LORD ROBERTS'S "FORTY-ONE YEARS IN INDIA."

THESE two volumes contain, in the first place, a narrative by Lord Roberts, who is the most distinguished soldier that India has produced in our time, of all that he has seen and done during forty-one years of active service. They also give, in clear outline, authentic accounts of the more important military operations to which his personal experiences belong ; and they record his conclusions upon the political causes and consequences of such momentous events as the Sepoy Mutiny and the second Afghan War.

Roberts arrived in India in 1852, and travelled up to join a troop of horse artillery at Peshawar, where his father com- manded a division on the North-West Frontier. His good fortune began early, for after a few years on the Afghan border, where so many of our best Indian officers have been trained, be was appointed to the staff of the Punjab army in 1856, just one year before the great revolt of 1857 made a supreme demand on the fortitude and daring of all English- men in Upper India, and brought the Punjab forces at once into the foremost fighting line. A sudden telegram from Delhi startled all the northern stations, and was felt like the first shock of a coming earthquake ;—the whole country was instantly astir; troops were mustered, suspected native regiments suddenly disarmed ; disorders were repressed; the frontier held down ; and Roberts bad the luck to be attached to a movable column, with which he marched southward through the provinces, until he was ordered to the camp before Delhi at the end of June. The next three months were passed by him on the Ridge within shot of the city walls. A small force was all England had to bring against a formidable native army in possession of a fortified town and a great arsenal, aided by fierce fanatics and an armed mob, having for its figure-head and rallying-point the discrowned heir of the Mogul Emperors, sitting like a ghost, forlorn and shadowy, in the Imperial Palace of his ancestors. The issues at stake were no less than the lives of all the Englishry in Northern India, and the existence, for the time, of English rule ; for defeat would have utterly ruined and swept away our government in all those provinces. The strength of the fortress in front, the numerical superiority of its defenders, the risk of disaffection among the native allies, and of a rising in our rear; the knowledge that an assault, once delivered, must not fail, for it could not be tried twice,—all these things rendered the situation unique in military annals. Anson, the Commander-in-Chief, had died on his way to Delhi ; Barnard, who took command of the besieging force, died a month later, both of cholera ; the next General, Reed, fell sick, and Wilson commanded to the end. But the whole siege and the final storming were really carried out by the principal officers, young, resolute, and energetic, of whom Nicholson was perhaps the foremost, • FortipOne Years in India frotn Subaltern to Co7nmander-in.Chiof. By Field-Marshal Lord Roberta of Kandahar. London: Richard Bent:ey and Son.

while Roberts may be counted among the brilliant sub- ordinates.

The style in which the assault is described tallies well with the straightforward simplicity of the tactics. The town was taken by the plain, old-fashioned method of making an open dash at the breaches, blowing open a gate, and scaling the walls under a hailstorm of bullets. It is by far the finest exploit achieved by an Anglo-Indian army ; and most of us will think the story better told here than when it is treated as material for a new kind of historic romance. A letter quoted at p. 223 gives a picture of the 75th Regiment gathering in the darkness for the attack at dawn, when, as Roberts tells us-

" The breaching guns suddenly ceased, and each soldier felt he had but a brief moment in which to brace himself for the coming conflict. Nicholson gave the signal; the 60th Rifles with a loud cheer dashed to the front in skirmishing order ; while at the same moment the heads of the first and second columns moved steadily toward the breaches."

Of personal adventures and striking anecdotes there is no lack ; and we are well reminded of what should never be forgotten, the steadfast valour shown by the Sikhs and Goorkhas, and the admirable fidelity of the native camp- followers. So long as Englishmen continue to merit such services, and no longer, will the Indian army carry high the British flag in Asiatic battlefields.

Roberts marched out of Delhi with the flying column ordered to clear the communications southward, which did some fighting on its way, and very nearly got into an awkward scrape at Agra, where it encamped unconsciously under the enemy's concealed batteries. After joining Sir Colin Campbell and relieving Havelock at Lucknow, the force hurried back to succour Wyndham, who had been driven into his entrenchments at Cawnpore, and returned at leisure to reconquer Oudh. The details given of all these operations form a valuable and instructive chapter of military history. In regard to debatable points, we notice Lord Roberts's conclusion, after careful inquiry, that if the English troops had pursued the sepoys who fled from Meerut to Delhi after the first outbreak on the evening of May 10th, 1857, they could not have overtaken and dispersed them; also his disproof of the common assertion that Hodson was ldlled in the act of plundering.

Upon the causes of the Mutiny, and its warnings, he writes at some length. Lord Dalhousie's policy of absorbing native States, the annexation of Oudh, the social and economical changes produced by too rapid administrative reforms, the jealousy of conservative Brahmanism, the arrogance of the high-caste sepoys,—all these explosive materials had been gathering under our feet when the mine was exploded by the greased cartridges. It shattered the old system of govern- ment in England and in India, and a new fabric has been built up; but Lord Roberts holds that our present Adminis- tration is still too bureaucratic and centralised, and be lays great stress upon the necessity of maintaining a high pro- portion of European troops in the country.

Roberts began his active field service as a Lieutenant in the Mutiny ; he ended it as General of the Army which

defeated Ayub Khan and relieved Candahar in 1880. Between these dates he was often and variously employed;

and we may especially draw attention to his animated descrip- tion of a famous little frontier war in 1863, when Sir Neville Chamberlain's expedition was brought to a standstill at the Umbeyla Pass by a formidable combination of the tribes, which entangled us in some dangerous fighting, and seri- ously alarmed the Indian Government. The fine leadership of brave and experienced frontier officers, and the ad- mirable behaviour of our native troops, extricated us from an awkward situation. But in the latter part of his nar- rative its main interest centres in the Afghan Cam- paigns of 1879-80, which were the outcome of a long train of events and transactions that are briefly sketched by Lord Roberts. It must suffice to remind our readers here that the Ameer Shere Ali, who had been offended and estranged by our political attitude, and had rejected Lord Lytton's overtures for an alliance, admitted a Russian envoy to Cabal In 1878, whereupon the Viceroy sent him an ultimatum, and, on receiving an unsatisfactory answer, declared war. Roberts marched up the Kuram Valley by a route which leads towards Cabal over the lofty Shutargardan Pass, and he found an Afghan force entrenched upon a high range, inaccessible to front attack

The Peiwar Kotal is a narrow depression in the ridge, com- manded on each side by high pine-clad mountains. The approach to it from the Kuram Valley was up a steep, narrow, zigzag path, commanded throughout its entire length from the adjacent heights, and difficult to ascend on account of the extremP roughness of the road, which was covered with large fragments of rocks and boulders. Every point of the ascent was exposed to fire from both guns and rifles, securely placed behind breastwork& constructed of pine-logs and stones."

To turn this position he had to make a night march through rough defiles, along watercourses choked with boulders, up a steep mountain-side ; and a surprise was essential to success. In the darkness two Pathan soldiers discharged their rifles, probably to warn the enemy ; but the

signal was not heard or not heeded, and by morning the Afghans were outflanked and driven off the ridge. The particulars of this enterprise, which is very well described,. should be studied by all who are concerned to take lessons in

the methods and tactics of mountain warfare ; for it is probable that no English General ever handled troops in a more difficult highland country.

Then, in September, 1879, came the massacre of Cavagnari'a mission at Cabal; whereupon Roberts marched over the Shutargardan Pass direct upon the capital, and occupied it, after driving the Afghan army from a strong position a few miles outside. This was a very notable feat of arms, for the tribal forces, much more troublesome foes than the regular Afghan regiments, were swarming round his flanks and rear, so that a reverse, or even a check, in front would have been disastrous. His first three months at Cabal were compara- tively quiet ; for the Afghans thought he had come to avenge Cavagnari's murder and then retire ; but when they saw no sign of his departure they surrounded him, placed his force in some jeopardy, and only retreated after a very gallant attack on his intrenchments. The whole story is well worth reading, as the fighting was bravely done on both sides ; and all honour is due to the wild highland folk who spent their lives freely under the walls of Sher par in the vain attempt to.

dislodge and destroy the foreign invader. Bat in South Afghanistan the Afghans had their turn, for General Burrows. was fairly routed in the open field by Ayub Khan, who be- leaguered a British garrison in Candahar. Roberts marched to relieve him with an army of ten thousand picked men who, like the ten thousand Greeks, could have dispersed any number of barbarians, and who carried Ayub's fortified position, took his camp and all his cannon, with the masterly ease of practised veterans. And so ended the second Afghan War.

It will be seen that Lord Roberts's narrative, of which we are able to trace only the bare outline, traverses all the critical periods of Indian war and politics during the last forty years. He writes of them as an eye-witness, as an expert, and latterly as the chief actor in the closing scenes of an eventful drama ; his story produces the vivid impression which comes out of accurate knowledge and strange personal experiences. All Indian politics involve such complex and momentous issues, and the future of Afghanistan is a problem full of such doubts and even dangers, that this book deserves attentive study not only by those who look backward, but also by those whose duty it is to look ahead. We do not affirm that either as a soldier or a politician Lord Roberts has always placed himself beyond criticism ; yet we may say that, no man has ever handled Indian troops more successfully ; nor has any English commander passed with greater credit the formidable ordeal of an Afghan campaign. With his political conclusions we may not altogether agree ; and we are by no means sure that the incessant expansion of the North-Western Frontier of India during recent years, which may be due to the weighty influence exercised by Lord Roberts, as Commander-in-Chief, in the Viceroy's Council, is a prudent addition to our risks and responsibilities. But the natural bent of a brilliant soldier is forward ; and the Anglo-Indian strategist sees ever in front of him a position greatly superior to that which he has just taken up. This book may be heartily commended to all who are concerned to understand how the changes and chances, the surprises and emergencies, which beset the guardians of our Indian dominion, can be surmounted by resourceful courage and strenuous endeavour.