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 LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SANTA BARBARA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 DR. HERBERT FINGARETTE 
 U.C.S.B.
 
 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES
 
 FAMOUS 
 MODERN BATTLES 
 
 BY 
 
 A. HILLIARD ATTERIDGE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 «*THE BRAVEST OF THE BRAVE," " JOACHIM MURAT," ETC. 
 
 WITH MAPS AND PLANS 
 DRAWN BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 19 13 
 
 By Small, Maynard and Company 
 
 (incorporated) 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
 
 SANTA BAKBAKA " 
 
 l^NlVEP.CJTrnr 
 
 [ , 
 
 ,^7 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I The Battle of the Alma. September 20, 1854 . i 
 
 II Solferino. June 24, 1859 35 
 
 III Chancellors ville. May, 1863 54 
 
 IV Gettysburg. July 1-3, 1863 84 
 
 V SaDOWA. July 3, 1866 Il6 
 
 VI RezONVILLE and GrAVELOTTE. August 16 and 18, 
 
 1870 145 
 
 VII Sedan. September 1, 1870 187 
 
 VIII The Great Assault on Plevna. September 11 
 
 and 12, 1877 216 
 
 IX Tel-EL-KebiR. September 13, 1882 229 
 
 X AdOWA. March 1, 1896 243 
 
 XI The Battle before Santiago (El Caney and 
 
 San Juan). July 1, 1898 268 
 
 XII OmDURMAN. September 2, 1898 294 
 
 XIII PaARDEBERG. February 18, 1900 325 
 
 XIV Mukden. February 20-March 10, 1905 353 
 
 XV LULE Burgas. October 28-31, 1912 375
 
 LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 
 
 NO. FACING PAGE 
 
 1 Battle of the Alma, September 20, 1854 18 
 
 2 Battle of Solferino, June 24, 1859: position about 8 a.m. 46 
 
 3 Sketch Map. The Chancellorsville Campaign 60 
 
 4 Battle of Chancellorsville, May i and 2, 1863 72 
 
 5 Sketch Map. The Gettysburg Campaign 88 
 
 6 Battle of Gettysburg. First day, July i, 1863: position 
 
 about 4 P.M 92 
 
 7 Battle of Gettysburg. Second Day : position about 4.30 p.m. 100 
 
 8 Battle of Gettysburg. Third Day : the Crisis of the Day. 
 
 Pickett's Charge 112 
 
 9 Sketch Map showing the converging march of the Prussian 
 
 Armies into Bohemia, 1866 122 
 
 10 Battle of Sadowa, July 3, 1866: position about 11 a..m. . . 132 
 
 1 1 Battle of Rezonville, August 16, 1870 : position about 7 p.m. 164 
 
 12 Sketch Map showing (i) camps and bivouacs of the French 
 
 and German armies in the night of August 17-18, 1870; 
 (2) the great wheeling movement of the German armies 
 on the morning of August 18 168 
 
 13 Battle of Gravelotte, August 18, 1870: position about 6 p.m. 180 
 
 14 The advance of theCjerman armies into France ; MacMahon's 
 
 flank march and the German counter-movement, August- 
 September, 1870 188 
 
 15 Battle of Sedan, September i, 1S70 : (i) Situation about 
 
 7 A.M., (2) situation about noon 208 
 
 16 The Great Assault on Plevna, September n, I S77 . . . 222 
 
 17 Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, September 13, 1882 238 
 
 18 Battle of Adowa, March 1,1896 260
 
 viii LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS 
 
 NO. FACING PAGE 
 
 19 Battle before Santiago, July i, 1898. Situation at the begin- 
 
 ning of the action (with inset Sketch Map of the 
 country near Santiago) 278 
 
 20 Stages of the Advance to Khartoum, 1 896-1 898 .... 296 
 
 21 Battle of Omdurman, September 2, 1898: I. The first Der- 
 
 vish attack 306 
 
 22 Battle of Omdurman : II. Movements in the second phase 
 
 of the light 318 
 
 23 The relief of Kimberley and Cronje's retreat to Paardeberg 330 
 
 24 Battle of Paardeberg, February 18, 1900 344 
 
 25 Battle of Mukden : I. Positions on February 20, 1905, with 
 
 indications of movements up to February 27 ... . 364 
 
 26 Battle of Mukden : II. Movements of February 28, and 
 
 positions on March i 366 
 
 27 Battle of Mukden : III. Movements, March 2-6, and position 
 
 on March 6 368 
 
 28 Battle of Mukden : IV- Movements of March 7 and 8, and 
 
 position on March 9 370 
 
 29 Sketch Map showing general course of the main Bulgarian 
 
 advance, October-November, 191 2 384 
 
 30 Battle of Lule Burgas : position in the afternoon of October 
 
 30, 1912 394
 
 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES
 
 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 
 September 20, 1854 
 
 The nineteenth century opened for Europe amid the 
 storm of the revolutionary wars. The guns fired against 
 the Bastille on July 14, 1789, had been echoed by the artil- 
 lery of a hundred battle-fields. The Atlantic and the Medi- 
 terranean, the Rhine, the Danube, and the Nile, the Alps 
 and the Pyrenees, had heard the cannon thunder " bellowing 
 victory, bellowing doom." Napoleon, the greatest of the 
 world's war leaders, had sprung into sudden fame. Then, 
 with a brief truce after the Treaty of Amiens, the Wars of 
 the Empire followed the Wars of the Revolution ; and when 
 the end came at Waterloo, Europe looked back upon more 
 than twenty years of strife, that had cost hundreds of thou- 
 sands of lives. Even for the exultant victors it was like 
 waking from a nightmare. 
 
 A long period of industrial and commercial development 
 followed in which Great Britain took the lead. For forty 
 years the great powers of Europe were at peace. There 
 were, indeed, minor conflicts, partly the outcome of the 
 movement against the reaction that followed Waterloo, partly 
 the result of the new political theory of the right of nation- 
 alities to constitute themselves into self-governing states. 
 There were the war of Greek Independence, and the local 
 conflicts that followed the revolutionary movements of 1830 
 and 1848. But throughout all this period there was a pre- 
 vailing feeling that ])cace was the first of national interests,
 
 2 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 and that a state had more to gain from the triumphs of in- 
 dustry, science, commerce, and colonization than from vic- 
 tory on the battle-field and enterprises of armed conquest. 
 
 When Louis Napoleon, the nephew of the great emperor, 
 was aiming at power in France, and working for the restora- 
 tion of the imperial system, he had to protest that he had 
 no dreams of military ambition, and that the restored em- 
 pire would be an empire of peace. As President of the 
 French Republic he placed in the forefront of his policy the 
 development of the national wealth of France. In England 
 the Queen's husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, put 
 himself at the head of a great international movement which 
 found expression in the famous exhibition of 185 1. Its 
 leading idea was that henceforth nations would compete 
 with each other only in the peaceful contests of science, in- 
 dustry, and art. 
 
 It is not easy for us to realize the hopeful enthusiasm of 
 that May Day of some sixty years ago when Queen Victoria, 
 surrounded by the ambassadors of the civilized world, was 
 the center of a pageant of peace, celebrated under the great 
 roof of glass that seemed a fairy palace, with its transparent 
 arches, flooded with summer sunshine, towering above the 
 elms of Hyde Park. It was noted as a happy augury that 
 the United States had sent their contributions to the great 
 display on board of a warship that had fought against the 
 British flag in 1814, and was now disarmed to make room 
 for the conveyance of this " peaceful store." The flags of 
 all nations, flying side by side, seemed to signal that war 
 was banished from the earth. Orators and journalists spoke 
 and wrote of the day as marking a new epoch in the world's 
 progress. Thackeray voiced the feeling of the time in his 
 " May Day Ode," in which he pointed to the inventions of 
 peace as England's best armaments: 
 
 " Look yonder where the engines toil : 
 These England's arms of conquests are.
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 
 
 The trophies of her bloodless war; 
 
 Brave weapons these. 
 Victorious over wave and soil, 
 With these she sails, she weaves, she tills, 
 Pierces the everlasting hills. 
 
 And spans the seas." 
 
 This pleasant dream of the coming- of a new Golden Age 
 of universal peace did not last long. Seven months later 
 Louis Napoleon made himself master of France by a mili- 
 tary revolution, and began the organization of a formidable 
 military and naval power. The Crimean War of 1854 was 
 largely due to his ambition to revive the warlike glories of 
 the First Empire, and link once more the name of Napoleon 
 with victory. It began a new period of frequent wars and 
 ever-growing armaments, that have g-radually made Europe 
 a vast camp. 
 
 During the long peace after Waterloo, comparatively little 
 had been done for the improvement of armaments. From 
 the period of the Crimean War onward all the resources of 
 science, invention, and industry have been devoted to placing 
 deadlier weapons in the hands of the soldier, and armies and 
 navies have seen greater changes than any that are recorded 
 since the invention of gun-powder heralded the doom of the 
 steel-clad chivalry of medieval war. 
 
 The most interesting way in which one can trace the chief 
 stages of this evolution, which has changed not only the 
 conditions under which armies meet in conflict, but also 
 those under which nations live in a state of armed peace, is 
 to tell the story of some of the famous battles of the period 
 of little more than half a century that began with the allied 
 expedition against Russia in the Crimea and before its close 
 saw victories won against the same power on the battle-fields 
 of far Eastern Asia, by a people who, when the Alma was 
 won, were still armed with bows and arrows, matchlocks, 
 and spears.
 
 4 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The battle of the Alma itself differed little from the 
 battles fought in the days of Napoleon and Wellington. The 
 tactical traditions of those earlier times had been regarded 
 during the long peace as something sacred. The chief 
 change in armaments was that the infantry of the French 
 and English contingents carried the muzzle-loading rifle. 
 Most of the Russians were still armed with the old percus- 
 sion musket, with an effective range of about one hundred 
 yards ; and even in the allied armies it was still considered 
 that to open fire at a much longer range was only to waste 
 ammunition, for musketry meant drill, and there was as yet 
 no scientific knowledge of the powers of the new rifles. The 
 field artillery was still that of the Napoleonic wars — smooth- 
 bore muzzle-loading guns, throwing a solid iron ball weigh- 
 ing a few pounds, with a limited range and an unreliable 
 flight. Several of the officers of higher rank had fought in 
 the early wars of the century. Lord Raglan, who com- 
 manded the British contingent, had been the hero of many 
 a dashing exploit in the Peninsula, and had lost an arm while 
 serving on Wellington's stafif at Waterloo. Prince Alex- 
 ander Sergievitch Mentschikoff, the Russian commander, 
 had fought against Napoleon in the campaigns of Moscow 
 and Leipzig, and in the invasion of France. The battle of 
 the Alma was thus a link between the Napoleonic wars and 
 the new period of conflict that so sadly disappointed the 
 hopes of 185 1. 
 
 England and France were the allies of the Sultan. The 
 war had begun when a Russian army was on the Danube, 
 ready to advance on Constantinople. The object of the 
 Western powers in intervening was to prevent the Czar 
 Nicholas I making himself the dictator of the East. The 
 landing of the allied troops at Varna, and the threat of an 
 Austrian army descending on the rear of the Russians, had 
 forced them to withdraw across the Pruth. 
 
 In this stage of the war the English and French armies
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 5 
 
 never actually encountered the invaders, and their losses 
 were chiefly due to cholera, which was then devastating the 
 Continent, and to the malarial fevers of the Danube marshes. 
 By the forced retreat of the Russians the first object of the 
 war had been attained, but the Emperor Napoleon III had 
 no wish to see his army return home without any battle 
 laurels, and England accepted his proposal that though it 
 was late in the year, and the Crimean winter would begin 
 before long, an expedition should be sent to capture and 
 dismantle the maritime fortress of Sebastopol, Russia's 
 great stronghold in the Black Sea. 
 
 The expedition was to be made up of 26,000 British 
 troops under Lord Raglan, 32,000 French under Marshal St. 
 Arnaud, and 7000 Turks under Omar Pasha. In all it was 
 an army of 65,000 men with 124 guns. 
 
 St. Arnaud had fought as a volunteer in the Greek War 
 of Independence, and had won a high reputation as a sol- 
 dier in Algeria. He had been given his marshal's baton for 
 the part he played in the Paris coiip d'etat and the revival 
 of the empire. When he went to the Crimea he was sufifer- 
 ing from the fatal illness that was soon to end his days. 
 Only his iron will enabled him to retain the command. 
 
 Omar was a Croat renegade. His real name was Michael 
 Lattas. After serving for a while in the Austrian anny he 
 had got into trouble for some breach of discipline, deserted 
 to avoid a court-martial and gone to Constantinople, where 
 he became a Moslem ; took the name of Omar, and entered 
 the Sultan's army with the rank of colonel. He had become 
 famous for his defense of the line of the Danube against 
 the Russian invasion. 
 
 The troops began to embark at Varna on September i, 
 the British on board a fleet of transports escorted by a 
 powerful squadron, the French crowded in the gun-decks 
 of their warships in a way that might have proved seriously 
 embarrassing if the Russian fleet had come out of Sebas-
 
 6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 topol and offered battle during the voyage across the Black 
 Sea. On September 8 the allied armada assembled near 
 Serpents Island, off the mouths of the Danube. On the 
 fourteenth the landing in the Crimea began on the coast 
 about thirty miles north of Sebastopol, at a place marked 
 on the English charts as " Old Fort/' from the ruins of a 
 fortress built there by the Venetians in the days when they 
 had colonies in the Crimea. 
 
 The Russians made no attempt to oppose the landing. 
 A few Cossacks watched the first boatloads come ashore, 
 and then rode away to the southward. Mentschikoff had 
 decided to await the attack of the Allies on a selected posi- 
 tion formed by a range of bold heights along the south bank 
 of the little river Alma, between Old Fort and the northern 
 front of Sebastopol. He could only muster some 35,000 
 men and 96 guns, but he trusted to the natural strength of 
 the position to compensate for the great disadvantage of 
 numbers. 
 
 The Allies were not ready to begin their march south- 
 wards till the early morning of September 19. The right 
 flank of the advance was protected by the sea, the left and 
 front were covered by the small cavalry force available — 
 about 1000 British sabers. During the day there was a 
 skirmish with a reconnoitering detachment of Russians, and 
 when the Allies halted in the evening they were so near the 
 Alma that a short march would enable them to attack the 
 enemy's position next day. 
 
 The night was fine and clear, and from the allied bivouacs 
 along the Bulganak River the Russian watch-fires were in 
 sight, glowing in two red rows of light, one above the 
 other; for some of the enemy's troops were on the low 
 ground along the Alma, and the rest on the heights three 
 or four hundred feet above it. From the south bank of the 
 Bulganak there is first a gentle rise and then a long even 
 slope to the Alma valley. Beyond the Alma the ground
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 7 
 
 rises almost at once into sharp declivities and steep, cliff-like 
 bluffs. Along the winding course of the river below the 
 heights, and on each side of the stream, there was in 1854 
 a pleasant region of orchards and vineyards, with some farm- 
 houses and a few villas belonging to the wealthier residents 
 of Sebastopol ; and there were three villages — Almatamak, 
 about half a mile from the river's mouth, Burliuk, two miles 
 farther up, and Tarchanlar, another two miles inland. The 
 houses were built of wood. At Burliuk a bridge carried 
 the highroad from Eupatoria to Sebastopol across the Alma. 
 South of this bridge the road ascended the heights by a 
 wide sloping hollow, like one of the chines of the English 
 chalk downs. East of Burliuk the slopes, everywhere easily 
 accessible, run up to a bold, flat-topped summit known as 
 the Kurgane Elill. West of Burliuk the heights are steeper 
 and steeper, till they end in precipitous cliffs that look down 
 upon the sea. 
 
 The Allies had searched the whole position with tele- 
 scopes, in the hands of skilled observers perched high on the 
 masts of their warships. The naval guns could bring fire to 
 bear on the seaward end of the heights, and it was expected 
 that the Russians would not hold the western part of the 
 position because it would be thus exposed to fire from the 
 flank, and also because the cliff-like bluffs above Almatamak 
 were so difficult to ascend that Mentschikoff would probably 
 consider it impossible for any large force to attack on that 
 side. As a matter of fact, he had decided that the ground 
 here was inaccessible for the Allies, and he was only anxious 
 about the chance of troops being landed from the fleet at a 
 gap in the cliffs a little more than a mile south of the Alma 
 mouth, where there was a bit of beach, and a rough cart- 
 track led up to the village of Ulukul Akles. He had sta- 
 tioned a battalion with a few guns at the village to watch 
 this point. 
 
 This done, he concentrated everything else for the defense
 
 8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 of the ground on both sides of the highroad above Burhuk. 
 Skirmishers held the orchards and vineyards along the 
 Alma, with supports on the shelf of low ground between 
 the river and the heights. The hollow through which the 
 road ascends from the bridge bristled with cannon. Sixteen 
 battalions and eight batteries were held in reserve near the 
 road on the crest of the heights. Eighteen more battalions 
 were on or behind the Kurgane Hill, and half-way down its 
 slope two earthwork batteries, armed with heavy guns, had 
 been erected. In the narratives of the day they are generally 
 called redoubts, but they were really only open breastworks 
 pierced for guns. Behind, and to the east of the hill, he had 
 some 3000 cavalry. 
 
 The Allies had numbers on their side — roughly, 60,000 
 against 35,000. The only advantage of the Russians was 
 that they held a natural rampart. The Alma was no great 
 obstacle; it was fordable in most places, though here and 
 there were deep holes that a rapid current made more 
 dangerous. 
 
 It is interesting to consider at this point the plan of at- 
 tack adopted, the possible alternatives, and the difference 
 that the weapons and methods of to-day would have made 
 in the problem. 
 
 The plan was a modification of one proposed by St. 
 Arnaud to Raglan. The French had only about 150 
 mounted men — a squadron of the Chasseurs d'Afrique and 
 a few Spahis (Algerian native cavalry). The British had 
 Lucan's cavalry division, about 1000 strong, and they had 
 accordingly been given the left or landward flank of the 
 advance, where their cavalry could protect the whole army 
 against any enterprise of the Russian horsemen. St. Ar- 
 naud's plan was that the British, with part of the French 
 army, should attack the Russian position in front, from Bur- 
 liuk to Tarchanlar ; while the rest of the French, supported 
 by the Turks, should ascend the bold heights between Alma-.
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 9 
 
 tamak and the sea, covered by the guns of the fleet, reach 
 the plateau, and swing round against the Russian left flank 
 and rear. St. Arnaud answered for it that his men would 
 not only climb the precipitous heights on this side, but also 
 get some guns up by rough cart-tracks that ascended through 
 rain- worn gullies in the bluff. If this could be done, there 
 was an attractive easiness about the rest of the plan. It 
 meant that a large force of the Allies would be able to reach 
 a part of the heights that was all but undefended, and then 
 meet the enemy on even ground. The weak point of the 
 plan was the temporary division of the Allies. If the Rus- 
 sians had been more enterprising, the detached flanking 
 force might have had to face a dangerous counter-attack 
 as it topped the ascent. 
 
 There was a possible alternative plan, which no one 
 seems to have thought of till long after, because so much 
 value was set on being in continual touch with the fleet. 
 The turning of the Russian left would drive the enemy back 
 on the roads leading to Sebastopol. To the allied leaders 
 it seemed enough to capture the Alma heights, and thus 
 clear the way to the fortress. But a general's business is 
 not merely to shift the position of an enemy's army and 
 occupy the ground it stands upon, but to destroy it. And 
 there would have been a fair chance of accomplishing this 
 if the Allies had used their superior numbers to demonstrate 
 against the Russian front, work round the enemy's right, 
 ascend the slopes east of Tarchanlar, and storm the Kurgane 
 Hill from this side, cutting the enemy's line of retreat and 
 driving him back on the seaward cliffs, where he would 
 come under the fire of the fleet. The less heroic and less 
 profitable plan was adopted. 
 
 Except that the river in front of it is nearly everywhere 
 fordable, the Alma position greatly resembles that of Colenso 
 in the South African War. There is the same long open 
 slope for the approach in front. The steppe is very like the
 
 lo FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 veldt. There are the same heights beyond the river. If 
 Mentschikoff had had Louis Botha's weapons, the open 
 steppe north of the Ahna would have been swept by the 
 rapid fire of long-ranging rifles from trenches along the low 
 ground. Quick-firing artillery on the heights would have 
 shelled the allied advance three miles from the river, and 
 made the march in closely-formed line and column impos- 
 sible. A mere handful of rifles with a few quick-firers 
 would have stopped the flanking columns as they climbed 
 the heights. It is true that a compensating advantage for 
 the attack would be the long-range fire of a modern fleet 
 searching even the slopes of the Kurgane Hill ; but, on the 
 other hand, all the experience of the Boer War went to show 
 that even a heavy bombardment produces little effect on 
 brave men who have had time to dig shelters in the hillsides. 
 
 But all the perplexing tactical problems that modern arma- 
 ments have produced were far in the future when on that 
 bright September morning — " like an English summer day 
 in June " — the Allies broke up their bivouacs on the Bul- 
 ganak and slowly formed for the advance. War was still 
 a brilliant spectacle, not a dull, matter-of-fact scientific 
 business. Khaki and gray uniforms and smokeless powder 
 have spoiled the battle-field from the picturesque point of 
 view. But the advance to the Alma was all brightness and 
 color. 
 
 When, after long delays, the allied armies at last moved 
 forward formed up for battle, the sight was something like 
 what is now to be seen only at some ceremonial review. Out 
 on the extreme left there was the flash and glitter of Lord 
 Lucan's brigades of British cavalry, red and blue and gold 
 in profusion — hussars, lancers, dragoons, and horse artil- 
 lery. Then with a swarm of dark green uniformed riflemen 
 thrown out in front, four red-coated infantry divisions 
 marched, arrayed in two lines, each more than a mile and 
 a half long, with a fifth division in column behind them as
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA ii 
 
 a reserve. The men were formed two deep, with field bat- 
 teries in the intervals between the divisions. The Russians 
 from the heights saw for the first time the famous " thin 
 red line." On the left it was formed by the Duke of Cam- 
 bridge's splendid division, the Brigade of Guards — three 
 battalions of tall bearskin-capped Grenadiers, Cold-streams, 
 and Scots, with Colin Campbell's Highland Brigade on 
 their left, an array of brilliant tartans and nodding plumes. 
 
 On the right, beyond the highroad, were three French 
 divisions in column. In front — moving in loose, irregular 
 skirmishing lines — went the blue-coated riflemen, the dash- 
 ing Chasseurs de France. The massive divisional columns 
 behind this screen had each at its head a regiment of Zou- 
 aves in their quaint semi-Arab dress. The rest were lines- 
 men in baggy red trousers and blue tunics. Each division 
 was followed by its batteries ; and near the highway rode 
 St. Arnaud with his staff and an escort of the Chasseurs 
 d'Afrique, with a few Arab Spahis in their white mantles. 
 Further away, marching towards the cliffs near the sea, was 
 Bosquet's Division, in two columns, with the red-fezzed 
 Turkish infantry tramping after that which was furthest to 
 the right. 
 
 From the rolling slope of the steppe there was a clear 
 view over the sea. Near the land could be seen ten French 
 and three British war steamers, cleared for action, and mov- 
 ing to shell the heights. Steam-propelled men-of-war were 
 still something of a novelty, and men looked at them with 
 the sensation of those who watch a strange experiment. 
 Farther out were the main British, French, and Turkish 
 squadrons under shortened sail, the fleets of the past show- 
 ing the spectator what navies were in the days of Napo- 
 leonic wars. 
 
 Most of the Russian array was out of sight, but on the 
 green slopes of Kurgane Hill dull gray squares marked 
 where the enemy's battalions were waiting, and the two
 
 12 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 earthwork batteries showed up boldly on a terrace below 
 the summit. But the enemy's main forces were behind the 
 visible crest line, and the nearest of them were hidden in the 
 orchards and vineyards along the river. 
 
 Of the British soldiers, who looked curiously at the 
 heights they were to storm, few had seen war. Even among 
 the generals there were some who had never yet faced hos- 
 tile fire, and very few officers had even had the experience 
 of handling troops at manoeuvers. It was the time of steady 
 barrack-yard drill and formal parades and reviews. But 
 out of this everlasting round of drill and the iron discipline 
 of the day there came the certainty that brigades and regi- 
 ments would move into action like animated machines ; 
 and there was a sound tradition from the old wars that the 
 fire of a British line, formed two deep, could beat off the 
 heaviest column of Continental troops, and that in the crisis 
 of the attack the bayonet would break through anything, 
 provided the men moved steadily shoulder to shoulder, and 
 took no notice of the fact that a certain number were being 
 killed. A few of the officers had put the matter to the test 
 in other days, and no one doubted for a moment that the 
 old method would work again. 
 
 Beside one of the brigadiers there rode the pioneer of 
 war correspondents — Russell of the Times — a stout, jolly- 
 looking little Irishman. Soldiers and civilians were far 
 more apart than they are now, and the brigadier felt rather 
 annoyed at the intrusion of the mere journalist. " What 
 are you doing here ? " he said to Russell. " What do you 
 know about battles?" "Not much," replied the Irishman 
 with a smile ; " but I am thinking there are a good many 
 here in the same fix." 
 
 Russell might have found confirmation for his surmise 
 in the fact that presently the whole array halted to give 
 time for Bosquet's flank attack to get forward, and instead 
 pf halting to wait where no useless loss would be incurred,
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 13 
 
 Raglan and St. Amaud stopped the advance only when they 
 were within long range of the heavier guns on the oppos- 
 ing heights, but just far off enough to make it impossible 
 for their own artillery to engage the Russian batteries 400 
 feet above the plain. The men lay down. The officers 
 stood or walked or rode about. A flash on the heights, a 
 cloud of smoke, and then a round iron ball came bounding 
 with a deadly leap from its first touch of the ground in 
 front and killed a soldier in the foremost of the red lines. 
 It was the opening shot of the battle. Then, for what 
 seemed a weary time, the Russian guns fired coolly at the 
 huge target presented by the halted armies. The French 
 on the right were more out of reach, and most of the shots 
 fell in the British lines. Their thin formation minimized 
 the loss, but even so there were many casualties. The men 
 stood it well. They even made bets on the next shot. Some 
 ate from their haversacks, some puffed at a pipe, and a few 
 slept under the hot sun. Raglan and his staff were a favor- 
 ite mark for the enemy's gunners, and the large group of 
 mounted men changed their position frequently, but at a 
 slow, leisurely walk. It was still the tradition that to avoid 
 fire or take cover was discreditable. There was more of 
 swagger and less of practical business about war. 
 
 And now from the sea there came the loud booming of 
 the heavy naval guns. The steamers, with clouds of sunlit 
 white powder smoke mingling with the black trails from 
 their funnels, were firing at haphazard at the western 
 heights, on the off-chance that there were some Russians 
 there waiting for Bosquet's two columns, which had now 
 reached the river. D'Autemarre's Brigade was marching 
 through Almatamak village, where there was a wooden 
 bridge. Bouat's Brigade had marched for the river mouth. 
 A ford was reported there, and beyond a path zigzagged up 
 the cliff above the sea. The infantry found the ford diffi- 
 cult — deep rushing water and a soft sandy bottom. Horses
 
 14 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 struggled in vain to get the guns through, wheels sank, and 
 the water eddied over gun muzzles and limber boxes. The 
 guns were dragged back and sent off to the Almatamak 
 bridge, where Bouat's chasseurs and linesmen began to climb 
 the cliff. 
 
 There were no Russians at the top to interfere with them. 
 The battalion at Ululuk village had all its attention riveted 
 on three French warships — the Megcre, Cacique, and Can- 
 ada — that had steamed up opposite the gap in the cliffs 
 below the village, and were steadily shelling it. The Rus- 
 sians expected presently to see boatloads of men coming 
 ashore. 
 
 When it was seen that Bosquet's Division was going up 
 the heights, the welcome order was given for the main body 
 of the Allies to advance. The long strain of enduring fire 
 without replying was over at last. Columns and lines re- 
 formed, and the united armies moved in stately march 
 towards the belt of inclosures along the Alma. The chas- 
 seurs covering the French columns on the right were the 
 first to open fire. They dashed forward with a brisk crackle 
 of rifles, searching the trees and fences with showers of 
 Minie bullets. A few shots came from the inclosures in 
 reply. The Russian artillery thundered from the heights, 
 but the allied batteries were still limbered up, the teams at 
 the walk keeping pace with the infantry advance. The 
 dark-green coated riflemen in the British front held their 
 fire till they were close to the vineyards. 
 
 As the British right approached the village of Burliuk 
 the wooden houses suddenly burst into flame. It was like 
 an effect at a firework display, so rapidly did the conflagra- 
 tion sweep along the wooden roofs and vine-wreathed bal- 
 conies. The timber was no doubt very dry with the summer 
 sun, but it appears that steps had also been taken by the 
 Russians to insure the rapid spread of the fire. The de- 
 struction of the village seemed to show that they meant to
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 15 
 
 attempt no prolonged stand on the lower bank of the river, 
 and were anxious only to bar the approach to the bridge 
 by making the main village street an avenue of flame. 
 
 It was about two o'clock when Bosquet's Division began 
 to scale the heights. The Zouaves of D'Autemarre's Brigade 
 scrambled to the crest in a way that surprised those who 
 watched them from the fleet. The first of the guns stuck 
 fast in the steep cart track, but Zouaves and linesmen set 
 to work to help the horses to drag them up, and two field- 
 pieces were over the crest almost as soon as the first of the 
 Zouaves. The battalion from Ululuk moved out to oppose 
 this unexpected advance from a point where any hostile 
 attack was so far believed to be impossible, and brought 
 four light guns into action at long range. Mentschikoflf, 
 miles away to the eastward on the Kurgane Hill, heard the 
 firing and saw the cannon smoke of the fight on the sea- 
 ward cliffs. In sudden alarm at the danger it suggested to 
 his flank, he rode westward over the rolling crests of the 
 plateau with a small escort, thus abandoning all general con- 
 trol of the battle for a while, and leaving the Russian army 
 without a commander. His subordinates had to act on their 
 own initiative, and some of them awaited orders that never 
 came. 
 
 One of them. General Kiriakoff, had been posted in the 
 morning with a division of eight battalions on the riverside 
 west of Burliuk, below a swell of the plateau crowned by 
 an unfinished tower with a semaphore apparatus on its top. 
 The tower gave the height the name of " Telegraph Hill," 
 by which this ridge of the plateau is known in narratives 
 of the battle. When Kiriakoff saw Bosquet's columns mov- 
 ing towards the western heights he became anxious about 
 this flank attack, and without waiting for orders he with- 
 drew from the river bank, and brought his battalions up to 
 the crest of the Telegraph ridge. When he saw that the 
 French were crowning the heights he began to march
 
 i6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 towards the scene of this engagement. About the same time 
 St. Arnaud, anxious to assist Bosquet, ordered the divisions 
 of Canrobert and Prince Napoleon, which were marching 
 towards the crossing of the Alma below the Telegraph 
 Hill, to move farther westward and ascend the heights near 
 Almatamak. 
 
 The result was that the British army alone was left to 
 deal with the Russian main position in the pass behind Bur- 
 liuk and on the slopes of the Kurgane Hill. The two divi- 
 sions that formed the front line of the attack were the 
 Second on the right, under De Lacy Evans, and the Light 
 Division on the left, under Sir George Brown. Both of 
 these officers had seen service in the Peninsular War and 
 in the British campaign of 1814 in the United States. But 
 Evans had had a larger experience. He had been at Water- 
 loo, and for years he had commanded the Anglo-Spanish 
 Legion in the Carlist War, and had commanded in chief in 
 hard-fought battles in the north of Spain. He was moving 
 on Burliuk when the village suddenly burst into a mass of 
 flame, barring his direct way to the river and the heights 
 beyond. He then broke up his division, sending one brigade 
 (Pennefather) round the place to the left, and the other 
 (Adams) by a long detour to the right. Brown, with the 
 Light Division moving forward without any such delay, was 
 first into the inclosures along the river between Burliuk 
 and Tarchanlar. The riflemen in his front cleared the vine- 
 yards and orchards very quickly of the Russian skirmishers, 
 who nowhere made any determined stand. On his right 
 Pennefather's Brigade advanced more slowly, coming under 
 a heavy artillery fire from the batteries in the sloping hollow 
 beyond the bridge of Burliuk. For the moment Brown's 
 regiments had an easier task. As they struggled through 
 the rushing current of the Alma and reached its farther 
 shore, they were sheltered from any heavy fire by the rise 
 of the ground in their immediate front.
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 17 
 
 As they gained the shore, barrack-yard methods asserted 
 themselves for a moment. Adjutants and sergeant-majors 
 were busy placing markers to re-form the battalions in rigid 
 lines ; but the eagerness of battle was now taking possession 
 of the men, and there was a cry of " Get forward — get for- 
 ward anyhow ! " and the regiments began to push up tlie 
 green slope, re-forming as they went. Perhaps a little less 
 haste would have given better results. 
 
 On the left of the division, Buller's Brigade (Seventy- 
 seventh, Eighty-eighth, and Nineteenth regiments) did not 
 advance much beyond the river bank. Buller, looking up 
 the slopes of Kurgane, saw before him a mass of dark- 
 coated, helmeted infantry, and to its right the head of a 
 strong cavalry column. Quite correctly he took it that his 
 business was to guard the flank of the general advance 
 against a possible counter-attack that might easily roll it up. 
 With the Seventy-seventh and Eighty-eighth he lined a stony 
 ridge and opened fire upon the nearest enemy. But his 
 remaining regiment, the Nineteenth, edged away to the riglit 
 and joined the other brigade of the Light Division (under 
 Codrington) in its rush up the hill. A regiment of Penne- 
 father's Brigade, the Ninety-fifth, also joined in the advance 
 on this side, so that Codrington, as he rode up the slope 
 amid a spatter of fire from the retiring Russian riflemen, 
 had five battalions with him — Nineteenth, Thirty-third, 
 Ninety-fifth, Seventh Royal Fusiliers, and Twenty-third 
 Welsh Fusiliers. The men were rather huddled together, 
 for there was not enough ground to form the two-deep 
 line ; Init as they topped the first swell of the heights they 
 had come under fire, not only from the Russian infantry, 
 but from the heavy guns of the lower redoubt. Brown on 
 the left of the brigade was trying to reduce the partial dis- 
 order to something more like a drill-book diagram. Cod- 
 rington, with a truer instinct, felt that every moment of 
 delay meant loss, and shouted, " Fix bayonets, advance ! "
 
 i8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 To his kit as he rode forward came Colonel Chester of the 
 Royal Fusiliers, followed by his regiment, eager to get to 
 close quarters with the enemy ; and then the whole brigade 
 surged up the hill, hardly firing a shot. 
 
 The green hillside sloped gently upwards to the terrace 
 or shoulder, not quite five hundred yards away, where the 
 low rampart of the redoubt rose against the sky-line, now 
 wrapped in cannon smoke, torn by the red flashes of its 
 fourteen guns. Right and left of it the Russian Rifles were 
 in action in a straggling line. On both sides of the redoubt 
 through the smoke there were glimpses of the heads of in- 
 fantry columns, each with a line of skirmishers on its flanks. 
 To the right were the four battalions of the Vladimir Regi- 
 ment ; to the left, two battalions of the Kazan men. Two 
 more battalions of the Kazan Regiment had moved well 
 down the slope to the right of the attack. Higher up the 
 slope behind the redoubt, and still unseen by the attack, 
 were two batteries and four battalions of the Ouglitz Regi- 
 ment. Looking at the whole position one cannot help think- 
 ing that an umpire at a war game, or at manoeuvers, would 
 have declared the attack hopeless, and promptly put Cod- 
 rington's whole brigade out of action. One can imagine 
 him saying : " This will never do. You are proposing to 
 attack an intrenched position, without any previous artil- 
 lery preparation. You have not a gim to cover your advance. 
 You are simply making a mad rush with five battalions, in 
 no particular order, against an unbroken and unshaken 
 enemy who holds the higher ground With a good field of 
 fire, against which you have no cover; and against your 
 five battalions he has fourteen intrenched guns, eight bat- 
 talions in his front line, and four more close at hand in 
 reserve. Your attack is a piece of madness." 
 
 But in real war a " piece of madness " sometimes gives 
 unexpected results. In the field, tactical problems cannot 
 be entirely settled by counting up numbers. Battalions in
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 19 
 
 action are not the nerveless leaden blocks of the war game. 
 The human element comes in. These dense masses of Rus- 
 sian infantry might indeed have borne down the thin lines 
 pf redcoats opposed to them, if they had crossed bayonets 
 with them and brought the bodily weight of the column to 
 bear on the more slender formation ; but neither in men nor 
 in officers on the Russian side were there the energy and 
 dash that would have made such close conflict inevitable. 
 There was lack of initiative in the leaders, and every move- 
 ment was carried out at a slow step. This meant that there 
 would be plenty of time for a fire fight before line and 
 column met ; and in the column formation only a few men 
 could fire, while in the line every rifle could come into ac- 
 tion, and at such short ranges the fire of the rifle into such 
 a target as the dense column meant heavy loss for the Rus- 
 sians. These were the conditions that decided the result. 
 
 The two columns of the Kazan Regiment, moving slowly 
 down right and left of the redoubt, were soon stopped by 
 the heavy fire that broke out in their front. The left column 
 halted and exchanged fire with the thin red line of the 
 Royal Fusiliers. The right column was not merely stopped, 
 but was driven back. Colonel Lawrence with the Rifles 
 that had covered the advance sent showers of death- 
 dealing bullets into its flank, while the Nineteenth Regi- 
 ment poured a steady fire into its front. The Kazan men, 
 after a brief attempt to reply, turned and moved back u]) 
 the slope. Meanwhile the crowd of soldiers that were fol- 
 lowing Codrington up the hill towards the redoubt were 
 pushing on, undaunted by the blasts of canister and grape- 
 shot that tore through them, strewing the slope with dead 
 and wounded. Suddenly the artillery fire slackened. As 
 the rush of shouting men reached the redoubt, it was seen 
 that the enemy were withdrawing their guns. Covered by 
 a handful of riflemen, teams of horses were struggling up 
 the hill, dragging away the heavy cannon.
 
 20 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The first man to top the low rampart of the earthwork 
 was a boy officer of the Welsh Fusiliers, Ensign Anstruther, 
 bearing the Queen's color of the regiment. As he proudly 
 waved the flag he dropped dead, pierced by a Russian bul- 
 let. Sergeant Luke O'Connor of the same regiment snatched 
 the color and held it up while his comrades poured over the 
 rampart. Struck by a bullet full in the breast he staggered 
 and fell, and another soldier seized the color. But O'Con- 
 nor rose and, with the blood trickling down his tunic, 
 claimed and resumed the task of bearing the regimental 
 standard ; and though more than once officers or com- 
 rades urged him to go to the rear and have his wound 
 dressed. Sergeant O'Connor, pale and faint with loss of 
 blood, insisted on carrying the color to the end of the 
 battle.^ 
 
 General Codrington, waving his cap, leaped his horse into 
 the redoubt through one of the embrasures. A brass how- 
 itzer abandoned in the work was claimed as a trophy by the 
 Welsh Fusiliers. Another gun was secured by Captain Bell, 
 of the same gallant regiment. A single driver with three 
 'horses was dragging it away when Bell ran out, pistol in 
 hand, caught the bridle of the leading horse, forced the 
 driver to dismount, and turned the gun back down the 
 hill. Sir George Brown, the divisional commander, rode 
 up at the moment. A general of the old, rigid red-tape 
 school, instead of a word of congratulation to Bell, his 
 greeting to the captain was a sharp " Rejoin your company, 
 sir ! " 
 
 The crowd of officers and men who had now gathered 
 in the captured intrenchment came under fire from the 
 upper slope of the hill. Two field batteries opened at short 
 range, and the riflemen of the Vladimir and Ouglitz regi- 
 
 ^ Sergeant O'Connor received the Victoria Cross and a commis- 
 sion, and rose to the rank of general before retiring from the active 
 list
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 21 
 
 ments came into action with them. There had been severe 
 losses during the rush up the hill, but the men now began 
 to drop quickly. The work was cleared of the crowd, and 
 the men partly took shelter under its outer face, replying 
 to the enemy's fire with rifles resting on the breastwork, 
 partly began to form on the slope immediately below it. The 
 loss in ofificers was particularly heavy, and this tended to 
 produce disorganization. In the Welsh Fusiliers, Colonel 
 Chester was shot dead, and 12 officers and nearly 200 men 
 were killed or wounded. The Thirty-third Regiment had 
 its colonel (Blake) badly wounded, and 7 officers and 
 240 men killed or wounded. Webber, the colonel of the 
 Ninety-fifth, was killed, and the regiment lost 16 officers 
 and more than 150 men. In all, the losses in the neighbor- 
 hood of the " Great Redoubt " amounted to some 900 offi- 
 cers and men. 
 
 If the support of fresh troops had been at hand, there is 
 no doubt that the impulse of the first rush up the hill might 
 have been renewed, and the attack carried on to its crest. 
 But the stormers of the redoubt, torn by the pelting fire 
 of the enemy's guns, unsupported by either artillery fire 
 or infantry reinforcements, found themselves isolated on 
 the hillside, exhausted by their gallant effort and cripi)led 
 by their terrible losses. To their left Buller had at first 
 moved forward the Seventy-seventh and Eighty-eighth, but 
 at the sight of Russian cavalry formed on the shoulder of 
 the hill the two battalions had halted and formed square, 
 and the curve of the hillside and the driving smoke that 
 hung low upon it hid from them the plight of their com- 
 rades at the redoubt. •'" 
 
 The second line ought to have been across the river by 
 this time, but it was lagging behind in the most unfortunate 
 way. The Duke of Cambridge had actually halted his fine 
 division of Guardsmen and Highlanders on the edge of the 
 vineyards. It was no lack of courage that held him back,
 
 22 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 but he was busy arranging- to march his long Hne through 
 the inclosures without disorganizing its beautiful drill-book 
 formation. The ground was so utterly unlike Hyde Park 
 that it was a serious problem. To his right, near Burliuk, 
 De Lacy Evans, a soldier experienced in war, had brought 
 a couple of batteries into action against the guns in the 
 sloping hollow beyond the bridge, and was pushing Penne- 
 father's Brigade across the river to force the pass. Through 
 the drifting battle smoke Evans saw the capture of the re- 
 doubt and the subsequent danger of Codrington's isolated 
 and disorganized brigade. He took the responsibility of 
 sending one of his officers to the duke to urge him to push 
 forward at once. At the same time Sir Richard Airey of 
 Raglan's staff, on his own initiative, rode up to the Duke 
 of Cambridge and told him that he must get across the river 
 without delay. The Guards, with the Highlanders on their 
 left, then moved through the inclosures in slow and stately 
 fashion, re-formed line on the river bank, and forded the 
 Alma. 
 
 But before they were across, the Great Redoubt had been 
 retaken by the enemy. While the two batteries on the Kur- 
 gane crest still thundered against its captors, two massive 
 columns of helmeted gray-coated infantry came moving 
 slowly down the slope to right and left — the Ouglitz and 
 Vladimir regiments, each four battalions strong. The Vladi- 
 mir men were led by two generals — Kvetzinski, the divi- 
 sional commander of the troops on the Kurgane Hill, and 
 Prince Gortschakoft', Mentschikoff's second in command. 
 The Russians came on in a cloud of musketry smoke, for 
 the front ranks and the skirmishers extended on the flanks 
 were firing, and in the very heart of the columns excited 
 young soldiers were discharging their muskets into the air. 
 Codrington's men returned their fire, the surviving officers 
 having got them into something like ordered lines. The 
 Ouglitz Regiment, galled by this steady rifle fire, actually
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 23 
 
 halted. The Vladimir Regiment might also have been 
 stopped, but at the critical moment a British bugle sounded 
 the retire, and the call was taken up along the line. 
 
 Subsequent inquiry showed that an unidentified mounted 
 officer had given the order to a bugler of the Nineteenth. 
 For a few moments there was confusion in the British line. 
 Here, officers were calling out to their men to stand fast; 
 there, others were bidding them obey the bugle call. As 
 it rang out again and again, it was generally obeyed. Some 
 of the men clung doggedly to the breastwork. A sergeant 
 of the Welsh Fusiliers, standing up on it, called to his men, 
 "Don't vou hear the bugles? You must retire." As he 
 spoke a bullet crashed through his brain ; and the last of 
 the men turned and went down towards the river. There 
 was no panic flight, but a slow retirement, men turning to 
 fire at the Vladimir men, who halted as they regained the 
 breastwork. 
 
 Thus, after a first splendid success, matters were going 
 badly on the allied left. With the French on the right the 
 outlook was not much better. Bosquet's brigades, miles 
 away towards the sea, were waiting to get up their guns, 
 and had apparently failed to realize that they had no enemy 
 in their front but the Minsk battalion near Ululuk, and 
 that there was nothing to prevent the infantry pushing on 
 along the heights. On Bosquet's immediate left, in the gul- 
 lies of the blufifs above Almatamak, Canrobert's Zouaves 
 and linesmen had climljed the heights and deployed on the 
 plateau, but his guns were still in difficulties on the steep 
 narrow cart-tracks below. Behind Canrobert, packed in the 
 gullies and on the shelf of low ground along the river, were 
 some 12,000 French soldiers, Prince Napoleon's Division 
 and a brigade of Forey's. The opposition journalists of 
 Paris accused the prince of half-heartedness, and said he 
 hung back from the fight ; but the simple truth was that it 
 was impossible for three divisions to mount simultaneously
 
 24 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 one narrow, steep hill-track, where the guns had almost to be 
 lifted up by men dragging at limber, trail, and wheel. 
 
 The situation was dangerous in the extreme. Part of 
 Canrobert's Division was on the top of the heights, deployed 
 into line, with all its supports and artillery huddled on the 
 steep slope below ; and in its front, along the rising crest 
 of the Telegraph Hill, General Kiriakoff had set in battle 
 array eight battalions and two batteries, while eight battal- 
 ions more, taken from the reserve by Mentschikoff himself, 
 were moving round the Telegraph height to take Canrobert 
 in flank. The Russian guns on Telegraph Hill were in 
 action against the French front, and Canrobert could only 
 reply with long-range rifle fire. On the advance of the 
 heavy flanking column against his right, he drew back 
 under the cover of the topmost swell of the plateau, lining 
 the crest with his infantry, till the guns could arrive. 
 IMentschikoff, having set his columns in motion against the 
 French, had handed the command over to Kiriakoff, and was 
 riding back to see how the battle was going on his right. 
 
 .Here the Guards had crossed the river, and were moving 
 up the slope, when the Scots Fusiliers were thrown into dis- 
 order and forced backward by the beaten mass of the Light 
 Division descending upon them in a confused crowd. It 
 was a moment when, if the Vladimir Regiment had charged 
 boldly down, there might have been disastrous results ; but 
 the Vladimirs, after a mere show of advancing, had again 
 halted irresolutely. A strange thing had happened which 
 was to alter the whole course of the battle. 
 
 Lord Raglan, gallant soldier as he was, could hardly claim 
 to rank as a great general. Having put his lines in motion 
 against the Russian position, he did not take any steps to 
 control or direct their further action, but launched out on 
 a piece of adventure that might easily have had an unfor- 
 tunate ending; yet (as the chapter of accidents would have 
 it, and against all reasonable probabilities) it enabled him
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 25 
 
 to exercise a decisive influence on the fight, partly because 
 the leadership of the Russian generals was so hopelessly bad 
 that any unexpected incident was likely to upset all their 
 arrangements. 
 
 As the Light Division crossed the river, Raglan with his 
 staff, a score of riders in blue uniforms, had ridden down 
 towards the river to the west of the burning village of 
 Burliuk, passing Adams's Brigade on the way. He had 
 then no British troops in front of him except a handful of 
 riflemen who were driving the last of the Russian skirm- 
 ishers out of the vineyards. Passing through these, Raglan 
 and his staff forded the river and began to ride up a gully 
 leading to the plateau. One of the officers was wounded 
 by a Russian rifle ball, but as they rode up the party found 
 no enemy barring their way. There was really no means 
 of knowing whether or not they would come upon formed 
 hostile lines at the top of the track they were ascending, 
 and with a reckless disregard of possibilities they all rode 
 together without a single scout in advance of them. 
 
 As luck would have it, they reached the crest of the 
 heights in the midst of the wide gap that separated the 
 Russian left, under Kiriakoff, from the right, about the 
 Kurgane Hill and the Sebastopol road. On the undulating 
 plateau the horsemen found themselves strangely isolated. 
 More than a mile away to the westward, behind the ridge 
 of Telegraph Hill, Kiriakoff's guns were thundering against 
 Canrobert. To this more distant part of the battle Raglan 
 paid no attention ; all his anxiety was for the nearer struggle. 
 The roar of the guns in the roadway pass and on the crest 
 of Kurgane, the reports of English batteries replying from 
 beyond Burliuk, told him that the fight was hotly contested. 
 He spurred up a little knoll and halted there, surrounded 
 by his staff. They looked down into the heart of the con- 
 flict. It was a strange position for a commander-in-chief. 
 A\'ith his few comrades he was on the left rear of the enemy's
 
 26 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 center. Below him the ground sloped to the road pass, and 
 there he could see the Russian batteries in action and masses 
 of reserves posted behind them. Beyond the hollow of the 
 pass, through j"ifts in the cannon smoke, there were glimpses 
 of the red lines struggling up the lower slopes of Kurgane, 
 with the broken Light Division mingled with the Guardsmen 
 on the right of the attack, higher up the massed battalions 
 of the gray-coated Vladimir Regiment, and higher still the 
 batteries on the crest. 
 
 To the Russians the sight of the blue-uniformed horse- 
 men crowning the knoll between them and Telegraph Hill 
 conveyed a disquieting impression. Red coats would have 
 suggested Englishmen, but the blue staff uniform made the 
 Russian officers think of the French flank attack, which 
 they knew was developing along the seaward heights ; and 
 it seemed to them that this handful of riders would not be 
 standing quietly on the hilltop unless they had an army 
 behind them. This would mean that disaster had overtaken 
 Mentschikoff, Kiriakoff, and the Russian left, and that the 
 French attack would soon come pouring on to the ground 
 about the Sebastopol road. Tliis impression was strength- 
 ened when suddenly on the hilltop there appeared a couple 
 of guns, which came promptly into action, firing on and 
 enfilading the Russian batteries in the hollow of the pass by 
 which the highroad climbs the hills. 
 
 " If we had only a couple of guns here ! " Lord Raglan 
 had exclaimed as he looked out from the knoll ; and promptly 
 two of his officers had ridden down to the river, found Cap- 
 tain Turner's battery fording it, and hurried up to the two 
 leading guns ; while another officer rode hard to the nearest 
 infantry — Adams's Brigade west of Burliuk — with the 
 news that they had only to press on and they would seize 
 the center of the enemy's position without firing a shot. So 
 few gunners had come up with the two guns that some of 
 the staff dismounted and helped to serve them. Never did
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 27 
 
 two cannon produce a more important effect. The strange- 
 ness of the event seemed to paralyze the Russians. A more 
 enterprising enemy would have attacked and swept Raglan 
 and his handful of officers and the section of artillery from 
 the hilltop, but the daring group of officers and men was 
 magnified by imagination into the vanguard of a victorious 
 army ; and as the cannon-shot crashed into the Russian bat- 
 teries by the road, hurtling down from the higher ground 
 on their flank and rear, the enemy's gunners began to limber 
 up, and with much cracking of whips their guns were seen 
 galloping to the rear, and Evans, with Penncfather's Bri- 
 gade, began to force his way up the pass from the Burliuk 
 crossing, the chief obstacle to his advance having been thus 
 by a lucky chance swept away. The guns then opened on 
 the Russian reserves in the direction of Kurgane Hill. The 
 range was long for the smooth-bore pieces of the day, but 
 this distant fire from hostile guns, presumably French, 
 posted in the very center of their position, helped to paralyze 
 the energy of the Russian defense on the hill. 
 
 The Guards were now advancing up the slope of Kur- 
 gane. On the right the Scots Fusilier Guards, thrown into 
 confusion by the retiring mass of the Light Division, and 
 attacked by the close fire of the Vladimir Regiment, had at 
 first been forced to give way. General Bentinck, who com- 
 manded the Guards Brigade himself, gave them the order 
 to retire at a moment when the Russians were closing on 
 the broken line. Here and there bayonets had actually 
 crossed, and the colors of the regiment were saved from 
 imminent capture by one of the officers. Lord Lindsay, 
 going to the rescue, pistol in hand, and shooting down the 
 nearest of the enemy. In the brief struggle and the retire- 
 ment the Guards lost heavily. They re-formed by the river 
 bank, and moved forward again. By this time the Cold- 
 streams and the Grenadiers had come into action to their 
 left, and Colin Campbell, with the three plaided regiments
 
 28 FAMOUS iMODERN BATTLES 
 
 of the Highland Brigade, was across the river and prolong- 
 ing their line, while Codrington was re-forming the rem- 
 nant of the Light Division. 
 
 Before he crossed the river, Campbell had addressed a 
 brief, soldier-like speech to his Highlanders. " Now, men," 
 he said, " you are going into action. Remember this : who- 
 ever is wounded — I don't care what his rank is — he must 
 lie where he falls till the bandsmen come to attend to him. 
 No soldiers must go carrying off wounded men. If any 
 soldier does such a thing, his name shall be stuck up in his 
 parish church. Don't be in a hurry about firing. Your 
 officers will tell you when it 's time to open fire. Be steady. 
 Keep- silence. Fire low. Now, men, the army will watch 
 us. Make me proud of the Highland Brigade." Then he 
 put himself at the head of the Black Watch on the right 
 of the line, and gave the order, " Forward, Forty-second ! " 
 As he came up the slope on the left of the Guards Brigade 
 the Scots Guards were retiring, and the two other battalions 
 were faced by advancing masses of the enemy. The Duke 
 of Cambridge, riding on the extreme left of the Guards, the 
 center-point of his division, spoke to the Highland general 
 as he came up, and expressed a fear that the Guards would 
 have to retire before the odds arrayed against them. " No, 
 sir," replied Colin Campbell ; " better that every man in Her 
 Majesty's Guards should lie dead on the field than that they 
 should turn their backs on the enemy." 
 
 But the dangerous crisis was now nearing its end. A 
 hard-pressed fighting line is steadied and carried onward by 
 new forces coming into action. While the Scots Fusiliers 
 and the Light Division re-formed, the Grenadiers and Cold- 
 streams, in evenly-dressed lines, were exchanging fire at the 
 shortest of ranges with the Vladimir and Kazan regiments, 
 and two other regiments were moving down upon their 
 flank. Against these came the advance of the Highlanders, 
 prolonging the line of the Guards. From that extended line
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 29 
 
 there came a steady, well-directed fire which told with ter- 
 rible effect on the Russian masses. Gortschakoff, at the 
 head of the Vladimir men, had his horse killed under him, 
 and, half stunned by the fall, staggered back to the redoubt, 
 where he found General Kvetzinski. The latter tells in his 
 report the impression that the situation at that moment 
 made on his mind. He says that the numbers of the British 
 seemed to increase, and they had brought into action forces 
 superior to his own. The fact is that his own men locally 
 outnumbered the attack, but packed in close columns they 
 covered less ground than the extended red lines, blazing 
 with rifle flashes and wrapped in smoke, through which 
 could be seen the long rows of tall bearskins to the right, 
 the plumed bonnets of the three Highland regiments on the 
 left. The lines gave an impression of superior force. He 
 notes, too, that a " French battery " was firing into the 
 Vladimir column from a hill to its left, and French columns 
 were moving to cut off his retreat. The " French battery " 
 he saw on the knoll was the British battery brought up by 
 Raglan. From its presence the Russian general had jumped 
 to the conclusion that the French would soon be upon his 
 rear. The shots that now and then crashed into the sorely- 
 tried Vladimir column came, however, not from Raglan's 
 battery, but from British guns that had been brought up to 
 a shoulder of the pass. 
 
 Suddenly it was seen that the Vladimir Regiment was 
 retiring in a broken crowd, leaving the hillside strewn with 
 gray heaps of dead and wounded. There was a ringing 
 cheer from the Guards, an order to advance firing, and the 
 whole line went forward. On their left the Highlanders 
 were also going up the hill with leveled bayonets. The 
 Russians were everywhere giving way. The Grenadiers 
 marched proudly over the recaptured redoubt. The High- 
 landers carried with a rush the smaller work to the eastward 
 of it. The British line was well up towards the summit of
 
 30 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Kurgane. Evans with his left brigade had forced the pass 
 of the highroad. Beyond it his other brigade appeared in 
 a long red line, topping the knoll where Raglan had been 
 watching the crisis. The Third Division began to ford the 
 river near Burliuk. Further up towards Tarchanlar, Lord 
 Lucan, without waiting for orders, moved across and up the 
 hill with his looo horsemen and his light artillery. 
 
 On the v/estern heights at the same time impending dis- 
 aster had been turned into success. When Kiriakoff's ad- 
 vance led Canrobert to withdraw his division over the edge 
 of the plateau, a fierce attack by the Russians might have 
 inflicted deadly loss on the French army, huddled among 
 the gullies at the top of the cliffs and crowded on the 
 tracks below, where it was impossible to form a fighting 
 front or bring guns into action. But the Russian general 
 had hesitated strangely. He seemed to think that all he 
 need do was to keep his battalions formed to meet any fur- 
 ther attempt of the enemy to advance. He moved them 
 out into a long line, with their right towards the northern 
 edge of the high ground. Suddenly they came under a 
 heavy artillery fire. His report shows that he thought he 
 was being bombarded from the fleet. The fire really came 
 from a couple of French batteries that had been brought up 
 the pass above Almatamak, and had come into action with 
 the gun muzzles just peeping over the crest of the wide 
 gully by which the hill road ascends. The effect on Kiria- 
 kofif was to lead him to withdraw his battalions from what 
 he expected would be the fire of hundreds of naval guns. 
 And the arrival of artillery support was followed immedi- 
 ately by the reappearance of Canrobert's Division on the 
 hilltop. As the French infantry again opened fire, Kiriakofif 
 began to retire eastwards and then southwards towards the 
 Sebastopol road. He had seen Adams's Brigade crowning 
 the heights above the Burliuk pass, and masses of infantry 
 streaming back from the Kurgane Hill. Bosquet's Division
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 31 
 
 was now marching to support Canrobert. The Turkish 
 Brigade was up on the plateau. Prince Napoleon's men 
 and one of Forey's brigades were up. The greater part of 
 the French army was on the heights. Canrobert's Division 
 led the advance, but so rapid was Kiriakoff 's retirement that 
 on the Telegraph ridge nothing was left but two companies 
 of Russian riflemen. These had remained near the sema- 
 phore tower, apparently because they had been forgotten, 
 and had no orders. Canrobert's men broke into a wild rush 
 for the ridge. Regiments of Zouaves and linesmen were 
 racing for the honor of planting the tricolor on the tower. 
 They were met by a spatter of rifle fire in front, and on 
 their right front by a burst of artillery fire from a battery 
 that Kiriakofif had placed on the prolongation of the Tele- 
 graph ridge to cover his retreat. The unfortunate Russian 
 riflemen were simply overwhelmed in a rush of bayonets. 
 The scafifolding was still standing round the unfinished 
 tower, and three regimental staiidard-bearers climbed it. 
 Lieutenant Poitevin of the Thirty-ninth of the line and 
 Sergeant Fleury of the First Zouaves were killed by cannon- 
 shots as they planted the flags of their regiments on the top 
 of the building. 
 
 It was nearly five o'clock. The Russians were every- 
 where retiring, French and British batteries sending a 
 shower of cannon-shot and shrapnel into the gray columns ; 
 but there was no pursuit. The 3000 Russian cavalry that 
 had been kept idle all day on the eastern and southern slopes 
 of Kurgane now covered the retreat. The weary victors 
 were well satisfied to hold the ground they had won. 
 
 The battle of the Alma was begun on a definite, well- 
 conceived plan, but fought out in a way that showed 
 throughout a singular want of cooperation between the 
 Allies, the result of there being no strong central direction. 
 The French flank movement was not pushed home till the 
 event had been already decided by sheer hard fighting, plus
 
 32 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 a happy accident, on the British side. The superiority in 
 numbers possessed by the AlHes was thrown away by the 
 wide division of their forces. The French encountered no 
 serious opposition, yet they were very slow in their final 
 advance. They showed themselves much more active and 
 enterprising in the Italian campaign a few years later. The 
 British had to face equal, if not superior, numbers in their 
 attack on the Russian right, but the attack was made in a 
 way that exposed isolated divisions to disaster. In this fight 
 on the Kurgane Hill it is remarkable how long Russians 
 and British stood up against each other, exchanging a deadly 
 fire at point-blank range. In the result we see the superi- 
 ority of the line over the column, and we shall see how 
 linear tactics gradually became the rule for all armies, as 
 improvements in the rifle increased the rapidity and ac- 
 curacy of fire. 
 
 In the South African War there was frequent exaggera- 
 tion in the newspaper comments on the " terrible losses " 
 incurred in modern battles. At Colenso and at Magersfon- 
 tein the British had some 800 killed and wounded, but in 
 the three hours' fight on the Alma heights the British lost 
 nearly 3000 men, mostly in the struggle on the Kurgane 
 Hill. The French reported a loss of 1300. The Russian 
 losses were over 5000 men killed and wounded, including 
 five generals. The heaviest loss fell on the two regiments 
 that had held the ground about the Great Redoubt. The 
 gallant Vladimir Regiment only gave way after losing 48 
 per cent of its strength, 47 officers and 1260 men. Every 
 officer above the rank of captain in its four battalions was 
 down. The Kazan Regiment which fought beside it lost 
 28 officers and 1220 men. The Russians left two guns in 
 the hands of the British, but no unwounded prisoners. The 
 wounded of both sides fared badly. The elaborate ambu- 
 lance organization of armies, that has done so much to 
 diminish the miseries of war, was still in the future. In
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE ALMA 33 
 
 the British army each regiment had its surgeon, and the 
 bandsmen were detailed to attend to the wounded in action. 
 But there were no ambulances or stretcher bearers, no trained 
 hospital staff. Aseptic surgery was still unknown. The 
 unfortunate wounded were laid in rows on the field, and 
 received help from a mere handful of doctors. Later, the 
 sailors improvised stretchers with oars and canvas, and in 
 the course of several days of hard work conveyed the sur- 
 vivors of them on board the fieet. The French and British 
 were sent to Scutari ; the Russians, under a flag of truce, 
 to Odessa. 
 
 One more comparison between past and present. If the 
 Alma had been fought under existing conditions, London 
 would have known on the morning of the battle that an 
 engagement was imminent. Late editions of the evening 
 papers would sell by tens of thousands, and convey the news 
 of the victory with some details of the fighting. Next day's 
 morning papers would give columns of space to elaborate 
 narratives of the day. But how did the news actually reach 
 the people of London in 1854? 
 
 The battle took place on Wednesday, September 20. Ten 
 days went by before London knew that it had been fought. 
 Late in the afternoon of Saturday the 30th, Mr. Harrison, 
 the publisher of the London Gazette, was at his office in 
 St. Martin's Lane, when he was told by a messenger that 
 the Duke of Newcastle, the Secretary for War, wanted to 
 see him immediately at Downing Street. Harrison hurried 
 to Whitehall, and found the duke in a state of joyful excite- 
 ment. " We have such glorious news," he said ; " but how 
 are we to let the public know it on a Saturday evening, 
 when there are no papers?" and he produced a telegram 
 from the British ambassador at Constantinople. It had 
 been sent off by messenger on September 23, to be put on 
 the wires at Belgrade, the nearest point where a telegraph 
 office was available. The messenger had ridden over the
 
 34 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Balkans, and through Bulgaria and Servia, taking a week 
 for his journey, and got his message on the wire at Belgrade 
 at nine that morning. This first report exaggerated the 
 Russian strength, understated the British loss, and made 
 mistakes about the time of events, besides turning the two 
 earthworks on Kurgane Hill into an " intrenched camp." 
 It ran as follows : 
 
 " The intrenched camp of the Russians, containing 50,000 men, 
 with a numerous artillery and cavalry, on the heights of the Alma, 
 was attacked on the 20th inst. at i p. m. by the allied troops, and car- 
 ried by the bayonet at half past three, with a loss on our side of 
 about 1400 killed and wounded, and an equal loss on the side of the 
 French. The Russian army was forced to put itself in full retreat." 
 
 Harrison proposed that it should be printed in a special 
 Gazette, and that copies should be sent to the theaters to 
 be read to the audiences from the stage. At some of the 
 theaters the announcement put a sudden end to the perform- 
 ance. Greville in his " Memoirs " tells how, as he passed 
 the Adelphi, he saw the audience come rushing out cheering 
 for the victory and eager to spread the news. A note added 
 by Lord Newcastle to the despatch had warned the public 
 that detailed reports could not be expected for some days. 
 On the Sunday a supplement to the Gazette published a 
 short telegram from Lord Raglan. Then England waited 
 for many days for the terrible lists of the 3000 killed and 
 wounded.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 
 June 24, 1859 
 
 After the Alma, England became familiar enough with 
 the tidings of war and battle. In quick succession there 
 came the news of Balaklava and Inkermann, and there was 
 the year-long siege of Sebastopol. After the peace with 
 Russia there was a brief campaign in Persia, and then for 
 some two years the fierce struggle of the Indian Mutiny, 
 with its countless episodes of heroism and horror. Then 
 Europe was once more the scene of a great war in 1859, 
 when Napoleon III, taking up the policy of the First Empire, 
 sent his armies into Northern Italy to drive out the Aus- 
 trians and substitute French for Austrian influence south of 
 the Alps. 
 
 Piedmont, under King Victor Emmanuel and his minister. 
 Count Cavour, had taken the lead in the movement against 
 the Austrian domination in Italy, and Cavour had worked 
 hand in hand with Napoleon III since the day when a Pied- 
 montese contingent, under La Marmora, had been sent to 
 the Crimea. Napoleon provoked the quarrel with Austria 
 as soon as he had made some progress with the reorganiza- 
 tion and rearmament of his army, begun after the Russian 
 War. The most important change was the introduction of 
 rifled field artillery. The work of designing and manufac- 
 turing the new guns was carried through very quietly — 
 almost secretly — in the French arsenals, and the possession 
 of these long-ranging cannon gave an undoubted advantage 
 of great value to the French in the campaign of Northern
 
 36 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Italy. In Forey's fight with the Austrians at Montebello, 
 one of his batteries of rifled guns put three of the enemy's 
 batteries out of action — the French gunners shooting as 
 coolly and as safely as if they were on a practice range, for 
 the projectiles from the Austrian smooth-bore guns could 
 not reach them. 
 
 The war was begun on April 26 by the Austrian army 
 from Pavia, under Count Gyulai, entering Piedmontese 
 territory and advancing towards Turin. Gyulai hoped to 
 strike at King Victor Emmanuel's little army before it could 
 be joined by its French allies, some of whom were march- 
 ing over the Alps by the Mont Cenis Pass, while the rest 
 were being transported by sea to Genoa. The Emperor 
 Napoleon was to command in person the combined armies. 
 His landing at Genoa was one of the golden days of his 
 checkered life. He was received with a wild outburst of 
 enthusiasm. Guns roared their salute, church bells pealed, 
 shouting crowds lined the quays and crowded the decks 
 and rigging of the ships, and flowers were strewn on the 
 water before his gilded barge as he was rowed ashore. 
 With his arrival came news that the Austrians, after three 
 days on Piedmontese soil, were retiring into Lombardy. 
 Gyulai had learned that Victor Emmanuel had already been 
 heavily reinforced, and he had therefore decided to abandon 
 his march on Turin and take up a position on the Ticino 
 to defend Lombardy and the approach to Milan. 
 
 On June 4 Napoleon fought the great battle of Magenta, 
 drove the Austrians from the Ticino, and then entered Milan 
 in triumph. The Austrian army retreated across the Mincio, 
 evacuating Lombardy, and turning to bay on the frontier 
 river of Venetia, with the fortresses of Mantua and Pes- 
 chiera on its left and right. The allied armies followed up 
 this retirement with cautious deliberation. It had been ex- 
 pected that the Austrians would dispute the passage of the 
 rivers that flow from the Alps to the Po; but the line of
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 37 
 
 the Adda, the Oglio, and the Chiese were in turn found to 
 be abandoned. Before the cavalry thrown out in front of 
 the French advanced guards, a screen of Austrian, Croat, 
 and Hungarian horsemen retired steadily. At the crossing 
 of the Chiese all touch of the enemy was lost, and report 
 said the Austrians would not fight till the crossing of the 
 Mincio. 
 
 On June 23 the French crossed the Chiese with La Mar- 
 mora's Italians on their left. The center of the allied ad- 
 vance was formed of the Second Corps, veterans of Algeria, 
 under MacMahon, now bearing the title of Duke of Ma- 
 genta ; and the First Corps, under Baraguay d'Hilliers, the 
 son of a marshal of the First Empire, and who had himself 
 served under the great Napoleon as a young officer. Behind 
 these came the regiments of the Imperial Guard, forming a 
 picked army corps under St. Jean d'Angely. 
 
 On the right were the Third Corps, under Canrobert, and 
 the Fourth, under Niel. The total fighting strength of the 
 Allies was 151,200 men, of whom 15,500 were cavalry. The 
 artillery numbered 370 guns.^ It was the largest and best 
 equipped army that had marched to battle since the great 
 days of the First Empire. 
 
 Amongst its auxiliary arms was a balloon detachment, 
 directed by Monsieur Godard, a famous aeronaut of the day. 
 Godard joined MacMahon at the little town of Castiglione 
 in the forenoon of June 23, and was ordered to make an 
 ascent and reconnoiter the country in front. The cavalry 
 patrols sent into the hills towards the Mincio had reported 
 that they had met only small parties of the enemy's horse- 
 men, who had everywhere promptly retired before them. It 
 was a hot summer day, with a clear sky and hardly a breath 
 of wind, and instead of going up at the end of an anchored 
 
 ' The Picrlmontese contingent, under King Victor Emmanuel and 
 General La Marmora (included in these totals), numhered 44,700 
 men, of whom 6300 were cavalry, and 132 guns (smooth-bores).
 
 38 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 cable, Godard risked a free ascent, inflating his balloon just 
 inside the outpost line. A staff officer went up with him, 
 and the great white globe drifted slowly high in air over 
 Castiglione, while the occupants of the car searched the 
 country with their telescopes. 
 
 They had a magnificent view. Northwards the landscape 
 was bounded by the snowy Alpine range ; closer at hand 
 the Lake of Garda displayed its shining expanse of sunlit 
 waters. The Austrian fortress of Peschiera could be plainly 
 seen at the point where the Mincio runs out of the lake, and 
 the course of the river could be traced by looking away to 
 the southeast, where far off, near its junction with the Po, 
 the still more famous fortress of Mantua could be dimly 
 seen amid the hot haze that hung over its girdle of lakes 
 and marshes. To the southward extended the plain of 
 Medole, cut up with irrigation canals, and with its gray- 
 green olive groves, darker plantations of mulberries and 
 fields of maize and rice, and expanses of pasture-land, amid 
 which here and there were to be seen the square church 
 towers of the white villages. In front from the shores of 
 the Lake of Garda, between the northern part of the plain 
 and the line of the Mincio, rose a labyrinth of rocky hills, 
 running up into craggy crests. On a bold summit four 
 miles away in front of Castiglione clustered the houses of 
 Solferino, and beside them was the lofty tower, on the 
 highest point of the hill, known as the Spia d' Italia ("the 
 Spy of Italy"), on account of the wide prospect com- 
 manded from its battlements. There was no glimpse of an 
 enemy to be seen on hills or plain, no rising dust-cloud to 
 mark the march of troops on the sun-scorched roads. The 
 balloon descended with information that the country between 
 the French outposts and the Mincio must be clear of the 
 enemy. No serious fighting need be expected till the cross- 
 ing of the river. 
 
 On June 22 there was concentrated along the eastern
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 39 
 
 bank of the Mincio, from Pcschicra to the bridge of Goito, 
 an Austrian army of 133,000 men, inckiding 6500 splendid 
 cavalry and 413 guns. It was made up of the troops that 
 had retired from Lombardy, large reinforcements drawn 
 from the Austrian Empire, and smaller contingents from 
 the garrisons of Northern Italy. The young Emperor 
 Francis Joseph was in personal command, with Field- 
 Marshal Count Hess acting as his chief of the staff. The 
 corps concentrated on the Mincio were divided into two 
 subordinate armies. The First Army, on the left, under 
 Count Wimpfenn, included the following corps : 
 
 CORPS 
 
 COMMANDERS 
 
 MEN 
 
 GUNS 
 
 Second . . 
 
 . Prince Liechtenstein . 
 
 17,700 
 
 56 
 
 Third . . 
 
 . . Prince Schwarzenberg 
 
 17,900 
 
 ^2 
 
 Ninth . . 
 
 . . General Schaffgotsche 
 
 18,700 
 
 64 
 
 Tenth . . 
 
 . . General Wernhardt . 
 
 20,700 
 
 -72 
 
 Eleventh . 
 
 . General Weigl .... 
 
 12,500 
 
 48 
 
 In the Second Army, on the right, under Count Schlick, 
 were the following: 
 
 CORPS COMMANDERS MEN GUNS 
 
 First Count Clam Gallas . . . 15,200 56 
 
 Fifth Count Stadion 19,600 60 
 
 Seventh . . . General Zobel 15,700 48 
 
 Eighth .... General Benedek .... 20,100 72 
 
 Late on the twenty-second there was a sudden change 
 of plans. It was supposed the French were not yet across 
 the Chiese, and it was decided to recross the Mincio next 
 day and attack them, while they were passing the Chiese, on 
 the twenty-fourth. The pontoon bridges on the Mincio 
 were still in ])osition. On the twenty-third, while Godard 
 was reporting " no sign of the enemy," the heads of the 
 Austrian columns were crossing the twelve bridges of the 
 Mincio. By that evening, all unknown to the French, sev- 
 eral corps of the Second Army were in the hills south of
 
 40 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the Lake of Garda, and the First Army had pushed well 
 forward in the plain. The Austrian orders for next day 
 were to march to the Chiese ; those of the Allies to ad- 
 vance to the Mincio. Thus the two armies were moving 
 to an inevitable collision. 
 
 Long before sunrise on June 24, the Allies had resumed 
 their advance. On the left, near the Lake of Garda, moved 
 the Piedmontese in three columns, preceded by cavalry 
 patrols. They expected to be before Peschiera in the after- 
 noon, and to summon the place and make the first prepara- 
 tions for besieging it, as they had done in the campaign of 
 1848. In the center Baraguay d'Hilliers was marching on 
 Solferino. His corps was to reach the Mincio by the hill 
 roads. Behind him was the Imperial Guard, coming up 
 from Monte Chiaro ; and to his right MacMahon's Corps, 
 moving from Castiglione on Guidizzolo by a road running 
 below the margin of the hill country. On the right in the 
 plain Niel was marching on Medole, and behind him came 
 Canrobert, part of whose corps was still passing the pon- 
 toon bridges on the Chiese. 
 
 The Emperor Napoleon had spent the night at Monte 
 Chiaro. One of his aides-de-camp, General Cotte, had died 
 of heat apoplexy, and Napoleon and the headquarters staff 
 so little expected a great battle that morning that they re- 
 mained at Monte Chiaro to assist at the funeral service and 
 requiem mass for their comrade in the village church. The 
 service had hardly begun when there was a sound of gallop- 
 ing horses in the village street, and two stafif officers entered 
 the church with urgent messages for the emperor. One 
 came from Baraguay d'Hilliers, the other from MacMahon. 
 They reported that the Austrians were in force on the hills 
 from the lake to Solferino and Cavriana, and strong columns 
 were advancing in the plain. A great battle was imminent. 
 The emperor left the church and drove to Castiglione in 
 hot haste, with his stafif and escort galloping after him.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 41 
 
 Castiglione stands on a rising ground, and the square bell- 
 tower of its church commands a wide view. Napoleon went 
 up to the belfry with some of the staff to take a general 
 survey of the Austrian positions. 
 
 On the hills in front the enemy's artillery was in action 
 from Solferino northwards towards San Martino, and south- 
 wards in the direction of Cavriana. Masses of white- 
 uniformed infantry were seen here and there advancing 
 over the ridges. Between Castiglione and Solferino the 
 three divisions of the First Corps were being directed by 
 Baraguay d'Hilliers to the attack of the outlying ridges in 
 front of Solferino, L'Admirault and Forey's divisions lead- 
 ing, Bazaine's in support. To the right MacMahon was 
 fighting his way towards Cavriana. Further away in the 
 plain there was a separate battle in progress around Me- 
 dole, where Niel was in action with Schaffgotsche's Corps. 
 
 The fighting had begun on this side soon after sunrise. 
 Niel had marched on Medole in the summer twilight. He 
 had no expectation of a fight, and the closely-cultivated 
 level country through which he marched allowed only a 
 restricted view. So when a crackle of fire in front, lasting 
 only a few minutes, was followed by a message from his 
 advanced guard reporting that a small party of Austrian 
 cavalry had been met with and driven in, he counted the 
 afifair as an unimportant skirmish with a reconnoitering 
 detachment left far in the rear of the enemy's retreat. But 
 then came news that the Austrians held Medole with in- 
 fantry and cannon, and as Niel deployed his leading divi- 
 sion for the attack on the place, there came the booming 
 of artillery from the left, and with the field-glass smoke 
 clouds were seen on the outlying ridges of the hills towards 
 Solferino, four miles away. This was a fairly clear indi- 
 cation that he had no more belated rearguard in front of 
 him, but that the Austrians were in force on a wide front. 
 It was an unpleasant revelation that all the information
 
 42 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 supplied from headquarters was wrong. The enemy had 
 challenged battle on ground he was supposed to have defi- 
 nitely abandoned. And the dead level of the plain in front, 
 with the view narrowed in every direction by plantations, 
 might conceal overwhelming numbers of opponents. 
 
 War maps and battle plans, with their definite present- 
 ment of the positions occupied by both sides over leagues 
 of ground, are misleading, unless we remember that, what- 
 ever the aeroplane and the dirigible may do for generals 
 of coming days, those of the past had to judge the situa- 
 tion and make their decisions in the midst of what Colonel 
 Lonsdale Hale has happily described as the " fog of war." 
 Niel, with his single corps thrown forward in the plain, 
 was for a while utterly in the dark as to what was in front 
 of him. He decided to clear the enemy out of Medole and 
 find out what was behind it, sending back messengers to 
 ask Canrobert, who was crossing the Chiese, to come to 
 his support, and protect his right from a possible turning 
 movement on that side, and he sent a staff officer to get 
 in touch with MacMahon on his left. 
 
 Medole, held only by an Austrian vanguard of two bat- 
 talions, two guns, and a few hussars, was not cleared of 
 the enemy for some time. Colonel Urs, who commanded 
 there, disputed every street and house, and was only driven 
 out after enduring and inflicting heavy loss. Niel was no 
 sooner in possession than he was attacked in turn, Schafif- 
 gotsche making determined efiforts to recapture the place. 
 Canrobert seemed to be hanging back, and Niel for a while 
 thought his colleague had left him in the lurch. But Can- 
 robert had to get his corps across the Chiese, and then 
 m.ove forward very circumspectly and slowly, because he 
 had, whilst on the march, received information that an 
 Austrian column, 25,000 strong, was on his right, and spent 
 some time watching for and preparing to meet this non- 
 existent force. Only detachments of cavalry showed them-
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 43 
 
 selves on this side. The misleading information appears to 
 have come to the imperial staff through a secret service 
 agent, and was based on a plan actually entertained, but 
 not executed, by the Austrians. 
 
 On the left of Niel's battle-ground, about Medole, a wide 
 gap separated him from MacMahon and the Second Corps. 
 The Emperor Napoleon, immediately after his survey of the 
 field from Castiglione, temporarily closed this gap by send- 
 ing the cavalry of the Guard with Desvaux and Parton- 
 neaux's cavalry divisions to take post between Niel and 
 MacMahon. The latter, with the Second Corps, had been 
 stopped on his march towards the high ground of Cavriana. 
 The enemy in his front was making a determined stand, 
 and the emperor, who rode over to MacMahon's position, 
 agreed that for the present he must be content to hold his 
 ground and protect the right flank of Baraguay d'Hilliers's 
 attack on Solferino. The Imperial Guard was brought up 
 to Castiglione to form a reserve for this attack. Baraguay 
 had won the outlying ridges in front of the main plateau, 
 and brought his artillery into action against the walled 
 cemetery of Solferino and the ground near the '* Spia " 
 tower, and formed up L'Admirault and Forey's divisions 
 for a first effort to carry the heights. 
 
 To King Victor Emmanuel on the allied left a request 
 was sent to detach one of his divisions to support the attack 
 on Solferino. But the Piedmontese king and his chief of 
 the staff, La Marmora, had already discovered that they had 
 so much work to do that they could not spare even a single 
 battalion. The Piedmontese had marched at sunrise in three 
 columns — Cucchiari's Division away to the extreme left 
 by the lake, Mollard in the center, Fanti on the right nearest 
 to the French. The country in front was supposed to be 
 quite clear of the enemy. Nevertheless La Marmora sent 
 strong advanced guards well to the front, and towards seven 
 o'clock these came in contact with Benedek's troops mov-
 
 44 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 ing out over the hills that look down on the lake to the 
 westward of Pozzolengo. The Italian detachments were 
 everywhere driven back. Cucchiari had brought up his 
 whole division to their support, to the high ground west 
 of San Martino. After some severe fighting Benedek drove 
 him from the heights, and he fell back to the railway. 
 Benedek then solidly occupied the high ground from San 
 Martino, by the hamlet of Rocco, to Madonna del Scoperta, 
 just north of Solferino, and there was a lull in the fighting 
 while the Piedmontese massed for a new attack. 
 
 The Austrian emperor and Count Hess, who acted as 
 his military adviser, had at first thought that they were in 
 touch only with French advanced guards covering the cross- 
 ing of the Chiese. They soon realized that the Allies were 
 further forward than they had expected, and that they had 
 to deal with the whole of the French and Piedmontese 
 armies. Of the seven Austrian army corps that had crossed 
 the Mincio, four were already in action, three more close 
 at hand. Two corps that, if they had been available, might 
 have secured a victory for Austria were still near Mantua. 
 A plan for the battle was quickly arranged. On the right, 
 along the margin of the hill country, Schlick, with the four 
 corps of the Second Army (First, Fifth, Seventh, and 
 Eighth), was to hold the French center and the Piedmon- 
 tese. On the Austrian left, in the plain, Wimpfenn, with 
 the First Army (Third, Ninth, and Eleventh corps), was 
 to roll up the French right, and break in upon the flank of 
 their central attack against Solferino. So far only one corps 
 was up to the front on this part of the field — the Third, 
 under Schafifgotsche ; but the two other corps were com- 
 ing up, and there was a fair chance of overwhelming Niel 
 before Canrobert could support him. Here the fate of the 
 day turned on Niel's tenacity. 
 
 The French plan was of a more elementary type. Napo- 
 leon had had his attention riveted on Solferino. To seize
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 45 
 
 that commanding point in the Austrian center appeared 
 to him to be the simplest way to victory. He left Niel to 
 take care of himself on the right, and staked everything 
 on a series of fierce assaults on the natural fortress of which 
 Solferino and Cavriana were like two towering bastions, 
 with the ridges between them and to the north as their 
 ramparts. The Austrians had carried out more than one 
 series of peace manoeuvers on this very ground, and looked 
 on their hill fortress as impregnable. It says much for the 
 fighting quality of the French that they were able to force 
 it by repeated and costly attacks. The army that fought 
 under Napoleon's command at Solferino was certainly the 
 best that the Second Empire ever possessed. 
 
 There was a long struggle for Solferino, and the fate of 
 the hilltop village hung in the balance for hours. Before 
 eight o'clock, when the Emperor Napoleon reached Castig- 
 lione, the Austrian outposts had been driven from the foot- 
 hills in front, and the French rifled artillery had come into 
 action against the village and the heights at a range of 2500 
 yards. Under the eyes of the emperor two columns of as- 
 sault, led by Generals Forey and D'Alton, moved forward 
 to the attack, preceded by a dense line of skirmishers. They 
 worked their way through the broken ground below the 
 main ascent to the village under a rain of bullets and shells. 
 Forey was slightly wounded ; two of his staff were killed 
 beside him. At last the moment came when further prog- 
 ress was stopped by the storm of hostile fire. D'Alton fell 
 back before a column of Austrians that menaced his flank; 
 Forey barely held his own. Then six battalions of the 
 Guard, under General Maneque, were thrown into the fight, 
 and PJazaine's Division was seen climbing the slopes towards 
 the \^l%lk'd cemetery. 
 
 The battle for the heights now became a close conflict 
 between great masses of men. The battles of more recent 
 wars were decided by fire, and opposing lines faced each
 
 46 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 other at long ranges, each making such good use of cover 
 that for hours neither saw much of its enemy. But the 
 methods of the Napoleonic wars were still in honor in the 
 days of Solferino. Around the village the defenders were 
 arrayed in deep masses of white-coated infantry, with their 
 batteries in the intervals, and the green-uniformed Tyrolese 
 riflemen held the loopholed houses and farmsteads on the 
 crest. From the foothills to the westward the shells of the 
 French artillery came screaming through the air, bursting 
 with deadly effect over the close-formed ranks, battering the 
 walls of the cemetery, crashing into the roofs of the houses. 
 Up the slopes came long lines of skirmishers wrapped in 
 eddying clouds of powder smoke, and through this screen 
 would burst, now here, now there, the head of a massive 
 storming column, blue-coated, red-trousered linesmen or 
 bearskinned guardsmen, a forest of bristling bayonets, with 
 the tricolors flying over them, drums beating, bugles sound- 
 ing, and the swords of the mounted officers waving them 
 onward. For every man in that moving mass the one idea 
 would be to cross the fire-swept ground in front as soon as 
 might be, and bring the bayonet and the weight of mar- 
 shaled ranks to bear upon the enemy. But the head of the 
 column would be at once the target of a concentrated short- 
 range fire. The front ranks would go down, those behind 
 would press forward over them, till the moment when the 
 strain of apparently useless loss, the fall of leaders, the 
 confusion of struggling through the wreckage of the fight, 
 would stop the advance, and men, instead of pushing on 
 with the bayonet, would halt to fire, spread out into irregu- 
 lar groups, take cover in broken ground, and then fall back, 
 rallying to the colors, each of which had probably already 
 passed from the hands of its original bearer to those of an 
 eager substitute. For the battle flags drew fire, and many 
 a gallant life was sacrificed in bearing them in the close 
 fight.
 
 V-/:^ n ' \\\\ Z. n K £ 
 
 
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 No. 2 — Battle of Solferino, June 24, 1859 
 
 (Position about 8 A. m.)
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 47 
 
 As each attack was repulsed another would be pushed 
 on with fresh troops or the rallied battalions of an earlier 
 onset. Thus it was that twice the cemetery was attacked, 
 and twice Bazaine's men were beaten back with loss, only 
 to come on again after the artillery had widened the breaches 
 of the wall. At the third onset the column poured over the 
 barrier like a flood, and swept the defenders before it at the 
 bayonet point. Then Forey's Division and the Imperial 
 Guard fought their way over the crest near the " Spia " 
 tower, and the tricolor was displayed from its lofty roof. 
 
 Away towards the Garda Lake the Italians had again 
 attacked the heights of San Martino, and once more had 
 been hurled back by Benedek's white-coats. On the right, 
 below the ridges towards Cavriana, MacMahon's African 
 Corps was in hot fight with the Austrian left center. Still 
 farther away Niel was doggedly holding his own to the 
 eastward of Medole, and Canrobert was at last coming into 
 action on his right. Along the miles of opposing front, 
 nearly 800 guns were roaring out in a cannonade that was 
 heard like far-ofif thunder in distant cities. Mantua and 
 Verona heard it plainly. Far-ofl^ Milan caught the sound 
 like the muttering of a coming thunderstorm. 
 
 After the capture of the cemetery and the " Spia " height 
 there was still a hard fight for Solferino. The place was 
 taken by the Imperial Guard, but every house, every in- 
 closure had to be stormed with the bayonet. Austrians 
 and Frenchmen met hand to hand, and when at two o'clock 
 it was at last in the possession of the French, streets, houses, 
 gardens, and vineyards were thickly strewn with dead and 
 wounded, which in many places lay in heaps. Some guns 
 and a number of prisoners were taken, for the eastern side 
 of the Solferino ridge is very steep, and accessible only by 
 narrow paths along which rapid and ordered retirement 
 was impossible. 
 
 When Solferino was lost the Austrian right center still
 
 48 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 held the ridges of the plateau east of it from Cavriana 
 towards San Martino. On the extreme right, round this 
 latter position, the Italians, reinforced by Fanti's Division, 
 were again attacking Benedek after a long lull in the fight. 
 Once more the dogged Austrian commander of the Eighth 
 Corps, though fighting against superior numbers, flung back 
 assault after assault. Along a spur that connects Solferino 
 with Cavriana the Imperial Guard was advancing to a re- 
 newed attack on the Austrian center, and MacMahon was 
 pressing forward over the outlying ridges of San Cassiano 
 and Monte Fontana, on the left' of the Cavriana position. 
 The village of San Cassiano was stormed, and the African 
 regiments. Zouaves and Turcos, were flung against Monte 
 Fontana.^ The Turcos are the native infantry of Algeria — 
 Arabs and Kabyles under French officers. They were first 
 in the rush for the ridge ; but fierce as was their onset, 
 they were driven back by the Austrians with a heavy loss 
 among the white officers. The half-savage Turcos dipped 
 their hands in the blood of their fallen leaders, swore to 
 avenge them, and came on again. This time the ridge was 
 stormed with the bayonet, and scant quarter was given by 
 the dark-skinned victors. Guns were dragged up to the 
 crest to bombard Cavriana at short range. The wind had 
 fallen, the heat had become almost unbearable, and the tired 
 horses could hardly move the guns up the slope. The 
 officers and men tugged at the traces, pushed at the wheels 
 and axles, and at last the guns were almost carried to the 
 top. 
 
 In the plain on MacMahon's right there was open ground, 
 pasture-land with a few patches of wheat and maize. Here 
 the Austrian cavalry had tried to break through the French 
 
 ' On Monte Fontana the Austrian infantry held shelter trenches, 
 which had been dug a couple of years before during the annual 
 peace manceuvers. The battle was fought on ground where the Aus- 
 trians had taken part in many such rehearsals of war.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 49 
 
 line, and had been repulsed by several charges of Desvaux's 
 squadrons. To the northeast of Medole Niel had 42 guns 
 in line. The Austrians had been bringing their inferior 
 artillery into action against this formidable battery, not in 
 a mass, but piecemeal, only to be beaten in detail, batteries 
 being sometimes silenced after firing only a few shots. 
 This superiority in artillery enabled the French to beat ofif 
 the repeated attacks made by Wimpfenn's infantry; and 
 now that Canrobert's Corps was engaged, Niel was able to 
 use part of his force to close the gap between his flank 
 and the ground held by MacMahon, and assuming the of- 
 fensive, established himself in the farm of Casa Nuova, the 
 hamlet of Baite, and the village of Rebecco. The capture 
 of this line of intrenched positions was a costly business. 
 There was plenty of hand-to-hand fighting. A French regi- 
 ment saw its colors disappear in one of these melees, and it 
 was supposed that the flag had been captured, but after the 
 fight it was found under a heap of dead. 
 
 Cavriana was now attacked by the Guards from the 
 westward and by MacMahon from the south, and the Aus- 
 trian center was in serious peril. The Emperor Francis 
 Joseph sent word to Wimpfenn to make one more effort to 
 force back the French right, and then strike at MacMahon's 
 flank and rear. Wimpfenn had lost his opportunity earlier 
 in the day, when he had the advantage of numbers on his 
 side. He had now to attack a line of strong positions, in 
 which Niel had been reinforced by Canrobert's fresher 
 troops. But the Austrians did their best. For an hour 
 wave after wave of white-coated infantry broke upon .the 
 line of loopholed buildings and walled inclosures from Casa 
 Nuova to Rebecco, and surged round its flank, where the 
 French cavalry charged furiously on the advancing enemy. 
 This cavalry attack stopped the movement against the flank. 
 Though the Austrians. formed in squares bristling with 
 bayonets, held their own against the horsemen, the mere
 
 50 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 fact that they were thus forced to defend themselves brought 
 the flank attack to a standstill. The frontal attack was a 
 disastrous failure. 
 
 The day was now going badly for Austria. Into the 
 village of Cavriana there poured the converging columns 
 of assault, and after a desperate street fight the Austrians 
 were driven out. The center was now pierced, and a great 
 wedge of victorious Frenchmen driven in between Schlick's 
 army on the right and Wimpfenn's on the left. On the 
 extreme right the fighting had again almost ceased, for 
 once more Benedek had driven the Italians from the heights 
 of San Martino. On the extreme left Wimpfenn had re- 
 pulsed a determined attack made by Niel and Canrobert 
 on Guidizzolo. But Count Hess and the Austrian emperor 
 now realized that, with tens of thousands of French in- 
 fantry and their terrible artillery crowning the central 
 heights, to prolong the battle might be to invite an irrepa- 
 rable disaster. 
 
 They were actually issuing the orders for a retreat across 
 the Mincio when a startling change came over the scene. 
 Since two o'clock the sky had become more and more over- 
 cast, though the gathering clouds in no way diminished the 
 oppressive heat. On the contrary, it seemed to become more 
 intense. Men dropped in the ranks unwounded, but faint- 
 ing or halfdead with sudden heat-stroke. Then in a few 
 minutes there came on a darkness like night, and a tre- 
 mendous thunderstorm burst over the battle-field. The 
 lightning came flash after flash in streaks of bluish flame, 
 the rain descended in a deluge, mingled with driving gusts 
 of hailstones, under which horses broke away in mad fright, 
 and men ceased firing and huddled together for shelter. 
 Under the dark sky and through the driving rain it was 
 impossible to see for more than fifty yards. For twenty 
 minutes the battle ceased, except where here and there the 
 drenched gunners still fired a few shots at random.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 51 
 
 When the storm ceased, as suddenly as it had begun, it 
 was seen that all along the center, in the hills, and on the 
 left in the plain the Austrians had abandoned their positions. 
 Covered by strong rearguards, they were retiring in long 
 columns towards the bridges of the Mincio. There was no 
 attempt at pursuit. The French were too exhausted for any 
 prolonged forward movement, now that the inspiring ex- 
 citement of battle was gone. The men had had coffee and 
 bread as they broke up from their bivouacs at three in the 
 morning. For fourteen hours they had been marching and 
 fighting, most of the time under almost tropical heat. They 
 were glad enough to halt and begin cooking a meal of soup 
 on the ground they had won. 
 
 But away towards the Lake of Garda the battle broke 
 out again. The Piedmontese had renewed the attack on 
 the San Martino heights. Benedek had received the order 
 to retreat, but for the present he disregarded it. The French 
 were so confident that he would soon have to give way that, 
 desiring to leave the Piedmontese their full share in the 
 glory of the victory, they did not intervene. And until 
 after sundown Benedek held his own. It was between eight 
 and nine o'clock that he led in person a sudden counter- 
 attack, drove the enemy down the slopes, and then began 
 his orderly and unmolested march back to Peschiera. As 
 the rearguard evacuated San Martino the Piedmontese col- 
 umns once more went up the heights, and their artillery 
 flashed out through the gathering darkness of the summer 
 twilight. An Austrian battery put in a few parting shots 
 before finally limbering up and retiring from the eastern 
 spur of the plateau. 
 
 San Martino is counted as a Piedmontese victory, and 
 gives its name to a battleship of the Italian navy ; but the 
 plain truth is that this isolated battle above the lake was a 
 splendid success for Benedek and the Eighth Corps, who 
 only abandoned their ground hours after the fighting to the
 
 52 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 southward had ceased, and in order to conform to the gen- 
 eral retirement of their army. To his success that day 
 Benedek owed the general command of the Austrian Army 
 of the North in the war of 1866. 
 
 The losses on both sides had been heavy, though, in 
 proportion to the large ^numbers engaged, not so serious as 
 in the great battles of the First Empire and of the American 
 Civil War. The Austrians had 13,100 men killed or 
 wounded, and left in the hands of the French 8600 prisoners 
 and 13 guns. The heaviest loss fell on Stadion's Corps, 
 the Fifth, which held Solferino village and the heights 
 around it. The corps lost 124 officers and 2717 rank and 
 file killed and wounded, and 1597 taken prisoners. It says 
 much for the fighting spirit of Stadion's officers that not 
 one of them was among the prisoners. 
 
 The Allies lost 14,420 in killed and wounded. The 
 heaviest proportional loss fell on the Piedmontese in their 
 repeated unsuccessful attacks on San Martino. They lost 
 216 officers and 4047 men. They left about 1200 prisoners 
 in the hands of Benedek, none of them officers. How vic- 
 tory hung in the balance on the southern flank, the fighting 
 in the plain, is shown by the fact that there the Austrians 
 took some 1500 French prisoners. The sufferings of the 
 thousands on thousands of wounded were terrible. The 
 Austrians had carried ofif very few of their wounded in 
 the retreat, and the Allies, with a most imperfect organiza- 
 tion for the purpose, had to do all the work of clearing 
 the battle-field. It was two days before the last of the 
 wounded received even first aid. The horrors of the field 
 of Solferino so impressed a civilian spectator, the Switzer 
 Henri Dunant, that he devoted himself to the organization 
 of the Red Cross movement for the help of the wounded 
 in war, and as a result of his agitation on the subject the 
 Geneva Convention was signed in 1864. 
 
 The losses among French officers of rank were heavy.
 
 THE BATTLE OF SOLFERINO 53 
 
 Five generals were wounded — L'Admirault, Forey, Auger, 
 Dieu, and Douay. Auger, who commanded Niel's artillery, 
 died of his wounds. Thirteen colonels were killed at the 
 head of their regiments or while serving on the stafif. The 
 death of one of these put an end to a famous race. Lieu- 
 tenant-Colonel Junot, Due d'Abrantes, killed while serving 
 as chief of the stafif to De Failly's Division of Niel's Corps, 
 was the second and only surviving son of Marshal Junot 
 of the First Empire. 
 
 Within a few days of the battle of Solferino the armistice 
 of Villafranca prepared the way for peace between France 
 and Austria. A few weeks later the army of Italy marched 
 in triumph into Paris, along the Boulevards, and through 
 the Place Vendome, where, at the base of the column that 
 commemorates the glories of the first Napoleon, Napoleon 
 III sat on horseback surrounded by his stafif, with a little 
 boy dressed as a chasseur of the Guards before him on his 
 saddle. It was the last great triumph of the Second Em- 
 pire. The army, formed in the campaigns of Algeria, vic- 
 torious in the Crimea and in Lombardy, was about to enter 
 on a period of decline, when efficiency was to disappear in 
 routine, and a fatal confidence in the glories of the past 
 was made .to cloak a hundred abuses. The boy Prince Im- 
 perial was never to reign. The emperor who had com- 
 manded at Solferino and ridden victoriously into Cavriana, 
 amid the acclamations of his splendid Guardsmen and his 
 African veterans, was to be remembered in a few years as 
 " the man of Sedan."
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 
 
 May, 1863 
 
 The American War of Secession began with the shots 
 fired against Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 
 12, i86i, and ended with the surrender of General Lee's 
 army at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9, 1865, having 
 lasted just four years. This prolonged conflict included 
 some of the hardest fought battles in military history. It 
 was in many ways unlike the other wars of the half century. 
 At the outset there were few regular soldiers or trained 
 officers in the United States. The war was fought with im- 
 provised armies on both sides, and hundreds of thousands 
 learned the soldier's work, not on the parade-ground, but 
 in the harder school of the bivouac and the battle-field. 
 But the regular armies of Europe learned much from the 
 experience of these volunteer armies, notably the new value 
 of rapidly constructed intrenchments in fighting carried on 
 with modern weapons. 
 
 In such a war men of merit win their way to high com- 
 mand more speedily than in regular armies of long stand- 
 ing where promotion depends as much on seniority as upon 
 talent. So it was that upon both sides a considerable 
 number of able leaders fought their way to high command. 
 The bitterness of the strife is now forgotten, and the names 
 of the great generals of both Federal and Confederate 
 armies belong to the roll of fame of which all Americans 
 are proud, whether they are men of north, south, or west. 
 It was the good fortune of the Southern Confederacy to
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 55 
 
 secure the devoted service of two soldiers who both had 
 professional training and practical experience of war, and 
 whose talents for command were of the highest. Robert 
 Edward Lee, the Confederate commander-in-chief during 
 the greater part of the war, ranks among the world's great 
 captains. Thomas " Stonewall " Jackson,^ the most famous 
 of his lieutenants, stands only second in renown to his 
 chief. Chancellorsville, where Jackson met his death, was 
 one of Lee's triumphs, and a typical battle of the War of 
 Secession. It was also the prelude to the invasion of Penn- 
 sylvania, and the hard-fought battle of Gettysburg, which 
 may be regarded as the decisive battle of the war. 
 
 In the summer of 1862 the United States Government 
 was pressing steadily forward the policy of isolating the 
 Confederate States by maintaining a blockade of their ports 
 on the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, and gradually 
 obtaining possession of the line of the Mississippi. But at 
 the same time a vigorous effort was made to advance upon 
 and capture Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. 
 Although the Federals were able to invade northern Vir- 
 ginia with superior numbers, Lee, ably seconded by Jack- 
 son, and with the aid of Stuart's genius as a cavalry leader, 
 won a succession of victories, and was able himself to 
 threaten Washington before the end of the summer cam- 
 paign. The tactics of the Southern leaders were a splendid 
 example of what may be called aggressive defense. They 
 compelled the enemy to divide his forces, and successfully 
 united their own against a locally inferior opponent at the 
 critical point. Both sides fought well, but the result of the 
 
 ' Thomas Jonathan Jackson was the general's name. At the first 
 battle of Bull Run, before the tide of victory had turned in favor of 
 the South, and when the Confederate lines were breaking before the 
 Federal attack, General Bee called out to his men : " Look at Jack- 
 son's Brigade standing like a stone wall!" After this the brigade 
 came to be known as " the Stonewall Brigade," and its general as 
 " Stonewall Jackson."
 
 56 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 battles of 1862 was to give the Confederates a confidence 
 in themselves and their leaders that immensely added to 
 the fighting value of their armies. A further gain was that 
 from the spoils of the battle-field they were able to im- 
 prove their own armament and equipment. In the spring 
 of 1862 many of the Confederate soldiers carried shot-guns, 
 or old smooth-bore muskets ; by the end of the year all 
 had rifles. 
 
 At the end of the summer Lee had fallen back to the 
 south bank of the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, and his 
 army was massed along the latter river above and below 
 the little town of Fredericksburg. The Federal '' Army of 
 the Potomac," now commanded by Burnside, held the op- 
 posite bank. In the middle of December, Burnside, after 
 weeks of inaction, crossed the river at Fredericksburg under 
 the cover of heavy batteries established on the heights of 
 the left bank. But his attack on Lee's fortified lines on 
 the high ground above the town ended in disastrous failure 
 and heavy loss. He recrossed the river, and then, through 
 wintry months of frost, snow, and rain, all was quiet along 
 the Rappahannock. It was not till the end of April, 1862, 
 that General Halleck, who was directing from Washington 
 the operations of the war on the Federal side, decided that 
 the armies massed along the river should once more cross it 
 to overwhelm Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia, and 
 open the way to Richmond. 
 
 At the end of April the forces under Lee's command 
 amounted to about 62,000 men and 170 guns. The Army 
 of the Potomac, now under the command of General 
 Hooker, had been raised to 130,000 men, with 428 guns. 
 Thus in the coming struggle on the Rappahannock the Con- 
 federates would be outnumbered in the proportion of more 
 than two to one. It was a position that might well have 
 seemed desperate to a less able leader than Lee. 
 
 His army was organized in two corps of unequal strength
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 57 
 
 — the First Corps, about 18,000 strong- under Longstreet; 
 the Second, about 38,000 strong, under Jackson. These 
 troops were watching the line of the river above and below 
 Fredericksburg, and holding the intrenched lines from 
 which they had hurled back Burnside's onset in December. 
 Stuart had been sent off with 1500 horsemen across the 
 Rapidan to Culpeper Station, on the Orange and Alexandria 
 Railroad, to keep watch on a concentration of Northern 
 cavalry, reported by spies to be at Warrenton Junction, on 
 the other side of the upper Rappahannock, 
 
 Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg had convinced Hal- 
 leck and Hooker that Lee's lines could not be forced by 
 a direct attack across the lower Rappahannock. The ques- 
 tion was, as the American attache said to Buller at Colenso, 
 " how to find a way round." Hooker felt himself strong 
 enough to divide his forces, in order to make a flank march, 
 turn to Confederate intrcnchments, and make Lee come 
 out of them and fight in the open. So far, in these earlier 
 battles of the war, the side that fought a defensive battle 
 had usually won it, and Hooker meant to force Lee to at- 
 tack him, recombine his own divided army on the actual 
 battle-field, and catch Lee between hammer and anvil. If 
 Lee escaped, it would only be by retiring towards Rich- 
 mond with forces twice as strong as his own at his heels. 
 
 Hooker's plan was to leave his Heutenant, General Sedg- 
 wick, with 58,000 men on the lower river facing Fred- 
 ericksburg. Sedgwick was to rivet Lee's attention on him- 
 self by a false attack at the crossing below the town, to 
 be turned into a real attack as soon as the Confederates 
 were forced by Hooker's further operations to relax their 
 hold on Fredericksburg. Hooker himself, with some 60,000 
 men, would move up the left bank of the river, cross at 
 Kelly's Ford, and by a forced march reach the Rapidan at 
 Germanna Ford, and thence push on towards Chancellors- 
 ville; while Stoneman, with 10,000 horsemen, would make
 
 58 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 a dash from Warrenton Junction, cross the Rappahannock 
 and Rapidan (the latter river at Raccoon Ford) and, raid- 
 ing to the southwards, destroy railways, telegraphs, and 
 bridges, and cut off Lee's supplies. Hooker believed he 
 was strong enough to fight Lee if the Confederate general 
 turned upon him ; but he seems to have expected that when 
 his opponent found that 60,000 men were in rear of the 
 Fredericksburg lines, and nearly as many more crossing 
 the river below the town, while 10,000 cavalry were raiding 
 his communications, he would make a prompt retreat 
 towards Richmond. 
 
 The movement had been planned for the middle of April, 
 but heavy rains, that made the roads difficult and swelled 
 the rivers, delayed it till the end of the month. On April 28 
 Stoneman moved from Warrenton Junction with the Fed- 
 eral cavalry, slipped past Stuart's position at Culpeper, and 
 then pushed on across the Rapidan at Raccoon Ford, and, 
 riding due south, began the work of destroying bridges and 
 railways in the direction of Richmond. Stuart, with his 
 much smaller force, might have been sent off in pursuit ; 
 but there was other work for him to do, in view of which 
 Lee disregarded Stoneman's cavalry raid for the moment. 
 For Stuart had discovered that a large force of all arms 
 was moving up the left bank of the Rappahannock towards 
 Kelly's Ford, and reported this to Lee's headquarters at 
 Fredericksburg on the evening of the twenty-eighth. 
 
 Early on the morning of the twenty-ninth Fredericksburg 
 woke to the sound of firing along the river below the town, 
 and Jackson, who was watching this part of the line, re- 
 ported that, under cover of a heavy fog, the enemy had 
 thrown pontoon bridges over the Rappahannock, and had 
 sent troops across which were engaged with his outposts. 
 Neither Lee nor Jackson was anxious about this attack. 
 They were quite confident that they could repel an assault 
 on the Fredericksburg lines as easily as they had done in
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 59 
 
 December, The question was what the flank movement on 
 the upper river meant. Lee rehecl on Stuart to clear this 
 point up. 
 
 Hooker had made a mistake in sending away all Stone- 
 man's mounted division on a distant raid and retaining only 
 a handful of cavalry. Stuart was able to keep in close 
 touch with his movements. On the evening of the twenty- 
 ninth Lee had news from his cavalry that all the afternoon 
 strong columns of the enemy had been passing the Rapidan 
 by the Germanna and Ely's Fords. He at once marched off 
 Anderson's Division towards Chancellorsville. Early next 
 day Stuart sent in word that he had taken prisoners be- 
 longing to three Federal army corps — the Fifth, Eleventh, 
 and Twelfth. Anderson reported that he had not been able 
 to reach Chancellorsville, but had fallen back before a strong 
 hostile advanced guard and taken up a position where he 
 was intrenching his force. 
 
 So far Hooker's plan had worked out well. Sedgwick 
 had bridged the river below Fredericksburg, and was in- 
 trenched on the right bank and ready to attack. Hooker 
 himself, by a forced march, had crossed the Rappahannock 
 and the Rapidan, and concentrated 60,000 men in the rear 
 of the Confederate position. 
 
 The country south of the Rapidan, where he was now 
 operating, was the thickly-wooded region which, in a later 
 campaign, became famous under the name of the " Wilder- 
 ness." The surface was undulating, and for the most part 
 covered with a forest of fir, cedar, and oak, with quanti- 
 ties of close-growing underwood, often so entangled with 
 creepers that it was difficult even for a man on foot to make 
 his way through it. The streams, though small, flowed in 
 marshy hollows that made them serious obstacles. There 
 were clearings round the scattered wood-built houses, and 
 several roads, mostly " planked " or " corduroyed " with 
 felled timber, ran through the woods. Some of these were
 
 6o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 highways traversing the forest from end to end, others were 
 cross-roads leading to the local iron mines and furnaces, 
 which the war had put out of work. Towards the western 
 edge of the Wilderness Forest, near a junction of several 
 roads and woodland tracks, stood a large country house 
 belonging to the Chancellor family, and known as " Chan- 
 cellorsville." Here Hooker established his headquarters on 
 April 30. There was an extensive clearing immediately to 
 the west of it, and the hollows of streams, running north 
 to the Rapidan and southwest to the Rappahannock, marked 
 out a line that could be quickly strengthened with breast- 
 works of felled timber and hasty intrenchments. From 
 Chancellorsville he issued a somewhat boastful general 
 order to his army congratidating them on an assured suc- 
 cess. It ran thus : 
 
 " It is with heartfelt satisfaction that the commanding general an- 
 nounces to his army that the operations of the last three days have 
 determined that our enemy must either ingloriously i\y or come out 
 from behind his intrenchments and give us battle on our own 
 ground, where certain destruction awaits him. The operations of 
 the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth corps have been a succession of 
 splendid achievements." 
 
 Hooker was making a very premature announcement of 
 success. In the light of his subsequent proceedings it would 
 appear that he counted upon Lee retreating from a danger- 
 ous position without any seriotis fighting. But he knew his 
 opponent well enough to anticipate that if he did not at 
 once retire he would certainly not wait to be surrounded in 
 the lines of Fredericksburg, but would come out and attack 
 him. In that case he reckoned upon being able to inflict 
 defeat upon Lee by merely holding the position he had taken 
 up in the woods about Chancellorsville. But in assuming 
 this passive attitude he would be throwing away the chief 
 advantage he had gained by the forced march. In the 
 woods his great superiority in artillery was neutralized, for
 
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 CHANCELLORSVILLE 6i 
 
 there were not many positions where even a single battery 
 could find a field of fire of more than a few hundred yards. 
 The movements of his infantry were restricted by being for 
 the most part confined to the tracks cut through the forest. 
 There were only four openings of any importance leading 
 out of it towards Fredericksburg — namely, the old turnpike 
 road in the center, the so-called " River Road " north of 
 it, the corduroyed track known as the " Plank Road " to the 
 south of it, and still farther to his right the clearings, 
 through which ran an unfinished railway line. These four 
 ways were so many defiles, the western outlets from which 
 Lee could block with a locally superior force, bringing the 
 heads of the Federal columns under a concentrated and 
 converging fire of rifles and artillery as they issued from 
 the forest. 
 
 For a short time on the morning of May i Hooker seemed 
 to have decided on a more resolute policy — the policy of 
 attack, the only one by which he could reap decisive re- 
 sults from his earlier operations. His best chance was now 
 to take the initiative, not to wait till Lee chose between 
 retreating and attacking the lines of Chancellorsville, but 
 to move boldly forward and bring all his forces to bear 
 on the enemy, falling on rear of the Fredericksburg works 
 with his right, while Sedgwick attacked with the left. In 
 order to secure joint action with Sedgwick, he had estab- 
 lished a chain of signal stations from Chancellorsville to 
 the United States Ford across the Rappahannock on his' 
 left. Here his engineers had iMiilt a pontoon bridge for 
 reinforcements to join him, and had run a field telegraph 
 line from the ford back by Falmouth to the heights oppo- 
 site Fredericksburg. Rut the line of telegraph worked 
 badly, and in the early hours of the May day the hot sum- 
 mer haze from the river and the swampy hollows made the 
 signal stations nearly useless. 
 
 Nevertheless, if he had pushed steadily forward the
 
 62 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 sound of his guns would soon have been sufficient warning 
 to Sedgwick to cooperate. Early in the day strong columns 
 were moving by the forest roads westward from the Chan- 
 cellorsville lines. Fredericksburg was only twelve miles 
 away, and Hooker spoke of being in possession of the place 
 by noon, or soon after. But his energetic mood did not last 
 long. He had expected to find in front of him, on leaving 
 the woods, only Anderson's Division, and to drive it with 
 very little effort from the ground where it had halted the 
 day before. But while he was still in the forest, the heads 
 of his columns met with such serious and determined op- 
 position that it became evident that instead of retiring, or 
 waiting to be crushed between superior forces, Lee had 
 come out of his lines to attack him. 
 
 When Sedgwick crossed the river and intrenched himself 
 on the right bank below Fredericksburg, and Stuart's des- 
 patches told of a strong flank movement across the upper 
 Rappahannock and the Rapidan, Lee had at once decided to 
 fall upon one or other of the divided wings of the Federal 
 army before they could combine to attack him. A sugges- 
 tion that Sedgwick should be driven back across the river 
 was dismissed. To close with him meant to bring the 
 assaulting columns under the fire of the heavy batteries 
 established on the commanding heights of the left bank. It 
 was better to wait and let him run his head against the 
 Fredericksburg intrenchments. But Sedgwick was also 
 playing a waiting game. He skirmished with the Con- 
 federate outposts, and his guns threw a few shells among 
 them, but most of his men were busy digging intrench- 
 ments to secure his hold of the ground on which he lay. 
 On the other bank of the river three captive balloons swayed 
 at the ends of their long cables. From these a watchful 
 eye was being kept on the Confederate lines to give warn- 
 ing of any movement against Hooker, and to catch the first 
 signs of his advance from the westward.
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 63 
 
 When Stuart's later messages showed that the enemy was 
 in force in the Wilderness Woods, Anderson's Division was 
 sent out to gain touch with Hooker. Then on the evening 
 of April 30 Lee resolved on a bold stroke. He would 
 leave only 10,000 men in the Fredericksburg lines. They 
 might bluff Sedgwick into waiting still longer; but even if 
 the Federals attacked, the lines were strong enough to be 
 held for a while. All Lee wanted was time to strike a 
 crushing blow at Hooker in the woods. He would march 
 against him with the whole of Jackson's Corps and every 
 man he could spare from the First Corps. Even so he 
 would not bring an equal force against the Federals, but it 
 would be nearly equal, and he relied on the fighting quality 
 of his men and the leadership of Jackson to make up the 
 difference. 
 
 The march began in the night between April 30 and 
 May I. The darkness and then the mists of the early hours 
 of daylight hid the first movements from the observers in 
 the cars of the Federal balloons. Further to impose upon 
 Sedgwick, deserters had been sent out, who made their way 
 into his picket lines in the early morning, and told that Lee 
 had been heavily reinforced from Richmond. The garrison 
 of the lines made such a good show, and kept up such a 
 brisk skirmishing with the Federal pickets, that Sedgwick 
 believed Fredericksburg was strongly held even when the 
 mist cleared and his balloonists reported long columns mov- 
 ing westward by the roads towards the forest. 
 
 Before dawn Anderson's intrenched line was reinforced 
 from Fredericksburg. But Lee had no intention of standing 
 on the defensive. The Federal advance had been very slow. 
 Hooker was waiting for reinforcements he had called up 
 from Falmouth. The heads of his columns were still in the 
 forest, when on every road they came upon advancing 
 enemies. They pushed back the first detachments they en- 
 countered. They had expected to have to deal with at
 
 64 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 most a weak rearguard. But now across every road and in 
 every clearing they came upon ordered lines of the men in 
 gray. Batteries opened upon them at the short ranges im- 
 posed by the close country. A column pushing forward on 
 the turnpike was held in front and suddenly assailed on its 
 right flank by swarms of gray-clad skirmishers breaking 
 through the woods and coming up from, the direction of the 
 Plank Road. They fell back before this double attack. 
 
 Forest fighting is a trying business to all but the most 
 resolute of men. To press forward or even to stand fast 
 while one faces hard fighting in front and hears the roar of 
 unseen guns and the crackle of rifle fire coming from right 
 and left, with only the vaguest sense of its actual direction, 
 and a harassing suspicion that it may be already far in on 
 flank and rear, makes even brave men think seriously about 
 the safety of the line of retreat. The Confederates, fighting 
 nearer the edge of the forest, with their supports well in 
 hand in the clearings immediately behind them, knew how 
 they stood, and were able to work together. Hooker's men 
 were in the thick of a " fog of war," made more trying by 
 their surroundings. Just as the defenders of the turnpike 
 had been driven in by a flank attack from the Plank Road, 
 so a stand on the Plank Road was broken by a flank attack 
 coming through the tangle of wood in the direction of the 
 railway. 
 
 In the presence of this unexpected opposition Hooker 
 decided to abandon his attempted advance, and bethought 
 him of his promise that if the enemy did not take to " in- 
 glorious flight " he would be forced " to give us battle on 
 our own ground, where certain destruction awaited him." 
 That chosen ground was the line of intrenchments farther 
 back in the woods along the Chancellorsville ridges. He 
 sent orders for a general retirement to the prepared posi- 
 tion. Remembering how the wild onset of the Federals had 
 been flung back from the line? of Fredericksburg, he counted
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 65 
 
 on inflicting the same fate on the Confederates at the Hnes 
 of Chancellorsville. 
 
 Following up the retreating enemy, Lee and Jackson's 
 men came on intrenchments and breastworks bristling with 
 artillery, and closing every road and sweeping every clear- 
 ing. There was a lull in the fighting. Along the front 
 there was a desultory exchange of rifle fire. Here and 
 there a battery found a target and sent its shells screaming 
 and crashing through the woodlands. Lee and his staff 
 reconnoitered the Federal lines. They found the right and 
 center so formidable that an assault could only end in use- 
 less loss of life. Where the line turned to the eastward the 
 bare plateau of Hazel Grove rose out of the woods crowned 
 with batteries. Beyond the works were not so strong. 
 Stuart was sent off to reconnoiter this part of the line more 
 closely. 
 
 Both sides had learned the value of intrenchments. All 
 along the opposing fronts the men in blue and the men in 
 gray were working hard. The Federals were strengthening 
 their lines. The Confederates were felling trees, making 
 entanglements of branches, piling stones, grubbing up earth 
 to improvise defensive cover. So the day wore on with an 
 occasional spatter of fire, and at times a sudden alarm when 
 the firing would swell for a while into a roar of musketry 
 and cannon. A message sent to Sedgwick by Hooker, 
 bidding him attack Fredericksburg, arrived too late for any 
 action till the morrow. As the sun went down the firing 
 ceased. Camp-fires glowed in every clearing of the forest, 
 and the two armies slept in their woodland bivouacs. 
 
 There was little rest for the two chiefs of the Confederate 
 army. Lee and Jackson had already agreed that an attempt 
 must be made against the extreme right of the enemy's 
 works. They had a very imperfect map of the Wilderness 
 region ; but Stuart was out with Fitzhugh Lee, the gen- 
 eral's nephew, and would bring in information before dawn
 
 66 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 that would decide the actual plan for the morrow's battle. 
 Lee and Jackson had snatched a brief sleep rolled in tlieir 
 cloaks under a clump of pine and oak in the woods to the 
 west of Chancellorsville. Before three o'clock they were 
 up, and by the light of a lantern sat on a couple of biscuit 
 boxes breakfasting, discussing the orders for the day. At 
 three Stuart rode up, dismounted, flung his bridle to an 
 orderly, and joined them. He put another box between 
 them, spread his map upon it, and pencil in hand made his 
 report. 
 
 Along the Federal right all the intrenchments looked 
 southwards. They ended abruptly at a point on the turn- 
 pike two and a half miles short of Wilderness Run. In 
 military phrase, the extreme right was " in the air." It 
 rested on no obstacle. It was not protected by redoubts or 
 by turning back to the northward. Further, Stuart had 
 found a friend and helper in a Mr. Welford, who owned an 
 iron mine near the enemy's right, and had lately cut through 
 the woods a road, marked as yet on no map, which gave a 
 concealed access to the ground between the Federal flank 
 and the hollow of Wilderness Run. The road had been 
 made for hauling ore to a furnace near Welford's house, 
 and the iron-master had volunteered to act as a guide to 
 troops sent by this way. 
 
 The plan of battle was soon settled. Jackson had often 
 before acted as the leader of a striking force detached by 
 Lee. It was to be his work in this, his last, battle. Lee 
 would retain only some 10,000 men under his immediate 
 command. They would during long hours of the coming 
 day keep up a pretense of attacking the enemy's works. 
 The forest and their own activity would mask their weak- 
 ness. Stuart would send patrols to watch the woods fac- 
 ing the enemy's works on the right. Jackson would mass • 
 45,000 men in a single column, and, guided by Welford, 
 work round the enemy's right, mass his army QQg,r th^ fork
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 67 
 
 of the roads to the west of their extreme flank, and then 
 come sweeping into the forest, rolHng up their line, attack- 
 ing behind their intrenchments, driving everything before 
 him with local weight of numbers, aided by surprise, and 
 cutting them off from the fords of the Rapidan. The plan 
 offered a prospect not merely of defeating but of destroying 
 Hooker's army. It would not matter now if Sedgwick 
 rushed Fredericksburg. After destroying Hooker the vic- 
 torious Confederates would turn on him and crush him also. 
 
 " How soon will you move?" asked Lee. 
 
 " At once," replied Jackson, his stern features aglow with 
 the enthusiasm of expected triumph. The men were quietly 
 roused from their bivouacs, and fell in silently after taking 
 a hasty meal from their haversacks. Staff officers passed 
 from point to point directing regiments and brigades how 
 to reach their places in the column. Twilight was begin- 
 ning, but it was dark among the forest trees, and it says 
 much for the war-trained discipline of the Army of Northern 
 Virginia that the long column formed without confusion 
 or delay. At four o'clock the leading division marched off, 
 with a squadron of Stuart's horsemen at its head. Lee sat 
 on horseback in one of the forest glades watching the long 
 line tramping past him. Jackson was beside him for a 
 while ; then with a few parting words and a grasp of the 
 hand he bade Lee good-by, and gradually gained the head 
 of the column. 
 
 The twilight grew to day, and the sun rose over the 
 woodlands in a clear blue sky. Still Lee watched the end- 
 less march. It was four hours before the last of Jackson's 
 men had gone by, for the column was nearly ten mile* from 
 front to rear — sun-tanned, weather-beaten infantry men in 
 ragged gray uniforms, with blankets strapped bandolier 
 fashion across their shoulders, and broken boots or strips 
 of hide twisted round their bare feet ; guns that had lost 
 all parade polish tugged over the rough forest road by thin
 
 68 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 horses all bone and muscle — a working army marching 
 silently to victory, saluting their chief with a glance and a 
 smile instead of the rolling cheers and the exultant yell that 
 generally greeted him. When the sun rose there came 
 sounds of battle from the woods to the northeastward, deep 
 booming of cannon, dull patter of distant rifle fire, for al- 
 ready the feigned attack had begun that was to rivet 
 Hooker's attention on the wrong point. When the last of 
 Jackson's men had gone by Lee turned and rode towards 
 the firing. 
 
 He was taking very serious risks, but he had recognized 
 and accepted them. The best part of his army had been 
 sent off on a march of many hours by a narrow track in 
 the western woods, and he had with him only Anderson 
 and McLaws's divisions of Longstreet's Corps, not quite 
 10,000 men, to hold the enemy along a front of more than 
 four miles. If Hooker were to assume the offensive, the 
 situation would be serious ; but Lee knew his adversary, 
 and felt quite sure that a persistent show of attacking him 
 would be enough to keep him within his intrenched lines 
 through the long summer day. Guns were crowded up to 
 the front, trees being felled by the score to make way for 
 them, and a heavy cannonade thundered against the Chan- 
 cellorsville lines, along the River Road by the Rappahan- 
 nock on the right and in the clearings of the Turnpike and 
 Plank roads in the center. Lines of skirmishers were 
 pushed well forward, covered by improvised breastworks, 
 the firing line being made strong to give the impression 
 that supports were massing behind it for an assault. But 
 there were no supports available. It was a splendid game 
 of " bluff," and the forest effectually screened the real 
 weakness of the Confederate attack. Hooker's men stood 
 to their breastworks, and manned their rifle-pits and 
 trenches, and answered back the hostile fire with cannon 
 and rifle.
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 69 
 
 As the morning hours went by and no assault was made, 
 the Federal commander began to suspect that all this 
 '" sound and fury " was meant to veil the preparations for 
 a retirement. He was confirmed in this idea when, from 
 the high ground of Hazel Grove, General Sickles, who com- 
 manded there, reported that, looking down the long hollow 
 which runs southwards from the height, he could see, 
 through gaps in the trees, men, guns, and wagons march- 
 ing away in a steady stream with their backs to him. What 
 Sickles saw was the rear divisions of Jackson's Corps 
 marching across Lewis Creek, near Welford's house, and 
 moving southwest by the new roadway. It looked like a 
 retirement, for he had no means of knowing that, three 
 miles farther on, the long column was turning sharply to 
 the northward. Stuart's men in the woods had driven back 
 patrols pushed out from the Federal right, and further 
 screened Jackson's movement by holding every path and 
 clearing in front of the enemy's works on this side. 
 
 Hooker felt so sure that the Confederate retreat had 
 begun that he agreed to a proposal of Sickles that he should 
 advance from the lines at Hazel Grove, attack along Lewis 
 Creek, and " capture guns and baggage." Sickles came on, 
 covered by a heavy fire of artillery, and gradually pushed 
 some thousands into action. But their advance was delayed 
 by a strong rearguard that Jackson had left facing Hazel 
 Grove. Having taken this precaution, he had pushed on, 
 regardless of the firing in the woods behind him. He took 
 the chance of Sickles breaking through, and held on to his 
 original purpose. Whatever happened in the woods round 
 Lewis Creek, a successful stroke against the Federal flank 
 would be decisive. 
 
 The march of Jackson's column on the rough and nar- 
 row forest track was terribly slow. It was late in the after- 
 noon when the leading brigade — General Rodes's Alabama 
 regiments — reached the open ground near Old Wilderness
 
 70 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Tavern. Then for fully two hours, as mile on mile of 
 marching men came into position, Jackson was forming 
 his divisions for battle in three lines. The intrenchments 
 on the extreme right of the Federals were held by the 
 Eleventh Corps, under General Howard. Most of his regi- 
 ments were recruited from the German population of the 
 Northern States. The roll of his brigade and regimental 
 commanders reads like an extract from a Prussian army 
 list. Many of them had served in the forces of various 
 German states. Some had seen war service in 1848 and 
 1849. Howard himself was a good soldier. He recognized 
 that, though his line was strong against a frontal attack, his 
 flank was dangerously exposed. Hooker seems to have sent 
 him a warning message, suggesting that an attempt might 
 be made against it, and Howard himself states in his nar- 
 rative of the day's work that he was anxious on the subject. 
 Hooker had sent away nearly all his mounted troops on 
 Stoneman's raid, and had a mere handful of cavalry with 
 him under Pleasanton. These were acting with vSicklcs 
 near Hazel Grove. The firing in that direction was drift- 
 ing southwards through the woods, and this somewhat re- 
 assured Howard. But he was troubled by the fact that 
 Stuart's gray-coated horsemen appeared from time to time 
 in the clearings in his front, pushed close up to the works, 
 and retired when fired upon, only to reappear again soon 
 after. The marvel is that he took no steps to secure his 
 flank. How little even a veteran general of the day some- 
 times knew of the mere elements of war is shown by the 
 fact that it did not occur either to him or to any of his 
 American or German officers that it would be useful to 
 have a line of patrols in the woods on his flank to watch 
 the ground between his extreme right and Wilderness Run. 
 A single patrol of scouts properly worked would have told 
 him that an army was forming up for attack on his flank, 
 and was within a couple of miles of it.
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 71 
 
 Jackson had himself gone forward, under cover of the 
 woods, and seen with his own eyes the state of affairs in 
 Howard's lines, and he felt so secure that he took all the 
 time needed to form his triple line of battle, and did not 
 give the word to advance till he had more than 30,000 
 bayonets in array. He took his post beside Rodes in the 
 front of the Alabama Brigade. It was within a few min- 
 utes of six o'clock when, glancing along the ordered lines, 
 he turned to the brigadier and asked, " Are you ready. 
 General Rodes? " " Yes, sir." " You can go forward, sir." 
 A nod from Rodes to his bugler, and the call for the ad- 
 vance was sounded, and the gray lines began to tramp for- 
 ward into the forest, the red rays of the declining sun in 
 their faces. 
 
 Along the front of Hooker's lines the firing had died 
 down to a mere desultory exchange of shots, except south 
 of Hazel Grove, where there was still some serious fighting 
 in the woods. Behind their intrenchments the Federals 
 were cooking their evening meal. Arms were piled in long 
 rows, and the officers of several regiments were actually 
 dining, seated at improvised tables of packing cases. The 
 first sign that something was happening in the woods on 
 the right was a rush of startled birds and beasts. There 
 was a flutter of wings among the trees ; scared deer and 
 hares and rabbits dashed into the bivouacs. Before 
 Howard's men had realized what it meant, there were a 
 crackling of branches in the underwood, the tramp of thou- 
 sands, the click of accouterments, the murmur of a great 
 movement of men, and along the opening of the road, out 
 of clearings, through thickets the gray regiments appeared ; 
 and as they sighted the blue-clad Federals rushing to their 
 arms, there came from the long front of the attack a blast 
 of rifle fire, and then by the road a battery unlimbered and 
 sent its shells tearing through the woodland. 
 
 The surprise was complete. Men were shot as they rose
 
 72 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 from the ground and ran to their arms ; horses fell strug- 
 gling at their picket lines ; officers were calling to their 
 men to form, and while some tried to obey, others in the 
 confused panic of the moment turned and fled from the 
 advancing wave of fire and steel. General Devens's Bri- 
 gade, on the extreme right, was overwhelmed, and hurled 
 back in a mingled mass of men, horses, guns, and wagons, 
 leaving hundreds of prisoners and two cannon in the hands 
 of the Confederates. 
 
 Howard had been inspecting the left of his line^ and 
 had dismounted at his headquarters, Dowdall's Tavern, a 
 farm-house near the turnpike, about 800 yards east of the 
 Wilderness Church, and close to a line of trenches and 
 breastworks that ran northwards from the main line to 
 bar the road. Suddenly a sound of heavy firing came from 
 the extreme right, and he mounted and galloped along the 
 road in that direction. The first thing that told him there 
 had been a disaster was the sight of fugitives crowding 
 into the opening along the road — " not the few stragglers 
 that always fly like chaff at the first breeze, but scores of 
 them, some with arms, some without." The scores soon 
 became a moving crowd, throwing into confusion McLean's 
 Brigade as it tried to swing round to meet the attack. 
 Guns galloping to the front were stopped by the throng. 
 Howard sent swift orders to Steinwehr and Schurz's bri- 
 gades to form front to the westward, and riding into the 
 panic-stricken mass saw the enemy's advance coming on 
 through a clearing of the woods. " As they emerged from 
 the forest," he says, " the men in front would halt and fire, 
 and while these were reloading another set would run be- 
 fore them, halt and fire in no regular line, but in such 
 multitudes that our men went down before them like trees 
 before a hurricane." 
 
 A regiment of Federal cavalry — the Eighth Pennsyl- 
 vania — came riding up, and charged the Confederates;
 
 
 ^^^^c>sX> Con.f<ailenjl*a troops * ( * 
 
 flHJI. 
 
 ' No. 4 — Battle of Chancellorsville, May 1-2, 1863
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 73 
 
 but disordered in the underwood, and fired upon from rifles 
 crowded among the trees, the horsemen were driven back 
 with loss and scattered, to rally again far to the rear. One 
 of the troopers, whose horse was shot, and who narrowly- 
 escaped capture, gives a vivid glimpse of the scene he saw 
 when he struggled back to the road : 
 
 " The road and the woods that bordered it presented a scene of 
 terror and confusion such as I had never seen before. Men and ani- 
 mals were dashing against one another in wild dismay before the 
 line of fire that came crashing and crackling after them. The con- 
 stantly approaching rattle of musketry, the crash of the shells through 
 the trees, seemed to come from three sides upon the broken frag- 
 ments of the Eleventh Corps that crowded each other on the road. 
 The horses of the men of my regiment who had been shot, mingled 
 with the pack-mules that carried the ammunition of the Eleventh 
 Corps, tore like wild beasts through the woods. I tried in vain to 
 catch one. ... I now gave up the hope of a mount, and seeing the 
 Confederate lines coming near me, tried to save myself on foot. 
 More than half of the runaways had thrown their arms away, and 
 all of them were talking a language I did not understand. I doubt 
 if any of us knew where we were going, further than that we were 
 fleeing before the pursuing lines of the enemy." 
 
 Presently the dismounted trooper came upon the corps 
 commander, who was trying to rally the fugitives under fire. 
 
 " In the very height of the flight we came upon General Howard, 
 who seemed to be the only man in his own command who was not 
 running at that moment. He was in the middle of the road and 
 mounted, his maimed arm embracing a stand of colors that some 
 regiment had deserted, while with his sound arm he was gesticulat- 
 ing to the men to stand by their flag. With bared head he was plead- 
 ing with his soldiers, literally weeping as he entreated the unheeding 
 horde. Maimed in his person and sublime in his patriotism he 
 seemed worthy to stand by, and out of pure compliment to his ap- 
 pearance I hooked up my saber and fell into the little line that 
 gathered about him. As the front became clear we fired a few shots 
 at the advance line of the Confederates; but a fresh mass of fugi- 
 tives in blue soon filled the road, and we had to stop firing. The 
 general now ordered us to cover the whole line of retreat so as to 
 let none pass, and the officers, inspired by his devotion, ran in front 
 of their men, drew their swords, and attempted to stop them. As 
 the number constantly increased the pressure became greater upon
 
 74 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the line that blocked the way; but this line was constantly reinforced 
 by officers and others, and offered some resistance to the pressure. 
 At last the surging, seething sea of humanity broke over the feeble 
 barrier, and General Howard and his officers were carried away by 
 main force with the tide." ^ 
 
 There was a rally and a brief stand at the line of in- 
 trenchments across the road ; but the Confederates, flushed 
 with their first success, came pouring in a fierce wave of 
 bayonets over the works, and again carried all before them. 
 The onset was not checked till the advance broke into a 
 wide clearing northeast of Hazel Grove. Pleasanton and 
 Sickles had moved back towards the high ground when 
 they heard the storm of fire behind them. Pleasanton had 
 hurriedly got some fifty guns into line across the road to 
 sweep the clearings. As the advancing rush of the attack 
 came in sight the guns opened fire at a hundred yards, tear- 
 ing ghastly lanes of dead and crippled men in the dense 
 mass and efifectually checking the advance. The Confeder- 
 ates fell back into the forest, and kept up a dropping fire 
 of rifles from the edge of the bush. The Federal artillery 
 ceased firing, and masses of infantry began to form up 
 behind it. 
 
 It was now quite dark, except where the rising moon 
 gave a doubtful light in the clearings of the wood. The 
 Confederates were disorganized by their own swift success. 
 Regiments, brigades, and divisions were mingled together. 
 Officers were separated from their men, and many had lost 
 all sense of direction in the gathering darkness, the broken 
 ground, and the tangled thickets, where gray uniforms had 
 been torn to rags as the men burst through the underwood. 
 The wide track of the advance was strewn with dead and 
 wounded. Men had stopped to help the latter, or to secure 
 and guard prisoners, or catch runaway horses, and take 
 possession of wagons and guns. In open country and in 
 
 * " Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," vol. iii, p. 184.
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 75 
 
 broad daylight the re-forming after the first burst of a suc- 
 cessful attack is no easy matter, and is a good test of dis- 
 cipline and training. It was a serious problem in the dark- 
 ness of the woods. 
 
 Jackson had ridden forward with the attack. He had 
 destroyed a whole Federal corps and completely turned the 
 enemy's works, but he was anxious to do still more before 
 they could recover from the first shock. While exerting 
 himself, with the help of his staff, to get the leading divi- 
 sions of his own army into order and formation, he sent 
 off a messenger to A. P. Hill, who commanded the third 
 line, and had followed up the advance without being closely 
 engaged. Hill was ordered to cut the enemy's line of re- 
 treat by seizing the road to United States Ford. He came 
 up to Jackson and told him he did not understand the lie 
 of the country on that side, and a staff officer was told off 
 to direct him. 
 
 Jackson was now somewhat in front of the men, who 
 were re-forming in the woods, and was on the main road 
 near where a side track through the forest ran into it. A 
 Confederate battery had just opened fire without orders. 
 Some of the enemy's guns had replied at close range, and 
 in the excitement of the moment a number of the troops, 
 who were re-forming, were seized with a panic as the shells 
 burst among them. Jackson himself rode back and rallied 
 them. He then turned and went to the front again, anxious 
 to see for himself how far the enemy was prepared to make 
 a stand. His staff officers formed rather a numerous group 
 of horsemen. One of them remonstrated with him for being 
 so far to the front, and suggested that he was needlessly 
 exposing himself. " There is no danger," he replied ; " the 
 enemy is routed." 
 
 But there was a terrible danger on which he had not 
 counted. To use a familiar phrase, men's nerves were 
 " jumpy " after the wild excitement of tlie last hour, and
 
 76 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 under the influence of the darkness and mystery of the 
 forest, in which friend and foe were huddled together so 
 near each other. Jackson turned to ride back to his men. 
 Then came the disastrous chance that marred the well-worn 
 victory. 
 
 At the point where he approached the Confederate ranks 
 a Carolina brigade had just formed. They half saw in the 
 obscurity a body of horsemen riding towards them, and 
 took them for a party of hostile cavalry. Two volleys were 
 fired without a word of challenge. The first killed an 
 officer and a signal sergeant of Jackson's staff ; the second 
 severely wounded the general himself. A bullet lodged in 
 his right hand, another in his left wrist, a third shattered 
 his left arm. His horse turned and bolted towards the 
 Federal lines, the wounded man still keeping his seat. A 
 branch struck him in the face, knocked off his cap, and 
 nearly dismounted him ; but grasping the bridle with the 
 wounded right hand he regained control, rode back to his 
 staff, and then fell into the arms of the officer who helped 
 him to dismount. 
 
 Weak from shock and loss of blood, and suffering severe 
 pain, he was still self-possessed and full of mental energy 
 and determination. He insisted that the fact that he had 
 been wounded should be concealed from the men, and re- 
 peated to Hill his order to bring his division up to the 
 front. His officers realized that he had been very badly 
 hurt, and that his position in front of the line was danger- 
 ous in the extreme. The two volleys had been taken by the 
 Federals as a prelude of a renewed attack, and they were 
 firing at random through the woods. Here and there the 
 Confederates were replying, and one of the staff came up 
 with a report that hostile guns were unlimbering in the 
 bush just in front. A doctor had been sent for, but before 
 he arrived the general's wounds were hastily bandaged, and 
 leaning on two of his officers he began to walk slowly
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE ']^ 
 
 towards his own lines. They had hardly started when some 
 guns opened from the underwood on the Federal side, and 
 a shower of grape-shot swept the road. The general was 
 placed on the ground, and the officers lay down beside him 
 to shelter him with their bodies. After a few terrible 
 moments the guns happily changed the direction of their 
 fire, a doctor arrived with a stretcher, and the wounded 
 man was carried to the rear. The first stage of the mourn- 
 ful march was trying. Bullets were whistling through the 
 wood, and one of the bearers fell wounded. The stretcher 
 fell with him, and the general rolled on the ground, and for 
 the first time a groan told of the pain he was enduring. 
 
 It was near nine o'clock when Jackson was wounded 
 and carried to the rear. Hill took command, and gradually 
 restored order along the front. But with the loss of the 
 one man who had been the driving force of the whole attack 
 a change had come over the battle. The Confederates were 
 now thinking only of holding the ground they had won, 
 till daylight would show the way for a further advance. 
 Sickles's Corps had come up from Hazel Grove and fronted 
 them closely in the woods, so closely that Hill's men could 
 hear the orders being passed to form for a bayonet attack. 
 They were ready for it when it came. After desperate 
 fighting in the moonlit woods Sickles's charge was every- 
 where driven back. Hill was wounded, and Stuart took 
 over the command. 
 
 When Jackson fell his cavalry leader was arranging a 
 dash to the fords of the Rapidan. He was called back to 
 the flank fight by a messenger from Hill, who told him the 
 general was badly wounded, and the whole situation in the 
 woods was an anxious one on account of the disorder and 
 exhaustion of the troops and the renewed activity of the 
 enemy. The whole position afifords a striking example of 
 what is continually occurring in war. Both sides were 
 under a severe strain; the ])rolonged effort was telling
 
 78 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 heavily on every one, from generals at the head of brigades 
 and divisions down to regimental and company officers 
 and soldiers in the ranks. The tension was increased by 
 the uncertainties arising from the difficulty of knowing 
 what was passing beyond each one's extremely limited scope 
 of observation. The Federals were rallying after a crush- 
 ing blow ; even among the victors the nerve strain had re- 
 sulted in local panics. 
 
 At such a time the question is which side can make one 
 more effort, and it is in producing this final effort that the 
 influence of an energetic, determined leader is of such over- 
 whelming importance. It was thus that the fall of Jackson 
 had for a while tended to paralyze the fighting force of the 
 Confederates. But there were two elements in the situation 
 that tended to sway the balance in their favor. The success 
 of their great stroke had given them a sense of exultant 
 confidence in themselves ; and then, though there was a 
 pause in the onward tide of victory, they still felt they were 
 the attacking force, theirs was the forward impulse that 
 gave a direction to each one's efforts, while their opponents, 
 still staggering under the first crushing blow, were bracing 
 themselves to meet the next without being clear as to where 
 it might fall. 
 
 When Stuart took over the command in the woods, he 
 felt so anxious as to the immediate outlook that he sent 
 back one of his aides, Major Pendleton, to consult his 
 wounded general. When Pendleton reached the field hos- 
 pital, about 2 A. M., the surgeons at first refused to let him 
 see the general. They had amputated Jackson's left arm, 
 and he was very weak ; but when, after some hesitation, 
 Pendleton was admitted to his bedside, the general ex- 
 pressed pleasure at seeing him. " I thought you had been 
 killed," he said, and then he asked some questions as to 
 the position in the woods. For a short time he seemed 
 quite alert. Then after some silent thought he told Pendle-
 
 CHANCELLORSVIL*LE 79 
 
 ton he could not work things out ; Stuart must do the best 
 he could. 
 
 Stuart, full of the restless energy of youth, passed a 
 sleepless night reorganizing his forces and preparing to 
 advance at dawn. With the true cavalry spirit, though he 
 was now commanding an army of gunners and infantry, he 
 meant to go forward at all hazards. Divided from Lee by 
 Hooker's main position, he had not yet been able to com- 
 municate with his commander-in-chief, but he relied im- 
 plicitly on his support. Lee knew that the attack on the 
 right had been victorious, and not having yet heard of Jack- 
 son's fall, counted on his following up his success. Thus 
 on the Confederate side there was the directing impulse of 
 confident leadership. 
 
 The Federals, on the other hand, were under the sway 
 of hesitating counsels. The turning of his intrenchments 
 and the destruction of his right, at a moment when he be- 
 lieved he had won the game and had only to follow up a 
 retreating army, had been a staggering blow to Hooker. 
 He had drawn considerable reinforcements from Sedgwick's 
 army by way of Falmouth, and the troops now under his 
 immediate command outnumbered the forces of Lee and 
 Stuart united, and occupied a central position, from which 
 he might throw an overwhelming weight upon either of 
 them. But while attack would have still given him the 
 fairest chance of victory, he was so dominated by the hope- 
 less sense of failure that he thought only of defense, and 
 even now, when he should have united his efforts against 
 a divided enemy, he further divided his own forces. Fear- 
 ing to be cut off from the fords, he had decided to fight 
 only a rearguard action about Chancellorsville, and fall back 
 on the Rapidan and intrench a new position with its flanks 
 resting on the river. 
 
 Napoleon never said a truer thing than that in war the 
 moral is to the material as three to one, and never made
 
 8o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 a greater mistake than when he said that " Providence is 
 always on the side of the big battahons." The man often 
 counts for more than men, the leader for more than tens 
 of thousands of followers. 
 
 So it was in the last phase of the Chancellorsville cam- 
 paign. When at dawn on Sunday, May 3, Stuart's cannon 
 thundered through the Wilderness woods, and were echoed 
 by Lee's guns opening against the west front of the Chan- 
 cellorsville lines. Hooker had lost heart, and, notwithstand- 
 ing superior numbers, tacitly accepted a position of inferi- 
 ority. The attack had hardly developed when Stuart saw 
 that the commanding ground of Hazel Grove had been 
 abandoned by the enemy, and promptly seized it, and 
 thence enfiladed the Federal line with the fire of thirty 
 guns. Then, not without meeting with dogged resistance, 
 and suffering more than one local repulse, Stuart's men 
 stormed the hastily improvised line of defense held by the 
 Federals. 
 
 On the other side of the position the concentrated fire 
 of Lee's artillery had been turned on Chancellorsville and 
 the plantations around the great house. Hooker had a 
 narrow escape. A pillar of the portico was shattered by 
 a bursting shell, and he was stunned by the falling frag- 
 ments. The house and the woods near it were set on fire, 
 and when the Federal line gave way, and Lee rode into 
 the heart of the conquered position amid the wild cheering 
 of his men, he dismounted and took a personal part in 
 rescuing the enemy's wounded from the burning buildings. 
 It was in this moment of triumph that he heard for the 
 first time that his best general was lying dangerously 
 wounded at the other end of the conquered lines. 
 
 Only about half of Hooker's force had fought ; the rest 
 were already at work intrenching the new position along 
 the Rapidan, where by evening the whole of the Federal 
 right was concentrated. But meanwhile Sedgwick had
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 8i 
 
 stormed the heights above Fredericksburg, driving back 
 Early's Division towards Chancellorsville. Early retired 
 fighting, and Sedgwick as he followed him waited in vain 
 for any sign of the expected cooperation of Hooker. Find- 
 ing himself isolated in the presence of an enemy who 
 though beaten still showed a determined front, and obvi- 
 ously had strong support behind him, Sedgwick marched 
 to Banks Ford, where he intrenched himself on the south 
 side of the Rappahannock. 
 
 Next day Lee was upon him. Leaving a mere skeleton 
 force to observe Hooker's new lines, he flung almost his 
 entire force against vSedgwick, stormed his works, drove 
 him across the river, and then returned to confront Hooker 
 once more. Strange to say, the Federal general had re- 
 mained idle in his lines while a few miles away his lieutenant 
 at Banks Ford was being defeated in a battle of which he 
 could plainly hear the cannonade. 
 
 Lee was preparing to attack the lines on the Rapidan, 
 when the weather broke, and a deluge of almost tropical 
 rain descended on the woods of the Wilderness, making the 
 roads difficult and all movement off them impossible. 
 Hooker took advantage of the truce imposed by the storm 
 to evacuate his lines and transfer his army to the north 
 bank. Thence the Federals marched back to their old 
 camps on the heights opposite Fredericksburg, and Lee 
 concentrated his army in its former positions along the 
 river above and below the town. 
 
 In the six days' fighting both sides had lost heavily. 
 The Federals' losses were about 14,000 killed and wounded, 
 and some 6000 more prisoners or missing. The Confeder- 
 ates captured 13 guns and many colors. They lost about 
 10,000 killed and wounded and some 2000 prisoners, mostly 
 taken by Sedgwick in his attack on the Fredericksburg 
 lines. These losses were more than made good by drafts 
 of recruits from Richmond. But Lee had suffered another
 
 82 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 loss that nothing could replace: Jackson, who had so long 
 been his " right hand," died on May lo. 
 
 He had rallied at first, and there were hopes that his 
 life would be saved. He heard the news of Lee's victorious 
 operations, and discussed with his friends the conduct of 
 the campaign. Asked what he thought of Hooker's plan, 
 he said : " It was in the main a good conception, an excel- 
 lent plan, but he should not have sent away his cavalry. 
 That was his great blunder. It was that which enabled me 
 to turn him and to take him in the rear. Had he kept 
 his cavalry with him his plan would have been a very good 
 one." Speaking of his own part in the battle, he said 
 that if he had not been wounded he would have cut ofif 
 Hooker from the Rapidan, and taken up a position where 
 the Federals must have attacked him. " My men sometimes 
 fail to drive the enemy from a position, but they always 
 fail to drive us out." In characteristic words he gave his 
 judgment of his own masterly action : " Our movement was 
 a great success — I think the most successful military move- 
 ment of my life; but I expect to receive far more credit 
 for it than I deserve. Most men will think I planned it 
 all from the first ; but it was not so. I simply took ad- 
 vantage of circumstances as they were presented to me 
 in the providence of God. I feel that His hand led me. 
 Let us give Him the glory." 
 
 On May 7 pneumonia set in. Three days later he died. 
 In the last hour he lay unconscious and silent, but suddenly 
 he seemed to rouse himself. He was dreaming of battle, 
 perhaps of the crisis of Chancellorsville. " Order A. P. 
 Hill to prepare for action," he said. " Pass the infantry 
 to the front. Tell Major Hawks — " Then he was silent 
 for a few minutes. When next he spoke it was under the 
 influence of some more peaceful thought. " Let us cross 
 over the river," he said, " and rest under the shade of the 
 trees." A few minutes more and he breathed his last.
 
 CHANCELLORSVILLE 83 
 
 Lee knew what he had lost. " Any victory," he wrote, 
 '' would be dear at such a price. I know not how to replace 
 him." And after the war he said to an intimate friend, 
 " If I had had Jackson at Gettysburg I should have won 
 the battle, and a complete victory there would have resulted 
 in the establishment of Southern independence."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GETTYSBURG 
 July 1, 2, and 3, 1863 
 
 Gettysburg was the decisive battle of the War of Seces- 
 sion, the hard-fought field that shattered the hopes of the 
 Confederacy. The terrible struggle went on for nearly two 
 years more, but never again had Lee the same chance of 
 securing a victory for his cause that could do more than 
 delay its final downfall. 
 
 For nearly a month after the battle of Chancellorsville 
 he faced Hooker on the Rappahannock, about Fredericks- 
 burg. During this time he reorganized his army of 70,000 
 men in three corps, under Generals Longstreet, Ewell, and 
 Hill. Stuart commanded the cavalry. Hooker's army, dis- 
 pirited by its recent failure, shrank to some 80,000 men, 
 large numbers of officers and men whose term of service had 
 expired refusing to renew their engagements. Hooker's 
 mission during this time was merely to watch the Confeder- 
 ate army and hold himself in readiness to act against it if 
 it moved northward to strike at Washington. In Govern- 
 ment circles strong feeling against him had been aroused 
 by his failure in the Chancellorsville campaign, and there 
 was a movement in progress for his removal from the 
 command. 
 
 On the Mississippi, Grant was besieging Vicksburg. Its 
 capture would give the Federals control of the whole line 
 of the great river and cut the Confederacy off completely 
 from the Western States. Lee decided to endeavor to re- 
 lieve the pressure on Vicksburg indirectly by an invasion
 
 GETTYSBURG 85 
 
 of the Northern territory. He hoped thus to alarm the 
 P'ederal Government into withdrawing at least some part 
 of Grant's forces from the Mississippi and, in any case, 
 counted on making his own capital secure by compelling 
 Hooker's army to follow him northwards. He expected to 
 be able to force the Federals to attack him on a prepared 
 position, and to win a great victory on Northern soil. Such 
 a success would endanger Washington, and would bring a 
 victorious ending of the war in sight. It was well known 
 that more than one foreign power was ready to recognize 
 the Confederacy on the morrow of such a triumph, and in 
 the Northern States there were many advocates of a com- 
 promise with the South. 
 
 On June 3 Lee began his movement for the invasion of 
 the Northern States. Hill's Corps was left at Fredericks- 
 burg to watch Hooker and, in combination with Stuart's 
 cavalry, to screen the northwestward march of the other two 
 corps as long as possible. Ewell and Longstreet's corps 
 concentrated at Culpeper Courthouse, beyond the Rapidan ; 
 then Ewell pushed on to Winchester, in the Shenandoah 
 valley. By June 13 the Army of Northern Virginia was 
 thus divided into three detachments, covering a front of 
 about 100 miles — Ewell with the left at Winchester, Long- 
 street with the center at Culpeper, Hill with the right still 
 at Fredericksburg. 
 
 Lee counted on being able to concentrate rapidly when 
 Flookcr moved. But it was not till the ninth that the 
 Federal commander learned by chance" that considerable 
 hostile forces were north of the Rapidan. He was planning 
 a stroke against one or other of the divided Confederate 
 corps, when the Washington Government became aware of 
 the movements in the Shenandoah valley, and concluded 
 that Lee was marching to cross the Potomac and threaten 
 the capital. On this Lincoln and Halleck peremptorily 
 ordered Hooker to march to its defense.
 
 86 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 As soon as Hooker began his movement, Lee withdrew 
 Hill from Fredericksburg; and the three corps mached on 
 the Potomac by the Shenandoah valley, Ewell's Corps lead- 
 ing the way. Lee had successfully stolen a march on 
 Hooker, and the Northern States were open to a Confed- 
 erate invasion. 
 
 At the beginning of the third week of June Hooker's 
 army was moving towards the Potomac. It interposed 
 between the mass of Lee's forces and the capital. The Con- 
 fedrate army was still widely dispersed. Hill was marching 
 up from Fredericksburg. Longstreet was in the Shenan- 
 doah valley, holding the passes of the Blue Ridge that forms 
 its eastern wall, with Stuart's cavalry thrown out in his 
 front towards Hooker's army. Ewell's front and rear were 
 separated by more than sixty miles of country. His rear 
 division was at Winchester ; his center crossed the upper 
 Potomac into the Northern States ; his leading division, 
 under Rodes, with a detachment of cavalry, nearly forty 
 miles north at Chambersburg. Lee's object, so far, was to 
 keep the Federals in anxious uncertainty, and so perhaps 
 lead them to abandon their operations in the Mississippi, 
 in order to strengthen their forces in the Atlantic States. 
 Rodes's advance northward was a threat against the great 
 cities of Pennsylvania, where local levies began to muster 
 to defend the crossings of the Susquehanna. 
 
 Ewell had cleared the Shenandoah valley of all the Fed- 
 eral garrisons and detachments, losing only 269 men. and 
 capturing 4000 prisoners, 28 guns, and 300 loaded wagons. 
 In the last week of June Lee pushed forward the whole 
 of Ewell's Corps towards the Susquehanna, while Hill and 
 Longstreet's concentrated about Chambersburg. Hooker 
 had by this time crossed the Potomac above Washington, 
 and was marching northwards in the hope of forcing the 
 Confederates to attack him on a position he would select 
 for defense. Both sides were anxious to begin the decisive
 
 GETTYSBURG 37 
 
 battle of the campaign on the defensive, for the memory of 
 Fredericksburg was still fresh in the minds of the leaders. 
 Lee, as the invader, was in a better position for forcing 
 on such a battle; but, partly through his own fault, he was 
 badly served by his cavalry in operations where early in- 
 formation of the enemy's movements was all-important. 
 So long as Hooker was south of the Potomac, Stuart, with 
 part of the cavalry, had held the passes of the Blue Moun- 
 tains, screening the Confederate movement through the 
 Shenandoah valley. When the Federals crossed the river, 
 Stuart was directed to push northwards and join Ewell, 
 and his suggestion was accepted that he should do this by 
 a rapid march to the eastward of the Confederate positions. 
 But he found the whole mass of the enemy's army in his 
 way, and had to cross the Potomac a little above Washing- 
 ton and make a long detour through the enemy's country. 
 He was thus separated from Lee at the critical moment. 
 For some reason that is hard to discover, a detachment of 
 Stuart's cavalry left with Lee, under General Imboden, in- 
 stead of being used to get in touch with the Federal ad- 
 vance, marched on the left, the flank farthest from the 
 enemy. Lee was quite in the dark as to the Federal move- 
 ments until in the last days of June he obtained from spies 
 information that the Army of the Potomac was in full 
 march northwards. He then issued orders for his three corps 
 to concentrate for battle, and chose as the point of concen- 
 tration the town of Gettysburg, a center from which a 
 number of turnpike roads radiated, and near which he ex- 
 pected to find a position on which to stop the enemy's 
 advance. Ewell was ordered to move on Gettysburg from 
 the northward, while the other two corps marched on it 
 from the Cumberland valley, Hill leading, and Longstreet 
 following him up. 
 
 As the Army of the Potomac marched northwards, Hooker 
 was deprived of the command and Meade put in his place.
 
 88 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Meade knew that his advance would force Lee to concen- 
 trate, and he was anxious to invite an attack from him. 
 The position he had chosen on which to await the Confed- 
 erate attack, and bar the roads to Washington and Balti- 
 more, was on the low range of hills that runs along the 
 left bank of Pipe Creek, a day's march southeast of Gettys- 
 burg. But reports that the Confederates were still widely 
 dispersed induced him to push forward towards the great 
 junction of roads at Gettysburg. On June 30, while three 
 of his corps (Second, Fifth, and Sixth) were still south of 
 the creek, three others (Eleventh, Third, and Twelfth) were 
 spread out on a broad front north of it, and the First Corps, 
 with Buford's cavalry brigade, had been sent forward 
 towards Gettysburg to gain touch of the enemy.^ Thus 
 both the armies, with their concentration still incomplete, 
 were converging on the little town. Neither Meade nor 
 Lee had any very precise knowledge of the situation, and 
 the great battle thus began by a collision between the ad- 
 vanced troops, and the chance of war dominated the open- 
 ing moves of the decisive struggle. 
 
 Late on June 30 Buford's cavalry brigade marched into 
 Gettysburg. The citizens reported that some Confederate 
 horsemen had been in the town that day, to collect infor- 
 mation and requisition a supply of boots; and fugitives 
 from the neighboring country told of gray-coated regiments 
 near at hand to the westward, on the Chambersburg turn- 
 pike. Buford's men went out in that direction and formed 
 an outpost line across the road, with their advanced 
 
 ^ Meade's corps commanders were : 
 First Corps, General Reynolds. Sixth Corps, General Sedgwick. 
 
 Second Corps, General Hancock. Eleventh Corps, General Howard. 
 Third Corps, General Sickles. Twelfth Corps, General Slocum. 
 
 Fifth Corps, General Sykes. 
 
 A Federal army corps was not more than half the strength of a 
 corps on the Confederate side, and there was about the same propor- 
 tion between Federal and Confederate infantry divisions.
 
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 FEDERAL PositLOns 
 
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 No. 5 — Sketch Map of the Gettysburg CaiMpaign
 
 GETTYSBURG 89 
 
 " pickets " — or, as we would say, sentries and sentry- 
 groups — in the woods and along the banks of Willoughby 
 Run. 
 
 The Gettysburg of 1863 was a small country town, with 
 streets laid out at right angles, dividing it into regular 
 " blocks." On the north side was an unfinished line of 
 railway. From the town straight, well-made roads ran in 
 various directions, so that it was a center for all the chief 
 lines of communication between the Susquehanna and the 
 Potomac. West of the town a low range of hills ran south- 
 wards from a prominent knoll known as Oak Hill. About 
 a mile and a half south of Oak Hill stood a massive build- 
 ing with a small cupola — the Lutheran Seminary — from 
 which the range is known in the records of the battle as 
 the " Seminary Ridge." It was covered throughout a great 
 part of its length with patches of open woods, easily tra- 
 versed by troops. South of the town, opposite the Seminary 
 Ridge, was a stony hill, on which was the cemetery of 
 Gettysburg, a walled inclosure with a large arched gate- 
 house. This height was known as " Cemetery Hill." It 
 formed the northern point of another range running south- 
 wards, and roughly parallel to the Seminary Ridge. This 
 second range is the " Cemetery Ridge " of the battle records. 
 At its southern end are two round craggy knolls rising 
 above it, known as " Round Top " and " Little Round Top." 
 At the back of Cemetery Ridge, on its east side, runs the 
 turnpike road from Gettysburg to Taneytown. Just south 
 of Cemetery Hill there is a depression in the ridge, through 
 which comes the road from Emmetsburg to join the " Taney- 
 town 'pike." The Emmetsburg road runs along a line of 
 rising ground branching from Cemetery Ridge. On the 
 east side of Cemetery Hill is Gulp's Hill, beyond which the 
 ground falls away in a succession of lower heights. On 
 all the hills there was a considerable amount of wood, and 
 the upper heights are broken and rocky in many places.
 
 90 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The valleys were pasture and agricultural land, with here 
 and there groups of farm buildings, mostly constructed of 
 wood. A glance at the map will help to make clear this 
 general description of the battle-field. 
 
 The first shots were fired about half past five on the 
 morning of Wednesday, July i. At sunrise Buford had 
 sent patrols forward across Willoughby Run. Presently 
 they fell back with the news that the enemy was approach- 
 ing by the Chambersburg pike. Then over the rising 
 ground in front came the leading files of the First Division 
 of Hill's Corps. They were received wth a crackle of rifle 
 fire from the pickets along the stream, and deployed a 
 skirmishing line which briskly replied. 
 
 As the firing line of the attack was steadily reinforced 
 Buford fell back to the slope east of the stream, and posted 
 his dismounted cavalry along fences and walls in good 
 cover, bringing a battery of horse artillery into action to 
 support them. He showed such a bold front, and his men 
 shot so well, that he was able to hold his own single-handed 
 for some hours. He had sent messengers back in hot haste 
 to hurry up Reynolds and the First Corps. They came 
 marching at their best towards Gettysburg town, urged 
 forward by the ever-increasing roar and rattle of the fight 
 away to their front. 
 
 It was nearly ten o'clock when Reynolds's first batteries 
 galloped up, and his sturdy infantry soon followed them. 
 By this time the enemy's line of guns was firing from the 
 ridge west of the stream ; four Confederate brigades were 
 in action along the front, and four more were close at hand. 
 Reynolds had come to Buford's help in the nick of time. 
 
 As one of his regiments, the Seventh Wisconsin, went 
 forward into the battle it was joined by a little man in a 
 blue swallow-tail coat with large brass buttons, wearing 
 a wide-awake hat, and with a long, old-fashioned rifle over 
 his shoulder. It was the farmer John Burns of Gettysburg,
 
 GETTYSBURG 91 
 
 come to " be even with the rebs . because they had driven 
 off his cows." The soldiers poked fun at him, thinking- " no 
 civihan in his senses would show himself in such a place." 
 One of them offered him a cartridge box ; but he slapped 
 his pocket, bulging with ammunition, and said he could get 
 on better without " those new-fangled things." All day old 
 Burns, despite his seventy years, kept his place in the firing 
 line, and limped home in the evening with a bullet through 
 his left foot, and two other wounds. His pluck deserves to 
 be remembered as proof that even a civilian who can shoot 
 may be useful in the day of battle. 
 
 The arrival of Reynolds's Corps did more than save 
 Buford. For a while it gave the Federals a decided ad- 
 vantage. Reynolds in person led a counter-attack through 
 the fields south of the Chambersburg road, and drove in the 
 enemy's right. But he was killed by a rifle bullet in the 
 actual firing line. His fall was a severe loss to the Federal 
 cause. 
 
 The Confederates, continually reinforced, began to gain 
 ground. Before noon General Howard arrived, and took 
 command of the hard-pressed Federals. The first troops of 
 the Eleventh Corps were now coming into action — the Ger- 
 man regiments eager to wipe out the memory of their 
 failure at Chancellorsville. But Howard soon became aware 
 that the enemy advancing from the westward was not the 
 only force with which he would have to deal. Strong- 
 columns of gray-clad troops were reported to be moving on 
 Gettysburg from the northward. It was the First Division 
 of Ewell's Corps that was about to come into action. 
 Howard placed part of the Eleventh Corps in position to 
 meet this new danger, extending his line to the right, and 
 turning it back in a long curve round the northwest of the 
 town. 
 
 Howard was now fighting a battle against ever-increas- 
 ing odds, to give time for Meade's army to close up, and so
 
 92 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 prepare the way for a fight on more even terms next day. 
 For three hours the Federals held on gallantly to the high 
 ground at the end of Seminary Ridge, and on the open 
 ground north of Gettysburg. In this stubborn contest, as 
 in so many of the battles of the War of Secession, both 
 sides endured losses heavier than the troops of any Euro- 
 pean army have stood up against since the sanguinary 
 battles of the Napoleonic wars. The tactics of the day did 
 not as yet recognize that the avoidance of loss was a seri- 
 ous part of the soldier's business. The fighting was not 
 between dispersed lines of skirmishers in open order, but 
 after the opening phase of the fight, the gray and blue in- 
 fantry standing in double ranks, shoulder to shoulder, fired 
 into each other at short ranges that made the old muzzle- 
 loader as deadly as the modern repeating rifle. Nowadays 
 field artillery is protected by steel shields, and quick spade 
 and pick work half buries the guns in improvised intrench- 
 ments. But in those days batteries took position in the open, 
 in full view of their antagonists. If dogged determination 
 and reckless disregard of loss could have won the battle, 
 Howard's men would have held their ground, but against 
 the numbers opposed to them after three in the afternoon 
 the position became hopeless. The Confederates were strong 
 enough to work round both the flanks of the Federal posi- 
 tion, and at last the word was given to retire, and the line 
 fell back fighting. Unfortunately for Howard, the way 
 for a considerable part of his force lay through the streets 
 of Gettysburg. As they struggled through the town large 
 numbers of prisoners were made by the victorious Con- 
 federates pressing upon them and cutting off the retreat of 
 those who failed to take a direct way. 
 
 But the Federals were not yet beaten. In good order 
 they took up a new position on the ground which was to be 
 held during the fierce struggle of the next two days — the 
 heights of Cemetery Hill, Gulp's Hill, and Cemetery Ridge.
 
 No. 6 — Battle of Gettysburg, July i, 1863, First Day 
 (Situation about 4 p. m., Federal retirement through the town beginning)
 
 GETTYSBURG 93 
 
 While Howard was re-forming his Hne on the new position, 
 with Buford's cavalry guarding his left, General Hancock 
 arrived. He had ridden forward far in advance of his 
 corps, and told Howard he had come to take command. " I 
 am the senior," replied Howard. " I know that," said 
 Hancock ; " but I have written orders from General Meade. 
 I will show them to you if you like." There was a moment 
 of dangerous friction. Howard, angered at being thus 
 superseded just when he expected to put a better complexion 
 on the day's fighting, said he did not want to see the orders. 
 " I don't doubt your word, general," he said ; " but you can 
 give no orders while I am here." Hancock saved the 
 situation by replying, " Very well, General Howard ; I will 
 second any order that you have to give," and added that 
 Meade had also directed him to select a position for the 
 coming battle. Then he went on to say that he thought 
 the ground on which they stood was the strongest position 
 he had yet seen for a defensive engagement. Howard 
 agreed, and Hancock ended the discussion with, " Very well, 
 sir; I select this as the battle-field." So the chance of war, 
 the accident by which Howard's troops had drifted to the 
 Cemetery Ridge, fixed the ground on which the decisive 
 action was to be fought out. 
 
 Lee had by this time reached Seminary Hill, and could 
 see for himself the position of afifairs. He was reluctant to 
 bring on a general engagement until Longstreet's Corps 
 had come up, and this force — one-third of his army — 
 would not be available till next day. He therefore ordered 
 Ewell and Hill not to press their advantage any further, 
 and though there was desultory fighting till near sundown, 
 all the serious work of the first day's battle was over. 
 
 Opinion is divided as to whether Lee judged rightly in 
 thus holding back his victorious corps commanders. It is 
 true that their men were fatigued with a long march and 
 many hours of fighting under a blazing sun, and they had
 
 94 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 lost heavily in the actual engagement. But, on the other 
 hand, the Federals, though not beaten, had been very roughly 
 handled, and had lost 5000 killed and wounded, and as 
 many prisoners, and two guns. The Confederates had the 
 feeling of success, and one effort more might have given 
 them possession of Gulp's and Cemetery hills, and so made 
 the whole Gettysburg position useless to the enemy. But it 
 is difficult to discuss satisfactorily the " might have beens " 
 of war. Howard and Hancock thought that if they had 
 been attacked seriously they could have held their ground, 
 especially as Hancock's Corps was coming on to the ridge, 
 where Meade himself arrived soon after dark. 
 
 Meade's army, according to the roll-call returns of 
 June 30, was over 90,000 strong. But at sundown on 
 July I, allowing for the heavy losses of the first day's 
 battle, and deducting troops still on their way to the field, 
 he cannot have had much more than 30,000 effective fight- 
 ing men on or close to the Gettysburg position. Some of 
 the expected reinforcements could not arrive till late next 
 day. Sedgwick's Corps, nearly 15,000 strong, and the 
 largest unit in the army, was thirty-four miles away. It 
 reached the position only at 4 p. m. on the second, wearied 
 with a march which, begun in the darkness, had been con- 
 tinued through the long hours of an exceptionally hot sum- 
 mer day. Two other corps had their first troops up a little 
 after 7 a. m., thanks to a forced march during the night. 
 
 Lee, owing to the unfortunate separation of Stuart's 
 cavalry from his army, had only very incomplete informa- 
 tion as to the general position of the Federals, but he knew 
 enough to feel sure that Meade was still concentrating. 
 Taking the whole fighting strength of the Confederates — 
 after allowing for losses and Stuart's absence — at between 
 60,000 and 70.000 men, he had on the evening of July i 
 close on 50,000 within striking distance. Of his three 
 corps, the Second (Ewell) and the Third (Hill) were
 
 GETTYSBURG 95 
 
 practically all present. Longstreet had ridden forward to 
 confer with him in the evening. His corps, the First, had 
 been marching towards the cannon all day. One division 
 was four miles from Lee's headquarters at sundown. An- 
 other came up to the same point shortly before midnight. 
 The reports of the divisional commanders make this certain. 
 Defending himself from the charge of being late in coming 
 into action next day, Longstreet stated in a subsequent 
 discussion that on the evening of July i his corps was nine- 
 teen or twenty miles from the field. This is true only of 
 its rearmost units. More than half the corps was within 
 two hours' march of the battle-field by midnight. 
 
 Longstreet, at the conference on the evening of the first 
 day, proposed to Lee that next day the Confederate army 
 should march round the enemy's left, passing across his 
 front without attacking. This movement would threaten to 
 cut Meade off from Washington, and probably force him to 
 retreat from the Gettysburg ridges without firing a shot. 
 This is true enough. Meade was so anxious about his left 
 that, early on the second, he directed his chief of the staff 
 to prepare the orders for a retreat in the event of its being 
 turned ; and Halleck from Washington had wired to him 
 expressing his anxiety about the left, and advising a prompt 
 retirement if it were seriously endangered. Lee saw the 
 force of Longstreet's argument, but nevertheless rejected 
 his plan. He saw no gain in merely manoeuvering Meade 
 out of his position. Campaigns are not decided by taking 
 possession of this or that bit of ground, but by smashing 
 up the opposing army, and Lee believed he had a fair chance 
 of destroying the Army of the Potomac. He felt himself 
 strong enough to act against both wings of the Federals, 
 but he meant the decisive attack to be driven home against 
 the center and left of the enemy on Cemetery Ridge. A 
 success on this side would break in upon the enemy's line 
 of retreat, and interpose the victorious Confederates be-
 
 96 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 tween the beaten army and its capital. The orders, there- 
 fore, were that Ewell on the left was to demonstrate against 
 the Federal right, about Gulp's Hill, turning the demonstra- 
 tion into a real attack if the enemy weakened that flank 
 to reinforce the center and left. Hill, in the center, was to 
 keep the enemy's center occupied. Longstreet was to drive 
 home the decisive attack against Cemetery Ridge. It was 
 important to act early on July 2, before the rearward corps 
 of the enemy could join him. 
 
 Nevertheless the attack was delayed till it was late in 
 the afternoon of the long summer day.. Hour after hour 
 Meade's position was growing stronger. Three corps of 
 the Federal army had begun their march during the night. 
 They plodded steadily forward in the darkness, and when 
 the sun rose it was soon striking with fierce heat upon their 
 backs as the dense columns of weary men tramped onward 
 mile after mile in clouds of stifling dust, listening for the 
 sounds of a far-off cannonade. Early in the day a whole 
 corps, and battery after battery of reserve artillery, reached 
 the front. They had expected to arrive in the midst of a 
 hard-fought battle ; but except for an occasional crackle 
 of rifle fire as a skirmish broke out on the opposing picket 
 lines, all was peaceful among the ridges and valleys south 
 of Gettysburg. Along the Federal position staff officers 
 were guiding troops to their ground, and working parties 
 were busy felling trees, digging rifle-pits, piling up rocks 
 and stones into rough breastworks. Along the north end 
 of Seminary Ridge, and on the ground between Gemetery 
 Hill and the town, masses of gray-clad infantry could be 
 seen among the trees, and rows of guns stood waiting in 
 silence for the signal to open fire. The attack had been 
 expected at dawn. Meade and his generals could not under- 
 stand the long respite allowed them to strengthen their 
 hold on the range of hills they had chosen for their battle- 
 ground.
 
 GETTYSBURG 97 
 
 The occupation of the position had not been carried out 
 precisely on the Hues which Meade had planned. Sickles, 
 with the Third Corps, had been directed to take post along 
 the southern part of Cemetery Ridge, with his extreme flank 
 on the Round Tops. But he did not like the position, and 
 took it upon himself to alter it. In front of the ridge the 
 ground fell away rapidly to the undulating valley, from 
 which it again rose to the long spur followed by the Em- 
 metsburg road. Sickles saw in this advanced elevation a 
 position that might soon be held by hostile artillery, and 
 thought that it would be better to have his own guns there, 
 even though the outlying ridge was somewhat lower than 
 the ground originally assigned to him. So he moved his 
 corps forward, its right being placed along the Emmets- 
 burg road, its left thrown back towards, but not reaching, 
 the Round Tops. There was a gap between his right and 
 the rest of the Federal line, and his left was dangerously 
 exposed. Meade did not like the arrangement, but did not 
 insist on its being changed. When the fighting began he 
 had seriously to weaken his center and right in order to 
 help Sickles to defend this advanced position, and to pro- 
 vide for the protection of its exposed flanks. 
 
 Just before the attack opened Sedgwick's Corps began to 
 arrive, weary with a forced march of more than thirty 
 miles, but fit and eager for battle. Meade had now all his 
 army in hand, and could face the coming struggle with an 
 easy mind. 
 
 And with the long delay Lee's best chance of victory 
 had vanished. To attack such a position, he should have 
 had superior numbers. He was now not quite equal in 
 strength to the defense. There should have been ample 
 time to have everything ready for the attack by 9 a. m. at 
 latest, but it was not till 3.30 p. m. that Longstreet's Corps 
 was at last in position on the Confederate right. It had 
 simply crawled to the ground assigned to it. Longstreet
 
 98 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 tried afterwards to throw the blame for the delay on Lee's 
 staff, alleging, amongst other reasons for it, that unneces- 
 sarily elaborate precautions were taken to keep the move- 
 ment of the troops out of sight of the Federal lines. But 
 the fault was his own. He showed a strange lack of energy, 
 an incomprehensible disregard of the value of time. He 
 waited needlessly for a belated brigade to join him. Can 
 it be that he felt chagrined at Lee's having rejected his 
 plan of operations, and so acted with a listless lack of 
 interest in the task allotted to him? 
 
 When at last Lee was satisfied that Longstreet was on or 
 near his part of the battle-ground, the Confederate batteries 
 on the left and center opened fire against Culp's and Ceme- 
 tery hills, and the Federal guns replied. Longstreet's 
 artillery carried on the cannonade to the right, and swarms 
 of gray-coated skirmishers began moving forward towards 
 the Emmetsburg road ridge. As the attack developed 
 rapidly on this side, Meade, realizing that it was the danger 
 point, sent orders to General Sykes, who was in reserve 
 behind his right, to move his corps (the Fifth) to the sup- 
 port of Sickles. Meade himself rode to the left to watch 
 the fight there more closely, and while personally directing, 
 the movement of reinforcements for the firing line had his 
 horse shot under him. 
 
 The right and left of Sickles's line met at a sharp angle 
 at the plantation known as the Peach Orchard on the out- 
 lying ridge. From this point his left was thrown back 
 towards Round Top. Longstreet's attack was hurled against 
 both faces of the salient thus formed in the Federal front. 
 General McLaws' Division against the right along the ridge, 
 General Hood's against the flank. The troops holding the 
 Peach Orchard were thus brought under a deadly cross-fire. 
 A projecting point in a battle line is always liable to become, 
 like the salient of a fortress, the focus of the assault. 
 Longstreet saw that to win the orchard was to clear the
 
 GETTYSBURG 99 
 
 Emmetsburg- road and break through Sickles's defense, shat- 
 tering the keystone of the arch. Regiment after regiment 
 was sent against it, and on the Federal side wave after wave 
 of reinforcements pressed forward to sustain the defense. 
 The ground on which this stubborn fight went on for two 
 hours of the summer evening is spoken of in records of 
 the battle as the " death angle," so terrible was the loss of 
 life. 
 
 At the outset of the attack Hood, on the extreme right 
 of the advance, had been informed by his scouts that Round 
 Top was occupied only by a post of Federal signalers. He 
 sent a message to Longstreet asking for permission to seize 
 it, and urging that by diverting the main force of the as- 
 sault in that direction the Federal position might be turned, 
 and a costly frontal attack avoided. Longstreet replied that 
 he had Lee's orders to make the frontal attack, and there- 
 fore could not entertain the suggestion. But the attraction 
 of the Round Tops was too much for the Confederates, and 
 a brigade dashed ofif to seize the hills. Sykes's Corps was 
 just then moving to reinforce the Federal left, and a brigade 
 was detached to secure the Round Tops. Federals and Con- 
 federates, advancing from opposite sides, raced each other 
 for the wooded knolls. The Federals won the race, and a 
 couple of batteries came up with them. The drivers trotted 
 their teams over the rocky ridges and through roadless 
 clumps of wood in a way that suggested disaster at each 
 moment, but the guns were got into position without acci- 
 dent, four of them well down the slope between the Round 
 Tops in the mass of rocks and boulders locally known as 
 the " Devil's Den." 
 
 The Confederates were now fighting their way forward 
 among rocks and bushes, eager to drive the Federals from 
 the broken ground and the wooded heights of the Round 
 Tops. It was a recklessly daring fight at close quarters. 
 Sometimes the bayonet was used, but mostly men shot at
 
 loo FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 each other at point-blank distance. Some took cover among 
 the boulders ; others, with mad disregard of danger, stood 
 erect upon them to get a temporary vantage-ground, though, 
 as often as not, these daring sharpshooters dropped at once, 
 riddled with bullets. The Devil's Den rocks were stormed, 
 and three guns were captured ; and then the attack, rein- 
 forced by Hood with fresh troops, began to fight its way 
 upwards through the woods of the steep hillsides. 
 
 Meanwhile, under the continual pressure of fresh assaults, 
 the defense of Peach Orchard gave way, and Sickles and 
 Sykes's Corps began to fall back from the advanced posi- 
 tion, still disputing every inch of ground. Sickles was 
 badly wounded, and there was heavy loss among his briga- 
 diers, colonels, and field officers — the result of the custom 
 of the time, when mounted officers used to remain on horse- 
 back even with a firing line. The mounted officer thus 
 became an easy target for aimed hostile fire. It was only 
 after the war of 1870 that it was recognized that for field 
 officers of infantry to remain mounted in close action was 
 uselessly to sacrifice valuable lives, and disorganize the 
 leadership of the battle. 
 
 Between the abandoned position along the Emmetsburg 
 road and the main line of Cemetery Ridge a swell of the 
 ground along a little brook afforded a position where the 
 retiring Federals made a stubborn stand till the sun went 
 down and darkness ended the day's fighting. In this last 
 phase of the struggle the Federal artillery played a splendid 
 part, batteries being pushed boldly forward to fire in the 
 faces of the advancing Confederates. At one dangerous 
 point a rush of the men in gray was stopped by a Massa- 
 chusetts battery remaining in action when everything else 
 to right and left had retired. Nearly half the gunners and 
 drivers, and 65 out of 80 horses, were shot down. The 
 guns had to be temporarily abandoned, but a heavy fire of 
 rifles and artillery prevented the Confederates from carry-
 
 ^MiCe. 
 
 mift. 
 
 No. 7 — Battle of Gettysburg, Second Day 
 
 (Position about 4.30 p. M.)
 
 GETTYSBURG loi 
 
 ing them off, and after nightfall they were rescued and 
 brought back to Cemetery Ridge. 
 
 Longstreet had thus driven the Federals from the Em- 
 metsburg road position, and his right attack had secured a 
 footing on the Round Tops. After dark the Federals had 
 withdrawn to the high ground of Cemetery Ridge from the 
 position where they had made their last stand in the valley. 
 The success of the Confederate right would doubtless have 
 been more complete if Ewell and the left had been more 
 active and more timely in their operations. Hill, in the 
 center, had no more to do than to engage the opposing 
 Federal center with a long-range fire of guns and rifles. 
 Late in the day he ventured on an infantry attack. Ewell 
 was to have made a false attack on the enemy's right, in 
 order to prevent Meade from withdrawing his reserves from 
 that flank to oppose Longstreet ; and the demonstration 
 was intended to be sufficiently active to enable Ewell to keep 
 in close touch with the enemy, and if he felt that the de- 
 fense was weakening, he was to turn the false attack into 
 a real assault on Culp's and Cemetery hills. Ewell's action 
 against those positions was, however, so obviously unreal 
 that Meade not only sent away Sykes's Corps to the right 
 to help Sickles and secure the Round Tops, but also stripped 
 Culp's Hill of all but a mere handful of defenders. It was 
 not till near sunset that Ewell realized that the force in his 
 front had been greatly reduced. This meant that he had 
 failed to do his work, and allowed those he should have 
 kept occupied to be diverted to the fight against Longstreet. 
 But it gave him a chance of still doing something, so, late 
 as it was, he attacked the two hills. Early's Division made 
 such a fierce attempt on Cemetery Hill that he nearly won 
 it. On the extreme flank Johnson's Division advanced in 
 the twilight against the eastern slopes of Culp's Hill. The 
 crest was held by a mere handful of defenders ; but though 
 they had to abandon the eastern end of the hill top, they held 

 
 102 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 on to its western end, thanks to solid breastworks of felled 
 trees, which they had been piling up all day. 
 
 When at last the firing ceased the situation was this : 
 The Federal left had been driven in upon the main position, 
 but that position, from Gulp's Hill on the north to the Round 
 Tops on the south, was intact, except where at each end the 
 Confederates had obtained a partial possession of the out- 
 lying hills. On Gulp's and on Round Top the men in blue 
 and the men in gray were close to each other in the dark- 
 ness of the woods. Both sides had lost heavily. Thousands 
 of dead and wounded strewed the hard-contested ground 
 in front of the Federal left. After dark on both sides many 
 prisoners were taken — men, who had been separated from 
 their comrades wandering into the hostile picket lines. Lee 
 counted the day's work a success, though an incomplete one. 
 But he could afiford less than his opponent the heavy toll 
 of life by which this success — such as it was — had been 
 bought. Meade, though anxious about his left, was also 
 well satisfied. At a council of war held late that evening in 
 the farm-house behind the Gemetery Ridge, which he had 
 made his headquarters, the only question discussed was 
 whether the Federals were to remain on the defensive next 
 day, or to attack the Gonfederate positions at sunrise. It 
 was decided to await another attack^ and to assume the 
 ofifensive only locally on the right, in order to clear the 
 Gon federates off from Gulp's Hill. 
 
 Lee received some important reinforcements in the early 
 hours of the third day : Stuart's cavalry had regained touch, 
 and Pickett's splendid division of Virginian infantry regi- 
 ments, which had till now been guarding the line of com- 
 munication, marched up to the front. The Gonfederate 
 commander made a complete change in his plans for the 
 day. The general idea of the attack was this. Ewell was 
 to press the advantage he had won at Gulp's Hill, in order 
 to compel Meade to reinforce his right. Meanwhile the
 
 GETTYSBURG 103 
 
 Confederate artillery would be massed in a long line from 
 Seminary Hill southwards to the Peach Orchard and the 
 ridge followed by the Emmetsburg road, the position cap- 
 tured by Longstreet the day before. After a heavy bom- 
 bardment of the Federal position on Cemetery Ridge, which 
 it was hoped would silence the enemy's batteries and severely 
 shake his infantry, a strong column of assault, the main 
 body of which would be formed of Pickett's 5000 fresh 
 troops, would be launched against the Federal center. 
 Stuart was to be in position on Ewell's extreme left, and 
 was to break in upon the rear of the Federal position, and 
 help to complete the destruction of the enemy after Pickett's 
 charge had forced him from the ridge. 
 
 Long before even the artillery preparations for the pro- 
 jected attack could begin, there was hard fighting on the 
 right of the Federal position, and Meade got in the first 
 blow. Ewell had reinforced Johnson with some of Early's 
 infantry, and in the twilight the Confederates were form- 
 ing on Culp's Hill to attack the works at its western end. 
 As the sun rose a storm of shells burst among them. Sev- 
 eral Federal batteries had been already placed in position 
 to take the attack in flank, and as the Confederates moved 
 forward through this fire two Federal brigades, instead of 
 awaiting the assault, dashed out to make a counter-attack. 
 For four hours the struggle went on at close quarters, 
 surging backwards and forwards in the woods as either 
 side threw new troops into the fighting line. At last the 
 Confederates were driven from the hill, all the ground they 
 had rushed the night before being recaptured. 
 
 Fighting continued on the Federal right for a consider- 
 able time after the recapture of the hill, Ewell's Corps 
 being in action on a prolonged curve that encircled the 
 enemy's flank. Stuart's effort to break in behind it proved 
 a failure, his ride round the Federal lines bringing him into 
 conflict with Gregg's cavalry division well to the rear.
 
 104 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Many of the cavalry actions of the War of Secession were 
 only rifle fights between lines of dismounted men, but in 
 the action of July 3 the opposing cavalry met each other 
 in more than one charge, resulting in a hand-to-hand melee 
 with saber and pistol. 
 
 Meade was strong enough in cavalry to guard his left 
 with Kilpatrick's Division, besides diverting Gregg to check 
 Stuart. Kilpatrick used his cavalry and horse artillery to 
 good purpose, threatening the Confederate right, and forc- 
 ing Hood to abandon any further attacks on the Round 
 Tops, and form a strong line facing south to protect the 
 flank of his own army. 
 
 But all these were the minor incidents of the day. Its 
 decisive episode was the battle in the center. General 
 Hunt, who commanded Meade's artillery, tells how during 
 the morning hours, while the battle was raging round Gulp's 
 Hill, he saw battery after battery coming into position along 
 the main front of the Gonfederates. The artillery of both 
 armies was made up partly of rifled, partly of smooth-bore 
 guns, and the distance between the Federal position on 
 Gemetery Ridge and the line of crests on which the hostile 
 batteries were being posted was not more than three-quarters 
 of a mile — a close and deadly range for the rifled guns ; 
 but artillery tactics were still influenced by the traditions of 
 smooth-bore days. By noon the Gonfederates had massed 
 140 guns in a long line. From the Federal position only 
 the guns were visible, waiting silently for the order to open 
 fire, while the gray infantry were kept out of sight in the 
 woods and behind the ridges. Hunt confesses that he was 
 in doubt as to what these preparations meant, and his first 
 impression was that Lee intended to use this long array of 
 cannon to play upon and hold in check the Federal center, 
 while he concentrated his infantry for a great attack on the 
 right, where fighting was already going on. He brought 
 up about 70 guns to oppose the hostile artillery, keeping
 
 GETTYSBURG 105 
 
 some batteries in reserve behind the Cemetery Ridge, to be 
 sent up to whatever point might ultimately be attacked. 
 
 Unseen from the Federal lines, Lee had massed behind 
 his guns the troops chosen for the infantry attack. That 
 morning there had again been a marked divergence of 
 opinion between the commander-in-chief and General 
 Longstreet. The latter had once more urged that an at- 
 tempt should be made to turn the enemy's left. But Lee 
 replied that he had decided to break through the center, 
 sending forward an assaulting force against the low crest 
 of Cemetery Ridge, near its junction with Cemetery Hill. 
 Pickett would lead the attack, and Longstreet would be 
 given two divisions of Hill's Corps — Pettigrew's and 
 Pender's — with which to support him. 
 
 Longstreet objected to the plan. " The three divisions," 
 he said, " will give me 15,000 men. I have been a soldier, 
 I may say, from the ranks up to the position I now hold. 
 I have been in pretty much all kinds of skirmishes, from 
 those of two or three soldiers up to those of an army corps, 
 and I think I may safely say that there never was a body 
 of 15,000 men who could make that attack successfully." 
 
 Lee declined to discuss the matter further, and Long- 
 street, discontented at this summary rejection of his view, 
 set to work to make his arrangements for carrying out a 
 plan which he expected to fail. It was unfortunate for Lee 
 that he had no longer for his right-hand man a soldier like 
 Jackson, who could put all his heart into any enterprise 
 assigned to him. 
 
 Pickett, unlike his immediate chief, was delighted at the 
 chance offered him, eager for action, confident of success. 
 His division was drawn up in three lines on the reverse 
 slope of the ridge. The two other divisions were on his 
 left ; they were to advance after him, in echelon — that is, 
 the right flank of each following up the left of that which 
 preceded it. The order to attack would be given as soon
 
 io6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 as the Confederate guns had bombarded the enemy's posi- 
 tion and silenced or produced some effect on his batteries. 
 
 To Colonel Alexander, commanding a group of batteries 
 of the First Corps, Longstreet committed the general direc- 
 tion of the artillery engagement. Alexander was not a little 
 anxious about his task. There had already been two days 
 of fighting, and the ammunition supplies for the guns were 
 running low. Unless the enemy were soon silenced the 
 bombardment could not be continued. But so far as he 
 could ascertain, his own guns outnumbered those opposed 
 to them nearly two to one, and this was a hopeful element 
 in the situation. The signal for beginning the cannonade 
 was to be the firing of two guns by Longstreet's orders, as 
 soon as the infantry were ready. 
 
 Though there had been firing going on for hours to right 
 and left, as yet not a shot had been fired in the center. 
 At one o'clock the two signal guns rang out, and immedi- 
 ately the Confederate batteries opened fire. Some 70 guns 
 replied from the opposite ridge. Dense clouds of smoke 
 soon covered the ridges, and it was difficult for the gunners 
 to see their targets. General Hunt, the Federal artillery 
 commander, rode down the back of Cemetery Ridge to 
 bring up his reserve batteries from the place where he had 
 posted them on the Taneytown road. When he arrived 
 there he found a number of dead horses and exploded am- 
 munition wagons. He had some difficulty in finding the 
 batteries, for almost the first shells fired by the Confederates 
 had flown over the ridge, burst among them, and done ter- 
 rible damage, and they had shifted their position. After 
 ordering them up to the ridge, he rode towards Meade's 
 headquarters at the farm, hoping to find there a staff officer 
 who would take a message to the general. The farm was 
 deserted. Dead horses lay in front of it, and the house 
 had been struck by shells, some of which burst around it 
 while Hunt was paying big htirrjed visit. He then realized
 
 GETTYSBURG 107 
 
 to his satisfaction that the fire of many of the enemy's bat- 
 teries must be too high. The Confederate shells were flying 
 in scores well above the crest of the ridge, and bursting 
 harmlessly far behind it. 
 
 Returning to the crest, he found that though some of the 
 batteries were suffering considerable loss, the infantry 
 lying down on the reverse slope or sheltered behind natural 
 cover or improvised breastworks were fairly safe. He 
 knew that he was outnumbered seriously in guns, and in 
 the dense smoke it was difficult to control the fire of those 
 he had. There was no sign of increased activity on the 
 enemy's part on either wing, and it looked as if the can- 
 nonade were the prelude to an infantry attack on the center. 
 He decided to draw the attack, economize ammunition, and 
 be ready to turn his guns on the assaulting columns when 
 they advanced. He therefore ordered several batteries to 
 withdraw temporarily over the ridge, and the rest to slacken 
 their fire. He had hardly given the order when he received 
 directions from Meade to the same effect. 
 
 As to what was passing on the Confederate side there 
 are very full details available.^ Some of these are of special 
 interest, as showing the difficulties of command at a critical 
 moment. Longstreet was inclined to hesitate. Before giv- 
 ing the order for the firing of the signal guns he had sent 
 a note to Colonel Alexander in which he said : 
 
 " If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the 
 enemy or greatly demoralize him, so as to make our efforts pretty 
 certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General Pickett 
 to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your good judg- 
 ment to determine the point, and shall expect you to let General 
 Pickett know when the moment offers." 
 
 This note rather startled the artillery commander. To 
 carry out the attack on Lee and Longstreet's responsibility 
 
 * See the numerous narratives in " Battles and Leaders of the 
 Civil War," vol. iii.
 
 io8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 was one thing; to be asked to decide if and when it should 
 be made was a more serious business. So he wrote to 
 Longstreet : 
 
 " General, I will only be able to judge of the effect of our fire on 
 the enemy by his return fire; for his infantry is but little exposed 
 to view, and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer 
 from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be 
 carefully considered before opening our fire; for it will take all the 
 artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and 
 if the result is unfavorable, we will have none left for another effort. 
 And even if this is entirely successful, it can only be so at a bloody 
 cost." 
 
 The reply was a definite order to open fire and launch 
 the charge as soon as there were signs that the cannonade 
 was effective. General Wright, one of Hill's brigadiers, 
 was beside Alexander when the order came. Pointing 
 across the valley, he said to the gunner officer, " It is not 
 so hard to go there as it looks. I was nearly there with 
 my brigade yesterday. The trouble is to stay there; the 
 whole Yankee army is there in a bunch." 
 
 When the Confederate artillery opened, all the enemy's 
 line from Cemetery Hill down to Round Top blazed out 
 in reply ; and the reply was effective. Men fell fast around 
 the Confederate guns. Infantry soldiers had to be requisi- 
 tioned to help in serving them. It was not easy to make 
 out what was happening on the other side of the valley but 
 there was the natural disposition to conclude that the Fed- 
 erals were suffering at least as heavily. Alexander tells 
 how the sudden diminution of their fire led him to give 
 the decisive order: 
 
 " Before the cannonade opened I had made up my mind to give 
 Pickett the order to advance within fifteen or twenty minutes after it 
 began. But when I looked at the full development of the enemy's 
 batteries, and knew that his infantry was generally protected from 
 our fire by stone walls and swells of the ground, I could not bring
 
 GETTYSBURG 109 
 
 myself to give the word. It seemed madness to launch infantry into 
 that fire, with nearly three-quarters of a mile to go under a July 
 sun. I let the fifteen minutes pass, and twenty and twenty-five, hop- 
 ing vainly for somethiiig to turn up. Then I wrote to Pickett: ' If 
 you are coming at all, you must come at once, or I cannot give you 
 proper support; but the enemy's fire has not slackened at all, at 
 least 18 guns are still firing from the cemetery itself.' Five minutes 
 after sending that message the enemy's fire suddenly began to 
 slacken, and the guns in the cemetery limbered up and vacated the 
 position. We Confederates often did such things as that to save 
 our ammunition for use against infantry, but I had never before 
 seen the Federals withdraw their guns simply to save them up for 
 the infantry fight. So I said, ' If he does not run in fresh batteries 
 there for five minutes this is our fight.' I looked anxiously with my 
 glass, and the five minutes passed without a sign of life on the de- 
 serted position, still swept by our fire and littered with dead men 
 and horses and fragments of disabled carriages. Then I wrote 
 Pickett urgently : ' For God's sake come quick. The 18 guns are 
 gone. Come quick, or my ammunition won't let me support you 
 properly.' " 
 
 Pickett passed the word to prepare to advance, rode over 
 to Longstreet, saluted, and told him, " I am going to move 
 forward, sir," and then galloped to the head of his division. 
 The gray lines went splendidly onward up the reverse slope 
 and across the crest of the Seminary Ridge, topped with 
 row on row of glittering bayonets. As they came up 
 through the scattered wood of the crest, Longstreet gal- 
 loped to Alexander's position. It was just 1.40 p. m., forty 
 minutes since the signal guns were fired. 
 
 Alexander told the general he thought the outlook was 
 now more hopeful, but he was anxious about the shortness 
 of his ammunition. " Then stop Pickett," said Longstreet, 
 " and replenish your ammunition." Alexander replied that 
 to cease fire would be to allow the enemy to recover, and 
 that very few shells could be got from the reserve. To 
 hold back now was to lose the battle. " I don't want to 
 make this attack," said Longstreet. " I would stop it now 
 but that General Lee ordered it, and expects it to go on. 
 I don't see how it can succeed." Ominous words from a
 
 no FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 general in command. If he had believed in success, he 
 might perhaps have supported the attempt more vigorously. 
 
 Pickett's Virginians were now marching through the 
 intervals of the batteries, which ceased fire just there to 
 let them pass, while right and left the cannonade continued. 
 One of the brigadiers. General Garnett, saluted Longstreet 
 and exchanged a friendly word with Alexander as he 
 passed. Garnett was muffled in an old blue overcoat, though 
 the July sun was blazing at its hottest. He had risen from 
 his bed in a fever hospital to take his brigade into action, 
 and he was going to his death. 
 
 As the division went down the slope of the ridge, march- 
 ing with the ordered precision of a state review, with the 
 supporting troops coming over the crest to its left rear, 
 every gun on the Federal side reopened fire, and the three 
 batteries which had left the cemetery galloped back to the 
 front, unlimbered, and joined in. A storm of shell burst 
 over and amongst the gray lines. Horrible gaps were blown 
 in them, but the men closed up and went on. The Con- 
 federate batteries were now firing over their heads, but 
 the Federals fired not a shot at the hostile artillery, but 
 devoted all their energies to the destruction of the advanc- 
 ing infantry. 
 
 Alexander selected three batteries that still had a fair 
 supply of ammunition left, limbered them up, and moved 
 down the slope to Pickett's right rear, intending to help 
 him by coming into action at closer quarters. The guns 
 passed over ground thickly strewn with fallen men. Alex- 
 ander noticed among them one poor fellow, who raised him- 
 self on his elbow and looked at the gunners with a ghastly 
 face, from which a shell burst had swept the jaws away. 
 
 The advance had now crossed half the intervening 
 ground, and as it came within range of the enemy's in- 
 fantry a roar of rifle fire burst out all along the opposite 
 ridge. A brigade of Federals swung forward to take Pickett
 
 GETTYSBURG iii 
 
 in flank with a fire from the right. Alexander halted his 
 guns and opened on this part of the enemy's line. 
 
 Pickett's men were now going up the front of Cemetery 
 Ridge. They seemed to be moving with an impulse that 
 no destruction could stop or even delay. To their left the 
 supporting divisions were advancing as steadily, regard- 
 less of loss, though they were not so severely tried as the 
 leading division, which drew the heaviest fire. Crossing 
 the fences of the Emmetsburg road, the formation of 
 Pickett's Division became somewhat disordered. The three 
 lines seemed to close into one great mass, a sea of bayonets, 
 above which rose the battle flags. Through the showers 
 of bullets and the screaming rush of shells the crowd of 
 men surged up to Cemetery Ridge, their charging yell ring- 
 ing out above the din of the fight. To those who watched 
 eagerly from the opposite side of the valley, the gray mass 
 seemed to be suddenly swallowed up in the dense smoke 
 clouds that hung low upon the ridge. 
 
 They were in amongst the Federal guns. Teams and 
 limbers galloped to the rear, and as the charge burst through 
 the line of artillery it seemed for a moment that the fight 
 would be won by the men in gray. But they met face to 
 face unbroken lines of infantry, to whom fresh supports 
 were coming up at the double. An enfilading fire of guns 
 and rifles tore their flank. Volley on volley flashed in their 
 faces. Some fired back in reply, others struggled on till 
 bayonet met bayonet. 
 
 To their left, Pettigrew's Division had pushed up to 
 Cemetery Hill, protecting them effectually on that flank. 
 The division was made up of four brigades from Vir- 
 ginia, Tennessee, Mississippi, and North Carolina. Unlike 
 Pickett's men, they had been in action all the day before, 
 and had lost heavily. Their share in the charge is some- 
 times overlooked, so much has attention been riveted on the 
 gallantry of the leading division. But Pettigrew's men
 
 112 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 nearly succeeded. The Tennessee regiments actually forced 
 their way over the low wall of the cemetery, and fought 
 hand to hand with its garrison. The Second Mississippi 
 also crossed bayonets with the Federals, and lost half its 
 force in the fight. 
 
 The decisive struggle on the crest of the ridge did not 
 last long. Presently out of the smoke the fragments of 
 Pickett's Brigade were seen retiring. The young general 
 was still in the saddle, rallying the broken, confused mass 
 of beaten men, but his three brigadiers were all down. On 
 his flank Pettigrew was forced back. Badly wounded, he 
 still rode among his men. The retiring Confederates were 
 fired on from every gun and rifle within range, and suffered 
 heavily as they recrossed the valley. Some hundreds, who 
 had broken into the Federal lines and been cut off from 
 their comrades, were made prisoners. 
 
 The great effort had failed. General Lee left his staff 
 and rode to meet Pickett's men as they came back into the 
 Confederate lines. It is likely that he had come to this part 
 of the position expecting that the Federals would at once 
 attack. He knew the battle was lost, but he was calm and 
 alert. To the retiring men he said : " It is not your fault. 
 We must try and do our best with what is left." His 
 kindly nature and his complete self-command were shown 
 by his checking a staff officer who spurred a tired horse. 
 A British officer present as a spectator. Colonel Fremantle 
 of the Cold Stream Guards, was struck by the bearing of 
 the defeated men. " There was," he wrote, " much less 
 noise, fuss^ or confusion of orders than at any ordinary 
 field-day ; the men as they were rallied in the woods were 
 brought up in detachments, and lay down quietly and coolly 
 in the positions assigned to them." 
 
 After the repulse of the great charge the firing gradually 
 ceased on both sides, and the three days' battle was over. 
 On the Confederate side there was a general expectation
 
 3M^ 
 
 No. 8 — Battle of Gettysburg, Third Day 
 (The crisis of the day, Pickett's charge)
 
 GETTYSBURG 113 
 
 that Meade would follow up the repulse of Pickett by an 
 advance against Seminary Ridge ; but the victors were 
 themselves exhausted, and not knowing how short of am- 
 munition their opponents were, did not regard an attack 
 in the face of the 140 guns on the ridge as practicable. 
 Longstreet afterwards said that he could certainly have re- 
 pelled such an attack. " I had Hood and McLaws' divi- 
 sions, which had not been engaged ; I had a heavy force 
 of artillery, and I have no doubt I should have given those 
 who tried as bad a reception as Pickett received." As a 
 matter of fact, part of Hood's Division had been in action 
 against Kilpatrick's cavalry, but Longstreet had several 
 brigades that did not fire a shot. Had he thrown these 
 forward on Pickett's right, it would have kept the Federal 
 left busy, and saved Pickett from the enfilading fire that 
 tore his flank. Many who watched the charge believed that 
 but for this it would have succeeded. There is no doubt 
 that Lee fully expected Longstreet to use every available 
 man to support the attack, on which everything was staked, 
 but with his chivalrous generosity he never blamed his sub- 
 ordinate. On the contrary, after the battle he told him that 
 perhaps if he had accepted his plan for turning the enemy's 
 left all might have been well. Yet he must have been 
 thinking of Longstreet 's halting support when he said years 
 after that if he had had Jackson at Gettysburg he might 
 have marched into Washington. 
 
 The losses of the three days' battle amounted to 19,000 
 killed and wounded on the Federal side, and 18,000 on that 
 of the Confederates, or 24 per cent of the forces engaged, 
 nearly one man in every four. A large number of gen- 
 erals and field officers were among the casualties. 
 
 Meade had fought a strictly defensive battle and fought 
 it well with excellent cooperation among his corps com- 
 manders. r)Ut even after it was plain that he was the 
 victor he made no attempt to attack the Confederate lines.
 
 114 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 though Lee's right still held ground it had won on the 
 second day. All through July 4 the Confederates remained 
 on the position, busily intrenching every yard of the front, 
 and expecting an attack from hour to hour. Meanwhile the 
 baggage trains and long convoys of wounded had been sent 
 to the rear. Then Lee made a masterly retreat through the 
 passes of the Cumberland valley and across the Potomac, 
 offering battle to Meade on the bank of the river, but in 
 such a strongly-prepared position that he did not venture 
 to attack. 
 
 During the retreat news came that Vicksburg had fallen. 
 It was a dark hour for the Confederacy. The North was 
 exultant. The news that Victory had crowned the three 
 days' struggle round Gettysburg reached Washington, New 
 York, and the other great centers on the Fourth of July, 
 and made the national festival a day of wild rejoicing, 
 dimmed only by the terrible tidings of the loss by which 
 success had been bought. 
 
 Lee had displayed all his old mastery of war in the re- 
 treat. Li the battle he had been badly served by some of 
 his subordinates, and his staff had failed to secure due 
 cooperation between the various attacks. The final effort 
 had failed for want of a sufficient artillery preparation, and 
 for the lack of support. It had for a moment been near 
 success, even in the face of the splendidly organized defense 
 with which Meade and Hancock met it. That Pickett's 
 charge ever reached the Federal lines is a marvel. Seven 
 years later, a similar effort of the German Guards on the 
 field of Gravelotte failed even more disastrously, and only 
 then was it recognized that in the face of modern weapons 
 the great massed infantry charge across a wide stretch of 
 fire-swept ground had become an impossibility. 
 
 The field of Gettysburg is now a national possession of 
 the great American Republic. On every hard-contested hill- 
 side monuments to the fallen leaders and the regiments that
 
 GETTYSBURG 115 
 
 played a foremost part in the strife mark out the stages of 
 the battle. The graves of the dead are lovingly guarded, 
 and are decked with flowers as the anniversary comes round. 
 North and South alike honor the men who fought so well 
 and died so fearlessly. The memory of their valor has 
 become part of the common heritage of a happily united 
 people.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SADOWA 
 July 3, 1866 
 
 For seven years after Solferino, and especially during 
 the first part of this period, there was a general disposition 
 to acknowledge that France was the first military power of 
 the European Continent. Napoleon III was occupied with 
 schemes of colonial expansion in Africa and Asia, and an 
 unfortunate attempt at empire-making in Mexico. But the 
 Chauvinist or Jingo school of French politicians dreamed 
 of further military exploits in Europe, and in the French 
 schools it was part of the official teaching that the Rhine 
 from Basel to the sea was the " natural frontier " of France. 
 Sooner or later, it was said, the emperor would try to re- 
 duce this theory to practice. 
 
 Germany was a confederation of more than fifty states 
 — kingdoms, grand-duchies, duchies, principalities, free 
 cities — with Austria and Prussia as permanent rivals for 
 the control of the Federal Diet that met at Frankfort-on- 
 the-Main. Prussia counted among the second-rate military 
 powers, and no one in the early sixties foresaw the great 
 changes that were so soon to make the Prussian king the 
 most formidable rival of the French emperor. 
 
 King William I came to the throne in 1861, after having 
 for a few years governed Prussia as regent during the long 
 illness of his predecessor. Born in 1797, he had entered 
 the Prussian army in the year after Jena, and served as 
 a young officer in the campaign of France against Napo- 
 leon I in 18 14. When he came to the throne, he began at
 
 SADOWA 117 
 
 once to prepare for the double task of making Prussia 
 supreme in Germany, and then using the power of united 
 Germany to put an end to the French menace on the 
 Rhine. 
 
 He had for his chief helpers in this twofold task three 
 remarkable men — his Prime Minister, Von Bismarck, the 
 Minister of War, Von Roon, and the Chief of the Staff, 
 Von Moltke. A reorganization and increase of the army 
 was carried into effect in defiance of the Prussian Parlia- 
 ment, which refused to vote the necessary supplies. Then 
 an alliance with Austria was formed to enforce the historic 
 claim that the Danish duchies of Schleswig and Holstein 
 belonged to the German Confederation. The Danish War 
 of 1864 ended with a joint occupation of the duchies by 
 Austrian and Prussian troops ; but from the first there was 
 tension between the Allies, and within two years Bismarck 
 had formed an alliance with the new kingdom of Italy 
 against Austria, and at the same time put forward claims 
 for Prussia in the Frankfort Diet and in the negotiations 
 as to the settlement of the duchies that challenged the old 
 predominance of the Hapsburgs in Germany. 
 
 The quarrel came to a head in the early summer of 1866. 
 Most of the minor states of Germany ranged themselves on 
 the side of Austria at the outbreak of the war, and the 
 general impression was that Bismarck and King William 
 were risking a disaster for Prussia that might prove as fatal 
 as that of Jena. It was anticipated that in any case there 
 would be a prolonged struggle, and the French emperor, 
 watching the conflict, was prepared to intervene if the op- 
 portunity offered, and claim compensation on the Rhine 
 for any increase of territory obtained by the victor, who- 
 ever that might be. 
 
 The war lasted only seven weeks. It was a surprise and 
 a revelation to all Europe. Its lessons led to radical changes 
 in the war methods and the peace organization of every
 
 ii8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 army on the Continent. Sadowa, the crowning victory of 
 the Prussian arms, was an epoch-mal^ng battle. 
 
 After Jena the first Napoleon had tried to cripple the 
 military power of Prussia by embodying in the treaty of 
 peace a clause limiting the Prussian army to 42,000 men. 
 Hitherto, long service had been the rule of European armies. 
 But Schnarnhorst and Gneisenau, who reorganized the Prus- 
 sian army after Jena, adopted a system of short service in 
 order to pass as many men as possible through the ranks, 
 and form a reserve of trained soldiers. By this method, 
 when the national uprising against Napoleon came in 1813; 
 Prussia was able at once to put more than 100,000 men in 
 the field. This system of using the peace army as a train- 
 ing school for a huge reserve, and expanding it into a large 
 war army on the approach of hostilities, became the basis of 
 the Prussian military organization. To this was added the 
 plan of permanently localizing every regiment, brigade, 
 division, and army corps, so that the men of a town, village, 
 or district fought side by side in war, under the leaders who 
 had trained them in peace. This system of a small standing 
 army and a large reserve was economical. It enabled a 
 comparatively poor state like Prussia to provide an excellent 
 armament and equipment for a large war army. The in- 
 fantry was armed with a breech-loading rifle in 1855, before 
 any other government had ventured on such a change. 
 Under King William the Krupp factories began to provide 
 the artillery with rifled breech-loading cannon. But most 
 important of all was the work of the general staff, organized 
 and trained by Von Moltke. Its business was not only to 
 collect intelligence and prepare plans of operations well in 
 advance of any possible conflict, but also to direct the train- 
 ing of the troops and their leaders, and to inspire the whole 
 army with a common ideal as to the methods to be followed 
 in war. Individual initiative was encouraged. Generals 
 were taught that they must take the responsibility of acting
 
 SADOWA 119 
 
 for themselves without waiting for detailed orders, and the 
 orders issued by Von Moltke in war were always of the 
 briefest — a short note on the situation, an indication of the 
 object in view, directions to the corps commanders as to 
 their line of advance ; it was left to each in his own sphere 
 to work out the details. 
 
 The tactical methods taught to the troops were eminently 
 practical. The infantry fought on a system that united 
 some of the advantages of line and column. The battalion 
 was divided into four strong companies, each of about 240 
 rifles, and the company was again divided into three aiigs 
 or sections. The normal formation was the line of company 
 columns, each with its three sections formed two deep, one 
 behind the other, and spaced out so that there was room 
 for the whole to deploy into line. On going into action the 
 leading section was thrown out as skirmishers. But until 
 the second stage of the war of 1870 the massed column of 
 the Napoleonic wars was still employed to drive home a 
 decisive attack. 
 
 Few had marked the efficient methods of the Prussian 
 army in the short war of 1864, which saw no great battles, 
 and was chiefly remarkable for the prolonged siege and 
 successful assault of the fortified Danish position of Diippel. 
 The war of 1866 was the first trial of the reorganized Prus- 
 sian army in a really important campaign. 
 
 Hanover, Saxony, and the South German States had 
 thrown in their lot with Austria. Prussia had on her side 
 some of the minor states of the north, and they added some- 
 thing to her fighting strength, but the 350,000 men detailed 
 for her field armies were nearly all her own people. The 
 Italian alliance would force Austria to keep a considerable 
 army in the south for the defense of Venetia. Moltke's 
 estimates of the forces to be opposed to Prussia proved to 
 be very correct. He calculated that after allowing 150,000 
 men for the army in Italy under the Archduke Albert, the
 
 120 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Austrian Army of the North, which would immediately be 
 joined by the Saxons, would (including these) number 
 nearly 300,000 men. Besides these the Hanoverians and 
 South Germans would have to be reckoned with. They 
 would put 120,000 men in the field. The odds were against 
 Prussia ; but her enemies were divided. Except the Saxons, 
 the allies of Austria were thinking only of a piecemeal de- 
 fense of their own territories. This enabled Moltke to 
 content himself with detaching an army of 50,000 men under 
 General Vogel von Falkenstein to deal with them. It was 
 obvious that the whole fortune of the war would turn on 
 the operations against the main Austrian army. Against 
 this, therefore, he directed every man and gun he could 
 spare. 
 
 Three Prussian armies were concentrated along the fron- 
 tiers of Saxony and Austria by the beginning of June. In 
 the center, about Gorlitz, was the First Army, 120,000 
 strong, under Prince Frederick Charles. On the right was 
 the Elbe Army, 50,000 men, under General Herwarth von 
 Bittenfeld. These threatened Saxony, and interposed be- 
 tween the Austrians and the shortest way to Berlin from 
 Bohemia. On the left was the Second Army, 130,000 strong, 
 under the Crown Prince of Prussia (afterwards the Em- 
 peror Frederick). These were assembled about Neisse, in 
 Silesia, ready to meet a move across the frontier from 
 Moravia, where the Austrian Army of the North was con- 
 centrating. These three Prussian armies altogether num- 
 bered about 300,000 men. 
 
 The king was to command this great army, with Moltke 
 as his chief of the staff and the real inspirer of every move- 
 ment. Till the end of June, though many battles were 
 fought, the headquarters were at Berlin. Moltke, from his 
 room in the War Office, sent his orders by telegraph, and 
 moved the colored pins on his large scale maps, like a chess- 
 player engaged in a game by correspondence. It was only
 
 SADOWA 121 
 
 when the great crisis was near at hand that he went to the 
 front with the king. 
 
 The Austrian emperor had given the command of the 
 northern army to Marshal Benedek. The choice was due 
 to his splendid fight at San Martino on the day of Solferino. 
 At first he refused the position, and asked for a mere corps 
 command. "I am no tactician," he said to the emperor; 
 " choose some one else." But Francis Joseph insisted, and 
 Benedek gave way. He established his headquarters at 
 Olmutz, in Moravia, where an army of more than a quar- 
 ter of a million men was assembling. Meanwhile Bohemia 
 was held by the First Army Corps and a cavalry division. 
 
 The Austrians had not completed their preparations when 
 the war began on June i6. Moltke's plan was to unite his 
 three armies on Austrian territory in Bohemia, after over- 
 running Saxony. If the Austrians had been ready and 
 enterprising, it would have meant taking the risk of being 
 beaten in detail, but he knew they were unready and slow. 
 Dresden was occupied by the Elbe Army without resistance, 
 the Saxons retiring into Bohemia. As the Elbe Army and 
 the armies of Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince ad- 
 vanced over the mountains into Bohemia, they fought sev- 
 eral battles with Austrian and Saxon detachments, which 
 were too weak to ofifer very serious opposition. 
 
 On June 30 King William and Moltke left Berlin for 
 Bohemia. Bismarck went with them, and wrote to his wife 
 that during the day'^ journey to the front he saw more 
 Saxon and Austrian prisoners than Prussian soldiers. The 
 situation on June 30 was briefly this : Benedek had brought 
 up his army from Olmutz to the crossings of the Elbe 
 between the fortresses of Josefstadt and Koniggratz, and 
 had passed the rivef. Immediately to the west of him lay 
 the First Prussian Army, with the Army of the Elbe close 
 behind it. To the northward, on the upper Elbe, was the 
 Crown Prince, with the Second Army. There was a critical
 
 122 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 moment when Benedek, if he had been quicker in his deci- 
 sions and movements, might have thrown all his force 
 against the Crown Prince; but he had formed a bad plan 
 of campaign, and his advance across the Elbe had been 
 undertaken with a view to holding the Crown Prince with 
 his right wing, and throwing the rest of his army against 
 Frederick Charles. He was choosing to strike at the more 
 distant instead of the nearer enemy. On the evening of 
 the twenty-ninth he realized his mistake, and next day be- 
 gan to concentrate to the rear, drawing in his most ad- 
 vanced troops and marching back towards the Elbe. He 
 had given up the idea of attack, and was deliberating as 
 to the ground on which he would fight a defensive action. 
 
 Moltke, on his arrival at Gitschin on July i, brought the 
 Elbe Army up into line on the right of the First Army, and 
 began closing up the united force towards Miletin, to bring 
 it nearer to the Crown Prince, who was crossing the upper 
 Elbe on the Austrian right. Wherever touch was obtained 
 with the enemy, the Austrians were seen to be retiring to 
 the eastward. The view adopted at the Prussian head- 
 quarters, and under the impression of which Moltke's first 
 orders for July 3 were written, was that Benedek meant 
 to recross the Elbe and fight a battle in a strong position 
 on its eastern bank, with the river covering his front, and 
 the fortresses of Josefstadt and Koniggratz on his right 
 and left. 
 
 King William had gone to bed in his hotel at Gitschin 
 on the evening of July i, when Moltke came to his room 
 with news that altered all the plans for next day. A mes- 
 sage had come from Prince Frederick Charles, whose head- 
 quarters were some miles to the eastward. It was a letter 
 inclosing the report of a daring cavalr'y officer who, late in 
 the day, had managed to take a close look at the hills that 
 rose on the farther side of the Bistritz River, and across 
 which ran the main road from Gitschin by Sadowa to
 
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 SADOWA 123 
 
 Koniggratz. It was known earlier in the day that there 
 were Austrian troops on these hills, but they were supposed 
 to be only a weak rearguard, covering Benedek's retirement 
 across the Elbe. But the cavalry scout had made a ride 
 along the farther bank of the Bistritz. He had been more 
 than once fired on, and had finally been chased by Austrian 
 lancers, and escaped by a hairbreadth. But he had seen 
 enough to be sure that it was no mere rearguard that held 
 the hills. Along miles of front he had found signs of the 
 enemy's presence in force, and in several places intrench- 
 ments were being thrown up and trees felled. Evidently 
 Benedek meant to fight with his front to the Bistritz, and 
 the Elbe and its twin fortresses behind him. The next 
 day's march of the Prussian army would mean a colossal 
 battle in its first hours. 
 
 New orders were hastily written, and sent off to the 
 Crown Prince to insure his early cooperation against the 
 Austrian right. Benedek, with his Austrians and Saxons, 
 was between the two Prussian armies ; but there was no 
 danger in this, for they were near enough to insure their 
 junction on the actual battle-field. It was, in fact, a gain 
 that the Crown Prince's army, instead of being in line with 
 that under the immediate command of the king, was already 
 in position to throw all its weight against a flank of the 
 enemy. 
 
 The ground on which Benedek had decided to risk the 
 ordeal of battle was well chosen. It was no disadvantage 
 that he had a broad river four miles in his rear, for it was 
 crossed by good bridges, and protected by the guns of two 
 fortresses, and in case of disaster would secure his retreat. 
 The line of hills ran generally from south to north, sloping 
 gently to the valley in which flows the little river Bistritz, 
 a sluggish stream with stretches of marsh along its course, 
 so that in many places troops cannot pass it. Along the 
 stream are a number of villages built of wood, the most im-
 
 124 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 portant of which, Sadowa, gives its name to the battle.^ 
 From the bridge of Sadowa the road to Koniggratz runs 
 over the hills, passing through a dip below their highest 
 point, which is crowned by the village of Chlum, whose 
 square church tower looks out over the battle-field as the 
 Spia tower looked on that of Solferino. The hills rise and 
 fall into knolls and hollows, and there are numerous villages, 
 farmsteads, and fine country houses. The hedgerows and 
 inclosures give it an almost English look. In July there 
 are wide stretches of growing corn in the open fields ; but 
 there are also numerous fir and pine woods, especially at 
 the southern end of the position. Shelter trenches and gun- 
 pits had been dug, and trees felled to form barriers across 
 the roads and on the slopes. Some of the lessons of the 
 American War had been taken to heart by the Austrians. 
 Along about eight miles of front Benedek had set in 
 battle array an army of 215,000 men, including 770 guns 
 and nearly 24,000 cavalry. It was an army of many nations 
 and languages, for the Emperor of Austria rules a polyglot 
 empire. On the extreme left among the wooded hills were 
 the Saxon allies, 23,000 strong, under their Crown Prince. 
 Then northwards stretched the white-coated Austrian lines, 
 with here and there a dark green uniformed detachment of 
 Tyrolese rifles. In that long array there were German- 
 speaking Austrians, Czechs of Bohemia, Poles, Croats and 
 Slavs of the south, Italian-speaking recruits from the 
 Adriatic shores, Hungarians and Roumanians from Tran- 
 sylvania. There was some doubt as to whether the Hun- 
 garians and Italians had their hearts in the struggle, but 
 most of Benedek's men were in excellent fighting form. 
 They were not discouraged by the minor defeats during 
 the Prussian advance, and news had come from Italy of 
 the Archduke Albert's victory of Custozza, won on the 
 seventh anniversary of Solferino. 
 
 * It is also known as the battle of Koniggratz.
 
 SADOWA 125 
 
 On the Prussian side the troops actually set in movement 
 for the battle-field, and near enough to be engaged, num- 
 bered 221,000 men, including 27,000 cavalry, and having 
 with them 780 guns. The total of the forces on both sides 
 were thus 436,000 men, with over 1500 guns. Sadowa 
 ranks, in point of numbers engaged, second among the 
 great battles of the nineteenth century. Only the " battle of 
 nations," at Leipzig in 1813, ranks before it.^ The Prussian 
 armies broke up from their bivouacs in the darkness hours 
 before the dawn, and began a dreary night-march through 
 cold and rain, and though it was midsummer the weather 
 was miserably depressing. There was no sight of the sun- 
 rise, for the sky was thick with gray clouds that sent down 
 frequent showers, and a rainy mist hung along the hollow 
 of the Bistritz till long after dawn. 
 
 The first troops to come in contact with the enemy were 
 the vanguard of the First Army. As the twilight grew to 
 day the Austrian outposts along the Bistritz saw through 
 the driving rain mounted vedettes of the enemy crowning 
 the hilltops that looked down on the line of the river. For 
 some hours this was all they saw. But behind the low hills 
 the troops of the First Army were massing for the attack. 
 On both sides of the roads as the columns approached the 
 hills the troops were moved out into the fields — masses of 
 greatcoated infantry, battery after battery, with the guns 
 and the teams splashed with mud. The rain had soaked 
 the standing corn, and the troops and their horses trampled 
 
 ' According to Otto Berndt (" Die Zahl im Kriege ") the figures 
 for Leipzig stand thus : 
 
 Allies 301,500 men (56,000 cavalry, 1384 guns). 
 
 French 171,000 men (22,000 cavalry, 700 guns). 
 
 Totals 472,500 men (78,000 cavalry, 2084 guns). 
 
 Sadowa ranks second in point of numbers, and Gravelotte (St. 
 Privat), 1870, third.
 
 126 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 it down; but the tangled mass of vegetation was a drag 
 on the gun wheels as they pulled slowly through it. By 
 sunrise Frederick Charles and his staff were waiting just 
 behind the flat summit of the hills near the village of Dub, 
 a point that, if the weather cleared, would command a good 
 view of the Austrian positions. Here he was soon joined 
 by Von Moltke and the headquarters staff, and the two 
 leaders chatted together. The plan of the battle had been 
 already settled, and there was nothing to do but to await 
 reports that the troops were up to the front and ready to 
 advance. Prince Frederick Charles, with the First Army, 
 was to drive in the enemy's posts on the Bistritz, cross the 
 river, and keep the Austrian center occupied. Meanwhile 
 Herwarth, with the Elbe Army, was to move forward on 
 the right and force back and turn Benedek's left ; while 
 the Crown Prince, with the Second Army, was to come 
 down from the northward, strike in behind the enemy's 
 right, and threaten to cut the Austrians off from the cross- 
 ings of the Elbe. This attack by the Crown Prince was in- 
 tended to be the decisive move of the day. 
 
 Strange to say, Benedek did not expect any serious at- 
 tempt to be made against him on that side. His information 
 was very misleading, and he thought that the bulk of the 
 Crown Prince's army had already moved westward and 
 joined the First Army, and that he had all, or nearly all, 
 the Prussian army in his front. He did not anticipate that 
 anything more than a relatively small detachment had been 
 left to the northward on his right flank. This error was 
 largely the result of his keeping his splendid cavalry wait- 
 ing for use in charges on the battle-field, instead of using 
 them to guard his flanks. Had he sent them out to the 
 northward, he would not only have discovered the presence 
 of a great army in that direction, but would also have been 
 able to use his cavalry and horse artillery to delay very 
 seriously the Crown Prince's advance.
 
 SADOWA 127 
 
 About seven o'clock a carriage, escorted by a consider- 
 able body of horsemen, drove along the road from Gitschin 
 to the rendezvous behind the hill of Dub. King William 
 was coming to assume formal command of the battle. He 
 mounted his horse, and rode up to Moltke and the " Red 
 Prince." With him came Bismarck, wearing for the occa- 
 sion his white uniform of a major of cuirassiers. There 
 were a crowd of staff officers and gallopers, and a group of 
 correspondents of various newspapers, for the " war corre- 
 spondent " had by this time won a recognized place with 
 armies in the field. Russell of the Times, whom we have 
 already seen at the Alma as a barely tolerated spectator of 
 the fight, was beside Benedek on the hill of Chlum, an hon- 
 ored guest of the Austrian staff.^ 
 
 The king and his generals now moved up to the top of 
 the hill, their station during the coming battle. A cold wind 
 was blowing in gusts, and the rain was coming down in a 
 steady drizzle. Through the murky atmosphere the hills 
 held by the enemy loomed up like gray shadows. There 
 was a better view of the villages clustering here and there 
 along the marshy hollow of the Bistritz. The scouts had 
 reported that the enemy held all these villages on both banks 
 of the river, and held them in force. After a brief survey 
 of the ground to the front, gallopers rode off to right and 
 left and rear, conveying the orders for the first advance. 
 
 * I once talked over the Sadowa campaign with the late Sir Wil- 
 liam Russell. He told me it was the only time he had been with a 
 beaten army. " During the retreat," he said, " I was hospitably en- 
 tertained by some good people in a Bohemian village. They were in 
 quite unnecessary fear of being plundered by the Prussians when 
 they arrived in pursuit, and asked me if I could give them a letter 
 to any friend in the invading army, asking him to use his influence 
 to protect them. I told them the correspondent of my paper on the 
 other side was a British officer, Colonel Hozier, and I left them a 
 letter for him, which ran something like this : ' Dear Hozier, these 
 people have been very kind to me. Don't let the Prussians steal their 
 spoons.' "
 
 128 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The road over the hill of Dub runs down the slope and 
 across marshy meadows for about a mile and a half to the 
 village of Sadowa, where it crosses the Bistritz by a bridge. 
 The village of wooden houses is on the west bank, with 
 orchards along the river, and a little to the south of it was 
 a brick-built sugar factory with a tall chimney. The first 
 operation of the day was to be the seizure of the village and 
 bridge. Over the hilltop came some batteries of artillery, 
 escorted by a regiment of Uhlans, with their rain-soaked 
 pennons hanging heavily round their lances. As the guns 
 pulled out into the fields and wheeled into position, the 
 horses were slipping and almost falling on the sodden 
 ground. Before they had unlimbered there came the open- 
 ing shots of the battle from the other side. A flash through 
 the driving rain, a cloud of smoke in a field beyond the 
 Bistritz to the north of Sadowa, and a shell came hurtling 
 in among the Uhlans, burst as it struck the ground, sent 
 up a geyser of mud, smoke, and flame, and emptied four 
 saddles. 
 
 Battery after battery now opened along the river, and 
 from the hills on its west bank the Prussians answered back 
 as their guns came into position. The smoke hung heavy 
 in the damp air, and at times the batteries had to suspend 
 their fire to get a better view of their targets before re- 
 opening. The Prussian guns were shelling the villages 
 along the river, and soon there was grim proof that their 
 fire was effective. Black smoke began to rise from the 
 houses, and then through the smoke clouds there shot up 
 red tongues of flame. Sadowa and two more villages to 
 the south of it were ablaze. The unfortunate peasants were 
 witnessing the swift destruction of their homes. 
 
 While the batteries were thus doing their deadly work, 
 the infantry were forming for the attack of the river line. 
 
 But the infantry in the center could not advance till 
 something had been done to reduce the fire effect of the
 
 SADOWA 129 
 
 Austrian batteries. Benedek's artillery served him well, and 
 made a splendid fight. To help the gunners, ranges had 
 been carefully measured off by the Austrians, and trees 
 felled at intervals served to mark the distances from the 
 artillery positions ; and there was a double range of bat- 
 teries in action — some along the low ground by the Bistritz, 
 others on the slopes behind. There was serious loss among 
 the Prussians. At one time several shells burst on the Dub 
 hilltop, killing and wounding some of the king's escort. It 
 was more than two hours before the fire of the Prussian 
 guns began to tell. Then it was seen that some of the 
 Austrian batteries were shifting their ground and with- 
 drawing to longer ranges. 
 
 Even so, the infantry would not have advanced until 
 further effect had been obtained and the enemy's infantry 
 shaken ; but the attack had to be somewhat anticipated, for 
 towards the left Von Fransecky's Division had made a 
 premature advance against the village of Benatek. The 
 Austrians abandoned it after firing a few shots, and Von 
 Fransecky occupied it ; but his division was now in action 
 with the enemy, who held the wooded slopes beyond the 
 village, and this isolated division was across the Bistritz 
 north of Sadowa unsupported, and in danger of being per- 
 haps overwhelmed by a vigorous counter-attack. Prince 
 Frederick Charles therefore, about ten o'clock, ordered 
 Stulpnagel to force the crossings of the Bistritz at Sadowa, 
 Dohalicka, and Makrovous, three villages that had been 
 blazing fiercely for the last hour. 
 
 Lines of skirmishers had already been pushed down the 
 slopes towards the river. They now advanced and opened 
 fire, and the company columns came on behind them. Over 
 some two miles of front a hard-fought infantry battle now 
 began. The Austrians held the orchards and inclosures 
 along the river, and isolated buildings that had not been 
 set on fire, and their artillery was in action on the farther
 
 I30 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 bank. There was not much loss till the attack began to come 
 to close quarters. Then the Prussians had to pay heavily 
 for every yard of progress ; but the more rapid fire of the 
 breechloader gave them a decided advantage. Still, the 
 Austrians fought so stubbornly around the burning villages 
 that nearly an hour went by before they were forced across 
 the bridges, with the victors following them up closely. 
 
 The Prussian infantry and artillery now came pouring 
 over the bridges, regardless of the fire of the enemy's bat- 
 teries from the hills. All the higher slopes towards Lipa 
 and Chlum were wrapped in the smoke of a long line of 
 batteries. In the woods above Sadowa the Austrians made 
 a stand to cover the retirement of the defenders of the 
 Bistritz to the main position. 
 
 On the right the army of the Elbe had come into action. 
 Herwarth's advanced guard had crossed the Bistritz at 
 Nechanitz and driven the Saxon outposts from the fir and 
 pine woods rovmd Hradek. It was nearly eleven o'clock, 
 but so far all that had been done was to force an advanced 
 position which the Austrians had never intended to hold for 
 long. The main position had now to be assailed. For this 
 the cooperation of the Crown Prince and the Second Army 
 would be of vital importance. 
 
 In a campaign of the present day two armies operating 
 in concert within a few miles of each other would be in 
 constant communication by telegraph. If in any enemy's 
 country there was any difficulty in keeping a line of wires 
 and cables intact, some form of wireless telegraphy would 
 be used. But at Sadowa there was no telegraphic link 
 between the headquarters of the First and Second Army, 
 and the king and Moltke were not aware that the Crown 
 Prince's troops were in action till long after their appear- 
 ance on the field. 
 
 The sudden change in the orders in the late hours of the 
 previous evening had somewhat delayed the start of the
 
 SADOWA 131 
 
 Crown Prince's columns. To convey new orders during 
 the night to troops in bivouacs and cantonments extending 
 over many miles of country is a lengthy process. The 
 method followed would have to be something like this : On 
 Moltke's orders reaching the Crown Prince, he would, with 
 his chief of the staff, draw up the special orders for each 
 corps or division. These would be duplicated and sent off 
 by mounted officers to the subordinate generals. They 
 would then have to add any special orders for their own 
 detachments ; these orders would be dictated to the staff 
 clerks, so as to secure a sufficient number of copies, and 
 then staff officers and orderlies would ride with them to 
 the commanders of the units concerned. Every officer 
 would already have received a set of orders, which the new 
 orders would cancel, and with each detachment fresh ar- 
 rangements would have to be hurriedly made for the morn- 
 ing's work. All this meant delay. Nevertheless, the col- 
 umns of the Second Army were in movement southwards 
 before sunrise, a division on their left being entrusted with 
 the task of masking and observing the fortress of Josefstadt. 
 Benedek received early in the day a message from Josef- 
 stadt, warning him that hostile troops had been seen march- 
 ing past the place on the west side of the Elbe. But he 
 still clung to his theory that the Crown Prince was with 
 Frederick Charles in his front, and did not regard the 
 presence of what he took to be a minor detachment on his 
 right to be a serious menace. His orders for the day show 
 that he expected the flank attack to be made against his 
 left, where he had stationed the Saxon Army Corps. He 
 contented himself with placing a brigade of infantry on his 
 right rear to watch the crossings of the lower course of the 
 little river Trotina from the village of Racitz to its con- 
 fluence with the Elbe. About half past nine the weather 
 had somewhat cleared, and the Crown Prince, who was 
 with his advanced guard, saw heavy clouds of cannon smoke
 
 132 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 on the hills about the village of Horenowes and on the lower 
 slopes towards Benatek. The wind was blowing from the 
 northward, and though there was evidently a serious artillery- 
 fight in progress a few miles to the front, not a sound of 
 it could be heard. The march of the right column, headed 
 by the Prussian Guards, was directed towards Horenowes ; 
 the left column moving so as to strike in between the 
 heights and the Elbe. The word was passed to prepare for 
 action, and the official account of the battle tells how the 
 colors were shaken out, and the chaplains. Catholic and 
 Protestant, rode down the lines exhorting the men to do 
 their duty. Towards eleven o'clock the advanced guard of 
 the left column was in action with Austrian outposts along 
 the Trotina. By this time the First Army was beginning 
 its attack on the Austrian main position after forcing the 
 line of the Bistritz, but still had no idea that the Crown 
 Prince's army was already coming into action. 
 
 For more than two hours the First Army made hardly 
 any progress. On the right and in the center Fransecky 
 and Stulpnagel's men were fighting hard to force their 
 way through the Maslowed and Sadowa woods. From the 
 heights in the Austrian center a line of intrenched guns 
 fired with deadly effect on the Prussian batteries along the 
 Bistritz. Some of the batteries on the side of the attack 
 barely held their ground, losing heavily in men and horses. 
 Even some guns were dismounted by bursting shells shat- 
 tering the gun wheels. On the right, for some time Her- 
 warth's batteries could only support the attack of the Elbe 
 Army at long range from the west bank of the Bistritz. 
 The Austrians had partly destroyed the bridge at Nechanitz, 
 and though the infantry could cross it, it was nearly two 
 hours before the pioneers could repair it sufficiently to 
 make it passable by artillery. Very slowly, and at the cost 
 of some hand-to-hand fighting with the bayonet, the Sadowa 
 wood was won.
 
 M£A 
 
 o 
 
 j!_ 
 
 J_ 
 
 ± 
 
 Z A/fe 
 
 No. lo — Battle of S.\dowa, July 3, 1866 
 (Position about 11 A. m.)
 
 SADOWA 133 
 
 So far Moltke had good reason to be satisfied with the 
 progress obtained, for his whole plan for the battle de- 
 pended on keeping the enemy occupied until the Crown 
 Prince could strike in on his right rear. Bvit there was 
 no sign to be seen of the Second Army being in action, and 
 there was a growing danger that if its cooperation failed 
 Benedek might make a counter-attack, and drive the sorely- 
 tried First Army into the marshes of the Bistritz. The 
 king was becoming anxious and impatient, and towards one 
 o'clock actually gave orders for a massed attack of infantry 
 against the Austrian intrenched battery in front of Chlum 
 and Lipa. Moltke persuaded him to withdraw the order, 
 telling him frankly that the attack must fail, and fail with 
 terrible loss of life. More than this, its failure would give 
 an opening for a general counter-attack by the enemy. He 
 insisted that before trying any desperate measures they must 
 wait a little longer for the promised intervention of the 
 Crown Prince and his 100,000 fighting men. 
 
 Bismarck, sitting on horseback beside the king, was con- 
 tinually scanning the hills to the northeastward with his 
 field-glass, hoping to see some sign that the Austrians were 
 being attacked in that direction. At one time it was no- 
 ticed that some of the enemy's guns on the hillside near 
 Chlum were no longer firing towards the Bistritz, but were 
 pointing northwards. Could they be in action with the 
 Crown Prince's batteries? Moltke looked at them through 
 his field-glass, and explained that they were apparently 
 firing at the right of Fransecky's attack on Maslowed. 
 Smoking is a way to calm or disguise anxiety, and Bismarck 
 took out his cigar-case, and before lighting a cigar himself, 
 offered one to Von Moltke. Instead of taking the first that 
 offered, Moltke looked carefully at the cigars and picked out 
 the best. Bismarck said afterwards that the trifling incident 
 reassured him, for he thought that if the veteran chief of 
 the staff could take so much care in picking out a good
 
 134 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 cigar, he could not be very anxious about more serious 
 matters. 
 
 Anxious as the headquarters staff undoubtedly were, there 
 was no real reason for their anxiety; for, all unknown to 
 them, the Crown Prince's army had been already in action 
 for a good two hours, and was making steady progress. As 
 early as eleven o'clock he had actually sent two staff officers 
 with information as to his position and plans to Fransecky ; 
 but, strange to say, that general was so fully occupied with 
 his own operations against the Austrian right about Mas- 
 lowed and Horenowes, that he did not send on the news 
 to the king and Von Moltke. The thunder of the nearer 
 cannonade prevented the sound of the Crown Prince's guns 
 being heard in the Prussian center. The thick rainy weather 
 prevented the rising smoke being seen, and the whole attack 
 was hidden from view by the hne of hills held by Benedek's 
 army. 
 
 The first sign of the Crown Prince's advance telling upon 
 the enemy came from the Prussian left. For five hours, 
 from shortly after 9 till after 2 p. m., the Austrians had 
 made a desperate defense of the Maslowed woods against 
 Fransecky's equally determined attack. In this fight the 
 Prussian infantry lost 84 officers and some 2000 men. It 
 was only after a severe struggle that the margin of the 
 wood was forced ; then there was a long series of sharp 
 conflicts in its interior, the fight swaying backwards and 
 forwards in the dense undergrowth, and all order being lost. 
 " After a series of alternate successes and reverses," says 
 the Prussian official narrative, " the regiments, battalions, 
 and companies which were engaged in the interior of the 
 wood had in the end become completely mixed up ; they 
 could barely see a yard in front of them. It was thus 
 impossible to control the fight as a whole, and the leaders 
 could do no more than personally set an example to their 
 men. Everywhere officers gathered about them such men
 
 SADOWA 135 
 
 as were within siglit and hearing, irrespective of what 
 regiments they belonged to, and led them again into the 
 fight. The troops which were driven out of the wood were 
 sent into it again, and reserves were formed out of those 
 who were completely disorganized. In the rear of the fight- 
 ing line Austrian prisoners were continually being brought 
 in, but there was also an ever-increasing stream of wounded 
 and of leaderless men." 
 
 But towards two o'clock the resistance of the Austrians 
 became less stubborn, and then it was found that they were 
 abandoning the wood. More than this, it was seen that the 
 Austrian right was falling back from the heights above 
 Horenowes and Maslowed. Some batteries which had been 
 in action on a bold hill near Horenowes, marked by a pair 
 of tall trees, limbered up and disappeared down its eastern 
 slope. Evidently something serious was happening beyond 
 the enemy's right flank. It must be that the Crown Prince's 
 attack was being pushed home. Along the Prussian center 
 to Herwarth on the extreme right the word ran, " The 
 Crown Prince is coming ! " and anxiety gave way to ex- 
 pectation of a speedy triumph. 
 
 The Crown Prince was not merely coming; he had 
 come. On his right, nearest to Fransecky's attack, he had 
 pushed the Guards forward against Horenowes. A single 
 battery was in action on the tree-topped hill as the regiments 
 of the Guards advanced across the marshy valley to the 
 north of it. The Austrians hurried up several batteries to 
 support it, and the artillery of the Prussian Guards unlim- 
 bered and replied to their fire. On the left, the Crown 
 Prince's advance was forcing back the Austrian detachments 
 from the banks of the Trotina and enveloping the village of 
 Racitz. Just as these attacks developed, Benedek had been 
 preparing to make a fierce counter-attack on the Prussian 
 center. He had ridden down the eastern slope of Chlum 
 Hill to bring up the reserves who were waiting there. As
 
 136 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 he appeared among them the bands struck up the Austrian 
 National Anthem, Haydn's " God preserve the Emperor 
 Francis," and the men cheered wildly. " Leave the cheering 
 till to-morrow, my boys," said Benedek as he rode through 
 the ranks, meaning that it was better to wait till victory 
 was won. He was about to move the reserves to the front, 
 when reports reached him that the attack to the northward 
 was that of a great army. He gave up for the present all 
 idea of assuming the offensive, sent some reinforcements to 
 support the weak line that held the Trotina River, and 
 ordered the Fourth Corps on the right, which was opposing 
 Fransecky, to swing back and face northwards. 
 
 It was this retirement that gave the Prussian headquarters 
 staff the first clear proof that the Crown Prince was push- 
 ing in upon the Austrian right. Crushed by the fire of 
 the numerous batteries of the Guards, the Austrian artillery 
 abandoned the unequal fight for the Horenowes Hill, lim- 
 bered up, and withdrew. The Guards pushed forward and 
 won the hill with trifling loss. The Twenty-first Brigade 
 stormed Racitz, and the Austrians fell back from the line 
 of the little river that runs past it. 
 
 The Crown Prince's 100,000 men had now at most one- 
 fourth of their numbers directly opposed to them, and had 
 only to move boldly onward to push the enemy back. 
 Across the right front of the Prussian advance the Austrian 
 Fourth Corps was retiring in column, its rearguard pressed 
 by Fransecky's exultant troops. The whole of the Austrian 
 right was disorganized and moving to new positions, with a 
 sense of being hustled on its way by the overwhelmingly 
 superior numbers of the attack. The Guards advanced into 
 Horenowes village, and engaged and drove in some Austrian 
 battalions who rallied on the hill to the southeast of it. 
 The Crown Prince's left columns were pouring across the 
 Trotina, threatening the enemy's line of retreat. Along the 
 front towards the Bistritz the Prussian fire redoubled. New
 
 SADOWA 137 
 
 regiments were sent into the fighting line, and on the Aus- 
 trian left Herwarth at last drove out the defenders of the 
 Hradek woods, and began to develop his attack against the 
 main position of the Saxons on the hills about Problus 
 and Prim. The news of the Crown Prince's victorious 
 advance had sent a new impulse through the whole of 
 the attack. After a weary and doubtful struggle the Prus- 
 sians had at last the feeling that success was within their 
 grasp. 
 
 The Crown Prince now drove the Guard Corps like a 
 wedge into the center of the Austrian position. While the 
 Second Division of the Guards swept the enemy out of 
 Maslowed and cleared the low hills to the east of it, the 
 First Division pushed steadily southwards. In front of it 
 rose the hill of Chlum, with the village clustering round the 
 square-towered church on its summit, the highest point in 
 the range of hills held by the enemy. The rapid, almost 
 unopposed advance of the Guards had come as a surprise 
 to Benedek. Chlum was very weakly held. The defenders 
 of the hill had been moved down to its western slope, where, 
 with the line of intrenched batteries stretching along the 
 hillside towards Lipa village, they were engaged in repelling 
 the attack directed against them by Prince Frederick Charles 
 from the Sadowa woods. Suddenly a storm of artillery fire 
 burst out upon them on their right flank, and in a massive 
 column the Prussian Guards came charging into Chlum 
 village. It was taken after the briefest of struggles. At 
 a quarter to three the Prussian colors were waving from 
 its church tower. 
 
 General Hiller von Gartringen, the commander of the 
 First Guards Division, had won a splendid success, but it 
 had placed him for the moment in a position of considerable 
 danger, isolated at the head of a few battalions in the very 
 heart of the enemy's position. When Benedek heard that 
 the Prussians were in Chlum he was west of the village
 
 138 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 near Lipa, watching his Hne of intrenched batteries shelHng 
 the Prnssian advance from the edge of the Sadowa wood. 
 He absolutely refused to believe the news, and rode with 
 his stafif towards Chlum, only to be met by a heavy rifle 
 fire as he approached the place. He turned and rode by 
 the Koniggratz road towards the village of Rosberitz, in- 
 tending to organize a counter-attack from that side and 
 retake Chlum. But as Rosberitz came in sight over the 
 shoulder of the hill, helmeted infantry showed themselves 
 at the entrance of the villa^ge, and sent a volley at the 
 Austrian stafif. Hiller, with splendid dash and enterprise, 
 had decided that the best way to make good his position in 
 the Austrian center was to continue attacking. He had 
 hurried up some batteries into Chlum, and at the head of 
 three battalions of his Guardsmen rushed Rosberitz. While 
 he was carrying the village by storm, just fifteen minutes 
 after the capture of Chlum, the latter place was assailed by 
 Austrian infantry coming up from the Lipa wood ; but 
 the Prussians drove them back with the rapid fire of their 
 breech-loading rifles. Wherever infantry met infantry at 
 short ranges, the superiority of the needle-gun to the old 
 Austrian muzzle-loader soon decided the contest, and always 
 with heavy loss to the white-coats. 
 
 Benedek now made strenuous efforts to turn the adverse 
 tide of battle. On the western slopes of the hills the long 
 lines of intrenched batteries for a while successfully checked 
 the advance of Frederick Charles's battalions from the Bis- 
 tritz. Southwards the Saxons fought stubbornly, and de- 
 layed for a considerable time the dangerous movement of 
 the Elbe Army against the Austrian left. The right was 
 falling back before the advance of the Crown Prince between 
 the hills and the Elbe. Here some of the Austrian regi- 
 ments showed very little inclination to continue the fight. 
 A great column of the Second Corps marched towards the 
 Elbe almost without firing a shot. But Benedek's personal
 
 SADOWA 139 
 
 efforts were directed in the first instance to expelling Killer's 
 Guardsmen from the Chlum heights. He hurried 100 guns 
 into position in a mile-long line between Langenhof and 
 Wsestar, and bombarded Chlum and Rosberitz. On the 
 left of the guns he brought up his reserve, the Sixth Corps, 
 and three divisions of cavalry. Then he hurled a mass of 
 infantry upon Rosberitz. The fire of the Prussian needle- 
 gun mowed them down, but on they went, and by sheer 
 reckless disregard of loss forced their way into the village, 
 and drove the Prussian Guardsmen out at the bayonet's 
 point. But they could not advance further. Hiller held on 
 to Chlum, where he was steadily reinforced. A storm of 
 shells rained upon the lofty hilltop. One of these burst 
 close to Hiller and struck him dead shortly after the recap- 
 ture of Rosberitz. Von Grossman, his second in command, 
 took over the direction of the fight, and prepared for a 
 fresh advance. 
 
 It was directed against Langenhof. The village was 
 stormed, the long line of Austrian guns was taken in flank, 
 and the nearest ten of them captured by shooting down the 
 'horses and drivers as they tried to limber up and retire. 
 Then Rosberitz was stormed by an attack of a strong firing 
 line supported by massed columns, which swept down on the 
 front and flanks of the place, and almost enveloped it, tak- 
 ing 3000 prisoners. To the southeast of Rosberitz, almost at 
 the same moment, a Prussian brigade fought its way into 
 the village of Sweti. In the center, towards the Bistritz, 
 Frederick Charles's Infantry was storming the intrenched 
 batteries. They took scores of guns, for the cannon were 
 left in the earthworks with no teams available to remove 
 them. Indeed, the Austrian artillery officers had no inten- 
 tion of withdrawing them ; they had decided to sacrifice 
 their guns by remaining in action to the last moment, in 
 order to hold back as long as possible the advance of the 
 Prussian center to the heights. On the southern flank of
 
 I40 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the battle the Saxons were now giving way before Her- 
 warth's attack, and the village of Problus was in the hands 
 of the Prussians. 
 
 It was about five o'clock. The heights had been lost, 
 and the Austrian line of retreat to Koniggratz was in seri- 
 ous danger. The Crown Prince had ridden through Chlum, 
 and as he left the village saw his cousin Prince Frederick 
 Charles leading an infantry column up the road from Lipa. 
 The two princes saluted each other with a wave of their 
 caps, but both were too busy to meet and exchange 
 congratulations. 
 
 Over the heights beyond Langenhof came a body of 
 Prussian cavalry. At its head rode the old king, with 
 Moltke and Bismarck beside him. They saw below them 
 on the slopes towards the Elbe a great multitude of white 
 uniformed infantry rolling back like an ebbing tide towards 
 the bridges of the Elbe. Here the retiring Austrians were 
 moving in a confused mass ; there they kept together in 
 ordered columns. But the retreat was covered by firing 
 lines of infantry, and several batteries of artillery were still 
 in action. Masses of cavalry were moving out to check any 
 attempt at pursuit — splendid squadrons of tall cuirassiers, 
 brilliantly uniformed Hungarian hussars, and the forest of 
 pennoned lances of the Polish Uhlans. The retiring mass of 
 the enemy was half ringed round with a crescent of hostile 
 fire stretching for miles. Battery after battery rushed to 
 the summit of the conquered ridges, and sent its shells 
 screaming into the huge target presented by the defeated 
 army. Firing lines pressed forward to pour into nearest 
 Austrians the rapid volleys of the needle-gun. 
 
 The Austrian shells burst among the king's escort. A 
 score of men and horses fell killed and wounded. The king 
 was excited, eager to lead in person a charge upon the 
 enemy. Bismarck caught his bridle, and told him he must 
 not expose himself uselessly. It was with difficulty that
 
 SADOWA 141 
 
 the Chancellor could persuade him to be a spectator of the 
 closing scenes of the fight. 
 
 Had the Prussian cavalry been assembled in a great 
 mass and sent round the right of the Elbe Army, it might 
 have cut the Austrians oflf from Koniggratz and made 
 Sadowa a Sedan. But the cavalry of the victors was used 
 in piecemeal fashion, charging here and there in small de- 
 tachments, sometimes a single regiment being thus em- 
 ployed. The Austrian cavalry fought splendidly, and more 
 than once rode over the Prussian squadrons, but always 
 failed disastrously when it charged against the advancing 
 lines of infantry, men and horses falling in heaps under the 
 blasts of rifle fire. Two men of British race distinguished 
 themselves in these desperate charges that saved the Aus- 
 trian army from utter destruction. One was an English- 
 man, Colonel Beales of the Cuirassiers, who was badly 
 wounded at the head of his regiment. The other was a 
 Scot, Count Stuart d'Albanie, major of Austrian Dragoons, 
 who won his colonel's commission at Sadowa. He claimed 
 to be a descendant of the royal house of Stuart. 
 
 The Crown Prince had pushed forward from Chlum 
 through Rosberitz at the head of the victorious Guards, who 
 were now to help in completing the victory. Good soldier 
 as he was, he was painfully impressed by the horrors he 
 witnessed. He wrote that night in his carefully-kept diary : 
 
 " Around us lay or hobbled about many of the well-known figures 
 of the Berlin and Potsdam garrisons.' A shocking appearance was 
 presented by those who were using their rifles as crutches, or who 
 were being led up the heights by unwounded comrades. The most 
 horrid spectacle was that of an Austrian battery, of which all the 
 men and horses had been shot down. It is an awful thing to ride 
 over a battle-field, and it is impossible to describe the hideous muti- 
 lations that present themselves. War is really something frightful, 
 and those who, sitting at a green baize table, bring it about with a 
 stroke of a pen, little dream of the horrors they are conjuring up. 
 
 * These are the peace garrisons of the Prussian Guards.
 
 142 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 In Rosberitz, where, judging from the heaps of dead and wounded, 
 the fighting must have been terribly fierce, I found my kinsman 
 Prince Antony of Hohenzollern mortally wounded." 
 
 As he rode forward the Crown Prince met the king, and 
 father and son embraced each other amid the frantic cheers 
 of the Guardsmen. The king told him how deUghted he 
 was that he had proved his worth as a leader of armies, and 
 took from his own coat and pinned on his son's breast the 
 Order of Merit, the most prized of Prussian decorations. 
 
 The slaughter of the day was now nearly over. The 
 Austrians were crossing the bridges under the protection of 
 the guns of Koniggratz and of the strong rearguards of 
 cavalry and artillery that Benedek had organized. Old 
 General Steinmetz, a veteran who had fought against the 
 first Napoleon, was just on the point of launching a last 
 attack along the bank of the Elbe, in the hope of securing 
 some thousands of prisoners and some scores of guns, when 
 he received an order from Moltke bidding him cease fire 
 and halt everywhere. No attempt was to be made to press 
 the beaten enemy further, and next day was to be a day 
 of rest for the army. 
 
 Thanks to the new Red Cross organization, the battle- 
 field, extensive as it was, was cleared of the wounded of 
 both sides by sunrise next day. In proportion to the num- 
 bers engaged the losses of the victors were not serious. In 
 the great battles of the Napoleonic period the loss was 
 rarely less than ten per cent, and often much higher. At 
 Sadowa the Prussian loss was only about four per cent, but 
 the numbers engaged made even this small percentage repre- 
 sent a terrible total; 360 officers and more than 8500 men 
 were killed or wounded. The heaviest loss fell on Fran- 
 secky's Corps, which lost more than 2000 men. 
 
 The Austrian losses were fearful.^ This was largely 
 
 ' Otto Berndt (" Die Zahl im Kriege ") gives the following analy- 
 sis of the losses at Sadow,a:
 
 SADOWA 
 
 143 
 
 the result of the execution done in the closely-formed Aus- 
 trian ranks by the Prussian breech-loader. The dead and 
 wounded of the defeated Allies reached the awful total 
 of 23,598 men (n per cent). The missing and the un- 
 wounded prisoners numbered more than 20,000, making- 
 Benedek's total loss more than 44,000. Eleven generals 
 and more than 1300 officers were included in these losses. 
 Some of the cavalry units suffered heavily in the last stage 
 of the fight. The Third Cavalry Division lost more than 
 one-fifth of its strength (43 officers, 665 men, and 901 
 horses). The slaughter of artillery teams was heavy : about 
 6000 horses were killed or so badly wounded as to make 
 them useless. No less than 187 guns were captured by the 
 victors. 
 
 The war did not end at once, but this overwhelming 
 victory decided its result. Austria ceded Venetia to Italy, 
 and withdrew from the Germanic Confederation ; and Prus- 
 
 
 Prussians 
 
 AUSTRIANS 
 
 Saxons 
 
 AUSTRUNS 
 
 AND Saxons 
 
 Officers 
 
 Men 
 
 Officers 
 
 Men 
 
 Officers 
 
 ■ Men 
 
 Officers 
 
 Men 
 
 Killed . . . 
 Wounded . 
 Wounded 
 
 prisoners . 
 Unwounded 
 
 prisoners . 
 Missing . . 
 
 100 
 
 260 
 
 1,835 
 6,699 
 
 '278 
 
 330 
 431 
 
 307 
 
 202 
 43 
 
 5,328 
 7,143 
 
 8,984 
 
 12,677 
 7,367 
 
 41,499 
 
 IS 
 40 
 
 120 
 900 
 
 426 
 
 345 
 471 
 
 307 
 
 202 
 43 
 
 5,448 
 8,043 
 
 8,984 
 
 12,677 
 7,793 
 
 Totals . . . 
 
 360 
 
 8,812 
 
 1,313 
 
 55 
 
 1,446 
 
 1,368 
 
 42,945 
 
 9,1 
 
 72 
 
 42,812 
 
 1,501 
 
 44, 
 
 313 
 
 The " missing " on the Prussian side were chiefly a few prisoners 
 taken by the Austrians. The "missing" of the Allies were a large 
 ninnber of disbanded nun who had not rejoined when the lists were 
 made up, and probably a number of men killed in the woods and not 
 found at once, and a few drowned at the crossing of the RIbe during 
 the night.
 
 144 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 sia became the head of a united Germany — the prelude to 
 the foundation of the new German Empire, after a still 
 greater war, in which Saxony, Bavaria, and other minor 
 states fought side by side with the Prussians, whom they 
 had met in battle in 1866; and largely helped to carry the 
 German banners to victory as the allies of their former 
 enemy.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 
 August 16 and 18, 1870 
 
 Paris had gone half mad with the war fever. The regi- 
 ments marching from their barracks to entrain for the 
 frontier were cheered by excited crowds yelHng, " A BerHn ! 
 a BerHn ! " The Prime Minister had declared that he went 
 to war with a light heart. Marshal Leboeuf had assured 
 the emperor that his army was " ready down to the last 
 gaiter button." Those Prussians had scored in i866 because 
 they had a breech-loading rifle against slow-firing, old- 
 fashioned muzzle-loaders. But now the French had the 
 wonderful chassepot, with a longer range than the Prussian 
 needle-gun. And there was the mitrailleuse, a secret weapon, 
 sent out from the arsenals covered up with oil-cloths lest 
 some spy might discover its mechanism. Two men could 
 work it and spurt out rifle bullets in death-dealing showers. 
 So France was up-to-date, more than up-to-date, in the 
 weapons of its army, and, better still, it was an army of 
 veterans, of professional soldiers, the victors of the Crimea, 
 Italy, Algeria. Compared with them the short-service sol- 
 diers of Prussia, with their crowds of reservists hurried up 
 from desk and counter, were only a militia. They would 
 soon be hustled across the Rhine with French bayonets at 
 their backs. So the departing soldiers chalked " To Berlin " 
 on the doors of the railway carriages. 
 
 South Germany, which had fought Prussia four years 
 ago, would, it was hoped, at least stand neutral. Austria 
 would seize the occasion to avenge Sadowa. Italy would
 
 146 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 be once more the ally of Napoleon III in gratitude for 
 Magenta and Solferino. There would be another Jena. 
 Bismarck and his king would be taught a lesson. 
 
 Napoleon III was to command in person the armies 
 gathering to win back the old Rhine frontier. His son, the 
 boy Prince Imperial, would go with him to learn the sol- 
 dier's business in the field. Marshal MacMahon with the 
 veterans of Algeria .would be on the right, Marshal Bazaine 
 on the left. Marshal Canrobert of Crimean and Italian 
 fame would command another corps. Then there were the 
 generals who would soon win the marshal's baton — Fros- 
 sard the engineer, a scientific soldier, it was said, equal to 
 the best ; Ducrot and Bourbaki of the Imperial Guard, good 
 fighting men, with all the dash of the French soldier in 
 them; and L'Admirault, calm, self-possessed, a man to 
 count on in a difficult place. Their names would soon be 
 linked with new victories. 
 
 These were the hopes of France in the middle of July. 
 1870. It was disappointing that two weeks should go by 
 with no news except of insignificant skirmishes between 
 cavalry patrols. "We ought to be across the Rhine by 
 now," said the strategists of the Paris cafes. It was not 
 encouraging to hear that the South German States had all 
 declared that they would stand by Prussia. Austria was 
 not moving. Italy seemed to be thinking only of seizing 
 Rome. But no matter. The French army would soon move, 
 and did not need allies. Those South Germans would find 
 they had made a mistake. 
 
 But at Metz, in the Hotel de I'Europe. now the head- 
 quarters of Napoleon III, there were anxious faces at the 
 tables in the long mirror-decorated dining-room in the even- 
 ings, and anxious discussions in the emperor's study during 
 the last days of July. Not half the expected numbers were 
 as yet concentrated in the border departments. The regi- 
 mental depots were sending in the reservists in pitiful hand-
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 147 
 
 fills of men, mostly half equipped. The supply department 
 was in hopeless confusion. Generals were telegraphing 
 that they were waiting for wheeled transport, horses, 
 camp equipment ; that they were short of men, and the 
 men they had could not be moved. The projected dash 
 across the Rhine had to be put off from day to day, and 
 it was almost impossible to obtain news of how far the 
 enemy's preparations had advanced, and where he was 
 concentrating. 
 
 All the while the mobilization of the German armies was 
 proceeding with the smoothness of a well-oiled machine. 
 Three great masses of armed men were assembling on the 
 Rhine. Von Moltke, chief of the Prussian staff, had ar- 
 ranged everything for an advance across the French fron- 
 tier in the first days of August. He would have the ad- 
 vantage of numbers, and the still greater advantage of a 
 definite plan opposed to the daily changing counsels of the 
 perplexed imperial headquarters. 
 
 On August 2, in order to do something to allay the 
 impatience of the French people, a division drove in the 
 Prussian detachment at Sarrebruck. The affair was repre- 
 sented as a great victory. But the German tide of invasion 
 was now pouring towards the frontier. On August 4 Abel 
 Douay's isolated division was crushed at Weissemburg 
 after a heroic struggle against overwhelming odds. On the 
 fatal Saturday, August 6, there were two French defeats — 
 Frossard beaten on the left at Forbach, and MacMahon 
 and his splendid Algerian regiments driven from the hills 
 of Woerth on the right. " All may yet be regained," said 
 the emperor in the telegram that told of this double disaster. 
 The very phrase was an admission that much had been 
 already lost. 
 
 MacMahon's army retreated across the Vosges, without 
 attempting to hold the passes, without even destroying 
 bridges and tunnels. The German left, the Third Army,
 
 148 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 under the Crown Prince, afterwards the Emperor Frederick, 
 followed it up towards Chalons, the Aldershot of imperial 
 France, where a reserve army was forming. The corps on 
 the French left fell back towards Metz, followed, at first 
 very slowly, by the two other German armies. These were 
 the " First Army," ^ on the right, under the veteran Stein- 
 metz, who as a young officer had fought against the great 
 Napoleon in the Leipzig campaign and marched into France 
 with Bliicher in 1814; and the " Second Army," under King 
 William's nephew, Prince Frederick Charles of Hohenzol- 
 lern, whom the soldiers called the " Red Prince," from his 
 fondness for wearing the red jacket of the famous Ziethen 
 Hussars. The aged King William was in personal com- 
 mand of these two armies, with Von Moltke once more act- 
 ing as his chief of the staff. 
 
 For a few hours the French thought of making a stand 
 east of Metz, along the banks of the little river Nied. The 
 only result was the loss of valuable time. Then a new plan 
 was adopted. The emperor, disappointed, harassed with the 
 painful malady that finally ended his days, decided on hand- 
 ing over the command of the " Army of the Rhine " to 
 Marshal Bazaine and proceeding himself to Chalons. Ba- 
 zaine was to lead the army back through Metz, leave a suffi- 
 cient garrison to hold the fortress, and then retreat on 
 Chalons by way of Verdun. At Chalons he would join 
 what was left of MacMahon's army and the reserve army 
 gathering there, and these united forces would then face 
 the advancing Germans and fight a great battle to bar the 
 way to Paris. 
 
 Bazaine blundered from the first. No use was made of 
 the French cavalry to watch the movements of the enemy, 
 
 ' The First Army was made up of the men of the Rhineland and 
 Westphalia ; the Second Army, of those of Central and North Ger- 
 many and Saxony; the Third Army, of those of Silesia and the 
 South German States.
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 149 
 
 whose daring horsemen were able to report to Von Moltke 
 every movement of the French. When every day and hour 
 was important the retirement through Metz was hopelessly 
 slow. On August 14, when part of Bazaine's army was 
 across the Moselle at Metz, and the orders were for the 
 rest of it to pass the river immediately, the eagerness of 
 a German divisional general and the lack of a strong com- 
 mand on the French side brought on a battle which, so far 
 as the development of Bazaine's plan went, was simply a 
 waste of life. When the Germans opened fire that after- 
 noon against the Third French Corps, already forming to 
 retire, General Decaen, who commanded, should have merely 
 left a rearguard in position till he withdrew under the pro- 
 tection of the outlying forts of Metz. Instead of this he 
 accepted the challenge, L'Admirault, when he heard the 
 firing, came back from the bridges with the Fourth Corps 
 and joined in the fight. The march of the Imperial Guard 
 was stopped. Bazaine, who rode up, neither put an end to 
 the useless fight nor took advantage of the superior numbers 
 at his command to crush the enemy's vanguard. When 
 darkness ended the fighting, the French had held their 
 ground, and at one point driven back the enemy. They 
 claim the action of the fourteenth as a victory, the " battle 
 of Borny." The Germans call it the " battle of Colombey." 
 and also claim it as a success, because they attained their 
 object in delaying the French retreat. The losses were 
 heavy on both sides. Decaen was mortally wounded, and 
 Bazaine himself hit in the shoulder by a shell splinter, the 
 sixth wound he had received in action during his long 
 career, in which he had fought his way upward from pri- 
 vate to field-marshal. 
 
 The whole army ought to have been across the Moselle 
 by midnight on the fourteenth. The result of the delay was 
 that all night the columns were moving through the streets 
 of Metz and across the bridges. By a hopeless piece of
 
 I50 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 blundering, though there were four roads leading westwards 
 across the chalk downs beyond the Moselle, the marshal had 
 ordered every man, horse, gun, and wagon of his army, 
 150,000 strong, to follow a single road until the village of 
 Gravelotte was reached. This meant endless confusion and 
 delay. The huge column was so long that it took more than 
 two days and nights to pass a given point. As they came 
 up from the Moselle bridges, brigades and divisions, long 
 lines of guns and wagons, and regiments of mounted men 
 had to halt for hours to find a place on the crowded road 
 that led up to the hills. All through the fifteenth and part 
 of the night that followed, the moving multitude was plod- 
 ding up the sloping road to the plateau of Gravelotte, while 
 beside it thousands more snatched rest in improvised camps 
 under the little shelter tents carried by the men. The em- 
 peror slept in a roadside inn near Gravelotte. Late in the 
 evening Bazaine came to see him, and sat by his bed ex- 
 pressing his doubts as to whether he could direct the opera- 
 tions any longer after his wound at Borny. " It is noth- 
 ing," said Napoleon. " You have won a victory. You 
 have broken the spell. Bring the army to Chalons, and all 
 will yet be well." 
 
 On the fifteenth, while Steinmetz with the First German 
 Army closed in on the east side of Metz and prepared to 
 cross the Moselle, the cavalry of the Second Army (Fred- 
 erick Charles) was across the river, with the heads of the 
 infantry columns behind them on several roads. Bazaine 
 had sent no orders to destroy the bridges above Metz, and 
 subordinate French officers had not yet learned to act on 
 their own initiative. The Germans were pleasantly sur- 
 prised to find the bridges intact and even unwatched. Had 
 they been destroyed there would have been a delay that 
 might well have insured the unmolested retreat of the 
 French army ; for the Germans had as yet no pontoon 
 trains up to the front, and the Moselle, even unguarded,
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 151 
 
 still more if watched by French cavalry and horse artillery, 
 would have proved a serious obstacle. 
 
 Bazaine was already blundering badly. No one doubts 
 that he was a man of splendid physical courage. He had 
 proved it during more than thirty years of service, and as a 
 brigadier, a divisional general, and a corps commander he 
 had shown that he could be a vigorous leader. But it is a 
 more serious matter to rise to the exigencies of the supreme 
 command of a great army matched against an enterprising 
 enemy with superior numbers on his side. Bazaine did not 
 rise to the situation. With all the time that had already 
 been lost, he was beginning to doubt whether he could reach 
 Verdun and Chalons without having to fight a pitched battle 
 against the united armies of Steinmetz and the Red Prince. 
 A leader like the first Napoleon would have beaten them in 
 succession, boldly attacking the prince's army on the west 
 bank of the Moselle before Steinmetz could come to its help, 
 and then dealing with the First Army. But Bazaine was 
 no Napoleon, and he even failed to take the chances the 
 Germans presently gave him. The fact was that, although 
 he seemed to accept the emperor's plan of a retirement on 
 Chalons, he was already hesitating about facing the risks he 
 saw in it, and was yielding to the attraction that a great 
 fortress so often exercises on weak commanders. He had 
 another plan in his mind of which so far he had said 
 nothing, but which his actions presently revealed. He would 
 keep the Army of the Rhine near Metz, under the protec- 
 tion of its outlying forts and supplied from its magazines, 
 until the further advance of the invaders into France would 
 give him an opportunity of resuming active operations. 
 Military history shows again and again that an army that 
 will not risk keeping the field, but trusts to the shelter of 
 fortifications, is generally starved into surrender. 
 
 On the morning of Tuesday, August 16, the French 
 army resumed its movement of retreat, now in two columns
 
 152 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 — the one following the road that branches from Gravelotte 
 by Rezonville and Mars-Ia-Tour ; the other, the northern 
 branch of the road that goes by Doncourt and Conflans. 
 The ground which the French were traversing was part 
 of the cretaceous plateau that extends from the Moselle 
 towards the Meuse. The streams and little rivers have cut 
 it up»with valleys and hollows, some of them so narrow as 
 to suggest gorges and ravines. In places the crests of the 
 plateau form bold ranges of hills, and there are numerous 
 stretches of wood. The country would be like that of the 
 Surrey downs, only that there is less pasture and more cul- 
 tivation. Fences are few ; the highroads, bordered on each 
 side by rows of poplars, are separated from the fields only 
 by a small open ditch. The houses of the villages are 
 compactly grouped together, with usually a walled ceme- 
 tery round the church. Thus each village becomes easily 
 a tactical point in the defense of the ground, with an open 
 field of fire around it, and the walled churchyard for its 
 improvised citadel. Here and there between the villages 
 are massively built farmsteads, few, however, in number. 
 On the high ground in hot summer weather little water is 
 to be found, and during the operations round Metz not only 
 did the wounded suffer intensely on account of the difficulty 
 of obtaining water, but the troops halted on the heights 
 had to send parties of men to the next valley to bring up 
 water in buckets, camp kettles, and the like — a fatiguing 
 operation after a march, and especially difficult when the 
 column halted after dark. 
 
 The morning of the sixteenth was a fine summer day, 
 with intense heat beginning almost as soon as the sun rose. 
 Some of the corps commanders had their troops early on 
 the move. The men had snatched an apology for breakfast 
 from their haversacks, and hoping to be able to cook at 
 the first long halt, they marched along the poplar avenues 
 amidst clouds of white dust, with the hot sun at their backs
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 153 
 
 and not a vestige of shade. Bazaine rode over to the inn 
 on the Gravelotte road where the emperor had passed the 
 night to bid him farewell. He found Napoleon and the 
 Prince Imperial already in their carriage, surrounded by 
 an escort of Chasseurs d'Afrique, the dashing cavalry of 
 the Algerian frontier. The emperor looked ill and de- 
 pressed, but as he grasped the marshal's hand he told him 
 they would soon meet at Chalons, and then do great things. 
 He drove off by the northern road. Had he taken the 
 southern he would probably have fallen into the hands of 
 Rheinbaben's cavalry division, which was prowling beyond 
 Mars-la-Tour some six miles away. 
 
 Outside the inn, country folk who had come in from the 
 wooded and ravine-scarred hills along the Moselle by Gorze 
 told the marshal that they had fled before great masses of 
 Prussian troops, who had been pouring across the river for 
 hours. In his orders issued the night before Bazaine had 
 warned the Second and Sixth Corps (Frossard and Can- 
 robert), who were to follow the Mars-la-Tour road, that 
 they had probably some 30,000 of the enemy south of them, 
 and might be attacked. But he did not take the precaution 
 of sending his cavalry out in this direction to gain touch with 
 and delay the enemy, and he seemed now by no means 
 anxious to hasten the march. He halted the troops he 
 found near Gravelotte, and even told them they might set 
 up their shelter tents and cook. From far away to the 
 westward came the dull reports of a few cannon shots. 
 Staff officers suggested that the enemy was already attack- 
 ing. " It 's nothing," said Bazaine, as he turned to ride 
 towards Rezonville. " It will be only a reconnaissance." 
 
 The shots were fired by a horse battery with Rheinbaben's 
 cavaliers to the west of Rezonville. Their target was the 
 head of the French column on the southern road. On the 
 appearance of a mass of French cavalry the daring horse- 
 men limbered up their guns and rode away to the south-
 
 154 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 wards. In the dust and haze of the summer morning all 
 they had made out was that a strong French column was 
 approaching Mars-la-Tour from Rezonville. Though Rhein- 
 baben had been in Mars-la-Tour since the day before he 
 had shown a strange lack of enterprise in scouting. With 
 a very little trouble he might have found out that the whole 
 French army was still crowded on the two roads of the 
 plateau, and its retreat only begun. But he went away with 
 the impression that what he had come upon was a strong 
 rearguard, and that Bazaine's army was well on its way to 
 Verdun, This, too, was the idea of General Alvensleben, 
 who was marching up the forest-bordered road from Gorze 
 towards Rezonville at the head of the Brandenburg Corps, 
 the vanguard of Frederick Charles's army. He felt sure 
 the French troops reported near Rezonville must be a last 
 lagging detachment of the Army of the Rhine, and he 
 decided to push on and attack them. There were no troops 
 within miles to support him, and he was running an enor- 
 mous risk. 
 
 German leadership in the Franco-Prussian war was by 
 no means perfect. It seemed to be so admirable, because on 
 the whole it was good, and because that of the generals of 
 the French army was abominably bad, except sometimes on 
 the actual battle-field, where their soldier courage and the 
 quality of their men enabled them to make a good light. 
 But even there an unfortunate theory of the best tactics 
 for the quick-firing breech-loading rifle handicapped them 
 throughout. The sound theory of Napoleon's days, which 
 held its own still in the campaign of Magenta and Solferino, 
 was that attack is the best form of defense, and the im- 
 petuous character of the French makes their attack formid- 
 able. Besides, it is only by attacking that an enemy can be 
 really beaten. But with the coming of the breech-loading 
 rifle there had come also a new doctrine that the way to win 
 battles was to " sit tight " on a good position, preferably a
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 155 
 
 line of high ground, and use the rapid fire to destroy the 
 enemy as he attacked. " The defensive is now superior," 
 was the teaching of the French mihtary schools. The Ger- 
 mans held by the sounder doctrine, " Only the attack can 
 give real results. It may be more costly than formerly, but 
 the cost must be paid. To attack is to assert from the out- 
 set the sense of power and the determination to win." 
 
 For hours on this day of Rezonville the French had in 
 their hands the opportunity of gaining a great victory — if 
 only they would attack. But this wretched theory of the 
 superiority of the defense made it the ruling idea that all 
 they had to do was to cling to the edge of the high ground 
 near the Mars-la-Tour-Gravelotte road and repel the Prus- 
 sian attack. A single German corps and some cavalry were 
 opposed to all the Army of the Rhine. But the French did 
 not attack. To move forward would have been to over- 
 whelm Alvensleben, drive him back upon the troops strung 
 out along the Gorze road, hustle them back upon the bridges 
 of the Moselle, and (given the undoubted fighting quality 
 of the French regulars) inflict a disaster on the German 
 Second Army. Regimental officers, even soldiers in the 
 French ranks, felt this instinctively ; but Bazaine and the 
 staff let the golden opportunity go by, and the rashness and 
 the error of judgment of the German leaders thus became 
 in the popular mind enterprise and clear-sighted daring. It 
 is a true saying that he wins in war who makes the fewest 
 mistakes — for mistakes there always are. 
 
 Alvensleben came on with the confidence inspired by his 
 false view. He had no idea he was running into a hornet's 
 nest, no foresight of the terrible price to be paid for his ven- 
 ture. It was about ten in the morning that his advanced 
 guard, issuing from the Gorze woods, sighted Frossard's 
 Corps marching across its front. Guns, cavalry, and wagons 
 were on the Verdun road. The infantry was marching by 
 field tracks and across open ground on the slopes between
 
 IS6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the poplar-bordered highway and the old Roman road north 
 of it, the heads of the columns being partly hidden by the 
 stretch of woods and copses that extends northwards from 
 near Tronville. The Germans always had several batteries 
 well to the front with their advanced guard, and these 
 formed up and opened fire on the French. Frossard at once 
 replied, bringing his artillery promptly into action, while he 
 formed his line of battle along the high ground of the plateau 
 — his right in the woods, his left at Rezonville, throwing 
 out a screen of skirmishers in the Tronville woods and along 
 the Verdun road. 
 
 The positions of Bazaine's army corps at this moment 
 were these: The Sixth Corps (Canrobert) was moving 
 north of Frossard's position, its leading division on the 
 Roman road ; the Imperial Guard was marching up through 
 Gravelotte; two corps — the Third (Leboeuf) and the 
 Fourth (L'Admirault) — were marching by the road that 
 branches off at Gravelotte and goes towards Verdun by 
 Doncourt and Etain. Bazaine had thus his whole army well 
 placed within easy reach of the scene of the opening battle. 
 He might have rapidly concentrated to attack and over- 
 whelm the enemy, if he had realized that only part of the 
 German army was across the Moselle, and even that could 
 only issue slowly from the defiles of the Gorze woods. Or 
 he might have used Frossard's Corps and his cavalry to hold 
 the Germans and steadily continued his movement on Ver- 
 dun, with his flank thus protected. He chose a third course, 
 in which the possible gain was the smallest. He fought a 
 purely defensive battle, and showed throughout a continual 
 anxiety for the safety of his left — massing troops there 
 that would have been more useful elsewhere — under the 
 delusion that the enemy would try to cut him off from Metz, 
 while their whole object was to prevent him from getting 
 away from it. 
 
 For the attack of the French positions Von Alvensleben
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 157 
 
 had at hand the two divisions of the Third Corps — Stulp- 
 nagel's Division on the left and Buddenbrock's on the right. 
 Rheinbaben's cavalry division was already on the ground. A 
 considerable force of cavalry was within call, hut the nearest 
 infantry was still miles away, the army corps farthest for- 
 ward towards the field being the Tenth, under Voights- 
 Rhetz, the Hanoverian Corps, some of whose regiments still 
 bear on their colors the names of battles they helped to win 
 under British generals. Alvensleben pressed the attack, 
 sending his left forward to clear the Tronville woods, and 
 hurling his right at the villages of Vionville and Flavigny. 
 These were advanced posts of the French position ; but 
 Frossard's men made a stubborn fight for them, and in this 
 first stage of the battle the loss was severe on both sides. 
 It was only after more than one repulse, and at the end 
 of two hours of hard fighting, that the Brandenburgers got 
 into Vionville and Flavigny ; and the left attack having won 
 the south end of the woods, Alvensleben's line went forward 
 to the line of the Verdun road. 
 
 He then realized that he had an overwhelmingly superior 
 force in his front. Bazaine had ridden up from Gravelotte 
 and taken the direction of the French defense. Canrobert's 
 Corps was now in line along the high ground south of the 
 Roman road. To its left, about Rezonville, the Imperial 
 Guard, commanded by Bourbaki, had formed up, the picked 
 soldiers of France, now going into action for the first time 
 since Solferino. The Second Corps (Frossard's) was with- 
 drawn into the second line, and formed a reserve behind the 
 Guard on the French right. Leboeuf's Corps was being 
 brought up from the Doncourt road to support Canrobert. 
 
 The German advance came to a standstill. A line of 
 skirmishers pushed out towards Rezonville was charged and 
 scattered by a regiment of the cuirassiers of the Imperial 
 Guard ; but while they were disordered with their success 
 they were in turn charged by one of Rheinbaben's brigades
 
 158 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 made up of the Black Brunswickers and the Seventeenth 
 Hussars. They rode through the cuirassiers, and then the 
 Brunswickers found themselves in front of one of the bat- 
 teries of the Imperial Guard. They dashed at the guns, 
 cutting down several of the gunners. On the flank of the 
 battery was a group of mounted oflicers, among them one 
 who wore the gold-braided kepi of a general. Some of the 
 Brunswickers rode for him, and he defended himself sword 
 in hand, showing that he was a good fighting man. But 
 he and his stafi^ officers were in imminent danger of death 
 or capture when the Fifth P'rench Hussars came to the 
 rescue and sent the Brunswickers back with many empty 
 saddles. The general who had had such a narrow escape 
 was no other than Marshal Bazaine himself. One of the 
 best of the French critical historians of the war notes that 
 it might have been a piece of good fortune for France if 
 the Fifth Hussars had not come so promptly to the rescue. 
 If Bazaine had been killed or taken by the Black Bruns- 
 wickers, Marshal Canrobert would have succeeded by right 
 of seniority to the command of the Army of the Rhine. 
 This might well have meant a decided victory for France 
 at Rezonville. In any case, it would have meant more 
 vigorous and loyal leadership, and France would have per- 
 haps been spared the misery of the blockade and capitulation 
 of Metz. 
 
 Cavalry now began to play a great part in the battle. 
 Alvensleben could not yet hope for infantry reinforcements, 
 but the mounted troops were arriving. The Sixth Cavalry 
 Division, commanded by the Duke of Mecklenburg- 
 Schwerin, had just arrived. They were flung into the fight, 
 driving back the French Hussars, only to be charged by 
 a mass of the cavalry of the Imperial Guard. In front of 
 Rezonville there was a fierce melee of many squadrons, out 
 of which emerged the red-coated Ziethen Hussars, riding 
 in bold onset at the lines of bearskin-capped Guardsmen in
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 159 
 
 front of the village. It was a hopeless piece of daring. 
 With a storm of chassepot bullets bringing down riders and 
 horses, and the shells of a battery bursting in their midst, 
 the Red Hussars turned when they were still 500 yards from 
 the French line and rode back, leaving the ground strewn 
 with dead and wounded. Their colonel had been one of the 
 first to be shot dead. 
 
 Alvensleben had now all his men and guns in action, and 
 no reserves to draw upon, and everywhere his advance had 
 failed to win a single yard beyond the ground gained in the 
 first attack. Lebceuf was reinforcing Canrobert, and the 
 German general thought he saw a disposition of the enemy 
 to advance and turn his exposed left, fie must keep the 
 French right occupied for a while longer, to give Voights- 
 Rhetz time to arrive with his sturdy Hanoverians. The only 
 fresh troops he had available were those of Von Bredow's 
 cavalry brigade, the Sixteenth Lancers, and the Seventh 
 Magdeburg Cuirassiers.' Alvensleben ordered Von Bredow 
 to charge the French batteries on the right and their infantry 
 supports, telling him that the fate of the army depended on 
 gaining some breathing time for the hard-pressed infantry. 
 The two regiments together numbered only a little more 
 than 600 sabers, and Von Bredow's charge is remembered 
 in Germany as we in England remember the charge of the 
 " Six Hundred " at Balaklava. It is known in the German 
 army as the Todtenritt — the "Death-ride" — of Von 
 Bredow. 
 
 The cuirassiers were first into the line of French guns. 
 They came charging through the dense smoke of a battery, 
 to the utter surprise of its gunners, who had not noticed 
 its advance. Von Schmettow, the colonel of the regiment, 
 cut down the battery commander. Every officer and man 
 
 * This was Bismarck's regiment. He had the rank of major in it. 
 and generally wore its uniform when with the royal staff during a 
 campaign.
 
 i6o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 was ridden over or sabered, except one of the privates, who 
 ran towards Von Schmettow calHng out that he surrendered. 
 The colonel saved his life and let him go. As the cuirassiers 
 dashed on towards the French infantry this solitary gunner, 
 crouching beside one of the guns of the battery, watched the 
 charge rolling away into the smoke of the rifle fight. The 
 lancers had dashed through another battery, and were fol- 
 lowing up the cuirassiers, and together they went through 
 the line of infantry, which broke before their onset. A 
 French general who was directing the fire of the batteries 
 tells how he got away by riding hard before the charge, and 
 as he went he exclaimed to his adjutant, who was galloping 
 beside him, " What a magnificent attack ! " 
 
 In the rush through the batteries the German cavalry had 
 suffered little, but in charging the infantry they lost heavily. 
 Colonel von Schmettow had a narrow escape, two bullets 
 going through his steel helmet. But now the cuirassiers 
 and lancers were charged by two French cavalry brigades 
 — those of Prince Murat, a grandson of the famous cavalry 
 leader of Napoleon's days, and General Gramont. There 
 was a fierce melee, in which French and Germans fought 
 hand to hand. Lieutenant Campbell of Craignish, a young 
 Scotch officer serving with the cuirassiers, cut down the 
 standard-bearer of one of the French regiments and cap- 
 tured the eagle he carried, but he did not keep it long. The 
 Frenchmen closed round him to recapture the flag:, a pistol 
 fired at close quarters shattered one of his hands, and he 
 had to let his trophy go. He was with difficulty rescued by 
 some of his men. Outnumbered as they were, the German 
 horsemen kept together and fought their way out of the 
 melee. Then they rode back through a storm of fire — 
 rifles, machine-guns, cannon opened on them — and only 
 a handful reached the German lines. " They rode back — 
 not the Six Hundred." Two-thirds of the officers and men 
 strewed the 3000 yards of ground over which they had
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE i6i 
 
 charged. Only 104 of the cuirassiers and 90 of the lancers 
 answered the roll-call. 
 
 It was now past two o'clock, and the Hanoverian Corps 
 was beginning to arrive. Its appearance enabled Alven- 
 sleben to concentrate his hard-tried Brandenburgers on the 
 right, and prolong his line to the left with the fresh troops. 
 Then Prince Frederick Charles himself came on to the field 
 to take over the command. He had ridden hard for four- 
 teen miles from Gorze, and Archibald Forbes tells how he 
 saw the " Red Prince " spurring towards Flavigny, keeping 
 far in front of his staff and escort, and not even turning 
 his head as a French shell burst beside him. 
 
 But the French were also being reinforced. L'Admirault's 
 Corps was marching up from the Doncourt road and form- 
 ing on the right. The Germans were still heavily outnum- 
 bered. Two things saved them from disaster : First, the 
 vigor of Alvensleben's attack had led Bazaine to believe that 
 they were in much greater force ; and secondly, the attitude 
 of passive defense adopted by the French army made its 
 superiority in fighting strength useless, except to hold the 
 ground on which the men stood. Frederick Charles recog- 
 nized that the danger point was on his exposed left, and he 
 sent word to Voights-Rhetz to attack the French right. The 
 attack was made at half past four, and was badly executed, 
 with disastrous results for the Germans. It was directed 
 against L'Admirault's Corps, which was prolonging the 
 French line along the higher ground north of Mars-la-Tour, 
 and had brought 60 guns and 12 mitrailleuses into action 
 against the 36 guns on the German left. Masses of French 
 infantry were on the heights, just out of sight behind the 
 crest of the plateau, and a strong firing line had advanced 
 down the slope. Probably Voights-Rhetz did not realize that 
 he had nearly 12,000 French bayonets in his immediate front, 
 for he sent forward a single brigade — five battalions, about 
 4500 strong. As they advanced over perfectly open ground.
 
 i62 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 there burst upon them such a storm of fire as the Germans 
 had never yet experienced. It came from a double tier of 
 infantry in line — the skirmishers on the lower ground, and 
 the battalions formed up on the crest of the plateau. The 
 advance soon came to a dead stop. Most of the officers 
 were down, and the rank and file had lost seriously. For a 
 while the brigade tried to hold its own with rifle fire, but 
 from the crest masses of French infantry came rushing 
 down, and deployed into swarms of skirmishers in the firing 
 line, which advanced, firing as it came. The Hanoverians 
 fell back, with the victorious French in close pursuit. The 
 ground was heaped with fallen men, and for once the Ger- 
 man soldiers had become thoroughly demoralized. Some 
 were running, others threw themselves down and waited to 
 be made prisoners. But we know from the narrative of 
 a German officer, who was afterwards one of the most 
 famous of the military historians of the day (Captain Fritz 
 Hoenig), that the French were also in a state of disor- 
 ganization, and quite out of the hands of their officers. 
 Hoenig had been wounded, and as he lay on the ground 
 the advancing French line passed over him. He tells how 
 they were shouting, " Courage! En avant! " and firing hur- 
 riedly from the hip, without bringing the rifle to the shoulder 
 to aim. Many were stopping to secure and carry off 
 wounded and unwounded prisoners. Some were even plun- 
 dering the fallen men. It was the intervention of a French 
 officer that saved Hoenig from having his watch taken. He 
 thought that if there had been better discipline among the 
 French not a man of the retiring brigade would have escaped. 
 Even as it was, the beaten remnant of the attack was 
 in dire danger. Voights-Rhetz, to cover the retirement and 
 check the pursuit, sent the First Dragoons of the Guard 
 to charge the French. They swept round the east side of 
 Mars-la-Tour, formed line of squadrons, passed through the 
 wreck of the defeated infantry, and rode for the advancing
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 163 
 
 skirmishers. The French halted and fired on them ; but the 
 dragoons, not without heavy loss, passed through them, 
 doing, however, very little damage, and then went for the 
 formed infantry behind them. They were met with a blast 
 of fire from the front, and at the same time were fired on 
 from the rear by the unbroken portions of the skirmish 
 line, who turned to fire after them. Unable to close with 
 the formed infantry of the Fourth Corps, the dragoons 
 turned, charged once more through the skirmishers, and re- 
 gained Mars-la-Tour, having lost in a few minutes 15 offi- 
 cers and 121 men and 250 horses. Most of the dismounted 
 men were made prisoners. Two of the Chancellor von 
 Bismarck's sons were serving as private soldiers in the 
 dragoons, and rode in the charge. The elder. Count Her- 
 bert, was wounded ; the younger. Count William, had his 
 horse shot under him, and was badly hurt in the fall, but 
 escaped capture. 
 
 The charge had served its purpose of disengaging the 
 beaten brigade. The losses of its five battalions were very 
 serious. Out of a total of 95 officers and about 4400 men 
 who went into the fight, 74 officers and 2415 men did not 
 return. Of these, two officers and 449 men were prisoners. 
 The rest were killed or wounded. The brigade had lost 
 nearly all its officers and more than half its men in less 
 than half an hour. It was an awful revelation of the power 
 of the modern rifle, even when used in the wild, half- 
 trained way in which the French employed it. " I am not 
 ashamed of owning," says Captain Hoenig, " that the 
 French fire at Mars-la-Tour affected my nerves for months 
 after the battle. Troops that have survived an ordeal of 
 the kind are for a considerable time demoralized — men and 
 officers alike — and I am not the only man who says this." 
 
 Now was the time for the French to use their superior 
 numbers and the impulse of success — to throw L'Admi- 
 rault's Corps upon the exposed German left. Even company
 
 i64 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 officers and men in the ranks felt it. As the dragoons dis- 
 appeared behind Mars-la-Tour, fire was reopened on the 
 enemy's infantry, " who seemed few in numbers and very 
 disorganized," says Colonel Patry, then serving as lieutenant 
 of a French company. And he goes on to tell of the dis- 
 appointment of the French at the want of enterprise of their 
 leaders : 
 
 " We asked each other why we were not led forward. We were 
 strong in yumbers and in the best of spirits; we all felt, privates as 
 well as officers, that there was next to nothing in front of us. Why 
 not go forward? Why not follow up the success already obtained? 
 Instead of this we were actually withdrawn to the main position. 
 The whole thing was incomprehensible, and we swore at the generals 
 who had no idea of making use of the advantages our dash had ob- 
 tained for them." ^ 
 
 The wretched theory of purely defensive battles was the 
 secret of this slackness of the French commanders. The 
 Germans fully expected a fierce counter-attack on their left, 
 and massed all their available cavalry to protect the exposed 
 flank. The French cavalry leaders, more enterprising than 
 their colleagues, saw the chance, and moved brigade after 
 brigade to the right, and then boldly attacked the German 
 cavalry. There was the most serious cavalry fighting of 
 the whole war on the open ground near Mars-la-Tour. On 
 both sides regiment after regiment was thrown into the 
 melee, till at last some 80 squadrons — more than 5000 men 
 — were engaged. Those who looked on saw only a huge 
 cloud of dust, out of which rose a wild din of shouting, 
 clash of steel, and reports of pistol shots. Out of the melee 
 riderless horses came galloping back to the French and 
 German lines, and wounded men struggled to reach a place 
 of safety. Presently it was seen that more and more of 
 the French cavaliers were riding back to the plateau, and 
 then there was a general retirement, and the German horse- 
 men were left in victorious possession of the ground. 
 
 ^ Patry, " La Guerre telle qu'elle est," p. 87,
 
 10 
 
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 No. II — Battle of Rezonville, August i6, 1S70 
 
 (Position about 7 p. u.)
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 165 
 
 Evening was now coming on, and the Germans made 
 one more effort to advance against the French center and 
 left. The attack cost them much loss and gave no results. 
 The men were too exhausted to accomplish anything serious. 
 For some time after sunset there was desultory firing about 
 Rezonville, but at last even this ended, and the two armies 
 bivouacked on the ground on which they had fought since 
 morning, with their outpost lines almost in touch with each 
 other. All night long on the French right cavalry soldiers, 
 French and German, came into the picket line, all of them 
 dismounted and leading their horses, many of them wounded. 
 They were the stragglers from the great cavalry melee. 
 
 At the close of the battle the French had on the field 
 113,000 men, including 14,000 cavalry, with 486 guns and 
 54 mitrailleuses. The Germans had brought up from first 
 to last 63,000 men, including 11,000 cavalry, and 288 guns. 
 At the outset they had not more than 20,000 available. 
 Careful calculations by the historical section of the German 
 staff show that the forces not merely present but actually 
 engaged were : 
 
 FRENCH GERMANS 
 
 Infantry 83,680 47,530 
 
 Cavalry 8,030 8,370 
 
 Artillery — guns 432 222 
 
 The Germans lost 14,830 killed and wounded (including 
 720 officers), or rather more than 22 per cent of their fight- 
 ing force.^ The French lost 11,460 killed and wounded 
 
 ^ Otto Berndt (" Die Zahl im Kriege ") gives the following analy- 
 sis of the German losses : 
 
 Infantry . . . 565 officers 13,084 men = 25.2 per cent. 
 Cavalry . . . 104 officers 1,303 men = 12.0 per cent. 
 Artillery . . . 39 officers 681 men = 14.9 per cent. 
 
 The heaviest loss fell on the Third (Brandenburg) Army Corps, 
 namely : 
 
 315 officers, 6438 men, and 672 horses killed and wounded. 
 203 men and 6 horses missing.
 
 i66 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 (9.4 per cent). Nine hundred and seventy Germans were 
 taken prisoners, but the prisoners and missing "on the French 
 side were more than 5000, taken in the cavalry melee and 
 in the first successful advance to the Verdun road. A 
 French gun was captured when Alvensleben rushed the vil- 
 lage of Flavigny in the first stage of the battle. 
 
 Both sides claimed the victory. '* The enemy left us 
 masters of the battle-field," was Bazaine's telegraphic report 
 to the emperor. It was a perfectly honest report, for he 
 had held the position he had taken up, and repulsed attack 
 after attack. " Our troops, worn out by a twelve hours' 
 struggle, encamped on the victorious but bloody field im- 
 mediately opposite the French lines," was Moltke's mes- 
 sage. The Germans claimed that as they had arrested the 
 French retreat they had scored a success. But there has 
 been a strange amount of exaggeration in the popular Ger- 
 man tradition of the battle.^ 
 
 On the morrow of the battle of Rezonville the officers 
 and men of the French army received with puzzled astonish- 
 ment and deep disappointment the order to abandon the 
 ground they had held during the hard fight of the day be- 
 fore, and march back to the bold range of heights that rises 
 to the west of Metz. It was a retirement in the face of 
 an enemy whom they felt they had beaten. Were all the 
 results of their victory to be thrown away? Even the 
 
 Thus the Emperor William II said in one of his speeches : " The 
 battle is unparalleled in military history, for a single army corps 
 about 20,000 strong held on to and repulsed a well-equipped enemy 
 more than five times as numerous. Such was the glorious deed of 
 the Brandenburgers, and the Hohenzollerns will never forget the debt 
 they owe them." 
 
 Now the plain fact is that the French had never five times 20,000 
 men in acton ; and the Brandenburgers, though they fought magnifi- 
 cently, were in serious danger till Voights-Rhetz arrived. The 
 French never made a serious attack, but remained on the defensive. 
 All that Alvensleben's Corps did was to drive in the French first line 
 in the earlier stage of the fight. After that its attacks on the French 
 position were everywhere repulsed.
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 167 
 
 soldiers in the ranks knew that two days before the orders 
 had been that every effort must be made to move west- 
 ward, and place the army between Paris and the invaders. 
 Now they were turning their backs on Paris, and tramping 
 back under the blazing sun over some of the very roads they 
 had wearily traversed on the fifteenth. 
 
 Bazaine knew that now the German army was massing 
 on the ground that Frederick Charles had held at the end 
 of the battle of August 16. He had never been keen on 
 cutting himself off from Metz, and now he shrank from 
 the responsibility of attempting to continue his march to 
 the westward across the front of the German armies. He 
 was like a timid navigator — afraid to go far from a shelter- 
 ing port. But he concealed his real intention by telling his 
 colleagues that he meant to take up a position on the hills 
 west of Metz, renew his supplies of ammunition, give the 
 men a rest, and then rejoin MacMahon by a march to the 
 northwestward. 
 
 Frossard, on the left, had the shortest way to go to 
 reach the positions assigned to him on the heights east of 
 Gravelotte and beyond the ravine-like valley by which the 
 Mance brook flows down to the Moselle. The Imperial 
 Guard was to march to Plappeville, where Bazaine had de- 
 cided to establish his headquarters under the guns of the 
 outlying forts of Metz. Leboeuf's Corps was to take up its 
 position on the heights north of Frossard. L'Admirault's 
 Corps was given the ground about the village of Amanvil- 
 liers. Canrobert was to be posted on the extreme right, 
 about St. Privat. He had the longest way to go, and his 
 troops were not all in their bivouacs till late in the after- 
 noon. The retirement was encumbered by huge trains of 
 baggage and long convoys of wounded. 
 
 The Germans were concentrating on the ground aban- 
 doned to them by the French, and Steinmetz was bringing 
 the First Army across the Moselle and into line. No at-
 
 i68 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 tempt was made to harass or even to observe the French 
 retirement. Towards evening there was some skirmishing 
 between detachments pushed forward from the German right 
 and the outposts of Frossard's Corps. But though the Ger- 
 mans had a huge force of cavalry up to the front, no effec- 
 tive reconnoitering work was done, and their plans and 
 orders for next day (August i8) were based on the false 
 idea that the French line had its right at Amanvilliers, 
 instead of extending northwards to St. Privat and beyond it. 
 
 The night was fine and warm, with a clear starlit sky. 
 The French bivouacs, extending along some six miles of 
 the eastern ridge of the plateau, presented a curious spec- 
 tacle. At the southern end of the line the outposts looked 
 southwestward, towards the direction from which an enemy 
 might come. But in the center they were thrown out in 
 the direction in which the columns had marched during 
 the day, and were therefore looking towards Metz, and 
 watching the wooded reverse slope of the ridge. This is 
 almost incredible, but there is positive evidence that they 
 not only looked towards their own fortress, but that during 
 the night they imagined impossible enemies in their actual 
 front and opened fire at trees and shadows. On the west, 
 the side of the enemy, there were no outposts whatever 
 along the greater part of the line, and the baggage wagons 
 were packed together in rows on that side. The whole 
 arrangement shows how utterly incompetent and careless 
 the staff of the army must have been. The firing of the 
 outposts led to two false alarms during the night — one 
 about 2 A. M., the other shortly before dawn — when the 
 men sprang to arms, and regiments formed up, and bat- 
 teries hooked in their teams. After the second alarm many 
 of the men did not lie down again, but sat smoking round 
 the camp-fires. 
 
 When the sun rose, there was the morning roll-call. 
 Then coffee was made, the men cleaned up their rifles and
 
 %"iuor^ 7
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 169 
 
 accouterments, and there were formal inspections. The 
 great camp had the air of an assembly for peace manoeuvers. 
 During the morning hours some work was done in the way 
 of intrenching the position, but not many tools were avail- 
 able, and very little was accomplished, except on the left, 
 where Frossard, an engineer officer, did some serious work 
 towards strengthening the front of his line, putting the 
 farmsteads of Moscou, St. Hubert, and Point du Jour into 
 a state of defense, and digging shelter trenches and gun- 
 pits. The men had been living from hand to mouth, chiefly 
 on biscuits, during the last few days. The distribution of 
 a liberal meat ration made the cooking of an early midday 
 meal the chief subject of interest. At Plappeville, Bazaine 
 told his officers that he expected a quiet day, and set his 
 chief of the staff, General Jarras, to work at preparing a 
 long list of promotions and transfers of officers to fill the 
 gaps made by the losses at Borny and Rezonville. A more 
 competent commander would have been early in saddle, 
 riding along the position to insure that it was all in a state 
 of readiness for defense, and would have sent his cavalry 
 out to scour the country towards Mars-la-Tour and Rezon- 
 ville and keep in touch with the Germans. 
 
 By noon the six-mile-long camp had the air of a huge 
 picnic party. The men were regaling themselves with a 
 good solid meal of soup, meat, bread, and thin wine. The 
 officers were having their dejeuner, some of them comfort- 
 ably installed at folding tallies. Colonel Patry's narrative ^ 
 gives a striking picture of the state of affairs in L'Admir- 
 ault's Corps in the right center. The lieutenant, as he then 
 was, had enjoyed a good dejeuner, and then wrote a letter 
 home, and set off to post it at the field post-office wagon. 
 On the way he saw the major of his battalion shaving be- 
 side his tent, and jokingly asked him if he was preparing 
 for an excursion to Metz. " If I am killed to-day I should 
 
 ' •' La Guerre telle qu'clle est."
 
 I70 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 like to look a bit tidy," was the reply ; and Patry told him 
 there was no chance of that — " everything was a dead 
 calm." Near the post-office wagon, which was standing 
 among rows of other vehicles, he found some transport 
 officers still sitting round a table with wine and cigars. He 
 was chatting with them when suddenly there was a sharp 
 explosion close by. A shell had burst among the wagons. 
 The men rushed to arms ; he ran to his regiment, and found 
 it formed up facing towards Metz. " Crash, bang, crash ! " 
 shell after shell. Horses were running wild, after breaking 
 from their picket ropes ; drivers tried to catch them. 
 Wagons were being dragged away. Guns were galloping 
 up to the crest of the ridge. The regiment faced about, 
 and marched up to the summit north of Amanvilliers, and 
 he saw that the hostile fire was coming from the line of 
 crests above the woods at the other side of the valley, west 
 of the French position. The battle of Gravelotte had begun. 
 
 All the morning, while the French were making holiday 
 in careless security, the Germans had been marching. Six 
 army corps, forming their front line, had been making a 
 great wheeling movement, pivoting on the right and swing- 
 ing round towards the northeast, across miles of country. 
 Behind them came Alvensleben's Corps in reserve, after its 
 trying day on the sixteenth, and the Second (Pomeranian) 
 Corps tramping up from Pont-a-Mousson through the Gorze 
 woods, the last of the German units to cross the Moselle. 
 More than 160,000 infantry, 20,000 cavalry, and 700 guns 
 were marching to battle, while Bazaine and the Army of 
 the Rhine were enjoying their restful holiday. 
 
 On the German side there was no holiday-making. Some 
 of the corps marched as early as 4 a. m. At half past five 
 the " Red Prince " was in the saddle at Mars-la-Tour, 
 directing the movements on the left. The old king drove 
 up from Pont-a-Mousson in the early morning, passing 
 the columns of the Second Corps already tramping through
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 171 
 
 the woods. By six he was mounted at Flavigny, and rode 
 towards Gravelotte, accompanied by Bismarck and Moltke. 
 The plan of the battle was that Steinmetz, with three corps 
 of the First Army, was to swing round and engage and 
 occupy the French in front ; while Prince Frederick Charles 
 with the Second Army, was to wheel against their right, 
 sending the Saxons and the Guard Corps to work round its 
 exposed flank, envelop and drive it in, rolling up the 
 whole of the enemy's line. As already noted, it was sup- 
 posed that the extreme right of the French was at Aman- 
 villiers, or just north of it. The result of this misinforma- 
 tion was that when the contact with the enemy came the 
 Guards found themselves in front of Canrobert's Corps at 
 St. Privat, and the Saxons had to make a longer detour than 
 they expected in order to reach the flank of the French line. 
 Steinmetz's attack on the French left and center was not 
 to begin till Prince Frederick Charles was in position for 
 his attack on the right, which was intended to be the 
 decisive move of the day. But the beginning of the battle 
 was precipitated by one of Steinmetz's corps commanders, 
 Von Mannstein. Shortly after midday he had led his corps, 
 the Ninth (the men of Schleswig-Holstein and Hesse), to 
 the high ground east of Habonville, and in front of Aman- 
 villiers. Looking across the valley that separated him from 
 the heights held by the French, he saw L'Admirault's camp, 
 the picture of peaceful security — wagons parked in long 
 lines, horses feeding at their picket lines, tents standing, men 
 strolling about. The temptation to give the French a 
 startling surprise was too much for him. He unlimbered 
 his batteries and sent shell after shell across the valley. 
 Moltke, who was with the king between Flavigny and 
 Gravelotte, heard the guns, and knew that they had opened 
 too soon. He sent off a staff officer with a message telling 
 him not to begin his attack till further orders. But before 
 the galloper reached him, Steinmetz had heard the reports of
 
 172 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Mannstein's guns and the reply of the French artillery, and 
 had not only brought his batteries into action all along 
 front, but sent forward his infantry into the woods beyond 
 Gravelotte along the Mance ravine. So by Mannstein's 
 precipitation the battle began some two hours before Moltke 
 intended. 
 
 In twenty minutes Von Goeben's Corps, on the German 
 right, had loo guns in action against Frossard's position. 
 They sent their shells high over the wooded hollow of the 
 Mance against the three intrenched farmsteads on the 
 opposite heights. Frossafd's guns replied, but the marked 
 superiority of the German artillery was soon evident. 
 They were breech-loaders against muzzle-loaders, firing 
 faster and with less exposure for the men serving them. 
 Their shells and fuses were better. Every German shell 
 burst as it fell. Numbers of the French shells simply scored 
 the ground or buried themselves in it without exploding. 
 The farm of St. Hubert was gradually reduced to a mass 
 of ruins. Early in the fight Moscou and Point du Jour were 
 set on fire. Captain Fritz Hoenig, in his study of the fight 
 on the French right, gives a terrible description of the de- 
 struction of these two farms by Von Goeben's artillery. 
 
 " At these points," he says, " hardly any French were found killed 
 or wounded by infantry bullets. Almost all had been destroyed by 
 the fire of the guns. In the large heaps of ruins, especially in 
 Moscou, the defenders lay all around, fearfully torn and mutilated 
 by the German shells; limbs and bodies were blown from thirty to 
 fifty paces apart, and the stones and the sandy ground were here and 
 there covered with pools of blood. In Moscou and Point du Jour 
 some French were found burnt in their defensive positions, and a 
 large number of wounded showed marks of the flames, which had 
 destroyed both uniforms and limbs. All around lay rifles and swords, 
 knapsacks and cartridges, the remains of limbers which had been 
 blown up, broken gun-carriages and wheels, and a large number of 
 hideously torn and mangled horses. The ground was changed by the 
 German artillery fire into a desert covered with many corpses. The 
 interiors of Moscou and Point du Jour were not passable after the 
 battle until they had been cleared."
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 173 
 
 The infantry advance gradually drove the French out of 
 the woods in the Mance valley ; but Frossard had no in- 
 tention of persistently holding this advanced line. By this 
 time, too, the French artillery on the heights was suffering 
 severely, and many batteries had ceased firing. Only the 
 long-ranging French rifles replied to the German infantry 
 and artillery fire. Along the eastern side of the hollow of 
 the Mance the Germans massed for a further advance, and 
 successfully rushed the ruined farm of St. Hubert and the 
 chalk- and gravel-pits near it. But all efforts to press on 
 to Moscou and Point du Jour ended in costly failure. The 
 flames had driven the French from the farms, but between 
 them, and on the slope above them, they held on doggedly, 
 despite the German bombardment, and drove every attack 
 back with the deadly fire of their chassepots. The German 
 advance on the right was thus brought to a standstill, and 
 Frossard's main position was intact. 
 
 In the center, things had not gone much better for the 
 invaders. When Von Mannstein opened fire on Amanvil- 
 liers, he believed that he was fronting the extreme right of 
 the French, and that there were no enemies to the north of 
 his position. So he pushed the left of his line of guns well 
 forward. Then from the heights towards St. Privat Can- 
 robert's batteries opened, and brought a cross-fire to bear 
 on the left of the German artillery. Mannstein was about 
 to withdraw the exposed guns when L'Admirault sent his 
 infantry down the heights to attack them. The French 
 came on in a dense line of skirmishers, backed up by a 
 formed column of infantry. They drove in the German 
 troops that were thrown forward to protect the artillery, 
 and as the guns limbered up, horses and drivers were shot 
 down, and the Frenchmen dashed in among them. For a 
 few minutes they were in possession of several of them. A 
 rush of German infantry saved most of them, but when the 
 French retired again on Amanvilliers they dragged back
 
 174 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 with them two captured cannon as trophies of their suc- 
 cessful counter-attack. 
 
 The fight on this part of the field then became for a 
 while an artillery duel, in which the French, having con- 
 siderably more guns in action than their opponents, more 
 than held their own. The balance was not restored till, 
 towards three o'clock, the artillery of the Prussian Guard 
 came into action on Von Mannstein's left. 
 
 So far, after three hours of battle, the day had gone well 
 for the French. They might have done better still if there 
 had been any general plan for the action. As it was, each 
 of the corps commanders had to make an isolated defense 
 of his own part of the position. The cavalry divisions, 
 which could have done useful work in guarding the exposed 
 right flank, were standing idly by their horses in the wooded 
 valleys to the rear of the line. Bourbaki's splendid regi- 
 ments of the Imperial Guard were waiting near Plappeville, 
 listening impatiently to the roar of the battle in which they 
 were not allowed to play any part. Bazaine, when he heard 
 the first shots, had told General Jarras that the afifair would 
 not be serious, and he had better remain at his desk. He 
 himself mounted, and with only two of his officers rode up 
 the hill of Fort St. Ouentin, whence he watched the fight 
 on the French left. The fury of the German attack on this 
 side confirmed him in the delusion that haunted him through- 
 out — the idea that the enemy was anxious to cut in be- 
 tween him and Metz. This was why he kept the Imperial 
 Guard idle for hours behind his left, and paid no attention 
 whatever to his right flank, where the real danger lay. 
 
 On that side Prince Frederick Charles was now bringing 
 the Prussian Guard Corps into action. Part of its artillery 
 had been hurried forward to support Von Mannstein. As 
 the rest of the batteries came up with the vanguard of the 
 infantry, they were formed in line beyond St. Ail to pre- 
 pare the way for an attack on the village of Ste. Marie aux
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 175 
 
 Chenes. It is a larj^e villag-e of solidly-built stone houses, 
 about a mile in front of the St. Privat position, and con- 
 siderably below it. Canrobert had occupied it as an ad- 
 vanced post, sending there the Ninety-fourth Regiment, 
 under the veteran Colonel Geslin — two and a half battalions, 
 or about 1500 men. After a heavy bombardment the Guards 
 stormed Ste. Marie, meeting with an obstinate resistance, 
 for the soldiers of the old Imperial Army of France, long- 
 service men whose whole active life belonged to the regi- 
 ment, were splendid fighters.^ 
 
 When Ste. Marie had been won, the line of guns that 
 had been in action against it swung round and took position 
 to prepare the way for the attack on the heights by firing 
 on St. Privat, while the Guard formed up right and left of 
 the captured village. The bombardment of St. Privat began 
 about half past three, and for an hour and a half 200 guns 
 rained their shells on the place and the ground about it. 
 
 St. Privat stands a little back from the edge of the flat- 
 topped ridge held by the French. From Ste. Marie only 
 its church tower and some outlying houses are visible. 
 From the crest the ground slopes towards Ste. Marie for 
 rather more than a mile. The gentle declivity is perfectly 
 unbroken by obstacles or cover of any kind. There are 
 no walls or fences to the open fields. From Ste. Marie 
 a road runs up the slope to St. Privat. It is a French 
 road of the usual kind, with a ditch on each side, and rows 
 of tall poplars by the ditches, making the well-paved high- 
 
 * Captain Fritz Hoenig, a most competent critic, who fought 
 through the war of 1870-1871, and afterwards devoted years of re- 
 search to the study of it, expresses the opinion that the infantry of 
 the French Imperial Army was " undoubtedly one of the best that 
 ever existed, though its tactics were faulty." And he goes on to say : 
 " It remains to be proved whether French infantry will ever again 
 light as it did at Woerth and Gravelotte." He does not think so. 
 "Rut after all," he adds, " the same remark applies to infantry other 
 than the I-'rench, owing, in fact, to the universal mtroduction of 
 short service."
 
 176 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 way into a stately avenue. The German guns simply 
 crushed out the fire of Canrobert's artillery. The French 
 infantry lay crouched along and behind the crest waiting 
 for the infantry attack, to which they knew the fierce bom- 
 bardment was a prelude. In front, beyond rifle range, and 
 now safe even from shell fire (for the French guns were 
 silenced), the Guards waited for the word to advance. The 
 Prince of Wurttemberg, who commanded them, had formed 
 them up as men formed for the attack in the days before the 
 breech-loading rifle had fully proved its deadly power. They 
 waited in two solid masses, right and left of the Ste. Marie 
 road. Each mass, more than 7000 strong, was formed in 
 a huge column, a forest of bayonets half a battalion in line 
 in front, and the other half-battalions "in the same formation 
 behind it, one after the other. 
 
 It had been originally intended that the attack of the 
 Guards should be combined with that of the Saxon Corps, 
 which was to work round and fall on the flank and rear of 
 the French right. But there was as yet no sign of the 
 Saxons coming into action ; but, on the other hand, the fire 
 of the French from St. Privat had almost ceased, and Wurt- 
 temberg believed that their resisting power had been thor- 
 oughly broken by the bombardment. So a few minutes after 
 five o'clock he gave the order to advance against the heights. 
 Out marched the 15,000 picked Guardsmen on to the 
 gently sloping meadows. At first the two great columns 
 moved forward as if they were at some ceremonial review. 
 Drums beat the charge; standards waved in the bright 
 summer sunlight, over the long rows of glittering bayonets. 
 The mounted officers rode proudly in front. General von 
 Pape, a soldier of the Rhineland, at the head of the column 
 north of the poplar-shaded road ; General Budritzki, a Pole, 
 leading the right or southern column. Over their heads the 
 200 guns kept up their fire against the crest of the ridge. 
 But Canrobert and his officers an4 soldiers of the Sixth
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 177 
 
 Corps were not the men to be cowed by mere bombardment, 
 however heavy it mij^ht be. As the German cokimns came 
 on, some of the French guns were run up again to the 
 edge of the plateau, and, disregarding the hostile artillery 
 fire, opened on the advancing infantry. But they still moved 
 onward in stately march. The chassepot rifle had a long 
 range. When the heads of the columns were still three- 
 quarters of a mile down the slope, a roar of infantry fire 
 burst out along the crest. Not much harm was done to the 
 advancing Guardsmen at first by this long-range fire ; but 
 in five minutes more, when the distance was reduced to half 
 a mile, the Germans began to fall fast. And the fire became 
 hotter and hotter, for more and more rifles were rushed up 
 to the French front, and Canrobert's men were firing as fast 
 as they could pull bolt, slip in cartridge, and touch off trig- 
 ger. They had a huge target in those two moving masses of 
 dark uniformed men, marching up a green slope that was 
 smooth as table-top and gave not an inch of cover. The 
 leading battalions of the Guard broke into lines of skir- 
 mishers, and opened fire to cover the advance ; but, shoot- 
 ing uphill, most of their bullets went high over the crest, 
 now wrapped in a dense bank of smoke, torn here and there 
 by the red flashes of cannon, while the rifle bullets came 
 down the hill in a sweeping leaden hail. Every mounted 
 officer of the Guard was down, mostly shot, for only a few 
 had dismounted to lead their horses. The Rifles of the 
 Guard, who led the left attack, lost their colonel and 17 
 officers in two minutes. Presently every officer of the 
 battalion had fallen, and a few of the sergeants were 
 leading it. 
 
 For about 200 yards more the attack struggled forward 
 through the death-dealing storm of bullet and shell. Then 
 it came to a stop. Even the bravest could do no more. One 
 man in every four had falKn, and all this in less than ten 
 minutes. The dead and wounded lay in heaps; but these
 
 178 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 splendid soldiers, if they could not advance further, would 
 not turn and retire. They lay down in long, huddled lines 
 where they stood, and waited while the fire, now less deadly, 
 swept over them, the leading ranks answering back. The 
 French fusillade slackened. It had been so fast and furious 
 that most of the men had used up their sixty rounds. The 
 pouches of the dead and wounded were searched for cart- 
 ridges. Canrobert sent off frantic messages for a fresh 
 supply, and later on a small quantity reached him; but 
 meanwhile more guns galloped up to the ground in front 
 of him, and a fiercer bombardment of St. Privat began, this 
 time from 300 cannon. 
 
 The battle had lasted for five hours and a half, and the 
 French were still everywhere victorious. When he saw 
 the Guards advancing. Von Mannstein, on their right, had 
 pressed forward towards Amanvilliers ; but when he saw 
 the destruction that had overtaken the Guards Corps he 
 checked his advance, and continued the artillery fight. Von 
 Zastrow had made no impression on Leboeuf in the French 
 left center, and where Frossard fought on the left the Ger- 
 man attack had failed, and failed disastrously. 
 
 Here the veteran Steinmetz had made mistakes that cost 
 him his command, for in the German army no length of 
 service is allowed even to palliate a bad blunder. He saw 
 the farms of Moscou and Point du Jour wrapped in smoke 
 and flame; the French artillery on the slopes above them 
 absolutely silenced, even their rifle fire gradually diminish- 
 ing. He came to the conclusion that the French resistance 
 was here thoroughly broken, and that they were on the 
 point of abandoning the position. He had with him, near 
 Gravelotte, the Fourth Uhlans (lancers) and several regi- 
 ments of cuirassiers. He sent the cavalry commander an 
 order in writing, telling him to advance by the ravine-like 
 pass by which the Gravelotte road descended into the Mance 
 ravine, cross the wooded hollow, push on to the captured
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 179 
 
 farm of St. Hubert, and there wheel to the left, form line, 
 and charge the enemy, " who was inclined to give way." 
 He added that the charge was to be continued " right up 
 to the glacis of Metz." It was a mad order. Even sup- 
 posing Frossard's men were thoroughly beaten, which was 
 not the case, and though Steinmetz did not know the Im- 
 perial Guard was in reserve behind them, his map must 
 have shown him that a pursuit, even of broken men, towards 
 Metz would soon come under the heavy artillery of Forts 
 St. Ouentin and Plappeville. 
 
 At the same time he ordered nearly a third of his artil- 
 lery to cease fire, limber up, and cross the Mance valley 
 with the cavalry. They were to open on the French at 
 close range from near St. Hubert and, covered by their fire, 
 the infantry was to advance after the charging squadrons. 
 It was to be a beautifully combined attack of all three arms. 
 The drawback was that it was based on the false assumption 
 that Frossard was already half beaten. 
 
 Lancers, cuirassiers, and artillery streamed down through 
 the woods of the Mance ravine, crowded together on the 
 narrow road ; but as they went up the opposite slope and 
 tried to form line, a tornado of shells and bullets swept 
 down on them from the hilltops and from the ground about 
 the burning farmsteads. The temporary silence of so many 
 of Steinmetz's guns had allowed Frossard once more to 
 bring his batteries into action, and his infantry, sheltered 
 in its trenches, was not in the least inclined to give way. 
 On the contrary, it was full of fight. 
 
 This terrible burst of fire came as a surprise to the 
 Germans. At the head of the dense column men and horses 
 fell in heaps. Horses broke away, and a crowd of wounded 
 and unwounded fugitives struggled to reach the shelter of 
 the woods in the hollow. The teams of a couple of artillery 
 wagons bolted back down the slope. Bullets and shells 
 rained steadily on the disordered mass. Out of the crowd
 
 i8o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the Fourth Uhlans and four batteries pushed up to St. Hu- 
 bert. The colonel of the lancers saw at once that it was 
 hopeless to charge uphill into the volcano of fire along the 
 crest. But to retire was impossible, for the roadway was 
 blocked by the broken column ; so his men halted, and with 
 splendid courage endured a heavy loss. The horses of the 
 first gun fell in a heap, and it stopped on the slope. The 
 five other guns of the battery got up to St. Hubert, and 
 unlimbered amid a hurricane of bursting shells ; but as the 
 drivers took the teams and limbers away they could not 
 ■- stop them. All the horses bolted madly down the hill, 
 some of them wounded ; others were dragged along dead 
 in the traces. The three other batteries came into action, 
 only to lose half their men in a few minutes. 
 
 The cuirassiers and the rest of the artillery had now 
 been recalled. To cover their retirement the Prussian in- 
 fantry pushed up from the woods of the ravine; but now 
 Frossard's men dashed down the slope with the bayonet. 
 Everything went back in a confused panic before their 
 charge. The guns were saved by running them down into 
 the woods, which were now full of demoralized fugitives, 
 some of whom had even thrown away their arms. Fros- 
 sard's counter-attack was made by only a few battalions, 
 and was withdrawn as soon as the Germans gave way. 
 The purely defensive ideas of the French staflf had lost a 
 great chance. It was the moment for an attack in force, 
 backed up by the reserves of the Imperial Guard. 
 
 Frossard made a second counter-attack with a brigade of 
 infantry a little later, when the Germans made one more 
 attempt to push forward from the Mance woods. Again 
 everything gave way before the rush of the French bayo- 
 nets, and the ruined farm of St. Hubert was retaken. From 
 the heights on the opposite side the German artillery stopped 
 the advance with a heavy and well-aimed fire; but up out 
 of the valley towards Gravelotte there came a mass of
 
 No. 13 — Battle of Gravelotte, August 18, 1870 
 
 (Position about 6 p. m.)
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE i8i 
 
 broken troops — several regiments mixed together and re- 
 duced to a mere mob. The crowd came running towards 
 their own guns, which they silenced for a while, officers 
 trying in vain to stop them with sword and pistol drawn 
 to frighten them into obedience to orders. Through the 
 line of guns they rushed and into the street of Gravelotte, 
 hustling and nearly dismounting the old king as they surged 
 past the staff in disorderly flight. There was another panic 
 a few minutes later as a stampede of frightened horses came 
 rushing through the village. On the German right there 
 was the menace of disaster. 
 
 It has been truly said that in war a man counts for more 
 than men. On that July evening, if the French army had 
 had a better chief than Bazaine, a great victory was within 
 their grasp. While the German right attack was dissolv- 
 ing into demoralized mobs of beaten men against Frossard's 
 defense, Bourbaki's magnificent regiments of the Imperial 
 Guard were waiting idly in front of Fort Plappeville, less 
 than five miles from the fighting line. There were nine 
 battalions of Grenadiers, twelve of Voltigeurs (light in- 
 fantry), three of Zouaves, and a battalion of Chasseurs, 
 with several batteries of artillery and machine-guns. Had 
 they been flung against the German right, under a leader 
 like Bourbaki, the chances were that they would have 
 broken it up, and opened the way to a disastrous defeat of 
 the whole invading army. But Bazaine had only the feeble 
 idea of " preventing the Germans cutting h.im off from 
 Metz " and fighting purely defensive battles. He left the 
 Guards idle for more than four hours, and then usetl them 
 in mere driblets. From his position on the hill of St. Quen- 
 tin he saw, about six o'clock, the western sun shining on 
 moving columns of flashing helmets behind Gravelotte. 
 The German right was being reinforced in \hc nick of time. 
 It was Fransecky's Corps of Pomeranians arriving from 
 Gorze and at last coming into action. Bazaine then sent
 
 i82 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 some of the Voltigeurs of the Imperial Guard to reinforce 
 Frossard. 
 
 By this time serious danger was again threatening the 
 French right, about which Bazaine never seemed to trouble 
 himself. The Saxons had at last reached the valley of the 
 Orne, a little river that runs down to the Moselle below 
 Metz, cutting a hollow through the plateau north of St. 
 Privat and Roncourt. The valley should have been held by 
 one of the French cavalry divisions. As the Crown Prince 
 of Saxony marched into it he found nothing to oppose him, 
 and sent his cavalry on in advance to cut the railway 
 and telegraph lines between Metz and Thionville. Then 
 he turned to his right to move from the northward on 
 St. Privat, driving a French detachment out of Roncourt 
 and bringing his artillery into action against Canrobert's 
 flank. 
 
 St. Privat was now subjected to a cross-fire from the 
 Saxon guns to the northward and the artillery of the Guard 
 to the westward. Canrobert sent ofif messages begging for 
 ammunition, which only reached him in scanty amounts, 
 and asking for reinforcements. Bazaine ordered Bourbaki 
 to move northwards with a brigade of the Guard ; but they 
 had started too late, and were still moving up the forest- 
 bordered roads towards St. Privat when its fate was 
 decided. 
 
 At seven o'clock the Crown Prince of Saxony ordered his 
 infantry to advance. At the same time the Guard again 
 moved against the west front of the position. In front and 
 flank more than 40,000 men had been launched on a con- 
 verging attack upon the village and the heights around it. 
 It was only a comparatively feeble fire that now met the 
 advancing Germans, for the French were short of cart- 
 ridges. But they had their bayonets, and in and around 
 St. Privat they held on stubbornly with cold steel, even after 
 the sun went down, fighting desperately to the last by the
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 183 
 
 light of the burning houses. One gallant battalion, the 
 Ninth Chasseurs, held the walled churchyard with the bayo- 
 net against overwhelming numbers long after the rest of 
 the place had been taken. At last St. Privat was won, and 
 in the gathering darkness the French fell back down the 
 forest roads fighting to the last, the Grenadiers of the 
 Guard arriving only in time to check the pursuit. 
 
 As the attack closed on St. Privat, Von Mannstein, with 
 Voights-Rhetz's Corps in support, had moved upon Aman- 
 villiers. But here L'Admirault held him back till the col- 
 lapse of Canrobert's defense on his right exposed his flank, 
 and he too had to fall back, leaving Amanvilliers a mass 
 of smoking ruins. On the northern heights there was firing 
 along the margin of the woods long after dark. But the 
 French right had been driven in, and 50,000 Germans were 
 established on the plateau. 
 
 On the other end of the position the French were still 
 victorious. Lebceuf's position was intact, and Frossard had 
 again beaten off a German attack made by Fransecky's 
 fresh troops. When at last the firing ceased on the German 
 right, though they had again taken St. Hubert they had 
 failed to make the least impression on the main position of 
 the defense, and the woods of the Mance valley behind the 
 fighting line were crowded with disbanded men. Moltke, 
 Bismarck, and the king had an anxious time, until towards 
 eleven o'clock the news reached Gravelotte of the victory 
 on the left, which would make the whole French position 
 untenable next day. 
 
 Before morning the whole French army was retiring to 
 the protection of the forts of Metz. Rezonville had stopped 
 Bazaine's retreat ; the victory of Gravelotte drove the feeble 
 French generalissimo back to the intrenched camp, where 
 he waited in almost unbroken inactivity till famine and 
 fever ruined his army, and after ten weeks the capitulation 
 of October 2y handed over to the conquerors a great for-
 
 i84 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 tress, 170,000 prisoners — including three marshals of 
 France — 56 eagles, and more than 1500 guns. The three 
 days of August 16, 17, and 18 were the critical days of the 
 war. Gravelotte was its decisive victory. 
 
 The French losses in the battle were 7850 killed and 
 Avounded, and 4000 prisoners — mostly those cut off when 
 the right was outflanked and driven in. The German losses 
 were much heavier: 19,640 men were killed or wounded, 
 including 900 officers. The heaviest loss fell on the Guard 
 Corps, which in its two attacks lost 309 officers and 7923 
 
 men.^ 
 
 The battle-field in front of and around St. Privat and 
 Amanvilliers, the scene of the fiercest fighting and most 
 fearful loss in the great war, still bears a visible record of 
 the strife. There is no need for the traveler to ask for a 
 guide to point out the line of the heights which the Ger- 
 mans stormed and the French held so persistently. It is 
 marked by a scattered line of monuments, and by a denser 
 line of large, Hat-topped mounds, each crowned by a simple 
 cross. These are the graves of the German dead. Under 
 each of the mounds some hundreds lie buried. They rise 
 like green islands out of the growing corn or the ridges 
 of the cultivated ground. 
 
 A gigantic bronze statue of St. Michael, a stern-looking 
 warrior-angel leaning on a long sword, looks from the 
 summit of a rock-hewn pedestal on this mile-long cemetery. 
 On the day this monument was unveiled by the Kaiser 
 William II, he said he wished it to be a memorial, not only 
 of those who had fought for the German Fatherland, but 
 also of those equally brave men who had fought there a 
 lost battle for France. The bronze angel looks towards 
 
 * The Rifle Battalion of the Guard lost all its officers and 431 men 
 (44 per cent). The Second Grenadier Regiment lost no less than 38 
 officers and 1020 men; and the Fourth Grenadiers, 27 officers and 
 002 men.
 
 REZONVILLE AND GRAVELOTTE 185 
 
 France. The new frontier is here only a few hundred yards 
 away. It crosses the slope of the plateau in an irregular 
 line marked by posts at intervals. As one walks over the 
 battle-field one is now in France, now in Germany, and one 
 meets carbine-armed customs guards patrolling the roads 
 and field paths. 
 
 The great mounds are kept in perfect order, and on the 
 crosses are wreaths of immortelles, renewed each year by 
 German patriotic societies. The inscriptions on the crosses 
 give not the names of the dead but the numbers and names 
 of the regiments to which they belonged. So many of such 
 a regiment "here rest in God" — this is the formula. 
 Round St. Privat the graves cluster thickly, and there are 
 walled cemeteries with many monuments, each cemetery 
 containing the graves of the officers and men of a regiment 
 of the German Guards. 
 
 The French dead lie on the other side of the frontier. 
 More than ten years ago their bones were disinterred and 
 transferred to a stately mortuary chapel, where each year, a 
 requiem mass is celebrated on August 18, in the presence 
 of a congregation of veterans of the day. It was on the 
 occasion of the transfer that, for the first and last time since 
 1870, a French general marched into German territory. It 
 was General Jamont, sent at the head of a picked force of 
 infantry, cavalry, and artillery, to act as a guard of honor 
 to the funeral cars. He had halted his column on the 
 border-line near Ste. Marie aux Chenes, when the German 
 commander invited him to march across ; and then French 
 and German troops formed one procession, uniting to honor 
 the heroic dead. 
 
 The grave-mound cemetery on the ridge of St. Privat is 
 not the only field of the dead round Metz. The graves 
 cluster along the whole battle front to Gravelotte, and there 
 are more of them southwards by Rezonville and Mars-la- 
 Tour, and eastwards about Borny, and northeastward in
 
 i86 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 front of Noisseville/ One realizes the awful cost of war 
 as one visits this group of famous battle-fields, and then 
 one must reflect that, besides the young lives cut short by- 
 shell and bullet and blade, there were the crowded hospitals, 
 and the desolation carried to tens of thousands of French 
 and German homes, as women and children heard the news 
 of the fate of husband, father, brother, and son. This is 
 the dark shadow cast far and wide by the glory of the 
 battle-field. 
 
 ^ The August battles round Metz are variously named by French 
 and German writers. The battle of the fourteenth is known to the 
 French as the battle of Borny; to the Germans as the battle of 
 Colombey. The battle of the sixteenth is variously known as the 
 battle of Rezonville, Mars-la-Tour, or Vionville, and in some French 
 histories of the war it is called the battle of Gravelotte. This name 
 is usually given by German writers to the battle of August i8, which 
 is known to the French as the battle of St. Privat.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SEDAN 
 September 1, 1870 
 
 France had plunged into the war with Prussia in full 
 confidence of winning an easy victory. But in the very 
 first month of the conflict there had been a terrible awaken- 
 ing to the hard realities of the situation. The Army of 
 the Rhine had been beaten and its collapse in the field had 
 shown that the military forces of the Empire, instead of 
 being prepared for war, were hopelessly unready for it. 
 There was shortness of numbers, deficiency in equipment, 
 utter lack of information, complete absence of anything like 
 intelligent leadership or efficient staff work. 
 
 War had been declared on July 19, 1870. On August 19 
 Marshal Bazaine was shut u]) in Metz with the main body 
 of the Army of the Rhine, having lost the great battle of 
 Gravelotte the day before. Marshal MacMahon, defeated 
 at Woerth on August 6, was retreating on Chalons, followed 
 up by the German Third Army under the Crown Prince 
 of Prussia.* Paris was preparing for a siege. The Em- 
 peror Napoleon was at Chalons where a reserve army was 
 being hastily assembled. 
 
 Chalons had been the training center of the French army 
 since Napoleon III established a permanent camp there at 
 the close of the Crimean War. In July, 1870, every avail- 
 able man had been hurried to the front, and the great 
 camp with its endless streets of barrack huts had been for 
 a while nearly deserted. A few depot battalions of regi- 
 
 * Afterwards the Emperor Frederick of Germany.
 
 i88 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 ments remained there, and to these were soon added de- 
 tachments that had failed to reach the front before the 
 German advance cut Metz off from the rest of France. 
 Then, when it was reahzed that a new army must be im- 
 provised to interpose between Paris and the onward march 
 of the invaders, the numbers rose rapidly. New regiments 
 of half-trained recruits and belated reservists were formed 
 by drawing on the depots of the infantry and cavalry 
 throughout France. Battalions of the National Guard were 
 called out for service. Marines were landed from the fleet, 
 A new army corps, the Twelfth, was formed under the 
 command of General Lebrun. The First Corps (Ducrot), 
 the Fifth (De Failly), and the Seventh (Douay), all lately 
 under MacMahon's command in Alsace, were ordered to 
 concentrate on Chalons. It was hoped that by the third 
 week of August 100,000 men would be assembled, and it 
 was expected that the French would offer battle in the 
 wide plains round the camp — historic ground, where four- 
 teen centuries earlier Aetius and Theodoric, with an allied 
 army of Romans and Visigoths, had defeated the barbarian 
 hordes of Attila. 
 
 It was generally supposed that Bazaine could not make 
 a prolonged resistance at Metz. The supplies there, origi- 
 nally intended for the garrison and the citizens, would be 
 rapidly consumed now that the place had also to feed an 
 army of 170,000 men, which had brought no considerable 
 reserve of provisions with it. Prince Frederick Charles 
 had been placed in command of the blockading forces, made 
 up of the First Army and four corps of the Second with 
 two cavalry divisions ^- 180,000 men, soon raised to 200,- 
 000 by reinforcements from Germany. These were in- 
 trenching themselves in commanding positions round the 
 place, and Bazaine showed no disposition to make a serious 
 attempt to break out. 
 
 For the advance on Chalons and Paris the Germans had
 
 SEDAN 189 
 
 the Third Army under the Crown Prince Frederick of 
 Prussia, already following up MacMahon, and a new Fourth 
 Army, officially known as the Maas Amice or " Army of 
 the Meuse," formed under the command of the Crown 
 Prince (now the king) of Saxony. This was made up of 
 troops detached from the Second Army and included the 
 Guards, and the Fourth and Twelfth (Saxon) Corps. The 
 Army of the Meuse and the Third Army were to move 
 westwards under the general command of the king of Prus- 
 sia and his chief of the staff Von Moltke. Their combined 
 force would be over 200,000 men (including 20,000 cavalry) 
 with some 700 guns. 
 
 The invaders moved westwards in several parallel columns, 
 with the cavalry pushed well out in advance to a distance 
 of forty or fifty miles. But these daring horsemen found 
 no enemy in their front, no detachments of French cavalry 
 watching and delaying their march. When the leading 
 squadrons approached Chalons the great camp was found 
 to be deserted, with several of its storehouses on fire. The 
 French army had simply disappeared. For a few hours 
 there was anxious perplexity at the German headquarters. 
 Had the French fallen back on Paris, or were they moving 
 in some other direction? The mystery was solved by in- 
 formation gleaned by the Prussian embassies at London 
 and Brussels from unguarded statements telegraphed to 
 French and Belgian newspapers by war correspondents with 
 the French army — for these were the days when the press 
 censorship had not yet been invented. These items of 
 news telegraphed to Berlin, and thence to the head- 
 quarters in the field, told of masses of French troops 
 moving through and round Rheinis and out to the north- 
 ward and northeastward. Promptly Von Moltke issued 
 orders to stop the westward advance and swing the columns 
 round to the northward, while the cavalry rode hard in the 
 same direction seeking to gain touch with the enemy.
 
 I90 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 What had the French been doing, and what was their 
 present object? On August i6, the morning of the battle 
 of Rezonvillc, the emperor had left Bazaine's army and 
 hurried to Chalons. In the great days of the Second Em- 
 pire his arrival there had always been the occasion of 
 imposing military display, reviews, field-days, thunder of 
 saluting cannon, and the rest. Now he almost slunk into 
 his splendidly equipped residence in the camp, and when, 
 next day, he rode round it and saw some of the miscellane- 
 ous bodies of troops assembled there his impressions were 
 disappointing. The official gazette declared that he was 
 received with enthusiasm. But the truth was that the men 
 were mostly sullen and silent. When cheers were called 
 for they were mingled with insulting outcries. Worst of 
 all was the reception he had from the Paris National Guard, 
 twelve battalions (of which only two were yet armed). 
 They showed such a hopeless lack of discipline and such 
 a disaffected spirit that at a council of war next day it was 
 decided that they would be not only useless but dangerous 
 with the field army, and they were sent back by train to 
 Paris, the official order disguising the ugly facts of the 
 situation by declaring that these citizen soldiers were to 
 have the privilege of being employed in the defense of their 
 homes and their native city. 
 
 At this same council of war important decisions were 
 taken. Marshal MacMahon was appointed commander-in- 
 chief of the " Army of Chalons." General Trochu. who had 
 been till now in command of the camp, was named military 
 governor of Paris. He was to return there, take charge of 
 the defense preparations, and announce that the emperor 
 would shortly arrive in the capital to share its perils. 
 MacMahon with the Army of Chalons was to retire on 
 Paris and offer battle to the invaders before its fortifications. 
 Trochu went to Paris the same day, and explained to the 
 Empress and the ministry the plans adopted by the council
 
 SEDAN 191 
 
 of war. But now political considerations came into play 
 and were allowed to dictate a new plan of campaign. Wars 
 are waged for political ends, and politics have therefore to 
 be considered in the general direction of a campaign, but 
 almost without exception when political reasons are allowed 
 completely to sway the course of a campaign the results 
 are disastrous. In this case the Ministers declared that if 
 the Emperor returned to Paris under the shadow of defeat 
 there would be an immediate revolution ; that for the pres- 
 ent he must stay with the army, and that, moreover, the 
 Army of Chalons must not fall back upon Paris; it must 
 at all hazards endeavor to hold out a hand to Bazaine. 
 Further, the Minister of War, General de Montauban, 
 Comte de Palikao ^ had a new plan of campaign ready. The 
 Army of Chalons was to make a rapid march on Verdun, 
 overwhelming the northern columns of the German advance 
 before the southern contingents could come to 'their help, 
 and at the same time Bazaine was to break out of Metz and 
 join hands with MacMahon at Verdvm. Unfortunately 
 for the plan, however, Bazaine was not at all ready to risk 
 anything, and the Army of Chalons was still incomplete 
 and in any case could hardly have made the rapid dash to 
 the eastward that the plan required. Palikao was thinking 
 of the wonderful strokes, now here, now there, by which 
 the great Napoleon in 1814 had beaten the allies in detail 
 and paralyzed their whole movement on Paris. But Napo- 
 leon III could not inspire the men of 1870 as his uncle had 
 electrified those of 1814, and the improvised Army of 
 Chalons could not be compared with the splendid veterans 
 of the First Empire. 
 
 Paris and Chalons debated possibilities in hurried tcle- 
 
 * De Montauban was a good soldier. He had commanded, in i860, 
 the French troops who, as the aUics of the English, helped to capture 
 Pekin. His title of Count was given him for the victory won over 
 the Chinese at the bridge of Pa-li-kao during the advance.
 
 192 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 graph messages. News came from Bazaine — passed 
 through the German Hnes by trusty agents and wired from 
 Thionville. These brief despatches told how his army was 
 reorganizing after the battle of Gravelotte and added that 
 Bazaine was hoping soon to attempt a movement northwards 
 from Metz that would enable him to reach the line of forti- 
 fied towns along the Belgian frontier. 
 
 And now — perhaps on this suggestion — Palikao and 
 the Paris Government proposed a new plan, which Mac- 
 Mahon very reluctantly accepted. His own wish was to 
 withdraw towards Lille, further reinforce his army in 
 northern France, allow the Germans to advance on Paris, 
 and then fall upon them. But Palikao told him that to 
 retire to the northwestward would be to abandon Bazaine. 
 At all costs he must try to rescue Metz and the Army of 
 the Rhine. He was therefore directed to march from 
 Chalons and Rheims northeastwards to Montmedy on the 
 Belgian frontier, then eastwards by the line of old frontier 
 fortresses towards Thionville north of Metz. He would 
 have to make forced marches in order to gain at the outset 
 so much of a start that the Germans, when they discovered 
 the movement, would not be able to interpose between him 
 and Metz. Bazaine would be ready to cooperate with him. 
 The besieging army of Prince Frederick Charles would be 
 caught between hammer and anvil, then the combined armies 
 of Bazaine and MacMahon would be on the line of com- 
 munications of the main German field army between it and 
 the Rhine and outnumbering it by 50 per cent. 
 
 The plan supposed that the Army of Chalons could make 
 a rapid march, combine its operations perfectly with those 
 of Bazaine, and completely destroy the force besieging Metz 
 before the main German army could intervene in any way. 
 There was just a chance of success, but failure would mean 
 disaster and the loss of the only army France now had in 
 the field. MacMahon thought the chance of success small,
 
 SEDAN 193 
 
 the danger of disaster enormous, but he accepted the plan 
 and tried to execute it, hoping that, if things did not de- 
 velop as the Paris Government anticipated, he might, before 
 he had gone too far, still save the Army of Chalons by a 
 retreat to the northwestward. 
 
 The Army of Chalons began its adventurous march from 
 Rheims on August 23. The total force was about 130,000 
 men, organized in four army corps (First, Ducrot; Fifth, 
 De Failly; Seventh, Felix Douay ; Twelfth, Lebrun) and 
 two cavalry divisions (heavy cavalry, De Bonnemains ; 
 light cavalry, De Margueritte). The whole of the First 
 and part of the Fifth Corps had already suffered severely 
 in action. The losses in men had been partly repaired by 
 drafts of recruits and reservists from the depots. The loss 
 of material and equipment had been less fully made good. 
 Some of the batteries had not all their guns ; there was a 
 deficiency of transport ; in several regiments only half the 
 men had knapsacks. All the three corps that had made the 
 long retreat from Alsace had suffered from fatigue, irregular 
 rations, and exposure to weather. The men were physically 
 run down and depressed with the sense of failure. Lcbrun's 
 Corps (the Twelfth) was made up of a division of regulars 
 that at the outset of the war had been posted on the Pyre- 
 nean frontier (while there was still some fear that Spain 
 might act as the ally of Germany) ; a division of marines, 
 good solid troops ; and a division of improvised regiments 
 of depot troops and recruits. These last, like the new levies 
 drafted into the other corps, were rather an element of 
 weakness. The recruits were untrained, and many of the 
 reservists had never handled the new rifle. At Chalons they 
 were taken to the ranges and each man fired five shots. 
 This was all the musketry training they received. 
 
 In the first two marches good progress was made. Then 
 began the difficulties that might have been expected with 
 troops who were wearied and dispirited at the very outset.
 
 194 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 It was found that after the first spurt the men could not 
 march far or fast and matters were made worse by the 
 blunders of the staff. Columns of troops blocked each 
 other's way. Trains of wagons made the roads impassable 
 for hours. Corps and divisions reached their bivouacs late, 
 or halted where they ought not have been, so that next day's 
 orders reached them late. The march of the army was 
 dragging and falling into disarray when everything de- 
 pended on a swift and ordered advance to the northeast- 
 ward. On account of difficulties of transport MacMahon 
 lengthened the distance to be covered by bringing the gen- 
 eral line of advance nearer to that of the Mezieres railway. 
 Worst of all he kept his two divisions of cavalry, not on his 
 right where they might have been used to screen the move- 
 ment by driving in the German patrols, but on his left, 
 where they were useless. Throughout the war the Imperial 
 generals seemed to think cavalry was a thing to be kept 
 for charging on the battle-field but not to be used on the 
 line of march. ^ 
 
 The German war leaders knew better. As their armies 
 turned northwards the cavalry were flung out along every 
 road to feel for MacMahon, and soon parties of daring 
 horsemen showed themselves on the flank of Douay's corps. 
 Driven off by rifle fire they rode away only to reappear 
 again and again, hanging upon the flank of the line of 
 march in ever-increasing numbers. Now was the time 
 when the French cavalry should have been sent to drive 
 
 * In a memorandum written after the war Marshal MacMahon 
 himself attributed the neglect of a proper use of the cavalry in the 
 war of 1870 for securing the safety of the army and keeping watch 
 on the enemy, to habits acquired in Algerian frontier warfare. In 
 Algeria the cavalry used to make a short ride out to the front before 
 the march started to see that the near ground was clear, and then 
 it remained with the infantry ready to charge in action. The actual 
 scouting was left to native auxiliaries who were relied upon to keep 
 in touch with the enemv.
 
 SEDAN 195 
 
 • 
 
 them back and find out what was behind them, but instead 
 of this Douay jumped to the conclusion that he was about 
 to be attacked in force and for a whole day halted his 
 corps in order of battle, this too at a time when every hour 
 of steady marching was of value. All the while he had 
 in his front only a few squadrons of German cavalry. 
 
 MacMahon now thought that he was too late and began 
 a retirement to the northwestward. But he had no sooner 
 reported this to Paris than he received positive orders to 
 resume the original direction. So another day was lost. 
 
 The heads of his columns were now nearing the crossings 
 of the Meuse. He had intended to pass the river at Stenay 
 and Dun, but he found that those places were already oc- 
 cupied by the enemy. He changed the direction of his 
 march, bringing it still nearer the Belgian frontier, and his 
 vanguard secured the river crossing at Mouzon. He now 
 knew that the Germans must be close on his right flank 
 and nearly heading him off. But he had only the vaguest 
 information as to their numbers and positions, and sup- 
 posed he had only to do with the Crown Prince's Army. 
 Of the Army of the Meuse he seems not even to have sus- 
 pected even the existence. 
 
 On August 30 there was a disaster. The French army 
 was partly across the Meuse. The Seventh Corps (De 
 Failly) was lagging behind and farthest to the south of the 
 troops who had not yet crossed. On the twenty-ninth it 
 had made a long march and had halted for the night at 
 Beaumont, within a few hundred yards of the margin of 
 a wide forest tract, one of the southern outlying woods of 
 the forest country of the Ardennes. Next morning De 
 Failly decided to make a late start and give his men a rest. 
 No patrols were sent into the woods, the only outposts were 
 close in to the camp, and the general treated as idle gossip 
 the reports of peasants who told him that masses of the 
 y enemy's troops had entered the woods from the southward.
 
 196 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 • 
 
 Suddenly from the margin of the forest hostile artillery 
 opened fire on the camp. Men were shot down as they 
 rushed to arms. Horses of the artillery teams were killed 
 as the gunners were harnessing them. The surprise was 
 complete and the battle that followed was a series of at- 
 tempts to form something like a fighting line and stem for 
 a while the victorious rush of the Germans. The Seventh 
 Corps was hustled back towards Mouzon with the loss of 
 thousands killed, wounded, and prisoners, leaving 42 guns 
 and much of its transport behind it. The survivors were 
 for a while little better than a disorganized, dispirited mob, 
 and as they crossed the river they brought confusion and 
 disorganization into the ranks of other corps. 
 
 Next day MacMahon found that he was definitely headed 
 oflf by the enemy's advance, and he began to retire west- 
 wards. On the afternoon of August 31 he halted at Sedan. 
 He told the Emperor and the generals that he would give 
 his troops a day's rest on September i and on the second 
 continue his retreat by Mezieres. 
 
 MacMahon had a brilliant record of service in Algeria, 
 the Crimea, and Italy, and the reputation of being a skilled 
 as well as a daring leader of men. This makes it all the 
 more difficult to understand his conduct of the brief cam- 
 paign of the Chalons Army. He seemed to be no longer 
 the same man. It was strange that from first to last he 
 appeared possessed by the idea that if he was to succeed 
 it must be by eluding and outmarching the Germans with- 
 out fighting them. This was all the more remarkable be- 
 cause until the final battle he had no idea that they so 
 largely outnumbered his own forces. One would have 
 thought that he would have driven in the German cavalry 
 screen and rejoiced in the opportunity of making a dash at 
 the heads of the enemy's columns, or that when he found 
 himself on the right bank of the Meuse with the enemy 
 partly in his front, partly far away on the other bank, he
 
 SEDAN 197 
 
 would have tried to fight his way through by beating off 
 those who barred his advance. But at this moment he 
 seemed paralyzed by the disaster of Beaumont, and even 
 when he drew back on the road to Mezieres, instead of 
 making every effort to eft'ect his retreat as rapidly as might 
 be, he halted in what was a hopeless position. 
 
 Sedan is a small manufacturing town. Within its walls 
 and in the villages along the Meuse there are a number of 
 cloth factories. The town is traversed by the river and 
 surrounded by old fortifications planned by the celebrated 
 Vauban in the days of Louis XIV. With the longer range 
 of modern cannon the old citadel and the ramparts had 
 long been useless for war, for from the surrounding heights 
 the place could be commanded on all sides by hostile 
 fire. 
 
 The heights north of the town form a kind of plateau, 
 roughly V-shaped in general outline, with tlic opening of 
 the V towards the town, and the point at the hill above the 
 village of Illy, crowned with a wayside cross and known 
 in the narratives of the battle as the Calvary of Illy. The 
 plateau is furrowed by streams and has in places detached 
 clumps of wood. On its western side the Givonne brook 
 runs through a deep valley. On the other side the plateau 
 is bounded by the Floing valley. The Mezieres road crosses 
 this hollow, and at the hamlet of St. Albert passes through 
 a narrow defile between the steep hills and a sharp bend 
 of the Meuse. Northwards the ground rises to the great 
 forest of the Ardennes, through which runs the Belgian 
 frontier line. 
 
 MacMahon, with his army halted on the Sedan plateau, 
 was thus on a narrow stretch of ground between the Meuse 
 and the frontier. Eastward the way was already barred 
 by the German army. Westward his road to safety lay by 
 the defile of St. Albert. Strange to say he never seems 
 even to have thought of the necessity of securing this pass.
 
 198 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Orders were, however, given to blow up the bridge over 
 the Meuse at Donchery, beyond the defile. A party of 
 engineers with tools and explosives left Sedan by the last 
 train that got through to Mezieres. At Donchery the party 
 left the train, but it started again before they had taken 
 out the tools and the gunpowder. Even then it does not 
 seem to have occurred to any one that the train might be 
 recalled. The bridge was left standing. No attempt was 
 made to destroy the other bridge above Sedan near Bazeilles 
 till it was too late. The French staff seem to have done 
 all that was possible to facilitate the coming operations of 
 the Germans, 
 
 When the invaders temporarily abandoned the advance 
 on Paris and wheeled to the northward, the Army of the 
 Meuse, moving on the right and slightly in advance of the 
 Third Army, had got across the Meuse before MacMahon. 
 The Third Army had pressed upon the flank of the French, 
 and on the eve of Sedan was to the southward of the for- 
 tress on the left bank of the Meuse. As MacMahon re- 
 tired upon Sedan on August 31, the Saxon Prince with the 
 Meuse Army followed him up, and in the afternoon received 
 orders from Von Moltke to march at daybreak next morn- 
 ing from the eastward against the positions held by the 
 French north of Sedan, sending his cavalry out on the right 
 to prevent the enemy retiring by the woods into the neutral 
 territory of Belgium. 
 
 At the same time the Prussian Crown Prince was directed 
 to cross the Meuse below Sedan next day with the greater 
 part of his force and occupy the high ground about Vrigne 
 aux Bois. He was to prevent the French army escaping 
 westwards towards Mezieres — no very serious task, for 
 MacMahon's Army would be moving by difficult roads in 
 hilly country with the Meuse Army pressing on their rear. 
 The two Bavarian corps of the Crown Prince's Army were 
 to seize the crossing of the river above Sedan and cooperate
 
 SEDAN 199 
 
 on this side with the attack of the Meuse Army. A large 
 number of batteries were to be placed in position on the 
 hills overlooking Sedan on the left bank. From this point 
 their fire could search the French positions north of the 
 place. 
 
 The First Bavarian Corps had moved down to the river 
 opposite the village of Bazeilles in the afternoon, found the 
 railway bridge still standing, seized it after a brief skirmish, 
 and advanced against the southern side of Bazeilles. Here 
 their advance was stopped by the Marines of Lebrun's corps. 
 But the Bavarian batteries shelled the village and set several 
 houses on fire. 
 
 At 9 p. M. Von Moltke sent another order to the Crown 
 Prince. He feared that the French might begin their re- 
 treat under the cover of darkness, and he therefore directed 
 the Prince to cross at Donchery in the night and be ready 
 to move forward or to the high ground beyond the river 
 at daybreak. The German cavalry had already seized the 
 bridge, which they found intact and undefended. A pon- 
 toon bridge was thrown across the river below it, and mov- 
 ing off before midnight the Crown Prince had a considerable 
 force massed on the further bank by daybreak. 
 
 When Von Moltke wrote this final order he turned to 
 the stafif officer who was to ride ofif with it and said to him, 
 " Now the trap is closed and the mouse is in it." 
 
 During the day MacMahon had told one of his generals 
 that the enemy could not be more than 70,000 or 80,000 
 strong, that they were all to the eastward, that is, to the 
 rearward of his intended movement, and that there was no 
 doubt about the army easily reaching Mezieres on Septem- 
 ber 2. The most he expected in the way of fighting was 
 a rearguard action. As the troops reached the ground 
 north of Sedan, two corps took up positions on the west 
 side of Givonne valley so as to be ready to bar the pursuit 
 of the Germans — Ducrot with the First Corps on the
 
 200 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 heights above Daigny; Lebrun with the Twelfth Corps on 
 his left holding the heights south of Daigny and the large 
 village of Bazeilles in the low ground near the Meuse. 
 Douay with the Seventh Corps had pushed on to the west- 
 ward and halted on the flat-topped hills above Floing. The 
 cavalry divisions were behind Douay's Corps, and close to 
 Sedan lay the Fifth Corps, hardly yet recovered from its 
 rout of two days before. • During the day General Wimp- 
 fenn, who had joined the army on the thirtieth, produced 
 an order from Palikao appointing him to the command of 
 the Fifth Corps and superseding the unlucky De Failly. 
 
 At half past three in the afternoon the Bavarian attack 
 on Bazeilles had warned the marshal that he was not to 
 be allowed by the enemy to have a day of rest for the army 
 under the walls of Sedan. A little later an old soldier, 
 who lived near Donchery, came in with news that masses 
 of the enemy were moving on the south bank of the river. 
 MacMahon held an informal council of war. He appears 
 still to have failed to realize his danger, and instead of 
 taking prompt measures for securing the line of retreat 
 westwards by St. Albert and Vrigne aux Bois and barring 
 the river crossing below the town, all that was done was 
 to make arrangements for defending the ground on which 
 the army had halted. Douay pointed out that he was not 
 strong enough to hold the west side of the position from 
 Floing to Illy, and Wimpfenn was directed to reinforce 
 his line with a division of the Fifth Corps. Probably be- 
 cause he still persisted in his belief that the enemy was 
 not in force the marshal awaited the coming battle in the 
 blind confidence of optimistic ignorance. He had no idea 
 that he was outnumbered two to one, and that while he 
 slept that night the Germans were already closing his one 
 doubtful way to safety. 
 
 The night was fine and warm, with hardly a breath of 
 wind, and as the dawn came a dense haze covered all the
 
 SEDAN 201 
 
 lower ground. Before sunrise the old king of Prussia was 
 in the saddle. He rode from his headquarters at Vendresse 
 to the heights between the villages of Fresnois and W'adelin- 
 court. He had with him a mounted escort, a numerous 
 staff, and several foreign officers and war correspondents. 
 Among these privileged spectators were the American gen- 
 eral, Sheridan, and his aide-de-camp, Colonel Forsyth. Be- 
 side the king rode -the three men who were the makers of 
 the German Empire, the Chancellor Von Bismarck in his 
 white cuirassier uniform, the war minister, Von Roon, and 
 the " organizer of victory," Von Moltke. Battery after 
 battery of the Bavarian Second Corps came clattering up the 
 hill and unlimbered with the muzzles pointing northwards, 
 but the haze still hid their destined targets. But out of the 
 mist on the right towards Bazeilles came the sharp crackle 
 of musketry and the jarring blast of the French machine- 
 guns. Von der Tann, with the First Bavarian Corps, was 
 hard at it with Lebrun's Marines. 
 
 As the sun rose higher the mists cleared, and from the 
 king's position on the hilltop the battle-field was spread out 
 like a panorama. Below the steep slope in front ran the 
 Meuse with the railway line and road beside it. To the left 
 Sedan lay, a huddle of white houses and big factories, with 
 the high church tower rising above them, the old ramparts 
 and ditches girdling it round, and the tricolor flying from 
 its citadel. Beyond, the hills rose in a long slope to the 
 dark woods of the Ardennes, hills furrowed with deep val- 
 leys, dotted with clumps of wood, with the village church 
 towers marking out the chief points. Telescope and field- 
 glass showed plainly where the iM-ench were posted. 
 
 So far the only fighting was at Bazeilles, where the 
 dense fog of white powder smoke and the darker smoke of 
 burning houses showed the fight was hot. Away to the 
 westward the Crown Prince's Corps were pouring north- 
 wards from Donchery. They had marched in the night and
 
 202 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 already would soon close the way on that side and then 
 come into action with Douay's Corps. Eastwards, still hid- 
 den by the woods beyond the Givonne valley, the Crown 
 Prince of Saxony was advancing with the Army of the 
 Meuse to attack the east front of MacMahon's positions. 
 The Saxon Prince had massed his horsemen on the right. 
 Then came the Prussian Guards, then his own Saxons of 
 the Twelfth Corps, and next the Fourth, men of the cen- 
 tral German lands of the middle Elbe, Thuringia, and the 
 Saxon borders. 
 
 The first shot had been fired at 4.30 a. m., near Bazeilles, 
 and for some hours the only fighting was round the vil- 
 lage. The Germans had brought several batteries into 
 action against it on both sides of the river, and along the 
 south front of the place there- was a fierce struggle. The 
 fight swayed backwards and forwards, as the Bavarians, 
 pressed into the streets and gardens, were driven out and 
 renewed their attack. The villagers, encouraged by their 
 cure, joined in the defense with a variety of weapons, from 
 rifles to shot-guns. It was only with heavy loss that the 
 invaders at last gained a footing in the south part of the 
 place. Their attempts to work round it to the eastward 
 were checked by Lebrun's men aided by some of Ducrot's 
 batteries thrown forward to the high ground east of Daigny. 
 In this local engagement the French were at first un- 
 doubtedly successful. 
 
 But while this struggle for the village was in progress, 
 important events had occurred. MacMahon had ridden out 
 of Sedan just before 5 a. m. He rode towards the fight by 
 the high ground above the Balan-Bazeilles road. Accord- 
 ing to his own account he meant to see for himself what was 
 happening and then decide whether to continue the re- 
 sistance or order a retreat. But he also admits in the 
 same note on the day of Sedan that he had still no idea 
 that the Army of the Meuse was moving against his posi-
 
 SEDAN 203 
 
 tions from the eastward. On the heights above La Moncelle 
 he came under the fire of the German batteries on the other 
 side of the Givonne. A shell exploded close to him. One 
 fragment of it lodged in his thigh, another broke the fore- 
 leg of his horse, which fell with him. At first he thought 
 he was only slightly wounded, but as he tried to rise he 
 fainted. When he revived he felt that he could do no 
 more, and he told his chief of the staff to send word to 
 Ducrot that he was badly wounded and had transferred 
 the command to him. The first officer who rode off to look 
 for Ducrot was himself put out of action by a wound of 
 which he died. A second message despatched later reached 
 Ducrot shortly before 7 a. m. 
 
 General Ducrot says in his narrative of the day that he 
 had not seen the marshal since August 30 and had received 
 no information or orders from him. But he had made up 
 his mind that the only hope for the army lay in a prompt 
 retreat to Mezieres, and the halt before Sedan had made 
 him all the more anxious because he had already marked as 
 the danger-point, that must be passed at the earliest possible 
 moment, the narrow gap between the bend of the Meuse 
 at Iges and the Belgian frontier, a space of less than three 
 miles, which he felt sure the Germans would try to close. 
 He knew the enemy was in force on the left bank of the 
 river, and messages from the niaircs of villages to the cast- 
 ward had warned him of another army moving towards 
 Sedan from that direction on the right bank of the Meuse. 
 
 As soon as he was informed that he had become com- 
 mander-in-chief he acted on the idea that he had been 
 thinking out for the last two days. He at once issued orders 
 for a general retirement, the first stage in which was to be 
 the massing of the army on the heights above Illy. He then 
 hoped to march by the hill-tracks along the edge of the 
 forest of the Ardennes and gain the Mezieres road beyond 
 Vrigne aux Bois. Lebrun's Corps was to act as a rear-
 
 204 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 guard and keep off the pursuit of the Bavarians. The dan- 
 gerous gap north of the bend of the Meuse at Iges was not 
 yet closed ; the Army of the Meuse had not yet come into 
 action to the eastward. He beheved that, although there 
 would still be some hard fighting, he could get through, 
 crossing the front of the Crown Prince's advance and hold- 
 ing back the pursuit. 
 
 The weak point of the scheme was that there were no 
 good roads in the direction by which he would have to 
 move, and the tracks of the forest mostly led, not east and 
 west, but northwards into Belgium. But Ducrot always 
 maintained that if he had been allowed to carry out his 
 movement there might have been heavy loss, convoys and 
 batteries might have had to be abandoned, but the catas- 
 trophe of Sedan would have been avoided and some 60,000 
 saved from the wreck would have reached Mezieres and 
 then retired on Paris. At the very worst the army would 
 have taken refuge in Belgium. 
 
 He communicated his orders personally to Lebrun. The 
 commander of the Twelfth Corps, feeling he was holding 
 his own against the Bavarians, was reluctant to obey and 
 argued the point, but Ducrot insisted and the retirement 
 from Bazeilles began, and simultaneously the troops of the 
 First Corps, thrown out in front of Daigny, began to fall 
 back. The withdrawal from the village was delayed by the 
 necessity of maintaining what was now a rearguard action 
 with its assailants. The French marines were very re- 
 luctant to let go the houses and barricades they held, and 
 the villagers had no idea of giving up the fight. It was, 
 therefore, very slowly that the Bavarians pressed forward. 
 On the left of the village the retirement was more rapid, 
 alid the Germans were soon in possession of the ground 
 up to the Givonne and "the hamlet of La Moncelle. 
 
 During these slow beginnings of the retirement the right 
 and center of the Meuse Army began to reach the heights
 
 SEDAN 205 
 
 east of the Givonne. Some of the Twelfth (Saxon) Corps 
 were already in action. The Guard arrived at Villers, Cer- 
 nay, and sent its batteries galloping forward to the crest of 
 the slopes in front. The Saxon artillery began to come into 
 line on their left, opposite Daigny. On the other side of 
 the battle-field the head of the long column formed by the 
 main body of the Crown Prince's Army was coming through 
 the defile of St. Albert and detachments of his troops were 
 securing the high ground north of it. 
 
 If the French were to effect their retreat not a moment 
 was to be lost. Ducrot was watching the movement from 
 the high ground above Daigny when a staff officer brought 
 him a note, hurriedly written in pencil and signed by Gen- 
 eral de Wimpfenn. It ran thus : 
 
 " The enemy is falling back on our right. I am sending Grand- 
 champ's Division to Lebrun. I think there ought to be no question 
 of our retiring at this moment. I hold a letter from the minister of 
 war giving me the command of the army, but we will talk of this 
 after the battle. You are nearer the enemy than I am. Use all 
 your energy and knowledge to gain a victory over an enemy who is 
 in a disadvantageous position. Therefore while taking care of the 
 line intrusted to you support Lebrun vigorously." 
 
 Ducrot was thunderstruck. De Wimpfenn was taking the 
 command out of his hands and at the same time sending 
 him orders that showed the most absolute delusion as to 
 the real position of affairs. Presently De Wimpfenn rode 
 up, and Ducrot tried to persuade him to withdraw his order. 
 It was evident that the new commander had the strange idea 
 that only the Bavarian attack on Bazeilles need be con- 
 sidered. To Ducrot's suggestion that the Germans were 
 moving to cut the line of retreat he replied, " You are ex- 
 aggerating the difficulty. There are only some small detach- 
 ments of the enemy on that side." But Ducrot asked him 
 if he was not aware that masses of Germans were also 
 moving through the country to the eastward, marching on 
 Illy. " If they once seize Illy the position is hopeless," said
 
 2o6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Ducrot. " Illy — where or what is Illy ? " asked Wimpfenn, 
 Ducrot, one of the few ofificers who had a map, opened it and 
 pointed to the height where, a few hours later, the two arms 
 of the enveloping German movement united and closed the 
 ring of lire and steel round the doomed Army of Chalons. 
 Wimpfenn refused to argue. He told Ducrot what they had 
 to do was " to throw the Bavarians into the Meuse." " I 
 shall go to Carignan, not to Mezieres," he said. " We don't 
 want a retreat, we need a victory." " We shall be lucky if 
 we manage a retreat," replied Ducrot and rode away to obey 
 what he rightly regarded as a fatal order. 
 
 So in less than three hours the unfortunate army had 
 three commanders in succession. Ducrot certainly showed 
 no lack of zeal in obeying. He stopped the retreat and per- 
 sonally directed a counter-attack which for a while recovered 
 some of the lost ground. Lebrun recaptured most of Ba- 
 zeilles. Ducrot flung a division across the Givonne near 
 Daigny, and his Zouaves and linesmen came on with such 
 a dash that the Germans gave way, and several of their bat- 
 teries went galloping back to the shelter of the woods. But 
 the Guards and the Saxons were now coming rapidly 
 into action, and before the steady fire of their guns and 
 the advance of their dense firing lines the French were 
 gradually driven back again over the Givonne. 
 
 In and around the burning village of Bazeilles there was 
 desperate fighting at close quarters, but along the heights 
 east of the Givonne valley the Germans for a while were 
 chiefly busy bringing battery after battery into line and 
 shelling not only the positions immediately in their front, 
 but also the interior of the plateau held by the French. 
 Some of their shells fell in the rear of Douay's Corps on 
 the western side of the position and blev/ up artillery 
 wagons behind the French batteries. Some of the gunners 
 of the Prussian guard took for their target a mass of horse- 
 men on the height by the Calvary of Illy — Margueritte's
 
 SEDAN 207 
 
 splendid brigade of the Chasseurs d'Afrique. These suffered 
 such loss that they had to seek shelter behind the wood of 
 La Garenne. 
 
 Douay's Corps, with the German shells bursting in its rear 
 and others coming on its flank from the opposite side of the 
 river, now came under an ever-increasing artillery fire from 
 the front. The Crown Prince's Army was issuing from the 
 undefended defile of St. Albert and streaming out upon the 
 heights north of Iges. The first comers were fired on by 
 a horse battery pushed out in front of Floing, but it was 
 soon driven in by several batteries on the heights near 
 Menges and firing lines of infantry came running forward 
 towards Floing village. To Douay's message that he was 
 attacked in force, Wimpfenn replied with a written note in 
 which he said : " I think it is a mere demonstration against 
 your corps intended to prevent you sending help to the 
 First and Twelfth corps," and he ordered him to reinforce 
 Lebrun with any troops he could spare. 
 
 Ignorance of the reality could hardly go further. Douay 
 sent a galloper to the new commander-in-chief asking him 
 to " come and see for hiiyiself." Wimpfenn rode over to 
 the plateau above Floing. He saw a sight that at last some- 
 what shook his optimism. " I saw," he says, " a hostile 
 army extending afar, and a formidable artillery firing with 
 a precision that under other circumstances I should have 
 been the first to admire." From the slopes behind Menges 
 northwards the hills bristled with artillery and fresh bat- 
 teries were coming into action. Their fire was already 
 mastering that of Douay's artillery. The French gunners 
 were working under a storm of bursting shells. Broken 
 wheels, men and horses struck down, limber boxes and 
 wagons blowing up, showed how true and deadly was the 
 enemy's aim. In front of Floing an infantry attack was 
 developing. After calling up some reinforcements from 
 the Seventh Corps, Wimpfenn rode back to the right.
 
 2o8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Bazeilles had been taken. At eleven o'clock the brave 
 garrison gave way, not before the direct attack, but under 
 the pressure of the German advance from the left across 
 the Givonne. Even after the marines let go their hold of 
 the burning village, handfuls of men still fought on in 
 isolated houses. A chateau on its northwestern edge was 
 only taken after artillery had shattered it at close range. 
 In a wine shop, a cottage near the Balan road, a few offi- 
 cers and men fought on till they had literally fired the last 
 cartridge. The house, riddled by bullet and shell, is still 
 kept as it was at the close of the day as a memorial of the 
 fight, and De Neuville's famous picture of the men search- 
 ing for the '' last cartridges " among the dead and dying 
 has immortalized the incident. 
 
 By noon nearly 500 guns were sending a converging fire 
 into the French positions from east, west, and south. Along 
 the Givonne there was a fierce infantry fight in progress and, 
 working round the blazing wreck of Bazeilles by openings 
 hurriedly made in fence and wall by the pioneers, the Bava- 
 rian attack was pressing on towards Balan. The German 
 lines to east and west were gradually extending northwards, 
 but there was still a gap open north of Illy. Through this 
 a few guns, some hundreds of horse, and some thousands 
 of linesmen and Zouaves streamed northwards in driblets. 
 Some were in flight, others drifted away in this direction 
 from sheer ignorance of the ground, as they shifted their 
 positions under the searching fire of the enemy's artillery. 
 Some formed bodies were deliberately led northwards by 
 officers who had decided that to remain longer was to be 
 made prisoners and who hoped still to fight for France. 
 That they were in earnest is shown by the fact that a con- 
 siderable number reached Mezieres and other northern fort- 
 resses by the forest tracks and afterwards joined the Paris 
 garrison. Some of these fugitives escaped by making a 
 short cut through Belgian territory, but most of those who
 
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 SEDAN 209 
 
 crossed the border were disarmed by the frontier guard of 
 the Belgian army. 
 
 As the jaws of the converging attack were thus closing on 
 the French position, Wimpfenn once more met Ducrot, who 
 could not forbear saying to him, " What 1 foretold is hap- 
 pening even sooner than I expected. Douay is badly shaken. 
 The enemy is moving against the Calvary of Illy. Moments 
 are precious. You must hurry up reinforcements if we are 
 to keep that position." " Look after it yourself," said 
 Wimpfenn, " I must help Lebrun." 
 
 Ducrot, moving up some of the First Corps and a regi- 
 ment of De Margueritte's Chasseurs d'Afrique towards the 
 northern angle of the plateau, organized the defense. By 
 this time there were signs that the end was coming. Large 
 numbers of wounded were straggling back from both fronts 
 seeking shelter in the hollows of the ground and in the 
 woods, and with them were crowds of unwounded fugitives. 
 The Bois de la Garenne was filled with a disorganized 
 mob. Ducrot himself steadied and moved up to the front a 
 regiment he found retiring in confusion. It was nearly two 
 o'clock. One of the Crown Prince's regiments, advancing 
 through the wooded ground north of Illy, had met the 
 Hussars of the Prussian Guard coming from the eastward. 
 The circle was closed. 
 
 The first line of German skirmishers that crowned the 
 height above Illy was driven back by a charge of the 
 Chasseurs d'Afrique, but they in turn were sent back with 
 many empty saddles by formed bodies of troops advancing 
 in support. Round the Calvary the French infantry held on 
 for awhile, but a storm of shells from front and both flanks 
 shook them terribly, and before a rush of the attack they 
 gave way. Margueritte had already moved his brigade of 
 cavalry from its position behind the Bois de la Garenne 
 towards Douay's left. Ducrot, seeing Illy lost and the in- 
 fantry attack now developing rapidly against Douay, most
 
 210 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 of whose batteries were silenced, sent word to Margueritte 
 that he had better charge the attacking infantry to give 
 some respite during which the defense might be reorganized. 
 
 Then came an incident that did something to save the 
 honor of the French arms. De Margueritte moved his 
 splendid squadrons to the crest of the slopes above Floing, 
 and as they formed for the charge himself rode forward to 
 reconnoiter the ground. Suddenly he dropped on the neck 
 of his horse, clinging to the mane. He had been shot 
 through the head. Two troopers dashed out and supported 
 him as he rode back, just able to tell his second in com- 
 mand, De Gallifet, to take his place. De Margueritte, the 
 hero of many a desert raid, was beloved by his men, and 
 as the trumpets sounded the charge they rode forward in 
 a fury of vengeful rage. 
 
 Archibald Forbes, who watched the charge, tells how the 
 thousand horsemen wheeled into lines of squadrons under 
 a terrible fire as accurately as if they were at some great 
 review. Then down the slope they thundered, scattering 
 the first firing line of German Jagers and sabering many of 
 them. But volleys fired at close quarters by the supports 
 broke the rush and strewed the ground with men and 
 horses. Some of the squadrons turned back. But others 
 pressed on, raged round the bristling bayonets of rallying 
 groups, dashed into an advanced battery, and only gave up 
 the attempt when their ranks were fairly torn to fragments 
 by the deadly cross-fire that swept down upon them. 
 
 As the remnant of the charge rode back most of Douay's 
 Corps was retiring in confusion. One division kept together 
 and prolonged the fight for a while among the quarries and 
 ridges between the Floing crest and Sedan. 
 
 Northwards the German guns were being dragged up the 
 slopes of Illy. The line of the Givonne had been lost, and 
 there was a confused fight in the wood of La Garenne and 
 the valley by its southern margin. The Bavarians had taken
 
 SEDAN 211 
 
 Balan, but there was still a fight on the slopes above it. 
 A confused mass of men, horses, guns, and wagons crowded 
 the ground north of the town and streamed into its streets 
 and into the wide ditches of the old fortress. In the broken 
 mob Bonnemain's Cuirassier Division had been swept away, 
 only a few squadrons breaking off and charging out towards 
 the Floing valley in the desperate hope of cutting their way 
 through. 
 
 On the remnant of the fighting lines, on the mass of fugi- 
 tives, and on the town itself, the grim circle of German 
 guns rained destruction. 
 
 The emperor had ridden out with some staff officers in 
 the morning to share the dangers of the fight, which he 
 could not venture to direct. He was no longer the man of 
 Solferino, but broken by the painful malady that made it 
 agony for him to ride, and utterly dispirited, he was little 
 more than a spectator of the downfall of his lifework. He 
 had met the party that was carrying back the wounded 
 Marshal in the early morning, and then for some hours he 
 watched the fight from the hill above Balan under a fire that 
 killed and wounded some of his escort. When he saw the 
 circle of hostile fire close all around his doomed army, he 
 rode back to Sedan, and about three o'clock, telling his offi- 
 cers that something must be done to stop " this useless 
 slaughter," he ordered the white flag to be displayed from 
 the citadel. It seems to have flown for some time unnoticed 
 by any one. Then Lebrun arrived at the Prefecture to tell 
 him that everywhere the defense was collapsing. 
 
 The emperor said to the general he had already decided 
 that the time had come for surrender. Lebrun explained 
 that it would be necessary to send out an officer with a 
 flag of truce and a document authorizing him to ask for an 
 armistice. A note was hastily written, and Lebrun with a 
 trumpeter and a white flag rode towards Balan. As he 
 cleared the broken mob outside the town he met Wimpfenn,
 
 212 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 who tore the white flag from the orderly's hands and ex- 
 claimed, " I will have no surrender. We must break out." 
 Lebrun asked for orders. Wimpfenn said he had sent a 
 message to the emperor, asking him to join in the last 
 effort. He asked Lebrun to help him to get some men to- 
 gether and make a dash towards Balan. It was a hopeless 
 attempt from the first. A couple of thousand men followed 
 the two generals, but only a few hundred yards. Then they 
 broke away under a sudden storm of hostile fire from Balan 
 and from beyond the river. Wimpfenn and Lebrun found 
 themselves alone, and turning rode back towards Sedan, 
 
 Before they reached it the German fire died down rapidly 
 and then utterly ceased. The white flag on the citadel had 
 at last been seen through the smoke clouds, and one of the 
 Prussian king's staff, Colonel Bronsart von Schellendorf 
 (afterwards Chancellor of the German Empire), was riding 
 down towards the Torcy gate of Sedan with a flag of truce 
 to summon the place. To his utter surprise, on arrival he 
 was brought into the presence of the emperor. The Ger- 
 mans had no idea that Napoleon was with the beaten army. 
 Shortly before. General Sheridan had remarked to Bismarck 
 that probably the emperor would be taken with his army. 
 " No, no," said the Chancellor, *' the old fox is too wary 
 for that. He has slipped away to Paris long since." 
 
 But now after an hour of waiting, the king and his com- 
 panions on the hilltop saw Von Schellendorf spurring wildly 
 up towards them. As he drew near he shouted, " Der 
 Kaiser ist da! (The emperor is there!)" It was great news. 
 It might mean the end of the war. The colonel brought 
 back a letter from Napoleon personally surrendering himself 
 to the king, and proposals that French commissioners should 
 meet the German chiefs to discuss the terms of a capitulation. 
 
 There is no need to tell the story of the efforts made 
 by the French generals to secure some better terms than 
 absolute surrender. To their protests that they could still
 
 SEDAN 213 
 
 make the Germans pay dearly for their success Von Moltke 
 grimly replied that they were helpless. Five hundred guns 
 already pointed their muzzles on the narrow space where 
 was the wreck of the last army of France. Two hundred 
 more would soon be in position, for at the close of the fight 
 the Germans had hundreds of guns and tens of thousands of 
 men that had not yet fired a shot. At dawn, if the French 
 had not surrendered at discretion, those 700 guns would 
 open fire. It would be a mere slaughter. The Frenchmen 
 had to bow to the inevitable. 
 
 Early on September 2 the capitulation was signed, and 
 the emperor and his army became prisoners. Eighty-two 
 thousand men laid down their arms, and among the trophies 
 of the victory were 419 guns, besides the 139 cannon 
 of the old fortress. About 8000 men had escaped to the 
 northern fortresses or surrendered to the Belgians. German 
 accounts placed the French losses in the actual fighting at 
 17,000 killed and wounded. But the figure appears to be 
 an exaggeration. The French stafif history of the war, 
 which enumerates the loss of every unit engaged, states that 
 799 officers were killed or wounded and 9035 men. But it 
 includes in the losses of the fight 8347 men missing (dis- 
 pariis), which would make up a total of 17,000 if added to 
 the killed and wounded. Now this last figure (8347) is 
 very nearly what appears also to be the total of those who 
 escaped to the northern fortresses or surrendered to the Bel- 
 gians. Some of those, who thus made their way northwards 
 before the iron circle closed, had already been wounded 
 or were shot down by German patrols in the forest. But 
 these would at most add a few hundreds to the day's cas- 
 ualties. The French loss was probably a little over 10,000 
 killed and wounded. It was less than one would have ex- 
 pected, but one must remember that the circumstances under 
 which loss is sufifered can increase its efifect, and a large 
 nart of this loss was inflicted in less than three hours, when
 
 214 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the German artillery had mastered the fire of the French 
 batteries, and the infantry, already dispirited and convinced 
 that victory was hopeless, found themselves penned in a cir- 
 cle of deadly fire to which they could make no effective reply. 
 The Germans, except at Bazeilles, made the fight an artillery 
 attack. Their fire was fearfully effective. The French 
 found themselves exposed to a fierce bombardment from 
 many sides at once. Archibald Forbes tells how, as he rode 
 up to Douay's position after the battle, he saw the ground 
 strewn with headless, dismembered, and disemboweled 
 corpses, a sight to make him sick. It was when they found 
 themselves helpless under this fire that so many of the 
 French regiments gave way and became disorganized mobs. 
 In the last stage of the fight some of the German batteries 
 on the northern side were able to gallop forward in front 
 of their infantry and shell the flying French at close quar- 
 ters, so complete was the breakdown of all resistance. 
 
 Fighting under such conditions the Germans had won a 
 fairly easy victory. Of their army of over 150,000 men, 
 they had brought into action not quite one half. Of their 
 20,000 cavalry not a thousand drew swords during the 
 fight. Seventy thousand of the infantry were brought up to 
 the front, but even of these many thousands never fired a 
 shot. But of their 700 guns nearly 600 were in action by 
 the end of the day or actually ready to open fire if the 
 fight had continued. At least 500 had been engaged in the 
 bombardment of the French positions. 
 
 The loss of the victors was 8202 killed and wounded. 
 The heaviest part of it was incurred in the hard fighting at 
 close quarters in and around Bazeilles. The Bavarians, who 
 bore the brunt of the fight here, lost 3876 officers and men, 
 nearly half the total loss of the Germans in the whole battle. 
 The Guard Corps, which fought chiefly with its batteries, 
 lost only 434 men. 
 
 But as our narrative has shown, the battle was lost by
 
 SEDAN 215 
 
 the French before the first shot was fired. The only ques- 
 tion was what would be the extent of the disaster. The 
 last chance of evading a wholesale surrender disappeared 
 when Wimpfenn took the command out of Ducrot's hands. 
 " Ordrc, contrcordrc, dcsordre " — runs the French proverb, 
 and " Orders, counter-orders, and the consequent disorder " 
 marked the French conduct of the hopeless fight. With the 
 first army of Imperial France shut up in Metz and the 
 second taken in Von Moltke's trap at Sedan, all that was 
 left for Frenchmen was to disavow the empire that had 
 gone down in disaster and fight for a while with improvised 
 armies in the brave hope of saving the honor of the French 
 arms, even in the midst of such widespread ruin.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 
 September 11 and 12, 1877 
 
 The costly failure of the first attack of the Prussian 
 Guards on St. Privat made the day of Gravelotte an epoch 
 in military history. It was that terrible experience which 
 at last brought home to scientific soldiers the fact that such 
 attacks in mass were murderous and useless, and led to 
 the adoption of the modern forms of attack in extended 
 firing lines, backed up by supports also advancing in line 
 once the region of effective fire is reached. 
 
 The war of 1 877-1 878, between Russia and Turkey, 
 enforced another lesson. Osman Pasha's defense of Plevna 
 showed in the most striking way the value of improvised 
 earthworks held by determined men armed with the new 
 rifle. The experiences of Plevna further confirmed the 
 growing belief in the high value of intrenchments thrown 
 up so as to correspond with the tactical needs of the mo- 
 ment, as compared with permanent and more costly forti- 
 fications. 
 
 Plevna was an open town in Bulgaria among the hills on 
 the northern slope of the Balkans, and about nineteen miles 
 south of the Danube. It became world famous almost by an 
 accident. The first operations of the Russians in the cam- 
 paign of Bulgaria had been uniformly successful. They 
 forced the crossing of the Danube at Sistova. Abdul Kerim, 
 the old pasha who commanded the Turkish army about 
 Shumla, gave them very little trouble, and they were able to 
 send a flying column under General Gourko across the
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 217 
 
 Balkans by the Shipka Pass into Roumelia. Every one was 
 talking of an immediate march on Adrianople. In the 
 middle of July General Krudener, after reducing Nicopolis 
 on the Danube by a two days' bombardment, sent forward 
 General Schildner-Schuldner with one of his divisions to 
 occupy Plevna, as a prelude to opening another pass over 
 the Balkans west of the Shipka. 
 
 All unknown to the Russians, Osman Pasha, the military 
 governor of Widdin, had marched eastwards with about 
 14,000 men and 58 guns. He reached Plevna on July 19, 
 He intended to use the place as a starting-point for opera- 
 tions against the flank of the Russian advance, keeping a 
 line of retreat over the Balkans open behind him. The very 
 next day, July 20, Schildner-Schuldner, with 9 battalions, 
 46 guns, and some Cossack cavalry, approached Plevna, 
 without even sending a handful of Cossack scouts in ad- 
 vance. To his utter surprise he was fired upon by rifles 
 and artillery, and after an ill-directed attempt to fight his 
 way into the town, was beaten off with serious loss, and re- 
 tired on Nicopolis. This was the first battle of Plevna. It 
 now became a point of honor with the Russians to avenge 
 the defeat and turn Osman out of the place. The pasha 
 brought up reinforcements, and began to throw up in- 
 trenchments. 
 
 Krudener was ordered to capture Plevna, and on July 
 30 attacked it with 32,500 men and 170 guns. Osman had 
 been working night and day throwing up earthworks on the 
 hills east of the town. They were of the simplest construc- 
 tion — lines of shelter trenches and square redoubts, the 
 latter having a low rampart and shallow ditch, like the bank 
 and ditch of an English field. The largest, near the village 
 of Grivitza, was about 200 yards square. But these simple 
 and apparently feeble works were well placed. Each of 
 them had a good clear field of fire to a considerable distance 
 down the slopes. They were armed with cannon, but their
 
 2i8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 best defense proved to be the long-ranging, quick-firing 
 rifles of the men who held them. The rifle was a good one 
 — the American Peabody, very like the Martini. There was 
 abundance of ammunition, and recesses for handy reserves 
 of cartridges had been made by placing boxes, opening out- 
 wards, in holes dug inside the earthwork parapets of trench 
 and redoubt. 
 
 Krudener made two disconnected attacks from the east 
 and southeast. He actually took two of the redoubts, but 
 he was driven out again, and retreated with heavy loss. No 
 less than 169 officers and 7136 men (or nearly 25 per cent 
 of his force) were killed or wounded. He reported that 
 he had been opposed by 50,000 men. Osman really had 
 only 20,000, a large proportion of them irregulars, and only 
 58 cannon, some of them small mountain guns, to oppose to 
 Krudener's 170 field-pieces. This was the second battle of 
 Plevna. Osman was now famous, and the Russians were 
 more determined than ever that, cost what it might, the little 
 Bulgarian town that had suddenly grown into a fortress 
 must be taken. All the plans of the campaign were thrown 
 to the winds. The Czar, the grand dukes, and the generals 
 thought only of Plevna. 
 
 In the first days of August Osman received reinforce- 
 ments that raised his strength to 35.000 men, with 70 guns. 
 He pushed out a division under Adil Pasha to Loftcha, to 
 the southeast of Plevna, near the opening of the Troian 
 Pass over the Balkans, to keep open his communications with 
 the capital. For their next attack the Russians concentrated 
 an army of 95,000 men (including 10,500 cavalry), with 
 452 guns, many of them siege pieces of heavy caliber. The 
 nominal command was given to the ally of Russia, Prince 
 (afterwards King) Charles of Roumania, 30,000 of whose, 
 army helped to make up the attacking force. The real 
 director of the operations was his chief of the stafif, the Rus- 
 sian general Zotoff. The large force of cavalry was intended
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 219 
 
 to assist in investing the place completely on all sides. 
 The hundreds of guns were to prepare the way for the 
 assault by a bombardment of several days' duration. As 
 a prelude to the attack, Prince Imeritinski's corps, with 
 which the famous young General Skobeleff was acting as 
 second in command, attacked and captured Loftcha on 
 September 3, thus cutting Osman off from his line of 
 supply over the Balkans. Adil Pasha then retired into 
 Plevna. 
 
 The Russo-Roumanian army had now closed in upon 
 Plevna on all sides. On September 6 the batteries were 
 ready to open fire against the place, and the bombardment 
 of the defense works began. The Russian staff had ar- 
 ranged that, as soon as the bombardment had produced some 
 effect, there should be three simultaneous attacks on the 
 works. On the west, the Roumanians were to advance 
 against the Grivitza redoubts; on the southeast front, Gen- 
 eral Kryloff was to attack the line of intrenchments about 
 Omar Tabia with the Fourth and Ninth Army Corps ; on 
 the southwest, Skobeleff was to advance by the Green Hills 
 and the village of Brestovetz, and assault the four redoubts 
 grouped about Yunuz Tabia. The Czar himself was to be 
 present to witness the great assault and capture of Plevna, 
 and with him came a crowd of grand dukes, foreign military 
 attaches, and journalists of all nations. 
 
 For four days the hundreds of Russian guns thundered 
 against Osman's intrenchments. The tempest of fire and 
 steel looked very terrible to those who watched it, and it 
 was thought that the Turks must be suffering fearful losses, 
 and that they would be soon reduced to a condition of de- 
 moralized panic. It is strange how this confidence of sol- 
 diers in the efficacy of bombardment lives on after a century 
 of failures. The tons of shells thrown into Plevna caused 
 comparatively small losses. The Tin-ks kc'])t close to the 
 protecting parapets of their intrenchments, and waited
 
 220 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 quietly for the time when the infantry would come on and 
 they would have something to do. They were more incom- 
 moded by the steady downpour of cold rain that began on 
 September 6 and continued for a week. It soaked them 
 to the skin, sent many into hospital, and turned the interior 
 of the works into miserable quagmires. The few shells that 
 made fair hits on the parapets did not damage them seri- 
 ously. The explosion only shifted a quantity of earth, and 
 an hour of spade work after dark set it right again. The 
 Turks even succeeded in keeping a good many guns in 
 action. The Omar Tabia redoubt and the batteries near 
 it steadily answered back the 24 huge siege-guns which 
 Kryloff had in position on the Radischevo ridge. On the 
 tenth the Turkish shells set Radischevo village on fire, and 
 it blazed for twelve hours, lighting up the country around 
 with its red glare all through the night. 
 
 Skobeleff, to whom Imeritinski had given the command 
 of the Second Division and the Third Rifle Brigade, had 
 driven the Turks from Brestovetz, and the wooded heights 
 near it, known to the Russians as the " Green Hills." From 
 the ground thus won the Yunuz Tabia group of redoubts 
 was bombarded at short range. Skobeleff believed the 
 Turks were badly shaken, and spoke confidently of being 
 able to rush them and fight his way into Plevna. Imeritinski 
 left him the leadership of the attack. Skobeleff was the idol 
 of the Russian soldiers. He had won his rank of general 
 four years before in Central Asia, when he was only thirty- 
 two. Recklessly brave, he was one of those men who have 
 the power of inspiring thousands with their own enthusiasm. 
 Fie had some of the love of theatrical display that distin- 
 guished Napoleon's famous cavalry leader, Joachim Murat. 
 In the fight for the Green Hills, Skobeleff rode forward 
 with the assaulting column, mounted on a white horse, and 
 dressed in a brilliant uniform, with a diamond brooch hold- 
 ing the aigrette in his white sheepskin cap. Such a figure
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 221 
 
 must have been the mark of many rifles, but he was never 
 wounded in battle. His right-hand man in all the operations 
 at Loftcha and Plevna was a young stafl: officer for whom 
 a brilliant career was predicted — Captain Kuropatkin, the 
 future commander-in-chief of the Russian armies in the war 
 with Japan. 
 
 On September 10 the reports of the engineer and artillery 
 commanders assured the staff that all was ready for the 
 great assault, and the capture of Plevna was fixed for the 
 afternoon of next. day. The batteries were to redouble their 
 efforts from sunrise till 3 p. m. Then the storming columns 
 were to rush the Turkish redoubts and trenches. The fact 
 that the time of the advance was fixed so late in the autumn 
 day as to leave only a few short hours of daylight, is proof 
 enough that the Russian staff counted on a rapid and easy 
 victory. 
 
 As the sun rose the batteries of the attack opened fire, 
 and for hours the shells fell in showers along the north, 
 east, and south fronts. On the west, beyond the river Vid, 
 10,000 horsemen were posted to watch that side of the in- 
 trenched camp of Osman. On the north the Roumanians 
 were to make a mere demonstration, to keep the garrison 
 employed on that side. East and south the troops for the 
 attack were formed up in lines of company columns. The 
 day was dark and gloomy ; from cloudy skies there came 
 down a deluge of cold rain, and as there was no wind, 
 masses of damp fog and mist mingled with the clouds of 
 powder smoke, and limited the view. 
 
 The orders were to attack at 3, but at i p. m. there was 
 a lull in the bombardment. It was apparently the result 
 partly of a delay in bringing up fresh supplies of powder 
 and shell to the batteries, partly of the difficulty the gunners 
 experienced in finding their targets in the thick atmosphere. 
 Two regiments of the Fourth Corps on the Radischevo 
 ridge, the Ugla and Yaroslav regiments, three battalions
 
 222 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 each — in all about 5000 men — took the sudden halting 
 of the fire as an indication that the moment had come for 
 the assault, and dashed forward against the Omar Tabia 
 works. Once a premature attack was made it would have 
 been sounder policy for Kryloff to support it, but he stuck 
 to the letter of his orders. Not another man was to move 
 forward till three o'clock. So the six unfortunate battalions 
 of Ugla and Yaroslav fought single-handed, while their 
 comrades looked on. Again and again they flung them- 
 selves against the redoubt. Its Turkish garrison, three bat- 
 talions in Omar Tabia and the trenches right and left of 
 it, crouched low against the parapets, and firing as rapidly 
 as deft fingers could handle bolt and trigger, swept the 
 slope in front with a hail of bullets. As they came into the 
 fire-swept zone the Russians went down like grass under 
 a scythe. They fell back more than once, only to rally and 
 come on again. When at last they gave up the attempt, and 
 the broken battalions straggled back to the Radischevo ridge, 
 they had left nearly half their numbers on the ground — 
 2300 men killed and wounded out of 5000. 
 
 At 3 p. M. the general assault began, and KrylofT moved 
 forward over the death-strewn ground. For two hours 
 regiment after regiment was hurled against Omar Tabia, 
 but not a man ever got within a hundred yards of it. 
 Twenty-one battalions were engaged from first to last, but 
 the rifle fire of the three battalions opposed to them held 
 them at bay. Six thousand dead and wounded were heaped 
 on the ground in front of the works at 5 p. m. Kryloiif de- 
 cided that further attempts were useless. The Turks had 
 lost a few hundreds only, chiefly by shell fire from the bat- 
 teries that covered the assault, the garrison being unable 
 to take cover so effectually while repelling the attack. 
 
 While the Russian center was failing thus disastrously, 
 the right attack near Grivitza village had scored a partial 
 success. Here the assault was made by the Roumanians,
 
 No. i6 — The Great Assault on Plevna, September ii, 1877
 
 \
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 223 
 
 supported by a division of Krudener's Corps (the Ninth). 
 The objective of this attack was the projecting angle of the 
 works, formed by the two inclosures of low green mounds 
 that stood, about three hundred yards apart, at the top of 
 the slope of meadowland west of Grivitza village. Three 
 simultaneous attacks were directed against the nearest of 
 the works, the " Grivitza Redoubt No. i " of the histories 
 of the siege, known in Turkish narratives as " Kanli Tabia " 
 (that is, the Bloody Fort), an appropriate name consider- 
 ing how much blood was shed around it. The Roumanian 
 prince formed up three storming columns — on the left, 
 against the south side of the works, Krudener's Russians; 
 in front, and on the right his own Roumanians. At three 
 o'clock these converging attacks were pushed forward, but 
 only to fall back before the leaden hail that swept the slopes, 
 the right attack suffering most under the cross-fire from No. 
 2 Redoubt. The attack was reformed and went on again, 
 and again it was hurled back from the insignificant-looking 
 mounds that topped the slope. 
 
 At five o'clock, when the firing was dying away on the 
 Russian center, Prince Charles tried once more. He had 
 drawn reinforcements of fresh troops from the Roumanian 
 divisions facing the north front of Plevna. This time the 
 stormers reached the redoubt, surged over its shallow ditch 
 and low rampart, and fought with crossed bayonets for 
 possession. The Turks made a desperate struggle to hold 
 on, but the masses of stormers that poured up the slope 
 simply hustled them out of the redoubt. Attempts were 
 then made to charge across the 300 yards of ground that 
 separated the captured work from Redoubt No. 2. But 
 these all failed. Still something had been done. When the 
 sun went down the Roumanian colors were flying victori- 
 ously over the " Bloody Fort," and the engineers and gun- 
 ners were bringing up artillery and digging trenches to 
 insure the security of this hard-won conquest. Its capture
 
 224 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 had cost the loss of nearly 4000 men — two-thirds Rou- 
 manians, the rest Russians. 
 
 On the extreme left, north of the Green Hills, Skobeleff 
 had been fighting in fierce battle against a young Turkish 
 general whose energy and magical power of command was 
 like his own — Yunuz Pasha, who gave his name to one of 
 the southwestern redoubts, where he had his headquarters. 
 
 Before three o'clock Skobeleff had formed up his assault- 
 ing column among the woods and vineyards near Brestovetz, 
 ready to move forward at the signal. It was composed of 
 eight battalions, the famous regiments of Vladimir and 
 Suzdal, and the Ninth and Tenth Rifles. The Regiments 
 had their bands of drums and bugles at their head, and their 
 colors displayed. Skobeleff, in all his parade finery, was 
 mounted on his white horse, with a standard-bearer riding 
 beside him. It looked like a peace review. At three the 
 regiments swung out of the woods to the strains of martial 
 music, deployed into lines of company columns, and moved 
 upon Yunuz Tabia, which, with the three other redoubts 
 forming the group, looked down from the crest of a slope 
 on the other side of a grassy hollow traversed by a stream. 
 
 Just beyond this stream the advance was stopped by the 
 deadly fire of the Turkish rifles. In vain the batteries tried 
 to keep down the enemy's rapid fusillade. Lines of skir- 
 mishers thrown forward to answer it crumbled away under 
 the leaden hail. Wounded and unwounded men began to 
 straggle to the rear. It looked like a miserable failure. 
 
 In the thick of the fire Skobeleff rode, seeming to have 
 a charmed life. Suddenly he saw a new possibility. Kuro- 
 patkin was sent off at full gallop to bring up the reserves 
 — five battalions, the Libau regiment of the line and the 
 Eleventh and Twelfth Rifles. As these came up Skobeleff 
 put himself at their head, and inclining to the right dashed 
 round the flank of the half-broken line of the first attack, and 
 up the slope, not for Yunuz Tabia, but for the two redoubts
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 225 
 
 to its left rear, and between it and Plevna. These works 
 of the second line were not so strongly held. Skobelefif 
 fought his way into first one and then the other of them. 
 He was between Yunuz and the town. 
 
 There were signs that he had friends there. The Bul- 
 garians in Plevna had risen on the Turks. There was fight- 
 ing in the streets, and great columns of smoke and flame 
 rose up as the rioters fired some of the Turkish magazines 
 of corn and forage. Osman had to use some of his force 
 to suppress this outbreak, and at the same time hurried 
 reinforcements from the north front, which concentrated 
 under the command of his lieutenant, Rifaat Pasha, among 
 the vineyards near the two inner redoubts at the south- 
 western end of the town. 
 
 It was well for the Turks that the Russian staff had an 
 exaggerated idea of the numerical strength of Osman's 
 army ; otherwise at this moment the Roumanians might 
 have rushed the north front of Plevna. The whole long 
 line on that side was held by only four battalions. For 
 Osman had made up his mind that the enemy did not 
 mean to attack in that direction, and had stripped the 
 works of men in order to meet the pressing danger from 
 the southwest. 
 
 Rifaat made a desperate assault on the captured redoubts; 
 but Skobeleff held his own, and as the sun went down the 
 Turks fell l)ack on the town with considerable losses and 
 with their commander badly wounded. During the night 
 Skobcleff's men had no rest. They were fired upon from 
 three sides, and were kept busy repairing the works and 
 digging trenches on their flanks. Some reinforcements and 
 supplies of ammunition reached them during the anxious 
 hours of darkness. They knew that in the morning they 
 would have to face a furious assault, for at any cost Osman 
 would have to try to turn Skobeleff out of the ground he 
 had won in the very heart of the position, and reestablish
 
 226 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 communication with Yuniiz in the two outlying redoubts, 
 now cut off from the town. 
 
 Skobeleff's best chance was that the Russians and Rou- 
 manians would renew a general assault on Plevna on the 
 morning of the twelfth, and thus make it impossible for 
 Osman to concentrate any considerable force against him. 
 But after their defeat before the Omar Tabia lines Kryloff's 
 men were in a thoroughly beaten condition, and Zotoff, the 
 chief of the Russian staff, declared that it was no use send- 
 ing them forward. On the right Prince Charles concen- 
 trated fresh troops from his Roumanian divisions, and made 
 more than one desperate and unavailing effort to capture 
 the second of the Grivitza redoubts. On the left Imeritinski 
 should have supported Skobeleff directly with fresh troops, 
 indirectly by vigorously attacking Yunuz. But he showed 
 very little energy, and his lieutenants had mostly to depend 
 on what he could do for himself. 
 
 The sun had hardly risen when Osman launched his first 
 attack upon the two captured redoubts. It was driven back, 
 only to come on again. All day long the Turks moved 
 regiment after regiment and crowds of irregulars to their 
 right, and flung them against Skobeleff's hard-tried bat- 
 talions. In the interval between each attack a storm of fire 
 poured on the redoubts from three sides. But though their 
 losses were terrible, it was not until late in the day that 
 Skobeleff decided that he could not hold on for another 
 night. The men were by this time breaking down. " Offi- 
 cers and men," says Skobeleff, " were becoming demoral- 
 ized by the terrible fire." About four o'clock, when the 
 Turks were massing for a final assault, which he foresaw 
 would probably be successful, he gave the order to evacuate 
 the redoubts. The retirement was made in good order, but 
 under a heavy fire that inflicted considerable loss. 
 
 Just before sundown Adil Pasha made an attempt to cap- 
 ture the lost Grivitz redoubt; but the Roumania^n garrison
 
 GREAT ASSAULT ON PLEVNA 227 
 
 beat him back, and so the two days' battle at last came to 
 an end. 
 
 The Turks had lost about 4000 men, chiefly in their 
 abortive attempts to storm the two redoubts which Skobelefif 
 held so long, and in Adil Pasha's final assault on the Grivitza 
 redoubt. The allied losses reached the terrible total of 
 16,000 killed and wounded. Of these less than 3000 were 
 Roumanians. In his fight on the left Skobeleff lost 160 
 ofificers and 5600 men, or 48 per cent of the force engaged. 
 In the Vladimir Regiment, out of 15 company commanders 
 14 were killed or wounded. In the premature assault on 
 Omar Tabia the Ugla Regiment lost 1220 men, or 42 per 
 cent, and the Yaroslav Regiment 1025 men, or 49 per cent 
 of its strength. 
 
 But the mere losses, heavy as they were, were less serious 
 than the sense of failure, the depression that for a while 
 paralyzed the Russian army. The troops were concentrated 
 east of Plevna. Only the Grivitza Redoubt No. i was held, 
 though at first there was talk of abandoning it. Before a 
 relieving column, advancing with a convoy from Sofia over 
 the Balkans, the Russian cavalry were drawn in from the 
 west side of the Vid, and till after the middle of October 
 supplies came in freely to Osman. He was also able to send 
 away some of his sick and wounded, and to replace them 
 with fresh troops. 
 
 It was during this time that he informed the War Office 
 at Constantinople that if there was any doubt about the 
 west front of Plevna being kept open, he would evacuate the 
 place and take up another position nearer the Balkan passes. 
 The reply was that sufficient troops were available to prevent 
 the enemy again closing the Sofia road. So Osman held on. 
 
 But on October 24 Gourko with 30,000 men drove the 
 Turks from Gorni-Dubnlak, and closed the Sofia road, while 
 an army of 125,000 Russians and Roumanians closely sur- 
 rounded Plevna, and the famous engineer General Todlebcn,
 
 228 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the defender of Sebastopol, came from Russia to direct 
 a regular siege by trench and sap on the northeastern front. 
 Plevna was now doomed, unless relief could come from 
 outside. But the Turkish plan of campaign was badly con- 
 ceived and feebly executed. Osman, left to his own re- 
 sources, held out till the first days of December. Provisions 
 had become scarce in the besieged town, and fuel scanty, 
 though the weather was bitterly cold, with snowy days and 
 freezing nights. Fever and dysentery crowded the hospitals 
 with thousands of dying men. At last, on December lo, he 
 made a gallant attempt to break out to the westward across 
 the Vid; but his half-starved army had to succumb to the 
 attack of superior numbers. Thirty thousand men could not 
 hope to fight their way through 120,000 enemies. After 
 two hours' fighting and the loss of 5000 the white flag of 
 surrender was displayed. Osman had held the improvised 
 earthworks of Plevna for nearly five months, and at last 
 succumbed only to famine.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 
 September 13, 1882 
 
 Ismail Pasha, Khedive of Egypt, was a man of large 
 ideas and extravagant tastes. He had made himself practi- 
 cally independent of the Sultan of Turkey, and tried to 
 realize a dream of an Egyptian empire stretching from the 
 Mediterranean to the great lakes of Central Africa. He 
 completed the Suez Canal, and thus brought back to Egypt 
 the main highway of the Far Eastern trade. He anticipated 
 the most famous of the projects of Cecil Rhodes, for when 
 the first section of the Soudan railway was constructed 
 from Wadi Haifa southwards, he insisted that the gage 
 should be that of the Cape Government railways, so that 
 the tracks might join up some day, and trains run through 
 from Cairo to Cape Town. 
 
 The unfortunate element in his large ideas was a reckless- 
 ness about expenditure, and a spendthrift's carelessness 
 about the terms on which successive loans were contracted. 
 At last came the day when one of his Arab colonels organ- 
 ized a military protest against a situation in which the offi- 
 cers of the army were left unpaid in order that money might 
 be found to give the foreign bondholders their interest. 
 Arabi Pasha's successful demonstration was the first step 
 in a revolution. Disorders at Alexandria, in which Euro- 
 pean lives were lost and foreign property plundered, led to a 
 joint British and French intervention. At the last moment 
 France withdrew from the adventure, and after a British 
 fleet had silenced the batteries of Alexandria and landed men
 
 230 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 to occupy the city, an army was sent under Wolseley to 
 restore order in Egypt — with the unforeseen result of 
 many years of war in the Nile valley, and the addition of 
 a new protectorate to the British Empire. 
 
 The victory of Tel-el-Kebir, which decided the first cam- 
 paign and made Britain mistress of the destinies of Egypt 
 and of the lands of the Nile, is notable not only as one of 
 those decisive battles which have changed the course of 
 history, but also as an instance of tactics which are destined 
 to play a considerable part in modern war — a night march 
 followed by an attack at dawn. 
 
 The British army had been concentrated in the first in- 
 stance at Alexandria. The Egyptian army, organized on 
 European lines and partly trained by French, British, and 
 American officers who had taken service with Ismail, occu- 
 pied an intrenched position at Kafr-dowar, barring the neck 
 of land between two marshy lagoons, along which lines the 
 direct road from Alexandria into the delta. Lord Wolseley 's 
 plan of campaign, concealed up to the last moment even 
 from some of his immediate colleagues, was to use the fleet 
 for the purpose of sviddenly transferring his army from 
 Alexandria to a new starting point at Ismailia on the Suez 
 Canal. This would give a shorter road to Cairo, along the 
 line of the " Sweet-water Canal," constructed to supply fresh 
 water from the Nile to the ports of the Suez Canal. The 
 move to Ismailia was not a complete surprise for Arabi and 
 the Egyptians. They had foreseen the possibility of an ad- 
 vance from the canal, and had laid out a line of intrench- 
 ments to bar this route, the point selected being a rise of the 
 general level of the desert near the station of Tel-el-Kebir 
 (that is, the Big Mound), on the Ismailia-Cairo Railway. 
 
 The troops had been embarked on the transports at Alex- 
 andria with an ostentatious announcement that they were 
 destined to attack Damietta, and to advance from that point, 
 turning the lines of Kafr-dowar. In the night of August
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 231 
 
 20 landing parties from warships that had entered the canal 
 seized Port Said, Ismailia, and Suez. At dawn the trans- 
 ports were steaming- along the canal towards the wide lake 
 on which Ismailia stands, and for days the landing of men 
 and stores went on. The vanguard of the expedition pushed 
 on by the line of the Sweet-water Canal to El-Magfar, be- 
 tween which point and Tel-el-Mahuta there was a first 
 action with the enemy on August 24. Next day the Egyp- 
 tians abandoned a partly intrenched position at Tel-el- 
 Mahuta ; this was occupied, and there was some skirmishing 
 with them as they retired. An advanced party then pushed 
 on to Kassassin. On the twenty-eighth there was a hard- 
 fought action at this point, the enemy attacking in force 
 to overwhelm the advanced guard of the expedition, but 
 being everywhere repulsed with heavy loss. 
 
 Wolseley had selected Kassassin as the place where he 
 would concentrate for the decisive dash at Arabi's fortified 
 position, and he now proceeded to bring up every available 
 man, and to accumulate supplies for the advance. People in 
 England who did not realize the difficulties of the work to 
 be done waited impatiently for news, chafed at the apparent 
 inaction of the expedition, and even talked of failure, as 
 days and weeks went by without news of the hoped-for 
 victory. For those who have not seen war in a desert 
 region it is almost impossible to realize the time and labor 
 required to keep an army supplied, and to accumulate a re- 
 serve that will enable an advance, once begun, to be carried 
 on continuously for even a few days. Wolseley could not 
 bring up his entire force from Ismailia till he could feed 
 them, and it was no use storming the lines of Tel-el-Kebir 
 unless the victory could be followed up by a swift advance 
 on Cairo. So he bided his time, and spared no effort to 
 insure that when the blow was struck it should be decisive. 
 
 On September 9, Arabi made one more attack on Kas- 
 sassin, and was again badly beaten, but his troops showed
 
 232 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 such good fighting quaHties that every one felt they would 
 be formidable adversaries behind the works of an intrenched 
 position. And the strength of the Tel-el-Kebir lines was 
 growing daily under the efforts of thousands of impressed 
 fellahin laborers, and of the soldiers themselves. 
 
 Before dawn on September ii, and again on the twelfth, 
 Wolseley rode out with his staff and a small mounted escort 
 to take as close a look as possible at the intrenchments when 
 the sun rose. It was seen that the improvised fortifications 
 had a front of about four miles. ^ There was a short line of 
 intrenchments south of the canal. The main line, starting 
 from its north bank, ran in a direction a little east of north. 
 It followed the crest of a rise in the general level of the 
 district, a stretch of hard sand and gravel, and the dull, 
 monotonous brown color of everything made it no easy 
 matter to make out details. The rampart was low, five or 
 six feet high, with a ditch of the same depth in front. It 
 was afterwards found that a shallower ditch had been dug 
 behind to supply additional material for the rampart, which 
 was ten or twelve feet thick at its base. At more than one 
 point in the long line batteries of guns had been placed in 
 position. Several were mounted in a closed redoubt in the 
 center, at the highest point of the ground. From this fort 
 a second line ran back along the desert plateau, and with 
 the help of a cross trench inclosed a large space of ground. 
 On the extreme left or north end of the main line there was 
 an artillery-armed redoubt, but for this part of the line there 
 was no sign of defenses in the rear, and Wolseley decided 
 that, while the infantry rushed the works in front, the cav- 
 alry could charge round to the back of the intrenchments 
 in this direction. Reports of spies said that the works were 
 held by 19,000 regular infantry, including several battalions 
 of black Soudanese troops, likely to be good fighters, and 
 some 7000 Arab irregulars. 
 
 * §ee plan.
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 233 
 
 The force concentrated at Kassassin for the attack 
 amounted to 11,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 60 guns, 
 exclusive of a detachment that was to be left to guard the 
 camp. The infantry was organized in two divisions. The 
 First Division, under General Willis, was made up of the 
 First or Guards Brigade, under the Duke of Connaught 
 (Second Grenadiers, Second Coldstreams, and First Scots) ; 
 and the Second Brigade, under Sir Gerald Graham, com- 
 posed of four line battalions, two of them Irish (Royal 
 Irish Regiment and Royal Irish Fusiliers). The Second 
 Division, under General Hamley, included the Third or 
 Highland Brigade, commanded by Sir Archibald Alison 
 (Black Watch, Gordon, and Cameron Highlanders, and 
 Highland Light Infantry) ; and the Fourth Brigade, under 
 General Ashburnham, which had only two battalions in line 
 (Duke of Cornwall's and King's Royal Rifles) — its other 
 battalion, the West Kent, being left to guard the camp, with 
 the exception of a single company that escorted the reserve 
 ammunition on the advance. A battalion of Royal Marines 
 accompanied the headquarters. The contingent sent from 
 India, under Sir Herbert Macpherson, included the Seaforth 
 Highlanders, a native infantry regiment, a battery of moun- 
 tain artillery, and a splendid regiment of native cavalry, the 
 Thirteenth Bengal Lancers. The British cavalry brigade, 
 under Sir Drury Lowe, was made up of a composite regi- 
 ment of Household Cavalry (a squadron from each of the 
 three regiments), the Fourth Dragoon Guards, the Nine- 
 teenth Hussars, and two batteries of the Royal Horse Artil- 
 lery. The navy supplied a contingent of 250 bluejackets 
 with Catling guns, and a 40-pounder mounted on a truck 
 on the railway. 
 
 The plan of attack was explained to all the superior offi- 
 cers, and a sketch-map supplied to them for their guidance. 
 The whole force was to march during the night in battle 
 array, and be in position to attack at dawn, so that the dan-
 
 234 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 gerous space in front of the works might be crossed without 
 the troops being long under fire. The Indian contingent, 
 under Macpherson, was to follow the south bank of the 
 canal, rush the extreme right of the works, and turn the 
 whole line on that flank, crossing the canal, if need be, with 
 the help of the Royal Engineer pontoon company that fol- 
 lowed it. The naval brigade, with its machine-guns and 
 the 40-pounder, was to march along the railway. The main 
 body was to advance with its left on the railway, and its 
 right covered by the cavalry brigade. On the left was to 
 be Hamley's Second Division, the Highland Brigade in 
 front ; each battalion in quarter column,^ and the four 
 columns marching abreast of each other. Ashbumham's 
 little brigade of two battalions was to be in support in the 
 same formation. Behind it would be the staff, the Royal 
 Marines, and the reserve ammunition column. The Nine- 
 teenth Hussars, detached from the cavalry brigade, were 
 to be within call of the headquarters position. Willis's First 
 Division was to form the right of the attack, Graham's Bri- 
 gade in the same formation as the Highlanders in front, the 
 Duke of Connaught's brigade of Guards in support — a 
 disappointing position for these fine battalions. Between 
 the two infantry divisions were the Royal Field Artillery 
 batteries, under Brigadier-General Goodenough. 
 
 The fighting was to be with the bayonet in the first 
 attack, but every man had 100 rounds of ammunition. 
 There were just five days' provisions at Kassassin camp. 
 Each man was to carry two days' rations. Two more were 
 to be conveyed by the regimental transport. It was ex- 
 pected that further supplies would be captured in Arabi's 
 camp ; and it was known that as Tel-el-Kebir marked the 
 edge of the fertile delta, abundant supplies could be collected 
 from the country beyond. 
 
 Kassassin camp was apparently all quiet during the 
 
 * That is, with the companies in Hne, six paces behind each other.
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 235 
 
 twelfth. Really, the preparations for the advance were be- 
 ing unostentatiously completed, the outposts being pushed 
 farther out to keep the enemy's Arab scouts at a good dis- 
 tance. It was not till late in the day that the word went 
 round that the force was to march that night and fight a 
 battle as the sun rose over the desert next day. 
 
 After dark the various units fell in, and were moved to 
 their positions, the line of battle being formed at the 
 starting-point in front of the desert camp. There were busy 
 hours before this could be done — striking tents, piling bag- 
 gage near the railway line, issuing and inspecting ammuni- 
 tion and rations. No bugles or trumpets sounded. All 
 words of command were given in a low voice. Strict orders 
 had been issued that no lights were to be shown, not a 
 match struck, no pipes or cigars lighted. It was not till 
 half past one that all was ready and the word was given 
 for the march to begin. The night was intensely dark, with 
 a clear starlit sky. There were no landmarks or tracks by 
 which to direct the march ; but in front of the Highland 
 Brigade a naval officer. Commander Rawson, was posted 
 to direct the advance across the desert by the compass and 
 the stars as he would lay the course of a ship on the sea. 
 Picked men were placed on the flanks of each regiment, and 
 between the brigades and along the flanks of the battalion 
 columns ropes were passed from front to rear, and held by 
 the guide of each company at a point marked by a knot, 
 so that connection and distance could be more easily kept. 
 
 At half past one the word was passed to advance, and 
 the men began to move forward. A desert night march 
 that is to end in a battle produces a strange impression on 
 those who take part in it. At times everything seems more 
 like dreamland than reality. Those in the front rank see 
 before them the mysterious darkness into which they go 
 ever onward, with nothing to mark their progress ; those 
 behind are moving among shadowy masses of men. To
 
 236 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 keep order and direction is impossible if movement is at all 
 rapid, so the pace is necessarily slow, with frequent checks 
 and halts. The excitement of the start soon gives way to 
 a weary sense of monotonous, objectless plodding, without 
 any sense of progress. The hours seem endless. Tired men 
 half doze, and stumble with a sudden start into wakefulness. 
 Excitable men are liable to strange fits of nerves that make 
 them liable to panic on the slightest provocation. 
 
 Though the strictest orders had been issued that there 
 should be absolute silence and no lights should be shown, 
 there was at the outset some difficulty in preventing talking 
 in the ranks, and here and there surreptitious attempts at 
 smoking were made. But before the first mile had been 
 traversed all the moving masses of men had settled down 
 into silence, and at fifty yards away from front and flanks 
 there was nothing to be seen or heard. In the midst of the 
 array there was the dull sound of footsteps on the hard sand, 
 and the creaking of leathern accouterments. Once there 
 was an alarm. Wild screams like the outcry of a madman 
 rang out. A young soldier had fallen down in a fit, and 
 lay on the ground writhing and yelling. A staff officer 
 galloped up and gave the grim order for the man to be 
 bayoneted, as the continued noise might give the alarm to 
 Arabs prowling in the darkness. A doctor intervened, and 
 saved his life by ofifering to silence him temporarily with a 
 strong injection of morphia. The poor fellow was thus 
 treated and carried to the rear on a stretcher, and the 
 march was resumed. 
 
 The scouts in front and the cavalry on the right flank 
 again and again reported parties of the enemy prowling 
 near at hand in the darkness, but all these proved to be 
 false alarms. Not a scout, not an outpost was in front of 
 the lines of Tel-el-Kebir. The march had been well timed. 
 As the eastern stars became dim, and a sudden whiteness 
 along the desert horizon told of the short twilight and the
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 237 
 
 coming day, the whispered word went along- the hnes, 
 " Halt, halt ! " and the ranks were dressed ; and the second 
 order came, " Fix bayonets ! " The light v/as rapidly in- 
 creasing, and along the rising ground of the desert, only 
 half a mile in front, the gray lines of Arabi's intrenchments 
 loomed up dimly against the sky. 
 
 Forward again went the silent army, the infantry moving 
 with swift swinging strides, all now alert with the sense of 
 impending battle. The kilted Highland regnnents on the 
 left were a little nearer the works than the right of the line. 
 Only some 300 yards separated them from the works in 
 front, when the long silence was broken by the sharp crack- 
 crack of a few rifles, and a Highlander staggered forward 
 and dropped dead. A bugle note rang out from the enemy's 
 lines, and then in a moment rampart and redoubt flashed into 
 fire. From right to left a sheet of flame seemed to run 
 along the two miles of front, and here and there the long 
 red flashes of the Egyptian artillery sprang out into the 
 twilight. Silence and semi-darkness had suddenly given 
 way to an uproar of sound and a volcano of flame. The 
 enemy's fire was mostly too high. Overhead there was a 
 whistle and roar of flying metal that sounded like a hurri- 
 cane. All along the front men went down as the bugles 
 sounded the charge, and the voices of the officers were heard 
 calling on their men. 
 
 The regiments of the first line raced for the ramparts, 
 behind them the supports doubled forward, and the artillery 
 teams broke into a sharp trot. Away to the right the cavalry 
 were galloping for the flank of the works. Beyond the canal 
 the Indian Brigade and the Seaforths and the sailors were 
 rushing to the attack. 
 
 The first to reach the enemy's lines were the Highland 
 Brigade. The rampart was wrapped in dense smoke, torn 
 by the fire flashes, as the kilted Scotsmen jumped down 
 into the ditch and began to climb the mound on the other
 
 238 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 side. It was steep enough to give them momentary shelter. 
 Men and officers helped each other up. The pipers, stand- 
 ing on the edge amid the flying bullets, played the wild 
 battle music of the clans. 
 
 The first man to mount the parapet was Donald Cameron, 
 a private of the Cameron Highlanders. For a moment he 
 stood among the drifting smoke, stabbing with his bayonet 
 at the nearest of the enemy ; then he fell back into the 
 ditch riddled with bullets. But his momentary stand had 
 allowed others to climb up behind him ; and once a foot- 
 ing was won on the crest more and more were up and 
 over it, and the Highlanders came pouring into the works, 
 Camerons and Gordons mingling together in the mass 
 of men that bore everything down before its bristling 
 bayonets. 
 
 There had been severe loss as the Highlanders forced 
 their way over the crest amid the showers of bullets that 
 met them at point-blank range. They had not fired a shot 
 in return. They trusted to claymore and bayonets till the 
 Egyptians, driven from the first line of works, rallied in 
 their retirement to the inner line. On the right the first 
 regiment to get into the intrenchments was the Eighteenth 
 Royal Irish. They surged over ditch and rampart with a 
 wild " Hurroo ! " that was heard amid the din of the battle 
 and the cheers of their English comrades of the Second 
 Brigade. They cleared the rampart of its defenders with 
 bayonet and butt, and then wheeling to their left rolled up 
 the line of Egyptians in action with the next regiment of the 
 brigade. The cavalry, sweeping round the flank, rode in 
 among the flying enemy. Some of the batteries had unlim- 
 bered close to the works, and were sending a shower of 
 shells into the high redoubt in the center. Away to the 
 extreme left of the attack the Seaforths and the Indian 
 troops had rushed the works beyond the canal. Through 
 the twilight a mass of Arab horsemen came riding towards
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 239 
 
 the flank of attack ; but before they could charge the blue- 
 jackets had swung round their Gatling guns and poured a 
 shower of bullets into them, sending them ofif in wild flight, 
 hotly pursued by the Bengal Lancers. The 40-pounder was 
 in action on the railway. The Royal Engineers had launched 
 their pontoons on the canal, and in a few minutes they had 
 thrown a bridge over it, across which Macpherson rode at 
 the head of the Seaforths, to turn Arabi's risfht and com- 
 bine with Alison's Highlanders in completing the victory 
 on that side. 
 
 In the center Wolseley and the staff had ridden close up 
 to the ditch. As he arrived there a stretcher party was 
 carrying off Wyatt Rawson mortally wounded. After guid- 
 ing the advance through the night, he had fallen in the 
 first rush towards the works. Wolseley had brought up 
 the second line ; but the rampart was already won, and 
 there was no need to send them into the fight. The fire of 
 the Egyptians passing over the heads of the attack had killed 
 and wounded some of the Guardsmen, who were disap- 
 pointed at being mere spectators of the battle. Two killed 
 and 14 wounded was the total loss of the Duke of Con- 
 naught's splendid brigade. Among the wounded were 
 Colonel Sterling of the Coldstreams, and Father Bcllord, 
 the Catholic chaplain of the Guards (afterwards Bishop of 
 Gibraltar). 
 
 The fighting did not last quite half an hour, but it is 
 a mistake to say that it was an easily won victory. The 
 Egyptian army, and above all its black Soudanese battalions, 
 made a hard fight. On the right especially they rallied and 
 turned to bay again and again. Sir Archibald Alison, who 
 commanded the Highlanders on this part of the field, says 
 of the defeated enemy : 
 
 " I must do justice to those much-maligucd Eg^-ptian soldiers. I 
 never saw mcu fight more steadily. They were falling back upon 
 fin inner line of worksj which we had taken in flank. At every
 
 240 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 reentering angle, at every battery and redoubt, they rallied and re- 
 newed the fight. Five or six times we had to close on them with 
 the bayonet, and I saw these poor men fighting hard when their 
 officers were flying before us." 
 
 The inner line was turned by the attack of the Seaforths, 
 the Indian troops, and the naval brigade. In the center, 
 caught between the converging attacks from right and left, 
 hundreds threw down their arms. Thousands were stream- 
 ing to the rear. At Tel-el-Kebir station there were several 
 trains with steam up. Two of these got away, crowded with 
 fugitives. A third was just starting when a shell burst in 
 the boiler of the engine and blew it up, blocking the line. 
 The shot came from the captured works on the right center. 
 There a battery of Horse Artillery, whose drivers boast that 
 they can take guns over anything, had dashed over ditch and 
 rampart. One gun came to grief with a broken wheel, but 
 five got in. The first that got over unlimbered, and was 
 laid on the engine as its target by young Lieutenant 
 Fielding (now the Earl of Denbigh and Colonel of the 
 Honorable Artillery Company). That well-aimed shot, by 
 stopping the railway transport, secured some thousands of 
 prisoners. 
 
 The cavalry had dashed in among the fugitives, but now 
 rallied, and soon Drury Lowe had started with his horsemen 
 and light artillery on the wonderful forced march that pre- 
 vented any rally of the beaten army, and by one bold stroke 
 secured possession of Cairo. Arabi had ridden away, but 
 his camp, his artillery, and a crowd of prisoners were the 
 trophies of the victors. Wolseley, accompanied by his staff 
 and Admiral Beauchamp Seymour, rode over the conquered 
 works amid the enthusiastic cheers of his men. General 
 Macpherson, with his Highlanders, the Indian troops, and 
 the sailors, was already in full march for the junction of 
 Zagazig, the occupation of which secured a large quantity 
 of rolling stock and huge magazines of stores.
 
 TEL-EL-KEBIR 241 
 
 The victory had been swift and complete. Considering 
 how short a time the fight had lasted, the losses were serious. 
 Killed and wounded amounted to 459 officers and men. 
 The regiment that lost most was the Highland Light In- 
 fantry. It had three officers and 14 non-commissioned offi- 
 cers and men killed, and 52 non-commissioned officers and 
 men wounded, besides 11 missing, most of whom must be 
 counted as dead and not identified. 
 
 In the fight for the works and the immediate pursuit the 
 Egyptian army lost over 2500 killed and wounded. But in 
 a military sense the army of Arabi was destroyed. Most of 
 the mounted troops got away and held together, but thou- 
 sands of the infantry were prisoners, and thousands more 
 disbanded and returned to their villages. Sixty-six guns 
 were taken — field-pieces and fortress guns mounted in the 
 works. 
 
 The victory was followed by the seizure of Cairo and 
 the surrender of the troops holding the lines in front of 
 Alexandria at Kafr-dowar. The battle decided the cam- 
 paign. Compared with the giant conflicts of European war 
 it was a small afifair, but it was in a double sense " epoch- 
 making." First, it was a perfect example of the new tactics 
 that were to play a great part in the wars of coming years. 
 The deadly effect of modern rifle fire had made it a costly 
 business to fight one's way up to within charging distance 
 of a hostile position in the daylight ; hence the value of the 
 night march, preparatory to an attack at close quarters at 
 dawn. In the second place, it was the opening of a new 
 chapter in the world's history. The English protectorate in 
 Egypt would mean responsibility for all the lands of the 
 Nile valley, and while Wolseley was scattering the armies of 
 Arabi, the Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed, was preaching and 
 fighting in the far Soudan, and raising a revolt that would 
 mean lon'g years of warfare. Out of the armies that were 
 defeated at Tel-el-Kebir and surrendered at Kafr-dowar and
 
 242 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Cairo Evelyn Wood and Grenfell would build up a dis- 
 ciplined fighting force that in years to come would march 
 side by side with and as comrades of the victors, and carry 
 the flags of Britain and Egypt a thousand miles into the 
 heart of Africa.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 ADOWA 
 March 1, 1896 
 
 The battle of Adowa, fought on March i, 1896, between 
 Menelek's huge army of semi-barbarian warriors and 
 Baratieri's force of Italian regulars and native levies under 
 European officers, was an epoch-making event. It was the 
 first great victory won by a non-European race over the 
 white man which had lasting and decisive results. No 
 effort was made to reverse its grim verdict. It marked the 
 close of a period of four centuries, during which the superior 
 arms, tactics and morale of the white man had enabled him to 
 scatter, when and where he would, the badly armed levies of 
 the " inferior races," and to parcel out the earth at his will. 
 
 Like all the other European powers, the new kingdom 
 of Italy had colonial ambitions and when, in the later years 
 of the nineteenth century, a general scramble for African 
 territory began, the Premier, Crispi, formed a ])roject for 
 obtaining a share of it for Italy on the shores of the Red 
 Sea and in the highlands of Abyssinia. While England was 
 fighting the dervishes about Suakin an Italian expedition 
 seized Massowah, a Turkish town on the Red Sea shore 
 which was the port for Northern Abyssinia and the starting- 
 point for the caravan route to Kassala, then in the possession 
 of the Mahdists. Fortified posts were established along this 
 caravan route, and in 1894 Kassala was taken by General 
 Baratieri, the governor of the Italian Red Sea Colony. 
 
 Before Kassala was occupied, the Italians had gained a 
 footing- in the Abyssinian highlands. Kassai, Prince of 
 Tigre, the northern district of Abyssinia, had helped the
 
 244 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 British against King Theodore in 1867, and used the arms 
 they presented to him to make himself Negus Negusti, or 
 " King of Kings " — that is, overlord or emperor of Abys- 
 sinia, under the name of Johannes. He opposed the Italians 
 when they marched on to the plateau and fortified them- 
 selves at Asmara ; and after his death in battle with the 
 Dervishes, Ras Alula, who had been one of his most trusted 
 chiefs, continued a desultory warfare against Baratieri. 
 
 In order to strengthen their position, the Italians secured 
 the alliance of a remarkable man, Menelek, the Prince of 
 Shoa, in South Abyssinia, who now claimed the title of 
 Negus. The Italians supplied him freely with arms, and 
 supported his claim, and he secured the submission of Ras 
 Alula and the Tigre province. Menelek was then proclaimed 
 " Emperor of Ethiopia," and by a treaty with the Italians 
 ceded the coast district and the Asmara region to them. In 
 Europe it was announced that he had accepted their pro- 
 tectorate over Abyssinia, and that all its relations with other 
 countries were to be conducted by the Italian Foreign Office. 
 
 The seizure of Kassala displeased the new emperor. He 
 had hoped to conquer the district himself. There also seems 
 to have been a serious misunderstanding about the so-called 
 " Protectorate " clause in the treaty. In the Italian version 
 it was clear that Menelek was bound to use the Italian Gov- 
 ernment as his intermediary in all negotiations with foreign 
 powers. But in the duplicate Abyssinian version it was 
 stated that the Negus " might " use the good offices of Italy 
 in such negotiations. One day a French visitor to Menelek's 
 capital at Addis Abeba carefully explained to him the terms 
 and the meaning of the official Italian version. The Negus 
 was furious. He said he had been tricked and deceived, and 
 he protested against the Protectorate. In return for railway 
 and mining concessions, French capitalists provided him 
 with funds to pay ofif an Italian loan of four millions, and 
 the French Government, in exchange for a supply of mules
 
 ADOWA 245 
 
 for the Madagascar expedition, gave him a large quantity of 
 Gras rifles and ammunition, and French dealers further in- 
 creased his stock of guns, rifles, and other equipments for 
 war. Even before these supplies reached him he had begun 
 hostilities early in 1895, by sending one of his chiefs, Ras 
 Mangasha, a son of Johannes, to raid the Italian territory. 
 Mangasha had only 10,000 men with him, and was badly 
 beaten by Baratieri at Coatit on January 14. This easy 
 success led the Italians to despise their enemy. They pushed 
 their frontier forward into Tigre, garrisoning several points ; 
 while Menelek, with the help of his French friends, pre- 
 pared for operations on a larger scale. 
 
 The crisis came in December, 1895. General Arimondi, 
 who commanded the Italian advanced positions in Tigre, had 
 fortified the little town of Makalla, and sent out to the 
 southward a column of 2000 native levies under Italian 
 officers, and commanded by Major Toselli. Toselli had 
 camped at the village of Amba Alagi. He was not aware 
 that there was any large force of Abyssinians in the neigh- 
 borhood until the morning of December 7, when he was 
 attacked by some 20,000 of the enemy, and driven back to 
 Makalla, with a loss of 1300 native soldiers and 20 Italian 
 officers, more than half his force. 
 
 The victors of Amba Alagi were only the vanguard of 
 a huge army of more than 100,000 men which Menelek 
 had assembled, and with which he besieged Makalla. llie 
 little garrison made a splendid defense, but through want of 
 water was forced to surrender on January 20, 1896. Bara- 
 tieri had hoped it would hold out till he could, with the help 
 of reinforcements from Italy, assemble an army for its relief. 
 He could now only hope to avenge this twofold disaster. 
 
 Menelek released his prisoners and proposed terms of 
 peace ; but the Italian Government informed Baratieri that 
 there could be no peace till a victory had been won that 
 would wipe out the memory of Amba Alagi and Makalla.
 
 246 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Menelek had moved his army from Makalla to a strong 
 position in the hills above Adowa. The Italians had concen- 
 trated in a fortified camp a few miles to the eastward on the 
 mountain road to Adi Caje. Baratieri's forces gradually 
 rose to about 25,000 men, of whom 10,000 were Italian 
 regulars and the rest native troops under European officers. 
 He had some 70 guns, mostly small mountain artillery. The 
 lines of communication, by which ammunition and supplies 
 were brought up from the coast, lay along the narrow and 
 difficult mountain paths from Massowah by Senafe and Adi 
 Caje, and by a second line through Asmara and Coatit. 
 These lines had to be guarded against hostile raids, and it 
 was with the utmost difficulty that Baratieri was able to feed 
 his army in its highland camp. He had to refuse further 
 reinforcements, because to increase his numbers would have 
 been to risk starvation. But his spies informed him that 
 Menelek's hordes about Adowa were in the same straits. 
 They had eaten up the scanty supplies of the district, and 
 depended on caravans coming from a distance. He reckoned 
 that very soon Menelek would have either to attack the 
 Italian fortified camp or to disband his army. Acting on the 
 defensive, Baratieri thought he could count with certainty 
 on a victory. If, instead of attacking, Menelek dispersed his 
 army, the Italians could assume the offensive. 
 
 In Italy, as the weeks went by, there was a growing dis- 
 content with Baratieri's Fabian tactics. Crispi, the Premier, 
 telegraphed to him a message urging him to action. When 
 he still waited. General Baldissera was sent out to supersede 
 him. Precautions were taken to keep this step secret until 
 Baldissera could reach the front, but while he was still at 
 sea some of Baratieri's friends succeeded in sending him the 
 news. 
 
 For a few days the general vacillated between an anxiety 
 to strike a blow before his successor arrived and a realization 
 of the inadequate force available for the attempt. Once he
 
 I 
 
 ADOWA 247 
 
 was on the point of falling back on Adi Caje to shorten his 
 line of supply, but rumors that Menelek was also thinking- of 
 retreat indviced him to hold on. Then his spies brought him a 
 false report that the Abyssinians were actually withdrawing, 
 that some thousands had already gone, and on the last day of 
 February he suddenly decided to advance against the enemy. 
 Garrisons on the lines of communication, and a strong 
 column sent off to deal with hostile raiders and ordered too 
 late to rejoin, had greatly reduced his fighting force. He 
 had available for active service on this last day of February 
 about 17,000, of whom rather more than 10,000 were Ital- 
 ian's, the rest natives. There were 56 guns (44 light moun- 
 tain guns and 12 quick-firers). The little army was organ- 
 ized in four brigades. Three were to form the right, left, 
 and center of the advance and the battle line ; the fourth 
 was to follow in reserve. The brigade commanders, organi- 
 zation, and numbers were as follows : 
 
 Right Column. General Dabormida. 
 
 Second Infantry Brigade. 
 
 Two regiments, each of 3 battalions . 2640 men I Three batteries 
 Native militia and irregulars .... g6o " (=18 guns. 
 
 3600 men. 
 
 Centre Column. General Arimondi. 
 First Infantry Brigade. 
 
 One regiment of Wersaglieri (rifles), 2 battalions . 773 men ^ ^^^ batteries 
 
 One line regiment, 3 battalions i5oo " ( = ,, „„[jg 
 
 Native troops 220 " ) 
 
 2493 men. 
 
 Left Column. General Albertone. 
 
 Native Brigade. 
 
 Four native battalions . 3700 men 1 i J batteries (native gunners) = 6 guns. 
 Native irregulars . . . 376 " ( 2 Italian batteries . . . . = 8 " 
 
 4076 men. 14 guns. 
 
 Reserve. General Ellena. 
 
 Third Infantry Brigade. 
 Five line battalions and one Alpine battalion 2030 men ) Two Q. F. 
 
 Native battalion 1150 " {batteries 
 
 Engineers 70 " ) = 12 guns. 
 
 4150 men.
 
 248 
 
 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Summary 
 
 Generals 
 
 Infantry 
 
 Artillery 
 
 Right. 
 Center. 
 Left. 
 Reserve. 
 
 Dabormida. 
 Arimondi. 
 Albertone. 
 Ellena. 
 
 3,600 men. 
 
 2,493 " 
 4,076 
 
 4,150 " 
 
 18 guns. 
 12 " 
 14 " 
 
 12 (Q. F.) guns. 
 
 
 Totals . . 14,319 men. 
 
 56 guns. 
 
 This represents the effective fighting force. Besides, there 
 were nearly 3000 more ItaHans and natives belonging to 
 departmental corps (transport, ambulances, etc.). 
 
 General Baratieri's plan was to march, in the night be- 
 tween February 29 and March i, by three roughly parallel 
 mountain tracks, and occupy a strong and (as he believed) 
 easily defensible position within short striking distance of 
 the enemy's camps. The position was formed by the bold 
 mass of hills known as Mount Belah, with the lower summit 
 of Belah Hill, and the great buttress marked on Italian maps 
 as the " Spur of Belah." Two deep, ravine-like valleys 
 guarded the flanks, and to the front there was a good open 
 field of fire across a wide hollow, through which ran a 
 mountain torrent. In its rear%ie hills of Rebbi Arienni and 
 Mount Rajo formed a second line of defense and a position 
 for the reserve. 
 
 Baratieri hoped to have three of his brigades formed up 
 on the Mount Belah position at daybreak on March i, with 
 Ellena's Brigade in reserve at Rebbi Arienni. Italian offi- 
 cers with native scouts would then be sent otit to the front 
 to reconnoiter the enemy's positions. Subsequent action 
 would depend on their reports. He anticipated that either 
 they would find that Menelek's hordes were dispersing and 
 retiring, in which case he could follow them up and harass 
 their retreat ; or, if they still held together, he hoped his 
 advance would provoke the enemy into attacking him on his
 
 ADOWA 249 
 
 chosen position, where he considered that the weapons and 
 the discipHned tactics of a civilized army would enable him 
 to deal with any number of mere semi-barbarians. 
 
 The night march, over narrow stony paths, in the midst 
 of tangled tropical vegetation, and in utter darkness, proved 
 to be a difficult and tedious operation. The men had often 
 to move -in single file. The guides of one brigade mistook 
 the way, and it blocked for hours the progress of another, 
 on to whose line of advance it had wandered. Worst of 
 all, Albertone's Brigade on the left made a mistake that 
 ruined the whole plan. 
 
 In Baratieri's orders to Albertone he was directed to 
 occupy the " Hill of Kidane Merct," and on a very rough 
 sketch-map, drawn up by the headquarters staff, Kidane 
 Meret was marked as the name of the rocky northern slope 
 of Mount Kaulos, due south of Mount Belah, and divided 
 from it by a wide gully running up towards Mount Rajo. 
 Baratieri intended that Albertone should hold this ground 
 in order to guard the flank of the Belah position. It was 
 a badly-chosen post for the left brigade, for it was itself 
 dominated by the higher slope of Mount Kaulos. In the 
 darkness before dawn Albertone reached this spot, and was 
 halting his brigade when the native guides told him he had 
 not yet reached Kidane Meret. They said it was a hill 
 further to the front, near Mount Enda Kidane. It appears 
 that so far as the name went they were quite right, and 
 the improvised staff map was wrong. 
 
 Albertone had a bad quarter of an hour. He was ordered 
 to march to Kidane Meret, and there appeared to be two 
 " Kidane Merets." The guides assigned to him by the gen- 
 eral insisted that the real Kidane Meret was out in front ; 
 the staff map said it was where he stood. After some hesi- 
 tation 'he decided to trust the guides rather than the map, 
 which was notoriously unreliable. Probably the decision 
 was helped by his seeing, even in the half-light of the
 
 250 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 early twilight, that he was halting in a hollow between two 
 huge masses of mountain side. 
 
 The brigade moved on. It descended a valley towards 
 the left, crossed a mountain stream, and then, turning south- 
 westwards, reached a rising ground, and as day broke came 
 out on the slopes above another valley. The guides pointed 
 to a summit in front, on the other side of the hollow, as 
 Mount Enda Kidane, and declared that the hill of Kidane 
 Meret was its northwestern spur. 
 
 Albertone knew enough of the general position to sus- 
 pect that his prolonged advance had brought him near the 
 ground on which the enemy were camped. He halted on the 
 slopes above the valley, and sent forward across it a native 
 battalion to occupy the hill of Kidane Meret as an advanced 
 guard, and explore the ground in the neighborhood. 
 
 Meanwhile as the day broke Baratieri had reached the 
 hill of Belah. The head of the right column (Dabormida) 
 was coming up to the spur, north of the hill. On to the hill 
 itself marched the head of the center column (Arimondi). 
 Ellena, with the reserve, was still toiling over the mountain 
 paths far to the rear. The mass of Mount Belah cut off 
 all view to the southward, but Baratieri felt sure that be- 
 yond it Albertone was in position on the " Kidane Meret " 
 of the map. 
 
 As the sun rose over the mountains there came the 
 sound of distant firing from the left front. Baratieri at- 
 tached no importance to it. He took it as an indication 
 that scouting parties thrown forward by Albertone were in 
 action with the enemy's outposts. He thought the firing, 
 indistinctly heard, was not very far off, and did not consider 
 it heavy enough for a serious action. He busied himself 
 arraying the troops of his right and center as they reached 
 the position, sending most of Arimondi's Brigade to occupy 
 the southwestern slopes of Mount Belah. It was from 
 Arimondi he first learned that Albertone was not in position
 
 ADOWA 251 
 
 south of Belah, and he then connected his absence with the 
 firing heard further to the front, and began to be anxious 
 about other possible and unexpected developments. 
 
 Let us now see what the Abyssinians were doing. Mene- 
 lek's army lay in camp and bivouac around Adowa. Ras 
 Makonnen held the place itself with 15,000 of the men of 
 Harrar. Menelek's own camp was immediately to the west 
 of it. He had with him the warriors of Shoa and Amhara 
 — 25,000 riflemen and 6000 horsemen — besides his warlike 
 Empress Taitu's corps of 3000 foot and 6000 horse. In the 
 royal camp most of the artillery of the army was concen- 
 trated — 36 guns, including some new Hotchkiss quick- 
 firers. The only other artillery in possession of any of the 
 chiefs was a battery of six mountain guns with Ras Alula 
 and Mangasha, who commanded the men of Tigre, 12,000 
 rifles strong, on the left. Ras Mikael, who camped just 
 north of Adowa, had with him some 5000 Galla horsemen, 
 born riders from the plains of the south, mounted on wiry 
 little horses, and armed with spears or rifles. 
 
 The whole force was about 120,000 strong. There were 
 80,000 armed with rifles, nearly all breech-loaders, and 
 mostly of the French Gras pattern, lately superseded in the 
 French army by the Lebel. There were some thoroughly 
 up-to-date Lebels, a considerable number of Remingtons, 
 and a few Martinis. There were about 10,000 horsemen, 
 and a great body of irregulars — armed peasants assembled 
 with spear and sword and shield. 
 
 The leaders of this great host were aware of Baraticri's 
 advance long before he had reached Mount Bclah. They 
 were well served by their spies. Some of these were actually 
 taking pay from Baratieri's intelligence department, and 
 thus secured facilities for coming and going between Adowa 
 and the Italian camp, giving the enemy unimi)ortant or false 
 and misleading news, and bringing back to their friends re- 
 liable information. It was one of these agents, in Ras
 
 252 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Alula's employ, who roused him in the middle of the night 
 with the welcome tidings that the white men had left their 
 fortified stronghold, and were trailing along the mountain 
 paths in straggling columns a few miles away. Word was 
 sent to Menelek and the other chiefs, and before the sun 
 rose the army of Ethiopia was in battle array and beginning 
 to move eastwards in irregidar masses to find and fall upon 
 the Italians. An English historian of the war has given 
 a vivid description of the scene : 
 
 " The whole of this great host was now upon the alert. A hun- 
 dred and twenty thousand men thrown up from the unknown depths 
 of Africa were preparing to rush against the Europeans. The chiefs 
 were issuing their commands; but each warrior knew the general 
 plan of the battle, and was accustomed to take his own course in a 
 moment of difficulty. How extraordinary must the scene have ap- 
 peared during these gray hours before dawn amongst the irregular 
 and crowded tents ! Thousands of lean, fierce-looking Ethiopians, 
 in the cloak of brilliant colors that they wear in the day of battle; 
 riflemen ; spearmen from the hills ; swordsmen buckling the crooked 
 blade on to their right side, so as to give free play to the shield 
 arm ; wild riders from the plains ; priests giving absolution ; women 
 and children even ; and here and there some great feudal chief, with 
 black leopard or lion skin, on his horse, with gold embossed shield, 
 silver bracelets, and all the magnificence of barbarian war. The sun 
 had not yet risen when they moved out across the fertile plain of 
 Adowa." ' 
 
 Menelek's own Shoans, with the men of Amhara and 
 Gojjam, streamed eastwards in a huge column towards Enda 
 Kidane ; and here, shortly after six o'clock, the swarm of 
 rifle-armed scouts thrown out in front of their advance came 
 in contact with Albertone's vanguard, the First Native bat- 
 talion, under Colonel Turitto. 
 
 For some time Turitto did not realize that he had a 
 formidable mass of enemies in his front. The Shoans 
 came on in a scattered line of skirmishers through the 
 broken, rocky ground, and the native battalion, formed in 
 
 * G. F. H. Berkeley, " The Campaign of Adowa."
 
 ADOWA 253 
 
 line, held them back with its well-directed fire; but when 
 the fight had gone on for more than an hour, it was evident 
 that the enemy was being continually reinforced. Masses 
 of dark warriors appeared on the flanks of the line, and 
 Turitto began to fall back. At first his rear companies 
 checked the pursuit, but then the enemy came on in a wild 
 rush, and swept away the rearguard. The retreat became a 
 disorderly flight, pressed by thousands of exulting barba- 
 rians. Turitto had 18 Italian officers with him: 14 were 
 shot down, two taken prisoners. The remnant of the bat- 
 talion was saved by the main body of Albertone's Brigade, 
 on the slopes of Adi Vetshi, opening fire with mountain 
 guns and rifles on the enemy as they tried to cross the valley 
 in their front, at the heels of the fugitives. 
 
 Albertone was now in a position of extreme peril. Thanks 
 to the false information conveyed to Baratieri Ijy the spies, 
 he had marched out fully expecting that his work would be 
 to harass the retirement of a starving and demoralized 
 enemy.' But now that his vanguard battalion had l)een 
 driven in upon him a hopeless wreck, with most of its white 
 officers Jwrs de combat — though he had checked the first 
 rush of the pursuit — he saw that thousands of exulting 
 enemies were swarming over the ridges in his front, spread- 
 ing out to right and left, throwing forward the flanks of 
 their line into the horns of the enveloping crescent that is 
 the typical attack formation of a rush of the wild races in 
 so many parts of Africa. The enemy was not moving in 
 ordered lines, but coming on in irregular lx)dies grouped 
 around their chiefs. Along the front of the advance the 
 riflemen were firing, but as yet their shooting was doing 
 very little harm. 
 
 To meet this rush he had his native brigade — three bat- 
 talions still intact, a few hundred irregulars — a little more 
 than 3000 rifles in all. and 14 light mountain guns, six of 
 them served by native gunners, the other eight grouped in
 
 254 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 two batteries manned by Sicilians. He had formed his 
 brigade, in a line just over a mile long, on the rocky, bush- 
 covered slopes, with his guns in the left center, where the 
 curve of the hill made a salient in his front. Against three- 
 fold or fourfold odds he would have been safe enough, but 
 here he was faced by tens of thousands. Away to his right 
 their fire came from the thorny scrub on the nearer slopes of 
 Mount Gusoso. To his left they were hurrying across the 
 stream in the hollow, and coming up the slopes to envelop 
 him on that side also. Three miles of Wild hill country sep- 
 arated him from the main body on Mount Belah. To attempt 
 to retire would have been to be at once surrounded on all 
 sides by a rush of his lightly-equipped and fleet-footed 
 opponents ; but to stand his ground meant also being soon 
 cut off and attacked on all sides, unless the sound of his 
 guns brought prompt help from the main body. 
 
 From the first there were unpleasant signs that the sight 
 of the hostile multitude, coming steadily forward in spite 
 of heavy loss from shell and rifle fire, was telling on the 
 nerves of some of the native troops, and even of the native 
 officers. And the position looked still worse when suddenly 
 shells began to burst in the Italian batteries. Menelek had 
 brought up to the hill of Enda Kidane his Hotchkiss quick- 
 firers — a better weapon than Albertone's mountain guns 
 — and the stream of shells they poured into his position 
 began to work havoc among the native and the Sicilian 
 gunners. 
 
 When Albertone's artillery came into action, Baratieri at 
 Mount Belah knew at last that something serious was hap- 
 pening to his missing brigade. He had only vague ideas as 
 to its position, but he made an attempt to send it help.. He 
 ordered his right brigade, under General Dabormida, to 
 move forward and cooperate with Albertone, either by help- 
 ing him to beat off the enemy, or, if they were too strong, 
 by covering a retirement on the main position. Dabormida
 
 ADOWA 255 
 
 had with him six European battaHons and three batteries, 
 and a battahon of native irregulars — about 4000 men and 
 18 guns. It was a day of mishaps for the Itahans. Dabor- 
 mida descended into the valley in front of the Spur of 
 Belah ; then, misled by the sound of the cannonade echoing 
 among the hills, he took a wrong direction. Instead of going 
 up the valley — a line of march which would soon have 
 brought him on to the track of Albertone's advance — he 
 moved down the stream north of Mount Dercr towards the 
 valley of Miriam Shiavitu. A mass of mountains with 
 precipitous, cliff-like faces now separated him from Alber- 
 tone, and he was marching down the long hollow up which 
 the warriors of Ras Alula, Mangasha, and Makonnen were 
 advancing to the attack. 
 
 The brigade halted in the valley some three miles from 
 Mount Belah. The hollow down which the stream ran was 
 about half a mile wide. On the left the hills rose in bold 
 rock faces furrowed with ravines ; on the right there were 
 undulating slopes, and on these, and in the valley bottom, 
 were stretches of scrub, alternating with high sunburnt 
 grass. Officers were sent forward to rcconnoitcr, and the 
 men, weary with the night march, threw themselves on the 
 ground, and many of them slept. An examination of the 
 stream showed that the water was not fit to drink ; but 
 most of the men had already emptied their water-bottles, the 
 sun was hot, and it proved to be impossible to prevent hun- 
 dreds from drinking freely of it. 
 
 Major de Vito, who commanded the irregulars attached 
 to the brigade, sent in word that an extensive camp was in 
 sight to 'the front, north of Adowa, and that large bodies 
 of the enemy were moving between it and the hills to the 
 southward, whence came the sound of the cannonade. 
 Dabormida then directed De Vito to move in that direction 
 with his irregulars and gain touch with Albertonc; and at 
 a quarter past nine he sent a despatch back to Baratieri, in
 
 256 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 which he wrote : " I am holding out a hand to the Native 
 Brigade, while keeping a strong body of troops massed near 
 the road to Adowa and watching the heights on my right." 
 This report gave the commander-in-chief the impression 
 that Dabormida had actually got into touch with Albertone. 
 He had no idea that two miles of mountain country held 
 by the enemy interposed between his advanced brigades. 
 
 As De Vito climbed to the top of the high ground on 
 Dabormida's left, he saw that the enemy was also ad- 
 vancing along the heights and was close at hand. He ran 
 forward with his men to seize a bold ridge that offered a 
 vantage ground for defense. To reach it the native bat- 
 talion had to scramble across a deep ravine; but they 
 gained the ridge, formed in line, and stopped the first rush 
 of the Tigre men. But the enemy came on again in greater 
 numbers. De Vito was shot dead, and his irregulars were 
 hustled across the ravine after a hard fight, and driven in 
 with the loss of all but one of their fourteen white officers. 
 
 During the fight on the ridge Dabormida had formed 
 up his brigade for battle. Colonel Ragni deployed the three 
 battalions of the Third Regiment on the left. Two of them, 
 sent well up the heights, covered the retirement, or rather 
 the flight, of the broken native battalion. In the valley the 
 three batteries (i8 mountain guns) were drawn up in line 
 among the long grass. On their right was the Sixth Regi- 
 ment, under Colonel Airaghi — one battalion deployed in a 
 long firing line, the two others in reserve well to the rear. 
 On the extreme right a few hundred native auxiliaries, under 
 Major Prevasi, were thrown out to watch the rising ground 
 on that side. 
 
 On the heights to the left the steady fire of Ragni's men 
 beat back rush after rush of the enemy. Along the valley 
 a fierce attack developed against the center of the brigade. 
 The bush and long grass were alive with riflemen and spear- 
 men moving directly against the batteries, firing as they
 
 ADOWA 257 
 
 came, and a mass of the Galla cavalry charged the battahon 
 on the right. The Galla horsemen were driven back by 
 the Italian rifles and a salvo of shells from the nearest 
 battery. The fire from the bush caused few casualties in 
 the brigade, for the enemy shot wildly and sent most of 
 their bullets high over the heads of the Italians. To sup- 
 port the attack an Abyssinia battery came into action on 
 the heights to the left, but its guns fired slowly and made 
 bad practice. Dabormida turned one of his batteries on the 
 enemy's artillery, and soon nearly silenced it. 
 
 For more than two hours he easily repulsed every attack. 
 The men were perfectly steady, and as they felt their power 
 of holding back the rushes of the barbarians, and saw the 
 heaps of dead strewing the ground over which their assail- 
 ants had charged, they became quite cheerful with the sense 
 of victory, joked with each other, and greeted Dabormida 
 with loud '' I'k'as " as he rode along the line. 
 
 But two miles to the southward there was dire disaster 
 for the Italian arms — the beginning of the end. Here 
 Albertone was facing the main attack. At first the fight 
 seemed to be going well for him. Though the shell fire of 
 Menelek's Hotchkiss batteries caused some loss and tended 
 to shake the native battalions, their white officers steadied 
 them, and the rushes of the enemy across the valley in front 
 were stopped before they could reach its eastern side. The 
 Sicilian gunners were making splendid practice, and inflict- 
 ing heavy loss on the Shoans. But the danger was not from 
 the frontal attacks, but from the thousands that were con- 
 tinually pushing forward on the flanks, most of them be- 
 yond the immediate view of the defense, and then turning 
 inwards to strengthen and extend the horns of the hostile 
 crescent. 
 
 Twice Baratieri had sent orders to the Native Brigade 
 to retire, but the messages had not reached Albertone. 
 However, between nine and ten o'clock, while Dabormida
 
 258 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 was still victorious away on the right, Albertone decided 
 that he must try to fight his way back to the main body. 
 Losses were increasing. He had engaged his last reserve. 
 Black crowds of the enemy were surging round his flanks. 
 To hold on any longer west of Adi Vetshi would be to be 
 hemmed in by tens of thousands. 
 
 The retirement began from the right over the shoulder 
 of the hill. A battalion and the two Sicilian batteries were 
 to protect the retreat, the batteries retiring alternately. 
 " You must sacrifice yourselves to save the brigade," said 
 Albertone to the gunners. They nobly obeyed. As the 
 brigade moved round the hill the Sicilians fought their 
 guns to the last, firing in the faces of the enemy, who were 
 now emboldened by the sight of the invaders giving way, 
 and rushed recklessly to the charge, yelling out their savage 
 battle-cry, " Elbagume! elbagiime!" ("Kill! kill!"). They 
 closed with the bayonets of the rearguard. They got in 
 among the guns. The infantry broke. The Sicilians fought 
 with carbine and bayonet, swords, rammers; but they were 
 few against many, and the batteries were taken with the 
 loss of nearly every one of their defenders. There were 
 four officers and 62 men with the Third Battery at the 
 beginning of the fight. Only one officer and two men 
 came out of it. Of the four officers and 73 men of the 
 Fourth Batterly only four men escaped from the rout. 
 
 The native batteries had already fired their last round, 
 and were retiring with the guns on the pack-saddles of their 
 mules in the midst of what was left of the infantry. The 
 pursuers had closed in on the brigade on all sides. Some 
 of the white and native officers managed to keep their men 
 together, and fought in the midst of a yelling mob of 
 savages. The brigade made slow progress, leaving a trail 
 of dead behind it, and every rush on its flanks and rear 
 reduced its numbers. The mules were shot down, and all 
 the guns abandoned to the enemy.
 
 ADOWA 259 
 
 Shortly after ten o'clock Baratieri, from Mount Belah, 
 saw the first signs of the disaster to his advanced left 
 brigade. Numbers of disbanded native soldiers were seen 
 running towards the main position across the valley in 
 front, closely pursued by the Shoans. Some shells were 
 fired at these to check them, but it was difficult to do so, 
 they kept so close behind the beaten men. Then away to 
 the right it was seen that a party of the enemy were attack- 
 ing a battalion that Baratieri had pushed out along the high 
 ground on that side to secure communication with Dabor- 
 mida. The battalion held its own. 
 
 But then over the heights in front a huge mass of 
 savage warriors poured into the valley, and regardless 
 of the artillery fire directed upon them by Arimondi's 
 batteries, swept up the Spur of Belah. Their swift advance 
 came as a surprise. It was the main central column of 
 the attack, which had moved up from below Mount Nasruai, 
 been reinforced from that which had outflanked Albertone's 
 right, and then moved across the rocky ground west of 
 Mount Derer, while Dabormida's left was busy repelling the 
 immediate attack upon it. The column had then poured 
 like a flood over the northern slope of Derer, across the 
 stream below it, and up the Spur of Belah, its vanguard 
 sweeping on towards the hill of Rebbi Arienni, where 
 Ellena met it. He had not all his brigade with him, for 
 part of it had already moved forward to reinforce Arimondi 
 on Mount Belah. 
 
 The Italian army was now cut up into three unequal 
 detachments. Far out in front was Dabormida's Brigade, 
 intact and locally victorious, but, though the general was 
 not yet aware of it, separated by the last rush of the enemy 
 from the main body. On the left front Albertone's Brigade, 
 or rather the wreck of it, was surrounded by an exultant 
 mob of barbarian victors. In the center was the main body, 
 now closely attacked by an overwhelming number of enemies
 
 26o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 who had estabhshed themselves on the main position, and 
 threatened to drive a wedge between the two brigades. 
 
 A battahon of BersagHeri dashed at the spur to re- 
 capture it, but mere weight of numbers drove them back. 
 Their colonel was killed. He was seen wounded, cut off 
 from his men, defending himself with his sword with one 
 knee on the ground. He was run through by one of the 
 Galla spearmen. Arimondi had now to face another attack 
 from the front and the left. All that held together of 
 Albertone's Brigade had been destroyed. The general him- 
 self was badly wounded, and was a prisoner. 
 
 Then most of those who had been attacking the Native 
 Brigade left the work of mere massacre and went forward 
 against Mount Belah. Menelek brought up his quick-firers 
 to engage Arimondi's artillery. The hills and the valley 
 west of Belah were black with moving crowds of the 
 enemy, " swarming like ants on a disturbed ant-hill." A 
 rush came up the hollow south of Belah, over the ground 
 Albertone was to have held. Here was posted Colonel 
 Galliano's native battalion, called up shortly before from the 
 reserve. Galliano's men were supposed to be among the 
 best in the army. They were the heroic defenders of 
 Makalla. But they had not been twenty minutes under fire 
 when they suddenly broke and fled. Galliano with his 
 white officers and a few brave men met the rush of the 
 enemy. He was wounded in the face, knocked down, and 
 made prisoner. His captors were leading him to the rear, 
 when he became faint with loss of blood and sat down on the 
 ground to rest. Then one of the Shoans blew his brains out. 
 
 Arimondi's left was now exposed. He was attacked 
 fiercely from the front, and from the spur the enemy's rifle- 
 men began to climb the hill and fire down on him from the 
 upper slopes of Belah. Baratieri sent him an order to retire 
 to Mount Rajo, where he would have Ellena on his right. 
 The retreat along the ridge between Belah and Rajo was
 
 
 
 
 
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 o 
 
 a 
 
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 o 
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 ^J 
 
 H 
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 ADOWA 261 
 
 made amid a storm of fire and incessant charges of the 
 Abyssinians. One of these rushes broke into the TtaHan 
 column close to Arimondi. The general, wounded in the 
 knee by a bullet, defended himself sword in hand, but was 
 killed just as the charge was repulsed. 
 
 Ellena was barely holding his own. Baratieri formed up 
 Arimondi's Brigade on Mount Rajo, but he could see tliat 
 the battalions, which had lost heavily in the retirement, had 
 little fight left in them. The men, tired with the night march 
 and harassed with thirst under the burning sun, looked ex- 
 hausted, and the fire with which they answered back the 
 fusillade that poured from Mount Belah was wild and un- 
 controlled. He made up his mind to begin an ordered re- 
 tirement while what was left of the two brigades could still 
 keep together, and before he was outflanked and surrounded 
 by a further advance of the enemy. 
 
 Brave deeds were done before what was left of the two 
 brigades moved down the eastern slopes of Rajo and Rebbi 
 Arienni into the valley of Gundapta, but it is clear from all 
 the narratives that the men had lost heart, and they did 
 not make anything like the persistent fight that had char- 
 acterized the resistance of the two other brigades. The 
 attack that raged round them was more furious than ever. 
 Italian officers who survived the day say that the men of 
 Shoa and Amhara seemed actually to have gone mad. They 
 bounded forward, yelling and leaping high in the air, and 
 only firing when they were close up to the rearguard. Losses 
 seemed to produce no efifect whatever on them. Before men 
 animated by this battle madness the tired, dispirited soldiers 
 seemed helpless. 
 
 The beaten army broke into three columns, each follow- 
 ing a different track out of the Gundapta hollow, in crossing 
 which they had left another wide trail of dead behind them. 
 Baratieri rode with the rearguard till the valley was crossed 
 with Ellena near him, and the two generals repeatedly ral-
 
 262 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 lied a few companies for a stand, and sometimes were able 
 to bring the guns again into action. The valley would never 
 have been crossed if the pursuers had made a persistent 
 effort to head off the beaten army. They only followed it 
 up and lashed at its flanks, and Menelek and Ras Makonnen 
 soon called off a considerable part of their forces, and 
 most of the artillery, to move westwards and help in the 
 destruction of Dabormida's isolated brigade and a battalion 
 under De Amicis, that had been cut off with it by the rush 
 over the Spur of Belah. 
 
 While the main position was being captured, Dabormida, 
 in the valley of Miriam Shiavitu, anxious though he was at 
 having no tidings from his commander-in-chief, was under 
 the impression that elsewhere the fight was probably going 
 as well as it was in his own immediate front. Until mid- 
 day he had repelled every attack of the Abyssinians. Then, 
 as they no longer tried to advance, and their fire had slack- 
 ened into an irregular fusillade that did practically no harm, 
 he ventured to assume the offensive all along his line. On 
 the heights Ragni was met by such a burst of hostile fire 
 that he could not gain any ground, but in the valley itself 
 the Italians twice won their way forward with the bayonet. 
 Dabormida himself led these charges, and before the ad- 
 vancing line of steel the enemy broke so rapidly that only 
 a few of them were bayoneted. The second charge had 
 carried forward the line to a swell of ground that gave a 
 better field of fire for the guns. Dabormida brought for- 
 ward his artillery. The men greeted him with loud cheers. 
 " Viva il generale! Viva il re! VittoriaJ Vittoria!" was 
 shouted on all sides. In the midst of this exultation a native 
 servant of one of the officers caught his master by the arm, 
 and, pointing back up the valley, said excitedly : " Look, 
 look, there come the enemy ! " Over the rising ground, a 
 mile in rear of the brigade, guns, riflemen, and spearmen 
 were moving down, into the valley, and swarms of the Galla
 
 ADOWA 263 
 
 cavalry were riding- out northwards to occupy its slopes on 
 that side. 
 
 For the first time in the day Dabormida looked anxious. 
 *' This is serious," he said to his staff officers. " What has 
 become of the headquarters ? They have not sent me a 
 word. They seem to have vanished into space." Instantly 
 he sent Airaghi with two battalions to meet the attack in 
 his rear, and warned Prevasi to protect the flank. He was 
 right in saying that the position had become serious. There 
 were some 30,000 victorious enemies across his line of 
 retreat. With hours of fighting the ammunition supply had 
 run low. And his battalions had lost a terrible proportion 
 of their officers, largely because, as one of the survivors 
 noted in his narrative of the disaster, " from a false sense 
 of pride they persisted in standing during the fight, while 
 their men were lying down and firing." Dabormida, after 
 sending Airaghi to attack the enemy, decided that the only 
 chance of saving the brigade was to fight his way back to 
 Belah. He told his officers that no doubt Baratieri would 
 hold out a hand to him and assist his retreat. He had no 
 idea that by that time Baratieri was himself fighting for 
 the very existence of what was left of the main body on the 
 eastern slopes of the Gundapta valley. 
 
 For more than three hours the brigade struggled against 
 overwhelming numbers, painfully winning its way towards 
 the upper end of the valley, where De Amicis was fighting, 
 ringed round with a host of enemies. Tt was the final 
 failure of the ammunition that ended the fight, and at last 
 enabled the victorious enemy to break into the lines of 
 both the brigade and the battalion that supported it. The 
 final struggle took place in a deluge of rain and a thunder- 
 storm of tropical violence. By this time Dabormida's Bri- 
 gade had been broken into fragments. Here the exhausted 
 and despairing men surrendered, and asked for quarter that 
 was not always granted; there they fought in desperate
 
 264 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 groups among the rocks — with sword, bayonet, and rifle- 
 butt — till numbers told, and the last survivors were killed 
 or taken. 
 
 Weeks after, when, during the negotiations for peace, 
 the Italians were allowed to send burial parties into the 
 Shiavitu valley, they found in more than one instance a 
 dead man still grasping the enemy he had slain in the last 
 death struggle. Few of the officers survived the day. 
 Airaghi, badly wounded, said to his comrades, " I am old, 
 you are still young ; save yourselves and leave me." They 
 helped him to seat himself against a tree, with his face 
 towards the enemy, and stood by him till a few minutes later 
 he leaned forward and died. 
 
 De Amicis had held his ground at the head of the valley 
 till the brigade joined him. The remnant of his battalion 
 then for a while formed its rearguard. He was last seen 
 disappearing, sword in hand, into the midst of a rush of 
 Ras Alula's men. Where Dabormida himself was killed is 
 not certainly known. For a long time he was in the midst 
 of the rearguard fight, his horse, wounded by a bullet in the 
 head, still carrying him well. Then he was on foot amongst 
 his men. Some said afterwards they saw him fall dead 
 while trying to mount a mule. But he seems to have been 
 still living, though badly wounded, when the brigade was 
 finally broken. A comrade and friend of his, who accom- 
 panied the burial parties later on, thought he recognized 
 him in a corpse found in a hollow near the east end of the 
 valley. An old native woman, who lived in a hut close by, 
 said it was the body of a " great chief, who wore spectacles 
 and a watch and golden stars (decorations)," who had 
 asked her for water, and then lay down on the ground and 
 died. Plunderers had stripped the body of watch and 
 orders, belt and sword. 
 
 A very few of the survivors hid themselves in the hills 
 and straggled into the Italian camp. The brigade was
 
 ADOWA 265 
 
 practically annihilated — a sad ending: to a day that had 
 begun with hard-won success. The main body, under Bara- 
 tieri and Ellena, narrowly escaped the same fate. For six 
 miles the pursuit pressed them closely. Weary, hungry, 
 parched with burning thirst, and with only a few cartridges 
 left, the men broke down, discipline gave way : only a few 
 stood by their officers ; the rest were a beaten mob. The 
 stragglers were ruthlessly massacred. Officers and men, 
 too exhausted to move another step, turned and waited to 
 have a last shot before the spears of the enemy were upon 
 them. The storm that thundered over the mountain gorges 
 was a relief. The pursuit slackened, and the men could 
 drink from the torrents that now poured down every ravine. 
 After dark the fugitives, no longer pursued, halted for a 
 brief rest. On the hills behind them they saw red flames 
 rising from every summit for miles. They were bonfires, 
 lighted by Menelek's orders to signal his victory to every 
 valley in sight, and call the mountaineers to insurrection 
 against the white men. 
 
 Next day the remnant of the army reached its fortified 
 camp, which was in a few hours abandoned, in order to 
 concentrate at Adi Caje and shorten the line for convoys 
 and reinforcements. Menelek made no immediate effort to 
 follow up his success. In fact, a considerable part of his 
 army dispersed in the next few days. It was impossible 
 to keep it together and feed it. Only for Baratieri's rasli 
 enterprise it would have retired without fighting. 
 
 The victors of Adowa are said to have lost in the battle 
 7000 killed and 10,000 wounded. This is probably no over- 
 estimate, for they had flung themselves in dense masses 
 against breech-loading cannon and repeating rifles. The 
 loss of the vanquished army was terrible. Seventeen thou- 
 sand officers and men marched out to battle. Of these, 
 6678 were killed or wounded, and nearly 3000 more were 
 taken prisoners — a total loss of nearly 10,000 men. It was
 
 266 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the greatest disaster that had ever befallen a civilized army 
 in Africa in modern times. 
 
 The particulars of the losses showed that the victors 
 must have massacred large numbers of the wounded dur- 
 ing the fight. In a battle between civilized armies the 
 wounded outnumber the dead by ten to one. At Adowa, 
 on the losing side, there were more than twice as many 
 killed as there were wounded. The Italians had 261 officers 
 and 2981 men killed, besides 954 more returned as perma- 
 nently missing. These may be counted as having also been 
 killed, and never found during the subsequent examination 
 of the battle-field by the burial parties. Their bodies lay 
 in the bush and the mountain ravines, out of sight, or had 
 been destroyed by beasts and birds of prey. Of the native 
 soldiers, about 2000 were killed, making the total killed 
 5196. 
 
 The wounded, most of whom remained in the hands of 
 the victors, were 31 Italian officers and 439 men, and 958 
 of the native auxiliaries — a total of only 1428. The Italian 
 prisoners numbered 1865. Of the native troops, at least 
 1000 were taken, and some estimates make the number 1500. 
 
 More than 400 of the native prisoners were sentenced 
 as rebels to the loss of a foot and a hand, and thus crippled 
 thev were turned adrift. Even some of the white prisoners 
 were treated with savage cruelty ; many died before the con- 
 clusion of peace could restore them to Italy. 
 
 Peace was not long delayed. There was no general 
 desire in Italy to avenge Adowa. Crispi's Abyssinian ad- 
 venture was very unpopular, and the people, horrified at the 
 disaster, protested against any more victims being sacrificed 
 to " the black Sphinx of Africa." Menelek was thus able 
 to secure the independence of Italian control for which he 
 had fought. 
 
 An important though indirect result of Adowa was the 
 beginning of the reconquest of the Soudan. Encouraged by
 
 ADOWA 267 
 
 the news of the disaster to the Italians, the Mahdists moved 
 against their garrison at Kassala, and it was feared that this 
 was only the prelude to a general revival of their activity 
 in the valley of the upper Nile. As a counterstroke the 
 British Government decided on the advance into the Don- 
 gola province of an Egyptian army under General Sir 
 Herbert (nov/ Lord) Kitchener. This was the first step 
 in the three years of campaigning that culminated in the 
 victory of Omdurman.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 
 (El Caney and San Juan) 
 July 1, 1898 
 
 The most important operations in which American troops 
 were engaged since the War of Secession were those in 
 Eastern Cuba during the conflict with Spain in 1898. The 
 chief miHtary event of the campaign was the battle before 
 Santiago on July i. 
 
 The fighting gave further startling proof of the value of 
 improvised defenses held by brave men armed with modern 
 rifles, even when attacked by regular troops of the best 
 quality. This was most strikingly illustrated in the pro- 
 longed defense of El Caney village by a mere handful of 
 riflemen against a whole division of highly trained infantry. 
 
 Before the war there had been in the United States a 
 disposition to underrate the Spanish soldier. In this fight- 
 ing before Santiago, however, the opposing forces came to 
 know each other. In the midst of the conflict there arose 
 between them the bond of chivalrous admiration that brave 
 men feel for each other when matched in battle, and on 
 the day when Santiago at last surrendered, an onlooker 
 told how the meeting between the American and Spanish 
 officers was like a reunion of friends. 
 
 When the war began the United States Government mobi- 
 lized the few regular regiments it possessed, and called 
 out for service a large number of volunteer and militia 
 organizations. Large training camps were formed at vari- 
 ous points. To that of Tampa in Florida most of the regu-
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 269 
 
 lar regiments were sent. The troops at Tampa were in- 
 tended to be the vanguard of the army that was to invade 
 central Cuba and take Havana. But the course of events 
 gave it a different destination. Havana was never attacked, 
 and was not surrendered until after the conclusion of 
 peace, when Spain withdrew from Cuba. 
 
 The only really efficient naval force the Spanish Gov- 
 ernment possessed was a squadron of four cruisers and some 
 torpedo destroyers that concentrated at St. Vincent in the 
 Cape de Verde Islands, and sailed for the West Indies on 
 April 29. American cruisers sent out into the Atlantic 
 failed to find the Spanish squadron, and there were the 
 wildest rumors as to its whereabouts. On May 14 Cervera 
 touched at the Dutch island of Curaqoa, and then putting 
 to sea disappeared once more from all search. After some 
 anxious days, during which there were reports that it was 
 threatening this or that city of the Atlantic seaboartl, it was 
 discovered that the elusive squadron had taken refuge in the 
 landlocked harbor of Santiago de Cuba, the oldest city in 
 the island and its capital in the early days of the Spanish 
 conquest. 
 
 The city stands on the shore of a wide arm of the sea, 
 approached from the ocean only by a narrow channel that 
 winds through a ravine-like rift in the great cliffs of the 
 coast. On one side of the entrance rises the white-towered 
 Morro Castle with batteries of old guns, tier above tier. 
 On the shelving strip of shore below the castle some heavier 
 guns were mounted in newer works. Moored across the 
 entrance an old cruiser served as a floating battery. Some 
 of her guns had been mounted in earthworks on the Socapa 
 height opposite Morro Castle. The channel was further de- 
 fended by sul^narine mines. Admiral Sampson blockaded 
 the harbor with the American fleet, and engaged the bat- 
 teries of Morro and Socapa, but he soon decided that to 
 attempt to force his way through the narrow chasm of the
 
 270 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 harbor mouth would be a perilous operation, in which he 
 might easily sacrifice some of his best ships without result. 
 
 It was therefore decided that a military expedition should 
 be landed on the coast near Santiago with the object of 
 attacking the place and taking its seaward defenses in the 
 rear, thus opening the way for the fleet to pass through 
 the narrows and capture or destroy Cervera's squadron. 
 
 It had not been intended that the United States troops 
 should be employed in this part of the island, or be sent to 
 Cuba at all till the end of the vmhealthy summer season of 
 intense heat and tropical rains. When the expedition to 
 Eastern Cuba was ordered the preparations for military 
 action were still in a very backward state. Thus, for in- 
 stance, so few transports were ready that the comparatively 
 small force sent to the island had to be conveyed in two 
 successive voyages. The greater number of the men called 
 out for service were still being trained. The expedition was 
 therefore chiefly composed of the regulars from Tampa. 
 
 On June lo a detachment of marines was landed at 
 Guantanamo Bay east of Santiago, which was at first in- 
 tended to be the point of disembarkation for the army. 
 They had some hard fighting with the local Spanish troops, 
 but it was decided that the place was too far from the city,^ 
 and the landing was eventually made at Daquiri, seventeen 
 miles from Santiago, and at Siboney, a little nearer to it. 
 At Daquiri there was an old pier and at Siboney an open 
 beach. On Tuesday, June 14, the first part of the expe- 
 dition sailed from Tampa under the escort of a powerful 
 squadron. Between transports and warships there were 
 fifty steamers in all. Some of the former were very slow 
 craft, and it was not till the twentieth that the expedition 
 joined Admiral Sampson's fleet off Santiago. 
 
 The troops were under the command of General William 
 
 ^ In 1762 a British expedition against Santiago was landed at 
 Guantanamo. The enterprise was a failure.
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 271 
 
 R. Shafter, a veteran of the Civil War. In i86r, at the 
 age of twenty-six, he joined a Michigan vokmteer regiment. 
 He won successive promotions by good service in the field, 
 and received the rank of colonel for his gallantry at the 
 Battle of Fair Oaks. He was transferred to the regular 
 army, and as Colonel of the Twenty-fourth Infantry gained 
 further distinction in an Indian campaign. In 1897 '""^ was 
 promoted to the rank of general and given the command in 
 California whence, on the outbreak of the Spanish War, 
 he was transferred to the command at Tampa. His record 
 showed he was a good officer, but he had the disadvantage 
 of being rather a corpulent man and hardly fit for a tropical 
 campaign in the worst season of the year. 
 
 He had two divisions of infantry and a cavalry division 
 under his command, besides a mixed brigade of infantry 
 and cavalry and a volunteer brigade. The cavalry leader 
 was General Joseph Wheeler, a veteran of the old Confed- 
 erate Army. Wheeler's division was made up of the First, 
 Third, Sixth, Ninth, and Tenth United States Cavalry and 
 a volunteer regiment of cowboys raised by Colonel Roose- 
 velt, afterwards President of the United States, and known 
 officially as the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, 
 popularly, as Roosevelt's Rough Riders. But only enough 
 horses could be embarked to mount two troops of regular 
 cavalry. Even 'the Rough Riders had to tramp on fool, and 
 it was a recognized joke in the expedition to call them 
 " Roosevelt's Weary Walkers." 
 
 The infantry divisions and the two additional brigades 
 were organized as follows : 
 
 First Division.. General J. F. Kent 
 
 First Brigade, General Hawkins, Sixth and Sixteenth United States 
 Infantry; Seventy-first New York Volunteers. 
 
 Second Brigade, Colonel Pearson, Second, Tenth, and Twenty-first 
 United States Infantry. 
 
 Third Brigade, Colonel Wikoflf, Ninth, Thirteenth, and Twenty- 
 fourth United States Infantry.
 
 272 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Second Division. General H. W. Lawton 
 
 First Brigade, Colonel Van Horn, Eighth and Twenty-second United 
 States Infantry ; Second Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
 Second Brigade, Colonel Miles, First, Fourth, and Twenty-fifth 
 United States Infantry. 
 
 Third Brigade, General Chaffee, Seventh, Twelfth, and Seventeenth 
 United States Infantry. 
 
 Independent Brigade, General Bates, Third and Twentieth United 
 States Infantry ; one squadron, Second United States Cavalry. 
 
 Volunteer Brigade, General Duffield, Thirty-third and Thirty-fourth 
 Michigan and Ninth Massachusetts Volunteers. 
 
 There were thus i8 regular and 5 vohmteer regiments of 
 infantry. The expedition was weak in artillery. There 
 were four field batteries, each of four guns ; two heavy 
 batteries, one of four 5-inch siege guns, the other of four 
 7-inch howitzers. There were two batteries, each of . four 
 field mortars, a battery of four Catling machine-guns, and 
 besides two experimental pieces of artillery, a revolving 
 cannon and a pneumatic dynamite gun. There were two 
 companies of engineers with a signal and balloon detach- 
 ment. The transport, ambulance, and sanitary equipment 
 was very defective. 
 
 The total fighting force embarked for Cuba on the first 
 expedition was 16,887 officers and men. Before the attack 
 on the outworks of Santiago, Ceneral Duffield's Brigade 
 arrived, numbering 2995 officers and men. Thus the total 
 force was nearly 20,000 in all. 
 
 Shafter's task was to land his troops under the cover of 
 Sampson's guns, march for a few miles through a tract of 
 hilly country covered with dense bush, and on reaching the 
 landward edge of this difficult ground attack Santiago, 
 which was an open town, roughly improvised into a fortress 
 by a series of small forts, blockhouses, trenches, and wire 
 entanglements. It was expected that a considerable force
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 273 
 
 of Cuban insurgents would cooperate. The Intelligence 
 Department, depending largely on news received from the 
 Cubans, was badly served. There was an exaggerated 
 estimate of the strength of the Santiago garrison. General 
 Linares, who commanded there, had really no more than 
 6000 effective men at the outset — 4000 Spanish regulars, 
 1000 volunteers, and 1000 men temporarily landed from the 
 fleet, the guns of which could assist in the defense of that 
 part of his lines which lay nearest the harbor.^ The Ameri- 
 cans were also unaware of a most serious factor in the situ- 
 ation. As the diary of Mr. Ramsden, the British Consul 
 at Santiago, shows, when the expedition landed the place 
 was already very short of supplies, and the troops, sailors, 
 and citizens were mostly living on reduced rations. 
 
 Shafter was disappointed at finding tb.at the Cuban in- 
 surgents, who had made the most boastful promises, were 
 able to give him very little effective cooperation. They 
 were few in numbers, ill-disciplined, and not particularly 
 anxious for serious fighting. He soon realized that his 
 regulars would have to do the work. 
 
 The landing of men, horses, guns, and stores proved to 
 be a slow and difficult business, and the difficulties were 
 increased by the inexperience and inefficiency of numbers 
 of the transport -and commissariat officers who owed their 
 appointments to political friends at Washington. The ad- 
 vance through the bush over tracks that the rainy season 
 had turned into quagmires was a terrible experience, es- 
 pecially for the artillery. Only the light field-guns were 
 dragged up to the front by the united toil of man and beast. 
 The few Spanish detachments that had been watching the 
 coast fell back upon Santiago and the only fighting in the 
 
 * There was a very much larger force in the Santiago province, 
 but the troops were scattered in numerous garrisons and detach- 
 ments. Linares might easily have concentrated a very strong army 
 in the city, but the want of supplies made him reluctant to call in 
 any large part of his outlying forces.
 
 274 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 bush belt was a sharp skirmish in which Roosevelt's Rough 
 Riders and two regiments of regular cavalry (all on foot) 
 were engaged with a few hundred Spaniards at Las 
 Guasimas on June 24. 
 
 General Shafter was anxious not to commit himself to 
 a serious attack on the Spanish positions until he had 
 received further reinforcements, brought up all his artillery, 
 and accumulated a reserve of supplies at the front. But 
 hearing that Linares expected to receive large reinforce- 
 ments within the next few days, he decided on June 30 
 to concentrate his available force for battle and attack the 
 Spaniards next day. The object of the first operations was 
 to be to drive the enemy from two advanced posts in front 
 of the city, namely, the fortified village of El Caney and 
 the intrenched hill of San Juan. At the same time, in order 
 to prevent the Spanish general from drawing any help from 
 the troops who guarded the works near the harbor entrance, 
 there was to be a demonstration along the coast railway 
 against the enemy's position near Aguadores at the mouth 
 of the San Juan River. The troops assigned for this 
 operation would be part of Duffield's Volunteer Brigade, and 
 the movement would be supported by the guns of the fleet. 
 
 On the main battle-field, inland, General Lawton's Divi- 
 sion, with Capron's Battery and with the help of Garcia's 
 Cuban Brigade, was to attack El Caney at sunrise on July 
 I. It was expected that its capture would not take more 
 than an hour or two. While El Caney was being attacked 
 General Kent's Division and the dismounted cavalry division 
 were to form up on the edge of the woods west of the hill 
 of El Pozo with Grimes's Battery and the dismounted cav- 
 alry. General Bates's Brigade was to be kept as a reserve. 
 As soon as El Caney was captured Lawton was to move 
 on the flank of the San Juan position, while Kent attacked 
 it in front. There were hopes that after the capture of San 
 Juan the attack might be pressed home against the east front
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 275 
 
 of the city. To attack its southern front was out of the 
 question, as the troops advancing against the v^panish 
 trenches on this side would come under the enfilading lire 
 of Cervera's ships lying in the inner harbor. 
 
 Shafter's whole plan was based upon an underestimate 
 of the fighting capacity of his enemy. He thought it would 
 be a fairly easy business to rush the outposts of Santiago 
 and then take the city itself. Once in possession of it he 
 could attack the defenses of the harbor mouth from tin- 
 rear with the certainty that they could not make an effective 
 resistance on that side. 
 
 At 3 p. M. on June 30 orders were issued that the troops 
 detailed for next day's battle were to march at four o'clock 
 and spend the night in the woods in front of the enemy's 
 advanced positions. 
 
 The march was along two narrow forest tracks deep in 
 mud. To watch the enemy's positions a captive balloon was 
 sent up over the trees. The march was not completed till 
 some hours after sunset. One of the correspondents who 
 watched the advance has given a vivid description of the 
 scene. This is how Mr. Richard Harding Davis records his 
 impressions : 
 
 " Apparently the order to move forward had been given to each 
 regiment at nearly the same time, for they all struck their tents 
 and stepped down into the trail together. It was as though fifteen 
 regiments were encamped along the sidewalks of Fifth Avenue, and 
 were all ordered at the same moment to move into it and march 
 down town. If Fifth Avenue were ten feet wide one can imagine 
 the confusion. The balloon was ascending for the first time, and its 
 great glistening bulk hung just above the tree-tops, and the men in 
 the different regiments, picking their way along the trail, gazed up at 
 it open-mouthed. . . . Twelve thousand men, with their eyes fixed 
 on a balloon and treading on each other's heels in three inches of 
 mud, move slowly, and after three hours it seemed as if every man 
 in the United States was under arms and stumbling and slipping 
 down that trail. The lines passed until the moon rose. They 
 seemed endless, interminable. There were cavalry, mounted and dis- 
 mounted, artillery with cracking whips and cursing drivers, Rough
 
 276 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Riders in brown, and Regulars, both black and white, in blue. Mid- 
 night came and they were still slipping forward. General Sumner's ' 
 headquarters tent was pitched to the right of El Pozo hill. Below 
 us lay the valley, a mile and a half in length and a mile and a half 
 wide, from which a white mist was rising. Near us, drowned under 
 the mist, 7000 men were sleeping, and farther to the right General 
 Chaffee's ^ Five Thousand were lying under the bushes along the 
 trails to El Caney, waiting to march on it and eat it up before 
 breakfast. It was as yet an utterly undiscovered country. Three 
 miles away across the basin of mist we could see the street lamps of 
 Santiago shining over the San Juan hills. Above us the tropical 
 moon hung bright and clear in the dark purple sky, pierced with 
 millions of white stars. Before the moon rose again every sixth 
 man who had slept in the mist that night was either killed or 
 wounded." 
 
 On July I the sun rose in an overcast sky amid steaming 
 mists, the presage of a sultry, tropical day. The bivouacs 
 had broken up before dawn and as the day began the men 
 were forming up for the battle. The fleet was closing in 
 to the shore to support the movement of Duffield's Volun- 
 teers along the coast railroad. Kent's Infantry and the 
 dismounted cavalry regiments were moving forward through 
 the woods near El Pozo. Grimes's Battery was taking 
 position on the northern spur of the hill, and a group of 
 staff officers, foreign attaches, and correspondents went with 
 it, for El Pozo Hill was a good central point of view. 
 Lawton's Division, which was to begin the fighting, had 
 passed the night on the edge of the woods south of El 
 Caney and now moved forward over the intervening ridges. 
 Capron's Battery went with it and the right or outward 
 flank of the advance was protected by the only two troops 
 of mounted cavalry with the army. Between Kent and 
 Lawton there were some Cuban guerilla bands in the bush, 
 and on the extreme right the Cuban General Garcia had 
 
 ^ General Wheeler was ill, and General Sumner had taken tem- 
 porary command of the cavalry division. 
 
 * Really " Lawton's Five Thousand." Chaffee commanded only a 
 brigade of about 2000 men in Lawton's Division.
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 277 
 
 brought up a strong force of insurgents, who were ex- 
 pected to cooperate in the attack of the village from the 
 northeastward. 
 
 Lawton hoped not merely to capture El Caney but to 
 make most of its garrison prisoners if they tried to hold 
 on to the place. For this purpose he had planned an en- 
 veloping attack. General Chaffee's Brigade (Seventh, 
 Twelfth, and Seventeenth United States Infantry) on the 
 right was to move round towards the east of the village. 
 The First Brigade, under General Ludlow^ (Eighth and 
 Twenty-second United States Infantry and Second Massa- 
 chusetts), in the center was to attack the south front of the 
 place. The Second Brigade under Colonel Miles (First, 
 Fourth, and Twenty-fifth United States Infantry) on the left 
 of the division was to attack from the westward. No Span- 
 iards were met with during the short advance through the 
 open to the crest of a long rise of the ground from which 
 there was a clear view of El Caney a mile and a half away 
 on another of the long swells by which the lower ground 
 rises towards the Maestra Mountains. Around lay scattered 
 bush, open stretches of pasture-land where cattle grazed, 
 tall clumps of palms. The village looked so quiet at first it 
 was suggested that it had been abandoned. But thin wisps 
 of smoke were rising here and there, showing that cooking 
 was going on among the tiled and thatched cottages that 
 clustered round the church. Then some soldiers were seen 
 lounging at the entrance of a small stone fort. This was 
 not the only defense of the place. Four blockhouses were 
 dotted round El Caney with trenches between them and 
 barbed wire entanglements further to the front. From his 
 position near the battery that had unlimbered on the oppo- 
 site crest General Lawton and his staff could easily search 
 
 * Colonel Van Horn, who originally commanded this brigade, had 
 died of an accidental injury, and had been replaced by Brigadier- 
 General William Ludlow, United States Volunteers.
 
 278 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the village with their field-glasses. What surprised them 
 was the complete absence of movement. At 6.40 Captain 
 Capron was ordered to open fire with his four guns, while 
 the infantry was still pushing forward to its attack posi- 
 tions. The first shell burst well over the fort. The second 
 made a fair hit upon it, knocking down some stones. But 
 there was no return fire. Only here and there along the line 
 of the trenches there was a glimpse of a straw hat bobbing 
 up for a moment, showing that the Spaniards were quietly 
 slipping into their works. The guns were turned on one 
 of the blockhouses and, making good practice, soon sent a 
 lot of the timber-work flying in fragments. Still there 
 was not a shot in reply. 
 
 Capron was firing his guns over the heads of the infantry 
 who were advancing across the lower ground between the 
 artillery position and the village. The blue-coated regulars, 
 flung out into long firing lines, showed like dark dots among 
 the tall grass. About six o'clock, when they were a thou- 
 sand yards from the Spanish trenches, they opened fire 
 with section volleys. Then at last there came a sharp 
 crackle of answering rifle fire from the trenches. The 
 Spaniards shot well and here and there a man went down 
 among the grass. To Ludlow's left Miles's men then 
 began firing at the west side of El Caney. There was 
 still no sign that Chafifee was in action on the right. He 
 had further to go than the two other brigades. He was 
 working round eastwards of El Caney with the mounted 
 troopers watching his flank and Garcia's Cubans streaming 
 along to his right, a noisy excited crowd, whose move- 
 ments were in strange contrast to the deliberate advance of 
 the American Regulars. 
 
 It was evident that the Spaniards had no guns in El 
 Caney, and Capron's Battery, at a range of a mile and a 
 half, was beyond the reach of their Mausers. But though 
 the American gunners were thus able to shoot as coolly
 
 / £■[ Cancy „ 
 
 {I (tARCIA 
 
 ■fl(Cui)(Xn.>^ 
 
 OinfTEf 
 
 \'*c"'<N« Castle of entrance 
 
 ly V o/ the. harbour 
 
 ■1- ' 
 
 No. iQ — Thp: Battle before Santiago, Jii.y i, i8q8 
 
 (Situation at the beginning of the action, with inset sketch map of the country near Santiago)
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 279 
 
 as if they were at target practice, they had only four Hght 
 guns and a very Hmited supply of shells. Transport defi- 
 ciencies had crippled the artillery. An attack on such a 
 position as El Caney should have been prepared and sup- 
 ported by the concentrated fire of several batteries, that 
 would make it impossible for the Spaniards to shoot coolly 
 from their trenches. But after a brisk fire for the first few 
 minutes Capron had to husband his ammunition, firing at 
 a slow rate, that could hardly be expected to demoralize 
 steady troops, and the Spaniards who held El Caney were 
 as steady as rocks. 
 
 Presently Garcia's Cubans got round to the northeast of 
 the village and opened a rapid rifle fire at a range that 
 meant only useless waste of cartridges. They were shoot- 
 ing at a blockhouse north of El Caney. Its little garrison 
 soon took no notice of them. Chafifee pushed forward to 
 a long grassy ridge east of El Caney. A sunken road be- 
 hind it gave good cover for the approach, and when the 
 men deployed along the crest they were within five hundred 
 yards of the Spanish trenches. But here the advance was 
 brought to a dead stop for hours. A storm of Mauser 
 bullets, flying low through the grass, swept the ridge and 
 made many victims. Every one was surprised at the rapidity 
 of the Spanish rifle fire, which kept up its unwavering 
 intensity for hours. The fire came from many points — 
 from the trenches, the blockhouses, the little stone built 
 fort, the roofs of the houses and the village church, and 
 from the rifles of picked sharpshooters in the branches of 
 some tall shade trees inside the Spanish lines. With the 
 smokeless powder the enemy were using it was difficult for 
 the Americans to localize the points where the riflemen 
 
 were posted. 
 
 Four guns, nine regiments, and a miscellaneous mob of 
 Cuban insurgents were now in action against El Caney, and 
 it was already evident that it had been a mistake to expect
 
 28o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 that the place would be easily rushed in the early hours of 
 the morning. There would be a long fire fight before any 
 attempt could be made to close on the village. The heavy 
 fire kept up by the Spaniards gave the impression that a 
 large garrison was in the place. Only after the battle was 
 it discovered that El Caney was held by a mere handful. 
 It was a new revelation of the power of the modern rifle 
 in the hands of brave men holding an intrenched position. 
 
 General Linares had put in command of El Caney one of 
 his best officers, General Vara de Rey. He had with him 
 in the village his brother and his two sons. The force he 
 commanded was made up of three companies of the Twenty- 
 ninth Infantry of the Line (the " Regimento de la Consti- 
 tucion"), half a company of the Cuba Regiment, and two 
 weak companies of volunteers — in all just 520 rifles. He 
 had so much ground to hold that he put every man into 
 the firing positions and had no reserve in hand. The 
 ammunition supply was 66,000 cartridges. 
 
 At eight o'clock the attack had come to a standstill, after 
 suffering heavy loss. Chaffee had pushed forward part of 
 his brigade to a range of only 300 yards, but the men could 
 go no further. Every one who tried to get forward was 
 dropped by a Mauser bullet. The other two brigades had 
 worked up to a range of about 600 yards and there had come 
 to a standstill. Colonel Miles had had to order the Second 
 Massachusetts to cease firing and remain lying down behind 
 the advance as a reserve. The volunteers had done well 
 and moved forward steadily, but they had old-fashioned 
 Springfield rifles firing black powder, and the dense white 
 cloud that hung over their advance made them an easy 
 target for the Spaniards, whose fire concentrated on them 
 rather than on the regulars to right and left. The up-to-date 
 armament of the latter made them less easily visible. To 
 push the volunteers on would have been to incur a uselessly 
 disproportionate loss. So after two hours' fighting the en-
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 281 
 
 gagement around El Caney had become an exchange of fire 
 between the sheltered Spaniards and the Americans lying 
 out in the grass under a scorching sun, the battery firing at a 
 slow deliberate rate and eyidently not producing much effect. 
 
 Generals Kent and Sumner had meanwhile been waiting 
 at El Pozo Hill with their staff, anxiously watching with 
 field-glass and telescope Lawton's attack away to the right. 
 They were not to launch their own men against the San 
 Juan position till Lawton could move against its flank 
 after taking El Caney. But it now looked as if it would 
 be some time before any such cooperation could be ex- 
 pected. From El Pozo Hill not very much could be seen, 
 but there was enough to show that things were moving 
 very slowly on the right. The boom of Capron's guns came 
 plainly enough, mingling with a dull sound of the distant 
 rifle fight. A cloud of white smoke in the bright sun- 
 light showed the position of the battery. A crowd of 
 spectators gathered on the hill — staff' officers, correspond- 
 ents, artists, foreign attaches. Grimes's Battery stood un- 
 limbered and silent with its gun muzzles pointing over the 
 bush towards San Juan Hill. A blockhouse topped the hos- 
 tile ridge and its sides were scored with trenches. Beyond 
 there was a glinjpse of the city and the shining expanse 
 of the inner harbor where Cervera's ships lay anchored. 
 But not a Spaniard was moving anywhere. On the forest 
 tracks round El Pozo and to the west of it the troops were 
 moving up, crowding towards two openings in the margin 
 of the bush. Over the trees the balloon swung with a staff 
 officer in its car. 
 
 At eight o'clock Kent became impatient to be doing some- 
 thing and ordered Grimes to open fire on San Juan. For 
 a quarter of an hour the four guns dropped shells al)<)ut 
 the blockhouse on the ridge and tried to send some shots 
 into the trenches. As at El Caney. the Spaniards for a 
 while made no reply. For a quarter of an hour this
 
 282 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 target practice went on and then a loud report and the 
 scream of a shell told that the enemy had artillery, and 
 was bringing it into action. The first shell burst short. 
 No one could make out where the gun was that fired it, 
 for, unlike the American artillery, that of the Spaniards 
 used smokeless powder, and the guns were evidently well 
 masked. A second shell burst in the farm of El Pozo, 
 wounding some Cubans who had gathered there, and scat- 
 tering the rest of them. A third burst among Grimes's 
 guns, a fourth among some of the dismounted cavalry to 
 the right rear of them. The crowd of spectators began to 
 break up and take to cover. The Cubans showed a marked 
 zeal for carrying off wounded men to the rear, and a cor- 
 respondent noted that it took eight or ten Cubans to carry 
 every wounded man. 
 
 The guns the Spaniards had brought into action were two 
 Hontoria quick-firers placed just behind the crest of San 
 Juan Hill. A section of two guns is a lieutenant's com- 
 mand, but these two were directed by an artillerist of world- 
 wide reputation, Colonel Ordonez. Like El Caney, San 
 Juan was held by only a small garrison. Li the trenches 
 and the blockhouse on the hill itself there were just 300 
 rifles under Colonel Baquero — a company and a half of 
 the Puerto Rico Regiment, a company of the Talavera 
 Regiment and half a company of volunteers. In reserve 
 between the hill and the city there were three more com- 
 panies of the Talavera men under the personal command 
 of Linares, the Governor of Santiago. One company was to 
 the right rear of the hill, the other two to the left, at a 
 point where the road from the city branched off to San 
 Juan and El Caney. Thus the whole force opposed to 
 Kent's Division of Infantry and Sumner's dismounted 
 cavalry with four guns amounted only to 600 rifles and 
 two quick-firers. 
 
 These two guns were worked to such effect by Ordonez
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 283 
 
 that Grimes's Battery tried in vain to silence them. At 
 times they ceased to make the American hattery their tar- 
 get and burst their shrapnel among the trees, where the 
 Spaniards now perceived that the Americans were con- 
 centrating along the margin of the bush. Then the infantry 
 in the San Juan trenches opened fire with their long- 
 ranging Mausers, sending volley after volley at random 
 into the trees. This fire and the showers of shrapnel balls 
 from the bursting shells did a surprising amount of exe- 
 cution, for the men were packed together on the tracks 
 through the woods. It was a trying ordeal for soldiers 
 thus to fall to the fire of an enemy that they could not 
 see ; to find the deadly rain of lead tearing and ripping 
 through the trees and thinning their ranks, as they tramped 
 slowly through the mud and the steaming heat of the bush 
 trail to deploy along the margin of the more open ground. 
 The balloon, a white globe above the tree-tops, proved an 
 attractive target for the Spanish gunners. They missed it 
 several times, but the bursting shrapnel bullets came crash- 
 ing down among the men below. It was with a sense of 
 relief that at last they saw a shell-burst riddle the lower 
 part of the balloon. As the gas escaped the silk caught in 
 the net, formed a parachute, and came down slowly with- 
 out hurting the occupants of its car. 
 
 Along the edge of the wood there were bursts of rifle 
 firing or a dropping shot here and there, for it was hard 
 to endure loss without attempting a reply. The officers 
 always sternly ordered the firing to stop, for the word had 
 been passed that there was to be nc? random blazing away 
 of useful ammunition until the time came for the attack to 
 develop. Shafter's plan tied the generals' hands and they 
 had to wait for Lawton, losing men all the time. Grimes's 
 Battery steadily shelled the San Juan Ridge, trying in vain 
 to find the invisible guns that were moved whenever the 
 American shells came too near them.
 
 284 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 All the while the attack on El Caney was at a standstill. 
 The Cubans on General Chaffee's right sent him word 
 that they had fired away nearly all their ammunition and 
 asked him to send them a fresh supply. " Tell General 
 Garcia," said Chaffee to the messenger, " that I have barely 
 enough for my own men who are fighting, and I have no 
 cartridges to waste on fireworks." General Chaffee was on 
 foot, walking up and down along his line, watching the 
 firing and looking out for any chance to get forward. 
 Twice a Spanish bullet tore his uniform, but he was un- 
 wounded. But while thus taking risks himself, if he saw 
 any other officer standing up he would shout to him to 
 lie down with his men. There was no mere reckless swagger 
 about this fine soldier. He wanted to get about and see 
 everything for himself, so he took the necessary risk. 
 Captain Lee, the British attache, accompanied the right 
 attack, and he gives us an interesting word picture of its 
 leader : 
 
 " Wherever the fire was thickest the general strolled about un- 
 concernedly, a half -smoked cigar between his teeth and an expres- 
 sion of exceeding grimness on his face. The situation was a trying 
 one for the nerves of the oldest soldier, and some of the younger 
 hands fell back from the firing line and crept towards the road. 
 In a moment the general pounced upon them, inquiring their desti- 
 nation in low unhoneyed accents, and then, taking them persuasively 
 by the elbow, led them back to the extreme front." 
 
 Captain Lee gives us in his narrative another picture — this 
 time of the seamy side of war. There were few doctors 
 with the army, and though there was a dressing station near 
 the battery, only the slightly wounded, who could limp so 
 far, could have their wounds dressed, for there were no 
 stretcher bearers. The most that could be done for those 
 who were badly hit was to take them to some more sheltered 
 spot near at hand. At several points along the hollow 
 road behind the firing line woimded men were thus col- 
 lected. Here is what Captain Lee saw as he passed along it ;
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 285 
 
 " I found nearly a hundred killed and wounded laid out in as 
 many yards of road, and so close were they that one could only 
 pass by stepping over them. There was a strange silence among 
 these men ; not a whimper or a groan, but each lay quietly nursing 
 his wound, with closed eyes and set teeth, only flinching when the 
 erratic sleet of bullets clipped the leaves off the hedge close above 
 their heads. Some of the slightly wounded were tending those who 
 were badly hit, and nothing could have surpassed the unskilled 
 tenderness of these men. 1 was astonished too at their thoughtful 
 consideration. ' Keep well down, sir,' several said as I stopped to 
 speak to them, ' them Mausers is flying pretty low, and there 's 
 plenty of us here already.' The heat in the little road was intense, 
 there was no shade nor a breath of air, and the wounded lay swel- 
 tering in the sun till the head reeled with the rank smell of sweat 
 and saturated flannel. Right amongst the wounded lay curled up a 
 Cuban, apparently asleep. On approaching him, however, it was 
 only too apparent that he had been dead for several days, and on the 
 tree overhead two sleek and gorged vultures looked down furtively 
 at his ever-increasing number of companions. The stench was over- 
 powering, and a sudden lull in the battle brought into sickening 
 prominence the angry buzzing of the disturbed flies and the creak- 
 ing of the land crabs which waited in the bush." 
 
 This realistic description not only gives one a vivid idea 
 of the price that has to be paid for victory, but also brings 
 out some of the fine characteristics of the American soldier. 
 
 The other two attacks on El Caney had come to a stop at 
 600 yards from the enemy's lines. The village was ringed 
 with a long, curved firing line and was replying with a storm 
 of rifle fire that seemed never to slacken. Away to the 
 left the artillery duel went on between the guns on El 
 Pozo and vSan Juan hills, and the Spanish firl* was search- 
 ing with deadly effect the margins of the bu.sh where 
 Kent's and Sumner's men waited wearily for the order to 
 advance. And now a third action was about to begin near 
 the coast, and the fleet was to cooperate with the army. 
 
 General Dufiield, who had been detailed to attack at the 
 crossing of the San Juan River near its mouth, had brought 
 up the Thirty-third Michigan Volunteers and some Cuban 
 scouts along the coast railway from Siboney to a point near
 
 286 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the old castle of Aguadores which the Spaniards had aban- 
 doned. They had a battery on the other side of the river 
 and rifle trenches along the bank, and they had destroyed 
 the railway bridge across the stream, which however was 
 reported to be fordable at more than one point. Shortly 
 after ten o'clock, Duffield signaled to the fleet that he was 
 ready to advance, and Admiral Sampson opened fire on the 
 Spanish position with the guns of his flagship the New York 
 and three other vessels. Under this bombardment the 
 Spaniards were driven from their fort, and the ships then 
 tried to enfilade the trenches on the west bank of the San 
 Juan. Duflield had pushed a firing line down to the other 
 bank and engaged the enemy. After a while Sampson 
 signaled that he had cleared the trenches of the Spaniards 
 and the river might be crossed. But the general signaled 
 back that his men were still under a heavy Mauser fire. 
 Until about noon he continued his efforts to drive the enemy 
 from the river bank, while the naval guns steadily shelled 
 the position. Then at last the general decided that he could 
 not force the crossing, and that the " demonstration " had 
 been carried far enough, and signaled that he was about to 
 cease fire and fall back to Siboney. So the fight by the 
 river mouth ended in what the Spaniards described as a 
 success. Sampson, hoping that he might still indirectly 
 help by producing a panic in Santiago, began, shortly after 
 noon, a long-range bombardment of the city. For some 
 hours the big shells hurtled over the hills and burst in the 
 streets and among the houses. They caused some loss of 
 life and a good deal of alarm, but had no appreciable effect 
 on the fate of the day. 
 
 During the two hours of Duffield 's abortive engagement at 
 Aguadores there had been no change in the situation around 
 El Caney and before San Juan. Bates's Brigade had been 
 brought up and placed between Chaffee and Ludlow. Still 
 the firing went on round the intrenched village, with no
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 287 
 
 sign of progress in the attack. The Spaniards seemed as 
 steady and resokite as ever in their defense, but really hour 
 by hour they were suffering losses they could ill afford, and 
 their ammunition supply was not inexhaustible. Between 
 one and two o'clock General Shafter became very anxious 
 at the deadlock. He was ill that day and lay on a camp 
 bed under a tent near the farm of La Redonda listening 
 to the din of the fight. He had expected that by noon at 
 latest the outlying positions would have been carried. He 
 now sent a staff' officer to General Lawton, directing him 
 to abandon the attack on El Caney and move all his troops 
 to the left to cooperate in the attack on the San Juan Ridge. 
 Lawton had the courage to disregard these orders. He 
 sent back word to Shafter that to withdraw from the fight 
 in which he was engaged would be to acknowledge defeat ; 
 that he was not beaten ; and that he meant to carry the 
 thing through at all costs and take El Caney. 
 
 While Shafter and Lawton were exchanging these mes- 
 sages the attack on El Caney had been pushed home. 
 Sumner and Kent had realized that to adhere strictly to 
 Shafter's plan and wait till El Caney had fallen would be 
 to expose their men to a prolonged trial of enduring serious 
 loss without being able to take any action in reply. By noon 
 Sumner's cavalry men were all up to the front and in line 
 along the edge of the bush, north of the El Pozo-San Juan 
 trail. Kent's Infantry were still forming on their left to 
 the south of the track. Eight more guns (Captain Park- 
 hurst's and Captain Best's batteries) had been brought up 
 beside Grimes's Battery on the El Pozo Spur. The troops 
 already in line were exchanging rifle fire with the Spaniards, 
 but suft'ering considerable loss, and it was felt that it would 
 be as costly to keep them halted where they were as to 
 push them on to the attack. After a conference with the 
 staff officer who represented Shafter at the actual fighting 
 front the generals decided to push on.
 
 288 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 As Kent's Third Brigade under Colonel Wikoff formed 
 in front of the San Juan trenches there was a heavy out- 
 burst of fire from the hill. Wikoff dropped, shot through 
 the head, and was dead in a few minutes. Colonel Worth 
 of the Thirteenth Regiment took command of the brigade, 
 but had hardly done so when he was seriously wounded. 
 Colonel Liscum of the Twenty-fourth took his place and 
 was badly wounded almost immediately. The remaining 
 regimental commander. Colonel Ewers of the Ninth In- 
 fantry, then took command. To the right General Hawkins 
 had pushed the Sixth Infantry forward into the open 
 ground. In a few minutes one in every four of the men 
 was down and the regiment had to fall back and take cover 
 for a while. 
 
 Sumner had all his men well forward, and he now made 
 a dash for an outlying ridge to the north front of the main 
 San Juan Hill. The attack was made by the Rough Riders, 
 the First, Ninth, and part of the Tenth cavalry. It was a 
 charge on foot. Almost the only mounted man was Colonel 
 Roosevelt, who rode among the cowboys. They cut through 
 a wire entanglement, forded the San Juan River and scram- 
 bled up the hill under a deadly fire. As they reached the 
 top the Spaniards abandoned their trenches. 
 
 A battery of machine-guns had by this time been brought 
 up along the road and opened an effective fire on the San 
 Juan trenches. Kent's Infantry were now advancing, Haw- 
 kins's Brigade leading, with the old general at its head, his 
 white hair uncovered as he waved his hat and cheered the 
 men on. The wave of infantry swept through the river, 
 over the ground beyond, and then halfway up the hill. 
 Here the charge came to a standstill for some anxious 
 moments. The men were being pelted with the Spanish 
 bullets in front, while from the rear came a shower of shells 
 upon them from their own guns on El Pozo. The gunners, 
 wrapped in a dense cloud smoke, had not clearly marked the
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 289 
 
 progress of the advance they were supporting-. Just in the 
 nick of time the artillery found out their mistake and ceased 
 fire. The infantry pressed on up the slope, and as they 
 reached the crest the Spaniards ran down the reverse slope 
 of the height. It was just half past one. The San Juan 
 heights were captured and the Stars and Stripes fluttered 
 out from the Spanish blockhouse on the highest summit. 
 As Kent's men reached the crest, Sumner had made a dash 
 from the outlying hill and driven the enemy from the north- 
 ern end of the main ridge. 
 
 The two Spanish guns had been drawn back to the second 
 line near the town, the Talavera companies flinging out a 
 firing line to cover this movement and the retreat of their 
 comrades from the hill. Colonel Baquero, who commanded 
 at San Juan, had been killed. Linares, the Governor, was 
 wounded while covering the retirement and gave over the 
 command to General Toral. Ordonez was shot through 
 both legs. Caula, the chief of the engineers, was severely 
 wounded. The garrison was losing some of its best men. 
 
 The Spaniards now opened a heavy fire from their lines 
 along the edge of the town behind the hills. The Americans 
 began hastily intrenching the ground they had won, and 
 answered back with rifles and machine-guns. Presently a 
 field-battery was brought up to the San Juan Ridge from 
 El Pozo. Every moment the hold of the victors on the 
 hill was becoming stronger. Once only the Spaniards tried 
 to retake it. A column of sailors advanced from the town 
 headed by Cai)tain Bustamente, Cervera's chief of the staff. 
 They were driven back by the fire from the hill and Busta- 
 mente was baldy wounde.:!. After this the firing on both 
 sides went on till sundown. 
 
 But though San Juan was won. El Caney still continued 
 its dogged resistance, although the handful of Spaniards 
 who had held it all day were now in action against a 
 battery and ten regular regiments. By three o'clock the
 
 290 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 fire of the defense was visibly slackening. The Spaniards 
 were beginning to husband their last cartridges. General 
 Chaffee saw that the favorable moment had come and gave 
 his brigade the order to charge. They came on with a 
 splendid rush. Men with cutters dashed forward and made 
 openings in the wire entanglements. Reckless of heavy loss 
 the men in blue surged over the trenches and up to the 
 little fort, which surrendered on the first summons. The 
 few men in the trenches threw down their rifles or ran 
 back to the village. 
 
 As he rallied them there the heroic Vara de Rey was 
 shot through the legs. His men were carrying him to 
 shelter when he was killed by a bullet through the head. 
 His brother had already been badly wounded, one of his 
 sons killed, the other wounded. But for an hour more the 
 fight went on. The Spaniards held out in the church, the 
 houses, and some of the trenches. It was not until about 
 four o'clock that a converging rush of all the troops in 
 action against El Caney ended the long struggle. Even 
 then a handful of officers and men, some eighty in all, mostly 
 wounded, made good their retreat and succeeded in reaching 
 Santiago. 
 
 It had been a magnificent defense. One of the corre- 
 spondents who watched carefully the fight on Chaffee's front 
 has given a description of how one of the trenches was held, 
 which is worth quoting, not only for its picturesque realism 
 but also as a generous American tribute to a gallant enemy : 
 
 "I shall never cease to see (he writes), when the word Caney is 
 spoken, a line of some fifty or sixty light-blue clad men standing in 
 a trench, the line bent in the middle ; at the bending of the line 
 some blue-jacketed young officer standing, always exposed to the 
 belt and sometimes, as he stood up on the level ground, exposed to 
 the feet; the men rising at the word of this officer's command for 
 hours and hours, delivering volley after volley full in our faces ; 
 standing, as they did so, exposed to the waist, confronting 3000 
 men, grimly and coolly facing death, drawing their dead up out of 
 the trench as they fell, to make standing room for living men, hold-
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 291 
 
 ing thus their trench immovably from morning until evening. . . . 
 Those figures of Spaniards in the shal'ow trench were really very 
 uncouth. Their jackets of thin blue cotton were merely loose 
 tunics, too short and coarse to have any dignity, and the trousers 
 were baggy and ill-fitting. On their heads the men had great straw 
 hats, almost black with use, with brims turned up behind and down 
 before. Sometimes the hats came off, and with my glass I watched 
 along the trench the shaggy black heads of Castilian youths, which 
 looked better. . . . My glass revealed every movement they made, — 
 even the cool turning of the head that was in one big black straw 
 hat to make some observation to another. No smoke obscured our 
 vision, nor did the pour of our bullets upon their trench restrain 
 them from coolly answering our fire. All day long the fight went 
 on, and still these Spaniards rose and delivered their fire as if they 
 were part of a machine. Even when the fort fell they and their com- 
 mander appeared to take no heed of the situation of their comrades. 
 They seemed to assume that they had been placed there to defend 
 that trench and they had no other thought but to defend it." 
 
 And the Spanish writers express equal admiration of the 
 Americans. An officer wrote that he saw Chaffee's men 
 coming on Hke moving statues, as if they had no Hfe to 
 lose, no sense of danger. 
 
 At El Caney the Spaniards lost some 250 men, killed or 
 seriously wounded, just half of the garrison ; 158 were made 
 prisoners, many of them wounded. At San Juan the loss 
 of the defense was about 150 men. These figures do not 
 include men who received slight wounds that did not dis- 
 able them. The Spaniards had shown splendid fighting 
 power, but there was no generalship. The best judges of 
 war among the American officers were agreed that if Linares 
 had concentrated on the fighting front some thousands of 
 men who were holding other positions that were not at- 
 tacked he would probably have won a victory, with disas- 
 trous results for the expedition. 
 
 The American losses were serious. In the attack on El 
 Caney, including Bates's Brigade, 6653 men were engaged. 
 The casualties were 81 killed and 360 wounded. The heav- 
 iest loss fell on the Seventh Infantry of Chaffee's Brigade.
 
 292 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The regiment had 33 killed and 99 wounded. The official 
 return of the losses at San Juan includes those of the long- 
 range fighting of July second and third, but these losses were 
 not serious and the bulk of the loss was incurred in the 
 battle of July i. The force engaged (Sumner's Cavalry 
 Division and Kent's Infantry) amounted to 8412 men. 
 There were 135 killed and 958 wounded. On July 2 and 3 
 Lawton's Division and Bates's Brigade, which were moved 
 up to prolong the line before the city, lost 8 killed and 52 
 wounded. The total losses may be thus tabulated : 
 
 TOTAL FORCE KILLED WOUNDED TOTAL 
 
 Sumner and Kent's divisions . . 8,412 135 958 1,093 
 
 Lawton's Division and Bates's 
 
 Brigade 6,653 81 360 441 
 
 Totals 15,065 216 1,318 1,534 
 
 Under the conditions of this tropical campaign, and with 
 the inadequate hospital service, the plight of even the 
 slightly wounded was serious. The few surgeons worked 
 with the most devoted energy, but they were so shorthanded 
 that most of them were busy dressing wounds and perform- 
 ing necessary operations all through the night of the battle 
 and the following day. At the same time sickness in more 
 than one form was making victims among the exhausted 
 soldiers. 
 
 But the ground won had to be held at all costs. The 
 troops that had captured El Caney were moved up to the 
 fighting front before the city, and with only the scantiest 
 intervals of rest the Americans were at work entrenching 
 themselves on a long line to the east and north of Santiago. 
 As the sun rose on July 2 the Spaniards opened a heavy 
 fire from their trenches and blockhouses along the front of 
 the city. The Americans answered back. This exchange 
 of fire went on till about eight o'clock, then ceased till noon 
 and broke out ao-gin and went on in a more desultory
 
 THE BATTLE BEFORE SANTIAGO 293 
 
 fashion till sundown. There was little loss. Both sides 
 fought under cover, that of the American lines improving 
 hour by hour. This fighting has sometimes been called the 
 " Battle of Santiago." It was really the first day of the 
 siege. That there would have to be a siege was a disap- 
 pointment to Shafter. Prostrated as he was by illness, he 
 wrote a depressing message to the War Department at 
 Washington, reporting that the defenses of Santiago were 
 too strong to be rushed ; that he had only a very thin line 
 in front of it, had lost heavily and was losing daily by 
 sickness. It was difficult to bring up supplies and he was 
 thinking seriously of retiring to the coast range till matters 
 could be improved, roads made, and supplies collected. 
 He had no idea that the Spaniards were starving, and that 
 on the very day he wrote (July 3) the whole situation would 
 be changed. That morning Cervera, unable to supply his 
 fleet at Santiago, put out to sea, and his squadron was 
 completely destroyed in a running fight with the American 
 fleet. The defense had thus lost its chief support. Once the 
 fleet was driven away the place was easily reduced by a close 
 investment on the land side. Every day, despite much 
 suffering from the climate and an outbreak of fever, the 
 Americans strengthened their hold on the place. After a 
 two days' bombardment Santiago surrendered on July 16 
 and its fall practically ended the war and secured the libera- 
 tion of Cuba.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 OMDURMAN 
 September 2, 1898 
 
 The Mohammedans believe that when the last day of 
 the world is approaching a prophet will be sent who will be 
 not only a preacher, but also a conqueror ; who will spread 
 the religion and rule of Islam throughout the earth ; and 
 who will be known as the " Mahdi " — that is, the guided 
 one (guided by God). Hardly a century has passed since 
 the days of Mohammed without the appearance in one Mo- 
 hammedan country or another of a popular leader, who 
 claimed to be " the Mahdi." Such a claim has always been 
 a favorite resource with the chiefs of revolts against oppres- 
 sion, for to pose as a heaven-sent prophet and religious re- 
 former would make their followers believe they were fight- 
 ing in a holy war. 
 
 So in the days when Egypt and the Soudan were falling 
 into a chaos of misgovernment under the rule of the Khedive 
 Ismail and his lieutenants, and the oppression of the tribes 
 on the upper Nile had made them ready for rebellion, Mo- 
 hammed Ahmed, an Arab of the Dongola province and a 
 religious teacher, declared that he was the Mahdi. When 
 he came into conflict with the government, his successes 
 seemed to the Soudanese almost miraculous and a proof of 
 his claim. In the summer of 1881, with a crowd armed 
 with sticks and a few spears, he surprised and disarmed the 
 troops sent against him. Other victories followed. The 
 revolt of Arabi and the war with England had temporarily 
 paralyzed the Soudan Government. The Mahdi overran 
 whole provinces.
 
 OMDURMAN 
 
 295 
 
 An expedition sent against him under General Hicks, a 
 British officer in the Egyptian service, was destroyed ahiiost 
 to a man. Khartoum, was besieged. The chivalrous Gordon 
 had gone there on the eve of the investment, in the hope of 
 saving the situation. He was involved in the fate of the 
 Soudanese capital. A British expedition under Wolsclcy 
 toiled up the Nile and fought its way across the desert, 
 only to arrive too late. Khartoum had been stormed and 
 Gordon killed on January 26, 1885, during the last stage of 
 the desert campaign. 
 
 It was then decided to abandon the Soudan, and for a 
 few years the Mahdi, and his successor Abdullahi, known 
 as the Khalifa, ruled over an empire that extended from the 
 great lakes of the Nile northwards to the Second Cataract, 
 and from the Red Sea to the western borders of Darfur. 
 Its capital was the great city of Omdurman, that had grown 
 up around the village of that name opposite Khartoum, with 
 the domed tomb of the Mahdi for its central sanctuary. 
 For the first time for centuries the frontiers of civilization 
 had been forced back by a barbarian revolt. 
 
 There was a state of intermittent war about Suakin on 
 the Red Sea coast, and more than one British expedition 
 was sent to break up Mahdist gatherings in the district. 
 On the upper Nile, at the foot of the Second Cataract, 
 Wadi Haifa was garrisoned as the frontier fortress of 
 Egypt. Southward the wild rocky desert of the Batn-el- 
 Hagar made the approach of Dervish raiders difficult. The 
 Arab riverside village was converted into a fortress. A 
 rampart of sun-dried bricks, with its flanks resting on the 
 Nile, surrounded the government buildings, barracks, work- 
 shops, and hospital. Outlying forts, with Krupp guns and 
 Maxims, looked out over the undulating plain of barren 
 sand between the river and the desert hills. Gunboats pa- 
 trolled the river up to the cataract, and the telegraph linked 
 the garrison of Egyptian and Soudanese troops with Egypt.
 
 296 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 In 1889 the Dervishes liad attempted to march past Haifa 
 by the other bank of the Nile, and were routed at Toski. 
 After this there were only insignificant raids on frontier 
 villages by the river. An advanced post, the fort of Sarras, 
 was occupied, and was held by an Egyptian garrison a day's 
 march south of Haifa. Enterprising officers made excur- 
 sions into the Batn-el-Hagar, and mapped the stony wilder- 
 ness. To the frontier mess at Haifa there came from time 
 to time rumors of an advance into the Dervish empire, and 
 talk of the time when Gordon's fate would be avenged. 
 These rumors became more frequent in 1895, when the Aus- 
 trian Slatin Bey, once a lieutenant of Gordon, then a prisoner 
 of the Mahdi and the Khalifa, made his escape from 
 Omdurman, and told of dissensions in the Dervish camp, 
 and the readiness of many of the tribes to welcome a de- 
 liverer from the Khalifa's sway. 
 
 The destruction of Baratieri's army at Adowa, the news 
 that the Dervishes were marching on the Italian garrison of 
 Kassala, the fear that the recent defeat of a European army 
 would rouse the Mahdist empire to a new outburst of 
 activity, led the British Government to decide in March, 
 1896, that there should be an advance on the upper Nile. 
 Something must be done to restore the white man's prestige. 
 The Dongola province was to be reoccupied. Perhaps this 
 first step forward would open the way to a march on 
 Omdurman and Khartoum. 
 
 Then began the series of campaigns, along the river and 
 across the desert, by which Lord Kitchener won a world- 
 wide reputation. He showed what great things could be 
 done with small means. An engineer officer, he made it an 
 engineer's as well as a soldier's war. Hector Macdonald, 
 by a rapid march across the Batn-el-Hagar, seized the 
 crag-girt valley of Akasha on the Nile bank, by the southern 
 edge of the stony desert ; and then across the waste of 
 rock and sand the desert railway was laid by soldier
 
 WadI HflLFA, 
 
 Sarras;, 
 
 77te, rf«/es are tlxjose. oj 
 lattUs (^) , or of thiL 
 
 Occupcdion. oj plcLCtS 
 
 DONCOL/b 
 Sept. 1.3.18' 
 
 AbiL Hameci 
 
 )50 i-OO 
 
 iMifts 
 
 -.-^Nlld'aru fSarrcLS-T>on^ola pronno; liuidow* !*!">)/ 
 
 Sepril89R 
 
 OMDuaMflM ■jL Khartoum 
 
 2CTVittlcof tkiltbara 
 X-AprdS 1498. 
 
 ^^ 
 
 % 
 
 ^ 
 
 No. 20 — Stages of tuk Advanck to Kiiaktoum, iSy^J-iSgS
 
 OMDURMAN . 297 
 
 workers, who toiled with their arms piled beside the line, 
 and pickets holding the ridges in front. 
 
 When the railway was nearing Akasha, the little army, 
 some 9000 strong, Egyptians and Soudanese, officered by 
 picked European leaders, concentrated at the advanced post 
 and, marching by night, attacked and destroyed at dawn, on 
 the first Sunday in June, 1896, the Dervish army that held 
 Ferkeh, the gate of the Dongola province. A rapid pursuit 
 by cavalry and camel men cleared the Nile valley of the 
 enemy for 50 miles. Then there was a long halt while 
 again the desert railway crept forward mile by mile, a flotilla 
 was hauled up the rapids of the Second Cataract, and gun- 
 boats, built in England and taken to pieces to be packed 
 as cargo, were brought by the railway to an improvised 
 riverside dockyard in the heart of Africa, and were there 
 rebuilt, launched, engined, and armed. 
 
 Then the army and the flotilla moved southwards. The 
 batteries of Hafir were passed by the gunboats, the Dervish 
 army retreated without risking another battle, and Dongola 
 was occupied. The gunboats pushed on and cleared the 
 Nile banks of the enemy up to the foot of the Fourth 
 Cataract. 
 
 In the following year (1897) another railway was laid 
 across the desert, from Haifa by Murat, to cut off the great 
 bend of the Nile and strike the river at v\bu Flamed. Abu 
 Hamed was gallantly stormed by Macdonald, Berber was 
 occupied, and the railway was continued towards the junc- 
 tion of the Atbara and the Nile. 
 
 In the spring of 1898 the Emir Mahmoud took the 
 offensive with a Dervish army, and was defeated on the 
 banks of the Atbara by a mixed British and Egyptian force. 
 In the early autumn the army and flotilla that were to move 
 on Omdurman concentrated under Kitchener's command 
 around Fort Atbara. the railhead at the meeting-place of the 
 Atbara and the Nile. A young guardsman on his arrival
 
 298 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 there remarked that it was a long way from Cairo. " It 
 took me ten days to get here, sir," he said to' Kitchener. 
 " It has taken most of us two years and a half," replied the 
 general. 
 
 The army and flotilla combined under his command rep- 
 resented the most powerful fighting force that had till then 
 been seen in Africa. It was an army of many ■ nations. 
 There were the white soldiers of England, Ireland, Scot- 
 land, and Wales, the Egyptian fellahin regiments, some of 
 them entirely officered by Arabs and Turks, others with 
 British officers in the higher ranks of command. There 
 were the black Soudanese regiments, negroes and mixed 
 half-negro half-Arab races filling their ranks, which repre- 
 sented most of the tribes of the tropical upper Nile. Then 
 there were the Arab auxiliaries — Ababdeh from the borders 
 of the desert by the First and Second Cataracts ; Jaalin 
 from the Bayuda desert, eager for vengeance on the Khalifa, 
 who a year before had massacred their kindred ; and Shuri- 
 kiyeh from the Atbara valley, under a chief whose father 
 had stood by Gordon at Khartoum. 
 
 The regular land forces mustered about 45,000 men. 
 There was a British division under General Gatacre. Its 
 first brigade had been in the Soudan since the previous 
 winter, when Gatacre had led it in person at the storming 
 of Mahmoud's camp on the Atbara. It was now commanded 
 by General Wauchope, and was made up of the First 
 Cameron and First Seaforth Highlanders, and the First 
 Lincolns and First Warwick. The Second Brigade, which 
 arrived on the eve of the advance, was made up of the First 
 Grenadier Guards, the First Battalion of the Rifle Brigade, 
 the First Northumberland Fusiliers, and the Second Lanca- 
 shire Fusiliers, the brigadier being General Lyttelton. The 
 Egyptian Division was commanded by Generald Archibald 
 Hunter, who had seen every campaign on the Nile from the 
 davs of the formation of the new Egyptian army ; and his
 
 OMDURMAN 
 
 299 
 
 four brigades, each of four battalions, were commanded by 
 men who, hke himself, though young soldiers, were veterans 
 in desert warfare. Two of the brigades were made up 
 chiefly of Soudanese soldiers, many of whom had had 
 their first experience of war fighting under the banner of 
 the Mahdi or the Khalifa. The organization of the division 
 was this : 
 
 First Brigade 
 Colonel H. Macdonald 
 
 2d Egyptians 
 
 9th Soudanese 
 
 loth Soudanese 
 
 nth Soudanese 
 
 Second Brigade 
 Colonel Maxwell 
 
 8th Egyptians 
 I2th Soudanese 
 13th Soudanese 
 14th Soudanese 
 
 Third Brigade 
 Colonel Lewis 
 
 3d Egyptians 
 
 4th Egyptians 
 
 /th Egyptians 
 
 iSth Egyptians 
 
 Fourth Brigade 
 Colonel CoUinson 
 
 1st Egyptians 
 
 5th Egyptians 
 
 17th Egyptians 
 
 1 8th Egyptians 
 
 There was a regiment of British cavalry, the Twenty-first 
 Lancers, setting out on their first campaign, and eager to 
 do some stirring deed. The Egyptian cavalry were ten 
 squadrons of Lancers under Colonel Broadwood, and there 
 was Tudway's camel corps of eight com])anies of riflemen. 
 A horse battery of six 93^ -pounder Krtipp guns was at- 
 tached to the Egyptian cavalry, who had also some Maxims. 
 Maxim detachments (inchuling a Maxim battery manned 
 by the Royal Irish Fusiliers) were also with the infantry. 
 The Egyptian field artillery had four batteries, each of six 
 new Maxim-Nordenfelt quick-firing guns, throwing a 12^- 
 pound shell. The British artillery was made up of a battery 
 of six 15-pounder field guns (Thirty-second Royal Field 
 Artillery), a battery of six 5-inch howitzers (Thirty- 
 seventh Royal Field Artillery), and a detachment of garrison 
 artillery with two 40-pounder siege guns. The howitzers 
 and siege guns had with them a sui)ply of the new high 
 explosive lyddite shells, of the destructive power of which 
 terrible things were told. 
 
 Besides the 44 guns with the land forces, there was a 
 formidable array of quick-firing guns and Maxims mounlrd
 
 300 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 on the gunboats, which were also provided with high power 
 electric searchlights. 
 
 The first move was made by detachments, partly by march- 
 ing, partly by river transport, to a concentration camp at 
 Wad Hamed, below the Shabluka cataract. The regular 
 troops were massed on the left bank of the river ; the Arab 
 irregulars, under Colonel Stuart Wortley, on the other side. 
 A huge flotilla of gunboats, steamers, and barges and sailing 
 boats lay on the wide waters of the Nile. August 24 was 
 fixed for the start of the march on Omdurman. Twenty- 
 one days' provisions had been collected for the campaign, 
 which was to be short and sharp. Two days' rations were 
 distributed to the troops on the twenty-fourth. The flotilla 
 conveyed the rest, and was to serve as a moving supply 
 magazine from which distributions would be made to the 
 various units on shore. 
 
 On the twenty-third the Sirdar Kitchener reviewed his 
 army, and the British, Egyptian, and Soudanese regiments, 
 formed in line in the desert with a front of two miles, pre- 
 sented a magnificent spectacle. It was a force with which a 
 leader might promise to "go anywhere and do anything." 
 Colonel Wingate, of the Intelligence Department, and his 
 right-hand man, Slatin Pasha, had information from Om- 
 durman that the Khalifa was gathering every available fight- 
 ing man, and meant to await the attack at or near Omdur- 
 man, where he counted on assembling at least 60,000 war- 
 riors under his black banner. 
 
 The march through the desert, round the hills by the 
 Shabluka cataract, was made by detachments, and the army 
 was again concentrated south of the cataract on the evening 
 of August 2'j. Omdurman was now only 35 miles away in 
 a direct line, though the march by the river bank would add 
 slightly to the distance. From the summit of Jebel Royan, 
 the mountain at the head of the cataract on the right bank, 
 where a lookout and signal station had been established.
 
 OMDURMAN 301 
 
 the telescope showed a white spot just on the far horizon. 
 It was the dome of the Mahdi's tomb in the midst of the 
 capital of the Khalifa. Stuart Wortley, with his 2500 
 Arabs, was on the river bank near Jebel Royan. He had 
 just been joined by nearly a hundred deserters from the 
 enemy's camp (a party of Batahin Arabs with their chief), 
 and his scouts had come on the track of retiring Dervish 
 patrols. It was afterwards ascertained that the Khalifa had 
 kept all his fighting men near Omdurman, except a party 
 of about 200 horsemen, whom he sent forward to watch 
 the Sirdar's advance. 
 
 The army now moved onward by short marches, covered 
 by a screen formed by the mounted troops. On August 31 it 
 halted just fifteen miles from Omdurman. The camp was 
 on the northern slope of the hollow of Wadi Suetne, a val- 
 ley covered with low-growing thorn scrub. Beyond were 
 the ridges of the Kerreri Hills, rising only a few hundred 
 feet above the desert. It was known that from their south- 
 ern slopes an open plain of hard sand and gravel stretched 
 along the Nile bank to the gates of the Khalifa's capital. 
 During the day the cavalry had sighted and driven in his 
 scouts, and the gunboats had shelled and broken up their 
 camp in a hollow of the Kerreri Hills. Next day might 
 perhaps witness the great battle. In any case within twenty- 
 four hours the expedition would be before Omdurman. 
 
 On the morning of September i the Sirdar formed his 
 army in battle array, and marched southward over the 
 Kerreri Hills. The British division was on the left, near 
 the Nile. Then came the Egyptian infantry brigades, and on 
 the extreme right, guarding the desert flank, the Egyptian 
 mounted troops. The gunboats steamed ahead on the river, 
 and on the right bank Stuart Wortley advanced with his 
 motley crowd of Arab " f riendlies " — known to the British 
 soldiers as the " Skallywags." As the Kerreri ridge was 
 passed the Twenty-first Lancers were sent forward in the
 
 302 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 plain beyond, and one of their parties occupied the isolated 
 hill of Jebel Surgham in its midst, and established there a 
 heliograph signal station. Away to the right Broadwood 
 advanced with his squadrons, crossed the hollow of Khor 
 Shambat, and reached the hills that look down on the land 
 front of Omdurman. Those who now saw the sacred city 
 of the Mahdi for the first time were astonished at its 
 enormous extent. It stretched for some six miles along the 
 riverside, a wilderness of low, flat-roofed houses, high over 
 which rose the white dome of the Mahdi's tomb, glittering 
 in the sun. 
 
 That dome was soon to be the target of British artillery. 
 Stuart Wortley's " friendlies," marching by the farther bank 
 of the Nile, had driven parties of Dervishes out of the river- 
 side villages, and finally seized Halfiya, a village behind the 
 first of the islands below the confluence of the two Niles. 
 From this point the dome of the tomb was a little more than 
 a mile away. At Halfiya the howitzer battery was landed 
 from barges, and, taking the dome as its target, began to 
 throw its heavy lyddite shells into Omdurman. At the 
 same time the gunboats steamed up between the island and 
 the northern end of the city, and came into action against 
 the enemy's batteries along its river front. The Mahdists 
 fought their guns bravely, but they were soon silenced. 
 Huge breaches were blown in the river wall by the fire of 
 the gunboats, and the howitzers, with their heavy lyddite 
 shells, wrecked the dome, and did considerable damage to 
 the buildings around it. 
 
 Omdurman was crowded with the tens of thousands 
 whom the Khalifa had mustered for the battle. While the 
 bombardment was still in progress he ordered them to move 
 out into the open and advance against the Sirdar's army, . 
 promising them speedy victory, and telling them that it had 
 been prophesied that the plain of Kerreri would be white 
 with the skulls of their enemies.
 
 OMDURIVIAN 303 
 
 The Dervish army, more than 50,000 strong, poured out 
 of the city, and formed in battle array facing towards the 
 north, on the sandy slopes between Omdurnian and the hills 
 where Broadwood had halted. It was about eleven o'clock 
 when the Khalifa began to advance towards the Khor 
 Shambat hollow. Mr. Winston Churchill, who was then 
 a lieutenant attached to the Twenty-first Lancers, has given 
 a striking description of the appearance of the great host as 
 seen from near Jebel Surgham.^ 
 
 " Suddenly," he says, " the whole black line began to move. Be- 
 hind it other immense masses and lines of men appeared over the 
 crest; and while we watched, amazed by the wonder of the sight, 
 the whole face of the slope became black with swarming savages. 
 Four miles from end to end, and as it seemed in five great divisions, 
 this mighty army advanced swiftly. The whole side of the hill 
 seemed to move. Between the masses horsemen galloped continu- 
 ally; before them many patrols dotted the plain; above them waved 
 hundreds of banners; and the sun, glinting on many thousand hos- 
 tile spear points, spread a sparkling cloud. It was perhaps the im- 
 pression of a life time; nor do I expect ever again to see such an 
 awe-inspiring or formidable sight. ... A strong detachment of the 
 mulacenibn, or guard, was extended in front of the center. Ali 
 Wad Helu, with his bright green flag, prolonged the line to the left; 
 and his 5000 warriors soon began to roach out towards the Egyptian 
 cavalry. The center and main force of the army was composed of 
 the regular troops, formed in squads, under Osman Sheik-ed-Din * 
 and Osman .'Xzrak. This great body comprised 12,000 black rifle- 
 men, and about 13,000 black and Arab spearmen. In their midst rose 
 the large dark green flag which the Sheik-ed-Din had adopted. The 
 Khalifa with his own bodyguard, about 2000 strong, followed the 
 center. In rear of all marched Yakub with the black flag and 13,000 
 men — nearly all swordsmen and spearmen, who, with those ex- 
 tended in front of the army, constituted the guard. The right wing 
 was formed by the brigade of the Khalifa Sherif, consisting of 
 2000 Danagla tribesmen, whose principal ensign was a broad red flag. 
 Osman Digna, with about 1700 Hadendoa, guarded the extreme right 
 and the flank nearest Omdurman, and his fame needed no flag. 
 Such was the great army which now moved swiftly towards the 
 watching squadrons ; and these, pausing on the sandy ridge, pushed 
 out a fringe of tentative patrols, as if to assure themselves that what 
 they saw was real." 
 
 * " The River War," vol. ii, p. 87. ' The son of the Khalifa.
 
 304 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Before the steady advance of the Dervishes the cavalry 
 began to fall back on the main body, which as yet could 
 have no sight of the enemy. The Sirdar had halted near 
 the huts of the village of Egeiga, on the bank of the Nile, 
 between the Kerreri Hills and Jebel Surgham. The troops 
 were formed round and outside the little group of mud- 
 built houses in a semicircle, convex towards the desert plain 
 in front, and with the wings thrown back to the river bank, 
 which here rose steeply from the waterside with a narrow 
 stretch of beach a few feet below it. The British division 
 was in line on the left ; three Egyptian brigades formed 
 the center and right. CoUinson's Brigade was in reserve 
 inside the semicircle. In the intervals between the bri- 
 gades and battalions the artillery and the Maxim guns were 
 posted. 
 
 The heliograph on Jebel Surgham flashed and flickered 
 out in dots and dashes the news that the enemy were ad- 
 vancing in force, and Colonel Martin of the Twenty-first 
 Lancers, while his men were retiring, sent Lieutenant Win- 
 ston Churchill galloping back to give the Sirdar some de- 
 tails. Churchill reported that the Dervish army was then 
 about four miles away, and, if they continued their advance, 
 would be attacking in another hour. The Sirdar was quite 
 calm and confident. " We want nothing better," he said. 
 " We have a good field of fire here. They may as well 
 come to-day as to-morrow." 
 
 But the Dervish army came no further than the long 
 hollow of Khor Shambat. There they halted in masses as 
 they stood, and prepared to bivouac. Their cavalry patrols 
 during the late hours of the afternoon exchanged a few 
 shots with the scouts sent out by the Twenty-first Lancers 
 beyond Jebel Surgham. Broadwood had drawn in his 
 squadrons, the horse battery and the camel corps, to the 
 base of the Kerreri Hills on the right of the Sirdar's array. 
 As darkness came on the men of the Anglo-Egyptian army
 
 OMDURMAN 305 
 
 lay down to sleep where they stood. The British division 
 had covered its front with a zareba hedge, a mass of thorn 
 bushes cut down and piled together. Hunter's Soudanese 
 and Egyptian battalions' were content to throw up a low 
 parapet of sand and gravel. Their officers had longer ex- 
 perience of desert warfare than those of the white battalions. 
 The low parapet gave some protection against bullets, and 
 enabled the men behind it to fire kneeling. The zareba 
 hedge forced its defenders to stand while firing. 
 
 It was fully expected that there would be a night attack. 
 It looked as if the Khalifa had marched out during the day 
 in order to be within easy striking distance as soon as the 
 darkness gathered. But it was only a partial darkness after 
 all, for the Sirdar had timed his advance so as to approach 
 Omdurman in the period of moonlit nights, and the full 
 moon was shining in all its splendor in a cloudless, star- 
 spangled sky, with the brightness characteristic of the 
 tropical night in the desert. It silvered the wide expanse of 
 sand sloping gently upwards from the riverside, and through 
 the sheen of moonlight came the long beams of brighter rays 
 from the searchlights of the gunboats, which swept the 
 desert, startling the wild warriors, who saw in it some 
 strange menace of magical power. 
 
 By this double light keen-eyed sentinels and scouts 
 watched the expanse of sand and gravel in front of the 
 Sirdar's position. Hour after hour went by, and still 
 there was no attack. The Khalifa had lost his best chance. 
 It was only just before the sun rose that he broke up his 
 bivouacs and formed his huge army in battle array. 
 
 At half past four, even before the twilight began to 
 whiten the sky far away on the other side of the Nile, 
 bugle and trumpet, fife and drum, sounded the reveille in 
 the Sirdar's lines. The men stood to their arms in the 
 darkness. The rush might come in the dangerous hour 
 before the dawn. But all was quiet in front, and as the
 
 3o6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 twilight began to dim the stars British and Egyptian cavalry 
 patrols were sent out through the darkness to have a sight 
 of the enemy as soon as there was light enough to distin- 
 guish objects at a little distance. 
 
 Lieutenant Churchill, anxious to see all that was to be 
 seen, in his double capacity of a cavalry scout and the war 
 correspondent of a London paper, was with the party that 
 rode up to the crest of Jebel Surgham. Beyond could be 
 seen the lines and masses of the Dervish army, looking in 
 the half-light like " dark blurs and streaks relieved and 
 diversified with an odd-looking shimmer of light from the 
 spear points." 
 
 As the sun rose, the Mahdists began to move forward, 
 still hidden from the Sirdar's position by a long swell of 
 sandy ground between Surgham and the Kerreri Hills. 
 Only the advanced cavalry scouts saw this first stage of the 
 enemy's advance, and Mr. Churchill's graphic description of 
 the impression it produced upon these watchers on the 
 Surgham ridge is well worth a full quotation : ^ 
 
 " As it became broad daylight — that is to say, about ten minutes 
 to six — I suddenly became aware that all the masses were in mo- 
 tion and advancing swiftly. Their emirs galloped about and before 
 their ranks ; scouts and patrols scattered themselves all over the 
 front. Then they began to cheer. They were still a mile away from 
 the hill, and were concealed from the Sirdar's army by the folds of 
 the ground. The noise of the shouting was heard, albeit faintly, by 
 the troops down by the river ; but to us, watching on the hill, a 
 tremendous roar came up in waves of intense sound, like the tumult 
 of a rising wind and sea before a storm. In spite of the confidence 
 which I felt in the weapons of civilization — for all doubts had dis- 
 persed with the darkness — the formidable aspect of this host of 
 implacable savages, hurrying eagerly to the attack, provoked a feel- 
 ing of loneliness, which was shared, I think, by the rest of the little 
 patrol. . . . Although the Dervishes were steadily advancing, a be- 
 lief that their musketry was inferior encouraged a nearer view, and 
 we trotted round the southwest slopes of Surgham Hill until we 
 reached the sandhills on the enemy's side. Thence the whole array 
 
 * " The River War," vol. ii, p. 107 et seq.
 
 No. 21 — Battle of Omdukman, September 2, 1S9S 
 I. The First Dervish Attack
 
 OMDURMAN 307 
 
 was visible in minute detail. It seemed that every single man of all 
 the thousands could be examined separately. The pace of their 
 march was fast and steady, and it was evident that it would not be 
 safe to remain long among the sandhills. Yet the wonder of the 
 scene exercised a dangerous fascination, and for a while we tarried." 
 " The emblems of the more famous emirs were easily distinguish- 
 able. On the extreme left the chiefs and soldiers of the bright 
 green flag gathered under AH Wad Helu ; between this and the 
 center the large, dark green flag of Osman Sheik-ed-Din rose above 
 a dense mass of spearmen, preceded by long lines of warriors armed 
 presumably with rifles; over the center, commanded by Yakub, the 
 sacred black banner of the Khalifa floated high and remarkable; 
 while on the right a great square of Dervishes was arrayed under 
 an extraordinary number of white flags, amid which the red ensign 
 of Sherif was almost hidden. All the pride and might of the Der- 
 vish empire was massed on this last great day of its existence. 
 Riflemen who had helped to destroy Hicks, spearmen who had 
 charged at Abu Klea, Baggara fresh from raiding the Shillooks, 
 warriors who had besieged Khartoum — all marched inspired by the 
 memories of former triumphs and embittered by the knowledge of 
 late defeats, to chastise the impudent and accursed invaders." 
 
 The front of the g^reat array was about five miles. The 
 left stretched out towards the Kerreri Hills ; the center, 
 with the black flag, marched directly upon Jebel Surgham ; 
 the right moved so that it would presently sweep round 
 to the south of it. Under a splutter of fire from the enemy's 
 nearest riflemen the Lancer patrols galloped from their 
 point of observation and withdrew with the regiment to the 
 low bank of the river, behind the left flank of the Sirdar's 
 line. 
 
 The Khalifa had dragged out with him three small Krupp 
 guns. Two of these, placed near the northern shoulder of 
 Jebel Surgham, fired the first shots of the battle as the 
 Dervish array topped the long swell of sand between the 
 hill and the Kerreri ridges, and the white flags came pour- 
 ing round the south side. The Dervish shells fell short and 
 did not burst; they only threw up great splashes of sand 
 in front of the British division. At once the challenge was 
 answered. The Sirdar's artillery thundered out from his
 
 3o8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 battle line and from the high-placed quick-firers of the gun- 
 boats, that lay like floating castles of steel on the flanks of 
 his position. The range was about a mile and a half. A 
 storm of shells burst over the front of the advancing array, 
 and every bursting shell strewed the ground with dead and 
 wounded. But on through the deadly shower the enemy 
 came, a long white line topped with hundreds of fluttering 
 banners, and flowing like a tide over the crest of the sandy 
 slope, with the huge wave of shouting men pressing on 
 behind it. 
 
 The Khalifa had sent nearly 30,000 men forward for 
 the first attack. On the right, Sherif with the white flags, 
 about 6000 strong, moved over and round the Jebel Surg- 
 ham height ; in the center, some 8000 under Osman Azrak 
 marched directly on the Sirdar's position; on the left, 
 Osman Sheik-ed-Din, with the strongest of the three corps 
 — a force estimated at some 15,000 — made for the Kerreri 
 ridges, with the intention of moving through the broken 
 ground and falling on the right flank of the Egyptians. 
 The Khalifa had a reserve of more than 20,000 men, whom 
 he held back for later eventualities. His idea probably was 
 that, if the first rush failed, the enemy would leave their 
 fortified position to pursue the beaten Dervishes, and he 
 could then fall upon them by surprise in the open desert. 
 Behind Jebel Surgham he halted with the black flag and 
 some 17,000 of his best fighting men, including his picked 
 guard, the Mulazemin, and the Baggara cavalry. Over 
 the ridge of Um Mutragan, a prolongation of the Kerreri 
 range, he sent Ali Wad Helu with some 5000 more. In 
 recent campaigns the Dervishes had stood on the defensive 
 and been defeated. Their earlier victories had all been 
 won by the headlong rush with spear and sword. The 
 Khalifa was this day trying to revert to the old aggressive 
 tactics, without having as yet any clear idea of the terrible 
 power of the new weapons opposed to him.
 
 OMDURMAN 309 
 
 As Osman Azrak and Sherif's thousands came on there 
 was a sphitter of rifle fire from their front, but the range 
 was too long for their old Remington rifles. At first the 
 only return fire was that of the artillery ashore and afloat. 
 But as the advancing wave of spears came within a mile 
 and a half the Grenadier Guards on the left opened fire 
 with their long-ranging Lee-Metfords. Battalion after 
 battalion joined in along the front of the British line. The 
 firing was by volleys ; then the Maxims began to shower 
 out their bullets ; finally, as the range shortened to under a 
 thousand yards, the Soudanese and Egyptian battalions were 
 able to use their Martinis. Twelve thousand rifles were 
 pouring their bullets into the immense target offered by the 
 charging Dervishes. The batteries and the gunboats were 
 covering their front with a hail of bursting shells and de- 
 scending showers of shrapnel balls, and the Maxims were 
 pouring out their streams of lead. Through this storm of 
 death the Dervishes still came on. " I am sorry for those 
 brave men ! " exclaimed the Italian attache, Count Calderari, 
 as he watched the desert warriors thus rushing to de- 
 struction. 
 
 Meanwhile on the enemy's left the Shcik-ed-Din's men 
 had reached the Kerreri Hills. The thousands who followed 
 his green standard had a less formidable task, and at first 
 could flatter themselves that they had a certain measure of 
 success. Colonel Broadwood had with him his ten scjuadrons 
 of native lancers — all led by British officers — Tudway's 
 mounted riflemen of the Camel Corps, and the horse bat- 
 tery, and Maxims. He met the rush on the first of the 
 Kerreri ridges. The Camel Corps were in line on the 
 right, partly sheltered by rocks and boulders. On the 
 left were the six guns and some dismounted troopers. The 
 rest of the cavalry was massed behind the left Hank m the 
 hollow between the two ridges. 
 
 Kitchener, from the main position, had seen the enor-
 
 310 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 mous mass of the Dervish left turning to the Kerreri Hills, 
 and had sent word to Broadwood to bring in his mounted 
 troops to the right of the infantry, where they would be 
 protected by the fire of the battle line. Broadwood had been 
 serving for years with his chief, and the two men thoroughly 
 understood and trusted each other. The cavalry commander 
 therefore ventured to send back word that he thought he 
 could do better by acting on his own, and keeping the 
 Sheik-ed-Din's 15,000 men occupied for a while at a dis- 
 tance from the main battle-field. It was a daring resolve, 
 but Broadwood and his men, in the days before the battle of 
 the Atbara, had already had the experience of successfully 
 playing with thousands of wild tribesmen in the open desert. 
 The steady fire of his line of rifles, carbines, Maxims; 
 and Krupp guns checked the first rush of the enemy. But a 
 great mass of Dervishes began to pour up the hills and 
 round the right flank of the Camel Corps, and there was 
 imminent danger of the line being overwhelmed and rolled 
 up. The order was given to retreat. The Camel Corps 
 mounted and rode down the stony valley between the two 
 ridges, while the cavalry and the horse battery crossed it to 
 the second ridge, where the guns came into action again. 
 But disregarding this fire, the Dervishes rushed down the 
 hills after Tudway's camel men, and on the stony ground 
 the tribesmen moved much faster than the camels, and it 
 looked as if the Camel Corps would be surrounded and 
 massacred. But at this moment the gunboat Melik came 
 to the rescue. She steamed down to a point whence her 
 guns swept the whole length of the valley down which the 
 Dervishes were racing after the Camel Corps. Her quick- 
 firers and Maxims — manned by picked men of the Royal 
 Marine Artillery — poured a rapid fire into the enemy, and 
 as a second gunboat appeared, they turned from the now 
 dangerous pursuit of the Camel Corps, leaving the ground 
 strewn with dead. Tudway led his men along the river
 
 OMDURMAN 311 
 
 bank to the flank of the battle line, wheie he sent some of 
 them to join in the defense on the right of Lewis's Brigade. 
 
 Foiled of what they had thought an easy prey, the Sheik- 
 ed-Din"s men now turned to attack Broadwood's Cavalry. 
 He might have retired like the Camel Cor]is by the river- 
 side way that the gunboats kept open, but after firing a few 
 shells at the enemy he led his men down the north slope 
 of the hills, and reached the wide expanse of scrub-covered 
 desert that extended to and beyond the hollow of Wadi 
 Suetne. Here he had free scope for the swift and easy 
 movements of his mounted men, and alternately making 
 a stand and again retiring, he drew the enemy three miles 
 away from the battle-field. With his few hundred lances 
 and carbines and his six guns he was keeping fully occupied 
 15,000 riflemen and spearmen. There is no better proof 
 of the high state of discipline the native Egyptian troops 
 had reached under their white leaders than the success of 
 Broadwood's daring manoeuver. 
 
 The Dervishes showed reckless courage, and moved at 
 a speed no civilized troops could have kept up for long. 
 Some of their rushes were very dangerous. Once they were 
 checked only by Major Mahon ' charging into the nearest 
 of them at the head of his squadron. The Dervishes scored 
 one momentary success. Two of the guns of the horse bat- 
 tery stuck fast in a soft place, and were rushed ; but before 
 the gunners abandoned them to the enemy, they removed 
 and carried off the breech-locks, so as to render them 
 useless. 
 
 At last Osman Sheik-ed-Din realized that he could not 
 run down his agile opponents, and that he was only suffer- 
 ing useless loss, and being led far from the real battle- 
 
 * This young cavalry officer had served with distinction on the 
 upper Nile in the campaigns of i8f)6-i8<)8. He was afterwards 
 famous as the commander of the force that relieved Mafeking dur- 
 ing the South African War.
 
 312 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 field. He rallied the tribesmen and began to withdraw 
 towards the Kerreri Hills, followed for a while by the 
 shells of the horse battery. Broadwood then marched back 
 along the river bank, picking up on his way the two guns 
 that had been temporarily lost. 
 
 Meanwhile the great frontal attack of the Dervishes had 
 ended in disastrous failure. The marvel is that it lasted 
 as long as it did, before the brave men who formed its 
 successive lines and rushes realized that it was hopeless. 
 Wave after wave of fresh men moved forward as the front 
 of the attack crumbled under the tornado of bullet and 
 shell. Some of the mounted emirs who rode in the fore- 
 most ranks seemed to have a charmed life, and they brought 
 their followers on nearer and nearer to the Sirdar's batttle 
 front. As the range shortened, the fire of the Dervish 
 riflemen, who mingled with the leading spearmen, began to 
 produce some small effect. Most of the bullets flew high, 
 but here and there an ofiicer or a man was hit. The first 
 to be wounded was Corporal Mackenzie of the Seaforths, 
 who was hit in the leg by a bullet that did not penetrate. 
 He had the wound dressed, and returned to his post in the 
 line. Then a private of the Lincolns dropped dead, shot 
 through the head. The casualties became more frequent 
 when some hundreds of the black riflemen found shelter 
 in a long hollow of the sand about five hundred yards away, 
 where they lay down and shot steadily from cover. Cap- 
 tain Caldecott of the Warwicks was killed. Captain Bagot 
 of the Guards and Captain de Rougemont of the Artillery 
 were wounded. The group of war correspondents, who 
 watched the fight from the rear of the British line, had two 
 casualties in their small number. Colonel Rhodes (the 
 brother of Cecil Rhodes), acting as correspondent of the 
 Times, was severely wounded in the shoulder; and the 
 veteran Charles Williams of the Daily Chronicle had a 
 narrow escape of being killed, a bullet scoring the side of
 
 OMDURMAN 313 
 
 his head just below the temple — the third wound he 
 had received in action during his long and adventurous 
 career. 
 
 As soon as the Sirdar saw that the impetus of the enemy's 
 onset was being checked, he swung the right of his line 
 forward from the river, so as to give fuller effect to the 
 fire of Lewis's Brigade and the batteries attached to it. In 
 the front of the native troops, armed with the Martini, the 
 main rush of the Dervishes came up to a point about 300 
 yards away. In front of the British battalions, who shot 
 with the small-bore magazine rifle, no considerable body of 
 Dervishes got nearer than 500 yards. But a few brave men 
 were killed much closer to the line. In front of the First 
 British Brigade a splendidly-built young Arab dashed on 
 alone with his spear at the charge until he drop])ed at 200 
 yards. In front of Maxwell's native brigade a gray-bearded 
 standard-bearer and five spearmen came on through the 
 shower of bullets, and fell one by one, till at last the old 
 man dropped dead less than 150 yards from the front. 
 Long after the other mounted emirs had disappeared, a 
 chief dressed in a new white jibba, bright with many 
 colored patches, was still to be seen riding in the foremost 
 rank of the attack. He fell only when it was nearing its 
 final collapse. His body was identified as that of Osman 
 Azrak, one of the most famous of the Mahdist leaders. He 
 had fought in all the Dervish campaigns on the Nile, and 
 his name had long been a terror in connection with daring 
 raids on the frontier. 
 
 The fire from the Anglo-Egyptian lines had been so 
 rapid and continuous that ritles became too hot for the men 
 to hold, (jrasping them by the leathern slings, the soldiers 
 in the first line would exchange them for those of the reserve 
 companies. The Maxiins had repeatedly to cease fire in 
 order to cool down after blowing off in jets of steam all tlu- 
 water in their casings. There was abundance of ainnui-
 
 314 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 nition. Reserves of it lay close at hand in barges by the 
 river bank. 
 
 At half past seven the attack began to slacken. There 
 was a last rush towards the front held by the Egyptians ; 
 and then, shortly before eight o'clock, the last of the spear- 
 men disappeared over the long ridge by Jebel Surgham. 
 They carried ofif numbers of their wounded with them. 
 Some of the riflemen held on in their sheltering hollow, but 
 they were driven from their cover by the shells of the 
 artillery. Then the firing ceased, and among the men in 
 the ranks there was a feeling that the battle had been won. 
 The losses of those who held the main position had been 
 trifling. It had been for them more like a slaughter of the 
 enemy than a battle. 
 
 But the hardest fighting of the day was yet to come. 
 The Sirdar knew quite well that, besides the remnant of 
 those he had defeated, there were thousands of enemies still 
 in front of him, notably those who were returning from 
 the unsuccessful attempt to overwhelm the mounted troops. 
 It seemed likely that, having failed in the great attack, the 
 Khalifa would lead back his warriors to defend Omdurman ; 
 and Kitchener, though he knew he was taking a risk, de- 
 cided to break up his defensive battle array at once and 
 march on the city, in order to seize it before the Dervishes 
 could rally to its defense. If they got there first, its cap- 
 ture would mean prolonged and costly street fighting. 
 
 While the brigades that had formed the battle line were 
 wheeling out on to the expanse of sand in their front and 
 forming for the advance southwards. Colonel Martin of the 
 Twenty-first Lancers was ordered to take his regiment out 
 towards Jebel Surgham. and clear the ground between the 
 hill and the river of any parties of the enemy, in order 
 to prepare the way for the march of the infantry. The 
 Lancers had since early morning been only spectators of the 
 fight, and officers and men were all eager for action.
 
 OMDURMAN 315 
 
 As they rode out towards the hill, with a couple of 
 patrols well in advance of them, they looked very different 
 from a Lancer regiment on home service. Khaki had re- 
 placed the brilliant uniforms, a clumsy brown helmet the 
 swagger Polish schapka, and their mounts were wiry little 
 Arab horses, that made the men look too big for them. 
 But every man and horse was thoroughly fit, and the 
 squadrons moved and changed formation with the accuracy 
 of a machine. 
 
 On one of the spurs that ran out from Surgham the 
 regiment halted and dismounted to rest the horses, while 
 the patrols examined the ground to the southward. They 
 saw great crowds of fugitives streaming away towards 
 the city. It was half past eight, and the day had become 
 intensely hot, and here and there the desert mirage con- 
 fused the view over the sun-scorched sands. " The mirages 
 blurred and distorted the picture, so that some of the 
 routed Arabs walked in air and some through water, and 
 all were misty and unreal." Stragglers in small parlies 
 were making their way to the river, and one of the patrols 
 reported that in this direction a long hollow, running down 
 from the south side of Jebel Surgham to the Nile, was 
 held by about 1000 of the enemy. If these were swept 
 away the Lancers could strike in upon the Dervish line of 
 retreat, and would clear the way for the southward march 
 of the infantry. 
 
 The body of Dervishes in the hollow were some of 
 Osman Digna's men — Hadendoa tribesmen from the Red 
 Sea coast district — the " Fuzzie-wuzzies," to give them the 
 name that the soldiers who fought in the Suakin cam- 
 paigns invented in allusion to their way of dressing the 
 hair. Their position was clearly seen from the gunboats, 
 which were within easy range, and one wonders why no 
 effort was made to shell them out of their cover. Colonel 
 Martin considered that his orders to " clear the front " im-
 
 3i6 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 plied that he should attack them ; and at 8.25 the regiment 
 mounted, moved down the slope towards the river, formed 
 column of troops, and at a point about 250 yards north 
 of the hollow formed line facing it. 
 
 The ground west of the hollow was concealed from view 
 by a ridge of rock jutting out from the hill, and behind 
 this screen Dervish reinforcements had been joining the 
 Hadendoas while the Lancers were forming for the charge. 
 As the line advanced all that was visible of the enemy was 
 a party of about 100 riflemen firing from the edge of the 
 hollow. Their fire was wild — high and almost harmless 
 — and the Lancers galloped through it and charged into the 
 dense mass of sword and spearmen, who awaited their onset 
 without flinching. 
 
 It is a very rare experience for cavalry to crash into 
 an unbroken array of infantry. There was a tremendous 
 shock. More than a score of men were dismounted, and 
 the Dervishes were rolled over in heaps. But they held 
 together, and began to fight with the Lancers, who were 
 now in among them, struggling through the mob of enemies 
 and dragging them with them. There was a melee that 
 lasted about two minutes. Most of the Lancers were so 
 wedged in the crowd that all they could do was to hold 
 together in small parties and urge their horses forward. 
 Their lances were useless after the first shock. Around 
 them the fanatic tribesmen surged in a dense crowd, those 
 who were nearest to the horsemen stabbing and hamstring- 
 ing the horses, striking at the riders with sword or spear, 
 or trying to drag them down from the saddle. Then the 
 Lancers broke through, and came struggling out of the 
 press, some dismounted, many wounded. As they got clear 
 of the enemy they faced about and re-formed. 
 
 In the two minutes' fight officers, 65 men, and 119 horses 
 had been killed or wounded. Colonel Martin had come 
 through untouched, though he had led the charge without
 
 OMDURMAN 317 
 
 drawing either sword or pistol. Major Wyndham had his 
 horse killed, and fought his way out on foot. Lieutenant 
 Molyneux had his horse shot dead as he rode into the 
 hollow. He fell among the enemy, but regained his feet, 
 and shot a Dervish who attacked him. As he did so an- 
 other Dervish slashed his arm with a sword, and he dropped 
 his revolver. Wounded and disarmed, he was trying to 
 struggle out of the crowd, and had nearly reached safety, 
 when four spearmen barred his way. At this moment up 
 rode Private Byrne, already badly wounded by a bullet. 
 He had turned back on seeing the officer's peril. He rode 
 at and scattered the spearmen, receiving a lance wound in 
 the chest as he did so, and then brought Molyneux in hold- 
 ing by his stirrup leather. Byrne was covered with blood 
 from his two wounds ; but he took his place in the ranks, 
 and at first refused to fall out, begging to be allowed " to 
 have another go at them." 
 
 Lieutenant Nesham had a wonderful escape. His bridle 
 was cut, his left hand nearly severed by a sword-cut, his 
 helmet hacked down to the scalp, and his thigh pierced 
 by a spear. The Dervishes caught him by the legs to pull 
 him down ; but this drove the spurs in, and his horse, though 
 already badly wounded, made a wild bound that shook the 
 assailants off and carried him out of the throng. Lieutenant 
 Grenfell, the son of Lord Grenfell, had his horse killed. 
 He fought on foot, pistol in hand; but when he had fired 
 the six shots he fell riddled with spear wounds. When 
 the regiment rallied, Captain Kenna, who had already gal- 
 lantly helped Major Wyndham to escape, rode back into 
 the Dervish swarm, followed by Lieutenant de Montmorency 
 and Corporal Swarbrick, to save young Grenfell. if he still 
 lived, or recover the body if he were dead. They found 
 Grenfell lying dead, pierced with many wounds, on the 
 slope of the hollow, and some Dervishes hacking at the 
 body with their swords. They drove them off, and were
 
 3i8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 placing the body on a horse when the animal bolted. Then 
 a strong party of Dervishes rushed at them, and they had 
 to abandon their attempt and rejoin the regiment. 
 
 Lieutenant Winston Churchill was one of the few officers 
 who came out of the charge unwounded and with his horse 
 untouched, and with even his clothing and saddlery unin- 
 jured. He gives a very interesting account of his sensations 
 during the critical two minutes : 
 
 " The whole scene flickered exactly like cinematograph picture ; 
 and, besides, I remember no sound. The event seemed to pass in 
 absolute silence. The yells of the enemy, the shouts of the soldiers, 
 the firing of many shots, the clashing of sword and spear, were un- 
 noticed by the senses, unregistered by the brain. Several others say 
 the same." 
 
 The Dervishes rallied in their hollow after the melee, 
 defiant and exultant. Two hundred yards away the Lancers 
 had re-formed in line, about 200 effective men, and even of 
 these many were wounded, and numbers of horses still in 
 the ranks had been badly hurt. All were eager to charge 
 again, but Colonel Martin felt that another melee amid such 
 stubborn foes might mean the destruction of the regiment. 
 He formed column of troops, and under a spatter of fire 
 from the enemy he led his men round to the ground be- 
 tween the Dervishes and the river. There he halted, and 
 sent forward a firing line of dismounted men with carbines 
 to drive the enemy out of the hollow. This proved effective, 
 and the enemy soon retreated behind the shoulder of Jebel 
 Surgham, leaving a very few dead behind them. The easy 
 and rapid success of this attack suggests that the charge — 
 brilliant feat of arms as it was — might be considered an 
 unnecessary sacrifice. 
 
 To the leading brigades of the infantry, forming for the 
 march on Omdurman, all that had been seen of the Lancers' 
 charge was a great cloud of sand and dust shooting up 
 towards the sky. The British Division had formed with its
 
 flUWAD HtLU SkOSMAW SHUK-lD-Oin'S 
 
 ■'% 
 
 
 ■riM Briqades in ecVielon |or oHvance south.. 
 ED&a „ jorimed to trLSef the Khali/o.'3 ottoik 
 i LyttelTONS Briijcule^ 
 
 L. W/lUtHOPES 
 
 3 Maxweuls 
 -i, Lewis's • 
 
 •;■ MacdowalD's . 
 6 collinson's » 
 >- i — -Wau.cKop£ qoxnc^ 
 to re^rvforce Mfluuionold 
 ^ { Gu»xboo.ts 
 
 
 "^-^ 
 
 YAKUB & 
 the Khalifa 
 attackino 
 
 ^^^. 
 
 \ (=■' 
 
 .1 1 
 
 SurqKcmCw / 
 
 e o 
 
 )/ the 
 
 list. Lancers I 
 
 a; 
 
 -fo 
 
 \ \ 
 
 _L 
 
 _i Miles 
 
 UlBi 
 
 No. 22 — Battle of Omdurman. II. IMovement.s in the Sec- 
 ond Phase of the Ficht
 
 OMDURMAN 319 
 
 left towards the Nile, facing south. Six hundred yards to 
 its right rear was Maxwell's Brigade. Next, and still 
 farther from the river, came Lewis, and another 600 yards 
 farther back Macdonald's Brigade of one Egyptian and 
 three black battalions. Nearer the river marched Collinson's 
 reserve brigade with the baggage. Macdonald was farthest 
 out into the desert and nearest to the hills, behind which it 
 was known that great masses of the enemy had disappeared. 
 So General Hunter, who arranged the details of the move- 
 ment for the Egyptian Division, strengthened Macdonald 
 with three batteries of artillery and eight Maxim guns. 
 
 The army, thus re-formed in a great echelon of brigades 
 to move on the city, had hardly begun its march when the 
 battle suddenly blazed out again, more furiously than ever. 
 There was first a crackle of firing from the crest of Jebel 
 Surgham, which the enemy's riflemen had re-occupied. 
 Then a great wave of fighting men, with war drums beat- 
 ing, horns sounding, and rifles firing from their front, swept 
 round the north shoulder of the hill, rushing in an eager 
 onset towards Maxwell's Brigade. On the left of the attack 
 the charging line prolonged itself farther and farther along 
 the rise of the desert towards the Kerreri Hills; on the 
 right, a mass of spears topped the crest of Surgham. High 
 over the center of the advancing Dervishes towered the 
 Khalifa's black standard. He was charging with his own 
 picked guard, with Yakub's reserve division, the Baggara 
 horsemen, and all that had been rallied from the first 
 attack. 
 
 The onset was something of a surprise, but it was met 
 with disciplined alertness and steadiness by British, Egyp- 
 tians, and Soudanese. Maxwell was nearest to the rush. 
 He swung round his brigade into line, facing west, and 
 opened a rolling fire from cannon and rifle. Away to his 
 right, separated from him by nearly half a mile of desert, 
 Macdonald had as promptly formed his fighting line, bring-
 
 320 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 ing his three batteries of quick-firing guns into action with 
 deadly effect against the Dervish left. Lewis moved up his 
 brigade into the wide gap between Maxwell and Macdonald. 
 The British brigades began to form on Maxwell's left. The 
 Khalifa's onset was more dangerous than the morning at- 
 tack ; for in front of it there was now not a close-formed 
 line, shoulder to shoulder, with its flanks on the river, and 
 a wide field of fire in front, but a hastily-formed line with 
 wide gaps between its units, and its flanks " in air," and in 
 front only a few hundred yards to the points at which the 
 attack broke from cover. 
 
 But splendid as was the Mahdist rush, the fire of the 
 defense stopped and shattered it. As its first fierce impulse 
 died away a new danger appeared. Over the western ridges 
 of Kerreri came another host of enemies — the 20,000 who 
 followed the green standards of Ali Wad Helu and Osman 
 Sheik-ed-Din. 
 
 Their attack was meant, no doubt, to be simultaneous 
 with that of the Khalifa and Yakub. It had come too late ; 
 but even so, Macdonald's Brigade on the extreme right was 
 in deadly peril. For while he was still engaged with 
 Yakub's left — his brigade facing westward — this new 
 army came pouring over the hills on his right flank. It 
 looked as if his four native battalions would be overwhelmed 
 and swept away. The veteran Highlander met the danger 
 with consummate coolness and skill. Still firing with part 
 of his line on Yakub, he gradually changed front, sending 
 one by one his battalions, batteries, and Maxim sections to 
 form on a new front to the north to face the green flag 
 attack. At first he was fighting on two fronts, and the 
 complex manoeuver of the change of front was carried out 
 under a sharp fire, and at a moment when all saw the possi- 
 bility of disaster, with the clockwork precision of a drill 
 parade. In the midst of the crash of the conflict Macdonald 
 was so thoroughly self-possessed that he checked the officers
 
 OMDURMAN 321 
 
 of one of his battalions for beginning to follow another in 
 the change of front before he gave them the order to move. 
 
 There were many losses in the ranks from the heavy fire 
 of the advancing Dervishes. Lieutenant-Colonel Sloggett of 
 the Army Medical Corps was shot down while giving first 
 aid to a wounded man.^ On the right the Dervish rush was 
 stopped at 400 yards ; but on the left it came to perilously 
 close quarters, so close that men were hit by spears hurled 
 by the foremost of the enemy. Lieutenant Smyth of the 
 Royals, Macdonald's stafif officer, was wounded in this way. 
 But just as it seemed that it would come to a desperate 
 hand-to-hand fight of bayonet against spear the Dervishes 
 began to give way. 
 
 Help was coming from various quarters, but Macdonald 
 had won his splendid fight before the first reinforcements 
 actually reached him. The Camel Corps rode up on his 
 right. The Sirdar had sent Wauchope's British Brigade to 
 his help, and the Lincoln Regiment, doubling out in advance, 
 arrived in time to send some rapid volleys from its maga- 
 zine rifles into the breaking ranks of the enemy. The gun- 
 boats fired some long-ranging shells into the rearward sup- 
 ports of the attack. Collinson's Brigade marched up from 
 the river, eager to have a share in the fight ; and Broad- 
 wood's squadrons, formed in line, rode over the broken 
 Kerreri slopes. 
 
 The battle was now won. Ali Wad Hclu was carried oflF 
 badly wounded, and his followers and the Sheik-ed-Din's 
 men were driven into the desert. Maxwell, with Lyttclton's 
 British Brigade on his left, had assumed the offensive, 
 stormed the Surgham crest, and routed the Khalifa's Divi- 
 sion. Lewis had charged at Yakub. The emir was killed 
 and his tribesmen scattered, and the sacred black standard 
 
 * At first he was reported to be dead, but though the bullet had 
 touched the base of the heart, he recovered, and was doing military 
 duty again a few months later.
 
 322 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 of Mahdism was captured by Major Hickman and the 
 Fifteenth Soudanese after a hard struggle, in which many 
 of the KhaUfa's veterans fell fighting to the death in its 
 defense. 
 
 Hickman carried the black flag to the Sirdar, who had 
 ridden with his staff to the top of one of the spurs of Sur- 
 gham. It was unfurled beside him, and at once shells be- 
 gan to burst dangerously near the group of officers. " Down 
 with that flag ! " exclaimed Slatin, the first to realize what 
 was happening. The shells had come from one of the gun- 
 boats, the commander of which had taken the sudden 
 appearance of the black flag on Surgham Hill to be a sign 
 that the Khalifa had rushed the height. 
 
 The Dervishes were now retreating by the desert towards 
 Omdurman. Broadwood, with his cavalry, the Camel Corps, 
 and the horse battery, was hanging on their rear and mak- 
 ing crowds of prisoners. Nearer the city the Twenty-first 
 Lancers were worrying their flank. It was half past eleven. 
 The battle had lasted more than five hours. 
 
 It was now time to reap the fruits of victory. The army 
 was marched to Khor Shambat, just outside the city, where 
 the high Nile had inundated part of the long hollow, and 
 there was a convenient place for the men to rest a while, 
 refill their water-bottles, and eat. The Khalifa had escaped 
 into the city, where his war horns and drums were sound- 
 ing, and he had proclaimed that the place was to be de- 
 fended to the last. But very few rallied to him, most of the 
 beaten army continuing its flight. An offer of terms which 
 the Sirdar sent him by a native envoy was rejected, and 
 at two o'clock Maxwell's Brigade was ordered to march into 
 Omdurman. The Sirdar rode near the head of the column. 
 The captured black standard was carried before him as a 
 visible proof of his victory. Slatin rode beside him, re- 
 entering as a conqueror the city where he had lived as a 
 slave. In the suburbs some of the leading men appeared
 
 OMDURMAN 323 
 
 to offer their submission, and receive from the Sirdar an 
 assurance that all who accepted the new state of things 
 would have nothing to fear from the victors. After this 
 became known the people, who feared a sack and massacre, 
 came in large numbers to welcome the conqueror. 
 
 But there was still some resistance. Here and there 
 shots were fired from housetops, and the gate of the inner 
 wall was strongly held. It was blown in and stormed with 
 the bayonet by the Thirteenth Soudanese. Guided by Slatin, 
 at last the Khalifa's house was reached. Outside the gate a 
 handful of horsemen charged the head of the column. The 
 skirmish, brief as it was, enabled the Khalifa to make his 
 escape at the last moment. 
 
 As the Sirdar entered the courtyard of the house an 
 unfortunate event occurred. There was scattered firing in 
 the city and, under the impression that the Khalifa's house 
 was still being held by the enemy, a battery outside the wall 
 began to throw shells into it. The firing was quickly 
 stopped, but not before a bursting shell had killed the 
 Hon. Hubert Howard, one of the correspondents of the 
 Times. 
 
 The stricken field of Omdurman had broken the power 
 of Mahdism. It was some months before the last scattered 
 bands of Dervishes were hunted down, and the Khalifa 
 himself was killed in battle fighting against a column com- 
 manded by Sir Reginald Wingate, one of Kitchener's most 
 trusted lieutenants and later his successor in the sirdarship. 
 
 Thanks to the superior armament of the Anglo-Egyptian 
 army and the attacks made by the Dervishes in dense 
 masses, the losses of the latter were fearfully heavy, those 
 of the former comparatively trifling. By far the most 
 serious loss incurred in the victorious army was that of the 
 Twenty-first Lancers in their charge. In all the other units, 
 British and Egyptian, the proportion of killed to wounded 
 was singularly low, the result jM-obably of the bad pi^wder
 
 324 
 
 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 with which the enemy's cartridges were loaded. The fol- 
 lowing is a tabular summary of the losses of the Sirdar's 
 army: 
 
 
 Killed 
 
 Wounded 
 
 Totals 
 
 British officers 
 
 Correspondents 
 
 British rank and file ... . 
 
 Native officers 
 
 Native rank and file ... , 
 
 2 
 
 I 
 
 25 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 IS 
 2 
 
 136 
 
 8 
 
 273 
 
 17 
 
 3 
 
 161 
 
 10 
 291 
 
 48 
 
 434 
 
 482 
 
 In the battle about 500,000 bullets and 3500 shells were 
 fired at the Dervishes. The largest expenditure of cart- 
 ridges was that of Macdonald's Brigade — 160,000 rounds. 
 It is estimated that this tornado of fire killed 9700 Dervishes, 
 and at least 10,000 more were wounded, and perhaps a 
 higher number. About 5000 prisoners were taken on the 
 field. 
 
 Omdurman will perhaps rank in history as the last great 
 battle in which a non-European power fought with the 
 weapons and tactics of primitive races against the arms of 
 civilization. Soldiers of the white race can hardly expect 
 to have again the opportunity of winning a decisive victory 
 at so small a cost.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PAARDEBERG 
 February 18, 1900 
 
 The South African War, in vvliicb the militia of the two 
 Boer republics were opposed to the largest army that 
 Britain ever put in the field, began on October ii, 1899, 
 and was ended by the Convention of Vereeniging on May 
 31, 1902. Within a few years the bitter feelings aroused 
 by the unequal conflict were happily obliterated by the 
 creation of a United South Africa, in which those who 
 had fought so long under hostile flags joined hands under 
 the banner of the empire, with Louis Botha, who had been 
 the soul of the long resistance on the Boer side, acting as 
 the first Prime Minister of the Union. 
 
 We have here to deal only with certain military aspects 
 of the war, as exemplified in the battle which was its turn- 
 ing-point. In the course of these narratives of typical battles 
 of the recent period of military history we have seen how, 
 at the Alma, infantry, armed with the muzzle-loading rifle 
 and fighting in line, were able to defy and break up with 
 heavy loss massed columns of attack, armed mainly with 
 the old musket. In the story of Sadowa we saw the breech- 
 loading rifle assert its power over the muzzle-loader. The 
 battles of the French war further enforced the lesson of the 
 terrible power of the new weapon, and the extended firing 
 line became the normal fighting formation of civilized troops. 
 The battles of the American Civil War had proved the 
 worth of improvised fortifications on the battle-field, but 
 it was onlv after Plevna had shown the difficulty of forcing
 
 326 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 such defenses, held by steady infantry armed with the 
 breech-loader, that the full meaning of this lesson was gen- 
 erally appreciated. 
 
 But new inventions further increased the effect of the 
 infantry weapon. Various devices were adopted for en- 
 abling the soldier to reload rapidly from a magazine attached 
 to the rifle, or a clip holding several cartridges. The bore 
 of the barrel was reduced, so as to diminish the air-resistance 
 to the bullet's flight ; and chemical research supplied ex- 
 plosives that not only gave greater driving power, but 
 also produced no cloud of smoke in front of and around 
 the firing line. Infantry armed with the new rifles could 
 thus fire rapidly, with their targets clearly in sight, and 
 send out a shower of bullets whose high velocity gave 
 them a flat line of flight, sweeping the ground for 500 
 or 600 yards. They could make good shooting up to 1000 
 yards, and against closed bodies of troops or other large 
 targets the rifle could now do damage up to a mile and 
 a half. 
 
 There were corresponding improvements in artillery, but 
 it was the coming of the new magazine small-bore and long- 
 range rifles, using smokeless powder, that set the military 
 experts of the world investigating the effect of such weapons 
 on the tactics of the battle-field, and the South African War 
 afforded the first practical test, on a large scale, of the new 
 theories. 
 
 In England, on the eve of the war, there was a complete 
 misconception of the peculiar conditions of the coming con- 
 flict, and the advantages of the new weapons for the defense 
 were greatly underrated. It was expected that the war 
 would be no very serious business, and it was decided that 
 only a single army corps should be sent to South Africa. 
 On the day when Sir Redvers Buller was embarking at 
 Southampton to take command of the army at the front, an 
 old friend of his, the late Charles Williams, came to see him
 
 PAARDEBERG 327 
 
 off. Williams, after having acted as a war correspondent 
 in many campaigns, was then in l^roken health. " I am 
 sorry you cannot come with me," said the general, as he 
 bade him good-by, " But you are not missing much. This 
 little war will be all over by Christmas ! " 
 
 But by Christmas Ladysmith, Kimberley, and Mafeking 
 were besieged by the Boers. They had established their 
 commandos in the north of Cape Colony. Besides winning 
 minor successes, they had defeated in one week Gatacre at 
 Stormberg, Methuen at Magersfontein, and Buller himself 
 at Colenso. The whole British plan of campaign had gone 
 to pieces. Reinforcements were being hurried to South 
 Africa from all parts of the empire, Lord Roberts was on 
 his way to the Cape to save the situation, and Lord Kitchener 
 had been called from the Nile to assist him in solving the 
 difficult problem of breaking this unexpectedly formidable 
 resistance of an army of farmers. 
 
 Such was the fighting power that the Boers had shown 
 that at the time their numbers were greatly overestimated. 
 It was long before it was realized that Buller had been re- 
 pulsed from the crossing of the Tugela at Colenso by 5000 
 riflemen and a few guns. But the Boers owed their first 
 successes as much to the blunders of their opponents as to 
 their own remarkable aptitude for defensive war. They 
 were largely an army of mounted riflemen. They could thus 
 make long and rapid marches, and concentrate on a threat- 
 ened point long before it could be reached by the British 
 soldiers, plodding along slowly, with the further encum- 
 brance of a long train of heavy transport wagons. They 
 had up-to-date repeating rifles, and were good shots. They 
 knew how to make the nx'ky kopje or the hollow of a 
 river-bed into an improvised fortress. Tin- war began in 
 the South African summer, when wide stretches of the 
 rolling expanse of the veldt are almost a desert. The 
 British commanders were at first so short of transport that
 
 328 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 they could only operate near a railway line, from which 
 they could draw supplies. This enabled the Boer leaders 
 to await their advance in prepared positions across their 
 track. The attempt to rush such positions from the front, 
 over open ground swept by the rapid fire of Mauser rifles, 
 held by sharpshooters fighting under cover, proved to be 
 a costly or an impossible operation. 
 
 It was said at the outset of the war that, though the 
 Boers might make a stand among the mountain passes of 
 northern Natal, they would be helpless against disciplined 
 troops on the open plains of the Free State and the Bechu- 
 analand border. But at the Modder River it was found that 
 the low sweeping showers of bullets could make a hollow 
 in an open plain all but impregnable ; and at Magersfontein, 
 instead of occupying the kopjes, the Boers dug their trenches 
 on the level ground in front of them. 
 
 Lord Roberts arrived in South Africa when the fortunes 
 of the British arms were at their lowest. There was an 
 appalling record of costly failures ; and Kimberley and 
 Ladysmith were closely besieged, and were believed to be 
 near the end of their resources. He completely altered the 
 situation by a new policy. By the beginning of February 
 he had concentrated along the railway on the western border 
 of the Free State an army of four infantry divisions, with 
 a cavalry division under General French. In all, there were 
 about 45,000 men. It was not a large army, but, unlike 
 every British force that had till now been got together in 
 South Africa, it ivas mobile. It was no longer tied to a 
 railway line, for with Kitchener's help Roberts had formed 
 an adequate wagon train for transport and supply. The 
 new field army could go anywhere, and French's division of 
 cavalry, horse artillery, and mounted riflemen could move 
 as quickly as the Boers themselves. 
 
 His plan was to relieve Kimberley, not by a costly frontal 
 attack on the Magersfontein kopjes, where Cronje's bur-
 
 PAARDEBERG 329 
 
 ghers were entrenched on the direct Hne of approach along 
 the railway, but by entering the Free State and sending 
 French to sweep rapidly round, eastward and northward, 
 across the fords of the Riet and Modder rivers. Methuen's 
 Division would watch Cronje's front, while the rest of the 
 army, following up French, would outflank him. His force 
 would be destroyed, or at least cut off from the Free State. 
 Roberts would then march across the open veldt on Bloem- 
 fontein. This movement would, it was expected, help 
 Buller to relieve Ladysmith by making the Free State 
 burghers hurry back from Natal to the defense of their 
 capital. 
 
 This was the plan which, though it did not work out 
 quite as smoothly as had been anticipated, not only suc- 
 ceeded, but changed the whole situation in South Africa. 
 Cronje, covering the siege of Kimberley in his entrench- 
 ments at Magersfontein, was not alarmed at the first reports 
 that British cavalry had crossed the Free State border and 
 were moving towards the drifts (wagon fords) of the Mod- 
 der. He said that the British could not send any big force 
 far from the railway. When they advanced to the rescue 
 of the " Diamond City " they would have to march near the 
 line, and he would stop them again in front of the Magers- 
 fontein ridge. He would not worry himself about mere 
 cavalry raids. All he did was to send off parties of his 
 best mounted men, under Commandants Froneman ami 
 Christian de Wet, to observe the movements of the cavalry. 
 Some of the foreign officers who were with Cronje warned 
 him that French's advance would be the prelude of a great 
 movement round his flank that would make the Magersfon- 
 tein position untenable, and they urged him to move before 
 it was too late. He would not listen to their atlvice. " "S'l'U 
 can teach me nothing of war." he said to the French Colonel 
 Villebois de Mareuil. " I was winning battles when you 
 were a boy at school."-
 
 330 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 French had started on his march from the railway on 
 February ii. On the twelfth he crossed the river Riet at 
 De Kiel's Drift. Then riding nearly directly north across 
 the veldt, through a blaze of heat that played sad havoc 
 with his horses, he seized Rondeval and Klip Drifts on the 
 Modder on the evening of the thirteenth. There was a brief 
 halt to rest horses and men and allow the infantry to close 
 up to the river. As soon as General Kelly-Kenny's Division 
 appeared, French crossed by Rondeval Drift. A few miles 
 north he found Froneman's burghers extended in a long, 
 thin firing line on a semicircle of hills across his path. He 
 formed a column of brigades, and swept through them in a 
 splendid charge, with a loss of less than 'a score of men. 
 The way to Kimberley was now open. On the alarm of his 
 approach the besiegers had broken up, and were retiring 
 northwards and eastwards. On the evening of February 15 
 French rode into the city. Next morning he went out to 
 the northwards to try to capture the siege artillery of the 
 Boers, but they got their guns away safely. 
 
 On the afternoon of the fifteenth Cronje had an anxious 
 time in his laager near the Magersfontein Kopje. The stub- 
 born old burgher chief had at last woke up to the fact that 
 this was no mere cavalry raid into the Free State, but that 
 a great army had crossed its border. Froneman rode in 
 and told of the long array of squadrons and horse batteries 
 that had swept like a hurricane through his broken line, 
 and dashed northwards to fall upon the besiegers of Kim- 
 berley. Then in his own front Methuen's guns began a 
 fierce bombardment of the Magersfontein lines — the usual 
 prelude of an attack. Finally, there was news that showed 
 that it was not only in his front and away to the eastward 
 at Klip Drift that his enemies were in force ; for a British 
 column had stormed Jacobsdal, which had been for months 
 his depot of supplies. Some hundreds of the Transvaal men, 
 without consulting him or waiting for orders, saddled up
 
 
 KIMSERLEX 
 
 1P <f V 
 
 MUes. 
 
 "■W IWitkrvcd Drift (Conrou^LSptared hi^DtMl^.Ftb/s). 
 
 No. 23 — The Relief of Kimberley and Cronje's Retreat to 
 
 Paardeberg
 
 PAARDEBERG 331 
 
 and rode away to cross the Vaal at Barkly West, and so 
 rejoin the besiegers of Kimberley in their retreat. Clearly 
 the end had come. To remain longer at Magersfontein 
 would be to be hopelessly surrounded there. 
 
 One of the foreign officers who were with him says that 
 for some time Cronje was in a state bordering on collapse. 
 He sat in his tent in moody silence, with his brave wife, 
 who tried to comfort and encourage him. A more energetic 
 and resourceful soldier would have realized that Roberts was 
 taking great risks, and would have collected all his best 
 men for a wide sweeping move against the railway. But 
 at this stage of the war even the younger Boer leaders were 
 only just beginning to find out the value of aggressive 
 tactics. This very evening De Wet, who had ridden away 
 to the southwards, was nearly wrecking Roberts's plan by 
 capturing the great supply convoy at Waterval Drift on the 
 Riet, but even he did not understand how to follow up and 
 reap the full fruits of his success. And Cronje, when he 
 began to form a plan, thought only of escaping. His best 
 line of retreat would have been that which some of his men 
 had already taken — across the Vaal, northwest of Kim- 
 berley. But what Froneman had told him of French's army 
 of horsemen made him afraid to take that line, and he de- 
 cided to try to reach Bloemfontein by a march along the 
 Modder. He would have to pass across the front of the 
 British outposts at Klip Drift and be well on his way east- 
 ward before French could be recalled from Kimberley. To 
 do this he would have to make a forced march during the 
 night. 
 
 Late in the afternoon he sent orders to the burghers 
 to evacuate their trenches and laagers as silently as i)os- 
 sible as soon as it was dark that evening, and assemble 
 at the head laager behind the Magersfontein ridgo. ll 
 was near midnight when all were mustered and ready to 
 march.
 
 332 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 He had some 5000 men with him, of whom about one- 
 third were on foot. There were large numbers of women 
 and many children. These would travel in the wagons, of 
 which there were several hundred. For want of sufficient 
 oxen for the teams he had to abandon 80 wagons before he 
 started. It was a fine, bright moonlight night, and the long 
 column of horsemen and wagons trailed out along the veldt, 
 moving in no set order, but with mounted scouts guarding 
 its front and flanks. It is strange that no effort had been 
 made to keep a watch on Cronje. French could at least 
 have spared a squadron to move towards Magersfontein as 
 he dashed for Kimberley. Patrols could have been sent 
 along the Riet and Modder from Jacobsdal and Klip Drift, 
 and Methuen might have kept a closer watch on the position 
 in his front. None of these precautions were taken. The 
 result was that, all unknown to the British, who lay north, 
 south, and east of him, Cronje's huge column moved safely 
 across the veldt through the moonlit night. Had he chosen 
 to abandon a few more of his cumbrous wagons, had he 
 succeeded in marching just a mile or two more before the 
 sun rose, he would have been out of sight behind the kopjes 
 northeast of Klip Drift by daylight on the sixteenth, and 
 would have been safe at Bloemfontein before Roberts had 
 any explanation of his mysterious disappearance. 
 
 As it was, he very nearly got away unseen. At 6 a. m. 
 Kitchener was with Kelly-Kenny on a kopje on the south 
 bank of the Modder looking down on Klip Drift. A brigade 
 of mounted infantry had crossed the river en route for 
 Kimberley. Their advanced guard was moving up the hol- 
 low of the hills, where French had charged the day before, 
 when over the ridges to their right they saw a great 
 dust-cloud rising — the sure sign of a large column on 
 the move. And across their front came an ox wagon, a 
 straggler from Cronje's convoy. The wagon was promptly 
 captured, and its occupants admitted that they had marched
 
 PAARDEBERG 333 
 
 all night with Cronje, who was east of the kopjes with a 
 large convoy. 
 
 Boer scouts, who were still on the hilltops, saw the wagtMi 
 taken. The mounted infantry halted, and signals were being 
 exchanged with the British outposts at the drift. Kitchener 
 had sent an immediate order, " Go for the convoy " ; but the 
 mounted infantry, a newly-formed force, many of whose 
 units were not yet quite at home in the saddle, wasted some 
 time before riding for the ridge on their right, and by the 
 time they were on the move it had been strongly reoccupied 
 by Cronje's rearguard under Commandant Roos, to wIk^sc 
 help the artillery commander, Albrecht, sent back a field- 
 gun and a pom-pom. The mounted infantry rode for the 
 end of the ridge nearest the river ; but the Boer shells and 
 rifles drove them back, and they blundered into a stretch of 
 bog by the Modder, where for a while all was hopeless con- 
 fusion. Kitchener and Kelly-Kenny then brought an in- 
 fantry brigade and some batteries into action ; but Roos held 
 on to his position for more than three hours, and only aban- 
 doned it when Cronje had marched another five miles, passed 
 the kopjes north of Dreiput Drift, and formed up another 
 rearguard upon them. Roos galloped back to the Drci])ut 
 kopjes and fought another successful rearguard action there. 
 He was still holding his ground when the sun set and 
 darkness stopped the attack. 
 
 After dark Cronje marched again. He now felt quite 
 safe; and safe enough he would have been if he had 
 marched all night. But many of his teams were showing 
 signs of fatigue, and instead of lightening his convoy by 
 abandoning some of the wagons, he halted for nearly four 
 hours after midnight to rest the oxen. Before sunrise he 
 was again moving slowly eastward. At nine he was pass- 
 ing Paardeberg Hill. A little before eleven he halted on 
 the north side of Vendutie Drift, and prepared to cross, the 
 convoy meanwhile forming U]) in a laager of many lines,
 
 334 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 while horses and oxen rested and grazed on the patches of 
 veldt grass, and the women began to cook a meal for the 
 men. 
 
 Cronje now felt he had succeeded. It would take some 
 hours to pass the heavy wagons down the slope of the drift 
 into the deep hollow of the Modder and up the opposite 
 bank. Then he would be on the fair way to Bloemfontein, 
 having shaken off all pursuit. He had hopes of immediate 
 reinforcement. Commandant Ferreira, with 1500 or more of 
 the besiegers of Kimberley, had ridden eastwards, and it 
 was thought he might be somewhere near the drift. A 
 signaling party with a heliograph was sent out to the high 
 ground north of Kameelfontein Farm to try to get into touch 
 with him. 
 
 There were as yet no signs of the pursuit from the west. 
 Cronje flattered himself that he had shaken it off. But now 
 there came a surprise for him. Into the laager crashed a 
 bursting shell, and then another and another. A battery had 
 suddenly come into action against the great mass of wagons 
 and oxen, men and horses. And the hostile guns were 
 where no one expected them ; not to the west, but north- 
 ward between Kameelfontein and the wagon laager. Formed 
 bodies of mounted men were moving near the guns. French 
 had suddenly come on the scene. It was one of his two 
 horse artillery batteries that had opened on the laager, where 
 for the moment there was something like a panic, horses 
 and oxen breaking away on the veldt, and men running to 
 the shelter of the deeply-hollowed river-bed. 
 
 On the sixteenth, when Roberts heard that Cronje had 
 marched in the night past the Klip Drift outposts, he tele- 
 graphed to Methuen at Modder Bridge camp to ascertain 
 whether the Magersfontein lines were really abandoned by 
 the enemy. It was not till half past eleven that Methuen 
 was able to verify this. Meanwhile information sent by 
 Kitchener had satisfied Roberts that Cronje, with a large
 
 PAARDEBERG 335 
 
 force, was trying to escape eastward. He ordered Colvile's 
 Division, which inchided the Highland Brigade, to reinforce 
 Kelly-Kenny, and telegraphed to the latter that he was 
 to take any directions given by Kitchener as coming from 
 himself. He also tried to telegraph to French at Kimberley 
 to make a forced march and head off Cronjc. But the 
 message did not get through. The field telegraph cable that 
 had been laid down as the cavalry advanced had been inter- 
 rupted.^ When French returned to Kimberley in the after- 
 noon from his unsuccessful pursuit of the Boers, there were 
 rumors in the town that Cronje was retiring along the 
 Modder, but no attempt was made to verify the report. 
 French went early to bed, after telling his officers that the 
 brigade would have a rest next day. Before midnight he 
 was roused, for a message from Roberts had been signaled 
 on by flashlight from Methuen at Modder camp, and a 
 despatch rider had come in from Klip Drift with a letter 
 from Kitchener. These messages told of Cronje's escape, 
 and directed French to march at once and head him off 
 east of Paardeberg. 
 
 The cavalry brigade was in no condition for another 
 forced march. So many horses had broken down under 
 the trying work of the last few days that only 1200 men 
 would be available at the outset. By 3 a. m. French rode 
 off with Broadwood's Brigade and two batteries. To reach 
 the point named in his orders, the Koodoosrand Drift cast 
 of Vendutie Drift, he had nearly 30 miles to go with tired 
 horses and men. 
 
 He reached the high ground north of Vendutie Drift soon 
 after Cronje laagered his convoy. Albrccht brought three 
 guns into action against the horse artillery. Along the 
 Koodoosrand kopjes dismounted troopers skirmished with 
 
 ' According to one account, it had been burnt through by a fire 
 in the veldt grass ; according to another, it was cut by Cronje's men 
 during the night march.
 
 336 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the Boer riflemen. French was short-handed, and could only 
 hold on to his position till further units of his division 
 joined him. If the Boers had been more aggressive, he 
 might have paid dearly for his daring dash upon their line 
 of retreat; for Ferreira, with his 1500, was only a few 
 miles away, and had actually come in touch with the brigade 
 on the march. But when he saw the cavalry he had lost 
 heart and drawn ofT again to the northward. Had he come 
 on in earnest when he heard the cannon near Paardeberg, 
 French's tired handful of lancers and hussars might have 
 been caught between hammer and anvil. 
 
 Round the laager and along the river banks the Boers 
 were digging entrenchments. There was not very much 
 water in the Modder, and men and animals and some of the 
 wagons found shelter on the dry strips of river margin 
 under its high banks. In the afternoon the mounted infantry 
 began to arrive from the westward, and skirmished with a 
 Boer rearguard near Paardeberg Hill. Kelly-Kenny's Divi- 
 sion, followed later by Colvile's, halted after dark on the 
 south bank of the Modder, near Paardeberg Drift. Kit- 
 chener was with the vanguard, eager for action. But it was 
 too late, and the men were too tired, for a serious attack 
 to be made before next day. Kitchener lay down and slept 
 on the ground near the outpost line. If the Boers did not 
 succeed in slipping away in the night, he meant to storm 
 the laager in the morning. 
 
 Cronje held a council of war in the evening. Most of 
 his officers urged him to cross the drift under cover of the 
 darkness and march away, even if some of the convoy had 
 to be left behind. A messenger came in from Ferreira 
 promising cooperation, and suggesting that he should break 
 out to the northwards. But Cronje stubbornly rejected 
 all advice. He would stay and fight, and make the river- 
 bed a fortress; and the British, he predicted, would first 
 be unable to rush it, and then would find that they could
 
 PAARDEBERG 337 
 
 not keep an army round him, far from the railway, and 
 with the Boer commandos on the vckh worrying their 
 convoys. 
 
 Long before daybreak Kitchener was up and arranging 
 for the projected attack. At 3 a. m. he told Colonel Hannay, 
 commanding the brigade of mounted infantry, to move up 
 to the drifts east of the laager, seize them, send some of 
 his men across, and be ready to attack from that side. As 
 the sun rose and showed the Boers still halted by the river, 
 Kitchener met Kelly-Kenny and outlined to him his plan for 
 storming the laager and the entrenchments along the hollow 
 of the Modder. 
 
 The position was briefly this : Cronje's exact force was 
 not known. He had some thousands of fighting men, with 
 a very few guns and an enormous convoy. The convoy 
 lay huddled in a great mass in the sloping depression of 
 the veldt north of Vendutie Drift. The deep trough of the 
 river-bed, with the dense bush that bordered much of its 
 course, was held by the Boer riflemen for about a couple 
 of miles along the winding course of the Modder, both above 
 and below the laager ; and they had dug trenches and rifle- 
 pits in the banks, and sent parties to hold the drifts east- 
 ward as far as Koodoosrand. They were thus holding a 
 long front, in which there must be a good deal of ground 
 weakly garrisoned. North of the river was a semicircle of 
 hills, nine miles from point to point. French had his guns 
 on the slope of this amphitheater, and blockaded the river 
 fortress on this side. On the south side the slope of the 
 ground from the river was broken by a series of kopjes, 
 whose lower spurs offered good positions for guns to com- 
 bine with those on the north side in bombarding the laager 
 and the river entrenchments. For the attack there were 
 some 15,000 men available. While the artillery was at work, 
 the troops would be pushed forward along the riverside, both 
 from east and west, and the laager would be rushed b\ a
 
 338 FAMOUS xMODERN BATTLES 
 
 combined attack from both sides/ Kelly-Kenny was op- 
 posed to the plan, and gave it as his opinion that an assault 
 would be premature, and probably unnecessary. Every hour 
 was bringing reinforcements, and Cronje could be effectually 
 dealt with by investing and bombarding the laager. If he 
 tried to break out he would be easily driven back, and his 
 improvised fortress would be a trap for him. 
 
 But Kitchener's mind was already made up. It would be 
 better to finish the business at one stroke. Kelly-Kenny still 
 held to his own opinion that the slow and sure method was 
 the better one ; but the chief of the staff could speak with 
 
 * The forces available on the morning of the eighteenth were : 
 
 North bank of the Modder. — General French. 
 
 Broadwood's Cavalry Brigade and 12 guns R.H.A. (Gordon's Bri- 
 gade and two more batteries expected from Kimberley during 
 the day). 
 
 South bank of the Modder. — General Lord Kitchener. 
 
 (a) Colonel Hannay's Mounted Infantry Brigade. — Second, 
 Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh battalions Mounted In- 
 fantry and the New South Wales Mounted Infantry and 
 Kitchener's Horse (this last a South African corps). 
 
 (fc) The Sixth Infantry Division. — General Kelly-Kenny. 
 
 Thirteenth Brigade (Knox). — Second East Kent, Second 
 
 Gloucester, First West Riding, First Oxfordshire Light 
 
 Infantry. 
 Eighteenth Brigade (Stephenson). — First Yorks, First 
 
 Essex, First Welsh. 
 Artillery. — Seventy-sixth, Eighty-first, and Eighty-second 
 
 batteries R.F.A. ; two naval 12-pounders. 
 
 (c) The Ninth Infantry Division. — General Colvile. 
 
 Third {Highland) Brigade (Macdonald). — Second Black 
 Watch, Second Seaforth Highlanders, First Argyll and 
 Sutherland Highlanders. 
 
 Nineteenth Brigade (Smith-Dorrien). — First Gordon High- 
 landers, Second Duke of Cornwall's L.I., Second Shrop- 
 shire, Royal Canadian Regiment. 
 
 Artillery. — Eighty-third, Eighty- fourth, and Eighty-fifth 
 R.F.A. ; Sixty-fifth R.F.A. (Howitzers); two naval 4.7 
 guns; two naval 12-pounders.
 
 PAARDEBERG 
 
 339 
 
 the authority of Lord Roberts, and as he had beg-un to issue 
 his orders for the attack, it was no use arguing the matter 
 further. So that day saw the hard fight that is known as 
 the battle of Paardeberg, the most costly day's work of the 
 war, but at the same time its turning-point ; at first sight a 
 failure, but really the beginning of decisive success. 
 
 It was Kitchener's first battle in South Africa. He fought 
 it under endless difficulties. It was an improvised attack, 
 carried through without the help of a properly organized 
 stafif, and with a divided command. French's cooperation 
 was all-important ; but until after half past seven it was not 
 possible to signal to him even the briefest message, for the 
 sky was packed with rain clouds, and (an unusual experience 
 at that season in South Africa) there was not one ray of 
 sunlight with which to set the heliographs flashing their dots 
 and dashes from hill to hill across the river. Battalions and 
 batteries had to be moved out in the twilight over unfamiliar 
 ground from the points where they had happened to halt the 
 night before. 
 
 Hannay's Mounted Infantry were the first to move. 
 Leaving the Second and Seventh M.I. near Paardeberg 
 Drift, he marched eastward with the rest between the kopjes 
 and the river. The Second M.I. sent a company across the 
 river at Paardeberg Drift to reconnoiter the farther bank, 
 while the Seventh began to explore the broken ground and 
 bush above the drift on the south bank. The Boers were on 
 the alert, and both parties were fired on wherever they ap- 
 proached the riverside. Those who had crossed found that 
 at the sharp bend of the Modder above Paardeberg Drift a 
 " donga," or dry hollow, running up towards Gun Hill was 
 strongly held by the enemy. 
 
 While this skirmishing was in progress, there was an- 
 other fight just south of the drift opposite the laager, where 
 one of Hannay's detachments of mounted infantry — " Kit- 
 chener's Horse" — going too far to the left, came under
 
 340 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 fire from a Boer trench at a range of only 400 yards. Some 
 of them turned and rode away towards the kopjes, others dis- 
 mounted and rephed. They found themselves under such a 
 rapid and well-aimed fire that advance and retreat were alike 
 out of the question. They lay flat, and sent back a few 
 random shots, while the bullets of unseen enemies whistled 
 closely over them from the belt of bush along the riverside. 
 
 At 6 A. M. the Sixth Division (Kelly-Kenny) began to 
 form for the attack. Kitchener sent off Brigadier-General 
 Stephenson with the Welsh and Essex regiments to support 
 Hannay in his move on the upper drifts. The rest of 
 Stephenson's Brigade and the whole of Knox's were to form 
 the main attack, advancing against the Boer trenches along 
 the south bank below the laager. Colvile had ridden up to 
 Signal Hill, and the leading brigade of his division — Mac- 
 donald's Highlanders — was coming up between the hill and 
 the river. 
 
 Two batteries had been placed in position on a knoll east 
 of Signal Hill. Shortly before seven Kitchener ordered 
 them to open on the laager and the Boer position in the 
 river-bed near it. French's guns quickly joined in from 
 the northern slopes. Other batteries were brought up, and 
 through the long day, whatever was the fate of the battle, 
 the converging shell-fire poured into the Boer camp. Cap- 
 tain Boyle, one of French's staff, noted in his diary his im- 
 pression of the bombardment. 
 
 " All the day (he writes) without intermission till 7 p. m., the 
 guns threw shrapnel and lyddite into the laager and river-bed. 
 Wagon after wagon of ammunition exploded like a terrific fusillade 
 for over an hour, and meanwhile the infantry began their advance. 
 It seemed as if no living man could ever come out of that laager. 
 Sh'ell after shell, the livelong day, dropped into their very center; 
 yet no surrender, no white flag was shown." 
 
 When Kitchener saw the Boer wagons taking fire and 
 the ammunition exploding, Albrecht's guna silenced, and the.
 
 PAARDEBERG 341 
 
 infantry lines working steadily forward to the river bank, 
 he took a sanguine view of the prospect. Turning to a 
 group of officers he said cheerfully, " It is now seven, we 
 shall be in the laager by half past ten. I shall then load up 
 French and send him on to Bloemfontein at once." Per- 
 haps he was thinking of another " laager " — Mahmoud's 
 zareba on the Atbara — which he had stormed with a rush 
 of infantry after a brief bombardment. But here the attack, 
 which at first had gone rapidly forward towards the winding 
 belt of green scrub that marked the river line, began to move 
 more slowly, and came to a standstill. A point had been 
 reached beyond which progress was more difficult. About 
 300 yards from the south bank of the river there was a low 
 ridge of rocks and boulders which afforded some cover. 
 Here the advancing infantry gathered in a strong firing line ; 
 but the open ground beyond was swept with a deadly hail 
 of bullets from the enemy's trenches, and for some time the 
 forward move was stopped. 
 
 Colvile had as yet received no orders, but on his own 
 initiative he was preparing to send his division across Paar- 
 deberg Drift, to attack the laager by a move up the north 
 bank. But on a request from Kitchener to support the left 
 of Knox's attack, he sent Macdonald's Highland Brigade up 
 the south bank from near the drift. At the storming of the 
 Dervish zareba on the Atbara, where the enemy's fire was 
 contemptible, Macdonald had successfully taken his Sou- 
 danese Brigade into action shoulder to shoulder. But at 
 Magersfontein the Highland Brigade had attacked in the 
 same close formation, and had been hurled back with heavy 
 loss by a burst of Mauser fire. So now the three battalions 
 were formed in three long parallel lines in single file, with 
 four paces between each man and his immediate follower. 
 They moved up the river bank in this thin formation till, 
 as tiiey came under fire, they faced towards the river, and 
 the advance became an extended firing line, with two other
 
 342 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 extended lines following it up. Two and a half brigades 
 were now in action against the Boers along the river west of 
 the laager. It is not likely that there were more than 1200 
 to 1500 men opposed to them in this part of the position, but 
 the repeating rifle had increased at least fourfold the resist- 
 ing power of good shots fighting under cover and well sup- 
 plied with cartridges. 
 
 The sun now broke through the gray clouds, and for a 
 while the heliographs began to flicker out their messages. 
 From the north side French reported that parties of Boers 
 were coming up from the eastward — a sign of an attempt 
 to relieve the beleaguered position. Kitchener signaled back 
 an order for the cavalry to keep off these intruders. On the 
 south bank the preparations for attacking the laager from 
 the eastward were progressing. Hannay's Mounted Infantry 
 had seized the hill that was afterwards known as Kitchener's 
 Kopje, making prisoners of a small party of Boers who were 
 found there. He had pushed on to the crossings at Vander- 
 berg's and Banks drifts, beating off the Boers who were 
 watching them, sent some of his men across, and at Banks 
 Drift got into touch with some of French's men, a squadron 
 of the Twelfth Lancers. 
 
 Dismounted troopers were skirmishing with parties of 
 Boers who had appeared on the Koodoosrand heights. These 
 were Ferreira's men. Some of them crossed by the neigh- 
 boring drift, reached the kopjes on the south bank, and en- 
 gaged the nearest of Hannay's Mounted Infantry. General 
 Stephenson had now arrived to support him with the Welsh 
 and Essex regiments. Sending some of his companies to 
 help in driving back the Boers, who had crossed the river, 
 Stephenson deployed the rest, and opened fire on the laager 
 from the southeast. A battery was sent to him, and the 
 guns began also to fire on the laager. They had not been 
 long in action when suddenly shells burst among them, com- 
 ing not from the laager in their front, but from the hills in
 
 PAARDEBERG 343 
 
 their rear, east of Ostfontein Farm, and four companies 
 of the Welsh regiment that were moving up between these 
 hills and the Modder came under a heavy rifle fire from the 
 same direction. 
 
 This unexpected diversion was the work of Commandant 
 Steyn, a relative of the Free State president. He had been 
 hurried up from Natal with two guns and some hundreds of 
 burghers when the news came that Roberts had invaded the 
 Free State, and he had pushed on to the help of Cronje. 
 The attention of the attack was so riveted on the laager and 
 the fighting along the river that Steyn's artillery fire from 
 the Ostfontein kopjes gave the first news of his arrival. 
 Now the guns of the battery that had been firing on the 
 laager were swung round to silence the intruders. The 
 Welsh and the Essex men, and as many of the mounted 
 infantry as were anywhere near, were also turned to re- 
 pelling the newcomers, and for a while no more was 
 thought of the projected attack on the laager from the 
 eastward. 
 
 On the western side of the battle-field and on the south 
 bank there were moments when it seemed that, despite the 
 steady stream of lead that came sweeping the ground from 
 the riverside trenches, the attack would succeed. Little 
 groups of men worked their way forward by lines of boulders 
 or along the shallow dry watercourses hollowed out during 
 the rains. Colonel Bowles and Brigadier-General Knox 
 were wounded, but the fight was now in the hands of com- 
 pany leaders and sergeants commanding sections. In modern 
 war, once an attack has gained a certain amount of ground 
 and come to a sto]), the only way to carry it forward as a 
 whole is to push in a fairly strong body of fresh men. whose 
 onward dash will carry the rest onward with them. I'ut 
 the Sixth Division had now exhausted its reserves, and 
 there was no means of giving this now impulse to the ad- 
 vance. Some of the Yorkshire men, however, did actually
 
 344 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 reach the river bank. The enemy's fire had slackened in 
 their immediate front, and they suddenly dashed forward 
 with fixed bayonets. The Boers disappeared into the hol- 
 low of the river-bed, and the Yorkshires reached the bank, 
 and even made an attempt to struggle through the Modder 
 and attack the enemy on the north side. One brave fellow, 
 Sergeant Cook, got across, but was shot down as he landed. 
 It was a moment when, if there had been a reserve to 
 throw into the fight, the whole river bank might have 
 been won. As it was, the Yorkshires who had gone for- 
 ward could only take cover and hold on in the bush of the 
 river margin. 
 
 Away to their left three companies of the Highland 
 Brigade crossed by the shallows near Paardeberg Drift. 
 Keeping to the broken ground near the north bank, they 
 began to work their way towards the laager, till, about 
 300 yards from the large gully that ran north from the 
 bend below Gun Hill, they were stopped by a cross-fire from 
 the Boers in the gully and those entrenched in the river 
 banks. The rest of the Highland Brigade were at a stand- 
 still, lying down under fire. Macdonald was hit, and had to 
 hand over the command to one of his colonels. 
 
 It was now long after ten o'clock, and the laager, though 
 heavily bombarded, was as safe as ever from direct attack. 
 Kitchener came back to Signal Hill, where for the first time 
 that day he met Colvile. Of the Ninth Division only the 
 Highland Brigade was as yet in action, so Colvile had still 
 in hand Smith-Dorrien's Brigade (Gordon Highlanders, 
 Canadians, Cornwalls, and Shropshires). He had originally 
 intended to send all his division to the north side of the 
 Modder, and Kitchener now agreed that Smith-Dorrien's 
 four battalions and some guns should be sent across Paarde- 
 berg Drift. A battery followed, and was posted near Gun 
 Hill. To its right the Shropshires and Cornwalls formed 
 to attack the gully and the river trenches near it. The
 
 
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 PAARDEBERG 345 
 
 Canadians came next in the line, and then north of Gun 
 Hill the Gordons extended a long firing line, with their 
 extreme left in touch with French. 
 
 Kitchener had now built up the scheme of the western 
 attack so that on both sides of the river a converging fire 
 was being directed against the enemy's positions. But turn- 
 ing to the scene of what was intended to be a simultaneous 
 attack from the eastward, he saw that there all his arrange- 
 ments had gone to pieces, for most of the troops he had 
 sent up the river were still skirmishing with the Boers who 
 had appeared on the Ostfontein heights. Steyn's two guns 
 had been silenced, and Stephenson's two battalions were 
 winning their way up the kopjes. But this meant a com- 
 plete abeyance of the real business of the day. Kitchener 
 heliographed to French, asking him if he could not send 
 some of his cavalry across the river to keep off the intrusive 
 outside Boers ; but French had now nothing to spare, for 
 Ferreira's men had been showing themselves in increasing 
 numbers on his left along the Koodoosrand Hills, and he 
 could just find enough men to check them, for Gordon's 
 Cavalry Brigade had not yet arrived. Gordon was on his 
 way from Kimberley, but with horses so broken down that 
 he had to march his regiments at the walk. 
 
 Kitchener now rode over to the scene of the fighting on 
 the right. The fire of the Boers from the Ostfontein kopjes 
 had almost ceased, and it looked as if they were beaten off. 
 He saw General Stephenson and Colonel Hannay, and told 
 them to disregard everything but the attack on the laager. 
 Hannay's Mounted Infantry were to cross the Moddcr and 
 press on by the right bank, while Stephenson's two battalions 
 attacked along the south side of the river. Hannay, leav- 
 ing a few men to watch the kopjes, collected all the rest of 
 his mounted infantry and, crossing the nearest drift, pushed 
 up to within 700 yards of the laager. There he was stopped 
 by an increasingly heavy fire from the trenches on the
 
 346 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 veldt. Stephenson, on the other bank, did not get so far. 
 He found it impossible to advance beyond the shelter of a 
 dry watercourse about looo yards from the laager. 
 
 It was now near three o'clock. Kitchener still believed 
 that if a combined rush upon the Boer position could be 
 made from all sides at once it would be taken. He sent 
 messages to Colvile and Kelly-Kenny, urging them to push 
 on ; and he himself rode over again to Stephenson, told him 
 to withdraw as many of the Welsh and Essex men as possi- 
 ble from their advanced position, take them across Vander- 
 berg's Drift, and support Hannay's attack. While the in- 
 fantry were crossing, a messenger arrived from Hannay 
 with a report that he found it absolutely impossible to get 
 any further forward. Kitchener sent the messenger back 
 to Hannay with this written order: 
 
 " The time has now come for a final effort. All troops have been 
 warned that the laager must be rushed at all costs. Try and carry 
 Stephenson's Brigade on with you. But if they cannot go, the 
 mounted infantry should do it. Gallop up, if necessary, and fire 
 into the laager." 
 
 It would seem that when he wrote the note the chief of the 
 staff imagined that the reference to Stephenson would be 
 a sufficient indication to Hannay that he was to act with 
 the two infantry battalions that were then crossing the 
 drift. Hannay, unfortunately, took the message to be an 
 order for immediate action ; and without even taking any 
 steps to discover where Stephenson was and what he was 
 doing, and without waiting to collect all the men of his 
 own force who had crossed the river, he got a small party 
 together — some fifty or sixty — ordered them to mount, 
 and putting himself at their head, galloped for the laager. 
 As he dashed through his advanced firing line he shouted 
 to the men to come on with him. A good many ran for- 
 ward on foot, and as the little party on horseback was now
 
 PAARDEBERG 347 
 
 drawing all the fire of the trenches in front, they got to 
 a point about 300 yards from the laager. There they had to 
 stop and throw themselves down, for Hannay's wild charge 
 had ended in failure. Men and horses dropped as he rode 
 on amid a storm of bullets. He was almost alone when 
 he leaped his horse over the Boer trench and fell riddled 
 with Mauser balls fired from rifles that nearly touched him. 
 It was a mad action, but in its very failure it showed that 
 the attack which Kitchener had in mind might have suc- 
 ceeded; for it would have been a very different business if 
 Hannay with all his mounted infantry had ridden up to 
 close quarters, bringing on behind him not a handful of men, 
 but Stephenson's two battalions, ready to dash in with the 
 bayonet. 
 
 As it was, the Welsh and Essex regiments only came 
 into action after Hannay had ridden to his death. They 
 reinforced the firing lines of the mounted infantry, occu- 
 pied some dongas running down to the river a few 
 hundred yards from the laager, and got no further. 
 Stephenson later on brought a party of the Royal Engi- 
 neers across the river, marked out a line of shelter trenches 
 about 1500 yards from the laager, and drew his men back 
 to this position. 
 
 The attack on the west side also failed to get in, but 
 here also there was no organized effort to carry out 
 Kitchener's instructions. The strange thing is that no or- 
 ders or information as to what was intended reached the 
 brigadier Smith-Dorrien, who ought to have been the or- 
 ganizer of the attempt against the west front of the P.ocr 
 laager. At a quarter past five he was surprised at seeing 
 the right of his line suddenly charge forward, gain a few 
 hundred yards of ground, and then come to as sudden 
 a halt, some of the men throwing themselves down, a few 
 running back. It was all over before he could do anything 
 to control or support the movement. Colonel Aldworth of
 
 348 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 the Cornwalls had given the order for the forward rush, 
 apparently under the impression that his brigadier and the 
 other battahon commanders of the brigade had received the 
 same order that had reached him. With the Cornwalls some 
 of the Highlanders and of Colonel Otter's Canadians dashed 
 to the front, the French Canadians shouting, " Vive la 
 Reine!" Men and officers fell fast under the burst of fire 
 that met them as they rose and rushed on. Half the dis- 
 tance to the nearest trench had been covered when Aldworth 
 was hit and dropped. He raised himself on his left elbow, 
 and pointing forward with his sword called out, " Come on, 
 Cornwalls ! " and then sank down and expired. The charge 
 did not go many steps further. The men lay down and be- 
 gan to fire. Here, as elsewhere, partial unsupported assaults 
 ended in defeat. 
 
 While the attacks on the laager were thus giving place 
 to mere efforts to hold the ground that had been gained till 
 nightfall, two new bodies of troops reached the field. Gor- 
 don's cavalry brigade arrived on French's right, and on its 
 appearance Ferreira's burghers withdrew from the Koodoos- 
 rand Hills. The other arrival was De Wet's commando. 
 Late on the evening of the sixteenth he had news that 
 Cronje was trying to reach Bloemfontein, and he marched 
 northwards across the veldt to join him. On the afternoon 
 of the eighteenth he heard the roar of guns from Paarde- 
 berg, and " marched for the cannon." With a quick tactical 
 instinct he made for the hills on the track that leads from 
 the drifts of the battle-field southeast towards Bloemfontein, 
 picked up some of the burghers who had retired from the 
 Ostfontein kopjes, learned from them what the situation 
 was, and then rode hard for Kitchener's Kopje. It was 
 held by only a handful of mounted infantry. Some fifty 
 of them were made prisoners, the rest hustled off the hill. 
 De Wet got up two guns and a pom-pom to the top, opened 
 fire on the rear of the Eighty-first Field Battery, which
 
 PAARDEBERG 349 
 
 was in action against the laager from a position just 
 below the kopje. While the guns were limbering up, he 
 made an attempt to capture them with a rush of his men, 
 who fired as they came on. The battery was saved with 
 difficulty. 
 
 The seizure of the kopje by a force of unknown strength, 
 and accompanied by artillery, turned attention from the 
 laager to this new danger. Kelly-Kenny hurried up men 
 and guns to bar the way of what seemed a determined 
 effort to break through the British positions and join 
 hands with the beleaguered Boers. The coming of dark- 
 ness put an end to a confused fight on the ground between 
 Kitchener's Kopje and the Modder. 
 
 Both sides were utterly exhausted. Kitchener thought 
 for a while of a night attack on the laager, but had to 
 abandon the idea, for the men were " dead beat." After 
 hard marching and scanty sleep they had been fighting for 
 twelve hours under a burning sun, many of them without 
 food or water since a hurried meal at sunrise. The first 
 need of all was a few hours of rest. The Boers felt the 
 want as much as their opponents. They had had a terrible 
 experience, fighting for long hours under a rain of bullets 
 and the ceaseless din of the shells, that burst over trenches 
 and laager, sending down showers of shrapnel balls or shat- 
 tering wagons, and cratering the ground with lyddite ex- 
 plosions. De Wet sent in a message urging Cronje to come 
 out by way of the kopje he had seized; but even if the old 
 burgher leader had consented, his men were too exhausted 
 to march. 
 
 Lord Roberts arrived in the early morning of the nine- 
 teenth. At first it was thought Cronje was about to sur- 
 render, but the message he sent out had been mistranslated. 
 All he asked for was a truce to bury the dead. Kitchener 
 was for renewing the attack ; but Roberts vetoed the pro- 
 posal. The battle had been a costly day's work. More than
 
 350 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 1200 men had been killed or wounded^ — the heaviest loss 
 incurred in a single day during the war. With the field 
 hospitals crowded as they were, he shrank from incurring 
 further loss, and chose the slow but sure plan of closely 
 investing and besieging the laager-fortress. It was no 
 easy matter even to accomplish this. Ferreira, Steyn, 
 and De Wet had to be driven off and held at bay, and 
 the dogged resistance of the Boers worn down ; and the 
 besieging army had to be kept on short rations, for it was 
 a serious business to bring the supply convoys across the 
 veldt. 
 
 Cronje did not surrender till February 27. By that time 
 the British had pushed up the river-bed close to the laager 
 by sap and trench, and were ready to make a final assault, 
 which he could not hope to resist. The victory was all 
 the more welcome because it came on the anniversary 
 of Majuba. For the first time in the weary struggle a 
 solid success had been won, and a Boer army not merely 
 driven off but destroyed. The operations against Cronje, 
 by drawing away large bodies of the Free State men 
 from Natal, had also lightened Buller's task in the relief of 
 Ladysmith. 
 
 For many weeks after Kitchener's battle of Paardeberg 
 the British public at home knew little of what had happened 
 on February 18. The casualty lists were issued, and at first 
 suggested one more " disaster " ; but the censorship cut 
 down the news sent by the correspondents until it became 
 unintelligible. It is hard to understand such mistaken ret- 
 icence. It was an injustice to Kitchener and to the army, 
 for it conveyed a false impression. Looking back on the 
 
 * The British casualties were : 
 
 Killed . . Officers 20 Men 300 Total 320>| Out of 15,000 pres- 
 
 Wounded . Officers 52 Men 890 Total 942 I ent on the field. 
 
 — • I Equal a loss of 
 
 Total 72 1,190 1,262'' about 8 per cent.
 
 PAARDEBERG 351 
 
 battle of Paardeberg, we can now see that it was a turning- 
 point of the war. Had Cronje been allowed a day's rest 
 on February 18, the chances are that by nightfall he would 
 have been moving off to Bloemfontein with De Wet and 
 Steyn. Kitchener had the true idea that he must be held 
 at any cost, and not only held, but grappled with and 
 beaten. With a divided command, and none of the mechan- 
 ism in which armies are directed with certain effect, he 
 did what he could with the means at hand, and it was 
 not his fault that he failed to inspire more cautious leaders 
 with his own fiery energy. Even so, he held Cronje, and 
 handled him so roughly that the investment became possi- 
 ble. The investment proved to be more costly than a 
 renewed assault would have been. There was, it is true, no 
 long catalogue of killed and wounded in battle, but there 
 were terrible lists of deaths from fever and enteric, con- 
 tracted in the half starved camps around the Paardeberg 
 laager. 
 
 Kitchener had fought his way close up to Cronje's lines. 
 A fresh division was at hand for a renewed assault on the 
 nineteenth. But it was vetoed. So Paardeberg, which laid 
 the foundation of success, was counted for a while as a 
 defeat. If we can imagine that on the morrow of Rezonville 
 the old Prussian King had refused to follow up Bazaine, 
 Prince Frederick Charles's fight along the Verdun road on 
 August 16, 1870,^ would not to-day be remembered in Ger- 
 many as the day that prepared the way for the decisive 
 victory of Gravelotte. Kitchener's battle of February 18 
 was, like Rezonville, a fight that was only a beginning. He 
 was not allowed to follow it up; but even so, it nnist be 
 counted as the battle that marked the beginning of a new 
 era in the South African War, the era of energetic effort 
 to compass, not the repulse but the destruction of the enemy 
 — a day, too, on which a soldier of real genius acted on the 
 
 * See chapter vi.
 
 352 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 sound principle that it is the true poHcy to incur even heavy- 
 losses of a few hours' fighting for an adequate object, rather 
 than prolong a conflict for days and weeks by adopting the 
 slower methods that in the end waste life and involve suf- 
 fering on a far larger scale.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MUKDEN 
 February 20 — March 10, 1905 
 
 Mukden — the final battle of the war between Russia and 
 Japan — was probably the greatest battle in the world's his- 
 tory. •' More than 600,000 men were engaged in the pro- 
 longed struggle, which lasted nearly three weeks, during 
 part of which the opposing lines were extended over a front 
 of more than eighty miles. 
 
 It had long been predicted that the evolution of modern 
 war would result in the battles of the future assuming these 
 colossal proportions. There was a time — not so long ago 
 — when wars were fought out by relatively small armies of 
 professional soldiers ; but during the last half century na- 
 tion after nation has adopted some form of universal service, 
 or some approximation to this system. Thus modern war 
 has tended to become a conflict of nations in arms. The 
 very triumphs of peaceful invention have made it possible 
 to concentrate, feed, direct, and move vast armies. The 
 railway, the telegraph and telephone, the methods of pre- 
 serving and packing enormous quantities of provisions — 
 these and othei developments of modern industry have all 
 helped to make it possible to maintain and manceuver hun- 
 dreds of thousands in the field. And a commander-in-chief 
 of to-day does not fritter away his forces in minor opera- 
 tions, but collects together every available man and i::un 
 for a stroke at a decisive point. So in the wars of the 
 future we shall see what v/as seen at Mukden — the armed
 
 354 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 manhood of whole nations meeting in prolonged conflict 
 extending over wide tracts of country. 
 
 Russia, when she forced Japan into war, made the mis- 
 take of completely underrating her opponent. A Russian 
 general assured his countrymen that, even if Japan could 
 obtain command of the sea, she could not by any possibility 
 transport 100,000 men to the mainland of Asia and maintain 
 them there. But Japan, whose armies in the memory of 
 men still living had been armed with bows and arrows and 
 matchlock muskets and spears, and whose navy had been 
 made up of war junks, had, in the lifetime of a generation, 
 learned to use the weapons and the war methods of civilized 
 nations, and had " bettered the instruction." Her navy 
 swept the sea. Her armies poured across it into Korea and 
 Manchuria. In every department on sea and land there was 
 the highest type of efficiency. The Japanese soldier had a 
 traditional contempt for death and danger ; but his officers, 
 while ready to risk heavy loss for an adequate object, 
 showed they had learned better than even those of Europe 
 how to minimize the human cost of war and keep their 
 ranks full. Disease, which in all previous wars had killed 
 more men than fell on the battle-field, was brought down to 
 a minimum in the Japanese armies. In the actual fighting, 
 losses were reduced by skilled intrenching and by an elabo- 
 rate system of masking the positions of guns and men and 
 hiding the lines on which they moved. Large use was 
 made of night marching in the approach to hostile positions. 
 But when the crisis of a fight came life was freely spent, 
 and the Japanese soldiers showed a reckless courage in com- 
 ing to close quarters with the bayonet. 
 
 A highly-trained staff, educated by German experts, had 
 reduced the direction of the campaign to a fine art. In 
 the great battles the commander-in-chief would establish his 
 headquarters in a temple or a country house, link it with 
 every point of his firing line by telegraph, telephone, and
 
 MUKDEN 355 
 
 signal stations, and then with his marked maps before him 
 direct the unseen battle like an expert playing a chess game. 
 Army after army was sent to the front till there were more 
 than 500,000 men in the field. The Russians, heavily out- 
 numbered at the outset, had to supply and reinforce the 
 army in the Far East by a single line of railway stretching 
 through some thousand miles of Northern Asia.^ It was 
 only by the greatest efforts that they made good the losses 
 of the campaign, and after long months gradually brought 
 up the number of Kuropatkin's army in Manchuria to some- 
 thing like equal numbers with the Japanese field forces im- 
 mediately opposed to him. 
 
 The war had begun with a Japanese occupation of Korea 
 and the invasion of Manchuria by the crossing of the Yalu. 
 The fleet, under Togo, had secured the command of the sea, 
 and as soon as the Japanese were established in Southern 
 Manchuria, another army was transported to the Liao-tung 
 peninsula, and Port Arthur was besieged. The armies in 
 Manchuria were strongly reinforced. They fought their 
 way over the mountain passes into the plain of the Liao 
 and the Hun-ho ; Niu-chwang was seized to give a nearer 
 base of supply for a further advance; and then the three 
 armies of Kuroki, Nozu, and Oku closed in upon Liao-yang, 
 and after several days of fighting occupied the city on Sep- 
 tember 3, Kuropatkin abandoning his intrenched position 
 and retiring on Mukden. 
 
 The Russian general had originally intended to make his 
 next stand forty miles further north, at Tie-ling, when' the 
 'Liao River, the old " Mandarin road," and the modern rail- 
 way pass side bv side through a wide opening in the hills, 
 the natural gateway between Southern and Northern Man- 
 churia But he halted about Mukden, because tin- jai)anese 
 pursuit was very slack, and gave him ample breathing t,me. 
 
 ' From Moscow to Harbin Junction, the Russian base in Northern 
 Manchuria, was a journey of 5400 miles.
 
 356 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 and because his government insisted on the loss of prestige 
 that would result from the famous city falling into the 
 hands of the enemy without a struggle. 
 
 For Mukden is one of the historic cities of the Far East. 
 It has a population of about 300,000, who live partly in 
 the old walled city, and partly in its extensive suburbs. 
 The walled city is a square inclosure, surrounded by massive 
 ramparts, brick-built, and with fantastically decorated gates. 
 It was the capital of the Manchu dynasty that conquered 
 China in the seventeenth century and reigned at Pekin until 
 the establishment of the Chinese Republic. To the north 
 and northeast of the city there are two extensive parks, with 
 marble gateways, numerous pagodas and halls for ceremo- 
 nial rites, avenues of colossal figures of uncouth animals 
 carved in stone, and grave mounds surrounded by groves of 
 sacred trees. These parks are the burial places of the Man- 
 chu dynasty, and in the operations round Mukden both the 
 Russian and the Japanese commanders took the greatest care 
 that no troops should enter the inclosures, and that no injury 
 should be done to their groves and temples. There was a 
 tacit agreement as to this neutralization of the tombs of the 
 emperors and their surroundings, for both the belligerents 
 were anxious to avoid giving offense to the court of Pekin. 
 
 East of Mukden extends the central mountain mass of 
 Manchuria. From the valleys of this hill region numerous 
 rivers running from east to west, and turning southwest 
 after passing the railway line, flow down to swell the great 
 stream of the Liao-ho. Mukden stands on the edge of 
 the plain that stretches westwards to and beyond the great * 
 river — a cultivated tract with many villages and small 
 country towns. By the capture of Liao-yang the Japanese 
 had got possession of the Yen-tai coal mines, the chief 
 source of fuel supply for working the Manchurian railway. 
 Kuropatkin laid down a light railway to the mines of Fu- 
 shun, east of Mukden, to compensate for this loss, and the
 
 MUKDEN 357 
 
 Fu-shun line was used for the transport of troops from the 
 center to the left of the Russian positions during the subse- 
 quent fighting. 
 
 Kuropatkin began to intrench defensive lines along the 
 Hun-ho and Sha-ho rivers, south of Mukden. The Japanese 
 had pushed forward to the south side of the Sha-ho, and 
 along its southern bank they threw up formidable lines of 
 trenches, redoubts, and batteries. The river is 500 yards 
 wide in the season of rains. Now, at the end of the sum- 
 mer, its bed was a great sandy hollow along whicli wound 
 the river, reduced to some 60 yards in width, but mostly 
 too deep to ford. It thus formed a huge ditch along the 
 front of the Japanese lines, except for a few miles near 
 Sha-ho-pu, where the Russians held both banks. The Japa- 
 nese plan was to hold on here until Port Arthur surrendered. 
 Nogi would then bring up the besieging army to the Sha-ho 
 lines ; further reinforcements would have arrived from 
 Japan, and the general advance against Mukden would 
 begin. 
 
 In October Kuropatkin assumed the offensive, and ad- 
 vanced against the Sha-ho lines. But he was repulsed after 
 several days of hard fighting. The two armies then faced 
 each other on opposite sides of the Sha-ho. Both were 
 receiving reinforcements and working hard at intrenching, 
 and erecting huts for the coming hard weather. There was 
 almost a truce. The men at the outposts exchanged ciga- 
 rettes and other little comforts, and it was arranged that 
 unarmed parties from both sides should be allowed to come 
 down to the river to draw water without being fired upon. 
 In November the severe winter weather began. By the 
 end of the month hills and plain were covered with snow, 
 and the rivers were freezing. 
 
 The informal truce was broken by occasional outbursts 
 of hostilities, but no serious operations were attempted on 
 either side during the earlier part of the winter season.
 
 3S8 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The first week of January, 1905, brought the news that 
 Port Arthur had at last surrendered to General Nogi. 
 
 During the month of January, vwhile Marshal Oyama, 
 the Japanese generalissimo, and his chief of the staff, 
 Kodama, were^ already preparing for their great stroke 
 against Mukderi^ the Russians ventured on two attempts 
 against the Sha-ho positions. The first was indirect — a 
 raid by a division of Cossacks, under General Mitschenko, 
 against the railway in the left rear of the Japanese and 
 their magazines at Niu-chwang. The raid was ill-directed, 
 and was repulsed after very little damage had been done. 
 Then, in the third week of January, General Gripenberg 
 with 70,000 men crossed the three-foot ice on the Hun-ho, 
 and fell upon Gyama's left at Hei-tou-kai. He was beaten 
 back after a hard-fought battle. 
 
 The Japanese knew better than to waste their energies 
 on any partial attacks. They were steadily accumulating 
 their resources for the decisive effort and acting all the 
 while under the veil of a strict press censorship, aided by 
 the patriotic reticence of soldiers and people. In letters 
 home from the front places were never named in the dating 
 or the body of the letter, regimental and divisional num- 
 bers were omitted, and the Japanese newspapers, when they 
 published photographs taken at the front, gave them the 
 vaguest of descriptive titles.^ 
 
 There were rumors of a new Japanese army, later on 
 officially known as the " Fifth Army," under General Kawa- 
 mura, having landed at the mouth of the Yalu and dis- 
 appeared into the hills. There were conjectures that this 
 army was destined to march northwards through the coast 
 districts of Manchuria, and combine with the fleet in an 
 attack on Vladivostock. Every one knew that Nogi's army, 
 
 ^ For instance, " The engineer company intrenching at a cer- 
 tain place in Manchuria." " Officers of the — — regiment of infantry 
 in winter quarters." " An outpost of the cavalry at the front."
 
 MUKDEN . 359 
 
 after reducing Port Arthur, would not be left idle in the 
 Liao-tung peninsula. It must be on its way to tlie fighting 
 front, but there was the strictest secrecy as to what part of 
 Oyama's lines it was to reinforce. 
 
 While the Japanese were steadily accumulating men and 
 guns behind their fortified lines, Kuropatkin could now hope 
 for no further reinforcements for some weeks to come. 
 For January 22 was the " Red Sunday " of St. Petersburg, 
 when the unarmed crowds, marching on the palace to peti- 
 tion the Czar for a constitution, had been shot down in hun- 
 dreds in the streets, and these terrible scenes of repression 
 had been foUq^^d by attempts at revolt and general dis- 
 organization, -mM only in European Russia, but in the great 
 centers of pop,ulation along the Siberian Railway. 
 
 The Japanese had good reason to act while this period 
 of stress was increasing from day to day the anxieties of 
 the Russian commander. There was another reason for 
 early action. While the hard cold of the winter lasted the 
 rivers could be crossed anywhere on a broad front on the 
 thick ice that covered them, and the plain of the Liao could 
 be traversed by men and guns in any direction. Once the 
 thaw began the rivers would be swollen willi floods from 
 the melting snow on the hills and encumbered with drift 
 ice, and the level lands towards the lAao would be for a 
 while an impassable quagmire. So in the middle of Febru- 
 ary Oyama made the first moves that preluded a general 
 advance northwards. 
 
 He had no easy problem to solve. An elaborate system 
 of espionage had given him a complete knowledge of the 
 Russian defense preparations. In his immediate front the 
 enemy held a fortified line some sixty miles long.* The 
 right extended for some miles into the plain lieyond the 
 Hun-ho. Thence the line ran eastwards till it reached the 
 north bank of the Sha-ho, where the river bends to the south- 
 
 * To follow this description, see map, Battle of Mukdon — I.
 
 36o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 west not far from the railway bridge. Then it followed 
 the river, crossing it near Sha-ho-pu, and taking in some 
 miles of the south bank. Recrossing the river, it again 
 followed the north bank into the hill country, and was then 
 carried through the mountains to a little beyond the Wang- 
 fu Pass. Here the continuous Hne of works ended; but 
 the Kautu Pass, north of the Wang-fu, was also fortified, 
 and there were detached posts with less elaborate defensive 
 works watching the defiles even further east. 
 
 The fortified line was formed of a succession of trenches, 
 redoubts, and earthwork batteries. The works were in 
 places strengthened by a second and even a third line in 
 their rear, and in front there were obstacles formed of 
 wire entanglernents, abattis of felled trees, pit-traps, and 
 ground mines. 
 
 But this was only the first advanced line of defenses 
 barring the approach to Mukden. The place itself had been 
 fortified by a second line closer in. The old Chinese ram- 
 parts, with their canopied gateways, bright with painted 
 carvings and towering high above the suburbs, were useless 
 in modern war; but south of the city Kuropatkin had 
 thrown up an inner line of earthworks, extending for some 
 miles along the south side of the Hun-ho, and with its 
 flanks resting on the river. Right and left of it were sup- 
 plementary lines of intrenchments. One of these ran along 
 the north bank of the river for 20 miles, from the tombs 
 of the emperors to near the town of Fu-shun, The other 
 line, intended to protect Mukden against an attack from 
 the westward, ran south to north, from the bank of the 
 Hun-ho River to a point about six miles west of the city, 
 where the line turned and was carried back for four miles 
 more in a direction a little north of east. This western line 
 was, however, in a very incomplete state. 
 
 To hold these extensive works Kuropatkin had gathered 
 an army of 310,000 men and 1200 field-guns, besides be-
 
 MUKDEN 361 
 
 tween 200 and 300 heavy guns, and 88 machine-guns 
 mounted in the earthworks. Sixteen army corps had been 
 grouped in three subordmate armies. On the left, in the 
 hills, was the First Army, under General Linievitch ; in the 
 center, south of Mukden and along the Sha-ho, was the 
 Third Army, under General Bilderling ; on the right, in the 
 plain west of the railway and extending beyond the Hun-ho, 
 was the Second Army, commanded by General Kaulbars. 
 
 There is some doubt about the precise numbers of the 
 Japanese armies which Oyama had concentrated for the 
 advance. The Russians thought that they were seriously 
 outnumbered, but the balance of evidence goes to show that 
 the Japanese fighting strength was also about 300,000 men. 
 There were 263 battalions of infantry, 66 squadrons of 
 cavalry, and 150 batteries with 900 field-guns, besides 170 
 heavy guns of position (including part of the siege train 
 from Port Arthur) and 200 machine-guns. This great mass 
 of men and guns was organized in divisions grouped in five 
 armies, each of the average strength of about 60.000 men. 
 In the front line were the troops that had held the Sha-ho 
 lines since the end of the previous summer ; on the right the 
 First Army, under Kuroki, faced Linievitch ; in the center 
 the Fourth Army, under Nozu, was opposed to Bilderling; 
 on the left Oku, with the Second Army, faced Kaulbars in 
 the plain. Behind Oku's outer flank, unknown to the Rus- 
 sians, Oyama had placed the Third Army, under Nogi. the 
 men who had done all the hard fighting before Port Arthur. 
 The distinctive numbers of these armies indicated the order 
 in which they had been sent to the seat of war. Thus 
 Kuroki's men of the First Army had been a year in the 
 field, for they were the soldiers who had landed in Korea 
 and won the first battle of the war on the Yalu. Behind 
 the extreme right in the hill country were the newest 
 comers — the Fifth Army, under Kawamura. Its ranks 
 were largely filled with reservists lately called from field,
 
 362 Famous modern battles 
 
 workshop, desk, and counter, and young recruits fresh 
 from the depots, and it was therefore stiffened by the 
 addition of a division detached from Nogi's army. Kawa- 
 mura's army represented Japan's final effort, and when 
 the fighting began the remarkable thing was that his young 
 recruits and the middle-aged reservists showed as much en- 
 durance, energy, and dash as Kuroki's war-tried veterans. 
 
 To attempt to force the Russian fortified lines by a frontal 
 attack would have been too dangerous and costly an opera- 
 tion. Oyama had to devise a means of turning the enemy 
 out of their lines by pressure from a flank. It was fore- 
 seen that the battle would last for many days. But there 
 was a problem of space as well as time. On earlier battle- 
 fields a movement of a mile or two would suffice to reinforce 
 one of the wings from the center. The Japanese were good 
 marchers. There were days when a column covered 50 
 miles. And they needed to march well, for in the flanking 
 movements Oyama had projected, this battle on a front of 
 80 miles would necessitate marches of over 70 miles for 
 some of the columns. 
 
 In order to enable the reader more readily to grasp the 
 scale of the operations in a great battle like that of Mukden 
 (and such will be some of the decisive battles of future 
 wars), let us suppose such a fight taking place in the 
 south of England. The defense line would have its left, 
 say, at London, its right on Salisbury Plain. A flank 
 march such as Nogi executed at Mukden would be repre- 
 sented by an army moving out from Southampton and 
 sweeping round through Dorsetshire and the border of 
 Somerset, past Bath, across the north of Wiltshire, and into 
 Berkshire. 
 
 Now Oyama had to keep in touch with every point of 
 his enormous front, and to maintain this touch as the divi- 
 sions made their long marches. This meant the organization 
 of a huge system of field telegraphs and telephones, which
 
 MUKDEN 363 
 
 had to be extended as more and more ground was won — 
 a system with hundreds of miles of wires and cables, and 
 scores on scores of transmitting and receiving stations, with 
 a headquarters office like the central telegraph office of a 
 large city. 
 
 And there was another pressing problem. The attacking 
 army would be something like a moving city of 300,000 men, 
 who would have not only to be fed from day to day, but 
 kept supplied also with ton loads of ammunition for rifles 
 and artillery. This meant a complex system of ever-moving 
 convoys in the mountains and in the ])lain. 
 
 Finally, enduring as the Japanese soldier is, men could 
 not fight for days on days without rest, so it must be ar- 
 ranged to have reliefs for the fighting line, all the more 
 because night would bring no rest for the army as a whole. 
 In the presence of the deadly fire of the weapons of to-day 
 the hours of darkness are valuable. There will be many 
 night attacks, and still more night marches, or advances 
 to new ground, into which the men will dig themselves so 
 as to have shelter from fire when the day comes. Finally, 
 provision has to be made for the thousands of wounded 
 who will have to be given first aid at the fighting front, and 
 then be transported to the great field hospitals in the rear. 
 These are the complex problems the commander of an army 
 of our day has to face on the eve of one of those colossal 
 battles. 
 
 All the elaborate preparations had been completed by the 
 middle of February, and by that time Oyama and his trusty 
 chief of the staff, Kodama — " the Moltke of Japan " — 
 were already making the first moves in the deadly game. 
 Their object was to divert the attention of Kuropatkin from 
 certain points and rivet it upon others. The Russian army 
 was drawing some of its supplies from Harbin by the Man- 
 churian railway. But it had another source of supply. At 
 Sin-min-ting, on the western side of the I.iao-ho, and there-
 
 364 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 fore in Chinese territory, there was the terminal station of 
 the railway hne to Northern China and Pekin. By this 
 line Chinese contractors were sending up large quantities 
 of supplies for the Russians, which were then taken across 
 the frozen plain by convoys. In the middle of February 
 Oyama sent more than one column of mounted troops to 
 sweep round the extreme right of Kaulbars's Army, and not 
 only threaten the convoy road from Sin-min-ting, but, push- 
 ing further north, cut the Manchurian railway itself behind 
 Mukden. One of these raiding parties, after cutting the 
 railway, came back in triumph with two Russian horse 
 artillery guns, which it had captured in a fight with a 
 Russian column despatched to cut ofif its retreat. 
 
 To guard his lines of supply, Kuropatkin drew back to 
 the railway and the convoy track the cavalry that had till 
 now been watching the Japanese left in the plain. The 
 raids might have suggested to Kuropatkin that the principal 
 attack of the Japanese would come in the form of an at- 
 tempt to turn the right of his line. But in the midst of 
 the excitement caused by the cavalry raids on the railway 
 there came news of the sudden activity of the Japanese far 
 away to the Russian left in the mountains. Kawamura had 
 slipped out from behind Kuroki's extreme flank, and on 
 February 20 came in contact with the Russians. Cossack 
 detachments, watching the narrow mountain roads among 
 the precipices and ravines of the Ta-lin Mountains beyond 
 the extreme left of the Russian lines, were driven in by 
 columns of little Japanese infantrymen, that came tramping 
 through a driving snowstorm, with their batteries of mule 
 guns behind them. 
 
 Linievitch hurried out reinforcements from his left. Then, 
 as Kuroki's army became active all along his front, he re- 
 ported to Kuropatkin at Mukden that the enemy were mak- 
 ing a determined effort to force and outflank the left of the 
 whole army.
 
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 MUKDEN 365 
 
 Kuropatkin had for some time been expecting- this. He 
 thought that the Japanese, who had already shown them- 
 selves experts in hill fighting, were more likely to attack 
 through the mountain country than either to hurl themselves 
 against his fortified center or risk a pitched battle on the 
 open plain of the Liao. Linievitch's news confirmed him in 
 this view, and for some days he was busy marching east- 
 wards into the hills all the troops and guns he thought he 
 could spare from his reserves, and from other parts of his 
 long line. This was just what Oyama wanted. 
 
 Kawamura was advancing from the southeast in two long 
 columns, the objectives marked out for which were the 
 towns of Tita and Ma-chun-tun. To reach these points 
 they would have to fight their way through the passes of 
 the Ta-lin Mountains. The heaviest fighting fell to the 
 lot of the left column, which on February 23 found its way 
 barred by a Russian division holding the fortified places of 
 Chin-lo-cheng, 22 miles from Ma-chun-tun. All day the 
 Japanese attacked through a blinding snowstorm. The first 
 assaults on the Russian position were beaten back with heavy 
 loss — part of it due to the explosions of numerous ground 
 mines in front of the trenches. Darkness ended the fighting, 
 and the Russians everywhere held their own. Next day 
 Kawamura had two divisions in action, and after some 
 severe hand-to-hand fighting with the bayonet the Russians 
 were driven from their trenches; but not until the ridges 
 of the hills on their ilank had been captured, and fnrtlier 
 resistance would have endangered their line of retreat. In 
 earlier wars this two days' conflict would have counted as 
 a battle ; here it was but an incident in the great struggle 
 between hundreds of thousands. 
 
 While Kawamura was thus forcing his way through the 
 snowy mountain passes, Kuroki, with the First Army, had 
 come into action on his left, pressing forward against the 
 positions to right and left of tlie Wang-fu Pass. Here
 
 366 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 there was the first night fighting of the great battle. These 
 night operations, which played a great part in the conflict, 
 were of two kinds. A firing line of infantry, which had 
 been brought to a standstill during the day, would be relieved 
 at nightfall by fresh battalions. These would move forward 
 some distance ; then, after throwing out a line of skirmishers 
 to protect themselves, the men would work till daylight 
 digging a shelter trench and throwing up the earth into a 
 low parapet in front. At dawn they would be ready to 
 open fire from this improvised cover. It was the method 
 of sieges applied to the battle-field. 
 
 The other night operations meant close fighting with 
 sword and bayonet. A village, a farmstead, a knoll in the 
 hills, held by the enemy, would be the object of the attack. 
 Usually volunteers would be called for. There were always 
 more than enough. Often the officers and men would 
 pledge themselves to each other that in case of failure they 
 would not return alive. " If we cannot win," they would 
 say, " we shall all meet to-night in the land of spirits." At 
 first the men of these " forlorn hopes " used to wear white 
 bands on their sleeves to enable them to recognize each 
 other as friends in the melee. But this was soon found 
 to be unnecessary. " The Russians are tall, we are short," 
 would be the officer's warning to his men, " so when it 
 comes to the fight in the dark run any tall man through." 
 Then they stole out in silence to the attack. The European 
 soldier goes out to battle meaning to face danger fearlessly, 
 but hoping to escape it. In the Japanese the old semi- 
 barbarian courage survives. He really feels that to die 
 fighting is the best of good fortune. This is the explanation 
 of the reckless fury of the Japanese onset. 
 
 Along the center and left of Oyama's Army during 
 these first days there was no forward movement, but along 
 the Sha-ho and out into the plain some of the guns were 
 in action shelling the Russian lines, for it was important
 
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 MUKDEN 367 
 
 to keep Bilderling and Kaulbars under the menace of 
 attack. 
 
 Behind Oku's Hnes Nogi, with the conquerors of Port 
 Arthur, had begun to move westwards towards the Hun-ho. 
 His flank march, as yet unsuspected, was to be the great 
 surprise of the battle for Kuropatkin, who thought that his 
 other flank in the hills was the real danger-point. 
 
 On the last day of February Kawamura's two columns 
 had traversed the Ta-lin Mountains. The right column was 
 before Tita, the left before Ma-chun-tun. Here they found 
 their further advance barred for a week by lines of defensive 
 works strongly held, for by this time Kuropatkin had hur- 
 ried up a whole army corps from his center to reinforce 
 these positions on his extreme left. 
 
 Kawamura was not able to overcome the stubborn re- 
 sistance of the Russians until Kuroki had gradually pushed 
 forward on his left, and was able to reinforce and cooperate 
 with him. Kuroki had been provided with heavy guns and 
 howitzers, and it was a surprise to the Russians, holding 
 the fortifications of the Wang-fu and Kau-tu passes, to find 
 that the Japanese had been able to drag this formidable 
 artillery, with ami)le supplies of its ponderous ammunition, 
 over the rugged, snow-covered mountain roads. After a two 
 days' bombardment with high explosive shells, the Wang-fu 
 Pass was stormed on February 27. Two days later the 
 Kau-tu was taken after a series of desperate hand-to-hand 
 conflicts, in which the Japanese lost more than 2000 men. 
 
 In the center, Nozu, on February 27, brought all his 
 artillery into action against the opposing lines, and his 
 infantry began to work gradually forward with the cannon 
 firing over them.\ At several points they came into close 
 action with the Russians, but mostly they lay in the snow, 
 scraping up a little of the frozen surface soil for a shelter, 
 and firing at the nearest Russian trenches. All this activity 
 on Nozu's part was intended merely to keep Bilderling
 
 368 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 thoroughly occupied. The real work was being done on 
 the right and left. 
 
 On this same eventful day — February 27 — Nogi, march- 
 ing his men of the Fourth Army in several parallel columns, 
 began to cross the Hun River on the ice. His movement 
 was screened for a while by Oku engaging Kaulbars and 
 sending out two divisions of the Second Army to extend 
 his own line across the Hun-ho and threaten to overlap and 
 turn the Russian flank. Kaulbars met the move by extend- 
 ing and throwing back his own right. On the plain beyond 
 the two armies a screen of Japanese cavalry was thrown out 
 to the northwestward. Behind these Nogi pressed steadily 
 on. His cavalry crossed the frozen Liao-ho, marched up 
 its western bank, drove a brigade of Cossacks before them, 
 and early on March i dashed into Sin-min-ting, seized the 
 railway station, and captured enormous quantities of sup- 
 plies destined for Kuropatkin's army. 
 
 By this time Nogi's infantry columns were wheeling to 
 face eastwards and march on Mukden ; then turning both 
 the outer line of works and the inner line along the Hun-ho, 
 Nogi's right joined hands with Oku's left. In front of 
 the great attack thus developing from the westward, Kaul- 
 bars was marching brigades and divisions in hot haste to 
 form a new battle line running north and south on the 
 plain, and was appealing to Kuropatkin for reinforcements. 
 
 The battle was now more than half won by the Japanese. 
 The marvelous marching and fighting qualities of their men 
 are evident from the fact that Oyama was thus able to at- 
 tack an army practically equal in numbers to his own by 
 turning both its flanks, extending his two wings over an 
 enormous crescent-shaped front, pivoting these extensions 
 on his fortified center, and threatening to crush his enemy 
 between the encircling horns of the crescent. Had the Rus- 
 sians been at all equal to their enemies in initiative, mobility, 
 and energetic determination in the actual conflict, it would
 
 No. 27 — Battle of Mukden, III 
 
 (Movements of March 2-6, and position on March 6)
 
 MUKDEN , 369 
 
 have been courting destruction for Oyama to take such 
 risks. For Kuropatkin would have shattered the hostile 
 ring by a concentrated attack from the interior of it as it 
 tried to close upon him. 
 
 In the first days of March this closing in made steady 
 progress. Far away to the east, in the mountain country, 
 General Rennenkampf, the officer in command of the troops 
 assembled to oppose Kawamura, made a dogged resistance 
 about Man-chu-tun and Tita ; but Kuroki was forcing back 
 Linievitch's left and driving a wedge in between him and 
 Rennenkampf, and presently was able to threaten the latter 
 on the flank, and directly to reinforce Kawamura. Then at 
 last the Russian resistance broke down : Man-chu-tun was 
 taken on March 8, and Tita on the following day. 
 
 By this time the Russian defense had everywhere col- 
 lapsed. The strain under which it gave way was the result 
 of Nogi's pressure from the westward. His advance, unless 
 held back, would cut the railway, and there was nothing in 
 front of him in the way of prepared defenses except the 
 weak and in many places incomplete western works. Kuro- 
 patkin steadily reinforced the line which Kaulbars had 
 formed by extending and throwing back his corps to the 
 west of Mukden. This improvised battle line had some 
 fifteen miles of front, and all along it Nogi, reinforced by 
 Oku, was attacking by day and by night with furious energy. 
 Every man in that fighting line of Japanese felt that a speedy 
 victory meant the destruction of the Russian army. Kaul- 
 bars was struggling to prevent a h'ar Eastern Sedan. In 
 the towns and villages of the plain there were days and 
 nights of reckless fighting at close quarters. One by one 
 they were stormed, or burned and wrecked by the Japanese 
 artillery. But it was only at the cost of terrible losses that 
 Nogi's men slowly won their way forward. By the end of 
 the first week of March some of his battalions were reduced 
 to the strength of companies.
 
 370 - FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 But to reinforce and sustain for a while the fighting Hne 
 to the westward, Kuropatkin had been compelled seriously 
 to weaken the rest of his defense. On the seventh Kuroki 
 telegraphed to Nozu, in the center, to tell him that he felt 
 the Russian resistance slackening in his front, and sug- 
 gesting to his colleague that if he pressed the attack along 
 the Sha-ho in the center, he also would probably find that a 
 considerable part of the garrison of the Russian works there 
 had been withdrawn. 
 
 Nozu took the hint. His infantry was sent forward 
 against the trenches along the river, and met with only a 
 half-hearted resistance, for the Russians were already actu- 
 ally falling back to the lines of the Hun-ho. Kuropatkin 
 had issued orders for a general retreat on Tie-ling. 
 
 The famous fortified lines on which 100,000 men had 
 toiled for months thus fell almost without a struggle, under 
 the indirect pressure exercised by the flank attacks. The 
 eastern attack in the hills had drawn the Russian reserves 
 away to their left, and so facilitated the all-important stroke 
 across the plain of the Liao-ho against their right. When 
 the danger on that side was realized, it could be met only 
 by bringing men up by weary forced marches from all parts 
 of the widely extended positions. These reinforcements 
 arrived by driblets, and were able only to delay the Japanese 
 advance. Kuropatkin could not exert any serious influence 
 on the course of events, for he had frittered away his re- 
 sources, and had no large body of fresh reserves that could 
 be thrown into the fight to act with a definite purpose, as, 
 for instance, by a well-organized counter-attack on the ad- 
 vancing enemy on a large scale. In those first days of 
 March, up to the moment when he decided to save his army 
 by abandoning Mukden, he was simply stopping the gaps 
 in a long weak line, fighting on ground where he never 
 anticipated a serious encounter with the enemy. 
 
 As Bilderling gave way before Nozu, so to his left
 
 No. 28 — Battle of Mukden, IV 
 
 (Movements of March 7 and 8, and position on March g, igos)
 
 MUKDEN 371 
 
 Linievitch, after sending off more men than he could safely 
 spare on the long march to reinforce Kaulbars, found him- 
 self so weakened that, even before the general order for the 
 retreat reached him, he was retiring before Kuroki's attacks. 
 Kawamura's left column, with one of Kuroki's divisions, 
 pushed on to the Hun-ho, opposite Fu-shun. The weather 
 had suddenly become milder. The ice on the Hun was 
 breaking up, and it was with great difficulty that the Japa- 
 nese got their guns over the river. They crossed it on the 
 ninth, and found the enemy abandoning the lines along the 
 north bank. By midnight the walled town of Fu-shun was 
 occupied after a brief rearguard action. 
 
 Nogi's advance from the westward, and Nozu's victorious 
 crossing of the Sha-ho, south of Mukden, had all but cut 
 off a considerable mass of Russian troops who had held the 
 fortified lines west of the Sha-ho railway bridge. Here 
 some thousands of Russians were made prisoners. Through- 
 out the ninth and tenth Kuropatkin was fighting no longer 
 for victory, but only to hold back Nogi from the railway and 
 the Tie-ling road long enough to extricate as much of his 
 army as possible from the closing horns of the crescent. 
 He no longer opposed a mere passive resistance to the 
 terrible pressure from the westward ; he organized more 
 than one counter-attack, and the Russians fought well 
 enough to gain some little breathing time. 
 
 But, all the same, the tenth was the crowning day of 
 victory for Oyama. He need no longer remain in the 
 center of his web of telegraph wires, receiving reports, 
 marking off positions on his map, sending out orders. He 
 could now leave it to his subordinate commanders to reap 
 the fruits of the three weeks' struggle for victory. He 
 rode forward early in the day towards Mukden, to see the 
 closing scenes. 
 
 Along the Sha-ho, far as the eye could see and beyond 
 the range of sight, extended the fortified lines from which
 
 372 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 two armies had watched each other for months. They were 
 now deserted. The great siege guns were silent. Along 
 the captured Russian lines there were only the ambulance 
 men and burial parties of impressed Chinese laborers clear- 
 ing away the wreck of battle. Northwards, Nozu's vic- 
 torious battalions were pressing on the rear of the retiring 
 Russians, who had abandoned the lines of the Hun-ho, and 
 were only anxious to escape through the suburbs of Muk- 
 den. North and west of the city a great battle was raging 
 for miles. The Russians were making their last stand'; and 
 in rear of the fighting line trains were moving along the 
 railway, and a wide stream of men, horses, guns, and 
 wagons was pouring steadily northwards by and on both 
 sides of the Tie-ling road. The smoke of a score of burn- 
 ing villages darkened the wintry sky, and from the huge 
 piles of stores near the railway station, west of the city, 
 the smoke of another conflagration began to ascend as the 
 Russians fired the magazines they were forced to abandon 
 to the victors. Far away from the hills to the northeast 
 came the dull thunder of another and more distant can- 
 nonade. There Kuroki and Kawamura were hustling the 
 retreat of Linievitch's army. 
 
 Before midday Nozu, after receiving the surrender of 
 crowds of Russians, had ridden forward to one of the south 
 gates of Mukden and received the surrender of the city from 
 the Chinese civil authorities, to whom he promised the pro- 
 tection of the victors. Everywhere in the city the Red 
 Cross flag was flying. It had become a vast hospital for 
 the Russian wounded. 
 
 North of the city thousands more of prisoners were 
 taken. The rear of the beaten army had here become a 
 mere disorganized crowd. The Japanese artillery sent its 
 shells into the huddled mass of men, horses, and wagons, 
 with the result that there were a prompt display of white 
 flags and a speedy surrender. Late in the afternoon Nogi's
 
 MUKDEN 373 
 
 advance cut in upon the railway at Pu-ho, north of Mukden, 
 and stopped all further traffic along the line. Shortly after 
 this the heads of the Japanese columns were across the 
 road. Till darkness set in there was fierce fighting with 
 the rearguards which covered the retirement of the enemy 
 to the northward. 
 
 During the succeeding days the pursuit was so vigorously 
 pushed that Kuropatkin decided to abandon the Tie-ling 
 Pass and to concentrate towards Harbin. A despatch from 
 St. Petersburg deprived him of his command, and in- 
 trusted the future fortunes of the Army of the East to the 
 veteran Linievitch, whose long resistance to the advance of 
 Kawamura and Kuroki had made him for the Russians the 
 popular hero of those disastrous days. 
 
 But there were to be no more great battles in Man- 
 churia. The disorganization of Russia at home by the 
 revolutionary movement, and the complete destruction of 
 the armada sent out from Europe, when it met Togo's fleet 
 in the straits of Tsu-shima, compelled the Czar's government 
 to ask for peace. 
 
 The Russian losses in the three weeks' battle, and es- 
 pecially in its closing stages, were enormous. About noon 
 on March lO, in the last hours of the fight, Oyama had 
 telegraphed to Tokio : " We have taken an exceedingly large 
 number of prisoners and immense quantities of arms, am- 
 munition, provisions, forage, and war material, but it is 
 as yet impossible to reckon them up." To this day there is 
 no certainty as to what the reckoning really was. 
 
 The Russian Government officially admitted a loss of 
 96,500 in killed, wounded, and missing or prisoners. But 
 the Japanese stated that they had over 40.000 prisoners in 
 their hands, and that they had found 26.500 Russian dead 
 on the vast battle-field. They further estimated the number 
 of wounded left in their hands or sent off northwards at 
 some 90,000. This would make a total Russian loss of
 
 374 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 nearly 160,000 men, or, say, about half their fighting 
 strength. 
 
 The Japanese stated their loss in killed and wounded at 
 41,222 officers and men. As there was much fierce fighting 
 at close quarters, we may take it that in this total the dead 
 would number some 12,000 to 15,000. Probably the united 
 losses of both sides would not be much less than 40,000 
 killed and 120,000 wounded — figures so large that one 
 cannot imagine the mass of human misery they sum up.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 
 October 28-31, 1912 
 
 In the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 the decisive 
 episode was the struggle for Plevna/ Having repulsed re- 
 peated assaults, Osman Pasha with his starving army tried 
 to fight his way out, but was wounded and compelled to 
 surrender. After this no efifective resistance was offered 
 to the Russian advance. The invaders occupied Adrian- 
 ople, then practically an open place. There was only a 
 handful of troops between them and Constantinople. The 
 fortification of the lines of Chatalja, covering the ap- 
 proach to the city, had barely been begun. There was no 
 hope of saving the capital. Turkey sued for peace, and an 
 armistice was signed at Adrianople on January 31, 1878. 
 
 This was followed by the Treaty of San Stefano, which 
 erected Bulgaria into a semi-independent state, after it had 
 been for five centuries a Turkish province. The new Bul- 
 garia was to extend from the Danube to the shores of 
 the Archipelago, leaving to the Turks a small stretch of 
 territory near Constantinople. But the European powers 
 protested, and at the Congress of Berlin, narrower limits 
 were assigned to the new principality, and the district be- 
 tween the northern and southern chains of the Balkans, 
 from the upper basin of the Alaritza River to the Black 
 Sea, was formed into a separate province to be known as 
 Eastern Roumelia. It was to remain under the rule of the 
 
 * See chapter viii.
 
 376 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Sultan, but was to have a Christian governor and a semi- 
 independent administration. 
 
 Eastern Roumeha had a population largely of Bulgarian 
 origin and language, and there was also a considerable 
 Bulgarian element in the Turkish provinces south of the 
 Balkans, especially in Macedonia. The politicians of Sofia 
 from the very first hoped, sooner or later, to win dominion 
 over these outlying Bulgarian districts and regain the fron- 
 tiers assigned to the principality at San Stefano. 
 
 A necessary factor in such a policy was the creation of 
 a powerful army. The Bulgarian army was in its earlier 
 years organized, trained, and commanded in all the higher 
 grades by officers sent from Russia, which looked on the 
 new state almost as an outlying province of the Czar's 
 Empire. But in 1885 the principality threw off this Musco- 
 vite tutelage, and almost at the same moment a movement, 
 that had been in progress for some time for the union of 
 Eastern Roumelia with Bulgaria, came to a head. There 
 was a revolution at Philippopolis, the capital of the prov- 
 ince ; the Turkish flag was hauled down, and Prince Alex- 
 ander of Bulgaria marched his army across the passes, to 
 receive the homage of his new subjects and prepare to 
 meet an expected armed intervention on the part of th^ 
 Sultan. 
 
 But the Turks accepted the new situation. The danger 
 came from another quarter. The Servians, jealous of Bul- 
 garia's sudden increase of territory, and incited by the ill- 
 will of Russia, were marching on Sofia. By forced marches 
 the Bulgarian army was transferred to the western fron- 
 tier. Only a few weeks before, all the Russian officers had 
 departed, and captains had suddenly been promoted to com- 
 mand regiments, brigades, and divisions. But these young 
 men showed that there were born soldiers among them. 
 The Servians were totally defeated in the three days' battle 
 of Slivnitza (November 17-19, 1885), and the way to
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 377 
 
 Belgrade was open to the victors, when Austrian diplomacy 
 patched up a peace between the rival Balkan powers. 
 
 A Russian intrigue forced Prince Alexander to abdicate 
 almost on the morrow of his victory, and after a regency 
 of some months Prince Ferdinand of Coburg was elected 
 to the vacant throne. His policy was to make Bulgaria the 
 leading power in the Balkan peninsula, and for more than 
 twenty years he was patiently preparing for the day when 
 he could venture to challenge Turkey to battle. The men 
 who had led the Bulgarian army at Slivnitza devoted them- 
 selves to the task of training the whole manhood of the 
 principality to war. And meanwhile an organization, which 
 had its center at .Sofia, kept the Bulgarian claim to Mace- 
 donia before the world by exciting more than one insur- 
 rection in the Turkish province and maintaining a kind of 
 political brigandage, of which Turks, Servians, and Greeks 
 — in a word all who were not of the Bulgarian race — 
 were the victims. 
 
 At last Prince Ferdinand felt himself strong enough to 
 declare Bulgaria independent of the Sultan's suzerainty and 
 to proclaim himself king, or — to use the official title de- 
 rived from the old days of the P)ulgarian Empire in the 
 early Middle Ages — Gear of the Bulgariaus. It was ex- 
 pected that the Sultan would treat this action as a challenge 
 to war, but Turkey was too much occupied with internal 
 troubles and, after a formal protest, accepted the accom- 
 plished fact. 
 
 Successive revolutions at Constantinople, and the help- 
 lessness of the Turks in the war with Italy about Tripoli, 
 made the politicians of the Balkan States at last feel that 
 it would be safe to venture upon a war of aggression against 
 the Porte. Accordingly in the s])ring of 1912 they agreed 
 to sink their mutual differences and combine their forces 
 for what thev described as a war of liberation, that was to 
 expel the Turk from Europe and free the Christians of the
 
 378 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Balkan countries from his yoke. The crusading element in 
 the enterprise made it popular with the subjects of the four 
 allied princes, but religion had really very little to do with 
 the schemes of the ambitious politicians and soldiers of 
 Sofia and Belgrade, Athens and Cettinje. 
 
 So the Balkan League was formed — an alliance of Bul- 
 garia, Servia, Greece, and Montenegro. Roumania, a Latin 
 country, held aloof from what was mainly a Slav 
 combination. 
 
 The allies hoped to be able to attack Turkey while it 
 was still involved in war with Italy, but on the very eve 
 of hostilities the Sultan abandoned Tripoli and made peace 
 with the Italians. Montenegro moved before the other 
 allies were ready. The declaration of war between the rest 
 of the League and Turkey came on October 17, 1912. 
 
 The Turks were not really ready for war, but they com- 
 mitted the error of underestimating the fighting force of 
 their opponents. Within a fortnight Turkey suffered a 
 series of defeats. Servians, Greeks, and Montenegrins 
 gained fairly easy successes in their districts of the theater 
 of war, and failed only where two of the fortresses made 
 an obstinate defense. Collapse was the characteristic of 
 the Turkish operations in the open field. 
 
 But the most serious task of all had fallen to Bulgaria, 
 and on the success of her arms the result of the whole war 
 ultimately depended. Besides supplying a contingent for 
 operations in Macedonia in combination with his allies, 
 King Ferdinand had to deal with the main Turkish army 
 in Eastern Thrace, which was concentrating to bar the direct 
 line of advance on Constantinople. 
 
 With a population of less than four millions, Bulgaria 
 had called more than 300,000 men to arms. It was a stu- 
 pendous effort and entailed a perilous strain on the resources 
 of the country. For a while its normal life had to cease. 
 Bulgaria is chiefly an agricultural country. Village, farm,
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 
 
 379 
 
 and field were swept clear of every able-bodied man, all the 
 horses and most of the cattle. Whole herds were driven off 
 to serve as a reserve of meat for the commissariat. The 
 draught-oxen were turned over to the transport, and the 
 country carts were requisitioned with them. The owners 
 were paid in paper bonds to be redeemed after the war. 
 There was a similar sweep-up in the towns. All the men 
 were called to arms. Every shop and store that held any- 
 thing useful for war was cleared out by requisition. Women 
 drove the tram-cars in the cities. Schoolboys replaced the 
 postmen. All business was suspended. The foreign bankers 
 had refused a loan. The emergency was met by paying for 
 all that was requisitioned in treasury bonds and making a 
 large issue of paper money. 
 
 By the middle of October all the ordinary life of the 
 country had come to an end. lUit the staff of the army 
 counted upon being able to bring the war to a successful 
 conclusion by the first days of 191 3. The harvest had just 
 been reaped. The men were told that they would be back 
 to plow and sow their fields by the end of winter. 15ut 
 to accomplish this the war would have to be rushed through 
 and serious risks taken. 
 
 By misleading reports in the press the Turks were made 
 to underrate the force that had been rapidly got together 
 among the hills north of Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse. On 
 the day that war was declared, the Bulgarians had already 
 concentrated on this part of the frontier three armies with 
 a combined force of well over 200,000 men. On the right, 
 waiting- for the word to march down the Maritza valley, 
 was the Second Army, under General Ivanoff. On the left, 
 north of Kirk Kilisse, was the Third Army, under General 
 Dimitrieff. Between them, looking towards the opening 
 of the Tundja valley, lay the First Army, under General 
 Kutincheff. The king, with his headquarters at Stara 
 Zagore on the right rear, was in nominal command of the
 
 38o FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES ' 
 
 whole. But the real commander was his " chief military 
 adviser," General Savoff, who had for years been the or- 
 ganizer of the army and was the author of the plan of 
 campaign on which it was now to act. 
 
 The Bulgarian staff was on the whole remarkably well 
 informed, and knew that the Turks were not ready and 
 that their army was badly organized and only partly con- 
 centrated. In one respect, however, the information pos- 
 sessed by General Savoff was misleading. He believed that 
 Adrianople was ill-supplied with food and would have to 
 surrender very soon if closely blockaded. The fortress, well 
 protected by a circle of outlying forts designed by German 
 engineers, was a strong place, and effectually closed the 
 main road and the railway to Constantinople. There is a 
 second road to the Turkish capital by way of Kirk Kilisse 
 and Bunarhissar, mostly a mere track across the open up- 
 lands. To the east of this line, as far as the Black Sea coast, 
 the country is impracticable for an army. It is a roadless 
 tract of mountain land covered with dense forests. On the 
 eastern road there was no serious obstacle. Savoff knew 
 that Kirk Kilisse, though generally classed as a fortress, 
 was really an open town. When the new fortifications were 
 erected at Adrianople after the Russian war, a similar 
 scheme was prepared for Kirk Kilisse, but only two forts 
 had actually been erected, and these were weak, badly placed, 
 poorly armed, and now in bad condition. He knew also that 
 besides the garrison of Adrianople the Turks had pushed 
 no considerable force up to the frontier. Their army was 
 concentrating further back. His plan therefore was : 
 
 Ivanoff with the Second Army to advance upon and 
 blockade Adrianople. 
 
 Dimitrieff with the Third Army to march upon Kirk 
 Kilisse and take it by direct attack. 
 
 Kutincheff with the First Army to support the movement 
 by interposing between Adrianople and Kirk Kilisse, and
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 381 
 
 preventing the garrison of the former from helping their 
 comrades at the latter place. 
 
 These operations would open the Kirk Kilisse-Bunar- 
 hissar road. Dimitriefif would advance along it. Kutincheff 
 would move across country south of Adrianople, cut the 
 railway and advance along the main road by Lulc Burgas 
 on Chorlu, keeping in touch with Dimitrieff on his left. 
 The two armies would combine to defeat the Turkish main 
 army, and if possible force it away from its direct line of 
 retreat on Constantinople. For this purpose, while Kutin- 
 chefif attacked it in front, Dimitrieff was to try to act 
 against its right flank and rear. 
 
 The Turks had nominally five army corps and a cavalry 
 division in this region of the theater of war. They were 
 supposed to number over 200,000 men, including some of 
 the Sultan's best troops. The general expectation in Europe 
 was that they would be victorious. 
 
 But one of the five corps never existed as an available 
 unit. It was to have constituted the reserve of the army, 
 but the regiments destined for it were sent one by one to 
 complete the garrisons and make up deficiencies in the other 
 corps. These were : 
 
 Corps 
 
 Commander 
 
 Headqt'rs in peace time 
 
 First Corps 
 
 Second Corps .... 
 Third Corps .... 
 Fourth Corps .... 
 
 Omar Yaver. 
 Torgut Shefket. 
 Mahmud Mukhtar. 
 Ahmed Abouk. 
 
 Constantinople. 
 Kodosto. 
 Kirk Kilissfi. 
 Adrianople. 
 
 The commander-in-chief selected by the War Minister. 
 Nazim Pasha, was Abdallah Pasha, a young general, 
 trained by the German reorganizer of the Turkish army, 
 Von der Goltz. Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha (a son of Ghazi 
 Mukhtar Pasha, one of the licroes of the war willi Russia) 
 was also a favorite pupil of the Prussian general and had
 
 382 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 served for a while in the German Guard. Ahmed Abouk was 
 a Circassian, an old soldier, with more of the traditional 
 Ottoman fighting spirit than of the scientific methods of 
 the younger men. This mingling of old and new ways 
 was characteristic of the whole of the Sultan's army. The 
 scheme of reorganization, drawn up by Von der Goltz, had 
 been adopted, but had not yet had time to bear fruit. It had 
 gone just far enough to destroy much of the old army, with- 
 out yet putting a new fighting machine in its place. Thus 
 most of the old officers had been removed from the regi- 
 ments, and only a few of the new men were ready to re- 
 place them. The army was from the first terribly short of 
 officers of any kind. 
 
 The mobilization had proved a failure for want of time 
 and through the ill-advised steps taken to hurry the troops 
 to the front. The Turks have always been a minority in 
 their European provinces. All the four corps assigned to 
 the Eastern Army under Abdallah had to depend on drafts 
 from Asia Minor to bring them up to their war strength. 
 But it would be a matter of some weeks for most of these 
 levies even to reach Constantinople. In Asia Minor there 
 were few roads, and the reservists had in many cases to 
 march for hundreds of miles over bad roads. Sea tran- 
 sport would often have lightened their task, but up to the 
 eve of the war the Italian fleet held hostile command of 
 the eastern Mediterranean, and even after the peace with 
 Italy the Turkish fleet made no effort to drive away the 
 Greek warships that were cruising in the Archipelago. 
 
 To bring the Turkish regiments up to war strength re- 
 course was had to various expedients. Volunteers, many of 
 whom had never till then handled a rifle, were enlisted. 
 Thousands of men were passed into the ranks from the 
 second line of the Redif, or militia, a practically untrained 
 force. A further and very serious element of weakness 
 was the fact that after the Young Turk Revolution the law
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 383 
 
 of conscription had been extended to the Christians. This 
 brought into the ranks numbers of Bulgarians, Greeks, and 
 Armenians, whose loyalty was doubtful, and many of whom 
 took the first opportunity that offered for flight or surrender. 
 
 Much of the German reorganization scheme existed only 
 on paper. Army business had been neglected for politics. 
 The commissariat and ambulance services were in such a 
 rudimentary state as to be useless. There was no large 
 reserve of ammunition, and no means for its rapid distri- 
 bution. The four army corps had hardly any transport. 
 None of them had a field telegraph or even a signal corps. 
 
 The Turkish army, which was to oppose the main ad- 
 vance of the Bulgarians, was thus, when the war broke 
 out, still in process of formation out of very defective 
 materials. Some of the best troops had been diverted from 
 the field army to garrison Adrianople. Not one of the four 
 army corps was complete. Three of them (First, Second, 
 and Fourth) and Salih Pasha's division of cavalry, mus- 
 tering less than a thousand sabers, were concentrating on 
 the Adrianople railway from Chorlu to Lule Burgas, the 
 First Corps nearest to the front. Mahmud Mukhtar Pasha 
 was at Kirk Kilisse with most of his corps in the neigbbor- 
 hood. Von der Goltz had advised that, at the outset, the 
 Turks should stand on the defensive, holding the frontier 
 fortresses, but concentrating their army to await the Bul- 
 garian advance on a strong position behind the upper 
 Ergene River, near Chorlu, ground that could be further 
 strengthened by intrenchments. But at the last moment 
 the Sultan abandoned this prudent plan and ordered a gen- 
 eral advance. This was playing into the hands of Savoff 
 and the Bulgarians. 
 
 As they crossed the border the three Bulgarian armies 
 drove in the small detachments that were watching the fron- 
 tier. On the right Ivanoff, after a mere skirmish, captured 
 the town of Mustapha Pasha on October 19, and pressed
 
 384 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 on towards Adrianople. In the center and on the left 
 Kutincheff and Dimitrieff came upon the heads of columns 
 of the Third Turkish Corps, sent forward by Mahmud 
 Mukhtar. These were easily forced back by superior num- 
 bers. The stress of the fighting fell upon Dimitrieflf and 
 the Third Bulgarian Army. 
 
 Mukhtar now concentrated a considerable part of the 
 Third Corps to hold Kirk Kilisse, and here, on October 24, 
 the first serious fighting of the war took place. The Turks 
 found that they had greatly undervalued their opponents. 
 Kirk Kilisse was stormed, the two forts surrendered, and 
 Mukhtar retired along the Bunarhissar road, followed up 
 by the victors. Omar Yaver, hurrying up to his assistance 
 with the First Corps, ran against the heads of Kutincheff's 
 columns. In the action which ensued the Turks made a 
 poor fight. There was a panic among the new recruits of 
 Omar's regiments, and the First Corps streamed back 
 towards Lule Burgas in a disorderly retreat that soon de- 
 generated into a flight. 
 
 On the news of these defeats Abdallah Pasha pushed the 
 Second and Fourth corps forward to the neighborhood of 
 Lule Burgas, with Salih's cavalry, and decided to risk a 
 battle, which proved to be the decisive action of the 
 campaign. 
 
 The country, which was to be the scene of the great 
 battle, is part of the region between the Ergene River and 
 the forest-clad heights of the Istrandza Dagh. From the 
 base of the hills the ground slopes very gent!y towards the 
 river. It is a wide stretch of open rolling downs, in which 
 the streams, running from the mountains to the Ergene, 
 have worn out a number of narrow valleys, the only breaks 
 in the general level. There is little cultivation and the 
 villages are few. The roads are little better than wagon 
 tracks. Along the course of the streams, here and there, 
 one finds a group of mud-built huts. After a few hours
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 385 
 
 of rain the hollows become swampy, and the roads, even 
 on the higher ground, difficult for guns or wheeled traffic 
 of any kind. Otherwise it is easy to traverse the country 
 in all directions. In the northern part of the district, 
 towards the hills, there are extensive woods near Bunar- 
 hissar (the "castle by the spring") and Viza. Towards 
 the river the country is all open and almost treeless, except 
 near Lule Burgas, where there is some cultivation and 
 vineyards cover the slopes to the westward. The main 
 road from Adrianople to the capital and the railway line 
 follow the course of the river, the latter being carried 
 across the loops of the Ergene by iron-girder bridges on 
 stone piers. 
 
 Mahmud Mukhtar had retired on Viza with the Third 
 Corps, followed up as far as Bunarhissar by Dimitrictf 
 and the Third Bulgarian Army. It would seem that after 
 the vanguard of the invaders occupied the latter town, 
 Mahmud Mukhtar made a sudden counter-stroke and drove 
 them out. Dimitrieff's despatch to headquarters announc- 
 ing this check caused considerable anxiety there, and the 
 rumor spread that the Turks had turned back and re- 
 captured Kirk Kilisse itself. But with superior numbers 
 arrayed against him, the commander of the Third Corps 
 could not hold on at Bunarhissar. He continued his retreat 
 to Viza and asked for reinforcements, and above all for 
 ammunition and supplies. He was sent some relief bat- 
 talions originally destined for the reserve corjis. 
 
 Abdallah Pasha had sufficient insight to guess that his 
 opponent, Savoff, meant to use Dimitrieff's army for a 
 blow against his flank and rear, that might seriously en- 
 danger his line of retreat on the capital. When, therefore, 
 he decided on making a stand at Lule Burgas, he ordered 
 Mahmud Mukhtar to make a counter-attack on the Bul- 
 garians about Bunarhissar, in order to check their further 
 advance and keep them fully occupied.
 
 « 
 386 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 The fighting thus took place on a front of more than 
 20 miles, though there was a considerable gap between 
 the left of Mahmud Mukhtar's force advancing from Viza 
 and the right of the main Turkish army near Lule Burgas. 
 Here Abdallah had chosen for his position the line of high 
 ground forming the left or eastern bank of the narrow 
 valley through which the Karagach brook runs down to 
 the Ergene. Detachments held the town of Lule Burgas 
 and the railway station. Part only of the First Corps had 
 been rallied, and a considerable number of fugitives, 
 wounded and unwounded, passed through the lines and 
 continued the weary tramp eastwards, accompanied by 
 great numbers of refugees from the district already over- 
 run by the enemy, — men, women, and children bringing 
 their few belongings with them in country carts. On the 
 hills west of Lule Burgas a rearguard of the First Corps 
 had halted to cover this exodus. 
 
 On the main position the Fourth Corps (Ahmed Abouk) 
 was posted on the left. At the railway bridge over the 
 river breastworks had been erected on both sides of the 
 Ergene and on the southern bank trenches had been dug 
 to bring a cross-fire of rifles to bear on the approaches 
 to it. Some trenches were also dug along the crest held 
 by the main battle line. In the center was posted part 
 of the First Corps, under Omar Yaver. The right, facing 
 Turk Bey and extending along the brook to Karagach 
 village, was held by the Second Corps under Torgut 
 Shefket. Abdallah Pasha had his headquarters behind the 
 center at the village of Sakiskeui. A huge grassy mound 
 close to the village — perhaps the grave of the dead who 
 fell in some prehistoric tribal battle — aflforded a lookout 
 place for the general and his staff commanding a wide 
 view. 
 
 Savoff had directed Kutincheff, with the First Bulgarian 
 Army, to advance on Lule Burgas. He was reinforced from
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 387 
 
 Ivanoff's army before Adrianople, the men thus withdrawn 
 from the siege of the fortress being- replaced by bringing 
 up Servian troops by rail and marching up new levies from 
 Bulgaria itself. The Bulgarian forces thus available for the 
 coming battle must have outnumbered the Turks by at least 
 50 per cent. None of Abdallah's corps were complete. 
 Troops and guns were still coming up to join him. At no 
 period of the engagement can he have had as many as 
 100,000 men in line. The first fighting took place on the 
 afternoon of M^onday, October 28, when Kutincheff's van- 
 guard drove in the Turkish detachment that had been left 
 on the high ground west of Lule Burgas. The Turks at 
 sundown still held a tree-covered ridge above the town. 
 
 On Tuesday morning they were driven from this posi- 
 tion, which, however, they had no intention of defending 
 for more than a short time, for so far it was on the part 
 of the Turks merely a delaying action. Behind the van- 
 guard that was thus clearing the way, the massive columns 
 of infantry and artillery of Kutincheff's army were moving 
 into position, forming up on the heights west of the Kara- 
 gach hollow and extending their line gradually to the 
 northward as more and more batteries and battalions came 
 up to the front. 
 
 By midday the Bulgarian gunners were sending a shower 
 of shells into Lule Burgas. For two hours the Turks held 
 on to the place, and a battalion, intrenched along its western 
 side and lining walls and inclosures, drove back with the 
 fire of its rifles the first attempt the enemy made to rush 
 the place with their infantry. South of the town Salih's 
 cavalry, with the carbine fire of dismounted men, for a 
 while successfully defended the approach to the railway 
 station. But by two o'clock the increasing fury of the bom- 
 bardment was making the town untenable, and a Bulgarian 
 firing line, working gradually forward on the north of it, 
 threatened to cut off the retirement of the garrison. The
 
 388 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 Turks withdrew to the heights to the eastward, and their 
 retirement uncovered the flank of Sahh's cavalry skir- 
 mishers. Covered by the fire of the batteries on the heights, 
 SaHh withdrew his men behind the Hues of the Fourth 
 Corps, and the Bulgarians rushed the railway station. 
 
 The loss of these advanced points was, however, of no 
 serious importance. Abdallah Pasha had never counted on 
 holding them. His main battle line was intact, and his 
 batteries soon made Lule Burgas too hot for the victors 
 to remain in it. During the afternoon the Ahmed Abouk's 
 men on the Turkish left held their ground well, and the 
 artillery, though suffering considerable loss, kept up a 
 plucky duel with the Bulgarian batteries on the opposite 
 heights. Far away to the right Mahmud Mukhtar had 
 advanced from Viza and was making a good fight against 
 Dimitrieff's army. In the center Torgut Shefket actually 
 gained some ground, repelling a first attack of the Bul- 
 garians and then pushing forward batteries and battalions 
 about Turk Bey, as if he hoped to drive in the left of 
 the enemy's main attack and outflank their prolonged firing 
 lineSi 
 
 Abdallah and the staff were very hopeful in the late hours 
 of Tuesday afternoon, and premature news of victory was 
 sent back to Constantinople. But there were very dis- 
 quieting features in the situation. As the day went on the 
 Bulgarians were bringing more and more batteries into 
 position, all of them armed with the new Schneider-Creusot 
 quick-firers, and they seemed to have an unlimited supply 
 of ammunition, for they kept up a rapid fire hour after 
 hour. The training of the gunners was. it is true, not as 
 good as their armament. They came into action at very 
 long ranges and burst their shrapnel generally too high, 
 and they wasted hundreds of shells on ground where there 
 were few hostile troops. But if they thus threw away many 
 a shell by wild firing, they had so many guns and such a
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 389 
 
 wealth of ammunition at their disposal, that plenty of shots 
 told on their mark. All over the Turkish position, on the 
 fighting lines and on the reserves behind them, the shower 
 of shrapnel bullets came down in deadly gusts from the 
 bursting shells. Comparatively few men were killed by this 
 bombardment, but the number of wounded was enormous. 
 And often when one man was wounded it meant the with- 
 drawal of two or more from the fight, for there were few 
 surgeons with the army and no ambulances or stretcher 
 bearers. Wounded men were helped rearwards by com- 
 passionate or half-hearted comrades. There was no help 
 at hand for them, and their one hope was that, after roughly 
 bandaging their wounds, they could plod wearily back over 
 the long miles to Chorlu and there obtain railway transport 
 to hospital, perhaps as far off as the capital itself. So 
 during the day some thousands joined the stream of fugi- 
 tives that was straggling eastwards behind the fighting line. 
 Just before sundown there came a sudden change in the 
 situation on the Turkish center. Kutincheff, anxious at 
 the advance of the Second Corps against his left, had rein- 
 forced that part of the line, and the Bulgarians made a 
 counter-attack that swept everything before it and drove 
 Torgut Shefket's men back to their original position on the 
 heights. The Bulgarian infantry showed itself as anxious 
 to come to close quarters as the Japanese had been on the 
 battle-fields of Manchuria. The men went into the fight 
 full of a fanatical personal hatred of the enemy and with 
 the determination in each man's breast that he would try to 
 kill at least one Turk, and kill him with the bayonet. So 
 in battle the Bulgarians showed a disposition to get out of 
 hand, not with any tendency to go backward, but with a 
 wild impulse to disregard the lessons they had learned on 
 the parade ground, and close with the Turks in a fierce rush, 
 reckless of the cost. As the firing lines went forward, sud- 
 denly some of the rank and file would raise the cry " Na
 
 390 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 nas!" ("With the bayonet!" literally, With the knife!) 
 and, despite the counter-orders of the officers, the men would 
 spring up and surge forward, followed by the supports — 
 followed even by battalions breaking away from the reserves. 
 It was before such a rush as this that Torgut Shefket's Corps 
 was driven in. Only the close fire from trench and battery 
 on the heights stopped the onset. The Bulgarians paid 
 dearly for their success. The ground in front of the Second 
 Turkish Corps was heaped with dead. But in their half- 
 savage temper the Bulgarians could endure heavier losses 
 than the tactician usually takes in account. 
 
 Darkness ended the fighting. The Turks, though they 
 had held their ground, were in a pitiful plight. It was 
 bitterly cold, but on those bare, treeless uplands few could 
 find enough fuel to light a fire. In parts of the position 
 there was no water. And worst of all, there was hardly 
 any food. Whole battalions had eaten nothing all day, and 
 now had to spend as best they could a chilly, foodless, and 
 almost sleepless night. Even some of the generals had 
 nothing to eat and spent most of the night walking about, 
 for sleep in the cold was impossible. There was no help 
 for the wounded. The dead were left unburied. Many 
 regiments stood to their arms again and again during the 
 hours of darkness, when there came a false alarm that the 
 enemy were advancing. On these occasions there were some 
 local panics, and many more fugitives stole away under the 
 cover of night, unable or unwilling to endure the strain any 
 longer. 
 
 As the sun rose on Wednesday, October 30, a white mist 
 hung over the valleys and the slopes of the downs, and 
 for some time the gunners on both sides could not see far 
 enough to bring the artillery into action. As the day grew 
 warmer and the mists cleared away, the cannonade began 
 again. It was soon evident that Savoff had brought up all 
 his reserve batteries during the night, and the Turkish
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 
 
 391 
 
 artillery was heavily outnumbered. The enemy too seemed 
 to have an unlimited supply of ammunition available, but 
 the Turkish gunners, after the expenditure of the previous 
 day, saw to their dismay that they had very little left. Had 
 there been a vestige of real organization in the Sultan's 
 army, ammunition columns would have come up during 
 the night and a regular distribution would have been made 
 to renew the supply of shells and cartridges for the artillery 
 and infantry. But the only reserve was made up of a few 
 wagon-loads that arrived during the morning, accompanied 
 by some battalions of Redif or militia infantry. 
 
 ■ It was no wonder, therefore, that during the morning the 
 fire of the Turkish artillery, slow from the first, began to 
 slacken still more. Some of the unfortunate batteries had 
 each to fight six times the number of hostile guns. Tlie 
 loss among the gunners was heavy. The enemy shot well. 
 After the fight it was seen that numbers of the Turkish 
 guns had their shields nearly knocked out of all shape by 
 fair hits of the enemy's shells. By noon numbers of the 
 batteries were silent. Either their fire had been crushed 
 out, or their last available shell had been fired. And still 
 the storm of shrapnel from the enemy's long lines of cannon 
 rained destruction on the Turkish positions, and hundreds 
 of wounded were constantly dribbling away to the rear. 
 Others lay with the dead in the trenches and on the open 
 ground. 
 
 General Savoft' for some hours seemed to rely chielly 
 on the efifects of this bombardment to break down the 
 Turkish resistance. He developed the attack of the Ihil- 
 gaiian infantry with a slow deliberation that was, perhaps, 
 inspired by the fear that, if pushed forward too rapidly, 
 they would again get out of hand and throw themselves 
 prematurely upon the unshaken Turkish lines in disorderly 
 onsets that might end in disaster. On the left, however, 
 the hamlet of Turk Bev was taken after a brief resistance.
 
 392 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 But along the greater part of the Hne the Bulgarian infantry 
 for a considerable time did no more than exchange long- 
 range fire with the Turks in the trenches on the opposite 
 slopes. Far away to the northward, Mahmud Mukhtar was 
 making a good fight, and gradually driving Dimitrieff's 
 men back upon Bunarhissar. This prevented the flank 
 attack proposed by Savofif on the main position being even 
 attempted. 
 
 At the other extremity of the battle-field the first serious 
 attack was made by the Bulgarians soon after midday. Its 
 objective was the extreme left of the Turkish position. 
 Screened by the plantations on the low ground south of 
 Lule Burgas a large force of infantry was concentrated. 
 To prepare the way for its attack the Bulgarian artillery 
 showered its shells upon the positions near the railway 
 bridge, and the slopes to the northeast of it. Then sud- 
 denly the firing line of infantry pressed forward, and be- 
 hind it came line on line with fixed bayonets, charging 
 forward in the grim silence that often accompanied a Bul- 
 garian advance. In the rush the rearward lines overtook 
 those in front, and the charge became a dense mass of men. 
 Before this attack the Turks at the bridge head gave way, 
 and it seemed that the bridge itself would be won. 
 
 But its main defense was still untouched. From trenches 
 at the southern end of the bridge, and from others on the 
 left bank at the bend of the river there came a heavy cross- 
 fire of musketry. On the height to the northeast the Turkish 
 gunners swung round their pieces and sent a shower of 
 shells into the mass of hostile infantry. The Bulgarians 
 could not stand this converging fire and fell back to the 
 plantations from which they had advanced. 
 
 There was a lull in the battle. The unequal artillery 
 duel continued, but the infantry on the Bulgarian side for a 
 while either remained on the ground it held, or moved 
 forward very cautiously. The Fourth Corps, on the Turk-
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 393 
 
 ish left, was very short of ammunition by this time, and 
 was suffering heavy loss and could do little more than make 
 a show of defense. For Abdallah Pasha the fact that his 
 army had so far held its ground was of little value, for he 
 was fighting under conditions that made it impossible for 
 him to maintain much longer a purely defensive attitude. 
 Could he have held on persistently and improved the in- 
 trenchments along his front, repelled the Bulgarian attacks, 
 and gradually worn down the enemy's force, he might hope 
 that Mahmud Mukhtar would gain a victory on the right 
 and then turn upon the exposed flank of the Bulgarian 
 line. But with a starving army, that was besides running 
 short of ammunition, he could not afford to play this wait- 
 ing game. There were barely enough shells and cartridges 
 left to make some show of replying to the enemy's fire. 
 Of food there was next to none. Thousands in that hapless 
 army had not eaten a morsel for twenty-four hours, and 
 some had starved for nearly two days. It is an almost 
 incredible scandal that such a state of things should be 
 possible with an army fighting on European ground, in its 
 own territory and with a railway running back to its base 
 from the flank of the position. But so it was. Only men 
 like the patiently enduring Turkish peasants, who filled the 
 ranks, could have borne such privations so long. But to 
 subject the men to a contimiance of the strain was im- 
 possible. Abdallah knew that before sundown he must 
 make an effort at all risks to obtain some decisive result, 
 for he could not afford to await the leisurely development 
 of Savoff's attack. 
 
 His most efficient force was the Second Corps, com- 
 manded by Torgut Shefket. During the day it had been 
 joined by several battalions coming up from Chorlu with 
 food in their haversacks and i)lenty of cartridges on their 
 belts. He therefore sent word to Torgut to make a counter- 
 attack on the Bulgarians about Turk Bey with every avail-
 
 394 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 able man. At the same time, to divert the attention of the 
 enemy from the preparations for this move and perhaps 
 to lure them into another attack on the bridge, he ordered 
 a division of Ahmed Abouk's sorely tried corps on the 
 left to fall back some distance from the crest of the ridge, 
 that was swept by the hostile artillery. 
 
 Now came the crisis of the battle. What followed is best 
 described in the striking words of a soldier who watched it, 
 a veteran of many campaigns.^ 
 
 " It was between two and three in the afternoon," he says, 
 " when the center division of Ahmed Abouk's Corps began to retire 
 from its forward position. The first movement of the infantry 
 was heralded by a crash of artillery fire. The Bulgarian gunners 
 had evidently been expecting some change in position, either for- 
 ward or backward, on this front. As the Turkish infantry got up 
 slowly out of their trenches and trooped back to the rear with 
 dignified deliberation, salvos of shrapnel burst above heir heads. 
 The whole firmament seemed to be turned into a Hades by the 
 whip-like crackling of this devilish instrument of war. Let the 
 Bulgarian gunners burst their shrapnel never so rapidly, never so 
 accurately, they were unable to make those Turkish troops move one 
 pulse more quickly than if their retirement were a parade operation. 
 
 " Then on the far right, from the direction of Turk Bey, arose 
 another tumult. The head of Torgut Shefket's counter-attack had 
 risen out of the trenches. The Second Army Corps was making its 
 supreme effort. Down the slope came the brown infantry in rapidly 
 moving lines. Of a truth the Turk had taken the offensive. It was 
 a wonderful spectacle, and for the moment it looked as if the suc- 
 cession of waves must be irresistible. On and on they came like a 
 swarm of bees leaving a disturbed hive. Then suddenly from in 
 front of them came a crash of fire. It was as if a million rifles 
 were firing as one. The shrapnel from overhead was as nothing in 
 comparison with this. It seemed as if the whole line of advancing 
 Turks shuddered under the shock. There was no period to the 
 crash ; it was but a prelude to a sustained series that demonstrated 
 to the utmost the devastating power of the modern firearm. 
 
 " The line of advancing Turks shuddered and, shuddering, the 
 men seemed as if they had been shaken from their balance by some 
 gigantic earthquake. .With one impulse four to five thousand men 
 
 ' Mr. Lionel James, Correspondent of the London Times. See his 
 work " With the Conquered Turk," pp. 125-000.
 
 DRCH 
 
 Bulgarians ^m 
 
 Turks liD Injantrij ^ Cavalry 
 
 oll.l'VS'67 
 
 .SElDLtR STATION "^i 
 
 No. 30 — Battle of Lule Burgas 
 (Position in the afternoon of October 30, igi2)
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 395 
 
 had thrown themselves on their faces. The impetus had gone out 
 of the attack. There was a lull in the crash of fire from the 
 plantations surrounding Turk Bey. Spasmodic efforts were made 
 by the Turks to infuse life again into the movement. These efforts 
 were but the signal for further outbursts of terrific fire from the 
 enemy, whilst the whole hillside seemed shrouded in the dust which 
 the shrapnel and rifle bullets churned up around the prostrate Turks. 
 The forward impetus was killed. 
 
 " Suddenly there was another movement. Again the hoarse- 
 throated quick-firers spoke. Again the wicked automatics poured 
 forth their leaden stream of destruction. Again the Mannlicher 
 breechblocks worked to the fullest extent of their mechanism. The 
 great counter-attack had failed, and the survivors were flying back 
 to the cover of their position." 
 
 On the left the partial retreat of the Fourth Corps and 
 the spectacle of Torgut's failure had shaken the whole of 
 the troops. Ahmed Abouk's men and the detachments of 
 Omar Yaver's Corps on their right began a general retire- 
 ment. The officers had been few in numbers, even at 
 the beginning of the battle, and an enormous proportion 
 of them had already been killed or wounded. It was there- 
 fore all the more difficult to steady the broken ranks. Salih 
 Pasha brought up his cavalry and dismounted a long line 
 of skirmishers to check for a while the Bulgarian advance. 
 In the center Torgut made another attempt to attack, which 
 ended even more quickly and disastrously than the first. 
 Two batteries, hurried to the front to cover the movement, 
 lost in a few minutes most of their men and horses under 
 the concentrated fire of more than sixty hostile guns. 
 
 It was clear that the fight was now lost for Turkey. 
 Even on the far right Mahmud Mukhtar's advance had 
 been stopped. Until the afternoon of the thirtieth he had 
 made steady though slow progress, but by this time Savoff 
 had reinforced DimitriefT's army with all the men and 
 guns he could spare from the Bulgarian right, and after 
 three o'clock the Turks gained no further ground. 
 
 On the main battle-field that afternoon a considerable 
 part of the Fourth and First corps had begun to retreat
 
 396 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 towards Chorlu. All who saw this first stage of the Turkish 
 retirement agree that at the outset it was perfectly orderly. 
 The Bulgarian guns kept up a heavy fire, so that over the 
 heads of the retiring troops the air was full of the white 
 smoke rings and bright flashes of the bursting shells. But 
 the Turks simply shook themselves out into long lines, and 
 the wide expanse of the downs was dotted with men walk- 
 ing steadily in this loose order, without hurry or excitement, 
 and regardless of the hostile fire, which made fewer cas- 
 ualties among them than might have been expected. 
 
 Strange to say, the Bulgarians made no attempt to rush 
 the position, though it was by this time partly abandoned. 
 Only a few guns kept up a slow fire from the crest on the 
 left, but in the center Torgut Shefket still had his men 
 well in hand and held on to the ground opposite Turk 
 Bey. It would seem that the victors themselves were ex- 
 hausted by the protracted struggle and in no mood for a 
 further effort to go forward. 
 
 The night that followed was a time of utter misery, both 
 for the Turkish troops, who still kept their ground, and for 
 those who were wearily plodding through the darkness 
 towards Chorlu. These last, famished, exhausted, encum- 
 bered with wounded men and civilian fugitives, and with 
 the cholera already claiming victims among them, were 
 rapidly becoming a mere mob. The tales told of their hav- 
 ing committed atrocities on Bulgarian peasants who fell 
 into their hands seem to have had no foundation. Few of 
 the Bulgarians of the district had remained so far in their 
 farms and villages. The European correspondents who 
 shared the miseries of the flight to Chorlu spoke with ad- 
 miration of the patience of the beaten Turks, of courtesies 
 they received from men and officers, one Englishman telling 
 how a hungry soldier even insisted on sharing a small loaf 
 with him. 
 
 Abdallah Pasha spent the night at Sakiskeui with his
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 397 
 
 staff. Early in the morning he mounted with his staff and 
 began the dreary ride back to Chorlu amid the wreck of 
 his army. Torgut Shefket, with what was left of his corps, 
 acted for a while as a rearguard, holding on to the ground 
 near Turk Bey with a few guns and many rifles in action, 
 until at last the Bulgarians moved up the heights between 
 him and the Ergene River and he had to go. The only 
 pursuit that the victors attempted was to push forward 
 some batteries that shelled the retiring Turks, whose re- 
 treat, orderly at first, soon became a broken flight. If 
 Savoff had had a brigade of cavalry with him, he might 
 have collected thousands of prisoners. If even some of 
 his infantry and artillery had been fresh enough to make 
 a short, forced march, the result would have been the cap- 
 ture of great numbers of the Sultan's broken army. But 
 pursuit there was none. 
 
 While the last remnants of the Second Corps abandoned 
 the field the thunder of cannon still came from the north- 
 ward. Mahmud Mukhtar, reinforced by a division of 
 Redifs, had renewed the fight before Bunarhissar. During 
 the whole of the thirty-first he continued the fight, appar- 
 ently in ignorance of the fate that had overtaken the rest of 
 the army. It was not till the morning of November i that 
 he realized that to hold on any longer would be to have 
 the whole of Savoff's army on his hands ; and to avoid 
 utter disaster he began his retreat through the wooded 
 country towards Viza. But after leaving the battle-field 
 there was something like a panic among his men. Some 
 regiments held together. Others broke up into a mob of 
 fugitives. Some of the artillery drivers even unhooked 
 their teams when they found the gun wheels sticking in 
 the muddy track and, abandoning the guns, rode off through 
 Viza, never halting till they reached the railway line. Here 
 again there was no pursuit. Two days after the battle 
 Mahmud Mukhtar was able to send back a party with 400
 
 398 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 draught oxen, which brought back with them a number of 
 guns that had been thus left on the road. 
 
 At Chorlu the wounded and many unwounded fugitives 
 crowded the trains that went off in succession to Constanti- 
 nople. Every carriage was packed. The roofs were 
 crowded, and men hung on footboards and buffers. Others 
 plodded along the roads, many dying by the wayside of 
 sickness, wounds, and exhaustion. At Chorlu Ahmed Abouk 
 rallied part of his corps and held the village for some days, 
 while Salih with his cavalry watched for the first signs 
 of a renewed advance of the Bulgarians. But for some 
 days the invaders made no further move. This gave time 
 for the beaten army to reach the lines of Chatalja, covering 
 the capital, where it was reorganized and joined by large 
 reinforcements from Asia. 
 
 There were no newspaper correspondents present at the 
 battle on the Bulgarian side, and the accounts sent to 
 Europe by various journalists, who were no nearer the 
 battle-field than King Ferdinand's headquarters at Stara 
 Zagora in Bulgaria itself, or the frontier town of Mustapha 
 Pasha — accounts based on information received from the 
 staff — represented the battle of Lule Burgas as having 
 been a fight to a finish, ending in the victors storming the 
 Turkish positions and routing the Sultan's army. This 
 version of what occurred was generally accepted, until a 
 comparison of the story with the narratives of several inde- 
 pendent and experienced war correspondents on the other 
 side, and that of a German officer serving on the Turkish 
 staff, showed that the defense had collapsed for the reasons 
 already explained, before the Bulgarian attack was driven 
 home, and that the only prolonged close fighting was on 
 the Turkish right before Bunarhissar. The Bulgarian offi- 
 cial accounts also erred in representing the fighting as hav- 
 ing been continued for three days longer, ending with a 
 fierce struggle for the heights along the Ergene near Chorlu,
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 
 
 399 
 
 where, as we have seen, Ahmed Abotik was able to rally a 
 strong rearguard, and where he was undisturbed until the 
 War Minister ordered him to join the rest of the army at 
 the Chatalja position. 
 
 The Bulgarians owed their success to their artillery, and 
 still more to the imbecile conduct of the Turkish govern- 
 ment in pushing forward its army to Lule Burgas and 
 leaving it to starve in the presence of the enemy, and to 
 fight a three days' battle with only one day's supply of 
 shells and cartridges. Even so, the victory was a costly 
 one, so costly that the amount of the losses incurred by the 
 infantry in their wild attacks was concealed by the Bulgarian 
 Government. That it must have been heavy is shown by 
 the fact that the First Silistria Regiment, which was en- 
 gaged in the fight with Torgut Shefket's Corps, lost 50 
 per cent of its men. Against better trained and better 
 supplied troops than the mixed force that the Turks brought 
 into action, there is no doubt that such wild rushes across 
 exposed ground would have failed as completely as they 
 collapsed in other recent wars. The days of Lule Burgas 
 afford no proof that the old-fashioned attack in mass from 
 a distance is possible in the face of modern rifles. The easy 
 destruction of the great Turkish counter-attack by the fire 
 of the Bulgarian infantry enforces the lesson. 
 
 The conditions that so gravely handicapped the Turks and 
 gave the invaders a comparatively easy victory, were the 
 result of the prolonged neglect of the Sultan's army in 
 time of peace, and the lack of all well-ordered preparation 
 for war. One may say that, to a great extent, it is true 
 that battles are now won in the years that precede them. 
 The gigantic efifort put forth on the modern battle-field 
 is, as it were, the application at the working point of a vast 
 store of energy accumulated in the long period of prepara- 
 tion and organization. 
 
 All that has yet been seen in war — even such a battle
 
 400 FAMOUS MODERN BATTLES 
 
 of giants as that of Mukden — will be surpassed on the 
 day when the forces of two great military powers or of 
 two great leagues of armed nations meet in decisive con- 
 flict. It is quite possible that in a European war between 
 states of the first rank more than a million men will meet 
 in combat on a single far extended battle-field with a front 
 of a hundred miles or more. 
 
 The commander-in-chief of an army engaged in such a 
 battle will direct the fight from some station well to the 
 rear, perhaps where he can see nothing of the actual 
 operations and can only hear the far-ofif thunder of hundreds 
 of guns. If he wishes to inspect for himself his battle array, 
 he will no longer — as in old times — ride along the ordered 
 lines surrounded by his staff amid the welcoming cheers of 
 his men. Instead of this, he will sweep swiftly overhead, 
 seated beside an aviator in a powerfully engined aeroplane. 
 Then he will fly back to his battle station, where he will 
 find himself in much the same position as the director of 
 a military war-game worked out on a large scale map. 
 
 On the table the staff map will be marked out with the 
 positions of friend and foe. Field telegraphs, telephones, 
 and wireless installations will link him with every army 
 corps and division. He will be constantly receiving in- 
 formation, and from time to time dictating orders, which 
 will be transmitted over the wires or through the air. All 
 day long he will be solving problems of strategy and tactics 
 undisturbed by the terrors of the actual conflict. War has 
 become a scientific business under the gigantic developments 
 of our day. 
 
 Every discovery and invention of applied science is made 
 tributary to the needs of the soldier. Wireless telegraphy 
 has facilitated the communication of orders and intelli- 
 gence. Aerial navigation has changed the whole conditions 
 of the conflict. Over the embattled armies will hover air- 
 ships and aeroplanes. They will be the scouts of the future
 
 THE BATTLE OF LULE BURGAS 401 
 
 battle-field, and perhaps act also as winged messengers of 
 death, showering down explosive bombs on enemies below. 
 There may even be a preliminary struggle for the command 
 of the upper air as a prelude to the fight, thus realizing the 
 poet's vision of 
 
 " The nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue." 
 
 Such a battle may well last, like that of Mukden, for days 
 and weeks, with a hideous toll of human life. The only 
 compensating feature in this immense development of inter- 
 national conflict is that the very extent of the struggle, the 
 huge cost of war and battle, makes statesmen hesitate more 
 than ever to incur the responsibility of an appeal to the 
 arbitrament of the sword. Awful as modern war has be- 
 come, there has been at the same time a growing disposition 
 to avoid it, even at the cost of serious sacrifices. In our 
 time of armed nations, questions find a peaceful solution 
 that would inevitably have led to hostilities in earlier days, 
 when comparatively small armies of professional soldiers 
 were sent to fight out leisurely campaigns, while the gen- 
 eral life of the people sufifered little disturbance, except in 
 the immediate neighborhood of the actual operations. So 
 much at least we have gained. War, if more terrible, is also 
 far less frequent, though the times are still far distant — 
 if they will ever come — when the dream of unbroken and 
 universal peace will be realized.
 
 M 
 
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