Flashman Papers Omnibus

by Fraser George MacDonald

  But when the cards are dealt, you must play ’em – and with style, for your reputation’s sake. Flashy has his own way of bowing to the inevitable – and I knew dam’ well it would run round Horse Guards and the clubs like wildfire in the morning …

  “I say – you know Chinese Gordon’s gone to the Sudan? Fact – and taken Flashman with him! Met him quite by chance at the station, told Wolseley and Cambridge he must have him along, wouldn’t dream of facing the Mahdi without him. They gave him his way, of course, but wondered what Flashman, who’s retired, would think of being press-ganged at a moment’s notice. D’you know what Flash Harry said, cool as you please? ‘Well, the least you can do, Gordon, is pay for my blasted ticket!’”

  [This extract from the Papers ends at 8 p.m. on January 18, 1884, with the departure of Major-General Charles George (“Chinese”) Gordon for the Sudan, accompanied by a reluctant Flashman. A year later Gordon died in the siege of Khartoum.]

  APPENDIX

  The Emperor Franz-Josef (1830–1916) and Empress Elisabeth (1837–1898)

  “The last European monarch of the old school”, was how the Emperor Franz-Josef I described himself to Theodore Roosevelt, with good reason, for he enjoyed a longer full sovereignty than any other European ruler, from the 1848 revolution when, as a dashing prince of eighteen, he succeeded to the throne abdicated by his uncle, until the middle of the First World War, by which time he had become the venerable, bald, bewhiskered grandpaternal figure which gazes benevolently out from his best-known portrait, a fine old Austrian gentleman, revered but remote from his subjects and the terrible conflict which he had helped to make. It was a tragic climax to a reign which had been neither successful nor happy; his empire had dwindled in size and power to the brink of extinction, and his personal life had been darkened by misfortunes – his adored Empress had been assassinated, his son had committed suicide, his brother had died before a firing squad, and the murder of his nephew and heir had plunged Europe into war.

  If he does not emerge as an attractive figure from his biographies, or from Flashman’s brief sketch on short acquaintance, it is still hard not to feel sympathy for Franz-Josef. His own faults may have contributed to his ill luck in love and war and statecraft, but it would have taken a ruler of unusual intelligence and political skill to bridge successfully the long imperial sunset from the end of Europe’s ancien régime to the age of jazz and democracy and mechanised warfare, and these he simply did not have. He had tried to rule as an absolute monarch presiding over a centralised bureaucracy and suppressing nationalist ambitions (especially those of Hungary) among the ill-assorted races of his unwieldy empire; changing times had forced him into reluctant concessions, but his reactionary nature and passion for the detail of administration, over which he laboured conscientiously, had blinded him to those greater issues which he had neither the vision nor the temperament to understand.

  Such virtues as he had were physical rather than intellectual, which befitted the romantic prince of his early days. Tall, handsome, recklessly brave if unsuccessful as a soldier, a splendid horseman and ardent sportsman, he seems to have been amiable and kindly at his best, although one biographer writes of his “haughty and offensive arrogance”, and quotes examples. His personal tastes were spartan, his manner dignified and formal, and he was punctilious in matters of protocol, a characteristic which was no help in his marriage.

  Franz-Josef’s chief recreation was in rural pursuits, shooting above all, and he was never happier than roving the woods above Ischl with his gun, leading the simple life. His other love was the theatre, and its ladies, and the close companion of his old age was an actress, Frau Schratt, to whom he was so closely attached that he became known as “Herr Schratt”.

  His marriage to Elisabeth of Bavaria, the glamorous “Sissi” or “Sisi”, began as a fairy tale and ended in unhappiness and tragedy. We have Flashman’s authoritative word for it that she was a rare beauty, although some of her portraits suggest that she was strikingly pretty rather than classically perfect. Franz-Josef fell in love with her at first sight, but he was not a faithful husband, and while his teenage bride never paid him back in kind, she was too lively and spirited to be a docile little Empress. Quite apart from Franz-Josef’s infidelities (which did in fact lead to her infection) there were causes enough of disagreement. Sissi detested the ultra-formal etiquette of a hostile court, was disliked by her mother-in-law, developed strong Hungarian sympathies, and had a decidedly eccentric streak in her nature, all of which combined to bring about the imperial couple’s estrangement. The adoration in which she was held, especially in Hungary, probably did not help.

  She took to wandering about Europe, cruising the Mediterranean and hunting in England and Ireland, a royal gypsy admired not only for her looks and charm but for her generous interest in charitable causes, and for that wayward independence which had so shocked Vienna. She was a fearless horsewoman, an expert gymnast who worked out regularly in a portable gym, a health-and-beauty fanatic who wrote poetry, suffered periodic bouts of ill-health and depression, and all too often gave signs of that instability which led Flashman to doubt her sanity.

  Elisabeth bore Franz-Josef three daughters and a son, Rudolf, who is remembered only as the chief actor in the tragedy of Mayerling, where he took his own life and that of his mistress in 1889. Nine years later Elisabeth was stabbed to death by an anti-royalist fanatic at Geneva. She was sixty years old. (See Henri de Weindel, The Real Francis-Joseph, 1909; Francis Gribble, Life of the Emperor Francis Joseph, 1914; Gordon Brook-Shepherd, Royal Sunset, 1987; A. de Burgh, Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, 1899; Andrew Sinclair, Death by Fame, 1998.)

  Notes

  1. Henri Stefan Oppert Blowitz (1825–1903) was Paris correspondent of The Times from 1875 to 1902. A Bohemian Jew, born of a good family in what is now Czechoslovakia, he worked as a teacher in France before becoming a journalist almost by accident, and showed that he possessed to a remarkable degree that combination of talents that makes a first-class reporter: immense energy and curiosity, a nose for news, and that mysterious gift of inspiring confidence which makes people talk. He had contacts at the highest level all over Europe, a prodigious memory, a brass neck, and great ingenuity (some said lack of scruple) which together raised him to a unique position in his profession.

  Flashman has drawn him faithfully, and plainly had some affection and considerable respect for the tiny, rotund, charming, bombastic, and rather comic eccentric, whose love of good living, susceptibility to female beauty, delight in extravagant dress, and generous good nature endeared him to many; naturally, he inspired considerable jealousy in his rivals, and was not without detractors to question both his methods and ability. That Blowitz the brilliant and hard-headed reporter and interviewer was at the same time an incurable romantic with a taste for melodrama and love of the sensational, is obvious from his Memoirs, a highly entertaining work made up of material published in his lifetime and episodes dictated in his last year; he kept no diaries, and is said to have taken a note only rarely.

  How far the Memoirs are to be trusted is a nice point. Flashman was familiar with them, but is no guide to their reliability; part of his story is identical in outline with one chapter of the Memoirs, but since Blowitz is the source in both cases, this means nothing. The enthusiastic Bohemian was never one to spoil a good tale for want of dramatic colouring, and Frank Giles, a later Times Paris correspondent, whose biography of Blowitz is admirably fair and meticulously researched, describes the Memoirs as a remarkable collection of fact and fiction, and echoes the feeling of a former Times proprietor that, at times, “the facts have collapsed under the sheer weight of a powerful imagination”. Much of what Blowitz wrote can never be checked, and there is no knowing how great a part his vivid imagination played in what he told Flashman, who seems to have believed him, for what that is worth. I do not hesitate to cite Blowitz in these footnotes, for whatever his failings he was at his best the most superior kind of journalist – a real re
porter.

  Blowitz’s obsession with destiny, etc., his tales of adventures with Marseilles communards, mysterious European royalty, and his kidnapping by gypsies, are to be found in the Memoirs; the story that he and his lover threw the lady’s husband overboard in Marseilles harbour is told by Prince von Bulow, later German Chancellor, who is not regarded as an invariably reliable source. (See Blowitz’s My Memoirs (1903); Frank Giles, A Prince of Journalists (1962); Prince von Bulow, Memoirs, 1849–1897 (1932), which contains a fine picture of Blowitz in his working clothes.)

  2. When and where Flashman served in the French Foreign Legion has not yet emerged from his Papers. Several references (like the present one) suggest North Africa, but it is not impossible that he was with the Legion in Mexico c. 1867, when he was aide-de-camp to the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian. “Au jus!” was the cry of the coffee orderlies at reveille, and “the sausage music” is presumably a reference to the Legion’s march, Tiens, voila du boudin. (See also Note 13.)

  The authority for Grant’s meeting with Macmahon, and their total failure to communicate, is Grant himself. At least they bowed, and shook hands; Grant’s aversion to hand-shaking was notorious, as was his taciturnity. (See From the Tan Yard to the White House, by William M. Thayer (1886).)

  3. In 1878 Sir Stafford Northcote’s Budget, described as “unambitious”, increased the duty on dogs and tobacco and raised income tax by 2d; Mrs Brassey published “The Voyage of the Sunbeam”, an account of her round-the-world cruise by yacht; the phonograph (“an instrument which prints sound for subsequent reproduction by electricity”) was a popular novelty; and Gilbert and Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore had its first night on May 25 at the Opera Comique. The great hit of the show was “He is an Englishman”, which became “almost a second national anthem”.

  4. As usual with his summaries of international affairs, Flashman’s account of events in the Balkans, the Russo-Turkish war, and the Treaty of San Stefano, is sketchy and racy, but accurate in its broad essentials. The treaty, reflecting Russia’s Panslavic ambition to bring the Balkans under Russian control, was hard on the defeated Turks, and was opposed by Austria and Britain. A conference of the European Powers had been in prospect for some time, but was jeopardised by Russia’s objection to a British demand that the San Stefano settlement should be submitted to discussion by the Powers. Largely through the “honest broker” efforts of Bismarck, the German Chancellor, an understanding was reached between Britain and Russia, and the Congress of Berlin was held in June and July of 1878 to revise the treaty and achieve a balance in South-eastern Europe.

  5. Blowitz’s opinion of Shuvalov is echoed in von Bulow: “Count Shuvalov was a clever, skilful, amiable and distinguished man, but like so many Russians, he worshipped more than was fitting at the shrine of Aphrodite Pandemos.” (Bulow, My Memoirs.) (See also Note 7.)

  6. The cartoons of the two English grooms and the crafty fishmonger, and the article headed “Hankey Pankey”, are to be found in Punch of May 11, 1878; the voluptuous figure entitled “Harlequin Spring Fashions – really a very little addition to the too-scanty and bespangled costumes Mr Punch has noticed so often lately”, appeared in the previous week.

  7. According to von Bulow: “On one of his evening walks in the Friederichstrasse … which the Berlin police supervised so discreetly, to prevent any unpleasant incident, he (Shuvalov) had made the acquaintance of a too-facile lady, from whose arms it was difficult to entice him.” (See My Memoirs.)

  8. Flashman’s version of the Congress of Berlin tallies fairly well with Blowitz’s, which does not differ in its essentials from other accounts. From whom Blowitz obtained the advance copy of the treaty is unknown. Waddington, the French Foreign Minister, has been suggested; he was English by blood, though born in Paris, and like Flashman was educated at Rugby, but there is no evidence that he was the source of the leak. What is certain is that Blowitz had an excellent source at the heart of the Congress, and scooped his rivals in day-to-day reporting as well as in obtaining the treaty, much to their annoyance, especially the Germans. He did interview Bismarck (whose under-the-table complaint is authentic), and seems to have bluffed him into withholding the Treaty from the German press by himself demanding an exclusive copy. He left the Congress early, pretending to sulk, dictated from memory a substantial portion to his secretary, had the text telegraphed from Brussels by his secretary, and the following day had the satsifaction of an exclusive story in The Times. It was one of the greatest scoops in newspaper history, although Flashman is wrong in saying that all the clauses appeared; in fact, seven did not.

  There is one important difference between Flashman’s version of the Congress, and that given by Blowitz in his Memoirs. Blowitz says that his information source and go-between was “a young foreigner” who had approached Blowitz for help, and whom he infiltrated into the entourage of an unidentified statesman at the Congress; once installed, he passed information to Blowitz by means of the hat exchange. This seems a highly unlikely story, and it is reasonable to assume that Blowitz, in writing his Memoirs, invented it to protect the identities of Flashman, Caprice, and Shuvalov. It is worth noting that von Bulow’s story of Shuvalov’s infatuation with a courtesan (quoted in Note 7) is consistent with Flashman’s version.

  9. Sir Garnet (later Viscount) Wolseley confirmed his reputation as Britain’s first soldier by his suppression in 1882 of the Egyptian army’s revolt against the Khedive. The rebellion was led by Arabi Pasha, an ardent nationalist and anti-European, and after the massacre of more than a hundred foreigners at Alexandria, the port’s defences were bombarded by the Royal Navy and Egypt was invaded by Wolseley’s force which eventually numbered 40,000. He gained control of the Suez Canal, and when his advance guard was attacked by Arabi at Kassassin on August 28, the Egyptian infantry were routed by a moonlight charge of the British cavalry, in which the Life Guards and the Blues of the Household Brigade (“Tin Bellies”, to Flashman) were prominent. Sir Baker Russell’s horse was shot under him, but he mounted another, presumably with Flashman’s assistance. Arabi’s army of about 40,000 was strongly entrenched at Tel-el-Kebir, but after a remarkable night march of six miles in silence, Wolseley’s force made a surprise dawn attack, headed by the Highland Brigade, who overwhelmed the Egyptian position. About 2000 of the defenders were killed for the loss of 58 British dead and 400 wounded and missing. Cairo was occupied after a forced march, Arabi was captured and exiled to Ceylon, and the rebellion had been crushed in 25 days. (See Charles Lowe, “Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir”, in Battles of the Nineteenth Century, edited by Major Arthur Griffiths, 1896.)

  10. One can only take Flashman’s word for it that there was a “strong shave” (rumour) in the clubs about Gordon as early as the beginning of October. The situation in the Sudan did not begin to look critical until after the wipe-out of Hicks’ command by the Mahdi at Kashgil early in November, and Gordon’s name does not appear to have been mentioned in official circles until some weeks later, when Gordon himself was still contemplating service in the Congo. No doubt Flashman’s instinct for self-preservation made him unusually prescient.

  11. The first official journey of the famous Orient Express began at the Gare de l’Est, Paris, on the evening of Sunday, October 4, 1883. The great train was the brainchild of Georges Nagelmackers of Liege, founder of the Compagnie Internationale des Wagon-Lits, and realised his dream of a through express of unsurpassed luxury which should run to the ends of Europe. That first train consisted of the locomotive, two baggage cars, two sleeping cars, and a dining salon which was to become justly famous; about forty passengers (all male as far as Vienna, where two ladies came aboard), made the inaugural trip from Paris to Constantinople, among them ministers of the French and Belgian governments, several journalists including Blowitz, a Turkish diplomat, Mishak Effendi (identified by Flashman), and Nagelmackers himself. It is interesting, in view of the alias supplied by Blowitz for Flashman in Berlin five years earlier, that on the Orient Express Blowitz shared Vo
iture 151 with a Dutchman named Janszen. Blowitz got a book out of the trip, which was a memorable one even by his standards, for in Constantinople he obtained the first interview ever granted by the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, Sultan Abdul-Hamid II; in Bucharest he also interviewed the King of Roumania. And being Blowitz, he thoroughly enjoyed the luxury and conviviality of the journey, especially the dining salon. One cannot blame him; as all who have travelled on it agree, there is no train like the Orient Express. (See Michael Barsley, Orient Express: The Story of the World’s Most Fabulous Train, 1966; Blowitz, Memoirs. For the stops and times of Flashman’s journey, see Express Trains, English and Foreign, by E. Foxwell and T. C. Fairer, 1889.)

  12. Whoever “Princess Kralta” may have been, she was obviously a lady of considerable attraction and character. It is possible that Blowitz concealed her real name, since it is a device he employs elsewhere in his Memoirs; the only hint he gives of her origin is to describe her mother as “an Oriental flower”, but from Flashman’s description it would seem that her father at least was European, and Northern European at that. Be that as it may, “Kralta” appears to have occupied an influential position in Continental diplomatic and royal society; the account of her activities which Blowitz gaye to Flashman tallies closely with the Memoirs – her acquaintance with Bismarck, his employment of her to discover how Blowitz had got the Berlin Treaty, the melodramatic incident of the candle in the draught which alerted Blowitz to her treachery, and the sensational tale of how, at the German Emperor’s request, she soothed the distracted Bismarck with “some kind of diversion” – all these are in the chapter entitled, with Blowitzian panache, “The Revenge of Venus”. He does not state bluntly how she “diverted” Bismarck, but the inference could hardly be clearer.