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Title: The Battle of Dorking
Author: George Tomkyns Chesney
Release Date: July 20, 2021 [eBook #65882]
[Last updated: September 25, 2021]
Language: English
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THE BATTLE OF DORKING
With an Introduction by G. H. Powell
[Illustration]
London
Grant Richards Ltd.
MDCCCCXIV
PREFACE
The warnings and prophecies addressed to one generation must prove very
ineffective if they are equally applicable to the next. But in the
eloquent appeal published forty-three years ago, by General Chesney,
with its vivid description and harrowing pathos, few readers will not
recognize parallel features to those of our own situation in September,
1914.
True the handicaps of the invasion of August, 1871, are heavily piled
upon the losing combatant. Not only the eternal Anglo-Irish trouble
(so easily mistaken by the foreigner for such a difference as might be
found separating two other countries) but complications with America,
as well as the common form seduction of the British fleet to the
Dardanelles, a general unreadiness of all administrative departments,
and a deep distrust of the “volunteer” movement, involve the whole
drama in an atmosphere of profound pessimism.
But there are scores of other details, counsels, and reflections (of
which we will not spoil the reader’s enjoyment by anticipation) which,
as the common saying is of history when it repeats itself, “might have
been written yesterday.” The desperate condition of things is all the
more remarkable as Englishmen had just witnessed the crushing defeat of
their great ally--supposed to be the first military power of Europe--by
the enemy they are supposed to despise. The story is otherwise simple
enough. The secret annexation of Holland and Denmark is disclosed.
People said we might have kept out of the trouble. But an impulsive
nation egged on the Government who, confident that our old luck would
pull us through, at once declare war. The fleet, trying to close with
the enemy, is destroyed in “a few minutes” by the “deadly engines” left
behind by the evasive enemy; our amateurish armies are defeated on our
own soil, and _voilà tout_.
Remarkable must have been the national insouciance, or despondent the
eye which viewed it, to explain the impassioned actuality of such a
_reveillematin_.
For one thing it may be remarked that _The Battle of Dorking_,[A]
though in a sense the “history” of the pamphlet is already “ancient,”
is really the first of its kind. The topic, then of such inspiring
freshness, has since become well worn.
_Mutatis mutandis_, doubtless, much of General Chesney’s advice and
warning might have been repeated on the occasion of the Boer War. If
that were not a practical “alarum to the patriotic Briton,” we ask
ourselves what could be so called. Perhaps it combined the maximum of
alarm with the minimum of national risk, but its beneficent influence
can scarcely be questioned.
At the date of the republication of this pamphlet we face a peril
immeasurably greater than that, if not equal to the Napoleonic terror
of 1803; and we face it, as concerns the mass of our population, with a
calmness which--to critical eyes and in view of the appeal made by the
Government to the country--is at least susceptible of an unsatisfactory
explanation.
If surprise, misunderstanding, may in a measure account for that, it
would be idle to pretend that the national mood and temper (and the
moods and tempers of nations will vary) were altogether--if they could
ever be--such as encouraged the most sanguine hopes of our success when
exposed to an ordeal of suddenness, extent, and severity unknown in the
world’s history.
In estimating the risks of our situation, thoughtful criticism may be
said to run naturally into two channels.
Firstly, in the political world--for reasons which cannot here be
considered--the past decade has seen a predominance of idealist
activity and ratiocination scarcely known before.
Hence the State has exhibited, to some extent, a _Utopiste_ attitude
likely to mislead foreign nations--it may be said with mild
brevity--alike as to our real views of their conduct, and as to our
national belief in the right or duty of self-assertion.
If, in 1871, we were represented as the helpless dupes of foreign
diplomacy, in 1914 we rather appear to have deceived the enemy to our
own hurt. A humane aversion to War--though, for that matter, it is only
by a philanthropic “illusion” that the extreme stage of self-assertion
can be morally differentiated from those that precede it, may tempt
politicians by a too sedulous avoidance of the unpleasing phrase to
invite the dreadful reality. But, again, in the private life of the
nation, other traits (some noted in the pamphlet of ’71) have given
cause for critical reflection. Besides Luxury--remarkable enough in
its novel and fantastic forms, though a commonplace complaint of
tractarians in all ages--a generally increased relaxation of all
old-established ties of religion, convention or tradition, a tendency
noticeable in general conduct, art and letters alike, a sort of
orgy of intellectual and literary Erastianism, a _blasé_ craving
for sensational novelty (encouraged perhaps if not sated by the
startling novelties of the age) have given scope for anxiety as to
the conservation in the English nature of that solid _morale_, that
“gesundes und sicheres Gefühl” defined by an eminent thinker as the
source of all worthy activity.
These words can but very crudely sketch a complex sense of uneasiness
and dissatisfaction familiar to most of us.
Mr. Kipling has sung long since of athletic excesses and indolence.
More recent critics have dwelt on the extravagant time and expense
devoted to golf. General Chesney would have branded the sensationalist
effeminacy of our football-gloating crowds of thousands who might be
recruits. Reviewers laugh wearily over the horrors or absurdities of
the latest poetic monstrosity or “futurist” nightmare. But in one phase
or another the consciousness is present to all, and not unnoticed by
our enemies.
And it adds a sting to our inevitable anxiety if we cannot yet feel
sure how far we can “recollect” our true best selves in the very moment
of action, how far there has been given to us that saving grace of a
storm-tost nation, “_l’art de porter en soi le remède de ses propres
défauts_.”
Every race, doubtless, has its own special weaknesses and delusions,
the “idols” of its patriotic “cave,” and it is a commonplace of history
that the moral, physical, or intellectual “decadence” of one age is
revived and actualized by the material cataclysm of another.
And the readiness, spiritual and material, of the nation _in utrumque
paratus_ is the index of its harmony with its environment.
On the other hand there are wars to be fully prepared for which would
almost mean to be a partner in their criminality. There is an attitude
of defence which, if successful, would lose all dignity were it allied
with a permanent distrust in the morality and humanity of other
nations.
If only an inhuman pride could be free from uneasiness at such a
moment, at least warm encouragement comes to us _ab extra_. Whatever
our weaknesses now, our sins or blunders in the past, no historian
will question the motive, nay, the severe moral effort with which the
English nation enters upon this war of the ages.
It is scarcely conceivable that any people could be called upon to make
a greater or more sudden exhibition of--their peculiar qualities.
What will be the verdict upon our own? That we are wilfully
misunderstood, misrepresented, must matter little to us, if we have the
moral support of a public opinion which will, if we triumph, be more
powerful for good than ever before.
Nor need we fear its ultimate perversion by interested slander. The
hostile demonstrations of the German intellect during the early stages
of this war have scarcely been on a par with those of its material
force.
One of the latest of sophistical Imperialist ebullitions complains with
somewhat forced pathos of our waging war with our former allies of
Waterloo!
But we did not fight the French then because they were French, nor
ally ourselves with Prussians because they spoke a guttural tongue.
We fought then, as now, against the erection of an impossible and
unbearable European tyranny, the local origin and nationality of which
would have been quite immaterial to the main question.
Can we believe for a moment that the great German intellect has ever
been under the slightest misapprehension of so very simple a matter?
War, honest war, may be Hell, as General Sherman described it. It
is, at least, a form of Purgatory in which personality, nationality,
are forces that count but little, while principle and motive (as was
tragically exhibited in the great American struggle) are everything.
Did not Christianity itself preach this kind of sanctified discord in
which a novel sense of right, or the perception of higher ideal, should
divide even the nearest and dearest, and set them at war not, as in old
days, by reason of any “family compact,” or mere racial tie, but for
the sake of “Right,” and--so far as ordinary friendly or neighbourly
relations were concerned--in utter “scorn of consequence.”
There, indeed, is the poignant tragedy of the case. To be at war with
the countrymen of Schumann and Beethoven, of Goethe and Ranke, is not
that an affliction to the very soul of England, an outrage to feelings
and instincts tangled up with the very core of our civilization?
Terrible, indeed, is it that there should be amities which, at such
crises, we must
“tear from our bosom
Though our heart be at the root.”
No man or nation expects perfection in his friends. Honestly we have
loved and respected the German. We have not wormed ourselves into
his confidence, nursing through long years secret stores of explosive
jealousy. His art, his learning, have had their full meed of admiration
from his kindred here.
But we recognize--dull, indeed, would they be who needed a more
striking reminder that beneath the defective “manner” of the Teuton
lurks an element of crude barbarity with which we cannot pretend to
fraternize.
The violence of the Goths and Huns had its place in history; but that
would be a strange international morality which would give the rein now
to mediæval instincts of egoistic tyranny and perfectly organized brute
force, as against the gentler instincts, the higher social civilization
largely associated with the Latin and Celtic races.
In these matters the Balance of Power is no less vital to international
life and the evolution of true cosmopolitan ideals than in mere
Politics. And if we stand up in battle for the smaller races it is not
merely because they are small and need defence, but because an element
of the right, a share in the civilization which we mean to prevail, is
with them and a part of their heritage.
The technical bond may be, as the scoffing enemy remarks (in words
which will surely, as curses, return some day to roost), a mere “scrap
of paper” signed with England’s name.
But the civilized world will recognize that it is only by the increased
sanctity of such ties that Europe advances towards intelligent
cosmopolitanism, and leaves behind the vandal wild beast den after
which woe to those who still hanker!
* * * *
There were critics, even English critics, who have taken so superficial
a view of history and humanity as to ask why we should support France,
with our blood and treasure, when in _morale_ and intellect it is
perhaps the candid truth that we are more on the side of her enemy.
It is scarcely necessary to urge in reply that France, if not the
one great continental nation, is the one great people of parallel
and contemporary development to our own, our comrade, our rival,
our nearest social (if not racial) kin, and that, spite of all her
decadence and even degradation, upon the arena of Europe she stands for
Humanity and Civilization against Absolutism and Brute Force.
And as we raised the world against her, when dominated by the tyrannous
egoism of Bonaparte, the monstrous fungoid growth that overlaid her
great Revolution and obscured her services to freedom, so now we stand
as foes, not, we would fain believe, of the German people, but of
the militarist clique, the Napoleonic nightmare that overpowers her
moral instincts and clouds her honesty and intelligence. But here,
again, let us not deceive ourselves as to the extent--perhaps to be
all too fatally revealed--of “the force behind the Kaiser.” Germany
of to-day stands for a compact mass of highly energized (though not
yet politically conscious) material and intellectual vigour. That a
group of principalities, obsessed by militarist and petty-aristocratic
traditions, should within half a century of their amalgamation form a
politically great and united people, could scarcely be expected.
But if not fully organized on the representative lines to which
we attach so much importance, Germany presents a united front of
intelligence, commercial industry and ambition with which her rapidly
increasing population pushes on, eager for new worlds to conquer.
That she demands an “Elizabethan age” of her own is the tragic
platitude of our time.
That she is aggrieved that we have had one, while we can only
imperfectly (in her estimation) utilize its modern fruits, is her true
theoretical _casus belli_ against us.
The immorality of the position consists in her belief that the Sun
of Civilization must stand still, the currents of Law and Order
run backwards to satisfy her _entêtée_ and unscrupulous jealousy.
Englishmen have been so innocent as to believe she would be satisfied
by a share, nay an extensive monopoly of the trade we once thought our
own. They have urged that the German has all the advantages enjoyed by
a native throughout the British Empire, that in spite of a constant
agitation by a large and powerful party, no English Government has ever
used its power to impose any artificial restraints upon German trade;
that the fullest hospitality of these Islands has been extended to our
Teuton brethren; while they were invited to successfully compete on
their merits with one English industry after another.
That they would not rest content with these advantages, this political
and commercial equality, that they would want to organize secret
treachery, to spy out our weaknesses and hide bombs in their bedrooms,
that--to the simple Briton of a few weeks ago--would have seemed
impossible.
He now knows what primitive passions may lurk behind a plausible
commercialism secretly disappointed in its immoderate greed.
It is in the alliance of despotic militarism with bureaucratic
intellectual sophistry that has lain a new peril for the world, and
one yet to be fully realized by the German people, when many of the
hasty and speculative structures of her self-conscious and academic
Protectionism are discovered to be as unsound as the quasi-religious
aphorisms of the Kaiser.
In spite of these confident assurances it may be the fate of that
arrogant leader to find himself at war with “things,” stony facts,
economic laws that crush the transgressor, as well as with an indignant
world.
Meanwhile--our armies have fought bravely and held their own in the
greatest battle, the most ferocious conflict the world ever dreamed of.
Our unconquered fleet, after the tradition of four centuries, is still
“looking for the enemy.” All around us, as we write, is evidence that
this nation is bracing herself for a new and stupendous effort of
courage, perhaps of imaginative strategy, and even _Weltpolitik_ which
will in startling fashion bring the forces of half the world to meet
and crush a world-menacing peril, and place our England, the mistress
of the seas, on a pinnacle where she will be justified of all her
patriotic children, counsellors, critics and heroes alike.
G. H. POWELL.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Contributed by Genl. Sir Geo. T. Chesney (1830-1895) to
_Blackwood’s Magazine_ (May, 1871). It created a great sensation and
appeared in pamphlet form the same year.
THE BATTLE OF DORKING
You ask me to tell you, my grandchildren, something about my own share
in the great events that happened fifty years ago. ’Tis sad work
turning back to that bitter page in our history, but you may perhaps
take profit in your new homes from the lesson it teaches. For us in
England it came too late. And yet we had plenty of warnings, if we
had only made use of them. The danger did not come on us unawares.
It burst on us suddenly, ’tis true; but its coming was foreshadowed
plainly enough to open our eyes, if we had not been wilfully blind. We
English have only ourselves to blame for the humiliation which has been
brought on the land. Venerable old age! Dishonourable old age, I say,
when it follows a manhood dishonoured as ours has been. I declare, even
now, though fifty years have passed, I can hardly look a young man in
the face when I think I am one of those in whose youth happened this
degradation of Old England--one of those who betrayed the trust handed
down to us unstained by our forefathers.
What a proud and happy country was this fifty years ago! Free-trade
had been working for more than a quarter of a century, and there seemed
to be no end to the riches it was bringing us. London was growing
bigger and bigger; you could not build houses fast enough for the rich
people who wanted to live in them, the merchants who made the money
and came from all parts of the world to settle there, and the lawyers
and doctors and engineers and others, and tradespeople who got their
share out of the profits. The streets reached down to Croydon and
Wimbledon, which my father could remember quite country places; and
people used to say that Kingston and Reigate would soon be joined to
London. We thought we could go on building and multiplying for ever.
’Tis true that even then there was no lack of poverty; the people who
had no money went on increasing as fast as the rich, and pauperism was
already beginning to be a difficulty; but if the rates were high, there
was plenty of money to pay them with; and as for what were called the
middle classes, there really seemed no limit to their increase and
prosperity. People in those days thought it quite a matter of course
to bring a dozen children into the world--or, as it used to be said,
Providence sent them that number of babies; and if they couldn’t always
marry off all the daughters, they used to manage to provide for the
sons, for there were new openings to be found in all the professions,
or in the Government offices, which went on steadily getting larger.
Besides, in those days young men could be sent out to India, or into
the army or navy; and even then emigration was not uncommon, although
not the regular custom it is now. Schoolmasters, like all other
professional classes, drove a capital trade. They did not teach very
much, to be sure, but new schools with their four or five hundred boys
were springing up all over the country.
Fools that we were! We thought that all this wealth and prosperity were
sent us by Providence, and could not stop coming. In our blindness we
did not see that we were merely a big workshop, making up the things
which came from all parts of the world; and that if other nations
stopped sending us raw goods to work up, we could not produce them
ourselves. True, we had in those days an advantage in our cheap coal
and iron; and had we taken care not to waste the fuel, it might have
lasted us longer. But even then there were signs that coal and iron
would soon become cheaper in foreign parts; while as to food and other
things, England was not better off than it is now. We were so rich
simply because other nations from all parts of the world were in the
habit of sending their goods to us to be sold or manufactured; and
we thought that this would last for ever. And so, perhaps, it might
have lasted, if we had only taken proper means to keep it; but, in our
folly, we were too careless even to insure our prosperity, and after
the course of trade was turned away it would not come back again.
And yet, if ever a nation had a plain warning, we had. If we were the
greatest trading country, our neighbours were the leading military
power in Europe. They were driving a good trade, too, for this was
before their foolish communism (about which you will hear when you are
older) had ruined the rich without benefiting the poor, and they were
in many respects the first nation in Europe; but it was on their army
that they prided themselves most. And with reason. They had beaten the
Russians and the Austrians, and the Prussians too, in bygone years, and
they thought they were invincible. Well do I remember the great review
held at Paris by the Emperor Napoleon during the great Exhibition, and
how proud he looked showing off his splendid Guards to the assembled
kings and princes. Yet, three years afterwards, the force so long
deemed the first in Europe was ignominiously beaten, and the whole army
taken prisoners. Such a defeat had never happened before in the world’s
history; and with this proof before us of the folly of disbelieving
in the possibility of disaster merely because it had never fallen
upon us, it might have been supposed that we should have the sense to
take the lesson to heart. And the country was certainly roused for
a time, and a cry was raised that the army ought to be reorganized,
and our defences strengthened against the enormous power for sudden
attacks which it was seen other nations were able to put forth. And a
scheme of army reform was brought forward by the Government. It was
a half-and-half affair at best; and unfortunately, instead of being
taken up in Parliament as a national scheme, it was made a party matter
of, and so fell through. There was a Radical section of the House,
too, whose votes had to be secured by conciliation, and which blindly
demanded a reduction of armaments as the price of allegiance. This
party always decried military establishments as part of a fixed policy
for reducing the influence of the Crown and the aristocracy. They could
not understand that the times had altogether changed, that the Crown
had really no power, and that the Government merely existed at the
pleasure of the House of Commons, and that even Parliament-rule was
beginning to give way to mob-law. At any rate, the Ministry, baffled on
all sides, gave up by degrees all the strong points of a scheme which
they were not heartily in earnest about. It was not that there was any
lack of money, if only it had been spent in the right way. The army
cost enough, and more than enough, to give us a proper defence, and
there were armed men of sorts in plenty and to spare, if only they had
been decently organized. It was in organization and forethought that
we fell short, because our rulers did not heartily believe in the need
for preparation. The fleet and the Channel, they said, were sufficient
protection. So army reform was put off to some more convenient season,
and the militia and volunteers were left untrained as before, because
to call them out for drill would “interfere with the industry of
the country.” We could have given up some of the industry of those
days, forsooth, and yet be busier than we are now. But why tell you
a tale you have so often heard already? The nation, although uneasy,
was misled by the false security its leaders professed to feel; and
the warning given by the disasters that overtook France was allowed
to pass by unheeded. We would not even be at the trouble of putting
our arsenals in a safe place, or of guarding the capital against a
surprise, although the cost of doing so would not have been so much as
missed from the national wealth. The French trusted in their army and
its great reputation, we in our fleet; and in each case the result of
this blind confidence was disaster, such as our forefathers in their
hardest struggles could not have even imagined.
I need hardly tell you how the crash came about. First, the rising in
India drew away a part of our small army; then came the difficulty
with America, which had been threatening for years, and we sent
off ten thousand men to defend Canada--a handful which did not go
far to strengthen the real defences of that country, but formed
an irresistible temptation to the Americans to try and take them
prisoners, especially as the contingent included three battalions of
the Guards. Thus the regular army at home was even smaller than usual,
and nearly half of it was in Ireland to check the talked-of Fenian
invasion fitting out in the West. Worse still--though I do not know
it would really have mattered as things turned out--the fleet was
scattered abroad: some ships to guard the West Indies, others to check
privateering in the China seas, and a large part to try and protect
our colonies on the Northern Pacific shore of America, where, with
incredible folly, we continued to retain possessions which we could not
possibly defend. America was not the great power forty years ago that
it is now; but for us to try and hold territory on her shores which
could only be reached by sailing round the Horn, was as absurd as if
she had attempted to take the Isle of Man before the independence of
Ireland. We see this plainly enough now, but we were all blind then.
It was while we were in this state, with our ships all over the world,
and our little bit of an army cut up into detachments, that the Secret
Treaty was published, and Holland and Denmark were annexed. People say
now that we might have escaped the troubles which came on us if we had
at any rate kept quiet till our other difficulties were settled; but
the English were always an impulsive lot: the whole country was boiling
over with indignation, and the Government, egged on by the Press, and
going with the stream, declared war. We had always got out of scrapes
before, and we believed our old luck and pluck would somehow pull us
through.
Then, of course, there was bustle and hurry all over the land. Not
that the calling up of the army reserves caused much stir, for I think
there were only about 5,000 altogether, and a good many of these
were not to be found when the time came; but recruiting was going on
all over the country, with a tremendous high bounty, 50,000 more men
having been voted for the army. Then there was a Ballot Bill passed
for adding 55,500 men to the militia; why a round number was not fixed
on I don’t know, but the Prime Minister said that this was the exact
quota wanted to put the defences of the country on a sound footing.
Then the shipbuilding that began! Ironclads, despatch-boats, gunboats,
monitors,--every building-yard in the country got its job, and they
were offering ten shillings a day wages for anybody who could drive a
rivet. This didn’t improve the recruiting, you may suppose. I remember,
too, there was a squabble in the House of Commons about whether
artisans should be drawn for the ballot, as they were so much wanted,
and I think they got an exemption. This sent numbers to the yards;
and if we had had a couple of years to prepare instead of a couple of
weeks, I daresay we should have done very well.
It was on a Monday that the declaration of war was announced, and in a
few hours we got our first inkling of the sort of preparation the enemy
had made for the event which they had really brought about, although
the actual declaration was made by us. A pious appeal to the God of
battles, whom it was said we had aroused, was telegraphed back; and
from that moment all communication with the north of Europe was cut
off. Our embassies and legations were packed off at an hour’s notice,
and it was as if we had suddenly come back to the middle ages. The dumb
astonishment visible all over London the next morning, when the papers
came out void of news, merely hinting at what had happened, was one of
the most startling things in this war of surprises. But everything had
been arranged beforehand; nor ought we to have been surprised, for we
had seen the same Power, only a few months before, move down half a
million of men on a few days’ notice, to conquer the greatest military
nation in Europe, with no more fuss than our War Office used to make
over the transport of a brigade from Aldershot to Brighton,--and this,
too, without the allies it had now. What happened now was not a bit
more wonderful in reality; but people of this country could not bring
themselves to believe that what had never occurred before to England
could ever possibly happen. Like our neighbours, we became wise when it
was too late.
Of course the papers were not long in getting news--even the mighty
organization set at work could not shut out a special correspondent;
and in a very few days, although the telegraphs and railways were
intercepted right across Europe, the main facts oozed out. An embargo
had been laid on all the shipping in every port from the Baltic to
Ostend; the fleets of the two great Powers had moved out, and it was
supposed were assembled in the great northern harbour, and troops were
hurrying on board all the steamers detained in these places, most of
which were British vessels. It was clear that invasion was intended.
Even then we might have been saved, if the fleet had been ready. The
forts which guarded the flotilla were perhaps too strong for shipping
to attempt; but an ironclad or two, handled as British sailors knew how
to use them, might have destroyed or damaged a part of the transports,
and delayed the expedition, giving us what we wanted, time. But then
the best part of the fleet had been decoyed down to the Dardanelles,
and what remained of the Channel squadron was looking after Fenian
filibusters off the west of Ireland; so it was ten days before the
fleet was got together, and by that time it was plain the enemy’s
preparations were too far advanced to be stopped by a _coup-de-main_.
Information, which came chiefly through Italy, came slowly, and was
more or less vague and uncertain; but this much was known, that at
least a couple of hundred thousand men were embarked or ready to be put
on board ships, and that the flotilla was guarded by more ironclads
than we could then muster. I suppose it was the uncertainty as to the
point the enemy would aim at for landing, and the fear lest he should
give us the go-by, that kept the fleet for several days in the Downs;
but it was not until the Tuesday fortnight after the declaration of
war that it weighed anchor and steamed away for the North Sea. Of
course you have read about the Queen’s visit to the fleet the day
before, and how she sailed round the ships in her yacht, and went on
board the flag-ship to take leave of the admiral; how, overcome with
emotion, she told him that the safety of the country was committed to
his keeping. You remember, too, the gallant old officer’s reply, and
how all the ships’ yards were manned, and how lustily the tars cheered
as her Majesty was rowed off. The account was of course telegraphed to
London, and the high spirits of the fleet infected the whole town. I
was outside the Charing Cross station when the Queen’s special train
from Dover arrived, and from the cheering and shouting which greeted
her Majesty as she drove away, you might have supposed we had already
won a great victory. The leading journal, which had gone in strongly
for the army reduction carried out during the session, and had been
nervous and desponding in tone during the past fortnight, suggesting
all sorts of compromises as a way of getting out of the war, came out
in a very jubilant form next morning. “Panic-stricken inquirers,” it
said, “ask now, where are the means of meeting the invasion? We reply
that the invasion will never take place. A British fleet manned by
British sailors, whose courage and enthusiasm are reflected in the
people of this country, is already on the way to meet the presumptuous
foe. The issue of a contest between British ships and those of any
other country, under anything like equal odds, can never be doubtful.
England awaits with calm confidence the issue of the impending action.”
Such were the words of the leading article, and so we all felt. It was
on Tuesday, the 10th of August, that the fleet sailed from the Downs.
It took with it a submarine cable to lay down as it advanced, so that
continuous communication was kept up, and the papers were publishing
special editions every few minutes with the latest news. This was the
first time such a thing had been done and the feat was accepted as a
good omen. Whether it is true that the Admiralty made use of the cable
to keep on sending contradictory orders, which took the command out
of the admiral’s hands, I can’t say; but all that the admiral sent
in return was a few messages of the briefest kind, which neither the
Admiralty nor any one else could have made any use of. Such a ship
had gone off reconnoitring; such another had rejoined--fleet was in
latitude so and so. This went on till the Thursday morning. I had just
come up to town by train as usual, and was walking to my office, when
the newsboys began to cry, “New edition--enemy’s fleet in sight!” You
may imagine the scene in London! Business still went on at the banks,
for bills matured although the independence of the country was being
fought out under our own eyes, so to say, and the speculators were
active enough. But even with the people who were making and losing
their fortunes, the interest in the fleet overcame everything else; men
who went to pay in or draw out their money stopped to show the last
bulletin to the cashier. As for the street, you could hardly get along
for the crowd stopping to buy and read the papers; while at every house
or office the members sat restlessly in the common room, as if to keep
together for company, sending out some one of their number every few
minutes to get the latest edition. At least this is what happened at
our office; but to sit still was as impossible as to do anything, and
most of us went out and wandered about among the crowd, under a sort
of feeling that the news was got quicker at in this way. Bad as were
the times coming, I think the sickening suspense of that day, and the
shock which followed, was almost the worst that we underwent. It was
about ten o’clock that the first telegram came; an hour later the wire
announced that the admiral had signalled to form line of battle, and
shortly afterwards that the order was given to bear down on the enemy
and engage. At twelve came the announcement, “Fleet opened fire about
three miles to leeward of us”--that is, the ship with the cable. So far
all had been expectancy, then came the first token of calamity. “An
ironclad has been blown up”--“the enemy’s torpedoes are doing great
damage”--“the flagship is laid aboard the enemy”--“the flag-ship
appears to be sinking”--“the vice-admiral has signalled to”--there the
cable became silent, and, as you know, we heard no more till, two days
afterwards, the solitary ironclad which escaped the disaster steamed
into Portsmouth.
Then the whole story came out--how our sailors gallant as ever, had
tried to close with the enemy; how the latter evaded the conflict at
close quarters, and, sheering off, left behind them the fatal engines
which sent our ships, one after the other, to the bottom; how all this
happened almost in a few minutes. The Government, it appears, had
received warnings of this invention; but to the nation this stunning
blow was utterly unexpected. That Thursday I had to go home early
for regimental drill, but it was impossible to remain doing nothing,
so when that was over I went up to town again, and after waiting in
expectation of news which never came, and missing the midnight train, I
walked home. It was a hot sultry night, and I did not arrive till near
sunrise. The whole town was quite still--the lull before the storm; and
as I let myself in with my latch-key, and went softly upstairs to my
room to avoid waking the sleeping household, I could not but contrast
the peacefulness of the morning--no sound breaking the silence but the
singing of the birds in the garden--with the passionate remorse and
indignation that would break out with the day. Perhaps the inmates of
the rooms were as wakeful as myself; but the house in its stillness
was just as it used to be when I came home alone from balls or parties
in the happy days gone by. Tired though I was, I could not sleep, so
I went down to the river and had a swim; and on returning found the
household was assembling for early breakfast. A sorrowful household it
was, although the burden pressing on each was partly an unseen one.
My father, doubting whether his firm could last through the day; my
mother, her distress about my brother, now with his regiment on the
coast, already exceeding that which she felt for the public misfortune,
had come down, although hardly fit to leave her room. My sister Clara
was worst of all, for she could not but try to disguise her special
interest in the fleet; and though we had all guessed that her heart was
given to the young lieutenant in the flag-ship--the first vessel to
go down--a love unclaimed could not be told, nor could we express the
sympathy we felt for the poor girl. That breakfast, the last meal we
ever had together, was soon ended, and my father and I went up to town
by an early train, and got there just as the fatal announcement of the
loss of the fleet was telegraphed from Portsmouth.
The panic and excitement of that day--how the funds went down to 35;
the run upon the bank and its stoppage; the fall of half the houses
in the city; how the Government issued a notification suspending
specie payment and the tendering of bills--this last precaution too
late for most firms, Graham & Co. among the number, which stopped
payment as soon as my father got to the office; the call to arms and
the unanimous response of the country--all this is history which I
need not repeat. You wish to hear about my own share in the business
of the time. Well, volunteering had increased immensely from the day
war was proclaimed, and our regiment went up in a day or two from its
usual strength of 600 to nearly 1,000. But the stock of rifles was
deficient. We were promised a further supply in a few days, which
however, we never received; and while waiting for them the regiment
had to be divided into two parts, the recruits drilling with the
rifles in the morning, and we old hands in the evening. The failures
and stoppage of work on this black Friday threw an immense number of
young men out of employment, and we recruited up to 1,400 strong by the
next day; but what was the use of all these men without arms? On the
Saturday it was announced that a lot of smooth-bore muskets in store
at the Tower would be served out to regiments applying for them, and
a regular scramble took place among the volunteers for them, and our
people got hold of a couple of hundred. But you might almost as well
have tried to learn rifle-drill with a broom-stick as with old brown
bess; besides, there was no smooth-bore ammunition in the country.
A national subscription was opened for the manufacture of rifles at
Birmingham, which ran up to a couple of millions in two days, but,
like everything else, this came too late. To return to the volunteers:
camps had been formed a fortnight before at Dover, Brighton, Harwich,
and other places, of regulars and militia, and the headquarters of most
of the volunteer regiments were attached to one or other of them, and
the volunteers themselves used to go down for drill from day to day, as
they could spare time, and on Friday an order went out that they should
be permanently embodied; but the metropolitan volunteers were still
kept about London as a sort of reserve, till it could be seen at what
point the invasion would take place. We were all told off to brigades
and divisions. Our brigade consisted of the 4th Royal Surrey Militia,
the 1st Surrey Administrative Battalion, as it was called, at Clapham,
the 7th Surrey Volunteers at Southwark, and ourselves; but only our
battalion and the militia were quartered in the same place, and the
whole brigade had merely two or three afternoons together at brigade
exercise in Bushey Park before the march took place. Our brigadier
belonged to a line regiment in Ireland, and did not join till the very
morning the order came. Meanwhile, during the preliminary fortnight,
the militia colonel commanded. But though we volunteers were busy with
our drill and preparations, those of us who, like myself, belonged to
Government offices, had more than enough of office work to do, as you
may suppose. The volunteer clerks were allowed to leave office at four
o’clock, but the rest were kept hard at the desk far into the night.
Orders to the lord-lieutenants, to the magistrates, notifications, all
the arrangements for cleaning out the workhouses for hospitals--these
and a hundred other things had to be managed in our office, and there
was as much bustle indoors as out. Fortunate we were to be so busy--the
people to be pitied were those who had nothing to do. And on Sunday
(that was the 15th August) work went on just as usual. We had an early
parade and drill, and I went up to town by the nine o’clock train in my
uniform, taking my rifle with me in case of accidents, and luckily too,
as it turned out, a mackintosh overcoat. When I got to Waterloo there
were all sorts of rumours afloat. A fleet had been seen off the Downs,
and some of the despatch boats which were hovering about the coasts
brought news that there was a large flotilla off Harwich, but nothing
could be seen from the shore, as the weather was hazy. The enemy’s
light ships had taken and sunk all the fishing boats they could catch,
to prevent the news of their whereabouts reaching us; but a few escaped
during the night and reported that the Inconstant frigate coming home
from North America without any knowledge of what had taken place, had
sailed right into the enemy’s fleet and been captured. In town the
troops were all getting ready for a move; the Guards in the Wellington
Barracks were under arms, and their baggage-waggons packed and drawn up
in the Bird-cage Walk. The usual guard at the Horse Guards had been
withdrawn, and orderlies and staff-officers were going to and fro. All
this I saw on the way to my office, where I worked away till twelve
o’clock, and then feeling hungry after my early breakfast, I went
across Parliament Street to my club to get some luncheon. There were
about half-a-dozen men in the coffee-room, none of whom I knew; but in
a minute or two Danvers of the Treasury entered in a tremendous hurry.
From him I got the first bit of authentic news I had had that day. The
enemy had landed in force near Harwich, and the metropolitan regiments
were ordered down there to reinforce the troops already collected in
that neighbourhood; his regiment was to parade at one o’clock, and he
had come to get something to eat before starting. We bolted a hurried
lunch, and were just leaving the club when a messenger from the
Treasury came running into the hall.
“Oh, Mr. Danvers,” said he, “I’ve come to look for you, sir; the
secretary says that all the gentlemen are wanted at the office, and
that you must please not one of you go with the regiments.”
“The devil!” cried Danvers.
“Do you know if that order extends to all the public offices?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said the man, “but I believe it do. I know there’s
messengers gone round to all the clubs and luncheon-bars to look for
the gentlemen; the secretary says it’s quite impossible any one can be
spared just now, there’s so much work to do; there’s orders just come
to send off our records to Birmingham to-night.”
I did not wait to condole with Danvers, but, just glancing up Whitehall
to see if any of our messengers were in pursuit, I ran off as hard as I
could for Westminster Bridge, and so to the Waterloo station.
The place had quite changed its aspect since the morning. The regular
service of trains had ceased, and the station and approaches were
full of troops, among them the Guards and artillery. Everything was
very orderly: the men had piled arms, and were standing about in
groups. There was no sign of high spirits or enthusiasm. Matters had
become too serious. Every man’s face reflected the general feeling
that we had neglected the warnings given us, and that now the danger
so long derided as impossible and absurd had really come and found
us unprepared. But the soldiers, if grave, looked determined, like
men who meant to do their duty whatever might happen. A train full of
guardsmen was just starting for Guildford. I was told it would stop at
Surbiton, and, with several other volunteers, hurrying like myself to
join our regiment, got a place in it. We did not arrive a moment too
soon, for the regiment was marching from Kingston down to the station.
The destination of our brigade was the east coast. Empty carriages were
drawn up in the siding, and our regiment was to go first. A large crowd
was assembled to see it off, including the recruits who had joined
during the last fortnight, and who formed by far the largest part of
our strength. They were to stay behind, and were certainly very much in
the way already; for as all the officers and sergeants belonged to the
active part, there was no one to keep discipline among them, and they
came crowding around us, breaking the ranks and making it difficult to
get into the train. Here I saw our new brigadier for the first time.
He was a soldier-like man, and no doubt knew his duty, but he appeared
new to volunteers, and did not seem to know how to deal with gentlemen
privates. I wanted very much to run home and get my greatcoat and
knapsack, which I had bought a few days ago, but feared to be left
behind; a good-natured recruit volunteered to fetch them for me, but he
had not returned before we started, and I began the campaign with a kit
consisting of a mackintosh and a small pouch of tobacco.
It was a tremendous squeeze in the train; for, besides the ten
men sitting down, there were three or four standing up in every
compartment, and the afternoon was close and sultry, and there were
so many stoppages on the way that we took nearly an hour and a half
crawling up to Waterloo. It was between five and six in the afternoon
when we arrived there, and it was nearly seven before we marched up
to the Shoreditch station. The whole place was filled up with stores
and ammunition, to be sent off to the east, so we piled arms in the
street and scattered about to get food and drink, of which most of us
stood in need, especially the latter, for some were already feeling the
worse for the heat and crush. I was just stepping into a public-house
with Travers, when who should drive up but his pretty wife? Most of
our friends had paid their adieus at the Surbiton station, but she
had driven up by the road in his brougham, bringing their little boy
to have a last look at papa. She had also brought his knapsack and
greatcoat, and, what was still more acceptable, a basket containing
fowls, tongue, bread-and-butter, and biscuits, and a couple of bottles
of claret,--which priceless luxuries they insisted on my sharing.
Meanwhile the hours went on. The 4th Surrey Militia, which had
marched all the way from Kingston, had come up, as well as the other
volunteer corps; the station had been partly cleared of the stores that
encumbered it; some artillery, two militia regiments, and a battalion
of the line, had been despatched, and our turn to start had come,
and long lines of carriages were drawn up ready for us; but still we
remained in the street. You may fancy the scene. There seemed to be
as many people as ever in London, and we could hardly move for the
crowds of spectators--fellows hawking fruits and volunteers’ comforts,
newsboys and so forth, to say nothing of the cabs and omnibuses;
while orderlies and staff-officers were constantly riding up with
messages. A good many of the militiamen, and some of our people too,
had taken more than enough to drink; perhaps a hot sun had told on
empty stomachs; anyhow, they became very noisy. The din, dirt, and heat
were indescribable. So the evening wore on, and all the information
our officers could get from the brigadier, who appeared to be acting
under another general, was, that orders had come to stand fast for the
present. Gradually the street became quieter and cooler. The brigadier,
who, by way of setting an example, had remained for some hours without
leaving his saddle, had got a chair out of a shop, and sat nodding in
it; most of the men were lying down or sitting on the pavement--some
sleeping, some smoking. In vain had Travers begged his wife to go home.
She declared that, having come so far, she would stay and see the last
of us. The brougham had been sent away to a by-street, as it blocked
up the road; so he sat on a doorstep, she by him on the knapsack.
Little Arthur, who had been delighted at the bustle and the uniforms,
and in high spirits, became at last very cross, and eventually cried
himself to sleep in his father’s arms, his golden hair and one little
dimpled arm hanging over his shoulder. Thus went on the weary hours,
till suddenly the assembly sounded, and we all started up. We were to
return to Waterloo. The landing on the east was only a feint--so ran
the rumour--the real attack was on the south. Anything seemed better
than indecision and delay, and, tired though we were, the march back
was gladly hailed. Mrs. Travers, who made us take the remains of the
luncheon with us, we left to look for her carriage; little Arthur, who
was awake again, but very good and quiet, in her arms.
We did not reach Waterloo till nearly midnight, and there was some
delay in starting again. Several volunteer and militia regiments had
arrived from the north; the station and all its approaches were jammed
up with men, and trains were being despatched away as fast as they
could be made up. All this time no news had reached us since the first
announcement; but the excitement then aroused had now passed away under
the influence of fatigue and want of sleep, and most of us dozed off
as soon as we got under way. I did, at any rate, and was awoke by the
train stopping at Leatherhead. There was an up-train returning to town,
and some persons in it were bringing up news from the coast. We could
not, from our part of the train, hear what they said, but the rumour
was passed up from one carriage to another. The enemy had landed in
force at Worthing. Their position had been attacked by the troops from
the camp near Brighton, and the action would be renewed in the morning.
The volunteers had behaved very well. This was all the information
we could get. So, then, the invasion had come at last. It was clear,
at any rate, from what was said, that the enemy had not been driven
back yet, and we should be in time most likely to take a share in the
defence. It was sunrise when the train crawled into Dorking, for there
had been numerous stoppages on the way; and here it was pulled up for
a long time, and we were told to get out and stretch ourselves--an
order gladly responded to, for we had been very closely packed all
night. Most of us, too, took the opportunity to make an early breakfast
off the food we had brought from Shoreditch. I had the remains of Mrs.
Travers’s fowl and some bread wrapped up in my waterproof, which I
shared with one or two less provident comrades. We could see from our
halting-place that the line was blocked with trains beyond and behind.
It must have been about eight o’clock when we got orders to take our
seats again, and the train began to move slowly on towards Horsham.
Horsham Junction was the point to be occupied--so the rumour went;
but about ten o’clock, when halting at a small station a few miles
short of it, the order came to leave the train, and our brigade formed
in column on the high road. Beyond us was some field artillery; and
further on, so we were told by a staff-officer, another brigade, which
was to make up a division with ours. After more delays the line began
to move, but not forwards; our route was towards the north-west, and
a sort of suspicion of the state of affairs flashed across my mind.
Horsham was already occupied by the enemy’s advance-guard, and we were
to fall back on Leith Common, and take up a position threatening his
flank, should he advance either to Guildford or Dorking. This was soon
confirmed by what the colonel was told by the brigadier and passed
down the ranks; and just now, for the first time, the boom of artillery
came up on the light south breeze. In about an hour the firing ceased.
What did it mean? We could not tell. Meanwhile our march continued. The
day was very close and sultry, and the clouds of dust stirred up by
our feet almost suffocated us. I had saved a soda-water-bottleful of
yesterday’s claret; but this went only a short way, for there were many
mouths to share it with, and the thirst soon became as bad as ever.
Several of the regiment fell out from faintness, and we made frequent
halts to rest and let the stragglers come up. At last we reached the
top of Leith Hill. It is a striking spot, being the highest point in
the south of England. The view from it is splendid, and most lovely did
the country look this summer day, although the grass was brown from the
long drought. It was a great relief to get from the dusty road on to
the common, and at the top of the hill there was a refreshing breeze.
We could see now, for the first time, the whole of our division. Our
own regiment did not muster more than 500, for it contained a large
number of Government office men who had been detained, like Danvers,
for duty in town, and others were not much larger; but the militia
regiment was very strong, and the whole division, I was told, mustered
nearly 5,000 rank and file. We could see other troops also in extension
of our division, and could count a couple of field-batteries of Royal
Artillery, besides some heavy guns, belonging to the volunteers
apparently, drawn by cart-horses. The cooler air, the sense of numbers,
and the evident strength of the position we held, raised our spirits,
which, I am not ashamed to say, had all the morning been depressed.
It was not that we were not eager to close with the enemy, but that
the counter-marching and halting ominously betokened a vacillation of
purpose in those who had the guidance of affairs. Here in two days the
invaders had got more than twenty miles inland, and nothing effectual
had been done to stop them. And the ignorance in which we volunteers,
from the colonel downwards, were kept of their movements, filled us
with uneasiness. We could not but depict to ourselves the enemy as
carrying out all the while firmly his well-considered scheme of attack,
and contrasting it with our own uncertainty of purpose. The very
silence with which his advance appeared to be conducted filled us with
mysterious awe. Meanwhile the day wore on, and we became faint with
hunger, for we had eaten nothing since daybreak. No provisions came up,
and there were no signs of any commissariat officers. It seems that
when we were at the Waterloo station a whole trainful of provisions
was drawn up there, and our colonel proposed that one of the trucks
should be taken off and attached to our train, so that we might have
some food at hand; but the officer in charge, an assistant-controller I
think they called him--this control department was a newfangled affair
which did us almost as much harm as the enemy in the long-run--said
his orders were to keep all the stores together, and that he couldn’t
issue any without authority from the head of his department. So we
had to go without. Those who had tobacco smoked--indeed there is no
solace like a pipe under such circumstances. The militia regiment, I
heard afterwards, had two days’ provisions in their haversacks; it
was we volunteers who had no haversacks, and nothing to put in them.
All this time, I should tell you, while we were lying on the grass
with our arms piled, the General, with the brigadiers and staff, was
riding about slowly from point to point of the edge of the common,
looking out with his glass towards the south valley. Orderlies and
staff-officers were constantly coming, and about three o’clock there
arrived up a road that led towards Horsham a small body of lancers and
a regiment of yeomanry, who had, it appears, been out in advance, and
now drew up a short way in front of us in column facing to the south.
Whether they could see anything in their front I could not tell, for
we were behind the crest of the hill ourselves, and so could not look
into the valley below; but shortly afterwards the assembly sounded.
Commanding officers were called out by the General, and received some
brief instructions; and the column began to march again towards London,
the militia this time coming last in our brigade. A rumour regarding
the object of this counter-march soon spread through the ranks. The
enemy was not going to attack us here, but was trying to turn the
position on both sides, one column pointing to Reigate, the other to
Aldershot; and so we must fall back and take up a position at Dorking.
The line of the great chalk-range was to be defended. A large force
was concentrating at Guildford, another at Reigate, and we should find
supports at Dorking. The enemy would be awaited in these positions.
Such, so far as we privates could get at the facts, was to be the plan
of operations. Down the hill, therefore, we marched. From one or two
points we could catch a brief sight of the railway in the valley below
running from Dorking to Horsham. Men in red were working upon it here
and there. They were the Royal Engineers, some one said, breaking
up the line. On we marched. The dust seemed worse than ever. In one
village through which we passed--I forget the name now--there was a
pump on the green. Here we stopped and had a good drink; and passing
by a large farm, the farmer’s wife and two or three of her maids stood
at the gate and handed us hunches of bread and cheese out of some
baskets. I got the share of a bit, but the bottom of the good woman’s
baskets must soon have been reached. Not a thing else was to be had
till we got to Dorking about six o’clock; indeed most of the farmhouses
appeared deserted already. On arriving there we were drawn up in the
street, and just opposite was a baker’s shop. Our fellows asked leave
at first by twos and threes to go in and buy some loaves, but soon
others began to break off and crowd into the shop, and at last a
regular scramble took place. If there had been any order preserved, and
a regular distribution arranged, they would no doubt have been steady
enough, but hunger makes men selfish; each man felt that his stopping
behind would do no good--he would simply lose his share; so it ended
by almost the whole regiment joining in the scrimmage, and the shop
was cleared out in a couple of minutes; while as for paying, you could
not get your hand into your pocket for the crush. The colonel tried
in vain to stop the row; some of the officers were as bad as the men.
Just then a staff-officer rode by; he could scarcely make way for the
crowd, and was pushed against rather rudely, and in a passion he called
out to us to behave properly, like soldiers, and not like a parcel of
roughs. “Oh, blow it, governor,” said Dick Wake, “you aren’t agoing to
come between a poor cove and his grub.” Wake was an articled attorney,
and, as we used to say in those days, a cheeky young chap, although
a good-natured fellow enough. At this speech, which was followed by
some more remarks of the sort from those about him, the staff-officer
became angrier still. “Orderly,” cried he to the lancer riding behind
him, “take that man to the provost-marshal. As for you, sir,” he said,
turning to our colonel, who sat on his horse silent with astonishment,
“if you don’t want some of your men shot before their time, you and
your precious officers had better keep this rabble in a little better
order”; and poor Dick, who looked crestfallen enough, would certainly
have been led off at the tail of the sergeant’s horse, if the brigadier
had not come up and arranged matters, and marched us off to the hill
beyond the town. This incident made us both angry and crestfallen. We
were annoyed at being so roughly spoken to: at the same time we felt
we had deserved it, and were ashamed of the misconduct. Then, too, we
had lost confidence in our colonel, after the poor figure he cut in
the affair. He was a good fellow, the colonel, and showed himself a
brave one next day; but he aimed too much at being popular, and didn’t
understand a bit how to command.
To resume:--We had scarcely reached the hill above the town, which we
were told was to be our bivouac for the night, when the welcome news
came that a food-train had arrived at the station; but there were no
carts to bring the things up, so a fatigue-party went down and carried
back a supply to us in their arms,--loaves, a barrel of rum, packets
of tea, and joints of meat--abundance for all; but there was not a
kettle or a cooking-pot in the regiment, and we could not eat the meat
raw. The colonel and officers were no better off. They had arranged to
have a regular mess, with crockery, steward, and all complete, but the
establishment never turned up, and what had become of it no one knew.
Some of us were sent back into the town to see what we could procure
in the way of cooking utensils. We found the street full of artillery,
baggage-waggons, and mounted officers, and volunteers shopping like
ourselves; and all the houses appeared to be occupied by troops. We
succeeded in getting a few kettles and saucepans, and I obtained for
myself a leather bag, with a strap to go over the shoulder, which
proved very handy afterwards; and thus laden, we trudged back to our
camp on the hill, filling the kettles with dirty water from a little
stream which runs between the hill and the town, for there was none to
be had above. It was nearly a couple of miles each way; and, exhausted
as we were with marching and want of rest, we were almost too tired to
eat. The cooking was of the roughest, as you may suppose; all we could
do was to cut off slices of the meat and boil them in the saucepans,
using our fingers for forks. The tea, however, was very refreshing;
and, thirsty as we were, we drank it by the gallon. Just before it grew
dark, the brigade-major came round, and, with the adjutant, showed our
colonel how to set a picket in advance of our line a little way down
the face of the hill. It was not necessary to place one, I suppose,
because the town in our front was still occupied with troops; but no
doubt the practice would be useful. We had also a quarter-guard, and
a line of sentries in front and rear of our line, communicating with
those of the regiments on our flanks. Firewood was plentiful, for the
hill was covered with beautiful wood; but it took some time to collect
it, for we had nothing but our pocket-knives to cut down the branches
with.
So we lay down to sleep. My company had no duty, and we had the night
undisturbed to ourselves; but, tired though I was, the excitement and
the novelty of the situation made sleep difficult. And although the
night was still and warm, and we were sheltered by the woods, I soon
found it chilly with no better covering than my thin dust-coat, the
more so as my clothes, saturated with perspiration during the day, had
never dried; and before daylight I woke from a short nap, shivering
with cold, and was glad to get warm with others by a fire. I then
noticed that the opposite hills on the south were dotted with fires;
and we thought at first they must belong to the enemy, but we were
told that the ground up there was still held by a strong rear-guard of
regulars, and that there need be no fear of a surprise.
At the first sign of dawn the bugles of the regiments sounded the
_reveillé_, and we were ordered to fall in, and the roll was called.
About twenty men were absent, who had fallen out sick the day before;
they had been sent up to London by train during the night, I believe.
After standing in column for about half an hour, the brigade-major
came down with orders to pile arms and stand easy; and perhaps half an
hour afterwards we were told to get breakfast as quickly as possible,
and to cook a day’s food at the same time. This operation was managed
pretty much in the same way as the evening before, except that we had
our cooking-pots and kettles ready. Meantime there was leisure to look
around, and from where we stood there was a commanding view of one
of the most beautiful scenes in England. Our regiment was drawn up
on the extremity of the ridge which runs from Guildford to Dorking.
This is indeed merely a part of the great chalk-range which extends
from beyond Aldershot east to the Medway; but there is a gap in the
ridge just here where the little stream that runs past Dorking turns
suddenly to the north, to find its way to the Thames. We stood on the
slope of the hill, as it trends down eastward towards this gap, and
had passed our bivouac in what appeared to be a gentleman’s park. A
little way above us, and to our right, was a very fine country-seat
to which the park was attached, now occupied by the headquarters of
our division. From this house the hill sloped steeply down southward
to the valley below, which runs nearly east and west parallel to
the ridge, and carries the railway and the road from Guildford to
Reigate; and in which valley, immediately in front of the chateau,
and perhaps a mile and a half distant from it, was the little town of
Dorking, nestled in the trees, and rising up the foot of the slopes
on the other side of the valley which stretched away to Leith Common,
the scene of yesterday’s march. Thus the main part of the town of
Dorking was on our right front, but the suburbs stretched away eastward
nearly to our proper front, culminating in a small railway station,
from which the grassy slopes of the park rose up dotted with shrubs
and trees to where we were standing. Round this railway station was
a cluster of villas and one or two mills, of whose gardens we thus
had a bird’s-eye view, their little ornamental ponds glistening like
looking-glasses in the morning sun. Immediately on our left the park
sloped steeply down to the gap before mentioned, through which ran the
little stream, as well as the railway from Epsom to Brighton, nearly
due north and south, meeting the Guildford and Reigate line at right
angles. Close to the point of intersection and the little station
already mentioned, was the station of the former line where we had
stopped the day before. Beyond the gap on the east (our left), and in
continuation of our ridge, rose the chalk-hill again. The shoulder of
this ridge overlooking the gap is called Box Hill, from the shrubbery
of boxwood with which it was covered. Its sides were very steep, and
the top of the ridge was covered with troops. The natural strength of
our position was manifested at a glance, a high grassy ridge steep to
the south, with a stream in front, and but little cover up the sides.
It seemed made for a battle-field. The weak point was the gap; the
ground at the junction of the railways and the roads immediately at the
entrance of the gap formed a little valley, dotted, as I have said,
with buildings and gardens. This, in one sense, was the key of the
position; for although it would not be tenable while we held the ridge
commanding it, the enemy by carrying this point and advancing through
the gap would cut our line in two. But you must not suppose I scanned
the ground thus critically at the time. Anybody, indeed, might have
been struck with the natural advantages of our position; but what, as I
remember, most impressed me, was the peaceful beauty of the scene--the
little town with the outline of the houses obscured by a blue mist,
the massive crispness of the foliage, the outlines of the great trees,
lighted up by the sun, and relieved by deep-blue shade. So thick was
the timber here, rising up the southern slopes of the valley, that it
looked almost as if it might have been a primeval forest. The quiet
of the scene was the more impressive because contrasted in the mind
with the scenes we expected to follow; and I can remember as if it
were yesterday, the sensation of bitter regret that it should now be
too late to avert this coming desecration of our country, which might
so easily have been prevented. A little firmness, a little prevision
on the part of our rulers, even a little common sense, and this great
calamity would have been rendered utterly impossible. Too late, alas!
We were like the foolish virgins in the parable.
But you must not suppose the scene immediately around was gloomy: the
camp was brisk and bustling enough. We had got over the stress of
weariness; our stomachs were full; we felt a natural enthusiasm at the
prospect of having so soon to take a part as the real defenders of
the country, and we were inspirited at the sight of the large force
that was now assembled. Along the slopes which trended off to the rear
of our ridge, troops came marching up--volunteers, militia, cavalry,
and guns; these, I heard, had come down from the north as far as
Leatherhead the night before, and had marched over at daybreak. Long
trains, too, began to arrive by the rail through the gap, one after the
other, containing militia and volunteers, who moved up to the ridge to
the right and left, and took up their position, massed for the most
part on the slopes which ran up from, and in rear of, where we stood.
We now formed part of an army corps, we were told, consisting of three
divisions, but what regiments composed the other two divisions I never
heard. All this movement we could distinctly see from our position,
for we had hurried over our breakfast, expecting every minute that the
battle would begin, and now stood or sat about on the ground near our
piled arms. Early in the morning, too, we saw a very long train come
along the valley from the direction of Guildford, full of redcoats. It
halted at the little station at our feet, and the troops alighted. We
could soon make out their bear-skins. They were the Guards, coming to
reinforce this part of the line. Leaving a detachment of skirmishers to
hold the line of the railway embankment, the main body marched up with
a springy step and with the band playing, and drew up across the gap
on our left, in prolongation of our line. There appeared to be three
battalions of them, for they formed up in that number of columns at
short intervals.
Shortly after this I was sent over to Box Hill with a message from our
colonel to the colonel of a volunteer regiment stationed there, to
know whether an ambulance-cart was obtainable, as it was reported this
regiment was well supplied with carriage, whereas we were without any:
my mission, however, was futile. Crossing the valley, I found a scene
of great confusion at the railway station. Trains were still coming in
with stores ammunition, guns, and appliances of all sorts, which were
being unloaded as fast as possible; but there were scarcely any means
of getting the things off. There were plenty of waggons of all sorts,
but hardly any horses to draw them, and the whole place was blocked
up; while, to add to the confusion, a regular exodus had taken place
of the people from the town, who had been warned that it was likely to
be the scene of fighting. Ladies and women of all sorts and ages, and
children, some with bundles, some empty-handed, were seeking places in
the train, but there appeared no one on the spot authorized to grant
them, and these poor creatures were pushing their way up and down,
vainly asking for information and permission to get away. In the crowd
I observed our surgeon, who likewise was in search of an ambulance of
some sort: his whole professional apparatus, he said, consisted of a
case of instruments. Also in the crowd I stumbled upon Wood, Travers’s
old coachman. He had been send down by his mistress to Guildford,
because it was supposed our regiment had gone there, riding the horse,
and laden with a supply of things--food, blankets, and, of course, a
letter. He had also brought my knapsack; but at Guildford the horse was
pressed for artillery work, and a receipt for it given him in exchange,
so he had been obliged to leave all the heavy packages there, including
my knapsack; but the faithful old man had brought on as many things as
he could carry, and hearing that we should be found in this part, had
walked over thus laden from Guildford. He said that place was crowded
with troops, and that the heights were lined with them the whole way
between the two towns; also, that some trains with wounded had passed
up from the coast in the night, through Guildford. I led him off to
where our regiment was, relieving the old man from part of the load he
was staggering under. The food sent was not now so much needed, but the
plates, knives, etc., and drinking-vessels, promised to be handy--and
Travers, you may be sure, was delighted to get his letter; while a
couple of newspapers the old man had brought were eagerly competed for
by all, even at this critical moment, for we had heard no authentic
news since we left London on Sunday. And even at this distance of time,
although I only glanced down the paper, I can remember almost the
very words I read there. They were both copies of the same paper: the
first, published on Sunday evening, when the news had arrived of the
successful landing at three points, was written in a tone of despair.
The country must confess that it had been taken by surprise. The
conqueror would be satisfied with the humiliation inflicted by a peace
dictated on our own shores; it was the clear duty of the Government
to accept the best terms obtainable, and to avoid further bloodshed
and disaster, and avert the fall of our tottering mercanthe credit.
The next morning’s issue was in quite a different tone. Apparently the
enemy had received a check, for we were here exhorted to resistance.
An impregnable position was to be taken up along the Downs, a force
was concentrating there far outnumbering the rash invaders, who, with
an invincible line before them, and the sea behind, had no choice
between destruction or surrender. Let there be no pusillanimous talk
of negotiation, the fight must be fought out; and there could be but
one issue. England, expectant but calm, awaited with confidence the
result of the attack on its unconquerable volunteers. The writing
appeared to me eloquent, but rather inconsistent. The same paper said
the Government had sent off 500 workmen from Woolwich, to open a branch
arsenal at Birmingham.
All this time we had nothing to do, except to change our position,
which we did every few minutes, now moving up the hill farther to
our right, now taking ground lower down to our left, as one order
after another was brought down the line; but the staff-officers were
galloping about perpetually with orders, while the rumble of the
artillery as they moved about from one part of the field to another
went on almost incessantly. At last the whole line stood to arms, the
bands struck up, and the General commanding our army corps came riding
down with his staff. We had seen him several times before, as we had
been moving frequently about the position during the morning; but he
now made a sort of formal inspection. He was a tall thin man, with long
light hair, very well mounted, and as he sat his horse with an erect
seat, and came prancing down the line, at a little distance he looked
as if he might be five-and-twenty; but I believe he had served more
than fifty years, and had been made a peer for services performed when
quite an old man. I remember that he had more decorations than there
was room for on the breast of his coat, and wore them suspended like a
necklace round his neck. Like all the other generals, he was dressed
in blue, with a cocked-hat and feathers--a bad plan, I thought, for it
made them very conspicuous. The general halted before our battalion,
and after looking at us a while, made a short address: We had a post
of honour next Her Majesty’s Guards, and would show ourselves worthy
of it, and of the name of Englishmen. It did not need, he said, to be
a general to see the strength of our position; it was impregnable, if
properly held. Let us wait till the enemy was well pounded, and then
the word would be given to go at him. Above everything, we must be
steady. He then shook hands with our colonel, we gave him a cheer, and
he rode on to where the Guards were drawn up.
Now then, we thought, the battle will begin. But still there were no
signs of the enemy; and the air, though hot and sultry, began to be
very hazy, so that you could scarcely see the town below, and the
hills opposite were merely a confused blur, in which no features could
be distinctly made out. After a while, the tension of feeling which
followed the General’s address relaxed, and we began to feel less as if
everything depended on keeping our rifles firmly grasped: we were told
to pile arms again, and got leave to go down by tens and twenties to
the stream below to drink. This stream, and all the hedges and banks
on our side of it, were held by our skirmishers, but the town had been
abandoned. The position appeared an excellent one, except that the
enemy, when they came, would have almost better cover than our men.
While I was down at the brook, a column emerged from the town, making
for our position. We thought for a moment it was the enemy, and you
could not make out the colour of the uniforms for the dust; but it
turned out to be our rear-guard, falling back from the opposite hills
which they had occupied the previous night. One battalion, of rifles,
halted for a few minutes at the stream to let the men drink, and I had
a minute’s talk with a couple of the officers. They had formed part of
the force which had attacked the enemy on their first landing. They had
it all their own way, they said, at first, and could have beaten the
enemy back easily if they had been properly supported; but the whole
thing was mismanaged. The volunteers came on very pluckily, they said,
but they got into confusion, and so did the militia, and the attack
failed with serious loss. It was the wounded of this force which had
passed through Guildford in the night. The officers asked us eagerly
about the arrangements for the battle, and when we said that the Guards
were the only regular troops in this part of the field, shook their
heads ominously.
While we were talking a third officer came up; he was a dark man with
a smooth face and a curious excited manner. “You are volunteers, I
suppose,” he said, quickly, his eye flashing the while. “Well, now,
look here; mind I don’t want to hurt your feelings, or to say anything
unpleasant, but I’ll tell you what; if all you gentlemen were just to
go back, and leave us to fight it out alone, it would be a devilish
good thing. We could do it a precious deal better without you, I assure
you. We don’t want your help, I can tell you. We would much rather
be left alone, I assure you. Mind I don’t want to say anything rude,
but that’s a fact.” Having blurted out this passionately, he strode
away before any one could reply, or the other officers could stop him.
They apologized for his rudeness, saying that his brother, also in
the regiment, had been killed on Sunday, and that this, and the sun,
and marching, had affected his head. The officers told us that the
enemy’s advanced-guard was close behind, but that he had apparently
been waiting for reinforcements, and would probably not attack in force
until noon. It was, however, nearly three o’clock before the battle
began. We had almost worn out the feeling of expectancy. For twelve
hours had we been waiting for the coming struggle, till at last it
seemed almost as if the invasion were but a bad dream, and the enemy,
as yet unseen by us, had no real existence. So far things had not been
very different, but for the numbers and for what we had been told, from
a Volunteer review on Brighton Downs. I remember that these thoughts
were passing through my mind as we lay down in groups on the grass,
some smoking, some nibbling at their bread, some even asleep, when the
listless state we had fallen into was suddenly disturbed by a gunshot
fired from the top of the hill on our right, close by the big house. It
was the first time I had ever heard a shotted gun fired, and although
it is fifty years ago, the angry whistle of the shot as it left the
gun is in my ears now. The sound was soon to become common enough.
We all jumped up at the report, and fell in almost with out the word
being given, grasping our rifles tightly, and the leading files peering
forward to look for the approaching enemy. This gun was apparently the
signal to begin, for now our batteries opened fire all along the line.
What they were firing at I could not see, and I am sure the gunners
could not see much themselves. I have told you what a haze had come
over the air since the morning, and now the smoke from the guns settled
like a pall over the hill, and soon we could see little but the men
in our ranks, and the outline of some gunners in the battery drawn up
next us on the slope on our right. This firing went on, I should think,
for nearly a couple of hours, and still there was no reply. We could
see the gunners--it was a troop of horse-artillery--working away like
fury, ramming, loading, and running up with cartridges, the officer in
command riding slowly up and down just behind his guns, and peering
out with his field-glasses into the mist. Once or twice they ceased
firing to let their smoke clear away, but this did not do much good.
For nearly two hours did this go on, and not a shot came in reply. “If
a battle is like this,” said Dick Wake, who was my next-hand file,
“it’s mild work, to say the least.” The words were hardly uttered when
a rattle of musketry was heard in front; our skirmishers were at it,
and very soon the bullets began to sing over our heads, and some struck
the ground at our feet. Up to this time we had been in column; we were
now deployed into line on the ground assigned to us. From the valley or
gap on our left there ran a lane right up the hill almost due west, or
along our front. This lane had a thick bank about four feet high, and
the greater part of the regiment was drawn up behind it; but a little
way up the hill the lane trended back out of the line, so the right of
the regiment here left it and occupied the open grass-land of the park.
The bank had been cut away at this point to admit of our going in and
out. We had been told in the morning to cut down the bushes on the top
of the bank, so as to make the space clear for firing over, but we had
no tools to work with; however, a party of sappers had come down and
finished the job. My company was on the right, and was thus beyond the
shelter of the friendly bank. On our right again was the battery of
artillery already mentioned; then came a battalion of the line, then
more guns, then a great mass of militia and volunteers and a few line
up to the big house. At least this was the order before the firing
began; after that I do not know what changes took place.
And now the enemy’s artillery began to open; where their guns were
posted we could not see, but we began to hear the rush of the shells
over our heads, and the bang as they burst just beyond. And now what
took place I can really hardly tell you. Sometimes when I try and
recall the scene, it seems as if it lasted for only a few minutes; yet
I know, as we lay on the ground, I thought the hours would never pass
away, as we watched the gunners still plying their task, firing at the
invisible enemy, never stopping for a moment except when now and again
a dull blow would be heard and a man fall down, then three or four of
his comrades would carry him to the rear. The captain no longer rode up
and down; what had become of him I do not know. Two of the guns ceased
firing for a time; they had got injured in some way, and up rode an
artillery general. I think I see him now, a very handsome man, with
straight features and a dark moustache, his breast covered with medals.
He appeared in a great rage at the guns stopping fire.
“Who commands this battery?” he cried.
“I do, Sir Henry,” said an officer, riding forward, whom I had not
noticed before.
The group is before me at this moment, standing out clear against
the background of smoke, Sir Henry erect on his splendid charger,
his flashing eye, his left arm pointing towards the enemy to enforce
something he was going to say, the young officer reining in his horse
just beside him, and saluting with his right hand raised to his busby.
This for a moment, then a dull thud, and both horses and riders are
prostrate on the ground. A round-shot had struck all four at the
saddle-line. Some of the gunners ran up to help, but neither officer
could have lived many minutes. This was not the first I saw killed.
Some time before this, almost immediately on the enemy’s artillery
opening, as we were lying, I heard something like the sound of metal
striking metal, and at the same moment Dick Wake, who was next me in
the ranks, leaning on his elbows, sank forward on his face. I looked
round and saw what had happened; a shot fired at a high elevation,
passing over his head, had struck the ground behind, nearly cutting his
thigh off. It must have been the ball striking his sheathed bayonet
which made the noise. Three of us carried the poor fellow to the rear,
with difficulty for the shattered limb; but he was nearly dead from
loss of blood when we got to the doctor, who was waiting in a sheltered
hollow about two hundred yards in rear, with two other doctors in plain
clothes, who had come up to help. We deposited our burden and returned
to the front. Poor Wake was sensible when we left him, but apparently
too shaken by the shock to be able to speak. Wood was there helping the
doctors. I paid more visits to the rear of the same sort before the
evening was over.
All this time we were lying there to be fired at without returning a
shot, for our skirmishers were holding the line of walls and enclosures
below. However, the bank protected most of us, and the brigadier now
ordered our right company, which was in the open, to get behind it
also; and there we lay about four deep, the shells crashing and bullets
whistling over our heads, but hardly a man being touched. Our colonel
was, indeed, the only one exposed, for he rode up and down the lane
at a foot-pace as steady as a rock; but he made the major and adjutant
dismount, and take shelter behind the hedge, holding their horses. We
were all pleased to see him so cool, and it restored our confidence in
him, which had been shaken yesterday.
The time seemed interminable while we lay thus inactive. We could
not, of course, help peering over the bank to try and see what was
going on; but there was nothing to be made out, for now a tremendous
thunder-storm, which had been gathering all day, burst on us, and a
torrent of almost blinding rain came down, which obscured the view
even more than the smoke, while the crashing of the thunder and the
glare of the lightning could be heard and seen even above the roar and
flashing of the artillery. Once the mist lifted, and I saw for a minute
an attack on Box Hill, on the other side of the gap on our left. It was
like the scene at a theatre--a curtain of smoke all round and a clear
gap in the centre, with a sudden gleam of evening sunshine lighting it
up. The steep smooth slope of the hill was crowded with the dark-blue
figures of the enemy, whom I now saw for the first time--an irregular
outline in front, but very solid in rear: the whole body was moving
forward by fits and starts, the men firing and advancing, the officers
waving their swords, the columns closing up and gradually making way.
Our people were almost concealed by the bushes at the top, whence the
smoke and their fire could be seen proceeding: presently from these
bushes on the crest came out a red line, and dashed down the brow of
the hill, a flame of fire belching out from the front as it advanced.
The enemy hesitated, gave way, and finally ran back in a confused crowd
down the hill. Then the mist covered the scene, but the glimpse of
this splendid charge was inspiriting, and I hoped we should show the
same coolness when it came to our turn. It was about this time that
our skirmishers fell back, a good many wounded, some limping along by
themselves, others helped. The main body retired in very fair order,
halting to turn round and fire; we could see a mounted officer of the
Guards riding up and down encouraging them to be steady. Now came our
turn. For a few minutes we saw nothing, but a rattle of bullets came
through the rain and mist, mostly, however, passing over the bank.
We began to fire in reply, stepping up against the bank to fire, and
stooping down to load; but our brigade-major rode up with an order, and
the word was passed through the men to reserve our fire. In a very few
moments it must have been that, when ordered to stand up, we could see
the helmet-spikes and then the figures of the skirmishers as they came
on: a lot of them there appeared to be, five or six deep I should say,
but in loose order, each man stopping to aim and fire, and then coming
forward a little. Just then the brigadier clattered on horseback up
the lane. “Now then, gentlemen, give it them hot!” he cried; and fire
away we did, as fast as ever we were able. A perfect storm of bullets
seemed to be flying about us too, and I thought each moment must be the
last; escape seemed impossible, but I saw no one fall, for I was too
busy, and so were we all, to look to the right or left, but loaded and
fired as fast as we could. How long this went on I know not--it could
not have been long; neither side could have lasted many minutes under
such a fire, but it ended by the enemy gradually falling back, and as
soon as we saw this we raised a tremendous shout, and some of us jumped
up on the bank to give them our parting shots. Suddenly the order was
passed down the line to cease firing, and we soon discovered the cause;
a battalion of the Guards was charging obliquely across from our left
across our front. It was, I expect, their flank attack as much as our
fire which had turned back the enemy; and it was a splendid sight to
see their steady line as they advanced slowly across the smooth lawn
below us, firing as they went, but as steady as if on parade. We felt
a great elation at this moment; it seemed as if the battle was won.
Just then somebody called out to look to the wounded, and for the first
time I turned to glance down the rank along the lane. Then I saw that
we had not beaten back the attack without loss. Immediately before me
lay Bob Lawford of my office, dead on his back from a bullet through
his forehead, his hand still grasping his rifle. At every step was
some friend or acquaintance killed or wounded, and a few paces down
the lane I found Travers, sitting with his back against the bank. A
ball had gone through his lungs, and blood was coming from his mouth.
I was lifting him up, but the cry of agony he gave stopped me. I then
saw that this was not his only wound; his thigh was smashed by a bullet
(which must have hit him when standing on the bank), and the blood
streaming down mixed in a muddy puddle with the rainwater under him.
Still he could not be left here, so, lifting him up as well as I could,
I carried him through the gate which led out of the lane at the back
to where our camp hospital was in the rear. The movement must have
caused him awful agony, for I could not support the broken thigh, and
he could not restrain his groans, brave fellow though he was; but how
I carried him at all I cannot make out, for he was a much bigger man
than myself; but I had not gone far, one of a stream of our fellows,
all on the same errand, when a bandsman and Wood met me, bringing a
hurdle as a stretcher, and on this we placed him. Wood had just time to
tell me that he had got a cart down in the hollow, and would endeavour
to take off his master at once to Kingston, when a staff-officer rode
up to call us to the ranks. “You really must not straggle in this way,
gentlemen,” he said; “pray keep your ranks.” “But we can’t leave our
wounded to be trodden down and die,” cried one of our fellows. “Beat
off the enemy first, sir,” he replied. “Gentlemen, do, pray, join your
regiments, or we shall be a regular mob.” And no doubt he did not speak
too soon; for besides our fellows straggling to the rear, lots of
volunteers from the regiments in reserve were running forward to help,
till the whole ground was dotted with groups of men. I hastened back
to my post, but I had just time to notice that all the ground in our
rear was occupied by a thick mass of troops, much more numerous than in
the morning, and a column was moving down to the left of our line, to
the ground before held by the Guards. All this time, although musketry
had slackened, the artillery-fire seemed heavier than ever; the shells
screamed overhead or burst around; and I confess to feeling quite a
relief at getting back to the friendly shelter of the lane. Looking
over the bank, I noticed for the first time the frightful execution our
fire had created. The space in front was thickly strewed with dead and
badly wounded, and beyond the bodies of the fallen enemy could just be
seen--for it was now getting dusk--the bear-skins and red coats of our
own gallant Guards scattered over the slope, and marking the line of
their victorious advance. But hardly a minute could have passed in thus
looking over the field, when our brigade-major came moving up the lane
on foot (I suppose his horse had been shot), crying, “Stand to your
arms, volunteers! they’re coming on again;” and we found ourselves
a second time engaged in a hot musketry-fire. How long it went on I
cannot now remember, but we could distinguish clearly the thick line
of skirmishers, about sixty paces off and mounted officers among
them; and we seemed to be keeping them well in check, for they were
quite exposed to our fire, while we were protected nearly up to our
shoulders, when--I know not how--I became sensible that something had
gone wrong. “We are taken in flank!” called out some one; and looking
along the left, sure enough there were dark figures jumping over
the bank into the lane and firing up along our line. The volunteers
in reserve, who had come down to take the place of the Guards, must
have given way at this point; the enemy’s skirmishers had got through
our line, and turned our left flank. How the next move came about I
cannot recollect, or whether it was without orders, but in a short
time we found ourselves out of the lane, and drawn up in a straggling
line about thirty yards in rear of it--at our end, that is, the other
flank had fallen back a good deal more--and the enemy were lining the
hedge, and numbers of them passing over and forming up on our side.
Beyond our left a confused mass were retreating, firing as they went,
followed by the advancing line of the enemy. We stood in this way for
a short space, firing at random as fast as we could. Our colonel and
major must have been shot, for there was no one to give an order, when
somebody on horseback called out from behind--I think it must have
been the brigadier--“Now, then, volunteers! give a British cheer,
and go at them--charge!” and, with a shout, we rushed at the enemy.
Some of them ran, some stopped to meet us, and for a moment it was a
real hand-to-hand fight. I felt a sharp sting in my leg, as I drove
my bayonet right through the man in front of me. I confess I shut my
eyes, for I just got a glimpse of the poor wretch as he fell back, his
eyes starting out of his head, and, savage though we were, the sight
was almost too horrible to look at. But the struggle was over in a
second, and we had cleared the ground again right up to the rear hedge
of the lane. Had we gone on, I believe we might have recovered the lane
too, but we were now all out of order; there was no one to say what
to do; the enemy began to line the hedge and open fire, and they were
streaming past our left; and how it came about I know not, but we found
ourselves falling back towards our right rear, scarce any semblance
of a line remaining, and the volunteers who had given way on our left
mixed up with us, and adding to the confusion. It was now nearly dark.
On the slopes which we were retreating to was a large mass of reserves
drawn up in columns. Some of the leading files of these, mistaking us
for the enemy, began firing at us; our fellows, crying out to them to
stop, ran towards their ranks, and in a few moments the whole slope of
the hill became a scene of confusion that I cannot attempt to describe,
regiments and detachments mixed up in hopeless disorder. Most of us,
I believe, turned towards the enemy and fired away our few remaining
cartridges; but it was too late to take aim, fortunately for us, or the
guns which the enemy had brought up through the gap, and were firing
point-blank, would have done more damage. As it was, we could see
little more than the bright flashes of their fire. In our confusion we
had jammed up a line regiment immediately behind us, which I suppose
had just arrived on the field, and its colonel and some staff-officers
were in vain trying to make a passage for it, and their shouts to us
to march to the rear and clear a road could be heard above the roar of
the guns and the confused babel of sound. At last a mounted officer
pushed his way through, followed by a company in sections, the men
brushing past with firm-set faces, as if on a desperate task; and the
battalion, when it got clear, appeared to deploy and advance down the
slope. I have also a dim recollection of seeing the Life Guards trot
past the front, and push on towards the town--a last desperate attempt
to save the day--before we left the field. Our adjutant, who had got
separated from our flank of the regiment in the confusion, now came up,
and managed to lead us, or at any rate some of us, up to the crest of
the hill in the rear, to re-form, as he said; but there we met a vast
crowd of volunteers, militia, and waggons, all hurrying rearward from
the direction of the big house, and we were borne in the stream for a
mile at least before it was possible to stop. At last the adjutant led
us to an open space a little off the line of fugitives, and there we
re-formed the remains of the companies. Telling us to halt, he rode off
to try and obtain orders, and find out where the rest of our brigade
was. From this point, a spur of high ground running off from the main
plateau, we looked down through the dim twilight into the battle-field
below. Artillery-fire was still going on. We could see the flashes from
the guns on both sides, and now and then a stray shell came screaming
up and burst near us, but we were beyond the sound of musketry. This
halt first gave us time to think about what had happened. The long
day of expectancy had been succeeded by the excitement of battle; and
when each minute may be your last, you do not think much about other
people, nor when you are facing another man with a rifle have you
time to consider whether he or you are the invader, or that you are
fighting for your home and hearths. All fighting is pretty much alike,
I suspect, as to sentiment, when once it begins. But now we had time
for reflection; and although we did not yet quite understand how far
the day had gone against us, an uneasy feeling of self-condemnation
must have come up in the minds of most of us; while, above all, we now
began to realise what the loss of this battle meant to the country.
Then, too, we knew not what had become of all our wounded comrades.
Reaction, too, set in after the fatigue and excitement. For myself, I
had found out for the first time that besides the bayonet-wound in my
leg, a bullet had gone through my left arm, just below the shoulder,
and outside the bone. I remember feeling something like a blow just
when we lost the lane, but the wound passed unnoticed till now, when
the bleeding had stopped and the shirt was sticking to the wound.
This half-hour seemed an age, and while we stood on this knoll the
endless tramp of men and rumbling of carts along the downs beside us
told their own tale. The whole army was falling back. At last we could
discern the adjutant riding up to us out of the dark. The army was
to retreat and take up a position on Epsom Downs, he said; we should
join in the march, and try and find our brigade in the morning; and
so we turned into the throng again, and made our way on as best we
could. A few scraps of news he gave us as he rode alongside of our
leading section; the army had held its position well for a time, but
the enemy had at last broken through the line between us and Guildford,
as well as in our front, and had poured his men through the point
gained, throwing the line into confusion, and the first army corps
near Guildford were also falling back to avoid being out-flanked. The
regular troops were holding the rear; we were to push on as fast as
possible to get out of their way, and allow them to make an orderly
retreat in the morning. The gallant old lord commanding our corps had
been badly wounded early in the day, he heard, and carried off the
field. The Guards had suffered dreadfully; the household cavalry had
ridden down the cuirassiers, but had got into broken ground and been
awfully cut up. Such were the scraps of news passed down our weary
column. What had become of our wounded no one knew, and no one liked
to ask. So we trudged on. It must have been midnight when we reached
Leatherhead. Here we left the open ground and took to the road, and the
block became greater. We pushed our way painfully along; several trains
passed slowly ahead along the railway by the roadside, containing the
wounded, we supposed--such of them, at least, as were lucky enough
to be picked up. It was daylight when we got to Epsom. The night had
been bright and clear after the storm, with a cool air, which, blowing
through my soaking clothes, chilled me to the bone. My wounded leg was
stiff and sore, and I was ready to drop with exhaustion and hunger.
Nor were my comrades in much better case; we had eaten nothing since
breakfast the day before, and the bread we had put by had been washed
away by the storm: only a little pulp remained at the bottom of my bag.
The tobacco was all too wet to smoke. In this plight we were creeping
along, when the adjutant guided us into a field by the roadside to
rest awhile, and we lay down exhausted on the sloppy grass. The roll
was here taken, and only 180 answered out of nearly 500 present on
the morning of the battle. How many of these were killed and wounded
no one could tell; but it was certain many must have got separated in
the confusion of the evening. While resting here, we saw pass by, in
the crowd of vehicles and men, a cart laden with commissariat stores,
driven by a man in uniform. “Food!” cried some one, and a dozen
volunteers jumped up and surrounded the cart. The driver tried to whip
them off; but he was pulled off his seat, and the contents of the cart
thrown out in an instant. They were preserved meats in tins, which we
tore open with our bayonets. The meat had been cooked before, I think;
at any rate we devoured it. Shortly after this a general came by with
three or four staff-officers. He stopped and spoke to our adjutant,
and then rode into the field. “My lads,” said he, “you shall join my
division for the present: fall in, and follow the regiment that is now
passing.” We rose up, fell in by companies, each about twenty strong,
and turned once more into the stream moving along the road;--regiments,
detachments, single volunteers or militiamen, country people making
off, some with bundles, some without, a few in carts, but most on foot;
here and there waggons of stores, with men sitting wherever there was
room, others crammed with wounded soldiers. Many blocks occurred from
horses falling, or carts breaking down and filling up the road. In
the town the confusion was even worse, for all the houses seemed full
of volunteers and militiamen, wounded, or resting, or trying to find
food, and the streets were almost choked up. Some officers were in vain
trying to restore order, but the task seemed a hopeless one. One or
two volunteer regiments which had arrived from the north the previous
night, and had been halted here for orders, were drawn up along the
roadside steadily enough, and some of the retreating regiments,
including ours, may have preserved the semblance of discipline, but
for the most part the mass pushing to the rear was a mere mob. The
regulars, or what remained of them, were now, I believe, all in the
rear, to hold the advancing enemy in check. A few officers among such
a crowd could do nothing. To add to the confusion several houses were
being emptied of the wounded brought here the night before, to prevent
their falling into the hands of the enemy, some in carts, some being
carried to the railway by men. The groans of these poor fellows as they
were jostled through the street went to our hearts, selfish though
fatigue and suffering had made us. At last, following the guidance of
a staff-officer who was standing to show the way, we turned off from
the main London road and took that towards Kingston. Here the crush
was less, and we managed to move along pretty steadily. The air had
been cooled by the storm, and there was no dust. We passed through a
village where our new general had seized all the public-houses, and
taken possession of the liquor; and each regiment as it came up was
halted, and each man got a drink of beer, served out by companies.
Whether the owner got paid, I know not, but it was like nectar. It must
have been about one o’clock in the afternoon that we came in sight
of Kingston. We had been on our legs sixteen hours, and had got over
about twelve miles of ground. There is a hill a little south of the
Surbiton station, covered then mostly with villas, but open at the
western extremity, where there was a clump of trees on the summit. We
had diverged from the road towards this, and here the general halted us
and disposed the line of the division along his front, facing to the
south-west, the right of the line reaching down to the water-works on
the Thames, the left extending along the southern slope of the hill, in
the direction of the Epsom road by which we had come. We were nearly
in the centre, occupying the knoll just in front of the general, who
dismounted on the top and tied his horse to a tree. It is not much of
a hill, but commands an extensive view over the flat country around;
and as we lay wearily on the ground we could see the Thames glistening
like a silver field in the bright sunshine, the palace at Hampton
Court, the bridge at Kingston, and the old church tower rising above
the haze of the town, with the woods of Richmond Park behind it. To
most of us the scene could not but call up the associations of happy
days of peace--days now ended and peace destroyed through national
infatuation. We did not say this to each other, but a deep depression
had come upon us, partly due to weakness and fatigue, no doubt, but we
saw that another stand was going to be made, and we had no longer any
confidence in ourselves. If we could not hold our own when stationary
in line, on a good position, but had been broken up into a rabble
at the first shock, what chance had we now of manœuvring against a
victorious enemy in this open ground? A feeling of desperation came
over us, a determination to struggle on against hope; but anxiety for
the future of the country, and our friends, and all dear to us, filled
our thoughts now that we had time for reflection. We had had no news
of any kind since Wood joined us the day before--we knew not what was
doing in London, or what the Government was about, or anything else;
and exhausted though we were, we felt an intense craving to know what
was happening in other parts of the country.
Our general had expected to find a supply of food and ammunition here,
but nothing turned up. Most of us had hardly a cartridge left, so he
ordered the regiment next to us, which came from the north and had not
been engaged, to give us enough to make up twenty rounds a man, and he
sent off a fatigue-party to Kingston to try and get provisions, while a
detachment of our fellows was allowed to go foraging among the villas
in our rear; and in about an hour they brought back some bread and
meat, which gave us a slender meal all round. They said most of the
houses were empty, and that many had been stripped of all eatables, and
a good deal damaged already.
It must have been between three and four o’clock when the sound of
cannonading began to be heard in the front, and we could see the smoke
of the guns rising above the woods of Esher and Claremont, and soon
afterwards some troops emerged from the fields below us. It was the
rear-guard of regular troops. There were some guns also, which were
driven up the slope and took up their position round the knoll. There
were three batteries, but they only counted eight guns amongst them.
Behind them was posted the line; it was a brigade apparently of four
regiments, but the whole did not look to be more than eight or nine
hundred men. Our regiment and another had been moved a little to the
rear to make way for them, and presently we were ordered down to occupy
the railway station on our right rear. My leg was now so stiff I could
no longer march with the rest, and my left arm was very swollen and
sore, and almost useless; but anything seemed better than being left
behind, so I limped after the battalion as best I could down to the
station. There was a goods shed a little in advance of it down the
line, a strong brick building, and here my company was posted. The rest
of our men lined the wall of the enclosure. A staff-officer came with
us to arrange the distribution; we should be supported by line troops,
he said; and in a few minutes a train full of them came slowly up from
Guildford way. It was the last; the men got out, the train passed on,
and a party began to tear up the rails, while the rest were distributed
among the houses on each side. A sergeant’s party joined us in our
shed, and an engineer officer with sappers came to knock holes in the
walls for us to fire from; but there were only half-a-dozen of them, so
progress was not rapid, and as we had no tools we could not help.
It was while we were watching this job that the adjutant, who was
as active as ever, looked in, and told us to muster in the yard.
The fatigue-party had come back from Kingston, and a small baker’s
hand-cart of food was made over to us as our share. It contained
loaves, flour, and some joints of meat. The meat and the flour we had
not time or means to cook. The loaves we devoured; and there was a tap
of water in the yard, so we felt refreshed by the meal. I should have
liked to wash my wounds, which were becoming very offensive, but I
dared not take off my coat, feeling sure I should not be able to get it
on again. It was while we were eating our bread that the rumour first
reached us of another disaster, even greater than that we had witnessed
ourselves. Whence it came I know not; but a whisper went down the ranks
that Woolwich had been captured. We all knew that it was our only
arsenal, and understood the significance of the blow. No hope, if this
were true, of saving the country. Thinking over this, we went back to
the shed.
Although this was only our second day of war, I think we were already
old soldiers so far that we had come to be careless about fire, and
the shot and shell that now began to open on us made no sensation. We
felt, indeed, our need of discipline, and we saw plainly enough the
slender chance of success coming out of troops so imperfectly trained
as we were; but I think we were all determined to fight on as long as
we could. Our gallant adjutant gave his spirit to everybody; and the
staff-officer commanding was a very cheery fellow, and went about as
if we were certain of victory. Just as the firing began he looked in
to say that we were as safe as in a church, that we must be sure and
pepper the enemy well, and that more cartridges would soon arrive.
There were some steps and benches in the shed, and on these a party
of our men were standing, to fire through the upper loop-holes, while
the line soldiers and others stood on the ground, guarding the second
row. I sat on the floor, for I could not now use my rifle, and besides,
there were more men than loop-holes. The artillery fire which had
opened now on our position was from a longish range; and occupation
for the riflemen had hardly begun when there was a crash in the shed,
and I was knocked down by a blow on the head. I was almost stunned
for a time, and could not make out at first what had happened. A shot
or shell had hit the shed without quite penetrating the wall, but the
blow had upset the steps resting against it, and the men standing on
them, bringing down a cloud of plaster and brickbats, one of which had
struck me. I felt now past being of use. I could not use my rifle,
and could barely stand; and after a time I thought I would make for
my own house, on the chance of finding some one still there. I got up
therefore, and staggered homewards. Musketry fire had now commenced,
and our side were blazing away from the windows of the houses, and from
behind walls, and from the shelter of some trucks still standing in
the station. A couple of field-pieces in the yard were firing, and in
the open space in rear of the station a reserve was drawn up. There,
too, was the staff-officer on horseback, watching the fight through
his field-glass. I remember having still enough sense to feel that the
position was a hopeless one. That straggling line of houses and gardens
would surely be broken through at some point, and then the line must
give way like a rope of sand. It was about a mile to our house, and I
was thinking how I could possibly drag myself so far when I suddenly
recollected that I was passing Travers’s house,--one of the first of a
row of villas then leading from the Surbiton station to Kingston. Had
he been brought home, I wondered, as his faithful old servant promised,
and was his wife still here? I remember to this day the sensation of
shame I felt, when I recollected that I had not once given him--my
greatest friend--a thought since I carried him off the field the day
before. But war and suffering make men selfish. I would go in now at
any rate and rest awhile, and see if I could be of use. The little
garden before the house was as trim as ever--I used to pass it every
day on my way to the train, and knew every shrub in it--and ablaze with
flowers, but the hall-door stood ajar. I stepped in and saw little
Arthur standing in the hall. He had been dressed as neatly as ever that
day, and as he stood there in his pretty blue frock and white trousers
and socks showing his chubby little legs, with his golden locks, fair
face, and large dark eyes, the picture of childish beauty, in the quiet
hall, just as it used to look--the vases of flowers, the hat and coats
hanging up, the familiar pictures on the walls--this vision of peace in
the midst of war made me wonder for a moment, faint and giddy as I was,
if the pandemonium outside had any real existence, and was not merely a
hideous dream. But the roar of the guns making the house shake, and the
rushing of the shot, gave a ready answer. The little fellow appeared
almost unconscious of the scene around him, and was walking up the
stairs holding by the railing, one step at a time, as I had seen him do
a hundred times before, but turned round as I came in. My appearance
frightened him, and staggering as I did into the hall, my face and
clothes covered with blood and dirt, I must have looked an awful object
to the child, for he gave a cry and turned to run toward the basement
stairs. But he stopped on hearing my voice calling him back to his
god-papa, and after a while came timidly up to me. Papa had been to the
battle, he said, and was very ill: mamma was with papa: Wood was out:
Lucy was in the cellar, and had taken him there, but he wanted to go
to mamma. Telling him to stay in the hall for a minute till I called
him, I climbed upstairs and opened the bedroom door. My poor friend lay
there, his body resting on the bed, his head supported on his wife’s
shoulder as she sat by the bedside. He breathed heavily, but the pallor
of his face, the closed eyes, the prostrate arms, the clammy foam she
was wiping from his mouth, all spoke of approaching death. The good old
servant had done his duty, at least,--he had brought his master home to
die in his wife’s arms. The poor woman was too intent on her charge to
notice the opening of the door and as the child would be better away,
I closed it gently and went down to the hall to take little Arthur to
the shelter below, where the maid was hiding. Too late! He lay at the
foot of the stairs on his face, his little arms stretched out, his hair
dabbled in blood. I had not noticed the crash among the other noises,
but a splinter of a shell must have come through the open doorway; it
had carried away the back of his head. The poor child’s death must have
been instantaneous. I tried to lift up the little corpse with my one
arm, but even this load was too much for me, and while stooping down I
fainted away.
When I came to my senses again it was quite dark, and for some time
I could not make out where I was; I lay indeed for some time like one
half asleep, feeling no inclination to move. By degrees I became aware
that I was on the carpeted floor of a room. All noise of battle had
ceased, but there was a sound as of many people close by. At last I sat
up and gradually got to my feet. The movement gave me intense pain, for
my wounds were now highly inflamed, and my clothes sticking to them
made them dreadfully sore. At last I got up and groped my way to the
door, and opening it at once saw where I was, for the pain had brought
back my senses. I had been lying in Travers’s little writing-room at
the end of the passage, into which I made my way. There was no gas, and
the drawing-room door was closed; but from the open dining-room the
glimmer of a candle feebly lighted up the hall, in which half-a-dozen
sleeping figures could be discerned, while the room itself was crowded
with men. The table was covered with plates, glasses, and bottles;
but most of the men were asleep in the chairs or on the floor, a few
were smoking cigars, and one or two with their helmets on were still
engaged at supper, occasionally grunting out an observation between the
mouthfuls.
“Sind wackere Soldaten, diese Englischen Freiwilligen,” said a
broad-shouldered brute, stuffing a great hunch of beef into his mouth
with a silver fork, an implement I should think he must have been using
for the first time in his life.
“Ja, ja,” replied a comrade, who was lolling back in his chair with a
pair of very dirty legs on the table, and one of poor Travers’s best
cigars in his mouth; “Sie so gut laufen können.”
“Ja wohl,” responded the first speaker; “aber sind nicht eben so
schnell wie die Französischen Mobloten.”
“Gewiss,” grunted a hulking lout from the floor, leaning on his elbow,
and sending out a cloud of smoke from his ugly jaws; “und da sind hier
etwa gute Schützen.”
“Hast recht, lange Peter,” answered number one; “wenn die Schurken so
gut exerciren wie schützen könnten, so wären wir heute nicht hier!”
“Recht! recht!” said the second; “das exerciren macht den guten
Soldaten.”
What more criticisms on the shortcomings of our unfortunate volunteers
might have passed I did not stop to hear, being interrupted by a sound
on the stairs. Mrs. Travers was standing on the landing-place; I limped
up the stairs to meet her. Among the many pictures of those fatal days
engraven on my memory, I remember none more clearly than the mournful
aspect of my poor friend, widowed and childless within a few moments,
as she stood there in her white dress, coming forth like a ghost from
the chamber of the dead, the candle she held lighting up her face, and
contrasting its pallor with the dark hair that fell disordered round
it, its beauty radiant even through features worn with fatigue and
sorrow. She was calm and even tearless, though the trembling lip told
of the effort to restrain the emotion she felt. “Dear friend,” she
said, taking my hand, “I was coming to seek you; forgive my selfishness
in neglecting you so long; but you will understand”--glancing at the
door above--“how occupied I have been.” “Where,” I began, “is” ---- “my
boy?” she answered, anticipating my question. “I have laid him by his
father. But now your wounds must be cared for; how pale and faint you
look!--rest here a moment,”--and, descending to the dining-room, she
returned with some wine, which I gratefully drank, and then, making me
sit down on the top step of the stairs, she brought water and linen,
and, cutting off the sleeve of my coat, bathed and bandaged my wounds.
’Twas I who felt selfish for thus adding to her troubles; but in truth
I was too weak to have much will left, and stood in need of the help
which she forced me to accept; and the dressing of my wounds afforded
indescribable relief. While thus tending me, she explained in broken
sentences how matters stood. Every room but her own, and the little
parlour into which with Wood’s help she had carried me, was full of
soldiers. Wood had been taken away to work at repairing the railroad
and Lucy had run off from fright; but the cook had stopped at her
post, and had served up supper and opened the cellar for the soldiers’
use: she herself did not understand what they said, and they were
rough and boorish, but not uncivil. I should now go, she said, when
my wounds were dressed, to look after my own home, where I might be
wanted; for herself, she wished only to be allowed to remain watching
there--glancing at the room where lay the bodies of her husband and
child--where she would not be molested. I felt that her advice was
good. I could be of no use as protection, and I had an anxious longing
to know what had become of my sick mother and sister; besides, some
arrangement must be made for the burial. I therefore limped away. There
was no need to express thanks on either side, and the grief was too
deep to be reached by any outward show of sympathy.
Outside the house there was a good deal of movement and bustle; many
carts going along, the waggoners, from Sussex and Surrey, evidently
impressed and guarded by soldiers; and although no gas was burning,
the road towards Kingston was well lighted by torches held by persons
standing at short intervals in line, who had been seized for the duty,
some of them the tenants of neighbouring villas. Almost the first of
these torch-bearers I came to was an old gentleman whose face I was
well acquainted with, from having frequently travelled up and down in
the same train with him. He was a senior clerk in a Government office,
I believe, and was a mild-looking old man with a prim face and a long
neck, which he used to wrap in a white double neckcloth, a thing
even in those days seldom seen. Even in that moment of bitterness I
could not help being amused by the absurd figure this poor old fellow
presented, with his solemn face and long cravat doing penance with a
torch in front of his own gate, to light up the path of our conquerors.
But a more serious object now presented itself, a corporal’s guard
passing by, with two English volunteers in charge, their hands tied
behind their backs. They cast an imploring glance at me, and I stepped
into the road to ask the corporal what was the matter, and even
ventured, as he was passing on, to lay my hand on his sleeve. “Auf dem
Wege, Spitzbube!” cried the brute, lifting his rifle as if to knock
me down. “Must one prisoners who fire at us let shoot,” he went on to
add; and shot the poor fellows would have been, I suppose, if I had
not interceded with an officer, who happened to be riding by. “Herr
Hauptmann,” I cried, as loud as I could, “is this your discipline,
to let unarmed prisoners be shot without orders?” The officer, thus
appealed to, reined in his horse, and halted the guard till he heard
what I had to say. My knowledge of other languages here stood me in
good stead, for the prisoners, north-country factory hands apparently,
were of course utterly unable to make themselves understood, and did
not even know in what they had offended. I therefore interpreted their
explanation: they had been left behind while skirmishing near Ditton,
in a barn, and coming out of their hiding-place in the midst of a party
of the enemy, with their rifles in their hands, the latter thought they
were going to fire at them from behind. It was a wonder they were not
shot down on the spot. The captain heard the tale, and then told the
guard to let them go, and they slunk off at once into a by-road. He was
a fine soldier-like man, but nothing could exceed the insolence of
his manner, which was perhaps all the greater because it seemed not
intentional, but to arise from a sense of immeasurable superiority.
Between the lame _freiwilliger_ pleading for his comrades, and the
captain of the conquering army, there was, in his view, an infinite
gulf. Had the two men been dogs, their fate could not have been decided
more contemptuously. They were let go simply because they were not
worth keeping as prisoners, and perhaps to kill any living thing
without cause went against the _hauptmann’s_ sense of justice. But
why speak of this insult in particular? Had not every man who lived
then his tale to tell of humiliation and degradation? For it was the
same story everywhere. After the first stand in line, and when once
they had got us on the march, the enemy laughed at us. Our handful of
regular troops was sacrificed almost to a man in a vain conflict with
numbers; our volunteers and militia, with officers who did not know
their work, without ammunition or equipment, or staff to superintend,
starving in the midst of plenty, we had soon become a helpless mob,
fighting desperately here and there, but with whom, as a manœuvring
army, the disciplined invaders did just what they pleased. Happy those
whose bones whitened the fields of Surrey; they at least were spared
the disgrace we lived to endure. Even you, who have never known what
it is to live otherwise than on sufferance, even your cheeks burn when
we talk of these days; think, then, what those endured who, like your
grandfather, had been citizens of the proudest nation on earth, which
had never known disgrace or defeat, and whose boast it used to be that
they bore a flag on which the sun never set! We had heard of generosity
in war; we found none: the war was made by us, it was said, and we
must take the consequences. London and our only arsenal captured, we
were at the mercy of our captors, and right heavily did they tread on
our necks. Need I tell you the rest?--of the ransom we had to pay, and
the taxes raised to cover it, which keep us paupers to this day?--the
brutal frankness that announced we must give place to a new naval
Power, and be made harmless for revenge?--the victorious troops living
at free quarters, the yoke they put on us made the more galling that
their requisitions had a semblance of method and legality? Better have
been robbed at first hand by the soldiery themselves, than through
our own magistrates made the instruments for extortion. How we lived
through the degradation we daily and hourly underwent, I hardly even
now understand. And what was there left to us to live for? Stripped of
our colonies; Canada and the West Indies gone to America; Australia
forced to separate; India lost for ever, after the English there had
all been destroyed, vainly trying to hold the country when cut off from
aid by their countrymen; Gibraltar and Malta ceded to the new naval
Power; Ireland independent and in perpetual anarchy and revolution.
When I look at my country as it is now--its trade gone, its factories
silent, its harbours empty, a prey to pauperism and decay--when I
see all this, and think what Great Britain was in my youth, I ask
myself whether I have really a heart or any sense of patriotism that I
should have witnessed such degradation and still care to live! France
was different. There, too, they had to eat the bread of tribulation
under the yoke of the conqueror! Their fall was hardly more sudden or
violent than ours; but war could not take away their rich soil; they
had no colonies to lose; their broad lands, which made their wealth,
remained to them; and they rose again from the blow. But our people
could not be got to see how artificial our prosperity was--that it all
rested on foreign trade and financial credit; that the course of trade
once turned away from us, even for a time, it might never return; and
that our credit once shaken might never be restored. To hear men talk
in those days, you would have thought that Providence had ordained
that our Government should always borrow at 3 per cent., and that
trade came to us because we lived in a foggy little island set in a
boisterous sea. They could not be got to see that the wealth heaped up
on every side was not created in the country, but in India and China,
and other parts of the world; and that it would be quite possible for
the people who made money by buying and selling the natural treasures
of the earth, to go and live in other places, and take their profits
with them. Nor would men believe that there could ever be an end to
our coal and iron, or that they would get to be so much dearer than
the coal and iron of America that it would no longer be worth while
to work them, and that therefore we ought to insure against the loss
of our artificial position as the great centre of trade, by making
ourselves secure and strong and respected. We thought we were living
in a commercial millennium, which must last for a thousand years at
least. After all, the bitterest part of our reflection is, that all
this misery and decay might have been so easily prevented, and that
we brought it about ourselves by our own shortsighted recklessness.
There, across the narrow Straits, was the writing on the wall, but we
would not choose to read it. The warnings of the few were drowned in
the voice of the multitude. Power was then passing away from the class
which had been used to rule, and to face political dangers, and which
had brought the nation with honour unsullied through former struggles,
into the hands of the lower classes, uneducated, untrained to the use
of political rights, and swayed by demagogues; and the few who were
wise in their generation were denounced as alarmists, or as aristocrats
who sought their own aggrandisement by wasting public money on bloated
armaments. The rich were idle and luxurious; the poor grudged the cost
of defence. Politics had become a mere bidding for Radical votes, and
those who should have led the nation stooped rather to pander to the
selfishness of the day, and humoured the popular cry which denounced
those who would secure the defence of the nation by enforced arming of
its manhood, as interfering with the liberties of the people. Truly the
nation was ripe for a fall; but when I reflect how a little firmness
and self-denial, or political courage and foresight, might have averted
the disaster, I feel that the judgment must have really been deserved.
A nation too selfish to defend its liberty, could not have been fit to
retain it. To you, my grandchildren, who are now going to seek a new
home in a more prosperous land, let not this bitter lesson be lost upon
you in the country of your adoption. For me, I am too old to begin life
again in a strange country; and hard and evil as have been my days,
it is not much to await in solitude the time which cannot now be far
off, when my old bones will be laid to rest in the soil I have loved so
well, and whose happiness and honour I have so long survived.
GARDEN CITY PRESS
LIMITED PRINTERS
LETCHWORTH, HERTS
+-------------------------------------------------+
|Transcriber’s note: |
| |
|Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. |
| |
+-------------------------------------------------+
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