Chapter XXII: Peace Where There Is No Peace

Ominous Bye-Elections--The Spangles of Imperialism--Disturbed state
of Eastern Europe--Origin of the Quarrel with the Zulus--Cetewayo’s
Feud with the Boers--A “Prancing Pro-Consul”--Sir Bartle Frere’s
Ultimatum to the Zulu King--War Declared--The Crime and its
Retribution--The Disaster of Isandhlwana--The Defence of Rorke’s
Drift--Demands for the Recall of Sir Bartle Frere--Censured but
not Dismissed--Sir Garnet Wolseley Supersedes Sir Bartle Frere
in Natal--The Victory of Ulundi--Capture of Cetewayo--End of the
War--The Invasion of Afghanistan--Death of Shere Ali--Yakoob
Khan Proclaimed Ameer--The Treaty of Gundamuk--The “Scientific
Frontier”--The Army Discipline Bill--Mr. Parnell attacks the
“Cat”--Mr. Chamberlain Plays to the Gallery--Surrender of the
Government--Lord Hartington’s Motion against Flogging--The Irish
University Bill--An Unpopular Budget--The Murder of Cavagnari
and Massacre of his Suite--The Army of Vengeance--The Re-capture
of Cabul--The Settlement of Zululand--Death of Prince Louis
Napoleon--The Court-Martial on Lieutenant Carey--Its Judgment
Quashed--Marriage of the Duke of Connaught--The Queen at Baveno.

From the bye-elections it was clear, when the New Year (1879) opened, that the _prestige_ of the Ministry was waning. The spangled robe and gaudy diadem of Asiatic Imperialism began to sit uneasily on Constitutional England. The Treaty of Berlin had not brought Englishmen much “honour.” But it had not even brought Europe “peace.” Austria had to make good her hold of Bosnia and Herzegovina by war. Albania was in the hands of a rebel League that executed “Jetdart justice” on Turkish Pashas of the highest rank. Bulgaria and Thrace were only saved from anarchy by the Russian army of occupation. Eastern Roumelia was the scene of daily conflicts between the Turkish troops, and the people of Greece were clamorous to know when Turkey would respond to the invitation of the Conference, and rectify the Hellenic frontier. The discovery that Cyprus was a poor pestilential island, infinitely less valuable than most of the Ionian group, which Englishmen had given to Greece as a gift, was a profound disappointment to popular hopes, and led to an undue and exaggerated depreciation of its value as a place of arms. The Anglo-Turkish Convention was already seen to be a farce. The Sultan, after the resources of diplomatic menace had been well-nigh exhausted, conceded to the agents of England in Asia Minor a few illusory rights of surveillance. But he set on foot no reforms, and he made it plain that he would resist to the death any attempt to “open up” his Asiatic provinces under a British Protectorate to the enterprise of the British projector and pioneer. The Afghan War was unpopular, and though victory did not prove, as was feared, inconstant to our arms, the people seemed convinced, from the history of the first and second Afghan Wars, that a triumph would be almost as disastrous in its cost to India as a defeat. It was impossible now to conceal the fact that when the Indian troops were brought to Malta, the country was placed in a position of far greater peril than had been imagined. While Ministers were wasting their energies in protecting more or less imaginary interests in Eastern Europe, they were apparently quite ignorant that their policy had exposed the vital interests of the Empire to attack in Asia. Nay, it was seen that their policy of irritating and menacing the Afghan Ameer, and of terrifying the Native Princes with enforced disarmament, had rendered it easy for Russia, without doing more than giving our enemies and discontented feudatories merely some unofficial support, to shake the fabric of Indian Empire to its very centre. To put the Imperial Crown of India down among the stakes in Lord Beaconsfield’s game with Russia in Europe was magnificent. But men of sense and prudence now began to suspect that it was not good business or good diplomacy. Never was England less restful or less easy in mind. Abroad Lord Beaconsfield, as was said, had created a situation which was neither peace with its security, nor war with its happy chances. At home the classes were groaning over the collapse of their most remunerative investments, and the masses writhing under a fall of wages, which, in many trades, amounted to fifty per cent. To complete the popular feeling of depression, it was plain that the Government were fast drifting into another Kaffir War. On the 3rd of February, 1879, in fact, it was officially announced that hostilities with the Zulus had begun.

There is no difficulty in understanding the causes of the Zulu War. The Zulu king (Cetewayo) had ever been a staunch ally of England. But he had a blood-feud with the Boers of the Transvaal, and he claimed part of their territory as having been originally stolen by them from his race. When England in an evil moment annexed the Transvaal, she found that she took over with it the quarrel of the Boers with the Zulus. Cetewayo pressed his claims all the more confidently that a friendly Power now held the land which had been taken from him. In every colony there is a clique of land-speculators, who also, as a rule, form the War Party, and, by a singular coincidence, net most of the profits that are to be derived from a colonial war waged at the expense of the British taxpayer. This Party in Natal ridiculed the notion of giving Cetewayo his land. They also stirred up a war panic, vowing that the Zulus were only waiting for a favourable opportunity to pounce upon Natal and exterminate the Europeans. Sir Bartle Frere--“a prancing pro-consul,” as Sir William Harcourt called him--was High Commissioner at the Cape, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces there was Lord Chelmsford. A more ominous combination could hardly be imagined. Sir Bartle Frere even in India had been a hot annexationist. He had the restless brain to devise schemes of conquest, whilst his military colleague had neither the brain nor nerve to carry them out. The Blue-books indicate that Sir Bartle Frere had been preparing beforehand a grand project of conquest in South Africa.[141] Unfortunately, Sir M. Hicks-Beach was not sharp enough to detect and blight this scheme in the bud, and it is doubtful if he even suspected its existence till he was galvanised into vigilance by the startling ultimatum which Sir Bartle Frere suddenly sent to the Zulu king. The award of the British Boundary Commissioners on the dispute between the Zulus and the Boers had been in favour of the Zulus. It was given in June, 1878. Yet it had been kept back by Sir Bartle Frere, apparently to stimulate the War Party among the Zulus with the provocation of delay. Then when it was communicated to King Cetewayo, there was tacked on to it an irrelevant and menacing demand that King Cetewayo should immediately disband his whole army. “To make the case our own,” wrote Lord Blachford, one of the highest living authorities on Colonial Policy, “it is as if the Emperor of Germany, in concluding with us a Treaty of Commerce, suddenly annexed a notice that he would make war on us in six weeks unless before the expiration of that time we burnt our Navy.”[142] And the ultimatum was not only a crime, but a hideous blunder. To annihilate instead of utilising the Zulu power was to relieve the Boers of the Transvaal from the pressure on their flank that alone prevented them from throwing off the British yoke. But it was of no use to argue the case on the grounds of justice or common sense. “The men who had been in the country”--who always come forward to defend every act of folly that is about to be perpetrated in a distant colony--dinned their defence of Sir Bartle Frere into the ears of Englishmen, who were at last half persuaded that it must be the duty of England to exterminate the Zulus, when a satrap like Sir Bartle Frere was eager to annihilate them in the interests of Christianity. Moreover, as in the case of the Afghan War, the people were kept in utter ignorance of the arrogant ultimatum by which Frere had gone out of his way to fix a quarrel on King Cetewayo.

But if the crime was rank, the retribution by which it was avenged was swift and stern. Chelmsford’s advance guard crossed the Tugela on the 12th of January. A petty success was recorded at Ekowe on the 7th, and then on the 22nd of January the English column at Isandhlwana was smitten as with the sword of Gideon. Our troops were beaten not only in the actual conflict, but they were out-manœuvred and out-generalled. The barbarians under Cetewayo had fought like lions, and they had inflicted on a British army a defeat so disgraceful that the history of half a century supplies no parallel to it. Frere, like a reckless gambler, had staked everything on this cast of the die. Neither he nor Chelmsford had made provision for a disaster, and the result was that the rout of Isandhlwana left the whole colony of Natal, even then discounting the spoils of victory, open to invasion. Nothing, in fact, stood between the Europeans in Natal and extermination, save the little post of Rorke’s Drift. There Lieutenants Bromhead and Chard, with a handful of men, stemmed the tide of invasion, and redeemed the honour of England which had been smirched by the political incapacity of Frere, and the military failure of Chelmsford. In vain did the Queen and the Duke of

Cambridge send sympathetic messages to the seat of war. It was reinforcements that were needed, if the English in South-East Africa were not to be driven into the sea. Parliament, when it met on the 8th of February, was as wrathful as the country. The Government had let Sir Bartle Frere drag the country into a war, which in a few days the disaster of Isandhlwana showed they were incompetent to conduct with credit to the Empire. If Ministers were not able to emerge, without ignominy, from a conflict with the Zulu king, what must have happened had they been allowed to challenge the Czar of Muscovy to mortal combat? Criticism was felt to be futile, in view of the pressing need to retrieve the disgrace of a defeat, none the less ignominious that the Government and their agents had courted it. But a stern demand was heard on all sides for the recall of Frere and Chelmsford, a demand which, like a vote of censure that was proposed in the House of Lords by Lord Lansdowne on the 25th, and in the Commons by Sir Charles Dilke on the 11th of March, Ministers evaded by administering a strong rebuke to the High Commissioner. As a man of spirit, Frere would have naturally resigned after this rebuke. But he held on to his place, and this was so discreditable, that to account for his conduct a strange theory was mooted. It was said that private letters were sent to him by high personages, some of them connected with the Government, assuring him that the censure of the Secretary of State was not meant to be taken as real, but had been penned merely to save Ministers from a Parliamentary defeat.[143] Sir M. Hicks-Beach’s despatch with the censure ended with these words: “But I have no desire to withdraw the confidence hitherto reposed in you.” Such was the feeble manner in which the Government dealt with a satrap who had virtually usurped the prerogative of the Sovereign to declare war. Soon after the Ministry had warded off the vote of censure in Parliament, the country was again agitated by tidings of further reverses in Zululand, and it was not till the 21st of April that the Government could announce that Pearson’s column, which had been locked up at Ekowe since the outbreak of the war, had been able to save itself by retreat. The indignation of the country grew apace, and at last it was found necessary to allay it by superseding Sir Bartle Frere’s authority in Natal and the Transvaal. Sir Garnet Wolseley was accordingly sent to take supreme command at the scene of action. Ere he could arrive Chelmsford, stimulated into action by Colonel Evelyn Wood, had however taken a decisive step. He gave the Zulus battle at Ulundi on the 3rd of July, and won a victory which put an end to the war. Cetewayo was taken prisoner on the 28th of August, and, despite the efforts made by Sir Garnet Wolseley and others to set up another Government for the one which had been destroyed, Zululand lapsed into the confusion and anarchy in which it has since remained.

The Afghan War had been more skilfully managed. The British invaders overcame all resistance, and when Parliament assembled General Stewart was in possession of Candahar, and Shere Ali had fled from Cabul. Soon afterwards he died, and his heir, Yakoob, came with his submission to the British camp at Gundamuk. There, on the 25th of May, he signed a Treaty which bound the Indian Government to give him a subsidy of £60,000 a year and defend him against his enemies, in return for which he ceded the “scientific frontier,” and agreed to manage his foreign policy in accordance with the advice of a British Resident who was to be received in Cabul. This gleam of success neutralised the effect of the reverses in South Africa, and both Houses voted their thanks to the Indian Viceroy and to the Generals who had carried out the expedition. The Government had no difficulty in persuading Parliament to sanction a loan of £2,000,000 without interest to India, to enable her to pay the expenses of the campaign. In fact, when the Session closed Ministers were jubilant at having upset the predictions of the experienced Anglo-Indians, who had declared that it was impossible to keep a British Resident at Cabul. They assured the nation not only that the British Resident was there, but that the Cabulees were delighted to receive him.

The severe winter of 1879 aggravated the distress which had settled like a blight on the labouring and trading classes, and the existence of which Ministers attempted to ignore. They were, indeed, so ill-advised as to propose a grant of money for the relief of the Turks, who were enduring great sufferings in the Rhodope district. But some of the Tory borough Members threatened to rebel if this project were persisted in, and it was withdrawn. The programme of domestic legislation was long and ambitious, and Ministers very properly began the Session by an attempt to guard against obstruction. They carried a rule which prevented any amendment from being made to the motion that the Speaker of the House of Commons leave the Chair on going into Committee of Supply on Monday nights. This enabled a Minister who came to explain his Estimates to do so at once, because it prevented private Members from interposing, between him and the Committee, with long and irrelevant debates on real and imaginary grievances. The chief measure of the Session was a Bill to consolidate the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War--a measure which still further extended the Parliamentary control of the Army by incorporating these Articles into an Act of Parliament. It was read a second time on the 7th of April; but when it went into Committee it attracted the attention of Mr. Parnell and his followers.

Mr. Parnell now appeared in the character of a British patriot and philanthropist who took an absorbing interest in perfecting the discipline of the Army and in ameliorating the condition of the private soldier. As in

the case of the Prisons Bill, he had mastered every detail of the subject, only he had become a much more formidable personage than he had been in 1877. He had deposed Mr. Butt from the leadership of the Irish party, and, for all practical purposes, he had taken his place.[144] He had shown Ireland that he had been able to procure for her, by one short year’s obstruction in 1877, not only the endowment of her secondary education, but even the release of several Fenian convicts in 1878--a year, said the _Times_, marked by the cessation of obstruction, and the good relations which obtained between the Government and the Home Rulers. In March he had discussed the Army Estimates with an ability and knowledge which even the Minister for War recognised; and when the Army Discipline Bill was sent before the House in Committee Mr. Parnell was conspicuous for his cleverness in exposing its anomalies, its obsolete applications of the principles of martial law, and its prevailing bias in favour of the officers and against the rank-and-file. When the 44th clause was reached, Mr. Parnell and his friends made a stand against the continuance of flogging in the Army, and at this stage Liberals vied with Ministerialists in denouncing their obstructive tactics. But Mr. Parnell persisted. He had foreseen that he was raising a popular cry. A General Election was at hand, and he knew that the moment it was discovered that he had touched the heart of the constituencies, it would be a question with the Liberals and Conservatives who were then storming at him as to who should be the first to fall into line with him. Mr. Parnell’s cynical prevision was justified by events.

Both parties, to do them justice, held out manfully night after night against the pressure of this appeal to the sordid side of their political character. But the longer the game of obstruction on the flogging question was played, the stronger grew the feeling among the populace against flogging, and night after night Mr. Parnell was at his post with cold malice giving an additional turn to the electoral screw. The first to succumb to the torture was Mr. Chamberlain, and something like a faded smile flitted across Mr. Parnell’s stony visage when that successful and practical politician scurried into his camp. Mr. Chamberlain’s unexpected speech against flogging fell like a bombshell in the House of Commons, where it was understood that Englishmen of all parties had entered into an honourable understanding to meet Mr. Parnell’s obstructive policy with a firm and united resistance. It was a speech which, as Sir Robert Peel very justly said, “entirely upset the calculations of the Government,”[145] a fact which was forgotten or concealed by those critics of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration who afterwards vilipended them for their weak and vacillating attitude to this question. No sooner had Mr. Chamberlain deserted to the Irish ranks than he found himself the object of unsparing obloquy which Liberals and Conservatives impartially bestowed on him. Of course other Radicals, if they desired to save their seats in a General Election, were forced to follow him, and as soon as Mr. Parnell found that he had lured nearly the whole Radical party into his net, he and the Irish Members suddenly vanished from the scene as leaders in the struggle. They were never absent from their posts, and they never failed to support the cause they had espoused by their votes. But they thrust the work of obstruction and of speaking on the Liberal and Radical Members who had tardily become their allies. The advantage they gained was soon apparent. Mr. Chamberlain speedily lost his temper, and not only publicly quarrelled with Lord Hartington, but one evening he even insulted him amidst furious cries of protest from the Liberal benches, by describing him as “the _late_ Leader of the Liberal Party.”[146] Nothing could be more complete than the disintegration of the Liberal Party which Mr. Chamberlain thus produced, unless it were the perplexity of the Ministry. The Tories did not dare to stand by the lash as a British institution unless they got what they had been promised--the loyal support of the Opposition. Yet under Mr. Chamberlain’s obstructive agitation, and under popular pressure from the constituencies, it was clear that the Opposition was going over piecemeal to the opponents of flogging. What wonder, then, that Colonel Stanley, the Minister of War, temporised, when Mr. Chamberlain extorted from him a damaging schedule, giving a list of the offences for which a soldier could be flogged?

Debates instinct with a strange kind of fierce frivolity raged as to the sort of “cat” that should be used in flogging a soldier. Infinite time was wasted in discussing whether the word “lashes” should be used instead of “stripes” in the Act, Mr. Chamberlain being beaten in his effort to get the word “stripes” inserted. Endless discussions arose as to the maximum number of lashes that should be sanctioned. When there was any sign of hesitancy Irish obstructionists were always ready to join in the fray, and not only screw Mr. Chamberlain up to the “sticking point,” but ironically suggest that Liberal and Conservative leaders would alike find it profitable to go to the country in the coming election, with a “new cat and an old Constitution,” as a taking “cry.” Colonel Stanley at last gave way, and offered to reduce the _maximum_ number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five, whereupon Mr. Chamberlain showed that he was as dangerous to run away from as Mr. Parnell. Indeed, all through these debates Mr. Chamberlain fought the battle of obstruction with an amount of courage and fertility of resource that placed him in the front rank of Parliamentary gladiators. Friends and foes alike admitted that but for his asperity of temper he might have disputed the palm of success even with Mr. Parnell himself. The fight was virtually won when Colonel Stanley proposed to reduce the number of lashes from fifty to twenty-five. Even Lord Hartington then made haste to go over to Mr. Chamberlain whilst it was yet time, just as Mr. Chamberlain had made haste to desert to Mr. Parnell.

On the 17th of July Lord Hartington accordingly proposed that corporal punishment should be abolished for all military offences. Though on a division he was beaten by a majority of 106, it was felt that the “cat-o’-nine-tails” was doomed whenever a Liberal Government came into power. It was foreseen that at the next election many Conservative Members would be driven from their seats, because they had been forced to vote in the majority, and the Ministerialists denounced Lord Hartington’s surrender to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Chamberlain with exceeding bitterness. As Lord Salisbury said in addressing a Tory meeting in the City of London, Lord Hartington was like the Sultan, because, though he had a group of political Bashi-Bazouks in his party, whom he could not control, and whose conduct he politely deprecated, yet his motion showed he would not hesitate to profit by their misdeeds, when the conflict of parties was fought out at the polls. As it was, the Government were only able to obtain their majority by agreeing to restrict corporal punishment to those offences which were then punishable by death.

The only other Bill of importance passed during the Session was one dealing with Irish University education. It abolished the Queen’s University, and substituted for it the Royal University of Ireland, an examining body like the University of London, empowered to grant degrees, except in Theology, to all qualified students who might present themselves.

The Budget, as might be expected, was by no means a popular one. Since 1878 extraordinary expenditure, incurred on account of an adventurous Foreign Policy, had simply been treated as a deferred liability. On the 3rd of April Sir Stafford Northcote, in explaining his Budget, admitted that the revenue, which he had estimated at £83,230,000, had fallen short of that sum by £110,000. As for his expenditure, it had exceeded his estimate by £4,388,000. He had therefore no money in hand with which to meet the deferred liabilities of 1878-79; in fact, he was face to face with a fresh deficit. Comparing his actual revenue with his actual expenditure, the deficit was seen to amount to £2,291,000. The position, then, was this. In 1878 he had paid off £2,750,000 by bills, which he thought he would have been able to meet in 1879. Now he found he could not meet them. These he reserved

for another year, adding to them a fresh set of bills for the new deficit, which transferred to the future a lump sum of debt equal to £5,350,000. Leaving this item out of account, and ignoring the cost of the South African War, he estimated the expenditure of 1879-80 at £81,153,000. The revenue, he hoped, would amount to £83,000,000, so that the estimated surplus he expected would suffice to cover the cost of the operations in Zululand. It was a dismal statement, at best. But ere the Session ended it was discovered that the real position of affairs was even worse than Sir Stafford Northcote had admitted. In August he had to inform the House that the Zulu War was costing the country £500,000 a month, and that he must get a Vote of Credit of £3,000,000. This, with an addition of £64,000 to the ordinary Estimates, raised the original estimate of expenditure to £84,217,000. Thus the estimated surplus of £1,847,000 vanished, and in its place there stood a deficit of £1,217,000 for 1879-80, which might probably be increased. The plan of evading the payment of debt, so as to render a costly policy palatable to the electors, was thus a failure. The longer the payment of the debt was deferred the more it grew, and it was clear that the finances of the country were drifting into inextricable confusion.

Parliament was prorogued on the 15th of August, and it had hardly risen when the predicted calamity in Afghanistan arrived. As experienced Anglo-Indians had anticipated, Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British Envoy at Cabul, was murdered, and his suite massacred (3rd September), by the fanatical soldiers of the Ameer. During the short period of his residence, Cavagnari had justified the arguments of those who averred that a European Envoy would never be able to furnish his Government with any valuable information from Cabul. The only intelligence worth having that was received by the Indian Government came from native sources, and it had consisted of warnings that Cavagnari’s life was in grave peril.[147] It was necessary to order an Army of Vengeance to enter Afghanistan, and this was done. But, in England, the verdict of public opinion was that Lord Beaconsfield’s Afghan policy had proved an irredeemable failure. It was no longer possible to dream of avoiding the costly and harassing annexation of Afghanistan, by extending over it a veiled British Protectorate, to be administered by a British Envoy at Cabul as Political Resident. There was no alternative but a military occupation, which meant that England must be ready to hold down by the sword a country as large as France, as impracticable for military movements as Switzerland, and inhabited by wild fanatical tribes as fierce, lawless, and savage as the hordes of Ghengis Khan.[148] The Army of Vengeance under Sir Frederick Roberts, after much toil and many struggles, fought its way through the Shutargardan Pass, and captured Cabul on the 12th of October. The Ameer, Yakoob Khan, was forced to abdicate, and he was deported to Peshawur, and in the meantime Roberts governed the country by sword and halter. The hillmen attacked his communications. The attitude of the Cabulees was, from the first, threatening, though General Roberts disregarded the warnings of the Persian newswriters, who told him that Afghanistan was going to rise about his ears. On the 14th of December the insurrection broke out in Cabul, and Roberts had to leave the city and fight his way round to the cantonments at Sherpore, where his supplies were stored, and where he took refuge, and was soon besieged. In fact, in the middle of December the public learnt with extreme anxiety that every British post in Afghanistan was surrounded by swarms of fierce insurgents, and that a rescuing army must be organised at Peshawur without delay. Cabul itself was in the hands of Mahomed Jan, the victorious Afghan leader. Bitterly did Englishmen recall Lord Beaconsfield’s speech a month before at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet, in which he assured his audience that the operations in Afghanistan “had been conducted with signal success,” that the North-West frontier of India had been strengthened and secured, and that British supremacy had been asserted in Central Asia. Fortunately, ere the year closed, General Gough, who had advanced from Gundamuk, was able to join hands with Roberts, who again made himself master of Cabul.

In South Africa affairs began to assume a more hopeful aspect towards the end of the year. After the victory of Ulundi the Zulu chiefs one after another submitted to the British Government. Cetewayo--who, as we have seen, had been captured on the 28th of August--was sent as a State prisoner to Cape Town, and Sir Garnet Wolseley made peace with the Zulu chiefs and people.[149] The Kaffir chief, Secocoeni, who had defied the Government before the Zulu War broke out, was attacked and subdued. He had been secretly aided by the Boers, who had warned Sir Bartle Frere that they did not accept the annexation of the Transvaal. At Pretoria Sir Garnet Wolseley, however, told the Boer leaders that the annexation which they were resisting was irreversible, and the Boers for a time confined themselves to obstructing the judicial and fiscal administration of the British Government.

The Zulu War was marked by one incident that powerfully influenced the destiny of Europe: it cost the heir of the Bonapartes his life. The young Prince Louis Napoleon--or the “Prince Imperial,” as the Bonapartists insisted on calling him--had resolved to serve with the British Army in Zululand. His object was to acquire a military reputation that might be useful to him as a Pretender. A proud and self-respecting Government, however hard pressed, cannot accept the services of a foreign mercenary, however high his rank might be. But, in deference to Courtly influences, the Prince was permitted to proceed to the seat of war in an ambiguous position. He held no commission, but he was treated like a junior officer of the General Staff, and the Duke of Cambridge requested Lord Chelmsford to let the Prince see as much of the war as he could. Lord Chelmsford issued instructions to the military authorities, which made the Prince a burden--perhaps, in some degree, a nuisance--to them. When he joined Lord Chelmsford Prince Louis seems to have been attached to the Quartermaster-General’s Department. But he was not to be allowed to go out of the camp without Lord Chelmsford’s permission, and even then he was to be guarded by an escort under an officer of experience. On the 1st of June Colonel Harrison allowed the Prince to make a reconnaissance for the purpose of choosing the site of a camp, but without obtaining Lord Chelmsford’s sanction. The Prince’s party was to consist of six troopers and six Basutos, and though no officer was sent to accompany him, Lieutenant Carey, an accomplished and intelligent soldier, happened, by an accident, to join the band. Carey had been employed to survey and map out some of the adjoining ground, and he asked leave to go with the Prince to clear up a doubtful topographical point on which he and Lord Chelmsford differed in opinion. Carey merely went for his private convenience. He was not told to look after the Prince; in fact, he was told that, if he went, he was not to interfere with him, because his Imperial Highness, eager to re-gild the tarnished Eagles of his House, desired to have all the credit of conducting the

(_From the Picture by S. P. Hall._)]

(_From a Photograph by Lafayette, Dublin._)]

Expedition. The Prince was in command of the party,[150] and in a fit of boyish impatience, and in defiance of Carey’s advice, ordered it to march without waiting for the six Basutos, who were late of putting in an appearance. He led his little troop on for some distance, and then, without taking the most ordinary precautions against surprise, he halted--again against Carey’s counsel--for a rest in a deserted kraal surrounded by a field of

tall Indian corn. This was a fatal blunder, for the cover of the cornfield rendered the place eminently convenient for the concealment of an ambuscade. Here the Prince waited an hour, whilst the Zulus surrounded him. Then he gave his men the order to move. The Zulus sprang from their hiding-places and fired on the little band, whose startled horses were difficult to mount. It was impossible to see what was going on in the cornfield, and it was not till the troopers had retreated for some distance that Lieutenant Carey and his comrades discovered that the Prince was missing. To have made a stand in the cornfield would have been to court instant death. It appeared that the Prince had been unable to mount his horse, which was frightened and restive, and that the Zulus overtook him and stabbed him with their assegais. Thanks to Carey’s knowledge of the ground, the rest of the party, with the exception of two troopers, were saved, and Carey was able to give Colonel Wood’s force the valuable intelligence that the enemy, contrary to the general belief, were infesting the country in front.

The indignation of the French Bonapartists at the death of the Prince Imperial was without limit. The ex-Empress, who had encouraged her son to go to South Africa, was prostrated with sorrow and remorse. Even the tender sympathy of the Queen could not console her for the loss of one whose life was necessary for her ambition, and whose death shattered the last hopes of Imperialism in France. It was thought desirable that somebody should be sacrificed to appease the ex-Empress, and Lieutenant Carey was accordingly tried by Court-martial and promptly condemned for “misbehaviour in front of the enemy” while in command of a reconnoitring party. There were only two reasons for attacking Carey. He was the officer of lowest rank who had any connection with the Prince’s ill-fated reconnaissance, and he had absolutely nothing whatever to do with the command of that expedition, or with the Prince’s mismanagement of it. In fact, all that Carey could be blamed for was for saving, by his superior knowledge of the ground, four of the six troopers whom the Prince had led into a fatal ambuscade. It need hardly be said that, on review, the finding of the Court-martial was set aside by the Duke of Cambridge, and Lieutenant Carey restored to his rank. The Duke laid all the blame on Colonel Harrison, who, however, was not tried by Court-martial. But he also complained that Carey made a mistake in imagining that the Prince was in command of the party, a mistake which was not only natural but inevitable, and which was shared by all his comrades. The melancholy and stubborn imprudence of the Prince obviously led the expedition to disaster. The Duke of Cambridge argued that Colonel Harrison should have warned the Prince to be guided by Carey. Having blamed Harrison for not giving Carey sufficiently definite instructions as to the command of the expedition, he made Carey responsible for the defects in Harrison’s instructions. Carey, according to the Duke, should have provided that military skill which the Prince lacked. The truth was that Carey was warned not to meddle with the Prince, who from first to last took command, and who, when advice was tendered to him, rejected it in a manner that did not encourage a spirited and self-respecting officer to press it on him.

The family life of the Court in 1879 was brightened by a Royal wedding. On the 13th of March the marriage of the Duke of Connaught with the Princess Louise Marguerite of Prussia was celebrated with some display. The ceremony took place in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. At noon the four processions--those of the Queen, the Princess of Wales, the bride and the bridegroom--quitted the quadrangle. The Queen drove in her own carriage, drawn by four ponies, the remainder of the Royal Family occupying the gilded State coaches, driven by the Royal coachmen in their liveries of scarlet and gold. The display of decorations and uniforms and costumes among the august guests was seen to be very brilliant as the Royal party took their places round the Communion rails, where were assembled the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Worcester, and the Dean of Windsor. As Mendelssohn’s march from _Athalie_ resounded through the sacred building the Queen was observed to take her place, dressed in a complete Court dress of black satin, with a white veil and a flashing coronet of diamonds. The Princess Beatrice had discarded Court mourning, and appeared in a turquoise blue costume with a velvet train to match. The bridegroom, wearing the uniform of the Rifle Brigade, was supported by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The bride was accompanied by her father, Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, better known as the “Red Prince,” and the German Crown Prince, who wore the uniform of the 2nd or Queen’s Cuirassiers. The German Crown Princess and the King of the Belgians were also present. The Red Prince gave his daughter away. At the close of the ceremony the Queen and Royal Family returned to the Palace amidst a salute of twenty-one guns.

On March the 25th the Queen and Princess Beatrice, attended by General Sir H. F. Ponsonby, Lady Churchill, Sir W. Jenner, and Captain Edwards, left Windsor Castle for the North of Italy. The Royal departure took place in very wintry weather, snow and sleet falling heavily. In spite of this the railway platform was crowded by visitors, who offered many loyal salutations as the train steamed out of the station at 9.40 a.m. Portsmouth was reached at noon, and the Royal party embarked on board the _Victoria and Albert_, the yacht sailing at once for Cherbourg, which was reached early in the evening. The Queen slept on board, and left for Paris. When she arrived in Paris she found that though crowds had collected at the station, no one was admitted to the platform except the British Ambassador, Lord Lyons. The Queen, who was dressed in deep mourning, though almost invisible to the people as she drove to the English Embassy, was, nevertheless, greeted with cheers and waving of hats all along the way. On the 27th her Majesty left Paris for Arona. Prior to starting, she was much affected by the receipt of a message announcing the death of her grandson, Prince Waldemar of Prussia. She, however, went through the appointed tasks of the day with her customary self-possession, and received President Grévy and M. Waddington, both visits being brief and formal. The Duc de Nemours also paid her a friendly visit, accompanied by Prince and Princess Czartolyski. On the 28th the Queen, preserving the strictest incognito, arrived at Modane, and after a short interval continued the journey to Turin and Baveno on Lake Maggiore, which was her final destination. On reaching the Italian frontier the Queen received a despatch from the King and Queen of Italy welcoming her Majesty upon Italian soil. The Queen sent a reply immediately, expressing her thanks in cordial terms. On March 31st Prince Amadeus, brother of the King of Italy, arrived at Baveno and had an audience of the Queen. During her stay in Italy her Majesty assumed the title of the Countess of Balmoral, and occupied the Villa Clara, which was placed at her disposal by M. Henfrey, the owner. At first the weather was bad, but in spite of that the Queen made many excursions to places of interest, and as her incognito was respected, her holiday was not burdened with the wearisome formalities of Court etiquette. Alike in France and Italy she was received with hearty good wishes by the people. Garibaldi and the Pope vied with King Humbert in welcoming her with congratulatory messages. On the 17th of April King Humbert and Queen Margherita and the members of their household left Rome for Monza, and on the 18th proceeded to the railway station to meet the train which was to bring the Queen and her suite from Baveno. Punctually at the time arranged the Queen arrived, and, on alighting from her carriage, warmly greeted the King and Queen of Italy. The party then drove to the Royal Castle, where lunch was served, after which the Queen returned to Baveno, which she left on the 23rd of April, arriving in Paris next day. Her return was clouded, as her setting out had been, by the shadow of death. On her arrival at Turin she received the painful intelligence of the death at Genoa of the Duke of Roxburghe, the husband of one of her valued friends. She left Paris on Friday, the 25th, and before her departure she gave away memorial tokens to several of the members of the Embassy. She arrived at Windsor on the 27th, where the German Empress came to spend some days with her in May. During this visit both Royal ladies became great-grandmothers, for the Queen’s first great-grandchild was born on the 12th of May. This was the first-born daughter of the Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, the eldest daughter of the German Crown Prince and Princess.

(_From a Photograph by J. Valentine and Sons._)]