Reference has already been made to the reduction of the army after Waterloo. When warlike enthusiasm died out, and the cost of the war—some ￡800,000,000—had been grasped, the natural reaction came. Retrenchment “all along the line” was natural; but though the numbers were reduced to a weak peace footing, few regiments actually ceased to exist. The old 100th, 99th, 98th, 97th, 96th, 95th, and 94th Battalions were disbanded. Many regiments received fresh numbers. Hence the army in 1821 numbered 99,224 men, with 20,000 in India; but there was a slight increase to the infantry in 1823, when the 94th, 95th, 96th, 97th, 98th, and 99th reappear, and a further increase of 7,000 in 1831 because of Irish discontent; but this was again reduced, to be increased in 1848. In 1837 the army consisted of ninety-nine regiments of the line, with the Rifle Brigade, but was extremely weak in the matter of the artillery and cavalry.
The dread of war died with the banishment of the great emperor to St. Helena, and was buried with his death. Europe was at peace for many a year, and people, foolish then as now, could not read by the lessons of the past that no perfect or continual peace was possible until the millennium came. Even those who looked forward to that event did not read prophecy correctly. There were to be “wars and rumours of wars,” but the people sat quietly down and dreamed of a continual peace, which was as impossible as a continual war.
Exhaustion follows great warlike efforts, and exhaustion,237 of a different kind, follows prolonged peace. There is “a deal of human nature about man,” and there is at the bottom of most of us an old combative spirit that, however concealed by common conventional life, is none the less still smouldering below the surface, and quite ready to break out into a flame.
The exhaustion of war requires repose: that of peace requires excitation, as the future proved. No war has ever been seriously unpopular in England—after a long peace. Man is a pugnacious animal at the heart of him, and woman is little better! The red coat, the “scarlet fever,” appeals to both sexes, and the most peace-loving woman in the world would rather see her brother or her lover die the death for country’s sake, than see him stay at home if his soldier’s work lay elsewhere.
Still, a great reaction, national and personal, had followed all these years of nearly continuous war. No wonder the army was reduced, and, to avoid further reduction, hidden away. The civilian idea that armies could be raised anyhow, that any man was not only fit for, but could be easily made, a soldier, was as common then as now. Yet if these well-meaning people, people of business, had been asked if any of their clerks could be so improvised, such a remark would have been met by a scornful negative. Curious to remember that people who think so are absolutely ignorant of the training in rapid decision, quick initiative, and perfect coolness, which in the midst of battle and sudden death the soldier, and still more his leader, has to show. But human nature is human nature. Civilians held the purse-strings, and the army suffered. The canker of peace rusted all things until the rude awakening of the Crimean War, and then those who complained most of the undoubted errors committed were the very descendants of those who had refused in every way to keep sound and commercially intact that great national insurance—the army.
But for India and the far East, the practice in the fighting trade would have been little or nothing for forty years! The history of the army from 1820 to 1854 is mainly238 domestic. Thus, between 1821 and 1827 the Household Cavalry had the cuirass restored; the list of battles on the regimental colours was increased, and regimental histories ordered to be written (by Mr. Cannon, of the War Office) by royal command; trousers took the place of leggings, and short boots and “Wellingtons” came into being; and when the Deccan prize-money was distributed, the general commanding these operations received ￡44,201, and the private soldier 19s. 10d.!
In 1827 the Duke of York died, and was succeeded the next year by the Duke of Wellington.
The late Commander-in-Chief was by no means a great general, and had lacked both tact and judgment, as was shown by his entanglement with Mrs. Clarke, which led to a heated debate in the House of Commons. But he was honest in his endeavour to improve the army as a fighting machine. When Sir Arthur Wellesley was a member of Parliament, he bore willing testimony to the work His Royal Highness had done. “Never was there army in a better state, as far as depended on the Commander-in-Chief, than the one he had commanded,” was his successor’s honest opinion in 1808 regarding His Royal Highness. There is little, if any, evidence that he was personally aware of the somewhat doubtful transactions that had been carried on, and his rigid integrity in all other matters had won him the respect of the army, when he finally ceased to command it in chief.
The Duke of York was, after all, but a man of his time. He had condescended to fight a duel with Colonel Lennox in the days of his hot youth. He had behaved with coolness and intrepidity in Holland when the 14th Foot and the Guards had distinguished themselves at Famars and Lincelles. He was notorious for his courtesy at his numerous levées. He behaved with dignity, certainly, in the unfortunate campaign of 1799. He had the interest of the army at heart, as is evidenced by his dying words to Sir Robert Peel, when he said, “I wish that the country could compare the state of the brigade which was to land in Lisbon in 1827239 with that which landed at Ostend in 1794.” A contemporary opinion stating that “No man of his high rank, since the days of Henry IV. of France, had ever conciliated more personal attachments, or retained them longer,” is sufficient eulogy of his private worth, if his military career be not remarkable for any marked success.
Private 24th Regt 1840.
The last pike carried by the infantry, the sergeant’s spontoon, from its use as protecting the captain of the company while leading or directing his command—disappeared in 1830, and was replaced by a “fusil and bayonet.” The sergeant’s firearm long remained shorter than that of the rank and file. The head-dress had been frequently changed, and by 1840 was a heavy-topped shako with badge, and with a ball or plume in front. The coat, or “coatee,” was swallow-tailed and buttoned to the throat, and was ornamented with epaulets or “scales,” the cuffs and collar showing the regimental facings. The sword was supported by a “frog” from a cross-belt over the right shoulder, on the front of it being a small square brass “breastplate” carrying the regimental devices.
The small brass “duty gorget,” long worn as a badge of being on duty, suspended by a ribbon round the neck, represented the last body armour for the protection of the shoulders; while so the “breastplate” was, in name at least, a survival of the cuirass.
The soldier’s bayonet was also supported by a belt over the right shoulder, and was balanced by a cross-belt over the other shoulder, which carried the only ammunition pouch. The man’s personal kit was contained in a knapsack, on the top of which the rolled greatcoat was strapped.
The drill remained practically the same from 1792 until after the Crimean War. Editions of the Drill book published by Dundas were issued in 1809, 1815, and 1817, though the alterations are trivial; but in 1824, when Sir Henry Torrens revised it, greater celerity was infused into some of the man?uvres, the “quick march” of 108 paces a minute being now generally used, except for mere parade. The two-deep formation became the rule, though drill240 for forming both three and four deep was retained, and a temporary effort was made to introduce the “bayonet exercise,” but this was very soon abandoned.
During Wellington’s first year of office as Commander-in-Chief, the yeomanry were remodelled. The system of limited enlistment was discontinued for a time, and there was much malingering in the army by men who tried by such means to get their discharge; but in 1833 the limit of enlistment was fixed at twenty-five years, and in 1847 at ten, with the colours, and the power of completing twenty-one years for pension. The soldier’s “small book,” containing his personal record, etc., was introduced, and as the typical pattern was made out in the name of a supposititious “Thomas Atkins,” the now familiar name of “Tommy Atkins” as the nickname of the private soldier came to be.
Between 1829 and 1839 there is little of note except the increase in the literature relating to the army. It was then that the United Service Magazine, the Army and Navy Gazette, and the Journal of the United Service Institution, first arose; and, save for Eastern wars, the only other service seen by the line was in the Canadian and West Indian troubles in 1832 and 1834, which were quelled by the 15th and 22nd,49 and a second Canadian rebellion, in 1839, which was suppressed by the 24th, 32nd, and 66th.
During the ten years between 1839 and 1849 duelling, which had continued very prevalent, was abolished. The last fought in England was between Mr. Hawkey of the Royal Marines and Mr. Seton of the 11th Hussars, on the beach at Gosport, in which the latter was mortally wounded. This was in 1845.
Flogging, which it had often been proposed to abolish, was reduced to fifty lashes in 1846, when good conduct medals and badges, as well as gratuities for non-commissioned officers and military savings banks, were introduced. Barrack accommodation was improved, regimental schools introduced, and either proper married quarters, or lodging money to men who married by permission “on the strength of the241 Regiment,” took the place of the disgraceful system that had before obtained of the married women sleeping in the same room as the men, the bed only being curtained off.
The school of musketry at Hythe was also inaugurated; and in 1851 the principle of granting medals was extended to cover the Indian victories from 1803 upwards. Medals for the long war and the recent Indian successes were issued, but of all the host who upheld the national honour when Napoleon ruled, only 19,000 recipients were found for the Peninsular decoration, and but 500 for the victory of Maida!
The next French “war scare” arose in 1847, because of a pamphlet, written by the Prince de Joinville, pointing out the military defencelessness of Great Britain, and the poor condition of our defensive forces. This had never been more clearly pointed out than when the Duke of Wellington wrote to Sir John Burgoyne: “It is perfectly true that, as we stand at present, with our naval arsenals and dockyards not half garrisoned, five thousand men of all arms could not be put under arms, if required, for any service whatever, without leaving standing, without relief, all employed on any duty, not excepting even the guards over the palaces and the person of the sovereign.” This was mainly the condition of the army when the Crimean War broke out. The Royal Artillery had been slightly increased in 1847, but in 1853, none the less, it was stated that there were not at home fifty guns fit for service.
But things were on the mend. Examinations for admission to the army were introduced, to the dismay of those who had hitherto gained commissions therein solely by family or other influence. The arms, too, were improving. Minié had invented a bullet, expanded by an iron base-cup, which facilitated the rapid loading of the piece, which had hitherto, with the Brunswick rifle, with its “belted ball,” and a range of about 400 yards, been impossible. This began to be used in 1851. The Great Exhibition of 1851 had introduced to the world the “Colt’s Revolver.” As far back as 1842 the percussion lock, invented in 1807, had taken the242 place of the Brown Bess, so called from the brown tint given to the barrel, as distinct from the bright iron barrels of foreign muskets; but it is stated that the duke was by no means favourable to the supersession of the flint-lock by the chemically charged cap. Judging from this, the actual armament of the whole army with the English model of the Minié (the “Enfield” rifle of 1855), which carried a bullet weighing sixteen to the pound, and of which a man could only carry sixty rounds of ammunition, would have been to him “Anathema Maranatha.” Similarly, the breech-loader had been introduced to Napoleon in 1809, but the weapon, being probably imperfect, met with little favour; none the less, the Prussians had already adopted, by 1841, the breech-loading needle gun. But General Anson, then “Clerk of the Ordnance,” had no fancy for such new-fangled ideas, a feeling shared fully, by all accounts, with the Commander-in-Chief, who was always irascible with inventors and their inventions. He did not believe we “ought hastily to adopt any of these improvements”; and, as to rifles, “it was ridiculous to suppose that two armies could fight at a distance of 500 or 600 yards!” Even the Secretary of State for War, afterwards Lord Panmure, stated that the weapons, that is, the percussion musket, “were better than all the inventions that could be discovered.” Certes, he lived long enough to be “sorry he spoke,” for of the musket he so be-praised, it was officially declared, in 1846, that “fire should never be opened beyond 150 yards, and certainly not exceeding 200 yards,” for “at this distance half the number of shots missed the target, measuring 11 feet 6 inches, and at 150 yards a very large proportion also missed!”
It is but forty years since these ideas were held, and rightly; but it is curious, none the less, to note the extraordinary advance the art of killing men has made since then. In 1822 it is deliberately stated in a French report that “thus infantry is only formidable at about 100 yards.” In 1852, and thereabout, there were marked improvements in firearms, and this, notwithstanding the continuance of the reign243 of peace the “Great Exhibition” was supposed to inaugurate, and the ominous distant growl of the war-thunder that was arising in the East. With nations of different national characteristics, and in different stages of national development, the quietude of a peaceful power is looked on as but a synonym for weakness. National decadence and a peace-at-any-price policy run, as all history proves, on very much the same rails; the latter spirit is called up to cover or excuse the former. So it was that the long peace was broken. If Russia had really thought she would have to fight four powers and a “benevolent neutral,” she might have held her hand, but the “Manchester School” talked much, and foreign powers are disposed always to take the outcry of the hysterical few in England for the solid opinion of the silent many.
Some people, less influenced by the hysteria of those who, like the Pharisee in the parable, air their opinions in the streets, or, like Rudyard Kipling’s monkey-folk,—the “Bander-log,”—imagine, because they proclaim, their proclamations must be true, were uneasy. The best of the House of Commons were uneasy, and voted the Militia Bill, which aimed at creating 80,000 permanent militiamen as a second line of defence; a force that proved the justice of the view taken, by the enormous help they gave the army when the new war began. It is saying very little to assert that, without the militia from 1854 to 1856, we could not have recruited the army at Sebastopol, any more than we could have held our Mediterranean garrisons.
Then there was a certain Colonel Kinloch who was uneasy. And he found relief for uneasiness by starting the second Volunteer Movement. The first was when Napoleon threatened to invade us. He wrote a very valuable, because impressive, pamphlet, which attracted attention, and actually led to the formation of volunteer corps, which, of course, had little support from the Government; all the more because they were anxious about their own pet child, the new “Militia Bill.”
Then, lastly, there were the Secretary of State and the244 Commander-in-Chief also anxious. And these relieved their anxiety by doing the best possible thing they could, in establishing the camp at Chobham, where field man?uvres were first seriously tried. Again it is curious to see how history repeats itself. When the impressive lesson of 1870 to 1871 aroused the national anxiety, the first camp of instruction with real field man?uvres was started in 1871 by Lord Cardwell, over much of the same area.
In 1852 Wellington died, and, after a while, Lord Hardinge took his place. That the “Iron Duke” had been uniformly and, on the whole, extraordinarily successful, is evident. That he never saw the greatest leaders until he met Napoleon at Waterloo, is equally so. It was for long, and is, to some extent, still rank heresy to even criticise his actions. But whatever confidence he may have gained by his imperturbable coolness, he gained no man’s regard. The rank and file trusted and believed in him to some extent. But there was not one soldier who would have died with his name on his lips as many did for his far greater antagonist—Napoleon. Men were obedient, save in such retreats as Burgos, when Wellington’s influence was powerless to check the disgraceful conduct of his army, but never devoted. He rarely praised the men who fought, and died, and won battles, some of which are distinguished by the absence of everything but that bull-dog courage which the privates showed. He had a belief in himself that seems at times arrogant, but he was patient, persevering, and sagacious. No careful student of the art of war, no foreign military critic certainly, has ever classed him among the greatest generals, or thought his campaigns worth studying seriously.
Gneisenau at Waterloo utterly mistrusted him, as has been shown, and the feeling must have been created by Wellington himself. If half the myths about him were true, they would be worth publishing as the unwritten history of a great man with many faults. Of him Gleig, who shared in the general admiration of him, is quite plain-spoken as to his personal coldness.
“Though retaining to the last a warm regard for his245 old companions in arms, he entered very little with them, after he became a politician, into the amenities of social life. We have reason to believe that neither Lord Hill, nor Lord Raglan, nor Sir George Murray ever visited the duke at Strathfieldsaye, nor could they, or others of similar standing, such as Lord Anglesey, Sir Edward Paget, and Sir James Kempt, be reckoned among the habitués of his hospitable gatherings in Apsley House. The circle in which he chiefly moved was that of fashionable ladies and gentlemen.”
The gallantry of Norman Ramsay’s battery at Fuentes d’Onoro met with no praise from this imperturbable chief. Mercer’s unquestionably cool and brave work with his battery at Waterloo was barely noticed by his general. Mercer himself, in no very complimentary spirit, says of his share in the great fight: “One day, on the Marine Parade at Woolwich, a battalion coming up in close column at the double march, Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, who stood near me, remarked, ‘That puts me in mind of your troops coming up at Waterloo, when you saved the Brunswickers.’ Until this moment I never knew that our having done so had been remarked by anybody. But he assured me it was known to the whole army; and yet the duke not only withheld that praise which was our due, but refused me the brevet rank of major; and, more than that, actually deprived me of that troop given me by Lord Mulgrave, the then Master-General, for that action, as recommended by my commanding officer, Sir G. Adams Wood.
“That the duke was not ignorant of their danger, I have from Captain Baynes, our brigade-major, who told me that after Sir Augustus Frazer had been sent for us, his Grace exhibited considerable anxiety for our coming up; and that, when he saw us crossing the fields at a gallop, and in so compact a body, he actually cried out, ‘Ah! that’s the way I like to see horse-artillery move.’ Another proof.”
Few men had had greater good fortune than he. “With no opportunity for the display of any kind of talent, he, after entering the army as an ensign at seventeen, became246 captain, M.P., and A.D.C. to the Lord-Lieutenant at twenty-one, lieutenant-colonel at twenty-four, and colonel at twenty-six. Had Wellesley been the son of an obscure gentleman he might, and probably would, with all his genius, have served in India as a subaltern, in the Peninsula in various regimental grades, and might have died, perhaps, a barrack-master on half-pay—a lieutenant-colonel with half a dozen clasps.”50 So writes one historian of his life, and his view is shared by Brialmont, who thinks that, when his brother became Governor-General of India, “without his fraternal hand, he would probably have risen neither so quickly nor so high.”
And, finally: “The duke’s unpopularity, increasing with every stage of his opposition to the Bill, reached such a height that, on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, the once idolised victor in that fight was hunted along the city by a mob, and escaped their violence only by a fortunate accident.”
None can deny that his rewards were ample. He had landed in the Peninsula but the “Sepoy general,” who had, through family influence, succeeded the man who won Seringapatam. He had received after Salamanca ￡100,000, and, later on, was granted another ￡400,000. Talavera had made him a viscount, and, but a few years later, he ranked as an English duke, had received the Garter, and had been granted every possible foreign rank and decoration.
In 1854 the long peace was broken. Tactics had meanwhile scarcely changed since the Peninsula. The English still fought in line, the French more or less in column, and in both armies the deployment and the advance were covered by light infantry skirmishers. The artillery was that of 1815 to all intents and purposes. Only the telegraph introduced a new and not always, from a military point of view, valuable adjunct to warlike operations, as it led to the interference, by ignorant people at home, with the conduct of operations of which they could form no accurate judgment; and though this “opening up” communication247 with the western countries greatly accelerated the supply of whatever was wanted, “still, in the Crimean War, it enabled Napoleon III. to worry the army incessantly with military ideas, which Pelissier calmly disregarded.” Lastly, the use of steamships gave greater rapidity and certainty in the transport of troops.
Just before the war began the coatee was gradually superseded by the tunic, which offered greater protection to the man than the previous dress. Gradually epaulettes as well as scales ceased.
The British army entered on its first European campaign, for nearly forty years, side by side with its ancient enemies, for the first time since the Crusades. In alliance with Turkey, to which after was added Piedmont, it was proposed, at first, to carry on an active campaign in the Balkan Peninsula against the Russian invasion of the “principalities.” Russia’s appearance there, nominally to obtain protection for the Christian subjects of the Porte, was based on the hope of inheriting, or gaining by force of arms, the territory of the “sick man,” or at least, by his destruction, to lead to a partition of his territories, as had been effected before in Poland. Russia thought little of the then newly made Emperor of France, Napoleon III., and he, on his part, was by no means disinclined to adopt the Napoleonic method, and to obtain security for his throne by war abroad, and peace, with glory added, at home. England, owing to the outcry of the “Manchester School,” had been regarded as a quantité négligeable then, as she has sometimes been since. The Czar hoped, at least, that the canker of the long peace had so rusted her energies that she might protest, but would do nothing more. But there were several surprises for the autocrat, as his descendant found also in 1877 to 1878, before the wished-for end could be gained. Turks then, as later, proved themselves somewhat stubborn fighters. To a man who believes in Kismet, death has no real terrors, and there is only his own personal ego, only his own personal nerve strength, to deal with. The quantity is somewhat difficult of determining, and its determination marks the difference248 between the brave man and the coward. Few know, or can guess, the value of this personal equation until he is tried. Sometimes, when that trial is made, it is too late to be of future value.
But the Turk tenaciously held his own in the valley of the Danube, and England and France declared war. The real defeat of Russia was not to be on pseudo-Turkish soil. Austria intervened by mobilising a portion of her army, which therefore threatened the Russian line of retreat, and in other ways paralysed her freedom of action. This “benevolent neutrality,” like all such actions which are half-hearted, made bad blood. No one rejoiced, privately, more than Russia did when disaster befell Austria in 1866. Said, three weeks after K?niggratz, the governor of East Siberia, who had received the news partly by telegraph, partly by steamer down the Amoor, when asked why he had rejoiced that “the Austrians had been gloriously defeated at Sadowa,” “We have never forgotten or forgiven Austria’s benevolent neutrality of 1854.”
So Russia abandoned her first idea of carrying the war into the enemy’s country, and had to prepare to defend her own.
The Allied army had been landed, till all danger in that part was over, at Varna, and had suffered terribly from sickness. Now the seat of war was transferred to the Crimea, with the object of destroying both the Russian base of operations in the Black Sea, and her prestige as well, by the capture of Sebastopol. So the troops embarked; but while both France and Turkey had to use their ships of war as transports, and could not therefore convey cavalry, England, with a magnificent fleet of transports for her troops and a fine squadron of warships to cover them, was able to embark all three arms for the new seat of war. It was something even in 1854 to be still a leading naval power. “No power but England has, indeed, ever successfully despatched a complete army by sea, at anyrate since the Crusades, save England.”51
249 Thus were landed on the shores of the Crimea, which there run north and south, on the small, well-protected beach of Balchuk Bay, a few miles north of the Bulganak River, and about twenty-five miles north of the principal objective, Sebastopol, a force of 28,000 French—they had lost 10,000 men by cholera at Varna—and 7000 Turkish infantry, with 68 guns and no cavalry, and the British army of 26,000 infantry, 60 guns, and a light cavalry brigade of about 1000 sabres. The former forces were commanded by Marshal St. Arnaud, the latter by Lord Raglan, and were formed into five divisions, about 5000 men, each of two brigades, each brigade of two regiments, and with each two field batteries.
The siege train and the heavy cavalry brigade were awaiting embarkation at Varna. Even then it had been contemplated that a siege was possible, but there was an obstacle in the immediate way; for, behind the Alma river, a few miles south of the Bulganak, the Russian army under Mentschikoff had taken up a position for defence. The march began with the English force inland on the left because it had cavalry to cover its flank front and rear, with the Rifle Brigade forming the advanced and rear guard; then came the French; and the Turkish contingent formed the right of the advance, though in the column of march they followed in rear of the French columns. The first day’s march was six miles. The Russians had placed their army across the road from Eupatoria to Sebastopol; but there were few troops west of the road, as the cliffs bordering the brook were there steep, with only two difficult avenues of approach, which might have been blocked or defended by field works, while the plateau was exposed to............