Skip to main content

Full text of "Memories and studies of war and peace"

See other formats 


MEMORIES    AND    STUDIES 


OF 


WAR    AND    PEACE 


Photo.  H.  S.  Mendelssohn,  Pembridge  Crescent,  IF. 


MEMORIES  AND  STUDIES 


OF 


WAR  AND  PEACE 


BY 


ARCHIBALD    FORBES 


WITH   PORTRAIT    OF    THE    AUTHOR 


THIRD    EDITION 


CASSELL    AND     COMPANY,     LIMITED 

LONDON,     PARIS    &     MELBOURNE 
1895 


ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


€"o  tfje  HJrbmtr  anfc  iiidobrtr 
OP 

GENERAL    MONTGOMERY    CUNNINGHAM    MEIGS, 

QUARTERMASTER-GENERAL   OF   THE   ARMY   OF   THE 

UNITED  STATES   FROM   1861   TO  1882, 
HIS  SON-IN-LAW  INSCRIBES   THIS  BOOK. 


2O66198 


CONTENTS. 


I. — TEN  YEARS  OF  WAR  CORRESPONDENCE  ...         1 

II. MOLTKE    BEFORE    MfiTZ    .  .  .  .  .  .47 

III. — THE  DARK  DAYS  OF  SEDAN   .         .  70 
IV. — AMBUSH  AGAINST  AMBUSH      .....       98 

V. — PARIS  IN  PROSTRATION  .         .         .         .  .  .115 

VI. — THE  CRUSHING  OF  THE  COMMUNE  .         .  .  .127 

VII. — OUR  PARISH  MURDERER         .         .         .  .  .172 

VIII. — PRETTY  MARITZA  OF  TIRNOVA        .  .  .186 

IX. — THE  DEATH  OF  THE  PRINCE  IMPERIAL  .  .  .     201 

X. — WAR  CORRESPONDENCE  AS  A  FINE  ART  .  .216 

XI. — THE  FUTURE  OF  THE  WOUNDED  IN  WAR  .  .     241 

XII.— A  HILL  STORY       ....  .     257 

XIII. — MY  SERVANTS  ON  CAMPAIGN  .         .         .  .  .     268 

XIV. — DISTINGUISHED  CONDUCT  IN  THE  FIELD  .  .     286 

XV.— ON  THE  OLD  WAR-PATH        ...  .     297 

XVI.— SOLDIERS'  WIVES    .                  .                  .  .  .311 

XVII.— AN  HONEST-BORN  BOY  .  ...     325 

XVIII.— SOLDIERS  I  HAVE  KNOWN  333 


MEMORIES  AND  STUDIES 

OF 

WAR  AND  PEACE. 

i. 

TEN    YEARS    OF    WAR    CORRESPONDENCE. 

Skobeleff  under  Fire — The  Ideal  War  Correspondent — Old  and  New  Methods  of 
War  Correspondence — The  Franco-German  "War — Saarbriicken — Grave- 
lotte — An  Episode  of  the  Entry  into  Paris — The  Starving  Magistrate — 
Malet  in  the  Commune-time — The  Servian  Campaign — A  Long  Ride — 
The  Russo-Turkish  War  and  its  War  Correspondence — My  Comrades — 
The  Crossing  of  the  Danube — Tzar  Alexander  II. — Life  on  Campaign — 
Second  Battle  of  Plevna,  July  30th — Fighting  in  the  Schipka  Pass — My 
Interview  with  the  Emperor — His  Return  to  St.  Petersburg — Telegraphy 
in  excelsis — King  Theebau  and  his  Presents — Rough  Surgery  in  Afghan- 
istan— Mentioned  in  Despatches — Ulundi  and  the  Zulu  Valour — A 
Long  Gallop  with  the  Tidings. 

IT  was  down  by  the  Danube  side,  in  the  earlier  days  of  the 
Kusso-Turkish  War.  Skobeleff  and  myself  were  squatting 
in  a  hole  in  the  ground,  to  escape  the  rain  of  bullets  and 
shells  which  the  Turks  were  pouring  across  the  river  on  the 
detachment  which  the  young  general  commanded. 

"  Here  you  and  I  are,"  said  Skobeleff  with  a  laugh,  "  like 
Uriah  the  Hittite,  right  in  the  forefront  of  the  battle ;  and 
how  strange  it  is  that  quiet  stay-at-home  folk  all  over  the 
world,  who  take  their  morning  papers  just  as  they  do  their 
breakfasts,  know  ever  so  much  more  about  this  war  as  a 
whole  than  we  fellows  do,  who  are  actually  listening  to  the 
whistle  of  the  bullets  and  the  crash  of  the  shells  ! " 

Skobeleff'  did  not  pursue  the  subject  further,  because  just 

then  a  shell  exploded  right  in  front  of  us,  and  of  the  mud 

which  it  threw  up  a  splash  hit  him  in  the  face  and  changed 

the  current  of  his  ideas ;  but  all  the  same  his  remark  was  a 

B 


2  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

very  true  one.  War  correspondence  and  the  electric  telegraph 
have  for  years  given  the  peaceful  citizen  the  advantage,  in  the 
matter  of  quick  and  wide  war  news,  over  the  soldier  who  is 
looking  the  enemy  in  the  face  on  the  actual  battlefield.  But 
this  intelligence,  although  the  peaceful  citizen  takes  little 
account  of  the  manner  of  getting  it,  and  has  come  to  look  for 
it  as  a  thing  of  course — as  a  mere  matter  of  everyday  routine 
—yet  reaches  his  breakfast-table  as  the  outcome  only  of  long 
thoughtful  planning,  of  arduous  physical  and  mental  exertion, 
of  hairbreadth  risks  encountered.  It  is  nay  purpose  in  this 
chapter  to  tell  something  of  the  war  correspondent's  working 
life,  something  of  the  character  of  his  exertions  to  satisfy  the 
world's  crave  for  the  "  latest  intelligence  from  the  seat  of  war," 
and  something  of  the  dangers  that  encompass  the  path  of  his 
duty.  If  the  recital  of  some  bygone  personal  experiences  in 
this  field  may  strike  the  reader  as  involving  the  imputation  of 
egotism,  I  would  respectfully  beg  of  him  to  admit  the  excuse 
that  it  is  not  easy  for  a  man  to  avoid  egotism  altogether 
when  he  is  speaking  mainly  of  himself. 

In  my  day-dreams,  indulged  in  mostly  when  smarting 
under  the  consciousness  of  my  own  deficiencies,  I  have  tried 
to  think  out  the  attributes  that  ought  to  be  concentrated  in 
the  ideal  war  correspondent.  He  ought  to  possess  the  gift  of 
tongues — to  be  conversant  with  all  European  languages,  a  neat 
assortment  of  the  Asiatic  languages,  and  a  few  of  the  African 
tongues,  such  as  Abyssinian,  Ashantee,  Zulu,  and  Soudanese. 
He  should  have  the  sweet,  angelic  temper  of  a  woman,  and  be 
as  affable  as  if  he  were  a  politician  canvassing  for  a  vote  ;  yet, 
at  the  same  time,  be  big  and  ugly  enough  to  impress  the 
conviction  that  it  would  be  highly  unwise  to  take  any  liberties 
with  him.  The  paragon  war  correspondent  should  be  able  to 
ride  anything  that  chance  may  offer,  from  a  giraffe  to  a  rat ; 
be  able  to  ride  a  hundred  miles  at  a  stretch,  to  go  without 
food  for  a  week  if  needful,  and  without  sleep  for  as  long ;  never 
to  get  tired — never  to  feel  the  sensation  of  a  "  slight  sinking, 
you  know ; "  and  be  able  at  the  end  of  a  ride — of  a  journey 
however  long,  arduous,  and  sleepless — to  write  round-hand  for 
a  foreign  telegraph  clerk  ignorant  of  the  correspondent's 


THE  IDEAL   WAR   CORRESPONDENT.  3 

language,  at  the  rate  of  a  column  an  hour  for  six  or  eight 
consecutive  hours ;  after  which  he  should,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  gallop  back  to  the  scene  of  action  without  an  hour's 
delay.  He  should  be  a  competent  judge  of  warfare ;  con- 
versant with  all  military  operations,  from  the  mounting  of  a 
corporal's  guard  to  the  disposition  of  an  army  in  the  field. 
He  ought  to  have  supreme  disregard  for  hostile  fire  when  real 
duty  calls  upon  him  to  expose  himself  to  it;  and  his  pulse 
should  be  as  calm  when  shells  are  bursting  around  him  as  if 
he  were  watching  his  bosom-friend  undergoing  the  ordeal  of 
the  marriage  service.  He  must  have  a  real  instinct  for  the 
place  and  day  of  an  impending  combat:  he  must  be  able 
to  scent  the  coming  battle  from  afar,  and  allow  nothing  to 
hinder  him  from  getting  forward  in  time  to  be  a  spectator 
of  it.  He  should  be  so  constituted  as  to  have  an  intuitive 
perception  how  the  day  hath  gone;  to  be  able  to  discern 
victory  or  defeat  while  as  yet,  to  the  spectator  not  so  gifted, 
the  field  of  strife  seems  confusion  worse  confounded  ;  and  so 
to  rely  on  his  own  judgment  as  to  venture,  while  the  turmoil 
is  dying  away,  to  turn  his  back  upon  it,  and  ride  off  the 
earliest  bearer  of  the  momentous  tidings.  To  potter  about 
waiting  till  the  last  shot  be  fired  ;  to  linger  for  returns  of 
killed  and  wounded,  and  for  the  measured  reports  of  the 
commanders;  to  be  the  chiffonier  of  the  rags  of  the  battle- 
field— that  is  work  which  he  must  leave  to  his  helpers,  if  he 
has  any  such.  Alas  !  there  never  was  such  a  man  as  I  have 
ideally  depicted,  and  there  never  will  be  such  a  man.  I  think 
Julius  Caesar  would  have  been  an  exceptionally  brilliant  war 
correspondent,  if  the  profession  had  been  invented  in  his 
time,  and  if  he  could  have  weaned  himself  from  the  meaner 
avocations  of  commanding  armies,  conquering  countries,  and 
ruling  nations.  But  the  first  Napoleon,  if  only  he  could  have 
been  a  little  truthful  occasionally,  would  have  eclipsed  Julius 
Caesar  and  knocked  William  Howard  Russell  into  a  cocked  hat. 

Before   the   Franco-German   War    there    had    been   war 
Correspondents,   and   one   at   least    of    those   had   made  for 
himself  a  reputation  to  vie  with  which  no  representative  of 
B  2 


4         MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

a  newer  school  has  any  claim.  But  their  work,  being  almost 
wholly  in  the  pre-telegraphic  period,  was  carried  on  under 
less  arduous  conditions  than  those  which  have  confronted  the 
more  recent  war  correspondent.  Nor  was  it  incumbent  on 
the  former  to  carry  their  lives  in  their  hands.  Before  far- 
reaching  rifled  firearms  were  brought  into  use,  it  was  quite 
easy  to  see  a  battle  without  getting  within  the  range  of  fire. 
But  this  is  no  longer  possible,  and  in  the  future  will  be  still 
more  impossible.  With  guns  of  position  that  carry  six  miles, 
with  mobile  artillery  having  a  range  of  more  than  three  miles, 
and  with  rifles  that  kill  without  benefit  of  clergy  at  two  miles, 
the  war  correspondent  may  as  well  stay  at  home  with  his 
mother  unless  he  has  hardened  his  heart  to  take  his  full 
share  of  the  risks  of  the  battlefield.  Indeed,  if  he  has  deter- 
mined to  look  narrowly  into  the  turbulent  heart  of  each 
successive  paroxysm  of  the  bloody  struggle — and  it  is  only 
now  by  doing  this  that  he  can  make  for  himself  a  genuine 
and  abiding  reputation — he  must  lay  his  account  with  adven- 
turing more  risk  than  falls  to  the  lot  of  the  average  soldier. 
The  percentage  of  casualties  among  war  correspondents  has 
recently  been  greater  than  that  among  the  actual  fighting 
men.  In  the  Servian  Campaign  of  1876,  for  instance,  there 
were  twelve  correspondents  who  kept  the  field  and  remained 
under  fire.  Of  these,  three  were  killed  and  four  wounded. 
Certainly  not  more  than  thirty  correspondents  and  artists,  all 
told,  were  in  the  Soudan  from  the  earliest  fighting  to  the  final 
collapse  of  the  Nile  expedition ;  but  on  or.  under  its  cruel  sands 
lie  the  corpses  of  at  least  five  of  my  comrades.  O'Donovan, 
the  adventurous  pioneer  of  Merv,  perished  with  Hicks.  The 
last  hope  has  long  faded  that  Vizetelly,  endowed  though  he 
was  with  more  lives  than  the  proverbial  cat,  has  still  a  life  in 
hand.  Cameron  and  St.  Leger  Herbert  were  struck  down  on 
the  same  bloody  day,  and  rest  together  in  their  shallow  grave 
in  the  hot  Bayuda  sand.  Poor  Gordon,  who,  like  myself,  had 
been  a  soldier  before  he  became  a  war  correspondent,  died 
a  lone  death  of  thirst  in  the  heart  of  the  desert  while  pushing 
on  to  where  his  duty  lay.  Time  would  fail  me  to  tell  of  those 
who  have  perished  of  fevers  and  other  maladies,  who  have 


MATRIMONY  AMONG   THE  BOMB-SHELLS.  5 

been  wounded,  shipwrecked,  and  encountered  strange  hair- 
breadth escapes;  of  others,  again,  who  have  come  home  so 
broken  by  hardship  and  vicissitude  that  what  remains  of  life  to 
them  is  naught  save  weariness  and  pain.  And  it  is  such  men 
whom  a  commander  who  has  been  himself  adventurous  has 
classed  with  the  camp-followers,  and  has  stigmatised  as  "  drones 
who  eat  the  rations  of  fighting  men  and  do  no  work  at  all "  ! 

It  was  the  Franco-German  War  of  1870  that  brought 
about  the  revolution  in  the  methods  of  war  correspondence, 
although  at  Saarbrticken,  in  the  earlier  days  of  that  great 
contest,  there  was  as  yet  scarcely  any  perception  of  the  oppor- 
tunities that  lay  to  our  hands.  But  if  at  Saarbriicken  the 
correspondents  thus  early  on  the  war-path  were  still  unre- 
generate  in  this  respect,  we  had  some  experiences  in  which 
the  comic  and  the  tragic  were  curiously  blended.  Within 
two  miles  of  the  little  town  lay  a  whole  French  army  corps, 
which  any  day  might  overwhelm  Saarbriicken  and  its  slender 
garrison  of  a  battalion  of  infantry  and  three  squadrons  of 
uhlans.  So  we  lived,  quite  a  little  detachment  of  us,  in  an 
hotel  on  the  outskirts,  ready  for  a  judicious  bolt.  At  this 
hotel  there  arrived  one  morning  a  young  German  girl  who 
was  engaged,  we  learned,  to  a  sergeant  of  the  gallant 
Hohenzollerns.  She  had  come,  it  seemed,  to  say  farewell  to 
her  sweetheart  before  the  fighting  should  begin  and  he  should 
march  away,  mayhap  never  to  return.  Some  of  the  livelier 
spirits  among  us  conceived  the  idea  that  the  pair  should 
get  married  before  the  farewell  should  be  said.  Both  were 
willing.  The  bridegroom's  officer  gave  him  leave,  on  condition 
that  should  the  alarm  sound,  he  was  to  join  his  company 
without  a  moment's  delay.  All  was  in  readiness  and  the 
clergyman  was  just  about  to  join  the  couple  in  holy  matri- 
mony, when  the  sound  of  a  bugle  suddenly  broke  in  on  the 
stillness.  It  was  the  alarm  !  The  bridegroom  hurriedly  em- 
braced the  bride,  buckled  on  his  accoutrements,  and  darted 
off  to  the  place  of  rendezvous.  In  ten  minutes  more  the 
combat  was  in  full  intensity ;  the  French  had  carried  the 
heights  overhanging  the  town,  and  were  pouring  down  upon 


6  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

it  their  artillery  and  mitrailleuse  fire.  Our  hotel  was  right  in 
the  line  of  fire,  and  soon  became  exceedingly  disagreeable 
quarters.  We  got  the  woman  down  into  the  cellar,  and  waited 
for  events.  A  shell  crashed  into  the  kitchen,  burst  inside  the 
cooking  stove,  and  blew  the  wedding  breakfast,  which  was 
still  being  kept  hot,  into  what  an  American  colleague  called 
"  everlasting  smash."  It  was  too  hot  to  stay  there,  and  every- 
body manoeuvred  strategically  to  the  rear.  A  few  days  later 
was  fought,  close  to  Saarbriicken,  the  desperate  battle  of  the 
Spicheren,  in  which  the  bridegroom's  regiment  took  a  leading 
part.  The  day  after  the  battle  I  was  wandering  over  the  field, 
helping  to  relieve  the  wounded,  and  gazing  shudderingly  on 
the  heaps  of  dead.  Suddenly  I  came  on  our  bridegroom,  in 
a  sitting  posture,  with  his  back  resting  against  a  stump.  He 
was  stone  dead,  with  a  bullet  through  his  throat. 

Perhaps  the  most  thrilling  episode  of  all  that  colossal 
struggle  of  1870  was  the  singularly  dramatic  climax  of  the 
battle  of  Gravelotte.  All  day  long,  from  noon  until  near  the 
going  down  of  the  sun,  the  roar  of  the  cannon  and  the.  roll  of 
the  musketry  had  been  incessant.  The  deep  ravine  of  the 
Mance  between  Gravelotte  and  St.  Hubert  was  a  horrible 
pandemonium  wherein  seethed  struggling  masses  of  German 
soldiery,  torn  by  the  shell-fire  of  the  French  batteries, 
writhing  under  the  stings  of  the  mitrailleuse,  bewildered 
between  inevitable  death  in  front  and  no  less  inevitable 
disgrace  behind.  Again  and  again  frantic  efforts  were  being 
made  to  force  up  out  of  the  hell  in  the  ravine  and  gain 
foothold  on  the  edge  of  the  plateau  beyond ;  and  ever  the 
cruel  sleet  of  lead  beat  them  back  and  crushed  them  down. 
The  long  summer  day  was  waning  into  dusk,  and  the  fortunes 
of  the  battle  still  trembled  in  the  balance,  when  the  last 
reserve  of  the  Germans — the  Second  Army  Corps — came 
hurrying  up  towards  the  brink  of  the  abyss.  In  the  lurid 
glare  of  the  blazing  village,  the  German  King  stood  by  the 
wayside  and  welcomed  his  stalwart  Pomeranians  as  they 
passed  him.  High  over  the  roll  of  the  drums,  the  blare  of  the 
bugles,  and  the  crash  of  the  cannon,  rose  the  eager  burst  of 


TIDINGS  OF  VICTORY.  7 

cheering  as  the  soldiers  answered  their  Sovereign's  greeting, 
and  then  followed  their  chiefs  down  into  the  fell  depths  of  the 
terrible  chasm.  The  strain  of  the  crisis  was  sickening  as  we 
waited  for  the  issue  in  a  sort  of  rapt  spasm  of  sombre 
silence.  The  old  King  sat  with  his  back  against  a  wall  on  a 
ladder,  one  end  of  which  rested  on  a  broken  gun-carriage,  the 
other  on  a  dead  horse.  Bismarck,  with  an  elaborate  assump- 
tion of  coolness  which  his  restlessness  belied,  made  pretence 
to  be  reading  letters.  The  roar  of  the  close  battle  swelled  and 
deepened,  till  the  very  ground  trembled  beneath  us.  The 
night  fell  like  a  pall,  but  the  blaze  of  an  adjacent  conflagra- 
tion lit  up  the  anxious  group  here  by  the  churchyard  wall. 
From  out  the  medley  of  broken  troops  littering  the  slope  in 
front,  rose  suddenly  a  great  shout  that  grew  in  volume  as  it 
rolled  nearer.  The  hoofs  of  a  galloping  horse  rattled  on  the 
causeway.  A  moment  later  Moltke,  his  face  for  once  quiver- 
ing with  excitement,  sprang  from  the  saddle,  and,  running 
towards  the  King,  cried  out :  "  It  is  good  for  us ;  we  have 
restored  the  position,  and  the  victory  is  with  your  Majesty  !  " 
The  King  sprang  to  his  feet  with  a  fervent  "God  be  thanked!" 
and  then  burst  into  tears.  Bismarck,  with  a  great  sigh  of 
relief,  crushed  his  letters  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand  ;  and  a 
simultaneous  hurrah  welcomed  the  glad  tidings. 

On  the  1st  of  March,  1871,  the  day  of  the  entry  into  Paris 
of  the  German  troops,  rather  a  curious  experience  befell  me. 
While  as  yet  within  the  German  cordon  in  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde,  I  observed  that  I  was  being  dogged,  having  been 
called  on  to  answer  a  question  asked  by  a  German  commander 
who  was  riding  up  the  Champs  ]£lysees.  I  had  no  sooner 
passed  out  of  that  cordon  than  I  was  vehemently  assailed  by 
an  angry  French  mob,  who  insisted  that  I  was  a  German  spy. 
I  made  as  stout  a  resistance  as  was  compatible  with  circum- 
stances, but  at  length  they  got  me  down,  and  then  I  imagined 
it  was  all  over  with  me.  But  a  detachment  of  national  guards 
holding  a  police  post  rescued  me  at  the  bayonet  point  from 
the  genial  enthusiasts  who  were  dragging  me  along  the  gutter 
on  my  back,  with  the  expressed  intention  of  drowning  ine  in 


8         MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  basin  of  an  adjacent  fountain.  A  good  deal  of  my  clothing 
had  been  torn  off  rue,  but  that  was  a  trifle.  Overhauling 
myself  in  the  police  station,  I  discovered  that  with  half  of  my 
great-coat  had  disappeared  my  note-book,  which  was  in  the 
pocket  of  the  missing  section  of  the  garment.  This  was  a 
most  serious  misfortune.  In  those  times  I  had  accustomed 
myself  to  write  out  at  full  length  in  my  note-book  the 
description  of  scenes  or  events  of  which  I  was  a  witness, 
detailing  in  form  ready  for  the  printer  the  accounts  of 
incident  after  incident  as  the  incidents  successively  evolved 
themselves.  From  the  summit  of  the  tower  overhanging  the 
Cascade  I  had  looked  down  that  morning  on  King  Wilhelm's 
great  review  of  his  army  on  the  Longchamps  racecourse  ;  and 
my  description,  two  columns  long,  of  that  remarkable  scene 
was  in  the  lost  note-book.  One  result  of  this  custom  of 
concurrent  writing  out  was  that  the  writer's  memory  did  not 
charge  itself  with  the  recollection  of  what  had  been  com- 
mitted to  paper;  and  thus  I  had  not  only  lost  the  actual 
"  copy "  already  indited  and  out  of  hand,  but  was  destitute 
of  the  power  to  reproduce  the  lost  matter.  While  I  was 
internally  bewailing  myself  of  this  misfortune,  a  citizen  in  a 
fine  glow  of  triumph  rushed  into  the  police  station.  "  Voila  ! " 
he  shouted,  as  he  waved  aloft  my  note-book  in  one  hand  and 
my  coat-tail  in  the  other ;  "  here  is  damning  evidence  that 
the  prisoner  is  a  wicked  spy !  Here  are  the  villain's  notes, 
the  lies  he  has  been  writing  down  concerning  our  unhappy 
Paris ! "  I  could  have  embraced  the  excited  ouvrier,  frowsy 
as  he  was;  he  had  done  me  an  incalculable  benefit  in  his 
anxiety  to  have  my  doom  sealed.  His  face  was  a  study  when, 
in  the  gladness  of  my  heart,  I  offered  him  a  five-franc  piece. 
The  implacable  patriot  accepted  it. 

Presently,  under  an  escort  of  national  guards  with  fixed 
bayonets — for  the  mob  was  still  dangerous — I  was  marched 
through  a  couple  of  streets  to  the  bureau  of  a  sitting  magis- 
trate. My  companions  were  a  gentleman  in  a  blouse  who 
was  accused  of  having  stolen  an  ink-bottle ;  a  tatterdemalion 
detected  in  selling  a  couple  of  cigars  to  a  Bavarian  cavalry- 
man ;  and  a  woman  whom  the  Paris  mob  had  stripped  and 


A  STARVING   GENTLEWOMAN.  9 

painted  divers  colours,  because  she  bad  been  caught  parleying 
with  a  Prussian  drummer.  The  magistrate  was  so  good  as  to 
deal  with  me  first.  Fortunately  I  was  able  to  produce  to 
him  my  British  passport  and  my  journalistic  credentials.  He 
called  in  his  sister,  who  had  lived  in  England,  to  assist  him 
in  deciding  as  to  the  authenticity  of  those  documents.  She 
promptly  pronounced  in  their  favour,  and  his  worship  became 
immediately  gracious.  He  told  me  that  I  was  free,  and  he 
was  good  enough  to  lend  me  an  old  coat  in  which  to  walk  to 
my  hotel ;  at  the  same  time  gracefully  begging  me  to  excuse 
what  he  termed  "  the  little  inconvenience  I  had  experienced, 
on  account  of  the  not  unnatural  excitement  of  the  Paris 
populace." 

The  magistrate's  good  sister  sent  me  to  a  bedroom,  where 
I  washed  off  the  most  flagrant  stains  of  the  recent  unpleasant- 
ness. Outside,  the  mob  was  still  howling  fiercely.  Time  was 
very  precious  to  me ;  I  could  not  endure  to  wait  indefinitely 
the  dispersion  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  pavement,  yet  I  did  not 
care  to  re-offer  myself  to  their  tender  mercies.  The  magistrate's 
sister  in  this  strait  proved  herself  a  ministering  angel.  She 
said  there  was  a  door  opening  into  a  quiet  side-alley,  and 
actually  offered  to  escort  me  to  my  hotel,  which  was  close  by. 
As  we  walked,  I  told  the  kind  lady  that  I  did  not  know  how 
to  thank  her ;  had  it  been  her  servant,  I  could  have  found  no 
difficulty  in  requiting  the  good  office,  but  a  lady — "  Oh  ! "  she 
broke  in — "  that  is  not  so  difficult;  I  will  put  my  pride  in  my 
pocket.  My  brother  has  a  fair  salary,  but  he  has  not  seen 
a  franc  of  it  for  six  months.  We  are  gentlefolk ;  we  cannot 
join  the  queue  outside  the  baker's  shop,  and — and — oh,  mon 
Dieu  !  we  are  actually  starving " — and  the  poor  lady  burst 
into  tears.  "We  could  not  take  charity,"  she  continued, 
sobbing — "but  we  have  heard  of  that  kind  don  anglais 
which,  they  say,  is  now  being  distributed  freely  ;  if  only  one 
could  get  a  little  aid  from  its  bounty ! "  We  had  a  sub-de"pot 
in  my  hotel ;  I  myself  was  one  of  the  accredited  almoners ; 
some  of  the  commissioners  were  living  with  me.  I  hurried 
the  lady  into  a  room  in  which  there  was  no  one  to  remark 
her  emotion ;  then  I  found  John  Furley,  and  told  him  the 


10  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

little  story.  Furley  was  a  man  of  energy.  In  five  minutes 
a  big  hamper  had  been  packed  full  of  comestibles,  and  a 
porter  had  it  on  his  back,  waiting  for  the  lady's  instructions. 
With  the  chivalry  of  a  fine  gentleman,  Furley  announced 
to  her  that  one  of  his  men  was  at  her  disposition.  She  came 
out  into  the  hall,  looked  down  at  the  big  basket,  whose 
open  mouth  disclosed  among  other  things  a  leg  of  mutton, 
a  couple  of  fowls,  a  huge  honest  loaf,  and  sundry  vegetables  ; 
then  she  gave  a  great  gasp,  and  I  feared  that  she  was  about  to 
faint.  She  was  anaemic  from  sheer  want,  but  she  rallied — 
tears  helping  her;  and  then  she  went  silently  away  with 
her  veil  down  over  her  wan  face,  and  the  stalwart  porter 
tramping  behind  her.  It  was  such  people  as  those,  with 
pride  and  fixed  salaries  which  were  not  paid,  who  suffered 
worst  during  the  siege ;  and  they,  too,  it  was  who  were  the 
most  difficult  to  relieve  when  the  siege  was  just  over,  but 
without  as  yet  any  alleviation  of  their  misery.  The  women 
were  the  most  stubborn  and  the  most  proud.  The  concierge 
would  assure  the  almoner  that  the  two  old  ladies  on  such  a 
floor  were  literally  starving.  The  old  ladies,  when  you  pushed 
their  button,  would  appear,  statelily  gracious.  "  Yes,  the 
English  were  a  kind  people,  and  the  good  God  would  reward 
them.  There  were  some  poor  creatures  in  the  roof  who  were 
in  pressing  need.  For  themselves,  thanks  ;  but  no,  they  could 
not  accept  charity.  Merci :  bon  jour,  monsieur  ! "  and  then 
the  door  would  close  on  the  wan  eyes  and  hollow  cheeks.  Ah 
me,  it  was  melancholy  work  ! 

Elsewhere  in  this  book  will  be  found  some  detailed  account 
of  the  fell  days  of  the  closing  scenes  of  the  Commune,  the 
only  phase  of  it  of  which  I  was  a  witness.  All  that  I  need 
here  say  is,  that  in  the  lurid  chaos  which  marked  the  ruthless 
stamping  out  of  the  Commune  by  the  Versaillist  army  under 
Marshal  MacMahon,  the  conditions  under  which  correspond- 
ents tried  to  fulfil  their  duties  were  more  full  of  peril  than 
one  could  incur  in  any  battle  of  which  I  have  had  experience. 
In  a  battle  you  know  your  danger.  The  enemy  is  for  the 
most  part  in  front,  and  you  can  either  stand  up  and  take  your 


MALET  ON  THE  FOREPOSTS.  11 

chance  of  his  fire,  or  take  cover  to  protect  yourself  from 
it.  But  in  the  seething  turmoil  of  the  last  days  of  the 
Commune,  bullets  were  flying  from  front,  flanks,  and  rear. 
There  was  a  universal  raving  lust  for  blood.  As  Mr. 
Labouchere  cheerfully  remarked :  "  They  shot  you  first,  and 
apologised  to  your  corpse  afterwards."  The  brightest  feature 
of  the  grim  drama  which  I  can  recall  after  so  long  a  lapse 
of  time,  was  the  imperturbable  coolness  of  Mr.,  after- 
wards Sir  Edward,  Malet.  He  remained  in  charge  of  the 
British  Embassy  in  the  Rue  du  Faubourg  St.  Honore,  when 
Lord  Lyons  and  the  rest  of  the  official  personnel  migrated 
to  Versailles.  For  three  long  days  it  seemed  that  Malet,  or 
at  all  events  the  embassy  he  inhabited,  was  the  target  for 
the  artillery  alike  of  Versaillists  and  Communards.  Shells 
bedevilled  the  ball-room  and  knocked  holes  miscellaneously 
all  over  the  building ;  explosion  after  explosion  blew  down 
the  walls  of  the  embassy  garden,  through  which  the  Ver- 
saillists were  sapping  their  way  to  outflank  their  stubborn 
antagonists  of  the  Commune.  Malet,  bland  and  cheery  as 
was  his  wont,  quietly  and  methodically  performed  his  duties  ; 
the  shell  fire  apparently  concerning  him  not  at  all.  In  no 
conceivable  circumstances  could  Malet  look  absurd  ;  and  that 
surely  is  a  great  gift !  Just  before  the  German  siege  began, 
he  came  out  from  Paris  to  Meaux  with  a  communication  to 
Bismarck.  I  happened  to  meet  him  near  the  German  fore- 
post  line.  His  franc- tireur  escort  had  compelled  him  on  the 
previous  night  to  sleep  "  under  the  beautiful  stars ; "  when 
I  met  him  he  was  riding  between  two  Prussian  uhlans.  He 
was  perched  on  a  great  military  saddle,  the  schabracque  of 
which  rose  about  him  before  and  behind ;  his  stirrups  were 
about  ten  holes  too  long,  and  the  big  troop-horse  he  bestrode 
plainly  evinced  dislike  of  his  civilian  rider.  No  concatenation 
of  circumstances  could  have  tended  more  to  give  a  man  an 
aspect  of  grotesque  absurdity.  But  Malet  did  not  in  the  least 
look  like  a  guy.  He  had  no  consciousness  of  being  ludicrous, 
and  even  at  the  first  blush  he  was  not  ludicrous.  On  the 
contrary,  he  was  self-possessed,  easily  dignified,  and  conveyed 
somehow  the  impression  that  this  was  precisely  the  mode  of 


12  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

progression  which  he  deliberately  preferred   over   all  other 
modes. 

I  imagine  that  people  at  home  in  England  took  but  faint 
interest  in  the  little  war  which  in  the  summer  and  autumn 
of  1876  the  petty  principality  of  Servia  was  waging  against 
its  Turkish  suzerain.  It  was,  nevertheless,  an  interesting 
struggle,  both  in  itself  and  as  virtually  the  prelude  to  the 
great  Russo-Turkish  war  of  the  following  year.  Up  at 
Deligrad,  about  140  miles  from  Belgrade,  the  capital  of 
Servia,  General  Tchernaieff,  with  his  Russian  volunteers 
and  rough  Servian  levies,  for  three  months  confronted  the 
Turkish  army  commanded  by  that  venal  old  impostor,  Abdul 
Kerim  Pasha,  Our  life  with  Tchernaieff  was  almost  comically 
squalid.  His  headquarters  were  in  a  ruined  schoolhouse,  and 
his  staff  lived  in  holes  dug  out  in  the  ground  and  thatched 
over  with  reeds.  We  lay  on  straw  all  round  a  great  fire 
which  was  maintained  in  the  centre,  and  which  occasionally 
set  light  to  the  roof  and  burnt  us  temporarily  out  of  house 
and  home.  One  morning  the  Turks  woke  up  from  their 
lethargy,  and  carried  with  a  rush  the  defences  of  the  hill 
of  Djunis  which  Tchernaieff'  had  been  holding  so  long  on 
the  swagger.  I  have  always  had  a  shrewd  suspicion  that 
Abdul  Kerirn  and  Tchernaieff  understood  each  other  ex- 
tremely well ;  that  the  former  for  a  price  contentedly  allowed 
himself  to  be  amused  by  the  latter  during  the  summer 
months ;  and  that  when  the  order  came  from  the  Seras- 
kierate  that  the  immobility  so  long  allowed  to  last  must 
at  length  peremptorily  be  ended,  Tchernaieff  was  complaisant 
enough  not  to  make  much  more  than  a  brisk  show  of  resist- 
ance. The  scheme,  however,  was  in  a  measure  thwarted  by 
the  honest  and  zealous  fighting  of  General  Dochtouroff'  head- 
ing the  Russian  volunteers,  who  died  very  freely  in  their 
trenches,  and  who  had  sent  many  Turkish  souls  to  Hades 
before  they  accepted  defeat.  The  Servians  behaved  badly ; 
their  resistance  fell  to  pieces  in  a  few  hours ;  and,  in  the  end, 
Dochtouroff'  and  myself  had  to  ride  through  a  belt  of  Turkish 
skirmishers  to  escape  being  cut  off. 


BEARING  TIDINGS  OF  DISASTER  13 

Anyhow,  the  game  was  up,  and  Servia  lay  at  the  mercy  of 
the  Turks.  I  was  the  only  correspondent  on  the  spot,  and  it 
behoved  me  to  make  the  most  of  this  casual  advantage.  At 
five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  when  I  rode  away  from  the 
blazing  huts  of  Deligrad,  more  than  120  miles  lay  between  me 
and  my  point,  the  telegraph  office  at  Seinlin,  the  Hungarian 
town  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  Save  from  Belgrade — tele- 
graphing was  not  permitted  from  the  Servian  capital.  I  had 
an  order  for  post-horses  along  the  road,  and  I  galloped  hard 
for  Paratchin,  the  nearest  post  station.  When  I  got  there  the 
postmaster  had  horses,  but  no  vehicle.  Now,  if  I  had  merely 
sent  a  courier,  this  obstacle  would  have  sufficed  effectually 
to  stop  him.  But  it  was  apparent  to  me,  being  my  own 
messenger,  that  although  I  could  not  drive  I  might  ride. 
True,  the  Servian  post-nags  were  not  saddle-horses ;  but  sharp 
spurs  and  the  handling  of  an  old  dragoon  might  be  relied  on 
to  make  them  travel  somehow.  All  night  long  I  rode  that 
weary  journey,  changing  horses  every  fifteen  miles,  and  forcing 
the  vile  brutes  along  at  the  top  of  their  speed.  At  nine  next 
morning,  sore  from  head  to  foot,  I  was  clattering  over  the 
stones  of  the  Belgrade  main  street.  The  field  telegraph-wire 
had  conveyed  but  a  curt,  fragmentary  intimation  of  disaster  ; 
and  all  Belgrade,  feverish  for  further  news,  rushed  out  into 
the  street  as  I  powdered  along.  But  I  had  galloped  all  night, 
not  to  gossip  in  Belgrade  but  to  get  to  the  Semlin  telegraph- 
wire,  and  I  never  drew  rein  till  I  reached  the  ferry-boat.  At 
Semlin  one  long  drink  of  beer,  and  then  at  once  to  the  task 
of  writing,  hour  after  hour  against  time,  the  tidings  of  which 
I  was  the  bearer  from  the  interior.  After  I  had  written  my 
story  and  put  it  on  the  wires,  I  lay  down  in  my  clothes 
and  slept  twenty  hours  without  awakening  once.  I  had 
meant  to  start  back  for  Deligrad  on  the  afternoon  of  the 
day  of  my  arrival  in  Belgrade,  but  sheer  fatigue  had 
caused  me  to  lose  a  day  in  sleep.  It  seemed  to  me,  how- 
ever, when  I  recovered  from  my  chagrin  at  this  delay, 
that  perhaps,  after  all,  I  was  fairly  entitled  to  a  good 
long  sleep;  for  I  had  seen  a  battle  that  lasted  six  hours, 
ridden  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles,  and  written  to  the  Daily 


14  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

News  a  telegraphic  message  four  columns  long — all  in  the 
space  of  thirty  hours. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War  in  the  early 
spring  of  1877,  the  first  great  anxiety  with  the  correspondents 
who  were  detailed  to  follow  the  Russian  fortunes  was  to 
obtain  an.  authorisation  to  accompany  the  armies  in  the  field. 
Without  such  an  authorisation  the  correspondent,  if  he  gets 
forward  at  all,  is  liable  to  be  treated  as  a  spy  and  soon  finds 
himself  in  trouble.  I  suppose  there  is  no  correspondent  of 
any  considerable  general  experience  who  has  not  been  in 
custody  over  and  over  again  on  suspicion  of  being  a  spy.  I 
have  been  a  prisoner  myself  in  France  (made  so  both  by 
Germans  and  French),  Spain,  Servia,  Germany,  Hungary, 
Russia,  Roumania,  and  Bulgaria  ;  and  I  cannot  conscientiously 
recommend  any  of  these  countries  from  this  point  of  view. 
The  authorities  of  the  Russian  army  were  very  fair  and 
courteous  about  the  authorisations  of  correspondents.  In 
principle  they  accepted  all  who  presented  themselves  ac- 
credited by  respectable  papers  and  bringing  a  recommenda- 
tion from  any  Russian  ambassador.  There  was  to  be  no  field 
censorship ;  you  simply  gave  your  honour  not  to  reveal 
impending  movements,  concentrations,  and  intentions.  You 
might,  with  this  exception,  write  and  despatch  just  what  you 
chose ;  only  a  file  of  your  paper  had  to  be  sent  to  the  head- 
quarters, and  a  polyglot  officer — Colonel  Hausenkampf  by 
name — was  appointed  to  read  all  those  newspapers,  and  to 
be  down  upon  you  if  you  exceeded  what  he  considered  fair 
comment.  Then  you  got  a  warning ;  and,  if  you  were  held  to 
have  gravely  and  spitefully  transgressed,  you  were  expelled. 

I  always  pitied  the  unfortunate  Colonel  Hausenkampf 
from  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  He  had  to  read  all  the  letters 
published  in  all  the  newspapers  of  all  the  correspondents,  and 
I  predicted  for  him  either  speedy  suicide  or  hopeless  insanity. 
But  he  remained  alive  and  moderately  sane,  in  spite  of  this 
arduous  duty  and  of  the  task  which  at  the  outset  devolved 
upon  him,  of  listening  to  every  correspondent  who  made 
application  for  a  permission.  He  was  fearfully  badgered. 


THE  INSIGNIA   OF  THE   WAR  CORRESPONDENT.      15 

One  day  I  called  on  him  at  the  headquarters  in  Ploesti,  and 
found  him  seated  in  a  bower  in  a  garden,  resolutely  confronted 
by  a  gaunt  man  in  a  red  beard  and  a  ferocious  tweed  suit. 
"  Mon  Dieu ! "  exclaimed  the  Colonel  to  me — "  will  you 
oblige  me  by  taking  this  man  away  and  killing  him  ?  He  is 
a  Scotsman,  it  seems,  and  I  am  not  acquainted  with  the 
Scottish  language ;  he  knows  none  other  than  his  native 
tongue  !  He  comes  here  daily,  and  looms  over  me  obstinately 
for  an  hour  at  a  time,  firing  off  at  intervals  the  single  word 
'  Permission  ! '  and  tendering  me,  as  if  he  would  hold  a  pistol 
at  my  head,  a  letter  in  English  from  a  person  whom  he  calls 
the  Duke  of  Argyll — a  noble,  I  suppose,  of  this  wild  man's 
country  !  "  It  is  needless  to  add,  since  the  "  wild  man  "  was 
a  Scot,  that  he  achieved  his  permission  and  did  very  good 
work  as  a  correspondent. 

We  were  all  numbered  like  so  many  ticket-porters,  and  at 
first  carried  on  the  arm  a  huge  brass  badge,  which  heightened 
our  resemblance  to  the  members  of  that  respectable  avocation. 
The  French  correspondents'  sense  of  the  beautiful  was,  how- 
ever, outraged  by  this  neat  and  ornamental  distinguishing 
mark ;  so  at  their  instance  there  was  substituted  a  more 
dainty  style  of  brassard,  with  the  double-headed  eagle  in 
silver  lace  on  a  yellow  silk  ground.  The  permission  was 
written  on  the  back  of  the  photograph  of  the  correspondent 
to  whom  it  was  granted,  which  photograph  was  duly  stamped 
on  the  breast  of  the  subject  with  the  great  seal  of  the  head- 
quarters. A  duplicate  of  this  photograph  was  inserted  in  a 
"  Correspondents'  Album,"  kept  by  the  commandant  of  the 
headquarters.  When  I  last  saw  this  book  there  were  some 
eighty-two  photographs  in  it ;  and  I  am  bound  to  admit  that 
it  was  not  an  overwhelming  testimony  to  the  good  looks  of 
the  profession.  I  got,  I  remember,  into  sundry  and  divers 
difficulties  through  having  incautiously  shaved  off'  some  hair 
from  my  chin  which  was  there  when  my  photograph  was 
taken.  In  vain  I  argued  that  it  was  not  the  beard  that  made 

O 

the  man ;  the  sentries  were  stiff-necked  on  the  point  of 
identity,  and  I  had  to  cultivate  a  new  chin-tuft  with  great 
assiduity. 


16  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

My  most  prominent  colleague  in  the  Russo-Turkish  War 
was  Mr.  Januarius  Aloysius  MacGahan,  by  extraction  an 
Irishman,  by  birth  an  American.  Of  all  the  men  who  have 
gained  reputation  as  war  correspondents,  I  regard  MacGahan 
as  the  most  brilliant.  He  was  the  hero  of  that  wonderful 
lonely  ride  through  the  Great  Desert  of  Central  Asia  to  over- 
take Kauffmann's  Russian  army  on  its  march  to  Khiva.  He 
it  was  who  stirred  Europe  to  its  inmost  heart  by  the  terrible, 
and  not  less  truthful  than  terrible,  pictures  of  what  have 
passed  into  history  as  the  "  Bulgarian  atrocities."  It  is, 
indeed,  no  exaggeration  to  aver  that,  for  better  or  worse, 
MacGahan  was  the  virtual  author  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War. 
His  pen-pictures  of  the  atrocities  so  excited  the  fury  of  the 
Sclave  population  of  Russia,  that  their  passionate  demand  for 
retribution  on  the  "  unspeakable  Turk "  virtually  compelled 
the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  to  undertake  the  war.  MacGahan's 
work  throughout  the  long  campaign  was  singularly  effective,  and 
his  physical  exertions  were  extraordinary ;  yet  he  was  suffering 
all  through  from  a  lameness  that  would  have  disabled  eleven 
out  of  twelve  men.  He  had  broken  a  bone  in  his  ankle  just 
before  the  declaration  of  war,  and  when  I  first  met  him  the 
joint  was  encased  in  plaster-of-Paris.  He  insisted  on  ac- 
companying Gourko's  raid  across  the  Balkans  ;  and  in  the 
Hankioj  Pass  his  horse  slid  over  a  precipice  and  fell  on  its 
rider,  so  that  the  half-set  bone  was  broken  again.  But  the 
indomitable  MacGahan  refused  to  be  invalided  by  this 
mishap.  He  quietly  had  himself  hoisted  on  to  a  tumbril, 
and  so  went  through  the  whole  adventurous  expedition,  being 
involved  thus  helpless  in  several  actions,  and  once  ah1  but 
falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Turks.  He  kept  the  front 
throughout,  long  after  I  had  gone  home  disabled  by  fever; 
he  brilliantly  chronicled  the  fall  of  Plevna  and  the  surrender 
of  Osman  Pasha ;  he  crossed  the  Balkans  with  Skobeleft'  in 
the  dead  of  that  terrible  winter ;  and,  finally,  at  the  premature 
age  of  thirty-two,  he  died,  characteristically,  a  martyr  to  duty 
and  to  friendship.  When  the  Russian  armies  lay  around 
Constantinople  waiting  for  the  settlement  of  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin,  typhoid  fever  and  camp  pestilences  were  slaying  their 


AMERICAN  WAR   CORRESPONDENTS  IN  BULGARIA.    17 

thousands  and  their  tens  of  thousands.  Lieutenant  Greene, 
an  American  officer  officially  attached  to  the  Russian  army, 
fell  sick,  and  MacGahan  devoted  himself  to  the  duty  of 
nursing  his  countryman.  His  devotion  cost  him  his  life.  As 
Greene  was  recovering  MacGahan  sickened  of  malignant 
typhus ;  and  a  few  days  later  they  laid  him  in  his  far- oft 
foreign  grave,  around  which  stood  weeping  mourners  of  a 
dozen  nationalities. 

Another  colleague  was  Mr.  Frank- Millet,  who,  still  young, 
has  forsaken  the  war-path,  and  appears  to  be  on  the  high 
road  to  the  inferior  position  of  a  Royal  Academician.  Millet, 
like  MacGahan,  is  an  American.  He  accompanied  Gourko 
across  the  Balkans  after  the  fall  of  Plevna.  The  hardships 
which  he  cheerily  endured  when  men  were  frozen  around 
him  in  their  wretched  bivouacs  among  the  snow,  and  when 
to  write  his  letters  he  had  to  thaw  his  frozen  ink  and  chafe 
sensation  into  his  numbed  fingers,  move  admiration  not 
less  than  the  brilliant  quality  of  the  work  performed  under 
conditions  so  arduous.  Lieutenant  Greene,  in  his  work  on 
the  campaign  which  constitutes  its  history,  remarks  that  of 
the  seventy-five  correspondents  who  began  the  campaign  only 
three,  and  all  those  Americans — MacGahan  and  Millet  of  the 
Daily  News,  and  Grant  of  the  Times — followed  its  fortune 
to  the  close.  But  this  is  not  strictly  correct;  one  other 
member  of  our  profession — for  that  profession  surely  includes 
the  war-artist — saw  the  war  from  beginning  to  end,  Frederic 
Villiers,  then  the  artist-correspondent  of  the  Graphic. 

The  first  serious  fighting  of  the  campaign  occurred  on 
that  June  morning  when  Dragomiroff's  division  of  the 
Russian  army  forced  the  passage  of  the  Danube  under  the 
fire  of  the  Turkish  batteries  about  Sistova.  It  happened 
that  Villiers  and  I  were  the  only  correspondents  who  were 
spectators  of  that  operation. 

It  was  still  dark  when  we  threaded  our  way  through  the 

chaos   in  the  streets  of  Simnitza,  and   at  length  made  our 

way  down  into  the  willow  grove  by  the  Danube  side,  where 

Yolchine's  brigade  was  waiting  until  the  pontoon  boats  should 

c. 


18  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

be  ready  for  its  embarkation.  It  was  a  strange,  weird  time. 
The  darkness  was  so  dense  that  scarce  anything  could  be  seen 
around  one ;  and  the  Turkish  bank  was  only  just  to  be  dis- 
cerned, looming  black  up  against  the  hardly  less  dark  and 
sullen  sky.  Not  a  light  was  permitted — not  even  a  cigarette 
was  allowed  to  be  smoked.  When  men  spoke  at  all,  which 
was  but  seldom,  it  was  in  whispers ;  and  there  was  only  a 
soft  hum  of  low  talk,  half  drowned  by  the  gurgle  of  the 
Danube,  and  broken  occasionally  by  the  launching  of  a  pon- 
toon boat.  The  grey  dawn  faintly  began  to  break.  We  could 
dimly  discern  Dragomiroft',  mud  almost  to  the  waist,  directing 
the  marshalling  of  the  pontoon  boats  close  to  the  water's  edge. 
Here  come  the  "  Avengers,"  a  stern,  silent  band,  the  cross  in 
silver  standing  out  from  the  sombre  fur  of  their  caps.  They 
have  the  place  of  honour  in  the  first  boats.  As  the  leading  pon- 
toon pulls  out,  Captain  Liegnitz,  the  gallant  German  attache, 
darts  forward  and  leaps  into  it.  The  stalwart  Linesmen  of 
Yolchine's  brigade  are  manning  the  other  boats.  The  strong 
strokes  of  the  sailors  shoot  us  out  into  the  stream.  The  gloom 
of  the  night  is  waning  fast,  and  now  we  can  faintly  discern,  across 
the  broad  swirl  of  water,  the  crags  of  the  Turkish  bank  and  the 
steep  slope  above.  What  if  the  Turks  are  there  in  force  ? 
A  grim  precipice  that,  truly,  to  carry  at  the  bayonet  point 
in  the  teeth  of  a  determined  enemy !  And  an  enemy  is  there, 
sure  enough,  and  on  the  alert.  There  is  a  flash  out  of  the 
gloom,  and  the  near  whistle  and  scream  of  a  shell  thrills  us 
as  it  speeds  over  us  and  bursts  among  the  men  in  the  willows 
behind  us.  There  follows  shell  after  shell,  from  right  oppo- 
site, from  higher  up,  and  from  the  knoll  still  higher  up,  close 
to  where  the  minarets  of  Sistova  are  now  dimly  visible.  The 
shells  are  falling  and  bursting  on  the  surface  of  the  Danube  ; 
they  splash  us  with  the  spray  they  raise ;  their  jagged 
splinters  fly  yelling  by  us.  There  is  no  shelter;  we  must 
stand  here  in  this  open  boat,  this  densely  packed  mass  of 
men,  and  take  what  fortune  Heaven  may  send  us.  The  face 
of  the  Danube,  pitted  with  falling  shells,  is  flecked  too  Avith 
craft  crowded  to  the  gunwale.  Hark  to  that  crash,  the 
splintering  of  wood  and  the  riving  of  iron,  there  on  our 


THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  DANUBE.  19 

starboard  quarter!  A  huge  pontoon  laden  with  guns  and 
gunners  has  been  struck  by  a  shell.  It  heaves  heavily  twice ; 
its  stern  rises ;  there  are  wild  cries — a  confused  turmoil  of 
men  and  horses  struggling  in  the  water ;  the  guns  sink, 
and  drowning  men  drift  by  us  with  the  current  down  to 
their  death.  From  out  the  foliage,  now,  in  the  little  cove 
for  which  we  are  heading,  belches  forth  volley  after  volley 
of  musketry  fire,  helping  the  devilry  of  the  shells.  Several 
men  of  our  crew  are  down  ere  our  craft  touches  the  mud  ot 
the  Danube  shore.  The  "  Avengers "  are  already  landed ; 
so  is  Yolchine,  with  a  handful  of  his  Linesmen.  As  we  tumble 
out  of  the  boats  with  the  bullets  whizzing  about  our  ears,  and 
swarm  up  on  to  the  bank,  we  are  bidden  by  energetic  orders 
to  lie  down.  We  fall  prone  on  the  damp  and  rnuddy  sward 
under  the  cover  of  a  little  bank.  Already  dead  and  wounded 
men  lie  here  thick  among  the  living  and  hale.  Boat  after 
boat  has  disembarked  its  freight.  At  length  Yolchine  thinks 
he  has  men  enough.  He  who,  with  young  SkobelefT,  has 
never  lain  down,  gives  the  word,  and  the  two  spring  up  the 
bank;  a  billow  of  strong,  supple  Russian  soldiers  released 
from  restraint  surges  with  resistless  rush  up  the  steep  ascent. 
The  detachment  of  Turkish  soldiers  holding  the  position  are 
overwhelmed,  but  they  do  not  fly.  No ;  they  die  where  they 
stand,  neither  quailing  nor  asking  for  quarter.  For  that  brave 
band  of  Mustaphis,  Abdul  Kerim  Pasha  unconsciously  fur- 
nished a  noble  epitaph.  "  They  have  never  been  heard  of 
since,"  he  wrote.  No,  nor  will  they  till  the  last  trumpet 
sounds ! 

The  first  time  I  saw  close  the  Emperor  Alexander  II.,  so 
ruthlessly  assassinated  a  few  years  later,  was  on  the  day  after 
that  June  morning  on  which  General  Dragomiroffs  division 
of  Russian  soldiers  had  forced,  with  considerable  loss,  the 
passage  of  the  Danube.  The  Tzar  had  coine  to  thank  his 
gallant  troops  for  the  exploit  of  fighting  their  way  across 
the  great  river  under  conditions  so  arduous.  In  front  of 
the  long  massive  line  drawn  up  on  the  crest  of  the  slope 
to  the  eastward  of  Sistova  stood  three  men  awaiting  the 
c  2 


20  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

coming  of  the  Great  White  Tzar — the  divisional  General 
Dragomiroff ;  the  brigadier,  gallant  old  Yolchine ;  and  young 
Skobeleff,  who  had  shown  the  way  to  all  and  sundry.  The 
Emperor,  having  acknowledged  the  salute  and  greeting  of 
the  troops,  embraced  the  divisional  general  in  the  Russian 
fashion,  and  shook  hands  cordially  with  the  cheery  little 
brigadier.  Then  he  approached  Skobeleff— -and  we  all 
watched  the  little  scene  with  intent  curiosity ;  for  it  was 
as  notorious  that  Skobeleff  was  in  disfavour,  as  that  his 
splendid  valour  of  the  previous  morning  might  well  have 
effaced  any  save  the  most  obstinate  disfavour.  For  a  moment 
Alexander  hesitated  as  the  two  tall,  proud,  soldierly  men 
confronted  each  other;  one  could  discern  in  the  working 
of  his  features  the  short  struggle  between  prejudice  and 
appreciation.  It  was  soon  over,  and  the  wrong  way  lor 
Skobeleff  The  Tzar  frowned,  turned  short  on  his  heel,  and 
strode  resolutely  away  without  a  gesture  or  a  word  of  notice. 
Skobeleff,  for  his  part,  bowed  deeply,  flushed  scarlet,  then 
grew  pale  and  set  his  teeth  hard.  It  was  a  flagrant  slight 
in  the  very  face  of  the  army,  and  a  gross  injustice ;  but 
Skobeleff  took  it  in  a  proud  silence  that  seemed  to  me 
very  noble.  It  was  not  long  before  he  could  afford  to  be 
magnanimous.  This  despite  was  done  him  on  the  29th  of 
June.  On  September  3rd  Skobeleff,  after  having  heaped 
exploit  on  exploit,  led  the  successful  assault  on  the  Turkish 
position  at  Loftcha,  and  drove  his  adversaries  out  of  that 
strong  place  not  less  by  the  splendid  daring  he  so  con- 
spicuously displayed  than  by  the  skilmlness  of  the  tactics  he 
had  devised.  On  the  following  evening,  at  his  own  dinner- 
table  in  the  imperial  marquee  at  Gorni  Studen,  Tzar  Alex- 
ander stood  up  and  bade  the  company  to  pledge  him  in  a 
toast  to  "  Skobeleff,  the  hero  of  Loftcha  ! "  It  has  not  been 
given  to  many  men  to  earn  a  vindication  so  grand  and 
triumphant  as  that.  Nor  is  it  every  omnipotent  Emperor 
who  would  have  shown  a  frankness  so  manful.  Absolute 
monarchs  are  not  addicted  to  constructive  apologies. 

In   campaigning   in   Bulgaria   we  correspondents  had  to 


GIPSYING  IN  CAMPAIGN.  21 

rely  on  our  own  resources ;  it  was  like  going  a-gipsying, 
with  now  and  then  a  battle  thrown  in  by  way  of  variety. 
When  our  Russian  friends  crossed  the  Danube,  it  became 
necessary  for  us  to  abandon  the  flesh-pots  of  Egypt,  in  the 
shape  of  the  civilisation,  beauty,  and  good  cooking  of 
Bucharest,  and  to  depart,  so  to  speak,  into  the  wilderness, 
there  to  join  the  army.  My  companion  in  this,  as  in  previous 
campaigns,  was  Frederic  Villiers,  then  the  artist  of  the 
Grapliic.  Villiers  is  an  excellent  fellow,  but  he  had,  like  the 
rest  of  us,  his  weak  points.  Perhaps  his  weakest  point  was 
that  he  imagined  going  to  bed  in  his  spurs  contributed  to  his 
martial  aspect.  He  may  have  been  right,  but  as  I  shared  the 
bed-place  on  the  floor  of  a  narrow  waggon,  I  did  not  see  the 
matter  quite  in  that  light.  We  had  for  joint  attendant  my 
old  Servian  courier  Andreas.  Let  me  describe  our  travelling 
equipage.  We  had  found  in  Bucharest  a  vehicle  which, 
when  covered  with  leather  and  fitted  with  sundry  appliances, 
made  a  sufficient  habitation  for  two  men  who  could  pack 
tight,  and  give  and  take  one  with  the  other.  By  a 
simple  arrangement  the  floor  of  this  carriage  became  at 
night  a  bed-place,  the  cushions,  and  the  poultry  which 
Andreas  cherished,  serving  for  a  mattress.  Our  waggon 
was  drawn  by  two  sturdy  grey  horses,  one  of  which  was 
blind — a  characteristic  which  the  man  who  sold  him  to  us 
cited  as  an  important  advantage,  as  calculated  to  make 
him  steadier  in  a  crowd.  The  vehicle  I  have  described  was 
not  a  waggon  only.  Cunningly  contrived  in  a  roll  attached 
to  one  of  its  sides,  we  carried  a  sort  of  elementary  canvas 
apartment.  Villiers  and  I  were  "  at  home "  in  our  canvas 
drawing-room  to  some  very  distinguished  personages  in  the 
course  of  the  campaign.  If  Ave  were  within  there  was  no 
pleading  "not  at  home,"  for,  as  the  awning  was  open  on  at 
least  two  sides,  the  inmates  were  visible  to  the  naked  eye 
a  long  way  off.  Our  cooking  appliances  consisted  of  a  stew- 
pan  and  a  frying-pan.  One  does  not  require  any  more 
weapons  than  these  to  perform  wherewithal  the  functions 
of  a  plain  cook.  I  arn  a  plain  cook  myself;  perhaps,  to 
be  more  explicit,  I  should  say  a  very  plain  cook.  Of  one 


22  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

grand  discovery  in  culinary  science  I  can  boast.  I  found 
out  in  Bulgaria  that  when  you  attempt  to  fry  lean  meat 
without  fat,  lard,  oil,  or  butter,  you  not  only  burn  the  meat, 
but  you  burn  the  frying-pan  also ! 

In  the  early  days  of  this  campaign — MacGahan  away 
beyond  the  Balkans  with  Gourko,  and  Millet  far  off  in  the 
Dobrutcha  with  Zimmermann — the  task  devolved  upon  me 
of  covering  Bulgaria  from  the  right  flank  to  the  left  flank 
of  the  Russian  main  advance ;  and  I  had  to  be  in  the 
saddle  morning,  noon,  and  night;  for  I  had  to  try  at  least 
to  see  everything,  and  I  mostly  had  to  be  my  own  courier 
back  to  the  telegraph  base  at  Bucharest.  General  Ignatieff, 
the  famous  diplomatist,  was  a  good  friend  in  giving  me 
timely  hints  of  impending  events.  When  I  was  taking 
leave  of  him  after  my  first  visit,  the  general  said :  "  Come 
to  me  when  you  want  anything.  I  like  your  paper  because 
it  is  a  Christian  paper,  and  I  am  a  very  Christian  man; 
and  if  I  am  not  mistaken  you  are  so  also."  I  regarded 
this  last  observation  as  strong  proof  of  the  aphorism  that 
discerning  penetration  is  one  of  the  leading  attributes  of  a 
great  diplomatist. 

Probably — pace  Lord  Wolseley — there  is  no  harder  toil 
than  that  which  the  zealous  war  correspondent  must 
undergo  in  a  country  almost  wholly  destitute  of  commu- 
nications, and  when  momentous  events  are  crowding  fast 
one  on  the  other.  The  nearest  telegraph  office  is  his  goal; 
for  us  in  Bulgaria,  the  nearest  available  telegraph  office  was 
in  Bucharest,  scores  of  long  miles  distant.  The  supply  of 
trustworthy  couriers  was  very  scanty,  and  even  the  best 
courier  will  not  strain  ardently  when  he  is  not  working  for 
his  own  hand.  I  write  in  constant  consciousness  of  being 
over-egotistic ;  but  one  would  like  that  the  newspaper-reader 
at  home  should  know  under  what  conditions  he  is  served 
with  war  news.  To  this  day  I  shudder  at  the  recollection 
of  those  long  wearisome  rides  on  dead-tired  horses  from  the 
Lorn,  or  the  Balkans,  or  the  Plevna  country,  through  the 
foodless  region  down  to  Sistova  on  the  Danube,  where  the 
bridge  of  boats  was.  Leaving  iny  horse  in  Sistova,  I  would 


DUCKED  IN  THE  DANUBE.  23 

tramp  in  the  darkness  across  the  bridge  and  over  the 
islands  and  flats  ankle-deep  in  sand,  the  three  miles'  dis- 
tance to  Simnitza,  the  squalid  village  on  the  Roumanian 
side  of  the  great  river.  I  have  reached  Simnitza  so  beaten 
that  I  could  scarcely  stagger  up  the  slope.  Once  when  I 
got  to  the  Danube  bridge,  I  found  that  it  was  forbidden 
to  cross  it.  Several  pontoons  in  the  centre,  said  the  officer 
on  duty,  were  under  water,  and  there  was  no  thoroughfare; 
nobody,  he  said,  was  allowed  to  go  upon  it.  I  respectfully 
represented  to  him  that  as  I  did  not  belong  to  the  Russian 
army,  it  was  nothing  to  him  what  might  happen  to  me. 
He  laughed  ;  said  that  if  I  drowned  it  was  no  affair  of  his ; 
and,  to  quote  his  own  lively  expression,  that  I  might  go 
to  the  devil  if  I  had  a  mind,  I  escaped  the  devil,  but 
had  to  accept  a  thorough  ducking,  and  was  very  nearly 
carried  down  stream  in  the  direction  of  the  Black  Sea, 
which  might  have  been  a  worse  fate  than  that  in- 
dicated by  the  Russian  officer.  Simnitza  reached  some- 
how, there  were  still  about  ninety  miles  to  Bucharest.  Off' 
then  to  Giurgevo,  a  fifty  miles'  night  ride  in  a  country 
rattle-trap  drawn  by  four  half  -  broken  ponies  harnessed 
abreast.  I  have  been  upset  freely  all  along  that  dreary 
plain;  spilt  into  a  river,  capsized  into  a  village,  overturned 
by  a  dead  horse  into  a  foul  and  dismal  swamp.  During 
the  railway  journey  from  Giurgevo  to  Bucharest  it  was 
possible  to  begin  inditing  my  telegram,  writing  a  few  pages 
at  a  time  when  the  stoppages  at  the  stations  occurred. 
Bucharest  finally  reached,  I  had  to  finish  my  message 
without  delaying  even  to  wash,  that  it  might  be  in  time 
for  next  morning's  paper  in  England.  I  have  reached 
Bucharest  so  encased  with  mud,  so  blackened  with  powder, 
so  clotted  with  inch-deep  dust,  so  blistered  with  heat,  that 
the  people  of  Brofft's  hotel  had  difficulty  in  recognising  me. 
The  telegram  finished — long  or  short,  there  was  no  respite 
till  that  were  done — came  a  bath  and  then  food — they  used 
to  charge  me  double  price  for  those  meals,  and  I  rather 
think  they  lost  money ;  and  then  a  few  hours'  sleep  till 
the  evening  train  back  to  Giurgevo  should  start.  Up  and 


24  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

off  again  by  it,  and  so  back  without  a  halt  to  the  position 
which  I  had  quitted  to  despatch  the  telegram. 

Villiers  and  myself  were  the  only  civilian  spectators  of 
the  desperate  and  futile  attack  which  the  Russian  soldiers 
commanded  by  Kriidener  and  Schahoffskoy  made  on  that 
lovely  July  day  of  1877  upon  the  girdle  of  earthworks  with 
which  Osman  Pasha  had  partly  surrounded  the  Bulgarian 
town  of  Plevna.  Up  among  the  oak  shrubs  on  the  height 
of  Radischevo,  while  the  Russian  cannon  thundered  over 
our  heads,  we  watched  the  resolute  but  hopeless  assaults  of 
the  Russian  infantrymen  on  the  Turkish  redoubts  on  the 
gentle  swell  in  the  bosom  of  the  great  central  valley. 
Plevna  lay  down  yonder  to  the  left  front  in  its  snug  valley 
among  the  foliage,  quiet  and  serene  like  a  sleeping  babe 
amidst  a  pack  of  raging  wolves,  the  sun  glinting  on  its 
spires  and  minarets.  Behind  us,  the  Russian  cannon  belch- 
ing fire  and  iron.  Close  to  us.  the  general  with  set  face 
and  terrible  eager  eyes,  the  working  of  his  lips  and  fingers 
belying  his  forced  composure.  And  at  our  feet  hell  itself, 
raging  in  all  its  lurid  splendour,  all  its  fell  horror.  A 
chaos  of  noises  comes  back  to  us  in  the  light  summer 
wind :  the  sharp  crackle  of  the  rifle  fire,  the  ping  of  the 
bullets,  the  crash  of  near- exploding  shells,  loud  shouts  of 
reckless  men  bent  on  death  or  victory,  shrieks  and  yells  of 
anguish — ay,  even  groans,  so  near  are  we.  Look  at  that 
swift  rush ;  see  the  upheaval  of  the  flashing  bayonets,  listen 
to  the  roar  of  triumph,  sharpened  by  the  clash  of  steel 
against  steel!  There  is  an  answering  hurrah  from  the 
Russian  gunners  above  us,  for  the  Russian  infantrymen 
have  carried  at  the  bayonet-point  the  two  nearest  Turkish 
redoubts. 

Yes;  that  much,  it  is  true,  was  gallantly  accomplished, 
but  with  a  terrible  loss  of  life  and  waste  of  blood.  The 
struggle  will  bear  telling  more  in  detail.  Two  brigades 
were  lying  down  in  the  reverse  slope  of  the  ridge  behind 
the  guns,  and,  therefore,  behind  us  also.  The  order  to  rise 
up  and  advance  over  the  ridge  was  hailed  with  cheers; 


THE  JULY  BATTLE  OF  PLEVNA.  25 

and  the  battalions,  with  a  swift,  swinging  step  streamed 
up  the  steep  slope,  the  movement  heralded  by  the  artillery 
with  increased  rapidity  of  fire.  That  fire  was  momentarily 
arrested  while  the  infantrymen  crossed  the  ridge,  breaking 
ranks  to  pass  through  the  interval  between  the  guns,  which 
presently,  as  soon  as  the  front  was  clear  again,  renewed  their 
fire  with  feverish  activity.  The  Turkish  shells  hurtled 
through  the  ranks  as  the  Russian  battalions  advanced,  and 
men  were  already  down  in  numbers  ;  but  the  long  undu- 
lating line  tramped  steadily  over  the  stubble  of  the  ridge, 
and  crashed  through  the  undergrowth  in  which  we  were 
sitting  on  the  descent  beyond.  No  skirmish  line  was 
thrown  out  in  advance.  The  fighting  line  remained  the 
formation  for  a  time,  till,  what  with  impatience  and  what 
with  men  dropping,  it  broke  into  a  rapid  spray  of  humanity, 
and  surged  on  swiftly  and  with  no  close  cohesion.  The 
supports  were  close  up,  and  ran  forward  into  the  fighting 
line  independently  and  eagerly.  It  was  a  veritable  chase 
of  fighting  men  impelled  by  a  burning  desire  to  get  for- 
ward and  come  to  close  quarters  with  the  enemy  firing  at 
them  yonder  from  behind  the  shelter  of  the  parapet  of  the 
redoubt. 

Villiers  follows  with  his  eye  the  fortunes  of  the  left 
brigade,  I  concentrate  my  attention  on  the  right — Tcher- 
koffs — brigade.  Presently  all  along  the  face  of  the  infantry 
advance  burst  forth  flaming  volleys  of  musketry  fire.  The 
jagged  line  springs  onward  through  the  maize-fields,  gradu- 
ally assuming  a  concave  front.  .  The  roll  of  rifle  fire  from 
both  sides  is  incessant,  yet  dominated  by  the  fiercer  and 
louder  turmoil  of  the  artillery  above  us.  The  cannon  re- 
double the  energy  of  their  fire.  The  crackle  of  the  musketry 
fire  swells  into  a  sharp  continuous  peal.  The  clamour  of 
the  hurrahs  of  the  fighting  men  comes  back  to  us  on  the 
breeze,  making  the  blood  tingle  with  the  excitement  of 
the  fray.  A  village  is  blazing  on  the  left.  The  fell  fury  of 
the  battle  has  entered  on  its  maddest  paroxysm.  The 
reserves  which  had  remained  behind  the  crest  are  being 
pushed  forward  over  the  ridge  in  reinforcement.  The 


26  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

wounded  are  beginning  to  trickle  back  to  behind  the  ridge 
— some  of  the  poor  fellows  have  already  passed  us.  We 
can  see  the  dead  and  the  more  severely  wounded  lying 
where  they  have  fallen  on  the  stubbles  and  among  the 
maize.  The  living  waves  of  fighting  men  are  pouring  over 
them  ever  on  and  on.  The  gunners  behind  us  stand  to 
their  work  with  a  will  on  the  shell -swept  ridge.  The 
Turkish  cannon  fire  begins  to  weaken  from  that  earthwork 
opposite  to  us.  More  supports  stream  down  with  a  louder 
cheer  into  the  Russian  fighting  line.  Suddenly  the  discon- 
nected bodies  are  drawing  together.  We  can  discern  the 
officers  signalling  for  the  concentration  by  the  waving  of 
their  swords.  The  distance  of  the  Russian  front  from  the 
Turkish  parapet  is  not  now  200  yards.  There  is  a  wild 
rush,  headed  by  the  colonel  of  the  central  battalion  of  the 
brigade.  The  Turks  in  the  redoubt  hold  their  ground,  and 
fire  steadily  and  with  terrible  effect,  into  the  rushing 
masses  of  their  enemies.  The  colonel's  horse  goes  down.  Yes, 
but  the  colonel  is  on  his  feet  in  a  second,  and  waving  his 
sword,  leads  his  men  forward  on  foot.  But  only  for  a  few 
paces.  He  staggers  and  falls ;  the  brave  colonel  is  a  dead 
man. 

We  can  hear  faintly  the  tempest-gust  of  wrath,  half 
howl,  half  yell,  with  which  his  men — bayonets  at  the  charge 
— rush  on  to  avenge  him.  They  are  across  the  ditch  and 
over  the  parapet,  and  in  among  the  Turks  in  an  avalanche 
of  maddened  revenge.  Not  many  Turks  get  the  chance  to 
escape  from  the  gleaming  bayonets  swayed  by  muscular 
Russian  arms.  There  was  a  momentary  desperate  struggle, 
hand  to  hand,  bayonet  to  bayonet;  and  then  the  Russians 
were  in  possession  of  the  Turkish  redoubt  No.  1,  with  the 
two  guns  inside  it.  The  Turks  had  been  hurled  out,  what 
of  them  lived  to  escape  ;  we  watched  the  huddled  mass  of 
them  in  the  gardens  and  vineyards  behind  the  position, 
cramming  the  narrow  track  between  the  trees  to  gain  the 
cover  of  their  second  position. 

The  redoubt  farther  to  the  left  was  also  captured,  but, 
although  Schahoffskoy  threw  in  repeated  reinforcements,  it 


THE   RUSSIAN  DEFEAT.  27 

could  not  be  held  by  the  Russians,  although  they  were  loath 
to  leave  grip  of  it. 

And  now,  ardent  as  they  are,  the  Russians  get  no 
farther.  It  is  but  too  apparent  that  there  are  not  men 
enough  for  the  further  enterprise.  Nearer  Plevna,  there 
has  occurred  a  swift  succession  of  furious  charges  and 
countercharges  between  Turks  and  Russians,  in  which,  as 
the  final  issue,  the  latter  have  got  the  worse.  See  the 
stubborn,  gallant  fellows  there,  standing  now  all  but  leader- 
less — for  nearly  all  the  officers  are  down — sternly  waiting 
death  there  for  lack  of  leaders  either  to  lead  them  forward 
or  to  march  them  back !  Noble  heroism  or  sheer  stolidity, 
which  ?  "  For  God  and  the  Tzar ! "  is  the  shout  of  answer 
that  comes  back  to  us  on  the  wind,  as  the  gaps  torn  open 
by  the  Turkish  fire  are  made  good,  and  the  ranks  knit 
themselves  the  closer.  The  utter  pity  of  it !  A  craving 
that  is  almost  irresistible  comes  over  one  to  abandon  inac- 
tion, and  to  be  doing  something  —  something,  no  matter 
what,  in  this  acme,  this  climax  of  concentrated  slaughter. 
The  mad  excitement  of  the  battle  surges  up  into  the  brain 
like  strong  drink.  The  estimable  citizen  sitting  at  home 
at  ease,  can  form  no  idea  how  hard  it  is,  in  such  a  convul- 
sion of  emotion,  to  bide  at  rest  and  write  out  a  telegram 
with  industrious  accuracy ;  how  difficult  to  compose  sen- 
tences coherently  when  the  brain  is  on  fire  and  the  pulses 
are  bounding  as  if  they  would  burst. 

The  sun  sank  in  a  glow  of  lurid  crimson.  The  Russian 
defeat  was  utter.  The  debris  of  the  attacking  troops  came 
sullenly  back,  companies  that  had  gone  down  into  the  fray 
two  hundred  strong  returning  now  by  fives  and  tens.  For 
three  hours  there  had  been  a  steady  current  of  wounded  men 
up  from  out  the  battle  to  the  reverse  slope  of  the  ridge  from 
the  face  of  which  we  watched,  back  into  comparative  safety. 
All  around  us  the  air  was  heavy  with  the  low  moaning  of  the 
wounded,  who  had  cast  themselves  down  behind  us  to  gain 
relief  from  the  agony  of  motion.  A  crowd  of  maimed 
wretches  were  hustling  each  other  round  the  fountain  at  the 
foot  of  the  slope,  craving  with  wistful  longing  for  a  few  drops 


28  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

of  its  blood-stained  and  scanty  water.  Bad  was  their  plight ; 
but  one's  blood  turned  at  the  thought  of  the  awful  fate  of 
the  poor  fellows  who,  too  severely  wounded  to  move  to  the 
rear,  were  lying  on  the  maize-slopes  down  there,  waiting  for 
inevitable  cruel  death  at  the  hands  of  an  enemy  who  not 
only  gave  no  quarter,  but  savagely  mutilated  before  he  slew. 

The  Turks  spread  over  the  battlefield,  slaughtering  as 
they  advanced,  and  were  threatening  to  carry  the  ridge,  when 
the  wounded  who  lay  behind  it  would  have  been  at  their 
cruel  mercy.  In  this  hour  of  terrible  strain  Schahoffskoy 
proved  himself  a  gallant  and  a  feeling  man.  "  Gentlemen,"  said 
he  to  his  staff  and  the  people  about  hirn,  "  we  and  the  escort 
must  co-operate  to  hold  the  front.  These  poor  wounded 
must  not  be  abandoned ! "  The  bugle  sounded  the  "  assembly," 
but  there  rallied  to  the  sound  but  a  poor  company  of  beaten- 
out  men,  most  of  whom  were  wounded.  We  extended  along 
that  grim  ridge,  each  man  moving  to  and  fro  in  a  little  beat 
of  his  own,  to  show  a  semblance  of  force  against  the  Bashi- 
Bazouks.  Through  the  glowing  darkness  one  could  watch 
the  streaks  of  flame  foreshortened  close  below  us ;  and  nerves, 
tried  by  a  long  day  of  foodlessness,  excitement,  fatigue,  and 
constant  exposure  to  danger,  quivered  under  the  prolonged 
tension  of  endurance  as  the  throbbing  hum  of  the  bullets 
sped  through  or  over  the  straggling  line.  At  length  dragoons 
from  the  reserve  relieved  us;  and  so,  following  the  general 
who  had  lost  an  army  going  in  search  of  an  army  which  had 
lost  its  general,  we  turned  the  heads  of  our  jaded  horses,  and, 
threading  our  way  through  the  wounded,  rode  slowly  away 
from  the  blood-stained  ridge.  It  was  only  to  endure  a  night 
of  wretchedness.  No  sooner  had  we  established  a  bivouac, 
and  general  and  aide-de-camp,  Cossack  and  correspondent, 
had  thrown  themselves  on  the  dewy  ground  and  fallen  into 
slumber,  than  the  alarm  arose  that  the  Bashi-Bazouks  were 
surrounding  us.  Again  and  again  the  little  band  wearily 
arose  and  struggled  its  way  through  the  loose  environment  of 
the  Turkish  marauders.  At  length  daybreak  came,  and  I 
rode  away  on  the  journey  to  Bucharest,  the  bearer  to  the 
world  of  the  details  of  the  catastrophe.  Mile  after  mile  of 


A   GREAT  EXODUS.  29 

thtat  dreary  road  the  good  horse  covered  loyally,  tired  and 
foodless  as  he  was ;  but  I  felt  him  gradually  dying  away 
under  me.  The  stride  shortened,  and  the  flanks  began  to 
heave  ominously.  I  had  to  spur  him  sharply,  although  I  felt 
every  stab  as  if  it  had  pierced  myself.  If  he  could  only  hold 
on  to  Sistova,  rest  and  food  awaited  him  there.  But  some 
three  miles  short  of  that  place  he  staggered,  and  then  went 
down.  I  had  to  leave  the  poor  gallant  brute  as  he  fell,  and 
tramp  on  into  Sistova  with  my  saddle  on  my  head. 

The  Russo-Turkish  campaign  had  been  in  progress  for 
several  months  before  I  had  the  honour  of  being  presented  to 
the  Emperor  Alexander  II.  That  fell  out  in  this  wise.  The 
Imperial  headquarters  were  in  the  Bulgarian  village  of  Gorni 
Studen  when  the  fighting  began  in  the  Schipka  Pass  up  in 
the  Balkans.  General  Ignatieff  gave  me  a  timely  hint,  and  I 
started  immediately  for  the  scene  of  action.  As  we  rode 
along  through  the  beautiful  valleys  that  trend  up  into  the 
Balkans,  we  met  the  hordes  of  wretched  Bulgarian  fugitives 
who  had  fled  across  the  mountain  chain  from  the  fell 
retribution  of  the  Turks.  The  whole  country  seemed  one 
great  picnic ;  but  it  was  an  indescribably  mournful  picnic. 
My  artist-companion  revelled  in  the  picturesqueness  of  the 
vivid  colours  of  the  women's  dresses ;  but  he  had  no  heart  to 
depict  the  bivouacs  in  their  profound  misery.  We  were  the 
witnesses,  not  of  a  few  casual  fugitives,  but  of  the  general 
exodus  of  the  inhabitants  of  a  whole  province.  There  were 
peasants,  but  there  were  also  many  families  of  the  better  class 
—families  whose  women  were  dressed,  not  in  dingy  Bulgarian 
clouts  or  in  Turkish  trousers,  but  as  the  Englishwoman  of  the 
period  attired  herself.  There  were  women  to  whom  one  felt 
it  not  quite  the  thing  to  speak  without  an  introduction,  yet 
whose  only  habitation  was  the  shade  of  a  tree,  whose  only 
means  of  conveyance  was  a  miserable  pony  on  which  they  sat 
with  a  child  in  arms  and  another  clinging  behind.  Many 
had  no  means  of  conveyance  at  all ;  and  one  saw  women 
plodding  painfully,  carrying  children  in  their  arms,  whom 
they  tried  to  shade  with  parasols — poor  fond  creatures ! — the 


30  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

tender  folly  of  motherhood,  when  homes  were  blazing 
behind  them,  and  misery  about  them  and  before  them.  In 
war  men  take  their  chance — if  they  fall,  they  fall,  so  to  speak, 
in  the  way  of  business — but  the  business  sickens  one  when 
the  rigours  of  evil  fortune  involve  helpless  women  and 
children. 

We  reached  the  fire-swept  pass  of  the  Schipka  on  the 
afternoon  of  August  23rd,  just  as  the  Russian  fortunes  were 
trembling  in  the  balance.  There  had  been  almost  continuous 
fighting  ever  since  the  morning  of  the  21st.  Suleiman's 
Turks  were  30,000  strong.  At  the  beginning  Darozinski,  the 
Russian  commander  of  the  force  garrisoning  the  Schipka,  had 
little  more  than  5,000  bayonets  with  forty  guns  in  the 
defensive  positions.  There  had  come  to  him  early  on  the  22nd, 
swiftly  marching  from  Selvi,  a  strong  regiment  commanded  by 
the  valiant  Colonel  Stolietoff,  wrho  a  few  months  later  con- 
ducted a  Russian  mission  from  Central  Asia  to  Cabul,  an 
enterprise  which  gave  rise  to  the  Afghan  war  of  the  winter  of 
1878-79.  The  unequal  fight  of  7,000  Russians  against  30,000 
Turks  lasted  for  many  hours.  And  at  length,  as  the  shadows 
were  falling,  the  Turks  had  so  worked  round  on  both  the 
Russian  flanks  that  it  seemed  as  though  the  claws  of  the  crab 
were  momentarily  about  to  close  behind  the  worn  Muscovites, 
and  as  if  the  Turkish  columns  climbing  either  face  of  the 
Russian  ridge  would  clasp  hands  in  rear  of  the  Russian 
position. 

The  moment  was  dramatic  with  an  intensity  to  which  the 
tameness  of  civilian  life  can  furnish  no  parallel.  The  two 
Russian  chiefs,  expecting  imminently  to  be  environed,  had 
sent  a  last  telegram  to  the  Tzar  assuring  him  that,  please 
God,  driven  into  their  positions  and  beset,  they  and  their 
soldiers  would  hold  their  ground  to  the  last  drop  of  the  last 
man's  blood.  It  was  six  o'clock.  There  was  a  lull  in  the 
fighting,  of  which  the  Russians  could  take  no  advantage 
since  the  reserves  were  engaged  up  to  the  hilt.  The  grimed, 
sun-blistered  men  were  beaten  out  with  heat,  fatigue,  hunger, 
thirst,  and  wounds.  There  had  been  no  cooking  for  three 
days,  and  there  was  no  water  within  the  Russian  lines.  The 


EADETSKY  TO   THE  RESCUE.  31 

poor  fellows  lay  panting  on  the  bare  ridge,  reckless  in  their 
utter  exhaustion  that  it  Avas  swept  by  the  Turkish  rifle  fire. 
Others  doggedly  fought  on  down  among  the  rocks,  forced  to 
give  ground,  but  doing  so  grimly  and  reluctantly.  The  cliffs 
and  valleys  resounded  with  triumphant  Turkish  shouts  of 
"Allah!  il  Allah!" 

The  two  Russian  commanders  stood  on  the  parapet  of  the 
St.  Nicholas  redoubt,  on  the  loftiest  and  most  exposed  peak 
of  the  position.  Their  glasses  were  scanning  the  visible 
glimpses  of  the  steep  brown  road  leading  up  from  out  the 
lantra  Valley,  through  stunted  copses  of  sombre  green  and 
yet  •  more  sombre  dark  rock.  Stolietoff  cries  aloud  in  a 
sudden  access  of  excitement,  grips  his  brother  commander 
hard  by  the  arm,  and  points  down  the  pass.  The  head  of  a 
long  black  column  is  plainly  visible  against  the  reddish-brown 
bed  of  the  road.  "  Now  God  be  thanked ! "  exclaims 
Darozinski  solemnly.  He  was  a  dead  man  thirty  hours  later. 
Both  commanders  cross  themselves  with  bared  heads.  The 
troops  spring  to  their  feet ;  they  descry  the  long  black  serpent 
coiling  up  the  tortuous  brown  road.  Through  the  green 
copses  a  glint  of  sunshine  flashes,  banishes  the  sombreness, 
and  dances  on  the  glittering  bayonets. 

Such  a  gust  of  Russian  cheers  whirled  and  eddied  among 
the  mountain-tops,  that  the  Turkish  war-cries  were  drowned 
in  the  welcome  which  the  Russian  soldiers  sent  to  their 
comrades  hurrying  to  help  them.  As  the  head  of  the  column 
came  nearer,  it  was  discerned  that  it  consisted  of  mounted 
men.  Had  Radetsky  then,  men  asked  one  another,  sent 
cavalry  to  cope  with  infantry  among  the  precipices  of  the 
Balkans  ?  The  column  halted,  and  from  its  bosom  a  mountain 
battery  came  into  action  against  the  Turkish  position  on  one 
of  the  ridges.  The  riders  dismounted,  formed  up,  and  then 
marched  swiftly  until  within  easy  range  of  the  Turks,  when 
they  broke  and  scattered,  and  straightway  from  behind  every 
stone  and  bush  spurted  white  jets  of  powder-smoke. 

The  column  was  a  battalion  of  a  crack  rifle  brigade,  and 
the  brigade  was  not  three  kilometres  behind.  Radetsky, 
down  in  the  valley,  had  dismounted  a  Cossack  regiment  and 


32  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

taken  over  its  ponies  for  behoof  of  the  leading  rifle  battalion, 
at  whose  head  he  himself  had  pushed  on.  He  marched  up 
the  pass  with  his  staff  behind  him,  ran  the  triple  gauntlet  of 
the  Turkish  rifle  fire,  and  joined  his  two  subordinate  com- 
manders on  the  peak.  Fighting  on  the  following  morning 
began  before  dawn,  and  endured  during  the  whole  day. 
About  nine  a.m.  (General  Dragomiroff  came  up  with  the 
Podolsk  and  Jitomer  regiments  comprising  one  of  his 
divisions.  With  the  latter  he  inarched  up  towards  the  peak 
along  a  road  every  step  of  which  was  swept  by  bullet-fire. 
He  had  reached  the  central  position,  and  was  deploying  the 
Jitomers  for  attack,  when  a  bullet,  passing  through  his  right 
knee,  brought  him  to  the  ground.  The  gallant  old  man 
clung  to  his  spectacles ;  and  when  we  had  borne  him  into 
comparative  safety,  he  himself  ripped  open  his  trouser-leg  and 
bound  a  handkerchief  round  the  wounded  knee.  Surgeons 
gathered  around  him,  but,  like  the  true  soldier  he  was,  he 
insisted  on  waiting  for  his  turn. 

It  was  a  very  bloody  day ;  and  on  that  exposed  backbone 
of  bare  rock,  commanded  on  either  side  by  the  Turkish  fire, 
no  man's  life  was  worth  five  minutes'  purchase.  I  was 
burning  to  get  to  the  telegraph  wire — the  more  eager  because 
it  seemed  to  me  that  during  the  day  the  Russians  had  so 
prospered  that,  although  the  struggle  was  sure  to  last  for 
some  time,  they  would  be  able  at  least  to  hold  their  own.  I 
asked  the  general  what  was  his  estimate  of  the  situation. 
Radetsky  was  oracular.  "  The  Turks,"  said  he, "  will  no  doubt 
renew  their  attacks  to-morrow  with  fresh  troops,  and  will 
probably  do  so  for  a  good  many  morrows.  But,"  he  added 
grimly,  "  I  am  a  tough  man,  and,  with  God's  help,  come  Turk, 
come  devil,  I  shall  hold  on  here  till  I  am  killed  or  ordered 
away."  That  pronouncement  was  good  enough  for  me.  It 
was  already  full  dark  when,  having  bidden  farewell  to  the 
friendly  general  and  to  my  comrade  Villiers,  who  had  deter- 
mined to  remain  on  the  Schipka,  I  started  off  on  the 
journey  to  Bucharest,  where  the  nearest  telegraph  office  was, 
a  distance  of  about  a  hundred  and  seventy  miles. 

All  night  long  I  rode  hard,  having  posted  relays  of  horses  ; 


AN  EMINENTLY  DISREPUTABLE  ASPECT.  33 

and  on  the  morning  of  the  25th,  having  neither  eaten,  drunk, 
nor  rested  since  the  morning  of  the  previous  day,  I  rode  into 
the  Imperial  headquarters  in  Gorni  Studen.  The  first  man  I 
met  was  General  Ignatieff,  who  called  out — 

"  Where  from,  now  ? " 

"  From  the  Schipka,"  was  my  reply.  "  I  left  there  ]ate 
last  night." 

"The  devil  you  did!"  exclaimed  Ignatieff.  "You've 
beaten  all  our  messengers  by  hours.  Yours  must  be  the  last 
news ;  and  you  must  see  the  emperor  and  tell  it  him." 

Now  I  had  not  been  exactly  brought  up  among  emperors, 
but  I  have  at  least  some  sense  of  propriety,  and  I  knew  that  a 
man  ought  to  wait  on  an  emperor  in  his  Sunday  clothes.  I 
hadn't  seen  any  Sunday  clothes,  or  Sundays  either,  for  three 
months ;  and  I  was  conscious  that  my  aspect  was  eminently 
disreputable.  I  had  been  wearing  clothes  originally  white  for 
over  a  fortnight,  night  and  day.  The  black,  of  my  saddle  had 
come  off  on  to  them  with  great  liberality;  and  they  were 
spotted  with  the  blood  of  poor  General  Dragomiroff,  whom, 
when  wounded,  I  had  helped  to  carry  into  a  place  of 
comparative  safety.  I  had  not  washed  for  three  days,  and  I 
altogether  felt  a  humiliatingly  dilapidated  representative  of 
that  great  empire  on  Avhich  the  sun  never  sets.  But  Ignatieff 
insisted  that  in  the  circumstances  the  Emperor  would  by  no 
means  stand  on  ceremony.  He  went  inside  and  awakened 
his  Imperial  Majesty,  who  had  been  asleep ;  and  he  presently 
ushered  me  through  the  Cossack  guard  into  the  dingy  alcove 
which  formed  the  hall  of  audience.  The  Imperial  quarters 
were  a  dismantled  Turkish  house,  the  balcony  of  which, 
where  the  Emperor  stood,  was  enclosed  with  common  canvas 
curtains.  There  was  not  even  a  carpet  on  the  rugged  boards. 
A  glimpse  into  the  bedroom  whence  his  Majesty  had  emerged 
showed  a  tiny  cabin  with  mud  walls,  and  a  camp  bed  standing 
on  a  mud  floor.  The  Emperor  received  me  with  great 
kindness,  shaking  hands,  and  paying  a  compliment  to  my 
hard  riding.  He  was  gaunt,  worn,  and  haggard,  his  voice 
broken  by  nervousness  and  by  the  asthma  that  afflicted  him. 
Some  months  later  I  saw  his  Majesty  in  St.  Petersburg — a 

D 


34  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

very  monarch,  upright  of  figure,  proud  of  gait,  attired  in  a 
brilliant  uniform,  and  covered  with  decorations.  A  glittering 
court  and  suite  thronged  around  the  stately  man  with 
enthusiastically  respectful  homage.  The  dazzling  splendour 
of  the  Winter  Palace  formed  the  setting  of  the  sumptuous 
picture.  And  as  I  gazed  on  the  magnificent  scene,  I  could 
hardly  realise  that  the  central  figure  of  it,  in  the  pomp  of  his 
Imperial  state,  was  of  a  verity  the  selfsame  man  in  whose 
presence  I  had  stood  in  the  squalid  Bulgarian  hovel — the 
same  worn,  anxious,  shabby,  wistful  man  who,  with  spasmodic 
utterance,  and  the  expression  in  his  eyes  as  of  a  hunted  deer, 
had  asked  me  breathless  questions  as  to  the  episodes  and 
issue  of  the  fighting. 

I  ventured  to  suggest  that  I  could  make  him  under- 
stand these  much  better  if  I  had  a  sheet  of  paper  on  which 
to  draw  a  plan.  The  Emperor  said  at  once — 

"  Ignatieff,  go  and  fetch  paper  and  pencil." 

Ignatieff  went;  and  his  Majesty  and  myself  were  alone 
together,  standing  opposite  each  other,  with  a  little  green 
baize  table  dividing  us.  Presently  Ignatieff  returned  with  a 
sheet  of  foolscap  on  which  I  rapidly  sketched  the  positions, 
explaining  the  details  as  I  proceeded.  The  emperor  caught 
up  the  salient  points  with  the  quickness  of  a  trained 
military  intelligence. 

"Mr.  Forbes,"  said  he — he  spoke  in  English — "you  have 
been  a  soldier  ?  " 

"Yes,  your  Majesty,"  was  my  reply. 

"  In  the  Artillery  or  Engineers,  doubtless  ? " 

"No,  sir,"  said  I,  "in  the  cavalry  of  the  Line." 

The  Emperor  remarked — 

"  I  was  not  aware  that  your  cavalry  officers  were  con- 
versant with  military  draftsmanship." 

I  replied  that  I  had  served  as  a  private  trooper,  not  as 
an  officer;  thereby,  I  fear,  conveying  to  his  Majesty  the 
impression  that  the  honest  British  dragoon  is  habitually 
skilled  in  plan-making.  When  I  had  finished  telling  what 
I  knew,  the  Emperor  said  with  great  graciousness — 

"  Mr.  Forbes,  I  have  had  reported   to  me  your   conduct 


ALEXANDER,  AT  PLEVNA.  35 

on  the  disastrous  days  before  Plevna,  in  succouring  wounded 
Russian  soldiers  under  heavy  fire.  As  the  head  of  the  State, 
I  desire  to  testify  how  Russia  honours  your  conduct  by 
bestowing  on  you  the  order  of  St.  Stanislaus  with  the 
crossed  swords,  a  decoration  never  conferred  save  for  per- 
sonal bravery ! " 

During  all  the  days  of  unsuccessful  fighting  before  Plevna, 
in  the  great  September  struggle,  the  Emperor  was  almost 
continually  on  the  field.  So  sure  had  the  Russians  been  of 
winning,  and  so  complete  had  been  their  arrangements, 
that  a  little  observatory  had  been  erected  on  a  commanding 
elevation,  with  a  luncheon-table  constantly  spread,  in  a 
marquee  behind,  which  was  very  much  frequented  by  the 
Emperor's  military  entourage.  As  for  the  Emperor,  he 
neither  ate  nor  drank.  I  watched  him  on  the  balcony  of 
his  observatory  on  the  afternoon  of  the  fifth  day  of  the 
fighting— his  own  fete  day,  save  the  mark  !— gazing  out  with 
haggard  eager  eyes  at  the  efforts  to  storm  the  great 
Grivitza  redoubt.  As  the  Turkish  rifle  fire  sheared  down 
his  Russians  while  they  strove  to  struggle  up  the  slope 
slippery  already  with  Roumanian  blood,  the  pale  face 
quivered,  and  the  tall  majestic  figure  visibly  winced  and 
cowered.  He  stood  alone  and  self-centred,  obviously  im- 
pressed with  the  lurid  horror  of  the  scene. 

When  Plevna  had  fallen,  I  accompanied  the  Russian 
Emperor  on  his  return  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  was  an  eye- 
witness of  the  fervid  cordiality  of  his  reception.  From  the 
railway  station,  he  drove  straight  to  the  Kazan  Cathedral 
in  accordance  with  the  custom  which  prescribes  to  Russian 
emperors  that  in  setting  out  for  or  returning  from  any 
important  enterprise,  they  shall  kiss  the  glittering  image  of 
the  Holy  Virgin  of  Kazan,  which  the  cathedral  enshrines. 
Its  interior  was  a  marvellous  spectacle.  People  had  spent 
the  night  sleeping  on  the  marble  floor  that  they  might  be 
sure  of  a  place  on  the  morrow.  There  had  been  no  respect 
of  persons  in  the  admissions.  The  mujik  in  his  sheep- 
skins stood  next  the  soldier-noble  whose  bosom  glittered 
D  2 


38  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACK. 

with  decorations.  The  peasant  woman  and  the  princess 
knelt  together  at  the  same  shrine.  In  stately  procession 
the  Emperor  reached  the  altar,  bent  his  head,  and  his  lips 
touched  the  sacred  image.  When  he  turned  to  leave  the 
building,  the  wildest  confusion  of  enthusiasm  laid  hold  of 
the  throng.  His  people  closed  in  about  the  Tzar  till  he 
had  no  power  to  move.  The  great  struggle  was  but  to  touch 
him,  and  the  chaos  of  policemen,  officers,  shrieking  women, 
and  enthusiastic  peasants  swayed  and  heaved  to  and  fro;  the 
Emperor  in  the  midst,  pale,  his  lips  trembling  with  emotion 
— just  as  I  had  seen  him  when  his  troops  were  cheering 
him  in  the  battle-field — struggling  for  the  bare  ability  to 
move,  for  he  was  lifted  clean  off  his  feet  and  whirled 
about  helplessly.  At  length,  extricated  by  a  wedge  of 
officers,  he  reached  his  carriage,  only  to  experience  as 
wonderful  a  reception  when  he  reached  the  raised  portico  of 
the  Winter  Palace.  As  for  his  daughter-in-law,  the  Tzarevna 
of  the  period,  now  the  Empress  Dowager,  her  experiences  were 
unique.  As  her  carriage  approached  the  terrace,  the  populace 
utilised  it  as  a  convenience  whence  to  see  and  cheer  the  Em- 
peror. Men  scrambled  on  to  the  horses,  the  box,  the  roof,  the 
wheels;  progress  became  utterly  impracticable.  A  bevy  of 
cadets  and  students  who  lined  the  foot  of  the  terrace,  were 
equal  to  the  occasion.  They  opened  her  carriage-door  by 
dint  of  great  exertion,  they  lifted  out  the  bright  little  lady 
who  clearly  was  enjoying  the  fun  greatly,  and  they  passed 
her  from  hand  to  hand  above  their  heads  till  the  Emperor 
caught  her,  lifted  her  over  the  balustrades,  and  set  her 
down  by  his  side  on  the  terrace.  I  saw  the  metal  heels 
of  her  remarkably  neat  boots  sparkling  in  the  winter  sun- 
shine over  the  heads  of  the  throng. 

In  many  respects  the  monarch  whom  the  Nihilists  slew 
was  a  grand  man.  He  was  absolutely  free  from  that 
corruption  which  is  the  blackest  curse  of  Russia,  and  which 
still  taints  the  nearest  relatives  of  the  Great  White  Tzar. 
Alexander  had  the  purest  aspirations  to  do  his  duty  to- 
wards the  vast  empire  over  which  he  ruled,  and  never 
did  he  spare  himself  in  toilsome  work.  He  took  few 


CHARACTER  OF  ALEXANDER  II.         37 

pleasures;  the  melancholy  of  his  position  made  sombre  his 
features  and  darkened  for  him  much  of  the  brightness  of 
life.  For  he  had  the  bitterest  consciousness  of  the  abuses 
that  were  gradually  alienating  the  subjects  who  had  been 
wont  from  their  hearts  to  couple  the  names  of  "  God  and 
the  Tzar."  He  knew  how  the  nation  writhed  and  groaned ; 
and  he,  absolute  despot  though  he  was,  writhed  and 
groaned  no  less,  in  the  realisation  of  his  impotency  to 
ameliorate  the  evils.  For,  although  honest  and  sincerely 
well-intentioned,  Alexander  had  a  taint  of  weakness  in  his 
character.  True,  he  began  his  reign  with  a  show  of  self- 
assertion,  but  then  unworthy  favourites  gained  his  ear,  his 
family  compassed  him  about ;  the  whole  huge  stubborn  vis 
inerticv  of  immemorial  rottenness  and  tenacious  officialism 
lay  doggedly  athwart  the  hard  path  of  reform.  Alexander's 
aspirations  were  powerless  to  pierce  the  dense  solid  obstacle ; 
and  his  powerlessness  to  do  this,  with  the  disquieting  self- 
consciousness  that  it  behoved  him  to  do  it,  embittered  his 
whole  later  life.  In  the  end,  the  man  who  was  once  a 
reformer,  died  a  tyrant. 

One  of  poor  MacGahan's  most  sanguine  beliefs  was  that 
a  time  would  come,  if  the  Millennium  did  not  intervene, 
when  the'  war  correspondent  should  overhang  the  battle- 
field in  a  captive  balloon,  gazing  down  on  the  scene 
through  a  big  telescope,  and  telegraphing  a  narrative  of 
the  combat  as  it  progressed,  through  a  wire  with  one  end 
in  the  balloon  and  the  other  in  the  nearest  telegraph  office. 
I  don't  profess  to  be  very  sanguine  myself  that  this  elabor- 
ation of  system  will  ever  be  carried  into  effect ;  and  I 
think,  on  the  whole,  I  should  prefer,  were  it  attempted, 
that  some  one  else  should  conduct  the  aerial  service.  But 
I  remember  once  beating  time,  or  at  least  apparent  time, 
in  a  curiously  remarkable  fashion,  in  the  transmission 
across  the  world  of  war  news  by  means  of  the  telegraph 
wire.  In  the  early  morning  of  November  2^nd,  1878,  a 
column  of  British  troops  gained  possession  of  the  fortress 
of  Ali  Musjid,  up  in  the  throat  of  the  Khyber  Pass.  I  rode 


33  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

back  ten  miles  to  the  nearest  field  telegraph  office  at 
Jumrood,  and  sent  the  tidings  to  England,  in  a  short 
message  bearing  date  10  a.m.  There  is  five  hours'  differ- 
ence of  time  between  India  and  England,  in  favour  of  the 
latter;  and  newspapers  containing  this  telegram,  dated 
10  a.m.,  were  selling  in  London  at  8  a.m. — two  hours  of 
apparent  time  before  it  was  despatched.  Nor  was  this  all. 
Owing  to  the  five  hours'  difference  of  time  between  London 
and  New  York,  it  was  in  time  for  the  regular  editions  of 
the  New  York  papers  of  the  same  morning,  The  message 
was  immediately  wired  across  the  American  continent ;  and 
owing  to  the  difference  in  time  between  the  Atlantic  coast 
and  the  Pacific  slope,  the  early-rising  citizen  of  San  Fran- 
cisco purchasing  his  morning  paper  at  6  a.m.,  was  able  to 
read  the  announcement  of  an  event  actually  occurring  two 
hours  later  in  apparent  time  15,000  miles  away  on  the 
other  side  of  the  globe  from  the  fair  city  inside  the 
Golden  Gate.  Puck  professed  his  ability  to  put  a  girdle 
round  the  earth  in  forty  minutes:  but  this  telegram  sped 
some  two-thirds  round  the  earth  in  two  hours  less  than  no 
time  at  all. 

During  a  lull  in  the  fighting  in  Afghanistan  in  the 
winter  of  1878-79,  I  made  a  hurried  run  across  the  Bay 
of  Bengal  to  Burma,  and  ascended  the  river  Irrawady  to 
Mandlay,  the  capital  of  native  Burma,  for  the  purpose  of 
learning  something  of  the  now  dethroned  King  Theebau, 
who  had  then  recently  succeeded  to  the  titles  of  Lord  of 
the  White  Elephants,  Monarch  of  the  Golden  Umbrella,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it  Theebau,  when  I  worshipped  the  Golden 
Feet,  had  not  yet  begun  to  massacre  his  sisters  and  his 
cousins  and  his  aunts,  who  were  all  kept  hi  durance  waiting 
for  their  doom  in  a  building  within  the  palace  enclosure. 
He  courteously  postponed  that  atrocity  until  I  •  had 
quitted  his  tawdry  capital,  but  perpetrated  it  before  I  had 
reached  Calcutta  on  my  return  to  India.  It  was  said,  I 
question  if  truthfully,  that  he  had  subsequently  taken  to 
drink  and  became  bloated,  under  the  provocation  of  what 


KING   THE  ESAU  "EN  PETIT  COMITE."  31) 

may  be  called  a  double-barrelled  mother-in-law,  for  the 
unfortunate  Theebau  was  married  to  both  the  lady's 
daughters ;  but  when  I  had  the  honour  of  making  his 
acquaintance,  he  looked  a  manly,  frank-faced  young  fellow, 
with  a  good  forehead,  clear  steady  eyes,  and  a  firm  but 
pleasant  mouth.  He  received  me,  not  in  state,  but  quite 
informally  in  a  kiosk  in  the  garden  of  his  palace,  dressed 
in  a  white  silk  jacket,  and  a  petticoat  robe  of  rich  yellow 
and  green  satin.  A  herald,  lying  prone  on  his  stomach, 
introduced  me  in  the  following  portentous  apostrophe — 

"Archibald  Forbes,  a  great  newspaper  teacher  of  the 
Daily  News  of  London,  tenders  to  his  Most  Glorious 
Excellent  Majesty,  Lord  of  the  Ishaddan,  King  of  Elephants, 
Master  of  many  White  Elephants,  Lord  of  the  Mines  of 
Gold  and  Silver,  Rubies,  Amber,  and  the  noble  Serpentine, 
Sovereign  of  the  Empires  of  Thunaparanta  and  Tampadipa, 
and  other  great  Empires  and  Countries,  and  of  ah1  the 
umbrella-wearing  chiefs,  the  Supporter  of  Religion,  the 
Sun-Descended  Monarch,  Arbiter  of  Life,  and  great  righteous 
King,  King  of  Kings  and  Possessor  of  boundless  dominions 
and  supreme  wisdom — the  following  presents." 

My  presents  were  not  of  much  account,  but  at  least 
they  were  genuine,  which  was  more  than  could  be  said 
for  the  Burmese  monarch's  return  gifts.  Among  these  was 
a  ring  of  great  size  and  seeming  splendour.  I  looked  upon 
myself  as  provided  for  for  life :  but  my  suspicious  servant 
took  the  precaution  of  submitting  it  to  a  jeweller  and 
having  it  priced.  He  returned  with  melancholy  and  dis- 
gust stamped  on  his  swarthy  but  expressive  countenance. 
The  ring  was  worth  but  thirty  shillings.  In  fact  it  was  a 
"duffer."  I  set  down  the  Lord  of  the  Great  White 
Elephant  as  a  fraud.  Indeed,  the  Great  White  Elephant 
was  a  fraud  himself.  I  went  to  see  the  royal  brute  in  the 
gilded  pagoda  which  was  his  palace.  I  saw  a  lean,  mangy, 
dun-coloured  animal,  with  evil  little  red  eyes,  and  dingy 
white  patches  on  his  head  and  trunk.  And  now  the  Great 
White  Elephant,  sold  once  to  Barnum,  is  dead  of  white 
paint  on  the  skin ;  Theebau  is  dethroned  and  a  state 


40  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

prisoner;  and  his  territory,  to  the  great  advantage  of  the 
people  who  were  once  his  subjects,  is  incorporated  into 
our  ever-growing  Indian  Empire. 

I  have  already  told  how  the  war  correspondent  learns 
to  be  a  cook  after  a  fashion,  and,  in  truth,  he  finds  it  con- 
venient to  be  a  sort  of  jack-of- all- trades.  Among  other 
acquisitions,  he  has  ample  opportunity  for  picking  up  an 
elementary  knowledge  of  rough  surgery.  Occasions  in 
battles  are  frequent  when  no  surgeon  is  near,  and  when 
the  correspondent,  having  no  fighting  to  do,  is  free  to 
concern  himself  with  aiding  the  wounded,  and  may  have 
the  happy  chance  to  save  human  life.  In  the  absence  of 
professional  appliances  he  may  have  to  resort  to  curious 
impromptu  expedients.  During  one  of  the  expeditions  in 
the  winter  Afghan  campaign  we  were  marching  down  the 
bed  of  a  mountain-torrent,  on  each  side  of  Avhich  rose 
precipitous  crags.  Suddenly  the  head  of  the  column 
emerged  from  the  gorge  into  a  little  open  space.  There 
came  a  ragged  volley  down  upon  us  from  a  handful  of 
Afghans  perched  high  up  among  the  rocks  above.  A 
private  soldier  marching  by  my  side,  fell  across  my  path, 
shot  through  the  thigh.  Assisted  by  a  young  soldier  I  cut 
the  cloth  from  the  faUen  man's  leg,  and  found  that  he  was 
bleeding  very  fast.  No  tourniquet  was  accessible,  nor  was 
any  surgeon  in  the  vicinity ;  so,  closing  with  iny  thumbs 
both  orifices  of  the  wound,  I  directed  my  assistant  to  find 
two  round  stones  and  get  out  the  surgical  bandage  which 
every  soldier  carries  in  the  field.  Just  as  I  raised  a 
thumb  for  him  to  introduce  a  stone,  there  came  a  second 
volley  from  the  Afghans  above.  The  young  soldier  hastily 
ran  to  cover,  and  I  had  no  alternative,  if  I  were  not  to 
allow  the  wounded  man  to  bleed  to  death,  but  to  remain 
pressing  my  thumbs  on  the  orifices,  kneeling  out  in  the 
open  under  a  dropping  fire  from  the  native  gentlemen  on 
the  rocks  above.  After  some  minutes,  a  detachment, 
climbing  the  crags,  gradually  drove  the  enemy  away ;  where- 
upon I  was  able  to  complete  my  rough  operation  and  to 


T11K    J7NBURIED  DEAD  OF  ISANDLWANA.  41 

get  my  patient  comfortably  on  a  stretcher.  I  was  naturally 
proud  that  when  the  surgeons  came  to  see  to  him  an  hour 
later,  they  found  that  my  device  had  effectually  arrested 
the  bleeding,  and  that  they  did  not  think  it  necessary  to 
interfere  with  my  bandaging;  nor,  surely,  was  I  less  proud 
when  the  general  in  command  did  me  the  honour  to 
mention  me  in  his  despatch,  on  account  of  the  little  service 
which  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  render. 

I  had  not  reached  South  Africa  when  there  occurred 
that  ghastly  misfortune,  the  massacre  of  Isandlwana.  But 
I  accompanied  the  first  party  that  visited  that  Aceldama, 
and  the  spectacle  which  it  presented  I  can  never  forget. 
A  thousand  corpses  had  been  lying  there  in  rain  and  sun 
for  four  long  months.  The  dead  lay  as  they  had  fallen,  for, 
strange  to  relate,  the  vultures  of  Zululand,  that  will  reduce 
a  dead  ox  to  a  skeleton  in  a  few  hours,  had  apparently 
never  touched  the  corpses  of  our  ill-fated  countrymen.  In 
the  precipitous  ravine  at  the  base  of  the  slope  stretching 
down  from  the  crest  on  which  stood  the  abandoned 
waggons,  dead  men  lay  thick — mere  bones,  with  toughened 
discoloured  skin  like  leather  covering  them  and  clinging 
tight  to  them,  the  flesh  all  wasted  away.  I  forbear  to 
describe  the  faces,  with  their  blackened  features,  and  beards 
blanched  by  rain  and  sun.  The  clothes  had  lasted  better 
than  the  poor  bodies  they  covered,  and  helped  to  keep  the 
skeletons  together.  All  the  way  up  the  slope  I  traced,  by 
the  ghastly  token  of  dead  men,  the  fitful  line  of  flight.  It 
was  like  a  long  string  with  knots  in  it,  the  string  formed 
of  single  corpses,  the  knots  of  clusters  of  dead,  where,  as 
it  seemed,  little  groups  must  have  gathered  to  make  a 
hopeless,  gallant  stand,  and  so  die. 

Still  following  the  trail  of  dead  bodies  through  long 
rank  grass  and  among  stones,  I  approached  the  crest.  Here 
the  slaughtered  dead  lay  very  thick,  so  that  the  string  became 
a  broad  belt.  On  the  bare  ground,  on  the  crest  itself,  among 
the  waggons,  the  dead  were  less  thick ;  but  on  the  slope 
beyond,  on  which  from  the  crest  we  looked  down,  the  scene 


42  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

was  the  saddest,  and  more  full  of  weird  desolation  than  any- 
thing I  had  ever  gazed  upon.  There  was  none  of  the  stark, 
blood-curdling  horror  of  a  recent  battle-field  ;  no  pools  of  yet 
wet  blood;  no  torn  flesh  still  quivering.  Nothing  of  all  that 
makes  the  scene  of  a  yesterday's  battle  so  repulsive  shocked 
the  senses.  A  strange  dead  calm  reigned  in  this  solitude  of 
nature.  Grain  had  grown  luxuriantly  round  and  under  the 
waggons,  sprouting  from  the  seed  that  had  dropped  from 
the  loads,  fallen  on  soil  fertilised  by  the  life-blood  of  gallant 
men.  So  long  in  places  had  grown  the  grass  that  it  merci- 
fully shrouded  the  dead,  who  for  four  long  months  had  been 
scandalously  left  unburied. 

As  one  strayed  aimlessly  about,  one  stumbled  in  the 
grass  over  skeletons  that  rattled  to  the  touch.  Here  lay 
a  corpse  with  a  bayonet  jammed  into  the  mouth  up  to  the 
socket,  transfixing  the  head  and  mouth  a  foot  into  the  ground. 
There  lay  a  form  that  seemed  cosily  curled  in  calm  sleep, 
turned  almost  on  its  face  ;  but  seven  assegai  stabs  had  pierced 
the  back.  It  was  the  miserablest  work  wandering  about  the 
desolate  camp,  amid  the  sour  odour  of  stale  death,  and 
gathering  sad  relics,  letters  from  home,  photographs,  and 
blood-stained  books. 

After  many  delays  the  day  at  length  came  when,  as  our 
little  army  camped  on  the  White  Umvaloosi,  there  lay  on 
the  bosom  of  the  wide  plain  over  against  us  the  great  circular 
kraal  of  Ulundi,  King  Cetewayo's  capital.  After  two  days' 
futile  delay,  on  the  third  morning  the  force  crossed  the  river 
and  moved  across  the  plain,  preserving  in  its  march  the 
formation  of  a  great  square,  until  a  suitable  spot  was  reached 
whereon  to  halt  and  accept  the  assault  of  the  Zulu  hordes 
which  were  showing  in  dense  black  masses  all  around.  This 
point  attained,  the  whole  force  then  halted.  Already  there  had 
been  ringing  out  around  the  moving  square  the  rattle  of 
the  musketry  fire  of  Redvers  Buller's  horsemen,  as  they 
faced  and  stung  the  ingathering  impis  that  had  suddenly 
darkened  the  green  face  of  the  plain.  A  few  yards  beyond 
the  front  stood  the  rums  of  a  mission  station.  The  moulder- 
ing walls  were  ordered  to  be  levelled,  lest  they  should  obstruct 


ULUNDI.  43 

the  fire ;  and  the  sappers  went  to  work  with  a  will.  But 
there  lay  within  those  walls  a  ghastly  something  that  was 
not  to  be  buried  by  the  clay  crumbling  under  the  pick-axe 
— the  horribly  mutilated  form  of  one  of  Buller's  men,  who 
had  fallen  in  the  reconnaissance  of  the  day  before.  The 
mangled  corpse  was  lifted  out ;  half  a  dozen  men  with  spades 
dug  a  shallow  grave.  The  chaplain,  who  had  donned  his 
surplice,  stood  by  the  head  of  the  grave  and  read  the  burial 
service,  to  which  the  shell  fire  of  the  artillery  gave  the  stern 
responses,  while  the  bullets  whistled  about  the  mourners. 

The  time  had  come.  Buller's  men,  having  done  their 
work,  galloped  back  into  the  shelter  of  the  square  till  their 
time  should  come  again.  And  lo  !  as  they  cleared  the  front, 
a  living  concentric  wave  of  Zulus  was  disclosed.  On  the 
slope  towards  Ulundi  the  shells  were  crashing  into  the  black 
masses  that  were  rushing  forward  to  the  encounter.  Into 
the  hordes  in  front  the  Gatlings,  with  their  measured  volleys, 
were  raining  pitiless  showers  of  death.  Le  Grice  and  Harness 
were  firing  steadily  into  the  thickets  of  black  forms  showing 
on  the  left  and  rear.  But  those  Zulus  could  die — ay,  they 
could  dare  and  die  with  a  valour  and  devotion  unsurpassed  by 
the  soldiery  of  any  age  or  of  any  nationality.  They  went  down 
in  numbers ;  but  numbers  stood  up  and  pressed  swiftly  and 
steadily  on.  The  sharper  din  of  our  musketry  fire  filled  the 
intervals  between  the  hoarse  roar  of  the  cannon  and  the 
scream  of  the  speeding  shells.  Still  the  Zulus  would  not 
stay  the  whirlwind  of  their  converging  attack.  They  fired 
and  rushed  on,  halting  to  fire  again,  and  then  rushing  on 
time  after  time.  There  were  those  who  had  feared  lest  the 
sudden  confront  with  the  fierce  Zulu  rush  should  try  the 
nerves  of  our  beardless  lads ;  but  the  British  soldier  was  true 
to  his  manly  traditions  when  he  found  himself  in  the  open 
and  saw  his  enemy  face  to  face  in  the  daylight.  For  half  an 
hour  the  square  stood  grim  and  purposeful,  steadfastly  pour- 
ing the  sleet  of  death  from  every  face.  There  was  scarce  any 
sound  of  human  speech,  save  the  quiet  injunctions  of  the 
officers — "  Fire  low,  men ;  get  your  aim,  no  wildness !  "  On 
the  little  rise  in  the  centre  the  surgeons  were  plying  their 


44  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

duties,  regardless  of  the  bullets  that  whistled  about  them. 
The  Zulus  could  not  get  to  close  quarters  simply  because 
of  the  sheer  weight  of  our  fire.  The  canister  tore  through 
them  like  a  harrow  through  weeds  ;  the  rockets  ravaged 
their  zigzag  path  through  the  masses.  One  rush  came  within 
a  few  yards,  but  it  was  the  last  effort  of  the  heroic  Zulus. 
Their  noble  ardour  could  not  endure  in  the  face  of  the  appli- 
ances of  civilised  warfare.  They  began  to  waver.  The  time 
for  the  cavalry  had  at  last  come.  Lord  Chelmsford  caught 
the  moment.  Drury  Lowe  was  sitting  on  his  charger,  watch- 
ing with  ears  and  eyes  intent  for  the  word.  It  came  at  last 
tersely — "  Off  with  you  ! "  The  infantrymen  made  a  gap 
for  the  Lancers,  and  gave  them,  too,  a  cheer  as  they  galloped 
out  into  the  open — knees  well  into  saddles,  right  hands  with  a 
firm  grip  of  the  lances  down  at  the  "  engage."  Drury  Lowe 
collected  his  chestnut  into  a  canter,  and  glancing  over  his 
shoulder  gave  the  commands :  "  At  a  gallop ;  Front  form 
troops  !  "  and  then  "  Front  form  line ! "  You  may  swear 
there  was  no  dallying  over  these  evolutions  ;  just  one  pull  to 
steady  the  cohesion,  and  then,  with  an  eager  quiver  in  the 
voice,  "  Now  for  it,  my  lads,  charge ! "  The  Zulus  strove 
to  gain  the  rough  ground,  but  the  Lancers  were  upon  them 
and  among  them  before  they  could  clear  the  long  grass 
of  the  plain.  It  did  one  good  to  see  the  glorious  old  "  white 
arm  "  reassert  once  again  its  pristine  prestige. 

Lord  Chelmsford,  on  the  evening  of  the  battle,  announced 
that  he  did  not  intend  to  despatch  a  courier  until  the  follow- 
ing morning  with  the  intelligence  of  the  victory,  which  was 
conclusive  and  virtually  terminated  the  war.  So  I  hardened 
my  heart,  and  determined  to  go  myself,  and  that  at  once. 
The  distance  to  Landinanns  Drift,  where  was  the  nearest 
telegraph  office,  was  about  one  hundred  miles ;  and  the  route 
lay  through  a  hostile  region,  with  no  road  save  that  made  on 
the  grass  by  our  waggon  wheels  as  the  column  had  marched 
up.  It  was  necessary  to  skirt  the  sites  of  recently  burned 
Zulu  kraals,  the  dwellers  in  which  were  likely  to  have 
resumed  occupation.  The  dispersal  of  the  Zulu  army  by  the 
defeat  of  the  morning  made  it  all  but  certain  that  stragglers 


CARRYING   THE   TIDINGS  OF  VICTORY.  45 

would  be  prowling  in  the  bush  through  which  lay  the  first 
part  of  my  ride.  Young  Lysons  offered  to  bet  me  even  that  1 
would  not  get  through,  and  when  I  accepted,  genially  insisted 
that  I  should  stake  the  money,  since  he  did  not  expect  to  see 
me  any  more.  It  was  somewhat  gruesome  work,  that  first 
stretch  through  the  sullen  gloom  of  the  early  night,  as  I 
groped  my  way  through  the  rugged  bush  trying  to  keep 
the  trail  of  the  waggon  wheels.  I  could  see  the  dark  figures 
of  Zulus  up  against  the  blaze  of  the  fires  in  the  destroyed 
kraals  to  right  and  to  left  of  my  track,  and  their  shouts  came 
to  me  on  the  still  night  air.  At  length  I  altogether  lost  my 
way,  and  there  was  no  resource  but  to  halt  until  the  moon 
should  rise  and  show  me  my  whereabouts.  The  longest  twenty 
minutes  I  ever  spent  in  my  life  was  while  sitting  on  my 
trembling  horse  in  a  little  open  glade  of  the  bush,  my  hand 
on  the  butt  of  my  revolver,  waiting  for  the  moon's  ra}*s  to 
flash  down  into  the  hollow.  At  length  they  came;  I  dis- 
cerned the  right  direction,  and  in  half  an  hour  more  I 
was  inside  the  reserve  camp  of  Etonganeni  imparting  the 
tidings  to  a  circle  of  eager  listeners.  The  great  danger  was 
then  past ;  it  was  a  comparatively  remote  chance  that  I 
should  meet  with  molestation  during  the  rest  of  the  journey, 
although  Lieutenant  Scott-Elliott  and  Corporal  Cotter  were 
cut  up  on  the  same  track  the  same  night.  The  exertion  was 
prolonged  and  arduous,  but  the  recompense  was  adequate.  I 
had  the  good  fortune  to  be  thanked  for  the  tidings  I  had 
brought  by  the  General  Commanding-in-Chief  and  by  her 
Majesty's  High  Commissioner  for  British  South  Africa;  and 
it  was  something  for  a  correspondent  to  be  proud  of  that 
it  was  his  narrative  of  the  combat  and  of  the  victory  which 
Her  Majesty's  Ministers  read  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament, 
as  the  only  intelligence  which  had  been  received  up  to  date. 

It  may  perhaps  have  occurred  to  some  among  those  who 
may  have  done  me  the  honour  to  read  this  chapter  that  the 
profession  of  war  correspondent  is  a  somewhat  wearing  one, 
calculated  to  make  a  man  old  before  his  time,  and  not  to  be 
pursued  with  any  satisfaction  or  credit  by  any  one  who  is 


46  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

not  in  the  full  heyday  of  physical  and  mental  vigour.  My 
personal  experience  is  that  ten  years  of  toil,  exposure,  hard- 
ship, anxiety  and  brain-strain,  such  as  the  electric  fashion  of 
modern  war  correspondence  exacts,  suffice  to  impair  the 
hardiest  organisation.  But  given  health  and  strength,  it 
used  to  be  an  avocation  of  singular  fascination.  I  do  not 
know  whether  this  attribute  in  its  fulness  remains  with  it 
under  the  limitations  of  freedom  of  action  which  are  now  in 
force. 


II. 

MOLTKE  BEFORE   METZ. 

The  German  "Staff  History  "— Moltke's  posthumous  "  Franco  -German  War  " 
— Saarbriicken  and  the  Spicheren — The  Battle  of  Vionville-Mars-la- 
Tour — Moltke's  estimate  of  the  respective  strengths  in  the  Battle  of 
St.  Privat-Gravelotte — Moltke's  dislike  to  Prince  Frederic  Charles — 
The  latter's  fierce  gallop — The  Battle  of  Gravelotte — The  charge  of  the 
French  from  Point-du-Jour — Moltke  at  the  head  of  the  Second  Corps — 
The  horrors  of  Sedan. 

LORD  WOLSELEY  has  characterised  the  German  "  Staff 
History  of  the  Franco-German  War  "  as  a  "  weariness  of 
the  flesh."  This  is  a  hard  saying,  and,  I  respectfully  sub- 
mit, scarcely  a  just  one.  Necessarily  minute  in  detail,  the 
narrative  of  the  "  History "  is  always  lucid,  and  there  are 
few  pages  which  are  not  illuminated  by  brilliant  flashes  of 
picturesque  description  that  stir  the  blood  like  th'e  sound 
of  a  trumpet.  Apart  from  those  "  purple  patches,"  in  read- 
ing which  one  feels  to  hear  the  turmoil  of  the  battle,  the 
shouts  of  the  combatants,  the  groans  of  the  wounded,  the 
scream  of  the  shells,  and  the  venomous  whistle  and  sullen 
thud  of  the  bullets,  there  are  frequent  stretches  of  disqui- 
sitional and  elucidatory  matter  which  are  pregnant  with 
sustained  and  almost  majestic  power  and  vigour,  instinct 
with  masterly  thought  and  close  reasoning,  clothed  in  a 
style  of  singular  simplicity,  directness,  and  virile  eloquence. 
Even  if  it  were  not  an  open  secret  that  those  passages — 
halting-grounds  of  instruction  and  reflection,  studding  the 
swinging  march  of  minutely  detailed  action  —  came  from 
the  pen  of  the  man  who  wielded  the  direction  of  the  war, 
their  intrinsic  stamp  of  high,  calm  authority,  disclosing  in 
the  writer  the  conceiver  and  the  orderer,  not  less  than  the 
identity  of  the  style  with  that  of  Moltke's  "  Russo-Turkish 
Campaign  of  1828-29,"  would  betray  their  authorship. 

But  if  one  may  deprecate  the  strength  of  Lord  Wolseley's 


48  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

expression,  Moltke  himself  is  found  to  a  considerable  extent 
in  accord  with  the  English  soldier-author.  Proud  as  he 
was  of  the  full  adequateness  of  the  "  Staff  History,"  he 
owned  that  "it  is  for  the  greater  number  of  readers  too 
detailed,  and  written  too  technically,"  and  he  recognised 
that  "  an  abstract  of  it  must  be  made  some  day."  Of  all 
men  Moltke  himself  was  plainly  the  man,  not  indeed  to 
confine  himself  to  an  "  abstract,"  but  to  write  a  concise 
history  of  the  war,  based  chiefly  on  the  authentic  "  Staff 
History"  record,  but  infused  also  with  his  own  unique  know- 
ledge of  men  and  things,  of  springs  of  action  and  motives ; 
revealing  certain  phases,  in  a  word,  of  the  inner  his- 
tory of  the  momentous  period  in  which  he  was  something 
more  than  merely  one  of  the  chief  actors.  His  modesty,  his 
dislike  to  personality  even  when  not  of  an  offensive  kind, 
his  detestation  of  gossip,  were  recognised  characteristics ; 
but  he  quite  justly  did  not  regard  them  as  hindering  him 
from  writing  the  bright  and  amusing  sketch  of  his  personal 
experiences  hi  the  battle  of  Koniggratz,  and  the  personally 
vindicatory  denials  of  councils-of-war  in  1866  and  1870-71 
printed  as  appendices  to  his  "  Franco-German  War  "  volume. 
Amidst  the  wealth  of  curious  inner  history  of  which  this 
quiet,  reticent  old  man  was  the  repository,  and  which  only 
now  is  gradually  becoming  divulged,  there  was,  of  course, 
much  that  could  not  then,  or,  indeed,  ever  be  revealed ;  but 
beyond  question  there  was  much  which,  so  far  as  principle 
and  even  policy  were  concerned,  he  needed  not  to  reserve. 
And  a  book  on  the  Great  War,  written  not  only  for  soldiers 
but  for  the  nations,  illuminated  by  the  perspicuity  and 
graceful  strength  of  style  that  marked  Moltke's  previous 
works,  enriched  with  such  personal  estimates  of  men  and 
with  such  revelations  of  inner  history  as  he  could  legiti- 
mately have  made  —  would  not  that  book  have  shared 
immortality  with  Xenophon's  "Anabasis,"  with  Caesar's 
"Commentaries"  on  an  earlier  Gallic  War,  with  Napier's 
"  History  of  Wellington's  Peninsular  Campaigns  "  ? 

Such  a  book  Moltke  might  have  written,  and  could  have 
vrritten  had  he  chosen.      Whether  he  could  have  done   so 


THE  GERMAN  "STAFF  HISTORY"  49 

when,  at  the  age  of  eighty-seven,  he  yielded  to  his  nephew's 
entreaties,  and  began  the  work  which  was  given  to  the  world 
after  the  ending  of  a  life  so  full  of  years  and  honours, 
is  a  question  that  cannot  be  conclusively  answered.  It  is 
sufficient  to  say  that  he  did  not  do  this,  nor  attempt  to  do 
it.  In  the  main,  in  the  book  he  did  write,  he  clung  to  his 
conception  of  an  "  abstract  "  of  the  "  Staff  History."  While 
he  followed  that  guide — virtually  following  himself  as  he 
was  when  his  years  had  been  fewer — he  was  on  sure  ground ; 
and  he  followed  it  so  closely  that  in  three  out  of  four  of 
his  pages  there  is  the  distinct  echo  of  the  "  Staff  History," 
the  actual  words  of  which,  indeed,  are  adopted  with  great 
frequency.  When  he  turned  away  from  that  lamp  to  his 
path,  he  did  not  uniformly  maintain  entire  accuracy  of 
statement.  His  style,  though  mostly  retaining  its  direct- 
ness and  simplicity,  is  sometimes  obscure  ;  and  its  dryness 
and  absence  of  relief  betray  a  certain  tiredness.  His 
nephew  holds  that  the  work,  "  which,"  he  says,  "  was  under- 
taken in  all  simplicity  of  purpose  as  a  popular  history,"  is 
practically  the  expression  of  Moltke's  personal  opinions 
from  his  own  standpoint  as  chief  of  the  general  staff.  On 
this  it  may  be  remarked  that  the  book  he  wrote  in  his 
extreme  old  age,  entitled  "  History  of  the  Franco-German 
War  of  1870-71,"  exhibits  no  single  element  of  a  "  popular 
history";  and  that  Moltke's  statements  are  most  open  to 
question  in  the  few  passages  in  which  he  is  transparently 
writing  as  the  chief  of  staff. 

How  powerful  is  the  glamour  of  Moltke's  name  was 
evinced  in  the  all  but  unanimous  gush  of  indiscriminate 
and  uncritical  eulogy  with  which  this  posthumous  book  was 
received.  His  prestige  is  so  high  that  it  is  probable  the 
work  might  be  accepted  both  by  writers  and  by  students 
of  war  as  absolutely  accurate.  It  may  not  be  considered 
as  quite  sacrilegious  if  one  who  was  an  eye-witness  of  the 
Franco-German  War,  who  had  the  honour  of  some  personal 
intercourse  with  Count  Moltke  in  the  course  of  that  war, 
and  who  has  studied  that  great  personage  in  his  various 
characters  as  organiser,  strategist,  writer,  and  man,  should 
E 


50  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

venture  to  point  out  some  errors  in  his  "  Franco-German 
War."  It  is  not  proposed  to  follow  him  beyond  the  first 
period  of  the  campaign,  which  closed  with  the  elimination 
of  the  French  regular  army  from  the  theatre  of  actual  war 
by  the  capitulation  of  Sedan. 

Moltke  states  that  on  the  2nd  of  August,  1870,  the  German 
garrison  evacuated  Saarbriicken,  "after  a  gallant  defence 
and  repeated  counter-strokes."  Gallant  front,  quaint,  cheery, 
dashing  Von  Pestel  did  maintain,  facing  ior  fourteen  days 
with  his  battalion  of  infantry  and  three  squadrons  of 
uhlans,  the  French  masses  gathered  on  the  Spicherenberg 
over  against  the  little  open  town  at  scarcely  more  than 
chassepot-fire  distance,  and  craftily  displaying  his  handful 
so  that  companies  seemed  battalions  and  his  battalion  a 
brigade  at  the  least.  Gallant  and  prolonged  defence  Gnei- 
senau  and  he  did  make  when  at  length,  under  the  eyes 
of  their  Emperor  and  his  son,  Frossard's  three  French  divi- 
sions streamed  down  from  their  upland  and  swept  across 
the  valley  on  the  1,500  Rhinelanders  calmly  holding  the 
little  town.  But  there  were  no  "  counter-strokes  "  on  the 
part  of  the  German  defenders,  which  would  have  been, 
indeed,  as  futile  as  foolish.  For  several  hours  two  bat- 
talions of  Prussians  fended  off  three  divisions  of  Frenchmen 
who  vacillated  in  their  enterprise,  and  then  they  withdrew 
leisurely  and  in  order.  The  only  semblance  of  a  "  counter- 
stroke"  was  made  by  one  man,  and  that  man  a  British 
officer — Wigram  Battye  of  the  "Guides,"  who  died  fighting 
in  Afghanistan  in  the  early  campaign  of  1879.  Battye  was 
with  a  Prussian  company  which  was  just  withdrawing  from 
an  advanced  position.  A  soldier  was  shot  down  by  his 
side,  whereupon  Battye,  rebelling  vehemently  against  the 
retirement,  snatched  the  dead  man's  needle-gun  and  pouch- 
belt,  ran  out  into  the  open,  dropped  on  one  knee,  and 
opened  fire  on  Pouget's  brigade.  Pouget's  brigade  re- 
sponded with  alacrity,  and  presently  Battye  Avas  bowled 
over  by  a  chassepot  bullet  in  the  ribs.  A  German  professor 
and  a  brother-Briton  ran  out  and  brought  him  in,  conveyed 
him  to  a  village  in  the  rear,  plastered  layer  upon  layer  of 


THE  BATTLE   OF  THE  SPICHEREN.  51 

stiff  brown   paper  over   the  damaged  ribs,  and  started  him 
in  a  waggon  to  the  Kreuznach  hospital. 

The  battle  of  Spicheren  was  an  unpremeditated  fight, 
and  like  most  contests  of  that  character,  was  extremely 
confused,  a  real  "soldiers'  battle,"  in  which  generalship 
played  but  a  subsidiary  part.  From  the  first,  writes  Moltke, 
an  intermixture  of  battalions  and  companies  set  in,  which 
increased  with  every  repulse;  and  the  confusion,  he  adds, 
was  increased  by  the  circumstance  that  three  generals  in 
succession  nominally  swayed  the  command.  He  might 
have  said  with  truth  that  not  three  but  five  generals  were 
successively  in  command  on  this  afternoon  of  desperate 
strife.  Kameke  began  the  battle  ;  Stiilpnagel  arrived  and 
superseded  him  in  virtue  of  seniority;  later  came  Zastrow, 
who,  as  full  general  and  corps-commander,  superseded 
Stiilpnagel  in  virtue  of  superior  rank.  Presently  came 
Goeben  and  took  command  as  being  a  senior  general  to 
Zastrow ;  and  as  the  fighting  was  djnng  down,  Steinmetz, 
who  was  an  army  commander  and  senior  general,  relieved 
Goeben  and  took  over  the  command.  Moltke,  writing  of 
the  French  possibilities  on  the  day  of  Spicheren  (August 
6th),  makes  the  statement  that,  since  four  French  corps, 
the  3rd,  4th,  5th,  and  guard,  were  lying  within  a  short 
day's  march  of  Frossard's  corps  (the  2nd)  on  the  Spicheren 
heights,  the  French  Emperor,  had  he  chosen,  would  have 
been  fully  able  to  collect  five  corps  for  a  battle  in  the 
Cocheren  region,  five  miles  in  Frossard's  rear.  But  when 
he  wrot3  this,  he  must  have  forgotten  that  in  a  previous 
page  he  had  stated  that  the  5th  corps  (De  Failly)  had 
been  assigned  to  the  separate  army  which  Marshal 
MacMahon  commanded  in  Alsace;  and  it  must  have  es- 
caped his  memory  also,  that  on  this  very  August  6th 
Lespart's  Division  of  that  corps  was  hurrying  from  Bitche 
towards  Worth,  eager  to  participate  in  the  battle  raging 
there. 

In  his  sketch  of  the  battle  of  Vionville-Mars-la-Tour  (16th 
August),   Moltke   states    as    follows,   in    regard   to   the  3rd 
German  Army  Corps :  "  It  was  not  until  after  three  p.m.,  after 
E  2 


52  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

it  had  been  fighting  almost  single-handed  for  seven  hours, 
that  effective  assistance  was  approaching."  But  the  3rd  Corps 
did  not  come  into  action  until  after  ten  a.  in. ;  and  from  ten 
a.m.  until  three  p.m.  is  only  five  hours.  The  5th  and  6th 
Cavalry  Divisions  were  on  the  battlefield  considerably  in 
advance  of  the  arrival  of  the  3rd  Corps.  The  horse-guns  of 
the  5th  Division  were  shelling  Murat's  camp  near  Vionville  so 
early  as  half-past  eight ;  and  by  nine  Ranch's  troopers  of  the 
6th  Division  were  falling  fast  tinder  the  fire  of  French  infantry 
on  the  edge  of  the  wood  of  Vionville.  The  two  Divisions  in 
conjunction  had  formed  a  wide  semi-circle  round  the  French 
flank  and  front,  and,  although  yielding  naturally  to  the 
pressure  of  heavy  chassepot  fire,  were  in  a  measure  "  holding  " 
Frossard's  prompt  infantry  when  the  leading  troops  of  the 
German  3rd  Corps  reached  the  field.  Moltke  entirely  ignores 
this  seasonable  early  work  of  the  two  Cavalry  Divisions, 
which  is  described  with  full  appreciation  in  the  "Staff 
History."  Throughout  the  hours  specified  both  of  them 
were  continually  under  fire,  and  almost  continuously  in 
action,  now  supplying  the  place  of  infantry  in  constituting 
Alvensleben's  second  line,  now  engaged  in  independent 
fighting.  When  the  crisis  came,  while  as  yet  the  day  was 
young;  when  four  French  Army  Corps  were  threatening  to 
crush  Alvensleben's  depleted  Divisions ;  when  that  commander 
stood  committed  up  to  the  hilt — "  no  infantry,  not  a  man  in 
reserve  " — all  succour  yet  distant ;  there  remained  to  him  but 
one  expedient  which  might  avert  the  imminent  defeat.  That 
was  the  resort  to  a  vigorous  cavalry  attack,  "in  which  the 
troopers  must  charge  home,  and,  if  necessary,  should  and 
must  sacrifice  themselves."  How  Bredow's  horsemen  fulfilled 
the  stem  behest,  and  of  what  momentous  service  was  their 
devotion  unto  death,  the  Fatherland  will  never  forget.  But 
while  the  gallant  reiters  of  the  two  cavalry  divisions  were 
thus  doing  and  dying,  and  when  it  is  remembered  that  an 
infantry  brigade  of  the  10th  Corps  had  joined  Alvensleben 
before  noon,  was  it  either  true  or  just  to  claim  for  the  3rd 
Corps,  whose  constancy  and  devotion  were  superb,  that  it  had 
been  fighting  until  three  o'clock  "  almost  single-handed,  and 


MOLTKE'S  ESTIMATE  OF  THE  FRENCH  STRENGTH.  53 

without  any  effective  support  ?  "  How  perfunctory  is  Moltke's 
sketch  of  this  stupendous  conflict,  of  which  he  was  not  a 
witness,  may  be  estimated  from  the  fact  that  he  makes  no 
reference  whatsoever  to  the  participation  in  the  battle  of 
portions  of  the  8th  and  9th  Corps,  whose  attitude  and  action 
mainly  caused  Bazaine  to  withhold  troops  from  his  front  in 
order  to  reinforce  his  left  and  protect  his  communications 
with  Metz,  threatened  by  the  troops  referred  to,  which  lost 
1,200  of  their  strength. 

Moltke  makes  some  very  remarkable  statements  in  regard 
to  the  respective  strengths  of  the  armies  which  fought  in  the 
battle  of  St.  Privat-Gravelotte.  The  French  army  which 
capitulated  at  Metz  in  October,  he  writes,  numbered  173,000, 
"  besides  20,000  sick  who  could  not  be  removed ;  about 
200,000  in  all."  And  he  builds  on  this  foundation,  which  is 
in  itself  erroneous,  the  assertion  that  "consequently  the 
enemy  in  the  battle  of  18th  August  had  at  disposal  more 
than  180,000  men."  He  thus  continues :  "  The  exact  strength 
of  the  eight*  German  Corps  on  that  day  amounted  to  178,818. 
Thus,  with  the  forces  on  either  side  of  approximately  equal 
strength,  the  French  had  been  driven  from  a  position  of 
unsurpassed  advantage."  The  terms  used  here  can  have  but 
one  meaning:  that  the  French  army  was  over  180,000  strong, 
and  the  German  army  exactly  178,818  strong.  And  that 
being  so,  the  thousand  or  two  of  asserted  French  superiority 
counting  for  nothing,  the  two  adversaries  were,  in  a  numerical 
sense,  equally  matched. 

It  was  thus  claimed,  and  that  with  all  the  prestige  of 
Moltke's  name  in  support,  that  the  German  strength  in  the 
battle  of  18th  August  Avas  not  superior  to  that  of  the  French. 
That  the  claim  was  untenable  can  be  shown  easily  and 
convincingly.  That  Moltke  greatly  understated  the  German 
strength  needs  little  further  evidence  than  the  following  brief 
extract  from  the  official  "  return,  showing  number  of  (German) 
troops  employed  in  the  battle  of  St.  Privat-Gravelotte," 

*  Moltke  had  inadvertently  written  "  seven  "  ;  there  were  eight, — Guards, 
2nd,  3rd,  7th,  8th,  9th,  10th,  and  12th.  The  official  state  gives  178,818  as  the 
collective  strength  of  those  eight  corps 


54 


MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 


printed  in  the  appendices  to  the  second  volume  of  the  "  Staff 
History." 


TOTAL    STRENGTH. 


Combatants,  exclusive  of  officers  and  train. 

Infantry  and 
Pioneers. 

Cavalry. 

Horsed  Guns. 

First  army          
Second  army      

42,455 
136,363 

5,753 
18,831 

180 
546 

Total           

178,818 

24,584 

726 

Moltke,  it  will  be  seen,  put  forward  the  gross  infantry 
strength  of  its  eight  corps,  exclusive  of  officers,  as  the  total 
strength  of  the  German  army  on  the  field  of  battle.  The 
addition  of  the  cavalry,  without  reckoning  officers,  at  once 
swells  the  total  to  203,400.  The  Germans  reckon  their 
artillery  by  guns,  not  by  gunners.  While  the  latter  are  still 
hale  and  sound  they  do  not  show  in  the  returns ;  but  when 
killed  or  wounded  they  figure  among  the  losses,  an  arrange- 
ment which  seems  anomalous.  But  as  artillery  is  of  no  use 
without  artillerymen,  the  men  of  that  arm  must  obviously 
count  in  the  actual  strength  of  an  army.  In  1870  each 
German  army  corps  before  Metz  had  an  artillery  regiment 
3,981  strong,  so  that  the  artillerymen  of  the  eight  corps  on 
the  field  on  the  18th  of  August  would,  at  full  strength,  number 
31,848.  Making  a  very  liberal  deduction  for  previous  casualties, 
there  would  remain  25.000,  swelling  the  total  army  strength, 
exclusive  of  officers  and  train,  to  228,400.  Officers  are  not 
included  in  the  figures  of  the  above  return ;  but  they  were 
unquestionably  in  the  battle,  and  come  within  the  count. 
Apart  from  artillery  officers,  who  perhaps  were  included  in 
their  regiments,  and  not  reckoning  general  and  staff  officers, 
the  fifty-two  infantry  regiments  and  the  148  squadrons 
composing  the  infantry  and  cavalry  forces  of  the  army  had 
about  4,000  officers  on  their  establishments,  of  whom  400  may 
be  written  off  for  casualties.  Adding,  then,  3,600  officers  to 
the  previous  count  of  228,400,  the  German  host  "  employed  " 


MOLTKE'S  ERRONEOUS  DEDUCTIONS.  55 

in  the  battle  of  St.  Privat-Gravelotte  numbered,  not  as  Moltke 
reckoned  it  for  an  obvious  purpose,  at  a  total  of  178,818,  but 
a  total  of  232,000  men ;  and,  so  far  from  the  contending 
armies  being  of  approximately  equal  strength,  the  Germans 
were  stronger  by  at  least  50,000  than  were  the  French,  even 
if  Moltke's  estimate  of  the  numbers  of  the  latter  were  correct. 

But  his  estimate  of  the  French  strength  was  not  correct — 
it  could  not,  indeed,  in  the  nature  of  things,  have  been  correct. 
Apart  fr*oin  the  incidental  miscalculation  that  173,000-1-  20,000 
make  200,000,  Moltke  erred  in  his  statement  that  the  20,000 
sick  and  wounded  French  soldiers  found  in  Metz  at  the 
capitulation  were  in  excess  of  the  173,000  officers  and  men 
recorded  as  having  surrendered.  The  sick  and  wounded  were 
included  in  the  latter  total,  which  comprehended  every  man, 
combatant  and  non-combatant,  of  the  army  and  garrison  of 
Metz  at  the  date  of  the  capitulation  on  the  29th  of  October. 
Moltke's  train  of  argument  that,  since  there  were  173,000 
French  soldiers  in  Metz  at  that  date,  "  consequently  "  180,000 
French  soldiers  confronted  the  German  army  in  the  battle  of 
Gravelotte,  it  is  impossible  to  follow.  The  number  of  French 
soldiers,  effective  and  ineffective,  in  and  about  Metz  and  on 
the  battlefield  on  the  morning  of  Gravelotte,  was,  roughly, 
about  200,000.  But  deductions  to  the  amount  of  58,000  must 
be  made  as  follows:  wounded  of  previous  battles,  20,000; 
mobiles  constituting  garrison  of  fortress  and  forts,  20,000; 
Laveaucoupet's  regular  division  stiffening  mobile  garrisons, 
5,000 ;  departments,  train,  stragglers,  etc.,  certainly  over  8,000 ; 
sick,  5,000. 

Giving  effect  to  those  deductions,  the  conclusion  is,  that 
about  142,000  French  soldiers  were  "  employed  "  in  the  battle, 
including  the  reserve  consisting  of  the  Imperial  Guard  which 
had  three  of  its  four  brigades  engaged.  This  reckoning  accords 
with  great  closeness  to  the  statement  of  the  efficient  strength 
of  the  Army  of  the  Rhine  given  in  to  Marshal  Bazaine  four 
days  after  the  battle  of  the  18th.  The  number  of  all  ranks, 
according  to  the  statement,  was  137,728  ;  adding  to  which  the 
7,800  killed  and  wounded  in  the  battle,  the  French  strength 
on  the  morning  of  the  18th  works  out  at  145,528;  the 


56  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

difference  between  that  amount  and  the  strength  at  the 
October  capitulation  consisting  of  garrison  troops  and 
casualties  before  and  after  Gravelotte.  The  statements  by 
the  French  of  their  strength  at  Gravelotte  range  from 
100,000  to  150,000  men  effective,  which  latter  estimate,  made 
by  a  Frenchman  whose  figures  were  accepted  as  quasi- 
official  in  the  "  Staff  History,"  had  been  the  highest  until 
Moltke  overtopped  it  by  30,000.  The  official  German  state- 
ment is  that  the  French  "  had  an  available  force  of  from 
125,000  to  150,000  men."  Moltke  did  not  claim  any  new 
information  after  authorising  the  statement  quoted  above ; 
his  swollen  total  was  based  on  the  capitulation  figures,  which 
were  public  property  the  day  after  the  surrender.  And  a 
certain  inconsistency  reveals  itself  between  that  swollen,  total 
and  the  result  of  his  statement  that  there  were  eight  to  ten 
men  to  every  pace  of  the  seven  miles  along  which  extended 
the  front  of  the  French  position.  At  ten  men  to  the  pa<^ 
there  works  out  a  total  of  133,200  men — which  contrast's 
somewhat  abruptly  with  "  more  than  180,000." 

In  his  preface  to  his  uncle's  posthumous  book,  Major 
von  Moltke  quotes  an  utterance  of  his  great  relative  as 
"  highly  characteristic  of  Moltke's  magnanimity."  This  is  the 
utterance :  "  Whatever  is  published  in  a  military  history  is 
always  dressed  for  effect;  yet  it  is  a  duty  of  piety  and 
patriotism  never  to  impair  the  prestige  which  identifies  the 
glory  of  our  Army  with  personages  of  lofty  position."  The 
naivete,  is  edifying  with  which  the  principle  is  in  effect  laid 
down,  that  truth  must  go  to  the  wall  in  favour  of  patriotism. 
The  supersession  of  truth  by  the  other  virtue  is  not  precisely 
a  novelty ;  but  to  Moltke  belonged  the  frank  avowal  of  the 
preference  as  a  sacred  duty,  and  to  his  nephew  the  charac- 
terisation of  this  avowal  as  magnanimity.  Throughout  his 
book  Moltke  was  true  to  his  principle  except  as  regarded 
two  leading  actors  in  the  great  drama,  of  whom  he  himself 
was  one  and  Prince  Frederic  Charles  the  other.  The  strange 
fact  is  that,  as  I  believe  can  be  clearly  shown,  the  strictures 
in  both  instances  are  unmerited. 

It  never  was  any  secret  in  the  German  Army  that  Moltke 


MOLTKE'S  DISLIKE  OF  THE  RED  PRINCE.  57 

disliked  Prince  Frederic  Charles.  There  could  be  nothing  in 
common  between  the  composed,  refined,  accomplished  and 
pious  Moltke,  fastidious,  scholarly  and  reserved  as  he  was ; 
and  the  bluff,  coarse,  dictatorial,  loose-lived  and  loose- 
mouthed  Frederic  Charles.  They  met  as  seldom  as  possible, 
and  their  relations  were  always  confined  to  the  strictest 
formality.  To  do  the  Red  Prince  justice,  he  always  admired 
the  military  genius  of  Moltke ;  but  Moltke,  from  his 
methodical  and  exacting  standard  and  notwithstanding  his 
cold,  unemotional  impartiality,  had  not  a  high  opinion  of 
Prince  Frederic  Charles  as  a  commander.  In  reality,  as  but 
for  a  rare  prejudice  Moltke  would  have  discerned,  the  two 
men  were  the  complement  of  each  other.  Moltke  directed 
the  storm  and  swayed  the  whirlwind,  although  he  habitually 
rode  outside  of  its  vortex.  The  Red  Prince  was  the  storm 
itself — the  actual  mighty  rushing  whirlwind — "  a  disciplined 
thunderbolt,"  as  I  once  heard  a  fanciful  trooper  of  the  Zieten 
Hussars  describe  him.  Perhaps  his  dislike  to  and  non- 
appreciation  of  Frederic  Charles  was  Moltke's  weak  point ; 
and  thence  probably  it  was  that  he  violated  in  the  case  of 
that  Royal  soldier  his  principle  of  upholding  the  prestige  of 
"  high-placed  "  warriors. 

Moltke  is  nearing  the  end  of  his  description  of  the  battle 
of  Yionville- Mars-la- Tour.  He  has  just  finished  a  sketch  of 
the  great  cavalry  fight,  which  he  records  was  at  its  height 
at  a  quarter  to  seven  in  the  evening.  And  he  continues 
thus :  "  Prince  Frederic  Charles  had  hastened  to  the  battle- 
field. The  day  was  near  its  ending,  darkness  was  approach- 
ing, the  battle  was  won."  Does  not  the  reader  gather  from 
the  sentence  in  italics — the  italics  are  mine — from  the 
mentioned  hour  preceding  that  sentence,  and  from  the  words 
that  follow  it,  that  Prince  Frederic  Charles  reached  the  field 
late — when  it  was  falling  dark,  and  when  already  the  battle 
had  been  won  ?  The  absence  of  precision  tends  to  mislead. 
For  the  Prince,  as  a  fact,  was  late  in  reaching  the  field. 
The  battle  had  begun  two  hours  before  noon ;  nearly  five 
hours  later  Prince  Frederic  Charles  was  still  in  Pont-a- 
Mousson,  quite  fifteen  miles  from  the  scene  of  struggle.  As 


58  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

is  duly  recorded  in  the"  Staff  History,"  the  Prince  reached  the 
battle-field  "  about  four  o'clock." 

It  was  barely  that  hour  when  he  came  galloping  up  the 
narrow  hill-road  from  Gorze  ;  the  powerful  bay  he  rode  all 
foam  and  sweat,  sobbing  with  the  swift  exertion  up  the  steep 
ascent,  vet  pressed  ruthlessly  with  the  spur ;  staff  and  escort 
panting  several  horse-lengths  in  rear  of  the  impetuous  fore- 
most horseman.  On  and  up  he  sped,  craning  forward  over 
the  saddle-bow  to  save  his  horse,  but  the  attitude  seeming 
to  suggest  that  he  burned  to  project  himself  faster  than  the 
good  horse  could  cover  the  ground.  No  wolfskin,  but  the 
red  tunic  of  the  Zieten  Hussars,  clad  the  compact  torso,  but 
the  straining  man's  face  wore  the  aspect  one  associates  with 
that  of  the  berserker.  The  turgid  eyeballs  had  in  them  a 
sullen  lurid  gleam  of  blood-thirst.  The  fierce  sun  and  the 
long  hard  gallop  had  flushed  the  face  a  deep  red,  and  the 
veins  of  the  throat  were  visibly  swollen.  Recalling  through 
the  years  the  memory  of  that  visage  with  the  lowering  brow, 
the  fierce  eyes,  and  the  strong  set  jaw,  one  can  understand 
how  to  this  day  the  mothers  in  the  Lorraine  villages  invoke 
the  terror  of  "  Le  Prince  Rouge,"  as  the  Scottish  peasants  of 
old  used  the  name  of  the  Black  Douglas,  to  awe  their 
children  wherewithal  into  panic-stricken  silence.  While  as 
yet  his  road  was  through  the  forest,  leaves  and  twigs  cut  by 
bullets  showered  down  upon  him.  Just  as  he  emerged  in 
the  open  upland,  a  shell  burst  almost  among  his  horse's  feet. 
The  iron-nerved  man  gave  heed  to  neither  bullet-fire  nor 
bursting  shell ;  no,  nor  even  to  the  cheers  that  rose  above 
the  roar  of  battle  from  the  throats  of  the  Brandenburgers 
through  whose  masses  he  was  riding,  and  whose  chief  he  had 
been  for  many  years.  They  expected  no  recognition,  for 
they  understood  the  nature  of  the  man — knew  that  after  his 
rough  fashion  he  was  the  soldier's  true  friend,  and  also  that 
he  was  wont  to  sway  the  issues  of  battle.  He  spurred  onward 
to  Flavigny  away  yonder  in  the  front  line ;  the  bruit  of  his 
coming  darted  along  the  fagged  ranks  ;  and  strangely  soon 
came  the  recognition  that  a  master-soldier  had  gripped  hold 
of  the  command  as  in  a  vice. 


MOLTKE 'S  ASPERSION  OF  THE  RED  PRINCE.         59 

In  regard  once  again  to  Prince  Frederic  Charles,  Moltke 
deviates  from  trie  principle  which  he  expounded  to  his 
nephew,  in  relation  to  a  critical  incident  which  occurred  later 
in  the  same  evening.  The  long  bloody  struggle  was  in  its 
final  throes,  and  the  Germans  now  stood  on  the  ground  held 
by  the  French  in  the  morning.  In  those  circumstances, 
writes  Moltke  : — 

"  It  was  clearly  most  unadvisable  to  challenge  by  renewed 
attacks  an  enemy  who  still  greatly  outnumbered  the  German 
forces ;  which,  since  no  other  reinforcements  could  be  hoped 
for  soon,  could  not  but  jeopardise  the  success  so  dearly 
bought.  The  troops  were  exhausted,  most  of  their  ammuni- 
tion was  spent,  the  horses  had  been  under  the  saddle  for 
fifteen  hours  without  food.  Some  of  the  batteries  could 
move  only  at  a  walk,  and  the  nearest  army  corps  which  had 
crossed  the  Moselle,  the  12th,  was  distant  more  than  a  day's 
march.  Yet,  notwithstanding,  at  about  eight  o'clock  the 
Headquarter "  ["  Obercommando,"  an  army  euphemism  for 
Prince  Frederic  Charles,  who  was  no  figure-head  commander] 
"  issued  an  order  commanding  a  renewed  and  general  attack 
upon  the  enemy's  position." 

The  attack  was  but  partially  made  owing  to  the  darkness 
and  the  exhaustion  of  the  troops,  and  it  failed  at  most  points, 
not  without  severe  losses. 

Than  the  aspersion  conveyed  in  the  quoted  sentences, 
none  more  grave  can  well  be  imagined.  The  charge,  in 
effect,  is  simply  this,  that  in  a  reckless  attempt  which  in  the 
nature  of  things  coidd  not  be  other  than  futile,  Prince 
Frederic  Charles  had  wantonly  squandered  the  lives  of  his 
devoted  soldiers.  That  chief  had  much  experience  of  com- 
mand in  the  actual  battle-field,  and  he  closed  his  fighting 
career  unvanquished  in  battle.  In  the  Franco-German  War 
he  was  in  his  mature  soldierly  prime,  a  veteran  of  war  at 
the  age  of  forty-two,  as  yet  unimpaired  by  habits  which 
subsequently  deteriorated  him.  Experience  had  inured  him 
swiftly  yet  coolly  to  penetrate  the  varying  problems  of  the 
battle  while  it  raged  around  him  in  its  maddest  chaotic  tur- 
moil— a  less  easy  task  than  meets  the  retrospective  military 


60  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

critic  in  the  calm  of  his  bureau.  He  had  learned  the 
stern  lesson  that  gains  can  rarely  be  attained  without  incur- 
ring losses — the  old  cynical  omelette-making,  egg-breaking 
axiom;  and  this  other  lesson,  too,  that  there  are  occasions 
when  a  commander  must  lay  his  account  with  severe  inevit- 
able losses  while  the  chances  of  success  are  very  precarious, 
yet  which  it  behoves  him  to  adventure.  It  was  such  an 
occasion  which  presented  itself  to  Prince  Frederic  Charles  on 
the  evening  of  Mars-la-Tour.  With  a  far-spent  army  of  some 
60,000  men,  he  was  standing  right  in  the  path  of  a  host 
more  than  double  his  own  numbers.  Of  that  host  it  was 
true  that  probably  more  than  one-half  was  not  less  exhausted 
than  were  his  own  people  ;  but  it  possessed  powerful  reserves 
comparatively  fresh  and  unscathed,  the  possession  of  which 
might  well  encourage  the  French  leader,  with  apparently  so 
much  at  stake,  to  push  a  formidable  night  attack  against  a 
numerically  inferior  and  worn-out  adversary.  Symptoms 
there  already  were,  which  seemed  to  portend  such  an  effort. 
Bazaine  in  person,  with  fresh  troops,  was  clearing  his  front 
towards  the  south-west,  and  thrusting  the  Germans  there- 
abouts back  into  the  woods.  Moltke's  statement  is  incorrect 
that  the  12th  Corps,  twenty  miles  away,  was  Prince  Frederic 
Charles'  nearest  reinforcement.  One  incentive  to  the  opera- 
tion which  Moltke  condemns  was  the  Prince's  knowledge 
that  the  9th  Corps  was  so  near  his  right  flank  as  to  be  able 
to  make  itself  felt  in  the  .intended  general  movement.  And 
this  was  actually  so  in  the  case  of  a  brigade  of  that  corps' 
Hessian  Division,  which  came  into  action  so  early  as  half- 
past  seven,  and  continued  fighting  until  after  ten.  Part  of  its 
other  division  was  indeed  already  in  the  field.  Any  argument 
of  mine  in  justification  of  Prince  Frederic  Charles's  motives 
can  have  no  weight ;  and  I  prefer  therefore  to  quote  on  this 
point  the  soldierly  language  of  the  "  Staff  History,"  compiled, 
it  never  must  be  forgotten,  under  the  superintendence  of 
Moltke  himself: — 

"  As  the  firing  became  more  vigorous  after  seven  o'clock, 
and  the  reports  gave  reason  to  expect  the  arrival  of  the  9th 
Corps,  Prince  Frederic  Charles  considered  the  moment  suitable 


MOLTKE' S  ADVERSE   CRITICISM  ON  HIMSELF.       61 

for  again  making  an  attack  in  force.  .  .  The  staking 
of  the  last  strength  of  man  and  horse,  after  hours  upon  hours 
of  sanguinary  fighting,  was  to  show  that  the  Prussians  had 
both  the  ability  and  the  firm  will  to  triumph  in  the  yet 
undecided  struggle.  The  moral  impression  of  such  an 
advance,  enhanced  by  the  consternation  to  be  expected  from 
a  sudden  attack  in  the  twilight,  appeared  to  guarantee  a 
favourable  result." 

No  word  of  blame  has  Moltke  for  General  Manstein,  who, 
by  his  headstrong  and  reckless  disobedience  of  orders,  and  his 
disregard  of  information  brought  him  by  his  own  scouts,  dis- 
located the  plan  of  the  battle  of  Gravelotte,  and  gravely 
compromised  the  fortunes  of  the  day ;  no  breath  of  reflection 
on  General  von  Pape,  who  sacrificed  thousands  of  brave  men 
in  a  premature  and  impossible  attack  on  St.  Privat — too 
impatient  to  wait  an  hour  for  the  development  of  the  turning 
movement  by  the  Saxons  which  would  have  averted  most  of 
the  butchery.  Both  those  officers  were  "  personages  of  high 
position  " — were  of  that  "  bestimmte  Persb'nlichkeiten  "  order, 
to  uphold  whose  prestige  Moltke  held  it  to  be  a  sacred  duty. 
Patriotism  questionless  shielded  them  from  adverse  com- 
ment ;  yet  it  did  not  avail  to  withhold  his  censure  on  Prince 
Frederic  and  on  himself.  It  was  in  respect  of  the  partici- 
pation of  the  2nd  Corps  in  the  fighting  during  the  latest 
phase  of  the  battle  of  Gravelotte,  that  he  considered  himself  to 
have  incurred  his  unfavourable  criticism  upon  himself,  which 
he  thus  frankly  expresses  in  his  posthumous  work  on  the 
Franco-German  War : — 

"  It  would  have  been  more  judicious  on  the  part  of  the 
Chief  of  the  General  Staff,  who  was  personally  on  the  spot 
at  the  time,  not  to  have  permitted  this  movement  at  so 
late  an  hour.  Such  a  body  of  troops,  still  completely  intact, 
might  have  proved  very  precious  next  day,  but  on  this 
evening  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  bring  about  a  decisive 
reversal." 

With  all  respect  I  make  bold  to  aver  that  Moltke  had  no 
alternative  but  to  permit — nay,  to  strenuously  urge  forward 
that  advance  of  the  2nd  Corps  his  sanction  to  which  he 


62  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

disapproved  many  years  later — if  there  was  to  be  retrieved  a 
situation  which  was  dangerously  compromised,  and  which 
imperatively  called  for  a  "  reversal" 

In  the  Gravelotte  region  of  the  vast  battle-ground,  the 
German  right,  consisting   of  the   7th   and   8th  Corps  com- 
manded by  General   Steinmetz,  had   been  fighting    fiercely 
and  with  varied  fortune   during   the  afternoon   against  the 
French  soldiers  of  Frossard  and  Le  Boeuf.     As  the  day  waned 
the  cannonade  abated  its  virulence   and   the   musketry-fire 
fell   almost   silent.      The   French    now  lay  supine   in   their 
shelter-trenches  along  the  Point-du-Jour  ridge  crowning  the 
bare  glacis-like  plateau  which  their  fire  had  been  sweeping ; 
quiet  in  the  buildings  and  behind  the   enclosures   of    the 
Moscou  farm  farther   northward.      The    Rhinelanders    and 
Westphalians  huddled  among   their  dead  and   wounded   in 
the  shallow  folds  of  the  plateau,  in  the  bush  fringing  the 
deep  and  steep  ravine  of  the  Mance  streamlet,  in  and  behind 
the  precincts  of  the  battered  St.  Hubert  auberge,  and  about 
the  edge  of  the   wood   below   Moscou.     The  lull  lasted  for 
an  hour ;  the  Germans  believed   that   the   Frenchmen  over 
against   them    were   exhausted,   and   that    the    strength    of 
their  resistance  was  broken.     Away  to  the  northward  where 
Prince  Frederic  Charles  held   sway,   the  roar  of  battle  was 
deepening  in  intensity;   and  this  indication  that  the  army 
of  the  Red  Prince  was  entering  on  the  decisive  struggle  was 
the  signal  for  the  order  to  the  impatient  Steinmetz,  that  he 
too  should  fall  on   and  strain  his  uttermost   to   "end   the 
business"   in  his   specific   sphere  of  action.     In  addition  to 
his  own  two  corps,  the  2nd  was  placed  at  his  disposal,  to  be 
used  if  it  should  be  needed.     The  Pomeranians  had  travelled 
far  and  fast  in  their  soldierly  ardour  to  share  in  the  battle. 
They  panted  for  the  fray,  in  spite  of  their  fatigue  after  a  long 
forced  march  ;  but  having  regard  to  the  seeming  enfeeblement 
of  the  adversary,   it  was  not   expected   that    their  services 
would  be  called  for. 

For  once  the  French  had  hoodwinked  their  enemy.  They 
were  not  exhausted,  but  were  merely  saving  their  ammunition 
and  resting  in  the  comparative  safety  of  their  shelter-trenches 


THE   UNEXPECTED  SORTIE   OF  THE  FRENCH.        63 

and  reverse  slopes,  while  they  watched  for  events.  They 
believed,  it  seemed,  that  they  had  virtually  won  the  battle, 
and  were  in  full  buoyancy  and  confidence.  As  the  heads  of 
Steinmetz's  columns  came  up  out  of  the  Mance  ravine  and 
showed  themselves  on  the  lower  verge  of  the  plateau,  the 
French  flung  away  the  mask.  Suddenly  from  their  serried 
lines  shot  furious  blasts  of  chassepot-  and  mitrailleuse-fire. 
The  thunder  of  their  long-silent  artillery  burst  forth  in  fullest 
volume.  The  supports  at  all  points  came  springing  forward 
to  join  their  comrades  of  the  front  line.  And  then  the 
French  infantry,  for  the  moment  relieved  from  the  irksome 
trammels  of  the  defensive  and  restored  to  its  congenial  metier 
of  the  attack,  dashed  forward  with  the  grand  old  elan,  and 
swept  the  Germans  backwards  down  the  slope  into  the 
Mance  ravine.  Under  the  stroke  of  that  fierce  impact,  under 
the  hurricane  of  missiles  that  swept  upon  the  troops  assailed 
by  the  French  infantry,  Steinmetz's  army  reeled  to  its  base. 
There  was  a  period  when  it  may  be  said  without  exaggeration 
that  the  mass  of  that  army  was  on  the  run.  The  old  King 
was  carried  backward  in  the  press  surging  out  from  under  the 
rain  of  bullets  and  shells,  expostulating  with  great  fervour  of 
expression  in  his  rearward  career,  with  the  component  parts 
of  the  all  but  universal  debacle.  The  Mance  ravine  was  seeth- 
ing full  of  fugitives,  struggling  among  themselves  for  cover 
from  the  plunging  shells  which  fell  thick  among  them.  The 
quarries  below  Moscou  were  crowded  with  demoralised 
soldiers.  The  garrison  of  St.  Hubert  remained  there — in  the 
buildings  and  outlying  enclosures  it  was  safer  than  in  the 
bullet-swept  open ;  the  place  was  not  assailed,  and  some 
staunch  troops  out  in  the  open  clung  to  its  lee.  But  the  road 
in  front  of  St.  Hubert  leading  from  Point-du-Jour  down  into 
the  ravine,  was  a  torrent  of  rushing,  panting,  panic-stricken 
men.  Down  this  torrent  were  actually  swept  some  of  the 
brave  Gniigge's  field  guns ;  I  saw  old  Brigadier  Rex  thrown 
down  and  overrun  when  striving  energetically  to  stay  the 
rush. 

The    French  infantry  having  repulsed  their  adversaries, 
retired  to  their  defensive  positions,  and  the  Germans  began 


64  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

to  steady  themselves  in  a  measure.  Reserves  of  the  7th 
Corps  were  sent  forward,  but  made  very  little  head;  and 
it  is  not  straining  language  to  say  that  it  was  as  a  last 
resort  that  the  2nd  Corps,  no  part  of  which  had  hitherto 
been  engaged,  was  ordered  up.  The  corps  crossed  the 
ravine  by  the  great  chaussde  from  Gravelotte.  How  im- 
portant was  regarded  a  fortunate  issue  to  its  exertions  was 
vividly  betrayed  by  the  unparalleled  anxiety  to  fire  its 
ardour,  and  the  exceptional  solicitude  for  its  most  effective 
guidance.  At  the  head  of  the  corps  rode  down  into  the 
ravine  old  Steinmetz  the  army  commander,  and  Franseky 
the  corps  commander;  and  with  them  rode  none  other 
than  Moltke  himself,  accompanied  by  the  staff  officers  of 
the  royal  headquarters.  "  Under  the  eyes  of  those  officers 
of  high  rank,"  so  it  is  written  in  the  "  Staff  History,"  "  the 
battalions  hastened  across  the  valley,  drums  beating  and 
bugles  sounding,  previous  to  throwing  themselves  into  the 
struggle  amid  the  encouraging  cheers  of  the  commanding 
general."  As  the  Pomeranians  deployed  on  the  edge  of 
the  plateau,  the  French  fire  struck  them  fair  in  the  face; 
and  they  were  struck,  too,  by  a  broad,  rushing  stream  of 
fugitives  from  the  front  which,  in  the  demure  language  of 
the  "  Staff'  History,"  "  seemed  to  point  to  the  advent  of  a 
fresh  crisis  in  the  engagement." 

This  last  incident  alone  would  appear  to  justify  the 
utilisation  of  the  2nd  Corps,  which,  although  it  made  no  serious 
impression  on  the  French  position,  maintained  a  footing 
on  the  plateau  during  the  night.  But,  when  its  employ- 
ment is  pronounced  by  the  high  officer  who  ordered  it  on 
that  service  to  have  been  a  surplusage  and  an  error,  a 
comment  on  this  pronouncement  may  be  made  in  the  form 
of  a  couple  of  questions.  Was  not  this  the  unique  instance 
since  Bliicher's  time  of  a  Prussian  army-commander — as 
Moltke  virtually  was — personally  leading  his  troops  into 
action  ?  And  on  what  other  occasion  throughout  his  career 
in  his  great  position,  did  Moltke  concern  himself  personally 
with  the  actual  direction  and  encouragement  of  any  specific 
movement  on  the  battle-field  ? 


MOLTKE'S  ESTIMATE   OF  DAZAINE.  65 

The  incidents  narrated  above  are,  in  their  broad 
features,  recorded  in  the  "Staff  History,"  and  some  details 
which  can  be  fully  verified  from  other  sources  have  been 
added,  in  part  from  personal  knowledge  as  an  eye-witness. 
Moltke's  faculty  of  concentrated  writing  is  strikingly  shown 
in  the  following  quotation,  which  embraces  all  he  permits 
himself  to  say  regarding  the  events  adverted  to : — 

"Later,  the  still  serviceable  battalions  of  the  7th  Corps 
were  sent  again  across  the  Mance  ravine,  and  were  joined 
by  battalions  from  the  Bois  de  Vaux  in  the  direction  of 
Point-du-Jour  and  the  quarries.  Frossard's  corps,  thus 
attacked,  was  reinforced  by  the  Garde  Voltigeur  Division, 
and  all  the  French  reserves  moved  up  into  the  first  line. 
The  artillery  came  into  action  with  redoubled  activity,  and 
an  annihilating  rifle-fire  was  poured  on  the  advancing 
Germans.  Then  moved  out  to  the  attack  the  French 
soldiers  in  the  shape  of  a  powerful  mass  of  tirailleurs,  which 
drove  the  small  leaderless  bands  of  Germans  lying  on  the 
plateau  back  to  the  skirts  of  the  wood.  Here,  however, 
the  outburst  was  arrested,  and  there  still  remained  in  the 
hand  a  fresh  army  corps  in  full  strength." 

Moltke's  estimate  of  Bazaine  as  a  commander  was  not 
high,  and  he  distinctly  recognised  that  he  was  influenced 
by  political  as  well  as  military  considerations;  he,  however, 
acquits  Bazaine  of  the  charge  of  having  betrayed  his 
country.  There  is  in  Moltke's  last  work  one  very  curious 
and  enigmatical  sentence  in  regard  to  Bazaine.  The  period 
is  shortly  before  the  battle  of  Noisseville,  31st  August, 
when  Bazaine  and  his  army  had  been  enclosed  in  and  about 
Metz  for  several  days.  This  is  the  sentence — "Meanwhile 
Marshal  Bazaine  possibly  might  have  recognised  that  he 
had  deceived  himself  in  regard  to  the  release  of  his  army 
by  means  of  negotiation."  Is  it  not  the  reasonable  inference 
that  thus  early,  much  earlier  than  ever  previously  had  been 
suspected,  Bazaine  had  attempted  to  open  negotiations  with 
the  Germans,  and  had  been  repulsed  ? 

As   a   skilful,   untiring,  and   far-seeing  organiser    of   the 
F 


66  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

means  which  make  for  success  in  war,  Moltke  has  never 
had  an  equal,  and  probably,  in  those  respects,  will  never 
have  a  superior.  The  extraordinary  success  of  the  efforts 
on  his  part  and  that  of  his  coadjutor  von  Roon,  to  perfect 
the  national  preparedness  for  war,  produced  the  result  that 
while  those  two  lasted,  Germany  could  find  in  no  other 
European  power  an  equal  antagonist.  Still  less  has  any 
power  produced  a  strategist  who  has  given  proof  of  ranking 
as  Moltke's  peer.  Thus  it  is  impossible  to  gauge  the  full 
measure  of  Moltke's  potentialities.  He  may  have  had  reserves 
of  strategical  genius  which  never  were  needed  to  be  evoked. 
It  is  impossible  to  determine  whether  hi  the  Franco-German 
War  he  put  forth  his  full  strength,  or  only  so  much  of  it 
as  was  proportionate  to  the  requirements  suggested  by  the 
known  inferiority  of  the  adversary. 

One  thing  is  certain,  that  never  was  fortune  more  kind 
to  the  director  of  any  great  war  than  she  was  to  Moltke  in 
1870.  In  spite  of  the  significant  warning  of  Sadowa,  it 
seemed  almost  that  in  its  later  years  the  Second  Empire,  as 
regarded  its  military  position,  had  been  deliberately  "riding 
for  a  fall."  With  the  melancholy  exposure  of  its  military  de- 
cadence all  the  world  is  familiar.  When  Marshal  Niel  en- 
joined the  defensive  as  the  complement  of  the  chassepot,  he 
throttled  the  traditional  elan  of  the  soldiers  of  France.  Her 
army,  deficient  in  everything  save  innate  courage,  lacked 
most  of  all  competent  leadership ;  and  the  assumption  of 
the  chief  command  by  the  Emperor  Napoleon  made  the 
Germans  a  present  of  the  issue  before  a  shot  was  fired. 
The  campaign  begun,  fortune  continued  to  shower  her 
favours  on  Moltke.  It  appeared  as  if  the  very  stars  in 
their  courses  fought  for  him.  An  essential  feature  of  his 
plan  was  to  push  direct  for  the  enemy's  capital.  Bazaine 
unwittingly  helped  him  in  this  by  bottling  himself  up  in 
Metz,  and  MacMahon  yielded  him  the  fair-way  by  moving 
out  of  his  path.  Another  element  of  Moltke's  scheme  was 
that  the  French  should  be  driven  from  the  spacious  and 
fertile  middle  provinces  into  the  barren  and  cramped  pre- 
cincts of  the  north.  Bazaine  did  not  lend  himself  directly 


MOLTKE'S  PLAN  OF  CAMPAIGN.  67 

to  the  accomplishment  of  this  object  of  his  adversary,  but 
he  disposed  of  himself  otherwise  in  a  manner  equally  satis- 
factory to  Moltke.  MacMahon  obliged  by  going  northward 
without  being  driven — at  least  by  the  Germans ;  his  coer- 
cion was  from  Paris.  Moltke,  fully  convinced  of  the  para- 
mount importance  to  the  French  that  the  army  of  Metz 
should  make  good  its  retreat  on  the  Chalons  force,  con- 
centrated every  energy  towards  the  prevention  of  that 
union.  It  happened  that,  as  Moltke  genially  observes, 
Bazaine  did  not  share  the  German  chiefs  conviction,  and 
indeed  played  into  his  adversary's  hand  by  his  preference  for 
remaining  in  Metz  instead  of  the  prosecution  of  a  retreat 
towards  Chalons.  Ready  enough  to  fight — to  do  him 
justice — Bazaine  was  not  earnest  to  march. 

But  Moltke's  plan  of  campaign  was  based,  beyond  all 
other  considerations,  on  the  resolution  at  once  to  assail  the 
enemy  wherever  found,  and  to  keep  the  German  forces  so 
compact  that  the  attack  could  always  be  made  with  the 
advantage  of  superior  strength.  Although  the  Germans 
had  overwhelmingly  superior  numbers  in  the  field,  this  latter 
aspiration  was  not  uniformly  fulfilled.  Indeed,  there  is  a 
certain  pride  in  Moltke's  assertion  that  the  Germans  fought 
— and  won — four  important  battles  with  the  numerical 
odds  against  them,  Spicheren,  Courcelles,  Vionville-Mars- 
la-Tour,  and  Noisseville,  not  to  mention  his  claim  of  equal 
strength  on  the  French  side  at  Gravelotte.  The  failure 
always  to  make  good  the  wise  postulate  of  his  plan  in 
regard  to  concentration,  resulted  inevitably  from  the  free 
hand  accorded  to  subordinate  commanders  to  bring  on  an 
unexpected  battle  at  their  discretion  or  indiscretion.  It 
is  true  that  because  of  various  more  or  less  fortuitous 
circumstances,  no  actual  defeat  resulted  from  this  licence ; 
but  the  risks  it  involved  were  certainly  in  two  instances 
disproportionate  to  the  possible  attainable  advantages. 
Is  it  credible  that,  had  not  Frossard  at  Spicheren  been 
trammelled  by  Imperial  restrictions,  his  three  divisions 
would  not  have  smashed  Kameke's  two  brigades  as  they 
clung  to  his  skirts  for  hours  before  reinforcements  arrived  ? 
F  2 


68  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

The  German  "Staff  History"  owns  to  the  imminence  of 
disaster  at  Courcelles ;  and  but  that  the  French  were  there 
tied  to  the  defence,  it  is  inconceivable  that  five  French  divisions 
should  not  have  defeated  five  German  brigades.  What 
soldier  who  has  realised  the  practical  value  of  numbers  in 
battle,  will  deny  that  had  Bazaine  with  150,000  regulars  at 
his  back,  been  in  dead  earnest  to  force  through  at  Mars-la- 
Tour,  he  could  have  swept  Alvensleben's  40,000  Prussians 
out  of  his  path  before  support  could  have  reached  the 
latter  ?  Moltke  writes  of  Noisseville,  that  there  36,000 
Prussians  repulsed  137,000  Frenchmen.  With  such  odds  in 
their  favour  as  four  to  one,  the  Servian  militia,  fighting  in 
earnest,  would  crush  the  best  troops  in  Europe.  The 
French  did  not  break  out  simply  because  Bazaine  fought 
merely  to  save  appearances.  With  superior  forces  and 
copious  reserves  the  brusque  and  butcherly  offensive  is  a 
tempting  game ;  but  its  attractions  wane  when,  as  with  the 
Germans  at  Gravelotte,  it  entails  the  slaughter  of  20,000 
men  in  inflicting  on  the  enemy  a  loss  of  8,000. 

It  remains  that  the  Germans  were  the  conquerors  ;  and 
that  they  conquered  in  virtue  chiefly  of  Moltke's  strategical 
skill  and  infusion  of  energy  into  all  ranks  of  the  German 
army.  It  is  a  true  saying  that  nothing  succeeds  like 
success,  and  its  converse  is  not  less  true — that  nothing  fails 
like  failure.  But  the  spectator  of  the  Franco-German  War 
must  have  been  purblind  or  warped  who  could  dare  to 
aver  that  the  old  spirit  was  dead  in  the  army  on  which 
had  once  shone  the  sun  of  Austerlitz — that  army  which 
had  stormed  the  Mamelon  with  a  rush.  No;  the  poor 
mis-commanded,  bewildered,  harassed,  overmatched,  out- 
numbered soldiers  in  the  blue  kepis  and  red  breeches, 
fought  on  with  a  loyal  valour  which  ever  commanded 
respect  and  admiration.  The  sad,  noble  story  ol  unavailing 
devotion  is  to  be  told  of  the  French  regular  army  from 
the  first  battle  to  the  ending  at  Sedan.  With  swelling 
heart  and  wet  eyes  I  looked  down  on  the  final  scene  of 
that  awful  tragedy.  The  picture  rises  now  .before  me  of 
that  terrible  afternoon.  The  stern  ring  of  German  fire,  ever 


THE  HORRORS   OF  SEDAN.  69 

encircling  with  stronger  grip  that  plateau  on  which  were 
huddled  the  Frenchmen  as  in  the  shambles  ;  the  storm  of 
shell  fire  that  tore  lanes  through  the  dense  masses,  bare  to 
its  pitiless  blasts;  the  vehement  yet  impotent  protests 
against  the  inevitable,  in  the  shape  of  furious  sorties.  Now 
a  headlong  charge  of  Margueritte's  cuirassiers  thundering 
in  glittering  steel-clad  splendour  down  the  slope  of  Illy 
with  an  impetus  that  seemed  resistless,  till  the  fire  of  the 
German  infantrymen  smote  the  squadrons  fair  in  the  face, 
and  heaped  the  sward  with  dead  and  dying.  Now  the 
frantic  gallop  to  their  fate  of  a  regiment  of  light  horsemen 
on  their  grey  Arab  stallions,  up  to  the  very  muzzles  of  the 
needle-guns  which  the  German  linesmen  held  with  steadi- 
ness so  unwavering.  Now  a  passionate  outburst  of  red- 
trousered  foot-soldiers,  darting  against  a  chance  gap  in  the 
tightening  environment,  too  surely  to  be  crushed  by  the 
ruthless  flanking  fire.  No  semblance  of  order  there,  no 
tokefl  of  leadership  ;  simply  a  hell  in  the  heart  of  which 
writhed  an  indiscriminate  mass  of  brave  men,  with  no 
thought  in  them  but  of  fighting  it  out  to  the  bitter  end ! 
I  shudder  as  I  write,  at  the  recollection  of  the  horrors  of 
that  ghastly  field  on  the  day  after  the  battle.  The  ground 
was  still  slippery  with  blood,  and  in  the  hollows  lay  little 
puddles  which  made  one  faint.  Napoleon's  one  wise  act 
was  his  displaying  the  white  flag  on  the  afternoon  of 
Sedan.  But,  in  their  passion  to  keep  on  fighting,  with 
what  fury  the  soldiers  execrated  him  and  his  conduct ! 


III. 

THE    DARK    DAYS     OF     SEDAN. 

The  discrepancies  about  Sedan — MacMahon  wounded— Napoleon  in  the  Field— 
Ducrot  in  Command — Wimpfen  supersedes  him — Napoleon  and  Ducrot 
in  the  Sous-Prefecture— Wimpfen's  contumacy— The  Final  Bombardment 
and  the  White  Flag— Bronsart's  return  from  Sedan— Arrival  of  Reille  on 
the  King's  Hill— Letters  of  Napoleon  and  the  Prussian  King— The  Hymn 
of  Victory  :  "  Nun  danket  alle  Gott  "—Bismarck's  supper  in  Donchery — 
The  Midnight  Conference — Napoleon's  exit  from  Sedan — The  Weaver's 

Cottage The  interview  in  the  Chateau  Bellevue  after  Capitulation — The 

French   prisoner-Army  on  the   Peninsula  of    Iges — The    last    of    the 
Weaver's  Cottage — End  of  Madame  Fournai&e. 

ONE  day,  no  doubt,  the  inevitable  historian  will  undertake 
the  task  of  writing  a  detailed  account  of  the  strange 
events  which  occurred  about  Sedan  during  the  first  week  of 
September,  1870 ;  but  if  in  the  endeavour  he  escapes  falling 
a  victim  to  softening  of  the  brain,  he  may  be  accounted 
an  exceptionally  fortunate  man.  With  certain  salient  facts, 
it  is  true,  no  difficulties  will  present  themselves.  It  is 
unquestionable  that  a  great  battle  was  fought  on  the  1st, 
resulting  in  the  defeat  and  surrender  of  the  French  army ; 
that  Marshal  MacMahon,  the  French  commander-in-chief, 
was  struck  down  wounded  in  the  early  morning  of  that 
day ;  that  on  the  same  afternoon  the  white  flag  was  hoisted 
by  order  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  who  sent  out  to  the 
German  monarch  a  letter  tendering  the  surrender  of  his 
sword;  that  Napoleon  on  the  early  morning  of  the  2nd 
came  out  from  Sedan,  and  met  and  conferred  with  Bis- 
marck at  the  weaver's  cottage  on  the  Donchery  road;  that, 
subsequently,  the  capitulation  of  the  French  army  having 
been  consummated,  he  had  an  interview  with  King  Wilhelm 
in  the  Chateau  Bellevue ;  that  on  the  following  morning 
he  started  on  his  journey  to  Cassel  as  a  prisoner-of-war ; 
and  that  the  French  army  of  Sedan,  more  than  100,000 
strong,  was  sent  away  into  captivity  in  the  German  fort- 
resses. Thus  far,  the  historian's  task  will  be  simple  enough ; 


WIMPFEN' S   COMMISSION  FROM  PALIEAO.  71 

it  is  the  hopeless  and  bewildering  discrepancies  in  regard 
to  details  which  will  cause  him  to  tear  his  hair,  and  bewail 
himself  of  his  folly  in  choosing  the  avocation  of  a  writer 
of  history,  instead  of  that  of  a  frightener  of  crows.  In 
those  exciting  Sedan  days  many  people  seem  to  have  lost 
their  heads,  and  more  the  faculty  of  memory.  The  hours 
at  which  events  occurred  were  either  unnoted  or  so  noted 
as  to  be  strangely  discordant.  Even  the  customary  preci- 
sion of  the  German  "  Staff  History  "  is  for  once  in  default ; 
and  if  it  is  vague,  the  vagueness  of  French  generals  and 
of  irresponsible  persons  at  large  may  be  imagined. 

Marshal  MacMahon  was  in  the  field  by  five  a.m.  When 
riding  along  the  high  ground  above  La  Moncelle  he  was 
severely  wounded  in  the  thigh  by  the  fragment  of  a  shell, 
and  he  then  nominated  Ducrot  as  his  successor  in  the 
chief  command.  It  is  impossible  to  fix  the  precise  time  at 
which  the  marshal  was  wounded,  or  when  Ducrot  first  learnt 
of  his  promotion ;  but  certainly  before  eight  o'clock  the 
latter  was  exercising  command  and  ordering  a  retreat  on 
Mezieres,  which,  if  it  had  been  promptly  carried  out,  might 
have  temporarily  saved  at  least  a  portion  of  the  French 
army.  But  presently  Wimpfen  produced  his  commission 
from  Palikao;  and  Ducrot,  although  for  the  moment  indig- 
nant at  his  supersession,  was  probably  not  sorry  to  be 
relieved  from  a  situation  so  complicated.  Wimpfen  coun- 
termanded the  retreat  on  Mezieres  in  favour  of  a  hopeless 
attempt  to  break  out  towards  the  east  in  the  direction  of 
Carignan;  and  thenceforth  there  remained  no  hope  for  the 
French.  The  Emperor  when  riding  out  in  the  direction  of 
the  hardest  fighting,  had  met  the  wounded  marshal  being 
brought  in;  one  account  says  in  the  town,  another  on  the 
road  beyond  the  gate.  No  reference  was  thought  worth 
while  to  be  made  to  Napoleon  as  to  the  command — 
whether  Ducrot  or  Wimpfen  was  to  exercise  it;  the  unfor- 
tunate Emperor  mooned  about  the  field  for  hours  under  fire, 
but  had  no  influence  whatsoever  on  the  conduct  of  the 
battle ;  and  he  sent  no  reply  to  a  letter  from  Wimpfen 
begging  his  Imperial  master  "  to  place  himself  in  the  midst 


72  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

of  his  troops  who  could  be  relied  on  to  force  a  passage 
through  the  German  lines."  When  the  Emperor  returned 
into  Sedan  is  not  to  be  ascertained;  nor,  except  inferentially, 
at  what  hour  he  first  directed  the  white  flag  to  be  exhibited. 
No  person  has  avowed  himself  the  executant  of  that  order, 
but  the  flag  did  not  long  fly ;  it  was  indignantly  cut  down 
by  General  Faure,  MacMahon's  chief-of-staff,  who  did  not 
give  himself  the  trouble  to  communicate  with  Napoleon 
either  before  or  after  having  taken  this  considerable  liberty. 
By  one  o'clock,  the  battle  in  effect  was  lost  and  won;  what 
followed  was  merely  futile  fighting  and  futile  slaughter. 

How  anxious  the  Emperor  continued  to  be  for  capitula- 
tion; how  obstinate  was  Wimpfen  that  there  should  be  no 
negotiations  and  no  capitulation,  is  shown,  rather  con- 
fusedly it  is  true,  by  the  testimony  of  Lebrun  and  Ducrot. 
"  Why  does  this  useless  struggle  still  go  on  ? "  Napoleon 
demanded  of  Lebrun,  who,  a  little  before  three  p.m.,  entered 
his  apartment  in  the  sous-prefecture — "  an  hour  ago  and 
more  I  bade  the  white  flag  be  displayed  in  order  to  sue 
for  an  armistice."  Lebrun  explained  that  certain  additional 
formalities  were  requisite — a  letter  must  be  signed  by  the 
commander-in-chief  and  sent  out  by  an  officer  Avith  a 
trumpeter  and  a  flag  of  truce.  *That  document  Lebrun 
prepared,  and  having  procured  officer,  trumpeter,  and  flag  of 
truce,  he  went  forth  to  Avhere  Wimpfen  was  gathering  troops 
for  an  attack  on  the  Germans  in  Balan.  As  Lebrun  approached 
him,  the  angry  Wimpfen  shouted,  "  No  capitulation !  Drop 
that  rag !  I  mean  to  fight  on !  "  and  forthwith  set  out  towards 
Balan,  carrying  Lebrun  along  with  him  into  the  fight. 

Ducrot  had  been  fighting  hard  to  the  northward  of 
Sedan,  about  Illy  and  the  edge  of  the  Bois  de  Garenne ; 
straining  every  nerve  to  arrest,  or  at  least  to  retard  the 
environing  advance  of  the  Germans.  Recognising  that  his 
efforts  afforded  no  likelihood  of  success,  he  resolved  soon 
after  three  o'clock  to  pass  southward  through  Sedan,  and 
join  in  an  attempt  to  cut  a  way  out  towards  Carignan  and 
Montmedy.  Ducrot  had  no  hope  of  success  in  such  an 
enterprise,  but,  nevertheless,  Avas  prepared  to  obey  the  order. 


NAPOLEON  IN    THE  SOUS-PREFECTURE.  73 

But,  as  he  has  written,  he  was  alone  ;  he  had  not  even  a 
corporal's  escort.  He  sent  word  to  Wimpfen  by  that  com- 
mander's orderly,  that  he  would  enter  Sedan  and  attempt  to 
gather  some  troops  in  support  of  Wimpfen's  effort.  What  Dncrot 
saw  inside  Sedan  may  be  told  nearly  in  his  own  words. 

The  state  of  the  interior  of  Sedan  he  has  characterised  as 
indescribable.  The  streets,  the  open  places,  the  gates,  were 
blocked  up  by  waggons,  guns,  and  the  impedimenta  and 
debris  of  a  routed  army.  Bands  of  soldiers  without  arms, 
without  packs,  were  rushing  about  throwing  themselves  into 
the  churches,  or  breaking  into  private  houses.  Many  unfor- 
tunate men  were  trampled  under  foot.  The  few  soldiers  Avho 
still  preserved  a  remnant  of  energy  seemed  to  be  expending 
it  in  accusations  and  curses.  "We  have  been  betrayed!"  they 
cried — "  we  have  been  sold  by  traitors  and  cowards  !  "  There 
was  really  nothing  to  be  done  with  such  men,  and  Ducrot 
repaired  to  the  Emperor  in  the  sous-prefecture. 

Napoleon  no  longer  preserved  that  cold  and  impenetrable 
countenance  familiar  to  all  the  world.  The  absolute  silence 
which  reigned  in  the  presence  of  the  sovereign  rendered  the 
noise  outside  more  awfully  tumultuous.  The  air  was  on  fire. 
Shells  fell  on  roofs,  and  struck  masses  of  masonry  ^vvrrich 
crashed  down  upon  the  pavements.  •"  I  do  not  understand," 
said  the  bewildered  Emperor — "  why  the  enemy  continues 
his  fire.  I  have  ordered  the  white  flag  to  be  hoisted.  I  hope 
to  obtain  an  interview  with  the  king  of  Prussia,  and  may 
succeed  in  obtaining  advantageous  terms  for  the  army." 
While  the  Emperor  and  Ducrot  were  conversing,  the  can- 
nonade increased  in  violence  from  minute  to  minute.  Con- 
flagrations burst  out.  Women,  children  and  wounded  were 
destroyed.  The  sous-prefecture  was  struck  ;  shells  exploded 
every  minute  in  garden  and  courtyard. 

•'  It  is  absolutely  necessary  to  stop  the  firing  ! "  exclaimed 
the  Emperor.  "  Here,  write  this ! "  he  commanded  General 
Ducrot : — " '  The  flag  of  truce  having  been  displayed,  negotia- 
tions are  about  to  be  opened  with  the  enemy.  The  firing 
must  cease  all  along  the  line.'"  Then  said  the  Emperor 
"  Xow  sign  it ! "  "  Oh  no,  sire,"  replied  Ducrot,  "  I  cannot 


74  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

sign:  by  what  right  could  I  sign?  General  Wimpfen  is 
general-in-chief."  "Yes,"  replied  the  Emperor,  "but  I 
don't  know  where  General  Wimpfen  is  to  be  found.  Some 
one  must  sign!"  "Let  his  chief-of-staff  sign,"  suggested 
Ducrot,  "  or  General  Douay."  "  Yes,"  replied  the  Emperor, 
"  let  the  chief-of-staff  sign  the  order !  " 

The  subsequent  history  of  this  order  cannot  be  distinctly 
traced,  nor  whether,  indeed,  it  ever  got  signed  at  all.  It  may 
have  been  enclosed  in  the  missive  from  the  Emperor  which 
presently  reached  Wimpfen,  and  which  that  recalcitrant 
chief  would  not  even  open.  It  appeared  that  Wimpfen's 
troops  had  been  gradually  falling  away  from  him  ;  and  he 
had  ridden  back  to  one  of  the  gates  of  Sedan,  on  the  double 
errand  of  procuring  reinforcements  and  of  trying  to  prevail 
on  the  Emperor  to  join  him  in  his  forlorn-hope  attempt  to 
break  out.  What  then  occurred  may  best  be  told  in 
Wimpfen's  own  words : — 

"Shortly  before  four  o'clock,"  he  wrote,  "I  reached  the 
gate  of  Sedan.  There,  at  last,  there  came  to  me  M.  Pierron 
of  the  Imperial  Staff,  who,  instead  of  announcing  the  arrival 
of  the  sovereign  which  I  was  expecting  with  feverish 
impatience,  handed  me  a  letter  from  his  Majesty,  and  he 
also  informed  me  that  the  white  flag  was  floating  from  the 
citadel  of  Sedan,  and  that  I  was  charged  with  the  duty 
of  negotiating  with  the  enemy.  .  .  Not  recognising  the 
Emperor's  right  to  order  the  hoisting  of  the  flag,  I  replied  to 
his  messenger  : — '  I  will  not  take  cognisance  of  this  letter : 
I  refuse  to  negotiate!'  In  vain  did  M.  Pierron  insist.  I 
took  his  Majesty's  letter,  and  holding  it  in  my  hand  without 
opening  it  I  entered  the  town,  calling  on  the  soldiers  to 
follow  me  into  the  fight.  .  .  Having  gathered  about  2,000 
men,  at  the  head  of  this  gallant  handful  I  succeeded,  about 
five  o'clock,  in  penetrating  as  far  as  the  church  of  Balan ;  but 
the  reinforcements  I  hoped  for  did  not  arrive,  and  I  then 
gave  the  order  to  retire  on  Sedan." 

Wimpfen  on  his  return  to  the  fortress,  forwarded  his 
resignation  to  the  Emperor,  who  then  in  vain  attempted  to 
persuade  first  Ducrot  and  then  Douay  to  assume  the 


THE  DEATH-THROE  AT  SEDAN.  75 

command.  Wimpfen  finally  was  sent  for,  and  in  the  pre- 
sence of  the  Emperor  a  violent  altercation  occurred  between 
him  and  Ducrot,  in  the  course  of  which,  it  was  believed, 
blows  were  actually  exchanged.  Ducrot,  who  was  the  more 
excited  of  the  two,  withdrew;  and  in  the  words  of  the 
Emperor,  "General  Wimpfen  was  brought  to  understand 
that,  having  commanded  during  the  battle,  his  duty  obliged 
him  not  to  desert  his  post  in  circumstances  so  critical." 
Wimpfen  would  have  been  quite  within  his  rights  in  persist- 
ing in  resigning.  The  situation  had  been  purely  a  military 
one,  and  he  was  commander- in-chief ;  yet  the  Emperor,  who 
had  no  military  position  whatsoever,  had  overridden  Wimp- 
fen's  powers  while  as  yet  that  officer  was  in  supreme 
command.  Wimpfen  showed  patriotism  and  moral  courage  in 
taking  on  himself  the  invidious  burden  of  conducting  negotia- 
tions resulting  from  acts  to  which  he  had  not  been  a  party. 

The  scene  may  now  be  changed  to  thte  hill-top  south  of 
Frenois,  from  which  the  Prussian  King  and  his  entourage  had 
been  watching  the  course  of  events  ever  since  the  early  morn- 
ing. It  would  seem  that  the  first  white  flag  which  Faure  in 
his  anger  cut  down,  had  not  been  noticed  in  the  German  army. 
As  the  afternoon  drew  on  the  French  defeat  was  decisively 
apparent ;  yet,  although  the  fierceness  of  the  fighting  waned, 
the  now  surrounded  army  remained  heroically  stubborn  in 
its  resistance  to  inevitable  fate ;  and  so  its  final  death-throe 
had  to  be  artistically  quickened  up.  In  the  stern  words  of 
the  German  "  Official  History,"  "  a  powerful  artillery  fire 
directed  against  the  enemy's  last  point  of  refuge  appeared  the 
most  suitable  method  of  convincing  him  of  the  hopelessness 
of  his  situation,  and  of  inducing  him  to  surrender.  With 
intent  to  hasten  the  capitulation,  and  thus  spare  the  German 
army  further  sacrifices,  the  King  ordered  the  whole  available 
artillery  to  concentrate  its  fire  on  Sedan."  This  command,  so 
states  the  "  Staff  History,"  was  issued  at  four  p.m.,  and  was 
promptly  acted  on.  The  consequent  exacerbation  of  the 
cannonade  was,  no  doubt  that  of  which  Ducrot  tells,  whilst 
he  was  in  conversation  with  the  Emperor  in  the  sous- 
prefecture.  Results  of  the  reinforced  and  concentrated  shell 


76  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

fire  were  soon  manifested.  Sedan  seemed  in  flames.  The 
French  return-fire,  gallantly  maintained  for  a  short  time,  was 
by-and-by  crushed  into  silence.  The  "  Staff  History  "  yields 
no  more  time-data ;  to  me  the  hurricane  of  shell  fire  seemed 
to  endure  for  quite  half  an  hour.  Under  its  cover  a  Bavarian 
force  was  preparing  to  storm  the  Torcy  Gate.  At  this 
moment  the  white  flag  was  definitively  displayed  on  the 
citadel  flagstaff,  and  the  German  fire  at  once  ceased.  At  the 
solicitation  of  the  French  commandant  of  the  suburb  of 
Torcy,  the  Bavarian  leader  then  refrained  from  assault  and 
remained  in  position  outside  the  gate.  As  the  news  of 
impending  negotiations  spread,  hostility  ceased  everywhere 
save  about  Balan,  where  the  contumacious  Wimpfen  was 
still  battling  impotently.  Tidings  of  the  situation  at  Torcy 
having  reached  him,  and  the  white  flag  being  visible,  the 
King  of  Prussia  directed  Colonel  Bronsart  von  Schellendorf  of 
his  staff  to  ride  into  Sedan  under  a  flag  of  truce,  and  summon 
the  French  Commander-in-Chief  to  surrender  his  army  and 
the  fortress.  The  Prussian  officer  penetrated  into  the  city 
and  duly  announced  the  nature  of  his  mission  ;  but  to  his 
surprise  he  was  ushered  into  the  presence  of  the  Emperor 
Napoleon,  of  whose  presence  in  Sedan  the  German  head- 
quarters had  been  ignorant.  In  reply  to  Bronsart's  application 
for  a  French  officer  of  rank  to  be  appointed  to  negotiate,  the 
Emperor  simply  informed  him  that  the  French  army  was  under 
the  command  of  General  Wimpfen.  This  answer  he  desired 
Bonsart  to  take  back  to  the  king ;  and  to  intimate  further  that 
he  would  shortly  send  out  his  aide-de-camp,  General  Count 
Reille,  with  a  letter  from  himself  to  his  Majesty. 

Personally  I  witnessed  nothing  of  what  was  passing  on  the 
summit  of  the  Frenois  hill,  being  with  the  Prussian  skirmishers 
on  the  plateau  of  Floing  when  the  roar  of  the  cannon  fell 
suddenly  still.  But  on  the  same  evening  a  distinguished 
officer  of  the  headquarter  staff,  who  had  been  a  witness  of 
everything  that  occurred  on  the  Frenois  summit,  dictated  to 
me  the  following  account : — 

"Bronsart  and  his  companion  Winterfeldt  came  trotting 
up  the  hill,  the  time  being  a  quarter  past  six.  Bronsart 


"DER  KAISER  1ST  DA!"  77 

spurred  his  horse  into  a  gallop  as  he  came  near,  and,  flinging 
his  arm  behind  him  in  the  direction  of  Sedan,  exclaimed  in 
a  loud  voice :  '  Der  Kaiser  ist  da ! '  There  was  a  loud  outburst 
of  cheering.  But  as  Bronsart  dismounted,  Moltke,  with  a 
very  serious  face,  strode  towards  him,  and  said  something 
which  gave  Bronsart  obvious  chagrin — a  rebuke,  as  I  suppose, 
for  his  informality  and  lack  of  self-restraint  in  the  immediate 
presence  of  the  King.  It  was  at  a  quarter  to  seven  when, 
with  a  trooper  in  advance  bearing  on  his  lance  the  flag  of 
truce  and  with  an  escort  of  Prussian  cuirassiers,  the  French 
officer  came  up  the  hill  at  a  walking  pace.  He  halted  and 
dismounted  some  horse-lengths  short  of  where  the  King  stood, 
out  to  the  front  of  his  retinue ;  then  he  advanced,  doffing  his 
kepi  as  he  came,  and  with  a  silent  reverence  handed  to  his 
Majesty  the  Emperor's  letter.  While  the  King,  Bismarck,  and 
Moltke  conversed  earnestly  apart,  the  Crown  Prince,  with 
that  gracious  tact  which  is  one  of  the  finest  traits  of  his 
character,  entered  into  conversation  with  poor  forlorn  Reille, 
standing  out  there  among  the  stubbles.  Presently  Bismarck 
beckoned  up  from  rearward  a  gentleman  in  civilian  uniform, 
Count  Hatzfeldt,  I  believe,  of  the  Foreign  Office,  who  with- 
drew after  a  short  interview  with  the  Chancellor,  after  having, 
I  presume,  received  instructions  for  drafting  the  King's  answer 
to  the  letter  of  the  French  Emperor.  Presently  there  was  a 
curious  spectacle.  The  King,  sitting  on  a  chair,  was  using  as 
his  writing-desk  the  seat  of  another  chair,  which  was  being 
held  in  position  by  Major  von  Alten.  The  King,  as  we  all 
knew  later,  was  inditing  his  reply  to  Napoleon  from  Count 
Hatzfeldt's  draft.*  After  expressing  sympathy  and  intimating 

*  The  following  is  the  Emperor  Napoleon's  letter  : — 

"  SIRE,  MY  BROTHER, — Not  having  been  able  to  die  in  the  midst  of  my  troops, 
there  is  nothing  left  me  but  to  render  my  sword  into  the  hands  of  Your  Majesty. 

"  I  am,  Your  Majesty's  good  brother,  "  NAPOLEON." 

William's  reply  runs  thus  :  — 

''Mv  BROTHER, — While  regretting  the  circumstances  in  which  we  meet,  I 
accept  Your  Majesty's  sword,  and  request  that  you  will  appoint  one  of  your 
officers,  and  furnish  him  with  the  necessary  powers)  to  treat  for  the  capitulation 
of  the  army  which  has  fought  so  valiantly  under  your  command.  I,  for  my 
part,  have  appointed  General  von  Moltke  to  this  duty. 

"  Your  loving  brother,  "  WILHELM." 


78  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

his  acceptance  of  the  Emperor's  sword,  his  Majesty  desired 
that  Napoleon  should  appoint  an  officer  to  conduct  negotia- 
tions with  General  Moltke,  whom  he  himself  had  delegated. 
Reille  rode  back  into  Sedan  with  the  King's  reply.  Soon 
after  seven  his  Majesty  and  suite  started  on  the  drive  back  to 
Vendresse.  Bismarck  and  Moltke  rode  into  Donchery  to 
take  part  in  the  conference  for  settling  the  terms  of  capitula- 
tion, and  the  Frenois  hill  was  deserted." 

The  diary  of  Dr.  Busch,  Bismarck's  secretary,  who  was 
with  the  headquarter  staff,  accords  in  essentials  with  the 
foregoing.  Dr.  Busch  relates  further  that  at  a  quarter  past 
five  a  Bavarian  officer  came  to  the  King  with  information  that 
his  general  (Maillenger)  was  in  Torcy,  that  the  French  desired 
to  capitulate,  and  were  ready  to  surrender  unconditionally: 
and  that  this  messenger  took  back  orders  that  all  proposals  as 
to  negotiations  were  to  be  sent  direct  to  the  royal  head- 
quarters. A  little  later  an  officer  who  had  ridden  out  to 
ascertain  something  as  to  the  German  casualties,  returned 
with  the  information  that  those  were  moderate. 

"  And  the  Emperor  ? "  asked  the  King  of  him. 

"  Nobody  knows ! "  announced  the  officer. 

Thus  far,  if  the  hour-data  are  not  very  specific,  there  are 
no  important  discrepancies  in  the  testimony  of  eye-witnesses. 
But  they  are  conspicuous  in  the  evidence  of  the  two  witnesses 
now  to  be  cited.  The  late  General  Sheridan  of  the  United 
States  army,  a  man  of  keen  observation  and  unimpeachable 
veracity,  trained  by  much  experience  to  coolness  in  the  midst 
of  battle,  was  officially  attached  to  the  royal  headquarters. 
He  made  notes  on  the  spot  which  he  told  me  he  had 
implicitly  followed  when  writing  his  memoirs,  published 
immediately  after  his  premature  and  lamented  death  in  1888. 
And  the  following  is  his  testimony : — 

"  About  three  o'clock,  the  French  being  in  a  desperate  and 
hopeless  situation,  the  King  ordered  the  firing  to  be  stopped, 
and  at  once  despatched  one  of  his  staff,  Colonel  von  Bronsart, 
with  the  demand  for  a  surrender.  Just  as  this  officer  was 
starting  I  remarked  to  Bismarck  that  Napoleon  himself  would 
likely  be  one  of  the  prizes;  but  the  Count,  incredulous, 


THE  "WHITE  DUSTER."  79 

replied,  '  Oh,  no ;  the  old  fox  is  too  cunning  to  be  caught  in 
such  a  trap.  He  has  doubtless  slipped  off  to  Paris.'  Between 
four  and  five  o'clock  Bronsart  returned  frorn  his  mission  to 
Sedan,  bringing  word  to  the  King  that  General  Wimpfen,  the 
commanding  officer  there,  wished  to  know,  in  order  that  the 
further  effusion  of  blood  might  be  spared,  upon  what  terms 
he  might  surrender.  The  colonel  also  brought  the  intelligence 
that  the  French  Emperor  was  in  the  town." 

The  late  Mr.  Holt  White,  the  correspondent  of  the  New 
York  Tribune  and  Pall  Mall  Gazette,  was  with  Sheridan 
throughout  the  day.  He  wrote : — 

"  About  five  o'clock  there  was  a  suspension  of  fighting  all 
along  the  line.  Five  minutes  later  we  saw  a  French  officer, 
escorted  by  two  uhlans,  coming  at  a  hard  trot  up  the  steep 
bridle-path,  one  of  the  uhlans  carrying  a  white  duster  on  a 
faggot  stick  as  a  flag  of  truce.  This  officer,  who  came  to  ask 
for  terms  of  surrender,  was  told  that  in  a  matter  of  such 
importance  it  was  necessary  to  send  an  officer  of  high  rank. 
About  half-past  six  there  was  a  sudden  cry  among  members 
of  the  King's  staff',  '  Der  Kaiser  ist  da ! '  and  ten  minutes  later 
General  Keille  rode  up  with  a  letter  from  Napoleon  to  his 
Majesty,  who  wrote  a  reply  begging  Napoleon  to  come  out 
next  morning  to  the  royal  headquarters  at  Vendresse." 

Of  course  this  is  an  error  ;  but  what  of  the  French  officer 
of  whose  mission  Holt  White  reported  ?  The  Bavarian  officer 
from  Torcy  to  whom  Busch  refers  might  have  been  mistaken 
for  a  Frenchman,  when  as  yet  people  were  not  very  well  up  in 
uniforms,  were  it  not  for  the  flag  of  truce.  The  "white 
duster  "  was  certainly  no  myth,  for  Holt  White  brought  it  to 
London,  where  many  people  saw  it ;  and  Sheridan  told  me  he 
saw  it  given  to  White.  Could  this  officer  have  brought  out  the 
paper  drawn  out  by  Lebrun,  at  which  Faure  would  not  look, 
but  which  some  one  other  than  the  commander-in-chief  might 
have  signed/and  which  had  got  forwarded  somehow  ?  But  if 
this  were  so,  how  comes  it  that  no  mention  was  ever  made  by 
French  writers  of  its  exodus,  or  by  the-  German  "Official 
History  "  of  its  reception  ? 

As  it  fell  dusk  a  strange  uncanny  silence  and  stillness 


80  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

succeeded  to  the  thunderous  noise  and  turmoil  of  the  day. 
The  smoke  of  the  long  cannonade  still  hung  low  on  the 
uplands  of  Floing  and  Illy,  and  around  the  sombre  fortifica- 
tions of  Sedan.  The  whole  horizon  was  lurid  with  the 
reflection  of  fires.  All  along  the  valley  of  the  Meuse  were  the 
bivouacs  of  the  German  hosts.  A  hundred  and  fifty  thousand 
Teuton  soldiers  lay  in  a  wide  circle  around  their  beaten  and 
shattered  foe.  On  hill  and  in  valley  glowed  in  the  darkness 
the  flames  of  burning  villages,  the  glare  here  and  there 
reflecting  itself  on  the  face  of  the  placid  Meuse.  What  were 
the  Germans  doing  on  this  their  night  of  consummated 
triumph  ?  Celebrating  their  victory  in  wassail  and  riot  ?  No. 
There  rose  from  every  bivouac  one  unanimous  chorus  of  song, 
but  not  the  song  of  insolence  or  of  ribaldry.  The  chaunt  that 
filled  with  solemn  harmony  the  wide  valley  was  Luther's  hymn, 

the  glorious 

"Nundanket  alleGott!" 

the  Old  Hundredth  of  the  German  race.  To  listen  to  this 
vast  martial  choir  singing  this  noble  hymn  on  the  field  of 
hard- won  victory  Avas  to  understand,  in  some  measure,  under 
what  inspiration  that  victory  had  been  gained. 

Late  that  same  evening  there  was  a  great  concourse  of 
German  officers  in  the  little  hotel  in  the  Square  of  Donchery. 
The  house  had  hours  earlier  been  eaten  out  of  everything 
except  bread ;  but  there  was  plenty  of  wine  and  champagne 
flowed  freely.  My  companion  and  myself'  achieved  great 
popularity  by  the  free  distribution  of  a  quantity  of  sardines 
which  were  among  the  provisions  stored  in  the  well  of  our 
carriage.  About  eleven  o'clock  Bismarck,  uniformed  and 
booted  to  the  thigh,  strode  into  the  salle-a-manyer,  hungry, 
and  demanding  supper.  He  made  a  formal  statement  to  the 
assembled  officers  to  the  effect  that  the  French  Emperor  had 
sent  out  to  the  King  the  surrender  of  his  sword ;  and  he  read 
in  a  loud  voice  a  copy  of  Napoleon's  letter.  Adding  no 
comments,  he  led  off  a  hearty  cheer,  and  then  gave  the  toasts 
of  "  the  King  "  and  the  "  Fatherland."  But  his  supper  tarried. 
An  officer  ventured  into  the  kitchen  with  intent  to  ascertain 
what  was  being  prepared  for  the  Chancellor.  Alas,  the 


THE  MIDNIGHT  CONFERENCE.  81 

unhappy  hostess  protested,  with  many  mon  Dieus  !  that  the 
Germans  might  eat  her  if  they  chose  and  welcome,  but  that 
the  only  food  in  the  place  was  half-a-dozen  dubious  eggs. 
From  a  ham  among  our  stores  we  contributed  sundry  slices, 
and  they,  with  the  dubious  eggs,  were  prepared  for  the 
Chancellor's  supper.  But  even  so  great  a  man  as  he  was  not 
exempt  from  the  practical  realisation  of  the  adage  that  there 
is  many  a  slip  between  the  cup  and  the  lip.  Between  kitchen 
and  dining-room  the  dish  was  cut  out  and  carried  off  by  a 
privateering  uhlan  officer ;  and  it  was  not  until  after  perquisi- 
tion throughout  the  depleted  little  town  that  a  beef-steak  was 
found,  on  which  Bismarck  at  last  supped,  washing  it  down 
with  a  bottle  of  Donchery  champagne. 

Thus  fortified,  the  Chancellor  about  midnight  joined 
Moltke,  whom  the  King  had  designated  to  name  terms  for  the 
capitulation  of  the  French  army.  That  was  a  strange  con- 
ference which  was  held  hi  the  still  watches  of  the  night  in 
the  salon  of  a  house  just  outside  of  Donchery.  The  greet- 
ings were  curt.  Wimpfen  verified  his  powers,  and  pre- 
sented to  Moltke  Generals  Faure  and  Castelnau  as  his 
colleagues.  Moltke,  with  a  brusque  wave  of  the  hand, 
introduced  Count  Bismarck  and  General  Blumenthal,  and 
then  seats  were  taken.  On  one  side  of  the  great  central 
table  sat  the  three  Germans,  Moltke  in  the  centre  with 
Bismarck  on  his  right  and  Blumenthal  on  his  left.  On  the 
opposite  side  of  the  table  sat  Wimpfen  by  himself;  be- 
hind him,  somewhat  in  shadow,  Faure,  Castelnau,  and  a 
few  other  French  officers.  A  Prussian  captain  stood  by  the 
mantelpiece,  ready  to  commit  to  paper  the  proceedings  in 
shorthand ;  on  the  French  side  a  vivid  precis  was  taken 
by  Captain  of  Cuirassiers  d'Orcet.  Moltke  sat  silent  and 
impassive;  and  after  an  embarrassing  pause,  Wimpfen  had 
at  length  to  take  the  initiative  by  inquiring  what  were  the 
conditions  the  Prussian  King  was  prepared  to  accord. 

"  They  are  very   simple,"   replied   Moltke   curtly.     "  The 
whole   French  army   to    surrender  with   arms  and  belong- 
ings:   the   officers    to   be    permitted   to  retain   their   arms, 
but  to  be  prisoners  of  war  along  with  their  men." 
G 


82  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Wimpfen  scouted  those  terms,  and  demanded  for  the 
French  army  that  it  should  be  allowed  to  withdraw  with 
arms,  equipment,  and  colours,  on  condition  of  not  serving 
while  the  war  should  last.  Moltke  adhered  inexorably  to 
the  conditions  which  he  had  specified,  and  was  adamant  to 
the  pleading  of  the  French  general.  Losing  temper,  the 
latter  exclaimed — 

"I  cannot  accept  the  terms  you  impose.  I  will  appeal 
to  the  honour  and  heroism  of  my  army,  and  will  cut  my 
way  out  or  stand  on  my  defence  at  Sedan!" 

Moltke's  reply  was  crushing. 

"A  sortie  and  the  defensive,"  he  grimly  remarked,  "are 
equally  impossible.  The  mass  of  your  infantry  are  de- 
moralised ;  we  took  to-day  more  than  20,000  unwounded 
prisoners,  and  your  whole  force  is  not  now  more  than 
80,000  strong.  You  cannot  pierce  our  lines,  for  I  have 
surrounding  you  240,000  men  with  500  guns  in  position  to 
lire  on  Sedan  and  your  camps  around  the  place.  You 
cannot  maintain  your  defensive  there,  because  you  have  not 
provisions  for  forty-eight  hours  and  your  ammunition  is 
exhausted.  If  you  desire,  I  will  send  one  of  your  officers 
round  our  positions,  who  will  satisfy  you  as  to  the  accuracy 
of  my  statements." 

At  this  point  Bismarck  and  Wimpfen,  somewhat  to 
Moltke's  discontent,  entered  into  a  political  discussion,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  Chancellor  spoke  his  mind  very  freely 
but  in  which  Moltke  took  no  share.  Assured  that  there 
could  be  no  mitigation  of  the  terms,  Wimpfen  exclaimed — 

"Then  it  is  equally  impossible  for  me  to  sign  such  a 
capitulation:  we  will  renew  the  battle!" 

Moltke's  quiet,  curt  answer  was — 

"The  armistice  expires  at  4  am.  At  that  hour,  to  the 
moment,  I  shall  reopen  fire." 

There  was  nothing  more  to  be  said.  The  Frenchmen 
called  for  their  horses :  meanwhile,  not  a  word  was  spoken ; 
in  the  language  of  the  reporter,  "Le  silence  etait  glacial." 
It  was  at  length  broken  by  Bismarck,  who  urged  Wimpfen 
not  to  allow  a  moment  of  pique  to  break  oft'  the  confer- 


THE  "LAST  ADIEU"  FROM  FRENCH  SOLDIERS.      S3 

ence.  Wimpfen  represented  that  he  alone  could  not  under- 
take the  responsibility  of  a  decision,  that  it  was  necessary 
that  he  should  consult  his  colleagues;  that  the  final  answer 
could  not  be  forthcoming  by  4  a.m.,  and  that  the  pro- 
longation of  the  armistice  was  indispensable.  After  a  short 
colloquy  between  Bismarck  and  Moltke,  the  latter,  with 
well-feigned  reluctance,  gave  his  consent  that  the  truce 
should  be  extended  until  nine  o'clock;  whereupon  Wimpfen 
quitted  Donchery  and  rode  back  into  Sedan.  He  went 
straight  to  the  bedside  of  the  Emperor,  who,  having  been 
informed  of  the  harshness  of  the  German  conditions,  said — 

"  I  shall  start  at  five  o'clock  for  the  German  head- 
quarters, and  shall  entreat  the  King  to  grant  more  favour- 
able conditions." 

It  was  then  about  half-past  three  a.m. 

Napoleon  did  his  best  to  act  up  to  his  resolution.  He 
was  in  his  carriage  at  the  hour  he  had  named.  Expecting 
that  he  would  be  permitted  to  return  to  Sedan,  not- 
withstanding that  he  had  formally  constituted  himself  a 
prisoner  of  war,  he  bade  no  farewells.  As  he  passed 
through  the  Torcy  Gate  a  little  before  six  o'clock,  the 
Zouaves  on  duty  there  shouted  "  Vive  1'Empereur ! " — "  the 
last  adieu  which  fell  upon  his  ears "  from  the  voices  of 
French  soldiers.  It  was  strange  that  the  first  greeting  he 
received  as  he  passed  over  the  drawbridge,  was  a  silent 
and  respectful  salutation  from  American  officers.  General 
Sheridan  and  his  aide-de-camp  Colonel  Forsyth  were  con- 
versing with  the  German  subaltern  on  duty  on  the  picket- 
line,  when  there  came  out  an  open  carriage  containing  four 
officers,  one  of  whom,  in  the  uniform  of  a  general  and 
smoking  a  cigarette,  the  American  officers  recognised  as 
the  Emperor  Napoleon.  They  followed  the  carriage,  which 
proceeded  towards  Donchery  at  a  leisurely  pace.  At  the 
hamlet  of  Frenois,  about  a  mile  from  Donchery,  it  halted 
for  some  time,  Napoleon  remaining  seated  in  the  vehicle, 
still  smoking,  and  enduring  with  nonchalance  the  stare  of 
a  group  of  German  soldiers  near  by,  who  were  gazing  on 
the  fallen  monarch  with  curious  and  eager  interest. 
G  2 


84  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Looking  out  from  my  bedroom  window  into  the  little 
Place  of  Donchery  at  a  quarter  to  six  the  same  morning, 
I  observed  a  French  officer,  whom  I  afterwards  knew  to  be 
General  Re'lle,  sitting  on  horseback  in  front  of  the  house 
which  I  knew  to  be  Bismarck's  quarters  for  the  night. 
Reille  presently  rode  slowly  away.  He  was  scarcely  out  of 
sight,  when  Bismarck,  in  flat  cap  and  undress  uniform,  his 
long  cuirassier  boots  stained  and  dusty,  as  if  he  had  slept 
in  them,  came  outside,  swung  himself  on  to  his  big  bay 
horse  and  rode  away  hi  Reille's  track.  I  was  close  by  him 
as  he  forced  his  masterful  way  through  the  chaos  that  all 
but  blocked  the  Donchery  street.  There  was  no  redness 
about  the  deep-set  eyes  or  weariness  in  the  strong-lined 
face ;  it  had  been  midnight  when  he  drank  his  last  glass 
of  champagne  in  the  Hotel  de  Commerce,  and  he  and 
Moltke  had  been  wrestling  with  Wimpfen  about  the  terms 
of  capitulation  for  some  three  hours  longer :  yet  here  he  was 
before  the  clock  had  chimed  the  hour  of  six,  fresh,  hearty, 
steady  of  hand  and  clear  of  throat,  as  the  ringing  voice 
proved  in  which  he  bade  the  throng  of  soldiery  give  him 
space  to  pass.  I  followed  him  on  foot  at  a  little  distance 
as  he  crossed  the  bridge  and  rode  at  a  walking  pace  to- 
wards Sedan,  but  fell  behind  when  he  started  off  at  a 
smart  canter.  I  was  not  up  in  time  for  the  actual  meeting 
between  the  Emperor  and  Bismarck;  Sheridan  told  me  that 
the  latter  came  up  at  a  canter,  dismounted,  letting  his  horse 
go,  and  drawing  near  on  foot,  uncovered  his  head  and 
bowed  low.  The  man  to  whom  he  spoke — the  man  with 
the  leaden-coloured  face,  the  lines  of  which  were  drawn 
and  deepened  as  if  by  some  spasm,  the  gaunt-eyed  man 
with  the  dishevelled  moustache  and  the  weary  stoop 
of  .the  shoulders,  was  none  other  than  Napoleon  the 
Third  and  last. 

As  I  came  up,  Bismarck  had  remounted,  and  was  now 
following  along  the  road  towards  Donchery  a  rather  shabby 
open  carriage,  on  the  right  of  the  principal  seat  of 
which  I  at  once  recognised  the  Emperor.  He  wore  a  blue 
cloak  with  scarlet  lining,  which  was  thrown  back  disclosing 


THE   WEAVER'S   COTTAGE.  85 

the  decorations  on  his  breast.  There  were  three  officers  in 
the  vehicle  with  the  Emperor,  and  three  more  rode  abreast 
of  Bismarck  behind  the  carriage.  A  few  hundred  yards 
had  been  traversed  by  the  cortege  in  the  direction  of  Don- 
chery,  when  at  Napoleon's  instance  the  carriage  was  halted 
in  front  of  a  weaver's  cottage  on  the  left-hand  side  of  the 
road.  I  saw  him  turn  round  in  his-  seat  and  heard  the 
request  he  made  to  Bismarck,  that  he  should  be  allowed  to 
wait  in  the  cottage  until  he  should  have  an  interview  with 
the  King.  Bismarck  placed  at  his  disposal  his  own  quarters 
hi  Donchery ;  but  the  Emperor,  who  appeared  to  be  suffering, 
reiterated  his  desire  to  wait  in  the  roadside  cottage.  The 
cottage,  two  storeys  high,  its  front  painted  a  dusky  yellow, 
is  the  nearest  to  Sedan  of  a  block  of  three,  standing  some 
fifteen  feet  south  of  the  highway  and  on  a  slightly  higher 
elevation. 

Up  to  this  point  on  the  morning  of  September  2nd, 
there  is  approximate  accord  among  the  authorities :  but 
beyond  it  the  discrepancies  are  considerable.  Sheridan's 
account  has  the  precedence,  as  he  was  earliest  on  the 
ground.  His  testimony  was  that  the  Emperor  and  Bismarck 
on  alighting  entered  the  cottage  together,  and  that,  re- 
appearing in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  they  seated  themselves 
in  front  of  the  cottage  on  chairs  brought  out  by  the  weaver. 
There,  for  fully  an  hour,  they  were  engaged  hi  an  animated 
conversation,  if  much  gesticulation  on  the  part  of  Bismarck 
was  to  be  taken  as  an  indication.  At  length,  soon  after 
eight  o'clock,  Bismarck  arose,  saluted  the  Emperor,  and 
strode  towards  his  horse.  On  the  way  he  asked  Sheridan 
if  he  had  noticed  how,  when  they  first  met,  Napoleon  had 
started ;  and  Sheridan  replying  in  the  affirmative,  Bismarck 
said — 

"Well,  it  must  have  been  due  to  my  manner,  not  my 
words,  for  those  were — '  I  salute  your  Majesty  just  as  I 
would  my  own  king." 

Then,  advising  Sheridan  to  go  to  the  adjacent  Chateau 
Bellevue,  as  the  next  scene  of  interest,  Bismarck  himself, 
stated  Sheridan,  rode  off  towards  Vendresse  to  communicate 


86  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

with  his  sovereign.  On  this  point  Sheridan  was  certainly 
in  error :  Bismarck  merely  went  to  his  Donchery  quarters 
to  breakfast  and  get  into  full  uniform. 

Bismarck's  account  of  the  morning's  occurrences  was 
given  by  him  to  Busch  a  few  days  later;  it  is  condensed 
as  follows : — 

He,  Bismarck,  met  the  Emperor  near  Frenois.  Napoleon 
desired  to  speak  with  the  King  of  Prussia,  which  Bismarck 
said  was  impossible,  as  the  King  was  nine  miles  away.  The 
Emperor  then  asked  where  meantime  he  could  stay,  and 
accepted  Bismarck's  offer  of  the  latter's  Donchery  quarters. 
But  he  stopped  the  carriage  opposite  the  weaver's  cottage, 
and  expressed  his  desire  to  remain  there.  Bismarck  accom- 
panied him  to  a  small  room  on  the  upper  floor  of  the 
cottage,  a  room  with  a  single  window,  its  sole  furniture  a 
deal  table  and  two  rush-bottomed  chairs.  The  conversation 
lasted  here  for  about  three-quarters  of  an  hour ;  at  the 
end  of  which  Bismarck  rode  away  to  dress,  and,  on  his 
return  in  full  uniform,  conducted  Napoleon  to  the  Chateau 
Bellevue  with  a  "guard  of  honour"  of  cuirassiers.  There 
Bismarck  presently  had  himself  called  out  of  the  room  to 
evade  further  conversation  with  the  Emperor,  who  was  told  that 
he  could  not  see  the  King  until  the  capitulation  was  settled. 
Soon  Moltke  and  Wimpfen  came  to  terms,  and  then  the 
sovereigns  met.  "  When  the  Emperor  came  out  from  the 
interview,  his  eyes  were  full  of  tears."  In  his  official  report 
Bismarck  specifically  stated  that  his  long  interview  with  the 
Emperor,  "which  lasted  nearly  an  hour,"  was  held  inside 
the  weaver's  cottage. 

The  following  are  the  recollections  of  Madame  Fournaise, 
the  weaver's  wife,  a  Frenchwoman,  given  soon  after  the  close 
of  the  war,  when,  she  maintained,  the  events  were  still  fresh 
in  her  memory : — 

The  Emperor,  said  Madame  Fournaise,  disliking  to  pass 
through  the  crowds  of  German  soldiers  on  the  Donchery 
road,  alighted  and  came  up  her  narrow  staircase.  To  reach 
the  inner  room  he  had  to  pass  through  her  bedroom, 
where  she  had  just  risen.  The  furniture  of  the  inner  room 


"  WITH  A  KINDLY  WORD  OF  FAREWELL."  87 

consisted  of  two  straw-bottomed  chairs,  a  round  table,  and 
a  press.  Bismarck,  "in  a  rough  dress,"  presently  joined 
the  Emperor,  and  for  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  said  Madame 
Fournaise,  they  talked  in  low  tones,  of  which  she,  remain- 
ing in  the  outer  room,  caught  occasionally  a  word.  Then 
Bismarck  rose  and  came  clattering  out.  "II  avait  une  tres 
mauvaise  mine."  She  warned  him  of  the  break-neck  stairs, 
but  he  "  sprang  down  them  like  a  man  of  twenty,"  mounted 
his  horse  and  -rode  away  towards  Donchery.  When  she 
entered  the  room  in  which  the  Emperor  was  left,  she  found 
him  seated  at  the  little  table  with  his  face  buried  in  his 
hands.  "  Can  I  do  anything  for  your  Majesty  ? "  she  asked. 
"  Only  to  pull  down  the  blinds,"  was  Napoleon's  reply, 
without  lifting  his  head.  He  would  not  speak  to  General 
Lebrun,  who  came  to  him.  In  about  half  an  hour  Bis- 
marck returned  in  full  uniform ;  he  preceded  the  Emperor 
down  the  stairs,  facing  towards  him  as  to  "  usher  him  with 
a  certain  honour."  On  the  threshold  the  Emperor  gave  her 
four  twenty-franc  gold  pieces — he  "put  them  into  my  own 
hand " ;  and  he  said  plaintively,  "  This  perhaps  is  the  last 
hospitality  which  I  shall  receive  in  France."  Bismarck, 
added  Madame  Fournaise,  was  looking  hard  at  her,  and 
recognised  her  as  having  served  his  supper  in  the  Donchery 
hotel  on  the  previous  night.  With  a  kindly  word  of  fare- 
well "  which  I  shall  never  forget,"  the  Emperor  quitted  the 
poor  house  in  which  he  had  suffered  so  much  unhappiness, 
and  entered  the  carriage  which  was  to  convey  him  to  the 
Chateau  Bellevue.  Madame  Fournaise's  heart  was  better 
than  her  memory. 

The  following  is  what  I  personally  saw,  condensed  from 
copious  notes  taken  at  the  moment  with  watch  in  hand. 
Immediately  on  alighting,  at  ten  minutes  past  seven, 
Napoleon,  who  was  obviously  suffering,  hurried  round  to  the 
back  of  the  house,  while  Bismarck  and  Reille  went  inside 
but  almost  immediately  came  out.  Soon  the  Emperor 
returned,  and  he  and  Bismarck  then  entered  together, 
ascending  to  the  upper  floor.  At  twenty  minutes  past 
seven  they  came  out,  Bismarck  a  few  moments  in  advance. 


88  MEMORIES 'OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Two  chairs  were  brought  out  in  front  of  the  cottage  by  the 
weaver  living  on  the  ground  floor ;  the  two  then  sat  down 
facing  the  road,  the  Emperor  on  the  right ;  and  the  outdoor 
conversation  began  which  lasted  nearly  an  hour.  Bismarck 
had  covered  himself  in  compliance  with  a  gesture  and  a 
bow  from  the  Emperor.  As  they  sat,  the  latter  occasionally 
smiled  faintly  and  made  a  remark;  but  plainly  Bismarck 
was  doing  most  of  the  talking,  and  that,  too,  energetically. 
From  my  position  I  could  just  hear  the  rough  murmur  of 
Bismarck's  voice  when  he  occasionally  raised  it ;  and  then 
he  would  strengthen  the  emphasis  by  the  gesture  of  bring- 
ing a  finger  of  the  left  hand  down  on  the  palm  of  the 
right.  The  stubbly-bearded  weaver  living  upstairs  was 
all  the  while  overlooking  the  pair  from  a  front  window. 
After  they  had  parted,  I  asked  this  man  what  he  had  over- 
heard. "Nothing,"  said  he;  "they  spoke  in  German,  of 
which  I  know  but  a  few  words.  When  the  monsieur  in 
the  white  cap  first  spoke  to  the  Emperor,  he  addressed 
him  in  French ;  then  the  Emperor  said,  '  Let  us  talk  in 
German.' " 

Bismarck,  happening  to  see  my  letter  describing  the 
events  of  the  morning,  instructed  Busch  to  contradict 
certain  of  my  statements.  The  assertion  was  persevered  in 
that  "he  had  spent  three-quarters  of  an  hour  at  least 
inside  the  cottage  in  the  upstairs  room ;  and  was  only  a 
very  short,  time  outside  with  the  Emperor."  He  had  never 
struck  finger  into  palm,  which  was  not  a  trick  of  his;  and 
he  did  not  speak  German  with  the  Emperor,  although  he 
did  so  with  the  people  of  the  house.  In  this  connection 
may  be  quoted  the  following  extract  from  Sir  W.  H.  Russell's 
narrative  of  an  account  of  the  memorable  morning  given 
to  him  by  Bismarck : — "  He  [Napoleon]  alighted,  and  I 
proposed  that  we  should  go  into  a  little  cottage  close  by. 
But  the  house.  .  .  .  was  not  clean,  and  so  chairs  were 
brought  outside,  and  we  sat  together  talking." 

After  Bismarck's  departure  the  Emperor,  who  was  then 
out-of-doors,  spoke  a  few  words  with  his  officers,  and  then 
for  a  time  sauntered  moodily  and  solitary  up  and  down 


"DRAW  SWORDS!"  89 

the  potato  plot  on  the  right  of  the  cottage,  his  white- 
gloved  hands  clasped  behind  him,  limping  slightly  as  he 
walked,  and  smoking  hard.  Later  he  came  and  sat  down 
among  his  officers,  maintaining  an  almost  entire  silence 
while  they  spoke  and  gesticulated  with  great  animation. 
Busch  was  among  the  spectators,  and  he  has  described  the 
Emperor  as  "  a  little  thick-set  man,  wearing  jauntily  a  red 
cap  with  gold  border,  black  paletot  lined  with  red,  red 
trousers,  and  white  kid  gloves.  His  whole  appearance,"  to 
Dr.  Busch's  genial  perception,  "  was  a  little  unsoldierlike. 
The  man  looked  too  soft,  too  shabby,  I  may  say,  for  the 
uniform  he  wore."  At  a  quarter  past  nine  there  came 
from  Donchery  a  detachment  of  Prussian  cuirassiers,  who 
briskly  formed  a  cordon  round  the  rear  of  the  block  of 
cottages.  The  stalwart  lieutenant  dismounted  two  troopers, 
and  without  a  glance  at  the  group  of  Frenchmen  or  a 
gesture  of  salute  to  the  Emperor,  marched  them  up  to 
behind  the  Emperor's  chair,  halted  them,  uttered  in  a  loud 
voice  the  command,  "  Draw  swords  !  "  and  then  gave  the  men 
their  orders  in  an  undertone.  Napoleon  started  abruptly, 
glanced  backwards  with  a  gesture  of  surprise,  and  his  face 
Hushed — the  first  evidence  of  emotion  I  had  observed  him 
to  manifest.  At  a  quarter  to  ten  Bismarck  returned,  now 
in  full  uniform,  his  burnished  helmet  Hashing  in  the  sun- 
rays.  Moltke  accompanied  him,  but  while  Bismarck  strode 
forward  to  where  the  Emperor  was  now  standing,  Moltke 
remained  among  the  group  gathered  on  the  road.  Half- 
way to  Vendresse  Moltke  had  met  the  King,  who  approved 
of  the  proposed  terms  of  capitulation,  and  intimated  that 
he  could  not  see  the  Emperor  until  they  had  been  accepted 
by  the  French  commander- in- chief. 

Wiping  his  hot  face,  Bismarck  strode  up  to  the  Emperor, 
and  spoke  with  him  for  a  few  moments.  Then  he  ordered 
up  the  carriage,  which  Napoleon  entered,  and  the  cortege, 
escorted  by  the  cuirassier  "  guard  of  honour,"  moved  off  at 
a  walk  towards  the  Chateau  Bellevue,  which  lies  nearer 
Sedan  than  does  the  weaver's  cottage.  The  charming 
residence,  bowered  in  a  grove,  overlooks  a  bend  of  the 


90  ME  MO  HIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Meuse  and  the  plain  on  which  Sedan  stands.  The  garden 
entrance  was  on  the  first  floor,  reached  from  without  by  a 
broad  flight  of  steps.  The  Emperor  occupied  the  principal 
salon  in  the  central  block,  where  he  remained  alone  after 
Bismarck  had  left  him,  his  officers  remaining  in  the  con- 
servatories on  either  side.  Napoleon  seemed  ill  and  broken 
as  he  slowly  ascended  the  steps,  Avith  drooping  head  and 
dragging  limbs. 

It  has  been  already  stated  that  at  the  close  of  the  nocturnal 
conference  in  Donchery,  the  armistice  had  been  prolonged 
until  nine  a.m.  The  members  of  the  council-of-war  which 
Wimpfen  had  summoned  for  seven  a.m,  listened  to  that 
unfortunate  chief,  as  with  a  voice  broken  by  sobs  he  re- 
peated the  conditions  stubbornly  insisted  on  by  Moltke. 
Two  officers  voted  for  continued  resistance,  but  ultimately 
the  council  was  unanimously  in  favour  of  acceptance  of  the 
conditions.  Nevertheless,  during  hour  after  hour,  Wimpfen 
procrastinated.  Before  riding  away  to  meet  the  King 
coming  from  Vendresse,  Moltke  had  sent  into  Sedan  an 
officer  with  the  blunt  ultimatum  that  hostilities  would 
without  fail  be  renewed  at  ten  o'clock  unless  by  that  hour 
negotiations  should  have  been  resumed.  Wimpfen  still 
hesitating  to  act,  Captain  Zingler  remarked  cheerfully  that 
his  instructions,  in  case  of  an  unsatisfactory  answer,  were 
to  give  orders  as  he  rode  back  that  the  German  batteries, 
numbering  some  450  iield-guns  and  commanding  the  French 
army  as  if  in  a  ring-fence,  should  open  fire  promptly  at 
the  hour  specified.  Under  stress  of  an  argument  so  stern 
as  that,  Wimpfen  accompanied  the  Prussian  captain  to 
the  Chateau  Bellevue,  in  the  panelled  dining-room  in  the 
ground  floor  of  which,  about  eleven  o'clock,  the  articles  of 
capitulation  were  signed  by  Moltke  and  the  French  com- 
mander. Then  Wimpfen  had  a  moment  upstairs  with  his 
Imperial  master,  whom  he  informed  with  great  emotion 
that  "  all  was  finished !  "  "  The  Emperor,"  wrote  Wimpfen, 
"with  tears  in  his  eyes  approached  me,  pressed  my  hand, 
and  embraced  me.  .  .  My  sad  and  painful  duty  accom- 
plished, I  rode  back  to  Sedan,  '  la  mort  dans  1'ame.'  " 


THE  MEETING   OF  THE  "GOOD  BROTHERS"          91 

The  Prussian  monarch,  with  his  son  and  their  respec- 
tive staffs,  had  been  awaiting  on  the  Frenois  hill  the  tidings 
of  the  completion  of  the  capitulation;  and  now  the  great 
cavalcade  rode  down  into  the  grounds  of  the  Chateau.  As 
Wilhelm  alighted,  Napoleon  came  down  the  steps  to  meet 
him.  What  a  greeting !  The  German,  tall,  upright,  bluff, 
square-shouldered,  with  the  flash  of  victory  from  the  keen 
blue  eyes  under  the  helmet,  and  the  glow  of  good  fortune 
on  the  fresh  old  face;  the  Frenchman,  bent  with  weary 
stoop  of  the  shoulders,  leaden-faced,  his  eye  drooping,  his 
lip  quivering,  bare-headed  and  dishevelled.  As  the  two 
clasped  hands  silently,  Napoleon's  handkerchief  was  at  his 
eyes,  and  the  King's  face  was  working  with  emotion.  Then 
the  "good  brothers"  mounted  the  steps  and  entered  the 
chateau  together.  Their  interview,  which  no  man  shared, 
lasted  about  twenty  minutes;  and  then  the  Prussian  King 
set  off  to  ride  through  his  victorious  soldiers  bivouacking 
on  the  battle-field.  The  Emperor  remained  in  the  Chateau 
Bellevue. 

My  companion  and  myself  made  haste  to  enter  Sedan, 
now  that  the  capitulation  was  completed.  We  got  on  to  the 
glacis  of  the  place  without  any  difficulty,  and  found  the 
soldiers  lying  on  it  to  consist  chiefly  of  Turcos  and  Zouaves, 
dirty  fellows  most  of  them,  but  certainly  in  better  case  to  all 
appearance  than  the  troops  we  subsequently  saw  inside  Sedan. 
Everybody  was  friendly,  and  wine  was  pressed  on  us — the 
more  warmly  when  it  was  discovered  that  we  were  English- 
men. One  especially  greasy  and  strong  smelling  Turco  of  a 
full  Day-and-Martin  colour,  strove  vehemently  to  kiss  us,  but 
we  fled.  Getting  into  Sedan  itself  was  a  difficult  matter. 
The  gates  were  closed,  and  were  opened  only  to  admit  the 
wounded  as  they  were  brought  in  on  waggons.  By  the  advice 
of  a  friendly  Turco  who  set  us  the  example,  we  jumped  into 
one  of  the  waggons  and  passed  in  without  hindrance.  As 
rapidly  as  possible  for  the  tumultuous  press,  we  traversed 
several  streets  of  the  town.  We  saw  where  Marshal 
MacMahon  lay  wounded.  The  town  was  swarming  with  dis- 
banded soldiers,  every  foot  of  space  densely  packed.  Of  the 


92  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

wounded  some  were  in  the  churches,  the  houses,  and  the 
public  buildings;  man}'  lay  unheeded  and  jostled  in  the 
gateways  and  courtyards;  the  dead  were  everywhere — in 
the  gutters,  trampled  on  by  the  living,  on  the  swampy 
margin  of  the  moat,  littering  the  narrow  ways  between  the 
glacis  and  the  ramparts,  lying,  some  of  them,  on  the  steps  of 
the  churches.  The  sight  was  one  never  to  be  exorcised  from 
the  memory — a  sight  of  misery,  disorganisation,  and  general 
devilry  assuredly  unique  in  this  generation — an  eddying 
welter  of  ferocious  or  despondent  humanity,  trampling  reck- 
lessly over  the  dead  and  the  wounded,  the  men  now  yelling 
for  the  blood  of  their  officers,  now  struggling  in  fierce 
contention  for  a  morsel  of  bread. 

The  day  was  not  yet  far  spent,  and  we  betook  ourselves 
to  the  section  of  the  battle  field  on  the  plateau  of  Floing. 
The  tract  charged  over  by  the  Chasseurs  d'Afrique  was  a 
scene  of  terrible  carnage.  The  Arab  stallions  ridden  by  those 
troopers  had  died  very  hard ;  in  many  cases  they  had  made 
graves  with  their  struggles  for  their  riders  and  themselves 
before  they  died.  Higher  up  on  the  tableland  there  was 
fearful  evidence  of  the  power  of  shell-fire  at  short  range.  I 
counted  half  a  dozen  headless  corpses  within  a  space  of  two 
hundred  yards — their  heads  had  been  blown  away  almost  as 
clean  as  if  they  had  been  guillotined.  Men  disembowelled, 
trunks  shattered  into  gory  fragments,  legs  or  arms  blown 
away,  were  common  but  ghastly  spectacles  that  turned 
one  sick. 

Late  the  same  afternoon  I  saw  the  Emperor  again.  He 
had  come  out  into  the  park  of  the  Chateau  to  superintend  the 
reorganisation  of  his  train,  which  had  quitted  Sedan  in  the 
course  of  the  day.  He  looked  very  wan  and  weary,  but  still 
maintained  the  old  impassive  aspect.  The  Imperial  equipage 
in  its  magnificence,  the  numerous  glittering  and  massive 
fourgons,  the  splendid  teams  of  draught  animals  and  the 
squadron  of  led  horses,  presented  an  extraordinary  contrast 
to  the  plain  simplicity  of  the  King  of  Prussia's  campaigning 
outfit.  In  gold  and  scarlet  the  coachmen  and  outriders  of 
Napoleon  glittered  profusely.  He  of  Prussia  had  his 


ZOLA'S   GROTESQUE  BLUNDER.  93 

postillions  in  plain  blue  cloth,  with  oilcloth  covers  on  their 
hats  to  keep  the  dust  off  the  nap.  The  Emperor  and  his 
suite  left  the  Chateau  Bellevue  on  the  morning  of  the  3rd, 
driving  through  Donchery  and  by  Illy  across  the  frontier 
to  Bouillon  in  Belgium,  on  the  way  to  Wilhelmshohe. 

Zola,  in  his  vivid  but  often  grotesquely  erroneous  Debacle, 
has  fallen  into  strange  blundering  on  the  subject  of  the 
Imperial  equipage.  He  thus  refers  to  it : — 

"  The  Imperial  baggage  train — cause  in  its  day  of  so  much 
scandal — had  been  left  behind  at  Sedan,  where  it  rested  in 
ignominious  hiding  behind  the  Sous-Prefet's  lilac  bushes. 
It  puzzled  the  authorities  somewhat  to  devise  means  of 
ridding  themselves  of  what  was  to  them  a  b/te  noire  by 
getting  it  away  from  the  city  unseen  by  the  famishing 
multitude,  upon  whom  the  sight  of  its  flaunting  splendour 
would  have  produced  the  same  effect  that  a  red  rag  does  on 
a  maddened  bull.  They  waited  until  there  came  an  un- 
usually dark  night,  when  horses,  carriages  and  baggage 
waggons,  with  their  silver  stew-pans,  plate,  linen,  and  baskets 
of  fine  wines,  all  trooped  out  of  Sedan  in  deepest  mystery,  and 
shaped  their  course  for  Belgium,  noiselessly,  without  beat  of 
drum,  over  the  least  frequented  roads,  like  a  thief  stealing 
away  in  the  night ! " 

This  is  utter  nonsense.  As  I  have  stated,  I  saw  the 
Imperial  train  in  the  park  of  the  Chateau  Bellevue  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  2nd  September,  the  day  after  the  battle. 
Apart  from  this  personal  testimony,  the  story  told  by  Zola  is 
transparently  absurd.  By  the  evening  of  September  3rd  the 
capitulated  French  Army  was  disarmed  and  enclosed  under 
guard  on  the  peninsula  of  Iges.  There  remained  then  in 
Sedan  only  its  normal,  or  less  than  normal  population,  far  too 
crushed  to  attempt  any  irregularity'.  A  German  Governor  of 
Sedan  had  been  installed,  German  troops  constituted  the 
garrison  of  the  place,  and  Sedan  would  not  have  dared  to 
emit  so  much  as  a  mild  hiss  if  the  Imperial  tram,  assuming 
that  it  had  remained  in  Sedan  after  Napoleon's  departure, 
which  it  did  not,  had  perambulated  the  city  in  face  of  the 
population  all  day  long. 


94,  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

The  Germans,  having  determined  to  utilise  as  a  prison  for 
the  capitulated  army  the  peninsula  of  Iges,  surrounded  by 
the  Meuse  on  three  sides,  and  on  the  fourth  by  the  closely 
guarded  line  of  the  canal,  had  marched  on  to  it  during 
September  3rd  the  disarmed  French  troops  to  the  number 
of  at  least  100,000.  The  Germans  themselves  were  tem- 
porarily short  of  supplies,  having  outmarched  their  com- 
missariat; and  could  spare  little  for  their  prisoners.  But 
for  the  first  day  or  two  on  the  peninsula  the  captives  fared 
better  than  the  captors.  Nobody  can  accomplish  a  savoury 
mess  under  difficulties  like  a  Frenchman,  or  house  himself 
when  another  man  would  have  to  put  up  with  the  heavens 
for  his  roof.  Innumerable  fires  were  blazing ;  on  every  fire 
there  was  a  saucepan,  and  in  the  saucepan  were  potatoes  and 
something  else.  Whence  came  the  potatoes  was  plain 
enough — we  could  see  the  fellows  digging  them  out  with 
their  bayonets  ;  but  about  the  "  something  else  "  all  that  one 
could  tell  was  that  it  smelt  nice.  The  men  who  were  not 
cooking  were  rigging  up  their  tentes  d'abris  and  gathering 
bedding  of  boughs  and  leaves.  They  were  the  civillest, 
cheeriest,  best-humoured  set  of  fellows  imaginable.  We  two, 
quite  alone,  and  unable  to  contribute  anything  to  the  general 
good — for  our  flasks  and  tobacco  pouches  were  but  drops 
in  the  bucket — experienced  no  word  but  of  the  frankest 
courtesy  and  the  heartiest  cordiality,  alike  on  the  part  of 
.officers  and  men.  After  a  long  gossip  with  a  group  of 
captains,  we  strolled  down  to  the  river  and  accepted  the 
invitation  of  a  bivouac  of  Zouaves  to  join  them  at  supper. 
The  mess  was  better  than  good  ;  it  was  superb.  It  consisted 
of  potatoes,  the  mysterious  savoury  "something,"  and  flesh 
of  some  kind  or  other.  The  sunburnt  Zouaves  treated  us  like 
princes,  but  evaded  a  direct  reply  to  our  question  what  was 
the  flesh- ingredient  of  their  mess.  After  we  had  bidden 
good-night  to  the  merry  rascals,  we  came  on  the  carcass  of  a 
horse  which  had  been  killed  by  a  shell,  and  there  was  missing 
a  considerable  section  of  a  flank. 

It  was  late  before  we  quitted  the  peninsula,  and  when  we 
were    once    outside    and  realised   the    difficulty   of   finding 


THE   "HISTORICAL"  IXKSTAIN.  95 

quarters,  we  were  sorry  that  we  had  not  stayed  with  the 
Zouaves.  Donchery  we  knew  to  have  been  invaded  by  a 
whole  army  corps ;  Frenois  was  seething  full  of  Bavarians ; 
the  gates  of  Sedan  were  closed  for  the  night.  Our  vehicle 
was  waiting  for  as  at  the  canal,  but  the  driver  could  suggest 
no  night  quarters.  As  we  were  discussing  the  probabilities 
of  a  bivouac  we  drove  past  the  front  of  the  Chateau  Bellevue. 
All  was  in  darkness.  A  happy  if  audacious  thought  struck 
my  companion.  "  Let  us  sleep  here ! "  he  cried  with  a 
veritable  inspiration — "the  place  is  empty."  The  gardener 
— now  since  the  departure  of  the  morning  the  sole  inmate  of 
the  premises — seemed  content  enough  to  have  for  inmates 
a  couple  of  quiet  civilians,  and  he  conducted  us  into  the 
beautifully  panelled  dining-room,  on  the  table  in  which  the 
capitulation  had  been  signed  on  the  previous  morning.  Good 
quarters,  it  was  true,  we  had,  but  no  food ;  for  the  Imperial 
party  had  exhausted  the  resources  of  the  establishment,  and 
the  gardener  assured  us  that  he  himself  was  extremely 
hungry.  At  the  great  oak  table,  sullen  aad  hungry,  I  sat 
writing  a  letter  to  my  newspaper,  while  my  companion  dis- 
consolately gnawed  a  ham-bone,  the  miserable  remnant  of  our 
store  of  provisions.  It  had  but  scant  picking  on  it,  and  my 
companion,  with  a  muttered  objurgation,  threw  it  angrily  on 
the  table.  As  the  bone  fell  it  upset  my  ink-bottle  and  spilt 
its  contents.  Revisiting  the  Chateau  after  the  war,  I  was 
gravely  shown  a  great  ink-stain  on  the  table,  which,  the 
guide  solemnly  informed  me,  was  caused  by  the  upsetting  of 
the  ink-bottle  used  at  the  signature  of  the  capitulation  of 
Sedan.  Wimpfen,  I  was  assured,  had  overturned  it  in  the 
agitation  of  his  shame  and  grief.  The  guide  added  that  great 
sums  had  been  offered  for  this  table  with  the  "  historic  "  ink- 
stain,  but  that  no  money  would  induce  the  proprietor  to  part 
with  it.  Thus  do  delusions  gradually  crystallise  into  items  of 
traditional  history.  The  stain  on  the  floor  of  Mary  Stuart's 
room  hi  Holyrood,  caused,  we  are  assured,  by  Rizzio's  blood, 
is  probably  the  result  of  a  saucerful  of  beetroot  vinegar  upset 
by  the  janitor's  baby  centuries  after  Mary  met  her  cruel  fate. 
To  me  was  assigned  the  bedroom  which  had  been  occupied 


96  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

on  the  previous  night  by  the  Emperor  Napoleon.  It  was  in 
.the  state  in  which  he  had.  left  it.  Sheets  and  a  quilt  were  on 
the  bed;  but  one  of  the  window-hangings,  with  its  semi- 
circular canopy,  had  been  dragged  down  and  used  as  an 
additional  covering.  The  glass  doors  of  a  book-case  stood 
open;  and  on  the  night- table  at  the  bed-head  lay  open,  face 
downwards,  a  volume  which  had  been  taken  from  the  case. 
The  reader  of  the  night  before  had  made  a  selection  in  which 
there  was  something  ominous — the  book  was  Bulwer  Lytton's 
historical  novel,  "  The  Last  of  the  Barons." 

On  the  tenth  anniversary  of  the  great  battle  I  revisited 
Sedan.  Alike  in  city  and  on  battlefield,  there  was  scarcely  a 
trace  of  the  memorable  contest.  The  bones  of  the  fallen  had 
been  exhumed  from  the  scattered  graves  and  gathered  into 
'ossuaries,  of  which  the  largest  is  the  great  crypt  under  the 
joint  memorial  of  the  French  and  German  dead  of  the 
desperate  fighting  about  Bazielles — a  gruesome  place  with  an 
alley  down  the  centre,  on  one  side  of  which  had  been  stacked 
the  skulls  and  bones  of  the  fallen  French,  on  the  other  those 
of  the  slain  Germans.  The  only  pilgrimage  then  still  some- 
what in  vogue  was  to  the  weaver's  cottage,  which  Madame 
Fournaise,  now  a  widow,  continued  to  inhabit.  Her  recollec- 
tions were  still  fresh  of  probably  the  most  momentous  day  of 
her  life  ;  and  she  narrated  them  with  not  a  little  spirit  and 
feeling.  Good-hearted  soul  as  was  Madame  Fournaise,  she 
was,  all  the  same,  a  woman  of  business,  and  had  made  the 
most  of  her  opportunities.  It  was  to  Bismarck  she  sold — not 
at  his  own  price — the  table  at  which  he  had  sat  with  the 
fallen  Emperor.  The  purchasers  of  the  two  veritably  original 
straw-bottomed  chairs  were  the  late  Sir  Beauchamp  Walker, 
the  English  Military  Commissioner  with  the  German  Crown 
Prince's  army,  and  the  late  General  Sheridan.  For  years, 
although  by  this  time  the  pilgrims  were  not  so  plentiful, 
Madame  Fournaise  had  done  well  for  herself  by  showing  the 
upper  chamber  in  which  the  interview  took  place;  and  by 
selling,  mostly,  she  said,  to  American  travellers,  relay  after 
relay  of  straw-bottomed  chairs  which  she  frankly  owned  to 
have  passed  off  as  the  originals. 


"  THE  LAST  HOSPITALITY."  97 

"  And  what  about  the  four  twenty-franc  pieces  ? "  I  asked. 
"  No  doubt  you  have  sold  them  over  and  over  again  ? " 

"  Oh,  my  God,  no ! "  she  exclaimed.  "  Never — never ! 
Did  he  not  give  them  to  her  with  his  own  hand?  See!  the 
original  four  are  in  that  locked  case  with  the  glass  top  on  the 
mantel  yonder.  Yes,  I  have  had  great  offers  for  them.  Over 
and  over  again  I  could  have  had  500  francs  for  the  four 
pieces ;  but  no  money  would  tempt  me  to  sell  them ! " 

Ten  years  later  it  happened  that  I  once  again  was  in  Sedan. 
On  my  way  back  from  looking  at  the  pathetic  and  graceful 
monument  overhanging  the  bend  of  the  Meuse,  which  France 
had  recently  raised  to  the  memory  of  her  dead,  I  halted  in 
front  of  the  historic  cottage.  I  found  it  uninhabited  and  in 
dilapidation.  The  door  was  locked,  and  the  key  far  away  in 
the  possession  of  the  proprietor,  a  farmer  of  Carignan.  There 
was  no  longer  access  to  the  upper  room  wherein  sat  Napoleon 
and  Bismarck  on  that  memorable  morning  of  September  1870. 
In  one  of  the  adjacent  cottages  I  found  a  crone  who  told  me 
that  Madame  Fournaise  had  been  dead  for  several  years. 
She  lies  in  the  Donchery  graveyard.  Three  of  the  twenty- 
franc  pieces,  it  seemed,  were  coins  of  Louis  XVIII.  Of  the 
four  pieces  she  had  cherished  so  long,  she  had  directed  that 
those  three  should  be  dedicated  to  the  payment  for  her  grave 
and  to  defray  her  funeral  expenses ;  the  fourth,  a  Napoleon, 
was  to  be  buried  with  her — in  the  coffin  of  the  poor  woman 
who  had  given  to  the  unfortunate  Emperor  Napoleon  "  the 
last  hospitality  which  he  received  in  France.' 


H 


IV. 

AMBUSH  AGAIXST  AMBUSH. 

"  ~T)LEASE  you,  Herr  Major,  Corporal  Zimmerinann  has 
JL  returned  to  the  picket  with  Sly  Patrol  No.  2.  He 
reports  that  in  the  gap  of  the  hedge  in  front  of  the  large 
rield  over  against  the  park  wall  of  the  Schloss  Launay, 
No.  1,420,  soldier  Glaus  Spreckels,  of  Captain  Hammerstein's 
company,  was  killed  by  a  shot  fired  from  the  little  house  by 
the  gate.  That  makes  the  seventh  man  killed  this  week  by 
the  pig-dog  who  lurks  there  and  never  misses  a  chance ! " 

The  speaker  was  Under-Officer  Schulz,  of  the  third 
battalion,  infantry  regiment  No.  103,  forming  part  of  General 
von  Montbe's  division  of  the  12th  (Royal  Saxon)  Army  Corps, 
doing  duty  on  the  east  side  of  Paris  during  the  memorable 
siege  in  the  winter  of  1870-71. 

Under-Officer  Schulz  would  have  made  an  excellent 
model  for  a  painter  anxious  to  limn  a  Cameronian  or  one  of 
Cromwell's  ironsides.  Instead  of  Schulz,  his  name  might 
have  been  Praise-the-Lord  Barebones.  Tall,  gaunt,  thin- 
flanked  and  square-shouldered,  with  high  cheek-bones,  lantern 
jaws,  and  narrow  peaked  forehead,  Under-Officer  Schulz,  Saxon 
though  he  was,  had  nothing  of  the  genial  informality  so 
characteristic  of  his  countrymen.  He  had  entered  the 
apartment,  taken  three  measured  steps  from  the  door  with 
accurately  pointed  toes,  had  halted  smartly,  bringing  his  heels 
together  with  an  audible  click ;  and  then  he  stood  motionless, 
stiff,  and  severely  erect  while  he  made  the  above  report  to 
Major  von  Schonberg,  the  commander  of  the  battalion. 

"Pig-dog,  indeed!"  said  the  major  savagely.  "He  takes 
every  chance,  as  you  say,  and  never  gives  one !  Have  the 
dead  Spreckels  buried  according  to  form.  That  will  do, 
Under-Officer  Schulz ! " 

"  At  your  order,  Herr  Major ! "  answered  the  under-officcr, 


SOLDIER    GLAUS  SP11ECKELS.  W 

with  a  salute ;  then  he  went  right  about  in  three  motions  as 
it'  he  were  a  piece  of  mechanism,  took  three  measured  paces 
to  the  door,  and  disappeared. 

The  scene  was  a  handsome  but  sorely  dilapidated  salon  in 
a  chateau  on  the  outskirts  of  the  village  of  Gagny,  on  the 
German  fore-post  line  of  the  section  of  environment  between 
Raincy  and  Yille  Evrart  right  opposite  to  Mont  Avron,  over 
the  lower  summit  of  which  showed  grimly  the  sullen  face  and 
menacing  embrasures  of  Fort  Rosny.  There  were  big  guns 
then  on  Mont  Avron,  and  yet  bigger  in  Fort  Rosny ;  and 
neither  had  been  very  tender  to  the  fine  suburban  mansion 
which  for  the  time  was  the  headquarters  of  Major  von 
Schb'nberg's  battalion.  There  were  shot-holes  in  the  roof,  the 
walls,  and  the  parquet  floor  of  the  drawing-room  which  was 
now  the  common  room  of  the  officers,  the  furniture  of  which 
was  in  a  curiously  fragmentary  condition.  A  shell  had  burst 
in  the  grand  piano  that  stood  in  the  bay-window  looking 
towards  Avron,  and  had  wrought  indescribable  havoc  among 
the  keys,  hammers,  and  strings.  The  place  was  rather  a 
favourite  target  both  from  Avron  and  Rosny,  and  we  may  be 
said  to  have  lived  within  constant  fire.  While,  for  instance, 
Schulz  had  been  making  his  report,  a  shell  had  exploded  on 
the  roof  of  the  chateau.  It  is  needless  to  mention  that  this 
occurrence  did  not  occasion  in  that  automatic  person  so  much 
as  the  twinkle  of  an  eyelid. 

Christmas,  the  time  of  peace  and  goodwill  among  men, 
was  but  three  days  off,  and  soldier  Clans  Spreckels,  with  the 
blood  still  oozing  on  to  the  doorstep  on  which  the  body  had 
been  deposited,  lay  waiting  while  his  grave  was  being  dug. 
His  would  be  the  most  recent,  but  the  region  round  about  us 
was  one  great  graveyard  of  recent  dead.  But  se\ren  \veeks 
previously,  on  the  swelling  peninsula  a  little  to  the  south  of 
us  formed  by  the  loop  of  the  Marne,  had  occurred  the 
desperate  struggle  that  ended,  after  several  bloody  days,  in 
the  del'eat  of  Ducrot's  great  sortie — a  struggle  in  which 
Schonberg's  battalion  had  lost  half  its  officers  and  one-third 
of  its  rank  and  file.  On  the  day  before  but  one  it  had  been 
lighting  hard  for  six  hours  to  repel  the  sortie  of  a  French 
H  2 


100  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

force  heading  up  the  Maine  Valley  from  Xeuilly,  between  the 
Mai  son  Blanche  and  Ville  Evrart. 

That  had  been  a  strange  scene  on  the  evening  before, 
when,  under  cover  of  the  dusk — no  vehicle  dared  move 
hereabouts  in  broad  daylight — one  of  the  battalion  carts  had 
brought  out  to  us  from  the  field  post-office  in  Le  Vert  Galant 
the  Christmas  "  love-gifts "  (Liebesgaben),  packed  by  loving 
hands,  that  came  to  those  fore-post  regions  of  blood  and 
death  from  the  quiet  homes  in  distant  Saxon-land.  It  was  a 
curious  medley  of  souvenirs  that  streamed  out  as  the  tail- 
board of  the  cart  was  let  down  in  front  of  the  quarter-guard 
behind  the  house  occupied  by  the  major. 

The  German  Feldpost  was  a  more  elastic  institution  than 
had  ever  been  a  king's  messenger's  service-bag  in  the  good  old 
unreformed  days.  I  do  believe  that  if  his  friends  at  home 
had  chosen  to  send  to  a  soldier  in  the  field  a  bee-hive  or  a 
rabbit-hutch,  there  would  have  been  no  objection  on  the 
score  of  bulk.  Out  rolled  cigar-boxes  stitched  up  in  canvas 
wrappers,  long  cocoon-like  shapes  every  outline  of  which 
spelt  "wurst,"  flabby  packages  which  evidently  consisted  of 
underclothing,  and  little  boxes  that  rattled  as  they  dropped 
and,  for  certain,  contained  thalers.  A  pile  of  gifts  was 
stacked  against  the  wall,  and  a  space  in  front  was  cleared  in 
which  stood,  wooden  and  stiff'  even  when  off  duty,  Under- 
Officer  Schulz,  calling  out  the  name  as  each  packet  was 
handed  up  to  him  by  a  corporal.  It  was  rather  a  dreary,  even, 
indeed,  a  solemn  roll-call,  deeply  eloquent  of  the  casualties 
which  war  had  wrought  in  the  ranks  of  the  battalion. 

"  Schumann ! "  called  out  Under-Officer  Schulz. 

"  Shot  dead  in  battle  • "  was  the  curt  response. 

"  Caspar ! " 

"Wounded!" 

"  Stolberg ! " 

"  Dead." 

"  Bergmann ! " 

"  In  hospital." 

"  Schrader ! " 

"  Weg." 


"  WEG."  101 

Now  the  dictionary  definition  of  the  word  "  Weg "  is 
"  away,"  "  gone  " ;  but  on  campaign  it  had  a  wide  and  rather 
vague  significance.  "  Weg,"  then,  might  mean  indeed  almost 
anything :  prisoner,  missing,  unburied,  deserted — only  that 
one  never  heard  of  a  German  soldier  deserting.  The  sum 
and  substance  of  the  word  was,  "  Not  here,  and  Lord  knows 
where  he  is  ! " 

When  Schulz  had  done,  there  was  still  quite  a  heap  of 
packets  which  the  men  to  whom  they  were  addressed  would 
never  claim.  I  had  seen  Spreckels  tear  open  the  box  of  cigars 
addressed  to  him,  before  I  left  the  place  of  distribution.  Now 
he  was  lying  dead  on  the  slab  there,  with  a  bullet-hole  through 
his  head ;  and  from  between  the  buttons  of  his  tunic  stuck  out 
some  half-dozen  of  the  cigars  that  had  come  to  him  overnight 
from  his  mother  in  Karnenz. 

The  French  outpost  line  opposite  to  that  section  of  the 
German  front  occupied  by  the  Saxon  Regiment  followed  a 
road  which  skirted  the  lower  slope  of  Mount  Avron,  crossed 
the  little  valley  in  front  of  the  village  of  Villemomble  which 
the  French  held,  and  then  took  up  the  line  of  the  wall  bound- 
ing the  finely  wooded  park  of  the  Chateau  de  Launay. 
Though  here  and  there  they  approached  more  closely  where 
the  ground  was  broken,  the  opposing  lines  were  for  the  most 
part  distant  from  each  other  about  eight  hundred  paces. 

In  most  civilised  wars  it  had  been  the  humane  custom 
that  the  outposts  of  two  opposing  armies  in  ordinary 
circumstances  did  not  molest  each  other.  In  the  Peninsular 
campaign  this  mutual  forbearance  was  carried  to  curious 
lengths.  In  that  excellent  book,  "The  Subaltern,"  the  late 
Chaplain-General  Gleig  gives  many  instances  of  the  "  excellent 
understanding  "  which  prevailed  between  the  armies,  and  of 
their  genuine  cordiality  one  towards  the  other.  At  one 
time  "  the  Subaltern  "  used  to  go  a-fishing  in  a  river  which 
divided  the  lines,  and  he  tells  how  "  many  a  time  I  have 
waded  half  across  the  little  river  on  the  opposite  bank  of 
which  the  enemy's  pickets  were  posted,  whilst  they  came  down 
in  crowds  only  to  watch  my  success,  and  to  point  out  particu- 
lar pools  and  eddies  where  they  thought  I  could  find  the  best 


1C2  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

sport.  On  such  occasions  the  sole  precaution  I  took  was  to 
dress  myself  in  scarlet,  and  then  I  might  approach  within  a 
few  yards  of  their  sentries  without  being  molested." 

Another  instance  which  "  the  Subaltern  "  gives  betokened 
so  much  too  good  an  understanding  between  the  outposts,  as 
to  cause  Wellington  to  forbid  all  intercommunication  whatso- 
ever— a  prohibition  at  which  one  can  scarcely  wonder  when  the 
story  is  told  : — "  A  field-officer,  going  the  rounds  one  night, 
found  that  the  whole  sergeant's  picket-guard  had  disappeared. 
He  was  both  alarmed  and  surprised  at  the  occurrence  ;  but  his 
alarm  gave  way  to  utter  astonishment  when,  stretching  for- 
.ward  to  observe  whether  there  was  any  movement  in  the 
enemy's  lines,  he  peeped  into  a  cottage  from  which  a  noise  of 
revelry  was  proceeding,  and  beheld  the  party  sitting  in  the  most 
sociable  manner  with  a  similar  party  of  French  soldiers,  and 
carousing  jovially.  As  soon  as  the  British  officer  presented 
himself,  his  own  men  rose,  and,  wishing  their  companions 
good-night,  returned  to  their  post  with  the  greatest  sarng 
froid.  It  is,  however,  but  justice  to  add  that  the  sentries  on 
both  sides  faithfully  kept  on  their  posts,  and  that  on  neither 
side  was  there  any  intention  of  desertion.  In  fact,  it  was  a 
sort  of  custom,  the  French  and  British  outposts  visiting  each 
other  by  turns." 

Other  times,  other  manners.  In  other  respects  than  the 
observance  of  outpost  etiquette,  the  French  soldiers  of  1870 
were  different  from  their  ancestors  of  the  Peninsular  period. 
From  the  very  beginning  of  the  war,  from  the  early  days 
before  Saarbrticken,  before  any  battle  had  been  fought,  and 
therefore  before  defeat  could  have  exacerbated  the  troops  of 
the  Second  Empire,  they  had  caught  at  every  chance  that 
offered  of  firing  on  the  German  outposts,  sentries,  and  patrols. 
The  first  man  I  ever  saw  killed  by  a  bullet  was  a  poor  fellow 
of  the  Hohenzollern  Fusiliers — one  of  a  "  sly  patrol "  which  I 
was  accompanying  one  July  morning  through  the  copses 
lining  the  base  of  the  Spicherenberg.  The  French  soldiers 
on  the  outposts  of  the  Paris  defence-line  often  were  not 
regulars,  and  when  they  were  regulars,  were  recruits  who,  if  the}7 
had  ever  heard  of  them,  had  no  respect  for  the  old  civilised 


COLD-BLOODED  MURDER.  103 

traditions.  Every  reverse  made  them  the  more  venomous ; 
and  the  Germans,  who  at  first  showed  a  great  deal  of  for- 
bearance, had,  by  the  winter  season,  long  ceased  to  refrain 
from  reprisals.  Accordingly,  during  the  siege  of  Paris,  there  was 
a  miserably  great  amount  of  simple  cold-blooded  murder  per- 
petrated on  the  foreposts.  No  other  term  than  murder  expresses 
the  killing  of  a  lone  sentry  by  a  pot-shot  at  long  range.  It  was 
like  shooting  a  partridge  sitting.  Of  this  wretched  work  the 
French  had  the  better,  because  of  the  longer  range  of  their 
chassepots.  Their  marksmen  used  to  remain  on  the  outposts 
and  practise  this  deliberate  homicide  ;  when  they  had  potted 
some  half-dozen  Prussians  at  1,000  yards,  they  took  rank  as 
heroes,  and  Avere  feted  by  the  citizens  when  they  gave  them- 
selves a  holiday  from  their  trade  of  cheap  death.  One  of 
those  slaughter-men  it  was  whom  Under-Officer  Schulz  had 
taken  the  liberty  of  describing  as  a  "pig-dog."  He  had 
located  himself,  apparently  permanently,  in  a  cottage  which 
had  probably  been  the  gardener's  residence,  about  a  couple  of 
furlongs  in  front  of  the  approach-gate  of  the  Chateau  de 
Launay;  and  for  days  previous  to  that  on  which  poor 
Spreckels  came  by  his  end,  the  Frenchman  had  occupied  the 
period  of  daylight  in  taking  deliberate  aim  at  every  Prussian 
soldier  exposing  himself  within  reach  of  the  chassepot.  The 
Prussians  had  marksmen,  and  they  had  chassepots  too,  by  this 
time ;  but  the  fellow  never  gave  them  a  chance.  He  shot  out 
of  a  window,  but  he  never  showed  himself,  firing  from  the  back 
of  the  room,  and  standing,  no  doubt,  well  out  of  the  direct 
line  of  fire. 

I  fear  I  must  own  to  the  veteran's  besetting  sin  of  dis- 
cursiveness. I  apologise,  and  return  to  the  departure  of 
Under-Officer  Schulz  from  the  presence  of  Major  Schonberg 
and  his  officers,  after  he  had  reported  poor  Spreckels  as 
"  expended." 

"  That  scoundrel  will  decimate  the  battalion  ! "  exclaimed 
the  Major,  as  he  took  a  long  drink  of  the  lager-beer,  a  little 
barrel  of  which  had  been  among  the  Christmas  love-gifts  sent 
him  by  the  Frau  Majorinn.  "And,"  he  added,  "how  to  mend 
matters  beats  me  ! " 


104  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Then  impulsive  Captain  Kirchbach,  the  Hanoverian,  spoke 
out.  '  Let  us  rush  the  infernal  hut,  Major,  and  burn  it  down : 
that  will  destroy  the  fellow's  cover.  I  volunteer  to  lead  the 
arson-party.  Why  not  to-night  ?  " 

"  It  must  not  be  as  you  propose,  Kirchbach,"  said  the 
Major  mournfully.  "  You  know  the  French  fore-post  line  is 
close  in  rear  of  the  cottage — I  suspect  it  moves  forward  with 
nightfall ;  and  you  know  also  that  not  half  a  rifle-shot  to  the 
rear  there  is  a  brigade  of  the  red-legs  in  Villemomble.  "We'd 
risk  them  with  as  light  a  heart  as  Ollivier  accepted  the  war, 
but  you  know  my  orders  are  absolute  not  to  do  anything  that 
might  bring  on  fighting  now,  while  they  are  making  the 
battery-emplacements  for  the  siege-guns  up  there  behind  us 
in  front  of  Maison  Guyot." 

"  Ach,  so !  "  came  from  half  a  dozen  lips,  in  that  long,  un- 
dulating intonation  which  is  so  characteristic  of  the  Saxon 
speech. 

"  And  yet,"  piped  little  Hammerstein,  "  it  is  a  cursed  pity 
that  our  good  fellows  should  be  murdered  thus." 

"  Fortune  of  war ! "  cried  Helldorf  the  reckless,  as  he  made 
for  the  herrings,  sardellen,  and  schinken  which  a  soldier- 
servant  had  just  placed  on  a  section  of  the  shattered  piano 
that  did  duty  for  a  buffet ;  "  if  you  are  to  be  bowled  over,  it 
may  as  well  happen  on  a  'sly  patrol'  as  irj_  the  melee  of 
Gravelotte.  Spreckels'  turn  to-day  ;  mine,  mayhap,  to-morrow ! 
The  Frenchman  don't  respect  officers  the  least  in  the  world. 
One  of  the  seven  he  has  already  killed  was,  you  will  remem- 
ber, our  comrade  Ensign  von  Ernsthausen." 

"  Permit  me  the  word,  Herr  Major,"  spoken  in  a  modest 
tone,  were  the  bashful  words  that  came  from  the  mere  lad  in 
the  light  blue  uniform  who  was  standing  by  the  door.  The 
speaker  was  such  a  slight  fellow,  and  had  so  young  a  face,  that 
he  did  not  seem  full-grown.  The  moustache  had  not  budded 
on  his  lip,  but  there  was  a  fire  in  his  eye  and  a  quiet,  modest 
resolution  in  the  whole  aspect  of  him,  which  gave  the 
assurance  that  he  was  equal  to  a  man's  part.  The  brass  scales 
on  his  shoulders  showed  him  to  be  a  cavalryman,  the  only 
representative  of  that  arm  present.  His  rank  was  that  of 


"DAVID."  105 

Ensign,  and  he  commanded  the  little  detachment  of  the 
Crown  Prince's  Keiter  Regiment  which  was  detailed  with  the 
infantry  battalion  in  the  forepost  line  to  perform  orderly  duty. 

"  Well,  baron,  are  you  going  to  offer  to  cut  the  fellow  out 
with  your  galloping  sergeant's  party  ? "  asked  Schonberg,  rather 
in  a  tone  of  banter — there  was  a  little  jealousy  between  the 
cavalry  and  infantry  before  Paris,  as  there  mostly  is  during  a 
long  siege,  because  of  the  easy  times  the  former  have  in  com- 
fortable quarters  well  to  the  rear.  By  the  way,  I  have  for- 
gotten to  mention  that  the  name  of  the  cavalry  youngster  was 
the  Baron  von  und  zu  Steinfurst-Wallenstein.  But  if  the  young 
fellow  had  a  swagger  name,  that  was  all  of  swagger  there  was 
about  him  ;  though,  mere  lad  as  he  was,  the  Iron  Cross  was  at 
his  button-hole,  gained  in  a  slashing  charge  on  the  evening 
of  Beaumont. 

"  I  think,  Herr  Major,"  said  the  baron  quietly,  "  my  fellows 
would  snatch  at  the  opportunity  if  you  were  to  give  it  them. 
But,  of  course,  from  what  you  have  just  told  Captain  Kirch- 
bach,  that  is  out  of  the  question.  Yet  if  you  will  allow  me — 
my  sergeant  can  see  to  the  duty  for  a  day  or  two — I  should 
like  to  try  whether,  with  good  fortune,  I  may  not  stop  this 
fellow's  devilry.  They  reckon  me  the  best  game-shot  with 
the  sporting-rifle  in  our  part  of  the  Saxon  Switzerland,  and  I 
have  got  my  favourite  weapon  with  me  here.  One  never 
knows  when  one  may  get  a  chance  at  something.  What  I 
want  to  do  is  to  go  and  stalk  this  French  devil.  May  I.  Herr 
Major  ? " 

"  Oh,  you  may  try  your  luck,  and  welcome,  baron,  for  me," 
replied  the  major.  "  Mind,  unless  you  bring  his  head  back 
with  you,  we  shan't  believe  you've  wiped  him  out." 

It  must  be  said  that,  besides  the  rather  elephantine  badinage 
of  the  worthy  major,  the  young  cavalryman  was  the  butt  of  a 
good  many  jokes  that  evening.  It  was  the  brilliant  Helldorf 
who  christened  him  "  David,"  and  offered  to  go  and  help  him 
search  around  for  an  eligible  stone  to  put  into  his  sling.  But 
the  little  baron  took  the  chaff'  with  a  modest  serenity,  ate  a 
hearty  dinner  (I  have  said  he  was  a  Saxon),  renounced  both 
the  Frau  Majorinn's  beer-barrel  and  the  generous  red  wine 


106  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

which  Kirchbach  contributed  to  the  joint-stock  mess,  and 
was  in  bed  bright  and  early,  after  having  first  given  his  trusty 
rifle  a  thorough  overhaul  and  filled  a  bandolier  with  Eley's 
best  cartridges.  Very  early  in  the  morning  his  batman 
brought  him  some  breakfast.  He  dressed  himself  warmly,  for 
the  weather  was  very  bitter,  poured  some  schnapps  into  his 
pocket-flask,  put  some  sandwiches  into  his  haversack,  and, 
rifle  in  hand,  started  out  for  the  extreme  front.  He  had  the 
watchword  and  countersign,  of  course  ;  but  they  would  not 
avail  to  carry  him  outside  the  German  cordon  of  advanced 
sentries,  and  that  was  just  whither  he  meant  to  go.  So  at  the 
Repli  he  had  the  officer  on  duty  to  go  forward  with  him  to 
the  outlying  picket — the  Feldwacke ;  the  sergeant  in  com- 
mand of  which,  at  the  officer's  order,  escorted  him  through 
the  outer  chain  of  sentries.  It  was  on  the  railway  embank- 
ment close  to  the  long  since  burnt  Gagny  station  that  he  left 
the  sergeant  and  the  final  double-post ;  and  after  descending 
into  the  hollow  beyond,  began  to  climb  the  gradual  slope  on 
the  crest  of  which,  among  the  trees,  stood  the  Chateau  de 
Launay.  It  was  not  yet  dawn,  but  the  morning  was  not  very 
dark  and  it  was  rather  ticklish  work.  The  ground  was 
covered  with  deep  snow  the  surface  of  which  was  frozen  hard, 
and  the  crystallised  surface  threw  up  a  faint  sparkle  even  in 
the  darkness,  while  it  crackled  crisply  under  every  footfall. 
Clumps  of  evergreens  were  dotted  over  the  slope,  and  if  they 
had  a  danger  of  their  own  as  possibly  concealing  French  out- 
liers or  patrols,  they  also  gave  the  advantage  of  covering  to 
some  extent  the  young  officer's  advance.  He  had  taken  the 
bearings  of  the  cottage  to  the  watching  of  which  he  intended 
to  devote  himself,  and  instead  of  heading  directly  towards  it, 
with  the  result  that  the  hiding-place  he  designed  to  take  up 
would  be  right  in  the  French  marksman's  line  of  sigfat,  h6 
edged  away  somewhat  to  his  own  right,  with  intent  to  locate 
himself  somewhere  on  the  proper  left  front  of  the  cottage. 
When  about  three  hundred  yards  distant  from  it,  he  found  him- 
self close  to  a  dense  clump  of  evergreen  shrubbery — a  bosquet 
forming  the  outer  fringe  of  the  pretty  grounds,  in  the  heart 
of  which  stood,  and  no  doubt  still  stands,  the  villa  then 


WAITING  FOR  A   CHAXCE.  107 

possessed  by  the  late  Dr.  Nelaton,  the  famous  surgeon  of  the 
Second  Empire.  This  clump  the  baron  penetrated,  and  lying 
down  on  the  moss  in  the  heart  of  it,  whither  the  snow  had 
not  penetrated,  he  waited  till  dawn,  and  then  gingerly  twisted 
and  broke  the  shrubs  till  he  had  a  clear  vista  of  aim  on  the 
cottage,  now  visible  dimly  through  the  frost-haze. 

Its  sharp-shooting  occupant  he  judged  to  be  cooking  his 
breakfast,  for  smoke  was  lazily  rising  from  the  chimney  of  the 
cottage.  Then  the  sun  came  out  and  chased  away  the  haze, 
and  the  baron  thought  he  caught  a  glimpse  of  the  dull  gleam 
of  a  rifle-barrel  back  in  the  room  inside  the  wide  orifice  where 
in  peace-time  there  had  been  a  window-frame.  His  first  im- 
pulse was  to  aim  a  little  behind  where  he  had  seen  the  glint, 
and  then  fire  ;  but  he  restrained  himself.  In  all  likelihood,  he 
reckoned  as  he  steadied  himself,  not  more  than  one  chance 
would  come  to  him,  if  even  that  much,  so  crafty,  evidently, 
was  the  Frenchman.  For  that  one  hoped-for  chance,  then,  it 
was  for  the  baron  to  wait  hour  after  hour  with  the  patience  of 
a  red  Indian — it  might  indeed  be  for  days,  for,  to  use  Kirk- 
patrick's  words,  he  was  bound  to  "  mak  siccar."  So  he  lay 
supine,  gazing  steadfastly  at  the  white  front  of  the  cottage,  up 
against  which  almost  to  the  window-sill  the  whiter  snow  had 
drifted,  making  a  bank  sloping  away  from  the  wall,  its  frozen 
surface  sparkling  where  the  sunrays  struck  it. 

The  hours  passed  wearily  but  intently.  Three  times  the 
flash  of  a  shot  and  the  little  pillow-like  cloud  of  white  smoke 
had  darted  out  from  the  window- space  in  the  front  of  the 
cottage.  For  aught  the  baron  could  know,  as  he  lay  there  in- 
the  slow  torments  of  inability  to  accomplish  his  purpose, 
each  shot  meant  the  lite  gone  from  out  a  Saxon  soldier. 
Would  he  risk  a  return  shot?  he  asked  himself  each  time,  when 
next  that  cool,  cruel  devil  up  there  pulled  trigger.  And  each 
time  the  stern  resolute  answer  he  made  to  himself  was,  "  No  ! 
be  calm  ;  everything  comes  to  him  who  can  wait." 

The  Frenchman  fired  a  fourth  time  just  as  the  sun  was 
going  down,  but,  as  before,  from  out  the  gloom  at  the 
back  of  the  room.  When  it  became  dark  the  lad,  half 
frozen,  stiffly  rose  and  trudged  his  way  back  into  the  Saxon 


108  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

position.  The  sentries  had  been  warned  of  his  probable  com- 
ing in,  and  did  not  interfere  with  him.  He  had  rather  a  bad 
evening  of  it.  During  the  day  the  marksman  of  the  cottage 
had  killed  one  sentry  as  he  peered  rather  recklessly  over  the 
edge  of  the  railway  embankment,  and  had  wounded  another 
fellow  when  on  "  sly  patrol "  duty.  The  poor  baron  was  ruth- 
lessly chaffed.  One  officer  supposed  that  he  could  not  get  his 
rifle  to  go  off,  another  that  he  had  gone  to  sleep  and  lost  his 
opportunities ;  a  third  gave  it  as  his  deliberate  conviction  that 
the  baron  had  spent  the  day  fraternising  genially  with  "  Bob 
the  Nailer." 

The  mansion  occupied  by  the  headquarters  of  Major  Schon- 
berg's  battalion  had  belonged  to  an  English  family,  in  whose 
library  Haminerstein,  who  was  himself  half  an  Englishman, 
had  found  a  history  of  the  defence  of  Lucknow  in  the  Indian 
Mutiny  days,  in  which  work  was  recorded  the  pestilential 
marksmanship  of  a  native  sharp-shooter,  who  from  a  turret 
opposite  to  the  Bailey-Guard  Gate  used  to  take  deadly  pot- 
shots at  members  of  the  beleaguered  garrison.  The  English 
soldiers,  it  seemed,  had  bestowed  on  this  destructive  individual 
the  nickname  of  "Bob  the  Nailer";  and  this  appellation  the 
Saxon  officers  had  transferred  to  the  objectionable  Frenchman 
who  did  his  shooting  from  the  cottage  in  the  foreground  of 
the  Chateau  de  Launay.  Stern  and  serious  business  as  is  war, 
human  nature  is  so  constituted  as  to  find  a  humorous  side  to 
the  most  ghastly  transactions,  but  it  must  be  owned  that  the 
complexion  of  the  jokes  is  of  the  grimmest. 

The  little  baron  had  an  imperturbability  beyond  his  years. 
The  rough  badinage  of  his  comrades  did  not  in  the  least  dis- 
concert him.  He  was  modestly  confident  that  if  the  French- 
man should  but  once  give  him  the  merest  flicker  of  a  chance, 
he  could  and  would  kill  him  ;  and  he  had  the  conviction  that, 
be  the  man  ever  so  artful,  this  morsel  of  good- fortune  was 
bound,  sooner  or  later,  to  come  to  him.  Next  morning  before 
daybreak  he  was  back  in  his  lurking-place  among  Dr.  Nekton's 
evergreens,  lying  prone  there,  his  rifle  ever  at  the  shoulder,  his 
gaze  centred  steadily  on  the  aperture  in  the  wall  of  the 


cottage. 


"BOB   THE  NAILER."  ]09 

On  the  second  evening  he  sauntered  into  Major  Schon- 
berg's  salon,  his  manner  quiet,  unassertive — almost  timid, 
indeed,  as  was  his  wont.  A  shout  of  derisive  laughter  greeted 
his  entrance. 

"  Back  again  empty-handed,  O  doughty  younker  ? " 
shouted  Kirchbach. 

The  battalion  surgeon  in  his  silkiest  manner — he  was  a 
most  sarcastic  man,  this  quiet  German  Mr.  Brown — asked 
whether  "  Bob  the  Nailer  "  stood  in  need  of  his  professional 
services  ? 

"Do  you  know,  Herr  Baron,"  said  Captain  von  Zanthier 
with  a  sneer,  "  that  your  adversary  up  yonder  bowled  over 
another  fellow  of  my  company  this  afternoon  ? " 

Then  out  spoke  Major  von  Schb'nberg  himself:  from  the 
outset  he  had  considered  Steinlurst's  offer  as  rather  a  piece  of 
impertinence. 

"  You  have  had  two  whole  days,  baron,  for  this  experiment 
of  yours  with  the  rifle  that  wrought  such  execution  in  the 
Saxon  Switzerland  ;  to-morrow,  if  you  please,  you  will  return 
to  your  regular  duty  with  your  cavalry  detachment." 

'•'  Zu  bet'ehl,  Herr  Major  ! "  replied  Steinfurst,  springing  to 
the  attitude  of  rigid  attention  on  receiving  a  formal  order. 
That  acknowledged,  he  relaxed  his  muscles  as  much  as  a 
German  officer  in  his  most  unbending  moments  ever  does,  and 
made  a  few  quiet  observations.  "  I  should  not,"  said  he, 
"  have  proposed  going  out  again,  major,  in  any  case.  Doctor, 
I  don't  think  'Bob  the  Nailer,'  as  you  call  him,  has  the 
slightest  occasion  to  avail  himself  of  your  most  valuable 
offer.  Captain  Kirchbach,  I  have  not  come  back  empty- 
handed  ;  I  brought  with  me  my  rifle — its  barrel  is  fouled." 

Then  immediately  arose  the  loud  clamour  of  questioning. 
"  Have  you  really  killed  the  fellow  ? "  "  Are  you  really 
serious  ? "  and  so  forth. 

The  little  baron,  in  his  quietest  manner,  demurely  replied, 
"  Perhaps  those  gentlemen  who  are  interested  in  this  little 
matter  will  take  the  trouble  to-morrow  morning  to  go  out  to 
the  front  as  far  as  the  railway  embankment,  and  from  thence 
survey  the  front  of  the  Frenchman's  cottage  through  their 


110  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

field-glasses."  And  with  that  he  bowed,  said  "  Good-night !  " 
and  went  away  to  his  sleeping-quarters  over  the  stables  in 
which  were  the  horses  of  his  detachment. 

Next  morning  was  the  morning  of  Christmas  Day.  In 
peaceful  England,  as  throughout  the  German  Fatherland — 
with  peace  indeed  within  its  borders,  but  with  sore  or  anxious 
hearts  in  palace  and  hovel,  the  church  bells  would  presently 
be  ringing  out  their  chimes  through  the  winter  air.  They  were 
different  sounds  to  which  we  listened  that  Christmas  morning 
from  the  foreposts  under  the  shadow  of  Mont  Avron.  From 
its  blunt  summit  up  yonder  in  the  winter  sunshine  one  of 
Colonel  Staffers  big  guns  at  intervals  gave  fire,  the  great  shell 
hurtling  and  screaming  over  our  heads  as  it  sped  on  its  swift 
flight  to  wreak  mischief  in  Clichy  or  Mont'ermeil  on  the 
upland  behind  us.  Never  for  five  minutes  were  the  forepost 
lines  wholly  silent  from  that  uncomfortable,  venomous,  inter- 
mittent crackle  of  musketry  fire — so  futile,  so  savage,  so 
bitterly  eloquent  of  inveterate  man-to-man  hatred.  The  Feld- 
pastor,  a  little  later,  would  be  essaying  to  deliver  his  message 
of  "  peace  and  good- will  among  men,"  mocked  to  his  very  face 
by  those  noisy  tokens  of  strife  and  rancour ;  and  for  his  poor 
consolation  might  bethink  himself  of  the  stern  aphorism-, 
"  A  la  guerre  comme  a,  la  guerre."  The  war  and  its  devilry 
meantime  did  not  hinder  us,  as  we  met  soon  after  sunrise  for 
morning  coffee  in  the  salon,  from  wishing  each  other  "  A 
Merry  Christmas " ;  and,  coffee  drunk  and  cigars  lit,  we 
started  on  the  errand  which  the  baron  had  so  enigmatically 
suggested  overnight.  The  major,  devoured  though  he  was  by 
curiosity,  did  not  think  it  compatible  with  his  dignity  to  go ; 
the  baron  himself  did  not  put  in  an  appearance.  The  ex- 
ploration party  consisted  of  Kirchbach  and  his  brother-in- 
law  Hammerstein,  Zanthier,  Helldorf,  Freiherr  von  Zehmen, 
three  or  four  youngsters,  and  the  Briton  who  had  the  run  of 
the  Maas  Army  forepost  line  from  Sartrouville  on  the  Seine 
north-west  of  Paris,  round  to  Bonneuil  and  beyond  to  the 
Seine  on  the  south-east. 

When  we  reached  the  railway  embankment  we  found  the 
men  of  the  picket  peering  over  at  the  distant  cottage,  each 


"IT  16'   A   DEAD  MAX!"  Ill 

man  with  his  hand  shading  his  eyes  from  the  dazzle  of  the 
sun  on  the  snow.  Said  the  corporal  of  the  picket  to  Captain 
Kirchbach  : — 

"There  is  something  hanging  out  over  the  window-sill, 
Herr  Hauptmann  ;  it  looks  like  the  upper  part  of  a  great-coat 
with  the  hood  falling  lower  between  the  arms." 

Hammerstein  had  his  sight  soonest  adjusted.  "  By  God  ! 
it  is  a  dead  man  ! "  he  shouted  on  the  instant. 

Yes  ;  he  was  right.  Hanging  limply  there  from  the  lintel 
of  the  orifice  that  had  been  a  window  was  the  upper  portion 
of  the  figure  of  a  man,  inverted  and  perfectly  motionless.  The 
broad  shoulders  showed  out  distinctly  against  the  white  of 
the  wall,  as  did  the  black  hair  of  the  occiput;  the  face  of 
course  was  invisible,  being  towards  the  wall.  The  arms  had 
dropped  at  full  length,  their  extremities  reaching  down  to  the 
snow-bank  piled  up  against  the  lower  part  of  the  cottage  wall. 

I  was  the  only  one  of  the  party  who  carried  a  telescope. 
The  binocular  is  handy,  but  its  powers  are  limited.  The 
telescope  is  a  clumsier  weapon,  but  once  focussed  and  accu- 
rately aimed,  it  tells  you  twice  as  much  as  the  best  binocular. 
I  had  seen  what  I  have  just  described  through  Haimnerstein's 
binocular ;  now  I  proceeded  to  train  my  telescope  on  to  the 
spot,  and  with  its  assistance  to  go  more  into  detail. 

What  I  saw  was  this.  The  clenched  hands  had  clutched 
into  the  snow.  The  long  hair  hung  straight,  discoloured— a 
dingy  crimson.  A  rifle  had  slipped  away  from  the  figure's 
grasp,  and  I  could  see  it  some  twenty  feet  away  fr^m  the 
Avindow,  lying  on  the  level  after  it  had  skidded  down  the 
frozen  slope  of  snow.  There  was  no  mistake  about  the 
matter;  the  baron  had  done  his  work  thoroughly,  and  the 
sarcastic  doctor's  services  were  not  in  the  least  required. 

It  seems  rather  a  ghastly  sort  of  thing  to  recount ;  but,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  French  marksman's  extermination — the 
Irish  equivalent,  "removal,"  was  an  inapplicable  terra- 
was  accepted  by  universal  acclamation  as  Baron  Steinfurst's 
Christmas-box  to  the  battalion.  A  deputation  formed  up  to 
him  after  Divine  service,  headed  by  Under-Officer  Schulz, 
who,  heels  duly  clinked  together,  the  proper  degree  of  motion- 


112  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  ASD  PEACE. 

less  rigidity  satisfactorily  attained,  opened  his  lantern -jaws, 
stammered  vigorously,  then  got  out :  "  In  name  of  battalion, 
a  thousand  thanks — verdammte  Franzosicher  Schweinhund ! " 
Whereupon  he  went  right  about  with  extraordinary  abruptness, 
nor  recovered  his  customary  measured  and  angular  gait  until  he 
had  got  away  several  paces  from  where  the  little  baron  stood 
blushing. 

In  as  few  words  as  might  be,  the  modest  lad  told  us  the 
story  as  we  stood  around  the  piano  buffet  eating  a  scrappy 
luncheon.  Till  the  afternoon  of  the  second  day  of  his  watch 
he  had  resolutely  held  his  fire,  determined  to  wait  till  he 
could  "  mak  siccar."  During  that  day  the  Frenchman  had 
fired  several  times,  but  had  never  given  a  glimpse  of  himself 
to  the  young  marksman  down  among  Dr.  Nelaton's  hollies 
and  laurels.  His  last  shot  he  fired  just  before  dusk ;  this  was 
the  shot  that  killed  the  man  of  Zanthier's  company,  and  the 
only  occasion  that  day  on  which  his  fire  took  effect.  He 
then,  as  ever,  fired  without  exposing  himself;  but  when  the 
bullet  had  sped,  he  forgot  himself  for  the  first  time  during 
the  two  days.  Anxious,  no  doubt,  to  ascertain  whether  he 
had  done  execution,  he  had  moved  forwards  out  of  his  safe 
retirement,  and  projected  his  head  and  shoulders  over  the 
window-sill,  peering  out  to  his  own  right  front — the  direction 
hi  which  he  had  fired.  All  this  he  did  with  a  jerk.  He  was 
in  the  act  of  retracting  himself  when  the  little  baron  took  his 
snapshot  at  him.  Steinfurst  had  not  for  nothing  practised 
rabbit-shooting  with  the  rifle.  The  Frenchman  dropped  on 
the  instant,  falling,  as  we  had  seen  him,  with  head  and 
shoulders  outside  the  window.  The  baron  had  seen  the 
momentary  convulsive  grasp,  the  tearing  up  of  the  snow  with 
the  hands,  and  then  the  sudden  stillness  which  showed  that 
the  "pig-dog"  would  take  no  more  German  lives.  Being 
within  range  of  the  French  forepost  line  in  rear  of  the 
cottage,  he  did  not  quit  his  position  until  the  dusk  was 
merging  into  darkness.  That  was  all  he  had  to  say. 

The  dead  marksman  had  no  successor  in  the  occupation 
of  the  cottage.  Strangely  enough,  the  French  never  ventured 
up  to  it,  although  there  could  have  been  little  risk  in  doing  so 


THE  END   OF  THE  "PIG-DOG."  113 

under  cover  of  night ;  and  the  body  hung  there  as  it  had 
fallen  until  early  in  January,  when  Colonel  Stoffel,  his  big 
guns,  and  his  troops  were  bombarded  away  from  the  summit 
of  Mont  Avron  by  the  fire  of  the  German  "  walruses,"  as  we 
used  to  call  the  siege  cannon,  from  Maison  Guyot  and  else- 
where. Then  the  French  outpost  line  was  of  course  drawn 
in,  and  the  region  about  Villemomble  and  the  Chateau  de 
Launay  lapsed  to  the  Saxons,  who  buried  the  dead  sharp- 
shooter under  the  window  from  which  he  had  sped  death  so 
often  while  alive.  He  had  regularly  lived  in  the  cottage,  it 
seemed.  It  was  found  quite  copiously  victualled  with  bacon, 
tinned  food,  wine,  and  coffee ;  and  the  man  had  brought  with 
him  a  small  library  of  good  solid  reading,  as  well  as  writing 
materials.  On  the  table  in  the  back  room  there  lay  a  half- 
finished  letter  which  began,  "  Ma  tres  chere  femme,"  and 
which  told  in  the  most  matter-of-fact  manner  of  the  results 
of  his  ball-practice.  He  sent  his  love  to  his  children  and 
begged  them  to  pray  for  his  continued  success.  He  was  not 
a  soldier  of  the  Line.  He  wore  the  coarse  uniform  of  a 
private  of  the  national  guard,  but  his  linen  was  fine  and 
marked  with  a  good  name.  In  the  left  breast-pocket  of  his 
tunic  was  found  the  photograph  of  a  handsome  woman,  with 
a  little  child  at  her  knee  and  a  baby  in  her  arms. 

No  doubt  the  "verdammte  Franzosicher  Schweinhund" 
was  a  devoted  patriot  according  to  his  lights,  and  regarded 
himself  as  fighting  the  good  fight  pro  aris  et  focis.  There 
are  so  many  different  ways  of  looking  at  a  thing,  you  see. 
Schonberg's  fellows  gave  me  the  relics  of  the  dead  man  when 
next  I  visited  them.  The  capitulation  could  not  be  very  far 
off  now,  and  I  should  be  early  in  Paris. 

Well,  the  capitulation  came,  and  I  was  early  into  Paris. 
One  of  the  first  things  I  did  after  attending  to  my  work  was 
to  deliver  the  relics  at  the  address  I  had,  leaving  along  with 
them  a  short  note.  The  sharpshooter  turned  out  to  be  one 
of  our  own  profession.  As  did  so  many  other  gallant  French 
soldiers  of  the  pen,  he  had  run  to  arms  the  moment  danger 
threatened  the  sacred  soil.  He  had  escaped  from  the  field 
of  Sedan  to  form  an  item  in  the  huge  garrison  of  Paris,  and 
i 


114  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

burning  with  zeal  and  devotion  to  duty,  he  had  thrown 
himself  into  the  unworthy  business  of  pot-shooting.  The 
poor  wife  thought  him  a  veritable  hero,  and  his  work  glorious 
and  patriotic.  His  children  had  a  cribbage-board,  with  the  pegs 
of  which  they  had  proudly  kept  the  tally  of  his  homicides. 
I  believe,  before  the  Commune  days  came,  that  I  had  almost 
got  to  look  at  the  matter  from  their  point  of  view.  I  never 
knew  sweeter  children. 


V. 

PARIS   IN   PROSTRATION. 

Tidings  of  Capitulation  of  Paris  received  at  Margency,  evening  January  28th — 
Inclusion  of  St.  Denis  Forts  in  Capitulation  Convention — January  29th, 
Crown  Prince  of  Saxony  entered  St.  Denis — Attitude  of  St.  Denis — 
Solicitude  of  Inhabitants  for  Protection  of  Cathedral — The  Misery  of  the 
Five  Days'  Bombardment — Devotion  of  International  Ambulance — 
Luncheon  on  Horse-flesh — Entry  into  Paris,  "  Cochon,"  "Assassin" — 
Thankful  for  Prussian  Money — "Paris  utterly  Cowed" — Sadness  and 
Self-respect — American  Legation — Dr.  Charles  Gordon — The  last  Fowl — 
Questions  and  Answers — Absence  of  Crime  during  Siege — The  Queues 
outside  the  Butchers'  and  Bakers'. 

DURING  the  period  from  the  surrender  of  Metz  to  the 
capitulation  of  Paris — in  other  words,  from  the  beginning 
of  November,  1870  until  the  end  of  January,  1871 — I  was 
attached  to  the  headquarters  of  the  Army  of  the  Meuse, 
holding  the  northern  and  eastern  sections  of  the  invest- 
ment of  Paris.  The  chief  of  that  army  was  the  Crown 
Prince  (now  the  King)  of  Saxony,  who  with  his  headquarter 
staff  abode  for  the  most  part  in  the  chateau  of  Margency, 
about  ten  miles  due  north  of  Paris,  in  the  heart  of  the 
forest  of  Montmorency.  At  nine  o'clock  on  the  evening  of 
January  28th,  while  the  headquarter  staff  were  assembled 
in  the  Crown  Prince's  drawing-room  after  dinner,  an  orderly 
brought  in  a  telegram  to  the  Prince.  His  Royal  Highness, 
having  read  it,  handed  it  to  General  von  Schlotheim  his 
chief-of-staff.  That  officer  perused  it  in  his  deliberate  way ; 
then  rising,  he  walked  to  the  open  door  communi- 
cating between  the  billiard-room  and  the  salon,  and  there 
read  the  telegram  aloud.  It  was  in  the  name  of  the 
German  Emperor,  and  it  announced  that  two  hours  earlier 
Count  Bismarck  and  M.  Jules  Favre  had  set  their  hands 
to  a  convention  in  terms  of  which  an  armistice  to  last  for 
twenty-one  days  was  already  in  effect.  It  was  not  easy  to 
settle  down  to  cards  or  billiards  after  such  news  as  that, 
i  2 


116  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

The  terras  of  the  armistice  included  the  capitulation  of 
the  St.  Denis  forts,  which  had  undergone  a  five  days'  bom- 
bardment by  the  heavy  guns  that  the  German  engineers 
and  artillerists  had  brought  up  and  located  in  prepared 
battery-emplacements  in  commanding  positions.  On  the 
morning  of  the  29th  the  Crown  Prince  and  his  staff 
rode  towards  St.  Denis.  There  was  a  long  halt  at  the 
half-way  village,  to  await  the  return  of  the  officer  who  had 
gone  forward  into  the  place  to  arrange  with  the  com- 
mandant for  the  surrender  of  the  forts.  Reports  came  that 
Admiral  de  Ronciere,  the  officer  commanding  in  St.  Denis, 
was  sulky  and  impracticable  and  that  the  aspect  of  the 
French  troops  was  threatening.  Meanwhile  two  infantry 
regiments  and  four  field-batteries  had  pushed  forward 
and  occupied  a  low  eminence  midway  between  St.  Denis 
and  Enghien ;  and  a  staff  of  engineer  officers  with  a 
detachment  of  pioneers  and  artillerymen  had  gone  on  into 
Fort  de  la  Briche,  to  draw  the  charges  from  the  mines  and  to 
take  over  the  guns  and  magazines. 

It  was  now  afternoon,  and  although  Major  Welcke  had 
not  yet  returned  from  the  fortress,  the  Prince  and  his  staff 
went   forward.      Near    the  enceinte    Welcke  was  at   length 
met,  bringing  the  report  that  all   the  French    troops  had 
not  yet  evacuated  St.   Denis,  and   suggesting   that    as   the 
civilian    population,   most   part   of    which   was   armed,   had 
rather  a  threatening  aspect,   a  strong  force   of  occupation 
should  be  sent  on  in  advance.     We  rode  forward  with  Fort 
de   la   Briche    close   on    our   right.      It  had  suffered  some- 
what severely  from    the  heavy   German  fire,  but  clearly  no 
practicable  breach  had  been  effected.     Fort  du  Nord,  which 
was  presently  passed,   had   been  more  heavily   dealt   with. 
Great   pieces    of  the    earthwork   had  been  torn   away,  and 
the  wall  of  the   scarp  had  been  shattered  and   penetrated 
in  places.     A   terrible  fire  had  converged  on  the  gate;  one 
drawbridge  had  been  demolished  and    the  other  could  not 
be    raised.    Just    inside    the    works    there   was    a    halt    to 
permit  the  delegate  from  the  French  Etat  Major  to  make 
some   explanations.      He    came    forward — a   wan,   sad-faced 


'•  THE  UHLANS  !  THE  UHLANS  !  "        117 

young  officer  of  marine  artillery,  with  a  grave  dignity  in 
the  pale  face  and  in  the  weary,  anxious  eyes  that  commanded 
respect  and  commiseration.  He  was  quite  alone,  and  the 
solitary  man  looked  forlorn  yet  full  of  a  gallant  mournful 
pride,  as  he  rode  up  to  the  Crown  Prince  with  a  high- 
bred greeting  that  assuredly  was  not  of  republican  France. 
His  statement  was  that  all  the  St.  Denis  troops  had  been 
withdrawn  into  Paris,  that  the  mobiles,  national  guard,  and 
sedentaries  had  been  disarmed,  and  that  the  population 
had  come  to  its  senses. 

The  supporting  force  being  close  up,  a  German  military 
band  struck  up  the  "  Paris  March " ;  and  behind  the  music 
the  Crown  Prince  and  his  staff  rode  up  the  main  street 
over  shattered  barricades  and  undrawn  mines.  The 
whole  town  was  a  ruin.  There  was  a  strange,  un-French 
silence:  one  marked  the  lowering  brows  and  caught  many 
a  "  Sacre ! "  muttered  from  between  the  teeth.  That  all  the 
arms  had  not  been  given  up  was  very  apparent :  and  the 
chief-of-staff  ordered  to  the  front  the  Crown  Prince's  escort 
of  Saxon  Guard-Cuirassiers.  As  the  splendid  horsemen 
clattered  forward  at  a  sharp  canter,  the  women  and  children 
and  indeed  many  of  the  men,  ran  into  the  battered  houses 
shrieking,  "The  Uhlans!  The  Uhlans!"  In  the  Place 
the  Prince  halted  while  there  marched  past  him  in  solid 
ranks  the  brigade  which  had  been  detailed  to  garrison  St. 
Denis,  its  band  playing  the  "Paris  March"  and  then  "Ich 
bin  ein  Preusse."  I  could  hear  the  French  spectators 
gloomily  owning  one  to  another  their  admiration  of  the 
physique  and  soldierly  bearing  of  the  German  troops. 
Strong  patrols  of  occupation  were  at  once  marched  into 
the  forts,  and  a  forepost  line  was  established  five  hundred 
paces  nearer  Paris  than  the  forts.  The  French  commandant 
of  Fort  de  1'Est  reported  that  there  had  fallen  in  and  on 
it  during  one  day  of  the  bombardment  no  fewer  than  1,200 
heavy  shells. 

When  I  rode  into  St.  Denis  in  the  forenoon  of  the 
30th,  I  found  that  the  town  had  in  a  measure  recovered 
its  tone  since  the  German  entry  of  the  day  before.  Some 


118  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

business  was  already  being  transacted  between  the  shop- 
keeping  inhabitants  and  soldiers  of  the  German  garrison. 
I  made  in  haste  for  the  venerable  cathedral,  anxious  to 
ascertain  what  amount  of  damage  it  had  sustained.  The 
Republicans  who  had  painted  Libertd,  iZgalite,  Fraternite 
on  its  portals  had  not  allowed  their  republicanism  to 
render  them  negligent  of  the  historic  edifice  and  the 
monuments  it  contained :  the  exterior  had  been  banked 
up  high  all  round  with  sandbags  which  had  stopped 
many  shells.  Only  four  shells  had  penetrated  into  the 
interior.  The  mediaeval  stained  glass  was  almost  entirely 
intact.  One  of  the  elaborately-carved  crosses  on  the  top 
of  a  buttress  had  been  splintered  off,  and  a  coping-stone 
had  been  shattered ;  this,  it  appeared  to  me,  summed  up 
the  damage  done  to  the  cathedral  from  the  shell-fire  of 
the  enemy.  The  aspect  of  the  interior  was  very  strange. 
The  tombs  of  the  kings  of  France  had  all  been  protected 
by  sandbags ;  the  statues  had  been  enclosed  by  wooden 
frames  and  sandbags  built  around  the  framework.  Con- 
sidering the  weight  and  duration  of  the  bombardment,  the 
cathedral  had  escaped  wonderfully  well  The  same  could 
not  be  said  of  the  utterly-demolished  houses  in  its 
vicinity,  nor  of  the  new  church  of  St.  Denis,  the  steeple 
of  which  was  wrecked,  one  side  of  it  stove  in,  and  its 
interior  a  chaos  of  mortar,  stones,  and  smashed  para- 
phernalia. The  little  Protestant  chapel  had  suffered  worse 
than  any  other  religious  edifice  in  St.  Denis,  and  its  poor 
pastor  was  to  be  seen  trotting  dolefully  about,  engaged  in 
the  task  of  picking  up  the  fragments  of  his  chapel  from 
the  open  spaces  in  the  vicinity. 

It  must  have  been  verily  the  reign  of  the  Prince  of 
the  Power  of  Darkness,  that  period  of  five  days  during 
which  the  bombardment  of  St.  Denis  lasted.  The  shells 
were  continually  crashing  into  the  houses,  and  they  were 
ploughing  up  the  streets  as  with  the  deepest  subsoil 
plough  ever  invented.  There  was  no  safety  for  any  but  in 
the  cold  and  dark  cellars;  so  heavy  were  the  German  pro- 
jectiles that  not  always  in  the  cellars  was  there  found 


UNDER  FIRE.  119 

safety.  There  were  houses  the  garrets  and  cellars  of  which 
had  been  battered  into  a  shapeless  mass  of  stone  and 
mortar.  If  you  asked  the  loafing  bystanders  whether  any 
had  been  buried  in  the  ruins,  they  moodily  muttered  "  Qui 
sait  ? "  shrugged  their  shoulders,  and  turned  away.  It 
seemed  to  me  that  there  must  be  not  a  few  unfortunates 
buried  under  those  jagged  rubbish  heaps:  but  there  was 
nobody  who  had  interest  or  energy  to  explore,  and  "Qui 
sait  ? "  might  have  stood  for  the  vague  epitaph. 

It  happened  that  in  St.  Denis  during  the  bombardment 

there  was   a   branch   of  the    International   Ambulance,   the 

devoted   members  of  which  took  their  lives  in  their  hands 

and  bravely  went  out  to  do  what  good   they  might.     They 

dragged  the  maimed  and  ailing  out  of  the  shattered  houses, 

they  collected  the  corpses  from  the  streets  and   the  ruins, 

and  they  buried  the  dead  with  some  semblance  of  decency. 

They  went    round   the   town   urging  that   the  women  and 

children  should  go  forth  from  the  doomed  town,  and  retire 

into   Paris.      The  women    and   children    had    huddled   into 

the  semi-security  of  the  cellars.      The  shells  were  crashing 

into   the   streets,  and  avalanches   of  stone   and   brick  were 

continually     crashing    down     upon    the     side- walks.      The 

women  peeping  forth  shudderingly,  declared  that  they  would 

rather  die  where  they  were  than  incur  a  more  certain  and 

fearful  death   by  sallying  forth  into   that   tempest  of  iron, 

stone,   and  bricks.      So    they   turned  back   to    hunger  and 

cold  in  the   dank  caverns,  and  cuddling  their   children   to 

their    bosoms  utterly  refused  to  budge.     The  Pastor  Saglier 

had    gone   to   the  commandant   and    asked   for  permission 

to  go  out  as   a  parlementaire  and  beg  of  the  Germans  to 

grant  but  two  hours'   cessation   of  the   bombardment,   that 

the  women  and  children  might  have  the  opportunity  to  get 

away  without  the  risk  of  being  struck  down  as  they  went. 

The    admiral  refused,   and    the    ruthless    devilry   went  on. 

Then    the    Pastor    sent  an   appeal    to    the   Paris   journals, 

begging  all  who  owned  vehicles  to  send  them  to  St.  Denis 

for  the  removal  of  the  women  and  children.     The  response 

was  weak:   there  appeared  not  a  solitary  representative  of 


120  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

those  ambulances  whose  members  took  delight  in  flags  and 
gave  themselves  to  the  vanities  of  brass  buttons  and  fantastic 
uniforms.  About  half  a  dozen  private  vehicles  did  present 
themselves,  and  the  sick  and  wounded  were  removed  into 
factories  on  the  plain  between  St.  Denis  and  Paris.  Then 
children  followed  and  women  great  with  child,  and  then 
the  other  women,  till  the  factories  on  the  plain  became  like 
caravanseries.  Meanwhile  a  detachment  of  this  ambulance 
was  engaged  in  carrying  under  cover  the  wounded  struck 
down  at  the  guns,  toiling  with  a  zeal  and  energy  that 
merited  better  support.  For  that  species  of  service  the  bold 
national  guards  did  not  offer  themselves :  their  sphere  of 
duty  was  the  wine-shop.  There  they  drank  till  their 
debauch  made  them  reckless,  and  they  sallied  out  into  the 
streets,  as  often  as  not  only  to  give  the  ambulance  more 
trouble  with  their  worthless  carcases. 

In  the  afternoon  I  accompanied  two  German  officers  in 
a  ride  beyond  the  foreposts  in  the  direction  of  the  Paris 
gate  of  La  Chapelle.  In  the  course  of  the  day  the  re- 
strictions on  passing  out  of  Paris  had  been  materially 
relaxed,  and  the  Avenue  de  Paris  was  thronged  with  the 
outward  bound.  It  seemed  to  me  that  if  they  could  get  out  I 
could  get  in,  and  quitting  my  companions  I  rode  towards 
the  gate.  But  as  I  went,  it  appeared  advisable  to  make 
sure  that  I  had  the  important  document  with  me  which 
vouched  for  me  being  a  British  subject,  and,  consequently, 
a  "benevolent  neutral."  Alas,  not  anticipating  the  occur- 
rence of  such  an  opportunity  I  had  left  my  passport  in 
my  Margency  quarters,  and  there  was  no  alternative  but 
to  postpone  the  attempt  to  enter  Paris  until  the  following 
day.  Next  morning,  that  of  31st  January,  I  started  out 
better  equipped.  Calling  en  route  on  M.  Saglier  the  good 
pastor  of  St.  Denis,  he  hospitably  asked  me  to  have  lunch. 
I  accepted  the  invitation,  he  bade  his  servant  "bring  in 
the  meat/'  and  I  made  an  assault  with  vigour  and  per- 
severance on  the  rather  lean  and  ragged  roast  joint 
which  was  placed  before  me,  the  good  cleric  looking  on 
benignantly  the  while.  I  asked  no  questions  till  the  edge 


"A  BAS  LE  PRUSSIEN!"  121 

was  off  my  appetite,  when  I  inquired  of  the  minister  what 
I  was  eating. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  of  course  you  are  eating  horse,  and  a 
very  choice  joint  it  is.  I  knew  the  animal  very  well  while 
he  was  alive.  He  was  young  and  plump  and  of  a  grey 
colour,  which,  it  is  well  known,  indicates  tenderness." 

The  pastor  had  been  eating  horseflesh  for  four  months ; 
not  because  he  was  forced  to  do  so,  but  because  he  had 
a  numerous  dependency  of  poor  people  to  aid  whom  he 
chose  to  practise  economy. 

Taking  leave  of  the  good  clergyman  I  rode  towards 
Paris  along  the  great  chaussee  to  the  gate  of  La 
Chapelle,  which  I  found  barred.  After  the  group  of  which 
I  was  one  had  waited  for  half  an  hour,  an  officer  appeared 
and  shouted  "  To  the  gate  of  St.  Ouen ! "  St.  Ouen  was 
the  next  gate  to  the  northward,  and  we  all  therefore  made 
to  the  right,  I  being  mounted  beating  the  others  who  were 
all  on  foot.  This  gate  was  open  and  a  gendarme  was 
examining  passes.  I  rode  on  slowly,  looking  straight 
between  iny  horse's  ears ;  and  somehow  no  person  in 
authority  took  any  heed  of  me.  As  I  rode  down  the 
Boulevard  Ornano,  I  came  upon  sundry  groups  of  more  or 
less  drunk  national  guards.  One  of  those,  as  I  passed  him 
raised  the  shout  "  A  bas  le  Prussien ! "  for  which  I  own 
he  had  some  reason  since  I  wore  a  Prussian  cap  and  paletot. 
He  further  complimented  me  by  calling  me  "cochon"  and 
"  assassin."  Others  took  up  the  cry,  and  matters  were  get- 
ting serious.  The  clamour  was  spreading  and  men  tried  to 
clutch  hold  of  my  bridle.  I  judged  boldness  to  be  the 
wisest  policy;  so,  facing  about,  I  pushed  up  to  the  man 
who  had  first  shouted,  proclaimed  myself  a  harmless 
Englishman,  and  reproached  my  denouncer  for  molesting  an 
inoffensive  and  peaceable  wayfarer.  The  demon  of  cowardly 
and  venomous  suspicion  had  not  yet  been  developed.  A 
fortnight  or  so  later,  I  should  have  thought  myself  fortu- 
nate to  get  clear  off  after  having  been  marched  back  to 
the  guard-house,  half  a  dozen  roughs  on  each  bridle-rein, 
half  as  many  more  at  each  leg,  and  made  to  exhibit  my 


122  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

passport  to  the  officer  on  duty.  But  hunger  is  a  wonderful 
agent  in  tending  to  influence  men  to  concern  themselves 
with  their  own  business,  and  in  keeping  truculence  in  a 
state  of  dormancy.  I  cannot  say,  even  after  I  had  got  rid 
of  the  citizens  who  had  assailed  me  with  cries  of  "  cochon," 
that  I  much  admired  the  aspect  of  the  Boulevard  Magenta. 
It  was  densely  crowded  with  soldiers,  and  some  of  them 
might  be  unpleasantly  patriotic.  But  no ;  they  were  all  too 
much  busied  with  their  own  affairs,  getting  their  pay  and 
drinking  it  while  they  discussed  events. 

Halting  to  go  into  a  shop  to  make  an  inquiry — I  was 
not  familiar  with  the  geography  of  Paris — I  called  a  soldier 
of  the  Line  who  was  strolling  on  the  pavement  to  hold  my 
horse.  On  coming  out  I  had  a  little  talk  with  him.  Yes, 
he  had  had  enough  of  it!  They  had  nearly  killed  him, 
those  terrible  Prussians,  and  he  was  very  hungry.  When 
would  the  gates  open  for  the  introduction  of  food  ?  I  put 
my  hand  into  my  pocket  to  find  a  tip  for  the  poor  fellow, 
when  I  discovered  that  I  had  only  Prussian  money.  I 
asked  him  whether  he  could  do  anything  with  a  ten- 
groschen  piece.  It  was  silver,  and  might  have  had  the 
devil's  pitchfork  stamped  upon  it  instead  of  the  Prussian 
eagle,  for  all  that  the  hungry  linesman  cared.  Three  weeks 
later  it  was  not  wise  to  carry,  much  less  to  show,  German 
money. 

"Paris  is  utterly  cowed,  fairly  beaten,"  so  said  the  first 
Englishman  I  met.  I  had  not  been  long  enough  inside, 
either  to  agree  with  or  to  dissent  from  him.  What  I  did 
see  was  that  Paris  was  orderly  and  decent.  The  streets 
were  crowded,  almost  wholly  with  men  in  uniform.  Civil- 
ians were  comparatively  rare,  and  the  few  seen  wore  an 
aspect  of  dejection.  Many  shops  were  open,  but  a  consider- 
able proportion  were  closed.  It  seemed  possible  to  purchase 
everything  except  edibles.  There  was  assuredly  no  lack  of 
intoxicants  ;  yet  with  the  exception  of  my  friends  in  the 
Boulevard  Ornano,  I  saw  scarcely  a  tipsy  man.  The  food, 
shops  had  a  very  sparse  show  in  their  windows.  There 
were  confitures,  jellies,  preserves,  etc. ;  but  solid  comestibles 


THE  LAST  FOWL  IN  PARIS.  123 

were  conspicuous  by  their  rarity  and  probably  also  by  their 
price.  In  one  shop  I  saw  several  large  shapes  of  stuff  that 
looked  like  lard.  When  I  asked  what  it  was,  I  was  told 
that  it  was  horse-fat.  The  bakers'  shops  were  closed,  and 
the  gratings  were  down  before  those  of  the  butchers'.  Sad 
with  an  exceeding  great  sadness — that  was  my  impression 
of  Paris  long  before  I  reached  the  American  Legation ; 
self-respecting,  too,  in  her  prostration;  not  blatant;  not  dis- 
posed to  collect  in  jabbering  crowds.  Each  man  went  his 
way  with  chastened  face  and  listless  gait. 

After  visiting  the  American  Legation,  where  undisguised 
amazement  was  expressed  at  my  appearance,  I  made  my 
way  to  the  little  Hotel  St.  Honore  in  the  Faubourg  of  the 
same  name,  and  close  to  the  British  Embassy.  I  had  filled 
my  wallet  chiefly  with  newspapers,  and  had  stowed  away 
for  an  exigency  only  a  few  slices  of  ham.  When  I  reached 
my  quarters  the  women-servants  of  the  house  asked  permis- 
sion to  take  the  meagre  plateful  out  and  exhibit  it  as  a 
curiosity  to  their  neighbours ;  and  visitors,  attracted  by  the 
news,  came  straggling  in  and  begged  to  see  the  long  unaccus- 
tomed viand.  The  worthy  landlord  of  the  house,  himself  a 
Briton,  had  for  his  boarder  throughout  the  siege  Dr.  (now 
Surgeon-General)  Charles  Gordon,  the  British  medical  Com- 
missioner in  Paris ;  and  he  took  pride  in  asserting  that  the 
doctor  had  lived  as  well  as  any  man  in  Paris.  When  dinner 
came  it  bore  out  the  boasts  of  our  Boniface.  Positively 
there  was  a  fowl ;  pretty  well,  so  it  was  said,  the  last  fowl 
in  Paris.  Our  host  had  been  offered  eighty  francs  for  the 
bird  while  yet  it  had  its  feathers  on,  but  had  refused  the 
tempting  offer;  and  so  we  had  him  for  dinner  with  my 
ham  as  an  accompaniment — only  I  stood  out  of  participa- 
tion in  the  ham  so  that  the  rarity  might  go  the  further 
with  the  others.  There  are  advantages  in  being  a  Scots- 
man, one  of  which  this  siege  of  Paris  had  developed  in  a 
curious  way.  There  was  some  store  of  oatmeal  in  Paris. 
Porridge  is  a  principal  and  palatable  resultant  from  oatmeal, 
and  some  Scotsmen  not  only  eat  but  enjoy  porridge.  Thus 
Dr.  Gordon,  a  Strathdon  man,  had  supped  his  wholesome 


124  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

and  frugal  bicker  of  porridge  every  morning,  while  men 
not  born  to  the  appreciation  of  that  delicacy  were  giving 
themselves  internal  uneasiness  by  swallowing  the  stuff 
which  in  the  later  days  of  the  siege  still  imposed  on  people 
under  the  conventional  name  of  bread.  Yet  another 
national  dainty  was  our  host  equal  to,  in  the  shape  of  a 
glass  of  such  Scotch  whisky  as  I  had  not  tasted  for  months. 

In  a  once  famous,  now  dingy  restaurant,  I  found  at  supper 
several  of  my  journalistic  comrades  who  had  remained  in 
Paris  during  the  long  siege.  They  were  eating  steaks  of 
horseflesh,  followed  by  ragout  of  dog;  and  the  few  scraps 
of  bread  on  the  table  consisted  of  a  sort  of  dingy  paste  of 
which  about  one  half  was  sand.  Horseflesh,  as  both  they 
and  I  had  learned,  was  very  fair  eating;  only  one  requires 
to  get  a  little  accustomed  to  it  before  one  can  wholly 
relish  it.  It  has  a  curious  sweetish  taste,  and  the  fat  is 
scarce  and  not  quite  satisfactory.  The  Parisians  during  the 
siege  had  become  quite  connoisseurs  in  horseflesh  •  and  it 
was  universally  recognised,  as  Pastor  Saglier  of  St.  Denis 
had  already  apprised  me,  that  the  tenderest  joints  were 
furnished  by  a  young  grey  animal,  and  that  the  toughest 
meat  was  that  of  a  no  longer  young  chestnut  horse.  I  did 
not  try  the  dog;  anyone  who  is  curious"  as  to  this  viand 
can  easily  kill  a  dog  and  make  the  experiment  for  himself. 
Some  people  averred  that  dog  went  best  with  mushrooms; 
others  praised  it  eaten  cold  in  a  pie. 

There  needed  no  acuteness  to  discern  to  what  a  poignancy 
of  wretchedness  Paris  had  been  reduced,  before  she  had 
brought  herself  to  endure  the  humiliation  of  surrender.  That 
night  she  was  alone  with  her  grief  and  her  hunger  ;  not  until 
the  morrow  came  the  relief  and  consolation  which  the 
sympathy  of  Great  Britain  so  promptly  forwarded  to  the 
capital  of  the  ally  with  whom  had  been  undergone  the  hard- 
ships and  won  the  successes  of  the  Crimean  war.  Wan, 
starved  citizens  crept  by  on  the  unlit  boulevards,  before  and 
since  the  parade  ground  of  luxury  and  sleek  affluence.  No 
cafes  invited  the  promenader  with  brilliant  splendour  of 
illumination  and  garish  lavishness  of  decoration ;  for  there 


THE  PITY  OF  IT.  125 

were  few  promenaders  to  be  enticed,  there  was  no  fuel  to 
furnish  gas,  and  there  were  no  dainty  viands  wherewith  to 
trick  out  the  plate-glass  windows.  The  gaiety,  the  profusion, 
and  the  sinfulness  of  the  Paris  which  one  had  known  in  the 
days  of  the  Second  Empire,  had  given  place  to  quiet  uncom- 
plaining dejection,  to  utter  depletion,  to  a  decorum  at  once 
beautiful,  startling,  and  pathetic.  The  hotels  were  all 
hospitals.  The  Red  Cross  flag  floated  from  almost  every 
house,  bandaged  cripples  limped  along  the  pavements,  and 
almost  the  only  wheel  traffic  consisted  in  the  interminable 
procession  of  funerals. 

Very  strange  and  touching  was  the  ignorance  in  regard  to 
the  outside  world.  "  I  have  seen  three  English  newspapers 
since  September,"  said  Dr.  Gordon.  "  Is  Ireland  quiet  ?  Is 
Mr.  Gladstone  still  Prime  Minister  ?  Is  the  Princess  Louise 
married  ? "  Such  were  samples  of  the  questions  I  had  to 
answer.  The  ignorance  as  to  the  conditions  of  the  German 
besiegers  was  almost  equally  complete.  The  day  after  the 
negotiations  for  the  capitulation  began,  Paris  had  been 
somehow  assured  that  the  investing  army  had  not  eaten  for 
three  days,  and  that  it  was  Paris  which  was  granting  terms 
rather  than  the  "Prussians."  I  was  continually  asked 
whether  the  latter  had  not  been  half-starved  all  through. 
What  had  they  done  for  quarters  ?  Whether  they  did  not 
tremble  in  their  boots  at  the  mere  name  of  the  franc-tireurs  ? 
Whether  they  were  not  half-devoured  by  vermin  ?  Whether 
the  Prussian  King  still  resided  in  Versailles  ? — the  questioners 
had  not  heard  of  his  having  been  proclaimed  German 
Emperor  ;  and  so  on. 

The  great  and  beautiful  feature  of  Paris  under  siege  had 
been  the  absence  of  crime.  No  murders,  no  robberies,  but  a 
virtue  in  which  there  was  really  something  pathetic.  I  had 
intended  to  walk  about  the  city  most  of  the  night  so  as  to 
make  the  most  of  my  necessarily  limited  time.  But  before 
ten  o'clock  my  promenade  had  become  almost  a  solitary  one. 
By  nine  the  dim  lights  were  extinguished  in  the  kiosks,  and 
the  petroleum  was  waning  in  the  sparse  street  lamps.  By 
ten  o'clock  the  world  of  Paris  was  left  to  darkness  and  to  me  ; 


126  MEMORIES  OF  WAE  AND  PEACE. 

and  so  I  went  to  bed.  I  woke  up  once  in  the  night,  and  the 
dead  silence  made  me  for  the  moment  imagine  myself  back 
in  rural  Margency. 

It  seemed  that  the  pinch  for  food  was  more  severe  than 
ever,  pending  the  result  of  the  negotiations  for  its  supply. 
From  one  who  had  paid  the  prices  himself  and  had  the 
precise  figures  down  in  black  and  white,  I  had  the  following 
list : — Two  francs  for  a  small  shrivelled  cabbage ;  one  franc 
for  a  leek ;  forty-five  francs  for  a  medium-sized  fowl ;  forty- 
five  francs  for  a  so-called  rabbit — most  probably  a  cat ;  twenty- 
five  francs  for  a  pigeon ;  twenty-two  francs  for  a  2lb.  chub ; 
fourteen  francs  per  Ib.  for  stickleback  ;  two  francs  per  Ib.  for 
potatoes ;  forty  francs  per  Ib.  for  butter ;  twenty-five  francs 
per  Ib.  for  cheese — very  scarce.  Meat  other  than  horseflesh  was 
absolutely  not  to  be  procured.  I  was  assured  that  if  I  were 
to  offer  £50  down  in  bright  shining  gold  for  a  veritable  beef- 
steak, I  should  have  no  claimant  for  the  money  !  The  last 
cow  that  had  changed  hands  had  been  bought  for  an 
ambulance,  and  fetched  £80.  The  few  beasts  still  left ,  could 
not  be  bought.  The  bread  was  abominably  bad ;  something 
between  putty  and  chopped  straw  bound  together  with 
farina  starch  and  a  little  flour.  But  its  badness  was  not  the 
worst  thing  about  it — the  difficulty  was  to  get  it  at  all. 
Gentle  and  simple  had  to  wait  their  turn  hi  the  queue  in  the 
bitter  cold  outside  the  shops  of  the  butchers  and  the  bakers. 
On  the  following  morning,  as  I  rode  eastwards  through  Paris 
to  gain  the  train  which  would  carry  me  into  a  country  whence 
it  was  possible  to  despatch  telegrams,  I  saw  great  throngs 
outside  both,  chiefly  women,  waiting  in  silent  shivering  hi 
the  cold. 


VI. 

THE   CRUSHING   OF   THE   COMMUNE. 

Left  London  for  Paris  19th  May,  1871  —  Hindrance  at  St.  Denis  —  Advice  of 
Crown  Prince  of  Saxony  —  The  "  Cocotte  Train  "  —  Entered  Paris,  Sunday, 
21st  —  The  good  lady  of  the  kiosk  —  The  War  Ministry  of  the  Commune 
—  "  No,  I  have  Children  !  "  —  Dombrowski  in  the  Chateau  de  la  Muette  — 
Nonchalance  in  Shell  Fife  —  The  Scared  Commandant  —  Dombrowski 
marches  —  Fighting  inside  the  Enceinte  —  Entry  of  Versaillists  —  Morning 
of  22nd  —  Versaillist  Plan  of  Campaign  —  Hard  Fighting  throughout 
Week  —  Embrasure-making  —  The  Target  of  a  Firing  Party  —  Quit  Paris 
Wednesday,  24th  —  Bringing  Tidings  to  London  —  Return  to  Paris,  26th 
•?—  The  Dead-hole  in  Pere-Lachaise  —  MacMahon's  Announcement  on 
28th  :  "  I  am  absolute  Master  of  Paris." 


Franco-German  War  was  over.  I  had  witnessed  the 
-*-  great  Kaiser's  parade  on  the  Longchamps  racecourse  on 
the  1st  of  March,  1871  ;  and  the  same  afternoon  had  accom- 
panied the  German  troops  who  marched  down  the  Champs 
Elysees  into  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  the  wrecked  gardens 
of  the  Tuileries.  A  week  later  I  had  ridden  behind  the  old 
Emperor  and  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony  as  the  former 
reviewed  the  "  Maas  Armee  "  which  the  latter  commanded, 
drawn  up  on  the  plateau  between  Champigny  and  Brie, 
among  the  grave  mounds  beneath  which  lay  the  Germans 
and  the  Frenchmen  who  had  fallen  in  the  stubborn  fighting 
of  Ducrot's  great  sortie  on  the  east  side  of  Paris.  Then  my 
field  work  was  done  ;  and  I  had  hurried  home  to  London  to 
begin  the  task  which  I  had  set  myself  of  writing  a  book 
describing  what  I  had  seen  of  the  great  conflict. 

I  was  toiling  ten  hours  a  day  at  this  undertaking  when  the 
Commune  broke  out.  Promptly  the  manager  of  the  Daily 
News  dashed  upon  me  in  a  swift  hansom,  and  urged  me  with 
all  his  force  to  start  for  Paris  that  same  night.  I  declined  ; 
I  was  under  contract  to  my  publishers  and  I  burned  to  see 
my  first  book  in  print.  For  two  months  that  peremptory 
manager  gave  me  innumerable  bad  quarters  of  an  hour,  for 


128  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

he  was  not  being  served  to  his  liking  by  the  persons  whom, 
in  my  default,  he  had  commissioned  to  "  do  "  the  Commune 
for  him.  At  length,  on  the  afternoon  of  May  19th  I  finished 
the  last  revise  of  my  book,  and  the  same  evening — to  the 
great  relief  of  my  managerial  friend,  for  a  desperate  crisis  in 
Paris  was  clearly  imminent — I  left  London  by  the  Con- 
tinental Mail. 

In  those  troubled  times  the  train  service  of  the  Northern 
of  France  railway  was  greatly  dislocated,  and  it  was  nearly 
mid-day  of  the  20th  when  we  halted  in  the  St.  Denis  station. 
I  foreboded  no  difficulty,  since  the  halt  at  St.  Denis  was 
normal  for  ticket-collecting  purposes ;  and  I  was  chatting 
with  a  German  officer  of  my  acquaintance  who  commanded 
the  detachment  of  the  Kaiser  Alexander  Prussian  Guard 
regiment  in  occupation  of  the  St.  Denis  station.  The 
collector  serenely  took  up  my  ticket.  There  followed  him  to 
the  carriage  door  two  French  gendarmes,  who,  with  all  the 
official  consequentiality  of  their  species,  demanded  to  be 
informed  of  iny  nationality.  I  enlightened  them  on  that 
point,  and  turned  to  continue  the  conversation  with  von 
Berginann.  But  it  seemed  that  the  gendarmes  were  not  done 
with  me.  They  peremptorily  ordered  me  to  alight.  I 
requested  an  explanation,  and  was  told  that  no  more 
foreigners  were  now  permitted  to  enter  Paris,  as  the  fighting 
force  of  the  Commune  was  understood  to  be  directed  chiefly 
by  desperadoes  not  of  French  nationality.  "  But,"  said  I,  "  I 
am  a  newspaper  correspondent,  not  a  fighting  man." 
"  N*importe,"  replied  the  senior  gendarme,  "  you  look,  too,  not 
unlike  a  military  man.  Anyhow,  you  must  alight ! " 

"  What  does  this  mean,  Bergmann  ? "  I  asked,  when  I  had 
obeyed.  "  Surely  you  can  do  something  for  me,  in  charge  as 
you  and  your  fellows  are  of  the  station  ? "  "  No,  my  dear 
fellow,"  replied  the  Prussian  officer :  "  we  are  here  only  to 
maintain  order.  Two  days  ago  these  swallow-tailed  gentle- 
men came  from  Versailles,  and  our  orders  are  not  to  interfere 
with  them."  The  train  went  on,  leaving  me  behind ;  then  the 
senior  gendarme  came  up  to  me  and  told  me  that  I  should 
have  to  return  to  Calais  by  'the  next  outgoing  train.  A 


THE  "COCOTTE   TRAIN."  129 

thought  struck  ine,  and  I  pleaded  hard  to  bo  allowed  to  take 
instead  a  local  train  to  Enghien-les-Bains,  a  few  miles  off  near 
the  forest  of  Montmorency,  where  von  Bergmann  told  me  was 
still  residing  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony  to  whose  staff  I 
had  been  attached  during  the  siege  of  Paris/  Bergmann . 
added  his  persuasions  to  my  solicitations  and  finally  the 
gendarme  thus  far  mitigated  my  sentence. 

The  Crown  Prince  was  at  luncheon  when  I  reached  the 
chateau  in  which  he  had  his  quarters.  He  roared  with 
laughter  when  I  told  him  how  the  French  gendarme  had 
served  me.  "  Those  people  at  Versailles,"  his  Royal  Highness 
explained,  "have  been  leaving  the  mouth  of  the  trap  open  all 
these  weeks,  and  pretty  nearly  all  the  turbulent  blackguards 
of  Europe  have  walked  into  the  snare.  Now  the  Versaillists 
believe  that  all  the  blackguards  are  inside  ;  and  since  they  are 
just  about  to  begin  business,  they  have  stopped  both  ingress 
and.  egress.  Still,"  he  continued,  musingly,  "  I  am  surprised 
that  they  did  not  let  you  in  ! "  The  Prince  had  something 
of  a  sardonic  humour,  and  he  made  his  point ;  I,  for  my  part, 
made  him  my  bow  in  acknowledgment  of  his  compliment. 
Presently  the  Prince  remarked  :  "  Mr.  Forbes,  when  you  were 
with  us  in  the  winter  we  used  to  think  you  rather  a  ruse  and 
ingenious  man ;  but  I  fear  that  now,  since  you  are  no  longer, 
with  us,  you  have  become  dull.  Have  you  never  heard  the 
proverb  that  there  are  more  ways  of  killing  a  pig  than  by 
cutting  its  throat  ?  There  is  a  railway  to  Paris,  my  friend ; 
and  there  is  also  a  chaussee  to  Paris.  On  the  railway  there 
are  these  French  gendarmes ;  on  the  chaussee  there  is  only 
a  picket  of  your  friends  of  the  Kaiser  Alexander  regiment, 
who  have  no  orders  to  stop  anyone.  Now,  you  join  us  at 
luncheon  ;  then  we  shall  have  coffee  and  you  will  smoke  one 
of  those  long  corkscrew  cigars  which  you  may  remember ; 
and  in  the  evening  you  will  take  the  '  cocotte  train '  here  in 
Enghien.  If  the  gendarmes  at  the  St.  Denis  station  haul  you 
out  a  second  time,  make  them  a  polite  bow  and  walk  into 
Paris  by  the  chaussee ;  or,  for  that  matter,  you  can  take  the 
'bus  from  St.  Denis." 

It  was  already  dusk  when  I  boarded  the  "cocotte  train"; 
j 


130  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

and  I  ensconced  myself  between  two  young  ladies  of  gay  and 
affable  manners,  who  promised  so  to  conceal  me  with  their 
ample  skirts  when  we  should  reach  St.  Denis  that  the  gen- 
darmes would  be  unable  to  unearth  me.  The  train  was  full 
«t)f  the  frail  sisterhood  of  Paris,  who  were  wont  to  pay  afternoon 
visits  to  the  German  officers  of  the  still-environing  army  and 
who  were  now  returning  to  town.  Fairly  hidden  as  the  ladies 
and  I  considered  myself,  the  lynx-eyed  gendarme  detected 
ine  and  I  again  had  to  alight.  A  commissary  of  police  in  the 
station  courteously  offered  me  quarters  for  the  night,  but 
assured  me  that  my  entrance  into  Paris  was  impossible.  I 
declined  his  offer  and  went  out  into  the  street,  where  I  found 
the  German  soldiers  enforcing  the  old  curfew  laws.  "  Every- 
body must  be  indoors  by  nine  o'clock,"  said  the  grizzled 
sergeant,  "  else  I  take  them  prisoners,  and  they  are  kept  for 
the  night  and  fined  five  francs  in  the  morning."  He  did  not 
interfere  with  me  because  I  spoke  German  to  him  ;  and  I 
found  a  hay-loft  where  I  slept.  The  charge  for  sitting  for 
the  night  in  a  room  in  St.  Denis  was  ten  francs :  beds  were 
luxuries  unattainable  by  casual  strangers. 

On  the  morning  of  the  21st  I  left  St.  Denis  by  road,  and 
walked  straight  into  Paris  without  hindrance.  The  national 
guards  of  La  Chapelle  were  turning  out  for  service  as  I  passed 
through  that  suburb,  and  there  seemed  nothing  to  find  fault 
with  either  in  their  appearance  or  their  conduct.  Certainly 
no  reluctance  was  manifest  on  the  part  of  the  citizen-soldiers 
but  indeed  the  reverse.  Paris  I  found  very  sombre,  but 
perfectly  quiet  and  orderly.  It  was  the  Sabbath  morn,  but  no 
church-bells  filled  the  air  with  their  music.  It  was  with  a  far 
different  and  more  discordant  sound  that  the  air  throbbed  on 
this  bright  spring  morning — the  distant  roar  of  the  Versaillist 
batteries  on  the  west  and  south-west  of  the  enceinte.  "  That 
is  Issy  which  gives ! "  quietly  remarked  to  me  the  old  lady  in 
the  kiosk  at  the  corner  of  the  Place  de  1'Opera,  as  she  sold  me 
a  rag  dated  the  22nd  and  printed  on  the  20th.  I  asked  her 
how  she  could  distinguish  the  sound  of  the  Issy  cannon  from 
those  in  the  batteries  of  the  Bois  de  Boulogne.  "  Remember," 
she  replied,  "  I  have  been  listening  now  for  many  days  to  that 


AN  ABSENCE   OF  U ED-TAPE.  131 

delectable  bicker,  and  have  become  a  connaisseuse.  The  Issy 
gun-fire  comes  the  sharper  and  clearer,  as  you  may  hear,  because 
the  fort  stands  high  and  nothing  intervenes.  The  reports 
from  the  cannon  in  the  Bois  get  broken  up,  for  one  thing,  by 
the  tree-trunks  ;  and  then  the  sound  has  to  climb  over  the* 
enceinte,  the  railway  viaduct,  and  the  hill  of  Passy."  She 
spoke  as  calmly  as  if  she  had  been  talking  of  the  weather ; 
and  it  seemed  to  me,  indeed,  that  all  the  few  people  who  were 
about  shared  the  good  woman's  nonchalance.  Certainly 
there  seemed  nowhere  any  indication  of  apprehension  or 
expectation  that  the  Versaillist  hand  was  to  be  on  the  Com- 
munist throat  before  the  going  down  of  that  Sabbath  sun. 

I  had  a  horse  in  Paris,  which  I  had  left  there  since  the 
days  of  the  urmistice.  It  was  the  same  noble  steed  on  which 
I  had  ridden  in  through  the  gate  of  St.  Ouen,  the  "  first 
outsider  "  into  Paris  after  the  capitulation,  on  which  occasion 
the  hungry  Bellevillites  had  gazed  upon  the  plump  beast 
with  greedy  eyes.  My  earliest  quest  now  was  for  this  animal. 
I  found  it,  but  there  was  an  armed  sentry  on  the  stable.  The 
Commune  had  requisitioned  the  horse,  and  the  stable-keeper 
had  resisted  the  requisition  on  the  ground  that  it  belonged  to 
a  foreigner.  The  matter  had  been  temporarily  compromised 
by  the  posting  of  a  sentry  over  the  animal  until  the  authorities 
should  have  maturely  weighed  the  grave  question.  The 
sentry  declined  to  depart  when  I  civilly  entreated  him,  nor 
would  he  allow  me  to  take  out  the  horse  ;  so  in  the  mean- 
time I  had  to  leave  the  matter  as  it  stood.  From  the  stable 
I  went  to  the  War  Ministry  of  the  Commune,  on  the  south 
side  of  the  river.  The  utter  absence  of  red-tape  and  bureau- 
cracy there,  was  quite  a  shock  to  the  mental  system  of  the 
Briton.  I  remember  having  been  pervaded  by  the  same 
sensation  when,  years  later,  I  went  to  see  the  late  General 
Sherman  in  the  Washington  War  Department.  Ascending 
a  staircase — in  Paris,  not  in  Washington — I  entered  a  great 
room  full  of  sergeants  and  private  soldiers  bustling  to  and 
fro.  Unheeded  I  passed  into  an  inner  room,  where  I  found 
the  man  whom  I  wanted  writing  among  a  number  of  other 
men  in  uniform  and  a  constantly  changing  throng  of  comers 
J  2 


132  MEMOBIRS  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

and  goers.  "Can  I  see  the  Chief-of-Staff ? "  I  asked.  "Of 
course  you  can — come  with  me ! "  We  went  into  a  third 
room,  a  tine  apartment  with  furniture  in  the  style  of  the  First 
Empire :  officers  swarmed  here  from  commandants  to  lieu- 
tenants. Privates  carne  in  and  had  a  word,  and  went  away. 
Amid  the  bustle  there  was  a  certain  order,  and  also,  seemingly, 
a  certain  thoroughness.  Without  delay  I  was  presented  to 
an  officer,  who,  I  was  told,  was  the  sous-chef  of  the  Staff.  I 
told  him  that  I  desired  to  witness  the  military  operations  in 
the  capacity  of  a  correspondent.  With  a  bow  he  turned  to  a 
staff-lieutenant  and  bade  him  write  the  order.  The  lieutenant 
set  to  work  at  once.  He  asked  me  whether  I  wanted  an  order 
lor  the  exterior  as  well  as  for  the  interior  operations,  and  said 
"  bon  "  approvingly  when  I  told  him  that  I  wanted  an  order 
which  would  allow  me  to  go  anywhere  and  see  everything. 
The  sous-chef  signed  it  with  the  signature  "  Lefebre  Toncier ; " 
told  me  if  ever  I  needed  any  favour  or  information  to  come 
to  him ;  and  made  me  a  civil  bow.  I  think  I  may  reckon  that 
this  was  the  last  permit  issued  to  a  correspondent  and  signed 
by  Communist  authority. 

General  Dornbrowski  was  the  last  of  the  many  general- 
issimos of  the  Commune  ;  he  had  held  the  command  for 
about  a  day  and  a  half.  His  headquarters,  I  was  told, 
were  away  out  to  the  west  in  the  Chateau  de  la  Muette,  a 
little  way  inside  the  enceinte  and  close  to  the  railway- 
station  of  Passy  on  the  ceinture  line.  I  went  to  the  cab- 
stand in  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  and  bade  the  first 
cabman  drive  me  to  the  chateau.  "No,  monsieur;  I  have 
children  ! "  was  the  reply.  I  got  a  less  timid  cocher  who 
agreed  to  drive  me  to  the  beginning  of  the  Grande  Rue  de 
Passy.  As  we  passed  the  Pont  de  Jena  the  Communist 
battery  on  the  Trocadero  began  to  give  fire.  Mont  Valerien 
replied.  Shell  after  shell  from  that  fortress  fell  on  the 
grassy  slope  on  which  I  had  seen  the  German  soldiers,  on 
their  entry  into  Paris  on  March  1st,  lie  down  and  drink 
their  till  of  its  beauties.  One  shell  felled  a  lamp-post  on 
the  steps  close  by,  and  burst  upon  the  pavement.  My 
drive/  struck,  and  very  nearly  carried  me  back  with  him 


GENERAL  DOMBROWSKI.  133 

in  his  hurry  to  be  out  of  what  he  evidently  considered  an 
unpleasant  neighbourhood.  There  was  nothing  for  me  but 
to  alight,  and  to  go  on  foot  up  the  Grande  Rue.  Here 
there  was  hardly  any  resident  population,  but  a  large  colony 
of  shell  holes.  National  guards,  sailors,  and  franc-tireurs 
had  quartered  themselves  in  the  abandoned  houses,  and 
lounged  idly  on  the  sidewalks  in  comparative  shelter.  There 
were  nowhere  any  symptoms  of  uneasiness,  although  the  shells 
were  dropping  into  the  vicinity  with  great  freedom.  At  the 
further  end  of  the  street  I  turned  to  the  right  through  a 
large  gateway  into  a  short  avenue  bordered  by  fine  trees, 
at  the  end  of  which  I  entered  the  Chateau  de  la  Muette. 
Dombrowski  gave  me  a  most  hearty  and  cordial  greeting, 
and  at  once  offered  me  permission  to  attach  myself  to  his 
staff  permanently,  if  I  could  accept  the  position  as  it  dis- 
closed itself.  "  We  are  in  a  deplorably  comic  situation 
here,"  said  he,  with  a  smile  and  a  shrug,  "  for  the  fire  is 
both  hot  and  continuous  !  " 

Dombrowski  was  a  neat,  dapper  little  fellow  of  some  five 
feet  four,  dressed  in  a  plain  dark  uniform  with  very  little 
gold  lace.  His  face  was  shrewd — acuteness  itself;  he  looked 
as  keen  as  a  file,  and  there  was  a  line  frank  honest 
manner  with  him,  and  a  genial  heartiness  in  the  grip  of 
his  hand.  He  was  the  sort  of  man  you  take  to  instinct- 
ively, and  yet  there  were  ugly  stories  about  him.  He  wore 
a  slight  moustache,  and  a  rather  long  chin-tuft  wrhich  he 
was  given  to  caressing  as  he  talked.  He  spoke  not  much 
English  but  was  very  fluent  in  German.  His  staff  con- 
sisted of  eight  or  ten  officers,  chiefly  plain  young  fellows 
who  seemed  thoroughly  up  to  their  work,  and  with  whom, 
not  to  be  too  pointed,  soap  and  water  seemed  not  so  plen- 
tiful as  was  their  consummate  coolness.  Dombrowski  ate, 
read,  and  talked  all  at  once,  while  one  could  hardly  hear 
his  voice  for  the  din  of  the  cannonade  and  the  yell  of  the 
shells.  He  showed  great  anxiety  to  know  whether  I  could 
tell  him  anything  as  to  the  likelihood  of  German  intervention, 
and  it  struck  me  that  he  would  be  very  glad  to  see  such  a 
solution  of  the  strange  problem.  We  had  got  to  the  salad 


134  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  A.\D  PEACE. 

when  a  battalion  commandant,  powder-grimed  and  flushed, 
rushed  into  the  dining-room  and  exclaimed  in  great  agita- 
tion that  the  Versaillist  troops  were  streaming  inside  the 
enceinte  at  the  gate  of  Billanconrt,  which  his  command 
had  been  holding.  The  cannonade  from  Issy  had  been  so 
fierce  that  his  men  had  all  got  under  shelter;  and  when 
the  Versaillists  came  suddenly  on  and  his  men  had  to 
expose  themselves  and  deliver  musketry  fire,  the  shells,  he 
said,  fell  so  thick  and  deadly  that  they  bolted,  and  then 
the  Versaillists  had  carried  the  porte  and  now  held  it. 
His  men  had  gone  back  in  a  panic.  He  had  beaten  them — 
yes — "  Sacre  nom,"  etc. — with  the  flat  of  his  sword  until  his 
arm  ached,  but  he  had  not  been  successful  in  arresting  the 
panic  and  his  battalion  had  now  definitively  forsaken  the 
enceinte.  The  Versaillists  were  massing  in  large  numbers 
to  strengthen  the  force  that  had  already  carried  the  gate 
of  Billancourt.  Dombrowski  waited  quietly  until  the  gasp- 
ing commandant  had  exhausted  himself,  then  handed  him 
a  glass  of  wine  with  a  smile ;  turned  with  a  serene  nod  to 
his  salad  and  went  on  eating  it  composedly  and  reflectively. 
At  length  he  raised  his  head,  and  ordered  in  a  strong 
voice — 

"  Send  to  the  Ministry  of  Marine  for  a  battery  of  seven- 
pounders;  call  out  the  cavalry,  the  tirailleurs  [of  some 
place  or  other;  I  did  not  catch  where],  and  send  forward 
sucii  and  such  battalions  of  national  guards.  Let  them  be 
ready  by  seven  o'clock  I  shall  attack  with  them,  and  lead 
the  attack  myself" 

The  Ministry  of  Marine,  I  may  observe,  had  been  turned 
into  an  arsenal.  It  was  a  curious  sign  of  the  time  that  the 
officer  to  whom  Dombrowski  dictated  this  order,  like  him- 
self, a  Pole,  did  not  know  where  to  find  the  Ministry  of 
Marine.  Directions  having  been  given  to  him  as  to  its 
locality,  the  lieutenant  then  suggested  that  he  might  not 
be  able  to  obtain  a  whole  battery. 

"  Bring  what  you  can  then,"  exclaimed  Dombrowski ; 
"  two,  three,  four  guns— as  many  as  you  can,  and  see  that 
the  tumbrils  are  in  order.  Go  and  obey ! " 


"GO  AND   OBEY!"  135 

"  Go  and  obey !  "  was  the  formula  of  this  peremptory, 
dictatorial,  and  yet  genial  little  man.  He  had  a  splendid 
commanding  voice  and  one  might  have  judged  him  accus- 
tomed to  dictation,  for  he  would  break  off  to  converse 
and  take  up  the  thread  again,  as  if  he  had  been  the  chief 
clerk  of  a  department. 

While  Dombrowski  was  eating  his  prunes  after  his  salad 
— like  most  Poles,  he  seemed  a  miscellaneous  feeder — there 
came  bustling  in  a  fussy  commandant  with  a  grievance. 
His  grievance  was  thus  expressed :  "  General,  I  have  been 
complained  against  because  I  have  too  large  a  staff',  and 
have  been  ordered  to  bring  the  return  to  you."  Dom- 
browski silently  took  from  him  the  return  and  read  it. 
Then  he  broke  out  in  passion.  "A  commandant!"  he  ex- 
claimed, "  and  with  a  staff'  of  ten  officers !  What !  "  Here 
he  rose  and  swept  his  arm  round  the  table  with  a  gesture 
of  indignation.  "  Look,  citizen  commandant !  Here  am 
I,  the  general,  and  behold  my  staff,  nine  hard-working 
men ;  and  you,  a  commandant,  have  ten  loafers  !  I  allow 
you  one  secretary ;  go  and  obey ! "  and  the  discomfited 
commandant  cleared  out. 

The  shell  fire  was  increasing.  Dombrowski  told  me  that 
the  Chateau  de  la  Muette  belonged  to  a  friend  of  M. 
Thiers,  and  that,  therefore,  although  it  was  known  to  be 
his — Dornbrowski's — headquarters,  there  were  orders  that  it 
should  be  somewhat  spared.  All  I  have  to  say  is,  that  if 
there  were  indeed  any  efforts  made  to  spare  the  chateau 
the  Versaillist  gunners  were  shocking  bad  shots.  While 
we  sat  one  shell  came  through  the  wall  bounding  the 
avenue ;  another  struck  the  corner  of  the  house  so  hard 
that  I  thought  it  was  through  the  wall.  Dombrowski's 
nerves  were  strong,  and  he  had  trained  his  staff'  to  perfec- 
tion. When  this  shell  burst  he  was  speaking  to  me.  I 
started.  I  don't  think  his  voice  vibrated  a  single  chord. 
The  officers  sitting  round  the  table  noticed  the  explosion 
no  more  than  if  it  had  been  a  snapping-bonbon  at  a  ball 
supper.  A  soldier- waiter  was  filling  my  cup  with  coffee. 
The  spout  of  the  coffee-pot  was  on  the  edge  of  the  cup. 


136  MEMORIES   OF  WAR   AXD  PEACE. 

There  was  no  jar;  the  man's  nerves  were  like  iron.  There 
was  certainly  good,  quiet,  firm  undemonstrative  stuff  here, 
whatever  there  might  have  been  elsewhere.  J)ombrowski's 
adjutant  took  me  upstairs  to  the  roof  where  there  was  an 
observatory.  The  staircase  and  upper  rooms  had  been  very 
freely  knocked  about  by  the  shell  fire,  notwithstanding  the 
friendship  of  M.  Thiers  for  the  owner  of  the  chateau.  The 
observatory,  which  was  constructed  of  thick  planking,  was 
nevertheless  riddled  with  chassepot  bullets ;  and  when  I 
showed  myself  incautiously  on  the  leads  I  drew  fire  with 
an  alacrity  so  surprising,  that  I  was  not  in  the  slightest 
degree  ashamed  to  make  a  precipitate  retreat. 

The  park  of  the  Chateau  de  la  Muette  sloped  down  to 
the  enceinte  in  front  of  Passy.  One  could  scarcely  see  the 
enceinte  for  the  foliage.  Beyond  the  enceinte  was  a  belt 
of  clearing,  then  came  the  dense  greenery  of  the  Bojs 
de  Boulogne,  and  behind  this  green  fringe  was  the  bed  of 
the  great  lake.  From  this  fringe  of  wood  great  isolated 
puffs  of  smoke  were  darting  out.  Those  were  from  single 
cannon.  I  saw  no  massed  battery.  But  there  were  clearly 
at  intervals  single  cannon  in  small  emplacements  at  dis- 
tances from  the  enceinte  of  from  400  to  500  paces.  From 
the  edge  of  the  fringe  also,  behind  little  trenches  at  the 
throats  of  the  drives,  smaller  puffs  spurted  from  the 
chassepots  of  Yersaillist  marksmen  trying  to  pick  off  the 
Communists  on  the  enceinte  and  on  the  advanced  horn- 
works  in  front  of  the  gates  of  Passy  and  Auteuil.  Just 
above  the  gate  of  Passy  the  Communists  had  a  battery  on 
the  enceinte  Avhich  was  firing  steadily  and  with  good  effect. 
The  gate  of  Passy  was  not  much  injured  and  might  have 
been  stormed  by  a  resolute  forlorn  hope,  were  it  not  for 
the  earthen  outwork  thrown  up  during  the  Prussian  siege. 
The  gate  of  Auteuil  and  the  enceinte  for  some  distance  on 
each  side  were  utterly  ruined.  This  Dombrowski  did  not 
attempt  to  deny.  But  he  pointed  out  that  the  advanced 
earthwork  was  held — and  strongly  held;  not  an  obstacle, 
perhaps,  it  seemed  to  me,  to  thwart  men  bent  on  gaining 
an  object  or  losing  their  lives,  but  quite  sufficient  to  all 


THE  SECOND  LINE   OF  DEFENCE.  137 

appearance,  to  keep  the  cautious  Versaillists  from  exposing 
themselves  in  the  open  on  the  way  to  it.  Farther  south, 
by  the  gate  of  Billancourt  and  round  to  the  Seine,  the 
enceinte  was  no  great  things  to  boast  of.  Certainly  no 
man  needed  wings  to  get  inside  thereabouts.  In  proof  of 
this,  since  I  had  joined  him,  Dombrowski,  as  I  have 
related,  had  received  tidings  that  the  Versaillists  had  carried 
that  gate. 

There  was  a  good  deal  more  of  risk  than  amusement 
in  remaining  in  the  observatory ;  and  I  descended  presently 
to  the  ground  floor.  Donibrowski  was  standing  sword  in 
hand,  dictating  three  orders  at  the  same  time.  He  stopped 
to  ask  me  what  I  thought  of  the  prospect  I  had  looked 
down  upon  from  the  roof.  I  could  not  conscientiously 
express  the  opinion  that  it  was  reassuring  from  the  Com- 
munist point  of  view.  "  I  am  just  dictating  an  order," 
said  Dombrowski,  "  which  will  inform  Paris  that  I  am 
abandoning  the  enceinte  from  the  Porte  d'Auteuil  to  the 
river.  If  you  are  a  military  man  you  must  recognise  the 
fact,  that  our  loss  of  Fort  Issy  has  made  virtually  untenable 
that  section  of  the  continuous  line  of  fortification  of  which 
I  speak.  Its  province  was  to  co-operate  with,  not  to  resist, 
Fort  Issy.  For  several  days  past  I  have  foreseen  the 
necessity  of  which  I  am  now  informing  Paris,  and  I  have 
prepared  a  second  line  of  defence,  of  which  the  railway 
viaduct  defines  the  contour  and  which  I  have  made  as 
strong  as  the  enceinte  and  more  easily  tenable.  Yes ;  the 
Versaillists  are  in  possession  of  that  gate  you  heard  the 
flurried  commandant  talk  of.  They  may  have  it  and 
welcome ;  the  possession  of  it  will  not  help  them  very 
much.  But  all  the  same  I  don't  mean  to  let  them 
keep  their  hold  of  it  without  giving  them  some  trouble ; 
and  so  I  am  going  to  make  an  attack  on  them  to-night. 
As  like  as  not  they  will  fall  back  from  their  occupancy 
of  to-day,  and  then  they  will  have  their  work  to  do  over 
again  to-morrow.  But  I  am  not  going  to  fight  with  serious 
intent  to  retrieve  this  condemned  section  of  enceinte,  as 
the  order  which  I  have  been  dictating  for  publication  will 


138  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

show ;  but  merely,  as  I  may  say,  for  fighting's  sake.  There 
is  plenty  of  fight  still  in  our  fellows,  especially  when  I  am 
leading  them." 

I  could  not  for  the  life  of  me  make  up  my  mind  then,  nor 
have  I  done  so  to  this  day,  whether  Dombrowski's  cheerful 
words  were  mere  blag-tie  or  whether  the  little  man  was 
really  in  dead  earnest.  With  a  promise  from  him  that  he 
would  not  start  on  his  enterprise  without  me,  I  went  into 
a  side  room  to  write  a  few  lines  for  my  newspaper.  I  had 
finished  and  was  instructing  the  soldier  messenger  whom 
Dombrowski's  adjutant  was  good  enough  to  place  at  my 
disposal,  where  to  deliver  the  packet  containing  my  message, 
when  an  urgent  summons  came  to  me  to  join  the  general. 
The  little  man  I  found  on  the  outside  of  a  very  lofty  charger, 
which  was  dancing  about  the  lawn  on  its  hind  legs.  For 
me,  alas !  there  wras  no  mount,  big  or  little ;  my  horse  was 
in  the  stable  behind  the  Hue  Faubourg  St.  Honore  with 
that  relentless  sentry  standing  over  him.  Messenger  after 
messenger  had  come  hurrying  in  from  the  Point  du  Jour 
quarter  entreating  for  immediate  succour,  as  the  holders  of  the 
positions  thereabouts  were  being  hard  pushed.  The  cannon- 
ade and  fusillade  from  the  Seine  all  the  way  to  the  Neuilly 
gate  and  probably  beyond,  continued  to  increase  in  Avarmth 
as  we  hastened  down  the  Rue  Mozart.  The  Yersaillist 
batteries  were  in  full  roar ;  and  it  was  not  possible,  even  if 
some  guns  still  remained  undismounted  on  the  enceinte, 
to  respond  effectively  to  their  steady  and  continuous  fire  of 
weighty  metal.  Some  reinforcements  were  waiting  for 
Dombrowski  on  the  Quai  d'Auteuil,  partly  sheltered  by  the 
houses  of  the  landward  side  of  the  quay  from  the  fire  which 
was  lacerating  the  whole  vicinity.  The  tidings  which  greeted 
the  little  general  were  unpleasant  when  he  rode  into  the 
Institution  de  Ste.  Ferine,  which  was  temporarily  occupied  as 
a  kind  of  local  headquarters.  It  was  the  Commandant  of  the 
93rd  national  guard  battalion  who  had  come  to  the  Chateau 
de  la  Muette  in  the  afternoon  to  tell  Dombrowski  how  his 
men  had  been  driven  from  the  gate  of  Billancourt.  From 
what  I  could  hurriedly  gather  there  had  subsequently  been  a 


COMMUNIST  HE  VERSES.  139 

kind  of  rally.  National  guards  had  lined  the  battered  para- 
pet of  the  enceinte  between  the  gates  of  Billancourt  and 
Point  du  Jour,  and  farther  northward  to  and  beyond  the 
St.  Cloud  gate.  For  some  time  they  had  clung  to  the 
positions  with  considerable  tenacity  under  a  terrible  fire,  but 
then  had  been  forced  back  with  serious  loss,  mainly  by  the  close 
and  steady  shooting  of  the  Versaillist  artillery  from  the 
breaching  batteries  about  Boulogne  and  those  in  the  more 
distant  Brimborion.  The  St.  Cloud  gate  as  well  as  that  of  the 
Point  du  Jour,  had  followed  the  Billancourt  gate  into  the  hands 
of  Versaillist  troops  who  having  occupied  the  enceinte  in  force 
and  the  adjacent  houses  inside  the  enceinte,  had  pushed 
strong  detachments  forward  to  make  reconnaissances  up  the 
Rues  Marois  and  Billancourt,  one  of  which  bodies  at  least 
had  penetrated  as  far  as  the  railway  viaduct  but  had  been 
driven  back. 

Dornbrowski  smiled  as  this  news  was  communicated  to 
him  ;  and  I  thought  of  his  "  second  line  of  defence,"  and  of 
his  assurance  that  "  the  situation  was  not  compromised."  By 
this  time  it  was  nearly  nine  o'clock,  and  it  seemed  to  me  that 
the  Versaillists  must  have  got  cannon  upon  or  inside  the 
enceinte,  the  fire  came  so  hot  about  the  Institution  de  Ste. 
Perine.  Dombrowski  and  his  staff  were  very  active  and 
daring,  and  his  troops  seemed  in  good  heart  enough.  There 
was  some  cheering  on  the  order  to  advance,  and  the  troops, 
consisting  chiefly  of  francs-tireurs  and  men  wearing  a  zouave 
dress  so  far  as  I  could  discern  through  the  gloom,  moved  out 
from  behind  the  railway  embankment  into  the  Rue  de  la 
Municipalite — that  was  its  name  then,  but  I  believe  it  is 
now  called  the  Rue  Michel.  A  couple  of  guns— only  field  guns, 
I  believe — opened  fire  on  the  Ceinture  railway  to  the  left  of 
the  Rue  de  la  Municipalite,  and  under  their  cover  Dornbrowski's 
infantrymen  now  debouched  with  a  short-lived  rush.  Almost 
immediately  after,  however,  utter  disorganisation  ensued,  the 
result  of  a  hot  and  close  rifle  fire  which  seemingly  came 
chiefly  from  over  a  wall  which  I  was  told  enclosed  the 
Cirnetiere  des  Pauvres.  The  Communists  broke  right  and 
left.  One  forlorn  hope  I  dimly  saw  spring  forward  and  go  at  the 


140  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

corner  of  the  cemetery  Avail  in  the  angle  formed  by  a  little 
cross-street,  under  the  passionate  leadership  of  a  young  staff- 
officer  whom  I  had  noticed  in  the  Chateau  de  la  Muette  at 
dinner  time.  There  was  a  few  moments'  brisk  cross-fire ;  then 
the  Communist  spurt  died  away  and  the  fugitives  came 
running  back,  but  without  their  gallant  leader.  Some  affirmed 
that  Dornbrowski  himself  took  part  in  this  rash,  futile 
attempt ;  but  the  locality  was  too  warm  for  me  to  be  able  to 
speak  definitely  on  this  point.  Meanwhile  there  seemed  to  be 
almost  hand-to-hand  fighting  going  on  all  along  the  exterior 
of  the  railway  embankment.  I  could  hear  the  incessant 
whistle  and  patter  of  the  bullets  and  the  yells  and  curses 
of  the  Communists,  not  a  few  of  whom  evidently  owed  the 
courage  they  displayed  to  alcoholic  influence.  Every  now 
and  then  there  came  a  short  rush,  then  a  volley  which 
arrested  the  rush,  and  then  a  stampede  back  into  cover.  Soon 
after  ten  it  was  obvious  that  the  fight  was  nearly  out  of  the 
Communists.  Doinbrowski  I  had  long  since  lost  sight  of. 
One  officer  told  me  that  he  had  been  killed  close  to  the  grave- 
yard Avail ;  another,  that  his  horse  had  been  shot  under  him  and 
that  the  speaker  had  last  seen  the  daring  little  felloAV  fighting 
AArith  his  SAvord  against  a  Versaillist  marine  who  Avas  lunging  at 
him  Avith  the  bayonet.  After  the  Commune  was  stamped  out, 
accusations  of  treachery  to  the  cause  he  Avas  professing  to 
serve  Avere  made  against  DombroAvski.  All  I  can  say  is  that 
so  far  as  I  saw  of  him,  he  bore  himself  as  a  true  man  and  a 
gallant  soldier,  and,  seeing  that  before  the  Commune  ended  he 
had  lost  his  life  in  the  struggle,  it  seems  the  reverse  of  likely, 
as  was  averred,  that  he  had  sold  himself  to  the  Versaillists. 
He  came  of  a  fighting  race.  An  ancestor  of  his  was  one  of 
the  gallant  Polish  leaders  under  the  first  Napoleon. 

Then  came  a  sudden  and  apparently  general  panic  and  I 
was  glad  to  make  good  my  retreat  behind  "  the  second  line  of 
defence,"  which  was  not  easily  recognisable  as  a  line  of  defence  at 
all,  and  concerning  which  I  suspected  that  DombroAvrski  had 
been  gasconading.  Once  behind  the  railway,  the  Communist 
troops  held  their  ground  for  some  time  Avith  a  show  of  stiffness. 
Occasional  outbursts  of  firing  indicated  desultory  attacks 


"NOUS  SOMMES   TEAHIS!"  1-H 

•made  by  detached  parties  of  Versaillists  ;  but  those  flashes  of 
strife  gradually  died  away  and  about  eleven  o'clock  the  quiet- 
ness had  become  so  marked,  that  I  thought  the  work  was  over 
for  the  night  and  that  Dombrowski's  anticipations  had  been 
at  least  partly  realised.  The  pause  was  deceptive.  The 
Versaillists  must  have  been  simply  holding  their  hands  for 
the  time,  to  make  the  blow  the  heavier  when  it  should  fall. 
No  doubt  they  had  their  combinations  to  mature  in  other 
directions — no  doubt  they  were  pouring  in  force  into  the 
area  between  the  enceinte  and  the  Ceinture  railway.  They 
were  comparatively  quiet  for  their  own  purposes  while  they 
were  doing  this — lining  the  enceinte  and  packing  the 
thoroughfares  with  troops  and  artillery.  We  could  hear  in  the 
distance  behind  us  the  generale  being  beaten  in  the  streets  of 
Paris.  A  staff-officer  who  spoke  English  as  if  it  were  his 
mother  tongue,  came  to  me  and  told  me  how  he  mistrusted 
the  pause,  and  expressed  his  fear  that  the  supreme  hour  had 
come  at  last.  It  must  have  been  near  midnight  when  a 
strong  rire  of  cannon  and  musketry  opened  from  the  enceinte. 
At  the  same  time  there  came  on  the  wind  the  sound  of  heavy 
tiring  from  the  northward.  I  heard  someone  shout  "  We  are 
surrounded  !  The  Versaillists  are  pouring  in  by  the  gates  of 
Auteuil,  Passy,  and  La  Muette  !  "  This  was  enough.  A  wild 
panic  set  in.  The  cry  rose  of  "  Sauve  qui  pent ! "  mingled 
with  yet  more  ominous  shouts  of  "  Nous  sommes  trahis ! " 
Arms  were  thrown  down,  accoutrements  were  stripped  off,  and 
everyone  bolted  at  the  top  of  his  speed,  many  officers  taking 
part  in  the  debacle.  I  came  on  one  party — a  little  detachment 
of  franc- tireurs— standing  fast  behind  the  projection  of  a 
house,  and  calling  out  that  all  the  chiefs  had  run  away  and 
had  left  their  men.  Whether  this  was  the  case  as  regarded 
the  higher  commands  I  could  not  tell.  I  do  not  believe  that 
Uombrowski  was  the  man  to  run,  nor  any  of  his  staff.  But 
certainly  none  of  them  was  to  be  seen.  There  was  the  cry, 
too,  that  there  was  a  Versaillist  inrush  from  the  south.  And 
so  men  surged,  and  struggled,  and  blasphemed  confusedly  up 
the  quay  of  Passy  in  wild  confusion,  shot  and  shell  chasing  them 
as  they  fled.  In  the  extremity  of  panic  mingled  with  rage, 


142  MEMORLES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

men  blazed  off  their  pieces  indiscriminately  and  struck  at  one 
another  with  the  clubbed  butts.  Upon  the  battalions  coming 
up  in  support  there  surged  the  rushing  tide  of  fugitives, 
thus  imparting  their  panic  to  the  newcomers  and  carrying 
them  away  with  them  in  the  torrent. 

There  was  an  interval  of  distracted  turmoil  during  which 
in  the  darkness  and  in  my  comparative  ignorance  of  that 
part  of  Paris,  I  had  no  idea  for  a  time  whither  I  was  being 
carried  in  the  throng  of  fugitives.  The  road  was  wide,  and  I 
was  able  to  discern  that  it  was  bounded  on  the  right  by  the 
Seine ;  it  was  by  after- reference  to  the  map  that  I  found  the 
thoroughfare  we  had  been  following  was  the  Quay  of  Passy. 
After  a  while  I  struck  out  of  the  press  up  a  silent  wTay  to  the 
left,  and  for  a  time  wandered  about  in  utter  ignorance  of 
my  whereabouts.  I  could  hardly  tell  how  it  came  about  that 
in  the  first  flicker  of  the  dawn  I  found  myself  on  the 
Trocadero.  There  was  a  dense  fog  which  circumscribed 
narrowly  my  sphere  of  vision,  and  I  knew  only  that  I  was 
standing  on  sward  in  an  utter  solitude.  A  few  steps  brought 
me  into  the  rear  of  a  battery  facing  westward,  from  which  all 
the  guns  had  been  carried  away  except  one  which  had  been 
dismounted,  evidently  by  a  hostile  shell,  and  it  now  lay 
among  the  shattered  fragments  of  its  carriage.  Close  by,  no 
doubt  killed  by  the  explosion  of  the  shell  which  had  wrecked 
the  gun,  were  two  or  three  dead  Communist  gunners.  As  it 
became  lighter  and  the  fog  was  slowly  dispersing,  the  slopes 
of  the  Trocadero  disclosed  themselves  on  my  left,  and  I 
realised  that  I  must  be  standing  in  the  Trocadero  battery  of 
which  I  had  heard  Dombrowski  speak  on  the  previous  after- 
noon. Looking  westward  along  the  Avenue  de  1'Empereur — 
now  the  Avenue  Henri  Martin — I  saw  a  battery  of  artillery 
advancing  up  it  at  a  walk,  with  detachments  of  sailors 
abreast  of  it  on  each  sidewalk.  I  had  not  to  ask  myself 
whether  these  troops  advancing  with  a  deliberation  so  equable, 
could  belong  to  the  beaten  and  panic-stricken  levies  of  the 
Commune.  No !  ,  that  could  not  be.  They  were,  for  sure, 
Versaillist  troops  coming  on  to  take  possession  of  the 
Trocadero  position.  Indeed,  had  there  been  no  other  evi- 


SWEEPING   THE   CHAMPS  ELYSEES.  143 

dence,  their  method  of  announcing  themselves  by  half  a 
dozen  chassepot  bullets  fired  at  the  lone  man  standing  by  the 
battery,  would  have  been  conclusive.  I  took  the  hint  to  quit, 
and  started  off'  abruptly  in  the  direction  of  the  Champs 
Elysees.  I  came  out  on  the  beautiful  avenue  by  the  Rue 
des  Chaillots  about  midway  between  the  Arch  of  Triumph 
and  the  Rond  Point.  And  lo !  round  the  noble  pile  which 
commemorates  French  valour  there  stood  in  close  order 
several  battalions  of  soldiers  in  red  breeches.  Thus  far  then, 
at  all  events,  had  penetrated  the  Versaillist  invasion  of  Paris 
in  the  young  hours  of  the  22nd.  The  French  regulars  were 
packed  in  the  Place  de  1'Etoile  as  densely  as  had  been  the 
Bavarians  on  the  day  of  the  German  entry  some  three 
months  earlier.  No  cannon  fire  was  directed  on  the  Ver- 
saillist masses  from  the  great  Communist  battery  on  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde  end  of  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries ; 
but  men  in  national  guard  uniform  were  showing  themselves 
about  it  and  now  and  then  sending  a  rifle-bullet  into  the 
ranks  of  the  Yersaillists  by  the  Arch.  The  latter,  for  their 
part,  seemed  to  be  taking  things  very  deliberately,  and  to  be 
making  quite  sure  of  their  ground  before  advancing  farther. 
They  had  a  field-battery  in  action  a  little  way  below  the 
Arch,  which  swept  the  Champs  Elysees  very  thorough!}7.  I 
saw  several  shells  explode  about  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
and  was  very  glad  when  I  had  run  the  gauntlet  safely  and 
had  reached  the  further  side  of  the  great  avenue.  I  was 
making  towards  the  Pare  Monceau  when  a  person  I  met 
told  me  that  Versaillist  troops  marching  from  the  Arch 
along  the  Avenue  de  la  Reine  Hortense  (now  the  Avenue 
Hoche)  had  come  upon  Communists  throwing  up  a  batter}^ 
and  had  saved  them  the  trouble  of  completing  it  by  taking 
it  from  them  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet.  Here  I  very  nearly 
got  shut  in,  for  as  we  talked  there  was  a  shout,  and  looking 
westward  I  saw  that  a  strong  force  of  Versaillists  with 
artillery  at  its  head,  was  inarching  along  the  Avenue  Friedland 
towards  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  I  was  just  in  time  to 
dodge  across  its  front,  and  tracking  the  force  by  side-streets  I 
found  that  it  pressed  on  steadily,  firing  now  and  then  but 


144  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

not  heavily,  until  it  reached  the  open  space  at  the  upper 
end  of  the  Boulevard  Haussrnann,  in  front  of  the  Pepiniere 
Barracks.  This  was  a  singularly  commanding  position,  and 
thus  early  one  could  fathom  the  tactics  of  the  Versaillists. 
Occupying  in  strong  force  and  with  a  numerous  artillery 
certain  central  points  from  each  of  which  radiated  several 
straight  thoroughfares  in  different  directions,  their  design 
clearly  was  to  cut  Paris  up  into  sections,  isolating  the  sections 
one  from  another  by  sweeping  with  cannon-fire  the  bounding 
streets.  From  this  position  at  the  Pepiniere,  for  example, 
they  had  complete  command  of  the  Boulevard  Haussmann 
down  to  the  foot  of  it  at  the  intersection  of  the  Rue  Taitbout, 
and  of  the  Boulevard  Malesherbes  down  to  the  Madeleine, 
thus  securing  access  to  the  Grand  Boulevards  and  to  the 
Rue  Roy  ale,  by  descending  which  could  be  taken  in  reverse 
the  Communist  battery  at  its  foot  facing  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde.  Desirous  of  seeing  what  might  be  occurring  in 
other  parts  of  the  city,  I  made  my  way  by  devious  paths  in 
the  direction  of  the  Palais  Royal.  Shells  seemed  to  be 
bursting  all  over  Paris.  They  were  time-fuse  shells,  and  I 
could  see  many  of  them  explode  in  white  puffs  high  in  air. 
Several  fell  on  and  about  the  Bourse  while  I  was  passing  it, 
and  the  boulevards  and  their  vicinity  were  silent  and 
deserted  save  for  small  detachments  of  national  guards  hurry- 
ing backwards  and  forwards.  It  was  difficult  to  tell  whether 
the  Communists  meant  to  stand  or  fall  back ;  but  certainly 
everywhere  barricades  were  being  hastily  thrown  up.  All 
those  I  evaded  until  I  reached  the  Place  du  Palais  Royal. 
Here  two  barricades  were  being  constructed,  one  across  the 
throat  of  the  Rue  St.  Honore,  the  other  across  the  Rue  de 
Rivoli  between  the  Louvre  and  the  hotel  of  the  same  name. 
For  the  latter  material  was  chiefly  furnished  by  a  great 
number  of  mattresses  of  Sommier-Tucker  manufacture  which 
were  being  hurriedly  pitched  out  of  the  windows  of  the 
warehouse;  and  also  by  mattresses  from  the  barracks  of 
the  Place  du  Carrousel  The  Rue  St.  Honore  barricade  was 
being  formed  of  furniture,  omnibuses  and  cabs;  and  in  the 
construction  of  it  I  was  compelled  to  assist.  I  had  been 


THE  BARRICADES.  145 

placidly  standing  in  front  of  the  Palais  Royal,  when  a  soldier 
approached  me  and  ordered  me  to  lend  a  hand  to  the 
work.  I  declined,  and  turned  to  walk  away;  whereupon 
the  soldier  brought  his  bayonet  down  to  the  charge  in  un- 
pleasantly close  proximity  to  my  person.  This  was  an 
argument  which  in  the  circumstances  I  could  not  resist, 
and  I  accompanied  him  to  where  a  red-sashed  member  of 
the  Committee  of  the  Commune  was  strutting  to  and  fro 
superintending  the  operations.  To  him  I  addressed  strong 
remonstrances,  explaining  that  I  was  a  neutral  and  exhibit- 
ing the  pass  I  had  received  from  the  War  Department  the 
day  before.  He  bluntly  refused  to  recognise  this  document, 
and  offered  me  the  alternatives  of  being  shot  or  going  to 
work.  I  was  fain  to  accept  the  latter.  Even  if  you  have 
to  do  a  thing  by  compulsion,  it  is  pleasant  to  try  to  do  it 
in  a  satisfactory  manner ;  and  observing  that  an  embrasure 
had  been  omitted  in  the  construction  of  the  barricade  not- 
withstanding that  there  was  a  gun  in  its  rear,  I  devoted  my 
energies  to  remedying  this  defect.  The  Committeeman  was 
good  enough  to  express  such  approbation  of  the  amendment 
I  had  made,  that  when  the  embrasure  was  finished  he  very 
civilly  allowed  me  to  go  away.  Looking  up  the  Rue  de  Rivol 
I  noticed  that  the  Communists  had  erected  a  great  battery 
at  its  junction  with  the  Place  de  la  Concorde,  armed  with 
cannon  which  were  in  action,  firing  apparently  up  the  Champs 
Elysees.  Leaving  the  vicinity  of  the  Palais  Royal  I  went  in 
the  direction  of  the  new  Opera  House.  On  reaching  the 
boulevard  I  discovered  that  the  Versaillists  must  have  gained 
the  Madeleine  between  which  and  their  position  at  the 
Pepiniere  no  obstacle  intervened  ;  for  they  had  thrown  up 
across  the  Boulevard  de  la  Madeleine  a  barricade  of  trees 
and  casks.  The  Communists,  on  their  side,  had  a  barricade 
composed  chiefly  of  provision-waggons  across  the  boulevard, 
at  the  head  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  For  the  moment  no  firing 
was  going  on;  and  as  it  was  getting  towards  noon  I  deter- 
mined to  try  to  reach  my  hotel  in  the  Cite  d'Antin  and  there 
obtain  some  breakfast. 

Leaving  the  boulevard  by  the  Rue  Taitbout,  I  found  my 
K 


146  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

progress  hampered  by  a  crowd  of  people  as  I  approached 
the  foot  of  the  Boulevard  Haussmann.  By  strenuous 
pushing  and  shoving  I  got  to  the  front  of  this  throng,  to 
witness  a  curious  spectacle.  There  was  a  crowd  behind  me. 
Opposite  to  me,  on  the  further  side  of  the  Boulevard  Hauss- 
mann, another  crowd  faced  me.  Between  the  two  crowds 
was  the  broad  boulevard,  actually  alive  with  the  rifle-bullets 
sped  by  the  Versaillists  from  their  position  about  a  thousand 
vards  higher  up.  On  the  iron  shutters  of  the  shops  across 
the  foot  of  the  boulevard — shops  in  the  Rue  Taitbout — the 
bullets  were  pattering  like  hailstones,  some  dropping  back 
flattened,  others  penetrating.  This  obstacle  of  rifle-fire  it 
was  which  had  given  rise  to  the  massing  of  the  crowds  on 
each  side.  Nor  were  the  wayfarers  thus  given  pause  with- 
out obvious  cause,  for  in  the  space  separating  the  one  crowd 
from  the  other  lay  several  dead  and  wounded  who  had  dared 
and  had  suffered.  My  hunger  overcame  my  prudence,  and 
I  ran  across  without  damage  save  to  a  coat-tail  through 
which  a  bullet  had  passed  making  a  hole  in  my  tobacco- 
pouch.  A  lad  who  followed  me  was  not  so  fortunate  ;  he  got 
across  indeed,  but  with  a  bullet-wound  in  his  thigh. 

Having  ordered  breakfast  at  my  hotel  in  the  Cite  d'Antin, 
a  recessed  space  close  to  the  foot  of  the  Rue  Lafayette,  I 
ran  out  to  the  junction  of  that  street  with  the  Boulevard 
Haussmann,  just  in  time  to  witness  a  fierce  fight  for  the 
barricade  across  the  latter  about  the  intersection  of  the  Rue 
Tronchet.  The  Communists  stood  their  ground  resolutely 
although  falling  fast  under  the  overwhelming  fire,  until  a 
battalion  of  Versaillist  marines  made  a  rush  and  carried  the 
barricade.  It  was  with  all  the  old  French  elan  that  the 
marines  leaped  upon  and  over  the  obstacle,  and  lunged  with 
their  sword-bayonets  at  the  few  defenders  who  would  not  give 
ground.  Those  who  had  not  waited  for  the  end  fell  back 
towards  me,  dodging  behind  lamp-posts  and  in  doorways,  and 
firing  wildly  as  they  retreated.  They  were  pursued  by  a 
brisk  fusillade  from  the  captured  barricade,  which  was  fatal  to 
a  large  proportion  of  them.  Two  lads  standing  near  me  were 
shot  down.  A  bullet  struck  the  lamp-post  which  constituted 


DESTROYING   THE  EVIDENCE.  147 

my  shelter,  and  fell  flattened  on  the  asphalt.  A  woman  ran 
out  from  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Chaussee  d'Antin,  picked  up 
the  bullet,  and  walked  coolly  back  clapping  her  hands  with  glee. 

After  eating  and  having  written  for  a  couple  of  hours,  I 
determined  to  make  for  the  Northern  Railway  terminus  and 
attempt  to  get  a  letter  to  iny  paper  sent  out.  One  saw 
strange  things  on  the  way.  What,  for  instance,  was  this 
curious  fetish- like  ceremony  going  on  in  the  Rue  Lafayette  at 
the  corner  of  the  Rue  Laffitte?  There  were  a  waggon,  a 
mounted  spahi  black  as  night,  and  an  officer  with  his  sword 
drawn.  A  crowd  stood  around,  and  in  the  centre  of  the 
strange  scene  was  a  blazing  fire  of  papers.  Were  they 
burning  the  ledgers  of  the  adjacent  bank,  or  the  title-deeds  of 
the  surrounding  property  ?  No.  The  papers  of  a  Communist 
battalion  it  was  which  were  thus  being  hurriedly  destroyed, 
no  doubt  that  they  should  not  bear  witness  against  its 
members.  The  little  episode  was  a  significant  indication  of 
the  beginning  of  the  end.  Nor  wrere  other  tokens  wanting, 
for  English  passports  were  being  anxiously  sought  for.  At 
the  terminus  the  unpleasant  report  was  current  that  the 
Prussians  were  shunting  at  St.  Denis  all  the  trains  leaving 
Paris,  and  were  preventing  everybody  from  passing  their  lines. 
There  was  but  one  chance.  I  suborned  a  railway  employe  of 
acute  aspect  to  get  out  of  Paris  by  walking  through  the 
railway  tunnel,  and,  should  he  reach  St.  Denis,  to  give  my 
letter  to  a  person  there  whom  I  could  trust  to  forward  it. 
My  emissary  put  the  missive  cheerfully  in  his  boot  and 
departed,  having  promised  to  come  to  my  hotel  at  8  p.m.  and 
report  his  success  or  failure.  I  never  saw  him  or  heard  of 
him  any  more. 

On  my  way  back  from  the  Gare  du  Nord  I  met  with  an 
experience  which  came  near  being  tragical.  Hearing  firing  in 
the  direction  of  the  Church  of  Notre  Darne  de  Lorette,  I  left  the 
Rue  Lafayette  for  the  Rue  Chateaudtin.  When  I  reached  the 
open  space  in  the  centre  of  which  stands  the  beautiful  church 
I  found  myself  inside  an  extraordinary  triangle  of  barricades 
There  was  a  barricade  across  the  end  of  the  Rue  St.  Lazare 
another  across  the  end  of  the  Rue  Lorelto  and  a  third 
K  2 


148  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

between  thd  church  and  the  front  of  the  Place  looking 
into  the  Rue  Chateaudun.  The  peculiarity  of  the  dispositions 
consisted  in  this — that  each  of  these  barricades  could  either 
be  enfiladed  or  taken  in  reverse  by  lire  directed  on  any  or  all 
of  the  others,  so  that  the  defenders  were  exposing  themselves 
to  fire  on  flanks  and  rear  as  well  as  from  front.  I  took  up  a 
protected  position  in  the  church  .porch  to  watch  the  outcome 
of  this  curious  state  of  things.  But  the  officer  in  command 
happening  to  notice  me,  approached  and  ordered  me  to  pick 
up  the  musket  of  a  man  who  had  just  been  bowled  over,  and 
to  take  a  hand  in  the  defence  of  the  position.  I  refused, 
urging  that  I  was  a  foreigner  and  a  neutral.  He  would  by  no 
means  accept  the  excuse,  swearing  angrily  that  he  too  was  a 
foreigner  yet  was  fain  to  fight,  and  giving  me  the  choice  of 
the  cheerful  alternatives  of  forthwith  complying  or  being 
incontinently  shot.  I  did  not  believe  him,  and,  indeed, 
laughed  at  him.  Thereupon  he  shouted  for  four  of  his  men 
to  come  and  place  me  up  against  the  wall  of  the  church,  and 
then  act  as  a  firing  party.  They  had  duly  posted  me  and 
were  proceeding  to  carry  out  the  programme  to  its  incon- 
venient ending,  when  suddenly  a  rush  of  Versaillist  troops 
came  upon  and  over  the  Rue  St.  Lazare  barricade.  There- 
upon the  defenders  precipitately  evacuated  the  triangle,  the 
firing-party  accompanying  their  comrades.  I  remained,  not 
caring  for  the  society  I  should  have  to  accompany  if  I  fled ; 
but  I  presently  came  to  regard  my  fastidiousness  as  folly,  for 
several  shots  from  Versaillist  rifles  came  too  near  to  be 
pleasant.  One  bullet  went  through  my  hat;  and  in  a 
twinkling  I  was  in  Versaillist  grips  and  instantly  charged 
Avith  being  a  Communard.  The  people  in  the  red  breeches 
set  about  sticking  me  up  against  the  church  wall  again,  when 
fortunately  I  saw  a  superior  officer  and  appealed  to  him.  I 
was  bidden  to  hold  up  my  hands.  They  were  not  particularly 
clean,  but  there  were  no  gunpowder  stains  on  the  thumbs  and 
forefingers.  Those  stains  were,  it  seemed,  the  brand  marking 
the  militant  Communard,  and  my  freedom  from  them  just 
pulled  me  through.  It  was  a  "  close  call " ;  but  then  a  miss  is 
as  good  as  a  mile. 


ENTR'ACTE.  149 

Late  in  the  afternoon  the  drift  of  the  retreating  Com- 
munists seemed  to  be  in  the  direction  of  Montmartre,  whence 
their  guns  were  firing  over  the  city  on  the  Versaillist  artillery 
now  in  great  measure  massed  on  the  Trocaclero.  The 
Yersaillists,  for  their  part,  were  also  moving  deliberately  in 
the  Montmartre  direction,  and  before  dusk  they  had  reached 
the  Place  de  1'Europe  at  the  back  of  the  St.  Lazare  terminus. 
From  this  point  on  the  north  they  held  with  their  advanced 
forces  a  definite  line  down  the  Rue  Tronchet  to  the  Madeleine. 
They  were  maintaining  their  fire  along  the  Boulevard 
Haussrnann,  and  from  their  battery  at  the  Madeleine  they 
had  shattered  the  Communist  barricade  on  the  Boulevard 
des  Capucines  at  the  head  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix.  The 
Communists  were  undoubtedly  in  part  demoralised ;  3  et  they 
were  working  hard  everywhere  in  the  construction  of 
barricades. 

About  eight  p.m.  the  firing  had  died  out  almost  every- 
where, and  for  an  interval  there  was  an  all  but  dead  calm. 
What  a  strange  people  were  those  Parisians !  It  was  a  lovely 
evening,  and  the  scenes  in  the  narrow  streets  of  the  Rue 
Lafayette  reminded  me  of  the  aspect  of  the  "down-town" 
residential  streets  of  New  York  on  a  summer  Sunday  evening. 
Men  and  women  were  placidly  sitting  by  their  street  doors, 
gossiping  easily  about  the  events  and  rumours  of  the  day. 
The  children  played  around  the  barricades;  their  mothers 
scarcely  looked  up  at  the  far-away  sound  of  the  generate,  or 
when  the  distant  report  of  the  bursting  of  a  shell  came  on  the 
soft  night  wind.  Yet  on  that  light  wind  was  borne  the  smell 
of  fresh  blood,  and  corpses  were  littering  the  pavements  not 
three  hundred  yards  away. 

Shortlived  was  the  halcyon  interval  of  quietude  in  Paris 
during  the  late  evening  of  Monday,  May  22nd.  Before 
midnight,  as  I  lay  in  my  clothes  on  a  sofa  in  the  Hotel  de  la 
Chaussee  d'Antin,  I  could  not  sleep  for  the  bursting  of  the 
shells  on  the  adjacent  Boulevard  Haussrnann.  In  the 
intervals  of  the  shell-fire  was  audible  the  steady  grunt  of  the 
mitrailleuses,  and  I  could  distinctly  hear  the  pattering  of  the 


150  MEMORIES  .OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

bullets  as  they  rained  on  and  ricocheted  off'  the  asphalt  of  the 
boulevard.  There  came  in  gusts  throughout  the  night  the 
noise  of  a  more  distant  fire,  the  whereabouts  of  which  it  was 
impossible  to  locate. 

The  dismal  din,  so  perplexing  and  bewildering,  continued 
at  intervals  all  through  the  night ;  and  daybreak  of  the  23rd 
brought  no  cessation  of  the  noise.  Turning  out  in  the  chilly 
dawn,  and  from  the  hazardous  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la 
Chaussee  d'Antin  looking  cautiously  up  the  Boulevard 
Haussmann,  I  saw  before  me  a  weird  spectacle  of  desolation 
and  slaughter.  Corpses  strewed  the  broad  roadway  and  lay 
huddled  in  the  recesses  of  doorways.  Some  of  the  bodies 
were  partially  shrouded  by  the  foliage  of  the  branches  of  trees 
which  had  been  torn  off  by  the  storm  of  shot  and  shell. 
Lamp-posts,  kiosks,  and  tree-stems  were  shattered  or  upset  in 
all  directions.  The  Versaillists,  at  least  hereabouts,  had 
certainly  not  advanced  during  the  night:  indeed  it  seemed 
that  they  had  in  a  measure  drawn  back,  and  that  the 
Communists  were  now  holding  positions  which  the  day  before 
they  had  abandoned.  The  big  battery  of  the  former  in  front 
of  the  Pepiniere  Barracks  at  the  head  of  the  Boulevard 
Haussmann,  a  position  beyond  which  the  Yersaillists  had 
attained  to  on  the  previous  day,  was  still,  so  far  as  that 
boulevard  was  concerned,  the  apparent  limit  of  their  occupa- 
tion in  force,  although  they  held  as  an  advanced  post  the 
slight  barricade  which  they  had  taken  the  day  before  across 
the  boulevard  and  about  half-way  down  it,  at  the  intersection 
of  the  Rue  Tronchet.  Over  this  outpost  the  battery  at  the 
Pepiniere  was  steadily  sending  the  fire  of  cannon  and 
mitrailleuses  towards  the  eastern  end  of  the  boulevard,  where 
a  few  national  guards  still  prowled  about  behind  casual 
cover,  firing  a  shot  now  and  then  into  the  intermediate 
barricade.  Communist  sergeants  were  running  about  the  side 
streets  and  the  Rue  Lafayette,  ordering  the  inmates  of  houses 
to  close  their  windows  but  to  open  their  shutters — this,  no 
doubt,  as  a  precaution  against  Versaillist  sympathisers  firing 
down  on  the  insurgents  from  the  house-fronts.  It  was  to  be 
noticed  that  there  had  been  no  attempt  anywhere  on  the  part 


HOBNOfiBING    WITH  COMMUNISTS.  151 

of  the  Communists  to  occupy  the  houses  and  fire  from  them 
on  the  advancing  Versaillists.  They  had  been  content  to 
utilise  the  shelter  of  barricades  and  such  cover  as  the  streets 
casually  afforded.  The  Versaillists,  on  the  other  hand,  were 
reported  to  be  freely  occupying  the  houses  and  to  be  firing 
down  from  the  windows.  This  I  did  not  yet  know  of  my  own 
knowledge ;  but  I  did  know  that  they  were  for  the  most  part 
extremely  cautious  in  exposing  themselves ;  and  that,  except 
in  isolated  instances,  they  had  shown  little  enterprise  and  had 
done  scarcely  anything  in  the  way  of  hand-to-hand  fighting. 

About  six  o'clock  I  went  for  a  walk — not  an  unmixed 
pleasure  just  at  the  moment,  nor  to  be  indulged  in  with- 
out considerable  circumspection.  Getting  into  the  Boule- 
vard des  Capucines  I  found  it  still  held  by  strong  bodies 
of  national  guards,  a  large  proportion  of  whom  were 
very  drunk  notwithstanding  the  early  hour,  while  all 
were  quite  at  their  ease  and  in  lively  spirits.  The 
cross-barricade  between  the  head  of  the  Rue  de  la  Paix 
and  the  corner  of  the  Place  de  1'Opera,  which  had 
been  shattered  the  day  before  by  artillery  fire  from  the 
Versaillist  position  at  the  Madeleine,  had  been  restored, 
strengthened,  and  armed  with  cannon  and  mitrailleuses. 
Nay,  more :  I  was  assured  by  Communist  officers  that  the 
night-firing  one  had  heard  had  mainly  been  directed  by  them 
from  this  barricade,  and  that  it  had  compelled  the  Versaillist 
withdrawal  from  the  Madeleine  position.  There  was  a  certain 
confirmation  of  this  in  the  fact  that  the  Grand  Boulevards  were 
now  quite  unharassed  by  Versaillist  fire,  save  for  occasional 
vagrant  obuses  which  appeared  to  come  from  the  Trocadero 
direction.  I  did  myself  the  honour  to  partake  of  morning 
coffee  with  an  hospitable  but  particularly  tipsy  squad  of 
national  guardsmen.  They  had  been  fighting,  they  said 
between  their  yawns,  through  the  greater  part  of  the  night ; 
and  they  owned,  without  any  great  concern,  that  there  had 
been  not  a  few  casualties  among  them  during  the  hours  of 
darkness.  Their  women — I  do  not  imagine  that  many  of 
those  were  linked  to  their  men  by  the  bond  of  marriage — 
had  come  to  them  in  the  early  dawn  bringing  food  and  the 


152  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

spirits  which  had  caused  the  intoxication  that  obviously 
affected,  more  or  less,  quite  three-fourths  of  the  detachment 
with  the  members  of  which  I  was  casually  and  temporarily 
consorting.  It  was  rather  a  chilly  morning  for  the  time  of 
year ;  and  fires  were  alight  and  blazing  cheerfully.  Over  the 
iires  the  good  ladies  of  the  detachment  were  making  coffee 
and  handing  it  round  among  their  men,  who  insisted  on 
lacing  the  beverage  with  brandy,  and  pressing  on  the  ladies 
the  rough-and-ready  and  somewhat  rudimentary  mazagran. 
It  was  a  comforting  drink  enough  ;  and  I  had  no  hesitation, 
but  the  reverse,  in  hobnobbing  with  the  male  and  female 
Communists  of  the  boulevards. 

Leaving  my  boon  companions,  I  then  struck  southwards, 
down  towards  the  Palais  Royal,  to  ascertain  how  it  had  fared 
during  the  night  with  the  Rue  St.  Honore  and  the  Rue  de  Rivoli. 
Several  of  the  cross-streets  had  suffered  considerably  from  the 
shell-fire  which  was  still  slowly  dropping ;  but  the  barricades 
at  the  Place  du  Palais  Royal  were  intact,  armed,  and  garri- 
soned ;  and  the  great  barricade  across  the  Rue  de  Rivoli  at  its 
junction  with  the  Place  de  la  Concorde  was  still  strongly  held 
by  the  insurgents,  sure  evidence  that  the  Versaillists  were  not 
yet  in  possession  of  the  Place.  The  Rue  St.  Honore,  along 
which  I  walked  westwards,  was  crossed  by  frequent  barricades 
strongly  manned  by  detachments  of  drunken  but  resolute 
men.  The  strongest  barricade  was  at  the  junction  of  the  Rue 
St.  Honore  with  the  Rue  Royale.  Just  here  I  witnessed  one 
of  the  strangest  imaginable  cross-question  and  crooked-answer 
spectacles.  The  Versaillists  held  in  force  the  Rue  du  Fau- 
bourg St.  Honore  west  of  the  Rue  Royale.  They  were  thus 
in  rear  of  the  great  Communist  battery  facing  the  Place  de  la 
Concorde  at  the  foot  of  the  Rue  Royale,  yet  could  not  take  it 
in  reverse  because  of  the  cross-fire  from  the  battery  which 
stood  across  the  head  of  the  Rue  St.  Honore.  And  they  were 
further  blocked  by  the  Versaillist  fire  from  the  front  of  the 
Corps  Legislatif  across  the  Seine  on  the  further  side  of  the 
Place  de  la  Concorde,  directed  against  the  Communist  battery 
at  the  foot  of  the  Rue  Royale,  and  sweeping  that  thoroughfare 
in  its  rear.  The  following  diagram  will  make  the  curious 


DEADLOCK. 


153 


situation  more  clear :  it  was  a  deadlock  the  forcing  of  which 
neither  side  seemed  inclined  to  attempt.  The  situation  as 
things  stood  was  passively  in  favour  of  the  Communists  : — 


Corps  Legislatif. 


Versailles t  Battery. 
ttt-    -t  t  t 


Pont  de  la 
Concorde. 


Seine. 


I  i 

II 


Place  de  la  Concorde. 


Rue 

de 

Rivoli. 


Communist  \ 
barri- 
cade  & 
batter. 


l-*-4  I  44 

Communist 
battery 

and 
counter-barricade 


t      t      t      t      t 


Rue      ( Communist 
fet.       -!  barricade  & 
Honore.  v.     battery. 


Rue  du  Faubourg  St.  Honore. 
Versaillists  in  courtyards 
and  houses. 


e 


C. 


To  all  seeming  there  were  now  no  Versaillists  about  the 
Madeleine,  whither  on  the  previous  day  they  had  reached  in 
force  and  where  apparently  they  had  made  good  their  foot- 
hold. Clearly  their  policy  was  to  take  no  risks,  and  to 
economise  as  much  as  possible  in  the  matter  of  their  own 
skins.  A  direct  offensive  effort  along  the  wide  bare  boulevard 


154  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

would  certainly  have  cost  them  dear ;  and,  fresh  as  the  red- 
breeches  were  from  their  German  captivity,  their  spirit  was 
probably  not  quite  an  assured  thing.  It  became  presently 
plain,  however,  that  the  policy  of  the  Versaillist  leaders  over- 
night had  been  reculer  pour  mieux  sauter. 

Returning  towards  my  hotel,  I  recognised  how  the  Ver- 
saillist troops  were  engaging  in  the  development  of  a  great 
turning  movement  by  their  left.  Yesterday  they  had  reached 
the  St.  Lazare  terminus,  apparently  on  their  way  to  Mont- 
martre.  Now  they  had  sure  grip  of  the  Place  and  Church  of 
the  Trinite  at  the  head  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee  d'Antin,  and 
were  working  eastwards  by  the  narrower  streets  in  preference 
to  traversing  the  wider  Boulevard  Haussinann.  Between  ten 
and  eleven  o'clock  we  in  the  hotel  heard  the  din  of  a  fierce 
fire  at  the  back  of  the  Cite  d'Antin  ;  and  running  out  into  the 
Rue  Laffitte  I  discerned  that  the  Versaillists  had  regained  tbe 
Place  de  Notre  Dame  de  Lorette — the  mantrap  triangle  in 
which  I  had  got  involved  on  the  previous  afternoon ;  and 
were  now  fighting  their  way  along  the  Rue  de  Chateaudun, 
which  opens  into  the  Rue  Lafayette  considerably  eastwards  of 
the  Cite  d'Antin.  Meanwhile  a  heavy  Versaillist  fire  was 
being  maintained  down  the  Boulevard  Haussmann,  so  that 
my  hotel  seemed  to  be  in  imminent  danger  of  being  sur- 
rounded. Regaining  the  front  of  it  and  going  into  the  Rue 
Lafayette,  I  looked  up  eastwards  to  the  barricade  across  it  at 
the  junction  of  the  Rue  de  Chateaudun  and  prolonged  across 
the  issue  of  the  latter  street ;  and  I  could  see  its  Com- 
munist defenders  firing  vehemently  along  the  Rue  Chateau  - 
dun.  At  length,  after  a  strong  resistance,  they  broke,  and  the 
Versaillists  gained  the  commanding  position.  I  watched  the 
red-breeches  climbing  over  the  barricade  as  they  poured  out 
of  the  Rue  Chateaudun  and  established  themselves  in  posses- 
sion of  the  barricade  across  the  Rue  Lafayette.  Now  (at 
1  p.m.)  they  were  firing  westwards  down  the  latter  street  into 
the  lower  end  of  the  Boulevard  Haussmann,  while  other 
Versaillist  troops  were  pressing  down  that  wide  boulevard, 
firing  heavily,  and  covered  by  shell-fire  describing  a  parabola 
over  their  heads  and  falling  in  front  of  them.  Thus  the 


BETWEEN  THE  FIRES.  155 

scanty  Communist  detachments  still  hanging  about  the  foot 
of  the  Boulevard  Haussmann — not,  it  was  true,  numerically 
strong,  but  singularly  obstinate — were  taken  simultaneously 
in  front  and  rear,  and  indeed  in  flank  as  well ;  for  rule-lire 
was  reaching  and  striking  them  down  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee 
d'Antin  from  the  Church  of  the  Trinite.  Parenthetically  I 
may  observe  that,  standing  in  the  lee  of  a  projection  at  the 
foot  of  the  Rue  Lafayette,  I  was  hemmed  in  between  three 
separate  fires.  There  was  not  a  civilian  out  of  doors  any- 
where within  sight :  even  the  women  who  had  been  so  fond 
of  shell-fragments  were  under  cover  now.  Communard  after 
Communard,  finding  the  Boulevard  Haussmann  considerably 
too  hot  to  hold  him,  was  sneaking  away  out  of  the  devilry, 
availing  himself  of  the  protection  afforded  by  the  Opera 
House. 

Yet  the  Versaillists  still  hung  back.  At  half-past  two  they 
had  not  got  so  far  down  the  Boulevard  Haussmann  as  to 
be  abreast  of  the  Opera  House,  from  the  arms  of  the  Apollo 
on  the  summit  of  which  the  red  flag  still  floated.  The 
Versaillists  simply  would  not  expose  themselves.  About  five- 
and-twenty  obstinate  Communists,  coming  out  from  the 
cross  streets,  were  blocking  the  advance  of  the  Versaillist 
column  with  an  intermittent  fire.  Ten  minutes  of  the  pas 
de  charge  would  have  given  the  regulars  the  boulevard  from 
end  to  end ;  but  they  would  not  make  the  effort,  and  instead 
were  bursting  their  way  from  house  to  house  and  taking  pot- 
shots from  the  windows.  This  style  of  cover-fighting  on 
their  part,  of  course  left  the  boulevard  free  for  artillery  and 
mitrailleuse  fire,  and  certainly  neither  was  spared.  The  Ver- 
saillist shells  and  bullets  were  passing  my  corner  in  one  con- 
tinuous shriek  and  whistle ;  the  crash  of  falling  stucco  and 
the  clash  of  broken  glass  were  incessant.  So  scanty  were  the 
defenders  that  scarcely  any  execution  was  done  by  all  this  ex- 
penditure of  ammunition,  but  it  probably  tried  the  nerves  of 
the  few  Communists  left  to  fight  it  out  to  the  bitter  end.  Yet 
their  efforts  were  truly  heroic.  Just  as  all  seemed  over  they  got 
a  cannon  from  somewhere  up  to  the  head  of  the  Rue  Halevy, 
and  brought  it  into  action  against  the  Versaillist  position  at 


156  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  Church  of  the  Trinite.  All  was  weird  and  curious  chaos. 
It  was  only  of  one  episode  that  I  could  be  the  witness ;  but 
the  din  that  filled  the  air  told  vaguely  of  other  strenuous 
combats  that  were  being  fought  elsewhere.  Above  the  smoke 
of  the  villainous  gunpowder  the  summer  sun  was  shining 
brightly,  and  hi  spite  of  the  powder-stench  and  the  smell  of 
blood,  the  air  was  balmy.  It  was  such  a  day  as  made  one 
long  to  be  lying  on  the  grass  under  a  hawthorn-tree  in 
blossom  watching  the  lambs  at  pi  a}7,  and  made  one  loathe 
this  cowering  in  a  corner,  dodging  shot  and  shell  in  a  most 
undignified  manner  and  without  any  matches  wherewith  to 
light  one's  pipe. 

For  another  hour  or  more  my  neighbours  the  Communists, 
who  had  been  reinforced,  gave  pause  to  the  Versaillist  effort 
to  descend  the  Boulevard  Haussmann,  and  were  holding  their 
own  against  the  Versaillist  fire  from  the  Place  of  the  Trinite 
and  from  the  barricade  on  the  rise  of  the  Rue  Lafayette.  The 
house  at  the  left-hand  corner  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee 
d'Antin  and  the  Rue  Lafayette — the  house  whose  projecting 
gable  had  been  my  precarious  shelter  so  long — had  caught  fire, 
to  my  disquietude  and  discomfort ;  but  before  the  fire  should 
seriously  trouble  me  the  impending  crisis  seemed  likely  to  bo 
at  last  over.  Furious  and  more  furious  waxed  the  firing  all 
around.  About  the  Opera  House  it  was  exceptionally  fierce. 
I  had  glimpses  of  fighting  at  close  quarters  in  the  open  space 
before  its  rear  front,  and  I  could  discern  men  shuffling  along 
behind  the  low  parapet  of  its  roo£  They  carried  packs,  but  I 
could  not  see  the  colour  of  their  breeches  and  therefore  was 
not  wholly  certain  that  they  were  Versaillists.  A  woman  had 
joined  me  in  my  post  behind  the  gable — a  woman  who  seemed 
to  have  a  charmed  life.  Over  and  over  again  she  walked  out 
into  the  fire,  looked  deliberately  about  her,  and  came  back  to 
recount  to  me  with  excited  volubility  the  particulars  of  what 
she  had  seen.  She  was  convinced  that  the  soldiers  on  the 
roof  of  the  Opera  House  were  Versaillists ;  yet,  as  I  pointed 
out  to  her,  the  drapeau  rouge  still  waved  above  the  statue  on 
the  summit  of  the  lofty  edifice.  The  people  of  the  hotel  in 
our  rear  clearly  shared  her  belief.  Gathered  timidly  in  the 


THE  DRAFEAU  ROUGE.  157 

porch  they  were  shouting  "  Bravo ! "  and  clapping  their 
hands,  because  they  hoped  and  believed  that  the  Versaillists 
were  winning. 

The  woman  was  right;  they  were  Versaillist  linesmen 
whom  we  saw  on  the  parapet  of  the  Opera  House.  There  was 
a  cheer ;  the  people  of  the  hotel  ran  out  into  the  fire,  waving 
handkerchiefs  and  clapping  their  hands.  The  tricolor  was 
waving  now  above  the  hither  portico  of  the  Opera  House. 
The  red  tlag  floated  still  on  the  further  elevation.  "  A  ladder ! 
a  ladder  to  reach  it!"  was  the  excited  cry  from  the  group 
behind  me ;  but  for  the  moment  no  ladder  was  available.  As 
we  waited  impatiently  there  darted  down  the  side-walk  of  the 
boulevard  to  the  corner  of  the  Rue  Halevy  a  little  grig  of  a 
fellow  in  red  breeches — one  of  the  old  French  linesman  breed. 
He  was  all  alone,  and  he  seemed  to  enjoy  the  loneliness  as  he 
took  up  his  post  behind  a  tree,  and  fired  his  first  shot  at  a 
Communard  dodging  about  the  intersection  of  the  Rue  Tait- 
bout.  When  is  a  Frenchman  not  dramatic  ?  He  fired  with 
an  air,  he  reloaded  with  an  air,  he  fired  again  with  a  flourish, 
and  was  acclaimed  with  cheering  and  hand-clapping  from  the 
"  gallery  "  behind  me  to  which  the  little  fellow  was  playing. 
Then  he  beckoned  us  back  dramatically,  for  his  next  shot  was 
to  be  sped  up  the  Rue  Lafayette  at  a  little  knot  of  Commun- 
ists who  from  a  fragment  of  shelter  at  the  intersection  of  the 
Rue  Laffitte  were  taking  him  for  their  target.  Then  he  faced 
about  and  waved  his  comrades  on  with  exaggerated  gestures 
which  recalled  those  one  sees  in  a  blood-and-thimder  melo- 
drama, the  Communist  bullets  all  the  while  cutting  the  bark 
and  branches  of  the  tree  which  was  his  cover.  Ah !  he  was 
down !  Well,  he  had  enjoyed  his  brief  flash  of  recklessness. 
The  woman  by  my  side  and  I  ran  across  and  carried  him  in. 
We  might  have  spared  ourselves  the  trouble  and  risk  :  he  was 
dead,  with  a  bullet  through  his  head. 

This  little  distraction  had  engrossed  us  for  only  a  few 
minutes ;  the  moment  it  ended  thus  tragically,  all  our  atten- 
tion went  back  to  the  scene  on  the  roof  of  the  Opera  House. 
A  ladder  had  at  length  been  got  up,  and  a  Versaillist  soldier  was 
now  mounting  the  statue  of  Apollo  on  the  front  elevation  of 


158  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  building,' overhanging  the  Place  de  1'Opera,  He  tore  down 
the  drdpeau,  rouge  and  substituted  the  tricolor  just  as  the 
head  of  a  great  column  of  Versaillist  troops  came  streaming 
out  of  the  Rue  de  la  Chausse'e  d'Antin  across  the  Boulevard 
Haussmann,  and  down  the  wide  streets  towards  the  Grand 
Boulevards.  The  excitment  was  hysterical.  The  inhabitants 
rushed  out  of  the  houses  with  bottles  of  wine,  from  their 
windows  money  was  showered  down  into  the  street,  the  women 
fell  on  the  necks  of  the  sweating  dusty  men  in  red  breeches 
and  hugged  them  with  frantic  shouts  of  "Vive  la  lic/ne!"  The 
soldiers  fraternised  heartily,  drank  and  pressed  forwards.  Their 
discipline  was  most  creditable.  When  their  officers  called 
them  away  from  the  conviviality  and  the  embraces,  the  men 
at  once  obeyed  and  re-formed  companies  promptly  at  the 
double.  Now  that  the  Versaillist  wave  had  swept  over  us  for 
good,  we  were  again  people  of  law  and  order,  and  thencefor- 
ward abjured  any  relations  some  of  us  smug  citizens  might 
have  temporarily  had  with  those  atrocious  miscreants  of  Com- 
munists who  were  now  getting  so  decisively  beaten.  Every- 
body displayed  raptures  of  joy,  and  Communistic  cards  of 
fellowship  were  being  surreptitiously  torn  up  in  all  directions: 
It  was  now  no  longer  "  citoyen  "  under  pain  of  being  held  a 
suspect ;  the  undemocratic  "  monsieur  "  revived  with  amusing 
rapidity. 

The  Versaillist  troops — horse,  foot,  and  artillery — pouring 
in  steady  continuous  streams  down  the  Rue  de  la  Chaussee 
d'Antin  and  the  Rue  Halevy,  debouched  into  the  great  boule- 
vard at  the  Place  de  1'Opera,  taking  in  flank  and  rear  the 
insurgents  holding  positions  thereabouts,  and  getting  presently 
a  firm  grip  of  the  Boulevard  des  Capucines  westwards  almost 
to  the  Madeleine.  This  was  done  not  without  hard  fighting 
and  considerable  loss,  for  the  Communists  fought  like  wild 
cats  and  clung  obstinately  to  every  spot  affording  a  semblance 
of  cover.  Even  when  the  success  described  had  been  attained 
the  situation  was  still  curiously  involved.  The  Versaillists, 
moving  down  the  Rue  de  la  Paix,  were  threatening  the  Place 
Vendome  but  avoiding  close  quarters.  The  Coinmunisrs,  for 
their  part,  threatened  as  they  thus  were  with  being  cut  off, 


HOT  QUARTERS.  159 

nevertheless  still  held  obstinately  their  artillery  barricades  at 
the  foot  of  the  Rue  Royale  and  at  the  western  end  of  the  Rue 
St.  Honore.  The  rear  face  of  the  former  had  been  fortified  and 
armed ;  and  so,  although  the  Versaillist  artillery  hammered  at 
its  proper  front  from  the  Corps  Legislatif,  its  rearward  guns 
were  abler  to  interfere  with  the  Versaillist  efforts  to  make  good 
a  hold  on  the  much-battered  Madeleine. 

I  was  exceedingly  anxious  to  get  some  intelligence  sent 
out,  for  nothing  had  been  transmitted  from  the  hermetically 
sealed  capital  for  three  days ;  and  in  order  to  ascertain  whether 
there  was  any  prospect  of  the  despatch  of  a  bag  to  Versailles 
from  the  Embassy  in  the  Rue  du  Faubourg  St.  Honore,  I 
started  up  the  now  comparatively  quiet  Boulevard  Hauss- 
mann,  and  by  tacks  and  zigzags  got  into  the  Rue  d'Aguesseau, 
which  debouches  into  the  Faubourg  nearly  opposite  to  the 
British  Embassy.  Shells  were  bursting  very  freely  in  the 
neighbourhood,  but  my  affair  was  urgent,  and  from  the  corner 
of  the  Rue  d'Aguesseau  I  stepped  out  into  the  Rue  du  Fau- 
bourg St.  Honore,  intending  to  dart  across  to  the  Embassy 
gates.  I  drew  back  hastily  as  a  shell- splinter  whizzed  past  me 
close  enough  to  blow  my  beard  aside.  The  street  was  simply 
a  great  tube  for  shells ;  nothing  could  live  in  it.  Hoping 
that  the  firing  might  soon  abate,  I  waited  in  an  entry  for 
an  hour.  Around  about  me  were  several  ambulances,  as  the 
field  hospitals  had  come  to  be  called  in  the  recent  war.  Into 
one  close  by  I  saw,  during  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  one  wounded 
man  carried  every  minute :  I  timed  the  stretchers  by  my 
watch.  In  others  into  which  I  looked  the  courtyards  were 
full  of  mattresses  and  groaning  men.  A  good  many  corpses, 
those  chiefly  of  national  guards,  lay  in  the  streets,  behind  the 
barricades  and  in  the  gutters. 

It  fell  dusk  as  I  waited,  the  fire  rather  increasing  in 
intensity  than  abating.,  and  I  would  spare .  no  more  time.  As 
I  returned  towards  my  hotel  I  had  to  cross  the  line  of  Versail- 
list artillery  still  pouring  southwards  from  the  Church  of  the 
Trinite,  and  thence  down  the  Rue  Halevy  towards  the  quarter 
where  the  noise  indicated  that  hot  firing  was  still  proceeding. 
The  gunners  received  a  wild  ovation  from  the  inhabitants  of 


160  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  Chaussee  d'Antin.  Where,  I  wondered,  had  the  good  folk 
secreted  the  tricolor  flag  during  all  those  days  of  Communist 
domiciliary  visits  ?  It  hung  now  in  the  still  air  from  every 
window,  the  shouts  of  "  Vive  la  ligne ! "  stirring  it  occasionally 
with  a  lazy  throb.  Stray  bullets  whistled  everywhere — the 
women  in  their  crazy  courage  had  come  to  call  them  sparrows. 
And  as  the  night  closed  in,  there  came  from  the  Rue  St. 
Honore,  from  the  Place  Vendome,  and  from  the  vicinity  of  the 
Palais  Royal  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  the  noise  of  heavy,  steady 
firing  of  cannon,  mitrailleuse,  and  musketry,  accentuated 
occasionally  by  explosions  Avhich  made  the  solid  earth  tremble. 
After  a  night  of  horror  which  seemed  interminable,  there 
broke  at  length  the  morning  of  Wednesday,  May  24th. 
When  the  sun  rose,  what  a  spectacle  flouted  his  beams  !  The 
flames  from  the  palace  of  the  Tuileries,  kindled  by  damnable 
petroleum,  insulted  the  soft  light  of  the  morning,  and  cast 
lurid  rays  on  the  grimy  recreant  Frenchmen  who  skulked 
from  their  dastardly  incendiarism  to  pot  at  their  countrymen 
from  behind  their  barricades.  How  the  palace  blazed  !  The 
flames  revelled  in  the  historic  rooms,  made  embers  of  the  rich 
furniture,  burst  out  the  plate-glass  windows,  brought  down 
the  fantastic  roof.  It  was  in  the  Prince  Imperial's  wing, 
facing  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries,  where  the  demon  of  fire 
first  had  his  fiercest  sway.  By  eight  o'clock  the  whole  of  this 
wing  was  nearly  burnt  out.  When  I  reached  the  end  of  the 
Rue  Dauphin  the  red  belches  of  flame  were  shooting  out  from 
the  corner  facing  the  private  garden  and  the  Rue  de  Rivoli.  It 
was  the  Pavilion  Marsan,  containing  the  apartments  occupied 
by  the  King  of  Prussia  and  his  suite  during  the  visit  to  Paris 
hi  the  year  of  the  great  Exposition.  A  furious  jet  of  flame 
was  pouring  out  of  the  window  at  which  Bismarck  used  to  sit 
and  smoke  and  look  out  on  Paris  and  the  Parisians.  There 
was  a  sudden  crash.  Was  it  an  explosion  or  a  fall  of  flooring 
that  caused  the  great  burst  of  fat  black  smoke  and  red  sparks 
right  in  one's  face  ?  Who  could  tell  what  hell -devices  might 
lurk  within  that  blazing  pile  ?  It  were  well,  surely,  to  keep 
at  a  respectful  distance  from  it !  And  so  I  went  eastwards  to 
the  Place  du  Palais  Royal,  which  was  still  unsafe  by  reason 


MADMEN  AND  CURS.  161 

of  shot  and  shell  from  the  neighbourhood  of  the  Hotel  de 
Ville.  Opposite  was  the  great  archway  by  which  the  troops 
of  Napoleon  had  been  wont  to  enter  into  the  Place  du 
Carrousel.  Was  the  fire  there  yet  ?  Just  so  far  and  no 
more.  Could  the  archway  be  broken  down,  the  Louvre,  with 
its  artistic  and  historic  riches,  might  still  be  saved.  But 
there  was  none  to  act  or  to  direct.  The  Versaillist  soldiers 
were  lounging  supine  along  the  streets,  intent — and  who 
could  blame  the  weary  powder-grimed  men  ? — on  bread  and 
wine.  So  the  flames  leaped  on  from  window  to  window,  from 
chimney  to  chimney.  They  were  beyond  the  archway  now : 
the  Pavilion  de  la  Bibliotheque  was  kindling — the  connecting 
link  between  the  Tuileries  and  the  Louvre,  built  by  the  late 
Emperor  to  contain  his  private  library.  Unless  an  effort  to 
stay  the  progress  of  the  flames  should  be  made,  the  Louvre 
and  its  inestimable  contents  were  surely  doomed.  Indeed, 
the  Louvre  might  be  said  to  be  on  fire  already;  for  the 
Pavilion  de  la  Bibliotheque  was  counted  a  part  of  it.  And  on 
fire,  too,  were  the  Palais  Royal,  and  the  Hotel  de  Ville  where 
the  rump  of  the  Commune  were  cowering  amidst  their 
arson  ;  and  the  Ministry  of  Finance  and  many  another  public 
and  private  building.  No  wonder  that  Courbet,  soi-disant 
Minister  of  Fine  Arts,  should  have  been  sending  far  and  wide 
among  friends  native  and  foreign,  in  quest  of  a  refuge  wherein 
to  hide  his  head  ! 

I  turned,  sad  and  sick,  from  the  spectacle  of  wanton 
destruction,  to  be  saddened  and  sickened  yet  further  by 
another  spectacle.  Versaillist  soldiers,  hanging  about  the 
foot  of  the  Rue  St  Honore,  were  enjoying  the  cheap  amuse- 
ment of  Communist-hunting.  The  lower-class  Parisians  of 
civil  life  seemed  to  me  caitiff  and  yet  cruel  to  the  last  drop 
of  their  thin,  sour,  petit  bleu  blood.  But  yesterday  they  had 
been  shouting  "  Vive  la  Commune ! "  and  submitted  to  be 
under  the  heel  of  the  said  Commune.  To-day  they  rubbed 
their  hands  with  livid  currish  joy  to  have  it  in  their  power  to 
denounce  a  Communard  and  to  reveal  his  hiding-place. 
Very  ardent  in  this  pseudo-patriotic  duty  were  the  dear 
creatures  of  women.  They  knew  the  rat-holes  into  which  the 
L 


162  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

poor  devils  had  squeezed  themselves,  and  they  guided  the 
Versaillist  soldiers  to  the  spot  with  a  fiendish  glee.  Voild 
the  braves  of  France,  returned  to  such  a  triumph  from  an 
inglorious  captivity  !  They  have  found  him,  then,  the  miser- 
able !  Yes,  they  have  dragged  him  from  out  one  of  the 
purlieus  which  Haussmann  had  not  time  to  sweep  away,  and 
a  posse  of  them  hem  him  round  as  they  march  him  into  the 
Rue  St.  Honore.  A  tall,  pale,  hatless  man,  with  something 
not  ignoble  in  his  bearing.  His  lower  lip  is  trembling,  but 
his  brow  is  firm,  and  the  eye  of  him  has  some  pride,  and, 
indeed,  scorn  in  it.  "  A  veritable  Communard  ? "  I  ask  of  my 
neighbour  in  the  throng.  "  Questionable,"  is  the  reply ;  "  I 
think  he  is  a  milk-seller  to  whom  the  woman  who  has 
denounced  him  owes  a  score."  They  yell,  the  crowd — my 
neighbour  as  loud  as  any — "  Shoot  him  !  shoot  him  ! " — the 
demon-women  of  course  the  most  clamorous.  An  arm  goes 
up  into  the  air ;  there  are  on  it  the  stripes  of  a  sous-o]Jicicr 
and  there  is  a  stick  in  the  fist  at  the  end  of  the  arm.  The 
stick  descends  on  the  bare  head  of  the  pale  prisoner.  Ha  ! 
the  infection  has  caught ;  men  club  their  rifles  and  bring 
them  down  on  that  head,  or  smash  them  into  splinters  in  their 
lust  for  murder.  He  is  down ;  he  is  up  again ;  he  is  down 
again — the  thuds  of  the  gun-stocks  sounding  on  him  just  as 
when  men  beat  a  carpet  with  sticks.  A  momentary  impulse 
prompts  one  to  push  into  the  melee;  but  it  is  foolish  and 
it  is  useless.  They  are  firing  into  the  flaccid  carcass  now  ; 
thronging  around  it  as  it  lies  prone,  like  blow-flies  on  a  piece 
of  meat.  Faugh !  his  brains  are  out  and  oozing  into  the 
gutter,  whither  the  carrion  is  presently  heaved  bodily,  to  be 
trodden  on  and  mangled  presently  by  the  feet  of  the  multi- 
tude and  the  wheels  of  the  gun-carriages.  But,  after  all, 
womanhood  was  not  quite  dead  in  that  band  of  bedlamites 
who  had  clamoured  for  the  dead  man's  blood.  There  was  one 
matron  in  hysterics  who  did  not  seem  more  than  half  drunk. 
Another  with  wan,  scared  face  drew  out  of  the  press  a  child- 
bedlamite  presumably  her  offspring,  and,  one  might  hope, 
went  home  ashamed  and  shuddering.  But  surely  for  the 
time  all  manhood  was  dead  in  the  soldiery  of  France  to  do 


DYING  HAllD.  163 

such  a  deed  as  this.  An  officar — one  with  a  bull-throat  and 
the  eyes  of  Algiers — stood  by  and  looked  on  at  the  sport, 
smoking  a  cigar.  A  sharer  in  the  crime  surely  he  was  if 
there  was  such  a  thing  as  discipline  in  the  French  ranks ;  if 
there  was  not  he  might  have  been  pitied  but  for  his  smile 
of  cynical  approval. 

The  Commune  was  in  desperate  case ;  but  it  was  dying 
hard,  with  dripping  fangs  bared  and  every  blood  claw  pro- 
truded. It  held  no  ground  now  west  of  the  Boulevard 
Sevastopol  from  the  river  north  to  the  Porte  St.  Denis.  The 
Place  Vendome  had  been  carried  at  two  in  the  morning. 
After  a  desperate  struggle  the  last  man  of  its  Communist 
garrison  had  been  bayonetted  on  the  great  barricade  at  the 
junction  of  the  Rue  Royale  with  the  Place  de  la  Concorde, 
and  the  Versaillist  masses  could  now  gather  undisturbed 
about  the  Madeleine.  But  how  about  the  wild-cat  leaders  of 
the  Commune  still  in  possession  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  on  Avhich 
the  Versaillist  batteries  were  now  concentrating  a  fire  heavy 
enough  to  be  reckoned  a  bombardment  ?  Their  backs  were 
to  the  wall,  and  they  were  fighting  now,  not  for  life — about 
that,  to  do  them  justice,  they  were  reckless  enough — but  that 
they  might  work  as  much  evil  as  might  be  possible  before 
their  hour  should  come.  The  Versaillists  did  not  dare  to 
make  a  quick  ending  by  rushing  straight  on  the  barricades 
surrounding  the  open  space  about  the  Hotel  de  Ville ;  they 
were  timid  about  explosions.  But  they  were  mining,  sap- 
ping, burrowing,  circumventing,  breaking  through  party  waLs, 
and  advancing  from  backyard  to  backyard ;  and  it  was  a 
question  of  only  a  few  hours  when  they  should  pierce  the 
cordon.  Meanwhile  the  holders  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  were 
pouring  out  death  and  destruction  over  Paris  with  indiscrimi- 
nate malignity  and  fury.  Now  it  was  a  bouquet  of  shells  on 
the  Champs  Elysees ;  now  a  heavy  obus  crashing  upon  the 
already  battered  Boulevard  Haussmann ;  now  a  great  shell 
hurtling  in  the  direction  of  the  Avenue  de  la  Reine  Hortense. 
Cut  oft'  by  this  time  from  La  Chapelle  and  the  Gare  du  Nord, 
the  reds  still  clung  to  a  barricade  in  the  Rue  Lafayette  near 
the  Square  Montholon.  For  its  defenders  the  way  of  retreat 
L  2 


164  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

was  open  towards  Belleville.  Canny  folk,  those  Yersaillists ! 
The  Prussians,  no  doubt,  would  have  let  them  into  Belleville 
from  the  rear,  as  they  had  already  let  them  into  La  Chapelle. 
But  Belleville,  whether  in  front  or  from  rear,  scarcely  offered 
a  joyous  prospect.  It  seemed  to  me  that  for  days  to  come 
there  might  be  fighting  about  that  rugged  and  turbulent 
region,  and  that  there,  probably,  the  Commune  would  find  its 
last  ditch.  As  for  the  people  in  the  Hotel  de  Ville,  they,  in 
the  expressive  old  phrase,  were  between  the  devil  and  the 
deep  sea.  One  enemy  with  arms  in  his  hands,  was  outside  ; 
another  fire — and  fire  kindled  by  themselves — was  inside. 
Would  they  roast,  or  would  they  accept  death  at  the  bayonet- 
point  ?  was  the  question  I  asked  myself,  as  I  left  the  soldiers 
stacking  the  corpses  on  the  flower-beds  of  the  garden  of  the 
Tour  St.  Jacques  and  tried  in  vain  to  see  something  of  the 
Hotel  de  Ville  from  the  Pont  Neuf.  Its  face  towards  the  river 
was  hidden  by  a  great  blanket  of  smoke,  through  the  opacity 
of  which  shot  occasional  flashes  of  red  flame. 

Farther  westward  the  merry  game  of  the  morning  was 
in  full  swing.  Denouncement  by  wholesale  had  become  the 
fashion,  and  denouncement  and  apprehension  were  duly 
followed  by  braining.  It  was  a  relief  to  quit  the  truculent 
cowards,  and  the  bloody  gutters,  and  the  yelling  women,  and 
the  Algerian- eyed  officers.  I  strolled  away  into  the  Place 
Vendome,  of  which  there  was  current  a  story  that  it  had  been 
held  for  hours  by  twenty-five  Communist  men  and  one 
woman,  against  all  that  the  Versaillists  found  it  in  their 
hearts  to  do.  A  considerable  force  had  been  massed  in  the 
Place :  sentries  were  in  charge  of  the  ruins  of  the  famous 
column.  In  the  gutter  before  the  Hotel  Bristol  lay  a  corpse 
buffeted  and  besmirched — the  corpse,  I  was  told,  of  the 
Communist  captain  of  the  adjacent  barricade,  who  had  held 
it  to  the  bitter  end  and  had  then  shot  himself.  The 
Versaillist  braves  had  made  assurance  doubly  sure  by  shoot- 
ing over  and  over  again  into  the  clay  that  was  once  a  man. 
And  in  the  Place  there  lay  another  corpse,  that  of  the  Hecate 
who  fought  on  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  barricade  with  a  persistence 
and  fury  of  which  many  spoke.  They  might  have  shot  her — 


THE  FISE  DEMON.  165 

yes  3  when  a  woman  takes  to  war  she  forfeits  her  immunities 
— but  in  memory  of  their  mothers  they  might  at  least  have 
drawn  her  scanty  rags  over  the  bare  limbs  that  now  outraged 
decency,  and  refrained  from  abominable  bayonet-thrusts. 

And  now  here  was  the  Rue  Royale,  burning  right  royally 
from  end  to  end.  Alas  for  the  lovers  of  a  draught  of  good 
British  beer  in  this  parching  lime-kiln,  the  English  beer- 
house at  the  corner  of  the  Rue  du  Faubourg  St.  Honore"  was 
a  heap  of  blazing  ruins.  Indeed,  from  that  corner  up  to  tho 
Place  de  la  Madeleine,  there  was  scarcely  a  house  on  either 
side  of  the  noble  street  that  was  not  on  fire.  And  the  firo 
had  been  down  the  Rue  St.  Honore  and  up  the  Faubourg, 
and  was  working  its  swift  hot  will  along  the  Rue  Boissy 
d'Anglas.  It  was  hard  to  breathe  in  an  atmosphere  mainly 
of  petroleum  smoke.  There  was  a  sun,  but  its  heat  was 
dominated  by  the  heat  of  the  conflagrations  ;  its  rays  wero 
obscured  by  the  lurid  blue-black  smoke  that  was  rising  with 
an  unctuous  fatness  everywhere  into  the  air,  filling  the  eyes 
with  acrid  water,  getting  into  the  throat  with  a  rank  semi- 
asphyxiation,  poisoning  the  sense  of  ordinary  smell,  and  turn- 
ing one's  gorge  with  the  abomination  of  it.  All  up  the  Rue 
du  Faubourg  St.  Honore  the  gutters  were  full  of  blood ;  there 
was  a  barricade  at  every  intersection ;  the  house-fronts  were 
scarred  by  shell-fire ;  and  corpses  lay  about  promiscuously. 
As  I  reached  the  gate  leading  into  the  forecourt  of  the 
British  Embassy,  the  sight  of  a  figure  leaning  against  one  of 
the  pillars  gave  me  a  great  shock.  Why  I  should  have  been 
thus  affected  it  is  necessary  to  explain. 

Neither  my  colleagues  nor  myself  had  been  able  to  get 
a  scrap  sent  out  of  Paris  since  Monday  morning ;  and  it  was 
now  noon  of  Wednesday.  It  was  not  for  pleasure  or  excite- 
ment that  we  were  standing  by  the  Commune's  bloody 
death-bed;  we  were  on  duty.  I  was  wretched.  Here  I 
was,  on  tenterhooks ;  witnessing,  indeed,  a  momentous  and 
memorable  struggle ;  but  the  spectacle  only  useful  pro- 
fessionally in  order  that  I  might  with  all  speed  transfer  the 
pictures  which  had  formed  themselves  on  my  mental  retina 
to  the  columns  of  my  newspaper,  and  thus  make  the  world  an 


166  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

early  sharer  with  me  in  a  knowledge  of  events  on  the  phases 
and  issue  of  which  the  world  was  hanging.  This  aim,  this 
burning  aspiration,  must  ever  absorb  the  zealous  correspondent, 
to  the  exclusion  of  any  other  consideration  whatsoever.  It  is 
for  the  accomplishment  of  this  purpose  that  he  lives:  I  do 
not  know  that  he  ought  to  continue  to  do  so  if  he  fails — 
certainly  not  if  he  fails  because  of  a  miscarriage  for  which  he 
himself  is  responsible.  On  the  Tuesday  night  I  could  endure 
the  blockade  no  longer.  Somebody  must  get  out,  if  he 
should  descend  the  face  of  the  enceinte  by  a  rope.  It  was 
arranged  that  at  sunrise  on  the  Wednesday  morning  the 
attempt  should  be  made  by  a  colleague  whose  cool  courage 
events  had  well  tested,  who  had  a  good  horse,  knew  Paris 
thoroughly,  and  had  a  large  acquaintance  among  officers  of 
the  Versaillist  army.  He  took  charge  of  one  copy  of  the 
scrappy  letters  which  I  had  written  in  duplicate  in  the 
intervals  of  watching  the  fighting ;  we  shook  hands,  wishing 
each  other  a  good  deliverance;  and  at  noon  of  Wednesday 
I  was  congratulating  myself  on  the  all  but  certainty  that  our 
letters  were  already  somewhere  about  Amiens  on  the  way 
to  London. 

This  cheerful  conviction  was  abruptly  dissipated  by  the 
sight  which  caught  my  eye  as  I  entered  the  Embassy  court- 
yard. My  unfortunate  colleague  was  leaning  against  one  of 
the  pillars  of  the  gate,  deadly  sick,  his  complexion  positively 
green,  his  nerves  utterly  shattered.  He  had  tried  to  get  out — 
I  doubt  not,  boldly  and  energetically  ;  but  he  had  failed.  He 
had  been  fired  upon  and  maltreated,  he  had  been  denounced 
as  a  Prussian  spy,  and  had  escaped  death  by  the  skin  of  his 
teeth.  Poor  fellow !  He  had  been  spattered  with  the  blood 
and  brains  of  denounced  men  who  had  not  escaped.  He  had 
given  up  and  had  taken  post  where  I  found  him,  as  the 
likeliest  point  at  which  to  meet  me  and  tell  me  of  his  failure. 

Of  course,  as  the  consequence  of  that  misfortune,  it 
devolved  upon  me  to  make  the  attempt  I  pondered  a  few 
moments,  and  then  went  into  the  chancellary  of  the 
Embassy,  where  I  found  Mr.,  afterwards  Sir  Edward 
Malet.  Malet,  who  was  then  Second  Secretary,  had  remained 


TRYING   TO  GET  OUT.  167 

in  Paris  to  represent  Great  Britain  when  Lord  Lyons 
and  the  rest  of  the  Embassy  personnel  had  migrated  to 
Versailles  at  the  beginning  of  the  Commune.  He  may  be 
said  to  have  been  sitting  among  ruins,  for  the  smash  of  the 
big  house  had  been  severe.  In  the  garden  walls  were  great 
gaps  through  which  the  Versaillists  had  worked  their  strategic 
progress  round  the  barricades,  respecting  much  the  wholeness 
of  their  skins.  I  had  met  Malet  in  the  early  days  of  the 
recent  Avar,  when  he  came  out  from  Paris  to  Meaux  with 
communications  for  Bismarck.  I  told  him  I  meant  to  attempt 
getting  out,  and  asked  him  whether  I  could  take  anything  to 
Versailles  for  him. 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Malet,  "  it's  not  the  least  use  your 
trying  to  get  out.  I  sent  two  messengers  off  this  morning ; 
both  have  come  back ;  both  had  been  fired  on.  We  must 
wait  a  day  or  two  until  things  settle." 

"  I  am  going  to  try  to-day,  and  immediately,"  was  my 
answer.  "  You  can  help  me  and  at  the  same  time  further 
your  own  objects.  Put  your  despatches  for  Versailles  into 
a  big  official  envelope,  seal  it  with  the  red  seal,  address  it  to 
'  Her  Majesty  the  Queen  of  England,'  and  entrust  me  with 
the  packet.  No  harm  can  come  of  it,  anyhow." 

After  a  little  excogitation  Malet  complied ;  and,  pocketing 
the  envelope,  I  went  to  the  stable  where  my  little  horse  was 
standing  at  livery.  The  Communist  sentry  had  relieved  him- 
self, and  the  embargo  was  off';  but  the  poor  beast,  having 
been  half-starved  and  long  deprived  of  exercise,  was  in  a  state 
of  great  debility.  However,  I  jogged  gently  along,  meeting 
with  no  molestation  until,  on  the  Quay  of  Passy,  I  essayed 
a  little  trot,  for  time  was  of  value.  Presently  the  poor 
animal  staggered  and  then  fell  on  its  side,  pinning  me  down 
by  the  leg.  I  sickened,  partly  with  pain,  for  I  thought  my 
leg  was  broken  ;  more,  however,  in  the  foreboding  of  failure  to 
accomplish  my  purpose  if  this  hurt  had  indeed  befallen  me. 
A  line  battalion  of  Versaillist  troops  was  passing ;  and  half-a- 
dozen  soldiers  were  instantly  around  me.  Some  dragged 
the  horse  up  on  to  his  legs ;  others  raised  me  and  carried  me 
into  a  wayside  cabaret.  A  glass  of  wine  revived  rne  ;  my  leg 


168  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

was  not  broken,  only  the  ankle  dislocated.  I  ordered  and 
paid  for  half-a-dozen  bottles  of  wine;  my  military  friends 
carried  me  out  and  lifted  me  into  the  saddle ;  and  I  went  on 
at  a  walk,  thankful  that  I  came  so  well  out  of  the  little 
disaster. 

I  encountered  and  surmounted  sundry  subsequent  diffi- 
culties and  dangers ;  but  the  crucial  obstacle  was  still  before 
me — at  the  Point  du  Jour  Gate,  whither  I  was  making  on  my 
way  to  Versailles.  Walking  up  and  down  on  the  pavement 
in  front  of  the  guard-house  were  a  colonel  and  a  major  of 
the  Line. 

"  No,  it  is  impossible  ! "  said  the  colonel.  "  Very  sorry, 
but  our  orders  are  imperative.  You  must  apply  for  a  permit 
to  Marshal  MacMahon,  whose  quarters  are  at  the  Ecole 
Militaire."  I  urged,  I  entreated,  I  produced  my  envelope  ; 
but  all  to  no  purpose.  At  length  the  colonel  went  away.  The 
major  remained,  and  was  so  good  as  to  accept  a  cigar.  On 
his  breast  was  the  British  Crimean  medal  and  on  that  hint 
I  spoke  yet  again,  dwelling  on  the  old  comradeship  of  the 
French  and  English  soldiers  during  the  days  of  fighting  and 
hardship  before  Sevastopol.  That  medal  he  wore  was  the 
Queen  of  England's  souvenir :  could  he  delay  a  courier 
carrying  to  her  important  despatches  ?  The  old  warrior 
looked  cautiously  around ;  we  were  alone.  He  spoke  no 
word,  but  silently,  with  his  thumb  over  his  shoulder  pointed 
down  the  tunnel  under  the  enceinte,  at  the  further  end  of 
which  was  the  open  country.  When  I  had  passed  the  sentry 
at  the  exit  I  drew  a  long  breath  of  relief  and  pottered  on 
to  Sevres,  at  which  place  I  left  my  horse  and  took  carriage 
for  Versailles,  where  my  old  war-time  courier  was  residing 
in  the  despatch-service  of  the  Daily  News  resident  cor- 
respondent. 

As  I  drove  up  the  broad  avenue  between  Viroflay  and 
Versailles  I  overtook  a  very  miserable  and  dejected  company. 
In  file  after  file  of  six  abreast  tramped  a  convoy  of  Communist 
prisoners,  numbering  over  two  thousand  souls.  Patiently  and 
with  some  consciousness  of  pride  they  marched,  linked  tightly 
arm  to  arm.  Among  them  were  many  women,  some  of  them 


"LES  MI8ARABLES !"  169 

fierce  barricade  Hecates,  others  mere  girls,  soft  and  timid — 
here,  seemingly,  because  a  parent  was  here  also.  All  were 
bareheaded  and  foul  with  dust,  many  powder- stained  as  well ; 
and  the  burning  sun  beat  down  on  the  frowsy  column.  Not 
the  sun  only  beat  down,  but  also  the  flats  of  sabres  wielded  by 
the  dashing  Chasseurs  d'Afrique  who  were  the  ruthless  escort 
of  those  unfortunates.  Their  own  recent  experiences  might 
have  taught  them  humanity  towards  their  captives.  No 
sabre-blades  had  descended  on  their  pates  during  that  long 
weary  march  from  Sedan  to  their  German  captivity ;  they 
were  then  the  prisoners  of  humane  soldiers.  But  they  were 
prisoners  now  no  longer  as  they  capered  on  their  wiry  barb 
stallions,  and  in  their  pride  of  cheap  success  belaboured  un- 
mercifully the  miserables  of  the  Commune.  For  any  over- 
wearied creatures  who  fell  out  or  dropped  there  was  short 
shrift :  my  driving-horse  had  been  shying  at  the  corpses  on 
the  road  all  the  way  from  Sevres.  At  the  head  of  the  sombre 
column  were  three  or  four  hundred  lashed  together  with  ropes 
— all  powder-stained  those — and  among  them  not  a  few 
men  in  red  breeches — deserters  taken  red-handed.  I  rather 
wondered  what  they  did  in  this  gang;  they  might  as  well 
have  died  fighting  on  the  barricades  as  survive  to  be  made 
targets  of  a  day  or  two  later  with  their  backs  against  a  wall. 

To  hand  Malet's  despatches  to  the  First  Secretary  of  the 
Embassy,  Mr.  Sackville  West,  and  to  eat  a  morsel,  did  not 
detain  me  in  Versailles  beyond  half  an  hour ;  and  then  I  was 
off  again  on  wheels  by  the  circuitous  route  through  Rueil  and 
Malmaison,  and  over  the  pontoon  bridge  above  Argenteuil  to 
St.  Denis  and  the  railway.  As  I  drove  along  the  green 
margin  of  the  placid  Seine,  the  spectacle  which  the  capital 
presented  can  never  fade  from  my  memory.  On  its  white 
houses  the  sun  still  shone ;  he  did  not  withhold  his  beams 
in  spite  of  the  deeds  they  illumined.  But  up  through  the  sun- 
beams struggled  and  surged  ghastly  swart  waves  and  folds 
and  pillars  of  dense  smoke.  Ha !  there  was  a  sharp  crack, 
and  then  came  a  dull  thud  on  the  air.  No  gun-fire  that,  but 
some  great  explosion  which  must  have  rocked  a  district 
almost  to  its  base.  Then  there  rose  with  a  jet-like  spurt, 


170  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

a  convolvulus-shaped  column  of  white  smoke,  such  as  men 
describe  when  Vesuvius  bursts  into  eruption;  then  it  broke 
up  into  fleecy  waves  and  eddied  away  towards  the  horizon  all 
round,  as  the  ripple  of  a  stone  into  a  pool  spreads  to  the 
water's  edge.  The  crowds  of  German  soldiers  who  sat  by  the 
Seine  steadily  watching  were  startled  into  a  burst  of  excite- 
ment. The  excitement  well  might  have  been  world-wide. 
"  Paris  the  beautiful "  was  now  Paris  the  ghastly,  Paris  the 
battered,  Paris  the  blood-drenched.  And  this  in  the  present 
century — ay,  but  four-and-twenty  years  ago — Europe  pro- 
fessing civilisation,  France  boasting  of  culture  and  refinement, 
Frenchmen  braining  one  another  with  the  butt-ends  of  their 
rifles,  and  Paris  blazing  to  the  skies  !  There  needed  but  a 
Nero  to  fiddle. 

Travelling  to  England,  and  writing  hard  all  the  way  in 
train  and  boat,  I  reached  London  on  the  early  morning  of 
Thursday,  May  25th,  and  was  back  in  Paris  the  following  day. 
All  was  then  virtually  over.  The  hostages  in  La  Roquette 
had  been  shot,  and  the  H6tel  de  Ville  had  fallen  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  day  I  had  left.  When  I  returned  the  Communists 
were  at  their  last  gasp  in  the  Chateau  d'Eau,  the  Buttes  de 
Chaumont,  and  Pere-Lachaise.  On  the  afternoon  of  the  28th, 
after  just  one  week  of  fighting,  Marshal  MacMahon  announced, 
"  I  am  absolute  master  of  Paris."  On  the  following  morning 
I  visited  Pere-Lachaise,  where  the  very  last  shots  had  been 
fired.  Bivouac  fires  had  been  fed  with  the  souvenirs  of  pious 
sorrow,  and  the  trappings  of  woe  had  been  torn  down  to  be 
used  as  bedclothes.  But  there  had  been  no  great  amount  of 
fighting  in  the  cemetery  itself.  An  infallible  token  of  close  and 
heavy  firing  are  the  dents  of  many  bullets,  and  of  those  there 
were  comparatively  few  in  Pere-Lachaise.  Shells,  however, 
had  fallen  freely,  and  the  results  were  occasionally  very 
ghastly.  But  the  ghastliest  sight  in  Pere-Lachaise  was  in  the 
south-eastern  corner,  where,  close  to  the  boundary  wall,  there 
had  been  a  natural  hollow.  The  hollow  was  now  filled  up  by 
dead.  One  could  measure  the  dead  by  the  rood.  There  they 
lay,  tier  above  tier,  each  successive  tier  powdered  over  with  a 
coating  of  chloride  of  lime— two  hundred  of  them  patent  to 


NEVER  AGAIN,   OH,  NEVER  AGAIN/  171 

the  eye,  besides  those  underneath  hidden  by  the  earth  covering 
layer  after  layer.  Among  the  dead  were  many  women.  There, 
thrown  up  in  the  sunlight,  was  a  well-rounded  arm  with  a  ring 
on  one  of  the  fingers  ;  there,  again,  was  a  bust  shapely  in  death. 
And  yonder  were  faces  which  to  look  upon  made  one  shudder 
— faces  distorted  out  of  humanity  with  ferocity  and  agony 
combined.  The  ghastly  effect  of  the  dusty  white  powder  on 
the  dulled  eyes,  the  gnashed  teeth,  and  the  jagged  beards,  can- 
not be  described.  How  died  those  men  and  women  ?  Were 
they  carted  hither  and  laid  out  in  this  dead-hole  of  Pere- 
Lachaise  ?  Not  so  :  the  hole  had  been  replenished  from  close 
by.  Just  yonder  was  where  they  were  posted  up  against  that 
section  of  pock-pitted  wall — there  was  no  difficulty  in  reading 
the  open  book — and  were  shot  to  death  as  they  stood  or 
crouched.  Let  us  turn  our  backs  on  the  awful  and  melancholy 
scene,  and  pray  that  never  again  may  the  civilised  world 
witness  such  a  week  of  horrors  as  Paris  underwent  in  those 
sunshiny  summer  days  of  May,  1871  ! 


VII. 

OUR    PARISH    MURDERER. 

SINCE  the  days  of  nay  youth — now,  alas !  very  remote — I 
have  lost  touch  in  a  great  measure  of  the  quiet  northern 
region  in  which  I  was  born  and  reared.  Many  things,  which  in 
my  young  days  were  regarded  in  that  once  simple  and  primitive 
community  as  surprising  novelties,  have,  no  doubt,  long  since 
passed  into  the  category  of  things  of  course,  or  even  in  their 
turn  have  fallen  obsolete.  But  forty-five  years  ago  our  parish, 
primitive  as  it  was,  possessed  an  unique  if  sinister  distinction. 
Among  its  inhabitants  there  lived,  and  moved,  and  had  his 
being,  a  completely  authenticated  and,  indeed,  self-acknow- 
ledged murderer.  His  long-planned  and  deliberate  crime  had 
been  perpetrated  in  our  midst.  I  myself  saw  the  stain  of 
blood  on  the  sand  of  the  roadside  just  in  front  of  the  wayside 
smithy  ;  there  had  been  an  actual  witness  of  the  act,  who  was 
ready  and,  indeed,  eager  with  damning  testimony  ;  the  doer  of 
the  deed  never  wagged  his  tongue  in  defence  of  his  guilt,  and 
when  it  pleased  him  to  do  so  confessed  his  blood-guiltiness 
with  perfect  frankness.  Yet  when,  a  few  years  after  the  grim 
transaction,  I  went  out  into  the  world  from  my  native  valley, 
this  local  murderer  of  ours  was  living  there  hi  'complete 
immunity,  earning  his  bread  in  rural  labour  among  his  fellow 
men,  unshunned  by  them  as  a  pariah,  and  held  hi  all  respects 
save  for  occasional  lapses  into  unconvivial  inebriety,  a  not 
discreditable  member  of  the  sequestered  and  primitive 
community. 

I  never  made  a  boast  of  it,  because  I  did  not  consider  the 
trouvaille  as  anything  to  be  greatly  proud  of;  but,  as  a  matter 
of  fact  it  was  I  who  found  him.  I  did  so  on  the  morning 
after  one  of  the  half-yearly  "  feeing  "  markets  in  Rottenslough, 
a  viUage  about  six  miles  from  our  valley.  Our  parish  post- 
office  was  about  a  mile  from  the  manse,  and  it  was  one  of  the 


THE  "FOREIGNER."  173 

pleasant  duties  which  my  father  the  minister  devolved  on  me, 
to  ride  the  old  pony  there  every  morning  and  bring  back  the 
manse  letter-bag.  Doing  so  on  the  morning  after  this 
Rottenslough  market  day,  in  the  deep  wayside  ditch  near  the 
cross-roads  I  found  an  upturned  old  gig  in  an  advanced  state 
of  smash.  Broken  and  battered  though  it  was,  I  knew  it  at  a 
glance  as  the  rattletrap  appertaining  to  Sandy  Grant,  the 
drunken  farmer  of  Bodenfinnoch.  The  horse  apparently  had 
kicked  himself  free,  and  since  he  was  nowhere  to  be  seen, 
had  probably  gone  home  to  his  stable.  Sandy  himself,  with 
a  strange  man  by  his  side,  was  slumbering  sweetly  in 
the  clover  of  the  field  beyond  the  ditch.  In  answer  to  my 
hail,  he  sat  up,  rubbing  his  eyes  and  yawning  with  great 
vigour.  "  Whaur  am  I  ? "  was  his  ingenuous  question. 
Informed  on  this  point,  and  his  attention  directed  to  the 
fragmentary  condition  of  his  vehicle,  he  swore  with  extreme 
fervour,  and  protested  that  the  "  wyte  "  of  his  mischance  was 
wholly  due  to  his  still  slumbering  companion,  who,  it  appeared, 
had  on  the  previous  evening  "  made  him  blin'  fou' "  in  one  of 
the  booths  on  the  market  stance.  This  companion  he  incon- 
tinently proceeded  to  kick  with  great  emphasis,  a  process 
which  ultimately  succeeded  in  arousing  the  strange  man, 
whom  Sandy  swore  he  "  didna  ken  frae  Adam." 

Sandy's  tempter  and  boon  companion,  as  he  rose  to  his 
feet  and  stared  around  him,  was  a  person  of  singular  aspect. 
Hair  and  beard — and  he  had  a  good  deal  of  both — were  coal- 
black,  and  his  strong-lined  face — as  I  supposed  naturally 
swarthy — was  tanned  so  deeply  that  the  skin  might  have  been 
leather.  His  eyes  were  small,  black,  and  keen.  He  was  of  fair 
stature,  and  carried  his  head  well ;  but,  although  his  shoulders 
were  square  as  one  looked  at  him  in  front,  they  were  so  rounded 
at  the  back  that  it  almost  seemed  as  if  he  had  a  hump.  When 
he  moved  he  lifted  his  feet  in  a  curious  dragging  fashion,  as 
if  they  or  his  boots  were  too  heavy  for  him  to  move  in  the 
ordina^  way.  Years  after  when  visiting  the  Cascade  Prison 
at  Hobart  in  Tasmania,  I  saw  the  convict  lunatics  remaining 
from  the  transportation  times,  whose  backs  had  been  humped 
by  countless  lashes  and  whose  ankles  had  been  clogged  for 


174  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

years  with  heavy  irons  at  Norfolk  Island  and  Port 
Arthur ;  and  there  came  back  to  me  then  the  vivid  memory 
of  this  strange  casual  incomer  into  our  valley,  as  I  first  saw 
him  on  this  morning  slouching  in  the  clover-field  by  the 
cross-roads  of  Blackhillock. 

Hospitable  Sandy  Grant  took  this  chance  companion  of 
his  home  to  breakfast.  A  few  days  later  I  saw  the  "  foreigner," 
as  some  of  the  neighbours  had  begun  to  call  him,  driving 
one  of  Bodenfinnoch's  carts  from  the  moss  with  a  load  of  peat. 
It  appeared  that  he  had  taken  service  temporarily  with 
Sandy  as  odd,  or,  as  it  used  to  be  called  among  us,  "  orra " 
man,  quietly  remarking  that  he  did  not  particularly  care 
where  he  lived  so  long  as  he  was  able  to  earn  an  honest 
living.  And  he  had  thought  proper  to  give  some  account  of 
himself.  His  name,  it  appeared,  was  David  Morgan ;  he  was, 
he  said,  a  Welshman  by  birth ;  he  had  been  a  slate-quarrier 
at  Bethesda,  near  Bangor,  and  later  had  been  navvying  on  a 
railway  in  the  north  of  France.  It  seemed  that  he  had  come 
north  in  quest  of  a  brother  who  had  come  bridge-building 
somewhere  into  Aberdeenshire,  but  that  the  search  had  come 
to  nothing.  His  money  was  done  ;  he  was  tired  of  tramping ; 
he  liked  oatmeal — the  simple  fare  of  our  valley  ;  and  so,  now 
he  was  there,  he  was  content  to  stop. 

I  think  he  was  for  some  six  months  "orra"  man  at 
Bodenfinnoch.  Then  he  struck  out  into  independence, 
constructed  for  himself  a  hovel  of  turf  on  the  muirland  of 
Knockans,  and  undertook  piecework  as  a  ditcher  and  drainer. 
When  that  work  was  slack  he  was  in  the  habit  of  working  on 
the  neighbouring  farm  of  Coldhome,  the  tenant  of  which  was 
an  old  man  named  Macdonald,  who  had  for  housekeeper  a 
middle-aged  woman  whom  we  knew  as  Mrs.  Trevallack.  Life 
went  on  so  quietly  in  this  sequestered  parish  of  ours  that  the 
history  of  this  woman,  as  it  was  known  among  us,  was  quite  a 
world's  wonder  in  a  small  way.  She  was  a  south  country 
woman,  who,  it  seemed,  had  been  married  to  a  Cornish  man 
named  Trevallack,  a  private  soldier  of  our  local  Highland 
regiment.  Trevallack  had  died  on  service  in  India,  and  (so 
the  story  went)  she  had  been  fallen  in  love  with  by  a  man 


THE  SCENE  AT   THE  SMITHY.  175 

named  Macdonald,  who  was  a  sergeant  in  the  regiment  and  was 
the  son  of  the  old  farmer  of  Coldhome.  He  could  not  marry 
her,  because  the  married  strength  of  the  regiment  was  full 
and  there  were  many  applicants  in  front  of  him.  So  he  sent 
her  home  to  the  care  of  his  father,  who  was  a  widower; 
promising  that  in  a  few  years  when  the  regiment  in  its  turn 
should  come  home,  he  would  buy  his  discharge,  marry  her,  and 
settle  down  on  the  farm.  But  war  after  war — in  Afghanistan,  in 
Gwalior,  in  the  Punjaub — had  detained  the  regiment  in  India. 
The  Scottish  sergeant  had  been  for  several  years  its  regimental 
sergeant-major;  and,  if  he  had  desired,  while  fighting  and 
promotion  were  the  order  of  the  day  he  could  not  have 
bought  his  discharge.  While  the  regiment  remained  in  India, 
Mrs.  Trevallack  had  been  living  among  us  now  for  nearly 
twelve  years,  waiting  patiently  for  the  happy  time  of  which 
she  steadfastly  professed  her  assurance,  tending  the  old 
farmer  faithfully,  managing,  as  far  as  a  woman  might,  the 
details  of  the  work  of  the  sour  upland  farm,  and  bearing  a 
good  repute  in  the  parish  as  a  worthy  and  courageous  woman. 
It  was  reported  now  that  her  long  expectancy  was  soon  to 
have  a  happy  ending.  The  term  for  which  Macdonald  had 
enlisted  was  rapidly  drawing  to  a  close ;  and,  in  the  joy  of  her 
heart  Mrs.  Trevallack  made  no  secret  of  the  knowledge  which 
had  come  to  her,  that  the  gallant  soldier  for  whom  she  had 
waited  so  patiently  all  those  long  years  would  reach  home  in 
the  course  of  a  few  weeks. 

That  time  soon  passed.  One  cold  November  evening  my 
father  was  driving  home  from  a  meeting  of  Presbytery,  and  I 
was  his  companion  in  the  old  gig  which  he  had  bought  when 
he  married  my  mother.  As  we  came  round  a  sharp  turn  in 
the  road  the  mare  shied  violently  at  the  blaze  of  light 
streaming  across  the  road  from  the  windows  and  open  door  of 
Wullie  Watt's  smithy.  On  the  open  space  outside  was  visible 
in  the  glow  of  light  a  group  of  men  and  women  from  the 
neighbouring  cottages.  They  were  silent,  as  is  the  wont  of 
Scottish  country  folk  in  the  actual  presence  of  calamity ;  but 
the  white  blaze  from  the  forge  illuminated  the  horror  that 
possessed  every  face.  From  inside  the  smithy  the  sound  was 


176  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

heard  of  sobs  and  moans,  broken  intermittently  by  heart- 
piercing  wails.  "The  minister!"  "The  minister!"  came  in 
low  tones  from  the  group  as  the  light  fell  on  my  father's  face. 
Old  Geordie  Riach  of  the  Rashes,  the  elder  of  the  district, 
came  forward,  doffing  his  broad  bonnet  and  so  baring  his 
grand  old  head,  and  said  in  a  hoarse  whisper :  "  It's  murder, 
your  Reverence — rank  bluidy  murder,  dune  here  barely  ten 
minutes  syne;  an'  the  murdered  man — ye  kirstened  him 
yersel',  sir — gane  tae  his  account  i'  the  twinklin'  o'  an  e'e. 
For  God's  sake,  sir,  tak'  tent " — the  minister  was  alighting — 
"tak'  tent,  sir,  or  yell  step  intae  the  puddle  o'  his  life's 
bluid!" 

I  followed  my  father  and  his  venerable  elder  into  the 
smithy.  Right  in  the  blaze  from  the  forge,  on  a  couple 
of  sacks  which  had  been  *  hurriedly  spread,  lay  the 
stark,  motionless  form  of  a  tall,  powerfully-built  man,  the 
strongly-marked  face  livid  in  the  pallor  of  the  white  light. 
At  a  glance  my  father  recognised  the  dead  man,  whom  in 
childhood  he  had  baptised,  in  youth  had  prepared  for  his 
first  communion,  in  early  manhood  had  bidden  God-speed 
when  he  left  the  parish  to  take  the  Queen's  shilling  and  join 
the  old  corps  in  whose  ranks  had  served  many  of  the  good 
old  stock  to  which  he  belonged.  The  head  of  the  dead 
soldier  lay  in  the  lap  of  Mrs.  Trevallack,  whose  tears  were 
raining  down  on  the  fast-setting  face ;  whose  moans  and 
wails  it  was  that  we  had  heard  while  yet  outside  on  the  road 
and  that  we  still  listened  to  as  we  looked  down  upon  her  and 
her  dead. 

"  Who  hath  done  this  ? "  asked  my  father  in  his  solemn 
tones  of  quiet  authority. 

The  woman  looked  up,  dashed  the  tears  from  her 
streaming  eyes,  and  between  her  bursting  sobs  replied  in  her 
south  country  Scots : — 

"  I  met  Macdonald  at  the  cross-roads  whaur  the  coach 
passes.  We  traivelt  thegither  through  the  moss  an'  ower  the 
muir.  Juist  as  we  gaed  by  the  smiddy  here  Dauvit  Morgan, 
the  foreign  ditcher,  dairted  oot  frae  the  gable  end  an'  gae 
Macdonald  ae  strong  stab  in  the  breist  wi'  a  lang  knife.  Oh, 


MRS.   TREVALLACK'S  TESTIMONY.  177 

sir,  but  I  saw  the  cruel  flash  o't  i'  the  munelight  as  he  drove 
it  harae  !  He  left  it  stickin'.  See,  sir,  it's  in  my  man's  heart 
still !  An'  syne,  Avithoot  a  word,  the  murderin'  villain  sprang 
the  hedge  on  the  far  side  o'  the  road,  an'  got  clean  awa' ! " 

Before  midnight  the  rural  policeman  made  his  appearance, 
and  remained  in  charge  of  the  body  until,  in  the  small  hours 
of  the  morning,  arrived  from  Rottenslough  Neil  Robertson, 
the  superintendent  of  police  for  the  county.  He  authorised 
the  removal  of  the  dead  man  to  his  father's  house,  whither 
came,  before  the  short  winter  day  was  done,  the  Procurator 
Fiscal  from  the  county  town ;  and  this  functionary  of  justice 
promptly  set  about  the  "  taking  of  precognitions " — the 
Scottish  legal  expression  for  the  preliminary  examination  of 
persons  whose  evidence  might  be  found  relevant.  The  only 
witness  to  the  actual  deed  was  the  woman  Trevallack,  who 
positively  testified  to  David  Morgan  as  the  murderer.  She 
knew  him  well,  since  from  time  to  time  he  worked  on  old 
Macdonald's  farm ;  and  when  he  did  so,  he  took  his  meals  in 
the  farmhouse  and  was  served  by  herself.  She  further  testified 
that  Morgan  was  actually  in  the  kitchen  of  Coldhome  when 
she  set  out  to  meet  the  returning  sergeant-major,  and  that  he 
was  the  only  person  to  whom  she  mentioned  the  errand  on 
which  she  was  leaving  home.  Asked  whether  she  was  aware 
of  any  reason  that  could  have  actuated  Morgan  to  take  the 
life  of  the  sergeant-major,  she  deposed  that  she  had  sometimes 
thought  Morgan  had,  in  her  own  words,  "  ta'en  a  notion "  of 
herself,  but  owned  that  this  was  merely  an  impression  on  her 
part.  Outside  of  Mrs.  Trevallack's  direct  testimony,  the  circum- 
stantial evidence  collected  by  the  Procurator  Fiscal  against 
Morgan  was  not  in  itself  of  great  strength.  Wullie  Watt  the 
blacksmith  deposed  that  "  the  foreigner,"  as  Morgan  was 
commonly  called,  had  been  in  the  smithy  in  the  course  of  the 
"forenicht,"  but  had  left  quite  half  an  hour  before  Mrs. 
Trevallack's  scream  of  horror  was  heard  out  in  the  road. 
But  every  rural  smithy  in  the  north  of  Scotland  was  in  those 
days  the  evening  gossiping-place  of  the  countryside;  and 
the  blacksmith  testified  that  "  the  foreigner "  was  among  the 
habitual  frequenters  of  the  place.  Several  people  on  the 
M 


178  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

evening  of  the  murder  had  met  Morgan,  apparently  on  his 
way  home  to  his  hovel  on  the  muir,  and  had  exchanged  with 
him  a  word  of  greeting  in  the  by-passing.  None  had 
observed  in  him  anything  "by  ordnar,"  and  none  could 
approximately  specify  the  time  of  meeting  him. 

Morgan  had  been  apprehended  in  the  early  morning  after 
the  night  of  the  murder,  and  had  been  straightway  carried 
to  the  county  jail.  The  police  had  found  him  sleeping 
calmly  in  his  hovel ;  and  when  awakened  he  had  evinced  no 
sign  of  perturbation.  A  smart  young  local  solicitor  volunteered 
to  undertake  his  defence ;  and,  under  his  advice  the  prisoner 
declined  the  offer  made  to  him  by  the  Procurator  Fiscal  that 
he  should,  in  Scottish  legal  phraseology,  "  emit  a  declaration  " 
— in  other  words,  make  a  statement  on  his  own  behalf.  He 
lay  in  the  county  jail  for  some  months,  and  then  was  removed 
to  Aberdeen  to  stand  his  trial  there  before  the  Circuit  Court, 
which  corresponds  to  the  English  Assizes-.  The  bloody 
tragedy  in  our  quiet  sequestered  valley  had  thrilled  the  whole 
north  country;  and  within  the  memory  of  man  the  old 
Court  House  of  the  good  city  of  Bon  Accord  had  never  been 
so  crowded  as  on  the  morning  when  David  Morgan  was 
brought  into  the  dock  between  two  prison-warders  to  stand 
his  trial  for  the  wilful  murder  of  ex-Sergeant-Major  John 
Macdonald. 

A  judge  of  the  stern  old  school  was  on  the  bench.  The 
prosecution  by  the  Crown  was  conducted  by  the  Senior 
Advocate  Depute,  the  best  criminal  lawyer  of  his  day  in 
Scotland.  The  prisoner  had  no  means  wherewith  to  secure 
the  services  of  an  advocate  of  high  standing  at  the  Scottish 
bar;  but  his  solicitor  had  retained  for  the  defence  a  young 
advocate,  Mr.  Daner,  whom  he  knew  to  be  a  man  of  great 
ability  and  who  later  rose  to  high  eminence  in  his  profession. 
My  father  had  come  into  town  to  be  present  at  a  trial  in 
which  folk  of  his  own  parish  were  deeply  concerned;  and 
young  as  I  was,  I  had  a  seat  by  his  side  in  the  body  of  the 
court. 

01  the  details  of  the  initial  legal  proceedings  I  have  not 


.  THE  CASE  FOB   THE  CROWN.  179 

retained  any  close  recollection,  nor  of  the  quaint  old-world 
phraseology  which  I  remember  to  have  found  bewildering ; 
but  I  do  remember  wondering  why  the  prisoner  was  uniformly 
spoken  of  as  the  "  panel."  In  my  recollection  the  indict- 
ment was  read,  after  which  the  Counsel  for  the  Crown  briefly 
and  temperately  opened  the  case  for  the  prosecution  and 
promptly  proceeded  to  call  his  witnesses.  Those  taken  first, 
and  I  thought  this  strange,  were  people  who  gave  merely 
circumstantial  evidence — the  old  blacksmith  and  the  men 
who  had  met  Morgan  on  his  way  home.  Then  Margaret 
Trevallack  was  placed  in  the  witness-box.  She  wore  mourn- 
ing, her  once  comely  face  was  now  deeply  worn,  but  her  bear- 
ing was  firm  and  composed.  The  evidence  she  gave  in 
answer  to  the  questions  of  the  Crown  Counsel  was  in  effect 
the  same  as  that  which  had  been  embodied  in  the  precogni- 
tions  taken  by  the  Procurator  Fiscal.  She  swore  positively  to 
Morgan  as  the  murderer  of  Macdonald.  She  had  distinctly 
seen  his  face,  and  it  was  simply  impossible  that  she  could 
have  been  mistaken.  Her  evidence  was  given  with  a  quiet 
force  of  conviction  which  justly  created  a  powerful  impression 
on  the  crowded  court. 

Then  Mr.  Daner  rose  to  cross-examine  the  woman  who 
confronted  him  so  impassively. 

"  You  say  you  are  a  widow,  Mrs.  Trevallack  ? "  he  began. 

"  A.y,  sir,"  was  the  quiet  answer. 

"  Who  and  what  was  your  husband  ? " 

"Willam  Trevallack,  a   private   in   the  Abernethy  High- 
landers." 

"  Where  and  when  did  you  lose  him  ? " 

"  He  died  of  cholera  at  Kurnaul  in  India,  twal'  year  ago 
last  January." 

"  Have  you  any  paper  to  prove  your  marriage  and  your 
husband's  death  ? " 

"  No,  sir.     A  box  in  which  I  keepit  my  papers  was  stolen 
frae  me  on  the  voyage  hame  frae  India." 

"  Of  what  country  was  your  husband  ?  " 

"A   Cornishman,   he   tellt   me;    frae   the    south-west    o' 
England — a  miner  tae  trade." 
M  2 


]80  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

"  That  will  do,  Mrs.  Trevallack,"  said  Mr.  Daner  suavely, 
as  he  resumed  his  seat.  The  woman  had  perceptibly  paled 
under  his  quiet  and  brief  cross-examination,  and  I  noticed 
her  upper  lip  tremble  more  than  once ;  but  she  maintained 
her  calm,  sad  composure,  and  left  the  witness-box  with  a 
respectful  curtsey  to  the  judge. 

The  Advocate  Depute  stated  that  Mrs.  Trevallack 's  evi- 
dence completed  the  case  for  the  Crown,  and  Mr.  Daner  rose 
to  address  the  Court  for  the  defence.  He  spoke  as  un- 
emotionally as  if  he  had  been  arguing  in  a  dry  commercial 
suit,  and  his  quiet  measured  manner  seemed  to  send  a  chill 
through  the  audience.  In  half-a-dozen  sentences  he  brushed 
aside  as  futile  and  feeble  the  circumstantial  evidence  adduced 
on  the  part  of  the  prosecution.  "Practically,"  said  he,  "in 
this  case  the  Crown  has  cited  but  a  single  witness.  I  will 
not  pause  to  argue  whether  a  conviction  could  legally  or 
justly  follow  on  the  evidence  of  a  single  witness  who  con- 
fessedl}1'  caught  a  mere  glimpse  of  the  face  of  the  murderer 
of  Macdonald,  whoever  he  may  be.  I  simply  proceed  to 
destroy  the  case  for  the  Crown  by  informing  the  jury  that 
the  testimony  which  has  just  been  uttered  by  Margaret 
Trevallack  is  wholly  inadmissible,  and  must  be  expurgated 
from  the  record.  And  this,  my  lord  and  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  because  the  said  Margaret  Trevallack  is  no  widow,  as 
she  perjured  herself  by  swearing  in  your  hearing  that  she  is; 
and  further,  and  of  far  more  importance,  because" — here 
Mr.  Daner  paused  for  a  moment  in  the  midst  of  a  silence 
so  dead  that  a  pin-fall  could  have  been  heard ;  then  he 
quietly  resumed :  "  because  the  said  Margaret  Trevallack 
is  the  wife  of  the  panel ;  and  it  is  a  principle  of  our  law  that 
a  wife  cannot  give  evidence  against  her  husband." 

The  scene  was  indescribable.  The  silence  in  which  the 
young  advocate  had  been  speaking  was  broken,  as  he  ended, 
by  an  universal  gasp  of  utter  astonishment.  The  judge  him- 
self evinced  a  most  unwonted  excitement ;  the  audience 
simply  seethed  in  a  paroxysm  of  surprise.  Three  men  only 
remained  unmoved:  the  prisoner,  his  counsel,  and  his  soli- 
citor. Mrs.  Trevallack  had  fainted  dead  away  and  was  being 


FOR   THE  DEFENCE.  181 

carried  out  of  court  by  the  people  about  her.  The  "  crier " 
called  for  "  Silence ! "  at  the  judge's  command,  and  Mr. 
Uaner  quietly  resumed  : — 

"  It  only  remains  that  I  prove  the  truth  of  the  statement 
which  I  have  made  to  the  satisfaction  of  your  lordship  and  of 
the  jury.  I  produce  a  certificate  of  the  marriage  of  Margaret 
Alison  of  Maybole,  Ayrshire,  spinster ;  and  William  Trevallack 
of  Camborne,  Cornwall,  private  in  the  Abernethy  Regiment  of 
Royal  Highlanders,  celebrated  at  Cawnpore,  India,  and  duly 
dated  and  authenticated.  I  produce  a  certified  copy  obtained 
from  the  Adjutant-General's  office,  of  the  sentence  of  a  general 
court-martial  held  at  Kurnaul  in  the  Upper  Province  of 
Bengal  on  January  9,  1836,  upon  No.  4,130  Private  William 
Trevallack  of  the  Abernethy  Regiment  of  Royal  Highlanders, 
convicted  for  assaulting  and  beating  on  parade  his  superior 
officer  Sergeant  John  Macdonald  of  the  same  regiment,  and 
sentenced  to  be  discharged  from  the  service  and  transported 
to  Botany  Bay  for  ten  years.  I  produce  original  of  warrant 
issued  by  the  Superintendent  of  Convicts  at  Port  Jackson, 
New  South  Wales,  dated  January  9,  1846,  certifying  that 
William  Trevallack  late  of  the  Abernethy  Highlanders 
had  duly  served  his  allotted  sentence  of  ten  years'  trans- 
portation and  was  now  a  free  man,  at  liberty  to  leave  the 
colony  for  whatever  destination  he  might  choose.  And 
finally  I  call  John  Parry,  late  warder  in  Paramatta  Prison 
near  Port  Jackson,  to  swear  to  the  identity  of  the  panel, 
who  for  reasons  of  his  own  with  which  we  have  no  con- 
cern has  chosen  to  call  himself  David  Morgan,  with  the 
ex-convict  William  Trevallack,  of  whom  he  had  charge  when 
Trevallack  worked  in  his  chain-gang,  engaged  in  road-making 
in  the  Blue  Mountains  of  New  South  Wales  in  the  years 
1 844-45.  Call  John  Parry !  " 

John  Parry,  a  tall,  grizzle-bearded  veteran,  entered  the 
box  and  curtly  identified  the  prisoner.  Cross-examined  for 
the  Crown,  he  read  from  his  note-book  the  particulars  of 
sundry  marks,  scars,  and  mutilations  on  the  prisoner's 
person  which  an  examination  would  reveal.  Two  surgeons 
from  the  audience  volunteered  to  make  the  examination, 


182  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

furnished  with  a  copy  of  the  ex-warder's  particulars.  Re- 
turning into  court  with  the  prisoner  after  a  short  absence, 
they  testified  on  oath  that  they  had  found  on  his  body  all 
the  evidences  of  identification  which  Parry  had  specified. 
Mr.  Daner  then  claimed  that  he  had  completely  proved 
every  link  in  the  chain  of  identification  of  the  panel  as 
the  husband  of  the  woman  who  in  the  witness-box  had 
falsely  sworn  that  he  was  dead  and  that  she  was  his  widow. 
He  added  that  since  the  direct  evidence  inculpating  him 
as  the  murderer  of  Macdonald  had  failed  and  was  of  no 
avail  for  the  cause  charged  and  proven,  and  since  the  cir- 
cumstantial evidence  was  clearly  of  no  account,  his  client 
was  entitled  to  a  finding  of  "  Not  guilty  "  at  the  hands  of 
the  jury. 

The  judge,  however,  demurred  to  this  demand.  In  his 
judgment  the  persons  concerned  with  conducting  the 
defence  of  the  prisoner,  knowing  what  they  knew,  had  not 
done  their  best  by  their  client.  Whether  they  had  in  a 
measure  sacrificed  him  to  an  anxiety  for  a  sensational 
denouement  or  not,  he  would  not  pretend  to  say.  The 
witness  Margaret  Trevallack  should  have  been  challenged 
as  soon  as  she  entered  the  witness-box,  and  the  reason 
which  rendered  her  evidence  inadmissible  should  have  been 
at  once  brought  forward  as  the  justification  of  the  chal- 
lenge. Instead  of  this,  she  had  been  allowed  to  give  her 
evidence,  and  that  evidence  must  have  impressed  the  jury, 
as  he  confessed  it  had  impressed  himself.  Legally,  it  was 
true  that  it  was  not  good  evidence,  but  nevertheless  the 
serious  tenor  of  it  remained  with  him,  and,  he  doubted 
not,  with  the  jury  also.  In  the  exercise  of  his  discretion 
he  would  direct  the  jury  to  bring  in  a  finding  of  "  Not 
proven." 

The  verdict  of  "  Not  proven,"  which  the  Scottish  law 
permits,  is  in  the  nature  of  a  compromise — when  the  person 
on  his  trial  has  not  succeeded  in  proving  his  innocence  of 
the  offence  laid  to  his  charge,  and  when,  nevertheless,  the 
evidence  does  not  warrant  the  finding  of  "  Guilty."  The 
jury  after  an  absence  from  court  for  a  few  minutes, 


TEEVALLACK'S  STORY.  183 

returned    with   the   verdict   the   fitness   of  which  had  been 
impressed  upon  them  by  the  judge. 

Mrs.  Trevallack  never  returned  to  our  glen,  and  I  never 
heard  what  became  of  her.  Her  husband  came  back 
among  us  to  his  bothy  on  the  muir.  A  week  later,  on  a 
Saturday  evening,  he  presented  himself  at  Wullie  Watt's 
smithy.  The  rustic  congregation  around  the  forge  rather 
drew  away  from  him,  and  old  Wullie  frankly  told  him 
that  he  was  not  welcome  there.  Trevallack,  or  Morgan,  as 
he  was  still  mostly  called,  replied  that  he  had  no  intention 
or  .desire  to  intrude ;  but  that  now  that  he  had  undergone 
his  trial — I  think  the  old  Scots  legal  expression  is  "  tholed 
his  assize " — and  could  not  be  tried  again,  he  would  fain  be 
permitted  to  tell  his  story  to  the  folk  who  had  come  to 
know  him  as  a  good  comrade  and  harmless  felknv,  and 
whose  goodwill,  come  what  might,  he  was  loth  to  lose. 
The  vote  of  the  smithy-parliament  was  in  favour  of  his 
being  allowed  to  deliver  himself,  and  the  manse  grieve, 
who  was  among  the  auditors,  brought  me  the  gist  of  the 
strange  tale. 

Trevallack,  it  seemed,  while  the  regiment  was  quartered 
in  Kurnaul,  had  reason  to  suspect  Sergeant  Macdonald  of 
paying  undue  attention  to  his  wife,  had  words  with  him, 
and  finally  gave  him  a  thrashing.  For  this  assault  on  a 
superior  officer  the  sergeant  dared  not  in  the  circum- 
stances report  him ;  but,  in  his  spite  against  him  subjected 
him  to  a  course  of  tyranny  which  ultimately  became  in- 
tolerable, till  at  length  in  an  ungovernable  fury  of  despair, 
Trevallack  struck  down  the  sergeant  on  regimental  parade 
in  face  of  the  commanding  officer.  He  was  fortunate  to 
have  escaped  the  death-sentence,  although  at  the  time,  he 
said,  he  would  have  preferred  being  shot,  and  so  ending  the 
misery  of  his  life;  for  he  was  certain  Macdonald  had  deli- 
berately ruined  him  because  of  his  passion  for  the  private 
soldier's  wife.  As  he  sailed  down  the  Bay  of  Bengal  to  his 
ten  years  of  living  death  in  New  South  Wales,  he  swore 
unto  himself  an  oath  that  if  he  lived  to  regain  his  free- 
dom, he  would  never  rest  until  he  had  slain  the  man  who 


184  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

had  doubly  wrecked  his  life.  The  long  years  passed,  and 
his  pass  of  emancipation  was  in  his  pocket  as  he  stood  on 
the  shore  of  Port  Jackson  and  looked  seaward  between 
Sydney  Heads.  He  worked  his  passage  to  Calcutta  and 
painfully  and  slowly  travelling  up  country,  found  indeed 
the  old  regiment  at  Umballa,  but  no  Sergeant  Macdonald 
was  now  serving  in  it.  He  had  been  promoted  to  sergeant- 
major,  the  old  soldiers  told  the  trainp,  whom,  after  his 
ten  years  of  hardship  and  harsh  discipline  in  the  Austra- 
lian chain-gang,  they  did  not  recognise;  but  who  knew 
them  yet  refrained  from  revealing  himself.  Macdonald  had 
some  time  previously  been  detached  on  some  special  staff- 
duty,  whither  Trevallack  could  not  discover.  The  orderly- 
room  clerk  could  not  enlighten  him;  but  from  that  functionary 
he  ascertained  the  name  of  the  Highland  parish  of  which 
Macdonald  was  a  native,  and  also  the  date  at  which  would 
expire  the  term  of  service  for  which  he  had  enlisted.  Then 
he  learned  from  an  old  married  woman  of  the  regiment— 
who  knew  him  not,  although  he  and  his  wife  had  lived  in 
Kurnaul  next  room  to  her,  and  who  wondered  why  this 
stranger  tramp  wanted  the  information — that  after  Private 
Trevallack  was  transported  eleven  years  gone,  Sergeant 
Macdonald  had  sent  that  poor  fellow's  wife  to  Scotland  to 
live  in  his  father's  house  until  such  time  as  the  regiment 
should  go  home,  and  he  then  be  able  to  buy  his  discharge. 
As  for  Trevallack,  everybody  held  him  as  good  as  dead 
when  he  was  carried  down  country  in  irons  to  be  shipped 
to  Australia. 

In  Macdonald's  native  parish,  then,  Trevallack  had  con- 
cluded, was  the  place  where  he  could  be  most  surely 
marked  down ;  and  thither  by  slow  degrees  and  devious 
ways  he  betook  himself,  changing  his  name  and  his  place 
of  origin.  No  more  than  had  his  old  comrades  did  the 
woman  who  really  was  his  wife  recognise  in  the  bowed  and 
clumsy  Welsh  stranger  her  Cornish  husband  of  the  long 
bygone  time  in  KurnauL  Unconsciously  the  wretched 
woman  set  him  on  the  track  of  his  enemy  whom  she  loved. 
It  was  he,  and  none  other,  who  had  struck  Macdonald  to 


THE   VERDICT  OF  HIS  NEIGHBOURS.  185 

the  heart  out  yonder  in  the  road,  as  the  man  who  had 
ruined  his  life  neared  him  with  an  arm  round  the  waist 
of  the  woman  of  whom  the  ex-sergeant  had  robbed  the 
victim  of  his  tyrannic  malevolence :  nor  did  he  repent  the 
deed.  He  had  resolved  to  avow  it  in  the  dock  and  go  to 
the  gallows  with  a  light  heart,  now  that  he  had  taken  his 
revenge.  But  the  young  solicitor  who  had  come  to  him 
in  the  county  gaol  represented  to  him  that,  having  regard 
to  the  long  cruel  provocation  and  suffering  he  had  endured, 
what  he  had  done  was,  in  the  title  of  an  old  book,  "  Killing 
no  Murder,"  and  that  it  behoved  him  to  make  a  fight  for 
life.  They  all  knew  what  had  been  the  result.  He  would 
very  fain  be  allowed  to  stay  -among  them,  since  he  had  no 
friends  elsewhere;  he  would  not  obtrude  himself  so  long 
as  they  would  just  pass  him  the  "  Good  day."  But  if  they 
shunned  him  for  the  blood  on  his  hands,  he  would  go 
away  out  into  the  hard  world. 

There  was  an  interval  of  silence.  Then  Wullie  Watt, 
baring  his  old  head,  said  solemnly,  "  What  saith  the  Book, 
'  Vengeance  is  Mine ;  I  will  repay,  saith  the  Lord.'  Ye've 
been  a  sinfu'  man,  an'  a  bluidthirsty  man,  William  Trevallack ; 
but  ye've  been  sair  tried  and  sair  vranged ;  and  here  is 
my  haun'  I " 


VIII. 

PRETTY   MARITZA  OF  TIRXOVA. 

I  AM  well   aware   that   in   giving   the   above   heading  to 
this  chapter  I  am  exposing  myself  to   scorn,  obloquy, 
and     contumely.       Throughout    life     I     have     consistently 
tried   to  be  a  man   of  truth  ;  but   I   am   mournfully  con- 
scious  that  this   attribute   will  now   be   strenuously  denied 
me.      "  To  speak    of    a    pretty  Bulgarian   woman,"   I   hear 
Mr.  Frederick  Boyle  assert  in  his  mild  yet  direct  manner, 
"  is   to  enunciate   a  contradiction  in  terms."      Mr.   Beatty- 
Kingston,  a  judge  of  the  sex,  will   probably  formulate  the 
axiom   that  "it  is  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  there 
can  be  a  pretty  Bulgarian  woman."     I  am  with  both  those 
gentlemen   to   a  modified  extent ;   physical  repulsiveness  is 
the  rule  as  regards  the  female  Bulgarian:    but  there  never 
was  a  rule  without  at  least  one  exception.      So   far  as  my 
experience    goes,    Maritza  of  Tirnova   was    the    unique   ex- 
ception.    Some  people  may  say  that  since  she  was  simply 
not    so    grim    as    were    her    fellow-countrywomen,   I   over- 
estimate her  attractions  in  describing  her  as  "  pretty ; "  but 
this  I   do  not   conceive    to   be    case.      For  I   have   a   con- 
stitutional dislike  to  a  pretty  woman,  although  my   impar- 
tiality compels  me  to  acknowlege  her  beauty.     I  have  never 
known  a  pretty  woman  who  was  not  impertinently  conscious 
of  her  charms,  and  who   did  not  conduct  herself  as  if  she 
herself  had  some  meritorious  share   in   the   construction  of 
herself  as  a  thing  of  beauty,  instead  of  being,  as  a  matter 
of    fact,    wholly    unconsidered    and    unconsulted    in    that 
operation.      That    this    illogical    self-consciousness    extends 
beyond  the  sphere  of  sophisticated  and  artificial  society,  was 
exemplified  somewhat  vividly  in  the  case  of  the  fair  Maritza 
of  Tirnova.     She  was   a   finished   coquette,  and  no   spoiled 
beauty  of  the  season   could   be   saucier.     When  I  met  her 


FROM  THE  DANUBE   TO   THE  BALKANS.  187 

I  was — well,  not  to  say  old :  the  proper  expression,  perhaps, 
would  be — in  my  mature  prime,  with  a  distinct  sprinkling 
of  grey  in  my  hyacinthine  locks.  I  ventured  to  make  a 
few  flattering  remarks  to  this  flower  of  a  primitive  semi- 
civilisation.  She  laughed,  made  a  mou,  and  cheerfully 
suggested  that  I  should  go  and  make  love  to  her  mother, 
a  portly  matron  of  an  advanced  age ;  she  herself  meanwhile 
renewing  her  flirtation  with  Villiers,  who  at  that  stage  of 
his  career  was  still  young  and  beautiful.  I  dispassionately 
cite  this  little  episode  to  vindicate  my  impartiality,  not- 
withstanding the  young  woman's  melancholy  lack  of  appre- 
ciation of  my  merits,  in  ascribing  to  her  the  epithet  of  the 
"  pretty  Maritza." 

It  was  not  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  the  young  lady 
in  question  that  we  had  penetrated  into  the  bowels  of  the 
ugly  and  squalid  Bulgaria — that  game,  even  to  the  more 
youthful  Villiers,  would  have  been  scarcely  worth  the 
candle.  The  fact  was  that  we  were  with  the  Russian  army 
which  crossed  the  Danube  in  the  end  of  June,  1877.  We 
had  been  with  gallant  old  Yolchine's  stout  soldiers  of  the 
Volhynia  and  Minsk  regiments  when  in  the  sullen  dark- 
ness of  the  early  morning  of  the  27th,  they  had  crossed 
the  Danube  in  the  pontoon  boats  and  had  fallen  upon  the 
Turkish  detachment  at  the  Tekir-Dere.  A  few  days  later 
the  pontoon  bridge  was  completed,  and  there  crossed  into 
Bulgaria  the  column,  18,000  strong  of  all  arms,  at  the  head 
of  which  Gourko  was  to  penetrate  into  the  Balkans  and 
take  in  reverse  the  Turkish  garrison  in  the  Passes.  Gourko 
pushed  on  ahead  of  his  infantry  with  his  two  cavalry 
brigades,  one  of  dragoons  commanded  by  Prince  Eugene 
of  Leuchtenberg,  and  one  of  hussars  commanded  by  the 
late  Duke  (Nicholas)  of  Leuchtenberg,  both  near  relatives 
of  the  Czar.  The  first  three  days'  march  was  over  a  bare, 
rolling  country  studded  with  villages  and  farms;  on  the 
morning  of  the  4th  of  July  we  were  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Zavada  gorge  in  the  trough  of  which  flows  the  Jantra, 
skirted  by  the  road  which  leads  up  to  the  irregular  precipice- 
fringed  mass  of  rock  on  which  Tirnova  is  built. 


188  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Turkish  troops  were  reported  still  in  possession  of  the 
town,  but  Gourko  drove  them  away  with  insignificant  loss 
and  we  entered  the  same  afternoon.  Tirnova  is  perched 
on  a  veritable  eyrie,  the  rock  summit  having  just  space  for 
a  cramped  market-place  and  a  tortuous  narrow  street, 
flanked  by  tall,  quaint-fronted  wooden  houses  with  projecting 
balconies  and  a  continuous  arcade  over  the  side-walks. 
MacGahan  had  been  in  Tirnova  in  the  previous  summer 
during  his  "atrocities"  investigations,  and  had  then  been 
the  guest  of  Maritza  and  her  mother,  to  whose  domicile  we 
were  all  now  heartily  welcomed.  Ascending  to  the  first 
floor — there  was  a  shop  on  the  street  level — we  found  our- 
selves in  a  spacious  lofty  room,  with  a  divan  along  all  the 
four  sides ;  the  floor  was  covered  with  fine  old  Eastern  rugs 
and  in  one  corner  was  the  shrine  or  ikon  with  a  lamp 
burning  in  front  of  it. 

We  were  well  fed,  our  meal  being  served  on  a  round 
table  about  a  foot  high,  around  which  we  lay  or  squatted 
on  the  rugs;  Maritza  sang  to  us  and  played  on  an  instru- 
ment whose  name  I  did  not  know,  making  eyes  at  Villiers 
all  the  time,  and  taking  occasion  to  wound  my  amour  propre 
in  the  manner  already  alluded  to — a  snub  which  atfbrded 
infinite  amusement  to  MacGahan,  who  was  a  genial  cynic 
in  his  easy-going  way. 

Next  morning  Gourko's  hussar  brigade  came  prancing 
through  the  town,  bands  playing,  colours  flying,  swords  at 
the  "carry,"  Prince  Eugene  curvetting  at  the  head  of  his 
command,  and  every  officer  and  every  trooper  making  the 
most  of  himself  in  the  eyes  of  the  "  good  brothers "  who 
were  being  rescued  from  Turkish  tyranny.  From  the 
Maritza  balcony  we  were  all  looking  down  on  the  martial 
scene,  Maritza  hi  raptures  over  the  brave  Russian  soldiers, 
kissing  her  hand  to  the  officers  whom  she  had  already 
distinguished  from  the  troopers,  and  babbling  "  Welcome, 
brothers!"  in  her  pretty  lisping  accent.  Villiers,  quite 
out  of  it,  was  salving  his  wounds  by  assiduous  sketching, 
and  MacGahan  was  exchanging  greetings  with  his  many 
friends  in  the  brigade.  Suddenly  MacGahan  gave  a  great 


THE  HANDSOME  HUSSAR.  189 

shout  of  astonishment,  bolted  down  into  the  street,  and  was 
presently  seen  to  be  dragging  a  hussar  officer  off  his  horse 
by  main  force.  This  feat  accomplished,  the  pair  were  visibly 
hugging  each  other  with  great  warmth.  A  word  to  the 
colonel,  a  direction  to  a  trooper  to  look  after  the  officer's 
horse;  and  then  MacGahan  led  his  friend  upstairs  into  the 
salon  of  the  Maritza  mansion  and  introduced  the  latter 
to  us  all. 

The  hussar  officer  was  certainly  one  of  the  handsomest 
men  I  have  ever  seen — tall,  square-shouldered,  clean-flanked, 
with  a  small  well-poised  head,  regular  features,  laughing 
blue  eyes,  and  a  smile  of  singular  winsomeness.  Closer 
inspection  revealed  lines  which  told  of  dissipation  and  a 
wild  reckless  life,  but  somehow  those  tell-tale  tokens  gave 
the  man  a  certain  added  attractiveness.  It  appeared  that 
MacGahan  and  this  Russian  officer,  whose  name  was  Andreio- 
vich,  had  been  close  comrades  in  the  Khivan  campaign  of 
1873.  His  career  had  been  a  strange  one — or,  rather,  it 
would  have  been  so  in  any  other  service  than  the  Russian. 
Of  a  noble  family,  he  had  begun  his  military  life  in  the  Guards. 
Three  years  of  St.  Petersburg  dissipation  saw  him  "  stone- 
broke"  and,  as  the  custom  is  in  respect  of  Guard  officers 
who  have  "expended"  themselves,  he  was  sent  to  serve  in 
the  army  of  Asia.  For  some  misconduct  he  had  been 
reduced  to  the  ranks,  but  had  retrieved  his  position  by  an 
act  of  signal  valour  in  the  Khivan  campaign;  and  later  he 
had  been  permitted  to  return  to  Europe  and  take  service 
in  the  hussar  regiment  in  which  he  now  commanded  a 
troop. 

Seated  side  by  side  on  the  divan  MacGahan  and  the 
officer  affectionately  recalled  many  reminiscences  of  their 
Khivan  intimacy;  but  I  noticed  that  the  subject  by  no 
means  wholly  engrossed  the  sprightly  Russian.  Maritza  sat 
by  her  musical  instrument,  occasionally  playing  a  note,  and 
ignoring  the  dashing  soldier  with  a  profound  intensity  that 
was  clearly  over-acted.  His  eyes,  on  the  contrary,  were 
continually  wandering  in  the  direction  of  the  artless  young 
coquette;  and  when  MacGahan  left  him  to  pay  a  visit  to 


190  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

General  Gourko,  the  captain  opened  the  trenches  with  a 
gay  insouciance  to  which  Maritza  could  not  help  but 
respond.  There  was  every  indication  in  the  earlier  stages 
of  the  affair  that  the  gallant  captain  regarded  himself  as 
irresistible,  and  assumed  that  his  success  would  be  of  the 
veni,  vidi,  vici  kind.  Maritza,  it  is  true,  had  little  know- 
ledge of  the  world,  but  nature  had  bestowed  on  her  a  gift 
that  was  a  full  equivalent.  She  parried  the  thrusts  of  the 
captain  with  a  demure  ingenuousness  that  irritated  him 
while  inspiring  him  with  additional  ardour ;  she  affected 
not  to  understand  the  meaning  of  his  impassioned  protesta- 
tions; and  on  the  third  day  drove  him  all  but  frantic  by 
informing  him  in  the  most  innocent  manner,  that  a  captain 
of  the  Leuchtenberg  dragoons  who  was  to  remain  in 
Tirnova  while  Gourko's  expedition  crossed  the  Balkans,  had 
been  billeted  on  her  mother.  The  same  evening  the 
dragoon  captain  took  up  his  quarters ;  and,  if  appearances 
went  for  anything,  promptly  fell  in  love  with  Maritza.  As 
the  latest  arrival  he  rather  scored  off  poor  Andreiovich, 
who  was  none  the  happier  that  he  had  to  leave  next 
morning  the  field  of  love  for  quite  another  field.  But  he 
did  not  depart  utterly  disconsolate ;  Maritza  was  kind  to 
him  as  he  took  his  farewell  on  the  staircase;  and  I  came 
to  the  belief  that  the  little  coquette  really  did  care  for  the 
handsome  hussar. 

Meanwhile  the  wooden  but  enamoured  dragoon  captain 
did  not  have  things  all  his  own  way.  Gourko's  people 
marched  away  on  the  morning  of  the  12th;  on  the  after- 
noon of  the  same  day  there  arrived  in  Tirnova  the  Grand 
Duke  Nicholas  the  commander-in-chief  of  the  army,  with 
a  great  staft  of  princes  and  nobles.  His  reception  in  the 
ancient  capital  was  full  of  character  and  enthusiasm.  At 
Zavada,  across  the  mouth  of  the  gorge  leading  up  to  the 
town,  a  picturesque  arch  had  been  constructed  with  branches 
of  trees  under  which  as  they  passed,  the  soldiers  un- 
covered without  orders  to  the  great  delight  of  the  Bulgarians. 
During  the  four  hundred  years  of  the  Turkish  supremacy 
no  Christian  bell  had  chimed  throughout  all  the  land,  but 


TEE  BELLS  RING  OUT.  191 

the  old  bells  had  been  hidden  away  until  the  day  of 
emancipation  should  come;  and  now  from  the  two  high- 
perched  monasteries  overhanging  the  gorge  came  the  blithe 
carillon  to  the  sound  of  which  the  venerable  priests  came 
down  to  meet  the  brother  of  the  Czar  with  banners  and 
pictures  and  with  a  large  old  Bible  in  the  now  obsolete 
Sclavonic  which  the  soldiers  kissed  as  they  passed.  At 
the  chief  entrance  of  the  town  the  Grand  Duke  was  met 
by  robed  priests  chanting  prayers,  and  by  great  crowds  of 
townsfolk.  After  a  short  service  in  the  quaint  old  Byzan- 
tine church  he  passed  through  the  streets  preceded  by  a 
crowd  of  girls  singing.  Flowers  and  wreaths  rained  down 
upon  him  from  the  windows  —  Maritza  extremely  active  in 
this  department — and  the  town  rang  with  joy  and  excite- 
ment. 

The  Grand  Duke  was  quartered  in  the  Konak,  which 
had  been  somewhat  hurriedly  evacuated  by  the  Turkish 
Governor  a  few  days  previously;  but  for  a  large  proportion 
of  his  Highness's  staff  billets  had  to  be  found  in  the  houses 
of  the  inhabitants.  They  were  delighted  to  show  hospi- 
tality to  the  Russian  officers.  Maritza's  mother  received  a 
young  gentleman  of  distinction — if  my  recollection  serves 
me  right — none  other  than  the  Prince  Alexander  of  Batten- 
berg  whom  the  world  later  knew  as  Prince  Alexander  of 
Bulgaria,  and  who  was  more  recently  known  under  the 
title  of  Count  Hartenau.  Maritza  would  not  have  been 
true  to  herself  if  she  had  not  done  her  level  best  to  fas- 
cinate this  young  pseudo-Serenity,  but  his  Highness  was 
not  found  to  be  more  than  civilly  susceptible.  What  might 
have  happened  if  the  stay  in  Tirnova  of  the  headquarter 
staff  had  been  prolonged,  it  is  impossible  to  guess.  Maritza 
might  have  become  for  a  time  the  foremost  Bulgarian  of 
her  sex,  since  subsequent  events  proved  that  the  Prince 
did  not  regard  rank  'n  a  wife  as  indispensable.  But  he 
was  at  the  mercy  of  Maritza  only  for  a  few  days ;  and 
when  he  went  away  with  his  chief  she  had  only  the  dra- 
goon captain  to  operate  upon.  This  officer  was  not  so 
impetuous  as  his  hussar  rival ;  he  knew  how  to  dissemble 


192  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

his  love,  and  Maritza  by  no  means  had  it  all  her  own  way 
with  him. 

Piqued  by  the  dragoon's  strategic  reserve  Maritza  exerted 
all  her  blandishments,  and  the  captain  thawed  by  degrees 
until  at  length  he  melted  altogether.  It  was  then  Maritza's 
turn  to  hold  off,  the  more  so  that  she  really  cared  nothing 
for  the  dragoon  officer  and  merely  was  amusing  herself 
povjT  passer  le  temps.  Early  in  August  Andreiovich  returned 
to  Tirnova,  after  sharing  in  Gourko's  wonderful  and  adven- 
turous raid  to  the  southward  of  the  Balkans.  I  had  ridden 
out  to  Nikup  to  meet  the  returning  squadrons  which 
MacGahan  had  accompanied,  and  to  hear  the  detailed  account 
of  their  adventures.  We  spent  the  night  in  that  village 
gossiping  with  the  returned  wanderers.  Andreiovich  had 
won  the  St.  George's  Cross.  He  had  ascended  the  Schipka 
from  the  south,  had  been  in  the  fire  treacherously  given  by 
the  Turks  after  they  had  displayed  the  white  flag,  and  on 
the  following  day  had  seen  the  headless  Russian  corpses 
strewn  over  the  slope  before  the  abandoned  Russian  camp, 
and  the  Russian  heads  which  in  wanton  devilry  the  Turks 
had  severed  from  the  bodies  and  piled  in  a  symmetrical 
heap  with  the  faces  outward.  He  had  ridden  with  his 
squadron  southward  from  Eski  Zagra,  crossed  the  Maritza 
River  at  Giiterbii,  and  destroyed  a  section  of  the  Adrianople 
and  Philippopolis  Railway;  and  when  Sulieman  Pasha  sud- 
denly surrounded  Prince  Leuchtenberg  in  Eski  Zagra,  he 
had  gained  distinction  by  his  cool  daring  in  the  cavalry 
charge  which  cut  through  the  Turks'  environment  of  that 
town,  and  enabled  the  Russian  horsemen  to  relieve  the 
pressure  on  Gourko's  right  wing.  He  had  shared  the  miseries 
of  the  retreat  through  the  Dalboka  and  Hankioi  Passes,  dur- 
ing which  the  wounded  died  like  flies  from  jolting  and  ex- 
posure and  hale  men  succumbed  from  fatigue  and  sunstroke. 

It  was  not  he,  the  reader  may  be  sure,  who  told  us  all 
those  exploits  of  the  young  hussar;  indeed,  during  the 
recital  he  evinced  considerable  impatience,  and  on  the  first 
available  opportunity  he  asked  me  to  take  a  stroll  with  him 
in  the  twilight.  He  wanted  to  know  all  about  Maritza,  and 


A  DUEL  IN  PROSPECT.  193 

what  were  the  relations  between  her  and  Sablanoff — that 
I  should  have  mentioned  earlier,  was  the  name  of  the  dragoon 
captain.  I  was  strictly  non-committal;  Andreiovich  became 
huffed,  and  we  parted.  I  rejoined  the  other  officers  and  saw 
no  more  of  him  that  night. 

Next  morning  early  I  rode  towards  Tirnova,  and  a  mile 
outside  came  on  Andreiovich  sitting  on  horseback  under  a 
tree,  evidently  waiting  for  me.  A  glance  at  his  face  showed 
me  that  he  was  in  a  state  of  excitement.  He  came  at  me  as 
if  he  intended  to  ride  me  down,  roaring :  "  That  pig !  That 
what  you  call  low  cad ! "  1  refused  to  speak  to  him  until 
he  moderated  his  tone,  and  he  became  quieter.  "  When  I 
left  you  last  evening,"  said  he,  "  I  rode  into  Tirnova,  gave 
up  my  horse,  and  went  straight  to  Maritza's  house.  I  entered 
without  warning,  and  lo !  Maritza  and  Sablanotf  sat  together 
on  the  divan,  abominably  close,  my  friend,  and  I  believe  his 
arm  was  round  her  waist !  The  interloping  dog  knew  well 
my  prior  intentions,  and  it  was  mean  beyond  conception  on 
his  part  to  take  advantage  of  a  brother  officer  when  absent 
on  service  in  the  field.  I  told  him  so  with  great  fervour  and 
directness,  and  then  I  called  him  a  cochon,  pulled  his  nose, 
and  cut  him  across  the  shoulders  with  my  riding-whip.  Of 
course  he  must  fight,  and,  to  do  him  justice  as  a  Russian 
officer,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  suppose  that  he  can  have  any 
wish  to  evade  fighting." 

Now  the  regulations  of  the  Russian  military  service  pro- 
hibit duelling  by  officers,  but  it  is  nevertheless  winked  at 
so  long  as  the  casus  belli  is  not  of  a  disreputable  character ; 
only  under  no  conditions  are  officers  allowed  to  act  as  seconds. 
Andreiovich  requisitioned  my  services  in  this  capacity,  and 
I  reluctantly  consented  to  act  on  his  behalf;  a  German 
ex-officer  who  was  corresponding  for  a  Berlin  paper,  agreed 
to  be  the  second  of  the  dragoon  captain.  The  latter,  in  his 
cool,  sententious  way,  was  extremely  bloodthirsty.  He 
demanded  that  the  duel  should  be  fought  with  revolvers,  the 
firing  to  be  maintained  until  results  occurred  or  the  weapons 
be  emptied.  The  hussar,  who  as  the  challenged  had  the 
choice  of  weapons,  fell  in  warmly  with  the  views  of  his 

N 


194  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

antagonist  in  the  matter  of  weapons,  and  was  resolute  that 
the  duel  should  be  a  outrance.  The  German  ex-officer 
turned  out  a  vicarious  tire-eater ;  and  my  task,  that  of  modi- 
fying the  ferocity  of  the  combat,  was  no  easy  one.  At  length, 
by  arguing  that  it  beseemed  cavalry  officers  to  fight  with 
the  weapon  of  that  service  to  which  they  belonged,  I  succeeded 
in  bringing  it  about  that  the  duel  should  be  fought  with 
sabres,  and  hoped  that  the  worst  that  would  happen  would 
be  a  flesh  wound  or  two.  The  meeting  took  place  in  a  wood 
close  to  Tirnova  one  morning  soon  after  daybreak.  Andreio- 
vich  pushed  the  attack  from  the  first,  Sablanoff,  who  was 
the  cooler  man  and  the  better  swordsman,  standing  on  the 
defensive.  But  it  happened  that  once  the  latter  missed  his 
guard,  and  the  nimble  hussar  promptly  giving  point  ran  his 
sabre  through  the  dragoon's  left  shoulder  so  forcibly  that  a 
foot  of  the  weapon  came  out  behind. 

Mischief  would  have  come  of  it  had  we  carried  Sablanoff 
to  the  military  hospital ;  and  we  had  no  alternative  but 
to  bring  him  to  his  billet  in  the  Maison  Maritza  and  have 
him  seen  to  there  by  the  surgeon  of  his  regiment,  who  might 
be  trusted  to  report  him  ill  of  some  other  malady  than  a 
sabre-thrust.  Maritza  had  known  nothing  of  the  duel  before 
its  occurrence;  and  when  she  had  to  be  told  of  it  as 
the  wounded  man  was  being  brought  into  the  house,  she 
showed  truer  and  deeper  feeling  than  I  had  given  her  credit 
for  possessing.  Coquette  though  she  was  the  girl  had  a 
heart,  and  was  honestly  shocked  that  she  should  have  been 
the  cause  of  the  shedding  of  blood.  Her  repentance  was 
most  genuine.  She  nursed  the  wounded  Sablanoff  with  un- 
remitting care.  When  Andreiovich  came  to  see  her  the 
day  after  the  duel,  and  reproached  her — not  very  severely— 
for  having  caused  it,  she  owned  her  fault  with  many  tears, 
entreated  his  forgiveness,  confessed  that  all  her  heart  belonged 
to  him,  and  definitely  plighted  her  troth  to  the  handsome 
hussar.  He  would  fain  have  perpetrated  matrimony  then 
and  there,  so  ardent  were  his  emotions ;  but  Maritza,  although 
in  love,  had  not  wholly  taken  leave  of  her  senses,  and  pre- 
vailed on  him  to  wait  until  the  war  was  over. 


IN  THE  NICK  OF  TIME.  195 

Such  renown  had  Andreiovich  earned  in  the  Gourko 
expedition  that  on  his  return  to  Tirnova,  stout  old  General 
Radetsky  the  commander  of  the  8th  Army  Corps,  appointed 
him  to  his  staff  in  the  capacity  of  aide-de-camp.  During 
the  quiet  days  in  Tirnova  the  duties  of  that  billet  were 
very  light,  and  the  hussar  was  free  to  spend  most  of  his 
time  in  the  society  of  his  pretty  Maritza.  But  this  halcyon 
interval  of  love-making  was  to  be  of  short  duration.  About 
the  middle  of  August  there  came  tidings  to  Radetsky  that 
Sulieman's  Turkish  army  some  50,000  strong,  was  threat- 
ening the  Balkan  passes  from  the  south.  General  Darozinski 
with  but  some  5,000  men  was  holding  the  Schipka ;  to 
strengthen  him  Radetsky  ordered  a  regiment  from  Selvi, 
commanded  by  the  Colonel  Stolietoff  who  a  year  later  was 
the  head  of  the  Russian  Mission  to  Cabul  which  caused  the 
Afghan  war  of  1878-79.  Radetsky  himself,  thinking  the 
Elena  Pass  in  greatest  danger  hurried  thither  with  a  brigade  ; 
but  presently  learned  it  was  the  Schipka  against  Avhich  the 
Turks  were  concentrating,  and  therefore  made  for  that 
position  with  all  the  speed  he  could  compass.  No  man  was 
ever  nearer  being  too  late  than  was  he  when  he  climbed 
the  Schipka  on  the  afternoon  of  August  23rd.  For  three 
long  days  40,000  Turks  with  a  powerful  artillery  had  been 
continually  assailing  the  gallant  handful  commanded  by 
Darozinski  and  Stolietoft'.  As  the  sun  was  sinking,  the 
Turks  had  so  wound  round  both  the  Russian  flanks  that  the 
Moslem  soldiery  were  on  the  point  of  joining  hands  in  the 
Russian  rear. 

A  reinforcement  opportunely  arrived,  consisting  of  a 
battalion  of  riHernen  brought  up  on  Cossack  horses  by 
Radetsky  himself,  who,  having  saved  the  day  and  the  position, 
was  now  marching  up  the  road  with  his  staff  at  his  back, 
and  running  the  triple  gauntlet  of  the  Turkish  fire  to  join 
the  two  commanders  on  the  peak  close  to  the  battery  of 
the  first  position.  But  one  member  of  the  general's  staff 
was  not  following  him.  In  front  of  the  sombre  green  line 
of  riflemen  down  the  glen  I  marked  a  figure  in  blue  uniform, 
and  when  the  detachment  returned  from  its  successful  dash, 
N  2 


196  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

there  came  marching  on  its  flank  that  extremely  reckless 
warrior,  Captain  Andreiovich.  He  said  the  general  had 
given  him  permission  to  take  part  in  the  lively  affair,  but — 
well,  I  shall  not  pursue  the  subject. 

Of  the  following  day,  the  24th  of  August,  I  never  think 
without  a  shudder.  The  Russian  position  was  on  a  long 
serpentine  ridge  along  the  top  of  which  ran  the  road, 
spreading  out  somewhat  toward  the  summit  where  was  the 
earthwork  known  as  Fort  St.  Nicholas.  On  each  side  of 
this  ridge  there  was  a  deep  depression,  beyond  which,  both 
right  and  left  of  the  central  ridge,  stretched  a  parallel 
elevation  held  by  the  Turks,  whose  fire  commanded  and 
swept  the  whole  length  of  the  Russian  position.  There  was 
no  spot  on  the  central  ridge  which  was  not  exposed  to  fire. 
At  the  bandaging  place  men  already  wounded  were  killed ; 
the  surgeons  were  shot  in  the  midst  of  their  ministrations 
to  the  wounded.  The  cooks  were  struck  down  as  they 
tended  the  soup-kettles  far  to  the  rear.  General  Darozinski 
was  killed  while  resting  on  what  was  thought  the  shelter 
of  a  reverse  slope.  General  Petroceni  was  slain  away  back 
among  the  reserves.  General  Dragomiroff  was  wounded 
when  on  the  glacis  of  St.  Nicholas,  and  among  those  who 
took  part  in  carrying  that  gallant  officer  to  the  hut  which 
did  duty  as  a  field  hospital,  only  two  (of  whom  I  was  one) 
escaped  injury  from  bullet  fire.  The  Turks  made  attack 
after  attack  with  extraordinary  dash  and  resolution ;  but  the 
Russian  resistance  was  stubborn,  and  as  the  day  began  to 
wane  Radetsky  believed  that  the  time  had  come  for  him  to 
take  the  offensive.  The  Tirailleurs  and  the  Brianski  regi- 
ment were  thrust  down  into  the  deep  wooded  hollow  inter- 
vening between  the  Russian  ridge  and  the  steep  slope 
leading  up  to  the  "Woody  Mountain"  on  which  the  Turks 
had  a  battery  and  redoubt.  For  hours  the  struggle  swayed 
to  and  fro  down  there  among  the  trees.  There  is  some- 
thing exceptionally  gruesome  about  a  fight  in  a  wood.  You 
can  see  nought  save  an  occasional  glimpse  of  dark  colour 
among  the  foliage,  and  the  white  clouds  of  smoke  rising 
above  it  like  soap-  bubbles.  Hoarse  shouts  and  shrill  cries  come 


THE    UNSPEAKABLE   TURK.  197 

back  on  the  wind  from  out  the  mysterious  inferno.  Wounded 
men  come  staggering  out  from  among  the  swarthy  trunks,  and 
collapse  in  a  heap  or  crawl  backwards  to  the  ambulance  men. 

To  help  the  riflemen  and  Brianskis,  the  two  battalions 
of  the  Jitomer  regiment  were  summoned  from  their  shelter 
in  the  ditch  of  St.  Nicholas  Fort,  and  went  away  to  the 
right  almost  along  the  sky  line.  Covered  by  artillery  fire 
they  made  good  progress  for  a  while,  but  then  came  to  a 
standstill.  The  battalions  had  left  two  companies  behind 
to  act  as  supports.  Radetsky  took  one  company  his  chief- 
of-staff  another,  and  led  them  on  to  the  fight.  His  staff 
accompanied  the  brave  old  chief.  I  shook  hands  with 
Andreiovich,  as  with  a  smile  in  his  eye  and  a  cigarette 
between  his  lips  he  lingered  one  moment  to  give  me  a 
message  in  case  he  should  not  come  back. 

And  he  did  not  come  back.  I  watched  him  till  the 
handful  of  reinforcements  entered  the  wood,  and  then  I 
could  see  nothing  more.  But  the  Jitomers  did  not  succeed, 
although  they  lost  enormously  in  the  stubbornly-made 
attempt.  They  came  back  a  good  deal  broken  up,  with 
heavy  loss  of  officers,  and  nobody  could  tell  when  or  how 
Andreiovich  had  gone  down.  For  my  own  part  I  do  not 
hesitate  to  admit  that  I  fervently  hoped  my  poor  friend 
had  been  shot  dead ;  for  the  warfare  in  which  the  Russians 
were  engaged  had  a  feature  of  savagery  which  marked  the 
perpetrators  as  unworthy  to  rank  among  civilised  nations. 
The  Turks  invariably  slaughtered  their  wounded  antagonists 
found  by  them  on  the  field,  and  the  butchery  was  freely 
accompanied  by  aggravations  of  barbarity  and  torture  such 
as  cannot  be  described.  In  common  with  all  Russian 
officers,  Andreiovich  carried  a  dagger  with  which  to  take 
his  own  life  in  case  of  being  wounded  and  left  without  a 
chance  of  removal  by  the  Russian  Krankentrager. 

Radetsky,  although  he  had  not  entirely  made  good  the 
position,  had  so  prospered  that  when  leaving  him  in  the 
evening  I  ventured  to  express  my  belief  that  he  need  not  fear 
dislodgment.  "  With  God's  help,"  said  the  old  warrior,  "  I 
shall  hold  on  here  till  I  am  ordered  away." 


198  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Early  next  morning  I  was  in  the  Imperial  head-quarters  at 
Gomi  Studen,  where,  as  the  bearer  of  the  latest  intelligence,  I 
was  called  on  to  report  the  same  to  the  Tzar.  Thence  I 
hurried  to  the  telegraph  office  at  Bucharest,  and,  my  telegram 
despatched,  immediately  began  my  return  journey  towards  the 
Schipka. 

On  my  way  down  therefrom  I  had  made  a  short  detour 
into  Tirnova  on  the  melancholy  errand  of  breaking  to  poor 
Maritza  the  sad  tidings  regarding  her  betrothed.  Minutes  were 
of  importance  to  me,  and  I  had  left  the  poor  girl  in  a  dead 
faint  in  her  mother's  arms.  On  my  return  I  found  no  Maritza 
in  the  Tirnova  house.  Her  mother  told  me  sadly  that  on  the 
morning  after  my  night  visit  she  had  started  for  the  Schipka, 
refusing  the  companionship  of  the  mother,  because  of  the 
certain  absence  of  such  comfort  as  the  old  lady  was  accus- 
tomed to. 

Returning  to  the  Schipka  on  the  fifth  day  after  having 
quitted  it,  I  found  Radetsky  drinking  tea,  seated  hi  a  bower  of 
leaves  perched  on  the  summit  of  the  peak.  "  Here  I  am," 
said  he,  "  as  I  told  you  I  should  be  ;  and  there  are  no  bullets 
flying  now.  Berdek,  the  Woody  Mountain,  and  the  Bald 
Mountain  are  now  clear  of  Turks  ;  they  have  got  their  belly- 
ful of  fighting,  and  are  now  licking  their  wounds  down  below 
in  the  valley  villages." 

You  could  still  get  shot  on  the  outlying  spurs  if  you 
wanted  to  very  badly,  for  occasional  Turks  did  continue  to 
prowl ;  but  the  chief  was  substantially  correct.  It  would  have 
been  pleasanter  if  he  had  employed  burial  parties  a  little  more 
freely,  but  Radetsky  was  not  a  fastidious  person.  In  the  stone 
hut  on  the  ridge  which  had  been  the  field  hospital,  I  found 
poor  Maritza  tending  two  soldiers  so  severely  wounded  that 
they  could  not  be  moved.  She  had  in  her  possession  her 
lover's  uniform  all  torn  and  soiled  with  blood  and  clay.  The 
sorry  fragments  had  been  found  in  a  little  hollow  somewhat 
wide  of  the  line  of  the  charge,  and  there  lay  beside  them  a 
naked  corpse  whose  state  was  such  after  three  days'  exposure 
to  sun  and  weather,  that  no  identification  was  possible. 
Maritza  steadily  refused  to  believe  that  the  body  was  that  of 


NARirZA  MARRIED.  10D 

Andreiovich,  but  she  was  alone  in  her  conviction  ;  and  indeed 
the  name  of  Captain  Michael  Andreiovich  of  the  9th  Hussars 
had  been  included  among  the  "  killed  "  in  the  supplement  to 
General  Radetsky's  despatch. 

I  tried  in  vain  to  persuade  Maritza  to  return  with  me  to 
her  mother.  Her  pretext  for  refusal  was  her  duty  to  the  two 
poor  broken  fellows  whom  she  was  nursing ;  but  it  was  not 
difficult  to  perceive  she  still  hoped  against  hope  that  her  lover 
might  yet  turn  up.  The  Gabrova  woman  who  was  sharing  the 
nursing  duty  promised  faithfully  that  as  soon  as  the  two 
wounded  men  were  dead — they  were  beyond  recovery — she 
herself  would  accompany  Maritza  down  to  Tirnova  and  would 
not  leave  her  till  she  was  in  her  mother's  arms.  So  I  bade  a 
sad  farewell  to  the  poor  wan-faced  girl,  so  changed  from  the 
still  recent  days  of  coquetry ;  and  departed  to  another  section 
of  the  theatre  of  war,  where  amid  the  carnage  of  Plevna  I 
did  not  lose  the  memory  of  the  tragedy  now  associated  in  my 
mind  with  the  once  gay  Maritza. 

It  was  in  the  Podo  Mogosoi  of  Bucharest  in  the  following 
February  that,  to  my  unutterable  surprise,  I  met  Maritza  arm- 
in-arm  with  Andreiovich,  he  in  civilian  dress  and  walking  very 
lame  with  the  support  of  a  stick. 

"  Yes,"  said  Maritza,  all  her  archness  restored,  "  this  fellow 
one  morning  last  month  coolly  sauntered  into  our  house,  sup- 
ported on  crutch  and  staff  and  with  one  leg  supported  by  a 
strap  round  his  neck,  condescended  to  kiss  me,  and  then  sat 
down  and  demanded  vodki.  Since  then,  I  may  inform  you,  I 
have  amused  myself  by  marrying  him.  I've  told  you  all  that 
is  important;  he  must  give  himself  the  trouble  of  recounting 
the  details."  We  went  into  Brofft's  restaurant,  and  Andreiovich 
told  his  strange  story : — 

"  During  our  attack  on  the  Woody  Mountain  a  Turk  and  I 
were  at  close  quarters,  when  a  bullet  shattered  my  leg  and  I 
rolled  into  a  hollow  carrying  along  with  me  the  Turk  whom  I 
killed  with  my  dagger.  Averting  faintness  by  resorting  to  my 
flask,  I  first  bandaged  my  leg ;  and  hoping  to  escape  the  fate 
which  so  many  of  our  poor  wounded  fellows  incur,  I  tore  oft' 
my  uniform,  stripped  the  dead  Turk,  and  contrived  to  work 


200  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

myself  into  his  garments.  All  night  1  lay  there  uninterfered 
with,  but  suffering  great  agony.  Early  on  the  following  morning 
there  passed  close  to  me,  going  to  the  front,  a  tall  man  in  the 
dress  of  a  Turkish  officer.  I  was  about  to  risk  it  and  call  to 
him,  when  he  tripped  over  a  root  and  as  he  recovered  himself 
I  distinctly  heard  him  say  '  Damn.'  That  satisfied  me  he  was 
an  Englishman,  and  I  addressed  him  in  your  language.  He 
was  most  kind.  His  name  was  Campbell,  and  he  commanded 
a  battalion  in  Sulieman's  army.*  He  got  a  stretcher  on  which 
I  was  placed,  Campbell's  Turks,  who  carried  me,  believing  that 
I  was  a  wounded  countryman.  Campbell  accompanied  me 
down  into  Schipka  village  and  handed  me  over  to  the  care  of 
the  British  surgeons  of  the  Red  Crescent  organisation.  Drs. 
Leslie,  Hume,  and  Sand  with  treated  me  with  the  greatest  skill 
and  assiduity,  but  months  passed  and  I  Avas  still  on  my  back. 
Sulieman  marched  westward  about  the  New  Year,  leaving 
Yessil  Pasha  at  and  about  the  Schipka  with  some  40,000  men. 
You  must  have  heard  how  Radetsky,  Mirsky,  and  Skobeleff 
came  wallowing  through  the  ten-feet  deep  SUOAV  on  the  Schipka 
in  January,  and  how  Skobeleff  after  a  desperate  struggle  for 
the  possession  of  the  Shenova  redoubts,  received  the  surrender 
of  Vessil  and  his  whole  army.  That  evening  I  ceased  to  be  a 
wounded  Turk  and  became  a  lame  Russian — good  for  no  more 
soldiering,  worse  luck.  When  the  track  got  beaten  over  the 
pass,  I  found  a  Turkish  pony  on  which  I  rode  into  Gabrova 
and  thence  down  the  valley  to  Tirnova.  Maritza  didn't  in  the 
least  expect  to  see  me  any  more ;  but  I  will  say  this  for  her, 
that  although  that  dragoon  fellow  was  still  wistfully  promenad- 
ing Tirnova,  she  never  gave  him  the  slightest  encouragement. 
One  fine  morning  she  went  to  church  with  me  and  came 
out  Madame  Andreiovich;  and  now  we  are  on  our  way  to 
Russia,  when  I  shall  have  to  make  things  unpleasant  for  my 
father  if  he  does  not  behave  handsomely  to  us." 

And  so  now  there  is  not  any  more  a  "  pretty  Maritza  "  in 
Tirnova. 

*  He  •was  a  man  of  ex  -optional  darinir,  who,  having  seen  much  service  in 
many  countries,  was  killed  in  the  attack  on  Sekukuni's  Mountain  in  South 
Africa,  -when  in  command  of  the  Swazi  contingent. 


IX. 

THE   DEATH   OF   THE   PRINCE    IMPERIAL. 

IT  was  in  Zululand,  on  the  evening  of  June  1, 1879.  A  little 
group  of  us  were  at  dinner  in  the  tent  of  General  Marshall, 
who  commanded  the  cavalry  brigade  in  the  British  army 
Avhich  was  marching  on  Ulundi,  King  Cetewayo's  royal 
kraal.  The  sun  was  just  going  down  when  Colonel  Harrison, 
the  quartermaster-general,  put  his  head  inside  the  tent  door, 
and  called  aloud  in  a  strange  voice,  "  Good  God  !  the  Prince 
Imperial  is  killed!"  Harrison,  though  stolid,  sometimes 
jested,  and  for  the  moment  this  announcement  was  not  taken 
seriously.  Lord  Downe,  Marshall's  aide-de-camp,  threw  a  crust 
of  bread  at  his  head,  and  Herbert  Stewart,  then  Marshall's 
brigade-major,  afterwards  killed  during  the  desert  march  in  the 
Soudan,  laughed  aloud. 

But,  sitting  near  the  door,  I  discerned  in  the  faint  light  of 
the  dying  day  the  horror  in  Harrison's  face,  and  sprang  to  my 
feet  instinctively.  The  news  was  only  too  fatally  true ;  and 
when  the  dismal,  broken  story  of  the  survivors  of  the  party 
had  been  told,  throughout  the  force  there  was  a  thrill  of 
sorrow  for  the  poor  gallant  lad,  a  burning  sense  of  shame 
that  he  should  have  been  so  miserably  left  to  his  fate,  and  a 
deep  sympathy  for  the  forlorn  widow  in  England  on  whom 
fortune  seemed  to  rejoice  in  heaping  disaster  on  disaster, 
bereavement  on  bereavement. 

I  knew  the  Prince  well.  On  the  first  two  occasions  I  saw 
him  it  was  through  a  binocular  from  a  considerable  distance. 
On  August  2,  1870,  the  day  on  which  the  boy  of  fourteen  in 
the  words  of  his  father  "  received  his  baptism  of  fire,"  I  was 
watching  from  the  drill-ground  above  Saarbriicken  in  com- 
pany with  the  last  remaining  Prussian  soldiers,  the  oncoming 
swarm-attack  of  Battaille's  tirailleurs  firing  as  they  hurried 
across  the  plain.  The  tirailleurs  had  passed  a  little  knoll 


202  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

which  rose  in  the  plain  about  midway  between  the  Spicheren 
hill  and  where  I  stood,  and  presently  it  was  crowned  by  two 
horsemen  followed  by  a  great  staff.  The  glass  told  me  that 
without  a  doubt  the  senior  of  the  foremost  horsemen  was  the 
Emperor  Napoleon,  and  that  the  younger,  shorter  and  slighter 
— a  mere  boy  he  looked — was  the  Prince  Imperial,  whom  we 
knew  to  be  with  his  father  in  the  field. 

A  fortnight  later,  in  the  early  morning  of  the  15th,  the 
day  before  Mars-la-Tour  when  the  German  army  was  as  yet 
only  east  and  south  of  Metz,  I  accompanied  a  German  horse- 
battery  which,  galloping  up  to  within  five  hundred  paces  of 
the  chateau  of  Longueville  around  Avhich  was  a  French  camp 
of  some  size,  opened  fire  on  chateau  and  camp.  After  a  few 
shells  had  been  fired  great  confusion  was  observed  about  the 
chateau  and  in  the  camp,  and  I  distinctly  discerned  the  Emperor 
and  his  son  emerge  from  the  building,  mount,  and  gallop  away, 
followed  by  suite  and  escort. 

Years  later  in  Zululand,  when  the  day's  work  was  done  for 
both  of  us  and  the  twilight  was  falling  on  the  rolling  veldt, 
the  Prince  was  Avont  occasionally  to  gossip  with  me  about  those 
early  days  of  the  great  war  which  we  had  witnessed  from  oppo- 
site sides,  and  he  told  me  his  experiences  of  the  morning  just 
mentioned.  A  crash  awoke  him  with  a  start  and  he  was  sitting 
up  in  bed,  bewildered,  when  his  father  entered  with  the  exclam- 
ation "  Up,  Louis  !  up  and  dress !  The  German  shells  are 
crashing  through  the  roofs."  As  the  Prince  looked  out  of  the 
window  while  he  was  hurriedly  dressing,  he  saw  a  shell  fall  and 
burst  in  a  group  of  officers  seated  in  the  garden  at  breakfast,  and 
when  the  smoke  lifted  three  of  them  lay  dead.  That  the  story 
of  his  nerves  having  been  shattered  by  the  bullet-fire  at  Saar- 
briicken  was  untrue,  was  proved  by  an  episode  he  related  to  me  of 
that  same  morning  an  hour  later.  On  the  steep  ascent  of  the 
chaussee  up  to  Chatel  the  imperial  party  was  wedged  in  the 
heart  of  a  complete  block  of  troops,  waggons,  and  guns.  A 
long  delay  seemed  inevitable.  But  the  lad  had  noticed  a 
wayside  gate  whence  a  track  led  up  through  the  vineyard. 
He  followed  it  to  the  crest  and  marked  its  trend ;  then,  riding 
back,  he  called  aloud  "  This  way,  papa ! "  The  Prince's 


THE  PRINCE  AT   WOOLWICH.  203 

side -track  turned  the  block,  and  presently  the  party  were  hi 
the  new  quarters  in  the  house  which  is  now  the  post-office  of 
Gravelotte. 

That  excellent  American  publication  "  Johnson's  Universal 
Cyclopaedia,"  errs  for  once  in  stating  that  after  the  downfall 
of  the  empire  the  Prince  "  escaped  with  his  mother  to 
England."  He  never  saw  his  mother  after  leaving  Paris  for 
the  seat  of  war  until  she  came  to  him  in  Hastings  after  the 
revolution  in  Paris.  When  the  shadows  were  darkening  on 
MacMahon's  ill-fated  march,  the  Emperor  sent  his  son  away 
from  the  front ;  and  the  story  of  the  vicissitudes  and  dangers 
the  lad  encountered  before  reaching  England  after  Sedan 
would  make  of  itself  a  long  chapter. 

When  his  parents  settled  at  Chislehurst,  the  Prince,  then 
in  his  fifteenth  year,  entered  the  Royal  Academy  at  Woolwich 
to  receive  a  scientific  military  education.  He  had  not  under- 
gone the  usual  preparation,  and  he  might  have  joined  without 
the  preliminary  examination ;  but  never  then  nor  throughout 
the  course  would  he  accept  any  indulgence,  and  his  "pre- 
liminary "  was  satisfactory  in  spite  of  his  want  of  familiarity 
with  the  language.  In  the  United  States  West  Point  affords 
the  same  instruction  to  all  cadets  alike,  those,  who  are  most 
successful  passing  into  the  scientific  branches  ;  but  in  England 
the  cadets  for  the  Line  are  educated  at  Sandhurst,  and  the 
severer  tuition  of  Woolwich  is  restricted  to  candidates  for  the 
engineer  and  artillery  branches.  The  Prince  took  his 
chance  with  his  comrades  both  at  work  and  play.  His 
mathematical  instructor  has  stated  that  he  had  considerable 
powers,  evincing  an  undoubtedly  clear  insight  into  the 
principles  of  the  higher  mathematics ;  but  he  added  that  he 
often  failed  to  bring  out  specifically  his  knowledge  at 
examinations,  owing  to  his  imperfect  grasp  of  the  necessary 
formulae  and  working  details.:  :Indeed,  details  wearied  him, 
then  and  later.  In  Zululand  he  more  than  once  told  me  that 
he  "hated  desk  work;"  and  M.  Deleage,  his  countryman 
and  friend  who  accompanied  the  Zululand  expedition,  wrote 
that  on  the  day  before  his  death  after  he  had  left  the  staff 
office  tent,  "  Lieutenant  Carey  found  the  Prince's  work  done 


204  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

with  so  much  haste  and  inattention  that  he  had  to  sit  up  all 
night  correcting  it."  In  spite  of  this  defect  in  steady  con- 
centration at  the  end  of  his  Woolwich  course  he  passed 
seventh  in  a  class  of  thirty-live,  and  had  he  gone  into  the 
English  service  he  would  have  been  entitled  to  choose  be- 

O 

tween  the  engineers  and  artillery.  He  would  have  stood 
higher  but  that,  curiously  enough,  he  comparatively  failed  in 
French.  He  was  an  easy  first  in  equitation.  During  his 
Woolwich  career  he  won  the  love  and  respect  of  his  com- 
rades ;  his  instructors  spoke  warmly  of  his  modesty,  conscien- 
tiousness, and  uprightness,  and  pronounced  him  truthful  and 
honourable  in  a  high  degree. 

After  leaving  Woolwich  he  lived  mostly  with  his  widowed 
mother  at  Chislehurst,  but  travelled  on  the  Continent 
occasionally,  and  mixed  a  good  deal  in  London  society  where 
from  time  to  time  I  met  him.  After  he  attained  manhood  it 
was  understood  that  a  marriage  was  projected  between  him 
and  the  Princess  Beatrice,  the  youngest  of  the  Queen's 
daughters,  who  is  now  the  wife  of  Prince  Henry  of  Battenberg. 
The  attainment  of  his  majority  was  made  a  great  occasion  by 
the  Imperialist  adherents,  as  a  test  of  their  adherence  to  a 
cause  which  they  refused  to  consider  lost.  More  than  10,000 
Frenchmen  of  all  ranks  and  classes  congregated  on  Chislehurst 
Common  that  day.  The  tricolour  waved  along  the  route  to 
the  little  Roman  Catholic  chapel  on  the  outskirts  of  the  quiet 
Kentish  village;  as  the  members  of  the  Imperial  family 
passed  from  Camden  Place  to  the  religious  service  every  head 
was  uncovered ;  and  shouts  of  "  Vive  1'Empereur ! "  rose  from 
the  ardent  partisans,  numbers  of  whom  had  already  paid 
homage  to  the  remains  of  their  dead  Emperor  lying  in 
the  marble  sarcophagus  in  front  of  the  high  altar  of  the 
chapel.  Later  in  the  day  the  large  company  of  French 
people  assembled  in  the  park  of  Camden  Place,  in  rear  of  the 
deputations  from  the  different  provinces  of  France,  each 
deputation  headed  by  a  leader  bearing  the  provincial  banner. 
The  Prince  with  his  mother  by  his  side  stood  forward ; 
behind  them  the  princes,  nobles,  and  statesmen  of  the  late 
empire,  and  many  Imperialist  ladies  of  rank  When  the  Due 


THE   YOUNG  PRINCE.  205 

de  Padoue  had  finished  reading  a  long  address  expressive  of 
attachment  and  devotion,  the  young  Prince  spoke  to  his 
supporters  with  great  dignity,  earnestness,  and  modesty.  I 
heard  the  final  sentences  of  his  speech,  the  manly  tone  ot 
which  I  can  never  forget.  "If  the  time  should  ever  arrive 
when  my  countrymen  shall  honour  me  with  a  majority  of  the 
suffrages  of  the  nation,  I  shall  be  ready  to  accept  with  proud 
respect  the  decision  of  France.  If  for  the  eighth  time  the 
people  pronounce  in  favour  of  the  name  of  Napoleon,  I  am 
prepared  to  accept  the  responsibility  imposed  upon  me  by  the 
vote  of  the  nation."  Once  again,  and  only  once,  I  heard  the 
Prince  speak  in  public.  It  was  at  the  annual  dinner  of  an 
institution  known  as  the  "Newspaper  Press  Fund."  Lord 
Salisbury,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  speakers  of  our  time,  was 
in  the  chair.  Cardinal  Manning,  the  silver-tongued;  Lord 
Wolseley,  good  speaker  and  briUiant  commander ;  and  Henry 
M.  Stanley,  fresh  from  "darkest  Africa,"  were  among  the 
orators.  But,  quite  apart  from  his  position,  the  short  address 
made  by  the  Prince  Imperial  was  unanimously  regarded  as 
the  speech  of  the  evening. 

In  features,  with  his  long,  oval  face,  black  hair  and  eyes — 
attributes  of  neither  of  his  parents,  and  his  lean,  shapely  head, 
the  Prince  was  a  Spaniard  of  the  Spaniards.  One  recognised 
in  him  no  single  characteristic  of  the  Frenchman ;  he  was  a 
veritable  hidalgo,  with  all  the  pride,  the  melancholy,  the  self- 
restraint  yet  ardour  to  shine,  the  courage  trenching  on  an 
ostentatious  recklessness,  and  indeed  the  childishness  in  trifles 
which  marked  that  now  all  but  extinct  type.  Whether  there 
was  in  his  veins  a  drop  of  the  Bonapartist  blood  (remembering 
the  suspicions  of  King  Louis  of  Holland  with  regard  to 
Hortense)  is  a  problem  now  probably  insoluble.  Certainly 
neither  he  nor  his  father  had  any  physical  feature  in  common 
Avith  the  undoubted  mernber.s  of  the  race.  The  Montijos, 
although  the  house  in  its  latest  developments  had  somewhat 
lost  caste  and  had  a  bourgeois  strain  on  the  distaff  side,  were 
ancestrally  of  the  bluest  blood  of  Spain;  and  it  has  always 
been  my  idea  that  the  Prince  Imperial  illustrated  the  theory 
of  atavism  by  throwing  back  to  the  Guzmans,  the  Corderas 


206  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

or  the  Baros,  all  grand  old  Spanish  families  whose  blood  was 
in  his  veins.  How  strong  was  his  self-restraint  even  in  youth, 
an  anecdote  told  in  Miss  Barlee's  interesting  book*  of  his 
Woolwich  days  may  evidence.  Hearing  one  day  that  a 
Frenchman  was  visiting  the  academy,  he  sent  to  say  that  he 
should  be  glad  to  see  his  countryman.  The  person,  who  as  it 
happened  was  a  bitter  anti-Imperialist,  was  presented,  and 
the  Prince  asked  him  from  what  part  of  France  he  came. 
The  fellow,  looking  the  youth  straight  hi  the  face  with  a 
sarcastic  smile,  uttered  the  one  word  "  Sedan,"  and  grinningly 
waited  for  the  effect  of  his  brutality.  The  Prince  flushed,  and 
his  eye  kindled;  then  he  conquered  himself,  and,  quietly 
remarking,  "  That  is  a  very  pretty  part  of  France,"  closed  the 
interview  with  a  bow. 

I  never  saw  dignity  and  self-control  more  finely  manifested 
in  union  than  when  the  lad,  not  yet  seventeen,  wearing  a 
black  cloak  over  which  was  the  broad  red  ribbon  of  the 
Legion  of  Honour,  followed  his  father's  coffin  as  chief  mourner 
along  the  path  lined  by  many  thousand  French  sympathisers ; 
and  his  demeanour  was  truly  royal  when  later  on  that  trying 
day  the  masses  of  French  artisans  hailed  him  with  shouts  of 
"Vive  Napoleon  IV.!"  He  stopped  the  personal  acclaim 
by  saying:  "My  friends,  I  thank  you;  but  your  Emperor  is 
dead.  Let  us  join  in  the  cry  of '  Vive  la  France ! ' '  —baring  at 
the  same  time  his  head  and  leading  off  the  cheering. 
His  craving  for  effect  curiously  displayed  itself  during  a 
parade  in  Scotland  of  a  number  of  Clydesdale  stallions,  at 
which  were  present  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  a  number  of 
noblemen  and  gentlemen.  One  horse,  which  was  plunging 
violently,  was  described  as  never  having  allowed  a  rider  to 
remain  on  its  back.  At  the  word  the  Prince  Imperial  vaulted 
on  to  the  bare  back  of  the  animal,  mastered  its  efforts  to 
dislodge  him,  and  rode  the  conquered  stallion  round  the 
arena  amid  loud  applause. 

The  forced  inaction  of  his  life  irked  him  intensely.  His 
good  sense  and  true  patriotism  induced  him  steadily  to 

*  "Life  of  the  Prince  Imperial,"  compiled  by  Helen  Barlce.  Griffith  and 
Furrun,  London. 


TEN  YEARS— AND  AFTERWARDS?  207 

decline  the  urgency  of  young  and  ardent  Imperialists,  that  he 
should  disturb  the  peace  of  France  either  by  intrigue  or  by 
more  active  efforts  to  restore  the  dynasty.  It  stung  him  to 
the  quick  that  the  scurrilous  part  of  the  French  press  taunted 
him  with  the  quietness  of  his  life,  which  it  chose  to  attribute 
to  cowardice  and  lack  of  enterprise.  In  Zululand  he  told  me 
of  a  circumstance  which  I  have  nowhere  seen  mentioned,  that 
a  year  before  he  had  applied  to  the  French  Government  for 
permission  to  join  the  French  troops  fighting  in  Tonquin; 
that  MacMahon,  who  was  then  President,  was  in  his  favour ; 
but  that  the  Ministry  refused  the  request.  The  English  war 
of  1879  in  Zululand  was  his  opportunity.  His  constant  belief 
Avas  that  ten  years  would  be  the  term  of  his  exile.  "  Dix  ans 
de  patience,  et  apres ! "  he  used  to  mutter  in  his  day-dreams. 
The  ten  years  were  nearly  up.  And  what  prestige  would  not 
accrue  to  him  if  he  should  have  the  good  fortune  to 
distinguish  himself  in  the  field,  which  he  was  resolved  to  do 
at  any  cost !  The  disaster  of  Isandlvvana  to  retrieve  which 
troops  were  being  hurried  out,  and  the  heroic  defence  of 
llorke's  Drift,  were  lost  opportunities  at  which  he  chafed. 
He  felt  that  he  was  forfeiting  chances  which,  taken  advantage 
of,  might  have  aided  his  progress  to  the  Imperial  throne. 
Determined  to  lose  no  more  chances,  he  went  to  the  British 
Commander-in-Chief  and  begged  to  be  permitted  to  go  on 
service  to  South  Africa. 

His  attitude  and  yearnings  were  quite  intelligible,  and 
were  in  no  sense  blameworthy.  He  desired  to  further  the 
means  towards  a  specific  and  obvious  end,  if  England  only 
would  give  him  the  helping  hand.  But  this  ultimate  aim  of 
his  being  so  evident,  it  was  singularly  improper  and  ill-judged 
on  the  part  of  the  English  authorities  to  give  well-grounded 
umbrage  to  the  friendly  power  across  the  Channel,  by 
forwarding  an  enterprise  the  purpose  of  which  was  to  help 
toward  changing  Republican  France  into  Imperial  France, 
and  to  contribute  toward  the  elevation  of  this  young  man  to 
the  throne  which  his  father  had  lost.  The  Commander-in- 
Chief  had  his  scruples,  for  he  is  a  man  of  some  discretion  ;  but 
they  were  overruled.  And  it  was  from  Windsor,  bidden 


208  MEMOUIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

God-speed  by  the  Sovereign,  that  the  Prince  departed  to  embark. 
France  sullenly  watched  his  career  in  South  Africa.  Had  it 
ended  differently  the  mood  would  have  become  intensified. 
If  it  be  asked  why  for  the  last  sixteen  years  France  has  never 
for  an  hour  worn  a  semblance  of  cordial  accord  with  the  in- 
sular power  its  neighbour,  the  answer  is,  that  this  attitude  of 
chronic  umbrage  has  one  of  its  sources  in  the  intrigue  which 
sent  the  Prince  Imperial  to  Zululand. 

At  the  news  of  Isandlwana  I  had  hurried  from  the 
Khyber  Pass  to  South  Africa,  and  the  Prince  had  already 
joined  the  army  when  first  I  met  him  in  May,  1879  at 
Sir  Evelyn  Wood's  camp  of  Kambula,  which  he  was  visit- 
ing with  Lord  Chelmsford  and  the  headquarters'  staff.  The 
Duke  of  Cambridge  had  specially  confided  him  to  his 
lordship's  care.  But  poor  Lord  Chelmsford's  nerve  had 
been  sore  shaken  by  the  tragedy  of  Isandlwana,  after 
which  he  had  begged  to  be  relieved.  Like  Martha,  he 
was  careful  and  troubled  about  many  things ;  his  will- 
power was  limp  and  fickle  and  the  Prince  was  to  him  in 
the  nature  of  a  white  elephant.  The  latter,  for  his  part, 
was  ardent  for  opportunities  of  adventurous  enterprise, 
while  the  harassed  Chelmsford  had  been  bidden  to  dry- 
nurse  him  assiduously.  The  military  arrangements  were 
lax  and  the  Prince  had  been  able  to  share  in  several 
somewhat  hazardous  reconnaissances,  in  the  course  of  which 
he  had  displayed  a  rash  bravery  which  disquieted  the  re- 
sponsible leaders.  After  one  of  these  scouting  expeditions 
in  which  he  actually  had  come  to  close  quarters  with  a 
party  of  Zulus,  and  it  was  asserted  had  whetted  his  sword,  he 
was  said  to  have  remarked  naively  : — "  Such  skirmishes  suit 
ray  taste  exactly,  yet  I  should  be  au  desespoir  did  I  think 
I  should  be  killed  in  one.  In  a  great  battle,  if  Providence 
so  willed  it,  all  well  and  good ;  but  in  a  petty  reconnaissance 
of  this  kind — ah!  that  would  never  do." 

His  penultimate  reconnaissance  was  with  a  detachment 
of  Frontier  Light  Horse  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
Buller,  V.C.,  now  Sir  Redvers  Buller,  Adjutant-General  of 
the  British  Army.  The  Zulus  gathered  and  a  fight  seemed 


THE  PRINCE'S  DISTASTE  FOR  DESK  WORK.        209 

impending,  to  the  Prince's  great  joy;  but  they  dispersed. 
A  few,  however,  were  seen  skulking  at  a  distance,  and 
against  them  he  rode  at  full  gallop  in  a  state  of  great 
excitement.  He  had  to  be  supported,  which  occasioned 
inconvenience ;  during  the  night,  which  was  bitterly  cold 
and  during  which  the  Prince's  excitement  continued,  he 
tramped  up  and  down  constantly,  singing  at  intervals 
"  Malbrook  s'en  va-t-en-guerre "  not  wholly  to  the  content- 
ment of  the  phlegmatic  Britons  around  him.  Colonel 
Buller  reported  his  inconvenient  recklessness,  protested 
against  accepting  responsibility  for  him  when  his  military 
duties  called  for  all  his  attention,  and  suggested  that  he 
should  be  employed  in  camp  on  staff  duty  instead  of  being 
permitted  to  risk  himself  on  reconnaissance  service.  There- 
upon Lord  Chelmsford  detailed  him  to  desk- work  in  the 
quartermaster  -  general's  department,  and  gave  Colonel 
Harrison  a  written  order  that  the  Prince  should  not  quit 
the  camp  without  the  express  permission  of  his  lordship. 
The  Prince,  made  aware  of  this  order,  obeyed,  for  he  had 
a  high  sense  of  discipline ;  but  he  did  not  conceal  his 
dislike  to  the  drudgery  of  plan-making  in  a  tent.  He  was 
fond  of  and  expert  in  sketching  in  the  field. 

The  orders  issued  to  the  little  army  in  the  Koppie 
Allein  camp  on  the  31st  of  May  for  the  morrow  were,  thai, 
the  infantry  should  march  direct  to  a  camping-ground  on 
the  Itelezi  hill  about  eight  miles  forward,  the  cavalry  to 
scout  several  miles  farther  and  then  to  fall  back  to  the 
Itelezi  camp.  Early  on  the  morning  of  June  1st  the 
Prince,  dead  tired  of  routine  desk-work,  begged  Colonel 
Harrison  to  allow  him  to  make  a  sketching  expedition  with 
an  escort,  beyond  the  ground  to  be  covered  by  the  cavalry. 
The  matter  was  under  discussion — Harrison  reluctant  to 
consent,  when  Lieutenant  Carey,  a  staff  officer  of  the  de- 
partment, suggested  that  he  should  accompany  the  Prince, 
and  proposed  that  the  expedition  should  extend  into  the 
Ityotyozi  valley,  where  the  next  camp  beyond  the  Itelezi 
was  to  be  and  a  sketch  of  which  he  (Carey)  had  two  days 
previously  left  unfinished.  Harrison  then  made  no  further 


210  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

objection,  consenting  the  more  readily  because  the  whole 
terrain  in  advance  had  been  thoroughly  scouted  over 
recently.  He  instructed  Carey  to  requisition  a  mounted 
escort  of  six  white  men  and  six  Basutos,  and  he  subse- 
quently maintained  that  he  had  entrusted  the  command  of 
the  escort  to  Carey.  This  Carey  denied,  repudiating  all 
responsibility  in  regard  to  the  direction  of  the  escort  since 
the  Prince  in  his  rank  of  honorary  captain,  was  his  superior 
officer,  and  holding  that  his  function  as  regarded  the 
latter  was  simply  that  of  friendly  adviser.  I  was  after- 
wards told  that  before  leaving  camp  the  Prince  wrote  a 
letter — the  last  he  ever  wrote — to  his  mother,  and  that 
hearing  I  was  about  to  ride  back  to  the  post-office  at 
Landmann's  Drift,  he  left  the  message  for  me  with  his 
best  regards,  that  he  should  be  greatly  obliged  by  my 
carrying  down  his  letter.  As  it  happened,  I  did  not  quit 
the  camp  until  I  did  so  as  the  bearer  to  the  telegraph-wire 
of  the  tidings  of  the  Prince's  death. 

I  was  with  Herbert  Stewart,  the  cavalry  brigade-major 
when  Carey  came  to  him  with  Harrison's  warrant  for  an 
escort.  Carey  did  not  mention,  nor  did  the  document 
state,  that  the  escort  was  for  the  Prince  Imperial.  Stewart 
ordered  out  six  men  of  Beddington's  Horse — a  curiously 
mixed  handful  of  diverse  nationalities — and  he  told  Carey 
that  he  would  send  Captain  Shepstone  an  order  for  the 
Basuto  detail  of  the  escort ;  but  that  time  would  be  saved 
if  Carey  himself  on  his  way  back  to  headquarters  would 
hand  Shepstone  the  order  and  give  his  own  instructions. 
Carey  chose  the  latter  alternative  and  departed.  An  hour 
later,  while  I  was  still  with  Stewart,  the  six  Basutos 
paraded  in  front  of  his  tent.  Either  Carey  or  Shepstone 
had  blundered  in  the  instructions  given  them,  that  was 
clear;  but  nothing  could  now  be  done  but  to  order  the 
Basutos  to  hurry  forward  and  try  to  overtake  the  other 
instalment  of  the  escort.  Meanwhile  the  Prince  had  been 
impatient:  and  he,  Carey,  and  the  white  section  of  the 
escort  had  gone  on.  Carey  made  no  demur  to  the 
scant  escort,  since  nothing  was  to  be  apprehended  and 


THE  PANIC-FLIGHT.  211 

since  he  himself  had  been  recently  chaffed  for  being 
addicted  to  requisitioning  inordinately  large  escorts.  Harri- 
son later  met  the  party  some  miles  out,  and  sanctioned  its 
going  forward  notwithstanding  that  the  Basutos  had  not 
joined,  which  indeed  they  never  succeeded  in  doing.  The 
party  then  consisted  of  the  Prince,  Carey,  a  sergeant,  a 
corporal,  four  troopers,  and  a  black  native  guide — nine 
persons  in  all. 

When  Harrison  had  announced  the  tidings  of  the  tragedy, 
I  went  to  my  tent  and  sent  for  each  of  the  four  surviving 
troopers  in  succession.  They  were  all  bad  witnesses,  and  I 
could  not  help  suspecting  that  they  were  in  collusion  to  keep 
something  back.  All  agreed,  however,  that  Lieutenant  Carey 
headed  the  panic-flight ;  and  next  day  it  transpired  that, 
when  a  mile  away  from  the  scene  and  still  galloping  wildly, 
he  was  casually  met  by  Sir  Evelyn  Wood  and  Colonel  Buller, 
to  whom  he  exclaimed :  "  Fly  !  Fly !  The  Zulus  are  after 
me  and  the  Prince  Imperial  is  killed  ! "  The  evidence  I  took 
on  the  night  of  the  disaster,  and  that  afterwards  given  before 
the  court  of  inquiry  and  the  court-martial  on  Carey,  may  now 
be  briefly  summarised. 

The  site  of  the  intended  camp  having  been  planned  out  by 
the  Prince  and  Carey,  the  party  ascended  an  adjacent  hill 
and  spent  an  hour  there  in  sketching  the  contours  of  the 
surrounding  country.  No  Zulus  were  visible  in  the  wide 
expanse  surveyed  from  the  hill- top.  At  its  base,  on  a  small 
plain  at  the  junction  of  the  rivers  Tambakala  and  Ityotyozi, 
was  the  small  Zulu  kraal  of  Etuki,  the  few  huts  of  which, 
according  to  the  Zulu  custom,  stood  in  a  rough  circle  which 
was  surrounded  on  three  sides  at  a  little  distance  by  a  tall 
growth  of  "  mealies  "  (Indian  corn)  and  the  high  grass  known 
as  "  Kaffir  corn."  The  party  descended  to  this  kraal,  oft- 
saddled,  fed  the  horses,  made  coft'ee,  ate  food,  and  then 
reclined,  resting  against  the  wall  of  a  hut  in  full  sense  of 
assured  safety.  Some  dogs  skulking  about  the  empty  kraal 
and  the  fresh  ashes  on  the  hearths  might  have  warned  them, 
but  they  did  not  heed  the  suggestion  thus  afforded.  About 
o  2 


212  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXI)  PEACE. 

three  o'clock  Corporal  Grubbe,  who  understood  the  Basuto 
language,  reported  the  statement  of  the  guide  that  he  had 
seen  a  Zulu  entering  the  mealie-field  in  their  front.  Carey 
proposed  immediately  saddling-up.  The  Prince  desired  ten 
minutes'  longer  rest,  and  Carey  did  not  expostulate.  Then 
the  horses  were  brought  up  and  saddled.  Carey  stated  that 
at  this  moment  he  saw  black  forms  moving  behind  the  screen 
of  tall  grain,  and  informed  the  Prince.  Throughout  the  day 
the  latter  had  acted  in  command  of  the  escort,  and  he  now 
in  soldierly  fashion  gave  the  successive  orders,  "  Prepare  to 
mount ! "  "  Mount ! "  Next  moment,  according  to  the 
evidence,  a  volley  of  twenty  or  thirty  bullets — one  witness 
said  forty  bullets — were  fired  into  the  party. 

Let  me  be  done  with  Carey  for  good  and  all.  He  had 
mounted  on  the  inner,  the  safe,  side  of  the  hut,  and  im- 
mediately galloped  off.  On  the  night  of  the  event  he 
expressed  the  opinion  that  the  Prince  had  been  shot  dead  at 
the  kraal,  but  owned  that  the  first  actual  evidence  of  mis- 
fortune of  which  he  became  cognisant  was  the  Prince's  rider- 
less horse  galloping  past  him.  The  men  were  either  less 
active  or  less  precipitate  than  was  the  officer.  One  of  their 
number  fell  at  the  kraal,  another  on  the  grassy  level  some 
150  yards  wide,  between  the  kraal  and  a  shallow  "donga"  or 
gully  across  which  ran  the  path  towards  the  distant  camp. 
As  to  the  Prince  the  testimony  was  fairly  unanimous. 
Sergeant  Cochrane  stated  that  he  never  actually  mounted, 
but  had  foot  in  stirrup  when  at  the  Zulu  volley  his  horse, 
a  spirited  grey  sixteen  hands  high  and  always  difficult  to 
mount,  started  off,  presently  broke  away,  and  later  was 
caught  by  the  survivors.  Then  the  Prince  tried  to  escape  on 
foot,  and  was  last  seen  by  Cochrane  running  into  the  donga, 
from  which  he  never  emerged.  Another  trooper  testified 
that  he  saw  the  Prince  try  to  mount,  but  that,  not  succeeding, 
he  ran  by  his  horse's  side  for  some  little  distance  making 
effort  after  effort  to  mount,  till  he  either  stumbled  or  fell  in 
a  scrambling  way  and  seemed  to  be  trodden  on  by  his  horse. 
But  the  most  detailed  evidence  was  given  by  trooper  Lecocq, 
a  Channel-Islander.  He  stated  that  after  their  volley  the 


THE  FINDING   OF   THE  DEAD   PRINCE.  213 

Zulus  bounded  out  of  cover,  shouting  "  Usuta ! "  ("  Cowards ! ") 
The  Prince  was  unable  to  mount  his  impatient  horse,  scared 
as  it  was  by  the  fire.  One  by  one  the  troopers  galloped  by 
the  Prince  who,  as  he  ran  alongside  his  now  maddened  horse, 
was  endeavouring  in  vain  to  mount.  As  Lecocq  passed  lying 
on  his  stomach  across  the  saddle,  not  yet  having  got  his  seat, 
he  called  to  the  Prince,  "  Depechez-vous,  s'il  vous  plait, 
Monseigneur ! "  The  Prince  made  no  reply  and  was  left  alone 
to  his  tate.  His  horse  strained  after  that  of  Lecocq,  who 
then  saw  the  doomed  Prince  holding  his  stirrup-leather  with 
one  hand,  grasping  reins  and  pommel  with  the  other,  and 
trying  to  remount  on  the  run.  No  doubt  he  made  0113 
desperate  effort,  trusting  to  the  strength  of  his  grasp  on  the 
band  of  leather  crossing  the  pommel  irom  holster  to  holstsr 
That  band  tore  under  the  strain.  I  inspected  it  next  day  and 
found  it  no  leather  at  all,  but  paper-faced — so  that  the  Prince's 
fate  really  was  attributable  to  shoddy  saddlery.  Lecocq  saw 
the  Prince  fall  backwards,  and  his  horse  tread  on  him  and 
then  gallop  away.  According  to  him  the  Prince  regained  his 
feet  and  ran  at  full  speed  towards  the  donga  on  the  track  of 
the  retreating  party.  When  for  the  last  time  the  Jerseyman 
turned  round  in  the  saddle,  he  saw  the  Prince  still  running, 
pursued  only  a  few  yards  behind  by  some  twelve  or  fourteen 
Zulus  with  assegais  in  hand  which  they  were  throwing  at  him. 
None  save  the  slayers  saw  the  tragedy  enacted  in  the  donga. 

Early  next  morning  the  cavalry  brigade  inarched  out  to 
recover  the  body,  for  there  was  no  hope  that  anything  save 
the  body  was  to  be  recovered.  As  the  scene  was  neared, 
some  of  us  rode  forward  in  advance.  In  the  middle  of  the 
little  plain  was  found  a  body,  savagely  mutilated ;  it  was  not 
that  of  the  Prince,  but  of  one  of  the  slain  troopers.  We  found 
the  dead  Prince  in  the  donga,  a  few  paces  on  one  side  of  the 
path.  He  was  lying  on  his  back,  naked  save  for  one  sock ; 
a  spur  bent  out  of  shape  was  close  to  him.  His  head  was  so 
bent  to  the  right  that  the  cheek  touched  the  sward.  His 
hacked  arms  were  lightly  crossed  over  his  lacerated  chest,  and 
his  face,  the  features  of  which  were  in  no  wise  distorted  but 
wore  a  faint  smile  that  slightly  parted  the  lips,  was  marred  by 


214  MEMOniES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  destruction  of  the  right  eye  from  an  assegai-stab.  The 
surgeons  agreed  that  this  wound,  which  penetrated  the  brain, 
was  the  first  and  the  fatal  hurt  and  that  the  subsequent 
wounds  were  inflicted  on  a  dead  body.  Of  those  there  were 
many,  in  throat,  in  chest,  in  side,  and  on  arms,  apart  from  the 
nick  in  the  abdomen  which  is  the  Zulu  fetish-custom,  in- 
variably practised  on  slain  enemies  as  a  protection  against 
being  haunted  by  their  ghosts.  His  wounds  bled  afresh  as 
we  moved  him.  Neither  on  him  nor  on  any  of  the  three 
other  slain  of  the  party  was  found  any  bullet-wound  ;  all  had 
been  killed  by  assegai-stabs.  Round  the  poor  Prince's  neck 
his  slayers  had  left  a  little  gold  chain  on  which  were  strung 
a  locket  set  with  a  miniature  of  his  mother,  and  a  reliquary 
containing  a  fragment  of  the  true  Cross  which  was  given  by 
Pope  Leo  III.  to  Charlemagne  when  he  crowned  that  great 
Prince  Emperor  of  the  West,  and  which  dynasty  after  dynasty 
of  French  monarchs  had  since  worn  as  a  talisman.  Very  sad 
and  solemn  was  the  scene  as  we  stood  around,  silent  all  and 
with  bared  heads,  looking  down  on  the  untimely  dead.  The 
Prince's  two  servants  were  weeping  bitterly  and  there  was  a 
lump  in  many  a  throat.  An  officer,  his  bosom  friend  at 
Woolwich,  detached  the  necklet  and  placed  it  in  an  envelope 
with  several  locks  of  the  Prince's  short  dark  hair  for  trans- 
mission to  his  mother,  who  a  year  later  made  so  sad  a 
pilgrimage  to  the  spot  where  we  now  stood  over  her  dead  son. 
Then  the  body,  wrapped  in  a  cloak,  was  placed  on  the  lance- 
shafts  of  the  cavalrymen,  and  on  this  extemporised  bier  the 
officers  of  the  brigade  bore  it  up  the  ascent  to  the  ambulance- 
waggon  which  was  in  waiting.  The  same  afternoon  a  solemn 
funeral  service  was  performed  in  the  Itelezi  camp,  and  later 
in  the  evening  the  body,  escorted  by  a  detachment  of  cavalry, 
began  its  pilgrimage  to  England,  in  which  exile,  in  the  chapel 
at  Farnborough,  where  the  widowed  wife  and  childless  mother 
now  resides,  the  remains  of  husband  and  son  now  rest  side 
by  side  in  their  marble  sarcophagi.  The  sword  worn  in 
South  Africa  by  the  Prince,  the  veritable  sword  worn  by  the 
first  Napoleon  from  Arcola  to  Waterloo — in  reference  to  which 
the  Prince  had  been  heard  to  say,  "  I  must  earn  a  better  right 


A  MISERABLE  ENDING.  215 

to  it  than  that  which  my  name  alone  can  give  me" — had 
been  carried  off  by  his  Zulu  slayers,  but  was  restored  by 
Cetewayo  when  Lord  Chelmsford's  army  was  closing  in  upon 
Ulundi. 

To  be  slain  by  savages  in  an  obscure  corner  of  a  remote 
continent  was  a  miserable  end,  truly,  for  him  who  once  was 
the  Son  of  France 


WAR  CORRESPONDENCE   AS  A   FINE   ART. 

Early  War  Correspondence — Mr.  G.  L.  Gruneisen,  Wm.  Howard  Russell,  Col. 
C.  B.  Brackenbury  and  Captain  Henry  Hozier— Hilary  Skinner — George 
A.  Henty  and  Frederick  Boyle— Henry  M.  Stanley's  Earliest  Triumph- 
Murder  of  Mr.  Bowlby  in  China — Absence  of  Enterprise  in  Beginning  of 
Franco- German  War — Holt  White's  Promptitude  After  Sedan — The 
Mysterious  Miiller— Personal  Experiences  in  1870-71— The  Triumphal 
Entry  into  Berlin — Co-operative  Correspondence  in  the  Russo- Turkish 
War ;  MacGahan,  Millet,  Jackson  and  Grant. 

IT  is  the  foible  of  the  veteran  to  be  the  laudator  temporis 
acti.  I  must  speak  in  the  past  tense  of  the  craft  of 
which  I  have  been  a  humble  follower.  Not,  however,  because 
I  am  unable  any  more  to  pursue  it — although,  as  it  happens, 
that  is  the  case ;  but  because  its  conditions  are  being  so 
altered  that  it  may  be  said,  I  fear,  to  have  ceased  to  be  the 
tine  art  into  which  zeal,  energy  and  contrivance  elevated  it 
for  a  brief  term.  It  is  now  an  avocation  at  once  simplified 
and  controlled  by  precise  and  restraining  limitations.  In  all 
future  European  wars,  by  an  international  arrangement  the 
hand  of  the  censor  will  lie  heavy  on  the  war-correspondent. 
He  will  be  a  mere  transmitter  by  strictly  defined  channels 
of  carefully  revised  intelligence  liable  to  be  altered,  falsified, 
cancelled,  or  detained  at  the  discretion  of  the  official  set  in 
authority  over  him.  I  am  far  from  objecting  to  the  changed 
conditions,  in  the  capacity  of  a  citizen  of  a  nation  which  may 
have  the  wisdom  to  prefer  victories  to  news.  The  point  I  desire 
to  emphasise  is  simply  this,  that  the  new  order  of  things  has 
taken  war  correspondence  out  of  the  category  of  the  fine  arts. 
It  was  by  slow  degrees  that  it  had  temporarily  attained 
that  position.  In  a  sense  Julius  Casar  was  a  war-corre- 
spondent ;  only  he  did  not  send  his  "  Commentaries " 
piecemeal  from  the  "  theatre  of  war,"  but  indited  them  at  his 
leisure  in  the  subsequent  peace  time.  The  old  "Swedish 
Intelligencer  "  of  the  Gustavus  Adolphus  period  was  genuine 
war  correspondence  ;  published  indeed  tardily  compared  with 


"  THE  PEN  OF  THE   WAR."  217 

the  alacrity  of  our  news  of  to-day,  but  nevertheless  fresh  from 
the  scene  of  action,  full  of  distinctiveness,  quaint  and  racy 
beyond  compare.  The  first  modern  war-correspondent  pro- 
fessionally commissioned  and  paid  by  a  newspaper  was  Mr. 
G.  L.  Gruneisen,  a  well-known  literary  man  not  very  long 
dead,  who  was  sent  to  Spain  by  the  Morning  Post  with  the 
Spanish  Legion  consisting  of  10,000  men  raised  in  Great 
Britain  to  light  for  the  Queen  of  Spain,  which  Sir  de  Lacy 
Evans  commanded  in  the  Peninsula  from  1835  to  the  end  of 
1837.  But  this  new  departure  was  not  followed  up,  and  no 
English  newspaper  was  represented  in  the  ill-fated  Afghan 
campaigns  of  1838-42,  or  in  the  great  battles  of  the  first  and 
second  Punjaub  wars.  When  at  the  outset  of  the  Crimean 
war  in  the  early  summer  of  1854  William  Howard  Russell 
presented  himself  to  old  Sir  George  Brown  in  the  road- 
stead of  Malta,  announcing  himself  as  the  correspondent  of 
the  Times  and  tendering  an  authorisation  from  the  War 
Minister,  the  apparition  was  regarded  by  the  worthy  General 
not  so  much  in  the  light  of  a  revolution  as  of  an  unprece- 
dented and  astounding  phenomenon.  But  Russell's  creden- 
tials could  not  be  ignored ;  and  all  the  world  knows  how  he 
became  "  the  pen  of  the  war,"  and  how  his  vigorous  exposure 
of  abuses,  neglect,  and  mismanagement  contributed  mainly 
to  the  rescue  from  absolute  extermination  of  the  British 
Army  wintering  in  misery  on  the  Sebastopol  plateau. 
Other  papers  followed  the  lead  given  them  by  the  Times,  and 
the  artist-correspondent  made  his  appearance  also  in  the 
person  of  Mr.  William  Simpson,  now  a  veteran,  but  still  in  the 
active  service  of  the  illustrated  paper  with  which  he  has  been 
worthily  identified  for  more  than  forty  years. 

Russell  represented  the  Times  in  the  war  in  Denmark  of 
1864,  when  that  poor  gallant  kingdom  suffered  so  severely  at 
the  hands  of  the  twin  bullies,  Prussia  and  Austria ;  and  he 
was  again  in  the  field  two  years  later  when  the  bullies,  having 
fallen  out  over  their  Danish  spoils,  turned  their  weapons  on 
each  other  in  the  "Seven  Weeks'  War  "  of  1866.  By  this  time 
war  correspondence,  if  not  yet  a  profession,  was  becoming  a 
necessity  for  all  our  important  newspapers.  Russell  and  his 


218  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

colleague  the  late  Colonel  C.  B.  Brackenbury  were  for  the 
Times  with  the  Austrian  Army ;  the  great  English  journal 
was  admirably  represented  with  the  Prussians  by  Captain 
Henry  Hozier,  whose  book  on  that  campaign  is  to  this  day  a 
standard  authority.  Mr.  William  Black,  then  scarcely 
known  to  fame  as  a  novelist,  wrote  war-letters  for  the  now 
defunct  Morning  Star;  and  the  late  Mr.  Hilary  Skinner 
was  the  brilliant  and  versatile  representative  of  the  Daily 
News.  Quite  a  little  army  of  war-correspondents  accompanied 
the  Abyssinian  expedition  of  1867.  Of  those  who  then 
marched  with  Napier  two  are  still  alive  and  available  for 
service  to-day — George  A.  Henty,  the  voluminous  author  of 
books  dear  to  boys  ;  and  Frederick  Boyle,  who,  besides  being 
a  war-correspondent,  is  a  novelist  and  has  been  a  traveller 
even  unto  the  ends  of  the  earth.  But  the  journalistic  honours 
of  the  expedition  rested  with  Henry  M.  Stanley,  then  an 
unconsidered  youngster  from  the  great  republic  across  the 
Atlantic,  but  born  alert  and  enterprising,  and  destined  to 
attain  to  a  pinnacle  of  fame  as  the  greatest  explorer  of  our 
time.  Stanley  rode  to  the  coast  with  the  earliest  tidings  of 
the  fall  of  Magdala ;  and  it  was  his  message  which  communi- 
cated the  tidings  of  that  event  both  to  Europe  and  America. 
I  ought  to  have  mentioned  that  Russell  described  for  the 
Times  many  of  the  battles  and  shared  most  of  the  dangers  of 
the  Indian  Mutiny  in  1857-58  as  a  received  member  of  Lord 
Clyde's  headquarters  staff;  and  that  Mr.  Bowlby,  a  barrister 
and  a  Times  correspondent  with  the  British  forces  in  the  war 
with  China  of  1860,  having  been  taken  prisoner  by  the 
Chinese,  was  murdered  by  them  with  the  cruellest  barbarity, 
being  thus  the  first  war-correspondent  of  an  Old  World  news- 
paper to  meet  a  violent  death  in  the  line  of  duty. 

The  war  journalists  who,  previous  to  the  Franco-German 
war  of  1870  made  for  themselves  name.. and. fame,  achieved 
their  successes  by  the  vivid  force  of  their  descriptions,  by  their 
fearless  truthfulness,  by  their  staunchness  under  hardships  and 
disease.  I  can  recall  no  instance  in  the  Old  World,  with  the 
single  exception  of  Stanley's  coup,  in  which  a  war  correspon- 
dent before  1870  succeeded  hi  outstripping  all  competition  in 


ABSENCE  OF  ENTERPRISE.  219 

forwarding  the  intelligence  of  an  important  event.  The 
electric  telegraph  had  been  but  sparingly  utilised  in  the 
Austro- Prussian  war;  in  the  Franco-German  war  it  was  to 
revolutionise  the  methods  of  war  correspondence.  But  the 
conservative  spirit  of  the  Old  World  was  singularly  illustrated 
in  the  tardiness — the  apparent  reluctance,  indeed — with 
which  the  revolutionising  agency  was  accepted.  In  the  great 
contest  of  the  American  civil  war  the  wires  had  been  resorted 
to  with  a  fulness,  an  alacrity,  and  an  ingenuity  which  should 
have  been  pregnant  with  suggestion  to  the  war  journalism  of 
Europe.  But  this  was  not  so.  The  outbreak  of  the  war  of 
1870  was  accompanied  by  no  stirring  of  the  dry  bones.  At 
Saarbriicken  on  the  French  frontier,  the  point  for  which 
instinct  had  led  me  to  make  on  the  declaration  of  war,  there 
was  an  immediate  concentration  of  momentary  interest 
scarcely  surpassed  later  anywhere  else ;  yet  to  no  one  of  the 
correspondents  gathered  there,  whether  veteran  or  recruit, 
had  come  the  inspiration  of  telegraphing  letters  in  full — a 
practice  now  so  universally  resorted  to  in  war  time  that  letters 
sent  by  post  are  an  obsolete  tradition.  For  the  moment  press 
telegrams  from  Saarbriicken  were  prohibited,  and  Ave 
supinely  accepted  the  situation  and  resorted  to  the  post ;  no 
man  recognising  or,  at  all  events,  acting  on  the  recognition, 
that  from  the  nearest  telegraph-office  in  the  Duchy  of 
Luxembourg  attainable  by  a  few  hours'  railway  journey,  the 
despatch  of  messages  was  quite  unrestricted.  Enterprise  thus 
far  was  dead,  or  rather  had  never  been  born.  The  stark 
struggle  of  the  Spicheren  fought  out  within  two  miles  of  the 
frontier,  was  described  in  letters  sent  by  the  slow  and 
circuitous  mail-train.  The  descriptions  of  the  important 
battles  of  Worth  and  Borny  were  transmitted  in  the  same 
unenterprising  fashion. 

The  world's  history  has  no  record  of  more  desperate  fight- 
ing than  that  which  raged  the  live-long  summer  day  on  the 
plateau  of  Mars-la-Tour.  The  accounts  of  that  bloody  battle 
went  to  England  by  field-post  and  mail-train;  yet  the 
Saarbriicken  telegraph-office,  from  which  the  embargo  had 
been  taken  off,  was  within  an  easy  five  hours'  ride  from  the 


220  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

Held.  The  battle  of  Gravelotte  fought  on  the  next  day  but 
one,  did  at  length  get  itself  described  after  a  fashion  over 
the  wires ;  but  it  was  no  Englishman  who  accomplished  this 
cheap  pioneer  achievement.  The  credit  thereof  accrues  to  an 
alert  American  journalist  named  Hands,  who,  I  believe,  was  a 
representative  of  the  New  York  Tribune.  Whether,  when 
the  long  strife  was  sullenly  dying  away  in  the  darkness  the 
spirit  suddenly  moved  this  quiet  little  man  or  whether  he 
had  prearranged  the  undertaking,  I  do  not  know ;  nor  do  I 
know  whether  he  carried,  or  whether  he  sent,  his  message  to 
the  Saarbriicken  telegraph  office.  But  this  is  certain  that  it 
reached  there  in  time  to  be  printed  in  New  York  on  the 
morning  but  one  after  the  battle.  British  correspondents 
were  on  the  field  in  some  strength;  American  journalism  was 
represented  by  such  deacons  of  the  craft  as  Moncure  D. 
Conway  and  Murat  Halstead;  but  nevertheless  it  remained 
for  obscure  little  Hands  to  make  the  coup.  It  was,  indeed, 
no  great  achievement  intrinsically,  looked  back  on  in  the 
light  of  later  developments  ;  yet  Hands'  half-column  telegram 
has  the  right  to  stand  monumentally  as  the  first  successful 
attempt  in  the  Old  World  to  describe  a  battle  over  the 
telegraph  wires. 

Sedan  was  marked  by  efforts  of  journalistic  enterprise, 
crude,  it  is  true,  but  at  least  indicative  of  budding  energy. 
Again  it  was  the  New  York  Tribune  which  took  "  first  spear," 
only  the  wielder  of  the  weapon  this  time  was  a  Briton. 
Holt  White,  a  man  whose  abilities  should  have  given  him 
a  better  fate  than  a  premature  death  in  an  Australian 
hospital,  was  with  the  Germans  on  the  day  so  unfortunate 
for  France.  He  stood  by  Sheridan  when  Napoleon's  letter  of 
surrender  was  handed  by  General  Keille  to  old  King  Wilhelm. 
The  napkin  which  had  been  Reille's  flag  of  truce  was.  given 
to  him  as  a  souvenir.  And  then  with  dauntless  courage  he 
walked  right  across  the  battlefield  through  the  still  glowing 
embers  of  the  bitter  strife,  reached  the  frontier,  made  for  the 
nearest  railway  station  and  got  to  Brussels  on  the  following 
morning.  He  could  not  telegraph  from  Brussels.  His  own 
story  was  that  when  he  tendered  his  message  the  people  in 


"FAITH,  I'M  HUNGRY,   TOO!"  221 

the  Brussels  telegraph-office  refused  to  transmit  it,  scouting 
him  as  either  a  lunatic  or  a  "  bear  "  bent  on  creating  a  panic 
on  the  bourses  ;  but  I  have  also  heard  that  he  had  not  the 
cash  with  him  to  pay  for  a  long  message.  Anyhow,  he  came 
on  to  London,  getting  there  the  day  but  one  after  the  battle, 
in  time  for  a  short  synopsis  of  his  narrative  to  be  printed  in 
the  Pall  Mall  Gazette.  It  appeared  next  morning  in  the 
New  York  Tribune. 

Dr.  Russell  of  the  Times  and  the  late  Mr.  Hilary  Skinner 
of  the  Daily  News,  were  attached  to  the  staff  of  the  Crown 
Prince  and  were  billeted  together  in  a  village  near  Sedan. 
The  following  story  regarding  them  was  current  at  the  time, 
and  is,  I  believe,  substantially,  true.  After  the  battle  they 
wrote  steadily  all  night  long,  seated  at  the  same  table.  In 
the  morning — perhaps  the  next  morning  save  one— each 
elaborately  and  ostentatiously  sent  a  big  budget  to  the  field- 
post.  Presently  Skinner  in  his  bird-like,  airy  manner  ordered 
his  horse,  carefully  explaining  to  Russell  that  he  intended 
riding  over  the  battlefield.  "  Happy  thought ! "  cried  the 
crafty  Russell ;  "  my  letter  is  off  my  mind  and  I  will  go,  too." 
So  on  the  two  rode  through  the  dead  and  wounded  till  they 
reached  the  Belgian  frontier,  when  Skinner  with  his  fluttering 
jauntiness  chirruped,  "  Well,  Russell,  good-bye  for  an  hour 
or  two.  I'll  just  ride  on  into  Bouillon  and  get  a  morsel  of 
luncheon  there."  "  Faith,"  observed  Russell,  with  all  imagin- 
able innocence,  "  I'm  hungry,  too.  I  don't  mind  if  I  go  with 
you !  "  So  they  rode,  and  they  lunched,  and  they  remounted  ; 
and  then  they  started,  but  not  by  the  way  they  had  come ; 
indeed,  in  the  contrary  direction.  Then  it  was  that  they 
looked  each  other  straight  in  the  face,  and  burst  into  a 
simultaneous  roar  of  laughter.  Each  from  the  first  had  meant 
going  through  to  England.  They  went  on  together. 

Personally  in  those  days,  however  enterprising  were  my 
aspirations,  I  had  no  means  to  make  the  most  trivial  attempt 
to  realise  them.  I  represented  then  a  newspaper  which  had 
sent  me  into  the  field  not  lavishly  equipped  with  financial 
resources.  I  was  not  mounted ;  I  had  no  relations  with  any 
staff;  I  tramped  with  the  fighting  men  knapsack  on  my 


222  if  EMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

back.  I  saw  then  more,  perhaps,  of  the  realities  of  actual 
hard  fighting  than  I  ever  did  later ;  but  to  what  purpose  ? 
All  that  I  could  do  was  to  drop  my  missives  into  the  field  post 
waggon,  to  a  belated  and  precarious  fate.  I,  too,  had  gone 
across  the  frontier  to  Bouillon,  tramping  the  distance  on  foot ; 
and  I  was  broiling  a  piece  of  meat  at  a  fire  which  I  had 
kindled  in  the  dry  bed  of  the  rivulet  under  the  hotel  window 
at  which  Russell  and  Skinner  were  lunching.  I  should  not 
have  thought  of  taking  the  liberty  to  accost  them — they  were 
of  the  elite  of  the  profession  :  I  was  among  the  outsiders. 

But  presently  better  things  befell  me.  The  Daily  News 
took  me  on  its  strength,  and  sent  me  to  the  siege  of  Metz 
with  plenty  of  money,  and  the.  most  unrestricted  injunctions 
to  be  enterprising  laid  upon  me  by  Mr.  (now  Sir  John) 
Robinson,  the  far-sighted  and  clear-headed  chief  of  that 
journal  But  I  come  of  a  race  whose  untutored  impulse  is  to 
bewail  the  catastrophe  in  which  "  bang  goes  saxpence,"  and  I 
had  been  stunted  by  the  conservatism  of  my  earlier  newspaper. 
I  lacked  courage  to  be  lavish  no  matter  how  tempting  the 
opening,  and  I  look  back  on  my  niggardly  sacrifice  of  oppor- 
tunities with  sincere  self -contempt.  Thus  I  was  the  only 
civilian  spectator  of  .the  stubborn  fight  of  Mezieres-les-Metz 
on  the  afternoon  of  October  7th,  1870,  a  combat  which  was  the 
immediate  antecedent  of  Bazaine's  surrender ;  but  I  could  not 
bring  myself  to  let  loose  about  it  over  the  telegraph-wires  to  a 
greater  length  than  half  a  column.  A  greater  opportunity 
still  I  let  slip  when  Metz  capitulated.  It  was  a  rare  chance — 
probably  such  another  may  never  offer  itself  to  the  war 
journalist  So  far  as  I  knew,  there  was  no  competitor  nearer 
than  the  frontier.  I  was  quick  to  enter  the  beleaguered  city ; 
from  an  American  gentleman  who  had  been  inside  the  place 
throughout  the  siege  I  gathered  a  great  mass  of  information ; 
I  saw  the  French  army  and  garrison  march  out  and  surrender ; 
I  saw  Bazaine  drive  away  to  Corny ;  I  visited  the  hospitals, 
talked  with  military  and  civilian  Frenchmen,  and  wrote  all 
night  in  a  room  in  the  Hotel  de  1'Europe  in  the  grand  old 
city  by  the  Moselle.  Of  course  I  should  have  hurried  by  road 
or  rail  over  the  forty-five  miles  to  Saarbriicken,  there  written 


A   STELIN  LESSON.  223 

for  iny  very  life,  and  sent  sheet  by  sheet  to  the  telegraph 
office  as  each  was  finished.  Mea  culpa !  and  it  was  no 
palliation  of  iny  shortcoming  in  alacrity  that,  dull  as  I  was, 
I  was  ahead  of  my  comrades. 

But  there  was  a  real  live  man  among  us,  although  scarcely 
of  us — a  man  whose  trade  was  not  war  correspondence,  yet 
who  did  a  piece  of  work  in  that  department  which  was  a 
veritable  example  of  fine  art.     The  capitulation  of  Metz  was 
consummated  on  October  28th.     The  morning  but  one  after 
this  event  all  England  was  startled  by  a  telegram  which  was 
published  in  the  Daily  News.      This   memorable   despatch, 
printed   verbatim   from  the  telegraphic  slips,  was  over  two 
columns    long    and   it    described    with   minute   detail,   with 
admirable  vigour,  with  effective  if  restrained  picturesqueness, 
the  incidents  and  events  of  the  colossal  surrender.     On  the 
day  after  its  appearance  in  the  Daily  News  the  Times  quoted 
the   message   in  full,   with    the  introductory  complimentary 
comment  that  it  envied  its  contemporary  "so  admirable   a 
correspondent."     The  credit  of  having  been  that  "  admirable 
correspondent "  was  long  ascribed  to  me,  and  notwithstanding 
constant  repudiation  on  my  part — for    no    honest  man  can 
endure  to  enjoy  credit  which    is  not  justly   his — I  believe 
myself  still  generally  regarded   as   the   author  of  this    yet 
unforgotten  telegram.      I  sincerely  wish  that  this  had  been 
so  ;  but  the  truth  is  that  I  was  then  among  the  unemancipated. 
I  had  done   my  best   according    to    my  lights,  and  blindly 
thought  that  I  had  done  fairly  well.     A  few  days  after  the 
capitulation    I   was   breakfasting  in  a  Metz   hotel,  when   a 
Daily  News  containing  the  telegram  I  have  been  telling  of  was 
handed  to   me.     The   sense   of   self-abasement   as  I  read  it 
turned   me   physically    sick.     I  had   been   smugly  believing 
in   myself ;    and  lo !  here    was   the    crushing  evidence  how 
completely  and  mysteriously  a  better  man,  whoever  he  might 
be,  had   beaten  me.     It  was  a  stern  lesson ;   I.  all  but  suc- 
cumbed under  it ;  but  took  heart  of  grace  and  swore  to  profit 
by  the  wholesome  teaching.     It  was  not  until  some  time  later 
that  I  came  to  know  who  the  man  was  that  had  thus  at  a  stroke 
revolutionised  war  correspondence  in  the  Old  World — for  this 


224  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

in  effect  was  what,  all  unwittingly,  this  casual  outsider  had 
done.  A  young  surgeon  or  hospital-dresser,  a  German- 
American  named  Miiller,  was  professionally  attached  to  one 
of  the  ambulances  or  field-hospitals  of  the  German  Army  which 
had  been  beleaguering  Metz.  On  his  way  from  America  to  the 
seat  of  war  he  had  accepted  in  London  some  kind  of  commission 
to  do  any  journalistic  work  that  might  come  in  his  way,  not 
incompatible  with  the  professional  duties  which  he  intended  to 
undertake.  Probably,  as  a  volunteer,  he  had  more  time  at  his 
disposal  than  if  he  had  been  a  surgeon  of  the  regular  service. 

Anyhow,  this  Miiller  saw  the  capitulation,  looked  on  at 
the  taking  over  of  the  Porte  Serpenoise  by  the  German  troops, 
witnessed  the  march  out  of  Bazaine's  dejected  cohorts,  pene- 
trated into  the  city,  and  was  in  the  vortex  of  the  confusion  and 
anarchy  temporarily  reigning  there.  Miiller  and  I  may  have 
rubbed  shoulders  in  the  Place  d'Armes.  Then,  having  "  taken 
in  "  the  whole  situation,  he  set  about  utilising  the  advantage 
he  had  gained  in  the  most  effective,  daring,  and  purposeful 
manner.  He  rode  out  of  Metz  away  northward  along  the 
Moselle  valley,  through  a  region  infested  with  franc-tireurs, 
through  villages  bitterly  hostile  to  the  Germans,  past  the 
venomous  cannon  of  Thionville — he  rode,  I  say,  the  long  forty 
miles  north  to  the  Luxembourg  frontier,  and  crossing  it  reached  a 
village  called  Esch,  a  place  so  petty  that  it  is  marked  on  few 
maps  and  is  named  in  no  gazetteer.  How  he  got  his  long 
telegram  expedited  from  that  place  I  know  not — nobody  has 
ever  known — but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  did  so  somehow  ; 
and  then,  strange  to  tell,  he  vanished  utterly;  absit,  evasit, 
enipit.  He  was  advertised  for  and  searched  for,  but  in  vain. 
The  man  who  had  made  what  I  do  not  hesitate  to  pronounce 
the  greatest  journalistic  coup  of  our  time  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic,  effaced  himself  utterly  thenceforward.  No  laurels 
twined  themselves  round  his  name,  which  to  all  save  a  few  is 
now  for  the  first  time  revealed.  I  do  not  even  know  that  he 
was  aware  he  had  earned  any  laurels.  I  have  never  seen  the 
man,  much  and  often  as  I  and  others  have  tried  to  do  so.  In 
a  word,  of  Miiller  it  may  be  said,  stat  nominis  umbra. 

But   this  brilliant   Miiller-flash  stirred   in   us  all   a   new 


THE  SWIFT  ALERT  MAN  OF  ACTION.  225 

conception  of  our  reason  for  existing.  We  had  previously,  of 
course,  been  aware  that  it  was  our  duty  to  see  all  that  we 
could  see,  know  all  that  we  could  know — always  with  self- 
respect  ;  but  we  had  not  adequately  realised  that  the  accom- 
plishment of  this  to  its  fullest  was  merely  a  means  to  an  end. 
At  a  casual  glance  it  might  seem  that  the  chief  qualification 
requisite  in  the  modern  war  correspondent  is  that  he  should 
be  a  brilliant  writer,  able  so  to  describe  a  battle  that  the 
reader  may  glow  with  the  enthusiasm  of  the  victory,  and 
weep  for  the  anguish  of  the  groaning  wounded.  The  capacity 
to  do  this  is  questionless  a  useful  faculty  enough ;  but  it  is 
not  everything — nay,  it  is  not  even  among  the  leading  qualifi- 
cations. For  the  world  of  to-day  lives  so  fast,  and  is  so 
voracious  for  what  has  come  to  be  called  the  "earliest 
intelligence,"  that  the  man  whose  main  gift  is  that  he  can 
paint  pictures  with  his  pen  is  beaten  and  pushed  aside  by  the 
swift,  alert  man  of  action,  who  can  get  his  budget  of  dry, 
concise,  comprehensive  facts  into  print  twenty-four  hours  in 
advance  of  the  most  graphic  description  that  ever  stirred  the 
blood.  In  modern  war  correspondence  the  race  is  emphatically 
to  the  swift,  the  battle  to  the  strong.  The  best  organiser  of 
the  means  for  expediting  his  intelligence,  he  it  is  who  is  the 
most  successful  man — not  your  deliberate  manufacturer  of 
telling  phrases,  your  piler-up  of  coruscating  adjectives. 

Miiller,  it  is  true,  opened  our  eyes  to  a  new  comprehension 
of  our  most  urgent  duty ;  yet  the  scales  did  not  wholly  fall 
aAvay  from  them  until  long  after  they  were  opened.  It  is 
strange  now  to  look  back  on  the  supineness  throughout  the 
Franco-German  War  in  what  I  may  call  craft,  and  on  the 
feebleness  of  the  practical  recognition  of  opportunity.  It 
cannot  be  said  that  there  is  anything  of  fine  art  in  the 
dropping  of  a  letter  into  a  slit  in  the  side  of  a  field-post 
waggon  ;  yet  that  method  of  despatch  was  the  usual  resort. 
Occasionally,  when  anything  important  occurred,  Mr.  Russell 
would  send  his  courier  to  Sedan,  where  the  Times  had  located 
a  forwarding  agent ;  but  the  journey  from  Versailles  to  Sedan 
was  tedious  and  the  train  service  very  irregular.  He,  and  I 
think  also  Skinner  of  the  Daily  News,  were  allowed,  on 
p 


226  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

special  application  for  each  message,  to  send  short  messages  to 
England  over  the  wires ;  I  had  the  same  privilege  at  the 
headquarters  of  the  army  which  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony 
commanded ;  and  Bismarck  allowed  Mr.  Beatty-Kingston, 
the  accomplished  correspondent  of  the  Daily  Telegraph,  to 
telegraph  at  length  the  conditions  of  the  capitulation  of  Paris. 
But  such  devices  and  so  sparse  facilities  were  simply  tanta- 
lising alike  to  the  correspondent  and  his  public,  yet  there 
was,  as  a  general  thing,  no  alternative  between  them  and  the 
routine  crudeness  of  the  field-post. 

In  a  measure,  it  is  true,  I  had  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
discern  where  lay  the  better  way  and  to  utilise  it.  From 
the  beginning  of  November,  1870  until  the  fall  of  Paris  in 
the  end  of  January  1871,  my  sphere  of  duty  was  in  the 
northern  and  eastern  sections  of  the  German  environment 
of  Paris*;  and  the  celerity  with  which  my  correspondence 
reached  its  destination  and  appeared  in  print  created  not  a 
little  surprise  and  speculation  as  to  my  methods.  A  respected 
rival  on  the  same  ground  was  so  stung  by  this  superior 
celerity  that,  in  the"  conviction  that  it  must  be  due  to  excep- 
tional telegraphic  facilities  accorded  to  me,  he  made  an 
official  complaint  of  the  undue  favouritism  which  he  believed 
I  enjoyed.  He  was  assured  that  there  was  no  such  favourit- 
ism, and  remained  bewildered  and  dissatisfied  until  the  end. 
The  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony's  Chief-of- Staff  told  me  of 
this  complaint,  and  desired  that  I  should  explain  to  him 
the  method  by  which  I  accomplished  the  exceptional  rapidity 
of  transmission  which  he  as  a  newspaper  reader  had  observed. 
I  revealed  to  him  the  extremely  simple  secret,  under  pledge 
that  he  should  respect  the  confidence,  since  I  did  not  devise 
methods  for  the  behoof  of  competitors.  Some  little  time 
afterwards  I  chanced  to  be  dining  at  the  headquarters  of 
Prince  George  of  Saxony  to  which  my  rival  was  attached, 
when  one  of  Prince  George's  staff-officers  accused  me  of 
post-dating  my  letters  and  thereby  giving  them  a  fictitious 
appearance  of  freshness.  I  asked  him,  if  his  charge  were 
true,  how  it  happened  that  my  letters  recorded  events  occur- 
.ring  on  the  dates  they  bore ;  and  I  offered  to  make  a  bet 


A    VERY  SIMPLE  SECRET.  227 

with  him  that  if  he  should  there  and  then  inform  me  of 
some  specific  item  of  information,  that  item  would  appear 
in  the  Daily  News  of  the  following  morning  but  one.  He 
accepted  the  bet,  mentioned  a  particular  movement  of  troops, 
and  then  left  the  room.  I  guessed  the  errand  on  which  he 
had  withdrawn,  and  to  verify  my  suspicion  presented  myself 
at  the  military  telegraph  office  on  the  way  to  my  sleeping- 
quarters.  "  No  !  no  !  Herr  Forbes  !  "  said  the  soldier-operator 
with  a  grin — "  I  have  orders  to  accept  no  message  from  you." 
I  feigned  disappointment  and  departed.  Next  morning  my 
friend  of  the  staff  assailed  me  with  fine  Saxon  persiflage, 
and  demanded  that  I  should  pay  the  bet  which  I  must 
know  I  had  lost.  I  did  not  comply  with  this  requisition, 
and  in  a  few  days  was  in  a  position  to  send  him  a  copy 
of  the  Daily  News  of  the  stipulated  date  containing  his 
piece  of  information,  and  to  point  out  that  he  owed  me 
live  thalers. 

The  secret  was  so  simple  that  I  am  ashamed  to  explain  it, 
yet  with  one  exception  I  had  it  all  to  myself  for  months. 
When  before  Metz  I  had  done  my  telegraphing  from  Saar- 
briicken,  depositing  a  sum  of  money  in  the  hands  of  the 
telegraph-master  there,  and  forwarding  messages  for  England 
to  him  from  the  front  against  this  deposit.  Before  leaving 
the  frontier  region  for  the  vicinity  of  Paris,  I  learned  that 
a  train  starting  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning  from  a 
point  in  rear  of  the  German  cordon  on  the  east  of  Paris, 
reached  Saarbriicken  in  about  fifteen  hours.  The  telegraph - 
master  there  would  receive  a  letter  by  this  train  soon  enough 
to  wire  its  contents  to  England  in  time  for  publication  in  the 
paper  in  London  of  the  following  morning.  I  put  a  consider- 
able sum  into  his  hands  to  meet  the  charge  of  messages 
forwarded  to  him  by  me ;  and  I  arranged  with  a  local 
banker  to  keep  my  credit  with  the  Saarbriicken  telegraph- 
master  always  up  to  a  certain  figure.  Every  evening  a  field- 
post  waggon  started  from  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony's 
headquarters  on  the  north  side  of  Paris,  picked  up  mails 
at  the  military  post-offices  along  its  route,  and  reached  the 
railway  terminus  at  Lagny  in  time  to  connect  with  the 
p  2 


223  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

early  morning  mail  train  to  the  frontier.  At  whatever  point 
of  my  section  of  the  environment  I  might  find  myself  a 
military  post-office  served  by  this  post-waggon  was  within 
reasonable  distance;  and  my  letter  addressed  to  the  Saar- 
briicken  telegraph-master  went  jogging  towards  the  frontier 
once  every  twenty-four  hours,  with  a  fair  certainty  of  its 
contents  being  in  print  in  England  within  twenty-four  hours 
or  thereabouts,  from  the  time  when  it  was  posted.  There 
certainly  was  nothing  very  subtle  or  complex  in  this  ex- 
pedient, yet  the  only  other  correspondent  before  Paris  to 
whom  it  suggested  itself  was  iny  colleague  Mr.  Skinner,  who 
posted  telegrams  from  Versailles  to  his  wife  at  Carlsruhe, 
whence  she  transmitted  them  to  London;  but  I  believe 
that  he  lost  a  mail  because  of  the  greater  distance  of  Ver- 
sailles from  the  railway  at  Lagny.  It  was  by  the  simplest 
method  that  I  won  my  bet  with  the  Saxon  staff-officer.  As 
I  walked  towards  my  quarters  I  scribbled  his  item  on  a 
leaf  torn  from  my  note-book,  put  it  into  an  envelope  already 
addressed,  and  as  I  passed  the  post-office  quietly  dropped 
the  missive  into  the  slot.  My  visit  to  the  telegraph-office 
was  merely  a  bluff. 

There  was  perhaps  a  scintilla  of  innocent  and  simple 
strategy  in  the  device  which  stood  me  in  such  good  stead 
in  the  winter  of  1870-71 :  but  there  certainly  was  nothing 
in  it  that  could  by  any  stretch  of  language  be  called  fine 
art.  And  there  was  merely  some  forethought  and  pre- 
organisation  in  the  circumstances  attending  my  entrance 
into  Paris  immediately  after  the  capitulation,  and  my  rush 
eastward  into  Baden  to  telegraph  a  detailed  account  of 
the  condition  in  which  I  had  found  the  great  city  after 
its  long  investment.  I  was  fortunate  in  getting  in  early ; 
I  made  the  best  use  of  my  time  during  the  eighteen  hours 
I  was  inside ;  and  I  was  fortunate  in  getting  out,  which  I 
did  before  any  competitor  had  entered.  My  scheme  was 
all  laid.  I  had  to  ride  some  fifteen  miles  from  the  Porte  de 
Vincennes  on  the  east  side  of  Paris,  to  catch  the  day-train 
leaving  Lagny  for  the  frontier  at  1  p.m.  Had  all  gone  well 
with  me  I  should  have  accomplished  this  without  hurrying. 


A    YAWNING   TELEGRAPH-MASTER.  229 

But  after  I  had  cleared  Paris  and  when  I  believed 
that  there  were  now  no  more  difficulties  in  front  of  me, 
I  was  detained  in  the  Bois  de  Vincennes  by  a  cordon  of 
Wiirtemberger  hussars  Avhose  orders  were  to  turn  back 
all  and  sundry,  and  who  would  not  so  much  as  look  at  the 
great-headquarters  pass  which  I  tendered.  Such  an  acci- 
dent as  this  seems  of  little  consequence,  yet  it  may  spell 
ruin  to  the  correspondent's  combinations.  After  a  while, 
however,  an  officer  whom  I  knew  delivered  me,  and  the 
Wiirtemberger  obstacle  was  overcome.  As  I  rode  on  I 
found  that  I  should  have  made  more  allowance  for  the 
condition  of  the  roads,  long  neglected  as  they  had  been 
and  scored  across  at  frequent  intervals  by  the  trenches,  first 
of  the  defenders  and  then  of  the  besiegers.  To  reach  Lagny 
in  time  I  had  to  ride  my  poor  horse  almost  to  death;  in 
leaping  trenches  he  had  torn  oft'  shoe  after  shoe,  and  he  was 
quite  exhausted  when  I  galloped  up  to  the  station  just  in 
time  to  put  him  in  charge  of  a  German  cavalry  soldier, 
and  to  jump  into  the  train. 

It  was  two  o'clock  on  the  following  morning  when  I 
reached  Carlsruhe,  which  place  I  had  chosen  as  my  objective 
point  because  I  happened  to  know  that  the  telegraph  office 
there  was  open  all  night.  I  had  some  difficulty  with  the 
female  telegraphist,  who  only  kneAv  her  own  language,  and 
who  had  never  seen  so  long  a  telegram  as  the  one  I  pre- 
sented to  her  for  transmission.  She  sent  for  the  telegraph- 
master  who  was  in  no  good  humour  at  being  roused  from 
bed  and  whose  first  question  when  he  arrived  yawning, 
was  how  much  so  long  a  message  would  cost  and  where 
was  the  money  to  frank  it.  In  reply  I  emptied  the  belt 
in  which  round  my  waist  I  carried  my  portable  financial 
resources,  and,  making  a  heap  on  the  counter  told  him  to 
wnre  against  that  pile.  Then  there  was  trouble  with  the 
female  operator,  who  required  to  be  helped  over  the  stiles 
of  awkward  English  words  in  Mr.  Labouchere's  not  very 
plain  handwriting.  She,  however,  had  finished  by  7  a.m., 
and  the  telegraph-master  and  myself  settled  our  accounts. 
I  had  just  time  for  a  hurried  breakfast  before  getting  into 


230  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  return  train  for  Paris  at  8  a.m.,  and  I  was  back  in  Paris 
some  forty  hours  after  I  had  left  it — one  of  the  earliest  in 
of  nay  fraternity  on  this  my  second  entrance.  Walking  into 
the  Hotel  Chatham,  I  found  there  two  journalists  who  had 
just  arrived  from  Versailles.  I  was  the  victim  of  their 
badinage.  They  had  got  into  Paris  before  me  from  their 
point  of  view,  and  they  crowed  over  this  their  achievement 
with  no  little  self-coniplacency.  A  few  days  later  I  saw 
one  pf  them  reading  a  Daily  News  containing  the  telegram 
which  I  had  sent  from  Carlsruhe.  He  did  not  seem  to  be 
disposed  to  be  facetious  any  more. 

There  certainly  was  a  stroke  of  fine  art  in  the  well- 
planned  and  successful  arrangements  made  by  the  Times 
in  order  to  have  the  earliest  detailed  account  of  the  entry 
into  Paris  of  the  German  troops  on  March  1st,  1871. 
William  Howard  Russell  witnessed  the  grand  review  by  the 
German  Emperor  on  the  Longchainps  racecourse,  of  the 
representative  contingents  detailed  for  the  temporary  occu- 
pation of  a  portion  of  the  French  capital ;  and  he  accom- 
panied the  head  of  the  in-marching  column  until  it  reached 
the  Place  de  la  Concorde.  Then,  after  some  obstruction, 
he  joined  his  colleague  Mr.  Kelly,  who  had  been  assigned 
to  watch  the  demeanour  of  Paris  under  the  humiliation  of 
a  hostile  occupation;  and  about  4  p.m.  the  pair  left  the 
Gare  du  Nord  in  a  special  train  bound  for  Calais.  On  the 
journey  Russell  dictated  to  Kelly  the  account  of  what  he 
had  witnessed,  and  he  remained  at  Calais  while  Kelly, 
crossing  the  Channel  in  a  special  steamer  which  was  in 
waiting,  reached  London  by  special  train  in  time  to  have 
Russell's  and  his  own  narratives  in  the  Times  of  March  2nd. 
The  Daily  News  had  no  interest  with  the  "  Northern  of 
France"  directorate  for  a  special  train,  and  I  had  to  do  the 
best  I  could  without  any  adventitious  advantages.  I 
remember  reading  a  statement  in  an  American  paper  of  the 
period,  to  the  effect  that  I  journeyed  surreptitiously  by 
the  Russell-Kelly  special  in  the  disguise  of  its  fireman,  but 
I  need  not  say  that  this  was  a  playful  invention.  Elsewhere 
in  this  volume  I  have  said  something  of  my  personal 


THE  "LONDON  DIB  EC  TORT"  FOB  A  PILLOW.      231 

experiences  on  this  eventful  day,  and  will  not  here  expatiate 
on  the  subject.  A  knot  of  Frenchmen  followed  me  when  I 
passed  the  German  cordon,  and  then  promptly  raised  the 
cry  of  "  Spy ! "  I  was  attacked,  knocked  down,  most  of  my 
clothes  were  torn  oft'  me,  a  sabot  split  my  lip  open,  and 
men  danced  on  me  and  kicked  at  ine  while  I  was  being 
dragged  along  the  gutter,  until  I  was  rescued  by  a  picket 
of  national  guards.  As  soon  as  I  was  free  and  had  fulfilled 
a  grateful  duty  towards  one  who  had  helped  me  to  my 
freedom,  I  hurried  to  the  place  where  I  had  engaged  that 
a  dog-cart  should  be  in  waiting  with  a  fast  and  stout  horse. 
It  was  neither  a  safe  nor  pleasant  drive  through  Paris  to 
the  St.  Ouen  gate.  But  once  outside  I  could  shake  up  the 
horse  and  he  made  good  time  to  Margency,  the  Crown 
Prince  of  Saxony's  headquarters,  whence  I  was  allowed  to 
despatch  a  telegram  to  London  of  some  length.  That 
accomplished,  I  drove  back  to  St.  Denis  in  time  to  catch 
the  regular  afternoon  train  for  Calais.  Writing  throughout 
the  journey  in  train  and  boat — I  was  the  only  passenger 
by  the  latter — I  reached  London  early  next  morning,  brought 
out  a  second  edition  of  the  Daily  News  which  was  selling 
in  the  streets  by  8  a.m.,  and  then  lay  down  on  the  floor  of 
the  editor's  room,  and  went  to  sleep  with  the  "  London 
Directory"  for  a  pillow.  I  started  back  to  Paris  the  same 
evening. 

I  had  an  opportunity  for  getting  in  a  little  bit  of  fine 
work  on  the  occasion  of  the  triumphal  entry  into .  Berlin 
of  the  home-returned  conquerors,  with  Kaiser  Wilhelm  and 
his  generals  at  their  head.  That  event  occurred  on  Friday, 
June  16th,  1871.  I  left  for  Berlin  a  week  earlier.  Two 
days  after  leavirig  England  the  following  telegram  from  me 
reached  the  manager  of  the  Daily  News :  "  Despatch 
youngster  from  office,  with  passport  good  for  France,  to 
report  to  me  at  Berlin  14th  inst."  A  young  gentleman 
duly  presented  himself  on  the  specified  date.  I  fear  that 
my  young  friend  never  forgave  me  for  having,  during  the 
next  two  days  permitted  him  less  liberty  than  he  not 
unnaturally  desired.  In  point  of  fact  I  confined  him  to 


232  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

his  bedroom,  not  even  allowing  him  to  go  to  the  table 
d'hote.  The  Einzug,  in  all  its  pomp  and  fervid  national 
feeling,  was  over  about  6  p.m.  After  writing  and  de- 
spatching a  two-column  telegram,  I  dined  and  then  sat 
down  to  write  a  full  narrative  of  what  I  had  seen  on  this 
memorable  day.  About  six  next  morning  I  wrote  the  last 
words  of  a  letter  six  columns  long ;  then  I  went  round  to  the 
Dorotheen  Strasse,  and  roused  my  two  colleagues  from  their 
sleep  to  hand  me  their  contributions.  Returning  to  my  own 
quarters  I  ordered  breakfast  for  my  prisoner,  and  while  he 
was  eating  made  up  my  packet.  Then  I  instructed  him — by 
this  time  it  was  nearly  seven  o'clock — to  start  forthwith 
for  the  Potsdamer  Railway  Station,  take  a  second-class 
ticket  for  Brussels,  get  early  into  his  compartment  and 
keep  out  of  sight  until  the  train  should  start  at  eight.  On 
reaching  Brussels,  he  was  to  buy  another  ticket  for  London 
vid  Calais  by  the  train  leaving  Brussels  soon  after  his  arrival 
there.  Following  this  route  he  would  reach  London  at 
6  p.m.  on  Sunday,  when  he  was  to  go  immediately  to  the 
office  and  deliver  his  despatches. 

All  went  well.  From  a  corner  in  the  station  I  saw  the 
correspondents  of  the  other  London  newspapers  consign  their 
letters  to  the  post-office  van  attached  to  the  outgoing  train, 
caught  a  glimpse  of  my  emissary  as  the  train  rolled  out  of 
the  station,  and  then  went  to  breakfast  in  a  contented  spirit. 
The  confidence  was  justified.  On  the  Monday  morning  the 
Daily  News  had  a  page  and  a  half  descriptive  of  the  entry ; 
no  other  newspaper  had  a  line. 

The  accomplishment  of  this  priority  was  simply  the 
result  of  the  forethought  which  becomes  a  second  nature 
in  a  man  concentrated  on  the  duty  he  has  in  hand.  On 
the  voyage  from  Dover  to  Ostend  I  remembered  that  during 
the  recent  disturbed  condition  of  France,  and  because  of 
the  diminished  passenger  traffic  to  and  from  the  Continent 
generally,  the  Sunday  day-boats  from  Ostend  to  Dover  had 
been  suspended.  It  occurred  to  me  to  ask  the  captain  if 
they  had  been  put  on  again.  "  No,"  he  answered ;  "  they 
are  to  begin  running  again  at  the  beginning  of  next  month." 


A  NEW  ERA  IN  WAR   CORRESPONDENCE.  233 

It  was  then  clear  to  me  that  the  mails  leaving  Berlin  on 
Saturday  morning — the  Berlin  Festival  was  fixed  for  Friday 
the  16th — would  lie  in  Ostend  till  late  on  Sunday  night, 
when  the  night-boat  would  carry  them  to  Dover;  but  that 
thus  they  could  not  reach  London  until  7  a.m.  on  Monday, 
too  late  for  publication  on  that  day.  I  knew  that  Sunday 
day-boats  were  already  running  from  Calais  to  Dover,  but 
that  the  German  mails  were  not  sent  by  that  route.  A 
passenger,  however,  could  utilise  it — thence  my  telegram  for 
a  young  gentleman  from  the  Daily  News  office.  My  in- 
struction that  he  should  carry  a  French  passport  was  because 
I  knew  that  the  war-time  enforcement  of  passports  at  the 
French  frontier  had  not  yet  been  abolished.  It  had  occurred 
to  no  other  competitor  to  make  a  study  of  this  little 
problem. 

During  the  campaigns  in  Spain  and  Servia  there  were  few 
opportunities  for  artistic  performances  in  the  transmission  of 
intelligence,  nor  did  the  amount  of  public  interest  make  ex- 
pensive organisation  worth  while.  But  the  men  engaged  in 
those  campaigns  were  steadily  concentrating  their  energies  on 
the  elaboration  of  improved  devices  for  the  swift  forwarding 
of  news,  and  the  old  crude  methods  were  drifting  into  limbo. 
The  Russo-Turkish  war  formed  a  new  era  in  Avar  correspond- 
ence. The  journalism  of  both  worlds  made  up  its  mind  to 
put  forth  its  full  strength  when  in  the  spring  of  1877  the 
Russian  hosts  destined  for  the  invasion  of  Turkey  were  slowly 
massing  in  the  squalid  villages  of  Bessarabia.  There  had  been 
a  thorough  awakening  as  to  the  advantages  of  copious  tele- 
graphy in  war  correspondence,  and  it  was  now  for  the  first 
time  thoroughly  realised  that  strategic  organisation  for  the 
rapid  transmission  of  intelligence  was  a  thing  sedulously  to 
study.  Some  of  the  ideas  were  no  doubt  ridiculous.  I  re- 
member a  young  correspondent  coming  to  me  for  advice  in  a 
state  of  profound  bewilderment.  He  had  received  instructions 
from  the  manager  of  his  newspaper  to  the  effect  that  he  Avas 
to  keep  himself  aloof  from  both  combatants,  to  flit  impartially 
about  the  space  intervening  between  them,  and  to  use  for 
telegraphic  purposes  the  offices  behind  the  Turkish  front 


231  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

or  those  in  the  Russian  rear,  according  to  convenience  or 
proximity.  In  other  words,  he  was  to  place  himself  in  the 
precise  position  where  he  could  not  possibly  know  anything, 
with  the  reasonable  certainty  of  being  hanged  if  he  escaped 
being  shot! 

In  the  earlier  months  of  this  war  there  was  a  reciprocal 
alliance  between  the  Daily  News  and  the  New  York  Herald. 
The  representatives  in  the  field  of  the  former  journal  were  the 
late  Mr.  J.  A.  MacGahan — the  most  brilliant  correspondent 
I  have  ever  known — and  myself.     The  Herald  sent  Mr.  Frank 
D.  Millet  who  later  has  achieved  deserved  distinction  as  a 
painter,  and  that  able  journalist  and  genial  comrade  Mr.  John 
P.  Jackson.     When  the  alliance  terminated  in  the  September 
of  the  war,  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  obtain  Millet's  services 
for  the  Daily  News.     The  organisation  of  our  methods  of 
action  and  the  disposition  of  our  forces,  were  matters  deliber- 
ated on  and  settled  in  friendly  conclave.     The  correspondence 
campaign  was  regarded  a  priori  from  a  strictly  strategical 
point  of  view.     Bucharest  was  the  obvious  base  of  operations, 
as  the  nearest  telegraphic  point  to  the  theatre  of  war.     But  in- 
superable difficulties  would  beset  the  correspondent  hurrying 
back  from  the  field  himself,  and  rushing  into  the  Bucharest 
telegraph-office  with  his  matter  partly  in  his  head,  partly  in 
his  note-book ;  or  in  forwarding  by  a  courier  a  hastily  written 
despatch  for  the  wires.     For  one  thing,  ready  cash  in  hard 
money  would  have  to  be  paid  over  the  counter  of  the  tele- 
graph office,  and  gold  is  the  most  inconvenient   and  most 
dangerous  thing  a  correspondent  can  carry  about  with  him  in 
the  field.     For  another,  the  operators  knew  no  language  but 
their  own,  transmitting  mechanically  letter   by  letter ;    and 
therefore  messages  had  to  be  written  in  plain  round  school- 
hand.     I  telegraphed  for  a  young  gentleman  who  had  pre- 
viously served  me  well  in  Servia  as  base-manager  to  act  in 
Bucharest  in  the  same  capacity.     He  engaged  for  our  uses  a 
spacious  suite  of  apartments  consisting  of  an  office,  manager's 
private  room,  and  a  couple   of  bedrooms   to   accommodate 
weary  correspondents  coming  in  from  the  field.     Two  capable 
copyists  were  engaged  to  write  out  in  easily  legible  characters 


DUTIES   OF  BASE-MANAGER.  235 

messages  for  the  wires  brought  or  sent  in  by  correspondents. 
The  injunctions  to  the  base-manager  were  that  one  of  these 
transcribers  was  to  be  on  the  premises  day  and  night;  and 
that  he  himself  was  to  have  constantly  in  his  possession  for 
telegraphic  purposes  a  sum  of  at  least  £500.  His  duties  were 
to  make  as  amenable  as  possible  the  Russian  censor  of  tele- 
graphic messages  who  from  the  beginning  had  been  estab- 
lished in  the  Bucharest  telegraph-office;  for  which  purpose, 
and  for  gaining  and  maintaining  the  goodwill  and  alert 
service  of  officials  and  operators  by  presents  of  boxes  of 
cigars,  opera  tickets,  etc.,  he  was  authorised  to  disburse  secret 
service  money  with  due  discretion.  Further,  it  was  his  duty 
to  gather  and  transmit  what  trustworthy  news  he  could  pick 
up  in  Bucharest ;  and  in  pursuit  of  this  object  he  was  to 
present  himself  frequently  at  the  bureaux  of  the  members  of 
the  Roumanian  Cabinet,  call  on  their  wives,  and  attend  their 
receptions.  He  also  had  to  be  Men  vu  by  the  foreign  Ministers 
to  the  Roumanian  Court,  especially  the  British  and  Russian 
representatives. 

We  four  quite  amicably  arranged  the  section  of  front  to  be 
covered  by  each,  and  there  was  never  any  clashing  or  poaching. 
Millet  was  a  good  deal  out  of  things  in  the  early  days,  down 
in  the  Dobrudcha  with  old  General  Zimmermann :  but  later, 
after  the  fall  of  Plevna,  he  had  a  splendid  innings  with  Gourko 
in  and  beyond  the  Balkans.  Nothing  in  the  whole  range  of 
war  correspondence  is  more  brilliant  as  war  correspondence  or 
more  instructive  in  a  professional  sense,  than  Millet's  work 
during  this  period  ;  and  so  thorough  was  his  organisation  for 
the  transmission  of  his  letters  that  Gourko  was  glad  to  forward 
his  despatches  and  the  Russian  officers  their  private  corres- 
pondence, by  his  courier  service.  MacGahan  was  lame  all 
through  the  war ;  but  lameness  had  no  effect  in  hindering  a 
man  of  his  temperament  from  going  everywhere  and  seeing 
everything.  As  for  myself,  until  struck  down  by  Danubian 
fever,  after  the  September  attack  on  Plevna,  I  worked  very 
hard  and  was  singularly  fortunate.  General  IgnatiefF  was 
very  kind  in  giving  me  hints  as  to  impending  events.  Apart 
from  this,  I  had  a  curious  intuition  of  a  coming  battle ;  I 


236  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

seemed  to  feel  it  in  my  bones,  and  I  almost  invariably  backed 
my  presentiment  with  good  results.  It  happened  that  I  was 
the  only  English  correspondent  at  the  Russian  crossing  of  the 
Danube,  the  capture  of  Biela,  the  combat  of  Pyrgos,  the  battle 
of  Plevna  of  July  30th,  and  the  desperate  struggle  on  the 
Schipka  Pass,  which  lasted  from  the  22nd  to  the  24th  August. 
Frederic  Villiers,  the  Graphic  artist,  was  my  companion  on  all 
these  occasions. 

It  may  easily  be  imagined  that  the  expenses  of  a  corres- 
pondence service  conducted  on  a  footing  so  thorough,  were 
very  great ;  I  can  only  hope  that  the  results  justified  the  cost. 
Each  of  us  had  a  waggon  and  a  pair  of  draught-horses,  several 
saddle-horses,  a  couple  of  servants,  and  couriers  at  discretion. 
The  purely  telegraphic  charges  were  enormous,  for  almost 
everything  was  telegraphed.  The  scale,  if  I  remember  cor- 
rectly, was  about  eighteenpence  a  word,  and  I  myself  sent 
several  messages  of  more  than  8,000  words  each.  But  there 
was  no  stinting ;  it  seemed  as  if  a  thing  could  not  cost  too 
much  that  was  well  done.  Let  me  cite  an  example.  In  the 
early  days  we  were  nervous  about  the  Bucharest  censor,  and 
on  the  suggestion  of  the  ingenious  Jackson  it  was  determined 
to  establish  a  pony-express  service  across  the  Carpathians  to 
Kronstadt  in  the  Austrian  province  of  Transylvania,  for  the 
despatch  thence  of  telegraph  messages  which  the  censor  in 
Bucharest  might  decline  to  pass.  That  service  accordingly 
was  promptly  organised.  The  ground  covered  was  about 
eighty  miles.  The  stages  were  ten  miles  long.  Eight  horses 
were  bought,  and  eight  men  were  engaged  to  attend  to  them. 
When  I  reached  Bucharest  on  August  2nd  with  the  tidings  of 
the  Russian  defeat  before  Plevna  of  July  30th,  the  base- 
manager  assured  me  that  the  censor  would  not  dare  to  permit 
transmission  of  a  message  so  adverse  to  the  defeated  Russians. 
Thereupon  I  utilised  this  Carpathian  express  service,  and  sent 
my  account  of  the  disaster  from  the  Hungarian  town.  When 
my  narrative  reached  them  from  England,  the  Russian  authori- 
ties at  headquarters  in  the  field  were  so  satisfied  with  its 
tenor  notwithstanding  its  uncompromising  frankness,  that 
they  ordered  it  to  be  printed  in  every  newspaper  in  Russia. 


"MARCH  ON  THE   CANNON-THUNDER."  237 

It  was  apparent  that  thenceforth  the  censor  could  not  obstruct 
messages  to  the  Daily  News;  so  I  directed  that  the  pony 
express  should  be  disestablished.  It  had  lasted  for  about 
nine  weeks,  it  was  used  once,  it  cost  abominably,  and  the  deci- 
sion was  that  it  had  paid  for  its  keep. 

Let  me  give  an  instance  of  the  methods  by  which  intelli- 
gence was  expedited  from  the  front.  I  started  from  the 
Danube  for  the  Schipka  Pass  with  four  horses  and  three  men. 
At  the  end  of  about  every  thirty  miles  I  dropped  a  man  and 
horse,  with  firm  orders  to  the  former  to  be  continually  on  the 
alert.  With  a  hired  pony  I  rode  up  from  Gabrova  to  the 
Schipka,  spent  some  thirty  hours  amidst  the  carnage  on  the 
pass,  and  at  night  I  started  on  the  return  journey.  This  I 
was  able,  by  utilising  horse  after  horse,  to  perform  at  a  con- 
tinuous rapid  pace  ;  and  thus,  as  I  was  informed  on  reaching 
the  imperial  head-quarters  at  Gorni  Studen,  I  had  travelled  so 
fast  as  to  outstrip  the  official  couriers.  The  young  officer  who 
was  afterwards  Prince  Alexander  of  Bulgaria  was  so  good  as 
to  send  me  in  his  carriage  from  Gorni  Studen  down  to  the 
Danube,  and  on  the  following  morning  I  was  telegraphing 
hard  in  Bucharest. 

We  acted  habitually  on  certain  fundamental  axioms.  Each 
man  of  the  four  had,  as  I  have  said,  his  individual  specific 
sphere  of  action,  which  altered  with  the  course  of  events,  but 
to  which,  whatever  and  wherever  it  might  be,  he  habitually 
restricted  himself.  But  the  restriction  had  a  certain  elasticity. 
The  motto  of  all  was  in  effect  that  of  the  Red  Prince — "  March 
on  the  cannon-thunder."  When  that  sound  was  heard,  or 
when  one  of  us  chanced  on  reasonably  good  intelligence  as  to 
the  probable  locality  of  impending  fighting,  then  it  behoved 
that  man  to  disregard  all  restriction  to  a  specific  region,  and 
to  ride  with  all  speed  for  the  scene  of  actual  strife.  For  it  was 
possible  that  his  colleague  within  whose  allotted  sphere  the 
clash  of  arms  was  resounding  might  be  hindered  from  reach- 
ing the  fray.  Tidings  of  it  might  not  have  come  to  him  ;  he 
might  be  intent  on  impending  fighting  nearer  at  hand  to  him, 
or,  indeed,  engaged  in  watching  its  actual  outbreak  and  pro- 
gress ;  he  might  be  down  with  sunstroke  or  Bulgarian  fever ; 


238  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

all  his  horses  might  be  lame — in  fine,  any  one  of  many  con- 
tingencies might  hinder  his  presence.  And  if  it  should  happen 
that  two  colleagues  found  themselves  spectators  together  of 
the  same  fight,  what  harm  was  there  ?  None ;  but  rather  it 
was  well,  since  by  dividing  between  them  the  field  of  strife 
the  course  of  the  battle  would  be  discerned  more  closely  and 
described  more  minutely.  During  the  five  days'  fighting  before 
Plevna  in  the  September  of  the  war,  three  of  us — MacGahan, 
Jackson,  and  I — watched  that  great  struggle,  and  if  Millet  could 
have  been  withdrawn  hi  time  from  the  Dobrudcha  he  would 
have  found  ample  scope  as  well  for  his  keen  insight  and  bril- 
liant faculty  of  description.  As  it  was  we  did  have  a  fourth 
colleague  before  Plevna,  in  young  Salusbury,  who  was  on  duty 
with  the  Roumanians.  Here,  as  in  the  wider  field,  each  man 
had  his  allotted  place.  MacGahan  was  with  his  constant  ally 
the  gallant  Skobeleff,  on  the  extreme  left ;  and  because  Skobe- 
leff  was  the  fiercest  fighter  of  the  Russian  chiefs,  the  oppor- 
tunities for  thrilling  narrative  possessed  by  the  correspondent 
attached  to  him  were  incomparable,  and  were  incomparably 
utilised.  I  had  the  central  section  along  the  Radischevo 
ridge ;  and  Jackson  placidly  surveyed  the  scene  of  slaughter 
over  against  him  about  the  Grivitza  redoubt,  regardless  of  the 
shells  which  occasionally  fell  about  the  hayrick  outside  of 
which  he  sat  and  wrote  by  day,  and  in  the  hollowed-out  in- 
terior of  which  he  spent  his  nights.  Always  once  and  often 
twice  a  day,  couriers  were  despatched  to  Bucharest  from 
Jackson's  hayrick,  where  his  cheery  and  quaint  fellow-country- 
nian,  Grant  of  the  Times,  habitually  kept  him  company,  and 
whither  MacGahan  or  his  messenger,  and  myself  from  time  to 
time,  converged  with  written  matter  to  be  despatched  across 
the  Danube  to  the  Bucharest  telegraph-office. 

Not  less  imperative  on  the  war  correspondent  than  the 
axiom  that  bids  him  "ride  on  the  cannon-thunder,"  is  the 
necessity  that  when  he  has  learned  or  seen  something  of 
interest  and  value,  he  shall  forthwith  carry  or  send  it  to 
the  wires  without  delaying  for  further  information  or  the 
issue  of  renewed  strife.  "Sufficient  for  the  day  is  the 
fighting  thereof,"  should  be  his  watchword,  if  he  can 


COMPLICATED  PROBLEMS.  239 

discern  aught  decisive  in  the  day's  fighting.  If  he  has 
couriers  with  him  or  can  find  trustworthy  messengers,  it  is, 
of  course,  his  duty  to  remain  watching  the  ultimate  issue; 
but  if  he  has  no  such  service,  there  is  no  more  trying 
problem  for  the  correspondent  than  to  decide  whether  or 
not  the  day's  work  has  been  so  conclusive  one  way  or  the 
other  as  to  justify  him  in  going  away  with  the  information 
he  possesses.  Never  did  I  find  the  solution  of  this  problem 
more  difficult  than  on  the  evening  of  the  long  day's  fight- 
ing of  August  24th  in  the  Schipka  Pass.  I  had  the 
impression  that  Radetsky  could  hold  his  own,  and  I  knew 
that  reinforcements  were  on  the  way  to  him ;  but  mean- 
while, as  I  rode  away,  the  Turks  were  renewing  the  combat. 
I  was  in  MacGahan's  country,  and,  knowing  his  instinct  for 
a  battle,  I  had  been  looking  out  for  him  all  day.  On  the 
morning  of  the  25th  he  arrived  in  the  Schipka,  having 
ridden  hard  on  the  fighting  the  moment  he  had  heard  of 
the  outbreak.  There  was  severe  fighting  all  that  day,  and 
the  Russians  had  the  worst  of  it.  That  evening  MacGahan 
in  his  turn  had  to  consider  his  position,  and  his  problem 
was  more  complicated  than  had  been  mine ;  for  the  day's 
work  had  resulted  in  rendering  the  Russian  position  very 
precarious.  But  a  few  days  later  Loftcha  was  to  be  as- 
sailed, and  it  behoved  him  to  witness  that  undertaking. 
So  he  in  turn  quitted  the  Schipka  on  the  evening  of  the 
25th,  hurried  to  Bucharest  with  the  result  of  that  day's 
work  for  the  telegraph  wire,  and,  by  all  but  incredible 
exertion  for  a  sound  man,  not  to  speak  of  a  lame  one,  he 
was  back  in  the  vicinity  of  Plevna  in  time  to  witness 
Osman  Pasha's  furious  sortie  on  the  morning  of  the  31st. 

Another  illustration  may  not  be  inapposite  of  the  para- 
mount duty  of  the  war  correspondent  to  transmit  important 
information  without  delay,  to  the  abandonment  or  post> 
ponement  of  all  other  considerations.  MacGahan  had 
accompanied  the  raid  across  the  Balkans  made  by  Gourko 
almost  immediately  after  the  passage  of  the  Danube  by 
the  Russians.  I  had  been  on  the  Lorn  with  the  army  of 
the  Tzarewitch,  whence  I  had  to  return  to  Bucharest  with 


240  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

despatches  for  the  wire.  On  my  return  journey  I  passed 
near  Biela  the^  hamlet  of  Pavlo,  in  a  garden  of  which  the 
imperial  camp  was  pitched.  It  occurred  to  me  to  look  in 
on  General  Ignatieff,  and  ask  whether  he  had  any  news  for 
me.  "  News,  Mr.  Forbes  ?  "  exclaimed  Ignatieff.,  "  to  be  sure  I 
have ;  here  is  a  despatch  just  arrived  from  General  Gourko, 
giving  all  details  about  his  crossing  of  the  Balkans,  and 
his  march  up  the  Tundja  valley  towards  Kezanlik ! " 
Ignatieff  translated  the  whole  despatch,  which  I  took  down 
from  his  lips ;  then  thanked  him,  took  leave,  mounted  my 
horse,  and  rode  hard  back  over  the  forty  miles  between 
Pavlo  and  the  Danube  bridge.  For  I  knew  that  what 
Ignatieff  had  given  me  was  absolutely  the  earliest  and  the 
sole  intelligence  of  Gourko's  doings;  and  until  this  intel- 
ligence was  on  its  way  to  England  my  intention  to  rejoin 
the  Tzarewitch  had  to  stand  over.  At  Sistova  I  found  a 
trustworthy  messenger  to  Bucharest,  and  on  the  following 
morning  I  rode  a  second  time  to  Pavlo.  Again  Ignatieff 
waved  triumphantly  a  despatch  from  Gourko,  describing 
hard  and  successful  marching  and  fighting  beyond  the 
Balkans;  again  his  translation  of  that  despatch  was  scrib- 
bled down  in  my  note-book ;  again  I  hurried  back  to 
Sistova;  and  again  sent  a  courier  with  the  interesting  and 
valuable  message.  Precisely  the  same  routine  occurred  on 
the  following  day;  and  I  owned  to  a  certain  modified 
satisfaction  when  the  fourth  day  was  barren  of  a  despatch. 
For  during  the  four  days  I  had  ridden  280  miles  in  a  heat 
as  fierce  as  that  of  India,  over  tracks  from  which  the  dust 
rose  so  dense  as  to  obscure  the  sun.  But  then  the  infor- 
mation given  to  me  by  Ignatieff  was  the  only  tidings  of 
Gourko,  on  whose  enterprise  the  interest  of  Europe  was 
concentrated;  for  it  was  not  until  several  days  later  that 
anything  came  from  the  correspondents  who  accompanied 
the  expedition. 


XI. 

THE   FUTURE   OP  THE   WOUNDED   IN   WAR. 

"Amenities  of  Warfare"  a  Contradiction  in  Terms — "Yanks"  and  "  Johnnios"- 
"  Amenities"  in  the  Kusso-Turkish  War — Napoleon  after  Austerlitz — The 
Geneva  Convention — English  and  German  arrangements  for  Wounded — 
"  Vae  Vulneratis  !  "  in  future  Wars — New  Weapons  and  New  Explosives 
— Endurance  of  Wounded  on  Battle-field — Examples  in  Peninsular  War 
— The  Millennium. 

WHAT  are  genially  termed  "  the  amenities  of  warfare  "  are 
quite  pretty,  but,  in  the  nature  of  things,  they  are 
also  quite  artificial;  and  as  a  matter  of  hard  fact  they  are 
in  principle  nothing  other  than  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
What  of  chivalry  has  lasted  into  modern  times  resolves 
itself  into  a  kind  of  Quixotic  notion  that  rose-water  and 
bloodshed  are  compatible  one  with  the  other.  Occasionally 
a  man  arises  among  us  frank  enough,  bold  enough — many 
people  may  say  brutal  enough — who  dares  to  brush  aside 
the  sophistical  upper  layer  of  conventional  amenities,  and 
to  go  straight  down  to  the  bed-rock  of  the  subject.  "  The 
main  thing  in  true  strategy,"  said  General  Sheridan  once, 
in  his  most  trenchant  manner,  "  is  simply  this :  first  deal 
as  hard  blows  at  the  enemy's  soldiers  as  possible,  and  then 
cause  so  much  suffering  to  the  inhabitants  of  a  country 
that  they  will  long  for  peace  and  press  their  Government 
to  make  it.  Nothing  should  be  left  to  the  people  but 
eyes  to  lament  the  war."  The  Russian  General  Gourko  is 
another  great  soldier  who  has  expressed  himself  to  the 
same  effect,  and  who,  indeed,  evidenced  the  courage  of  his 
opinions  in  an  extremely  practical  manner. 

Nevertheless,  the  "amenities  of  war"  have  held  their 
own  more  or  less  among  civilised  nations  ever  since  stand- 
ing armies  came  into  existence.  Frederick  the  Great  had 
to  ignore  them  in  great  measure  during  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  because  of  the  hordes  of  Pandours — Carlyle's  "  Tdl- 
pacheries  and  kindred  doggeries" — which  hung  venomously 
Q 


242  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PtfACE. 

on  the  fringes  of  his  armies.  But  every  reader  of  military 
history  will  remember  Fontenoy  and  the  ceremonious  little 
episode  between  Lord  Charles  Hay  of  the  English  Guards, 
and  the  Count  d'Auteroche  of  the  Gardes  Frangaises.  The 
"amenities"  fell  into  abeyance  during  the  ferocious  wars  of 
the  French  Revolution,  but  revived  genially  in  Wellington's 
Peninsular  campaigns,  during  which  the  mutual  under- 
standing of  non-molestation  between  the  outposts  of  the 
opposing  armies  was  carried  to  curious  lengths.  In  the 
American  Civil  War  there  was  little,  if  any,  personal 
rancour  between  the  soldiers  of  the  respective  regular 
armies.  The  "  Yanks "  and  the  "  Johnnies "  on  outpost 
duties  were  for  the  most  part  quite  fraternal,  and  there 
were  constant  friendly  barterings  in  tobacco,  coffee,  and 
whisky.  In  the  Franco-German  campaign  in  1870,  however, 
war  once  more  in  a  great  measure  went  back  to  grim  first 
principles.  During  the  sieges  of  Paris  and  Metz  an  immense 
amount  of  simple  cold-blooded  murder  was  perpetrated  on 
the  fore-posts,  of  which  the  French  had  the  best  because  of 
the  longer  range  of  their  chassepots.  In  the  Russo-Turkish 
War  of  1877-78  the  "  amenities "  on  the  part  of  the  Turks 
took  the  simple  form  of  mutilating  the  Russian  wounded 
before  killing  them,  while  the  Muscovites  confined  themselves 
to  refusing  quarter  and  refraining  from  burying  dead  Turks. 

The  abstract  theory  of  the  "  amenities  "  is  nothing  other 
than  preposterous.  You  strain  every  effort  to  reduce  your 
adversary  to  impotence.  He  falls  wounded,  whereupon 
should  he  come  into  your  hands,  you  promptly  devote  all 
your  exertions  to  saving  his  life  and  restoring  him  to  health 
and  vigour,  in  order  that  he  may  go  home  and  swell  the 
ranks  of  your  enemy.  This,  no  doubt,  is  humanity,  but  it 
is  supremely  illogical.  Marbot  recounts  in  his  Memoirs 
perhaps  the  most  thorough  reductio  ad  absurdum  of  the 
"amenities."  In  the  battle  of  Austerlitz,  a  body  of  beaten 
Russians  about  five  thousand  strong  strove  to  escape 
across  the  ice  on  the  Satschan  Lake.  Napoleon  ordered 
his  artillery  to  fire  on  the  ice,  which  was  shattered,  and  men 
and  horses  slowly  settled  down  into  the  depths,  only  a  few 


THE  "AMENITIES"   OF  WAR.  243 

escaping  by  means  of  poles  and  ropes  thrust  out  from  shore 
by  the  French.  Next  morning  Napoleon  riding  round  the 
positions,  saw  a  wounded  Russian  officer  clinging  to  an  ice- 
floe  a  hundred  yards  out,  and  entreating  help.  The 
Emperor  became  intensely  interested  in  the  succour  of  the 
man.  After  many,  failures  Marbot  and  another  officer 
stripped  and  swam  out,  gradually  brought  the  ice  -  floe 
towards  the  shore,  and  laid  the  Russian  at  Napoleon's  feet. 
The  Emperor  evinced  more  delight  at  this  rescue  than  he 
had  manifested  when  assured  of  the  victory  of  Austerlitz. 
He  had  no  compunction  as  to  the  fate  of  the  unfortunates 
whom  his  artillery  practice  of  the  day  before  had  sent  to 
their  deaths.  A  la  guerre,  comme  a  la  guerre  I 

It  has  been  the  wounded  in  war  who  up  till  now  have 
owed  the  most  to  its  amenities.     Prisoners  of  war  have  not 
fared  so  well ;  it  makes  one  shudder  to  recall  the  horrors  of 
Andersonville,  or  the  deadly  tramp  across  the  snow-covered 
Wallachian  plain  of  the  Turkish  army  which  had  held  Plevna 
so  long  and  so  valiantly.      But  in  civilised  countries,  since 
Llitzen  onward,  the  commander  of  a  routed  army,  or,  as  after 
Talavera,  of  an  army  that  has  conquered  but  whose  subse- 
quent retreat  circumstances  have  compelled,  has  not  hesitated 
to  leave  his  wounded  to  the  good  offices  of  his  adversary ;  and 
seldom   indeed  has   the   onerous   duty  not  been  humanely 
fulfilled.     After  Coruna  and  after  Talavera  the  French  took 
medical  charge  of  the  wounded  left  to  their  care  by  the 
British ;  after  Salamanca,  Vittoria,  Orthez  and  Waterloo  the 
British  hospitals  were  full  of  French  wounded.     In  any  of 
the  German  field  and  base  hospitals  in  1870,  in  every  alternate 
bed  might  have  been  found  a  wounded  piou-piou,  sharing  in 
every  respect  alike  with  his  friends  the  enemies  on  both  sides 
of  him.     In  recent  wars — the  Crimean  War  was  a  melancholy 
exception — vast  strides  have  been  made  in  the  methods  of 
dealing  with  the  wounded  on  the  actual  battlefield,  as  weh1  as 
in  the  hospitals  to  which  the  more  severely  wounded  are  now 
so  promptly  relegated.      Of   the  voluntary   aid  which  the 
peoples  of  neutral  states,  as  well  as  those  of  the  combatant 
powers,  have  contributed  and  are  ready  to  contribute  again 
Q  2 


244  MEMORIES  OF   WAE  AND  PEACE. 

in  the  disinterested  service  of  humanity,  some  details  may 
subsequently  be  given.  In  one  case  in  which  no  foreign  aid 
was  tendered  when,  I  may  add,  it  ought  in  brotherliness  to 
have  been  tendered,  a  nation  proved  itself  fully  capable  of 
performing  unaided  its  duty  to  its  wounded  in  the  most 
zealous  and  efficient  manner.  The  Sanitary  Commission  of 
the  United  States  was  among  the  noblest  works  in  the  world's 
record  of  devotion.  Well  might  its  historian  write  of  it  as 
"  the  true  glory  of  our  age  and  our  country,  one  of  the  most 
striking  monuments  of  its  civilisation."  The  Geneva  conven- 
tion has  worked  ardently  if  not  always  quite  practically  or 
consistently,  in  the  cause  of  humanity,  alt-hough  there  is 
certainly  point  in  Mr.  Niemann's  sententious  remark  that 
"in  order  fully  to  carry  out  the  ideas  of  the  Geneva 
Convention,  it  would  be  necessary  to  cease  to  make  war." 

In  principle  the  existing  arrangements  for  medical  assist- 
ance in  the  field  and  for  the  removal  of  the  wounded 
therefrom,  are  in  great  measure  identical  in  most  European 
armies.  The  English  system  may  be  briefly  summarised.  In 
the  field  there  is  a  medical  officer  with  each  unit — regiment 
of  cavalry,  battalion  of  infantry,  body  of  artillery,  etc.  He 
has  at  his  disposition  the  trained  regimental  stretcher-bearers 
of  his  particular  unit,  two  per  company  or  troop.  To  each 
brigade  are  attached  specifically  one  bearer  company  and  one 
field  hospital;  to  each  division  an  additional  field  hospital. 
For  an  army  corps  the  medical  establishment  consists  of  ten 
field  hospitals  and  six  bearer  companies,  exclusive  of  the 
regimental  aid ;  and,  in  addition  to  this,  a  certain  number  of 
officers  of  the  medical  staff  are  utilised  for  staff  purposes'/ 
The  entire  service  is  under  the  command  of  a  surgeon-major- 
general,  subject  to  the  authority  of  the  general  commanding. 
There  are  three  stages  for  the  wounded  man  between  where 
he  falls  and  the  field  hospital,  where  he  either  temporarily 
remains  if  his  case  is  not  serious,  or  whence  he  is  sent 
back  to  the  base  hospital  if  he  has  been  severely  wounded. 
The  first  stage  is  from  the  fighting-line  to  the  collecting- 
station.  Where  he  has  fallen  he  receives  medical  aid  from 
one  or  other  of  two  sources,  whichever  may  the  sooner 


THE  SERVICE   OF   THE    WOUNDED.  245 

reach  him :  the  surgeon  of  his  own  particular  unit  accom- 
panied by  that  officer's  orderly  from  the  regiment  carrying 
the  field-companion,  water-bottle,  and  surgical  haversack; 
or  a  surgeon  belonging  to  the  bearer  company  with  a 
private  similarly  equipped.  At  this  stage  the  surgeon, 
whether  of  the  unit  or  of  the  bearer  company  as  the  case 
may  be,  affords  the  wounded  man  merely  temporary  aid  and 
does  not  undertake  any  serious  surgical  operation.  The 
patient  is  placed  on  a  stretcher,  which  may  belong  to  the 
bearers  of  the  unit  or  to  one  of  the  eight  stretcher 
squads  of  the  bearer  company;  and  he  is  carried  back  to 
the  collecting-station,  which,  while  if  possible  under  shelter, 
is  as  near  as  may  be  to  the  fighting-line  consistently  with 
safety.  The  collecting-station  is  in  charge  of  a  sergeant 
equipped  with  field-companion  and  water-bottle,  and  a  small 
reserve  of  bandages  and  first  dressings  to  replenish  the 
surgical  haversacks  of  the  stretcher-bearers.  From  the 
collecting-station  to  the  dressing-station  farther  rearward, 
arid  if  possible  out  of  fire,  a  certain  specified  number  of 
ambulances  ply,  loaded  with  their  complement  of  wounded 
menj  each  vehicle  under  the  care  of  a  corporal  or  private  of 
the  bearer  company.  These  two  stages,  from  the  fighting-line 
to  the  collecting-station  and  from  the  collecting-station  to 
the  dressing-station,  constitute  the  "  first  line  of  assistance." 

At  the  dressing-station,  located  if  possible  in  a  building — 
if  not,  in  a  tent  and  in  proximity  to  a  good  supply  of  water — 
the  medical  officer  in  command  is  on  duty  assisted  by  another 
medical  officer,  a  sergeant-major,  and  sundry  other  non-com- 
missioned officers  and  men,  acting  as  compounders,  cooks,  etc. 
Here  the  wounded  receive  more  detailed  attention  than  could 
previously  have  been  paid  to  them.  Beef-tea  and  stimulants 
are  supplied  when  needed ;  minor,  and  in  case  of  emergency, 
even  capital  operations  are  performed.  As  the  wounded  are 
dressed  they  are  placed  in  the  ambulances  plying  between 
the  dressing-station  and  the  field  hospital,  which  stage  is 
known  as  the  "second  line  of  assistance."  The  collecting 
and  dressing  stations  may  have  to  be  advanced  or  retired 
according  to  the  ebb  or  flow  of  the  battle;  but  the  general 


246 


MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 


principle  holds  good  that  the  two  shall  never  be  far  apart,  so 
as  to  shorten  the  journeys  in  the  first  line  and  thus  bring  the 
wounded  within  reach  of  surgical  aid  as  speedily  as  possible. 
In  the  Egyptian  campaign  of  1882  a  quarter  of  an  hour  was 
held  to  be  the  extreme  length  of  time  for  the  wounded  man 
to  lie  on  the  field  before  receiving  assistance ;  but  then  there 
were  but  a  few  hundreds  of  men  to  be  dealt  with,  in 
contradistinction  to  the  thousands  of  wounded  which  a  great 
battle  necessarily  produces. 

The  following  table  may  be  of  interest  as  marking  the 
difference  in  detail  between  the  German  and  the  English 
appliances  and  methods  for  dealing  with  the  wounded.  The 
unit  of  comparison  is  in  each  case  that  of  an  army  corps 
numbering  30,000  combatants : — 


Medical 

«  c 

Officers. 

"2  S 

0    g 

j. 

» 

-7  z- 

S 

I 

_ 

C    u 

.<  j. 

o 

si 

• 

Remark*. 

*"  & 

c  „ 

c  t- 

=   £ 

a  = 

: 

s  £ 

•7- 

-  ~ 

fc  fc 

"•s  w 

X 

0 

2.  * 

j 

?  *** 

E-i  E 

it  5 

o 

o 

§  E 

E 

~-  *p 

S 

S« 

H 

H 

* 

• 

* 

: 

GERMAN. 

Regimental  aid    -    -    - 
Three  bearer  companies 
Twelve  field  hospitals  - 

•  2 

60 

16 

480 

21 
60 

717 
564 

120 
124 

24 

2,400 

*  Including 
249  for  trans- 
port duty. 

t  Excluding 

506  for  trans- 

Totals   -    -    - 

2 

60 

16 

480 

81 

1,281* 

244 

24 

2,400 

port  duty. 

ENGLISH. 

J  Only  48  of 
tiiese  actually 

Regimental  aid    -    -    - 
Six  bearer  companies   - 
Ten  field  hospitals        - 

1-4 

41 

16 

480 

18 
40 

366 
400 

226 
168J 
80 

60 

1,000 

in     use     on 
battle  •  field, 
remainder 
are     in     the 

Totals    -    -    - 

1-4 

41 

16 

480 

58 

766t 

474 

60 

1,000 

waggons. 

1,281  less  249  =  1,032. 
766  plus  506  =  1,272. 


Thus  the  German  corps  has  one-third  more  regimental 
medical  officers  per  thousand  men  than  the  English.  It  has 
twice  as  many  beds  in  field-hospitals,  but  fewer  ambulance- 


THE  WOUNDED  OF  THE  FUTURE.        247 

waggons  by  one  half.  Taking  the  means  of  carriage  from 
fighting-line  to  dressing-station,  the  English  corps  has  274 
stretchers  and  carriage  for  360  wounded  per  ambulance- 
waggon,  making  634  in  all.  With  the  average  distance  of 
dressing-station  from  fighting-line  taken  at  1,500  yards,  the 
number  of  journeys  to  and  fro  that  could  be  estimated  for 
would  not  exceed  five,  or  1,500  wounded  moved  by  carriage. 
Taking  50  per  cent,  of  the  wounded  as  requiring  carriage 
from  the  field,  this  would  give  3,000  wounded  that  would 
arrive  at  the  dressing-stations  for  transfer  to  the  rear,  or  10 
per  cent,  of  the  whole  force. 

This  much  of  detail  has  been  gone  into  in  regard  to  the 
present  system  of  dealing  with  the  wounded  in  battle  with 
the  motive  of  accentuating  the  contrast  between  that  system 
with  its  promptitude  of  succour,  and  the  harsher  conditions 
which  must  inevitably  be  endured  by  the  wounded  of  future 
warfare.  One  day  about  three  years  ago,  I  happened  to  be 
listening  in  the  theatre  of  the  Royal  United  Service  Institu- 
tion, to  a  lecture  which  was  being  delivered  by  Mr.  John 
Furley,  one  of  our  oldest  and  most  devoted  volunteer  Red 
Cross  men  on  many  a  stricken  field.  He  talked  of  a  new 
pattern  of  stretcher  with  telescopic  handles  and  drew  fine  dis- 
tinctions between  the  patterns  of  ambulances  of  infinitesimal 
shades  of  differences ;  apparently  in  the  full  conviction  that 
the  wounded  of  the  future  would  fare  as  do  the  wounded  of 
the  present.  Called  upon  to  speak,  I  ventured  to  observe 
that  if  in  the  next  great  war  Mr.  Furley  should  be  in  the 
field,  about  the  second  evening  after  the  battle  he  would 
probably  find  a  wrounded  brigadier-general  competing  eagerly 
for  a  share  of  a  country  dung-cart  for  his  conveyance  to  the 
field-hospital  I  regard  this  as  no  strained  illustration  of  the 
state  of  things  that  will  exist  in  the  future  after  a  great  battle, 
in  consequence  of  the  immense  number  of  wounded  which 
the  altered  conditions  of  military  armaments  and  of  fighting 
will  bring  about.  The  Philistine  audience,  which  included 
sundry  brigadier-generals,  gibed  at  me  ;  but  when  later  I 
happened  to  go  into  the  matter  more  closely  with  intent  to 
write  this  chapter,  I  found  myself  in  accord  with  all  the  best 


248  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

authorities.  "  Vae  vulneratis  ! "  will  be  the  cruel  watchword 
of  future  wars.  The  late  Dr.  Billroth,  the  greatest  of  Austrian 
surgeons,  who  made  the  Franco-German  War  on  the  Prussian 
side,  held  that  "  we  must  come  to  the  conclusion  that  in 
future  it  will  be  no  longer  possible  to  remove  the  wounded 
from  the  field  during  the  battle  by  means  of  bearers,  since 
every  man  of  them  would  be  shot  down,  as  bearers  would  be 
more  exposed  than  men  in  the  fighting-line;  and  the  most 
that  can  be  aimed  at  is  that  the  wounded  man  of  the  future 
shall  be  attended  to  within  twenty-four  hours."  Bardeleben, 
the  surgeon-general  of  the  Prussian  Army,  has  said :  "  Some 
urge  an  increase  of  bearers  ;  but  we  must  not  forget  that 
bearers  have  to  go  into  the  fire-line  and  expose  themselves 
to  the  bullets.  If  we  go  on  increasing  their  number,  shall  Are 
not  also  be  simply  increasing  the  number  of  the  wounded  ? 
The  number  of  men  provided  for  the  transfer  of  the  wounded 
now  .exceeds  1,000  for  each  army  corps.  It  is  no  true 
humanity  that  in  order  to  effect  an  uncertain  amount  of 
saving  of  human  life  a  number  of  lives  of  other  men  should 
be  sacrificed.  The  whole  system  of  carrying  away  the  wounded 
on  litters  during  the  battle  must  be  abandoned,  for  it  is 
altogether  impracticable."  There  are  many  other  testimonies 
to  the  same  effect.  In  the  Franco-German  and  Russo-Turkish 
wars  I  had  already  personally  recognised  and  had  written  in 
that  sense  in  my  war  correspondence,  that  the  losses  among 
the  bearers  and  surgeons  were  so  great  that  the  service 
already  "approached  impracticability."  And  I  added  with 
a  prescience  which  stands  justified  to-day,  that  "  in  the 
warfare  of  the  future  the  service  as  now  existing  will  be  found 
utterly  impracticable,  since  with  the  improved  man-killing 
appliances  certain  to  be  brought  into  action,  the  first  battle 
would  bodily  wipe  out  the  bearer  organisation  carried  on 
under  fire." 

It  is  virtually  impossible  that  anyone  can  have  accurately 
pictured  to  himself  the  scene  in  its  fulness  which  the  next 
great  battle  will  present  to  a  bewildered  and  shuddering 
world.  We  know  the  elements  that  shall  constitute  its 
horrors;  but  we  know  them  only,  as  it  were,  academically. 


DEATH  INCALCULABLE  FROM  THE  HEAVENS.      249 

Men  have  yet  to  be  thrilled  to  the  heart  by  the  weirdness  of 
wholesale  death  inflicted  by  missiles  poured  from  weapons 
the  whereabouts  of  which  cannot  be  discerned  because  of  the 
absence  of  powder-smoke.  Nay,  if  Dr.  Weiss's  recently- 
invented  explosive,  of  which  great  things  have  been  predicted, 
is  to  be  brought  into  use  in  the  German  army,  there  may  no 
longer  be  any  powder — the  "  villainous  saltpetre  "  superseded 
by  the  more  devilish  "  fatty  substance  of  a  brownish  colour." 
The  soldier  of  the  next  war  must  steel  his  heart  to  encounter 
the  deadly  danger  incident  to  the  explosions  of  shells  filled 
with  dynamite,  melinite,  ballistite,  or  some  other  form  of  high 
explosive,  in  the  midst  of  dense  masses  of  men.  The  recent 
campaign  in  Matabeleland  has  informed  us  with  a  grim 
triumph  of  the  sweeping  slaughter  the  Maxim  gun  can  inflict 
with  its  mechanical  stream  of  bullets.  Quick-firing  field-guns 
are  on  the  eve  of  superseding  the  type  of  cannon  in  use  in 
the  horse  and  field  batteries  of  to-day.  All  these  instruments 
are  on  terra  firma — if  that  be  of  any  account.  But,  if  there 
is  anything  in  Edison's  and  Maxim's  claims  to  have  invented 
a  flying-machine  for  military  purposes  which  can  be  so  steered 
as  to  carry  and  drop  with  accuracy  five  hundred  pounds  of 
explosive  material  at  a  given  point,  or  to  shed  on  an  army 
a  shower  of  dynamite,  then  death  incalculable  may  rain  down 
as  from  the  very  heavens  themselves. 

Most  of  the  European  powers  have  equipped  their  armies 
with  one  or  other  form  of  the  new  small-bore  rifle,  and  those 
which  have  not  completed  their  re-armament  are  making 
haste  to  do  so.  The  only  type  of  new  weapon  the  results  of 
the  fire  from  which  have  been  actually  tested  on  the  battle- 
field, is  the  Mannlicher,  which  was  used  to  a  considerable 
extent  in  the  Chilian  civil  war  of  1891.  As  is  generally 
known,  the  8-millimetre  projectile  which  the  Mannlicher 
throws  is  much  lighter  and  of  much  flatter  trajectory  than 
any  of  the  old  larger  bullets.  Owing  to  its  higher  velocity 
and  pointed  shape  its  power  of  perforation  is  extraordinary. 
In  the  matter-of-fact  language  of  Bardeleben,  "  Owing  to  the 
immense  velocity  of  the  Mannlicher  bullet  and  its  small 
surface  of  contact,  it  meets  with  little  resistance  in  striking. 


250  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

causes  little  commotion  of  the  neighbouring  parts,  has  no  time 
to  stretch  the  various  tissues  it  encounters,  and  merely 
punches  out  a  hole,  carrying  the  contused  elements  before  it 
clean  out  of  the  wound  without  seriously  damaging  the 
surroundin^  wall  of  track."  The  now  obsolete  bullets  fired 

O 

from  great  distances  and  striking  a  bone,  frequently  glanced 
off  or  rebounded.  This  will  occur  no  longer ;  the  new  long- 
range  projectile,  if  it  strikes  at  all,  has  sufficient  force  to  pass 
through,  cutting  any  vessels  or  organs  it  may  meet  in  its 
path.  It  is,  therefore,  all  the  more  deadly.  Whereas  the 
accepted  estimate  of  casualties  in  modern  warfare  has  been 
in  the  ratio  of  about  four  men  wounded  to  one  killed,  the 
percentage  in  the  Chilian  fighting  is  authentically  given  as 
four  killed  to  one  wounded.  This  ghastly  proportion  will 
probably  not  maintain  itself  in  future  battles  on  a  larger  scale  ; 
but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  fighting  of  the  future  will 
be  deadlier  than  that  of  the  past.  Yet  the  properties  of  the 
new  bullet  are  not  entirely  lethal,  although  it  will  slay  its 
thousands  and  its  tens  of  thousands.  Its  characteristic  of 
absence  of  contusion,  which  contusion  from  the  old  bullet 
frequently  stayed  the  bleeding  of  injured  vessels,  must  result 
in  more  frequent  deaths  from  haemorrhage,  more  especially  in 
the  inevitable  lack  in  the  future  of  prompt  surgical  interven- 
tion. But  the  wounds  it  causes,  if  they  do  not  produce 
immediate  death  or  speedy  dissolution  from  haemorrhage,  are 
expected  to  be  more  amenable  to  treatment  than  those  which 
were  occasioned  by  the  old  bullet. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  more  modern  battles  of  Europe, 
in  which  great  numbers  of  men  have  been  engaged — battles 
in  which  were  used  rifled  cannon  and  small  arms — have 
afforded  greatly  less  percentages  of  casualties  than  those  of 
earlier  battles  in  which  smooth-bore  cannon  and  muskets 
were  the  sole  weapons  of  fire.  At  Borodino  in  1812,  there 
fought  250,000  French  and  Russians  with  a  result  of  80,000 
killed  and  wounded.  At  Salamanca  in  the  same  year,  when 
90,000  English  and  French  were  engaged,  the  casualties 
amounted  to  30,800.  In  each  case  the  proportion  of 
casualties  to  forces  engaged  was  one-third,  and  the  proportion 


A  MILLION  OF  COMBATANTS.  251 

was  the  same  in  the  battle  of  Eylau  in  1807.  In  the  battles 
of  Magenta  and  Solferino  in  the  Franco-Italian  war  of  1859 
when  the  French  armament  was  in  great  part  rifled,  the  pro- 
portion of  killed  and  wounded  to  the  total  forces  engaged  was 
but  one-eleventh.  At  Koniggratz  in  1866,  the  proportion 
was  one-ninth.  In  the  two  days'  fighting  before  Metz  in 
August,  1870 — the  battles  of  Mars-la-Tour  on  the  16th,  and 
the  battle  of  Gravelotte  on  the  18th — there  were  in  all  on 
the  ground  about  450,000  Germans  and  Frenchmen.  The 
casualties  of  the  two  days  amounted  to  65,500,  affording 
a  proportion  to  the  total  strength  of  one-seventh.  These 
figures  work  out  that  the  old  Brown  Bess  and  the  smooth-bore 
guns  inflicted  proportionately  more  injury  to  life  and  limb 
than  occurred  in  the  battles  later  in  the  century  with  all  the 
appliances  of  improved  armaments.  But  the  largest  army 
placed  on  a  battle-field  on  any  one  occasion  by  any  European 
Power  within  the  present  century — the  Prussian  army  which 
fought  at  Koniggratz — did  not  amount  to  more  than  260,000 
fighting  men.  To-day,  the  war-strength  available  for  the  field 
of  the  German  Empire  is  close  on  2,500,000  men ;  that  of 
France,  2,715,000  ;  that  of  Russia,  2,450,000 ;  that  of  Austria, 
1,600,000.  When  the  first  great  battle  of  the  next  great  war 
comes  to  be  fought,  a  million  of  combatants  will  be  in  the 
field.  On  the  percentage  of  1870,  and.  putting  aside  alto- 
gether the  effects  of  the  recent  developments  in  man-hurting, 
the  casualties  will  exceed  140,000.  According  to  the  existing 
ratios,  of  this  number  35,000  would  be  slain,  70,000  would  be 
comparatively  slightly  wounded,  and  35,000  would  be  severely 
wounded.  In  the  absence  of  actual  experience  the  Chilian 
statistics  could  not  be  relied  upon,  at  all  events,  in  full.  It 
follows  that  if  the  wounded  of  the  next  great  battle  are  to  be 
dealt  with  as  the  present  arrangements  prescribe,  apart  from 
the  gleaning  of  the  bearers  during  the  battle,  surgical  assist- 
ance will  have  to  be  provided  for  105,000  wounded,  and 
hospital  accommodation  for  70,000,  namely,  the  35,000 
severely  wounded,  and  one-half  of  the  70,000  comparatively 
slightly  wounded. 

To   cope   adequately  with  this  vast  aggregate  of  human 


252  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

suffering— with  this  gigantic  example  of  "man's  inhumanity 
to  man  " — is  obviously  impossible ;  it  confessedly  cannot  and 
will  not  be  attempted.  The  primary  object  of  war  is  mani- 
festly not  to  succour  wounded  men ;  but  to  engage  in  battles, 
to  beat  the  adversary,  to  win  victories.  The  battles  of  the 
future  may  or  may  not  be  less  prolonged  than  those  of  recent 
campaigns.  We  cannot  prognosticate.  The  battle  of  Grave- 
lotte  lasted  from  noon  until  10  p.m. ;  the  battle  of  Mars-la- 
Tour  right  round  the  clock,  from  9  a.m.  to  9  p.m.  It  is 
certain,  because  of  the  vast  strengths  engaged,  that  the 
battles  of  the  future  will  cover  much  more  ground  than 
heretofore,  and  it  is  probable  that  the  fighting  will  be  more 
stationary.  Let  me  briefly  adumbrate  the  possibilities — 
indeed  I  may  say  the  probabilities — of  the  results  of  a  great 
battle  in  the  next  great  war,  which  is  sure  to  be  "  short,  sharp, 
and  decisive."  The  fighting  has  been  prolonged  and  bloody, 
with  the  result  that  one  side  is  definitely  beaten,  evacuates  its 
positions,  and  retreats  more  or  less  precipitately,  leaving  on 
the  ground  its  wounded,  none  of  whom  could  be  cared  for 
while  the  conflict  lasted.  The  successful  commander's  ground 
is  littered  with  his  own  wounded ;  he  has  them  on  his  hands 
in  thousands,  and  he  has  also  on  his  hands  the  thousands  of 
the  wounded  of  the  vanquished  force  which  has  gone  away. 
The  conqueror  of  the  future,  if  he  accepts  the  old-time  con- 
ventional burden  of  his  adversary's  wounded,  will  become  its 
victim.  He  will  not  accept  the  incubus.  Is  it  to  be  imagined 
that  the  victor  in  such  circumstances  will  think  twice  even 
about  his  own  wounded,  let  alone  the  wounded  of  the  other 
side  ?  No.  He  is  in  the  field,  not  to  be  a  hospital  nurse,  but 
to  follow  up  his  advantage  by  hammering  on  the  enemy  who 
has  departed  leaving  his  own  wounded  behind — and  Avho  may 
come  back  again  to-morrow  to  strike  him  while  clogged  to  the 
knees  in  the  live  and  dead  debris  of  yesterday's  battle.  The 
victor  will  hasten  away  to  overtake  or  hang  on  the  skirts  of 
the  vanquished  army,  leaving  the  wounded  of  both  sides  to  be 
dealt  with  as  may  be  possible  by  such  surgeons  as  he  can 
afford,  in  view  of  future  contingencies,  to  leave  behind,  and  to 
the  ministrations  of  cosmopolitan  amateur  philanthropists  of 


1'OOB  MANGLED  FELLOW-MEN.  253 

the  Red  Cross  and  kindred  organizations.  For  there  will  be 
no  more  military  bearer  companies ;  in  the  hunger  for 
fighting  men  the  1,000  bearers  per  army  corps  of  the  present 
will  have  been  incorporated  into  a  strong  brigade  with  arms 
in  their  hands  and  a  place  in  the  fighting  line.  On  the  line 
of  communication  of  the  future,  reserve  ammunition  trains  are 
to  precede  the  military  ambulances  which  up  to  now  have 
headed  the  columns  of  vehicles.  The  German  instructions  in 
the  present  regulations  for  medical  services  are,  that  when  a 
battle  is  engaged  in  all  available  vehicles  of  whatever  kind, 
empty  regimental  provision  and  meat  waggons,  empty  supply- 
column  waggons,  country  carts  and  waggons  requisitioned, 
ambulances  of  medical  establishments  in  rear,  and  the  like, 
are  to  be  brought  up  for  the  transport  of  the  wounded 
in  order  to  "satisfy  requirements  as  far  as  possible."  But 
the  inevitable  delays  are  obvious,  and  in  view  of  further 
fighting  in  the  immediate  future  the  whole  available  ve- 
hicles could  not  be  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  wounded 
in  the  recent  battle.  The  order  is  specific  that  the 
Red  Cross  personnel  and  ambulances  are  henceforth  never 
to  be  allowed  to  do  duty  in  the  first  line,  namely,  on 
the  field  of  battle,  and  that  their  activity  must  be  con- 
fined exclusively  to  the  period  after  the  battle;  that  is,  to 
the  dtape  transport  of  the  wounded  to  the  base  hospitals. 

I  have  tried  to  foreshadow  what  I  believe  will  be  the 
plight  of  the  wounded  of  the  next  great  war.  The  prospect 
seems  very  disheartening ;  for  the  described  dealing  with 
poor  mangled  fellow-men  is  not  of  a  progressive  but  of  a 
reactionary  character,  and  reaction  is  repulsive  to  our  age. 
Yet  there  may  be  some  features  of  the  prospect  tending 
to  mitigate  its  gloom.  I  venture  to  think,  for  instance,  that 
the  enforced  remaining  of  the  wounded  on  the  field  until 
the  battle  is  over,  and  indeed  for  hours  afterwards,  notwith- 
standing the  suffering  such  delays  must  in  many  cases  entail, 
will  not  for  the  most  part  produce  consequences  so  calami- 
tous as  may  be  not  unnaturally  apprehended  by  those  who 
"sit  at  home  at  ease."  I  am  of  opinion — and  I  venture  to 
believe  that  I  have  bandaged  and  attended  to  more  wounded 


254  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

under  fire  than  any  man  in  Europe  who  is  not  a  professional 
military  surgeon — that  the  severely  wounded   soldier  under 
the  existing  system  of   prompt    removal   to   the   dressing- 
station,  does  not   uniformly   benefit    by   the    hustling    and 
physical   disturbance  his   removal  necessarily   entails  while 
he  is  suffering  from  the  first  shock  of  being  severely  wounded. 
It  is  true  that  he  may  bleed  to  death  if  no  ministration  has 
been  afforded  him  where  he  lies  ;  but  that  risk  apart,  if  the 
bleeding  shall  have  been  stanched  or  shall  have  stanched 
itself,  I  conceive  that  he  may  He  without  serious  detriment, 
often   perhaps  writh   actual  advantage,   even  for  so  long  a 
period  as  twenty-four  hours  if    the   weather   is  not  bitter. 
All  men  conversant  with  Avar  know  instances  of  extraordinary 
tenacity   of    life   in    wounded   men   who    had    received    no 
attention.     Segur's  well-known  story  of  the   man   wounded 
at  Borodino  having  been  found  alive  by  the  army  returning 
from  Moscow  has  been  discredited.     But  my  comrade   and 
myself  found  on  the  fifth  day  after  the  battle  of  Sedan,  a 
wounded   Frenchman  walking  about  in  a  sequestered  part 
of  the  battle-field,  not  indeed  with  sprightliness  but  without 
evidencing  great  debility;  yet  his  lower  jaw  had  been  shot 
away,  a  wound  which  precluded  him  from  eating  solid  food. 
I  found  also  on  the  third  day  after  the  battle  of  Novem- 
ber 30,  1870,  on  the  east  of  Paris,  in  weather  so  bitter  that 
sentries  were  actually  frozen  to  death    on    their    posts,   a 
nest  of  three   wounded  Frenchmen   lying   in  a  hollow,  not 
starved  to  death,  not  frozen  to  death,  but  pretty  hungry  and 
quite  alive.     I  may  even  dare  go  so  far  as   to  hold   that, 
at  all  events,  in  the  British  service  in  small  wars,  the  soldier 
is  coddled  nowadays  to  the  extent  of  being  really  deteriorated 
by  over-tenderness  of  treatment.   He  has  an  anaesthetic  admin- 
istered when  the  top  joint  of  his  little  finger  is  being  taken 
off;  he  has  hypodermic  injections  when  he  has  a   twitch 
of  pain;    he  is  treated   with    champagne,   with  all  sorts  of 
delicate    extras,    and    everything    that    can    make    a    man 
reluctant  to  own  to  convalescence.     In  the  old  days  of  the 
Peninsular   war  men   had    natures   of    more    pith   and   did 
not  seem  to  die  in  much  greater  proportion  than  nowadays, 


THE  NAPIER  BROTHERS.  255 

although  they  were  entire  strangers  to  all  this  demoralising 
excess  of  dry-nursing.  Take  for  instance  Major  George 
Napier,  one  of  the  Napier  brothers  who  were  always  being 
wounded.  Shot  down  in  the  breach  of  Ciudad  Rodrigo,  he 
was  made  a  football  of  for  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour  while 
the  column  passed  over  him  as  he  lay.  He  was  picked  up 
with  his  arm  shattered ;  Lord  March  bound  his  sash  about 
it  and  bade  him  go  and  find  the  amputating-place.  He  dis- 
covered that  locality  after  an  hour's  search,  and  then  sat 
down  at  the  end  of  a  queue  of  men  to  wait  for  his  turn, 
which  came  two  hours  later.  Then  there  was  a  dispute 
between  the  surgeons  on  a  point  of  etiquette.  Napier  had 
asked  his  own  regimental  surgeon  to  do  the  business,  but 
a  superior  staff-surgeon  successfully  asserted  his  right  to 
perform  the  operation  of  amputation.  It  took  twenty-five 
minutes,  the  staff-surgeon's  instruments  being  blunted  by 
much  use.  The  stump  was  bandaged  and  Napier  bidden 
go  and  find  quarters.  He  walked  about  on  this  quest 
most  of  the  evening,  finding  at  last  a  house  in  which  a 
number  of  other  wounded  officers  had  gathered,  and  he 
remained  there  sitting  by  the  fireside  with  his  stump  taking 
its  chance  for  a  considerable  time  longer,  until  the  death 
of  the  gallant  General  Cravvfurd  gave  him  a  bed  vacancy. 
During  that  same  night  there  arrived  a  soldier  of  his  regi- 
ment who  had  been  searching  for  his  officer  for  hours. 
Napier  said  to  the  man :  "  I  am  very  glad  to  see  you  ;  but, 
John,  you  are  wounded  yourself — jour  arm  is  in  a  sling." 
"  Arrah,  be  Jasus,  your  honour,"  answered  honest  John 
Dunn,  "sure  its  nothing  to  shpake  about — only  me  arrum 
cut  off  below  the  elbow,  just  before  I  shtarted  to  look  for 
your  honour ! " 

To  conclude,  stern  experience  of  future  warfare  will  one 
day,  please  God,  force  home  upon  the  nations  the  decision 
whether  their  wounded  and  necessarily  untended  warriors 
in  their  thousands  and  their  tens  of  thousands  are  to  lie 
bleeding  on  the  battle-fields  while  the  strife  is  raging  above 
them,  or  whether  the  peoples  of  the  civilised  world  shall 
take  the  accomplishment  of  the  blessed  millennium  into 


256  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

their   own  hands,  and  bring  it  about,  in  the  words  of  the 
old  Scottish  paraphrase,  that 

"No  longer  hosts  encountering  hosts 

Shall  crowds  of  slain  deplore ; 
They'll  hang  the  trumpet  in  the  hall, 
And  study  war  no  more  !  " 


XII. 

A   HILL  STORY. 

IT  was  not  a  very  enlivening  spot,  lying  as  it  did  on  the 
bleak  lower  shoulder  of  a  lumpy  hill,  just  where  the  heather 
merged  into  the  coarse  tufty  grass  that  marked  the  margin 
of  cultivation ;    yet  it  bore  tokens  of  having  been  at  some 
time  or  other  a  fair-sized  homestead.     There  were  the  remains 
of  the  rough  turf  dyke  which  had  once  surrounded  a  cabbage- 
garden,   inside   which  the   grass   was    shorter    and  greener, 
while  here  and  there  a  neglected  tuft  of  southernwood  or 
a  gooseberry-bush  raised  its  ragged  head,  like  the  unkempt 
poll  of  some   homeless  street  Arab.     In  a  corner  overhung 
by  a  graceful  but  decaying  weeping- willow,  was  a  little  plot 
which  manifestly  had  once  been  a  floAver-garden.     The  tor- 
tuous paths   were    still    faintly   denned    by   the    straggling 
edgings  of  box,  with  many  a  gap  and  many  a  withered  stem  ; 
and  through  the  luxuriant  wilderness  of  chickweed,  groundsel 
and  tansies  there   peered   forth   an   occasional    cowslip  and 
polyanthus,  or  a  heart's-ease  in  its   forlornness   belying   its 
name.     There   was  a  gap   in   the   turf  wall  just  under  the 
willow-tree ;  and  passing  out  by  it  I  entered  what  had  once 
been  a  trimly-kept  back-yard.     The  well  was  there  with  its 
rough  stone  coping  mouldering  and  displaced.     At  one  time 
there  had  been  a  not  unambitious   attempt   to   imitate   an 
inlaid  pavement  with    variegated    pebbles   laid   down   in   a 
fantastic  pattern,  but  the  round  stones  had  in  places  been 
displaced  from   their  bed,   and   in   other   places   a  layer  of 
mould   coated  them,   out   of  which   the  rank   strong  grass 
grew  with  a  wild  luxuriance.     A  pile  of  stone  mingled  with 
and   matted    together   by   turfs,   or   as    they   are   called    in 
Scotland,   "divots,"   marked  the  site  of  the  dwelling-house. 
Only  a  fragment  of  one  gable  still  kept  its  upright  position 
from  the  centre  of  which,  about  half  way  up,  projected  the 

R 


258  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

iron  support  for  the  crook  a  few  links  of  which  still  dangled 
as  in  mockery  over  the  empty  and  green-moulded  hearth- 
stone. The  whole  scene  wore  an  aspect  of  the  forlornest 
desolation;  no  trace  of  human  life  was  visible.  The  spring 
wind  soughed  through  the  quivering  leaves  of  the  willow, 
and  played  fitfully  with  a  few  scraps  of  paper  which  appa- 
rently could  find  rest  nowhere — not  a  friendly  crevice  to 
drop  into  and  moulder  into  pulp;  but  seemed  condemned 
to  be  tossed  to  and  fro  on  the  wind  eternally,  as  if  they 
were  the  symbol  of  some  sinful  human  soul  to  which  rest 
and  peace  were  denied.  One  of  those  fragments  I  caught 
after  quite  a  lively  chase.  It  appeared  to  have  been  the 
fly-leaf  of  a  pocket-bible,  and  on  it  were  written  the  two 
names — 

"  ISABEL  CKOMBIE 
JOHN-  FARQTJHARSON  " 

and  the  legend  underneath — 

"Hereby  plight  constancy  one  to  the  other." 

"  Ah  ! "  said  my  friend  and  companion  the  old  minister 
when  I  showed  him  the  writing  on  the  scrap  I  had  picked 
up,  "  that  is  the  keynote  to  a  long  and  sad  tale.  My  heart 
is  always  heavy  when  I  come  up  out  of  the  valley  among 
these  memorials  of  a  once  happy  family.  A  parish  minister 
sees  some  joy  and  much  more  sorrow  in  the  course  of  what 
the  busy  world  may  consider  an  uneventful  life;  but  the 
story  of  these  ruins  is  the  saddest  within  my  experience." 

I  pressed  the  white-haired  old  man  to  tell  me  the  tale, 
and  at  length  he  yielded  reluctantly  to  my  importunity. 
We  seated  ourselves  on  a  fragment  of  the  turf  garden  wall, 
and  the  old  minister,  after  a  short  silence  occupied  in  the 
consumption  of  huge  pinches  of  snuff,  which  perhaps 
accounted  for  a  certain  moisture  of  the  eyes  and  a  somewhat 
profuse  use  of  his  pocket  handkerchief,  began  his  story : — 

"  I  was  returning  one  winter's  evening  from  holding  a 
catechising  in  a  remote  district  of  my  parish,  which  lies  at 
the  back  of  the  hill  yonder.  My  pony  had  fallen  lame, 


"HONEST  JAMES"    THE  ELDER.  259 

and  I  turned  off  the  hill  road  to  the  house  the  ruins  of 
which  are  now  before  us,  to  find  quarters  for  her  for  the 
night.  When  I  entered  the  kitchen,  the  cold  ingle  of  which 
you  see  below  that  still  standing  gable,  a  very  pleasant 
domestic  scene  met  my  eye.  The  gudeman  was  sitting  hi 
the  chimney-corner  reading  aloud  in  a  quaint  and  effective 
manner  one  of  the  hill-stories  of  the  Ettrick  Shepherd. 
James  Crombie,  or  '  Honest  James/  the  name  he  was  known 
by  far  and  wide,  was  one  of  my  most  respected  elders.  He 
was  a  man  somewhat  of  the  old  Cameronian  type,  with 
strongly-marked  harsh  features,  a  kindly  grey  eye,  and  a 
great  pile  of  bald  head  covered  by  the  'braid  bonnet'  of 
the  Scottish  peasantry.  The  gudewife  sat  by  the  table 
opposite  to  her  'man,'  listening  to  his  reading  with  interest, 
and  knitting  a  pair  of  'furr  and  rigg'  stockings  for  his 
sturdy .  shins.  At  the  foot  of  the  table  sat  their  daughter 
Isabel,  or  '  Bell '  as  was  her  familiar  name,  a  good  and 
good-looking  girl  as  there  was  in  the  parish.  By  her  side 
sat  a  strapping  young  fellow,  John  Farquharson  by  name, 
the  son  of  a  neighbouring  farmer,  who  was  serving  his 
father  as  ploughman  and  who  had  very  good  expectation 
of  soon  having  his  name  in  the  lease  along  with  him.  It 
was  easy  enough  to  discern  that  there  was  a  quiet  courting 
match  going  on  between  the  young  people ;  and  as  the  guce- 
wife  wore  a  complacent  smile  and  as  James  certainly  did 
not  frown — I  set  down  the  matter  in  my  mind  as  settled, 
and  jocularly  asked  John  when  he  should  be  coming  down 
to  the  manse  to  arrange  about  the  banns.  He,  of  course, 
looked  much  as  if  he  had  been  detected  in  stealing  the 
pulpit  Bible,  and  Bell  gave  me  a  half  shy,  half  roguish 
glance  out  of  the  corner  of  her  blue  eye,  which  I  accepted 
as  a  tacit  pledge  that  I  was  to  perform  the  ceremony  at  a 
convenient  season.  After  sitting  for  a  while  with  the 
family  group  the  gudeman  begged  me  to  conduct  the 
evening  worship,  and  this  over  I  set  out  for  the  manse 
accompanied  by  John  Farquharson,  because,  as  he  said, 
'  the  road  was  gey  an'  kittle,  an'  your  reverence  micht  lair 
in  some  o'  the  bog-holes.' 
R  2 


260  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

"Time  wore  on.  It  was  getting  near  to  midsummer, 
the  season  of  the  annual  sacrament  of  the  Communion, 
The  spring  had  been  a  very  bad  one  and  last  year's  crops  had 
threshed  out  wretchedly.  A  pestilence  called  the  'quarter- 
ill'  had  smitten  many  of  the  cattle,  and  in  particular, 
James  Crombie's  byres  had  been  almost  emptied.  His  face 
had  become  perceptibly  thinned  and  more  haggard,  and  I 
used  to  meet  him  stalking  moodily  along  with  his  hands 
under  his  coat  tails  and  his  head  sunk  on  his  breast.  The 
young  laird  had  come  home  from  college — a  handsome,  wild 
young  scapegrace  of  whom  some  ugly  stories  were  already 
afloat.  John  Farquharson's  face  was  no  longer  blithe  as  it 
had  been  wont  to  be.  On  the  few  occasions  I  met  him  in 
those  bad  days  he  seemed  sullen  and  moody,  and  I  feared 
that  something  had  intervened  to  prevent  the  course  of  true 
love  from  running  smooth  between  him  and  Bell.  As  for 
her,  she  too  was  altered.  She  had  not  come  at  all  to  the 
last  catechising,  and  I  had  observed  her  in  church  dressed 
in  a  style  which  did  not  become  her  station. 

"The  Sacrament  Sunday  had  come,  and  James  Crombie, 
moody  and  careworn,  was  in  his  place  with  his  brother 
elders.  The  preliminary  sermon  had  been  preached,  the 
sacred  elements  were  on  the  white  cloth  which  covered  the 
table  running  along  the  whole  space  of  the  centre  of  the 
church;  and  I  ascended  the  pulpit  to  perform  the  awe- 
inspiring  and  terrible  duty  of  '  fencing  the  tables.'  Perhaps 
you  do  not  know  the  strict  meaning  of  the  phrase  and  the 
duty.  It  is  this.  With  the  Saviour's  body  and  blood  hi  a 
symbolical  form  before  the  minister  and  the  intending 
communicants,  it  is  the  momentous  task  of  the  former  to 
warn  away  from  that  table,  as  he  would  from  the  very 
mouth  of  hell  itself,  all  who  would  partake  thereof  with 
the  stain  of  unrepented  sin  on  their  guilty  souls.  It  is  his 
dreadful  duty  to  lift  up  his  stern  voice,  and,  in  the  name 
of  the  Most  High,  solemnly  to  warn  the  '  fornicators,  idol- 
aters, adulterers,  effeminate,  thieves,  covetous,  drunkards, 
revilers,  extortionists,  those  full  of  envy,  murder,  deceit,  malig- 
nity, backbiters,  haters  of  God,  despiteful,  proud,  boasters, 


A  DREAD  DUTY.  261 

inventors  of  evil  things,  disobedient  to  parents,  without 
understanding,  covenant-breakers,  implacable,  unmerciful' — 
to  warn  all  such,  I  say,  in  the  name  of  the  Master  that  if 
they  come  to  that  table  in  their  sins,  they  commit  '  the 
sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost'  and  incur  the  fate  of  the 
apostate  Iscariot. 

"  This  duty,  as  I  have  said,  is  a  dread  one ;  but  it  is  not 
for  the  conscientious  minister  to  shrink  from  it  in  all  its 
awful  significance.  I  was  finishing  the  solemn  sentences 
wherewith  I  had  fenced  the  table,  when  there  was  a  sudden 
stir  in  the  body  of  the  church  before  me.  I  saw  my 
favourite  elder,  James  Crombie,  spring  to  his  feet  and 
bareheaded  rush  frantically  out  of  the  church,  his  long 
grey  locks  streaming  behind  him  as  he  fled.  It  was  only 
with  an  extraordinary  effort  that  I  controlled  my  emotion 
and  was  able  to  proceed;  and  when  I  saw  the  sensation 
which  the  occurrence  caused  throughout  the  congregation — 
heightened  when  James's  wife  rose  from  her  seat  in  the 
gallery,  and  with  white  face  and  tottering  steps  followed 
her  husband — I  wavered  whether  it  would  not  be  advisable 
to  postpone  the  ordinance  altogether.  But  I  judged  it 
better  not,  and  table  after  table  was  served  and  the  after- 
noon sermons  had  begun  in  church  and  in  churchyard,  ere  I 
ventured  to  commune  with  myself  over  the  extraordinary 
occurrences  of  the  forenoon.  I  tried  to  connect  it  in  some 
curious  rambling  fashion  with  the  absence  of  the  daughter, 
Isabel,  from  her  place  in  church;  but,  failing  in  this,  the 
moment  the  benediction  had  been  pronounced  I  deputed 
a  brother  minister  to  fill  my  place  at  the  manse  dinner- 
table,  and  wended  my  way  up  the  shoulder  of  the  hill  to 
James  Crombie's  house.  A  neighbour  opened  the  door  for 
me,  and  silently  led  the  way  into  the  kitchen.  There,  in 
her  accustomed  seat,  sat  the  gudewife ;  but,  oh,  how  changed 
from  the  last  time  I  had  seen  her  there !  She  sat  silent 
and  motionless,  as  if  she  had  been  smitten  by  a  stroke ; 
nor  was  she  to  be  roused  from  the  deadly  numbness 
into  which  she  had  been  struck.  There  were  no  tidings  of 
James,  but  the  neighbour-woman  pointed  silently  to  an  open 


262  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

letter  which  lay  on  the  table.  I  took  it  up  and  read  it. 
It  ran  as  follows,  commencing  with  the  stereotyped  epistolary 
phraseology  of  the  Scottish  peasantry — 

1  Sunday  Morning. 

'DEAR  MOTHER, — I  -write  these  few  lines  to  let  you  know  that  I  have 
gone  away  with  young  Mr.  Harry,  who  has  promised  to  marry  me  when  we 
get  to  parts  ahroad.  Dear  father  and  mother,  do  not  fret,  for  I  will  come 
home  soon,  and  be  the  leddy  down  at  the  big  house.  Tell  John  Farquharson 
that  he  will  get  a  better  wife  than  your  dutiful  daughter  till  death, 

'ISABEL  CROMBIE.' 

"  My  heart  turned  sick,  and  after  an  ineffectual  effort 
to  rouse  the  old  woman  from  her  lethargy  of  woe,  I  left 
the  grief-smitten  farmhouse.  On  my  way  home  I  met 
John  Farquharson  coming  towards  me  with  rapid  strides, 
and  a  wild,  dangerous  light  in  his  eye.  He  had  heard  a 
rumour,  and  he  was  hurrying  to  learn  whether  it  were  truth 
or  falsehood.  I  stopped  the  poor  fellow  and  strove,  while 
I  did  not  withhold  from  him  the  sad  truth,  to  soften  its 
terrible  significance ;  but  so  soon  as  he  was  told  that  the 
report  was  but  too  true,  he  broke  away  with  a  bitter  curse 
and  a  wild  laugh,  and  ran  madly  across  the  moor  as  if 
flying  from  himsel£  There  were  sore  hearts  that  night  in 
the  manse  as  well  as  up  on  the  hillside. 

"  Next  morning  came  tidings  of  James  Crombie  himself. 
Bonnetless  as  he  was  he  had  walked  straight  from  the  kirk 
door  to  the  gate  of  the  jail  in  the  county  town,  and  had 
set  to  battering  at  the  door  as  if  trying  to  break  it  in.  The 
warder  looked  through  the  wicket  and,  knowing  James, 
asked  in  surprise  at  the  wildness  of  his  aspect,  what  he 
wanted. 

"'I  want  in,'  was  the  answer,  'an'  I  maun  be  in!  Gin 
ye  dinna  lat  me  in,  by  God,  I'll  loup  aff  the  pier  head,  an' 
my  death  will  be  on  your  head ! ' 

" '  Is  the  man  mad  ? '  was  the  warder's  reply ;  '  troth, 
there's  mony  want  oot  frae  here,  but  few  want  in  !  I  tell 
ye,  gae  awa',  man!' 

"'Lat  me  in,  I  say!'  begged  the  elder — 'pit  me  in  a 
cell,  or  I'll  ding  out  my  brains  on  the  lintel  o'  the  yett.  I 


"HONEST"  NO  LONGER.  233 

tell  ye  I  have  guilt  on  my  sowl  an'  I  maim  dree  the  law 
for  it!' 

"The  astonished  official  knew  not  what  to  make  of  a 
demand  so  crazy,  and  he  determined  to  free  himself  from 
responsibility  by  bringing  James  under  the  cognisance  of  the 
Procurator  Fiscal,  who  lived  in  the  next  street.  For  his 
part  James  was  nothing  loth  to  accompany  the  warder,  his 
whole  being  seemingly  centred  in  a  feverish  craving  to  be 
inside  a  felon's  cell  at  the  earliest  moment.  Before  the 
Fiscal  he  abruptly  owned  to  his  crime.  Impelled,  he  said,  by 
inability  to  meet  the  impending  instalment  of  his  rent,  he  had 
forged  the  name  of  a  neighbour  to  the  bill  which  he  had 
handed  to  the  factor  in  discharge  of  the  rent  due  by  him. 
Yes,  '  honest  James '  was  honest  no  longer — he  was  a  con- 
fessed forger  and  felon.  He  had  fallen,  indeed,  but  he  could 
not  sear  his  conscience ;  and  when  my  awful  message  in 
the  fencing  of  the  tables  had  sounded  in  his  guilty  ears, 
the  burden  of  his  secret  sin  had  proved  greater  than  he 
could  bear. 

"  The  Procurator  Fiscal  of  course  took  his  '  deposition,'  and 
equally  as  a  matter  of  course  committed  him  to  prison  on  the 
charge  of  forgery  on  his  own  confession.  It  was  my  task  to 
tell  the  tale  to  his  wife,  and  I  would  rather  not  trust  myself 
to  describe  the  effects  on  her  of  blow  after  blow.  The  morn- 
ing after  my  interview  with  her  she  was  at  the  prison  door, 
and  before  the  week  was  out  there  was  a  sale  of  the  belongings 
at  the  steading  among  the  ruins  of  which  we  are  seated. 
James's  debts  were  paid,  and  the  poor  gudewife  moved  into  the 
town  into  a  humble  lodging  to  be  near  her  husband  on  the 
day  of  trial 

"  That  day  was  not  long  of  coming.  The  Lords  of  Circuit 
arrived,  and  on  the  following  morning  the  court  was  duly 
constituted.  Whereas,  according  to  my  belief,  were  this  case 
to  have  occurred  in  England,  the  factor,  a  private  individual, 
would  have  been  the  prosecutor  and  might  have  withdrawn 
the  charge  had  he  thought  proper,  the  law  is  different  here  in 
Scotland.  The  moment  that  the  Procurator  Fiscal,  who  is  a 
Crown  official  and  the  Public  Prosecutor,  has  heard  of  the 


264  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

case,  from  that  moment  it  is  beyond  the  pale  of  private 
inveteracy,  or  mercy,  as  the  case  may  be ;  and  if  in  the 
exercise  of  his  judgment  he  reports  that  the  charge  is  one  on 
which  there  is  a  reasonable  probability  of  obtaining  a  conviction, 
no  influence  in  the  land  can  withhold  it  from  the  impartial 
arbitrament  of  the  law.  So,  notwithstanding  that  the  factor's 
claim  had  been  satisfied  and  that  he  was  ready  to  give 
evidence  as  to  character  on  behalf  of  the  prisoner,  an  example 
which  the  man  whose  name  had  been  forged  desired  to 
imitate,  James  Crombie  stood  before  the  Circuit  Judges  to 
answer  to  the  charge,  with  a  Crown  counsel  as  prosecutor. 
As  he  stood  in  the  dock  with  downcast  eyes  and  worn  face  I 
noticed  that  the  sparse  grey  hairs  had  turned  to  snow-white, 
and  that  the  once  stout,  upright  figure  had  become  wasted  and 
bent. 

"'How  say  you,  James  Crombie — are  you  guilty  or  not 
guilty?' 

"  His  head  sank  still  lower  on  his  breast  as  the  answer, 
although  little  louder  than  a  whisper,  sounded  over  the 
hushed  court ; '  Guilty,  my  lord,  before  my  God,  and  before  my 
fellow-men ! ' 

" '  The  daumed  feel ! '  I  heard  the  Fiscal's  clerk  mutter 
angrily ;  '  an'  me  drew  the  process  loose  eneuch  tae  drive 
a  coach  an'  sax  through't,  tae  give  honest  James  a 
chance ! ' 

" '  Have  you  any  counsel  ? '  asked  the  Court. 

"  '  None,  my  lord,  except  a  guilty  conscience/ 

"A  whispered  consultation  ensued  between  the  Fiscal 
and  the  Crown  counsel,  and  the  latter,  rising,  requested  that 
the  Court  should  proceed  to  take  proofs  of  substantiation  of 
the  charge,  negativing  the  prisoner's  confession  and  plea  of 
'  guilty,'  and  that  it  would  be  pleased  to  appoint  one  of  the 
counsel  present  to  conduct  the  defence  of  the  prisoner  at  the 
bar. 

"A  brisk  young  advocate  who  had  been  glancing  over 
the  papers,  sprang  up  and  volunteered  his  services  which  the 
Court  accepted  on  behalf  of  the  prisoner;  and  the  first  witness, 
the  factor,  was  called.  Ho  had  not,  however,  entered  the 


DEPOSED  FROM  THE  ELDERSHIP.  265 

witness-box  when  the   dapper  young  advocate  was  on   his 
legs. 

"  '  My  lord,'  said  he,  '  I  rise  to  save  the  time  of  the  Court 
and  of  my  learned  brother  who  appears  on  behalf  of  the 
Crown.  I  beg  to  call  your  lordship's  attention  to  the 
irrelevancy  of  the  libel.  It  contains  no  specification  of  the 
date  or  approximate  date  of  the  uttering  of  the  document 
alleged  to  be  forged.5 

"  The  Fiscal's  clerk  seemed  inclined  to  give  vent  to  a 
hurrah ;  the  Judge  looked  at  the  Crown  counsel,  who  looked 
at  the  Fiscal,  who  smiled  at  his  clerk  and  then  shook  his 
head.  And  then  the  Crown  counsel  rose  and  announced  that 
'  he  deserted  the  diet  against  James  Crombie,'  or,  in  other 
words,  that  he  abandoned  the  charge.  The  bar  of  the  panel 
(or,  as  you  would  call  it,  the  dock)  was  raised,  and  the  dazed, 
half  unconscious  man  was  let  free  and  was  taken  possession 
of  by  his  faithful  wife. 

"  Next  Sunday  James  Crombie  was  in  the  kirk  in  his  usual 
seat.  After  public  worship  the  kirk-session  met  according  to 
wont,  and  James  came  and  stood  by  the  door  of  the  pew 
which  he  had  so  often  entered  of  right  as  a  respected  elder 
of  the  congregation.  The  elders  and  myself  judged  that  in 
the  circumstances  he  might  be  permitted  to  resign  simpliciter, 
and  so  denude  himself  of  the  office  which  he  was  no  longer 
worthy  to  hold.  But  no ;  James  insisted  on  drinking  the 
bitter  cup  to  its  dregs.  '  I  have  been  latten  oft'  ae  punish- 
ment,' said  he, '  oh,  ye  that  I  ance  cud  call  brethren,  but  I 
maun  dree  this  weird  tae  the  verra  end.'  He  was  immovable. 
So  next  Sabbath  day  a  Presbytery  meeting  was  convened  in 
the  kirk  down  yonder,  and  James  Crombie  was  formally 
deposed  from  the  office  of  the  eldership  in  the  face  of  the 
congregation.  With  his  fine  bare  head  bent  meekly  down- 
wards he  went  out  from  our  midst,  his  faithful  wife  guiding 
his  footsteps.  Next  week  the  couple  sailed  for  America. 
The  ship  was  lost  on  the  coast  of  Ireland,  and  not  a  soul 
was  saved." 

It  was  with  difficulty  that  the  old  minister  reached  what 
I  took  to  be  the  conclusion  of  his  melancholy  story.     He  rose 


2C6  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

from  the  turf  seat,  and  walked  with  hasty  steps  down  the 
slope  through  the  rough  grass,  and  among  the  whin  bushes. 
I  followed  him  at  a  short  interval,  unwilling  to  interrupt  his 
meditations,  and  we  went  on  in  this  order  till  we  came 
within  a  little  distance  of  the  graveyard  wall.  Here  the 
minister  halted  and  faced  about.  Waiting  until  I  came  up, 
he  abruptly  burst  again  into  speech : — 

"  It  was  several  years  after  this,"  he  said,  "  that  a  woman 
came  to  the  manse  and  told  me  that  I  was  wanted  up  at  the 
steading  on  the  shoulder  of  the  hill.  Crombie's  farm  had 
been  incorporated  into  a  neighbouring  one,  and  the  buildings 
the  ruins  of  which  we  have  just  left,  remained  unoccupied 
and  were  gradually  becoming  dilapidated.  With  some 
curiosity  I  went  up  the  hill,  and  crossing  the  threshold  from 
which  the  door-posts  had  rotted  away,  I  entered  the  once- 
familiar  kitchen.  At  first  there  seemed  no  sign  of  life  in  the 
place,  but  a  low  moaning  drew  me  towards  the  chimney 
corner.  There,  all  along  on  the  earthen  floor,  in  a  huddled 
mass  of  draggled,  tawdry  finery  lay  a  female  form  face 
downwards.  I  stooped,  raised  the  passive  head,  and  turned  it 
to  the  light.  For  a  little  time  I  gazed  on  the  lineaments,  worn, 
wild,  yet  beautiful  as  they  were,  without  recognition ;  then,  as 
the  eyes  opened,  the  awful  conviction  dawned  on  me  that  in 
this  poor  wreck,  this  waif  and  stray  of  shattered  and  blighted 
womanhood,  I  was  looking  upon  none  other  than  Isabel 
Crombie.  She  recognised  me,  too,  seemingly,  after  a  little 
while,  for  she  began  in  a  low  broken  tone  to  repeat  scraps  of 
the  Shorter  Catechism  and  the  texts  of  Scripture  on 
which  I  had  been  wont  to  question  her  in  the  Sabbath  school 
and  on  my  season  visitations.  Then  her  mood  suddenly 
changed,  and,  sitting  up  with  wild,  distorted  face  and  arms 
thrown  frantically  about,  she  burst  into  a  torrent  of  raving 
oaths  and  blasphemy  such  as  curdled  the  blood  in  my  veins. 
This  outburst  of  horrible  language  lasted  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  then  the  mood  changed  again,  and  she  began  to  rock  her- 
self to  and  fro  as  if  she  were  dandling  an  infant,  crooning  at 
the  same  time  a  low  lullaby  song.  Finally  she  sank  in  a  state  of 
syncope,  and  then  I  sent  the  woman  who  had  fetched  me  for  a 


A   CURIOUS  COINCIDENCE.  267 

couple  of  neighbours,  and  we  had  her  carried  to  the  nearest 
house.  There  she  lay  some  days,  evidently  dying  fast.  Hers 
was  the  sad  old  story,  so  old  in  the  history  of  womanhood 
that  I  need  not  name  it  to  you.  It  was  a  curious  coincidence 
that  while  she  was  lying  there  fading  out  of  the  world,  a  letter 
came  to  me  from  a  chaplain  of  the  Scutari  Hospital  intimating 
that  Private  John  Farquharson  of  the  Scots  Greys,  had  died 
in  that  hospital  on  a  day  stated,  of  desperate  wounds  received 
in  the  heavy  cavalry  charge  at  Balaclava.  We  spared  the 
poor  wretch  this  last  drop  of  the  cup  she  had  poured  herself 
out.  Halt !  or  you  will  tread  on  her  grave." 


XIII. 

MY  SERVANTS  ON   CAMPAIGN. 
ANDREAS. 

fT^HERE  is  an  undoubted  fascination  in  the  picturesque  and 
-L  adventurous  life  of  the  war  correspondent.  One  must, 
of  course,  have  a  distinct  bent  for  the  avocation,  and  if  he  is  to 
succeed  he  must  possess  certain  salient  attributes.  He  must 
expose  himself  to  rather  greater  risks  than  fall  to  the  lot  of 
the  average  fighting  man,  without  enjoying  any  of  the  happi- 
ness of  retaliation  which  stirs  the  blood  of  the  latter ;  the 
correspondent  must  sit  quietly  on  his  horse  in  the  fire,  and 
while  watching  every  turn  in  the  battle,  must  wear  an  aspect 
suggesting  that  he  rather  enjoyed  the  storm  of  missiles 
than  otherwise.  When  the  fighting  is  over  the  soldier,  if  not 
killed,  can  generally  eat  and  sleep ;  ere  the  echoes  of  it  are 
silent  the  correspondent  of  energy — and  if  he  has  not  energy 
he  is  not  worth  his  salt — must  already  be  galloping  his  hardest 
towards  the  nearest  telegraph  wire,  which,  as  like  as  not,  is  a 
hundred  miles  distant.  He  must  "  get  there  "  by  hook  or  by 
crook,  in  a  minimum  of  time ;  and  as  soon  as  his  message  is 
on  the  wires  he  must  be  hurrying  back  to  the  army,  else 
he  may  chance  to  miss  the  great  battle  of  the  war. 

The  career,  no  doubt,  has  some  incidental  drawbacks. 
General  Sherman  threatened  to  hang  all  the  correspondents 
found  in  his  camp  after  a  certain  day,  and  General  Sherman 
was  the  kind  of  man  to  fulfil  any  threat  he  made.  But  the 
casual  obstructions,  half  irritating,  half  comic,  to  which  he 
may  be  subjected,  do  not  bother  the  war  correspondent  of 
the  Old  World  nearly  as  much  as  do  the  foreign  languages 
which,  if  he  is  not  a  good  linguist,  hamper  him  every  hour 
of  every  day.  He  really  should  possess  the  gift  of  tongues. 
But  how  few  in  the  nature  of  things  can  approximate  to 


THE  GIFT  OF  TONGUES.  269 

this  polyglot  versatility.     I  own  myself  to  be  a  poor  linguist, 
and  have  many  and  many  a  time  suffered  for  my  dulness  of 
what   the  Scots  call  "  up-take."      It  is  true  I  know  a  little 
French  and  German,  and  could  express  my  wants,  with  the 
aid  of  pantomine,  in  Russian,  Roumanian,  Bulgarian,  Servian, 
Spanish,  Turkish,  Hindostanee,  Pushtoo,  and  Burmese,  every 
word  of  which  smatterings  I  have  long  since  forgotten.     But 
the  truth  is  that  the  poorest  peoples  in  the  world  in  acquiring 
foreign  languages  are  the  English  and  French ;  the  readiest 
are  the  Russians  and  Americans.     It  was  after  a  fashion  a 
liberal  education  to  listen  to  the  fluency  in  some  half-dozen 
languages  of  poor  MacGahan,  the  "  Ohio  boy  "  who  graduated 
from  the  plough  to  be  perhaps  the  most  brilliant  war  corre- 
spondent of  modern  times.     His   compatriot  and  colleague, 
Frank  Millet,  seemed  to  pick  up  a  language  by  the   mere 
accident  of  rinding  himself  on  the  soil  where  it  was  spoken. 
In    the    first  three   days    after  crossing    the    Danube  into 
Bulgaria,  -Millet  went  about  with  book  in  hand  gathering  in 
the  names  of  things  at  which  he  pointed,  and  jotting  down 
each  acquisition  in  the  book.     On  the  fourth  day  he  could 
swear  in  Bulgarian,  copiously,  fervently,  and  with  a  measure 
of  intelligibility.     Within  a  week  he  had  conquered,  roughly, 
the  uncouth  tongue.     As  he  voyaged  lately  down  the  Danube 
from    source    to   mouth,   charmingly    describing   the  scenic 
panorama  of  the  great  river  for  the  pages  of  Harpers,  the 
readers  of  these  sketches  cannot  have  failed  to  notice  how 
Millet   talked   to    German,    Hungarian,   Servian,   Bulgarian, 
Roumanian,    and    Turk,   each    in    his    own   tongue,    those 
languages  having  been  acquired  by  him  during  the  few  months 
of  the  Russo-Turkish  War. 

By  this  time  the  reader  may  be  wondering  where 
"  Andreas "  comes  in.  Perhaps  I  have  been  over  long  in 
getting  to  my  specific  subject;  but  I  will  not  be  discursive 
any  more.  It  was  at  the  table  d'hote  in  the  Serbisshe 
Krone  Hotel  in  Belgrade,  where  I  first  set  eyes^  on 
Andreas.  In  the  year  1876  Servia  had  thought  proper  to 
throw  off  the  yoke  of  her  Turkish  suzerain,  and  to  attempt 
to  assert  her  independence  by  force  of  arms.  But  for  a 


270  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

very  irregularly  paid  tribute  she  was  virtually  independent 
already,  and  probably  in  all  Servia  there  were  not  two 
hundred  Turks.  But  she  ambitiously  desired  to  have  the 
name  as  well  as  the  actuality  of  being  independent;  the 
Russians  helped  her  with  arms,  officers,  and  volunteer 
soldiers ;  and  when  I  reached  Belgrade  in  May  of  the 
year  named,  there  had  already  been  fighting  in  which  the 
Servians  had  by  no  means  got  the  worst.  No  word  of  the 
Servian  tongue  had  I;  and  it  was  the  reverse  of  pleasant 
for  a  war  correspondent  in  such  a  plight  to  learn  that  out- 
side of  Belgrade  nobody,  or  at  least  hardly  anybody,  knew 
a  word  of  any  other  language  than  his  native  Servian.  As 
I  ate  I  was  attended  by  an  assiduous  waiter  whose 
alertness  and  anxiety  to  please  were  very  conspicuous.  He 
was  smart  with  quite  un-Oriental  smartness ;  he  whisked 
about  the  tables  with  deftness ;  he  spoke  to  me  in  German, 
to  the  Russian  officers  over  against  me  in  what  I  assumed 
was  Russian,  to  the  Servians  dining  behind  ine  in  what  I 
took  to  be  Servian.  I  liked  the  look  of  the  man ;  there 
was  intelligence  in  his  aspect.  One  could  not  call  him 
handsome,  but  there  was  character  in  the  keen  black  eye, 
the  high  features,  and  the  pronounced  chin  fringed  on 
each  side  by  bushy  black  whiskers. 

I  had  brought  no  servant  with  me;  the  average  British 
servant  is  worse  than  useless  in  a  foreign  country,  and  the 
dubiously-polyglot  courier  is  a  snare  and  a  deception  on 
campaign.  I  had  my  eye  on  Andreas  for  a  couple  of  days, 
during  which  he  was  of  immense  service  to  me.  He 
seemed  to  know  and  stand  well  with  everyone  in  Belgrade. 
It  was  he,  indeed,  who  presented  me  in  the  restaurant  to 
the  Prime  Minister  and  the  Minister  for  War,  who  got 
together  for  me  my  field  necessaries,  who  helped  me  to 
buy  my  horses,  and  who  narrated  to  me  the  progress  of 
the  campaign  so  far  as  it  had  gone.  On  the  third  day  I 
had  him  hi  my  room  and  asked  whether  he  would  like  to 
come  with  me  into  the  field  as  my  servant.  He  accepted 
the  offer  with  effusion ;  we  struck  hands  on  the  compact ; 
he  tendered  me  credentials  which  I  ascertained  to  be 


"A  PURE  MONGREL."  271 

extremely  satisfactory;  and  then  he  gave  ine  a  little  sketch 
of  himself'  It  was  somewhat  mixed,  as  indeed  was  his 
origin.  Primarily  he  was  a  Servian,  but  his  maternal 
grandmother  had  been  a  Bosniak,  an  earlier  ancestress  had 
been  in  a  Turkish  harem,  there  was  a  strain  in  his  blood 
of  the  Hungarian  zinganee — the  gipsy  of  Eastern  Europe, 
and  one  could  not  look  at  his  profile  without  a  suspicion 
that  there  was  a  Jewish  element  in  his  pedigree.  "  A 
pure  mongrel,"  was  what  a  gentleman  of  the  British  Agency 
termed  Andreas,  and  this  self-contradictory  epithet  was 
scarcely  out  of  place. 

Andreas  turned  out  well.  He  was  as  hardy  as  a  hill- 
goat,  careless  how  and  when  he  ate,  or  where  he  slept, 
which,  indeed,  was  mostly  in  the  open.  It  seemed  to  me 
that  he  had  cousins  all  over  Servia,  chiefly  of  the  female 
persuasion,  and  I  am  morally  certain  that  the  Turkish 
strain  in  his  blood  had  in  Andreas  its  natural  development 
in  a  species  of  fin-de-sibcle  polygamy.  Sherman's  prize 
"bummer"  was  not  in  it  with  Andreas  as  a  forager.  At 
first,  indeed,  I  suspected  him  of  actual  plundering,  so 
copiously  did  he  bring  in  supplies,  and  so  little  had  I  to 
pay  for  them  ;  but  I  was  not  long  in  discovering  that  all 
kinds  of  produce  were  dirt  cheap  in  Servia,  and  that  as 
1  could  myself  buy  a  lamb  for  a  shilling,  it  was  not  sur- 
prising that  Andreas,  to  the  manner  born,  could  easily 
obtain  one  for  half  the  money.  He  was  an  excellent 
horse-master,  and  the  stern  vigour  with  which  he  chastised 
the  occasional  neglect  of  the  cousin  whom  he  had  brought 
into  my  service  as  groom,  was  borne  in  upon  me  by  the 
frequent  howls  which  were  audible  from  the  rear  of  my 
tent.  There  was  not  a  road  in  all  Servia  with  whose  every 
winding  Andreas  was  not  conversant,  and  this  "  extensive 
and  peculiar"  knowledge  of  his  was  often  of  great  service 
to  me.  He  was  a  light-weight  and  an  excellent  rider;  I 
have  sent  him  oft'  to  Belgrade  with  a  telegram  at  dusk, 
and  he  was  back  again  within  less  than  twenty  hours, 
after  a  gallop  of  quite  a  hundred  miles. 

No  exertion  fatigued  him;  I  never  saw  the  man  out  of 


272  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

humour.  There  was  but  one  matter  in  regard  to  which  I 
ever  had  to  chide  him,  and  in  that  I  had  perforce  to  let 
him  have  his  own  way,  because  I  do  not  believe  that  he 
could  restrain  himself.  He  had  served  the  term  in  the 
army  which  is,  or  was  then,  obligatory  on  all  Servians ; 
and  on  the  road  or  hi  camp  he  was  rather  more  of  a 
"  peace-at-any-price "  man  than  ever  was  the  late  Mr.  John 
Bright  himself  When  the  first  fight  occurred  Andreas 
claimed  to  be  allowed  to  witness  it  along  with  me.  I 
demurred ;  he  might  get  hit ;  and  if  anything  should 
happen  to  him  what  should  I  do  for  a  servant  ?  At 
length  I  gave  him  the  firm  order  to  remain  in  camp ;  and 
started  myself  with  the  groom  behind  me  on  my  second 
horse.  The  fighting  occurred  eight  miles  from  camp  ;  and 
in  the  course  of  it,  leaving  the  groom  in  the  rear,  I  had 
accompanied  the  Russian  General  Dochtouroff  into  a  most 
unpleasantly  hot  place,  where  a  storm  of  Turkish  shells 
was  falling  in  the  effort  to  hinder  the  withdrawal  of  a 
disabled  Servian  battery.  I  happened  to  glance  over  my 
shoulder,  and  lo!  Andreas  on  foot  was  at  my  horse's  tail, 
obviously  in  a  state  of  ecstatic  enjoyment  of  the  situation. 
I  peremptorily  ordered  him  back,  and  he  departed  sullenly, 
calmly  strolling  along  the  Turkish  line  of  fire.  Just  then, 
it  seemed,  Tchernaieff,  the  Servian  commander-in-chief, 
had  ordered  up  a  detachment  of  infantry  to  take  in  flank 
the  Turkish  guns.  From  where  we  stood  I  could  discern 
the  Servian  soldiers  hurrying  forward  close  under  the 
fringe  of  a  wood  near  the  line  of  retirement  along  which 
Andreas  was  sulking.  Andreas  saw  them  too,  and  re- 
treated no  step  farther,  but  cut  across  to  them  snatching 
up  a  gun  as  he  ran;  and  the  last  I  saw  of  him  was  while 
he  was  waving  on  the  militiamen  with  his  billycock,  and 
loosing  off  an  occasional  bullet,  while  he  emitted  yells  of 
defiance  against  the  Turks  which  might  well  have  struck 
terror  into  their  very  marrow.  Andreas  came  into  camp 
at  night  very  streaky  with  powder  stains,  minus  the  lobe 
of  one  ear,  uneasy  as  he  caught  my  eye,  yet  with  a  certain 
elateness  of  mien.  I  sacked  him  that  night,  and  he  said 


"EFFENDI!"  273 

he  didn't  care  and  that  he  was  not  ashamed  of  himself. 
Next  morning  as  I  was  rising,  he  rushed  into  the  tent, 
knelt  down,  clasped  my  knees,  and  bedewed  my  ankles 
with  his  tears.  Of  course  I  reinstated  him  ;  I  couldn't  do 
without  him  and  I  think  he  knew  it. 

But  I  had  yielded  too  easily.  Andreas  had  established 
a  precedent.  He  insisted  in  a  quiet,  positive  manner  on 
accompanying  me  to  every  subsequent  battle ;  and  I  had 
to  consent,  always  taking  his  pledge  that  he  would  obey 
the  injunctions  I  might  lay  upon  him.  And,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  he  punctually  and  invariably  violated  that 
pledge  when  the  crisis  of  the  fighting  was  drawing  to  a 
head,  and  just  when  this  "  peace-at-any-price "  man  could 
not  control  the  blood-thirst  that  was  parching  him. 

One  never  knows  how  events  are  to  fall  out.  It  happened 
that  this  resolution  on  the  part  of  Andreas  to  accompany  me 
into  the  fights  once  assuredly  saved  my  life.  It  was  on  the 
day  of  Djunis,  the  last  battle  fought  by  the  Servians.  In  the 
early  part  of  the  day  there  was  a  good  deal  of  scattered 
woodland  fighting  in  front  of  the  entrenched  line,  which  they 
abandoned  when  the  Turks  came  on  in  earnest.  Andreas 
and  I  were  among  the  trees  trying  to  find  a  position  from 
which  something  was  to  be  seen,  when  all  of  a  sudden  I,  who 
was  in  advance,  plumped  right  into  the  centre  of  a  small 
scouting  party  of  Turks.  They  tore  me  out  of  the  saddle, 
and  I  had  given  myself  up  for  lost — for  the  Turks  took  no 
prisoners,  their  cheerful  practice  being  to  slaughter  first  and 
then  abominably  to  mutilate — when  suddenly  Andreas  dashed 
in  among  my  captors,  shouting  aloud  in  a  language  which  I 
took  to  be  Turkish,  since  he  bellowed  "  Effendi "  as  he  pointed 
to  me.  He  had  thrown  away  his  billycock  and  substituted  a 
fez,  which  he  afterwards  told  me  he  always  carried  in  case  of 
accidents,  and  in  one  hand  he  waved  a  dingy  piece  of 
parchment  with  a  seal  dangling  from  it,  which  I  assumed  was 
some  obsolete  firman.  The  result  was  truly  amazing  and  the 
scene  had  some  real  humour  in  it.  With  profound  salaams 
the  Turks  unhanded  me,  helped  me  to  mount,  and  as  I  rode 
off  at  a  tangent  with  Andreas  at  my  horse's  head,  called  after 
s 


274  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

me  what  sounded  like  friendly  farewells.  When  we  were 
back  among  the  Russians — I  don't  remember  seeing  much  of 
the  Servians  later  on  that  day — Andreas  explained  that  he 
had  passed  himself  off  for  the  Turkish  dragoman  of  a  British 
correspondent  whom  the  Padishah  delighted  to  honour,  and 
that  after  expressing  a  burning  desire  to  defile  the  graves  of 
their  collective  female  ancestry,  he  had  assured  my  captors 
that  they  might  count  themselves  as  dead  men  if  they  did 
not  immediately  release  me.  To  his  ready-witted  conduct  I 
undoubtedly  owe  the  ability  to  write  now  this  record  of  a 
man  of  curiously  complicated  nature. 

When  the  campaign  ended  with  the  Servian  defeat  at 
Djunis,  Andreas  went  back  to  his  head-waitership  at  the 
Serbische  Krone  in  Belgrade.  Before  leaving  that  capital  I 
had  the  honour  of  being  present  at  his  nuptials,  a  ceremony 
the  amenity  of  which  was  somewhat  disturbed  by  the  violent 
incursion  into  the  sacred  edifice  of  sundry  ladies,  all  claiming 
to  have  prior  claims  on  the  bridegroom  of  the  hour.  They 
were,  however,  placated,  and  subsequently  joined  the  marriage 
feast  in  the  great  arbour  behind  the  Krone.  Andreas 
faithfully  promised  to  come  to  me  to  the  ends  of  the  earth  on 
receipt  of  a  telegram,  if  I  should  require  his  services  and  he 
were  alive. 

Next  spring  the  Russo-Turkish  war  broke  out,  and  I 
hurried  eastward  in  time  to  see  the  first  Cossack  cross  the 
Pruth.  I  had  telegraphed  to  Andreas  from  England  to  meet 
me  at  Bazias,  on  the  Danube  below  Belgrade.  Bazias  is  the 
place  where  the  railway  used  to  end  and  where  we  took 
steamer  for  the  Lower  Danube.  Andreas  was  duly  on  hand, 
ready  and  serviceable  as  of  old,  a  little  fatter  and  a  trifle 
more  consequential  than  when  we  had  last  parted.  He  was, 
if  possible,  rather  more  at  home  in  Bucharest  than  he  had 
been  in  Belgrade,  and  recommended  me  to  BrofYt's  Hotel,  in 
comparison  with  which  the  charges  of  the  Savoy  on  the 
Thames  Embankment  or  the  Waldorf  in  New  York  are 
infinitesimal.  He  bought  my  waggon  and  team  for  me ;  he 
found  riding-horses  when  they  were  said  to  be  unprocurable ; 
he  constructed  a  most  ingenious  tent  of  which  the  waggon 


A  El  FT  IN  THE  LUTE.  275 

was,  so  to  speak,  the  roof-tree ;  he  laid  in  stores,  arranged  for 
relays  of  couriers,  and  furnished  me  with  a  coachman  in  tho 
person  of  a  Roumanian  Jew,  who,  he  one  day  owned,  was  a 
distant  connection,  and  whose  leading  attribute  was  that  he 
could  survive  more  sleep  than  any  other  human  being  I  have 
ever  known.  We  took  the  field  auspiciously,  Mr.  Frederic 
Villiers,  the  war  artist  of  the  London  Graphic,  being  my 
campaigning  comrade.  Thus  early  I  discerned  a  slight  rift  in 
the  lute.  Andreas  did  not  like  Villiers,  which  showed  his  bad 
taste  or  rather,  perhaps,  the  concentratedness  of  his  capacity 
of  affection;  and  I  fear  Villiers  did  not  much  like  Andreas, 
whom  he  thought  too  familiar.  This  was  true,  and  it  was  my 
fault ;  but  it  really  was  with  difficulty  that  I  could  bring 
myself  to  treat  Andreas  as  a  servant.  He  was  more,  to  my 
estimation,  in  the  nature  of  the  confidential  major-domo,  and 
to  me  he  was  simply  invaluable.  Villiers  had  to  chew  his 
moustache  and  glower  discontentedly  at  Andreas. 

I  had  some  good  couriers  for  the  conveyance  of  despatches 
back  across  the  Danube  to  Bucharest,  whence  everything  was 
telegraphed  to  London ;  but  they  were  essentially  fair-weather 
men.  The  casual  courier  may  be  alert,  loyal,  and  trustworthy 
he  may  be  relied  on  to  try  his  honest  best,  but  it  is  not  to  be 
expected  of  him  that  he  will  greatly  dare  and  count  his  life 
but  as  dross  when  his  incentive  to  enterprise  is  merely  filthy 
lucre.  But  I  could  trust  Andreas  to  dare  and  to  endure,  to 
overcome  obstacles,  and,  if  man  could,  to  "  get  there,"  where 
in  the  base-quarters  in  Bucharest,  the  amanuenses  were 
waiting  to  copy  out  in  round  hand  for  the  foreign  telegraphist 
the  rapid  script  of  the  correspondent  scribbling  for  life  in  the 
saddle  or  the  cleft  of  a  commanding  tree  while  the  shells  were 
whistling  past.  We  missed  Andreas  dreadfully  when  he  was 
gone.  Even  Villiers,  who  liked  good  cooking,  owned  to 
thinking  long  for  his  return.  For  in  addition  to  his  other 
virtues,  Andreas  was  a  capital  cook.  It  is  true  that  his 
courses  had  a  habit  of  arriving  at  long  and  uncertain 
intervals.  After  a  dish  of  stew,  no  other  viands  appearing  to 
loom  in  the  near  future,  Villiers  and  myself  would  betake 
ourselves  to  smoking,  and  perhaps  on  a  quiet  day  would  lapse 
s  2 


276  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

into  slumber.  From  this  we  would  be  aroused  by  Andreas  to 
partake  of  a  second  course  of  roast  chicken,  the  bird  having 
been  alive  and  unconscious  of  its  impending  fate  when  the 
first  course  had  been  served.  No  man  is  perfect,  and  as 
regarded  Andreas  there  were  some  petty  spots  on  the  sun. 
He  had,  for  instance,  a  mania  for  the  purchase  of  irrelevant 
poultry  and  for  accommodating  the  fowls  in  our  waggon  tied 
by  the  legs,  against  the  day  of  starvation,  which  he  always,  but 
causelessly,  apprehended.  I  do  not  suppose  any  reader  has  ever 
had  any  experience  of  domestic  poultry  as  bedfellows,  and  I  may 
caution  him  earnestly  against  making  any  such  experiment. 

I  do  not  know  whether  it  is  a  detraction  from  Andreas's 
worth  to  mention  that  another  characteristic  of  his  was  the 
habit  of  awaking  us  in  the  still  watches  of  the  night,  for  the 
purpose  of  imparting  his  views  on  recondite  phases  of  the 
great  Eastern  question.  But  how  trivial  were  such  peccadilloes 
in  a  man  who  was  so  resolute  not  to  be  beaten  in  getting  my 
despatch  to  the  telegraph  wire  that  once,  when  a  large  section 
of  the  bridge  across  the  Danube  was  sunk,  he  swam  nearly 
half  across  the  great  river,  from  the  right  bank  to  the  island 
in  mid-stream  whence  the  bridge  to  the  left  bank  was 
passable !  Andreas  became  quite  an  institution  in  the 
Russian  camp.  When  Ignatieff,  the  Tzar's  intimate,  the 
great  diplomatist  who  has  now  curiously  fizzled  out,  would 
honour  us  by  partaking  sometimes  of  afternoon  tea  in  our 
tent,  he  would  call  Andreas  by  his  name  and  address  him  as 
"  Molodetz!"  the  Russian  for  "  Brave  fellow!"  In  the  Servian 
campaign  Dochtouroff  had  got  him  the  Takova  Cross,  which 
Andreas  sported  with  great  pride ;  and  Ignatieff  used  to  tell 
him  that  the  Tzar  was  seriously  thinking  of  conferring  on 
him  the  Cross  of  St.  George,  badinage  which  Andreas  took  in 
dead  earnest.  MacGahan  used  gravely  to  entreat  him  to 
take  greater  care  of  his  invaluable  life,  and  hint  that  if  any 
calamity  occurred  to  him  the  campaign  would  ipso  facto 
come  to  an  end.  Andreas  knew  that  MacGahan  was  quizzing 
him,  but  it  was  exceedingly  droll  how  he  purred  and  bridled 
under  the  light  touch  of  that  genial  humorist,  whose  merits 
bis  countrymen,  to  my  thinking,  have  never  adequately 


DELIRIOUS  FOR  SEVEN  DAYS.  277 

recognised.  The  old  story  of  a  prophet  having  scant  honour 
in  his  own  country  ! 

After  the  long  strain  of  the  desperate  but  futile  attack 
made  by  the  Russians  on  Plevna  in  the  early  part  of  the 
September  of  the  war,  I  fell  a  victim  to  the  malarial  fever  of 
the  Lower  Danube,  and  had  to  be  invalided  back  to  Bucharest. 
The  illness  grew  upon  me  and  my  condition  became  very 
serious.  Worthy  Andreas  nursed  me  with  great  tenderness 
and  assiduity  in  the  lodgings  to  which  I  had  been  brought, 
since  they  would  not  accept  a  fever  patient  at  Brofft's.  After 
some  days  of  wretchedness  I  became  delirious  and  of  course 
lost  consciousness;  my  last  recollection  was  of  Andreas 
wetting  my  parched  lips  with  lemonade.  When  I  recovered 
my  senses  and  looked  out  feebly,  there  was  nobody  in  the 
room.  How  long  I  had  been  unconscious,  I  had  no  idea.  I 
lay  there  in  a  half-stupor  till  evening,  unable  from  weakness 
to  summon  any  assistance.  In  the  dusk  came  the  English 
doctor  who  had  been  attending  me.  "  Where  is  Andreas  ? " 
he  asked.  I  could  not  tell  him.  "  He  was  here  last  night," 
he  said — "you  have  been  delirious  for  seven  days."  The 
woman  of  the  house  was  summoned.  She  had  not  seen 
Andreas  since  the  previous  night,  but,  busy  about  her  own 
domestic  affairs,  had  no  suspicion  until  she  entered  the  room 
that  Andreas  was  not  with  me  still. 

Andreas  never  returned.  It  appeared  that  he  had  taken 
away  at  least  all  his  own  belongings. 

I  saw  him  once  again  before  I  left  Bucharest,  but  he 
seemed  to  shun  me.  I  believed  at  the  time  that  there  were 
grave  reasons  why  he  should  do  so ;  but  it  is  possible  that 
he  did  not  deserve  the  suspicions  I  could  not  help  entertaining. 
Anyhow  I  never  can  forget  that  he  saved  my  life  among  the 
pine  trees  of  Djunis. 

JOHN. 

GOA  is  a  forlorn  and  decayed  settlement  on  the  south-west  coast 
of  Hindustan,  the  last  remaining  relic  of  the  once  wide  dominions 
of  the  Portuguese  in  India.  Its  inhabitants  are  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  faith,  ever  since  in  the  sixteenth  century  St.  Francis 


278  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Xavier,  the  colleague  of  Loyola  in  the  foundation  of  the  Society 
of  Jesus,  baptised  the  Goanese  en  masse.  Its  once  splendid 
capital  is  now  a  miasmatic  wreck,  its  cathedrals  and  churches 
are  ruined  and  roofless,  and  only  a  few  black  nuns  remain  to 
keep  alight  the  sacred  fire  before  a  crumbling  altar.  Of  all 
European  nations  the  Portuguese  have  mingled  most  with  the 
dusky  races  over  which  they  held  dominion,  with  the  curious 
result  that  the  offspring  of  the  cross  is  darker  in  hue  than  the 
original  coloured  population.  To-day  the  adult  males  of  Goa, 
such  of  them  as  have  any  enterprise,  emigrate  into  less  dull 
and  dead  regions  of  India,  and  are  found  everywhere  as  cooks, 
ship-stewards,  messengers,  and  in  similar  menial  capacities. 
They  all  call  themselves  Portuguese  and  own  high-sounding 
Portuguese  surnames.  Domingo  de  Gonsalvez  de  Soto  will 
cook  your  curry  and  Pedro  de  Guiterrez  is  content  to  act  as 
dry  nurse  to  your  wife's  babies.  The  vice  of  those  dusky 
noblemen  is  their  addiction  to  drink. 

The  better  sort  of  those  self-expatriated  Goanese  are  eager 
to  serve  as  travelling  servants,  and  when  you  have  the  luck  to 
chance  on  a  reasonably  sober  fellow  no  better  servant  can  be 
found  anywhere.  Being  a  Christian  he  has  no  caste,  and  has 
no  religious  scruples  preventing  him  from  wiping  your  razor 
after  you  have  shaved,  or  from  eating  his  dinner  after  your 
shadow  has  happened  to  fall  across  the  table.  In  Bombay 
there  is  a  regular  club  or  society  of  those  Goanese  travelling 
servants ;  and  when  the  transient  wayfarer  lands  in  that  city 
from  the  Peninsular  and  Oriental  mail-boat,  one  of  the  first 
things  he  is  advised  to  do  is  to  send  round  to  the  "  Goa  Club  " 
arid  desire  the  secretary  to  send  him  a  travelling  servant.  The 
result  is  a  lottery.  The  man  arrives,  mostly  a  good-looking 
fellow,  tall  and  slight,  of  very  dark  olive  complexion,  with 
smooth  glossy  hah-,  large  soft  eyes,  and  well-cut  features.  He 
produces  a  packet  of  chafed  and  dingy  testimonials  of  charac- 
ter from  previous  employers,  all  full  of  commendation  and 
not  one  of  which  is  worth  the  paper  it  is  written  on,  because 
the  good-natured  previous  employers  were  too  soft  of  heart  to 
speak  their  mind  on  paper.  If  by  chance  a  stern  and  ruthless 
person  has  characterised  Bartoloineo  de  Braganza  as  drunken, 


JOHN  ASSISIS  DE   COMPOS TELLA  DE  C RUG 'IS.      279 

lazy,  and  dishonest,  Bartolomeo,  who  has  learnt  to  read  English, 
promptly  destroys  the  "  chit "  and  the  stern  man's  object  is 
thus  frustrated.  But  you  must  take  the  Goa  man  as  he  comes, 
for  it  is  a  law  of  the  society  that  its  members  are  offered  in 
strict  succession  as  available,  and  that  no  picking  and  choosing 
is  to  be  allowed.  When  with  the  Prince  of  Wales  during  his 
tour  in  India,  the  man  who  fell  to  me — good,  steady,  honest 
Francis — was  simply  a  dusky  jewel.  My  comrade  Mr.  Henty, 
the  boys'  friend,  rather  crowed  over  me  because  Domingo 
his  man,  seemed  more  spry  and  smarter  than  did  my 
Francis.  But  Francis  had  often  to  attend  on  Henty  as 
well  as  myself,  when  Domingo  the  quick-witted  was  lying 
blind  drunk  at  the  back  of  the  tent;  and  once  and  again 
I  have  seen  Henty  carrying  down  on  his  back  to  the 
departing  train  the  unconscious  servant  on  whom  at  the 
beginning  he  had  congratulated  himself. 

In  the  summer  of  1878  Shere  Ali,  the  old  Ameer  of 
Afghanistan,  took  it  into  his  head  to  pick  a  quarrel  with  the 
Viceroy  of  British  India.  Lord  Lytton  was  always  spoiling 
for  a  fight  himself,  and  thus  there  was  every  prospect  of  a 
lively  little  war.  If  war  should  occur  it  was  my  duty  to  be  in 
the  thick  of  it,  and  I  reached  Bombay  well  in  time  to  see  the 
opening  of  the  campaign.  Knowing  the  ropes,  within  an  hour 
of  landing  I  sent  to  the  "  Goa  Club  "  for  a  servant,  begging  that 
if  possible  I  might  have  worthy  Francis,  who  had  fully  satis- 
fied me  during  the  tour  of  the  Prince.  Francis  was  not  avail- 
able, and  there  was  sent  me  a  tall,  prepossessing- looking  young 
man,  who  presented  himself  as  "  John  Assisis  de  Compostella 
de  Crucis  "  but  who  was  quite  content  to  answer  to  the  name 
of  "  John." 

John  seemed  a  capable  man,  but  was  occasionally  muzzy. 
After  visiting  Simla  the  headquarters  of  the  Viceroy,  I 
started  for  the  frontier  where  the  army  was  mustering.  On 
the  way  down  I  spent  a  couple  of  days  at  Umballa  to  buy  kit 
and  saddlery.  The  train  by  which  I  was  going  to  travel  up 
country  was  due  at  Umballa  about  midnight.  I  instructed 
John  to  have  everything  ready  at  the  station  in  good  time,  and 
went  to  dine  at  the  mess  of  the  Carbineers.  In  due  time  I 


280  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

reached  the  station  accompanied  by  several  officers  of  that  fine 
regiment.  The  train  was  at  the  platform ;  my  belongings  I 
found  in  a  chaotic  heap  crowned  by  John  fast  asleep,  who 
when  awakened  proved  to  be  extremely  drunk.  I  could  not 
dispense  with  the  man  ;  I  had  to  cure  him.  I  gave  him  then 
and  there  a  considerable  beating.  A  fatigue  party  of  Car- 
bineers pitched  my  kit  into  the  luggage  van  and  threw  John 
in  after  it.  Next  day  he  was  sore  but  penitent ;  he  was  re- 
deemed without  resorting  to  the  chloride  of  gold  cure,  and,  in 
his  case,  at  least,  I  was  quite  as  successful  a  practitioner  as  any 
Dr.  Keeley  could  have  been.  John  de  Compostella,  etc.,  was 
a  dead  sober  man  during  my  subsequent  experience  of  him, 
at  least  till  close  on  the  time  we  parted. 

And,  once  cured  of  fuddling,  he  turned  out  a  most  faithful 
fellow.  He  lacked  the  dash  of  Andreas,  but  he  was  as  true  as 
steel.  In  the  attack  on  Ali  Musjid  in  the  throat  of  the 
Khyber  Pass,  the  native  groom  who  was  leading  my  horse 
behind  me  became  demoralised  by  the  rather  heavy  fire  of  big 
cannon  balls  from  the  fort ;  and  he  skulked  to  the  rear  with 
the  horse.  John  had  no  call  to  come  under  fire,  since  the 
groom  was  specially  paid  for  doing  so  ;  but,  abusing  the  latter 
for  a  coward  in  the  expressive  vernacular  of  India,  he  laid 
hold  of  the  reins  and  was  up  right  at  my  back  just  as  the 
close  musketry  fighting  began.  He  took  his  chances  through 
it  manfully,  had  my  pack  pony  up  within  half  an  hour  after 
the  fighting  was  over,  and  before  the  darkness  fell  had  cooked 
a  capital  little  dinner  for  myself  and  a  comrade  whose  com- 
missariat had  gone  astray.  Next  morning  the  fort  was  found 
evacuated.  I  determined  to  ride  back  down  the  pass  to  the 
field-telegraph  post  at  its  mouth.  The  general  wrote  in  my 
note-book  a  telegram  announcing  the  good  news  to  the  Coin- 
mander-in-Chief ;  and  poor  Cavagnari  the  political  officer,  who 
was  afterwards  massacred  at  Cabul,  wrote  another  message  to 
the  same  effect  to  the  Viceroy.  I  expected  to  have  to  walk 
some  distance  to  our  bivouac  of  the  night,  but  lo  !  as  I  turned 
to  go,  there  was  John  with  my  horse  close  up. 

In  one  of  the  hill  expeditions,  the  advanced  section  of  the 
force  I  accompanied  had  to  penetrate  a  narrow  and  gloomy 


GOOD  AND  PLUCKY  WORK.  281 

pass  which  was  beset  on  both  sides  by  swarms  of  Afghans, 
who  slated  us  severely  with  their  long-range  jezails.  With 
this  leading  detachment  there  somehow  was  no  surgeon,  and 
as  men  were  going  down  and  something  had  to  be  done,  it 
devolved  upon  me  as  having  some  experience  in  this  kind  of 
work  in  previous  campaigns,  to  undertake  a  spell  of  amateur 
surgery.  John  behaved  magnificently  as  my  assistant.  With 
his  light  touch  and  long  lissom  hands,  the  fellow  seemed  to 
have  a  natural  instinct  for  successful  bandaging.  I  was  glad 
that  we  could  do  no  more  than  bandage  and  that  we  had 
no  instruments,  else  I  believe  that  John  would  not  have 
hesitated  to  undertake  a  capital  operation.  As  for  the 
Afghan  bullets,  he  did  not  shrink  as  they  splashed  on  the 
stones  around  him  ;  he  did  not  treat  them  with  disdain ;  he 
simply  ignored  them.  The  soldiers  swore  that  he  ought  to 
have  the  war  medal  for  the  good  and  plucky  work  he  was 
doing,  and  a  major  protested  that,  if  his  full  titles  which 
John  always  gave  when  his  name  was  asked  by  a  stranger 
had  not  been  so  confoundedly  long,  he  would  have  asked  the 
general  to  mention  the  Goa  man  in  despatches.  John  liked 
war,  but  he  was  not  fond  of  the  rapid  changes  of  temperature 
up  on  the  "  roof  of  the  world  "  in  Afghanistan.  During  one 
twenty-four  hours  at  Jellalabad  we  had  one  man  killed  at 
noon  by  a  sunstroke,  and  another  frozen  to  death  on  sentry 
duty  in  the  night.  On  Christmas  morning  when  I  rose  at 
sunrise  the  thermometer  was  far  below  freezing-point ;  the 
water  in  the  brass  basin  in  my  tent  was  frozen  solid  and  I 
was  glad  to  wrap  myself  in  furs.  At  noon  the  thermometer 
was  over  a  hundred  in  the  shade,  and  we  were  all  so  hot  as  to 
wish  with  Sydney  Smith  that  we  could  take  off'  our  flesh  and 
sit  in  our  bones.  John  was  delighted  when,  as  there  seemed 
no  immediate  prospect  of  further  hostilities  in  Afghanistan, 
I  departed  therefrom  to  pay  a  visit  to  King  Theebaw  of 
Burma,  who  has  since  been  disestablished.  When  in  his 
capital  of  Mandalay,  there  came  to  me  a  telegram  from 
England  informing  me  of  the  massacre  by  the  Zulus  of  a 
thousand  British  soldiers  at  Isandlwana  in  South  Africa,  and 
instructing  me  to  hurry  thither  with  all  possible  speed.  John 


282  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

had  none  of  the  Hindoo  dislike  to  cross  the  "dark  water," 
and  he  accompanied  me  to  Aden,  where  we  made  connection 
with  a  potty  little  steamer  which  called  into  every  paltry  and 
fever-smelling  Portuguese  port  all  along  the  east  coast  of 
Africa,  and  at  length  dropped  us  at  Durban,  the  seaport  of 
the  British  colony  of  Natal  in  South  Africa  and  the  base  of 
the  warlike  operations  against  the  Zulus. 

There  are  many  Hindoos  engaged  on  the  Natal  sugar 
plantations,  and  in  that  particularly  one-horse  colony  every 
native  of  India  is  known  indiscriminately  by  the  term  of 
"  coolie."  John,  it  was  true,  was  a  native  of  India,  but  he  was 
no  "  coolie  ; "  he  could  read,  write,  and  speak  English,  and 
was  altogether  a  superior  person.  I  would  not  take  him  up 
country  to  be  bullied  and  demeaned  as  a  "  coolie,"  and  I  made 
for  him  an  arrangement  with  the  proprietor  of  my  hotel  that 
during  my  absence  John  should  help  to  wait  in  his  restaurant. 
During  the  Zulu  campaign  I  was  abominably  served  by  a  lazy 
Africander  and  a  yet  more  lazy  St.  Helena  boy.  When 
Ulundi  was  fought  and  Cetewayo's  kraal  was  burned,  I  was 
glad  to  return  to  Durban  and  take  passage  for  England. 
John,  I  found,  had  during  my  absence  become  one  of  the 
prominent  inhabitants  of  Durban.  He  had  now  the  full 
charge  of  the  hotel  restaurant — he  was  the  centurion  of  the 
dinner-table  with  men  under  him  to  whom  he  said,  "Do 
this,"  and  they  did  it.  His  skill  in  dishes  new  to  Natal, 
especially  in  curries,  had  crowded  the  restaurant,  and  the 
landlord  had  taken  the  opportunity  of  raising  his  tariff.  He 
came  to  me  privily  and  said  frankly  that  John  was  making 
his  fortune  for  him,  that  he  was  willing  to  give  him  a  share 
in  his  business  in  a  year's  time  if  he  would  but  stay,  and 
meanwhile  was  ready  to  pay  him  a  stipend  of  forty  rupees  a 
week.  The  wage  at  which  John  served  me — and  I  had  been 
told  that  I  was  paying  him  extravagantly — was  twenty-two 
rupees  a  month.  I  told  the  landlord  that  I  should  not  think 
of  standing  in  the  way  of  the  man's  prosperity,  but  would 
rather  influence  him  in  favour  of  an  opportunity  so  promising. 
Then  I  sent  for  John,  explained  to  him  the  hotel-keeper's 
proposal,  and  suggested  that  he  should  take  time  to  think  the 


"I  GO   WITH  MASTER."  283 

matter  over.  John  Avept.  "  I  no  stay  here,  master,  not  if  it 
was  hundred  rupees  a  day !  I  go  with  master';  I  no  stop  in 
Durban ! "  Nothing  would  shake  his  resolve,  and  so  John 
and  I  came  to  England  together. 

The  only  thing  John  did  not  like  in  England  was  that  the 
street-boys  insisted  on  regarding  him  as  a  Zulu,  and  treated 
him  contumeliously  accordingly.  His  great  delight  was  when 
I  went  on  a  round  of  visits  to  country  houses,  and  took  him 
with  me  as  valet.  Then  he  was  the  hero  of  the  servants' 
halls.  I  will  not  say  that  he  lied,  but  from  anecdotes  of  him 
that  occasionally  came  to  my  ears,  it  would  seem  that  he  created 
the  impression  that  he  had  frequently  Avaded  knee-deep  in 
gore,  and  that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  contemplating  with 
equanimity  battle-fields  littered  with  the  slaughtered  com- 
batants. John  was  quite  the  small  lion  of  the  hour.  He  had 
very  graceful  ways  and  great  skill  in  making  tasteful  bouquets. 
These  he  would  present  to  the  ladies  of  the  household  when 
they  came  downstairs  of  a  morning,  with  a  graceful  salaam 
and  the  expression  of  a  hope  that  they  had  slept  well.  The 
spectacle  of  John,  seen  from  the  drawing-room  windows  of 
Chevening,  Lord  Stanhope's  seat  in  Kent,  as  he  swaggered 
across  the  park  to  church  one  Sunday  morning  in  frock-coat 
and  silk  hat  with  a  buxom  cook  on  one  arm  and  a  tall  and 
lean  lady's-maid  on  the  other,  will  never  be  effaced  from 
the  recollection  of  those  who  witnessed  it  with  shrieks  of 
laughter. 

In  those  days  I  lived  in  a  flat,  my  modest  establishment 
consisting  of  an  old  female  housekeeper  and  John.  For  the 
most  part  my  two  domestics  were  good  friends,  but  there 
were  periods  of  estrangement  during  which  they  were  not  on 
speaking  terms ;  and  then  they  sat  on  opposite  sides  of  the 
kitchen  table,  and  communicated  with  each  other  exclusively 
by  written  notes  of  an  excessively  formal  character  passed 
across  the  table.  This  stiffness  of  etiquette  had  its  amusing 
side  but  was  occasionally  embarrassing,  since  neither  domestic 
was  uniformly  intelligible  with  the  pen.  The  result  was  that 
sometimes  I  got  no  dinner  at  all.  At  other  times  when  I  was 
dining  alone,  the  board  groaned  with  the  profusion,  and 


284  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

sometimes  when  I  had  company  there  would  not  be  enough 
to  go  round ;  these  awkwardnesses  arising  from  the  absence 
of  a  good  understanding  between  my  two  servants.  I  could 
not  part  with  the  old  female  servant,  and  I  began  rather  to 
tire  of  John,  whose  head  had  become  considerably  swollen 
because  of  the  notice  which  had  been  taken  of  him.  It  was 
all  very  well  to  be  in  a  position  to  gratify  ladies  who  were 
giving  dinner-parties  and  who  wrote  me  pretty  little  notes 
asking  for  the  loan  for  a  few  hours  of  John,  to  make  that 
wonderful  prawn  curry  of  which  he  had  the  sole  recipe.  But 
John  used  to  return  from  that  culinary  operation  very  late, 
and  with  indications  that  his  beverage  during  his  exertions 
had  not  been  wholly  confined  to  water.  To  my  knowledge 
he  had  a  wife  in  Goa,  yet  I  feared  he  had  his  flirtations  here 
in  London.  Once  I  charged  him  with  inconstancy  to  the  lady 
in  Goa,  but  he  repudiated  the  aspersion  with  the  quaint 
denial,  "  No,  master,  plenty  ladies  are  loving  me,  but  I  am 
not  loving  no  ladies !  " 

However,  I  had  in  view  to  spend  a  winter  in  the  United 
States,  and  I  resolved  to  send  John  home.  He  wept  copiously 
when  I  told  him  of  this  resolve,  and  professed  his  anxiety  to 
die  in  my  service.  But  I  remained  firm  and  reminded  him 
that  he  had  not  seen  his  wife  in  Goa  for  nearly  three  years. 
That  argument  appeared  to  carry  little  weight  with  him ;  but 
he  tearfully  submitted  to  the  inevitable.  I  made  him  a  good 
present,  and  obtained  for  him  from  the  Peninsular  and 
Oriental  people  a  free  passage  from  Bombay  with  wages 
besides,  in  the  capacity  of  a  saloon  steward.  I  saw  him  off 
from  Southampton;  at  the  moment  of  parting  he  emitted 
lugubrious  howls.  He  never  fulfilled  his  promise  of  writing 
to  me,  and  I  gave  up  the  expectation  of  hearing  of  him  any 
more. 

Some  two  years  later  I  went  to  Australia  by  way  of  San 
Francisco  and  New  Zealand.  At  Auckland  I  found  letters  and 
newspapers  awaiting  me  from  Sydney  and  Melbourne. 
Among  the  papers  was  a  Melbourne  illustrated  journal,  on  a 
page  of  which  I  found  a  full-length  portrait  of  the  redoubtable 
John,  his  many-syllabled  name  given  also  at  full  length  with 


A  "GRASS  WIDOW."  285 

a  memoir  of  his  military  experiences  ;  affixed  to  which  was  a 
facsimile  of  the  certificate  of  character  which  I  had  given 
him  when  we  parted.  It  was  further  stated  that  "  Mr 
Compostella  de  Crucis  "  was  for  the  present  serving  in  the 
capacity  of  butler  to  a  financial  magnate  in  one  of  the  suburbs 
of  Melbourne,  but  that  it  was  his  intention  to  purchase  the 
goodwill  of  a  thriving  restaurant  named.  Among  the  first  to 
greet  me  on  the  Melbourne  jetty  was  John,  radiant  with 
delight  and  eager  to  accompany  me  throughout  my  projected 
lecture  tour.  I  dissuaded  him  in  his  own  interest  from  doing 
so ;  and  when  I  finally  quitted  the  pleasant  city  by  the  shore 
of  Hobson's  Bay,  John  was  managing  with  great  success  a 
restaurant  in  Burke  Street.  I  fear,  if  she  is  alive,  that  his 
wife  in  Goa  is  a  "  grass  widow  "  to  this  day. 


XIV. 

DISTINGUISHED   CONDUCT   IN   THE   FIELD. 

ONE  fine  morning  in  August  that  dashing  regiment  the 
13th  Hussars,  was  inarching  from  Exeter  westward  to 
take  part  in  the  Dartmoor  autumn  manoeuvres  of  1873.  The 
regiment  was  trotting  briskly  along  a  sheltered  valley  trend- 
ing up  towards  the  moorland,  the  horses  stepping  out  gaily 
after  their  comfortable  night's  rest.  The  colonel  was  riding 
at  the  head  of  his  regiment,  and  I  trotted  along  by  his  side 
on  a  smart  Dartmoor  pony.  '  We  had  just  passed  a  bend  in 
the  road,  when  there  slowly  upreared  himself  from  behind  a 
heap  of  stones,  a  bent,  dilapidated  man.  He  looked  old 
before  his  time,  he  was  round  in  the  shoulders,  he  was  set  in 
the  knees,  on  which  were  big  leather  caps  for  the  man  was 
a  stone-breaker;  but  the  bent  back  and  the  bowed  legs 
straightened  themselves  after  a  fashion  as  the  fellow  squared 
himself  to  his  front,  and  brought  up  his  hand  to  his  forehead 
in  a  smart  salute.  There  was  a  sparkle  in  the  eye  of  him, 
and  I  noticed  the  trembling  of  the  lower  lip  as  he  let  his  arm 
fall  by  his  side,  while  he  continued  to  stand  at  attention  as 
the  regiment  defiled  past  him.  "  An  old  trooper,  I  take 
it,"  remarked  the  colonel,  "  shouldn't  wonder  if  he  has 
served  in  the  regiment ;  did  you  notice  how  his  lip 
trembled  ? "  "  An  old  soldier,  anyhow,  sir,"  I  replied,  "  for 
I  noticed  the  dingy  medal  ribbons  on  his  waistcoat." 

Out  of  the  saddle  on  to  the  stones,  facilis  descensus ;  nor 
is  the  trooper  the  only  one  of  us  whom  the  fate,  too  often 
self-inflicted,  befalls.  A  man  may  have  fought  right  gallantly 
for  Queen  and  country  yet  still  come  to  a  parish  job  at  last 
in  this  best  of  all  possible  communities  of  ours,  while  as  yet 
the  wrist,  no  longer  supple  for  the  sword-play,  can  at  least 
wield  the  chipping  hammer.  I  felt  like  having  a  talk  with 


"THE  OLD  CORPS,  SIR."  287 

the  old  fellow,  and  so  reined  aside  until  the  regiment  had 
passed  by. 

There,  opposite  to  me,  he  still  stood  at  attention,  the 
gnarled  face  all  working,  the  tears  running  down  the  furroAved 
cheeks.  The  veteran — for  veteran  he  clearly  was,  not  of  the 
barrack  yard  but  of  the  battle-field,  for  his  breast  showed  the 
Punjaub  and  Crimean  ribbons,  and  by  Jove !  there  too  was 
the  red  ribbon  of  the  "  Distinguished  Conduct  Medal " — tried  to 
pull  himself  together  as  he  noticed  me  watching  him. 
"  Excuse  me,  sir,"  he  said — "  the  old  corps,  the  old  corps,  sir — 
never  seen  it  since  they  invalided  me  fifteen  years  ago ;  and  my 
heart  swelled  when  I  caught  sight  of  the  white  plumes  and 
the  old  buft'  facings.  Why,  sir,  I  was  one  of  the  dozen  men 
that  was  all  the  regiment  could  muster  when  the  remnant  of 
us  rallied  behind  the  Heavies  after  the  famous  light  cavalry 
charge  you  may  have  heard  on  !  I  little  thought  when  I 
came  up  out  of  the  valley  that  day,  that  I'd  ever  come  to 
stone-breaking  on  the  roadside.  However,  there  was  ne'er  a 
one  to  recognise  me,  except  it  might  have  been  the  colonel 
who  was  lieutenant  of  my  troop  in  the  Crimea,  or  old  Dr. 
Shipton  who  gave  me  the  devil's  own  dose  of  physic  the  night 
of  the  Tchernaya." 

It  is  not  every  day  that  one  finds  a  man  who  has  earned 
the  medal  for  "  Distinguished  Conduct  in  the  Field  "  breaking 
stones  on  the  roadside,  and  I  had  a  great  desire  to  hear  the 
old  soldier's  story.  There  was  a  little  beer-house  quite  close, 
and  I  asked  the  ci-devant  light  dragoon  to  come  and  drink  a 
pint  with  me  and  tell  me  something  about  himself.  He  was 
nothing  loath,  and  presently  we  were  seated  on  the  bench 
outside  the  pot-house  with  a  couple  of  mugs  of  Devonshire 
cider  in  front  of  us.  Then  I  asked  him  how  he  had  come  by 
the  Distinguished  Conduct  Medal ;  whereupon  he  delivered 
himself  of  the  following  yarn : — 

"About  the  middle  of  October  the  cavalry  division  Avas 
pushed  on  to  what  you  may  call  the  rear  front  of  the 
allied  position  before  Sevastopol,  and  was  lying  in  two 
separate  but  contiguous  brigade  camps  out  on  the  plain, 
some  little  distance  beyond  Kadikoi.  It  was  an  awkward 


288  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

position  for  a  camp,  for  we  had  nothing  in  front  of  us  but 
the  Johnny  Turks  in  the  redoubts  on  the  ridge ;  but  that 
was  not  our  affair.  The  two  brigades  had  a  bit  of  a  make- 
shift commissary  depot  between  them,  and  a  few  handy 
men  were  picked  out  from  the  various  corps  to  act  as 
butchers.  I  was  always  ready  for  work,  and  volunteered 
all  the  readier  for  the  butchering  service  because  I  knew 
that  an  odd  tot  of  rum  came  one's  way  on  commissary 
duty.  If  you  should  ever  come  across  any  fellows  of  the 
old  Crimean  Light  Brigade,  just  you  ask  if  they  remember 
'  Butcher  Jack '  of  the  13th  Light,  and  you  are  sure  to 
get  your  answer.  I  was  as  well  known  in  the  brigade 
as  old  Cardigan  himself,  and  in  my  way  was  quite  a 
popular  character.  I'd  have  had  the  stripes  again  and 
again  if  I  had  only  kept  straight ;  but  there  was  too  much 
rum  going  about  for  that.  About  once  a  week  on  an 
average  I  would  be  carried  shoulder-high  to  the  guard- 
tent,  and  over  and  over  again  I  escaped  being  tied  up  to 
the  wheel  of  the  forage-cart,  only  because  I  was  known  for 
a  useful,  willing  fellow  when  sober. 

"  The  24th  of  October  was  killing  day.  Slaughtering  was 
finished  and  most  of  us  were  half-seas  over,  for  there  had 
been  extensive  transactions  between  us  and  the  commissary 
guard — so  much  beef  for  so  much  ruin.  Paddy  Heffernan 
of  the  Royals  and  I  had  got  glorious  before  we  had  found 
time  for  a  wash  after  our  work,  and  a  commissary  officer 
dropped  on  us  and  had  us  both  clapped  in  the  guard- tent 
before  you  could  say  '  Knife.'  For  the  time  the  guard-tent 
was  about  as  good  a  place  for  us  as  anywhere  else ;  so  we 
did  a  fan*  allowance  of  sleep,  wakening  up  occasionally  for 
a  drink  out  of  a  bottle  which  thirsty  Paddy  had  contrived 
to  smuggle  in.  It  was  well  on  for  daylight  when  we  fell 
into  a  heavy  sleep,  out  of  which  Cardigan  himself  could 
not  have  roused  us.  I  have  a  vague  remembrance  of 
having  been  hustled  about  in  a  half-awakened  state,  and 
of  somebody  saying, '  Well,  let  'em  He,  and  be  hanged  to  'em.' 

"It  must  have  been  past  ten  o'clock  when  we  were 
roused  by  the  noise  of  a  heavy  cannonade,  which  had  been 


"'THE  GREYS  ARE  GUT  OFF!"'  289 

going  on  Lord  knows  how  long.  Paddy  and  I  were  both 
half  muzzy  still,  for  commissary  rum,  as  you  would 
find  if  you  ever  tried  the  experiment,  is  not  easy 
tipple  to  get  sober  off;  but  I  pulled  myself  together 
a  bit,  opened  my  eyes,  and  sat  up.  To  my  surprise 
the  guard-tent  had  been  struck,  the  guard  was  gone, 
the  camp  was  levelled  and  partly  packed,  and  the 
whole  brigade  had  disappeared.  Were  we  veritably 
awake,  or  was  all  this  a  crazy  dream  ?  We  rubbed  our 
eyes,  sprang  to  our  feet,  and  gazed  around.  What  a  sight! 
The  slope  above  us  was  covered  to  the  ridge  with  a  huge 
mass  of  Kussian  cavalry,  the  front  of  which  had  just  been 
struck  by  part  of  the  Heavy  Brigade — some  squadrons  of 
the  Greys  and  Inniskillings.  As  we  stared  in  bewilder- 
ment the  Royals  came  thundering  by  us  on  the  left  at  a 
gaUop,  heading  straight  for  the  Russian  mass  with  loud 
shouts  of  'Gallop,  gallop!  the  Greys  are  cut  off!'  and 
trying  to  form  line  on  the  move.  A  moment  later  two 
squadrons  of  the  5th  Green  Horse  with  Captain  Burton 
at  their  head,  came  dashing  through  the  Light  Cavalry 
camp  in  loose  order,  tripping  over  obstacles,  caught  by 
tent-ropes  and  picket-ropes,  and  unable  to  get  the  pace  on 
until  clear  of  the  camp.  Heffernan  and  I  were  both 
knocked  down  by  the  rush;  when  we  reached  our  feet 
again,  blest  if  there  were  not  a  lot  of  Cossacks  down  in 
the  Heavy  Brigade  camp  on  our  left,  hacking  away  at  the 
sick  horses  which  had  been  left  in  the  lines.  We  had 
already  tried  to  mount  ourselves  from  the  sick  horse  lines 
of  the  Light  Brigade,  but  had  found  there  only  two  poor 
brutes,  one  with  a  leg  like  a  pillar  letter-box,  the  other 
down  on  his  side  and  didn't  seem  much  like  rising  any 
more. 

" '  Let's  have  a  go  at  thim  Cossacks ! '  cried  Heffernan. 
and  you  may  be  sure  I  was  quite  agreeable.  I  shouldered 
an  axe  for  my  weapon,  he  found  a  sword  somewhere ;  and 
in  our  shirt-sleeves,  just  in  the  state  we  had  left  off  killing 
overnight  and  by  no  means  quite  sober,  we  doubled  across 
the  interval  and  went  at  the  Cossacks  with  a  will.  There 


290  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

were  some  nine  or  ten  of  them,  and  they  were  having  what 
I  suppose  they  thought  the  amusement  all  to  themselves, 
for  there  was  not  a  man  left  in  the  camp  of  the  Heavies. 
Some  were  jobbing  with  their  lances  at  the  poor  wretches 
of  sick  horses,  others  had  taken  to  their  swords  and  were 
cruelly  trying  to  hamstring  the  animals.  They  did  not 
notice  Heffernan  and  myself  till  we  were  right  on  them, 
and  taken  unawares  they  made  quite  a  poor  tight  of  it.  I 
managed  a  brace  of  'em  right  and  left  with  my  axe ; 
Heffernan  killed  two  more  with  his  sword,  but  got  a  lance 
thrust  through  his  sword-arm  and  was  good  for  nothing 
more.  But  the  Russkies  had  enough  of  us,  and  what  were 
left  of  them  galloped  back  to  their  own  mass.  I  got  what 
I  wanted — that  was  a  mount.  He  had  been  ridden  by  the 
Russian  corporal,  who  I  don't  think  wras  a  Cossack;  for 
the  horse  I  fell  heir  to  was  a  handsome,  compact  little 
iron-grey,  and  the  saddle  was  much  like  our  own,  not  the 
high-perched  cushioned  concern  on  which  the  Cossacks 
cock  themselves.  The  Russian  trooper  must  have  ridden 
very  short,  for  until  I  let  the  stirrups  out  ever  so  many 
holes  my  knees  were  almost  up  to  my  nose. 

"  The  moment  I  got  my  seat  on  the  little  grey  nag,  I 
was  after  the  Cossacks  a  cracker ;  but  their  little  low- 
necked  cats  galloped  like  the  wind,  and  I  only  got  the 
axe  to  bear  on  one  fellow  before  they  mingled  with  the 
mass  of  their  fellows.  It  was  just  at  the  moment  that  the 
great  body  of  close-packed  Russian  cavalry  began  to  break 
up  and  shirk  back  out  of  the  hand-to-hand  fighting  with 
our  chaps.  I  expected  that  they  would  have  been  pur- 
sued, for  in  a  few  minutes  they  were  right  on  the  run ; 
and  I  rammed  forward  to  have  a  share  in  the  chase.  But 
I  suppose  the  word  had  been  given  to  stand  fast,  and  let 
them  go  and  a  good  riddance.  I  heard  no  such  order, 
however — I  took  deuced  good  care  not  to  listen ;  and 
dodging  round  the  left  flank  of  our  people,  the  rum  still 
fresh  in  me — for  Paddy  and  I  had  a  refresher  after  we 
awoke — I  darted  right  into  the  thick  of  the  retreating 

<->  O 

Russians   and   went   to  work  with  the   axe   in  the   liveliest 


"I  NEVER    WAS  A   GREAT  BEAUTY."  291 

way.  You  see,  sir,  I  had  lost  all  the  fun  the  rest  of  our 
fellows  had  been  having,  and  was  bound  to  make  up  my 
leeway  somehow  or  other.  I  had  a  rare  time,  and,  believe 
me,  in  a  crowd  the  axe  is  twice  the  weapon  a  sword  is ; 
but  ultimately  I  got  so  wedged  and  jammed  among  the 
Russkies  that  I  could  not  help  but  be  carried  along  with 
them,  and  quite  expected  to  be  made  a  prisoner.  But  just 
then  came  a  cannon-shot  from  a  troop  of  horse  artillery 
of  ours  which  had  come  into  action  on  the  flank  of  the 
flying  Russians.  It  made  quite  a  lane  through  them  on 
my  right,  and  plumped  slap  into  my  little  grey  horse, 
which  dropped  like  a  stone  and  I  with  him.  After  I  had 
been  ridden  over  by  a  couple  of  squadrons  of  Russian 
cavalry — the  broken  tail  of  the  mass — I  picked  myself  up 
and  found  no  bones  broken,  although  what  between  swords 
and  horse-hoofs  I  was  chipped  a  good  deal  about  the  head, 
and  what  between  old  and  new  blood  and  dirt  must  have 
looked  rather  a  ruffian.  I  had  still  my  axe  but  was  now 
dismounted,  and  had  to  walk  back  towards  where  the  Heavy 
Brigade  was  getting  into  order  again.  In  trying  to  keep 
out  of  sight,  who  of  all  men  should  spot  me  but  old 
Scarlett  himself,  the  brigadier. 

" '  Who  the  deuce  are  you  ? '  he  asked,  with  a  twist  of 
his  long  white  moustache. 

"  The  rum  was  still  lively  in  me,  and  I  answered  boldly — 

" '  Private  -  — ,  of  the  Thirteenth  Light,  sir,  butcher  to  the 
Light  Brigade.' 

" '  Where  the  devil  have  you  come  from  ? ' 

"  '  I've  been  pursuing  the  Russian  cavalry,  sir,  and  had  my 
horse  killed.' 

" '  Well,  I  don't  wonder  now  that  they  ran ;  you'd  scare  the 
dead,  not  to  speak  of  Russians.  Be  off,  and  give  your  own 
brigade  a  turn ! ' 

"  I  don't  wonder  that  Scarlett  turned  his  nose  up  at  ine. 
I  never  was  a  great  beauty,  and  I  certainly  now  showed  to 
disadvantage.  I  was  bare-headed,  and  my  hair  must  have 
been  like  a  birch-broom  in  a  fit.  I  was  minus  a  coat,  with  my 
shirt-sleeves  rolled  up  to  the  shoulder ;  and  my  shirt,  face  and 
T  2 


292  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

bare  arms  were  all  splashed  and  darkened  with  blood  picked 
up  at  the  butchering  of  the  day  before,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
fresher  colour  just  added.  A  pair  of  long  greasy  jack-boots 
came  up  to  the  thigh,  and  instead  of  a  sword  I  had  the  axe 
over  my  shoulder  at  the  slope  as  regimental  as  you  please. 

"  I  caught  and  mounted  a  Russian  horse  but  could  not  see 
anything  of  the  Light  Brigade,  so  I  coolly  formed  up  on  the 
flank  of  the  old  Royals.  The  men  roared  with  laughter  at  my 
appearance,  and  I  had  not  been  in  position  a  couple  of  minutes 
when  up  came  Johnny  Lee  the  adjutant  on  his  old  bay  mare 

at  a  tearing  gallop,  and  roared  to  ine  to  '  Go  to out  of 

that ! '  So  I  was  '  nobody's  child,'  and  hung  about  in  a  lonely 
sort  of  way  for  more  than  an  hour.  I  was  dodging  about  the 
top  of  the  ridge,  looking  down  into  the  further  valley  in  which 
the  Light  Brigade  was  formed  up  with  the  Heavies  a  bit  to 
their  right  rear,  when  I  saw  an  aide-de-camp  come  galloping 
down  from  the  headquarter  staff  on  the  upland,  and  deliver 
an  order  to  Lord  Lucan  who  commanded  the  cavalry  division. 
Then  Lucan  went  to  Cardigan  who  was  in  front  of  the  Light 
Brigade ;  and  a  few  minutes  later  I  heard  Cardigan's  loud  word 
of  command,  '  The  line  will  advance ! '  and  saw  the  first  line 
of  the  brigade  follow  him  at  a  sharp  trot.  That  line  consisted 
of  the  17th  Lancers  and  my  own  regiment,  the  latter  being 
the  right  regiment,  nearest  to  myself.  Hurrah  !  I  was  in  for 
another  good  thing.  Shooting  down  the  gentle  slope  at  speed, 
I  crossed  the  front  of  the  Heavies  and  ranged  up  on  the  right 
flank  of  the  right  squadron  of  the  old  13th — front  rank, 
you  may  take  your  oath.  The  flanking  sergeant  stared  at  me 
as  if  I  were  a  ghost,  and  Captain  Jenyns  looked  over  his 
shoulder  at  me  with  something  between  a  scowl  and  a  grin. 
No  doubt  I'd  have  been  ordered  to  the  rear  promptly  enough, 
only  that  there  was  more  serious  work  in  hand  than  disciplin- 
ing a  half-screwed  butcher. 

"  We  were  under  fire  from  front  and  both  flanks  before  we 
had  ridden  down  the  valley  two  hundred  yards.  You  may 
have  heard  of  Captain  Nolan,  of  the  15th?  He  was  the 
aide-de-camp  who  brought  down  the  message  ordering  our 
charge  from  the  headquarters  staff  to  Lord  Lucan ;  and  now, 


"'BY  GOD,  HE'S  A    WOODEN  MAN!"''  293 

cavalry  officer  as  he  was,  I  suppose  he  was  keen  to  take  a  share 
in  the  fun.  Little  fun  it  turned  out  for  any  of  us,  sir,  least  of 
all  for  him.  He  was  out  to  the  front,  galloping  athwart  the 
right  front,  and  waving  his  sword  and  shouting  something 
over  his  shoulder- — Lord  knows  what  it  was,  or  what  the  poor 
fellow  meant — when  a  shell  lit  and  burst  right  before  him.  A 
splinter  struck  him  on  the  left  side,  his  sword  dropped  from 
his  still  uplifted  right  arm,  and  the  reins  fell  on  his  charger's 
neck.  Such  an  unearthly  yell  came  from  the  man's  lips 
that  the  very  blood  turned  in  my  veins.  I  believe  the  life 
went  out  of  him  then  and  there  ;  but,  dead  or  alive,  he  still 
sat  straight  in  position,  and  the  limbs  kept  their  grip  of  the 
saddle.  The  scared  horse  whisked  round  and  galloped  to  the 
rear  through  the  interval  I  made  between  the  sergeant  and 
myself — the  rider  with  his  upraised  arm,  his  ghastly  set  face, 
and  the  blood  pouring  from  his  torn  chest,  yet  still  square  and 
upright  in  the  saddle.  It  was  the  weirdest  sight  I  saw  all  that 
day  of  blood. 

"  A  few  horse-lengths  more,  as  it  seemed,  brought  us  right 
into  the  infernal  cross-fire  which  was  tearing  our  ranks  to  pieces. 
Men  and  horses  went  down  at  every  stride,  and  as  they  fell 
the  survivors  closed  in  and  rode  straight,  burning  to  have  this 
one-sided  devilry  ended,  and  get  stroke  at  an  enemy  before  we 
were  all  killed.  Men  swore  bitterly  at  the  measured  pace  set 
and  kept  so  obstinately  by  the  chief,  cantering  along  steadily 
on  the  thoroughbred  chestnut  with  the  white  stockings,  and 
neither  giving  order  nor  so  much  as  looking  over  his  shoulder 
since  he  had  uttered  the  words,  '  The  line  will  advance  ! '  '  By 
God,  he's  a  wooden  man ! '  the  sergeant  next  me  muttered. 
A  squadron  leader  ranged  up  alongside  of  him  only  to  be  re- 
pressed by  the  flat  of  the  brigadier's  sword  laid  across  his 
chest.  But  resolute  as  he  was  not  to  let  his  command  out  of 
hand,  there  was  some  human  nature  in  him  after  all,  and  as 
the  blasts  of  shot  and  shell  from  the  guns  in  our  front  struck 
fiercer  and  fiercer  in  our  faces,  he  relented  and  gradually 
quickened  up  to  charging  pace.  Then  along  the  ragged  ranks 
there  ran  a  sort  of  grunt  of  satisfaction  ;  the  spurs  went  home 
and  the  swords  came  to  the  'right  engage.'  As  for  myself, 


294  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

Avhat  with  the  drink  in  me  and  the  wild  excitement  of  the 
charge,  I  went  stark  mad  and  sent  the  Russian  horse  along  at 
a  speed  that  kept  him  abreast  of  the  foremost. 

"Nearer  and  nearer  we  came  to  the  batteries  that  were 
vomiting  death  on  us,  till  I  seemed  to  feel  on  my  cheek  the  hot 
reek  from  the  cannon-mouths.  The  air  was  full  of  grape. 
My  sergeant  Avent  down  with  a  groan,  he  and  his  horse  struck 
at  the  same  moment.  At  last — thank  God  ! — at  last  we  were 
there !  Cardigan  shot  forward  out  of  sight  in  the  smoke, 
head  still  well  up,  and  heels  down  as  if  on  parade.  With  a 
shout  and  a  wave  of  his  sword  Captain  Jenyns  followed,  and 
right  on  his  heels  half-a-dozen  of  us  on  the  right  flank  leaped 
in  among  the  Russian  gunners,  burning  to  get  satisfaction.  I 
will  say  for  them  that  they  stood  manfully  to  their  work. 
With  a  blow  of  my  axe  I  brained  a  gunner  just  as  he  was 
clapping  the  linstock  to  the  touch-hole  of  his  piece;  with 
another  sweep  of  it  I  felled  an  officer  who  was  trying  to  rally 
some  men  in  rear  of  the  guns ;  and  then  what  of  us  were  left 
went  slap  through  the  stragglers,  cutting  and  slashing  to  right 
and  to  left,  and  riding  straight  at  the  face  of  a  mass  of  grey- 
coated  cavalry  on  their  grey  horses,  in  solid  formation  in  rear 
of  the  tumbrils  and  gun-teams.  And  what  happened  then, 
you  ask  ?  Well,  sir,  I  know  this — that  my  comrades  and  I 
drove  right  in  among  the  Russian  cavalry,  and  kept  thrusting 
and  boring  forward  through  the  dense  mass.  They  were 
round  us  like  a  swarm  of  bees,  hustling  and  stabbing ;  and 
we — so  far  as  I  could  estimate  not  above  a  couple  of  dozen  of 
us  to  the  fore — were  hacking  and  hewing  away  our  hardest, 
each  individual  man  the  heart  of  a  separate  fight.  I  can  say 
this — that  1  never  troubled  about  guards  myself  but  kept 
whirling  the  axe  about  me,  every  now  and  then  bringing  it 
down  to  some  purpose;  and  as  often  as  it  fell  the  Russkies 
gave  ground  a  trifle,  only  to  crush  thicker  the  next  moment. 
Still,  barring  a  flesh  wound  or  two  from  the  point  of  a  sword 
or  lance,  I  suffered  no  harm.  They  funked  coming  to  close 
quarters  with  their  blunt  old  toasting  forks,  for  the  axe  had  a 
devil  of  a  long  reach  ;  and  they  dursn't  use  their  pistols  lest 
they  should  hurt  one  another. 


".I  HAD  A  MOTHER  MYSELF  ONCE."  295 

"  I  have  no  notion  how  long  I  was  at  this  close-quarter 
business,  fighting  hard  and  boring  forward  steadily;  faith,  I 
half  think  I  might  have  been  there  now  had  I  not  heard,  a 
little  to  my  right,  the  word  of  command,  '  Threes  about ! ' 
Thinks  I,  if  an  officer  considers  it  time  to  go  about,  a  private 
man  like  myself  has  no  special  call  to  stop  any  longer  among 
them  grey-coated  gentry,  the  reverse  of  civil  as  they  are  ! 
So  I  pushed  slowly  through  till  I  came  out  on  a  bit  of  an  open 
space,  where  I  found  a  small  squadron  of  the  8th  Hussars  and 
a  handful  of  the  17th  Lancers  in  line  with  the  busby-bags. 
Presently  a  few  fellows  of  my  own  corps  rallied  under  Captain 
Jenyns,  and  the  little  force  moved  off  towards  the  rear.  I  was 
sober  enough  by  this  time,  take  my  word  for  it;  but  the 
chances  of  getting  back  to  our  own  end  of  the  valley  did  not 
seem  lively,  for  right  in  our  track  three  heavy  squadrons  of 
Russian  Lancers  were  forming  up.  So  broad  was  the  front 
they  showed  that  we  could  not  well  pass  them  on  either  flank 
if  we  had  a  mind  to,  which  we  hadn't.  Colonel  Shewell  of 
the  Hussars  gave  the  word  and  rode  straight  at  their  centre, 
sending  their  commander  to  grass  and  riding  over  him. 
Tired  as  were  our  horses,  we  went  slap  through  their  ranks 
as  if  they  had  been  tissue-paper,  and  we  routed  the  three 
squadrons  completely  at  the  cost  of  a  few  lance-wounds  and 
a  slain  horse  or  two. 

"The  Hussars  and  Mayow's  men  of  the  17th  Lancers  kept 
their  ranks  fairly  unbroken  as  they  rode  up  the  valley  un- 
molested after  this  last  encounter;  but  we  fellows  of  the  13th 
were  in  worse  plight,  since,  having  been  of  the  first  line,  our 
horses  were  more  beaten,  and  of  men  and  horses  alike  most 
were  wounded  more  or  less  severely.  So  we  had  to  crawl 
home  as  best  we  might  through  the  dead  and  dying  of  the 
advance,  the  Cossacks  hanging  viciously  on  our  skirts,  and 
the  word  being,  '  Every  man  for  himself,  and  God  help  the 
hindmost ! '  A  lad  of  my  troop  and  myself  hung  together, 
coaxing  along  our  blown  and  jaded  horses;  but  at  last  his 
horse  dropped  dead,  and  he  lay  wounded  and  bade  me  go  on 
and  leave  him.  Poor  chap !  he  was  little  more  than  a  boy, 
and  I  had  a  mother  myself  once.  Dismounting,  I  raised  him 


296  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

across  my  pummel,  scrambled  back  into  my  seat,  and  was  just 
able  to  boil  up  a  trot  and  leave  the  Cossacks  behind.  He  was 
a  rare  plucked  one  was  that  little  Russian  horse;  right  gamely 
did  he  struggle  under  his  double  load.  And,  hurrah !  here 
were  the  Heavies  at  last,  and  we  were  safe. 

"  I  dropped  the  lad  where  the  surgeons  Avere  at  work,  and 
then  went  and  formed  up  with  the  poor  remnant  left  of  the 
old  13th ;  but  I  wasn't  allowed  to  stay  there,  such  a  black- 
guard as  I  looked,  I  suppose,  and  was  ordered  off  to  help  shift 
the  camp  to  a  less  exposed  spot  on  the  upland.  The  same 
night  a  sergeant  made  a  prisoner  of  me  for  the  crime  of 
breaking  out  of  the  guard-tent  when  confined  thereto  —  a 
mighty  serious  military  offence,  I  can  tell  you.  I  was  neither 
shot  nor  flogged,  though ;  for  next  day  I  was  brought  up  in 
front  of  Lord  Lucan,  who  told  me  that  although  he  had  a 
good  mind  to  try  me  by  court-martial,  he  would  let  me  off 
this  time  because  of  the  use  I  had  made  of  my  liberty,  and 
perhaps  he  would  do  more  for  me  if  I'd  promise  to  keep 
sober.  And  that  is  how,  sir,  I  came  by  the  medal  which  is 
the  soldier's  reward  for  '  distinguished  conduct  in  the  field.' " 


XV. 

ON   THE  OLD  WAR-PATH. 

Twenty-two  Years  Afterwards — The  New  Frontier — For  a  Handful  of  Cigars — 
Tracing  the  Old  Movements — Vosges-Land — German  Failings — Alsace- 
Loraine — Want  of  Tact  and  of  Manners — French  Everywhere — The 
Emperor  William's  Speculation — A  Vast  Graveyard — St.  Privat  to-day — 
The  Monuments — The  English  Dead — Concentrated  Hatred — Where  the 
Old  King  Slept— The  Battlefield  of  Sedan— The  Weaver's  Cottage— The 
Ossuary  at  Bazeilles — "  La  Derniere  Cartouche." 

1.  August,  1892. 

IT  is  rather  a  sorry  business  for  an  invalid  in  quest  of  health 
to  find  himself  reduced  to  dodder  about  a  mineral  spring 
in  the  self-same  region  where  two-and-twenty  years  ago  in  the 
full  heyday  of  vigour,  he  was  watching  the  greatest  battles  of 
the  century,  a  spectator  of  the  making  of  history.  To  the 
spot  where  I  write  the  roar  of  Gravelotte  came  faintly  on  the 
wind,  and  yesterday  I  changed  trains  at  that  beautiful  Nancy 
into  which  rode  the  three  audacious  Uhlans  of  whom  Leland 
has  written.  Looking  eastwards,  I  can  discern  on  the  sky-line 
the  "  long  waving  line "  of  the  Vosges  range,  along  whose 
summits  runs  the  new  frontier  which  alienated  Alsace  from 
France.  There  is  scant  traffic  now  along  the  fine  roads  built 
by  the  last  Napoleon  through  the  passes  and  over  the  ridges 
of  the  mountain-chain;  indeed,  there  never  has  been  much 
since  that  second  week  of  August,  1870,  when  MacMahon's 
army,  routed  at  Worth,  came  pouring  in  disorder  over  the 
Vosges  by  every  road  and  hill- track  from 'the  "Englisch- 
Berg  "  in  the  north,  over  the  shoulder  of  the  "  Schnee-Berg," 
and  southwards  as  far  as  the  dominant  "  Schlucht."  One 
detachment  took  the  picturesque  hill-road  commanded  by  the 
old  mountain-fortress  of  Lutzelstein,  which,  commanding 
though  its  position  was,  made  no  attempt  to  stand  a  siege,  and 
where  the  French  accuse  a  fellow-countryman  of  having  pointed 
out  to  the  victors  for  a  handful  of  cigars,  the  guns  which  the 
garrison  had  buried.  Most  of  MacMahon's  own  corps  after 


298  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

its  first  panic-flight  from  Reichshofen,  rallied  about  Saverne, 
climbed  therefrom  to  Phalsburg  by  the  famous  "  Steige,"  up 
whose  toilsome  zigzags  had  toiled,  some  sixty  years  before,  an 
earlier  race  of  French  soldiers  commemorated  in  the  pages  of 
Erckmann-Chatrian ;  and  thence  down  into  the  hither  low 
country  by  Saarburg,  Dieuze,  and  Blamont.  By  Urmatt  and 
Schirmeck  another  body  crossed  the  shoulder  of  the  Donon, 
the  mountain  of  sacrifice  of  the  ancient  Celts ;  and  yet  another 
through  Markirch — a  town  so  near  the  old  provincial  frontier- 
line  that  it  used  to  be  said  of  the  Markirch  people  that  they 
"  kneaded  in  Alsace  and  baked  in  Lorraine "  —  over  the 
Riezouard  and  down  on  St.  Die.  The  broken  troops  who 
marched  through  this  neighbourhood  in  disorderly  and  un- 
disciplined fashion  belonged  mostly  to  the  5th  Corps — De 
Failly's.  They  were  passing  from  a  temporary  halt  in 
Charmes  across  country  to  Chaumont,  whence  they  were 
conveyed  by  train  to  Chalons  there  to  join  the  ill-starred 
army  which  surrendered  at  Sedan.  To  this  day  the  country- 
folk tell  shudderingly  of  the  disorder  and  indiscipline  of  the 
demoralised  troops  who,  their  arms  and  packs  thrown  away, 
their  uniforms  torn  and  befouled,  their  features  haggard, 
straggled  over  the  face  of  the  quiet  region  plundering  and 
devastating  as  if  in  hostile  territory. 

Apart  from  its  natural  beauties  of  lakes,  of  shaggy  woods 
climbing  the  abrupt  mountain-faces,  of  sweet  sequestered 
valleys  in  which  the  villages  nestle  among  the  foliage ;  apart, 
too,  from  the  old-world  towns  abounding  in  interesting  speci- 
mens of  mediaeval  architecture,  and  from  the  numerous 
picturesque  and  placid  little  watering-places  which  shelter 
themselves  in  the  green  recesses  of  the  mountain  range,  the 
Vosges  country  is  so  full  of  historical  associations  as  to  deserve 
greater  attention  on  the  part  of  the  British  tourist  than  it  has 
hitherto  received.  There  is  no  region  of  Europe  which  will 
better  requite  a  visit,  made  with  Mr.  Henry  Wolffs  charming 
book,  "The  Country  of  the  Vosges,"  in  the  wayfarer's  hand. 
It  will  guide  him  to  spots  which  come  directly  into  the 
history  of  his  native  land.  Up  in  the  northern  Yosges  are  the 
ruins  of  the  old  castle  of  Trifels  where  Richard  Co3ur-de-Lion 


GERMAN  LACK  OF  TACT.  299 

was  imprisoned  ;  and  farther  south,  within  the  quaint  old  city 
of  Hagenau,  stood  in  the  fork  of  the  Moder  the  hoary  palace 
of  the  Hohenstaufens,  in  the  hall  of  which  the  Lion-hearted 
was  put  on  his  trial  for  alleged  "  misdeeds ; "  and  where 
Co3ur-de-Lion's  nephew,  Richard  of  Cornwall,  held  his  court 
as  "  King  of  the  Romans  " — in  that  self-same  moated  and 
turreted  palace  in  which  for  a  time  his  uncle  had  been 
treacherously  confined  as  a  prisoner.  The  rugged  and  primi- 
tive "  Hanauer  Land "  among  the  foothills  between  Bitche 
and  Saargemlind — a  region  which  is  a  rolling  mass  of  wood- 
land intersected  by  green  valleys,  bright  with  glittering  lakes, 
and  on  every  peak  and  bluff  the  ruin  of  a  castle  of  the  Middle 
Ages — was  centuries  ago  the  appanage  of  those  masterful 
Counts  of  Leiningen  who  were  the  maternal  ancestors  of 
Queen  Victoria.  In  Metz  to  this  day  there  are  traditions  of 
Richard  de  la  Pole  the  last  "White  Rose"  claimant  to  the 
throne  of  England,  who  lived  there  in  exile  for  several  years. 
In  the  casemates,  cells,  and  hospital  of  the  eyrie-like  citadel 
of  Bitche  are  graven  the  names  of  numerous  English  prisoners 
of  the  Napoleonic  wars,  sent  thither  from  Verdun  and  other 
less  rigorous  places  of  internment  because  of  turbulent 
conduct  and  attempts  at  escape. 

2. 

The  Germans  are  a  masterful  people.  They  can  conquer 
with  a  meteoric  swiftness:  they  can  hold  the  conquered 
region  in  a  vice ;  they  can  annex  it.  Everything  that  can  be 
done  by  dint  of  force  and  domination  they  can  do.  But  they 
strangely  lack  tact,  possessing  which  they  could  incorporate 
and  assimilate;  and  with  the  best  intentions  in  the  world, 
and  the  most  anxious  desire  to  weld  into  the  German  Empire 
the  inhabitants  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  they  are  to-day 
farther  away  from  the  attainment  of  their  object  than  when 
grim  but  genial  old  Manteuffel — a  Prussian  indeed  of  the 
Prussians,  but  an  innate  gentleman  and  one  who  if  firm  was 
tactful  and  considerate — ruled  over  the  conquered  provinces 
as  their  first  Stadtholder.  The  wise  measures  which 
Manteuffel  initiated  have  been  zealously  carried  on  by  the 


300  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

administrators  who  have  succeeded  him ;  but  unfortunately 
they  and  their  subordinates  have  substituted  the  Prussian 
manners  in  their  most  peremptory  and  rugged  methods  of 
expression,  for  the  velvet  glove  which  wise  old  Manteuffel 
wore  over  that  iron  hand  of  his.  If  the  Alsatians  and 
Lorrainers  had  no  memories,  no  prepossessions,  no  prejudices, 
no  emotions;  if  in  short  they  were  mere  soulless  chattels, 
then  it  might  be  admitted  that  the  German  administration  of 
the  two  conquered  provinces  has  left  nothing  to  be  desired. 
It  may  be  said  with  truth  that  the  German  Government  in 
Alsace  and  Lorraine  has  done  and  is  doing  more  towards  the 
advancement  of  the  material  welfare  of  the  provinces  which 
were  torn  from  France  in  1871,  than  the  British  rule  in  India 
has  ever  done  towards  the  amelioration  of  the  condition  of  the 
native  population  of  that  great  Empire. 

If  the  Hindoos  do  not  bless  us  for  what  we  have  done  in 
their  material  interest,  the  Alsatians  and  Lorrainers  spurn 
and  repudiate  every  effort  on  the  part  of  the  Germans  to 
benefit  them  in  spite  of  themselves.  The  harsh,  dictatorial, 
suspicious  Prussian  gendarme  dominates  every  scene.  The 
Prussian  "  blood  and  iron  "  is  in  evidence  everywhere.  Metz  is 
dragooned  into  a  dumb,  lurid,  sullen  silence  by  a  whole  Army 
Corps  of  German  soldiers,  whose  massive  tramp  is  constantly 
sounding  by  day  and  by  night  in  the  thoroughfares  of  the 
old  capital  of  Lorraine,  and  whose  officers  with  rattling  sword- 
scabbard  and  jingling  spurs  hold  the  "  crown  of  the 
causeway,"  and  hustle  the  Messins  into  the  gutter.  You  may 
visit  any  of  the  quaint  little  towns  of  Alsace  and  Lorraine  at 
fair  time,  when  the  venerable  old-world  place  is  crammed 
with  the  surrounding  villagers,  trafficking,  gossiping — always 
now  in  glutinous  French — hurrying  into  and  out  of  the 
amusement  booths,  or  sitting  under  the  pollards  drinking 
great  mugs  of  beer.  Suddenly  the  brazen  clash  of  military 
music  rises  above  the  miscellaneous  din  of  the  fair,  and  brows 
knit,  hands  are  clenched,  and  eyes  glare  furtively.  For  the 
music  comes  from  the  band  of  a  Prussian  regiment,  and  the 
genial  and  apposite  strains  it  has  selected  are  '  Ich  bin  ein 
Preusse,"  or  "  Die  Wacht  am  Rhein."  This  is  an  illustration 


A  GUTTURAL  CURTAIN  LECTURE.  301 

among  many  of  the  tactful  and  graceful  methods  resorted  to 
by  the  Germans  in  the  conquered  provinces. 

Such  an  incident  as  this  is  a  sample  of  the  manner  in 
which  the  Germans  madden  the  Alsatians  and  Lorrainers 
against  them,  and  destroy  much  of  the  impression  which 
else  might  be  wrought  by  their  efforts  to  benefit  the 
provinces  in  a  material  sense.  But  for  such  things  the 
amalgamation  of  the  provinces  would  probably  have  been 
complete  ere  now,  instead  of  being  apparently  more  remote 
than  when  the  new  frontier-line  was  drawn.  For  conquerors 
and  conquered  are  of  the  same  Teutonic  stock.  The  Alsa- 
tians racially  are  S wabians,  the  Lorrainers  Bavarians  of  the 
Palatinate.  It  took  the  French  more  than  a  hundred 
years  of  repression  to  stamp  out  the  German  language  in 
Lorraine.  Their  efforts  in  the  same  direction  in  regard  to 
the  Alsatians  were  arrested  by  ecclesiastical  influence,  and 
German  remained  the  language  of  Alsace  until  its  annex- 
ation to  Germany.  It  may  be  broadly  said  that,  in  spite  of 
identity  of  race,  and  in  spite  of  every  effort  on  the  part 
of  the  Germans  to  discourage  the  use  of  it,  the  language  of 
Alsace  is  to-day  French,  so  far  as  speech  in  public  is  con- 
cerned— in  their  homes  the  people  still  talk  in  the  familiar 
language.  In  the  words  of  Mr.  Wolff,  the  Alsatian  speaks 
French,  reckons  in  French  money,  reads  French  papers, 
affects  French  dress,  French  habits,  a  French  style  of  living, 
takes  an  interest  in  French  events,  warns  you  that  there 
are  spies  about ;  and  on  July  14,  the  day  of  the  National 
Fete  you  may  see  him  crossing  the  frontier,  denationalised 
now  though  he  be,  to  keep  the  French  festival  on  French 
soil.  Halt  at  least  of  the  guests  at  the  watering-places  in 
the  French  Vosges  are  Alsatians.  At  a  glance  one  recognises 
their  prevalence  at  Vittel  and  Gerardmer.  Yet  in  the 
casinos  and  buvettes  one  never  hears  a  word  of  German. 
The  unwritten  mot  d'ordre  among  them  is  to  speak  French. 
But  to  right  and  to  left  of  you,  through  the  thin  partitions 
between  the  bedrooms  you  may  overhear  a  wife  administer- 
ing a  curtain  lecture  to  her  spouse  in  guttural  Swabian 
German,  and  a  husband  in  the  same  accents  grumbling 


302  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

over  the  depreciation  of  landed  property  in  Alsace  since  the 
German  sway  came  into  force  in  that  once  prosperous 
region.  And  it  is  significant  of  the  uncertainty  of  the 
future  in  men's  minds,  that  the  land-speculator  hesitates  to 
take  advantage  of  the  depreciation.  The  local  resident  has 
neither  the  heart  nor  the  means.  But  the  corn-slopes,  the 
bright  meadows,  and  the  rich  vineyards,  one  would  imagine, 
might  surely  tempt  the  wealthy  Berliner  who  has  made  his 
pile  in  finance.  Yet  the  only  German  who  has  evinced  the 
courage  of  his  opinions  in  investing  in  real  estate  to  any 
great  extent  in  the  conquered  provinces  is  the  Emperor 
William,  who  recently  bought  cheap — for  100,000  marks — 
the  fine  estate  of  Urville  in  German  Lorraine,  the  previous 
owner  of  which  purchased  it  in  1854  for  the  eightfold 
price  of  a  million  of  francs. 

3. 

On  the  18th  of  August,  1870,  the  day  of  the  battle  of 
St.  Privat-Gravelotte,  the  French  defensive  line  from  north 
of  St.  Privat  to  a  point  a  few  hundred  yards  southward  of 
the  village  of  Rozerieulles,  had  a  front  of  about  seven  miles 
in  length.  This  front  the  German  assailants  before  the 
lurid  night  closed  in  on  the  bloody  day,  overlapped  by  a 
considerable  distance  on  both  flanks.  Roughly  speaking, 
then,  there  is  an  area  of  about  nine  miles  in  length  by 
about  two  in  breadth  which  with  scarcely  a  strain  on 
words,  may  be  said  to  be  one  great  graveyard,  wherein  rest 
peacefully  side  by  side  the  French  and  German  combatants 
who  perished  in  the  long-maintained  and  bitter  strife  of 
that  memorable  day.  Hard  by  this  area  constituting  at 
once  the  battle-ground  and  the  graveyard  of  Gravelotte, 
there  lies  a  little  distance  to  the  south-west  another  battle- 
field with  its  resultant  wide-stretching  graveyard  —  the 
theatre  of  that  stubborn  and  desperate  struggle  fought  on 
August  16th,  which  is  known  in  history  as  the  battle  of 
Vionville-Mars-la-Tour.  The  area  of  this  earlier  battlefield 
is  more  circumscribed,  since  the  fighting  was  closer  and 
the  combatants  were  fewer ;  but  the  slaughter  was  yet 


ONE  GREAT  GRAVEYARD.  303 

proportionately  greater  than  that  of  the  succeeding  battle, 
and  on  the  rolling  fields  of  Vionville,  Flavigny,  Mars-la- 
Tour,  and  Tronville  the  dead  lie  thicker  than  on  the 
broader  face  of  the  later  battlefield.  All  the  village  church- 
yards are  filled  high  with  the  dead  of  the  two  battles :  but 
it  was  given  to  comparatively  few  to  rest  in  consecrated 
ground.  Yet  in  a  sense  the  whole  wide  stretch  of  the 
battlefields  is  consecrated  ground — for  what  holier  conse- 
cration can  ground  receive  than  from  the  life-blood  of 
gallant  men  who  died  fighting  in  their  country's  cause  ? 
Plain  and  slope,  ravine  and  copse,  hold  everywhere  those 
sacred  grave-mounds — some  populous  with  multitudinous 
dead,  others  the  resting-places  of  but  two  or  three.  All 
the  graves  of  the  battles  are  maintained  decently  and  in 
order,  their  slopes  and  flat  summits  trimly  sodded,  the  wild 
flowers  luxuriantly  nurtured  by  what  lies  below,  blooming 
around  the  neat  white  crosses  that  tell  in  black  letters  what 
bravo  enemies  in  life  and  brothers  in  the  grave  moulder 
side  by  side.  After  the  war  the  German  authorities 
entered  into  an  arrangement  with  the  peasant-farmers  in 
whose  lands  the  dead  of  the  battles  were  buried,  that  the 
graves  should  be  maintained  for  a  period  of  twenty-five 
years  dating  from  August,  1870,  after  which  the  owners 
of  the  soil  should  be  entitled  to  plough  them  in.  This 
compact  will  run  out  in  1895*,  and  if  the  arrangement  for 
their  maintenance  be  not  renewed,  the  mounds,  the  en- 
circling hedges,  and  the  white  crosses  will  disappear,  and 
much  of  the  vitaUy  pathetic  interest  of  the  Metz  battlefields 
will  fade.  It  is  true  that  the  interest  in  a  measure  will 
be  commemorated  by  the  monuments  of  corps,  divisions, 
brigades,  and  regiments  which  stud  the  fields  to  the  number 
of  sixty-four,  and  also  by  the  separate  graves  of  some  of 
the  fallen  officers  whose  relatives  have  bought  in  perpetuity 
the  patches  of  ground  which  hold  their  loved  ones.  And 
the  numerous  tombstones  of  officers  and  soldiers  in  the 
village  churchyards  will  not  let  fade  the  vivid  memory  of 
those  two  days  of  desperate  fighting  when  the  parched  soil 

*  I  do  not  know  whether  this  arrangement  is  being  acted  on.    June,  1895. 


304  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

drank  in  French  and  German  blood,  and  when  the  blue  sky 
was  dimmed  by  the  smoke  of  the  strife  and  lurid  with  the 
blaze  of  a  hundred  raging  conflagrations.  The  Germans 
insisted  on  the  frontier-line  running  in  a  curiously  zigzag 
fashion,  so  as  to  include  almost  the  whole  theatre  of  the 
battle  of  Gravelotte-St.  Privat  and  the  most  important 
section  of  the  battle  of  Vionville-Mars-la-Tour ;  but  they 
left  within  French  territory  the  vicinity  of  Mars-la-Tour  and 
Tronville.  By  an  amicable  arrangement,  German  monu- 
ments have  been  erected  on  French  soil,  and  French  monu- 
ments on  the  German  side  of  the  frontier ;  but  the  French 
monuments  on  either  ground  are  comparatively  few.  There 
is,  indeed,  one  comprehensive  and  striking  French  monu- 
ment at  Mars-la-Tour,  at  the  foot  of  which  on  each 
anniversary  of  the  battle  of  August  16  solemn  religious 
services  are  held,  attended  by  old  soldiers  from  every  part 
of  France  who  participated  in  the  fighting,  as  well  as  by  a 
vast  assemblage  of  the  population  of  the  neighbourhood. 

In  the  massive  village  of  St.  Privat  the  northern 
extremity  of  the  French  line,  in  which  Canrobert  maintained 
himself  so  tenaciously,  the  children  are  playing  to-day  in 
the  lanes  and  open  spaces  where  on  that  lurid  evening  two- 
and- twenty  years  ago,  Prussian  Guards,  soldiers  of  Saxony, 
and  Canrobert's  staunch  infantrymen  clashed  together  in 
the  furious  hand-to-hand  struggle  that  virtually  ended  the 
battle  so  far  as  Prince  Frederick  Charles's  army  was  con- 
cerned. The  shell-tire  made  an  utter  wreck  of  the  place, 
strongly  built  as  it  was.  When  I  saw  St.  Privat  the  day 
after  the  battle  it  was  one  ghastly  blood-bedabbled  ruin,  amid 
the  smouldering  debris  of  which  were  heaps  of  dead  and  a 
litter  of  broken  and  battered  weapons  and  accoutrements. 
St  Privat  smiles  again,  yet  not  with  wholly  unknit  brows. 
For  every  wall  in  the  place  shows  where  the  shell-holes 
have  been  plastered  up ;  many  of  the  tombstones  in  the 
graveyard  where  stood  the  venerable  church,  remain  as 
they  were  shattered  by  the  shells,  and  the  old  church  which 
the  villagers  loved  was  so  shattered  and  riven  by  shot  and 
tire  that  it  could  not  be  restored.  Handsome  new  churches, 


"BE   THOU  FAITHFUL   UNTO  DEATH."  305 

both  here   and  lower  down  at  Amanvillers  where    the  old 
church  endured  the    same  fate   as  that  of  St.  Privat,  have 
been  built;   but  the   spick-and-span  new  structures  are  not 
to  the  conservative  habitants  what  their  old  holy  places  were. 
Northward  of  St.  Privat,  between  that  village  and  Roncourt, 
on  ground  watered  by  the  blood  of  the  gallant  and  genial 
fighting  men  who  had  followed  the  Crown  Prince  of  Saxony 
in  the  great  turning  movement,  and  who  on  the  afternoon  of 
the  great  battle  struck  St.  Privat  on  the  flank,  stands   the 
monument  erected  by  the  Saxon  Army  Corps  to  their  fallen 
comrades.      It  is  so  ugly  as  to  suggest  that  Saxon  valour  is  of 
a  higher  order  than  Saxon  taste  ;  yet  its  monstrosity  is  more 
than  half  redeemed  by  the  appropriate  legend  graven  on  its 
pedestal :  "  Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a 
crown  of  life."     Within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  southern  end  of 
St.  Privat  is  the  not  ineffective  monument  to  the  fallen  of  the 
Prussian  Guard  Corps.      From  its  summit  the  eye  can  sweep 
the  whole  face  of  the  northern  battlefield,  from  the  Orne  to 
Verneville    on    the     southern    skyline.       Over    against     us 
yonder,  on  the  face  of  the  gentle  slope  gliding  down  into  the 
nearer  gentle   hollow,  on  that  awful    afternoon   of  this   day 
twenty-two  years   ago   (I    am  writing   on   the   spot   on   the 
anniversary  of  the  great  battle),  there  thundered  incessantly  on 
St.  Privat  and  Amanvillers  the  long  line  of  German  cannon 
stretching  from  Verneville  through  Habonville,  St.  Ail,  and 
on  beyond  St.  Marie-aux-Chenes  almost  to  Aboue.     And  the 
hither  slope  at  our  feet,  where  the  tell-tale  hillocks  and  mounds 
are   so  frequent  and  on   whose  face  so  many  white  crosses 
gleam  in  the  sunlight,  is  none  other  "  than  the  bare,  smooth 
glacis  gently  rising  up  to  the  fortress-like  village  of  St.  Privat " 
— the  stretch    of  terrain  on   which  6,000  of  Prussia's  finest 
soldiery  went  down  in  less  than  twenty  minutes.     Than  that 
advance  there  has  been  nothing  more  heroic  since  the  day  of 
Fontenoy,  when  Cumberland's  army,  heedless  of  the  gunfire 
doubly  enfilading  it,  pierced  Saxe's  front.     Both  efforts  were 
reckless  and  mistaken  ;    neither  quite  succeeded ;  but  those 
conditions  no  whit  detracted  from  the  steadfast  heroism  of  the 
fighting-men. 
u 


306  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Amanvillers,  the  French  centre  of  the  northern  battle,  was 
all  but  ground  into  powder  by  the  fire  of  Manstein's  cannon 
on  the  swell  hi  front  of  Verneville.     At  Ainanvillers,  now 
mostly  rebuilt,  and  discernible  far  and  wide  because  of  the 
flaring  new  church  which  the  Germans  have  built  to  replace 
the  quaint  old  edifice  which  their  shell-fire  destroyed,  is  the 
railway  station  of  the  battlefield.     From  it  the  road,  leaving 
the   French  for  the   German  front,   slants   through  a   close 
succession  of   grave-mounds   across   the  shallow    hollow    to 
Verneville.      Yonder  on  the  left  is  that  shoulder  of  the  swell 
whither  the  over-ardent  Manstein  hurried  his  batteries;    in 
the  graves,  ranged  almost  symmetrically  in  rear  of  the  line  of 
gunfire,  lie   the  staunch  gunners   who   endured  unto   death 
the  hurricane  of  cross-fire  that  swept  the  Prussian  batteries 
from    Ainanvillers    and     Montigny-la-Grange.       Verneville, 
picturesquely  nestling  among  its  foliage  on  the  slope  of  the 
ridge,   is  a  veritable  Aceldama.      It  has  for  people   of  our 
nation  a  touching  interest.     Not  a  few  of  our  countrymen  fell 
on  either  side  in  the  course  of  the  great  war  between  France 
and  Germany.      Britons  gave  their  lives  for  an  alien  cause  as 
volunteers  in   the    improvised   cohorts   of    Chanzy   and    de 
Paladines.     English  Winsloe,  a  lieutenant  of  Wlirtemberger 
cavalry,   was  the   first  man   slain  in   the   war.     Argyleshire 
Campbell   miraculously   survived  the    shattering  wounds  he 
received    in  Bredow's    historic    "  Todtenritt ; "     the    gallant 
Douglas  perished  in  the  cavalry  nielee  between  Mars-la-Tour  and 
Bruville ;    and   "  Kit "   Pemberton   of  the   Guards,  to   know 
whom  was  to  love  him,  went  down  with  a  bullet  through  his 
brain  on  the  red  field  of  Sedan.  And  at  least  one  woman  of  our 
race  sacrificed  her  life  in  the  sacred  cause  of  humanity.     In 
the  village  graveyard  of  Verneville,  among  the  dead  of  both 
nations  whom  while  they  lived  she  had  tended  in  the  adjacent 
chateau  wherein  were  huddled  1,200  wounded    men,  there 
sleeps  a  devoted   Englishwoman   under  the  plain    stone   on 
which    are    chiselled    the    simple    words :    "  In   Memory   of 
Henrietta    Clarke,   Deaconess,  from    Chiswick,   Cumberland, 
England ;  Born  December  24,  1837 ;  Died  October  26,  1870." 
From    Verneville    the    road    winds    downward    through 


DEAD  MEN  BUILT  UP  INTO  BARRICADES.         307 

Malmaison,  and  past  the  great  barn  of  Mogador,  in  which 
during  the  battle  two  hundred  wounded  Frenchmen  were 
burnt  alive,  into  the  straggling  village  of  Gravelotte.  Tourists 
are  drinking  coffee  outside  the  Cheval  d'Or,  the  hotel  in 
front  of  which  on  the  day  before  Mars-la-Tour  stood  the 
haggard  Napoleon,  while  his  troops  defiled  past  him  "melan- 
choly and  beaten  out,  without  a  single  shout  of  'Vive 
I'Empereur ! ' ; "  and  whither  on  the  following  morning  Bazaine 
brought  him  a  posy  of  wild  flowers  as  a  souvenir  of  the 
broken  man's  fete  day.  Across  the  way,  in  a  little  room  of 
the  house  which  is  now  the  German  post-office,  Napoleon 
spent  the  night  before  August  16,  on  the  early  morning  of 
which  day  he  drove  away  to  Chalons  to  yet  severer  suffering 
and  to  the  utter  wreck  at  Sedan.  About  Gravelotte  now,  the 
people  hate  neither  the  Empire  nor  the  memory  of  Napoleon 
— they  concentrate  their  hatred  on  the  Germans.  "  They 
dragoon  us,"  said  to  me  an  old  villager ;  "  they  tax  us ;  they 
are  harsh  and  brutal ;  but,  thank  God,  monsieur,  they  cannot 
deprive  us  of  the  privilege  of  hoping  for  better  days."  After 
two-and- twenty  years  one's  memory  of  localities  grows  dim, 
and  it  was  in  vain  that  I  searched  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
village  for  the  place  where,  on  the  day  of  Gravelotte,  I  saw 
the  dead  of  both  sides  built  up  into  barricades  from  behind 
which  fired  the  Prussian  marksmen.  "  Voila,  monsieur ! " 
replied  to  my  question  a  peasant  with  a  wave  of  the  hand  ; 
and  lo  !  what  I  recollected  as  a  great  ghastly  shamble  is  now 
a  green  and  shaded  space,  where  blossoming  creepers  grow 
over  the  crosses  above  the  3,000  soldier- dead  who  rest  in 
this  now  peaceful  scene. 

From  Gravelotte  to  the  field  of  Mars-la-Tour  the  high 
road  goes  due  west  through  Rezonville,  outside  of  which 
King  Wilhelm  sat  in  suspense  as  to  the  issue  of  the  fighting 
on  the  right  flank,  until  Moltke  brought  him  at  a  gallop 
the  tidings  of  final  victory.  Farther  on  the  hamlet  of 
Flavigny  is  seen  on  the  left,  the  scene  of  the  most  desperate 
fighting  of  August  16th ;  and  directly  in  front  is  the  village 
of  Vionville,  whence  Bredow's  devoted  charge  sped  along 
the  green  hollow  to  crash  through  rank  after  rank  of  French 
u  2 


308  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

infantrymen,  and  onward  and  yet  on  up  the  gentle  slope 
to  the  French  cannon  on  the  old  Roman  road  on  the  sky- 
line. That  long,  broad,  parallelogram  on  the  northern  edge 
of  the  road  holds  all  that  was  mortal  of  the  noble  troopers 
who  rode  to  their  death  for  "  King  and  Fatherland "  on 
that  momentous  afternoon.  Vionville  is  a  long  dunghill 
village,  in  a  poor  house  of  which  King  Wilhelm  slept  on 
the  night  after  the  battle  of  Gravelotte.  There  were  better 
houses  in  the  place,  but  they  were  all  crammed  with  the 
wounded  of  the  battle;  and  the  old  king  was  content  to 
occupy  a  little  upper  chamber  partitioned  off  from  a  granary 
whose  wall  and  roof  were  full  of  shell-holes. 

Returning  through  Gravelotte  towards  Metz  the  traveller, 
following  the  ckausaee,  plunges  down  into  the  ravine  of  the 
Mance,  and  then  ascends  to  the  great  open  slope  on  which 
occurred  the  fiercest  fighting  of  the  southern  battle.  Time 
after  time  did  the  soldiers  of  Steinmetz  attempt  to  crown 
that,  slope,  to  be  crushed  back  time  after  time  by  the 
fire  of  Frossard's  resolute  infantrymen.  Not  even  darkness 
ended  the  strife,  and  hand-to-hand  struggles  broke  out  at 
intervals  until  daylight.  The  battered  farmhouse  of  St. 
Hubert  is  now  rehabilitated,  but  there  are  only  a  few  ruins 
where  the  houses  at  Point-du-Jour  stood  before  the  battle. 
There  are  Prussian  monuments  right  up  to  Point-du-Jour 
testifying  to  the  daring  and  determination  with  which  the 
Germans  pushed  onward,  and  not  less  to  the  dauntless  reso- 
lution of  the  French  on  the  defensive,  who  over  and  over 
again  hurled  their  assailants  back  from  the  very  lips  of  their 
shelter-trenches. 

4. 

A  strange  fate  has  overtaken  the  battlefield  of  Sedan. 
The  battle  itself,  in  its  phases,  and  yet  more  in  its  results, 
must  rank  as  the  most  memorable  of  European  events 
since  Waterloo.  In  many  respects  the  intrinsic  interest 
of  the  great  struggle  around  Vauban's  old  fortress  in  the 
Ardennes  equals  that  of  the  earlier  contest  in  which  British 
valour  and  constancy  shone  with  so  great  an  effulgence.  To 
this  day  the  field  of  Waterloo  is  the  most  frequented  of 


RISEN  FROM  ITS  BLOODY  ASHES.  309 

European  battle-grounds.  More  than  three-quarters  of  a 
century  have  elapsed  since  Wellington  and  Napoleon  con- 
fronted each  other  in  the  historic  arena  between  Mont 
St.  Jean  and  La  Belle  Alliance,  and  still  the  Waterloo 
coaches  with  full  complements  of  passengers  start  daily 
from  Brussels.  On  the  other  hand,  within  ten  years  after 
the  momentous  clash  of  arms  around  the  hoary  defences 
of  Sedan,  the  wide-ranging  battlefield  around  that  obso- 
lete fortress  had  been  almost  entirely  denuded  of  any 
visible  relic  or  memento  of  the  struggle  which  was  fought 
out  to  the  bitter  end  on  its  slopes  on  September  1st,  1870. 
The  graves  of  the  fallen  had  been  ploughed  down  and  sown 
over  in  some  cases ;  in  others  the  remains  of  the  dead  com- 
batants had  been  exhumed  and  removed  into  the  graveyards 
of  the  local  villages,  where  their  resting-places  are  unmarked 
by  any  memorial. 

To-day  the  pilgrims  to  the  scene  of  the  ruin  of  French 
Imperialism  are  strangely  few.  "Germans  never  come," 
say  the  innkeepers,  and  the  casual  French  visitors  who 
do  come  content  themselves  with  a  visit  to  Bazeilles,  which 
has  risen  from  its  bloody  ashes  and  now  again  is  a  pretty 
and  prosperous  village.  The  once  famous  "  Weaver's  Cot- 
tage "  on  the  Donchery  road,  where  in  the  early  morning 
of  September  2nd  the  broken  and  dispirited  Emperor  had 
the  historic  interview  with  Bismarck,  is  to-day  uninhabited 
and  in  dilapidation.  Its  door  is  locked,  and  the  key  is  in 
the  possession  of  the  proprietor,  a  farmer  of  Carignan. 
There  is  no  access  now  to  the  upstairs  room  with  its  windows 
in  the  gable,  in  which  Napoleon  and  Bismarck  had  their 
conference.  Madame  Fournaise,  the  weaver's  widow,  is  dead 
years  ago.  The  Chateau  Bellevue,  the  pretty  bourgeois  resi- 
dence of  the  Sedan  wine-dealer  to  which  Bismarck  and  the 
cuirassiers  escorted  Napoleon  from  the  "  Weaver's  Cottage/ 
is  to-day  daintier  and  more  picturesque  than  ever;  but  it 
has  changed  hands,  and  it  is  no  longer  shown  to  the  few 
applicants  who  desire  to  look  at  the  drawing-room  where 
Napoleon  and  King  Wilhelm  had  their  interview,  and  at  the 
panelled  dining-room  at  the  table  in  which  with  bitter  tears 


310  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

de  Wimpfen  signed  the  capitulation  of  the  "  Array  ot 
Sedan."  The  present  inhabitants  of  the  house  profess, 
indeed,  not  to  know  for  certain  in  which  apartment  it  was 
where  the  unfortunate  French  general  subscribed  that 
melancholy  document,  after  which  "sad  and  painful  duty" 
he  rode  back  to  Sedan  "  la  mort  dans  1'ame,"  to  quote 
his  own  touching  words.  One,  however,  would  have  more 
sympathy  with  Wimpfen  but  for  the  circumstance  that 
his  ruin  was  wrought  by  his  own  rather  self-seeking 
ambition. 

The  awful  tragedy  of  Bazeilles  is  commemorated  by  a 
tall  monument  in  the  graveyard  of  that  village,  erected 
amicably  by  Germany  and  France  in  combination.  Under- 
neath the  obelisk  is  a  vaulted  ossuary,  on  each  side  of 
the  central  alley  in  which  are  stacked  and  heaped 
the  skulls  and  bones  of  the  3,000  German  and  French 
soldiers,  who  fell  in  the  desperate  and  prolonged  combat 
that  raged  in  and  around  Bazeilles  from  daybreak  until 
late  in  the  afternoon  of  the  great  battle,  and  in  the  course 
of  which  the  village  became  a  burnt  and  bloody  wreck. 
The  dead  of  the  two  nationalities,  now  mere  bones,  rest  in 
the  same  crypt,  but  they  are  not  intermingled.  The  bones 
of  the  dead  French  are  built  up  on  the  right  of  the 
central  alley,  those  of  the  Germans  on  the  left — a  weird 
and  ghastly  spectacle.  Bazeilles  has  been  long  ago  rebuilt, 
and  the  hum  and  whirr  of  its  weaving-shuttles  are  heard 
along  its  tortuous  lanes.  On  the  outskirt  of  the  village 
nearest  to  Sedan  is  the  little  wayside  cabaret  bearing  the 
sign  of  "  La  Derniere  Cartouche,"  in  and  around  which  was 
the  last  fight  of  the  day.  It  is  maintained  in  the  actual 
condition  of  dilapidation  it  presented  on  the  evening  of 
the  battle;  and  is  the  actual  original  of  De  Neuville's 
famous  picture  of  the  same  name.  This  little  place — pierced 
and  ragged  as  it  is  with  shot  and  shell,  its  furniture 
riddled  as  are  its  ceilings,  walls,  and  floors,  and  its  rooms 
so  full  of  interesting  relics  as  to  constitute  a  real  museum 
— is  perhaps  the  thing  of  most  interest  now  extant  in 
connection  with  the  battle-field  of  Sedan. 


XVI. 

SOLDIERS'  WIVES. 

I  CAN  NOT  say  that  I  have  had  any  success  in  gathering 
details  as  to  the  early  history  of  the  wife  of  the  British 
soldier — when  she  first  became  a  recognised  institution  in 
the  Service,  and  what  was  the  nature  of  the  first  privileges 
accorded  to  her.  So  I  leave  to  some  one  else  with  better 
opportunities,  the  task  of  dealing  with  the  historical  part 
of  the  subject,  and  confine  myself  to  describing  what  has 
come  under  my  own  observation  since  I  joined  her 
Majesty's  Service,  with  respect  to  the  condition,  habits, 
morality,  and  manner  of  life  generally  of  the  wife  of  the 
British  soldier.  I  should  add  that  it  is  some  considerable 
time  since  I  quitted  the  army,  and  that  since  then  many 
changes  for  the  better  have  been  effected  in  regard  to  the 
welfare  of  the  soldier's  wife.  I  propose  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  deal  with  the  subject  as  I  was  personally 
cognisant  of  it ;  and  then  to  tell  of  the  amelioration  in 
the  conditions  of  the  lot  of  the  soldier's  wife  accomplished 
or  in  progress  in  more  recent  years. 

It  was  before  I  became  an  unit  in  the  muster-roll  of 
Britain's  defenders,  that  the  women  of  the  regiment  who 
were  married  with  leave — technically,  "  on  the  strength  "- 
lived  almost  without  exception  in  the  barrack-room  among 
the  men.  There  were  commonly  a  married  couple  in  each 
room.  To  the  couple,  in  virtue  of  long  custom,  was  assigned 
the  corner  farthest  from  the  door.  No  matter  what  the 
number  in  family  might  be,  they  were  allowed  but  two 
single  bedsteads  and  two  men's  space.  No  privacy  of  any 
kind  was  accorded  the  family  save  what  they  could  con- 
trive for  themselves  ;  but  the  married  soldier  was  wont 
to  rig  up  around  his  matrimonial  bower  an  environment 
of  canvas  screening  something  over  six  feet  high,  and 


312  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

enclosing  an  extremely  exiguous  domain  of  floor-space  in 
addition  to  that  occupied  by  the  two  beds  placed  together. 
In  most  regiments  the  "woman  of  the  room"  cooked  for 
her  room-mates  at  the  fireplace  thereof,  in  return  for  which 
service  it  was  customary  for  a  "  mess "  to  be  allotted  to 
her  from  the  men's  rations ;  for  in  the  days  of  which  I 
am  telling,  married  couples  were  entitled  to  no  rations. 
The  married  man  was  put  out  of  mess,  and  he  had  where- 
withal to  maintain  himself  and  his  family  nothing  except 
his  money  pay,  in  addition  to  anything  that  the  wife 
might  earn. 

The  mere  idea  of  a  married  couple  living  and  sleeping 
in  a  common  room  with  a  dozen  or  more  of  single  men 
partitioned  off  but  by  a  flimsy  curtain,  is  outrageously  re- 
pulsive to  our  sense  of  decency.  One  may  well  be  struck 
with  wonderment,  as  certainly  was  the  case  with  me,  that 
the  abominable  arrangement  should  have  been  left  uninter- 
fered  with  for  so  long.  When  the  soldier  got  married  in 
those  times  if  he  were  a  good  fellow  he  strained,  it  was 
true,  every  effort  to  acclimatise  gradually  his  wife  to  the 
barrack-room  when,  as  was  the  case  in  many  instances,  she 
was  fresh  from  a  quiet  country  cottage  or  from  service  in 
a  respectable  family.  He  was  wont  to  take  lodgings  out- 
side the  barracks  for  the  first  week  or  so  of  the  married 
life,  so  that  at  least  the  earliest  quarter  of  the  honeymoon 
might  be  invested  with  something  of  the  privacy  of  which 
there  was  to  be  so  little  afterwards.  But  old  soldiers  have 
told  me  how  they  have  seen  a  pure  girl  brought  straight 
from  the  marriage  service  .to  the  barrack-room  corner,  and 
the  tremor  of  mortal  shame  that  overwhelmed  her.  It 
wore  off,  as  most  compulsions  of  the  kind  mercifully  lose 
their  horror,  under  exposure  to  the  chafe  of  custom  and 
necessity ;  but  the  bride's  blushes  for  herself  fell  to  be 
renewed  at  an  after  period  on  the  tanned  cheeks  of  the 
mother. 

Children,  indeed,  were  rarely  born  in  the  corner;  for 
the  woman  when  her  time  was  near  at  hand  was  removed 
to  outside  lodgings,  where  at  her  husband's  charges  she 


THE   CORNER.  313 

tarried  for  a  few  days ;  but  in  the  corner  daughters  grew 
from  childhood  to  girlhood  with  but  the  screen  between 
them  and  the  men  outside  of  it.  When  a  daughter  fell 
out  of  place,  all  the  home  she  had  to  come  to  was  the 
corner;  and  it  was  nowise  uncommon  for  a  grown  young 
woman  to  sleep  therein,  on  the  top  of  the  chest  alongside 
the  bed  of  her  parents.  When  the  family  was  large,  living, 
or  at  all  events  sleeping  in  the  corner  was  mere  pigging, 
strictly  limited  as  the  authorised  sleeping  accommodation 
was  to  the  two  narrow  regulation  bedsteads.  It  was  true 
that  the  woman  used  to  dispose  of  her  boys  in  the  vacant 
beds  of  soldiers  who  were  on  duty ;  but  in  the  case  of 
women-children  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  close  packing 
behind  the  screen. 

Bad  as  all  this  was — disgusting  in  theory  and  repulsive 
in  practice — there  were  in  it,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  some 
compensatory  elements  of  good.  Although  the  woman  had 
to  reconcile  herself  with  what  contentment  or  endurance 
she  might,  to  a  life  that  perpetually  violated  almost  every 
instinct  of  womanhood,  she  became  blunted  indeed,  but 
not  degraded,  in  our  sense  of  the  term.  In  proportion  as 
she  lived  in  public,  she  had  the  consciousness  of  being 
amenable  to  public  opinion  as  represented  by  the  little 
world  of  her  room ;  and  lowly  as  her  sphere  was,  and  rough 
as  too  often  became  her  manners  and  her  speech,  under- 
neath the  skin-deep  blemishes  there  mostly  lay  self-respect 
and  discretion.  She  would  take  her  share  of  a  gallon  of 
porter  at  the  common  table ;  but  she  durst  not  get  drunk, 
conscious  as  she  was  of  the  critics  of  her  conduct  around 
her.  And  she  made  the  barrack-room  more  of  a  home — 
of  a  family  circle  as  it  were — than  it  was  later  in  my 
experience.  The  men  of  her  room  looked  upon  her  in 
some  such  light  as  they  would  on  a  relative  keeping  house 
for  them.  On  a  change  of  quarters  they  always  struggled 
hard  to  keep  their  coterie  together,  with  the  same  abiding 
woman  for  its  presiding  spirit.  She  humanised  the  barrack- 
room  with  the  wholesome  influence  of  her  true  if  some- 
what rough  womanhood.  There  was  less  profanity  among 


314  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

the  men  than  seems  to  exist  now ;  and  that  habitual 
expression  of  obscenity  which  could  not  but  startle  and 
shock  the  visitor  to  the  barrack-room  of  a  later  period, 
was  almost  unknown  then,  quelled  by  the  fact  of  the 
woman  being  within  hearing.  Kuffians  there  were  in  the 
Service  then  as  there  are  now ;  and  an  outbreak  of  foul 
language  occasionally  came  from  the  lips  of  one  of  them. 
But  he  was  sternly  put  down  and  silenced ;  if  a  word  from 
an  old  soldier  and  a  finger  significantly  pointed  towards 
the  screen  did  not  suffice,  a  straight  left-hander  formed  a 
prompt  and  very  convincing  argument. 

The  woman  of  the  room  was  a  kindly,  motherly  soul 
to  the  forlorn  "  'cruitie ; "  and  she  would  cheer  him  up  with 
homely  words  of  encouragement  as  he  sat  on  his  bed-iron, 
mopingly  thinking  of  his  home.  She  was  always  obliging 
if  you  entreated  her  civilly,  whether  to  sew  on  a  button 
or  lend  a  shilling.  If  she  Avere  anything  of  a  scholar,  to 
her  fell  the  office  of  letter-writer-general  for  the  fellows 
whose  penmanship  had  been  neglected  in  their  early  days; 
and  thus  she  became  the  repository  of  not  a  few  little 
confidences,  which  she  loyally  scorned  to  violate.  Some- 
times, as  an  especial  favour,  she  would  allow  a  man  to 
bring  his  sweetheart  on  a  Sunday  afternoon  to  a  modest 
tea  behind  the  screen  in  the  corner;  and  if  friends 
came  from  a  distance  to  see  one  of  "her  men,"  the  married 
woman  was  always  ready  to  do  her  best  for  the  credit's 
sake  of  the  hospitality  of  her  room.  There  can  be  little 
doubt  that  fewer  scandals  were  current  in  those  days  of 
the  comparatively  dark  ages  about  the  wives  of  soldiers 
than  one  has  known  in  later  periods;  and  I  question 
much  whether,  accepting  the  roughness  of  the  husk 
as  an  inevitable  element  of  their  situation,  the  married 
women  who  dwelt  in  the  barrack-room  corners  were 
not  more  genuine  at  the  core  than  are  the  ladies  who 
more  recently  have  been  in  habitation  in  the  married 
quarters. 

Besides  the  evil  alluded  to  there  was  another  that  must 
not  be  forgotten.  Soldiers  are  very  fond  of  children,  but 


ON  THE  MARCH.  315 

are  apt  to  regard  them  in  the  light  rather  of  monkeys 
than  of  creatures  with  souls  in  their  little  bodies.  So  the 
imps  of  the  period  grew  up  tutored  in  all  manner  of  pre- 
cocious evil  and  mischief — developing  a  weird  precocity 
in  tossing  oft'  a  basinful  of  porter,  smoking  the  blackest 
of  pipes,  arid  addicted  to  fancy  swearing  of  the  ugliest 
kind.  Mostly  the  youngsters  either  joined  the  band  of 
the  regiment,  or  went  into  one  of  the  military  schools, 
where  bad  habits  were  sternly  dealt  with  to  good  purpose ; 
and  thus,  under  the  old  long-service  regime,  the  country 
had  to  some  extent  an  hereditary  soldiery,  not  a  few 
from  the  ranks  of  which,  born  at  the  foot  of  the  regi- 
mental ladder,  contrived  to  climb  up  it  no  inconsiderable 
distance. 

In  the  days  I  am  now  telling  of  there  were  scarcely  any 
railways  except  the  great  trunk  lines.  When  a  regiment  went 
on  the  line  of  march  the  women  rode  in  the  accompanying 
baggage  waggons,  with  their  brats  stowed  away  in  odd  corners 
among  the  other  miscellaneous  goods  and  chattels;  and  at 
the  halts  they  shared  their  husband's  billets  if  the  local 
people  were  willing  to  accept  them,  as,  to  their  credit,  they 
for  the  most  part  were.  When  they  were  not,  the  husband 
had  to  find  quarters  for  his  wife  somewhere  else.  When 
the  funds  were  low  it  was  customary  for  married  women  to 
be  smuggled  into  the  hay-loft  above  the  troop-horses,  and 
sometimes  they  had  even  to  bivouac  on  the  lee-side  of  a 
hedge.  To  some  extent  the  railways  entailed  an  additional 
charge  on  the  married  soldier's  slender  purse.  He  had  always 
to  pay  for  his  baggage,  for  the  chest  or  two,  the  flock  bed — if 
the  couple  had  got  that  length  of  prosperity — and  the  few 
feminine  belongings  which  the  wife  could  call  her  own ;  but 
now  the  husband  had  to  pay  for  the  warrant  under  which  his 
wife  and  family  were  conveyed  by  rail.  Later,  however, 
"  baggage  funds  "  were  formed  in  most  regiments,  the  proceeds 
of  which  went  to  meet  the  travelling  charges  of  the  women 
and  children.  In  the  days  I  refer  to,  if  women  had  to  live 
outside  the  barracks  because  of  lack  of  room  inside,  there 
was  no  allowance  in  the  shape  of  lodging-money.  The 


316  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

first  grant  of  this  was  made,  I  think,  in  1852,  and  con- 
sisted of  one  penny  a  day  paid  quarterly.  It  was  gradually 
increased,  until  now,  I  believe,  the  allowance  is  fourpence 
a  day. 

The  above  may  be  taken  as  a  rough  epitome  of  the 
condition  of  the  soldier's  wife  up  to  the  end  of  1 848  or  the 
beginning  of  1849.  About  that  period,  I  think  because  of 
some  troubles  in  the  financial  world,  an  exceptional  number 
of  better-class  men  joined  the  service.  Because  of  the 
indecency  of  the  barrack-room  arrangements  then  in  force,  a 
number  of  anonymous  complaints  were  sent  in  to  the 
authorities.  Other  complaints  through  the  press  stimulated 
public  opinion  to  demand  a  change,  and  the  authorities  in 
their  sluggish  fashion  gradually  complied.  The  reform  was 
not  carried  out  with  any  great  promptitude,  for  I  knew  of 
women  living  in  the  barrack-rooms  after  the  Crimean  war. 
But  the  change  was  made  in  the  cavalry  regiment  to  which  I 
belonged  so  early  as  in  1849.  It  was,  in  effect,  a  change  very 
little  for  the  better.  Into  one  attic  in  Christchurch  barracks 
seven  families  were  huddled  pell-mell.  No  better  arrange- 
ments in  the  direction  of  privacy  were  made  than  had  existed 
in  the  common  barrack-rooms.  Each  separate  family  was 
curtained  off  by  what  may  be  called  private  enterprise. 
There  was  but  one  fireplace  in  the  long,  low  attic,  and  the 
women  scrambled  waspishly  over  their  turns  for  cooking,  and 
were  often  forced  to  have  recourse  to  the  fires  in  the  men's 
barrack-rooms. 

The  moral  and  social  tone  was  visibly  deteriorated  under 
this  arrangement,  even  below  that  which  had  characterised 
the  common  barrack-room.  The  women,  congregated  as  they 
were  and  with  a  weakened  check  upon  them,  were  too  prone 
to  club  for  drink;  and  convivialities  were  occasionally 
chequered  with  quarrels  into  which  the  husbands  were  not 
unfrequently  drawn.  There  was  a  perceptible  growth  of 
coarseness  of  tone  among  both  the  women  and  the  men,  that 
became  actual  grossness ;  and  I  question  if  a  young  woman 
with  some  of  nature's  modesty  still  clinging  to  her  did  not 
have  it  more  violently  outraged  in  this  congeries  of  married 


IMPROVEMENT  DUE   TO   THE  QUEEN.  317 

couples,  than  would  have  been  the  case  in  the  old  corner- of- 
the-barrack-room  arrangement.  Of  this  at  least  I  am  certain 
that  with  ominous  rapidity  she  learned  to  talk,  and  would 
submit  to  be  jeered,  on  subjects  which  were  ignored  under 
the  old  system. 

The  overcrowding  also,  which  was  all  but  universal,  was 
physically  injurious  to  both  adults  and  children.     The  latter 
did  not  count  in  the  allotment  of  quarters.     I  have  known 
ten  families  in  one  long  room  in  Weedon  barracks.     Eight 
families   in   a   hut    in   the   North   Camp   at  Alder.shot   was 
nothing  uncommon.     But  later  an  era  of  improvement  and 
civilisation  set  in,  and  before  long  the  majority  of  barracks 
contained  married  quarters  in  which  each  family  had  a  room 
to   itself.      The   inception   of  this   system    was   due   to   our 
gracious    Queen;     and    the    rapidity    with    which    married 
quarters  became  all  but  universal  was  owing,  in  the  main,  to 
her  womanly  sympathy  with  her  sex.     Still,  however,  those 
married  quarters  in  many  instances  did  not  afford  sufficient 
accommodation,  and  the  surplusage  had  to  fall  back  on  the 
old  system.     So  late  as  in  the  summer  of  1867  more  than  one 
troop-room  was  occupied  by  four  families;  and  later  still  it 
was  estimated  that  about  one-third  of  the  married  strength  of 
the    home  forces  was   still  unaccommodated  with  separate 
rooms.     In  civilian  estimation  a  single  room  for  a  man  and 
wife  with  their  family — day-room   and   bed-room   in   one — 
seems  no  great  boon ;  but  the  soldier  and  his  wife  had  been 
so  little  used  to  mercies  of  any  kind  that  they  learned  to  be 
thankful  for  -very  small  ones.     In  my  day  a  married  non- 
commissioned officer  of  the  highest  grade  had  to  put  up  with 
a    single    room.      A   troop-sergeant-major    is    a    person    of 
importance    and    responsibility  in   the    little   world   of    his 
regiment — his  position  certainly  equal  to  that  of  the  super- 
intendent of  a  particular  branch  of  a  factory.     But  how  would 
the  latter  relish  having  to  pay  the  hands,  the  head  of  the 
concern  sitting  at  the  pay-table  along  with  him,  while  his 
recently-confined  wife  lay  in  bed  in  the  same  room,  seques- 
tered only  by  a  curtain  ?     I  have   signed   accounts   in  the 
Royal  barracks  in  Dublin  when    my  troop-sergeant-major's 


1?18  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

domesticities  were  in  the  condition  alluded  to,  the  captain 
of  the  troop  being  present. 

The  soldier  does  not  very  often  go  to  his  own  native  place 
for  a  wife.  He  forgets  the  sweetheart  of  his  pre-soldiering 
days,  and  finds  another  where  he  may  chance  to  be  quartered. 
Most  soldiers'  wives  have  been  servant  girls,  with  whom  the 
gentleman  in  uniform  has  picked  up  acquaintance  casually  in 
his  evening  strolls.  But  there  are  many  exceptions,  and  some 
of  these  of  rather  a  remarkable  character.  I  have  known 
a  soldier's  wife  who  had  been  the  daughter  of  a  clergyman, 
another  who  had  been  a  vocalist  at  a  leading  music  hall,  and 
a  third  who  had  been  the  widow  of  a  captain  in  the  navy. 
Since  the  relaxation  in  the  rigour  exercised  in  regard  to 
marriages  without  leave — to  which  I  shall  presently  advert — 
soldiers  have  been  rather  addicted  to  marrying  Avoinen  of  no 
character.  Repulsive  as  such  connections  are,  fairness 
demands  the  admission  that  such  women,  with  few  exceptions, 
turn  out  well-conducted  wives.  Probably  they  are  so  weary 
of  their  previous  life  that  to  be  a  wife  at  all,  no  matter  how 
humble  the  sphere,  is  a  haven  of  refuge  too  deeply  appreciated 
to  be  lightly  forfeited. 

So  prone  were  soldiers  to  take  their  wives  from  among  the 
daughters  of  the  region  hi  which  the  regiment  might  be 
stationed  that  an  experienced  hand  could  mark  by  the  strata, 
so  to  speak,  of  married  womanhood  in  a  corps  the  track  of  its 
successive  stations  throughout  the  kingdom.  Let  me  give  an 
example  from  my  own  old  regiment,  as  I  knew  it.  The 
seniors  of  the  married  women  were  of  the  south  of  England — 
Christchurch  and  Brighton  extracts — decently  inclined,  self- 
respecting,  rather  masculine  dames,  who  had  followed  the 
kettledrums  many  a  year  and  had  got  tanned  and  travel- 
worn,  but  were  honest,  cleanly,  and  fairly  pure  of  heart. 
Then  came  a  layer  of  canny  Scots  lasses  recruited  during 
the  regiment's  tour  of  service  in  the  north  country,  clannish 
to  the  last  degree,  grasping  and  greedy,  most  of  them ; 
"  wearing  the  breeches "  as  regarded  their  "  gude  men,"  but 
good  wives,  nevertheless,  and  excellent  mothers;  fond  of  a 
"drappie"  when  somebody  else  paid  for  it;  mostly  with  a 


MATRIMONIAL  LONGINGS.  319 

nest-egg  in  the  regimental  savings-bank,  and  willing  to  do  a 
little  bit  of  usury  on  the  quiet;  very  unpopular  with  the 
other  women,  horribly  quarrelsome,  and  scrupulously  clean. 
Then  followed  an  infusion  of  the  Irish  element,  resulting  from 
the  corps  having  been  quartered  for  some  years  in  various 
stations  of  the  sister  isle.  According  to  my  experience,  Irish 
women,  with  few  exceptions,  do  not  make  good  soldiers' 
wives.  They  are  too  ready  to  accommodate  themselves  to 
circumstances,  instead  of  striving  to  make  circumstances  bend 
to  them.  Thus,  in  the  unfavourable  phase  of  life  in  which 
they  find  themselves  through  marrying  a  soldier,  they  are 
prone  to  go  with  the  swim,  to  become  slovenly  and  slatternly, 
to  say  "  sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof,"  and  to  be 
heedless  if  to-morrow's  pot  portends  emptiness  so  long  as  the 
pot  of  to-day  "  boils  fat." 

When  the  soldier  falls  a  prey  to  matrimonial  longings,  he 
obtains  an  interview  with  his  colonel  in  the  orderly  room,  and 
asks  permission  to  get  married.  If  he  has  some  length  of 
service  and  a  good  character,  permission  may  be  granted  him, 
subject  to  the  occurrence  of  a  vacancy  in  the  married  roll  of 
his  class  in  the  regiment.  If  he  is  a  sensible  man  he  waits 
for  this ;  then  he  marries,  and  his  wife  is  taken  "  on  the 
strength  "  and  becomes  entitled  to  a  share  in  what  privileges 
may  be  available.  A  certain  number  of  men  are  assigned  her 
to  "  do  for,"  in  washing  their  quota  of  very  dirty  clothes.  In 
some  cavalry  regiments  she  has  in  addition  the  task  of  keep- 
ing clean  the  room  of  her  men.  In  this  case  she  scrubs  the 
floor,  tables,  and  forms  daily,  washes  the  crockeryvvare  after 
each  meal,  and  generally  is  responsible  for  the  cleanliness  of 
the  apartment.  In  other  cavalry  regiments  the  men  perform 
these  duties  in  rotation,  and  the  woman  has  only  the  clothes- 
washing  to  do.  In  either  case,  I  believe,  each  of  her  men 
pays  her  a  penny  a  day.  The  charge  in  infantry  regiments 
is  but  a  halfpenny  a  man,  solely  for  the  washing,  and 
the  men  are  invariably  their  own  housemaids.  In  most 
regiments  of  the  latter  branch  of  the  service,  the  married 
women  are  prohibited  altogether  from  entering  the  barrack- 
rooms. 


320  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Those  women  who  do  not  have  a  certain  number  of  men 
assigned  to  them,  mostly  have,  in  the  cavalry,  each  an  officer 
to  attend  to  his  room  and  do  his  washing,  at  the  remuneration 
of  a  shilling  a  day ;  but  this  is  an  employment  which  falls 
chiefly  to  the  wives  of  non-commissioned  officers.  Non-com  - 
missioned  officers'  wives  to  whom  may  be  allotted  the  washing 
of  a  certain  number  of  men,  are  no  longer  allowed  to  farm 
out  the  work,  as  until  recently  was  the  case.  In  the  infantry 
an  officer's  soldier-servant  attends  to  his  room.  A  married 
couple  in  a  cavalry  regiment  do  not  fare  badly  when  the 
husband  is  an  officer's  servant  with  a  wage  of  ten  or  fifteen 
shillings  a  month  besides  perquisites,  or  when  he  earns  ten 
shillings  a  month  for  looking  after  a  sergeant's  horse  in 
addition  to  his  own ;  and  when  the  wife  has  the  washing  of  a 
dozen  men  or  thereabouts.  The  joint  income  may  in  such  a 
case  amount  to  about  a  pound  a  week,  with  free  quarters  and 
the  right  to  draw  a  daily  ration  of  three-quarters  of  a  pound 
of  meat  and  a  pound  of  bread  for  4id. — about  one  half  the 
retail  price  in  the  open  market. 

Hitherto  I  have  been  writing  of  soldiers'  wives  who  have 
become  so  in  a  strictly  constitutional  and  regimental  manner. 
But  for  one  soldier  who  marries  "  with  leave,"  at  least  half-a- 
dozen  do  so  Avithout  leave.  In  the  majority  of  cases  circum- 
stances render  the  formality  of  asking  for  leave  a  needless 
farce,  and  he  marries  without  troubling  to  make  the 
application.  Rules  affecting  men  married  without  leave  vary 
according  to  the  dispositions — severe  or  lenient — of  com- 
manding officers.  In  my  early  soldiering  days  I  knew  a  man 
who  had  been  married  for  twenty  years,  a  man  with  an 
excellent  character  and  holding  non-commissioned  rank, 
whose  wife  was  never  taken  on  the  strength  of  the  regiment 
at  all,  because  the  marriage  had  been  "  without  leave."  In 
some  regiments  a  probation,  or  rather  a  purgatory,  of  eight 
years  had  to  be  undergone  before  the  offence  of  getting  married 
without  leave  was  condoned,  and  the  wife  admitted  to 
privileges.  In  later  years  a  mor3  lenient  policy  came  into 
operation.  As  a  special  favour  a  suitable  applicant  was 
occasionally  permitted  to  marry  with  the  promise  that  his 


"PUT  ON  THE  GATE."  321 

wife  should  be  taken  "  on  the  strength  "  on  the  occurrence  of 
a  vacancy,  and  meanwhile  some  work  was  assigned  her  to  ease 
the  hardship  of  her  lot.  Prior  to  this  it  was  not  uncommon 
for  the  soldier  and  his  wife  to  be  married  twice  over,  the 
second  marriage  taking  place  when  leave  was  granted,  in  order 
to  meet  the  necessity  of  the  registration  of  the  marriage  lines 
in  the  orderly-room  record,  when  the  production  of  the  record 
of  the  first  marriage  would  have  exposed  the  disobedience  of 
orders,  and  led  to  a  retractation  of  the  permission.  I  remember 
a  critical  legitimacy  question  once  arising  out  of  a  double 
marriage  of  this  kind. 

To  get  married  without  leave,  even  although  it  be  accom- 
panied by  no  other  infraction  of  discipline,  is  a  military  crime 
coming  under  the  head  of  disobedience  of  orders,  and  I  have 
known  a  man  severely  punished  for  this  offence  alone.  But 
most  frequently  marriage  without  leave  used  to  be  aggravated 
by  the  crime  of  concurrent  absence,  and  the  offender  was 
punished  nominally  for  the  latter  offence,  but  in  reality  for 
the  former  also.  Thus  I  have  known  a  man  get  seven  days' 
cells,  involving  the  loss  of  his  hair,  for  a  couple  of  hours' 
absence  in  the  morning  for  the  purpose  of  getting  married. 
It  is  not  pleasant,  it  must  be  confessed,  to  meet  your  bride 
with  not  so  much  hair  on  your  head  as  would  furnish  a  locket. 
Sometimes,  in  the  stern  wrath  of  the  commanding  officer,  the 
woman's  name  is  "  put  on  the  gate,"  that  is,  she  is  prohibited 
from  entering  the  barracks.  Her  plight  is  very  sad.  She 
had  left  her  service  or  her  home,  and  it  is  with  her  nulla 
vestigia  retrorsum.  She  lingers  wistfully  about  the  barrack 
gate,  pitifully  asking  the  men  as  they  walk  out  what  punish- 
ment her  husband  has  got,  and  when  it  will  be  over.  She 
gets  a  room  somewhere  near  the  barracks,  her  husband  hah 
starves  himself  that  he  may  share  his  rations  with  her,  and 
his  sympathising  comrades  cut  him  the  bigger  mess  because 
they  know  that  it  has  to  feed  two  mouths.  With  few 
exceptions  the  man  acts  very  loyally  by  the  woman  with 
whom  he  has  formed  a  rash  union.  Sometimes,  it  is  true 
things  do  go  wrong.  The  woman  gives  up  the  hard  battle  in 
despair  and  enters  on  a  yet  more  wretched  campaign,  with 
v 


322  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

sure  defeat  as  its  sad  inevitable  close ;  or  the  husband  rebels 
against  the  prolonged  self-denial  and  shirks  his  responsibility. 
But  much  oftener  the  twain  cling  together  with  a  piteous, 
yet  proud  mutual  devotion.  The  compassionate  matrons  who 
are  on  the  strength  may  give  the  woman  a  job  on  washing 
days,  or  she  picks  up  some  employment  about  the  officers'  mess 
kitchen,  or  among  the  wives  of  the  non-commissioned 
officers. 

A  change  of  station  is  a  heavy  blow  to  the  struggling 
couple.  There  is  no  "  warrant "  for  the  woman  married  with- 
out leave,  and  it  is  seldom  that  her  husband  can  meet  the  rail- 
way fare.  I  have  known  a  soldier's  wife  married  without  leave, 
foot  it  all  the  way  from  Aldershot  to  Edinburgh,  marching  day 
for  day  with  her  husband's  troop,  sometimes  getting  into  his 
billet  at  night,  sometimes  quartered  in  the  hay-loft.  Long  ere 
she  crossed  Kelso  Bridge  her  boots  had  given  out ;  but  her 
heart  was  stouter  than  her  boots,  and  she  triumphantly 
reached  Piershill  Barracks  only  a  few  hours  behind  her 
husband.  Shorter  journeys  of  this  kind  used  to  be  common 
enough,  not  only  with  soldiers'  wives  married  without  leave, 
but  also  with  females  having  no  such  tie  Avith  the  men  they 
followed. 

A  time,  however,  may  come  sooner  or  later,  to  the  woman 
married  without  leave,  when  her  courage  is  of  no  avail ;  when 
the  regiment  is  ordered  on  foreign  service  and  she  is  left 
straining  her  eyes  through  bitter  tears  after  the  receding 
troopship.  Now  she  is,  indeed,  alone  in  the  world.  But  she 
turns  instinctively  barrack-ward — there  is  consolation,  seem- 
ingly, in  the  colour  of  the  cloth.  There  is  hardly  a  barrack 
of  any  size  in  the  kingdom  where  there  are  not  as  hangers- 
on  some  of  those  compulsory  grass-widows,  picking  up  a 
precarious  livelihood  by  the  merciful  consideration  of  soldiers' 
wives  better  circumstanced.  Such  an  one,  as  she  wrestles  with 
the  hard  world,  is  counting  longingly  the  years  and  the 
months,  till  her  husband's  term  of  service  shall  expire.  It 
may  be  that  one  day  a  letter  arrives  from  his  chum,  or  a 
discharged  soldier  of  her  husband's  regiment  strolls  into 
barracks  with  the  tidings  that  Bill  or  Joe  is  dead  of  cholera  at 


SPARSE  MATRIMONY.  323 

some  unhealthy  inland  station,  or  that  death  took  him  in 
some  march  in  the  Afghan  hill-country.  But  again,  Bill  or 
Joe  is  back  himself  with  his  discharge  in  his  pocket  and  love 
in  his  heart ;  and  her  horizon  glows  very  bright  to  the  poor 
barrack-drudge. 

But  a  very  much  married  army  has  many  encumbrances  in 
the  shape  of  women  and  children ;  and  among  its  other 
advantages  short  service  has  all  but  abolished  soldiers'  wives 
whose  husbands  belong  to  the  rank-and-file.  In  the  cavalry 
and  artillery  the  limit  of  married  soldiers  is  now  but  4  per 
cent.  ;  in  the  infantry  only  3  per  cent.  Matrimony  in  the 
British  army  of  to-day  at  home,  apart  from  its  officerhood,  is 
almost  entirely  confined  to  the  non-commissioned  ranks.  All 
warrant  officers  are  entitled  to  be  married ;  as  also  are  the 
three  superior  classes  of  non-commissioned  officers.  Fifty 
per  cent,  of  non-commissioned  officers  of  inferior  grade  may  be 
included  in  the  married  roll.  The  private  soldier  of  the 
period  is  barely  adolescent,  when  at  the  age  of  twenty — 
occasionally  somewhat  short  of  that  age — he  is  sent  out  to 
India ;  and  for  the  couple  of  years  or  so  prior  to  that  deporta- 
tion he  is  so  assiduously  growing  in  bulk  and  stature  as  the 
result  of  his  consumption  of  the  Queen's  rations  and  so 
engrossed  in  learning  the  rudiments  of  soldier-craft,  that  he 
can  find  little  leisure  for  precocious  thoughts  of  love,  far  less 
of  matrimony,  whether  with  or  without  leave.  Thus  a 
soldier's  wife  married  without  leave  is  now  very  much  more 
rare  than  in  earlier  times. 

To-day  there  is  no  such  abomination  in  the  army  as 
the  crowding  of  more  than  one  family  in  the  same  room. 
There  is  no  family  of  the  lowest  military  grade  which  is 
not  entitled  to  at  least  one  separate  room.  The  advance, 
or  rather  indeed  the  revolution,  of  late  years  in  the  accom- 
modation afforded  to  military  married  people  and  families, 
is  simply  surprising,  especially  at  Aldershot.  A  married 
warrant  officer  in  that  station  enjoys  two  very  good  sitting- 
rooms,  two  good  bedrooms,  kitchen  and  scullery,  with  yard, 
garden  convenience,  coal  and  washhouse.  The  family  of  a 
staff-sergeant  has  for  quarters  an  excellent  sitting-room,  two 
v  2 


324 


MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 


good  bedrooms,  kitchen,  and  scullery.  Married  sergeants 
and  rank-and-file  are  accommodated  in  two  rooms  and  a 
kitchen,  or  one  big  room  and  kitchen :  in  the  case  of  a 
large  family,  two  bedrooms  are  allowed.  Twenty  years  ago 
the  regimental  sergeant-major  of  a  cavalry  regiment,  the 
man  of  highest  non-commissioned  rank  in  the  regiment 
and  a  married  man  with  a  family,  had  to  content  himself  and 
his  with  a  single  room  of  no  great  dimensions. 


XVII. 

AN    HONEST-BORN   BOY. 

OUR  rural  and  primitive  parish-school  in  the  far  north 
of  Scotland  was  as  I  remember  it,  some  five-and-forty 
years  ago,  a  democracy  tempered  chiefly  by  vigour  of  biceps 
muscle.  Whether  inside  the  grim  old  building  on  the  brae- 
face,  or  on  the  heather-bordered  playground  in  the  midst 
of  which  it  stood,  no  distinction  was  recognised  between 
the  "  classes "  and  the  "  masses."  The  master  was  at  once 
impartial  and  indiscriminate  in  his  frank  and  free  use  of 
his  tough  leathern  "  tawse."  Was  he  gentleman's  son  from 
the  mansion  among  the  trees  beyond  the  burn,  or  was  he 
the  cottar's  son  from  the  sour  muirland  of  the  foothills, 
the  cock  of  the  school  and  of  the  playground  was  the 
youngster  .who  was  smartest  with  his  fists.  The  school 
was  a  microcosm  of  the  parish.  The  laird  who  owned  a 
large  proportion  of  its  acreage  sent  to  the  parish  school 
his  son  and  heir,  who  later  became  a  Cambridge  Wrangler. 
The  manse  was  represented  by  my  brother  and  myself, 
destined  later  for  the  north-country  University,  meanwhile 
seldom  free  from  a  black  eye  or  two,  and  exceptionally 
frequent  victims  of  the  "dominie's"  tawse.  The  local 
farmers,  a  prolific  race,  contributed  whole  families  of  both 
sexes  indiscriminately.  The  ditcher  down  by  the  cross- 
roads educated  his  twins  by  the  expedient  of  sending  the 
boy  and  the  girl  on  alternate  days  for  a  single  fee.  Besides 
the  ordinary  run  of  pupils  whose  ages  varied  from  seven 
to  about  fourteen,  the  school  was  generally  attended  by  some 
three  or  four  full-grown  young  fellows,  who  were  taking  a 
half  year  at  home  away  from  farm  work,  that  they  might 
revive  or  increase  the  knowledge  acquired  in  boyhood. 
The  country  lasses  used  occasionally  to  do  the  same,  and  I 
remember  to  have  often  seen  a  buxom  girl  of  twenty  and 


326  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

a  stalwart  ploughman  of  about  the  same  age  standing  up 
courageously  in  the  same  class  with  youngsters  of  nine  and 
ten.  In  the  winter  time  our  school  fire  was  maintained  by 
the  daily  contributions  brought  from  the  home  stack  by  each 
scholar  of  a  peat  or  a  turf  under  his  or  her  arm.  Defaulters 
in  this  duty  were  punished  by  being  exiled  to  the  cold 
corners  of  the  schoolroom. 

In  my  young  days,  as  is  still  the  case,  the  lowlands  of 
northern  Scotland  were  singularly  free  from  crime,  but 
then — nor,  I  fear,  is  there  to-day  much  improvement  in 
this  respect — they  were  affected  by  a  moral  taint,  the  results 
of  which  manifested  themselves  in  our  little  school-com- 
munity in  the  shape  of  some  half-dozen  strapping  young 
fellows  of  great  physical  vigour  and  of  considerable  force 
of  character.  Our  rustic  Dunois  from  the  Craighead  was, 
like  his  prototype,  both  jeune  and  beau.  Our  local  Falcon- 
bridge  from  the  hovel  at  the  back  of  the  wood  was  so 
handsome  that  he  might  well  have  had  "a  trick  of  Cceur- 
de-Lion's  face."  Our  sturdy  William  of  the  Ardoch  promised 
in  mental  force  and  physical  thew  and  sinew  to  take  after 
the  famous  son  of  Arlotte  of  Falaise.  Our  herd  laddie 
Maurice  was  no  less  successful  in  his  warlike  encounters  on 
the  school-green  than  was  the  son  of  Aurora  of  Konigsmark 
in  his  wider  sphere  of  action.  Our  Edmund  of  the  Burn- 
foot  might  well  have  claimed,  in  the  words  of  the  "  Edmund  " 
of  Lear,  that — 

"My  dimensions  are  as  well  compact, 
My  mind  as  generous,  and  my  shape  as  true, 
As  honest  madam's  issue." 

To  those  youths  the  taint  of  their  origin  was  no  secret, 
and  it  must  be  added  that  for  them  it  had  no  shame,  neither 
did  it  attach  to  them  any  stigma.  Far  from  shrinking 
into  the  background,  they  carried  their  heads  high  among 
us ;  like  the  "  little  Jock  Elliot "  of  the  Border  ballad  they 
would  "tak  dunts  frae  naebody,"  but  on  the  contrary  were 
always  on  the  alert  to  bestow  those  aggressive  commodities. 

The  universal  pet  of  the  school  was  a  beautiful  child 
named  Willie  Stuart.  As  I  write,  after  many  long  years 


"A  BASTARD  LIKE  MYSELf"  327 

I  still  can  recall  the  little  man's  long  flaxen  curls,  his  wistful 
blue  eyes,  the  delicate  complexion  that  flushed  and  paled 
with  each  passing  emotion,  the  winsomeness  of  the  whole 
little  figure.  The  roughest  of  us  was  tender  with  Willie. 
He  would  participate  eagerly  in  our  sports,  and  we  could  not 
say  him  nay;  but  one  of  us  always  quietly  undertook  to 
watch,  lest  in  the  hurly-burly  of  rugged  horse-play  any  mis- 
cliief  should  befall  the  child.  He  was  an  apt  scholar,  but, 
sveet-tempered  as  he  was,  and  grateful  for  the  love  that  was 
lavished  on  him,  he  had  a  vein  of  mild  sarcasm,  and  would 
sometimes  in  a  light  and  airy  way  make  game  of  a  dunce. 
We  knew  of  him,  in  a  casual  way,  as  the  only  son  of  a 
decent  woman  who  lived  a  quiet  lonely  life  in  a  cottage 
near  the  Kirkton,  and  who  was  spoken  of  as  having  been 
a  lady's-maid  in  a  nobleman's  family  whose  seat  was  in  an 
adjoining  parish.  Her  neighbours  called  her  Mrs.  Stuart 
and  it  was  understood  that  her  husband  was  abroad,  making 
money  in  some  unhealthy  region  whither  he  would  not 
bring;  his  wife'  and  child.  Country  folk  of  the  lower  orders 
up  in  the  north,  some  half  century  ago,  were  not  much 
addicted  to  prying  into  the  affairs  of  their  neighbours. 
The  opportunities  for  gossip  were  comparatively  few  in  a 
region  where  distances  were  great,  and  where  there  were 
no  breeding-places  of  scandal  in  the  shape  of  villages. 

One  forenoon  the  only  dull-witted  one  of  the  base-born 
contingent  of  our  schoolfellows  had  fallen  into  some 
ludicrous  blunder,  which,  in  spite  of  the  stern  discipline 
maintained,  had  kindled  the  class  into  an  irrepressible  roar 
of  laughter,  and  had  brought  upon  himself  condign  and 
severe  punishment  from  the  stinging  tawse.  During  a 
momentary  absence  of  the  master  from  the  schoolroom, 
Willie  Stuart  amused  himself  by  chaffing  the  perpetrator 
of  the  blunder.  The  latter,  sore  and  resentful,  took  the 
little  fellow's  badinage  very  ill.  At  length,  to  the  utter 
amazement  of  all,  he  grimly  retorted — 

"  Ye  cock  yer  head  gey  crouse,  iny  bonny  little  man  : 
you  that's  naething  but  a  bastard,  like  mysel!." 

"  It's   a  lee,  a  lee ! "   cried    the    child,   flushing    scarlet, 


323  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

and  bursting  into  a  passion  of  tears  as  he  flew  at  the  throat 
of  the  other.  We  dragged  him  off  just  as  the  master 
returned,  and  the  little  scene  ended — Willie  sitting  white 
and  trembling  over  his  dictionary. 

During  the  mid-day  play  hour  the  boy  who  had  aspersed 
Willie,  and  myself,  had  an  encounter  which  improved  the 
appearance  of  neither  of  us.  The  same  evening  I  related 
to  our  old  nurse  what  had  occurred  in  the  school.  To  my 
utter  astonishment,  she  told  me  that  the  stigma  which  had 
been  cast  on  Willie  Stuart  was  warranted  by  the  facts.  She 
had  been  told  the  whole  story  by  her  sister,  who  for  years 

had  been  in  service  at Castle.  Mary  Stuart  had  been 

the  countess's  own  maid.  She  had  been  courted  by  a 
farmer's  son  of  the  neighbourhood,  and  she  had  accepted 
him.  But  subsequently  they  had  quarrelled  bitterly,  on 
what  account  nobody  seemed  to  know,  and  had  parted  in 
hot  anger.  The  girl  had  soon  to  realise  that  the  rupture 
had  not  been  on  even  terms.  Yet  such  was  the  stiffness 
of  her  nature,  that  she  preferred  to  undergo  shame  rather 
than  sue  to  the  man  with  whom,  she  had  quarrelled.  Her 
ladyship  had  sent  her  away,  but  had  settled  a  small  pension 
on  her.  Soon  after  her  child  was  born  and  christened  she 
had  migrated  into  our  parish,  where  her  story  was  not 
known,  and  had  lived  there  in  good  repute  ever  since.  Our 
old  nurse,  kind  and  wise  soul  as  she  was,  had  held  her 
tongue,  and  she  believed  that  none  other  in  the  parish, 
save  my  father  the  minister,  knew  the  story.  But  now  she 
remembered  that  Bell  Black,  the  mother  of  the  fellow  who 
had  opened  upon  Willie,  had  been  a  kitchen  servant  at 
the  castle  about  the  time  of  Mary  Stuart's  misfortune. 

For  days  little  Willie  moped  about,  pale  and  sad,  all  the 
young  life  seemingly  dead  in  him.  The  story  had  begun  to 
spread,  and  I  fancy  he  had  heard  some  kind  of  confirmation 
of  it.  He  had  been  shunning  rne ;  but  one  afternoon  the  poor 
child  came  to  me  with  his  sorrow.  "  I  believe  it's  a  lee,"  said 
he  wearily ;  "  but  God  kens.  I  canna  bring  mysel'  tae  speer 
o'  my  inither — I  wad  suner  droon  mysel' !  But,  whether  or 
no,  I'm  no  like  thae  loons — it  kills  me  tae  doobt  that  I'm  an 


"TIME  OFTEN  SOLDERS  FEUDS."  329 

honest-born  laddie."  I  took  the  little  fellow  by  the  hand,  led 
him  down  the  brae  to  the  manse,  and  brought  him  in  by  the 
side-door  into  the  little  room  which  belonged  to  my  brother 
and  myself  and  in  which  we  were  wont  to  con  our  lessons. 
Leaving  him  there,  I  went  and  found  the  old  nurse,  told  her 
whom  I  had  brought  to  see  her,  and  begged  of  her  to  come 
into  our  room  and  give  the  child  what  comfort  she  might. 

Good  old  Elspeth's  heart  went  out  to  Willie  at  first  sight 
of  him.  She  smoothed  with  her  hands  his  flaxen  curls,  and 
brought  colour  into  his  pale  face  by  kissing  the  shy  and 
unnerved  little  chap.  As  she  talked  it  seemed  at  first  as  if, 
far  from  giving  him  any  consolation,  she  was  about  to  plunge 
him  into  utter  despair.  For  she  thought  it  the  truest 
kindness  to  tell  him  all  that  she  had  told  me  and  that  I 
have  already  recorded,  thus  dashing  from  him  any  hope  that 
he  was  other  than  he  had  been  so  abruptly  characterised  by 
his  coarse  and  angry  schoolfellow.  But  the  good  old  soul  had 
kept  in  reserve  some  balm  of  Gilead  for  the  wounded  spirit. 
And  it  presently  appeared  that  she  was  somehow  conversant 
with  the  kindly  principles  of  Scottish  law,  in  regard  to  the 
legitimation  of  offspring  born  before  wedlock  by  the  sub- 
sequent marriage  of  the  parents. 

"  You're  no  honest-born,  my  bairn,"  said  Elspeth,  "  but  the 
guid  auld  law  o'  Scotland  will  mak'  ye  honest-born  if  your 
faither  an'  mither  can  be  persuadit  tae  come  thegither  an'  be 
marriet  like  wise  an'  dacent  folk.  I've  heard  they  were  baith 
dour  an'  bitter,  but  time  often  solders  feuds.  It's  no  true 
that  yer  faither  is  abroad.  He  is  the  auld  farmer's  son  o'  the 
Mains  o'  Drumfurruch,  in  the  Enzie,  no  ten  miles  awa'.  My 
counsel  tae  ye,  laddie,  is  that  ye  gae  an'  see  yer  faither,  an' 
plead  wi'  him  for  tae  gie  ye  a  guid  name  in  the  waiid  by 
marryin'  yer  mither.  Ye're  a  bonny  boy,  an'  ye  hae  a  winsome 
face ;  he  may  weel  be  prood  o'  ye.  If  ye  gain  him,  surely  yer 
mither  will  no  be  obstinate  for  her  ain  sake,  forbye  yours. 
Ony  gate,  it's  but  try  in',  and  it's  surely  weel  worth  try  in'  ;  it's 
a  noble  an'  a  holy  endeavour,  an'  a'  guid  folk  maun  pray  that 
it  may  succeed ! "  And  Elspeth  kissed  the  child,  and  their 
tears  mingled  as  the  good  old  Presbyterian  woman  blessed 


330  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

him  and  prayed  that  Heaven  might  prosper  so  worthy  an 
effort. 

Willie,  comforted  and  heartened,  would  fain  have  started 
on  his  errand  that  same  afternoon.  But  this  was  not  to  be 
thought  of.  He  knew  nothing  of  the  road  to  the  Enzie  ;  he 
was  quite  unequal  to  so  long  a  journey  afoot  and  alone ;  his 
sudden  absence  would  alarm  his  mother. 

It  was  the  season  of  peat-carting  from  the  moss  of  Forgie, 
which  is  within  three  miles  of  the  Enzie  ;  and  my  suggestion 
was  that  next  morning  he  should  accompany  the  manse  carts 
to  the  moss,  then  go  on  to  Drumfurruch  which  was  visible 
from  the  rnoss,  and  return  therefrom  in  the  afternoon  in  time 
to  be  carried  back  on  one  of  the  loaded  carts.  I  advised  him 
that  he  should  not  tell  his  mother  of  his  project,  and  I 
undertook  to  furnish  the  schoolmaster  with  a  reason  for  his 
absence. 

This  programme  the  resolute  little  man  duly  carried  out. 
He  brought  back  the  tidings  that  he  had  seen  his  father,  who 
had  readily  and  affectionately  owned  him,  had  taken  him  to 
his  grandfather  now  bedridden  and  very  old,  and  had  ac- 
companied him  most  of  the  way  back  to  the  moss.  But  he 
had  been  stern  and  silent  when  the  child,  with  piteous  sobs 
and  tears,  had  besought  him  to  make  the  son  he  had  owned 
an  "  honest-born "  boy,  and  he  had  curtly  told  the  little  lad 
not  to  appeal  to  him  on  that  point  any  more.  But  Willie, 
nevertheless,  was  not  utterly  disheartened,  for  his  father  had 
said  that  he  should  look  forward  to  seeing  him  again.  There 
was  courage  and  resolution  in  the  little  fellow  beyond  his 
years,  and  Elspeth  and  I  agreed  in  recommending  that  he 
should  repeat  his  visit  to  his  father  occasionally — at  all  events, 
while  the  peat-carting  season  lasted. 

The  father,  with  each  successive  visit  of  his  son  grew  more 
and  more  affectionate,  and  Willie,  as  he  told  us  of  this,  in- 
creased in  hopefulness  of  ultimate  success.  The  colour  had 
come  back  into  the  child's  face,  his  head  was  no  longer  on  his 
breast,  the  glint  had  returned  to  the  soft  blue  eyes  under  the 
long  lashes.  I  never  saw  him  so  beautiful  as  on  the  last 
morning  he  started  with  the  peat-carts.  In  the  gloaming  of 


THE  INSPIRATION  OF  A   GREAT  HAPPINESS.      331 

that  same  shortening  day  the  carter  came  home  without  him. 
He  had  waited,  he  said,  for  some  time  after  the  usual  hour  of 
starting  homewards.  A  dense  fog,  with  a  heavy  flurry  of 
snow,  then  set  in,  and  the  carter  had  left  in  the  full  belief 
that  the  bitter  weather  had  detained  Willie  at  Drumfurruch 
for  the  night. 

This  was  quite  probable ;  but,  again,  it  was  possible  that 
the  child  had  been  well  on  his  way  to  the  moss  before  the 
weather  thickened.  So  the  groom  and  I  started  immediately 
in  the  manse  gig,  intending  to  drive  to  Drumfurruch ;  keeping 
as  we  went  on,  a  keen  look-out  along  the  road  and  on  both 
sides  of  it.  We  carried  blankets  and  a  whisky-flask  in  case  of 
need.  The  road  was  bad ;  the  fog  and  snowdrift  thickened, 
and  so  slow  was  our  progress  that  we  were  traversing  the 
moss  only  in  the  small  hours  of  the  following  morning.  It 
had  lightened  a  little  just  as  we  were  passing  the  manse  plot 
of  moss-land,  and  the  sudden  idea  occurred  to  me  to  alight 
and  glance  over  that  spot.  It  was  a  fortunate  impulse,  for 
there,  just  under  the  peat-bank,  on  the  sparse  fodder  left  by 
the  horses,  lay  WTillie,  partially  snowed  over  and  asleep.  We 
promptly  wrapped  him  up  warmly  and  administered  restora- 
tives. I  drove  him  straight  to  his  mother's  cottage,  while  the 
grooin  walked  on  to  tell  his  father  of  what  had  happened. 
By  nightfall  Willie  was  in  peril  of  imminent  death  from 
inflammation  of  the  lungs,  and  he  was  all  but  unconscious  for 
days.  When  he  came  to  himself  he  found  his  father  and 
mother  bending  anxiously  over  him.  A  common  apprehen- 
sion, a  common  solicitude,  had  united  the  dissevered  parents. 
He  rallied  under  the  inspiration  of  &  great  happiness,  but  the 
doctor  shook  his  head  and  talked  ominously  of  rapid  wasting 
of  the  lungs.  It  was  not  long  ere  the  child  knew  that  he  was 
doomed ;  but  he  piteously  entreated  that  his  parents  would 
gratify  him  by  enabling  him  to  die,  as  he  pleaded,  "  an  honest- 
born  boy."  The  banns  of  marriage  between  John  McPherson 
and  Mary  Stuart  were  duly  proclaimed  on  three  successive 
Sundays  for  the  first,  second,  and  third  times.  On  the  fourth 
Sunday,  which  fell  on  New  Year's  Day,  the  couple  were  made 
man  and  wife  by  my  father  in  the  old  barn-like  church. 


332  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

During  their  absence  I  was  sitting  with  Willie,  whose  weakness 
and  fragility  were  painfully  visible  through  the  hectic  flush 
of  excitement.  As  his  parents,  now  united  in  wedlock, 
entered  the  cottage,  he  started  up  into  a  sitting  attitude, 
and  with  extraordinary  eagerness  and  extended  arms,  he 
pathetically  begged  his  mother  to  give  him  the  "  marriage- 
lines."  He  devoured  the  certificate  with  ardent,  hollow  eyes, 
gave  one  great  panting  sigh  of  gratification,  clasped  the  paper 
to  his  heart  with  the  exclamation,  "  Oh,  faither  an'  mither, 
this  is  a  New  Year's  gift  frae  Heaven  itsel' ! "  and  then  he 
turned  his  happy,  wasted  face  to  the  wall  Ten  minutes  later 
I  touched  his  forehead.  The  "  honest-born  boy  "  was  dead. 


XVIII. 

SOLDIERS   1   HAVE   KNOWN. 

Kaiser  Wilhelm — Moltke— The  Imperial  Crown  Prince — Prince  Frederick 
Charles  — Bazaine — Ma  cMahon — Trochu — Grant  - —  Sherman —  Sheridan — 
Lord  Kapier  of  Magdala — Lord  Wolseley — Lord  Roberts — Sir  Evelyn 
Wood— Sir  Redvers  Buller— Sir  Herbert  Stewart— Sir  George  Colley — 
The  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  —  Todleben  —  Skobeleff —  Gourko — Osman 
Pasha. 

THE  late  summer  sunshine  was  irradiating  the  broad  undu- 
lating expanse  of  the  Tempelhoferfeld,  the  historic 
parade-ground  of  the  troops  forming  the  garrison  of  the  capital 
city  of  the  German  Empire.  It  was  the  1st  of  September, 
the  anniversary  of  the  battle  of  Sedan  ;  and  athwart  the 
green  face  of  the  Tempelhoferfeld  were  drawn  up  the  long 
straight  lines  of  the  Prussian  Guard  Corps,  ready  for  its 
inspection  by  the  venerable  soldier-monarch  to  whom,  on 
the  afternoon  of  Sedan,  Napoleon  III.  sent  his  sword 
and  his  surrender.  The  guns  of  the  salute  rang  out  their 
greeting  as  a  brilliant  cavalcade,  gay  with  plumes  and  glitter- 
ing in  gold  and  silver,  cantered  on  to  the  parade-ground.  At 
the  head  of  the  cortege,  a  horse-length  out  to  the  front,  rode 
a  square-shouldered  white-haired  chief,  stricken  in  years, 
yet  still  lusty  and  stalwart.  KAISER  WILHELM  I.  was  in  his 
eighty-first  year,  yet  the  glance  of  the  keen  blue  eye  was 
undhnmed,  his  form  was  erect,  and  he  rode  the  strong  black 
charger  with  strength  and  skill.  Old  Marshal  Wrangel,  of 
whom  it  was  said  that  "he  had  forgotten  to  die,"  had  at 
length  at  the  age  of  ninety-four  remembered  that  duty ; 
and  now  the  venerable  warrior-king  was  the  oldest  soldier 
of  all  that  Germany  the  unity  of  which  he  had  lived  to 
see  accomplished  under  his  sway.  What  to  us  was  history 
were  memories  with  this  hale  octogenarian !  He  could 
remember  the  catastrophe  of  Jena ;  for  that  stroke  befel 


334  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Prussia  in  1806  and  he  was  then  nine  years  of  age.  His 
latest  campaign  had  been  in  1870-71 ;  his  earliest  in  1814, 
which  he  made  as  aide-de-camp  to  Bliicher,  when  old 
"  Marshal  Vorwarts "  in  the  early  months  of  that  year 
marched  his  Prussians  from  the  Ehine  to  the  heart  of 
France,  stormed  the  heights  of  Montmartre,  and  occupied 
Paris  in  conjunction  with  the  Russian  and  Austrian  armies. 

Four  times,  so  far  as  I  know,  Wilhelm  met  the  Napoleon 
who  surrendered  to  him  at  Sedan — the  nephew  of  that 
Napoleon  who  had  insulted  his  mother.  The  first  time 
was  at  the  end  of  the  campaign  of  1814,  when  with  his 
father  he  visited  the  Chateau  of  St.  Leu,  near  Paris,  where 
Queen  Hortense  dwelt  apart  from  her  husband  with  her 
two  boys,  the  younger  of  whom  lived  to  be  Napoleon  III. 
The  second  time  was  in  September,  1861,  the  year  of  his 
accession,  when  he  paid  a  visit  to  the  Emperor  Napoleon 
at  Compiegne.  During  his  stay  there  occurred  a  military 
parade,  which  Napoleon  chose  to  witness  in  civilian  costume. 
To  wear  uniform  when  his  host  was  in  plain  clothes  was 
impossible ;  and  so  Wilhelm,  for  the  only  time  in  his  long 
life,  had  to  appear  on  a  parade-ground  in  a  black  coat  and 
a  tall  hat.  Sedan  was  avenged  in  anticipation.  The  third 
time  was  in  1867,  the  year  of  the  great  Paris  Exposition, 
when  he  was  the  guest  in  the  Tuileries  of  that  child  of 
Hortense  who,  after  a  life  of  strange  vicissitudes,  was  now 
the  Emperor  of  the  French.  The  fourth  time — and  of  their 
memorable  meeting  then  I  was  a  witness — was  on  the 
morning  after  the  battle  of  Sedan,  when  that  Emperor 
was  a  prisoner  and  his  throne  was  crumbling  into  wreck 
Napoleon,  familiar  already  with  exile,  was  to  die  in  exile. 
Wilhelm  died  in  the  purple,  but  he  too  had  known  exile; 
for  in  the  Red  Year  of  1848  political  troubles  at  home 
forced  him  to  take  refuge  in  England  for  a  time ;  reputed — 
it  has  long  ago  seemed  incredible — the  most  unpopular 
man  in  Prussia ! 

Wilhelm  was  not  a  heaven- born  general,  but  he  was  a 
thorough  soldier.  Brave  to  recklessness,  his  staff  had 
always  difficulty  in  keeping  him  outside  the  range  of  hostile 


A   GRAND  SIMPLE   OLD   GENTLEMAN.  335 

fire,  nor  were  they  always  successful.  He  had  an  aide-de-camp 
killed  by  his  side  at  Konigsgratz.  At  Gravelotte  I  saw 
him  sitting  on  his  horse  among  the  bursting  shells ;  and  later 
in  the  same  afternoon  belabouring  fugitives  with  the  flat 
of  his  sword,  while  he  swore  fine  racy  German  oaths  at  them 
for  disgracing  themselves  in  a  momentary  panic.  For  the 
rest  he  was  only  a  grand  simple  old  gentleman,  with  a  very 
soft  heart  and  a  very  hasty  temper.  In  regard  to  politics 
he  did  the  bidding  of  Bismarck,  and  Bismarck  often  had 
very  sharp  tussles  with  the  sturdy  old  opinionated  Trojan 
in  the  effort  to  conquer  his  prejudices  or  to  restrain  his 
impulses.  In  his  personal  life  Wilhelm  was  simplicity  itself. 
He  dined  at  four  o'clock,  and  the  chief  joys  of  his  palate 
were  sauerkraut  and  lobster  salad.  His  campaigning  equip- 
ment was  almost  Spartan  in  its  plainness,  and  contrasted 
curiously  with  the  elaborate  train  that  followed  Napoleon 
out  of  Sedan.  Of  all  the  family  of  which  he  was  the  head — 
a  family  which  in  all  its  ramifications  he  ruled  with  a  strong 
yet  kindly  hand — his  greatest  favourites  were  the  wife  of 
his  son,  our  English  Princess  Royal,  and  her  eldest  son, 
who  was  one  day  to  be  himself  German  Emperor,  and  who 
meanwhile  was  a  hardworking  officer  in  the  Imperial  Guard. 

I  saw  Wilhelm  in  the  shell-fire  of  Gravelotte.  I  witnessed 
the  greeting  between  him  and  the  Emperor  Napoleon  at 
the  foot  of  the  steps  of  the  Chateau  Bellevue  on  the  morn- 
ing after  the  battle  of  Sedan.  I  saw  him  standing  on  the 
dais  of  the  Galerie  des  Glaces  in  the  Chateau  of  Versailles, 
when,  amidst  a  tempest  of  cheering,  amidst  waving  of 
swords  and  of  banners,  he  was  hailed  German  Emperor, 
as  with  eyes  streaming  with  tears  he  received  the  homage 
of  princes,  dukes,  and  lords  of  the  Empire.  I  saw  him 
on  the  great  day  of  the  triumphal  entry  into  Berlin  after 
the  Franco-German  war,  as  he  rode  down  the  Linden 
between  a  double  row  of  captured  French  cannon.  Before 
him  rode  abreast  Bismarck,  Moltke,  and  Roon,  "  the 
makers  of  history ; "  behind  him  the  "  combined  battalion," 
whose  ranks  were  made  up  of  men  of  every  German  nation- 
ality, escorting  the  eagles,  colours,  and  standards  that  had 


336  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

lately  belonged  to  the  French  armies.  But,  to  my  think- 
ing, none  of  those  spectacles  vied  in  human  interest  \vitli 
that  presented  by  the  simple  cordiality  and  tenderness  of 
Wilhelm's  home-coining  immediately  after  the  ending  of  the 
Franco-German  war,  the  most  memorable  and  most  colossal 
conflict  of  the  century.  Long  before  the  time  named  for 
the  arrival  of  the  royal  train,  the  platform  of  the  Potsdamer 
railway  station  was  thronged  with  notabilities.  There  were 
Bismarck  in  his  white  cuirassier  uniform,  and  Moltke  and 
Roon,  and  other  principal  personages  of  the  great  head- 
quarters staff.  There  was  the  venerable  Marshal  Wrangel, 
a  still  older  soldier  than  his  venerable  sovereign.  There,  too, 
were  Vogel  von  Falkenstein,  grim  and  grey,  and  old  Stein- 
metz,  come  from  his  distant  Posen  governorship.  Of  ladies 
and  children  of  the  royal  house  the  name  was  legion.  In 
a  siding  opposite  the  platform,  whether  by  accident  or 
design,  had  been  shunted  a  hospital  train,  from  the  windows 
of  which  pallid  faces  looked  out  on  the  brilliant  scene. 
Upon  the  carriage  roofs  clustered  convalescents ;  and  a  little 
squad  of  fellows  maimed  at  Spicheren  and  Borny  gave 
Steimnetz  a  cheer — old  "  Immer  Vorwarts,"  as  they  styled 
him ;  and  so  with  gossip  and  endless  kindly  greetings  the 
moments  of  expectancy  passed. 

At  the  sound  of  a  distant  whistle,  from  out  the  waiting- 
room  stalked  Bismarck.  Wrangel  doffed  his  plumed  helmet ; 
a  stream  of  ladies  and  children  followed  Bismarck's  stalwart 
form.  In  two  minutes  more  a  near  rumble,  and  the  train 
rolled  up  to  the  platform.  Then  rose  a  mighty  shout  of 
cheering :  and  there,  at  the  carriage  window,  stood  the 
Emperor,  looking  out  on  his  family  and  servants.  A  moment 
later,  and  he  was  down  the  steps,  and  kissing  the  Dowager 
Queen  Elizabeth.  It  seemed  as  if  the  women  of  his  race 
were  mobbing  him  as  they  crowded  round  him  for  his 
kisses,  while  grandchildren  hung  about  his  knees.  The 
old  man  was  brushing  his  shaggy  eyelashes  with  the  back 
of  his  hand  as  he  struggled  through  the  women-folk  about 
him.  In  his  path  stood  "  Papa "  Wrangel,  a  beam  from 
the  setting  sun  flashing  on  his  snow-white  hair.  The 


THE   GUSH  OF  HOMELY  AFFECTION.  337 

soldier-patriarch  raised  his  hand  and  tried  to  utter  a  wel- 
come, but  his  voice  failed  him,  and  the  tears  rolled  down 
his  face.  His  master,  not  less  moved,  kissed  his  aged 
servant  on  both  cheeks.  The  two  old  soldier -comrades 
embraced,  and  Steinmetz's  wounded  fellows  on  the  carriage 
roof  cheered  the  mutual  greeting.  Then  the  Emperor  grasped 
Bismarck  by  the  hand  and  kissed  him  too,  and  old  Stein- 
inetz  as  well — forgiven  for  his  waste  of  men  on  the  slope 
over  against  Gravelotte ;  he  kissed  his  way  right  through 
out  into  the  waiting  saloon,  hand-in-hand  with  the  Empress 
who  was  shedding  quiet  tears.  The  scene  was  like  an  April 
day — showers  and  sunshine,  tears  and  smiles ;  all  state  and 
ceremony  were  swept  away  in  the  gush  of  homely  affection. 
When  his  Majesty  had  reached  the  Palace,  the  cheers  of 
his  Berliners  kept  him  long  lingering  on  its  threshold ;  over 
and  over  again  he  had  to  come  out  on  to  the  balcony  with 
the  Empress  ;  and  his  final  appearance  was  at  the  accus- 
tomed corner  window,  at  which  he  had  shown  himself  when 
the  declaration  of  the  war  was  announced.  That  war  was  now 
triumphantly  finished,  and  Wilhelm  had  come  home  from 
his  last  campaign. 

In  the  forefront  of  the  cortege  which  Kaiser  Wilhelm 
headed  as  he  cantered  on  to  the  Tempelhofer  parade-ground, 
rode  three  men  whose  names,  then  as  now,  were  familiar  to 
the  world — Moltke,  the  Imperial  Crown  Prince,  and  Prince 
Frederick  Charles.  MOLTKE  was  the  lean  man  with  the 
slight  stoop  of  the  shoulders,  and  the  fleshless,  strong-lined 
face  out  of  which  the  keen  blue  eyes  looked  with  quiet 
alertness.  You  might  have  taken  him  for  a  professor  of 
mathematics,  but  he  was  the  greatest  strategist  of  the  age. 
Made  Chief  of  the  Prussian  General  Staff  in  1858,  there 
thenceforward  devolved  upon  him  the  duty  of  planning  the 
successive  campaigns  in  which  the  Prussian  armies  were  sub- 
sequently engaged ;  and  in  which,  thanks  in  great  measure 
to  his  strategical  genius,  they  were  uniformly  successful. 

Moltke  was  a  singularly  quiet  and  unostentatious  man.  It 
was  quaintly  said  of  him  that  "  he  could  be  silent  in  seven 
w 


33S  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

languages,"  and  he  was  nearly  as  great  a  linguist  as  lie 
was  a  strategist.  Seated  at  his  desk  in  Berlin  with  his 
maps  and  plans  on  the  wall  before  him,  he  directed  by 
telegraph  the  opening  operations  of  both  the  Prussian 
armies  engaged  in  the  invasion  of  Austria  in  the  summer 
of  1866  ;  and  on  the  battlefield  of  Konigsgratz  he  watched, 
with  calm  assurance  of  the  result,  the  bloody  and  desperate 
struggle  which  culminated  in  the  decisive  victory  his  bold 
and  shrewd  strategy  had  brought  about.  He  was  in  the 
field  from  the  first  in  the  Franco-German  campaign  of 
1870-71 ;  and  it  was  intensely  interesting  to  discern  how,  as 
if  by  intuition,  he  penetrated  the  designs  of  the  French 
commanders,  and  had  taken  measures  to  thwart  them  before 
the  attempts  had  been  begun  to  carry  them  out.  Moltke's 
fighting  motto  was  "  Erst  wagen,  dan  wagen "  — "  First 
ponder,  then  dare "  ;  and  the  keynote  to  his  strategy  may 
bj  summed  up  in  his  maxim :  "  Separate  for  the  march, 
concentrate  for  the  battle."  Frequently  he  took  what  seemed 
startling  liberties  with  the  enemy.  Over  and  over  again, 
trusting  to  his  own  genius,  he  disregarded  what  are  com- 
monly called  "  the  rules  of  the  art  of  war,"  and  ventured 
on  operations  which,  according  to  those  rules,  he  had  no 
right  to  risk.  This,  no  doubt,  was  simply  because  he  had 
taken  the  measure  of  the  commanders  who  were  his 
antagonists,  and  had  recognised  their  capacity,  or  rather 
their  incapacity. 

The  notion  was  general  that  Moltke,  Bismarck,  and  Roon, 
the  three  men  who  were  the  chief  makers  of  the  German 
Empire,  were  on  the  most  friendly  and  most  intimate  terms 
with  each  other.  In  reality  they  had  by  no  means  mutually 
cordial  relations.  Bismarck  had  a  standing  umbrage  with 
Moltke,  because  the  great  strategist  was  resolute  in  withhold- 
ing from  the  great  statesman  the  military  information  which 
the  latter  insisted  he  ought  to  share.  Moltke  has  roundly 
disclosed  in  his  posthumous  book  his  conviction  that  Boon's 
place  as  Minister  of  War  was  at  home  in  Germany  ;  and  not  on 
campaign,  embarrassing  the  former's  functions.  Roon,  again, 
envied  Moltke  because  of  the  latter's  more  elevated  military 


MESSAGE  OF  LOVE  AXD  DUTY.  339 

position ;  and  he  disliked  Bismarck,  because  that  outspoken 
man  made  light  of  Roon's  capacity.  I  have  happened  to 
know  the  headquarters  staff  of  a  British  army  whose  members 
were  on  bad  terms  with  each  other  ;  and  the  result,  to  put  it 
mildly,  was  unsatisfactory.  But  those  three  high  German 
authorities,  each  with  bitterness  in  his  heart  against  his 
fellows,  nevertheless  co-operated  zealously  and  loyally  in  the 
service  of  their  Sovereign  and  for  the  advantage  of  their 
country.  Their  common  patriotism  had  the  mastery  in  them 
over  their  mutual  dislike  and  jealousy.  Arndt's  line :  "  Sein 
Vaterland  muss  grosser  sein !"  was  the  watchword  of  all 
three,  and  dominated  their  discordances. 

Moltke  was  not  a  man  to  spare  bloodshed  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  given  ends.  In  the  first  month  of  the  campaign 
the  German  losses  in  killed  and  wounded  were  well  on  to 
80,000  men.  With  him  the  end  justified  the  means.  But  the 
private  life  of  the  iron  soldier  was  worthy  and  beautiful  in  all 
its  relations.  He  was  a  man  of  singularly  varied  accomplish- 
ments, and  his  tastes  were  at  once  simple  and  refined.  He 
had  no  children,  but  his  family  affection  was  full  of  warmth. 
I  once  saw  the  tears  in  his  eyes,  as  I  gave  him  the  message  of 
love  and  duty  entrusted  to  me  by  one  of  his  nephews  who  lay 
in  danger  from  a  wound  received  in  a  forepost  skirmish  on 
the  east  of  Paris.  All  Germany  idolised  the  quiet,  silent, 
self-contained  soldier-sage,  to  whom  the  Fatherland  owed  so 
much.  Full  of  years  and  honours,  he  had  the  euthanasia  for 
which  he  had  prayed  when  his  time  should  come. 

The  IMPERIAL  CROWN  PRINCE,  afterwards,  during  a  short 
period  of  nobly-borne  suffering,  the  Emperor  Frederick,  was 
an  imposing  and  soldierly  figure.  Never  have  I  seen  a  face 
which  expressed  more  vividly  calm  serene  strength  of 
command.  He  looked  taller  on  horseback  than  he  really 
was  ;  and  upright,  broad-shouldered,  and  deep-chested,  he  was 
every  inch  a  man.  He  hated  war,  yet  it  was  his  fate  to  take 
part  in  three  great  wars,  and  to  command  in  several  momefi- 
tous  and  bloody  battles.  He  was  thoroughly  conversant  with 
the  art  of  war,  and  there  was  no  readier  chief  in  the  field  of 
w  2 


340  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

battle.  The  most  urbane  of  men  while  no  fighting  was  in 
hand,  the  Prince's  manner  wholly  altered  when  the  bullets  were 
flying.  Then  the  Hohenzollern  temper  rose  in  him  ;  his  lace 
flushed ;  there  was  a  sparkle  in  his  eye ;  he  spoke  but  to 
command:  and  when  he  had  cause  to  chide,  he  who  was 
rebuked  did  not  soon  forget  the  reproof.  But  he  was  the 
most  humane  of  the  fighting  race  of  which  he  was  a  member. 
Like  his  father,  he  thought  of  the  wounded  the  moment  that 
the  victory  was  won.  Unlike  his  father,  he  was  always  averse 
from  extreme  measures.  He  held  out  long  against  the  bom- 
bardment of  Paris,  and  his  voice  was  ever  in  favour  of  the 
introduction  into  the  beleaguered  city  of  medical  comforts  for 
the  sick  and  wounded,  and  for  permitting  the  exit  of  helpless 
women  and  children. 

The  great  day  of  the  Crown  Prince's  life  was  that 
momentous  ceremony  in  the  Chateau  of  Versailles,  when 
the  princes  and  potentates,  of  the  great  Teuton  nation 
hailed  his  father  with  the  crowning  dignity  of  that  august 
historic  title,  the  "German  Emperor";  and  when  the  Prince 
on  bended  knee  was  the  first  to  kiss  the  hand  of  his  father 
and  Emperor.  The  Crown  Prince's  public  life  in  peace-time 
was  full  of  steady  usefulness ;  his  private  life  was  good  and 
beautiful  in  every  relation.  I  remember  hearing  him  say  that 
on  campaign  there  never  passed  a  day  on  which  he  did  not 
write  to  his  wife.  In  those  times  they  were  quite  poor, 
according  to  our  notions  of  the  appanage  of  the  heir-apparent 
to  a  great  throne;  and  they  lived  within  their  modest  and 
somewhat  precarious  income.  Their  Berlin  mansion  was  a 
small  palace  on  the  Linden ;  and  any  morning  when  they 
were  living  in  the  capital  one  might  have  met  the  Prince  and 
Princess  strolling  quietly  in  the  avenues  of  the  Thiergarten, 
with  some  of  their  children  walking  by  their  side.  She  was 
as  proud  of  him  as  he  was  fond  of  her ;  it  was  a  love  match  at 
the  beginning,  and  it  continued  to  the  sad  premature  ending 
of  the  noble  and  devoted  husband  an  alliance  of  tender  and 
beautiful  mutual  affection. 

PRINCE  FREDERICK  CHARLES,    the    nephew    of  the   old 


THE  DAYBREAK  OF  GItAVELOTTE.  341 

Kaiser,  and  the  cousin  on  both  the  father's  and  the  mother's 
side  of  the  Imperial  Crown  Prince,  was  a  man  of  quite  another 
stamp  from  the  latter.  The  Red  Prince  was  a  soldier  to 
the  core  ;  and  I  question  whether  he  was  ever  quite  happy  in 
peace-time.  And  I  think  that,  although  he  had  his  faults  in 
a  military  sense,  yet,  take  him  all  in  all,  he  was  one  of  the 
greatest  soldiers  of  modern  times.  He  was  a  very  stern  and 
unlovable  man ;  his  private  life  was  the  reverse  of  creditable ; 
and  he  could  be,  and  indeed  generally  was,  more  roughly 
ill-bred  than  any  commander  with  whom  I  ever  had  personal 
relations.  But  in  the  field  on  campaign  there  was  a  certain 
bluff  good  comradeship  in  his  manner,  which  earned  him  the 
devotion  of  his  soldiers.  He  was  severity  itself  as  regarded 
discipline ;  he  exacted  from  his  men  the  hardest  of  hard 
work ;  but  he  shared  with  them  their  dangers,  privations,  and 
exposure,  and  they  ever  followed  him  and  believed  in  him 
with  unfaltering  and  enthusiastic  zeal.  When  condemned  to 
peace,  Prince  Frederick  Charles  employed  himself  chiefly  in 
the  elaboration  of  improved  methods  in  the  art  of  man-killing, 
and  he  wrote  several  works  of  high  authority  on  this  interest- 
ing and  humane  subject.  But  his  joy  was  to  be  in  the  heart 
of  a  great  battle.  When  still  young  he  was  a  dashing  cavalry 
officer,  and  he  was  severely  wounded  in  a  hand-to-hand  melee 
in  the  Baden  insurrection  of  1849,  in  the  somewhat  quixotic 
effort  to  storm  earthworks  at  the  head  of  his  squadron  of 
hussars.  Diippel,  Konigsgratz,  Vionville-Mars-la-Tour,  Grave- 
lotte,  Beaune-la-Rolande,  Orleans,  and  Le  Mans  were  among 
the  great  battles  which  Prince  Frederick  Charles  made 
victories  for  the  Prussian  arms. 

When  I  think  of  Prince  Frederick  Charles,  there  ever 
recurs  to  my  memory  the  daybreak  of  Gravelotte.  On  that 
morning  he  was  stirring  early  to  give  rendezvous  to  his  corps 
commanders  that  they  might  receive  his  instructions  as  to 
the  setting  of  the  battle  in  order.  What  a  subject  for  a  great 
painter,  this  daybreak  gathering  of  the  German  leaders  under 
the  poplar  trees  on  the  highway  between  Vionville  and 
Mars-la-Tour,  with  the  Red  Prince  in  the  centre,  brusque, 
curt,  and  emphatic  I  Around  the  group  conning  over  a  new 


342  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

slaughter,  lay  the  ghastly  evidences  of  a  past,  in  the  heaps  of 
the  dead  of  the  battle  of  the  16th  of  August,  still  awaiting  inter- 
ment. Keen-eyed,  handsome-faced  Prince  of  Saxony ;  puffy, 
phlegmatic  August  of  Wiirtemberg ;  Alvensleben  the  aris- 
tocrat, with  his  thin,  clear-cut  features  and  bright  hawk-eye ; 
Yoights-Rhetz,  with  the  keen  shrewd  look  of  a  lowland  Scot ; 
Manstein,  grim,  grey,  and  determined  —  these  stood  in  a 
roughly  denned  semi-circle  with  their  horses'  heads  turned 
inwards ;  and  there  addressed  them  in  a  few  short  crisp 
sentences,  the  square  upright  man  on  the  powerful  bay.  The 
Red  Prince  let  his  hand  drop  on  his  thigh  with  an  audible 
blow,  for  he  was  very  heavy-handed  in  every  sense,  this 
stalwart  man  with  the  massive  hair-clad  jaw,  the  strong,  wide 
mouth,  cruel  in  its  set  resoluteness  when  the  features  were  at 
rest,  the  well-opened  piercing  eye  under  the  high  arched 
forehead,  broad,  square  and  knotted.  A  man  this,  in  the 
tight  red  tunic,  cast  surely  by  nature  in  her  special  mould 
for  a  great  military  leader.  He  did  not  detain  his  generals 
long  under  the  poplar  trees.  One  of  them  afterwards  gave 
ine  his  laconic  parting  words: — "Your  duty  is  to  march 
forward,  find  the  enemy,  prevent  his  escape,  and  fight  him 
wherever  you  encounter  him  !  "  And  Alvensleben  the  pious 
added  in  his  quiet  tones — "  In  the  name  of  God ! "  as  the 
generals  wheeled  their  horses'  heads  outwards,  and  the  little 
council  scattered. 

During  the  siege  of  Metz  one  could  not  but  admire  how 
Prince  Frederick  Charles  threw  himself  into  the  comparatively 
routine  duties  of  the  weary  toilsome  drudgery  with  as  much 
relentless  energy  as  if  he  had  been  engaged  in  a  campaign 
when  every  second  day  furnished  a  stirring  battle.  Within  a 
fortnight  after  the  siege  began,  he  had  enclosed  Metz  in  an 
environment  of  field-fortifications  against  which  Bazaine 
might  beat  his  head  to  no  purpose.  The  moment  that  the 
capitulation  Avas  settled,  he  was  off  by  forced  marches  towards 
the  Loire  country,  there  to  combat  with  and  thwart  Chanzy  and 
Aurelles  de  Paladine.  In  the  deep  snow  and  bitter  frost  of 
that  terrible  winter,  he  marched  and  fought,  and  fought  and 
marched  again,  with  a  ruthless  energy  that  stimulated  the 


11  L OWN  WITH  THE   TEAITOR!"  343 

reluctant  admiration  of  the  world.  "  If,"  said  a  distinguished 
neutral  soldier  in  my  hearing  after  the  Prince's  arduous 
success  at  Le  Mans — "  if  I  were  called  upon  to  define  Prince 
Frederick  Charles  in  two  words,  I  should  style  him  a  '  dis- 
ciplined thunderbolt.' " 

I  have  dwelt  over  long,  I  fear,  on  the  principal  German 
chiefs  of  the  Franco-German  campaign  ;  and  my  excuse  must 
be  that  it  was  with  the  German  armies  I  witnessed  many 
events  of  that  stupendous  struggle.  With  French  warriors  I 
have  had  but  little  intercourse,  and  that  only  of  a.casual  kind. 
It  was  the  day  of  the  formal  capitulation  of  Metz.  A  vast 
throng  of  infuriated  citizens  and  of  French  soldiers  not  yet 
formally  surrendered,  was  fermenting  boisterously  on  the  Ban 
Saint  Martin  road,  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Moselle  from 
the  city.  Suddenly  an  open  carriage  dashed  down  the  road, 
scattering  the  crowd  to  right  and  to  left.  In  it  sat  a  short  fat 
man  with  a  heavy  determined  face,  in  the  lines  of  which 
it  seemed  to  me  that  there  lurked  some  scorn.  It  was 
MARSHAL  BAZAINE  who,  having  completed  the  surrender  of 
the  no  longer  virgin  fortress,  and  of  the  still  formidable 
French  army  which  had  lain  in  and  around  that  fortress,  was 
now  on  his  way  to  Prince  Frederick  Charles'  headquarters 
at  Corny,  en  route  for  Germany  as  a  prisoner  of  war.  At 
the  sight  of  him  there  rose  from  the  crowd  a  wild  unanimous 
yell  of  execration.  "  Down  with  the  traitor  ! "  "  Curse  him  I  " 
"  Kill  him  ! "  were  the  angry  cries  ;  and  infuriates  dashed  at 
the  carriage  and  the  horses'  heads  only  to  be  hustled  aside  by 
the  cavalry  escort.  Bazaine's  face  never  changed  or  blenched, 
and  he  looked  down  upon  the  people  who  were  clamouring 
for  his  blood  as  if  they  had  been  dirt.  When  again  I  saw 
Bazaine,  he  was  undergoing  his  trial  by  court-martial  for 
treason  to  France  because  of  his  surrender  of  Metz.  He  had 
not  to  all  seeming  a  dozen  friends  in  all  France,  as  he  stood 
there  in  the  great  salon  of  the  chateau  of  the  Trianon, 
arraigned  on  a  capital  charge  before  a  tribunal  that  could 
scarcely  dare  to  acquit  him  even  if  he  should  prove 
his  innocence;  yet  he  confronted  fate  here  with  the 


3t4  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

same    impassive    phlegm    as    he    had  faced    the    populace 
of  Metz. 

I  never  believed  in  the  accusations  of  treachery  hurled 
against  him  so  vehemently.  I  hold  Bazaine  to  have  been 
a  heavy,  unenterprising,  plodding,  fairly  honest  style  of 
man,  who  should  indeed  have  held  out  longer  than  he 
did,  but  who  believed  that  in  surrendering  when  he  did 
he  was  doing  the  best  possible  for  France,  for  his  master, 
for  his  army,  and  perhaps  for  himself.  The  court-martial 
formally  sentenced  him  to  death,  but  the  sentence  was 
commuted  to  degradation  and  imprisonment  for  lile.^  Ai'ter 
a  few  months'  confinement  in  the  fortress  of  the  lie  Ste. 
Marguerite  he  effected  a  not  very  difficult  escape,  and  when 
I  saw  him  last  he  was  living  in  retirement  and  poverty 
in  Madrid.  I  had  subsequently  written  something  in  the  way 
of  a  vindication  of  the  unfortunate  man,  as  the  result  of 
which  I  received  from  him  the  following  letter: — 

"Madrid,  2,  Callo  Argensola,   18th  November,  1883. 
"Dear  Sir, 

"  I  feel  that  I  must  express  to  you  my  gratitude  for  your  article  on 
my  iniquitous  trial.  It  certainly  is  very  late  to  attempt  to  influence  public 
opinion,  purposely  prejudiced  as  it  has  been  by  all  parties,  in  order  to  save 
the  national  vanity,  as  well  as  the  several  responsibilities  of  the  Govern- 
ments of  the  Empire  and  of  that  of  the  National  Defence.  But  truth 
always  prevails  in  the  end,  and  your  conscientious  article  should  have  a 
great  effect. 

"  There  are  many  things  I  could  say,  not  to  defend  m}*self — my  con- 
science as  General-in-Chief  has  no  reproaches  to  make  to  me;  but  to 
enlighten  upright  men  and  to  open  their  eyes  to  their  own  shortcomings 
at  that  epoch.  A  scapegoat  was  searched  for,  who  offered  himself  up ; 
and  the  French  nation,  reckoned  so  generous,  relieved  itself  of  all  respon- 
sibility by  transferring  it  to  the  head  of  the  soldier,  a  self  -  made  man, 
who  having  spent  forty  years  of  his  life  in  campaigning  in  the  four  quarters 
of  the  earth,  had  no  personal  friends  among  the  politicians  in  power ;  and 
who  had  no  supporters,  once  the  Empire  was  overthrown  and  the  Republic 
took  its  place.  Again  thanks,  and  a  hearty  clasp  of  the  hand. 

"  MARSHAL  BAZAIXE. 

"Mr.  A.  Forbes." 

Twice  only  did  I  have  speech  with  the  late  MARSHAL 
MACMAHON  ;  once  soon  after  the  battle  of  Sedan,  when 
in  the  village  of  Pourru  -  lea  -  Bois,  in  the  vicinity  of 


SOLDIER  AND  PATRIOT.  345 

that  place,  lie  was  slowly  recovering  from  the  shell  wound 
Avhich  struck  him  down  on  the  morning  of  the  battle ; 
and  again  the  day  after  the  Versaillist  army,  as  it  was 
called,  which  he  commanded,  had  carried  the  ramparts  of 
Paris  and  driven  the  Communard  hordes  back  to  tight  to 
the  death  along  the  boulevards,  in  the  narrower  cross  streets, 
and  ultimately  into  the  great  dead-pit  in  the  cemetery  of 
Pere-Lachaise.  MacMahon,  in  the  Crimea,  in  Africa,  and 
in  the  Italian  War  of  1859,  had  achieved  a  brilliant  repu- 
tation before  the  Franco-German  War  brought  doubt  on 
his  capacity  in  high  and  quasi-independent  command.  In 
the  disastrous  expedition  which  began  amid  distraction  at 
Chalons  and  ended  in  the  wholesale  surrender  at  Sedan, 
he  was  simply  obeying  political,  as  contra-distinguished 
from  military  considerations.  He  went  then  on  the  for- 
lornest  of  forlorn  hopes.  A  heaven-born  general  might 
perhaps  have  snatched  success  out  of  the  untoward  con- 
ditions ;  but  MacMahon  lacked  the  inspiration  and  failed. 
His  wound  at  Sedan  was  in  a  sense  opportune,  for  it  saved 
him  from  signing  the  capitulation  ;  and  France  to  this  day 
has  a  sort  of  half-belief,  which  is  quite  unwarranted,  that 
had  he  not  been  struck  down  that  humiliation  might  have 
been  averted.  So  MacMahon  retained,  or  rather  indeed 
increased  his  popularity.  It  was  not  impaired  because  he 
crushed  the  Commune  with  an  iron  hand,  pursuing  in 
regard  to  it  the  ruthless  policy  of  extermination.  He,  the 
servant  of  an  empire  whose  shallow  foundations  were  laid 
in  military  glory  and  prestige,  was  scarcely  in  place  as  the 
President  of  a  Republic  whose  motto  was  utilitarianism; 
and  he  lived  out  his  long  life  in  dignified  and  unambitious 
retirement,  with  the  respect  of  all  who  could  honour  an 
honest  soldier  and  a  well-intentioned  patriot. 

GENERAL  TROCHU  was  the  mock  and  gibe  of  frivolous, 
spiteful  Paris  during  the  latter  part  of  the  long,  strange, 
weary,  exciting  months,  when  that  capital  was  environed 
by  the  German  hosts.  Trochu  and  his  plan — that  plan  of 
which  he  was  ever  talking  and  which  he  never  was 


346  MEMORIES  OF  WAE  AND  PEACE. 

executing — have  been  all  but  forgotten  long  ago  by  swift- 
living  Paris;  and  it  is  hardly  to  be  expected  that  the  rest 
of  the  world  remembers  of  him  and  of  it  much  more 
vividly.  Yet  Trochu  was  the  notable  man  of  surely  a 
signally  notable  period.  He  was  Governor  of  Paris  and 
Couimander-in  Chief  of  its  vast  garrison  during  the  long, 
memorable  siege.  And,  in  spite  of  his  quaint  pragmatic  ways 
and  utterances  that  excited  the  badinage  of  the  Parisians, 
he  deserved  infinitely  better  of  his  country  than  many 
men  who  have  occupied  high  places  in  its  temple  of  fame. 
When  hurriedly  despatched  from  Chalons  to  his  thankless 
duty  in  Paris,  he  found  the  capital  alike  bewildered  and 
defenceless.  Trochu  restored  calm  and  hope;  and  he 
organised  a  defence  so  efficient  that  Paris  held  out  for  as 
many  months  as  the  Germans  had  expected  weeks.  Not 
only  did  he  save  the  honour  of  Paris,  but  he  also  achieved  for 
her  the  attribute  of  heroism.  And  because  he  was  simply 
a  plain,  upright  man,  whose  sole  aspiration  was  just  to  do 
his  duty  unostentatiously  and  conscientiously,,  it  is  in  the 
natural  course  of  events  that  his  name  has  drifted  almost 
into  oblivion.  If  he  had  swaggered,  struck  attitudes,  and 
perpetrated  epigrams,  Paris  would  have  raised  a  statue  in 
commemoration  of  his  exploits,  and  would  have  named 
streets  after  him. 

In  the  spring  of  1861  there  was  living  a  shabby  life  in 
a  dingy  town  in  the  American  State  of  Illinois,  a  middle- 
aged  man,  who  to  all  appearance  had  got  the  chance  of  a 
career  and  had  failed  to  grasp  it.  An  obscure  tanner 
now,  he  had  been  an  officer  in  the  regular  army  of  the 
United  States;  but  he  had  left  that  profession,  or  rather 
it  might  perhaps  be  said  that  profession  had  left  him. 
Four  years  later  this  obscure  tanner  of  Galena  had  climbed 
to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  military  position  and  fame.  He 
had  crushed  the  most  colossal  and  most  stubborn  rebellion 
of  modern  times.  His  grateful  country  had  raised  him  to 
a  military  rank  higher  than  that  enjoyed  by  George 
Washington  himself.  Four  years  more  and  he  was  to  fill 


A  NAS MYTH'S  HAMMER.  347 

the  Presidential  chair  of  the  Great  Republic.  Among  all 
the  strange  turns  of  fortune's  wheel,  was  there  ever  a 
stranger  revolution  than  this  ?  Luck,  or  fate,  or  chance 
might  have  had  some  small  share  in  the  swift,  wonderful 
mutation;  yet  no  man  can  truly  aver  that  ULYSSES 
SIMPSON  GRANT  did  not  fairly  earn  every  step  of  the  mar- 
vellously abrupt  elevation.  Ungifted  with  the  arts  to  court 
popularity,  he  put  his  foot  in  the  ladder  a  friendless  man. 
— a  man,  indeed,  under  a  cloud ;  and  he  carved  his  way 
to  position  and  fame  by  sheer  dint  of  his  innate  attributes. 
And  what  were  those  ?  A  dauntless  honesty,  a  sturdy 
common  sense,  a  perfect  self-reliance,  a  will  as  strong  as 
fate  itself,  a  total  exemption  from  all  inconvenient  emotion, 
an  uncommon  faculty  of  calmly  mastering  all  the  bearings 
of  a  situation  in  the  midst  of  a  chaos  of  distractions,  an 
indomitable  taciturnity,  and  occasional  but  opportune  flashes 
of  military  inspiration.  Grant  was  not  a  heaven  -  born 
soldier;  of  that  rare  wonder  the  great  American  Civil  War 
produced  but  one  example  in  the  gifted  Stonewall  Jackson. 
Robert  Lee  was  Grant's  master  in  the  science  of  strategy 
as  in  the  art  of  tactics;  but  Lee  lacked  certain  of  the 
attributes  that  went  to  the  making  up  of  Grant's  greatness. 
Lee  had  not  Grant's  imperturbability.  Lee  was  a  rapier, 
bright,  keen,  adroit.  Grant  was  a  Nasmyth's  hammer. 
Lee  knew  when  he  was  beaten ;  Grant  never  would  own 
himself  beaten — and  it  is  strange  what  surprises  of  good 
fortune  come  to  the  man  who  has  this  resoluteness  of 
incredulity.  Think  of  the  terrible  evening  of  the  battle 
of  Shiloh !  The  Union  lines  had  been  driven  back,  dyeing 
the  ground  with  Northern  blood  at  every  step;  back,  in 
many  places  back  almost  to  the  very  verge  of  the  river. 
From  the  most  sanguine,  hope  of  all  save  disaster  had 
fled.  Buell,  arriving  at  sundown,  wasted  no  words  in 
questions  as  to  the  maintenance  of  the  struggle ;  his 
queries  were  solely  as  to  the  expedients  for  retreat.  Grant's 
calm  response  was,  "  I  have  not  given  up  the  idea  of 
beating  them  to-morrow."  And  with  the  morrow  he  re- 
newed the  battle ;  ay,  and  he  won  it ;  and  this  by  sheer 


348  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

dint  of  his  dogged  refusal  to  own  that  he  was  worsted. 
Grant's  tactics  ever  were  simple;  he  began  the  attack,  he 
persevered  in  the  attack,  he  conquered  by  the  attack.  The 
grand  stroke  that  ended  the  rebellion  was  the  outcome 
of  one  of  Grant's  rare  flashes  of  inspiration.  Sheridan 
with  his  cavalry  had  been  sent  out  with  orders  to  cut 
loose  from  Grant's  main  force,  and  to  operate  indepen- 
dently. But  the  same  evening  the  inspiration  fell  upon 
Grant;  and  he  sent  counter-orders  out  to  Sheridan  to 
strike  the  Confederate  flank  and  rear ;  for  that  he,  Grant, 
"felt  like  ending  the  matter  this  time  before  going  back." 
Then  Sheridan  replied  that  "  He  saw  his  chance  were  he 
to  push  things."  Grant's  laconic  reply  was  simply,  "  Push 
things!"  And  things  were  so  pushed  that  ten  days  later 
the  noble  Lee  and  his  gallant  remnant  of  an  army  had 
succumbed  to  fate;  the  impassive  Grant  had  accorded  to 
him  and  his  men  terms  of  magnanimous  generosity,  and 
the  Great  Rebellion  was  at  an  end. 

The  career  of  the  late  GENERAL  SHERMAN,  Grant's  suc- 
cessor in  the  headship  of  the  Army  of  the  United  States,  was 
scarcely  less  strange  than  that  of  his  great  predecessor.  A 
graduate  of  West  Point  Military  Academy,  he  was  sent  to 
California  on  military  service  before  the  discovery  of  gold  in 
that  great  province.  When  the  golden  shower  fell  on  the 
Pacific  slope,  Sherman  left  the  army  and  took  to  banking  in 
San  Francisco.  He  was  not  entirely  a  success  as  a  banker. 
Then  he  was  a  lawyer  in  Leavenworth,  and  failed  to  earn  a 
living  even  in  this  avocation.  He  could  not  thrive  as  a 
farmer,  and,  when  Secession  loomed  close,  he  had  to  relinquish 
the  position  he  had  acquired  as  principal  of  a  military 
academy  down  in  the  South.  When  at  length  the  war-cloud 
burst,  he  was  in  the  service  of  a  tramway  company  in  the  city 
of  St.  Louis.  In  the  earlier  days  of  the  war  Sherman  did  not 
make  much  head.  He  dared  to  prophesy,  and  he  shared  the 
fate  of  most  true  prophets,  in  that  he  was  scouted  as  a  crazy 
lunatic.  Ere  long  he  was  able  to  smile  at  the  imputation  on 
his  sanity.  He  and  Thomas  helped  Grant  to  win  the  great 


"FROM  ATLANTA    TO   THE  SEA."  349 

battle  of  Chattanooga.  Then,  when  Grant  was  called  to  the 
Eastern  theatre  of  war  to  take  the  supreme  command  of  all 
the  Union  forces  in  the  field,  he  left  Sherman  in  the  West  to 
achieve  renown  by  carving  a  bloody  path  from  Chattanooga 
to  Atlanta,  and  by  the  comparatively  bloodless,  but  more 
sensational,  march  "  from  Atlanta  to  the  sea  " — from  the  heart 
of  Georgia  to  the  Atlantic  at  Savannah  ;  thence  northwards 
through  the  Carolinas,  through  the  flames  and  over  the  ashes 
of  Columbia,  till  at  length  he  gave  terms  at  Raleigh  to  the 
last  Confederate  army  that  remained  in  the  field.  When 
Grant  was  made  President,  Sherman  succeeded  him  in  the 
command-in-chief  of  the  army,  from  which  he  was  super- 
annuated a  few  years  before  his  lamented  death.  Grant  and 
Sherman,  the  opposites  of  each  other  in  character,  yet  were 
the  closest  friends.  Grant  was  a  silent  man ;  Sherman  was  a 
witty  and  voluble  man  —  vivacious,  excitable,  and,  indeed, 
electric.  For  the  rest,  he  was  a  friendly,  unaffected,  genial 
person,  with  a  quaint  dash  of  cynical  humour,  and  an  abiding 
conviction,  which  he  frequently  expressed  to  me  with  great 
heartiness,  that  all  war- correspondents  ought  to  be  summarily 
hanged,  and  that  he,  personally,  would  have  no  objections  to 
perform  the  operation. 

The  face  of  the  late  GENERAL  PHILIP  SHERIDAN  was 
emphatically  the  face  of  a  fighting  man.  Nor  did  the  face 
belie  the  character,  for  between  May,  1861,  and  April,  1865, 
this  trenchant  little  warrior  took  part  in  about  seventy  battles 
and  combats,  not  to  speak  of  minor  skirmishes.  In  that 
short  period,  without  interest,  without  special  good  fortune, 
he  had  raised  himself  from  the  rank  of  lieutenant  to  that  of 
full  major-general  —  he  had  sprung  from  the  profoundest 
obscurity  to  the  highest  pinnacle  of  military  fame.  When  I 
first  made  Sheridan's  acquaintance  he  was  watching  from  the 
hill-top  of  Frenois  the  battle  of  Sedan,  attached  to  the  head- 
quarters staff  of  the  Prussian  King  in  the  capacity  of  Military 
Commissioner  from  the  United  States.  He  steadily  noted 
the  crushing  repulse  of  Margueritte's  cuirassiers  as  they 
charged  headlong  to  ruin  down  the  slope  of  Illy ;  and  when, 


3--.0        MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

closing  his  glass,  he  quietly  remarked,  "  It  is  all  over  with  the 
French  now!"  the  members  of  King  Wilhelm's  staff  shook 
him  by  the  hand  for  the  word,  for  they  knesv  well  it  came 
from  the  lips  of  a  past-master  in  practical  warfare. 

The  story  of  Sheridan's  "  Ride  from  Winchester  "  has  been 
told  in  burning  verse,  but  the  stern  prose  of  it  is  more  thrilling 
than  any  lyric  can  be.  Suddenly  called  from  his  command 
to  attend  a  council  of  war  at  Washington,  he  left  his  army 
camped  in  a  strong  position  along  Cedar  Creek  in  the 
•  Shenandoah  Valley,  twenty  miles  in  front  of  Winchester. 
General  Early,  at  the  head  of  a  Confederate  army,  was  con- 
fronting it  at  no  great  distance ;  but  no  battle  seemed 
imminent;  and  before  his  departure  Sheridan  had  taken 
careful  precaution  to  make  its  position  safe.  On  his  return 
journey  from  Washington  he  spent  the  night  in  Winchester. 
Riding  out  from  that  town  on  the  following  morning  towards 
the  front,  he  met  fugitives  from  his  beaten  army.  Galloping 
headlong  forwards,  pressing  black  "  Rienzi "  to  his  utmost 
speed,  he  rallied  to  hirn  the  fugitives  as  he  met  them.  They 
were  no  longer  beaten  runaways ;  he  inspired  them  with  the 
magnetism  of  his  own  enthusiastic  heroism;  they  fell  into 
order  as  they  rallied  and  followed  their  impetuous  leader  back 
at  the  double  to  the  field  of  honour.  He  rode  along  his 
retrieved  lines  bareheaded,  blazing  with  the  ardour  of  battle ; 
and  then  he  led  them  to  the  attack  like  a  whirlwind.  The 
enemy,  already  plundering  in  his  camp,  he  assailed  and 
routed ;  he  hurled  him  back  across  Cedar  Creek  ;  he  retook 
all  his  positions,  and,  not  content  with  this,  he  pressed  the 
broken  foe  with  inveterate  fury,  routed  him,  horse,  foot,  and 
artillery,  and  chased  him  for  miles.  It  was  an  electrical 
exploit,  savouring  rather  of  the  fighting  of  the  Middle  Ages 
than  of  the  methodic  warfare  of  modern  times.  Homer  might 
have  sung  the  deed,  only  that  it  was  wrought  by  a  little  man 
wearing  a  frock-coat  and  trousers,  and  using  trenchant  modern 
oaths  instead  of  Greek  polysyllables. 

After  the  great  war  Sheridan  made  campaign  after 
campaign  against  the  Indians  of  the  West  and  South- West, 
until,  in  course  of  time,  he  succeeded  Sherman  in  the 


BETTER   SOLDIER   XEVE&   TROD   THE  EARTH.      351 

command-in-chief  of  the  Army  of  the  United  States.  When 
scarcely  beyond  middle  age  he  died  suddenly  of  heart-mischief, 
the  malign  result  of  his  ceaseless  and  arduous  exertions  on 
active  duty.  A  few  days  before  his  sudden  and  premature 
ending  I  spent  a  long  evening  with  him  in  his  pleasant 
Washington  house,  while  he  gossiped  over  the  tumultuous 
war  times  in  a  low  sott  voice  that  had  no  note  in  it  of  the 
battle-field.  But,  as  I  watched  the  strong,  earnest  face  while 
he  talked,  I  could  discern  the  flush  rising  on  it  and  the 
sparkle  of  the  eye  that  told  of  the  stirring  of  the  fighting 
spirit.  Better  soldier  than  Phil  Sheridan  never  trod  the 
earth. 

Shortly  before  his  lamented  death,  my  father-in-law  the 
late  General  Meigs,  for  many  years  Quartermaster-General  of 
the  United  States  Army,  sent  me  a  very  interesting  letter 
from  General  Sheridan  to  General  Grant,  in  which  he  gave 
his  estimate  of  the  German  and  French  troops  who  fought 
under  his  eye  at  Gravelotte,  Beaumont,  and  Sedan : — 

"In  seeing  these  battles"  (wrote  Sheridan),"  I  have  had  my  imagination  clipped 
of  many  of  the  errors  it  had  run  into  in  its  conceptions  of  what  might  be  expected 
of  the  trained  troops  of  Europe.  There  was  about  the  same  percentage  of  sneaks 
and  runaways,  and  the  general  conditions  of  the  battles  were  about  the  same  as 
were  our  own  in  the  war  between  North  and  South.  One  thing  was  especially 
noticeable — the  scattered  condition  of  the  men  in  going  into  battle,  and  their 
scattered  condition  while  engaged.  At  Gravelotte,  Beaumont,  and  Sedan  the 
men  engaged  on  both  sides  were  so  scattered  that  the  affair  looked  like  thousands 
of  men  engaged  in  a  deadly  skirmish  without  any  regard  to  lines  of  formation. 
These  battles  were  of  this  style  of  fighting,  commencing  at  long  range ;  and  it 
might  be  called  progressive  fighting,  closing  at  night  by  the  French  always 
giving  up  their  positions  or  being  driven  from  them  in  this  way  by  the  Germans. 
The  latter  had  their  own  strategy  up  to  the  Moselle,  and  it  was  good  and  suc- 
cessful. After  that  river  was  reached,  the  French  made  the  strategy  for  the 
Germans,  and  it  was  more  successful  than  their  own. 

"  The  Prussian  soldiers  are  very  good  brave  fellows,  all  young — scarcely  a 
man  over  twenty-seven  in  the  first  levies.  They  had  gone  into  each  battle  with 
the  determination  to  win.  It  is  also  especially  noticeable  that  the  Prussians 
have  attacked  the  French  wherever  they  have  found  them,  be  the  numbers  great 
or  small ;  and,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  see,  though  the  grand  tactics  of 
bringing  on  the  engagements  have  been  good,  yet  the  battles  have  been  won  by 
the  good  square  fighting  of  the  men  and  junior  officers.  It  is  true  that  the 
Prussians  have  been  two  to  one,  except  in  one  of  the  battles  before  Metz 
(Vionville-Mars-la-Tour),  the  battle  of  16th  August;  still  the  French  have  had 
the  advantage  of  very  strong  positions.  Generally  speaking,  the  French  have 
not  fought  well.  This  may  have  been  because  the  poor  fellows  were  discouraged 


352  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

by  the  trap  into  which  their  commander  had  led  them ;  but  I  must  confess  to 
have  seen  some  of  the  tallest  running  at  Sedan  I  have  ever  witnessed;  especially 
on  the  left  of  the  French  position  all  attempts  to  make  the  men  stand  seemed 
unavailing.  So  disgraceful  was  this  that  it  caused  the  French  cavalry  to  make 
three  or  four  gallant  but  foolish  charges ;  as  it  were,  to  show  that  there  was  at 
least  some  manhood  left  in  a  mounted  French  officer. 

"  I  am  disgusted.  All  my  boyhood's  fancies  of  the  soldiers  of  the  Great 
Napoleon  have  been  dissipated,  or  else  the  soldiers  of  the  Little  Corporal  have 
lost  their  elan  in  the  pampered  parade-soldiers  of  the  Man  of  Destiny.  The 
Prussians  will  settle,  I  think,  by  making  the  line  of  the  Moselle  the  German 
frontier,  taking  in  Metz  and  Strasburg,  and  exacting  an  indemnity  for  their  war- 
expenses.  I  have  been  most  kindly  received  by  the  King  and  Count  Bismarck, 
and  all  the  officers  of  the  headquarters  of  the  Prussian  Army.  I  have  seen  much 
of  great  interest,  and  especially  have  been  able  to  observe  the  differences  between 
European  battles  and  those  of  our  own  country.  There  is  nothing  to  be  learned 
here  professionally,  and  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  learn  that  such  is  the  case.  There 
is  much,  however,  that  Europeans  could  learn  from  us :  the  use  of  rifle-pits,  the 
use  of  cavalry,  which  they  do  not  employ  to  advantage  ;  and,  for  instance,  there 
is  a  line  of  communication  from  here  [Sedan]  to  Germany,  exposed  to  the  whole 
south  of  France,  with  scarcely  a  soldier  on  the  whole  line,  and  it  has  never  been 
molested.  There  are  a  hundred  things  in  which  they  are  behind  us.  The  staff 
departments  are  very  poorly  organised ;  the  Quartermaster's  Department 
specially  wretched,  etc.  etc. 

"  Your  obedient  servant, 

"  P.  H.  SHERIDAN,  Lieutenant- General. 

"  GENERAL  GRANT,  Washington." 

Nearly  seventy  years  ago  the  late  LORD  NAPIER  OF 
MAGDALA  went  out  to  India  a  stripling,  friendless  cadet, 
with  his  sword  for  his  fortune ;  and  the  good  weapon  served 
him  well,  although  he  had  no  opportunity  of  using  it  until 
he  had  served  for  nineteen  years.  Nor  did  promotion  come 
to  him  very  promptly,  for  he  was  only  a  colonel  thirty-five 
years  after  receiving  his  first  commission  as  second  lieutenant 
in  the  Bengal  Engineers.  But  once  he  drew  his  sword  on 
the  afternoon  of  Moodkee,  the  scabbard  knew  it  thenceforth 
only  occasionally.  He  fought  all  through  the  Sutlej  cam- 
paign at  Moodkee,  Ferozeshah,  and  Sobraon ;  in  the  Punjaub 
war  he  was  wounded — he  was  always  being  wounded — at  the 
siege  of  Mooltan  ;  and  he  was  in  the  thick  of  the  fighting 
at  the  decisive  battle  of  Goojerat.  He  rode  and  fought  with 
Havelock  and  Outram  on  that  heroic  enterprise,  the  first 
relief  of  Lucknow.  The  rebel  Sepoys  might  well  execrate 
his  name,  for  his  skill  as  an  engineer  opened  for  stout  old 


STEADFAST  CAREFUL  SOLDIERHOOD.  333 

Colin  Campbell  his  conquering  way  into  the  heart  of  the 
great  stronghold  of  the  Kaiserbagh.  He  commanded  Avith 
skill  and  vigour  a  brigade  under  Sir  Hugh  Rose  in  that 
chief's  swift,  ruthless  campaign  in  Central  India.  He  was 
Sir  Hope  Grant's  second  in  command  in  the  expedition  to 
China  in  1859,  and  was  hit  five  times  at  the  storming  of  the 
Taku  forts.  Then,  eight  years  later,  his  great  opportunity 
came  to  him  as  the  organiser  and  commander  of  the  Abys- 
sinian expedition.  As  regarded  mere  fighting,  that  was  not 
a  very  stupendous  affair ;  but  it  was  perhaps  the  neatest  and 
cleanest  piece  of  military  work  Britain  had  accomplished 
since  the  days  of  the  Peninsular  War ;  and  the  chief  credit 
of  it  belonged  to  the  sagacious  and  painstaking  leader  who 
left  nothing  to  chance,  and  who  was  strong  enough  to  have 
his  own  way  in  everything.  It  was  in  Abyssinia  that  Napier 
earned  his  peerage ;  and  he  had  acquired  so  good  a  repute 
for  steadfast  careful  soldierhood,  that  when  in  1878  war 
between  England  and  Russia  seemed  inevitable,  he  was  named 
for  the  command  of  the  British  army  whose  services  for- 
tunately were  not  actively  required.  Lord  Napier  was  in 
chief  command  of  the  great  peace  manoauvres  on  the  plains 
near  Delhi,  at  which  the  Prince  of  Wales  was  present  in  the 
course  of  his  Indian  tour.  On  the  first  day  of  the  operations 
I  saw  his  collar-bone  broken  by  his  charger  falling  under 
him ;  but  the  staunch  old  warrior  was  up  and  in  the  saddle 
again  immediately,  kept  it  throughout  the  day,  and  for 
the  week  during  which  the  sham  campaign  lasted,  never 
went  sick  an  hour ;  but  wore  his  uniform  and  rode  his  horse 
with  no  trace  of  the  accident  save  that  his  arm  was  in  a 
sling.  They  somehow  don't  make  men  nowadays  like 
modest,  sterling,  genial  old  Lord  Napier  of  Magdala ! 

In  a  work  called  "  The  Soldier's  Pocket-Book,"  which 
although  now  somewhat  obsolete,  is  still  deservedly  highly 
appreciated  in  the  British  Army,  the  author  genially 
refers  to  the  profession  of  which  I  have  had  the  honour 
to  be  a  humble  member,  as  "  the  curse  of  modern  armies — I 
mean  war-correspondents "  ;  and  again  he  writes :  "  Travel 
x 


354  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

ling  gentlemen,  newspaper  correspondents,  and  all  that 
race  of  drones,  are  an  encumbrance  to  an  army ;  they  eat 
the  rations  of  fighting  men,  and  they  do  no  work  at  all." 
This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  question  whether  the 
harm  which  the  war-correspondent  may  do,  is  counter- 
balanced or^not  by  the  useful  ends  which  his  presence  with 
an  army  in  the  field  equally  unquestionably  may  subserve. 
I  am  not  sure  that  the  point  is  one  upon  which  I  have  quite 
succeeded  in  making  up  my  own  mind.  But,  at  all  events, 
my  mind  is  fully  made  up  as  regards  this,  that  there  is 
some  inconsistency  in  writing  slightingly  and  opprobrionsly 
of  a  profession,  and  at  the  same  time  in  making  assiduous 
endeavour  to  be  well-spoken  of  by  that  profession.  For- 
tunately war-correspondents  are  for  the  most  part  men  who 
bear  no  malice,  and  who  are  too  catholic  in  their  readiness 
to  recognise  merit  where  it  exists  to  allow  any  personal 
feeling  to  rankle  in  their  bosoms.  Further,  they  are  phi- 
losophers, and  when  they  find  a  man  who  has  abused  them 
vehemently  in  print,  nevertheless  sedulously  anxious  to  have 
them  with  him,  and  to  afford  them  every  opportunity  to 
recognise  and  promulgate  his  merits,  why,  they  smile  good- 
humouredly,  and  are  quite  content  to  allow  the  hatchet 
to  lie  buried. 

The  author  of  "  The  Soldier's  Pocket-Book,"  I  proceed  to 
observe,  is  FIELD-MARSHAL  LORD  WOLSELEY.  Lord  Wolseley 
is  a  man  of  whom  it  has  been  the  habit  on  the  part  of  those 
who  do  not  like  him  to  say  that  he  has  had  exceptionally 
good  luck  Well,  he  has  had  some  good  luck ;  and  on  the 
other  hand  he  has  had  not  a  iittle  bad  luck.  But  for  the 
latter,  he  might  have  had  the  supreme  command  of  the  latest 
operations  in  Afghanistan,  or  might  have  conducted  the 
Zulu  campaign  instead  of  merely  cleaning  up  after  Lord 
Chehnsford.  But  what  good  luck  has  befallen  him — the 
charge  of  the  Red  River  expedition,  the  conduct  of  the 
Ashantee  expedition,  and  the  leadership  of  the  Egyptian 
campaign  (I  say  nothing  of  his  Transvaal  experiences  nor 
of  the  Nile  expedition) — he  has  proved  himself  thoroughly 
worthy  of.  Success  in  all  those  affairs  demanded  fertility 


INTUITIVE  DISCERNMENT  OF  CHARACTER.        355 

of  resource,  strength,  of  purpose,  self-reliance,  and  adminis- 
trative skill.  All  those  attributes  belong  to  Lord  Wolseley, 
and  it  was  in  virtue  of  them  that  he  achieved  success.  For 
example,  from  the  landing  of  the  Ashantee  expedition  on 
the  pestilential  shore  of  the  Gold  Coast  till  the  day  he  led 
his  troops  back  victorious  from  Coornassie,  Wolseley  was  the 
heart  and  soul  of  the  enterprise,  its  moving  and  master 
spirit,  its  strong  backbone.  He  never  faltered  or  lost  his 
head  when  repeated  hindrances  threatened  to  baulk  him; 
harassed  by  a  depressing  and  almost  deadly  climate,  his 
buoyant  courage  never  deserted  him. 

It  has  been  said  of  Lord  Wolseley  by  his  detractors  that 
he  is  self-reliant  to  a  fault,  but  it  is  to  be  observed  that  those 
who  thoroughly  believe  in  themselves  have  a  strong  tendency 
to  make  others  believe  in  them  also ;  and  Lord  Wolseley 's 
frank  self-reliance  and  self-confidence  have  ever  reacted 
favourably  on  all  around  him.  He  is  an  almost  ruthlessly 
practical  man ;  he  has  risen  superior  to  pipeclay,  and  has 
dared  to  despise  red-tape.  Very  much  of  Lord  Wolseley's 
success  has  been  due  to  his  faculty  of  intuitive  discernment 
of  character.  With  this  skill  in  selection  for  his  guide 
he  gathered  around  him  a  band  of  devoted  adherents,  in 
each  one  of  whom  he  recognised  some  special  and  par- 
ticular attribute  of  which  when  the  occasion  occurred  he 
made  astute  and  purposeful  use.  The  "  Wolseley  Gang,"  as 
I  have  heard  this  following  called  by  angry  outsiders,  were 
not  by  any  means  one  and  all  men  of  exceptional  general 
military  capacity.  Some  of  them,  indeed,  might  have  been 
called  dull  men.  But  never  a  one  of  them  but  had  his 
speciality.  You  might  wonder  what  Lord  Wolseley  saw  in 
this  man  and  that  that  he  had  them  always  with  him.  If  you 
watched  events  long  enough,  time  would  furnish  you  with 
the  answer  and  justify  the  Chief's  insight  into  individual 
character.  His  coterie  of  adherents  he  was  ever  on  the 
alert  to  recruit  without  regard,  for  the  most  part,  to  interest 
or  position,  and  acting  simply  on  his  perception  of  character. 
And  he  has  constantly  and  exclusively  employed  his  own 
men,  arguing  with  great  force  and  good  reason,  that  what 
x  2 


356  MEMORIES  OF  WAE  AND  PEACE. 

may  be  set  him  to  do  he  can  accomplish  more  efficiently  and 
smoothly  with  instruments  whom  he  has  proven,  and  between 
whom  and  himself  there  is  a  mutual  familiarity  of  methods, 
rather  than  with  new  and  unaccustomed  men,  of  whom,  how- 
ever good,  he  has  had  no  experience.  It  remains  to  be 
proved — it  may  probably  never  be  proved — whether  Lord 
Wolseley  has  the  capacity  for  successfully  conducting  war 
on  the  grand  scale,  with  skilled  experienced  commanders  and 
trained  civilised  troops  for  his  antagonists.  His  record,  say 
his  detractors,  scarcely  warrants  the  repute  in  which  we, 
his  countrymen,  hold  him.  Be  this  as  it  may,  his  record 
is  a  record  of  almost  unvarying  success.  He  has  been  set 
to  do  almost  nothing  that  he  has  not  done,  neatly,  cleanly, 
adroitly,  and  without  apparent  strain.  It  seems  no  unfair 
deduction  from  that  past  to  which  he  has  been  so  often 
equal,  that  Lord  Wolseley  is  likely  to  prove  equal  to  any 
future  that  may  come  to  him. 

It  happened  to  me  to  be  engaged  in  journalistic  duty  in 
Tirhoot,  a  vast  district  of  northern  Bengal,  during  a  famine 
which  was  ravaging  that  region  in  the  winter  of  1873-74.  It 
soon  became  apparent  to  me  that  the  relief  operations  were 
being  skilfully  conducted  by  a  functionary  who  must  be 
drawing  on  his  military  experiences ;  and  presently  I  had  the 
honour  of  being  introduced  to  a  brisk,  dapper  little  man, 
whom  I  soon  learned  to  admire  as  Colonel  Frederick  Roberts, 
then  Deputy-Quartermaster-General  of  our  Indian  army ;  and 
who  is  now  FIELD-MARSHAL  LORD  ROBERTS,  at  home  here  among 
us  after  long  and  brilliant  service  as  Commander-in-Chief 
of  her  Majesty's  forces  hi  India.  Roberts — he  was  then,  and 
probably  still  is,  familiarly  known  all  over  India  as  "  Bobs  " — 
had  seen  no  small  amount  of  fighting  before  I  had  the 
good  fortune  to  meet  him.  He  had  distinguished  himself 
greatly  in  the  siege  of  Delhi ;  he  had  won  the  Victoria  Cross 
by  a  feat  of  brilliant  gallantry  later  in  the  mutiny  ;  and  he 
had  done  fine  service  all  through  that  bloody,  tumultuous 
time.  He  had  been  with  Chamberlain  in  the  heart  of  the 
hard  fighting  in  the  Umbeyla  campaign,  and  won  his  C.B.  in 


THAT  LONG,   SWIFT,  PEEILOUS  MARCH.  357 

the  Lushai  expedition ;  and  he  had  so  distinguished  himself 
under  Napier  in  Abyssinia  that  that  chief  had  sent  him  home 
with  the  despatches  announcing  his  crowning  success.  Still 
there  was  something  of  a  growl  among  the  sticklers  for 
seniority  when  Roberts,  at  the  outbreak  of  the  Afghan  War  in 
the  beginning  of  the  winter  of  1878,  got  the  independent 
command  of  one  of  the  columns  of  invasion  ;  for,  although  as 
quartermaster-general  he  held  the  local  and  temporary  rank 
of  major-general,  his  substantive  rank  was  simply  that  of 
major  in  the  Bengal  Artillery.  But  Roberts  soon  proved 
himself  abundantly  equal  to  the  occasion.  His  capture  of  the 
Afghan  position  on  the  Peiwar  Kotal  was  as  brilliant  in 
execution  as  skilful  and  daring  in  conception.  And  after  the 
gallant  Cavagnari  was  treacherously  slain  in  Cabul,  Roberts's 
avenging  march  on  that  capital  was  prompt,  dashing,  and 
successful. 

The  nation  at  large,  and  India  in  particular,  had  already 
grown  proud  of  Roberts  as  not  less  a  fine  commander  than 
a  valiant  soldier,  when  the  chance  came  to  him  to  make 
for  himself  a  world-wide  reputation.  It  was  a  moment  of 
imminent  peril  and  intense  anxiety.  An  Anglo-Indian  army 
had  been  defeated  and  crushed  at  Maiwand,  a  few  marches 
west  of  Candahar.  The  safety  of  that  place,  the  capital  of 
southern  Afghanistan,  was  in  grave  hazard ;  the  British 
prestige  and  supremacy  all  over  Afghanistan  were  trembling 
in  the  balance.  Stewart  and  Roberts  at  Cabul,  three  hundred 
miles  from  Maiwand  and  Candahar,  realised  that  it  was  only 
from  Cabul  that  the  blow  of  relief  and  retribution  could  be 
struck.  So  Roberts  started  on  that  long,  swift,  perilous 
march,  the  suspense  as  to  the  issue  of  which  grew  and 
swelled  until  the  strain  became  intense.  For  the  days 
passed,  and  there  came  no  news  of  Roberts  and  of  the  10,000 
men  with  whom  the  wise,  daring  little  chief  had  cut  loose 
from  any  base,  and  struck  for  his  goal  through  a  region 
teeming  with  enemies.  The  pessimists  held  him  to  be 
marching  on  ruin.  The  Afghans,  said  they,  inspired  by  their 
success  at  Maiwand  and  strengthened  by  hordes  of  hill-men, 
would  dog  every  step  he  took  and  finally  mob  him  in  the 


353  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

open.  If  not  to  the  sword,  surely  he  would  fall  a  prey  to 
famine,  for  Candahar  was  thirty  marches  distant  from  Cabnl 
not  counting  rest-days,  and  Roberts  had  marched  out  with 
supplies  that  would  last  him  barely  a  week.  But  Roberts 
knew  the  country,  knew  himself,  knew  the  gallant  men  whom 
he  commanded,  and  knew  the  enemy  he  might  have  to 
confront.  He  marched  light ;  he  li ved  on  what  the  country 
supplied ;  he  gave  his  enemies  no  time  to  concentrate  against 
him.  And  lo !  two  days  in  advance  of  the  time  he  had  set 
himself  he  had  relieved  Candahar,  he  had  shattered  into 
wreck  the  Afghan  army  which  had  been  threatening  it,  and 
had  made  his  name  famous  among  the  nations. 

There  must  be  few  Britons  who  are  not  familiar  with  SIR 
EVELYN  WOOD'S  achievements ;  how,  for  instance,  at  Kambula 
he  held  his  own  with  a  handful  against  many  thousands  of 
brave  Zulu  warriors.  A  singular  combination  of  the  suaviter 
in  modo  with  the  fortiter  in  re,  Wood's  soldiers  have  ever 
loved  and  respected  him  with  an  almost  unique  personal 
fidelity.  Of  a  compact  and  nervous  build,  a  man  somewhat 
under  the  middle  size,  his  body  is  seamed  with  wounds ;  yet 
he  can  endure  fatigue  and  privation  with  the  toughest. 
There  is  command  in  the  clear  blue  eye ;  the  sweetness  of  his 
smile  goes  to  your  heart,  and  stays  there.  A  man  of  singular 
modesty,  it  is  not  from  himself  that  one  can  hear  a  word  of 
Wood's  conduct  under  fire.  But  when  I  first  visited  his 
camp  in  Zululand,  some  of  his  soldiers  took  me  up  on  to  the 
bare  ridge  of  Kambula,  where,  out  in  the  open,  up  against  the 
sky-line,  he  stood  directing  the  fighting,  while  the  Zulu 
attacks  surged  in  front  and  on  flanks,  and  while  a  storm  of 
bullets  whistled  about  him.  Wood  has  been  a  fighting-man 
from  his  boyhood.  He  received  his  first  wound  when  a 
midshipman  in  a  battery  in  front  of  Sevastopol.  Then  he 
went  into  cavalry;  and  in  the  Mutiny  time  he  won  the 
Victoria  Gross  in  command  of  a  corps  of  wild  irregular 
horsemen  which  he  had  himself  recruited.  He  fought  in 
China,  and  a  little  campaign  all  to  himself  in  Africa  with 
Lord  Wolseley.  As  poor  Colley's  successor  on  the  border  of 


"  YOU-BE-DAMNED-NESS."  359 

the  Transvaal,  he  proved  himself  as  wise  in  council  as  he 
had  shown  himself  valiant  in  war.  A  many-sided  man,  he 
found  time  in  an  interval  of  peace  to  become  a  barrister ;  he 
was  the  most  purposeful,  the  most  thorough,  and  the  most 
unresting  divisional  commander  that  Aldershot  has  ever 
known  ;  he  is  habitually  at  the  War  Office  from  9  a.m.  to 
5  p.m. ;  he  is  in  the  first  flight  in  the  hunting  field ;  and  he 
has  published  a  volume  of  Crimean  reminiscences  which  is 
more  enthralling  than  any  fiction.  A  veteran  of  many  wars, 
Evelyn  Wood,  now  serving  as  Quartermaster- General,  is 
among  the  foremost  military  figures  of  our  nation. 

A  yet  more  notable  commander  than  Sir  Evelyn  Wood  is 
his  friend  and  comrade,  SIR  REDVERS  BULLER.  Like  Wood, 
Buller  was  one  of  Lord  Wolseley's  men.  He  took  service  first 
under  that  able  leader  in  the  Red  River  expedition,  was  with 
him  in  Ashantee,  served  under  him  throughout  the  Zulu  War, 
served  with  him  in  the  Egyptian  campaign,  and  was  his 
chief-of-staff  in  the  Nile  expedition.  When  I  first  visited 
Wood's  camp  in  Zululand,  I  found  Buller  there  in  command 
of  some  800  volunteer  irregular  horsemen — or  perhaps  rather 
mounted  infantry ;  a  strange,  wild,  heterogeneous  band,  whom 
Buller  held  in  sternest  discipline,  and  made  do  wonders  in. 
fighting  and  inarching,  by  sheer  force  of  character.  A 
stern-tempered,  ruthless,  saturnine  man,  with  the  gift  of 
grim  silence  not  less  than  a  gift  of  curt,  forcible  expression  on 
occasion,  Buller  ruled  those  desperadoes  with  a  rod  of  iron. 
Yet,  while  they  feared  him,  they  had  a  sort  of  dog- like  love 
for  him.  Buller's  advancement  has  been  exceptionally  rapid  ; 
but  almost  every  step  of  rank  he  gained  in  face  of  the  enemy, 
just  as  he  won  the  Victoria  Cross  by  a  sequence  of  deeds 
of  all  but  unique  heroism.  Routine  men  grumbled  that 
Wolseley  should  have  sent  him  out  to  the  eastern  Soudan  to 
command  a  brigade  in  Sir  Gerald  Graham's  first  short 
expedition.  Amply  did  Buller  vindicate  the  choice.  It  is 
not  too  much  to  aver  that  by  his  cool,  skilful  handling  of  his 
brigade  in  the  crisis  of  the  fight  of  Tamai  he  averted  a 
disaster  that  but  for  his  conduct  was  inevitable,  retrieved  the 


360  MEMORIES  OF   \VAH  AND  PEACE. 

all  but  desperate  situation,  and  buttressed  the  tottering 
fortunes  of  the  British  arms.  Again,  later,  on  the  Nile,  it  was 
he  who  with  characteristic  abruptness  snatched  the  dishevelled 
remnant  of  the  column  which  he  found  at  Gubat  out  of  the 
very  jaws  of  imminent  peril,  and  reconducted  it,  with  a  cool 
promptitude  that  was  all  his  own,  back  into  a  region  of  com- 
parative safety.  He  shares  with  the  Duke  of  Devonshire  the 
by  no  means  unserviceable  attribute  of  "  you-be-damned-ness." 
I  have  watched  Redvers  Buller's  career  with  the  closest 
attention  and  the  profoundest  admiration,  I  regard  him  as 
the  strongest  soldier  of  the  British  army  to-day;  and  if  he 
remains  in  the  service  and  there  be  hot  work  again  in  our 
time,  I  predict  for  Buller  a  great  fighting  career. 

It  is  not  possible  for  me  to  write  without  emotion  of 
poor  SIR  HERBERT  STEWART,  for  we  two  had  been  close 
friends  ever  since  we  lived  together  in  the  same  tent  on 
the  Zululand  veldt.  That  was  in  1879 ;  Stewart  was  then 
a  simple  cavalry  captain  with  little  expectation  of  speedy 
or  rapid  promotion.  Before  the  life  had  gone  out  of  him 
by  the  wells  of  Jakdul,  he  knew  that  the  Queen  had  pro- 
moted a  colonel  of  scarce  two  years'  standing  to  the  rank 
of  major-general  for  distinguished  service  in  the  field. 
But  the  honour  came,  alas !  to  a  man  who  in  performing 
that  service  had  got  his  death  hurt ;  and  we  had  lost  at 
the  premature  age  of  forty-one  a  soldier  who  if  he  had 
been  spared  would  have  covered  himself  with  yet  more 
glory.  I  count  among  my  treasured  souvenirs  the  last  letter 
I  received  from  him,  just  before  he  inarched  from  Dongola 
to  Korti.  It  thus  concludes : — "  If  with  1,500  as  good 
soldiers  as  ever  breathed  I  cannot  do  something  creditable 

o 

to  them  and  to  me  should  the  chance  offer,  then,  old 
friend,  I  give  you  full  permission  to  invest  in  the  heaviest 
procurable  pair  of  boots  to  kick  me  wherewithal  when  I 
return  to  England." 

Stewart  had  been  a  staunch  Wolseleyite  ever  since  the 
Transvaal;  and  another  of  .Lord  Wolseley's  adherents  was 


NOT  A    GREAT  GENERAL.  3'J1 

SIR  GEORGE  COLLET,  who  met  a  soldier's  death  on  the 
Majuba  Hill  on  the  27th  February,  1881.  Colley  was  an 
officer  of  wide  experience  and  great  ability.  I  knew  him 
well,  and  because  of  what  I  had  seen  of  him  I  should 
have  named  caution  as  one  of  his  principal  attributes.  But 
had  this  been  so  he  probably  would  have  been  alive  now. 
Indeed,  had  he  cared  greatly  to  live,  I  do  not  think  he 
need  have  died  Some  day,  perhaps,  the  true  story  of  that 
strange  futile  campaign  in  which  Colley  met  his  fate  may 
come  to  be  written. 

Not  less  than .  the  Hohenzollerns  of  Prussia,  are  the 
Romanoffs,  the  Imperial  family  of  Russia,  a  fighting  race. 
Of  that  family,  besides  its  then  existing  head  the  Emperor 
Alexander  II.,  no  fewer  than  twelve  members  took  part  in 
the  Russo-Turkish  War,  occupying  positions  from  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  to  Captain  on  the  Staff!  The  GRANTD 
DUKE  NICHOLAS,  a  younger  brother  of  Alexander  II.,  had 
the  command-in-chief  of  the  Russian  forces  in  Europe. 
Nicholas  was  a  fine  soldierly  chief,  but  not  a  great  general. 
He  was  the  heartiest  and.  bluntest  of  soldier-men  when  in 
a  good  humour;  when  in  the  opposite  temper  he  exem- 
plified graphically  the  adage — "  Scratch  the  Russian  and 
you  will  find  the  Tartar."  He  had  his  settled  likes  and 
dislikes ;  I  suppose  that  I  ranked  among  the  former,  for 
"  Monseigneur "  was  always  civil  enough  to  me,  and  occa- 
sionally curiously  frank.  When  I  rode  into  the  Imperial 
headquarters  at  Gorni  Studen  with  the  earliest  tidings  of 
the  desperate  struggle  in  the  Schipka  Pass,  the  Emperor 
sent  me  across  the  valley  to  his  brother  the  Grard  Duke 
to  repeat  to  the  latter  the  intelligence  which  I  had 
brought  to  him.  The  Grand  Duke  asked  me  what  I 
thought  of  the  situation  I  had  left  behind  me  on  the 
Schipka.  I  replied  that  in  my  humble  opinion  the  safety 
of  that  important  position  could  not  be  assured,  unless 
a  whole  army  -  corps  were  permanently  allotted  for  its 
defence.  "  An  army-corps ! "  cried  the  Grand  Duke,  as  he 
tossed  down  a  glass  of  wine — "  Good  God,  what  is  the  use 


362  MEMORIES   OF  WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

of  talking  of  an  army-corps  when  I  don't  know  where  to 
find  a  spare  battalion!"  Nicholas  was  recklessly  out- 
spoken ;  but  he  was  a  strong  man  who  would  enforce  the 
line  of  action  he  regarded  as  most  advantageous.  It  was 
he  who,  backed  only  by  Skobeleff  and  Gourko,  insisted  on 
the  winter  crossing  of  the  Balkans  after  the  fall  of  Plevna, 
and  so  converted  a  virtual  failure  into  a  remarkable 
triumph.  Nicholas  would  have  gone  further  if  he  had  got 
his  own  way;  he  'would  have  occupied  Constantinople, 
and  the  occupation  of  Constantinople  must  have  brought 
about  war  between  England  and  Russia.  But  the  Grand 
Duke  loyally  obeyed  the  injunctions  of  the  Tzar  that  he 
should  refrain  from  this  extremity ;  and  so,  but  by  a  hair's- 
breadth,  was  averted  a  conflict  so  much  to  be  deplored. 
After  the  war  the  Grand  Duke  Nicholas  fell  into  disgrace 
on  account  of  his  peculations.  So  discreditable  a  discovery 
was  not  to  be  allowed  official  promulgation.  The  inquiry 
was  quashed,  the  court  engaged  in  the  investigations  was 
dissolved,  and  the  Grand  Duke  was  ordered  to  retire  to 
his  estates  hi  the  country,  where  for  the  most  part  he 
lived  in  seclusion  until  his  death. 

When  Russia  was  at  her  wits'  end  how  to  reduce  the 
Plevna  fortifications,  so  sublimely  defended  by  Osman  Pasha 
and  his  gallant,  stubborn  Turks,  she  fell  back  on  an  old 
soldier  who  had  served  her  right  well  in  a  long-gone-by 
campaign.  It  was  GENERAL  TODLEBEN'S  skilful  and  ener- 
getic exertions  in  the  defence  of  Sevastopol  that  had  kept 
English  and  French  soldiers  for  so  many  long  weary 
months  toiling,  fighting,  and  dying  in  front  of  that 
fortress.  He  had  been  summoned  to  the  seat  of  war  in 
Bulgaria  in  the  autumn  of  1877.  so  hurriedly  that  he 
arrived  in  Bucharest  with  a  single  aide-de-camp,  and  was 
destitute  of  any  provision  for  taking  the  field.  Bucharest 
had  been  so  depleted  of  horseflesh  that  he  found  himself 
unable  to  obtain  even  a  single  charger  up  to  his  weight. 
I  happened  to  be  in  Bucharest  for  a  few  hours  during 
Todleben's  short  stay  there,  and  I  was  the  possessor  of  a 


TODLEBEN  AND   THE  BIG  GREY.  363 

powerful  grey  stallion  which  was  a  very  disagreeable  mount 
and  took  a  great  deal  of  riding.  He  was  bucking,  rearing, 
and  generally  "  playing  up  "  along  the  Podo-Mogosoi,  when 
General  Todleben  hailed  me  and  asked  me  whether  I 
would  sell  the  horse.  I  ventured  to  observe  that  he  was 
rather  a  handful  for  rne,  and  certainly  scarcely  an  elderly 
gentleman's  horse ;  but  Todleben  insisted  on  trying  him, 
and  to  my  surprise  and,  I  confess,  relief,  an  hour  later 
he  rode  the  big  grey  into  the  courtyard  of  Brofft's  Hotel, 
on  excellent  terms  with  the  animal.  The  circumstance 
that  the  general  was  some  four  stone  heavier  than  I,  no 
doubt  weighed  with  the  grey.  He  promptly  changed 
hands,  and  General  Todleben  did  me  the  honour  to  desire 
that  I  should  dine  with  him  the  same  evening.  It  passed 
only  too  quickly,  for  the  general's  conversation  was  full 
of  varied  interest,  and  I  could  have  listened  to  him  for  a 
week  on  end.  He  asked  with  great  solicitude  after  Mr. — 
now  Sir — William  Howard  Russell  of  the  Times,  with  whom 
of  old,  he  said,  he  had  had  sundry  controversies  which  he 
was  sure  did  not  at  all  interfere  with  their  mutual  friendly 
relations.  Next  morning  Todleben  started  for  Plevna  on 
the  big  grey,  which  traversed  Bucharest  mostly  on  his 
hind  legs.  Todleben  was  a  singularly  handsome  and  stal- 
wart man,  exceptionally  young-looking  for  his  years.  In 
Sevastopol  he  had  to  resist  a  siege ;  now,  before  Plevna, 
he  had  the  converse  duty  of  conducting  a  siege.  He 
promptly  seized  and  recognised  the  situation,  adopting  the 
policy  of  refraining  from  all  further  offensive,  and  of  that 
slow,  sure,  scientific  starvation  which  was  inevitably  suc- 
cessful in  the  end. 

SKOBELEFF,  take  him  all  in  all,  was  the  most  remarkable 
man  I  have  ever  known.  We  lived  in  considerable  intimacy 
during  the  earlier  days  of  the  Russo-Turkish  campaign, 
and  in  my  haste  I  set  Skobeleff  down  as  a  genial,  brilliant, 
dashing — lunatic.  Presently  I  came  to  realise  that  there 
was  abundant  method  of  a  sort  in  the  superficially  seeming 
madness ;  and  I  ended  in  holding,  as  I  still  hold,  that 


364  MEMORIES  OF  WAR  AND  PEACE. 

Skobeleff  came  nearer  being  the  heaven-born  soldier  and 
inspired  leader  of  men  than  any  chief  of  whom  I  have  had 
personal,  cognisance.  I  have  seen  him  do  many  things 
which,  on  the  face  of  them,  looked  mad  enough  and  to 
spare.  I  have  seen  him  swim  the  brimming  Danube 
on  horseback  with  his  handful  of  personal  escort  at  his 
back.  I  have  seen  him  go  into  half  a  dozen  actions  wear- 
ing a  white  coat  and  riding  a  white  charger.  I  have  seen 
him,  apparently  quite  wantonly  and  needlessly,  stand  alone 
for  an  hour  at  a  time  under  a  heavy  fire.  All  this  looks  like 
a  species  of  madness ;  but  it  was  simply  intense,  if  reckless, 
devotion  to  a  purpose — that  purpose  being  to  gain  prestige, 
to  instil  his  soldiers  with  confidence  to  follow  wherever 
he  should  lead,  to  inspire  them  with  daring  by  the  force  of 
his  own  example.  I  remember  Skobeleff  on  the  morning 
of  the  crossing  of  the  Danube.  General  Dragomiroff,  who 
commanded,  had  never  been  tinder  fire  before,  and  was  not 
sure  whether  it  would  be  wise  to  land  in  the  face  of  the 
Turkish  force  which  was  firing  on  us  from  the  bank  and 
slopes  above.  He  asked  advice  of  Skobeleff.  "  Attack  with- 
out delay  and  let  me  lead ! "  was  that  officer's  curt  reply ; 
and  away  he  went  up  the  steep  slope  at  the  head  of  a 
torrent  of  men.  In  the  July  attempt  on  Plevna,  Skobeleff 
forced  his  way  with  the  handful  of  soldiers  which  he  com- 
manded right  up  to  the  environs  of  the  town ;  and  wrhen 
Schahoffskoy  was  crushed,  his  skilful  diversion  saved  that 
general  from  utter  annihilation.  It  was  his  audacious  but 
skilful  bravery  that  drove  the  Turks  out  of  Loftcha,  and 
gave  to  the  Russians  that  important  place  of  arms.  In  the 
September  assaults  on  Plevna  he  commanded  the  extreme 
left  wing  of  the  Russian  army,  when  he  made  that  series 
of  desperate  onsets  which  has  gone  into  history  as  the 
hardest  fighting  of  modern  times.  In  obeying  his  orders 
and  trying  to  accomplish  all  but  impossibilities,  he  lost 
nearly  one-half  of  his  command  and  made  good  a  name 
for  all  but  fabulous  bravery.  The  soldiers  said  of  him  that 
they  would  rather  fight  and  die  under  Skobeleff  than  fight 
and  live  under  another  general.  There  is  nothing  in  war- 


"A  PICTURE   OF  BATTLE."  365 

correspondence  more  luridly  vivid  than  poor  MacGahan's 
description  of  Skobeleff  as  he  returned  from  that  two  days' 
deadly  paroxysm  of  strife,  foiled  of  success  because  denied 
reinforcements: — "He  was  in  a  fearful  state  of  excitement 
and  fury.  His  uniform  was  covered  with  mud  and  blood  ; 
his  sword  broken,  his  Cross  of  St.  George  twisted  round 
on  his  shoulder.  His  face  was  black  with  powder  and 
smoke  ;  his  eyes  were  haggard  and  bloodshot,  and  his  voice 
was  quite  gone.  He  spoke  in  a  hoarse  whisper.  I  never 
saw  such  a  picture  of  battle  as  he  presented." 

From  first  to  last  of  the  Russo-Turkish  War  Skobeleff 
was  its  most  shining  figure.  His  bravery  and  his  personal 
recklessness  were  not  more  conspicuous  than  the  assiduous 
care  which  he  bestowed  on  his  men,  in  marked  contrast  to 
the  conduct  of  other  commanders  in  this  respect.  Skobeleff 
had  a  very  comic  father,  an  old  gentleman  of  the  now  obsolete 
school  of  officers,  who  commanded  a  combined  division  of 
mounted  Cossacks.  When  riding  to  the  telegraph  wire  after 
the  passage  of  the  Danube,  I  met  Skobeleff  senior  at  the 
head  of  his  division,  jogging  on  towards  Simnitza.  I  was  able 
to  tell  him  of  the  safety  and  conspicuous  valour  of  his  son. 
He  deliberately  dismounted,  kissed  me  on  both  cheeks, 
hugged  me  vehemently,  excoriating  the  back  of  my  neck 
with  a  huge  diamond  he  wore  on  his  thumb,  wept  aloud,  and 
finally  blew  his  nose  copiously  on  my  moustache.  He  and 
his  son  were  always  having  droll  quarrels  about  financial 
affairs.  The  old  gentleman  was  rather  a  miser;  Skobeleff 
junior  was  a  reckless  spendthrift.  So  long  as  the  father 
ranked  his  son,  the  latter  had  to  take  what  the  father  chose 
to  give  him.  But  by-and-by  young  Skobeleff  became  a 
lieutenant-general  while  his  father  remained  a  major-general ; 
and  then  the  old  man  was  at  the  mercy  of  his  son,  who 
compelled  him  to  furnish  him  with  money,  with  half-comic, 
half-serious  threats  of  putting  his  parent  under  arrest  unless 
he  opened  his  purse.  Once  the  son  actually  did  put  his 
father  under  arrest,  on  the  pretext  that  the  old  gentleman 
had  the  impertinence  to  report  himself  in  undress  instead  of 
full  uniform ;  and  he  held  his  parent  in  that  ignominious 


366  MEMORIES  OF   WAR  AND  PEACE. 

condition  until,  with  tears  and  sobs,  Skobeleff  senior  produced 
an  adequate  amount  of  rouble  notes.  But  there  was  no  real 
ill-will  between  the  father  and  the  son ;  the  father  had  a  great 
simple  pride  in  his  heroic  son,  and  the  son  loved  his  father 
very  dearly. 

Skobeleff,  at  the  premature  age  of  thirty-six,  died  a 
wretched  death,  the  incidents  of  which  cannot  be  told.  Had 
he  lived,  and  been  wise,  there  was  no  future  to  which  he 
would  not  have  been  equal. 

GENERAL  GOURKO,  though  not  so  striking  a  military  figure 
as  Skobeleff,  attained  a  well-deserved  reputation  in  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War.  He  it  was  who,  immediately  after  the  crossing 
of  the  Danube,  headed  an  adventurous  raid  across  the  Balkans 
into  Roumelia,  which,  had  the  Russians  been  in  position 
promptly  to  support  him,  would  probably  soon  have  ended 
the  business.  After  the  fall  of  Plevna  he  led  80,000  men 
across  the  Balkans  a  second  time,  in  weather  so  cruel  that  he 
actually  lost  many  more  men  from  frost  than  by  the  bullet. 
It  was  a  stupendous  march,  and  in  accomplishing  it  he 
achieved  what  the  world  had  believed  impossible.  Gourko 
fought  as  stoutly  as  he  marched  swiftly,  and  he  displayed 
great  tactical  skill  in  the  disposition  of  his  forces.  Personally, 
in  war  time  he  was  a  cold,  stiff,  saturnine  man  who  regarded 
his  men  as  mere  machines,  and  who  failed,  therefore,  to 
inspire  them  with  any  personal  warmth  of  feeling  towards 
him,  although  they  thoroughly  believed  in  him  as  a 
commander. 

I  had  some  experience  in  the  Servian  war  of  1876  how 
hard  a  fighter  was  OSMAN  PASHA,  the  heroic  defender  of 
Plevna,  a  year  before  his  name  had  reached  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth  as  the  man  who  for  five  long  months  defied  from 
behind  his  earthworks  the  whole  strength  of  the  Muscovite 
empire.  Strangely  enough  that  position  of  his  at  Plevna  was 
all  chance — a  mere  fluke.  In  the  earlier  days  of  July  he  had 
left  the  up-stream  fortress  of  Widdin  with  some  15,000  men, 
on  the  mission  of  succouring  Nicopolis,  a  Turkish  fortress 


A    WILD-CAT  FURIOUS  SORTIE.  367 

threatened  by  the  Russians.  He  learned  that  Nicopolis  was 
already  taken  by  the  enemy ;  so  he  bent  inwards  to  Plevna 
and  proceeded  to  entrench  himself  there.  With  the  intuitive 
eye  of  a  tine  soldier,  he  discerned  how  the  Plevna  position 
loomed  on  the  Hank  of  the  Russian  main  line  of  advance 
tOAvards  the  Balkans,  and  how  important  it  was  to  hold  on  to 
it  with  tooth  and  nail.  A  Russian  force  attacked  him  before 
he  had  begun  his  spade  work.  That  force  he  summarily 
smashed  and  went  on  building  earthworks.  On  the  last  day 
of  July  Schahoffskoy  and  Krlidener  struck  at  him  again  with 
all  their  might,  only  to  be  driven  back  with  the  loss  of  more 
than  a  third  of  their  strength.  Still  he  went  on  digging  and 
building  earthworks.  In  September  the  Russians  attempted 
the  enterprise  yet  once  again,  this  time  more  systematically 
and  in  immensely  greater  force  They  rained  on  him  a  storm 
of  missiles  from  their  great  siege  guns  for  five  long  days  and 
nights.  Osrnan,  under  cover  of  his  earthworks,  took  no  more 
heed  of  the  shell-fire  than  if  it  had  been  a  display  of  fireworks. 
On  the  sixth  day  they  assailed  his  positions  furiously  with 
80,000  men.  Osrnan  was  ready  for  them;  he  slew  them  in 
thousands  and  tens  of  thousands,  and  sent  them  reeling  back 
upon  their  supports.  Then  the  Russians  realised  that  they 
had  endured  enough  of  fighting  with  this  masterful  indomit- 
able Turk  and  his  stubborn  army  of  45,000  men.  So  they  set 
themselves  systematically  to  starve  him  into  surrender, 
suspending  meanwhile  all  other  operations.  Not  till  three 
months  later,  when  hunger  and  sickness  were  eating  out  the 
hearts  of  his  gallant  soldiers,  did  Osman  relinquish  his  hold 
of  the  positions  which  he  had  defended  so  stoutly  in  accord- 
ance with  his  orders.  And  even  then,  there  still  remained 
fight  in  the  obstinate  Moslem.  Not,  like  Bazaine,  would  he 
tamely  surrender  in  his  trenches  ;  he  would  strike  one  last 
fierce  blow  for  extrication  from  the  toils  which  had  been 
woven  around  him.  It  was  a  wild-cat  furious  sortie  that  the 
Turks  made  on  the  serried  Russian  lines  on  the  snowy  morn- 
ing of  December  10th— a  sortie  that  cut  through  rank  after 
rank  and  filled  the  ground  with  dead  and  dying.  Osman, 
blazing  at  its  head,  received  the  wound  of  honour ;  and  then 


368  MEMORIES   OF   WAR  AXD  PEACE. 

came  the  end.  He  surrendered  to  brave  antagonists,  who 
chivalrously  admired  the  indomitable  gallantry  he  had  dis- 
played. I  had  speech  with  him  in  Bucharest,  when  on  his 
way  to  captivity  in  Russia.  "I  did  my  best,"  was  all  the 
comment  this  noble  warrior  would  make  on  his  historic 
defence.  If  Turkey  had  owned  two  Osmans  that  autumn  of 
bloodshed,  the  Russians  never  would  have  crossed  the 
Balkans ! 


THE   END 


PRINTED   BY   CASSELL  &   COMPANY,    LIMITED,    LA   BJO.LE  SAUVAGE,    LONDON,    E.C. 

75.11.05 


A  SELECTED   LIST 


OF 


CASSELL  &  COMPANY'S 


PUBLICATIONS. 


7  0—1.95. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <k  Company's  Publications. 

Illustrate,  Jin*  JVri,  anb  utter  fffohimes. 

Abbeys  and  Churches  of  England  and  Wales,  The :  Descriptive,  Historical, 

PictOrlaL     Series  II.    2is. 

A  Blot  of  T^k,     Translated  by  Q  and  PAUL  FRANCKE.     55. 
A  Book  of  Absurdities.     By  an  Old  Volunteer.     25.  6d. 

Adventure,  The  World  of.  Fully  Illustrated.    Complete  in  Three  Vols.   95.  each. 
Africa  and  its  Explorers,  The  Story  of.  By  Dr.  ROBERT  BROWN,  M.A.,  F.L.S., 

F.R.G.S.,  &c.  With  numerous  Original  Illustrations.  Vols.  I.,  II.,  and  III.  7S.6d.each. 
Agrarian  Tenures.    By  the  Rt.  Hon.  G.  SHAW  LEFEVRE,   M.P.     IDS.  6d. 
Allon,    Henry,    D.D. :  Pastor  and  Teacher.     The  Story  of  his  Ministry,  with 

Selected  Sermons  and  Addresses.     By  the  Rev.  W.  HARDY  HARWOOD.    6s. 

American  Life.    By  PAUL  DE  Romans,    izs.  6d. 

Animal  Painting  in  Water  Colours.    With  Coloured  Plates.    55. 

Arabian  Nights  Entertainments  (Cassell's).  With  about  400  Illustrations.  IDS.  6d. 

Architectural  Drawing.    By  R.  PHENfi  SPIERS.     Illustrated.     IDS.  6d. 

Art,   The   Magazine    of.     Yearly  Volume.     With  about  400  Illustrations,    14 

Etchings  or  Photogravures,  and  a  Series  of  Full-page  Plates.     215. 
Artistic  Anatomy.     By  Prof.  M.  DUVAL.     Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d. 
Astronomy,  The  Dawn  of.    A  Study  of  the  Temple  Worship  and  Mythology  of 

the  Ancient  Egyptians.     By  Professor  J.  NORMAN   LOCKYER,  C.B.,  F.R.S.,  &c. 

Illustrated.     2  is. 
Atlas,  The  Universal    A  New  and  Complete  General  Atlas  of  the  World,  with 

117  Pages  of  Maps,  handsomely  produced  in  Colours,  and  a  Complete  Index  to  about 

125.000  Names.     Complete  in  One  Vol.,  cloth,  gilt  edges,  365.  net ;  or  half-morocco, 

gilt  edges,  425.  net. 

Awkward  Squads,  The ;  and  other  Ulster  Stories.    By  SHAN  F.  BULLOCK.    55. 
BashMrtseff,  Marie,  The  Journal  of.   Translated  by  MATHILDE  BLIND.  73.  6d. 
BashMrtseff,  Marie,  The  Letters  of.    Translated  by  MARY).  SERRANO.    75.  6d. 
Beetles,   Butterflies,  Moths,  and  other  Insects.     By  A.  W.  KAPPEL,  F.L.S., 

F.E.S.,  and  W.  EGMONT  KIRBY.    With  12  Coloured  Plates.    35.  6d. 
Biographical  Dictionary,  Cassell's  New.     Containing  Memoirs  of  the  Most 

Eminent  Men  and  Women  of  all  Ages  and  Countries.     75.  6d. 
Birds'  Nests,  Eggs,  and  Egg-Collecting.     By  R.  KEARTON.     Illustrated  with 

1 6  Coloured  Plates  of  Eggs.     55. 

Breechloader,  The,  and  How  to  Use  It.    By  W.  W.  GREENER.    New  and 

Entargid  Edition.     2S.  6d. 

British  Ballads.    275  Original  Illustrations.    Two  Vols.     Cloth,  153. 
British  Battles  on  Land  and  Sea.      By  JAMES  GRANT.      With  about  600 

Illustrations.     Four  Vols.    410,  ;£i  i6s.  ;  Library  Edition,  Four  Vols.,  £*. 

Browning,  An  Introduction  to  the  Study  of.    By  ARTHUR  SYMONS.   25.  6d. 
Butterflies  and   Moths,  European.     By  W.   F.   KIRBY.     With  61  Coloured 

Plates.     355. 

Campaigns  of  Curiosity.     By  ELIZABETH  L.  BANKS.     Illustrated,    as. 
Canaries  and  Cage-Birds,  The  Illustrated  Book  of.     By  W.  A.  BLAKSTON, 

W.   SWAYSLAND,  and  A.   F.  WIENER.     With  56  Fac-simile  Coloured  Plates.    355. 
Capture  of  the  "Estrella,"  The.     A  Tale  of  the  Slave  Trade.      By  COMMANDER 

CLAUD  HARDING,  R.N.    55. 
Carnation  Manual,  The.     Edited  and  Issued  by  the  National  Carnation  and 

Picotee  Society  (Southern  Section).    35.  6d. 
Cassell,  John.    By  G.  HOLDEN  PIKE.    With  Portrait,     is. 
Cassell's  Family  Magazine.     Yearly  Volume.     Illustrated,     os. 
Cathedrals,  Abbeys,  and  Churches  of  England  and  Wales.       Descriptive, 

Historical,  Pictorial.      Popular  Edition.     Two  Vols.    255. 

Catriona.    A  Sequel  to  "  Kidnapped."     By  ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON.    6s. 
Cats  and  Kittens.     By  HENRIETTE  RONNER.    With  Portrait  and  13  magnificent 

Full-page  Photogravure  Plates  and  numerous  Illustrations.    410,  £2  IDS. 
Cavour,  Count,  and  Madame  de  Circourt.    Translated  by  A.  J.  BUTLER.  ios.  6d. 
China  Painting.    By  FLORENCE  LEWIS.    With  Sixteen  Coloured  Plates,  &c.   55. 
Choice  Dishes  at  Small  Cost     By  A.  G.  PAYNE.     Cheap  Edition,  is. 
Chums.     The  Illustrated  Paper  for  Boys.     Yearly  Volume,  8s. 
Cities  of  the  World.     Four  Vols.     Illustrated.    75.  6d.  each. 
Civil  Service,  Guide  to  Employment  in  the.     Entirely  New  Edition.     Paper, 

is. ;  cloth,  is.  6d. 


Selections  from  Cassdl  <fc  Company's  Publications. 
Clinical  Manuals  for  Practitioners  and  Students  of  Medicine.    (A  List  of 

Volumes  forwarded  postjree  on  application,  to  the  Publishers.) 
Cobden  Club,  Works  published  for  the.     (A  Complete  List  on  application.) 
Colonist's  Medical  Handbook,  The.    By  E.  ALFRED  BARTON,  M.R.C.S.    is. 
Colour.     By  Prof.  A.  H.  CHURCH.     New  and  Enlarged  Edition,  35.  6d. 
Columbus,  The  Career  of.    By  CHARLES  ELTON,  F.S.A.    ics.  6d. 
Combe,  George,  The  Select  Works  of.      Issued  by  Authority  of  the  Combe 

Trustees.     Popular  Edition,  is.  each,  net. 

The  Constitution  of  Man.     I   Science  and  Religion. 
Moral  Philosophy.  |  Discussions  on  Education. 

American  Notes. 

Commercial  Botany  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.    By  J.  R.  JACKS-  •>:,  A.L.S. 

Cloth  gilt,  2s. 
Commons  and  Forests,  English.    By  the  Rt.  Hon.  G.  SHAW-LEFEVRE,  M.P. 

TOS.  6d. 
Conquests  of  the  Cross.    Edited  by  EDWIN  HODDER.    With  numerous  Original 

Illustrations.     Complete  in  Three  Vols.     95.  each. 

Cookery,  A  Year's.     By  PHYLLIS  BROWNE.    New  and  Enlarged  Edition,  33.  6d. 
Cookery  Book,  Cassell's  New  Universal     By  LIZZIE  HERITAGE.     With  12 

Coloured  Plates  and  other  Illustrations.  1,344  pages,  strongly  bound  in  leather  gilt,  6s. 
Cookery,  Cassell's  Popular.    With  Four  Coloured  Plates.     Cloth  gilt,  as. 
Cookery,  Cassell's  Shilling.    no/A  Thousand,    is. 
Cookery,  Vegetarian.    By  A.  G.  PAYNE,    is.  6d. 
Cooking  by  Gas,  The  Art  of.    By  MARIE  J.  SUGG.    Illustrated.    Cloth,  25. 
Cottage  Gardening.     Edited  by  W.   ROBINSON,   F.L.S.     Illustrated.     Half- 

yearly  Vols.,  I..  II.,  and  III.,  25.  6d.  each.    Vol.  IV.,  3s. 
Countries  of  the  World,  The.    By  ROBERT  BROWN,  M.A.,  Ph.D.,  &c.    Com- 

plete in  Six  Vols.,  with  about  750  Illustrations.    410,  75.  6d.  each. 
Cyclopaedia,  Cassell's  Concise.    Brought  down  to  the  latest  date.    With  about 

600  Illustrations.     New  and  Cheap  Edition,  75.  6d. 
Cyclopaedia,  Cassell's  Miniature.    Containing  30,000  Subjects.     Cloth,  25.  6d.  ; 

half-roxburgh,  45. 

Defoe,  Daniel,  The  Life  of.    By  THOMAS  WRIGHT.    Illustrated.    215. 

Delectable  Duchy,  The.    Stories,  Studies,  and  Sketches.    By  Q.    6s. 

Dick  Whittington,  A  Modern.    By  JAMES  PAYN.    Cheap  Edition  in  one  Vol.,  6s. 

Dictionaries.  (For  description  see  alphabetical  letter.)  Religion,  Biographical, 
Encyclopsedic,  Mechanical.  Phrase  and  Fable,  English,  English  History 
English  Literature,  Domestic.  (French,  German,  and  Latin,  see  with  Educational 

Diet  and  Cookery  for  Common  Ailments.    By  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  College 

of  Physicians,  and  PHYLLIS  BROWNE.    55. 
Dog,    Illustrated   Book   of  the.    By  VERO  SHAW,  B.A.    With  28  Coloured 

Plates.     Cloth  bevelled,  355.  ;  half-morocco,  455. 

Domestic  Dictionary,  The.    An  Encyclopaedia  for  the  Household.    Uoth,  75.  oo. 
Dore"   Don  Quixote,  The.     With  about  400  Illustrations  by  GUSTAVE  I 

Cheap  Edition,  bevelled  boards,  gilt  edges,  IDS.  6d. 

Dor6  Gallery,  The.     With  250  Illustrations  by  GUSTAVE  DOR£.    4/0,  425. 
Dora's  Dante's  Inferno.      Illustrated  by  GUSTAVE  DORE.     Popular  Edition. 
With  Preface  by  A.  J.  BUTLER.     Cloth  gilt  or  buckram,  7s  6d.  Q       - 

Dora's  Dante's  Purgatory  and  Paradise.      Illustrated  by  C 

Dore's*MuSf  Paradise  Lost.     Illustrated  by  GUSTAVE  DORE.     4to,  2is. 

Popular  Edition.     Cloth  gilt,  or  buckram  gilt.     7S.6d 

Dressmaking,  Modern.  The  Elements  of.    By  J.  E.  DAVIS. 
Earth,  Our,  and  its  Story.    Edited  by  Dr.  ROBERT  BROWN 

36  Coloured  Plates  and  740  Wood  Engravings      Complete  m  Three  Vols  •    9S-each 

Edinburgh,  Old  and  New,  Cassell's.     With    600  Illustrations. 


Picturesque.      By  ™-£ 

Translated  by  CLARA  BELL,  with  Notes  by  SAMUEL  BIRCH  LL.D   &c.    Two 
Electric  Current,  The.     How  Produced  and  How  Used.    By  R.  MuLLiNf 


Selections  from  Cassell  <k  Company's  Publications, 
Employment  for  Boys  on  Leaving  School,    Guide  to.     By  W.  S.  BEARD, 

F.R.G.S.     is.  6d. 
Encyclopaedic  Dictionary,  The.     Complete  in  Fourteen  Divisional  Vols.,  los.  6d. 

each  ;  or  Seven  Vols.,  half-morocco,  2is.  each  ;  half-russia,  255.  each. 
England,    Cassell's   Illustrated    History   of.    With  2,000  Illustrations.     Ten 

Vols.,  410,  gs.  each.    Neiv  and  Revised  Edition.    Vols.  I.  to  VII.,  gs.  each. 
English  Dictionary,  Cassell's.      Containing  Definitions  of  upwards  of  100,000 

Words  and  Phrases.     Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d.  ;  Large  Paper  Edition,  53. 
English  History,  The  Dictionary  of.     Cheap  Edition,  los.  6d.;  roxburgh,  153. 
English  Literature,  Library  ot    By  Prof.  H.  MORLEY.    In  5  Vols.  75. 6d.  each. 
English  Literature,  Morley^s  First  Sketch  of.    Revised  Edition,  75.  6d. 
English  Literature,  The  Dictionary  of.     By  W.  DAVENPORT  ADAMS.     Cheap 

Edition,  75.  6d.  ;  roxburgh,  los.  6d. 

English  Literature,  The  Story  of.      By  ANNA  BUCKLAND.     33.  6d. 

English  Writers.     By  HENRY  MORLEY.     Vols.  I.  to  XI.     53.  each. 

.ffisop's  Fables.     Illustrated  by  ERNEST  GRISET.    Cheap  Edition.    Cloth,  33.  6d.  ; 

bevelled  boards,  gilt  edges,  53. 
Etiquette  of  Good  Society.     New  Edition.      Edited  and  Revised  by  LADY 

COLIN  CAMPBELL,    is.  ;  cloth,  is.  6d. 

Europe,  Cassell's  Pocket  Guide  to.     Edition  for  1894.     Leather,  6s. 
European  Pictures  of  the  Year.     Reproductions  of  Continental  Pictures  of  1894. 

Paper,  as.  6d.  ;  cloth,  45. 

Fairway  Island.     By  HORACE  HUTCHINSON.     Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d. 

Faith  Doctor,  The.    A  Novel.    By  Dr.  EDWARD  EGGLESTON.    Cheap  Edition,  6s. 

Family   Physician.     By    Eminent   PHYSICIANS  and  SURGEONS.    Cloth,  215. ; 

roxburgh,  255. 

Father  Mathew:  His  Life  and  Times.     By  FRANK  J.   MATHEW.    zs.  6d. 
Fenn,  G.  Manville,  Works  by.     Boards,  2S.  each  ;  or  cloth,  25.  6d. 
The  Parson  o*  Dumford."! 


Poverty  Corner. 


J  boai 


Commodore  • 

Fiction,  Cassell's  Popular  Library  of.    35.  6d.  each. 


My  Patients.    Boards  or  cloth. 


The  Snare  of  the  Fowler.     By  Mrs.  ALEX- 

Out   of  the  Jaws  of  Death.      By  FRANK 

BARRETT. 
Fourteen  to   One,   &o.       By  ELIZABETH 

STUART  PHELPS. 


The  Medicine  Lady.    By  L,  T.  MEADE. 
Leona.    By  Mrs.  MOLESWORTH. 
Father  Stafford.  A  Novel.  By  ANTHONY  HOPE. 
Dr.  Duminy's  Wife.     By  MAURUS  JOKAI. 
La  Bella,"  and  others.  By  EGERTON  CASTLE. 


Field  Naturalist's  Handbook,  The.     By  Revs.  J.  G.  WOOD  and  THEODORE 

WOOD.     Clieap  Edition,  25.  6d. 
Figuier's  Popular  Scientific  Works.     With  Several  Hundred  Illustrations  in 

each.     3S.  6d.  each. 

The  Insect  World.  I  Reptiles  and  Birds.  I  The  Vegetable  World. 

The  Human  Race.  Mammalia.  Ocean  World. 

The  World  before  the  Deluge. 

Figure  Painting  in  Water  Colours.    With  16  Coloured  Plates.    75.  6d. 
Flora's  Feast.      A  Masque  of  Flowers.      Penned  and    Pictured  by  WALTER 

CRANE.     With  40  pages  in  Colours.     55. 

Flower  Painting,  Elementary.     With  Eight  Coloured  Plates.     33. 
Flowers,  and  How  to  Paint  Them.  By  MAUD  NAFTEL.  With  Coloured  Plates.  53. 
Football:  the  Rugby  Union  Game. ' Edited  by  Rev.  F.  MARSHALL.   Illustrated. 

New  a-nd  Enlarged  Edition.     75.  6d. 

Fossil  Reptiles,  A  History  of  British.    By  Sir  RICHARD  OWEN,  F.R.S.,  &c. 

With  268  Plates.     In  Four  Vols.    £12  125. 

Franco-German  War,  Cassell's  History  of  the.    VoL  I.,  containing  about  250 

Illustrations,     gs. 

Fraser,  John  Drummond.     By  PHILALETHES.    A  Story  of  Jesuit  Intrigue  in 

the  Church  of  England.     Cheap  Edition,     is.  6d. 

Free  Lance  in  a  Far  Land,  A.     By  HERBERT  COMPTON.    6s. 

Garden  Flowers,  Familiar.     By  SHIRLEY  HIBBERD.     With  Coloured  Plates  by 

F.  E.  HULME,  F.L.S.     Complete  in  Five  Series.     Cloth  gilt,  125.  fid.  each. 
Gardening,  Cassell's  Popular.     Illustrated.     Complete  in  Four  Vols.    53.  each. 
Gazetteer  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  Cassell's.    With  numerous  Illustrations 

and  Maps  in  Colours.     Vol.  I.     75.  6d. 

Geometrical  Drawing  for  Army  Candidates.    By  H.  T.  LILLE Y,  M.A.    25.  6d. 
Geometry,  First  Elements  of  Experimental.     By  PAUL  BERT.     is.  6d. 
George  Saxon,  The  Reputation  of.     By  MORLEY  ROBERTS.    53. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <k  Company's  Publications. 

Gilbert,  Elizabeth,  and  her  Work  for  the  Blind.    By  FRANCES  MARTIN   as  6d 
Gladstone,  The  Right  Hon.  W.  E.,  M.P. ,  Life  of.     Profusely  Illustrated,   'is. ' 
Gleanings  from  Popular  Authors.      Two  Vols.      With  Original  Illustrations. 

4to,  95.  each.     Two  Vols.  in  One,  155. 

Gulliver's  Travels.    With  88  Engravings.     Cloth,  33.  6d.  ;  cloth  gilt  55 
Gun  and  its  Development,  The.    By  W.  W.  GREENER.    Illustrated.    ios  6d 
Guns,  Modern  Shot.    By  W.  W.  GREENER.     Illustrated.    55. 
Health,  The  Book  of.     By  Eminent  Physicians  and  Surgeons.     Cloth,  213. 
Health  Laws,  The  London.    Prepared  by  the  Mansion  House  Council  on  the 

Dwellings  of  the  Poor.     Limp  cloth,  25. 
Heavens,  The  Story  of  the.     By  Sir  ROBERT  STAWELL  BALL,  LL.D.,  F.R.S. 

With  Coloured  Plates  and  Wood  Engravings.     Popular  Edition,  125.  6d. 

Heroes  of  Britain  in  Peace  and  War.  With  300  Original  Illustrations.  Cheap 
Edition.  Two  Vols.  35.  6d.  each  ;  or  two  vols.  in  one,  cloth  gilt,  75.  6d. 

Hiram  Golfs  Religion ;  or,  the  Shoemaker  by  the  Grace  of  God.    as. 

Hispaniola  Plate  (1683-1893).    By  JOHN  BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.    6s. 

Historic  Houses  of  the  United  Kingdom.  With  Contributions  by  the  Rev.  Pro- 
fessor BONNEY,  F.R.S.,  and  others.  Profusely  Illustrated,  ios.  fid. 

History,  A  Footnote  to.  EightYears  of  Trouble  in  Samoa.  ByR.  L.STEVENSON.  6s. 

Home  Life  of  the  Ancient  Greeks,  The.  Translated  by  ALICE  ZIMMERN. 
Illustrated.  75. 6d. 

Horse,  The  Book  of  the.    By  SAMUEL  SIDNEY.     With  17  Full-page  Collotype 

Plates  of  Celebrated  Horses  of  the  Day,  and  numerous  other  Illustrations.   Cloth,  155. 
Houghton,  Lord :  The  Life,  Letters,  and  Friendships  of  Richard  Monckton 

Milnes,  First  Lord  Houghton.    By  Sir  WEMYSS  REID.    Two  Vols.    32s. 
Household,  Cassell's  Book  of  the.   Illustrated.  Complete  in  Four  Vols.  55.  each; 

or  Four  Vols.  in  two,  half-morocco,  255. 

Hygiene  and  Public  Health.    By  B.  ARTHUR  WHITELEGGE,  M.D.    Illustrated. 

New  and  Revised  Edition.     75.  6d. 

India,  Cassell's  History  of.  By  JAMES  GRANT.  With  400  Illustrations.  Two 
Vols.,  gs.  each,  or  One  Vol.,  155. 

In-aoor   Amusements,  Card  Games,  and  Fireside  Fun,  Cassell's  Book  of, 

With  numerous  Illustrations.     Cheap  Edition.    Cloth,  25. 

Into  the  Unknown :  a  Romance  of  South  Africa.  By  LAWRENCE  FLETCHER.  33. 6d. 

Iron  Pirate,  The.     By  MAX  PEMBERTON.    Illustrated.    55. 

Island  Nights'  Entertainments.    By  R.  L.  STEVENSON.    Illustrated,  6s. 

Italy  from  the  Fall  of  Napoleon  I.  in  1815  to  1890.    By  J.  W.  PROBYN.  35.  6d. 

Kennel  Guide,  Practical  By  Dr.  GORDON  STABLES.  Illustrated.  Cheap  Edition,  is. 

King's  Diary,  A.    By  PERCY  WHITE.     Cloth,  is.  4d. 

King's  Hussar,  A.     Memoirs  of  a  Troop  Sergeant-Major  of  the  i4th  (Kings) 

Hussars.     Edited  by  HERBERT  COMPTON.    6s. 
Ladies'  Physician,  The.     By  a  London  Physician.    6s. 
Lady  Biddy  Fane,  The  Admirable.    By  FRANK  BARRETT.    New  Edition. 

With  12  Full-page  Illustrations.    6s.  T.T»rv«, 

Lady's  Dressing  Room,  The.    Translated  from  the  French  by  LADY  COLIN 

CAMPBELL.    35.  6d.  ,  .       ™    ,  ,. 

Lake  Dwellings  of  Europe.  By  ROBERT  MUNRO,  M.D.,  M.A.    Cloth,  315.  6d. 
Letters,  The  Highway  of;  and  its  Echoes  of  Famous  Footsteps.    By  THOMAS 

Letts£RDiaries  and^other^Time-saving  Publications  are  now  published  exclu- 
sively by  CASSELL  &  COMPANY.     (A  List  sent  fiostfree  on  application.) 
Liquor  Traffic,  Popular  Control  of  the.  By  Dr.  E.  R.  L,  GOULD.   With  an  Intro- 

duction  by  the  Rt.  Hon.  T.  CHAMBERLAIN,  M.P.     IS-  „       v  ,      , 

Xisbeth.    A  Novel.    By  LESLIE  KEITH     Cheap  Ed> '^on     O ne  VoL    < Ss. 
List  ye  Landsmen  !    A  Romance  of  Incident.    By  W.  CLARK  RUSSELL.    6s. 

-ft 
- 


Selections  from  CasseH  <fe  Company's  Publications. 
London,  Old  and  New.     By  WALTER  THORNBURY  and  EDWARD  WALFORD. 

Six  Vols.,  with  about  1,200  Illustrations.      Cloth,  95.  each.     Library  Edition,  £3. 

Lost  on  Du  Corrig ;  or,  'Twlxt  Earth  and  Ocean.    By  STANDISH  O'GRADY. 

With  8  Full-page  Illustrations.     55. 

Man  In  Black,  The.  By  STANLEY  WEYMAN.  With  12  full -page  Illustrations.  35.  6d. 
Medical  Handbook  of  Life  Assurance.     By  JAMES  EDWARD  POLLOCK,  M.D., 

F.R.C.P.,and  JAMES  CHISHOLM,  Fellow  of  the  Institute  of  Actuaries,  London.  75.  6d. 
Medicine,  Manuals  for  Students  of.  (A  List  forwarded  post  free  on  application.') 
Modern  Europe,  A  History  of.  By  C.  A.  FYFFE,  M. A.  Complete  in  Three  Vols., 

with  full-page  Illustrations.     75.  6d.  each. 

Mount  Desolation.    An  Australian  Romance.     By  W.  CARLTON  DA  WE.    35.  6d. 
Music,    Illustrated  History  of.      By  EMIL  NAUMANN.      Edited  by  the  Rev. 

Sir  F.  A.  GORE  OUSELEY,  Bart.     Illustrated.    Two  Vols.    315.  6d- 
National  Library,    Cassell's.      In  Volumes.       Paper   covers,   3d.  ;   cloth,   6d. 

(A  Complete  List  of  the  Volumes  post  free  on  application?) 

Natural  History,  CasselTs  Concise.  By  E.  PERCEVAL  WRIGHT,  M.A.,  M.D., 
F.L.S.  With  several  Hundred  Illustrations.  75.  fid.  ;  also  kept  half-bound. 

Natural  History,  Cassell's  New.  Edited  by  P.  MARTIN  DUNCAN,  M.B..  F.R.S., 
F.G.S.  Complete  in  Six  Vols.  With  about  2,000  Illustrations.  Cloth,  95.  each. 

Nature's  Wonder  Workers.    By  KATE  R.  LOVELL.     Illustrated.    35.  6d. 

Nelson,  The  Life  of.   By  ROBERT  SOUTHEY.    Illustrated  with  Eight  Plates.    33.  6d. 

New  England  Boyhood,  A.     By  EDWARD  E.  HALE.    35.  6d. 

Nursing  for  the  Home  and  for  the  Hospital,  A  Handbook  of.  By  CATHE- 
RINE J.  WOOD.  Cheap  Edition,  is.  6d.  ;  cloth,  2s. 

Nursing  of  Sick  Children,  A  Handbook  for  the.  By  CATHERINE  J.Wooo.  25.  6d. 

O'Driscoll's  Weird,  and  Other  Stories.    By  A,  WERNER.     Cloth,  55. 

Ohio,  The  New.    A  Story  of  East  and  West.'    By  EDWARD  EVERETT  HALE.    6s. 

Old  Dorset.  Chapters  in  the  History  of  the  County.   By  H.  J.MouLE,  M.A.  xos.  6d. 

Our  Own  Country.    Six  Vols.     With  1,200  Illustrations.     Cloth,  75.  6d.  each. 

Fainting,  The  English  School  of.   By  ERNEST  CHESNEAU.   Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d. 

Paris,  Old  and  New.  A  Narrative  of  its  History,  its  People,  and  its  Places.  By 
H.  SUTHERLAND  EDWARDS.  Profusely  Illustrated.  Complete  in  Two  Volumes,  gs. 
each,  or  gilt  edges,  105.  6d.  each. 

Patent  Laws  of  all  Countries,  Gleanings  from.    With  Notes.     By  W.  LLOYD 

WISE.    Vol.  I.,  is.  6d. 
Peoples  of  the  World,  The.    By  Dr.  ROBERT  BROWN.    Complete  hi  Six  Vols. 

With  Illustrations.     75.  6d.  each. 

Perfect  Gentleman,  The.    By  the  Rev.  A.  SMYTHE-PALMER,  D.D.    35.  6d. 
Photography  for  Amateurs.  ByT.  C.  HEPWORTH.  Illustrated,  is.  ;  cloth,  is.  6d. 
Physiology  for  Students,  Elementary.     By  ALFRED  T.  SCHOFIELD,  M.D., 

M.R.C.S.     With  Two  Coloured  Plates  and  numerous  Illustrations.     7$.  6d. 

Picturesque  America.  Complete  in  Four  Vols.,  with  48  Exquisite  Steel  Plates, 
and  about  800  Original  Wood  Engravings.  £3  2S.  each.  Vol.  I.  of  the  Popular 
Edition  now  ready,  price  i8s. 

Picturesque  Canada.  With  about  600  Original  Illustrations.  Two  Vols.  ,£6  6s.  the  set 

Picturesque  Europe.  Complete  in  Five  Vols.  Each  containing  13  Exquisite  Steel 
Plates,  from  Original  Drawings,  and  nearly  200  Original  Illustrations.  .£21 ;  half- 
morocco,  £31  ios. ;  morocco  gilt,  ^52105.  Popular  Edition.  In  Five  Vols.  1 8s.  each. 

Picturesque  Mediterranean,  The.  With  a  Series  of  Magnificent  Illustrations 
from  Original  Designs  by  leading  Artists  of  the  day.  Two  Vols.  Cloth,  £3  as.  each. 

Pigeon  Keeper,  The  Practical     By  LEWIS  WRIGHT.    Illustrated.    33.  6d. 

Pigeons,  The  Book  of.  By  ROBERT  FULTON.  Edited  by  LEWIS  WRIGHT.  With 
50  Coloured  Plates  and  numerous  Wood  Engravings.  315.  6d. ;  half-morocco,  £3  2S. 

Pity  and  of  Death,  The  Book  of.  By  PIERRE  LOTI,  Member  of  the  French 
Academy.  Translated  by  T.  P.  O'CONNOR,  M.P.  Antique  paper,  cloth  gilt,  55. 

Planet,  The  Story  of  Our.  By  the  Rev.  Prof.  BONNEY,  F.R.S.,  &c.  With 
Coloured  Plates  and  Maps  and  about  100  Illustrations.  315.  fid. 

Playthings  and  Parodies.     Short  Stories,  Sketches,  &c.,  by  BARRY  PAIN.     55. 

Poetry,  The  Nature  and  Elements  of.     By  E.  C.  STEDMAN.    6s. 

Poets,  Cassell's  Miniature  Library  of  the.     Price  is.  each  Vol. 

Polytechnic  Series,  The.      Practical    Illustrated   Manuals.      (A  List  will  be 

sent  on  application.) 

Pomona's  Travels.    By  FRANK  R.  STOCKTON.     Illustrated.    75.  6d. 

Portrait  Gallery,  The  Cabinet    Complete  in  Five  Series,  each  containing  36 

Cabinet  Photographs  of  Eminent  Men  and  Women  of  the  day.    With  Biographical 

Sketches.     155.  each. 


Selections  from  Cassell  &  Company? s  Publications. 

Poultry  Keeper,  The  Practical     By  LEWIS  WRIGHT.     Illustrated.    3s.  6d. 
Poultry,  The  Book  ot  By  LEWIS  WRIGHT.  Popular  Edition.  Illustrated.  ios.  6d. 
Poultry,  The  Illustrated  Book  of.    By  LEWIS  WRIGHT.    With  Fifty  Exquisite 
Coloured  Plates,  and  numerous  Wood  Engravings.    Revised  Edition.  Cloth,  311.  6d. 
Prison  Princess,  A.    By  MAJOR  ARTHUR  GRIFFITHS.    6s. 
Q*s  Works,  Uniform  Edition  of.    55.  each. 

™  «d<j^an^f  HHS°k'  I     ?ht  A»K>al8hin?  History  of  Troy  Town. 

Tht  Ifi,     T£      vPUr>  ^r1  8aw  Three  ships," and  other  Wbter'i  Tale. 

The  Blue  Pavilions.  |     Noughts  and  Crosses. 

Queen  Summer ;  or,  The  Tourney  of  the  Lily  and  the  Rose.  Penned  and 
Portrayed  by  WALTER  CRANE.  With  40  pages  in  Colours.  6s. 

Queen,  The  People's  Life  of  their.     By  Rev.  E.  J.  HARDY,  M  A.    is 

Queen  Victoria,  The  Life  and  Times  of.  By  ROBERT  WILSON.  Complete  in 
2  Vols.  With  numerous  Illustrations,  gs.  each. 

Queen's  Scarlet,  The.     By  G.  MANVILLE  FENN.     Illustrated.    55. 

Quickening  of  Caliban,  The.  A  Modern  Story  of  Evolution.  By  J.  COMPTON 
RICKETT.  Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d. 

Rabbit-Keeper,  The  Practical    By  CUNICULUS.    Illustrated.    35.  6d. 
Raffles  Haw,  The  Doings  of.    By  A.  CONAN  DOYLE.    New  Edition.    55. 
Railways,  British.     Their   Passenger  Services,    Rolling    Stock,    Locomotives, 

Gradients,   and  Express  Speeds.     By  J.  P.  PATTINSON.    Illustrated.     ias.  6d. 
Railways,  Our.      Their   Origin,    Development,    Incident,  and  Romance.      By 

JOHN  PENDLETON.     Illustrated.     2  Vols.,  demy  8vo.  245. 
Railway  Guides,  Official  Illustrated.    With  Illustrations  on  nearly  every  page. 

Maps,  &c.     Paper  covers,  is. ;  cloth,  as. 


London  and  North  Western  Railway. 
Great  Western  Railway. 
Midland  Railway. 
Great  Northern  Railway, 


Railway  Library,  Cassell's.    Crown  8vo,  boards,  25.  each. 


Great  Eastern  Railway. 
London  and  South  Western  Railway- 
London.  Brighton,  and  South  Coast  Railway. 
South  Eastern  Railway. 


Metzerott,  Shoemaker.  By  Katharine  P. 
Woods. 

David  Todd.    By  David  Maclure. 

Commodore  Junk.    By  G.  Manville  Fenn. 

St.  Cuthbert's  Tower.  By  Florence  War- 
den. 

The  Man  with  a  Thumb.  By  W.  C.  Hud- 
son (Barclay  North). 

By  Right  Not  Law.    By  R.  Sherard. 

Within  Sound  of  the  Weir.  By  Thomas 
St.  E.  Hake. 

Under  a  Strange  Mask.  By  Frank  Barrett 

TheCoombsberrowMystery.  ByJ.CoIwalL 

A  Queer  Race.    By  W.  WestalL 

Captain  Trafalgar.    By  Westall  and  Laurie. 

The  Phantom  City.    By  W.  WestalL 


Jack  Gordon,  Knight  Errant    By  W.  C 

Hudson  (Barclay  North). 
The  Diamond  Button :  Whose  Was  IIP 

By  W.  C.  Hudson  (Barclay  North). 
Another's  Crime.    Byjulian  Hawthorne. 
The   Yoke   of  the  Thorah.      By  Sidney 

Luslca. 

WhoisJohnNomanP  By  C.  Henry  Beckett 
The  Tragedy  of  Brinkwater.  By  Martha 

L.  Moodey. 

An   American   Penman.    By  Julian  Haw- 
thorne. 
Section  658;  or,  The  Fatal  Letter.    By 

Julian  Hawthorne. 

The  Brown  Stone  Boy.  By  W.  H.  Bishop. 
A  Tragic  Mystery.  By  Julian  Hawthorne. 
The  Great  Bank  Robbery.  By  Julian 

Hawthorne. 


Rivers  of  Great  Britain  :    Descriptive,  Historical,  Pictorial. 

The  Royal  River :    The  Thames  from  Source  to  Sea.    Pofutar  Edition,  its. 

Rivers    of  the   East   Coast.      With  highly-finished  Engravings.    Pofiu/ar  Edition,  iff. 

Robinson   Crusoe.     Casselts  New  Fine- Art  Edition.     With  upwards  of  too 

Original  Illustrations.    7$.  6d. 

Romance,  The  World  of.      Illustrated.     One  Vol.,  cloth,  os. 
Ronner,  Henriette,  The  Painter  of  Cat-Life  and  Cat-Character.    By  M.  H. 

SPIELMANN.      Containing  a  Series  of  beautiful   Phototype   Illustrations.      las. 

Rovings  of  a  Restless  Boy,  The.    By  KATHARINE  B.  FOOT.    Illustrated.    55. 
Russo-TurMsh  War,  Cassell's  History  ot    With  about  500  Illustrations.    Two 

Vols.,  os.  each  ;  library  binding,  One  Vol.,  155. 
Sala,  George  Augustus,  The  Life  and  Adventures  of.    By  Himself.    In  Two 

Vols.     325. 

Saturday  Journal,  CasseU'B.    Illustrated  throughout.    Yearly  Vol.,  78.  6d. 
Scandinaviar  Plan,  The.    A  Sermon  preached  on  Temperance  Sunday,  Nov.  8, 

1804.     By  the  Ven.  J.  M.  WILSON,  M.A.     id. 
Scarabaeus.    The   Story   of  an  African  Beetle.     By  THE   MARQUISE  CLARA 

LANZA  and  TAMES  CLARENCE  HARVEY.    Chtap  Edition,  35. 6d. 
Science  for  AIL    Edited  by  Dr.  ROBERT  BROWN,  M.A.,  F.L.S.,  Ac.    Revtttd 

Edition.     With  1,500  Illustrations.     Five  Vols.     gs.  each. 

Sea  Wolves,  The.     By  MAX  PEMBERTON.    Illustrated.    6s. 

Seven  Ages  of  Man,  The.     In  Portfolio  size.     2s.  6d.  net. 

Shadow  of  a  Song,  The.    A  Novel.    By  CECIL  HARLEY.    55. 

Shaftesbury,  The  Seventh  Earl  of,  K.G.,  The  Life  and  Work  of.    By  EDWIN 

HODDER.     Illustrated.    Cheap  Edition,  35.  od. 


Selections  from  C as  sell  &  Company1  s  Publications, 
Shakespeare,  Cassell's  Quarto  Edition.  Edited  by  CHARLES  and  MARY  COWDEN 

CLARKE,  and  containing  about  600  Illustrations  by  H.  C.  SELOUS.  Complete  in 
Three  Vols.,  cloth  gilt,  .£3  35. — Also  published  in  Three  separate  Vols.,  in  cloth, 
viz.  : — The  COMEDIES,  215. ;  The  HISTORICAL  PLAYS,  i8s.  6d.  ;  Th^  TRAGEDIKS.  255. 
Shakespeare,  The  Plays  of.  Edited  by  Prof.  HENRY  MORLEY.  Complete  in 
Thirteen  Vols.  Cloth,  in  box,  215.  ;  half-morocco,  cloth  sides,  425. 

Shakspere,  The  International.    Edition  de  luxe. 

King  Henry  VIII.     By  Sir  JAMES  LINTON,  P.R.I.     (Price  on  applicatien.) 

Othello.     Illustrated  by  FRANK  DICKSEE,  R.A.     £3  IDS. 

King  Henry  IV.     Illustrated  by  Herr  EDUARD  GKIJTZNER.     £3  los. 

As  You  Like  It.     Illustrated  by  the  late  Mons.  EMILE  BAYARD.     .£3  IDS. 
Shakspere,  The  Leopold.     With  400  Illustrations,  and  an  Introduction  by  F.  J. 

FITRNIVALL.     Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d.      Cloth  gilt,  gilt  edges,  55.  ;  roxburgh,  75.  6d. 
Shakspere,  The  RoyaL     With  Exquisite  Steel  Plates  and  Wood  Engravings. 

Three  Vols.     155.  each. 

Sketches,  The  Art  of  Making  and  Using.     From  the  French  of  G.  FRAIPONT. 

By  CLARA  BELL.     With  Fifty  Illustrations,     as.  6d. 

Smuggling  Days  and  Smuggling  Ways  ;  or,  The  Story  of  a  Lost  Art.    By 

Commander  the  Hon.  HENRY  N.  SHORE,  R.N.     Illustrated.     Cloth,  75.  6d. 
Social  England.     A  Record  of  the  Progress  of  the  People.     By  various  writers. 

Edited  by  H.  D.  TRAILL,  D.C.L.      Vols.  I.,  II.,  and  III.,  155.  each. 
Social  Welfare,  Subjects  of.    By  LORD  PLAYFAIR,  K.C.B.,  &c.    75.  6d. 
Sorrow,  The  Highway  of.     By  HESBA  STRETTON  and  *  *  *  *.    6s. 
Sports  and  Pastimes,  CasseU's  Complete  Book  of.      Cheap  Edition,  35.  6d. 
Squire,  The.     By  MRS.  PARR.     Cheap  Edition  in  one  Vol.,  6s. 
Standishs  of  High  Acre,  The.  A  Novel  By  GILBERT  SHELDON.  Two  Vols.  sis. 
Star-Land.    By  Sir  ROBERT  STAWELL  BALL,  LL.D.,  &c.    Illustrated.    6s. 
Statesmen,  Past  and  Future.    6s. 

Storehouse  of  General  Information,  Cassell's.   Illustrated.   In  8  Vols.    55.  each. 
Story  of  Francis  Cludde,  The.     A  Novel.     By  STANLEY  T.  WEYMAN.    6s. 
Successful  Life,  The.    By  AN  ELDER  BROTHER.     33.  6d. 
Sun,  The  Story  of  the.     By  Sir  ROBERT  STAWELL  BALL,  LL.D. ,  F.  R.S. ,  F.  R.  A.  S. 

With  Eight  Coloured  Plates  and  other  Illustrations.     215. 

Sunshine  Series,  Cassell's.     In  Vols.     is.  each. 

(A  List  of  the  Volumes  post  free  on  application?) 

Sybil  Knox;  or,  Home  Again.    A  Story  of  To-day.      By  EDWARD  E.  HALE, 

Author  of  "  East  and  West,"  &c.     Cheap  Edition,  6s. 

Taxation,  Municipal,  at  Home  and  Abroad.    By  J.  J.  O'MEARA.    75.  6d. 
Tenting  on  the  Plains.     By  E.  B.  CUSTER.     Illustrated.    55. 
Thackeray  in  America,  With.    By  EYRE  CROWE,  A.  R.A.    Illustrated.    IDS.  6d. 
Thames,  The  TidaL    By  GRANT  ALLEN.     With  India  Proof  Impressions  of  20 

Magnificent  Full-page   Photogravure   Plates,   and   many   other    Illustrations,    after 
original  drawings  by  W.  L.  WYLLIE,  A. R.A.   Half-morocco,  gilt,  gilt  edges,  .£5  155.  6d. 

The  Short  Story  Library.     List  of  Vols.  on  application. 

They  Met  in  Heaven.    By  G.  H.  HEPWORTH.    as.  6d. 

Things  I  have  Seen  and  People  I  have  Known.    By  G.  A.  SALA.    With  Portrait 

and  Autograph.     2  Vols.     2is. 

Tiny  Luttrell.     By  E.  W.  HORNUNG.     Cloth.     Popular  Edition.     6s. 
To  Punish  the  Czar:  A  Story  of  the  Crimea.     By  HORACE  HUTCHINSON. 

Illustrated.     35. 6d. 

Toy  Tragedy,  A.     By  Mrs.  HENRY  DE  LA  PASTURE,     is. 
"Treasure  Island  "  Series,  The.    Cheap  Illustrated  Edition.   Cloth,  35. 6d.  each. 

"Kidnapped."    By  ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON. 

Treasure  Island.    By  ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON. 

The  Master  of  Ballantrae.    By  ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON. 

The  Black  Arrow:  A  Tale  of  the  Two  Roses.    By  ROBERT  Louis  STEVENSON. 

King  Solomon's  Mines.    By  H.  RIDER  HAGGARD. 

Treatment,  The  Year-Book  of,  for  1895.    A  Critical  Review  for  Practitioners  of 

Medicine  and  Surgery.     Eleventh  Year  of  Issue.     75.  6d. 
Trees,  Familiar.    By  Prof.  G.  S.  BOULGER,  F.L.S.,  F.G.S.    Two  Series.     With 

Forty  full-page  Coloured  Plates  by  W.  H.  J.  BOOT.    izs.  6d.  each. 

"Unicode":     The  Universal  Telegraphic  Phrase  Book.      Pocket  or  Desk 

Edition,    as.  6d.  each. 

United  States,  CasseU's  History  of  the.   By  EDMUND  OLLJER.   With  600  Illus- 
trations.   Three  Vols.    QS.  each. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <fc  Company's  Publications. 


The  "Belle  Sauvage"  Library.    Cloth,  25.  each. 

The  Fortunes  of  NigeL 

Last  of  the  Barons. 

Old  Mortality. 

Guy  Mannering. 

Adventures  of  Mr.  Ledbury. 

The  Hour  and  the  Man. 

Shirley. 
Coningsby. 

Ivanhoe. 
Oliver   Twist. 

Washington  Irving's  Sketch- 
Book.. 

Mary  Barton. 
The  Antiquary. 
Nicholas    Niekleby.      Two 

Selections       from        Hood's 
Works. 
Longfellow's  Prose  Works. 

Last  Days  of  Palmyra. 
Tales  of  the  Borders. 
Pride  and  Prejudice. 

Vols. 

Sense  and  Sensibility. 

Last  of  the  Mohicans. 

Jane  Eyre. 

Lytton's  Plays. 

Heart  of  Midlothian. 

Wuthering  Heights. 
The  Prairie. 
Night  and  Morning. 

Tales,  Poems,  and  Sketches 
(Bret  Harte). 
The  Prince  of  the  House  of 

Last  Days  of  Pompeii. 
YeUowplush  Papers. 
Handy  Andy. 

Kenilworth. 

David. 

Selected  Plays. 

The  Ingoldsby  Legends. 

Sheridan's  Plays. 

American  Humour. 

Tower  of  London. 

Uncle  Tom's  Cabin. 

Sketches  by  Boz. 

The  Pioneers. 

Deerslayer. 

Macaulay's    Lays    and     Se- 

Charles O'Malley. 

Eugene  Aram. 

lected  Essays. 

Baruaby  Budge. 

Jack  Hinton,  the  Guardsman. 

Harry  Lorrequer. 

Cakes  and  Ale. 
The  King's  Own. 

Rome  and  the  Early  Chris-  1  Old  Curiosity  Shop. 

tians.                                           Rienzi. 

People  I  have  Met. 

The     Trials     of     Margaret 

The  Talisman. 

The  Pathfinder. 

Lyndsay. 

Pickwick.    Two  Vols. 

Evelina. 

Edgar  Allan  Poe.    Prose   and 

Scarlet  Letter. 

Scott's  Poems. 

Poetry,  Selections  from.            1  Martin  Chuzzlewit.  Two  Vote. 

Universal  History,  Cassell's  Illustrated.  With  nearly  ONE  THOUSAND 
ILLUSTRATIONS.  Vol.  I.  Early  and  Greek  History.—  Vol.  II.  The  Roman  Period  __ 
Vol.  III.  The  Middle  Ages.—  Vol.  IV.  Modern  History.  95.  each. 

Vicar  of  Wakefleld  and  other  Works,  by  OLIVER  GOLDSMITH.    Illustrated. 

35.  6d.  ;  cloth,  gilt  edges,  55. 
Water-Colour  Painting,  A  Course  of.      With  Twenty-four  Coloured  Plates  by 

R.  P.  LEITCH,  and  full  Instructions  to  the  Pupil.     55. 
Wedlock,  Lawful  :  or,  How  Shall  I  Make  Sure  of  a  Legal  Marriage  ?    By 

Two  BARRISTERS,     is. 
Wild  Birds,  Familiar.     By  W.  SWAYSLAND.     Four  Series.     With  40  Coloured 

Plates  in  each.     las.  6d.  each. 

Wild  Flowers,  Familiar.     By  F.  E.  HULME,  F.L.S.,  F.S.A.    Five  Series.    With 

40  Coloured  Plates  in  each.     (In  sets  only,  price  on  application.) 

Wood,  The  Life  of  the  Rev.  J.  G.    By  his  Son,  the  Rev.  THEODORE  WOOD. 

With  Fr-  --ait.     Extra  crown  8vo,  cloth.     Cheap  Edition.    35.  6d. 
Work.     The    Illustrated  Journal  for  Mechanics.     New  and  Enlarged  Seritt. 

Vol.  VII.  45. 
"  Work  "  Handbooks.     A  Series  of  Practical  Manuals  prepared  under  the  Direc- 

tion of  PAUL  N.  HASLUCK,  Editor  of  Work.     Illustrated.     Cloth,  is.  each. 
World  of  Wit  and  Humour,  The.  With  400  Illustrations.     Cloth,  73.  6d. 
World  of  Wonders,  The.    With  400  Illustrations.    Two  Vols.    75.  6d.  each. 
Wrecker,  The.    By  R.  L.  STEVENSON  and  LLOYD  OSBOURNE.    Illustrated.    6s. 
Yule  Tide.    CASSELL'S  CHRISTMAS  ANNUAL,    is. 

ILLUSTRATED  MAGAZINES. 
The    Quiver,  for  Sunday  and  General  Rra.rtiit.tj.     Monthly,  6d. 

CasselVs  Family  Magazine.    Monthly,  6d. 

"  Little  Folks  "  Magazine.    Monthly,  6d. 

The  Magazine  of  Art.    With  Three  Plates.     Monthly,  is.  4d. 

CasselVs  Saturday  Journal.    Weekly,  id.  ;  Monthly,  6d. 

Chums.     The  Illustrated  Paper  for  Boys.    Weekly,  id.;  Monthly,  6d. 

The    Paris   Mode.      A   Fashion  Journal   of  the    Highest   Class. 

Illustrated.    Weekly,  id.  ;  Monthly,  6d. 

Work.     Illustrated  Journal  for  Mechanics.    Weekly,  id.;  Monthly,  6d. 
Cottage  Gardening.     Illustrated.     Weekly,  *d.  ;  Monthly,  3d. 
full  particular*  of  CASSELL  &  COMPANY'S  Monthly  Serial  Publication! 
CASSELL  &  COMPANY'S  COMPLETE  CATALOGUE. 


Catalogues  of  CASSELL  &  COMPANY'S  PUBLICATIONS,  which  may  be  had  at  all 

Booksellers',  or  will  be  sent  post  free  on  application  to  the  Publishers  :— 
CASSELL'S  COMPLETE  CATALOGUE,   containing    particulars  of    upward*  of    On« 


?BD  CATALOGUE,  in  which  their  Works  are  arranged  according 
to  price,  from  Threepence  to  Fifty  Guineas. 

CASSELL'S    EDUCATIONAL    CATALOGUE,    containing    particulars    of    CASSELL    « 
COMPANY'S  Educational  Works  and  Students'  Manual*. 

CASSELL  &  COMPANY,  LIMITED,  Ludeate     ill.  Undo*. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <fc  Company's  Publications. 

(B5«rati0nal  Iteks  anfc  j^tiifonts'  JKattuals. 

Agricultural  Text-Books,  Cassell's.  (The  "  Downton  "  Series. )  Fully  Illustrated. 
Edited  by  JOHN  WRIGHTSON,  Professor  of  Agriculture.  Soils  and  Manures.  By 
J.  M.  H.  Munro,  D.Sc.  (London),  F.I.C.,  F.C.S.  2s.6d.  Farm  Crops.  By  Pro- 
fessor Wrightson,  2s.  6d.  Live  Stock.  By  Professor  Wrightson.  2s.  6d. 

Alphabet,  Cassell's  Pictorial     Mounted  on  Linen,  with  rollers.     35.  6d. 

Arithmetic  :— Howard's  Art  of  Reckoning.    By  C.  F.  HOWARD.     Paper,  is. ; 

cloth,  25.     Enlarged  Edition,  55. 

Arithmetics,  The  "Belle  Sauvage."    By  GEORGE  RICKS,  B.Sc.  Lond,     With 

Test  Cards.     (List  on  application.') 

Atlas,  Cassell's  Popular.     Containing  24  Coloured  Maps.    25.  6d. 
Book-Keeping.     By  THEODORE  JONES.     FOR  SCHOOLS,  as. ;  or  cloth,  35.    FOR 

THE  MILLION,  25.  ;  or  cloth,  35.     Books  for  Jones's  System,  Ruled  Sets  of,  25. 
British  Empire  Map  of  the  World.     New  Map  for  Schools  and  Institutes.     By 

G.  R.  PARKIN  and  J.  G.  BARTHOLOMEW,  F.R.G.S.     Mounted  on  cloth,  varnished, 

and  with  Rollers  or  Folded.     255. 

Chemistry,  The  Public  School.    By  J.  H.  ANDERSON,  M.A.     25.  6d. 

Cookery  for  Schools.    By  LIZZIE  HERITAGE.    6d. 

Dulce  Domnm.     Rhymes  and  Songs  for  Children.     Edited  by  JOHN  FARMER, 

Editor  of  "  Gaudeamus,"  &c.      Old  Notation  and  Words,  55.      N.B. — The  Words  of 

the  Songs  in  "Dulce  Domum"  (with  the  Airs  both  in  Tonic  Sol-Fa  and  Old  Notation) 

can  be  had  in  Two  Parts,  6d.  each. 
English  Literature,  A  First  Sketch  of,  from  the  Earliest  Period  to  the  Present 

Time.     By  Prof.  HENRY  MORLEY.     75.  6d. 
Euclid,  Cassell's.    Edited  by  Prof.  WALLACE,  M.A.     is. 
Euclid,  The  First  Four  Books  of.    New  Edition.     In  paper,  6d.  ;  cloth,  gd. 
French,  Cassell's  Lessons  in.     New  and  Revised  Edition.   Parts  I.  and  II.,  each, 

2S.  6d.  ;  complete,  45.  6d.     Key,  is.  6d. 
French-English  and  English-French  Dictionary.    Entirely  New  and  Enlarged 

Edition.     1,150  pages,  8vo,  cloth,  35.  6d. 

French  Reader,  Cassell's  Public  School.    By  GUILLAUME  S.  CONRAD.    25.  6d. 
Galbraith  and  Haughton's  Scientific  Manuals. 

Plane  Trigonometry,  as.  6d.  Euclid.  Books  I.,  II..  III.  as.  6d.  Books  IV.,  V.,  VI.  25.  6d. 
Mathematical  Tables.  35.  6d.  Mechanics.  35.  6d.  Natural  Philosophy.  35.  6d.  Optics, 
as.  6d.  Hydrostatics.  35.  6<L  Steam  Engine.  35.  6d.  Algebra.  Part  1.,  cloth,  25.  6d.  Com- 
plete, 75. 6d.  Tides  and  Tidal  Currents,  with  TidalCards,  ss. 

Gaudeamus.  Songs  for  Colleges  and  Schools.  Edited  by  JOHN  FARMER.  53. 
Words  only,  paper,  6d.  ;  cloth,  gd. 

Geometry,  First  Elements  of  Experimental.  By  PAUL  BERT.  Illustrated,  is.  6d. 
Geometry,  Practical  Solid.     By  Major  Ross,  R.E.    25. 

German  Dictionary,  Cassell's  New.  German- English,  English- German.  Cheap 
Edition,  cloth,  35.  6d.  ;  half-roan,  45.  6d. 

German  Reading,  First  Lessons  in.    By  A.  JAGST.    Illustrated,     is. 

Hand   and   Eye   Training.    jn  TWO  Vols.     By  GEORGE    RICKS,   B.Sc.,  and 

JOSEPH  VAUGHAN.    Illustrated.     VoL  I.     Designing  with  Coloured  Papers.     Vol.  II. 

Cardboard  Work.     Boards,  2S.  each. 

Hand  and  Eye  Training.     By  G.  RICKS,  B.Sc.    Two  Vols.,  with  16  Coloured 

Plates  in  each  Vol.     Crown  410,  6s.  each. 

"  Hand  and  Eye  Training "  Cards  for  Class  Work.   Five  sets  in  case.  is.  each. 
Historical  Cartoons,  Cassell's  Coloured.   Size  45  in.  x  35  in.   as.  each.   Mounted 

on  canvas  and  varnished,  with  rollers,  55.  each.     (Descriptive  pamphlet,  16  pp.,  id.) 
Historical  Course  for  Schools,  Cassell's.    Illustrated  throughout.    The  Simple 

Outline  of  English  History,  is.  sd.     The  Class  History  of  Engknd,  25.  6d. 
Italian  Lessons,  with  Exercises,  Cassell's.     In  One  Vol.    35.  6d. 
Latin  Dictionary,  Cassell's  New.    (Latin-English  and  English-Latin.)     Revised 

by  J.  R.   V.  MARCHANT,   M.A.,  and    J.   F.  CHARLES,  B.A.     35.  6d.     Superior 

Edition,  55. 

Latin  Primer,  The  New.    By  Prof.  J.  P.  POSTGATE.     ss.  6d. 
Latin  Primer,  The  First    By  Prof.  POSTGATE.     is. 
Latin  Prose  for  Lower  Forms.    By  M.  A.  BAYFIELD,  M.A.    2s.  6d. 
Laws  of  Every-Day  Life.    For  the  Use  of  Schools.    By  H.  O.  ARNOLD-FORSTER, 

M.P.     is.  6d.      Special  Edition  on  green  paper  for  those  with  weak  eyesight,  as. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <k  Company's  Publications. 


Lessons  In  Onr  Laws  ;  or,  Talks  at  Broadacre  Farm.  By  H.  F.  LESTER,  B.A. 
Part  I.  :  THE  MAKERS  AND  CARRIERS-OUT  OF  THE  LAW.  Part  II.  :  LAW  COU«TS 
AND  LOCAL  RULE,  &c.  is.  6d.  each. 

Little  Folks'  History  of  England.    By  ISA  CRAIG-KNOX.    Illustrated,    is.  6d, 
Making  of  the  Home,  The.     By  Mrs.  SAMUEL  A.  BARNETT.    is.  6d. 

MarlborOUgh  BOOkS  :  —  Arithmetic  Examples.  35.     French  Exercises      35.  6d.    French 

Grammar.    25.  6d.    Qermau  Grammar.    35.  6d. 

Mechanics  for  Young  Beginners,  A  First  Book  of.    By  the  Rev.  I.  G.  EASTON 

M.A.    4s.  6d. 
Mechanics  and  Machine  Design,   Numerical  Examples    in  Practical    By 

R.  G.   ELAINE,  M.E.    New  Edition,  Revised  and  Enlarged.     With  79  Illustrations. 

Cloth,  is.  6d. 

Natural  History  Coloured  Wall  Sheets,   Cassell  s  New.      Consisting  of  vj 

subjects.      Size,  39  by  31  in.     Mounted  on  rollers  and  varnished.      35.  each. 

Object  Lessons  from  Nature.      By  Prof.  L.  C.  MIALL,  F.L.S.,  F.G.S.     Fully 

Illustrated.      New  and  Enlarged  Edition.     Two  Vols.     is.  6d.  each. 

Physiology  for  Schools.     By  ALFRED  T.  SCHOFIELD,  M.D.,  M.R.C.S.,  &c. 

Illustrated,     is.  gd.     Three  Parts,  paper  covers,  sd.  each  ;  or  cloth  limp,  6d.  each. 
Poetry  Readers,  CasselTs  New.  Illustrated.    12  Books,    id.  each.    Cloth,  is.  6d. 
Popular  Educator,  Cassell's  New.    With  Revised  Text,  New  Maps,  New  Coloured 

Plates,   New   Type,   &c.     Complete  in   Eight  Vols.,   55.  each  ;  or  Eight  Vols.   in 

Four,  half-morocco,  505. 
Reader,  The  Citizen.     By  H.  O.  ARNOLD-  FORSTER,  M.P.   Cloth,  is.  6d  ;  also  a 

Scottish  Edition,  cloth,  is.  6d. 

Reader,  The  Temperance.    By  Rev.  J.  DENNIS  HIRD.    is.  6d. 
Readers,  Cassell's  "Higher  Class."    (List  on  application.} 
Readers,  Cassell's  Readable.    Illustrated.     (List  on  application.) 
Readers  for  Infant  Schools,  Coloured.     Three  Books.    4d.  each. 
Readers,  Geographical,  Cassell's  New.     With  Numerous  Illustrations  in  each 

Book.     (List  on  application) 

Readers,  The  Modern  Geographical  Illustrated  throughout.  (List  on  application.) 
Readers,  The  Modern  School     Illustrated.    (List  on  application.) 
Reading  and  Spelling  Book,  Cassell's  Illustrated,    is. 
Round  the  Empire.     By  G.  R.  PARKIN.     With  a  Preface  by  t!:e  Rt.  Hon.  the 

Earl  of  Rosebery,  K.G.     Fully  Illustrated,     is.  fid. 
Science  Applied  to  Work.     By  J.  A.  BOWER.     Illustrated,     is. 
Science  of  Every-Day  Life.     By  J.  A.  BOWER.     Illustrated,     is. 
Sculpture,  A  Primer  of.     By  E.  ROSCOE  MULLINS.     Illustrated,     as.  6dL 
Shade  from  Models,  Common  Objects,  and  Casts  of  Ornament,  How  to.    By 

W.  E.  SPARKES.     With  25  Plates  by  the  Author.    35. 
Shakspere's  Plays  for  School  Use.    Illustrated.    9  Books.    6d.  each. 
Spelling,  A  Complete  Manual  of.    By  J.  D.  MORELL,  LL.D.     is. 
Technical  Educator,  Cassell's  New.    An  entirely  New  Cyclopaedia  of  Technical 

Education,  with  Coloured  Plates  and  Engravings.     In  Vols.,  55.  each. 

Technical  Manuals,  Cassell's.  Illustrated  throughout.  16  Vols.,  from  as.  1045.  6d. 

(List  free  on  application.) 

Technology,  Manuals  of.  Edited  by  Prof.  AYRTON,  F.R.S..  and  RICHARD 
WORMELL,  D.Sc.,  M.A.  Illustrated  throughout. 


The  Dyeing  of  Textile  Fabrics.    By  Prof. 

HummeL    55. 
Watch  and  Clock  Making.    By  D.  Glasgow 


Institute.    4S-  6d. 


By  L). 

itish    H 


orolojjical 


Steel  and  Iron.     By  Prof.  W.  H.  Greenwood, 
F.CS.,  M.I.C.E..  ic.    js- 


Design  in  Textile  Fabrics.    By  T.  R.  A»h«». 

SDinning  Woollen  and  Worsted.  By  W. 
S.  McLaren.  M.P.  4*.  6d. 

Practical  Mechanics.  By  Prof.  Perry.  M.E. 
M.  6d. 

Cutting  Tools  Worked  by  Hand  and  Ma- 
chine. By  Prof.  Smith.  31.  6d. 


Things  New  and  Old ;  or,  Stories  from  English  History.    By  H.  O.  ARNOLD. 

FORST«,  M.P.    Fully  illustrated.    Strongly  bound  in  Ctoth.    Standards  L-d  II, 
gd.  each  ;    Standard  III.,  is.  ;  Standard  IV.,  is.  3d-  I  Standards  V.,  VI.,  mad  VII.. 

By  H.  O.  ARNOLD-FORSTER,  M.  P.  Fully  Illustrated.  3«.6d. 


Selections  from  Cassell  <k  Company's  Publications. 


Eighteenpenny  Story  Books.    All  Illustrated  throughout. 


Wee  Willie  Winkle. 
Ups   and   Downs   of  a  Don- 
key's Life. 

Three  Wee  Ulster  Lassies. 
Up  the  Ladder. 
Dick's  Hero ;  &  other  Stories. 
The  Chip  Boy. 


Haggles,  Baggies,  and  the 

Emperor. 

Hoses  from  Thorns. 
Faith's  Father. 
By  Land  and  Sea. 
The  Young  Berringtons. 
Jeff  and  Leff. 


Tom  Morris's  Error. 

Worth  more  than  Gold. 

"  Through    Flood— Through 

Fire." 
The  Girl    with   the    Golden 

Locks. 
Stories  of  the  Olden  Time. 


"Little    Folks"   Painting    Books.      With  Text,   and  Outline  Illustrations  for 

Water-Colour  Painting,     is.  each. 

Fruits  and  Blossoms  for  •'Little  Folks"     I    The  "Little  Folks"    Proverb  Painting 
to  Paint.  |       Book.    Oath  only,  25. 

Library  of  Wonders.    Illustrated  Gift-books  for  Boys.     Cloth,  is.  6d. 
Wonderful  Adventures.  I        Wonders  of  Animal  Instinct. 

Wonderful  Escapes.  I        Wonderful  Balloon  Ascents. 

Wonders  of  Bodily  Strength  and  Skill. 

The  "World  in  Pictures"  Series.  Illustrated  throughout.  Cheap  Edition.is.  6d.  each. 

The  Eastern  Wonderland  (Japan.). 
Glimpses  of  South  America. 
Bound  Africa. 
The  Land  of  Temples  (India). 


A  Ramble  Hound  France. 

All  the  Hussias. 

Chats  about  Germany. 

Peeps  into  China. 

The  Land  of  Pyramids  (Egypt). 


The  Isles  of  the  Pacific. 


Cheap  Editions  of  Popular  Volumes  for  Young  People.    Illustrated,    as.  6d. 
each. 

Working  to  Win. 
Perils  Afloat  and  Brigands 
"  Martin  Leigh's  Log.         J  i  For  Queen  and  King. 


In  Quest  of  Gold  ;  or,  Tinder  I  Esther  West. 
eW.-  or, 


Ashore. 


Two-Shilling  Story  Books. 

Margaret's  Enemy. 
Stories  of  the  Tower. 
Mr.  Burke's  Nieces. 
May  nnrminghyn'R  Trial. 
The  Top   of  the    Ladder  : 

How  to  Beach  it. 
Little  Flotsam. 

Half-crown  Story  Books. 

Pen's  Perplexities. 
Notable  Shipwrecks. 

Cassell's  Pictorial  Scrap  Book. 

cloth  back,  35.  6d.  per  VoL 
Our  Scrap  Book. 
The  Seaside  Scrap  Book. 
The  Little  Folks'  Scrap  Book. 


All  Illustrated. 
Madge  and  her  Friends. 
The  Children  of  the  Court. 
Maid  Marjory. 
The  Four  Cats  of  the  Tip- 

pertons. 

Marion's  Two  Homes. 
Little  Folks'  Sunday  Book. 


Two  Fourpenny  Bits. 

Poor  Nelly. 

Tom  Heriot. 

Aunt  Tabitha's  Waifs. 

In  Mischief  Again. 

Through  Peril  to  Fortune. 

Peggy,  and  other  Tales. 


At  the  South  Pole. 

Pictures  of  School  Life  and  Boyhood. 


In   Six  Sectional  Volumes.      Paper  boards, 

I          The  Magpie  Scrap  Book. 
The  Lion  Scrap  Book. 
The  Elephant  Scrap  Book. 


Books  for  the  Little  Ones.     Fully  Illustrated. 

Cassell'i 


Hhymes  for  the  Young  Folk.  By  William 
Allingham.  Beautifully  Illustrated.  35.  60. 

The  Sunday  Scrap  Book.  With  Several 
Hundred  Illustrations.  Boards,  35. 6d. ;  doth, 
gilt  edges,  55. 

The  History  Scrap  Book.  With  nearly 
1,000  Engravings.  Cloth,  ys.  6d. 


Robinson     Crusoe. 


Illustrations.     Cloth,   35.  6d.  ;  gift  edges.  55. 

The  Old  Fairy  Tales.  With  Original  Illus- 
trations. Boards,  is. ;  cloth,  is.  6d. 

My  Diary.  With  Twelve  Coloured  Plates  and 
386  Woodcuts,  is. 

Cassell's  Swiss  Family  Robinson.  Illus- 
trated. Cloth,  35.  6d. ;  gilt  edges,  55. 


The  World's  Workers.     A  Series   of   New  and    Original  Volumes   by  Popular 

Authors.     With  Portraits  printed  on  a  tint  as  Frontispiece,     is.  each. 
John  Cassell.    By  G.  Holden  Pike. 
Charles  Haddon  Spurgeon.    By  G.  Holden 

Pike. 

Dr.  Arnold  of  Rugby.    By  Rose  E.  Selfe. 
The  Earl  of  Shaftesbury. 
Sarah  Robinson,  Agnes  Weston,  and  Mrs. 

Meredith. 

Thomas  A.  Edison  and  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse. 
Mrs.  Somerville  ana  Mary  Carpenter. 
General  Gordon. 
Charles  Dickens. 


Florence  Nightingale,  Catherine  Marsh, 
Frances  Ridley  Havergal,  Mrs.  Ran- 
yard  ("L.  N.  R-"). 


The  above  Works 


Dr.  Guthrie,  Father  Mathew,  Elinu   Bur- 

ritt,  Joseph  Livesey. 
Sir  Henry  Havelock   and  Colin  Campbell 

Lord  Clyde. 
Abraham  Lincoln. 
David  Livingstone. 
George  Muller  and  Andrew  Reed. 
Richard  Cobden.  f 

Benjamin  Franklin. 
Handel. 

Turner  the  Artist. 
George  and  Robert  Stephenson.     • 
Sir  Titus  Salt  and  George  Moore. 


also  be  had  7 hree  in  One  yol.,  cloth,  gilt  gage 


CASSELL   &    COMPANY,    Limited,   Ludgate    Hill,  London; 
Paris  «fc  Melbourne. 


000  039  730     7