XII. THE END OF THE RUSSIAN WAR
Home events during the war—Sympathy of Her Majesty with her Crimean soldiers—Badges of distinction added to the Colours—Inactivity of the Allies after the fall of Sevastopol—Expeditions against the Russian coast—Sir W. Codrington succeeds Sir J. Simpson as Commander of the Forces—The winter 1855-56—Negotiations for a peace, which is concluded, March 30th—Events after the cessation of hostilities—A British cemetery in the Crimea—Embarkation and return home—The Crimean Guards Brigade at Aldershot; visit of Her Majesty the Queen—Move to London, and cordial reception there—Distribution of the Victoria Cross—Summary of events connected with the war—Losses—Appointment of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge as Commander-in-Chief, and of Major-General Lord Rokeby to command the Brigade of Guards.
The details of the great struggle in the Crimea have necessarily occupied so much of the space of the last few chapters, that there has been little opportunity to allude to the occurrences connected with the Regiment which took place at home during this eventful period. It will therefore be well to pause in the narrative of the war, and to devote a few lines to that subject.
As soon as the Guards Brigade started for Malta in February, 1854, the public duties in London were reduced; and later in the year, when the requirements of active service necessitated a still further reduction, they were fixed at 1 Captain, 4 Subalterns, 9 sergeants, 10 corporals, 6 drummers, and 144 men, to furnish the Queen’s Guard, Buckingham Palace, the Tylt, the British Museum, and the Magazine Guards; and at 1 Subaltern, 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, and 20 men, to furnish the Bank piquet.[344]
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Footnote 344:
Brigade Order , Nov. 23, 1854.
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The principal duty of the home Battalion was naturally at this moment to train and supply men to the 1st Battalion in the Crimea, and we have already seen something of the quality of the drafts that were sent out to the East.[345] But as the ordinary recruiting was not sufficient to maintain the forces at the seat of war in a proper state of efficiency, the militia—the true reserve of the British army at that time—was called upon to perform its functions in the emergency. Not only was a portion of the militia embodied and employed as garrisons in those places where regular troops were not available, but volunteers were obtained from its ranks to fill up the gaps which the war created in the active army fighting before Sevastopol. In this manner men of good physique and trained to military service were obtained, and were drafted into the regular army. In April, 1854, the Non-commissioned officers and men of the Brigade told off to assist in training militia regiments, were ordered to use their best exertions to induce men to volunteer for their Regiments.[346] In December, 1854, Officers of the Brigade were employed to superintend recruiting from the militia. Men were also obtained from the Irish Constabulary, and it was settled, December 18, 1855, that volunteers to the Guards from that corps might reckon their previous police service as military service.
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Footnote 345:
See Appendix, No. XI.
Footnote 346:
Brigade Order , April 1, 1854.
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It appears that there was an intention to form a Brigade depôt at Malta, in March, 1855, the companies to form which, were to be borne on the strength of the Battalions in the East, from the date of embarkation. But this plan was not carried out, and the home Battalions remained all through the war with twelve companies, as against eight companies belonging to the service Battalions; the drafts to the latter were always furnished direct from London.
As soon as the three Guards Battalions had left England, the other four were stationed in the West-end (St. George’s, Portman Street, and Wellington barracks), and there they remained (subject to the ordinary half-yearly change of quarters) until January, 1855, when the Tower was again garrisoned by the Brigade. In May, room had to be found for 500 men of the Line passing through London, and a portion of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards then in Wellington barracks, were put into billets in Westminster, for four days. This probably is the last time that any men of the Brigade have been billeted in London. On the 13th of June, the 2nd Battalions of the Coldstream and Scots Fusilier Guards proceeded to Aldershot Camp, then newly established, until the 27th of August, when they were relieved by the two Grenadier Battalions, left in England.[347] The latter remained there until the middle of December, when Windsor was again occupied by a Battalion of Guards, and there were then less than three Battalions of the Brigade stationed in the West-end, the head-quarters of one being in the Tower, with a detachment only, in Portman Street.[348] During the absence of a portion of the Brigade in Aldershot, the Depôt of the 66th Regiment furnished a part of the public duties in London; but at the end of August, most of these men having been moved out of town, temporary reductions in the duties were made (September 16th, and October 9th) until the return of the Grenadiers.
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Footnote 347:
The following order was published upon this occasion, Aug. 27th: “The Major-General Commanding, [at Aldershot] desires to express to the Commanding Officer his sense of the general good conduct of the Battalion and the attention they have paid to their drill during the time they have been under his command, and to request them to accept his thanks accordingly.”
Footnote 348:
For stations occupied by the Coldstream, see Appendix No. XV.
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It has been already stated that the Emperor Napoleon visited England in April, 1855, where a cordial welcome awaited him and the Empress, who accompanied him. A detachment of a Subaltern and 25 men from each Battalion, under a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel of the 2nd Grenadier Guards (with the Queen’s Colour belonging to that Battalion), proceeded to Windsor on the 14th, and were stationed there until the 19th, during the period of the French Sovereign’s visit to the Queen. Numerous Guards of Honour attended upon His Majesty, two of which were found by the 2nd Battalion, both at Bricklayers' Arms Station, on the 16th and 21st, on the arrival at, and departure from London, of the Imperial guest. On the 19th, the Emperor went to Guildhall, and the streets were lined by the two Grenadier Battalions as he went to the City and returned back to the West-end. Another Royal visit of one of Her Majesty’s Allies took place on the 1st of December, when the King of Sardinia, Victor Emanuel, arrived in London, and went to Windsor. Of the Guards of Honour furnished upon that occasion, the Coldstream found four—two on the arrival of the King at Bricklayers' Arms Station and at Paddington Station on the 1st, one at Lord Palmerston’s house in Piccadilly on the 4th, and one at Bricklayers' Arms Station on the 6th, in the early morning.
The dress of the Brigade occupied the attention of the military authorities at this time. The white summer trousers were exchanged for another pattern made of a light grey stuff; the coatee was done away with, and the tunic was introduced (April, 1855). Epaulettes ceased to be worn, and thereby the badge of the Rose, still worn by the men, disappeared from the uniform of the Officers of the Coldstream. The tunic at first was a double-breasted garment, but a year later (March, 1856), when Officers required new red coats, they were ordered to supply themselves with single-breasted tunics, such as are still worn in the Brigade. The bearskin caps had been cut down early in 1854, to nine inches in height, and the plume was not to exceed six inches. Also, by an order dated October 7, 1854, peaks to caps were to be discontinued by sergeants, and were only to be worn by the Sergeant-Major, the Quartermaster-Sergeant, the Armourer Sergeant, the Regimental Clerk, the Drill Sergeants, and the Drum Major—a custom which still prevails in the Brigade.
A curious means taken to test beer may be gathered from the following Brigade Order, dated April 18, 1854, and shows the practical, though perhaps unscientific, manner in which our predecessors went to work when they wished to ascertain a matter of sanitary importance to the men:—
Each Battalion will send to Wellington barracks on Thursday morning, to receive from the Quartermaster of the Scots Fusilier Guards some beer, which is to be delivered to six sergeants, who must undertake not to taste any other malt liquor during the time (10 days) they will be supplied with it, the object being to test its wholesome qualities. The Field Officer requests to be furnished with a report from each Battalion at the expiration of the period specified above.
We find that a few days previous to this order (April 13th), a committee of Officers was appointed to consider the question of the general introduction of gas into barracks.
Later (July 17, 1855), a Field Officer of the Brigade (Lieut.-Colonel Wood, Grenadier Guards) was sent to the “end of Commercial Road, Pimlico, near to the projected Chelsea Bridge, there to view, in conjunction with a Medical Officer, a site for a barrack.” It will be seen that this was the first step taken to construct Chelsea barracks, which, when completed, removed the Foot Guards from the cramped quarters in Portman Street and St. George’s barracks, which they occupied at this time.
The Enfield rifle (pattern 1853), issued, as we have seen, to the Brigade in the Crimea at the end of August, 1855, was served out to the Guards Battalions on home service on the 26th of October of the same year. Nine hundred and one stand constituted the armament of the 2nd Battalion, and “on their receipt the smooth bore now in possession, including the sergeants' fusils, are to be returned into the Ordnance stores.”
It is well known to all her subjects that Her Majesty the Queen followed the varying fortunes of the Russian war with the utmost attention, interest, and concern; and that to none was her warm sympathy more heartily and graciously expressed than to her gallant army, who, amid unparalleled privations and difficulties, maintained intact the glory of the British Crown and of the country. Frequently did Her Majesty, surrounded by the Royal Family at Buckingham Palace, personally see such of her wounded soldiers as were able to be brought into the presence of their Sovereign, and there praise them for their merit, and condole with them on their sufferings. This honour was freely bestowed on the men of the Brigade, and on many occasions the Commanding Officers of Regiments were ordered to furnish lists of Guardsmen who were well enough to participate in it. In 1855, the Queen’s birthday was celebrated on the 18th of May, and on the Horse Guards parade, Her Majesty presented medals for service in the Crimea to all Officers and to three Non-commissioned officers and twenty privates per Regiment of the Brigade, entitled to receive them. Next day the following Order was published:—
“The Field Officer in Brigade Waiting is commanded to express to the Officers and soldiers of the Brigade of Guards who were present yesterday at the ceremony of the presentation of medals, Her Majesty’s solicitude as to whether they have suffered from the effort which evidently many of them made, at the cost of much suffering and inconvenience, and requests that Officers Commanding Battalions will make the necessary inquiries, and forward the result of them to him with as little delay as possible.”
When the fall of Sevastopol was known in England, there was much rejoicing that the Allied arms had captured the enemy’s stronghold and great naval arsenal in the Black Sea. But hostilities were not at an end, nor was an immediate peace in prospect. Nevertheless, certain distinct stages in the war were concluded, and victory had more than once smiled upon our standards. A General Order, therefore, was issued on the 16th of October, 1855, giving authority to inscribe the words “Alma,” “Inkerman,” “Balaklava,” and “Sevastopol” upon the Colours of the regiments taking part in these actions and in the siege. On the following December 28th the three badges of distinction, “Alma,” “Inkerman,” and “Sevastopol,” were inscribed upon the Colours of the Regiments of Foot Guards.
The Allied armies, having captured the fortress that so long resisted their skill and courage, found themselves placed in considerable embarrassment. The question naturally arose as to what should now be done. But that question was not readily answered, because no steps had been taken beforehand to decide it. The northern side was still held by the Russians, and their forces there were closely united to their field army, which occupied defensive positions on the Mackenzie heights. The undertaking to clear the two banks of the Sevastopol roadstead of the enemy, and to drive him out of the peninsula had the outward appearance of a difficult operation, and no measures had been concerted to proceed with it.[349] The Anglo-French armies made no attempt to follow up the victory of the 8th of September, but hung listlessly on the ground they had won, deliberating as to their future movements, and doing nothing to secure success. In short, though the capture effected brought prestige to the besiegers, and placed in their power the fleet, the docks, and most of the forts at Sevastopol, no further advantage seemed likely to accrue, and we found ourselves almost as far as ever from exercising a coercive control over the councils of the Tsar.
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Footnote 349:
It will be remembered that the north side of Sevastopol commands the south side. The capture of the former would have jeopardized the latter; but the fall of the south side left the other intact.
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As a matter of fact, General Gortchakoff was by no means as strong as he was supposed to be, and could scarcely have maintained himself in the Crimea had he been vigorously attacked by the brave forces that had invariably beaten his troops whenever they met them in the field. His position, indeed, was very precarious—so precarious was it, in the opinion of his own Government, that he had the fullest liberty given him to evacuate the peninsula if he found it necessary to do so. But he was not obliged to resort to this painful and humiliating measure; for the Allies never pressed him. Far from making any effort to dislodge him, or from even manœuvring against him to ascertain how he was circumstanced, they kept almost entirely aloof, and they left him alone in peace.
The British Government, sincerely desirous to achieve a more important success than had been gained, urged that the war should be vigorously prosecuted. They poured troops into the Crimea, so that our army there in November numbered as much as 51,000 men, of whom 4000 were cavalry, and 96 guns, besides a Turkish legion, raised by England, of 20,000, and a German legion of 10,000. The transport was now completely re-organized, and the medical service in good working order; and, added to this, the fleet, always overwhelmingly strong, was more powerful than it had been before.[350] A campaign was now at last possible against an enfeebled enemy under far better conditions than had been the case in the same season of the previous year, when we invaded Russia, whose resources then were practically unimpaired. The English people, also, were at one with their Government, and were anxious for a vigorous prosecution of hostilities, if the enemy could not be otherwise subjugated. But they and their rulers could effect nothing, for our allies would not move, and above all things was it necessary that the alliance should be cordially maintained. Hence, our political relations with the French interfered with our national interests, and controlled our military operations against the enemy: and, as has happened in the past, and will again happen, in wars conducted by several nations, the common foe reaped no inconsiderable benefit by having a confederation of Powers ranged against him.
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Footnote 350:
Hamley, War in the Crimea , p. 296. These forces continued to increase, and by Christmas, 1855, the British army in the Crimea was still more numerous than is stated in the text, and there were 120 guns; besides, a reserve force was collected at Aldershot, and amounted to over 18,000 men in April, 1856; at which time it appears we had in the East about 60,000 men (excluding transport, etc.).
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In short, the fall of Sevastopol practically brought the drama to a close. The efforts of the besiegers to take the town, after they had allowed it to grow into military importance, seemed to exhaust the further zeal and ardour of the Emperor Napoleon: it was impossible for us to re-kindle them into activity. Nor could Marshal Pélissier be roused to action; his enthusiasm for the success of the struggle had now grown cold, and his former energy had evaporated. His troops had taken the Malakoff, the key of the fortress, and, proud of their victory over the enemy, the French were content with the glory their army had achieved. So, also, had the Emperor gained all he wanted to secure; and, the war having established him firmly on the throne, he was anxious for peace with Russia, and for some new and more profitable adventure.
And yet something had to be done to preserve the semblance of war. The Turks, already at Eupatoria, were therefore reinforced, and some successful reconnaissances were effected in that important quarter: operations were, moreover, continued on the shores of the Sea of Azof, with advantage to the Allies; and lastly, after threatening Odessa, a descent was made upon Kinburn and its neighbourhood. These desultory expeditions served to keep up the illusion that the fight was still earnestly maintained. But they led to no permanent results, and they need not be further described; because, under the circumstances and conditions in which they were undertaken, they only exercised, and could only exercise, a very minor influence on the war. Omar Pasha had at last (end of September) been allowed to take a portion of his hitherto inactive army—chained for no useful purpose in the Crimea—to attempt the relief of Kars, a Turkish stronghold in Armenia, then besieged by the Russians. He was only barely supported by the Allies, if indeed he was not hampered by them, and he failed to accomplish his object. Kars fell on the 28th of November, and the victory gained there by the enemy compensated him not a little for the reverse he sustained at Sevastopol. The French might view the incident with unconcern; but to England, having vital interests in Asia, the loss of this place was of far greater moment.[351]
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Footnote 351:
While this important event was taking place, the bulk of the British army was engaged in improving the communications of the Chersonese—a work which cost us much labour and was of little use to us, though shortly afterwards, when the peace was signed, it was of great value to the Russians.
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Officers of the 1st Battalion were posted to companies as follows on December 17, 1855:—
No. 1 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Hon. P. Feilding; Captain H. Jervoise; Lieutenant G. Rose.
No. 2 Company: Lieut.-Colonel C. Burdett; Captain Whitshed; Lieutenant Hall.
No. 3 Company: Major Thellusson; Captain Blackett; Lieutenant Adair.
No. 4 Company: Captain Reeve; Captain Heneage.
No. 5 Company: Captain Hon. H. Byng; Lieutenant A. Lambton.
No. 6 Company: Lieut.-Colonel F. Newdigate; Captain Lord E. Cecil; Lieutenant Lane.
No. 7 Company: Major Le Couteur; Lieutenant Hon. W. Edwardes.
No. 8 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Lord Dunkellin; Captain Hon. W. Feilding; Lieutenant Wigram.
Colonel Gordon Drummond still commanded the Battalion, while Major Lord Bingham was appointed Adjutant about that time (21st December).
The Brigade remained on the upland of the Chersonese, with the bulk of the British army, guarding the Karabelnaya, constructing roads, drilling, practising musketry, and performing the ordinary duties of camp life.[352] A tent had been converted into a Crimean Guards Club, “where we used all to meet, read the newspapers, talk, and smoke,” and there the first anniversary of the battle of the Alma was duly celebrated by a dinner. There were races at Kamara on the 17th of October, shooting expeditions, and other expedients to pass away the time. Occasionally an interchange of shots took place across the roadstead that divided the hostile armies; but they were rather signals to show that the war had not yet officially come to an end than anything else, and they never produced any important results.
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Footnote 352:
The duties in the Karabelnaya district were composed of seven guards, amounting all told to 2 Captains, 4 Subalterns, 12 sergeants, 2 drummers, 12 corporals, and 249 privates.
At first the Brigade supplied 500 men daily for road-making; but later in the year these parties were frequently double that strength. It also furnished large fatigue-parties of several hundred men to bring up huts from Balaklava, wherein to lodge the troops.
Musketry was carried out with considerable energy during the winter months, and special orders on the subject were issued by the Commander of the Forces.
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The monotony of these proceedings during an inactive campaign, and in the presence of an unsubdued enemy, was one day electrified into new life by a terrible explosion that occurred in the lines of our allies. On the 15th of November, 100,000 lbs. of powder blew up in the French artillery park, and kindled a fire that placed one of the principal English magazines in imminent danger. Looking from the British camp, a huge column of smoke was seen to ascend high in the air; it then spread out like a tree,[353] broke, and sent down a shower of iron, stones, rubbish, broken side arms, guns, gun carriages, and every conceivable appurtenance of war; shells burst in all directions, and other combustibles added their flames to the conflagration. Happily the fire was got under without further mishap, but many Officers and men, mostly French, were killed and wounded.[354]
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Footnote 353:
Pliny describes the great eruption of Vesuvius which overwhelmed Pompeii, as having at first the appearance of a gigantic pine tree emerging from the volcano.
Footnote 354:
Nolan, ii. 638. Assistant-Surgeons Wyatt and Trotter of the Coldstream gained the special thanks of the French authorities for the assistance they afforded to the wounded upon that occasion.
It appears that our troops had cause to be somewhat accustomed to this class of misadventure. Under date Nov. 14th, Colonel Tower writes, “On guard in the Redan; as I was walking about inside the works, I met two of my men who were off duty, with pipes in their mouths, wandering about. I cautioned them, and told them there had been many accidents. A short time afterwards my sergeant came rushing up to me with all his eyebrows singed off, to tell me Goodram and Bates (the two men) were buried alive in a Russian magazine. I got Engineers, and we dug for a long time in smoking ruins; at last we came upon them, burnt to cinders, and hardly a bone in either of their bodies that was not broken.... They died soon after we got them out. Goodram was a most gallant fellow, and would have got the V.C. for going into the Redan with the assaulting party on the 8th of September. They had trodden on a fougasse left, probably on purpose, by the enemy when he evacuated.”
Private Goodram, it appears, slipped out of camp at night, September 7th-8th, crept close to the Redan in the dark, and joined the leading files of the storming party. He greatly distinguished himself during the assault, and is said to have been the first man to reach the parapet of the work.
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On the 11th of November, a few days before the accident just mentioned, General Sir James Simpson having resigned, Lieut.-General Sir William Codrington was appointed by Her Majesty the Queen to the chief command of the British army in the Crimea. This Officer, a Coldstreamer, served in the Regiment from 1823 until July, 1854, when, as junior Acting-Major of the 1st Battalion, and present with it in Bulgaria, he was promoted Major-General. Remaining at the seat of war, he very soon obtained the command of a brigade in the Light Division, as has been previously recorded. At the head of this gallant brigade he greatly distinguished himself at the battle of the Alma by his cool and intrepid bearing; the part he played at Inkerman has already been mentioned. He was with the army from start to finish of the war against Russia, being present on the upland before Sevastopol throughout the whole of the first severe winter (except once for the space of a very few days, when on the sick list), and engaged in all the fights (usually in executive command) that took place round and in the Redan. Few Officers in the British army were more exposed to the dangers and the privations of this war than Sir W. Codrington, and he survived both without a scratch and without even a temporary illness of a serious nature.
The second winter was now approaching, and hostilities, while they showed no sign of coming to an end, still languished. But it was passed under very different conditions to those which prevailed during the terrible season that overtook us in 1854-55. The autumn was fine and enjoyable, and the real cold weather was not felt until the end of November. We were then quite prepared for it, so that the army did not suffer. The health of the troops was excellent, and for some time prior to the end of 1855 there was such an abundance of every kind of supply, that scarcely any requirement remained for the Medical Officer in charge to suggest.
“During the six months which ensued from the commencement of January, 1856, until the period of embarkation from the Crimea to England, the condition of the men, in every respect, both as regards amount of sickness and duties performed, was so much allied to a similar period passed in any garrison, that a detailed notice would be useless, except so far as it would display an almost unprecedented amount of good health, compared with a period passed at any of the out-quarters at which the Guards are stationed in England, and far better than obtains in the close and confined barracks of the Metropolis.”[355]
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Footnote 355:
Wyatt, 91. Written in 1858, before the small barracks in Portman Street and St. George’s ceased each to contain the head-quarters and the main portion of a Guards Battalion.
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Both in respect to the comfort and the good administration which our men now enjoyed, we contrasted very favourably with the French, who, though they were better off than we had been in the winter 1854-55, did not improve their services as we had done; they consequently fared worse than the British army in the cold season of 1855-56, and suffered considerably in the spring of 1856.
When Sevastopol was in the power of the Allies, they destroyed its value, as much as they could, as a naval arsenal, and thus the docks, all the forts in their possession, the barracks, and the aqueducts that led into the town were demolished. These tasks were accomplished in the mid-winter.
On the 1st of March the sixth and last draft reached the 1st Battalion, consisting of 8 Officers and 263 men, whose average age and service amounted to 23½ years and 18 months respectively. The men were stout and robust, and, like the preceding draft, well adapted for all the possible requirements of active service.[356]
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Footnote 356:
Ibid. , p. 91.
Next day Officers were posted to companies as follows:—
No. 1 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Hon. P. Feilding; Captains Tower; Jervoise; Lieutenant Rose.
No. 2 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Burdett; Major Crawley; Captain Hall.
No. 3 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Newdigate; Captain Hon. H. Byng; Lieutenant A. Adair.
No. 4 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Reeve; Captain Lord E. Cecil; Lieutenant Sir W. Forbes, Bart.
No. 5 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Dawkins; Captain G. FitzRoy; Lieutenant S. Mainwaring.
No. 6 Company: Captain J. Caulfeild; Lieutenants W. Seymour; Hon. E. Legge.
No. 7 Company: Majors Armytage; Thellusson; Lieutenant Hon. W. Edwardes.
No. 8 Company: Lieut.-Colonel Lord Dunkelin; Captain Hon. W. Feilding; Lieutenant Lane.
Ever since the capture of Sevastopol, the work of diplomacy had again been active at Vienna; and with some additional advantage this time to the Russians, for it succeeded in partially alienating the Emperor Napoleon from the alliance. In form that Sovereign remained true to Great Britain; but it was clear that, as far as he was concerned, the war was at an end, and that the Tsar had no more to fear from his animosity. This facilitated the action of Austria, and under her mediation a project of peace was accepted by the Russians on the 16th of January, 1856. A month later a Conference sat in Paris to settle an immediate armistice and to conclude a general peace. The Treaty of Paris was accordingly signed on the 30th of March, and it put an end finally to the war that had lasted two years. By the terms of this agreement, which yielded back to their original Sovereigns all territories in possession of either of the combatants, an important article was included, viz. the Black Sea was neutralized, its waters and ports were “formally and in perpetuity interdicted to the flag of war,” naval arsenals on its shores were not to be maintained, and ships of war were forbidden to enter or pass through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. It is of interest to record the fact that this article, to gain which England had expended so much blood and treasure, was infringed by Russia in 1859, who, with no one to interfere in the neutralized sea, blockaded the Circassian coast, and at last overcame the stubborn resistance of the liberty-loving tribes of the Caucasus that for so long checked her progress in Central Asia. Having accomplished this work, she then boldly repudiated the article, with scarcely a protest on our part, in the beginning of 1871, when we were at peace with her, just fifteen years after the conclusion of the Crimean war; and again she prepared her forces to effect another development of the Eastern Question.
On the 2nd of April official tidings of peace were communicated to the several armies engaged in the struggle, by a salute fired upon the upland. Thenceforward the contending forces, drawn together by that mutual respect and esteem with which brave men regard one another, looked upon each other as friends, and all traces of hostility vanished as if by magic. British and Russian soldiers were to be seen in scores on their respective sides of the Tchernaya, conversing as best as they could, and exchanging presents. The thoughts of our men, however, were now naturally turned towards home; but two months were still to elapse before the Coldstream quitted the soil on which they had for so long lived and suffered, and where their military virtues had been so conspicuously displayed.
About this time the French appointed a special mission to inquire into the relative sanitary conditions of the English and French field hospitals in the East, and Assistant-Surgeon Wyatt was sent to aid in the investigation made.
“The whole of the Field hospitals,” says Dr. Wyatt, “were inspected, and the most satisfactory conclusions drawn by the Inspector in favour of the detached system of Regimental hospitals in the English army, compared with the congregated ambulance arrangements of the French; he was very favourably impressed with the Field hospitals of the Guards, which he examined most minutely in all their details.”
Added to this, British Sanitary Commissioners made an inspection of the hospitals in the Crimea, and it is with satisfaction that portions of two paragraphs of the report are recorded here.
“The best example of a marquee hospital was that belonging to the Guards, after they went to the front in June 1855.... Among the best examples of a winter camp which came under the notice of the Commission during the winter of 1855, was that of the Brigade of Guards on the plateau, in laying out of which great care and intelligence had evidently been bestowed. There was plenty of space for allowing the air to circulate; the arrangement of the huts was good, the ground was well trenched and drained, and many of the huts were raised on stone foundations.”[357]
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Footnote 357:
Wyatt, 92, 93.
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Shortly before the conclusion of the peace an event of great interest to our allies took place (March 16, 1856)—the birth of a son to the French Emperor, an heir destined, it was confidently hoped, to preserve the Napoleonic dynasty, and to hand down to posterity the glory of the great founder of the Imperial House. Rejoicings were unstinted in Paris and in London; and in the former place, where the peace Conference was sitting, the representatives of all the Powers, not excluding Russia, added their congratulations to the happy Emperor. Nor was the auspicious occasion forgotten in the Crimea, where it was celebrated by a ball on the 1st of April.[358] And yet how fickle is Fortune, and how she decided against this unfortunate prince! He did not ascend the French throne, and was but fourteen years of age when he was condemned to fly from his native land, never to return to it. Napoleon III., overwhelmed by the united might of Germany, was driven from his capital in 1870, and a few years later he ended his days an exile in England. Living in our midst, his son, the Prince Imperial, served in the British army, and lost his life, when only twenty-three years of age, in a small skirmish in South Africa; and thus he died before any new phase among his unstable countrymen could recall him in the character of a pretender to the French Imperial crown. Sic transit gloria mundi.
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Footnote 358:
“A ball will be given to-morrow, in honour of the birth of the Imperial Prince, by the Officers of the 1st Division of the Corps of Reserve French army, in their camp on the Woronzoff road, near the Sardinian army, to which all the English ladies and the Officers of the English army are invited. Officers attending the ball will appear in full dress uniform, but without swords and spurs” (Head-Quarter Memo. , March 31, 1856).
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The interval between the conclusion of hostilities and the departure from the Crimea was eagerly seized by many to visit their late enemy and the places of interest to be found in the peninsula. A few extracts from the diary of Colonel Tower will perhaps give a fair example of these experiences.
“April 8th.—Rode to Mackenzie Farm to visit the Russian camp; the Russian Officers were extremely civil, and showed us all round their camp. The men lived in excavations in the ground, like cellars, two or three steps down, with a roof of branches or anything to make it waterproof; fusty little holes, and the usual Russian soldier’s smell. This is very peculiar, the tan of the leather is the chief ingredient, and the sour smell of the black bread is another powerful ingredient. They are decidedly unclean in their persons, and never appear without their long brown coats and high boots.... They seem to be always fetching water in their tins. The Officers seemed as pleased as we were that the war was over, and regaled us with whatever liquor they had, generally champagne.
”April 13th.—We all went in a body to the Mackenzie heights [i.e. with Sir W. Codrington and his Staff], and were received by Luders [the Russian General then in command] and his Staff. A capital luncheon with every sort of delicacy was prepared for us, Pélissier and his Staff also being there. About 10,000 Ruskis passed us in review, as they were being sent away northwards. It was very interesting, as we saw specimens of almost every branch of the Russian service.... A great many Officers of the Guards who had volunteered for service in the Crimea, marched past with the regiments to which they were attached; also cavalry Officers with their sabres and spurs in the infantry. They point their toes as they march past, like the Prussians.
“April 17th.—Luders returned Codrington’s and Pélissier’s visit, and came down to have an exhibition of the English and French armies. We were in line of contiguous columns, nearly 30,000 strong and 86 guns (no cavalry), all in the most perfect order; I never saw anything so well as our troops looked. The men had their best clothing on; regiments all made up to their full strength; artillery with new harness, horses in first-rate condition. I saw one of the Russian Generals separate himself from the Staff, and ride down between the Grenadiers and our Battalion, to see the size of the men and depth of the column; he kept muttering exclamations of surprise and admiration, and well he might. I think 30,000 puts it under the mark. The French were in line with big intervals between their regiments, which made a line extending almost to Kamiesh, and it must have been very tiring riding all along such a line, but I suppose they thought it would make them appear stronger. It would have looked much better if they had also been in contiguous columns.
”April 25th.—Rode with General Craufurd [Commanding Guards Brigade] and Percy Feilding to the Alma; we got there easily in the mid-day, and spent all the afternoon stepping the distance from the river to the epaulment, clambering up where the French ascended the steep bank, looking for Horace Cust’s grave. We found the field of battle exactly as we left it, not a spade was put into the ground in the valley, not a vine cultivated or a house rebuilt. It had quite the appearance of a ‘Field of blood.’
“Next day, off at daybreak to Bakshiserai—a good big town, full of soldiers and Officers who were quartered there. We went by appointment to our friend Trubetskoi, who had a very good house and put us up famously; he introduced us to a set of Ruski Officers, who were the most rollicking and debauched set I ever came across. They had a tremendous orgie in our honour, drinking, singing, etc.; they mix every liquor they can get together.... Percy and I rode back to our camp that evening (the 27th), after taking leave of Trubetskoi, who really did all he could to make our expedition pleasant.”
So the days passed on, varied, besides duty, by fêtes of pleasure, excursions, cricket matches, and races, until the embarkation took place, and the Battalion returned to England. But, prior to this event, a solemn duty was performed, and a resting-place for the dead was prepared, where the remains of those who had fallen in the war might be laid. A site selected on Cathcart’s Hill was enclosed, and a portion of it was devoted as a burial place for the Brigade. A number of masons from the Guards were employed, early in April, to build a suitable wall, and fatigue parties were furnished to finish the work. The bodies of most of the Officers and others, killed at Inkerman and elsewhere in the vicinity, were exhumed, and reverently interred in the new cemetery. The masses of the dead, however, could not then be removed there, so, instead, the places where they lay were carefully fenced in. But this arrangement did not last, because the enclosures became dilapidated through time, and the graves were liable to be desecrated. A few years ago this was remedied, and the bones of the departed, together with the monuments erected by the care of their comrades, were taken to Cathcart’s Hill, and are there preserved in perpetuity within the cemetery which had been first laid out in the spring of 1856.
The welcome news that the Battalion was to be sent back home, published on the 3rd of June, was preceded by a Divisional Order of Lieut.-General Lord Rokeby, commanding the First Division, dated the 2nd:—
“As the embarkation of the various regiments will shortly cause the dissolution of the First Division, Lieut.-General Lord Rokeby wishes to permit himself the pleasure of expressing the grateful thanks he entertains of the support he has received from all ranks during the period he has had the honour of being in command. Every one has at all times endeavoured to meet his wishes, and the Lieut.-General confidently believes that the record of the army will afford proof of the good results which have emanated from the cheerful spirit of obedience which has characterized the conduct of the noble regiments and corps of which it was formed. The state of the hospitals and the general health of the regiments, under God’s blessing, speaks for and forms the best reward of the Divisional and Regimental Medical Staff, and the Lieut.-General requests Dr. Williams, and all junior to him in that Department, to accept their full share of the thanks he presumes to offer to all ranks, and the wishes he forms for their prosperity and happiness.”
On the 4th of June, the Battalion embarked at Kamiesh Bay, and sailed from the Crimea in H.M.S. Agamemnon, arriving at Spithead on the 28th, whence they were sent by train to Aldershot camp. They had been absent on foreign service for 2 years and 126 days (856 days), which time was passed in the following places: Malta, 48 days; Scutari, 45 days; Bulgaria, 75 days; Crimea, 627 days; and at sea 61 days.
The strength on embarkation from England (February, 1854) had been 35 Officers and 919 Non-commissioned officers and men, and during the period of duty in the East, reinforcements amounting to 1141 men were sent out in six drafts, making a total of 2060 men who served in the war. The number of primary admissions from all causes into the Regimental and general hospitals was 3101, of which 2785 were from disease, 243 from wounds, and 73 from accidental injuries. Death reduced the Battalion by 699 men, of whom 81 were killed in action, 54 died from wounds, and 564 from disease: 65 men were invalided home by wounds, and 187 by disease; and 111 men were finally discharged the army on account of disabilities contracted during active service—59 from the effects of wounds, and 52 from those of disease.[359] Total loss of Non-commissioned officers and men, 810. Ninety-one Coldstream Officers were employed in the Russian war.[360] Of these, nine were killed in action, viz. Lieut.-Colonels Hon. T. Vesey Dawson and J. C. Cowell, Captains L. D. Mac-Kinnon, H. M. Bouverie, Hon. G. Eliot, Horace Cust, and F. Ramsden, and Lieutenants E. A. Disbrowe and C. H. Greville; one died of wounds, viz. Captain Hon. R. Drummond; three died of disease, viz. Lieut.-Colonel Hon. R. Boyle, Colonel Trevelyan, and Captain Hylton Jolliffe: total loss of Officers, thirteen. Seven were wounded, viz. Major-General Sir H. Bentinck, Colonel Hon. G. Upton, Lieut.-Colonels J. Halkett, Lord C. FitzRoy, Hon. P. Feilding, and C. Baring, and Captain Hon. W. Amherst. Seventeen were invalided on account of illness, of whom seven were unable to return to the Crimea. Several were obliged to leave the seat of war on promotion, and altogether twenty-two seem to have done duty at least twice before Sevastopol.
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Footnote 359:
Wyatt, 97; see Appendix No. XII. 3.
Footnote 360:
Five more were transferred to the Regiment (during the war); after they had left the Crimea, viz. Majors Hon. W. Boyle, Conolly, V.C., and Maxse (the two last wounded), Captain Hedworth Jolliffe, and Lieutenant W. Stirling. The latter fought against the Russians in the Navy, as did also Lieutenant W. F. Seymour (who, however, joined the Coldstream in the Crimea). Naval-Cadet J. B. Sterling, moreover, served in the war, but he was not gazetted to the Regiment till 1861.
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The Crimean Guards Brigade, concentrated at Aldershot, remained there a few days, and during that time the Battalion was inspected by the Colonel of the Regiment, Field-Marshal Earl of Strafford, whose presence, as a Coldstream Officer, formed a connecting link between the glories of Waterloo and those achieved in the Russian war.
On the 8th July, Her Majesty the Queen appeared at the camp, and was received by the troops quartered there who had lately come back from the East. After the march past, a representative body of Officers and men, who had been under fire, from each regiment, was formed up in a hollow square round Her Majesty’s carriage, to listen to the gracious address of welcome pronounced by the Queen herself to her brave men just returned from an arduous and protracted war. The address was thus published in Orders:—
Officers, Non-commissioned officers, and soldiers, I wish personally to convey through you, to the regiments assembled here this day, my hearty welcome on their return to England in health and full efficiency. Say to them, that I have watched anxiously over the difficulties and hardships which they have so nobly borne, that I have mourned with deep sorrow for the brave men who have fallen for their country, and that I have felt proud of that valour which with their gallant allies they have displayed on every field. I thank God that your dangers are over, whilst the glory of your deeds remains. But I know that, should your services be again required, you will be animated by the same devotion which in the Crimea has rendered you invincible.
Colonel Tower, who was present upon this interesting occasion, throws light upon it by recording in his diary that Her Majesty “made us a capital speech, full of gratitude and good feeling, and got quite eloquent; at last she quite broke down, and burst into tears when she talked of the poor fellows that were not there to receive her thanks.” He adds, “If she had seen us in the trenches in July, 1855, or in Bulgaria in July, 1854, she would not have recognized her Brigade; we were now [July, 1856] all so nice and smart.”
Next day the Crimean Battalions of the Brigade, 3200 strong, left Aldershot to make their public entry into London. Parading at 5.30 in the morning, they were conveyed to Nine Elms Station by train, where the three bands met them. The day was observed as a general holiday; the route taken was densely thronged by an enthusiastic crowd; the houses were decorated with flags; and the church bells rang out a joyous peal of welcome. On passing the Horse Guards, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge met the column, and as soon as the men perceived their former Commander, who had been with them at the hard-fought battle of Inkerman, “their stern gravity gave way, and they honoured him with the heartiest cheers.” As they defiled through Buckingham Palace, the Queen, accompanied by the Royal children, by her mother the Duchess of Kent, her uncle the King of the Belgians, and by other illustrious persons, came to the balcony to greet her gallant troops with her gracious presence. Arrived in Hyde Park, they found the other four Guards Battalions, with the Colonels at the head of their respective Regiments, formed up in a line of quarter columns, facing Park Lane, with sufficient interval between them to receive the Crimean Battalions in their proper places on parade; and while the latter marched into their positions under the orders of Generals Lord Rokeby and Craufurd, their comrades presented arms. The three Regiments, now complete, were then handed over to their respective Colonels, to H.R.H. the Prince Consort, Field-Marshal Earl of Strafford (seated in a carriage, because he was too infirm to head his Regiment on horseback), and H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge. The Prince Consort having proceeded to join Her Majesty, the Duke of Cambridge assumed command of the whole. On the arrival of the Queen the bands played the national anthem, and the seven Battalions marched past Her Majesty, to the air, “See, the Conquering Hero comes.” The Brigade then advanced in Review order to the flagstaff; another Royal salute was given; and the pageant came to an end.
On the same day the following Brigade Order was issued:—
“H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge has received Her Majesty’s Command, through the Adjutant-General, to express to the Brigade of Guards Her Majesty’s entire satisfaction and approval of the appearance of the Brigade this day in the Park, which he requests the Commanding Officers of Regiments to make known to the several Battalions under their command.”
After the review, a complete change of quarters took place in the Brigade: The 1st Grenadiers proceeded to Aldershot, 2nd Grenadiers to Dublin (which was again occupied by the Household troops), 3rd Grenadiers to Wellington barracks, Buckingham Palace, the Magazine, and Kensington; 1st Coldstream to the Tower and St. John’s Wood, 2nd Coldstream to Windsor; 1st Scots Fusilier Guards to Portman Street and St. George’s barracks, 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards to Aldershot. A few days later the Battalions of the Regiment were equalized, in that each was formed of ten companies, instead of twelve and eight, as had been the case during the war; two companies belonging to the 2nd Battalion were therefore transferred to the 1st, and the Officers were posted as follows:—
Colonel.—Field-Marshal the Earl of Strafford, G.C.B., G.C.H. Lieut.-Colonel.—Colonel Hon. G. Upton, C.B. 1st Battalion. 2nd Battalion.
Majors.—Colonel Gordon Drummond. Colonel Lord F. Paulet.
Captains.—Colonels W. S. Newton; Colonels S. Perceval; W. Mark Wood T. M. Steele, C.B. (Mounted). (Mounted).
Lieut.-Colonels C. L. Cocks; Lieut.-Colonels J. Halkett; C. D. Carleton; A. St. G. W. Strong; Lord Burghersh, C.B.; Herbert-Stepney, C.B.; J. Airey, Hon. A. Hardinge; Hon. P. C.B.; C. S. Burdett; F. W. Feilding; W. Reeve; C. Baring; Newdigate; Lord Dunkellin; W. G. Hon. H. Byng. Dawkins.
Lieutenants.—Majors J. H. Le Captains A. Fremantle (Adjutant); J. Couteur; H. Armytage; A. Caulfeild; Majors Hon. W. Boyle; Thellusson; P. S. Crawley; Sir J. J. Conolly; H. Maxse; Captains Dunlop; G. L. Goodlake; Lord Hon. W. Amherst; C. Greenhill; H. Bingham; Captains H. Tower; Hon. C. Jervoise; St. V. Whitshed; Hon. W. Wellesley; Hon. W. Feilding; H. Campbell; Julian Hall; G. Major M. Heneage; Captains Lord E. Wigram; A. Lambton; G. Rose. Cecil; C. Blackett; G. FitzRoy; Hon. R. Monck (Adjt.).
Ensigns.—Lieutenants Sir W. Lieutenants E. S. Burnell; W. Forbes, Bart.; Hon. W. Edwardes; Stirling; F. Seymour; R. Thursby; H. J. Lane; A. Adair; W. F. N. Burnand; F. Buller; W. Wynne; Seymour; S. T. Mainwaring; Hon. E. Reeve; H. Bonham-Carter; H. E. Legge; Hon. W. Ogilvy; G. Fortescue. Cameron.
Quartermaster.—A. Falconer. A. Hurle.
Surgeon-Major.—J. Munro, M.D.
Battalion-Surgeon.—J. Skelton, M.D.
Assistant-Surgeons.—J. Wyatt; T. C. V. Cay; J. W. Trotter. Rogers; F. Bowen, M.D.
Solicitor.—W. G. Carter, Esq.[361]
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Footnote 361:
The difference made in the Regiment by the war will be seen by comparing the above with the following, giving the list in February, 1854:—
Lieut.-Colonel.—Colonel H. Bentinck.
Majors.—Colonels C. Hay; Hon. A. Upton.
Captains.—Colonels W. Codrington; Hon. G. Upton; J. Clitherow; G. Drummond; (Mounted). Lieut.-Colonels Lord F. Paulet; H. Daniell; Hon. R. Boyle; W. Newton: Colonel W. Trevelyan: Lieut.-Colonels S. Perceval; M. Tierney; T. Crombie; Hon. T. V. Dawson; T. Steele; H. Cumming; W. M. Wood.
Lieutenants.—Captains C. Cocks; P. Somerset; J. C. Cowell; J. Halkett; D. Carleton; Lord A. C. FitzRoy; C. Burdett; F. Newdigate (Adjutant); L. MacKinnon; Sir G. Walker, Bart.; W. Dawkins; H. Jolliffe; C. Strong; Lord Dunkellin; C. Wilson; Hon. A. Hardinge; F. Burton; Hon. P. Feilding (Adjutant); W. Reeve; Hon. G. Eliot; C. Baring; J. H. Le Couteur; H. Bouverie; H. Armytage.
Ensigns.—Lieutenants Hon. H. Byng; A. Thellusson; H. Cust; P. Crawley; Sir J. Dunlop, Bart.; G. Goodlake; F. Ramsden; Lord Bingham; H. Tower; Hon. W. Wellesley; Hon. R. Drummond; P. Wyndham; E. Disbrowe; A. Fremantle; C. Greville; M. Heneage.
Quartermasters.—A. Hurle; A. Falconer.
Surgeon-Major.—J. Munro, M.D. Battalion Surgeon.—J. Skelton, M.D. Assistant-Surgeons.—F. Wildbore; J. Wyatt.
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Where four allies were conducting a war in common, it was only natural that there should be an interchange of medals and of decorations, and this was done with no ungenerous hand. A new medal, more coveted than any other by soldiers and sailors, was established early in 1856, both for Officers and men in the Naval and Military services, who had distinguished themselves before the enemy “for valour.” The distribution of the Victoria Cross did not, however, take place until the 26th of June, 1857, when all the claims for that most conspicuous honour had been fully investigated. The day appointed for the ceremony was observed as a general holiday, and a review was held in Hyde Park before Her Majesty the Queen, who affixed to the breast of each man entitled to it, the bronze cross he had won in the field by his personal bravery. In the Coldstream the recipients of this proud distinction were Majors Goodlake and Conolly, and Privates Strong and Stanlock.[362] This event, though it took place more than a year after the conclusion of peace, is connected with the Crimean struggle, and may be said to terminate the history of the protracted hostilities that troubled our relations with Russia. Thenceforward the war became a thing of the past, and its memories were merged into or overshadowed by other events which occurred elsewhere.
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Footnote 362:
See Appendix, No. XIII.
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We have seen how the struggle shaped itself; how disastrously it was directed; and how devotedly our army maintained it, under very adverse and wholly exceptional circumstances. We allied ourselves to a Potentate whose tenure of power was precarious, whose interests were not our interests, and who only wished to adopt a foreign policy of adventure to reconcile his new subjects to his rule. His armies loyally supported ours in the field, and there we happily formed a sincere respect for the brave French troops who fought by our side. But the Government of Paris,—objecting always to transfer the theatre of war to Asia, where the enemy was really vulnerable,—restricted our field of operations to Europe; and as Austria protected the Russians on the Bessarabian frontier, we were forced at a late period of the year to make a descent upon the Crimea. Unhappily we had made no preparations for such an expedition, and had formed no plan for carrying it out; in fact, such an invasion had not seriously entered into our calculations when we declared war against the Tsar.
Thus, we landed fortuitously at a point where the road led to the north side of Sevastopol, but where no harbours near that town, were at hand to form a base of operations. Hence, without a base, we advanced to our objective, and, in due course, and after a successful battle, we arrived before it. But, on reaching this point, the Commander of our allies was indisposed to carry out the plan to which we had committed ourselves. We therefore shifted our forces by a strange flank march to the south side, in the hope that we might there at least be enabled to bring the campaign to a speedy conclusion. Sevastopol was at that time guarded by a small garrison, composed of a medley of indifferent and badly armed troops; it was imperfectly defended towards the land, and in this direction it was an insignificant stronghold. Still, as long as it remained in that state, we hesitated to make any or even the least move against it; we preferred to wait to bring up our siege-train, and to open regular approaches, with the expectation that the town would fall before the cold weather should set in, and put an end to all field operations.
But we had miscalculated. We did not take into account what a patriotic and energetic garrison might achieve during the unexpected respite granted them, nor did we perceive that we were altering, just as winter was approaching, the whole plan of invasion from an expedition of surprise to the more lengthened process of a regular siege. Thus, under the direction of an Engineer Officer of genius, did Sevastopol assume the proportions of a fortress, while the English and the French were looking idly on; and before they could batter down simultaneously the new works in front of each—which they allowed the enemy to construct,—the Russian forces, drawn from the Danubian Principalities, were hurried by forced marches into the Crimea, to the support of the scanty troops that were then to be found there. The very moment we had meant to deliver our final blow, the enemy’s arrangements were complete, and we had to fight the unequal battle of Inkerman. Although we were victorious there against tremendous odds, the result obliged us to spend the winter on the barren and snow-swept plain of the Chersonese.
For this emergency we were entirely unprepared, and an intensely cold season having begun early, our troops, as we have seen, suffered in consequence. We then hung on to our positions before Sevastopol with strong tenacity of purpose, and with a resolution which is above all praise. But we could not resume the siege till the spring of 1855, and it was early in September before the south side fell. Taught by disaster, we then made every arrangement to continue the struggle with the best prospects of success; but the French, having gained the objects they had in view, became inactive; they clamoured for a cessation of hostilities; and thus, to preserve an alliance into which we had permitted ourselves to be drawn, we signed a peace of little value, and so put an end to the war.
The successes gained were not due to the skill of the Government that directed the struggle; they were solely due to that indomitable bravery, discipline, and power of endurance which have ever characterized our soldiers, as well as to the admirable system which made the British regimental Officers and men second to none that existed at that time in the other European armies.
The results of the war were dearly purchased. According to a return presented to Parliament, 390 Officers and 20,425 Noncommissioned officers and men were killed or died of wounds or of disease in the Crimea, and 14,718 men were invalided at the conclusion of the war, bringing the total casualties up to 35,533 of all ranks. But this return omits to include casualties in the Naval brigade and in the Marines (doing duty on land), and in the Commissariat, Transport, and Hospital departments; nor does it seem to give our losses incurred during the disastrous stay in Bulgaria, etc.: so that the figures do not represent the entire losses to which even our Land forces were subjected.[363] On the other hand, it was computed that the Russians lost as many as half a million men. But this is a surmise, and the facts have never been known. The estimate is probably exaggerated, though it is certain that the enemy’s casualties were exceedingly great; but loss of men is not the greatest calamity that could befall an Empire like Russia.
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Footnote 363:
Appendix XII. It will be observed that the losses mentioned in the text do not take into account those of the Navy incurred on board ship. On the 8th of May, 1856, Lord Panmure made a statement in the House of Lords, to the effect that from the 19th of September, 1854 (that is, the day before the battle of the Alma), 270 Officers and 19,314 men were killed, or died of wounds or of disease, and that 2873 men were discharged the service as incapacitated for further service by war; total, 22,457 casualties,—excluding, apparently, soldiers who died on board ship, sailors and marines serving on shore, and departmental troops. It seems strange that this imperfect statement should be sometimes quoted, instead of the return above mentioned, even though the latter is far from being satisfactory, and does not complete the tale of the losses to the Naval and Military Forces of the Crown during the war with Russia.
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Two events must be noted here which took place about this time, one of which affected the whole army, and the other the Brigade only. On the death of Lord Hardinge, who had succeeded the Duke of Wellington as Commander-in-Chief in 1852, H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge was appointed to that high office, and assumed his new functions July 15, 1856—an office which he held without interruption until the 31st of October, 1895, for a space of nearly forty years.
The day before, the following Brigade Order appeared:—
July 14, 1856. Her Majesty has been pleased to appoint Major-General Lord Rokeby, K.C.B., to serve on the Staff of the army, with a view to his exercising a general supervision over the Battalions [of Guards] in England, including those at Aldershot; all communications having reference to the Brigade of Guards will be addressed to him in future, instead of the Field-Officer in Brigade Waiting as heretofore.
It may be well to explain that, previous to this appointment, orders to the Brigade had been issued by the Field-Officer in Brigade Waiting—a Commanding Officer of a Guards Regiment or Battalion, taken by roster—who is always an Officer of the Sovereign’s Household. The effect of the order just quoted, was to place a General Officer in actual command of the Brigade, while the Field Officer in Brigade Waiting was still retained to fulfil the Court duties, he being, as formerly, the direct medium of communication between the Court and the Household Infantry.[364]
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Footnote 364:
For some years, after 1856, it appears that the Field-Officer in Brigade Waiting continued to exercise considerable control over the military affairs of the Guards. The Major-General Commanding issued general orders, the details of which were carried out by the Field-Officer. Between 1856 and 1868 the Foot Guards were called a Division; but April 27th of the latter year, the old term Brigade was again restored, and it was directed that the General’s orders should be called “Brigade Orders,” while those emanating from the Field-Officer should be termed “Sub-brigade Orders.” The “Sub-brigade Office” was abolished February 28, 1873. The Home District, created in 1870, was placed under the command of the Major-General Commanding the Brigade of Guards, and this arrangement still prevails.
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XIII. A PERIOD OF WAR, 1856-1871
Reductions after the war—Comparison between the situations in Europe, in 1815 and in 1856—Fresh troubles and complications imminent—Many wars and disturbances—Scientific instruction introduced into the army—Practical training of the troops carried out—The material comfort of the soldier attended to—Military activity in England in 1859—The Earl of Strafford succeeded by General Lord Clyde—Death of H.R.H. the Prince Consort—Misunderstanding with the United States of America—Chelsea barracks completed—Marriage of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales—Death of Lord Clyde; succeeded by General Sir W. Gomm—The Brigade of Guards Recruit Establishment—Public duties in London—Fenian troubles in Ireland; the 1st and 2nd Battalions succeed each other there; the Clerkenwell outrage—Reforms in the armament of the British infantry.
The termination of the Crimean war, though it entailed considerable reductions in the army, was not accompanied by the acute distress that marked the close of the great struggle with France in 1815. In the latter case, the country had been seriously engaged with a formidable enemy for twenty years, and was constrained to devote all its resources to crush him. For nearly a generation, Great Britain had been a nation standing in arms, and thriving, so to speak, upon the success of her operations by sea and by land. The sudden cessation of hostilities, and the no less abrupt and violent change from a strong war footing to a small peace establishment, caused a temporary dislocation in trade, and this contributed in no small degree to create an unfortunate effect upon the economic conditions under which the people were then living. Whereas, in the more recent case, we were engaged for a relatively short space of time, and were not involved in efforts which could bear comparison with those we had been obliged to make earlier in the century. Hence we were able to diminish our armaments without incurring the same difficulties that had previously oppressed the industry of the country; and arrangements could be safely made to reduce the regular army by 50,000 men, and to disband all those other forces that were brought together for the purposes of the Russian war. On the 1st of November, 1856, the establishment of the Regiment was diminished by some 600 men, and was fixed on the following scale:—
Colonel. 1 Lt.-Colonel. 1 Majors. 2 Captains. 20 Lieutenants. 24 Ensigns. 16 Adjutants. 2 Qr.-Masters. 2 Surgn.-Major. 1 Surgeon. 1 Assist.-Surgns. 5 Solicitor. 1 Sergeants. 92 Drummers. 34 Rank and File. 1600 2 Battalions, 10 Cos. each.
Another difference between the peace of 1815 and that of 1856 is also of sufficient importance to require a notice. The final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo found Europe exhausted by the long wars of the French Revolution; and the Congress of Vienna effected such a settlement among the civilized nations, of apparently so stable a character, that all Governments believed in the certainty of a protracted period of international tranquillity. Nor was this expectation disappointed, and for forty years there were no complications to disturb the political order that had then been established. But the assurance of peace led many to suppose that the era of war had come to an end, and we in this country were inclined to adopt that view—to such an extent, at least, that we deprived the army of some of the departments which are necessary to its existence in the field. So to say, we hid the remnant of the standing army away from the sight of the nation, as an institution almost out of harmony with the spirit of the age, and as an instrument of offence which would scarcely be again required for practical use. The warlike traditions of the past, however, remained in full vigour among the British troops, between 1815 and 1854; nor was there any relaxation of the strict principles of soldierlike bearing and conduct which had been inaugurated and enforced by the Duke of York and by the Duke of Wellington. No troops were more highly disciplined than those that belonged to the British army; among none had the military spirit and tone been so carefully fostered and so fully developed: and it was due to the splendid qualities which had been instilled into them, that the achievements of our men in the Crimea commanded the respect and the admiration of the world. But the knowledge of even elementary military sciences failed us; no instruction beyond drill was given; we had little organization, no warlike grouping or cohesion of units, no transport, no real power to take the field or to utilize there the magnificent troops which their Officers had formed. The struggle with Russia had revealed these defects; and, taught in the bitter school of adversity, we were naturally slow, when the peace was signed, to destroy entirely those auxiliary services which had been so painfully created in the midst of war.
Now, the year 1856 was not like its predecessor, the end of a disturbed period; it marked the very commencement of a new era of European complications. The statesmen of the day were filled with no illusions, and were well aware of the unsettled state of affairs which the peace of 1856 had inaugurated. The Italian question was directly raised; Austria lost credit by her weak and vacillating action, and had become despised and isolated; steps to secure the aggrandisement of Prussia were already prepared; the policy of Napoleon III. was obscure and uncertain. Changes in the old landmarks of the Continent and serious trouble loomed in the near future. The threatening aspect of the coming storm, in short, was easy to be discerned: it was only too manifest that England might have to defend her rights, and could not afford, at such a moment, to neglect the affairs of her army and navy.
As events turned out, the war-cloud hovered over the whole world, and oppressed humanity with more or less intensity until 1871. Great Britain had to contend against many difficulties; but they were not of serious importance, except the Indian Mutiny,—which, breaking out unexpectedly in 1857, was not crushed finally until 1859,—and except the rapid advance of Russia across the barren steppes of Central Asia towards the frontiers of our Empire of India. Of our minor troubles, we may note: the Persian war, in 1856-57; the expedition to China, in 1857-61; the subjugation of the Maori natives in New Zealand, 1864; the invasion of Abyssinia, 1867-68; and the threatened dispute with the United States, 1861. In none of these, except the last, was the Brigade of Guards concerned. On the borders of Europe, the Caucasian Switzerland of Circassia was finally overpowered and assimilated with Russia, and the one barrier to her progress in the East was at last swept away, 1859. Nor was America free from disturbance. The United States, torn by dissensions, fought a fratricidal war of secession, 1861-64, that ended in re-establishing the authority of the Northern States over the revolted South; while that political stormy petrel, Napoleon III., took part in a policy of adventure, by attempting, though unsuccessfully, to establish French influence, under cover of an Austrian prince, in Mexico. But in Europe itself the trouble was greater: France and Sardinia attacked Austria in Lombardy in 1859, and forced her to relinquish her possession of that province; Italy also rose in rebellion against the Princes that then ruled her States, and was consolidated into one kingdom under Victor Emanuel, our late ally in the Crimea. In 1859, also, Napoleon III. showed considerable animosity against England, and it was thought by many that there would be war with France. In 1864, Austria and Prussia joined to wrest the Duchies of Schleswig Holstein from Denmark: and two years later, having quarrelled over the booty, they came to blows, when Prussia defeated her rival hopelessly in the short and sharp campaign of a few weeks' duration in Bohemia, and acquired a complete ascendency over Germany. Italy, at the same time also, was enabled by foreign aid, to compel Austria to surrender her hold on Venetia. Then came the great war of 1870-71, when France and Prussia, regarding each with mutual jealousy and international hatred, engaged in deathly strife, that resulted in the fall of Napoleon, in the signal defeat of France, and in the refounding of the German Empire under the autocracy of Prussia.
The results of these constant contests upon our own army were not, of course, immediately apparent, nor could they produce a decided effect all at once upon the course of our military administration. But sufficient has been said to show that there were obvious reasons why the lethargy which affected the vital concerns of the forces of the Crown in 1815, was not reproduced in 1856, and how it came about that the nation began to take an increased interest in these most important affairs.
The Officers of the British army formed at that time a competent body. Taken from a class where the best leaders of men might be expected to be found, trained in the manly school of field sports and of outdoor exercises, brought up to early habits of obedience and of discipline, and endowed with the faculty of commanding the respect and the confidence of their subordinates, they were as well qualified to manage the rank and file placed under them in peace time, as they were conspicuous for their bravery and for the good example they set when danger pressed, or when difficulties were to be overcome in war time. One thing only did they lack—they had little scientific knowledge of their profession. To remedy this grave deficiency, a Council of Military Education was appointed in May, 1857, to superintend the system of education introduced among the Officers, and the examinations of candidates for admission to the service. It cannot be stated that this subject had been entirely ignored in the past, but it had been little regarded. After 1857, however, considerable attention was given to it, and the new system eventually expanded to its present dimensions—adding, in fact, to the army, as part of itself, a military University, where degrees are bestowed upon graduates, in their various ranks, who pass its examinations. These degrees attesting the scientific and theoretical proficiency of the candidates then became a necessary qualification for promotion in the service, at first to the rank of Captain only, but subsequently to a higher grade. In this respect, the policy has rather been to form an examining Board, for the purpose of testing the acquirements of Officers, than to institute something more akin to a teaching University, with the result that what is called “cramming” (or hasty learning of special subjects) has been largely increased, to the detriment perhaps of a more solid system of instruction. At any rate, whilst the old leaven of manhood and of common sense which has ever characterized the body of British Officers has not been weakened, a form of education calculated to teach technical and scientific duties in the field has been accepted with gratitude and satisfaction.
This important reform was supplemented by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, the new Commander-in-Chief, who carried on the work, initiated by his predecessor, Lord Hardinge, which had been strongly urged by H.R.H. the Prince Consort. The camp of instruction established at Chobham in 1853 was moved to Aldershot, in the midst of a wide extent of heather country; the Crimean huts were erected there, and the head-quarters of a new military district were formed, where manœuvres could be undertaken by large bodies of troops, and where the men could be taught practically their numerous duties in the field. As will be seen, Guards Battalions were often sent there for this purpose. Nor was musketry neglected. Officers were told off as instructors in the art of correct shooting with the rifle that had been introduced into the service; every soldier was trained individually in its use, in a systematic way and in accordance with the regulations laid down at the School of Instruction established at Hythe; parties, moreover, of Officers, Non-commissioned officers, and men were constantly sent there to undergo a course of musketry, and receive a certificate of efficiency in that very necessary branch of their military training.[365]
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Footnote 365:
Brigade Order , August 20, 1856: “H.R.H. the General Commanding-in-Chief appoints Captain Instructors of Musketry, Brevet-Major Thesiger, 3rd Grenadier Guards; Major Le Couteur, 1st Coldstream; and Capt. Hon. R. Mostyn, 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards.” But it was not until the 30th of April, 1857, that regular Instructors of Musketry appeared in the Army-list in the Coldstream, when Captain Blackett and Major Conolly, V.C., were appointed in that capacity, in the 1st and 2nd Battalions respectively.
February 7, 1857. “The Major-General has much pleasure in promulgating the following, received from the Adjutant-General, dated Horse Guards, February 4, 1857: 'The General Commanding-in-Chief, having received a most satisfactory report of the result of the various practices in shooting and judging distances by the parties lately attached to the school of musketry, by which it appears that they have, in the aggregate, attained a higher figure (38·98) than any batch of parties hitherto under instruction at Hythe, I have it in command to request your Lordship will make known to the Division of Foot Guards the satisfaction with which the said report has been received by His Royal Highness.'”
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It has been noted that General Sir W. Codrington utilized the time when warlike operations practically ceased in the Crimea, by directing that all British soldiers should be put through an efficient course of musketry. After the war, the Guards continued to shoot on the range at Kilburn, but in 1859 a camp was formed for them at Ash, where rifle practice was carried out by companies, sent there in succession from the Battalions in England during the spring and summer months. Next year a Mounted Officer with a regular staff took command of the camp. Though Ash and Aldershot were the usual places selected for the Guards' musketry, companies were also sometimes sent to Eastbourne and to Gravesend for this purpose.
In the winter months marching was practised, and great gun drill was taught.[366] In 1861, gymnastic training was introduced, and in September of that year, sergeants from the Brigade were sent through a course, so as to qualify as instructors. A gymnasium was about this time first constructed at St. John’s Wood barracks, and companies were required to go there for a few weeks at a time. The gymnasium at Chelsea barracks was ready in 1865, and another at Windsor in 1870. The physical development of their men had before this been a special interest to the Officers of the Brigade, who endeavoured to introduce a system of outdoor gymnastics in the Guards, as far back as 1843. The practice, however, on being objected to by the Duke of Wellington, was given up.[367]
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Footnote 366:
The reader may perhaps be interested in knowing that one of the first orders given by the Duke of Cambridge on succeeding to the supreme command of the army related to marches. Brigade Order , November 17, 1856: “In compliance with instructions received from His Royal Highness, Commanding Officers will march out their Battalions at least once a week, in complete marching order, not less than eight to ten miles; the system prescribed in General Craufurd’s regulations for conducting a march to be adhered to.” His Royal Highness had at Scutari, in 1854, when in command of the First Division, drawn the attention of the latter to these regulations. It must not, however, be supposed that marching in peace time was unknown before 1856. For instance, by Regimental Order, dated September 12, 1838, it was laid down, “Whenever weather permits, the Battalion” (i.e. the 1st Battalion; the 2nd was then in Canada) “is to be marched once in four days.”
Footnote 367:
See Hamilton, History of the Grenadier Guards, iii. 145.
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It should be mentioned here that signalling courses were not introduced into the army until 1869. Much attention was then immediately given to this subject in the Brigade, and the Battalions of Foot Guards were frequently complimented upon the efficiency they displayed as signallers.
While military training in many of its various important aspects was eagerly attended to, and was put upon a basis from which it could receive its proper development, the material comforts and welfare of the men were not neglected.[368] The cooking arrangements of the men in the Crimea had been signally defective, as much on account of the conditions under which they were placed, as by reason of the very little knowledge which they had of the subject. This, no doubt, was a serious want, and it militated against the health of the soldier. A school of cookery was established at Aldershot in 1862, and Non-commissioned officers were sent there to be trained in the new system then adopted. Considerable interest was taken in this matter in the Brigade, reports were frequently called for, and experimental stoves set up to secure the best results combined with economy. Sergeant Cooks were appointed in the Coldstream—in the 1st Battalion, December, 1863, and in the 2nd Battalion, in the following March; but it was not until May, 1868, that the establishment of the Regiment was increased by two sergeants for this purpose, nor was it until May of the year before, that the assistant cooks were struck off other duties. As part of the same subject, it may be noted that the Commissariat Store at Chelsea barracks for the bread and meat to be issued to the troops in London, was established December 1, 1865, and an inspecting board of three Officers met daily to examine and to report upon the supplies furnished by the contractors.
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Footnote 368:
It may be of interest to observe here that a Committee of Officers (nearly all belonging to the Brigade), under the presidency of Colonel Ridley, Scots Fusilier Guards, assembled in London early in 1862 to consider the question of the employment of men in trades.
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Reforms in the canteen system were introduced shortly after the Crimean war. In conformity with instructions contained in the Quartermaster-General’s letter of the 30th of November, 1857, boards of Regimental Field-Officers were assembled quarterly to revise the prices of articles sold, and to report upon the canteens inspected by them. The accounts were examined more frequently, and suggestions were invited as to the management of these institutions. In 1864, groceries began to be supplied to the messes, so that the men might only pay wholesale instead of retail prices, and married soldiers were encouraged to take advantage of the low cost of articles sold there. As the management became more efficient, the profits rose, and with this fund at the disposal of Commanding Officers, a great deal was done for the benefit of the men,—books and newspapers supplied at the various metropolitan Guards, extra food provided on long field days, being some of the items of expenditure that first appear to have received the sanction of the authorities.
Nor should we omit to draw attention to the encouragement given to outdoor games and amusements. Officers have always been inclined, naturally, to introduce among their men the healthy exercises which they themselves were taught at school, and which they continued to indulge in after joining the service. Thus cricket was well known, and we have seen that during the Russian war it was not neglected. Football, however, was not as common then as it is now, nor had some other forms of athletic sports taken a firm root in the public schools forty years ago. But as they became better known there, so did they grow in popularity among the troops—as also did boating at Windsor,—until at last they have become well recognized institutions, to the great benefit of the men, and to the immense advantage of the army. Hunting has always been a favourite pastime among Officers, and where it is not sufficiently available they often establish a drag hunt of their own. This was done at Windsor, in the winter of 1856-57, mainly by the Coldstream, whose 2nd Battalion was then quartered there. This institution flourishes to the present day. When the Brigade had the out-quarter at Shorncliffe, as will be seen further on, another drag hunt was also established there, but on leaving that station it had to come to an end.
On the 17th of July, 1856, at the suggestion of the Major-General Commanding the Brigade of Guards (Lord Rokeby), the Battalions who had just returned from the Crimea applied for new Colours, and, on the 27th of February following, the old Colours which had seen service in Russia were deposited, escorted by Guards of Honour of the usual strength, in the Royal Military Chapel at Wellington barracks.
Owing to the death of Colonel Gordon Drummond, Colonel Newton was promoted Major, and took command of the 2nd Battalion, November 18, 1856.
On the 3rd of March, 1857, the 1st Coldstream relieved the 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards at Aldershot (the 1st Grenadiers having been removed to Town from that camp in December), and returned to London at the autumn change of quarters (September 1st), when the 2nd Coldstream proceeded to Dublin, and the 1st Scots Fusilier Guards to Portsmouth. On the return of the latter (November 20th) the Brigade was again quartered in their usual stations, viz. four Battalions in the West-end and the other three in the Tower, Windsor, and the out-quarter (Dublin).[369] After this time, Battalions were frequently sent to Aldershot for the purpose of receiving practical instruction, but not to be stationed there for merely general duty.[370] About this time also—that is, between the 1st of September and the 7th of December, 1857—the Brigade furnished a detachment of about 200 Officers and men at Deptford, where occasional duty had been done by it, as we have seen, between 1815 and 1854.
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Footnote 369:
The new wing of Wellington barracks was ready for occupation about this time; and it appears the present Kensington barracks replaced the old buildings there, April, 1858.
Footnote 370:
The periods when the Coldstream were stationed in Aldershot are to be seen in Appendix No. XV. “In compliance with the directions of H.R.H. the Senior Colonel of the Brigade, the roster for casual home service, and for the regular training of Battalions at Aldershot in the summer, will in future be kept separately. The Major-General accordingly desires that the three Lieutenant-Colonels will be so good as to confer together with a view to preparing another roster as soon as they are agreed upon the subject; their proposals will be forwarded to this Office for approval” (Brigade Order , Feb. 24, 1866).
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N.R. Wilkinson del. Mintern Bros. Chromo.
While the Indian Mutiny obliged Government to strengthen the army in India, drafts were collected at Colchester and Canterbury to be sent out to the East as they were required. In April, 1858, fourteen Ensigns of the Brigade (three from the 1st Coldstream) were sent to these places to look after the men that were assembled there. The following letter, dated July 3rd, from the Adjutant-General to Lord Rokeby, was published and ordered by the latter to be entered in the Regimental records:—
The Inspector-General of Infantry having reported to His Royal Highness, that, in consequence of the embarkation of numerous drafts for India, there is no necessity for retaining the services of the Officers of the Guards at Colchester and Canterbury, orders will consequently be sent to those stations directing the Officers of the Guards to return to their respective Battalions. In communicating this decision to your Lordship, I am commanded to acquaint you that His Royal Highness has much gratification in stating that he has received from all quarters assurances of the excellent manner in which these Officers have conducted the duties assigned to them, reflecting as it does great credit on themselves and on the Regiments in which they have been instructed.
The 2nd Coldstream, returning from Dublin to London, September 1, 1858, brought a record of services performed in Ireland which was embodied in a Garrison Order, dated Dublin, August 30, 1858:—
The Major-General Commanding the District, in directing the departure of the 2nd Battalion Coldstream Guards, is unwilling to allow them to pass from his command without acknowledging his unqualified approbation of their conduct during the twelve months of their being in Dublin, and his sincere regret at losing them. Possessed of all the attributes which constitute excellence in a regiment, whether as regards the zealous and strict attention to their duty on the part of the Officers, the activity, intelligence, and trustworthiness of the Non-commissioned officers, the obedient conduct, soldier-like appearance, and respectful demeanour of the men, or the order and regularity of the parade, the general cleanliness of the barracks, the comfort of the hospital, the large attendance of the adults at school, the comparative absence of crime, and the pervading system of the corps, the Battalion has stood forth in the garrison as a model of regimental discipline, to excite the emulation and stimulate a generous rivalry. The Major-General, therefore, begs to offer his thanks to Colonel Newton and his Officers for the support they have at all times afforded, and to assure the Battalion that he will always retain a lively recollection of the satisfaction he derived in having it as a part of his garrison.
Colonel Hon. G. Upton, C.B., appointed Major-General, October 26, 1858, was succeeded by Colonel Lord Frederick Paulet, C.B., as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment; thereupon Colonel Newton assumed the command of the 1st Battalion, and Colonel Spencer Perceval, promoted to the rank of Major, was posted to command the 2nd Battalion.
As previously mentioned, events in the year 1859 produced the impression that Napoleon III. was about to declare war against us, and visions of invasion began to haunt us. Considerable military activity was displayed at this time. Second battalions to twenty-five regiments of the Line, and third and fourth battalions to the two Rifle regiments, the 60th and Rifle Brigade, were raised and incorporated into the army: we find also that, early in the year, the Brigade was called upon to furnish Non-commissioned officers that could be spared, as drill instructors to train the men of some of these new corps. Of these, the Coldstream supplied four to the 2nd Battalion, 21st Regiment, at Newport, February, 1859. Nor was the condition of the Militia neglected, and Field-Officers of the Guards, who had been sent to inspect the regiments when embodied, were more frequently employed on this duty about this time. Now, in 1803, when Napoleon I. threatened to make a descent upon our coasts from his great camp at Boulogne, bodies of Volunteers were raised to watch our shores. The same thing happened in 1859, and, although our danger was scarcely real, yet so strongly impressed were the people with the facilities of transit across the narrow channel, which steam would give an invader, and so convinced were they of the power and of the evil designs of the French Emperor, that they began spontaneously to form rifle corps for the defence of the country. This was the commencement of the Volunteer movement which has now developed into an important auxiliary branch of the forces of the Crown intended for service at home. Its usefulness in the field has not yet been practically tested, and we may well pray that the day when it must meet an enemy on our own soil, may never come. But the influence it commands, by strengthening the ties that bind the military and the civil elements, by rendering the regular army popular, and by therefore facilitating the recruitment of a good class of man, is well known; while the self-sacrifice of many who devote their leisure to martial exercises, without prospect of reward, is creditable to the British character, and tends to spread a wider interest in military affairs than was formerly the case.
In the summer of 1859, many of the Officers of the Brigade were employed in reporting upon the numerous ranges which had been proposed as suitable sites for rifle practice. This duty did not cease until the beginning of 1862, when facilities for musketry existed in almost every district, and when the exercise became a popular pastime throughout the country. A National Rifle Association was formed, and a Volunteer camp established at Wimbledon (1860), where shooting competitions took place. The meetings continued year after year with ever-growing popularity, and detachments of Guardsmen were sent from London to perform the military duties in camp and on the ranges. Colonel Tower (Coldstream Guards) was the first Field-Officer selected to command these detachments, in 1865, and since then the Brigade has regularly furnished an Officer of that rank for this purpose, to attend the Rifle meetings, and, later (from 1874), to command the camp.
As far back as 1860, the drill of Officers of the Militia and Volunteers was often superintended by Officers of the Brigade of Guards. In October, 1870, moreover, schools of instruction were established at the Tower and at Wellington barracks, which were eventually consolidated into one, where Officers of the auxiliary forces, having passed a practical course in drill, can obtain a certificate to that effect. Colonel Hon. R. Monck (Coldstream Guards) was the first Commandant of the school at Wellington barracks.[371]
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Footnote 371:
The following order appeared, dated December 13, 1870, when the Schools of Instruction in London closed for the first time, for the Christmas holidays: “The Secretary of State has recorded his sense of the zeal and discretion which the Officers and Non-commissioned officers attached to and in charge of these schools have exhibited, which is proved by the success which has attended their duties, and the results that have been directly and indirectly obtained, and which reflect great credit upon the Commandants. H.R.H. the Field Marshal Commanding-in-Chief is much pleased at receiving so satisfactory a recognition of their services.”
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The Coldstream, having lost their Colonel by the death of Field Marshal Earl of Strafford, the chief command of the Regiment was bestowed upon General Lord Clyde, G.C.B., June 22, 1860, better known by the men in the Crimea, as Sir Colin Campbell. After the war with Russia, this very distinguished Officer was employed in India, where, appointed Commander-in-chief, he took a conspicuous part in the suppression of the Mutiny. Several other changes occurred in the Regiment about this time. On the promotion of Colonel Lord F. Paulet, C.B., to the rank of Major-General, Colonel Newton became Lieutenant-Colonel, whereupon Colonel S. Perceval assumed the command of the 1st Battalion, and Colonel Steele, C.B., appointed Major, of the 2nd (December 13, 1860). In a few months, however, there was another change; Colonel Perceval was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, when Colonel Steele was posted to the 1st Battalion, and was succeeded by Colonel Wood in the 2nd (July 2, 1861).
On the 1st of April, 1861, Major-General Lord Rokeby retired, and the command of the Brigade devolved upon Major-General Craufurd. Shortly afterwards (June 27th) a Major of Brigade was appointed in the Foot Guards, and the new post was given to the senior Adjutant, Captain and Adjutant Gordon, Scots Fusilier Guards.
In December, 1861, the whole country was plunged into deep mourning by the premature death of the Prince Consort. It is less than the truth to say that all hearts were moved with profound grief for the Queen in this, the greatest of domestic afflictions; and at the decease of a patriot Prince, whose sage counsels had so often ably directed Her Majesty in many important matters, and who had done so much for the intellectual elevation and the material advancement of her people. The sorrow of the nation was felt nowhere more strongly than among the Guards, who thereby lost their Senior Colonel, and whose inalienable privilege it is to share, as part of the Sovereign’s Household, the trials as well as the joys that visit the Royal Family.
This most sad misfortune happened at a moment of a misunderstanding with the United States of America, when it was apprehended that war might break out between the two countries, and when an expedition was being fitted out to defend Canada should the crisis assume an acute stage. It is scarcely necessary to go into the details of the dispute, well known as the “Trent affair,” for the Coldstream took no part in the operations which followed. Suffice it to say that two Battalions of the Brigade (1st Grenadiers and 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards, under Major-General Lord F. Paulet) were shipped to British North America, December 19th, and remained there until the autumn of 1864. Fortunately peace was preserved, and the expedition, while watching proceedings during the civil war that was then raging in the States, assumed the character of a movement of troops from one part of the British Empire to another, for ordinary purposes.[372]
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Footnote 372:
In order to drill and organize Canadian Militia regiments, five corporals of the Guards Battalions not sent to Canada, were selected to proceed with the expedition, and the following terms were offered to them: (1) to have the rank and pay of the next grade above that they then held, from the date of landing; (2) to be supernumerary on the strength of their Regiments, and to rejoin them on their return; and (3) an allowance to be given to their wives during their absence from home, or until the latter rejoin their husbands (Brigade Orders , Dec. 6 and 14, 1861).
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The 1st Battalion Coldstream, having gone to Dublin in October, 1861, did not return to London until the next change of quarters in April following, and so, for the first few months of 1862, there were but three Battalions in the West-end, while the Tower was occupied by a Line Regiment (the 1st Battalion of the 3rd Buffs). To lighten the duties, the latter furnished a detachment at Wellington barracks, which occasionally supplied the guards at Kensington Palace, the Magazine, and at the British Museum. In April, 1862, the full complement of four Battalions did duty in the West-end, and Dublin was given up as a Guards station. On the return of the Canadian expedition the Tower was again occupied by Guards, and the out-quarter was transferred to Shorncliffe. Chelsea barracks, designed as we have seen in 1855, were ready for occupation in the autumn of 1863, and an entire Battalion and a few companies of another were stationed there. Subsequently, the head-quarters of the latter, transferred from St. George’s, were also placed in these barracks; while Portman Street had been given up in September, 1863. The new wing of Wellington barracks had been occupied prior to this date, and was opened shortly after the Crimean war, as we have seen.[373] Thus considerably more space was obtained for the Brigade in London, which was distributed almost as is the case in the present day.[374] It is only necessary to add that the small barracks at the Magazine were vacated, and handed over to the police authorities on the 21st of December, 1866; that those at St. John’s Wood ceased to be occupied by the Foot Guards about the year 1876; and that Windsor barracks, which was a crowded and unsuitable building for a whole Battalion, were greatly improved and enlarged, and were ready for occupation in 1868.
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Footnote 373:
See footnote 376, p. 300, ante.
Footnote 374:
Wellington barracks, one entire Battalion, and another having detachments at Kensington and Buckingham Palace barracks; Chelsea barracks, one entire Battalion, and another with a detachment at St. George’s barracks; Tower, one Battalion; Windsor, one Battalion; an Out-quarter, one Battalion.
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On the 9th of November, 1862, Colonel Steele, was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment, vice Colonel S. Perceval, appointed Major-General; the command of the 1st Battalion then devolved upon Colonel Mark Wood, and that of the 2nd Battalion upon Colonel Dudley Carleton.
Many remember the marriage of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark, March 10, 1863, and the enthusiasm and joy evoked throughout the length and breadth of the land at the auspicious and popular event. Her Royal Highness arrived in London on the 7th, and proceeded to Windsor, where the ceremony was performed, and the following military arrangements were made for her reception in the Metropolis. The 3rd Grenadiers furnished a Guard of Honour at Bricklayers Arms Railway Station, the remainder of the Battalion being in column of wings in front of St. James’s Palace; the 1st Battalion 60th Rifles, then at the Tower, were formed outside the station; the 2nd Coldstream Guards in Waterloo Place lining the streets, with a Guard of Honour (the Queen’s Guard strengthened to the usual complement) near the Palace, and at right angles to the Grenadiers. The 1st Scots Fusilier Guards were in line near Hyde Park Corner; the Park was occupied by some 17,000 Volunteers; and the 2nd Grenadiers were stationed at the Marble Arch, and had a Guard of Honour at Paddington Station. The 1st Coldstream, then quartered at Windsor, sent a Guard of Honour to Slough. At the Royal wedding on the 10th, the Brigade was fully represented; the 2nd Grenadier Guards (in which Regiment His Royal Highness had served) found a Guard of Honour at St. George’s Chapel; the 1st Scots Fusilier Guards furnished another at the railway station on departure; and the 1st Coldstream, besides providing two Guards of Honour, one at the State Entrance of the Castle, and the other at the Chapel, were also present. The Berkshire Volunteers, moreover, had a Guard of Honour outside the gates of the Castle. The Guards Battalions quartered in London celebrated the occasion by parading in Hyde Park, where the 2nd and 3rd Grenadiers and the 2nd Coldstream fired a feu de joie, while the 1st Scots Fusilier Guards kept the ground. The day was observed as a general holiday throughout the country, and all classes joined to express their heart-felt congratulations on the happy alliance which had been made by the Heir Apparent of the Throne.[375]
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Footnote 375:
For an account of the Royal wedding, see Annual Register , 1863, “Chronicle,” p. 36, etc.
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Nor ought we to forget to mention that a ball was given by the Brigade in the Exhibition buildings, June 26th,[376] to the Prince and Princess of Wales, in honour of the Royal marriage that had just taken place; the Guard of Honour to receive Their Royal Highnesses was furnished by the 1st Scots Fusilier Guards.
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Footnote 376:
Interested in the success of the first great International Exhibition of Arts and Sciences in 1851, one of the last works of the lamented Prince Consort was to promote a second Exhibition of the same kind in London; but he did not, unfortunately, live to see its completion. It was opened on May 1, 1862, when the ceremony was attended by a deputation from each of the Guards Regiments, who formed part of the opening procession. The buildings were not removed in 1863, and were utilized, as above stated, on the occasion of the Brigade ball. The Albert Hall has now been erected upon this site.
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Several changes occurred in the command of the Brigade and Regiment during this same year (1863). On the 25th of June, Lord F. Paulet, having returned from Canada, was appointed Major-General of the Brigade of Guards vice Lieut.-General Craufurd.
At the death of General Lord Clyde, General Sir William Gomm, G.C.B., succeeded him as Colonel (August 15, 1863), and was thus again posted to the Coldstream Guards, which he had joined as a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel just before the battle of Waterloo, and with which he had served up to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment, until January, 1837, when he was promoted Major-General. Colonel Steele, moreover, relinquishing the command of the Coldstream (November 24th), the Lieutenant-Colonelcy devolved upon Colonel Wood, when Colonel Carleton was posted to the command of the 1st Battalion, and Colonel Stepney, C.B., to that of the 2nd Battalion.
Just at this moment, also, the Regiment lost their Bandmaster. Mr. Charles Godfrey, who died much regretted in December, having joined the Coldstream fifty years before (in 1813). This excellent musician had efficiently conducted the Band ever since 1825.[377]
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Footnote 377:
See Appendix, No. V.
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We have seen that hitherto, when promotion took place, and when the Senior Major either left the Regiment or was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, the Junior Major was invariably transferred to command the 1st Battalion, and the Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel, promoted Major to fill up the vacancy created, was posted to that of the 2nd Battalion. The same rule prevailed as regards the Acting-Majors (Mounted Officers), so that the senior and the third senior always belonged to the 1st Battalion, and the second and fourth seniors to the 2nd. It had also prevailed among the Adjutants up to the first Canadian expedition in 1838, but then it seemed to lapse as far as they were concerned, in the Coldstream at least. This custom was abolished on the 19th of January, 1864, when the following Order was issued:—
In compliance with instructions from H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, no alteration in future is to be made in the posting of Majors Commanding Battalions; these Officers are to remain in the Battalions in which they were originally promoted, the Senior Major to receive the difference in allowance which may be attached to the command of the 1st Battalion. By the same rule, Acting Majors will not change Battalion except for promotion or on appointment to be Senior Acting Major.
The following list shows the Officers belonging to the Regiment in January, 1865:—
Colonel.—General Sir William Gomm, G.C.B.
Lieut.-Colonel.—Colonel Mark Wood.
Majors.—Colonel Dudley Carleton; Colonel A. Herbert-Stepney, C.B.
Captains.—Colonels J. Airey, C.B.; W. G. Dawkins; C. W. Strong; Hon. H. Hardinge, C.B. (Mounted).
Lieut.-Colonels Hon. P. Feilding; W. Reeve; C. Baring; J. H. Le Couteur; H. Armytage; G. Goodlake, V.C.; H. Tower; A. Fremantle; Colonel Hon. W. Feilding; P. Crawley; M. Heneage; C. Blackett; G. FitzRoy; J. Conolly, V.C.; Hon. R. Monck; Hon. W. Boyle.
Lieutenants.—Captains C. Greenhill; H. C. Jervoise; Hon. H. Campbell; Julian Hall; G. Wigram; A. Lambton; Hon. W. Edwardes; H. Lane; W. F. Seymour; Hon. E. Legge (Adjutant); E. S. Burnell; Hon. G. Windsor-Clive; R. Thursby; N. Burnand; FitzRoy Fremantle; F. Buller; E. Reeve; H. Bonham-Carter; Hugh Fortescue (Adjutant); J. F. Hathorn (I. of M.); H. Herbert (I. of M.); H. Brand; Denzil Baring; Hon. F. Howard; R. Cathcart; C. Lee-Mainwaring.
Ensigns.—Lieutenants Hon. V. Dawson; E. Chaplin; Sir E. Hamilton, Bart.; G. FitzRoy Smyth; Lord Wallscourt; H. R. Eyre; J. B. Sterling; G. G. Macpherson; C. Thomas; Hon. J. Vesey; Hon. F. Wellesley; Hon. H. Legge; R. Hall; A. Farquhar; C. Alexander; W. Ramsden.
Quartermasters.—A. Hurle; and A. Falconer.
Surgeon-Major.—J. Wyatt. Battalion Surgeon.—C. V. Cay. Assistant-Surgeons.—J. W. Trotter; R. Farquharson; A. B. R. Myers.
Solicitor.—R. Broughton, Esq.
To persons living in the present day it may perhaps seem strange to hear of the rigid social laws which were current in our fathers' time against smoking. This indulgence was regarded, only a few decades ago, as a more or less uncivilized habit, which might be enjoyed on occasions in the privacy of a man’s own apartments or in some far-away room of a country house, out of sight of all general society, but never to be countenanced in public. Hence, Officers on any sort of duty were not allowed the use of tobacco even during hours of relaxation, and there were stringent rules against the practice on the Queen’s Guard. In 1838, for instance, attention is drawn to orders on that subject there, and again in 1844:—
“The Lieutenant-Colonels of the three Regiments of Guards have observed with great regret that the regulations for the Guard table at St. James’s Palace are not attended to, particularly as to smoking.... The Captain of the Guard in St. James’s Palace will have the goodness to add to his report that there has been no smoking in the Officers' apartments in St. James’s Palace, during the twenty-four hours he has been on Guard.”[378]
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Footnote 378:
Brigade Order , March 6, 1844.
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Nearly six years later the rule was modified, in that the prohibition only applied to the mess room in the Palace, and the Captain’s certificate was altered accordingly.[379] The Crimean War, no doubt, did a great deal to destroy the old prejudice which existed on the subject; for British Officers learnt the advantages of the weed in the trenches, and were in close quarters with habitual smokers, the Turks and the French. Still tobacco was not permitted in the barrack rooms, and, early in 1859, the Medical Officers were seriously called upon to report whether smoking there would be likely to prove deleterious to the health of the men. It was not until October 28, 1864, that leave was given to soldiers to smoke in the barrack rooms from the dinner hour to tattoo.
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Footnote 379:
Ibid. , Nov. 26, 1849.
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It has already been mentioned that the recruit establishment of the Brigade had been transferred to Croydon in 1833, and there it remained for thirty years, except only that the Grenadier section was moved to St. John’s Wood barracks during the war with Russia, from March, 1854, to the 18th of June, 1856. On the 1st of April, 1863, the recruits of the three Regiments were taken to St. John’s Wood, for the purpose of receiving gymnastic training, until the 2nd of August, 1865, when they proceeded to Warley.[380] During all this time the establishment was under the command of a resident Officer (Lieutenant and Captain), who took the duty there for a fortnight (at St. John’s Wood for a week). Considerable responsibility rested upon the Regimental Drill-Sergeant for the training of the men, and several orders attest the fact that these Non-commissioned officers did their work faithfully and efficiently. In 1870, a permanent Commandant was appointed, when Lieut.-Colonel Moncrieff, Scots Fusilier Guards, assumed the new post (November 28th), and, soon after, another Officer was told off to perform the duties of Adjutant, the resident Subaltern still remaining for a fortnight as Piquet Officer. Besides the Medical Officer, and a Quartermaster who was added later (in 1885), this staff of Officers was all that looked after the Depôt until 1893, when it was again enlarged. On the 12th of April, 1875, a board was assembled at Caterham to view and report upon a site for the Guards Depôt, and this new quarter was occupied on the 23rd of October, 1877. The Senior Drill-Sergeant,[381] appointed Acting Sergeant-Major, May 5, 1881, was promoted Sergeant-Major on July 1st following. The Depôt then contained a Sergeant-Major, a Quartermaster-Sergeant, an Orderly Room Clerk, four Colour-Sergeants, four Sergeants, twelve Corporals, and two Drummers; and these men remained “on the rolls of their respective Battalions for promotion and married leave.”
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Footnote 380:
The Grenadier section occupied Kensington barracks from the autumn of 1864 until the following March, when they went to Warley.
Footnote 381:
Drill-Sergeant Barrell, Coldstream Guards.
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In 1866 the public duties in London were reduced, and in July they stood as follows:—
Capts. Subaltns. Sergts. Corpls. Drums. Prvts. Queen’s Guard 1 2 2 2 3 36 Buckingham Palace Guard 0 1 2 2 1 27 Tylt Guard 0 1 2 2 1 18 Kensington Guard 0 0 1 1 0 15 Magazine Guard 0 0 1 1 0 9 —— —— —— —— —— ——— Total 1 4 8 8 5 105[382]
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Footnote 382:
There was, in addition, a small guard at Southwark military prison, at St. John’s Wood barracks, when unoccupied by Battalions, and at the Royal Academy, when open. The British Museum guard seems to have been done away with about 1864. The Bank piquet remained as before. The strength of the public duties during the Crimean war has been given in the last chapter (p. 267); in March, 1835, it appears to have amounted to, excluding the Bank piquet,—1 Captain, 4 Subalterns, 14 sergeants, 18 corporals, 5 drummers, and 302 privates.
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The years 1866 and 1867 are chiefly marked in the domestic history of the country by the troubles in Ireland, and by the efforts of a secret society, called the Fenians, to stir up rebellion and serious disturbances, not only in that island but in England also. The Fenian body, born and nurtured in the United States, had for some years been endeavouring to infect the mass of Irishmen distributed throughout the whole of the United Kingdom with their pernicious doctrines; and in a sense they accomplished their object by intensifying a feeling that had existed for many a generation between the Celtic and Saxon populations, into one of extreme bitterness and animosity. Beyond this, however, they achieved no immediate success; the illegal and violent measures they advocated, while they caused a momentary panic among the peaceably disposed, soon recoiled upon those who perpetrated them. Hence, the movement speedily dwindled into insignificance, though it left behind a residue of secret organization, which at no distant date was to support another agitation, that again was destined to disturb the country.
In the beginning of 1866, the usual spring change of quarters in the Brigade had been ordered to take place on the 1st of March; the 1st Coldstream was to move from Chelsea to another station in the West-end, and the 2nd Battalion from the Tower to Shorncliffe. But the troubles in Ireland were then giving cause for much anxiety, and the order was not executed. It was known that some few men belonging to Line Regiments had secretly joined the Fenians; it was feared that an armed rising might take place; an attempt to seize Chester Castle had just been frustrated (February 13th), and a Battalion of the Scots Fusilier Guards had been hurriedly despatched there to protect the place. A Guards Battalion was thus urgently required in Dublin, and on the 20th of February the 1st Coldstream were sent there at twenty-four hours' notice, “the sick, boys, and men unfit for active service” being attached to the 2nd Battalion. Shorncliffe was therefore given up as the Guards' out-quarter.
The stay of the 1st Battalion in Ireland during the year, cannot be termed a pleasant one. Preserving the public peace against the machinations of a secret band of conspirators who succeeded temporarily in deluding a portion of the people, and in partially alienating them from their legitimate rulers, is a duty too nearly allied to the police service to be a favourite one with soldiers. The work, however, was well performed by the Battalion, and this is attested by the following order, which was issued by the Major-General Commanding the Brigade, on the 6th of March, 1867, when their tour of duty was completed in Dublin, and when they returned to London:—
“The Major-General has much pleasure in publishing a Memorandum issued by General Lord Strathnairn upon the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards leaving Dublin. It reflects the utmost credit on all ranks for having earned so distinguished a compliment. The Major-General notices the favourable mention of Captain Hon. E. Legge, his close attention to his duty as Adjutant proves his zeal in the interest of his Battalion. The Major-General directs that Lord Strathnairn’s Memorandum with this Order be read to each Battalion of the Brigade. In a corps constituted as the Brigade of Guards the character of any one Battalion reflects upon the whole.”
Lord Strathnairn’s Memorandum ran thus:[383]—
“Memo. —The Commander of the Forces has every reason to be pleased with the excellent discipline of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards during the twelve months they have been under his Lordship’s command. The requisitions of the Government have often during this time necessitated extra duties for the preservation of the public peace, all of which the Coldstream Guards have performed with strictness and cheerfulness. The promptitude with which Lieut.-Colonel Le Couteur, the Officers, the Non-commissioned officers and men of the Battalion gave effect to the wishes of Lord Strathnairn for a thorough organization of the Reading, Recreation, and Refreshment rooms which tend so much to promote discipline, was very creditable to them. Lord Strathnairn cannot record this favourable opinion of the 1st Battalion Coldstream Guards without mentioning his high sense of the unvarying zeal and ability displayed by the Adjutant, Captain Hon. E. Legge, who during the twelve months has never been absent from his post.”
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Footnote 383:
Lord Strathnairn, as Colonel Rose, had been British Commissioner with the French army during the Crimean War.
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The 2nd Coldstream relieved the 1st Battalion early in 1867, and also remained in Ireland for twelve months under conditions nearly similar to those that existed in 1866. At the end of this period, the Lieutenant-Colonel was able to express to the Regiment the high opinion entertained by the General Commanding the Forces of the 2nd Battalion, and his own gratification at this good opinion “during trying times, and when the men were exposed to mischievous temptations.”[384]
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Footnote 384:
Regimental Order , Jan. 21, 1868. On the return of the 2nd Coldstream, the following order, relating to duty in Ireland, was published, March 19, 1868: “H.R.H. the Senior Colonel of the Brigade of Guards has approved of changes in the roster for change of quarters and casual services, by which Dublin remains in a special Irish roster.”
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Nor had the Battalions of the Brigade stationed in London an easy time during these two years (1866-1867), for they too were harassed by popular effervescence. A reform bill was before the country, and many demagogues, attended by their followers, found it easy to disturb the public peace. Towards the end of July, 1866, the troops were confined to their quarters; a wing of the 2nd Coldstream occupied Knightsbridge barracks during the day; the Major-General took post at the Magazine, to receive reports should anything extraordinary happen; the piquets were increased; a magistrate was placed in every London barrack, and for a few days all Officers on leave were recalled. Next year, the fear of riots still haunted the authorities, and on several occasions the public duties were doubled. But this was little when compared with the excitement produced by the explosion at the Clerkenwell House of Detention on the 13th of December—an outrage of a vile type, perpetrated by the Fenians for the purpose of terrorizing the Government. Immediate steps were taken to defend the Metropolis from a repetition of another such dastardly attempt upon the lives of innocent persons, and for nearly a month the troops were busily engaged, while the ordinary military exercises, marches, gun drill, and gymnastic courses were suspended. A guard was immediately sent to Clerkenwell, of 100 rank and file, under three Officers; sentries carried their rifles loaded; strong piquets, of 100 men under a Captain and Lieutenant-Colonel, were mounted daily in the principal barracks; half the Officers doing duty were held available for any sudden emergency, from five in the afternoon till eleven o’clock at night; the Captain of the Queen’s Guard was made responsible for calling upon the nearest piquet to turn out in case of disturbance; a guard was furnished at Millbank prison, and over the small-arm factories in London; signal communication by rockets was established between the barracks and where an attack might be expected; a party of the 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards was despatched to Cowes and to Osborne; the Bank piquet remained on duty for twenty-four hours on Sundays and on Christmas day, and all leave and furloughs were suspended. At the Tower, moreover, where the 1st Coldstream were quartered, the Officer of the main guard patrolled round the ditches and wharves during the night. These arrangements were not relaxed till the 11th of January, 1868, and things did not resume their normal course until somewhat later. But as a net result of the Clerkenwell outrage, it may be mentioned that the metropolitan barracks were put in telegraphic communication with the Horse Guards, and the work was completed in March, 1868. By an order of the 31st of December, 1867, also, two Non-commissioned officers per Battalion were told off to be instructed in the duties of telegraphist.
In 1867, the Sultan of Turkey came to England, and in 1869 his nominal vassal, the Khedive (the Viceroy of Egypt), did the same thing. There were reviews upon these occasions in their honour, and other martial displays; but these visits, though of political importance, need not further be alluded to here, since, in a military sense, they entailed only the ordinary duties performed by the Brigade when a foreign Sovereign is received in State by Her Majesty the Queen.
Between 1866 and 1871 the following changes took place in the command of the Regiment. In May, 1866, Colonel Wood having retired, Colonel Dudley Carleton became Lieutenant-Colonel, and thereupon Colonel Airey, promoted Major, assumed the command of the 1st Battalion, under the rule of the 19th of January, 1864, already quoted; while Colonel Stepney remained with the 2nd Battalion, until the 14th of August, when, retiring on half-pay, he was succeeded by Colonel Strong. The latter also shortly afterwards (March 15, 1867) went on half-pay, and the command of this Battalion devolved upon Colonel Hon. A. Hardinge; on the 23rd of October following, Colonel Hon. Percy Feilding was promoted Major, commanding the 1st Battalion, Colonel Airey having left the Regiment. Colonel Hardinge succeeded Colonel Carleton as Lieutenant-Colonel, September 2, 1868, when Colonel C. Baring was posted to the command of the 2nd Battalion. Shortly afterwards the establishment of the Regiment was reduced by one Major, and the following Brigade Order was issued on the 29th of May, 1869, to direct how this reduction should be brought about—
In conformity with a letter from the Military Secretary under date, May 28, 1869, the Major-General notifies to the Brigade that Her Majesty has been pleased to approve of the proposal of the Secretary of State for War, that one Major in each Regiment of the Brigade of Guards be gradually reduced, retaining the Lieutenant-Colonel, who will take command of a Battalion in addition to that of the Regiment. In accordance with the above arrangement, the vacancy in the Grenadier Guards, caused by the promotion of H.S.H. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar to be Major-General, on the 23rd of February last, will not be filled up; and the command of the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards, vacated by such promotion, will devolve upon the Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment, Colonel Bruce, from the above date.
The opportunity to give effect to this order did not come in the Coldstream until January 4, 1871, when, on the retirement of Colonel Hardinge, Colonel Hon. P. Feilding, C.B., was promoted Lieutenant-Colonel, and still retained the command of the 1st Battalion. Colonel C. Baring remained in command of the 2nd Battalion until the 13th of August, 1872, when, retiring on half-pay, he was succeeded by Colonel Goodlake, V.C.
In the Brigade, Lord Frederick Paulet, C.B., was succeeded by Major-General Hon. J. Lindsay (January 29, 1867), and during the period of his command the Guards Institute, near Vauxhall Bridge Road, was opened by H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge, July 11, 1867, as “a convenient place of refreshment, resort, amusement, and occupation for Non-commissioned officers and men stationed in London.” This club only flourished a few years, and was closed in 1872, when the building was bought by Cardinal Manning, and was converted by him into the present residence of the Archbishop of Westminster. General Lindsay also promoted a military industrial exhibition, which took place in Chelsea barracks on the 9th of July, 1868; but on that date Major-General Hamilton, C.B., had already succeeded him in the command of the Brigade, having assumed it on the 1st of April. The latter, promoted Lieutenant-General, left, April 1, 1870, and Major-General, H.S.H. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, C.B., was then appointed in his place.
Of changes in the uniform of the Regiment, the following may be noted: On the 6th of December, 1859, it was ordered that the chin-straps of the bearskins were to be worn under and not on the chin; but this method, apparently, was not long maintained in force. A mess dress was authorized for the Officers of the Brigade, January 30, 1864. Silver stars on the forage cap, and sling belts were to be worn by the Sergeant-Major, Quartermaster-Sergeant, Bandmaster, Sergeant-Instructor of Musketry, Drum-Major, Band-Sergeant, Drill Sergeants, Regimental Orderly Room Clerk, Assistant Regimental Clerk, Battalion Orderly Room Clerk, Hospital-Sergeant, Armourer-Sergeant, Master-Tailor, and the Sergeant of Cooks, April 25, 1870. Lastly, on the 28th of June, 1872, gold cords on the shoulders of the Officers' tunics were substituted for the red silk cord which was worn on one side to secure the sash.
A Regimental Order, dated April 18, 1871, possesses an interest to the Coldstream, which requires a place in this account of their services:—
“A communication having been received by Field-Marshal Sir William Gomm, G.C.B., from the Secretary of the Royal Cambridge Asylum for Soldiers' Widows, to the effect that, at a meeting of the General Committee held March 9, 1871, a resolution was agreed to, according a presentation in perpetuity to the above asylum to the Colonel of the Coldstream Guards, the Regiment of H.R.H. the late Duke of Cambridge, the fact is here noted as a Regimental record.”
In October, 1871, the names of the Officers posted to the two Battalions were:—
Colonel.—Field-Marshal Sir William Gomm, G.C.B. Lieut.-Colonel.—Colonel Hon. Percy Feilding, C.B.
1st Battalion.
Majors.—Vacant.[385]
Captains.—Colonels G. Goodlake, V.C.; Hon. W. Feilding (Mounted).
Lieut.-Colonels G. FitzRoy; G. Wigram; Lord William Seymour; Hon. E. Legge; E. Burnell; N. Burnand; F. C. Manningham-Buller; J. Hathorn.
2nd Battalion.
Colonel C. Baring.
Lieut.-Colonels A. Fremantle C. Blackett (Mounted).
Colonel Hon. R. Monck; Lieut.-Cols. H. Jervoise; Julian Hall; A. Lambton; FitzRoy Fremantle; Lord Cremorne; E. Chaplin; G. FitzRoy Smyth.
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Footnote 385:
Colonel P. Feilding commanded the 1st Battalion as well as the Regiment. Instead of 16 Ensigns, there were 13,—7 in the 1st Battalion and 6 in the 2nd Battalion. Vacancies were not filled up, owing to the changes that were about to be introduced into the Brigade of Foot Guards.
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1st Battalion.
Lieutenants.—Captains H. Bonham-Carter; H. R. Eyre (I. of M.); Hon. F. Wellesley; Hon. Heneage Legge; H. Aldenburg-Bentinck; Hon. H. Corry; Hon. E. Boscawen; R. Goff; Waller Hughes; H. Bruce; E. Boyle; Hon. Ronald Campbell (Adjutant).
Ensigns.—Lieutenants F. Graves-Sawle; Hon. M. Stapleton; R. Pole-Carew; Cyril Fortescue; Hon. C. Cavendish; A. Clark-Kennedy; F. Arkwright.
Quartermasters.—A. Falconer.
Surgeon-Major.—J. Wyatt.
Battalion Surgeon.—
Assistant-Surgeons.—A. Myers; Whipple, M.D.
2nd Battalion.
Captains J. B. Sterling; C. D. Thomas; Hon. J. Vesey (Adjutant); R. S. Hall; C. Alexander; W. Ramsden; Hon. E. Acheson; Hon. L. Dawnay; Hon. E. Digby (I. of M.); W. Turquand; R. Follett; Amelius Wood; Hon. R. Greville-Nugent; Hon. G. Bertie.
Lieutenants A. Moreton; J. G. Montgomery; F. Manley; Hon. Alfred Charteris; Lord Ossulston; L. MacKinnon.
J. Birch.
Surgeon-Major C. V. Cay.
J. Trotter
This chapter should not conclude without making some mention of the new armament introduced into the British infantry during the period under review. The Danish war, 1864, and more especially the Austro-Prussian struggle of 1866, revealed the immense superiority possessed by troops in the field who were supplied with the breech-loading rifle, over those that still retained the muzzle-loader. In the campaigns which have taken place between the two Germanic Powers, it has been remarked that Prussia has more than once been provided with better war matériel than her antagonist. In the Seven Years' War, Frederick the Great had an iron ramrod, the Austrians a wooden one, and the advantages he gained thereby were not inconsiderable. So in the Bohemian campaign of 1866, the Prussians were armed with a breech-loader, and the mass of fire they were able to develop on the battle-field was much greater and far more effective than their enemy could return against them. The great importance of this military question had not been neglected in England, and the object-lesson caused by the struggle in Central Europe stimulated the authorities to greater exertions. While, therefore, we were considering what pattern of breech-loading rifle we should finally adopt, immediate steps were taken to hurry on the conversion of the Enfield into the Snider breech-loader, so that by the end of 1866 Commanding Officers of Guards Regiments were directed to send in requisitions for the new converted weapon (December 19th). The rifle eventually adopted was the Henry-Martini, which was served out to the Coldstream in October, 1874. In time, the latter was discarded for the small-bore magazine breech-loader (the Lee-Metford .303 Rifle), and this was issued to the Regiment early in 1890. Immediately afterwards, the ordinary black powder, which had been in use for many centuries, was replaced by the present cordite, a smokeless nitro-explosive.
N. R. Wilkinson del. A.D. Innes & C^o. London. Mintern Bros. Chromo.
XIV. ARMY REFORM, 1871-1885
Effect produced in England by the military successes of Prussia—Short service and the reserve system introduced—Abolition of army purchase—Abolition of the double rank in the Foot Guards—Substitution of the rank of Sub-Lieutenant for that of Ensign or Cornet—Manœuvres and summer drills—Changes in the drill-book—Illness and recovery of H.R.H. the Prince of Wales—Death of Surgeon-Major Wyatt, and of Field-Marshal Sir W. Gomm—General Sir W. Codrington appointed Colonel of the Coldstream Guards—Death of Captains Hon. R. Campbell and R. Barton—Company training—Pirbright Camp established—Medical service in the Brigade—Change in the establishment of the Regiment—Death of Sir W. Codrington, and appointment of General Sir Thomas Steele as Colonel—Troubles in Ireland—Alarm in London—The Royal Military Chapel.
The wars that disturbed the Continent could not fail to rouse the serious attention of every thinking man in this country, and to make all look closely into the causes which had brought about very unexpected results. Englishmen were not surprised at the ease with which the great Germanic Powers overcame the resistance of Denmark, in 1864: nor yet, indeed, to see Austria driven from Lombardy when Napoleon III. set himself to the task, in 1859; because the alliance which we had contracted with the French in 1854, taught us to respect their army, and to believe they possessed a system and organization which placed them at the head of the military nations of Europe. But the struggles of 1866 and 1870-71 were of a very different nature. In the first case, we saw Prussia suddenly emerge from a small peace to a strong war establishment, strike swiftly and surely the minor States of Germany, and swoop down on Bohemia, where, meeting an enemy apparently worthy of her steel, and of about equal numerical strength to herself, she annihilated his forces in a few weeks, and obliged him to conclude a peace almost before he knew that fighting had commenced. In the second case, we again saw Prussia, in union this time with the smaller Germanic States, arm herself with even greater rapidity than before, concentrate her large armies on the frontier of France, invade the territories of her formidable rival, and lock up the bulk of the hostile forces in the fortress of Metz, while she captured the remainder at Sedan. These astounding successes occurred when scarcely two months had elapsed after the declaration of the war, and the course of hostilities was so favourable to the invader that, in less than seven months, France lay prostrate at the feet of Prussia, and was obliged to sue for terms of peace, humiliating to her national pride and derogatory to her great position in Europe.
No statesman could neglect to examine the causes of these stupendous events, and the institutions which had rendered them capable of realization: no soldier could abstain from studying the new conditions under which hostilities in the future must be conducted, and the numerous questions of warlike interest which modern science had introduced. It is not surprising that the Prussian system should speedily have become our model in the affairs relating to the army, and that the British nation should determine to make a searching inquiry into its military concerns.
It is not necessary to attempt to give a description of all the matters that claimed the earnest attention of the country at that time. Some of them did not affect the Coldstream, or did so only in a slight manner, and their discussion in this work may be omitted, or need receive but a passing notice. Among them, however, the two following should be mentioned: (1) the more efficient training of both Officers and men in their duties, and in the new system of tactics which had to be adopted in the field in consequence of the increased power of artillery, and of the great development of the fire of the breech-loader; and (2) the recruitment of the men, and the term of service during which they should remain with their corps.
We have seen that, as early as 1856, considerable interest had been taken in the first of these points, though it is also true that the reforms introduced were merely in their infancy, and had not by any means gone far enough. This was a natural result, because to effect a change of a salutary character, the expenditure of money is necessary, and public opinion must be moved before it can be obtained. The successes of Prussia had not then thrown light upon the requirements which a state of war in the present day exacts; and it was after these victories had been achieved, and not before, that the country acquired the faculty of realizing the advantages to be gained if all ranks are efficiently taught the details of the military profession.[386] Later in this chapter, an occasion will present itself to refer to some of the methods undertaken to accomplish this object, and we now pass to the second point, which, having a peculiar interest of its own, exercises a special influence on the fortunes of every regiment that forms part of the army.
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Footnote 386:
The army authorities have ever been alive to the necessity of professional instruction. Examples are to be found in the handbooks issued by Lieut.-General Lord Frederick FitzClarence (late Coldstream Guards, who helped to arrest the Cato Street conspirators in 1820) and by “A Field Officer” (Colonel Torrens, afterwards Major-General Sir Arthur Torrens, late Grenadier Guards), issued in 1850 and 1851, and if the reader can procure these publications, he will perceive they are as up to date, of their time, as our best text-books of the present day. It is a mistake to accuse the military authorities of slackness, in respect to the training of soldiers. The blame rests on the country which alone could supply funds, and which took no interest in these affairs. During the continuance of the present phase in the world’s history, when every Continental nation is armed to the teeth, it is not likely that Parliament will withdraw its annual expenditure upon the army any more than on the navy. But it is right to add that, while the country can provide the money, public opinion will of itself never be able to foster military efficiency, nor instil into the army those qualities which make a man a soldier.
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Up to 1847 military service had been unlimited, and men who enlisted might be held to remain with the Colours for life.[387] The system was not satisfactory, and a change was then made by which men contracted to serve for ten years only, with the power of remaining on eleven more, should they be permitted to do so, and, at the end of that period, to receive a pension. In 1867, the first term of service was raised from ten to twelve years, and soldiers were encouraged to continue their service for twenty-one years for pension.[388] The advantage of having a reserve to fill up the ranks of the army in war time had, for some years, occupied the attention of the authorities, and, before 1867, two small attempts had been made to secure this object; but, though the principle was admitted, very little was done in this direction. The war of 1866, however, made the country realize the importance of a rapid mobilization; and the Prussians, having practically shown how, with a reserve at hand, they could, in a short space of time, convert a small peace establishment into a fully equipped army ready to take the field, we also desired to follow their example. In 1867, therefore, we strengthened the reserve; but, as a matter of fact, we still merely nibbled at the question, until 1870, when it at last received a more thorough consideration. In that year the Enlistment Act was passed, introducing “short service” and a more efficient reserve into the army.
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Footnote 387:
During an emergency, men had been allowed to enlist for limited periods of service, varying from two to seven years (in the infantry), or while hostilities lasted. This was notably the case in the reign of Queen Anne, in 1745, 1759, 1775, and 1806-1829; but unlimited service for life also ran concurrently in the army at the same time (The Army Book for the British Empire , pp. 17, 22, etc.).
Footnote 388:
The Army Book for the British Empire , p. 54. See also pp. 49-67.
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By the new system, recruits enlist for twelve years, and engage to serve the whole time with the Colours, or part of the time with the Colours and the rest in the reserve, according to the conditions laid down by the Secretary of State. At first, it was proposed that the two periods should be equal; but this was soon modified to seven years in the ranks and five in the reserve, and in the Guards (since 1883) to three and nine, for such recruits who might prefer those terms. Hence, in the Brigade, men may now enlist for three or seven years with the Colours, and spend nine or five in the reserve; three-years men may, with the consent of their Commanding Officers, extend their service in the ranks to seven years, and from seven to twelve years, after which, still under the same conditions, they are able to re-engage for some years more up to twenty-one, with a view to obtain a pension.
Thus the present system is elastic, and has the merit of training a larger proportion of the population to the use of arms than was formerly the case; of enabling the nation to maintain a relatively small force in peace time, which can be rapidly expanded into an army when hostilities break out; and of reducing the pension list. It also increases the domestic comfort of the men, for it definitely disposes of the question of marriage of the rank and file, which, with long service, was difficult, indeed impossible, to solve. The practical utility of the plan has not yet been tested under the strain of war, and, until it has been so tried, it is manifestly premature to unduly praise it; nor are we yet in a position to judge whether the fighting material we now possess, is as well endowed with the fortitude, virtue, and cohesive force, which discipline bestows, as was the case in so eminent a degree in the past. We can point to this, however, that Continental nations who have tried their reserves in the field consider them to be fully equal to any other troops they have in their ranks; and we, too, have had experience of the noble qualities of comparatively untrained men in some very critical situations and emergencies. But, of one thing, at least, we may be sure: the reserve men will loyally come up when their presence is required. Englishmen have never failed to respond to the call of duty, and it is notorious, when even a fear arises that British interests may be attacked, how quickly the manhood of the country rises to the occasion, and offers to come forward to defend them. It cannot be forgotten that, in 1878, when the then existing reserve was called out, 13,684 men, out of a possible of 14,154, reported themselves; and, in 1882, when 11,642 reserve men were summoned, 11,032 appeared.[389]
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Footnote 389:
The Army Book, etc. , p. 119. We have not paused to inquire how the new system is suitable or the reverse to the requirements of small wars, in which Great Britain is so constantly engaged, because this question depends rather upon the manner in which the home battalion of a regiment serves as a depôt to its colleague abroad; and as this portion of the present army system does not affect the Guards, it is obvious that its consideration is not necessary in this volume.
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The Prussian model, upon which we based our army reform, was departed from in two important particulars. In one, the departure was fully acknowledged and thoroughly explained in public; but not so the other. In the first, we repudiated the idea of inflicting the evils and the tyranny of universal service upon the country, and deliberately declined to make the people liable to a blood tax, that wastes their wealth and attacks their liberty and independence. Our military forces, hence, are smaller than they would otherwise have been, and our means of mobilization less rapid than those which exist on the Continent, because our reserve men, living where and as they like, are not localized and controlled in the manner which obtains among the Powers of Europe. Nevertheless, we willingly gave up these advantages for the sake of preserving our freedom, so dear to the mind of every Englishman, and the foundation of our national prosperity. As we inhabit an island, and hold the command of the sea by an overwhelmingly powerful navy, there was no valid reason to press for any alteration in our time-honoured custom of recruiting the army by voluntary enlistment.
The second departure from the Prussian organization seems to have been as carefully hidden from the public gaze as the other was ventilated and discussed. The system we chose to copy approached our own, in that the Sovereign was the direct and immediate Chief of the army, and from a purely military standpoint it is easy to perceive that such an arrangement—adopted moreover, by every great Power that has a Sovereign, and that aims at real military strength—is the best adapted to produce the most efficient results. Our reformers, however, completely ignored in this respect the model they announced they would follow, and as Englishmen have never been a military race properly so called, they scarcely saw or appreciated the change that was brought about, when the Supreme Command, still vested in the Crown, was exercised through the political channel of the Secretary of State (1870). The historian is bound to record this vitally important alteration in the constitution of the army—a change rendered desirable, perhaps, for reasons that are outside the scope of this work,—for, it affects and must affect the life of every regiment that composes it, and subjects many of the details of purely military interest and of the military profession, to the fluctuations and necessities of party strife.
Nor was it long before the army was made the victim of a political dispute. The war of 1870-71 had roused the people to fever heat, and army reform became the universal cry. Politicians, not gifted with military instincts or knowledge, soon led their followers into those points of the subject that best suited the interests of their party; and as the “abolition of purchase” offered just such an advantage in the parliamentary struggle then going on, it was eagerly seized upon as the most urgent question of the hour. It cannot be said that army reform was impossible without abolishing purchase, for every improvement introduced could have been as easily effected, whether purchase had been retained or not. But it is also true that the practice of buying and selling a commission was an anomaly quite indefensible in itself, which deserved to come to an end, and which was scarcely likely to survive for long. If so, its abolition, safeguarding the interests of all concerned by it, would have benefited the army more than can be said was the case, when it was achieved in 1871, and thereby increased the influence of the political party that carried it.
The purchase system had the disadvantage of checking the rise in their profession of men of very moderate fortune, who entered the infantry or cavalry;[390] and this without doubt was an evil which required reformation, for it excluded from these branches of the army some whose service there might have been of value to the country. On the other hand, this defect was more theoretical than practical; and the system had the advantage of keeping up a flow of promotion, and of keeping down the pension list. It was not an arrangement by which any purchaser could buy his steps; to be allowed to spend money for this purpose was a privilege to which any conditions could be attached. So was it also a cheap means of keeping up the supply of Officers, for the sale of a commission was the only pecuniary reward that was expected, and Parliament was not asked to spend money to provide gratuities, retired pay, pensions, and the like, that now have to be given. Officers, in short, tendered security for their good behaviour, and proved their devotion to their profession by offering their service for a smaller return in the shape of pay than they now receive.
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Footnote 390:
Purchase only existed in the infantry and cavalry, and not in the artillery and Royal Engineers.
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The Bill to do away with this system passed the House of Commons, and went in due course up the Lords, where it was read the first time. On the second reading, a demand was made for further information on the proposals that were then contemplated, and a resolution to that effect was carried. Thereupon a Royal Warrant, July 20, 1871, was immediately issued, which abolished purchase without the aid of Parliament, from the following 1st of November.
On October 31, 1871, another Royal Warrant was published, which contained two points that affected the Brigade: (1) it abolished what has been called the “double rank,” and (2) it substituted the new rank of Sub-Lieutenant for that of Ensign in the infantry, and of Cornet in the cavalry, both of which had existed ever since the formation of the standing army.
The abolition of the “double rank” is of too recent a date, and concerns the Officers of the Brigade too intimately and personally, to be able easily to discuss it at the present moment. It will be time enough to do so at some future date, when war on a large scale has tested the quality of the modern army, when it has been practically shown where the military virtues are most plentifully to be found in it, and when we shall have emerged definitely from the transition state in which the reforms of 1871 has placed us. Guardsmen do recognise, and have for a long time recognised, that the advantage which the double rank conferred upon them was an anomaly which deserved to be swept away, for they have ever been anxious to possess no purely military privilege which the rest of their comrades did not enjoy, and have been eager to see removed anything that might savour of favouritism, or give cause for jealousy. Nevertheless, it is well to remember that the double rank was an institution which had obtained the sanction of two centuries, and that it was the survival of an ancient system which possessed some merit. In the infancy of the British army, shortly after the Restoration of King Charles II., brought about by General Monck and his Coldstreamers, there was much debate over the vexed question of “precedence of command.” This precedence, in some regiments, not all of them Guards regiments, was fixed, not by seniority of commission, but by seniority of corps, and this arrangement appears to have developed into the institution of the double rank for the Foot Guards, and of Brevet rank for all.[391]
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Footnote 391:
Colonel Clifford Walton, C.B., History of the British Standing Army , A.D. 1660-1700, pp. 441, etc. (London, 1894). The reader should remember that a form of the double rank still exists in every regiment of the service; the Colonel of each being either a General Officer or a Field-Marshal. Further on in this chapter it will be seen, moreover, that the double rank was practically revived in the infantry in 1881, when it suited Government to do so to serve their own purposes.
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Now, it seems evident that the object in view, when these things were arranged, was to maintain efficiency in the army; to keep up a flow of promotion; and to prevent Officers from ranking low down in the army list, when, by length of service or for other reasons, it was desirable that they should rise with others in their profession. The regimental system, being the basis of military advancement, then, as it is now, it is obvious that unless some such means were adopted to accelerate the promotion of an Officer, who belonged to a corps where men were unwilling to leave the service, no efforts on his part could secure his rise. Nor can it be forgotten that promotion stagnates in proportion as Officers generally are attached to their profession and to their corps,—that is, in not the least distinguished regiments of the army; and if the regimental system have any value (and that it has a value is evident, while the promoters of army reform showed their opinion of it by retaining it), it becomes clear that relief is most required in those regiments where duty is well performed, and where a high standard of military efficiency is maintained. The principle laid down was neither unwise nor unfair; and if in the case of the Foot Guards it was applied with too generous a hand, it must still be remembered that this was done, not less on account of their services in the field, than by reason of the position they occupied in the army.
The sudden abolition of the double rank in 1871, put the Foot Guards in a worse position than if it had never existed; but they still have the honour of occupying a unique position in the army, for, while before 1871 they held the first place, after that date they sank immediately down to the lowest place in their profession. The following table will illustrate this fact:—
PROMOTION TO THE RANK OF CAPTAIN;[392] AVERAGE NUMBER OF YEARS' SERVICE.
┌──────────────────┬────────────────────────────────────┬──────────┬─────────┐ │ │ BRIGADE OF GUARDS. │ CAVALRY. │INFANTRY │ │ │ │ │ OF THE │ │ │ │ │ LINE. │ │ ├────────────────┬───────────────────┼──────────┴─────────┤ │ │ To Regimental │ To Regimental │ To │ │ │ Lieutenant, │ Captain, bearing │ Regimental Captain │ │ │ bearing Army │ Army Rank of │ bearing no │ │ │ Rank of Capt. │ Lt.-Colonel. │ extra Army rank. │ ├──────────────────┼────────────────┼───────────────────┼──────────┬─────────┤ │Between 1838 │ Years. │ Years. │ Years. │ Years. │ │ and 1871[393] │ 4-5/12 │ 14-8/12 │ 7-5/12 │ 9-11/12 │ │ ├────────────────┴───────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ To Regimental Captain, bearing │ │ │ │ │ no extra Army Rank. │ │ │ │ ├────────────────────────────────────┤ │ │ │ │ Years. │ │ │ │In 1884[394] │ 12 │ 7-1/12 │ 8-4/12 │ │In 1894[394] │ 12-3/12 │ 7 │ 8-5/12 │ └──────────────────┴────────────────────────────────────┴──────────┴─────────┘
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Footnote 392:
The rank of Captain has been principally insisted upon, as it is the decisive step in an Officer’s career. Once a Captain, an Officer who distinguishes himself can obtain Brevet rank. As a Lieutenant, he is unable to advance in his profession, except by regimental promotion.
Footnote 393:
In calculating the figures of this part of the Table, the promotions have been taken which actually occurred in the years 1838, 1841, 1846, 1851, 1855, 1865, and 1870, in the whole of the Brigade of Guards, and of the Cavalry, and in every fifth Regiment (5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, etc.) of the Infantry of the Line.
The period 4-5/12 years, in the Table for the Brigade of Guards, would have been 5-4/12 years, had the average length of service required to promote an Officer of the Coldstream to Regimental Lieutenant, between 1838 and 1871, been given.
Footnote 394:
These figures have been taken in the same way as under Note 400, but for the years 1884 and 1894.
The year 1884 has been selected because promotion of Officers of the Brigade of Guards, who do not enjoy the double rank, began then generally to take effect. The first Coldstream Officer (without double rank) took 13 years to become Regimental Captain; the second, 13-3/12 years.
It may be stated, that, in 1896, the senior Second-Lieutenants in the Coldstream have all but six years' service—that is, nearly as much service as it takes the average Cavalry Officer to attain to the rank of Captain.
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The substitution of the rank of Sub-Lieutenant for that of Ensign led to some curious results. By the rules established in October, 1871, a Commission as a Sub-Lieutenant might be given to a successful candidate who had passed certain examinations; and in order to qualify for the rank of Lieutenant, a Sub-Lieutenant was required to serve satisfactorily for twelve months in a regiment, and after such service to go through a course of study, and to pass a professional examination, fixed from time to time by the Secretary of State.
The position of the new Officer was unprecedented, and no one at first knew exactly what he was. Accordingly, on March 5, 1872, we find that he was forbidden to present himself before his Sovereign, because he was “not positively confirmed as a Commissioned Officer;” but then, on the 21st of May following, he was stated to be a “regularly Commissioned Officer, and, when qualified by a knowledge of his work, he was eligible for Courts-Martial and all other military duties performed by Subaltern Officers;” and at last, February 24, 1873, it was announced that he would be received at Court. The trials of the aspirant to serve in Her Majesty’s army did not end here. The new civilian chief who assumed the direction of every military detail, determined that the stage of initiation into the most glorious profession the world has produced should be thorny, painful, and difficult. The Sub-Lieutenant, just as he emerged from school and opened the first and brightest page of a happy youth, was allowed to spend a year full of liberty among his new companions in arms, and to enjoy to the uttermost the sweets of life as they unfolded themselves before his vivid imagination. But the bright holiday was brief, and when it ended, the hapless lad was to experience a very different treatment. The year of enjoyment was over, and, giving up his freedom, he was sent back to the rigid discipline of school, (in this case even more severe than that to which he had been accustomed in his boyhood). Here he was tutored, controlled, corrected, and crammed. The power of a Secretary of State is great; but, just as he cannot make water run uphill, so can he not alter the ardent character of a young English gentleman, and the latter, we regret to say, rebelled at the indignities heaped upon him! Solemn indeed were the warnings which his sympathetic military superiors gave him. But they did more than this, for they persuaded the political chief to avoid running counter to human nature, and the rule was changed, and a more rational one substituted for it. The Sub-Lieutenant went first to school, and then he joined his Regiment.
It is pleasant now to leave these matters, and to turn once more to the solid and effective improvements that were introduced about this time. In 1871, manœuvres on an extended scale were, for the first time, held in England, when a successful endeavour was made to conduct operations which should, as far as possible, imitate those that have to be undertaken in war time. Aldershot and its neighbourhood was selected for these exercises, and they lasted for about seven weeks, commencing early in August until the end of September. The Guards Brigade present, was formed of the 1st Grenadiers, 2nd Coldstream, and 2nd Scots Fusilier Guards. Next year similar manœuvres took place in Salisbury Plain, which were even more successful than those of the year before. They lasted about a month, beginning in the middle of August, and were attended by the 3rd Grenadiers, 1st Coldstream, and 1st Scots Fusilier Guards. In this year, also, Regimental transport was introduced, and, in June, one Non-commissioned officer and twenty men of the battalions just mentioned were sent to Woolwich to be trained as drivers. In 1873, parties of the same strength, from the 2nd Grenadiers and 2nd Coldstream, again proceeded to Woolwich for a similar course, this time under the command of a Subaltern Officer from each Regiment, and manœuvres, lasting a month, took place at Cannock Chase, in Staffordshire. The two Battalions, above mentioned, formed the Guards Brigade upon that occasion, each made up into eight companies (25 Officers, 641 Non-commissioned officers and men, exclusive of the Regimental transport detachment). With this year the mimic war undertaken to exercise every part of the army, the fighting units as well as the transport, commissariat, medical services, etc., came to an end: manœuvres cost money, and the recollection of the great struggle between France and Germany was beginning to fade from the memory of those whose privilege it is to pay taxes and return members of Parliament. Henceforward summer drills were substituted for the larger and more instructive operations.
Concurrently with these reforms, and, indeed, during a longer period than is above indicated, the drill-book was often revised, and a system of tactics introduced, calculated to satisfy the conditions under which troops have to move when opposed to modern arms of precision. The space allowed to each man in the ranks has been increased, the rigid structure of the British line has given way to a looser formation, and, greater independence of individual action being deemed desirable, the intelligence of the private soldier has been raised and cultivated. The principles of the science of tactics remain constant, but the system adopted necessarily varies as new weapons are invented; the problem before us, therefore, was how to apply the principles to modern conditions. Our forefathers resolved the question satisfactorily, as far as their generation was concerned. They inculcated a stiff and rigid discipline into the British army, and they endowed the rank and file with a moral stamina sufficient to enable them to maintain themselves on the field of battle in line, and thus develop to the fullest extent the fire of their muskets. Our enemies, not so highly trained, could only fight in column; and, hence, in no small degree, our victories and their defeats. That the closest attention has been unremittingly given to this great problem, all know already; but, as we have not yet had the experience of a great war under new conditions, the results of our labours are not yet practically tested.
It will be remembered that the Prince of Wales fell grievously ill in the end of 1870, and that, hoping against hope, it appeared only too likely that the august patient could not recover. The whole of the English people, at home and abroad, were deeply agitated with anxiety for the life of His Royal Highness, and great was the joy, sincerely felt and universally expressed, when it pleased Providence to spare him to the country, and to raise him up again in vigour and in health and strength. Full of gratitude for this signal favour, the Queen commanded a thanksgiving service to be held in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and proceeded there, accompanied by His Royal Highness and the Royal Family (February 27, 1871). It need scarcely be said that all classes of Her Majesty’s loyal subjects eagerly seized this opportunity of joining their prayers to those of their Sovereign and of the Princess of Wales, and, as the Royal procession moved to the Cathedral, the people made a demonstration of sympathy, which showed how acutely they had felt the danger as long as it existed, and how great was their happiness now that it was past. The army was fully represented at this ceremony; small deputations from every regiment in the British Isles had assigned to them a place in St. Paul’s. The Brigade lined the streets; the 1st Coldstream, occupying a portion of Oxford Street, near the Marble Arch, represented the Regiment, as the 2nd Battalion was then at Windsor.
In the summer of 1873, the Shah of Persia visited England (June 18th) and remained for a few days. It was the first time that the Monarch of this distant Asiatic kingdom had ever come to Europe, and his reception in this country was conducted on a scale of much magnificence. There were, as usual, numerous Guards of Honour, the streets were lined by the Brigade when he entered the Metropolis, and a review was held at Windsor on the 24th, at which the whole of the London Battalions were present, the public duties being found by the 2nd Battalion, 4th Regiment. The Shah was also taken to the Tower on the 25th, when the 2nd Coldstream, being quartered there, received him with two Guards of Honour.
The marriage of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh to a Princess of Russia, the only daughter of the Tsar Alexander II., and grand-daughter of our late antagonist, Nicholas I., took place at St. Petersburg early in 1874, and was an event of some importance and novelty; for never before had the reigning Houses of England and Russia been directly united by the close ties of a family alliance. The marriage was looked upon as a happy augury for the future, and strong expectations were entertained that any past estrangement between the two countries might henceforth cease, to the benefit, it was hoped, of both. On the occasion of the public entry of Their Royal Highnesses, March 12th, a warm welcome awaited them on the part of the people; the streets were lined by the Brigade, both Battalions of the Regiment being present. In the following May, the Tsar came to England, and proceeded first to Windsor (13th) for two days, and was received by the 1st Coldstream, who were stationed there. When His Majesty went to Guildhall, on the 18th, the streets were again lined by the Brigade, and next day a review in his honour was held at Aldershot, attended by the four West-End Battalions.
It may be interesting to note that the power, then vested in the Colonel of the Regiment, to reduce a Non-commissioned officer summarily to the ranks was exercised, in 1874, for the last time:—
Regimental Order , 11th May. Sergeant Moss is reduced to Private by order of Field-Marshal Sir William Gomm, G.C.B., for misconduct whilst attached to the Lincoln Militia.
In the same year, the Coldstream lost a distinguished Officer, Surgeon-Major Wyatt, whose report, on many important Regimental details connected with the struggle in the Crimea, has been frequently consulted in the preparation of the account given of the war in this work. The event stands thus recorded in Regimental Orders, and requires no further comment on our part:—
April 4th. Death of Surgeon-Major Wyatt, C.B. In announcing to the Regiment the sad news of the death of Surgeon-Major Wyatt, C.B., the Commanding Officer feels sure he will express the feelings of every member of the Coldstream Guards when he says that a severer loss could hardly have befallen the Regiment; nor can he record so melancholy an event without bearing some tribute to the untiring zeal and brilliant talents of an Officer who, during a service of nearly twenty-three years, has won for himself a reputation almost as widespread in France as in his own country. Few men stood higher in the profession to which Surgeon-Major Wyatt belonged, and it is unquestionable that the energy which he displayed during the siege of Paris, and the great professional skill which he then had an opportunity of showing, reflected no small credit on the corps of which he was such an ornament. Considering the impaired state of his constitution he would undoubtedly have been justified in declining to undertake the arduous duties at the siege for which he was specially selected by the Secretary of State for War, and it is certain his death was hastened by the hardships and privations which, in his unflinching zeal, he so voluntarily and nobly underwent.
The two Battalions were both represented at the funeral, the 1st finding the firing party, and the 2nd the escort.
But this was not the only loss that the Regiment had to experience about this time, for a greater cause for mourning was in store for them, when their veteran Colonel, Sir William Gomm, died, March 15, 1875, in full vigour of an unimpaired intellect, though more than ninety years of age. Having entered the army as Ensign, in the year 1794, at an early age, this distinguished Officer had served his Sovereign for more than eighty years, and thus the last link which connected us with the past glories of the great wars of the French Revolution was severed. The Lieutenant-Colonel only expressed the universal feeling of sorrow that prevailed in the Coldstream, when he issued the following short sympathetic order upon this melancholy event:—
March 15, 1875. Death of Sir William Gomm. The Commanding Officer has the painful duty to perform of announcing to the Regiment the sad news of the death of their gallant and distinguished Colonel, Field-Marshal Sir William Gomm, G.C.B., which took place this morning. A notice of his distinguished services, which included more than one battle during the last century, can hardly be recorded within the limits of a Regimental Order, but the present occasion cannot be allowed to pass without expressing the respect entertained by all ranks for the example set to us by one of the most honourable careers ever passed in the British army. The lively interest evinced by our late Colonel in the welfare of the Regiment has been unceasing ever since his first connection with it, and in him the Coldstream Guards lose as kind and generous a friend as has ever been entrusted with its interests. The Band and drums will cease to play in or out of barracks until after the funeral; a band of crape will be worn by the Officers on the left arm until after the appointment of a new Colonel shall have been gazetted. A rosette of crape will be attached to the Colours until after the funeral.
The Bands and drums of the Brigade ceased to play while the Coldstream was in mourning, until after the funeral, which took place at Rotherhithe, and was not accompanied by any military display; but all available Officers of the Regiment were, of course, present upon so sad an occasion.
General Sir William Codrington, G.C.B., the late Commander of the Forces in the Crimea, now succeeded as Colonel of the Coldstream, and issued an address to the Regiment:—
“Regimental Order , April 5, 1875. The Commanding Officer has much pleasure in promulgating the following notification received by him from General Sir W. Codrington, G.C.B., and feels sure that the Regiment will be gratified to learn that a renewal of that distinguished Officer’s connection with the Coldstream Guards is as keenly appreciated by himself as it is by all ranks of the Regiment.
“Her Majesty has been pleased to confer upon me the Colonelcy of the Coldstream Guards, in succession to the late Field-Marshal Sir W. Gomm, whose distinguished services were appreciated by the army and by the Regiment in which he served so long and so well. The position in which I am now placed by Her Majesty’s favour renews my former services of thirty years in the Regiment, and although separated from it in 1854, yet service in the field with another portion of the army did not separate me so far from the Coldstream Guards as to prevent my seeing and valuing, on many difficult occasions of war service, the action of the Brigade of Guards of which the Coldstream formed part. Twenty years have passed since these occurrences, but the recollection of them has not passed away, nor the interest diminished in the well-being of the Regiment with which Her Majesty has again connected me by a duty which it will be a pleasure and an honour to carry out.”
From 1871, as we have seen, there had been but one Lieutenant-Colonel and one Major in the Coldstream, the former being in command of the Regiment and of one Battalion, the latter having the command of the other Battalion. In 1875, however, the original establishment of one Lieutenant-Colonel and two Majors was restored, and Colonel A. Lyon Fremantle (son of a former well-known and distinguished Coldstream Officer), being promoted Major to fill up the vacancy, was posted to the command of the 1st Battalion (April 28th). The reason for this change was that the Lieutenant-Colonels of Guards Regiments were to be employed, in addition to the command of their own Regiments, in the capacity of Brigadiers of the metropolitan Volunteer Corps, which were then incorporated into three separate brigades. In order to discharge these duties, Regimental Adjutants were shortly afterwards (1881) also appointed, and these Officers, besides performing the ordinary work attached to that position (carried out up to this date by a Battalion Adjutant), acted as Brigade-Majors of the Volunteer brigades so created. Captain and Lieut.-Colonel Hon. E. Digby was the first Regimental Adjutant of the Coldstream.
Just before Colonel Goodlake, V.C., left the service (August 7, 1875), Colonel Fremantle was transferred to the command of the 2nd Battalion, and Colonel Hon. William Feilding succeeded the former Officer as Major Commanding the 1st Battalion. On September 5, 1877, Colonel Hon. Percy Feilding, C.B. retired upon half-pay, and the Lieutenant-Colonelcy devolved upon Colonel Fremantle, who was replaced in the command of the 2nd Battalion by Colonel FitzRoy. Only a few days later, Colonel William Feilding also went on half-pay (September 29th), and Colonel Julian Hall, promoted Major, was posted to the command of the 1st Battalion.
The Regiment then stood thus (December, 1877):—
Colonel.—General Sir William Codrington, G.C.B.
Lieut.-Colonel.—Colonel A. Lyon Fremantle.
Majors.—Colonels G. FitzRoy; Julian Hall.
Captains.—Lieut.-Colonels G. Wigram; A. Lambton; Lord W. Seymour (Staff); E. Burnell; FitzRoy Fremantle; (Mounted).
F. Manningham-Buller; G. FitzRoy Smyth; H. R. Eyre; J. B. Sterling; C. D. Thomas; Viscount de Vesci; Hon. F. Wellesley; R. S. Hall; W. Ramsden; Hon. E. Acheson; H. Aldenburg-Bentinck; Hon. L. Dawnay; Hon. E. Digby; Hon. H. Corry; R. Follett.
Lieutenants.—Captain Hon. E. Boscawen (Adjutant); Major R. Goff; Captains Waller Otway; H. Bruce; Amelius Lockwood; Hon. R. Campbell (Adjutant); Hon. G. Bertie; F. Graves-Sawle; A. Moreton; Hon. M. Stapleton; R. Pole-Carew; J. G. Montgomery; Cyril Fortescue; F. Manley; R. Barton; F. Arkwright; L. MacKinnon (I. of M.); Lieutenants V. Dawson (I. of M.); Hon. E. Dawnay; Hon. H. Monck; Lord D. Gordon; A. FitzRoy; J. Ross-of-Bladensburg; A. Codrington; Hon. H. Legge; J. Gladstone; D. Dawson; C. Brand; Hon. F. Lambton; Hon. G. Gore; H. Stopford; Hon. H. Gough; Hon. A. Henniker-Major; Lord Sandhurst; A. Clarke-Jervoise; G. V. Boyle; Viscount Lambton; Hon. A. Dawson; Hon. H. Amherst.
Sub-Lieutenant.—H. Surtees.
2nd Lieutenants.—Edgar Vincent; W. Corbet.
Quartermasters.—J. Birch; W. Reynolds.
Surgeon-Major.—C. V. Cay, M.D. Battalion-Surgeon.—Surgeon-Major C. Read.
Surgeons.—A. Myers; J. Whipple, M.D.; J. Magill, M.D.
Solicitor.—R. Broughton, Esq.
As the aspect of affairs in Ireland had improved, and as the disturbances that distracted the people had entirely ceased, it was found unnecessary to continue to keep a Guards Battalion any longer in Dublin. At the spring change of quarters of the year 1876, therefore, the Battalion there was not replaced, and the occupation of Shorncliffe camp was again resumed as the out-quarter of the Brigade. The 1st Coldstream accordingly went there at that time, and lost then, with sincere regret, an Officer of much merit in Quartermaster Falconer, who, having been in that position ever since 1853, left the Regiment in 1876. This excellent Officer was born in the town of Coldstream; he had been present with the Battalion during the whole of the war with Russia, and had gained for himself, during his long period of service in the Regiment, the sincere respect and the hearty good will of all ranks.
Major-General Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar retired from the command of the Brigade of Guards, and was succeeded by Major-General F. Stephenson, C.B., August 1, 1876, who retained that appointment until July 31, 1879, when Major-General G. Higginson C.B., replaced him.
A second change was made in the course of this century in the title of the Scots Fusilier Guards, and on April 4, 1877, it was promulgated for general information that this Regiment would in future be designated by the name of Scots Guards.
During the period under review, from 1871-1885, the country was engaged in some minor wars. An expedition to Ashanti took place 1873-1874; hostilities were undertaken on the North-West frontiers of India, notably in Afghanistan, to keep out the influence of Russia, which we feared, and to counteract the rapid advance of her forces towards our borders; and operations were conducted against various native tribes in South Africa, principally against the Zulus, and against the Transvaal Republic in the same quarter of the world. In none of these were the Coldstream employed;[395] but some of the Officers of the Regiment were engaged in them in different capacities, and of them three lost their lives. Lieutenant Hon. Alfred Charteris, Aide-de-camp to the General Commanding the Ashanti expedition (Sir Garnet Wolseley), was attacked by fever, contracted in that unhealthy climate, and died, deeply regretted, on board ship when on his way home. The other two, Captains Hon. Ronald Campbell and Robert Barton, fell the same day in South Africa, on March 28, 1879. The high estimation in which these two brave Officers were held by their brothers in the Regiment, and the promise they gave of future distinction, have never been forgotten by their companions; their loss is still mourned, and their memory is preserved and cherished, for they recall to the mind of those who knew them the type and embodiment of the Coldstream Officer. Of the details of their services it is not necessary to say more than this, that Captain Campbell, Chief Staff Officer to Colonel Wood, V.C., C.B., (now General Sir Evelyn Wood), lost his life while performing an act of daring gallantry, for which, had he lived, he would have received the Victoria Cross; an Officer and a soldier who followed him (Lieutenant Lysons and Private Fowler, 90th Regiment), and who fortunately escaped unhurt, were both awarded that high order of military merit. Captain Barton, in command of the Frontier Light Horse, was also killed in the same neighbourhood. In Colonel Wood’s despatch, the following sentences are worthy of record in these pages.
“Camp, Kambula, Zululand, March 30, 1879.
“I directed Colonel Weatherley to dislodge one or two Zulus who were causing us most of the loss” [the enemy being concealed behind rocks or in caves], “but as his men did not advance rapidly, Captain Campbell and Lieutenant Lysons and three men of the 90th, jumping over a low wall, ran forward and charged into a cave, where Captain Campbell, leading in the most determined and gallant manner, was shot dead.... His Excellency” [Lieut.-General Lord Chelmsford, Commanding] “knew Captain Hon. R. Campbell: he was an excellent Staff Officer, both in the field and as regards office work, and, having shown the most brilliant courage, lost his life in performing a gallant feat; and though he fell, success was gained by the courageous conduct of Lieutenant Lysons and Private Fowler, 90th Light Infantry. Captain Barton, commanding the Frontier Horse, was always most forward in every fight, and was as humane as he was brave. On the 20th January, one of Umsabe’s men, whom Captain Barton wished to take prisoner instead of killing him, fired at Captain Barton within two yards, the powder marking his face. When last seen on the 28th, he was carrying on his horse a wounded man.” Lieut.-Colonel Buller (now General Sir Redvers Buller, V.C.), commanding the mounted troops of Colonel Wood’s column, and who himself gained his Victoria Cross on that day for his own gallantry, writes as follows:—“Captain Barton is also a great loss; active, energetic, and intrepid, he was an excellent Officer, and devoted to his profession.”[396]
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Footnote 395:
After the battle of Isandlwhana, January 22, 1879, in which the Zulus succeeded in overwhelming several companies of the 24th Regiment, some Officers and Non-commissioned officers of the Brigade of Guards, under Colonel Davies, Grenadier Guards, were sent to take charge of drafts proceeding to South Africa to join that Regiment. The Coldstream furnished one Officer (Captain Hon. G. Bertie) and two sergeants (one of them, the present Superintending Clerk, Sergeant-Major W. Johnson). The drafts were wrecked on their way out, but fortunately no loss of life occurred. Arrived at the seat of hostilities, the Guardsmen did duty with the 24th Regiment until the end of the war. The following Brigade Order appeared in London, October 3rd:—
“In congratulating the detachment of Officers and Non-commissioned officers sent to the Cape under the command of Colonel Davies, Grenadier Guards, the Major-General has much pleasure in publishing, for the information of the Brigade, the following order, issued by Colonel Glyn, C.B., commanding 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment, dated s.s. Egypt, October 1, 1879: 'The Officer Commanding cannot allow the Officers of the Brigade of Guards and Militia who have been attached to the 1st Battalion, 24th Regiment, during the late campaign in South Africa, to leave the Battalion without recording his appreciation of their services, and thanking them most sincerely for the willing and energetic manner in which they have performed their duties. Colonel Glyn assures them that they will always be held in kindly remembrance both by himself and his Officers. To the Non-commissioned officers of the Brigade of Guards, the Commanding Officer also tenders his best thanks for the assistance they have rendered when serving with the drafts and, subsequently, with the Battalion in the field.”
Footnote 396:
Supplement, London Gazette, May 7, 1879. See Appendix XIII. Sir E. Wood has written an account of Captain Campbell’s heroism in Pearson’s Magazine (Feb., 1896), “One of the Bravest Deeds I ever saw.” See Brigade of Guards Magazine , ix. 164.
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The grave outlook of foreign affairs in the spring of 1878, when Russia, after a successful war with Turkey, forced a disastrous treaty upon the Sultan (treaty of San Stefano), led many to think that England would again become involved in further hostilities in the East, and for a time there was serious anxiety on the subject. But, warned by the Crimea, we were hardly inclined to embark in another quarrel with the Tsar. A European Congress then assembled in Berlin to modify the Treaty of San Stefano, and to conclude a new international agreement, known as the Treaty of Berlin (July 13, 1878). As a demonstration, and indeed also to take advantage of the opportunity to test the system introduced into the army by short service, the reserves were called up in April, and, as we have already seen, the summons to attend was well responded to by the men. The Coldstream reserves were posted to the 2nd Battalion. The three Guards Battalions first on the roster for active service (viz. the 2nd Grenadiers, 2nd Coldstream, and 1st Scots Guards), each selected thirty-two men to go to Aldershot to be trained as stretcher-bearers. The Regimental transport was re-organized, and proceeded later to Aldershot with the Battalions above-mentioned, to take part in the summer drills; shortly after which (September 11th) its establishment was fixed at one Officer, one sergeant, six drivers, three waggons, and one small-arm ammunition cart. Later (January 25, 1879), this transport was kept together as one corps, and the three Officers took it in turn, for four months at a time, to have it in charge.
The efforts to extend and improve the training of Officers and men, which have been already alluded to, were still continued, and in 1883, it was ordered that Company Commanders should give personal attention to the subject, and be responsible for the efficiency of the men placed under their immediate command. Before this date, however, the Brigade had already availed themselves of the advantages which Pirbright offered for some of these purposes. A Guards camp having been opened for musketry in 1881, it was soon utilized as a place where practical instruction in military exercises (other than ordinary drill), could be given by the Company Officers. In April, 1882, Commanding Officers were enjoined to carry out a series of minor tactical operations in conjunction with the course of musketry practice, and to examine their Battalions by companies, and by double companies, in outpost duty, attack formation, shelter-trench exercise, etc. The Battalions were also to stay at Pirbright for fourteen days, five to be devoted to minor tactics, four to preliminary drill, and five to musketry. Afterwards, they remained a longer time in camp, and were thus enabled to all their company training there, besides their musketry.[397]
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Footnote 397:
Guards being stationed in London, have no ground near their barracks suitable for many of their military exercises.
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Following the example set us by Continental armies, we added sectional and field firing to the course of target practice which was annually carried out, and increased the number of rounds to be expended by the trained soldier from 100 to 150 (1882). Musketry had received considerable attention from the authorities, and it was held imperative that the men should not only be able individually to shoot with accuracy, but that they should also be trained to fire together, under conditions that prevail in the field, and against objects similar to those which present themselves to the aim of troops in war time. A Siege Operations Committee having been appointed to conduct experiments at Dungeness early in 1880, a detachment of the 1st Coldstream, then at Shorncliffe, was told off to assist them in their labours. The following Brigade Order (March 11, 1880) relates to this service:—
The Major-General has great pleasure in noticing the highly favourable report of the conduct of a detachment of the 1st Coldstream Guards under the command of Lieut.-Colonel Otway, employed under the Siege Operations Committee at Dungeness. The President of the Committee remarks upon the cheerful endurance and steady discipline of the men, as well as the watchfulness and judgment of the Officers, and the ability and energy with which Captain Fortescue carried out the daily arrangements.
We have already had occasion to remark that, on the introduction of signalling, great interest was taken in the subject in the Brigade, and frequent allusions were made to the efficiency of the Guards in this respect. An extract of an order, dated March 11, 1884, may be quoted:—
“His Royal Highness’s attention has been drawn to the energetic action of Lieut.-Colonel Bonham, which is deserving of praise, as also to the attention paid by the other Officers specially named, viz. Lieutenant Lloyd, 1st Grenadiers, and Lieutenant Lovell, 2nd Coldstream. Will you please convey an expression of His Royal Highness’s satisfaction to the 1st and 2nd Coldstream Guards, the Royal Horse Guards, and the 3rd Grenadier Guards, who have taken such good positions in the list of relative efficiency.”
In the last chapter some notes were given upon the improvements which were made in the canteen system after the Crimean war. In 1879, the “coffee bar” was separated from the canteen proper, and thus two shops were established in barracks for the soldiers' use, in one of which no alcoholic liquor could be bought; this change was completed in London in 1880 and 1881. We may also state here that, through the instrumentality of Officers of the Brigade, early in the latter year, a coffee tavern was set up outside barracks in Buckingham Palace Road, for the use of the Non-commissioned officers and men of the Guards; the arrangement that was then made did not, however, continue for any great length of time, and though the tavern still exists, its connection with the Brigade is now severed.
A few changes in uniform since 1872 deserve a passing mention. Shoulder straps were added to the Officers' tunics and blue coats (end of 1880), and the gold cords on the former garments were then abolished. New badges were put on these straps to show the military rank of the wearer. Previous to this, although the rank of an Officer was indicated on the collar of the tunic, no such distinction was to be seen on the blue coat. In the following March, the dark grey cloth, adopted for the trousers of Officers in the Brigade in 1830, gave place to a blue tweed. Up to 1874 Non-commissioned officers and men wore buttons on the skirts of the tunic, but they were then removed on account of the new valise equipment which was introduced at that time, instead of the old knapsack. Since that date the valise has been always carried by the soldier, though the pattern has more than once been changed.
Some alterations were effected in the medical service of the Brigade. Up to the year 1865, the Surgeons belonged exclusively to their respective Regiments as much as any other Officer of the Guards, and their promotion took place therein when vacancies occurred in their own corps only. Forming a small body in each, it is evident that their advancement was always uncertain, and too frequently was it exceedingly slow. To relieve this stagnation, the Medical Officers of the Brigade, though still belonging to and wearing the uniform of their respective Regiments, are now placed upon one list according to seniority, and are promoted in their turn into whatever corps the vacancy occurs. A better flow of promotion is thus obtained, though the Medical Officers are subject to the inconvenience of being sometimes obliged to change their Regiments when they gain a step. Another change, made in April 2, 1881, was the appointment of a Brigade Surgeon in the Guards to act as Principal Medical Officer. This system replaced the old arrangement by which the three Regimental Surgeons-Major took it in turn to do duty in Brigade Waiting, and to act as the medical adviser to the Major-General. Lastly, in 1881, the three Regimental hospitals were converted into station hospitals, for the general use of all troops quartered in the London garrison.
The grade, created to supplant the old military title of Ensign, met with some vicissitudes. Sub-Lieutenants ceased to be so called in 1877, and the name Second-Lieutenant was then substituted for it. In 1881, however, the rank was altogether abolished, and Second-Lieutenants were promoted Lieutenant, while young Officers joining the army were gazetted Lieutenants. But this arrangement did not last long, and again there was another change, for in 1887 Second-Lieutenants were re-introduced into the army; but there appears to be no tendency to restore the old traditional rank of Ensign.
One of the consequences of the abolition of purchase, clearly foreseen by the authors of army reform, was to produce a state of complete stagnation in promotion. To relieve this evil, a device was resorted to, whereby Officers, their qualifications or inclinations notwithstanding, were not allowed to remain in certain positions in their regiments for more than a definite period or after attaining a specified age. For instance, Commanding Officers of regiments and battalions were limited to five years command (reduced to four in the case of the latter, 1881), and all Captains were forced to retire from the service if not promoted to Major before the age of forty. The relief thus afforded was not of great advantage to the bulk of the juniors, and it constituted a well-founded grievance to many who, while able and willing to serve were thrown out of their profession through no fault of their own.[398] Now, in 1881, a large number of Captains were doomed to be ejected, whereat it appears the Secretary of State got seriously alarmed. Nor is it surprising that he should fear the prospect of having between 3000 to 4500 vigorous and educated men going “up and down the country,” and pointing out in every constituency the grievances to which they were subjected by the hasty introduction of political army reforms that his own party had effected in 1871.[399] He was constrained to save these men, and the only way to do this was to promote them en masse to the rank of Major. Hence all Majors in the infantry below a Mounted Officer, (since 1893, below the Second in command), are “Captains and Majors,” fulfilling the duties of the former, and dignified with the rank of the latter. They therefore enjoy the “double rank,” which was held to be so objectionable, in 1871, when it prevailed in the Foot Guards. The advantage, however, does not go on, for on becoming “Second in command,” an Officer performs the duty of Major, but has no extra rank given to him.
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Footnote 398:
The automatic system of facilitating a flow of promotion at no cost to the State, which purchase produced, may perhaps be illustrated by the fact that, from 1814 to 1871, or during fifty-seven years, the Coldstream had twenty-one Lieutenant-Colonels; or each, on an average, served in that capacity for a period of about two years and nine months. Whereas, between 1871 and 1895, there have been five Lieutenant-Colonels, whose average period of command has nearly reached the full five years allowed by the new regulations.
Footnote 399:
See The Army Book for the British Empire , p. 57.
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The introduction of Warrant-officers into the army was brought about at this time also; and the Sergeant-Major and Bandmaster (and later the Regimental Clerk) were so promoted.
These things were effected in July, 1881; and then the following changes were made in the establishment of the Coldstream: The companies were reduced from 20 to 16 (8 per Battalion, instead of 10, as had been provided during the Crimean war). The Lieutenant-Colonel remained in command of the Regiment, but instead of two Majors Commanding Battalions, the designation of these Officers was altered, and they were called Lieutenant-Colonels Commanding Battalions. Of the Captains there had been twenty, or one to each Company, and the four seniors used to be called Acting-Majors, or Mounted Officers; instead, there were now eight Majors in the Regiment (the four seniors being mounted,[400] and the four juniors unmounted), and nine Captains. Lastly, the rank of Second-Lieutenant was abolished, and instead of 20 Lieutenants and 20 Second-Lieutenants, there were 36 Lieutenants. The differences in the two establishments are to be seen in the following table:—
May, 1881. July, 1881.
20 Companies. 16 Companies.
1 Colonel. } 1 Colonel. } 1 Lieut.-Colonel } Field-Officers. 1 Lt.-Col. Com. } Field-Officers. Regt. 2 Majors. } 2 Lt.-Cols. Com. } Batns. 20 Captains. 8 Majors. } 20 Lieutenants. 9 Captains. 20 Second-Lieutenants. 36 Lieutenants. 2 Adjutants. 3 Adjutants. (1 per Battn. and 1 Regtal).
2 Quartermasters. 2 Quartermasters. 2 Surgeons-Major. 2 Surgeons-Major. 3 Surgeons. 3 Surgeons. 1 Solicitor. Total Officers 1 Solicitor. Total Officers 74. 68. 2 Serjeants-Major. 2 Sergts.-Major. (Warrant-officers). 1 Staff Clerk. 2 Quartermaster-Sergeants. 2 Quartermaster-Sergeants. 1 Bandmaster. 1 Bandmaster. (Warrant-officer). 2 Sergt.-Instructors of Musketry. 2 Sergt.-Instructors of Musketry. 2 Drum-Majors. 2 Sergeant-Drummers. 2 Armourer-Sergeants. 2 Armourer-Sergeants. 2 Orderly Room Sergeants. 6 Orderly Room Sergeants. 2 Pioneer Sergeants. 2 Pioneer Sergeants. 20 Colour-Sergeants. 16 Colour-Sergeants. 2 Sergeant Cooks. 2 Sergeant Cooks. 60 Sergeants. 48 Sergeants. Total Sergeants, etc., 97. _Total Warrant-officers, Sergts. etc._, 86. 32 Drummers and Fifers. 32 Drummers and Fifers. Total 32. Total 32. 80 Corporals. 80 Corporals. 1420 Privates. 1420 Privates. Total Rank and File, 1500. Total Rank and File, 1500 —— —— 1703 Total. 1686 Total.
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Footnote 400:
The dismounting of two “mounted” Majors took place in 1893; and now there are in the Regiment two “mounted” (or a “Second in command” per Battalion) and six “unmounted” Majors.
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N. R. Wilkinson del. A.D. Innes & C^o. London. Mintern Bros. lith.
On the 10th of November, 1880, Colonel Fremantle having left the Regiment, Colonel FitzRoy was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel, when Colonel Wigram, promoted Major, assumed the command of the 2nd Battalion. On the completion of five years period of command, Colonel Julian Hall retired on half-pay, September 29, 1882, and was succeeded in the command of the 1st Battalion by Colonel Arthur Lambton, who thus became Lieutenant-Colonel of a Battalion in the Coldstream, and who was appointed to serve for four years in that capacity. Colonels FitzRoy and Wigram, C.B., finished their periods of five years simultaneously, November 10, 1885. The latter, placed on half-pay for a few weeks, was brought back as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Regiment (December 16th), and the command of the 2nd Battalion devolved upon Colonel Sterling (November 10th).
By the death of General Sir William Codrington, G.C.B., on the 6th of August, 1884, the Coldstream lost their Colonel, who had served as such for more than nine years. The following Regimental Order was published:—
August 7, 1884. The Commanding Officer has the painful duty to perform of announcing to the Regiment the sad news of the death of their gallant and distinguished Colonel, General Sir William Codrington, G.C.B., which took place yesterday afternoon, 6th inst. A band of crape will be worn by the Officers for a month; the Band and the drums and fifes will not play until after the funeral.
The funeral was accompanied with military honours, and took place at Woking Cemetery on the 9th. All Officers attending it were dressed as for Guard, and, including the firing party of 50 men, there was a detachment present of the 1st Battalion, consisting of 100 Non-commissioned officers and men under three Officers.
Sir W. Codrington was succeeded by General Right Honourable Sir Thomas Steele, K.C.B., at that time Commander of the Forces in Ireland, whom Her Majesty appointed the new Colonel of the Regiment.
In the same year, Lieut.-General Higginson, C.B., vacated the command of the Brigade of Guards, and was replaced by Major-General R. Gipps, C.B., April 1, 1884.
The 1st Coldstream was first on the roster for duty in Ireland, and at the end of 1880 was quartered in Chelsea and St. George’s Barracks. Serious troubles once more affected that country, and Government was sorely perplexed how to deal with them. The presence of the Guards was again required, and the Battalion was despatched there at a few days' notice, by two special trains from Victoria Station, viâ Holyhead (December 6th). Upon this, the 2nd Grenadiers, then at Shorncliffe, were brought to town, and that out-quarter was given up. On the 15th of December, a detachment of 100 men from the 2nd Battalion joined the 1st in Dublin, and five days later the 1st Scots Guards left London for the same destination. The Coldstream were quartered in Richmond Barracks, but the Scots Guards were scattered through the town, their head-quarters in Ship Street, with detachments in Richmond, and in Linen Hall barracks.
A novel procedure was now adopted with respect to the command of these two Battalions, which shows how critical the authorities conceived the situation to be. Shortly after their arrival in Dublin, the Major-General Commanding the Brigade and the Home District proceeded there accompanied by his Brigade Staff, and left Colonel Gipps, Scots Guards (the senior Officer) with the District Staff to command the Home District; but the arrangement did not last long, and the latter, temporarily promoted Brigadier General, took General Higginson’s place in Ireland, who thereupon returned to London, February 15, 1881.[401]
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Footnote 401:
On the 7th of December, 1881, Colonel FitzRoy, Coldstream Guards, temporarily promoted Brigadier-General, proceeded to Dublin to relieve Colonel Gipps, appointed Major-General.
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The stay of the Battalion in Dublin, lasting until March, 1882, was not more pleasant then than it had been during the Fenian troubles of 1866; but the duties assigned to the troops were everywhere cheerfully undertaken and zealously discharged. Among these duties two may be specially mentioned. In the first place, such was the violence of the mobs that collected to interfere with the due administration of the law, that a collision was apprehended every time a writ was served, a seizure made in a farm, an eviction put into execution, or any other legal process carried out. To avoid the danger, the Irish authorities established the rule that the force protecting the sheriff or other officer employed, should be so overwhelmingly strong, as to put an end to all thoughts of resistance, on the part of those who assembled to frustrate the course of justice. The Royal Irish Constabulary were, of course, always employed on these occasions, but it was also believed that the presence of red-coats would have a greater effect with the excited populace, and for this purpose numerous military posts covered the disturbed districts; but the Guards in Dublin, occupying a central position there, were not obliged to furnish any of these detachments.
Soldiers, therefore, were often requisitioned to escort the civil authorities, and the two Guards Battalions (as well as those that succeeded them in Dublin during the troubles), were often employed in this manner—generally by despatching small parties of some fifty men under an Officer. On one occasion, however, the 1st Coldstream had to do more than this. There was a series of evictions near New Pallas, in the county of Limerick, and the whole Battalion, together with a portion of Scots Guards, were sent there for two days to guard the sheriff, who had to execute the judgment of the Court. It was, at least, an uncommon service for so large a force to perform; and the Battalion was in all conscience powerful enough to prevent any breach of the peace!
The other duty to which allusion has been made, refers to what was called “personal protection.” Many landlords, and indeed others, were in danger of their lives from the outrage-mongers that infested the land. In order to afford adequate protection to these persons, soldiers were told off to reside in their houses, to accompany them in all their movements, and to be responsible for their safety. The Coldstream and Scots Guards furnished a number of men to perform this duty, and an Officer from each Regiment was appointed to inspect them frequently, and to satisfy himself that this novel service was efficiently discharged. That this was the case may be gathered from the following order, issued in London, dated March 17, 1882:—
“By desire of the Field-Marshal the Commander-in-Chief, I have the honour to transmit to you the enclosed report on the conduct of the Coldstream and Scots Guards, while employed on protection duty in Limerick and Clare under the order of Clifford Lloyd, Esq., Resident Magistrate at Tulla, and to request that you will be so good as to express to all concerned, His Royal Highness’s approbation of their conduct in the performance of the duties they have been called upon to undertake, and which are quite unusual with soldiers. His Royal Highness has much pleasure in recognising the valuable services rendered by Captain Fortescue, Coldstream Guards, and by Lieutenant Romilly, Scots Guards, which have been brought to the notice of His Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant.”
But the Coldstream had some further experiences. It will be remembered that Mr. Parnell, the leader of the Irish agitation, was arrested as a suspect, October 13, 1881, under an Act of Parliament which had been passed in the spring of that year. The authorities, expecting some resistance, made every military preparation in Dublin to prevent a riot; and their precautions being sufficient, and their resources ample, the capture was very easily accomplished without mishap. Still, the quick-witted Irish very soon realized that the Government in London were afraid of them. They had early perceived that the Cabinet, instead of facing the difficulty boldly, dallied with it, and failed to support the Chief Secretary, Mr. Forster, in his strenuous efforts to cope with it. Hence, seeing no strength in the authority that should have protected them, the people were constrained to obey those who did wield power in the country, by setting its laws at defiance and by oppressing it without mercy. The winter, 1881-82, was disturbed and troubled. The No-rent conspiracy was in full swing; murder clubs, under the name of Moonlighters, kept the land in terror; juries were intimidated, and refused to discharge their functions; and the executive was all but paralysed. It was, moreover, known that a gang of assassins, called “the Invincibles,” had bound themselves together to murder Mr. Forster, and it was afterwards ascertained that they had made numerous desperate attempts upon his life, all of which were happily unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, in January, 1882, the 2nd Grenadiers were sent to Cork, and for two months there was the unprecedented number of three Guards Battalions in Ireland, until March, when the 2nd Coldstream relieved the 1st Battalion, who returned to England, and were soon after followed by the 1st Scots Guards. So the gloomy spring passed, when a new complication arose. Mr. Forster had remained at his post with steadfast courage, and scorned the imminent personal danger that surrounded him, with which he knew he was threatened. But he was unable to stand by a leader of whose policy he disapproved, or to follow him in the tortuous intrigue, which became known in history as the “Kilmainham treaty.” He resigned, and the then Lord-Lieutenant (Lord Cowper), having also withdrawn from office, Lord Spencer was appointed in his place, and arrived in Dublin, May 6, 1882, accompanied by his new Chief Secretary, Lord Frederick Cavendish.
On that very afternoon, in broad daylight, while walking through the Phœnix Park, which was then full of people, Lord F. Cavendish and Mr. Burke, the Under-Secretary, were murdered by the Invincibles, who had for so long unsuccessfully lain in wait to assassinate Mr. Forster. The event sent a thrill of horror through the United Kingdom, and effectively and at last forced the Government to open their eyes to the true nature of the conspiracy with which they had to deal. The miscreants got away, and for a time there was little information to be obtained as to the perpetrators of this foul deed, and twelve months had to elapse before the conspirators were convicted and punished. The 2nd Coldstream, quartered in Dublin when this tragedy took place, were not called upon to act in the emergency. There was nothing, indeed, for soldiers to do at the crisis, except to redouble their vigilance; for it soon became clear that the Irish were as much the victims of the agitators and outrage-mongers who had mastered them, as were the officials who suffered by their violence.
In less than three months both the Guards Battalions, quartered in Dublin and in Cork, were required to proceed on active service to Egypt, and left the scenes of internal discord and disorder to meet the open foes of their country. The 3rd Grenadiers replaced them in Dublin (August 8th), and since that time there has been only one Battalion in Ireland. The Coldstream did not return there till the autumn of 1887, when the agitation had assumed a new phase, although the crisis had by no means passed away, nor the difficulties come to an end. Thanks, however, to the vigour of Government, to the remedial measures introduced, to the disappearance of Parnell, to the absence of another leader of character, and to the quarrels that have split up the Nationalist party into hostile fragments, the people are now steadily quieting down; and, eschewing agitation, they are improving their material prosperity under the new laws which have been enacted for their benefit.
In February, 1881, that is, shortly after the two Battalions went in haste to Ireland at the end of the previous year, the Tower was vacated by the Foot Guards, and was occupied by a Line regiment until November, 1882. There were then four Battalions in the West End, and this continued to be the force maintained there—excepting for the two months, January 25th-March 22nd, 1882, when, as we have seen, three Battalions were stationed in Ireland—until the departure of a Guards Brigade of three Battalions for Egypt. During this war, Dublin was still occupied by a Battalion, but Windsor was vacated, and, until the return of the Brigade from active service in November, the 2nd King’s Royal Rifle Corps furnished the Kensington Palace and the Magazine guards. In the following year, 1883, London was the scene of dynamite outrages, perpetrated by the agents of the same secret societies, of American origin, which financed and supported the agitation in Ireland. “For a time the air was dense with rumours of plots and explosives,” and all minds were filled with vague alarms. A measure to punish dynamiters was passed in haste through all its stages in both Houses of Parliament, in one day (April 9th), and received the Royal assent next day at noon.[402] The garrison of the Metropolis also required strengthening, and a Line regiment being brought to the Tower, there were then five Guards Battalions in the West End. Extra guards were mounted on Somerset House, the Royal Courts of Justice, and Millbank prison, the London duties were increased, the public offices protected, and other precautions taken. The panic was considerable while it lasted, but it passed away in about six months, and in the summer the garrison of London assumed its normal strength and condition.
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Footnote 402:
Ann. Reg. , 1883, part i., p. 84.
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This ends the history of the Coldstream up to 1885, as far as affairs in the United Kingdom are concerned; and we now turn to events that occurred in Egypt and in the Sudan, 1882-1885. Before doing this, however, we may briefly allude to a subject which possesses much interest to all Guardsmen. Some members of the Coldstream may perhaps be unaware that the exquisite decorations that adorn the interior of the Royal Military Chapel in Wellington barracks have been scarcely twenty years in existence. Before that time the walls were cold and bare, and the building contained little to show how zealously the Brigade guard the great traditions of the past,—traditions which they have inherited,—and how warmly they cherish the memory of the Officers, Non-commissioned officers, and men who, ever since the formation of the standing army, have faithfully and bravely performed their duty to the Sovereign of this realm. Numerous are the monuments placed in the Chapel to record the military virtues of departed Guardsmen of every rank, and their deeds on many a hard-fought field of strife; while these memorials furnish a proof of the solid union which knits the three Regiments of the Household Infantry together, in love for their profession and in devotion to their Queen and country.