Victoria's Generals
Page 24
Those involved with him also published, particularly Romolo Gessi, Seven Years in the Sudan Being a Record of Explorations, Adventures, and Campaigns against the Arab Slave Hunters, ed. Felix Gessi (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1892) and Sir Gerald Graham, Last Words with Gordon (London: Chapman & Hall, 1887). The British government prepared a post hoc report called General Gordon’s Mission to the Sudan, 1885: A Summary of Events Prepared for the Cabinet (London, 1885). Hagiographies appeared shortly after his death as well. These include those of his brother, Sir Henry W Gordon, Events in the life of Charles George Gordon (London: Kegan Paul, 1885); Hake’s History of Chinese Gordon (London: Remington & Co., 1885); the Reverend R H Barnes, Charles Gordon: a Sketch with Facsimile Letters (London: Macmillan & Co., 1885); W S Blunt, Gordon at Khartoum (London: Stephen Swift & Co., 1911); Annie Besant, Gordon Judged Out Of His Own Mouth (London: Freethought Publishing Co., 1885); and Eva Hope, General Gordon the Christian Hero (London: Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1885). Gordon’s last mission and his interactions with the Mahdi are usually viewed through the eyes of European captives who lived to write their memoirs: Father Joseph Ohrwalder, Ten Years Captivity in the Mahdi’s Camp from the Original Manuscript of Father Joseph Ohrwalder, Late Priest of the Austrian Mission Station at Delen in Kordofan, ed. and tr. Major R C Wingate (London: Sampson, Low, Marston & Co., 1892) and Rudolf C Slatin, With Fire and Sword in the Sudan, tr. Major F R Wingate (London: Edward Arnold, 1896). The British government’s relations with him and its rescue mission were reported in the memoirs of their participants such as the Earl of Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vols (London: Macmillan, 1908).
More recent documents collections have been more comprehensive and penetrating such as M F Shurky, ed., Equatoria Under Egyptian Rule: The Unpublished Correspondence of Col. C. G. Gordon with Ismail, Khedive of Egypt and the Sudan, 1874–1876 (Cairo: Cairo University Press, 1953) and Lord Elton, General Gordon’s Khartoum Journal (London: William Kimber, 1961). Some more recent biographies have been less kind, notably, Giles Lytton Strachey, Eminent Victorians (London: Chatto & Windus, 1920) and Anthony Nutting, Gordon of Khartoum: Martyr and Misfit (London: Constable, 1966). From the literally hundreds of biographies and military histories related to Gordon, the following have been most valuable: Roy MacGregor-Hastie, Never To Be Taken Alive: A Biography of General Gordon (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1985); Charles Chevenix Trench, The Road to Khartoum: A Life of General Charles Gordon (New York: W W Norton, 1978); John Pollock, Gordon: The Man Behind the Legend (Oxford: Lion, 1993); and John H Waller, Gordon of Khartoum: The Saga of a Victorian Hero (New York: Athenaeum, 1988).
Chapter 7
Frederick Roberts
André Wessels
The military history of Queen Victoria’s long reign is dominated by two renowned, albeit complex and controversial, commanders: Lord Roberts of Kandahar and Sir Garnet (later Viscount) Wolseley. Both of them, motivated in part by self-interest, worked tirelessly to promote the interests of the British Empire. Although they were rivals, they sometimes complemented one another. Each had his own ‘ring’ or ‘circle’ of very loyal and influential officers. The Wolseley (or ‘Ashanti’) ring included men like Redvers Buller; the Roberts (or ‘Indian’) ring included men like Ian Hamilton. Wolseley’s ring hailed their leader as ‘our only general’, which led Roberts’s followers to react by proclaiming him as ‘our other general’.1
Frederick Sleigh Roberts (known as ‘Fred’ to his family, and affectionately known as ‘Bobs’ by his troops) was born on 30 September 1832 in Cawnpore, India. He had the good fortune to come from what can be regarded as typical Victorian officers’ parentage. His father, Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Abraham Roberts, was a soldier of note and had fought in the First Anglo-Afghan War (1838–42). His mother, Isabella Bunbury, had previously been married to Major Hamilton Maxwell.
The Roberts family returned to England in 1834, where Fred was educated at Eton, the Royal Military College and the Honourable East India Company’s school; but he was no great scholar. In December 1851, he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the artillery, and gazetted to the Bengal army. After some four months in India, he joined his father as ADC and battery officer at Peshawar. He took part in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny (1857–58). During the final successful attack on Delhi (14 July 1857), Roberts received the first (and last) wound of his career, albeit a slight one, and his first (of many) mention in dispatches. On 2 January 1858, near the village of Khudaganj, he saved a standard as well as the life of a loyal Indian trooper, and in doing so, won the VC.2
Roberts returned to England because his health was breaking down. In England, he met Nora Henrietta Bews, and they married in May 1859. Some three weeks later, they sailed for India, where he joined the QMG’s department, which brought him into contact with the leading military and civil service personnel in India. He served in the Ambeyla Campaign on the North-West Frontier (1863), but then ill health forced him to return to England. In Abyssinia (1868), Roberts served as AQMG on the staff of Lieutenant General Robert Napier. He then returned to India, and in the Lushai Campaign (1871–72) for the first time led troops in battle.
Chronology
30 September 1832
Frederick Sleigh Roberts born at Cawnpore (Kanpur), India Educated at Eton, Sandhurst and Addiscombe
12 December 1851
Commissioned as Second Lieutenant, Bengal Artillery
31 May 1857
Promoted First Lieutenant
1857–58
Saw action in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny, wounded (14 July 1857), won the VC (2 January 1858) and earned seven mentions in dispatches
17 May 1859
Married Nora Henrietta Bews
12 November 1860
Promoted Captain
13 November 1860
Promoted Brevet Major
1863
Ambeyla Campaign, North-West Frontier, India
1868
Abyssinian Campaign
15 August 1868
Promoted Brevet Lieutenant Colonel
1871–72
Lushai Campaign
5 July 1872
Promoted Substantive Major
30 January 1875
Promoted Colonel, Acting Major General and QMG, India
1 April 1878
Commander, Punjab Frontier Force
22 October 1878
Commander, Kurram Frontier Force
31 December 1878
Promoted Substantive Major General
5 September 1879
Commander, Kabul Field Force as Local Lieutenant General
16 November 1880
Arrived back in England
6 March 1881
Sailed for Cape Town (arrived 29 March, departed 30 March)
14 June 1881
Created Baronet
28 November 1881
Arrived in India and took over as C in C of the Madras Army
26 July 1883
Promoted Substantive Lieutenant General
4 November 1885
Appointed C in C of the Indian Army as Acting General
28 November 1890
Promoted Substantive General
1 January 1892
Created Baron Roberts of Kandahar
8 April 1893
Left India for the last time
25 May 1895
Promoted Field Marshal
1 October 1895
Appointed C in C, Ireland
22 December 1899
Appointed C in C of the British forces in South Africa
28 November 1900
Relinquished South African command
11 December 1900
Departed from South Africa
2 January 1900
Created Earl Roberts of Kandahar, Waterford and Pretoria
3 January 1900
Took up position of C in C of the British army
8 February 1904
Retired as C in
C of the British army
14 November 1914
Died at St Omer, France
19 November 1914
Buried in St Paul’s Cathedral, London
Appointed CB, 1872; KCB, 1879; CIE, 1880; GCB, 1880; GCIE, 1887; GCSI, 1893; KP, 1897; KG, 1901; OM, 1902
Roberts played a decisive role in the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–80). In the first phase of the war, he led the Kurram Field Force to victory at the Peiwar Kotal, and in the second phase, first led the Kabul Field Force to retake the Afghan capital, and later marched from Kabul to Kandahar. This seemingly epic (but overrated) march made him a household name throughout the British Empire, and ensured him enduring fame as military commander. Roberts returned to England, but when news was received that George Colley had been defeated and killed at Majuba in Natal, Roberts was sent to South Africa in March 1881 as Natal’s new Governor and C in C. However, while he was still at sea, the British government decided to opt for a negotiated settlement. Roberts was furious, and within 24 hours of arriving in Cape Town, he was on his way back to England.
In November 1881, Roberts returned to India once more, to take up the post of C in C of the Madras army. He raised the standard of this army, improved the defence of the North-West Frontier and wrote on the defence of India and the threat that Russia posed to British interests. In November 1885, Roberts was appointed C in C of the Indian army. His primary concern was still the defence of the country against Russia, and consequently, he improved the fortifications and communications infrastructure on the frontiers. He also focussed his energy on several other tasks: he strengthened and reformed the Indian army; he re-equipped it with new weapons such as, for example, machine-guns; he improved training (especially with regard to musketry); and he recruited more of the so-called ‘martial races’ of northern India into its army. From November 1886 to February 1887, he commanded the British forces in the Third Anglo-Burmese War.
In April 1893, Roberts left Indian shores for the last time, and returned to England. As no suitable employment was immediately available, he wrote the autobiographical Forty-one Years in India, a best seller in its day. In May 1895, he was promoted Field Marshal, and in October 1895, appointed C in C, Ireland (as successor to Wolseley, who became C in C of the British army). When the Anglo-Boer War broke out on 11 October 1899, the Wolseley ring’s General Buller was appointed C in C, South Africa.3 Roberts was regarded as too old to take command in the field. Buller’s offensive failed, and in what became known as ‘Black Week’ (10–15 December), he suffered three defeats at the hands of an untrained citizen army. (At Colenso, on 15 December, Roberts’s son, Freddy, was mortally wounded.)
On more than one occasion, Roberts offered his services to the British government, and when the ‘Black Week’ defeats led to a public outcry in Britain and it became clear that Buller had not only lost the confidence of the British public and government, but also his nerve, the government approached Roberts to take over as C in C in South Africa. Roberts’s appointment was a victory of his ring over that of Wolseley’s. In practice, neither Wolseley (although he was the C in C) nor the Queen (who still supported Buller) was consulted with regard to Roberts’s appointment. Lord Kitchener was appointed as Roberts’s chief of staff. In practice, these two distinguished soldiers complemented each other to a remarkable degree.
Plan of the north-west frontier of India. (From David James, Lord Roberts, London: Hollis & Carter, 1954)
Roberts and his staff arrived in Cape Town on 10 January 1900, and he set about revitalising the British war effort in South Africa by reorganising the transport arrangements, raising more mounted troops (in the light of the British army’s experience in South Africa thus far, but also drawing on his own experience in Afghanistan) and preparing for his advance. Roberts’s campaign can be divided into six phases: (1) Preparations in Cape Town; (2) his advance from the Modder River via Paardeberg to Bloemfontein; (3) his forced halt in Bloemfontein; (4) his advance from Bloemfontein via Johannesburg to Pretoria; (5) his advance from Pretoria to Komatipoort; and (6) the guerrilla phase proper (until he handed over his command to Kitchener).
On 11 February 1900, Roberts implemented his elaborate flank march, based on a strategy of indirect approach. He first took his army of 49,500 men (out of some 120,000 deployed in South Africa at that stage) from the Modder River south to Enslin Station, then swerved eastwards via Ramdam to Watervalsdrif and De Kielsdrif on the Riet River, and then northwards to Rondawelsdrif and Klipdrif on the Modder River. From there his forces drove eastwards along the river, following on the heels of the Boers who had been forced to evacuate their positions at Magersfontein. While Major General J D P French rushed northwards to relieve Kimberley (15 February), the rest of Roberts’s army cornered and then attacked and laid siege to General P A Cronjé’s force near Paardeberg, where the Boers surrendered on 27 February 1900. From Paardeberg Roberts moved eastwards and occupied Bloemfontein on 13 March. After a forced halt of more than seven weeks, Roberts continued his advance northwards on 3 May, now all along the main railway line, occupying Johannesburg (31 May) and Pretoria (5 June). In the meantime, he annexed the Orange Free State (OFS), but he now also had to contend with Boer guerrilla activities, which started as early as 31 March when General Christiaan de Wet defeated a force at Sannaspos.
Plan of the north-west frontier and Afghanistan. (From G. Forrest, The Life of Lord Roberts, KG, VC, London: Cassell & Co., 1914)
Roberts was convinced that ‘our having gained possession of the capital of the South African Republic [i.e. Transvaal] will enable the war to be brought to a rapid conclusion’.4 When he realised, however, that not even the fall of Pretoria would induce the Boers to surrender, he ordered an advance eastwards along the Delagoa Bay railway line, forcing the Boers to abandon their positions at Donkerhoek/Diamond Hill (11–12 June 1900) and Bergendal/Dalmanutha (21–27 August 1900) without really defeating them. On 1 September 1900 he annexed the Transvaal.
On 29 September 1900, Roberts was offered the post of C in C of the British army, and he accepted, convinced that all that was left to be done in South Africa was police work to get rid of the few isolated groups of Boers. At midnight, on 28/29 November 1900, Roberts handed over command to Kitchener and returned to England, where on 3 January he took up his new position. For his work in South Africa, he received many honours and awards.
Roberts’s appointment as C in C was widely welcomed, but in practice, he performed no better than his predecessor. He did try to improve the professional education of the officer corps, placed more emphasis on realistic training, and introduced a new rifle (the magazine Lee-Enfield) and new motor vehicles. As a matter of fact, although Roberts was, strictly speaking, from the old school of thought (and really represented an older era), he modernised the army as far as possible in line with new technologies. To some extent, he also laid the foundation for the modern British army, and for what later became the General Staff of the Army. But otherwise, there was not much he could do to reform the army. After all, he had less scope in the War Office than he had when he was C in C in India.
Roberts’s achievements as C in C were overshadowed by arguments concerning the exact role the C in C should play. In 1903, a Royal Commission recommended that the position of C in C of the British army be abolished, and consequently, in February 1904, Roberts left the War Office. Until November 1905, he remained a member of the newly formed Committee of Imperial Defence, but resigned because he disagreed with several of the government’s defence policies, especially with regard to compulsory military training. He became president of the National Service League in November 1905, addressing many meetings on the issue of national service (and warning against a German threat), but the British press and public were averse to conscription. As an Anglo-Irishman, Roberts supported the Ulster Unionists, was against home rule for Ireland and was involved in the Curragh incident (March 1914).5
When Britain entered the First World War in August 1914, Roberts was appointe
d Colonel in Chief of the Empire (i.e. overseas) troops in France. In November, when he received word that men of the Indian Army Corps had arrived for service on the Western Front, Roberts was intent on going to France to meet ‘his’ troops. He crossed the English Channel and visited the headquarters of the Indian regiments. By the evening of 13 November it was clear that he had caught a chill; pneumonia of one lung and pleurisy rapidly developed, and he died at St Omer at 2000 on 14 November 1914. After a military funeral service in St Paul’s Cathedral,6 his mortal remains were interred in the cathedral’s crypt, almost next to that of his old rival, Wolseley, and near the tombs of Nelson and Wellington.
Roberts was an unlikely soldier. He was a tiny man (only 5ft 3in tall), but sturdily built and very alert. As a ‘delicate’ child in India, he contracted ‘brain fever’, which left him blind in his right eye. Even by the end of the Victorian era, Roberts would not have physically qualified to be a soldier, but in mid-nineteenth-century Victorian Britain, someone with good military connections could get away with physical handicaps. He often suffered from digestive ailments and more than once, after concluding a campaign, ill health forced him to return to England.7