138 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



April 1, 191S. 



Mahdi, alarmed at the advance of the 

 British troops, had already packed up 

 his goods and chattels and was ready 

 to fall back into the interior of Africa ; 

 but it is only recently that fuller news 

 has been received on the subject, which 

 shows how very near the expedition was 

 to complete success. After the battle 

 of Abu Klea there was a meeting m the 

 Mahdist camp of all the Emirs, who 

 were all in favour of abandoning the 

 siege. One Emir, and one alone, stood 

 up to protest against the proposed re- 

 treat. " Let us," he said, " make one 

 attempt more. Let us fire loi guns and 

 proclaim a great victory, and make one 

 more attack on Khartoum. If we fail 

 we shall be no worse off than we are 

 now, for we can always retreat, but if 

 we succeed we shall be able to defy the 

 approaching British." Unfortunately 

 for us, the counsel of this Emir was 

 taken and when Lord Charles Beresford 

 arrived in sight of Khartoum it was in 

 the hands of the rebels, and General 

 Gordon was no more. But had even one 

 steamer come down at once, Gordon 

 would have been saved." 



A TEMPERATE TEMPERANCE MAN. 



Contrary to a very widespread belief, 

 Lord Wolseley was not a teetotaller, al- 

 though probably his words have had as 

 much weight as those of any man in 

 restraint of the practice of dram-drink- 

 ing. Spirits are his detestation, and no 

 one has expressed more strongly their 

 conviction that they are entirely un- 

 necessary except from a medicinal 

 point of view when men have had to 

 bivouac in marshes. It was during his 

 Red River expedition that he first 

 taught the Army that it was possible 

 for the British soldier to fight on tea. 

 When describing this expedition Air. 

 Low says : — 



Acting upon views he had for years 

 strongly lentertained as to the positive injury 

 to health by dram-drinking, even in mode- 

 ration, he would have no liquor of any sort 

 — except a small quantity of brandy in each 

 brigade of boats, as " medical comforts," 

 under the charge of the commanding officer 

 — to form part of the commissariat depart- 

 ment. But he sanctioned a liberal allowance 

 of tea, which was freely taken by officers 

 and men twice and thrice a day. and though 

 they were constantly wet to the skin, and 

 had to perform the hardest work in damp 



clothes, the medical returns were almost 

 blank, and crime and any serious cases of 

 sickness were alike unknown in the Force. 



SMOKE. 



Like General Gordon, Lord Wolseley 

 was at one time an immense smoker. 

 He told me that from a boy he had 

 smoked constantly, and that for many 

 years he always smoked from six in 

 the morning till he went to bed at 

 night, smoking nothing but big black 

 cigars. When he was worried and 

 troubled, there was nothing in the world 

 that soothed him as much as a cigar. 

 He had always kept himself well in 

 hand, and kept the habit under control 

 by every now and then ceasing to smoke 

 entirely for a week or a fortnight at a 

 time. He finally gave up smoking alto- 

 gether, and seemed to feel no in- 

 convenience. For a fortnight before 

 Tel-el-Kebir, he had never smoked at 

 all, and when the battle was won, as he 

 stood on the bridge of the canal at the 

 camp, he lit his first cigar, and smoked 

 six, one after another, as hard as he 

 could — a kind of tobacco debauch, as 

 he said. 



He was a man who made many 

 friends and some enemies. His remark- 

 able rise, and the freedom with which 

 he spoke and wrote, combined to make 

 him envied by many and hated by some. 

 The truculence with which some suf- 

 fered themselves to speak of a soldier 

 whose valour has reflected glory upon 

 the British Army is little to the credit of 

 a service which ought to be based on 

 good comradeship. This hostility was 

 more than counterbalanced by the en- 

 thusiastic fidelity with which the officers 

 who were trained along with him re- 

 gard their intrepid and resourceful 

 chief. 



I am not a soldier, and have not at- 

 tempted to deal with Lord Wolseley 

 from a military point of view. He 

 was more interesting to his countrymen 

 as a picturesque and commanding per- 

 sonality than as a mere man of the) 

 sword. Yet even the most out-and-out 

 Peace man cannot refrain altogether 

 from admiring the capacity, the re- 

 source, the energy, and the intelligence 

 of the man who was for so many years 

 the brains of the British Army. 



