Читать книгу The Story of the Zulu Campaign - Edmund Verney Wyatt Edgell - Страница 3

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Some apology or explanation may be deemed requisite, for delaying the publication of this "Story of the Zulu War" for more than a year after its conclusion. The little book itself was written very shortly after the capture of the king, Cetywayo, and the tardiness of its appearance has been, to a certain extent, intentional on my part.

Although it may seem ungracious and, perhaps, ungrateful to cavil at the war criticisms and descriptions which, by every post and telegram, adorn the pages of contemporaneous journalism, I would submit that the practice of writing ex cathedrâ on war topics the day after an engagement, is too early to allow us to examine motives as well as facts, so that we may form conclusions to which we can only justly arrive, when "Time, the corrector, where our judgments err," has softened prejudice and exposed partisan feeling. The worst and most valueless criticisms on Waterloo were given to the world immediately after the fight of Mont St. Jean. The most unreliable, and indeed erroneous, opinions in regard to the splendid errors of Inkerman and Balaklava, appeared before the Crimean war was ended, and many a hero, elevated by the verdict of contemporaneous eulogy to a temporary pedestal in the Temple of Fame, has since been dethroned by the calmer and more honest judgment of a later generation. When the Emperor Napoleon called us a "nation of shopkeepers," he, perhaps, intentionally, paid us a compliment; for peace, commerce, and prosperity, have, as a rule, I venture to hold, been more regarded in our islands than projects of violence, warfare, or conquest; and this with us has ever been an honourable characteristic of the Spirit of our present Age.

But as Sir Bartle Frere, one of England's greatest, wisest, and most humane administrators, was well aware, the great and time-honoured law of self-defence sometimes compels a State, like an individual, to resort to arms, and the Appeal of Battle, when all peaceful modes of arrangement have been vainly tried, becomes occasionally unavoidable. Then, and perhaps only then, we may be allowed, even by the Peace Society and the Acolytes who trim the lamps for Mr. John Bright, to take an interest in and feel proud of the disciplined courage, the love of honour, and the sense of duty of which we read in the campaigns, where those who are near and dear to us have fought and fallen under the British flag. Then the commanders we may have known as subalterns, but whose names are now in all circles as veritable "Household Words;" whose careers we have watched with proud, yet kindly sympathy, and whose triumphs we have seemed as countrymen to share; whose powers of intellect and prescience array, regulate, and wield at will the grim and stern materials at command; whose daring, and yet coolness in the midst of death, acts like a talisman upon the rank and file—whose providence, when one path fails, is ever ready for fresh resources and designs—are not these the men of whom we may say with Tacitus—

"Ratio et consilium propriæ Ducis artes"?

and of this class, I venture to think, were Lord Chelmsford and his lieutenants. And when we are ourselves in the "sere and yellow leaf," or have joined, mayhap, that "larger majority" which Gladstonian tactics and energy cannot hope to rival, our children and children's children, when they read of such names as Bartle Frere, Chelmsford, Wood, Pearson, Buller, and Piet Uys, may look back to English History and see that our "island mastiffs" have not become degenerate, either in courage or generosity, since the days of Harold, the Black Prince, or that knightly Sydney who fell at Zutphen!

Some experience of the Kaffir tribes and their characteristics, of the physical and geographical difficulties which attend upon a campaign in South Africa—dating, indeed, as far back as a score of years ago, and the interest which I have since taken in colonies where, as an Adjutant, I passed some very happy years among Boers, Bôk, and Kaffirs, had at the commencement of the late war prompted me to follow its various phases, with a view to write the story of the campaign. In this purpose I was encouraged by the offers of many old comrades who were about to start with their regiments for the seat of war, and who promised me by each available opportunity the assistances of their several journals, notes, and sketches.

"But one I would select from that proud throng,

···

And partly that bright names will hallow song,

And his was of the bravest."

And to those who have known that most accomplished gentleman and gallant soldier, young, brave, cheery, and débonnaire, Edmund Wyatt-Edgell, I need not say how delighted I was at his undertaking to correspond with me, and, as far as time and opportunity permitted, to keep me au courant with the march of events. From the time of his arrival at Natal to the fatal day on which he fell, he fulfilled that promise, and if any merit be due to the narrative I now present to public notice, it will, I believe, come through those descriptions which I received from my dead comrade and friend—Sit tibi terra levis!

Another motive, or perhaps more than one, "pricked the sides of my intent," and invited me to wield the pen upon a soil where erst I had drawn a "regulation" sword. In the "unvexed silence of a student's cell," i.e., London chambers, I could only watch the progress of the campaign, without hoping to share in its toils or its dangers. I might envy, but I could not participate—

"For who can view the ripen'd rose, nor seek

To wear it?"

In default of this, I could, however, follow in spirit the adventures, by flood and field, of more than a score of old comrades and companions in arms, who were winning honour and renown in a land not unfamiliar to me. In the hasty and, with all deference I say it, somewhat ignorant criticism of those amateur mentors who tell us how battles ought or ought not to be won, and who, from the calm solitudes of Fleet Street, would make or mar a military reputation, I venture to believe, was much injustice done to the Commander-in-chief of our forces in South Africa.

"A man must serve his time to every trade

Save censure. Critics all are ready made."

And I was the more convinced of this partisan and hostile feeling from the knowledge that, west of Temple Bar, and especially in the regions where veterans do most congregate, in the clubs and haunts alike of vieilles moustaches and military neophytes, from the "Senior" to the "Naval and Military," criticism was far less pronounced, and experience, as it invariably is, was more moderate in stricture and charitable in argument than elsewhere.

Lastly, the tragic fate of England's young chivalrous and knightly guest, which formed such a terrible episode of the war and draped our colours with mourning, even in the hour of victory, made a deep impression upon my mind, and caused me insensibly to marvel at the unworthy sentiments to which a large portion of the English public and the English press at that time gave utterance. Political feeling seemed then, as it now seems in poor Ireland, to override all sense of manly honour, generosity, hospitality, or common decency. The slaughter, for it was nothing less, of the princely and noble lad, who came to the shores of his country's hereditary foe, as a messenger of hope, alliance and future friendship, who had been taught by his father to love and study our English laws and customs, and who, in his abandonment in that fatal donga, must have felt shame for the comrades to whom his safety was entrusted; the sacrifice, I say, of this pure and devoted spirit, seemed to me to call for some record, less evanescent than a passing note or a newspaper article. If I have spoken strongly of the living in my sorrow for the dead, as a soldier I can but plead in vindication, that, in all my remembrance of the records of our English army I can recall no instance, save the one I have quoted, where an officer wearing our royal uniform and holding a royal commission, galloped away in front of his escort, and allowed a comrade to be done to death in unknightly fashion!

In conclusion I may say that this little work, although written con amore and from details furnished to me by my friend, Captain the Hon. E. V. Wyatt-Edgell, and others, lays no claim to historical value, but assumes to be merely the impressions de voyage of those who were actors in the scenes described.

WALLER ASHE.

Hare Court, Temple,

Nov. 1880.