The gallantry of Norman Ramsay’s battery at Fuentes d’Onoro met with no praise from this imperturbable chief. Mercer’s unquestionably cool and brave work with his battery at Waterloo was barely noticed by his general. Mercer himself, in no very complimentary spirit, says of his share in the great fight: “One day, on the Marine Parade at Woolwich, a battalion coming up in close column at the double march, Lieutenant-Colonel Brown, who stood near me, remarked, ‘That puts me in mind of your troops coming up at Waterloo, when you saved the Brunswickers.’ Until this moment I never knew that our having done so had been remarked by anybody. But he assured me it was known to the whole army; and yet the duke not only withheld that praise which was our due, but refused me the brevet rank of major; and, more than that, actually deprived me of that troop given me by Lord Mulgrave, the then Master-General, for that action, as recommended by my commanding officer, Sir G. Adams Wood.
“That the duke was not ignorant of their danger, I have from Captain Baynes, our brigade-major, who told me that after Sir Augustus Frazer had been sent for us, his Grace exhibited considerable anxiety for our coming up; and that, when he saw us crossing the fields at a gallop, and in so compact a body, he actually cried out, ‘Ah! that’s the way I like to see horse-artillery move.’ Another proof.”
Few men had had greater good fortune than he. “With no opportunity for the display of any kind of talent, he, after entering the army as an ensign at seventeen, became captain, M.P., and A.D.C. to the Lord-Lieutenant at twenty-one, lieutenant-colonel at twenty-four, and colonel at twenty-six. Had Wellesley been the son of an obscure gentleman he might, and probably would, with all his genius, have served in India as a subaltern, in the Peninsula in various regimental grades, and might have died, perhaps, a barrack-master on half-pay—a lieutenant-colonel with half a dozen clasps.”[50] So writes one historian of his life, and his view is shared by Brialmont, who thinks that, when his brother became Governor-General of India, “without his fraternal hand, he would probably have risen neither so quickly nor so high.”
And, finally: “The duke’s unpopularity, increasing with every stage of his opposition to the Bill, reached such a height that, on the anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, the once idolised victor in that fight was hunted along the city by a mob, and escaped their violence only by a fortunate accident.”
None can deny that his rewards were ample. He had landed in the Peninsula but the “Sepoy general,” who had, through family influence, succeeded the man who won Seringapatam. He had received after Salamanca £100,000, and, later on, was granted another £400,000. Talavera had made him a viscount, and, but a few years later, he ranked as an English duke, had received the Garter, and had been granted every possible foreign rank and decoration.
In 1854 the long peace was broken. Tactics had meanwhile scarcely changed since the Peninsula. The English still fought in line, the French more or less in column, and in both armies the deployment and the advance were covered by light infantry skirmishers. The artillery was that of 1815 to all intents and purposes. Only the telegraph introduced a new and not always, from a military point of view, valuable adjunct to warlike operations, as it led to the interference, by ignorant people at home, with the conduct of operations of which they could form no accurate judgment; and though this “opening up” communication with the western countries greatly accelerated the supply of whatever was wanted, “still, in the Crimean War, it enabled Napoleon III. to worry the army incessantly with military ideas, which Pelissier calmly disregarded.” Lastly, the use of steamships gave greater rapidity and certainty in the transport of troops.
Just before the war began the coatee was gradually superseded by the tunic, which offered greater protection to the man than the previous dress. Gradually epaulettes as well as scales ceased.
The British army entered on its first European campaign, for nearly forty years, side by side with its ancient enemies, for the first time since the Crusades. In alliance with Turkey, to which after was added Piedmont, it was proposed, at first, to carry on an active campaign in the Balkan Peninsula against the Russian invasion of the “principalities.” Russia’s appearance there, nominally to obtain protection for the Christian subjects of the Porte, was based on the hope of inheriting, or gaining by force of arms, the territory of the “sick man,” or at least, by his destruction, to lead to a partition of his territories, as had been effected before in Poland. Russia thought little of the then newly made Emperor of France, Napoleon III., and he, on his part, was by no means disinclined to adopt the Napoleonic method, and to obtain security for his throne by war abroad, and peace, with glory added, at home. England, owing to the outcry of the “Manchester School,” had been regarded as a quantité négligeable then, as she has sometimes been since. The Czar hoped, at least, that the canker of the long peace had so rusted her energies that she might protest, but would do nothing more. But there were several surprises for the autocrat, as his descendant found also in 1877 to 1878, before the wished-for end could be gained. Turks then, as later, proved themselves somewhat stubborn fighters. To a man who believes in Kismet, death has no real terrors, and there is only his own personal ego, only his own personal nerve strength, to deal with. The quantity is somewhat difficult of determining, and its determination marks the difference between the brave man and the coward. Few know, or can guess, the value of this personal equation until he is tried. Sometimes, when that trial is made, it is too late to be of future value.
But the Turk tenaciously held his own in the valley of the Danube, and England and France declared war. The real defeat of Russia was not to be on pseudo-Turkish soil. Austria intervened by mobilising a portion of her army, which therefore threatened the Russian line of retreat, and in other ways paralysed her freedom of action. This “benevolent neutrality,” like all such actions which are half-hearted, made bad blood. No one rejoiced, privately, more than Russia did when disaster befell Austria in 1866. Said, three weeks after Königgratz, the governor of East Siberia, who had received the news partly by telegraph, partly by steamer down the Amoor, when asked why he had rejoiced that “the Austrians had been gloriously defeated at Sadowa,” “We have never forgotten or forgiven Austria’s benevolent neutrality of 1854.”
So Russia abandoned her first idea of carrying the war into the enemy’s country, and had to prepare to defend her own.