The Story of the British Army

by Charles Cooper King

Turn now from the southern portion of the Dark Continent to the northern. The researches of recent explorers, such as Mr. Stanley and others, had opened up the previously unknown interior to a much greater extent than had been effected before their exertions.

Southern Africa, as far as its white immigrant population was concerned, was extending its political limits northward. The Congo Free State was attempting to bring European civilisation down towards the equator. The ideas of “Hinterland,” a preposterous notion, had been advanced. All nations were bent on pushing from the sea towards the rediscovered Mountains of the Moon. All Europe was burning to get authority over some portion of the African coast-line, and every State, whether it had colonising power or not, burned to claim as much ground behind the surf-clad beach as it could get. But before this earth-hunger assumed the proportions it did, there had been trouble in the north-eastern portion of Africa, though this case was rather one of national honour and prestige than desire for the extension of our “sphere of influence.”

A serious war-cloud had arisen in Abyssinia, the forerunner of the many disturbances which by degrees have since led to the opening up of the heart of Africa to commerce. Abyssinia had seemed a promising field for our trade, and Consul Cameron was despatched there to represent the British Government and protect as far as possible the missionaries who followed and preceded him. But Theodoros, the Negus, or emperor, was a man of violent passions, and both tyrannical and a drunkard. He fancied himself insulted because the British Government took no notice of a letter he had addressed to the Queen. He told Consul Cameron that she “can give you orders to visit my enemies, but she cannot return a civil answer to my letter to her.” So he quarrelled with his visitors, and threw them into prison. To save their lives, if possible, and avenge the insult to the nation through our representative, an expedition was fitted out under the command of Sir Robert Napier. It was about 10,000 strong, and well equipped. It was largely composed of Indian troops, stiffened by the 3rd Dragoons, and the 4th, 26th, 33rd and 45th Regiments of the line, with artillery and Engineers.

The general plan of the campaign was simple; it was to release the prisoners, defeat the emperor if he would fight, and destroy his capital of Magdala. The difficulties were regarded as mainly physical. The country was “a broken Libyan highland. Abyssinia is what a vaster Switzerland would be, if transported to the tropics, and if bordered by blazing deserts on each flank of its cool rocky peaks.” The climate was reported good, the people warlike; their weapons were firearms, with shields and swords, or lances. They had no field artillery, but some heavy guns were reported to be at Magdala. The landing was effected at Zoola, where two companies of the 33rd were the first to get on shore, and pushed on to garrison the first depôt or post at Senafé, on the borders of the territory of King Kassa of Tigre, who readily agreed not to oppose, but to some extent assist, the invading army.

Hard as the advanced party of Engineers and Pioneers worked at improving the road, the advance was slow and laborious. “We have scaled,” says Henty, “mountains and descended precipices; we have traversed along the face of deep ravines, where a false step was death; we are familiar with smooth, slippery rock and with loose boulders; and after this expedition it can hardly be said that any country is impracticable for a determined army to advance. I hear, however, that between us and Magdala there are perpendicular precipices running like walls for miles, places which could scarcely be scaled by experienced cragsmen, much less by loaded mules.” When within twenty-five miles in a direct line from Magdala, and when the place was clearly visible, they had to make a detour of sixty miles to avoid these obstacles. But the valley of the Bachelo was reached, and descending 3800 feet on one side by a fair road, the stream was forded, and the ascent of the opposite side of the enormous ravine was begun. On reaching the first level, fire was opened from the hill fortress, and a serious sortie was made by a large irregular mass of infantry and cavalry. The army was almost taken at a disadvantage. The nature of the country had tended to lengthen the column, and there were but few troops up to the front; but the Naval Brigade rocket-battery came into action, with the 4th, some Engineers, two companies of the 10th Native Infantry and a squadron of the 3rd Native Cavalry had to bear the first brunt of the first battle. It was enough, however, and the fighting did not last long under the breechloading fire of the 4th, the first time the Snider had been used in actual war. This disposed of one of the two bodies into which the enemy had been divided; the other made for the baggage defended by some of the 4th and the Punjaubees, supported by the steel mountain battery of Colonel Penn, known therefore as the “Steel Pens,” and the Abyssinian rush was checked by shell fire at 300 yards, and the deadly fire of the breechloading rifle. The enemy fell back badly beaten, while our own loss was only 30 men wounded and none killed. Of about 5000 men who had rushed boldly to the attack of the head of the British column, the bulk were destroyed or dispersed, and the ground was covered with dead and wounded. The expenditure of ammunition was serious. In one hour nearly ninety rounds per man had been discharged.

The next day came the “Easter Monday Review,” as the soldiers termed it, and the storm of Theodore’s stronghold. Scaling ladders were improvised from the bamboo dhooly-poles, and the handles of the pioneers’ axes. But they were not needed. The guns and rockets opened on the devoted fortress, and the storming column, formed of the 33rd, with Major Pritchard and the Engineers in front, the 45th in support, and the remainder in reserve, pushed up the narrow path to the entrance. Here, while efforts were made to break open the gate (for the powder required for the purpose had been forgotten), some of the 33rd managed to scramble up the side of the path, turned the flank of the defenders of the barrier, and when a second gate at the top of a steep flight of steps was destroyed, the place was taken. The loss had been most slight, but the vengeance taken on a bloodthirsty tyrant was complete. Theodore himself committed suicide, his fortress was burned and destroyed, his queen died in our camp at Senafé, and Prince Alamayu, his son, was taken to England. There he eventually became a cadet at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst; and, dying of pneumonia in 1880, was buried, by royal command, just outside the Royal Chapel of St. George at Windsor.

With further researches and interest in Africa, and the greater enterprise resulting from them, came the desire for more possessions which would afford valuable outlets for our trade.

The finding of the sources of the Nile, the discovery of the Great Lakes, the possibility of valuable gold-fields, the comparative healthiness of the African uplands in the interior, all emphasised again the future value of the great water way which drained those inland seas, and terminated in the Egyptian Delta. It is to some extent now, and might be one day fully made, the natural highway to the heart of the Dark Continent. Directly or indirectly, politically or instinctively, possibly both, the value of Egypt as the doorway to Ethiopia became prominent. Probably no statesman really saw it at first. But “there is a Providence that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will,” and the road to Central Africa from this side seems to be only opened by the sword.

So dismissing the Eastern littoral and Zanzibar, where the question of the penetration of the interior is far more a question of railways, so as to get over the fever belt, than one of soldiers, the land of Egypt became a serious factor in the awakening of Africa; as it was a serious factor in Mediterranean politics when Pharaoh was king. But the employment of the British army in Egypt in 1884 rose from what most people would call a mere accident. It is possible that nothing is seriously “accidental.” But while British interference in Egypt in the first years of the century was due entirely to our war with France, our present interference seems to have come from an instinctive feeling as to the importance of securing, and teaching Egypt to improve, the one natural highway to the uplands of the centre of Africa.

Theoretical as this may be, the practical fact of our second interference in the land of Egypt, by landing there, arose from a very simple cause. The Khedive of Egypt, Prince Tewfik, had made as his Minister of War a turbulent and somewhat imperious soldier who aimed certainly at a species of military dictatorship, if not at the supreme power. Beloved by the Egyptian soldiery, and possessing some military knowledge, he posed as a patriot, with the cry of “Egypt for the Egyptians.” Between Mehemet Ali and Arabi there is but one difference. The former succeeded, the latter failed. Nevertheless, such conduct, with such a people, tended in the direction of anarchy. Anarchy might at any time endanger the security of the Suez Canal, in which Great Britain had an important pecuniary interest, and which was, moreover, her shortest and best route to her Eastern possessions. Both France and England claimed to have vital interests in the Nile Valley, and at first there was an apparent accord between the two nations, to the extent that a combined naval demonstration was made at Alexandria. In this, however, the English ironclads very largely preponderated.