TORRES VEDRAS
1810
As who, while erst the Achaians wall’d the shore,
Stood Atlas-like before,
A granite face against the Trojan sea
Of foes who seethed and foam’d,
From that stern rock refused incessantly;
So He, in his colossal lines, astride
From sea to river-side,
Alhandra past Aruda to the Towers,
Our one true man of men
Frown’d back bold France and all the Imperial powers.
For when that Eagle, towering in his might
Beyond the bounds of Right,
O’ercanopied Europe with his rushing wings,
And all the world was prone
Before him as a God, a King of Kings;
When Freedom to one isle, her ancient shrine,
O’er the free favouring brine
Fled, as a girl by lustful war and shame
Discloister’d from her home,
Barefoot, with glowing eyes, and cheeks on flame,
And call’d aloud, and bade the realm awake
To arms for Freedom’s sake:
—Yet,—for the land had rusted long in rest,
The nerves of war unstrung,
Faint thoughts or rash alternate in her breast,
While purblind party-strife with venomous spite
Made plausible wrong seem right,—
O then for that unselfish hero-chief
Tender and true, and lost
At Trafalgar,—or him, whose patriot grief
Died with the prayer for England, as he died,
In vain we might have cried!
But this one pillar rose, and bore the war
Upon himself alone;
Supreme o’er Fortune and her idle star.
For not by might but mind, by skill, not chance,
He headed stubborn France
From Tagus back by Douro to Garonne;
And on the last, worst, field,
The crown of all his hundred victories won,
World-calming Waterloo!—Then, laying by
War’s fearful enginery,
In each state-tempest mann’d the wearying helm;
E’en through life’s winter-years
Serving with all his strength the ungrateful realm.
O firm and foursquare mind! O solid will
Fix’d, inexpugnable
By crowns or censures! only bent to do
The day’s work in the day;—
Fame with her idiot yelp might come, or go!
O breast that dared with Nature’s patience wait
Till the slow wheels of Fate
Struck the consummate hour; in leash the while
Reining his eager bands,
The prey in view,—with that foreseeing smile!
And when for blood on Salamanca ridge
Morn broke, or Orthez’ bridge,
He read the ground, and his stern squadrons moved
And placed with artist-skill,
Red counters in the perilous game they loved,
Impassive, iron, he and they!—and then
With eagle-keener ken
Glanced through the field, the crisis-instant knew,
And through the gap of war
His thundering legions on their victory threw.
Not iron, he, but adamant! Diamond-strong,
And diamond-clear of wrong:
For truth he struck right out, whate’er befall!
Above the fear of fear:
Duty for duty’s sake his all-in-all.
Among the many wonders of Wellington’s Peninsular campaign, from Vimiera (1808) to Toulouse (1814), the magnificent unity of scheme preserved throughout is, perhaps, the most wonderful: the dramatic coherence, development, and final catastrophe of triumph. For this, however, readers must be referred to Napier’s History; Enough here to add that one of the most decisive steps was the formation of the lines in defence of Lisbon, of which the most northerly ran from Alhandra on the Tagus by Aruda and Zibreira to Torres Vedras near the sea-coast at the mouth of the Zizandre.
When Freedom; the unwise and uncertain management of the campaign by the English home Government has been set forth by Napier with so much emphasis as, in some degree, to impair the reader’s full conviction. Yet the amazing superiority in energy and wisdom with which Wellington towered over his contemporaries, (the field being, however, cleared by the recent deaths of Nelson and Pitt), is so patent, that this attempt to do justice to his greatness is offered with hesitation and apology.
Orthez’ Bridge; crosses the river named Gave de Pau;—and covered Soult’s forces then lying north of it.
THE SOLDIERS’ BATTLE
November 5: 1854
In the solid sombre mist
And the drizzling dazzling shower
They may mass them as they list,
The gray-coat Russian power;
They are fifties ’gainst our tens, they, and more!
And from the fortress-town
In silent squadrons down
O’er the craggy mountain-crown
Unseen, they pour.
On the meagre British line
That northern ocean press’d;
But we never knew how few
Were we who held the crest!
While within the curtain-mist dark shadows loom
Making the gray more gray,
Till the volley-flames betray
With one flash the long array:
And then, the gloom.
For our narrow line too wide
On the narrow crest we stood,
And in pride we named it Home,
As we sign’d it with our blood.
And we held-on all the morning, and the tide
Of foes on that low dyke
Surged up, and fear’d to strike,
Or on the bayonet-spike
Flung them, and died.
It was no covert, that,
’Gainst the shrieking cannon-ball!
But the stout hearts of our men
Were the bastion and the wall:—
And their chiefs hardly needed give command;
For they tore through copse and gray
Mist that before them lay,
And each man fought, that day,
For his own hand!
Yet should we not forget
’Gainst that dun sea of foes
How Egerton bank’d his line,
Till in front a cloud uprose
From the level rifle-mouths; and they dived
With bayonet-thrust beneath;
Clench’d teeth and sharp-drawn breath,
Plunging to certain death,—
And yet survived!
Nor the gallant chief who led
Those others, how he fell;
When our men the captive guns
Set free they loved so well,
And embraced them as live things, by loss endear’d:—
Nor, when the crucial stroke
On their last asylum broke,
And e’en those hearts of oak
Might well have fear’d,—
How Stanley to the fore
The citadel rush’d to guard,
With that old Albuera cry
Fifty-seventh! Die hard!
Yet saw not how his lads clear the crest,
And, each one confronting five,
The stubborn squadrons rive,
And backward, downward, drive,—
—Death-call’d to rest!
—O proud and sad for thee!
And proud and sad for those
Who on that stern foreign field
Not seeking, found repose,
As for England dear their life they gladly shed!
Yet in death bethought them where,
Not on these hillsides bare,
But within sweet English air
Their own home-dead
In a green and sure repose
Beside God’s house are laid:—
Then faced the charging foes
Unmoved, unhelp’d, unafraid:—
For they knew that God would rate each shatter’d limb
Death-torn for England’s sake,
And in Christ’s own mercy take
On the day when souls shall wake,
Their souls to Him!
The battle of Inkermann was mainly fought on a ridge of rock which projects from the south-eastern angle of Sebastapol: the English centre of operations being the ill-fortified line named the ‘Home Ridge.’ The numbers engaged in field-operations, roughly speaking, were 4,000 English against 40,000 Russians.
The curtain-mist; The battle began about 6 a.m. under heavy mist and drizzling rain, which lasted for several hours. Through this curtain the Russian forces coming down from the hill were seen only when near enough to darken the mist by their masses.
Egerton; He commanded four companies of the 77th, and charged early in the battle with brilliant success;—his men, about 250, scattering 1500 Russians.
The gallant chief; General Soimonoff, killed just after Egerton’s charge.
With that old Albuera cry; Prominent in the defence of the English main base of operations, the Home Ridge, against a weighty Russian advance, was Captain Stanley, commanding the 57th. This regiment, it was said, at the battle of Albuera had been encouraged by its colonel
with the words, ‘Fifty-seventh, die hard’:—and Stanley, having less than 400 against 2000, thought the time had come to remind his ‘Die-hards’ of their traditional gallantry;—after which he himself at once fell mortally wounded.