Part 18

The Mother Country is so indifferent to our aspirations and our needs, that she has never given herself the trouble to recognise the gravity of this special cause of complaint. At least 300 cases of escape from New Caledonia to Australian shores are known and recorded. In the case of the ‘exiles’ we naturally rejoice. We have given home and a glad welcome to that distinguished artist, M. Henri, who was banished from his native France for his political opinions, and who has now achieved for himself a perfectly unique position in Australian art. There is, assuredly, not one man in the Australian Continent who would willingly have put an obstacle in the way of escape of M. Henri Rochefort. It is not men of this type to whose presence in our neighbourhood we object. But it is undeniable that the French criminals who now people New Caledonia, are men of the most abominable of all conceivable types. The grievance—the true grievance—is not merely that the French Government should have been allowed to defile our neighbourhood by the deportation of these people, but that they should positively have determined to perpetuate the race. How many people in England are aware of the shameful and stupid fact that the French Government, having massed its most awful male outcasts in New Caledonia, deliberately sent out to them female convicts of the most abandoned type in order that the men might marry and reproduce their own likeness? The mere incidental question of bigamy by government authority need scarcely be considered. Amongst the women sent out were parricides, simple murdresses, and creatures soiled by all the crimes of which nature is capable. One of the brides had murdered both her father and her mother, and another, on the outward voyage, threw her own baby out of a port-hole. The sires of the future French settlement were, of course, worthy of their partners, and one may fairly ask what could possibly be expected of a race so founded. I have myself spoken with Englishmen upon this question, and have been met with a laugh, a shrug of the shoulders, and an allusion to an ancient proverb about a pot and kettle. It is undeniable that Hobart Town and Botany Bay welcomed in their time a great deal of human evil, but it never came unalloyed, and an examination of facts will teach any inquirer that a good fifty per cent. of the so-called crimes for which men and women were expatriated, were no more than the ebullitions of an impatient patriotism, or the escapades of unguided youth. Leaving that aside, nobody pretends that the Australian population of three and a half millions is seriously tainted. We are troubled by certain forms of rowdyism and brutality, and we have a dangerous class rooted amongst us. That a great law-abiding population should be handicapped in that way by the past action of the Mother Country was hard enough to bear in all conscience, but that England should have sat supine whilst a foreign power doubled, trebled, and quadrupled, the curse upon our borders is intolerable.

We Anglo-Saxons are everywhere a long-suffering and rather stupid people. Australia herself has been somewhat to blame for her own partial acquiescence in this injustice, and there are vast numbers of her inhabitants who know little and care less about the question. The Australian citizen who had suffered from the inroads of a gang of foreign desperadoes has a sympathetic interest in the matter, but he is only one in ten thousand, and the fact is that we have been far too tame.

The distance between New Caledonia and Australia is, as I have said already, about 700 miles. That between the Sandwich Islands and the United States is about 2000 miles. But those islands are directly under American control, and the United States have always held that the presence of a foreign power there would have to be regarded as a menace. Just as she warned away France from Mexico, she would now warn away any foreign intruder in the South Seas. It is easy to conceive that England herself might have been equally wise. The French treatment of the Canaques, whom they dispossessed when they took forcible possession of the island, has been wrong-headed in the extreme. They have had the absurdest panics about impossible native risings, and have sent out numberless expeditions to destroy the food supplies of the wretched natives. Things are quieter now, and the Canaques are effectively cowed.

It was decided last night by telegraphic communication between the Premiers of Victoria and New South Wales, that the two leading Colonies should jointly invite Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania to lend their authority for the immediate dispatch of the Australian squadron to Noumea. An intimation of the fact has been sent to the Home Government, but no permission has been asked. It is not in the least likely that England will interfere with us at such a moment, and on such a question, but even if she did, the question is one so vitally affecting the destinies of Australia that we should be compelled to take the matter into our own hands.

LORD CHARLES SCOTT OBJECTS.

_June 6._

There is a rumour abroad to the effect that Admiral Lord Charles Scott has put his veto on the dispatch of the fleet until such time as instructions can be received from England, but though this report has been angrily seized upon by the populace, no credence whatever appears to be attached to it in quarters where the most trustworthy information might naturally be looked for. It has served, however, to enliven the city to a very remarkable extent, and the mere hint of opposition to the popular will has created a widespread excitement, and has made it evident that the men of the colonies are bent on having their own way. Collins Street and Bourke Street are patrolled by vast bands, who groan loudly at the name of the Admiral and cheer the local leaders of public opinion. It is quite a fortuitous occurrence that the various bodies of Melbourne cadets had arranged to march with their bands through the principal streets this evening, but the event has given colour and stir to the _al fresco_ entertainment provided by the populace for their own delectation. Special editions of the evening papers confirm the rumoured action of the Admiral, and the excitement is growing to fever heat. Lord Charles Scott’s position is that the squadron of which he holds command is intended for defensive purposes only, and cannot be legitimately employed in offensive operations without the direct sanction of the war authorities at home. He is likely to be technically in the right, but the fact that England and France are already actively engaged is generally held here, amongst the most moderate men, to abrogate this rule, and to make it the immediate and obvious duty of Australia to take her place in action. In the meantime, so the Sydney telegrams inform us, the squadron now lying in the harbour there is making every preparation for active service, and it is entirely probable that, after all, no real delay may ensue.

INSTRUCTIONS FROM THE ADMIRALTY.

DEPARTURE OF THE EXPEDITION.

MIDNIGHT.

After all, there will be no waiting. A telegraphic dispatch has been received from the Admiralty, and the instructions are that the squadron shall take instant action. A special train to Sydney has been chartered by the Premier. He will be accompanied by three or four members of the Ministry, and I have succeeded in attaching myself to the party. The train starts in an hour.

_June 7._

The Ministerial train has broken the record, and at four o’clock the Ministerial party is steaming across the beautiful harbour towards the flagship. Driving hurriedly through the streets of the city, we have had time to see no more than that the main thoroughfares are gay with bunting, though the streets themselves are empty. The whole population has turned out to witness the departure of the squadron, and from the deck of the launch a crowd of many scores of thousands is visible about Lady Macquarrie’s Chair. The great harbour is thronged with every kind of craft. All the merchant ships are gaily decorated everywhere. The weather is heavenly, and the harbour, with its sparkling waters and majestic lines of headland, can rarely have been seen to more advantage. The spirit of the people is evidently and entirely in the enterprise on which they have embarked. The four ships of the Australian squadron lie in sight of the vast crowd, and are already volleying clouds of smoke. As I lift my eyes from the note-book in which I am rapidly scrawling these lines, I can see that the great hulk of the flagship has begun to move. Flash goes a gun from her black side, and a hundred rolling echoes bellow from the surrounding heights. The crowd sends back a heart-stirring cheer, and a gun from the fort responds to the Admiral’s salute. Vessel after vessel salutes, and the fort answers each in turn. Like leviathans afloat move our bulwarks on the brine, a score of times huger than when Campbell sung the prowess of the British arms at sea. Before we can reach the flagship they are all well under weigh, and forging grandly towards the open waters. Aboard some of the yachts and launches are brass bands, not all of the finest quality. They play ‘God save the Queen’ in all manner of keys and in different times. The result is not what one might fancy, for everybody seems to find it wildly exhilarating. The cheers from the immense concourse near Government House grow fainter and fainter as we recede, and at last die away altogether. There is a fresh breeze in the open, and a roughish sea, and so in a while even the most enthusiastic of the pursuers are willing to turn back again. The spectacle is over. The squadron has steamed away, and Australia stands ready to strike her first blow in the cause of the British race in the seas of the Southern Hemisphere.

THE FRANCO-GERMAN CAMPAIGN—THE GERMAN ADVANCE.

RENEWED FIGHTING—ROUT OF THE FRENCH ARMY.

(_From our Special Correspondent with the Germans._)

SUIPPES, _May 19_.

A whole week has passed and we have not moved. Our cavalry and most of my Corps are enjoying the hospitality of the French barracks at the camp of Chalons, horribly dirty, still, better than a bivouac in the pouring rain we have been enduring. Our officers’ patrols go daily south of Chalons-sur-Marne and eastward to Bar-le-Duc.

Rheims is observed—practically invested—for our scouts tear up the railways leading to it from Paris as fast as the enemy can lay them down again, and further to the westward patrols are in touch with the French Army of the North, and we learn that troops are daily being moved by rail to the southward, which corroborates other information that they are again going to try on us Bourbaki’s stroke of 1870, and, under the circumstances, it is about the best thing they can do.

In our rear the Reserve Divisions are working day and night to complete our road and railway communications with the Namur-Luxembourg Railway, and as everything has been foreseen to the smallest detail years in advance—even the girders for bridges made and kept in stock—and the country, moreover, presents no serious difficulties (certainly none to frighten our engineers of Afghanistan experience, and the Germans are but little behind us), I have no doubt that our halt here will be but of short duration; indeed, some of the roads are evidently through already, for our Reserve ammunition waggons came up yesterday. The line through Mezières-Givet is also expected to be open in a day or two, and then our siege train will be able to take the works of Rheims under fire in earnest. This delay, I need hardly say, is very much against the feelings of our Hotspurs, and I have listened to many an oration from young subalterns to prove how differently old Moltke would have led them. With due deference, I think it can be shown from his own works that he would have done nothing of the kind. His own saying was that the art of war was only the practical application of principles to the attainment of the end in view—viz., the subjugation of the enemy to your will—at what knowledge of the circumstances shows you to be at the moment the cheapest possible cost to the country.

In 1870, with a vast numerical superiority, no fortifications to speak of on the enemy’s side, and no allies on his own, the principle of extermination by a series of battles was the best policy to adopt. How, against almost equal numbers, backed by fortresses not to be despised—the first victory having been won and the fighting value of our troops thereby doubled—our best game is not to break our heads against the enemy’s strong places, but in a central position to await his offensive returns and move out to meet him—not stand to be attacked—as soon as his plans are sufficiently indicated by our cavalry outposts.

It was a wise stroke on the part of the enemy to lead off with a first blow from Russia; but we countered it by the immediate assumption of the offensive, which enabled us to score first blood against France. For the present we can await the decision in Russia in comparative security.

The troops are not idle meanwhile. After a day’s rest and the reorganisation of the regiments in consequence of losses—which, by the way, amount to only 10 per cent. in the Corps engaged—they were at work again drilling with the same intensity of purpose as if the spring inspections and not a battle lay before them. That was a lesson they learnt from the last war—viz., that the command of men in the squadron or company is personal property, and cannot be handed over like charge of the quartermaster’s store. A leader must know his men, and they must know him by actual contact on the parade ground if the full fighting worth is to be got out of the men.

11 P.M.

News of our victory at Alexandrovo has just come in. That will set free a couple of Corps at least for this, the _decisive_ theatre. If only they had our Midland and North-Western traffic managers!

SUIPPES, _May 25_, 10 P.M.

We move at 5 A.M. to-morrow, direction Bar-le-Duc—_i.e._ S.E.

HEITH LE MAURUPT, _May 27_, 10 P.M.

Another most decisive victory for the Germans. Censor will not allow any more.

CAMP OF CHALONS, _May 31_, 10 A.M.

Another victory; now I may tell you all that has happened in the order in which it occurred. As I had anticipated, the French have again tried Bourbaki’s move, with much the same results. As far as we can learn, three Corps were transferred from the line of the northern fortresses, by Paris—Lyons, and the whole of their Army of the East moved northward to meet us, their right on the line of their eastern defences.

Our 2d Army moved up both banks of the Aisne to meet them, it was theoretically wrong, no doubt, but we could not help it. The 3d passed troops over the Meuse, to form on their left, and we—_i.e._ the 1st—detached three Corps to reinforce the right, leaving two ‘field’ Corps and a number of Reserve Divisions (I understand six) to hold the Army of the North in check, and retire slowly before it if seriously attacked.

My Corps rendezvoused on the 26th at 4 A.M. around Suippes. The country had been thoroughly reconnoitred, and, guided by officers of the Topographical Staff, all combatant branches moved straight across country, in the good old Napoleonic method, trains and Corps Artillery only by the roads. The rain had ceased, and the going was fairly good; anyway, we all agreed that it was infinitely preferable work to stewing in dusty lanes in closed columns, with never a breath of fresh air, even though in the bottoms the soil was somewhat heavy. The men were in the best of spirits at the start—reviving the good old march to Sedan joke, ‘Mit Armen links schwenkt! Gerade aus’—but the sun came out, and by 5 P.M., when we had covered nearly twenty miles as the crow flies, faces began to look drawn and weary. Then we caught the sound of the guns in front, and the men stepped out again briskly.

About 6.30 we got the order to halt and bivouac; fortunately we were close to some ponds and a stream. Our cavalry had this time come little into conflict with the enemy, but after driving in a few patrols had come on the French infantry, practically deployed for action, heading a little west of north, and had not attempted to make any impression. Indeed, there was no reason why they should, for they could see everything perfectly from some neighbouring ridges, and so had fulfilled their duties. We, at least, knew where the enemy was, and he did not know where we were. So far we had the advantage.

The fight began with a race for the ridges. We had no particular advantage, and a scrimmaging fight began at once all along the line. Our artillery was in great part neutralised; so was that of the other side. It simply became a struggle of endurance—the Germans, relying on the superior discipline of their men, could afford to feed the fighting line more slowly (_i.e._ with greater distance between the following lines), and thanks to the perfection of their Staff, trained to work as nearly as possible under wartime conditions, the mechanism of the feed worked with less friction and more certainty; fresh troops were always forthcoming when they were required. On the other side the machinery wanted lubricating, owing to their radically defective conception of the nature of the infantry fight, which induced them to move to the attack in a succession of extended lines following one another too quickly; their strength melted away almost before they reached the actual fighting line, and then the Staff failed to send support quickly enough. It was soon evident that they were bleeding to exhaustion more rapidly than we were.

Thus hour by hour our attack pressed home like waves of an incoming tide, and from a distance the effect was most curious to watch. Two long undulating lines—a light blue haze hanging over them—each seemed to be backed by some elastic force; as the equilibrium at one point was disturbed, one line recoiled and the other pressed forward till flanking fire brought it again to a stop for the moment.

By noon the edge of the high ground overlooking the valley, through which runs the Rhine-Marne Canal, was reached, and now the flood was running strong in our favour. Then we could see, too, how these disturbances in the equilibrium of the two lines were occasioned. The smaller units of the French thought too much of their flanks, too little of their centre. Thus, where two battalions or companies touched, the men balled up and crowded together, offering a better target; then the fire from the centre relaxed, and the moment the pressure of the enemy’s fire gave way, the Germans dashed forward to fill up the vacuum. Soon, too, the French endeavoured to bring up their reserves in column, for their men would no longer advance in extended order; and now the small calibre rifle and its great penetration justified its existence; I had not thought much of it before. But the employment of columns induced a new feature—viz., a tendency in the larger units (_e.g._ divisions) to close on their centre—and presently before our eyes we saw a great gap opening out behind the enemy’s fighting line. The time for the final blow was close at hand. Our gunners, coming up under cover of the hills, were crushing the artillery of the enemy out in the plain, and had some attention to spare for his reserves. I saw a cavalry aide-de-camp leave the Staff of the Army Commander, who was close at hand, and I made tracks as fast as I could for some broken ground, where I hoped to be safe from the coming storm.

Twenty minutes afterwards, heading straight for the gap I described above, came at least eight squadrons in line at a gallop. Their ground scouts yelled at their own infantry in front to lie down, and they mostly did so. The cavalry checked for a moment at them, as if at a fence, and then swept down on the infantry in front, not two hundred yards distant, rode over and beyond them, wheeled outwards, and bore down on the reserves. As they passed our infantry, the latter threw themselves into groups to let the second line of cavalry—which still remained in squadron columns—through, and then four more lines of cavalry followed, and the whole plain became a sea of dust and confusion. Our infantry rallied into company columns, and dashed forward with the bayonet in pursuit, and we had the last tableau of Waterloo over again. The canal and the stream in the hollow put a stop to our advance, and fresh infantry with the pioneer companies moved forward to make good the crossing, which might have been a troublesome business enough, had not the troops to our left—_i.e._ west—already carried the passages at Revigny.

Darkness was now rapidly coming on, and the fight here died away. I rode back to the rear, and found food and a welcome with the Headquarters of our third Corps, which had only just reached the ground and had not been engaged.

About five next morning the troops again stood to their arms, but in the night news of an advance of the French Army of the north had come in, and we began to retrace our steps over the same ground already traversed. As we were starting, intelligence of the British victory in the Mediterranean arrived, and with it rumours of Communistic disturbances in Paris. I was also told that two Corps had been detached from the 2d Army from near St. Menehould, and two more from the Russian frontier had arrived about Pont-a-Mousson, and with the four Bavarian reserve divisions were preparing to strike the French Army of the west in their right flank. At night we reached the line of the great road Chalons-sur-Marne—St. Menehould, and about 4 P.M. fell right on the flank of a French corps moving from Epernay on the Camp of Chalons. Part of the Corps from St. Menehould marching by Suippes was on our right, and together we drove the French back in some disorder into the complex of hilly ground about Moronvilliers, cutting them off from Rheims.

The Corps left to watch this latter place had fallen back fighting the previous day, and lay along the road from Suippes by Somme-puis-Attigny—_i.e._ about north and south.

At daybreak we advanced again, and soon a struggle began which, in the hilly, wooded ground we now were in, utterly defies description. As before, it was mainly decided by superior endurance of loss and a better-trained Staff. Of tactical combination there was none on a large scale, but divisional artillery and cavalry suffered heavily in endeavouring to support their comrades of the infantry.

We reached the culminating point of the plateau after five hours’ successive fighting, but the exhaustion of our men was extreme; hundreds dropped unable to go a step further, and we afterwards picked up at least an equal number of French in the same condition. Indeed, during the last hours of the afternoon, it had become a struggle of the survival of the fittest. The French fought with a determination they never before displayed—probably because the ground, by giving scope to our cavalry on previous occasions, never gave them the opportunity.

But this time every copse and bush gave them the chance to rally, and many are the instances recounted of how superior officers on the French side emulated the example of Ney in the retreat from Russia, and rifle in hand stood to the last.

The battle was actually decided by a blow delivered some six miles to the north, where the ground did give our three arms a chance of co-operation, and about 6 P.M. the resistance in front of us gave way altogether. The fighting broke off, and the men lay on their arms where they stood, too weary to move another step.