“BATTLES OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY”—the words are like a trumpet-call, summoning up in array before us a hundred familiar forms of great soldiers—Napoleon and Wellington, Grant and Moltke, MacMahon and Garibaldi—great soldiers of all nations—great soldiers long dead, and great soldiers still living. Let us glance for an instant or two, in this introduction, at the individual careers of some of the most famous of them ere we pass on to the pages which shall deal with their exploits, battle by battle, and shall tell in detail of their skill and prowess, and their fortunes of war, their victories and their defeats.

The earliest wars of the present century were the nursery of military reputations, and in them several great soldiers grew on to imperishable fame. Two figures stand out prominently, a head and shoulders above all the rest—Napoleon and Wellington. It is needless to compare or contrast them—Napoleon, the Emperor-General, sole arbiter of the fate of millions; Wellington, the loyal servant of his country, who put duty before mere glory, and whose first thought in his triumphs was the vindication of the national honour and the re-establishment of peace.

Napoleon was all for self; but this very selfishness re-acted on his surroundings, and elicited an unbounded, unquestioning devotion to his person, which was the parent of many heroic deeds. Men suffered themselves to be cut to pieces to win a word of his approval; the wounded raised themselves in their agony to cheer on their comrades; the dying with their last gasp cried “Vive l’Empereur!”

Over and above the glamour of his personal ascendancy, and his long-sustained prestige, Napoleon had a still stronger hold upon his followers, in that he held the supreme power in his own hands, the sole and exclusive right to reward or blame. Small wonder, therefore, if the soldiers of the First Empire were among the finest types of their class. No military régime has ever brought better men to the front or secured them more rapid advancement. Promotion to the very highest grades was to be had for the earning of it. How fast men rose from the lowest rungs to the top of the ladder will be understood from a few prominent cases. Marshal Ney was the son of an old soldier, and threw up a small appointment to enlist as a private hussar; Massena, the Prince of Essling’s father, kept a wine-shop in Nice, and the marshal had begun life as a cabin-boy; Lannes’ father was a livery stable-keeper, and Augereau the son of a mason. Junot was a sergeant of artillery at the siege of Toulon, who first attracted Napoleon’s attention by his coolness under fire: a round shot kicked up the dust close to where Junot was receiving an order in writing, and the young sergeant, unmoved, merely said, “That will do to dry the ink.”

Wellington could not have made use of such incentives to valour as Napoleon did, even if he had had them at his command. But he did not need them. It was with the British rank and file as with their generals: they did their best because it was their duty, and it was there to do. They fought because they were expected to fight, and fought well, because they liked it. So it was that throughout the long campaign in Spain the British were almost invariably successful. Wherever they met the enemy, they beat them. Even at Corunna, after a long and disastrous retreat, overmatched by numbers, led for a time by Napoleon himself, Sir John Moore turned on his pursuers, and snatched a difficult victory at the expense of his own life. He was struck down just as the French were repulsed, but his troops, undismayed, continued the action, which ended entirely in our favour, and permitted us to re-embark without loss. Moore’s death on the battle-field has been honoured in song; it was a hero’s death, and to the last moment he would not surrender his sword, although the hilt had entered the wound. His body had to be buried on the battle-field; and it is greatly to the credit of a chivalrous foe that the French, recognising his merit, raised a monument over his remains.

Wellington’s career was one of almost unequalled success. If he was compelled to retreat more than once, it was only to make a newer and a bolder advance. In all his battles he was victorious: thanks to his own great genius and the matchless bravery of his troops. The Peninsular records are full of great deeds done on great battle-fields, in combats, charges, and on the deadly breach; and in this book of ours we shall have pictured to us fully and completely the scenes of these deeds of valour and heroism: but here let us just glance at two or three of Wellington’s victories to see what stuff he and his troops were made of. That passage of the Douro, for instance, in 1809, when he crossed in the face of Soult and a veteran army—one of his most brilliant exploits. Do you remember how Colonel Waters, one of his staff-officers, got over alone in a skiff and brought back three barges, and how, when the first boat was ready with its petty complement of twenty-five, he said simply, “Let the men cross”; and how this handful gained a foothold which they never relaxed till their comrades followed in thousands, and the surprised French were driven out of the town?

Talavera was both a general’s and a soldiers’ battle: the first because Wellington (then only Sir Arthur Wellesley) showed that imperturbable coolness and self-reliance, mixed prescience of danger and promptitude in meeting it, which are the highest qualities of leadership; the second, because it was won mainly by a single regiment, which acted with marvellous precision and courage at the decisive point just in the nick of time. The French in this battle were the assailants: the genius of their soldiers is for onslaught, and their greatest deeds have been in attack. But they were met and repulsed. It was of Talavera that Jomini, the well-known military writer, said it proved that the British infantry could dispute the palm with the best in Europe. Another instance of its prowess of another kind was shown at Talavera, when Crawfurd’s famous Light Brigade of the 43rd, 52nd, and 95th Regiments came up, determined at all costs to take part in the action. They met crowds of Spanish fugitives, who declared the English army was defeated, its general a prisoner, the French only a few miles off. But still they pressed on undaunted, and “leaving only seventeen stragglers behind,” says Napier, “in twenty-six hours crossed the field of battle, a compact body, having during the time marched sixty-two English miles in the hottest season of the year, each man carrying from fifty to sixty pounds weight.”

At Busaco, again, the French were the assailants: veteran troops led by some of the bravest of French generals; and their numbers gave them the advantage. But the British were strongly posted on a craggy ridge of hills, so strongly that it was thought the French leader, Massena, would not attack. “But if he does, I shall beat him,” replied Wellington quietly; and he did. The French fought with signal bravery, but the ascent was toilsome, and they were met by men as brave.

In the retreat before the battle, two affecting incidents occurred which showed the quality of the soldiers Wellington commanded. There was a man in the famous 43rd, named Stewart, only nineteen years of age, but of gigantic strength and stature, whose comrades called him “The Boy.” He was deeply chagrined, and at a bridge which he was the last to cross, he turned, and facing the French advancing columns, he was heard to say: “So, this is the end of our boasting! This is our first battle (Talavera), and we retreat. The boy Stewart will not live to hear that said.” “Then,” says Napier, “striding forward in his giant might, he fell furiously on his nearest enemies with the bayonet, refused the quarter they seemed desirous of granting, and died fighting in the midst of them.”

The other story tells of a still finer instance of the noble spirit of the British soldier. It was at the passage of the Coa, a month before Busaco, when the 52nd would have been cut off from the bridge but for the gallantry with which McLeod of the 52nd came back rushing at full speed with a couple of companies, which charged “as if a whole army had been at their backs,” and repulsed the enemy. One of McLeod’s officers was the afterwards famous Sir George Brown, at this time only sixteen, who was leading his men gallantly up a slope, at the top of which were a couple of Frenchmen with muskets levelled at him. A sergeant interposed—M’Quade, himself only twenty-four—and, pulling his officer back, with the words, “You are too young, sir, to be killed,” offered himself as a target, and fell dead, pierced by both bullets.

Three great sieges, ending in the storming and capture of three strong, almost impregnable, fortresses, were among the laurels gained in Spain—laurels tarnished, unhappily, by the shameful excesses of the victorious troops. When the breaches at Ciudad Rodrigo were declared practicable, Wellington’s order was simply, “The place must be stormed this evening”; his soldiers’ still simpler comment, “We will do it.” The forlorn hope raced up to their death, followed by the no less eager body of stormers, and the main breach was carried with a furious shout. At Badajoz, Phillipon, the brave Frenchman, stood at bay to the last, and the “possession of Badajoz had become a point of personal honour with the soldiers of each nation.... Ridge had himself placed a ladder where the wall was low, and climbed it; a second ladder alongside gave access to another officer, Canch; and as soon as these two were on the ramparts the stormers followed, and gained possession.” Yet the fight elsewhere continued for hours, and Wellington had to organise a second assault, and the captors of the castle were in some danger, although inside the town. Badajoz was taken, but at tremendous cost. No age, no nation, ever sent forth braver troops to battle than those who stormed Badajoz.

In the course of this book we shall hear much more of these triumphs of Wellington: how at Salamanca he caught Marmont in an egregious tactical error, fell upon him in flank, and defeated 40,000 men in forty minutes; how at Vittoria he routed King Joseph, beating him at every point, and capturing everything the French possessed: “all their equipages, all their guns, all their treasure, all their stores, all their papers”; how, in the Pyrenees, pitted against Soult, Napoleon’s ablest lieutenant, he won battle after battle: at Sauroren, at the Bidassoa, at the Nivelle, and finally, invading France, at Orthez and Toulouse. The passage of the Adour was a combined military and naval operation, carried out in the teeth of a fierce February storm. The bridge of boats which the British staff corps formed across the river was a “stupendous undertaking” which ranks amongst the prodigies of war; for the tide rose and fell fourteen feet, and large boats could only be employed. It was at Orthez that Soult, thinking victory secure, put forward all his reserves too rashly. Then Wellington, as he watched him, smote his thigh, and cried exultingly, “At last I have him!” On the spur of the moment he changed his plan of battle, and by a turning movement cut off Soult’s line of retreat.

The greatest of all the great achievements of the great duke was, of course, his victory at Waterloo—a battle which will always rank among the most important and decisive that have been fought, because so much depended upon the issue. The only hope of securing peace to Europe was in beating Napoleon, and it was not easy to do it. There were moments in the brief campaign, both before and during the great battle which finished it, when victory hung in the balance and inclined to the French. At the outset, Napoleon stole a march upon the Allies; he placed his whole force at a point between them, whence he might separate and roll up each in turn. He beat the Prussians badly at Ligny, but Ney was checked by our tenacious resistance at Quatre Bras. Still, the British and the Prussians retired divergently, as it is called; and had Napoleon followed up quickly, he might have fought them one by one. But Wellington drew off, retreating—not without danger—upon Waterloo; and Blucher, recovering his communications with us, was able to come up at the close of the great fight, and make victory the more complete.

By degrees new men, imbued with much the same high qualities, replaced the veterans of Spain and Waterloo; but till more than half the century was ended it was the generals who had been trained to war under Wellington who chiefly led the troops to victory and maintained British prestige. Charles Napier in Scinde, Hugh Gough in the Punjaub, Fitzroy-Somerset (Lord Raglan) in the Crimea, Colin Campbell, afterwards Lord Clyde, in China, the Crimea, and India, had all learnt and practised their profession in the early wars. They were all, however, men advanced in years before they came to a supreme command in the field. The long peace after Waterloo, lasting some thirty years, denied soldiers all chance of active service, and it was not till Sir Charles Napier was sixty years of age that he found himself winning battles on his own account. Sir Hugh Gough was older by five years when he led an army against the Sikhs, and began the difficult conquest of the Punjaub. Lord Raglan was also an aged man when he was selected to command our armies in the Russian war of 1854–5.

Both Napier and Gough had won early laurels in Spain, and both as majors, temporarily in command of their regiments, had helped to win great battles, and paid in their persons for their valour. Napier was with Sir John Moore at Corunna, and at the head of the 50th (the gallant “Half-hundred”) had repulsed the French attack at one important point. Then when—to quote another Napier, his brother, and the famous historian of the war—“he was encompassed by enemies and denied quarter, he received five wounds. But he still fought and struggled for life till a French drummer, with a generous heart and indignation forcibly rescued him from his barbarous assailants.” The wounds he received were terrible: he had his leg broken by a bullet, a sabre-cut laid open his head, and he had had a bayonet stab in his back. It was at this battle of Corunna, when the young major (he was only twenty-six at the time) took command, that he found his men of the line wavering under the fierce fire. In order to steady them, he put them through several movements of the manual exercise, ordering them to “Slope arms!” “Carry arms!” and so on, until they recognised his voice and hardened under his hand.

Hugh Gough like Charles Napier, owed to the chance absence of his colonel the opportunity of winning early distinction. As a major, of barely thirty, he was in command of his regiment—the gallant 87th, long famous as the Irish Fusiliers—at the battle of Talavera, where he was severely wounded, but so distinguished himself as to earn promotion; he was at the head of the 87th when they made their famous charge at Barrosa, which decided the fate of that hard-fought day; and he was so foremost in the repulse of the French from Tarifa that he received the sword of the French leader when he failed in his assault upon the town.

Lord Raglan had never commanded troops in the field, but he had been the secretary and close confidant of the Iron Duke, his companion in every campaign; as Fitzroy-Somerset, he rode by Wellington’s side through the day at Waterloo, and was one of the few survivors of his staff. But he lost his arm by a shot—one of the last fired—just after his chief had run imminent danger, and had been warned to withdraw, but held his ground, saying, “Never mind; let them fire away. The battle’s won; my life is of no consequence now.” The duke turned to ride off the field, when a stray bullet shattered Lord Fitzroy’s arm at the elbow. It was the right arm unfortunately, and it had to be amputated at once; but Wellington retained his services as secretary, and Lord Raglan soon learnt to write with his left hand, so as to become a neat, rapid penman.

Colin Campbell was junior in years and rank to the three great soldiers just mentioned, but he graduated in the stirring school of war when he was but sixteen, and learnt hardihood as a stripling. It was the custom in those days to send boys into the army at an age when many nowadays are still at school. They were brave boys, as their successors of to-day will admit. Let me tell you how young Campbell behaved in his first encounter with the enemy. To be shot at for the first time is a startling experience. Young Campbell, at Vimiera, suffered like many more, but his captain, an old and war-hardened campaigner, seeing his trouble, took him quickly by the hand, and led him out into the front of the regiment, upon which the enemy’s guns had just begun to play, and for several anxious minutes walked him up and down under fire. The treatment calmed him completely, and he never knew the want of confidence again. On the contrary, Colin Campbell, just five years later, performed prodigies of valour in leading the forlorn hope at the storming of San Sebastian. He had just forced his way to the summit of the breach, when he fell back, desperately wounded in the hip; but finding he could still move forward, he re-climbed the breach, to be fully disabled by another shot in the thigh. Three months later he lay in hospital, with his wounds but half healed, when he heard that Wellington’s army was on the point of invading France, and he resolved to be one of the party. Escaping from hospital, with an equally ardent comrade, “by dint of crawling and an occasional lift from vehicles proceeding along the road, they made their way to the 5th division in which the 9th were brigaded, and were in action (on the Bidassoa) on the following day.”[1] His desertion from hospital was a breach of discipline, and Campbell would have been sharply dealt with; but in the fight he led his company so gallantly, and was again so badly wounded, that it was impossible to do otherwise than praise his bravery and ignore his bad conduct.

They were giants, these soldiers of the Peninsula, setting an example of courage and endurance to their successors for all time: an example which you may be sure has always, and will always, be followed by British troops of all ranks, from leader to fighting-man. Wellington’s veterans never fell away from the traditions in which they had been raised, and which they bequeathed. Sir Charles Napier, at sixty, began his Scinde campaign with a daring operation which ranks with the boldest in war. His march upon the desert fortress of Emaun Ghur, with a few hundred English soldiers carried on camels—a lonely journey of eight days—was a feat, both in its performance and its consequences, which is not outdone by Wolfe’s scaling of the Heights of Abraham, the great American General Sherman’s march from Atlanta to the sea, Drury Lowe’s and Herbert Stewart’s raid upon Cairo after Tel-el-Kebir, when 1,500 horsemen galloped into the old capital of the Caliphs and seized it for the Queen. At that moment Cairo was held by a garrison of 10,000 of Arabi’s men.

Again, Napier’s victory at Meanee was a triumph over the most tremendous odds, when 2,400 British troops, 500 of whom alone were white, the rest native sepoys, encountered, attacked, and defeated 36,000 Beloochees in the open field. Napier would not stand on the defensive—that might have seemed to imply fear of the result, and injuriously affect the spirit of his native troops—so he resolved to attack, instead of waiting to be attacked. They met in mid-shock—for the Beloochees made a counter-attack; and for three hours the unequal contest went on with a foe as brave and undaunted as ourselves. It was long a hand-to-hand fight, bayonet against sword and spear; but at the critical moment Napier sent all his cavalry against the enemy’s right, and broke it. Then the 22nd charged home with tremendous force, and the battle was won. Not the least brilliant feat in this glorious victory was the self-sacrificing devotion of a captain of the 22nd—Tew by name—who gave his life for his duty. Before the fight, Napier had discovered that some 6,000 of the enemy occupied a building surrounded by a high stone wall, through which there was but one egress—a narrow doorway, which could, he thought, be completely blocked by a few determined men. Captain Tew was posted there with his company, and told he must die, if need be, but that he must never give way. He died where he was posted; but with his handful of men he closed the opening throughout the fight, and thus paralysed the action of a large portion of the enemy.

Sir Hugh Gough—afterwards Lord Gough—had long to wait for promotion to the higher ranks, and he was more than sixty when he commenced the campaigning in China which led to the cession of Hong-Kong. Soon afterwards he won the hard-fought battle of Mahrajpoor, in Gwalior, against that warlike and turbulent race the Mahrattas, whose subjugation had cost so much in the earlier days of the century. Gough won Mahrajpoor by a direct attack, marching right up to the enemy’s position, and trusting to the British bayonet for success. “Nothing,” as he himself wrote in his dispatch, “could withstand the rush of the British soldiers. They drove the enemy from their guns, bayoneting the gunners at their posts.” Two officers—Stopford and Codrington—were found lying wounded just under the muzzles of the Mahratta artillery. The same tactics—for Gough was essentially a forward fighter—served him well at Moodkee, the first of the battles in the Sikh war.

The campaign was forced upon us suddenly. Gough was called up to support Lord Hardinge, the Governor-General, who, when making a progress through the Punjaub, found the Sikhs on the point of declaring war. The force which Gough collected numbered only 14,000 men, and it had to traverse 150 miles to reach the scene of action. It was a toilsome march, under an Indian sun; water was scarce; the troops reached Moodkee worn-out with privations and fatigue; but when they heard their enemy was in front of them, they went, without resting, straight into the fight. The Sikhs—splendid soldiers, trained by European officers—were more than double our numbers, with a fine cavalry and many guns; but the British infantry, “trusting to that never-failing weapon the bayonet,” drove the Sikhs out of their positions.

A second battle—a greater trial of strength, demanding higher qualities of fortitude and endurance—was near at hand. Gough moved forward at once, and attacked the Sikh entrenchments at Ferozeshah, Sir Henry Hardinge, who was with him, waiving his rank of Governor-General, and serving under Gough, in command of the left wing. The struggle was terrific: the Sikhs fought with splendid courage, and when night fell the battle was not ended. It was a drawn game so far, and some despondent spirits in the camp suggested retreat—the rash and inglorious course of cutting a road through to Ferozepore. Gough would not agree. “I tell you, my mind is made up. If we must perish, our bones must bleach honourably where we are.” Hardinge was no less firm. When an officer told him that Sir Hugh Gough feared it would be a fatal risk to renew the battle, Sir Henry scouted the idea. “Gough knows,” he cried, “that a British army must not be foiled; and foiled this army shall not be.” The contest, when it recommenced, was most unequal. Fresh reinforcements reached the enemy, but our troops met them undaunted, and went forward nobly to the attack. In the end, a turning movement of cavalry on both flanks, followed by a fresh infantry charge, decided the day in our favour, and the Sikhs were routed with tremendous loss.

These victories did not end the war or complete the conquest of the Punjaub. The Sikhs fell back upon the Sutlej, and established an entrenched camp in front of the village of Sobraon: they did not care to meet us again in the open field, but they stood a gallant siege at Sobraon, which had to be stormed like a fortress. A curious feature in this battle was the great charge of cavalry made through the breaches, in which the horsemen cut down the defenders at their guns. Another interesting fight was that at Aliwal, won by Sir Harry Smith as a detached operation, in which the 16th Lancers greatly distinguished themselves. These various victories broke the courage of the Sikhs, but only for a time; and the peace that followed was of short duration.

It was abruptly ended by a deed of treachery such as has not been uncommon in our Eastern Empire: the British resident and another officer were murdered in Mooltan, and it was necessary to resume active operations. But the occasion furnished an opportunity of distinction to a gallant young officer, Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes, who, without waiting for orders, united his small detachment, posted on the Indus, to that of Colonel Courtrand, and fell upon the Sikhs, forcing them to retreat into Mooltan. Then followed the gathering of forces anew on both sides, and fresh battles, achieving at first but incomplete and unsatisfactory results. The name of Chillianwallah and the misfortune of that day will not be readily forgotten. It was a day of carnage, disaster, and disgrace; for an English cavalry regiment, weakened by previous losses and fearing an ambuscade, gave way to panic and galloped off the field. It may, however, be said, in extenuation of this happily unusual military crime, that an injudicious order given by the brigadier originated the stampede. The consequences in any case were disastrous, and it followed upon the nearly complete massacre of a line regiment—H.M.’s 24th, that which suffered afterwards so terribly at Insandlwana—which, emerging from a swampy jungle, was all but cut to pieces, because it paused to spike guns it had captured from the Sikhs.

A storm of indignation arose in England, and the public discontent was poured out on the Commander-in-chief. Lord Gough was immediately superseded by Sir Charles Napier, his previous brilliant services being entirely ignored; but before the conqueror of Scinde could reach India, Gough had completely vindicated our arms and his own reputation. Mooltan was carried by storm, and the final decisive victory at Goojerat—at first an artillery duel, in which our guns showed their marvellous superiority—completed the discomfiture of the Sikhs. From that time forth the Punjaub was incorporated in our British Indian Empire. The Queen has no more loyal subjects, no more devoted soldiers in her ranks, than the descendants of our former sturdy foes.

The time was approaching when England was to be once more engaged in European war. Just when the nations hoped they had reached an era of universal peace, the clouds collected quickly, and two traditional foes joined hands to attack Russia. The expeditionary force which left these shores for Turkey in 1854, and which ere long won new victories, but at a terrible outlay of men and material, was one of the finest, as regards physique and fighting power, that England has collected. It was well armed, as the time went, and well commanded. Lord Raglan was at its head, and his lieutenants were mostly Peninsular veterans: Sir George Brown, already mentioned for his gallantry at the Coa; Sir De Lacy Evans, who had fought in Spain and America, and at Waterloo; Sir George Cathcart, who had been on Wellington’s staff; Sir Colin Campbell, of whom more directly; and Sir John Burgoyne, a famous engineer officer, who had helped to construct the lines of Torres Vedras, and had served in the great sieges of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Burgos, and San Sebastian. But the army was unprovided with the trains, transport services, and means of supply which are of little less importance than valour in the field; and for the want of them, bravery was as nought, victories were wasted, and men’s lives poured out like water.

The three principal battles fought in the Crimea by the English were essentially triumphs for the rank and file. At the Alma it was sheer hard slogging, headlong rushes against a strong position, which was carried, in spite of all resistance. The fighting fell mostly to the share of the 1st and 2nd Light Divisions, the Guards, the Highlanders, and the Fusilier and Rifle battalions; and it was done in the famous old formation—the thin red line. At one time the Guards were hard pressed, and they came to Colin Campbell, who commanded the 2nd Brigade, saying the Guards would be destroyed if they did not fall back. “Better that every man of Her Majesty’s Guards should be dead on the field than that they should turn their backs upon the enemy,” replied Campbell, as he hastened with his Highlanders to their support.

At Balaclava, when “some one had blundered,” and the gallant Six Hundred went into the jaws of death, the English light cavalry were all but destroyed, but it won imperishable renown. “Magnificent, but not war,” was the French general’s comment on the mad charge: an attack by cavalry on guns in position; but the whole of these reckless horsemen went forward with the same spirit that animated their leader, Lord Cardigan, who, rising in his stirrups, cried, “Here goes the last of the Brudenells!” It was a hopeless enterprise, but it was performed; and all the world wondered.

Inkerman, again, was pre-eminently the soldiers’ battle—a hard personal hand-to-hand fight, where the Russians numbered thousands to our hundreds, and it was no less the almost impudent courage of the British than the impossibility to believe that so few could resist so many, except backed up by strong reserves, that prevented the Russians from carrying all before them. The attack was made at daylight, when the mists still lay thick on the ground, and concealed the meagreness of our forces; the Russian hosts came on in dense columns along a narrow front which prevented their opening out, and our men in the proverbial “thin line” could hit the head of the advance with tremendous effect. The onslaught fell first on Pennefather, who had won early fame at Meanee against overwhelming odds; now, with a bare 3,000 men all told, he hurried down, and came to immediate blows against the Russians, nearly 20,000 strong, with powerful artillery. It was so throughout the battle. Attack was met by counter-attack; our handfuls constantly met the shock of great masses, checked them, drove them back, and followed, fighting lustily. The Light Division, under Codrington—1,400 men, no more—was as daring and tenacious. Until half-past seven, for nearly a couple of hours, these two kept the whole of the attackers at bay. Fresh troops then began to come up on both sides; another Russian general’s corps, that of Dannenberg—19,000 men—renewed the assault; the Guards and 4th Division came up to stiffen Pennefather. It was at this period that the gallant general made a famous reply to General Cathcart, who had asked where he could give best assistance. “Get in anywhere,” cried Pennefather; “there’s lots of fighting going on all round.”

The final Russian attack was made about 10 a.m., the sharpest and best intentioned of any in the day, but by this time the opponents were more equal in numbers. Bosquet’s Frenchmen had come up to support, and we had gained the help of the two celebrated 18-pounder guns under Collingwood Dickson, which 150 artillerymen themselves dragged from the 1st Division camp to the field. This, with two batteries of French Horse Artillery, pushed gallantly forward to the “bare slopes fronting the enemy,” had readjusted the balance of artillery fire; and at last the Russians fell back, sullenly, overmastered, but they were followed by no final charge. “When hopeless of success,” the enemy “seemed to melt from the lost field; the English were too few and too exhausted; the French too little confident in the advantage gained to convert the repulse into a rout.” The victory at Inkerman was but the prelude to terrible sufferings during the long-protracted siege, but these could be borne with patience, because Inkerman had proved that we were more than a match for the Russians in the open field. Had we not won the battle, the whole of the allied armies, taken in reverse, would have been swept off the plateau in front of Sebastopol right into the sea.

The fortress itself proved a very hard nut to crack, and although frequently assaulted, was never actually taken by force of arms. The winter troubles, the inclement weather, the difficulties of supply which starved the troops and reduced the siege into a mere blockade, forbade attack. On the contrary, the besieged displayed such activity under the intrepid Todleben, that the initiative often passed to them, and by bold sorties they gained ground rather than lost it. Even our incessant bombardments, causing terrific carnage, did not dismay the defenders, and fresh reinforcements constantly arrived. It was not till June that the first real assault was delivered, and then only through the indomitable determination of the allied generals. The French were especially hampered by the interference of the Emperor Napoleon, who, with no military knowledge, claimed to control and advise from Paris. It was the first occasion on which the telegraph line began to be largely used in campaigning, a practice greatly calculated to paralyse the action of generals in the field. Napoleon was all in favour of leaving the siege to linger on, while field armies cut off the supplies to the fortress; but Pelissier, the French general, was a strong man who held to his own views, and he persisted in attacking Sebastopol.

Early in June the French took the Mamelon, the English “the Quarries,” important outworks, and it seemed as if the end was near. But a second assault, delivered within a week or two upon the Malakoff and the Redan, was repulsed with terrible loss; only a detached attack, under the English General Eyre, upon the Cemetery succeeded, and for a time we were actually within the walls. But we could not stay there. Two months more elapsed, chequered by the death of Lord Raglan, who had won the love and respect of all, and by another fierce effort, made upon our communications. The battle of the Tchernaya was fought nearly on the same ground as Balaclava, and was won by the French and the newly-arrived Sardinian troops. Then, finally, on the 8th September, the French stormed the Malakoff again, and this time took it. The English had the more difficult task, because the Redan, which they attacked, was constantly reinforced by the masses driven out of the Malakoff. But our assault had not been planned on a big enough scale; it was not properly supported, although the trenches behind were crammed with reserves, and it failed. That night the Russians, feeling that in the Malakoff they had lost the key of their defence, evacuated the town, but not before they had blown up the forts, and set the whole place on fire. The sight will never be forgotten by those who saw it, as did the writer. The town in flames, great forts crumbling to pieces as though by magic, heavy columns of Russians crossing the bridge under an incessant fire from the allied batteries.

Peace with Russia had not long been signed when the British Empire was threatened in a most vulnerable place. For a time it seemed as though we might lose India. The revolt of the native or sepoy army burst out so suddenly—it was marked with such base treachery, disgraced by such cold-blooded atrocities—that the world still shudders at the details. The English were everywhere outnumbered; our hold on India depended greatly on prestige; implicit faith had been placed in these very mutineers. The force of white troops at hand was very small; very soon Upper India was in the hands of the insurgents: only here and there little groups, generally isolated and surrounded, fought with desperate courage against overwhelming odds, almost against hope. No page in our national annals is more glorious than that which enshrines the heroism of those who then saved India. Not only were soldiers brave, but civilians, unused to arms, showed dauntless pluck—frail women performed, too, great deeds in defence of their honour.

Although the whole country was more or less involved in the struggle, the principal interest was centred in the three great cities which were the scene of the fiercest efforts: at Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow the conflict was long-sustained. Delhi, the seat of the new Empire, was thronged with mutineers from many neighbouring garrisons. It was held by numbers of disciplined, well-armed troops, with powerful artillery, to the use of which they had been fully trained, and it stood a long siege in which, at first, owing to the weakness of our forces, the besiegers were themselves besieged. But the little army was a band of braves led by heroes. Such men as the Nicholsons and the Chamberlains roused them to superhuman efforts; and when the place was captured, after a three months’ siege, it was carried by the assault of four weak columns of barely a thousand each.

Cawnpore was another large station, which fell at once into the power of the miscreant, Nana Sahib, who has earned for himself undying execration as the most cruel and unprincipled of our foes. But the handful of Europeans would not easily yield; many were only women and children; the fighting men were few; yet they held out in rough entrenchments for nineteen days, standing a siege under the tropical sun of June, and displaying a calm fortitude beyond all praise. Gentle ladies gave their stockings to make cartridge-cases; they nursed the wounded, fed the troops. One brave woman—a soldier’s wife—mounted sentry, sword in hand, over a number of sepoy prisoners. The roll of heroes was well filled at Cawnpore. Such soldiers as Moore (of the 32nd), Jenkins, Mowbray Thomson; such civilians as Heberden and Moncrieffe, make us proud of our race. Who shall forget the cool courage of Delafosse, who stood over a tumbril of ammunition, the woodwork of which had been set alight by the enemy’s fire—stood over it in imminent peril, while he tore off the burning timbers, and stifled the danger with earth? And yet the defenders could not escape their fate. When resistance became hopeless, they capitulated under promise of a safe conduct to Allahabad, and a general massacre followed, from which only two or three of these devoted martyrs escaped.

The story of Lucknow is very similar; it is no less harrowing, but a source of equal pride in our race. The siege of the Residency, into which Sir Henry Lawrence retired with all his force and all their dear ones, was protracted to the utmost limits of endurance. Lawrence himself was struck down by an exploding shell; but the legacy he left his comrades was the watchword “No surrender!” His dying words were: “Let every man die at his post, but never make terms. God help the women and children!” Lucknow held out till it was relieved by Havelock and Outram in September, only to be again besieged when the relieving force had got within the lines. It was not until November, when Sir Colin Campbell advanced with all the reinforcements that could be got together at Calcutta—bluejackets from the men-of-war, regiments detained on their way to China, a small band of volunteer cavalry recruited in the capital. He had to fight his way in. First, there was the relief of the Alum Bagh, which was held, although the enemy were in an entrenched position before it; then the capture of the Dilkhoosha Palace; then the Martinière Palace, which the enemy occupied with guns in position; after that the Secundra Bagh, where the 92nd and the Sikhs raced up to the breach neck-and-neck. Other buildings were stormed—the Mess House, the Moti Mahal—and from the latter an entrance was effected into the Residency, which at last was relieved.

Assuredly there has been no falling off in the spirit of the British soldier, singly or collectively, whatever his rank. Our most recent military annals record episodes as gallant and as creditable to the pluck and manhood of our race as any that have gone before. Every form of courage has been displayed: reckless daring enterprise, calm self-reliant heroism in the most despairing situations. Who shall forget the 24th at Insandlwana, massacred to a man by the countless Zulu hosts? A brave, pitiless, but chivalrous foe, who could pay the following tribute to their fearless demeanour in that unequal conflict: “Ah, those red soldiers! How few they were, and how they fought! They fell like stones, each man in his place.” There is nothing finer, again, in war than the manner in which another British regiment—the 66th (Berkshire)—met death to a man at Maiwand, in Afghanistan. The general reporting it wrote that “history does not afford a grander instance of devotion to Queen and country.” The 66th, although outnumbered a hundred to one, received undaunted the furious attacks of the Ghazis or Mohammedan fanatics vowed to slay the infidel, and were gradually slaughtered till only eleven officers and men remained. This small band stood back to back, unconquerable, still facing and keeping the foe at bay, until they were finally shot down from a distance.

Another famous story is that of Rorke’s Drift, when two young subalterns, Chard and Bromhead, holding a river ford which was the only possible line of retreat for Lord Chelmsford’s force, were threatened by overwhelming numbers. The Zulus were quite 3,000 strong, and the little English garrison no more than 139, of whom thirty-five were on the sick list. But there was no thought of surrender. A line of trenches was hastily contrived with biscuit-boxes and flour-bags, behind which our men fought gallantly the whole night through. At one time the hospital was a sheet of fire, and the feeble breastwork had been penetrated in more than one place. But the garrison never quailed: their heroic subaltern leaders never despaired, and they had beaten off their assailants when at daylight relief arrived.

The only parallel to Rorke’s Drift is the gallant defence of Arrah during the Indian Mutiny, when a handful of English civilians defended a detached two-storeyed house for seven days against an army of sepoy mutineers. The collector, Mr. Wake, with fifteen other civilians, fifty Sikh police and one faithful Mohammedan, composed the garrison, and the assailants numbered 3,000, with two field-pieces. They had but little food, a motley lot of arms, unlimited ammunition, and there was not a military man among them. But they held out till they were relieved by a man as gallant as themselves, Major Vincent Eyre, who was ascending the Ganges with a battery of artillery when he heard of the siege. He steamed back at once to Buxar, collected a small force of infantry, 154 bayonets in all, marched fifty miles to Arrah, was met by the enemy, twenty times his strength, but at once attacked them, and put them to flight. The sepoys could not face us in the open, even in such disproportionate numbers.