The Story Of A Soldier's Life Vol. II

Field Marshal Viscount Garnet Wolseley

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781782895787
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Few men in the Victorian Age achieved the stature of Field Marshal Garnet Wolesley, a dedicated soldier, man of foresight and vision, colonial administrator and up holder of the Pax Britannica from India to Africa.
Viscount Wolseley started his military career in the little-known Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852), before being plunged into the bloody senseless conflict of the Crimean War (1854-55). His disgust of the mismanagement and amateurish conduct of the British army left him with a lifelong dedication to efficiency, his men and victory. Distinguished for his bravery during the Indian Mutiny (1857-1858), at Alambagh and Lucknow, and again during an expedition to China.
His globetrotting career led him to North America where he was present during the early battles of the Civil War and his anecdotes of this time are pithy and worthy enough to be quoted even to this day. Duty called him away north to Canada to re-establish British dominion over the Red River province which he did with aplomb. He was now among the top generals of the British army; and was sent to bring the Ashanti campaign to a successful conclusion. He took over command from Lord Chelmsford in 1878 after the disastrous start to the Zulu war which he ruthlessly won with tenacity and dedication. However his finest hour was yet to come in Egypt; he destroyed the rebellion of Urabi Pasha in short order after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir and commanded the ill-fated, but ultimately brilliant, effort to relieve General Gordon in Khartoum.
His two volume memoirs recount his brilliant career to his famous victory in the Ashanti War 1873-1874 and are a must read for anyone interested in the Victorian age or the British Empire.

CHAPTER XXIX

Army Lands at Peh-Tang, August 2, 1860

THE landing party consisted of General Sutton’s brigade of foot, with a nine-pounder and a rocket battery, conveyed in large troop boats, each of which held fifty soldiers. All were towed ashore by two small gun-vessels. We soon came in sight of the high cavaliers in the shore forts, which at that epoch were always striking features in Chinese sea coast defences. Pushing on, the boats anchored under the mud bank of the southern side of the river about a mile below the forts. No enemy showed himself beyond what we should have called a couple of squadrons of mounted Tartars who kept near the gate through which leads the road to Sinho and the Taku Forts. There was about a mile of a deep muddy flat to be waded through immediately upon landing, so there was little of the pomp and circumstance of war about that operation. The first man to jump ashore and lead up the mud bank was the brigadier. He was an old campaigner well known for his swearing propensities, and famous as a great game shot in South Africa. I shall never forget his appearance as he struggled through that mud, knee deep in many places. He had taken off trousers, boots and socks, and slung them over his brass scabbarded sword which he carried over one shoulder. Picture a somewhat fierce and ugly bandy-legged little man thus-accoutred in a big white helmet, clothed in a dirty jacket of red serge, below which a very short slate-coloured flannel shirt extended a few inches, cursing and swearing loudly “all round” at everybody and everything as he led his brigade through that hateful mire. I remember many funny scenes in my soldiering days, but I never laughed more than I did at this amusing “disembarkation” of the first brigade that landed in northern China.

We had a cold, bad and wet bivouac that night. Neither tree nor bush to burn, and no fresh water to drink, for every calabash had been soon emptied in the exertion of struggling through the mud. Around us many marshy spots of dirty salt water, but not a drop to drink. In the middle of the night Major—afterwards Sir Henry—Wilmot and I started back on the mud in search of the Quarter-Master-General’s boat, in which I knew there was a small keg of drinking water. After a long dreary and fatiguing march to and fro, we reached the bivouac, carrying the water keg slung on an oar between us. We met with a warm reception. During the night, Mr.—afterwards Sir Harry—Parkes the most indefatigable and most daring of men, together with an officer of the Quarter-Master-General’s department, made his way unopposed into the town of Peh-Tang. The inhabitants said there were no soldiers there, so those two gentlemen broke open the fort gate, and soon returned to our general with the news. The people told them they suffered much from the Tartar patrols that frequently visited them. They hated these Tartars, to whom they referred in an “aside”—not intended to be overheard by Mr. Parkes—as “stinking more than you English do.” We think ourselves a cleanly race, but we must evidently have to Chinese noses a strong “national smell” we wot not of ourselves.

The next day and thenceforward until we finally left the place for the Pei-Ho River, our men were horribly crowded in Peh-Tang, having to share its limited accommodation with the French. Our Chinese Cooly Corps, some 2,500 strong, under Major Temple, did us most excellent service in landing our stores, etc., at Peh-Tang; but they were great rascals and difficult to keep in any order in a Chinese town like Peh-Tang.

On August 9 I was sent with 200 cavalry and zoo foot to reconnoitre the enemy’s position in the direction of Sinho, a large village about six miles south-west of Peh-Tang. I made a wide detour with the cavalry, pushing on within a mile of the enemy’s left flank at that place. I returned without firing a shot with the glad tidings that the line I had taken led over firm ground suitable for all arms, intersected with many pools of good fresh water.

We had some heavy rain during our hateful halt at Peh-Tang, a stay much prolonged by the French, who were slow in their disembarkation of both men and stores, through want of the necessary appliances. We all longed to get away from that town’s muddy, filthy streets and stinking houses, so when it became known in the evening of August 22 that we were to celebrate our grouse-shooting festival of the morrow by an advance on Sin-Ho, every heart rejoiced. It is only through experience of the sensation that we learn how intense, even in anticipation, is the rapture-giving delight which the attack upon an enemy affords. I cannot analyze nor weigh, nor can I justify the feeling. But once really experienced, all other subsequent sensations are but as the tinkling of a doorbell in comparison with the throbbing toll of Big Ben.

The 11th August was a wet day, and the weather did not look very promising at daybreak the following morning, but no rain fell. The plan of operations was simple. The second Division under Sir Robert, afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala, was to follow the route my reconnaissance had taken three days previously, whilst the first Division was to move along the direct causeway through the surrounding marshes. General Montauban strove his best to dissuade Sir Hope Grant from moving at all, as the recent wet weather would, he said, have rendered the country deep and his men would suffer much in traversing it. However, Sir Hope was firm and General Montauban gave way unwillingly, but with a good grace.

The second Division started on the 12th from Peh-Tang at 4 a.m., and took about three hours in filing over the bridge that led from the town into the open country. As I had sketched the route to be followed, I was sent with Sir R. Napier to lead the column. Great difficulty was experienced in getting its guns through the marsh outside of Peh-Tang and west of the direct road, owing to the heavy rains of the two previous days. The first Division had not cleared from the town until a little after Io a.m., at which time the French began to move.

As we neared the enemy’s works at Simbo, about 11 a.m., a large body of from 2,000 to 3,000 Tartar cavalry rode pluckily with loud shouts making for our right. The Brigadier foolishly, I thought, formed his Brigade into Battalion squares. Had he received this irregularly delivered charge in line, as he ought to have done, he must have killed a large number of his assailants. However, they were caught by our native cavalry, who, charging into the thick of them, killed many, and drove the rest back at as fast a pace as that at which they had advanced. The first Division, moving by the road on the causeway, deployed when about 1,400 yards from the enemy’s entrenchments, upon which both French and English guns opened at a range of 2,000 yards. From where I was with the second Division, I saw all this n profile. There was a considerable body of the enemy’s horse round their main entrenchments who suffered severely from the enfilading fire of our artillery, which their jingalls and matchlocks in vain endeavoured to suppress. Indeed, their fire did us little harm. When the second Division had reached the firm ground about three miles from the Peh-Tang Bridge, it deployed into fighting formation, with the cavalry on its right, and its artillery were soon in action. The practice of our new Armstrong guns delighted every one—except the Chinese. The Tartar cavalry then advanced boldly towards us in very open loose order, and though each shell seemed to burst amongst them we could see few riderless horses.

No men could have advanced under such a heavy fire more pluckily than they did, and I could not help thinking what splendid cavalry they would be under British officers! They came on in scattered parties until fairly near our cavalry, when with a loud wild yell they charged with much determination. Our two native cavalry regiments, led by Major, now General, Sir Dighton Probyn, V.C., and by Lieutenant Fane, were upon them at a gallop in a few minutes, supported by two magnificent squadrons of the King’s Dragoon Guards. This was too much for even those brave Mongols, who soon turned and fled. Our pursuit lasted for five miles, and was then only ended because our horses were “pumped.” They were in no galloping condition, having been long on board ship. The enemy, mounted on hardy ponies in good working condition, kept easily ahead of our horsemen. The French and English troops then advanced and entered the pretty little town of Sin-Ho. About two and a half miles south-east of it, on the road to Taku, stood the village of Tang-ku. A narrow causeway connected it with Sin-Ho, the country to its north being at some places very swampy and almost impassable. Between it and the Pei-Ho River to the south the ground was firm and good.

By a reconnaissance made next morning it was ascertained that all the Tartar cavalry had retired to the right bank of the Pei-Ho by which the road to Pekin passes.

In Sin-Ho we found some interesting letters from the celebrated Tartar General Sang-ko-lin-sin to the Great Council of State as to the plans we might be expected to follow should we land an army near the mouth of the Pei-Ho. He had evidently had our parliamentary discussions upon the proposed war translated. His minute upon the discussion in Parliament upon our proposed war with China is an amusing commentary upon our usual mode of proceeding in all such matters. He remarks that the fact of our having then said so openly in public that we meant to invade Northern China was a clear proof that we had no such intention. He added, “those who make war keep silent regarding their proposed movements: everything is talked over and done in secret, the drums are muffled and no flags are shown.” He gave us credit for more public wisdom in all questions of peace and war than we ever display. He showed his own military wisdom by saying that “should the barbarians persist in the avowed intention of invasion, they will most likely land at Peh-Tang: to do this is very difficult, but as we cannot defend the place they may succeed.” He then proceeded to describe the difficulties we should encounter, and did so clearly and ably. He predicted the course of events very much as they occurred, his only serious mistake being that he did not annihilate us, and that we chased from the field those whom he had commissioned to end our existence.

The next morning, August 13, I was sent out with some cavalry to reconnoitre up the river, but obtained little useful information.

The morning of August 14 was fine. We were under arms at 4 a.m., and the sky looked promising. The first few rays of the sun sparkled on our bayonets, and warmed us all pleasantly. The twelve French and twenty-four British guns opened fire upon the enemy’s works round Tang-Koo at a range of about goo yards, and soon silenced the fourteen Chinese guns opposed to them. Thereupon a party of the King’s Royal Rifles, gallantly led by Lieutenant Shaw, contrived to effect an entrance into the place at the point where the enemy’s works touched the river. Tang-Koo was soon ours, and the allied armies camped in and around Sin-Ho. This was a considerable success, achieved with little loss. There we halted six days to bring up the other heavy guns and ammunition we should require for the capture of the Taku Forts which defended the mouth of the river. It was in attacking them that Admiral Sir James Hope had met with his serious reverse in June the previous year, as already mentioned.

My work was constant in sketching ground, mapping the country, and making reconnaissances in all directions. This I enjoyed beyond measure. The weather was delightful, with cool, cloudy days and the nights sufficiently warm to make a bivouac pleasant. On August 16 I had been busy all day at some distance from the river. Upon returning to camp in the evening I found it under water from an unusually high tide. Looking into my tent I found much of my extremely small kit floating about there. I did not enjoy my bed that night.

We now threw a bridge of boats across the Pei-Ho near Tang-Koo, half made by us and half by the French: a bad arrangement. It would have been much better to have drawn lots to decide which army should make it. A dose reconnaissance of the Taku Forts was now made by the two allied Commanders-in-Chief. Sir Hope Grant was strongly of opinion that the capture of the forts on the northern or left bank of the river was the proper object to aim at. But General Montauban took the opposite view and pressed for the attack to be directed instead upon the great forts on the southern or right bank. I need not enter here upon any after-the-event discussion of the relative merits of the two plans. I content myself with saying that every member of the British Headquarter Staff agreed with our leader. By crossing the Pei-Ho to follow the French proposal we should place an unfordable river between us and our only base, that of Peh-Tang. But there were so many reasons for refusing to accept General Montauban’s plan that I pass on, merely remarking that he thought it necessary to protest in a strongly worded minute of August 20 against Sir Hope Grant’s scheme for the capture of the Taku Forts. In that document he said Sir Hope’s plan was opposed to his ideas of the method of conducting this operation of war, and wound up as follows: “The object of my observations is, above all, to free myself from military responsibility with reference to my own Government in the event of its judging the question from the same point of view as that from which I myself regard it.”

Sir Hope Grant answered it the same day, combating General Montauban’s arguments and adhering to the decision he had already arrived at.

Throughout this war the few troops furnished for it by France constituted a serious drag upon all our operations. We never derived any military benefit whatever from them, but I suppose the Ministers at home, who always have the best means of forming an opinion upon matters of foreign policy, deemed it advisable at that particular time to face the military drawbacks of the alliance for the international advantages it was hoped we should gain thereby. I spare my readers any learned exposition of the relative merits of the two plans for the taking of the Taku Forts. The matter is purely professional, and I shall only say that after a lapse of forty years I am as strongly of opinion now as I was in 1860 that Sir Hope Grant’s plan was the true one, in fact the only sound one for that operation.

By the night of August 20 everything was ready for the attack of the northern fort—that nearest to us—which our general had selected as the key to the position. Sir Robert Napier—an old engineer officer—was of invaluable use to our Commander-in-Chief whilst these arrangements were being made, but the entire plan of operations was Sir Hope Grant’s alone. With the eight heavy guns and three eight-inch mortars we had placed in position, and two Armstrong twelve-pounder batteries, two nine-pounder batteries and one rocket battery we opened fire at 5 a.m., August 21, the enemy answering with all the guns they could bring to bear upon our batteries. Amongst their guns were the two thirty-two pounders they had taken from our gunboats sunk upon the occasion of Admiral Sir James Hope’s disastrous attack the previous year.

About 6 a.m., during what I may call the climax of the artillery fire on both sides, a tall black pillar of smoke and rubbish shot up as if by magic in the fort upon which our fire was concentrated. It burst like a rocket shell upon attaining a considerable height, scattering around in all directions a shower of earth, planks and other wooden débris. This was followed by a very heavy, rumbling, booming sound. A large magazine had been exploded by our fire, and for a few moments the firing ceased on both sides, the common opinion being that all further resistance there was at an end. But we had reckoned without our host, for soon the Chinese batteries reopened all round. Half-an-hour later another explosion took place, but this time it was in the larger northern fort. By 7 a.m. we had silenced all the guns in the fort Sir Hope Grant had selected for attack, and he now felt the time had arrived to assault it. He accordingly ordered two battalions—one of the Essex the other of the York and Lancaster Regiments—to advance and attack. They moved straight for the gate of the fort, a French column on our right advancing towards the angle of the work where it rested upon the river. It had been unfortunately arranged that a strong party of the Royal Marines should carry on their shoulders a small infantry pontoon bridge previously put together and made ready for launching upon the outer wet ditch of the fort. This was a stupid proceeding on the part of our engineers, for it not only increased our loss and somewhat retarded our capture of the place, but it blocked up the only good road for our assaulting column. A round shot or large jingall bullet tore open one of these copper pontoons as the bridge was being carried by our men, and when laid down on the edge of the ditch it could not be launched until the injured pontoon, etc., had been removed. I was in a stooping position, on my knees, busy helping its removal, when I heard some one immediately behind me say something. Looking up, I saw it was Gerald Graham, V.C., of the Royal Engineers, the most imperturbable of men, and an old comrade of mine in the trenches before Sebastopol.{4} Much over six feet in height, he was riding a tall horse, and to hear what he was saying amidst the general hubbub of shouts mingled with the noise and din of heavy firing, I stood up and put my hand upon his thigh to get my ear nearer to hire. He said in the most ordinary tone, and without wincing, “Don’t put your hand there, for I have just had a bullet through my thigh.”

The rear face of the more northern of the two forts on the left bank of the Pei-Ho—that which we were attacking—was protected by two wet ditches twenty feet apart. Over them the road to the gateway of the fort passed by wooden bridges; that across the outer ditch had been removed, and the drawbridge over the inner ditch was “up.” The gate itself had been recently blocked up with rows of strong timber, the ends well sunk in the ground. The parapet had been considerably thickened to “counter” what the Chinese deemed the mean advantage we had taken of attacking the rear instead of the front face of the work. The space between the two ditches was as closely planted with sharply pointed bamboo stakes as the wheat stalks of a stubble field.

The scramble over those two ditches was no child’s play under the shower of missiles of all sorts, from “stinkpots” to cold roundshot, with which the Chinese plied their assailants. Fortunate indeed was the man who in the foremost ranks reached the foot of the parapet unhurt. Some men ran along the edge of the ditch searching for an easy point of passage, but others more daring and following their officer’s example, plunged at once recklessly into the muddy water before them which in the middle reached their armpits. Even in the midst of all the turmoil at the moment, shouts of laughter greeted the poor devil who had the bad luck to sink for a moment in some chance hole as he pushed across. What danger is there in which the British soldier will not have his laugh? The narrow causeway to the Fort Gate was soon covered with killed and wounded, and the garrison seemed determined to fight to the last. It was slow work thus getting over those two ditches. Busy as I was at the outer ditch, my attention was attracted by seeing an officer with his sword in his mouth swarm up one of the side posts over the top of which passed the rope which held up the drawbridge of the inner ditch. It was my late “chum” in the Oudh campaign, the recklessly daring Augustus Anson, M.P. He was soon high enough to hack with his sword—and it was always sharp—at the rope, until down came the drawbridge with a crash. It had suffered severely from our fire, still many were able to crawl over its shaky timbers. This was a plucky, an heroic, feat on his part characteristic of the man. He had already won the Victoria Cross.

Our assaulting column was 2,500 strong; the French were to have operated with 1,000 men but did not furnish 500. They attacked on our right, and though few in number nothing could exceed their daring gallantry. It was well said upon that occasion that their conduct was “worthy of the great nation to which they belonged.” Their Chinese coolie corps carried the French scaling ladders, and to get over the wet ditches dry-foot our allies adopted an ingenious and amusing plan. They sent a number of these coolies into the middle of the ditch, and using them as a pier upon which they rested the ends of their scaling ladders, thus made a bridge of two spans over it, along which they scrambled.

After much labour on the part of all engaged, a considerable number of officers and private soldiers of both nations were soon gathered together under the steep outer slope of the parapet that enclosed the face of the fort we were attacking, and every minute increased that number. All attempts made by the French to place their ladders against that slope were met gallantly by the enemy, who hurled back both the ladders and the men u...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• PREFACE
• DEDICATION
• CHAPTER XXVII
• CHAPTER XXVIII
• CHAPTER XXIX
• CHAPTER XXX
• CHAPTER XXXI
• CHAPTER XXXII
• CHAPTER XXXIII
• CHAPTER XXXIV
• CHAPTER XXXV
• CHAPTER XXXVI
• CHAPTER XXXVII
• CHAPTER XXXVIII
• CHAPTER XXXIX
• CHAPTER XL
• CHAPTER XLI
• CHAPTER XLII
• CHAPTER XLIII
• CHAPTER XLIV
• CHAPTER XLV
• CHAPTER XLVI
• CHAPTER XLVII
• CHAPTER XLVIII
• CHAPTER XLIX
• CHAPTER L