Flashman on the March fp-12

by George MacDonald Fraser

  [27] Speedy here is referring to the Blue Nile, which flows from Lake Tana south-eastwards before looping west and north-west to join the White Nile at Khartoum in the Sudan. James Bruce reached the source of the Blue Nile in 1770 and supposed he had reached the source of the main Nile river, but this (the White Nile) was not conclusively identified until 1860-2 when John Hanning Speke and James Grant traced its course from Lake Victoria, which Speke had discovered some years before. Grant served as a polit ical officer on Napier’s Abyssinian expedition. (See also Note to p. 131.) [p. 61]

  [28] Several members of the expedition mention the lady in the tower as a mysterious figure, but there is much disagreement about her and the whereabouts of her captive husband. To one writer she is a “princess” whose husband is held by Kussai of Tigre; Stanley and another name the captor as King Theodore himself; Holland and Hozier’s official account agrees with Flashman that the per secutor is Gobayzy of Lasta. She is also variously described as "high-born and disconsolate", “inconsolable", and pining away her life “in incessant grief and pinching poverty"; there is general agreement about her vow of seclusion in her tower. Only Flashman gives her a name and personal description, and since he knew her intimately and none of the others seems even to have seen her, readers may be inclined to accept his account as authoritative. (Henty, Stanley, Holland and Hozier, and William Simpson, Diary of a Journey to Abyssinia, 1868. Simpson was a journalist and artist with the Illustrated London News whose diary has been edited and annotated by Richard Pankhurst, 2002.) [p. 63]

  [29] Flashman does not exaggerate. Mr St John is an enthusiast whose observations are to be found in Hotten’s Abyssinia and Its People (see Note to p. 24). [p. 78]

  [30] Readers of the Flashman Papers do not need to be told that his one real talent (aside from his boasted expertise with horses and women) was for languages. He was a brilliant linguist and an unusually quick study, often mastering a language in weeks; he was being modest in telling Napier that he could “scratch by” in a dozen but was fluent in only six, and it is not surprising that he quickly acquired enough Amharic for simple conversation. It has been the Abyssinian language since the late Middle Ages, when it replaced Ge’ez, the tongue of those Semitic people who crossed from Arabia to Ethiopia long ago. Ge’ez means literally "the free” and was applied to the people also; it is still used for liturgical purposes. An expert on Ethiopian languages, E. Ullendorf, says that Amharic bears the same kind of relation ship to Ge’ez as French does to Latin. (See E. Ullendorf, Exploration and Study of Abyssinia, 1945.) [p. 102]

  [31] “Palmer’s Vesuvians", a patent match which burned with a sputtering flame, a favourite with cigar smokers, [p. 109]

  [32] The atrocities described by Uliba-Wark are all well attested; indeed they are only part of the catalogue of horrors to be found in the histories written by two of the prisoners held by Theodore: Narrative of the British Mission to Theodore of Ethiopia by Hormuzd Rassam, 2 vols, 1869, and A Narrative of the Captivity in Abyssinia, 1868, by Dr Henry Blanc. These are two of the most essential works on the Abyssinian War, and between them give a graphic and detailed picture not only of the privations of their imprisonment, and of the plotting and politicking which took place between them and their captors, but are invaluable for their portraits of Theodore himself. They will be referred to frequently in these Notes, [p. Ill]

  [33] Flashman is almost certainly referring to the First Sikh War of 1845-6 and the China War of 1860, which he has described in Flashman and the Mountain of Light and Flashman and the Dragon, [p. 111]

  [34] The yellow scorpions of the genus Buthus are found in north-east Africa and the Sahara. Baby scorpions climb on the mother’s back after birth and remain there until they are big enough to fend for themselves, [p. 120]

  [35] Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke attempted to find the source of the Nile in 1857-9, but Burton fell ill and Speke reached the source on Lake Victoria alone. Burton queried his findings, and after Speke and Grant in 1868 confirmed Speke’s original discovery (see Note to p. 61) Burton renewed the controversy. He and Speke were due to debate the question before the British Association on September 15, 1864, but on that same morning Speke was accidentally killed while partridge-shooting, [p. 131]

  [36] Flashman’s cavalier attitude to dates is a vexation, but this passage gives some indication of his movements in the mid-1860s. The reference to Chancellorsville places him in the United States in May 1863, and we know he was at Gettysburg two months later, and in Washington when Lincoln was shot (April 1865). It is just possible, but highly unlikely, that his service (to both sides) in the U.S. Civil War was interrupted by a return to England in late 1863 or 1864. When he arrived in Mexico is uncertain, but his mention of Queretaro places him in the country between February and May of 1867, since that was the period in which Maximilian based himself at that royalist stronghold, where he was captured by the Juaristas. It seems plain, then, that between April 1865 and February 1867 Flashman returned to England at least once, and probably twice, since he speaks of “intervals” in the plural.

  One would be inclined to commiserate with Elspeth if it were not clear from the Papers that, while they were deeply attached to each other, she bore his frequent absences with equanimity, [p. 135]

  [37] It is not surprising that Flashman expected to be disbelieved, since in his day no one had survived such a plunge down a waterfall. Not until October, 2003, when an enterprising American deliber ately allowed himself to be borne over the Canadian section of Niagara Falls, and lived, did anyone make such a descent. The Canadian Fall is estimated at 158 ft; the Tisisat Fall which Flashman survived is approximately 150 ft. Tisisat is one of the most glo rious sights in Africa, the Blue Nile bordered by beautiful green banks and flowing smoothly past little jungly islands and rocks before it plunges over the lip. “It is an extraordinary thing that they should be so little known,” writes Alan Moorehead, “for they are, by some way, the grandest spectacle that either the Blue or the White Nile has to offer.” The Victoria Falls are considerably higher, and are known as “the smoke that thunders". Tisisat, “the silver smoke", was discovered by two Portuguese missionaries, Paez and Lobo, in the early seventeenth century. (Moorehead, The Blue Nile.) [p. 144]

  [38] We cannot tell where this camp was, and must assume from Flashman’s account that it was less than a day’s ride from Tisisat, probably in the direction of Magdala. Queen Masteeat was evi dently on the move at this time, and a week or so later we know from Holland and Hozier that she was at a place called Lugot, not given on the maps but said to be only five miles from Magdala. [p. 147]

  [39] Lucien Maxwell (1818-75), frontiersman and landowner, was one of a party of mountain men, led by Kit Carson, who rescued Flashman from Apaches in 1850 (see Flashman and the Redskins); he later became proprietor of one of the largest private estates ever known, the Maxwell Land Grant. The trick which he taught Flashman of proffering a pistol-butt in apparent surrender to an opponent and suddenly rolling it into the palm to cover him, was known to gunfighters as the road-agent’s spin; the border shift consisted simply of tossing a pistol from one hand to the other.

  The Las Vegas referred to is not the Nevada gambling resort, but an earlier settlement in New Mexico, [p. 147]

  [40] Flashman was not exaggerating. His account of an Abyssinian orgy is almost identical to that of James Bruce a century earlier, the chief difference being that at the feast Bruce attended in Gondar, the steaks were cut from a living cow indoors in the pres ence of the guests, the beast’s bellowing being the summons to table. Both sexes were present, and Bruce describes how, after the banquet, “Love lights all its fires, and everything is permitted with absolute freedom. There is no coyness, no delays, no need of… retirement to gratify their wishes… they sacrifice both to Bacchus and to Venus. The two men nearest the vacuum a pair have made on the bench by leaving their seats, hold their upper garment like a screen before the two… and if we may judge by sound, they seem to think it as great
a shame to make love in silence as to eat. Replaced in their seats again, the company drink the happy couple’s health, and their example is followed… as each couple is disposed. All this passes without remark or scandal, not a licentious word is uttered, nor the most distant joke upon the transaction.” [p. 176]

  [41] Theodore used guerrilla raiding parties during his march from Debra Tabor, and after his arrival in Magdala, and prominent among them were his “Amazons". Dr Blanc writes: “He had formed the strongest and hardiest of the women of his camp into a plundering band; he was much pleased with their bravery, and one of them having killed a petty chief… he was so delighted that he gave her a title of rank and presented her with one of his own pistols.” This description seems to fit Flashman’s “Diana", with her silver shield and pistol, [p. 189]

  [42] The “falling out” had taken place when Theodore’s troops plundered the villagers of the Dalanta plateau, who had previously helped him as road-makers and porters on his march from Debra Tabor to Magdala. Furious at his betrayal, they gave their assistance to Napier’s advance. It is estimated that Theodore destroyed no fewer than 47 villages around Magdala, massacring 7000 people and pressing men into his service. According to Blanc, he was concluding a final raid in person at the time of Napier’s arrival at the Bechelo river (April 6-7); this must have been the raid, which was partly a foray for supplies as well as a scouting operation against the Gallas, which resulted in Flashman’s rescue and capture. (See Note to p. 221, which confirms the date.) [p. 195]

  [43] If Theodore’s conversational flights seem outlandish, they are nevertheless authentic. He obviously had a habit of repeating himself, and giving free rein to his paranoia, during his drinking bouts, and his curious comparison of himself to an expectant mother, his allusions to the sword of Damocles, and the Scriptures, and making a great bloodbath, are all to be found in Blanc and Rassam. His attitude towards Britain was a mixture of genuine admiration (he seems to have been truly excited at the prospect of seeing her army in action, even against himself) and deep resentment, for which he can hardly be blamed, at her apparent contempt for him; he seems to have suspected that he was despised for being primitive and black, [p. 207]

  [44] Hormuzd Rassam, an Iraqi Christian born in Mosul, was considered an odd choice as envoy to Theodore by his contemporaries, and by historians since. He had worked with the archaeologist Sir Henry Layard in what was then Mesopotamia, studied at Oxford, became a British citizen, and was assistant to Merewether at Aden when he was sent to Abyssinia to try to persuade Theodore to release the prisoners. The general opinion of him seems to have been that he was altogether too submissive in his dealings with the Emperor; “too soft, too compliant, too yielding,” says Moorehead; Stanley was not favourably impressed, and there were many who thought a tough senior soldier would have been a better choice. Maybe; in Rassam’s defence it has to be pointed out that while he may have been deferential, and caused Theodore to treat him more as a courtier than an envoy, it worked; a tougher and more outspoken ambassador might well have provoked the Emperor into much harsher measures against the prisoners.

  Prideaux and Blanc had been in Rassam’s mission and were taken prisoner with him; the other captives apart from Cameron were German and other European missionaries, with their wives and servants, and the German artisans already in Theodore’s employ were prisoners in all but name. The total of Europeans held prisoner has been put at 60, of whom only Cameron and Rassam can be said to have had diplomatic status, [p. 215]

  [45] For once Flashman gives an exact date, and we can deduce his movements for the previous week at least. He must have arrived at Queen Masteeat’s camp on April 6, been kidnapped the same night and rescued by Theodore’s women, arrived in Theodore’s camp at Islamgee on April 7 and spent the night in chains, and met Rassam and the other prisoners on April 8.

  Before April 6 we can only estimate that he spent about a week with the fisher-folk who nursed him through his fever, so he probably went over the Tisisat Falls near the end of March. Working back, we place him at the Zaze monastery about March 24, which does not accord with his statement that it was then a week before Palm Sunday, which in that year fell on April 5. Plainly this was just a mistake on his part; for Flashman, an error of four days more or less is nothing, and we can only be grateful that he deigned to make a note of April 9 when it arrived. Since he was with Napier on February 25, his journey with Uliba-Wark must have taken about four weeks, [p. 221]

  [46] Of the many atrocities committed by Theodore, the massacre of prisoners at Islamgee is by far the best documented. The principal witness is his valet and gun-bearer, Wald Gabr, who in a state ment taken by Speedy testified that he himself had shot three of the victims on the Emperor’s orders. His account bears Flashman out entirely; indeed he is if anything more horrific, for he says that the first victim, the bound woman, was actually cut in two by Theodore, who then shot two more women before ordering the other prisoners to be thrown over the cliff alive, those who sur vived the fall being shot. Blanc and Rassam both describe the cold-blooded examination of the prisoners remaining after Theodore’s first drunken rage had subsided, each person being asked for name, country, and crime, many of which were utterly trivial; the great majority were then flung over the cliff. Blanc and Rassam differ on the numbers killed; Wald Gabr says simply: “No one counted the victims, we were all afraid.” (Blanc, Rassam, Wald Gabr’s statement to Speedy, in Holland and Hozier.) [p. 231]

  [47] Reading between the lines of Blanc’s memoir, one is inclined to agree with Flashman that Theodore’s German artisans may have sabotaged his great mortar. In describing the Emperor’s raid on the island of Metraha, where he burned most of the population alive, Blanc mentions that some fugitives took to their canoes, but when Theodore ordered his Europeans to fire on them with small cannon, “they complied, but to Theodore’s great disap pointment, failed to hit any of the fugitives.” In his next para graph Blanc writes of the artisans’ failure to cast Sevastopol at their first attempt, and their eventual success only after Theodore himself had (with some technical skill, it must be said) redesigned the smelting process. Taking these two incidents together, it seems that the Germans were by no means eager to make a success of casting or operating Theodore’s ordnance; the artillery of which they had the loading on Fala was singularly ineffective, and the bursting of Sevastopol was a huge blow to Theodore’s morale; he had hoped it would have a shattering effect on his enemies. Estimates of its weight vary, one saying only five tons, others seventy. Rassam’s book has a fine illustration showing the enor mous bell-like contraption being dragged uphill by hordes of workers, and it is said to be still lying half-buried in the ground at Magdala today, [p. 240]

  [48] The battle of Arogee is well described in Holland and Hozier, and by Stanley and Henty. The latter wrote a separate account in greater detail for Battles of the Nineteenth Century, vol. 1, 1890, and there is an admirable essay on the battle, D. G. Chandler’s “The Expedition to Abyssinia, 1867-8", which is to be found in Victorian Military Campaigns, edited by Brian Bond. Flashman’s version is sound, but he adds nothing to the one point of controversy, the exposure of the army’s baggage to attack, which Theodore fortu nately delayed. Henty was in no doubt that if Napier had been facing a European enemy, disaster must have followed; as it was, Napier was quick to retrieve the position. What seems to have happened is that Colonel Phayre, the Quartermaster-General, had reported the defile from which the baggage was emerging to be safe and guarded, when it was not; it has also been suggested that Napier himself had miscalculated the speed of his own advance, and that the baggage got ahead of him. Holland and Hozier tact fully glide over the incident, [p. 243]

  [49] The feeling in Napier’s army is reflected in Henry, who pays tribute to the bravery of the Abyssinians, emphasising that they retreated, but did not fly, and that not a spear or a gun was thrown away. He writes of “a slaughter, hardly a fight, between disci plined well-armed men and scattered parties of savages
scarcely armed at all.” The firearms of the Abyssinians were certainly infe rior to the Sniders and Enfields, but Henty is not quite fair to the Sikh Pioneers who enjoyed no advantage of weaponry against the enemy spear and swordsmen, were outnumbered, and still won a decisive victory with their bayonets, as Flashman, a veteran of the Sikh War, notes with satisfaction. For the rest, his account of the battle is well corroborated on the British side, and by those who were with Theodore, [p. 243]

  [50] When Blanc came face to face with Theodore, “I was quite pre pared for the worst, and, at that moment, had no doubt in my mind that our last hour had come.” Theodore reached for the musket of the nearest soldier, “looked at me for a second or two, dropped his hand, and in a low sad voice asked me how I was, and bade me good-bye.” This accords with Flashman, but Blanc is modest about outfacing the Emperor, saying that it was mere accident that he was first to approach Theodore, who had no animosity towards him; “the result would have been quite different had his anger been roused by the sight of those he hated.” [p. 254]

  [51] There is an interesting group photograph of the principal prisoners taken after their release. It includes Cameron wearing his cap and holding a crutch; Dr Blanc, burly and serious; Rassam quite brisk and dapper; Prideaux lounging on the ground, arms folded and looking both languid and jaundiced; and the two missionaries, the Rev. Stern whose alleged criticism of Theodore helped to start the crisis, and the Rev. Rosenthal with Mrs Rosenthal and their baby. Blanc and Prideaux are wearing their shackles. (Army Museums Ogilby Trust.) [p. 254]

  [52] This was a letter of apology for what Flashman calls Theodore’s "lunatic message” of the previous day. Both are quoted in full in

  Holland and Hozier, and there can be no better evidence of Theodore’s violent swings of mood. They are truly extraordinary productions, and Napier can have been in no doubt that he was dealing with a highly unstable and dangerous man. It may be sig nificant of how Theodore saw himself that the first letter, an aston ishing rant, is headed from “Kasa, whose trust is in Christ, thus speaks", while the apology, much more moderate in tone and accompanied by the gift of cattle, comes from “the King of Kings Theodorus". Kasa was his name before he assumed the title of Emperor, the name of his humble beginnings. Flashman’s account of Theodore’s behaviour at this time, his relations with his own leading men, his diplomatic exchanges with Napier, and his inability to decide whether to fight or surrender, are confirmed in Rassam and Blanc, and by his valet Wald Gabr (see Note to p. 270). [p. 255]