Throughout the summer of 1831 the city of Warsaw lay like a city of the dead. Its magnificent palaces appeared as though deserted; its streets were lonesome, and the few who ventured from within their dwellings moved about as though smitten.

Although not declared, Warsaw lay in a state of siege. The struggle for liberty, long maintained by the brave nation of Poles, was drawing to a close, and all felt that though hitherto victorious in the field, they must fall before the countless hordes of Russia in the end.

There had been a rising in the previous year. Undeterred by the knowledge that they were a handful against millions, and encouraged by the recent examples of France and Belgium, the Poles of Warsaw had risen in revolt against the despotism of Russia, as personified by Constantine, the ferocious governor of their city.

The direct cause of the outbreak was, as is usual in such cases, slight—a bogus trial on a popular officer for an imaginary offence. A verdict contrary to the weight of evidence, a street row among the military students, a dozen of whom were promptly flogged with the knout, while others were imprisoned, and the mischief was done. The young Poles rose in November, and without ceremony broke into the prison and freed their comrades. The gates of the palace were forced, and the governor sought; but without success, he having escaped. But while Constantine evaded the vengeance of his victims, his lieutenants fared otherwise, and many of them fell into the hands of their relentless enemies. For the moment the Polish capital was in the hands of the Poles. The Russian aristocracy disappeared, and at every street-corner meetings were held at which the proceedings were constantly interrupted by cries of “Niech zyie Polska”—Poland for ever!

This state of things continued throughout the winter of 1830. The icebound steppes forbade the Russians taking action. But the Czar vowed vengeance, and he kept his vow. In the first days of spring a large army was despatched against the rebel Poles under General Chlopicki, who, while in command of the thirteenth and fourteenth Army Corps, had earned for his troops the nickname of the Lions of Varna. The war was waged to the death. The Russian troops, well drilled and ably commanded, elated with the successes of the past, met the untutored Polish soldiers with a confidence bred of conceit. The Poles, imbued with a sense of patriotism, and recognising that it was to do or to die, fought each man for his own hand, neither giving nor expecting quarter, and the slaughter was frightful. Even at Ostralenka, where the Poles left seven thousand dead on the field, the Russian loss was over fifteen thousand; and at Waror the Poles took ten thousand Russian prisoners, besides a number of cannon, which were exhibited in the streets of Warsaw, amid the enthusiastic applause of the inhabitants.

After being beaten all along the line the Russian army withdrew, leaving the flower of its surviving officers imprisoned in Warsaw, and for a while the Poles had rest. But only for a while. In the early summer another army marched on the capital, and at the end of June General Paskewitsch, who had been specially chosen by the Czar, took the command. This officer enjoyed the personal friendship of the ruler of Russia, and he took the field with the express instruction from his master to teach the rebels a lesson which they would not forget. He lost no time in resuming operations, but changed his predecessor’s plans. Hitherto, all attempts on Warsaw had been made from the right bank of the Vistula. With the exception of the Praga suburb the city lies on the left or south bank, so that to capture it from the north the Russians would have to fight their way across the Vistula either through the streets and across the bridges of Praga, or under the fire of the guns in the Polish works. Paskewitsch decided upon making a flank march down the right bank of the river, crossing it near the Prussian frontier, where he had secretly arranged to obtain supplies and bridging material from the Prussian fortress of Thorn, and then marching up the south bank of the Vistula he could attack Warsaw on the side on which it was not protected by the broad river which had hitherto barred the Russian advance.

The Polish Government was at this period presided over by General Skryznecki, a patriot of good family and education, and a man of the highest principle. Skryznecki recognised the danger too late. He hurriedly occupied a strong position on the line of the Bzura river with 30,000 men, in the hope of barring the Russian advance; but on August 15th the Russians, in overwhelming force, drove the Poles from the river bank and forced them back upon Warsaw. Their city was now threatened by 60,000 troops, who cut them off from the country to the south of the Vistula, from which they had hitherto drawn supplies and reinforcements. While Paskewitsch thus hemmed in the Poles on the south, another Russian army watched Praga; and thus by the end of August, while the roads for miles round were guarded by Russian legions, the Poles found themselves shut in like rats in a trap.

And now for the first time the Poles realised their position. Surrounded by a relentless horde, their supplies cut off, they realised the futility of the claims of a just cause against the exigences of necessity. The whole of the resources of Russia were against them; and while the sympathies of France and England went far to cheer the desperate band of patriots who yet fought for freedom, the fact that Prussia, though nominally a neutral state, was aiding the common enemy, was not reassuring. So far back as June this fact had been known, and General Skryznecki had written to the King of Prussia enumerating the various acts indulged in by his ministers, and demanding that they should cease. In this historic document the General proved that the Prussians were supplying the Russians with food from the storehouses at Thorn, that they had lent their skilled artillery to the Russians, that they had supplied ammunition and uniforms made in Prussia, and that most of the engineering works required by the Russians—including the bridge over the Vistula—had been executed by German engineers.

This letter was never answered, and Prussia continued in her breach of the laws of war, while the outlook in Warsaw became blacker every day. Nor were the dangers only from without. The Polish mob began to become turbulent, and necessitated the watching of soldiers who would have been better employed negotiating the enemy. But even these measures were insufficient to keep the rough element down. The irresistible descent of the Russian army was the excuse for an outcry against the noble Skryznecki; and in the hope of uniting the besieged he resigned his command of the Polish army, General Dembinski being appointed in his place.

But even this step did not succeed in quieting the rabble. On the night of the 15th August the mob rose and marched to the State prison, where Russian officers who had been taken prisoners in the war had been incarcerated. The excitement of the mob was intense. Their blood was up, and this is the only excuse that can be urged for the foulest deed that blemishes the history of Poland. The gates of the prison were forced, and the prisoners led out and shamefully ill-treated. The crowd behaved like wild beasts, chasing and attacking the unfortunate Russians; and after being tortured in every way that occurred to the imagination of their captors, the miserable beings were butchered in the streets, the gutters literally running in blood. Among the victims of this tragedy were four Russian generals and several ladies of high birth, who had been suspected of sympathising with the enemy. All were brutally murdered, the atrocities being continued for two days. At length order was restored by the military, who were withdrawn from the defence of the city for this purpose.

While these events were taking place within the city General Paskewitsch was pressing on in pursuit of the Polish army, which he had compelled to retreat from the Bzura. But even here the defenders were unable to hold their ground, and on the 1st of September they retired behind the entrenchments which had been thrown up immediately before Warsaw. Here the final stand had to be made. The headquarters of the Russians was only three miles away from the city walls, and the capital was threatened on every side. The position was, in short, so acute that it is a matter of some surprise that the Poles did not retire within the city and stand a siege. This question has been ably discussed by a trustworthy historian, who writes as follows:—

But still, the attacking army waited before striking the final blow. Reinforcements from the south were expected. Several days were wasted pending their arrival, and when they arrived their pontoons stuck in the mud. But Paskewitsch did not mind the delay. He is reported to have said to one of his staff, “I await the aid of two armies—the army of the south and the army of famine.” Nor were these expectations vain. While beleaguered from without, the doomed city was ravaged within. Gaunt famine marched unchecked through the fine streets, and starvation claimed more victims than did shot or shell.

Then it was that, recognising all resistance as futile, the Poles attempted to open negotiations with the enemy; but the mob would not have it, and the overtures made were cancelled in order to prevent a revolution, while an offer of terms made by Paskewitsch was rejected for a similar reason.

These preliminaries over, the attack upon Warsaw began in earnest on the morning of the 6th September. The fighting on this day was mostly at long range, but the Russian attack was so strong and the firing so fierce that the Poles had to abandon their first line of entrenchment. The assault then ceased, and both sides rested during the night; but at daybreak on the 7th the attack was renewed, and the slaughter was terrible. The Poles—especially the battalions occupying the redoubt on the Wola side of the Vistula—made an heroic resistance. The Russians had on this day no fewer than 386 guns in position, and the fire from them was so fierce and so continuous that nothing could stand before it. The Poles were ploughed down by the hail of projectiles, and those spared by the shells were despatched by small arms. After some hours of bombardment, when a mere handful of the garrison of the Wola redoubt remained, the Russians closed up in their strength and charged with their bayonets. The result was disastrous in the extreme. General Sowinski, who commanded the outpost, fell pierced through and through; and when the Russians finally occupied the redoubt only eleven men remained alive out of three thousand.

While this scene of carnage was being enacted outside, the city was itself the scene of intense excitement. The majority of the inhabitants foresaw that their fate was sealed. Their only chance of salvation—the interposition of England or France—had failed them. Were even that to come now it would be too late. The cannonade of the besiegers was continuous, and every now and again a stray shell would fall in the streets, scattering death and devastation around. And all that could be done in response was to fire occasional charges from the few guns left to the garrison. Men there were in plenty in Warsaw, and women, too, willing to play the man’s part in fighting for their country; but the guns were few, and it was no uncommon sight to see eager, able men tear the rifles from the hands of the wounded as they fell, in order that the most might be made of the slender sources at their disposal.

Amid all this scene of horror there was one item of news which caused rejoicing. Marshal Paskewitsch had been wounded. It was said that he was, indeed, disabled. This was the one cheering event of the 7th September.

The 8th opened still and fine, but it was destined to be a bitter day in the story of Poland. The Russians had moved up to the very gates of the town in the night, and only the innermost line of trenches and the shaky walls stood between them and the inhabitants. The cannonade recommenced soon after daybreak, and the attack was even more furious than on the previous day. At least, it seemed so to those within the doomed city. The men in the trenches were ploughed down like flies, but their bravery was indomitable, and as each man fell, another took his place, to be ploughed down in turn. The men finally stood upon the brink of their trenches, and used the dead bodies of their comrades as cover; but it was futile. On and on came the Russian host, back and back went the Poles, until only the gaunt walls of Warsaw stood between them and those they sought to save. The enemy fought with irresistible fury, carrying everything before them, inch by inch, at the point of the bayonet, while their guns were busied in sending missiles within the city, which spread fire and rapine in their train. The day was still undone when the walls were gained. The inmost line of defence was captured, its last defender slain. The plain for a mile around was strewn with the mutilated remains of what had once been brave men, and the tyrants of the North held Warsaw in their hands.

The city capitulated as the sun sunk in the west, and its inhabitants realised too late that their doom was sealed. What that doom was to be even the most imaginative failed to realise.

Having taken Warsaw, Paskewitsch spoke fair. He would, he declared, not enter the city till the following day, and meanwhile the Polish army, what was left of it, might retire to Plosk. The Marshal admitted to having 3,000 men and 63 officers killed, and 7,500 and 445 officers wounded, while the Polish loss was found to amount to 9,000 slain.

Defeated though they were, reduced in numbers, without the hope of succour, and exhausted by the events of the past few days, the Poles retained their heroism. The army, what was left of the 30,000 men of which the garrison had consisted, formed in order in the great place in the centre of the city, and marched towards the gate. But it did not march to Plosk. It went instead to the fortress of Modlin, and made preparations for a final stand—a forlorn hope—trusting to fortune to turn the Russians yet. But the scheme was foredoomed. Paskewitsch, whose wound was slighter than was supposed, heard of the move, and promptly despatched a brigade against the Polish remnant. The garrison of Modlin was promptly surrounded, all retreat cut off. Entrapped, defenceless, without guns or food, the band of heroes lay down their arms and sought refuge on neutral territory across the Prussian frontier.

It does not come within the province of this history to detail the events which followed the capture of Warsaw. So far as the military history of this, the last great struggle for Polish independence, is concerned, the battle of Warsaw brings the story to a close. The horrors that followed still linger in the memories of the very old. The fearful outbreak of Asiatic cholera which devastated Central Europe, the tragic fate of the thousands of Poles who, trusting in the charity of the King of Prussia, were hounded across the frontier into the hands of the Russians; the equally tragic fortunes of those who took the word of the Czar and gave themselves up to the authorities; and the bitter savageries committed by the Russians in compulsorily emigrating the bulk of the people of Warsaw, sending children away from parents and husbands from wives, even to the furthest parts of Eastern Russia, are all part of history. Of the civilising efforts of the Russians while in occupation of Warsaw, we have a sample in the fact that the conquerors took nearly a million volumes of books from the city—400,000 from the Zuluski Library alone.

Of our recent wars on the frontiers of India, the Hunza campaign was in many respects the most remarkable, and the storming of the enemy’s defences at Nilt afforded an ample proof of what excellent material our Indian army is composed. At the extreme north corner of British India, or rather of the territories of our feudatory the Maharajah of Kashmir, buried amid the loftiest and wildest mountains of the Hindoo Koosh, hemmed in by glaciers which are the vastest in the world outside the arctic regions, and by hundreds of barren leagues of rock and snow, are two little States of hereditary robbers, the Hunzas and the Nagars, the first occupying the right bank, the second the left bank of the Hunza or Kanjut torrent. These people belong to what is known as the Dard race, and are supposed to be of the purest Aryan stock: many of them have the features and the fair complexions of Europeans.

This inhospitable region is the very cradle, some say, of the Aryan race; and the Hunza-Nagars present one of the most interesting ethnological problems in the world—a problem, however, which up till now could only be studied from a safe distance, for the half-dozen or so of Europeans who had penetrated the Hunza valley previous to the campaign I am about to describe had done so at considerable risk to their lives. From the earliest times the Hunza-Nagars have engaged in organised brigandage and slave-hunting; they were the most redoubtable warriors of the Hindoo Koosh. The head waters of the Hunza and its tributaries are on the slopes of the Pamirs, and the tribesmen, ascending the passes that lead from their valleys on to the “roof of the world,” were wont to raid into Turkistan and fall on the caravans that carry on the trade between India and Yarkand. For hundreds of years they have thus amassed rich booty, and they sold all the prisoners they captured to the Kirghiz nomads. When the Kashmir State conquered the Gilgit district it did its utmost to quell these two lawless tribes, but all in vain: secure in their mountain strongholds, they successfully resisted the largest forces that were sent against them, and carried their forays both into Kashmir territory and into Central Asia, though a Kashmir garrison of 6,000 men was always stationed at Gilgit. It was estimated that the “thums,” or kings, of these two valley States could muster 5,000 fighting men, fairly well armed with native matchlocks, Martini-Henrys, Berdans (supplied by the Russians), Sniders, and other rifles. They also had some smooth-bore six or seven pound guns of their own manufacture.

When the Indian Government undertook to exercise a more direct control over the affairs of the grossly mismanaged State of Kashmir, an agency was established at Gilgit which then became the northernmost outpost of our Empire in Asia. The Hunza river flows into the Gilgit river two miles below Gilgit fort, and the frontier of the robber States is some thirty miles up the Hunza valley. The thums, though jealous of the establishment of British influence in their close vicinity, were persuaded by Colonel Durand, our agent at Gilgit, to enter into a treaty by which they recognised Great Britain as the suzerain power, and agreed to desist from raiding and slave-hunting, while the Indian Government was to pay the thums an annual subsidy each. But the thums, stirred up by Captain Gromchevtsky—who had visited the Hunza valley with a party of Cossacks, and had done his utmost to damage British prestige in these regions—soon broke their faith with Colonel Durand; they recommenced their evil practices, and in the spring of 1891, having first greatly strengthened their defences in the gorges near Nilt, they defied the Maharajah and the British agent, declared that they would renew their raids, threatened the Kashmir fortress of Chalt with a considerable force, and so endangered our position at Gilgit that the long-suffering Government of India found it necessary to send a punitive expedition into the Hunza valley.

At this time the Agent’s bodyguard consisted only of a score or so of Pathans of the 20th Punjab Infantry, while the Kashmir troops who garrisoned the forts were scarcely to be relied on, for these were the same men who had been repeatedly defeated by the Hunzas. They belonged, it is true, to regiments of the recently organised Imperial Service troops which the Maharajah had set aside for purposes of Imperial defence, and which had been trained for some months by specially selected British officers; but they had never been tried in actual warfare since the new system had been inaugurated, and it was therefore considered advisable to despatch from Abbotabad 200 men of our 5th Gurkha regiment, and two seven-pound guns of the Hazara mountain battery.

The present road from Kashmir to Gilgit had not then been completed, and great difficulties had to be overcome in sending even this small force to the North. The distance from Srinagur to Gilgit is 240 miles, or twenty-two marches. The track winds among the mountains, and crosses two high passes, one being over the main chain of the Himalayas, which divides Kashmir proper from the northern possessions of the Maharajah. These passes are only open for about four months; for the rest of the year they are closed by deep snow and are exposed to violent gales of extreme coldness, which prove fatal to travellers overtaken by them. One of these storms sprang up while the 5th Gurkhas and a number of transport coolies were on the march, and nearly 100 men perished of frostbite. Captain Barrett himself, who was in command, lost several toes on this occasion, and was incapacitated from taking part in the campaign. This dreary road traversed for many marches a rainless and almost desert region. Of wild vegetation there is scarcely any: it is only by means of artificial irrigation from the glacier streams above that the sparse population succeeds in raising scanty crops here and there. There are signs of a more extensive cultivation in the past, but the forays of the Shinakas—raiding tribes who occupy a little-explored region beyond the mountains that border the Gilgit road on the west—have long since made these valleys desolate. The road, where not winding over the barren mountain ridges, follows the bottoms of the gloomy ravines where the discoloured torrents rush between cliffs and huge slopes of fallen boulders. The country affords no supplies to an invading force, and even the forage for our horses had to be imported from a distance.

During the four summer months of 1891 thousands of coolies were employed in carrying up to Gilgit the supplies required for the expedition; but despite all the efforts of our transport officers, a large quantity of necessaries never crossed the Himalayas: an early winter and heavy snowstorms suddenly closed the passes, and our little force was cut off from all chance of reinforcement or communication with the outer world for several months. Isolated by impassable mountains, we were now left to fight it out, not only with the 5,000 Hunzas, but probably also with the Shinakas, who could put 15,000 men in the field, for they were known to have a defensive alliance with the Hunzas, and our line of communication was open to their attack at several points.

The force at Colonel Durand’s disposal consisted of three regiments of Kashmir Imperial Service troops, 188 men of the 5th Gurkha regiment, about thirty men of the Agency bodyguard, two guns of the Hazara mountain battery, and 160 irregulars from the mountains of Puneal—in all about 2,000 men. Of these 1,000 men were left to garrison the forts and to guard our long line of communication. The field force, therefore, numbered roughly 1,000 men, of whom more than 700 were untried sepoys of the Kashmir regiments (Dogras and Gurkhas), and quite untrained irregulars. Only thirteen British officers were with the field force. To Mr. Spedding, C.E., and his staff of six civilians, was entrusted the duty of opening out a road for the column: these civilians were on the roster, and had under them 200 Pathan navvies, who were armed with Snider carbines, and took part in the fighting.

Despite the rigour of the climate in these highlands, it was decided to prosecute the campaign in mid-winter, for it is only at that season that Hunza can be invaded with any hope of success. The tribesmen have purposely left the approaches to their country as difficult as possible. The awful gorges of the lower Hunza valley afford position after position that would be impregnable if properly held. A very narrow track, trying to the nerves of any but cragsman, was then the one route by which the valley could be ascended in the summer months; for at that season the torrent, swollen by the snows melting on the mountains, rages deep and unfordable, filling the bottom of the ravines from the precipices on one side to those on the other, so that one has no choice but to follow the dangerous path high up the hillside, in places crossing the precipices by frail scaffoldings of wood which a single man could in a moment dislodge and send tumbling into the torrent below, leaving impassable walls of rock to face the invader. But in the winter the difficulties are much lessened. The intense frost silences all the tributary streams, the Hunza torrent shrinks considerably in volume, is generally fordable, and it is possible in most parts of the valley to follow the dried margin of the river bed instead of scaling the precipices above.

Mr. Spedding and his men quickly opened out a road, just practicable for a mule battery, to Chalt, the last Kashmir fort in the valley. Here the field force collected, and all being ready, we crossed the river on December 1st, and having formed a zereba, encamped for the night in the enemy’s territory. The tribesmen were known to have gathered in force ten miles higher up the valley at a point where several large forts defended a naturally very strong position. It was Colonel Durand’s intention to make an immediate attack on the most important and the nearest to us of these forts—that of Nilt.

Accordingly, at daybreak on December 2nd, our force advanced; but it was not until midday that we reached our destination, for our road lay across very difficult ground, and at some precipitous places the enemy had broken away the track, so that the column had to halt while Spedding’s Pathans with pick, shovel, and gunpowder cleared the way. The enemy offered no opposition, and, indeed, we saw no signs of them until we had turned a rocky spur of the mountain side, when we suddenly beheld, right in front of us and only two hundred yards or so distant, the grey fortress of Nilt, with the quaint triangular flags of the Hunzas waving on its walls.

The illustration (on p. 297) will render clear the following description of the enemy’s position at what the tribesmen have for centuries considered to be the impregnable gateway of their country. On the right and left are the great gorges of Nilt and Maiun, which pour their tributary waters into the Hunza river. At the mouth of the Nilt gorge stands the fortress of Nilt, while on the cultivated terraces beyond the two gorges are the large fortresses of Thol and Maiun and several smaller forts. The two gorges descend from the glaciers and snowfields of mighty mountains whose peaks attain a height of 25,000 feet. The cliffs that fronted us on the opposite slopes of both gorges are inaccessible in most parts, and were lined at their summits from the edge of the glaciers high above down to the river bed with sangas, or stone breastworks, filled with the enemy’s marksmen ever ready to roll down avalanches of rocks on any foe that should attempt the scaling. The high cliffs also that fell from the cultivated terraces on either side forming the river banks were lined with sangas for several miles up the valley, so that an attempt to turn this formidable position by an advance up the river bed would be met by a withering fire on either flank. We were confronted, in short, by a line of defence which extended from the glaciers on one side to those on the other, held by some 4,000 determined men.

Our first object was to capture Nilt fort, the only one of the enemy’s defences which was on our side of the tributary gorges. Our troops had by no means an easy task before them. As the Hunzas and Nagars, when not united to raid on foreign soil or to repel an invader, used frequently to wage war on each other, all their villages are strongly fortified. Nilt consists of a congregation of stone houses, some of which are two or three storeys in height, all strongly built, and having flat roofs of large stones so well put together that our shells produced no effect on them. These houses are built close together, and often open out one into another, while a labyrinth of very narrow alleys intersects this human rabbit-warren. The town is enclosed by a massive stone wall nearly twenty feet in height and twelve feet in breadth, loopholed for musketry, with towers at intervals. This wall is surrounded by another loopholed wall eight feet in height, distant some six yards from the first wall. This outer wall, where it does not hang over the precipice, has a deep trench outside it, at the bottom of which the enemy had placed a strong abatis of branches lashed together, and, lastly, another abatis lined the outer edge of the trench.

As soon as we turned the spur of the mountain the Hunzas opened fire upon us from their loopholes. Our troops deployed on to the flat terrace of irrigated fields and returned the fire. The 5th Gurkhas, who led the attack, made short rushes, section after section, availing themselves of the cover afforded by the low walls that divided the fields, and directed a brisk fire on the loopholes of the fort at 100 yards range. The Punialis and the men of the 20th Punjab Infantry scaled the steep mountain spur above the fort to the ridge on which we afterwards had our “ridge picket” (see illustration on p. 297), and fired down into the centre of the fort. The two seven-pounders took up a position about 150 yards from the fort, and opened fire upon it with shrapnel and shot, which appeared to produce no effect on the strong walls.

The action continued thus for about an hour. The loopholes of the fort offered but small targets to our riflemen, and the losses of the enemy must have been slight. On the other hand, our own men began to drop pretty fast, and it was soon obvious that the enemy’s marksmen were picking off the British officers, most of whom had narrow escapes. Colonel Durand himself was severely wounded in the groin, and the command devolved on Captain Bradshaw, 35th Bengal Infantry. The loopholes of Nilt were luckily but few in number, or our losses would have been very severe.

Just before he was wounded Colonel Durand ordered that an attempt should be made to blow up the main gate of the fort, and take the place by assault. The story of how this was carried out should be one to stir the blood of Englishmen, for few so gallant deeds have been recorded even in the glorious annals of our Indian warfare. Under cover of a very heavy fire opened upon the loopholes of the fort by the rest of the force the storming party of one hundred men of the 5th Gurkhas, led by Lieutenants Boisragon and Badcock, and accompanied by Captain Aylmer (on whom, as our engineer officer, fell the duty of blowing up the gate), made a rush on the outer abatis. Through this the kukris of the Gurkhas quickly clove a narrow opening, and then the three officers, followed by their men, leapt into the trench and began to cut their way through the other abatis at the bottom. The officers, with some half-a-dozen men at their heels, scrambled through first, climbed the side of the trench, and found themselves before the outer wall. They ran along it till they came to a small gate, through which they had little difficulty in hacking their way. Passing through this they found themselves between the two walls, and exposed to the fire from the lower loopholes of the main wall, which could not be silenced by the covering party. Turning to the right they followed the main wall till they came to a large and strongly-built wooden gate flanked by two towers. To cut through this gate, which had been barricaded within with a wall of stones, was impossible, so Captain Aylmer, accompanied by his Pathan orderly and a Gurkha sepoy, ran up to the foot of the gate, and as rapidly as possible made his preparations to blow it up, the enemy all the while firing at him through the loopholes of the towers and gate, and throwing large stones over the parapets upon him. His companions protected him as far as they could by firing into the loopholes at the range of a few feet, the officers using their revolvers. That a single man of this gallant handful escaped death is indeed marvellous.

Captain Aylmer, stooping down, removed some stones from under the foot of the gate, inserted his slabs of guncotton, packed them with stones, and ignited the fuse. While he was doing this he was shot through the leg from a loophole so near to him that his clothes and flesh were burnt; and of the two men who were in the gateway with him the Gurkha was shot dead, and the Pathan orderly was severely wounded in the head. Captain Aylmer and the orderly then crawled along the foot of the wall to a safe distance, and awaited the explosion. The given time elapsed, and there was no sound. It was obvious that the fuse had failed. So Captain Aylmer, wounded as he was, once more returned to an almost certain death, in order to complete his task. He cut the fuse with his knife, readjusted it, lit a match after several attempts, for the wind was strong, reignited the fuse, and again withdrew to safe shelter. This time while at work in the gateway he received a second wound. His hand and arm were very badly crushed by a large stone that was thrown at him over the walls.

This time, happily, the fuse did its work. There was a loud explosion; the stones came toppling down from the shaking walls, and it was seen that the gate and the barricade had been blown in. Then, even before the cloud of smoke and dust had cleared, the three British officers—for Captain Aylmer was ready for the fight, indomitable as ever, though streaming with blood from his wounds—and the five surviving sepoys rushed through the breach, and were within the fort. Here they at once engaged in a fierce hand-to-hand fight with the bravest of the enemy who flocked down the alleys leading to the gate. This handful of men, standing close together in this narrow place, resolutely held the position they had gained against the whole Hunza garrison. They gave a very good account of themselves, and killed a number of the enemy with bullet and cold steel: Lieutenant Badcock, with his revolver, shot the commander himself, Mahomet Shah, Wazir of Nagar. But the odds against them were too overwhelming: two more of the sepoys were soon killed, and nearly all were wounded. Captain Aylmer was now wounded for yet a third time, being shot through the arm with a jezail, while Lieutenant Badcock was severely wounded in the shoulder. It was evident that not one of the little party at the gateway would be left alive unless support came up quickly. They had thus been fighting for about a quarter of an hour, when Lieutenant Boisragon volunteered to go out and find his men, thus exposing himself both to the fire of the enemy and that of the covering party. He got through safely, and was very soon back in the fort at the head of a number of Gurkhas, eager to avenge their fallen comrades. They fought, as is their wont, like little demons with their deadly kukris. The tribesmen defended themselves with desperate valour, but they could not long withstand the fierce attack of the Gurkhas, who at last drove them back with great loss, and hunted them panic-stricken through the labyrinth of alleys into the surrounding gorges.

That the Gurkhas had not more quickly followed their officers and six comrades to the gateway was not due to any unreadiness on their part, for Gurkhas are never backward in a fight. It seems that after they had cut through the abatis and crossed the trench they were unable to see which way their officers had gone before them, and turning to the left, instead of to the right, had missed the gateway, and had been checked by a great abatis which extended from the wall to the brink of the precipice.

The storming of Nilt only cost our force six men killed and twenty-seven wounded. The enemy left about a hundred dead behind them in the alleys of the fort, and many were shot down while escaping to their defences beyond the gorge. Captain Aylmer and Lieutenant Boisragon were both decorated with the Victoria Cross in recognition of their gallantry on this day, and Lieutenant Badcock, who was also recommended for a V.C., received the Distinguished Service Order.

Thus fell Nilt Fort; but its capture was only the first step towards the subjugation of the Hunza-Nagars. The real strength of their position lay before us, and the enemy, not in the least disheartened by their defeat, prepared to make a resolute stand along their line of defence beyond the two gorges. They omitted no precaution: not only did they break away all the roads across the ravines, but, taking advantage of the hard frost, they turned the irrigation canals over the river cliffs where they were assailable, and so formed smooth ramparts of ice to oppose us.

For eighteen days we vainly endeavoured to turn this formidable position. On December 3rd an attempt was made to repair the road and push across the Nilt gorge; but no sooner did our men appear in the open than they were driven back by a volley from the sangas opposite, which killed three men and wounded six others, among the latter being Lieutenant Gorton. We now had five of our officers hors de combat, and in all forty men killed or wounded. Several reconnaissances were made by day and by night, to find out a weak spot in the enemy’s line of defence. Once a party explored the river bed for some distance, and found that it was obstructed by barricades that ran across the beach: a heavy fire from either bank compelled this patrol to beat a hasty retreat. It was quite evident that an attempt to advance that way would mean the annihilation of our force. On the night of December 8th another futile endeavour was made to force the mouth of the Nilt gorge. On one dark night a small party that had crossed the river to surprise Maiun was discovered and repulsed. We even attempted to find a way across the glaciers at the head of the gorge, but were frustrated by impassable crevasses. Whenever a night surprise was attempted at some point of the cliff that appeared accessible the ever-watchful enemy would roll down their avalanches of rocks and also great fire-balls of resinous wood, whose blaze disclosed the whereabouts of our men, and enabled the defenders above to open a deadly musketry fire.

Day after day our men were engaged in these perilous but fruitless efforts to force a way past these rocky bulwarks of the enemy. Still we were held in check, and our position became one of considerable peril. The Hunzas, emboldened by the success of their resistance, threatened our line of communication with Gilgit, and the Shinaka tribes also were mobilising with the intention of falling upon us from below. Had they done so our small force would have probably been caught in a trap and cut to pieces, even as was the fate of a far larger force of Kashmir troops some years before in this very valley. Shut out, as we were, from all hope of succour for several months by the wintry Himalayas, but one course lay before our commander—at all risks to force the enemy’s position before their Shinaka allies could come to their assistance.

To Nagdu, a gallant Dogra sepoy of one of the Kashmir Imperial Service regiments, the credit is due for having discovered what was possibly the only practicable method of effecting our object. This man, like all his race, a good cragsman, volunteered to explore the precipices on the further side of the Nilt gorge, with a view of finding a point at which they could be scaled by our troops. Night after night he did this at great risk, for the enemy, perceiving him, used to roll down rocks and fire upon him from above. At last on one dark night he actually succeeded in climbing quite alone from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the cliff, undetected by the enemy, and reached the foot of the four strong sangas indicated in the illustration. The enemy evidently considered this to be a vulnerable point, for we had observed that they used to roll down their rock avalanches from these sangas at intervals each night, until at last a regular chute was worn apparently as a light streak against the darker cliff. Nagdu climbed down again in safety, returned to camp, and propounded his scheme. Nagdu, of his own native wit, realised a truth the ignorance of which has on more than one occasion brought commanders to grief—namely, that an almost perpendicular cliff is but a treacherous position under certain circumstances, and proves a deathtrap to those who would defend its summit. Nagdu pointed out that the cliff was so steep that the enemy would have to come out of their sangas and lean over the edge of the precipice in order to fire at a scaling party, and this, he said, we ought to be able to prevent them from doing with a covering party of picked marksmen posted on our side of the gorge.

Nagdu’s plan was so obviously the right one that it was adopted, and it was decided to storm the enemy’s position at this point in broad daylight. Captain Colin Mackenzie, of the Seaforth Highlanders, who was in command during Captain Bradshaw’s temporary absence at Gilgit, despatched this forlorn hope without any delay. The 5th Gurkhas had borne the brunt of the first action; it was now the turn of the Imperial Service troops. Accordingly, Lieutenant Manners-Smith and Lieutenant Taylor, with 100 men of the Kashmir Bodyguard Regiment, left the camp noiselessly on the night of December 19th, which was very dark, and bivouacked in the Nilt gorge at a spot sheltered from rock-rolling, and just below the precipice that Nagdu had scaled. That night in camp we listened anxiously for any sound, for had the enemy detected the party as it ascended the gorge the rock avalanches would have wrought great havoc at several exposed places on the way. But we had luckily at last caught the tribesmen off their guard, and all was quiet.

Before dawn on the 20th the covering party, consisting of 135 marksmen selected from the different regiments, ascended the ridge and took up a position near the block house indicated in the illustration. Our men lined the edge of the cliff, having been divided into four parties, each of which was instructed to open a steady independent fire upon one particular sanga of the four that were to be stormed. I was in command of one of these parties, and was therefore a spectator of what I am about to describe. The enemy opened fire upon us from the four sangas (which were about 450 yards from our ridge) and from other sangas that dotted the hillside. It was not long before the four sangas were completely silenced by the fire we directed upon them: not a defender dared stand behind a loophole. Then Lieutenant Manners-Smith commenced the difficult ascent, followed by fifty of the sepoys, Lieutenant Taylor coming after with the other fifty. We saw the men, forming a long scattered stream, slowly and with difficulty scale the 1,200 feet of precipice, often coming to a check and having to return some distance to try again at some more accessible point. Only cragsmen, such as these were, could have climbed this frightful wall of rock.

At last, when they were two-thirds of the way up, Lieutenant Manners-Smith came to a sheer precipice no man could scale: he tried to the right and left of it, but could find no way of getting by, and then, to our dismay, abandoned the hopeless attempt, and took all his men down again to the foot of the gorge. But Manners-Smith, himself an expert cragsman, was determined to scale the cliffs somewhere that day and to try conclusions with the enemy at close quarters. So he started again at a point higher up the gorge, and this time, as we fired over his head, we saw him and a few of the most active of his followers attain a ledge only sixty yards below one of the four sangas. Here he waited a few seconds until more of his men had come up, and then he rapidly clambered to the edge of the cliff.