ARCHIBALD FORBES.

Kumara Times, Issue 2042, 15 March 1883, Page 2

ARCHIBALD FORBES.

There are few people who read anything at all of the history of the present day but must be familiar with the name of Archibald Forbes, the famous War Correspondent. Throughout the civilised world Archibald Forbes is a designation which carried its own suggestions of intrepidity, dash, and capacity. He is the son of a Presbyterian Minister, the Rev. Louis Forbes, D.D., and, while his father lived, went through the ordinary educational training of a Scotch boy belonging to the middle classes. From the Melbourne Bulletin we learn that—“ After a school course, young Forbes studied at the Aberdeen University for a term, but the sudden death of his father, who dropped dead in the pulpit, imposed upon him, as one of nine children, slenderly provided for, the necessity for commencing the battle of life without further preparation. In 1859, coming into possessison of a slender patrimony of £SOO, he started to join a cousin in Canada; but his financial wings became singed to the very stumps, and with eight shillings in his pocket he shipped for home in a timber-laden ship. Carrying Forbes and his eightshilling fortune the vessel could not sink, but it did its best, for it became waterlogged, and after severe hardships those of the crew who had not been washed overboard took to the boats, and were rescued by a passing vessel.” After arriving in Liverpool, and passing through certain love adventures, we find Forbes selling a field-glass which still remained to him, and, using the proceeds to travel to London, he enlisted in the Royal Dragoons. “ As a trooper, Forbes was a tolerable success, even in peace-time, albeit he was quite as remarkable for the facility with which he plunged into scrapes as for the dexterity with which he got out of them. We hear nothing during his military career of a return of his inflammatory amorous symptoms, but presume that Forbes was as terrible in the parks as Dragoons ordinarily are. One shilling and fourpence a day being an income altogether inadequate to the fashionable expenses of a Dragoon, Forbes bethought him of trying whether the pen was truly ‘ mightier than the sword ’ in a financial sense. Household Works and the Cornhill Magazine published articles by the soldier, and henceforth his career began to definitely shape itself. Invalided after five years of soldier life, Forbes was speedily restored to health by non-military physicians, and becoming a casual writer for the Evening Star and Morning Advertiser, burst at length into a permanent conflagration by becoming a married man. Miscellaneous journalistic work occupied the future War Correspondent for some time subsequent to his marriage, and on the outbreak of the Franco-German war, Forbes suggested that in view of his military knowledge he would make a good war correspondent. The late James Grant, then editor of the Morning Advertiser, thought the combination of dragoon and journalist a strong point, and started Forbes off on the career in which he was destined to become famous. Thenceforth, Forbes’ adventures are matters within general knowledge. He received his ‘ baptism of fire’ simultaneously with the late Prince Imperial of France, at Sanrbruck, on August 2, 1870, Forbes being with the Prussians. It was his destiny, some eight years later, to be one of those who stood around the remains of the ill-starred Prince iu Zululand.” Of Archibald Forbes’ intermediate adventures we need only give a skeleton,; he is about to fill in the outline himself on the lecture platform next Monday. The same authority informs us that “ Forbes was present at the battles of Courcelles, Yionville, and Gravelotte, witnessed the day of Sedan, and next morning stood by when Napoleon surrendered to Bismarck, He was the first non-combatant to ride round Paris before its complete investment. Transferring his services to the Daily News he represented that journal at the siege at the Peninsula, where he also had a little pleasuring with the Carlist insurgents in the Biscayan provinces. The Indian Famine next drew him, still representing the Daily News, to Hindostan, Returning home, after suffering from surrender of Metz, where he was wounded iu the leg, and with his wound unhealed to Paris, he was the first newspaper man to enter that city after the capitulation to the Prussians. How he outstripped all competitors in the transmission of his despatches is a good story, but too long to tell here. The struggle between the Communists and Yersaillists was witnessed by Forbes. He was in the thick of it, and was even compelled to help in constructing barricades. After the restoration of peace in France, Forbea

took another Spanish trip, this tune accompanying the Alphonist troops m pursuit of his former comrades, the Oarlists, Then again to India with the Prince of Wales. The disruption of Turkey had now commenced, and the great War Correspondent was hurried to the scene on the first premonitory syraptons appearing in Servia. Attaching himself to the Russian army he went through the campaigns which followed, on more than one occasion outstripping the army staff in the conveyance of information from detached corps to the Emperor’s head-quarters. Eor personal intrepidity in rescuing Russian wounded soldiers at Plevna, Forbes was decorated by the Czar with the Order Stanislaus. Cyprus and Zululand successively were visited, as currents of events shifted the centie of European attention hither and thither j and since Ulundi the War Correspondent has been taking a rest —characteristically by travelling over the globe as a lecturer.”