Then came the recriminations which always follow every kind of defeat. Everyone threw the blame on me. I have noticed that they nearly always do. I suppose it is because they think I shall be able to bear it best. The high Tories and the Carlton Club said ‘Serve him right for standing with a Socialist. No man of any principle would have done such a thing!’ Mr Balfour, then Leader of the House of Commons, on hearing that I had declared against his Clerical Tithes Bill, said in the Lobby, quite justifiably I must admit, ‘I thought he was a young man of promise, but it appears he is a young man of promises.’ Party newspapers wrote leading articles to say what a mistake it was to entrust the fighting of great working-class constituencies to young and inexperienced candidates, and everyone then made haste to pass away from a dismal incident. I returned to London with those feelings of deflation which a bottle of champagne or even soda-water represents when it has been half emptied and left uncorked for a night.
No one came to see me on my return to my mother’s house. However, Mr Balfour, always loyal and comprehending, wrote me a letter—every word in his own handwriting—which I have just unearthed from my most ancient archives.
10.7.99
I was very sorry to hear of your ill success at Oldham, as I had greatly hoped to see you speedily in the House where your father and I fought many a good battle side by side in days gone by. I hope however you will not be discouraged by what has taken place. For many reasons this is a very unpropitious time to fight by-elections. At by-elections the opposition can safely entrench themselves behind criticism and are not driven to put a rival programme in the field. This is at all times an advantage; it is doubly an advantage when the rival programme would have to include so unpromising an item as Home Rule. Moreover opposition criticism falls just now upon willing ears. The employers dislike the compensation bill; the doctors dislike the vaccination bill; the general public dislike the clergy, so the rating bill is unpopular: the clergy resented your repudiation of the bill: the Orangemen are sulky and refuse to be conciliated even by the promise to vote for the Liverpool proposals. Of course those benefited by our measures are not grateful, while those who suppose themselves to be injured resent them. Truly unpromising conditions under which to fight a Lancashire seat!
Never mind, it will all come right; and this small reverse will have no permanent ill effect upon your political fortunes.
At the end of this July I had a good long talk with Mr Chamberlain. Although I had several times met him at my father’s house, and he had greeted me on other occasions in a most kindly manner, this was the first time I really made his acquaintance. We were both the guests of my friend, Lady Jeune. She had a pleasant house upon the Thames: and in the afternoon we cruised along the river in a launch. Unlike Mr Asquith, who never talked ‘shop’ out of business hours if he could help it, Mr Chamberlain was always ready to discuss politics. He was most forthcoming and at the same time startlingly candid and direct. His conversation was a practical political education in itself. He knew every detail, every turn and twist of the game, and understood deeply the moving forces at work in both the great parties, of whose most aggressive aspirations he had in turn been the champion. In the main both in the launch and afterwards at dinner the conversation lay between us. South Africa had begun again to be a growing topic. The negotiations with President Kruger about the delicate, deadly question of suzerainty were gradually engaging national and indeed world attention. The reader may be sure that I was keen that a strong line should be taken, and I remember Mr Chamberlain saying, ‘It is no use blowing the trumpet for the charge and then looking around to find nobody following.’ Later we passed an old man seated upright in his chair on a lawn at the brink of the river. Lady Jeune said, ‘Look, there is Labouchere.’ ‘A bundle of old rags!’ was Mr Chamberlain’s comment as he turned his head away from his venomous political opponent. I was struck by the expression of disdain and dislike which passed swiftly but with intensity across his face. I realised as by a lightning flash, how stern were the hatreds my famous, agreeable, vivacious companion had contracted and repaid in his quarrel with the Liberal Party and Mr Gladstone.
For the rest I was plunged in The River War. All the hard work was done and I was now absorbed in the delightful occupation of playing with the proofs. Being now free from military discipline, I was able to write what I thought about Lord Kitchener without fear, favour or affection, and I certainly did so. I had been scandalised by his desecration of the Mahdi’s Tomb and the barbarous manner in which he had carried off the Mahdi’s head in a kerosene-can as a trophy. There had already been a heated debate in Parliament upon this incident, and I found myself sympathising in the Gallery with the attacks which John Morley and Mr C. P. Scott, the austere editor of the Manchester Guardian, had launched against the General. The Mahdi’s head was just one of those trifles about which an immense body of rather gaseous feeling can be generated. All the Liberals were outraged by an act which seemed to them worthy of the Huns and Vandals. All the Tories thought it rather a lark. So here was I already out of step.
We planned to publish about the middle of October, and I was already counting the days until the two massive volumes, my magnum opus (up to date), upon which I had lavished a whole year of my life, should be launched upon an expectant public.
But when the middle of October came, we all had other things to think about.
Chapter XVIII
With Buller to the Cape
GREAT quarrels, it has been said, often arise from small occasions but never from small causes. The immediate preliminaries of the South African War were followed throughout England, and indeed the whole world, with minute attention. The long story of the relations of Briton and Boer since Majuba Hill, and the still longer tale of misunderstandings which had preceded that ill-omened episode, were familiar to wide publics. Every step in the negotiations and dispute of 1899 was watched with unceasing vigilance and debated in the sharpest challenge by the Opposition in the House of Commons. As the months of the summer and autumn passed, the dividing line in British politics was drawn between those who felt that war with the Boer Republics was necessary and inevitable and those who were resolved by every effort of argument, patience and prevision to prevent it.
The summer months were sultry. The atmosphere gradually but steadily became tense, charged with electricity, laden with the presage of storm. Ever since the Jameson Raid three years before, the Transvaal had been arming heavily. A well-armed Police held the Outlanders in strict subjection, and German engineers were tracing the outlines of a fort overlooking Johannesburg to dominate the city with its artillery. Cannon, ammunition, rifles streamed in from Holland and Germany in quantities sufficient not only to equip the populations of the two Boer Republics, but to arm a still larger number of the Dutch race throughout the Cape Colony. Threatened by rebellion as well as war, the British Government slowly increased its garrisons in Natal and at the Cape. Meanwhile notes and dispatches of ever-deepening gravity, between Downing Street and Pretoria, succeeded one another in a sombre chain.
Suddenly in the early days of October the bold, daring men who directed the policy of the Transvaal resolved to bring the issue to a head. An ultimatum requiring the withdrawal of the British forces from the neighbourhood of the Republican frontiers, and the arrest of further reinforcements, was telegraphed from Pretoria on the 8th. The notice allowed before its expiry was limited to three days. And from that moment war was certain.
The Boer ultimatum had not ticked out on the tape machines for an hour before Oliver Borthwick came to offer me an appointment as principal war-correspondent of the Morning Post. £250 a month, all expenses paid, entire discretion as to movements and opinions, four months’ minimum guarantee of employment – such were the terms; higher, I think, than any previously paid in British journalism to war correspondents, and certainly attractive to a young man of twenty-four with no responsibilities but to earn his own living. The earliest steamer, the Dunottar Castle, sailed on the 11th,
and I took my passage forthwith.
Preparations made in joyous expectation occupied my few remaining hours at home. London seethed with patriotic excitement and fierce Party controversy. In quick succession there arrived the news that the Boers themselves had taken initiative and that their forces were advancing both towards the Cape Colony and Natal, that General Sir Redvers Buller had become the British Commander-in-Chief, that the Reserves were called out, and that our only Army Corps was to be sent at once to Table Bay.
I thought I would try to see Mr Chamberlain before I sailed. Busy though the Minister was, he gave me rendezvous at the Colonial Office; and when I was unable to get there in time, he sent me a message to come to his house at Prince’s Gardens early the next morning. There accordingly I visited this extraordinary man at one of the most fateful moments in his public career. He was as usual smoking a cigar. He presented me with another. We talked for about ten minutes on the situation, and I explained what I was going to do. Then he said, ‘I must go to the Colonial Office. You may drive with me, and we can talk on the way.’
In those days it took a quarter of an hour to drive in a hansom-cab from Prince’s Gardens to Whitehall. I would not have had the journey shortened for anything. Mr Chamberlain was most optimistic about the probable course of the war.
‘Buller,’ he said, ‘may well be too late. He would have been wiser to have gone out earlier. Now, if the Boers invade Natal, Sir George White with his sixteen thousand men may easily settle the whole thing.’
‘What about Mafeking?’ I asked.
‘Ah, Mafeking, that may be besieged. But if they cannot hold out for a few weeks, what is one to expect?’
Then he added prudently, ‘Of course I have to base myself on the War Office opinion. They are all quite confident. I can only go by what they say.’
The British War Office of those days was the product of two generations of consistent House of Commons parsimony, unbroken by any serious call. So utterly unrelated to the actual facts were its ideas at this time that to an Australian request to be allowed to send a contingent of troops, the only reply was, ‘Unmounted men preferred.’ Nevertheless their own Intelligence Branch which lived in a separate building had prepared two volumes on the Boer Republics – afterwards presented to Parliament – which gave most full and accurate information. Sir John Ardagh, the head of this branch, told Lord Lansdowne, the Secretary of State for War, that 200,000 men would be required. His views were scouted; and the two volumes sent to Buller were returned within an hour with the message that he ‘knew everything about South Africa’. Mr George Wyndham, the Under-Secretary of State, who dined with me one of these nights, alone seemed to appreciate the difficulties and magnitude of the task. The Boers, he said, were thoroughly prepared and acting on definite plans. They had large quantities of munitions, including a new form of heavy Maxim firing 1-inch shells. (This we afterwards learned to know quite well as the Pom-pom.) He thought that the opening of the campaign might be unpleasant, that the British forces might be attacked in detail, that they might be surrounded here and there by a far more mobile foe, and having been brought to a standstill, might be pounded to pieces with these same 1-inch Maxims. I must confess that in the ardour of youth I was much relieved to learn that the war would not be entirely one-sided or peter out in a mere parade or demonstration. I thought it very sporting of the Boers to take on the whole British Empire, and I felt quite glad they were not defenceless and had put themselves in the wrong by making preparations.
Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations – all take their seat at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.
* * * * * * *
One of my father’s oldest friends, Billy Gerard, had some years before extracted a promise from Sir Redvers Buller (as I had done from Sir Bindon Blood) that, if ever that general received the command of an army in the field, he would take him on his staff. Lord Gerard was now an elderly man, of great wealth, extremely well known in society and one of the leading owners on the Turf. His approaching departure for the front was made the occasion of a dinner given by Sir Ernest Cassel in his honour at the Carlton Hotel. I was associated as a second string in this demonstration. The Prince of Wales and about forty men of the ruling generation formed a powerful and a merry company. Gerard’s function was to look after the personal comfort of the Commander-in-Chief, and for this purpose he was presented at the dinner with I do not know how many cases of the very best champagne and the very oldest brandy which the cellars of London boasted. He was informed by the donors that he was to share these blessings freely with me whenever opportunity arose. Everyone was in that mood of gaiety and heartiness which so often salutes an outbreak of war. One of our company who was also starting for the front had from time to time in his past life shown less self-control in the use of alcohol than is to be desired. Indeed he had become a byword. As he rose to leave us, Lord Marcus Beresford said with great earnestness, ‘Goodbye, old man, mind the VC.’ To this our poor friend, deeply moved, replied, ‘I’ll do my best to win it.’ ‘Ah!’ said Lord Marcus, ‘you are mistaken, I did not mean that, I meant the Vieux Cognac.’
I may here add that these cases of champagne and brandy and my share in them fell among the many disappointments of war. In order to make sure that they reached the headquarters intact, Lord Gerard took the precaution of labelling them ‘Castor Oil’. Two months later in Natal, when they had not yet arrived, he dispatched an urgent telegram to the base at Durban asking for his castor oil. The reply came back that the packages of this drug addressed to his lordship had by an error already been issued to the hospitals. There were now, however, ample stores of castor oil available at the base and the Commandant was forwarding a full supply forthwith!
Many of our South African experiences were to be upon a similar plane.
The Dunottar Castle sailed from Southampton on October 11, the day of the expiry of the Boer ultimatum. It did not only carry the Correspondent of the Morning Post and his fortunes; Sir Redvers Buller and the entire Headquarters Staff of our one (and only) organised army corps were also on its passenger list. Buller was a characteristic British personality. He looked stolid. He said little, and what he said was obscure. He was not the kind of man who could explain things, and he never tried to do so. He usually grunted, or nodded, or shook his head, in serious discussions; and shop of all kinds was sedulously excluded from his ordinary conversation. He had shown himself a brave and skilful officer in his youth, and for nearly twenty years he had filled important administrative posts of a sedentary character in Whitehall. As his political views were coloured with Liberalism, he was regarded as a very sensible soldier. His name had been long before the public; and with all these qualities it is no wonder that their belief in him was unbounded. ‘My confidence,’ said Lord Salisbury at the Guildhall, on November 9, 1899, ‘in the British soldier is only equalled by my confidence in Sir Redvers Buller.’ Certainly he was a man of a considerable scale. He plodded on from blunder to blunder and from one disaster to another, without losing either the regard of his country or the trust of his troops, to whose feeding as well as his own he paid serious attention. Independent, portentous, a man of the world, and a man of affairs – he gave the same sort of impression to the British at this juncture as we afterwards saw effected on the French nation through the personality of General Joffre.
While the issues of peace and war seemed to hang in their last
flickering balance, and before a single irrevocable shot had been fired, we steamed off into grey storms. There was of course no wireless in those days, and therefore at this most exciting moment the Commander-in-Chief, the Headquarters Staff and the Correspondent of the Morning Post dropped completely out of the world. Still we expected news at Madeira, which was reached on the fourth day. There was no news at Madeira, except that negotiations were at an end and that troops on both sides were moving. In this suspense we glided off again, this time into the blue.
We had now to pass a fortnight completely cut off from all view of the drama which filled our thoughts. It was a fortnight of cloudless skies and calm seas, through which the Cape liner cut her way with placid unconcern. She did not even increase her speed above the ordinary commercial rate. Such a measure would have been unprecedented. Nearly fifty years had passed since Great Britain had been at war with any white people, and the idea that time played any vital part in such a business seemed to be entirely absent from all her methods. Absolute tranquillity lapped the peaceful ship. The usual sports and games of a sea voyage occupied her passengers, civil and military alike. Buller trod the deck each day with sphinx-like calm. The general opinion among the Staff was that it would be all over before they got there. Some of our best officers were on board, and they simply could not conceive how ‘irregular, amateur’ forces like the Boers could make any impression against disciplined professional soldiers. If the Boers broke into Natal, they would immediately come up against General Penn Symons who lay with a whole infantry brigade, a cavalry regiment and two batteries of artillery, at Dundee in the extreme north of Natal. The fear of the Staff was that such a shock would so discomfort them that they would never again try conclusions with regular forces. All this was very disheartening, and I did not wonder that Sir Redvers Buller often looked so glum.
My Early Life Page 23
