Edwardes, as a loyal disciple of Sir John Lawrence, such a scheme would have no doubt appeared heretical; but even the united condemnation of all the statesmen of that school will now hardly persuade us that the advance to Piwer was premature or indiscreet. To my mind, at any rate, the wisdom of Lord Lytton in taking so bold a step in advance has been amply vindicated by the ease and celerity with which Sir F. Roberts was able to advance from Ali Kheil to Cabul to avenge the murder of our Envoy; and although, of course, with railways to Candahar and Jellalabad, the Kuram route from India to Ghazni will be of only secondary value, I still look upon a military post in the valley-commanding as it does the districts of Dawer, Khost, and Furmúl—as of very great importance in preserving order and tranquillity through the central mountain region of Afghanistan.

H. C. RAWLINSON.

LORD CHELMSFORD AND THE

ZULU WAR.

LORD CHELMSFORD is an incomprehensible person. His conduct of the Zulu war offered the keenest temptation to adverse comment, and criticism of that description was freely brought to bear upon it while as yet his Lordship remained at the head of affairs. But this criticism was in its nature perfunctory, and the appropriate complement of it was obviously a comprehensive résumé of the errors of the campaign up to the period when he resigned his functions of command. It was apparent that such a résumé would be in itself a useful contribution to our critical military annals. Nor did there lack other stimulants to the production of a paper of this sort. At Cape Town, after his resignation, Lord Chelmsford cast the imputation upon the commentators who had accompanied the fortunes of his invasion, that their adverse remarks had been dictated by political bias. No more overwhelming refutation of this unworthy aspersion could well be conceived, than the categorical proof that hostile criticism had emanated in a unanimous chorus from the representatives of journals of every political colour alike. But just resentment against an aspersion so defamatory prompted naturally, human nature being what it is, to the production of a comprehensive criticism, the warrantable severity of which should punish a wanton calumny on an honourable profession. For myself I may say that I had numerous solicitations to undertake this task. The natural impulse of one whose idiosyncrasy has a family resemblance to that of the sturdy borderer who would 'tak dunts frae naebody,' of one, too, who delights in writing on military topics, was to consent. But other considerations interposed. The heart warms towards a man whom one has seen carrying his head high and displaying worthy demeanour when the air throbs with the roar of the foe, and when the angry bullets are flying thick. Nor was there wanting another incentive to silence on the part of one who knows that what he may write is noticed by and has weight with foreign critics, who are not slow to rejoice over the home-demonstration of a British general's incompetency. Accordingly, I, for one, held my peace; or rather indeed held it not, having portrayed to many audiences Lord Chelmsford's gallant bearing on

the battle-field, and refrained from one word of allusion to his errors as the director of a campaign.

But it apparently is not given to Lord Chelmsford to hold his peace, and, in the words of a familiar proverb, to let sleeping dogs lie.' In these days men read fast, think fast, and forget fast. The remembrance of the criticisms which Lord Chelmsford's conduct had incurred was fading away into that limbo of oblivion for which there are few men who have not reason to be grateful, when, with unaccountable error in judgment, his Lordship must needs recall to life the dry bones. At a dinner in the City last December he spoke as follows:

There can be no one present who has not read the rather severe criticisms which have been passed upon the conduct of the campaign. But war is not one of the exact sciences in which every move can be laid down with mathematical precision; and I believe that was the idea which the Duke of Wellington had in his mind when he said that he was the best general who made the fewest mistakes. . . . I think it only fair that those who are deputed to follow the army, and to describe to you what it is doing, were obliged, whenever they deem it their duty to find fault with and to criticise the conduct of the general who is entrusted with the command, to say what they themselves would have done under similar circumstances. . . There is a time to speak, and a time to keep silence. I trust I shall not be misunderstood if I ask you to remember that the reputation of a general officer is just as dear to him as that of any other officer or soldier. I would, therefore, conclude with these words from Shakespeare :—

'Good name in man and woman, dear my lord, &c.'

In the same month, speaking in Hertford Corn Exchange, Lord Chelmsford remarked that success was not always the criterion of a general's efficiency, but it threw the onus of proving the contrary on his detractors.'

In the observations quoted, Lord Chelmsford proves himself to labour under a curious variety of misconceptions. In the abstract, it is no part of a critic's task to suggest preferable procedure; the proposal that critics of a campaign in progress should be compelled to do so is absurd, as having no possible practical advantage. It is natural that the reputation of a general officer should be as dear to him as is that of a newspaper writer to that contemned member of the community; but neither, it is obvious, has an indefeasible right to the retention of that reputation. The former stands to forfeit it by his incapacity; just as the latter by any proved unworthiness, such as malevolent detraction, a baseness which Lord Chelmsford has ascribed to his critics. To no attribute or belonging has any man an indefeasible title, not even to his life; and Mr. Marwood would scarcely be seriously influenced by the representation of a malefactor he is about to pinion that life was as dear to him as to any other member of the human family. Further it may be pointed out that criticism is not detraction; if this were so, adverse comment on anybody and anything would be simply inadmissible.

But such reflections are a mere waste of words. Let me clear the ground at once. Deliberately and, I may say wantonly, when all things are considered, Lord Chelmsford has thrown down a challenge. Reluctantly and compulsorily I take it up. I aver that the conduct of the campaign by Lord Chelmsford was one series of errors, broken only by the combats of Gingihlovo and Ulundi; and, accepting the Duke of Wellington's saying quoted by Lord Chelmsford, I point to its inexorable converse. While repudiating the imputation of being his detractor, I undertake the duty of proving that Lord Chelmsford neither merited nor achieved success in his operations against the Zulus.

His Lordship's conduct of the campaign conveniently divides itself into four distinct periods :--

1. From the inception of the preparations up to and including the catastrophe of Isandlwana.

2. From Isandlwana till the completion of the relief of Etshowe. 3. From the relief of Etshowe up to and including the combat of Ulundi.

4. From the combat of Ulundi until the acceptance of Lord Chelmsford's resignation by Sir Garnet Wolseley.

Let me deal with these periods in their sequence, directing attention, then, first to the period from the inception of the preparations up to and including Isandlwana.

The problem which confronted Lord Chelmsford was by no means one easy of satisfactory solution. The task lay before him of invading Zululand with such success as would compel Cetchwayo to beg for peace on such conditions as might seem satisfactory to the higher authority, or in default to prosecute the war to the final discomfiture of the Zulu King. It behoved him none the less, if possible with the means at his disposal, to guard the adjacent colonies from Zulu counter-irruption. The means at his command were limited. Excluding Rowlands' force watching Sekukuni away in the far northwest, a force which for sundry reasons it might have seemed unwise to withdraw from the Transvaal region, he could dispose of but about five thousand regular infantry, perhaps fifteen hundred irregular cavalry of varying efficiency, and an indefinite number, say seven thousand, of black auxiliaries, whose value in actual warfare was, to say the least, dubious. The season enforced on him for the commencement of operations, with the ground a quagmire and every hill torrent a river, was most inappropriate; but a general acting under instructions from a superior who holds extra-official or rather supra-official instructions to hasten events so as to anticipate official orders to be evoked by the inevitable awakening of public opinion, must take the season as he finds it. This is the only excuse for Lord Chelmsford's commencement of operations when he did. On all other

considerations he was bound to wait until his rivers were fordable and his roads passable. He had but one advantage in beginning when he did that the full boundary-rivers were calculated to hinder in some degree a counter-invasion of the colony by the Zulus.

A strong general would have demurred to obey orders that committed him to an undertaking so manifestly precarious. Further, a strong general, recognising that the force at his disposal was apparently inadequate for the double duty of offence and defence, would have been firm in his demand for adequate reinforcements and in his declinature to move until they had reached him. But Lord Chelmsford accepted the task assigned him, and had to look it in the face with the means to his hand. His apology for his collapse was that he underrated his enemy and the difficulties of the country he had to invade. The pleas are inadmissible. Under his auspices there had been compiled a synopsis of the Zulu army, enumerating its regiments and their several strengths, giving details as to its discipline and manner of manoeuvring, and proving, if any weight was to be attached to the document, that Cetchwayo was the reverse of a contemptible foe. Virtually, then, under his own hand, Lord Chelmsford had announced that the country he was about to invade was defended by a disciplined army over 40,000 strong. Dozens of Natalians knew Zululand well; there was a regular wagon trade between the colony and Ulundi by the lower road-a road studded with mission stations, whose supplies were all drawn from Natal. It only needed, then, due inquiry to ascertain the character of the country to be invaded, even were there no such provision as reconnaissances within the scope of the military art.

These premisses being set down, what course of invasive action did it behove Lord Chelmsford to pursue? With his scanty force, he could not both adequately assume the offensive and maintain the defence of his frontier. He had to invade; it remained then but to let the frontier take its chance, at least in a great measure. And how to invade to the best advantage? In all warfare, the aim is to strike quick, hard, and decisively; when the war is against savages, the force of the axiom is tenfold intensified. In a sense Lord Chelmsford had but one base, the seaport of Durban; but there was a sense in which Utrecht, on which might converge the produce and transport of the Transvaal, should constitute another base. Now Durban is little more than sixty miles from the Zulu frontier near the Tugela mouth, with a railway over part of that distance and at good level road for the remainder. From the crossing of the Tugela on this line, the Zulu king's kraal, Ulundi, the manifest objective of the invasion, is distant, via Etshowe, about seventy miles. The road by this route was the one habitually taken by traders from Natal, by the wayfarers to and from the mission stations, and by the other sparse visitors to the Zulu realm. Clearly every consideration