/ -...^I. '-..k :X^NDER II^NES SH^ND ,IMI»"*^ LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE BY THE SAME AUTHOR DAYS OF THE PAST A MEDLEY OF MEMORIES The Speaker. — " The Scotch chapters are fascinat- ing ; . . . I could read his recollections of stage coaches with pleasure for a week on end." The Spectator. — " This is one of the most delight- ful books of the ' reminiscences ' order that have been published for a long time. . . . Mr. Shand's pen portraits are admirable ; but even these are not the best of the contents of a most delightful book." Pall Mall Gazette. — " He has just the art which belongs to a good talker — that of recalling past images from his memory and making them vivid to others for a moment by force of contact and sympathy." LONDON ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & COMPANY, Ltd. lo Orange Street, Leicester Square, W.C. SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE IN CAMP 8^ COURT BY ALEXANDER INNES SHAND AUTHOR OF "LIFE OF GENERAL SIR E. B. HAMLEY," "LIFE OF GENERAL JOHN JACOB," "WELLINGTON'S LIEUTENANTS," ETC. ETC. NEW YORK E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY 1907 -^-'' V.^ p^iicms nooM Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &• Co. Edinburgh INTRODUCTORY The sword has always been the resource of the adventurous or impecunious, and the roll of celebrated soldiers of fortune is so long that the choice may be much a matter of fancy or predilection. But there were epochs when the trade was exceptionally flourishing, there were times when men were typical or when circumstances forced them to the front, as there were illustrious careers sensationally dramatic. So there is justification for a selection not altogether arbi- trary. One naturally begins with the mediaeval Condottieri and as naturally ends with the Indian Adventurers, their modern representatives. The war which for thirty years desolated Europe saw the developments of a science then in its infancy, with a revolution in the methods of cam- paigning. Our countrymen, and especially the Scots, had a special interest in that war from the numbers who flocked to the standards of the Lion of the North, the Catholic League, or the Empire. Of the many Scottish soldiers of fortune. Marshal Keith of the next century was by far the greatest. All are familiar with him as one of Frederick's most trusted lieutenants, but less is known of his concern in the Jacobite intrigues, and as httle of the vicissitudes of his life in Russian camps and courts, where, after rising to the highest rank, his Scottish caution saved him from the scaffold or Siberia. Eugene, born with the very genius Jl-O 9 vi INTRODUCTORY of war, was rejected by the country of his adoption in an evil hour for France. Soldier and statesman, diplomatist and man of letters, from the Meuse to the Danube, from the Alps to the Apennines, he commanded under greater difficulties and in a greater diversity of campaigning than his friend and colleague Marlborough, and the career of the Edler Ritter of the camp songs was a romance from be- ginning to end. Romantic as it was, it was surpassed by that of Maurice of Saxe, born, Hke Eugene, almost on the steps of a throne, and scarcely embarrassed by the bar sinister. Distinguished by supreme talents and degraded by his follies, no ambitious hero ever missed more mag- nificent opportunities, when a choice of marriages might have made him Emperor of all the Russias. He had to console himself with the baton of a Marshal of France, where he died with the reputation of the first soldier of the age, crowned with laurels and overwhelmed with the honours ordinarily paid to royalty alone. CONTENTS PAGE I. THE CONDOTTIERI i II. SIR JAMES TURNER 33 III. SIR JOHN HEPBURN AND COLONEL ROBERT MUNRO 58 IV. COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN .... 96 V. PRINCE EUGENE 105 VI. MARSHAL KEITH 155 VII. MARSHAL SAXE 209 VIII. INDIAN ADVENTURERS ... . . 246 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE THE CONDOTTIERI Arms and the Church were the professions of the Middle Ages. The sprinkUng of saints found their vocation in the cloister : men of birth and connection sought luxurious living in episcopal sees and abbeys, richly endowed by piety or superstition and bequests wrung from sinners in the terrors of the death-bed. Sluggish or tranquilly in- clined spirits swelled the ranks of the secular and regular clergy. Not unfrequently the professions were confounded. Unfrocked monks became the truculent leaders of robber bands, as nuns, forgetful of their solemn vows, discarded the veil and followed the camp. Alexander de Bourbon, a boy canon of the noblest race, became chief of a swarm of the terrible Ecorcheurs. For war was the profitable and popular trade, a business for which every able-bodied man was adapted. Nor was there ever any lack of occupation. Kings and potentates were always quarrelling or patch- ing up some temporary peace. The formidable feudatories, who recognised a shadowy suzerainty when it served their purposes, were continually breaking out in rebellion and forming leagues against the Crown. Monarchs who could 2 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE never rely on feudal support enlisted bodies ol foreign mercenaries, who paid themselves for the most part by pillage. When disbanded on a truce, they sought service elsewhere, or fought for their own hands like the Smith of the Wynd, and pillaged on their own account. The Peace of Bretigny was a notable case in point : it sent hordes of savage marauders over the length and breadth of the wasted South, called by different names, at different times, and in different languages. Condottieri, Companies, Tard- venus, Ecorcheurs, and Tondeurs who flayed and clipped, were the pestilent scourges of France, Piedmont, and Italy. The wings of the Death-Angel were for ever beat- ing the air, for plague, pestilence, and famine were follow- ing in their track. As the seat of the wars was shifted, as when France was swept clean and utterly impoverished, they crossed the Alps or passed by the seaboard into the fertile plains of Italy, Destructive as locusts, they rode through the orange groves of Provence, and the cliffs on the Corniche rung to the hoofs of the war-steeds of the mailed squadrons. France was for centuries at the point of exhaustion, though then, as now, it showed marvellous recuperative power. Italy, with wealth apparently inexhaustible, be- came the grand magnet of attraction. There were all the favourable conditions of perpetual strife, and it is amazing how it continued to pay its way and tempt the Free Com- panies, either by hiring them or raising itself from their ruth- less exertions. The Pope, who should have been the Prince of Peace, was continually in the hottest of hot water, the centre of intrigue and the soul of some league of defence or aggression. The land was split up into petty princi- THE CONDOTTIERI 3 palities or more or less flourishing republics, and from the Alps to the Adriatic it was divided against itself. Scarcely a city but had its embittered factions, alternately pro- scribed, exiled, and recalled, or the citizens were in revolt against the aristocracy, when all were having recourse to the inevitable mercenary, who dictated his terms and rigorously exacted them. It was towards the middle of the thirteenth century that the Condottieri began to organise themselves. Their precursor was a famous or infamous soldier of fortune, who can scarcely be strictly classed among their leaders. Walter de Brienne, titular Duke of Athens, had centred energies and ambitions on the mastership of Florence, His first appearance on the scene was as lieutenant of the Duke of Calabria, the son of the King of Naples. Born in Greece, he was descended from the high-born Crusaders who had carved themselves out principalities in the East. Penniless as his namesake, who had headed the unfortunate rabble of the First Crusade, he was the banished heir of a father who had lost the duchy of Athens to the Catalonians. Neither in looks nor character had he anything to recom- mend him. He was slight of frame and repulsive in features, but to more than Italian craft he united in- domitable courage : he had no ordinary talent for war, and grasping avarice stimulated daring ambition. Scruples he had none, and to avarice and ambition he sacrificed his allies as lightly as his enemies. His second appearance on the stage of history was in 1340, when the Florentines and Pisans were at deadly feud. By dash, daring, and intrigue he undermined and superseded Malatesta, a veteran leader, come of a fighting]family, who was then in command 4 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE of the Florentine army. The Florentines thought they had found a man at last, and made him Chief Justiciary and Captain of the people. Like Tarquin with the poppies, he abused the double offices to strike off the noblest heads, and the reign of terror recommended him to the populace rather than otherwise. He secured the Lordship at which he had aimed, though Florence had never before conferred it on a foreigner, and, had he exercised his authority with moderation, might have sat securely in his seat. But exactions, atrocities, and unbridled libertinage hatched a succession of formidable conspiracies, making the armed populace ready for an emeute. The Podesta was blockaded in his palace, which he held with 400 Burgundian soldiers, till he came to terms with the town. He was suffered to go free, taking his treasure with him, characteristically robbing of their pay the gallant warriors who had stood so staunchly by his cause. But his brief tyranny had drained Florence of her accumulated wealth, and his fall had cost her all her recent conquests. The result was the rise of the roving companies. To him succeeded Werner — Italianised into Guarinci — a German adventurer. The Pisans, relieved of their fear of Florence, had disbanded the German lances who had been their salvation. Guarinci conceived the brilliant idea of keeping them together as an independent force of brigands. He assured them the regular pay he pledged himself to provide. It was to be raised by terrorising and levying contributions. The divisions of petty princes and hostile republics were his opportunities. In audacious blasphemy he displayed on his breast a placard, declaring him the enemy of God, of pity, and of mercy ; and as to THE CONDOTTIERI 5 that he kept his promises honourably. He began with Sienna, a comparatively powerful state, and from Sienna he accepted a comparatively moderate ransom, to serve as an advertisement and warning. Weaker principalities succumbed at the first summons. He ravaged Perugia, Romagna, and the Patrimony of St. Peter. Princes and nobles paid him off to attack their feudal enemies, though only gaining some short reprieve till he turned his arms against themselves. In 1347 Guarinci was so strong that he led Queen Jane of Naples back in triumph to her rebellious capital. Taken prisoner by the changing fortunes of the war, he passed into the service of the King of Hungary. He lost nothing by changing sides, for Louis of Tarento had withdrawn in despair, and his armies had free license to pillage every- where. The papal legate had bought the Company off, paying a heavy ransom for a brief reprieve. Guarinci's mercenaries clamoured for a division of the spoil. iVs Sis- mondi says, by the torture of prisoners they had brought almost all hidden treasures to light. After the waste of their merciless war they divided a great sum. Having stripped the unhappy Neapolitans to the skin, the duke marched for Northern Italy. But, characteristically, his brigands, gorged with spoil, broke up and dispersed to squander it, and Guarinci, satiated himself, with a follow- ing reduced to a few hundred horse, seems to have re- crossed the Alps and gone into retreat and obscurity. The scattered forces of the Company, impoverished by debauch and impotent for harm, were not left long without a leader. Guarinci was succeeded by Walter de Montreal, of a more chivalrous spirit, but as celebrated for his cruelty 6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE as his courage. De Montreal, known far and near to the Italians as the terrible Fra Moriale, was a knight of Provence who wore the cross of St. John of Jerusalem. The Hospi- taller was as little scrupulous as his predecessor. But he had far-reaching ambition, with something of the craft of a Machiavelli, and he dreamed of shaping himself out such a kingdom as the equally formidable Hawkwood himself declined. Hawkwood fought for lands and riches : De Montreal only valued wealth as the stepping-stone to high place and power. In his methods he anticipated the Constable de Bourbon and Wallenstein. He had made himself a name in the wars of Naples, and had brought the soldiery under his orders into some kind of discipline, on the understanding that out of the ranks they might indulge in every sort of license. He sent out a summons that resounded beyond the Alps, generous in promises of pay and pillage. Very soon he had gathered a following so formidable that no strength of the North dared to resist him. He raided the Marches and the Romagna : he made the futile leagues formed against him pay heavy ransom for their audacity : now he laid a wealthy republic under contribution, and again he sacked a flourishing city which had hesitated to come to terms. At one time he had 7000 men-at-arms with him, and his light infantry were a body of elite. There was a crowd of camp followers who carried weapons, with traders, and troops of courte- sans ; it was said that in all they numbered 20,000 souls ; and aU these had to be indulged in license and encouraged to pillage for the camp. Malatesta, of the Malatesti of Rimini, another leader of Free Companies, had once beaten and humiliated him, but now Malatesta was compelled to THE CONDOTTIERI 7 succumb. In vain he sought aUies or begged for subsidies : neither prince nor repubUc dared come to his assistance, and what was mainly an Italian army melted away. The deserters poured over to the camp of De Montreal, noble adventurers flocked to him from France and Germany, and the Grand Company, become absolutely irresistible, hung like a thunder-cloud over Rome, which had temporarily regained its liberties under Rienzi. Then De Montreal's subtlety failed him, and his ambition overreached itself. He had gone to Rome incognito and as a conspirator, to pave the way for the advent of his Company. He counted without the Tribune, or rather he underrated the determination and the patriotic disin- terestedness of that remarkable man. He trusted, besides, in the protection of his brothers, who had sold themselves and their mercenaries to Rienzi. Rienzi was informed of the presence of De Montreal ; leaving the German men- at-arms at Palestrina, he hastened back to the capital, seized the chief of the Company at a midnight meeting, and refused to let him purchase his hfe on any terms. De Montreal's head fell on the scaffold, and it needed but little of a prophetic spirit, when he predicted a similar fate for the Tribune, whose authority rested on the favour of the fickle Roman mob. With the death of De Montreal vanished his political ambitions. The Grand Company remained, but solely as an association of brigands, and the republics and petty tyrants of Italy were relieved from the fear of subjugation under the military dictatorship of a foreign Podesta. De Montreal's heutenant, Count Lando, succeeded to the com- mand, put himself up to auction, and was promptly hired 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE by Venice in its league against the Visconti. Charged with the ravage of the state of Vianna, it was preparing to invade Naples, when for once it had a generous impulse, and undertook to right a wrong, and that was done in its usual thorough-going fashion. The bloody romance of Ravenna is a notable chapter in its history. A noble of the country had offered violence to a beautiful German countess going on pilgrimage to Rome. Her brothers carried the news to the camp of the freebooters, whose patriotism was fired by the outrage on their country- woman. Ravenna answered for the crime of a petty baron, and was desolated by fire and sword. That busi- ness being profitably settled, they swept round the boot of Italy by Tarento, coming north again to the very gates of Naples. Everything and everybody were so helplessl}' at their mercy that the captains laid aside their armour, and went into quarters in the Neapolitan chateaux, varying less innocent recreations with the pleasures of the chase. Northern Italy had had a brief reprieve, and now, when money and supplies were running short, they turned back to it, tardily to fulfil their engagements against the Visconti. The army of Milan was strong as their own, but then occurred one of the incidents which made the freebooters almost irresistible. Wolf would not worry wolf, and the Visconti's Germans deserted to the opposite camp. To all seeming more masterful than before, they were nevertheless on the brink of a catastrophe. A mere handful of bold mountaineers accomplished, for a time, what martial republics like Florence and Venice had been unable to effect. The Company demanded free passage from the Florentines, from Lombardy to Perugia. The THE CONDOTTIERI 9 Florentines stipulated that they should avoid the plains, and take a circuitous route through the passes oi the Apennines. The Company agreed, exacting hostages for its safety, and selecting the most illustrious citizens of Florence. Had it been able to control its marauding propensities, the bargain might have been fairly fulfilled. But the mountain villages were sacked and the women violated as usual. The peasants, a half-savage race, and strong in the consciousness of their mountain strongholds, planned such a revenge as overtook the French in their invasion of Free Tyrol. The circumstances were almost identical. Lando led his army into a gorge in three divisions, placing the hostages in the advance. Fortunately for him, it passed safely, for the saving of the envoys was his partial salvation. It was very different with the centre of his battle. Where frowning cliffs overhung the abyss, the march was stayed by some eighty peasants. A weaker force might have held the narrow passage. At a signal like that of the Tyrolese— " Cut all loose "—rocks were hailed down on the Company, hustled together by the panic- stricken files — a helpless mob. Lando's lieutenant was crushed with his charger. The leader himself was wounded and taken, though released, and for once a captain of Condottieri was put to ransom. The hostages, trembling for themselves, treated with De Cavalette, who had escaped with the vanguard, and the wrecks of the Grand Company were secured, by the orders sent by their prisoners to the troops of the Signoria. Had it held no hostages, it must have been exterminated. But with a space of breathing-time, it was soon as strong as ever. German mercenaries all over Italy, burning with lo SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE desire for revenge, flocked to the standard of Lando, who had recovered from his wounds, and the Pope, preaching a crusade against the spoilers of his dominions, did him the honour of solemnly excommunicating him. The papal thunders fell harmless, and Lando went on pillaging as before, the Pope being the chief sufferer. The upshot was, that the Cardinal Albornoz condescended to a formal treaty with the marauders, to the disgust of his Floren- tine allies, for whom he stipulated without any warrant, Florence single-handed made a gallant stand, when the petty tyrants of many a little town rallied for once to the aid of a free republic. The Florentine army was led by Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, who subsequently sold them and played them false, as was the fashion of the times. After marching and counter-marching in a blood- less campaign, there was a dramatic episode, character- istic of the period. One day an envoy of the Company arrived in the Florentine camp, to the blare of trumpets and the waving of flags. He threw down a branch of thorn and a blood-stained glove, with a letter to the Florentine general, challenging him to the ordeal of battle. Malatesta took the matter as a joke : laughing, he rode out to pick up the glove, declaring his acceptance, and dismissing the herald with a generous largesse. Naturally nothing came of it ; Malatesta could not be forced to a pitched battle. Operations dragged as before, but the upshot was eventful. For once the Company was cowed by the firmness of the resistance and by the general revolt against their ruthless exactions. Many of them dispersed, and Lando with the rest withdrew to engage themselves THE CONDOTTIERl ii to the Marquis of Montserrat, and to abandon him soon after for the pay of the Visconti. Italy breathed more freely when the Company was gone, but the reprieve was short. Distracted France had suffered even worse things. In the eternal wars between English and French, the whole country, but especially the South, had been given over to the brigand adventurers. The most famous of them, such as Calverley and Gournay, were in high honour at the martial court of the Black Prince. In Guienne, Auvergne, and Languedoc, each petty noble changed sides as suited him. Bastards of great houses and younger sons assembled bands of lawless ruffians, and strengthened themselves in one of the almost impregnable rock-fortresses, whence they raided and ravaged at their pleasure. But this game had become hardly worth the candle. The means of debauchery failed them, for the country had been swept clean : the peasants, starving and desperate, rose in a jacquerie, retaliating on detached parties with frightful atrocities. There was even a more terrible enemy in the plague, which had followed in the train of the famine. The regularly organised Companies (and there were three of them) decided to shift their quarters eastward to Provence, still comparatively unscathed, and to Avignon, where lingering superstition had still secured relative immunity for the wealthy papal court. And Pro- vence and the papal enclave were on the road to Italy. The most formidable of these three Companies was the White, composed almost entirely of English. It was the first to number its strength by lances, which meant a mounted cavalier with two attendants. In reality, for the most part, even the lances fought on foot, and merely used 12 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE their horses to carry them with their heavy armour. They wore weighty coats of mail, with arm and thigh pieces, and two of them handled each ponderous lance. When they fought on horseback and went down in a melee, there was small chance of their regaining their feet. But serried in their close files, they were an impenetrable phalanx. Hardened to cold, they seldom sheltered in winter quarters. They had a habit of making forced nocturnal marches, fruitful of terrible surprises. But as it was their business to get their gains in the cheapest market, they never wasted lives. As they had none of the newly invented cannon, they seldom attacked a strong fortress or a well-walled town. Indeed, the terror of them was generally enough to bring the place they threatened to a composition. Sir John Hawk wood was by far the most famous of their captains. He was not with them when they crossed the Cenis after their failure to capture Marseilles, for he had fought at Brignais under Jacques de Bourbon, but he must have rejoined them shortly afterwards. The son of an Essex tanner, he had taken early to arms, and served with distinction in Edward's French wars. The date of his birth is uncertain, but he must have been a soldier of experience and repute when the White Company descended on Italy. As England gave a single Pope to Rome, so it sent but a single notable Condottiere to Italy. Hawkwood was an extraordinary man : he had the talent if not the genius of war : he was clever in strategy, fertile in resources, and shrewd in financial diplomacy (backed up by the fear of the Company) as the most subtle of Italians. His was a thoroughly practical mind. Had he had the far-reaching ambition of a De Montreal, he had better THE CONDOTTIERI 13 opportunities of carving out a principality, and he might have reigned in the Romagna as Francesco Sforza in Milan. But he knew too much of the instability of the dynasties he had upset, nor had he an heir to succeed him. He was content to live in luxury from day to day, though econo- mising in place of squandering like his colleagues. While annexing lordships and amassing gold, he had some experience of the cares of his scattered riches, for in the vicissitudes of a chequered career, they were often making themselves wings. His character is well indicated by an anecdote told in the novels of Sacchetti, and by a repartee much to the point. The monks of a convent received their unwelcome visitor with the stereotyped salutation of " Peace." Hawkwood made rough and ready answer, " I live by war, and peace would be my ruin." As for clemency or consideration for the weak or helpless, there was little to choose between him and the worst of his predecessors. The Condottiere, who gave his men no regular pay, was constrained to indulge them in all manner of license. The White Company robbed, slaughtered, violated and tortured like the rest, but is said to have drawn the line at cold- blooded mutilation. In any case, with their formidable fighting qualities, their terror preceded them, and they arbitrarily dictated the terms of submission. For thirty years, with brief interludes, Hawkwood was in supreme command, and it would be endless to follow him in his petty wars and the grasping bargaining which filled his coffers to overflowing, as it supplied the lavish waste of the Free Companies, who revelled in profligacy or starved by turns. An episode or two, taken at random, may suffice. Hawkwood had his vicissitudes, though almost 14 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE invariably favoured by fortune. Once it was his fate to be taken prisoner by the allied forces of the Pope and Arezzo. But with ample means for paying a ransom, he was free again within the year. His captors would have done better had they dealt with him as summarily as Rienzi disposed of De Montreal. In 1375 the Company was provided with bombards and heavy artillery, which strengthened its peremptory fashions of diplomacy in treating with walled cities. In a single year Florence paid 130,000 florins, and Pisa, Lucca, and Arezzo were mulcted in half as much again — enormous sums sfor the time, showing the riches of the free republics, which could flourish in spite of that eternal squeezing. The Captain, or Grand Marshal as he was sometimes called, invested largely in land : he pur- chased the lordships of Bagnacavallo and Cotignola in the Romagna, each secured by a castle, strongly fortified and garrisoned. Lustful of money as he was, he was seldom needlessly cruel, but in 1377 he damned himself to infamy by his share in the ruthless massacres of Cesena. It is said that he remonstrated, but as matter of fact the unhappy town was abandoned to his English and the half -barbarous Bretons then acting in concert with them. For three days and nights it was the scene of ceaseless bloodshed and unspeakable atrocities ; yet after all, and age for age, there was little to choose between the fate of Cesena and the storm of Badajoz or San Sebastian. By way of interlude, or to strengthen his position, the Condottiere married the natural daughter of Bernabo Vis- conti of Milan. This connection and lucrative offers from the Florentines centred his interests in Northern Italy. Finding his southern lordships difficult to defend against THE CONDOTTIERI 15 the enemies who sprung up everywhere when his back was turned, he sold them for a satisfactory price to the d'Estes. In the contracts still existing there are minute details as to the terms of a virtual sale which was plausibly disguised as a mortgage. But though the Company had shifted its headquarters, it was still and for ever on the move. The Pope, though pleased to get rid of a formidable feudatory and turbulent neighbour, engaged Hawkwood for an invasion of Naples. Papal thunders had more than once excommunicated the Companies. Now Urban VI., in signing his commission, addressed the outlaw as his be- loved son, giving him carte blanche in effect to ravage Cam- pania. Soon the scene shifts again to the North. There was a revolution at Milan. With the habitual disregard of the Viscontis for family ties, Bernabo Visconti had been dethroned by his nephew. It might have been expected that Hawkwood would have stood by his father-in-law, with whom, moreover, he was in close alliance, the rather that Bemabo's sons, knowing his cupidity, offered him handsome pay to come to their help. But Hawkwood had his own game to play, and he made his bargain with the usurper. There must have been hidden motives, for the mystery is that the price of his shameful perfidy was a comparative bagatelle. With consent of the Florentines, with whom thence- forth he had a sort of engagement, akin to that of a stand- ing counsel, he espoused the cause of da Carrara, Lord of Padua. Before the battle of Castagnaro an incident occurs which shows that he had something of the subtlety of the serpent. He was not precisely pious, but the Paduans were superstitious, so before going into action he solemnly i6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE invoked the aid of their four patron saints, and his prayers were answered. Returning in triumph to the Florentines, who, as he well knew, were best able to reward useful service, the Condottiere (and for the first time, in the case of a foreigner) had the distinguished honour of being gazetted Captain-General of their armies. He was nowise particular as to giving promises, which the leader of mercenaries, with the best intentions, was quite unable to keep. He had pledged himself to the Signoria to respect their allies, and forthwith he exacted 4000 florins from the friendly Siennese. Nor was he more conformable to the wishes of his paymasters when they would have re- called him from a fruitless campaign in Naples. He would have his way, but on the whole he was faithful, and neither he nor they could afford to quarrel. He had daughters of fourteen and fifteen who were marriage- able, and he desired to see them settled in life. The Signoria dowered them handsomely, and even paid for their trousseaux when the Condottiere drew his purse- strings and declined. Nothing shows more strikingly the esteem or terror in which he was held than the fact that the great Signorias of Florence and Bologna acted as arbiters in settling the terms of the marriage contracts. He had spent much and probably had saved little, and the Signoria was not ungrateful for what on the whole had been good service. As Captain-General he had handsome pay and appointments, and even when half-superannuated, they continued to him liberal allowances. What is more, when his health was failing, they voted him a magnificent tomb in the greatest of their churches, which must have been inexpressibly cheering to a man who had lived for THE CONDOTTIERI 17 this world more than the other. As death took him by surprise, the tomb was never erected. In 1394 he had arranged to return to his native England, when a stroke of apoplexy carried him off. Florence gave him a public funeral with military honours, but his remains were not to rest in the Duomo, though a frescoed portrait with a noble equestrian figure was to keep his memory green. King Richard II. begged the body, and the Florentines courteously acceded to the request. Hawkwood's remains are believed to rest in the church of his native parish of Sible Hedingham. He is said to have fought twenty- three battles— such as these mediaeval battles were— and to have been only vanquished in one of them. Carmagnola Carmagnola took what was hterally a nom de guerre from the town of his birth ; he was born a Bussone and baptized Francesco. Few miUtary adventurers were more fortunate in their start ; with none was the lustre of a brief and brilhant career more suddenly eclipsed in a tragical denouement. Philippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan, had succeeded his father, the famous Gian Galeazzo, after a long minority. Galeazzo was no soldier, but at least he had courage. His son inherited his ambition and subtlety without the courage, but he had the same happy gift of choosing his generals well, and when he trusted, he gave them his entire confidence. At once he had plunged into war to recover the country which in his minority had revolted from his rule. Looking on at the siege of Monza, a young soldier had attracted his notice by a deed of B 1 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE singular daring. Following up a kinsman but a bitter enemy, he had only failed to capture him by the fall of his horse. Carmagnola, for it was he, had something like Oriental promotion. Advanced at once to responsible command, soon afterwards he was at the head of the Milanese armies. His successes were as swift as they were sure. He overran the revolted country to the north of Milan, starving the castles and seizing the cities. His triumphant progress alarmed the Lombard lords to the eastward ; there was a formidable league, headed by Arcelli of Plasencia, reputed one of the most able warriors of the time. The leaders were well matched, but the victory rested with Carmagnola. Nor was he less successful against the Genoese, though Genoa, the commercial rival of Venice, was then at the height of its power and prosperity. But it was troubled with the invariable dissensions and conspiracies, when some noble refugees sought the protection of the Visconti, who gladly seized the occasion to go to war. Carmagnola struck sharp and quick, overrunning all the Genoese territory on the northern slopes of the mountains. Year after year he was a thorn in their sides, making inroads on the seaboard and threatening their capital. Attacked simultaneously by Alfonso of Aragon and reduced to financial extremity, they sold Leghorn to the Florentines for a great sum. Assailed by sea as well as by land, they felt the war must be ended on any terms. They detested the Aragonese, whose navy had brought them to grief, but seem to have borne no malice to Carmagnola, who only fought them in the way of business. The Doge resigned his office, signing a treaty of peace with Milan, f^ crT>-i- THE CONDOTTIERI 19 and, by one of the strangest vicissitudes of mediaeval Italian warfare, Carmagnola, the captain of the Visconti's army, became virtually Doge of Genoa as the Visconti's lieutenant. Venice, always cautious and time-serving, thought it wise to come to terms with the Visconti, and, in the fashion of those Italian states, shamelessly abandoned its allies. He consented to a ten years' peace, and Pandolfo Malatesta, then Lord of Brescia and Bergamo, was the immediate victim. Carmagnola, with his accustomed impetuosity, rushed his cities and seized his territory. Thanks to that terrible captain, Philippo Maria had then recovered all the dominions the regents of his minority had lost. Then Carmagnola pushed his victories beyond the northern boundaries of Lombardy. Storming Como, he occupied the entrances to the passes of the Simplon and St. Gothard, The Swiss took alarm, and the southern cantons hurried to the rescue, sending an urgent summons to their con- federates for support. Though comparatively few in numbers, with characteristic courage and foolhardiness they did not scout in advance, or wait to count their enemies. They were really opposed to an army in overwhelming strength, headed by Carmagnola and Angelo de la Pergola, the two most redoubtable Condottieri of the day. Out- numbered as they were, they maintained the reputation of their impregnable phalanx of pikemen, and of the ponderous two-handed swords, which had won Morgarten and were to win Grandson against mailed chivalry and formidable odds. The battle was long and bloody, and would have been lost to the Milanese, had not an inspiration of Car- magnola's in the crisis dismounted his horsemen, and, adopting the Swiss tactics, formed them up on foot. As 20 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE it was, the battle was drawn and honours were divided; but Carmagnola retained his grasp on the passes. Then, when his reputation should have stood highest at the Court, events occurred which changed his destiny. The Duke, constitutionally sage, blind for once to his own interests, committed an act of folly. It was wise enough to make alliance with the Queen of Naples and the Pope against the Aragonese, who menaced all three. Through the influence of Carmagnola, the virtual Doge, he easily enlisted the assistance of the Genoese, who detested the Catalans, their commercial rivals. Genoa launched a powerful fleet, to be sent to Neapolitan waters. Carmagnola fully expected the command, but to his disgust, and for some inexplicable reason, it was given to Torallo, a new favourite. Torallo was no bad choice, but the supersession of Carmagnola had far-reaching consequences. The free republic of Florence, dreading the masterful Visconti and his allies, leagued itself with the Aragonese, and with many a minor tyrant who feared the Duke and his formidable general. In its alarm it appealed to the Emperor, but Sigismund was occupied elsewhere ; and to the Pope, but he held to the coaUtion and turned a deaf ear. With Venice it was more successful, and Venice was shaken, for though the treaty with Milan had still half its term to run, it knew that the Duke was not to be trusted. The wavering policy of the Council of Ten was decided by a most unlooked-for arrival. Of all refugees, the one they least expected to see was Carmagnola, the right hand of the tyrant of Lombardy, and the leader of the Condottieri who had indirectly done them infinite injury. He explained his arrival to mistrustful ears. The Duke THE CONDOTTIERI 21 had envied him the wealth he had amassed and his credit with the soldiers he had so often led to victory, as his services had been too great to be easily forgiven. As a matter of fact, the disgrace was real, and Carmagnola had been subjected to insults which would have been intoler- able to a less haughty spirit. His wife and children had been thrown into prison, and he had escaped at the head of a troop of horse, making his way to Venice by Savoy and Switzerland. Nevertheless the suspicious Senate was not convinced that he was not playing a part in concert with his late master, tiU the Duke was guilty of a crime and another blunder. He attempted to have Carmagnola poisoned : the attempt failed and was traced to its author. Once Venice was assured of Carmagnola's good faith, the Florentine envoys found a weighty advocate. They had urged that, if Florence were crushed, the fall of Venice would follow, and that the Duke of Milan would be the tyrant of Italy. Carmagnola argued that the Duke was less formidable than appeared. He painted him as a faineant, devoted to pleasure, guided by unpopular ministers, and deaf to popular complaints. He disclosed his most secret intrigues and plots. For himself, he said, he had sought and found a new country, and he wound up with an eloquent and practical peroration. " I bring you my profession, which is war. Give me arms, as he gave who has driven me to this hard necessity, and you shall see if I cannot defend you and avenge myself." The appeal was irresistible ; the treaty with Florence was signed, and Carmagnola was the captain of the Venetian army. The campaign began with the capture of Brescia, though he was confronted by his old comrades of the Condottieri, 22 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and in greatly superior strength. The effects of its fall on the Duke were out of proportion to the actual loss, and he repented too late his quarrel with Carmagnola. He was partially reassured by a reverse of the enemy, which temporarily changed the course of the war. Carmagnola, who had hitherto always combined caution with daring, let himself be surprised, and suffered severely. But to the last he was ever ready to learn, and thenceforth the camps he was perpetually shifting were always entrenched and guarded by patrols. For his movements were as swift as secret ; the surprises were for the most part on his side, and his orders commanded unquestioning obedience. He brought things to a crisis in a pitched battle which was a crushing defeat for Milan and pregnant of conse- quences for himself. With trifling losses he took 8000 prisoners, who immediately fraternised with his troops, their frequent brothers-in-arms. Hospitably entertained, they were dismissed without ransom, to the natural disgust of the mercantile Venetians. As naturally, Carmagnola became again suspect, and suspicions were confirmed when, contrary to peremptory orders, he set at Hberty the handful of captives who remained. Suspicions may have seemed certainties with the ever-distrustful Council of Ten, when he insisted on stipulations of his own in a new treaty with the Milanese. The Duke undertook to restore the wealth he had confiscated, his lands, and his captive wife and daughters. A peace had been concluded of which Carmagnola had virtually dictated the terms, but it was soon again to be broken. Successful land- wars, from which Venice had hitherto invariably refrained, had awakened new ambitions. There were proffers of alliance from the THE CONDOTTIERI 23 petty princes whom the Duke had subjugated ; Florence, above all, had been urgent in her advances, and Car- magnola was again in the field. It was his last campaign, and unfortunate in every way. Trusting to his old ascendency over the Milanese, he attempted corruption, as he had done before, and when he tried corruption he was always betrayed. Twice he was lured into fatal ambus- cades. Yet these were merely side issues, and at the head of such a numerous army as he had never commanded before, he should have carried all before him. But now he was strangely and suspiciously supine. Keeping pace with a powerful fleet ascending the Po, he may be said to have looked on while the Venetian admiral, after a battle that maintained the fame of the Venetian fleets, sustained a disastrous defeat. He made more or less plausible excuses as to the flooding of the country, and an epidemic among the horses which had dismounted his men-at-arms. The Council professed a belief in them, which assuredly they did not feel. They acted with their habitual cold- blooded craft, and the illustrious victim was doomed in advance. He was invited to Venice to consult as to con- ditions of renewing the peace. He was received with every honour, welcomed by the most distinguished senators, and amidst the acclamations of the crowd, the popular hero passed along the Grand Canal in a state gondola to the ducal palace. The consultations of the assembled Senate lasted till late into the night, and then they courteously asked Carmagnola to dismiss his wearied suite. As one door closed on his attendants, the Doge's guards entered by another. The great captain was loaded with fetters, and consigned to the dungeon, where next day, with an 24 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE unhealed wound received in the service of the Republic, he was subjected to the torture. It was said he made confession of his guilt, but we have only his executioners' word for that. The day after that, with a gag in his mouth, he passed from the prison to the Piazza of St. Mark, where his head fell on the block. Criminal he may pos- sibly have been, for we know the laxity of the Condottieri on the point of honour when their interests were involved. But that he was never publicly put on his defence is a strong presumption in favour of his innocence. He had gone the way so many went before, when malice had dropped anonymous and slanderous accusation in the Lion's Mouth. "Thro' that door. So soon to cry, smiting his brow, ' I'm lost ! ' Was with all courtesy, all honour, shown The great and noble Captain, Carmagnola." Francesco Sforza Carmagnola came to a tragic end. Francesco Sforza, who had often faced him in the field, died in the seat of Galeazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan. Carmagnola began as a private soldier ; Francesco Sforza started with opportunities which he improved to the uttermost. He inherited the wealth, the fame, and the following of Sforza Attendolo, the man of the legend of the axe. The elder Sforza, baptized Muzio Attendolo, is said to have got his prenomen from Bartiano, his master in war, another re- doubtable Condottiere. It is said to have been given for his great bodily strength, backed by a fiery violence of character. His son, as he was bred in the camp, was trained up in the saddle. Ere the age of fifteen he was a THE CONDOTTIERI 25 boy of mark, and had a piece of miraculous good fortune. A handsome lad, he had taken the fancy of Ladislaus of Naples, and, with the title and fief of a viscount, was sent to Calabria as viceroy of the sovereign. Boy as he was, he justified the choice, and already showed the talent of a formidable leader. An excellent match, his father wedded him to Polyxena Ruifi, a beautiful girl of high birth and large possessions. The old Condottiere gave the young bridegroom excellent advice, inculcating a wise leniency in rule and the strict observance of justice. Perhaps the most suggestive warning was, that if he was ever betrayed into striking one of his guards he should immediately get rid of the man. The elder Sforza was then at the height of his power. With consent of the Queen of Naples he had entered the service of Pope Martin V., with the title of Gonfaloniere of the Church. Martin had engaged Sforza by large pay and liberal promises as the warrior best fitted to cope with Braccio da Mortare, the Lord of Perugia. The campaign opened disastrously for Sforza ; he was out- numbered, out-manoeuvred, and beaten. In his distress he summoned Francesco to his aid, showing the faith he had in the boy's ability. The war dragged on with changing fortunes, when a timely incident in the year of his father's death showed to all men how well his son was fitted to succeed him in command. The younger Sforza had been called back to Calabria to repel an invasion, when he was threatened by a mutiny of his captains, who had probably been bribed by the gold of Aragon. With the courtesy of Condottieri playing the game honourably, they formally an- nounced their purpose of abandoning him. Francesco made no objections ; he merely asked them to save his reputa- 26 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE tion by remaining till he could withdraw creditably from before the enemy. Without loss of a moment messengers were sent to his father and to another of his father's captains, demanding immediate succour. Supports came up, when forthwith he attacked and captured the traitors. An ordinary leader would have given them short shrift, and indeed there came peremptory letters from the elder Sforza ordering their immediate despatch. But Francesco understood the weaknesses of venal mercenaries whom he hoped to use on future occasions. He called the prisoners to his tent, gave them free pardon, and told them they might go or stay as they pleased. If it pleased them to stay, their offence should be forgotten. They remained to a man, and perhaps that calculated generosity was the turning-point of his career. For a few months later found him in a still more critical predicament. His father, who had come unscathed through many a combat, met a dramatic death in the flooded Pescara. Face to face with Braccio on the further bank, he would insist on fording it where the flow of the tide had met the rush of the river. He had crossed in safety when he returned to bring up the hesitating loiterers. The second passage was fatal. He had stooped to lend a hand to a drowning soldier, when his horse lost its footing. The last that was seen of the mail-clad rider was his gauntleted hands clasped in prayer above the stream. His son was already far ahead, pursuing the enemy he had driven out of their entrenchments. The tidings, when they reached him, struck a double blow, for he seems to have been sincerely attached to his father, and he knew, besides, how his forces might scatter on his death. But THE CONDOTTIERI 27 he never lost sight of his ambitions, and the youth of twenty-three was equal to the occasion. His trumpets sounded the retreat, and he fell back on the river. He had nearly shared his father's fate when, throwing himself into a leaky boat, he launched out with a single oar to the aid of some of his sinking followers. The gallant rescue was witnessed by all, and when he landed he called a meeting of his captains. Then he made them an eloquent address, appealing alike to their cupidity and to their loyalty to their lost brother-in-arms. The appeal was answered with acclamations, and all swore fidelity. He lost no time in putting them to the test, marching in succession to take possession of all the fiefs which acknow- ledged his father's sovereignty. His was the only Company in the South which could make head against the strength of Braccio, and already his reputation was almost equal to that of the veteran. The most seductive offers were made to him, and he was invited to choose between Florence and Milan. As his fixed ambition was to reign, he decided with good reason for the latter alUance. The factious Florentines, with their inveterate love of freedom, offered no safe seat to a military despot. The distracted Milanese, on the contrary, largely made up of recent conquests, had already passed under the rule of mihtary adventurers, and offered a hopeful prospect of being consohdated under a strong dynasty. There were possibilities and opportunities. Accordingly to Milan he marched, to place himself at the Duke's dis- posal, and the event was to prove the sagacity of the decision. The Duke took a fancy to him from the first, as the man who might fill the place of Carmagnola. 2 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE But the youth was not placed in supreme command, and his beginnings were not fortunate. The dissensions and jealousies which gave Carmagnola his triumph, baulked his plans for the rehef of Brescia. Philippo Maria for once was indiscreet in his selection of generals when he pre- ferred Malatesta, who was no match for Carmagnola either in skill or craft. More than once disaster might have been avoided, had the Duke listened to Sforza's warnings. Possibly Sforza resented the preference of Malatesta and the neglect of his own advice. Certain it is, that he was strongly suspected of treachery when he failed in an expedition, under his independent command, for the relief of Genoa, then closely beleaguered. Yet it is unlikely that, with his far-reaching views, he would have compromised his reputation for a revenge which must recoil on himself. Be that as it may, for two years he was out of favour, if not in absolute disgrace. It was not long before the roles were reversed, and the Condottiere was courted by the Duke. Still nominally in the Duke's service, he had with- drawn into winter quarters, and though no pay was forth- coming, it is remarkable that none of his mercenaries deserted. His forces were undiminished when the Duke made the first overtures, and prompted him to invade Tuscany, nominally on his own account. The Florentines bought him off, but he declined to enter their service. His settled aspirations kept him steady to his purposes. Again he was more in favour than ever with the Duke, either from genuine liking or the sense of self-interest. At any rate he had a splendid retaining fee in the promise of the hand of the Duke's natural daughter and presumptive heiress. His next exploit was invading Montserrat and THE CONDOTTIERI 29 driving the Marquis out of all his dominions. He returned to Milan in triumph, to be betrothed to the Princess Bianca Maria, who was scarcely out of the nursery. With that betrothal, and after the brilliant campaign of 1432, his future was assured. The wars he waged for Pope Eugenius in the Papal States enabled the Papal Gonfaloniere to add other lands and townships to his broad southern fiefs. Great as were his military talents, he had to face such dangerous opponents as the famous Piccinino ; but though he met with the ordinary vicissitudes of war, he always rallied after misfortune, and Hke Antaeus, arose the stronger for a fall. Finding that his old master at Milan needed him more than he needed the Duke, and seeing that the Duke was bound to him by the solemn betrothal, he indulged in the liberty and even the license of policy and intrigue. Though it is said that no man can serve two masters, he played fast and loose successfully with both Pope and Duke, though he bore the standard of the one and drew pay from the other. Ancona was claimed by his Holiness and coveted by the Duke. In defiance of both, the Gonfaloniere made himself a princi- pahty there, adding largely to his former possessions. In less than twenty years the son of the woodman turned freebooter had far outstripped all his veteran competitors. He held in his hand the issues of war or peace between Venice and Florence, the Visconti and the Pope : as he leant to one or the other, so the balance inclined. Still Condottiere at heart, he went on the wise principle of always leaving everywhere the seeds of future broils. In the full course of victory he stopped short of giving any side a decisive advantage. The Duke was jealous of the man 30 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE he had raised to become virtual arbitrator of the factions of Italy. But he could not afford to break with his future son-in-law, who always dealt kindly with him in a view to the succession. And the Pope was in similar case ; he dared not offend his Gonfaloniere. So, as Bianca Maria was now marriageable, the wedding was celebrated at Ancona — Sforza had just captured it — with magnificent ceremony and much martial pomp. The pair had the papal benediction, and the bridegroom the reversion of the rich Milanese. The succession opened with the death of his father- in-law, shortly afterwards, in the summer of 1447, but it cost him an arduous struggle, and taxed his astuteness to the utmost. There were factions in Milan ; his was in the majority, but there was a minority that desired the freedom of a republic. Sforza was still the leader of their armies, and, guarding the passages of the Po against Venice, he distinguished himself by the brilliant capture of Piacenza, disgracing himself for once by his merciless abuse of his victory. For forty days the unhappy town was given over to pillage and all manner of outrages. The cruelty recoiled on himself ; the Milanese went in terror of their formidable general, and hesitated more than before to give themselves to such a master. But when Sforza found his future subjects troublesome, he invariably achieved some exploit to make them feel him indispensable. The sequel to the ruthless sack of Piacenza was the great victory of Caravaggio, when the Venetians were put to hopeless rout. Orders were regularly sent him from the Council of Milan, which he obeyed, ignored, or eluded, as suited his pohcy. When it served his purposes he carried them out with THE CONDOTTIERI 31 infinite promptitude and resolution. Friends and enemies in the capital were always asking alike whether their general was false or faithful. So, in the excitement over that crushing blow he had struck at Caravaggio, when he made his triumphant entry into Milan the victory was acclaimed by enthusiastic crowds. The frenzy of jubilation was followed by reaction. Then, persuaded that the duchy was not to be won by fair means, he decided to take it by force. He changed front of a sudden, and had recourse to a stroke of policy — policy singularly audacious even for those times, for which Sismondi suggests, apparently with insufficient reason, that he had been preparing since he first engaged himself to the Visconti; — insufficient, because the shrewdest man could not have foreseen the incalculable changes of the Italian kaleidoscope. On his own account he made peace with Venice, admitting the Florentines as a third party, for at Florence Cosmo de Medici was his firm friend. His stipulation was that the allies should assure him his wife's inheritance and make him the sovereign ruler of Milan. Whether it was an act of treachery or of legitimate self-defence, he was only intriguing among intriguers with superior astuteness. Soon the Milanese had reason to regret his desertion and repent their quarrels with him. He overran the districts around the city, blocked their access to markets, and cut off their water. Reduced to straits which resulted in discord and riots, they were encouraged again when Venice, always vacillating, abandoned the traitor and actually took the field against him. The Florentines now stood aloof from both, and he had only underhand subsidies from his friend Cosmo. They had all mistaken tlie genius 32 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE of Sforza, if they thought he would not rise to the occasion. On the one hand he held the Venetians at bay, on the other he strengthened the blockade of Milan. Tantalised by hopes of effective success which were as often disappointed, at last the famishing city surrendered. Sforza rode in at the head of his men-at-arms, when the fickle demos welcomed, with what seemed unfeigned rejoicing, the man who had starved them for more than a year, and the mere mention of whose name had been prohibited a few weeks before under heavy penalties. To be sure, the famishing populace knew they were to be fed. Simul- taneously with the disarmament which was systematically carried out, provision trains streamed into the place ; and as the wine-casks were broached, all was drunken jubilation. So safe did the new tyrant of Milan feel, that he rode out within a few hours after having ridden in, and returned to see to the safety of his camp. But he knew the value of martial pomp and lavish display in dazzling and in- timidating the Italian mob. He fixed a day for the formal assumption of the dukedom, and for the public coronation of himself and the bride through whom he claimed the heritage of the Visconti. The goal of his ambition had been reached at last : the Condottiere had changed his skin, to become the most powerful and honoured of the Italian sovereigns. II SIR JAMES TURNER Scott has taken old Robert Munro for the essential type of the immortal Dalgetty, but unquestionably many touches of the portraiture, and of the scenes in which the Ritt- master figured, were borrowed from the Memoirs of Sir James Turner. Both may be taken as trustworthy, except perhaps where Turner is on his defence, but they were very different men. Munro was a soldier, pure and simple : Turner played a variety of parts, and was deeply involved, to his manifold peril, in the political intrigue of the period. He was brought into familiar and confidential relations with all sorts and conditions of men. He was the trusted agent of the exiled Charles ; he was honourably received at the Courts of Denmark, Sweden, and Poland ; he was in touch with the Scottish statesmen and generals — with Montrose, Hamilton, and Middleton, with Argyle, Leven, Lauderdale, and Rothes. He was the brother-in-arms, abroad or at home, of savage old Dalziel and of Graham of Claverhouse. He began by fighting the Protestant battle with the Swedes ; he ended by persecuting Cove- nanters when he held command in the Westland shires. In his lively narrative we have a breathless succession of incident — of warfare, of captivity, of escapes from cap- tivity, of slipping across the seas with false names under 33 c :^4 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE forged passes. Few men had travelled Western and Central Europe more frequently in aU directions ; he knew each river, canal, and seaport between the French frontiers and the Polish borders. Like Munro, he was never so happy as with the pen in his hand, but unlike Munro, in his story he is never prosy. Munro was a staunch Presbyterian and pious, who fought throughout for the Protestant cause, and according to himself, would have gone to the stake for his opinions. Turner had as few scruples of conscience as the Ritt- master ; he changed his creed on occasion with his colours and his service, and with perfect candour he takes us into his confidence as to pledges solemnly sworn with no in- tention of keeping them. It is true that in writing his Memoirs he is almost as edifying in his moralising as Munro, deploring the laxity of his earlier practice. That is the tribute the old soldier pays to decency, but it gives the stamp of truth to a tale which seems essentially veracious, and which is confirmed by contemporary writers wherever we have a chance of checking it. Pay and plunder were the first considerations with the penniless cavalier of fortune ; the pay was almost invariably in arrear, and as to booty, Turner, on his own confession, was as little scrupulous as his fellows. Of course we have only his own word for it, but he seems, like Bailie Jarvie's father the deacon's friend, to have been honest " after a sort." He accounted honourably for considerable sums confided to his charge, and according to himself was foolishly generous in his dealings with the Danish Ministry, who would readily have paid for his recruiting in advance. He was certainly a devoted and most affectionate husband to SIR JAMES TURNER 35 a wife from whom he always parted in pain, and who made many a dangerous journey to meet him ; nor need we doubt him when he says that some ruthless deeds laid to his charge were so many baseless slanders. The lenient treatment he received when captured by the fanatical Westland Whigs is the best proof of his relative humanity. Like Dalgetty and most men " of that kidney," he was entered to warfare young. Sorely against his will he was made a Master of Arts, and he seems to have been meant for the Church, but the pulpit was not his vocation. In his seventeenth year, " a restless desire entered my mind to be, if not an actor, at least a spectator of those warrs which made so much novse over all the world." He had friends, and was fortunate in getting an ensigncy in the regiment Sir James Lumsdale— the "stout Lumsdale " of Dalgetty's "intake" of Frankfort — was then raising for the service of the Lion of the North. " The thrice-famous Gustavus," Turner styles him, and it is significant of the mihtary reverence in which the Swedish King was held alike by followers and enemies that he is seldom or ever mentioned without some superlative epithet. The regiment landed at Elsinore, but the King, who had " such a way of over- running countries," was already in the heart of Germany, and the regiment never came to a sight of him. Already his fortunes were beginning to decline, and forced to with- draw from Nuremberg by famine and Wallenstein, he was soon to fall on the field of Lutzen. But the Scots speedily found occupation when, in the winter of 1633, they were attached to the Swedish army in Lower Germany. Turner's entry to campaigning was a rough one. " With this army I had a lamentable cold, wet, and rainie march," 1,6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE till they laid siege to Hamelin, the town of the Pied Piper. When the Imperialists had been beaten in a great battle for the relief, there was slaughter enough, and in cold blood, " to flesh such novices as I was," The famous Finnish Cuirassiers, as stern as their climate, " professed to give no quarter." Lying in that long leaguer, his fare was none of the best : his best entertainment was bread and water ; little of the first, but an abundance of the latter. In the subsequent marching and countermarching he suffered much from lack of meat and clothes, lying out in the open without covering of any kind. But it was the hardihood next to the courage of the Scots which recom- mended them so strongly to the kings of the North, and then Highlanders were wont to couch in the snows with no wrapping but the plaid. " I was so hardened with fatigue, and so well inured to toile, that I fully resolved to go on in that course of life of which I had made choice." He was an apt pupil in the art of campaigning, and within a year had learned to help himself. His own company was in rags, without a dollar of pay. " But I had got so much cunning, and became so vigilant to lay hold on oppor- tunities, that I wanted for nothing, horses, clothes, meate, nor money, and made so good use of what I had learned, that the whole time I served in Germanic I suffered no such misery as I had done." How he came by necessaries and luxuries we gather from his picturesque and pathetic descriptions of the miseries of the peasantry when fair towns and peaceful homesteads were blazing everywhere. " Aged men and women, most lame or blind, supported by their sonnes, daughters, and grandchildren, who them- selves carried their little ones on their backs, was a ruthful SIR JAMES TURNER 37 object of pity to any tender-hearted Christian, and did show us with what dreadful countenance that bloodie monster of warre can appear in the world." All the same, the tender-hearted Christian who made war his profession, had to live by it. And these ruthless ravages recruited extenuated ranks, when each boor, when burned out and beggared, was constrained to become brigand or soldier. Turner had better luck than Dalgetty : he rose rapidly from ensign to captain, and then, hke the Rittmaster, threw up his commission on light cause of offence. His colonel, a Courlander, " imposed too hard conditions of recruits." From the frontiers of Franconia he went straight to Scotland, to seek for employment under the Prince Elector, who was levying men there. So he had been told; but, finding he had been misinformed, he hurried back to Germany, where he undertook to raise a company under a Swedish colonel who had the reputation of a brave and honest cavalier. The colonel swindled him shamefully, and being left seriously out of pocket, he travelled to the Court of Stockholm to lay his grievances before the Regency. They were civil, and even free-handed, but referred his case to Field-Marshal Banner, then far away in Bohemia. Turner declined going on a wild-goose chase, and asked a pass for Scotland, which was granted. It gave free license for " horses, meate, and drink by the way ; a custom much in use then, and very grievous to the poore countrymen." Then there is the amusingly frank exposition of a cavalier of fortune's code of morality. There were two ships lying in the roads off Gothenburg, an Englishman bound for Hull, a Dane chartered for Leith. It was a toss up as to his future in which he took a berth : if he 38 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE went to the Humber he was to be for the King, if to the Forth he was to stand for the Covenant. An accident he deemed providential decided the matter, and he sailed for Leith. " I had swallowed without chewing in Germanie, a very dangerous maxime, which military men there too much follow : which was, that so we serve our master honestlie, it is no matter what master we serve." From Edinburgh he followed Leven's army to their leaguer on the Tyne, and there, through the dissolute Rothes, the renegade of " Wandering Willie's Tale," he got a major's commission. A Royahst at heart, " I did not take the National Covenant, not because I refused to doe it, for I wold have made no bones to take, sweare, and signe it, and observe it too ; for I had then a principle, having not yet studied a better one, that I wronged not my conscience in doeing anything I was commanded to doe by those whom I served. But the truth is it was never offered to me." The German wars had been no bad training for service in Ulster against the Irish of the Rebellion in 164 1. As the Chouannerie in Brittany, it was a war of ambushes and surprises, of desultory fighting through swamps and wood- lands, of lining hedgerows with musketry and meeting pikes, scythes, and bludgeons with desultory volleys. In the woods of Kilwaring, the rebels who were taken " got but bad quarter, being all shot dead." The storm of Newry was as bloody as the more famous sack of Drogheda, when the garrison, with many merchants and traders of the town, were carried to the bridge and butchered to death, some by shooting, some by hanging, and some by drown- ing. These summary executions were licensed by the Marshal of Ireland and Major-General Munro. " But our SIR JAMES TURNER 39 sojers, who sometimes are cruel, for no other reason than that man's wicked nature leads him to be so, seeing such pranks played by authority at the bridge, thought they might doe as much anywhere else." The tide in full flood suggested the pleasant idea of drowning a hundred and fifty women who were huddled together below the bridge. " Seeing the game those godless rogues intended to play," Turner galloped up and put a stop to it before more than a dozen of the unfortunates were murdered. The garrison of Newry was sorely pressed for lack of provision for " both backe and bellie." So Turner was sent to meet an Irish colonel : each envoy was backed up by a score of horse, and after drinking deep of Scotch whisky and Irish usquebaugh, they happily arranged an armistice. But as no money came in from England or Scotland, and nearly as little meal, Turner went to Scotland to interview the General. Leven had led his Scots to Newcastle, and thither Turner followed. The soldier found so much to criticise, that it explains the precipitate flight of those Scots from Marston. The men were lusty, weU clothed, and weU paid, but raw and undisciplined ; the officers, from the General downwards, left everything to desire. They were puzzled as to the passage of the Tyne. Operations were directed by a sort of Aulic council, and Turner, with other veterans, was caUed into consultation. Their advice was ignored, and the attempt to throw a pontoon bridge over the river might have ended in grievous disaster had the garrison made a midnight sally in force. The Scots had not counted with the tides : there was a causeless panic ; there was a comedy of errors, and Turner made himself merry over the stupidity of both sides, and the 40 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE incompetence of General Leven, whom he always held in supreme contempt. He posted back to Scotland, where he joined his regi- ment, which had landed from Ireland, and there he was in the thick of political intrigue. The soldier of the Covenant was conspiring for the cause of the King. He had had " toyle " and trouble enough for the space of two years in Ireland, having got no more in the employment than what barely maintained him, and now he was casting about for a more lucrative engagement. He discovered that the Solemn League and Covenant, to which the States required an absolute submission, was nothing but a treacherous and disloyal combination against lawful authority. He held secret converse with other disaffected officers, and they agreed that it was their duty to do the King what service they could against his ungracious subjects. They meant to join with Montrose, who had his Majesty's commission, and was meditating his infall on the Highlands. Turner had won over the Earl of Callender, and was enjoying the Earl's hospitality. Callender had taken the deepest oaths, even wishing the Lord's Supper should turn to his dam- nation were he to engage with the Covenanters. But Montrose, made wary by experience, declined to trust either the oaths or the promises of those suspected con- verts. As to Callender he proved to be right, and so, says Turner in his disappointment, " by Montrose his neglect, and by Calender's perfidie, was lost the fairest occasion that could be desired." " It was the inauspicious fate and disastrous destinie of the incomparablie good King." That plot had failed, but a man must live, and reluctantly he marched south again to England with his Covenanting SIR JAMES TURNER 41 regiment. He made a fashion again, with brother officers, " to take the Covenant, that under pretence of the Cove- nant we might ruin the Covenanters, a thing that (though too much practised in a corrupt world) is in itself dis- honest, sinfull, and disavowable." Disavowable he certainly believed it, for in the summer of 1646 he sought a secret interview with the captive King at Sherburne. Charles knew him for a man of the time, but " having got some good character of me, bade me tell him the sense of our army concerning him." Turner was frank, told him he was virtually a prisoner, and offered his services to effect an escape. The conversation was abruptly interrupted by Leven's orders, who must have known Turner even better than the King, nor was he ever again given an opportunity of seeing " his incomparable sovereign." Turner had offered his Majesty to do him all possible service, but is silent as to why he did not join the standard of Montrose. Subsequently, however, he did do the royal cause some service, " after a sort." He was easily per- suaded to act as Adjutant-General of the army which marched under David Leshe into Kintyre — not, of course, simply for base considerations of pay, but " because I thought it dutie to fight against those men who first had deserted their Generall Montrose when he stood most in need of them, . . . and next had absolutely refused to lay down their arms at the King's owne command." He con- firms all Sir Walter Scott says in the " Legend " of the formidable passes leading from the Blackmount into Argyle's country, only traversed by the hunters and shep- herds. Had Alaster M' Donald secured them with his thousand of brave foot, Leslie could never have entered 42 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Kintyre but by a miracle. But the valiant and reckless Colkitto was *' doomed to destruction." By another miracle of folly he threw 300 of his best men into the fort of Dunaverty, and 200 more into another sea-girt fortress. They seem to have been well found in food, but neither stronghold " had a drop of water." The garrisons sur- rendered at discretion. Turner acquits Argyle, who had good grounds of grief against the Irish for their cruel ravages of his country, and charges the guilt, or at least the responsibility of a massacre, on Leslie. For he says that the General would willingly have shown mercy, but was urged persistently by his truculent chaplain to smite the captive Amalekites hip and thigh. " Each mother's son was put to the sword," save a youth, whose Hfe, for some reason, was successfully begged by Turner. Indeed, with all his love for free quarters and lust for booty, he seems to have been invariably averse to useless bloodshed. No cold-blooded atrocities are laid to his charge, as was the case with Claverhouse, Dalziel, and Grierson. The slaughtered Irish had been in arms for the King. Turner, who had been Adjutant-General with the Cove- nanters, was now to play his part in the Duke of Hamilton's ill-fated expedition in aid of the English Royalists. There was a strange state of affairs in Edinburgh. The Duke and his friends had got the better in the Parliament of the Covenanting faction, headed by Argyle and supported by Leven and David Leshe. A vote had been carried for the raising of troops to march into England for his Majesty's releasement. A counter petition was drawn up, which was to secure religion and the Kingdom of Christ ; it was called the petition of the army, and was subscribed by SIR JAMES TURNER 43 Leven, David Leslie, and all the distinguished Covenanting leaders. It was believed, says Turner, that " the rest would follow suit, but they were deceived." He and the " honest " folk, with Middleton at their head, declined to incur the dishonour which Fairfax had drawn on himself by intimidating the Parliament at Westminster. There was a httle civil war in Scotland, by way of preliminary to the other undertaking, which for a time threatened to be formidable. The preachers fired the enthusiasm of the Whigs. The conflagration spread in the south-western shires, where the Covenanting element was strong. Glasgow, of all the considerable towns, was the most refractory. Turner was sent with horse and foot to bring the recal- citrant city to reason. There he entered on the prac- tices which he found so efficient in Ayr and Dumfries after the Restoration. " I founde my work not very difficult, for I learned to know that the quartering two or three troopers and half a dozen musketeers was ane argument strong enough in two or three nights' time to make the hardest-headed Covenanter forsake the Kirk and side with the Parliament." Finding his Glasgow men grown pretty tame, he tendered them a paper at point of sword, which was known facetiously as "Turner's covenant." " It was nothing but a submission to all orders of Parlia- ment : " it was subscribed by all, with rare exceptions, and was so highly approved at headquarters that he was ordered, with his booted apostles of loyalty, to reduce Renfrewshire to obedience. Similar measures were adopted elsewhere under other leaders : armed assemblies and con- venticles were dispersed with " bloody broyles " : but though the conflagration was suppressed, the fires were 44 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE still smouldering when the royal forces mustered at Stewarton. Never was a foolhardy and belated undertaking more surely doomed to disaster. It was undertaken and set out with the fond idea of efficiently aiding the English loyalists, who were already reduced to extremities. Colchester was the last garrison in the southern counties which held for the King, though Carlisle was the immediate object of relief, where the gallant Langdale was closely beset by Lambert. Half the levies had not come in when the army marched, and Lanark, the Duke's brother, with the saddest forebodings over the fortunes of his illustrious house, was left to mount guard over the rebel Whigs. Hamilton's forces, according to Turner, were no better than an armed rabble. They had no cannon, not a single field-piece, and little ammunition. Commissariat and transport were abso- lutely lacking. Incessant rain had damped their powder and their spirits. Their councils were distracted : Hamilton, though he displayed great personal gallantry, was no general, and as they pushed stubbornly forward, with Lambert behind and Cromwell in front, their fate was assured and only hung in suspense. The inevitable denouement came in Staffordshire, where they surrendered on terms, " good enough, but very ill kept." Hamilton, like his royal master, was brought to the block, and Turner, with other officers, went into captivity at Hull, But we are only concerned with his personal adventures, and they are sensational enough. At Hornby there was a question as to the route of the advance. Turner, agreeing with Middleton, gave his opinion for Yorkshire : urging that Lancashire was a county full of hedges and ditches, SIR JAMES TURNER 45 where Cromwell's veterans would have great advantage over Hamilton's untrained musketeers, whereas in the more open Yorkshire they might use their horse and " come sooner to push of pike." As with Dalgetty, the pike was Turner's darhng weapon. Once he had more of it than he cared for, when he was wounded in the house of his friends. Mutinies had been not infrequent in the insub- ordinate ranks, and on the retreat to Wigan there were nocturnal alarms which threw the army into panic-stricken confusion. " I marched with the last brigade of foot through the toune : I was alarmed that the horse behind me were beaten and runne several ways, and that the enemy was in my reare." He faced about with his brigade to cover the retreat, when a regiment of horse came up, " riding very disorderlie." He had them halted while he " ordered his pikes to open, and give way for them to ride or runne away," " But my pikemen being demented (as I think we all were) would not heare me, and two of them runne full tilt at me," One of the thrusts he parried ; the other ran him through the thigh. Not unnaturally he lost temper, , and had recourse to violent methods. "I forgot all rules of modestie, prudence, and discretion. I rode to our horse and desired them to charge through these foot. They, fearing the hazard of the pikes, stood. I then made a cry come from behind them, that the enemy was upon them." Whereupon they charged the foot so fiercely, that the pikemen scattered and bolted for cover. The cavalry distinguished themselves on that occasion as they had never done before, for they rode right over the retiring brigades, and one Colonel Lockhart " was trode doune from his horse, with great danger of his life." But wounded 46 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and ruffled as he was, the old soldier promptly recovered his presence of mind. He caused his drums to beat, though the enemy was near, got his men together, and marched on through the darkness till it was fair day. Then he was prevailed upon by Major-General Baillie to take some rest in a chair, as he had slept none in two nights and ate as little. Having rejoined the Duke, his first idea seems to have been to desert him : "to march forward a day or two and then by a turne to endeavour to get into Scot- land." But that was impracticable ; the trained bands were up in arms ever3^where, and there was no breaking away from the main body, which was being steadily pushed south, with all retreat cut off. Three nights he passed in the saddle ; the fourth he lodged in a hedge; and slept so sound that the trumpets could not wake him ; and as he met with civil treatment from his captors, it must have been a relief when he yielded himself a prisoner of war. Colonel Overton, who held Hull for the Parliament, was friendly, though according to special orders from head- quarters, Turner was strictly guarded. Indeed Cromwell — at Argyle's instigation, as Turner believed — paid him the high compliment of ordering him into irons. He made no doubt that, if greater matters had not put him out of the Protector's mind, some greater mischief would have be- fallen him. For more than a year he was under ward, dieted and boarded at his own costs. He paid eighteen pence a meal ; a shilling for his bed, a groat for his man's, a shilling for coals, and a groat for candles. The time did not hang so heavy on his hands as might have been expected, for he had the use of books, pen, and paper. When Cromwell had gone to Scotland, the Governor be- SIR JAMES TURNER 47 stirred himself in his favour, using his influence for letters of liberty from Fairfax, on Turner giving his parole to go beyond seas and not return to the three kingdoms for a twelvemonth. It was after the execution of the King that he sailed for Hamburg, where he found himself among a number of penniless compatriots attending the orders and motions of Montrose. It was lack of money, as he tells us, which scared the adventurer from following the Marquis on his last fatal expedition. But though often short of cash, he generally had some sort of credit ; his wife came over to Holland with supphes, and after a visit to the Court of Denmark, he was persuaded by Lord Carnegy to venture himself with him in Scotland again. The visit was sadly ill-timed, for they landed at Aberdeen on the very eve of the battle of Dunbar. The persecution was hotter than ever against those who had followed the lead of Hamilton, so the gentlemen separated and went into hiding. Soon, however, they could venture to emerge. The titular King of Scots, trimming his sails to the wind, commanded all who would serve him to submit themselves to the Kirk. But Turner's dragooning of Glasgow and the West was remembered against him, and it needed time and much influence to condone his flagrant offences. However, in due course he was absolved, made Adjutant-General, and given a regiment by his Majesty's special command. " Behold a fearful sinne ! " piously ejaculates the auto- biographer. " The ministers of the Gospel took our re- pentances as unfeigned, knowing well they were counter- feit, and we made no scruple to perjure ourselves, speaking against conscience and judgement." 48 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE His new engagement ended abruptly with the rout of Worcester. He was one among the thousands of prisoners who were to be carried in triumph to London. The wily veteran was too many for the careless guards. On this occasion he had refused his parole, and Generals Dalziel and Drummond, who had been brothers-in-arms with the Muscovites, likewise chivalrously declined to sign, lest Turner, as the sole recusant, might be the worse used. He profited by their generosity, for in loyal Oxford, with the help of friendly hosts, he made a moonlight flitting through the roof, escaping all the outposts of horse and foot, though not without obstructions and some merry passages. He walked to London in company of half-a-dozen bargemen who had served the murdered King as soldiers. The com- panions of his travel were lusty but debauched ; they would not pass a single ale-house on the way, and Turner had to pay for any amount of drink ; " but it was a vexation for me to drink cup for cup with them, els they should have had no good opinion of me." Good fellows they were nevertheless ; they would have no gold from him, when he bade them a grateful farewell in London, but, under pressure, consented to take half-a-crown apiece to drink his health on their return, and so " with many embraces we parted." They were faithful as the poor Highlanders who sheltered the Young Cavalier. He had felt obliged to reveal his identity, and they would have been handsomely paid for betraying him. In London he stirred little abroad, for the streets were full of Scottish acquaintances who might have been less scrupulous, and the watch at the ports was then so strict that he dared not go out of England till it was known OF SIR JAMES TURNER 49 that the young King was safe in Paris. Through bribed jailors he was in constant communication with Middleton, then a prisoner in the Tower. " I did approach him, for my inteUigence by my Enghsh friends was very good, that his hfe would be taken, so soon as he was cured of a shot he had received, and therefore had laid down three ways for his escape." But Middleton hesitated, because if he had broken out, his Scottish estates would assuredly have been forfeited, begging Turner to be gone and see to his own safety, giving him messages to the King and friends in France. Middleton subsequently reconsidered the matter and did escape, placing Turner, as it chanced, in an awkward dilemma at Dover. He had gone to the coast with a forged passport, and would have had no diffi- culty in embarking had he not been mistaken and arrested for Middleton. A brother Scot was called in to cross- examine him, but that Mr. Tours " proved ane honest man," and inteUigently responded to a private sign. Turner arrived safely at Paris, where he had a gracious reception from his Majesty and cordial welcome from old acquaintances. Turner, though he had thrown off the student's gown to don the cuirass, might have been a scholarly man in more peaceful times. Few soldiers of fortune would have withdrawn from the bustle of intrigue to the seclusion of a pension that they might improve themselves in French. But Mars must have been in the ascendant at Turner's birth. He was disturbed in his peaceful quarters by the fighting of the Fronde, and when Conde was driven in on the Porte St. Antoine, in great peril from land thieves and water thieves on either bank, Turner went by river to St. D so SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Germains, whither the exiled Court had withdrawn. There he was fortunate in forming the friendship of the future Marshal Keith, and after an enjoyable trip to Rouen, they were sent in advance of Middleton to Holland to beat up recruits for that general's projected campaign in Scotland. How Turner found money for his travelling expenses is a mystery. It would seem that, contrary to all the prin- ciples of his profession, he sometimes went wayfaring on his own charges, for his subsequent mission from the King to Lower Germany was as an accredited beggar to more or less impecunious Scottish gentlemen. It shows the humiliating expedients to which the young monarch was reduced. Travelling night and day, on a long winter journey, he came back with 1500 dollars. A peregrination in the spring was more successful, when Middleton was so elated by his collecting three times as much that he sent his own brother-in-law on a similar errand to the Swedish mercenaries. Sir Edward Hyde, a keeper of the royal privy purse, must have had at once an anxious and easy time. There were few finances to administer, yet at the same time it was hard to meet the daily expenses of the frugal household, and supply the King's occasional extrava- gances. But from love or policy, from jealousy of English commerce or hatred of Cromwell and the Puritan regime, money always trickled in somehow. The Spanish Govern- ment of the Netherlands gave grudging subsidies, with the permission to levy regiments if the men were forthcoming ; and the merchants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, with " well-affected Scotsmen " in Holland, now and again came down handsomely. Middleton sailed for Scotland, with the veterans Dalziel SIR JAMES TURNER 51 and Drummond in company, but Turner for some reason was left to follow. He lost nothing by not being attached to headquarters, for Monk held the North in his firm grip, and the expedition proved a ludicrous fiasco. For himself he ran through another gamut of adventure, and his experiences at hide-and-seek may have proved useful when afterwards he hunted down persecuted Covenanters in the hills and glens of Galloway. After a tempestuous voyage in a Norwegian timber ship he was landed on the coast of Fife. The friendly skipper buried his baggage and some arms he had brought over, and he ventured forth on the quest for recruits. He picked up a few officers out of work, who professed themselves ready to join Middleton, and they lurked together for some weeks in the Perthshire Highlands, then scoured by strong parties from the English garrisons. They had news from the North by troopers of Middleton, who had " taken a liberty to themselves to disband." Everything was so discouraging, and the affairs of his Majesty were so obviously " out of frame," that he decided to beat a retreat. Nevertheless he owed it to himself to attempt something before he left, and there is an account of a skirmish which is interesting, as it very evidently was in Scott's memory when he describes the meeting of Dalgetty with Menteith and Montrose. Turner came across an officer with a score of disbanded troopers who had thoughts of " making a purchase of 200 pairs of pistols " stored in a house in Kirkcaldy. " Purchase " was a pleasant euphemism, and payment was to be in powder and shot. Carousing at an ale-house where the ale was good, they conferred the command on Turner, who settled the bill, to the rehef and surprise of the landlord, as "it 52 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE was a thing not usual at that time." It was fortunate he had primed his party well with liquor, for that afternoon they met thirty well-mounted men of the enemy, English and Scots. " We trifled away the time with enquiring for whom we were, and at length I bid one of my officers tell we were for God and King Charles." The enemy ran basely, but there was an unfortunate contretemps, through which Turner, who drew the line between Scottish rebels and fair English foes, came to be falsely charged with the murder of an English prisoner in cold blood. He came back with cold news to the Court, which was then at Aix-la-Chapelle, for few men were more continually on the move than the royal exile in his evil days. At Paris, Cologne or Aix, Bruges, Breda, or the Hague, he was seldom made heartily welcome, and often warned sharply away. Turner reported to Hyde and Newburgh, who were billeted together in a convent ; but though he declared himself ready to go on the King's service to Japan, he demurred to being sent back to Scotland. Middleton had shown small respect for him, and Glencairn mistrusted him as a democrat. His time at Aix was passed not altogether unprofitably, for a course of the baths cured him of a disease, epidemical in the Highlands from which he had brought it, " I mean the scab or itch." As his master had neither work nor pay for him, he went to seek an engagement elsewhere. He had a pass for Bremen without a discharge. But soldiering was slack then, and adventurers not in demand, and there was a whole year of involuntary repose. Other soldiers of greater distinction felt the pinch as he did. In the summer of 1655 Dalziel came to Bremen in disguise, and spent a few days with SIR JAMES TURNER 53 him. The fierce old warrior was in despair ; he declared that all was lost in Scotland, and it was then he sought congenial service with the Tsar of Muscovy, whence he returned ten years afterwards to dragoon the Whigs of the Southland shires and sit, superintending tortures and signing death warrants, on the Blood Council of Edinburgh. Charles had cherished some delusiv^e hopes when Crom- well declared war with Spain, but it would be wearisome to follow Turner in schemes that came to nought and through a succession of disappointments. The note of the whole is chronic impecuniosity. Sent on a mission with Middleton to the King of Poland, they were stopped en route by stress of poverty, " in pitiful condition." They borrowed from magistrates and private persons money that was never to be repaid. They had to leave the inns and find sorry lodgings apart ; their money was all spent, their credit gone, and everything was pawned except their wearing apparel. Always by permission of King Charles he took service with the Danes, and was commissioned by them to raise a regiment. The estimated cost was to be paid him in advance, but as half the men were to be sought in Holland, he declares that in his scrupulous generosity he would only accept half the pay. It was very unlike the shrewd old routier to refuse, as Dalgetty says, coined money, freely offered, and he bitterly regretted it later — more especially when the monarchs of Denmark and Sweden had made peace, and when the united princes, to his intense disgust, discharged the Danish levies in most cavalier fashion " under paine of death," giving each of the privates half a dollar and bidding them go where they pleased. 54 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Colonel Turner went in quest of the money he had chivalrously refused. As was to be expected, he failed to get it, for the Danish king was almost as hard up as him- self. For the next two years, with empty pockets, he was dancing attendance on the impecunious Charles, whose Court was agitated by alternate hopes and fears, according to the reports from England. It seems certain that he was admitted to their most confidential counsels. When the troubles began between Monk and Lambert, as his fortunes were desperate and he had nothing in Scotland to lose, he was made the mouthpiece and probable scapegoat of the Scottish lords, who offered his Majesty loyal help if he could send them armed assistance. Charles was lavish of assurances and agreeable to their proposals, except as to their desire to get rid of Middleton is general, who was still in high favour. By the royal command Turner preceded the King from Brussels to Breda, where Charles for once was cordially welcomed by his sister and his nephew, the Prince of Orange. In a personal inter- view he charged Turner to give his Scottish friends aU sort of satisfaction, except as to Middleton's dismissal. But the chances were always against the soldier of fortune. Events moved so fast, as much to the astonishment of the King as to the disgust of his envoy, that he never had the opportunity of discharging that delicate mission. " In less than two months the King was proclaimed in all his three kingdoms." Nevertheless Turner had done and endured so much that he counted confidently on high honours and rich rewards. If he did all he professes to have done, like many another honest and less helpful cavalier, he was SIR JAMES TURNER 55 somewhat scurvily treated. He had the privilege of kissing the King's hand, and received the accolade of knighthood, by which he set small store, as it was promotion without pay. Moreover Charles, who was always lavish of pro- mises and costless civilities, "assured me he had ordered his commissioner to provide for me." The commissioner was his old travelling companion Middleton, whom he seems always to have regarded with suspicion, and who probably believed that Turner had played him false when acting for the Scottish lords, who were his avowed enemies. At any rate the chapter of the foreign experiences ends with the dolorous plaint of the man with a grievance. " Earle Middleton never did doe, act, or propone anything for me." The rest is matter of Scottish history. Three or four years were passed in comparative obscurity, and then Turner figured only too conspicuously in what Macaulay would have called " the evil days " of the persecution. Among the " booted apostles of prelacy," next to Claver- house and Dalziel, not even Grierson of Lagg, the proto- type of Sir Robert Redgauntlet, is more heartily denounced or more bitterly execrated by Wodrow or Patrick Walker. The philosophic Hume gives him the epithet of ferocious, and even Scott, who was no friend to " the beastly Cove- nanters," deals with him harshly, quoting authorities who describe him as fierce and dissolute. It may be doubted whether they do not do him some injustice. He was a mercenary soldier, emphatically a man of his time, who, like Claverhouse, believed that the orders of his superiors absolved him from all personal responsibility. He certainly was not naturally cruel, nor bloodthirsty, when he had his S6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE faculties under command. In short, he seems to have been rather a good fellow. But he owns himself that he was a hard drinker, and Burnet, who was rather friendly to him than otherwise, tells us he was mad when he was drunk. Like all his kind he was greedy of gain, and turned his times of command to profitable account. To a licentious soldier given a free hand the opportunities were irresistible, and when he assures us he did not abuse them excessively, he may have been astonished at his own moderation. Had he been Claverhouse or Dalziel, we may assume confidently that he would have been shot or hung out of hand, when the Whigs took him in his lodgings at Ayr. But his excuse for surrendering convicts himself, as it condemns the infamous system of dragooning. It was the application of the financial and moral thumbscrew to the recalcitrants who were backward with exorbitant fines. All of his troopers save thirteen were billeted by twos and threes, where it was their business to make themselves as obnoxious as possible, and when rapine and outrage of every kind recommended them to favourable consideration at headquarters. At any rate, if he sinned he suffered, when he was made to do penance for his military subservience to the per- secuting edicts of Lauderdale and Sharpe. The old soldier was in hourly terror of death all the time he was in the hands of the Covenanters, whom he ingenuously entreated to submit to the King's clemency, reminding them that they had to do with a merciful prince. The crisis came at Rullion Green, when his life seemed to depend on the issue of the skirmish. He saved himself by a timely com- pact with his guards, and was hopeful that his misfortunes SIR JAMES TURNER 57 had ended with the suppression of the rebeUion. As matter of fact they were only beginning, and, charged with atrocities done to order and with malversations of money, he had melancholy experience of mihtary commissions and the civil courts. Calumniated he may have been, and no doubt was, for it was the interest of the Government to make him answerable for the rising ; his victims were encouraged to bear testimony against him, and as to his intromissions with fines and exactions, for these he had no vouchers to show. Ill SIR JOHN HEPBURN AND COLONEL ROBERT MUNRO Among the Scottish officers who came to the front in the Thirty Years' War, few attained to greater distinction than Sir John Hepburn, who was long in command of the Brigade, and his staunch friend. Colonel Robert Munro. They were brothers-in-arms, invariably counting on mutual support with absolute confidence. Sir John never gave his reminiscences to the world, but he is among the most con- spicuous figures in all the histories of the war — Schiller excepted, who says httle of the foreign auxiliaries — and notably in the prolix and metaphysical memoirs of his old comrade Munro. So in following the fortunes of the one, we incidentally sketch the career of the other. Both were characteristic representatives of the best of their country- men, although of very different temperaments and actuated by different motives. Hepburn, like Bayard, was the soul of chivalry ; his aspirations for military glory induced him to volunteer for each desperate piece of service. He was sensitive to touchiness on the point of honour, and on a fancied affront from the leader he had idolised and faith- firily followed, he rejected the King's condescending ad- vances, resigned his commission, and sheathing the sword which had served Gustavus so well, declared he would 58 HEPBURN AND MUNRO 59 never draw it again for Sweden. When we remember that Gustavus with starving troops was then playing his last stake against the leaguer of Wallenstein, we may conceive how hotly Hepburn's anger must have burned. Hepburn was a Catholic : it was said that the quarrel began or was envenomed by some sHghts cast b}^ the Protestant champion on the Catholic creed. Munro was a Presbyterian, and rather a dour Presbyterian at that ; he dwells on the privileges that Gustavus forced on his troops by commissioning chaplains to every regiment and insisting on regular preaching and prayers. Munro, writing of his campaigns in old age, is always preaching and moralising himself, but he seems really to have been a deeply religious man. He says as much for his Scottish soldiers, though that is more than we can easily believe. Talking of his regiment when ordered into action, he observes, " Never men went on service with more cheerful countenances, going as it were to welcome death, knowing it to be the passage into life." Hepburn, as I have said, was a modern knight of chivalry. Munro was a steady-going soldier, unflinching in face of the most formidable odds, and re- signed to daring anything in the way of duty. He had initiative too and readiness of resource, as he showed on various occasions. His Highland fire was tempered by Lowland phlegm, and he kept himself cool and thoughtful in the worst emergencies. But he never ran his head idly against stone walls, and his ambitions were limited to regular professional advancement. The closely-printed, black-letter folio in which he. has recorded his " Expeditions and Observations " is become very scarce ; it was pub- lished in Red Crosse Street, London, in 1637, and the 6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE copy preserved in the Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, was probably that which was carefully studied by Scott in getting up his materials for the " Legend of Montrose," and evolving the immortal personality of Dalgetty. Annota- tions on the margin have a suspicious resemblance to the handwriting of the novelist, though we are slow to suspect that epicurean bibhophile of tampering with the virgin pages of a borrowed book. Be that as it may, though Munro is intolerably prolix and perversely confused ; though he drags in a Butler-like range of pedantic erudition by the head and shoulders ; though he moralises in season and out of season ; though his chronology defies exegetical analysis, and he makes wild work of German orthography and topography ; nevertheless the volume is a veritable treasury of graphic information as to soldiering experiences in that interminable war. It is evident that Harte has drawn on it freely for his " Life of Gustavus Adolphus," especially in regard to strategy and tactics, and the innova- tions and improvements in the science of war which the King introduced to the confounding of his enemies. Munro merely relates ; he does not comment or criticise ; he had no theories of his own, though he held strong opinions. But he tells, or we read between his lines, how Gustavus had cast the traditions of the past behind him, thinking out ideas for himself, with the inventive genius of a Napoleon. We see him anticipating the practice of the great Frederick in the handling of his troops and the management of his artillery, using spade and pick on all possible occasions with a skill and persistency which has never been surpassed, and only approached when the Federals in the American Civil War had been taught caution HEPBURN AND MUNRO 6i by misfortune. Thanks to the constitutions of his Swedes, Scots, and Finlanders, indifferent to cold and toughened to famine, in a succession of surprises he taught the Im- periahsts and the tacticians of the Cathohc League that there need be no winter in war. Nevertheless, there was no neglect of precaution or preparation which the most careful forethought could suggest. He expected his soldiers to starve on occasion, but he indulged them in almost a superfluity of clothing, when the enemy were forced from their winter quarters, ragged and shoeless. Munro made the regiment his home, absorbed in the routine of his profession. Battles and marches, sieges and infalls, were indelibly impressed on a most retentive memory; for we cannot suppose that, if he ever kept any rough diaries, they survived the chances of war and the old campaigner's many misadventures. He is not a picturesque writer, but in his pages, or even reading between the lines, we see pictures, as realistic or suggestive as those in Schiller, of the horrors of the war that devastated Germany. Munro had what was rare in those days, the unsoldierly virtue of sobriety. The cellars of the Rhine, the Main, and the Danube must have been answerable for many a muddled enterprise, for many a deadly ambush or surprise. With the Imperialists, Wallenstein's lavish hospitalities set an evil example, which his generals, less temperate than himself, were only too ready to follow. In that respect Munro had the sympathy of his Swedish Majesty, who always kept a tight rein on his troops, but although per- sonally abstemious, had sometimes to sacrifice himself from political motives. At Halle the King was to entertain the Saxon Elector, who notoriously carried conviviality to 62 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE excess. Munro had walked into the banqueting-room where the supper was laid out, when the King took him ruefully by the shoulder and whispered, " Munro, you could be master of the bottles and glasses to-night, in the absence of old Sir Patrick Ruthven ; but you want the strength of head to relieve me on such an occasion." For in that Thirty Years' War, in the words of Scott, a brave and successful soldier was a companion for princes. Princes compounded for arrears of pay by treating colonels and captains with flattering familiarity. Munro, long before he had made a name, had dined with Christian of Denmark in his " gorgeous and pleasant palace " ; and he often sat at the board of Gustavus, when the King had learned to value him as one of his most reliable officers. He had seen much rough service with the Danes before his regiment in 1630 exchanged, with the assent of Christian, into the Swedish service. Immediately thereafter he had an opportunity of showing his resolution and resource in not the least notable episode of the war. He had orders from Oxenstiern to embark his men at Pilau, on the Bay of Courland, for Wolgast on the Pomeranian coast. He shipped them on the Lillynichol and the Hound, while a small "skoote" or boat was freighted with the horses and baggage. The favouring breezes blew up into a storm, and they ran for shelter into the Bornehohne roads. There the Lillynichol, which carried Munro and his fortunes, was parted from her consorts. Though she had sprung a leak he put to sea again with his Highlanders, pumping by relays of forty-eight, but as the water still gained on them he headed for Dantzic. The storm abated nothing of its violence, and they were roUing water-logged on a lee shore, HEPBURN AND MUNRO 63 embayed among reefs and shoals. Then there is a thrilHng and detailed story of the shipwreck, which might have suggested materials to Falconer or Byron. They were cast ashore on the isle of Rugen, clinging through next forenoon to the wreck, with the boiling surf making a clean breach over them. All their boats had broken loose or been swamped. Munro patiently attended the Lord's mercy with prayers, till at one of the clock he turned manfully to help himself. He landed his men on rafts or spars ; he was the last to leave the shattered ship, and he managed besides to save some of the arms. But never were castaways in worse case, for all the baggage was on the missing skoote, and as the ammunition had been lost, the matchlocks were useless. He learned from friendly boors that the island was occupied in force by the Imperialists, and that he was eighty miles from the nearest Swedish outposts. Not unnaturally he was " in a pitiful feare," and naturally he might have made up his mind to unconditional surrender ; for his men were ex- hausted and dispirited, and in no condition for fighting. Surrender never seems to have suggested itself. He had learned from the boors that the neighbouring Castle of Rugenwald was still held by the captain for the Duke of Pomerania, though the town under its shadow was in possession of the enemy. Munro hid his men among the cliffs till nightfall, and then despatched a messenger to the captain to tell him he was at hand with 300 shipwrecked Highlanders, and to undertake, if he were furnished with powder and ball, to clear Rugenwald of the Imperialists and hold it for the Duke and the King. The captain was delighted, but prudently gave himself leave of absence, 64 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE while he sent a man in his confidence to conduct the Scots into the castle by a secret passage. There they armed themselves : thence they descended on the town, and after some desperate fighting mastered the garrison. The surprise was daring enough, but a more serious question was how to maintain himself. A mounted messenger sent to Stettin had brought back peremptory orders from the King to hold the place and the adjacent passes. The orders had been anticipated by the Scot, who had not wasted an hour. He had blown up the bridge which spanned the river ; he had armed some of the boors and set them to watch the passage, and many of the country people, with his own Highlanders, were busily engaged in throwing up entrenchments and deepening the moat. Scouting and foraging parties were sent out in all directions, for though the King had strictly enjoined treat- ing the country folk with every consideration, that did not exclude the inevitable levying of contributions. Munro declares he had kindly welcome from the inhabitants, and found noble entertainment everywhere with fish and fowl, fruit and venison. For nine weeks he made good his position against incessant alarms, till Hepburn by forced marches brought him welcome relief. Hepburn took over the command as senior officer, and Munro was ordered to join the forces beleaguering Colberg under General Kimphausen. Colberg, where the Imperialists had stored much booty, and which was deemed almost impregnable, was a place worth winning or saving, and they were known to be advancing in force to the relief. The line of approach was by a pass, guarded by the town and castle of Schelbeane, and Hepburn with a troop of HEPBURN AND MUNRO 65 horse was sent to reconnoitre it. His report was that it ought to be occupied immediately, and Kimphausen, who is said to have had no love for the Scots, and was never sorry to send them on desperate service, ordered Munro to march thither forthwith. In case " the enemy should pursue him " — which was sure enough — he was to fight to the last man. Munro came, saw, and did not like the situation. He had much the same opinion of it as Dalgetty of Ardenvohr, for with its ruined works he deemed it a scurvy hole for any honest cavalier to maintain his credit by. " I was evil sped, unless the Lord extraordinarily would show mercy." However, he set to work to make the best of things ; laboured indefatigably night and day, for three days, and when a trumpeter summoned him to treat, from an army drawn up for battle, returned the heroic answer, that he had no orders to that effect, but ample provision of powder and ball at their service. Having no strength to hold the town, after some desperate fighting he withdrew into the castle. Summoned a second time, as the last chance of having quarter, he gave a similar reply. He had fired the town to cover his retreat, and withdrawn among blazing houses and falling roofs. When the flames died down, the enemy followed and set up their batteries within forty paces of his castle walls. He had to fear the worst, for the besiegers outnumbered him by sixteen to one, and they were directed by MontecucuUi, perhaps the ablest of the Imperial generals of the second rank. But MontecucuUi, if bold, was also wary, and in all such cases both besiegers and besieged had to calculate the chances of impending relief. Home was known to have joined Kimphausen, and it was certain that the important out- 66 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE post of Schelbeane would not be sacrificed without a battle. MontecucuUi abruptly broke up his camp, retiring under cover of mist and darkness. I am not rewriting the Memoirs of Munro, but selecting incidents that illustrate the times and the men who figured in them. His first interview with the immortal Gustavus was characteristic of both. A company in Munro's regi- ment had fallen vacant, and the King, without consulting him, appointed a Captain Dumaine. Munro declares that he did not object to the man but to breach of privilege. " By his Majesty's capitulation he had the freedom to place the officers of his regiment." When he waited on the King he had the wit to take his friend Hepburn with him, who was a persona grata. Munro sturdily stuck to his point, saying that Dumaine was a foreigner who lacked the words of command. Gustavus retorted that he would soon learn them ; but demanded the name of Munro's nominee. The answer was that it was a cavalier who deserved well of his Majesty, named David Munro. His Majesty, jumping at conclusions, exclaimed that Munro, to appoint a cousin, would actually disobey his orders. Then Hepburn inter- posed, and the matter was arranged by the Major con- senting on this occasion to waive his rights. The incident shows how Gustavus, with all the imperious decision that never bent in matters of supreme importance, knew how to condescend and even to honour valued officers when only points of punctilio were involved. In the depth of that bitter winter, and apropos to the intaking of the town and fortress of Dameine, which was most valiantly defended, Munro has some interesting remarks on his Majesty's methods and idiosyncrasy. HEPBURN AND MUNRO 67 " He did observe his Majesty's dexterity in command, discharging the duties of several officers ; " in fact, he was greatly addicted to overdoing himself. When his mind was made up there was no moving him. " Neither did he like it well if an officer was not so capable to under- stand his directions as he was ready in giving them." " Such a general would I gladly serve, but such a general I shall hardly see, whose custom was to be the first and last in danger himself." And, like all generals of genius, he regulated his strategy by the temperaments of his opponents. " He knew the devices and engines of his enemies, their councils, their armies, their art, their dis- cipline, . . . and he understood well that an armie being brittle like glasse, that sometimes a vaine and idle brute was enough to ruine them." The one point in which the King's personal conduct conflicted with his commands was his carelessness in exposing himself to dangers. He set an evil example to officers as reckless of life as himself. He always thrust himself forward into the hottest of the fire, led the fiercest of the charges when the fortunes of battle were in suspense, and ultimately paid for his temerity by his glorious death. At Lutzen he only wore a buff coat which could not turn a musket ball, though then he is said to have had the sufficient excuse of a half-healed wound. Rittmaster Dalgetty quotes his famous exclamation, " Now shall I know if my officers love me by their putting on their armour ; since if my officers are slain, who shall lead my soldiers unto victory ? " And the Rittmaster tells how the regiment of Finnish Cuirassiers was reprimanded and lost their kettledrums, because once they had taken per- mission to march unarmed, leaving their corselets on the 68 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE baggage waggons. Munro relates an incident at the leaguer of Dameine, significant at once of the hero's foolhardiness, and of the good humour with which he heard the remon- strances of his humbler brothers-in-arms. He had ventured far forward on a frozen marsh, sp3dng into the enemy's works with a prospect glass. The ice gave way, the King was immersed to his middle, but fortunately it was near Munro's picket. As it happened, the guard there was com- manded by that favourite of the King who had been forced on the regiment against the Major's wishes. Captain Dumaine rushed to the rescue. The King " wagged to him to retire, lest the enemy might take notice of them," but it was too late. Under a salvo from a thousand match- lock barrels the King extricated himself, threaded the hail of bullets by a miracle, and sat down to dry himself by the guardroom fire. The Captain, being a bold-spoken gentle- man and well bred, began very familiarly to find fault with his Majesty for his forwardness in hazarding his person in such unnecessary danger, and the King, having patiently heard him out, thanked him for his good counsel, and could not but confess his fault. Defiant throughout, he went straight to dinner in a cold tent, called for meat, dined grossly, took a great draught of wine, and only then con- senting to change his clothes, turned out again to face a sortie from the enemy. Had any of his officers on duty shown such misplaced zeal, he would infallibly have been placed under arrest. Probably displeased with himself, he immediately came down upon an unlucky Dutch captain whom he caught going to the trenches in a cloak. He had him recalled, sent another in his place — " which was a disgrace to the HEPBURN AND MUNRO 69 captain " — and reproved him openly, telling him, if he had intention to have fought well, he would have felt no cold, and consequently the carrying of the cloak was needless. Happily for himself, Munro's battaUon was not in garrison at New Brandenburg, where 600 of the Highlanders were mercilessly slaughtered, and where some of his most valued comrades perished. Their leader, Lindesay, fell in the breach, handling his pike like a common soldier. For nine days behind the shattered works they had made desperate resistance against great odds. Tilly had pushed the siege with characteristic determination, and Kimphausen had defended the place with indomitable courage, for relief was daily feared or expected. The news of the catastrophe was brought to the Swedish camp by two Scottish officers, who swam the ditch in their corselets and saved themselves in the darkness. Hot as was the Highland blood, the Highlanders as a rule were generous in victory, but now there was a universal cry for vengeance, and soon after the massacre of New Brandenburg was fearfully revenged at Frankfort-on-the-Oder. But writing afterwards in cold blood, Munro has one of his " observations " to make on the affair, and considering the ordinary precedents of that ruthless war, it would seem the Scots excited themselves unnecessarily. They knew the risks and they took the chances. Tilly had twice offered terms, which were peremptorily refused. The place, as it proved, was practically untenable, and the penalty of defending an untenable position was death. It was all a question of the arrival of timely succour, and Munro dis- cusses the delicate dilemma to which Kimphausen found himself reduced. He pronounces him not void of blame 70 ■ SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE for refusing a treaty in due time, seeing he had no certainty of release ; and being left to his own discretion by his Majesty, he should have embraced the opportunity of time which, once past, is not to be recovered. It is better, he adds, to be in safety through preventing than basely to suffer under our enemies, occasion being past. As to which it can only be said, that had Munro's practice been conformable to these sage precepts, he would never have distinguished himself by that defence of Rugenwald which gave him a long lift up the ladder of promotion. The discussion might have been spared. Though Munro did not know it, the lives of the vaHant garrison might have been saved had not a despatch miscarried. All had depended on precarious communication in an unsettled country. The first orders to Kimphausen had been to hold out : they were countermanded when pressing strategical considerations decided Gustavus to march upon Frankfort- on-the-Oder. The news of the fall and the slaughter reached the army when on the march, and the Scottish brigade consoled itself with the hopes of a speedy and deadly revenge. Yet the assault on Frankfort-on-the-Oder in the circumstances was one of the most daring of Gustavus' audacious ventures. Frankfort was supposed to be as strong as it was rich ; it was garrisoned by 9000 veterans under three such distinguished leaders as Schom- berg, Tiefenbach, and Montecuculli ; and the terrible septuagenarian Tilly lay at no great distance, with more than twice that number of men, ready to hasten to the relief. The little army of Gustavus barely outnumbered the garrison, but they were all picked men and admirably disciplined. Munro blames the Imperialist generals for not HEPBURN AND MUNRO 71 marching boldly out to meet the Swedes in a fair field, laying down the sage doctrine, that " it's never good to be always defending " ; but though the defence was stub- born as the attack was resolute, events seem to show that their decision was wise. Munro's story of the in- take is very typical of the innumerable storms of fortified places during the war that brought wreck and ruin to so many flourishing towns. It illustrates, too, the pomp and the pleasantries as well as the horrors and terrors of the war. The Swedish King threw out his light horsemen to scout the country towards Tilly's leaguer. Then "himself discharging the duty of a General-Major (as became him well), he besought the aid of Sir John Hepburn to put the army in order of battle." It advanced with drums beating, trumpets sounding, and colours displayed, " till coming near the town and seeing no show of opposition, knowing of the nearness of our enemies, it was resolved to press on of a sudden to take the place." Nevertheless, unlike Henri Quatre at Cahors, the more cautious Gustavus had not recourse to immediate storm. In consultation with Hepburn he promptly distributed his brigades so as to make a close investment. Then there was some warm work in the way of reconnoitring. The King himself, with his prospect glass, was in the front, as was his custom. The Imperialists opened fire ; Colonel Teufel of the staff was shot in the arm, his Majesty making great mourn for him, and Munro's lieutenant was shot in the leg. The enemy, hanging out a goose in derision, made a sally in force, but after some sharp skirmishing were driven back into the town. Next day was Palm Sunday, when his Majesty with the 72 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE whole army served God in their best apparel ; the King following up the sermon with a stirring appeal to his soldiers, imploring them to take these ill days in patience, in the hope of happier times, when they should drink wine instead of water. Indeed, after much blood-letting they were immediately to have wine enough and to spare. For the preaching of the King was promptly followed up. As it was drawing towards dusk he called a captain of Hepburn's regiment, told him to don a hght corselet, to call for a sergeant and a dozen volunteers, to wade the graff, to climb the fortification, and to find out if men could be conveniently lodged between the mud wall of the town and the outer ramparts of stone. Such daring attempts were successfully made, although by single men, at San Sebastian, and at Bhurtpore when besieged by Lord Combermere, and in this case Captain Gunter came back in safety with his little party to report favourably. The storm was decided on ; the storming columns formed up, and all the cannon, great and small, were charged — the King had brought a long train of artillery with him — that the clouds of smoke from the general discharge might mask the rush in the impending assault. So it came off, and Munro in the turmoil can only speak for what he did and saw himself. To the roar of the guns his column sprang forward ; and under veil of the smoke they waded the ditch, up to the waists in mud and water, and climbed the scarp to find themselves confronted by palisades, well fastened and set fast in the waU. Those obstacles were nothing so formidable as the chevaux-de-frise and spiked planking which PhiUipin prepared for our stormers at Badajoz, nor to the diabolical Russian arrangements for HEPBURN AND MUNRO 73 the reception of the Japanese at Port Arthur. But the defenders, who fought desperately afterwards, seem to have been taken by surprise and panic-stricken, for Munro remarks that, had they not retreated in great fear, he could not have entered but with great hazard. They retreated, but rallied again to make a stand at a sally-port in the inner wall, " whence with cannon and musketry they did cruel and pitiful execution on our musketeers and pikemen." Munro does not mention Dalgetty, but it was then that he, with " stout Hepburn, valiant Lumsdale, and courageous Munro," made entry at point of pike. Hepburn was shot above the knee in the leg of which he was lame before. " Who said to me, ' Bully Munro, I am shot,' at which I was wondrous sorry." That reminds us of Wellington riding with Lord Anglesea. His major, a resolute cavalier, was shot dead, and it was then that Lumsdale and Munro, seizing pikes respectively, forced the narrow passage, shoulder to shoulder. They made a stand within till their pikemen were drawn up and " starched " with muskets ; then there was another rush on the enemy, who fell back in disorder. Munro and Lumsdale charged up one street ; General Banner with a fresh body of musketeers pressed the pursuit up another. The town on the hither side of the river was taken, " the enemy being well beaten " ; the cries for quarter were answered by yells of " Remember New Brandenburg," and small mercy was shown, except to some officers who were worth saving and held to ransom. It must be owned that the garrison deserved their fate ; they were the brigand bands who under ruthless leaders had been savagely ravaging Brandenburg and Pomerania. 74 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Munro says something on hearsay of what had been passing elsewhere. The blue and yellow brigades, being esteemed of all the army both resolute and courageous, were told off to enter " the Irish quarter." For the weakest part of the defences had been commended to the charge of the Irish Celts, under command of the chivalrous Walter Butler, a cadet of the house of Ormond. The blue and yellow brigades, brave as they were, had their work cut out for them. Numbers prevailed in the end, but the Irish, though weak, stood to it with pike and sword till most part fell fighting. Butler, with a shattered arm and his thigh transfixed, was a prisoner ; and as for the rank and file, " those valiant Irishes," as Dalgetty says, " being all put to the sword, did nevertheless gain immortal praise and honour." Munro's brigade, with all its discipline, piety, and morality, had no sooner cleared the streets, heaping them with corpses, than it broke loose from control. " The fury past, the whole street being full of coaches and rusty waggons richly furnished with all sorts of riches, as plate, jewels, gold, money, clothes, &c., whereof all men that were careless of their duties were too careful in making of booty, that I did never see officers less obeyed." The temptation was great, for as at Vittoria of the Peninsular War, Frankfort was a storehouse of all the plunder the Imperialists had been gathering in the course of their campaigning. And Gustavus, like Tilly at the sack of Magdeburg, did not enter the town till the " fury " was over. It would have been attempting the impossible to rein in his hot-blooded soldiers from slaughter, pillage, and debauch ; and indeed he is said to have cheered Hepburn's HEPBURN AND MUNRO 75 column to the storm by telling these Scots to remember New Brandenburg. But the Swedes and Scots only slaughtered men in arms, whereas Tilly's ruffians slew indiscriminately, tossing infants into the flames and sparing neither age nor sex. Lansberg was the last Pomeranian fortress left to the Imperialists. Gustavus, with his habitual rapidity of action, lost no time. Home had already enveloped it with squadrons of cavalry, when the King marched from Frank- fort with 3200 musketeers, 800 horse, and a battery of artillery under Tortensohn, his best artillerist. Hepburn was in immediate charge of the column, though still so weak that he could scarcely sit in his saddle. Munro was second in command. It was their duty to see that the force was well supplied with entrenching tools, with sledge- hammers, and ladders. It was a bold undertaking, for the defenders twice outnumbered the assailants, and they were all seasoned veterans. On the night of their arrival, Munro and his Highlanders lay down before a heavily armed sconce, protected by a deep graff of running water. Munro was ordered to go to work at once, entrenching himself, throwing up counter-batteries, and running forward ap- proaches. He laboured indefatigably, and thought he had acquitted himself well when his Majesty turned up before break of day. " Finding the works not so far advanced as he did expect, he fell a chiding of me, and no excuse would mitigate his passion till he had first considered on the circumstances, and then he was sorry that he had offended me without reason. But his custom was that he was worse to be pleased in this kind than any other of his commands, being ever impatient." 76 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE The King himself had not wasted time. He had found a blacksmith in the hamlet where he slept who undertook to show a path over the western swamps and a secret passage into the town, if the deep ditch could be bridged. Floating bridges had already been constructed ; they were flung across graff and morass, and Munro with 250 of his musketeers, and a colonel with as many dismounted dragoons, gingerly followed the lead of the blacksmith across planks that threatened submersion under their measured tread. The sconce was taken after some sharp fighting, and Hepburn coming limping up with the supports, they entrenched themselves against a possible outfall from the town. But the Imperialists lost heart and consequently honour. Strange as it may seem, they sent a drummer to Munro in his sconce to parley for quarter ; the drummer was blinded and passed on to the King, who condescended to take the garrison over to mercy. But he was em- barrassed by the very natural apprehension that they might make trouble when they saw to what a feeble force they had surrendered a fortress so formidable, for it had thrice baffled Gustavus before, and no pains had been subse- quently spared in strengthening it. The garrison was not suffered to march out until he had been strongly reinforced from Frankfort. The blacksmith was made burgomaster of the captured town, and had a handsome gratuity in ducats into the bargain. The storm of Frankfort was to be balanced by the sack of Magdeburg. Gustavus would gladly have saved that great and friendly city, but the princes of North-eastern Germany had been hanging back, and his communications must be made sure before advancing. After taking Lans- HEPBURN AND MUNRO 77 berg and liberating Pomerania, he moved on Berlin to bring the vacillating Brandenburg Margrave, his own brother-in-law, to reason. The menace was enough, and then Munro and his Scots were withdrawn into winter quarters at Old Brandenburg. Munro liked the quarters well, though he thought it a dreary town, situated between sandy wastes and morasses. But the beer was good, and " they did try it merrily," till quarrels broke out between the Scots and the Swedes, when after a time they came to the sensible conclusion that their brawling had best be reserved for the common enemy. Munro liked his comforts when he could get them, and in one of his innumerable digressions he discusses the various vintages and breweries of Germany. For nine years, he says, the regiment had ever the luck to be in excellent quarters, where they did get much good wine and great quantity of good beer. Hamburg and Rostock were deserving of high commendation, but for his own part he gave the preference to the Calvinistic Seebester, as he once told the Chancellor Oxenstiern. " I said it pleased my taste well. He answered merrily, ' No wonder it tastes well to your palate, being the good beer of that ill religion.' " In the Major's opinion the worst of that profusion of strong liquors was, that the soldiers were ill to be commanded, and more amenable when reduced to fair water. The arrival of the Marquis of Hamilton with 6000 men, raised chiefly in Scotland by an understanding with King Charles, did much to change the state of affairs. It brought the Landgrave of Hesse and the heroic Bernard of SaxerWeimar to the Swedish standards, and it went far to confirm the wavering resolution of the more powerful 78 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Elector of Saxony. In summer Munro and his men had begun to weary of the fleshpots of Old Brandenburg, more especially as a virulent epidemic had broken out in the town, when the whole Swedish army concentrated to m< ve westward to observe the movements of Tilly. The fall of Frankfort had led to the sack of Magdeburg. Too late to relieve Frankfort, Tilly had turned back to revenge himself on that great and flourishing city. Then Gustavus followed westward to fortify himself, after his habit, at Werben on the Elbe, an admirable strategical position. Strong in his entrenchments, he repulsed a night attack with no little loss to the assailants. Then Tilly, who had been invariably the victor in innumerable pitched battles, marched back into Saxony to force the hand of the Elector, who was tampering with the Swedes. It was a fatal stroke of policy and strategy, and thenceforth fortune would seem to have deserted him. The superstitious Germans said he was haunted by the spirits of the helpless folk who had been mercilessly butchered at Magdeburg. The Elector, irritated by the cruelties inflicted on his country, threw himself into the arms of the Swedes, so Arnheim and his Saxons were aligned with them at the decisive battle of the Breitenfeld. Leipzic on the Breitenfeld was a duel between the fore- most champions of the conflicting creeds and policies. Tilly, as we see in his despatches, held Gustavus in the highest respect ; and the King, as wary in counsel as he was bold in action, knew well the formidable antagonist he had to face. But when the treaty with Saxony was signed, he felt bound to fight and arrest the ruthless course of the enemy. TiUy, it is said, though in far superior force, HEPBURN AND MUNRO 79 in his admiration of the mihtary genius of Gustavus, would have deferred the decisive moment. Yet probably the sympathies of the fiery old hero were with the impetuous Pappenheim and other lieutenants, who declared that with- drawing before inferior forces would be intolerable dis- grace. Once committed to the chances of combat, Tilly threw himself into it, heart and soul. He and his rival were ever in the forefront of battle, heading the cavalry onsets regardless of their lives, and that recklessness is the only charge that has been alleged against their skilful leadership. Gustavus, it is true, was quietly attired in a suit of plain grey under his corselet, though a long green plume floated from his helmet. But Tilly was conspicuous as always, with the dwarfish figure bent over the saddlebow, with the long drawn face and the drooping whiskers, in the suit of green satin, much the worse for wear, and the high- peaked hat with the drooping red feather. Never, indeed, throughout the war had field been more fiercely contested. The plain of Leipzic was ideal ground for skilful manoeuvring — for a fair fight and no favour. The armies had bivouacked within a mile of each other, and the lines of the opposing watchfires clearly defined the positions. Munro, whose old fires burned up as he wrote, describes with unusual animation and lucidity all of which he was an eye-witness. " As the larke beganne to peep," they were standing to arms, to the blare of the trumpet and the roll of the drum. Having meditated in the night and resolved with their consciences, they began the morning with offering souls and bodies as living sacrifices, with con- fession of their sins and lifting up hearts to Heaven by public prayers and secret sighs and groans. Thus shrieved 8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and assoilzied in Protestant fashion, they marched forward a little and halted. The King bestirred himself in the ordering of the battle ; the Swedish host to his right, the Saxons to the left. In the forefront of the Swedish centre were three regiments, two of them Scottish, one Dutch, but all three under Scottish colonels. Munro was in com- mand of the musketeers of the right fiank. Adopting his novel tactics, which proved disastrous to the Imperialists, Gustavus formed up his foot in open order, mingling them with squadrons of cavalry, so that the musket should support the pistol and sabre. It would seem more ques- tionable that before each brigade were batteries of heavy guns, and of the lighter artillery, which was loaded and fired fast, to the great discomfiture of the enemy. Behind were three brigades of reserve under Hepburn, which after- wards did decisive service to the left, when the day had been well-nigh lost by the flight of the raw Saxon levies. At "twelve of the clock" the battle was joined. The cannon began to roar, tearing great breaches through the advanced brigades, who, as Munro says, anticipating Beauregard's remark on Jackson, stood passive and firm as a wall for two hours and a half. Then out of the clouds of dust and smoke came furious charging of the Imperial reiters. Time after time they were met and forced back by the Swedish and Finnish horse, who with stolid northern phlegm never unloosed a pistol till the enemy had fired, after each discharge falling back behind the musketeers, who poured in their volleys at point blank. For a space the smoke and chalk clouds were so dense that nothing was to be distinguished. Then two great battalions of foot were seen on the left flank of the reserves, which most HEPBURN AND MUNRO 8i supposed to be Saxons. Munro was more clear-sighted. " I certified his Majesty they were enemies ; " whereupon the King and Hepburn took the reserves to the left, to retrieve the doubtful fortunes of the day, and repulse the last desperate onset of the foe, recklessly led on by Tilly in person. Meanwhile Munro had led his wing of the musketeers against another body of the enemy who were standing firm by their batteries. He beat them from the cannon, which he captured, and consequently, as he says, remained master of the field, but the smoke-pall had come down thicker than ever, and he could see nothing of either friend or foe. So he caused a drummer to beat the " Scots' March " till it cleared, to collect surviving friends and scare away the scattering enemies. The battle being won, his Majesty did chiefly ascribe the glory to his Swedish horse- men and his Scottish foot. Indeed Munro seems to claim more than his fair share of it, for he says the victory and credit of the day was given to their brigade as being last engaged, and it had the royal thanks and promises of reward in public audience in presence of the whole army. Doubtless the thanks were paid down on the nail, but we hear nothing of the promises of reward being redeemed. That night they encamped on the field of battle, at blazing fires made of abandoned ammunition-waggons and pikes " that were cast away for want of good fellows to use them." Among the living was much merry-making and rejoicing, though there was a melancholy absence of drink at the night-wake of their dead comrades, which must have come home to the hearts of the Highlanders, who always celebrated obsequies with a carouse. Munro regrets that he missed by a day the storming 82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE of Marienburg, where his countrymen led the assault in what he describes as the most desperate service done in Dutchland during the whole continuance of the wars. After the Breitenfeldt, after investing Leipzic and occupy- ing Halle, his Majesty had been " minded to pay a visit " to his inveterate priestly enemies, the Bishops of Bamberg and Wiirtzburg. He marched to Erfurt through the Thuringenwald, and there broke up his army into two divisions, appointing Wiirtzburg as the rallying-place. The troops marching through Franconia were commanded by Lieutenant-General Bauditzen, with Hepburn as Brigadier- General. Coming to Wiirtzburg, they summoned the town, which surrendered on favourable terms. But the soldiers had withdrawn to the great Castle of Marienburg, which, as Dugald Dalgetty would have said, "overcrowed it," and which Munro describes emphatically as " a strong strength." It was deemed so strong indeed that the Prince-Bishop of Franconia had lodged his treasure there with an easy mind ; his wealthy subjects had followed his example, and in the wine-vaults hewn out of the living rock were stored the choicest vintages of the Steinberg. Nor was his con- fidence altogether misplaced, for Marienburg had been to Franconia what the impregnable Konigstein was to Saxony. Moreover, he had sure intelligence that TiUy and the Duke of Lorraine, with 50,000 men, were coming to the relief by forced marches. The castle was connected with the town by the massive bridge of grey antiquity, which, like that over the Moldau at Prague, is embellished by the statues of saints and saintly prelates. The retiring garrison had broken down one of the arches, and the gap was commanded and raked HEPBURN AND MUNRO 83 by the fire of the castle batteries. " A single, long, bending plank had been thrown over the broken arch, so that it seemed a hazard or torment to any man to pass over." "There were valorous officers and soldiers who would rather adventure to goe before the mouth of the cannon " than to cross that hair-like bridge of Al Sirat. But time pressed and the King had recourse to the Scots brigade. Sir James Ramsay, surnamed the Black, and Sir John Hamilton were called upon, the King knowing that if they refused, no others would undertake the service. They were commanded, with their musketeers, to effect the passage and clear a way to the castle for the rest of the army. The Scottish colonels went as warily as bravely to work ; with a few picked men they tumbled into some small boats — it much resembled Wellington's passage of the Douro — setting the musketeers to fire before they beached the boats. " Once happily landed and beginning to skirmish, their soldiers they left behinde, seeing their officers and comrades engaged, to helpe them they ranne over the planke so fast as they could runne, till at last they past all to make a strong head against the enemy." Ramsay was shot lame in the arm ; Hamilton succeeded to the command, pressing the garrison so hard at all points within their works that Gustavus passed most of his army over. Apparently the garrison was panic-stricken. Before dawn the place was rushed, for they had neither raised the drawbridges nor lowered the portcullis. Short shrift was given to the defenders : " Magdeburg quarter " was the answer to all appeals for mercy. The King had thrown out detachments on all sides till there were barely 10,000 men left at headquarters. At 84 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE that time both Hepburn and Munro were in Wiirtzburg with the brigade. One evening Munro was seated com- fortably at supper, when a royal footman hurried upstairs to tell him his Majesty was waiting below. That evening a courier had come " bloody with spurring, fiery red with speed," to say that the Duke of Lorraine was at hand with five times the Swedish strength. The news was true, though the numbers were exaggerated. The King had come out at once to beat up Hepburn, but missing his quarters had stumbled on those of Munro. He ordered the Scot to get the brigade under arms at once, and to send Hepburn to meet him on the parade ground. Eight hundred musketeers mustered in the darkness and marched out on a blustering October night, neither Hepburn nor Munro having an idea of their destination. All they knew was that the King was riding alongside of them in gloomy abstraction, from which they augured that there was serious work before them. When he broke the silence it was to tell them that his purpose was to defend Ochsenfurt, the Franconian Oxford, by help of their handful of musketeers against Lorraine and his army. Eighty troopers were in advance, and towards the small hours the weary foot-soldiers were in position on the bridge or lying by their arms in Ochsenfurt market-place. At break of day a scouting party of the cavalry were driven back by a squadron of the Imperialists. A company of the musketeers sent off in support had to retire with the horse before over- whelming numbers. Then Munro led out a hundred more, and delivered the attack with " such a noise of drums " and so determined a spirit that the Imperialists believed he had the Swedish army at his back and beat a retreat HEPBURN AND MUNRO 85 in their turn. They had better information soon, and Hepburn, unsupported, was in extreme anxiety. All that man could do he did to defend the ruined walls and their approaches ; he threw down houses, he felled trees, and grubbed hedges ; he improvised loopholed stockades with firing platforms behind them. It was a case " where no cavalier could gain credit without overmuch hazard, yet such a master would be served." The enemy waited too long. On the third night there was such a noise of their trumpets and drums, as if heaven and earth were going together : no one doubted that a general storm was imminent : the gates were even closed against the horse- guards who had been beaten in against the walls ; which shows how desperate the situation was deemed by such a cool veteran as Hepburn. Then he was delivered by some unexplained miracle from the very jaws of destruction. The host of the Imperialists was smitten by such a panic as scared the Assyrians from the siege of Samaria. When Hepburn looked out in the belated November dawn, they were vanishing in clouds of dust which veiled their retiring on Nuremberg. Campaigning in those times was not only a game of hazard, but also a game of luck, which was perhaps not the least of its chief attractions. You might be ordered to run your head against almost impracticable stoneworks, or sent to overrun a rich country, relatively defenceless. After Marienburg and Ochsenfurt the Scotch brigade separated. Two hundred of them under Colonel Hanan, " a discreet cavalier of good command and conduct, also valorous," were sent down the Main well provided with field guns, to reduce all the castles as they went along. 86 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE None of those somewhat neglected fortresses gave much trouble, and they rejoined their comrades laden with booty. Munro's division was also fortunate, though he leaves us to infer th«-.« looting, and for once they were revelling in the fulness of plenty. In his grateful moralising he waxes eloquent : " This march being profitable as it was pleasant to the eye, we see that soldiers have not always so hard a life as the common opinion is ; for sometimes as they have abundance, so they have a variety of pleasure, in marching softly, without feare or danger, through fertill soyles and pleasant countries, their marches being more like a king's progress than to wars ; being in a fat land as this was, abounding in all things except peace : they had plenty of corn, fruite, wine, gold, silver, jewels, and of all sort of riches that could be thought of, on this river of the Maine." Had Frankfort set them at defiance — and for a time the issue was doubtful — he might have had still better reason for gratulation. But Frankfort, " made wise by the mine of other cities," preferred good conditions of peace to the chances of storm and sack. All those wealthy free cities held troubled consultations when the royal Swede sent peremptory summons to surrender. Their sympathies were with him, with freedom and with Protestantism, but they consulted under terror of the Tillys and Wallensteins. With Frankfort in his possession and his communica- tions assured, the King could turn his attention to another of his inveterate Episcopal enemies. The strong places on the lower Rhine were in the Electorate of Mayence, and thither he directed his march. It was occupied by a corps of veteran Spaniards, under Don Phillipe de Sylvia, who held the fortresses on the river in force. As his troops were HEPBURN AND MUNRO 87 well sheltered, de Sylvia trusted something besides to the inclemency of a bitter winter. Summoned to retire or surrender, his answer was short ; his orders were to defend the Prince Bishop against the Swedes. As he fancied, he had seized all the river craft, but it was difficult to sweep all shipping off the long course of the Rhine. Gustavus himself had made a detour through the Bergstrasse, with the exiled King of Bohemia, the banished Elector Palatine in his train, and meditated a crossing above Sylvia's most formidable advanced post at Oppenheim. A few small boats were picked up by Count Brahe, who was in command of a mixed brigade of Scots and Swedes. He made a miraculous crossing in face of a watchful enemy, reminding one again of Wellington's passage of the Douro, and entrenching himself promptly in similar fashion, re- pulsed with heavy loss the onsets of the Spanish cavalry. The routed horsemen sought refuge at Oppenheim, an ancient town with walls and fosses and a massive castle dominating the Rhine. Strongly garrisoned and scientifi- cally fortified, Oppenheim barred the march to Mayenne. The hardest nut to crack was a sconce on the right bank of the Rhine, covered by the castle fire, and the sconce has become historically famous. The Scots, as Munro remarks, went to the front as usual, when there was any desperate piece of service to be done. Grim and bloody as the busi- ness was, his quaint fashion of telling the story puts it in a humorous point of view. It was a bitterly severe winter, " but we lay down in the fields, having no shelter but some bushes on the bank of the river." The bivouac was raked by the castle batteries ; it was all a dead level, and there was no protection of any kind. " The cannon from 88 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the castle did cleanse and scoure the fields about the sconce, and on the other side they plagued us stiU with cannon." It behoved them to have fires, but when the fires were kindled, the cannonade grew hotter and the aim more sure. Then we have a touch of Charles O'Malley's Peninsular compaigning. " One night, sitting at supper, a bullet of 32 lbs. weight shot tight out between Col. Hepburn's shoulder and mine, going through the Colonel's couch ; the next shot killed a sergeant of mine by the fire, smoking a pipe of tobacco." That night the enemy made an outfall, " which was bravely repulsed by push of pike, slightly esteeming of the musket and scorning to use ours." When the King opened his approaches on the other side of the castle, the sconce surrendered, and shortly after- wards the garrison of the castle had a disagreeable surprise. In some strange fashion a " privy passage " had been left unguarded. Two hundred of Ramsay's Scots had been guided to the outworks, which they carried by storm and fought their way into the heart of the defences. It was a long and desperate struggle, for the odds were great against the storming party, and the garrison disputed each inch of ground. All the time the town bells were tolling at intervals, and the roar of the Swedish batteries dominated the sounds of the combat. But before Gustavus could hurry forward the supports, Ramsay and his handful of musketeers were masters of the place. Many prisoners were taken in the sconce and the castle. Then occurred one of the common incidents of the war, when soldiers ransomed themselves lightly by changing sides. " Their colours being taken from them, they, willing to take service, were all disponed by his Majesty to Sir John Hepburn, HEPBURN AND MUNRO 89 who was not only a Colonel to them but a kind patron, putting them in good quarters till they were well armed and clad again. But their unthankfulness was such that they stayed not, but disbandoned all in Beyerland, for having once got the warm ayre of the summer, they were all gone before winter." Mayence was taken. The Spaniards had pillaged the place before capitulating, and the Swedes laid it under heavy contributions. There the conqueror celebrated Christmas with ten or a dozen of the Princes of the Empire and many ambassadors from friendly states. Thence de- tachments of his troops overran the Rheingau and all the modern tourist country ; the vintages of Bingen, Bacharach, and Coblenz were at the mercy of the \dctors, and Munro himself was quartered at Bingen with a picket in Bishop Hatto's historical Mausethurm. The armies of Gustavus were victorious everywhere, and the chronicler complacently gives a long list of " the many worthy cavaliers of our nation," who were not only trusted before others with governments, but also honoured with the commanding of strangers. There was a single exception. Tilly, after giving a check to Horn, had been mustering an army for the defence of Bavaria. The King, who never rested himself or gave the enemy time to repose, now marched for the Danube. Hepburn of the Scots Brigade was his right-hand man, as the irresistible advance rolled southward through Fran- conia. On the march they were reinforced by strong bodies of cavalry under the chivalrous Bernhardt of Saxe- Weimar. There was some sharp fighting with the veteran de Bouquoi, who was routed with loss and severely wounded. 90 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE On the 26th of March they sighted the Danube at Donau- worth, the key to Swabia, and with the fortified mountain of the Schellenberg a position deemed almost impregnable, which was to play a conspicuous part in the campaigns of Marlborough and Eugene. It was gallantly defended by the Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg, but was taken, sacked, and spoiled. So says Munro, who was foremost in the storm with his musketeers. Many of the garrison were slain, many more drowned in the river, and the rest " who got their lives were forced to take service in the regiments." But the Swedes did not gain much by those involuntary recruits. " Being papists of Bavaria, as soon as they smelt the smell of their father's houses, in less than ten days they were all gone." Then the Swedes would have broken into Bavaria, but old Tilly was defending the passage of the Lech. With a tremendous artillery fire from the opposing field batteries, for a day and a half the passage was disputed ; the Bavarians blanched as the raw Saxons had done at Leipzic, but Tilly's veterans manfully stood their ground, and possibly the issue of the battle might have been different had not Tilly " been shot in the knee with a cannon bullet, a cruel blow for an old man of seventy-two." The old hero was carried off to die at Ingolstadt, and then the chances of the Imperialists were gone. The death he would have desired spared him the mortification of learning that he was to be superseded by the Duke of Friedland. Munro, who could respect a valiant enemy, ranks him only second to the immortal Gustavus. " Wherein we have a notable example of an old, expert general, who being seventy-two years of age was ready to die in defence of his religion and HEPBURN AND MUNRO 91 country, . . . which end of his should encourage all brave cavaliers to follow his example both in life and in death, as with valorous soldiers. . . . And my wish were I might prove as valiant in advancing Christ's kingdom as he was in hindering it." Augsburg, Ingolstadt, and all the fortified Bavarian cities fell fast one after another. When the citizens sur- rendered the garrisons got quarter, but elsewhere seldom during that merciless war was the warfare more ruthlessly waged. The peasants, who were bigoted CathoHcs to a man, not only murdered all stragglers, but subjected them to nameless tortures. By way of reprisals defenceless Bavarians were shot down without mercy, and their un- walled towns and villages given to the flames. So when the army approached the Bavarian capital, commissioners were sent out with the keys, " offering all kind of sub- mission, for to spare from plundering of their city." His Majesty encamped his army outside the town, but trusted the guard of the gates and the market-place to Hepburn and the Scots, till he should make his formal entry next day. He housed himself in the palace, having for his guest the Elector Palatine whom Maximilian at the beginning of the war had hunted out of the Haradschin. The Duke before his flight had rather innocently buried his cannon. Inevitably, they were discovered and dug up. Munro declares there were 140 of them : twelve great pieces had been christened the twelve apostles. The Palatine recognised many of his own ; others had been brought from Brunswick, and there was one charged with 30,000 golden ducats, though it seems strange that that portable property had not been carried off. While Munich 92 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE was in occupation of the troops Hepburn, in appreciation of his services, was appointed mihtary governor, with strict orders to preserve disciphne and prevent looting. But the occupation did not last long, for news from the north-east suddenly recalled the Swedish King to central Germany. The next act in the bloody drama is the famous siege of Nuremberg. Munro expresses no opinion as to the strategy of his idol, though that was the turning-point of the hitherto ever-victorious advance. Two great military geniuses were matched against each other, and for Gustavus it was something worse than a drawn game. Nuremberg had hesitated between two terrors, but had been driven to a decision. As a Protestant free city, all its sympathies were with the foreigners. It " made up twenty-four strong companies of foot," who carried on their colours as many letters of the alphabet. The King having " recognosced " the city, formed an encircling leaguer with sconces, redoubts, fosses, and barriers. Wallenstein, occupying the southern heights, had thrown up corresponding works over against them. Necessity has no law, and the foraging Swedes were almost as merciless as the more lawless and licentious Imperialists. The boors began to be unquiet and tumul- tuous. " But this uproar was but short, for when the Swedens drew out of the garrisons they kiUed the most part, and drove the rest into woods to seek their food with the swine, in burning a number of their dorpes." Then Munro breaks into one of his digressions to pay a generous tribute to Pappenheim, who was causing them infinite anxiety. " The Earle of Pappenheim, a worthy brave fellow, though he was our enemy, his valour and resolution I deemed so much of that it does me good to HEPBURN AND MUNRO 93 call his vertuous actions somewhat to memory and the successes he had in warlike employs. . . . This noble cavalier was so generous that nothing seemed difficult to him, fearing nothing, not death itself." It is needless to recapitulate the familiar story of the fighting before the beleaguered city, but it brought Munro promotion in a way he would never have desired, for it was to sever him temporarily from a valued friend. Gustavus, whose temper must have been tried by the protracted siege and the impregnable Imperial positions, quarrelled with Hepburn, and apparently for no particular reason. Schiller says that Hepburn resented the King's having preferred a subordinate to some post of danger, which would have been really a tribute to the value of the fire-proof veteran. More plausibly it is attributed to an insult to the Brigadier's religion, for Hepburn was a devout Christian and a Catholic. Be that as it may, the King used language which could not be brooked by the high- spirited Scot, who left the apartment with his hand on his sword-hilt, exclaiming, " I will never unsheathe it again in the service of Sweden." He did not immediately quit the camp, and his Royal master appealed to him once again, and not in vain, in a moment of emergency, but Munro, with the rank of colonel, succeeded in command of the brigade. Shortly afterwards he was invalided. At the storm of the Altenburg, a bullet took him above the haunch-bone, and he was only saved from death by the " iron-clicker " of his hanger. The King took an affectionate leave of him as he lay in hospital at Donauworth ; they never met again, and he shared neither the dangers nor honours of 94 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Lutzen. There is real pathos and deep feeling in his elegy over the loss of such a leader as he could never hope to follow again. " This magnanimous King for his valour might well have been called the magnifique King : ... he died standing, serving the public, . . . and he most will- ingly gave up the ghost, being all his life a King that feared God and walked uprightly in his calling, and as he lived Christianly, so he died most happily in the defence of the truth. I could take Heaven and Earth, Sun and Moon, minerals, &c., to witness that his colours ever flourished in the name of the Lord, and that his confidence was not set on the arm of man." Reverting to the subject, he sums up the pages afterwards by praying for such another leader as that invincible King. He can hardly have expected that the prayer would be answered, and after the idol he had worshipped was gone, his Memoirs may be briefly summed up. Though the shattered and enfeebled Scots Brigade was left " to rest " in Swabia, it was ever on active duty. Munro went to Scotland to enlist recruits, and recruits came over in considerable numbers. But the regiments again suffered severely at the disastrous battle of Nord- lingen, where the Swedes were routed and Home taken prisoner. Munro's brigade was terribly cut up, nor did it ever recover the losses. The peace of Miinster closed the Thirty Years' War. After Nordhngen the Scottish regi- ments had been under the command of Bernhardt of Saxe- Weimar, and when the agreement was signed between Sweden and France, his troops were taken into the pay of France. Hepburn had unsheathed his sword in the service of Louis, and Munro was again under his old comrade, Munro's own regiment had been reduced to a single com- HEPBURN AND MUNRO 95 pany, and the remains of thirteen gallant Scotch corps which had fought under Gustavus in many a stricken field, were incorporated in the regiment d'Hebron, which by orders of the King was to rank before all others in the French service. Hebron, it may be explained, was the French rendering of Hepburn. Munro's " Expedition " ends somewhat abruptly with the " Observation," among others, that the disciphne of his regiment stood so high that many who were trained in it rose " from soldiers to be inferior officers, and then from their preferments and advancements " were promoted to other regiments. Even their enemies, he adds, could not but. duly praise them, calling them the invincible old regi- ment, and the Swedes were wont to strike terror into their enemies by borrowing their battle-music and imitating the Highland cheer. IV COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN Though " the Lion of the North and the Bulwark of the Protestant faith had a way of winning battles, taking towns, &c., which made his service irresistibly delectable to all true-bred cavaliers," the discipline was severe, the pay small and precarious, and the promotion slow. It was not often that an inferior officer dropped into such a good thing as Rittmaster Dalgetty when he commanded the whole stiff of Dunklespiel. The Imperial service offered greater attractions to cavaliers of fortune, especially when they had left their consciences at home. There was Wallenstein, a living proof of what military talent and soaring ambition might attain to, and Tilly and Pappenheim were scarcely less famous. Did they want wealth, as they aU did, had not Wallenstein within a few years of making his mark bought landed estates to the value of 8,000,000 florins. Yet he had long been maintaining the pomp of a Court and had given away as freely as he gathered. The secret was that soldiers of aU ranks lived on contributions levied on the country. Gustavus, with only the scanty Swedish treasury to draw upon, from policy was bound to conciliate the states he overran and to respect the privi- leges and purses of the wealthy free cities. The Im- perialists and the soldiers of the Catholic League cast all 96 COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 97 such scruples to the wind. Like Napoleon, they made the war support itself, but then it was Germans who preyed upon Germans, When Wallenstein, recalled into the field, sent his summons around for a second army, as when Bourbon raised his standard after Pavia, adventurers flocked to him from all quarters. As Mitchell remarks, they knew the terrible severity of his punishments, but they also knew how magnificent were his rewards. In his own camp the discipline was strict, and any breach of it was summarily punished, but that was due rather to pride than principle. Personally he set the worst possible example. Nothing can be more damning, or more illus- trative of the misery of the provinces he had ravaged, than the charges brought against him by the Bavarian Elector and the Electoral College of Ratisbon, They were sub- scribed alike by Catholic and Protestant. They told how the Duke of Friedland in Pomerania had exhausted the revenues of the Duchy in keeping open house ; they told of plundering and fire-raising; of men beaten, tortured, and murdered ; of women violated ; and they wound up : " Turks and heathens have never behaved as the Imperial troops have done, nor could the devils have behaved worse." Wallenstein had drained Pomerania to keep a sumptuous table when the Pomeranians were starving, and his officers in their degree imitated or surpassed his example when charged with local responsibihty and released from restraint. The ordinary adventurer pillaged and squandered from hand to mouth ; the more prudent or avaricious turned the screw that they might save against the day of their discharge ; and between the two the citizens were ruth- G 98 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE lessly fleeced and the helpless peasantry burned out and beggared. But there were men of birth, breeding, and talent, with broader views and definite ambitions. De- liberately careless of their lives and free of their money, they took Wallenstein or Pappenheim for their models, and hoped to rise like them. Soldiers first, they could be courtiers on occasion, and at Vienna or Munich some happy chance might give them rapid promotion and the pay of the colonel of a regiment. Once well on the ladder they were fairly safe, unless tripped up by some court intrigue or the caprice of a court beauty. The soldier of fortune when he had seen something of the wars was seldom more scrupulous than Rittmaster Dalgetty over his war cry. When he left his native islands he was generally influenced by religion or home politics, and he enlisted on the side whither friends had gone before him. The Catholic Irish had no hesitation ; to a man they followed the standards of the Church and the Empire. The Scottish Presbyterians from the far North, like Munro, cast in their lot with Swedish Lutherans and German Calvinists, and at least so long as Gustavus hved they seldom changed their colours. But though in Aberdeen- shire there were Forbeses, Erasers, and many others who were staunch to the blue of the Covenant, in the Gordon country and the Garioch the most of the gentry were High Church, High Tory — the epithet had not been invented then — and often Catholic. In the heart of the Garioch, " at the back o' Benachie," as the old song has it, stands one of the square, bartizaned towers scattered broadcast over Aberdeenshire, memorials of the days when every man's hand was against his nearest neighbours. The COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 99 Leslies of Balquhain, who claimed to be heads of the name, had always been a fighting family. Poor as they were proud, it was only natural that a younger son, with Httle but his sword for an inheritance, should seek honour and fortune abroad. The Leshes were bred in prelatic sur- roundings, and it is singular that Walter, associated with a Gordon in the death of Wallenstein, should, like Gordon, have been bred a Calvinist. Judging by the subsequent careers of both, it is probable that rehgious tenets sat hghtly upon them. None could have foreseen that the penniless youth who left the Garioch to trail a halberd in the ranks would have played the leading part in the death of the great captain, gone with the collar of the Golden Fleece as imperial ambassador to the Sultan, married the well-dowered daughter of a princely house, and died a Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Of all the foreign soldiers he had the most exceptional luck. He left no autobiography, and the records of his rapid rise are fragmentary. Here and there some deed of daring or decision, some subtle piece of courtiership or sagacious stroke of pohcy, stands out conspicuous in the history of the war. He served in Flanders, where he saw hard fight- ing. He won his way to carrying a fahne or ensign's colours in Italy in the war of the Mantuan succession. He distinguished himself with the Imperialists in Germany, and in 1632, when only twenty-six, was already major of musketeers. The regiment was chiefly Scottish with a sprinkling of Irish, and was commanded by the Colonel Gordon who played second to his subordinate in the Wallenstein tragedy. Both were special favourites of Wallenstein, who for his own sake knew how to appreciate loo SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and advance merit. Both had been always to the front in the campaign which drove the Saxons back over the Riesengebirge. Both were in the great camp where Wallenstein had gathered all his strength for the capture of the free city of Nuremberg. Swedes and Imperialists were alike on short commons ; their foragers swept all the adjacent country. Wallenstein had cut off a convoy escorting 200 waggons from Wiirtzburg. Things were getting desperate with the citizens and the Swedes, when Gustavus ordered an attack in force on an imperial magazine, and detached a covering force of 1000 musketeers and 800 horse to Bergtheim. James Grant, in his " Life of Hepburn," gives a spirited account of the affair. There was a sanguinary engagement between the covering force and the Imperialists under Sparre. The Imperialists were in superior strength, but the Swedish attack was irresistible. The action was fought out among rocks and ruins. " The imperial regiments were swept away in succession, and the musketeers of Gordon and Leslie alone stood firm, maintaining their posts behind every tree, rock, and wall with the most steady gallantry. Gustavus " frequently applauded their valour, and declared that if these were Scots and fell into his hands as prisoners, he would release them unransomed." They yielded to numbers, and he kept his word, though his Scottish officers were slow to carry out his orders. For five weeks they feted and feasted their countrymen, and at last gave them reluctant license to depart, when Gustavus made his final cast for victory. When the Lion of the North had fallen at Liitzen, Leslie was in quarters at Egra on the western frontier of Bohemia. It had been better for his fame had he been COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN loi elsewhere, but assuredly the supreme episode of the war found him at the crisis of his fortunes. The problem of Wallenstein's guilt or innocence is as little likely to be ever certainly solved as that of the identity of the man of the iron mask. There was no room then for two emperors. The situation was becoming impossible. Wallenstein, emphatically the soldier of fortune, had served himself in serving his master. He had raised himself a host of jealous enemies, headed and inspired by Maximilian of Bavaria. The immense rewards, at first bestowed by gratitude, had latterly been extorted by force or fear. He had dictated his own conditions when he had come to the imperial rescue the second time, and his overweening pretensions had never been forgiven. His sagacity warned him that he was doomed, and there is little doubt he had sought to make himself friends in the hostile camps, and had been intriguing with Swedes and Saxons, who naturally mistrusted his advances. There is written evidence of flattering offers from France ; Richelieu corresponded with him, and Louis had written a letter under his own hand. Soldier of fortune in excelsis, when he had stripped the Dukes of Friedland of their hereditary dukedom he would scarcely have hesitated to rob his ungrateful master of Bohemia. He had become a danger and a terror, yet it was not possible to arrest him at the head of an army he had raised, who looked to him for pay in arrear, and who had rallied to him in solemn assurance of pillage. As he could not be sent to the block, and as no cage would hold such a bird, the only alternative was to remove him by violence. As times were, policy might have justified the deed, and the Church would have readily absolved the Kaiser ; but I02 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Leslie, whom he had loved, enriched, and advanced, was not the man to deal with his confiding benefactor. Accord- ing to Schiller, " it was to Leslie Wallenstein confided his griefs and embarrassments when he had decided to cross the Rubicon and fly from the imperial dominions." Had Leslie acted simply as a soldier, obeying the orders of the Emperor as supreme in command, he might have saved something of his reputation by waiting patiently for his reward. In that case he would probably have gone without it, and like Wallenstein he was the soldier-adventurer who snatched at every chance. At Egra, Gordon, his colonel, seems to have hesitated when Butler disclosed the murder- ous and treacherous plan. Leslie had made up his mind at once, and if he was not one of the actual assassins of his great patron, he scoured the streets with a covering party while the crime was being perpetrated. Then, even antici- pating his Irish accomplice, Butler, he rode post-haste to the Burg in Vienna, carrying the welcome news. For never was messenger more welcome. The delighted Kaiser showered immediate rewards upon him, and took sundry public occasions of showing him honour. He was made Imperial Chamberlain, Colonel of two regiments, Captain of the Bodyguard ; he was created at once a Count of the Empire, and enriched with estates in Bohemia valued at 200,000 or 300,000 florins. In lavishly rewarding that timely piece of service, the Emperor had found a faithful and valuable servant. The honours so suddenly heaped upon Leslie were only the foretaste of others to follow, and these he well deserved. Thenceforth he is one of the most conspicuous figures of the time, and so far as we know, his honour thenceforth COUNT LESLIE OF BALQUHAIN 103 was unblemished. Courage he had in excess, but he was no ordinary soldier. He had brains and courteous manners as well as reckless daring, and distinguished himself in diplomacy and civil affairs as in sieges, storms, and cam- paigns. At the bloody battle of Nordlingen, having escaped death by a miracle, he was recompensed by the Cardinal Infant of Spain with a generous largesse in money, as was the fashion of the time, and with the lucrative ownership of two other regiments. He raised his reputation and increased his riches in the campaigns in Alsace, Saxony, and Bohemia. Then that versatile genius turned diplomat, financier, and money agent. In 1645 he was successfully negotiating loans for the needy Emperor in Rome and Naples, and then returning to military avocations he rose through a plurality of posts, as Master of the Ordnance, Vice- President of the War-Council, and Warden of the Sclavonic Marches. He had the rank of Field-Marshal besides, and was a leading member of the Privy Council. In 1665 the fortunate Scottish cadet was a Knight of the princely Order of the Golden Fleece, and charged with an embassy to the Court of Constantinople for the ratification of the treaty of peace. The embassy was sent out with all the state and splendour fitted to impress the Oriental imagination. The Field-Marshal was attended by a magnificent suite, and accompanied by Howard, his intimate friend, heir presumptive to the premier dukedom of England. He was escorted down the Danube to the Turkish fortress of Belgrade by a flotilla of superbly decorated barges, and thence the rugged passes of the Balkans were crossed to Stamboul in an endless pro- cession of torches. The journey, with all its adventitious I04 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE luxury, must have reminded him of some of his roughest campaigning, but legions of peasants and serfs were sum- moned to cut or clear a road over the hills and through the forests. The reception on the Bosphorus of the cadet of Balquhain was befitting the scale of the embassage and the value of the presents he brought. The Sultan paid the highest honours to the imperial envoy, nor when he left was he sent away empty-handed. Unfortunately he brought back with him as well the seeds of a mortal illness, and next year (1666) he closed his career in the Kaiserstadt, Bred a Calvinist, he had seen the error of his ways, for he recanted after the assassination of WaUenstein, and he died a good Cathohc on the 3rd November 1667. He was interred with great pomp and all military honours in the Abbey of the Scottish Benedictines. PRINCE EUGENE Eugene of Savoy may be fairly styled a soldier of fortune, for though ever constant to the colours under which he entered on his military career, like an illustrious con- temporary, the Duke of Berwick, he abandoned the land of his birth to win fame and fortune by the sword. The story of his career would fill volumes ; there is matter in it, not only for the student of the art of war, but for the romancist delighting in sensation and adventure. Yet the most meagre sketch shows a typical leader of the times, throwing side-lights on the changes in camps, courts, and campaigning since the close of the Thirty Years' War had given temporary peace to Europe. Eugene was a link between the past and the present ; he was the preux chevalier, the Edler Ritter, of the imperial camp songs which found responsive echo from the hostile lines. A mediaeval knight and modern general born with the genius of war, in qualities he was the complement of his colleague Marl- borough in the decisive battles of his time. A scion of the house of Savoy, his grandfather had been more a soldier of fortune than himself. Thomas Francis, youngest son of the then Duke of Savoy, " of restless temperament and great political and mihtary ability," constant to no cause and only consulting his own interests, los io6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE had finally settled in France. The founder of the branch of Carignan had married a Bourbon, heiress of the last Count of Soissons. His younger son, Eugene Maurice, took his uncle's title of Count of Soissons, was naturalised as a Frenchman, and had the honours of a prince of the blood. The easy-going Prince, a courtier and complaisant husband, married one of the most turbulent and ambitious women of a time when feminine Court intrigue was swaying Court policy. The love affairs of the beautiful Olympia Mancini, the niece of Cardinal Mazarin, and of the young and hot- blooded King, are matters of history and of romance as well ; Dumas, in the prelude to the " Vicomte de Bragelonne," has described the love-making on the banks of the Loire. Olympia missed the crown she had set her heart upon, and never altogether forgave her royal adorer, though, with alternate interludes of war and peace, there were intervals in which she ruled his Court and led the fashions. There was a final fall from favour on the rise of Louise de la Valliere, and on that occasion, by forging a letter from Spain, the Countess gave offence which was never forgiven. She and her husband were banished to their estates, a command equivalent to social extinction. The death of her husband drove her to despair. Not that she greatly regretted him, but she lost the revenues of his government of Champagne, found her means inconveniently straitened, and saw the prospects of her children gravely compromised. She gave herself license to return to Paris, but although it was tolerated her presence was ignored. In desperation she took to consulting soothsayers and the wizards who peeped and who muttered. She went farther, and un- doubtedly entered into relations with those notorious women, PRINCE EUGENE 107 Voisin and the traders in crime. She may have sought only philtres and charms, but it was said she became an expert in deadly poisons, and among other crimes laid to her charge was the subsequent poisoning of the French Queen of Spain at the instigation of the Imperial Am- bassador. The question of her guilt or innocence is a mystery that can never be cleared up ; most reliable writers are inclined to acquit her ; the author of the preface to Eugene's own brief memoirs condemns her without hesi- tation or reserve. It is certain she fled from France to Flanders to escape a process instituted against her and a lettre de cachet for the Bastille. So there are different versions of the story of her retreat to Brussels and her residence there. One avers that she kept open salon for all that was most select in the society of Flanders ; another that, reduced to greater straits than ever, she was grateful to her kinsman, the Due de Mazarin, for an occasional dole of a few score of louis. Be the truth as it may, she bequeathed to her sons a tarnished name and the royal dislike to the family. They were left behind in Paris on her precipitate flight, and Louis seems to have regarded them with mingled feelings. As acknowledged princes of the blood, they had a claim to a certain recognition, nevertheless he was inchned to cross and spite them. Eugene, the third and the youngest, was imperiously destined to the Church. The young abbe, as he was somewhat sarcastically styled by the great King, was gratified in boyhood with clerical endowments, and might have counted on a plurahty of lucrative benefices \vith archiepiscopal mitres and a cardinal's hat in reversion. But if ever a boy had a vocation, it was the young Eugene, io8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and his tastes did not incline to the soutane or the breviary. He was born a soldier and a soldier he meant to be. As his predilections were all for the profession of arms, he seems to have taken his own education in charge. He was always studying military treatises or immersed in the biographies of the heroes he admired. To mathematics and engineering science he paid special attention, and it was an age when the engineer was in the ascendant and the fortress the pivot of the campaign. Nor did he neglect to exercise his slight but active person in all sorts of athletic exercises. The time came when he passed out of the tutelage of tutors and governors. He took his courage in his hands and sought an audience of the royal autocrat. Thanking him for all the favours bestowed or intended, he begged instead for a place in the army befitting his rank. The request was peremptorily refused in scornful terms ; and Louis, generally so sagacious in selecting capable officers, seldom made a more fatal mistake. Eugene in the Memoirs, which only begin with his arrival at Vienna, says nothing of the matter. In reality his fiery tempera- ment boiled over ; he remembered the griefs of his mother and the slights inflicted on his family, and his decision was made on the spur of the moment. The man who might have done more than any other to forward the French monarch's far-reaching schemes became one of the most unflinching enemies of France and the most for- midable champions of European liberties. Eugene was then a youth of nineteen. He was some- what below the middle height, with the olive Italian com- plexion, refined features, a somewhat retrousse nose, and a short upper lip which, displaying his teeth, was apt to give PRINCE EUGENE 109 an unfavourable impression at first sight ; but all was re- deemed by the bright flashing eyes which softened easily into genial smiles or blazed when lit up with the fire of battle. Once decided to turn his back on the land of his birth, he had Httle hesitation as to where to seek a career. The ambition of Louis had troubled the peace of nations, and Europe was ranging itself in hostile camps, headed respectively by the Bourbons and the Hapsburgs. An elder brother of Eugene had gone already to place his sword at the disposal of the Emperor : he had been well received, and immediately presented with a regiment. Eugene resolved to follow the example. The Chevalier de Soissons had had a gracious reception, but the welcome of Eugene was even more cordial, for Leopold from the first took a strong Hking to him. Political considerations, be- sides, were strong recommendations. Eugene was a near kinsman of the house of Savoy, and in the wars between France and the Empire the Dukes played a conspicuous part, and not infrequently swayed the balance. Seated upon the crests of the Western Alps, they locked the passes which led from France into Italy. In subsequent campaigns that cousinship of Eugene was eminently serviceable to the Empire, though it landed himself in embarrassments which went far to compromise his operations. The reign- ing Duke was a gallant soldier who never shirked fighting, and who might have been as honourable as he was brave in less difficult circumstances. As it was, under pressure from Versailles he passed from double-dealing to actual treachery, and had it not been for very shame, would have taken a more active part against the kinsman he betrayed when he had come to his help in the Duke's extremity. no SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Eugene's noble birth helped him at least as much as his genius and his courage. Times had changed since the Thirty Years' War, when a simple Bohemian gentleman overshadowed the Emperor, defying the open enmity of the Elector of Bavaria, and when a soldier of fortune from the Low Countries became the leader of the Catholic League. Towards the close of the seventeenth century blood and birth counted for everything. The contingents who swelled the motley armies of the allies were commanded by their own princes, who stood punctiliously upon precedence and the prerogatives of their rank. For the most part they had courage enough, but with the exception of the Bavarian Elector, and perhaps Louis of Baden, seldom boasted any higher qualities. When Marlborough marched from the Moselle to the Danube his fame as a general was already unrivalled among his colleagues, and he represented besides the combined strength of England and Holland. Yet had it not been for his tact, suavity, and diplomacy, Blenheim might never have been fought, and that decisive campaign might have ended in disaster. Louis of Baden, who was satirised in a Flemish caricature as nodding over money bags — he was suspected of venality, and charged more certainly with supineness — claimed the command in virtue of his rank. Marlborough kept his temper, temporised suavely, and conceded the command upon alternate days. Yet, as it was, the concession made as a sacrifice to punctilio precipitated the sanguinary storm of the Schellen- burg, and the key of the hostile position was won at the critical moment, but at a useless cost. Eugene was to have a more varied experience of war than any general of his time. Napoleon scarcely made PRINCE EUGENE in himself more familiar by personal survey with the strategical topography of Europe. For the Empire extended from the North Sea to the Lower Danube, from the Hanse towns and the Elbe to the Mincio and the Milanese, and the imperial pretensions embraced Spain and the Sicilies. As subaltern, chief of division, and general in command, Eugene had been everywhere where fighting was going forward, and had seen two very different sorts of service. In the West the wars were waged by rules — by rules which he seldom dared to violate. They were the well-considered moves on a chessboard, where mistake might be fatal, and where he was pitted against the veteran generals of France. In the East he was confronting the Turkish hordes, where the staunch and disciplined battalions of the Janissaries were supported by a rabble of wild horsemen, and there, as at Zenta and at Belgrade, he won decisive battles by venturing on liberties professionally unwarrantable as matters of cool calculation. In the West it was a war of sieges, with incessant marching and countermarching. The French and Flemish frontiers bristled with fortresses ; the banks of the Rhine were scarcely less strongly defended. Louis, on the one side, had the invaluable assistance of Vauban and Maigrigna, and they were rivalled by Cohom, whose talent was at the service of the allies. Such sieges as those of Namur, Tournai, and Mons were protracted by every sort of work and counterwork that engineering skill could devise ; military science even then was replete with deadly surprises. Places of comparative insignificance, whose names are now almost forgotten, became points of vital importance in the plans of operations. When the town had been taken, after slow though sanguinary 112 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE approaches, the garrison would withdraw to the citadel, where the whole bloody business was to recommence, on conditions often arranged — as at Namur — to spare the townspeople and their dwellings. So, while operations in- definitely dragged, there was ample time to arrange for possible relief. Covering armies slowly manoeuvred on a system of outlying defence. The spade and the pickaxe were as much in request as the cannon and the musket. Wherever an army bivouacked for more than a day, if an enemy were anywhere in the neighbourhood, trenches were dug and parapets thrown up. Longer delay meant the construction of formidable field works. What shows the power or the weakness of the field artillery of the day is the fact that " cannon-proof " defences were often con- structed in a single night. When the summer campaign was indefinitely prolonged, and armies lay in leaguer before fortresses deemed im- pregnable, threatened by others entrenched behind lines of circumvallation, the commissariat question was of urgent importance. The system was that war must support itself, and the countries were laid under ruthless contribution. Yet necessity suggested some sort of method. Frequently, before the winter camps were broken up, contracts were made with the local authorities, and the supplies, when practicable, were stored in magazines. When the magazines gave out, the troops had recourse to pillage, and often when the crops had failed they were reduced to dire extremities. Epidemics followed on famine or scarcity ; then the starving soldiers would break out in open mutiny, and never could it be said with greater truth that an army marches on its belly. The fate of the unfortunate prisoners PRINCE EUGENE 113 of war was deplorable. In such circumstances the per- sonality of the leader counted for much. Eugene, like Marshal Villars, won the hearts of his soldiers not only by the dauntless courage which may have been almost a fault, but by his kindly attention to their comforts. What pre- science could do to provide for their wants, that he did, though at the best it was no easy matter when the portable biscuit had not been invented, and when the army had to live by bread and the bakeries. If he was beloved and trusted by the rank and file, he won the confidence of the intelligent officers who were to carry out his instructions. He had the eye and the instinct of the born strategist, could discern at a glance the capa- bilities of a battle ground, and he knew as much of fortifica- tion as the most capable of his engineers. He proved his science over and over again at the siege of Belgrade, when, at once beleaguering and beleaguered, his position had become well-nigh desperate. In such extremities he never trusted to others, but did the scouting and surveying for himself, and in such exceptional circumstances his careless- ness of life may have been justified, though he often escaped death by a miracle. Louis took the field in state, with aU the pomp and ceremonial of Versailles ; but though he may be credited with the courage of his race, he seldom risked his sacred person. It may have been a venial weak- ness, but Eugene loved the pomp of war as much as the great King, and there was no lack of eager eleves to follow when he rode out on one of his reconnoitring expeditions, taking shallow trenches in the stride of his horse and running the gauntlet of the hostile batteries. At the siege of Belgrade, when he put his foot in the stirrup, crown H 114 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE priiices and nobles and high-born volunteers were emulously crowding in his train, though wounds were common enough and saddles were often emptied. In the hottest fire he had a happy turn for paying graceful or inspiriting compli- ments ; nor did he ever miss the opportunity of praising the gallantry of a subaltern in presence of the chief on whom he depended for promotion. He was blessed besides with the memory for faces which served Napoleon so well, when the friendly recognition of an old comrade gratified the veteran more than the cross of the Legion, with pension to correspond. Eugene was welcomed to Vienna in an anxious hour. The Magyars had risen in open revolt, and had summoned the Moslems to their aid. For the last time the Kaiser- stadt, the eastern bulwark of Christendom, was threatened by the Ottoman advance. Kara Mustapha, the famous Vizier, at the head of 200,000 men, was approaching the gates. Eugene, with his commission as colonel of cavalry, left the Court to join the army of the Duke of Lorraine. Lorraine, finding his communications threat- ened by the Turks, had broken up his camp on the Raab, sending his infantry back to the capital, while with his cavalry he withdrew to a position on the left bank of the river opposite Presburg. From thence he was com- pelled to a farther retreat. With the rearguard was the regiment of the Savoy dragoons, commanded by Eugene's brother. Within a few miles of Vienna, Eugene was for the first time under fire, when the Turkish vanguard made a desperate onset before the prey it was pursuing escaped. The attack was repelled after some fierce fighting, but Eugene had to lament the loss of his brother. The Turks, PRINCE EUGENE 115 closing in upon the city, forced Lorraine from position to position. Avoiding a battle, Lorraine manoeuvred on their flanks or rear, challenging them to sundry sharp engage- ments. At length, in the early autumn, he could draw breath, when he formed a junction with the forces of Sobieski. Moreover, supports were coming up from Ger- many. When the combined forces mustered over 80,000 strong, a rocket from the Kahlenberg gave the signal for the advance, and the excitement in Vienna was raised to fever pitch. The battle, though sharp, was short, and it was decisive. The rout of the Turks was complete, for panic succeeded to surprise, though they rallied and fell back very reluctantly from a campaign which they had expected to be crowned with victory. In all the fighting Eugene had been to the front under the command of his cousin, Louis of Baden, who at that time showed none of the lack of energy with which he was subsequently charged. But after the great battle on the Marchfeld, there was a brief rest in Vienna, when the young soldier made the acquaintance of the most renowned leaders of the imperial armies. After a few days of repose the army was following the enemy, and Eugene, attached to the staff of his cousin, distinguished himself in various cavalry actions, in which, as he says in his Memoirs, " the Turks were cut to pieces without mercy." The Emperor received him graciously, and, what was more to the purpose, promised him the first vacant command. While the army was in winter quarters the promise was redeemed, and he was gazetted to the colonelcy of a regiment of Tyrolese dragoons. Next summer, when the tables had been turned on the ii6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Turks, Lorraine was laying siege to Buda. In a battle in which a relieving army was routed, Eugene covered him- self with fresh laurels, and was specially named by the Duke in despatches. That summer's campaign brought him both credit and promotion. He was given the rank of major- general, for princes could rise rapidly in those days, and his cousin Louis wrote to the Kaiser : " This youth will in time take his place with those who are regarded as great leaders of armies." It was not only his cousin who held him in high estimation ; next summer, after another brilliant victory before Buda against an army led by the new Grand Vizier, Eugene was selected by the fighting Elector of Bavaria to carry the news to Vienna. Having delivered his message, he did not loiter. A grand assault on the fortress was imminent, and he would not miss the chance of glory. So far he had his wish that he arrived in time to take his post in the storm. It is needless to follow him through the complicated operations in detail. But at the second battle of Mohacs, when the defeat of the Magyars on the former memorable field was terribly avenged on the Turks, Eugene, at the head of a cavalry brigade, charged the trenches and cleared the ditches behind when the flower of the Turkish infantry were making a last desperate stand, pursuing the chase, sabring and slaughter- ing, till his troopers had to draw rein from sheer exhaustion. First in the trenches, he says himself : " I took a crescent and planted the imperial eagle." Again he was sent to carry the news to the Emperor. Nor did he lose anything by the departure of his two special patrons, the Elector of Bavaria and Louis of Baden, whose susceptibilities had been ruffled, and who had resigned in disgust. The loss PRINCE EUGENE 117 brought him into personal relations with the Duke of Lorraine, who was not slow to appreciate his merits. Already, indeed, his fame had been spreading far and wide, so much so that his time-serving kinsman, Victor Amadeus of Savoy, deemed it worth while to pay him a substantial comphment. With consent of the Pope the dashing young cavalry leader was rewarded with the revenues of two of the best Piedmontese benefices. Simultaneously Leopold advanced the mitred major-general to the rank of heu- tenant-general. " A colonel at twenty," so he writes com- placently, " I was a lieutenant-general at twenty-five." The event of 1688 was the storm of Belgrade. Max Emmanuel of Bavaria was in command ; he had been conciliated by the generous conduct of Lorraine, who had retired rather than alienate so important an ally. The siege was pressed with ceaseless fire from the batteries, and with breaches pronounced barely practicable a morning was fixed for the assault. To Eugene's disappointment and surprise the command of the five attacking columns was given to other generals. He remonstrated with his friend, the Commander-in-Chief. " You shall remain with me in reserve," said the Elector, " and in this I am neither taking away nor giving you a bad commission. God knows what may happen " {sic). As Eugene goes on, " He had guessed the result." The stormers under Stahrenberg were brought up unexpectedly by a deep ditch, strongly stockaded. " All the assailants were repulsed. Sword in hand, this brave prince and myself rallied and cheered them. I mounted the breach ; a Janissary cleft my helmet with a stroke of his sabre ; I passed my sword through his body, and the Elector had an arrow in his cheek. Nothing could ii8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE be more brilliant or more sanguinary. How strangely one may find amusement amidst scenes of the greatest horror. I shall never forget the grimaces of the Jews, who had to throw into the Danube the bodies of 12,000 men, to save the trouble and expense of burying them." Sorely against his will, Eugene had to quit the camp charged with a diplomatic mission. The victories of the Emperor, which had recovered Hungary and Transylvania, had alarmed Louis, who, easily fi.nding a pretext, sent his armies into the field to assail the western frontier of Germany. It was then the Palatinate was overrun and ruthlessly ravaged. Assailed on both sides, for he declined to come to honourable terms with the Turks, Leopold was casting about for new alliances. That of the Duke of Savoy became of great importance, and Eugene, under pretence of renewing relations with his family, was to travel to Turin. He was under no delusion as to the char- acter of his cousin, although he made allowances. " Those petty princes," as he remarks elsewhere, " such as the Dukes of Lorraine and Bavaria, are prevented by their geography from being men of honour." He knew Victor Amadeus "to be sordid, ambitious, deceitful, implacable, &c.," detesting and dreading Louis, indifferent to Leopold, and always ready to betray both. The way to influence him was through his mistresses or his ministers, and the envoy could count upon support from neither. Eugene was half Italian, and though, soldier-like, he went straight to the point, it was with some suggestion of Machiavellian subtlety. He bluntly told the Duke he would always be the slave of his mortal enemy, unless he cast in his lot with the Emperor, who promised magnificent rewards, counsehing PRINCE EUGENE 119 him at the same time to dissemble till he was ready to throw off the mask. Later the envoy was to have many trying experiences of the duplicity he advised. He flattered the Duke by giving him the title of Royal Highness. " Sign the treaty with the Emperor at Venice," he added ; " there in the festivities of the Carnival you will meet the Bavarian Elector, who is fond of amusement like yourself." Eugene did not foresee that his friend the Elector was to wreck his fortunes by a change of pohcy to which he was to be more constant than the vacillating Duke. Eugene on his return to Vienna was warmly congratu- lated by the Emperor on his success. Characteristically, he only asked, by way of reward, permission to pay a flying visit to the Rhine frontier, where he had the luck to arrive in time to see the storm of Mayence and carry away a musket ball in the shoulder by way of souvenir. Payment of the subsidies stipulated with the allies con- verted for the time the Duke of Savoy into " the staun chest Austrian in the world." Eugene was to be sent to his assistance and to confirm him in his new resolution, and was promised a force of 7000 men. With his experience of imperial delays, he would not wait, and left them to follow. " Eager to engage the French, whom I had never yet seen opposed to me," he hurried to the Piedmontese camp. The Duke was all fire ; to do him justice he always de- lighted in battle. " I am going to give Catinat battle," he said, " and you are just in time." With all his headlong courage in action, Eugene was never rash. " Be cautious," he said ; " Catinat is an able general, and commands the flower of the French army." The caution was justified. Catinat took the initiative, led his men across morasses I20 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE deemed impassable, and Eugene, who had stubbornly held his own on the left, found his flank turned, and, withdrawing his division, was reduced to covering the retreat. Catinat carried all before him ; the Duke had lost everything but his capital, and Eugene went back to Vienna with a most disheartening report of the campaign. For himself, he had had some satisfaction for the discomfiture in the battle. He laid an ambuscade for a large French detachment returning loaded with plunder from the pillage of a town. Thoughtless of danger, they gave notice of their approach by singing in light-hearted French fashion " at the stretch of their throats." They changed their note when they were being cut to pieces almost to a man, though the Prince " scolded the soldiers severely for treating the prisoners d la Turque. They had forgotten that it is usual to give quarter to Christians," and indeed, in the wars of the time, the rule was as often honoured in the breach as in the observance. No general did more generous justice to his opponents. When baffled or checked in the game of war he had only admiration for the tactics which foiled him. He owns that he sometimes let his ardour get the better of his judgment, whereas Catinat, always cool, performed prodigies both as a general and soldier. But in the campaigns in Piedmont he was constantly embarrassed by the treachery of the double-faced and plausible Duke. Victor Amadeus, with his fortresses in the hands of the French, unscrupulously took the money of the allies while selling their secrets to Catinat. Once Eugene, arriving unexpectedly, found him closeted with a French envoy. The lame explanation was that he was negotiating with Catinat, but only with a view PRINCE EUGENE 121 to deceive him the better. When Eugene undertook any enterprise, he had to mislead the Duke as well as the enemy. " It was impossible to determine whether this unaccount- able Duke wished or did not wish to gain the battles which he fought." Summer after summer, he saw the military fame which was as the breath of his nostrils imperilled by conditions he could not control. Hot as he was in action, he showed the sweetness of a temper which strove to make the best of things and of a patience which was training itself to wait and hope. At last, in i6g6, matters came to a head. The Duke confessed that, weary of hostilities, he had concluded a treaty with Louis. He marched his troops to the camp of Catinat, and with the French general be- leaguered the Imperialists in Valence. Disgusted with the war and outmanoeuvred in negotiation, Eugene for the time turned his back on Piedmont. The Emperor understood the situation and was cordial as before. The Prince, with unfettered hands, was to have command of the army in Hungary, and he could have desired nothing better. At the same time there was an incident which could have been scarcely less gratifying. Louis, who had contemptuously refused " the little Abbe " a commission, taking it for granted that he had been disgusted by the treachery of the Duke and the success of the French intrigues, made him the most flattering overtures if he would pass into his service. Eugene remarks that his reception of the pro- posals was certainly never textually reported at Versailles. Heart and soul he was devoted to his profession. During these latter years there had been various interludes in which he had taken some sort of holiday, though business of the Empire was always the object. More than once he 122 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE had visited Venice, where dissipation and luxury reigned supreme, in company of the Elector of Bavaria and other princes, who threw themselves into all the follies of the place. Eugene makes no profession of morality ; he merely remarks that he might have had his amours like the others, had he been so inclined — that there were many complaisant husbands who would have welcomed him in the role of Cicisbeo to their wives, but as it happened he had other matters to attend to. The Emperor would have done better to make terms with the Turks when they were in conciliatory mood after the capture of Belgrade. The strength and finances of the Empire were overtaxed by the triple war on the Rhine, in Italy, and on the Danube. The pride of the Sultan had been piqued by his humiliating reverses, and above all by the loss of Belgrade. Within two years of the loss, Bel- grade had been recovered, and in 1696 the steady Turkish approaches had again become very threatening. Another siege of Vienna seemed not impossible. Various leaders had lost credit in successive campaigns, and after some hesitation, for he had powerful enemies at Court, Eugene had at last been selected, as the most fortunate of the imperial generals. It was not till midsummer of 1697 that he received his commission, and he set out imme- diately for the army. The army had been starved, and if his predecessors in command had been unlucky, it was not altogether their own fault. The troops were destitute of everything — their pay was long in arrear, their clothing was in rags, and the arsenals were empty. As with Napoleon's marshals in the Peninsula, jealousies were rife and the divisional commanders were at open enmity. Happily, as PRINCE EUGENE 123 Eugene remarks, the Turks were never in a hurry, and he had already arrived at headquarters before the grand army of the Ottomans under the Grand Signior himself had reached Sofia. But if the march was as slow as the methods of mobilisation, the motley host was none the less formidable. From the Asiatic and European provinces Kara Mustapha had mustered the most numerous army the Turks had put in the field since their sanguinary defeat at Mohacs. Eugene improved the delay to the utmost. He sent pressing demands to Vienna for supplies, which in the emergency were more or less satisfactorily responded to, and imperative orders to the divisional generals to concentrate. He had had his earlier experiences of Oriental cam- paigning, although without the responsibilities of supreme command. He had to adapt himself to unfamiliar condi- tions and combinations, for it was a very different warfare from that he had directed in Italy and witnessed on the Rhine. We get a vivid idea of it in the picturesque pages of M. de la Colonic, " the old campaigner," whose chronicles were recently published. It is true that M. de la Colonic speaks of twenty years later, when he served under the Prince at the last memorable siege of Belgrade, but the Oriental methods had changed but little since Charles Martel routed the Saracens on the plain of Tours. They understood nothing of scientific war as it had been studied and developed in Western Europe. Leisurely as their movements might be, when they faced the foe they were always keen to force the fighting ; if they once broke the enemy's ranks defeat became irretrievable disaster ; with their flying squadrons of light horse they followed up 124 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the advantage so swiftly that the fugitives had not a moment to rally. Invariably the Christians were greatly outnumbered, but, fortunately for them, there was little discipline in the raw levies raised on the feudal system. Each was headed by its own Pacha or Seraskier, who, with- out regard to the numbers of his contingent, occupied the central pavilion in an encampment of his own. He was supposed to relieve the Porte of all details as to clothing, pay, or transport, which were left very much to haphazard. The most formidable arm of the irregulars was the horse, admirably adapted for scouting or foraging, and terrible in the resistless onset when ranks were broken. They prided themselves on the keenness of their sabres, which they used with a dexterity which was almost sleight of hand, and so the German troopers who came from the Netherlands lined the hats they had worn there with solid steel plating. As for the Turkish and Tartar horse, they guarded the head, as native cavalry in India do at the present day, with the cumbrous folds of a turban, impervious alike to sunstroke and the sabre. That was likewise the head- wear of the Janissaries, who, as Kinglake described the Zouaves in the Crimea, were the steel point of the Turkish lance. The Janissaries had the discipline the others lacked, with the indomitable pride of a military caste who pre- ferred death to dishonour. Bred from boyhood to warfare in their barracks, with the nerves and strong limbs of Rayahs from the Christian provinces, fatalists as far as they had any faith, they were unequalled in the stubborn defence of entrenchments, and they rushed to the escalade of fortifications as to a fete. It was with the Janissaries Eugene had chiefly to reckon, and they were never spared PRINCE EUGENE 125 when protecting the retreat in the days of disaster they were now to experience. When he reached the camp the general behef was that the Grand Signior intended to lay siege to Peterwardein on the Danube. But with the advancing army screened behind clouds of light horse, it was difficult to obtain reliable intelligence. Suddenly, and to his surprise, Eugene learned that, in place of passing the Save, the Turks had crossed the Danube lower down, and by a crafty move had placed themselves in a position either to intercept Count Rabutin, who was on his march to headquarters with his detachment, or to strike at Peterwardein. Eugene had been deceived ; he had marched up the Theiss to meet Rabutin, but he hurried back in time to save Peterwardein — " too late," as he remarks, to assist General Nehem, who had been holding the covering fortress of Titel. The episode is worth mentioning for his comments on it. " I arrived too late, but nevertheless praised him, for he could not have held out any longer. God be praised, I never complained of any one, neither did I ever throw upon another the blame of a fault or a misfortune." Nor does he say so much without reason. In Piedmont, among the imperial generals, no one had been more unfriendly than the Prince of Commercy, and he had more than once been embarrassed by his jealousy or ill-will. Yet in the Memoirs he never misses an opportunity of speaking of Commercy in the highest terms. There is nothing to note in the manoeuvres which pre- ceded the decisive battle of Zenta. Eugene was always embarrassed by the swarms of cavalry he had difficulty in keeping at bay. At length he had the luck to catch a 126 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Pacha who had been sent on a reconnoitring expedition. The Pacha was obstinately silent, till he found his tongue when " surrounded by four hussars with drawn sabres, ready to cut him in pieces." Then Eugene learned that the bulk of the Ottoman army was at Zenta on the Theiss, entrenched behind formidable field-works. " I was march- ing to attack them when a cursed courier brought me an order from the Emperor not to give battle under any cir- cumstances." He had advanced, as he says, too far to draw back. As Nelson put the telescope to his blind eye at Copenhagen, Eugene thrust the imperial letter into his pocket and rode on to reconnoitre at the head of six regi- ments of dragoons. He saw the Turks were preparing to pass the river, and galloped back to his army in high spirits. His look of elation, he says, was accepted by them as a good omen. He began the battle by heading a charge which sent 2000 Spahis back to their entrenchments. Then he directed a slow and complicated movement which was to envelop the whole Turkish army in a semi-circular on- slaught. It was a decision taken on the spur of the moment, one of the impromptu flashes of genius which mark the bom general. It was one of those liberties in violation of the accepted rules of war on which he ventured when he counted with the character of the leader opposed to him. " I should not have dared to do so before Catinat," he remarks half apologetically. The encircling movement slowly developed. Meantime Eugene in the centre, having driven in the Spahis, advanced with some light field-pieces in the line to reply to the tremendous fire from the Turkish batteries. The Turkish camp was a half crescent, covering the bridge which spanned the river. Below the bridge the PRINCE EUGENE 127 banks were steep ; above the Theiss ran shallow, and in the middle was a sandbank, which was to be used after- wards with fatal effect for the turning movement that took the enemy's entrenchments in the rear. A long train of loaded waggons, serving Boer-fashion as a second line of defence, were in waiting to pass the bridge. The battle was going with the Imperialists but the day was drawing on, and Eugene was alarmed lest the darkness should mask the Turkish retreat. It was six in the evening ere the entrenchments were breached, but then they were being broken and assaulted at many points. The Turks crowded in panic to the bridge and choked it ; they had to choose between drowning and falling by the sword. " On every side was heard the cry of Aman ! Aman ! which signifies quarter," but little quarter was given. " At ten of the night the slaughter stiU continued ; I could not take more than 4000 prisoners, but 20,000 were left dead on the field and 10,000 were drowned. I did not lose 1000 men." The Janissaries fought it out to the last with the indomi- table spirit of the corps. Assailed on every side, they were forced back at last, and then they found their retreat to the bridge intercepted by a body of pikemen under Guido Stahrenberg. They were virtually annihilated. The few who escaped saved themselves by swimming, but most of those who threw themselves into the water were swept away on the current, for the river was in flood. An immense booty fell into the hands of the victors. The Grand Signior and all his feudal aristocracy had taken the field in state. The pavilions with their rich contents had been abandoned. Among the spoils was the great seal of the Empire, to which special solemnity attached, and 128 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE which should have been worn round the neck of the Grand Vizier. All the weapons of the motley host had been abandoned, with the great train of artillery and innu- merable horses and animals of transport. There were the treasure chests as well, but though the contents sound formidable in piastres, they barely amounted to £25,000 of our money. The loss of prestige, with the demoralisation that fol- lowed, was even more serious. Thenceforth between Osmanli and Christian the situation was to be reversed. The Imperialists pushed their successes and encroachments, and the Turks in their turn had to stand on the defensive, parrying the strokes that were dealt them in rapid succes- sion. Immediately after the victory it was fuU late in the year to carry the campaign into the malarious flats of the Danube. Eugene, impetuous as he was, never ventured his foot farther than he could safely draw it back. He contented himself with raiding Bosnia, taking the castles and burning the towns, and then he scattered his men in their winter quarters. There was no safe reckoning with the Court of Vienna, where whisperers and backbiters had the Emperor's ear. Eugene repaired thither in the highest spirits, confidently expecting a welcome " a hundred times warmer " than he had ever received before. On the contrary, " Leopold gave me the coldest of audiences ; more dry than ever, he listened without saying a word." The victor of Zenta was actually asked to surrender his sword, " My rage was silent ; I was put under arrest in my hotel." He heard he was to be court-martiaUed for disobedience of orders, with probable condemnation to death. The popular indignation PRINCE EUGENE 129 at the injustice was intense ; Eugene says that with tears in his eyes he had to use his influence to prevent an emeute. But the popular demonstration was effective, and Eugene had a speedy revenge. The pride of the Hapsburg was humbled ; the Emperor not only returned him his sword, but prayed him to continue to command in Hungary. He consented, on the understanding that thenceforth he should have absolute carte blanche — a stipulation accepted, though subsequently broken. "The poor Emperor dared not concede so much publicly," but the General compromised for a private note to that effect, signed by the Emperor's own hand. The renewed appointment led to little, for again the war was starved, and next year the Imperiahsts were comparatively inactive. But the Prince's services had had more substantial recognition ; he had the grant of large domains in Hungary, and was becoming a wealthy man. He built or bought a palace in the Kaiserstadt, laid out gardens, began a noble library, and collected paintings and drawings for his galleries. He gave sumptuous enter- tainments, and had his private band, " to relieve me during dinner from the necessity of hstening to tiresome persons." Not unwillingly he was disturbed in his Viennese Capua by the War of the Spanish Succession, for never was he so happy or so much at home as in the tented field. In 1701 he was in Italy, facing his old opponent Catinat " with 30,000 good veteran troops." " I was now in the full career of war, after ten days of incredible labour among mountains and precipices with 2000 pioneers." He had crossed the mountains from Roveredo to Vicenza by one of the most daring marches on record, and Catinat for once was taken completely by surprise. The Prince had sealed I30 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the Tyroiese passes so that no news of his movement should escape, and had lavished money on spies who had brought him sure intelligence. Catinat fell back, leaving him all the country between the Mincio and the Adige. He passed the Mincio. Catinat, though stiU with the army, had been superseded by the incapable Villeroi, but the double-faced Duke of Savoy was in nominal command. There is a comic element in that campaign, and Eugene, who knew his cousin well by this time, had begun to manipulate him. Catinat, before the desperate battle near Chiari, had ad- vised retreat ; the Duke, " who wished Villeroi to get a sound drubbing," was all for the battle. " Never," says Eugene, " did I witness such valour " as on the ist September. He won the victory, but " Victor Amadeus was everywhere, exposing himself like the most deter- mined of the soldiers. What a singular character ! He wished to lose the battle, but habitual courage stifled the suggestions of policy." Success after success kept the French on the retreat, but the season closed with the exhaustion of both armies. The French were deserting by hundreds. Eugene's forces were also dwindling perceptibly, " but my men were attached to me, and endured their hard- ships with patience." His horses, fed on dead leaves, were dying for lack of forage, powder and lead were giving out, no money was forthcoming, and his urgent appeals for supplies and reinforcements were, as usual, only answered by delusive promises. These were indeed the invariable conditions under which he fought his campaigns. An empty treasury always crippled the operations ; when, after a summer of straits and shifts, the troops were in winter quarters, their general either hurried to Vienna to PRINCE EUGENE 131 press for means or despatched a confidential officer on the mission. i^But this is not a life of Eugene ; it is simply an episodical sketch. Enough has been given in detail to show something of his character and capacity, and the rest may be more summarily dismissed, the rather that his greatest campaigns in conjunction with Marlborough belong to familiar English history. But this winter, while he remained in Italy with the army, there was an incident notably characteristic of der edle Ritter, whose romantic daring made him the hero of the camp songs, for even in the winter camp he could not hibernate like other com- manders. One of these incidents was the surprise of the fortress of Cremona, held by a strong garrison under Marshal Villeroi. It came off in a night of rain and storm, and had nearly been a signal success ; as at the surprise of Bergen-op-Zoom under Lord Lynedoch, the assailants had actually penetrated to the heart of the town, and they were only repulsed through a failure in combination, when the garrison rallied and discovered their weakness. As it was, ViUeroi himself was carried away a prisoner, though in the end that proved a doubtful gain, for the incompetent courtier of Versailles was replaced by Vendome, an anta- gonist in every way worthy of Eugene, and who, like him, seldom or ever blundered. After much manoeuvring and some sharp fighting in the early spring, so fully did Eugene recognise this that he resolved to attempt a repetition of the Cremona exploit, and send Vendome to keep Villeroi company at Vienna. Vendome in action was the soul of energy, but he was careless of danger, and indolence was his besetting sin. He occupied a solitary villa on the Mincio, 132 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE at no great distance from the imperial lines. A water-party of 200 men had well-nigh caught him napping when an untimely shot gave the alarm prematurely, and the party, which were under the windows of the viUa, had to beat a hasty retreat. There was suspicion of treachery, and every man of them was court-martialled and closely examined, but all were acquitted with the Scotch verdict of " Not proven." The narrow escape effectually roused Vendome, and the skill of Eugene was taxed to the utmost to hold his positions against a general eager for revenge and with far superior forces. After a summer of feints and counter- feints the French fell back, and Eugene could write to the Emperor that he had worn the enemy out, though he admitted that he had not gained the smallest advantage. In 1703 the scene shifts to the other side of the Alps. The political situation had been changing likewise, and not to the advantage of the Emperor. There were five French armies in the field, all under more or less able marshals. Eugene's old leader, Max Emanuel, a dangerous enemy, had finally decided for the French, opening a way for them into the heart of the Austrian dominions. It is true that Marlborough was on the Meuse, having broken the defen- sive barrier of the French fortresses, and the Dutch and Prussians had been victorious on the Lower Rhine. But on the other hand Hungary had risen in revolt, Vienna was in alarm, and Presburg in imminent danger. Eugene explained the situation briefly, and spoke out bluntly as was his custom. " The Emperor made me War Minister. I told him that war could not be carried on without troops or money. ... I put a stop to the peculations in every department. ... I said to the Emperor, ' Your army, sire, PRINCE EUGENE 133 is your monarchy ; your capital is your frontier town. Your Majesty has no fortress ; every one is paid except those who serve you. Make peace, sire, if you cannot carry on war, and it is evident that you cannot do without the money of England.' " It outhned the poHcy he advo- cated, and indicated the alHance he negotiated. He gained his point and persuaded the Emperor, but ex nihilo nihil fit, and no money was immediately forthcoming. He took the field in Hungary in person, but " though Minister at War, I could not even give myself the army which Leopold had promised, and was unable to do anything." Next year the Hungarian rebels were actually in the suburbs of Vienna, and it was all Eugene could do to repulse them witli his slender garrison and a muster of the burghers behind entrenchments hastily thrown up. Again he urged his views on the Emperor, and now he had carte blanche to negotiate. Indeed the situation had become so critical that there seemed but a single course to pursue. Three of the French armies were directly threatening Germany, and the Bavarian Elector held the country up to the Inn, and had seized some of the strong places in Upper Austria. If effective help did not come from the allies the Emperor was lost. Eugene put himself in immediate communication with Marlborough. He ex- plained that the Empire could do nothing in the Nether- lands, where the advances of the enemy threatened its very existence, but that his plans might be baffled by antici- pating them and fighting him on his own chosen ground. Those great generals, surveying the field of action, had simultaneously penetrated the French designs and come to identical conclusions. Marlborough answered Eugene by a 134 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE march which took him over the Rhine to Heilbronn on the Neckar. Thither Eugene rode in hot haste, and it was the scene of the memorable meeting which had such momentous results. They were to act in the meantime apart, although in concert. Eugene, with characteristic modesty and self-abnegation, placed himself at once under the orders of his English friend. For friends they were from the first. Eugene says, " We sincerely loved and esteemed each other. He was indeed a great statesman and general." But he gives a curious explanation of the circumstance which first clenched that new friendship, as it finally cost him another. He had given Marlborough license to ravage Bavaria uncontrolled, and the Bavarian Elector was naturally " furious." Few battles have been more fiercely contested than Blenheim or Hochstadt. Seldom has the balance swayed more doubtfully as the tide of battle ebbed or flowed. Tallard to the last had good hopes of victory, and both the allied generals risked themselves recklessly, as matter of cool calculation, to inspirit their shattered battalions. All four of the leaders had their reputations at stake and some- thing more. Marlborough, overriding timid counsels, had marched into the heart of Europe with lengthening com- munications which made retreat almost impossible in the event of disaster. Eugene, in bringing him thither, had staked his credit with his master on the success of the grand stroke. Tallard, with his many enemies at Ver- sailles, had been as eager to advance as either of his adversaries, and he hazarded as much as they on the issue of the battle. As for the Elector of Bavaria, he had staked everything on the event. Nor did the soldiers who PRINCE EUGENE 135 faced each other in the hsts need much inspiriting. Marl- borough's men had bhnd confidence in the leader who had never known a check, and in almost similar case were Tallard's stubborn veterans, who held staunchly to their entrenchments in Hochstadt till they were enveloped and practically annihilated. But nowhere along the line was there a more tremendous shock and counter-shock than where Eugene found himself opposed to the Bavarians. Horse and foot, the Bavarians were in a white heat against the invaders who had sacked tlieir towns and burned their homesteads. Their Elector himself headed the horse, and Eugene with the imperial cavalry scattered before them. He pistolled more than one of the fugitives, but they were panic-stricken and not to be rallied. Fortunately he had the picked Prussian brigades under Leopold of Anhalt- Dessau to fall back upon. Bavarians and Prussians met in close grips, and it was then that Eugene fought like a common soldier, having more than one miraculous escape before the stolid persistence of the Brandenburg veterans prevailed. The hard-won victory was due to the unre- mitting energy and vigilance of two sympathetic generals of rare penetration, ever ready to lend each other assistance where the strain was most severe. " I was under the greatest obligations to Marlborough," writes Eugene, " for his changes in the dispositions according to circumstances." Tallard had matter for sad reflection on the luck of war ; twice, he wrote in his despatches, he had nearly won the battle, and twice he was balked by misadventures which could neither be foreseen nor avoided. Most to be pitied was the unfortunate Bavarian Elector, who had done through the battle all that man could do. He saved him- 136 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE self with the relics of his gallant regiments, falling back upon Villeroi, who was coming up too late. It was a mournful greeting he gave the Marshal : "I have sacrificed my dominions for your king, and now I am ready to sacri- fice the life which is all that is left me." Marlborough was made a Duke, and a Prince of the Empire. " Louis of Baden and I went to amuse ourselves at Stuttgard." But away from his books or his cherished art-collections, Eugene was restless in repose, and next spring he reminded the Emperor that the Duke of Savoy, who had become thoroughly Austrian, had been brought to the brink of ruin. " Well," was the answer, " take him reinforcements and the command in Italy." Eugene knew his man and made his bargain. He reminded him again of the extremities to which he had been reduced in previous Italian campaigns. He got his troops, with the promise of their being punctually paid, but saw them out of Vienna before starting himself. It was then he made the memor- able march when, as Mrs. Christian Davies — or Defoe — remarks, notwithstanding all Vendome could do to impede it, "he broke through all the obstacles the French threw in his way, and subsisted his men in an enemy's country which he was obliged to cross ; passed several large rivers, and in thirty- four marches joined the Duke of Savoy " when Turin was in the last extremity. The battle of Cassano, at the bridge over the Adda, was almost as bloody as Blenheim. He and Vendome were striving to outwit each other. " I had been informed that Vendome took a nap in the afternoon, from which no one durst awake him from fear of putting him in an ill-humour." Eugene took' advantage of the siesta and had pierced the French left PRINCE EUGENE 137 before the Duke galloped up at the head of the household troops. Vendome was shot in the boot, Eugene in the neck and the knee ; both leaders performed prodigies of valour, but it was pretty much a drawn battle. Again the Prince does his enemy justice. "Not to be beaten by such a man is more glorious than to beat another." The following summer saw the famous campaign on the Riviera, when he had been made a lieutenant-general and field-marshal. He dismisses it briefly himself as without success, though his advance and masterly retreat through the mountains added greatly to his fame. Then again his campaigns in the Netherlands blend with English history and the career of Marlborough. In 1708 he was busily recruiting for the Emperor. He met Marlborough at the Hague with a cordial embrace, and both were preoccupied in stimulating the zeal of the sluggish Dutch envoys, promising that they would give the enemy immediate battle in defence of the strong places of the frontier barrier. Then Eugene resumed his recruiting tour, beating up for reinforcements from the Electors and petty princes. Soon he had gathered an army at Coblentz, and the original understanding had been that he should act separately on the Moselle. The plan had to be recon- sidered when they were informed of the superior strength of the French, who could operate moreover on inner lines, and that Berwick was on the march from Alsace to reinforce Vendome and the Duke of Burgundy. A hundred thousand French were opposed to little more than half the number under Marlborough, and hastily he summoned Eugene to his assistance. He found Marlborough encamped between Brussels and Alost, and asked on the moment of his arrival 138 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE if he did not mean to give battle, " I think I ought," was Marlborough's answer, for the French were threatening the important fortress of Oudenarde, and its fall must have a depressing effect on the wavering Dutch allies. The upshot of the conference was the great and bloody and confused battle, which should have been decisive could they only have arrested the movements of the sun like Joshua at Ajalon. Eugene, though he had come without any of his own troops, was in command of the allied right. Much of the day was passed in manoeuvring, misunderstandings, and skirmishing, till the Duke of Argyle brought up the British infantry, to be followed more leisurely by the Dutch battahons. At last the battle was aligned, when the im- petuous Eugene exclaimed to his cooler colleague, " And now we are in a condition to fight." Already it was six in the evening, with but three hours of daylight. The battle became general along the line, and Eugene says, " The spectacle was magnificent. It was one sheet of fire." Matters, he added, were going ill where he commanded, when Marlborough sent a reinforcement of eighteen battalions, " without which I should have been scarcely able to hold my ground." Thus reinforced, he drove in the first line, but before the second was Vendome on foot, with pike in hand, showing a gallant example to his soldiers. Before that vigorous resistance Eugene owns he would have failed, had it not been for the gallant charge of Natzer with the Prussian gendarmes, who broke the enemy's line and won the victory. For Eugene, very unlike Napoleon, never grudged a friend or an inferior the full credit he deserved. Meantime the centre had been carried, and Marlborough had been making his way on the left, though at dearer PRINCE EUGENE 139 cost. Behind the hedges and ditches, the French house- hold troops, who had been held in reserve, were still offering desperate resistance, till Eugene, as he says, settled the business by sending a detachment by a great circuit to take them in rear. The battle became a rout when falling darkness threw a curtain over the fugitives and stopped the pursuit. Feeling sure that Marlborough would make all necessary arrangements to follow up the success, Eugene went next day to Brussels to visit his mother. She welcomed him with warm congratulations on his latest acquisitions of glory, but " I told her that, as at Blenheim, Marlborough's share was greater than my own." The venerable lady, always rancorously vindictive, was delighted at this new humiliation inflicted on her old lover. " The fifteen days which I passed with her were the most agreeable of my life, and we parted with the greater pain that it was probable we should never meet again." When he returned to camp he found that his troops from the Moselle had preceded him. He says that it was he who suggested the siege of Lille, the bulwark of French Flanders, and he was charged with its conduct, while Marlborough was to command the covering army. " The brave and skilful Boufflers cut out plenty of work for me." Two assaults were repelled " with horrible carnage." Five thousand English sent by Marlborough to repair the losses were likewise repulsed. " I said a few words in English to those brave fellows who rallied round me ; I led them back into the fire, but a ball below the left eye knocked me senseless. Everybody thought me dead, and so did I. They found a dung-cart, in which I was carried to my HO SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE quarters : first my life and then my sight was despaired of." Life and sight being saved, he returned to the siege. On the 22nd September the resourceful BoufHers, having exhausted every method of defence, offered to surrender the town unconditionally. Eugene promised to sign any- thing he should propose. " ' This, M. le Mar^chal,' so I wrote to him, ' is to show my perfect regard, and I am sure that a brave man like you will not abuse it. I con- gratulate you on your resistance.' " Boufflers protracted the defence of the citadel, but the citadel had to capitulate in turn. The Prince signed the articles the Marshal asked " without any restriction," and went with the Prince of Orange to pay him a visit in the battered fortress. Eugene was persuaded to stay for supper — " on condition that it may be that of a famished citadel. Roasted horse-flesh was set before us, and the epicures in my suite were far from relishing the joke." The fall of Lille was followed by that of Ghent and Bruges, when the armies went into winter quarters. The Dutch, who had hitherto been lukewarm, were now delighted, and the generals had an extraordinary re- ception at the Hague. " It was nothing but a succession of honours and festivities ; presents for Marlborough and fireworks for me." The tributes paid them respectively sound ironically significant. In spring they were in the field again with 100,000 men, pitted against the same number under Villars. They decided on beginning with the siege of Tournai. The fortress surrendered " after the most terrible subterraneous war I ever witnessed." Villars had never moved for the relief. " ' Let us go and take Mons,' said I to Marlborough ; ' perhaps this devil of a PRINCE EUGENE 141 fellow will tire of being so cautious.' " That was agreed upon, and " as soon as our troops from Tournai had arrived, ' Let us lose no time,' said I, ' and in spite of 120,000 men [for Villars had been reinforced by Boufflers], hedges, villages, triple entrenchments, abattis, and a hundred pieces of cannon, let us end the war in a day.' " Accordingly the battle of Malplaquet was decided upon. A dense mist on the morning of the nth of September veiled their dispositions. It was dispelled at eight by a general discharge of the guns. Then they saw Villars riding down the ranks, greeted by shouts of " Vive le roi et M. de Villars." Eugene advanced to the attack in silence. He says his English Guards were scattered, some from excess of courage, others from a lack of it, but bringing up his German battalions he rallied them. Even then the onslaught would have been beaten back had it not been for the division of the Duke of Argyle, who scaled the parapets of the second entrenchments, seizing the covering wood. Eugene was again hit in the head, and lost blood so fast that those about him urged him to have the wound dressed. " If I am beaten," he said, " it will not be worth while ; if the French win, I shall have plenty of time for that." We hardly see the logic, but it marks the spirit of the man. On the right with Eugene all was going well ; but for six hours Marlborough had found it hard to hold his own against the enemy's right and centre. The Prince of Orange had pushed gallantly to the front and planted a flag on the inner entrenchment, but his Dutch for the most part had been killed or wounded. Eugene, when the stress lightened on him, sent his cavalry to his colleagues' help, but they were met and overthrown by the French 142 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Household Brigade, who were broken in turn by the fire of some flanking batteries. Nevertheless Marlborough stubbornly forged ahead, and as the French centre was being forced back, Eugene, having routed their left, found it easy to outflank it. " Boufllers rendered the same ser- vice to Villars as I did to Marlborough, and when he saw him fall from his horse dangerously wounded and the battle lost, thought of nothing but making the first retreat in the best possible order. I think it not too much to estimate the loss of both armies at 40,000 ; those who were not killed died of fatigue." The three succeeding years were comparatively un- eventful, occupied by manoeuvring and occasional sharp skirmishing among the fortresses, when operations were hampered by poKtical complications. The war in the Low Countries ended when, in March 171 3, the aUies and France signed the Treaty of Utrecht — with an important ex- ception. Leopold was dead, Joseph had passed like a shadow, and Charles now filled the imperial throne, inflated with pride and the incarnation of obstinacy. But it was with the assent and at the instigation of Eugene that the Emperor declined to subscribe. Eugene pledged himself that, by prolonging the war on the Rhine, he would keep the French in check there and obtain neutrality for the Spanish Netherlands. Experience should have taught him that he promised more than he could perform ; the money came in by driblets, the German princes hung back, and Villars, always on the alert, was pressing him with far superior forces. He lost Landau and then Freiburg, when he had failed to hold the mountain passes. By no fault of his, he protests, but " ' Farewell to the Empire ; farewell PRINCE EUGENE 143 to its two bulwarks,' was the cry at all the courts of Ger- many." " The title of Emperor," he bitterly adds, " does not bring a man or a single kreutzer." Louis, weary of the war, came unexpectedly to his relief ; after the Peace of Utrecht he could afford to make the first advances, and now the Emperor was not unwilling to meet him half-way. Eugene and Villars were charged with the negotiations, and they met at Rastadt, in peace instead of battle. There is a picturesque and humorous account in the Memoirs of the meeting of these chivalrous foes. " Villars was at Rastadt first, to do the honours of the place, as he told me, and received me at the foot of the stairs. Never did men embrace with more mihtary sincerity, and I may add, with more esteem and attachment. Our juvenile friendship when companions in arms in Hungary, and our intimacy in Vienna when he was ambassador there, interrupted by military exploits on both sides, rendered this interview so affecting that the officers and men of the escorts also cordially embraced." In the talk of an hour, they had settled the basis of the treaty. Couriers were sent off to secure the ratifications of their masters. " Then," said Eugene, " while we are waiting, allow me, my dear Marshal, to spend the Carnival at Stuttgard. My body needs recreation, but for these two years past, owing to you, my mind has been in still greater need of it." " With all my heart," was the answer, " and I will go and amuse myself at Strasburg." Before parting, they exchanged dances and banquets, in which Eugene admits that the Frenchmen had the best of it. And they freely discussed the qualities of their respective nations, for Eugene seems by this time to have forgotten that he was virtually French. 144 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Both gave the rein to their mordant humour. The French marshal did not scruple to ridicule Madame de Maintenon, and Eugene laughed at the plethora of empty titles assumed by Charles in his magniloquent self-deification. His part- ing words to Villars were, " We shall probably fight no more battles and sign no more treaties together, but we shall never cease to love and esteem each other." It was at the Swiss Baden that the Treaty of Baden had been signed. Neither had any regret for Queen Anne, who died before the signatures, but when Louis the Great followed her next year, Eugene paid him a generous tribute. The old griefs and insults were all forgotten. The death " pro- duced the same effect on me as the fall of an old stately oak uprooted by a tempest. He had stood so long ! Death, before it erases great recollections, revives them all in the first moment. History is indulgent to princes. That of the great monarch needed no indulgence ; but age had blunted the talons of the lion. A regency was destined to give us time to breathe. But then a circumstance occurred which cut out plenty of work for us again." Eugene and Villars had been discussing the Turks. " Are they as stupid as in my time, when I began to admire you, Monseigneur ? " asked the Marshal. " They have never changed their system and they never will," answered Eugene ; " nevertheless they might turn it to good account." And he explained how if they were to change their order of battle, when advancing with their Spahis on their wings, and " their accursed shouts of Allah ! Allah ! " they might be invincible. When discussing them quietly he did not foresee how soon he was to have another PRINCE EUGENE 145 opportunity of testing their tactics, and how nearly they were to crush the victor of so many campaigns, notwith- standing their antiquated methods of fighting. For if he had hoped for a spell of rest he was doomed to disappointment. Nor had he even time to assume the Governor-Generalship of the Netherlands which had been conferred on him. The Sultan had declared war with Venice and sent an army to the Morea. To the Emperor he was full of peaceful professions, but Charles was wise enough to know that it was his interest to ally himself with the menaced republic against the hereditary enemy. The answer of the Grand Vizier to the imperial rebuff was to levy a second great army and to set it on the march for the imperial frontiers. Count Palffy, then in command in Hungary, concentrated at Peterwardein. At midsummer of 1715 Eugene hastened thither ; there he learned that the Vizier was already in the vicinity of Belgrade with 200,000 men, and that supports were coming up fast. The Turks crossed the Save, and by the ist of August had entrenched themselves at Carlowitz on the Danube. Eugene sent Palffy forward to reconnoitre with two or three cavalry regiments and a handful of infantry. He had orders not to be drawn into an action, but with the swarms of the Turkish irregular horse, action was often inevitable. Enveloped in front and on the flanks, he fought it out, and set the crown that day on a brilliant career by bringing the remnants of his little force within the lines of Peterwardein. It was the prelude to the great battle fought by Eugene a few days after. The Turks were always gathering strength, and he decided to attack them in their formidable works, against the opinion of his best generals. The K 146 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE battle illustrates the invariable fashions of the time in making war. Eugene often remarks on the Turkish custom of immediately entrenching themselves, but like all his contemporaries he made as much use of the spade himself. Here, however, he had been spared the trouble, for advanc- ing to Carlowitz, he occupied entrenchments which had been thrown up by Caprara two and twenty years before. So two field fortifications were facing each other, both heavily armed with guns. Eugene adapted his tactics to the Turkish formation, forced upon them by the contour of their camp. He sums up the action in a few lines. His right wing, thrown into disorder by the narrow outlets from the works, was broken before it had time to re-form ; his centre was shaken by the Turkish fire, which paved the way for the tremendous onslaught of the Janissaries ; but meantime his left, under the Prince of Wiirtemberg, carry- ing all before it, had turned the Turkish right. He launched Palffy with 2000 horse on the cavalry in the rear of the hitherto victorious Janissaries. They looked back to see the scattering of the Spahis— they saw, too, that the key of the position was lost ; the Grand Vizier himself had fallen at the foot of the sacred standard ; and then sullenly retiring, retreat was turned to flight. Before noon the five-hours battle had been lost and won, and the field was abandoned. Great was the booty, for in the sudden rout and panic nothing was saved. " I entered the tent of the Grand Vizier, and there the chaplains of the nearest regiments in a loud voice returned thanks to the God of armies in prayers repeated by the soldiers." The victory caused a joyful sensation in Christendom. The Pope sent a conse- crated hat and sword, and Marshal Villars a letter of warm PRINCE EUGENE 147 congratulation. Strangely enough, Eugene makes no men- tion of the terrible storm which burst upon his troops while taking up their positions, tore the floating mills from their moorings, driving them against the boat-bridges, and, by delaying the passage of the columns, threatened to upset his combinations. Other operations followed, but winter was coming on, and all was only the prelude to the great siege of 1717. Eugene prepared for it by a tax laid on the Empire, which he counterbalanced, as he claims, by openings for commerce which no one else would have dreamed of. But in his preparations for the war he spent lavishly, and there, as he admits, the Jews got the better of him. He was set upon the capture of Belgrade, which for three centuries, as he says, had been a constant bone of contention. The news of the Crusade drew princely and noble adventurers to his standard from all the countries of Europe. Bavaria was again in alliance with the Empire, and the Elector sent his two sons to the camp. The new Grand Vizier was a more formidable antagonist than his hot-headed predecessor, and Eugene remarks that " he cost me a deal of trouble." On the loth of June he crossed the Danube, his volunteer princes tumbling into the boats that they might be the first over to cross swords with the Spahis. On the 19th Eugene himself had a narrow escape from their light horse- men, when reconnoitring the ground for his camp. Belgrade is in the angle between the meeting of the Danube and the Save. Where it faces westward it is in the form of an amphitheatre. So the hues of the Imperialists corresponded in shape of a crescent, one horn resting on the Danube, the other on the Save, and each communicating 148 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE with the opposite bank by a boat-bridge which was guarded by a heavily-armed redoubt. The camp lay between double lines of contravallation and of circumvallation, for sorties from the fortress were an imminent danger, and the Vizier's relieving army, much magnified of course by rumour, was known to be on the march. The bridges were further protected by a flotilla of so-called frigates. The fortress mounted 100 guns, besides those on shallow boats which were practically floating batteries, and Eugene had in- voluntarily strengthened the garrison by driving in an outlying corps of infantry. There were known to be ample supplies of food and ammunition, and everything foreboded a protracted defence had no succour been at hand. Even with a weaker garrison the place was eminently defensible. The citadel towered above the lower town ; two suburbs were embraced in the fortified enceinte, with gardens and enclosures that were so many earthworks, and all of them swept by the batteries above. The Governor, known for a gallant veteran, had 30,000 seasoned soldiers. Eugene's venture seemed the desperate one it proved, but he had reckoned with his knowledge of the Turks. The Turks behind walls were little given to the initiative, and perhaps the commandant was the more supine that he counted confidently on speedy relief. The besiegers were little troubled by sorties, and there was only one of any conse- quence. That was when the commandant woke up to the fact that Eugene had broken ground beyond the Save, whence he could bombard the town on the slopes of the amphitheatre. From the heights the enemy could see all that went on. He knew that the imperial batteries in embryo were isolated by marshes, both from the camp and PRINCE EUGENE 149 from the town of Semlin behind. Under cover of night the Turks shpped across the river, bringing hght field-pieces with them. Their rush came as a complete surprise ; except the few who had time to bolt not a man escaped. The Turks cleared the trenches and were gone before any help could come, and their boats were ballasted with the heads of the fallen. The " Old Campaigner " tells us that then there was a ducat set on every Christian head, which fired the fanaticism of a soldiery whose pay was invariably in arrear. Time was pressing, and the Prince, though he puts a smiling face on it, must have had many an anxious hour. On the 22nd of July he writes, " I bombarded, burned, and battered down the city at such a rate that it must have capitulated had it not been for the expected approach of the Grand Vizier." In fact, within a week his advanced parties made their appearance. On August ist the semi- circle of hills was crowned by the Mussulman host, " a charming view for a painter but a most execrable one for a general." Eugene had been hard at work on his outer lines of circumvallation. The Turks, as was their custom, began immediately to entrench themselves, and now the besieger had become the besieged, held fast as in a vice between the lines of his enemies. There were 30,000 in Belgrade ; there were 200,000 with the Vizier at the lowest calculation. Allowing for those on detachment duty and for the fever and dysentery which had filled the hospitals, he had barely 50,000 valid soldiers under his hand. Eugene was himself prostrated by the fever. He was compelled to defer the attack he had meditated, but meantime " our condition was daily growing worse" ; and he adds, " I must I50 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE needs think they were rather uneasy at Court, in the city, and even in my own army." Heavily bombarded from both sides, the sick leader had to shift his tent continually, and each hour he was losing men by the score, either by gun-fire or dysentery. Nevertheless he says, " My princes loved me like a father." For once there was advantage in an army made up of corps from different countries. A generous rivalry was stimulated, and all were eager for opportunities. Yet all were alive to the impending crisis. " Eugene alone," says one of his officers, " remained un- moved ; " he was confident his chance would come, and waited for the moment of action. Nor could it be long deferred, though meantime the pressure from without urged him to fresh efforts. He stormed outlying works, he opened new parallels, and as a consequence blocked the garrison closely within their walls. He had expected that the Vizier would deliver an im- mediate onslaught. But the Turks had learned caution from the tremendous defeats he had inflicted on them, and now they adopted more deliberate methods. Under direction of renegade engineers, they made elaborate pre- parations for the storm of his camp, till they had actually pushed their last parallels within gunshot. No one of the defenders dared show his head without being the mark for a shower of bullets. From gunshot the parallels were advanced to pistol-fire, and showers of bursting shells each night were making the Christian positions almost untenable. The Prince had waited long for the opening which had never been offered. On the 15th of August he summoned a council, and " in spite of the bad advice of people who are not fond of war, I determined upon an engagement." PRINCE EUGENE 151 Everything was arranged for a nocturnal attack. The troops were to fall into order before dark, that there might be as httle confusion as possible. There were four openings through which they were to issue, so as to deploy in the cramped space between the lines, and the cavalry from the extreme right and left were to act upon the Turkish flanks when the central attack was being pushed home. The cavalry found their passage obstructed by unexpected obstacles, and so there was delay and confusion. The day was already breaking before all the infantry had left their entrenchments. It seemed that discovery was sure and destruction inevitable when Christendom was spared a crushing catastrophe by what was piously regarded as a miracle. For the first time for many mornings the scene of action was enveloped in a dense fog. It not only con- cealed movements from the Turkish sentinels but smothered sounds. The enemy had fancied something was passing behind the imperial works, and opened a tremendous fire. Shot and shell passed over the heads of the stormers, leaving them almost unscathed. When the fog lifted and the sun blazed out, the stormers were already rushing the hostile parapets. Eugene admits that there was little to choose between the confusion on either side, and so it became a sort of Inkerman — a soldier's battle. He gives chief credit for the winning of the day to La Colonic, "the Old Campaigner," and his Bavarians, confirming all that La Colonic tells us in his chronicles. The Bavarians, ignoring orders from in- ferior generals to halt and dress the line, in four long hours fought their way from trench to trench, till they stormed the great oval entrenchment, the key of the enemy's position, and turned its cannon on the flying Turks. The first 152 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE intimation of the change of the direction of the guns was a shot sent into a group surrounding the Grand Vizier, which dropped three of the number. Their prompt retreat was imitated by all the horse and foot within sight. The Bavarian Electoral Prince fell on La Colon ie's neck, and Eugene galloped up with his tactful compliments. All was over by eleven o'clock. Fair terms were granted to the Belgrade garrison, which they had earned by their abstention from all interference with the action. In fact there is a good deal that is suggestive in Eugene's report of his reception in Vienna. He says that the Emperor agreed with the devout who ascribed his success to a miracle, and that Stahrenberg was the mouthpiece of the envious who attributed it to pure luck. Not only was the fog a most providential interposition, but the in- action of the governor Mustapha, renowned as a good soldier, is incomprehensible. Had he co-operated with his 30,000 men at the critical moment. General Viard, who was left with but 5000 to hold the lines, could never have made head against him. And it was well the great battle came off when it did, for strong Turkish reinforcements were rapidly advancing, and one of the imperial generals had faltered at their approach. Eugene rested on his laurels for sixteen years. He honestly owns that, being " fond of war," he regretted the conciliatory dispositions of the Sultan and the Emperor. For those sixteen years he amused himself in his palace, passing much of the time in the library, which contained many rare and curious volumes. But in 1733, with the death of Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, there was another disputed succession with a call to arms. PRINCE EUGENE 153 The French were again in the field, for France and the Emperor supported rival candidates. The aged Villars was sent to Italy, while a powerful army under the Duke of Berwick prepared to pass the Rhine. Eugene, war-lover as he was, reminded his master that he had neither army nor allies, but the Emperor turned a deaf ear. Tauntingly, perhaps, as Eugene hints, he offered him the command of what troops there were, in the expectation that he would dechne. If so, he was disappointed. Eugene repeats that he was fond of war, and was wilhng besides to court the fate that had befallen the great Turenne and was soon to overtake Berwick. He was at Heilbronn before the end of April. He was touched to the heart by the greeting of his old soldiers, who received him with shouts of " Long live our father ! " and the tossing of hats by thousands in the air. The result of the roll-call was less satisfactory, for he found he had no sort of strength to face the forces of Berwick. He boasts that with numbers of one to three he forced Berwick to confine himself to the siege of Philipps- burg. It was an unlucky siege for the French Marshal, who had his head carried away by a cannon-ball, though Eugene envied his glorious end. Nor did the Prince gain by the change of commanders. He found d'Asfeldt, as he says, " a devil of a fellow, who had all his wits about him." He was compelled to abandon the lines of Philippsburg and to look on helplessly at the fall of the fortress. Meantime, however, reinforcements had been coming up, and with them, as usual, the young princes and nobles, who came to school under the famous master of war. Among these was the Prince Royal of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great, " who appeared a young man of infinite promise." 154 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Reinforced and in no unfavourable position, Eugene has been severely criticised for not risking a battle. Had it been the Eugene of the march to Turin or of Zenta, it is more than probable he might have done so and had reason to regret it. But with years and experience had come a grave sense of responsibility, and his own defence seems incontestable — " The first that attacked must have been beaten, and had that been my lot, the French might have gone to Vienna, for there was no fortified place on the way. There was no Sobieski then to save the capital." The campaign ended with cautious manoeuvring on both sides, and next year saw the signature of a peace at Eugene's urgent instigation. Fond as he may have been of war, he heartily congratulated the Emperor on having got creditably out of " such an awkward scrape." He might have had greater political influence at Court, had he not invariably spoken his mind with the bluntness of a soldier. He saw the signing of the peace in the autumn and he only survived till the spring. If he did not fall in battle as he desired, his death was as sudden as it was painless and easy. He dropped his cards one evening, complaining of indisposition. Taken home, he was put to bed, and was found dead in the morning. Napoleon, who in a double sense followed in his footsteps, has assigned him the highest rank among generals of genius. V VI MARSHAL KEITH James Keith was a youth of eighteen when his cousin, the Earl of Mar, raised the white standard in his forest of Braemar. It was an unhappy beginning to a brilhant career. Like the Earl of Derwentwater, the Earl Marischal and his brother were almost constrained to turn rebels in the '15. There was not only their near kinship to Mar, who, as a chronicler of the time very truly remarked, would turn cat-in-the-pan with any man, but their mother, a daughter of the Earl of Perth, the persecuting Chancellor of James VII., was by birth and upbringing a fanatical Jacobite. The ballad of " Lady Keith's Lament " was said to have been her own composition, though more pro- bably it was a forgery by the Ettrick Shepherd, At any rate it expressed her feelings, when it breathes the hope that she would be Lady Keith again when her rightful King came back over the water. The young Earl, a sensible man, weighing the political chances dispassionately, was inclined to accept the Hanoverian dynasty. When the Dukes of Somerset and Argyle, by a happy coup d^e'tat, carried the wavering Council along with them, the summary proceedings against all suspected of disloyalty alienated many hesitating trimmers. When Mar, as a matter of necessity, was dismissed from his Secretaryship of State, 155 156 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE his cousin Marischal was deprived of his troop of the Guards. Hurrying down to Scotland in high indignation, he met his brother, then on his way to town to ask for a pair of colours. In that meeting James Keith's fate was decided, and England lost a great soldier, as France had foolishly got rid of Prince Eugene. But the Marshal never turned his sword against the country which had given him birth. The brothers both lived to a good old age, and though often parted, remained fondly attached. The elegy by the elder when he heard of his brother's glorious death speaks volumes for both. He wrote to his intimate friend d'Alem- bert, " My brother leaves me a noble legacy. Last year he had Bohemia at ransom, and his personal estate is seventy ducats." The Marshal only once saw his native land again, when he had sundry friendly conversations with George II. The Earl returned, but not in the cir- cumstances his mother had fondly predicted. Realising that the recall of the Stewarts was hopeless, he had made his peace with the Hanoverian Court, and was able to send Lord Chatham from Madrid a piece of invaluable informa- tion. The grateful King received him graciously, and he was able to buy back a part of his ancestral domains. But the old exile saw the North again with sinking of the heart. He passed Stonehaven, where his sea-girt fortress of Dunnottar was in ruin, and found his second stronghold of Iverugie in Buchan in little better case. He had little cause to complain of lack of warmth in his welcome. Friends, neighbours, and tenants crowded to meet him at Peterhead, and he headed the long and jubilant procession which set out for Inverugie. The castle stands on an MARSHAL KEITH 157 eminence encircled by the sweep of the Ugie. When he saw the roofless wreck of the old halls that had sheltered him as a boy, the aged Earl fairly broke down upon the bridge ; he drew rein, and unable to restrain his tears, sadly turned his horse's head to the South again. He had seen much of life at most of the courts of Europe, except that of the Empire. But Berlin was naturally the city of his predilections, for there he was petted, courted, and feted. He made many a friend among statesmen and the elite of the literary and intellectual world, but the strongest proof of his amiable and fascinating nature is that he seems to have been the only man who really won the affections of the cold-hearted Frederick. His brother, the Marshal, was highly valued, and could take liberties that few other men dared venture upon. But for the senior the penurious monarch would have drawn his purse-strings more freely than the Earl's pride would permit ; he was recalled to Potsdam in his seventy-fourth year by the pressing appeals of his royal friend ; he found a villa ready for him and royally furnished, and there he ended his days in peace. The careers of the brothers were so often intermixed ; their characters in many respects were so similar, though the Earl had no pretension to the Marshal's talent and decision, that a shght biographical sketch of the one was indispensable as a prelude to the story of the other. We can only gather impressions of the Earl at second-hand ; the Marshal has left a memoir so interesting, that our regret is that it ends with tantalising abruptness. It is written in the simple, straightforward, soldierly style, in which the Seigneur de Joinville described the romantic crusade of St. Louis ; so it is all the better, and in a minor 158 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE key it is almost as rich in romance. The rebelHon of the '15 and the rash adventure of the saint were equally unlucky, though the one was carried out with ample means and the mediaeval pomp of chivalry, and the other at haphazard by disappointed politicians and desperate men who missed all the chances that fortune offered them. The Marshal in the memoir looks back with a soldier's eye on the drama in which he played a modest part ; he does not spare criticism of his superiors, and remarks freely on their strategy and blundering tactics. Of much of what he describes he was an eye-witness, and the facts within his personal knowledge are reliable, for the Marshal was an honest man. Of his cousin the Duke of Mar — he gives him his St. Germains title — he had no high opinion. He did not trust him, and hints that throughout he was playing the political game for his own hand. Mar was so ignorant that he looked for the duchy of Deux Fonts in a map of Hungary, which reminds one of the jubilation of the Duke of New- castle, the head of the Ministry, at discovering that Cape Breton was an island. But the Jacobite party was numerous, discontent was great, and Keith thinks the enterprise might have ended differently had it found a more capable chief, and been planned with ordinary dis- cretion. As it was, it was common talk that there was to be trouble from the Highlands, and the King and his counsellors had ample warning. " The Earl of Portmore, an old experienced officer, who had commanded the English army in Portugal," offered to go with Mar to Scotland, but as his military rank and experience must have given him the command, through Mar's jealousy he was left behind. In place of him the Earl brought General MARSHAL KEITH 159 Hamilton as his second in command — brave enough, but old, infirm, and incompetent — who miscarried so lamentably at Sheriffmuir. Mar came with neither men, arms, nor money, but with fallacious promises in plenty. There was great and con- tagious enthusiasm among the Highlanders at the Hunting ; they were men who set small store by their lives, and rejoiced in the prospect of pillaging the Lowlands. There were not a few nobles of ancient hneage at the muster, and some who might have commanded a large following. But it was significant that the Dukes of Gordon and Atholl, following the good old Scottish fashion of hedging, had prudently stayed at home, sending their heirs to represent them. It might have been foreseen that, in the event of any serious check, the retreat would have been sounded for Gordons and Murrays. Most of the peers were men of broken fortunes, with lands mortgaged to the last acre, who had little to lose. Nevertheless there were generous excep- tions. The Earl of Panmure, who proclaimed King James at Brechin, had large, unencumbered estates, and the young Earl of Strathmore, like the Earl Marischal, hazarded lands which pelded a handsome income. Amid all the bustle of hasty preparation came the news of King Louis' death, and nothing should have been more discouraging. Had they cared to look facts in the face, they might have known that the astute English Ambassador, the Earl of Stair, was persona gratissima with the Regent, but they succeeded in befooling themselves into believing that the voluptuous but politic d'Orleans would befriend them. Indeed the leaders who had committed themselves had gone too far to draw back, and the ill-armed and undisciplined levies were i6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE already on their southward march. " By the beginnmg of October we had assembled about 5000 foot and 1200 horse. The enemy lay at Stirling under the command of the Duke of Argyle, and were about 1000 foot and 800 horse, en- camped under the cannon of the castle, where they could not be attacked." They could not be attacked, but they might have been turned, for Argyle was guarding the Brig o' Stirling, and the Forth might easily have been forded by the Highlanders higher up. " Oh for one hour of Dundee ! " exclaimed an old chieftain at Sheriffmuir, and now either Dundee or Montrose would have utilised the Highland numbers and elan. But Mar lay in his leaguer at Perth, waiting the arrival of the Western mountaineers and the islesmen, though supports were fast coming up to the enemy. James Keith was boiling over with impatience, resenting the inaction. Like the rest, he welcomed any favourable report, and one day — he makes no allusion to it himself — characteristically he galloped down the lines, shouting that Bristol and Newcastle had fallen to their English friends. The upshot of all was, that Argyle outmanoeuvred them from first to last with forces infinitely inferior, and finally beat them in the decisive battle with 3000 men to their 12,000. The forward move from Perth was leisurely as usual. On the 12th November " the advanced guard lay at Dun- blane, and the rest of the troops were quartered about a mile behind, the want of the tents and the coldness of the weather rendering it impossible for us to encamp." The commissariat had been neglected, though they had been quartered for weeks in one of the most fertile districts of Scotland ; the troops, billeted about in cottages and farm steadings, were half famished, and even had the Jacobite MARSHAL KEITH i6i victory been decisive as it should have been, there were no means of following it up. Next morning, at break of day, both armies were afoot, and facing each other. " Ours lay in two Hues, without any body of reserved Even then the hesitating Mar called another council of war, when the question was, " To fight or not to fight." He was so far relieved of responsibility, that the unanimous resolution was for battle. " The Duke commanded the Earl Marischal, with Sir Donald McDonald's regiment of foot and his own squadron of horse, to take possession of the rising ground, on which a body of the enemy's horse still remained, and to cover the march of the army on the left. On our approach the enemy's horse retired, and we had no sooner gained the top of the hill, than we discovered their whole body, marching without beat of drum about two musket-shot from us." There was no retreating ; the Earl Marischal sent an aide-de-camp to ask for assistance. The assistance came " even in too much haste," for the army, which marched in four columns, arrived in such confusion that it was impossible to form them according to the line of battle projected. Argyle was there in person with Colonel Cath- cart, and was prompt to take advantage of the confusion. Keith speaks of " the shameful behaviour of the foot," which he attributes to their seeing themselves abandoned by the horse, who had been ordered from the left to the right. If so, the order was the more superfluous, that on the right the Highlanders were carrying all before them, and in fact one of the fatal mischances of the day was that they had broken altogether out of hand. But there is some obscurity in his narrative. We know from other sources 1 62 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE that his brother's squadron remained with their broken left, fighting to the last with determined gallantry, and covering the flight of the foot with repeated charges. It was almost entirely composed of gentlemen. It was then the young Earl of Strathmore fell, and that the Earl of Panmure was wounded and made prisoner. Keith notes another " unlucky mistake," which is much to the credit of Argyle's coolness and generalship. When Mar had recalled his victorious centre and left, he might have renewed the engagement in the afternoon with an overwhelming superiority in numbers. The Duke had taken his stand on the hill he had won to the right, with battalions scarcely numbering a thousand, but by broken ground and turf- banks he disguised his weakness, doubling at least his apparent strength by the display of colours taken from the enemy and closely resembling his own. He deceived the Jacobite officer sent to reconnoitre, and the report decided Mar to remain resting on his arms. Ill news followed fast. The English insurrection had been crushed ; 6000 Dutch who had landed were on the march for the North ; Huntly and Seaforth, on more or less plausible pretexts, had withdrawn to their own counties, and malcontents, who had learned wisdom too late, had opened negotiations with Argyle to know on what terms he would receive their submission. At that crisis, and in the depths of an exceptionally severe winter, when the hopes of his party were as cold as the weather, the Cheva- lier disembarked at Peterhead, Instead of coming with a French fleet bringing arms, money, and men, he landed from a fishing-boat with a couple of attendants. Born to ill-luck, and of a sombre temperament, he was the last man i MARSHAL KEITH 163 to animate a dispirited army. The leaders learned that nothing was to be expected from France ; the superstitious clansmen saw a sinister omen in the shipwreck of the two barks that carried their master's baggage. Nevertheless, the forlorn adventurer must be received with royal honours. Mar set out to meet him, and was eventually accompanied by the Keiths, for the brothers were locally associated with the brief visit of the Pretender for whom they had sacrificed everything. Peterhead was within a mile or two of their castle of Inverugie, and they chanced to meet him at Fetteresso, one of their former baronies, within sight of their dilapidated fortress of Dunnottar. They found him prostrated with ague ; they escorted him to the head- quarters in Perth, but he never regained either strength or spirits, and his sojourn was as short as it was unsatisfactory. With the perversity of the Stewarts he did what he could to ahenate the Lowlands by desolating the fertile belt to the south of Perth, as Louis and Louvois had devastated the Palatinate. He saw his army dwindle, and the ammuni- tion had almost given out. " He consulted the Duke of Marr, who positively advised him to return to France," and Mar urged many plausible reasons for a flight he had already determined to share. However, for very shame's sake, he took counsel with others, and " having called for the Earl Marischal, told him he desired his advice. The Earl excused himself on account of his youth and want of experience, but finding himself still pressed, desired that he might have leave to speak with the Duke of Marr." Mar repeated all he had urged on the Chevalier ; the high- spirited Earl, arguing against hope or reason, strove to refute all his reasoning, but finally spoke his mind in what 164 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE was really a counsel of despair. " He did not think it for the King's honour, or for that of the nation, to give up the game without putting it to the tryall." When he pro- tested against a foregone decision, he spoke the feelings of the rank and file, who even on the retreat that was ordered were still full of fight as ever. When James and his com- mander-in-chief took ship at Montrose, skulking down the back stairs of their lodging, the Highlanders were furious at having been deserted and befooled. From the first the demeanour of their monarch might have depressed them. He is said to have taunted his devoted adherents by telling them that they had lured him to Scotland with the hope of a crown when all they had to offer was a grave. Prince Eugene's comment on the whole proceedings was charac- teristic of that fiery and resolute spirit — " Weeping is not the way to win a kingdom." The Chevalier's flight was more helpful to his followers than his presence had ever been. It gained them a clear day in their retreat, for Argyle, when he heard of the escape, seems to have slackened the pursuit. If it was his wish to spare his unfortunate countrymen unnecessary slaughter, that consists with his kindly nature and previous conduct. Under General Gordon the half-mutinous Jaco- bite army marched undisturbed to Aberdeen. Then another council was called to settle the question between a final stand against the enemy or a sauve qui pent. The decision was scarcely in doubt, and it was finally settled on the failure of the Earl Marischal to bring Huntly again into the field. The Gordons were making separate terms for themselves ; the Keiths saw themselves beggared and proscribed. MARSHAL KEITH 165 Then the brothers had very similar adventures to those of Charles Edward after Culloden. As in 1746, the remains of the Highland host struggled over the mountains to Ruthven of Badenoch, whence they scattered to their native glens. The Keiths attached themselves to the isle- men of Skye, and to the Moidart men who had come east with the Captain of Clanranald. They arrived at the islands in the middle of March, having lost nearly a company of foot in crossing the sea-arm. The ships of the Government patrolled the seas, and for a month there was no opportunity of escaping. Several frigates were sighted off the coast, and they heard that two infantry battalions had disembarked at Portree. When all seemed hopeless a Breton smuggler ran the blockade, and after " a very pleasant passage " they were landed at St. Pol de Leon, which with its colleges and cathedral must have greatly reminded them of their own Old Aberdeen. From St. Pol James Keith went straight to Paris, where he found himself among friends and kinsfolk. But most were penniless like himself, and all were engrossed with their own concerns. His warmest welcome was from Mary of Modena, who assured him that neither she nor her son could forget all he had done in the Chevalier's service — " in a word, had I conquered a kingdom for her, she could not have said more." Although he heard nothing more for a month, during which he was reduced to selling his horse furniture, she had a longer memory than most royal personages. For then she sent him 1000 livres, placed him at the Military Academy, kindly reminding him that he would be the better of some regular training, and within a year the youth of nineteen had his commission as a 1 66 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE colonel of horse, with orders to get ready for an expedition to Scotland, where the King of Sweden contemplated a descent. He was dazzled by the unexpected promotion, and exhilarated besides with the near hope of retrieving the family fortunes. But his spirits had only been raised to be dashed again, and he had his first experience of many disappointments. The secret of the Swedish plans had been indifferently kept ; the Regent took effectual means to baulk it, and Keith heard no more of his commission. At least it had decided him to end h s apprenticeship at the Academy and to seek active service. " With noth ng to trust to but my sword " he was to turn soldier of fortune. His first attempt was a failure, though in the future he was to be associated with many a stirring event in Russian history. In the midsummer of 1717 the Tsar Peter came to Paris to be feted ; his ambitious schemes were the talk of the world, and Keith was eager to enter his service. How he made his approaches he does not say, but he gives the plausible explanation of his want of success, that he did not take the right way to ensure it. That he got no help from St. Germains was natural enough, and flattering besides ; the shadowy court, always dreaming of another revolution, had no wish to send helpful men to the further confines of Europe. But there was always occupation to be found nearer home. In the beginning of next year there were preparations for war between Spain and the Empire. There was little difficulty in getting introductions from King James to Madrid, for the Jaco- bites were always glad to keep young soldiers of spirit in active training in countries whence they might be easily recalled. But Keith dallied for the best part of a year, MARSHAL KEITH 167 and he very candidly gives the explanation. The fact was the youth of twenty was as susceptible as the war-worn veteran. " I was then too much in love to think of quitting Paris, and tho' shame and my friends forced me to take some steps towards it, yet I managed it so slowly that I set out only in the end of that year ; and had not my mistress and I quarrelled, and that other affairs came to concern me more than the conquest of Sicily, it's pro- bable I had lost many years of my time, so much was I taken up with my passion." Nor would he perhaps have gone then, had it not been for irresistible pressure. He had fallen ill besides — he does not say, from blighted affections. It is strange to speculate on what might have been his fate, had he remained a love-sick flaneur in the streets of Paris, possibly reduced to discreditable shifts by an exacting mistress and a scanty purse. But the family had powerful friends, and he had a wise brother who would not lose sight of him. Cardinal Alberoni, who then governed Spain, was furious at the destruction of the Spanish fleet off the Sicilian coast by Admiral Sir George Bjaig without any formal declaration of war. The Cardinal had resolved to be avenged by helping the Jacobites, and he summoned the Duke of Ormonde from Paris. Ormonde in turn sent for the Earl Marischal, and specially requested him to bring his brother. Sailing from Marseilles in the beginning of 1719, they landed at Palamos in Catalonia. Their reception was far from cordial. Their answers were unsatisfactory, for they only said that they were English officers on their way to Madrid in search of employment. In Catholic Spain the general feehng then was that for military service no 1 68 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Protestants need apply, and, as the future field-marshal was to learn later, it was an effectual bar to promotion. The governor forwarded them, under arrest, to a superior, though he courteously assured them that the guard was a necessary precaution against brigands. At last they were delivered at the quarters of the Duke of Liria, who knew them personally, and was ready to vouch for them. But as the Duke knew nothing of the proposed descent upon England, as to that they kept their own counsel, and they begged him not to disclose their names. There were draw- backs and advantages in the strict incognito. " We re- solved to continue the route slowly to Madrid, without fatiguing ourselves by going post," and so the sturdy young Scots had themselves carried in chairs to the environs of Barcelona. Thence they sent a letter from the Duke of Liria to the Prince of Savoy, who commanded in the place. It acted as an " Open Sesame." It passed them through the gates without challenge or examination, and they could not conceive a reason for the distinction with which they were treated. To his wonderment James saw a state coach with six mules and servants in the royal Savoy liveries, draw up at the door of their modest inn. It turned out that Liria had kept the secrets confided to him, and that the Prince had just received letters from Alberoni saying he might expect King James himself, who was to land in Catalonia incognito. " I believe the Prince was sorry to have given himself so much trouble about us, yet he received us very civilly." When they waited on the Cardinal at Madrid, he was rather out of temper. He asked why they had taken things so easily. They answered that they thought there MARSHAL KEITH 169 was no sort of hurry. " Quite the contrary," was the re- joinder ; " the business is pressing, and Ormonde is already on his way to the Groine " (Corunna). The Duke was to embark for England, the Earl Marischal was to land in Scotland, but it was indispensable that they should concert together. So the Earl posted off and overtook the Duke at Benevente. Five days later he returned to Madrid to settle their plans with the Cardinal. The Spanish treasury was as usual in low water, but the Earl got half the arms he asked for, with six companies of foot to cover his landing. There was yet another difficulty. It was neces- sary to inform the chiefs of the Jacobites in France of the plot that had been hatched in Spain, and as the countries were then at war, the French frontiers were strictly guarded. Alberoni asked James Keith to charge himself with the perilous mission. He had a voucher to the French Jaco- bites, in the shape of a blank order from Ormonde, telling them to have absolute confidence in the bearer. With that letter and 18,000 crowns Keith left Madrid in the middle of February. But at San Sebastian he had parted with two-thirds of the sum for the equipment of two frigates destined for Scotland, so the preparations were on no very lavish scale. He was fully alive to the risks he ran, but as the affair did not directly concern France, he hoped that at the worst he " might be quitte for laying some time in prison." He made his way to Bordeaux without inter- ference, where he met his former commander, General Gordon. But at Bordeaux his troubles began, and by the irony of fate the man who threatened to baffle him was the son of the monarch he was seeking to restore. James, Duke of Berwick, was commanding in Bordeaux for the I70 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Regent. He was a man whose sense of military duty was not to be swayed either by personal considerations or filial affection. He gave passes to none who were not inter- viewed by himself or his secretary, and as Keith was well known to both, he dared not stand the ordeal. However, he found a friend who secured a pass, and he mounted behind, between the saddle-bags, as his attendant. At Paris, as a matter of course, he was in an atmos- phere of intrigue. When some of the leaders hastened to visit him, he showed them his credentials from Ormonde. They smiled, telling him frankly that the billet would not have been worth the paper it was written on, had they not already had instructions from Mar to obey any orders from the Duke. " This plainly let me see that we had two factions amongst us, and which proved the occasion of our speedy ruin when we landed in Scotland." His forebodings were to be only too surely reahsed, and again, with a sad heart and preparations absurdly inade- quate, he embarked on a desperate venture. Their little French company sailed from Rouen in a bark of twenty- five tons. It was their intention to take their chances in the Straits of Dover and run round the Orkneys to the Outer Hebrides ; but easterly gales forced them to take the westerly course. Off the Land's End in the dusk, they were in the middle of a fleet, answering exactly to the numbers of that of Ormonde, which at the time might have been expected in the chops of the Channel. But the little craft very wisely slipped past in silence, for they were really with an English squadron transporting troops from Ireland. In the first week of April they landed on the Lewis, MARSHAL KEITH 171 where the natives knew nothing of any Spanish ships, and could give them as httle intelhgence from the mainland. After some anxious waiting Keith found the two frigates at moorings in Stornoway, with his brother on board. He communicated his suspicions of underhand dealing. The Earl showed his commission to command, and handed his brother another as colonel in the Spanish service. Next day came Tulhbardine and Seaforth, and on the following morning, at a council of war, Tulhbardine produced his own commission of lieutenant-general. Then the young Earl, perhaps weakly, resigned, though reserving authority over the ships, as to which he had positive orders from the Cardinal. After that it is a melancholy story of divided councils, adverse winds, and unfortunate delays. Keith says bitterly that there were demons conspiring to baffle them. So much invaluable time had been wasted that the Govern- ment had drawn troops even from Holland. When the affair was brought to the arbitration of arms, it was a skirmish rather than a battle. The disheartened High- landers showed none of their customary fire ; they broke, and retreated in confusion with comparatively little loss. Night gave the leaders time for consultation ; the Spaniards surrendered and the Highlanders dispersed. " Everybody else took the road he liked best." Keith, who was sick of a fever, was forced to he in hiding in the mountains for a month, when he crossed country to his ancestral estates, and found a ship at Peterhead which carried him to the Texel. At the Hague the brothers came together again, and again they set out in company for Spain, deciding to pass through France as the route least likely to be suspected. But at Sedan they were 172 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE stopped, as they could show no passports, and were ordered off to prison by the town mayor. As, fortunately, they were not searched, they destroyed their compromising Spanish commissions. Then it occurred to the town mayor that he had forgotten to ask their names, and he inquired if they had any papers. The Earl showed a note from the Princess de Conti which opened the doors of the prison. Thus they reached Paris, then in the height of the Mississippi boom, so that no one troubled much about the anon5niious strangers. They parted, to meet once again at Toulouse, when the Earl, to his brother's surprise, walked into his apartment. Hoping to pass the Pyrenees, he had been arrested at Bigorre, and after a six weeks' sojourn in the castle, had been released by an order, signed by the child- king, accompanied by a passport for Italy and a peremp- tory order to leave the kingdom. Toulouse was not on the road from Bigorre to Rome, but, having an Italian passport, to Rome the brothers re- solved to go, and take the opportunity of paying their respects to their royal master. Sea voyages might then be almost as protracted as the cruise of Ulysses from Ilium to Ithaca. The galley of the Genoese Republic, bound from Marseilles to Leghorn, buffeted by light head winds, hugged the coasts as closely as that of the Ithican, con- tinually stormbound in the harbours whither it had crept for safety. The Genoese of the Middle Ages were daring navigators ; Keith says there was no danger, but infinite worry, and he solemnly vowed that he never again would be tempted to set foot in any craft Italians professed to navigate. At Rome they had no reason to complain of their MARSHAL KEITH 173 reception. The King took it for granted that they had no money, and sent his secretary to the Pope, to beg an advance of 1000 scudi on his pension. The Pope dechned, on pretence of poverty, which, as Keith remarks, shows how Httle regard the churchmen have for those who have abandoned all for their religion. However, a money-lender was more complaisant, and the wanderers had the means of returning to Madrid. Their arrival at Leghorn alarmed the English envoy, who threatened the Senate with a bom- bardment by the Enghsh fleet if they were not summarily dismissed. The Keiths were only too willing to go, but represented the impossibihty of making a start with an English frigate in the ofhng. They were assured that, if they would charter a felucca of fourteen oars, they could safely sneak along the Riviera, sleeping comfortably every night on shore. The proposal seemed so reasonable that they adopted it. Penniless in Madrid, James presented himself at the War Office to ask for a copy of the colonel's commission destroyed at Sedan. From time immemorial suitors in Spain have always been kept waiting. Now there was a very decent excuse ; that commission, signed in blank by the King, had been filled up by Alberoni, now in exile, and had never been entered at the War Office. After some delay he did get another, but it was as a colonel unattached, and though there was a royal order that it should carry pay, the pay was never forthcoming. " I knew nobody and was known of none ; and had not my good fortune brought Admiral Cammock to Madrid, whom I had known formerly in Paris, I know not what would have become of me ; he immediately offered me his house 174 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and his table." Cammock, who had a fellow-feeling for refugees, had the good fortune to be a CathoHc. He had served for years in the British navy, and well merited the rank he had won in that of Spain. At the battle gained by Byng off Cape Passaro he had commanded a Spanish sixty-gun ship ; and had his chief listened to his wise advice, he would infallibly have escaped the great disaster. Two years were idled away ; after failure at Madrid he had tried Paris, and vainly attempted, through feminine influence, to enter the French service. Early in 1725, when the French match with the Infanta of Spain was broken off, he " could no longer stay in France with honour, after the notification from the Spanish ambassador that all officers holding the Spanish commission should leave with the Infanta." In 1726 there were rumours of a rupture with England. The exile writes as a Spaniard, of the fleet that was to intercept our galleons. Troops were ordered to Andalusia, and it was evident that they were intended to threaten Gibraltar. Keith asked to be em- ployed, but had the usual answer, that no Protestant could receive a command, whereupon he volunteered. But as he despaired of any chance of advancement, he resolved it should be his last campaign under Spanish colours. He gives a most interesting account of the operations, and the carelessness of the garrison might have cost them dear. There were not above 1000 men in the place ; there was but a slender guard at the landward gate, and the Spanish soldiers were actually allowed to swarm into the tovm, without even searching them for arms. A surprise would have been easy, but the fortress was saved by a MARSHAL KEITH 175 strange exhibition of the Spanish pride. The Count de Las Torres said, " that would the EngUsh give him the town, he would not take it but by the breach." The Spanish siege train was delayed by the rains ; when it came, the batteries were mounted at an impossible dis- tance ; when nearer ground was broken, English men-of- war had been moored so as to rake the trenches with a flanking fire ; reinforcements had been poured into the place by the fleet, and after a five months' series of fiascos the siege was raised. " All we gained was the knowledge that Gibraltar was impregnable by land." Keith, though with little hope of success, went back to Madrid to play his last card. He asked for a regiment through the King's confessor, and had the answer that if he would turn Roman Catholic he should have the regi- ment and much more. He was neither surprised nor greatly aggrieved, for with the bigoted King the refusal was matter of principle. Keith represented that, as he had no hope of promotion, he must reluctantly quit his Majesty's service, and requested a recommendation to the Empress of Russia. That was graciously granted, and letters were sent to the Duke of Liria, then the Spanish ambassador at St. Petersburg, charging him to recommend Keith to the sovereign. Nor could he have been better befriended. The Duke was an old acquaintance and familiar travelling companion. The answer came almost by return of post. The Tsar would take him into his service with rank of major-general, and the most Catholic King gave him 1000 crowns to defray his travelling expenses. It is to be regretted that the autobiography ends 176 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE abruptly with 1737. In Russia he passed nineteen of the best years of his Ufe, and eventful years they were, both for him and the land of his adoption. But in an epoch when empresses reigned and their lovers or favourites ruled over them, much mention is made of the illustrious Scottish soldier, who played a leading part in the wars and rose to the rank of field-marshal, Keith was a soldier first, but he was also something of a courtier ; as we have seen, he was almost as inflammable as Marshal Saxe, and so sus- ceptible to the influences of the fair sex that, once at least, a woman had well-nigh changed his career. It is said indeed, though we give little credence to the report, that had not north-country caution tempered his ambition, he might have been the consort of the Empress Elizabeth ; and when he died a soldier's death in his old age, he was as passionately in love with a mistress as when he had been a hot-headed youth of twenty in Paris. The Russia of 1728 and afterwards offered splendid opportunities to gifted foreigners, but if there were great chances there were greater risks. Everything depended on some woman's smiles. Beggars might rise from the dunghill to autocratic rule, like Biron, the base-born Duke of Courland, but the higher the eminence to which they attained, the more tremendous was the almost inevitable fall. Their elevation turned friends into jealous enemies, and the relatives of the victims they had been trampling under foot, when they dared to find a voice, were clamorous for revenge. If the fallen favourite set store by life, he might deem himself fortunate in being beggared and banished. As a new sultan used to make a clean sweep of his male kindred, so the author of every successful MARSHAL KEITH 177 revolution scattered death sentences and orders of exile broadcast ; executions were preceded by atrocious refine- ments of torture, and the highest order of the orthodox Church was no safeguard from being racked in the dungeon or broken on the wheel. Shortly before Keith landed at Cronstadt there had been one of the most striking examples of one of the worst vicissitudes of fortune. Prince Menschi- koff had been more than the alter ego of the Tsarina Catherine. She had given him everything he asked, except the single right of succession to the throne in his family, but his daughter had been betrothed to the heir apparent. Grasping as he was ambitious, charged with all kinds of corruption, he had amassed incalculable riches. By the will of the Empress he was left standing alone. Regent and despotic master of the kingdom. He did not deem it worth while to conciliate the boy Tsar or the Tsar's favourite sister. A threatening of apoplexy and a short illness changed everything ; it was said that the ruthless old lion was dying ; his enemies took heart, his friends fell away, the Tsar plucked up courage to shake off the yoke, Menschikoff's fall from step to step was rapid. First he was snubbed, then banished to a distant estate ; order after order overtook him as he travelled, each more severe than the former. He left St. Petersburg in pomp ; he reached his destination closely guarded by subaltern officers of police. Palaces in half a dozen of cities, domains and forests in thirty-six governments, invaluable jewels and vast sums in coin and bullion, were all confiscated by one stroke of the pen. He had left the capital with a train of coaches and six, and 150 smaller carriages. A few months afterwards, in a common kibitka, he exchanged the magnificence of M 178 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Oranienbaum for a cabin in Siberia, his baggage pillaged by his escort, and left with nothing but the clothes he wore. His destination, Berezoff, was in the marshes on the Obi, with a winter cold that is said to have shivered the window panes ; and there he died. It argues much for Keith's prudence that, high as he rose, he never lost his footing on those treacherous slopes till he retired, in reason- able apprehension, of his own free will and pleasure. He had landed at Cronstadt in the autumn of 1728, and in October was at Moscow, where his friend and patron, the Duke of Liria, presented him to all the principal per- sonages. The boy Tsar, as was his habit, was gone hunting in the neighbouring forests. He had nominally given Keith his commission, but he concerned himself little with state affairs, and in his brief reign was but a puppet in the hands of favourites and flatterers. Boy as he was, with the restless energy of his race he had inherited the hard drinking and the amorous susceptibilities of the first Peter. He was swayed for good or evil between two feminine influences ; between his sister Nathalie and Elizabeth the future Empress, respectively styled the Minerva and the Venus of the court. Had he listened to the wise counsels of Nathalie, it had been better for him. But the boy was passionately enamoured of his aunt Elizabeth, the woman of many lovers, and she shared his passion for field sports, as for dissipation degenerating into orgies. Left to himself, it is said, he might have married his seductive aunt, born out of wedlock and legitimated by her father Peter. But he was as wax in the hands of his favourites, the Dolgoroukis, and they betrothed him to a daughter of the house. When Keith came to his court, MARSHAL KEITH 179 everything was a chaos ; no master-will had replaced that of Menschikoff ; law was in abeyance, life was unsafe, and the soldiers had broken loose from all discipline. Then, to the consternation of the Dolgoroukis, young Peter caught the small-pox and died. In their despera- tion, in a family gathering they forged the signature to a will, by which Peter, imitating his grandfather and over- riding the established order of succession, bequeathed the regency to his betrothed. Confronted by the leading aristocracy in the Imperial Council, they had never the courage to promulgate it. Those notables took matters in hand, and made arbitrary choice of a successor. They sent to Mitau for the Duchess of Courland, second daughter of Ivan, elder brother of the first Peter. They sent at the same time a charter of liberties she was compelled to subscribe, and brought her to St. Petersburg a constitu- tional sovereign. If they had hoped for a Queen Log, they found a Queen Stork. Anne, with an imperious temper, and smarting under many mortifications, was indignant at the restraints imposed. Aided by the jealousies of the lesser noblesse, she provoked an /meute of the Pretorian Guards, who always found their account in devotion to unlimited autocracy. It was no longer a question of constitutional re- straint, and the oligarchy who had hoped to govern were in terror of their lives. Not without reason, for though the new Empress took her vengeance leisurely, every man of them was sentenced to banishment or death. As for the Dolgoroukis, lately all-powerful, they were beggared, sent to Siberia, or doomed to death with refinements of torture. With the new reign began a golden age for such foreign adventurers as the Scottish soldier. Germans were in the i8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE ascendant. No sooner was Anne seated firmly on the throne than she sent a courier post-haste to Mitau to fetch her paramour Biron, whom she had reluctantly left behind. The name had been Frenchified, but the proper spelling was Biihren. He came of a Westphalian stock which had emigrated to Courland, but was of such doubtful rank that, though he afterwards became sovereign of the country, the council of the duchy had refused to rank him as noble. His wife was complaisant ; his relations with the new Empress were notorious, so much so that the maternity of the Biron children was doubtful. Throughout the life- time of Anne he ruled Russia with a rod of iron, accumu- lating enmities on all sides. Ostermann, another German, crafty and cautious, was charged with foreign aft'airs. Always intriguing against those in place and power, he invariably took to bed in moments of crisis, shirking all active responsibihty. Field-Marshal Munich, Minister at War and Commander-in-Chief, was of a very different stamp. A typical soldier of fortune, who had served in the armies of France, Hesse, and Saxony, he had made his debut in Russia as a civil engineer. By an audacious accepting of the responsibilities from which Ostermann shrank, he had attracted the notice of Peter the Great, who found in him a man after his own heart. A Condottiere who had no scruples and ignored all obstacles, Kke Peter, when pushing forward military enterprises, he set slight value on either lives or money. He knew it himself, and there was no reproach to which he was more sensitive than that of playing fast and loose with the lives of his soldiers. There are experts who have ranked him with Prince Eugene, and the two had some qualities in common. He took Keith MARSHAL KEITH i8i by the hand at once, and Keith certainly owed him much, and seems for a time to have been as devoted to him as his aide-de-camp Manstein, though they fell apart at the coup d'etat which raised Ehzabeth to the throne. There never was a time when there was a sharper dividing line between the household troops, the corps d' elite, and the regiments of the line. The men of the latter were soldiers for life, the duty was detested, the pay was always in arrear, the clothing was ragged, desertions were frequent, and discipline was lax. That must be remembered in considering the campaigns ; but then, as now, the moujiks in uniform would march to death with stolid fatalism. The regiments of the Guard, on the con- trary, quartered in the capital, were paid and petted as possible instruments in some imminent revolution. Not a few of the privates were of noble or gentle birth. Munich's own regiment, the famous Preobrajenski Guards, was devoted to him ; but nothing had made him more generally unpopular at headquarters than his proposal to scatter these gentlemen through the provinces and give them commissions in the line. When Keith came to court, one of the Dolgoroukis, a field-marshal, gave him com- mand of two foot regiments quartered near Moscow. He modestly asked a delay of three months, till he should get some notion of the methods of the service. It does not appear that he had taken over the command before the revolution, and then, to the general amazement, he was given a newly-levied regiment of Guards. A command in the Guards was one of the most important trusts in the Empire, and according to Manstein the new regiment was enrolled as a check on the older ones, when all was suspicion. 1 82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE " All Moscow," says Keith, " was as much surprised as I was myself." The Empress lost no time in imposing the oath exacted by Peter the Great, leaving it to the reigning autocrat to settle the succession. Keith had orders to administer it to his regiment, and then to all the troops of the line in garrison. They took it to a man without hesi- tation, but Dolgorouki who had signed Keith's commission showed temper, and was said to have spoken disrespectfully of the Tsarina herself. Whereupon he was seized, tried, and sentenced, and although the death penalty was graciously commuted, he followed the rest of his family into exile. The military council presided over by Munich had framed a scheme of army organisation, with an inspector- general and three deputies, Keith was appointed one of the deputies, and was charged with the department of the south-east. He left Moscow, where he had been in com- mand of the garrison, and in the course of six months he reviewed thirty-two regiments and travelled 1500 leagues. He returned to the capital to find " everything in move- ment" over the disputed Polish succession. Stanislas Leckinski was the French candidate, and he could count on a great majority in the Pohsh Diet ; but France was far away, and Austria and Russia favoured the Elector of Saxony. It was resolved at St. Petersburg to rush the country before a king could be chosen, though the march of an army corps under General Lacy only precipitated the election. But the reign of Stanislas was as short and his supremacy as shadowy as that of the unfortunate Frederick, " the Winter King " of Bohemia. He fled to the strong fortress of Dantzic, whither he was followed by the Russians under Munich and Lacy. MARSHAL KEITH 183 Meantime the Empress had despatched other forces to march on Warsaw and invade Lithuania. Keith passed the Dneiper on the ice in the depth of winter, with six battaUons of foot, a regiment of dragoons, and 4000 Cossacks. There was no fighting, but rumours of formidable Pohsh musters had alarmed the court, and Keith was superseded by Prince Shahofski, who arrived with strong reinforcements. The Prince was kept inactive by short supplies, and he devoted his involuntary leisure to devastating the country around. Keith was detached with 3000 Cossacks on the duty ; he did what he could to avoid it, but his superior was peremptory. He swept in cattle by the thousand and half-starved horses by the hundred, but wherever he turned he found villages deserted, and in his reports he said that, if the devastation went on, their own troops on their advance would risk dying of hunger. He repeatedly volunteered advice which was as often rejected. Some of his personal adventures were exciting and amusing. At Medzibeg, for example, he understood that the governor had orders to receive him and his troops and ask for safe- guards. Accordingly he was met with all honours without the walls, and escorted to the castle-palace of Prince Schartorinski, the Seigneur of the place. He rode straight to the castle with only twenty-four troopers, where he found the garrison under arms with drums beating and colours flying. He saw he had fallen into a trap, and that the only way of escape was to put a good face on the matter. He sent his adjutant for his " equipage," ordering him to mix 150 grenadiers with the waggons, which gives an idea of the encumbrances with which Russian com- manders were wont to take the field. Fortunately for him. 184 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE his baggage train entered in time : " had they shut the gate before their arrival, I had certainly remained a prisoner." Then Prince Shahofski in turn was superseded by the Prince of Hesse-Homburg, who was afterwards to give Munich so much trouble in his Turkish war. The Prince was one of those high-born soldiers who would not obey, but had no genius for command. And it was a peculiar force he had under him ; there were but six battahons of foot, all the others were dragoons or Cossacks. It was a warfare of foraging, scouting, and skirmishing ; of blockading strong places with no siege train, trusting to surprises, starvation, or factions within the enceinte; for there was no sharp dividing line in the country between the partisans of Stanislas and those of the Saxon Elector. When the army went into winter quarters, it had been so far successful that Eastern Poland from the Sanne to the Dneiper was in Russian occupation, and there abruptly ends Marshal Keith's autobiographical fragment. In the spring of 1735, the Polish question had been so far settled that the bulk of the troops were withdrawn. The restless Empress found them occupation elsewhere. In answer to an appeal of the Emperor Charles she realised an ambition of Peter the Great, and sent a corps d'elite to show the Russian colours on the Rhine. Count Lacy went in command, and Keith was his second as lieutenant-general. The march lay through Bohemia and the Upper Palatinate, and Manstein says that every one was in admiration of their fine physique and splendid discipline. It was but a military promenade ; no shot was fired, but they came back with credit and a sensible increase of Russian prestige. Her military and political triumphs turned the Empress's MARSHAL KEITH 185 head. She was set on reaUsing another of the great Peter's dreams, and the result was the costly war with Turkey — costly in lives and wasteful of treasure. It had been in contemplation ever since her accession. In 1732 Keith as inspector-general had had orders to review the troops and examine the stores collected in the frontier places and to replenish the magazines in case of deficiency. As might have been expected, he found that most of the stores were spoiled ; that the clothes had rotted and the arms rusted. He did what he could to put things in better order, and gathered in vast quantities of com. The Polish troubles had delayed hostihties, but now it was determined to open the attack, the rather that Turkey was committed to a war with Persia. In the autumn of 1734 General Leontow marched for the Crimea with 20,000 men and orders to put everything to fire and sword. He had not time to do any great damage before winter set in and he retired, leaving half his men behind him. Next year, with a more powerful army and somewhat better organised, Marshal Munich took the field in person. He did not fare much better than Leontow, although through the summer he waged desultory warfare with varying fortunes. He had many difficulties to contend with. His losses in battle were not great, but the soldiers died hke flies from hunger, thirst, and exhausting marches. Epidemics broke out in his camps, and it is noted that the men used to sour black bread were actually poisoned when they had to fall back on sweet wheaten flour. We have seen what Keith's baggage train as a simple general was in Poland, and the number of ox-waggons, beasts of burden, and camp-followers with Munich has been seldom 1 86 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE exceeded by any Indian army. The depleted ranks had to be replenished, and when Keith led back Lacy's 10,000 from the Rhine, he marched them straight to the Ukraine, where they went into winter quarters. In April 1737 the army was over the Dnieper, Keith in command of his own Rhenish corps. Its objective was Ockzakow. The Cossacks came in touch with the Tartar horsemen, who were driven back after a sharp skirmish. The Marshal held a council of war, in which it was resolved to push the siege before the Ottoman army could come to the relief. The Turks on their side were not inactive, for the council was broken up by a sally of the garrison. Munich was on his mettle, though he had missed his fleet, which was to come down the Dnieper, and was conse- quently in want of everything. There was not even wood for fires or for the making of fascines. Within a distance of eight leagues around everything had been wasted, even to pasturage for the horses. But 5000 pioneers were at once set to work to throw up redoubts and form lines of circumvallation behind the Russian trenches. The parallels were pushed forward ; the Turks were driven from their advanced posts, and forced to take refuge behind the inner palisades. A lively cannonade was kept up ; the town was seen to be in flames in several places, though the fires were speedily extinguished. But before daybreak on the 13th July, there was a blaze which illuminated the town, and the flames were spreading fast. Whereupon the Marshal sent orders to Keith, who was in the centre attack and the nearest to the defences, to advance within musket-shot of the glacis and keep up a continual fire. Keith returned for answer that he was already within musket-shot, as he MARSHAL KEITH 187 knew to his cost, for though his men were behind the redoubts, many had been killed or wounded. The Marshal simply repeated his orders, and shortly afterwards became more urgent, ordering the troops to leave their shelter and fire without cover. It will be remembered that Munich was specially sensitive on the charge of wasting the lives of his men. On this occasion, Keith again protested, but obeyed. To do the Marshal justice, if he sacrificed others he never spared himself. Scarcely had Keith got his soldiers out of the redoubts than another aide-de-camp reached him to say that Munich himself, with Biron and the Guards, were already at the foot of the glacis on the right, and he hoped Keith would follow the example. Lowendal on the left had the same order, and advancing, he joined Keith. At the bottom of the glacis they were brought up by a ditch twelve feet broad, and they had nothing to bridge it, nor had they ladders to scale the counterscarp. Yet there they stayed for a couple of hours, exposed to the hottest fire, which would have been more deadly had they not been so near, till at last the dis- heartened survivors, after endless futile efforts, made a rush back to the redoubts and the gardens in which they had bivouacked the night before. Marshal Munich was in despair. But the progress of the conflagration brought a sudden turn of the wheel of fortune. The fire had reached the great powder magazine, which blew up, spreading destruction through half the town, and burying 6000 soldiers beneath the ruins. Thereupon the Seraskier hung out the white flag. No terms were granted, and there was a general massacre. Most of the defenders who were not put to 1 88 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the sword were drowned in their attempts to swim the river. Munich, though successful, was deeply mortified. It was by luck, not skill, that the place was taken. Seeking a scapegoat, he found one in Keith, for whom now he had no great liking. He protested that the attack had failed owing to Keith's over-vivacity, though that had been due to his own initiative. He made the charge to the Prince of Brunswick, in presence of other generals. The Scotsman was not there, nor was he in condition to defend himself, but when he was informed of what had passed, he sent a message to the Marshal, saying that all he had done was by his orders, and demanding a council of war or a court- martial. He added that he gladly welcomed an oppor- tunity of indicating the mistakes that had been made in the beginning of the operations. The Marshal came to him next morning, apologetic and effusive of praises. " Sir," he said, "it is to you we are partly indebted for the success of this great enterprise," Keith answered dryly, " I beg your pardon, sir, I do not pretend to the least honour, having done nothing but obey your orders." Keith was in no condition to defend himself actively, for with a bullet in the knee he was lying helpless on his camp bed. The Russian surgery was rough and ready, and the only idea was amputation. Keith was loath to part with the limb, and would not hear of it. We have no details, but he must have lain crippled for months, and nothing but a strong constitution could have pulled him through. We know that there was time for the news to reach his brother at Valentia, when the Earl made aU haste to Ockzakow. The patient could be moved, though the MARSHAL KEITH 189 journey must have been a severe ordeal, and he was taken to the Baths of Bareges, famous a century before for the heahng of gunshot wounds. The cure was effective, for there was no further inconvenience. It was then that the brothers visited England, and that the General had private audiences of the King. The wound had more important consequences. Travelling from Russia to France, the brothers passed through Berlin, where they were received with exceptional honours. The eccentric King was cordial, and it was then that General Keith made the acquaint- ance of the Crown Prince, his future friend and master. Back in Russia Keith had the command in the Ukraine, where his mild but resolute rule made him generally popular. Yet there was the iron hand under the silken glove. A Wallachian Prince, commanding a regiment in the Russian service, on his way to St. Petersburg from Munich's army, was passing through Poland. Count Potocky, the Crown General, was a relation of his own, nevertheless the Prince was seized and thrown into a dungeon, and he had information that he was to be handed over to the Turks, when his probable fate would be that of Marsyas. He found means to communicate with Keith, who sent a peremptory demand for his release. The Crown General prevaricated, denying possession of the prisoner, but finally setting him at hberty, and escorting him in person to the frontiers of the Ukraine. As it happened, Keith had reason to repent his action. The Prince, having been detached by Munich to do duty on the Danube, took the bit in his teeth and turned back into Poland, where he ravaged the domains of his cousin the Crown General, com- mitting the most shameful atrocities. Even then, when I90 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE wars were not waged with rose-water, the raid made immense noise and scandal, and the Empress had to pay heavy damages to avert another Pohsh war. Keith's departure from the Ukraine was deeply re- gretted. Manstein says that, although he was only there for a year, he had done more in the time than any of his predecessors in ten. He had even put his wild Cossacks in some sort of training, and the people complained that, having once given them so good a governor, he ought to have been left. But the Court cared Httle for good ad- ministration, and the General's mihtary services were wanted elsewhere. Trouble had been brewing between Russia and Sweden ; war seemed imminent, and for once Russia was preparing for eventualities. Troops werfe being moved to the frontiers ; the fleet was being refitted, and the magazines replenished. There was an interlude while great events were passing at St. Petersburg. The Empress Anne had died ; the infant Ivan of Brunswick, doomed to a hfe of misery and a Hving death, had been declared Emperor by the will of the late Empress, and by the same testamentary disposi- tion the omnipotent favourite Biron had been constituted Regent. In a few weeks, thanks to the jealousy of his old ally and bosom friend. Marshal Munich, Biron was surprised in his bed and sent summarily off to the further confines of Siberia. The Duchess Anne of Brunswick, mother of the child-Emperor, assumed the Regency, and her consort was proclaimed Generalissimo of the forces. Munich, to whom they owed their supremacy, vain- gloriously paraded a power above the throne ; he fell naturally into disfavour ; disgraced, he was sent to follow MARSHAL KEITH 191 Biron to Siberia, where for twenty years he occupied the quarters of the exiled Duke of Courland. Russia had been preoccupied with these domestic affairs, but now the court was awakened to urgent warnings from their minister at Stockholm. The Regent summoned Lacy and Keith to St. Petersburg. It was resolved to form two corps d'arm/e. The first, under these two generals, was to enter Finland immediately on the impending declaration of war. On the 22nd July the first camp was formed under Keith at Wybourg, ahnost a suburb of the capital. There were eight regiments of horse and foot, and they were reviewed by the generalissimo and Lacy. A month later, on the little Emperor's birthday, Keith ordered the troops under arms to hear the declaration of war. He briefly addressed each of the battahons, exhorting each soldier to do his duty and augment the glories of the Russian arms. The next day the march began. The force was nearly doubled by regiments from Wybourg, and the men carried bread for fifteen days. Two days more and the army was on the frontier, when Lacy arrived to take over the command. On the ist of September the frontier was passed. So impracticable was the country, with its woods and swamps, that the army could only advance in a single column. At night, when they lay on their arms, there was one of those night alarms when trivial causes scare the steadiest troops, as we learned from our own Peninsular experiences. Some Swedish scouts had crept through the woods, till they were challenged and fired at by one of the sentinels. The regiments of the second line sprang to their feet, opening a lively fire on their comrades in front. They seem to 192 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE have fired high, for but a few were killed and wounded. Nevertheless the scare might have had fatal consequences, for Lacy and Keith were sleeping between the lines, and the tents in which they had lain down were riddled. As it was, the fusillade gave Wrangel, the Swedish general, notice of the enemy's approach. The fortified town of Wilmanstrad was the immediate object of the Russians. Some hundreds of the dragoon horses had torn loose from their picket-pins. The volleys in the camp had startled an advance guard of the Swedes, and when the thunder of approaching hoofs intimated a cavalry charge, they turned and fled full speed for the town. The horses came hard on their heels, and entered with them before the bridges could be raised. Not only had a Russian regiment been dismounted, but Wrangel, when he heard the firing, sent immediate intelligence to his colleague Buddenbrog, and hurried forward himself to the relief of the town. It would have been well for him had he not taken the alarm. He had no answer from his colleague, but took up a posi- tion facing the Russians and commanding the town. In the battle that ensued Lacy attacked with slight regard to formation, and apparently with no plan. Keith led the right wing, and Manstein, who was under him, writes as an eye-witness and leading actor. Keith sent two of his regiments to storm the batteries, which were seriously annoying him. The regiments, who had to plunge into a ravine and climb a counterscarp, recoiled in disorder. Then Keith detached Manstein on a flanking movement under cover of the woods. It was so successful that the Swedes, abandoning their positions, broke and fled for the town. The batteries they had abandoned were out of MARSHAL KEITH 193 action, till they were captured and turned against themselves. Everywhere the battle went in favour of the Russians, and Wrangel's soldiers were taken or slaughtered almost to a man. Nor did their misfortunes end there. A parle- mentaire sent to summon the place was killed by a shot from the ramparts. His death roused the Russians to fury. Wilmanstrand was stormed, its defenders put to the sword ; subsequently the city was razed to the ground and the miserable inhabitants transported to Russia. Manstein attributes the victory to Keith, but says both the Swedish generals were seriously to blame. Wrangel neglected the most ordinary precautions, and Buddenbrog was rightly sentenced to death by court-martial for having failed to come to his assistance. Both Swedes and Finns would seem to have deteriorated lamentably since the Thirty Years' War. The night after the battle there was a more disgraceful panic in Buddenbrog's camp than that which had roused Keith and Lacy. A few dragoons, flying from Wilmanstrand, charged down on the advanced pickets. The sentry challenged and had no answer ; he fired his carbine, threw himself on his horse and rode for the camp. The fugitives followed, the pickets got mixed with them, and so general was the alarm that in a few minutes all Buddenbrog's soldiers were scattered through the woods. He and his staff were left in charge of the camp, and next day they had the greatest difficulty in gathering the men back to the colours. Yet Wilmanstrand, says Manstein, was the only battle in which the Swedes showed any valour in the whole course of the war. For the war was to go on, though for the present the Russians withdrew behind the frontier without following up N 194 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE their advantage. Lacy returned to St. Petersburg, leaving Keith in command. The army was in winter quarters ; Keith had a summons from the Marshal to a council of war, but had scarcely reached the capital when he was recalled by news of menacing Swedish movements. We know not whether he was aware of the great events im- pending. By a strange and happy coincidence he left St. Petersburg the day before the coup d'etat that placed Elizabeth on the throne. It may have been well for him that he was temporarily out of the way, for though the conspiracy was engineered by Frenchmen, the daughter of Peter was raised to power on a rush of reaction. There was a proscription of the foreigners. Munich, Ostermann, and three others of scarcely less note were sentenced to the axe or the wheel, and only reprieved on the scaffold after a grim burlesque that might have been fatal to men of weaker nerve. Honours were showered on the Russian Revolutionists. Not content with what had been done, the Preobrajenski regiment of guards, who had been in the forefront of the plot and to whom Elizabeth had made special promises, clamoured for the massacre of all the strangers. Foreigners of all nations were hunted in the streets, and even one of Lacy's aides-de-camp was so mis- handled that he nearly died of his wounds. When the war with Sweden recommenced in spring, Keith had his own experience of the troubles. The rioters in St. Petersburg had sent agents to the army, where the regiments of the guards set the example of mutiny. Borrow in his " Bible in Spain " tells how Quesada, single-handed — followed only by two orderlies — quelled a tumult in Madrid. He adds, " Who by his single desperate courage OF If MARSHAL KEITH 195 and impetuosity ever before stopped a revolution in full course ? " Manstein, a good judge of manhood, as the Great Frederick had reason to know, places Keith on a level with Quesada. The mutineers had gone straight to their German general's tent. They missed the general, but they mastered the guard, abused the staff, and maltreated the servants. They shouted that all foreigners should be massacred ; they had broken away from all control, for their own officers would not approach them. Then Keith rode up. " He threw himself, without the least hesitation, into the thickest of the mutinous troops. He seized with his own hand one of the mutineers. He ordered a priest to be called to confess him, saying he would have him shot on the spot. . . . Scarce had he pronounced these words, with that firmness which is natural to him, before the whole band dispersed and ran each to hide himself in his tent. Keith ordered a call of the rolls, that the absent should be taken into custody." Manstein adds, that had it not been for the spirited determination of the Scot, the revolt must have spread, since no Russian officer would have undertaken to face the rage of the soldiery. The disturbance seems to have passed and left no trace. After summary chastisement had fallen on the ringleaders, the rank and file returned to discipline. The Russians advanced, driving the Swedes out of a succession of strongly defensible positions, and the chase was followed up to Hel- singfors. Finally a Swedish army of 17,000 men capitulated to numbers barely superior. Finland was abandoned ; ten Finland regiments were disarmed and disbanded ; and Keith, who was appointed governor of the province, went into winter quarters at Abo with a force deemed sufficient 196 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE to hold it. Manstein suggests various reasons for the humihating surrender. Yet the fact remains that those degenerate Finns were the descendants of the great Gustavus' famous cuirassiers. The war was resumed in 1743 to compel the Swedes to accept all the hard Russian conditions. But that year it was chiefly fought on the sea and the sea-fjords, and Keith figured in the novel character of Admiral, with Lacy still in supreme command. In May he left Abo, joined his galleys to those of another flotilla, and decided to offer the enemy battle. But he had to count with winds and calms and dangerous navigation among shoals and islands, and operations dragged on, though the Swedes had the worst of it. When Lacy had joined him, and they might have dealt a decisive blow, supplies were scarcely to be had on any terms, and both combatants were nearly starving. Consequently it was a welcome announcement in midsummer that the prehminaries of a peace had been signed, and that there was to be an immediate suspension of hostilities. The troops were to be withdrawn from Finland, and Keith returned to Abo to make the necessary arrangements. With a hitch in the negotiations came counter-orders, and Keith when half-way home was sent back to Helsingfors with thirty galleys. Meantime in Sweden there had been revolt in Dale- carHa, and the Danes had been massing troops on their Swedish frontiers. The King and the Senate turned for help to the Russians, to oppose the Danes and to quell the internal troubles. Keith was now to turn diplomatist, and had orders to repair to Stockhobn, taking his 11,000 soldiers with him. He was to make his reports and take his orders MARSHAL KEITH 197 from the King, but was fully accredited as Russian envoy. It was a boisterous voyage, and Manstein says that " any other man would hardly have been able to execute this expedition. He had not only to contend with the violence of the storms and the intensity of the cold, but also with the officers of the marine who were often representing the impossibility of proceeding in so severe a season." Keith received the remonstrances, put them in his pocket, and renewed the signals for going straight ahead. Nine months were passed in Sweden, when the foreign difficulties having been amicably arranged, he and his troops were recalled. He brought his fleet to Revel in the middle of August. The remainder of his stay in Russia may be briefly dis- missed. On his return the successful Admiral and envoy was received with all honour, and for a time he stood so high in the favour of the Empress that scandal was busy with their relations. Naturally, both as favourite and foreigner, he made many enemies in influential quarters. The most formidable was Bestucheff, the new Vice-Chancellor. Little by little he was deprived of his commands and emoluments ; in 1747 the man who had governed the Ukraine and administered conquered Finland, had only two regiments of militia. He knew well that after such a glissade he might any day follow Munich and Ostermann to Siberia. The cup of his disappointment and discontent overflowed when in December a Russian army was to march for the Rhine to aid the Austrians against the French. When Lacy, who had the first claim, had dechned the leading, Keith should naturally have had the refusal, had it been a question of the most experienced and dis- tinguished general. To his disgust, the choice fell on 198 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Prince Repuin, and it came as another warning to be gone. He had another grievance which assured him of his loss of favour, had he doubted it. He had sohcited a place for his brother the Earl. " We have Marshals enough," was the curt answer of the Empress. If Keith was disgusted, another and a greater soldier was delighted. Frederick of Prussia had never lost sight of him since years before they had met at Potsdam. Since then Frederick had waged the war of the Pragmatic Sanction, and knowing that the peace was but an indefinite truce, he had kept a watchful eye on his Russian neigh- bours and on the ablest of the soldiers of fortune who had been disciplining them. His envoys were at St. Peters- burg, less for diplomacy than to send minute information as to all that was going on, and he had followed the decline of Keith with warm personal interest. Keith left the land of his adoption without beat of drum and with no formal leave-takings. He passed the frontier incognito and travelled unostentatiously to Ham- burg. Thence he sent Frederick a letter with a proffer of his services ; the answer was prompt and to the point, and flattering as he could possibly have desired. He was to have the rank of Field-Marshal ; the pay was £1200 a year, with everything else suitable to his standing. And the pay was good, when ambassadors at Paris or Vienna had to keep up their state on £800 or £900. The King received him with open arms, and in a few weeks he wrote to his brother that he dined almost daily at the royal table. " He has more wit than I have wit to tell you ; speaks intelligently on all subjects, and I am much mis- taken if with the experience of four campaigns he is not MARSHAL KEITH 199 the best officer in his army." But he adds that the King was a man who kept his own secrets, for the Marshal was a shrewd judge of character. The more he was known, the more he was valued. Two years afterwards he was Governor of Berlin, with increased pay and allowances. Though in the meantime all seemed peaceful enough, the King had been making ready for probable trouble. In 1757 the storm broke, with all the world except his uncle of England against him. It was a war got up by the women he had offended, and it would be hard to say whether the Austrian Empress, the Tsarina, or Madame de Pompadour hated him the most. Consequently there was no hope of conciliation, though he attempted it at Vienna to put himself in the right. Coolly calculated, his ruin seemed assured, but at least he had done everything to meet the shock. His army of 150,000 was perfection ; it had been trained and drilled by such gifted generals as old Schwerin and Frederick of Brunswick, the Duke of Brunswick Bevern, Moritz of Dessau, and Marshal Keith. The question was whether to wait or strike. PoUcy dictated the one : strategical considerations the other England had been holding him back, but a decision was now urgent. Frederick's own mind was made up, but he consulted his most trusted generals. With what know- ledge they had they argued that as the future was in- scrutable, it would be well to wait still. But when Frederick showed the secret papers in his possession, old Schwerin broke out, "If it must be war, let us march to-morrow ; let us seize Saxony and form magazines for our campaign in Bohemia." 200 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE All was in readiness when what was practically an answer to what was virtually an ultimatum came from Vienna. Three columns crossed the frontiers. In contrast to the endless Russian baggage trains, there were to be no unnecessary encumbrances. There was to be but a single cart per company ; not even a general was to be permitted an ounce of plate ; and so minutely did the King attend to the welfare of the troops that each captain was ordered to take a cask of vinegar to correct the water when the quality was doubtful. Keith was with the central column, which directed itself on Dresden. There he was charged with a dehcate duty. Frederick had broken the peace and was apparently the aggressor, but he knew there were documents in possession of the Queen of Poland which would amply justify him, and these he was determined to secure. That the Queen should remain in Dresden was not unnatural ; but it is strange that those precious papers should not have been sent to the fortress of Konigstein, whither Saxon archives and the treasures of the Schatzkammer were invariably transported in times of peril. Keith offered his master's homage to her Majesty. She bitterly complained of her doors being beset by Prussian soldiers. Keith, it is to be presumed, answered respectfully, but next morning she found the sentries doubled and the corridors patrolled. An officer presented himself, who was polite but inflexible ; and Frederick secured the papers which had a startling effect on European opinion. The Saxon army, 16,000 strong, was formidably en- trenched in the Saxon Switzerland. Their camp was not to be stormed, and though time was precious, the only alternative was to starve them out. But the Austrians MARSHAL KEITH 201 under Broun were advancing to the relief of their aUies, and Keith with 30,000 men was sent to watch the passes leading out of Bohemia. Keith manoeuvred warily with inferior forces, but Broun was pressing, for he had per- emptory orders to reheve the Saxons at any cost. Frederick with strong reinforcements hurried to the point of danger. Keith's camp was broken up and the King marched to meet the Austrian Marshal. They met in the bloody battle of Lobositz. Frederick, coming up in the evening, had seized twin hills and the intervening pass, whence he looked down on the Austrians. Broun had reason next day to regret that he had left those hills undefended. The morning opened in dense mists. Frederick ordered a cavalry charge in the dark, which was repulsed with heavy loss and which put his horse out of action for the time. Yet when the mists were hfting, accustomed to Austrian over-caution, he fancied that Broun was retiring, and that he was only confronted by a rearguard. He found out his mistake, and seldom has there been a more fiercely contested action. Prussian stubbornness prevailed in the end, after seven hours of hand-to-hand fighting, and the honours of the day were with the Duke of Brunswick Bevem. " Never have my troops," said Frederick, " done such miracles of valour ; " but it was less satisfactory to feel he had been teaching the Austrians, who, with dis- cipline greatly improved, had shown scarcely inferior heroism. Broun was baffled but not discouraged, and it was no fault of his that a second attempt to break the blockade was foiled by weather which wrecked a cleverly devised combination. The Saxons capitulated to famine, and passed under the Prussian colours. All this time and 202 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE till the army went into winter quarters, Keith had remained in his camp at Lobositz, engaged in some minor actions, but virtually merely keeping the lists. 1757 was the darkest, the most brilHant, and the most wonderful year in the King's chequered career. Beset by enemies on all sides, his most urgent concern was to deal with the Austrians. In Bohemia they had two great armies. Broun and Prince Charles of Lorraine were at the capital ; Daun and Ludowitz were coming up behind. Frederick's columns were set in motion for Prague ; the combinations were calculated to a day, for Schwerin was advancing through the mountains by a different route from the King, and punctuality was everything. Schwerin was true to time at the trysting place before the Austrian field- works, but his sturdy soldiers came up in the last stage of exhaustion. The Marshal pleaded for a day's delay, but the King, in apprehension of the arrival of Daun, determined for immediate attack. The excitement of battle fired the flagging strength of Schwerin's hungry and weary soldiers. The Austrians held the natural fortress of the famous Ziskaberg, bristling with improvised redoubts and field batteries. The only possible chance of success was in turning the position on their extreme right, and success was achieved, in spite of unforeseen obstacles in the shape of ditch and morass, with the loss of 13,000 men— Frederick puts it at 18,000— and of brave old Marshal Schwerin, whom he valued at 10,000 more. Broun, with his leg shattered by a cannon ball, was carried into Prague to die of the wound. Prince Charles was put hors de combat with spasms in the chest. Forty thousand of the enemy were driven into the town, and the rest broke away in various MARSHAL KEITH 203 directions. Keith with the Prussian right wing was on the Weissenberg, to the west of the city, and had no direct share in the victory. But he cut into the game by head- ing back the Austrians who sought safety in flight by the western gates. The strain on Frederick's nerves was intense, for then as always through that campaign time was everything. He may have hoped to carry Prague by a coup de main, but the beaten enemy made a formidable garrison in a city exceptionally capable of defence. It was furiously bombarded from both sides ; Keith had mounted his batteries on the Lorenzberg, a height dominating the Weissenberg. The siege dragged, horse-flesh was selling at fancy prices, and the garrison was enfeebled by famine. On the 23rd of May they were mustered for a desperate sally upon Keith's lines to the west of the Moldau. Ten thousand picked men, those who had suffered least, were to break out in the darkness, and the whole of the army was mustered, to follow if things went well. But Keith was on his guard ; there was no surprise, and the sortie was repulsed with heavy loss. Still the siege dragged, and Daun, already superior in numbers, was gathering strength every day. Frederick resolved on the desperate venture of attacking him in his entrenchments on the heights of Kolin. The tidings of that disastrous day were brought to Prague by special messenger — a messenger who had specially distinguished himself, and Colonel Grant was charged with the order for the immediate abandonment of the siege. The shock to the generals was great, but they lost not a moment in obeying. Ferdinand of Brunswick was in command on the 204 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Ziskaberg, Keith on the Lorenzberg. The order came on the afternoon of the 19th of June. At three in the morning of the 20th the Prince was fihng down from the Ziskaberg. Keith's departure was delayed for twelve hours longer, for he had all the baggage with him and most of the guns; but once begun, it was admirably effected. He took every precaution for the safety of his convoy, for he feared there might be hot pursuit. At Leitmeritz, where he halted, he was joined by the King. But there was little rest for Frederick. He had detached his brother, the Prince of Prussia, on the difficult and delicate business of completing the evacuation of Bohemia, which was inevitable. August Wilhelm bungled it, and his brother hurried off to put matters right, leaving Keith to follow with the artillery. He could not tempt the Austrians to the battle he ardently desired, and his presence, as always, was urgently demanded elsewhere. The French with Austrian allies were in Thuringia. Leaving an army to mount guard over Silesia, he hastened westwards with a weak division, gathering up reinforcements as he went. But two months were to elapse before he brought the French to battle ; he was called back by the evil tidings of menace to Berlin, and in his absence Keith and Frederick of Brunswick were left to do their utmost in face of the enemy. He came back towards the end of October, and came in time to bring relief to Keith, who had thrown himself into Leipzig with a feeble force. For two days Keith had been in extreme danger, but he had stood gallantly on his defence when summoned by Soubise's vanguard. The news of Frederick's approach had raised the siege. Then from Leipzig there was a forward march, and ten days after- MARSHAL KEITH 205 wards the battle of Rossbach. The King headed the left column ; Keith led the right, keeping within touch. On the ist November they were on the banks of the Saale ; the French declined to dispute the river ; the Prussians repaired the broken bridges and passed. In front of them was a country of hill and dale and sheltered villages, and there the battle was fought, when the victors were as one to three against the vanquished. Frederick's left lay round the village which gave the field its name, and in the centre he commanded in person. Soubise was over-confident in his overwhekning superiority, and the Prussian weakness had been masked so adroitly that he beheved it to be even greater than it was. His plan was to surround and roll up the puny forces opposed to him. The tables were turned in the sudden surprise, when Sedlitz with the cavalry came down on his right in a furious flanking charge. In the confusion thus created, Frederick unmasked. His field pieces came into view on the hill crests, and opened a murderous fire. His infantry, in echelon, descended the slopes in steady advance, silent till they opened a musket fire on the serried ranks of the French. In vain Soubise and his gallant heutenants strove to bring order out of chaos and confusion. Keith and Ferdinand of Bruns- wick had come down simultaneously with the King, and were searching the French left with withering volleys. Huddled together hke scared sheep, confusion became panic ; the rout was general ; they broke and fled in all directions, leaving guns and everything else behind. No sooner had the victory been won than Frederick was back in Silesia. There everything had been going against him ; Charles of Lorraine and Daun had overrun 2o6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the province. Frederick's arrival was to turn back the tide ; but Keith was busy in Bohemia, where he routed his con- fident enemies on the bloody field of Leuthen, and after a swift succession of the most remarkable victories on record, went into winter quarters at Breslau. At Rossbach the odds had been as one to three ; Leuthen was won with 30,000 against 80,000 of the elite of the Austrians. The year 1758 opened with the unlucky siege of Olmutz, conducted by Keith. The Marshal lost no honour by his failure, which, though unwont to cast blame on subordi- nates, he attributed chiefly to his chief engineer. More- over, ammunition had run short, and for that he was in no way responsible. It was said that Frederick had hesitated to deplete his magazine, and a train of supplies which he sent forward was ambushed and captured with the convoy. Had the Marshal been in any way blamable, he would have retrieved his credit by the masterly retreat in which he saved himself and his 4000 baggage waggons. Throughout he was ever in the rear of his rearguard, though suffering from severe illness, Frederick in earlier days had been inclined to overrate the Russians ; latterly he had gone to the other extreme. Keith had repeatedly told him that he was wrong, and at Zorndorf he had reason to remember the warning, though Keith was not there to remind him. He won the battle, but at a heavy cost. Unlike the French at Rossbach, the Russians refused to recognise defeat, and though they could not re-form again to order like the highly drilled Prussians, they stood stubbornly to be cut to pieces. After Leuthen, Charles of Lorraine had gone in sore dis- comfiture to Brussels ; but Daun, as strong as before, was MARSHAL KEITH 207 overrunning the Saxony Frederick had annexed. On the loth of October Frederick was facing him again with what forces he could muster after his Pyrrhic victory at Zorndorf . For four days the armies sat watching each other. Keith was in command of the Prussian right, stretching beyond the village of Hochkirch, and within two miles of Lobau, memorable in the wars of the next century. The King had been pressing forward with less than his usual de- liberation ; the positions were bad, and Keith remarked bluntly that if the Austrians did not attack, they deserved to be hanged. Daun agreed with Keith, and confident like Soubise in his numbers, had devised a similar and an excellent plan. The plan of a night or early morning sur- prise was so foreign to his habitual caution, that Frederick for once was deceived. And Daun, reading his adversary's mind, had cleverly added to the deception by elaborately strengthening the entrenchments on his heights. Thirty thousand selected men under his own command were under cover in the woods opposite Keith's positions on his left. At the stroke of five from the church of Hochkirch they were to rush the Prussian outposts. A few minutes after the bugles answered the chime of the clock, there was a raging hand-to-hand fight in and around the village ; Keith, roused from his sleep, rushed from his quarters behind to hear that his men were being beaten back, and that his batteries were taken. The guns must be recovered at any cost. He threw himself upon his horse, retook his batteries, but was surrounded on all sides by the Austrians surging back again. The light was still dim ; the dawn was obscured by powder smoke ; all was confusion, and nothing to be distinguished. He called in vain for his 2o8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE aides-de-camp ; he could rally no men to his support. Twice wounded, with the few soldiers around him he was striving to extricate himself and restore the battle, when a third bullet reached his heart. Like old Schwerin, the greatest of the Scottish soldiers of fortune fell on the field of honour, and died as he would have desired, though the one fell in the hour of defeat, the other on the eve of a glorious victory. The Marshal had domestic tastes though he never married, neglecting his many opportunities in Russia. But at the surrender of Wilmanstrand in 1743 he found among the prisoners a beautiful Swedish girl whose parents had either fled or perished. He took Eva Merthens in every sense under his protection, for he was no more of a vSt. Anthony than any of his contemporaries. He had the little girl carefully educated — in particular she showed a great talent for music — and when she grew up she became his mistress. By her he had several children, of whom we hear nothing, and it is to be feared they were ill pro- vided for. His brother the Earl may have exaggerated his poverty, but except for such windfalls as the administration of Bohemia, there were few opportunities of saving under Frederick's frugal regime. Whatever he possessed was bequeathed to his mistress, who survived her elderly adorer for half a century. VII MARSHAL SAXE Maurice of Saxe was one of the numerous progeny of Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. He inherited the strength, the constitution, the abilities, and the temperament of his gifted and vicious father. His mother was the beautiful Aurora von Konigs- mark, and his life, like hers, was a romance. She was the daughter of the Count von Konigsmark who had dis- appeared mysteriously when, presuming on his favour at the Court of Hanover, he had raised his eyes to a Princess of Zell. Jewish creditors disputed the succession to his property, when Aurora with her sisters came from Denmark to Dresden to invoke the protection of the Saxon Elector. The amorous prince was fascinated at first sight ; the lady surrendered after a protracted siege. It is said that at the fete in her honour which swayed her decision she found on her plate at the evening banquet a bouquet of precious stones of priceless value. Maurice was born in 1696, one of a hundred or more of illegitimate children who could claim princely paternity. But the son of Aurora von Konigsmark was the only one who was acknowledged ; the infant had the title of Count de Saxe, so that Maurice might be said to have been cradled on the steps of a throne — whence, perhaps, the audacity of his conceptions, his 209 o 2IO SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE magnificence in a milieu where profusion was the rule, and his over- vaulting ambition. His doting mother spoiled the boy ; his father loved him for the striking resemblance to himself, in character as well as physique. Aurora's accom- plishments might have held the affections of the volatile monarch — he had been elected to the crown of Poland the year after Maurice's birth — had not the consequences of a severe illness disenchanted him ; but she still retained his friendship and regard, nor had she reason to complain of his generosity. The monarch's favourite mistress was made Abbess of the wealthy Abbey of Quedlinburg, and she had sundry pensions to boot. The sisters of Quedhn- burg were of the Lutheran religion ; Maurice was bred in that faith and held firmly to it, which afterwards delayed his advancement in France, when he had earned the baton of the Field-Marshal over and over again. His military tastes were pronounced as those of Prince Eugene, and never has there been a more precocious boy. With a single exception he hated lessons, but as a child he was enthusiastic over riding and fencing. That sole exception was the study of French, as if his prescience had forecast his future. As soon as he could mount a horse, he had accompanied his father to the Polish cam- paigns. When peace was proclaimed in Central Europe, he sadly missed the excitement. When in 1708 the allies declared war against King Louis he got permission to join them. A boy of twelve, enlisting as a private, he marched on foot from Dresden to the Netherlands, where he joined the King, who was then incognito in the alHed camp. His mother had been inconsolable at the parting, but she specially confided him to the charge of Count Schulenberg, MARSHAL SAXE 211 who was in command of the Saxon contingent. Young Maurice could have found no better mentor; but, though he admired the Count as a master of war, unfortunately he set small store by his moral lessons. He had gone to school besides under Marlborough and Eugene, who noted the intelligence of their eager pupil when they were forming the most formidable of the future generals of France. Precocious in everything, when the allies were resting on their arms through the winter, the boy had the first of his innumerable amours. He made himself conspicuous in the battle of Malplaquet, and in the evening after the frightful carnage, remarked placidly that he was well content with the day's work. In March 1710, hearing that the Russians had invaded Livonia and invested Riga, he hurried from Dresden to take part in the siege, and had a cordial reception from Peter the Great. The fortress fell, and satisfied, as he said, with having received the approbation of so glorious a leader, that he might miss no possible chance he hastened west to the Low Countries. At the sieges of that summer he exposed himself with such foolhardiness as to have warning or rebuke both from Marlborough and Eugene. Marlborough said that none but a man who knew not what danger was would do what he did, and Eugene told him that with connoisseurs of experience, recklessness could never pass for courage. No warnings of the kind had any weight. In 1711, when he was campaigning with the King against the Swedes in Pomerania, he swam the Sound in sight of the enemy, with a pistol in his teeth, when three and twenty of his soldiers were shot in the crossing. Soldiering had ever a greater fascination for him than 212 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE love-making. In the winter, the King, delighted with his military spirit, gave him a newly-raised regiment of horse as a plaything. Maurice was indefatigable in mounting, drilling, and disciplining his men, and was so highly satis- fied with the results that he longed to lead them into action. His desires were gratified in the spring, when the war was renewed in Pomerania. The Saxons were beaten, but Maurice distinguished himself by the skill and spirit with which he handled his regiment ; his dispositions in repeated charges and the adroitness with which he managed the retreats were praised alike by the Saxon and the Swedish generals. Already, with all his hot-headed valour he had the eye and cool decision of a veteran. It may be doubted whether the best and most beautiful of wives would have steadied him, but when he was married to a girl of fifteen, his mother's choice was an unhappy one. It was no love match when in his nineteenth year he wedded the Countess de Lobin. The young lady was a great heiress, but she was as careless of the marriage vows as her husband, and they soon parted, not by divorce, but by mutual consent. Next year there was nothing notable, except a narrow escape from death or captivity, in which tactics and daring served him well. Travelhng to the army with five officers and a dozen of attendants, he was beset in an inn by a Polish horde belonging to a faction opposed to his father and bitterly envenomed against the son. The little party blocked doors and windows, and stood on their defence till their ammunition had given out and things looked desperate. A sally seemed hopeless, but Maurice told his followers it was their only chance, for no quarter was to be expected. MARSHAL SAXE 213 The night was falUng, and there were woods hard by where they might find safety. They rushed the enemy's ad- vanced guard, who had dismounted ; seized their horses, cut a passage through the rest, reached the woods, and made their way to a Saxon garrison. Maurice would have been sadly disappointed had mischief befallen him then, for he was hastening to the siege of Stralsund, where he hoped to see the hero, Charles the Twelfth, who was directing the defence in person. His wish was gratified, for one day, being with the stormers of a horn-work, he met Charles face to face, who was fighting at the head of his grenadiers. The meeting and the noble bearing of the King left an abiding impression, for Maurice always venerated his memory. Prince Eugene's campaign against the Turks was an irresistible temptation. Maurice was one of the last of the princes and young nobles who flocked to the Prince's camp, and he was the last to take reluctant leave when he saw no hope of further distinction. He had come in time for the siege of Belgrade. Before the great battle he lost no opportunity of being out with the light horse who faced the clouds of skirmishing Spahis, and again there was many an occasion to rebuke him for his rashness. His father had the more readily given him permission to go to the Danube, that the hot-headed youth had got into hot water at Dresden. The death of the Electress Dowager had lost him a powerful protectress, who had always taken his part against the minister who had the ear of the King and was the inveterate enemy of Saxe and his mother. There were incessant complaints from his wife, to whom he had given too good cause of jealousy. Their cool 214 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE relations had ended in mutual aversion, and in 1720 Maurice took flight for the congenial Paris of the Regency. He was a man after the Regent's own heart, and soon ranked high among his roues. Excelling all his rivals in the success and excess of his amours, no one of them drank or played deeper, and the recklessness of his gambling was the more admired that his means were notoriously limited. Yet with his folly was mingled much worldly wisdom. The Regent offered his joyous boon-companion employ- ment in France, Maurice answered very sensibly that there was nothing he should desire more, but he must first have the sanction of his father. The sanction implied the means of keeping up a suitable establishment, and Maurice went to Dresden to obtain it. The Regent by way of re- commending the request, paid him the extraordinary com- pliment of giving him the brevet of Marechal de Camp, as an earnest of what he might expect if the errand to Dresden were successful. Matters did not arrange themselves so easily as Saxe would have desired. The King made many sensible objections, though he does not seem to have laid stress on the renunciation of German nationality. Two years were to pass before the return to France, and it was partly delayed by his fixed determination to get rid of his wife. Seldom has a divorce been carried out on such terms, though they were entirely in keeping with his character. Divorce could only be granted on proof of adultery, and the guilty party incurred the death penalty. The lawyers saw no way out of the difficulty. Maurice took the matter into his own hand : was caught in flagrant ddit, divorced, duly condemned by the courts, and pardoned by the gracious MARSHAL SAXE 215 mercy of the sovereign. Back in Paris in the spring of 1722, he found none of the foreign regiments vacant, so he bought the regiment of Spar, which was sold him dear, and began immediately to reform it and remodel the system on that which had answered so well with his corps in Saxony. But France being then in an interlude of peace, for three years while keeping open house and maintaining his reputation for dissipation among the most debauched, he amused what leisure he could spare from folly in prosecuting his studies in the science of war. Events which gave him the chance of his life roused him from his lethargy. In December 1725 Ferdinand of Courland, last male of the old ducal dynasty, fell danger- ously ill. Courland was a sovereign state, though de- pending on Poland, and now it was rumoured that the Polish Diet had decided to annex it. Patriotism and religion in Courland were alike alarmed. The Lutherans would be subjected to the Catholic hierarchy, and the State would be split into Palatinates ruled by popish Palatines, The Courland Diet hastily assembled to elect an adjunct and successor to their moribund Duke. It is doubtful by whom the idea of Saxe's candidature was broached ; some say by Brakel, a patriotic Courlander ; others by Lefort, the scheming Saxon envoy at St. Peters- burg. Saxe grasped gladly at the proposal. The Cour- landers never doubted that it would be agreeable to his father, as it was ; but they hardly reckoned with the opposition of the Polish Diet. However, Saxe having assured himself of his father's consent, hastened to Mittau, the capital of the duchy. The Diet welcomed him with 2i6 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE open arms, and the populace cheered him to the echo when he rode through the streets. He came with the reputation of the most briUiant hbertine and dashing officer of the day, which recommended him to the good graces of Anne, daughter of the elder brother of Peter the Great and widow of the late Duke. Anne was generally beloved, and had great influence. The gallant adventurer probably never had an idea of marrying her, nevertheless he made proposals in form, and was conditionally accepted. Meantime he had been taking more active measures. The sinews of war had been found by a joint-stock company of French speculators, and his devoted mistress, the famous actress, Adrienne le Couvreur, had contributed the whole of her plate and jewels. The fund gave out at Liege, where recruiting had been going briskly forward, but not before 800 men had been enlisted. When his recruits reached Mittau, Saxe had announced the confirmation of his election — formally to the Polish Primate, secretly, with all con- fidential details, to his father. Meantime, however, the match with Anne had miscarried, if it had ever been seriously intended. Another Russian princess was in the marriage market, and the indefatigable Lefort had changed his views. He wrote from St. Petersburg, painting in glowing colours the charms of the Princess Elizabeth, and protesting that she was as much in love with Saxe, or with his reputation, as the Duchess Anne. Never did a man of such boundless ambition more narrowly miss a pinnacle of greatness to which even Saxe had never aspired. He had the chance of marriage with either of two future Empresses : he might have been the Tsar, or at least the omnipotent dictator of Muscovy. He hesitated with no fixed inten- MARSHAL SAXE 217 tions, and so slipped between the two stools. For the moment he was leaning upon the Duchess Anne, and went to Warsaw instead of to St. Petersburg. The King secretly favoured him ; the Polish Diet was firm against the candidature. His illegitimate sisters, canvassing actively for him, did him the more harm that their influence was great. Polish patriots raised the cry that the King, having bled the treasury to enrich his bastards, now proposed to alienate Pohsh possessions to create principalities for them. Augustus had no idea of risking his crown that Maurice might be Duke of Cour- land. He had given his son letters for the Empress Catherine, then he reconsidered his decision. Maurice was stopped on the point of starting, and when told that the royal order was imperative, he said he had no mind to disobey, but if the journey were countermanded all was lost. And so it proved. He set out all the same, but it was to carry on the campaign in Courland. He was still the favourite of the fickle Courlanders, but a formidable Russian candidate was in the field after sundry others of princely birth had been rejected. The all-powerful Men- schikoff was at Riga to urge his own cause, and had brought 12,000 soldiers to back him. He pressed his claims with threats rather than flatteries. Speaking as the mouthpiece of his mistress, he threatened the Marshal of the Diet and the leading members with a journey to Siberia if they did not annul the election of Maurice. Saxe, on his part, exclaimed bitterly that he had found open arms, but no open purses. His money had run short, and he had only a few squadrons of mercenary dragoons. Menschikoff sent the Diet an ultimatum when Maurice was vainly urging 21 8 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE them to vigorous defence. But the Russian was a man of action, as Saxe had reason to know. He was in his quarters, and deep in an embarrassing letter from the Primate of Poland, when he was disturbed by a stir in the street. He looked out, to see the house beset by soldiers. He realised at once that it was a coup of his enemy, and made preparations for defence as on the former occasion at Crachnitz. With his little garrison of sixty men he made determined resistance, till the firing and the clamour had roused the town. The citizens rushed to arms, the enamoured Duchess sent her guards to his help, and Menschikoff's baffled 800 beat a retreat. It was a near thing, for undoubtedly had Maurice been taken, he would have had summary despatch to Siberia, and would probably have happened to die en route. As it was, he was landed in another complication, for, as his quarters had suffered severely in the assault, the Duchess insisted on housing him in her palace. The Polish Diet had summoned him for contumacy ; on his declining to appear as owing no allegiance to it, he had been outlawed and a price set upon his head. The sentence sat lightly on him. He went to Dresden, got some money there, and, returning to Mittau, raised a body- guard of a few hundreds. It was money wasted, for the Polish Diet sent commissioners charged to have him arrested, and he could put no faith in the constancy of the Cour- landers. He picked up the Flemish troopers he had left at Dantzic, and, taking shipping for the island of Usmaiz, set to work to fortify it. The death of the Empress Catherine left the Regent Menschikoff for the moment master of Russia, and made him indifferent to the dukedom MARSHAL SAXE 219 of Courland. It changed nothing so far as Saxe was con- cerned. A declaration dictated to the young Tsar and addressed to the Diet suggested a choice of candidates from which Saxe was excluded. Virtually a command, it was enforced by a Russian army. The stroke was decisive. Saxe had but a handful of troops, his credit was exhausted, and he was out of the good graces of the Duchess Anne ; yet, characteristically, though he beat a retreat, he did not altogether despair. The death of young Peter and the unexpected elevation of the Duchess to the Russian throne revived his drooping hopes. But his amours, carried on, and scarcely sought to be concealed, under the roof of the woman who had been foolishly in love with him, were neither to be forgotten nor forgiven. Anne was implacable, though his agents strove hard to conciliate her. Dissipating in Paris in 1732, his excesses brought on a serious illness. During his slow recovery he devoted his time to the composition of the very remarkable " Reveries." They show the man as he might have been had he con- centrated himself on his grand passion of ambition, in place of indulging in a multiplicity of those fugitive amours, where he generally, as was his fashion, took the place by storm. They were wonderful studies of the science of war, where the practical blends with the sentimental or romantic. They anticipate the modern idea of bringing the whole manhood of a nation under arms instead of recruiting the ranks from mercenaries and the scum of the populace. All for improvised redoubts, he condemns the elaborate en- trenchments and fortified camps then universally in vogue, saying that with the best troops in the world they bring apprehension of defeat in place of confidence of victory. 220 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE He anticipated the irresistible elan the great Frederick gave to his armies — though the abuse of these tactics sometimes cost the Prussians dear — and the advances in echelon, super- seding column-shock, which staggered generals of the older school and compensated for inferiority in numbers. And descending to details, he denounced the showy but unservice- able uniforms, unfitted alike for work and rough weather, parsimoniously doled out at long intervals by captains who filled their pockets at the cost of their companies. The death of his father broke one of the strongest ties which still held him to the land of his birth. It did more, for the vacancy embroiled the affairs of Europe. France, in spite of the pacific efforts of Fleury, on an understanding for division of the spoils with Spain and Savoy, heedlessly plunged into war out of sheer jealousy of Austria. But the triumvirate of Powers was far from the Polish frontier, and the Saxon Elector's claims to the paternal succession were supported by his powerful neighbours. It shows the estimate in which Saxe's military talents were already held, that his brother offered him the command of the Saxon army. It was a tempting offer, but, whatever the reason, it was declined. Probably Saxe was already a Frenchman at heart, seeing broader fields for his ambition in France than in Poland. He returned to place himself at the head of his regi- ment. He was with Berwick on the Rhine and with Belleisle on the Moselle. Everywhere he displayed his reckless daring and the talent that was more highly appre- ciated. When Belleisle was besieging Coblenz the slow operations palled on him ; he asked and obtained leave to join Berwick, who was advancing to drive the Imperialists MARSHAL SAXE 221 out of their lines at Etlingen. Berwick received him with a flattering compUment. " Count, I was going to ask M. de Noailles for 3000 men, but you alone are worth more to me than that reinforcement." The speech was followed by another compliment more to Saxe's tastes, for he was given a detachment of grenadiers, with orders for an imme- diate onslaught on the lines. He forced the positions of the enemy, captured their guns on that side, and thereby decided the result of the operations. It would be tedious to recount all the exploits where he would seem to have risked himself under the safeguard of a special Providence. For special gallantry at Philipsbourg, following on the affair of Etlingen, he was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant- General. When he returned to Paris for the winter, he had been preceded by Belleisle, who had been generous in his praises of the man of whom d'Asfeldt, who had succeeded Berwick, had spoken as his right hand. Peace sent him back to his studies and his loves. There were fetes and festivities at the betrothal of a French princess to Don Philip of Spain. At a hunting luncheon at Chantilly the son of Augustus the Strong had an oppor- tunity of showing himself the heir of his father's strength. Corkscrews had been forgotten. Saxe took a tenpenny nail, and twisting it round his finger, drew all the corks. Indeed, when halting at a village, he is said once to have astonished the rustics by snapping half-a-dozen of horse- shoes while the farrier was shoeing his horse. The garrison of Paris at that time was perpetually getting into trouble with the burghers on whom they were billeted. Always interested in military discipline, Saxe submitted a paper to the Minister of War, recommending a novelty— the 222 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE building of barracks. The minute was approved, but it was shelved through the practical difficulty that two- thirds of the Guards were married men with families — a strong argument, as Saxe remarked, for his own system of recruiting. Perhaps the most flattering tribute he ever received was in 1740, when, in course of a tour in the south, he visited Toulon. Admiral Matthews, of court-martial notoriety, was then blockading the port. Count Saxe asked the Admiral's permission to view the British fleet. The Admiral sent his own galley to convey the illustrious guest. The fleet, dressed out in colours, received him with a general salute. There was a grand banquet on board the flagship ; the Kings of France and England were re- peatedly toasted, and each time the glasses were emptied there was a salvo from all the guns of the ships. That year saw almost simultaneously the deaths of the Emperor Charles and the Empress Anne. Saxe, with his spasmodic tenacity, had never lost sight of the ducal crown of Courland. The latter event, with the fall of his enemy, the omnipotent Biron, sent him incognito to St. Petersburg to strive to knit up the broken threads of the old intrigues. He came back disappointed from a bootless errand to gather fresh laurels in new fields. The death of Charles had given the signal for war, reviving the eternal animosity between Bourbon and Hapsburg. France, as before, had found an ally in the Elector of Bavaria, who was advancing pretensions of his own to the Empire. In August 1741 Saxe joined the alhed army under the Elector in Alsace. Though there were some sharp skirmishes, the march to St. Polten on the Danube was rather a military promenade. Then the alarm in the Kaiserstadt was relieved by the MARSHAL SAXE 223 news that the victorious advance had been diverted to Bohemia. On the 23rd of October, Saxe with the van- guard had occupied Budweis. At the same time the Prussians and Saxons were entering Bohemia from the north. The Elector had only been feinting on Vienna, and Maria Theresa, suddenly undeceived, was hurrying belated succours into Bohemia. Meanwhile the Elector was within striking distance of Prague, and had sent the governor a summons. The answer was that he could not be expected to surrender before trenches had been opened or a cannon fired. The Elector responded by an attack, without wait- ing for his artillery. There was a feint on one side to divert attention ; on another the actual onslaught was entrusted to Saxe. He led it with his accustomed daring, but has certainly been over-praised It cannot have been a very serious affair, when not a Frenchman was killed and only two were wounded. However, he was in the centre of the city, and had taken over 3000 prisoners, when the feigned attack, changing to a real one, carried it effectually from the other side. Next morning, as master of the place, he presented the keys to the Elector. The Bavarian had a welcome from the nobles, and was solemnly crowned. His reply to Saxe's congratulations was sarcastic, epigrammatic, and prophetic. Doubtless he remembered the unfortunate Winter-King. " Yes, I am King of Bohemia as you are Duke of Courland." He was to wear another illusory diadem when elected Emperor in the Imperial Diet at Frankfort, with the style of Charles VII. The war went on. Emperor or Elector, he withdrew to the Lower Palatinate, and when, after its suspension through 224 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the winter it recommenced in the spring, Saxe ^vas with Marshal BrogHe in Bohemia. He was detached with 12,000 men to assail the important fortress of Eger — memorable in the fall of Wallenstein — where the Austrians had their arsenal and magazines. Eger capitulated, though it was deemed so strong that Prince Charles had not troubled to march to its relief, and its fall raised Saxe's reputation far higher than the somewhat theatrical escalade of the fortifications of Prague. Then a political revolution gave check to the French and Bavarians. Frederick of Prussia made peace with the Queen of Hungary, carrying the Saxons along with him. To the remonstrances of the French envoy, he cynically replied that with Silesia he had got everything he wanted. The Queen could turn her whole strength against the invaders. Swarms of Croats, Uhlans, and Pandours ravaged Bavaria. The evacuation of Bohemia became inevitable. The French army encamped under the batteries of Prague began to bethink themselves of making terms. Versailles in alarm gave the generals full powers, but the Austrians saw their advantage and pressed it. The tables were turned, and now 22,000 Frenchmen were to be beleaguered in Prague. They held out gallantly, but their sallies were repulsed, and provisions rose to famine prices. News of the advance of Marshal Maillebois gave them a breathing space ; Broglie broke out with half the garrison to make a junction with Maillebois, which he never effected ; Belle- isle, finding the situation desperate, left with the rest, keeping his secret to the last moment, and reaching Eger in safety with baggage and artillery. With the glorious defence and the admirably conducted retreats which saved MARSHAL SAXE 225 the wrecks of the once victorious army, Saxe was not con- cerned. He had gone to Dresden and thence to St. Peters- burg on private business, and on his return as Prague was straitly shut up, he joined Maillebois on the Danube. Though BrogHe had failed in the junction with Maillebois he made his way personally by a circuitous route to that Marshal's headquarters and assumed the command. He found Maillebois' forces almost in as bad a state as his own, and wisely, perhaps, as soon as possible withdrew into winter quarters between the Inn and the Iser, sending Saxe into cantonments beyond the Danube. The fiery spirit of Saxe was disgusted at the evacuation of Bohemia and the abandoning of Eger, which he regarded as a con- quest of his own. He wrote his remonstrances to Broglie in a tone rather that of an equal or superior than of a subordinate, and Broglie, who was a martinet and tenacious of purpose, very naturally disregarded them. In 1743, when King Louis was eager to retrieve his defeats and misfortunes, it was a question of enrolling civic militia and raising new armies. Saxe, who had had reason to appreciate the Austrian light horse, had undertaken to recruit a regiment of Uhlans. But so great was the con- fidence Louis reposed in him, that to smooth the way to his advancement he withdrew all officers senior to him from the army in Bavaria. Broglie was still general-in- chief, but Saxe had the command in the Upper Palatinate. When Dettingen had been fought and lost, the armies of Broglie and Noailles were united to mount guard on the Rhine. Saxe had to yield his command to Marshal Coigny, but with the great exception of Dettingen, which but for the folly of the Duke de Grammont should have been a 2 26 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE French victory, there was nothing in the campaigns of 1743 to respond to the formidable preparations. Nor was the campaign of 1745 in the Austrian Nether- lands more pregnant with decisive results. Saxe, who was to second De Noailles, had been consulted and had sketched out a programme. But before the performance came off, there was an interlude and a fiasco. The advisers of Louis were persuaded by Jacobite agents that the English were longing for the return of the Stewarts, and that an in- vasion might be successful. So at least it has been supposed, although there are indications that the opera- tions were nothing more than a feint. Prince Charles Edward was invited from Rome to Paris. Fifteen thou- sand men were mustered on the Channel to embark at Dunkirk. Saxe was to have the command, with secret orders to land them on the Thames, when London and Kent were to receive them with acclamations. As to that, it does not appear that Saxe was consulted. The squadron which was to clear the Channel was to be under Admiral de Roquefeuille. He sailed from Brest, to be baffled by contrary winds, and meantime the British cruisers had brought warnings of his movements. Seeing no enemies, he sent messages to Dunkirk, urging Saxe to embark his men with all speed. Half the corps of invasion, with masses of war material, were hurried on board the trans- ports, Saxe and the Young Chevalier being in the same ship. But meantime De Roquefeuille's frigates had told him that Sir John Norris had only shifted from Spithead to the Downs, and that his fleet was actually bearing down on the French squadron. De Roquefeuille crowded all sail for Brest ; his fleet was greatly outnumbered by the MARSHAL SAXE 227 other ; light winds freshened to a gale, and the gale rose to a storm. No news of his flight had reached the trans- ports, but perhaps the storm which sent several to the bottom saved them from worse disaster. Saxe and the survivors were landed and the expedition was at an end. For four years, notwithstanding liberal English sub- sidies, the battle of Dettingen, and this hostile expedition, France and Britain had been nominally at peace. The year 1744 opened with formal declarations of war. The French king was to take the field in person ; Noailles had trumped the tricks of those who were intriguing against him, and his friend and pupil Saxe at last received the baton of Marshal. The army of invasion was in two parts ; Noailles with one was to push the sieges of the Flemish fortresses, and to Saxe was entrusted the covering opera- tions. With the eye of a great strategist he chose his position at Courtrai. There he made his works unassailable, while at the same time he could make diversions in all directions to distract the attentions of the allies to De Noailles. The French generals were aided, no doubt, by the dissensions in the hostile camp. Marshal Wade was a good soldier, but no genius, and he had neither the suave tact nor the masterful spirit of Marlborough. He was hampered at every turn by his Austrian and Dutch colleagues. The allies everywhere outnumbered the French by three to two, and the odds became infinitely greater when Prince Charles of Lorraine broke into Alsace, draw- ing away the Due d'Harcourt with his strong detachment. But the allies dared not attempt the storm of Saxe's entrenchments, nor could they lure him out to offer battle. The enforced inactivity must have been a sore strain on 228 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE his fiery temperament, but he clung to Courtrai and his fixed plan, and saved a perilous situation where a mistake might have meant a catastrophe. His persistence starved the allies out, forcing them to withdraw, and it was famine at last which compelled him to abandon Courtrai. Perhaps the happiest of his menacing demonstrations was when he brought his enemies to a point, that he might know whether they intended to retreat or attack, and when it was im- perative that his own action should be guided by their decision. Nor was the time while in the lines of Courtrai wasted, for he was busily drilling his troops and training them to the disciplined obedience which won the battle of Fontenoy. In 1745 the coalition against France was so formidable that Louis would willingly have signed a peace — the rather that the deaths of the shadowy Emperor Charles and of his staunch friend, the Bavarian Elector, had left him neither reason nor pretext for interfering in German affairs. The young Elector had deserted him, yielding to force majeure and an Austrian invasion. So the King would gladly have come to terms, but the Queen of Hungary was obdurate. The war was to go on ; the storm was to burst on his northern fortresses, and the sole question was which was to be attacked first. All the allied generals had been changed ; the youthful Duke of Cumberland, eager for honour, had replaced the veteran Wade, and he was on the best terms with his colleagues. The old Austrian Marshal was complaisant, and the young Prince of Waldeck was venturesome as himself. The danger to France was fully realised, and for once the back- biters of Versailles were silenced. Saxe was nominated MARSHAL SAXE 229 commander-in-chief with universal assent or acquiescence, and the Due de Noailles set a noble example by volun- teering to serve under his former pupil. At the critical moment Saxe again paid the penalty of his excesses, and was stretched on a sick-bed. But the spirit and the love of glory triumphed over disease ; he defied the doctors, and set out for Flanders, saying in reply to remonstrances that it was not a question of living but of leaving. When he reached his headquarters at Maubeuge he was still so ill that he had to be carried about on his rounds of inspection in a litter. Fortunately he found a canon of Cambrai who put him on a regimen which soon enabled him to mount a horse. His strength was 70,000 foot and 25,000 horse. His purpose was to deceive the allies, and for a time he suc- ceeded. Making a show of menacing Mons in force, he marched straight upon Tournai. A masterpiece of the science of Vauban, it was one of the most formidable fortresses in Europe. Tournai was to be the stake of the battle of Fontenoy, for if it fell it opened French Hainault to the invader. When the allies began to realise that it was the real objective of Saxe, their hesitation had wasted time, and they were delayed besides by the deluges of rain which swamped the country except the paved chauss/es. They marched from Brussels, gathering in garrisons on the way, and the march, even for those days, was a miracle of slowness. Saxe, with prompt knowledge of all their movements, had ample time to make his arrangements. His position before Tournai, naturally strong, was strengthened according to the rules he had laid down in his " Reveries." The village of Fontenoy, to the south of the 230 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Scheldt, was at once recognised on both sides as the key of the defence. From the first it was the aim of the aUies to carry it ; of the French to hold it at any cost ; and at Fontenoy the battle was to be lost or won. There were ridges stretching thence to the left and right. That to Saxe's left, from Fontenoy to the wood of Barri, which the allies unfortunately neglected to occupy when they had the opportunity, was 620 yards in length. The ridge on the right led to the village of Antoing on the right bank of the Scheldt and five miles from Tournai. Antoing was also in the woodlands, and was protected by inundations, but besides that it was formidably entrenched ; some of the cottages were levelled to make plateaux for the artillery, and the others were loopholed. As to his left the Marshal's mind might be easy ; it was covered by marshes and almost impenetrable thickets. Yet with his usual caution, ever3rwhere he had thrown out advanced pickets and patrols of the light horse of the regiment of his trusted lieutenant De Grassins. Saxe had no great faith — it was always a weapon used against him by his detractors — in the steadiness of Frenchmen in line against a determined onset. In his " Reveries " he had ridiculed entrenched camps, and advocated the use of improvised redoubts. At Fontenoy he put those principles in practice. Between Antoing and the Barri Wood was a chain of redoubts, three to the right of Fontenoy and as many to the left of it. They were connected with abattis of felled timber. All the redoubts were heavily armed with cannon ; but the strongest was that next to Fontenoy on the left, known as the redoubt of Eu because it was held by the Eu Regiment; for the passage between the Eu redoubt and Fontenoy was MARSHAL SAXE 231 notoriously the weakest point in the defence. Nor did the Marshal neglect to secure his rear or his retreat. Twenty thousand men in the trenches held the garrison of Tournai, and two fortified bridges had been thrown across the river. Louis himself was in the field, and unaccompanied by ladies, A summons sent to Douai had hastily called him to the front. He came, and for once he showed something of manhood. He visited the sick in hospital ; he con- descended to taste the ammunition bread. On the eve of the battle he rode with Saxe along the lines, hailed by voci- ferous shouts of " Vive le Roi." They cheered the monarch, not the general, but it was a striking counterpart of the salvos and feux de bivouac which greeted Napoleon on the eve of Austerhtz. Saxe's dispositions had been made, though in some trifling respects they were to be modified. The pick of his men were between Fontenoy and the Eu redoubt. These were battalions of the Regiment of Le Roi, of the Gardes Frangaise, and of the Gardes Suisse. Behind them were the cavalry, four ranks deep, and beyond these again the famous horse of the Royal Household. The reserves were on the left flank, in rear of the wood of Barri, and in the first Hne were the regiments of the Irish Brigade, mustering nearly 4000 men. Late on the 9th May the aflies were almost in touch with the French, pitching the camp on the heights com- manding their positions. The same evening the generals rode out to reconnoitre. They saw the ground mapped out below them, and shaped their plans, deciding on the true point of attack. As a preliminary the viflage of Veyon, a fortified advance post of Fontenoy, was to be taken, and that was done on the following morning. They 2 32 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE burned another fortified hamlet and won the first trick of the game. On the night of the loth both armies lay on their arms. Broken by fatigue and scarcely convalescent, after the long promenade on horseback with the King, Saxe retired not to his tent but to his coach to snatch some necessary sleep. All his preparations have now been made, and his 50,000 are behind his formidable works. For himself, he is unable to mount a horse ; he is carried, a cripple, from point to point, suffering acutely from dropsy and parched with unquenchable thirst. The allies, on their side, were early astir ; the reveille sounded at two, and at four Cumberland and Count Konigsegg were riding along their lines. Cumberland had to curb his impatience, for the battle-ground was veiled in a heavy mist. His simple plan was marked out for him. The Dutch and Austrians were to assail Antoing on the left. The right attack was en- trusted to Colonel Ingoldsby of the Guards, and in his brigade were the Black Watch and a crack Hanoverian regiment. The Duke himself was to strike with British and Hanoverians at the vital gap between Fontenoy and Veyon. The advance should have been simultaneous, but it was not till six that the sluggish Ingoldsby was in motion. Then he came to a dead halt in a hollow lane, between Veyon and Barri Wood. He sent back for cannon and he had them ; order after order reached him, but still he stuck fast or only moved forward to halt again. Cumberland galloped off in person to discover the cause of the delays, but nothing came of his conversation with Ingoldsby. The brigade was still in that hollow lane, though the guns had been searching the wood of Barri, MARSHAL SAXE 233 which was held in doubtful force, but strongly defended by the abattis. Cumberland would wait no longer. Four cannon shot gave the expected signal. The Dutch cavalry on the left advanced on Fontenoy and Antoing, but en- countered such a scorching fire that they turned bridle and rode back. Nor had the British horsemen to the right of the centre attack any better fortune. No sooner had they emerged from the street of Veyon than they were beaten back by the murderous storm of grape and round shot from the batteries of Fontenoy and the redoubt of Eu. Re-formed by their leaders in the rear of the infantry, Cumberland never asked anything of them till too late, and thenceforth they were virtually out of the battle. All the work was left to the central attack, directed on the points whence the murderous cannonade was con- verging, and the constancy neither of the chiefs nor their soldiers was shaken by the discomfiture on either flank. The fiery veteran Ligonier led his foot over the track of Campbell's horse through the street of Veyon. When they emerged, as the cavalry had emerged, into the blasting fire, they deployed and formed into line of battle as coolly as if they had been on parade at Hounslow. Yet the man- oeuvring was slow and lasted long : four hours had elapsed before they were in array of battle. At last began the memorable advance of the immortal column of Fontenoy. Ingoldsby still lagged, and both columns of the Dutch and Austrian infantry had recoiled before the fire from Fontenoy, and were raked besides by batteries from beyond the Scheldt. All that passed had only hardened the deter- mination of Cumberland. The gap above him must be forced, and the redoubt of Eu must be captured at any 234 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE cost. Then he abandoned his right attack, and brought his right wing along the slopes under the incessant fire, anticipating a movement of Wellington at Vittoria. The Black Watch was sent to the left, to stiffen the Dutch, who had orders to try again. The Prince of Waldeck was hot enough, but even with the example of the Highlanders he could not animate his men. The Highlanders, weary of standing helpless under a galling fire, crossed at the double, gave a lead to the Dutch, and rushed headlong upon the entrenchments of Fontenoy. When within musket-shot they fell with faces on the ground, escaped the volley that passed over them, and tumbled headlong over the first breastwork. Fronting ranks of the enemy five deep, they had no choice but to withdraw, to find the Dutch who should have supported them already out of the action. Meantime the main attack was progressing. There were 16,000 of them in the column, with Cumberland at their head. The butcher of Culloden might be execrated for inhumanity, but no man could ever call him a coward. The ranks were riddled by the fire from Fontenoy in front and from the redoubt on flank. The men were literally mown down in swaths ; but still the gaps refilled and the ranks re-formed, and all the time, with men harnessed for horses, they were dragging twelve field-pieces up the ascent. Infantry rushed on them in vain ; cavalry were hurled back in confusion. When they topped the crest, the French stood facing them within thirty paces. Then there was a charge. The French were taken aback at sight of the cannon. The guns belched grape among them at close quarters, the musketeers poured in a deadly volley ; the front rank of the enemy is said to have gone down as one MARSHAL SAXE 235 man ; the files behind looked back over their shoulders to see their cavalry reserves full 600 yards in the rear ; they scattered, and the d/bdcle was greeted by a thunderous British cheer. The British had passed the batteries on either side, and stood victorious on the key of the positions. In fact, the battle was well-nigh won had our allies done their duty and had the cavalry been called into action in time. So Saxe believed, and for a moment his counsels were those of despair. Louis and his son had been watching the battle from the eminence still known as the Gallows Hill ; Saxe sent to pray them to save themselves beyond the Scheldt, which both declined to do. On the contrary, they hastily called a council of war. Owing probably to the advice of Count Lowendahl it was resolved to make a supreme effort, though Fontenoy had already exhausted its shot and was firing blank cartridge. The Household Cavalry were rallied for a final frontal charge. Thanks to some anonymous inspiration, guns that had been standing idle were brought up to shower grape on the assailants. There could be no reply from our own batteries, for they were enclosed in the hollow square into which our column had been formed. As the Dutch were playing simply the role of spectators, the French Marshal could withdraw his regiments on the right. His reserves, and notably the Irish, who had been boihng over with impatience to get at their hereditary foes, were called over from the left. The combined attack was overwhelming on men faint with hunger and weary with unparalleled exertions and hard fighting. The shattered column, reduced by 5000, yielded with sullen reluctance to irresistible pressure. The retreat 236 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE was effected with the same perfect disciphne which had marked the advance ; Fontenoy brought more honour to the British and Hanoverians than many a glorious victory ; the guns dragged up the hill had to be abandoned for there were not horses to bring them away, but no colours were lost, and the French made few prisoners. The alHes retired to Ath, though they did not remain there. The French were not slow to press their advantage. Saxe has been censured for not immediately following up the retreat, but the columns showed so formidable a front that it would have been hazardous to press them with his shattered battalions. Moreover, the Dutch had taken such excellent care of themselves that they had some 20,000 unbroken men on his right flank. Naturally there was great jubilation among the victors. Not only had they won the decisive battle, but for the first time they had beaten the English in a fair field. As the King had reviewed the ranks on the eve of the battle, so now with the Dauphin he rode along the fines to stifi more vociferous cheering, though the numbers had been sadly thinned by death, and the ridge was strewed with the wounded. One man was missing from his brilliant staff ; Saxe had been borne on a litter to his tent, for with the relaxation of the strain he had broken down. The day for him had been a triumph of energy over feebleness and pain. Next morning he had so far raUied as to be carried in his wicker chair into the royal presence. Kneefing, he ejaculated in falter- ing accents, " Sire, I have lived long enough — I have lived to see your Majesty victorious." Then, glancing round on the blood-stained scene of the reception, he said : " Now, sire, you see the meaning of a battle." Louis, overflowing MARSHAL SAXE 237 with gratitude for once, raised the hero, and embraced him on either cheek. Nor did his gratitude stop there. He deigned to address the Marshal as " my cousin " ; by solemn brevet, with many gracious preliminaries, he con- ferred on him and on his wife, should he marry, the privi- lege of entry into the Louvre in their coaches, and to the lady the right of the seat on the tabouret in presence of their Majesties and the children of France. But there were substantial rewards besides, more grateful to the impecu- nious soldier of fortune than relaxations of court etiquette. The chateau of Chambord, with its wide domains, was conferred on him ; there were additions to the pensions he already enjoyed, and he was appointed Governor of Alsace with a salary of 120,000 livres. Tournai held out for a httle longer, but surrendered on the 22nd May. The fall of the great fortress was followed up by the capture of Ghent, by the surrender of Bruges, Oudenarde, and Ostend. They all fell to Lowen- dahl, by far the ablest of Saxe's lieutenants. Finally Ath, the last bulwark of West Flanders, succumbed, and the successive shocks to British prestige were felt severely in England. Saxe, though incapable of great effort, had remained with the army, but his brain was active, and his presence caused the allied generals much anxiety. As the winter approached, their strength was rapidly weakened. Cumberland, after many entreaties, had gone to take com- mand against the Scottish rebellion. Waldeck was left in charge, with a slender contingent of Hessians under Lord Dunmore. He looked forward to a peaceable winter. Saxe, as he knew, with his marvellous vitality had become another man ; after a flying visit to Paris he was at Ghent, 238 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE indulging in all manner of excesses, making volatile love with the verve of the roue of the Regency, and having the troupe of actors who generally attended him playing to crowded houses. On a sudden, in the dead of the Flemish winter, news came to Waldeck that his enemy, changing from one of his roles to the other, and violating all the rules of war, was laying siege to Brussels. Brussels capitu- lated, and its surrender was followed by the capture of Vilvorde with all the field-guns and magazines of the allies. That closed the brief and brilliant winter campaign. Saxe was back again in Paris, to be embraced by the King and to be applauded to the echo by an overflowing house when he made his first appearance at the opera. Next spring the King would again willingly have made peace, but again Maria Theresa would hear nothing of it. Charles of Lorraine was on the Rhine with 50,000 Im- perialists. Saxe was in the field again, and Louis again came to the Netherlands. The campaign opened with the taking of Antwerp, left with only a feeble garrison. Then came the capture of the great fortress of Namur, only four days after opening the trenches. Meantime, Charles of Lorraine was drawing near and Waldeck had been rein- forced. Twenty thousand Hessians and Hanoverians had joined him in his camp at Breda, and Ligonier brought back a British contingent of six regiments of the line and four of cavalry. The allied armies effected their junction, though too late to save Namur. Their purpose was to winter in Liege, and that of Saxe to force them back across the Meuse. They took up a strong position, at once com- manding Liege and covering Maestricht. Then Saxe, who, though habitually cautious, could nevertheless be audacious MARSHAL SAXE 239 in an emergency, determined to bring on a battle. All told, the allies mustered 100,000, but they stretched in thin, straggling formation along a line of wooded hills, cut up by deep ravines or impracticable gullies ; and in fact the Austrians on the extreme left, observed by a detached body of French, were virtually out of the fighting. On October 11 the battle began with a French attack on the left, which, storming through a suburb of Liege, turned the left flank of the alhes. The Dutch, as at Fon- tenoy, made but indifferent resistance. Saxe's attack on the centre was delayed by the perverse obstinacy of Count Clermont, but early in the afternoon his twelve brigades rushed impetuously forward in three columns. They were driven back by tremendous discharges of artillery and musketry. Saxe had exposed himself hke any private, and his spirit animated his soldiers for another advance. The second attempt, with a concentration of superior numbers, proved successful, the villages of Rocoux and Vorax were carried, and the allied centre was broken. Still the British and the German contingents under the gallant Ligonier retired slowly, offering a determined resist- ance. But French colours were showing on the heights to the left, the French artillery fire had scattered the Dutch cavalry, a few thousand Bavarians had broken their ranks and fled, and Ligonier's battahons, caught up by the rabble of fugitives, were involved in the panic flight. The rush was for the three pontoon bridges thrown over the Meuse, and many of the fugitives were drowned in the river. At five o'clock the alhes had been driven from all their posts, and Saxe ordered up his cavalry for the pursuit. But the autumn night was coming on, and his horsemen drew rein 240 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE at the ravines. Estimates of the losses on either side vary amazingly. The French author of Saxe's Memoirs says the allies left 12,000 dead and lost 3000 prisoners, while the French had but 1000 killed. Considering the obstinate fighting in the centre, the last statement is incredible. More probable calculations place the whole casualties of the allies at between 5000 and 6000, and those of the French at about two-thirds of that number. A decree of the King conferred on Saxe the title of " Most Serene Highness," and six of the captured guns went to Chambord, to be mounted on the terrace of the chateau. The war continued, to the satisfaction of Saxe as was believed, for he was always eager for honours and glory. In March he was formally gazetted Marshal-General in command of the army of the Low Countries. Louis had issued a lengthy proclamation, setting forth in honeyed words his concern for the interests of Holland, but ending with an unmistakable hint that he contemplated nothing short of its conquest, unless it asked for peace upon terms of his dictation. Cumberland was back and nominally in command of the allies, but now he was embarrassed at every step by the obstruction and jealousy of his colleagues. Now, however, the Dutch were thoroughly alarmed ; William of Orange-Nassau, the son-in-law of King George, had been elected Stadtholder, and fresh levies were being hurried into the field. Already the French were afoot and active. Saxe in consultation at Versailles had sketched out his plan of campaign. Lowendahl had his orders, while Saxe was still at Versailles, and was threatening the fortresses in Dutch Flanders. When the attention of the alHes was diverted thither, Saxe in command of the MARSHAL SAXE 241 main army was to lay siege to Maestricht and strike into South Holland. Lowendahl acted with his habitual celerity and more than his usual good fortune. Fortress after fortress fell to him, and when Saxe joined his army, he found his left already secured. The alHes, after sundry vain demonstrations, had given up their designs on Antwerp, and had to content themselves with moving eastward to cover Maestricht. Conflicting counsels had paralysed their operations, and indeed they were greatly inferior in numbers. When Louis reached Brussels, whither Saxe had preceded him, he reviewed 140,000 men who had passed the winter in com- fortable quarters. The great army marched from Brussels for Maestricht. Saxe anticipated the allies in occupying Tongres, where Cumberland had intended to establish his headquarters. Then the opposing forces found themselves face to face. Their battle-field lay open between them, and when King Louis came to Tongres, he rode over the ground which Saxe had surveyed and carefull}^ studied. From the heights above the village of Henderen, on which his infantry were arrayed in a double line, the King could trace the positions of the allies, who now mustered 90,000. Their right extended westward, along the opposite ridge ; their left was pointing towards Maestricht. They had occupied all the villages in their front, with Laffeldt held strongly as the key of their position. But it was no equal match. Besides being outnumbered by nearly a third, they were wearied by fruitless countermarching, and aware of the dissensions between their leaders, whereas the French were in high heart and spirits, fighting under the eyes of their sovereign and led by their invincible Marshal. The Q 242 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Austrians were on the right, the Dutch on the left, while in the centre behind Laffeldt were the British, the Hano- verians, and the Hessians. Saxe's infantry still stood ranged along the Henderen heights, extended on the right to the village of Rymps and overlapping the Dutch ; Rymps was strongly entrenched and occupied, and repelled an attack by the Dutch on the eve of the battle. The battle may be briefly described, and the result was almost a foregone conclusion. On the morning of the 2nd July the French were moving early, but it was ten o'clock ere the action began. Then Saxe launched a furious attack on Laffeldt. Three times the village was won ; thrice was it recovered as reserves came up. But the reserves gave out, and Saxe had still fresh regiments to call upon. Heading that charge in person, and supporting it with concentrated artillery fire, Laffeldt changed hands for the last time, and so by noon the day was virtually won. Cumberland strove to save it by ordering a charge of the Dutch horse from the centre. They were charged in turn by the heavy French cavalry from either side, over- ridden, and hunted back, while the Frenchmen never drew rein till they had met in the allied centre. Then there was nothing for it but retreat upon Maestricht. The retreat was becoming a rout, when the rabble of fugitives was saved by a gallant onset of Ligonier at the head of four regiments of dragoons. Not only were the French cavalry checked in the full flush of a jubilant chase, but they left five of their standards behind. The gallant Ligonier, always in the thick of the fight, was unhorsed and taken prisoner. Saxe received him with chivalrous courtesy. Presenting him to the King, he said : " Here, sire, is a man who by a single splendid action has upset all my plans," ONiVtlRSJTY Ai.iro*^"^^-'' MARSHAL SAXE 243 Nor were the words an empty compliment. Laffeldt was no decisive battle, and Maestricht, though always threatened, was still safe. Meantime the interest had centred in West Flanders, Lowendahl was laying siege to Bergen-op-Zoom, a virgin fortress, deemed impregnable, and the masterpiece of Cohorn's science. The Dutch, in the depths of depression, urged the allies to raise the siege. The King sent peremptory orders to Saxe that the place must be taken at any cost. Lowendahl staked fame and fortune on a desperate hazard. The allies were advancing ; the defences were yet unbreached, but he ordered a general assault at daybreak. Bergen-op-Zoom was taken, he won the coveted baton of Marshal, but stained his reputation to all time by the atrocities he permitted on the helpless inhabitants. Louis is said to have shrunk from con- nivance in the guilt, but Saxe, when consulted, spoke out with his usual decision. " Sire, there is no middle course ; you must either hang him or make him Marshal of France." Louis had for years been longing for peace, and again the succession of victories enabled him to make honourable advances. Ligonier had been employed as an intermediary, and King George lent a willing ear. Indeed Louis' pro- positions were so generous as to disarm reasonable opposi- tion, for he offered as the basis of a treaty reversion to the status quo ante. In the spring of 1748 the negotiations were progressing, but none the less, Saxe had been preparing for war. The capture of Maestricht he declared to be an indispensable preliminary to any treaty, and the city was closely invested on either bank of the Meuse. But on May Day news came to the camps of the French and the allies that the peace preliminaries had been actually 244 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE signed at Aix-la-Chapelle. Saxe received an envoy with proposals for an armistice and the surrender of Maestricht. His acceptance was ratified by Louis, and on May lo Maestricht was given over. The Marshal was by no means satisfied to see much of his work undone. Holland had good reason to be gratified, for Bergen-op-Zoom and Maestricht, her bulwarks on the western and eastern borders, were to be given back. Saxe protested in vain against terms he deemed dishonourable. Undoubtedly personal considerations weighed with him as much as politics and patriotism. He loved war, and had a passion for fame and celebrity. Now he saw his occupa- tion gone and the field of honour finally closed to him. Reluctantly he sheathed his sword and retired to his chateau of Chambord. There he lived en ■prince and grand seigneur. Louis had not been backward in gratitude or generosity, and he was in enjoyment of a splendid income. He still played at soldiering — as Napoleon when locked up in Elba — with his own regiment, the Volunteers of Saxe, which he had raised in 1743. To his shame and scandal, as it was after- wards to prove, he indulged his tastes for music and the drama. But these trivial distractions speedily palled on the restless spirit who had filled Europe with his fame. Among other schemes, more or less extravagant, he planned a settlement in Tobago, a starting-point for dreams of ambition in the other hemisphere. That scheme was promptly knocked on the head by the natural objections of England and Holland. There was nothing left the old roue but to fall back on dissipation, and with a constitution worn-out by war and dissipation he reverted to the excesses of his youth. Four years before his death it was his mis- MARSHAL SAXE 245 fortune to become the victim of a senile and devouring passion. He fell in love with the beautiful young wife of his theatrical impresario. Unfortunately for his fame, the lady was virtuous and her husband an honest man. They were proof alike against threats and magnificent offers. Saxe stooped to abuse his great position, and fell into the fashion of the court favourites of the day. He hunted his helpless dependant into hiding, wearied by lawsuits to be decided by servile judges, and sent the hapless beauty to a convent under a lettre de cachet. By the irony of fate that was the last memorable incident in the career of the hero of Fontenoy. He died on 30th November 1750 in his bed at Chambord, with the calm courage and the dignity with which he would have met death on the battle-field. There was universal mourning in France as the news was slowly circulated. By a clause in the Marshal's will his body was to be cremated in quicklime, in imitation of Saint Monica, but it was disregarded by the executors. The corpse was embalmed and enclosed in triple coffins of lead, copper, and iron-bound mahogany. The heart was in a silver case, the entrails in another casket. For a month there was a sort of lying in state ; then in the depth of winter the stately funeral cortege set out from Chambord for Strasburg. As during the waiting at Chambord guard had been mounted as when the Marshal was alive, and guns fired every half-hour, now the coaches were escorted by a squadron of light dragoons, and after a month's march in wild, stormy weather and over difficult roads, it was met in the environs of Strasburg by the garrison and all the dignitaries, military and civil. The Protestant hero, who had held fast to his faith, was buried in the Lutheran church of St. Thomas. VIII INDIAN ADVENTURERS The growth of standing armies in the eighteenth century closed Europe to the adventurous spirits who, as wandering soldiers of fortune, changed their camps and their colours on a caprice. Simultaneously a wider field was opening to daring ambitions. The East, with its fabled wealth and all its wonderful possibilities, lay before them. France and England had carried the continental wars into India, and Hindustan was in convulsions from the Himalayas to Cape Comorin. Never and nowhere had there been greater opportunities. Successive invasions from the north had shaken the Empire of the Moguls to its foundation. The final shock had come from the incursions of Sivagie's " rats," as Sir John Malcolm called them, a race of pre- datory warriors of roving instincts, slight of frame com- pared to Sikhs or Rajpoots, but distinguished for craft and courage, and admirable fighting material. The representa- tive of the Mogul Emperors had become the shadow of a mighty power, held in honourable tutelage at Delhi by the Peishwah who reigned at Poona, the head of the great loose Mahratta confederation. For the Peishwah's feuda- tories, the Guikwar of Baroda, Scindiah of Gwahor, Holkar of Indore, the Rajahs of Berar and Nagpore, habitually set him at defiance. The Nizam of Hyderabad ruled the 246 INDIAN ADVENTURERS 247 largest state in India, and between the Deccan and the Carnatic Hyder Ah, as Sultan of Mysore, one of the ablest of Oriental soldiers of fortune, had set up a dynasty of his own, apparently on solid foundations. All these powers and principalities, unknitted by old relations and uncon- fined by ancient landmarks, were in a state of chronic collision. Moreover, every one of them was distracted by intestine feuds and broils. The palaces were the scenes of perpetual intrigue, and the death of a ruler, if he survived dagger or poison, was almost invariably the cause of a contested succession. In all its conditions and circumstances the India of the time resembled the Italy that was the prey of the Condottieri. Afghan and Arab mercenaries flocked to the standards of chiefs who lured them by the promise of plunder. Naturally their services were most in demand in states comparatively unwarlike, where they terrorised the peaceful population. But the whole Indian peninsula was in a far more lamentable state than that of Germany in the worst of the Thirty Years' War. Law there was none and violence was right. The restless Mahrattas were always raiding their neighbours, giving no quarter where resistance was offered, and showing no pity where booty was to be got. And the ravages of the Mahrattas were surpassed by the Pindaries, who were robbers and land pirates, pure and simple. Meadows Taylor, who had studied his subjects well, gives a vivid and revolting picture of their ruthless cruelties and their enormous gains. His Thug in the " Confessions " follows the fortunes of Chefoo, one of their most notable leaders, and even the Thug was moved to compassion and revenge by the horrors he 248 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE witnessed. Cities were laid under contribution as by the Condottieri, and if by policy they were spared immediate sack, the municipalities and merchants must pay enormous ransoms in specie. There was a certain rude justice among themselves ; the booty was promptly distributed, and though the leaders took the lion's share, each horseman's saddle was stuffed with coin or jewels. Sometimes the plunder was so great that there was difficulty in disposing of it. Proverbially faithless, the only instances in which the Pindarics kept their faith was when they summoned the shopkeepers or merchants to a bazaar. Then the very men who had been exploits elsewhere might recoup them- selves in a measure by buying cheaply the booty of which others had been stripped. But the speciality of the Pindarics was their stooping to the most paltry robbery and revelling in wanton mischief. The peasant, with his silver ornaments or his handful of rupees, was compelled to surrender his little savings by nameless tortures. Whether the villages resisted or no, they were burned all the same, the women were violated, the most attractive carried off, the fruit-trees were felled, and the tanks were breached. And these robber hordes were more or less in open alliance with the potentates who offered them a safe retreat in consideration of a handsome commission on their plunder. That was the India which had opened to European adventurers. At first the French had it all their own way. The English in Hindustan were a scattered handful of traders, sheltering in fortified ports on the coast, paying tribute to despots from whom they only bought toleration and trading license. The French were represented by INDIAN ADVENTURERS 249 statesmen and soldiers with far-reaching ambitions which they pushed indefatigably. It is to Lally, Bourdonnais, and Dupleix that we are indebted for the Empire, won by a merchant company to be surrendered to the Crown. Had Dupleix been appreciated at Versailles and adequately supported, Hindustan might now have been a French dependency. As it was, he had made himself for a time the virtual sovereign of Southern Hindustan, and it was his overshadowing authority and his masterful aggressions which forced us into conflict for self-preservation. For- tunately we found men who could rise to the emergency, and Clive and Hastings came to the rescue. But it was Dupleix who had showed them the way to win. As Macaulay has indicated, he was the first to realise what could be done in those scenes of unregulated turmoil by disciplining native levies under European leading. Clive, Coote of Wandewash, and Lake of Liswari had adopted his methods and practice, when they gained victories against overwhelming odds with battalions of Bengalees and Madrasees, stiffened with the sweepings of our gaols and gutters. The memorable defence of Arcot was the turning-point. But in military methods Dupleix only pointed the way. He was a statesman and a skilful diplomat, but no soldier. It was De Boigne, a soldier first of all, though scarcely less able in diplomacy, who was the first to discipline the wild Indian hordes, and form them into something hke the battalions of King Louis. De Boigne was emphatically a soldier of fortune. A Savoyard of noble birth, he had served his apprenticeship to arms in the Irish Brigade. But slow promotion dis- gusted him, as afterwards when he engaged under the 250 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE British colours in India. In the interval he had tried his fortunes with the Russians, when he came again to what he fancied was a deadlock. But circumstances had made him a friend in Lord Percy, which seemed to offer a career in India, and with strong introductions, at the age of twenty-seven, in 1778 he landed at Madras. After some difficulties the Savoyard was given a commission in a regiment of native infantry, but there also the promotion was by seniority, and after holding it for a year or two, he threw it up. He had been court-martialled and con- demned on a charge of which he was subsequently acquitted, and the unmerited misfortune recommended him to the favourable notice of Warren Hastings, who gave him credentials to our resident at Lucknow. He had been baulked before in his intentions of travelling overland to India ; now he hoped to accomplish the journey in the reverse direction, through Afghanistan, the Turcoman Khanates, and Persia. He was passed on to the camp of Scindiah, who was then laying siege to his own future stronghold of Gwalior. Favoured at first, he fell under suspicion, and happily for him, was waylaid by Scindiah's order, and robbed of all he possessed. So his projects of travel came to an end. It would be a long story to tell, how he soon afterwards made his peace with the most powerful of the Mahrattas. I only advert in passing to the foreign adventurers in India. But De Boigne knew how to make himself indispensable ; his master was wise enough to value the servant, and formidable as Scindiah had been before, De Boigne with his well-drilled battalions made the Maharajah supreme in those parts, and immensely extended his dominions. A great strategist and able INDIAN ADVENTURERS 251 tactician, his coolness was equal to his courage, and like Marlborough he never lost his presence of mind in the most critical emergencies. Like Gordon, he led " an in- vincible army." His soldiers were devoted to a leader who, during eighteen years of incessant fighting, had never lost a battle. But the strain and the climate told on his health, and he resolved to return to Europe. He left India at the apogee of his greatness. Scindiah ruled the central provinces, De Boigne ruled Scindiah, and there was a time when the adventurer had taken the Mogul under his pro- tection. His genius had been great, and oddly enough, while continually in the field, he had been running a lucrative mercantile business in Lucknow. Yet the fortune he took home, though large, was not excessive ; it is said to have fallen short of half a million. For though he has been, perhaps unreasonably, taxed with avarice, he knew the wisdom of dazzling Orientals, and had lived en prince in magnificent state with open-handed hospitality. What was less usual in those times, he retired with a tolerably clear conscience. He had kept his soldiers well in hand, and had invariably shown clemency to the vanquished. Even if he had sinned, he made practical atonement. Welcomed by his countrymen and honoured by his sove- reign, he bought an estate near his native Chambery, and distinguished himself in his declining years by philanthropy and munificent benefactions. We shall frequently come across his compatriot Perron in tracing the careers of Anglo-Indian soldiers. Perron, the son of a bankrupt, trod in De Boigne's steps, and was his pupil in statecraft and the art of war. Decidedly his inferior in both, he was nevertheless more successful from 252 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE a worldly point of view, and like his master he returned to his native France, but with a very much larger fortune. When De Boigne parted from Scindiah he succeeded to the command of the army his master had made. Then it numbered nearly 50,000 disciplined infantry and cavalry. Nominally the general of Scindiah, he established his per- sonal sovereignty over territories stretching far into the Punjaub and comprehending great part of the Doab. His revenues are said to have fallen little short of two millions, and he prudently remitted great part of his economies to France. Victorious in twelve or fourteen battles, his troops were never beaten till he measured swords with the English. His growing power was regarded with such apprehension by Lord Wellesley that Perron may be said to have been the cause of the Mahratta wars. Then his star paled rapidly before those of Wellesley and Lake, and at Assaye, Ahgarh, and the crowning victory of Liswari, the veteran regiments De Boigne had trained were broken, scattered, or annihilated. One of Perron's most troublesome enemies, when he was at the height of his power, was George Thomas, the most remarkable of the British soldiers of fortune — and their beginnings were almost identical. Both went out to India before the mast ; both ran from their ships and went up country to seek military service. But Thomas, a Tipperary man, was a common sailor who could neither read nor write ; he was always hampered and was ruined at last by the sailor's addiction to drink. Nevertheless, like Perron, he too made himself an independent prince, defying the potentates who had been his stepping-stones to fortune, and making formal treaties with adjacent states. INDIAN ADVENTURERS 253 Wlien he deserted at Madras, he took refuge with the PoHgars in the hill-country of the Carnatic. Seeing no opening among those wild though warlike mountaineers, he found his way to Hyderabad, enlisting in the armies of the Nizam. There was no promotion there for the letterless private, and he left the Deccan for Delhi and the court of the Mogul. That lonely walk through a country ravaged by marauding bands must have been a marvellous achievement for a man who was tongue-tied, but his luck served him well, and he arrived at his destina- tion in safety. The Mogul Emperor, overshadowed by the menacing Mahrattas, had a splendid household, but could afford no regular army. More powerful feudatories had strengthened themselves in the immediate neighbourhood of Delhi. The most formidable of his neighbours was a lady who had in her pay some fairly disciplined battalions commanded by Europeans. With her the Enghsh sailor found the opening he sought. The notorious j. Begum Samzoo was perhaps the most remarkable woman India ever produced, and her whole career was a marvel of romance, intertwined with those of European soldiers of fortune, and with that of Thomas in particular. It was she who gave Thomas his start, and he did her much good and evil. The Begum figures in many British biographies and reminiscences, but perhaps the best and most reliable account is given by Sleeman, though he takes an unduly favourable view of her character, and is inclined to gloss over her cruelty and her crimes. In a country and of a creed which condemn women to seclusion, she soon cast the conventionalities of the zenana behind her ; looked 2 54 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE battle and danger boldly in the face unveiled, and led her own squadrons into action. As bewitching and winning as Emma, Lady Hamilton, in early youth, she had a masculine temperament, a passionate and sensuous nature, a heart of stone, and an inflexible will. She claimed descent from the Prophet of Islam, and her beauty as a girl is said to have been a byword. At Sardhana, some five and forty miles from Delhi, she took the fancy of the renegade Walter Reinhardt, who had adopted Oriental dress and manners. Reinhardt first added her to his harem, and then married her according to Mohammedan rites. He was the son of a Salzburg butcher ; he came out to India as a private in a French regiment, changed to the service of the East India Company, and rose to the rank of sergeant. It was the French who gave him the sobriquet of Sombre, from the swarthiness of his complexion, and he afterwards did us the honour of anglicising it as Somers. The Armenian prime minister of Meer Cossim, Nawab of Bengal, tempted him to a second desertion when that potentate was driven to break with the British by the high-handed proceedings of Mr. Ellis, chief of the factory at Patna. The war broke out and the Nawab took a terrible revenge on his enemy. The factory fell at the opening of the campaign : there was a tragedy as black as that of the Black Hole, and all the captives were condemned to death. Even the tyrant's native officers refused to butcher the helpless victims, but Sombre eagerly embraced the opportunity of ingratiating himself with his master. Meer Cossim was beaten in the ordinary course of the wars between the Company and its neighbours, and driven into Gude ; the Nawab of Gude was vanquished in turn, when Sombre left him and sought INDIAN ADVENTURERS 255 service in Rohilcund. A veritable Condottiere, among the warlike Rohillas he found means of levying several bat- talions, which he was always ready to hire out to the highest bidder. Europeans came to officer his companies, but they were the most ruffianly of a disreputable class. Abso- lutely ilHterate like their chief, they were as seldom sober. Sleeman says that the men seldom got their pay, till they subjected their commandant to the peine forte et dure. They either sentenced him to cells, or rode him on a heated cannon without his trousers. It may be doubted if the method was invariably successful, for we know the proverb about Highlanders and their breeches, though if they could not find hard cash, they could generally borrow under threats from the bankers. Sombre showed rare skill and caution in trafficking in his mercenaries. He never risked them unnecessarily ; left his employers or allies to bear the brunt of the fighting, and then either passed over to the victors — for a price — or pressed forward to have his share of the plunder. He died in 1778, a wealthy man. He left one son of feeble intellect by a former marriage, and the widow who knew better than any woman in the world how to take her own part, Sombre's Pretorian Guards settled the succession. They chose the Begum for their leader by acclamation, and she heartily acceded to the call. Her position was legalised and confirmed by the Emperor Shere Alum. She had a succession of lieutenants — ItaHan, English, and French — and at last the subordinate com- mand fell to a Frenchman, Le Vaisseau, a gentleman of birth, education, and refinement. Half her troops were, then at Sardhana, her place of residence, the other half in 256 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE garrison at Delhi, where she had extended her protection to her liege lord. It was then she made the acquaintance of Thomas. The Begum, though her bloom was gone by, was stiU a beautiful woman. Even as an octogenarian she prided herself on some of her old attractions — specially on her hands, arms, and feet. Captain Mundy, an officer on Lord Combermere's staff, describes her as she was in 1827, when the Commander-in-Chief, an old acquaintance, paid his respects to her. " In person she is very short, and rather embonpoint ; her complexion is unusually fair, her features large and prominent, and their expression roguish and astute." She smoked a hookah, and at the head of her table entertained her visitors unveiled. " Indeed," Captain Mundy adds, '* if the absence of all the softer qualities and the possession of the most fiery qualities, stubbornness of purpose and almost unexampled cruelty, can give her a claim to be numbered among the hardier sex, her right to virility will hardly be disputed." As to the cruelty, Mundy comes nearer to the truth than the more friendly Sleeman, who relates without comment a highly characteristic incident. The Begum was offended with two female slaves — historians differ as to the reason. She had them flogged till they fainted, waited till they recovered, and then buried them alive. Worse than the Thugs, who slept peacefully over strangled victims, "she arranged the execution for the evening meal, and spread her bedding over the grave, that she might baulk any attempt at deliverance." Thomas was then a handsome man, with the plausible manners of an Irishman and the melhfluous brogue of INDIAN ADVENTURERS 257 Tipperary. The Begiim was not critical as to culture ; the soldier-like sailor took her fancy, and he soon found an opportunity of showing his quahty in the field. By a gallant charge he saved the Emperor in a hard-fought battle with a rebel feudatory ; the Begum, who took the credit, recognised her debt. Le Vaisseau became jealous of Thomas' growing favour, and proposed marriage to his mistress, as the surest way of keeping the upper hand. Thomas in disappointment threw up his commission to start Condottiere on his own account. There was no lack of swordsmen to gather to his standard. Yet all the time he kept a watchful eye on the Begum and on the affairs of Sardhana. The menage of the newly-wedded couple had not worked smoothly. Le Vaisseau was over-fastidious for his place ; he refused to entertain at dinners and carouses his rufhanly European subordinates, which to say the least was bad policy. They leagued against him and headed a mutiny. Thomas had vindictively been egging them on, and pro- mising assistance if needful. The Begum found her posi- tion untenable, and determined on flight with her husband and valuables. She asked an asylum of the Company, like many other victims of mutinous intrigue, but the Governor-General hesitated ; to assist the flight of a servant of the Emperor might involve the Government in trouble. He instructed the agent at Delhi to endeavour to mediate in favour of the Begum with Scindiah, who was then virtually Prime Minister and master of the Mogul. Scindiah was open to a bribe, and ultimately came to terms. The lady was to be suffered to withdraw with her treasures ; the Mahratta prince was to take over her R 258 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE troops, and Le Vaisseau was to be received by the British as prisoner of war on parole. But the mutinous Delhi battalions had to be reckoned with, and they got wind of the intended escape. News was brought to Le Vaisseau that they were marching upon Sardhana, and he knew the fate that awaited him if he fell into their hands. He persuaded the Begum to lose no time, and they made a midnight flitting with a slender escort. Then occurred a mysterious tragedy from which the veil can never be lifted. Either the Begum was guilty of a most infamous crime or she was a much calumniated woman. Captain Skinner, a trustworthy witness, acquits her, but the weight of evidence is the other way, and the popular version has been generally accepted. She swore to her husband that she would live and die with him ; that she would stab herself to the heart rather than survive him. She showed him the dagger when she stepped into her palanquin. He mounted and rode beside her. They had barely set out when news was brought that their enemies were following hard on their traces. Le Vaisseau again asked his wife if she remained firm to her resolve. Again, for answer, she showed him the dagger. He could have ridden off and saved himself, but the answer decided him. The pursuers were close behind ; the Begum's female attendants were screaming ; Le Vaisseau stooped to look into the palanquin and saw his wife's white bosom- cloth stained with blood ; he drew a pistol and blew out his brains. Skinner says the dagger had glanced from the chest bone, and that she wanted courage to repeat the blow. The less charitable construction was that it was a marvellously clever piece of acting ; that she had plotted INDIAN ADVENTURERS 259 to get rid of an inconvenient spouse, and resume her wild and piquant liberty of action. Be that as it may, she had no immediate reason for satisfaction. Her captors treated her with extreme brutahty —it may be presumed that they stripped her of all her valuables: for seven days she was chained under a gun and subjected to every sort of indignity. Then Thomas, who had sparks of chivalry in his nature, came swiftly to the rescue. He appealed to the common sense of the mutinous officers, who had elected the weak-minded son of Sombre to the leadership, telling them that their only chance of maintaining themselves in independence at Sardhana was to replace the Begum in authority. They signed a paper promising devoted allegiance for the future, or rather they set their marks to it, for only one of them could subscribe his name. The man who could sign succeeded to the command, and the four battalions were multiplied to six. Still in a chronic state of mutiny, they invaded the Deccan with Scindiah, were cut up in successive actions, and finally lost their guns at Assaye. When the survivors rallied and came back the Begum made alHance with the British ; she formed arsenals and established a foundry for cannon. She managed her shaken finances well ; developed the resources of her territories, and not only paid her way and gave generously to many charitable objects, but accumulated the great fortune which, when bequeathed to her stepson, became the subject of the famous Dyce-Sombre lawsuit. We have seen Lord Combermere pay his respects to her at Sardhana when on a ceremonial tour, and have said that they were old acquaintances. She came to him 2 6o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE with some of her battaUons at the siege of Bhurtpore to offer assistance, which was courteously dechned. It was supposed that she wished to have her share in the sack, and that, vulture-hke, she scented the fabulous treasures which were believed, and not without credibility, to be buried within the walls of the famous stronghold. Nor would she have objected to take her part in the fighting. Undoubtedly his lordship had a great liking for her ; regard and admiration seem to have been mutual. She promised faithfully to remember him in her will — one of the many promises she failed to keep — and persuaded him in return to act as guardian to her stepson, with whom he was to share her wealth. When the youth came to England after- wards, plunging into a wild course of dissipation. Comber- mere did his utmost to redeem a pledge which cost him infinite trouble and anxiety. The Begum professed Christianity, was munificent in her donations to many creeds, and died at a good old age in the odour of respectability and sanctity. Bishop Heber, who visited her in 1825, some years before Captain Mundy reported on her, had described her as a very queer-looking old woman, with brilhant but wicked eyes ; and ten years afterwards she had a more flattering testimonial from Lord William Bentinck — addressing her as " my esteemed friend " — to " the benevolence of disposition and extensive charity which have endeared you to thousands, and excited in my mind sentiments of the warmest admiration." The biography of the Begum has brought us somewhat in advance of Thomas' story. But it illustrates the almost unaccountable ascendant these unlettered soldiers of fortune asserted among races of hereditary warriors at least as INDIAN ADVENTURERS 261 reckless of life as themselves. Sailors from the forecastle, such as Thomas and Sombre, who had come out in ragged dungaree, grumbling at the salt junk and weevily biscuit, played a leading part in native courts accustomed to barbaric pomp and stately ceremonial, among Brahmins who abjured the sacred ox, and Mohammedans who had forsworn swine and strong liquors. They easily assimilated the colours of their surroundings, and with the common vices of lust and greed were permitted to indulge in their personal predilections. Had Thomas turned Moslem and total abstainer his fate would have been different ; it was his misfortune that drunkenness brought him to grief. In some respects Sombre's case is the more remarkable, for he was a coward at heart, and never risked himself in action. Thomas, on the contrary, was always to the front of the fighting ; he had the genius of astute strategy and sur- prise, was free-handed in the disposal of his ill-gotten spoils, and not without a glitter of noble qualities which his reckless followers could appreciate. It might be said of him — " They followed him, for he was brave, And great the spoil he got and gave. But still his Christian origin With them was little less than sin. Since he, their mightiest chief, had been In youth a bitter Nazarene." Not that Thomas had been a Nazarene or anything at all, but he came of infidel kin and from a Christian country. In 1793 he had found the jealousy of Le Vaisseau and 262 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the French officers of the Begum too strong for him. He feared a conspiracy, and had taken to flight with a few hundred rupees in his saddle-bags. He had quickly gathered a following of some scores of desperadoes, laid a wealthy village under contribution, and with the proceeds increased companies into battalions, which he as rapidly brought into some sort of discipline. At that time every Mahratta chieftain had a gang of robbers in his pay who added materially to his revenues. He kept the conduct of the more important expeditions to himself, but detached his freebooters on minor expeditions, on which he levied a handsome commission. One of the most powerful and turbulent of Scindiah's feudatories was Appi Rao Khandi, and with him Thomas soon came to an understanding. When Appi backed his bills or his promises, Thomas raised fresh levies. A large district was assigned him on x\ppi's borders, where the inhabitants, although raided at intervals, had refused to resign their independence. Thomas was an excellent man of business ; he gladly undertook the congenial work, but stipulated for a half-yearly settlement of accounts. It was no light task, for his men, hke those of his employer, were always verging on mutiny ; their pay was always in arrear, and the irregular settlements depended on pillage. The peasants were stubborn in resistance, and swarmed like hornets round Thomas' flying camps. By indomitable will and rapid movements he triumphed over all opposition, and his remittances to Appi were so satisfactory that his jaghires were largely extended. The acquisitions he had won had made trouble with Scindiah, and Appi's army was in revolt. He sought refuge with Thomas, who, showing a bold front, saved INDIAN ADVENTURERS 263 him from a threatened attack of the mutineers. In grati- tude he gave him the full freehold of other lands, yielding a revenue of a lakh and a half of rupees (£15,000), a sum equal to more than four times the money now. The value of the gift was enhanced by the cession of an almost im- pregnable fortress, to which Thomas held tenaciously till on the eve of his fall. Scindiah had had good reason to appre- ciate his feudatory's staunch friend, and made him many tempting offers. But Thomas, except when personally endangered, was a Dalgetty in fidelity to a military bargain. He stuck to Appi, who had on the whole treated him faith- fully and generously, but even with xA.ppi he obstinately held his own. The war had gone on between Appi and his feudal superior. Thomas had taken a fortified town, surrendered by the martial Brahmin governor on condition of safety for his life and property. Appi, who hoped to squeeze the wealthy Brahmin, demanded that he should be handed over to him, a demand which Thomas positively refused. Appi brooded over the injury, and, in Oriental fashion, planned an assassination which Thomas narrowly escaped. Then, as often, both before and afterwards, his courage and presence of mind served him well. But Appi had on the whole been a generous patron, and his death threw Thomas back on the world. He quarrelled with the chief's successor. He was dismissed from his posts as warden of Scindiah's northern marches ; he found himself his own master, with troops who were clamouring for arrears of pay. There was nothing for it but frankly to turn freebooter and support himself and his men by pillage ; he became a Pindarie to all intents, save that he was never wantonly cruel. He ranged the 264 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE country far and wide, laying towns and villages under contribution. But with his relatively feeble forces that could not go on indefinitely ; he was encroaching on the rights of more legalised robbers, and it was clear he would sooner or later be suppressed as a nuisance. Then he decided to set up for himself as an independent prince. When we remember his scanty resources, the audacity of his schemes is amazing. Knowing the vicissitudes of Oriental politics, he had been long casting covetous eyes on the district of Harriana to the north-west of his borders. It was a debatable land of drought and desolation, owning no paramount ruler, but with a warlike population and many strong places. Moreover, Sikhs from the Punjaub had been establishing themselves within the northern boundaries. Nothing daunted by the difficulties, after desperate fighting he overran and occupied the country, driving out the Sikh colonists, although it brought him into collision with the Khalsa. Then the freebooter became the statesman and sage administrator, taking wise measures to secure his conquest. He rebuilt and strengthened the fortifications of Hansi, his principal town. He invited skilled artisans, who had liberal wages, and, like his old friend the Begum, established an arsenal, a cannon foundry, and a mint. The Sikhs he had disturbed were awkward neighbours, but he not only managed to keep them at bay but actually dreamed of extending his dominion to the Indus. To his following he was free-handed beyond his means, for he not only promised pensions to his veterans but made liberal compensation to the wounded. With these ambitious dreams of conquests in his mind he set to work on preparations which soon exhausted his INDIAN ADVENTURERS 265 exchequer. To pay his troops he must find them profitable occupation. He therefore decided to raid Jeypore, which, as he used gratefully to remark, had always afforded a supply to his necessities. Like Morayshire, between Low- lands and Highlands, it was a land where all men took their prey. Whatever may be said as to the morality of the proceeding, from the financial and military standpoints it was a success ; his arms were everywhere victorious over overwhelming odds. Once with 2000 fagged and famishing merL he held a hostile city against an army of 40,000 — though he ultimately was compelled to retire with his booty in a retreat through thirsty deserts that would have done credit to Eugene, Massena, or Marshal Soult. His personal magnetism must have been marvellous, and at the last, when deserted by all the rest, his bodyguard still stood by him staunchly. Discomfited in a measure, but enriched and noways discouraged, he turned his arms against the Sikhs. Yet he was embarrassed besides by a complication of intrigues among neighbours ostentatiously professing friendships of which it is impossible to disentangle the threads. His invasion was the raid of the robber on a great scale, but never did his military talents shine with greater lustre. Considering the fighting qualities of the Sikhs, which we have learned to appreciate as their enemies and their over- lords, we are alike puzzled and astonished. The odds against him were often almost as great as those in his Jeypore campaign ; and his own handfuls of irregular horse were lost in the swarms of the Punjaub cavalry. More than once his audacity nearly brought him to disaster, but strangely enough, the enemy was panic-stricken and 266 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE ready to accept peace upon any terms. For more urgent affairs had called him back, and he withdrew with en- hanced credit and glory, though with no territorial gains. With ambitions still fixed on the Indus, in the following year he again invaded the Sutlej States. Tempted by the wealth and fertility of the country, the task he undertook was that which taxed to the uttermost the whole of the British strength in two prolonged and doubtful campaigns. In daring so much he recognised its increasing difficulties, and opened communications with the British Government with the object of assuring the neutrahty of Perron who then commanded Scindiah's forces. Perron's jealousy of Thomas was extreme, but the one power with which the Frenchman notoriously avoided coming in contact was that of the Company. Thomas said his intention was to take possession of the country and hand it over to the British Raj, placing himself and his army absolutely at their dis- posal. Lord Wellesley had his hands full elsewhere, and naturally mistrusting what seemed a mad adventure, declined the proposals, so Thomas had to content himself with another of his lucrative forays, from which he came off with flying colours. Again he dictated terms to the Sikhs, exacting a large indemnity. Had they known the heavy pressure on him they might have been less com- plaisant. His inveterate enemy Perron was threatening his own territories ; there was no room in Hindustan for both of these aspiring soldiers, and Perron had at his back all the strength of Scindiah. Thomas made one of his rapid marches back to Hansi, and began to prepare for an im- pending siege. Scarcely had he retired from the Punjaub before the Sikhs offered Perron effective assistance. Thomas INDIAN ADVENTURERS 267 would have found it hard to make head against that com- bination, but there came one of the strokes of good fortune which repeatedly saved him and others of the adventurers in emergency. The two great Mahratta chiefs had come to blows, and Holkar had routed Scindiah in a pitched battle. Scindiah sent Perron a peremptory summons of recall. That meant his abandoning his own lucrative satrapy in the north and leaving Thomas master of the situation. The weakening of Scindiah was no great blow to him, for it increased the master's dependence on his best general. But Perron's jealousy had been excited by the knowledge that Scindiah had made those repeated overtures to Thomas, which had hitherto been declined. Now he dreamed of a triple stroke of policy — to embroil Thomas with the alliances he had been negotiating in the north, to break off negotiations he had been attempting with Holkar and to send him to the Deccan instead of himself. The scheme was absurd, for Thomas was not the man to be befooled ; nevertheless, realising that his situa- tion had become precarious, he was not indisposed to hear what Scindiah had to offer, and an interview with Perron committed him to nothing. They met in council, when the most friendly relations were established between the English officers in either camp. Scindiah's offers were satisfactory in the main, but there were two conditions which Thomas would not entertain. One was that, as Perron had suggested, he should send some of his battahons to fight Holkar, which meant loosing his hold on the territory he had appropriated ; the other, and perhaps the more objectionable, that he should be Perron's subordinate. On reflection he categorically refused, yet, as events proved. 268 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE he would have been wise to accept. He reverted to the ordeal by battle, and there was a series of bloodily con- tested actions. After what had been nearly a drawn fight, he lost everything by failing to follow up a victory. The old foremast man celebrated it by getting hopelessly drunk, and was in a state of intoxication for a fortnight. Then Hearsey, of whom we have heard lately in a most interest- ing memoir of his family, comes in : the command devolved upon him, and he seems to have shown himself in the crisis supine and incompetent. The beaten enemy brought up supports, and drew lines of circumvallation round Thomas' camp. When he came to himself he did all man could do to retrieve the consequences of his drunken folly. But the fatahsts who followed him believed his star had been eclipsed, and began to falter in their allegiance. The enemy's emissaries were busy within his lines, bribing and intriguing. Food and water and ultimately ammunition failed. The daily desertions became more frequent, and at the last he was abandoned by his most trusted chiefs. Only his immediate guards remained faithful. When the case became desperate he determined to cut his way out. The Mahratta horse took the alarm ; there was a long and close pursuit, but he reached his capital in safety. There again he did all that man could do. He poisoned the wells for miles around, throwing in beef and pork so that neither Mohammedan nor Hindoo would drink the water. These formidable obstacles were surmounted ; the town was carried by storm ; the citadel was reduced to the last extremity. The celebrated Skinner was in the front of the attack, where Englishman was well matched against Englishman, and in the hand-to-hand fighting blood flowed INDIAN ADVENTURERS 269 like water. Capitulation became a matter of sheer neces- sity. Perron would have pressed his advantage merci- lessly, but Skinner and his English officers, admiring Thomas' indomitable pluck, generously interposed. Honour- able terms were granted, but there was an ignoble fall of the curtain on the tragedy. Thomas was entertained at a grand banquet, where the Frenchman received him with forced courtesy and his countrymen did all in their power to console him. Again the wine got the upper hand, and a spark set fire to the sulphurous atmosphere. A heated French officer proposed a toast which roused the half- drunken Celt to a frenzy. He unsheathed his sword, ranted and swaggered like a Bobadil or a Capitaine Fracasse, and although he was calmed for the time, the festival ended in an orgy. The sober Skinner took the precaution of ordering his sentries not to challenge Thomas on his exit. Unfortunately there was some misunderstanding, and one of the sentries did challenge and stop him. Thomas, no longer responsible for his actions, struck at the man and cut off his hand. When he came to his senses next morning he made ample apology, but the mischief to his own reputation had been done. He left Hansi for the British frontier with wife and children, under honourable escort, but only a lakh or two of rupees. At Benares he was received and welcomed by Lord Wellesley, to whom he gave much valuable informa- tion as to Central India and the North-West. He urged again the annexation of the Punjaub, arguing that the internal distractions would make it easy. The Governor- General lent a not unwilling ear, but at that time he had other and more serious pre-occupations. 270 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Like the French adventurers, who had been more suc- cessful in amassing fortunes, Thomas longed for a return to his native land ; but though only in his forty-sixth year he died on the river voyage to Calcutta. The toils of incessant warfare and the anxieties of rough and ready statecraft had done their work, while his frequent bouts of intoxication had sapped a strong constitution. He died and was buried at the cantonment of Bahrampur. Though absolutely illiterate to the last, he is said to have become an accomplished linguist, and could address himself to his recruits in their various dialects. He could not have achieved so much had he not won the devotion of his immediate entourage, and he showed wonderful tact in the management of men who were for the most part in arrears of pay and as often on the verge of rebellion. That he was not without some dash of chivalry was proved when he rode in hot haste to the rescue of the Begum. Skinner's career was sensational as that of Thomas. He was one of the early English adventurers who, like the Hearseys and the Palmers of Hyderabad, whether soldiers or merchants, by birth, virtual naturalisation or intermarriage, became semi-Indian. Like the Hearseys, he passed into the British service when the Mahratta power was broken, but unlike Thomas he died honoured, hospi- table, and prosperous, in a good old age. In person and bearing the two men were very different. The Irish sailor was singularly handsome, tall, and athletic ; with his muscular figure he seemed a match for any Pathan or Rajpoot swordsman. Skinner was a cheery-looking little fellow, wiry and active, but below the middle height. No INDIAN ADVENTURERS 271 one would have set him down at sight for the most daring leader of light cavalry in Hindustan. Appearances were deceptive, and his troopers knew better. Assiduous practice had made him a master of his weapons ; his swordsman- ship resembled sleight of hand, and his skill with the lance was unsurpassed even by those who had handled it from childhood. When the light of battle flashed into his face, that jolly, good-humoured countenance was transformed. He had his wild followers thoroughly in hand, but they loved him for he invariably shared their hardships and looked carefully after their comforts. His dark complexion stamped his origin ; he was a half-breed and illegitimate. In the memoir he left he tells much of his own story. His father was a Scotchman in the Company's service, who, like most of his brother officers, had formed an illicit connection with a Rajpoot girl who had been captured in a raid at the age of fourteen. By her the young Scot had six children — three daughters and as many sons. The daughters were married well to men in the Company's service ; of the sons the eldest went to sea ; James and his younger brother took to soldiering. From boyhood Skinner led a hard life, and he had varied and trying experiences before he found his vocation. The beginnings of his education were in a charity school, for his father had nothing beyond his pay. Then he was bound apprentice to a printer, and on the first night he was kept at work in the office till two in the morning. Two nights more of the drudgery were enough for him ; he escaped by the window, and set out to seek his fortunes with eightpence in his pocket. For a time he earned a precarious livelihood by carrying loads in the bazaars for 272 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE four pence a day. Then he was recognised and reclaimed by a servant of a brother-in-law who gave him his keep in return for copying papers. That work was as distasteful as the printing business, when his godfather, Colonel Burn, came to the rescue. He proved more of a father than his natural parent. He was told that the boy was an idle scamp, so he called him up and solemnly reprimanded him. But the bark was worse than the bite, and he asked what line of life he wanted to follow. " Soldier or sailor," was the ready reply, and the Colonel gave him 300 rupees and forwarded him to his father at Cawnpore, whither he was soon to follow himself, when he would find him employ- ment. The Colonel was as good as his word, and gave him a letter to De Boigne, then at the head of the Mahratta army. He was gazetted an ensign, and appointed to a regiment commanded by Colonel Sutherland, another Scot with whom he had many relations in the future. When De Boigne resigned to leave for France, Sutherland succeeded him in command of the regulars in Hindustan — that term was then confined to three central provinces — the southern brigades being then under his rival, the Frenchman Perron. Sutherland was ordered into Bundelcund. Besides his regulars there were 20,000 horse with him under Lukwa Dada, one of the most daring of the Mahratta leaders, with a train of field artillery. They were charged with reducing " refractory Rajahs " ; in other words, with annexing territory to which Scindiah had no sort of claim. The wild campaigning was an excellent school for the zealous ensign of eighteen. When not in the field he gave all his time to archery, spear practice, and the sword exercise. INDIAN ADVENTURERS 273 Half a native by birth, from the first he laid himself out to make fast friendships with the native chiefs. Then there came a turn in the intrigues for ascendency at court, and Sutherland was superseded by Perron. For the masterful Madhajee Scindiah had died, and been succeeded by his nephew, Dowlat Rao. Necessarily there were palace intrigues, a disputed succession, and revolts. It is needless to go into the intricate complications. There was war between Dowlat Rao and the Peishwah, who was leagued with Holkar and the Nizam. Many of Scindiah's subjects rebelled; for some reason, when his services were most indispensable there was a quarrel with Lukwa Dada, and dismissed from office, he headed the insurgents. The outlook for Scindiah was dark, but it gave young Skinner the first opportunity for distinguishing himself. In an engagement against for- midable odds, two of the regular battalions, both com- manded by Englishmen, bore the brunt of the battle. They had lost a third of their numbers before they began to cover the retreat, which could scarcely have been effected had not the escape been by a narrow gorge. Skinner with a couple of companies was left to hold the pass. When he heard the enemy's drums the main body had cleared the gorge, and he began to fall back. Then his only gun broke down, when the question was whether to abandon it or " to die defending it like good soldiers." He had fired his soldiers with his own spirit, and the shout was to stand by the gun. The pursuit came up in force, to be greeted with a storm of grape and a volley of small arms. A charge followed ; three stand of colours were taken, and the enemy driven back in great confusion. The gun 274 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE was saved, the retreat was made good, and next day Skinner received a dress of honour, with honourable mention in despatches. What was more to the purpose, he had his promotion, with an increase of pay. That intestine Mahratta war was no child's play, and Skinner has many sensational and characteristic episodes to narrate. Scindiah's forces were blockading Chittur Ghur, defended by the gallant Lukwa Dada. It was the hill fortress of Oodeypore, and deemed impregnable. The siege was slow, and they were joined by Thomas with the six battalions he had hired to Scindiah. Supplies ran short and forage was almost exhausted. Skinner had had no pay for six months, and that of the Mahratta irregulars was some years in arrear. Plundering became general ; raiding parties ravaged all the country, every village within a radius of fifty miles being burned, the Rajpoot warriors and the ryots alike taking shelter in their large hill-forts. It was then Skinner had an adventure which illustrates alike the faithlessness of the Orientals and the unscrupulous greed of the English soldiers of fortune who engaged with them. One of Scindiah's bravest captains was a certain Hurjee, but unhappily for him he was hated alike by his own leader and by the enemy's general. They arranged together that he was to be entrapped and murdered. One morning, when Skinner was exercising his horse, he met Hurjee at the head of a squadron, and asked where he was going. Hurjee said he had been ordered out in search of a ford, and asked Skinner to accompany him. They rode straight into the snare, but cut their way out after some desperate fighting, in which Skinner manfully played his part. Next day the grateful Hurjee said that his valiant sowars had only done their duty, but the Enghshman had INDIAN ADVENTURERS 275 fought for him as a friend. And he presented him, to his great gratification, with bracelets set with diamonds, a sword, a shield, and a valuable horse. Then the rapacious Sutherland came on the scene. He reprimanded Skinner severely for riding out without orders, adding that he should report him. But he let him understand that, if he handed over the horse, the escapade might be overlooked. Sutherland gained nothing by the attempt at blackmailing. Skinner did not give up his horse, and Hurjee praised him so highly to Perron that the general sent him a flattering letter of thanks. Those Rajpoot fortresses; often of vast extent, were naturally immensely strong, and labour had been ex- hausted in artificially strengthening them. One of the most thrilling incidents in our Indian warfare is the gallant attempt on Gwalior when held by the Mahrattas, which only missed success by circumstances which could not havp been foreseen. Skinner gives a vividly picturesque account of the storm of Shahjeghur, heroically defended by its Rajpoot garrison and assailed with equal determination by the Mahrattas. As in the Gwalior affair, when the stormers reached the walls the breaches were found impracticable. Nevertheless, they persevered. The defenders hailed down great stones upon them, and showered powder-pots plugged with grass and thatch — an Indian modification of the Greek fire. After two hours of fruitless effort the assailants withdrew. Some days afterwards, to their own misfortune, the garrison roused them with a sally to beat up their trenches. The Rajpoots were repulsed ; the Mahrattas followed them up, and thronged through one of the gates along with them. From all sides storming parties swarmed up like hornets ; the place was carried and the bulk of 276 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the garrison cut to pieces. But a thousand of them had retreated to a keep. The Mahrattas sometimes showed generous chivalry in victory. Their leader, when he saw the carnage, said the survivors were noble fellows who must be saved, and sent a white flag offering them capitula- tion on their own terms. They said they would yield if permitted to march out with their arms, otherwise they would blow up the keep and die with their wives and children. They got the terms they asked, and were sent away under escort. Indeed the exterminating determination with whicli those wars were waged makes it the more surprising that the foreigners, however daring, should invariably have been found to the front, and that they should have sur- vived shot and sabre to reap the fruits of their reckless- ness. Here is another example of the stubborn heroism of the well-matched combatants. They had come face to face to fight a pitched battle. One of Scindiah's brigades of 8000 under a Frenchman, Dudernaig, was charged by 10,000 of the enemy's horse. 10,000 Rhattores " were seen approaching from a distance ; the tramp of their immense and compact body rising like thunder above the roar of the battle." A slow hand-gallop quickened to racing speed ; the cannon of the brigade riddled their masses, " cutting down hundreds at each discharge," still the pace was never slackened ; "on they came like a whirl- wind," trampling over the fallen ; nothing could either check or shake them : " they poured like a torrent over the brigade and rode it fairly down, leaving scarce a vestige remaining." Of the 8000 only 200 escaped, and Dudernaig saved himself by a miracle by throwing himself down among the dead. INDIAN ADVENTURERS 277 Such a murderous charge should have decided the battle, but notwithstanding the victory remained with the Mahrattas. Skinner, although slightly wounded, made a good thing of it. The victors burst into the hostile camp, and scattered to pillage. He had the good luck to find his way to the Rajah's bungalow, magnificently decorated with embroidery and brocades. " I saw nothing but gold and silver." Opening a basket he found some jewellery and two golden idols with diamond eyes — the idols he immediately secreted in his bosom. In the circumstances a summons to his commander's presence was awkward, for an uneasy conscience made him suspect that the chief had information of his prizes. But on the contrary all passed pleasantly ; he was praised for his good service in the day's work, and among other things presented with another robe of honour, a palanquin, and an allowance of forty rupees a month to pay the bearers. The formidable insurrection had been put down, and Scindiah, who had been thoroughly frightened, showed his tender mercies to the captured leaders by various in- genious methods for their happy despatch. Four were blown from guns in the ordinary way, another was blown up by rockets, some were simply poisoned, and others had their heads crushed in with tent mallets — a disagreeable reminder to the Europeans that they held their lives on precarious tenure, for as they were perpetually changing sides, they were liable to be sentenced as traitors. So the Mahratta wars always went on. Scindiah gave his men incessant occupation. Alternately aggressive or standing on the defensive, he was eternally annexing ter- ritory, repelhng attacks, or quelling disturbances. His hordes of horsemen lived in the saddle like the Pindarics, 278 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE and if they were very irregularly paid had ample oppor- tunities of looting. Skinner did well for himself on the whole, but could not always expect to come off scatheless. Once, to use a vulgar phrase, he had an exceedingly near squeak for it. They were then fighting the Rajpoot Rajah of Ooncara. Their infantry had deserted en masse, and when the Rajah pressed his advantage, Skinner was falling back with some guns at the head of a thousand horse. Retreating towards ravines which promised a refuge, he was charged by the Rajah in person and surrounded. He made his men a brief, soldier-like speech, told them that death must come sooner or later, that come it must, and that it became them to meet it now and die like soldiers. They charged in turn and took the enemy's cannon. They formed squares, but were beset on all sides and broken. Then his troopers lost their coolness, his own guns were lost as well, he found himself left with only ten followers, and one of the enemy's troopers galloping up, fired his matchlock at close quarters. He dropped for dead at three in the afternoon, and did not regain consciousness till sunrise. He had been stripped to his trousers, and dragged himself under a bush for shelter from the blazing sun. Two men of his battalion, severely wounded like himself, had crawled to his side. They lay there through the day, dying of thirst, till the second night came on. It was so dreadful, he says, that he swore if he survived to have nothing more to do with soldiering. All around were the wounded crying for water, and the jackals who were feasting on wounded and dead could only be kept off by throwing stones at them. But in the morning two benevolent Samaritans came, a man and a woman who brought bread and water. Skinner drank eagerly, thanking INDIAN ADVENTURERS 279 the woman and Heaven. But there was an extraordinary example of the strength of caste. One of his companions, a Subahdar, was a high-caste Rajpoot ; the good folk who came to their assistance were Chunars of the lowest class, and he would neither have bread nor water at their hands. If he died, he preferred to die unpolluted. That day the Rajah sent coolies to bury the dead and bring away the wounded. Skinner was carried into camp ; the ball was extracted, and with his intense vitahty, he was on his legs again almost immediately, to receive gifts and the highest commendation from the chivalrous Rajah. Nor did his generosity end there. He sent the prisoner to his capital, lodged him well, treated him handsomely, and finally dismissed him free at the end of a month, with a horse, a sword, and a shield. Perron was then at the height of his prosperity, and Scindiah had every reason to be grateful to him. Had not Perron's authority made him formidable to his master, and had the Frenchman continued to serve the Mahratta loyally, the course of events might have been different. But Perron was intoxicated with unbroken successes ; his head was turned and his character changed. Skinner says he had once been a good, honest soldier : now he had turned despot, lending a ready ear to flatterers. Formerly he had been free-handed like De Boigne, but now he became avaricious. All the best appointments were given to his countrymen ; the Mahratta chiefs and the English officers were alike disgusted. The dissensions and intrigues ^'eakened Scindiah, and encouraged his enemies. Holkar 01 Indore, always jealous, seized the opportunity. He gathered Pindarics around him, leagued himself with the Pathan, Ameer Khan, and candidly told his troops they 2 8o SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE could have no pay, but promised an abundance of plunder. He kept his word, and those ferocious hordes of horse were backed by disciplined battalions, officered for the most part by Englishmen. Meantime there was almost an open rupture between Scindiah and Perron. Skinner assisted at a memorable Durbar, to which Perron had been invited in courteous terms. It was nothing less than a snare arranged by the Rajah for the assassination of the inconvenient general. But Perron, well versed in Oriental methods, had wind of the court conspiracy. He came to the Durbar attended by 300 of his own officers, foreign and native, all armed to the teeth. Scindiah was surrounded by a Pathan guard, assembled as Perron's executioners. He showed his disappointment when he saw his prey escape him. There was whispering with his counsellors, and the Pathans were ordered to withdraw. Then the Rajah had recourse to flattery, but Perron knew him, and was not to be hoodwinked. He laid his sword at the Maharajah's feet, told him he could not brook such insults, and must retire. A peace was patched up, with interchange of compliments. Perron carried off the honours and rode back in trimnph to his camp, but with the injury rankling. So it came about that while Holkar with his ruthless bands was making a hell of Southern Hindustan, Perron, indifferent to his master's orders, held aloof, looking after his own affairs in the north. The state of the country, and the appeal of the Peishwah, alarmed at the growing power of Holkar, induced the English to interfere, and the treaty of Bassein was followed by the Mahratta wars. The declaration of hostilities was a turning-point in Skinner's career. As much Indian as English, and a veritable soldier INDIAN ADVENTURERS 281 of fortune, he had no wish to leave the Mahratta service, but he was compelled to go. Other Englishmen in Scin- diah's pay had refused to fight their countrymen and had resigned their commissions, whereupon the whole of those serving with Perron were summarily dismissed. Probably Perron was glad of the opportunity, for Skinner and his comrades were sent off in high-handed fashion, and warned that they were not to be found near the General's camp after a certain day. They went to Agra, but regretted pay and prospects, and had still a hope that their dismissal might be reconsidered. On the day of the notable battle of Aligarh when Perron met Lord Lake, their tents were pitched in a garden near the battlefield. Skinner rode out to witness the flight of the Mahratta horse, with Perron, hatless, bringing up the rear. He actually accosted the fugitive, saying he was there to share his fortunes. Perron said that all was over, that his men had behaved like cowards, and bid him make his peace with the British. Skinner urged him to rally his forces and make a stand, but Perron was in despair, and not to be persuaded. After some further attempts, Skinner cursed him for a traitor, and took his leave, teUing him to go to the devil. Though he had broken with Perron and parted from him in disgust, nevertheless he had no wish to leave Scindiah's service. His brother officers were of a different mind. They represented that the Mahratta chief would never trust them again— that they had best make their peace with the English, who would welcome them gladly. The wiser counsel prevailed, and they rode in a body to the British outposts. Their first reception was rough enough, and Skinner's future was trembling in the balance, when a letter was handed to him from an officer, an old 2 82 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE friend of his father's, couched in cordial terms, which in- duced him to delay his departure. With his comrades he proceeded to headquarters, and they were at once intro- duced to the Commander-in-Chief. Lord Lake, who was only too pleased to encourage desertions from the Mahrattas, received them with the greatest kindness ; half-famished, they were invited to dinner in the mess-room, and before the evening closed all doubts as to their welcome were dissipated. His lordship knew Skinner well by report, and asked him if he would take service and raise a regiment of horse. Those first overtures Skinner unhesitatingly declined ; he said he was still Scindiah's soldier, and would never draw sword against him. Nor would he consent to write to the other officers still with the Maharajah, to assure them that if they came over they should hear favourable terms. But after all, he was a soldier of fortune and bethought himself ; he realised that, with Perron for an enemy, his position with Scindiah was shaken, and he yielded to the blandishments of the Englishmen. He agreed to send the letters, and they safely reached their destina- tion for his name and reputation franked them, while the messengers who carried others written by his comrades were waylaid and murdered. Doubtless that incident weighed with Lake, and when eight rissalahs of Perron's horse passed over to the camp at Delhi, he renewed his proposals. This time Skinner accepted. He could not resist the temptation of again leading his old followers into action when they greeted him with joyous acclaim. Thenceforward they became known as the famous " Yellow Boys," so called from their picturesque and rather grotesque uniforms, and noted under their daring leader for many a dashing deed of arms. Still, with a Dugald Dalgetty sense INDIAN ADVENTURERS 283 of honour, he stipulated that they should never fight against their former master. But the British were now in the field against Holkar, and with regard to him, as Scindiah's jealous rival, Skinner had no scruples. His horse were with the supports upon which Colonel Monson fell back after his disastrous advance and discreditable retreat. The British fled to the shelter of Agra, abandoning guns, camp equipage, and wounded, making the fatal and foolish mistake of flying before Orientals. For Holkar, on his side, though of high-strung courage, always nervous and scared by his own unexpected success, was withdrawing in the opposite direction. At Agra the very dregs of the populace were deriding the Feringhees and pelting straggling sepoys with stones, till Lord Lake came up in force, bringing victory with him, to retrieve the situation. Yet Holkar, a man of moods, had taken heart again, and with his raw levies of wild horse, to be numbered by the ten thousand, was pressing on the British entrenchments. Their foraging parties were being cut up ; they were being brought from short rations to within a hair's-breadth of famine. Naturally Skinner's irregulars were regularly engaged in the foraging, and as they were well used to raiding hostile country they gene- rally came off scatheless. As the old marauder puts it bluntly, " I used to go out in the morning, plunder the viUages, and send in whatever I could lay hold of." Conse- quently Lake, who was nursing his scanty forces, thought him the very man to send out on a dangerous, but neces- sary piece of work. A body of brinjarrahs (carriers) were bringing up their bullock-train with supplies of grain from Cawnpore. They had been stopped en route by a Rajah who was wavering in his allegiance, and who had bribed 2 84 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the reluctant carriers, honest enough in an ordinary way hke all their class, to hand over the grain. Lord Lake sent for Skinner, and asked whether he thought he could save the stores. Skinner, who seems to have been far from hopeful, said he would either save them or lose his life, whereupon his lordship shook his hand and said he would never forget the service. Subsequently the promise was redeemed. Skinner sounded to boot and saddle, and started with 1200 troopers. Halting within a short ride of his destina- tion, he sent forward spies, who reported that the carriers were just beginning to unload into the fortress. Not a moment was to be lost. Leaving two-thirds of his men with his brother, with the rest he dashed into the midst of the brmjarrahs, shouting out that Lord Lake had sent him to their help. They hesitated and began throwing down their loads, but he ordered them to stop that, under pain of death, and several were summarily shot pour encourager les autres. It was a night attack, and ere sunrise all were well clear of the town. But the carriers had had reason for their hesitation, and the Rajah was soon in hot pursuit. By the time he was overtaken Skinner had rejoined his main body, and now he sent his brother on, with half his men, in charge of the convoy, while with the other half he showed front to the pursuit. The Rajah came up in far superior force, but after vapouring and threats, with some emptied saddles, he held a parley and listened to reason. The grain was gone, the camp would be fed, and he was in an awkward fix with the British army between him and the Mahrattas. It ended with his entreating Skinner to make his peace with the British general. Had Skinner been less prompt, he would have interposed too INDIAN ADVENTURERS 285 late. Lord Lake realised it, and was profuse in thanks, renewing his promises of never forgetting. That was the first of many exploits by which he won the favour of his new employers. The welcome supplies enabled Lake to turn the tables, and Holkar was retreating. There was much skirmishing and fighting, and Skinner was always hard on the heels of the retiring foe, taking many prisoners. Some he released, with sarcastic messages to Holkar. For seven days, he says, they slept in the open and had no provision but what they found in the fields. Sometimes they had to change their ground twice or thrice in the night to avoid surprises. It was trying work, but it had its compensations. " In this pursuit I acquired great plunder in horses and camels." He adds that, though results were satisfactory, " I felt the want of my dram ;" for though he attained a good old age, it was not by practising the severe temperance prescribed for Europeans by the doctors. Lord Lake bestowed the highest com- mendation on him, presenting him with another horse with gorgeous trappings. Indeed he made himself useful in various ways, for the fame of his exploits reached his old comrades at Gwalior, and lured many deserters from Scindiah to take service under the British flag. There was no rest for the Yellow Boys, who were the scouts and eyes of Lord Lake's scattered battalions. The wild Pindaric leader Ameer Khan marched from Bhurtpore, traversed the Doab, and broke into Rohilcund, his native country, where he was far from welcome. Everywhere he spread devastation. He came with 30,000 horse, and when he left with only a third of the number, it was Skinner who played the leading part in his discomfiture. His atrocities far exceeded those of Holkar, but he had not the 286 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE Mahratta's courage. When the concentrating forces of the British drove him to retreat, Skinner invariably led the chase, but the movements of the lightly equipped marauders tasked his energies to the utmost. They came, as has been said before, with only horses and arms, and though Skinner's squadrons were not much more heavily encumbered, it was wearisome work to follow. One of the first duties on which he was detached was the relief of Bareilly, for Ameer's sudden inroad had rushed the country, and the British resident with a handful of native guards was blockaded in Bareilly gaol. That episode reminds one of the days of the Mutiny and of Wake's brilliant defence of the billiard-room at Arrah. Skinner with looo troopers dashed ahead of the General in command of the main body, to find that the Pindaries had been scared by their advance after being gallantly kept at bay by the little garrison. They hurried forward in pursuit, but "Ameer Khan had led us such a dance, that for several days we were all in the dark as to where he had got," till Skinner caught some of his foragers and elicited the desired information. Then there is another incident which recalls Kavanagh's memor- able sortie, in Indian disguise, to carry news from beleaguered Lucknow to the troops advancing to its succour. The General was puzzled as to the movements of Ameer, and Skinner volunteered to go into his camp and find out what was going on. Skinner looked the Hindoo, and was fluent of native speech, nevertheless nothing could have been more venturesome, for he had to trust his life to the fidelity of troopers who could have earned a great reward by betraying him ; but, as the result proved, his confidence in their loyalty was not misplaced. Donning native dress, disguising ten picked servants, he went straight INDIAN ADVENTURERS 287 for the Pindarie camp, mingled with a foraging party, and rode in. He came back primed with the intelhgence he sought, having previously sent information by instal- ments by messengers. One important fact he learned — that the robbers were divided in racial factions ; he waited to see a free fight between Pathans and Mahrattas, and then he slipped away, again in company of their foragers. Then there was close pressure on the Pindarie flight, with incessant fighting and skirmishing. Skinner and his brother showed the way, in command of separate detach- ments. In hand-to-hand combat he and his brother had many hair-breadth escapes. In brief, soldierly language he relates a dramatic incident of deep personal interest. News was brought him that his brother was surrounded in a ruinous serai by the enemy in overwhelming strength. Again there was a striking illustration of the loyalty of the rissaldars to their English chiefs. Ameer summoned the dilapidated fort, inviting them to give up their leader and surrender an untenable post, promising to each man three days' pay as the purchase-money. The younger Skinner told them that, to save their 500 lives, he would gladly give himself up. The answer was, that when all had fallen he might go, but not so long as a man of them was alive. They knelt and prayed to God to give them courage. The storm burst from all sides : the stormers repeatedly topped the walls, only to be cut down or hurled back, and were finally driven off with great slaughter. When night had fallen, a spy who was with the detach- ment stole out to carry news of their desperate straits, having cut up his horse's shoes into slugs, for ammunition was almost exhausted. 288 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE The elder Skinner was in sore distress. The General sjonpathised, but declined to move ; he said plausibly, that there must have been another assault, and that one way or another the affair must have been decided. The resourceful Skinner, thrown back upon himself, took prompt action as a veritable free lance. He wrote a letter, addressed to his brother, but really intended for Ameer Khan. A man brought up in his family undertook its delivery to the true destination, and ten of his most trusted sowars volunteered to engage in the plot. It was efficiently carried out with Hindoo craft. The chief messenger, having assured himself that the garrison still held out, let himself fall into the hands of the enemy's pickets. The letter was duly read by Ameer ; it told young Skinner to drag out negotiations for surrender, as the General was advancing by forced marches to his relief. Meanwhile the ten sowars had fired some corn-stacks and given chase to some straggling camp-followers. The cry was raised that the English were coming, and with the panic that so quickly spreads in Oriental armies, Ameer and his host took to precipitate flight. A thousand of his men had fallen in the attack, and the loss of the defenders was comparatively trifling. The pursuit by the Yellow Boys was resumed, and the check proved fatal. Ameer lost credit and character ; his soldiers deserted by hundreds, he found resistance at every walled village, and hurrying to escape out of Rohil- cund, crossed the frontier river with 10,000 disheartened men. The flying Pindaries were in evil case, but Skinner and the Yellow Boys were scarcely beaten off. He says they had hunted Holkar for 500 miles and Ameer Khan afterwards for half as many again ; they had been far in INDIAN ADVENTURERS 289 advance of the main body, and he adds the almost in- credible statement that, " to the best of my belief," they were never less than eighteen hours a day on horseback. All the same, and immediately afterwards, he expresses his gratitude to the General for always sending for him when there was anything to be done. There was no diffi- culty in gratifying his tastes, and soon after he had the opportunity of a specially sensational exploit before a cloud of witnesses. The restless Holkar, with the defeated Ameer in company, making a wide circuit, had crossed into the Punjaub, hoping to rouse the Sikhs and be supported by Runjeet Singh. Thither the British forces, led by Lord Lake in person, had followed him. The armies were separated by the broad stream of the Sutlej, and the cam- paign had come to a sort of stalemate. Finally, as Holkar sat fast, Lake decided to attempt the passage, but the difficulty was to find a ford. There was a place immediately in front of him which, though dangerous, was deemed practicable — so dangerous was it, that he hesitated to give orders to sound it, but one evening he remarked at dinner, apparently casually, that he wished some one would try the depth, with a troop and a galloping gun. The chief of the staff whispered to Skinner that the hint was meant for him, whereupon he rose incontinently and said, "If your lordship will give me leave I will try the ford to-morrow morning." Next day, with two squadrons and a galloper. Skinner was down at the ghaut, and his lordship, with his staff and a strong muster of officers, were all there to look on. One of the political agents remonstrated as to the peril, but his lordship's mind was then made up, and he said curtly that he accepted the responsibility. " Our horses had to swim for twenty yards, after which 290 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE they got footing. There was an island in the middle of the river, to which I bent my course. On reaching this we found it a quicksand, on which my galloper stuck fast. I dismounted and directed my brother with two rissalahs to cross, and then, dismounting one of them, to bring the men back to relieve the gun, which had now sunk up to the wheels. The rissalah returned, took out the horses, and dragged the gun across ; and just as we landed I took off my hat and giving three hurrahs in which Lord Lake and all the staff joined, proclaimed that the first British gun had crossed the Sutlej." Like Hawkwood, the Anglo-Italian Condottiere, Skinner avowed his occupation was war, and these stirring times to his disgust were succeeded by a period of piping peace. Lord Cornwallis had replaced Lord Wellesley. Lord Lake had to tell Skinner, " with tears," that his Yellow Horse were to be disbanded, and asked him how he was to be repaid for his invaluable exertions. Skinner answered that he would be satisfied with a small jaghire, as he in- tended to retire from soldiering. Asked whether 20,000 rupees of rent would content him and his brother, he replied that it would be making princes of them. Disappointed of that by the interposition of the Resident at Delhi, who asserted that no British subject could become an Indian landowner, he was indemnified by a pension. He had spoken of renouncing soldiering, but he could never be happy in retreat. His staunch patron Lord Lake had promised to befriend him, but Lake had died. Helped by other and influential friends, he had been permitted to retain command of 300 of his old troopers as the civil guard of the Delhi Resident. They were the nucleus of a force that any call from him could expand, and he was soon to INDIAN ADVENTURERS 291 have the opportunity. Central India could never be long at rest, nor could the Company ever repose on its conquests. A Rajah to whom a tributary territory had been assigned had been unable to manage his turbulent subjects, and a British force was to be marched into the country. Skinner, with his regiment increased to 800 men, was attached to a work which went on for several years, but for once he had few opportunities of distinguishing himself. Such desultory little wars were but the prelude to serious trouble. With Lord Moira's advent as Governor- General circumstances compelled a change to a more war- like policy. First we came to blows with the Ghoorkas, who have since given us some of our best native regiments. Skinner for a time had been residing at Delhi, where an admiring Resident had reversed his predecessor's decision as to jaghires, and commuted his pension for a grant which made him a landowner, and had material consequences for his future career. Now, with the first mutterings of the war storms, his regiments were raised to a strength of 3000, and once more he was out on active service. In the northern hill country and the passes leading into Nepaul his mounted men were seldom called into action, but they were being disciplined for a service better suited to their habits and fighting qualities. As scouts and skirmishers they were again to be pitted against their old enemies, the flying Mahratta horsemen and the Pindaries. In 1814 the situation on our frontiers had become intolerable. It was estimated that there were 40,000 Pindaries abroad, under chiefs who rivalled each other in ferocity, mainly taking their spoil in the rich valley of the Nerbudda. Some 30,000 men were either regularly in the pay of the Mahrattas, or with Ameer Khan in the 292 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE north. At last they had broken bounds and invaded British territory. They knew that they had the Mahratta princes behind them, who were leaguing themselves for a last supreme effort to shatter the Company's power. Holkar and the Bonslah had openly taken the field : Scindiah was known to be in virtual alHance, though with his habitual craft he was slow to commit himself. In 1817 the British preparations were complete, and well-combined movements from north and south ringed in the marauding Pindarie hordes. Scattered in the field, as Sir John Malcolm says, they were hunted down like wild beasts in the jungle. Brigand soldiers of fortune, their hour had come. A dramatic Nemesis overtook Chetoo, the most noted of all the sanguinary leaders. Declining or distrusting the strangely lenient terms offered him, he took refuge in the jungles. He had well earned the sobriquet of " The Tiger," and a tiger killed him. His body was identified by the saddle, sword, valuables and papers which bestrewed the ground. Following up the tracks, the tiger was traced to his lair, and there the head of the famous freebooter was found intact. Skinner was with Ochterlony in the campaign which brought Ameer Khan to unconditional surrender. There was more treating than fighting, and Skinner had httle to do. Sir John Malcolm, commanding his division, sent him a letter commending the steady conduct of his corps, and hoping they might long continue in the gallant performance of their duty. Malcolm's kindly hopes were only partially realised. Retrenchment was to be the order of the day, and the bulk of the corps was paid off. By way of com- pensation to the Colonel, his jaghires, which were lease- hold, were made freehold and hereditary. With the end INDIAN ADVENTURERS 293 of the " Pindaric War " his active service may be said to have come to a conclusion. The old soldier was rusting in repose, and in his memoirs he gives vent to disgust and disappointment. " Rapid indeed has been my fall." His expectations in the Mahratta service had been high, and no question had been raised as to his birth or colour. When he entered with the British, he hoped zeal and fidelity would have had their adequate reward. Regarded as a half-caste, colour and birth were against him. The old soldier was a grumbler, and in reality had little reason to complain. His services had generous recognition by his chiefs, from successive Governors-General downwards, and it is obvious, from the state he kept in his household, that he must have amassed a handsome fortune. Nor was he altogether without the military distractions in which he delighted. He was never without some command of horse ; and in 1825, when the Jhat states were giving trouble, he was commissioned to raise a second corps, when he had only to pick and choose among his old troopers. He was with Lord Combermere at the siege and capture of Bhurt- pore, though then his duties as a cavalry officer were chiefly confined to scouting and foraging. With his susceptibilities as a half-caste he was immensely pleased when his services were rewarded with the ribbon of the Bath. Back at Hansi, one of his regiments was disbanded. He went in the train of Lord William Bentinck, who treated him with tlie highest consideration, to the memorable meet- ing with Runjeet Singh, accompanying him afterwards on his progress through the Rajpoot states. These were his last marches. On his return he and the fighting " Yellow Boys " became the guardians of order as a semi-civilian police. At Hansi and his bungalow of Belaspore, as a 294 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE wealthy zemindar and country gentleman, he lived beloved and respected by his neighbours, hospitable to all comers and generous to the poor. There he entertained Lord Combermere and his staff when on their progress in 1827. Captain Mundy, his lordship's aide-de-camp, describes it as a handsome and spacious house in a flourishing garden, where, " to such an extent does he carry his ideas of luxury, the comfortable old soldier has erected to himself an elegant and snug-looking mausoleum." They were with him again on the return march, when their reception was still more magnificent, with Oriental nautch dances and fireworks. The Commander-in-Chief reviewed Skinner's famous Horse. The costumes were striking, though serviceable. Tunics of red cloth, white cotton pantaloons, horse-furniture of red and yellow ; the weapons, the matchlock, spear, and sword. The most of their manoeuvres were those of European cavalry, but their speciality was the Mahratta charge. There was an advance in line, two deep ; the trot broke from a canter into a gallop, and on close approach the files opened out, and they came thundering on, with wild shrieks and swords flashing over their heads. At the word " Halt," each charger was brought on his haunches within ten yards of the reviewing General. Next they dis- played their skill with the matchlock and lance ; with the latter they showed amazing dexterity. Sometimes the play seemed Hkely to end in earnest, and then the veteran commander would take a spear from an attendant and join in the game. " I think I see him now, with his good- natured, twinkling eyes, and white teeth shining through his dark countenance. In his youth he had been a master of the weapon ; even in age, and with ' belly with good capon lined,' there were few in his regiment who could INDIAN ADVENTURERS 295 match him." Like Tostig the Saxon, Murat, and many another dashing cavalry leader, he loved the pomp and pageantry of war, and his own uniform and that of his officers was resplendent. He does not repose in the mausoleum he had built. He was buried at Hansi with military honours, but afterwards the remains were trans- ferred to Delhi, where the second obsequies were attended by unprecedented crowds, and sixty-three minute guns were fired, for as many years of his Ufe, as he was laid under the altar of the church he had built. A native Prince paraphrased in Oriental speech the scriptural lament that a great man had fallen in Israel. The Anglo-Indian soldiers who won the Hindu affec- tions had their native sobriquets. Skinner was known as Secunder Sahib ; Meadows Taylor long afterwards won wide popularity as Mahadeo Baba ; and Colonel Sutherland, who, in hot rivalry with Thomas, for a time had succeeded Perron as commander of Scindiah's army, was Sutlej Sahib. He ran a course almost identical with that of his competitors, with very similar vicissitudes. He had not Skinner's sense of honour, and an incident has been mentioned in which he figured very discreditably. Naturally his unscrupulous- ness was no bar to his advancement. He had begun badly. He was cashiered from our 73rd Regiment. He deserted to De Boigne, and was second in command when De Boigne retired. With Perron he was always at daggers drawn ; their rival ambitions made them bitter enemies. His grand exploit was his beating Holkar and Ameer Khan leagued together in the bloody battle of Indore. Finally, by the intrigues of Perron, who nevertheless was nearly connected with him by marriage, he was degraded from his high rank, when he left Scindiah in disgust and withdrew to Agra. On 296 SOLDIERS OF FORTUNE the outbreak of the Mahratta war, that fortress capitulated to the British, and it was Sutherland who treated for the surrender. That may have been the reason for his being pensioned by the Company, dying in obscurity in somewhat straitened circumstances, for he does not appear to have made much of his great opportunities. When communications with the mother country were slow and comparatively rare, and adventurers were more famihar with the sword than the pen, many of their memo- rable exploits were never recorded. But much of public interest may still exist in neglected family papers. We have a striking example of that in the records of the Hearseys, recently edited by Colonel Pearse, and published by Messrs. Blackwood. For five generations they were famous in Oriental wars, fighting first for their own hands and after- wards for the British Raj. The last of note, and by far the most distinguished, was Sir John, the hero of many a battle and of many a hair-breadth escape, the veteran who quelled the Barrackpore revolt, the prelude to the Mutiny, when Mungal Pandy, whose name became the synonym for a mutineer, paid the penalty of his crimes on the gallows. But many another fighting family played a similar part in the thrilling history of our Indian conquests. INDEX Aberdeen, 47 Abo, 195, 196 Adda, the, 136 Adige, the, 130 Agra, 281, 283, 29s Aix-la-Chapelle, 52, 244 Alberoni, Cardinal, 167, 168, 171, Albornoz, Cardinal, 10 Alexander de Bourbon, i Alfonso of Aragon, 18 Aligarh, 252, 281 Alost, 137 Alps, the, 2, 6, 132 Alsace, 103, 137, 222, 227 Al Sirat, bridge of, 83 Amsterdam, 50 Ancona, 29, 30. Andalusia, 174 Anhalt-Dessau, Leopold of, 135 Anne, Duchess of Brunswick, 190 Anne, Duchess of Courland, 216, 217, 218 Anne, Empress of Russia, 179, 180, 181, 182, 184, 190 Antoing, 230, 233 Antwerp, 238, 241 Apennines, the, 9 Aragon, 25 Arcot, 249 ' Ardenvohr, 65 Arezzo, 14 Argyle, Duke of, },},, 42, 46, 138. 141, 155, 160, 161 Arnheim, 78 Assaye, 252, 259 Ath, 236, 237 Athens, Duke of, 3 Atholl, Duke of, 159 Attendolo, Muzio, 24 Augsburg, 91 Augustus, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, 152,209, 217, 220 Austria, Upper, 133 Auvergne, 1 1 Avignon, 11 Ayr, 43, 56 Bacharach, 89 Badajoz, 14, 72 Baden, treaty of, 144 Bagnacavallo, 14 Bahrampur, 270 Baillie, Major-General, 46 Balkans, the, 103 Balquhain, Count Leslie of, 96-104 Bamberg, Bishop of, 82 Banner, Field-Marshal, n Banner, General, ti Barcelona, 168 Bareges, Baths of, 189 Bareilly, 286 Baroda, Guikwar of, 246 Barri Wood, 230, 231, 232 Bastille, the, 107 Bauditzen, Lieutenant-General, 82 Bavaria, 90, 147, 224, 225 Bavaria, Duke of, 118 Bavaria, Leopold, Elector of, 97, 109, no, 116, 117, 118, 122, 128, 129. 133. 135. 142, 152, 219, 222, 223, 228 Bavaria, Max Emmanuel of, 117, 132 Bavaria, Maximilian of, 91, loi Belgrade, 103, in, 113, 117, nS, 122, 123, 145, 147, 149 Belleisle, 220, 224 Benares, 269 Benevente, 169 •97 298 INDEX Bentinck, Lord William, 260, 293 Berar, Rajah of, 246 Berezoff, 178 Bergen-op-Zoom, 131, 243, 244 Bergstrasse, 87 Bergtheim, 100 Berlin, jj, 157, 189, 204 Berwick, Duke of, 105, 137, 153, 169, 220, 221 Bestucheflf, Vice-Chancellor, 197 Bhurtpore, 72, 260, 285, 293 Bianca Maria, Princess, 29, 30 Bigorre, 170 Bingen, 89 Biron, Duke of Courland, 176, 180, 187, 190, 215, 217, 218, 222, 223 Blenheim, no, 134, 136, 139 Bohemia, n , 100, loi, 102, 103, 201, 202, 206, 223, 224, 225 Bologna, Signoria of, 16 Bordeaux, 169 Borneholme, roads of, 62 Bosnia, 128 Bosphorus, the, 104 Boufflers, 139, 140, 141, 142 Bourbon, 97, 222 Bourbon, Jacques de, 12 Bourdonnais, 249 Bouslah, the, 292 Brandenburg Margrave, "JT, 78 Brandenburg, New, 69, 75, "j}) Brandenburg, Old, jj Breda, 52, 54, 239 Breitenfeldt, 78, 82 Brescia, 21, 28 Brest, 226 Bretigny, Peace of, 2 Broglie, Marshal, 224, 225 Broun, 201, 202 Bruges, 52, 140, 237 Brunswick, 91 Brunswick, Duke Bevern of, 201 Brunswick, Prince of, 188 Brussels, 54, 137, 229, 237, 241 Buda, 116 Buddenbrog, 192, 193 Budweis, 223 Bundelcund, 272 Burgundy, Duke of, 137 Burn, Colonel, 272 Burnet, 56 Bussone, 17 Butler, Walter, 74, 102 Byng, Admiral Sir George, 167, 174 Cahors, 71 Calabria, 25 Calabria, Duke of, 3 Calcutta, 270 Callender, Earl of, 40 Calverley, 1 1 Cammock, Admiral, 173 Campania, 15 Caprara, 146 Caravaggio, 30, 31 Carignan, 106 Carlowitz, 145, 146 Carmagnola, 17-32 Cassano, battle of, 136 Castagnaro, battle of, i;, Cathcart, 161 Catherine, Empress, 177, 217, 218 Catinat, 119, 120, 121, 126, 129, 130 Cawnpore, 272, 283 Cenis, 12 Cesena, 14 Chambery, 251 Chambord, Chateau of, 237, 244, 245 Charles, Emperor, 144, 145, 184, 222, 228 Charles, King, 33, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55. 58, 60, 61, 62, 63, 66, 71, 72, 74, 76, 77 Charles, Prince, 224, 226 Charles VII., 223 Charles XII., 213 Chatham, Lord, 156 Chefoo, 247 Chetoo, 292 Chevalier, the, 162, 163, 164, 226 Chiari, 130 Chittwa Ghur, 274 Christian of Denmark, 62 Claverhouse, Graham of, 33, 42, 55, 56 Clermont, Colonel, 239 Clive, 249 Coblenz, 89, 137, 220 Cohorn, in Coigny, Marshal, 225 INDEX 299 Colberg, 64 Colchester, 44 Cologne, 52 Combermere, Lord, 72, 259, 260, 293. 294 Como, 19 Company, the White, 11, 12, 13 Conde, 49 Condottieri, the, 1-17 Coote, Sir Eyre, 249 Corniche, 2 Cornwallis, Lord, 290 Cotignola, 14 Council of Ten, the, 20, 22, 23 Courland, Duchess of, 179 Courtrai, 227, 228 Covenant, the, 38 Covenanters, the, 40, 42, 5i> 5^ Crachnitz, 218 Cremona, 131 Crimea, the, 185 Cromwell, 44, 45, 46, 50 Cronstadt, 177, 178 Cumberland, Duke of, 228, 232, 233, 237, 240, 241 Da Carrara, Lord of Padua, 15 Dalecarlia, 196 d'Alembert, 156 Dalgetty, Dugald, ii. 35, 37. 45- 51, 60, 65, 72, 74, 82, 96, 98, 263 Dalziel, 33, 42, 48, 50, 52, 55, 56 Dameine, 66, 68 da Mortare, Braccio, 25, 26, 27 Dantzic, 62, 182, 218 Danube, the, 61, 89, 90, 103, no, III, 122, 125, 128, 145, 147, 189, 213, 222, 225 d'Asfeldt, 153, 221 Daun, 202, 205, 206 de Boigne, 249, 250, 251, 252, 272, 279, 295 de Bouquoi, 89 de Castellan, 63 Deccan, the, 207, 247, 259 de Conti, Princess, 172 de Grassins, 230 de Joinville, Seigneur, 157 de la Colonic, M., 123 de la Pergola, Angelo, 19 de Leon, St. Pol, 165 Delhi, 246, 253, 254, 256, 257, 282, 291, 29s dc Lobin, Countess, 212 de Montreal, Walter, 5, 6, 7, 12, 14 de Noailles, M., 221, 227, 229 de Roquefeuille, Admiral, 226 Derwentwater, Earl, 155 d'Estes, 15 Dettingen, 225, 227 d'Harcourt, Duke, 227 Dnieper, the, 183, 184, 186 Doab, 252 Doge, the, 18, 20 Dolgoroukis, the, 178, 179, 181 Donauworth, 90, 93 Douro, the, 83, 87 Dowlat Rao, 273 Dresden, 200, 209, 210, 211, 214, 218, 205 Drogheda, 38 Drummond, General, 48, 51 Dudernaig, 276 Dumaine, Captain, 66, 68 Dumfries, 43 Dunaverty, 42 Dunbar, battle of, 47 Dunblane, 160 Dundee, 160 Dunkirk, 226 Dunklespiel, 96 Dunnottar, 156 Dupleix, 249 Edinburgh, 38, 42, 53, 60 Ecorcheurs, the, i, 2 Eger, fortress of, 224 Egra, 102 Elbe, the, 11 1 Elizabeth, Empress, 176, 194, 197 Elsinore, 35 Erfurt, 82 Etlingen, 221 Eugene of Savoy, 105-154 Eu redoubt, 230, 231, 233 Fairfax, 43, 47 Ferdinand of Brunswick, 203, 205 Fetteresso, 163 Finland, 195, 196 Finnish Cuirassiers, 36 Flanders, 99, 107, 229 300 INDEX Florence, 3, 4, 10, 14, 17, 20, 21, 23, 27, 29, 31 Florence, Signoria of, 16 Fleury, 220 Fontenoy, 229, 230, 231, 233, 234, 236, 239 Forth, the, 38 Franconia, 37, 82, 89 Frankfort, 35, 69, 70, 74, 75, 76, 78, 86 Frederick of Prussia, 153, 198, 199, 200, 201, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 220, 224 Freiburg, 142 Friedland, Duke of, 90, 91, 97, loi Fronde, 49 Galloway, 51 Gallows Hill, 235 Garioch, 98, 99 Genoa, 18, 20, 28 George, King, 243 Ghent, 140, 237 Gibraltar, 174 Glasgow, 43, 47 Glencairn, 52 Gordon, General, 99, 100, 102, 164 Gothenburg, 37 Gournay, 1 1 Grammont, Duke of, 225 Grand Company, the, 7 Grandson, 19 Grant, Colonel, 203 Grant, James, 100 Grierson, 42, 55 Guarinci, 4, 5 Guienne, 1 1 Gunter, Captain, 72 Gustavus Adolphus, 58, 59, 61, 62, 66, 67, 68. 78, 79, 80, 83, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 100 Gwalior, 250, 275 Hague, the, 52, 137, 140, 171 Hainault, French, 229 Halle, 61, 82 Hamburg, 77, 198 Hamelin, 36 Hamilton, Duke of, n, 42, 44, 45, 46, 47, 159 Hamilton, Marquis of, 77 Hamilton, Sir John, 83 Hanan, Colonel, 85 Hanse towns, the, 1 1 1 Hansi, 264, 269, 293 Hapsburgs, the, 109, 222 Haradschin, 91 Harte, 60 Hastings, Warren, 249, 250 Hatto, Bishop, 89 Hawkwood, Sir John, 6, 12, 13, 15. 17 Hearsey, 268 Hearsey, the records of, 296 Heber, Bishop, 260 Hebrides, Outer, 170 Heilbronn, 134, 153 Helsingfors, 196 Henri Quatre, 71 Hepburn, Brigadier-General, 82 Hepburn, Life of, 100 Hepburn, Sir John, 58-95 Hesse-Homburg, Prince of, 184 Hesse, Landgrave of, 77 Hochkirch, 207 Hochstadt, 134, 135 Holkar of Indore, 246, 267, 273, 279, 280, 283, 285, 288, 289, 292, 295 Holland, 47, 50, 53 Hornby, 44 Home, 65, 75 Hound, the, 62 Howard, 103 Hull, Z7, 44, 46 Humber, the, 38 Hume, 55 Hungary, 118, 121, 129, 132, 133, 143. 145 Hungary, King of, 5 Hungary, Queen of, 224, 228 Huntly, 162, 164 Hurjee, 274, 275 Hyde, Sir Edward, 50, 52 Hyderabad, 253, 270 Hyderabad, Nizam of, 246 Hyder Ali, Sultan of Mysore, 247 Ingolstadt, 90, 91 Ireland, Marshal of, 38 Islam, prophet of, 254 Italy, 2, 9, II, 12, 122, 123 Ivan of Brunswick, 190 INDEX 301 Jackson, 80 James VII., 155, 166, 16S Jane, Queen of Naples, 5 Janissaries, the, 124, 127, 146 Japan, 52 Jeypore, 265 Kahlenberg, 115 Kaiser, the, loi, 102, 116 Kaiserstadt, 104, 222 Kara Mustapha, 114, 123 Keith, Marshal, 155-208 Keith, Earl Marshal, 155 Keith, Field-Marshal, 198 Keith, Lady, 155 Khalsa, 264 Khan, Ameer, 279, 286, 288, 291, 292, 295 Khandi, Appi Rao, 262, 263 Kil waring, 38 Kimphausen, General, 64, 65, 69, 70 Kinglake, 124 Kintyre, 41, 42 Kirkcaldy, 51 Kolin, 203 Konigsmark, Aurora von, 209 Konigstein, 82, 200 La Colonie, 151, 152 Lacy, 182 Ladislaus of Naples, 25 Lafieldt, 241, 242, 243 Lake, Lord, 249, 252, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 289, 290 Lally, 249 Lambert, 44, 54 Lanark, 44 Landau, 142 Lando, Count, 7, 9, 10 Langdale, 44 Languedoc, 1 1 Lansberg, 75, 76 Las Torres, Count de, 175 Lauderdale, 33, 56 Lech, 90 Leckinski, Stanislas, 182, 184 le Couvreur, Adrienne, 216 Lefort, 215, 216 Leghorn, 18, 172 Leipzic, y2>, 79, 82, 90, 204 Leith, 37, 38 Leitmeritz, 204 Leon tow. General, 185 Leopold, Elector of Bavaria, 97, 109, no, 116, 117, 118, 122, 128, 129, 133, 135, 142, 152, 219, 222, 223, 228 Leslie, Count of Balquhain, 96-104 Captain of Bodyguard, 102 Count of the Empire, 102 Field-Marshal, 103 Imperial Chamberlain, 102 Knight of Order of the Golden Fleece, 103 Master of Ordnance, 103 Vice-President of the War- Council, 103 Warden of Slavonic Marches, 103 Leshe, David, 41, 42, 43 Leuthen, 206 Le Vaisseau, 255, 258, 261 Leven, 33, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43 Lewis, the, 170 Liege, 216, 238, 239 Ligonier, 233, 238, 239, 242, 243 Lille, fall of, 140 Lille, siege of, 1 39 Lillynichol, the, 62 Lion of the North, the, 96, 100 Liria, Duke of, 168, 175, 178 Liswari, 249, 253 Lithuania, 183 Livonia, 211 Lobositz, 201, 202 Lockhart, Colonel, 45 Lombardy, 8, 19, 20 London, 48, 59, 226 Lorenzberg, 203, 204 Lorraine, Charles of, 202, 205, 206, 227, 238 Lorraine, Duke of, 82, 84, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118 Louis, King of Baden, 107, 108, 109, no, III, 113, 116, 121, 136 143, 159, 210, 211, 212, 225, 226. 228, 231, 232, 235, 236, 238, 243, 244 Louis of Tarento, 5 Lowendahl, 235, 236, 240, 243 Lowendal, 187 Lucca, 14 Lucknow, 250, 251 I Ludowitz, 202 302 Lukwa Dada, 272, 273, 274 Lumsdale, Sir James, 35, 73 Liitzen, 35, 67, 94, 100 Lynedoch, Lord, 131 Macaulay, 55 McDonald, Alaster, 41 McDonald, Sir Donald, 161 Madras, 250, 253 Madrid, 156, 166, 167, 168, 169, 173, 175 Maestricht, 238, 241, 242, 243, 244 Magdeburg, 74, 76, 78 "Magdeburg quarter," 83 Magyars, the, 114, 116 Maigrigna, 1 1 1 Maillebois, Marshal, 224, 225 Main, the, 61, 85 Maintenon, Madame de, 144 Malatesta, 3, 6, 28 Malcolm, Sir John, 292 Malplaquet, battle of, 141, 211 Manstein, 181, 184, 190, 192, 193, 195. 197 Mar, Duke of, 158, 162, 163, 170 Mar, Earl of, 155 Marchfeld, the, 115 Maria Theresa, 223, 23^ Marienburg, 82 Marlborough, 90, no, 131, 132, 133. 134. 135. 136, 137. 138. 139, 140, 141, 142, 211, 227 Marseilles, 12, 167, 172 Marston, 39 Martin V., Pope, 25 Matthews, Admiral, 222 Maubeuge, 229 Maurice, Count de Saxe, 209 Mausethurm, 89 Mayence, 86, 87, 89, 119 Mazarin, Cardinal, 106 Mazarin, Duke of, 107 Medici, Cosmo de, 31 Medzibeg, 183 Meer Cossim, Nawab of Bengal, 254 Menschikoff, Prince, 177, 179, 217, 218 Menteith, 51 Merthens, Eva, 208 Meuse, the, 132, 239, 243 Middleton, 33, 43, 44. 49, SL 52, 53- 54, 55 INDEX Milan, 8, 13, 15, 18, 22, 27, 29, 30, 31. 32 Milan, Gian Galeazzo, Duke of, 17, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29 Mincio, the, in, 130, 131 Mitchell, 97 Mittau, 179, 180, 215, 216, 218 Mohacs, 116, 123 Moira, Lord, 291 Moldau, 82 Monk, 51. 54 Mons, III, 140, 229 MontecucuUi, 65, 66, 70 Montrose, 33, 40, 41, 47, 51. 160 Montserrat, 28 Montserrat, Marquis of, 1 1 Monza, 17 Morea, 145 Morgarten, 19 Moscow, 181, 182 Moselle, the, no, 137, 139 Mundy, Captain, 256, 260, 294 Munich, 91, 98 Munich, Field-Marshal, 180, 181, 182, 184, 185, 187, 188, 190, 194. 198 Munro, David, 66 Munro, Colonel Robert, 58-95 Nagpore, Rajah of, 246 Namur, in, 112, 238 Naples, 6, 8, 15, 16, 103 Naples, King of, 3 Naples, Ladislaus of, 25 Naples, Queen of, 20, 25 Napoleon, 97, no, 114, 138, 154 Natzer, 138 Neckar, the, 134 Nehern, General, 125 Nepaul, 291 Nerbudda, 291 Newburgh, 52 Newcastle, 39, 160 Newcastle, Duke of, 158 Newry, 38, 39 Nizam, 273 Nordlingen, 94, 103 Norris, Sir John, 226 Nuremberg, 35, 85, 92, 100 Obi, the, 178 Ochsenfurt, 84, 85 INDEX 303 Ochterlony, 292 Ockzakow, 186, 188 Olmutz, 206 Oodeypore, 274 Orange, Prince of, 54, 141 Orange-Nassau, William of, 240 Ottoman advance, 114 Oude, Nawab of, 254 Oudenarde, 138, 237 Overton, Colonel, 46 Oxenstiem, 62, 'j'j Oxford, 48 Palamos, 167 Palestrina, 7 Palffy, Count, 145, 146 Pandolfo Malatesta of Brescia and Bergamo, 19 Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, 10 Panmure, Earl of, 159, 162 Pappenheim, 79, 92, 96, 98 Paris, 49, 52, 107, 166, 167, 170, 214, 215, 237, 238 Passaro, Cape, 174 Patna, 254 Pa via, 97 Peishwah, 246, 273, 280 Percy, Lord, 250 Perron, 251, 252, 266, 267, 269, 272, 273, 275, 279, 280, 281, 295 Persia, 185 Perugia, 5, 8 Pescara, 26 Peterhead, 156, 162, 163, 171 Peter the Great, 178, 179, 180, 182, 184, 211, 216 Peterwardein, 125, 145 Philip of Spain, 221 Philippo Maria, 19, 28 Phillipin, 72 Philippsburg, 153, 221 Piacenza, 30 Piccino, 29 Piedmont, 2, 120, 121, 125 Pilau, 62 Pisa, 14 Plasencia, Arcelli of, 18 Po, the, 23, 30 ' Podesta, 4 Poland, 189 Poland, King of, 53 Polish Diet, the, 215, 217, 218 Pomerania, 73, Tj, 97, 211, 212 Pomerania, Duke of, 63 Poona, 246 Pope, the (Eugenius), 10, 14, 15, 20, 29, 30, 146 Port Arthur, 73 Portmore, Earl of, 158 Portree, 165 Potocky, Count, 189 Potsdam, 157, 198 Prague, 82, 203, 223, 224 Preobrajenski, 194 Presburg, 114, 132 Provence, 2, 6, 11 Punjaub, 252, 269, 289 QUEDLINBURG, 2 ID Raab, the, 114 Rabutin, Count, 125 Rajpoots, 27s Rajpoot Rajah of Ooncara, 278, 279, 280, 285 Ramsay, Sir James, 83, 88 Rastadt, 143 Ravenna, 8 Rebellion, 1641, the, 38 Redgauntlet, Sir Robert, 55 Reinhardt, Walter, 254 Repuin, Prince, 198 Rheingau, 89 Rhine, the, 61, 86, 87, iii, 122, 123, 132, 134, 142, 153, i86, 234, 238 Richard II., 17 Richelieu, loi Rienzi, 7, 14 Riesengebirge, 100 Riga, 211, 217 Rimedo, 129 Rimini, 6 Rohilcund, 254, 285, 288 Romagna, 5, 6, 13 Rome, 7, 8, 103 Rossbach, 205, 206 Rostock, "jy Rothes, 33, 38 Rouen, 50, 170 Ruffi, Polyxena, 25 Rugen, 62 Rugenwald, 63, 70 304 INDEX Runjeet Singh, 289, 293 Ruthven, 165 Ruthven, Sir Patrick, 62 St. Germains, 49, 166 St. Peter, Patrimony of, 5 St. Petersburg, 175, 177, 182, 189, 191, 194, 198, 216, 222, 225 Samaria, 85 Samzoo, Begum, 253, 255, 256, 257 San Sebastian, 14, 72, 169 Sardhana, 254, 255, 257, 258, 259 Save, the, 125, 145, 147, 148 Savoy, Eugene of, 105-154 Saxe, Marshal, 209-245 Saxe-Lauenburg, Duke of, 90 Saxe-Weimar, Bernard of, tj, 89, 94 Saxony, Elector of, 61, 78, 182, 184 Schartorinski, 183 Schelbeane, 64, 66 Scheldt, the, 230, 233 Schellenberg, 90, no Schiller, 58, 61, 93, no Schomberg, 70 Schwerin, 199, 202, 208 Scindiah of Gwalior, 246, 250, 251, 252, 253, 257, 259, 262, 263, 266, 272, 273, 274, 277, 279. 280, 281, 283, 295 Scott, 33. 41, 51, 55, 62, 93 Seaforth, 162, 171 Sedan, 171 Sedlitz, 205 Sforza, Attendolo, 24, 25, 26, 28, 30. 32 Sforza, Francesco, 13, 24, 25, 26 Siberia, 190 Sible Hedingham, 17 Sienna, 5 Sigismund, Emperor, 20 Silesia, 205, 224 Sismondi, 5, 31 Sivagie's " rats," 246 Shahofski, Prince, 183, 184 Sharpe, 56 Shere Alum, Emperor, 255 Sheriffmuir, 159, 160 Skinner, Captain, 258, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 274, 275, 277. 278, 281, 283, 284, 285, 286, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292; his sobriquet, " Secunder Sahib," 295 Skinner, the younger, 287, 288 Sofia, 123 Sombre, 254, 255, 259, 261 Somerset, Duke of, 155 Soubise, 204, 205, 207 Spahis, 126 Spain, 53, 121 Spain, Cardinal Infant of, 103 Spain, French Queen of, 107 Spain, Infanta of, 174 Spanish Succession, War of the, 129 Stahrenberg, Guido, 127 Stair, Earl of, 159 Stamboul, 103 Stockholm, 191, 196 Strasburg, 143, 245 Strathmore, Earl of, 162 Stuttgard, 136, 143 Sutherland, Colonel, 272, 273, 275, 295 Sutlej, 266, 289, 290 Sweden, 59 Sweden, King of, 35, 166 Switzerland, 21 Sylvia, Don Phillipe de, 86. 87 Tallard, 134 Tard-venus, 2 Tarento, 8 Tarquin, 4 Taylor, Meadows, 247, 295 Teufel, Colonel, 71 Texel, 171 Theiss, the, 125, 126, 127 Thirty Years' War, the, 58, 62, 94, 105, no Thomas, George, 252, 253, 256, 257, 261, 262, 263, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 274 Thug, 247 Thuringenwald, 82 Thuringia, 204 Tilly, 70, 71. 74. 75. 78, 79. 82, 86, 89, 90, 96 Titel, 125 Tondeurs, 2 Tongres, 241 Torallo, 20 Tortensohn, 75 Toulon, 222 Toulouse, 172 INDEX 305 Tournai, iii, 140, 141, 229, 230, 231. 237 Tours, 123 Tours, Mr., 49 Transylvania, 118 Trefenbach, 70 Tullibardine, 171 Turin, 118, 136 Turkey, 185 Turkey, Sultan of, 104 Turner, Sir James, 33-57 Tuscany, 28 Tyne, 38, 39 Ugie, 157 Ukraine, the, 186, 189, 190 Ulster, 38 Urban VI., 15 Usmaiz, 218 Utrecht, Peace of, 143 Utrecht, 142 Valence, 121 Valliere, Louise de la, 106 Vauban, 1 1 1, 229 Vend6me, 131, 132, 136, 137, 138 Venice, 8, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30. 31. 14s Versailles, 109, 113, 121, 131, 134, 223, 224, 240 Vicenza, 129 Victor Amadeus of Saxony, 117, 118, 120, 130 Vienna, 8, 98, 108, 114, 115, 116, 119, 122, 123, 130, 132, 133, 143, 152, 154, 199, 200, 223 Villars, Marshal, 113, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 146 Villeroi, 130, 131, 136 Villiers, 153 Vilvorde, 238 • Visconti, 29, 31, 32 Visconti, Bernabo, of Milan, 14, 15 Vittoria, 74, 234 Vivard, General, 152 Vizier, the Grand, 128, 145, 146, 149. 152 Wade, Marshal, 227, 228 Waldeck, Prince of, 228, 237, 238 Walker, Patrick, 55 Wallenstein, 6, 35, 59, 61, 86, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, loi, 102, 224 Wandewash, 249 Warsaw, 183, 217 Weissenberg, 203 Wellesley, Lord, 252, 266, 269, 290 Wellington, 83, 87, 234 Werben, 78 Werner (Guarinci), 4 Wigan, 45 Wilmanstrand, 192, 193, 208 Wodrow, 55 Wolgast, 62 Worcester, 48 Wrangel, 192, 193 Wiirtemberg, 146 Wiirtzburg, 82, 84, 100 Wiirtzburg, Bishop of, 92 Wybourg, 191 Zenta, III, 125, 126, 128 Ziskaberg, 202, 204 O? 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