SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS.* GENERAL ROBERTS is one of the few
living Englishmen who have commanded an army of more than ten thousand men in the field ; and, if the question were asked by some Continental critic as to who were our Generals, the reply that would rise naturally to the lips would be the names of Sir Frederick Roberts and Lord Wolseley. There are many very evident objections to the writing of a biography during the life of its subject, and the more carefully we consider them, the more force do we find them to possess, and the greater regret do we feel in the frequent departure from the old rule that a man's acts and career were not summed up and recorded until he had gone over to the majority. But as Mr. Low had published a memoir of Lord Wolseley, we suppose he felt bound to perform the same service for his brother-in-arms, General Roberts ; and although the work would have benefited from judicious compression, it will be allowed that he has written an interesting volume enough of several campaigns in which General Roberts took always an honourable, and latterly a prominent part. We may give Mr. Low's opening lines, as introductory to his subject :—
" A memoir of an officer, of whose principal achievement, the march from Cabot to Candabar, German military critics declare that it is the most brilliant performance of a British army since Waterloo, and which a distinguished officer, who had served throughout Lord Strathnairn's victorious campaign in Central India, declared to us was, in his estimation, the finest exploit achieved by our arms since Sir Charles Napier's conquest of Scinde—the memoir of such a soldier cannot be without interest, not only to men of his own cloth, but to the British public, which reads with avidity biographies of its military heroes."
General Roberts is the son of an excellent and distinguished Anglo-Indian officer—the late Sir Abraham Roberts—whose advice, if it had only been taken at the time, would in all pro- bability have averted the catastrophe at Cabal in the winter of 1841-2. . The subject of this memoir was his only son by a
• Major-General Sir Frederick S. Roberts, Dark, V.C., G.C.B.: a Memoir. By Charles Ratbhone Lqw, I N., Author of "Memoir of Lord Wo Belay," &o. London W. H. Allen and Co. 1888.
second marriage, and he was born at Cawnpore on September 30th, 1832. In the early part of 1852, when he was less than twenty, he sailed for India to join his regiment, the Bengal Artillery, to which he had been gazetted as second lieutenant. His apprenticeship in arms began with a piece of that good-luck which never abandoned him. His father was in command of the Division at Peshawar, and the young lieutenant was at once appointed to his staff. When the Mutiny came Roberts joined the movable column sent by John Lawrence's energy to Delhi, and more than one story is told of his hair-breadth escapes while serving the batteries against that city. If the siege and capture of the old Mogul capital made him known to his superiors as "an active and gallant officer," the later stages of the Mutiny brought him increased fame. During the operations before Lucknow, when Sir Colin left Outram in possession of the Alumbagh, and also during the fighting round Cawnpore after Windham's reverse, Roberts greatly distinguished himself on Hope Grant's staff.
It was during the pursuit of the scattered fragments of this rebel army, which, constantly reihforced, renewed the offensive on numerous occasions, that he performed the act which gained for him the much-coveted distinction of the Victoria Cross. Mr. Low describes the incident as follows :—
"While following up the retreating enemy with the ardour of a fox-bunter across country, Lieutenant Roberts saw two sepoys making off with a standard. Putting spurs to his horse, he overtook them just as they were about to enter the village, and made for them sword in hand. They immediately turned at bay and presented their muskets at him. It was a critical moment, as one of them pulled the trigger, but a merciful Providence had preserved the young officer to render priceless services to his country, and add a glorious page to her history. The cap snapped almost in Roberts's face, and, the next moment, he laid the Sepoy carrying the standard dead at his feet by a tremendous cut across the head, and seized the trophy as it fell from his lifeless grasp. Meantime, the companion of the standard-bearer made off into the village. But this was not the only exploit performed by Lieutenant Roberts on this 2nd of January. Following up the rebels, he came up with a group, consisting of a Sikh sowar and a rebel Sepoy standing at bay with musket and bayonet. The cavalryman with his sword felt himself no match for the foot-soldier armed with what Napier called 'the queen of weapons,' but Roberts, on arriving on the scene, did not wait to count the odds, if they were against him, but rode straight at the Sonny, and with one stroke of his sword slashed him across the face, killing him on the spot."
Roberts's part in the Indian Mutiny terminated soon after the recapture of Lucknow, through his being compelled to return to England by ill-health. It is a coincidence that he was suc- ceeded in his post on the staff by Lord Wolseley. On his return, after only twelve months' holiday, he resumed that active work in the administration of the Army which made him as favourably known at Head-quarters for his attention to official duties as for his activity during a campaign. In 1863 he was sent on a special mission to Sir Neville Chamberlain's camp, and wit- nessed the closing scenes of the Sittana campaign, when the fanaticism of a band of mountaineers and Hindoo zealots seemed for a time to be more than a match for the discipline of an English force of several thousands. He accompanied the troops when they attacked the village and heights of Laloo, and he was present at the destruction of the village of Mulkah, week later, by the chiefs of Bonair. Major Roberts next took a prominent part in the organisation of the expedition to Abys- sinia. Again he returned to India, in a high administrative capacity, and again his luck sent him the preferable alternative of active service in the field. A punitive expedition was sent against the Looshai tribes, on the eastern frontier of India, and to Colonel Roberts was entrusted, as chief of the staff, the task of organising it. Of all the many frontier wars and expedi- tions in which we have been engaged during our rule in India, none was as well arranged and provided for as the little war with the Looshais, and it still serves as a model for imitation in such matters. Some interesting traits of human nature were obtained and recorded during the operations against these wild men of the thick forests beyond Cachar and Mnnipore. Among them may be mentioned the practice of carrying off their dead, because, "according to a superstition prevalent among them, the man who loses his head in battle becomes the slave of the victor in the next world." Another instance was the effect produced upon them by music, as," when alter dinner the officers in turn favoured the company with a song, the auditory included the fierce children of the forest, who stopped firing when each song commenced, and re- sumed it on its conclusion." General Roberts received as his reward the post of Quartermaster-General, and in 1877 he was appointed to the command of the Punjab Irregular Force. He held the latter position when the outbreak of the Afghan war provided him with a fresh and most favourable opportunity of distinction.
However much divided opinions are likely to remain as to the policy and necessity of that war, there will be agreement on the point that it enabled the subject of this memoir to make a repu- tation as a soldier second to none of his English contemporaries. The operations entrusted to him in the Khurum Valley during the first campaign promised to place him in a position of minor importance, for no one believed at the time in the feasibility of the so-called short route to Cabal over the Shutargurdan ; yet, in a way almost marvellous, he managed to rivet public atten- tion on his movements, and such interest as the Afghan Cam- paign of 1878-9 excites centres round his battle of the Peiwar, and his later expedition into Khost. When the Treaty of Gan- damak was signed, it was admitted on all hands, by the captious critics who had seen danger in his intrepidity not less heartily than by enthusiastic friends, that General Roberts had carried off the honours of the war. _Three months later, on the arrival of the terrible news of the massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari and his companions in the Afghan capital, the choice of the com- mander to lead an expedition to occupy Cabul naturally fell on the officer who had shown the most daring and enterprise in the previous war, and "the hero of the Afghan war," as the Viceroy called him, hastened from his seat on the Army Commission at Simla to place himself at the head of the troops rapidly assembling in the Khurum Valley. It is unnecessary to recall the principal incidents of the occupation of Cabul, as they are well remembered ; nor will the sudden arrest of the progress of our arms, and the retirement into Sherpur, easily pass into oblivion. General Roberts had very unjustly been set down up to this as a reckless and impulsive officer; but nothing could have been more deliberate or better timed than his resolve to Concentrate his army in the great barrack fortress erected by here Ali outside Cabal. His men were exhausted by constant and harassing fighting with the fanatical warriors devoted to Mahommed Jan, and there is nothing improbable in supposing that a persistence in attacking might have resulted in a signal disaster. General Roberts showed that he possessed a soldier's eye, by taking in the situation at a glance. The retirement under cover not merely enabled his soldiers to recover from their exhaustion, but it blunted the edge of Afghan fury. When Mahommed Jan delivered his assault on the entrenchments, not only had the courage and confidence of the English revived, but the Afghans had suffered from the loss of the impetuosity which made them most formidable. The Sherpur incident showed conclusively that General Roberts possessed the instinct of caution, in which he was thought to be most deficient.
Just as the Cavagnari massacre recalled General Roberts to Afghanistan, so did the tidings of the defeat at Maiwand compel a further stay in the country then on the eve of being evacuated. It was resolved to send a strong division under the command of General Roberts to attack Ayoob's victorious force outside Candahar, and with ten thousand picked troops he marched across a great portion of Afghanistan, relieved the beleaguered garrison of Candahar, and inflicted a crushing defeat on the Afghan forces encamped in a strong position north of that city. The whole execution of the enterprise was as near perfection as it is possible for anything human to be ; and there are very few episodes that stand out so clearly or with such dramatic completeness in the whole of our military history. This achievement placed the crowning touch on the fame of General Roberts; but, as Mr. Low has no new informa- tion to impart, we will not attempt to describe over again what was already known on the subject. We cannot conclude this brief notice of an interesting volume better than by quoting Mr. Low's closing criticism on the subject of the Afghan campaigns :—
"Our experience of Afghanistan has been of a varied character ; and, indeed, the country may be said to be the grave of many mili- tary reputations. The names of Elphinstone and Shelton call up memories other than glorious to British arms ; and the only conso• latory feature in a retrospect of the disasters associated with their names is that every Englishman displayed personal gallantry under trying circumstances. Equally has the name, Afghanistan, been associated in our annals with glorious memories of honour retrieved, and defeat wiped out by victory. Nett, Sale, and Pollock—the last, a brother-officer of Roberts, reposes in Westminster Abbey—are names which Englishmen must ever hold in respect as those of soldiers who restored our prestige,—that impalpable but essential attribute of our sovereignty in the East, without which our tenure of India would be quickly challenged by our subject races. To these great names those of Roberts and Stewart must hereafter be added, the march
of the latter being in the footsteps of Nott, and his victory at Ahmed Khel one of which any soldier might be proud. Roberts's victory at Charasia and dispersal of Mahomed Jan'a forces at Sherpur may likewise be likened to Pollock's action at Tezeen and Sale's defeat of Akbar Khan at Jellalabad. But the forced march from Cabal to Candahar, with the swiftly-following reconnaissance and victory of September 1st, remain without parallel in the record of our relations with Afghanistan, and place the name of Roberts first among the soldiers who have led the British armies in that region."
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