Robert Hamilton Vetch

“ Fearing that protracted resistance might cause the Bhoteas to rally, General Tombs called upon a body of Sikh soldiers to swarm up the wall. The men, who had been fighting in a broiling sun on very difficult ground for upwards of three hours, hesitated until Major W. S. Trevor and Dundas of the Royal Engineers volunteered to show the way. They had to climb a wall fourteen feet high, and then to enter a house occupied by some two hundred desperate men, head foremost, through an opening not more than two feet wide. ”

“ The wise policy of Lawrence in at once redressing grievances on assuming the government became now of great importance. With one exception none of the chiefs or of the peasantry attempted to do harm to the fugitives, while most were helpful. The mass of the people in Lucknow itself and the entire Hindoo population held wholly aloof from the outbreak, and, with one single exception, every talookdar, to whom the chance offered itself, aided more or less actively in the protection of Europeans. ”

“ Jones may be ranked among the first military engineers of his day. He possessed talents of the highest order; great mathematical knowledge, coupled with sound judgment and deep reflection. He was present at six sieges, and at five of them acted as brigade-major, and his intimate knowledge of the details of these operations gives great value to his published works on them. His reputation as a military engineer was not confined to his own country. ”

“ On 27 June the government of Bombay expressed their great satisfaction at the successful termination of the expedition. During his residence in Khandesh, Outram was always ready for dangerous sport, and many a tiger fell to his gun. By his fearless bearing in the presence of danger, and his general prowess in the chase, he won the affection and admiration of the wild men among whom his lot was cast. ”

“ His appointment took him to Calcutta, where he made the acquaintance of the governor-general, Lord Canning. Canning was so much impressed with his abilities and with a memorandum by him on the relations of India with Persia and with Afghanistan, that he selected him in the spring of 1857 to succeed Sir R. Hamilton in one of the most important political posts in India, the Central India agency. This was the turning-point in Durand's career.
It was well that so strong a man was at the court of Holkar at Indore when the Indian mutiny broke out. ”

“ In following the course of the Zambesi Livingstone discovered the Victoria Falls, where a water-channel a mile wide is suddenly contracted to thirty yards, with a drop of 320 feet, and continues for some thirty miles the bed of a roaring torrent. On 20 Nov. Sekeletu bade farewell to Livingstone at the falls, leaving him a company of 114 men to escort him to the coast. Passing through the Batoka country and the southern borders of the land inhabited by the Bashukulombwe, he managed with his usual tact to appease the suspicions of these people, who had not seen a white man before. ”

“ The system was one of divided labour and responsibility. On Henry Lawrence devolved the political work. The disarming of the country, negotiations with the chiefs, organisation of new regiments, education of the young maharajah, were among the immediate duties which he personally undertook, while John Lawrence took the civil administration and the settlement of the land revenue, and Mansel the judicial management of the province. Each commissioner had a voice in the general council, and was responsible for the acts of the other two, although Henry Lawrence was supreme in name. ”

“ At the end of May he attacked Quinsan, the Taiping arsenal, and, by a bold strategic movement, cut the line of its communication with the great city of Soo-chow, and captured it, taking eight hundred prisoners. A large number of rebels were killed, and many fugitives were slain by the exasperated country people. Gordon then established his headquarters at Quinsan, as being further away from the demoralising influences of Shanghai. The maintenance of discipline was a perpetual struggle, and the change of headquarters caused a mutiny which was only quelled by shooting the ringleader on the spot. ”

“ Sir Henry Wellesley wrote at this time to Castlereagh, expressing the sense he entertained of Whittingham's services both during the war and after, and reporting that he left Spain with the testimony of all ranks in his favour, ‘but without any other reward from the government for the valuable services rendered by him to the Spanish cause than that of being allowed to retain his rank in the Spanish army.’ His private means had been reduced by losses, and he was at this time a poor man with an increasing family. ”

“ In the spring of 1756 he was made chief engineer of the frontier forts, and was engaged in the construction of two new forts to supersede those existing at Ontario and Oswego when, in August, the enemy's appearance compelled the British troops to retire into the old forts. These Mackellar put into repair as rapidly as possible, and conducted the defence with ability. The siege of Ontario was short and decisive; the old walls broke up at every blow from a missile. The garrison abandoned the work, and crossing the water pushed into the scarcely tenable fort of Oswego. ”

“ There the expedition came to an end. The Pioneer returned to the Cape with the Rev. Horace Waller and the remainder of the mission, and Livingstone took the Lady Nyassa to Zanzibar to try to sell her. Finding no buyer, he made a plucky voyage across the Indian Ocean to Bombay in the tiny craft with only a European stoker, carpenter, and sailor, and seven native men and two native boys who had never been at sea (one of whom, Chuma, was with him to the end of his life) . He sailed from Zanzibar on 30 April and entered Bombay harbour unnoticed on 13 June. ”

“ The success of the Mahdi in the Soudan and the catastrophe to Hicks Pasha in November 1883 had induced the British government not only to decline any military assistance to enable the Egyptian government to hold the Soudan, but to insist upon its abandonment by the Khedive. To do this it was necessary to bring away the garrisons scattered all over the country, and such of the Egyptian population as might object to remain. ”

“ At that time the professional advisers of the master-general of the ordnance on artillery matters were the ' select committee.' composed of nine artillery officers whose average length of service was forty-nine years, and the youngest of whom was sixty-four years of acre. Lefroy managed to get this committee abolished, and a new one, composed of younger men, appointed with power to obtain the best possible outside scientific opinion. Lefroy remained in the same post at the war office under Lord Panmure, and was one of the first to recognise the importance of rifled ordnance. ”

“ Stanley wrote that for the four months he had lived with Livingstone he never found a fault in him, and that though himself a man of a quick temper, with Livingstone he never had cause for resentment, but each day's life with him added to his admiration of him. A search expedition under Commander Dawson, R.N., and Lieutenant Henn, and including the Rev. Charles New and Oswell Livingstone, youngest son of the doctor, had been sent by the Royal Geographical Society and others to look for Livingstone, but meeting Stanley at Bagamoio, returned to England with him. ”

“ Wolseley to be the commanding royal engineer of the Ashantee expedition, and in this pre-eminently engineers' and doctors' campaign he proved himself as able in the field as at the desk, his energy and force of character enabling him to overcome manifold difficulties encountered in preparing the way for the march to Coomassie. ”

“ Edward Young, the former gunner of the Pioneer, of whose work on the Zambesi Livingstone wrote very favourably, was sent out by the Geographical Society in command of a search expedition, which left England in May 1867, reached the mouth of the Zambesi on 25 July, ascended the Shire in a steel boat they had brought with them, called the Search, which was taken to pieces and carried round the Murchison rapids, and on arrival at Mponda's obtained satisfactory evidence that Livingstone was alive, together with information as to his further journeys into the interior. ”

“ Gordon's mission was to effect the withdrawal of the garrisons and to evacuate the Soudan. At Cairo his functions were considerably extended. He was appointed, with the consent of the British government, governor-general of the Soudan, and was instructed, not only to effect the evacuation of the country, but to take steps to leave behind an organised independent government. At Khartoum, where he arrived on 18 Feb. 1884, Gordon was received with a perfect ovation. ”

“ Intrigues against the British were rife in the Khâlsa at Lahore, and the governor of Cashmere, Sheik Imammoodeen, supported by Lal Sing and the Sikh durbar, first delayed and then refused to hand over Cashmere to Goolab. Lawrence's firmness and energy were now conspicuously displayed. He insisted on the Sikhs sending a force to compel Imam-moodeen to hand over the province to Goolah, and put himself at the head of it, Brigadier-general Wheler co-operating with a British force. He put down without difficulty all efforts at resistance, and Imammoodeen surrendered himself personally to Lawrence. ”

“ His whole being was dominated by a Christian faith at once so real and so earnest that, although his religious views were tinged with mysticism, the object of his life was the entire surrender of himself to work out whatever he believed to be the will of God. ”

“ Oldfield was sent to Ypres to construct new works of defence, and was entrusted with the inundation of the country round, a troublesome and thankless operation. He shortly after joined the army of the Duke of Wellington as brigade-major of royal engineers. He made a sketch-plan of the plains of Waterloo for the use of the duke, and took part in the battle of Waterloo and the occupation of Paris. In April 1819, in consequence of a reduction in the corps of royal engineers, he was placed on half-pay, and passed his time chiefly at Westbourne. ”

“ After the occupation of Rangoon Havelock was in the habit of assembling any religiously disposed soldiers, particularly those of his own regiment, for services in one of the cloisters of the pagoda of Gaudama. On the occasion of a night attack on an outpost these men were called for by the general to take the place of troops rendered unfit for duty by drink, because ‘Havelock's Saints,’ as he called them, were always sober, and to be depended on in an emergency. After some stockade fighting Havelock was prostrated with illness, and was invalided to India. ”

“ But Havelock was determined to push on, and to the great joy of the besieged he gained the residency that night. On the 26th a strong party was sent out to bring in the rear guard, the sick and the wounded. This was accomplished with considerable loss, and then the command was assumed by Outram. It was soon evident that the relieving force had arrived only to reinforce the garrison, for, owing to lack of transport to carry away the sick and wounded and the women and children, no movement could be made, and they were themselves besieged. ”

“ On 20 Sept. 1857 Van Straubenzee was gazetted to the command of a brigade in the expedition to China under Lieutenant-general Thomas Ashburnham, having already sailed in June for Hong Kong. Many of the troops destined for China were diverted to India on account of the mutiny, and in November Ashburnham and his staff also left Hong Kong for India, leaving Van Straubenzee in command of the British land forces in China. In December the available troops from the garrison of Hong Kong were conveyed by the fleet to the Canton river, and the island of Hainan was occupied. ”

“ The delay gave Livingstone much-needed rest, and he obtained a great deal of valuable information from the Arabs. When the war was over he started, on 22 Sept., in the wake of a large Arab caravan, and passed through the country of Itawa without any trouble, making for Lake Moero, which he reached on 8 Nov., his health having again broken down on the way. From the north-east shores of Moero he turned south and entered the country of the chief Kazembe, a tyrant who lopped off the ears and hands of his people for very trivial offences. The land was fertile and there was abundance of food. ”

“ In 1850, in accordance with regulations, having served ten years uninterruptedly in the civil employment of the state, he had to revert to military duty, and was appointed in March of that year to command the royal engineers in North Britain. On 1 May 1851 he was selected to fill the important position of director of the royal engineer establishment at Chatham. He there introduced a system by which officers and men of the line should be instructed in field works, and made the value of the pick and shovel more practically known to the army at large. ”