A FEW MEMORIES OF LORD ROBERTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 153, 24 November 1914, Page 6

A FEW MEMORIES OF LORD ROBERTS.

(By Henry W. Ncvison.) .. lam far away from books and diaries but this, said Mr Nevinson on the FieldMarshal's 80th birthday, Is what I remember best. The first scene during the big manoeuvres of 1898, when the Duke of Connaught was commanding against General Buller, and both armies engaged upon the astonishing tactics that brought disaster in the following year. As correspondent to the Daily Chronicle, I was toiling up a steep Wiltshire down, pushing my bicycle before me over grass and chalk. An, officer in undress uniform came behind me, mounted on an Arab more like a pet stag than a horse. "You've got a hard struggle," he said as ho passed, and looking up, I saw the smiling blue eye, the face already so well known, the trim little figure, alert, and always ready. And while my head was full of visions of Kabul and Kandahar, he went on to describe the situation of that hour on the Wiltshire downs, as if nothing in the world mattered more than the position of the harmless guns upon this ridge or the harmless brigades in the other village. When we reached the top of the down, he cantered on, leaving a sense of pleasure, a sense of politeness, simplicity, and cheerful capacity. I recalled that incident the day when a runner passed through the blockade of Ladyamith and brought Sir George White the news that Roberts had been 'appointed to the command in South Africa. I suppose it was late ir; December, of 1899. Cheerfulness and capacity were the two things that we needed most. For, indeed, an almost unvaried gloom was settling down upon the besieged army, and devoted as was the attachment of the staff and the men to General White himself, we had natural doubts as to the capacity of other generals, to whom alone we could look for •»t»ide help. The news that Roberts was coming acted like a revival. Light and strength were restored, and for the remaining weeks and months qf the siege We never again knew demoralising lethargy or despair. On one occasion—whether it was after the repulse of the terrible attack of the Boers on January (i or at a later time, I am not sure — he sent the garrison a message of praise and congratulation by helio. I remember writing that the message was worth a'frosh brigade to us. By that time the garrison was horribly reduced by hunger, sickness and death, but the message was worth a fresh brigade. In the following May I was ordered to leave Natal and join the advance upon Pretoria. It was a hard task, for Roberts moved fast and had already started fromßlocmfontein.To catch him we had to go right down to Durban, round by sea to East London, and up all the weary and broken line to the Free State. By riding 30 miles a day from Bloemfontein along this track, I came up with the main body just before it entered Johannesburg. A few days later we were encamped at a suburb called Orange Grove, and the wide view to the north showed line after line of fire across the veldt at night, for the Boers had hoped to delay our advance by destroying the grass. Early in the morning I saw the little general again. He was riding quietly forward with his staff for his final advance upon the capital, which throughout had been his goal. That night we camped about five miles from Pretoria, and next morning a four-wheeler drove out, bringing leading citizens to surrender the keys, or whatever the modern equivalent is. They drove up to the General's tent, and in another hour we were in the midst of tho city.

In the afternoon the great square before the Government buildings was cleared, There in the centre of one side, mounted on his Arab, sat the. little, figure who had restored the fortunes of his country. A trumpet blew, and to the sound of our well-known tune up ran the little silk flag which he was said to have had in readiness across the saddle all the, way. Batteries, cavalry and battalions, the army marched past. The goal was reached. The enemy's capital had fallen. He believed —we all believed —the war was now over. I suppose that in a life marked by many great moments, that moment was the greatest of them all.

Everyone can speak of the man's mistakes. It is easy enough to criticise campaigns from a distance; still easier t« criticise them when they are over. Bui when I saw the old Field-Marshal once again last year, inspecting a little brigade of veterans in a Surrey paddock, it was of not criticism or mistakes that I thought. There he stood—his blue eye now almost pale to whiteness, but his little figure erect and trim. I thought of his -well-known saying when he was offered the South African command: "For this I have led an abstemious life for nineteen years." And then I thought of the swift and inflexible decisions taken and followed out in the fog and perplexity of war; of the passionate courage, the indomitable endurance displayed in a long and consistent life; and at the back of it all that simplicity, politeness, and sense of cheerful capacity which won the heart and made his soldiers greater than themselves,