[CHAPTER X.]
THE FIRST BATTALION.
1865-1884.
CHANGES IN ARMY ORGANISATION: THE SECOND AFGHAN WAR.
While the second battalion of the Royal Irish regiment was winning its spurs in New Zealand, the first was quartered in southern India. At the end of 1865 it was ordered home; volunteering into other corps was permitted, and 381 non-commissioned officers and men elected to finish their service in the East, while 29 officers[225] and 450 other ranks, with 44 women and 72 children, embarked in February, 1866, at Bombay in two ships, the slower of which did not reach England until the end of June. Two years later the battalion was sent to Ireland, and in August, 1871, was warned for another tour of foreign service. This order filled all ranks with dismay, for if any corps in the British army had the right to expect a long rest at home it was the first battalion of the XVIIIth. Since 1692, when it first landed on the Continent, it had spent a hundred and nineteen years out of the United Kingdom, and between 1837, when it sailed for Ceylon, and its return from India in 1866, it had served abroad with one short break of less than six months’ duration; it had fought with distinction in China, in Burma, and in the Crimea, and had shared in the suppression of the Indian Mutiny. To explain why the War Office sent the first battalion on foreign service again so quickly, it becomes necessary to allude briefly to the long series of changes in the organisation of the army which began to take effect in 1870.
The strain thrown on the military resources of Britain by the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny had convinced even the most determined economists in the House of Commons not only that the army was too small, but that it was utterly lacking in power of rapid expansion in case of need. To increase its numbers in time of peace was comparatively easy, and by the addition in 1858-59 of second battalions to the twenty-five senior regiments of the line, the infantry was materially strengthened. But to render the army more elastic, more fit to meet a sudden national emergency, was a far more difficult matter. The process by which the XVIIIth was brought up to war strength for the Crimea[226] was the only method then known for making a regiment ready to take the field, for as there were no reservists to replace men too weakly or too young for a campaign, the ranks of a corps ordered on active service could only be filled by the depletion of other units, which by this process of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” were reduced to impotence, until they in turn had obtained recruits and trained the raw material into soldiers. Of the various attempts to form an adequate reserve one only was successful—the “militia reserve,” composed of the best men in the constitutional force, who for a small annual retaining fee undertook in case of need to serve as regular soldiers in any part of the world. But this was only a reversion to the methods of the Crimean days, for it called away the pick of the militia at the moment when they were required, if not for active service, at least for garrison duty at home and in the Mediterranean; and at best it could produce but a limited supply of men who were obviously very inferior in quality to well-trained ex-regular soldiers. The problem of how to create an adequate reserve remained virtually unsolved for many years, though numberless committees were appointed to consider the question in all its bearings. The subject was, indeed, most complex. The army at home had to be prepared to defend the British Isles, to embark on expeditions beyond the limits of the United Kingdom, and to replace the waste caused by death, by invaliding, and by the discharge of “time-expired” men among the troops abroad, of whom 70,000 were quartered in India, while nearly 50,000 more were scattered in garrisons among our fortresses and colonies in other parts of the world. Gradually the opinion gained ground that it was hopeless to expect the army to discharge these varied duties, unless there was behind it a large body of highly-trained and disciplined men who, when a war was imminent, could be counted upon to reinforce the troops at home; and the brilliant success of the Prussians in “the Seven Weeks’ War” of 1866, determined our government to adopt a modification of the German principle of short service with the Colours, followed by a period of service in the Reserve. To devise a system suitable to an army recruited by voluntary enlistment, and of which a very large proportion is normally stationed abroad, required years of preparation, and it was not until 1870 that Mr Cardwell, then Secretary of State for War, began to introduce the great innovations which modernised the British army. By the abolition of “purchase,” rich men were no longer able to buy their steps, and by the power of the purse obtain promotion over the heads of their poorer comrades; the ages were fixed at which officers of various ranks were to retire, so that a reasonable flow of promotion was obtained; the garrisons of the tropical colonies were reduced, while those of the great oversea provinces were gradually withdrawn; recruits were enlisted for twelve years—the first six to be passed with the Colours, and the remainder in the Reserve; while to provide for an adequate and systematic flow of trained men to India and our other outlying possessions, regiments were linked together in pairs—one serving at home, the other abroad. One of the functions of the “home” battalion was to impart to the recruits the ground-work of military training, and, when the young soldiers were fit to serve out of the United Kingdom, to send them in drafts to the “foreign” battalion, where they remained for the rest of their service with the Colours, and then on their return to the United Kingdom were transferred to the Reserve. In the first twenty-five regiments, which already possessed two battalions, the process of “linking” was effected without the difficulty and friction which frequently occurred in cases where two corps, strangers to each other in tradition and sentiment, were suddenly brought into the intimate relation of virtual partnership; and when in 1882, regiments ceased to be designated by numbers, and the identity of the original units was merged into that of the territorial regiment, the XVIIIth became the Royal Irish regiment with no regret beyond that of the loss of the number under which it had won distinctions in every part of the world.
As the second battalion had only just returned from New Zealand and Australia, it was the turn of the first battalion, under the newly introduced system, to go abroad; and on January 18, 1872, Lieutenant-Colonel G. H. Pocklington, with 26 officers and 606 other ranks, embarked for Malta. After three years the first battalion, 917 strong, sailed for India under command of Lieutenant-Colonel E. L. Dillon, and early in December reached Bareilly, where it was quartered for nearly four years. While it was at this station His Majesty King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales, made a Royal progress through the Eastern Empire that would one day be his, and on the 6th of March, 1876, stopped at Bareilly on his way from the Terai to Allahabad: His Royal Highness was received by a guard of honour of the Royal Irish, while the remainder of the battalion lined the avenue through which he passed on his way to the palace of the Nawab of Rampore. In the evening the Prince did the battalion the honour of dining with the officers, and gave to the mess portraits of the Princess of Wales and himself as a memento of his visit, and a few days later two large steel engravings of the Prince and Princess of Wales were sent by His Royal Highness as a present to the sergeants’ mess. A year later the death occurred of Field-Marshal Sir John Forster Fitzgerald, G.C.B.,[227] who since 1850, when he succeeded Lord Aylmer, had been the Colonel of the XVIIIth, Royal Irish regiment. This veteran, whose age had earned for him the title of “the father of the British Army,” was born in Ireland in 1786, before the abolition of the iniquitous system by which wealthy men were allowed to buy commissions for infants prattling in the nursery. At the mature age of eight Fitzgerald was a captain in the regular army, at seventeen he was a major, and he obtained his lieutenant-colonelcy when only twenty-four years of age. He served in the Peninsula, commanding a brigade in the battle of the Pyrenees in 1813; in 1854 he became General, and in 1875 received a Field-Marshal’s bâton. He died in March, 1877, at Tours, and by the special order of Marshal Macmahon, then President of the French Republic, the whole of the garrison attended the funeral to pay to the British officer the honours accorded to Frenchmen of his exalted military rank. He was succeeded as Colonel of the XVIIIth by Lieutenant-General Clement A. Edwards, C.B.[228]
The first battalion changed stations from Bareilly to Ferozepore in February, 1878, and just after Lieutenant-Colonel M. MacGregor succeeded to the command on September 13, 1878, two companies were detached to Mooltan, while a third was sent to Dera Ismail Khan, one of the posts guarding the north-west frontier of India. For a few days there seemed to be a chance of “blooding” some of the young soldiers of the XVIIIth, for the Mahsood Waziris raided into our country and burned the town of Tank some thirty miles from Dera Ismail Khan. The native cavalry of the garrison were at once sent to the scene of the outrage, and fell heavily upon the freebooters, many of whom were killed and wounded, while the remainder fled to the neighbouring hills, where they threw up sangars and challenged us to attack them. But the officer in command of the British column was not disposed to squander the lives of his troops by assaulting stone breast-works without a preliminary bombardment; and remembering that some of the Royal Irish had been taught gun-drill at Dera Ismail Khan, he ordered up a couple of pieces, manned by soldiers of the XVIIIth under an officer of the regiment, Lieutenant H. Shuldham-Lye. The amateur gunners, “spoiling for a fight,” pushed on to Tank at speed, but when the tribesmen heard that guns were to be used against them they suddenly dispersed, and the little campaign came to an end. For its services the detachment was officially thanked by the officer in command of the operations.
A few months after the Royal Irish arrived at Ferozepore Russian intrigues involved Britain in war with Afghanistan, an independent State whose mountains overhang part of the north-west frontier of India. As early as 1837, England and Russia were contending for the privilege of directing the foreign policy of the Amir of Afghanistan, upon whose borders the rival European Powers were advancing by giant strides in the course of their Asiatic conquests; and when the Amir, Dost Mahomed, cordially welcomed a Russian officer, who brought from the Czar proposals for an alliance against England, our government determined to depose Dost Mahomed and to replace him with a nominee of their own. The attempt to carry this scheme into execution produced the first Afghan war, in which the Czar made no effort to help the Amir, being satisfied at having involved his great rival in an expensive and disastrous campaign with the country he proposed some day to use as a stepping-stone in the invasion of India. At the end of the Crimean war Russia, foiled in her projects against Turkey, devoted her energies to the subjugation of Central Asia, where vast territories fell into her hands; and by the conquest of Khiva in 1873, she advanced her outposts to within four hundred miles of our Indian frontier, establishing herself within easy striking distance of Afghanistan. Shere Ali, the Amir, trembling for his independence, offered his friendship to England if she would give him a specific promise of help against Muscovite aggression, but as our government refused any such guarantee he decided to throw in his lot with Russia. In 1877, there was war between the Sultan and the Czar, and as it seemed probable that England would again intervene by force of arms to save Turkey from annihilation, the Russians intrigued more vigorously than ever with Afghanistan, sending a military envoy to the Amir, who received him with every mark of distinction. To counteract the effect produced in every village in India by the knowledge that a Russian envoy had been officially welcomed at Kabul, the Viceroy decided that a British mission should visit Shere Ali, who was informed that Sir Neville Chamberlain was coming to discuss matters of importance with him in a friendly spirit. In due time the mission set forth from Peshawar, but in the Khyber Pass, just within the Amir’s boundary, its members were turned back by Afghan troops, who under orders from Kabul refused to allow them to advance farther into Afghanistan. As Shere Ali declined to apologise for this insult, war became inevitable, and after our ultimatum had been rejected British troops invaded his country from various points.
It is not proposed to describe the operations of the second Afghan war, for the first battalion of the Royal Irish, upon whom fortune had frowned during the Mutiny, were still pursued by ill luck, and played but the smallest part in the campaign. Though the war began in November 1878, it was not until the beginning of the following year that the first battalion was ordered up from Ferozepore to join the reserve division of the Northern Afghanistan field force at Peshawar. A few weeks later this division was broken up; the battalion was transferred to the Khyber Line force; and on May 2, 1879, eight hundred and four stalwart Royal Irishmen found themselves at the foot of the great wall of rock which forbids access to Afghanistan from the plains of India.[229] This natural rampart is pierced by the Khyber Pass—a dark and gloomy gorge, winding its way between high mountains which so nearly approach each other that in places their rugged sides are only ten or twelve feet apart. Through this defile, one of the most difficult in the world, runs the track which for centuries has been the highway of commerce between Central Asia and Hindustan. In the middle of the pass the mountains, suddenly receding, form a plain, where the battalion spent the next ten months in discharging the useful but unattractive duties which fall to the lot of line of communication troops. They had to hold Lundi Kotal and Ali Musjid; to provide escorts for convoys through the pass, and to piquet the neighbouring hills. The guards were numerous, for the local tribesmen were expert thieves, to whom every British rifle was worth its weight in rupees; and notwithstanding the vigilance of the sentries in the sangars round the camp, Afridi robbers succeeded in abstracting a few firearms from the tents in which the men were sleeping. A good many non-commissioned officers and privates were lucky enough to escape from the drudgery of this existence by obtaining employment as signallers on the Kabul-Peshawar line, where from constant practice they became experts with flag and heliograph. During the summer there was a sharp outbreak of cholera in the battalion, which cost the lives of Quartermaster R. Barrett and sixty of the other ranks.[230] “It came up from India in the most curious way, right along the signallers’ posts. We heard of it first at Jumrood; a few days afterwards a man in the first post was taken ill; a few days more and the second post was attacked, though there appeared to be no communication possible (except by heliograph) between the posts, and it gradually kept on till it reached the regiment. We knew it was coming; we could not move, and I think,” writes an officer, “that it showed the staunchness of the Royal Irish that they never went to pieces at all.” To keep up the spirits of the men and give them some amusement the officers rigged up a gymnasium and laid out a polo-ground and racecourse, where regimental gymkhanas were often held.
THE AFGHANISTAN, EGYPT (1882) AND NILE CROSS AT CLONMEL.