Chapter 9

"The whole country is a steaming bog. I keep my health wonderfully, thank God! in spite of heat, hard work and exposure; and the men bear up like Britons. We all feel that the Government ought to allow every officer and man before Delhi to count every month spent here as a year of service in India. There is much that is disappointing and disgusting to a man who feels that more might have been done, but I comfort myself with the thought that history will do justice to the constancy and fortitude of the handful of Englishmen who have for so many weeks--months, I may say--of desperate weather, amid the greatest toil and hardship, resisted and finally defeated the worst and most strenuous exertions of an entire army and a whole nation in arms--an army trained by ourselves, and supplied with all but exhaustless munitions of war, laid up by ourselves for the maintenance of the Empire. I venture to aver that no other nation in the world would have remained here, or have avoided defeat had they attempted to do so."

The story of the rise and fall of the Indian Mutiny is the story of the life of Roberts--in so far as the rise is concerned. His was an inconspicuous but well played part. Acting as staff officer and lieutenant of a gunners' company by turns, he was always in the thick of it. If it were the command of guns at a difficult salient before Delhi, it was "Send Roberts." If it were an urgent message for more ammunition, at Agra, "Send Roberts." If it were an escort for the rescued women and children at the historic relief of Lucknow, "Send Roberts."

This slender, undersized officer, in spite of his physique, seemed indefatigable. He had several narrow escapes from death, in hand-to-hand encounters with sepoys. Once, a mutineer fired point-blank at him at twelve yards away, but for some providential reason Roberts' horse reared just at the moment of firing and received the bullet in his own head.

At another time, a fanatic danced out in front of his horse waving a turban to frighten it, and at the same time whirling a wicked looking scimitar around his head. Roberts drew his pistol but the weapon missed fire. The fanatic sprang forward, and it is probable that the career of a future Field Marshal would have ended then and there, had not a lancer spurred his horse in between and run the fellow down.

On still another occasion, his presence of mind saved the flag from capture and brought him the first of his many honors, the Victoria Cross. An assault had been made on the village of Khudaganj, and the pursuit was being followed up in brave style, when some of the rebels suddenly faced around and took steady aim at those who were charging them. Roberts was of the party and had gone to the rescue of a man who was on the verge of being run through by a bayonet, when he saw two sepoys running off with the Union Jack. He spurred his horse in pursuit, and, leaning over, wrenched the standard out of the hands of one of the men, at the same time sabering him. The other sepoy took advantage of the opportunity to take steady aim at Roberts, point-blank, but the weapon missed fire. Roberts returned with the flag, and for reward of his gallant action was given the V. C., that most coveted of British decorations.

Another officer in writing of the event says: "Roberts is one of those rare men who, to uncommon daring and bravery in the field, and unflinching, hard-working discharge of duty in the camp, adds the charm of cheery and unaffected kindness and hospitality in the tent, and his acquaintance and friendship are high prizes to those who obtain them."

With the end of the Mutiny, Roberts was sent to England on sick leave for a much-needed rest. In April, 1858, exactly six years after his arrival at Calcutta, he turned over his duties of Deputy-Assistant Quartermaster-General to his successor--though much against his will. He felt that again he was in danger of being put upon the shelf, and his intensely active nature longed for still further field service.

In a little over a year, however, he was recalled to India, and there given a unique task. The first Viceroy to India, Canning, determined to impress the natives by a pomp and display dear to their own hearts, and show the majesty of England, by holding a series of Durbars, or triumphal processions. These extended right across India, from city to city, for a thousand miles. To Roberts was assigned the important task of arranging all the details of the tour, and he did it with characteristic thoroughness. It was like moving a mammoth circus, what with elephants, tents, supplies of all kinds, and gorgeous trappings to be handled.

These Durbars lasted for six months, and the Viceroy not only complimented Roberts for his work, but gazetted him for the rank of Brevet Major.

The next few years were much of a piece--a routine of office and field work which, if it brought nothing sensational to the conscientious young officer, still kept his feet in the path of glory. It was not until the year 1875, that he reached the goal for which he had long striven--Quartermaster-General of the Army in India, which carried with it the rank of Major General.

With this title his larger work in India may be said to have fairly begun. For nearly twenty years longer his military career was to be continued there, and in the neighboring country of Afghanistan. It is all recounted in his "Forty-One Years in India"--a recital of constant adventure and interest. For his services, he was made a peer of England, receiving the title of Baron Roberts of Kandahar. An address presented to him by the native and English residents, on his leaving India, is worth repeating.

"The history of the British Empire in India has not, at least in the last thirty years, produced a hero like Your Lordship, whose soldier-like qualities are fully known to the world. The country which has been the cradle of Indian invasions came to realize the extent of your power and recognized your generalship. . . . The occupation of Kabul and the glorious battle of Kandahar are amongst the brightest jewels in the diadem of Your Lordship's Baronage. . . . Terrible in war and merciful in peace, Your Excellency's name has become a dread to the enemies of England and lovely to your friends."

That last phrase, "lovely to your friends," is a true though Oriental summing-up of one great secret of Roberts' renown. He has been called the "best-loved soldier of England." And he possessed in an especial degree the power of attracting and holding the love and respect of the East Indians. They felt that he would always deal fairly by them.

When he went to Mandalay, in 1886, he saw that if he wished to win the confidence of the people of Upper Burmah, he must win over the Buddhist priests. This he did, and even persuaded his Government to pension the three head priests.

"They showed their gratitude," he says, "by doing all they could to help me, and when I was leaving the country, the old Thathana bain accompanied me as far as Rangoon. We corresponded till his death, and I still hear occasionally from one or other of my Phoonghi friends."

As for his own soldiers, they came fairly to worship him. To them he was not a Lord, or General, or Field Marshal, but just "Bobs" and "Our Bobs." Wellington commanded the respect of his men, but Roberts their love.

"Lord Roberts! Well, he's just a father," is the testimony of one gunner in the South African War. "Often goes around hospital in Bloemfontein, and it's 'Well, my lad, how are you today? Anything I can do for you? Anything you want?'--and never forgets to see that the man has what he asks for. Goes to the hospital train--'Are you comfortable? Are you sure you're comfortable?' Then it's 'Buck up! Buck up!' to those who need it. But when he sees a man dying, it's 'Can I pray with you, my lad?' I've seen him many a time praying, with not a dry eye near--tears in his eyes and ours. He is a lord!"

A favorite story about him relates to an audience with Queen Victoria. The famous veteran was then sixty-eight and for several years had been living in retirement. Now his sovereign asked him to buckle on his sword again, and go to retrieve the fallen British fortunes in South Africa.

"You do not think that you are too old for this arduous task?" asked the Queen. "You are not afraid of your health breaking down?"

"I have kept myself fit," replied the old soldier, "for the past twenty years, in the hope that I might command in such a campaign as this."

The remark, "I have kept myself fit," is a keynote of his life. The puny boy of the long ago was to survive this campaign with flying colors, and to lend his counsel in the Great War of our own time. It was a long life and full of service. In an address to a children's school, when a man of eighty, he summed up his creed by saying:

"In the first place, don't be slack in anything that you are doing. Whether it be work or play, do it with all your might. You will find that this great Empire can only be maintained by the exercise of self-denial, by training, by discipline, and by courage."

IMPORTANT DATES IN ROBERTS'S LIFE

1832. September 30. Frederick Roberts born. 1845. Entered Eton School. 1847. Entered military college at Sandhurst. 1852. Went as second-lieutenant of Bengal Artillery to India. 1857. Fought in the Mutiny, and won Victoria Cross. 1858. Returned to England on leave. 1859. Sent back to India, major. 1875. Quartermaster-general of Army of India. 1885. Commander-in-chief in India. 1891. Created a peer. 1895. Created field marshal. 1900. South African campaign. 1901. Commander-in-chief of British army. 1914. November 14. Died in France.

KITCHENER

THE SOLDIER OF DEEDS--NOT WORDS

When Chinese Gordon lost his life in Khartoum, Egypt, in 1884, because the British relief force reached him two days too late, a young officer accompanying the expedition was getting his first glimpse of a land that was destined to make him famous. "Kitchener of Khartoum" was to become as widely known in a later generation as Chinese Gordon was in his own. Each won his spurs in a foreign land.

Kitchener was then a cavalry officer of thirty-five, and did not seem destined to get much higher in army circles. Yet he had never lost faith in himself. After this first expedition to Egypt, when he was still only a major, he remarked drolly to a fellow officer:

"Never mind, my dear fellow, a few years hence you and I will be generals, and these people who annoy us now (meaning the red-tape departmental clerks) will be looking out of their club windows, with all their teeth falling out of their heads!"

During this same expedition, he spoke of the fact that their commanding officer had missed the key-point, by saying:

"It's the same with everybody. We must stop floundering, or people will forget that Khartoum is our objective and always will be."

Prophetic words for Kitchener of Khartoum.

Who was this strong, stern, silent soldier whose career linked up past wars with the great World War of our own day?

Like Wellington and Roberts, Kitchener came of Irish stock. He was born near Listowel, June 24, 1850, his father, Colonel Henry Kitchener, having bought a considerable estate in the counties of Kerry and Limerick.

Colonel Kitchener had seen a good deal of active service himself, and still more of garrison life. He determined to retire, and after buying some 2,000 acres of land in Ireland, at a bankrupt sale, he built a hunting lodge, called Gunsborough House. This was Herbert Horatio Kitchener's birthplace. Whether the name of the house had anything to do with his warlike career, history does not state. But certain it is, that he was a born soldier--a man of iron almost from his boyhood.

"Yes," said his old nurse, in talking about him only a few years ago, "I know that he is a great man; and they tell me that he has no heart, and that everybody is afraid of him; but they are wrong. He is really one of the most tender-hearted men in the world; and whenever he comes to see me, he is 'my boy' just as he was in the old days in Ireland, when he used to run to me in all his troubles, and fling his arms around me and hug me. Ah, there is nobody left who knows the real Master Herbert as I know him."

As a boy at school, Herbert Kitchener was not very brilliant. Like Wellington, whose mother called him "the fool of the family," Kitchener did too much day-dreaming to make much headway with his studies. His first teacher was a governess, who gave him up in despair. Then he was sent to a private school where he did not do any better.

His father lost his patience. Just before an examination, he made a dire threat.

"Young man," said the Colonel, "if you fail I'll make you toe the mark. I'll send you to a girl's school."

Apparently the threat did not have the desired effect. He flunked and was transferred to the other school. This time he was told that failure meant that he would be taken out of school entirely and apprenticed to a hatter.

The warning had the desired effect. Herbert buckled down to work and not only passed his examinations, but even began to show a decided liking for mathematics--which study was to be of good service in later life.

By this time the family had moved into a more pretentious home, known as the Crotta House. Little is related of his boyhood life there. It was quiet and uneventful. The boy was of reserved nature, preferring to sit quietly in the corner and listen while others did the talking. Yet when drawn out, he could talk well, preferring to reason rather than argue. His chief outdoor sport was swimming. The home was only a few miles inland from the Atlantic coast, and he and his brothers often rode over for a dip.

His father was of industrious and thorough-going type. The family motto was "Thorough," and the Colonel lived up to it. "K. of K." also became a master of detail; and here on his father's estate he learned his first lessons in it. Colonel Kitchener constantly preached the value of time--and practised what he preached. Instead of settling down to a life of ease, he was always at work on the estate. He reclaimed large tracts of bogs, turning them into fertile land. He raised breed horses and cattle. He set up his own factory for making bricks, tiles, and drain-pipes. His own life of energy and organization was the best possible example to his boys. That Herbert, with all his apparent indolence, was profiting by it, became evident years afterward.

When the boy was fifteen, his father determined on a complete change of environment for him. "I want you to see something else besides Ireland," he said. Herbert was accordingly sent to Switzerland, to a French school conducted by a Mr. Bennett. It was in Villeneuve, at the eastern end of Lake Geneva. In this scenic spot of Europe he remained for some four years, paying occasional visits home, but becoming more and more a cosmopolitan, instead of merely a shy Irish lad. He learned to speak French like a native, and got a start in German and Italian. Languages always came easy to him.

Meanwhile he trudged about the mountain country on many a long excursion, with a camera slung across his shoulders, learning an art that he was soon to put to good use. Thanks to this outdoor life he grew up into a strong, well-built fellow, with a physique that was to stand the test of many hard days to come.

His father wanted him to follow in his own footsteps and become a soldier. He used his influence to place him in the Royal Military Academy, at Woolwich. Herbert entered there as a cadet, in his nineteenth year.

Two years later, while still a cadet, we find him getting his foretaste of actual warfare. It was the summer of 1870. War had been declared by France against Prussia--the short but terrible war so skilfully engineered by Bismarck. Herbert Kitchener had gone to spend a summer vacation with his father, at Dinan in the north of France, and promptly got imbued with the war fever. He enlisted in a battalion, in the Second Army of the Loire, commanded by General Chanzy. This army, like other well-intentioned but poorly organized troops of the French, was driven steadily back by the superior German forces, until the enemy bombarded and captured Paris.

It is interesting to note that Kitchener's first and last military service was on behalf of the French against their hereditary enemies--and that history came dangerously near to repeating itself in the German drive of 1914 against Paris. That it did not do so, was due in no small measure to the grim veteran who was now Secretary of War, and to his wonderful army of volunteers, dubbed "Kitchener's Mob."

Whether or not Kitchener did any actual close-up fighting in these early days we do not know. One novel experience, however, is placed to his credit. He made an ascent in an observation balloon, with two French officers. In those days, the big bags were risky and unknown quantities, and an ascent was something to talk about.

The ill-starred war over, young Kitchener returned to Woolwich, and his school duties as though nothing special had happened.

"Why did you go off and join the French army?" he was asked by the commandant.

"Please, sir," came the straightforward answer, "I understood that I should not be wanted for some time, and I could not be idle. I thought I might learn something."

He had indeed--if nothing more than the power of a thoroughly prepared enemy against an unready land.

The next stage in Kitchener's career was picturesque but full of hardship. It was in connection with an exploring expedition to the Holy Land.

In 1865, a society called the Palestine Exploration Fund had been founded, its object being to study the history and geography of the country. Seven years later it had entered on the gigantic task of surveying a tract of about 6,000 square miles, much of it desert or mountainous country.

Kitchener was just graduating from the Military Academy, with the usual rank of lieutenant, and was casting about for active service. He could not brook the idea of settling down to garrison life. The post of assistant to the leader of this Palestine Expedition was offered him, and he accepted with alacrity. While a private enterprise, it had the sanction of the War Department, and promised to provide thrills as well as work. The fact that it was the Holy Land of Bible story also appealed to Kitchener. Witness one of the first entries in his Journal:

"Looking down on the broad plain of Esdraelon . . . it is impossible not to remember that this is the greatest battlefield of the world, from the days of Joshua and the defeat of the mighty hosts of Sisera, till, almost in our own days, Napoleon the Great fought the battle of Mount Tabor; and here also is the ancient Megiddo, where the last great battle of Armageddon is to be fought."

Lieutenant Kitchener reported for duty in Palestine, in the Fall of 1874. The exploration party was then working in the hill country south of Judah, which was still a sealed book to the rest of the world. Their job was "to search in every hole and corner of the country and see what is there, and classify everything in proper form"--to quote the words of their prospectus. For this work they required both the surveyor's instrument and the camera.

In the use of the latter, Kitchener had shown aptitude at school; and it is said that this fact had something to do with his appointment. It is evident from the first official report that he "made good." His chief, Lieutenant Conder, states that he succeeded in securing some excellent photographs "under peculiarly unfavorable circumstances."

The climate did not set well with him at first, and after two attacks of fever he recovered his health sufficiently to take part in the Dead Sea work of 1875.

At Wady Seiyal, reports Conder, "we were caught in the most tremendous gale which we have yet experienced in tents; and our next march of nineteen miles in a perfect hurricane of bitter wind, with showers of sleet and hail, necessitated by the fact that all our barley and other stores were consumed, was the hardest bit of experience we have yet encountered. Our dogs and two muleteers were unable to face the storm, and took refuge in caves. Old Sheikh Hamzeh fell off his pony twice, and had to be tied on. The brave beasts struggled for eleven hours, and crossed more than one torrent of cold water up nearly to the girths, but by eight at night they were in a warm stable, and we had found refuge in Hebron in the house of a German Karaite Jew, whose hospitality was as great as his subsequent charge was high."

At times the ground was so uneven and devoid of trails, that they could not march much faster than one mile an hour. The only human beings they encountered were the Bedouin Arabs--sly, furtive fellows who were always ready for a trade, but who would kill a man just as readily for his shirt.

The slow progress, however, did not worry Kitchener particularly. He made good use of the time in photographing old walls, caves, and natural strongholds. For instance, five days were spent in getting data and records of the ruins of a fortress erected at Ascalon by Richard Coeur-de-Lion, during his famous Crusade.

Here it was that Kitchener's skill in swimming and presence of mind were put to the test. Lieutenant Conder was swept off his horse while fording the stream, and was in imminent danger of drowning, when Kitchener sprang to his aid and towed him ashore.

Despite the danger and hardships, Kitchener revelled in this wild life. One of the party says of him: "He was as good company as a man could wish to have, full of life and good spirits. We none of us thought much about our toilets, and he least of all. Why, after a few months' travelling about in Palestine, he looked more like a tramp than an officer in Her Majesty's Army. His clothes wouldn't have fetched a three penny-bit at any 'old do' shop in Whitechapel."

It was in this first field service that he won a reputation which clung to him through his whole career. They said that his chief amusement was work, and his relaxation, more work. He was of seemingly tireless energy, and never could understand the let-downs of others. The boyhood trait of silence was also marked in the man. Although he picked up languages easily, he used them sparingly. It was said of him later that he could keep silent in ten languages.

In a letter home, from Palestine, he throws a sidelight on this working phase of his nature. "The non-commissioned officers," he says, "though ready to go through any amount of work or danger, are much discouraged at the prospect of an indefinite delay without employment, which, in my opinion, is more trying in this climate than work."

Not long after, the round of work and routine duty was varied by a first-class fight. A Moslem sheikh had become so impertinent one day, that Lieut. Conder ordered him out of his tent. The sheikh drew a knife and was promptly disarmed and made prisoner by the British. Instantly he lifted up his voice, calling for his men. The response was prompt. They seemed to spring up out of the very rocks, and soon there were two hundred of them howling and dancing around the handful of Englishmen. Conder thus relates the happening: