THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE ON THE PRINCE IMPERIAL'S DEATH.
THE letter from the Adjutant-General in which the opinion of the Duke of Cambridge on the Court-martial on Captain Carey is conveyed to the General commanding in South Africa is framed on an unsatisfactory principle, and naturally, therefore, arrives at an unsatisfactory result. Con- , sidering that the trial has been set aside on the express ground that there is no evidence to sustain the charge of mis- behaviour before the enemy, it is not very clear why such a letter should have been written. It is to be presumed, indeed, that the Commander-in-Chief would not have received her Majesty's commands to make known his observations on the occurrence of the 1st of June, if it had not been supposed that the observations in question were worth making. Such a supposition, • however, may have rested rather on the assumption that the Commander-in-Chief must have something important to say, than on any evidence that he had anything important to say. There is in- deed a meaning that the letter might fairly bear, accord- ing to which it would be tantamount to a formal charge against Colonel Harrison of disobedience to orders. But, inasmuch as nothing is said of any intention to try Colonel Harrison by court-martial, it must be presumed that this is not the meaning which the letter is intended to bear. It is improbable that if the Commander-in-Chief thought Colonel Harrison ,really responsible for the death of Prince Louie Napoleon, he would have held the offence sufficiently punished by a few words in a letter to the General commanding in South Africa. From the first, no doubt, the Prince was a burden to the officers who were expected at once to make his stay in South Africa pleasant, and to keep him out of harm's way. The combination indeed was in itself an impossible one. The Prince wanted to do something striking, something that should serve his turn with the French people. Consequently, the Prince, very naturally from his own point of view, was always wishing to do the very things which the officers to whose charge he was committed were most concerned to prevent his doing. It is very difficult to be always refusing requests which, in themselves, are per- fectly reasonable ; and what could in itself be more reasonable than a request to be allowed to see a little service, proffered by a young man who, if he had not come to see service, had no motive for being in South Africa ? To give him some kind of employment, he was attached to the Quartermaster-General's Department, but he was attached to it under peculiar conditions. Lord Chelmsford gave the most stringent instructions that the Prince was not to be allowed to go on any distant reconnais- sance without special permission, and that, even when engaged in surveying operations close to the camp, his party was always to be provided with a sufficient escort, and to be accompanied by an officer. So far the wishes of the Military Authorities in England were strictly carried out. Lord Chelmsford exactly understood what was required of him, and he gave orders which, had they been obeyed, would have made the disaster of the 1st of June impossi- ble. On that day Colonel Harrison, the assistant-quartermaster- general, allowed the Prince to make a reconnaissance at a con- siderable distance from the camp. Before this was allowed, Lord Chelmsford's permission ought to have been asked. It was not asked ; here, therefore, was a direct disobedience of Lord Chelmsford's orders. More than this, Lord Chelmsford "had reason to believe that throughout the day the Prince was in company of Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison, who was occupied in guiding a column in its change of camp." What reason Lord Chelmsford could have had to believe that the Prince was in one place when, as a matter of fact, he was in another does not appear. This was not, however, the only or, as it turned out, the worst instance of disobedience on the part of Colonel Har- rison to orders. Lord Chelmsford had guarded, as he thought, .against two contingencies,—employment at a distance from the , camp, and employment even near the camp without adequate protection. The first was met by insisting on special per- mission being given, before the Prince was allowed to go on Any idiBtant expedition ; the second, by the .order that however near the camp the Prince might be employed, his party was always to be provided with a sufficient escort, and to be ac- companied by an officer. Lord Chelmsford had consequently good right to suppose that he had made what actually happened impossible. If only half his orders had been obeyed, the Prince might have been alive to-day. If his leave had been asked before the Prince started on his expedition, it would, no doubt, have been refused, and had the precautions which Lard Chelms- ford thought necessary to be observed even when the Prince was close to the camp been observed when he was at a dis- tance from it, they would, in all probability, have sufficed to bring him safely back. If it is extraordinary that Colonel Harrison should have allowed the Prince to go on a distant reconnaissance, in direct defiance of Lord Chelms- ford's order, it is still more extraordinary that he should have allowed him to go on a distant reconnaissance with- out the precautions which Lord Chelmsford had prescribed when he was engaged in surveying operations close to the camp.
The Duke of Cambridge gives Colonel Harrison credit for believing that Lord Chelmsford's instructions had been sufficiently complied with, " though," the Duke adds, " he was mistaken" in so thinking. To us, it is in- conceivable that Colonel Harrison could have believed anything of the sort. He must have known that the Prince was not to be allowed to go to a distance from the camp without Lord Chelmsford's leave, and he allowed him to go to a distance without leave. He must have known that, even if the Prince was employed near the camp, his party was to be piovided with an escort, and to be accompanied by an officer ; and he allowed him to go without an escort, and only accompanied by an officer who believed himself to be under the Prince's orders, and who was consequently useless for the purpose contemplated by Lord Chelmsford. Colonel Harrison's orders to Captain Carey "were not," the Duke says, " suffi- ciently explicit; and he failed to impress upon the Prince the duty of deferring to the military orders of the o cer who accompanied him, and the necessity of guiding him- self by his advice and experience." This censure upon Colonel Harrison conveys a very inadequate idea of what really happened. If the Prince had been placed under Cap- tain Carey's orders, there would have been no need to im- press upon the Prince the duty of deferring to them. The Prince knew enough of military matters to be aware that in an army personal rank is subordinate to professional rank, and that being under Captain Carey's orders, it was his duty to obey them, without waiting to have this duty specially im- pressed on him. If, on the other hand, Colonel Harrison is to blame for having failed to impress on the Prince the necessity of guiding himself by Captain Oarey's advice and experience, it can only be on the suppo- sition that the Prince was in command of the party. Captain Carey cannot have been both the Prince's superior officer and his dry-nurse. It does not appear upon what evidence the Commander-in-Chief calls Captain Carey's belief that the Prince held a military rank superior to his own "a strange misconception." On the contrary, it seems a most natural misconception,----if, indeed, it were a miscon- ception at all. One thing, at all events, is clear, and that alone is enough to show that Colonel Harrison's instructions were fatally defective. It is not suggested in the Adjutant- General's letter that Captain Carey was commanding the Prince's escort, or that the party was in any sense an escort. If it had been, Lieutenant Carey's first duty would have been to defend the Prince's life, at the sacrifice of his own. The fact that the court-martial has been set aside, is conclu- sive proof that this was not Lieutenant Carey's position. He was sent, the Duke of Cambridge says, expressly "to pro- vide that military experience which his younger companion had not yet acquired." That is not the function of an escort. It is clear, therefore, that no escort was sent with the Prince ; in other words, that an order which Lord Chelmsford had given, without ma,king any exception 'whatever, was disobeyed, under circumstances which were the very last under which any exception would have or ought to have been made. As we do not know to what amount of persuasion Colonel Harrison yielded, we will not attempt to estimate the magnitude of his error. But it is unfortunate that the officer tried by court- martial should have been one who seems to have been in no way responsible for the Prince's death, and not one who, with whatever excuse, was directly concerned in preparing the way for it.
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