LORD WOLSELEY DEAD.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1708, 27 March 1913, Page 5

LORD WOLSELEY DEAD.

FAMOUS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. By Telegraph—Preeß Association—Copyright London, March 25. The dootli is announced of .Field-Mar-shal Lord Wolseley, Into Conimander-iu-Chiof of the Army, aged 7!). (Rec. March 2(i, 11,10 p.m. London, March 26. Lord 'Wolseley caught a chill a weok ago, and developed influenza. He died at Moutouo. Tho King and Colonel Seeley (Secretary of State for War) have sent messages of coudolenco to Lady Wolseley, who has also rfceived many other tributes. WHAT WOLSELEY DID FOR ENGLAND. A GREAT GENERAL. . "The ono man to whom ' the army owes almost all the eflicienoy it now hae is Wolseley. It was Wokeley who introduced yliort eervice, .and short service is tho foundation of military usefulness, 110 did'it in the face of tremendous opposition, with tho Duko, of Cambridge, then commandcr-in-chief, at tho head of the opposition.. Hut nobody now denies that it was a reform without which the army woidd liavo decayed."

1 So said a great authority to tho late Mr. G. W. Smalley, a famous correspondent of "Tho Times" tome threo . years ago. Mr. Smalley added:— "Side by side with that I print another quotation; this one from I'jekl Marshal Wolseley himself. But first I ask you to remember that this great soldier had served all over the world, beginning with the Burmese war, in 1852-53; then in tho Crimea, where ho was pretty well shot to pieoes and won his captaincy at .twenty; then in India, at Luckuow; then China; then tho Red River expendition in Canada; then tho Gold Coast, in command during the Aslmntee campaign; then Egypt, in 1862, crushing the Arabi rebellion; then two. years later at tho head of tho Gordon, relief expedition, which would have ended in success instead of defeat had his advice been taken beforo it started; then Commander of the Forces in Irelaud, and so on. During all this time ho roso, steadily in rank and in renown. He was thanked by Parliament three times, was raised to the peerage and later made a viscount: Promotion' followed promotion; ho was Quartermaster-General of tho Forces as early as 16K0, then. AdjutantGeneral and chief executive officer of tho army, 1882-85, and aghin 1885-90; finally Field Marshal in 189 i and Commander-in-Chief of tho Army, 1805-1000. That is a mero skeleton of his career, but it will serve as tho preface I want for my quotation. When the Boer war broke out, the command was not offered to Wolso- * ley, nor . was it till Lord Roberts entered the hold that the record of British defeats, cheered by tho Irish Nationalists in Parliament, came to .an end. 1 met Lord Wolseley-during one of those gloomy periods, and to my 'How are you P' he answered:

" 'Thanks. 1 am very well, and I spend I my time trying to forget that I have ever been, a soldier.' "Did you ever hear a more pathetic 1 speech f He was then but sixty-five. He knew himself still capable of command. Ho knew why he had been passed over. Ho had to look- on while the War Offico at Homo and the generals in the field vied with each .other in colossal blunders, and while,. as Lord Kosebery said, the fortunes of the who Ift Uritish Umpire hung in the balance. He knew South Africa, lie ha<l powers of organising and powers of fighting which had never failed him. Hut the War Office, which had pigeouholed General Sir William Butler's reports warning his chiefs of what was coming; | which sent Sir Kedvers Buller to the front, on whom 'disaster followed.fast' and followed faster'; which starved' tho services and thought l 'forty thousand men could do the work for which a quarter of a million proved to bo nonotoo many; —tho ; War. Office, of which first Lord Lansddwne, IBUB-1903; and then Mr. St. John Brodrick, 1900-1903, were tho responsible Ministers, had 110 use for sucii a soldier—a tried, victorious 6oldier—as Wolseky. Their mistake cost England dear; and it cost her best captain what was left to him of happiness iu life. He i was put on. the shelf and left there."

; Tel-eliKebir—A Great Feat, The' Egyptian expedition with which Lord Woiseloy'ts name is by many people chiefly identified took place in 1882. "Wolsoley was sent to defeat and disperse tho forces under Arabi Pasha in. rebellion against tho Khedive. Before leaving England, to aro told, "he prepared his plan of campaign, from which ho deviated in no particular, but oarried it out to the letter, and oven to the day he fixed for his departure, thus reducing the conduct of military.operations in a country 3000 miles distant to tho precision of a mathematical problem." The chief feature of his plan of campaign was tho removal-of tho base of operations from Alexandria to Ismailia, but this was kept a profound secret, and when he issued instructions for the embarkation of the first division, even the divisional and brigade commaiidors understood that tho forte at Aboukir were their destination. Alexandria was full of Arabi's spies, and in making the newspaper correspondents tho medium for misleading tho enemy, he only repeated a stratagem which' he had used successfully at Ashantee, and when lie recommended m his famous "Soldier's Pocket-Book":— "Without saying so directly, you can lead your army to believe anything, and, as a rule, in siU civilised nations what is believed ' by the army. will very soon be credited by tho enemy, having reached him by moans of spies, or through tho medium of those newly-invented curses to armies—tho mean newspaper correspondents." ,

Arriving off tho Aboukir forts, tho ships of war with Wolseley had their topmasts struck in readiness for action, but in tho darkness of night got under weigh again,, and steamed full speed for Port Said. Possession of the Suez Canal was seized, together with the Arab town of Ismailia, which was to bo the basis of operations After a rapid desert march, with raw troops ho dislodged a large foreo Of the enemy from an entrenched position which gave control of an important part of tho water supply of the desert. Tho advance of a large force of tho enemy from Tel-cl-Kebir gave him an opportunity to achieve an indecisive victory. This Wolseley did not want; ho was determined to hold his hand till ho coukl lake tho enemy by surprise, and so cut off their retreat. "Probably in no action of his military career," comments a biographer, "did ho display in so remarkable a mnnnor tlio self-restraint and judgment which are among the chief attributes of a really great commander." He decided to make a night march upon the strongly-fortified hostile position, and carry it at dawn at the point of the bayonet. In this way he expected to finish . the war at a blow.

A Hazardous Operation. l'he operation, it has been said, was difficult and hazardous as any in the ranga of warfare. To conduct, in the darkness of night, tho simultaneous advance, of an .Trniy whose, front covered nearly four miles of ground, was 110 easy feat of administrative and tactical skill. Tho'distance to bo traversed from the camp at Ka?sassin was about seven and a half miles, and no trco or landmark of any description—beyond a line. of telegraph jiolo3 placed by tho engineers along the first portion of tho route—pointed out tho way over tho trackless desert and low, sandy hillocks which intervened between the British camp and the Egyptian lines. To regulate tho march of the extended lines so that at o piven moment—for a delay of even five inmates might be fatal to success—tho combined assault of the infantry brigades could bo made, was a task that offered a crucial test of the capacity of the commander who elaborated tho plan to its minutest detail. The plan was brilliantly euccessful. Guided by the stars, the army reached a position for attack without mishap, and within thirty-five minutes of the first shot being fired the British flosj flew over the entrenchments at Tcl-el-Kclriv. Arabi forthwith surrendered, and Lord Wolseioy entered Cairo in triumph. Almost simultaneously Alexandria surrendered, with soon troops in readiness. For his services WoLseley received (ho thanks of Parliament, was promoted to General, and to the peerage as Baron Wolseley of Cairo and Wolseley. Wolsclcy's Chnrßctoristics., Tho cliief ulmrniiterlstics of Lord , Wolsaley as a General havo been de-

scribed as dash, discretion, and foresight. Most of his successes were gained by tho somo methods —careful elaboration oi plan, followed bv disconcerting rapidity of cxocution. He never wanted lives unnecessarily, and bis object; was always to cut tho war as short as possible. A distinguished officer who had served on his stall onoo wrote of him:—"What I observed chiefly was his extraordinary power of imparting confidence to all around him, and also tho influenco that ho could exorcise to win ovor the most cantakorous of mortals. I have known old colonels more than once, who had never before seen him, 1 who wero jealous of his success, and whoso bristles wore all up, oomo out after an interview with their prejudices shaken, and added to his devoted admirers. His power and rapidity of doing business is also ono of his greatest traits." This oflicer stated tlxat before -AVolseley went to Zululond great portions of the army wero really almost demoralised, and the very name of a. Zulu was enough to mako them rush behind the noarest wagon. Tho same men, but a month or two afterwards, thought themselves individually oqual to fifty natives, and gave evidence of their fait'h in action.

Major-General Sir Evelyn Wood has applied to Wolseley Scotfs designation of Napoleon as "a sovereign among soldiery," Ho stated that it was truo of him, as was written of Pitt, 'Tew men made fewer mistakes, nor left so few .advantages unimproved." "To oil .his other qualities," said Wood, "ho joined that fire, that spirit, that courage, which, giving vigour and discretion to his soldiers, boro down all resistanoo." 1 One who knew Wolselcy well, and who had served with him in tho field, an officer of high rank, and a. Knight of tlio Bath, wrote to his biographer, Mr. C. B. Low:—"I havo had tlio-best,opportuni-ties of judging of tho man, and I say ho is the most perfect character I have over met. . . . No franker, moro magnanimous, fearless man, morally and physically, I think, ever lived." Wolseley's only specific .for getting, on in tlio army as a very -simple ono. It was: "Try to get killed on every possiblo occasion, and if yon oto not killed you are certain to got on.' It is nerve, and nothing but nerve, that tolls in tho long run." ■ - ' '1" ■'