he served as Adjutant-General are particularly deserving of of the Army, are part of the notice at the present day. stirring history of that time, "Much," he declared, "will and do not need to be recalled have to be avoided; . . . it here. But it is worth noting will never do to . throw how clearly he foresaw the ourselves into the hands of coming danger, how justly Sikhs or Pathans." This was he appreciated the nature of the most imminent danger for the crisis when it came, and the future, and its reality was how keenly he was alive to the made plain only a year later by perils which certain features of a serious conspiracy which in our policy in dealing with the July, 1858, was hatched among outbreak were likely to pro- some of the Sikh soldiers of duce. Eight years before, in the Frontier Force. After the 1849, Chamberlain wrote- capture of Lucknow the Punjabi troops openly boasted that they had reconquered Hindu "Unless some radical change is effected the sepoy portion of the army will become not merely useless to the Government, but those whose duty it is to obey will in a few years stand forward and demand concessions. I hesitate not to state that the Government fears the very men they pay for their support, and in my humble opinion the measures adopted during the last few years with the view of attaching the sepoy to our cause will, if persevered in, bring down the whole fabric;"– and when the storm burst he wrote home: "In 1853 I told Lord Dalhousie of the rotten condition of the army." Nevertheless, when the crisis arose Chamberlain was full of confidence in the power of the British to cope with it. "It is the death-struggle between civilisation and barbarism, and Christianity must win." "Though we are few we do not in the least despair, and with the blessing of God the whole country will be at our feet by Christmas Day;" and he adds: "We have learnt a great lesson and must profit by it." As to the future policy which should be moulded by this great lesson, certain points stan for us. As Sir John Lawrence wrote to Lord Stanley, "It is not in human nature that they should not see of how much importance they are to us." In short, they got wind in their heads, and the Dera Ismail Khan plot to murder the British officers, seize the fort and magazine, and raise the standard of revolt throughout the Punjab, was the natural consequence. Fortunately it was discovered before any serious outbreak took place. Chamberlain wrote: "It will open the eyes of our present feeble Government and prevent them from throwing themselves too entirely into the arms of the Sikhs or of any other natives." The incident deserves very careful consideration to-day after an interval of fifty years. At the time it was hushed up, and its very occurrence has hitherto been known to few, but its lesson ought not to be forgotten. During the last few years the numbers of Punjabi troops in our Indian Army have been greatly increased, to the elimination of other classes. Is it wise thus to depend so largely on the population of a single province ? It is a difficult question to answer, for while the history of the past counsels prudence, military efficiency calls for progress and the rejection of all but the best fighting material. The problem can only be left to those to whom is intrusted the government of India. Its complexity at least requires that among them shall be none but men whose training has enabled them to appreciate the surrounding dangers. Neville Chamberlain's active service in the Mutiny campaign was cut short, to his great regret, by a severe wound in the shoulder, received on the 14th July. He did not leave the army before Delhi, and when the city was stormed a month later he was sufficiently recovered to superintend the measures for the safety of the camp, and later to carry on his duties as adjutant-general. But his constitution, weakened by previous wounds and by long years in the East, could not recover entirely from the fresh shock without further rest, and when in February 1858 he was offered by the Commander-in-Chief the command of the cavalry in the Rohilla campaign he was compelled, most reluctantly, to ask to be allowed to decline it. He wrote to his sister: "You may appreciate my regret at having to resign such a chance," and those who read his letters and the story of his life may be able too to form some idea of how deep and bitter was his disappointment. He was destined in his career as a soldier to suffer one other trial more hard to bear even than the end of his hopes of distinction in the Mutiny campaign. For a further five years he continued in command of the Frontier Force, and then, just as he was about to seek to regain his health by a visit to his native country after an absence of seventeen years, he was required once more to undertake the fatigues and responsibilities of active service in command of an expedition against the Hindustani fanatics of the Black Mountain. The operations which followed were among the most serious and most hardly contested that have ever taken place on the Indian frontier. The scanty force with which Chamberlain was required to undertake the campaign was not only insufficient to meet any possible complications, but it was also ill-equipped and worse supplied. "I never before," wrote the commander, "had such trouble or things in so unsatisfactory a state." The inevitable result of such inefficiency ensued. The force encountered unexpected opposition, in the face of which further movement had to await the arrival of reinforcements. As always happens in savage warfare, delay increased the numbers of the enemy and the boldness of their attacks. Weeks passed, during which Chamberlain could do no more than hold his own on the Ambela Pass. The situation had been created solely by the lack of forethought and of capable management at headquarters; but it was on the commander of the expedition that blame for the delay was freely showered. It is not uncommon in such circumstances to make those at a distance do scapegoat-"Les absents ont toujours tort." Nevertheless, Chamberlain was not a man to be goaded by the ignorant interference of incompetent officials into illconsidered action. He stood stoutly to his position, awaiting the time when the arrival of sufficient troops should enable him to advance with the certainty of complete success. But the most cruel ill-fortune awaited him. On the very eve of the arrival of the longawaited reinforcements, he was once more severely wounded while leading in person gallant attack against the His brother Crawford wrote a day or two afterwards: "He weighed it in his mind and thought it a duty to share the risks!" On a frame so enfeebled the wound, which in the case of a strong man might have been comparatively unimportant, rapidly threatened very serious consequences. He was compelled to abandon the command and to leave to another the harvest of success which he had borne so much to en enemy. No wonder that, as his biographer tells us, "he was as near despair as his brave nature was capable of being." But though he could not enjoy the delights of victory, and though oppressed for the moment with disappointment and with the sense of failure, he was consoled ere long by the proper recognition of his services; and the estimate formed of him by those whose opinion was most valuable is well expressed in Mr Forrest's words: "Brave and daring he always was, but in his last campaign he displayed an even nobler virtue. He showed a high calm courage, was unperturbed in a perilous position due to no action of his, and confidently took the way out of it which he conceived the better. That the Umbeyla campaign did not end in disaster was due to the pluck and discipline of our soldiers-British, Pathan, Sikh, they had in their officers, and the inand Goorkha,-the loyal confidence spiring energy of their commander.” With the Ambela campaign Neville Chamberlain's days of field service came to an end. He came home for some years, and with rest and a favourable climate he restored to some extent the vigour of his constitution. In 1868 he was asked to undertake the duty of escorting the Duke of Edinburgh during his tour through India - an experience which must have been hardly congenial to a man (who a few years before wrote of his investiture with the K.C.B.: "A hundred expeditions would be preferable to such a show!" Nevertheless he accepted the duty, and acquitted it entirely to the satisfaction of the Duke. Then followed some further years in England, until in 1875, when he had abandoned all idea of further employment, he was offered and accepted, with some reluctance, the post of Commander-in-Chief in Madras. Thus it happened that he was once more in India, when for the second time a vacillating and indeterminate policy in regard to Afghanistan involved us in hostilities with that country. More than twenty years earlier, when the celebrated treaty between Dost Muhammad and Sir John Lawrence had just been concluded, Chamberlain wrote: "I now begin to think that if I live to attain the three-score-andten I may myself see Cabul again." He was still two years less than three-score when he found himself nominated as Envoy of the British Government in charge of a mission to the Amir of Kabul. There is no occasion here to discuss the policy, or rather the lack of policy, which led up to this point. Nor is there either need or opportunity to record how Chamberlain was instructed by Lord Lytton in the objects in view, how the mission assembled at Peshawar, and how Major Cavagnari, who was sent forward into the Khyber with the object of getting a straight answer from the Amir's representative, was turned back with threats of violence, near the self-same spot where Neville Chamberlain had been wounded thirtysix years before. This prologue to the Second Afghan War was the only part of the drama in which he had a share. It was at least a very thankless share, but at anyrate he had the gratification of knowing that he had performed it with dignity and courage, and that his action had fully satisfied the Government. "You will return to Simla," Lord Lytton telegraphed to him, “having rendered during your short absence, by a personal sacrifice which is most gratefully appreciated, a service of the highest importance to India.” Neville Chamberlain's health precluded any possibility of his having an active command in the campaign that ensued. He returned to Madras, and there on the 3rd of February, 1881, he completed his career in India. Twenty-one years of peaceful life in retirement still lay before him, towards the close of which "the great military services he had rendered his country were fittingly acknowledged in 1900 by a Field-Marshal's baton." In the foregoing brief summary of an eventful life, the military qualities of daring, resource, enthusiasm, and selfreliance, which made Neville Chamberlain a leader of men, have been chiefly emphasised. No sketch of him would be complete, however, which did not note other traits peculiarly characteristic of his nature. Mr Forrest has written of him and of Crawford: "They were fighters ever combative of their views and theories-and their prejudices were invincible, but they were singularly tender and loving." The warmth of Neville Chamberlain's nature is apparent in all his correspondence, but in everything that concerned two persons his mother and his brother letters addressed to her are full Crawford-it is particularly of the same feeling. One in noticeable. Of the latter he particular, written from the always writes in terms of the mountains of Hazara in 1856, greatest affection, and he is deserves quotation:never so full of happiness as when the two have contrived to be together. His biographer publishes a letter written to publishes a letter written to Lord Lytton in 1879, in which Chamberlain expresses his obligation to the Viceroy for recommending him for high reward for his services in connection with the Afghan War. In this it is very touching to note with what warmth, after dismissing with almost indifference the matter of honours for himself, he then goes on to speak of his brother's claims— "That there should be any question as to my brother Crawford's claim for being made a K.C.B. is a matter of surprise and disappointment to me," he says; and further on he adds: "I have no interest either at the Horse Guards or at the India Office, and if I had I really should feel ashamed to have to urge it in such a cause on behalf of my brother, and were he to know that he had only obtained the distinction through such means, I feel that he would prefer to remain without it." His indignation at the lack of recognition accorded to his brother's long service of fortyone years is much stronger than any which he ever felt or would have felt in his own behalf. It is sad to remember that that devoted service remained unrecognised until twenty years later, when the gallant soldier was on the brink of the grave. Of his mother also Neville Chamberlain always wrote with peculiar devotion, and his "My original intention in sitting down to write was to wish you many happy returns of your birthday, and to assure you it did not pass uncelebrated by me. You are now getting old, and I wish to tell you with my own mouth, before you die, how deeply grateful I feel for all that you have done for me throughout my life. Now, at six-and-thirty years of age, I recall to mind the prayers you taught me when a little child, and the patient and affectionate way in which you bore with my waywardness then, and for many years afterwards. Whenever I can with a clear conscience do so, I shall go home to receive your blessing." The Secretary of State for India wrote of him, after one of his frontier expeditions, "A Government must be happy and proud who commands such a leader." With no less reason might his mother have claimed: "A woman must be happy and proud who has such ex It is well that such a life as this should not go unrecorded, that such a shining example of what a Christian soldier and gentleman ought to be should not be forgotten, but should be set forth for the admiration and the imitation of those who come after him. Such a record and such a memorial they have found in the absorbing pages of Mr Forrest's biography, and there is told more fully and more completely than can be related here the story of Sir Neville Chamberlain, "the very soul of chivalry." |