CHAPTER XI.
THE NATION UNDER DEFEAT.

Thus three times within the space of a single week had the British Dec. 1899.] The Empire in Peril. columns marched forth to defeat. The Army Corps, the much-trusted Generals, had gone out to South Africa, and yet there was nothing of that irresistible tide of success which, it was fondly hoped, would sweep away the Boer oligarchy. The results of the week's battles were 2,600 British soldiers dead, wounded, or in the enemy's hands, and complete checkmate in every field of the war. Kimberley, Mafeking, and Ladysmith had not been relieved; far from it, the forces which were to have achieved this eagerly desired result were themselves, it seemed, in grave danger. Lord Methuen might at any time be cut off from his base; General Gatacre might be driven back to the sea; even General Buller, with 20,000 British troops on the line of the Tugela, might be in peril, if only the Boers were equal to their opportunities. And dangers even more terrible than these loomed upon the stormy horizon. How if the Cape burst into rebellion and the Dutch there threw in their lot with their victorious kinsmen? How if our enemies of the Continent seized upon the occasion to overthrow the Empire? Nowhere had Britain a friend. France, Russia, and Germany were equally outspoken in bitter and contemptuous criticism. Not the Governments, but the nations of the Continent hated and envied us in equal degree, and if only the signal for attack had been given, would have rushed upon us with malignant ardour. But the Governments, though they bore us no goodwill, waited and hesitated. Much depended upon Russia, and the Czar, the young Nicholas, played a part at this juncture which the British nation will remember with gratitude. He set his face firmly against any treacherous attack. He restrained his war party and declined to profit by our troubles. He may have felt that war with England would have brought our one friend, Japan, into the field with consequences not altogether pleasant for Russia, but none the less we may honour him for his chivalrous attitude.

And the most grievous feature of our defeats was that they were inflicted by a people numerically weak, without an army in the true sense;—by a number of peasants and farmers, upon the very flower of the British Army. The strongest, the best appointed, and, it was hoped, the best led force that had ever left our shores, equipped with all the contrivances of modern war, with field telegraphs, war balloons, howitzers, naval guns, and lyddite shells, had failed. It had failed completely—almost beyond repair—and it could place to its credit not a single great success. One or two battles in which we had gained the day, with heavy loss and without inflicting proportionate damage upon the enemy, had, indeed, been paraded as glorious victories, but their very insignificance, in relation to the task to be accomplished, was a sad commentary upon the depths to which we had fallen. It was not that the British soldier had failed in courage. That "last validity of noble veins" he still retained. Upon every field of the war his demeanour had compelled the enemy's admiration. Our military annals, splendid though these are, contain nothing finer than the advance of the Dublin Fusiliers at Colenso, of the Guards at Belmont, and of the Marines at Enslin, or the conduct of General Pole-Carew and his devoted band in the anxious hours when the Modder River fight swayed to and fro and the balance inclined against us. And yet, though hundreds of brave men now lay festering in the sun or in their shallow graves on the far-off veldt, and hundreds more filled those homes of silent agony, the hospitals, nothing had been accomplished. The fame of the Army, the prestige of the nation, the very existence of the Empire, were in grievous peril.

Thus in a few short days had the British people been brought face to face with the tragic realities of war. The scales fell from all eyes; it was clear to every man that this was a struggle for life or death, a struggle in which defeat must mean the loss of South Africa and the shaking of the British Empire to its very foundations, and in which victory at the best could never regain for us what we had forfeited—our reputation before the world. Not yet did the nation know, or it might well have shivered, the hesitation, the doubts, the ignorance of the true meaning of events which marked its leading men. Not yet did it fully comprehend the grave defects which had characterised its army in the field. It had illusions still of which two more months of unsuccess were at last to deprive it; it had yet to learn how all precautions had been neglected; and blind animal courage substituted for skilful leading.

Terrible, indeed, is the price which a nation must pay for neglecting the study of war. "Above all for empire and greatness," said our own immortal Bacon, "it importeth most that a nation do profess arms as their principal honour, study, and occupation." But the people had never troubled about such things; it was taught and it knew nothing of the conduct of war; its press gave space to the trivialities of sport, none to the serious business of arms; its Parliament emptied as if by magic when naval and military affairs were discussed; its Government and Cabinet were composed without exception of men ignorant of war. For generations attention had been riveted upon the question which of two parties was to govern, regardless of the consideration that there can be no country to rule unless there is an armed force prepared to overcome the enemies who may assail that country's existence. We had told one another that we were a great, a strong, an invincible people. We had come to believe—or the less instructed of us had come to believe—that an Englishman was far more than a match for any foreigner. We had been ruled by "majorities of politicians, without the knowledge requisite in the governors of a great empire, believing that every interest should be subordinated to their preservation of place." In the words of Lord Charles Beresford, in twenty years there had been but three men in the House of Commons who understood the problem of national defence. One of these—perhaps the ablest—Sir Charles Dilke, had met the common fate of men who strive to warn their country; he had been quietly brushed aside by the politicians as a mere alarmist. Yet he had steadily predicted the breakdown of the Army in its first serious war, and his prophecy had come true.

And now when defeat came no one was responsible. "In Germany," said a German commentator, "had the Army failed as the British Army has failed, had the War Minister organised defeat and been caught unprepared, that minister would have been execrated as a traitor and imprisoned in a fortress for the rest of his natural life." But, then, though we had copied much from Germany—all the trifles which do not go to make success—we had neglected the real virtues of the German system—its magnificent education, its careful study of war, its unceasing preparation, its constant manœuvres, its lofty sense of duty to the nation, and its organisation by which there is a man to hang if things go wrong.

The mistakes of generals in the field kill hundreds, the ignorance of ministers in the Cabinet slays thousands. And for the terrible roll of wasted lives, for the long-drawn agony of the heroic defenders of Ladysmith and Mafeking, it is needful that someone should be hereafter called to account. Our soldiers, we have seen, did their duty. They faced death and mutilation because they had learnt in a noble school to offer up the last and greatest sacrifice—life itself—sooner than face dishonour. To men who bear themselves thus, both statesmen and the nation owe a duty in their turn. They must provide the best weapons, the best training, the best leadership, the best equipment, that the sacrifice may not be made in vain; they are responsible in the sight of posterity and of God, if they needlessly waste human lives or bring sorrow and bereavement upon thousands of homes; they are not asked, like our devoted reservists, private soldiers, and officers, to face the scorching heat and the devouring thirst of the march, the chills of the sodden bivouac, the blood and torture of battle; they have not to confront death;—the one has only to be ready to resign place and power, and the other to watch carefully and intelligently and to be prepared to make pecuniary sacrifice. Yet how many statesmen have resigned for the Army's sake, and how many of the public have troubled about or interested themselves in the Army's efficiency?

It was urged, indeed, as an excuse for our failures that other armies had made deplorable mistakes—notably the German in the war of 1870. This no one will deny. But the point is that in spite of these mistakes the German Army won every battle, and that the German government and nation had taken every step which science and the sense of duty could suggest to prepare for war. Could as much be said of Britain? Those who have followed the story will have marked the lack of transport and of cavalry, the insufficient proportion of artillery, the want of maps, and the delay in the preparation of troop-ships. They will have noted that the reports of the Intelligence Department as to the enemy's strength were put on one side and neglected. They will know that the strenuous warnings of Sir Alfred Milner and of the Natal Government as to the imminence of war were calmly disregarded. They will remember that defects in the Army, pointed out year after year by critics in the House of Commons and in the press, had remained unremedied. They should reflect that the Army and its leaders had been denied the inestimably valuable exercise of annual manœuvres until the last year before the war. Even then the manœuvres were not of a nature to yield real instruction. And the mere fact that in the gravest emergency ministers turned to Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener, showed that they had not chosen, as they ought to have chosen, the generals who were believed by all to be best qualified for a difficult campaign.

Nor are these small things, nor has their importance passed away. Far greater conflicts may lie before us in the near future, and we may have to encounter, not undisciplined peasants, but armies amply supplied with cavalry and artillery—armies which can attack as well as defend. The future safety of the Empire depends upon our so organising and constituting our military system that we shall never again be taken by surprise, and never again be found inferior in the field. Our Army, our generals, had become the slaves of routine, as a wise foreign officer wrote. They had failed to understand what the Boers had fully grasped—the need of high intelligence as well as brute courage in the fighting man, and the immense potentialities of modern weapons. It is not the least unsatisfactory reflection that the fighting men whom we recruited at the eleventh hour for war from the ranks of our Colonists, proved themselves as good as our professional soldiers. That this should be so illustrated the inefficiency of our military training. For in what other profession could thousands of tyros hope to vie with the experts?

"War is an affair of the immortal soul," it has been said. It is the final test of the greatness of a nation. The Power which cannot hold its own upon the field of battle has deserved humiliation, and has been "weighed in the balance and found wanting." It is character which gives victory in war; and the whole purpose of life is to create and refine character. Character is required in the soldier to carry him through the dangers of the battlefield and the hardships of campaigning; in the nation to enable it to face temporary reverses with courage, and to accept the loss of those near and dear with resignation; and in the statesman to enable him to resist injudicious clamour for economy, and to make sure that the preparations for war are adequate and complete. The statesman must foresee and lead; if he does neither he is unfit for his post of trust.

Not since the far-off times of Trafalgar had the national danger been so great. In the Crimea it could truthfully be said that the British Army was uniformly successful, and that the horrors of the winter of 1854-5 were due simply and solely to a defective commissariat. Besides, there we had been outnumbered by the enemy; here we outnumbered them. Then we had had the alliance of France, Sardinia, and Turkey, the friendship of Austria, and the not unfriendly neutrality of Prussia; now we were assailed and vilified by the people of every great nation in Europe. The Indian Mutiny as a crisis could not be compared with this, for in India, when once reinforcements had arrived, there was a continuous series of successes. Not since the time of the American War of Independence, more than a hundred years back, had we encountered such frequent reverses. Yet though it was accustomed to easy victories, the English race did not quail under the blow. No voice outside the ranks of the least of the Little Englanders was raised for a surrender. With one accord men called upon the Government to take the fullest measures to restore the fortunes of the war. Everything demanded would be granted; nay, the press, with a wise foresight which deserves the gratitude of the country, urged the Ministry to far greater armaments than those which the Cabinet had in mind. It would have been well in this matter if the press had had its way.

To take steps to meet the danger, the Committee of the Cabinet for National Defence—a committee which had the radical defect of being composed wholly of civilian ministers without military knowledge or experience—was held on December 16, the morning after the final news of General Buller's defeat at Colenso reached London. The members of the committee were Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Lansdowne, and Mr. Goschen. Their deliberations were secret; the measures upon which they finally decided were in no way heroic—were, indeed, hardly adequate to the perils of the situation. It had been expected that they would call for 40,000 or 50,000 volunteers, place under arms the Volunteers and Militia, and mobilise a good part of the fleet, at the same time despatching to South Africa the largest possible number of trained soldiers, and making the utmost use of the zeal of the colonies.

Actually the steps taken were these: All the Reserves not yet embodied were called out. The Fifth Division was already on its way out, and a Sixth Division had been offered General Buller upon November 30. Now it was definitely announced that both a Sixth and a Seventh Division would as soon as possible proceed to the front, and be followed, probably, by an Eighth Division. Strong reinforcements of artillery, including five batteries of horse artillery, nine of field artillery, and three batteries of the invaluable 5-inch howitzers were to be despatched as fast as they could be mobilised, thus almost doubling our strength of guns in the field, and adding 102 more field-guns to the 114 pieces sent out with the Army Corps. Besides these, it was intimated that more siege guns, including huge 6-inch howitzers and heavy weapons of position, would be provided when they could be supplied by the manufacturers and the Royal Arsenal. The Commander-in-Chief in South Africa, whose action had hitherto, if report could be believed, been restricted by the Treasury and financial considerations, was to be given a free hand to raise as many colonial volunteers as possible in the Cape and Natal. Of the Militia, two battalions had already volunteered for service outside the British Isles, and were about to embark for Malta, whilst a third was destined for service in the Channel Islands; nine more battalions were to be asked to tender their help for garrison purposes in our coaling stations and imperial fortresses, and an additional number of battalions was to be called up for home service to supply the places of those who, under this arrangement, would be sent abroad. A corresponding number of regular troops would thus be released for service in the field. And now at last the Volunteers, whose patriotic self-sacrifice had hitherto received such scant acknowledgment at the hands of the War Office, were to be called upon to show what stuff they were made of. They were to be asked to furnish contingents for more serious work than Easter "reviews" or Hyde Park parades. Two distinct volunteer forces were to be raised in England for work in South Africa: the first, to be known as Imperial Yeomanry, was to provide 8,000 mounted infantry. It was to be organised in battalions 464 strong, each composed of four companies of 116 officers and men. The second force, recruited from the ranks of the Volunteers, was to supply an infantry company for each regular battalion in the field, or, in all, a total of about 9,000 men. The City of London was itself to organise and equip a small force of four guns of the Honourable Artillery Company, two companies of mounted infantry, and a battalion of infantry. Finally it was announced that the patriotic offers of our great colonies would no longer be declined.

But even more important than these additions to the material strength of our forces in South Africa was the change in generals. Sir Redvers Buller himself is believed to have suggested to the Home Government after his Colenso defeat that it would be well to place Lord Roberts in supreme command, and this step was now taken by the Committee of Defence. If such advice were given, it was a fine, magnanimous and disinterested action to General Buller's credit, and one for which the nation may well honour him. As Lord Roberts' chief of the staff, the ablest and the greatest of our younger generals was selected, the Sirdar, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum. He was in the Sudan, but, when asked by telegraph whether he would take this anxious and difficult post under the new commander-in-chief, he replied, with alacrity: "Delighted to serve in any capacity under Lord Roberts."

The new commander-in-chief, Field-Marshal Lord Roberts of Kandahar, was in his sixty-eighth year, yet, despite his age, he had retained the vigour and energy of youth. Nineteen years before, in 1881, he had gone out to South Africa to avenge Majuba, and had been recalled when Mr. Gladstone changed his mind and decided to make a humiliating compromise with the Boers. Now he was to achieve the work which then Fortune had withheld from him. No soldier was more beloved and venerated by the nation, to which his name had long been a household word. The feeling of admiration and respect for him was strengthened by the thought that he went forth fresh from the bereavement caused by the loss of his only son, the gallant and devoted Lieutenant Roberts, who had laid down his young life in the desperate attempt to save the guns at Colenso. In sacrificing his private sorrow at the public call, the Field-Marshal set a heroic example of resignation under affliction. If he was popular in the best sense with the nation, he was adored by the Army, which knew him for an officer of the most remarkable personal courage, strategic insight, and equability. In the Indian Mutiny he had won that highest distinction our Army can give—the Victoria Cross—by attacking two Sepoys and capturing from them a standard. His serenity of temper and self-restraint were extraordinary. When at Poplar Grove he saw his whole plan for the capture of the Boer army deranged by the hesitation of a subordinate, though other great leaders would have stormed with rage, he uttered not a complaint or a reproach. Closing his field glass, he rode off in silence. As a leader of men, his sympathetic Irish temperament enabled him always to win the enthusiasm of his troops. They would have followed him anywhere. A few words from him at once raised the courage of the shattered and decimated Highland Brigade and restored to it the spirit which had marked it before Magersfontein. A telegram in his magic style cheered Mafeking in its sore distress and raised the spirit of its garrison to elation; his praise supported his noble army through the trials of the weary march to Bloemfontein; a speech from him renewed the flagging energy of thirsty, famished men. His exquisite tact smoothed the ruffled Colonials, who had, in the earlier stages of the war and by other commanders, been studiously disregarded and snubbed. Small in stature as great in mind, he was known among his men by one of those affectionate nicknames which testify to a commander's popularity with his soldiers. Just as Marlborough was christened by his troops "Corporal John," just as Napoleon was to his men "the little Corporal," so Lord Roberts was "Bobs" to his followers.

In his character was that strength which simple faith and reliance upon a Higher Power gives to the greatest among men. "Pray as if everything depended upon God, act as if everything rested with yourself"—the motto of the saint—was, it may be, one secret of his success. "He has never been known to use an oath," writes Mr. Ralph in his exquisite sketch of this noble figure. "And, indeed, there must be comparatively few men whose religion influences them so deeply as does his in every affair of life. He never parades his piety, never forces it upon those around him. Yet on every Sunday since he joined his army he has attended Divine service. Not a word has he ever spoken to his staff suggesting or ordering their presence—yet he is certain to attend the weekly service—an example to the army so modestly and so persistently presented that it cannot help but be powerful. When he took the sacrament at Driefontein, the other day, in the face, one might say, of the whole army, it was without a hint of the parading of religion. All saw in it an act of simple faith. It is almost as hard to reconcile his gentleness and sympathy with the firm—sometimes stern—course which a general so supreme in command, and at the head of so large an army, must often have to follow. I have asked many of his friends how he can be both sorts of men at once—how he can possess traits which we imagine must war with one another. 'He does possess them, that's all,' is the best answer I have had; 'I don't know how, but he does.'"

As with Lord Nelson, to look upon him was to love him. "I have known many great faces, but that of Lord Roberts is a face apart. I fancy that, in the minds of their worshippers, some of the soberer gods of the old mythologies had faces like his," wrote Mr. Ralph. And the face portrayed the man, at once stern and gentle, noble and humble, patient with the vast patience of one who knows men and their petty failings, steadfast and strong.

For the command in South Africa Lord Roberts had many peculiar qualifications. He was no stranger to the art of making war against a brave, half-civilised enemy in difficult and mountainous country. If in the Abyssinian War of 1868 he had seen nothing worth the name of serious war, he had in the little wars with the hill tribes on the Indian frontier, and especially in the second Afghan war, gained valuable experience. In many ways the Afghans resembled the Boers. Both peoples were soldiers by instinct and expert shots, with a talent for taking cover. The Afghans in the war of 1877-8, the Boers in the struggle of 1899-1900, were both for the first time acting in masses with the help of artillery. Both could rely upon the great distance to be traversed by the British troops and the comparative barrenness of their country, which yielded scanty supplies of food and forage, as their best auxiliaries. But of the two races the Boers were incomparably the more formidable enemies.

Lord Roberts' generalship in the Afghan War had been of a very high order. In command of the Kuram column he distinguished himself early in 1879, so that in the autumn of that year he was appointed to lead the army which was to avenge the murder of the British Resident at Cabul. On October 1 his real advance began. It was made with startling rapidity, and on the 13th he marched through the streets of Cabul. Here his small army had to pause, as in March and April 1900 the British Army had to halt at Bloemfontein, and the enemy rallied, inflicting more than one minor reverse upon his troops. But it was his great march from Cabul to Kandahar, in the summer of 1880, which best illustrated his judgment and daring. Cutting loose from his base, living on the land as General Sherman had done in the famous march to the sea, he led his little column, 10,000 strong, on August 8, out of his camp at Cabul. On the 31st he entered Kandahar, having covered in the twenty-three days 320 miles, and this in sweltering heat. So rapid were his movements that he everywhere forestalled his enemies and met with no opposition on the march.

Not only was Lord Roberts great in war; in the quiet times of peace he strove earnestly for military reform. He especially distinguished himself during his Indian and Irish commands by the emphasis which he placed upon good shooting and the development of the soldier's intelligence. He did not want his men to be the soulless automata of the eighteenth-century barrack square. It is admitted by all, that under him the Indian Army was raised to a pitch of efficiency which it had never possessed before, and which, perhaps, has not marked it since. Some who did not know him may have feared that here was another reputation, won in savage or barbarous warfare, going to be lost in that land where the fair fame of so many had suffered swift eclipse. They may have asked themselves, if he failed with Lord Kitchener, who was left. Yet those who knew him and had served under him felt no such concern. To them his success was certain.

His chief-of-the-staff, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, was in his fiftieth year, but already, as the reconqueror of the Sudan, was by far the most famous and trusted of the younger British generals. His earlier years had passed uneventfully, but with that energy and intense earnestness of purpose which distinguishes the genius from the common-place man, he studied and learnt Arabic, while most of his fellow-officers were amusing themselves. Present at the bombardment of Alexandria, in spite of and not because of orders received, he was employed by Lord Wolseley when that General came to Egypt for the Tel-el-Kebir campaign. Thenceforward, Kitchener belonged to Egypt, and his career is inseparably entwined with Egyptian history. He saw the sad tragedy of the abandonment of the Sudan; he smarted with his countrymen at the bitter shame of the betrayal of Gordon, and took part in the expedition which came too late to save the martyred general. His eyes must have fastened upon that prophetic page in Gordon's journals:—"I like Baker's description of Kitchener. 'The man whom I have always placed my hopes upon, Major Kitchener, R.E., who is one of the few very superior British officers, with a cool and good head, and a hard constitution combined with untiring energy.'"

His experience was wide and various. It was not only in the conduct of war, but also in civil administration that he had made for himself a name. Though he never courted popularity and had no influence of any kind, his sheer ability carried him forward. That unerring judge of men who trained Sir Alfred Milner, Lord Cromer, selected Kitchener as Sirdar in 1892. The new Egyptian commander made of the army under his charge a miracle of efficiency at an insignificant cost. Quietly, methodically, he organised and prepared for the reconquest which, he knew, must come in time, when the conscience of the British nation awoke. He made no mistakes; he took the utmost pains to find out what the enemy was doing, conscious that victory in war largely depends upon perfect information. The Egyptian Intelligence Department was as efficient as the Egyptian Army. And when at last the long-desired hour struck and the British and Egyptian troops marched southward into the desert "to avenge Gordon," everything was ready, everything went like clockwork. Firket, the Atbara, and Omdurman followed in regular and mechanical succession. The man "who had made himself a machine" did his work surpassingly well. All that the nation heard about its new general delighted it. The very gossip which was meant to discredit him only increased his reputation. His dislike for triflers and idlers, his aversion from all kinds of favouritism, his determination to insist upon strict discipline, competence, and knowledge in those whom he employed, might estrange from him the darlings of fortune, but were a recommendation to the people of England. He was outwardly cold and stern, like many deep natures, but no general is unpopular with his troops if he always succeeds. With Lord Kitchener the men felt instinctively that every thing would be foreseen, all precautions taken, and nothing overlooked. They knew that everyone would do his duty, or if not that the Sirdar would want to know the reason why.