The direct effect of this achievement, in which the Regiment was fortunate enough to take so prominent and decisive a share, has been the unification of the Dominion of Canada and the opening up to a great and prosperous future of the whole wide region of the great North-west, destined to become one of the most populous and most important portions of the Empire.
Thus for a second time has the 1st Battalion of the Regiment been privileged to play a direct and almost single-handed part in the addition of vast regions to the British Crown in North America: first, in 1758–1764, under Bouquet, in conquering those territories west of the Alleghany Mountains, now some of the most prosperous States of the American Union; and, second, in 1870, under Wolseley, in crushing a rebellion, the overthrow of which has enabled the prairies of the North-west Territories of Canada to be welded into what are now among the most flourishing Provinces of the Dominion.
PART III.—1871–1902.
VII.
1871–1881.—India. Afghan War. South Africa. Zulu War. First Boer War.
The overwhelming defeat of the French Armies by the German troops in the momentous war of 1870–71 brought about vast changes in military Europe. A system of compulsory service on the German model was introduced by all the great nations of Europe—Great Britain excepted—and German drill, German style of uniform, and German methods were generally adopted.
In England a strong wave of pro-German feeling swept over the British Army, and military critics advocated the methodical system of the German Army with its stern unbending discipline and exacting method of machine-like collectivism, to the destruction of the elasticity and rapidity of movement, with the self-reliance and initiative which makes for individualism.
The spirit of the 60th stood out, and did much to counteract this tendency, and to bring about the re-action.
1878–1880, AFGHAN WAR.
In the autumn of 1878 the 2nd Battalion, commanded in the absence of Lieutenant-Colonel J. J. Collins by Major Cromer Ashburnham, was quartered at Meerut, and formed part of the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, under Lieutenant-General Sir Donald Stewart, which, upon the outbreak of the Afghan War, was directed upon Kandahar.
After a trying march of 440 miles (one day thirty miles across the desert without a man falling out) Kandahar was occupied without resistance on the 8th of January, 1879.