative Regiment — A Bibulous Colonel — American Unconventional Discipline — British Unconventional Discipline, or " The Busy Bee "—A Brave but Quaint Colonel— A Disappointed Eavesdropper — The Work of Garrison Instructors — " Regu- lation Willie " — Faith Under Fire — A Great Tactician — Mr. Gladstone as a Host — Mr. Gladstone's Power of Sympathy 1 CHAPTER II MISCELLANEOUS STORIES A Story of the Indian Mutiny : Khanpur — A Great Orange Leader — The Land League — An Ardent Total Abstainer — A Quaint Host — My Uncles MichelL— My Mother — A Deter- mined Woman — A Discreet Wife ..... 22 CHAPTER III MISCELLANEOUS STORIES Esprit de Corps ; or, Where is Troy ? — Naval Education — Cape Colony Stories — Repartee — My Wrist Watch — ^The Queen's Ring — An Unappreciative Gardener — Colonel John Hay : A Poetical Ambassador — Two Judges in Ireland — Moberly Bell — " Rams' Horns " — Practical Joking ... 43 CHAPTER IV PERSONAL AND OTHER STORIES A Dinner at Marlborough House ; The Press — A Scrupulous Churchman — J. McElnea : an Irish Tenant — My First Press Honorarium — Boer Leaders — It Ended in Smoke — Bishop viii Contents PAOB Colenso — Ride to Insandwhlana — An Election to a City Livery Company — " Truth is often Stranger than Fiction " 63 CHAPTER V STORIES OF SPORT Sport in India— A Hyena Hunt—" War Game "— " War Game " at Sea — " Governess " . . . . . . .83 CHAPTER VI SPORTING STORIES A Tiger Shoot — A Foot-y Captain — The Purchase of " Charlie " at Aldershot — The Sale of " Banker " — Frank Barker and the Essex Staghounds — A Keen Hunting Groom — Two Irish Sportsmen — Jumping the Roding River at Shonk's Mill — Essex Staghounds — The Felstead Run of April 3rd, 1909 — Soldiers and Hunting. From a Generous General — To M.F.H.— Royal Field Artillery Cross-Water Jump . 96 CHAPTER VII HUNTING AS MILITARY TRAINING Fox-Hunting and Military Training in Troop-leading in the Field — Taverham Hall — A Record Shoot — A Tardy Bride- groom 115 CHAPTER VIII MILITARY ANECDOTES AND LETTERS Concerning Cavalry Officers — Hygiene — Tactics, and the Health of the Army, 1848-1908— Duties of Chief of Staff— Tracing Men on Service — Supply of Boots . . , . .135 CHAPTER IX MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES Imprudence at the Dinner-table — Ethel Smyth, Mus.Doc. — Sir James Paget — The Flogging Headmaster — Father Brindle, D.S.O. — Sir Cloudesley Shovel — The Royal Engineers' Committee — Dean Hole — Bishop Taylor Smith — A Staff Ride — The Soldier's Influence — To a Superseded General — Royal Military College — Mr. George Wyndham — North- Contents ix Pi.OB uraberland Fusiliers — War Gratuities — A Confession — Field- Marshal Defeated by a Bishop 157 CHAPTER X MILITARY ANECDOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Recruiting Stories : False Personation — Uniform as an At- traction — Celibates against Married Men in the Army — Colonel, Royal Horse Guards — Economy with Efficiency at Annual Gun Practice — Decentralisation — From the Right Hon. St. John Brodrick— The Royal Field Artillery — On Dangerous Shows at Tournaments — Private Influence — A Gallipoli Incident . . . . . . .173 CHAPTER XI MILITARY ANECDOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Gunners as M.I. — " Married Roll" — Visit to Dover — Tactics at Manoeuvres in Peace — Newspaper Attacks — Colonel (Rajah) Paget — A Compass Ride — Balloons and Gunfire — ^Wesleyans — Concentration of Cyclists — The Chaplain-General — Rifle Shooting— Visit to High Clifle— War Office and India Office Red Tape 191 CHAPTER XII AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES At Fishmongers' Hall — Sir Ralph Knox — ^Wolseley Dinner — — Coleridge Grove and Ardagh — Civil Engineers and South African War — The Territorial Forces — Tactical Efficiency in the Army ........ 211 CHAPTER XIII MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES An Appeal for Employment of Ex-Soldiers — Help my Comrades — A Deputation to Mr. Asquith — An Englishman's Home — Call on London's Patriotism 227 CHAPTER XIV ADDRESSES A Natal Presentation — Bedford School — Gresham's School — Fel- stead — Board School Memorials — Baltimore School — The Meaning of Invasion ....... 238 X Contents CHAPTER XV AUTHORS, BOOKS, AND ART "The Historian's History of the World "—Sidelights on the War in the Crimea — The Habit of Observation — Visual Training — The Rev. Charles Kingsley — Royal Academy, 1910 253 CHAPTER XVI AUTHORS, BOOKS AND PUBLIC QUESTIONS Hints on Reviewing — Professor Knight on Sir Evelyn Wood's (( Crimea " — From Sir William Butler — Episodes of the Indian Mutiny — Cavalry at Waterloo — General Sir T. Fraser and Majuba — A Sceptic's Book — An Introduction to " Des- patches from the Dardanelles " — Progress in the Army — Urgent National Questions — Anniversary of the Sipahi Mutiny— The French in Lisbon— The British in Egypt . 269 CHAPTER XVII LETTERS ON AFFAIRS IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1879, 1881, 1899, 1900 The Zulu Campaign — " Conspicuous Gallantry " — The War in South Africa, 1899-1901— As Adjutant-General, 1899-1900 — Letter from an Officer in the Transvaal — Night Exercises — Lieut.-Colonel Evelyn Wood — Lieut. -Colonel Charles Wood— Story of Spion Kop by Arthur Wood . . .286 CHAPTER XVIII MEMORIALS AND OBITUARIES Memorial to Beaumont Boys — Sir W. H. Russell — Cameronians' Memorial — The Essex Regiment Memorial, Warley — General Hallam Parr — Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley, K.P. : An Appreciation — A Review of the Life of Sir William Butler — Earl Roberts 304 CHAPTER XIX RECRUITING AND OTHER MILITARY ADDRESSES Chelmsford, October 25th, 1913— Hackney, October 3rd, 1914 . 329 Contents xi PAOS CHAPTER XX CORRESPONDENCE : SOUTH AFRICA, 1881-2 ; EGYPT, 1882-5 The Peace of 1881— Speech Delivered in 1883—" Gone Away " Major Turner — Lieutenant Wingate — The Nile Expedition — To Lord Wolseley on Gordon — Gordon and Sir Evelyn Baring — A Note on Gordon Pasha — A Letter to Gordon — The Egyptian Army — To a Former Aide-de-Camp . . 336 CHAPTER XXI MILITARY LETTERS AND STORIES General Observations : An Epitome of my Replies to Lord Roberts's Queries — Drinking and Smoking — Cavalry in Fire-swept Zone — To Sir J. D. French — A Contractor's Profits — Old Style Officer — Transport Contracts — On the Difficulties of Serving Two Masters — General and Private — Playing up to the General-" Eye-Wash "—To Settle a Bet — Soldiers and the Truth — " Drink" — A Decrepit General — A Quarrelsome Neighbour — ^A Helpful Neighbour : A Baptist Minister — Military Etiquette in the 'Sixties — Lord Elgin's Royal Commission on the War in South Africa — An Absent-minded Diplomat — Some Rich Relatives. . 357 CHAPTER XXII MILITARY CORRESPONDENCE AND SPEECHES Army Economies — To a Grumbling Lady — Resignation as Chair- man, London T.F.A. — ^The British Soldier, 1914 — To General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien, K.C.B. — To Field- Marshal Sir J. D. French, G.G.B.— To Sir Douglas Haig, CHAPTER XXIII THE GREAT WAR Lord Roberts — Lord Kitchener : An Appreciation — Letters from Bereaved Parents — The British Army Sixty Years Ago and To-day 390 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Field -Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C, G.C.B., G.C.M.G. ...... Frontispiece FACING PAGE Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley, K.P., G.C.B., G.C.M.G. ........ 54 Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, G.C.B. . . 126 The Rt. Hon. Viscount Midleton . . . .180 Field-Marshal Sir John D. French, G.C.B. , Command- ing THE British Expeditionary Force, France, 1914 200 Field-Marshal the Rt. Hon. Earl Roberts, K.G., V.C, O.M., G.C.S.1 272 The Rt. Hon. the Marquis of Lansdowne . . 804 Herbert Kitchener, Major Egyptian Cavalry, Cap- tain Royal Engineers, 1883 .... 356 -W^~B'---B^ 1 I Winnowed Memories I > l r 1^ «,xi^ xxx^x^vio, CHAPTER I MISCELLANEOUS STORIES IN submitting to the public these recollections, mainly concerned with the sayings and doings of comrades and friends, I have endeavoured to avoid A Lesson m general repetition of stories which I told in Truth^ ^^^ "From Midshipman to Field-Marshal," or in other publications ; but I commence by departing from that principle in one instance because it is the key-note of a standard to which I have endeavoured to attain in compiling these memories. In July, 1888, yielding to a warm invitation from Canon Bell, I went to Marlborough for the double purpose of attending the break-up day and inspecting the Cadet companies. While the Head was giving out prizes, he asked, " Sir Evelyn, did you learn much Latin here ? " "Not much, I'm afraid." . "Perhaps Greek?" > "I think less." " Then may I ask what did you learn ? " " Oh, I'll tell you presently, as you say I have got to speak to the school." B Winnowed Memories When I got up, in the course of my speech I mentioned this conversation, and said, " I promised to tell the Head and you at the same time. You are probably envious of those boys who have taken prizes. In your place I should have been, for I never took a prize during the five years I was at school, but I learned something, and that of immeasurable worth, within twenty feet of where I am now stand- ing, in May, 1851. " The Reverend J. Biden was an ardent fisherman, and one afternoon when our task was arithmetic, somewhat scamped in work in those days, we knew that ' Jacky ' was anxious to get out to the banks of the Kennet. He gave me four addition sums out of Colenso's Arithmetic, which he had apparently copied out of the book. After allowing an interval of a quarter of an hour to elapse, taking the answers from the book, I wrote them down, and went up expecting to see a big ' R ' scrawled across the slate and an intimation that I might go. To my horror, he looked over the sums, saying, ' But you have fudged this?' 'No, sir.' 'But you have?' 'No, sir.' "Now, if Jacky had ordered me to 'stand round ' I might have continued to tell lies till to-day ; he said, however, ' I thought you were a brave little boy, and only cowards tell lies.' I say to you, boys, whether you believe me or not, I have never told a lie since, and that lesson was worth more than all the combined knowledge acquired by all the prize-takers who have just now been up to this table." The Champion Liar Lest my readers should think that this book is made up of " goody " stories, I follow with : In 1887, when inspecting a battalion The Gham- q£ ^^ regiment of which I have now, pion Liar of , , , , . , . , the World ^^ have had ever smce, a high opinion, I animadverted on its gross ignorance of outpost duty. It had happened, as I learnt long afterwards from a young company ofiBicer who was dining with me, that the battalion when inspected on outpost duty for the last hundred years, had always been tested first on the right of the position, the inspecting General passing down to the left, and thus had got into the way of putting the most efficient commanders on the right, for when fom^ or five well-posted companies had been looked at the battalion was dismissed. I was the first General who had ever begun on the left, and the consequences were disastrous, for after a bad show by companies Numbers 8 and 7, a sentry of Number 6, who ought to have been look- ing straight to his front in the direction of the sup- posed enemy, as I passed along behind him, " faced about " and " presented arms " to me. The soldier-like manner in which the officer in command received a scathing rebuke won my heart, and I remained on the most friendly terms with the regiment, as indeed with him, until his death on service last year. I kept my eldest son waiting for three months without pay for a vacancy in order that he might join the regiment, in which another of my sons has served for a quarter of a century. 3 Winnowed Memories In all the other regiments I have known — I sup- pose more than a hundred — ^the Orderly Officer reports daily in writing on completing his twenty-four hours' term of duty. In this regiment he reports verbally at the Orderly Room any neglect of duty of which he may have been guilty. When asked by a cynical inquirer, " Do you be- lieve in such perfection of human nature ? " I replied, " In any case, I should like all my sons to have the benefit of training in such a system while it lasts." When I was Adjutant-General, many years after my unhappy inspection, I had been shooting in Hamp- shire in company with the officer who was in command on that occasion. He and I had been telling stories against each other, and I narrated two or three, which were, I admit, extraordinary, told to me by the late Lord Wolseley. As we approached Vauxhall Station, my friend, whose somewhat remarkable in- cidents told of his career had been capped by me, standing up at " attention," presented a green card like a railway ticket, which he handed to me with a deep bow. On it was printed in black letters : " I was the Champion Liar of the World, but I admit defeat." As I took the card, he looked with some anxiety at my face, and as I placed it in my pocket without comment, inquired, " But what are you going to do with it, sir ? " I answered, " Present it to the Commander-in-Chief on the first appropriate occasion." I was Aide-de-Camp to a General in Dublin fifty odd years ago who became Director- General of Mili- 4 The " Walt-a-BIts " tary Education, in which appointment he had much trouble with the mothers of rejected candidates. One persistent lady called at his office ^ti^nfor""" ^^^ ^^^^' "^ *^^^^ *^^^^ ^"^* ^^ ^ the Army mistake about my son, for he has had a paper to say that he has not qualified." The General said politely, " I do not think there is any mistake in this office." " Well, but may I see his papers and in what he has failed." " Oh, he will be told the subject in which he has failed — but we do not show the papers. I may say, however, he has failed in geography for one." Then the fond mother observed, " I am sure, then, that there is a mistake, for I taught him geography myself " ! The General did not accept this as conclusive proof of the candidate's knowledge ; but being a kind-hearted man with a large family, eventually sent for the papers. There was very little in them, but the youth had been given a map of England, and required to write down the approximate position of its principal cities and harbours. The map was an absolute blank but for one place, and that was Tooting Common, where the youth's mother lived, which he had entered in its correct position in relation to where he ought to have put London. One of the battalions fifty years ago in which I had most friends, for I had served with them for nine months in the same trenches before Sevastopol, was called the " Wait-a-bits " from a habit of the Colonel, a very distinguished, but not a quick man, who on receipt of an order always said, " Let's wait 5 Winnowed Memories a bit and consider." On his retirement the battalion could not raise the necessary sum of money to find the " over-regulation " price of his commission, A Gonserva- ^he whole sum being £8,000. The senior (1866) Major, also a Crimean veteran, wished to retire at the same time, which was partly the cause of the stringency. The Major being very fond of the battalion, said, " I will lose half the sum in ques- tion [which I think was £800] and bring in a man by exchange who will succeed to the command, he giving a written promise to retire within two years* All this somewhat complicated arrangement was car- ried out, but the new man, filled with a sense of the prestige of his former regiment, began immediately to make changes in one of the most conservative regiments I have known. He was brave indeed, having gained the Victoria Cross at Inkerman, but he was not tactful, and in a short time took an oppor- tunity, on meeting the Adjutant-General who had passed all his regimental life in the " Wait-a-bits " battalion, to tell him that he had a low opinion of its regimental system and was trying to improve it. When he had been some months in command, addressing an old Captain in the regiment who cared for nothing but the " Wait-a-bits* " musketry instruction, and his dinner, he asked, " Well now. Captain , tell me frankly, what do you think of these little improvements I have been making in the regiment." The Captain, who had an intense contempt for every regiment except his own, calculated the number of months the Colonel had commanded it, which was 6 A Practical Joke seventeen, and then observed calmly, " Oh, sir, I do not think it signifies much one way or another, for in seven months more we shall be ' As you was.' " I was quartered with a very distinguished regi- ment, the Colonel of which was much dishked, and often after a big Mess night made him- Gok!ne"/'^"^ self very objectionable. One of the Field Officers, being married, lived out of barracks. Although he disliked the Colonel, he loy- ally supported him as far as he could. One night, when the Colonel had retired to his room after having made himself very unpleasant at dinner and later, some of the younger officers broke his windows. Next morning the culprits sent a subaltern who had a remarkably innocent face to waylay the married Major as he was coming into barracks, and, the lad having greeted him, said, *' Do you know, sir, that the Colonel was very bad last night, and after he had gone to his room took to smashing his win- dows ? " The Major, believing implicitly the story, expressed his deep sorrow, and went on into barracks, where he found a message awaiting him that the Colonel wished to see him in the Orderly Room, and on his entering, said: " Major, I wish to speak to you seriously. There is a great deal too much of this practical joking, and I am determined to make an example of some of the boys who had the impertinence to break my windows last night. You must find out who they are, and put them under arrest." The Major asked his Commanding Officer to clear 7 Winnowed Memories the Orderly Room, and when they were alone, thoroughly believing what the boy with the innocent face had told him, said, " I am afraid, Colonel, from what I have heard, that you did it yourself," and there the incident ended. My friend, and fellow-student at the Staff College, winner of the Grand Military on Homiblow, and later M.P., was at Washington in 1862 American Un- during the War, and having been accus- conventional ^ , ^ j_-t i i • ^^ Discipline tomed to punctilious behaviour on the part of the rank and file when speak- ing to an officer, was startled by the observation of a New Levy soldier. He was standing on the steps of an hotel when a General rode up, attended by an orderly, to whom, on handing the reins, he said, " Now, Brown, you will bring my horse to this hotel at nine o'clock to-night." The orderly, as he turned the horse away, observed, " Not by a damned sight. Why, General, you know you won't be ready by nine ! " During the closing months of the Indian Mutiny I saw a young officer of the Horse Artillery come into action against a mass of the enemy's British Un- cavalry, who advanced to within 300 conventional ^^^^^ ^j^jj^ ^^ ^^^ j^jg battery fired Discipline, or *' '' "The Busy ^^ " ^^^ were at annual practice on Bee" the Oakhampton ranges. I cannot say that the man, whom I greatly admired for his conduct, was a model soldier during peace. Some few years later, when he was a Major, having 8 An Easy-Going Major been promoted, I believe, for his conduct on that occasion, he was marching from a station in the Mid- lands to Aldershot, and the Colonel in command of the Artillery rode out to meet the battery. My friend saluted him ; but, in his very easy-going, disrespectful way, did not even call the battery to " attention." The Colonel did not outwardly rebuke him, but dis- regarding his pleasant salutation " Good morning, sir," asked " Pray, Major, how many led horses have you got ? " The Major drawled out, " Sergeant- Major, how many sick horses have we got ? " *' Four, sir," which the Major repeated like a parrot, saying, " Four, sir." The Colonel, very angry, said, " How many sick men have you got ? " " Sergeant-Major, how many sick men have we got ? " The Colonel, obviously much irritated, asked, " Pray, sir, do you know how many guns you have got ? " And the Imperturbable Major, turning round, said, " Sergeant- Major, how many guns have we got ? " And then, as if he suddenly remembered, quickening his tone, said, " Six, sir, six. Sergeant-Major, I am right, it is six ? " And as the Colonel galloped away, too angry to trust himself to speak, the Major observed to the Captain of the battery : "I thought I would get rid of the Busy Bee," which was the nickname of the Officer Commanding Royal Artillery at that time. Colonel , commanding a Cavalry regiment, was a great character in his intense devotion to regi- mental life, and scarcely ever missed a day's stables at the forage barns, where he closely inspected the forage. One day he followed two young soldiers, 9 Winnowed Memories carrying trusses of hay on their heads back to the stable, who had seen him at the bam but did not reahse that he had followed them, and they dis- A cussed his personal appearance freely. rave ut j^^^. ^^ ^^i^y -were about to deposit their Golonel ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ stable, one of them observed, " What an ugly old brute he is," and as he looked up, after throwing down his load, he saw the Colonel standing within a yard of him, who observed tranquilly, " Young man, when you are as old as I am and have over-drunk yourself, and over-smoked yourself as much as I have, you will probably be as ugly as I am." One day I was standing with him at the head of the South Camp — ^now called Stanhope Lines — Alder- shot, when he saw an officer approaching on horse- back, and my friend the Colonel observed, "Boy, look at him ; when he is near enough to recognise me you will see him turn his head away." He did so, and I said, "What is it?" He replied, "Nearly twenty years ago we were in a fight together. Our force had to retire. That man's horse was killed. I caught a loose horse and put him up. Later in the day, when we were still retiring, one of my men who had dismounted couldn't make his horse stand still. His overalls were so tight that he was unable to mount on his restive horse. My own horse was well trained, and so, dismounting, I helped him into the saddle, and the man, being terrified at the sight of natives who were then running after us, spurred his horse and galloped off, and it was followed by mine. The man you see approaching us passed close to me 10 A Brave but Quaint Colonel while I was running after my horse, and without making an effort to stop it, observed as he passed, ' I am afraid you are done for.' My horse, which had been well trained to halt with a heavy weight attached to the bit-reins, stopped just before the natives were on me, and I am here to-day ! " Many years later I came on another man present in that battle, for in July, 1878, I was commanding a column which marched from King Williamstown, Cape Colony, through Pondoland and Natal up to Utrecht in the Transvaal. On July 6th the column was crossing the Bashee River by what is locally called a " double drift," that is, an island having formed in the middle of the river stops the downward flow of sand and thus creates fords, and the oxen rest on the island in the centre after accomplishing the first half of the passage. I thus had several hours* close companionship with the Chief Transport Rider, or head conductor of the wagons. The term is not expressive, for he does not ride ; indeed, as a rule he walks, although he may sit on a wagon with a whip with which he can take pieces out of a stub- bom ox, even if he is in the front pair of a team of eighteen. I talked with Mr. Crouch of a battle which had taken place about twenty-five years before on the far side of the Drakensberg Range on which we were looking, and I asked if he had ever known any- thing about it. He said, " Oh, yes, I was there," " And what were you doing ? " *' Well, I was inter- preter to the General in command." " And is it a fact it was not he who won the battle, but a Colonel II Winnowed Memories under his command ? " *' Yes, that was so ; indeed, the General thought he was so certain to be beaten that he handed over the command to the Colonel. When the despatches came out from home they repre- sented that the General would have won a victory sooner if the Colonel had come punctually to the point of concentration ordered, and the Colonel took an action against him. Both sides subpoenaed me to attend and give evidence, and it is a lifelong regret to me that the Crimea War broke out, for that put an end to the action, and in consequence I am now getting on in life and have never seen England, for I was born soon after my mother landed in the Colony." " Well, Mr. Crouch, may I ask what you were going to say ? " " Oh, I was going to tell the truth." " And what was the truth ? " " Oh, it was the Colonel won the fight and the General had nothing to do with it." My General and intimate friend, who had a keen sense of humour, told me the following story against himself. As Colonel Alfred Horsford he captured the last Horse battery of the Mutineers in Oudh. His force, which numbered in its ranks his own ^. . ^ battalion of the Rifle Brigade, had made Disappointed , i p , • Eavesdropper ^^^^ marches for many days m succes- sion, and were celebrating their success at a camp sing-song, officers and men all sitting around large camp fires. Horsford, having a head- ache, had not joined his brother officers and was lying down in his tent, when he overheard two old soldiers in the row of Company tents nearest to those of the 12 Sir Alfred Horsford officers, discussing incidents of the fight. Said one, " The Colonel, he 'as done well to-day, 'asn't he, Bill ? " " Yes, 'e 'ave." " Well, what will they do with him ? " My friend listened acutely, hoping to hear something pleasant. " Oh," said the other in an indifferent tone, " make 'im a General or a K.C.B. or something, and then, please Heaven, we shall never see the brute any more,'* his quickening tone expressing an increased interest at the possibility. Early in the 'seventies, when there was an epi- demic of scarlatina at Sandhurst College, it became necessary to clear the building for at r ^ °. least a year, and the problem arose of Garrison , , . . .i j x- j? Instructors contmue the education ot some two hundred young men who were studying for the Army. After some consideration it was decided to gazette the cadets to regiments as a temporary measure only, and to continue their education for the Army under officers who had passed through the Staff College, and who were intended to impart instruction in all the military subjects to classes varying from sixteen to twenty-five students, which were formed at sta- tions throughout the Kingdom. I had in 1874-5-6 the superintendence of those in Great Britain, another officer supervising the classes in Ireland. There were many somewhat comical incidents connected with the class at Wellington Barracks, and the Garrison Instructor there, a very earnest man, complained bitterly to me of the distractions of London life. He told me, "When I can get the 13 Winnowed Memories class together the work is very satisfactorily done, for the young men are not only attentive, they work hard, and their manners are perfection ; but still the difficulties I have to contend with are great. Many of them are kept up by their mothers and sisters until early in the morning at dances. I looked for- ward to the end of the London season, but was then importuned for leave for grouse shooting ; when I got the lads back from Scotland others asked leave for partridge shooting ; and when I thought I was at the end of all such amusements, one of my best pupils wanted leave for cub-hunting." I observed, " You should have said, ' Oh, that's nonsense ; you needn't go cub-hunting.' " " So I did, * but,' said he, ' I am the Master of the Hounds.' " I observed, " You should have said, * That is all the more reason for your being here punctually at ten, for you can fix hours and go out at daylight.' " " I did, and he replied, ' Oh, I would willingly do that, but I am not only Master, but Huntsman, and the distance is against me.' I asked, ' Where is it you hunt ? ' thinking it was somewhere close to London. ' Oh, I hunt in Durham.' " I observed, "Then I think you must put your foot down, and your cadet must find a professional huntsman." The same instructor, although good at teaching, was not equally successful in controlling his temper, which was considerably upset by a brave but un- taught General who, in attending one of his lectures, dissented strongly from the instruction which laid great stress on the importance of every sketch showing " Regulation Willie " a north point. The General listened with undis- guised impatience, and when the lecture was finished, said plainly he saw no use in it, and to clinch, as he thought, the argument, walking over to the black- board and turning it upside down, asked triumphantly, " And pray, sir, where is your north point now ? What is the use of it ? " One of the most determined soldiers I have ever met, promoted from Regimental Sergeant-Major to ^^ , be an officer for distinguished conduct Ttr-if- »^ *^^ at the Alma, later evinced great per- sonal bravery at the first Relief of Lakhnao. Some years afterwards he was invalided from India, and was sent home under veiled restraint in charge of his soldier servant. A friend he and I had in common went into his cabin and spoke to him ; but the invalid gave no signs of recognition, imtil his soldier servant whispered, " He won't speak, sir, until you call him to attention." Our friend, accepting the situation, said " 'Tention I " and as the officer stiffened his limbs my friend said, " Turn about ! Right about turn ! " In those days we were particular, using the words " Face about " to men standing still, and " Turn " to men on the move ; and the patient, hearing the words " Right about turn," looking round, said, " But I'm noo on the move just now, mon," and my friend commanding " Right about — face," the patient, sitting up, conversed reason- ably. Later he was for some time in an asylum, but being a good regimental soldier was allowed to come 15 Winnowed Memories back and resume command of his battalion. Equi- tation was always a difficulty, for he was never on a horse until he became Adjutant, and one day, when inspecting the Castle Guard in Dublin, found by the battalion to which I belonged, when Captain SteVens gave the order " General Salute, Present Arms " to the Colonel, as Field Officer of the Day, he fell violently to the ground, his bonnet going in the oppo- site direction. Stevens, dropping his sword, ran out and picked up the fallen officer, expressing his sincere hope that he wasn't seriously hurt, and the Colonel calmly replied, " Nae, laddie ; this horse always cercles left, and on this occasion he cercled right and I was nae prepared." [The following Foreword to Mr. E. A. Burroughs' " Addresses to Officers of the British Expeditionary Force, France, 1915," was written by me FaUh under ^^ ^j^^ request of my friend. The Right Reverend Bishop Taylor Smith, Chaplain- General to the Forces.] I accept the offered privilege of writing some few introductory sentences to this booklet, because dur- ing my long life spent in the two Fighting Services I have realised personally and by study of history the inestimable advantage of Faith in the living, ever- present God, not only in helping a man to risk the sacrifice of his own life for his country, but also in assisting him to inspire those imder his command to imitate his example. Francis Drake, in 1580, when returning from a voyage round the world in the last remaining vessel i6 Faith under Fire of the squadron of five ships with which he had left Plymouth three years earlier, struck on a rock off the Isle of Celebes, near Borneo. The Golden Hinde was ballasted with bricks of gold worth a million sterhng ; but Drake, in his autocratic manner, ordered that " All hands " should receive Holy Communion before setting to work to lighten the ship. John Churchill, afterwards Duke of Marlborough, before his astounding victory at Blenheim in 1704, in which he captured the French Commander-in- Chief and nearly all his cannons and equipment, had Divine Service performed at the head of every regiment before advancing to the attack. In the time of our forefathers Naval commanders always returned thanks to the Almighty for a vic- tory at a parade held for Divine Service. Most of us have read Nelson's beautiful, fervent prayer, written on board the Victory off Cape Trafalgar the morn- ing of the day he was killed, beseeching the Almighty to grant him success for King and Country. These three great heroic, patriotic Englishmen, with many faults of personal character, were cer- tainly uplifted by the conviction of the ever-present God. In forty years of peace which ensued after Water- loo, everything that makes for efficiency, except the enduring courage of all ranks, retrograded ; the practice of public worship prior to battle died out, although there were some officers of higher nature whose successful efforts came out during the Crimea War, an epoch when language of a coarseness now not tolerated was commonly and publicly used in c 17 Winnowed Memories all ranks, from the highest to the lowest. A youi officer, named Hedley Vicars, 97th (2nd Royal We Kent) Regiment, with whom I served in 1854-5 the trenches, had excited earlier in the campaign son comment, not always complimentary, by his effor to bring a sense of religion to the men of his Coe pany. When, however, cholera fell on our camp i Bulgaria, Hedley Vicars's heroic self-sacrifice in nur ing the dying won all hearts, and when in makir a counter-attack, in March, 1855, he was killed i the head of his Company, there was no man mo] sincerely mourned. Evelyn Wood, June 23rd, 1915. Field- Marshal In the manoeuvres of 1872 General Sir Joh Michel had on his Staff Sir Garnet Wolseley, Colon( Herbert, Major Home (the author c A Great u^ p^.^^^^ ^^ Tactics"), and mysel and the Southern Army was certainl generally victorious. The day before a successful attack made o Aldershot from the southward, I came across a Sta; College Officer who had been at Camberley for tw years with me, and was interested to find a sappe lying at full length on the ground near him, engage in drawing a map. I said, " What is the man doing ? and my friend replied, " Oh, my General think that if he had a map on the scale of 25 inches t the mile he would be able to understand it better, to which I answered, *' But the manoeuvres will b over before this sapper has finished his work of en i8 Mr. Gladstone as Host larging, and then you had better order your General's horse, for he will want it to ride round his map ! '* The next day, the Southern Army advancing from Frensham, feinted at Gravel Pit Hill, on the southern extremity of the Fox Hills, and when the Northern Army had massed near Ash Village, the Southern Army got its leading Brigade up on to Caesar's Camp and it had established itself in a defensive position before its opponent realised the situation. I was sent to guide our General (not he who required a big map) up the hill, where we arrived simultaneously with the Royal Commander-in-Chief and his Staff, who looking down on one battalion of Highlanders of the defenders, which was being hurried up at the double to endeavour to save the position, observed to our General, "Why, , you are the greatest tactician of the age." The General observed, with honesty and modesty, " It may be so, sir, but I have no notion how I got here." Diary Letter to My Children, Wednesday, November Sth, 1882. I dined in Downing Street with Mr. Gladstone, and had a most enjoyable evening. The arrangements about going in to dinner were peculiar. It was a large party, but there were only about six ladies, and Mr. Gladstone did ^'^^ Hosf^''^ ^^* take any of them in to dinner. Lord Hartington took Mrs. Gladstone, and our host followed his guests from the room in which we assembled into the dining-room. As I was one of the juniors I went to the foot of 19 Winnowed Memories the table, and Mr. Gladstone followed me, ap- parently intending to sit next to me ; but a Naval officer slipped in between us, to our host's evident annoyance, and this increased when the gentleman insisted in talking about what he did in the Egyptian Expedition, from which several of us, including Sir John Adye, who was on my left, had just returned. Mr. Gladstone told the Naval officer shortly that he was tired of Egypt, and wanted to hear nothing more of it, and then, turning the conversation, asked me to describe to him the appearance of Mr. John Dunn, of Zululand. From this subject we got accidentally on the deriva- tions of words, and when he had mentioned one or two French words in ordinary use in Scotland, I asked him whether he had ever noticed the use in Cumber- land of the German word " gerade," only pronounced " grade." He was greatly interested, and asked how I came across it. I told him that in 1862 I was near Penrith with a Woolwich cadet who was fishing, when he asked a lad who had shown him a trout pool in a stream, resulting in great success, to show him another. It was eight o'clock, and the child replied, " No, I must go grade home." I made him repeat the word two or three times until he became angry, thinking I was laughing at him, and then he changed it and said, "I must just go straight home." I have never had a more interesting table com- panion than Mr. Gladstone, and he himself was so eager in telling me about the derivations of various words that he ate but little dinner. 20 Mr. Gladstone's Sympathy Englishmen hold very different opinions concern- ing the late Right Honourable William Ewart Glad- stone, but I have never seen any credit Mr. Glad- given to him for his remarkable power stones Power „ . , . . ..11 . u- u of SymDathy sympathismg with pleasures to which he was not personally addicted. In the 'seventies I was staying with Mr. Glyn, later Lord Wolverton, who had a pack of black St. Hubert stag- hounds, and he mentioned that in order to enter- tain me he had given himself another holiday from his duties as Chief Liberal Whip in Parliament, where some contested question was coming forward for decision. Next day, on my expressing regret that I had inadvertently been the cause of his absenting himself from his voluntary duties, he showed me a letter which he had received that morning from the Prime Minister, written in the kindest strain, and saying how glad he was to think of him riding for health and amusement instead of being in the House of Commons all night. 21 CHAPTER II MISCELLANEOUS STORIES I WROTE this story in " From Midshipman to Field- Marshal," or in " The Revolt," but had it lifted out of the type when I foimd that the A Story of the Captain's widow lived within one him- Indian Mutiny , , -, j> ^ en • i — Khanpur ^^^" yards of my house. She is long since dead. During the earlier days of the Mutiny General A, who had fought several successful actions before going on towards Lakhnao, left another General Officer, whom I will call B, to exact retribution for a cruel massacre in the city. General B executed many men, and insisted on the principal culprits cleaning up with their mouths a square inch of blood which was clotted on the floor of a room in which over two hundred women had been butchered. One of the men condemned to be executed asked to see General B. He was the native Major of a Bengal Cavalry Regiment, and said, " General, of my guilt there is no question, so far as I am accused of mutiny ; but I declare that I have never lifted my hand against woman or child." The native officer had, however, been present when by a treacherous act of Nana Sahib, his regiment amongst others, as 22 A Dutiful Assassin arranged by Tantia Topi, had fired on a mass of our people who were under a promise of protection. General B said, " I shall carry out my decision," and the man, after performing his revolting task, was led off to execution. As he was being led away to be hanged he saw a Faquir, and calling to him, said, " Brother, I am about to die. I charge you to execute my last wish." The man replied, " I will," and he continued : *' In the north of Rohilkhand I have a young wife with a boy a year old. Go to her and charge her as my last wish that she shall bring up our boy to kill General B, or if he is dead, then his son." General B was killed at Lakhnao. The mother never told the boy, who grew up a handsome yoimg man, and enlisted in a regiment which I had raised at the end of the Mutiny. He was much liked, and of exemplary character. When he had served two years he got inflammation of the lungs, and during the time he was in hospital was frequently visited by the Captain of his squadron, a son of General B, and his wife, who took him flowers, and showed him other acts of kindness. Shortly after the man was discharged from hos- pital and while at "light duty," the Faquir who had been charged with his father's dying wish appeared at the station, and told him the story. Next morn- ing, the trooper went on parade armed with his carbine, and having saluted his Captain respectfully, shot him dead. As men ran up to him, he threw down the carbine, saying, " As I am guilty, kill me at once, but I have obeyed my father's dying com- mand." 23 Winnowed Memories I first made the acquaintance of Edward Saun- derson in the spring of 1865, and had the privilege of retaining his friendship until his death, ^ ^''®^* although I saw but little of him after Orange ■. o , j Leader ^ ^^^* Dublin. He was very clever and determined, and would have assuredly been the leader of the Ulstermen if the Liberal Govern- ment had forced Home Rule on the North of Ireland in the 'eighties. He had a fine, chivalrous, tactful manner. When we met in later years in London he always led conversation to sporting events in which we were both much interested, and avoided all poU- tical matters, which he knew would be distasteful to me as an officer on the Headquarters Staff of the Army. He made some clever caricatures of me in 1865, but never of a nature to cause me vexation. In the hunting season 1864-5 I had borrowed a carriage cob, a good jumper, from Lord Southwell, whose sister I married some years later, and was travelling one morning to Navan. I was much in- terested in a volume of Tennyson's poems, and when two sportsmen entered the carriage I never spoke, or looked up, after I had noticed that their boots, breeches, and coats gave evidence of an expen- sive provider. One proved to be Saunderson, and his companion Luke White, who later became Lord Annaly. Both men were fine horsemen, though riding faster at the fences than was compatible with " staying " in a long run. I followed them over two or three fair-sized places, when we came to what they call in Meath either a river or "a cut," for I never made 24 Edward Saunderson out the difference. In appearance the obstacle looked like a narrow canal, but the one in front of us had been cleared out, and about from one to two feet on either side of the bank there was a ridge of black mud. Both my travelling companions were going fast, and their horses took off at some little distance from the hither ridge and landed in the water. My carriage cob struck his hind feet beyond the mud on the very edge of the bank, which was quite firm, and landed me safely. About ten days afterwards I attended in uniform the Lord Lieutenant's St. Patrick's Ball, and said " Good evening " to Saunderson, as one greets a man one has met in the hunting field. A quarter of an hour later, standing near, I heard Edward Saunderson telling a man, who had seen me greet him, and who had asked my name, all he knew about me. He said, " I was going down in the train with a friend, and we got into a carriage with that fellow in the Staff uniform, and we didn't think he could be much, for his clothes — well, what shall I say ? — Hammond never made his breeches. Peal never made his boots ; he read Tennyson's poems all the way down without looking up, and when we got out of the train he had no groom with him and followed us on a carriage cob. Two of us tumbled into the third fence, a deep cut, and just as we fell in the water we saw this man with the odd clothes, on his carriage cob, hopping over us." I had the pleasure of seeing much of Edward Saunderson in the summer. He married about this time a handsome young woman. His sister-in-law, 25 Winnowed Memories Mrs. Somerset Saunderson, wife of a man in the 11th Hussars, was also very handsome. I stayed some time at Castle Saunderson, and the three brothers — Llewellyn at that time being unmarried — and the two young wives made as handsome and merry a family as could be seen anywhere. Although there was nothing unkind in the whole household, they were full of animal spirits, which might have perturbed a man who had not lived in a midshipman's Mess. My friend, the owner of the property, was third son, but, as I understood, behaved generously to his elder brother, Somerset, who had been married some few years. The estate ran down to Lough Erne, on which there was friendly rivalry with their neighbour. Lord Erne, who had challenged Edward to a sailing match. Saunderson designed a yacht, built it at home, and sailing it with a crew of amateurs, of whom I was one, beat his opponent. After Mrs. Edward had got on friendly terms with me she expressed much curiosity to know whose portrait was in a locket I was then wearing, and still wear, as I now write, fifty years later ; but as I was not engaged to the lady I afterwards married, I absolutely declined to tell. One afternoon, when we were leaving the yacht, which was anchored about 50 yards from the pier, she got into the punt, which she was holding to the side of the yacht, in order to take me ashore. By arrangement with her husband, as I was in the act of stepping into the punt, he tapped me on the shoulder, calling me by name, and I turn- ing my head and my hostess pushing the punt off from the yacht at the same moment, I stepped into 26 Castle Saunderson the water, to her great delight. She called out, "Now we shall see who is inside the locket." I was staying there again in the winter, during which they contrived another joke against me, although in this case I had the last laugh. We were playing "Family Coach," the chairs being arranged in the hall, into which three or four of the reception-rooms led. The hbrary door was open, and I was chasing my hostess, who ran round and round a circular table. I could have caught her in a rough manner, but wished to do so politely with my arm round her neck. When she felt that I was very near, she sprinted for the dining-room, the door of which was open, the room being lighted only by the glow of the fire. By arrangement my host was lying flat on his face in the doorway, and as she stepped lightly over him, he, with excellent timing, hunched his back with, to them, the desired result, for I went headlong into the dining-room about eight feet. I was somewhat shaken, and this terminated the game, so we went up to dress for dinner. A little after eight o'clock, on my ringing the bell it was answered by the butler, and to my query, " Has the dinner-bell gone ? I am very hungry," said, " No, sir, haven't you heard that Mrs. Edward is very ill." " That is scarcely possible, for she was romping with us at seven o'clock, and I want my dinner." He repUed, " I am very sorry, sir ; but Mr. Saunderson has sent for the doctor, and says the dinner is not to be served until he comes." " How far has the messenger got to go ? " " About nine Irish miles." On going downstairs I found Somerset Saun- 27 Winnowed Memories derson as hungry as I was. He had been married some four or five years, but had no family, and no one in the house except myself was apparently one of a large family with married sisters. After, in a little conversation with Somerset, learning Mrs. Edward's symptoms, I said, " I wish you would go upstairs and ask your wife to advise Mrs. Edward that she will have to wait some months before she is better." Our hostess came down in about a quarter of an hour, ate her dinner, and when going to bed left word for the doctor that a bedroom had been prepared for him, and she would see him in the morning ! Many years afterwards an Englishman, opposed to Edward Saunderson in politics, was orating in the House of Commons on Ireland, about which he evidently knew but little. When they met after the debate, he, resenting Saunderson's masterly ex- posure of his ignorance, observed that he had never been in Ireland, and my friend, greatly given to hospitality, said, " Would you like to come over ? I'll show you every side of it I can." The man said, somewhat insolently, " Will you turn the pigs out of your house before I come ? " " Certainly, we'll have them all out." He went over, and when the carriage drove up to the front door Edward Saimderson and his wife were in a room overlooking it. There were a butler and two footmen on the doorstep, who had been carefully instructed to jump aside as they threw open the folding-doors. Saunderson had crammed the hall with pigs as tight as it would hold, who, sweeping 28 A Deal in Pigs out, knocked down the gentleman, running over him, to the great detriment of his clothing. His host, from the upper window, shouted to him, " See, I am keep- ing my promise : they are all out now." During the twenty-one years in which I over- looked the management of the Clones Estate we had little or no trouble with the tenants when The Land ^j^^y understood that the landlord for (1886) whom I was acting wanted only a fair rent and would not interfere with their social life in any degree. I admit that at this time I was personally disappointed in the tenantry, because, although I changed the previous system when I took over charge in 1867, by giving a fixed proportion of the estate income to all religious de- nominations according to their number, whereas previously the comparatively few Church of England members had been the recipients of the landlord's gifts, yet when trouble came along the Orangemen were practically the only ones who appeared to have any sense of fair dealing. When the Land League came up to the North of Ireland I expressed on behalf of the landlord no desire to put any difficulties in the way of tenants join- ing, and most of them did. Within six months a tenant of a very small holding, as indeed they mostly were, came to the Agent and said, *' I have quarrelled with the Land League and they have taken away my only two labourers. May I please have your pig men to get my harvest in, or I shall not be able to pay my rent ? " The *' pig men " were men who 29 Winnowed Memories worked for the estate, but only on market day, on which they made from 7s. to 8s., and as a rule did not do a stroke of work until the succeeding market day, their business being then to lift the pigs out of the cart in which they were brought, carry them to the weigh-master's scales, and see them ticketed. The Agent replied, " You can have them every day except market day as far as I am concerned. Make your own bargain." This they did, with the result that I got a peremptory notice to discharge all the men who had worked for the boycotted Land Leaguer. The Agent telegraphed me, " What answer shall I make ? " and I replied in three emphatic words, " ." The secretary retorted by sending out a notice that no buyers would visit the market while those pig-carriers were employed by the estate. I issued a counter notice that I would buy every pig which came to market and failed to obtain an adequate offer. Shortly after I returned invalided from the Gordon Relief Nile Expedition, I received a telegram from the Agent, " I am sending you 640 pigs on Tuesday morning." I was recuperating in Essex at the time, and that morning was on my way to London to see somebody in the War Office, being dressed in tall hat and blue frock-coat then in fashion, when I got the telegram. Going into Fishmongers' Hall, I asked Mr. Beckwith Towse, the clerk, for the names of some two or three pig-brokers in Smithfield, and at the first stall I asked, "What can you get for me on Tuesday morning for pigs about six hundred." The man, looking up, said, " Lights or Heavies ? " 30 A Total Abstainer Now I know something about Light and Heavy Cavalry, but I had no notion what he meant, and, like Tittlebat Titmouse in " Ten Thousand a Year," said, " a little of both." The man looked at me and, not realising my ignorance, thought I was humbug- ging, and turned his head away, declining to answer. I went three stalls on and asked another man, " What can you do for me on Tuesday ? What price Lights ? What price Heavies ? " He answered me immedi- ately, and going outside to the Telegraph Office, I informed the Agent, so much for " Lights," so much for " Heavies." *' I know that you have tried Belfast, Drogheda, Cavan, but have you tried Derry?" Derry proved our safeguard ; its jobbers bought all my pigs, and I must have owned some thousands, until the Land League, admitting defeat, cancelled their prohibition as to employment of the carriers, and I got rid of a troublesome subject at the loss of £100 on my trading, which was cheap, inasmuch as the market dues owned by the estate were worth nearly £400 per annum. Dining at a house in Portman Square with a brother Gold Stick, I overheard a gentleman I after- wards learned was an ardent teetotaller, An Ardent g^y iq j^jg partner, as he sank into Abstainer ^ chair immediately opposite, with an indication of his hand towards me, *' Do you know that man opposite ? " The lady looked at me, and said, " I know his name." " But do you not know him personally ? " and she said in 31 Winnowed Memories a tone indicating no desire to make my acquaint- ance, " No, I do not." The man observed in an excited manner, " Do you know, madam, that man has never had a brandy-and-soda or whisky-and-soda in his Ufe ? " The lady raised from her lap a long- handled pair of eyeglasses, and after gazing fixedly at me for half a minute, on dropping them remarked, *' Poor old gentleman, what a lot of pleasure he has missed lin his life." In the middle 'seventies, when quartered in Scot- land, I stayed very often with a millionaire, a widower, whose daughter dispensed for him really A ijuamt princely hospitality. She and my wife were great friends, and so we often enjoyed week-ends in their house, large enough to be a palace. During one visit a married daughter was there, and having had some disagreement with her younger sister, our hostess, teased her by abusing Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had passed over her hus- band for active employment. In order to vex her sister, she disparaged Wolseley, of whom it was known that I was a devoted admirer. She knew absolutely nothing about him, saying at table that he took care when thrusting forward under fire such men as Baker Russell and Evelyn Wood to avoid all danger himself, and was considerably astonished when I retorted, enumerating all the ghastly wounds the man who was then known as " our only General " had received. Next night, this attack having failed, she induced our host, then over eighty years of age, to question me, and he called out from the 32 Jonah in the Whale end of a table, seating twenty-four guests, " Colonel Wood, do you believe that Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly ? " I remarked, " How very uncomfortable for the whale !" to which he replied, " Will you tell me, sir, do you believe it or not ? " I asked, " Please say how the whale's diges- tion went on," and he said angrily, " I asked you a plain question. Do you or do you not believe it ? " and I answered cheerily, " No," to which he rejoined, "Then you will leave my house to-morrow morning." The ladies retired, and as I opened the door for my hostess, whom I had taken in to dinner, she observed, " Oh, I do hope you are not going." " I am not thinking of it," I rejoined ; "he will have forgotten it by to-morrow morning," and so he had. My mother's two brothers, very different in height and physical proportions, were alike in courage and determination. The elder, who died ^y Uncles Admiral Sir Frederick in 1873, had shown not only remarkable resolution, but excellent seamanship at the bombardment of Algiers in 1815, where he commanded a flotilla of boats constructed to attack the fortifications at close range. A very abstemious man, he retained all his nerve, and in October, 1854, wishing to emulate the feat of H.M.S. Torhay which broke the French boom in Vigo Bay, 1702, he asked permission of the Naval Commander-in-Chief to take H.M.S. Queen, under all plain sail, against the boom guarding the entrance to the harbour of Sevastopol. D 33 Winnowed Memories In another book * I mentioned that my uncle was offered by the Patriotic Fund a Sword of Honour for a gallant exploit, or to receive its cash value ; he took the money, which he remitted intact to his mother. Some years later, on receipt of Prize Money, he settled it legally on his two sisters, and when my father urged on his attention that the settlement might preclude the possibility of his marrying later, should he wish to do so, he replied, "That is exactly my object, for I wish so far as lies in my power to ensure that my sisters shall not be left in want." His younger brother, Charles Michell, while still a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, but serving in command of a field battery in the Portuguese Army, distinguished himself at the siege of Badajos in 1812, and again at the battles of Vittoria and Toulouse. On April 10th, 1814, when attached to the 4th Division of the Spanish Army, the battery was ordered to attack a fortified chapel which stood within a hundred yards of the guns of a fort outside Toulouse. The Spanish infantry advanced in a hollow road but could not be induced to quit the cover which it afforded. Michell's battery was ordered up in support, and moved for some reason in what is called " column of route." The French infantry ad- vanced and, overlooking the hollow road, were firing heavily on the Spaniards as the battery approached, and the lead driver of the leading gun was killed. Michell dismounting, replaced him and took the gun * "From Midshipman to Field-Marshal." 34 Family Heroes " at the gallop *' up to within a hundred yards of the chapel gate, where he brought the battery into action. A description of him by one present, who in 1851 was a General Officer, shows a curious differ- ence in the habits of wearing our hair. " He was just one-and-twenty, one of the tallest and hand- somest men in the Peninsula. His cap had fallen off, and his long hair floating in the wind as he gal- loped at speed towards the enemy with his loose horse alongside the team, caused the greatest admira- tion and interest." His battery silenced treble the number of his own guns, and led to the capture of the chapel. He ran away with a young girl out of a convent school, and married her in the autumn of 1814, living afterwards in France on £120 a year with three chil- dren. He must have been a man of determination in financial matters also, for having borrowed £30 of his brother-in-law, he insisted upon paying it back by instalments. Some years later when dining with his brother-in-law, and a guest expressed a prefer- ence for turnip-tops as a vegetable, he showed how severe the struggle had been. He replied, " Yes, they are very nice ; but you would not like to live on them, as we had to do at Nantes for a week at a time, not as a vegetable with meat, but as your whole dinner." Turning to his wife, he said, " N'est ce pas ? " and she observed, " Mais quand quelque- fois on y mettoit un petit morceau de lard, c'etoit delicieux." The couple, with their three children, could not afford to drink tea, but made the nearest approach to it possible by infusing the leaves 35 Winnowed Memories of a linden tree which grew in the garden. B^i strange reversal of fate, one of the children ^ died fifteen years ago left a million and a quar sterling. My uncle competed, as the result of an adverti ment in The Times sent him by a friend in Londc for a professorship at the Royal Military Colle Sandhurst, and went thence to Woolwich, whei he passed on to be Surveyor-General at the Cape Good Hope, where he inaugurated most of the i provements which made locomotion possible in \ vicinity of Cape Town. It is curious to read the newspapers of November, 1848, announcing ] retirement, that the greatest boon he conferred the Colony appears to have been the construct! of something which was then unknown in Sou Africa — " a hard road," i.e. macadamised. In t words of the newspaper, " nearly all the great pub works which have changed the aspect of the Colo: were planned and carried out under his immedis superintendence . ' ' I was never in the Caledon, George, Somerset, Worcester districts, all of which he improved, b some of the fighting carried out under my ord< in the Gaika Rebellion in 1878, connected me wi his work in 1835, for I had pickets engaged Bailey's Grave, near Keiskamahoek. Bailey was subaltern of my uncle's, and being surrounded when command of twenty- seven Hottentots by a ms of the same tribe we were fighting in 1878, resist from 9 A.M. till 3 p.m., till their last cartridge w spent, when the whole were killed. 36 Family Heroes To revert for a moment to Anne D'Arragon. She made my uncle an excellent wife, and they lived in such perfect amity that while he, a very strong believer in God, never attempted to influence his wife's religion, she became a Protestant, and was an excellent helpmate in every sense. It was possibly owing to his perfect command of the French language that to the end of her days she never mastered English, and some of the mistakes she made were comical. One of the yoimger girls received a letter from a gentleman of her acquaintance, signed *' Yours faith- fully," and Anne, in a state of great excitement, ran into her sister-in-law's house, calling out, as she thrust the letter in her hand, " Dites done, Marie, mais qu'est que cela veut dire ? " and was greatly concerned when she heard it was not intended for an offer of marriage. Some of her remarks were very unsophisticated. Her husband sketched very well, and when they returned to England, looking at some portraits he had made of Kafir and Hotten- tot women of an opulent build in the nude, she said to her sister-in-law : " Mais en verity, Marie, croyez- vous que le bon Dieu ait fait ces gens la ? " I went out to the Cape for the Gaika Rebellion in 1878 with a gentleman who had spent all his life in the Colony. He was fond of literature ; was re- puted to possess the best library in the country, and had an intense admiration for my late uncle, of whose improvements, effected in the districts around Cape Town, he was never tired of talking. This continu- ous flow of praise irritated a Naval officer who was sitting opposite to us, and when Mr. Charles Fair- 37 Winnowed Memories bridge finished up a paean of praise with the observa- tion, " And he built the Cape Agulhas Lighthouse," the sailor replied, " And put it in the wrong place," addressing himself to me. I replied as sweetly as I could, " So I have always understood ; but he had to put it where the Commodore, by advice of the Naval experts, told him it was required," My mother. Lady Wood, the youngest of the family, must, I think, have inherited the same amount of courage as her two brothers, for she gave My Mother many instances in her life of what always appears to me to be marvellous fortitude. She was constitutionally apprehensive of being at- tacked by hydrophobia, but it never deterred her from endeavouring to separate any of the many dogs that she had when they were seriously fight- ing. On one occasion a mastiff and a St. Bernard dog were rolling over and over in a struggle, and endeavouring to part them, one animal made its teeth meet, after having passed through her hand from front to back. She succeeded in separating the com- batants, and, running into the adjoining kitchen, seized four large meat skewers which she thrust into the fire, and then passed them slowly and with deli- beration through the holes made by the dog's fangs. There was no untoward result, but the self-sacrifice of the lady was continuous. In 1845 my mother gave a remarkable instance of determination. Her eldest son, then about nine- teen, had walked over to a neighbouring town, and going into an hotel where he was well known, was 38 A Brave Mother invited to enter the room where a dinner had been held, and from which the guests had not yet departed. The Chairman, a man of mature age, had dined not wisely, but too well ; and my brother, seeing his state, endeavoured to leave the room to avoid a quarrel which he saw was impending. The Chairman declared that he should sit down and remain with them, and on his endeavouring to pass by him, hit the young man between the eyes, knocking him insensible to the ground. About midnight, when he reached home with a swollen face, on which there was much blood, my mother having washed the wound, induced him to go to sleep, having promised to awaken him early that he might send a challenge to his assailant. Then she, writing a note to a neighbouring gentleman, walked down to the gardener's cottage at some dis- tance from the house, and sent him with the challenge, asking the gentleman to act as second. The recipi- ent wrote back to say that he was not a fighting man, and preferred not to take a cartel. My mother then wrote to his brother, who lived three miles off, and he carried the challenge to the aggressor, who having apologised thoroughly, assented in his expressions of regret to the demand that the apology should be posted for one week in the room in which he com- mitted the outrage. When my brother awoke our mother handed him the signed apology. When my parents resided at Cressing, of which small parish my father was vicar, one of the labour- ing men who lived near sent for my mother to see his wife, who within a day or two of a baby having 39 Winnowed Memories been born to her, was seized with cholera. My mother was nursing one of us at the time, but she took the labourer's child and nursed it until its mother was fit to nourish her own infant. She was not at all content with motherly duties only, for she taught my three elder sisters to read any Latin book at sight. The railway fares on the Fenchurch Street — Tilbury line being cheap, all sorts of travellers go first-class. One of my relatives, a very pretty young • j^!^ woman, being a frequent traveller on mined Woman , ,, n , the Ime, was well known to the railway staff, one of whom had locked her into a first-class carriage. A young man with an objectionable ex- pression on his face came up, and trying the door in vain, said to the guard, " Open it, please ; I wish to go in here." The man said, " The lady wishes to travel alone. Do you mind going in another car- riage ? There are plenty empty." He replied, " No ; the lady hasn't got six tickets, and I insist on travel- ling in there, and unless you open the door I will report you." The guard looked perturbed, when the young lady, handing him her purse, said, " Please go and take me five tickets," and as he came along with them, said to the young man, who still stood at the door, quite politely, " You see, I would take the whole train sooner than travel with you." In 1890, when I was conducting a series of tac- tical operations around Aldershot, one of my aides- de-camp, who was appointed by the desire of an 40 A Sporting Aide-de-Camp exalted personage, asked for leave to go to Paris one Saturday morning at the conclusion of the fore- noon's work, saving that he wished to A Discreet ' j & ^j£ see the Grand Prix run, and adding that he had a mount himself at the meeting. He was well known, not only in the United Kingdom, but on the Continent, as a very skilful and deter- mined horseman "between the flags." I refused him permission, and did not see him again until the operations were being concluded on the Monday, at the end of which I said to the officer, " Are you on duty this week ? " He replied, " Yes," and I went on, " Then come at five o'clock for lawn tennis," it being my habit to get the aide- de-camp on duty to attend to ensure that I had a game. He replied, " I am sorry, I will come, but I can't play." " And why not ? " And he showed me his right hand done up in a bandage, saying, " I much regret that I can't do anything for a day or two. I have knocked it against something." It was not for months afterwards, when the aide-de-camp had left me, that I found, that while I was in the office and he was lunching with my wife and daughter, he told them the story. He had been to Paris, and, the boat train being late, engaged a cabman to take him the very short distance from Victoria to his mother's house. The man was dissatisfied, having waited some time, with the slight addition to the regular fare which the aide-de-camp gave him, and after using much bad language squared up to my friend, who was an accom- plished boxer; in the result the cabman lay insensible 41 Winnowed Memories in the gutter and the aide-de-camp broke the knuckles of his right hand. Some months later he told the story at luncheon in the Jockey Club at Newmarket, adding, " And the old General never found out I had been to Paris." My brother was sitting at the table and heard the story, so asked him across the table, "But is it not rather sad not to be missed?" My friend had a keen sense of humour, and said, "Yes, I think you have the best of me." CHAPTER III MISCELLANEOUS STORIES In the Crimea War days esprit de corps was practic- ally confined to arms of the Service, as may be gathered Esprit de from the powerful poem " Snarleyow," by Corps; or, Rudyard Kipling. It has in the last Where is twenty years been strengthened by the ^^^y ' finer and more effective pride felt in the Army generally. The feeling has disappeared which induced the remark made in our camps at the extreme Front, on the evening of October 25th, 1854, referring to the memorable charge of Balaklava, " Oh, I say, our Cavalry had a smart little affair this morning." No soldiers in the Infantry divisions who fought in the retirement from the Trouille River at Mons to the Marne, will ever forget the self-sacrificing and effective assistance they received from the Cavalry and Artillery. I have had many letters from officers from " Some- where in France," and those from the Infantry all eulogise " those splendid Gunners," while the Artillery write of "our indomitable Infantry." That this was not the feeling some thirty years ago is indicated by the following story of events which occurred at Aldershot, where I was then stationed. 43 Winnowed Memories An Infantry soldier, when walking down to the town in the evening, was accosted by a young woman, with whom he conversed while strolling on. Some way behind them walked two other soldiers belonging to a Rifle Corps. The couple in front presently met a Hussar, when the woman, leaving the Infantry soldier, after some conversation with the Horseman, walked on with him towards the town. The Riflemen quick- ening their pace, overtook the girl, and said : " You were walking with an Infantry man, and you mustn't leave him for Cavalry." The girl replied, " What the is that to you ? Mind your own busi- ness." The Riflemen observed, " You shall not do it, and if you try we'll shadow you till Last Post." So they did, and followed the couple into every public-house they entered, the jilted soldier follow- ing the Riflemen, but taking no part in the subse- quent proceedings. When the party left a public-house at " First Post," as the Riflemen alleged, the Hussar hit one of them with his whip. In a moment waist-belts were off and the Hussar was lying senseless on the ground. The Military Police running up arrested one Rifle- man and carried the Hussar away to hospital. Next day the girl went to the hospital to inquire for her friend. The orderly at the gate refused to allow her in, and she not realising what a disreput- able appearance she presented, jumped to the con- clusion that her friend was dead. In returning to the town she told the guard at the east Cavalry gate that " those Sweeps have killed my friend, Tom Atkins." The guard spread the rumour, and 44 Helen and Ellen the Cavalry brigade drank to the destruction of the " Sweeps " for three successive nights in the canteen. It never occurred to anyone to inquire for Thomas Atkins, who had reverted to duty the morning after he had been knocked down, when he was only mo- mentarily stunned. Three evenings later most of the Cavalry brigade turned out and attacked the Rifle- men's barracks, where a serious affray was only averted by the energetic initiative of the officer command- ing a battalion, who placed sentries over his own men, while he cleared his barrack square of the rioters by a company with fixed bayonets. Some days later a senior officer visiting the sta- tion, when passing the Cavalry barracks, asked his host, " Please tell me, what caused the row between the Cavalry and the Infantry ? " The host replied, " Oh, sir, it is only the same old story, thousands of years old, except that we have dropped an * H.' " " What do you mean ? I am alluding to an affray of last week." " Yes ; but it is still the same story. She was called Helen of Troy, and is called Ellen here. She equally causes the soldiers to fight for her." The visitor was not well read in classics, and thinking that Troy was to him an unknown military station, asked irritably, " Troy, Troy, where the is Troy ? " In looking back for over half a century, I am im- pressed by the great practical value of the system of Naval education. While I admit in my mind that my shipmates on H.M.S. Queen may have been of a 45 Winnowed Memories higher caUbre than the average, and this because a great number of them rose to command Her Majesty's ships, yet they all did well in moments FH^^ . when they had to face the supreme issue ot lite and death. I must allow that some of them were unfortunate, for former old " Queens " had to lament the death of comrades when commanding H.M. Ships Atalanta, Captain, Eurydice, and Orpheus. The Atalanta was lost in a tornado which wrecked a number of ships in the West Indies. The Captain, overweighted by the first massive cupola ever shipped, capsized in a gale of wind in the Bay of Biscay ; and the Eurydice capsized in a squall close to the Isle of Wight. The loss of the Captain was very sad, for not only had Billy Burgoyne, a son of the General who fought throughout the Peninsular War and was Lord Raglan's trusted adviser in the Crimea War, been especially selected for the new experiment in armoured batteries on board ship, but several officers of repute and a son of the First Lord of the Admiralty forming part of her complement were all drowned. William Farquharson Burnett, Commander of H.M.S. Queen in the Black Sea, 1854, was a rugged, determined Scotsman. He did not for a moment pretend that he liked having shot close over his head, but he was the first to step forward when a quan- tity of powder which had been left in an exposed position had to be removed to a place of safety. In 1863, when in command as Commodore of H.M.S. Orpheus, she, being in charge of a pilot, struck the Manaukau Bar off Auckland, New Zealand. The 46 Humane Burghers pilot endeavoured by going ahead half speed to get the ship off, but in vain. Some local steam-tugs and small boats worked for eleven hours trying to save the crew ; but the sea getting up, only one-fifth were rescued, the Commodore shouting as the four-fifths stood on deck while the vessel parted, " Three cheers for Her Majesty the Queen." When I took command of a number of Colonials to be employed in the suppression of the rebellion of the Gaikas I had arguments with the StorL^^*^'*^ burghers, many of whom objected to (1878) "^y theory of the obligation on us as Christians of sparing all the rebel Kafirs who threw down their guns. The Colonials urged, "Those very women you insist on protecting against their Fingo enemies would, if you were wounded and taken prisoner by their husbands, subject you to nameless tortures. If this contingency does not force you to change your mind, please remember that you have never had your brothers or your father mur- dered by Kafirs, nor have you had your house burnt down." This was the common attitude of mind of certainly 50 per centum of my brother Colonial soldiers who had enlisted on the frontier, and so it is pleasant to tell a story on the other side. Mr. Bowker, a Grahamstown farmer, who had joined me with some fifty burghers, many of them standing over 6 feet in height, was with Mr. Barber, of Cradock, a frequent companion of my rides when operating against the Gaikas. They held practically the Christianlike idea 47 Winnowed Memories that it was below the dignity of our race to exact reprisals. Most Colonials when arguing against my conceptions of duty retaliated that the Kafirs and black men generally had no sense of gratitude, and on my mentioning this impression of his brethren, Mr. Bowker told me an interesting story to the con- trary. He was engaged in a petty war during 1864 in Basutoland, and was fired on at close range by a native, who missed him but killed his horse. Bowker, firing back at the man, broke his arm, and the native fell, and then standing up stoically awaited death; but to his intense surprise Bowker bandaged up his wound, and then told him to be off. Some years later, when Bowker was trekking with his wife through Basutoland, he outspanned near a native village for the night. He noticed a Basuto who was staring at him intently, but did not speak, and presently the man went away. Half an hour later the native reappeared with all his family, bringing a sheep, milk, vegetables, and an armful of dry firewood, worth in that treeless dis- trict, where ordinary fuel is the dried excreta of cattle, at least half a crown, and said, " I offer these gifts to the man who broke and then mended my arm." My father, the late Rev. Sir John Page Wood, was apt in making a retort when he had been attacked. When staying with Lord Western, who made his mansion, Felix Hall, Kelvedon, a second home for our family, the company at table were one evening somewhat irritated by the long 48 Repartees and often pointless stories told by a clergyman who had been doing missionary work in South Africa. The reverend gentleman narrated that when one of his converts had been living with a black woman who was about to become a mother, he forced the convert to marry her, and my father, to change the conversation, said, " Oh yes, we know, Fingo fixiJ^ The missionary, very vexed, said, " You do not seem to be aware, Sir John, that the perfect tense of flngo is figi.^^ " Yes," said my father, " Figi vel fixi,^^ One of the best repartees that I ever heard was given by a pretty, attractive barmaid at the Railway Hotel, Wokingham, where officers who were followers of the hounds often breakfasted during the season on Monday mornings, leaving Aldershot by an early train. She was never impertinent, but resented pro- perly being chaffed, and gave some quick answers to a stuttering officer, who said, " You are quite legal, so sharp you have become." The girl replied, " Likely enough, I am often called to the Bar." This she may have heard from someone else; but she gave me one certainly unpremeditated clever answer. I said, " These are very good sausages ; please ask your butcher to put me up a couple of pounds before I come back this afternoon." " Can't you get them at Aldershot, sir ? " " Yes, but not nearly so good as these." " Who supplies you ? " " Oh, I believe they come from my grocer." " Then I expect they are of the grosser sort." The best repartee for which I can personally claim credit was made in the Middle Temple Hall on November 1st, 1879, at a dinner given to me E 49 Winnowed Memories by the Bar of England in my capacity of barrister and soldier who had recently been successful in South Africa. Her Majesty the Queen thought, as did most of us who had been employed in the Zulu War, that there was an erroneous impression that the Cape and Natal Governments had unnecessarily provoked the War for their own purposes, and com- manded me to explain the situation. The Cape Government in reality had but very little to do with it, and so far from the Natal farmers having provoked it, they lived in constant dread of the Zulu nation, of which I give an instance. I was riding from Maritzburg up to Utrecht in the autumn of 1878, and at a station called Curry's Post I halted to feed my horses at the farm of an English gentleman who had married a girl from Essex in the neighbourhood of my father's house, and when I was going on in a couple of hours' time she assembled her Kafir labourers that they " might see a man who was not afraid of Cetewayo." I spoke for over half an hour in the Hall, and, although I tried, it was virtually impossible to avoid politics, for the Zulu question had become acutely political, like most subjects that are of interest to our countrymen. I noticed as I went on some dissatisfaction at the end of the great Hall, which probably rendered me more decided, and my observation " I will avoid politics to-night, for a soldier on full pay should have no politics," was greeted with sarcastic cheers and shouts of " Stick to that." When the briefless bar- risters and students at the end of the Hall were tired 50 Sensational Stories of shouting, I resumed, in carefully modulated sen- tences, saying, " No doubt, owing to my imperfect utterance and to my being unaccustomed to address such an audience, I failed to make myself clear, which I regret. I was saying, Gentlemen, a soldier on full pay should have no politics ; but, Gentlemen, I am on half-pay." This retort was cheered heartily with shouts of "Go on ; say what you like." I did not think it necessary to add that I had been on half- pay only for twenty-four hours. I fear that the following anecdote may to some extent discount any credit I might receive for the opening story in this book. In 1902, w^ v"^ when commanding the Second Army Corps with its headquarters at Salis- bury, I bought a horse with the option of a week's trial, and had it sent to Sherborne, where I kept my hunters in the winter. I was so engrossed by military duties that six days of the week's option had expired before I could allow myself the pleasure of a hunt, and then in despair I sent the horse by train to meet another pack on my first free day, when it happened that the Blackmore Vale hounds were not out. The Meet was at Semley Station, within half a mile of which, when approaching a covert, the hounds opened on a fresh line and ran cheerily through a fir wood 500 yards in extent. The field trotted down a chase- way in the wood, and a mile to the east of it, we having entered the west end, the hounds threw up their heads. I had not crossed a fence, and when I looked for my watch to take the time it was gone. SI Winnowed Memories I then had to consider. It was my last day of the trial. The horse was to cost £100, and I had paid for the watch £2 10s., and although I had seen it about a mile or two back, I decided it was better value to give up any hope of finding the watch. I was re- warded, for we picked up another fox and had thirty- five minutes, which enabled me to decide I would buy. In the afternoon we drew back to within a mile of where we had got on the first line, and I asked a man alongside me, " Is not that Tin-kettle Hill, outside which we got on the line of our morning fox ? " " Yes." " Then I will go and look for my watch." On entering the wood I trotted and can- tered, for I wanted to get back to hounds quickly, and I had a theory that I must have accidentally unbuckled the guard strap when I took the time on the hounds opening in the first run. My theory was accurate, for close to the west end of the chaseway, over which a number of horsemen had passed, my watch was lying face upward. Two years later, at my last drive on the Kincar- dine-on-Forth Links, I remembered that I had my watch on, which would not be improved by my thump- ing the ground if I missed the ball, and I put it into my trousers pocket. When dressing for dinner in TuUiallan Castle, I found I had lost the watch, and sent my servant down to the police-station. I was lamenting my loss to my hostess when a servant brought in the watch, which Walkinshaw, my man, had recovered in the police office, a man coming in with it in his hand as he was describing it. I had dropped it exactly on the Kincardine — Alloa road, 52 The Queen's Ring which, when going from the links to TuUiallan, you cross at right angles. Three years later I was riding northwards from Saffron Walden, and observed to one of my com- panions, a banker, that we had ample time, and so might go slowly. When we got near Radwinter I looked for my watch, and found it was gone. We gave notice at the police office in the evening, and it was returned to me at the end of five days. My grandfather, Mr. (later Sir Matthew) Wood, who was Lord Mayor of London for two years in succession, was a strenuous supporter of e vjueen s Q^g^j^ Caroline when she returned to England on the Prince of Wales succeed- ing to the Throne, having refused an allowance of £50,000 offered on condition of her remaining abroad. Mr. Wood was a firm believer in her innocence, and received her during the proceedings which ter- minated in her claim to the title of Queen being con- ceded. His two sons, John Page Wood and William Page Wood* my father and uncle, worked gratuit- ously in the Queen's cause* and at the conclusion of the case she sent for them and gave each a ring, on the inside of which was engraved " An expression of gratitude from Caroline," and in a cavity was a small lock of her hair. My uncle, William Page Wood, later Lord Chan- cellor and Baron Hatherley, told me the following story. His brother John, my father, lost his ring while bathing at Lowestoft, and hired both divers and dredgers to search for it, but the search was in 53 Winnowed Memories vain. Many years after when travelling on the Con- tinent in a railway carriage, he sat next to a gentle- man who was wearing his ring. My father hesitated for some time, but eventually, with many apologies, claimed the ring from the gentleman, who received the request for it very ungraciously. My father then told him if he looked inside he would read not only the inscription, but would see that the socket con- tained the lock of hair, and on this being made clear, the ring was surrendered. The gentleman ex- plained that he very often talked to the fishermen at Lowestoft, and one day passing a row of cottages he saw the ring in a window, labelled "For sale." The woman who sold it said that her husband had caught a codling, and on opening the fish the ring dropped out. When the news of the Battle of Balaklava reached my father's house in Essex, my brother on receipt of the newspapers, running down to the ." . gardener's cottage, said, " Oh, Isaac, only Gardener fancy, Lord Cardigan has had six horses killed under him." The prosaic gardener, not appreciating the situation, observed, " Indeed, the likes of he ought to go afoot all the rest of his life." I was going to stay with my friend, Sir Francis Jeune, at Arlington Manor, in 1900, and getting into the carriage at Newbury Station, said to the coach- man, " Drive on, Leigh, please," and he answered, I have to wait for somebody besides you." Who is it ? " I inquired. 54 Photograph fe]i Bauano MELD-MARSHAL VISCOUNT WOLSELEY, K.P.. G.C.B., G.C.M.G. Colonel John Hay *'I don't know. Her Ladyship told me there is someone else coming by this train." I walked back into the station, which Colonel John ^as then deserted, except for one soHtary Poet* 1 gentleman who was walking up and down Ambassador ^^^ platform evidently in a perturbed frame of mind. Lifting my hat, I said, " Are you for Arlington ? " " I was, but I am not now." " How so ? " " Well, in my country we don't keep valets, and I never lost my clothes ; but here I am obliged to have one, and the fool of a man has lost my port- manteau." " Oh," I said, " come along ; if you order the valet not to leave the station till he recovers the portmanteau, you will get it back before bedtime." " Yes, that may be ; but I could not dine in a house in which I am a stranger without evening clothes." " Oh, you are quite welcome to mine." " And what will you do ? " " I have known our hosts for a great number of years, and they will not object to my dining in morn- ing clothes." Eventually I induced him to enter the carriage, and then, having recognised his nationality by his intonation, I talked about American poets. We discussed the merits of " Agatha's Eve " and the heroic postman's death, " The Luck of Roaring Camp," and " The Heathen Chinee," and I said, " But of all those books the one poem which is ever present in my 55 Winnowed Memories mind is *Jim Bludso.' Although it has no rhythm and no metre in it which I can recognise, yet the Divine-Hke self-sacrifice of Jim Bludso appeals to me more than anything in poetry I ever read, and Jim's determination, expressed in the lines : " * I'll hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last galoot's ashore/ holds my imagination and makes me envy him. It seems to me that the last four lines sum up our Christian creed : " ' He seen his duty, a dead-sure thing — And went for it thar and then ; And Christ ain't a-going to be too hard On a man that died for men.' " As the carriage rolled on in the darkness, my enthusiastic praise of the poem excited, I thought, an appreciative purr in my companion ; but he ob- served quietly, " Jim was a fine fellow." I said, " Or the author made him so ? " " Oh, but he was." " Why, was he real ? " " Yes ; I knew him well." " But don't you think that the poet embellished Jim's act ? " "No; I am sure he did not." " Well, but how can you be sure ? " And he replied quietly, " I wrote it." In the 'seventies my brother-in-law, a learned judge who was on the Limerick Circuit, alighted, as was his custom, at the small fishing village of Castle- connell, to enjoy the walk into the city of Limerick 56 A Discreet Judge along the banks of the Shannon. He had not gone far before he was accosted by a pretty yoimg woman with beautiful eyes, who, dropping him a in I r d ^ curtsey, said, " Might I spake with Your ^^ ^ Honour ? " " Yes." " The story is long. Would Your Honour be sitting on the stile ? " He did so, and the young woman, sitting as close to him as she could, told her story of how at a wake her poor " bhoy " got into trouble, and it was like this : " There was a bit of a talk and sticks got a- flying, and a fool of a bhoy put his head in the way." The judge then remembered that in the list of cases for trial he had read of a cruel murder, in which a man's brains had been dashed out, and rising, he said, " Now I have sat here long enough and must be going, and I hope that your poor boy will have a patient jury and an upright judge." The woman, looking up into his eyes, said, " Ah, Your Honour, that is not what I'd like at all. Shure, I'd like a jidge who would lane to me a little." A son of the judge mentioned in the above story is also a judge, and about fifteen years ago had to try a land case. One of the parties in the suit went to his counsel and said, " Now, Your Honour, you'll spake up brave for me to-morrow, won't you ? " And the counsel replied, " You have got a good case ; only stick to the truth, and don't talk or say any- thing that is unnecessary." The man, dissatisfied with the apparent non- chalant behaviour of his counsel, said, "Your Honour 57 Winnowed Memories I've got at home a mighty foine goose, and I'm think- ing I'll send it to the jidge to-night." "You fool, if you do so you will lose your case, if anything can make you lose it." Next day, waiting on his counsel, who had ob- tained a favourable verdict, he said, " Your Honour spoke up for me grand, it was foine." " Well, you did just what I told you, and did not exaggerate. I am very glad you have got your case." " So am I, but I sent that goose to His Honour, the jidge." " You did, you fool ? " " Yes, I did ; but I put my inimy's name on it." Extracts from a circular family letter, November 22nd, 1900. " I dined on Friday with Mr. Moberly Bell of The Times, with whom I have been on friendly terms since December, 1882, when I returned o er y ^^ Cairo to raise an Egyptian Army. After dinner he told one or two amus- ing stories against me, and some against himself. Two will bear repetition. He alleged that on one occasion I said in a room, in a loud voice, not seeing he was there, ' I never could like that Moberly Bell, but I admit I am fond of his wife.' I rejoined, ' I do not believe I ever said that.' He said, ' Yes you did, and when I taxed you with it some years ago you angrily denied it, but added, " Although I never said it, I have often thought it." ' " I told a story of my having recalled to Service an officer who is in the Reserve. He wrote that 58 " Miss Rams' Horns " he could not come. I wrote to him again after giving him a month's time for reflection, to say that he must rejoin. Lord Wolseley, the Commander-in-Chief, ordered me to have him arrested and tried by Court- martial. The day I dined with Mr. Moberly Bell I had received a report from the General Officer Com- manding the District, who wrote, ' I sent an officer to arrest Captain . He did not bring him away, as he found he was in a private lunatic asylum ! ' This drew a story from Mr. Bell against himself. He said he had received some very good letters, some of which he printed in The Times without noticing the address. Then he got a very curious one which raised some doubts as to the writer's sanity, and noticing that the man lived in Broadmoor parish, he wrote to the Superintendent, and asked whether the man was an inmate. The Superintendent rephed, ' Yes, he has been in the asylum for ten years,' and he was ' astonished at Mr. Bell not knowing it, as he had taken in The Times all that period ' ! " One of my friends, who is very learned, but also somewhat contradictory, was lunching at my table before the War, where she met two TT » cultivated men, one the manager of a popular London newspaper. The lady controverted, generally with success, every opinion that was expressed, and as the newspaper man said afterwards, somewhat disparagingly, " She is nothing but an encyclopaedia." She has often put me right ; but on one occasion I was able to turn the tables on her, although in a 59 Winnowed Memories good-humoured fashion, for I knew her literary value besides her argumentative nature. Indeed, I told her the story of " Rams' Horns." A man having knocked down his contentious wife, had his hand on her throat, and said, " You devil, if you say another crooked word to me I'll throttle you to death," and she, gasping for breath, looked up and said, " Rams' horns, you beggar, if I die for it." In my hall I have a mummy case, which I per- sonally dug up at Thebes, and on leaving the dining- room one evening, " Miss Rams' Horns " said to me, " You think that is a mummy case ? " " Yes." " You are quite mistaken." " Very often," I replied. " All mummy cases are long. I have, been in Cairo for three months, so I think I know." " Not of that dynasty," I countered ; " there is a thousand years between the time when, as in my mummy case, the body was buried with the knees drawn up to the chin." She asserted there was no mummy ever in that box. " Oh, I beg your pardon," I replied. " I took the mummy out of it, and dropped it into the Nile." " That doesn't satisfy me." " Oh, I expect nothing would. Well, you should ask Field-Marshal Lord Grenfell. He knows all about it, he does. Lord Grenfell was with me, and helped me to take the mummy out of the case and dispose of it." For once she was silent. 60 Practical Joking This generally degenerates from friendly tricks into what is certainly not far removed from cruelty. The most inveterate practical joker that ractical j ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ ^^^ horse- man, and was selected for that reason to act as pilot in the Shires one season to a distin- guished foreign lady. He played a somewhat cruel joke on one of my connections by marriage, who attended a Hunt Ball at Ayr many years ago. In those days the prac- tice of wearing miniature medals had not been estab- hshed, and very few retired officers wore the ordinary service medals when in plain clothes. My connec- tion was an exception, and being very proud of his decorations wore three at the Hunt Annual Ball. The practical joker attended the ball with a twin brother, who resembled him in the most remarkable degree in face though not in temperament, for he was of a placid, tranquil nature. The joker, accost- ing my relative and touching him on the breast, observed, " I must congratulate you, sir, for I see that you have been very successful at the County Agricultural Show." The General, drawing himself up, said, " I will report you, sir, to the Ball Committee for your in- solence," and hurried off to find one of the stewards. Meanwhile, the joker, slipping out of the room, passed his twin brother, who was standing against the wall near the door, saying, " Good-night, Bill, I am off to bed." When the General returned, accompanied by two of the stewards, seeing the twin brother, he stuttered 6i Winnowed Memories out with great excitement, " This is the gentleman who insulted me." The innocent twin replied very quietly, " I call the gentlemen on either side of me to witness that I have not stirred from this spot nor ever spoken to the complainant," and my relative was eventually obliged to apologise to him for an unfounded com- plaint ! The joker was not always so successful, for, when staying in a country house, he objected to some of the other young guests coming into the smoking-room without smoking- jackets, and he loudly expressed his determination to pull the coat off any man's back who entered the smoking-room in an evening-dress suit. One of his fellow guests, feeling certain that he would execute his threat, went to his room and put on his evening coat, and descending to the smok- ing-room, duly had it torn off his back. Then, turn- ing, he said, " I don't mind ; it's your own coat." 6^ CHAPTER IV PERSONAL AND OTHER STORIES On February 8th, 1880, I was dining at Marl- borough House, and after dinner, when the ladies had left the room, the conversation turned A Dinner at on the influence of the Press. A gen- TT T^i tleman sitting opposite to the Heir to riouse : Ihe o r-jr Press ^^^ Throne expressed very adverse opinions, naming in particular Mr. Archi- bald Forbes, who at that moment had the ear of the public. Mr. Forbes and I had met frequently the previous year in Zululand, where I formed a very favourable opinion of his honesty, independence, and truthful statements. On July 3rd, 1879, when the Force was encamped on the banks of the Umvolosi, I had sent Sir Redvers Buller across the river to make a reconnaissance of the enemy's position, on which we hoped to fight next day. Mr. Forbes had been in India, where he had written some unpleasantly critical letters on the Viceroy and social life at Calcutta, and some of his articles had reached our camp, articles which were calculated to irritate any friend of the Viceroy, or his Staff. Lord William Beresford had recently come from the Viceregal Staff in India to South Africa, and going into a tent in which Mr. Forbes was sitting, on July 2nd, put down a news- 63 Winnowed Memories paper — I think The World — saying, " The man who wrote that article is a Har and a blackguard." Mr. Forbes, picking up the paper, quietly said, " Well, I will read the article." On the following day, when Colonel BuUer re- turned from across the river, Forbes came to me and said, " If any man ever deserved the Victoria Cross it is Lord William Beresford." I said, "Why?" and he described the incident of BuUer's retreat, after the reconnaissance, of Beresford's personal prowess with a spear, and of his having left the squadron and gone back towards the advancing Zulus in order to save a wounded man, whom he brought in on his horse. I put the story down on paper and sent it to Colonel BuUer, asking for a report. He wrote on it, "It is all a silly exaggeration, and there is no case." I returned the paper, and in the form of an order wrote, " Be good enough to report, when Lord William Beresford picked up the wounded soldier, how near were the Zulus to him, and how near was the nearest British soldier." The Colonel replied, " Please cancel my previous memorandum," and giving the details, which showed remarkable self-reliant courage on the part of the hot-tempered Irishman, ending up by saying, " I strongly recom- mend him for the decoration of the Victoria Cross." I submitted the whole of the correspondence to the War Office, and Lord WilHam duly received the decoration. Having told this story, I turned to my Royal host and asked, " Who is the gentleman opposite to us ? " and he replied, " Don't you know Charhe ? " 64 " Bill " Beresford, V.C. I said, "No, I have never met him," and on being introduced across the table, I observed, " Lord Charles, you at least should think well of the Press, for your brother's sake." It was my good fortune four years later, while on the Gordon Relief Expedition, to be able to appre- ciate on service that the elder brother was as coura- geous as was Lord William. Recently I have come on a letter, written in May, 1879, to Lady Wood, my late wife, which contains the following passage : " I like Lord William Beres- ford, who is acting as Staff Officer to Colonel Redvers Buller. He is active and pleasant. Rides over us all at polo, and plays as well with a simple stick as we do with a stick, and a head on it." In my book, " The Crimea in 1854-94," I told the story of the Major of a distinguished battalion in the Light Division, who was standing A Scrupu- outside his hut when a working party ous urc ■ ^^ Zouaves, returning from the Inker- man heights, passed by, and thinking from his very unconventional costume that he was a cabaret-keeper, asked if he had any absinthe, and the men were confirmed in their belief that he was a generous compatriot by his Parisian accent and refusal to accept payment for their drinks. The same officer a year afterwards returned to England on peace being signed, being then a Lieu- tenant-Colonel. He had married a widow with four daughters immediately before his embarkation for the Crimea, and was looking forward to home delights F 65 Winnowed Memories when his fluency in German caused him to be sent to a garrison town, where trouble had arisen in the German Legion then quartered there. He accepted the situation, but wanting to see something of his family, hired a rectory in an adjoining parish to the camp. Just before he entered into possession the Rector heard that my friend was a Roman Catholic, and wrote a piteous letter begging him to cancel the agreement, saying that he could not bear the idea of a Roman Cathohc being in the house, that he much preferred to lose the rent than to think of his family pew being empty on Sunday, and expressed the hope he was not causing inconvenience. My friend replied, " Sir, as you appeal to me as a gentleman, I, of course, will not go into your house, although cancelling the lease is very inconvenient. While I regret that any minister of a so-called Christian denomination can be so uncharitable, and I admit that the house diffi- culty is insuperable, yet your fears for the occupa- tion of the family pew on Siindays are illusory, as I have a heretic wife and four heretic daughters who would have amply filled it." On my brother-in-law's estate of Clones, when I undertook the supervision of its management, in 1867, there were several very small tenants J. McElnea : ^^lo had failed to pay their rent, and one Tenant ^^^ man, named McElnea, had not paid any for eleven years. The sum involved was very small, his holding being under £2 per annum, but the example he set was bad for the rest of the tenants, and in August, 1867, when I was 66 An Irish Tenant over in Ireland on sick leave, I determined to go and see McElnea. He lived some five or six miles from the town, and as we had received some pictures of coffins, and threats sent to us, I put into a pocket of my overcoat a big double-barrelled pistol. When I arrived at the holding I found it was an island surrounded by water which had been cut out for peat. A small boy punted me over, and I entered a low hovel in which were a table and two stools, and a very fine-looking old man with a white beard, who, when he stood up later, I saw was six feet two in height. The following dialogue occurred. To my greeting "Good morning," he said, "Who the devil are you ? Is it the landlord ye are ? '* "I'm not, but I'm his brother-in-law. I am not well, and you are rude in not offering me a seat, so I sit down without your leave." " And is it about the rint ye have come, for so, divil a penny will I pay and sorra a man is there in Oireland who'll make me." I said, "That's all right; then we can say good morning," but as I rose, he asked, " Where are ye going, and what for ? " " Into Clones, to issue a process against you, and you will be out directly." As I spoke, two sons, nearly as tall as himself, magnificent specimens of humanity, came in at the far door. The father said, " You don't mane it ? You wouldn't be hard on an ould man who has been all his life in the place ? " " I shall, and I will be very glad to see the last of you." 67 Winnowed Memories He then changed his tone, and begged for mercy, saying it would break his heart to leave the old place. I said, "Well, you will have to leave the old place or pay your rent, whichever you like ; but I tell you, I would hke you to go, and I'll give you your crop and £5 if you will be off and never let me see you again." To which he replied, " Yer Honour, I would sooner stop. What terms will you give me ? " ji " That you pay on Monday morning" — we were speaking on a Saturday — " a year and a half's rent at the office, and that you pay every Gale Day in the same proportion until you are clear." I had heard that the previous agent was afraid of the man, who was a bully; but the end of the story is peculiar. He paid on the Monday, and then on the following Gale Day said he couldn't be bothered with such small amounts, paid up the balance of his arrears, and his rent regularly until his death. About forty years ago, being ordered on Service, I was approached by the editor and manager of one of the London daUies, who, explaining My First ^j^^j^ j^g j^^^j already engaged an officer ress on - ^^ ^j^^ Staff of the Expedition as his regular correspondent, asked whether I would be willing to write an occasional letter, leaving the remuneration to him. I readily assented, and received the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief. It so happened that I commanded in the first fight, which occurred a fortnight after we landed, and wrote a description of it, which I posted to Madeira to the 68 A Press Correspondent agent of the newspaper, who cabled it to London, when it was duly published. It was not an easy letter to write, because I had to suppress rigorously my name as the officer in command; but I must have succeeded, and although I wrote nothing to indicate that the other and regular correspondent was not present — nor did he in his letter, written in far better literary style — ^yet the perceptive flair of that editor was such that he realised the truth of Tennyson's dictum that " things seen are mightier than things heard." His regular correspondent quarrelled with him, as his letter was not published for some days after that of the " occasional correspondent." When I returned to England the newspaper editor asked me to call on him, and after expressing his great appreciation of the first letter, and of some eight in all that 1 had written during the six months' campaign, asked, " And now what about an honora- rium ? " I answered, " Oh, I have never written any- thing for money, and I really have no idea of my value." He fortunately did not press me, or I should have replied, " Thirty or forty pounds " ; but after considering for a moment, he wrote a cheque and pushed it across the table to me, saying, " I hope you will not think this too little." It was for a hundred pounds ! " Mount Prospect, Natal, " March 19th, 1881. " To Lord Kimberley, — " You probably know as much of the charac- ters of the Boer leaders as I do, but I think you 69 winnowed Memories may be interested to learn their bearing at our meetings. " Mr. Kriiger represents force of character and de- termination. He commands the confidence of the people. To use a slang term, they think J J he is ' straight.' Leaders ° " Mr. Joubert is, in some respects, Scott's John Balfour of Burley. I say advisedly * some,' since it is reported he is averse to encountering danger. He has the brains of the party ; but though he is representative as regards his views and passions, being a savage in some respects, yet possibly, and as I think, probably, because in former times he has done some very questionable acts, he is not fully trusted. " Dr. Jorissen — pronounced Yourissen — supphes European culture and astuteness. He is, unless I am mistaken, far inferior to the above-named as a man, and is not trusted entirely. He may be termed * the wire-puller ' of the party. " Mr. Pretorius, an old gentleman, whose cry is ' Let us leave it to Mr. Brand 1 ' " Mr. Fouchez, who has met us thrice, is a deter- mined-looking, truculent man, who wants to fight. He speaks Dutch only. I have on several occasions spoken to Joubert, thrice to Kriiger, privately. Jou- bert evidently thought, as he said, that Mr. Glad- stone would certainly concede all they wished. He had not realised that the Prime Minister of England acts only as the country wishes, and that on the ques- tion of the cession of the Transvaal the natives and existing British interests must be considered by the Ministry." 70 Bishop Colenso When, in June, 1881, I was sitting as a member of the Royal Commission at Pretoria to arrange for the retrocession of the Transvaal, our n e m President, Sir Hercules Robinson, was much less impressed by the hardships which might be inflicted on the natives by their being replaced under Boer rule than I was. Magato, the Kafir chief of Rustenberg, was making a really fine, impassioned speech, showing how he had always been opposed to the Boer customs, and how he had loyally stood by the English when the Boers rose in 1880. The President was greatly bored, and putting his face in his hands, rested his head on the table. Magato quite understood the personal characters and views of the Commission, and addressing himself mainly to me, said, "And now, after my loyal support of you, you throw me away like burnt ash of to- bacco," and suiting the action to the word, he emptied out his briar-root pipe on the floor. I asked, " Sir Hercules, do you hear that ? " and the President looked up, saying sweetly, " My dear Wood, it will all end in smoke." He was right ! I saw a great deal of this venerable Prelate, and admired his unselflsh generosity and that of his family, although I could not appreciate his judg- Bishop ^^^^^ ^^^gj. ^j^g 2:ulu War he generally alluded to me as that man 01 blood, but I do not think that influenced my opinion of his character. It was possibly owing to his want of sympathy with soldiers, and their reciprocal feeling, which caused him to be occasionally downright rude. 71 Winnowed Memories In the last quarter of 1881 I induced him to use Government House when coming in for his one ser- vice a week, his residence being seven miles from Maritzburg. I gathered that Sir George Colley was the only Governor whom he had been able to tolerate, and one day, sitting with him after lunch when my Staff had left the table, he proceeded to argue at length in justification of a General taking his own life when he saw that he had lost his battle. I was shocked at such a proposition from a clergy- man, and I said, " Well, as an abstract proposition in the mouth of a Bishop it distresses me, and I repudiate the idea as unworthy of a soldier, but it really is not worth talking about as regards my predecessor, for he was shot without any question of taking his own life." The Bishop said, " Oh, that is your official answer," and I retorted, " I hope that my private statements and my official ones are always on the same lines, but there is no doubt of my truth in this instance." He observed, rather rudely, " I suppose that as a soldier you feel bound to say that." I, taking up a table-fork and point- ing it behind my ear, then to my forehead, and then to my mouth, said, " Bishop, if you or I wanted to shoot ourselves we should probably hold the pistol in one of these three attitudes, but it would never occur to either of us to extend the firearm at full length and then to let it off ? " He replied, " Yes, I admit that line of argument." Observing " It is well that we agree so far," I unlocked a cupboard in the dining-room side-table and took out the helmet of the late Governor, showing that the bujlet which 72 Insandwhlana Revisited killed him had entered about four inches above the eyes, being fired from a man standing above him, and had passed out at the top of the neck. The Bishop aban- doned his argument. In writing to my wife a letter which was begun December 3rd, 1881, when I was Acting- Governor of Natal and High Commissioner for Trans- ■Q.J . O T * ^ j^ , , vaal, I described a ride from Government Insandwhlana „ ,, . , , ^ • i^- House, Maritzburg, to the Itayatoosi Kiver and back, about three hundred miles, in eighty hours, visiting the battlefield of Insandwhlana, which my Chief Staff Officer, Sir Redvers Buller, wished to see. I went on to the Ityatoosi valley to plant some trees on the spot where the Prince Imperial had been killed. " 6 A.M. on Sunday, November 27th, I got up at daylight, and after taking Mrs. (Lady) Sivewright to early Communion Service, as arranged, I called at 10 to a minute for General Buller. We cantered off at 10.20 and made good time to Sterk's Spruit, although I had an uncomfortable ride, as the following extract from a note written in a sheet torn from my pocket- book indicates : ' Sterk's Spruit, November 27th, 1 P.M. My dear Hallam Parr [later Major-General], — The grey horse is better at tripping than at "trip- ling " ; such a brute I never rode ; he has stumbled at every pace, walk, trot, triple, canter, every hundred yards to this place ; my heart has been in my mouth for three hours.' On the cover, taking this note back, I wrote orders to the House Steward to ' have the tiger cat watered as well as fed, for 73 Winnowed Memories last night, when I went out to see her at 11 p.m., she drank very greedily the water I then gave her.' *' As we rode on the sun was burning hot, and even hotter when we changed horses at Greytown, twenty-two miles farther on. I had made a mistake in listening to the objections of my obstinate Staff Officer, who had urged I wished to use too many horses, and now feeling the heat, he admitted that the stages were too long. " We pulled the saddles off at Umgeni, and again at Seven-Oaks, and this loses time. The ponies will go through a stage of eleven to fifteen miles and average nine miles an hour, without distress ; but this cannot be done with twenty-five- mile stages, and the Tugela Valley stage was forty miles on, which necessitated careful riding. My mount did very well after the first eighteen miles, in which we pressed on too fast. Mrs. Burrup gave us an excellent plain dinner, her husband promising to call us at 3. At 2.50 I awoke and walked out in my shirt, for the night was oppressively hot, and awoke my Chief Staff Officer. " We left at 4 exactly, and rode down the lovely valley you will remember, just as the first grey of dawn began to appear. Even then the heat was great, and when we changed on the river bank, twenty-five miles farther on, at 7 a.m., the sun was scorching. " We then wanted our breakfasts, and the sun punished us, which made us over-ride our horses a little the eighteen miles to Sandspruit, where we breakfasted. 74 Insandwhlana Revisited " We now saved the horses to such purpose that they did the next forty miles in good order by 4.30, when we rode down to the river at Rorke's Drift, where we found our Staff Officers who had started twenty-four hours earUer. *' We dined and went to bed at 7.30, getting up after many false alarms at 3 a.m. " Walkinshaw had his hands full as our only servant, for, besides getting our breakfasts, he had to put up five different lunches, so it was 4.30 when we started to ride to the battlefield of Insandwhlana." (The letter here breaks off, but was continued later) " 7 P.M., December 3rd. — ^I couldn't play tennis, and have got a back. The sun has been oppres- sively hot, and we sat in Council from 10 a.m. to 1.30 P.M., and then Generals BuUer and Lowe came to lunch, and we worked immediately they had eaten, until late in the evening. Now, to resume my story, we had scarcely gone a mile on Tuesday, the 28th [6 A.M., December 4th], when Buller and his horse balanced on their respective heads for some two or three seconds. He didn't clear his foot from the stirrup until the horse put some weight on him, but he was not really hurt. " We off -saddled on the Nek where Colonel Durn- ford fell, surrounded by the heroic Natal Police who died with him, and I described to my five Staff Officers how all the Zulu Corps, from right to left, attacked : the Nodwengu, Nokenke, Umcityu, Umbonambi, Ngo- bamakosi, Uve, to the Undi on the extreme left. I 75 Winnowed Memories knew the ground, having spent some hours on it in 1880, guided by men who fought as foes on January 22nd, 1879. The stories of a mounted officer of the Ngobamakosi Regiment, a Natal Mounted Police- man, and a Basuto agreed in all respects. " We then strolled along the front, and just where you picked up a piece of music last year there were four or five skeletons of men, washed out from too shallow graves. When our ponies had grazed enough we rode up by the Mission Station, where a sub- stantial house is being built for the Bishop. **Sir Red vers BuUer and the Staff, except Major Fraser, then returned to Rorke's Drift, and I guided Fraser in a straight line to Napoleon's Kop, and thence to Gebuza's Kraal, reaching the Ityatoosi at 12.30 P.M. The valley is rough, broken by small ravines, and overlooked by isolated hills of various shapes. The lower features of the valley, where not cultivated for mealies, are covered by wiry grass about 5 feet high. I started Fraser sketching on top of the wagon, planted the trees, arranged the camera, and then, while waiting for Fraser's sketch, occu- pied the time by feeding a Zulu on tinned beef. At 2.30 we started back, reaching Rorke's Drift at 6.20, thus doing thirty miles in four hours, which is good going when the one horse has to do seventy miles. I found Buller and his aide-de-camp, Donald Browne, had arrived about 2, and the former had left for Umsinga, where I was to rejoin him, leaving Browne to return slowly with Major Fraser. " Walkinshaw and I left at 7, and I was pleased with myself in that by dim moonlight I found and 76 Insandwhlana Revisited followed a path up the mountain, which saves two or three miles, and which I had only seen once. " We rode quickly, without off-saddUng, covering the twenty-three miles by 11 p.m. I found Buller in bed, rather cross, for he had followed a track over the mountains, which ran for miles over and through boulders of rock. " We got off again at 4 a.m., hoping to do forty miles before breakfast, but the Tugela change of horses got so jaded that we were forced to stop on the Mooi River. I slept soundly for twenty minutes while the woman was preparing coffee, and started fresh again at 9 o'clock. "I changed my underclothes at Burrup's, which was a relief, for although my skin is very slow to act, all our underclothing was wringing wet. The change and a tub freshened me up, and we rode fast down the Greytown Hill, although there was not a breath of air, the atmosphere felt hke a heavy burden, and the sun baked our faces and hands painfully. At Umgeni, at 5.30, the landlady of the hotel made us some good tea, and brought in a large basket of plums. " My last stage pony, although he caught his toe at a walk, was sure-footed at a canter, and this was fortunate, for a violent thimder-storm which broke over us descending the hill made the ponies slide and slither in a manner disconcerting to one unaccustomed to such riding. " When we entered Maritzburg I begged my Chief Staff Officer to come to dinner, but he said frankly, ' I am that tired that I shall crawl into bed, if I can get a cup of tea.' n Winnowed Memories " He told me next morning an amusing story against himself. He had found on reaching his house that Grenfell (Lord) and an aide-de-camp were dining out. The cook was drunk and incapable, and said Buller to me, ' Now I come to think of it, I had given him £5 before I had left the house, saying that if he must get drunk I hoped he would do so before my return,' and he did." I became a Liveryman of the Fishmongers' Com- pany from the accident of sitting next to a warm personal friend of my grandfather, Sir An Election Matthew Wood, Lord Mayor of London, to a Gity 1815-16, and at a banquet given by Company *^^ Lord Mayor to " Sir Garnet Wolseley and the Heroes of Ashanti," in the spring of 1874. In the autumn of 1879 I was elected as an Assist- ant of the Court, or Governing Board. At that time there were only one or two Conservatives on the Court. Mr. Gladstone's legislation, of which Sir Charles Russell was a firm supporter, brought nearly all the Assistants over to the Conservative side, so that when, many years later, Lord Russell's name was suggested, in spite of his great ability and high position, it was uncertain that, even if proposed, he would be elected by a ballot which is absolutely secret, and requires a majority of votes of those present. This it was my duty as an envoy of the Court of Assistants to explain in a personal interview, which in spite of my difficulty was intensely enjoyable 78 Lord Russell of Killowen from the Attorney-General's brilliant intellect. The weak point in my case was that Lord Russell had, in his earlier years, been concerned with a Minister who wished to abolish all the Guilds, and so I could not guarantee that if his name were brought forward he would be elected. He said, with courtesy and tact, that what he would have regarded as a very great compliment in his earlier days was naturally less so now as the Attorney-General. I replied gently, " That does not hit me, for I proposed your name many years ago." I may add that in the result he was elected unanimously, and attended at the Court meetings with great regularity, and with benefit to their pro- ceedings. From Lord Russell of Killowen May 8th, 1897. Dear Sir Evelyn Wood, — In reference to our conversation of yesterday, may I at once say that had the offer of a seat in the Court of the Fishmongers' Company, of which I have been so long a member, come to me ten years ago I should have regarded it as a very great honour and should, without hesitation, have accepted it — if satis- fied that I should have been able to discharge the duties of the position. Now the suggestion comes to me at a time when my hands are full of responsible work, but coming through you I regard it as a great compHment and I willingly entertain it. But I should like to make my position clear to you. I cannot be called upon to imitate : 79 Winnowed Memories " Miss Judy Baxter, Who refused a husband Before he axed her," and therefore I can only indicate the considerations which would influence me in determining whether I would accept the office if elected to it. I would not accept it if on inquiry I found I could not reasonably discharge its obhgations. I would not accept it if my election were not carried with practical unanimity. I will not suffer myself to be thrust on unwilling colleagues. Above all, I would wish it to be clearly understood that I shall make no terms and submit to no conditions which would in any manner hinder me in pursuing in the Court any line of action which seemed to me to be right. To honourable men it need hardly be said that if I should find myself in a position in which my views conflicted with the supposed interests of the Company I could not continue a member of the Court. Liber avi animam meam. For the rest I shall trust to you to explain frankly my views to all entitled to know them, and if, after that, I am elected I shall carefully consider the matter with every desire to accept the proffered honour. May I say that, whether elected or not, I con- sider it a very great honour that you should have concerned yourself in the matter. I am, Dear Sir Evelyn Wood, Faithfully, (Signed) Russell of Kn. 80 Charles Dickens Outdone I suppose that many of us who have enjoyed the masterly stories of Charles Dickens have generally thought that some of his creations Truth IS often were so extravagant as to be beyond Stranger than ., .,.,.. i? i • 4. n Fiction " ^"^ possibility 01 having actually occurred ; for example, the story of No. 20 in the Fleet Prison, in the *' Pickwick Papers." It will be remembered that No. 20 had been im- prisoned many years for debt, and having asked, obtained leave of absence until lock-up time. He gradually returned later and later, until one night the jailer was actually turning the key in the lock when the debtor appeared and was thus apostro- phised : "Now, 20, unless you find your way back at regular hours I shall shut you out altogether." The debtor, seized with a fit of trembling, never left the Fleet again. That turnkey's strange threat was repeated some forty years later in the southern hemisphere. In a colony where I have been stationed more than once there was no system for supervision of the conduct of the Resident Magistrates after they had once been appointed to their posts, and in one case which came under my notice the conduct of a man whom I had seen the worse for liquor two years earlier became so notorious that an inquiry was ordered, and the following remarkable statements were elicited. First evidence. "I, A. B., am clerk and inter- preter, and depose, since Mr. arrived no register has been kept in the Court. When he was first appointed he attended regularly, but now he doesn't come unless I go to fetch him. There used to be G 81 Winnowed Memories three branch Courts, but none have been held since the present Magistrate was appointed. I have re- ported the Constable for being drunk several times, but no notice has been taken." Second evidence. C. D. : "I have been jailer here for eight years, and have now two prisoners under my charge who have for three months been waiting for preliminary examination. I have told the Magistrate and the Constable that I shall have to lock the Constable up if he comes into my yard again drunk. The Magistrate took no notice of my report, and the Constable having taken a prisoner out of the jail, the prisoner brought the Constable back in a state of drunkenness. The Magistrate used to order this Constable to take the same prisoner to the hotel, as he played a good game of billiards against the Magistrate, and I was ordered to leave the jail open for the prisoner to come in, and at last I had to threaten him unless he kept earlier hours I should shut up the jail and lock him out." 83 I CHAPTER V STORIES OF SPORT Sportsmen who have served in India often compare the pleasure obtainable respectively from big game shooting on foot with fox-hunting, and por in riding after wild boar with a spear, com- monly called pig-sticking. The opinions will naturally vary with the special aptitudes of the sportsman, but the dominant factors combining to afford most pleasure appear to be the exercise of the greatest amount of courage and skill. The grandeur of the sight of a roused tiger, and, even more, that of a tigress anxious for her cubs, is one which remains in the mind for many years ; but in my own opinion, and in that of many of my friends who are horsemen, if tiger-shooting is enjoyed from the back of a steady elephant or from a securely- fixed seat in a high tree, the danger, though appreci- able, is not comparable to that of walking up to a tiger on foot; and most of us will admit that the greater the danger, so is the enjoyment greater, although this must vary in individuals, being depen- dent on the temperament of the sportsman. I have never ridden after pig in Upper India where the Kadir Cup is run ; but I am told that the ground, though requiring a bold horseman to cross 83 Winnowed Memories and win the Cup by taking first spear, does not present the same dangers and difficulties as that crossed in a run in Central India, where the rider to kill a pig must gallop fast over rocks and stones in order to force the pig away from the hills on which he generally harbours, to the cotton soil plain, where the land is seamed by holes varying from one to three feet in width and about the same in depth, caused by subsidence after the rainy season, and over which it is almost impossible to gallop for any distance without falls. It is often stated that for half a mile a boar, and even more so a lean sow, is as fast as was Eclipse ; but experience shows us that if pressed at speed for half a mile, unless there is intervening jungle, the horse will always beat the pig. Most men who " hunt because they like it " will agree with me that the pleasure of crossing a strongly fenced country, say in the Shires, is far greater than that obtainable from following hounds, however well they run and however melodious is their cry, say, for example, on the Hampshire or Wiltshire Downs ; in- deed, it is often recalled that it was only advancing years which brought Mr. Assheton Smith from the Shires to Salisbury Plain. Such, however, was his love of seeing hounds hunt, that when he was no longer able to mount a horse he built a high tower at Tidworth, up which he was carried that he might watch through a telescope the hounds running over the Plain. Again, the enjoyment of riding a well- trained hunter is to a fine, bold horseman with good hands 84 Pig-Sticking not comparable with the pleasure obtainable in the educating of a generous, well-shaped young horse which is learning his work and likes it. In a word, hunting is like all other pleasures, enjoyable in pro- portion to the difficulties in its attainment and execution. Colonel Sir Edward R. Bradford, sometime Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was, I think, the hardest man in riding after pig that I have known. His first wife, whom he got from a fall out hunting in England, for she picked him up when he was lying insensible, and nursed him back to recovery, was herself a fine rider. I acted as best man at his wed- ding in 1863, and many years afterward, when a tigress had bitten his arm off close to the shoulder- joint, my aid was again called for — this time by the second wife — to prevent his riding in a Hunt point- to-point race. I knew him very well, for we were schoolfellows at Marlborough, and we had fought together during the Mutiny. In October, 1858, when with a corps (now 38th King George's Own Central India), a wing of his regiment approached a diamond- shaped formation of the enemy, and Bradford, who was Adjutant, thinking that the Commanding Officer was leading where the enemy's formation was thin, with an angry exclamation turned his horse for the thickest part of the clump, through which he rode, followed by twenty Sikhs. Although he was un- touched, yet none of those who followed him escaped wounds on their bodies or on their horses. Besides his remarkable courage, my friend was abnormally modest, for that evening, when I returned from pur- 85 Winnowed Memories suit of the enemy, in which his regiment had not taken part, while he was giving me a cup of tea I asked, "Edward, when you went through the Gol,* tell me, did you cut or thrust ? " He looked up shyly, and said, "My dear fellow, I just shut my eyes and galloped." It was useless to attempt to dissuade such a man from riding in sl race on the ground of his having one arm only, and thereby incurring more danger in falling, so about three weeks before the race meet- ing I took an opportunity in the hunting field to admire his horse, which induced the hoped-for remark, " Oh, yes, he is very clever, and has got a turn of speed, so I hope we shall win the Hunt Light Weight point-to-point." I asked, " Why, do you mean to ride yourself?" "Yes, of course." I said, "That is very hard on the horse, for any duffer with two hands is bound to beat you ! " And my friend abandoned the idea. In 1859 we were hunting down fugitive bands of rebels in adjoining districts in Central India, and meeting one of his patrols, I asked a native officer whether it was true that my friend had had a heavy fall in riding after a pig. He said, " Yes, a bad fall. I picked him up insensible." " And when he came to, what did he say ? " " Oh, he laughed, he laughed, he only laughed." During the last year of the Mutiny, in 1858-9, while chasing Tantia Topi and his fugitive troops, * Literally circle, but technically the Hindustani name for square ; indeed a diamond formation. 86 A Hyena Hunt we passed continually through a sportsman's elysium, but were generally marching too far and fast to be able to give even half a day to sport. Hunt^^"^^ Early in 1859, however, our column halted for four days at Kotah, and we had several very good runs after boar, which I had organised, Major Sir WiUiam Gordon and Captain Lewis Knight, of the 17th Lancers, getting first spears. It entailed, however, my sitting up past midnight in order to bring up my daily routine of work, for I was fining the posts of Brigade Major, Commissariat Officer, Bazaar Master, Postmaster, and Interpreter, for which I received extra pay at the rate of 100 rupees a month — the rupee being worth a trifle over two shillings — for each appointment except that of Post- master. My brother officers of the 17th Lancers, excited by the good sport they had enjoyed — for we found any number of pig within three miles of the city — begged me to organise another morning's hunt. Knight offering me a mount on a very valuable horse, which I was told I might " ride out " without scruple. I worked again that day till past midnight, getting up again to see artillery and heavy baggage march off at 3 A.M., and then going back to bed, managed to get a couple of hours' rest before we started. The sport was well worth the labour, for I managed the beaters successfully, and the party killed five boars, I personally getting first spear on two. When I was commanding an Irregular Cavalry Regiment — 1st Beatson's Horse — for five months at Bersia, there was plenty of game around me, but I 87 Winnowed Memories was too busy to take advantage of the opportunity, the second in command was on sick furlough in Europe, and neither the Adjutant nor the Doctor was a keen horseman. Later, however, when I was raising what is now the 39th Bengal Cavalry Regi- ment, or 2nd Central India Horse, I had the run of my hfe after a big and savage hyena. \ On August 30th, 1860, while stationed at Goona, my brother officers arranged to breakfast thirteen miles to the eastward, hoping that they might get some buck, for the country was, at that time, so stocked with game that I have seen inside my line of skirmishers on our ordinary parade ground a herd of Blue cattle (Nilgau). James Blair, the Adjutant of Bradford's Regiment, and I, starting at 2 a.m., rode seven or eight miles beyond where the others were to breakfast, to a village where we had sent word to assemble some beaters. Many sportsmen in India have considerable difficulty in getting the native to leave his hut before daylight, at which time we generally begin the hunt. In India reputation soon travels amongst the villagers, and I never had any difficulty in getting men when and where I desired, as I was known as the Sahib who personally paid every beater, instead of handing over the lump sum, calculated at Ijd. per head, of which the chief native invariably deducted a pice or twelfth part of the wage. At daylight Blair and I came on fifty shivering men sitting on their heels at Shadowra, and soon had a herd of twenty-five sam- burs and a boar afoot. The ground was hilly and very rough, being strewn with rocks, and after an 88 A Hyena Hunt unsuccessful gallop I just missed a boar, which got into thick jungle. The beaters now pointed out to us a jungle-covered hill which was, as they alleged, the lair of a panther, but from which emerged a very big hyena. I think it was owing to my irresolution, being startled by the size of the animal, but in any case my companion got first run at it, but missed, and then for twenty minutes we had in a steady gallop a succession of charges between two hills standing about half a mile apart. I am sure that neither Blair nor my orderly Kadar Khan nor I could have killed the animal alone, either by riding it down or when we got up to it. We all three charged it several times, but the hyena never really extended himself until we were close up, and then, when at full speed, he turned like a hare does when greyhounds snap at her. I was galloping about fifty yards uphill to the hyena and parallel to it, trying to ride it off an in- accessible hill, when coming on a piece of rather easier ground I determined to make another effort, and, catching hold of my horse, I extended him at his fullest speed straight down the hill. When I got close on to the hyena's haunches he tried, as he had often done before, to double and get on my bridle hand, but this time misjudged my distance and speed, and my spear just reached, but without hurt- ing him. Before I could turn my horse he was 200 yards away, going at his usual pace, say twelve miles an hour, without any loss of power. My companions, 89 Winnowed Memories however, now helped me to push the animal into the plain, and he ran through two small villages, all the inhabitants of which threw missiles at him, accom- panied by very bad language, in revenge for the number of their goats he had eaten. My tongue clove to the roof of my mouth so that I could not speak, and my horse was breathless when the hyena turned at bay. The creature was as breathless as I was ; but still, with his big body nearly twice the size of those we see in the Zoological Gardens, and with his massive jaws and long fangs, made a formidable antagonist for men carrying only light bamboo spears. Blair now came up, and I killed the animal, after, however, it had thrown me on to my back, and I then took forty-two thorns out of my horse's legs ! The next best horse I ever had to " Vagabond," whose feats I have described elsewhere, was " War ^ „ Game," which I saw my brother-in-law. Sir Thomas Lennard, buy from Mr. John Derby at Rugby. He was as kind, when not excited, as " Vagabond " was ungenerous ; but having a light mouth could not stand being pulled about. I cannot remember that the horse ever fell with me; but after carrying me for a year and a half he was put up for auction at my brother-in-law's annual unreserved sale of hunters. Jack Collard, who showed him, had a marvellous seat in the saddle, but the most fervent admirer of his heart and seat would have been puzzled to have praised his hands. The horse, whose best point was at timber, walked about 90 " War Game " on his hind legs when approaching the practice-gate, with the result that he was knocked down to me for a hundred and five guineas, my brother-in-law having bought him eighteen months previously for £240. The horse was a grand jumper, but was excitable with hounds, and it was necessary to ride him on his own line and on either side of the pack. When out with Mr. Garth one day, near Winchfield, "War Game " lost a foreshoe, and going into a smithy I asked the man to tack on another. Unfortunately the hounds were running within hearing, and the smith having driven in a nail was about to clench it when the horse, plunging violently, drove the nail right through his hand. The man nearly fainted, but presently recovering wished to, but could not, complete his task. I had never driven a nail in shoeing a horse, and admit I was perhaps as nervous of laming "War Game" as I was of being maimed, but the animal allowed me to finish the operation. My effort was, however, nothing compared to a feat accomplished by my elder brother, who, being very fond of horses and of hunting, and with small means of gratifying his tastes, generally saw his horses shod. He was one day criticising a blacksmith at Coggeshall, Essex, when the smith, nettled, said, " Mr. Wood, you think you know a good deal about shoeing a horse, but I bet you a sovereign you can't make a set from the bars, forging the shoes, putting them on, and riding your horse twenty miles before sunset." My brother's knowledge was confined abso- lutely to seeing this operation done by the smith ; but 91 Winnowed Memories he, though only a Derby weight man, made the shoes and won his sovereign easily. In our voyage out to the Cape in 1878, the weather was very rough for three days, and the horse, standing in a box on the upper w ar uame ^jg^,]^^ g^^ considerably knocked about, being terrified by the waves which washed over his body. I had his box lifted out by a crane when we got into dock at Cape Town, about the twenty-fourth day after he had been embarked, in order to let the horse lie down for the two days we stopped before going on to Port Elizabeth. His re-embarkation was very difficult. He was excited by the noise of the men working on the quay, and by the sight of the horse-box, with its associations of discomfort and terror caused by waves breaking over it during the voyage, which had made him plunge and kick so violently that, after having a forefoot over the front of the box, which we replaced with much trouble, I shortly afterwards found him with both hind legs outside the ship's bulwarks. I told the butcher who had been feeding the horse while on board to blindfold him, making him replace his blood-stained apron with a spotless overall before he approached the horse ; but " War Game " steadily declined to have his head covered. Then a private in the Connaught Rangers — who had shown great courage by getting underneath the horse in his box, during a gale of wind in which the ship was rolling heavily, in order to pass underneath his body a new sling — offered to try, but the horse would not allow 92 " War Game " him to approach, striking out alternately with his forefeet. I had got a horse I bought at Cape Town easily into the box by trailing a rope behind its legs, and inducing it to move forward by copious sprink- ling from a watering-can ; but the 16-hand hunter defeated us, for the man who was holding the other side of the rope with me was sent flying some feet when the horse gave a powerful heave of its hind- quarters. Eventually, as it was essential to get the horse into the box, I got a man to put me up on his back, and " War Game " allowed me to slip my coat over his eyes and ride him up to the rear of the box, but enter it he would not as long as he could not see day- light on the far side. I then got four men to stand ready with the front door of the box down, and with four more holding the rear part to be applied as soon as I should get " War Game " in. When all was ready I rode the horse forward as if my kneecaps were of no importance, and when my knees were close up, grasping the overhead framework I clung to it like a monkey, opening my legs, and my assistants deftly closing both ends, the animal was defeated. I rode the horse in the operations against the Gaikas, and for the early part of the Zulu War, and I kept him for many years as a carriage horse on my return to England — until, indeed, his death — for the horse having developed spavins his power of jump- ing was impaired. His spirit remained as high as ever. One day, when my coachman was driving my wife and daughter in a wagonette, a black cat crossed the road immediately under the horse's nose. He struck at it violently with his forefoot, which went so 93 Winnowed Memories high as to catch the throat-lash, with the result that he pulled the bridle right off his head and it came back to his chest. W. Eaves — still with me to-day as I write, making thirty-six years of comradeship — turning round to his mistress, said, " Sit fast." The horse galloped wildly along the road, swerving naturally to one hand to avoid a horse in a tumbril which was shooting stones by the side of the road. In his swerve, which brought him immediately oppo- site to another horse and stone-carrying cart, unable to stop, he charged it, sending the horse backwards on to the ground. The coachman said, " Now, my Lady, get down," and he secured the bridleless horse with- out any damage beyond that of a broken shaft. I mentioned my brother-in-law's heavy loss over " War Game," and may here state that although occa- ^ „ sionally he realised great sums, yet on the average he lost money, although he got a great deal of pleasure in collecting hunters. He bought " War Game " really to please me, I think, so it is some satisfaction to know that on other horses I got him back some of his expenditure. I bought " Governess " for him from Major Martyr, the officer who caught Cetewayo, mainly from having seen the mare do a remarkably clever thing when lent to me. We were in some flooded water meadows near the South Eastern Railway, North Camp, Alder- shot. It was not possible to jump the ditches, for we could not see where they began. On riding up to a field gate we came to an arch-beam bridge, which had been lifted out of its socket and was upside down. 94 ** Governess " This naturally stopped the field, but I, dismount- ing, climbed over the bridge, and the mare followed me like a cat. When she was sold the following October she was wanted by the richest Duke in England and an opulent London merchant, in each case for a young daughter to ride to hounds. I had given £70 for her, and she made 370 guineas, falling to the Duke. 95 CHAPTER VI SPORTING STORIES In another chapter I have told stories of my late friend, Colonel Sir Edward Bradford, narrating in- stances of his abnormal courage, and A liger -j^ another book I have told how he saved me from being killed by a tiger, up to which I was walking under the mistaken im- pression that the beast was dead, when my friend shouted to me, " Stand still ! " and the next moment the tiger was on top of his elephant, where he shot it through the head. Some time after his marriage in 1863 he was out shooting with three brother officers, when Bradford, standing on the bough of a tree about 7 feet high, fired at a tigress which was cantering over a piece of open ground in jungle. He hit the tigress, which stopped, and looking up saw my friend, and came deliberately up to the tree in which he was standing. The animal, then bracing itself up on its hind feet, clawed his legs and the rifle, with which he endeavoured to protect them, and the man, gun, and tigress fell together to the ground. Bradford was up before her, making for a shallow pool of water only a few feet from the tree, into which he threw himself face downwards. The animal was on him immediately, covering his body from head to foot as she stretched herself over him. When he 96 Sir E. Bradford felt the animars hot breath close to his head, he instinctively threw his left arm over his neck, and the tigress, accepting it as a mouthful, made her fangs meet. His three companions fired several shots at the creature as it lay covering his body, and Brad- ford knew each time when she was hit, for working her jaws from the wrist up to the shoulder as each bullet found its target, she scrunched more deeply, closing her jaws on the arm with increased force. Finally, the three sportsmen walked up, and putting the muzzles of their rifles to the tigress's head, so intent on chewing my friend's arm that it never looked up, blew it to pieces. Bradford was carried into Goona, where the arm was removed at the shoulder. Before he returned to England, invalided, he managed to shoot five more tigers, and when in England became an expert part- ridge and pheasant shot. It is strange that while we played level at Prince's Racquet Courts before he lost his arm, I had in after years to accept aces from him. It is only fair to say that as he could not ride pig with one arm, he had for exercise played a great deal of racquets. I have mentioned elsewhere the regard I felt for the regiment nicknamed " The Wait-a-bits," and when dining with them one evening, as I did A l^oot-y generally twice a week, being an hono- rary member of the Mess, which was the nearest to my quarters, a captain, who was a very nervous, timid rider, asked me one evening, " You have been hunting to-day ? " H 97 it Winnowed Memories " Yes." What sort of sport ? " " Oh, a fair day." " Well, for my part, I don't care to hunt unless I have a groom properly turned out in boots and breeches as second horseman." " Oh," I replied, " that is not my idea at all. I would ride a donkey if he could jump a bit." " And sit with your face to his tail ? " "Well, it would have the advantage of my seeing a good deal of you, my friend." In the summer of 1870 the Brigade Major in the permanent barracks, who had spent two years with me in the Staff College, came into my office The Purchase ^-q ^g|j f^j. j^y condolences on his having r *' r^Vi 511-1 if» " * t Aldershot P^^^hased a brute of a horse. The animal was as handsome as a picture, but my friend had never been on his back, for the horse, after putting down a groom, had defeated in succession the Roughriding sergeant of a Cavalry regiment, of a Horse Artillery brigade, and a professional horse- breaker named Devigne. My friend, who at one time had the reputation of being the handsomest subaltern in the Army, was in despair. He said, *' I gave £80 for him at Tattersalls last week, and I don't dare get on his back." I said, " Well, if he doesn't put me down before I get to the Prince Consort's Library, I'll give you £50 for him now, and anything I make of him over £10, for I shall sell him before November, as although very handsome he is not the shape for a hunter." 98 "Charlie" My friend was delighted, and I wrote him a cheque in ten minutes, having ascertained within three or four minutes what the horse did. It happened that his pecuHar form of vice had no great terrors for me. Whenever he was asked to do anything to which he objected he reared fairly straight in the air, and then, pirouetting on one hind leg, again got up on his hind legs. I did not for a moment suppose that I could ride better than the professional Roughriders, but I was confident of possessing more patience with horses than most men. I rode the horse daily but with some difficulty, and eventually led the Royal procession at a Royal Review at Aldershot, immediately in front of Her Majesty's carriage, and knowing her dislike to see- ing an accident I must admit to a feeling of trepida- tion as the first pair of Colours were brought smartly down under the horse's nose. He acquitted himself well, however, and when I proceeded on a month's leave to Ireland in October, I sold him to an assistant surgeon attached to a Horse Artillery battery in Woolwich, who having heard of the horse's looks, came to see him. I told him everything I knew about the animal, and the result of his experience is interesting. He rode daily on parade on Woolwich Common, galloping about after the Battery, as was then the custom ; and the horse behaved perfectly well until he went on first leave, when the animal put his groom down on several occasions, and on the Doctor's return, after having reached the ground many times, he was obliged to sell the horse. 99 Winnowed Memories I bought of Mr. Barker — ^referred to particularly in the next story — a very smart, though small, chest- nut horse, who at a trot or canter would '*B^ k^" ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ bank, kicking back at it a foot down. When I lost my appoint- ment in the spring of '66, on my General giving up his Command, I left my horses in Dublin in charge of a friend, and a Scottish officer agreed to give the Honorary Secretary of the Ward Union Hounds £50 for " Banker," I having paid £80 for him. The officer having ridden him on the road, hunted him one day without my sanction, and then sent me a cheque. A week later I received a discourteous letter from him as follows : " Sir, — When I sent you £50 for your horse I thought I was buying a hunter, and did not know I should have to be a horse-breaker." I replied, " Sir, I sold you a horse for £50, but if you sent me £500 I could not sell you hands to ride it." He must have had a sense of humour, for getting my letter at breakfast he read it out to his brother officers, who told him that he richly deserved the answer he had got. In 1863, when studying at the Staff College, I used in our winter vacations to ride with the Essex Staghounds, hiring my mount at two guineas from Mr. Frank Barker, a farmer of Ingatestone, lOO Frank Barker who acted as huntsman, I beheve unpaid, for over twenty years. p , I generally railed to Ingatestone from Barker and Witham, near my mother's house, and the Essex then Barker drove me to the Meet, Staghounds which on the morning of which I am writing was at Wilhngale. As we were driving over I asked Mr. Barker, " What sort of a mount have I to-day ? " " Oh, I don't know, Major ; but I believe very good. Perhaps no better." We had an enjoyable half-hour's gallop, and a little compactly-framed horse, although rather free, carried me well in spite of my nervousness, which made my teeth chatter so as to hurt me, and I rode over the first big fence holding my jaw with my maimed hand. When we had secured the deer, Barker said to me, "Do you mind getting off your horse, for if Mr. R. hkes him as a hack he will be a purchaser." We changed horses for a mile, and when I got back into the cart. Barker said, " Major, I owe you a good turn." " Why so ? " " Oh, you have sold that horse for me." " Done well, I hope ? " " Oh, I haven't made a fortune, but I like quick returns for my money." " Then I suppose you haven't had the horse long ? " Barker, forgetting what he had told me in the morning, said, " Oh no ; I bought him yesterday afternoon at Tattersalls." lOI Winnowed Memories I have been fortunate in retaining my excellent servants, both indoors and in the stables, for a great number of years, and my coachman, H r^^ ^^^* after completing his time for pen- Groom '^^^'^» ^^^ been in my service since 1880, is as keen as I am that I should not miss a day with hounds. Four years ago, feeling very ill, when I paid my evening visit to my horses, which I invariably see twice daily, and when they are sick more often, I said, *' I do not think I am well enough to hunt to-morrow, but I will let you know in the morning." He replied, " You had better keep on while you can. You have not got much time in front of you." I had not the courage to ask if he limited my chances of hfe or the hunting season. In all hunts, as in the race of life, there are leaders of men who reign in the front ranks during a run, and as they say in Ireland, " Ride on Two Irish ^-^^ . ^^ ^^^ hunt" for a time, and oportsmen . then either because, like Lord Bullfrog in Surtees' " Handley Cross," " they throw up a wast of bad flesh," or because, as the nursery fills the stable empties, they drop out, giving up the chase and are succeeded by younger men. In the middle of the 'sixties, Edward Saimderson, of Castle Saunderson, Belturbet, later M.P. for Cavan, and Mr. Barrington, son of the then Lord Mayor of DubHn, were amongst the hardest riders with the packs which were accessible to people living in Dublin. Emulation for a front place with hounds in Ireland 102 "The Wreckers" is much keener than it is in England, and from the richest to the poorest grades the average Irishman has a strong feehng for sport. Perhaps some of my readers may not understand who " the Wreckers " are. Many of the ditches in the Counties of Dubhn and Meath'are both wide and deep, and there are regular attendants at the Meets of men provided with a stout rope capable of hauhng out man and horse. The occupation was so lucrative at the time of which I am writing that there were generally from three to six " Wreckers " who paid from three to four shillings for the railway return fare, say to Trim and Dunshaughlin, on the chance of earning money. At Christmas, 1864, I took over horses I had been riding while at the Staff College, and made the acquaintance of " the Wreckers " almost immediately. I was riding one day with the Ward Union Hounds a handsome thoroughbred charger, turned out of a racing stable for badly spavined hocks. She failed to reach the top of a high bank, and in falling back on me knocked the breath out of my body. A friendly " Wrecker," named McHugh, lifted me into the saddle, vowing he would trust me for payment, shouted " Take the crown of the road, yer Honour, that's the only way to catch 'em." As I hammered along as fast as a quick mare could travel, I passed an old woman standing on one of those stone gateposts which in Ireland often lead nowhere, having been built before the owner realised that he had not got money enough to erect a house. She was intensely excited, and screamed at me, " Git 103 Winnowed Memories off the road with yer, and the cowardly blairguard that yer are ! " Mr. Barrington, who rode nearly thoroughbred horses, getting up a stone and a half lighter than Edward Saunderson, had a provoking habit of cross- ing his rival and cutting in immediately in front of him as he rode down to the fence. Saunderson, having repeatedly warned him that he would not continue to pull to save him, to which Barrington lightly replied, " Ride over me if you can," at last paid a severe penalty. Immediately after this taunt there was a coUision, and Barrington lay for many days unconscious in a Police Barrack. He was an invalid for some weeks ; but the fall seemed in nowise to have daunted his determined courage, for one afternoon in the season 1865-6 we had uncarted at the ninth milestone and had but a very unsatis- factory run. Fog was rising when we took the deer, and the huntsman, Charles Brindley, strongly advised against enlarging another. He was, however, ordered to do so, and after about ten minutes of a twisting gallop, with the fog deepening every moment, a few of us, who were trying to ride up to the hounds, went into a field on the outskirts of Clonsilla, a village to the west of DubUn, the hounds being close on the haunches of the deer. They disappeared over a quick- set hedge, some 4 feet high, on the far side of which there was what is locally called a " river," which would be known in the east of England as a " mar- dyke." Barrington, who was on the boldest horse I have ever ridden — for he had mounted me on her — cantered gaily down at the obstacle, shouting to a 104 Rival Thrusters man who was at work in the next field, "Hi, catch my horse ! " as he disappeared under the water. When he emerged on the far bank, looking like a Newfound- land dog which had been retrieving dead ducks, he lifted his hat and called out to us, "Good night, gen- tlemen, for it is the last of me ye'll see," and it was. While I was stationed in Dublin, 1865-6, Lieu- tenants Ffoulkes and Pritchard, 5th Dragoon Guards, J ' ^ th ^^^ latter of whom later added " Rayner " Roding River ^^ his name, were, I think, the two men at Shonk's generally nearest to the hounds in a ^*^* fast run, and I should add, did not ride over them, as did my friend, Mr. Barrington, for unless hounds were racing at top speed we never had a gallop after the stag but that Charles Brindley was heard shouting, " Scan-da-lous, I say, Mr. Barring- ton." Barrington had a brother sinner in this respect, who rode an extraordinarily fine jumper with a rat tail. The gentleman's name was Turbot, and in hunting song extolling the fame of the Ward Union Hounds many of the foremost riders had a word or two, and those regarding Mr. Turbot ran : " And there's one with a fishy cognomen. He rides with such terrible force. I'll tell ye, ye'll scarcely believe it. He's ridden the tail off his horse." Another stanza, speaking of gentlemen who would be first if they ** could," ended : " Ffoulkes, Pritchard and Wood." I think it is likely that this sequence expressed their true value as horsemen. Mr. Pritchard could 105 Winnowed Memories at that time have ridden Derby weight, and Mr. Ffoulkes rode at least 21 lb. lighter than I did. Both were mounted on far more expensive horses, and so, irrespective of horsemanship, I was practically never in front of them. During a very fast gallop one afternoon not far from the Fairy House course, we were crossing grass with a high bank on our right hand when we faced a similar bank running at right angles to it. Ffoulkes was leading, and his horse went nearly to the top, Pritchard's horse apparently going over ; but when I, riding in their tracks, reached the top of the bank in two efforts, Pritchard was lying underneath his horse, which had landed too close to a shallow ditch on our right hand ; and although his horse was on top of him and my horse had to make a big effort to clear the pair as we landed in the field, Pritchard, while trying to roll away, shouted to me excitedly, " Where's Ffoulkes ? Where's Ffoulkes ? " Alas ! he was nearly a hundred yards ahead of us. In 1868 the " Green Horse " was quartered at Colchester, near where I was born, and near where I lived during my leave from Aldershot, often meet- ing my two friends, who used to rail up to the Stag- hunting country known as " The Rodings." We enlarged a deer one day at High Laver, Harlow district, and had a very brilliant thirty-five minutes' gallop, the deer taking soil at Lawns Farm, near the seventeenth milestone from London. We were off our horses, holding their heads to the wind ; some of us were trying to keep the hounds off the deer and others to take it, when it jumped out of the 1 06 Roding River pond, upsetting the men who had nearly lassoed it, and galloped off with the hounds almost on its hind- quarters. I called to Pritchard, who had led us all the way from High Laver, but he said, " No, I have had enough." Ffoulkes followed immediately on the sterns of the hounds, and I as close behind him as my horse's speed would allow. We had gone but a very short distance — some two or three hundred yards — before I saw my friend in front sit down in the saddle and " ride," his horse making a peck as it landed. I realised the situation, for neither the deer nor the hounds got over the obstacle immediately in our front, which was indeed the River Roding, but with comparatively little water in it, for 300 yards upstream the water had been diverted for the mill-pond, which, with the mill built in the time of Cromwell, has long since been disused and removed, the leat being filled up. When my horse, following the one in front, made his effort, I glanced at the chasm below me, and ejaculated, " Oh ! " and then almost immediately felt the animal shorten his stride as we approached the mill-race, in which the deer and the hounds were swimming. As we stood hold- ing our horses' heads to the wind, Ffoulkes said, "Twelve foot of water, if there is an inch." I made no reply, and encouraged by my silence, he added two feet, and as I was still silent, asserted, "Six- teen foot of water, if there is an inch." A rider now approached with wet garments, and overhearing my friend, said loudly, "Not an inch more than four- teen, I am sure." I asked him blandly, " Did you get over, sir ? " and he replied, " No, I got in." His 107 Winnowed Memories fate was shared by all others who rode at it, in- cluding four Buxtons. I think Sir Fowell was one, and I seem to remember Charles, afterwards Member for Surrey ; Edward North, also M.P. ; and Henry, who served imder me as a Colonel of Volunteers many years later. They were all very tall men, so although not stout were heavy, but fine riders to hounds. They all tried where the fall to the water was slight, but both banks were boggy. I measured the spot, forty-seven years later, with a marked rope where Ffoulkes and I crossed, after examining the mill's foundations and identifying a gateway through which we had passed close to Lawns. The breadth from bank to bank is 17 feet, with about 5 feet drop to the water. The conformation of the river has changed since the mill leat has been filled up ; but I think that the spot the horses crossed, close under a big tree, is the same width. I do not take any credit to myself for having followed Mr. Ffoulkes over the Roding River, because I was riding " Vagabond," who after four falls the first day while the question of mastery between us was being settled, never fell again in the fifteen seasons that he was ridden — by me for thirteen, and by my brother for two years while I was in South Africa. He was at least three stone over my weight, and although a slow horse, from his power of jumping could always live with foxhounds. I see by my diary he jumped four gates the day after my eldest son was bom, and about that time thirty-five, of which eight were high. These were not singled out for the pleasure of showing off, but because he was so sure at anything which io8 Essex Staghounds he could see clearly. Some time in 1868 I was out with the East Essex Hounds, my wife being on " Vaga- bond." He Was an ungenerous horse, and was kick- ing from temper, when Colonel Marsden, of the Indian Army, approaching me, said, " Major Wood, I am an old man, and am distressed to see a woman on such a brute. My horse is a safe conveyance, and I am close to home. Pray put your wife on my horse, and I will send for another." I thanked him warmly, but assured him there Was no need for it, and a few minutes afterwards, the hounds having roused a fox, we had a brilliant thirty-five minutes, in which " Vagabond," following a stable companion, gave not the slightest trouble, negotiating every obstacle as it came in his way. At the kill the Colonel coming up, said, *' You were quite right, sir, to decline my offer. I did not know what a performer your wife was on." In the 'sixties and 'seventies it was a maxim with the followers of the pack that an outlier, unless re- taken within a week or so, never gave ssex ag- ^ good run, for the deer having gener- ally lived on young growing crops was gross in body and short of breath. At that time, when Frank Barker kept the deer, they were driven around a big straw-yard the day before they were hunted, and being fed on oats and hay were natur- ally more fit to run than those which are eating green food. In recent years, either because the hounds are not so fast and do not, therefore, press the deer at once to the same extent, or from some other reason, the pace is, I think, less, and certainly the runs are 109 Winnowed Memories much longer than in the days when we thought " forty- minutes* strong gallop and go home " was perfection. In the last few seasons outliers have beaten the hounds for three or more hunting days in succession, remaining at large. It may be that farmers, who are extraordinarily loyal about sport, while protecting the deer drive them off their own growing cereals until they get on to grass and herd with cattle, or harbour in big woods. The following was a good example of a stout hind, which was certainly not distressed at the end of a nineteen-mile run when I helped to stable it. On Friday, April 2nd, a hind, which had been at large since March 13th, when it eluded the Essex Stag- Th F 1 f d ^^^^^s in a snowstorm, was harboured in Run of ^ covert called " Rough Tallies," between April 3rd, Epping and the hamlet of North Weald. 1909 At ten o'clock on Saturday the hunts- man threw his hounds into " Rough Tallies." At once the deer was afoot, and ran through the covert in full view of the field, leaping a high post-and-rail fence into a spacious meadow. Scared by the shouts of workmen upon the neighbouring railway, she ran fast towards Ongar Park Wood. Fortunately, Mr. Frank Stacey galloped ahead and turned her from those extensive coverts. Following a north - east direction, the deer crossed the Cripsey Brook below Moreton village. Mr. Henry Jones, as is his wont, conscientiously following hounds, was delayed in negotiating the brook, with the result that, in spite of an arduous, stern chase, he lost the hounds. no Essex Staghounds Those who gained the other side by the bridge saw the splendid country which is but Httle changed since, more than a century ago, it excited the admira- tion of the followers of the foxhounds of Coke of Norfolk. Passing to the east of Abbess Roding, the deer crossed the Roding a short distance below Leaden Wash. The Master had so far ridden well up to the hounds, though his right arm was still useless from a recent fall. His weight, combined with that of his horse, sounded the depths of the yielding soil, and now compelled him to abandon the chase. From the river the deer made for Leaden Roding, where she crossed the yard of the King William Inn and regained the plough by leaping the yard wall. This point, distant nine miles from Rough Tallies, as measured in a straight line on the Ordnance map, was covered in fifty minutes. Crossing but without dwell- ing on the road, hounds at once owned the scent on its far side, and ran on faster, it seemed, than ever, with the deer far ahead, travelling faster still, to the Can Brook. Hounds held on across a wild district of large ploughed fields and wide ditches. The few who kept on had enough of galloping and jumping when the vale of the Chelmer appeared in front, with Felstead on the rising ground beyond. The deer, still far ahead, ran towards Absol Park Farm, as if she meant to pay a visit to Felstead School ; coming out on to the road at the lodge gate, she crossed the Chelmer by Absol Bridge, and ran along the road towards Felstead Mill, until, meeting a van, she returned to the bridge. Here gipsy children in charge of III Winnowed Memories grazing horses described how they had seen her swim down the stream, which gradually widens as it nears Hartford End Mill. The river banks were explored, and ultimately the deer was secured by five of us — none the worse for her exertions — in a picturesque pool at a bend of the river near Camsix farm- house, a quarter of a mile above Hartford End Mill. The time from the find in Rough Tallies to when hounds threw up their heads at Absol Bridge care- fully taken by more than one of the field proved to be one hour and thirty-five minutes. The distance between these two points, measured in a straight line on the Ordnance map, is just fifteen miles. The length of the run was not less than nineteen miles. Until just before taking to the water the deer never ran the road, and gave us a gallop which could not be surpassed. To a General M.F,H. going on Service in France, Millhurst, Harlow, September 19th, 1914. May you and your Division fight and win. "It is a satisfaction to me to feel sure that while you are at duty not only will every man and horse under your command be hazarded to the utmost, but both man and horse will be regarded as the apple of your eye until the day and hour for action has arrived." The following appeared in The Globe of December 14th, 1914 : 112 Sporting Soldiers " The soldiers out here doing our share to keep the flag flying feel very grateful to those * Stalwarts ' o ij- J who are doing their share to keep fox- Soldiers and , . . , „T 1 .i\ Hunting. hunting on its legs. We know that you From a subscribe to our wants, and we feel that Generous ^^ should contribute to the cost of main- (jeneral taining hunts, in case any of us again have the pleasure of enjoying the ' sport of kings.' In memory of Auld Lang Syne I enclose a cheque for the Essex Hunt and £5 towards the Hunt servants, who no doubt will feel the pinch of war as much as anyone. " This letter, signed ' Sportsman,' was recently received by the honorary secretary of the Essex Hunt. " Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood now discloses the fact that the letter was written by a General Officer who distinguished himself in South Africa as a Colonel, in command of a column, fourteen years ago, and who has recently added to his reputation.* " * He is not well off (Sir Evelyn adds), and so, when hunting with this pack, rode " boarded-out horses," on which he was always in the first flight.' " " Millhurst, Harlow, " December 1st, 1914. " Capt Gosling, R.F.A., " British Expeditionary Force, " France. " I hope that this brief note may not find you anywhere near the Base, but further in advance. " I have hesitated to trouble you with a letter, * Now Major-General and K.G.B. I 113 Winnowed Memories but I think now that you may care to have a line as to the proceedings of your hounds. Bailey has done really well with uncertain scent, some days fairly good, and some days unsatisfactory. j^p TT " The Fields are, as you may imagine, very small, Monday furnishing the biggest ; but nearly all women and girls, and one or two farmers. Still, I have counted twenty ; on Wednesdays and on Fridays six or seven is about the average, besides the Hunt servants. There seem to be very few foxes in the Monday country, except at Drummond Smith's. We have had two or three nice gallops of thirty minutes on Saturdays." In the 'seventies there was an Agricultural Show and Exhibition of hunters at Ipswich, and some local T> 1 T7- u sportsmen who had entered horses ob- Royal Field ^ Artillery jected that the water- jump over which Gross- Water they were to be tested was so broad as Jump to be impracticable, and that any horse dropping his hind feet would probably break his back. This assertion irritated a Field Gunner, who as one of the stewards was responsible for the obstacles, and he sent up to the Barracks for a gun team. When it came on the ground he called the objectors round him, and observed sarcastically, "Well, the fence you think too dangerous for your hunters will be crossed by one of my gun teams with about two tons behind it," and he ordered No. 1 to gallop over it. The team got to the far side without casualty. 114 CHAPTER VII HUNTING AS MILITARY TRAINING In the spring of 1916 a fox-hunting General of dis- tinguished war service extolled in the columns of The Times newspaper the advan- Fox-hunting tages of his favourite sport as one and Military means of acquiring, when leading Tro(^"leading troops, the habit of quick decision in the Field combined with calm judgment in critical situations. He was attacked in the same newspaper by two correspondents. Both were fluent writers, and they denied generally the accuracy of the soldier's assertion, and one, a distin- guished explorer and author, advocated strenuously the shooting of foxes, although, as he asserted, he had been for some years urging that the youth of the nation should be instructed in equitation. Neither of the correspondents who decried sport, although possessing sound knowledge on subjects which they had studied, apparently knew much about fox- hunting. The vulpecide, who is an explorer and a vigorous supporter of the theory that the youth of our nation should be instructed in science and geography, alleged that those parts of the United Kingdom where fox-hunting, and consequently fox-preserving, can be carried on without detriment to national interests are "5 Winnowed Memories limited to a very small area. He seems to be un- aware that in the United Kingdom, just before the war, there were upwards of four hundred packs of hounds, so the available area must be greater than he imagines, and that hunting induces the employment, as it has been computed, of over 200,000 horses. When admitting the losses of careless poultry keepers we should remember the reiterated requests of the Quartermaster-General to masters of hounds to keep up their establishments. The advantages of hunting to military training, moreover, cannot be met by equitation even in its most finished form, or polo might satisfactorily replace it, which is impossible. In effect there is compara- tively but little riding done for its own sake by this generation, and there will be less as years go on with the continuous improvements in mechanical trans- port. Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, when President of the United States, found that cavalry officers were riding so little that he caused an order to be issued requiring senior officers to ride thirty miles for three days in succession, and it was said that some thought the task excessive. In the United Kingdom many poor but ardent sportsmen cover that distance when going to meet hounds, and when returning in the evening, irrespective of following the pack for four or five hours. While I do not assert that Sir David Beatty and Sir John Jellicoe won the battles off Heligoland, and the Jutland Bank, by their practice of fox-hunting, which certainly braces the nerves, it may interest the other objector to fox-hunting, whose arguments I ii6 Hunting as Military Training am also answering, and who is a well-known journalist and writer on naval affairs, to learn that the Vice- Admiral is said to ride brilliantly to hounds, and that as late as the season of 1913-14 I saw the Admiral riding well in front when following the Essex pack. The anti- sportsmen asked for proof that troop- leading can be improved generally by hunting, and that it can be shown to have been so during this war in particular. I will cite some proof presently, culled from the dispatches describing the glorious Retreat from Mons, carried out by our troops when they were followed by overwhelming numbers, and I submit that most reasonable men will allow that the conditions of siege warfare, in which our armies have been engaged since September, 1914, are so dissimilar from those obtaining in a field campaign that the question of the advantages of hunting as a means of training the five millions, which is put by the vulpecide, is unreasonable, and can only be properly asked as regards the training of " The First Seven Divisions." The question put to the fox-hunting soldiers was : " What proof have you that sport is useful for war training, and, further, what sport or its equivalent has hitherto been enjoyed by our enemies ? " I propose to deal briefly with the latter question at once, and to show afterwards what our Generals, from the Duke of Wellington down to Lord Roberts, Kitchener, and French, have done to encourage sport. As regards our present foes, who, as we admit, have been thorough in their systems, they accepted nearly fifty years ago the opinion of Prince Frederick Charles, their most successful leader, who, when speak- 117 Winnowed Memories ing of the value of British sports, in 1870 said, " They influence the spirit of the soldier, develop personal courage, give self-confidence even to recklessness, and strengthen the power of the will, the determination, and the ambition." All interested in the subject know that, besides Government purchases, German officers have been buying hunters in England and in Ireland for many years, the German Emperor having encouraged Drag hunting. There is a fox-hunting farmer within three miles from where I am writing of whom several German officers have bought horses, and I received in the spring of 1914 for a few days a would-be purchaser, a wealthy German friend with whose father I had stayed in the Palatinate many years ago. My guest having bought hunters, on his return to Germany sent to one of my sons a commission to buy one or two big jumpers {hoch springende pferde). The German leaders are not, however, content with the efforts of individual rich officers, but, being fully impressed with the moral and physical advan- tages of all kinds of sports which tend to brace the muscles and steady the nerves of men, have for some years been considering the question. The Imperial Committee for Sports has, after protracted discussion, reported in favour of making games for the education of the youth of the nation compulsory by law. The principle was strongly supported at the Annual Con- ference of School Teachers at Eisenach in June, 1916. This will necessitate the rearrangement of the working hours time-table, leaving more time available for games and physical exercises, but it will certainly be ri8 Hunting as Military Training worth the change, for all such exercises, and especially those requiring combination, tend to the facility of making rapid decisions, which are useful for leaders of all Arms, and especially for the mounted branches of the service. In " The Achievements of Cavalry " (George Bell and Son, London, 1897), when discussing Kellermann's decisive charge with 800 sabres, which won the Battle of Marengo, June, 1880, and speaking of British cavaby, I wrote : " We have one incalculable advan- tage which no other nation possesses in that our officers are able to hunt and than which, combined with study, there is during peace no better practice for acquiring the gift which Kellermann naturally pos- sessed." I have had during my service the experience of three remarkable instances of brilliant brain power being handicapped by want of horsemanship. In 1861 I was staying the night in York Town as the guest of a student at the Staff College, who lived in lodgings, and after dinner we attended in the college a voluntary lecture. It was admirably deli- vered, listened to attentively by all the students and also by the instructors at the adjoining Royal Mih- tary College. The lecturer, a student, was a genius, and on his particular subject much better informed than was his official preceptor. He was, unfortun- ately, no horseman. There were no Drag hounds for students at the Staff College till ten years later, though for one hour a week instruction in equitation was available in the Cadet College Riding School. The Horse Guards Staff was at that time frankly 119 Winnowed Memories antagonistic to the Staff College. The lecturer, on completing his course, was sent as a Brigade-Major to the Curragh, where his duties, involving much horsemanship, soon induced the resignation of his appointment, with the wreck of his military career. When a student at the Staff College two years later I sat under the most illuminating lecturer in military history I have known. One day, when we were doing an " out of door " scheme under the supervision of this professor, some of the students, having purposely dropped back, galloped up, passing very close to a brother student with the avowed intention of induc- ing his horse to unseat him ; this they nearly effected, but, all unconsciously, causing also still more incon- venience to our instructor. I apologised to him for the thoughtlessness of his class, explaining against whom the practical joke had been aimed, and he, in accepting the expression of my regret, observed : " I cannot convey to you how miserable and useless I feel when I realise the in- security of my seat in the saddle." My third instance is the most remarkable of the three I quote from among the many instances I remember. One of my contemporaries, holder of the Chesney Gold Medal for his services to military literature, was the most profound soldier-thinker of his epoch. His views, after a struggle extending over a quarter of a century, became the guiding principles of our field tactical operations ; his advocated reforms were accepted, after Lord Wolseley and his followers had shown that modern battles could not be won by teaching soldiers " to march like a wall and swing 1 20 Hunting as Military Training like a gate." One of the publications of this dis- tinguished writer of whom I am telling the story is an English military treatise often found on the book- shelves of studious German officers. In the early 'nineties during my command at Aldershot I introduced a system of arraying opposing forces for their commanders to work out tactical problems to be solved on short notice, and I was care- ful to give a command to this General, of whom Field- Marshal Lord Wolseley had said, " He is not only the ablest student of war, but also the bravest man I have ever seen under fire." Nevertheless, the result of his command of the troops carrying out the operations was unfortunate, nor did a second opportunity give a much more satis- factory result. As Umpire-in-Chief I accompanied the General without, of course, interfering with him, and was satisfied that his failure to carry out in practice operations on which he had written so brilliantly in theory, arose from his being pre-occupied by considera- tions other than those necessary for the solution of the problem. It was Arthur Wellesley, later Duke of Welling- ton, who first encouraged officers to go out hunting, although he did not himself require the practice of judging ground, in which, indeed, he was remarkably skilful. It was said in the Peninsula that he had no equal in estimating the strength and dispositions of an enemy who might be out of sight at the far side of a hill. Bom in 1769, it was at Assay e in 1803 that the young General gave the first indication of his audacity and tactical skill. 121 Winnowed Memories He, having crossed the Godavery, was advancing northwards against Scindia, who took up a position facing south, between the rivers Kaitna and Juah, which, flowing from west to east, gradually converge, their confluence being about two miles to the east of Scindia's position. Wellesley could not get near enough to the enemy to see the river behind which Scindia had arrayed his infantry and artillery, as hordes of horsemen were on its south bank ; but the young General, seeing that there were two villages on the north and south banks respectively of the Kaitna, felt certain that there must be some connecting ford, and decided to march on it, in , spite of the assertions of the local guides that no such ford existed. Nevertheless, he crossed his cavalry and infantry without serious opposition, though his guns were necessarily left behind. Scindia, seeing that he was being outflanked, *' changed front," and from facing south put his left flank, at Assaye, on the Juah, his right on the Kaitna River, and faced east. Wellesley, having formed line to the left, attacked straight to the front, and utterly defeated Scindia's troops, though his own force suffered grievous loss. The 2nd High- land Light Infantry had eighteen out of nineteen officers struck down, and 400 out of 560 of other ranks. Wellington was fond of all kinds of sport, and thus, when Sir Henry Burrard, coming up immediately after the victory at Vimiera, August 21st, 1808, abso- lutely refused to allow Wellington to go on in pursuit of Junot's routed troops, he, turning to his staff, said sadly, " Well, gentlemen, then there is nothing else to do except to shoot red-legged partridges." 122 Hunting as Military Training Eighteen months later, when Sir Arthur Wellesley, having driven Marshal Soult's Light troops across the Douro, arrived on the south bank at the Serra Convent, he saw in front of him a fast-flowing river as wide as the Thames at London Bridge. Soult, having taken up the centre spans of the floating bridge and removed all boats to the north bank, was watch- ing the river from the city downwards, confident that he was now safe. Major (later Colonel Sir John) Waters, one of the most skilful reconnoitring officers in the Peninsula, afterwards a hunting friend of Wellesley, found con- cealed under a clump of trees by the convent a skiff, in which he crossed with two or three men and brought away from the north bank four large barges used for transporting wine. In these, successive detachments crossed at first unopposed, and Soult was driven from Oporto. It cannot be said that the Duke had a firm seat in the saddle when he was an old man, for a sportsman, hunting in his Grace's company with the Bramshill pack in 1831, declared that few men got so many falls in a season. Nevertheless, he rode long distances in the Peninsula, keeping in exercise eight hunters and seven chargers, and in June, 1846, when the House of Lords rose one morning at 4.30, he rode home, as usual, to Apsley House. Even during critical periods of the Peninsula War there are frequent references in his letters to sport, for we find him writing at Torres Vedras, in the winter of 1810-11, to one of his few intimate friends, Graham, later Lord Lynedoch, then in command at Cadiz, 123 Winnowed Memories " Come up here and have a day with my hounds, and we'll talk after dinner how to beat the enemy." It does not appear that Graham accepted the invitation, but his friend accurately appreciated Sir Thomas's quickness of decision, for when he, by loyally obeying the stupid orders of an imbecile Spanish general, had got into a bad position and was attacked in the rear by 7,000 men, he faced his 5,000 men about, and without waiting to re-form, attacked and gained the brilliant victory of Barrosa Hill. When the British Army was retreating into Por- tugal Wellington wrote to General Hill, " Please take care they bring my hounds away from Arevalo, as well as all the stores." Sir Thomas Graham missed the Salamanca cam- paign, having been invalided to England. When he re-landed on January 31st, 1813, Wellington, dating from Frenada, on the Coa River, wrote : " Pray come up here ; the hounds are in good trim and foxes are very plentiful." The Duke, greeting his Adjutant-General, who was absent from Headquarters on sick leave, wrote : " Goodman is now doing the office, for poor Waters is very ill, and I want him both to look after the ' earth stopping ' business and the Adjutant-General's work." In October, 1813, a pack of hounds, running eagerly, swam the Bidassoa River, and killed its fox on ground occupied by the French, who presently opened a battery on the field of sportsmen who had remained on the western bank of the river. Commissary-General Marsden advanced, holding aloft a white pocket- 124 Hunting as Military Training handkerchief, and, fording the river, explained the situation to the French general in command, who courteously allowed the huntsman to return with the pack. We may safely conclude, therefore, that our great- est soldier since Marlborough believed in fox-hunting as one means of training troop leaders. When the officers studying at Camberley were sent to South Africa in 1899 they generously, in recog- nition of the value they had received from the College Drag hounds, left enough money to keep the kennel huntsman and hounds for a year ; but later, when the war dragged on, the hounds were dispersed. At the conclusion of peace, when the college was reopened, the Treasury gave a grant, on the recommendation of the Commander-in-Chief, Lord Roberts, to re- establish the pack, which affords much instruction and useful training for two days a week, between luncheon and tea-time, for student officers who cannot spare a day for fox-hunting. It cannot, of course, be argued that riding after hounds on a Drag line — although it braces the nerves, quickens decision, and teaches the art of getting over a country with the minimum of exertion to the horse — is more than a makeshift for what can be learned in a good run with foxhounds, for the human mind is far inferior to the instinct of a fox aiming at con- cealment, and unconcerned with the necessity of sparing certain crops, which must be ever present to the mind of an officer laying a Drag line. In siege warfare there is but comparatively little opportunity for Regimental officers to show their 125 Winnowed Memories ability in appreciating ground. The Generals, advised by engineers, determine the line to be occupied, which leaves but small scope to battalion commanders and company officers ; but the value of hunting as a field training was as apparent in the South Africa^ War as it had been in previous campaigns, and General Rimington, an Inspector-General in France, a thorough sportsman, reconnoitred, I should imagine, eighteen years ago more country than half a dozen any other officers in the Army. In the autumn of 1914 the resources of our sport- ing officers shown in the Retreat from Mons were as remarkable as was their courage. When I was criticising " Pink and Scarlet ; or, Fox-Hunting as Military Training," by Major-General E. Alderson, for the Saturday Review, I wrote that the book gave not only sound lessons as regards sport, but much advice of great value for the conduct of officers in war. It shows how, when riding to hounds, an officer finds out the necessity of quickly studying the ground, and I dilated on the author's excellent tactical instructions in his combined sporting and military examples. The author distinguished himself in South Africa as a Commanding Officer of Mounted Infantry, where he rose to be Inspector-General of all Mounted In- fantry. With the late Lord Kitchener's approval, Alderson established in 1901 a pack of hounds in Pretoria, which he hunted from 4 to 8 a.m., before the day's work commenced. When the Germans invaded Belgium in August, 1914, Alderson, expecting to see no more war service, 126 I'holograth ■ Ellioll fi- Frv, Ltd. Hunting as Military Training had just established a new pack of hounds in South Shropshire when he was appointed to command the 1st Mounted Division of Yeomanry. Many of us have marvelled at the noble disregard of danger and of death shown by the soldiers of the Commonwealth, Dominions, and Colonies, and some have attributed it to the free open-air life which renders them independent and self-reliant, and which naturally leads those unaccustomed to the discipline essential to combined action to be somewhat restive when at first under control. Alderson was removed from the division, and brought back to train and take overseas the First Canadian Division, and commanded those men who, unperturbed by the horrors of suffo- cation, held the line when it was broken on their left flank by use of gas. The leader of those heroes earned the highest praise of Lord French, as indeed he has of all others under whom he has served. In the opening sentences of this chapter I said I would accept the cliallenge of those who decry fox- hunting by showing what hunting men did in the Retreat from Mons. Let us take first of all Field-Marshal Sir Douglas Haig and the First Army Corps. Its Commander-in- Chief has been hunting all his life, and Lord French agreed with the opinion I expressed in 1892 that he was probably the best read officer in the Army. General Sir Charles Briggs, the Commander of the First Cavalry Brigade, was certainly the best man to hounds on a *' boarded-out " horse that I have ever followed when hounds were running ; for the sake of civilians, I explain a " boarded-out " is a Government 127 Winnowed Memories mount put in reserve after a few years' training in the ranks. Sir Philip Chetwode and Sir Hubert Gough are not only determined leaders in the field, but are known in the hunting field as " grand thrusters." General Sir H. de B. de Lisle's name as an expert horseman and horsemaster is known not only here, but on the Continent, and both English and Germans know what he did in Flanders. None of us can have read unmoved the story of the immortal heroism of the late Captain Bradbury, V.C., of L Battery, Royal Horse Artillery, in the Retreat from Mons, September 1st, 1914. When the battery Commander was killed and nearly all the detachments knocked down, he served a gun himself against the oncoming foe, and when one of his legs was knocked away by a shell, standing on the one foot fired yet another round, and then, lying along- side the trail, commanded until he was killed. I asked Lieut.-General Sir Laurence Parsons if he knew him, and he tells me that while he. Parsons, was commanding the 6th Division in the south of Ireland before the war, Bradbury spent his leave every year in County Cork. He rode hard and well, and hunted every day he could raise a horse, and that was about six days a week, as every farmer or dealer was glad to put him up. He won the big soldiers' race at Punchestown one very wet day on a horse of his own called " Sloppy Weather." I first knew Colonel L. Parsons when he was com- manding a brigade division on Salisbury Plain under my command in the Second Army Corps — ^Mr. St. 128 Hunting as Military Training John Brodrick's ridiculed organisation, which proved its suitabiHty for administrative purposes in peace, and has now been accepted for war. Colonel Parsons was the best instructor in tactics that I have known in the Army. I submitted his booklet on the subject to Lord Roberts when he was Commander-in-Chief, who adopted it for the Army, and Lord Roberts then sent him to be Inspector- General of Artillery in India. I asked him to tell me how his former hunting friends had come out in this war, and he sent me a most instructive list, observing that if he had time he could fill a volume with the bright deeds done by those who had ridden with him in the south of Ireland. I am acquainted with many, and can fully endorse what he has written. If we start with the senior on our list, General Frederick Wing (once my A.D.C.), we have an officer whose moral standard was as high as that of his abilities as a gunner and his skill as a horseman. Wing was unusually broad-minded, and was the first to reaUse that against the Boers, who were without field artillery, the old gunners' rule forbidding the employ- ment of a single gun might be safely disregarded. To Wing's appreciation of this fact was due his early promotion, and had not a shell terminated his earthly career, by this time we should have heard more of him. AH the gunners who were foremost in the hunt- ing field have risen in command : one is the Artillery Commander of an army corps, several have been re- tained, though over age, and three — Colonels Paget, Carter, and Powell — have "carried the horn," the J 129 Winnowed Memories latter being as noted for his skill in following a fox as for his determination to be with his hounds over a big country. In the opinion of Sir Laurence Parsons, he is an ideal horseman and huntsman. Lieut.-Colonel Bryant was a very hard rider, and lived to be the conqueror of German Togoland. Brigadier-General L. Peel, who was a Major in 1914, was another man " bad to beat." My friend Parsons does not write only of gunners, for he speaks in high terms of praise as hunting men of Majors-General Marshall and Maurice, both of the Sherwood Foresters, who distinguished themselves in this war, rising from Majors to Majors-General. The latter appar- ently has the literary talent which his father and grandfather showed before him. Major J. H. Purvis, retired from the Highland Light Infantry, then re- joined, trained a new battalion, and a young horse at the same time, and on it won the National Hunt Cup, and with the battalion won Hill 70 and the D.S.O. I have, perhaps, written enough to establish my con- viction, corroborated in a letter I received from Lord French, that " fox-hunting is invaluable as a means of training leaders," so will conclude by stating that I saw General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien riding well forward over a blind country in the season before the war broke out. It was of him Sir John French wrote that, on September 7th, 1914, " he saved the left wing by rare and unusual coolness, intrepidity, and deter- mination in personally conducting the retreat." Until I went to command the Eastern District in 1886 I had never enjoyed any covert shooting, but 130 Taverham Hall anyone with pleasant manners who is even an in- different shot may have as much as he wants in Norfolk. In 1887, when staying with my nephew near Norwich, he took me to Taverham Taverham jj^^jj ^^^ ^^^^ j ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ Hall for two days, next year for four days, and the third year for four days early, for four days later in the season, and eventually to shoot cocks at the end of January. I became greatly attached to my host, and he hked me. One day, when standing next to my nephew before the beaters started, I said, " Do you remember, this is the spot where I shot John ? " and he replied, ** Yes," but with a curious inflection in his voice. I asked, " Did you hear me ? " and he answered, " Yes, I heard you." " Then what is it ? " " Well, I may as well now tell you the truth. It was Lord , of the Hussars, who shot John (who was the host's only son), and when we accused you, and you declared that you hadn't fired in that direction, we all agreed to vow that you had done so, because we thought that our host would break up the party if anyone else had hit his son, were it ever so slightly." It is curious that the Hussar officer eventually died by the discharge of his own gun when getting over a gate. The late Mr. Hatherley Page Wood, my brother's only son, was the best shot that I have ever seen, and at all kinds of game. He was also an expert 131 Winnowed Memories trick shot, for he could toss a clay pigeon in the air, and then throwing himself on the ground would break it before it touched earth. I have seen A Kecord j^j^ ^^^^ often throw a glass ball in the air and break it by shooting backwards through his legs. His most remarkable performance was at a covert shoot in Marks Hall Woods, He was the youngest gun, and his skill being known he was placed left-hand gun outside a covert when a covey of five partridges came over. The gun next to him called to him by name, " Now is your chance for a record," and he made it, for getting the first bird he changed guns with his loader, shot another brace before they were over his head, and then turning round got the fourth and fifth birds. Marks Hall, a singularly beautiful old mansion, has connected with it an interesting story told by the mistress of the house to my mother A Tardy ^j^^^^ j ^^^ ^ smalL boy. Both Mr. Bridegroom i . j ^ and Mrs. were very kmd to my mother's children. He introduced me to the hunt- ing field, having a pack of harriers, and his wife took my sisters to more dances and balls than they could have attended from our home. I have no hesi- tation in repeating this story, as it happened more than a hundred years ago. Colonel , a member of the Essex branch of the family — for there are two — went to India while yet in his teens. On his return after nearly twenty years' service, like many young men coming back from the East, he fell in love with a beautiful girl, to whom he became engaged. Before 132 A Tardy Bridegroom the marriage took place the Colonel saw another face which he fancied more, and wrote to the first young lady asking her to release him from his engagement, and to say that she did not mind doing so. She repHed, " You asked me to marry, and you have changed your mind. Now leave me alone, and you will not be troubled further in the matter." The Colonel persistently asked that she would write to him to the effect that she acquiesced in the cancelling of the engagement, which she steadily refused to do, and eventually he asked her to meet him at the church and they were duly married. At the church door the Colonel left her, saying, " I have redeemed my promise, but I never undertook to live with you, and I am returning to India immediately." Many years afterwards, when he had completed his time for pension, and, in the language of the East India Company officers of the time, had received his " off-reckonings," he came home, and like other old Indians with enlarged Hvers went to Bath. The day he arrived he met an officer with whom he had served in India, who asked him to dine that evening, saying, " We must dine at six, for I am going to a reception given by a namesake of yours, a very handsome and pleasant woman, and if you care to come I shall be glad to take you. We shall go at eight, and shall be back soon after nine." , now a General, agreed to go, without any idea whom he was to meet. On entering the room he was received and greeted by his wife, but had no opportunity of talking to her, for being a popular lady her rooms were crowded for over an hour. The General outstayed all other guests, 133 Winnowed Memories and then going up to her said, "I have long thought that I treated you very badly, but now I see you I realise also my great folly, and I am thinking, ' Can you ever forgive me ? ' " She replied, " General, I have loved you since I first met you. It was for that reason I could not honestly say that I released you willingly. I was very sorry when you left me, and I am very glad that you have come back." He said, " Oh, seeing it is so, if you will allow me, I will send for my portmanteau." And in the words of the story-books, " they lived happily ever afterwards." •34 CHAPTER VIII MILITARY ANECDOTES AND LETTERS " August Srd, 1900. " To Secretary of State for War, "I have felt for the last five-and- thirty years that our Cavalry officers are not sufficiently professional. " This it is which makes me so anxious Gonceming ^^ render it possible for a man, say, with Officer^ £300 a year private income, to live in a Cavalry regiment. We have talked about it for years, yet we have made no real advance towards the end which I feel all men who love the Army as I do must desire. "Evelyn Wood." " Salisbury, ''July 16th, 1903. "To the Quartermaster-General. " I want you to ask Heath to give you ' Military Hygiene ' by Munson. I wish that you would show it to Lord Roberts when you have read Hygiene it. He takes the keenest interest in the material comfort of the soldier, and I think would like to read the chapter on the * Personal Cleanliness of the Soldier.' You will see that while we are doubting as to the desirability of having shower 135 Winnowed Memories baths, I think chiefly because the name deters us, the French and Germans have got them, and they adopt what they call the ' Rain-Bath,' which is a more correct term. *' I would like to get the same system at Tidworth as that which the French Army is using. "Evelyn Wood." u Salisbury, July 18th, 1903. To the Quartermaster-General. I write as an old Quartermaster-General to a young Quartermaster-General.* So far as I am aware, I was the first Quartermaster-General to visit all the barracks in the United Kingdom. I have seen all except two in Ireland, and I have seen enough to appal me, and make me sure that the Engineers want help and guidance both as regards sites and arrange- ments of buildings. In the 2nd Army Corps I have found new buildings sited without the Colonel on the Staff Commanding the District ever seeing the papers, which were handled by a young Major of Engineers on the spot. The Colonel lives one hundred miles away. To come back for a moment to my ponderous volume, I want you to read the few pages on the ' Personal Cleanliness of the Soldier,' for that is what I have got on my brain. As it stands, we might call it the ' Personal Uncleanliness.' We have got in the Chief a man who helps us, but our ideas are unusual ; for I found the Engineers here had put up a latrine in a field at the back of this house (where I am dictating, * Major-General Sir I. S. Hamilton. 136 Tactics and Health of the Army 8 A.M.), and no screen was placed in front of it, and if they do that in close proximity to the General Commanding the Army Corps, what will they do else- where ? Indeed, only a fortnight ago, after giving explicit orders on the subject, I found in Southsea Castle a latrine put up immediately in front of the ablution basins with absolutely no screen. We may well say, as did the Captain who was told to write on the manners and customs of the South Sea Islanders : * Their customs is beastly, and manners they has none.' I have now inflicted enough on you, so let me end up by saying : Pray leave all details of moving of troops to those under you, and cruise about the country, and come and see me. "Evelyn Wood." I. Very few Britons, except those in the medical profession, read papers concerning, or even give a thought to the health of the defenders Tactics, and of the Empire. o^^h^^Arm '^^^ steady progress during the last 1848-1908.* ' decade in equipping the British soldier mentally, physically, and mechanically for war is noted with satisfaction by the Press, and credit is sometimes given to Field - Marshal Viscount Wolseley and to certain of his subordinates in that, after many years of struggle, they overcame the pre- judice against reforms which for so long delayed the battle- training of our troops. This prejudice induced blind adherence to obsolete * Reprinted by permission from the Saturday Review, 1908, 137 Winnowed Memories exercises and formations hallowed by glorious vic- tories gained by our indomitable soldiers under Marl- borough and Wellington, formations which became incompatible with success under the fire of accurate long-range cannons and rifles. There are probably few persons who realise that the British infantry sailed for the East in 1854 carrying the musket used at Waterloo in 1815, and that at the Alma the 4th Division was still without a rifled weapon. The progress in battle-training was so deliberate that in 1888, when I assumed the command at Aldershot, the favourite artillery battery exercise was " changing front to the right and left on the centre sub- division," which is of as much direct use for battle-training as dancing a cachucha would be to a prize-fighter when emerging from his corner. The South Africa War justified the consistent efforts of Viscount Wolseley, and that its lessons have been assimilated is evident from what was seen in September on Salisbury Plain and later in Hampshire. On the Plain there were troops- of all Arms, includ- ing the largest body of British cavalry, some 5,000 horsemen, ever brought together. Officers of experi- ence said the satisfactory progress was undoubted. It was, moreover, noticed that in Hampshire a large body of troops of all Arms was so well handled as to be scarcely seen by day ere it got into touch with its foes ; and also that its night march, to gain a posi- tion whence it might assault at daylight, was remark- ably well executed. The interest taken in the Salisbury Plain manoeuvres, not only by the leisured classes but 138 Tactics and Health of the Army also by the general public, is shown by the space given in the daily Press to picturesque narratives of mimic battles. While it is true that manoeuvres are usually held when politics and to some extent commerce and other engrossing subjects are in a state of suspended anima- tion, yet on the other hand there remains ample evidence of a considerable amount of interest in the war-training of the men who in the United Kingdom enable the great majority of Britons to evade the law of self-preservation, a national duty which falls on every adult on the Continent. Important as is the higher training in tactics, or the art of killing with the minimum of personal risk, yet all improvements therein have been surpassed by the life-saving labours of the Army Medical Service. It is probable that future generations will acclaim surgeons as the most notable benefactors of the human race during the Victorian epoch, but their art in the Army comes into use only after battles, and for every ten men saved by the skill of surgeons, preventive medicine saves its tens of thousands. It was not studied in 1848. Soldiers were generally recruited from the classes of farm labourers and journeymen. Each man was carefully inspected, one-third of those offering themselves only being accepted by the doctors as fit for service. Those who got seriously ill were invahded, and thus passed back to the civil popu- lation; yet that population suffered less than half the mortality of the picked men who remained in the Army. At that time in civil life, clerks in offices furnished the greatest proportion of 140,000 men in 139 Winnowed Memories a population of 28,000,000 in England who died every year before their natural time, in addition to those who became chronic invalids. The clerks, like the soldiers, died " from want of fresh air." Sixty years ago not only were the barrack - rooms destitute of every convenience found in an ordinary house, but were without any arrangements for common decency. The British soldier owes much to the unwearied efforts of Mr. Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State for War, who, helped by the excitement caused by the story told by Dr. W. Howard Russell in The Times of the incredible sufferings of our troops in the Crimea, focused for some time the attention of Parliament in one Session, and thus did much to mitigate our stupid extravagance in the unnecessary expenditure of human life. As a witness before Mr. Herbert's Committee stated, " A soldier never knows a healthy home until he commits a crime which places him in a thoroughly well-ventilated cell of a miUtary prison." Soldiers in barrack-rooms were supposed to have 400 cubic feet of space, but in many cases they had not more than 200, the beds just touching instead of being 3 feet apart. This would in itself account for much of the sickness. In France about the same time (1847) there was a striking object-lesson of the evil effects of overcrowding. The garrison of St. Cloud, from 400 to 500 men, was always very healthy until the Court moved there in October, when 800 additional men were placed in the barracks, and every year within a short time after the augmentation typhoid fever broke out, many cases ending fatally. It is a remarkable fact that while the British 140 Tactics and Health of the Army Government allowed our soldiers to be poisoned by foul air, the ventilation of Government stables received great attention. There were other contributory causes to the soldier's ill-health, some within his own control, but his monotonous dinner of boiled beef daily for twenty-one years must have prejudiced his vigour ; his insanitary surroundings were the greatest detri- ment to his health in peace service. The medical officers when they did try to remedy evils were gener- ally discouraged and told to " mind their own busi- ness," for it was not then recognised that preven- tion of disease is even more important than its cure. The medical officers of the Guards urged for years that the foul, stagnant water should be drained off the Tower ditch, to the evil odours of which many fatal cases of typhus were attributed ; but nothing was done to abate the nuisance until the civil popula- tion, having votes for the election of a member of Parliament, complained of the danger. In the late 'forties a new barracks in the Tower was temporarily used as a blanket store. During an outbreak of fever the doctors proposed to move the Guards detachment into the new buildings and the blankets into the old quarters. The application was refused on the remarkable ground that the dampness of the old rooms would injure the blankets. For- tunately, the story came to the ears of the Duke of Wellington, who upset the decision. Prior to the Crimea War the troops in Knights- bridge Barracks were supplied with water from the Serpentine, but this abuse was eventually rectified in the interest of the troop horses. In the summer, 141 Winnowed Memories when the number of bathers using soap increased, the horses, drinking less, daily lost condition, and finally refused to look at the water. This compelled a change in the source of supply. Bad as were our sanitary arrangements for the soldiers in peace, their inadequacy was not so per- ceptible as was the lamentable absence of all provi- sion for keeping the men in health in war time or for caring for them when sick. In the Crimea the loss by shot, shell, and bullets was but a small fraction of that due to preventable causes. From October, 1854, to March, 1855, the percentage of sick varied from 24 to 51, the average being 39 ; in other words, only 61 out of every 100 were at duty. Sixty out of every hundred men in the Crimea between October, 1854, and May, 1855, died, and in eight of the most hardly worked battalions the percentage of fatalities mounted to 73 men. During seven months on an average strength of 28,000 men before Sevastopol 10,000 died from disease, which exceeds the mortality of the Great Plague of 1665. These statistics indicate the vast importance of the medical officer's primary duties. One of the saddest records is that given by the officer commanding the 21st Fusiliers (Royal Scots Fusiliers). The battahon suffered heavily, but " forty- seven were unaccounted for, being either those who fell out in the march (from the Alma), and could not be brought along, or those who died on passage to Scutari, having never been heard of since." There was no transport for sick or wounded in 1854. When the Army was ordered to the East in 1854 142 Tactics and Health of the Army the Director-General of the Army Medical Department obtained permission to dispatch three officers by various routes to Constantinople as collectors of sani- tary statistics. The information was duly received, but nothing came of it, the Commander-in-Chief declin- ing to approve the abolition of the tight-fitting leather stock or the provision of flannel shirts, drawers, socks, etc., recommendations which had been endorsed by the Director-General ; and as he did not support the other valuable sanitary suggestions made by one of his experts, nothing was done in the matter, and the officers might as well have remained at home. Each battalion on going out to the East had medical officers attached to it and a regimental hospital, but in its equipment only one blanket was allowed for each patient, and there was a deficiency of medicine from the first landing in the Dardanelles in April, 1854. This complaint was reiterated for months, the surgeon of the 55th Regiment (2nd Battalion the Border Regi- ment) writing on November 26th, 1854, " with many cases of dysentery and diarrhoea I can obtain no castor oil, no preparation of opium." The Regimental Medical Officers, although they were eventually driven by compassion for their men's sufferings to speak out, yet were at first afraid of incurring censure from their Departmental superiors if they complained. This is not surprising, as a senior Medical Officer in a camp near Varna, where cholera killed many in the summer of 1854, was told " his recommendations would be asked for if they were required." This suppression not merely of all zeal but of proper sense of duty possibly accounts for the 143 Winnowed Memories Medical Officers of the Light Cavalry Brigade begging Lord Cardigan not to mention their names in report- ing they had no medicines for the sick, and may also account for the fact that when the Principal Medical Officer in the Crimea protested on January 24th, 1855, against the issue to the troops of unground coffee he was unaware that they had received unground green coffee ever since the previous November. The junior officers in the Royal Medical Department have long since ceased to feel such nervous apprehension of their superiors. The military chiefs' ostentatious disregard of the timidly expressed recommendations of the doctors was a repetition of what had occurred sixty years earlier, for Dr. Jackson, writing in 1799, notes " the unwillingness of Commanders to accept advice on subjects which they could not themselves be sup- posed to know." There is no record to show whether the Medical Officer of a hospital adjacent to Balaklava, or the Principal Medical Officer who lived at Lord Raglan's Headquarters about three miles distant, or a Staff officer, or some private individual first drew atten- tion to the most insanitary spot within the British lines in the Crimea. The little inlet from the Black Sea, some 800 by 300 yards, overshadowed by lofty cliffs, called Balaklava Harbour, was in 1854-5 a painful object-lesson, indicating our want of sanitary knowledge. The General-in-Chief deliberately accepted serious tactical disadvantages to please the Admiral- in-Chief, who earnestly urged that the British and not the French should hold Balaklava. Our Allies 144 Tactics and Health of the Army acquiescing, we took charge of the place, but for months let it remain unscavenged, making but few latrines and no slaughter-houses. The Turkish troops quartered in the Tartar village of 500 inhabitants were nearly starved and insufficiently clad. Their numerous dead were buried in shallow graves near the head of the harbour, and the level of the water rising with the wind blowing in from the sea un- covered the corpses. Dead horses were buried close to where the sick soldiers were embarked ; the water and shore on one side of the harbour was covered by a mass of putrid animal and vegetable refuse. When after many months steps were taken to remedy the evils which should never have been allowed to arise, the Herculean cleanser of our filthy base. Admiral Boxer, and many others died of cholera induced by British mismanagement. II. Twenty years after the war in the Crimea the sanitary and medical arrangements for the Ashanti expedition, 1873-4, left nothing to be desired, but the circumstances were exceptional. The two Euro- pean battalions were only on shore for seven weeks, and in the best sense the General in command was a military genius ; his first and very capable Medical Officer was a former brother-officer in the 90th Light Infantry (2nd Scottish Rifles), and enjoyed the General's confidence. Dr. Anthony Home, V.C, C.B., preceded the expedition by four months. He studied closely the pestilential climate of the Gold Coast, and had matured his plans for the prevention of K 145 Winnowed Memories sickness when Sir Garnet Wolseley arrived and approved them. Later, when Dr. Home, struck down by fever, was invalided, he was replaced by another selected and capable officer, Surgeon W. Mackinnon, C.B., who afterwards became Director-General of his Department. The detailed plans for transporting sick and wounded 150 miles from Coomassie to the coast on a narrow path through dense forests show plainly the advance in war-service efficiency between 1854 and 1874. It would not be reasonable to animadvert on the want of medical organisation in the first stage of the Zulu War, since it was undertaken by the High Com- missioner before adequate preparations were made ; but it brought to light some curious repetitions of Crimea experience, when drugs were more valued than soldiers. A column of 2,500 troops, under the com- mand of the writer of this paper, although in daily communication with the base, was left without castor oil and necessary drugs for a fortnight, in spite of constant and urgent requisitions, and although the articles were procurable in chemists' stores in Durban and Maritzburg. Between September, 1881, and February, 1882, an epidemic of enteric fever in Natal brought to light the unsatisfactory conduct of some of the Army Hospital Corps employed as nurses, and the wife of a senior Staff officer, a charitable lady who was much interested in the nursing of soldiers, alleged that " the heavy loss which ensued was caused by the cruel neglect of the hospital orderlies." In June, 1882, a Court of Inquiry, the writer himself being 146 Tactics and Health of the Army President, assembled, and after considering the evi- dence of several soldiers who complained of ill-treat- ment, in some cases " of a cruel nature," recorded an opinion that the more serious allegations against the Army Hospital Corps had not been substantiated. The evidence showed plainly that the philanthropic lady was mistaken in her estimate of the loss, which indicated a lower percentage than that of enteric cases in the United Kingdom and only one-third of that in India. It illustrated clearly, however, that the Regulations were inelastic and faulty, and con- vinced the Adjutant- General and his successors in that office. Sir Redvers BuUer, and Sir Evelyn Wood, that the employment of female nurses, wherever they could be accommodated, should be at once approved. Lord Morley's Committee, appointed in October, 1882, to inquire into the organisation of the Army Hospital Corps and nursing, was directed later to extend its inquiries into the organisation of the Medical Department, with special reference to the expedition to Egypt. This report was most valuable, in spite of the fact that of the eight members three wrote dissentient minutes, and that the evidence of the Chief of the Staff conflicted with that of the General-in-Chief. The Committee considered, and concurred gener- ally, however, as regarded the nursing arrangements, in the conclusions submitted by Sir Evelyn Wood's Committee six months earlier. They commended the " skill and care of the medical officers," but reported that " the nursing, feeding, and hospital administra- tion left much to be desired." , 147 Winnowed Memories The medical and sanitary arrangements for the Sudan expedition of 1884-5 reflect credit on all con- cerned ; and in the final dispatch of the General in command it is recorded, *' the sick and wounded have never been better cared for." The great length of the Lines of Communication, 1,500 miles from Alexandria to Gubat, necessitated the provision of many doctors and all forms of sick transport : camels on the desert, whaleboats, native craft, and steamers on the reaches of the Nile between cataracts, hand-stretchers and donkeys over the portages, and ambulance carriages on the railways. Careful notifications of all sick treated were sent out from all hospitals to regiments in the Front, along the Lines of Communication, and to the Statistical Office at Cairo ; thus every soldier admitted to hos- pital was traced. Nursing sisters were employed in the^large hospitals at Assuan and Haifa to the benefit of patients, but only after much opposition of the doctors to the system. The satisfactory transport of the wounded across the Bayuda Desert from Gubat to Korti on the Nile, about 180 miles, showed how marked was the advance of the medical officers in service effi- ciency. Many wounded had undergone capital opera- tions, yet none appeared to the writer of this paper at Gakdul, midway on the desert in the great bend of the Nile, to suffer in the camel cacolets, although the move- ments of camels are generally trying to a sick man. This is a striking contrast to our experience in the overcrowded and polluted hospitals at Scutari in 1854-5, when thirty-nine out of forty patients succumbed under secondary operations after a short sea voyage. 148 Tactics and Health of the Army During the Boer War there was much con- troversial newspaper correspondence regarding the administration of British hospitals, and various complaints were made, frequently of a sweeping character, against the Royal Army Medical Corps. There had been many committees of investigation after previous wars, but Governments are now more democratic, and, as they reap the advantage of the support of the electorate, so are proportionately sen- sitive to criticism, even if misplaced ; and in 1900 the Cabinet appointed a Royal Commission, consist- ing of a Lord Justice of Appeal, two doctors and two eminent civilians, to inquire in London and through- out the seat of war concerning the treatment of the sick and wounded. The Commissioners came to the conclusion that the main cause of complaint was the insufficiency of the Royal Army Medical Corps, the constant requests of its chiefs for larger establish- ments having been consistently refused. Up to Sep- tember, 1899, there were 20,000 soldiers in South Africa, then 30,000 were added monthly until July, 1900, after which 11,000 more were landed every month. In September, 1899, there were in South Africa thirty military doctors and 270 subordinates. During the war the number employed amounted to 900 doctors, 400 nurses, and 6,400 subordinates ; but they had to deal with the non-effectives of 230,000 soldiers not only stationed, but moving all over a roadless continent, the military operations on which extended 1,100 miles from north to south and 600 miles from east to west. 149 Winnowed Memories The Commissioners, after stating that a very small proportion of the doctors were unfit, reported that " the medical officers never spared themselves, showed great devotion to duty, both at the Front and in the fixed hospitals . . . the unselfish way in which they attended to the sick and wounded, often at the risk of life, has been recognised by all impartial witnesses " ; and then went on to record that the Home and Cape Town Base authorities met promptly all the requisi- tions on them, and that all witnesses of experience in other wars were practically unanimous that, " taking it all in all, in no campaign have the sick and wounded been so weD looked after." The annual medical reports and the journal men- tioned below indicate clearly how the Army Medical Department has advanced in scientific knowledge. At Poona, in the Bombay Presidency, the ratios per 1,000 of admissions for venereal diseases have fallen gradually from 416 in 1903 to 70 in 1906. The annual report for 1907 shows an all-round improvement. Malta fever has been practically stamped out since the doctors disqovered its originating causes, and with ^the compulsory cessation of the use of goat's milk, which contained the fever germs, the number of admissions to hospital has dropped successively for three years from 643 to 161, and now to 11 cases. The troops in India have benefited greatly from the improvement in medical science and from the increased knowledge of the doctors as regards sani- tation. In the forty years between Waterloo and the Crimea campaign, according to Colonel Tulloch, nearly 100,000 Europeans perished in India from preventable ISO Tactics and Health of the Army causes. For the first half of this period the Army numbered 25,000 men, and later was raised to 40,000. The terrible mortality, mainly in Bengal, was the result of a want of sanitary knowledge in the selection of cantonments. Apart from humane considerations, the monetary loss alone, irrespective of that of invalided soldiers, amounted to £10,000,000. Formerly the most dreaded station was Mian Mir, the Labor cantonment. There in 1879 the admis- sions per 1,000 men from fever alone were 3,427 and from all causes 4,700. Ten years ago the average of admissions was 2,000 per 1,000, but it has dropped gradually one or two hundred annually until last year, when it was 650 per 1,000. It is natural that the number of constantly sick in India should be higher than it is in the United Kingdom, and it is still double ; but now those in command appreciate the financial as well as the humanitarian importance of the question. No one has attributed to the present Commander- in-Chief in India * an excess of sentiment, but his reported determination of naming first for employ- ment on service the healthiest corps, irrespective of their peace station, is likely to make all ambitious regimental officers strong supporters of the doctors, so further improvement may be expected. The change in the Medical Department within the writer's Staff service, which began over fifty years ago, is indeed remarkable. All officers who can recall the events of the late 'sixties must remember the strenuous opposition to the abolition of the Regi- ♦ Lord Kitchener. Winnowed Memories mental Hospital system — opposition by the regimental officers, and by the majority of the doctors. Old officers must realise now the great advantage of the change, but it is probable that few laymen recog- nise the immensity of the advance. It may to some extent be appreciated by a perusal of the " Monthly Journal " of the Royal Army Medical Corps, pubHshed without State aid, and which even to a combatant officer without any medical knowledge shows how the standard of professional knowledge is rising. The association of doctors with the Gymnastic Staff will not only prevent injury being caused by zealous instructors without anatomical knowledge, but will tend to keep the true principle in view : that the object of all physical training is to increase the work- ing capacity of the soldier. The Army Council has recently decided that sani- tation shall in future form one of the subjects for examination for promotion for junior regimental officers. The importance of this step may be judged by recalling that in the first Army Staff ride, carried out in 1897, there were no medical officers employed. Now their attendance (initiated by this writer) and instruction are generally assumed as being essential. In the Scottish Command, by means of a " Station Sanitary Book " the officer in command and the officer in medical charge have been brought into close and effective relations. All this is satisfactory, but more remains to be done. I am convinced from my experience of thirty years as a General that the Army doctors should be regarded not merely as healers of sick and wounded, 152 Tactics and Health of the Army but as trusted Staff officers to advise their chiefs how to guard the troops against the originating and spread- ing of disease, and thus maintain the numbers of effectives in a campaign. This will result not only in the increasing of fire effect, but will raise immensely the fighting value of the troops, and will incidentally enable us to reduce the costly and cumbersome hos- pital establishments and transport. January 22nd, 1909. From the Director-General Army Medical Service to Sir Evelyn Wood. " Your news is good. All our hopes rest in the Generals in command. Nothing can be done without them, and anything is possible with their aid. If the Generals in command take an interest in the great question of sanitation, the zeal of the Medical Corps in this cause will be unbounded. " Your articles have produced a great sensation. I have heard numerous comments on them, and the occasion is looked upon as epoch-making." In January, 1886, I was ordered to give evidence before Mr. George Dawnay's Committee, appointed to consider the respective duties during rh'^^f^ f St ff ^ campaign of the Chief of the Staff and the General Officer in Command of the Lines of Communication. General Sir Redvers BuUer had, as I thought un- duly, and to the disadvantage of the Public Service, interfered with the General Officer in Command of the Lines of Communication (myself) during the abor- 153 Winnowed Memories tive Gordon Relief Expedition. After Lord Wolseley had seen my evidence he induced Mr. Dawnay to invite me to join the Committee, as it appeared that His Lordship's views and mine were identical, although in 1884-5 he did not like to change the arrangements of his Chief of the Staff while Charles Gordon's life was in the balance. The Committee reported in accordance with my views, which were embodied in the Regulations. To an Officer formerly under me in the War Office, writing on the War in South Africa, I replied : " MillhuTst, " Harlow, ' * '''Essex, ''September 13th, 1908. " Another want of our war system which caused us such trouble was the want of proper provision for tracing soldiers at the seat of war. I racing Men ^^^ advertisements in the Cape papers on Service , . from Adjutants asking their men to communicate their addresses, and I remember Lord Kitchener sending a complaint that certain battalions were kept short of drafts. I had no difficulty in showing him that two battalions of the Northumber- land Fusiliers which he specified, had over 500 men more in South Africa than the authorised establish- ment." I have been on active service many times, but cannot remember that the men were ever supplied with too many pairs of boots. 154 Boots When inspecting a battalion which had been warned for service in the Field, having looked at the men's second pair of boots laid out on their upp y o j^.^g^ J jjgg^pg^j ^Yie Commanding Officer to order his men to stand on one foot, liftmg the other alternately as I passed down behind the ranks. The footwear left much to be desired, and when I had left the parade ground the Commanding Officer said to my chief Staff Officer in a plaintive tone, " I never thought the General would look at my men's boots." The Staff Officer, who though an intimate friend was very outspoken, said, " Then I suppose you must have thought the General is as big a fool as you are." The trouble invariably recurs, as the following extract from a letter written ten years later by the Officer commanding a regiment indicates : 1st Northumberland Fusiliers^ Mafeking, September 2nd, 1901. We have had a great march and covered a lot of ground since leaving Boshof on May 13th to August 28th, when we arrived here ; we marched 909 miles.* Our men arrived here in rags and almost bootless, though we had renewed boots and clothes in the middle of June. At one place, a month ago, I had to leave 112 men behind absolutely without boots, and I have not got them back yet. I hope soon to see them arrive by rail from Krugersdorp. * This is the actual mileage, and does not include the outpost and fatigue duties. 155 L60 IV unuuffiut^ri Winnowed Memories " I have about 180 sick in different parts of South Africa at the present time. There is a great diffi- culty in getting men back to the battalion when they become convalescent, as we have marched so much away from railways, and have been out of communi- cation with the outer world for so long a time. It was a very great disappointment not catching De Wet, and I am afraid there is not much to show for our long tramp." 156 CHAPTER IX MISCELLANEOUS ANECDOTES In 1888, when I ascertained that my appointment to command the Aldershot division was assured, I had to arrange for the outlay of £3,000 Imprudence more in equipping my house and stables . jjlg than had sufficed for my wants at Chatham and Colchester. I was un- willing to risk leaving this amount of debt on Lady Wood in the event of my death, and so arranged to insure my life for three years. It happened I was that year Renter Warden of a City Livery Company, and dined as Chairman of the Wine Committee the night before I appeared for my medical examination by the doctor of the Company which was to insure my life. Being abstemious by habit, I never gave a thought to the results on my health of tasting a number of different sorts of wine. I cannot remember how many vintages I sampled, but certainly a great num- ber, and consequently had to pay heavily for my insurance. Next morning, feeling confident that my Hfe was good for three years — the period I wished to cover against my decease — I appeared with a light heart before the Insurance Company's doctor, who after 157 Winnowed Memories making certain tests asked me in a severe tone, " Please say frankly, sir, are you living a very irregular life ? " "Oh no, not at all." And then, in reply to further questions, I told him of my pre- vious night's dinner. He believed me, but said, " Well, your wine sampling will cost you 5 per cent, more on your insurance." That my assertion of sobriety was accurate is indicated by my being alive twenty-five years later, in spite of the fact that in the summer of 1897, when Quartermaster- General, I dined out sixty-nine times in seventy-one successive nights. In 1889, dining at a pre- Academy dinner, my immediate neighbour. Sir Frederic Leighton, asked, " Did you come up from Aldershot on MusD^oT^*^' P^^P^s^ ^^^ ^^^^ dinner?" "No." " What have you been doing ? " "I have been to the Crystal Palace to hear some sacred music by a friend of mine." " I am told it was by an English girl. Was it good ? " " Yes, as far as I can judge, very good." Now the President of the Royal Academy was not a believer in equality of male and female brain-power, and asked, " Is the girl remarkable for anything else ? " " Yes, she beats us all at lawn tennis." The President did not play, and merely made an un- sympathetic gesture, going on, " Anything else ? " " Yes ; she cuts us down in the hunting field " — which observation was still more unsympathetically received. This was at a time when for a woman to ride a bicycle was considered to be indicative of impropriety, and 158 Dr. Ethel Smyth when to his third question, *' Can she do anything else ? " I answered, " Yes ; she generally goes to early Sacrament on a bicycle," he said, with an expression of astonishment, " Well, that is remark- able ! " When I told the lady, whom I have known ever since she was a httle girl, she laughed, and said, " Oh, my friend, you left out the best." " What's that ? " " Oh, you should have added, ' And makes the top score at cricket.' " My friend was one of the bravest women riders to hounds that I have met in the hunting field, where when I saw her she was generally on a borrowed horse of uncertain merits. In the late 'seventies, when we were hunting a deer with Mr. De Burgh's harriers, and were running fast over some meadows near Pepper Harrow, I saw Miss Smyth disappear in a swampy ditch. When we got her out in a somewhat dishevelled condition, and she was again in front, I asked, " While you were underneath the horse, and he was trying to get up, weren't you at all frightened ? " She replied, " Not at first; but, you see, my chignon is small, and when the horse in his struggles hit it three times with its hind foot I began to think its feet were unpleasantly near my head." Although I, as, indeed, most of her old friends, deplore much that she has done in the mihtant cam- paign of the Suffragettes, it is impossible for anyone who knows her not to admire her rectitude of pur- pose. Some time ago she asked one of her elder sisters to purchase valuable trinkets, worth some 159 Winnowed Memories hundreds of pounds. The arrangement was concluded, when she said to her elder sister, who is as rich as the learned musician is poor, " I suppose you will not mind, but I shall give all that you hand over to me for the jewels to our Cause," to which her sister replied, " Then I certainly decline to buy." Sitting next to Sir James Paget at dinner one night, I asked him if he remembered telhng me of his gratuitous shave by a barber apothecary, p^^™®^ He had totally forgotten the story, and was greatly amused as it gradually came back to his memory. He had gone into a barber apothecary's shop at Belfort to be shaved, and while awaiting his turn examined all the surgical instru- ments in the window. While he sat in the chair he discussed the merits of some of them. On leaving, he proffered twenty centimes, but the man, with a deep bow, replied, " I could not think of taking money from you, for I see by what you said about the instru- ments that you are one of my trade." {From a Letter, dated May ^d, 1899.) " On Saturday I went to the Academy Dinner, which was to me very pleasant. I sat between Pro- fessor Herkomer, who is a charming Headmaffi^^ companion, and the Rev. Dr. Butler, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. I told him the story of my having been flogged un- justly at forty-eight years ago, and he capped my story with one well known and much more amus- ing of Dr. Keate, the flogging Headmaster of Eton. i6o Father Brindle Keate would never listen to any boy who was sent up to him to be flogged, on principle, but flogged him first and heard the story afterwards, if any story were proffered. On one occasion fourteen boys came up with their names on a list, which was handed in by the senior. Keate ordered them into a classroom, and flogged the whole fourteen in spite of the boys' expostulations. When the punishment was over it transpired that they had been sent up to him to be prepared for Confirmation ! "I saw many people whom I knew and liked while waiting for dinner and afterwards, for I did not leave the Hall till nearly twelve o'clock. Colonel Macdonald was presented to the Prince of Wales, who said to him kindly, 'I think. Colonel, this is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting you ? ' to which he replied, ' No, Your Royal Highness, we have met before, for I was Corporal of your Guard of Honour when you landed in India.' "Next evening I had an interesting dinner, at which Mr. Fleetwood Wilson and I were the only two laymen and Protestants. The dinner R h[ DSD ^^^ given by the Chaplains of the Army to Monsignor Brindle, and was a great success. After dinner I made a speech, which brought tears into the eyes of Father Brindle. I told first of my original meeting with him when I got Cardinal Manning to come to Chatham to stay with me, and see Father Brindle swear in about three- fourths of the Royal Irish Regiment to the Tem- t i6t Winnowed Memories perance League. On another occasion — Christmas Day, 1884, when employed in the Gordon ReHef Expedition — I had been scheming to get Father Brindle to dine. I was riding up the banks of the Nile on a camel, and he was pulling in a boat of the Royal Irish Regiment. About sundown on Christmas Day I saw a little flotilla of boats fljdng the Royal Irish flag toiling up the river, and I told Walkinshaw to prepare our dinner on some rocks close to the bank. Father Brindle got out when he had pulled up to us, hot, tired, and irritable, with his hands blistered and the perspiration running down his face. Said I, 'Father, what have you been doing ? ' ' Pulling stroke in order to encourage them ! * ' Any result ? ' I asked. What he really said was, ' Devil a bit ! ' but I interpreted it to the clerics, 'No, none at all.' The Father was, however, unduly pessimistic, for the Royal Irish won Lord Wolseley's prize, given to the battalion which made the best time for the three or four hundred miles up the river, and also which brought up in good order the largest amount of public stores intact. " When we were at dinner I saw Walkinshaw approach with some ginger-beer, and offer it to the Father, who said something in an undertone. I observed, 'My friend, I have carried those six bottles now many hundred miles, and in point of value I think they must stand me in between five and six shillings a bottle. I have let nobody touch them. Drink them all.' He replied somewhat sadly, ' I would much sooner have some champagne ! ' ' What, fallen away ? ' * Yes ; shortly after the Chatham parade 163 Dr. Norman Moore the doctors forbade me to continue in my temper- ance resolution.' "The next time I met him was when we were leaving Gakdul, some wells half-way between Korti and Metemmeh on the Nile. I had had many things to irritate me, for on retirements discipline relaxes ; neither officers nor men had satisfied me, and I was using vulgar, coarse language to an officer who had put his camels on the track leading out of camp, when turning round I saw Father Brindle. Struck with remorse even before I noticed him for the coarseness of my language, I was still more ashamed when he, whom I admired so much, turned on his heel and walked away. Next day, coming up to me and placing his hands gently on my shoulders, he observed, * I hope your poor brain is less irritated to-day. * As you may imagine, I felt much more contrite than if I had received a stinging rebuke in words." {Diary Letter, February 8th, 1902.) " I told Dr. Moore about my visit to the Scilly Islands, and how I had looked over the old fort built in the time of Elizabeth. He was, as 5jf , usual, very interesting, and told me a Gloudesley . i • i t i i Shovel story which I heard many years ago, but had forgotten. Sir Cloudesley Shovel, when, in 1707, his ship was wrecked off the Scilly IsleSi was himself washed ashore alive. A woman approaching observed that he had on his finger a very handsome ring. Instead of succouring him, she, knocking him on the head with a stone, took the ring 163 Winnowed Memories off his finger. Many years afterwards, when she was dying, she told a clergyman of this crime, and the ring is now in the hands of the Fitzhardinge family, I believe at Berkeley Castle." Some twelve years ago I was Chairman of a Com- mittee which sat to consider the establishment of Royal Engineers, and what advantages The Royal j^ ^^g desirable to offer to induce artisans Gommittee *^ enter the Corps. I, having served with many sappers since the Siege of Sevastopol and knowing how essential to an army the services of the Corps are in war, was a strong advocate for increases of establishment and, as a necessity, of pay. The Royal Engineers' representatives on the Com- mittee were naturally with me ; but my great trouble was with an ex- Artillery officer, who had been financial adviser to the Government of India for some years. He was as anxious to reduce my scheme of increased establishment and emoluments as I was to carry it, and finally we came to a position in which he said, " Unless you alter this draft I cannot sign it." I repUed cheer- fully, " I will do my best to satisfy you, and will call another meeting of the Committee as soon as I am ready." Inside a week I showed my Engineer adviser on the Committee a fresh draft which my other col- leagues agreed embodied everything we desired, although expressed in different language. I called another meet- ing, and the ex-Gunner signed our Report, although somewhat grudgingly. I was very pleased, and was humming 164 Dean Hole " The Pope he leads a happy life, He has no cares nor wedded strife," when my opponent, who had never missed an oppor- tunity of contradicting me once or twice at every meeting, replied sharply, " You are quite mistaken ; the Pope isn't happy." I asked, "And why?" " Because he is always troubled with a doubt of his infallibility." After we had all signed the Report, and it had been taken away by the secretary, I being very pleased with the morning's work, remained in the room gossiping, and my opponent forgot his irritation. When I was saying good-bye to him, I observed, " Colonel , you are much happier than the Pope." And why ? " Because you are never troubled with any doubt of your infallibility," and he was clever enough to enjoy the joke against himself. (Diary Letter.) ** The Buckles dined with me on the 5th. Mrs. Buckle told me an amusing story of Dean Hole, which I have not seen in print. When he was an old man he talked in a public park to a girl ten or twelve years of age, who was sitting on the bench when he sat down; after a time he said to her, ' My dear, I am heavy. Will you help me up ? ' When he was on his feet he observed, * I hope I was not too heavy for you ? ' to which she replied, ' Oh no, not at all, sir ; I often help 165 Winnowed Memories up father when he is much more drunk than you are.' '' {Diary Letter of April 27th, 1903.) " That evening Bishop Taylor Smith, the Chaplain- General, came down, and proved himself to be the most delightful guest we have had yet, J, . o . , Torie liked him, everyone liked him. He kept me up till 12.15 a.m. talking ; he is most earnest and enthusiastic about religion, and has a remarkably broad mind. One story he told me is very interesting. He was addressing a crowded audi- ence in the evening, and was arguing that the Church of England was hke the nave of a wheel, the spokes representing all other branches. When his discourse was over a coachman came up to him and observed, ' I liked your discourse very much, but you missed one good point in it ; you might well have ended off by saying, *' and the tyre is the love of Christ which should bind us all together." ' The Bishop said, ' Thank you ; I will put that in next time.' " (Diary Letter, May 15th, 1903.) *' On April 27th we had a pleasant ride with Major Furse* and a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery over some hills lying to the south of Calne. A Staff p.. We dropped down about mid-day to Avebury and Silbury Hill. Before I knew where we were I recognised Sjlbury Hill, to which I had walked in 184(8, when a little boy at the Gram- mar School at the east end of the town of Marl- ♦ Major-General W. Furse, C.B., D.S.O. i66 Major Furse borough. The hill is peculiar, being a circular mound for burying the dead. "At the 'Ailesbury Arms' Major Furse had a good joke at my expense. I was telling him how mortified I was in 1848 by not knowing the Latin for * goose.' My father was giving us a dinner in which a goose figured, and he asked us the Latin name for the bird. My brother knew, and answered. Major Furse said to me, ' I am sorry you could not " anser " him.' " The proprietor of the ' Ailesbury Arms ' was an orderly of mine in 1878, and showed me a certificate I had written for him after the Gaika War." " To the Rev. R. W, Allen, Principal Wesley an Chaplain. Salisburt/f August ISth, 1903. Thank you very much for your letter. I am going to utilise it, all of it, or I should say, except the part which refers to your friend (i.e. my- Muen^cf ^'^'^ self), in a note to Lord Roberts, for he takes great interest in the civilising in- fluences of the soldier. The secret of your success is the enthusiastic way in which you and your people throw themselves into their work. " Yours sincerely, "{Signed) Evelyn Wood." (4 Harlow, August 2nd, 1908. " I should like to try and help you because, firstly, I admire your ability, energy, and mihtary know- ledge. 167 Winnowed Memories " Secondly, because I like you personally. I avoid, however, even in the case of my sons, intervening be- tween them and the Army Council. ^de^d General " "^^ ^ wished, i.e. thought it right, to address the Council in your case, and I do not, it would I think be very wrong of me to address the Secretary of State for War as you ask on a matter with which I have no direct duty. I cannot remember that either of the War Ministers under whom I served were to my knowledge addressed directly on a case similar to your question, and as Adjutant-General I should have resented any such interference." * As Acting Commander-in-Chief of the Army I had to inspect the Cadets in December, 1900, and selected the Centenary of the foundation of the Royal College, when I ordered an Outpost Duty College Scheme to be substituted as a test of training for the " March Past," Bayonet and Firing exercises, which had been the custom from time immemorial. The innovation was great, and I got a friendly warning that two of the Instructing Staff, considering that they were appointed for higher branches of Military Art, would resign if I persisted. I rephed, I guaranteed acceptance of their resigna- tions, and no more was said on that point. The result indicated the " necessity of teaching the duties of security," from neglect of which we had experi- enced some regrettable incidents in the War in South Africa, * The War gave him another chance, which he utilised well. 1 68 Mr. George Wyndham Mr. George Wyndham was nominated as Secretary of State for War, and I dined with a friend to meet him as my new master. Later I invoked W*^ dh^° ^^^ ^^^* ^^^ received the following letter in reply: September 2\sU 1900. I have received your letter proposing an in- creased pension for soldiers on reaching the age of 65, and I am entirely in sympathy with the proposal, which seems to me to be in harmony with the recently estabhshed rule for Campaign Pensions. " I doubt, however, whether any important pro- posal is Ukely to receive consideration until the elec- tion is over, but if you wish to put this forward officially I shall be happy to support it. " George Wyndham." July 15th y 1901. — I was told to-day, in office, an amusing story of how a Section D man of the Northumberland Fusiliers was invalided Northum- home from South Africa and finally dis- F Ter charged as unfit for service. In three months he was back again in the same place, and the battalion had also got back there again after many long marches. The men cheered him when they found he had come back as a Sergeant- Major in the Yeomanry at 8s. 6d. a day. In the news of Friday there is an amusing story, told by a Yeoman, that when the Derbyshire Regi- ment came up to their assistance and retook the guns the Yeomen had lost at Vlakfontein, they 169 Winnowed Memories cheered the Sherwood Foresters, one of whom called out, " Yes, here comes fifteen pence to save five shillings ! " (Extract from a Diary Letter, August 27th, 1901.) "Next day I was on an interesting Committee, to determine how to reward soldiers who distinguish themselves in the Field, but are unfit to ^^'^ . . be non-commissioned officers in peace Gratuities . ,-• . . time. My suggestion was to give them some mark of distinction on the right arm, and I suggested an embroidered hand. This would carry with it a step of rank while on Service, with, of course, the additional pay, and, further, a donation of some sum not exceeding £10. Some of my colleagues objected to any monetary grant, urging that such was derogatory to the soldier ; but I pointed out that Lord Roberts had not hesitated to accept £100,000, so I could not see why a soldier should object to receiving £10." When I was conducting some tactical operations around Aldershot in 1890 the Assistant Adjutant- General and I frequently worked till 2 ^ ^ . A.M. to ensure that the criticisms on the Gontession .. j .. x j day s operations were read out at day- light when the troops paraded for new schemes. I accidentally discovered that in one Corps at least our orders were disobeyed, so I occasionally at the daily conference asked if my orders had been carried out. I received the following signed letter, which I give, omitting the writer's name : 170 A Confession " Confess your sins one to another." (James v. 16, R.V.) " Sir E. Wood. " Some years back, after a Field Day, on manoeuvres, you asked Captains who had read the Narratives to their men to raise their hands. "I am sorry that though I had not done so, I raised my hand." I have long held the opinion that the Church of England would be wise in the interest of Christianity to re-arrange its establishment, reducing Field-Marshal ^he number of churches, and increas- a Bishop ^^ ^^^ amounts of the stipends of the clergy in the localities where they are most required. The waste at present has been apparent to me for many years. In one district in the east of Essex where I have hved there are five churches within a radius of one and a half miles, with a total population of 2,300 souls. When the Government bought land on Salisbury Plain in 1900 there were then on the River Avon, on the banks of which the whole popula- tion of 2,500 souls living in the valley is concentrated, from north to south for five miles, also five churches. When I was asked for a subscription for the forma- tion of a new diocese in the east of England, I at first declined, arguing, as I had often done before, that the Church should first set herself in order, accommodat- ing her establishment with local conditions, and that before the laity are asked to subscribe money for forming a new diocese. 171 Winnowed Memories The Bishop came to Harlow ; he talked and argued with me, and I succumbed. He wrote to me on Feb- ruary 15th, 1907 : "It is something to get a Field-Marshal to admit defeat. I should like to give you another medal if I could, but at least I can thank you. — Edgar Albans." 172 CHAPTER X MILITARY ANECDOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE When I was Adjutant-General my thoughts were naturally fixed on that important part of my duty — the filling up of the Army, and one heard g ." a great deal of the persuasive statements of the recruiting sergeants. The standard for the Garrison Artillery was high, and although the home Service was not unpleasant, yet it often hap- pened that a man would spend the greater part of his life in some remote Colonial town the size of a country village in England. The recruiting sergeant was, nevertheless, generally equal to painting the more rosy side of the picture. " Come along, men, come along ; join the Royal Garrison Artillery. You live hke a gentleman and have nothing to do all day, except to sit on the pier-head and fish." A recruit one day appeared in the office at the back of the National Gallery and opened out at once : *' I am going to be a soldier, but I want to join the Cavaliers." My friend, Captain Brownrigg, was in the office, and said, "I am afraid you are a bit late. Cromwell cleared most of them out, and what he did not kill he sent to America." 173 Winnowed Memories "That is strange," said the lad, "because I saw one last week." " Really, and what did he look like ? " " Well, he was wearing a blue jacket, blue trousers with white stripes." " Oh, perhaps you mean the Carabiniers ? " " Yes," was the reply, *' that is what I want." Most of our Militia regiments twenty-five years ago were short of their estabUshment of Company officers, and there thus arose a number „^ ^^ . of what we called " Professionals," who rersonation went from one county to another by per- mission of the Adjutant-General to do duty with suc- cessive battalions which trained at different times according to the civil occupation of the majority of the rank and file. This sequence of training gave rise to professional impersonators amongst the rank and file, who, liking the good food and easy work, would often serve in two or more battalions every year. An officer going round the ranks of his Company somewhere in the North of Ireland the day after they had assembled for training was struck by a face which seemed familiar to him, but he passed on without speaking, and when the parade was dismissed the soldier, with whom he had served three months earlier, came up to him and said, " Now, don't you tell on me, Your Honour, and I won't tell on you. While the question of attracting recruits was present in my mind, I often asked ladies whom I ^74 Recruiting Inducements met in Society to help me with their advice. " If you were a housemaid," was one of my questions, " would you preferably walk out with a an Att t* soldier who wore an aiguillet, or shoulder- scales — that is, a diminutive epaulette ? " One lady helped me materially by answering, " I would much sooner walk out with an ugly man in the 17th Lancers uniform than with the handsomest man I could find in any other regiment." I never got any better or more direct answer than this, except after a discussion at my dinner-table as to whether a woman in Society would prefer to be clever or pretty. Several vague and indeterminate answers were given until it came to my second daughter, only just out, who promptly said, " Pretty, please, till I am thirty ; clever afterwards." In December, 1871, standing on the ramparts of Strassbourg, I said to a German sentry, " You had a difficult job to get into this place." Celibates against « ^^^ ^ot at all ; we got into it as Married Men in i >> « ttt n t the Armv ^^^^ ^^ ^"^^ came here. Well, I don't understand that, because. I make out it took you six weeks." " Ah," he said, " you mean the Landwehr. As soon as we came we assaulted and captured the place within twenty-four hours. Married men cannot fight." My three com- panions and I were married, and speaking for my class, I said, " The Landwehr fought very well at Thionville." " Ah," he said, " married men cannot fight. How can a man fight who is always thinking of his wife and children ? " ^75 Winnowed Memories A Letter from Viscount Wolseley on my appointment as Colonel, Royal Horse Guards. " My dear Evelyn, — " I congratulate you upon being selected as my successor. Guards *^ ^^ Colonel of the Blues, and although I never hinted that fact to anyone out- side my own family before I was offered that honour, the hope always reigned in my heart. " I resigned because I thought that when a man reaches seventy years of age it is high time for him to leave Court functions to younger men. " May you live long to be Colonel of the finest Regiment in the King's Army. Very sincerely yours, (iS^i^ne(i)lWOLSELEY. November 25th, 1907." very s ' uur To Major-General Sir Geo, Marshall, K.C.B., Alder- shot. Durrington, July ISth, 1903. Will you think out and tell me whether it will not be possible — at all events, in the shorter ranges — for Field Artillery to fire a smaller Economy with projectile, and to get perhaps more A^nuTcun * P^*^ ' ^^ *^^ ^^^^^ bursts, so that Practice ^^ could save expense ? Personally, I do not think any sum can be wasted which is well spent in firing sufficient ammunition to render artillery efficient, but it has struck me that 176 Decentralisation the officers do not realise how much they are ex- pending in artillery practice. I had occasion to remark last year that the Committee went on firing rounds which were really unnecessary, but I won't go into that story now. " I have asked many officers on the ranges the value of the ammunition they are firing, and none of them were able to tell me without going to a Sergeant - Major. I think if they knew the cost of a round they would think a little more of it, and get a little nearer to the feelings of the penurious Scots- man when he came to London and continually said, ' Bang goes saxpence ! > >> The following letters were written by me to the Right Honourable St. John Brodrick (Lord Midleton), Secretary of State for War, an official ecen ra ■ ^^^ personal friend for many years, isation ^ 1 M He warmly supported my efforts while in command of the Second Army Corps to decentralise administration. This support was, firstly, induced by his energetic genius for organisation, and, secondly, because his broad mind enabled him to appreciate the necessity of devoluting responsibility, in order to obtain the best results. " Christmas Day, 1901. " I have been going round my district, and found at Netley fifty young soldiers of about twelve months' service each, who for over four months have not done more than one useful service training exercise, and M 177 Winnowed Memories that but for two hours one afternoon. On the other hand, they have been weedmg the Commandant's garden, carrying coals and herding patients within certain boundaries. These young soldiers, as well as twelve others, who are also first for service in South Africa, are employed on police duties, and learning nothing which can help them to fight England's enemies. I wish the Secretary of State for War would let the Army Corps Commanders have a free hand from January 1st to March 31st. If you excepted large financial questions, they could not do much harm. " In barracks which I have recently visited there are arrangements made to carry coals down on the heads and shoulders of fatigue men, when by cutting a hole in the ground, as you see made over every London coal cellar, the coals could be shot down with- out labour. To my objections I get the same answer : * We have a type, and we must follow it.' " One effect of everything being centralised in the War Office is that the most trivial questions are necessarily referred to someone in Whitehall, and I found a difficulty, especially as regards the Depart- ment of the Royal Engineers, in obtaining any relaxa- tion of the centralising rules. "A. In November, I found that it was still necessary to ask the permission of the Secretary of State for War to make a hole for a stove-pipe in the Dry Bar Canteen at Fort Fareham. *' B. The Royal Albert Yacht Club had for years had the enjoyment of the use of a gravel path on the beach at Southsea, but I found it was necessary to ask permission to cement this path, 178 Red Tape although not even the children who played on the gravel would have been inconvenienced. A week later I was refused authority to give the Postmaster-General leave to put up two telephone poles on War Department land, and similarly to place a letter-box in a wall near Hythe. " The inquiries which I instituted, sometimes to the annoyance of the local Generals on the Staff, elicited some curious anachronisms. It appeared that there was a boat's crew under the control of a General Officer of one of the Sub-Districts, and when inquiries were made as to how often the boat had been employed, it was found on very few occasions ; but the Aide- de-Camp plaintively wrote, ' If the boat's crew is struck off, who is to clean the General's horses ? ' ; and a further inquiry elicited the fact that of the six men employed, four were the General's gardeners, one a stableman, and one man in the house, all of whom ought to have been learning how to prepare them- selves for War." Salisbury, February Srd, 1902. " We have, as I think unwisely, erected some batteries on one of the Scilly Islands. I do not believe in the necessity — and, granting the necessity, I am not satisfied it has been done in the right way. On this question, however, I am going to see the I.G.F. and the President of the Joint Naval and Military Committee, and I need not refer to that further, except that I am again bent on saving some money which, if expended, will not, I think, produce value. After 179 Winnowed Memories considerable correspondence the local C.R.E. decided that a large sum was necessary to erect fencing to enclose the whole of the plateau round the new bat- teries, and this was intended to keep out too curious sightseers, and also to check a raiding party which might be landed from boats. " I visited the spot with the officer who made the recommendation, which had been accepted and recommended to me by the G.O.C. The District C.R.E. has now agreed with me that we can do the work better and at a considerable reduction — ^about half the sum — ^by not enclosing the whole area, but by running the fencing round the individual works. Even if it cost more we should have to do this, for to attempt to defend the whole enclosure with the allotted garrison is obviously impossible, and as regards keeping out sightseers, not only some married people of ours live inside, but also Lloyd's signallers, so the idea of enclosing the whole place is not feasible. *' I shall be disappointed myself if at the end of a year I have not justified your sending me here by saving a considerable part of my salary, if my recom- mendations are accepted." Salisbury, April nth, 1902. " I am afraid we have not really got much more forward than we were when last I wrote to you. I think all the R.E. officers are doing all they can ; but, as I believe you know, my proposal to have an understudy to General Barklie, in the shape of Colonel i8o Photograph b^ EUioU & Frs Jija-fjuuL. J\%tHLcth, 1908. Your letter is in itself a lesson in Geography. One never really realises what an enormous country Canada is until one gets a letter from an intimate friend, and then it makes me sympathise with the American who declared he always felt un- comfortable in England, fearing he should fall into the sea if he moved away, say from Plymouth, in his sleep, and he might easily get drowned before awaking in the North Sea. " You will do better to accept employment, if offered, in the United Kingdom ; but if one is badly off it is well to conceal the fact as much as possible. In the military world at least the Biblical dictum that those who have are most likely to receive undoubtedly comes true. With the income you mention I have not the slightest doubt that you will be wise to stop in England. Every soldier as keen as you are wants to be shot at, and so far as human foresight goes, there is little or no chance of any war in India in the next few years to come. This being so, I should say Europe is the place for the rising soldier, and not the Far East or even the Middle East. " I have been striving, though ineffectually, to persuade Mr. Haldane and the Army Council that it is not practicable to form Field Artillery when the Officer Commanding a Battery is a civilian and knows nothing about guns. "At the end of the hunting season I got from two Masters of Hounds and my friends a promise of thirty-six drivers (quite enough for one battery) at 187 winnowed Memories the Meet about three miles from my house. We had a very good fellow to raise the battery, a civil engineer, a man about thirty-five and making a professional income of about £2,000 a year. He asked my advice, begging I would speak frankly, and I told him what I had said to Mr. Haldane, that if I were allowed to select from the whole of the Cavalry and Infantry in the Army a man to raise and command a battery of Field Artillery I could not find one, and therefore I advised him to decline the offer. This he has done, and so, at all events, as far as that battery is con- cerned, and Harlow, as the centre of two Hunts, was an ideal spot in which to raise it, the project has fallen through. " Evelyn Wood." t4 Harlow, August 22nd, 1913. " To the Adjutant-General to the Forces, " I send you herewith a picture taken from Country Life, which was sent to me with a request that I should address you on the subject. The picture On Dangerous represents a battery horse being jumped Touniaments ^^^^ soldiers, who are being 'taught to take a kick lying down.' I depre- cate any such performance, and hope that you will not mind my protesting to you against it, in recollec- tion that I have also been Adjutant-General. " As such, I apprehend that you would find it very difficult to secure a pension for a man who is hit in the back or in the head and rendered non- effective by the horse taking off a bit too soon in its i88 Dangerous Tournaments jump. Where officers exert legitimate influence over their men, young soldiers will generally be found to do what they are told by commissioned or non-com- missioned officers. The training, however, is very bad for a horse. Since 1855, when quartered at home, I have been hunting regularly ; but since my earliest experience I have never jumped my horses over any- thing in the shape of an upright obstacle when they were young, unless it was calculated to rap their shins severely, so that the animal might learn to pick up his legs. The hands of the driver in the picture, although well placed, being low down, have too tight a hold of the horse's head, and sooner or later a horse held so hard as that shown in the picture must brush the obstacle. "I can see no gain in the practice, except that of making money by gratifying a morbid desire to see injury inflicted. " No doubt the Battery Officer concerned will say with justice that the Adjutant-General approved of a similar show in the Tournament carried out this year at Olympia." * To a lady who asked me to exert influence for her brother, I wrote : " Millhurst, " Harlow, " September Mh, 1914. " I personally attended to the transport of your brother from Gakdul in 1885, and marvelled at his stoical courage. * N.B. — The show was discontinued. 189 Winnowed Memories "I do not think that any influence I had in the War Office has outlasted fourteen years. I've been trying for twenty-eight days to carry J a through an official matter affecting 40,000 National Reservists, so far ineffectually, although I have worked for the cause four years. I have three soldier sons all anxious to fight in France, but I have not written a line to the War Office on their behalf, and so, much as I esteem your gallant brother, I cannot ask for his employment." In July, 1915, there was a weird, ghastly incident in Gallipoli on the front of the Australians, whose gallantry has immortalised them, which, T -j^ i ' so far as I know, has not been related Incident in print. The Anzacs, after a demonstra- tion with lighted hand grenades in one direction, drew the Turkish fire, and then an attack was delivered on another portion of the front. There were a number of dead Turks lying between the trenches of the opposing troops, and the enemy mistaking their dead comrades for a line of advancing Australians, threw at the corpses a number of bombs. The scorched grass soon caught fire, and as the ammunition on the corpses was reached by the flames there was a continuous series of explosions, which drew from the enemy a concentrated fire of artillery and machine guns directed on the dead Turks, and which was con- tinued until a great quantity of ammunition had been expended, while the Australians hadnot fired a shot. 190 CHAPTER XI MILITARY ANECDOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE Soon after I went to Salisbury, in 1901, I wrote the following letter : ''November 11th, 1901. To Lord Roberts. " Would you like Lord Kitchener to consider the raising of Mounted Infantry from Horse and Field Artillery ? My idea is : send two guns unners as ^^^ wagons home from each battery, material only. Take from each battery a subaltern and enough to make up one-third of a Company. Take a Captain from the Brigade Division to command it, and keep it intact. " Take a Major or Lieut.-Colonel to command four such Companies, to work as a Battalion. I've asked one gunner, who says my idea would be acceptable to the Royal Artillery. I am not so sure of it, but I think we ought to try. " I've not got any books or returns open as yet, but I think Lord Kitchener has got nine Horse Bat- teries and fourteen Field Brigade Divisions — say, eight Horse Artillery equal four Companies ; fourteen Field Brigade Divisions equal, say, fourteen Companies." Later, this suggestion was carried out and answered well. 191 Winnowed Memories {Family Diary Letter, February 22nd, 1902.) On Saturday, the 15th, I lunched with Colonel Grierson, the Chief Staff Officer. A very smart ex- ^, , Horse- Artilleryman waited on us. Grier- R 11"*^*^'^ ^^^ amused me much by telling me that after a prolonged struggle to get this servant's wife on the married roll he heard of a vacancy which was promised him in a Field Battery at Alder- shot, as for such purposes there is practically no divi- sion between the two branches. When the man heard his wife was to be registered for a Field Battery, he said, " No, I would sooner go without it. Once a Horse Artilleryman always a Horse Artilleryman." (Diary Letter to Children, June 2nd, 1902.) " Next morning I went out to see the East Kent Yeomanry, commanded by Lord Harris. It is the best equipped regiment in saddlery of Pj*^* ^ any I have seen. He has got some very good officers ; one — ^Major Howard — ^I have met before ; several of them have been out to South Africa. I saw a young officer surprise a post of Mounted Infantry very well, and learnt that he was a Master of Harriers. After lunch we went out to the Pier Turret ; it was built at great expense, and holds a monster gun. " I went down to the eastern arm of the new har- bour works, being shown over by the Admiralty Surveyor, Mr. Wilson, who is an Eton man, and is now what we call Clerk of Works. He has a large staff under him to check the work. He showed us the process by which the blocks of concrete are laid 192 Encircling Tactics at the bottom of the sea. Four men go down in a large diving-bell, and with picks and shovels prepare the bottom of the sea, making it quite level. Enor- mous blocks of concrete are then lowered to the bottom, after being carried out on an overhead crane, and adjusted by a man in a diving-dress, who is able with his hands and shoulders to place them exactly as they are wanted. The concrete blocks are of various sizes, the largest weighing 40 tons and 25 tons. The blocks are fitted with holes into which cement is poured. The process of making the con- crete is interesting. When we went up a ladder and walked out to the head of the overhead rail, 's head swam, I suppose, for he would not come with us. I am not very good at that sort of thing, but really the platform on which we were walking was very wide." During the War in South Africa, 1899-1901, many of our thinking senior officers beheved that the single and sometimes double outflanking move- Tactics at ments — which were generally made against Manceuvres ., ,-» • -j.* i • i . p the Boers m position, who wisely never in It cac6 tin attempted to accept the shock of a stand-up fight against a superior force, except as at Paardeberg, where they could not get away — would be unsuitable if executed against regular European troops. Before the manoeuvres the Commander-in-Chief with great courtesy asked me, as I was senior to Sir John French, who was my prospective opponent, if I would act as an Umpire. I replied that I should N 193 Winnowed Memories much prefer to command even the smallest force, and, besides my own personal feelings, I had determined to try and work out the effect of standing on the defensive, and delivering a counter-attack, if my adversary should extend his troops widely. I was, of course, aware that the Umpire-in-Chief was in favour of widely extended movements, but this mattered the less to me because, even supposing that he should be unconsciously biassed in his judg- ment, yet my opponent and I were such friends that we both equally looked less to gaining an advantage than to learning a lesson for our Army in future. He wrote to me on July 25th, in reply to an invitation to ride over to see me : " You have in your own personal self such a superior advantage over me that I cannot throw the least chance away, so shall stick to my camp. It is delightful to me to be in any way associated with you, even as an enemy, and a great consolation is that there can be no disgrace in being beaten by my great instructor." I replied on July 28th, " I must send you a line to thank you for your letter of Saturday. I do not feel at all sure of beating you, and if I have that great fortune, or misfortune, it will not give me any satisfaction beyond that of pleasing those who are serving with me. I wonder, did you ever see the pic- ture in the chess book, I think called ' Staunton's Rules of Chess,' and the lines underneath the picture, ' Until at last the old man was beaten by the boy ' ? " All manoeuvres are necessarily unreal, but those of 1903 were more so than usual, and for two reasons : Firstly, because the Senior Umpire on the Defending 194 Encircling Tactics side threw his shield over a Cavalry regiment of the Defenders commanded by my friend, Sir John French. The regiment was surprised by one of my brigades ; but as the men's dinners were nearly cooked the Umpire decided that the regiment was to be allowed to eat them in peace and released it from all penalties. Secondly, on the evening before the decisive battle, the Defending army having made a forced march, arrived within striking distance of the Invading force, which held the only water supply ; but the hour was then too late to obtain instruction or a decisive result, and the Umpire-in-Chief therefore ordered a truce until after the men's breakfast on the following day, when Sir John French's troops were sent back a short distance and ordered to get in position before they attacked. The Commander-in-Chief, who was Umpire-in-Chief, decided that the result was against the Invading force. I did not see all the counter-attack delivered by my troops, but was told at the time that the foreign Attaches, and in particular the Japanese, did not accept the soimdness of the decision of the Umpire-in- Chief. My antagonist and warm friend wrote in a letter after he got back to Aldershot : "I thoroughly enjoyed our manoeuvres, and should much like a talk with you about them. It was quite the most interesting tactical situation I ever saw in peace time — I mean on the 17th, when you launched that counter-attack. I hurried down to the spot myself and saw nearly the whole thing. I am persuaded that nothing but bullets and shell would have decided the point at issue. It 195 Winnowed Memories was a moment when all depended on firm, skilful lead- ing under fire on the part of the Company officers, but still it was most instructive. " I found it very difficult to regard you as an enemy, and I still hope that some day my dream of acting as your Chief of Staff may be realised. " Yours very sincerely, "J. D. French." In March, 1903, I was attacked in an ably con- ducted evening paper under the signature of " General Officer," who wrote : " All who were con- ewspaper cemed in that part of the War (against the Boers) prior to Lord Roberts appearing, claim justly that they did as they were taught by 'Sir Evelyn* at Aldershot — 'nothing but frontal attacks.' " The editor was a warm personal friend of mine, and in writing to him I offered to lodge £5 in his hands against a similar sum to be deposited by my anony- mous detractor if the editor would put the decision in the hands of one of his military contributors — Colonel (later Sir) Lonsdale Hale — and ask him to give an opinion as to the accuracy of the General's statement, the sum to be paid to the credit of the Press Fund according to the arbitrator's award. Colonel Hale had attended all my tactical opera- tions. After a week's delay the anonymous General declined to accept my challenge, but in the mean- time I had heard from the editor to the following effect : 196 Anonymous Detractors " Justice shall be done, but I cannot get at my General until early in next week. Whether he is of a sporting turn I know not, but if he has made an erroneous statement about your honoured self it shall most indubitably be put right. I have too much regard for you and all your good work to let even the shadow of a reproach rest on your military acumen.*' And I wrote in reply on March 19th, 1903 : " Many thanks for your charming letter, which obliterates the memory of the malevolent inaccuracies of your other General. When you have leisure please turn to page 450, Vol. 2, ' Times History, South African War ' : ' Hildyard . . . skilfully adapting his formation to the conditions of modern warfare . . . but it was not for nothing that Hildyard had spent the last two years training his Brigade at Alder- shot in loose order and taking every advantage of cover,' etc., etc. Your General correspondent when abusing me cannot know that I got Hildyard to come to me at Aldershot in 1890 as Chief Staff Officer; that I recommended him for command at the Staff College ; that I got him back from the Staff College in 1897 to command a Brigade at Aldershot. I hope my critic will accept my challenge. I suggested Lonsdale Hale as arbitrator or referee, as he wrote for your paper some articles which I could not endorse. We do not always agree, but he is just." June 27th, 1903. Colonel and Mrs. Paget came out shortly after tea for the week-end. I asked Mrs. Paget, known as ' The Rani,' to tell me the origin of his name, ' The 197 Winnowed Memories Rajah.' It appears that Paget's father, who served with me in 1859 in Central India during the final stages of the Mutiny, was separated from fR 'ah^ Put *^^ mother, and during her flight my friend, the Colonel, was born, actually on board a river steamer, but in the midst of troops, and he was immediately nicknamed * The Rajah.' " Paget interested me after dinner by telling me a story of myself, which Sir Redvers had told to a group of officers near Colenso in December, 1899. The conversation had turned on the encouraging effect on subordinates, gained by a senior officer's composure under difficulties, and Sir Redvers went on to describe how when retreating from the Inhlo- bane, March 28th, 1879, I had taken two bodies out of a grave to have it made longer, because I objected to the legs being doubled up. I think Sir Redvers gave me more credit than I deserved, for although many people were firing at us, they were making very bad shooting, and the several hundred Zulus who were running towards us were yet a mile off. I read the last words of the service after I had had the grave lengthened." In August, 1903, being anxious to encourage march- ing on compass bearings at as rapid a pace as is com- patible without distress to horses, I gave R*H ^"^^^^^ a silver cup for competition amongst the officers of the Second Army Corps, under the following conditions. They were to ride equipped as on service, and at a uniform pace, reporting at ten goal posts, which 198 .^: Riding by Compass were invisible from a distance, the course being from twenty to twenty-five miles. In order to win the cup it was essential that the rider's horse should eat half a feed of oats within sixty minutes of finishing the distance, and the horse was to be unmarked by spur or whip. A Committee of officers of all Arms awarded the prize. Red House, Durrington, " Nr. Salisbury, August 2Brd, 1903. To Lord Roberts, " I think you may be interested to hear what hap- pened about our Compass Bearing Ride yesterday. " Ninety-one officers entered, and about twenty- five got round. I satisfied myself that of these at least twelve horses had eaten half a feed of corn, most of them readily. Approximately the best time for twenty -three miles was three hours and ten minutes, consistent with the horse's appetite ; one or two men went round in two hours and forty-five minutes, but their horses would not look at corn, " The most remarkable point about my Musketry Cup is the indifference to musketry in the regiments. One team shot fairly well, but did not know the con- ditions as to long, effective, and decisive ranges, and in another instance a team was sent to march twelve miles instead of six. It was second in the competi- tion, and would probably have been first but for this mistake. Officers are certainly much more keen than they were, but there is evidently a great deal to be done in impressing on them the importance of shoot- 199 Winnowed Memories ing. I shall have another try at this important matter." In forwarding the reports on the Artillery prac- tice at Bulford, I came on one or two interesting points within the personal knowledge a oons ^^ Colonel Parsons (now Lieut.-General and Gunfire ^ Sir Laurence Parsons). One was that on February 22nd, 1900, thirty-eight shells fired by a single Boer gun burst between the centre sec- tion of the 78th Battery, i.e. within twenty odd yards, and without hurting anyone. Another interest- ing point was that when firing at the balloons which I got lent to me for practice on Salisbury Plain, at the first unknown range, 3,300 yards distant, and 500 yards in the air, the balloon was struck the first time, but it did not fall till forty-six other shots had been fired at it. The Battery then came into action at 4,400 yards, when the balloon was 200 feet higher in the air. The officer in com- mand tried what is called the " long bracket," i.e. firing one over and one under until he got the range, and in six minutes he brought the balloon down. This indicates that the aeronauts of the future will have a bad time. (Extract from Minutes of Meeting of the Army and Navy Board, held at the Wesleyan Centenary Hall, Bishops- gate Street, E.C) " The Secretary called attention to the fact of Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood's approaching retire- ment, and it was resolved that a letter be addressed 200 PhnI, ;'.iiipU />« Ucuiiuilil Hiiimt Suggested Cyclist Concentration by the Secretary to Sir Evelyn expressing the grate- ful appreciation of the Board for the interest he has Wesleyans ^^^ ^^ many years taken in our work in the Army, and the services he has in so many ways rendered to it." (Signed) T. E. W. Allen. Towards the end of the year 1903 I asked Lord Roberts if he would approve of our trying a concen- ^ tration of cyclists on a given point on Concentration c t i, -m • of Cyclists Salisbury Plain. My idea was to take a point on the centre of the Plain, and invite all the cyclists within a circle of fifty to sixty miles to concentrate within thirty miles of the centre of the Plain on Holy Saturday, rest on the Sunday, and attack on the Monday morn- ing, returning home that night. " I think we might learn a good deal in the concentration, although there will be less learnt in the actual attack." At Salisbury, on November 11th, 1901, I addressed Lord Roberts as follows : " I venture to write to you about the retiring Chaplain- General, J. C. Edghill. There is no one about you knows as I do how great his services have been to The the Army for forty years. ^napiain- a j j^^gitate to put on paper what some of the chaplains were in 1867-8. " Some years ago I got the numbers of communicants on Easter Sunday in 1866, about which time Edghill went to the Tin Church, Aldershot, and again about 1891-2. I do not venture to quote them from memory, but they were either quadrupled or quintupled. 20I Winnowed Memories *' Edghill has raised the standard of the Department in an extraordinary degree. Now that the chaplains are natur- ally disheartened by the appointment of an Outsider, I think it may do good all round if some mark of appreciation were shown to Dr. Edghill." The Chaplain- General, in whose favour I was addressing Lord Roberts, had written to me a long and painful letter on March 30th the previous year, when he had learnt that the Commander-in-Chief objected to the choirmen and boys wearing surplices, and was about to issue an order forbidding the practice. I personally dislike the mixing of vestments with uniform ; but, conscious of the immensity of good to religion that Edghill had effected while at the head of the Chaplain's Department, I suggested a com- promise, which, however, my Chief would not accept. I was aware, though, that Dr. Edghill's letter would only cause irritation, and I strove, therefore, to have it amended, writing on the day after I had received the Chaplain-General's letter as follows : " I am much touched by your letter, and though I send it back to you that you may know what chords to strike to produce the best effect for your purpose in Lord Wolseley's mind, pray return it to me, for I love the earnestness of piu*- pose indicated in every sentence, although I do not like putting anything on top of uniform at any Divine Service. " Do not allude to the Roman Catholics. (The order not sent out yet will apply to all.) Lord Wolseley loves soldiers as much as you do, prays, and reads night and morning. " Write to him direct. Touch but lightly on the proposed appeal to the Secretary of State for War, and ask him to re- consider the order as far as evening Services are concerned, or that the men may wear plain clothes at such. 202 Musketry Instruction " To meet your wishes I suggested this, but he declined to approve. " You might begin your letter by stating that you hear from Aldershot that the order is coming out, and then delete the parts I have marked blue in your letter. You can, of course, if you prefer, write to me as ' My dear Adjutant- General,' but eliminate in such case all questions of our per- sonal friendship, and where you touch on a further appeal to the Secretary of State, soften your language by writing : ' As successive Secretaries of State for War approved the practice, you hope if Lord Wolseley still feels unable to accede to your wishes he will submit the question to Lord Lansdowne.' What I want to urge on you is : regard the Commander-in- Chief as a man who loves soldiers ; appeal to him in the first instance. I am against you in the question of wearing surplices over uniform, but nobody in the Army loves soldiers more than does *' Yours affectionately, " Evelyn Wood." (Diary Letter to my Children, September Sth, 1902.) " I went out next morning to see the shooting for the Second Army Corps Cup, which I gave. The per- formance was calculated to encourage ^ * ^ . people who go into action. Three teams competed, each consisting of four men, one of whom acted as leader ; they were presumably the best in the South-Eastern, Southern, and Western Districts, having competed in their Districts before they came here. I admit the conditions are very difficult ; the ground on which they shot consists of rolling plain without a tree or any mark to guide the eye, consequently it is very difficult to judge distance. " The team from Shorncliffe shot first ; it was 203 Winnowed Memories composed of men of the Regiment : three very young soldiers, and one veteran who could not double even two or three hundred yards. The team from the Southern District, formed from the shire details, were very young soldiers of about four months' ser- vice, and they had not done their trained soldiers' course of musketry. The last team to shoot was fur- nished by the details of the Regiment, and the lengths of service of the men were seven, eleven, and about eighteen years, so they were Veterans. The targets were at 2,500, 1,400, 800, and 340 yards. The one at 2,500 yards was the only range which was guessed with any accuracy, the team shooting, three men at 2,500 and one man at 2,600 yards. The second team was practically right, while the first was half a mile out. When they came to shooting at the nearer ranges, however, the mistakes were ludicrous. When the targets jumped up — as they did by a string pulling them like a ' jack-in-the-box ' at 340 yards — all the men thought it was between 500 and 600 yards ; they then only had a target the size of a man's chest down to his waist; but the target at 2,500 yards, or, say, a mile and a half, consisted of a quarter of a battalion standing in column ; it offered, therefore, a good broad and a deep mark. In the result, however, it was never touched, and in the 1,100 shots which were fired by the three teams — one team having failed to fire off all its ammunition — the targets were only hit five times. I am telling Lord Roberts that this indi- cates to me that our system of teaching must be wrong. It is a handsome cup, and I do not grudge the money, hoping that next year there will be a better competi- 204 Visit to High Clifte tion, and the very faulty shooting this year may lead to attention being paid to our method of instruction." (Diary Letter to my Children, July 21stf 1903.) " The C.R.E., in submitting papers, had asked for some iron railings at a cost of £500. I pointed out that he had railings there which IT^h ri'ft ^^^^ ^^^ used, and he might very well transfer them. To this he assented, so my journey saved at all events £500. I expect also that I shall save about £1,800 for a drill hall. There is a veranda, which is not required, 700 feet long by 10 feet wide, which affords ample space for the recruits drilling. I went then to look at a site desired by Wesleyans, and thence motored to High Cliffe, near Christchurch. The drive is lovely through Lynd- hurst and all the southern part of the New Forest. Stuart- Wortley, who was my Aide-de-Camp in Egypt, met me outside the grounds. " I have not seen any more beautiful place than High Cliffe as regards situation and building. The original owner appears to have possessed an old castle in the North of France, and he brought over a part of it and built it into the house, adapting the architec- ture of the old part, which he removed from the castle in Brittany. There is a beautiful view of the Needles, distant seven miles from the lawn, and the place has been planted with great taste and effect. My host showed me a mass of original letters written by the Duke of Wellington. One interested me a good deal, written at 4 a.m. on the morning of June 18th, 1815, to our minister, Charles Stuart- Wortley, and my host 205 Winnowed Memories argues from it, especially from its tone, that the story of Wellington having ridden over from Waterloo to Wavre during the night is correct ; for myself I could not see the argument, but Wellington evidently made sure at 4 a.m. that Blucher was coming to his support during the day. To my mind, however, it does not necessarily follow that Wellington had gone himself to Wavre. There is a striking picture of Copenhagen's head, the horse the Duke rode. I never knew until I was at High Cliffe that the horse had won two or three races before it was given to the Duke." Some War Office rules may seem at first sight to be absurd, and the fact that I am obliged to certify monthly that I am alive and that my J'^^f ^^2^ ^^^ signature has to be attested quarterly India Office , ...„,.. Red Taoe ^ ^ mmister oi religion or a magis- trate may appear on the face of it to be unnecessary ; but, on the other hand, I have known a case in which a clergyman certified that a man was alive, and another man received for eight years his friend's pension after the pensioner's death. When I was Quartermaster-General an officer in the Army Service Corps whom I took with me to inquire into contracts at a Colonial station, discovered the first day that more mules had been paid for on hire daily than existed in the Command, and this fraud had been rendered possible by disregard of a War Office order which directed that requisitions on the contractor for mule transport should be signed daily by the Engineer Officer who required stores to be lifted from place to place. The young officer, to save 206 Red Tape in India himself trouble, had adopted the practice of signing a weekly requisition in advance, which his foreman filled up, and he, sharing the proceeds with the con- tractor, obtained a good deal of money by this nefarious system. I have in another place pointed out that what seems to be useless precautions of guarding the public money have in effect been instituted only after ample proof that such regulations are essential ; but it so happened that the War Office and its affairs come much more before the public than any of the other great departments of State. In re-reading some of my letters written to my family over sixty years ago, I see that I pointed out with much aggravation the trouble that I had in obtaining pay from the Government. It is only fair to explain that the column of which I was Staff Officer having started from the Bombay Presidency continued its operations both in Bengal and Madras, but it might fairly have been thought that this would have made no difference as to the source from which a Staff Officer's emoluments were issued. My correspond- ence, however, was continued for a year after I had rendered the services in question, and although the amounts claimed were never challenged, yet three different Paymasters were in correspondence with me, writing to the effect, " the amounts are accurate, but get them from the other Paymaster." Regimental officers believed that the Babus, or English-speaking Native clerks, in India got a per- centage on every claim which they could get rejected or reduced ; but I think that the desire to gain favour 207 it Winnowed Memories by economising at the expense of others is indigenous in all officers. This view is supported by the letter I quote below, written more than fifty years afterwards. Before I wrote privately to the Secretary of State for War, I had submitted my claim some three or more times, offering sarcastically to forward a certifi- cate, signed by a clergyman, to the effect that I was actually alive on the days for which half-pay was claimed, but all to no effect. The Secretary of State for War, writing to me semi-officially about official matters, asked if he could do anything for me personally. I replied : " Bamlehf Alexandria, September 15th, 1882. " I shall be glad of your aid in a personal matter. When Sir G. CoUey was killed I was appointed to succeed him on the same pay, etc. When I left Natal I asked the Colonial Office, ' Will you give me a Gover- nor's passage home and half-salary until Sir H. Bulwer embarks ? ' — the usual course, and which poor Colley would have received. The Colonial Office said, ' Not a penny of any sort. From December 21st, 1881, when you embarked, we know nothing of you.' I then sent all this correspondence to your Office, saying, ' Please pay me as a General.' Your people replied, ' You were a Colonial Governor ; we last paid you in February, 1881, and shan't pay you a penny until you reappeared at Chatham about February 20th, 1882.' I then addressed Lord Kim- berley, pointing out I was tired of being a shuttlecock, and he signed a very long letter explaining that it was 208 Red Tape in London impossible he should pay, but he would ask you (of course I mean the Office) to accord me the most liberal treatment. I made three attempts before I left, August 3rd, but it was ' still under consideration,' and unless my refusal to pay some stoppage accruing in January, 1882, on the ground I could not pay out of nothing, brings up the question, I apprehend it may remain under consideration for some time yet. It is to be understood I have not had a penny of pay from December 21st to February 20th (?), 1882. " I am ashamed of troubling you in a personal matter, but then I am more ashamed of the Office's interminable delay. .; Evelyn Wood." Some of the Ministers under whom I have served at the War Office and in Districts have been under the impression, shared by the public, that the War Office has always been tied up in different water-tight compartments more than any of the other spending Departments, but this has not been my experience. In 1904, when I was in command of the 2nd Army Corps, with headquarters at Salisbury, I received a letter from the Officer Commanding the 2nd Central India Horse, asking me to become the Honorary Colonel of the regiment which I raised in 1860. I replied to the effect that if the suggestion applied to the 1st and the 2nd Central India Horse, and there was to be one Honorary Colonel for the two regiments, the offer should, I thought, be made in the first instance to Colonel Sir Edward Bradford, Bart., who was Adjutant of the 1st Central India Horse, and this because he had spent all his service in India, while I had only o 209 Winnowed Memories gone there for the Mutiny, and was something like three years only in the country. Some months afterwards, having had no reply, I put the matter before the Secretary of State for India, from whom I had received many acts of kindness, stating that I knew from having worked under his directions that he would accept my view that my friend Bradford should have the first offer. The Secretary of State took up the question, and while writing to me a very kind letter, expressed his regret that the rules of the India Office endorsing those of the Government would not permit of my being made an Honorary Colonel of the regiment because I never belonged to the Indian Army, and that my friend Bradford was also ineligible because he was not a General. Most unprejudiced people will agree that for a Red Tape system this cannot be beaten. 3IO CHAPTER XII AFTER-DINNER SPEECHES As Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company, it fell to my lot to propose the health of Sir J. Pender, which I did in the following manner : *' Some of you may remember that Burke wrote ' Old impossibilities are modern probabilities.' Sir John Pender has outdone even ' modern probabilities,' having ^. - , turned them into ' certainties.' Fishmongers ,, ,,, . . . . , . „ TT 11 We are apt to accept the conveniences of a great achievement as though it were our rightful inheritance, but it is often the travail of one man's yesterday that makes the birthright of the many to-day. "It is well that we should be sometimes reminded of what we owe to the pioneer who has made our track easy to us, and it is pleasant to feel that while we welcome our distinguished guest to-night we are speaking not only for ourselves, not only even for this ancient Company, not only for our wide- stretching Empire, but for all the civilised world, and more especially for the great free worlds of America and Colonial England. " There was no Royal road open to the little Glasgow boy who first made his mark by winning a gold medal for draw- ing. It may be that Sir John's well-known love of Art, of which he has been a munificent patron, is the natural sequel of early tastes, the gratification of which had to be postponed while he fought the battle of commercial life, and, as we are glad to understand, successfully. " There was no Royal road for him then. There was 211 Winnowed Memories sorrow and disaster before him to overcome and to triumph over ; but he lives to be the chief promoter, the sustaining force, of roads which were to bring together Royalties and their Realms. " Possibly some, but certainly not all of us, know how when the second Atlantic cable lay broken under mid-ocean, and its promoters fell into deep waters of another sort, who it was that came forward with characteristic boldness, and by his personal guarantee of an enormous sum of money, enabled the old cable to be replaced by a new and better one. He had to face a special general meeting, a room full of irri- tated shareholders. There were cries of ' Liquidate,' ' Wind up,' ' Throw no more good money after bad.' " Sir John replied, ' Yes, gentlemen, you may go into liquidation, we may wind up, but I will never allow the French or the Germans to lay the first Atlantic cable. . . . Wind up this Company, but I tell you fairly that I shall immediately start another, and I am good now at this moment for a quarter of a million.' " Those of you who are engaged in commercial affairs will realise and appreciate the man's courage shown at that moment. For three years he bore this load of personal liability and that of an additional £50,000. " He thus inaugurated his first of many great triumphs of communication. It is a marvel of commerce, science, and romance, for no wizard ever foretold a greater wonder ; no poet could have dreamed of anything more far-reaching or inspiring than the long silent coil that lies deep down in the ocean, keeping us in quick and warm touch with our kindred in far-distant lands. " The whole ^f our Asiatic and Australian possessions are linked by that living chain. The whole of South Africa is encircled by it. No one can over-rate this stupendous work ; it is often difficult thoroughly to gauge all that it might be. The pall and darkness of distance are set at nought by the energy of a force formerly known only as an irresponsible destroying agent ; but behind this force is the master power 212 Sir Ralph Knox of genius, scintillant with an electric current which cannot easily be defined since its gift is of Divine origin. It is the * imperishable mind of man * which has set the lesser flame burning, and in this case the man is a notable instance of what genius and courage can effect. " Personally, I am deeply indebted to him for much thoughtful kindness, and he has enabled me and comrades to visit many historic battlefields on which our brave country- men have bequeathed fame to our country ; but it is as a public character that Sir John Pender will be remembered, since few men have done more to serve the public by large aims, and the energy with which he has pursued them, and brought them to be monuments of national success.'* As Chairman of a War Office Farewell Dinner to Sir Ralph Knox, K.C.B., Accountant-General, in 1897, I said : " In travelling by rail the attention of an observant man is arrested by contrasts in the faces of those who pass before him, by the mutability of expression seen in Sir Ralph the passengers, who, as the train draws up, Knox and its living freights unload, scatter on their various and varying errands — some of pleasure, others of business, and some of sorrow. The majority of those I see in the early hours of the day, when I generally travel, carry the preoccupied look of busy men, but I am most im- pressed by character when I pass the engine-driver ; he has a look totally different from those he has piloted to their destinations. These drivers are never excitable, nor joyful, nor depressed. We never hear of them so long as no un- toward accident occurs, and even when Royalty travels by train, directors receive the thanks or smiles of the gratified passengers, who seldom give a thought to the quiet, watchful, resolute bearing of the man whose life is spent in continuous and, so far as the general run of the public is concerned, un- appreciated toil. 213 winnowed Memories " If, therefore, I were such a servant who had served a board of directors successfully for a working lifetime, I should appreciate highly the presence, on a complimentary occasion, not only of those under whom I am still serving, but of many whose connection with the board of management has ceased. Our guest this evening, whom I have ventured to liken to the engine-driver, has risen steadily from the lowest to the highest post open to his ambition. " There are few now serving in the office who can realise what Mr. Knox was to him, so often described by the Com- mander-in-Chief as the ' greatest of British War Ministers.' When Mr. Cardwell was carrying out changes which met not only with strenuous opposition from nearly all the senior officers, but also with avowed reluctance by those at the head of the Army, i.e. the changes of Short Service, linked terri- torial battalions, and abolition of purchase, our guest was indeed Mr. Cardwell's right-hand man. He believed in the new schemes, and became Mr. Cardwell's chief adviser. " I suppose most soldiers in the War Office have occasion- ally disagreed with him, certainly I have, but I hope he will allow me to say to his face what I have often, and indeed ever, said behind his back, that I am and always have been satis- fied that he has ' ever thirsted for the Right.' *' During the last two years of high pressure few outside the office can have realised how the workers within have toiled at their duties. Uninspired by the emotions which animate public servants on active service, uncheered by any national sympathy with their work, the targets of much hysterical, irresponsible abuse, called Public Opinion, with as many outside critics as Job had in his friends during his tribu- lation, with as much contradictory advice as the man in the fable ; nevertheless many of you — and our friend and guest of this evening is a good example — have worked on, taking for chief consolation the recognition of the efforts of those at home made by those serving in the Field in South Africa, and secondly by the comprehension and confidence of fellow- workers. 214 Lord Wolseley Every strong man must have decided opinions. When- ever Ralph Knox and his soldier fellow- workers have dif- fered, I am confident that not only I, but all my military colleagues, have felt implicit confidence in the good faith of our friend whose health I now ask you to drink." {Diary Letter to my Children, December bih, 1900.) " I had to come away from Belhus in the afternoon at 3.30, and missed what was to be the best stand, as indeed I did last year ; but it was essential that I se ey should not be late, for we were giving Lord Umner & & Wolseley a dinner at the Junior Constitu- tional Club. We sat down ninety at table, and the evening was pleasant enough. I had a very difficult task to perform in proposing Lord Wolseley's health, for some eighty-six of those present knew a great deal of his and my limitations — perhaps not quite so much as I did, but still quite sufficient to make me very careful. I am putting up a copy of what I said. I pleased Lord Wolseley, which is the great thing. " In proposing to you the toast of our comrade Field- Marshal Lord Wolseley, I advisedly use the word ' comrade,' for never, in the course of many years' service, have I met one who stood less on his personal dignity. His everyday custom has been to regard soldiers, whom he respects as hard- working, honest servants of the Queen, not piu-ely as sub- ordinates, but as comrades in the highest sense of the term. " I do not venture to speak of what he has done during the last five years of his life, for many of us here are so closely bound up with his work that in mentioning his services I might be supposed, by implication, to be lauding our own efforts. I should like, however, to recall in a few words some salient features of his, what may be accurately termed, mar- vellous career. 215 Winnowed Memories " The conditions under which he entered the Service were very different from the comparatively smooth path which now awaits the ambitious young soldier. When Garnet Wolseley joined the Army, officers who volunteered for active service, or tried to improve their military knowledge, received very little encouragement from those then at its head. " There was no trained Staff, and the feeling of the regi- mental officer was very different from what it is now ; there was little enthusiasm for hard work, or for service in un- healthy climates. The military knowledge of most officers was certainly at a low ebb, and I suppose everyone in this room admits that the one man who has changed us, and has increased a desire in all ranks to do their duty, who has in a word re- generated the Army, is our guest this evening. " When I remember the dangerous wound in Burma ; his terrible wound at the Redan of Sevastopol ; his reckless courage and hairbreadth escapes in the India Mutiny in 1857-8 ; his brilliant Staff services in China in 1860-1 ; and his adventiurous expedition up the Red River, which succeeded because it was so admirably organised, I am astounded at the inexhaustible energy of om* comrade. " I had the honour of serving under him in Ashanti, and as, on my return, I told the then Commander-in-Chief, Ad- jutant-General and Military Secretary, if Sir Garnet Wolseley had gone down there was nobody else who would have ven- tured to enter Coomassie with only one day's food in hand. " All of us know how thoroughly he succeeded at Tel-el- Kebir, but few know what he expressed in a letter written to me the day before he carried the position — his cheery, hope- ful, sanguine nature. He wrote, ' Arabi has made some won- derful fortifications, but they are so extensive that he will probably lose his way in them, and anyhow we shall turn him out as soon as we can advance.' History has recorded that had he started to relieve Gordon when he first asked to be allowed to do so, that unselfish soldier would have been rescued. History will later do justice to the man who 216 Coleridge Grove and Ardagh organised and sent abroad the largest force which any Nation has ever attempted to transport across the seas." ^ As Chairman of a Farewell Dinner given by the War Office, in 1900, to Sir Coleridge Grove and Sir John Ardagh I made the following speech : " I thank you for your presence here to-night in helping me to pay a small compliment to our two friends. We lose tried comrades, but we are left with the p, A memory of examples by which we may all ArdaiSh profit. " I hesitated whether I should propose their healths, inasmuch as that necessitates saying something, and really I believe Coleridge Grove and John Ardagh know so well how I regard them, that they would willingly have avoided being told by me what I feel. Two of my colleagues, however, whom I consulted, said, not unkindly, ' We do not want to hear you, but we want the opportunity of your show- ing om* regret in losing them.' *' There is perhaps no greater proof of a man's worth, and of his qualities, than is to be found in the barometer of oiu* feelings towards him after a yachting trip. I have made two such trips with Ardagh, each of some duration, and I may say I have liked him better every day I have known him. " In Coleridge Grove's departure, I may remind you that we are losing a wise counsellor, a cultivated scholar, and good soldier who has been the right hand of many highly placed officers, a sure support, a strong tower of defence, and in every capacity he has earned the goodwill and respect of everyone who has worked with him. " There are some suggestive lines in Clarendon where it is written, ' The night came and severed all parties, tired with the duties of the day.' In losing these two fellow- workers, night has come to me, but *duty' will be synonym- ous with their names, and I ask you to drink to each of them ' Long Life and Happiness.' " 217 Winnowed Memories At the Christmas Dinner, 1900, of the Institute of Civil Engineers, I made the following remarks : " In thanking you on behalf of my comrades, I do not propose to trouble you with the replies of the Department . in which I am working, to the criticisms that ivi ngi- have been bestowed upon it ; when such are nccrs and • < o .1 A i- • intelligent and iust they must make for the South African . . ^. J- t u i w good 01 the nation. 1 may, however, remark that, whereas a year ago a statement by the Commander-in-Chief to the effect that he was prepared to send abroad two Army Corps was received with doubt, yet he has accomplished much more than he undertook to do. Two Army Corps consist approximately of 70,000 men, and if we allow 20,000 more for the Lines of Communication — which number must vary according to the length of the Line which has to be guarded — we may put the numbers required for two Army Corps and Lines of Communication at 90,000 of all ranks. No soldier supposes that 35,000 men necessarily make an Army Corps, since elaborate arrangements are necessary not only to feed, clothe, and equip men, but also to succoiu* the wounded, and the still more numerous sick. For this purpose alone we are employing in South Africa over 1,000 doctors, and as many female nurses as are acceptable. " As regards the number of fighting men, we have sent out the equivalent of six Army Corps, i.e. 211,000 men, besides feeding and in part equipping the 33,000 men which the patriotic exertions of our Colonial brothers have enabled us to put into the Field. We have supplied also 95,000 horses and 146,000 mules. " It may be interesting to gentlemen of your profession if I say something of what engineers have done to help in the War. Probably most of you have read how your brothers in Kimberley not only erected meat cold storage buildings, but the De Beers Company built and armoured locomotives which were constantly under fire. *' To the regret of every man who served in Kimberley, 2l8 Engineers and South African War and most men there served in one form or another, Mr. Labram, to whose skill and ingenuity the garrison owed more than can be said in the limits of an after-dinner speech, was killed in his own room, after having successfully taken part in a duel between a 100-pr. gun of the enemy and a gun of his own construction. This gun, made in Kimberley, had a calibre of 4.1, and fired a 28-lb. shell ; it was necessary to make the machinery for rifling, and yet the gun, with its necessary ammunition, was constructed in fourteen days, and proved to be an effective and accurate weapon. " You are all of you conversant with searchlights and their power ; it is interesting to note that observers could only see about 2,000 yards, except in the case of Mounted troops, and these were seen by the reflection of the light in the horses' eyes. " Probably you have read of the good work which has been done by traction engines. I have not yet seen any official data, but I have reason to believe that they have been very successful, and extraordinarily economical. '* The destruction of the high-level bridges and the in- numerable small culverts over several hundred miles of rail- way was a serious matter; but it had been foreseen, and arrangements made here in London for the repairs and recon- struction were cut and dried in the minutest detail. The rapidity with which these difficulties have been overcome is known to you all. "As yet no details have reached England as to the repair- ing of the tunnel at Laing's Nek, but the Press have told us how, in spite of 150 yards of the tunnel at the North and South ends having been blown up, yet in six days after the troops obtained possession of the Nek the first train passed through. I think it constitutes what in sporting parlance is termed a ' World record.' *' I have not seen any published account of the bridging of the Tugela River. Our Engineers had constructed in Natal a trestle bridge, and had it ready loaded up on trucks at Maritzburg for our first attempt to relieve Ladysmith had it 2iq Winnowed Memories Succeeded. Moreover, timber was cut and prepared for repairing the Colenso road bridge. Thus when the oppor- tunity at last occurred, a simple message, * Come,' brought up a train with all the material ready. A party of twelve carpenters and one handy man had been drilled to erect a hundred-foot run in thirty-six hours, which was suitable for any span up to 30 feet, and some experts who have looked at the bridge say that there is not one-eighth of an inch of material wasted anywhere in the structure. A run of 450 feet was stencilled so that it could be taken down and moved forward wherever it was required at the front. The bridge was of immense use eventually in bringing the sick across the river after the relief of Ladysmith, and the site of it was so cleverly selected that although the Boers shelled all the surrounding ground, they never found out the exact position of the bridge. It was indeed so well concealed by the natural features of the ground that a General in the immediate vicinity was not aware that it had been constructed. " I saw in the earlier part of the War a touching letter from an officer serving with Australians, written to his wife. He says : ' We started from Queensland with two of every- thing — socks, coats, and pantaloons — and now are reduced to very vulgar fractions. Some of our jackets want sleeves, the ceilings of our pants want renewing — but as the female sex is entirely absent it does not matter. I am lying on my tummy on the hot sand, writing on a board, the sun blazing down on my head, and dust blowing in clouds. We have no water nearer than three miles ; the dead have been buried only about 2 feet deep, and typhoid has broken out. To- day I am getting up sports for the men : high jump — ^first prize, flannel shirt. The men will jump all they can. We are told to boil all the water we use, but have got a ration of coal insufficient to cook our meat, and there is not a tree for miles or a blade of grass — nothing but sand. I write all this misery to you because I have to be cheerful before the men.* 220 Engineers and South African War " probably most of you have read the glowing accounts of the actions which have been fought, but very few of you can be aware of the monotonous wearying work which our troops undergo. I have read, this last mail, the diary of a Cavalry oj0[icer, written to his wife, and throughout a very long letter there is not the slightest indication of complaint or girding at those in authority over him, although it happened more than once that within three or four hours of his reaching his bivouac, say at 1 a.m., having whipped in the last wagons of the rearguard, his squadron had to start again at 5 a.m., to scout in advance of the advanced guard. The particular instance to which I am referring occurred during the advance northwards from Ladysmith. On May 11th the force moved from Sundays River to the Waschbank River, a distance of about twelve miles ; the squadron of the writer was on rear- guard, and therefore waited till the whole of the column had moved off. The first wagons crossed the Sundays River at 5.30 A.M., and the last one at 6.30 p.m. ; thus the squadron, after being under arms all day, did not move till 7 p.m., and reached the Waschbank River after the last wagon at 3.30 a.m. on the 12th. The night was pitch dark and very cold.* The squadron started again at five o'clock in the morning. I do not cite this as anything extraordinary, but as a part of war about which few of the correspondents write, and which we who grumble if a train from London to Edinburgh, timed to cover the 400 miles in eight and a half hours, is thirty minutes late, can scarcely realise from our home experience. " Well as officers have done, the men, as a general rule, have never behaved better than in this South Africa cam- paign. An eye-witness of the fight on the Tugela wrote to me : ' You know Colenso and the long sloping plain which for miles runs down to it. We were on the plain, every yard of which was known to the enemy, the distances measured, and the grass burnt so that our khaki showed up on black ground. The infantry attack began at 5.30 over this fire-searched plain ; the soldiers advanced as quietly as if they were in the * Midwinter in June. 221 Winnowed Memories Long Valley at Aldershot ; shells burst, men fell, but all the others pressed on, and in this way, over a fire-searched zone, they advanced and retired in the perfection of order as un- concerned as if they were drilling on a barrack square. We had a battery close to us ; shell after shell dropped among them — a column of dust 20 feet high — a loud explosion — and when the smoke cleared away there were horses and men down, some limping off, and others motionless, yet no man flinched. The day of this action was oppressively hot ; no water was procurable until the return of the troops, when it was brought up in large tanks by train to the bivouac. There were thousands of thirsty, dust- stained men waiting at the station for the opportunity of filling their water - bottles, a fit subject for a picture. Everything was as orderly as if the men were on parade, and so marked was the absence of noise and bustle, and pushing, or disorder, that you might have heard a pin drop ! ' " Gentlemen, these are the men who serve in what has been termed a ' paper force, a phantom army '; nevertheless, it has made itself felt in possessing territories equal in area to the greater part of Western Europe, and which stretch over coun- tries reaching as far as from the Pyrenees to the Carpathian Mountains." Answering to the toast of "The Army" at the Royal Academy Banquet, April, 1909, I said : " The first thing which occurs to me on standing up to acknowledge this toast is to say that there is a silent eloquence on the walls around us rich beyond all speeches. i, ® . It might seem that there is but little connec- P tion between artists and soldiers ; but military appreciation of your art goes back some 2,500 years, when Alexander the Great, having captured Thebes, carried off its best picture. It is remarkable that 2,400 years later the most successful soldier in history not only carried off Altdorfer's masterpiece, ' The Battle of Arbela,' but had it hung in his bathroom in order that he might 222 The Territorial Forces see it daily. Alexander could never have anticipated how his victory over Darius was to be immortalised — how a fine painter of one nation should so marvellously harmonise landscape and battle scenes as to enthral the appreciative attention of the greatest general of another race and period. Mr. President, I am much honoured by your connecting my name with the toast of the Army, and I am grateful to my hosts and fellow-guests for their reception of the toast. In the thirty-four years which have passed since you first accorded to me your generous and dignified hospitality, I understand your art schools have changed considerably, but surely not to the same extent as has the British Army system. I imagine I must be one of the last few siu'viving officers who purchased commissions. The abolition of the vicious system was the first step in reform, and better battle training followed. This was initiated by Sir Garnet Wolseley, and when I met him on my return from Salisbury Plain, where I had followed the military operations last autumn, I told him that I was satis- fied there had been, even in the last four years since I gave over command, a distinct improvement in the training for war under modern conditions. The Territorial Forces are still on trial. The City of London Association, of which I am Chairman, feels that the Government grant is insufficient to enable us to deal with the men as regards recruiting money, bands, and other attractions, formerly provided for the Volunteers by the generosity of officers and their friends. " Few of us understand the difficulties of training, say, a City corps. There the employers of labour, representing 30,000 men, responded generously to our appeals, and in granting leave of absence with pay for training in camps stand to lose an appreciable sum of money. As yet only 1 per cent, have joined us. Let us consider for a moment what the Terri- torial recruit has to do. When he leaves off the long day's work which enables him to maintain his family he would naturally like to go home and have his one comfortable meal of the day ; instead he goes to a drill hall at his own cost and endeavours to master a new business. Five years ago I stated 223 Winnowed Memories before the Duke of Norfolk's Committee that Volunteers can- not spare the time for adequate field training. No educated Briton believes that his American brother is inferior to us in courage. If any of you wish to realise the results of cam- paigning with untrained men read General Sherman's letters to his wife written just before and after the disaster at Bull's Run in 1861, and published in Scrihnefs Magazine of this month. " I am not one of those who believe that if for trade in- terests we quarrel with our neighbours they will chivalrously wait many months before undertaking an invasion, until our Territorial Forces have been mobilised and are sufficiently trained to meet even much smaller bodies of Regular soldiers. Moreover, in my fifty-seven years' service I have seen Govern- ments of both great parties, the Liberals in 1854, the Unionists in 1899, drift unprepared into war, and thus sacrifice thousands of lives and many millions sterling. This was because with our democratic government the Cabinet dared not take the necessary preliminary measures for fear of precipitating the calamity they were anxious to avoid. When I am asked, as I often am, why, holding such views of Territorial troops, I work for the Force, I reply, ' Because I admire the small number of real patriots who act instead of talking or writing, and I must assume that this Government, like the last, is convinced that a majority of our electorate is unwilling to accept the duties accepted by all other European nations for one hundred years.' I hope many of you here to-night will live to see our countrymen effectively appreciate the wisdom of Goethe, the greatest modern poet of Germany, who declared, ' As a good father at table with his children serves them first, so a good citizen before all other obligations discharges first of all that which he owes to the State.' " This speech (not verbatim) "was delivered at the Institute of Civil Engineers, May 12th, 1914 : (C Mr. President, I might content myself before thanking you for your reception of this toast by telling you that our 224 Efficiency in the Army small Army is yearly increasing in tactical efficiency, and to a degree which can only be adequately appreciated by . old experts with young minds, and your ^ ica experience in your own profession has doubt- ■ .V A less shown that such a combination is unusual. in the Army ., , , , . . ^ Although the traming of our troops is now very satisfactory, yet their number is insignificant in comparison with the responsibilities of our Empire. " When our National pride is taken down we are for a time anxious to reform our organisation, and thus fourteen years ago Committees formed of influential men reported that ' no Army system can be satisfactory which does not permit of rapid expansion of trained men to join the active Army on the outbreak of war.' This principle was apparently accepted by both political parties, yet the outcome of the arrange- ments has been that we possess an insufficient number of insufficiently trained civilians, who, it is hoped, may be fit to meet Continental troops six months after the outbreak of war. " In 1855 I was presented to a distinguished engineer, Colonel Niel. He had a great reputation in the Army of our nearest neighbours and friends at that time, and later became the Chief Staff Officer of the French Army. He spent his life considering war problems both in the study and on battle- fields in the Crimea, in Algeria, and in Italy, where he took part in the victories of Magenta and Solferino. " The results of the Austro- Prussian campaign of 1866 satisfied Marshal Niel that France under her then existing organisation could not successfully meet Prussia in the field, and in asking for a great addition to the Army he declared, * An Army cannot be improvised.' He was ridiculed for his apprehensions, and died, perhaps fortunately for him, a year before the Franco-Prussian War. *' We in England have not yet learnt the lesson which Marshal Niel tried to impress on his countrymen, for although we foresee that the day must come when our Naval supremacy will cease, we are still depending on an Army system whidh p 225 Winnowed Memories proposes to have our Home Defence Force ready only six months after the outbreak of war, and this notwithstanding that forty- eight years ago a vast Continental Empire went down after a six weeks' campaign. " I spent the last week-end visiting at Camberley our Royal Military College, and at Aldershot. At Camberley the num- ber of cadets thirty years ago was about two hundred, and the establishment is now seven hundred. We cannot have too many educated officers, and unfortunately Camberley is 120 short of its number, because fathers have found out that the Army no longer affords a sufficiently attractive career, or, in other words, the supply of officers is unequal to the demand for the Army. *' It is pleasant to recall that the Overseas Inspector- General, formerly a strong supporter of our existing system, has recently, after seeing 50,000 compulsorily trained senior cadets, become a strenuous advocate of the system which he formerly opposed. " The improvements in our organisation in tactical effi- ciency are nothing like so striking to the imagination as the marvels which your profession is daily effecting for the benefit of mankind." 226 CHAPTER XIII MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES When I left the Eastern District to command at Aldershot, the Mayor and Borough of Colchester gave me a farewell banquet at which I urged ppea j^ friends to consider Army Reserve tor limploy- -^ '' ment of Ex- i^en for employment. Soldiers (January 1889) " '^^^ soldier's first and truest thought is to do his duty, and to hope in doing it that he may so bear himself as to win the approval of his fellow- countrymen. This may not always be the case ; but if in ruling his conduct he has in front of him as his guiding star that short but expressive word ' duty,' he will always have the all-necessary element of self-respect as his in- alienable possessdon. A General devoted to duty, and feeling keenly that on the efficiency and discipline of those com- mitted to his charge may possibly depend the vital interests of his country, cannot suffer indolence, cannot overlook culpable negligence. "It is not sufficient for a leader to be brave in war. In peace he should give his whole mind to acquiring that self- mastery which is the first step towards the successful mastership of others. Here, from Colonel to Private, all for the last three years have striven to carry out my wishes. It is possible — nay, it is probable, that all have not concurred with my views, have not believed in the orders that I have issued, in the wisdom of the steps that I have taken ; but all — Staff, Regi- mental, Departmental — have afforded me the most loyal and perfect support that any man ever had. From this it natur- 227 Winnowed Memories ally follows that the conduct and bearing of the Rank-and- File have received the unstinted and continuous approval of my superiors. But this, to us soldiers a most gratifying state of affairs, is partly due, Sir, to the cordial relations which have existed for some time between the Borough and the Camp, an association which, I am glad to say, is perhaps now closer than ever ; and it is pleasant for me to know that the fellowship of this town has reacted on the Camp, and has been one of the causes in direct sequence of the discipline it has been our pride to maintain. ** As regards efficiency, we have to thank the landowners and the farmers whose large-minded generosity has allowed us to exercise our troops over their cultivated land. " We have stretched a Cavalry regiment over ten miles of country, from the junction of the Roman River with the Colne to two or three miles beyond Marks Tey. Yet I have never had a single complaint from an occupier. Those of you who are farmers, who have any beings, human or animal, and who see them growing under your fostering care — you, I say, can realise what I feel in seeing our young soldiers trained as they would have to act in war, and to reflect that this has only been possible by the sympathy of the farmers. " Now, my friends, you have been very kind to me ; but pray do not limit your sympathy to the soldier in uniform. I ask you to go a little further. You employers of labour, I ask you to give one Army Reserve man a chance. If he is drunken, if he is dishonest, if he is unsatisfactory in any one way, send him away, but give one man a chance, because a well-trained and a numerous and a prosperous Reserve is the necessary complement of Short Service. I am aware of friends around me who have given chances and chances ; but do not, as some of them have done, go on condoning serious offences until at last the tension becomes too great. " Let those who doubt what Short Service can do, turn to Macaulay and see what he says. ' Under Cromwell's military despotism each district ' (and here in Colchester we ought to know all about it) ' was under ' what Macaulay, who 228 "Trust the Soldier" had not much respect for my profession, called * a military bashaw, who commanded local forces, exclusive of the 80,000 well trained and equipped men who stood in the first line of Defence. When it was decided that this army be dis- banded, grave fears were entertained for the safety of peace- able folk. But in a few days there remained not a trace that the finest army in the world had been absorbed into the mass of the community. In every department of honest industry these men, these discarded warriors, prospered beyond all other men. If anyone noticed a mason, a baker, or a wagoner attracting observation by his diligence and sobriety, he was in all probability one of Oliver's soldiers.' " Now I do not for a moment argue that this graphic picture represents what we see to-day ; but this I do say ; re- member that you only see the failures ; we never hear any- thing of the Army Reserve men who are successes. They are absorbed into the population ; they never come and worry us for work. You only see the failures, and it is not the failures I ask you to employ — quite the contrary. " We are striving — I hope with some success — to first of all remove some of the irksome restraints on the soldier when off duty — ^restraints no longer deemed to be necessary. But while we are trying to make him a better soldier, we are try- ing also to render him a better citizen than he was before enlistment. " Now to show you that there is much to gain from this attempt in trusting oiu: young soldiers — as I may call them now, being an old one myself — as we never trusted their pre- decessors, I will tell you very briefly my experience — I won't go outside Colchester, but my experience here. In May, 1886, two months after I came here, the Colonel of the Suffolk Militia Regiment appealed to me because he had a difficulty in obtaining a proportion of the profits from the canteen which his men had been frequenting. The manager of the canteen, after some little discussion, somewhat grudgingly gave him £10, which he thought a fair proportion of the profits. I expressed dissatisfaction with that. I said if that 229 Winnowed Memories was all the profit that could be made — I did not know much about brewing — ^I should like to have my fingers in the pie, and from that day till last Monday I supervised it. I did not actually touch it myself, but some of my brother officers were good enough to manage it for me, and I supervised it. In May, 1888, two years afterwards, when the Bedford Regiment came here for twenty-seven days' training, I said to the Colonel, ' You can have yoiu' own canteen or use ours, which will, however, be rather crowded. If you use ours you must not ask for any account ; I shall give you whatever I think right, and that you must accept without a murmur.' He said, ' I will use yours.' I handed him over £40. How was that done ? It was done by humanising and elevating the soldier. " We have transformed what was a squalid barn into a series of brilliantly lighted rooms, with comfortable arm- chairs and other seats, with restaurant tables, newspapers, and walls covered with pictiures. I cannot say I received much encouragement at first. The canteen steward came to me and said, ' Do you know that the men are tearing up the newspapers for spills ? ' I replied, ' That is our fault ; put spills all over the rooms.' A Commanding Officer, whom you all know, who accorded me loyal support, came to me pri- vately and said, ' If you will allow me to say so, you don't know what you are doing. In a very short time there will not be an arm-chair or a single picture that is not smashed,' and I should say we had got £100 worth of pictures on the walls, and we had mirrors 6 feet square. He repeated, * You will have them all broken.' I said, ' Then we shall replace them with more.' In November, 1886, when again he saw me, I asked him, ' Well, Colonel, how about the smashing ? ' * Oh,' he said, ' just wait till Christmas.' Well, three Christmas Days have passed away, 2,400 men have been constantly using that building, and I may say that practically there has never been five shilhngs' worth of damage done. This is not our doing ; it is not the doing of the officers ; it is due to the men. When I com- menced soldiering we would scarcely allow a soldier to look to the right or to the left unless he had a corporal or a sergeant 230 Help my Comrades with him. My text is this — as I have said for twenty years, as I said in 1886, and as I say now in 1889 — trust the soldier. My story indicates that we are doing something to render the soldier a more worthy citizen, and citizens have now for a generation been striving strenuously — and, I fear, until the last few years with very little encouragement — to become good soldiers. Now, the Volunteer movement has made an enor- mous difference in civil and military life that some of us, per- haps, scarcely realise. Caesar once, displeased with his soldiers, sneeringly addressed them as ' Ye Romans,' which they tumult- uously resented, and would not allow him to go on speaking until he reverted to his usual greeting, ' My soldiers.' " May we not hope now that, as in our Empire citizen and soldier have become interchangeable terms, our power will be more durable than that of the Roman dictators who in- sisted upon keeping the soldier distinct from the citizen ? The old walls of Colchester show in many a mossy fragment the ruined power of those despots of the past. Around the Queen's Empire there is a living wall of service more imperishable than stone, which upholds, unites, and advances the interests of the entire Nation." " I am obliged to you for the honour paid in associating my name with this comprehensive toast, and in thanking you for the Navy I desire to explain how, in every- Help my day work, our first line of Defence has an ad- Comrades vantage over the Sister Service, in fitting men (Colchester, ^ ^ obtaining work in civil life after they October 23rd, , i4-j ^ a ^rU n 1902^ have completed an engagement under the Crown. " In the first place there is only one sailor to three soldiers, and the sailors have the refusal of employment not open to landsmen. But a second and greater advantage is the Navy system of enlisting boys and educating them morally and professionally. The mental quickness thus acquired when at the most receptive age is exercised and stimulated every day a ship is at sea. A Bluejacket is then on active service minus shells and torpedoes ; he is ever fighting or circum- ^3' Winnowed Memories venting winds, waves, and sunken dangers, and this evokes that alertness of mind which has been so conspicuous in Africa, as it was in former days all over the world. " All soldiers — Line, Militia, and Volunteer — have in the past spent much valuable time on duties and exercises which did not enhance their capacity for dealing with the King's enemies. This ' playing at soldiers ' has been discredited by the rude lessons of a three years' war, mainly of a guerrilla nature. But though the teaching was incomplete, the men have indeed deserved well of our country. Besides my three sons, who all served regimentally, I had many young friends in South Africa, and from them learnt a good deal of the un- published history of the war. My correspondents have all told the same story; 'as the officers are, so are the men.' Ex- cellence or mediocrity is less a question of nationality than of the regimental officer — his capacity, self-reliance, and the confidence he inspires. But as regards the men, what I have known of the soldiers for nearly forty-five years came as an inspiration to the young gentlemen who had only seen the soldier in barracks, and my correspondents' letters teem with generous admiration for their men, which probably, like most Britons, they carefully conceal. In patient, enduring courage, in the unselfish, uncomplaining fortitude, in the mercy ex- tended to a beaten or wounded foe, in all such noble qualities our soldiers are unsurpassed and unsurpassable. " A friend in this town, who served for fifteen years in the regiment of which I am Honorary Colonel, tells me he believes all the men on returning have resumed or got fresh work. Many large firms have been very kind in dealing with Reservists, and I ask such of my audience, and all Essex men who have personal male servants on a vacancy, to give ex-soldiers one chance. Do not expect to find every day a ' black swan,' for such, the Latin poet tells us, are rare. Get a personal character, and I hope your experience may resemble mine. " My son took two ex- soldiers into his service a year ago, one invalided and the other wounded. Both are satisfactory. Twenty-three years ago a Colchester man, just going to pen- 232 Augment the Army sion, came to me as a coachman, and is still with me.* My butler, a companion in nine battles, who wears the medal for distinguished bravery, came to me in 1878 as field bugler. No one could have better, more faithful comrades or servants than are these former private soldiers. May such of you who heed my request be as fortunate." In February, 1914, I accompanied a Deputation headed by Field-Marshal Earl Roberts, V.C, K.G., to the Prime Minister to urge the '^^P^*^^*?" necessity of an immediate augmentation (1914) ^^ ^^^ Army. The following report is taken from The Times : " Sir Evelyn Wood, who explained that he was not a member of the National Service League, said that he had seen the disastrous effect of sending partly-trained men under fire. He took part in the first unsuccessful attack on Sevastopol in June, 1855, attacking the Redan with boys — for the storming party, according to the Royal Engineer Journal, published by the War Office, was composed of ' chiefly recruits.' After the second unsuccessful assault in September, when Dr. Howard Russell, of The Times, asked a wounded lad, ' How many rounds did you fire ? ' he replied, ' None, sir, for I did not know how to load my rifle.' During the last war in South Africa the War Office, having no more trained troops, at the request of the General in command sent out 3,000 so-called Yeomanry recruits, a large number of whom and nearly all the officers were sent back to England as absolutely useless. That had no reference to the first contingent of Yeomen. By com- mand of King Edward, hef supported the Territorial movement when it was initiated. The rapidity of events during the war in the Balkans brought forcibly to his mind the inadequacy of our existing arrangements for Home defence. Two years ago he ceased to hope to enlist the necessary number of men, but he continued the work until last month, mainly from his * These men are still with me (1916). f Sir Evelyn. 233 Winnowed Memories deep admiration of the patriotic few who were trying to do that which, in his opinion, should be undertaken by all young citizens. Some of his friends believed that with an additional expenditure, estimated at from one to two millions sterling, the Force might be filled up. Even if that view were accurate, he apprehended that under the voluntary system it would be impossible to give officers and men sufficient Field training to justify their being trusted to manoeuvre under fire against an enemy, even if the foe was much inferior in numbers. He endorsed the plea of Lord Roberts for the compulsory universal military training of the whole male adult population for Home defence, and he advocated that, until such a system could be put into working order, the ballot be used to fill up and train the defensive forces of the United Kingdom. A hundred years ago, when the ballot was enforced for the Militia, over 150,000 men volunteered from it into the Regular Army then serving under Wellington in the Peninsula.'* " My dear Wood,- " ^«&'^«'-2/ 2«A, 1914. " Warmest thanks for your quite excellent speech. " Yours sincerely, " Roberts." To the Editor, ''Daily Express ^'''^ " You ask me for my opinion on the play, An Englishman's Home. **An "It has been alleged by some that Englishman's the author's treatment is over coloured, TT »> all or most of the characters being exag- gerated. That must remain a matter of opinion. But as to the results of a successful invasion and what then ensues, the descriptions in the play are but as rose- water is to fish manure. " Anyone would realise this who knows what the * By permission Daily Express. 234 Universal Compulsory Service Spaniards underwent when their country was overrun prior to and during the Peninsular War, as would all readers of the stories told in Zola's ' Break Up ' ('La Debacle '). My friend, Colonel Lonsdale Hale, girds against the Territorial Forces scheme in one of your contemporaries on the ground that the Forces are, and must ever remain, insufficiently trained on a sudden outbreak of war. " Lonsdale Hale knows more details about the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1 than any other officer I have ever met. His views, therefore, of what must occur when trained soldiers meet half-trained men are incontrovertible. On the other hand, the framework of the Territorial Forces scheme is well adapted for dealing later with universal training, and until the nation adopts such means of defence organisers must be content with what their masters, the Democracy, are willing to accept. " Just 104 years ago Mr. Pitt, speaking in the House of Commons on national defence, said : ' I want the whole of the active population, all to be arranged beforehand, leaders appointed, companies formed, and that no man should be allowed to run about in confusion crying out, " Oh ! that I could be anyway useful to my country ! " ' " The Territorial Forces scheme, when Young England likes to act on it, will obviate the inconveni- ences foretold by Mr. Pitt. " In a long life I have known only two or three Ministers who led the nation ; most show their ability by saying to-day what they think a majority of the electorate will want in a short time. 235 Winnowed Memories " I believe universal service is coming, but not next week, so I feel grateful to the gifted author. Major du Maurier, and the lessee of Wyndham's Theatre. " The Territorial Forces will certainly gain by the play. " My firm hope is that the interest in it may con- tinue sufficiently long to effect some permanent result. " Thus far for the general question. And now for one in which I am personally interested. The Chair- man of the County of London Territorial Forces Association is working strenuously to increase the number of his recruits ; but I hope he will not lessen the City quota, for in point of fact the county has a population of 4,500,000 to find 27,000 men, while the City of London, with a resident population of about 27,000, has to furnish 11,000, and I am naturally anxious that the efforts of employers of labour who have responded liberally to our request should not be unduly handicapped by men who work in the City enlisting in corps outside its boundary, at least until all City corps are up to establishment. "Evelyn Wood, " Chairman City of London Territorial Forces Association. " Midnight, February 5th, 1909." The Daily Express of March 9th, 1910, reported : " Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood brought forward some striking arguments for universal military training in a speech at the dinner of the City of London Yeo- ^^^^^^ , manry (the Rough Riders) held at the Hotel London s ^^^.j ^^ ^^j,^j^ ^^^ ^^^^ Patriotism ,, „ , He began with a call to the City to support the corps, which urgently needs proper headquarters — demanding, as it were, scutage, or shield money, from 236 A Plea for Patriotism the citizens, such as civilians would have had to pay in olden times towards the defences of the country. '"In spite of the fact that three successive Lord Mayors have invited the great Livery companies to support the asso- ciation financially in assisting it to find prizes for shooting and other efficiency tests,' he said, ' hitherto, except from one or two of the great companies, the response has been disappoint- ing. Yet the Livery companies are very generous in other ways, but the feeling which induced some of them to sell their plate 250 years ago for the defence of the City has appar- ently died out. I greatly regret it. " ' The Territorial Yeomanry and Infantry are incompar- ably more efficient than were the Volunteers, and deserve sup- port. Some few Generals, who were not born or were babies when, because a sufficient number of Britons would not enlist, we had German, Italian, and Swiss legions in England about 1856, have urged the superiority of free enlistment over uni- versal compulsory service for Home defence. " ' I imagine they had forgotten that Nelson's great vic- tories were gained when a number of his sailors were pressed men ! " ' It is a striking fact, moreover, that the Swiss, whose service is compulsorily universal, are decidedly against any option being permitted. " ' Nevertheless, until the electorate accept the fact of universal service, I urge it is our duty to support the Terri- torial Forces. '"I, personally, am more and more impressed by the con- tinuous and unremitting attention of my colleagues. They necessarily come to om* meetings at the close of the day, when their commercial duties are finished, and most of them would doubtless prefer to catch a train homeward. " ' I am perhaps even more impressed by the zeal of the Rank-and-File of the Force. They mostly live in the suburbs, and exert great self-denial when they go to a drill hall instead of going home to their suppers.' 237 5 53 CHAPTER XIV ADDRESSES The following speech was made to a Deputation which brought a handsome gift of plate from Natal to Government House, Chatham, 1882 : " Gentlejien, — I thank you with all my heart for the pleasure you have given me, and for the legacy of honour . ^, . this memorial will enable me to bequeath to A Natal _ , ., , p . my children. " I am glad to be able to welcome you here — you who are the representatives of a country in which I was treated with marked consideration. Much has changed since, this time two years ago, the nucleus of the Flying Column marched from the Cape Colony into Maritzburg. " You are now for some years at least freed from danger, or even anxiety — an anxiety which was greater than that of Damocles, since his danger was but personal, while you were menaced nt>t only by ever-present inipending ruin, but by a dreadful fate for your wives and children. The threaten- ing attitude of a savage despot no longer paralyses your future, although your strength, like that of all young worlds, is somewhat chaotic at present. " The Imperial soldiers of the Flying Column fully appre- ciated the assistance they received from their Colonial com- rades. Piet Uys brought me his boys, who, having followed their father in many fights, saw him fall (like their grand- father), under the Zulu assegais, on the rugged slopes of the Inhlobana. 238 The Rear-Guard at Insandwhlana C( General Lloyd and Mr. Potter, far advanced in years, each sent me the props of their declining age ; both, alas ! to perish in one day. " We professional soldiers have hitherto claimed supe- riority over semi-disciplined troops when retreating, or when death has to be faced at the hands of overwhelming numbers. Yet surely no greater proof of devoted steadiness was ever given than that shown by the Natal Carabiniers on January 22nd, 1879. " Imagine a gentle slope up which is storming a resistless, surging wave of encircling black bodies, which, though con- stantly smitten with leaden hail, breaks but to sweep on again with renewed force. Imagine a crowd of terrified non- combatants and friendly natives flying through the already burning camp, and pressing on to the rapidly narrowing out- let over the fatal Nek. " Then there comes on the scene a one-armed man, who, having slowly fallen back before the ever-increasing foe, is now determined to die. ' Save yourself. As for me, I shall remain.' He thus dismisses a Staff Officer and Hlubi's black soldiers, who vainly urge the great chief to seek safety with them. " Recognising his commanding courage, around him gather some twenty similar spirits, who, nobly disdaining death, resolve to cover the retreat of the guns and die with him. That melancholy field of Insandwhlana has a record in silence and death of what Colonists did, but none the less a living record, now and for ever. " In the place where Durnford fell there was a heap of slain ; the enemy lay thick about him ; but your sons were as close, and the brave hearts of the best of your fighting men ceased to beat in the effort to shelter their elected heroic leader. *' He himself was fully worthy their devotion, and History will narrate the ring of dead white men that encircled him formed a halo round his and their renown." 239 Winnowed Memories After inspecting the Bedford Royal Engineer Cadet Corps in 1888, I addressed the School as follows : " I congratulate you warmly on the brilliant success of your school, for under one master in the last twelve or thirteen P years it has nearly trebled its numbers. ^ , . " It is with satisfaction I see how Mr. Philpotts has followed the example of other good schools in fostering the movement for the enrolment of cadets, a movement which must command the sympathy not only of every soldier, but of every patriot, for I hold that no pomp of ancestry, no inheritance of wealth, can equal the inspiration of pride which every Briton should feel when he recalls the deeds of his forefathers. " Aristotle wrote that ' ancestry might lose its original meaning in the worthless person of effete generations, and that money, unless it is well employed, lives only for a day ' ; on the other hand, the great living dead are always with us, and we owe it to their memory, no less than to our honour and interest, not to forgo any of the rights and prerogatives gained during centuries of patriotic and unselfish endeavour. " Early training is everything, for the after life of the youth depends on his value to the State, and I believe that the discipline, precision, and determination which is acquired by military training is of incalculable value to a man in any career. The habit of obeying quickly is the first step towards commanding efficiently. " Many young men of excellent abilities lack the power of utilising their common-sense faculties from the want of prac- tice in the art of fixing the attention. " If the training of a soldier did no more than enforce coherent exactitude it would be of immense value, but I admit that I look much farther than to mere personal advantages, for I hope to see the youth of this country enrolled early in the ranks for its defence. " I do not for a moment undervalue the delights of learn- ing, and the multiform interest to be found in high culture. 240 Self-Sacrlfice I can readily appreciate how Mathematics and Logic may strengthen the reasoning powers, how Literature and the Fine Arts must enrich and fire the imagination ; but a worthy incentive to exertion is found in the word ' Duty.' " The love between a mother and her child is the closest and most inseparable tie on earth, but I hold that the love of country should be scarcely less sacred. '* In the first case the child often extorts ; in the second, he must sometimes make a sacrifice, but he is then comforted and inspired by the radiant memories of his great brothers who have gone before him, and who, ere they passed into dust, wrote their names in the history of England. No one should imagine that such memories are fruitless. How many a sailor when passing the Azores must have felt his heart glow when he recalled the memory of Sir Richard Grenville and the marvellously determined fight he sustained in the Revenge for nearly twenty-four hours against fifty-three Spanish men-of-war ; or again in passing Trafalgar, when he remem- bers the splendid battle in which Nelson won for himself the glory of his nineteenth victory, and liberated Europe. " I will not detain you with many proofs of my assertion of the value of military training as a means of incitement to noble and patriotic deeds, but I will give you one instance, chosen because, although it may be said that in any one battalion esprit de corps can evoke the most brilliant act of self-devotion, yet in the following instance the heroes were composed of 600 men drafted from half a dozen different regiments. '* The transport Birkenhead^ in 1852, when passing round the Cape of Good Hope, struck on a rock about two miles from the shore. The women, children, sick, and non-com- batants were placed in the boats, and the troops were paraded to ensure that no rush should be made for the only means of safety, although the result showed that this was a needless precaution. The sea was calm, but in it glistened myriads of sharks which seemed to preclude the possibility o'f even the strongest swimmer reaching the shore, yet in the last terrible Q 241 Winnowed Memories twenty minutes, while expecting death, not a man stirred from the ranks, discipline was maintained till the end, for as the ship parted in the centre not a man failed to act on the command, ' Present Arms ! ' " The King of Prussia published this account to his Army, commanding that it should be read at the head of every regiment. " In the town of Howard it is superfluous to speak of the height to which moral worth can rise, and of the estimation in which heroic figures are held in the minds of their country- men ; but in whatever field of life we may be, not one of us can hope to make a more perfect ending to this life than is described in *The Pilgrim's Progress' in the beautiful 'fare- well ' of John Bunyan." At the reopening of Gresham's School, Holt, 1903, I gave the following address : " Before I declare the Gresham School reopen, I will say a few words on the founder's character, his breadth of mind and generous instincts — qualities which have Q ^^ 1 *" ^ made the family name famous, not only in the School ^.^y ^^ London and in the County of Norfolk, but in the annals of history. *' When Henry VIII. suppressed some 2,000 monasteries, chantries, secular houses, guilds, and 110 alms-houses, the primary declared intention of the King and his successor was to utilise their funds for the advancement of education, and in East Anglia certain Grammar Schools were erected. Much of the money, however, which came under the Sovereign's control was misapplied to private interests, and none was expended at Holt. Gresham was not merely a successful merchant prince ; but acted for the reigning Tudor family as a factor, or agent. He was a prosperous trader, possessed of considerable diplomatic skill, and, like many merchants of three hundred years ago, had received an education beyond that of the public servants of the Sovereign. This showed 242 Gresham's School, Holt him the advantage of education, and turned his mind to it, and at a time when many well-to-do people in England were more intent on saving the souls of their friends and foes, by- burning and mutilating their bodies in this world, than they were on the advance of education. " It may interest you if I recall the social conditions in England in 1556, when this school was founded. Nor- wich was the centre of the worsted trade. Castles had given way to mansions ; domestic comfort was just begin- ning to be understood : rushes were being replaced by car- pets ; pewter utensils were superseding the wooden basins out of which the people in this county took their food ; pillows, the use of which had hitherto been restricted to women in delicate health, were coming into general use ; and the chim- ney corner was being built. As yet coffee and tea were un- known to ordinary Britons, ale and beer being the general drinks. Most people in those days took their dinner at 11 or 12, and their supper at 7. Family discipline was stern ; sons even up to 40 years of age stood bareheaded before their parents, and daughters were never allowed to sit down in their presence ; when fatigued with standing they were expected to kneel on cushions. *' The amusements of the people were restricted to cudgel- play and wrestling ; the upper classes had so-called ' religious plays,' in which, however, there was a strange lack of religion. Some of the important people in London were persecuting their opponents under the pretence of fm-thering religion ; but feeling in the counties was more tolerant, and it is stated that the clergy in the following reign, when the State was Protestant, used to say Mass in the parsonage and the Pro- testant Litnrgy in the church, to suit the varied sentiments of their parishioners." In July, 1916, I again visited Gresham's School, and spoke to the boys as follows : (( It would be useless for me to repeat the words of wisdom 243 Winnowed Memories you heard from your instructors during the term on your scholastic studies. It would be impossible for me to im- prove upon the exquisite teaching given at the morning and evening services at the opening of the Chapel on January 23rd. I shall best, therefore, show my apprecia- tion of the compliment to me implied in the invitation of the Governors to address you by telling you what I think, speaking as an old man, will be the most useful goal for your efforts. " Let me make myself clear at the outset. In dealing with the importance of telling the truth, I do not imply that it has ever been wanting here ; but I daily think that oxir principal enemy in the War has lost much effective sympathy by his want of truth and of Christian himianity. *' I cannot accept the views sometimes expounded from pulpits that the War, with all its appalling scenes, is a God- given punishment for our sins. Such denunciations appear to me to be wrong, for they leave out of account that, however sinful we may have been, it is mainly the women, children and non-combatants of Belgium who have suffered unspeak- able outrages at the hands of our enemies. I think that we should accept the inscrutable decrees of the Almighty, for Time only can show why such violations of Christ's teaching are permitted. " I said at a recruiting meeting in London in September, 1914, that I hoped the War would deepen the sense of self- sacrifice and love of country. It has done so, and much more than the paying of the debt due summarised by Ruskin as * Industry and Honour,' evoking from England's children beyond the seas an enthusiastic devotion and love greater than that of life. " Death has taken toll of many Gresham boys who have fallen in various countries. They are gone, but in imagination and affectionate memory are still with us. '* I have had many letters from parents whose sons have fallen — letters breathing a noble spirit of patriotism and 244 Felstead School resignation. In this welter of world-wide bloodshed our nation has risen to the heights of the fine ideals to which our efforts are dedicated. " There are few of us here present whose names will be remembered for more than one or two generations ; but every- one who honestly does his duty in life adds to the stability of the Empire ; everyone who tells the truth and practises self-denial raises the standard of our daily life, and without religion and a high standard of private life no empire can stand. " Boys, you have the world before you. Remember, even if you serve the Empire under arms, that in war you will never meet so subtle and persistent an enemy as self. " Those of you who can conquer self, and succeed in living a nobler life, will become guiding stars to the Gresham boys of the future. The more every one of us, old and young, lives up to a higher ideal than his own nature, the better it will be for his own individual happiness, for our King, and for our country. " I end by quoting from the old Scottish hymn- writer, Horatius Bonar : " ' Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed ; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed.' " After inspecting the Cadet Corps of Felstead, July, 1907, I thus addressed the School : " Boys occupy the first place in my heart. Very often they resent advice from their seniors. Boys ask, ' What do our seniors know of what we feel ? They i^elstead ^^^ ^j^.^j^ ^j^^^ j^^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^j , ^yrhen I was a boy, sixty years ago, the mortifications, the successes, the glories of youth were scarcely realised by senior on- lookers, who spent their lives sitting in judgment on juniors, 245 Winnowed Memories who spent hours in attempting to dodge their masters' verdicts. " The seniors might know, the juniors felt ; that was the difference of the lines of thought. It is one of the many reasons why we seniors should try to capture the vivid imaginations of the young while we train their mental and physical powers. I rejoice in the thought that masters and boys are much nearer in human sympathy than they were. Your Head has requested me to say something you can remember. I told two brothers at different times — one about to leave Charterhouse, one preparing to go there — that I was coming here, and asked them what I should say to you. Their replies were identical : ' Anything you like, sir ; only cut it short.' Two days ago I repeated, at Oxford, to the brilliant historian of the Boer War, these candidly expressed views of my young advisers. He replied, ' True, no doubt, but honest, sound advice, how- ever little it may be appreciated by boys at the moment, in after years will bear fruit.' My advice, then, in brief is: Let your guiding word be ' Thorough.' In all you do, do it with all your might. When construing a passage, easy or difficult, look out every word of the meaning of which you are not certain. In games play your best, not for your own hand, but for your side. The cadets I have seen to-day are an object-lesson of duty — boys who give up some time and sub- ordinate their wills for the good of the community. I say to you who are prize-winners to-day, ' Try to live up to the stan- dard you have attained.' To the greater number I say ' Courage, with steady, sustained work, success will come.' To all I say, ' As you grow up endeavour so to live yoxu* man- hood, that when you are sunmioned to the last great Roll Call you may feel the confidence of the heroic General Havelock, who, fifty years ago, said, " Yes, I am dying, but for forty years I have so ruled my life as not to fear death." Of him it was written : " ' Alike in peace and war one path he trod : His law was Duty, and his guide was God.'" 24b ;:' a War Shrines In 1904 the following correspondence passed between myself and Mr. Edgar Wallace : London, January 26thf 1904. To Sir Evelyn Wood. "The splendid esprit de corps that holds together the large Public Schools in England is entirely absent in Board School scholars, and this, not so oar school jj^^^jj^ because of the circumstances and Memorials environments of the schools, and the poverty of their scholars, but rather from their lack of inspiring traditions. " The Board School scholar of to-day is the private soldier of to-morrow, and give a school any kind of tradition to live up to and you will inculcate that spirit which must have an excellent effect upon a rising generation. " Let the traditions of the Board Schools be asso- ciated with the gallant exploits of former scholars and you place before the children an object-lesson which must eventually find a reflection in recruiting returns. " Knowing how interested you are in the welfare of the soldier, I venture to approach you with the request that you will be good enough to give me your opinion on such a movement as I propose. " Edgar Wallace." Salisbury, January 29th, 1904. I feel strongly the great importance to the Empire of our raising the tone of all citizens, and 247 Winnowed Memories inducing them to ' take up the White Man's burden.' " I cordially approve of your idea, but I would not limit the record to battle heroes, either naval or military. I would extend it to all who show the Divine-like attribute of dying voluntarily in efforts to save others. I hold that it is easier to die in battle than in efforts to rescue our fellows in mines, sewers, or in water from impending death. May I add, to ensure success it is not sufficient to enforce the putting up of memorials ; their custodians, the pupils' teachers, must take up the idea, and teach in the spirit of the old song, * and nations yet unborn shall transmit what Nelson's done,' if our descendants are to reap the full benefit of your valuable suggestion. " Evelyn Wood." When giving an address on Trafalgar Day, 1916, I referred to the matter in the following terms : *' Mr. Edgar Wallace's idea is now being carried out to some extent by the erection of shrines in certain streets ; but it is, I think, still more important to record noble deeds in schools, that the rising generation may be inspired to emulate the example of former scholars, and at an age when the mind is most receptive, and teachers can instil in them patriotism. " Few of us are observant, and we are all prone when preoccupied to see, without perceiving, objects which are daily before our eyes. " Yesterday I had proof of this assertion. I was present- ing a Distinguished Service medal to a wounded sergeant of the Cheshire Regiment in a country house near Harlow, which has been devoted during the war to the purposes of a convalescent home. When I was mentioning the deeds of the Cheshire Regiment at Miani, under the heroic conqueror 248 Baltimore School of Sind, I asked the patients assembled in front of me, and then turning to the concourse of friends behind me assembled to do honour to the sergeant, said, ' Has anyone here ever looked at the statue of Sir Charles Napier in Trafalgar Square, erected mainly by the penny subscriptions of private soldiers ? ' No one present except myself had ever perceived the statue, nor knew, indeed, that it was in the Square." " To Hamilton Fish Armstrong, Esq,, Gilmen Country School, Baltimore. " Harlow, ''November 5th, 1911. " A long period of service in which I have com- manded Christians, Turks, Hindus, and Fetish wor- shippers satisfies me on the following SchoS^"^^ points, as shown by W. L. Courtney in ' The Literary Man's Bible ' : First, the absolute accuracy of Isaiah's teaching, that the morality of ordinary life is the only real proof of a true religion ; and, secondly, as shown in Farrar's ' Witness of History to Christ,' the entire super- structure of national greatness and of individual peace of mind rests not on knowledge, but on wisdom; not on intelligence, but on Faith. " Yours truly, " Evelyn Wood." On Empire Day, 1909, I delivered the following speech on the hoisting of the Union Jack presented to the Matching School, Essex, by Mrs. Calverley, of Down Hall : " Our Empire Day. What is it ? What do we understand by the word ' Empire ' ? It has replaced, and happily, the 249 Winnowed Memories former word in use, which was ' England.' Before I explain the causes of the change I will tell you what the word ' England ' means, for all of you may not know. " Some fifty years after the birth of our Saviour, the people of this land, called Britons, who had sprung from the same race as those in the north of France, were overrun by Romans, and later by tribes called Angles or Engles, who dwelt in Germany near Magdeburg. These moved northward to what is now called Schleswig, and, combining with Saxons, invaded the east of our country. Its inhabitants were then governed by separate chiefs, and later by separate kings, whom the Danes, the next invaders after the Anglo-Saxons, had but little trouble in bringing under subjection " I told you just now of some of the peoples who have in- vaded England on fifty or sixty different occasions. Our present race is descended from the successive invaders, who married local women. This mixture of races was fortunate, for our adventurous qualities, which have won the Empire, were inherited from the hardy Norsemen who came from Germany and Scandinavia ; they expanded Great Britain, and later Ireland, into a Greater Britain beyond the seas. " It is remarkable that the Empire has been won mainly by individual efforts, often discredited, and in some cases even against the orders of the Government. " Ten years ago we were fighting to compel the Orange Free State to come into the Empire ; but seventy years ago its few inhabitants quarrelled with us because we declined to take over its government. " Many of our statesmen were frightened at the progres- sive expansion of our territories, and, forty-five years ago, several desired to cut this island adrift from our colonies. However, twenty-five years later a far-seeing Prime Minister induced our Sovereign to assume the title of ' Empress of India,' a country far bigger than the whole of Europe, if we leave out Russia. He realised that the title ' King ' or ' Queen ' alone was no longer appropriate to the chief of many races, numbering one-fifth of the inhabitants of the whole 250 Miniature Rifle Ranges world, and occupying one-fifth part of the surface of the earth. That imaginative statesman foresaw that England's world- wide possessions might, like single sticks, break under hostile pressure, which might be successfully resisted by a united Empire, bound together as closely as a faggot by racial pride and by ties of loyalty to the King-Emperor. *' Our forefathers won the vast Empire over which waves the National Flag ; the children of to-day should maintain it. All of you can help in doing so. "Without religion and a high standard of conduct, no Empire can stand. If we maintain such we can safely say : " * Come the three corners of the world in arms, And we shall shock them.' " On October 1st, 1910, I opened a miniature rifle range at Cold Ash, Newbury, and made it the opportunity for some remarks on Compulsory Uni- versal Service for Home defence. The following is a newspaper report of the proceedings : " Sir Evelyn Wood said that in order to perform effec- tively the duty of defending his country in times of . national danger a man must be trained as a e eanmg g^j^jj^p ^^ times of peace. Accurate shooting of Invasion .. . . . . o ^^^. was the most important oi military accom- plishments, and it was now generally admitted that however inadequate the training on a miniature range might be in com- parison with that obtainable on an open range, yet nine-tenths of the difficulty of service shooting might be overcome on a miniature range. He had for many years advocated com- pulsory universal service for Home defence. The difficulty in persuading the British public of the necessity of universal com- pulsory training was partly due to the immunity they had enjoyed from the horrible sufferings inseparable from an in- vasion. They read of Geneva Conventions and imagined that a state of war no longer implied the awful distress it did a 251 Winnowed Memories hundred years ago. This is altogether erroneous. The in- vaders might not be brutal while unopposed, but it would be the duty of the General in command to take every sack of flour, every loaf of bread in the district, irrespective of the wants of the inhabitants, until his men were sufficiently fed. All draught animals and property which might be useful to the invaders would be appropriated, and if any of their rela- tives or friends impeded the movements of the invaders, say, by destroying bridges over the railway, the whole district might be held responsible, unless they could catch and hand up for execution the man who had done it." 252 CHAPTER XV AUTHORS, BOOKS, AND ART Millhurst, Harlow, Essex, April Mh, 1908. To the Manager of The Book Club, Oxford Street, London. " ir±'ut ' auf it, " To the Manager of T) " Sir, — A week's examination of ' The Historian's History of the World ' has satisfied me that the book will be the most useful work in my "TheHisto- library. ^^^^ W^ ^\J" " ^ soldier's life gives but few oppor- tunities of fitting oneself to be a judge of such an undertaking ; but perhaps I may be allowed to state that the accounts of the Crimea War from the arrival of the Allied Armies before Sevas- topol, and of the suppression of the Sipahi Mutiny, of which I have some knowledge both personal and acquired by study, appear to me to be as accurately set forth as is possible in a limited space. " The following points are especially attractive to me : the opinions in ' A Glimpse into the Prehistoric Period ' ; the conflicting statements in the apprecia- tion of the character of Alexander the Great ; and the masterly summary of the growth of absolutism in France under Louis XI., Henry IV., and Louis XiV. 253 Winnowed Memories '* Chapters XVIII. to XXI. will probably be most studied in England, but no reader can fail to appre- ciate the impartiality with which the opposing views of writers on all controversial questions are stated. I name three instances : The Innocence or Guilt of Anne Boleyn, The Identity of the Man in the Iron Mask, and The Shooting of the Delhi Princes in 1857. " Yours faithfully, " Evelyn Wood." These two well-printed volumes, | especially the first, afford much interesting reading for the general public, and many instructive lessons for Sidelights on Administrators, Cabinet Ministers, and e ar in e soldiers, chiefly by showing the errors A Review* ^^ their predecessors. The reputation of Fox Maule, Lord Panmure, later Lord Dalhousie, will now stand out much higher amongst students of the Crimea War literature than it did after Mr. Kinglake published his sixth volume in 1870. The editors of the book describe Panmure as " essentially a man of strong will and dominating personality." These characteristics are clearly shown in his correspondence, which, moreover, justifies the written opinion of a former private secretary in another work, who described his Chief as " a thorough gentleman, violent, absolute, and strong-willed." Lord Palmerston's decided character is forcibly * By permission from The Bookman, November, 1908. t "The Panmure Papers." Edited by Sir George Douglas, Bart., M.A., and Sir George Dalhousie Ramsay, C.B. With a Supplementary Chapter by the late Rev. Principal Rainy, D.D. Two vols. With photogravure portraits. (Hodder and Stoughton.) 254 Lord Panmure exhibited, accompanied as it was by a somewhat flippant mode of expression The memory of Her Late Majesty Queen Victoria is the one which gains most of all from a close perusal of the numberless letters addressed to her, and some 190 from her which, in these two volumes, see the light for the first time. The Queen, in her careful decisions on the higher appointments in the Army, in her intense sympathy with the sufferings of the troops, and in her insistence on the improvements in military hospitals at home and abroad, stands out as not only a great monarch, but as a very great woman. She disallowed the grant of a Victoria Cross to a brave soldier whose courageous act had been sullied by cruelty on the battlefield ! She deprecated impulsive and hasty issuing of rewards on incomplete informa- tion, reminding the Cabinet of previous cases where much inconvenience had thus arisen. She showed a higher sense of duty than did her Army chiefs in objecting to officers returning home from the Crimea " on urgent private affairs." The Queen was doubt- less in those days assisted by the Prince Consort, who was not only a devoted husband, but a valued adviser. The Prince's thorough acquaintance with the Con- tinental Army systems enabled him to see more clearly than did our Ministers the difficulties of maintaining in the field an army which was supposed to be sup- plied by different Departments working under the Treasury, and independent of the Commander-in-Chief. Prince Albert's able and interesting letters reveal a high sense of patriotism. The Queen had great natu- ral abilities and knowledge. She had been carefully 255 Winnowed Memories educated, and although the Prince Consort's aid was gladly accepted, Her Majesty did not actually require help in forming a judgment on military affairs. She made it clear to the writer of this notice, in September, 1879, that she had studied not only the line of advance of her troops on Ulundi, but all alternative routes. Queen Victoria successfully maintained the mon- arch's Prerogative to command the Army, and Lord Panmure consistently supported his Sovereign in this constitutional endeavour He came back to the War Office in February, 1855, when the charge of the two offices of Secretary at War and for War were combined in his person. The remnants of our " starving and naked army " were perishing from causes within our own control, and but few other men would have dared to face the righteous but misplaced anger of the British Public. He himself wrote on assuming office : " The system by which an army should be provisioned is non- existent." Nearly all he did was excellent, though he wrote censures which were not only unreasonable but unjust, blaming Lord Raglan for not having the troops supplied with fresh vegetables, medicines, cloth- ing, and shelter. The Cabinet was responsible for the letter, but the onus of Lord Panmure's bitter reproaches to the General-in-Command rested on this hard-hitting Minister. Mr. Kinglake, Lord Raglan's ardent champion, venomously described Lord Panmure as having " no base malignity, and being more after all the rhinoceros than the tiger of Palmerston's Cabinet." Lord Raglan suffered from our want of system. He could only requisition Mr. Filder, the ^56 Want of Organisation Commissary-General, for supplies. Mr. Filder asked the Treasury from September onwards for forage ; Lord Raglan reminded the Secretary of State for War twice in November, four times in January, of the urgency for shipments of horses' food. In the result, England sent out the first, and that only a small, con- signment in January, 1855 ! While the troops were starving from inability to carry supplies from Balaklava seven miles up to the camps, there were still 2,000 pack animals at Varna, where at one time we had collected 5,000 ; but as Lord Panmure wrote on assuming office, there was no trained General Staff, and, speaking generally, most of his animadversions on Lord Raglan would have been more properly directed against his own colleagues and their predecessors. The Ministers awoke just eleven months too late to the necessities of an Army in the Field, and on February 12th, in Palmerston's handwriting, ordered : (a) A Land Transport Corps to be formed. (b) Sanitary Commissioners, and a corps to be sent out to the East. (c) A Commissariat reorganisation. {d) Arrangements to be made for Base hospitals. The Commander-in-Chief at Home was not appar- ently in the confidence of the Cabinet, and the Queen had often to suggest that his opinion should be taken. From want of information, Ministers anticipated that on the capture of Sevastopol " the success would be followed up " by an attack on the Russian Field Army, and were disappointed to learn fourteen days later, on R 257 Winnowed Memories September 22nd, that there was transport available for only half the troops. Again, when in midwinter, 1855-6, Lord Panmure drew out a plan of operations involving an advance into the interior, he had not realised that the necessary transport was still in- complete, and it was the Queen once more who urged that careful preparations should at once be made in allotting sufficient carriage to Regiments and Divisions. It is remarkable how Ministers resented the fact of the bitter sufferings of England's soldiers in the Crimea becoming known. Panmure vituperates W. Howard Russell's priceless letters, "the saving of the remnants of our Army," which were then appearing in " the villainous Times" and when Lord Palmerston failed to crush Mr. Roebuck's motion for "a Com- mittee of Inquiry as to the condition of our Army before Sevastopol and into the conduct of Depart- ments of the Army, whose duty it has been to minister to its wants," Mr. Gladstone, deprecating an inquiry, resigned, and was followed by Sir James Graham and Mr. Sidney Herbert. This was the more strange in that Panmure minuted a paper in that month for the Cabinet, showing that our misfortunes had arisen from successive Governments trying to gain popularity by Army reductions, and had already condemned our faulty system The harsh terms of Panmure's dispatch of Feb- ruary 12th, 1855, to Lord Raglan were softened by a pleasant private letter, written on the same day, and its kindliness is not impaired by the writer's masterful ignorance in laying down **that the troops 258 The Habit of Observation should have made a seven- mile roadway from Bala- klava with a stone foundation," and this at a time when every man was on duty of some sort, day and night, and in one week a battalion was in the trenches for six nights The faculty of accurate observation and of logical deduction from what is noticed may be in some persons innate, but it can be cultivated to a rM_^ ^J *l degree which seems almost incredible to Observation* ° townsmen. They seldom try to acquire it, and yet to soldiers, who are now mostly town-bred, the power is useful on the battlefield, and is often invaluable to troops employed on outpost duties. People who read Fenimore Cooper's novels and can recall his stories of the marvellous skill of trappers may have often doubted the accuracy of the incidents he describes. Such doubts are not felt by those who have seen Canadian half-breeds on a track, or have noticed Hottentots and Kaffirs following a spoor {spur en) in South Africa. A few years ago two British officers went for a month's shooting trip in the north-west of Canada, and arranged to meet two friends at the end of a fort- night. On the fourteenth day the party struck a trail, going in the same direction as their own, and one remarked to the tracker, " We must be overtaking our friends." The guide asked, " Have they a baggage pony ? " " No, only horses." " Then the trail is not that of your friends, for in front of us there are three horses and a pony which is blind of its near ♦ By permission of the editor of the Saturday Review. 259 Winnowed Memories eye." At sunset, when the officers overtook the party and noticed that their guide had been correct, they asked, " How did you know that the pony was bUnd of its near eye ? " He repHed, " Because as it closed in on the horses it often made a false step." This story might be capped by sportsmen of ex- perience who have followed game in sparsely popu- lated lands ; and Lieutenant-General Baden-Powell, in his " Scouting for Boys," gives several instances not only of the value of training in accurate observation, but also of the art of drawing sound deductions from what is observed. Since the Franco-Prussian war, increased atten- tion has been paid to scouting in the annual field train- ing of the Regular Army, but there is yet a great deal more to be done in it, and still more for the Territorial Forces. All officers who have trained or have super- vised the training of troops will agree with this view. One morning when I was questioning the men of a battalion recruited almost entirely from a city, to ascertain whether they fully understood the scheme of operations, it transpired from the answers of the first six men, who stated that they were expecting an attack from the north, that none of them knew where to look for the north, although a bright sun had been up for three hours ! While the lessons of costly errors in South Africa were still fresh in our minds an order was issued that during the marches of troops arrangements should be made to develop the mental powers of young soldiers by requiring them to note and afterwards describe what they had observed. 260 The Habit of Observation From one station cavalry soldiers were ordered to ride long distances and encouraged to report what they had noticed in passing through towns. A command- ing officer so little appreciated the object of the order that instead of visiting the towns himself, in order to test his soldiers' reports, he gave each of them a book, which he directed them to get initialled by the post- masters of the towns as a proof of their having ridden the distance. It is not surprising when some officers have so little imagination that private soldiers should be unobserv- ant. As far as I know, the practice of observation is not taught in schools, and Charles Kingsley was the only parent I have known to educate his children regularly in this manner. I suppose of the millions who have passed through Trafalgar Square there are but few who could name the statues in it, and still fewer who could describe them. In 1902 I adopted the principles taught by Colonel (Lieut. -General) Sir L. W. Parsons, K.C.B., in a lecture on " Training the Powers of Observation," and in 1903, with the help of Surgeon-General Evatt, C.B., I added the practice of visual training. Classes of soldiers were taken out and required to describe accu- rately the natural and artificial objects within sight, and to estimate the distances of all such within six hundred yards. The improvement in the men's vision effected after a few lessons was remarkable, and in May, 1904, an important War Office paper was issued, entitled " Instructions for Judging Distance and Visual Training." After laying down that the object of all training was the development of eyesight, the instruc- 261 Winnowed Memories tions dwelt on the importance of accuracy in estimat- ing distances, stating that experiments had clearly demonstrated that an error of 100 yards either short of or beyond a target 600 yards off rendered ineffec- tive, even with marksmen, two out of three bullets. Accuracy, however, cannot be obtained or maintained in the estimating of distances without constant prac- tice, and the habit of accurate observation and logical deduction will greatly add to the effect of rifle-fire. Although it is, of course, easier to practise observa- tion in the country than it is in a city, yet even there much useful exercise is obtainable ; for instance, any man walking to his office, or sitting on an omnibus, may estimate distances and check his estimates by pacing himself, or timing if he is on wheels. He will usually over-estimate the distance in a long straight street or where the object is only partly in sight ; he will generally under-estimate it when snow is on the ground, when the object is large, or when the sun is behind him. The visual and mental horizon of towns- men may be greatly extended by such self-instruction. A countryman may learn much from observing the habits of animals and birds. The following are two remarkable instances from history, of the military value of such knowledge, accompanied with the prac- tice of making sound deductions : the former instance is from negative indications, the latter from positive signs. On June 8th, 1857, Mr. G. Ricketts, C.B., learnt at Lodiana from his assistant, Mr. Thornton, that from the Philur Fort he had seen the Jalandha brigade of mutineers, then marching towards Delhi, received as guests in the Philur cantonment by the 262 The Habit of Observation 8rd Bengal Infantry, a detachment of which regiment held the Lodiana Fort, which is eight miles distant from Philur and on the south bank of the Satlaj. The river in 1857 ran in one main, broad, unfordable channel, with many subsidiary streams. Mr. Thorn- ton, in recrossing the floating bridge, had cut away the northern end of the boats, thus severing the com- munication with the south bank. The Deputy-Com- missioner, having ordered a force of Irregulars to follow him, rode to the bridge head and crossed over the main channel in a ferry-boat. There was still a mile of sand and water, jungle, and shallow streams between him and the northern bank of the river, a few hundred yards from which the Philur Fort stood. The boatmen now refused to follow the Deputy- Commissioner, who was wading with his trousers off, because two hours earlier tjiey had seen several muti- neers, who had marched down, hoping to cross by the bridge, disappear into the high jungle when they realised that the bridge had been cut. Mr. Ricketts, while looking at the bank, observed a large black-and- white kingfisher, a shy bird, poise over the jungle and swoop down into a pool just outside it. Then, seeing several more, he said, " Come on, there is no one there." " How can you tell ? " " Just look at those kingfishers ; they never settle near men " ; and the boatmen, quite satisfied, followed him to the fort. The positive instance occurred in 1866. The Arch- duke Joseph, a distant relative of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, belonged to a branch of the Haps- burgs which had been settled in Hungary for more than a century. He was the great protector of the 263 Winnowed Memories local gipsies ; whence his name " The Gipsy Arch- duke " ; and had popularised the Tzigane music by arranging many of their tunes in scores for orchestras. During the night, July 2nd-3rd, before the battle of Sadowa, a division commanded by the Archduke, retreating before the Prussian Army, had bivouacked near a town in Bohemia facing north. At midnight the Archduke, when resting in a peasant's cottage, was awakened by the arrival of a gipsy, who insisted on seeing him personally, having come to report the advance of the enemy. The Archduke, who spoke Romani fluently, asked, " How do you know ? Our outposts have not reported any movement." " That, Your Highness, is because the enemy is still some way off." " Then how do you know ? " The gipsy, point- ing to the dark sky, lighted by the moon, observed, " You see those birds flying over the woods from north to south ? " *' Yes, what of them ? " " Those birds do not fly by night unless disturbed, and the direction of their flight indicates that the enemy is coming this way." The Archduke put his division under arms and reinforced the outposts, which in two hours' time were heavily attacked. Surgeon-General Evatt, a warm supporter of all efforts to improve the material comfort and physical efficiency of the Army, suggested to me isua .^ 1903 a system of instruction to be carried out which was eagerly followed experimentally by Regimental Officers, and improved by suggestions of the Commandant, School of Mus- ketry at Hythe, Lieut.-Colonel C. C. Monro. 264 The Rev. Charles Kingsley This exercise yearly becomes more necessary as our working population is driven into crowded towns, where the sight-efficiency standard is only half that of the well-off classes, for the interior organisation of the eye muscles becomes ineffective from disuse, and I advocated sight developing and observation exer- cises. Doctor Evatt was one of the keenest Sanitary Inspectors I have known. He demonstrated that the kitchens of officers were the dirtiest places in barracks except the servants' canteen quarters, where, as he reported, " the contractor's manager generally slept with his head on a cheese and his feet in a butter bowl." Evatt helped me to improve the sleeping accom- modation in guard-rooms, and to secure the issue of a third shirt to recruits on joining. On his repre- sentations if Mr. Brodrick had been supreme in the War Office for another year the soldier would have probably got a sleeping suit instead of, as now, having the same shirt next to his skin for 168 hours without a change. 1 .-.- From boyhood I had delighted in reading *' Yeast " and " Westward Ho ! " and from early in the 'sixties I enjoyed the friendship of Charles Kings- The Rev. j^y ^^til his death. He was one of the Kinjjslev most lovable men I ever met and with whom I became intimate. Although his interests in life extended over the widest area, yet he could concentrate at will all his powers of mind on one object. 265 Winnowed Memories One of his marked characteristics was a chivalrous deference to women of all classes, and his views ex- pounded in his " Practical Lectures to Ladies " on their behaviour when visiting their poorer sisters were in reality founded on his own attitude towards his fellow-creatures. It was possibly his intense power of sympathy which enabled him to gain the confidence of all ages of both sexes. I doubt whether anyone ever left his company without feeling he had been for a time in a higher, purer atmosphere of thought than usual, and without the desire to be more like the rector. Dean Stanley, in a funeral sermon on Charles Kingsley, dwelling on his power of sympathy with all classes — hunting men, fishermen, courtiers, soldiers, and labourers — indicates how he, a Christian clergyman, was a genial companion " to all sorts and conditions " of Christian people. I had the great privilege of spending many Sundays at Eversley, and the rector, hearing of a high gate my horse had cleared out of a ploughed field at the end of a long run, insisted on walking down to measure it one Sunday afternoon. It was 4 feet 10 inches. In 1866 I was not able to agree entirely with his championship of Governor Eyre's conduct in the suppression of the Jamaica Riots, so it has been an abiding satisfaction to me that when he died, in January, 1875, his widow, also a valued friend, wrote to me : " We are not asking anyone to the funeral, but if Charles could speak now he would wish you were here." I was shooting in Norfolk, but reached the church in good time. < 366 • Royal Academy Banquet, 1910 At the Royal Academy Banquet, May 9th, 1910, in responding to the toast of the Army, I said : *' Since I had the honour of replying to the toast of the Army in this gallery twelve months ago I have had oppor- P . tunities of watching a considerable body Of A J iniA troops engaged in autumn manoeuvres, with Academy, 1910 .... . ti i ..i- which mimic war I have been associated since 1871. Last September some of the marches were long and the daily operations were prolonged. I have been studying the Army since 1854. In the sad Crimea winter of 1854-5 I served in the trenches with eight battalions, in which seventy-three out of every hundred men died from starvation and want of clothes. These old soldiers with a noble re- ticence never murmured. ' Mr. Punch ' records the only sarcastic remark which I remember to-day. He depicts two soldiers who were half naked. One is saying, ' Bill, they say they are going to give us a medal.' ' Really ; perhaps they'll give us a coat to put it on.' The soldiers who were at duty were mostly fit only for a convalescent home, and could apparently scarcely crawl ; but even in the darkest night when the Russians made a sortie these indomitable men would charge eagerly forward in response to the shout of any officer whose voice they recognised. I am often asked whether our soldiers of to-day would fight as their predecessors did. It is an interesting subject for consideration. Personally I have no doubt but that the better- educated and more fully in- structed soldiers I saw in the Thames Valley last September would fight as well as those men with whom I served fifty- six years ago. The private soldier is now better instructed, and the tactical skill of the officers has improved beyond what I had thought would have been possible. Since my last command five years ago I have visited the camps of instruction every year, and have noticed continuous advance. I believe that this improvement in tactical training has been greatly helped by one of my fellow-guests here to-night, my friend and comrade General Sir John French. 267 Winnowed Memories " You may be willing to hear an unbiased opinion of the Territorial Forces from one who told you last year, and who still maintains that the Nation in Arms is the only safeguard for the Home defence of the United Kingdom. As Chairman of an Association I get sidelights on many officers. More- over, two of my three soldier sons have in the last month been employed in teaching classes of officers of the Territorial Forces. They are filled, as I am, with admiration for the zeal shown by these gentlemen in acquiring military knowledge. As I have expressed such an opinion, you will not think I wish to depreciate Territorials when I venture to suggest that, while your hanging committee has doubtless during the last month been obliged for want of space to reject many pictm-es showing great promise, yet the standard of the work sent in would have been incomparably higher if all the artists had been properly taught in the first instance. The same argu- ment applies to trained and partly trained soldiers, and we ought to remember that if our Territorial Forces are ever to be employed in the defence of our hearths and homes they will have to fight nations trained to arms for many genera- tions. The author of * The Happy Warrior ' wrote in another poem, ' We live by admiration, hope, and love.' I love the Army, admire the spirit of the Territorial Forces, and hope that many here to-night may live to see universal service for Home defence." Lord Roberts wrote to me as follows with regard to this speech : Englemere, Ascot, Berks, May 2nd, 1910. " I cannot tell you how your speech at the Royal Academy Dinner has delighted me. Your speaking so openly about Universal Military Training, after saying all you could for the Territorials, is just what is needed." 268 CHAPTER XVI AUTHORS, BOOKS, AND PUBLIC QUESTIONS In 1868, having been invited to review a book on Sport, I wrote for advice to Mr. (later Sir) George Webbe Dasent, who sixty years ago „ . . ^ was one of the leader-writers on The Keviewing Times, and a Civil Service Examiner, reputed at the time to be one of the best of our English writers, and whose translation of " Tales from the Norse '* will probably outlive most of the literature of the present day, and I received the follow- ing reply : 19, Chesham Place, January 30th, 1868. I am afraid you will think me a very great humbug when I tell you that I know no system of reviewing. I never took a note in my life, either at school, college, or elsewhere, and as to dividing my subject, when I write I would as soon be hanged, drawn, and quartered. You might as well dissect a body and look to find a soul, as lay down any rules for literary conformation. " The style is the man, and every man has his own style. Just as there are good horses of all colours, so there are good styles of all kinds. When I review a book I read it over — though some people think this quite needless — throw it aside, and write what I think of it ; work as a bird flies upon a branch 269 Winnowed Memories and sings ; if the readers don't like my strain I can't help it. I may be a crow and think myself a nightin- gale, or I may be a nightingale, and they may think me a crow ; but I only sing my own notes, and, crows or nightingales, the listeners must judge of the tune. That is their concern. I have done my best at that given moment, and the best can do no more. One advantage of this system, if anything so unsystematic can be so called, is that it is natural, and, after all, nothing goes so much to the heart and so wins and softens others as Nature. " The Stoic said, ' Be pious, child, for he that is pious is the greatest philosopher ' ; and so I say, * Be natural, writer, for he that is natural is master of all style.' But I fear this gives you small help. " Believe me, very truly yours, " G. W. Dasent." " Professor Knight encloses his card, and presents his compliments to Sir Evelyn Wood. He has just concluded a second visit to the Professor Knight Crimea, during which (as formerly) Wood's '^Crimea" ^^^ Evelyn's delightful book has been his guide. He has read Kinglake's, Russell's, and some French and German accounts of the great conflicts of 1854-5, but he has found none so illuminative as * The Crimea in 1854-94.' " He wishes to thank Sir Evelyn for the instruc- tion and delight which that book has given him. He almost feels as if he had been in those glorious Bala- klava charges, and at Inkerman. *' He visited the Sandbag Battery thrice, and was 270 The Crimea in 1854-94 thence able to locate much at Shell Hill, the Victoria Ridge, etc. *^ Professor Knight is so much impressed by the merits of Sir Evelyn Wood's book, as an exposition of a great historic fight, in brief compass, so different from Kinglake's, or from Alison's record of our Penin- sular Campaign, or even from the record of Waterloo, and of the Great American War, that he sincerely hopes it may be possible to have it revised in a smaller and cheaper form (with revised maps) for the masses." " Alder shot, " February 7th, 1895. " I would like to tell you of the great pleasure I have had in reading your Crimea papers in the Fortnightly. WMV* R I " They are so intensely interesting that I hope you will publish them in book form and, if possible, amplify still more. " They seem to me, if you will allow me to say so, to be the best thing of their kind I have read for a very long time. " The bits of sailors' and soldiers' life in the great Siege are perfect, and that reply of Hardy when you asked him to stick close to Peel, and that scene with the dismounted gun and tackle at night have such histories behind them ! " In The Saturday Review of August 13th, 1910, was published the following review by me of Mr. I. Gibeme Sieveking's book, " A Turning Point in the Indian Mutiny " : 2Jl Winnowed Memories " The charm of this book lies in the author's sym- pathetic appreciation of heroism involving self-sacrifice. About half the volume is taken up with Episodes of g^ story of (a) the defence of a house by Mutiny ^^^^ Europeans and sixty loyal natives at Arah against a very feeble attack made by the mutinous Danapur brigade of Sipahis led by Kunwar Singh, with whom were large numbers of his local levies ; (b) an account of a muddled expedition for the relief of the invested party, resulting in a disas- trous retreat and heavy loss of life, for out of 345 Europeans and 70 Sikhs, who marched from the Ganges, 150 were killed and only 53 escaped wounds ; (c) the history of a well-planned and brilliantly vic- torious operation, executed by Major (later Sir) Vincent Eyre, Bengal Artillery, as a result of which Arah was reoccupied. ** The author's aim is to recall to our memories some of the glorious deeds done fifty years ago by noble- hearted Britons, who fought grandly and achieved success against gigantic odds at ' out-of-the-way sta- tions.' This latter accurate description locating the Arah and Jagdispur episodes induces at once the re- flection : Could any success or disaster at such places be reasonably described as ' A Turning Point ' in the Indian Mutiny ? The author's contention is that Mr. Herwald Wake and the little garrison, by keeping the mutinous Sipahis at bay until the successful relieving force approached, not only saved Arah, and conse- quently the province of Western Bihar and its chief city, Patna, of 158,000 inhabitants, but, further, that by these gallant deeds the Empire was saved for England. 272 Phoiograph : L.N. A. /t^tT^-^^ * The Defence of Arah "Most students of the history of the events of 1857-9 in India will regard this statement as over- coloured eulogy. Mr. (later Sir) Herwald Wake writes : ' Without the defence of Arah the road to Lakhnao would have been blocked, and the whole of Bengal would have joined the rebellion. ... If this handful of Englishmen had run off it was quite possible (so Havelock said, I believe) that India would have been no longer under the British flag.' "It was natural that Mr. Wake should feel acutely the immense importance of the gallant stand made by the small party under his command at Arah, but there is no evidence in the many books on the Mutiny I have read, beyond the hearsay statement mentioned by Mr. Wake, that General Havelock ever expressed the opinion attributed to him by that gallant gentle- man. "It must be borne in mind that troops were at this time passing by steamers up and down the Ganges, which runs about fourteen miles north of Arah. "It is true that Colonel Malleson, in his ' History of the Indian Mutiny,' wrote : ' A great disaster in Western Bihar would at the end of August, 1857, if energetically followed up, have been fatal to British interests in Calcutta.' The words in italics, however, contain that all-important factor in the case. Colonel Malleson was of opinion that Kunwar (Koer, in the book under consideration) Singh had the instincts of a real General, and had, moreover, personal reasons for taking vengeance on the ruling powers at Calcutta, on which city, once Arah had fallen, he would have s 273 Winnowed Memories ' directed the risen masses.' This does not read like a sound opinion when we recall that Calcutta was four hundred miles distant ; that Kunwar Singh was an invalid, seventy-five years of age, and failed when operating in his own district with some thousands of Regular and Irregular troops to turn seventy men out of a small house, or even to defend his own chief town, Jagdispur, against five hundred Europeans and Sikhs, whom Major Vincent Eyre, after relieving Arah, led through thick jungles against the place." From Major W. James. ''June 10th, 1908. *' I send you herewith a copy of my Waterloo book, which I hope you will like and approve. When you have read it I should be glad to hear wTteHoo^^ your opinion. "I believe I have settled the Welling- ton question so far as June 15th is concerned, and refuted the Prussian calumnies." To Colonel James. " July 13th, 1908. " I have just finished reading your ' Campaign of 1815,' and am grateful to you for a very pleasant and illuminating study. I am perhaps the more apprecia- tive of the value of your book from having read forty-nine works on the Campaign before I began, in 1894-5, to write ' Cavalry at Waterloo.' " I congratulate you on your clear summary of the dominating factors in the plans of the Allies, p. 50, and you put more information into a few words than 274 Cavalry at Waterloo I have read before concerning the characteristics of the three Generals, p. 36. " I cannot agree with you as to the efficiency of the French Cavalry. On March 20th there were only 28,000 in the Kingdom, and some 2,000 less available for the Campaign than you have put down. Many were untrained ; the officers in many regiments were strangers to the men, who were wanting in that im- portant quality, ' the Cavalry spirit.' " Lord Wellington, writing to Beresford, a fort- night after the battle, mentions that the French Cavalry ' walked ' about the British squares, which was an accurate description. Lord Uxbridge also said that their charges were made without any vigour." Major-General Sir Thomas Fraser asked if I had a copy of Colonel H. Stewart's report on the Majuba disaster of 1881. I replied : " September 12th, 1914. " I am not certain that I ever saw Colonel Stewart's report. It was your story I accepted as the most clear and accurate up to the moment Gen. Sir T. ^f ^j^g Boers reaching the summit of Majuba Majuba. I expect it will take anyone a day or two to find the report, which I much doubt my having. If I had been impressed by it I should have used it in ' From Midshipman to Field-Marshal.' " William Butler wrote two or three pages of vituperation of me in his ' Life of Sir George Colley.' I believe he showed it or told it to Sir G. Wolseley, 275 Winnowed Memories who deprecated its publication, whether as to style or accuracy I never heard ; anyhow, it was lifted out. I am most glad for Butler's sake. Lady Butler thanked me warmly for my article on Butler's Auto- biography.* I wrote as I felt, great admiration for a brave, eloquent, hot-tempered man, who often imagined that all the world ' was agin him.' J 5> To a friend who, sending me a book recently pub- lished, invited my frank opinion, I wrote : *; Millhurst, " Harlow, *' I regard the book as being pernicious, for the earlier chapters are attractive and may mislead ignor- ant people. A Sceptic'8 a Omitting any consideration of the blasphemy, the absurd comparison of Our Saviour with Buddha and Mahomet indicates want of knowledge. It has been aptly written : * Buddhism, as a religion, is Atheism merging into Idolatry.' " Barth^lemy St.-Hilaire describes it as ' Spiritual- ism without soul, virtue without duty, charity with- out love.' We should remember that in Shanghai, the stronghold of the religion, the ' Little Sisters of the Poor ' are said to have found 4,000 babies exposed to die in one year. ** The citing of Mahomet is unfortunate. He con- quered by the sword, and by appeals to the sexual instincts of an Eastern race, the wisest and most cul- * See p. 341, 276 Gallipoli Dispatches tivated of whom become monogamists, and the Cross is now driving the Crescent out of Europe. " Let me remind you of what Napoleon said at St. Helena ; ' I know men, and Jesus Christ is not a man.' To superficial minds there is a resemblance between Christ and the founder of Empires. That resemblance does not exist ; there is between Christ's and all other religions whatsoever, the distance of Infinity. From the first day to the last He is the same : majestic and simple, infinitely firm, and infinitely gentle." "What's brave, what's noble, let's do it." I was serving in the Royal Navy, when Lieutenant Lucas, H.M.S. Hecla, earned the first Victoria Cross that was gazetted, for having thrown over- tion to *' Dis- ^^^^^ ^ live shell. I was in the 21-gun patches from battery before Sevastopol sixty-one years the Dardan- ago when Captain Sir William Peel, R.N., elles (1915) & i" » » picked up from amongst a number of powder cases, and carried resting on his chest, a 42- pounder live Russian shell, which burst as he threw it over the parapet ; and having seen many extra- ordinarily gallant deeds performed by men of all ranks in both Services, I think I am a fair judge of fighting values I was often asked in the early days of the War whether I thought that the men in the ranks were of the same fighting value as those of two generations ago, and invariably answered confidently as follows : " Yes, just the same at heart, but with better furnished heads." The contents of this Booklet clearly attest the accuracy of that opinion. 277 Winnowed Memories Education has done much to improve the "Fight- ing Services," but the most potent magnet for bringing out the best of the Anglo-Saxon Race is the fuller appreciation of Democracy. The officers, not content with leading their men gallantly, which they have always done, now feel for them, and with them as staunch comrades. All ranks are now nearer, mentally and morally, than they have ever been before to the heart of England. Sixty years ago a brave officer could think of no better prize for the reward of gallantry than money, and a General about to assault Sevastopol on Sep- tember 8, 1855, offered £5 for the first man inside the Great Redan A perusal of the dispatches and of the London Gazette announcing the bestowal of decorations is like reading of the mortal combats described in Virgil's Twelfth Book of the " .Eneid," and fills the mind with admiration. It is perhaps only soldiers who can fully appre- ciate the enduring courage of the Munster Fusiliers, who, after losing half their numbers by drowning, and by fire of shrapnel and bullets, with their Brigadier- General, his Brigade-Major, and most of their Regi- mental officers down, could re-form into remnants of Companies, and, after a night without food, follow a Staff Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Doughty Wylie, from the beach up to the Old Castle, and, though the heroic Wylie fell, assault successfully Hill No. 141. These men are, indeed, worthy descendants of their predecessors who carried the walls of Delhi in 1857. No soldiers can read the story of the heroism shown 278 wm4i^^ Gallipoli Dispatches by the 1st Lancashire FusiUers commanded by Major Bishop — how they jumped ashore under a hurricane of lead which was rained on Beach W, and how they broke through the wire, and had by 10 a.m. carried three hnes of hostile trenches — without feeling proud of the people of the " Clothing Towns." The men are worthy of their forefathers, who at Minden in 1759 advanced in line with " Colours flying and Drums beating " against a mass of hostile cavalry, which they defeated. I hope that the young soldiers of the King's Own Scottish Borderers may be taught to recall not only the deeds of their predecessors at Namur, 1695, and the glorious victory of the infantry over a mass of hostile cavalry, which they shared with the Lanca- shire Fusiliers, but also what their battalion did on Y Beach of the Dardanelles on April 26 last, when after many hours of fighting, causing the battalion a loss of 50 per centum, the survivors held with deter- mination a trench which had been constructed for four times their number of effectives ; and then, when orders were given to abandon the position, how the courage of a small Rear-guard enabled all the wounded, ammunition, and stores to be safely re-embarked. The burning courage of the Australian and New Zealand Division must make any soldier proud of his Colonial brothers. They were disembarked at night, and the units became unavoidably mixed up, for some of them had in their ardour followed up the Turks, whom they had repulsed, farther than had been intended. It seems from a perusal of the dis- patch that, in spite of their short military training, 279 Winnowed Memories the self-reliance naturally acquired by men who lead a less artificial life than those brought up in cities and towns in England, enabled our Colonials, inspired by their personal courage, to resist successfully for hours the attacks of a vastly superior number of Turks. In a number of glorious deeds recorded in the London Gazette it is somewhat difficult to select any standing out beyond the rest ; but it seems probable that the personal prowess of Lance-Corporal Albert Jacka,* 14th Battalion Australian Imperial Forces, can scarcely ever be surpassed. During the night of May 19th-20th he, with four other Aus- tralians, was holding a trench which was heavily attacked. The five men accounted for many Turks, but when Jacka's four comrades had been killed or .wounded, the trench was rushed, and occupied by seven Moslems. Lance-Corporal Jacka attacked and killed all seven, five by successive shots from his rifle, and two with his bayonet The Commander-in-Chief at Gallipoli, affection- ately termed by his friends in the Service " Johnnie," being a very brave man, appreciates the courage of those under his command. He showed great deter- mination in the unhappy war in South Africa in 1881, when he was severely wounded, and in the battle of Eland's Laaghte in October, 1899, led so determinedly in front that he would have been recommended for the Victoria Cross but for his senior rank. . . . In the last half-century the power of appreciat- ing noble deeds and the merits of capable officers has increased. The days are fortunately past since our * An officer in 1916. 280 Army Progress senior Generals said, " We find all our officers are much of a muchness." There is now a more generous acknowledgment of the fact that the life of a labouring man is as much to him as is that of a peer to a duke's son ; there has grown up amongst our soldiers a deeper sense of appreciating valour apart from natural or acquired advantages. As Admiral Holmes and his Squadron in the St. Lawrence enabled General Wolfe to capture Quebec in 1759, so Admiral John de Robeck has enabled General Sir Ian Hamilton to land his troops and hold the western coast of the Gallipoli Peninsula; and Hamilton, happier than Wolfe, lives to acknowledge his debt to the Senior Service, describing it affection- ately as " The father and mother of the Army." October 1st, 1915. To a gentleman who, in April, 1907, was about, as editor, to launch a weekly paper to be devoted to Army interests, in which he hoped to show .i5^ A ^^^ *? the civilian mind that soldiers are much the Armyj better morally than they are generally supposed to be, and asked for my views, I wrote : " No one who has lived as I have for over half a century amongst my comrades in the Ranks can feel a doubt as to their increasing yearly value. I returned to-day from a brief visit to our greatest training camp, and in many hours' conversation with Regimental officers I was satisfied that progress in moral tone is keeping pace with the enhanced indi- vidual instruction now imparted by the officers. 281 Winnowed Memories "I have two soldier servants who have been with me since 1878 and 1880. " For the last forty years the tone in married quarters and barracks has been good. Women born, brought up, and educated in barracks have been in my service for six, seven, and five years respectively, and the last-mentioned is the third generation who has worked in the house of Evelyn Wood." Early in the War I wrote to another editor on the subject : " One of my most pleasant thoughts as an old soldier is in noting how the different Arms of the Service have been brought closer together during the operations in Belgium and France. I recall how, in the afternoon of October 25th, 1854, our men in the trenches before Sevastopol were saying, when allud- ing to the Balaklava charge, which Tennyson made famous : ' The Cavalry had a smart brush this morning.' " Now, after a lapse of sixty years, we learn from every official report and from private letters, of the mutual support rendered by all three Arms. Also, in several letters which I have received from Generals and from officers in the Artillery, the same expression occurs again and again : ' The Infantry are splendid.' " The British Commander-in-Chief is fully imbued with the twentieth century prevailing British spirit. Thirty-five years ago the conduct of a successful British General,* who, in public speeches, attributed his own success greatly to junior officers and men serving in ♦ Sir Evelyn Wood. 282 Havelock's Promise the Ranks, several of whom he named, was adversely criticised in the Press for such an innovation. In these days Field-Marshal Sir John French does equal justice to officers and to those in the Ranks, hundreds of whom have received commissions." " To the Editor of the ' Daily Mail,' London. " Harlow, " December 29th, 1908. '*SiR, — In answer to your telegram asking what is in my opinion the most urgent national question for consideration in 1909, I reply : That all j^ ^. . men in authority. Members of Parliament, Questions ^^^ women possessing influence should carefully study and make known to their fellow - citizens the conclusions of the Royal Com- mission, under the Presidency of the Duke of Norfolk, which reported in 1904 ; and further, that until the Nation accepts some modification of the Swiss system of Universal and adequate Military Training for Home Defence every Briton should loyally support the Ter- ritorial Forces scheme." The editor of a popular London newspaper, draw- ing my attention to the fact that he was compiling a list of the survivors of the Indian ^V"il^^?^^u- ^^I'i^^Yj asked my opinion as to how Mutiny ^^ could best celebrate the fiftieth anni- versary ; I replied : - " In the middle of August, 1857, the British troops under the command of the indomitable Havelock numbered 1,400 men, with 330 sick and wounded 283 Winnowed Memories soldiers. Havelock marched on August 16th from 4 A.M. till noon, many of his soldiers dying from sun- stroke and exhaustion. His troops then fought a * soldiers' battle ' till sunset. The General's order issued next day assured the troops, ' Your labours, your privations, your sufferings, and your valour will not be forgotten by a grateful country.' ** Parliament and its servants in the Treasury limit closely the Pension votes, and the most practical redemption by the public of Havelock' s undertaking in its behalf would be to subscribe enough money to make up to the few survivors who are in want, a weekly income of, say, twenty-four shillings. This may seem to be a high estimate, but all must be seventy years of age and upwards, and many require a nurse." ' To the Literary Editor of * The Morning Post,^ Strand, W.C. Millhurst, " Harlow, November ISth, 1915. " Dear Sir, — I have to thank you for the advance copy of Mr. Edmund Gosse's interesting letter. " I have a family interest in the • T- i5^"*^ allusion to the arrival of Junot's troops in Lisbon ^ m January, 1808, in Lisbon. They were half-starved, in rags, and with four toy guns ; but they sufficed to overrun Portugal, for while England was considering if she would support her ancient ally, Napoleon, who was a quick man, had decreed in the Moniteur, ' The House of Braganza has ceased to reign.' 284 (( The Fellaheen Army " My mother and her sister, who were playing in a garden when Junot's troops approached, were hurried down to the banks of the Tagus, on which the garden stood, and embarked with only the clothes they had on. " Perhaps it is not surprising that Londoners were discussing Wordsworth's system of composition in 1808, because two years earlier, although the Prussian Monarchy had been beaten down at Jena, close to Weimar where Goethe was residing, and the war must have been brought home to him, as Augereau was billeted in his house, yet all the poet's attention was concentrated on the translation of one of Diderot's works.'' {From " Truth,'' June, 1911.) " An article of special interest is that by Sir Evelyn Wood on the Egyptian Army. The Field-Marshal's pithy account of how the present • Fij ^^t^ Egyptian Army was built up out of the unwarlike material which he found at hand when he was appointed Sirdar in 1882 is both graphic and illuminating. It was the epidemic of cholera in 1883 which gave the British officers their chance of establishing confidence between themselves and the fellah conscripts. * While the patient fellah ' — the words are Sir Evelyn's—* saw the ruling Egyptian class hurry away from Cairo, he also saw those of his comrades who were stricken with the fell disease tenderly nursed, laid- out, and interred by their new self-sacrificing and determined masters.' The regenera- tion of the Fellaheen Army dates from this epidemic." 28s CHAPTER XVII LETTERS ON AFFAIRS IN SOUTH AFRICA, 1879, 1881, 1899, 1900 " Kamhula Hill, " Zululand, " April Qth, 1879. " Long before this reaches you, news of our fights on March 28th and 29th will be within your reach. I send you a sketch. It is young Henry ihe Zu u Ly sons' s first attempt at hachuring, so it is not wonderful as a drawing, but it represents fairly the Inhlobana Mountain, and as the boy behaved with great gallantry on the 28th, when I lost two Staff Officers in five minutes, I shall be glad if you can show it to His Royal Highness. The attack on this camp was a wonderful sight. The front of the Zulus stretched over ten miles. What astonished me most of all was their tactical skill. Individual men showed great bravery, but they could not face entrenched troops. We have buried 785 close into our camp. I shot three men in succession with a soldier's Swinburne-Henri carbine, 250 yards sight. What is more, we actually buried these three. I won't bore you with more details. 'Tis all, or most of it, in my report. We had 23,000 against us. I hear of a deputation coming to me about Buller. He saved the lives of three men on the 28th with the 286 Kambula most studied gallantry. I hope you will manage to keep him in the Service, his very frank tongue not- withstanding. He is out now to look after a convoy 2-4th, which is, I am told, surrounded. Poor Hackett does not know that he has lost both eyes, so I fear his brain is affected. " ' The Brigade ' was unlucky on March 28th. Barton was a very brave little man, and in Ronald Campbell the Service has lost a most gallant and accomplished Staff Officer. I shall never get a better assistant. Captain Maude, 90th Light Infantry, is doing the work at present ; but he is sadly wanted with his Company, which has been exceptionally un- fortunate. On April 30th last year the Captain, Stevens, was wounded and the Subaltern killed. On March 29th last week the Officer Commanding it, Lieutenant Bright (fifteen months' service !), was killed ; and the Colour-Sergeant (five years' service) being wounded early in the day, came in, had his arm dressed, doubled out again, and was killed. " Maude is a clever, active young man, brave as a lion, and possessing great tact ; but I feel it is so important for his Company he should revert to Regi- mental duty that I shall not keep him a day longer than is necessary. . . . " I confess to being somewhat weary of struggling with demoralised Blacks who desert every time a Zulu dog barks, and of spending my life in efforts which are, I am told, * highly appreciated,' but which have, eight months after a Campaign which, if the General Officer Commanding can be believed, my efforts stopped, led to nothing. To be sure, I have 287 Winnowed Memories consciousness of having served for a year for 2s. per diem less than Woodgate and 6s. per diem less than BuUer, which is gratifying to my patriotism. . . . " There is a man, by name Rupert Lonsdale, late 74th, who did nearly all the fighting in the old Colony. He has got nothing. One or two ' Winklers ' have been made C.M.G.'s. This reminds me of the meet- ing at Vienna, 1814. " Pas decor 6 . Ma fo% c'est Men distingice, " Yours very sincerely, " (Signed) Evelyn Wood. " General Sir A.lHorsford, G.C.Br To Military Secretary, Horse Guards, London, S.W, South Africa, July 25th, 1881. Please read the accompanying letter (copy) from Sir Daniel Lysons about his son. My dispatch is published in the London Gazette. , , . SZy ""' Sir Daniel Lysons and Lady Lysons have on different occasions addressed me on the subject of Mr. Lysons' s gallant conduct, and Lady Lysons informed me verbally that H.R.H. had said Mr. Lysons ought to have been recommended for the Victoria Cross. Sir Daniel Lysons must have mis- understood my objection to recommend his son, to whom I am much attached. I considered then the case did not quite fall within the Warrant, and it was for this reason I refrained. Sir Daniel has now sent me Army Circular, Clause 128, amending the Royal Warrant. Lieutenant Lysons and Private Fowler cer- tainly showed the * most conspicuous bravery.' When a88 Ronald Campbell I wrote my dispatch I had not penetrated the cleft in the rocks up which Captain the Honourable Campbell led so gallantly. " Last May, when in Zululand, we climbed up the den. Umbelini, who shot Campbell, was in a hole at the end of the passage, which was about 6 feet wide, 70 feet long, and the walls were about 11 feet high. The footway, if such it can be termed, was composed of masses of rock with intervening spaces. The pas- sage was open at the top to the sky, the den having been formed by a great fall of rock from the top of the Inhlobane, which stands about 400 feet above. " I am not sure whether H.R.H. will allow me to re-open a question two years old. If he sees no objec- tion I should like to do so, but I could not apply to His Royal Highness in favour of Lieutenant Lysons and omit the case of Private Fowler, Army Reserve, and I should like at the same time to recommend Private A. Walkinshaw, late 90th, now 58th Regiment, for the ' Distinguished Service ' medal, under the following circumstances : " When Captain Campbell's body was brought to where I was standing, and I had resolved to go down the hill with Mr. Lloyd, who was dying, I tried to lift him on to my pony, which was brought from under a rock on my left. I was fired on from some rocks about 150 yards distant, and as the pony kept turn- ing round as bullets struck rocks, I had some diffi- culty in executing my task. Our men were shelter- ing under stones, and as men were being hit in quick succession I did not receive immediate assistance. Private Walkinshaw came to me, lifted up Mr. Lloyd T 289 Winnowed Memories on to one pony, and Captain CampbelPs body on to another pony, " Walkinshaw was my orderly bugler in the Gaika War, 1878, and invariably behaved well under fire. He ran forward with Captain Campbell in the incident I will now describe, but thinking I might want him I called him back again. The feat in which Captain Campbell lost his life is described in my dispatch, but in language calculated to spare the reputation of another dead man. When Mr. Lloyd was mortally wounded he and I were in front of all the men just at that spot. There were some Local Volunteers and 90th men, 50 or 60 yards on our right, and having abandoned the idea of getting up where I had tried, I returned to the ledge of rocks where the bulk of the men were. I observed to Captain Campbell that all the fatal shots came from one rock, and directed him to order an officer to take some men and turn the Zulus out. He received the order three times, but would not leave the cover where he was sheltering close to where my second pony was — ^the one I rode had been shot — and about 10 feet below me and on my left. Captain Campbell called out, ' Damn him ! He's a coward. I'll turn them out,' and ran forward. Mr. Lysons called out, ' May I go ? ' I shouted, ' Yes ! Forward the Personal Escort,' and of the eight which composed it, all who were disengaged, some four in number, went on. His Royal Highness will, I hope, understand my reluctance to tell all this. The man whose heart failed has been unfortunate, which kept me silent, and, moreover, I was averse to write about myself, which I could not fail to do if I 290 Redvers Duller explained all the circumstances. Sir Daniel Lysons is naturally anxious on the point, and if H.R.H. will allow me, I will write officially on the subject to you. " Yours sincerely, " Evelyn Wood. *' P.S. — ^Had Captain Campbell survived I should have recommended him for the coveted distinction."* Extract from Letter written by General Sir Redvers Buller to A. C. S.y dated October 1st, 1899. " I have always looked upon this as Evelyn's journey, and had been wondering whether when it came off I should have a look in. So The War in j^. ^^^g ^ surprise when I was told I 1899-1901 ' ^^^ ^^^ man. I think he would have done it better than I shall, but I shall try my best. One thing I must say, nothing can equal the support Lord Wolseley and Evelyn are giving me.'* From Henry Sclater, later Adjutant-General, K.CB. " October Qlst, 1899. " I would have liked to say how very much I feel your not having command of the Army which you have done so much to train, and which owes to you so much of its improvement in efficiency, and in pro- fessional knowledge, including my own Arm (R.A.). With much sympathy, " Harry Sclater." My position during the preparation for the War and throughout it was very painful ; but all my rela- * His son, John Campbell, also Coldstream Guards, gained the Victoria Cross In 1916. 291 Winnowed Memories tions with my immediate superior, the Secretary of State for War, were of the pleasantest nature. Writ- ing to Lord Lansdowne at 9 p.m., September 5th, 1899, on the subject of troops from India being sent to South Africa, I said, " Let me give you the assur- ance that I shall tell you exactly what I think on every point ; but when you once say, ' Yes ; but I wish so and so were done,' even if you went to the extent of sending the ' Brook Green Volunteers ' to South Africa, I will do my best to help that or any other Corps to make things unpleasant for Kriiger and Company. ... I admit I dislike having to send 1,500 camp followers with 5,500 fighting men, and a 100-bed hospital requiring 50 native servants frightens us." When I realised Kriiger might force a war on our Cabinet, I asked Lord Wolseley, with whom I was on friendly terms, to consider my wishes for the command of an expedition if one should be put under orders. He replied, " This Ministry will never employ you in South Africa with the remembrance of the Laing's Nek Treaty." After what Mr. Cham- berlain had said on more than one occasion in the House of Commons, and had written two or three times, I believe Lord Wolseley had recommended my friend of five-and-twenty years. Sir Redvers Buller, believing him to be better qualified for the duty, and his putting the selection on to the Government, alleging that it would veto my appointment, was induced by a kind wish to save my feelings being hurt by the selection of an officer who had served under me during three wars in South Africa. This opinion is 2^2 The "Black Week" strengthened by a kind note written by my friend, Mr. St. John Brodrick, now Lord Midleton, on Octo- ber 16th, an active and influential member of the Government. I had to see him on business, and when I learnt that he was ill I asked to go to his bed- room. " 34, Portland Place. " I shall be delighted to see you, but from my bed. How I wish you were in Natal. I should feel great confidence if you were." I worked early and late in the " black week " of the end of the year, and at 10.30 p.m. on October 31st wrote to Lord Lansdowne : " If Sir As Adjutant- George White holds Joubert at Lady- 1899-1900 smith, it is probable that Sir Redvers BuUer will go to Natal, if only for a month or so. Someone should, I think, replace him in Cape Colony to organise the troops. If you so desire, I am quite willing to go out imder BuUer, who was my Staff Officer in 1881, and is about eighteen months my junior in age, and I would again give place to him when he was satisfied about Natal. My greatest wish is to fight those I was forbidden to fight in 1881, but I will organise in the Cape Colony while he fights in Natal, for the advance of the Public Service." The sympathy of my brother officers was con- soling. The officer commanding a battalion then at Malta, Lieutenant-Colonel (now General Sir) Horace Smith-Dorrien, wrote : " Your picture of yourself in your office dictating orders instead of being on your 293 Winnowed Memories way to South Africa shows me as having been more than ordinarily selfish when I wrote my last letter to you. If anyone in the Service has a right to be in the Cape when the Boers are attacking it, surely it is yourself.'* I wrote on December 16th to Lord Lansdowne : " I hope, if there is any doubt about the possibility of Sir Redvers relieving Ladysmith, that you will, at all events, endeavour to get out the Mounted troops. This would leave a great deal of food for the Infantry, and BuUer could easily, by crossing the Upper Tugela, having arranged the matter previously by flashlights, assist the Mounted troops in coming through. Any- thing would be better than letting them eat their horses, and we had better lose half the Effectives in an attempt to cut their way out. *' Please excuse my offering you my opinion on the subject, which is, no doubt, the office of the Commander-in-Chief." After I had sent off my letter, we had an unfavour- able telegram, and I wrote again about eleven o'clock that night to Lord Lansdowne : " You have possibly answered the cipher tele- gram. If so, I hope you have not acquiesced in the view of abandoning the Ladysmith garrison. " The Boers have hitherto persuaded us into attack- ing their prepared positions. They cannot have pre- pared all the fords on the Tugela. If it is as hot as Buller says, it cannot be raining. Therefore the Tugela is fordable at several places. I forded it on the Greytown road about this week in 1881, and that is a long way downstream. *' I have known Buller since 1873. Brave as a 294 A Great Disappointment lion, he hesitates to risk others. I hope you will sing ' Nil desperandum ' to him. I don't know Stormberg, but fancy it as ugly as Colenso. " N.B. — I never find when hunting it pays to ride over two fields when following hounds." Lord Lansdowne to Sir Evelyn Wood, December 17th, 1899. " I am afraid the arrangement which will be announced to-morrow morning will not be likely to find favour with you. My object in writing these lines is merely to tell you that it vexes me very much to feel that I am disappointing the hopes which you have more than once expressed to me." Sir Evelyn Wood to Lord Lansdowne, December 18th, 1899. " I am greatly obliged to you for your kind letter. I have soldiered long enough to accept decisions of those who have the right to give them, and earnestly hope that Lord Roberts may, in successfully serving our Country in the Field, suffer the less from the sad loss of his gallant son." Pretoria, June 20th, 1900. I was present at the capture of Johannesburg and at Pretoria, took part in the triumphal entry ; in fact, was amply rewarded for the Letter from months of work I have done out here, an Officer in ^^ ^j, . ... ., the Transvaal ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ *^^"^ more than the Boer does, then it must not be carried on the horse they ride, but on pack animals; in fact, this is the only solution of one of the big Cavalry questions. 295 Winnowed Memories " What a magnificent production the British In- fantry soldier is. I thought as he went by, tattered and torn, black and greasy, bearded and filthy, on the squares of Johannesburg and Pretoria, how much the British nation owes to him and the officers who had made him. " I shall never forget the scenes at these two places for the remainder of my life. It was worth all the hardships of this War to have been privileged to be present. " The marching of the Guards, the Canadians, and C.I.V. Infantry was superb." While I was at Aldershot I was rebuked severely for training troops to move by night, and so the frequent thanks I got for the lessons I T-.*^ . imparted in that exercise, written by Bxercises ^ , . officers while on Service in South Africa, in their private letters, was consoling to me for my supersession. A Cavalry officer, who has since risen to high com- mand, wrote while at Heilbron, Orange River Colony, on August 5th, 1901, " Nearly all our work is done at night, and we have not made a night march yet without a fairly good bag resulting." Evelyn Michell (now Lieut. -Colonel) Wood, D.S.O., who had gone to Egypt in the 1st Devon Regiment, was at Wadi Haifa on the Nile in 1897, Lieut. -Colonel ^^^ ^^^ evening was sitting with a Evelyn Wood -^u u u u j a- a companion with whom he had dmed on board a dahabieeh, when their attention was attracted to another boat immediately upstream on which a 296 Michell Wood man and a woman, foreigners, were ""quarrelling with great violence. After some threats the two young Englishmen heard a scream and saw in the twilight the woman fall overboard. As she was carried past them in the swift current of the river both the Englishmen jumped. My son's companion caught a shawl, and Michell Wood got hold of the woman, carrying her with some difficulty downstream till he got her on the bank half unconscious. He carried her up the bank and on board the dahabieeh whence she had been thrown, and by this time she had perfectly recovered. She fell on her companion's neck, and vowing that she loved him all the more, proceeded there and then to remove her saturated clothing. Lieutenant Wood thought it was time to retire. Ababdeh Bedouins do not bear the highest repu- tation amongst us, but my experience of them at the time, when in charge of the Sudan Bureau Lieut.-Golonel t .• v, j j 4.u 4. Ch 1 W d ^^^ P^yiiig many hundreds, was that they were uniformly honest and very grateful for the Httle I did — which was only to ensure that they received through British officers the pay which I covenanted that the Government should give them. When I personally was going across the Gakdul Desert towards Metemmeh the Ababdehs near Korosko were much concerned, having an overwhelming view of the power of the Mahdi, and they feared for my safety. Many months later, after I had resigned, and they knew that I was no longer in command of the Egyptian Army, nor had anything to do with the Sudan Bureau, three of them came to see me off from 297 Winnowed Memories Cairo, when I was starting for England, bringing for Lady Wood a camel's whip, handsomely covered with silver. In the Battle of Omdurman, in which Lord Kitchener crushed the power of the Khalifa, my son killed a Dervish leader on the right bank of the Nile who charged a small party of Bedouin Arabs. Two months later one of the Ababdehs rode some three hundred miles to Kassala, and waiting on the Com- manding Officer, General Lawson, later Governor of Guernsey, asked if he knew me. Lawson said, " Oh, yes ; I am a great friend of his, and served under him for three or four years," and the Arab said, " Will you please tell him that we have seen his son fight, and he is in every way worthy of his father." The following letter, written to me by my son, Lieutenant Arthur Wood, embodies the experiences of a subaltern of three years' service during twenty- four hours on Spion Kop, January 24th-25th, 1900 : " Springfield, ^' Nr, Little Tugela River, ''February 9th, 1900. " We fell in at 3 a.m. on the 24th, having been for nine days bivouacking on the low range of kopjes beyond the Tugela (and were twenty-one btory A Lady supervising her daughter's education abroad complained that her husband, a Colonel, was not promoted ; 380 A Chairman Resigns Salisbury^ December 16th, 1903. You will become a very learned lady before you have finished your girl's education. Perhaps you, unlike me, will not have to confess ignor- i,^ * ance of the Spartan poet, Tyrtseus. I Lady quoted recently some lines by Campbell, the poet, which are practically a direct translation of an ode by Tyrtseus, in a ceremony in which I was taking part last week. I said, speaking of two very gallant young men — one an officer and the other a drummer ; They are dead, but still Uve in our hearts. " I am not quite so pessimistic as you are as to the disposal of patronage, but then I am a Field- Marshal. Still, you must consider that I was the son of a very poor clergyman, with many children, and that when I began I did not know the name of any living man in the Army and only one in the Navy — my imcle — and he had not been employed for twelve years when I entered the Service, so I do not think that all promotion ' goes, like kissing, by favour.' 5 )} At the Annual Meeting of the City of London Territorial Force Association, addressing the Lord Mayor our President, I said : *' My term of office as your Chairman expires to-day. It may save your time if I state at once that, even should you be wiUing to renew the confidence you have generously accorded to me annually since my first and official term, as Chairman, for which I was nominated by the War Office determined, I do not wish to occupy the Chair any longer. 381 Winnowed Memories " Indeed, I should have retired two years ago but for my deep admiration of what some of my colleagues, by con- tinuous and strenuous exertion, have effected, Resignation and for that which many of you are trying as (chairman, ^^ ^^ . ^.j^^ patriotic few endeavouring to carry rp p . out the work of the Nation. January 27th "There are amongst you gentlemen who 1924 have done a great deal which is not, from my point of view, sufficiently recognised. There is one who has recruited his battalion up to its full establishment, and who managed to retain over 80 per centum of the establishment in camp for fifteen days last autumn. There is another who, virtually at his own cost and with infinite pains, maintains a whole Cadet Battalion. *' Nevertheless, the City, which we represent in this aspect, is still 2,700 short of the small force of 11,000, its quota for the defensive forces of the country ; we are, moreover, some himdreds short of the number to which we had attained two years ago. " In spite, therefore, of all your exertions, I must admit that our efforts for five years have failed. " Personally, I have never concealed my opinion that the Military defence of the United Kingdom can only be secured by the Universal Compulsory Military Training for Home Defence of every male adult. " I have expressed this view, which is indeed a repeti- tion of a former Ministerial opinion, at the Royal Academy Banquet and on many other public occasions. " When, however. His Majesty, the late King Edward VII., called on the Lords Lieutenant to support the Terri- torial Forces movement, and I, as a Deputy Lieutenant of the county in which I live, was summoned by the Lord Lieutenant to serve on the Essex County Association, I did so until five years ago, when the Secretary of State for War, after consulta- tion with the Lord Mayor, requested me to take the Chair here for two years, under the then Lord Mayor as President. " I thank you warmly for your personal courtesy. 382 Territorial Force Association " If I have succeeded in doing anything to advance the public interests, it is mainly owing to the intelligent, loyal* and unflagging support I have received from Lieut. -Colonel W. Campbell-Hyslop, your Secretary. " Colonel Lord Bingham has been your Deputy- Chairman since Colonel Lord Denbigh retired, and has done a great deal of work on committees. " I have ascertained from General Fry that in his opinion the fact that Lord Bingham commands a Brigade need not in any way militate against the performance of his duties as Chairman — and I propose that he be elected to succeed me." As the result of a Resolution carried on January 27th, on April 28th, on behalf of the Association, the Lord Mayor presented Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood with an illuminated vote of thanks on vellum for his services as Chairman of the Association : " At a Meeting of the City of London Territorial Force Association, held at the Mansion House on January 27th, 1914, the following resolution was carried with acclamation : " ' That this Association has received with extreme regret the resignation of Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood, V.C., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., from the Chairmanship of the Association, which he has held for five years, commencing with its institu- tion in 1908. The members of the Association desire to place on record their high appreciation of the continuous and in- valuable services which the Field-Marshal has rendered to the Association dm-ing these five years. " * They recall with gratitude the whole-hearted way in which Sir Evelyn Wood has worked for the Association, and realise how much its present efficiency and smooth working is due to his great influence and experience. *' ' They desire to tender to him their warm and sincere thanks and to record their sense of the loss the Association has sustained by his resignation of the Chairmanship. 383 Winnowed Memories (( c That this resolution be engrossed on vellum and for- warded by the President to Sir Evelyn Wood.' {Signed) T. Vansittart Bowater (Lord Mayor), President." From a General Officer (a former Staff Officer) in British Expeditionary Force, France, to Evelyn Wood, ''October 7th, 1914. " I want to tell you about what you love best in the world, the British Private Soldier. I honestly think he is better than ever ; he is simply The British splendid, and will do anything he is asked Soldier, / a - -4. 4^ ^ 1 ^ % - jp^4 to do, m spite of retreats, defensive posi- tions, or any other demoralising form of warfare. The Infantry soldier can always repulse the German attack, and whenever he attacks them in the open he can always drive them back. His use of ground is extraordinarily good, and he knows it, and consequently he feels superior to the German infantry, who have no idea how to conceal themselves in the attack. . . . Fresh divisions coming up one after the other do not seem to have anything like the effect of a larger force going in together. Fresh divisions when they arrive get absorbed in some part of the line and are more in the nature of local reinforce- ments. " The Germans are good fighters. The artillery is very well served, and they have all sorts of dodges for locating our infantry and artillery, and getting fairly accurate fire on them. Officers suffer from it more than the men, because the officers have to walk about, whereas the men can keep in their holes, behind 384 Smith-Dorrien the hills, and only go forward when the infantry attacks. " The high-explosive shells were rather demoralis- ing at first ; now nobody minds them much. The men are extraordinarily fit, and there is very little sickness, and now they get plenty of food, although during the retreat it was scarce on one or two occa- isions. " I think you can be proud of the Army that you have done so much to render efficient in war, and I should love to have you with me for an hour or two in a hot corner to see how splendidly the men behave. Of course, the officers, as usual, are what they have always been — the regimental officers full of dash and gallantry as in your own fighting days. I don't think this war will alter our methods of training much. The only thing we are really improving upon is the use of our machine guns, and we must have more of them in future." " Millhurst, " Harlow, " October 28th, 1914. '' I wish I could have been with you in that Retreat, which, so far as we can understand, is the best tactical operation our troops have done since Sir Horace* December, 1808~January, 1809. Smith- " I hope that I may live to read of Dorrien, your leading an advance, which is, how- iv.^.o. ever, much simpler. " I send you a copy of a speech which gained recruits and convinced Nonconformists in Hackney* * See p. 331. z 38s Winnowed Memories that the War was forced on us. You need not trouble to keep it. I will send a copy to your wife and to your brother. " Yours sincerely, " Evelyn Wood.*' " November Uh, 1914. " Thanks a thousand times for your note of the 28th ult. I am quite sure you would like to be with us in this glorious war. The troops are really having a desperately hard time of it, and are doing magni- ficently. Our great trouble is officers of the proper experience, but of course the Germans are having the same trouble. We are holding our own well, and time is all on our side. " Yours very sincerely, " H. S. Smith-Dorrien." " Millhurst, " Harlow, " October 2Sth, 1914. " The conduct of our Army under your Command is a continuous source of satisfaction to an old soldier. To Fi Id- "^ congratulate you warmly on your leader- Marshal Sir ship under very trying circumstances. J. D. French, " I had to orate early this month, and C C B ^•^•^- was successful in obtaining recruits and in convincing some Nonconformists in Hackney that the War had been forced upon us. *' I am sending you a copy of my address. You need not trouble to keep it, as I will send copies to Lady French." 386 Douglas Haig " Headquarters, British Army, December ISth, 1914. I have your most kind letter of October 28th before me. Alas ! unanswered till now. I know you'll forgive me. " It gave me keen joy to know my old Chief thought of me and was able to write such kind words. Yours always most sincerely, J. D. P. French." " Millhurst, " Harlow, " October 2Sth, 1914. " My warmest congratulations to you. I was very brave once, for I predicted to Sir John French in 1891 your value, ' the which your prowess has To Sir confirmed ' — was it in 1892 ? Anyhow, 01^ as ^^ ^^g after I had made your acquaint- ance near Lockinge. " I orated early this month in Hackney, got some recruits, and persuaded some Nonconformist clergy that the War had been forced upon us. " I referred to you in pleasant terms, before your brilhant determined leading had been made known to us at home, and send you a copy of my address^ You need not trouble to keep it, as I will send a copy to your wife and sister. " Evelyn Wood." 387 Winnowed Memories (C Ypres^ November 6th, 1914. My dear Sir Evelyn, — One line to thank you very much for so kindly writing. " I value your friendly appreciation more than I can say. " Our troops have had and are having terribly hard times. This high explosive of the Germans is most disturbing. We have much to learn from their artillery and machine-gun methods. " We want many more machine guns, but organised in batteries or units. " All good wishes. " Yours very sincerely, " Douglas Haig." " Miilhurst, " Harlow, " December Slst, 1916. " No Reply." " My dear Haig, — " I have carefully studied the best Dispatch I have ever read, of the greatest operations ever car- ried out by British armies. It would To Sir \yQ cruel to write to you without the Hai?G G B ^t)<^ve ' No Reply ' injunction, so pray regard it as meant. " I must offer you my sincere congratulations on your successful operations ; on the skill with which they were planned ; on the cleverness of the alternat- ing blows in different parts of the long frontage ; and 388' Douglas Haig of the determination to conquer shown by you, by your Generals, and by their troops. When they were fighting for Ginchy and Highwood I was writing of , you in the Daily Express : ' He, having carefully estimated the value of the desired object, would not, I believe, shrink from the necessary sacrifice of life.' My belief was well founded. *^ Your friend and admirer, " Evelyn Wood." " General Headquarters, " British Armies in France, " January Srd, 1917. "My dear Sir Evelyn, — "I must send you one line to tell you with what pride and satisfaction I read your most kindly letter of the 31st December. "No one knows better than you what a Dispatch should be, and I value your approval of it more than I can tell you. "With good wishes for the New Year, " Believe me, most sincerely yours, "D. Haig." 389 CHAPTER XXIII THE GREAT WAR The following sketches were written for insertion in a new edition of " Our Fighting Services." I wrote to Lady Aileen Roberts on March 6th, 1916, submitting a proof of the first, and she, replying on the 9th, wrote, "My mother and I both like what you have said very much." " Although Lord Roberts's brilliant and decisive victories at the Peiwar Kotal, Kabul, and Kandahar did not add to our Empire, it is desirable to state here briefly the remarkable career of the most popular General of the Victorian Age. Bom in 1832, he made history in the East for thirty-five years, and now was about to crown his military career there by retrieving in South Africa the successive disasters we sustained outside Ladysmith, at Magersfontein, and on the banks of the Tugela River. " Second Lieutenant Roberts joined the Bengal Artillery at the end of 1852 at Peshawar, where his father. Sir Abraham Roberts, the General Command- ing the Division, had his Headquarters, and with whom the young gunner hved for a year. " From the breaking out of the Mutiny in 1857, Roberts was nearly always employed on the Staff, distinguishing himself by intrepid conduct in the 390 Earl Roberts, V.G, many actions in which he took part, and being wounded during the Siege of Delhi. He gained the Victoria Cross for gallantry in capturing a Standard, after personal combat with two cavalry rebels. " At the close of the Abyssinian Expedition he supervised the re-embarkation of the whole Force, The costly Staff arrangements of the India Govern- ment for the Expedition were held up to students in the Staff College in the 'seventies as lessons to be avoided, both by the Instructors and by many of our influential rising officers. These forgot to impress on us that even costly arrangements, if they ensure efficiency and success, are the cheapest in war. Never- theless, it is impossible to defend the chartering and retention of a big liner for the use of her donkey- engine to condense drinking water, as was done in 1867. " While Major Roberts was in no way responsible for the above error, he showed at the outset great practical sense by insisting that the loading-up of transports for the Division of which he was Staff Officer, should be so arranged as to enable the Units to disembark complete with ammunition, equipment, rations, stores, and transport, ready to march straight away from the beach. The neglect of this wise rule has been productive of much delay in the last forty years. " There was scarcely a war in the East from 1857 to 1887 in which Roberts did not play a briUiant part, and he worked strenuously for his Country until his seven years, the extended period of his appoint- ment as Commander-in-Chief, determined in 1893. 391 Winnowed Memories " A very religious man, he combined practical Christianity with intense patriotism." I wrote to Lord Kitchener on March 5th, 1916, submitting a passage in an addition I proposed to insert in any future impression of " Our Lord Fighting Services," and heard from him, Kitchener: ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^^y^ -^^^j^ ^^ follows: an Apprecia- ^ |.Jq^ I much appreciate your kmd sugges- tion, but think that the inclusion of so long a passage about myself would assign too great importance to my work, and would mar the pro- portions of your interesting book, which has taken the whole history of our Fighting Services for its subject. Hoping you are keeping well, and wishing all success to your book, " I am, Yours sincerely, " Kitchener." " As the history of the re-conquest of the Sudan for Egypt is virtually that of Lord Kitchener, it is desirable to sketch here something of his career. " Horatio Herbert Kitchener, born 1850, commis- sioned in the Royal Engineers, January, 1871, was employed on Survey work in Palestine, when learning that Mr. Palmer, an Englishman, had been murdered near Suez, he rode rapidly to the scene and induced the carrying out of adequate and speedy justice. *' Lieutenant Kitchener, while on short leave of absence from his Station in Cyprus, saw the Naval bombardment of the forts of Alexandria in 1882 ; but in spite of Sir Beauchamp Seymour's urgent 392 Earl Kitchener request, was not permitted to remain on the Flag Ship. " Captain Kitchener, invited by Sir Evelyn Wood to assist in raising the new Egyptian Army, served from February, 1883, until 1885. He took charge of subsidised Ababdeh Bedouins at Korosko, going on thence to Debbeh, where he remained command- ing a half-company of Turks, hundreds of miles south of Cairo, until October, 1884, when the Gordon ReHef troops advanced southwards. His position for many months was one of some danger and great discomfort, and the Sirdar's urgent request for his brevet pro- motion was granted in October, 1884. He served throughout the Gordon Relief Expedition as Intelli- gence Officer, receiving brevet promotion to Colonel in June, 1885. " He became Governor- General of the Red Sea Littoral in 1886. From Suakim, with remarkable skill, he induced some ' Friendly ' tribes to attack and capture Tamai, Osman Digna's stronghold, which suc- cess quieted the district for a year. Colonel Kitchener's diplomatic feat was the greater in that on the with- drawal of British troops from Suakim in May, 1885, the ' Friendly ' tribes had necessarily made terms with the Dervishes. " Later, in 1887, the Dervishes, advancing again on Suakim, were beaten by our Friendlies, and early in 1888 Colonel Kitchener, after showing great per- sonal courage, in an unsuccessful attempt to capture Osman Digna, being severely wounded, was invalided to England. " When the Colonel returned to Egypt he became 393 Winnowed Memories Adjutant-General in 1888, and succeeded Major-General Sir Francis Grenfell as Sirdar in 1892. " In March, 1896, the Sirdar, advancing with the Egyptian Army and Staffordshire Regiment, captured Dongola, September 23rd, after crushing the Dervish forces near Hafir. Colonel Kitchener, who had com- manded a Brigade in both Sir Francis Grenfell's actions, and had been granted the Companionship of the Bath in 1896, was now promoted to be Major-General and a Knight Commander of the Bath for the Dongola victory. " On April 7th, 1898, Sir Herbert Kitchener, with one British and three Egyptian Brigades, captured by assault Mahmoud's zeriba, suffering 500 casualties, the Dervishes losing 3,000 men. " For the decisive victory at Khartoum, which crushed Mahdism, Sir Herbert Kitchener was granted a Peerage. " When invited by Sir Evelyn Wood to leave Cyprus for Egypt in December, 1882, he was a Lieu- tenant ; sixteen years later he became a Lieutenant- General, having during the intervening period, by continuous, patient work, recovered provinces three times greater than Egypt, illustrating in his own person the aptness of Carlyle's dictum, ' Genius is the tran- scendent capacity for taking trouble.' } »j The following letters ring with such a noble, patriotic note as to be worthy of publication : " December Qth, 1914. " Thank you for your kind letter. ** I am very sorry that my dear boy is not coming home, for his company and conversation were always 394 Bereaved Parents delightful to me ; but in every other way I am content, since had he lived to ninety he could not have had a more honourable life. He Letters from ^^s about fifty yards from the enemy, Parents ^^^ ^^^ before him when he was killed. " Three days before, in a similar position, a brother officer fell wounded close to him, and while my boy was assisting him a second bullet killed the Lieutenant. " He had thought over the chances of not return- ing, and said, ' I do not find it makes any difference in my wish to go.' " I expect the Army has hundreds of officers and numbers of men of the same heroic spirit, and so I feel confident of their victory." it (( Rectory, April 6th, 1916. " It seems but the other day that I wrote to thank you for your great kindness in giving my son your nomination for an Exhibition at Oxford. " Now it is my sad duty to inform you that he was killed in action at St. Eloi on March 30th. It is a sad blow to us as to so many thousands of other parents that these young lives seem to be cut short ; but we have the consolation of knowing that our dear boy was quite prepared to give his life, if called upon, and cheerfully for King and Country, for the great cause for which we are fighting. I know that he did not fear death. He was in command of a Machine-Gun Section, and was shot at a range of only fifty yards when fixing his gun on the parapet." 395 Winnowed Memories cc July 27th, 1916. Very many thanks for your kind letter of sym- pathy. In theory we have no sorrow ; the Service had brought him out splendidly, and we had become very proud of him. He could not have found a better cause to die in. " He got his promotion early ; but, alas ! cannot follow his career. He is in the same School, but in a higher Form." In the Daily Express, September 11th, 1916, after describing the almost incredible heroism of our naked and starved soldiers in the Crimea, I The British wrote : Army Sixty "Now let us turn to the world-wide and To-day ^^^' ^ have written of the old soldier, and he cannot be seen again ; indeed, his successors are more suitable to our time, but there can be nothing grander in history than the enduring courage and discipline of our men sixty years ago. "It is commonly said by my friends, and by some of them in a deprecating tone, that I am an optimist as to the duration and results of the war. I am ; for the conduct and bearing of those I know and read of, both abroad and at home, justify the feeling. I admit that at home, since the Government took not only my riding, but also my carriage horse, and especially since friends have run short of petrol, my means of locomotion for gaining personal experience are Umited. "Nevertheless, I know and learn by correspond- ence what my children and many of my friends 396 Why I am an Optimist are doing, making surgical dressings, and waiting in restaurants on munition workers, I know that my friends in East Essex are giving all their time to hospitals or war work. I see in my immediate neigh- bourhood a lady with her house filled with convales- cent wounded soldiers. Within a few yards of where I reside is a hospital occupying two houses — one that of our Master of Hounds, an old soldier, who, having long left the Army, rejoined and has been two years overseas ; the other that of an ex- Volunteer and rubber merchant, who has rejoined and is serving on the east coast " When I recall to mind the filthy, verminous state of my nearly naked comrades in the Crimea, it is with great pleasure I read of our soil-begrimed soldiers in France, on returning from the trenches, being able to shed their sodden garments as they enter a warm and well-equipped bath-house, and emerging clean on the far side with new clothing. " Postal arrangements, dealing weekly with fifteen million letters and an enormous number of parcels, give an indication of our progress in administra- tion. Then what of the men who receive and answer these letters ? We read frequently of one of our soldiers pursuing and defeating with his bayonet half a dozen of the enemy. There have been many such instances recorded. The most Divine-like act of self-sacrifice of which I have read was that of the late Sapper William Hackett, R.E., awarded posthumously the Victoria Cross. "He, with four others, was entombed in a mine. After working twenty hours a rescue party made a 397 Winnowed Memories hole through fallen earth and broken timber. Hackett helped three of the men through the aperture, and when urged to leave a wounded man and escape, refused, although the hole was getting momentarily smaller, saying, ' I am a tunneller, and must look after the others first.' All efforts to save him and the man for whom he gave his life failed after a four days' struggle. " While my admiration for the dogged, unsur- passed courage of my old colleagues remains a precious memory, I cannot believe that many of them were capable of the act for which Lance-Corporal C. Bates, 1st Berkshire Regiment, was decorated, as reported in newspapers on March 13th of this year. ' Went out in front of our line and brought in a wounded officer under heavy fire. The officer, wounded in the throat, was being suffocated, but Bates forced a straw down his throat and enabled him to breathe and suck water from a bottle.' I think it is with sound reason that I believe in my comrades of all ranks. The new officers cannot know as much as those in the old regi- ments, but for courage and straight leading they are unsurpassable. " Finally, I am optimistic because, while our Com- mander-in-Chief in France appraises carefully the values he hopes to gain with the estimated cost of life involved, yet he remains always, like Grenville of the Revenge 325 years ago, * a great fighter,' and will not, I believe, shrink from any losses to gain victory for us and for civilisation." 398 INDEX Ababdeh Bedouins, the, 297, 393 a present for Lady Wood, 298 Acland, Doctor, 340, 341 Adye, Sir John, 20 relinquishes office of Chief of Staff, 324 Aeronauts : author's prophecy, 200 Albert, Prince Consort, 255 Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, and Colonel Macdonald, 161 introduces author to Lord Charles Beresford, 65 Aldershot, a Royal Review at, 99 an affray at, 34 Alderson, Major-General E., his com- mand in the Great War, 126 Alexandria, naval bombardment of forts, 392 Allen, Rev. R. W., 167 Allen, T. E. W., and the Wesley an tribute to Sir E. Wood, 200 Allenby, Major-General E. H. H., author and, 359 Andrews, Private, 317 Annaly, Lord, 24 Anne d'Arragon. (See Michell, Mrs.) Anzacs in the Great War, 190, 279 Arabi Pasha, 216 mutiny of, 312 Sir W. Butler and, 324 Wolseley and, 320 Ardagh, Sir J., farewell dinner to, 217 Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, letter from Sir E. Wood to, 249 Army, the, a decrepit general, 369 balloons and gunfire, 200 boot supply of, 154 " combined training," 184 co-operation of the three Arms, 282 decentralisation, 153, 177 esprit de corps in, 43 false personation in, 174 health of, 137 home education for, 5 laxity in hygiene in the '50's, 142 manoeuvres, 18, 138, 193 military etiquette in the 'sixties, 373 night exercises and their value, 296 Army, the (continued) — ■ old-time mortality of, 330 progress in moral tone of, 281 recreation rooms, 357 recruiting stories, 173 red tape in, 178, 206, 364 reforms, 137, 214, 319 scouting in field training, 260 sixty years ago and to-day, 396 soldiers' love of truth, 368 tactical efficiency in, 225 tactics and health of, 137 tactics at manoeuvres in peace, 193 the " married roll " difficulty, 192 the roll call, 357 tracing men on service, 154 uniform as attraction for, 175 visual training, 261, 264 war gratuities, 170 Army and Navy Gazette founded, 306 '■ Army Hospital Corps, the, allegations against, 146 Army Medical Service, the, 139 et seq. Army Reserve men, appeal for employ- ment of, 227 Ashanti, Butler's invasion of, 323, 324 Wolseley in, 216 Ashanti Expedition, the, 320 banquet to heroes of, 78 sanitary arrangements, 145 Asquith, Rt. Hon. H. H., a compulsory service deputation to, 233 Atlantic cable, the, 212 Australians in the Great War, 190, 279 Austro-Prussian War, the, 225 Ayr, practical joking at a Hunt Ball, 61 Baden-Powell, Lieut.-Gen., 183 his " Scouting for Boys," 260 Baker Pasha, 345 Balaklava, battle of, a prosaic gar- dener and, 54 the charge, 43 Balaklava Harbour in 1854-5, 144 Balloons and gunfire at Bulford, 200 Baltimore School, 249 Baptists, the, and the Queen's Regula- tions, 371 399 Inde: Barber, Mr., 47 Baring, Sir Evelyn, 345 and Gordon, 345 Sir E. Wood on, 347 Barker, Frank, 100, 101 Barklie, General, 180 Barrington, Mr., 102, 104 his valediction, 105 Barrosa Hill, British victory at, 124 Basutoland, a petty war in, and a pleasing sequel, 48 Bates, Lance-Corporal C, 398 Beaconsfield, Lord, prescience of, 250 Beatty, Sir David, as fox-hunter, 116 Beaumont College, Old Windsor, 304 Bedford School, Sir E. Wood's speech at, 240 Belgium, German invasion of, 126 Bell, Canon, 1 Bell, Moberly, reminiscences of, 58 Beresford, Lord Charles, 342 author's introduction to, 65 Beresford, Lord William, and Archibald Forbes, 63 Biden, Rev. J., and Sir E. Wood, 2 Bingham, Lord, 383 Birkenhead, the, loss of, 241, 378 Bishop, Major, 279 Black Watch, the, 330 Blair, Adjutant James, 88 Blenheim, battle of, 17 Board School memorials, 247 Boer leaders, 70 Boer War and the R.A.M.C, 149 letters on, 291 Paardeberg, 193, 311 the Peace of 1881, 336 (See, also, South African War) Bowater, Sir T. V., 383 Bowker, Mr., 47 Boxer, Admiral, death of, 145 Bradbury, Captain, 128, 334 Bradford, Col. Sir Edward R., 96, 209 as racquet player, 97 romantic marriage of, 85 Briggs, General Sir Charles, 127 Bright, Lieutenant, 287 Brindle, Monsignor, 161 the rebuke courteous, 163 Brindley, Charles, 104, 105 British Empire, the, expansion of, 250 British in Egypt, the, 285 Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John (Lord Midleton), 128 a bedroom interview with, 293 forms Second Army Corps, 128 supports decentralisation, 177 tribute to Sir E. Wood, 186 Browne, Donald, 76 Brownrigg, Captain, 173 Bryant, Lieut.-Colonel, conquers Ger- man Togoland, 130 Buckle, Mrs., a story of Dean Hole, 165 Buddhism, 276 Bulgaria, an outbreak of cholera in, 18 Buller, Sir Redvers, 73, 75, 286, 292 a reconnaissance in Zululand, 63 and Gordon Relief Expedition, 153 gallantry in Zulu War, 286 his cook, 78 story of Sir E. Wood, 198 Bulwer, Sir H., 208 Burgoyne, " Billy," 46 Burnett, William Farquharson, 46, 47 Burrard, Sir H., and Wellington, 122 Burroughs, E. A., " Addresses to Officers of the B.E.F.," 16 Burrup, Mrs., 74 " Busy Bee," the, 9 Butler, Lady, 276, 321, 326, 327 Butler, Miss, 321 Butler, Rev. Dr., 160 Butler, Sir William, a characteristic letter to author, 323 appreciations of Wolseley and Gor- don, 321 " Autobiography of," 320 Egyptian Expedition incident, 324 his literary and descriptive power, 321, 322 in South Africa, 321 " Life of Sir George Colley," 275 on author's Crimea papers, 271 recalled from South Africa, 325 the Majuba incident, 325 Buxton, Charles, 108 Buxton, Edward North, 108 Buxton, Henry, 108 Buxton, Sir Fowell, 108 Caxverley, Mrs., 249 Camberley College draghounds, 125 the Royal Military College, 168, 226 Cambridge, Duke of, 349 and Sir E. Wood, 365 Wolseley and, 365 Cameronians' memorial, Glasgow, 308 Campbell, Capt. the Hon. Ronald, 287, 289, 290 Campbell, Col. John, awarded V.C., 291 (footnote) Campbell, Sir Colin, a keepsake to Sir W. H. Russell from, 307 recommends Wolseley for promo- tion, 318 Campbell-Hyslop, Lieut.-Colonel, 383 Cape Colony, the Gaika Rebellion, 36, 37, 47, 290, 312 Cardigan, Lord : an unappreciative gardener, 54 400 Index Cardigan, Lord {continued) — and the M.O.'s of the Light Cavalry Brigade, 144 Cardwell, Mr., Army reforms, 214, 319 Carter, Colonel, 129 Castle Saunderson, author's visit to, 26 " Cavaliers, the," 173 Celibates o. married men : a German sentry's opinion, 175 Cetewayo, capture of, 94 Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J., and the South African War, 292 Chelmsford, silver drums presented to Essex Regiment at, 329 Cherif Pasha, 348, 351 Chetwode, Sir Philip, 128 Cholera, epidemics of, 18, 143, 145, 285, 340 Christie, Ensign, 330 Churchill, John (Duke of Marlborough), victory at Marlborough, 17 City Livery Companies, and the Terri- torial movement, 237 City of London Territorials, resignation of author as chairman, 381 vote of thanks to Sir E. Wood, 383 City of London Yeomanry, Sir E. Wood's dinner speech, 236 Civil Engineers and South Africa, 218 Civil Engineers, Institute of, 218, 224 Cleland of the Cameronians, 308 Clones estate : an Irish tenant, 66 Colchester, a farewell dinner to Sir E. Wood at, 227 Cold Ash, opening of rifle range at, 251 Colenso, Bishop, and Sir E. Wood, 71-3 Collard, Jack, 90 Colley, Sir George, 72 death of, 208 " Life of " (Butler's), 275 Compulsory military training, a depu- tation to Mr. Asquith, 233 Sir E. Wood on, 234, 235, 251, 268, 328, 382 Courtney, W. L., " The Literary Man's Bible," 249 " Crimea, the, in 1854-94," Sir E. Wood's, 270 Crimea, the, sufferings of troops in, 140, 257, 258, 396 the Times fund, 307 Crimea War, the, esprit de corps and, 43 sidelights on, 254 Crouch, Mr., 11 Cuddington, Lieutenant, death of, 311 Curzon, Lord, tribute to Lord Lans- downe, 302 Daily Express, the,^author's article on British Army in, 396 Daily Express, the (continued) — report of author's speech at Hotel Cecil, 23b Sir E. Wood on An Englishman's Home, 234 Daily Mail, author on urgent national questions, 283 Dalhousie, Lord. (See Panmure, Lord) Dardanelles landing, the 279 " Dardanelles, the. Dispatches from," Sir E. Wood's introduction, 277 Dasent, George Webbe, 269 Dawnay, George, 153 De Crespigny, Lieutenant Norman, 334 De Lisle, General Sir H. de B., 128 Delbruck, Herr, 330 Denbigh, Lord, 383 Derby, John, 90 Derbyshire Regiment, the, 169 De Robeck, Admiral John, 281 Douglas, Sir George, 254 (footnote) Dover, the harbour works, 192 Drake, Francis, a story of, 16 Dreifontein. (See Three Springs) Du Maurier, Major, 36 Dublin, a great Orange leader, 24 Dunn, John, 20 Durnford, Colonel, death of, 75, 239 East Anglia, erection of grammar schools in, 242 East Kent Yeomanry, the, 192 Eaves W. 94 Edghi'll, Chaplain-General J. C, 201-3 Edward VII., King, and the Territorial movement, 233, 382. (See, also, Albert Edward, Prince) Egypt and the Sudan question, 345 Government and, 354 the British in, 285 Egyptian Army, the, and Gordon, 325 Kitchener and, 393 Lord Kitchener on, 355-6 the Fellaheen, 285, 313, 353 Egyptian Expedition, the, a garrulous naval officer and, 20 Eisenach, school teachers at, 118 Eland's Laaghte, battle of, 280 Elgin, Lord, Commission on South African War, 373 Empire Day : address by Sir E. Wood, 249 et seq. Engineers and South African War, 218 England, Church of, question of its establishment, 171 England, social conditions in 1556, 243 Enteric fever, 146 Erne, Lord, 26 Essex Regiment, the, memorial to, 310 presentation of silver drums to, 329 2 A 401 Index Essex staghounds, the, 100, 109, 110 Eurgdice, the, loss of, 46 Evatt, Surgeon-General, and visual training in the Army, 261, 264 Eyre, Governor, 266 Eyre, Major (Sir) Vincent, 272, 274 Fairbridge, Charles, 37, 38 Faith under fire, 16 et seq. Fellaheen, the, 285, 313, 353 Felstead : Essex Staghounds, a memor- able run, 110 inspection of Cadet Corps of, 245 Felstead School, Sir E. Wood's speech, 245 Ffoulkes, Lieutenant, 105 Filder, Mr., Commissary-General, 256 Fishmongers' Company, the, 78, 211 Forbes, Archibald, 63 Foreign Office, the, an absent-minded diplomat, 374 Fortnightly Review, the. Sir E. Wood's Crimea papers in, 271 Fouchez, Mr., 70 Fowler, Private, 288, 289 Fox-hunting and military training, 115 Fraser, General Sir Thomas, 275 Frederick Charles, Prince, 118 French, Field-Marshal Lord, and Cavalry, 359 and Major-General Alderson, 127 and Sir E. Wood, 193-6 appreciation of fox-hunting, 130 author's congratulations to, 386 Sir E. Wood on, 333 tribute to General Sir H. Smith- Dorrien, 130 French, the, in Lisbon, 284 Frere, Sir Bartle, 312 Fry, General, 383 Furse, Major-General W., 166 Gaika Rebellion, 36, 37, 47, 290, 312 Gallipoli a ghastly incident in, 190 Anzacs in, 190 landing of British troops in, 281 Sir W. H. Russell in, 306 the Commander-in-Chief at, 280 Garth, Mr., 91 Germans, purchase of British hunters by, 118 Germany : the Imperial Committee for Sports, 118 Ghuzni, capture of, 322 Gibraltar, siege of, 329 Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., as host, 19 his power of sympathy, 21 resignation of, 258 Glasgow Cathedral, Caraeronians' mem- orial in, 308 Glyn, Mr. (Lord Wolverton), 21 Goethe, 285 Got, definition of, 86 Gordon, General, 352 and Sir E. Baring, 345 killed at Khartoum, 320 Sir E. Wood on, 344, 345 the Bayard of the nineteenth cen- tury, 347 Gordon, Major Sir William, 87 Gordon Relief Expedition, the, 30, 65, 154, 216, 313, 320, 326, 341, 393 Sir W. Butler and, 325 Gosling, Captain, 113 Gosse, Edmund, 284 Gough, General Sir H., 128 Graham, Sir James, 258 Graham, Sir Thomas (Lord Lynedoch), 123 Granville, Lord, and Arabi Pasha, 324 Great War, the, 390 ei seq. a Gallipoli incident, 190 letters from bereaved parents, 394, 395, 396 the British soldiers of to-day, 384 the Navy and, 332 Grenfell, General, 60, 340 Gresham's School, Holt, 242 Grierson, Colonel, 192 Grove, Sir C, farewell dinner to, 217 Hackett, Sapper William, a posthum- ous V.C. for, 397 Hackney, Sir E. Wood's recruiting speech at, and Mayor's thanks, 331, 335 Haig, Ensign, 318 Haig, Field-Marshal Sir Douglas, as hunter, 127 author's congratulations to, 387-8 Sir E. Wood on, 332 Haig, Lady, 333 Haldane, Mr., and the R.F.A., 187 Hale, Col. (Sir) Lonsdale, 196 and the Territorial force, 235 Hamerton, Colonel, at Quatre Bras, 329 Hamilton, Major-Gen. Sir Ian, 281 letter from Sir E. Wood, 136 Harris, Lord, 192 Hartington, Lord, 19 Hatherley, Baron. (See Wood, William Page) Havelock, General, 246, 273 appreciation of his troops, 284 Hay, Colonel John, 55 Heligoland, battle of, 46 Herbert, Colonel, 18 Herbert, Sidney, 140, 258 Herkomer, Professor, 160 402 Index Hicks Pasha, 313 destruction of his army, 339 Hildyard, Sir E. Wood on, 197 Hill, General, 124 " Historian's History of the World," the, 253 Hole, Dean, a story of, 165 Holmes, Admiral, 281 Holt, Gresham's School, 242 Home, Dr. Anthony, 145, 146 Home, Major, " Pr6cis of Tactics," 18 Horsford, General Sir Alfred, 12 author's letter to, on Zulu War, 286 Howard, Major, 192 Hughes, Colonel, 361 Hyena hunting in India, 88 India, medical science in, 150 sport in, 83, 88 India Office, red tape of, 206 Indian Mutiny, the, a brave action, 8 a story of, 22 Cameronians at Lucknow, 309 episodes of, 272 the 50th anniversary of, 283 Inhlobane, the retreat from : a story of Sir E. Wood, 198 Insandwhlana, author's visit to, 73 battle of, 239 Institute of Civil Engineers, author's speeches at, 218, 224 Invasion, the meaning of, 251 Ireland, invasion of, 305 judges in, 57 the Land League (1886), 29 Irish Guards, the, 322 Irish sportsmen, notable, 102 Jacka, Lance-Corporal Albert, 280 Jackson, Dr., 144 Jacob, Right Rev. Dr. Edgar (Bishop of St. Albans), and Sir E. Wood, 171-2 Jamaica riots, the, 266 James, Major W., 274 Jellicoe, Sir John, as hunter, 116 Jeune, Sir Francis, author's visit to, 54 Johannesburg, capture of, letter from an eye-witness, 295 Jones, Henry, 110 Jones, W. F. Fenton, 335 Jorissen, Dr., 70 Joseph, Archduke, and the gipsies, 263 Joubert, Mr., 70, 338 Jutland, battle of, 116 Kabul, retreat from, 329 Kadar Khan, orderly to Sir E. Wood, 89 Kambula Hill, battle of, 309 Keate, Dr., headmaster of Eton, 160 Keiskamahoek : Bailey's Grave, 36 Kellermann's charge at Marengo, 119 Kenyon, Colonel, 181 Khartoum, Gordon and, 320, 346 Khartoum question, author on, 354 Killiecrankie, battle of, 308 Kimberley, Lord, letters from author, 69, 208 Kinglake, Mr., on "Lord Panmure, 256 Kingsley, Charles, and the habit of observation, 261 friendship with author, 265 King's Own Scottish Borderers, 279 Kitchener, Lord, and the Battle of Omdurman, 298 Commander-in-Chief in India, 151 correspondence with author, 355 on " Our Fighting Services," 392 Sirdar of Egypt, 394 Knight, Captain Lewis, 87 Knight, Prof., on " Crimea," 270 Knightsbridge Barracks, former water supply of, 141 Knox, Sir R„ a farewell dinner to, 213 Kruger, Mr., 70, 292 Kunwar Singh and the Indian Mutiny, 272, 273 Labram, Mr., death of, 219 Ladysmith, relief of, 220 Sir E. Wood's suggestions to Lord Lansdowne, 294 Laing's Nek Treaty, the, 292 Laing's Nek tunnel, the, 219 Lakhnao, Relief of, 15 Lancashire Fusiliers (1st), 279 Land League, the, 29 Lansdowne, Lady, 302 Lansdowne, Lord, correspondence with Sir E. Wood, 292, 293, 294, 295, 302 Lawson, General (Governor of Guern- sey), 298 Leighton, Sir Frederic, and Dr. Ethel Smyth, 158 Lennard, Sir Thomas, 90, 94 Lisbon, the French in, 284 Lloyd, General, 239 Lloyd, Mr., death of, 289, 290 London, Tower of, 141 Lonsdale, Rupert, 288 Lowe, Colonel, 183 Lowe, General, 75 Lucas, Lieut., awarded the V.C, 277 Lynedoch, Lord. {See Graham, Sir Thomas) Lysons, Lady, 288 Lysons, Lieutenant, 286, 288, 289 Lysons, Sir Daniel, 288, 291 403 Index Macadamised roads in South Africa, 36 Macdonald, Colonel, presented to the Prince of Wales, 161 Mackinnon, Surgeon W., 146 Magato, Kafir chief of Rustenberg, 71 Majuba, Gen. Sir T. Fraser and, 275 Sir William Butler on, 325 Malet, Sir E., and Arabi Pasha, 324 Malleson, Colonel : " History of the Indian Mutiny," 273 Manning, Cardinal, 161 Marengo, battle of, 118 Marlborough, Duke of, 17 Marsden, Colonel, and Lady Wood, 109 Marsden, Commissary-General, 124 Marshall, Major-Gen. Sir G.,130, 183 a letter from author, 176 Martyr, Major, captures Cetewayo, 94 Matching School, Essex : Empire Day, 1909, 249 Maude, Captain, 287 Maule, Fox. {See Panmure, Lord) Maurice, Major-General, 130 McElnea, J., a typical Irish tenant, 66 Michel, General Sir John, his staff at the 1872 manoeuvres, 18 Michell, Admiral Sir Frederick, 33, 34 Michell, Charles, 34 a runaway marriage, 35 Surveyor-General at Cape of Good Hope, 36 Michell, Mrs. Charles, 35, 37 Midleton, Lord. (See Brodrick, St. John) Minshetta, the Bedouin chief, 339, 340 Monro, Lieut.-Col. C. C, and visual training, 264 Mons, Retreat from, 117, 128, 333 Moore, Dr. Norman, a story by, 163 Morning Post, The, and the French in Lisbon, 284 Mounted Infantry, the, 191 Muir, Dr., 308 Munster Fusiliers, the, 278 Murray, Fergus, 300 Musketry instruction, 203 Nana Sahib, treachery of, 22 Napier, Sir Charles, statue of, in Tra- falgar Square, 249 Napoleon, a dictum of, 277 his decree, 284 Natal Carabiniers, the, 239 Natal, enteric fever in, 146 Natal Police, heroic, 75 Nelson, his prayer on the Victory, 17 the battle of Trafalgar, 241 New Zealanders in the Great War, 279 Newman, Colour-sergeant Joseph, 317 Nicholson, Lord, 358 Niel, Marshal, 225 Nile Expedition, the, 341 Norfolk, Duke of, 224, 283 Northumberland Fusiliers, the, 169 Nubar Pasha, 351 Nuredden Bey, 343, 344, 345 O'GowAN, Major-General, 300 Olympia, a criticised tournament, 189 Omdurman, battle of, 298 Orange Free State, the, 250 Orangemen, a great leader, 24 and the Land League, 29 Orpheus, the, patriotism of commander of, 46 Overcrowding, evils of, 140 Paardeberg, Boers at, 193 the Essex Regiment at, 311 Paget, Colonel (" Rajah "), 129, 197 Paget, Mrs., 197 Paget, Sir James, a free shave, 160 Palmerston, Lord, 254 Panmvure, Lord (Lord Dalhousie), 254 censures Lord Raglan, 256 Parr, Major-General Hallam, author's letter to, 73 Sir E. Wood's appreciation of, 312 Parsons, Lieutenant, recommended for V.C, 311 Parsons, Lieut.-Gen. Sir Laurence, 128 lecture on " Training the Powers of Observation," 261 Peel, Brigadier-General L., 130 Peel, Capt. Sir Wm., bravery of, 277 Pender, Sir J., Sir E. Wood's tribute to, 211 Peninsular War, the, 123 Philpotts, Mr., and Bedford School, 240 Pig-sticking in India, 85 Pitt, Mr., on national defence, 235 Ponsonby, General Sir Henry, letter from Sir E. Wood, 336 Sir E. Wood's letter to, on Gordon and Sir E. Baring, 345 Potter, Mr., 239 Powell, Colonel, 129 Pretoria, a pack of hounds in, 126 fall of, 295 Royal Commission at, 71 Pretorius, Mr., 70 Pritchard, Lieutenant, 105 Punch and the Crimea War, 267 Purvis, Major J. H., 130 QuATRE Bras, Essex Regiment 329 Quebec, capture of, 281 at, 404 Index Raglan, Lord, 46, 256 Rainy, Rev. Principal, 254 (note) Ramsay, Sir George Dalhousie, 254 Recruiting stories, 173 " Regulation Willie," 15 Repartees, clever, 48 et seq. Ricketts, G., 262 Riel rebellion, tlie, 318 Rifle shooting, faulty, 203 Rimington, General, as sportsman, 126 Roberts, Field-Marshal Lord, and Colonel Parsons, 129 and Rev. Dr. J. C. Edghill, 201 author's sketch of, 390 death of, 327 heads a deputation to Mr. Asquith, 233 interest in soldiers' influence, 167 letter from author on gunners as M.I., 191 loss of his son, 295 Roberts, Lady Aileen, 390 Roberts, Sir Abraham, 390 Robinson, Sir Hercules, 71 Roding River, the, 107 Roebuck, Mr., 258 Rogers, Surgeon, 340 Roosevelt, Theodore, 331 orders to Cavalry officers, 116 Royal Academy banquets, 222, 267 Royal Army Medical Corps, a Royal Commission on, 149 Royal Artillery, the, an angry colonel and an easy-going major, 9 Royal Engineers, author's opinion of, 164 Royal Field Artillery, the, 186 cross-water jump, 114 Royal Military College, the, 168, 226 Russell, Dr. W. Howard, 140, 233 a memorial to, in St. Paul's Cathe- dral, 305 his Times letters, 140, 258, 306 Russell of Killowen, Lord, 78 St. Albans, Bishop of, and Sir E. Wood, 171-2 St. Cloud, garrison of, 140 St.-Hilaire, Barthelemy, 276 Salamanca, Essex>Regiment at, 329 Sandhurst College, an epidemic of scarlatina at, 13 Saturday Review, article on habit of observation in, 259 author's appreciation of F.-M. Vis- count Wolseley, 314 * " Autobiography of Sir W. Butler " reviewed in, 320 M critique of Sieveking's " Turning Point in Indian Mutiny," 271^ Saunderson, Edward, 28 as sportsman, 102, 104 leader of the Orange party, 24 Saunderson, Llewellyn, 26 Saunderson, Mrs. Edward, 26 Saunderson, Mrs. Somerset, 26 Saunderson, Somerset, 26, 27 Sawdust and its value, 380 Sclater (Adjutant-General), Henry, 291 Scouting, value of, in field training, 260 Scutari, hospitals at, in 1854-5, 148 Sevastopol, author at, 277, 309 Seymour, Sir B., and Kitchener, 329 Shanghai, Buddhism in, 276 Sherman, General, letters to his wife, 224 Shovel, Sir Cloudesley, a story of, 163 Sieveking, I. G., 271 Silbury Hill, 166, 167 Sivewright, Mrs. (Lady), 73 Smith, Assheton, a keen sportsman, 84 Smith, Bishop Taylor, 16 and a coachman, 166 Smith, Major General F., 380 Smith-Dorrien, General Sir Horace, 130 correspondence with, 385, 386 reminiscences of, 333 sympathetic note to author, 294 Smyth, Dr. Ethel, 158, 159 Soughan, Drummer, death of, 311 Soult, Marshal, 123 South Africa : correspondence, 336 recalls and supersessions in, 326J road construction in, 36 Sir E. Wood's letters on, 286 ei seq. the Peace of 1881, 336 South African War, the, 138, 149, 193, 280, 291, 292 approximate number of British soldiers sent, 218 narrative of an eye-witness, 221 work of engineers in, 218 Yeomanry recruits and, 233 (See, also, Boer War) Southwell, Lord, 24 Spion Kop, 298 Sport and the Service, 115 Stacey, Frank, 110 Stanley, Dean, a funeral sermon on Charles Kingsley, 266 Stephenson, Colonel, 311 Stevens, Captain, 16, 287 Stewart, Colonel, report on Majuba disaster by, 275 Stuart- Wortley, Charles, 205 Suakin, mutinies at, 355 Sudan, the, evacuation of, 349 "'^ re-conquest of, 392 Sudan expedition, the, medical and sanitary arrangements, 148 405 Index Sudan question, the, author on, 345 Suffragettes, the, 159 Tactics and health of the Army, 137 et seq. Tactics, encircling, 193 Taverham Hall, Norfolk, 131 Tel-el-Kebir, Wolseley at, 216, 313 Territorial forces, the, 222, 233, 235, 237, 268, 283, 334, 381 Thorneycroft, Colonel, 299 Thornton, Mr., 262 Three Springs, the Essex Regiment at, 311 Tiger shooting, 96 Tigrane Pasha, 348 Times, The, Sir W. H. Russell and, 140, 258, 306 Tinling, Captain, and the Indian Mutiny, 309, 318 Togoland (German), conquest of, 130 Topi, Tantia, 22, 86 Towse, Beckwith, 30 Trafalgar, Battle of, 241 Trafalgar Day, author on war shrines, 248 Transvaal, the, question of cession, 70 Truth, on the British in Egypt, 285 Tugela River, bridging of, 219 Tulloch, Colonel, and European mor- tality in India, 150 Turbot, Mr., as sportsman, 105 Turner, Lieutenant (Major) Chamley, heroism and death of, 340, 353 Twyford, Major, at Spion Kop, 299 Typhoid fever, outbreak of, at St. Cloud, 140 Universal military service and the Territorial forces, 233, 235, 251, 268, 328 Uxbridge, Lord, 275 Uys, Piet, 238 Varna, outbreak of cholera at, 143 Vicars, Hedley, heroism of, 18 Victoria Cross, a disallowed, 255 Victoria, Queen, and the Army, 256 and the Zulu War, 50 becomes Empress of India, 250 sympathy with Sir E. Wood, 327 Vimiera, battle of, 122 Visual training, 261, 264 " Wait-a-Bits," the, 5, 97 Wake (Sir), Hemald, 272, 273 Walkinshaw, Private A., 75, 76, 289 Wallace, Edgar, 247 War gratuities, 170 War-service efficiency, advance in, 146 War shrines, 248 War training, sport and, 115 Warley, Essex Regt. memorial at, 310 Washington, an unconventional New Levy soldier, 8 Waterloo, Cavalry at, 274, 275 Waters, Col. Sir John, 123 Watson's " Life of Sir C. Wilson," 324] Wauchope, Andrew, 319 Wellesley, Arthur. (See Wellington, Duke of) Wellington, Duke of, his encourage- ment of hunting, 121 on battle of Waterloo, 275 original letters from, 205 Welsh Regiment, the, 311 Wesley ans, and Sir E. Wood's retire- ment, 200 Westcott, Bishop, 352 Western, Lord, 48 White, Luke (Lord Annaly), 24 White, Luke, bugler of 13th Somerset L.L, 322 White, Sir George, 293 William II., Emperor, and drag hunt- ing, 118 Theodore Roosevelt and, 331 Wilson, Fleetwood, 161 Wilson, Mr., Admiralty Surveyor, 192 Windham, General, defeat of, 368 Wing, General Frederick, 129 Wingate, Lieutenant, Sir E. Wood's appreciation of, 341 Winnipeg, foundation of, 318 Wokingham, a barmaid's smart re- partee at, 49 Wolseley, Field-Marshal Lord, 4, 18 an appreciation by author, 314 and Dr. Edghill, 202 army reforms of, 223, 309, 319, 364 author's admiration of, 32 banquet to, 78 Butler's " Life of Sir G. Colley," 275 Commander-in-Chief in Ireland, 319 congratulates Sir E. Wood on colonelcy of the Blues, 176 created a Peer, 320 dinner to : Sir E. Wood's speech, 215 funeral of, 309 his experiences in the Crimea, 315 his " Soldier's Pocket Book," 318 in India, 316 Mr. Cardwell and, 319 recommends Sir R. Buller for com- mand in South Africa, 292 Sir Colin Campbell and, 317 Sir E. Wood and, 292 supports system of linked batta- lions, 319 406 Index Wolseley, Field-Marshal Lord (cont.) — suppresses Arabi Pasha's revolt, 320 the Duke of Cambridge and, 365 victory at Tel-el-Kebir, 216, 313 Wolverton, Lord (Mr. Glyn), 21 "Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn, a Baptist minister and, 370 a dual office, 365 a letter to Gordon, 352 a letter to Lord Kimberley, 69 a quaint host, 32 a quarrelsome neighbour, 369 a relative's determination, 40 a sporting aide-de-camp, 41 a story against, 367 a tribute to Sir D. Haig, 389 Acting-Governor of Natal, 73 Adjutant-General 1899-1900, 293 advocates economy in artillery prac- tice, 176 after-dinner speeches, 211 et seq. aide-de-camp in Dublin, 4 an ardent total abstainer and, 31 an inspection by, and its conse- quences, 3 and contracts, 360 and Duke of Cambridge, 365 and the bibulous colonel, 7 and the Land League, 29 anonymous detractors, 196 appreciations of — F.-M. Earl Roberts, 327 F.-M. Viscount Wolseley, 314 General Hallam Parr, 312 army manoeuvres of 1903, 193 as economist, 380 as reviewer, 126, 269, 271, 320 at Pretoria, 71 at Wolseley dinner, 215 authors, books and art, 253 et seq. authors, books and public ques- tions, 269 et seq. becomes a City Liveryman, 78 Bedford School : address, 240 Bishop Colenso and, 71 Bishop of St. Albans and, 171 Buller's story of, 198 call on London's patriotism, 236 Chairman of Royal Engineers' Com- mittee, 164 Charles Kingsley and, 265 Christmas dinner speech, 218 Colonel of Royal Horse Guards, 176 commends Board School memorials, 248 correspondence with Queen Vic- toria, 341 criticises War Office and India Office red tape, 178, 206, 364 Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn (cont.) critique of " Historian's History of the World " 253 dangerous shows at tournaments, 188 defends his action in Boer War, 338 dines at Marlborough House, 63 dines with Mr. Gladstone, 18 Dr. Edghill and, 201 Empire Day address, 249 entertains Cardinal Manning, 161 ex-soldiers, employment of, 227 family reminiscences of 1808, 284 farewell banquet at Colchester, 227 farewell dinner to Sir R. Knox, 213 Felstead School, speech at, 245 first Press honorarium of, 68 friendship with Edward Saunder- son, 24 imprudence at the dinner-table, 157 in command of Aldershot division, 157 in the Transvaal, 11 interview with Lord Russell of Killowen, 78 introduction to " Dispatches from the Dardanelles," 277 invited to raise a Territorial bat- tery, 186 " Jacky " Biden and, 2 letter from a B.E.F. officer to, 384 letter from Rt. Hon. St. John Brodrick, 186 letter to a superseded General, 168 letter to Wolseley on Gordon, 344 letters on South Africa, 286 et seq. Lord French on, 359 Lord Lonsdale : letters to, 293, 294, 295, 302 marriage of, 24 military anecdotes and correspond- ence, 135, 173, 191 military correspondence and speeches, 380 et seq. military letters and stories, 357 Natal's presentation to, 238 newspaper attacks on, 196 on An Englishman's Home, 234 on compulsory universal military training, 234, 235, 251, 268 on drink and tobacco, 358 on invasion of England, and its meaning, 251 opens a rifle range, 251 " Our Fighting Services," addi- tional notices for, 390, 392 " Panmure Papers " : a critique, 254 presides at Army Hospital Corps inquiry, 146 Quartermaster-General, 363 407 Index Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn (coni.) recruiting and other military ad- dresses, 329 et seq. recruiting stories, 173 reminiscences of Marlborough, 1 re-opens Gresham's School, 242 requested to settle a bet, 367 resigns chairmanship^ of London T.F.A., 381 rides to Insandwhlana, 73 Royal Academy banquets, 222, 267 service in the Royal Navy, 277 Sir W. Butler and, 275, 325 Sirdar of Egypt, 285 snubs a Scotch officer, 100 soldiers' war gratuities, 170 some rich relatives, 375 speech at farewell dinner to Sir C. Grove and Sir J. Ardagh, 217 sport in India, 83 sporting stories, 96 et seq. succeeds Sir R. Duller, 365 supersession of, in South African War, 291 et seq. supervises Colchester canteen, 230 sympathetic letter from Queen Vic- toria, 327 the Cameronians' memorial, 308 " The Crimea in 1854-94," 270 Trafalgar Day address, 248 training of Yeomanry, 183 transport contracts, 363 tributes to Essex Regiment, 310, 329 unveiling of Russell memorial, 305 unveils memorial to Beaumont Boys, 304 visit to High Clifte, 205 visits Dover, 192 Wood, Field-Marshal Sir Evelyn (cont.) vote of thanks to, from City T.F.A., 383 Wood, Hatherley Page (nephew of Sir E. Wood), 131 Wood, Lady (mother of Sir E. Wood), 39 Wood, Lady (wife of Sir E. Wood), Ababdeh Bedouins' present for, 298 Wood, Lieutenant Arthur, 298 Wood, Lieut.-Colonel Charles, 297, 298 Wood, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn Michell, 296 Wood, Rev. Sir John Page (father of Sir E. Wood), 39, 48, 53 a gift ring lost and found, 53 repartee of, 48 Wood, Sir Matthew, Lord Mayor of London, 53 Wood, William Page (Baron Hather- ley), 53 Wordsworth, 285 " Wreckers " and their duties, 103 Wylie, Lieut.-Col. Doughty, 278 Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George, 169 Yeomanry, the, and the S.A. War, 233 Yeomanry training, 183 Zebehr Pasha, Gordon and, 346 Zulu War, the, 50, 238 author's letters on, 286 Colonials co-operate with British, 238 Lord William Beresford receives the V.C, 64 medical organisation in, 146 Sir E. Wood's reminiscences, 238 Printed by Cassell t Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London, E.C. F 15.217