British Regiments at the Front, The Story of Their Battle Honours

The enemy, now in confusion, looked at the cold steel awaiting them, turned in dismay and fled in disorder to the shelter of their own guns.

The 93rd were also at Lucknow, and the way they came to the rescue of the hard-pressed garrison of that city makes a thrilling episode.

Well known is the story of Jessie, the Scotch nurse, who was within the fortifications of Lucknow when the final grip of despair was closing on the beleaguered garrison. Sitting musing on the hope of death as against the horrors of surrender, she suddenly raised her head and listened. Was she dreaming of the hills and glens of her native land, which she might never see again, or was that the sound of the pibrochs floating on the breeze from far away? She started up, declaring that she heard the wild music of her own country drawing nearer and nearer out of the distance. Others listened, but could hear nothing, and thought that Jessie was fey. But the simple-living Scotch folk are renowned for their second sight and clairaudience, and the event proved that Jessie was right; for at that moment, though far beyond the range of physical hearing, the Highlanders, under Sir Colin Campbell, were marching swiftly towards Lucknow, with Cameron striding at their head, blowing his loudest.

When they arrived at the city they made no pause, but swept down on the dastardly foe with irresistible force, while the bagpipes screamed and the men cheered wildly. Then ensued a running fight lasting some hours, after which post after post was seized and occupied until finally the siege was raised, and Sir Colin Campbell and Sir Henry Havelock met within the city and shook hands on a glorious relief.

  THE DUBLIN FUSILIERS

("The Old Toughs")

The Dublin Fusiliers had a large share in writing the red history of India. Their prestige has been drawn mainly from the East. Indeed, although they have been in existence 246 years, they never set eyes on the white cliffs of Dover until the other day, so to speak, in 1871. On their colours stand the Royal Tiger of Bengal, and the Indian Elephant, together with the honours—Plassey, Mysore, The Carnatic, Buxar, and many others gained in India which are unknown to any other regiment. In the conquest of India they were Clive's men, Warren Hastings' men, and "their names are the names of the victories of England." It is scarcely too much to say that Indian territory was made British by the Dublin Fusiliers. The story of how India would have become part of the French Empire but for the daring genius of an obscure youth and the indomitable valour of the Dublin Fusiliers makes thrilling reading.

The French had laid siege to Trichinopoly, knowing that, with its fall, fell India into their hands; but Clive, a young man of twenty-five years, a born genius, without any further acquirement in the way of special training, evolved as if by a heaven-sent inspiration—a sudden plan—the consummate daring of which has not been equalled in the history of any other nation. It was, in brief, to raise the siege of Trichinopoly by dealing a sledge-hammer stroke upon Arcot, the capital of the Carnatic—a city whose population was 100,000, and whose garrison consisted of 1,100 trained men. Clive proposed to subdue this strongly defended city with 200 Dublin Fusiliers and 300 Sepoys. This unheard-of intention must have had something unseen and undreamt of behind it, as the shadow of the coming event. The issue proved this. With his handful of men, tuned to his own pitch of enthusiasm, he marched boldly on Arcot during the night. He was not alone. His allies were the elements. As he neared the gates of the city, they broke loose. The lightning flashed, the thunder roared, and the rain descended in torrents. In the midst of this, he and his little band entered the city as if at the head of an unknown mighty army. These men, who came attended by the artillery of the storm gods, by the lightning's flash and search-light, seemed all too many for the garrison. Terrified, they fled in tumult and disorder, and Clive by this master-stroke, aided by That which has aided Britain many times in a moment of daring extremity, seized Arcot, and held it.

But this master-stroke required confirmation before it was effective. It yet remained for Clive, and his brave band to display the endurance and patience necessary to hold what was won. The besiegers of Trichinopoly gathered reinforcements, and beleaguered Arcot. Ten thousand men enforced that place. In the course of days four officers, nearly 100 Dublin Fusiliers and over 100 Sepoys were lost. Says an eye-witness who describes the place, "The ramparts were too narrow to admit the guns, the battlements too low to protect the soldiers." In this siege, which lasted fifty days, elephants were used by the besieging hosts. With the battering-rams slung between them, they were pushed forward against the walls, but the "Dubs" sent such a fusilade against them that the beasts turned tail, and trampled hundreds of the enemy to death.

The little body of Dublin Fusiliers and Sepoys—it was the first, but not the last time that Indian troops have fought bravely by our side—held out, and finally the enemy, after a fierce attack, in which they were worsted, retreated. Clive followed them up remorselessly. In that pursuit Pondicherry and Tanjore were taken, and now, at Plassey, were 100 British, and 2,000 Sepoys, who, in a decisive action, defeated 60,000 of the enemy under Surajah Dowlah. This superiority of a cause which, reinforcing an inferiority of men, has proved, through thick blood and thin, to be at the behest of civilisation, is not without its far-off echo in the present day.

It needs to be added that the whole of the honours of the Dublin Fusiliers, until "South Africa, 1899-1902," and "Relief of Ladysmith," were won by the Madras Fusiliers and Bombay Fusiliers (East India Company's regiments). It was only in 1881 that they were given the name "Royal Dublin Fusiliers," and as such, our English, Scotch and Welsh have never a fault to find with them.

It was at Arcot that Lieutenant Trewith, of the Madras Fusiliers, saved Clive's life at the expense of his own, and so, indirectly, yet practically, saved India. At a moment when Clive was unaware of danger Trewith saw one of the besiegers taking a long, steady aim at him through a small breach. There was no time to do anything in the way of warning. There was merely time to thrust his own body between the bullet and Clive's heart—between another Power and India. That was a moment as heroic for an individual as it was critical for a nation.

From the battle of Plassey onwards, wherever there was fighting, there were the Dublin Fusiliers. At Condore and Wandiwash, at Buxar and Sholingur, they were present—not in numbers but in force. It has ceased to be a strange thing regarding the Dublin Fusiliers that their greatest victories were those in which the odds were against them.

At Cuddalore the "Dubs" saw the first step of a romance which went far in a world of practical reality. It was there that they took no less a person than Bernadotte prisoner—Bernadotte, the born leader of men, who afterwards married Desirée Clary (the early love of Napoleon), became Field Marshal, and died King of Sweden. Little did those practical fighters think, when they treated the young Bernadotte kindly at their camp fire that they had actually captured the future father of King Oscar of Sweden—a monarch who received his name from his god-father Napoleon Bonaparte, after his favourite hero, Oscar of Ossian.

As the almost impossible name of Nundy Droog has been glorified by the "Dubs," one may fairly reason that the glory of a place-name may be derived from what takes place there. Nundy Droog is a fortress set upon a great crag, nearly half a mile high. The story of the three weeks' siege of this difficult place has a sublime climax in the final and victorious assault of the Dublin Fusiliers. It was night, and the Indian moon shone full upon the giant crag, whose serried points seemed to pierce the sky, casting deep shadows on the rocky facets and gloomy ravines. From far above fell the bugle calls of the defenders, tossed by echo from precipice to precipice, to die away in the dark spaces. Then rang out an answering clarion note from below, sounding the assault, and the Dublin Fusiliers advanced up the sides of that precipitous height. "Then," says a chronicler, with a peculiar inversion of metaphorical allusion, "hell opened above them, cannon shot ploughed through them, musketry raked them, rockets blasted them, great boulders rolled down from above and carried many away." But, undaunted, the Dublin Fusiliers climbed on and up, until at last their final dash on the summit was so determined that the enemy fled dismayed.

Later, standing in pools of blood where lay women of Cawnpore, while little baby-shoes floated about them, the Dublin Fusiliers—strong men, sobbing with grief—vowed vengeance on the perpetrators of the foulest deeds, and saw it carried out. The murderers were captured and blown from the guns, their hands smeared with the blood of their innocent victims, and, according to their own belief, their high-caste souls consequently damned for ever.

The Dublin Fusiliers fought grandly in the Boer War, and nothing could hold them back. After Colenso they were found to be only 400 strong. In view of their terrible losses it was decided to send them off to Frere to keep the communications open. It was at parade that they were informed of this, and they one and all "nabbed the rust" and swore they would be in the fighting line or die. They were expostulated with, but all arguments were of no avail; the fighting spirit was too strong, and these heroic fellows were allowed to remain to have another cut at the enemy.

During the battle of Colenso occurred a real "Irish" incident which is amusing. The "Dubs" were advancing on the enemy's left flank under a searching shell and rifle fire, when they paused for cover at a poorly-sheltered spot. Here two of the men had a private difference, and, with the battle raging round them, and the bullets whistling through their hair, they set about one another with their fists, their comrades gathering round and looking on with interest. When the matter was satisfactorily settled, and the best man had let the other up, the two shook hands, and, joining common cause against the enemy, coolly resumed the advance, and proceeded about the less personal business of the day.

It was at Lucknow that Tommy Atkins, the sentry, when he saw the people flying for the Residency, refused to leave his post, and was killed by the Sepoys. This proud nickname, Tommy Atkins, has now come to mean any soldier in the British Army, and rightly so, for, be it said, they are all built on the same plan as the one who immortalized their present name.

There are two true stories of the Dublin Fusiliers which will bear repeating; indeed, they are more than true: they are tender and true, and show the noblest form of self-sacrifice in the face of unconquering death. At Natal, when Captain Paton was severely wounded, one of his disabled men crept to his side in the cold, teeming rain, and lay with his arms about him all night long, trying to keep the necessary warmth in his body. And if you remind an old Dublin Fusilier of this touching story, he will most probably tell you another of eighty years ago, which is like unto it. There were, so the records tell, two foster-brothers in the Bombay Fusiliers (the 2nd "Dubs")—the younger an officer, and the elder a devil-may-care private. "Ye'll be lookin' after the lad," said their mother, when they left for the front. "I will," replied the reckless one; and he did. They were found, years later, upon a mountain-side in India, both dead, lying among dead and wounded. But—and here is the lump in the throat—the younger had been badly wounded, and the elder only slightly; but, dead from exposure, there he lay by his brother's side, stripped to the skin, all his clothes being piled upon his mother's younger son to keep his ebbing life-spark warm. Deep down in the devil-may-care Bombay Fusilier who did that deed was surely the spirit that conquers death, subjecting it to the higher glory of Britain.

  FUENTES D'ONORO AND ALBUERA

As at Balaclava and Inkerman, a great number of our Expeditionary regiments now contending side by side at the front were present at the victorious battle of Fuentes d'Onoro, and a new significance attaches to that name from the fact that these regiments were mainly responsible for the victory on that occasion. The battle is also very noteworthy in the annals of British pluck and endurance for the number of times the little village was taken and retaken in the course of the day.

In September, 1810, Wellington, having beaten Regnier and Ney at Busaco, withdrew to his colossal defences at Torres Vedras. In the following spring he again assumed the offensive, and marched his army to Fuentes d'Onoro, where the battle of glorious incident was fought. A Highlander who was in the fight has described it in the following picturesque narrative, which as his description is taken from notes written in camp, contains no indication as to his regiment, and prudently refrains from mentioning the names of most of the other regiments, we may preface it with a list of the principal regiments engaged. They were as follow:

And here is his story, in the course of which the reader must make what he can of the curious fact that the cavalry on both sides were chiefly Germans!

[This regiment (1st Battalion Highland Light Infantry) was always remarkable for its gallantry. The brave Cadogan well knew the art of rendering his men invincible; he knew that the courage of the British soldier is best called forth by associating it with his country, and he also knew how to time the few words which produced such magical effects.]

Full of interest and significance as was the battle of Fuentes d'Onoro, it remains that the most sanguinary and glorious battle of the Peninsular War, as far as the soldiers were concerned, was that of Albuera where, on May 16th, the skilful Soult was defeated by Beresford, with tremendous slaughter.

Just as the battle of Fuentes arose out of the determination of Massena to save Almeida, so that of Albuera was owing to Soult's desire to save Badajoz, which was in siege by Beresford. Wellington was returning victorious from the north to join Beresford, but, before he arrived, the bloodiest battle of the Peninsula was over.

Before the siege of Badajoz was well compacted Soult came up with a superior force, and Beresford decided to raise the siege and stake the issue on a pitched battle. The Allies took up their position on the ridge of Albuera, some 28,000 strong, including 10,000 half-trained Spaniards, who were something between a hindrance and a help. Soult's force consisted of 19,000 picked infantry, 4,000 cavalry, and fifty guns.

It is the very climax and turning point of this fight that interests us here. It came at a time when Houghton's Brigade, being practically worsted in an assault on the ridge, were failed by Beresford, but succored by Colonel Hardinge, who, on his own responsibility, ordered the advance of General Cole's Division against the enemy. This, the 4th Division, consisting mainly of British fusiliers, succeeded in turning the tide of battle. Cole himself led the fusiliers up the hill, on the crest of which the French with their artillery were stationed in force; and, as if that were not superiority enough, the whole of Soult's reserve was advancing in mass to support the columns on the ridge. Houghton's Brigade held on in what seemed a losing fight. The ground was heaped with dead, and the Polish lancers were beginning to gather round the British guns. The brigade saw defeat and destruction staring it in the face. But they endured for sheer tenacity's sake, not knowing that but a few moments more mattered everything. The Royal Welsh Fusiliers swept steadily upwards, attacked the savage lancers, charged their gathering hosts, and put the enemy to rout. It was Houghton's Brigade that had borne the brunt, but it was the Welsh Fusiliers that decided the victory.

Napier has pictured this glorious passage of arms so vividly that it is no man's presumptuous task to describe it independently. "Such a gallant line," he says, "issuing from the midst of smoke, and rapidly separating itself from the confused and broken multitude, startled the enemy's heavy masses which were increasing and pressing onwards as to an assured victory. They wavered, hesitated, and then, vomiting forth a storm of fire, hastily endeavoured to enlarge their front, while a fearful discharge of grape from all their artillery whistled through the British ranks. Sir William Myers was killed. Cole, and the three Colonels: Ellis, Blakeney, and Hawkshawe, fell wounded, and the fusilier battalions, struck by the iron tempest, reeled and staggered like sinking ships. Suddenly and sternly recovering, they closed on their terrible enemies, and then was seen with what a strength and majesty the British soldier fights. In vain did Soult, by voice and gesture, animate his Frenchmen; in vain did the hardiest veterans, extricating themselves from the crowded columns, sacrifice their lives to gain time for the mass to open out on such a fair field; in vain did the mass itself bear up, and, fiercely arising, fire indiscriminately upon friends and foes, while the horsemen hovering on the flank, threatened to charge the advancing line. Nothing could stop that astonishing infantry. No sudden burst of undisciplined valour, no nervous enthusiasm weakened the stability of their order; their flashing eyes were bent on the dark columns in their front; their measured tread shook the ground; their dreadful volleys swept away the head of every formation; their deafening shouts overpowered the dissonant cries that broke from all parts of the tumultuous crowd as, foot by foot, and with a horrid carnage, it was driven by the incessant vigour of the attack to the farthest edge of the hill. In vain did the French reserves, joining with the struggling multitudes, endeavour to sustain the fight; their efforts only increased the irremediable confusion, and the mighty mass, giving way like a loosened cliff, went headlong down the ascent. The rain flowed after in streams discoloured with blood, and 1,500 unwounded men, the remnant of 6,000 unconquerable British soldiers, stood triumphant on the fatal hill."

It must be added to this classic word-picture of the fight on the ridge that Marshal Beresford in his despatch to Lord Wellington, dated Albuera, 18th May, said, "It was observed that our dead, particularly the 57th Regiment (the "Die Hards" of Albuera), were lying as they had fought in the ranks, and that every wound was in front."

  BALACLAVA AND INKERMAN

The majority of the Expeditionary Forces now at the front carry in their hearts if not on their standards the glorious legends of Balaclava and of Inkerman. At a time when it has become so evident that the tendency of the Prussian military system is to crush individual initiative, while that of the British system is to encourage it on equal terms with a free and unhesitating obedience to the will of the commander, the battles of Balaclava and Inkerman are of peculiar significance, for, while Balaclava contains a glorious instance of blind obedience, Inkerman stands alone as a sanguinary conflict in which, to quote an eye-witness, "every man was his own general." For this reason it has been called a "soldiers' battle," and as such it forms a useful example, not only of the fine behaviour of our soldiers when thrown on the limit of their own individual resources, but also of the self-reliant valour and do-or-die spirit that has brought them through so many desperately prolonged struggles before and since. The fact that Inkerman was fought and won in a thick fog makes it all the more wonderful and satisfactory that the units, and even individuals, of our army on that occasion co-operated well within the boundaries of a sound and discreet initiative. Many full descriptions have been given of Balaclava and Inkerman. Our space here will not allow of more than a brief account of some of the glorious deeds on those fields of victory.

On October 25th, 1885, the Russians made a bold attempt to take Balaclava, and the tale of their defeat is the immortal tale of two of the finest cavalry charges ever known in the history of war. Immortalised in verse by Tennyson, the "Charge of the Light Brigade" is a deed bringing honour and glory for all time; yet the charge of the Heavy Brigade earlier on the same day was an affair even more deadly to the enemy and more responsible for the final victory.

At the first attack of the Russians the 93rd (Sutherland) Highlanders were called upon to face them and defend the foremost approach. Eight Squadrons of General Scarlett's Heavy Brigade on the left wing were at once ordered to their assistance. Of these the Scots Greys and Inniskillings were diverted to check the advance of a body of Russian cavalry 3,000 strong, which was descending from the hill into the valley. It all happened on the spur of the moment. As soon as Scarlett became aware of the meaning of those 3,000 of the enemy he made up his mind in a flash. It was one of the intuitions that determine the fortune of war. "Left wheel into line!" and the Greys and Inniskillings were ready. They saw the cause and understood the intention. They wheeled into line, and as they formed up with quick, cool decision, the Russians paused, as if to calculate, some 500 paces away. "Charge!" And the Greys and Inniskillings, with Scarlett at their head, thundered forward on the enemy.

It was a gallant and almost desperate undertaking, for the two squadrons were greatly out-numbered by the opposing force; but it was so sudden, unexpected and headlong, that the Russians were thrown into hesitation and scarcely knew on the spur of the moment the best way to meet it. After the terrible clash of meeting they could do no more than try to close in on the English, and in this, by dint of superior numbers, they must in the end have wiped our men out had it not been that in the very thick of it help came from several sides. First, small detachments of other "Heavies" came up rapidly and fell upon the enclosing Russians so fiercely that their plan was weakened. Then a whole squadron of Inniskillings from our right swept down on the enemy's left and completely frustrated its encircling movement. Finally, from different quarters, the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards and the Royals came up like a whirlwind, and the result of it all was a fight of the wildest and most terrible kind. In the thick of it were Scarlett and his two squadrons, and the enemy were cut up and swept away like chaff before the terrible onslaught within and without, until at last they broke and fled in utter confusion back over the crest of the hill. So, in glorious victory, ended the Charge of the Heavy Brigade, a splendid feat of generalship and valour which, though unsung by Laureates, nevertheless throws a tremendous weight of tradition into the spirit of the "Heavies" who, with three of their regiments—the Scots Greys, and the 4th and 5th Dragoon Guards, are to-day repeating such deeds at the front without being aware that they are doing anything extraordinary.

The Charge of the Light Brigade is a matter that all the world knows while all the world wonders—in one sense, that it was ever undertaken, and, in another, that mortal flesh and blood could dare so desperate and unwarlike a deed at the behest of discipline and still succeed in turning it to glorious account. What happened is household reading, but who could be restrained from relating it, and who can refrain from reading it yet once more?

The Light Brigade, with the 13th Light Dragoons and the 17th Lancers in the first line, the 11th Hussars in the second, and the 4th Light Dragoons and the 8th Hussars in the third, was drawn up two deep as soon as the ambiguous order arrived. The Heavy Brigade was in readiness to support, with Lord Lucan commanding in person the Greys and Royals. A brief question as to the meaning of the order and a quick reply that it was no time to question, but merely to obey, and then the trumpet rang out for the charge. It had no uncertain sound and every man prepared to do and die as they went down the hill with Lord Cardigan at their head at a speed approaching twenty miles an hour. Sheets of flame, and a hail of lead, leapt out upon their flanks from the Russian infantry. Captain Nolan darted out across their front, shouting and waving his sword in the futile effort to explain that it was all a mistake. But their minds were made up and they did not heed or could not understand his gestures, at so swift a pace; and then, swifter still, a fragment of shell tore its way through Nolan's heart and his horse wheeled and bore him, dead, but still upright, through the advancing ranks before he fell.

Meanwhile the brigade hurled forward, through the dense pall of smoke before the guns, into that dreadful impact which has shown the nations for ever what our heroes can do. Those who passed between the shot and shell passed also between the guns, sabring the gunners as they went, until they launched upon the squadron beyond. Then ensued a mighty conflict for the possession of the guns. While those in the first line fought fiercely with the enemy's cavalry the second and third lines thundered in and made their business plain. It was to silence the guns, and with all the courage of their kind they did it. Their tracks could be traced next day on the field by the lines of dead whose heads were not left upon their bodies, or were cloven "from the nave to the chaps." The fight was unequal, but they did not seem to realise it, for they fought their way back with a persistency that sent an undying thrill through all the world. These heroes fought on, and would have done so to the last drop had it not been for a timely charge of the French Chasseurs d'Afrique upon the pressing hosts of the enemy. Thus they were extricated—all that were left of them. "Then they rode back"—some 170 in formation.

When they lined up in their original position and Lord Cardigan counted them in a glance, he said "Men, it was a mad-brained trick, but it was no fault of mine." Later, when the French General was asked his opinion, he replied, "It was magnificent, but it was not war." Later still, when Lord Cardigan came home, Queen Victoria asked him simply, "Where is my army?" Yet, though critics may speak of "absolute inutility," and calculating militarists of "sheer waste of life," it still remains that the crowning glory of the Light Brigade, born that day at Balaclava, has outlived all the survivors of that deathless fray, and will still live on when the sword of the conquered has been beaten once more into the ploughshare of peace. Ask any man of the 11th Hussars fighting at the front to-day what he thinks about the Charge of the Light Brigade, and, whatever he says, he will stand an inch higher while saying it. And so it is with the nation. In these days, from the Secretary for War to the latest recruit—even to the humblest non-combatant grimly enduring—we are greater, stronger, more whole-hearted for the memory of that glorious episode. It is far reaching. It is immortal.

Ten days had elapsed since their defeat at Balaclava when the Russians planned an over-whelming attack on our besieging army. Their objective was Mount Inkerman, their methods were secret, and their men 60,000. The event shows that they hoped, by sending a strong force to the west of Sevastopol and some 20,000 men to engage our army in the field, to carry Inkerman, and so compel us to raise the siege.

Through the mists of the cold November morning the Russians, stirred to the highest enthusiasm by the priests, advanced on Inkerman, and a fight of the most desperate character ensued. Our Second Division, sore pressed by overwhelming numbers, was suffering heavily, when, notwithstanding the fog, the enemy's strategy became apparent, and the Rifle Brigade were sent hurrying up from the field to their assistance. The 50th followed, and the battle round Inkerman, now a trifle less unequal, eddied and swirled and locked, turning now in favour of one side and now the other. All sides belched flame and in turn were bespattered with lead. Here a heap of Russian slain, and there, through a rift of the mist, a fitful gleam of serried bayonets. The British broke ranks and formed squares, and, in this formation, every square found work of its own in repelling the fierce and sudden rushes of the enemy. A couple of 18-pounders were brought up and long gaps were hewn out of the deep ranks of the attacking host. Small groups found antagonists by instinct in the mist and fought to a finish on their own. Commanders became fighting-men, and every fighting-man his own commander. It rested with each and all who had in common, not only the fog, but a general purpose, to see that they kept their place between anything Russian and the summit of Inkerman; and, in the process of this, hand-to-hand combats as heroic as any in the Trojan War were joined. "A series of dreadful deeds of daring," says Davenport Adams, "of sanguinary hand-to-hand fights, of despairing rallies, of desperate assaults in glens and valleys, in brush-wood and glades and remote dales, from which the conquerors issued only to engage fresh foes, till the old supremacy, so readily assailed, was again triumphant and the battalions of the Czar gave way before our steady courage and the chivalrous fire of France."

Wyman & Sons Ltd., Printers, London and Reading.