Winston Churchill speaks on American Independence Day in 1918

Extracted from:  A Declaration of Interdependence, Commemoration in London in 1918 of the 4th of July, 1776. Resolutions and addresses at the Central hall, Westminster, with an introduction by George Haven Putnam; THE LIBRARY OF WAR LITERATURE, 511 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

Mr. Winston Churchill:

We are, as the Chairman has stated, met here to-day in the City of Westminster to celebrate the hundred and forty-second anniversary of American Independence. We are met also, as he has reminded you, as brothers in arms, facing together grave injuries and perils, and passing through a period of exceptional anxiety and suffering. Therefore we seek to draw from the past history of our race inspiration and encouragement which will cheer our hearts and fortify and purify our resolution and our comradeship. A great harmony exists between the Declaration of Independence and all we are fighting for now. A similar harmony exists between the principles of that Declaration and what the British Empire has wished to stand for and has at last achieved, not only here at home, but in the great self-governing Dominions through the world. The Declaration of Independence is not only an American document; it follows on Magna Charta and the Petition of Right as the third of the great title deeds on which the liberties of the English-speaking race are founded. By it we lost an Empire, but by it we also preserved an Empire. By applying these principles and learning this lesson we have maintained unbroken communion with those powerful Commonwealths which our children have founded and have developed beyond the seas, and which, in this time of stress, have rallied spontaneously to our aid. The political conceptions embodied in the Declaration of Independence are the same as those which were consistently expressed at the time by Lord Chatham and Mr. Burke and by many others who had in turn received them from John Hampden and Algernon Sidney. They spring from the same source; they come from the same well of practical truth, and that well, ladies and gentlemen, is here, by the banks of the Thames in this famous Island, which we have guarded all these years, and which is the birthplace and the cradle of the British and the American race. It is English wisdom, it is that peculiar political sagacity and sense of practical truth, which animates the great document in the minds of all Americans to-day. Wherever men seek to frame polities or constitutions which are intended to safeguard the citizen, be he rich or be he poor, on the one hand from the shame of despotism, on the other from the misery of anarchy, which are devised to combine personal liberty with respect for law and love of country — wherever these desires are sincerely before the makers of constitutions or laws, it is to this original inspiration, this inspiration which was the product of English soil, which was the outcome of the Anglo-Saxon mind, that they will inevitably be drawn.

We therefore feel no sense of division in celebrating this anniversary. We join in perfect sincerity and in perfect simplicity with our American kith and kin in commemorating the auspicious and glorious establishment of their nationhood. We also, we British who have been so long in the struggle, also express our joy and gratitude for the mighty and timely aid which America has brought and is bringing to the Allied Cause. When I have seen during the last few weeks the splendour of American manhood striding forward on all the roads of France and Flanders, I have experienced emotions which words cannot describe. We have suffered so much in this country — and in gallant France they have suffered still more — that we can feel for others. There are few homes in Britain where you will not find an empty chair and aching hearts, and we feel in our own sorrow a profound sympathy with those across the Atlantic whose dear ones have travelled so far to face dangers we know only too well. Not British hearts only, but Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African hearts [A voice: "And Indian too"], beat in keen common sympathy with them. And Indian hearts as well. All who have come across the great expanses of the ocean to take part in this conflict feel in an especial degree a sympathy, an intense and comprehending sympathy, with the people of the United States, who have to wait through these months of anxiety for the news of battle.

The greatest actions of men or of nations are spontaneous and instinctive. They do not result from nice calculations of profit and loss, or long balancing of doubtful opinions. They happen as if they could not help happening. The heart, as the French say, has reasons which the reason does not know. I am persuaded that the finest and worthiest moment in the history of Britain was reached on that August night, now nearly four years ago, when we declared war on Germany. Little could we know where it would carry us, or what it would bring to us. Like the United States, we entered the war a peaceful nation, utterly unprepared for aggression in any form; like the United States, we entered the war without counting the cost, and without seeking any reward of any kind. The cost has been more terrible than our most sombre expectations would have led us to imagine, but the reward which is coming is beyond the fondest dreams and hopes we could have cherished.

What is the reward of Britain? What is the priceless, utterly unexpected reward that is coming to us surely and irresistibly in consequence of our unstudied and unhesitating response to the appeals of Belgium and of France? Territory, indemnities, commercial advantages — what are they? They are matters utterly subordinate to the moral issues and moral consequences of this war. Deep in the hearts of the people of this Island, deep in the hearts of those whom the Declaration of Independence styles "our British brethren," lay the desire to be truly reconciled before all men and before all history with their kindred across the Atlantic Ocean; to blot out the reproaches and redeem the blunders of a bygone age, to dwell once more in spirit with our kith and kin, to stand once more in battle at their side, to create once more a true union of hearts, to begin once more to write a history in common. That was our heartfelt desire, but it seemed utterly unattainable — utterly unattainable, at any rate, in periods which the compass of our short lives enabled us to consider. One prophetic voice [Admiral Sims] predicted with accents of certitude the arrival of a day of struggle which would find England and the United States in battle side by side; but for most of us it seemed that this desire of union and of reconciliation in sentiment and in heart would not be achieved within our lifetime. But it has come to pass. It has come to pass already, and every day it is being emphasized and made more real and more lasting! However long the struggle may be, however cruel may be the sufferings we have to undergo, however complete may be the victory we shall win, however great may be our share in it, we seek no nobler reward than that. We seek no higher reward than this supreme reconciliation. That is the reward of Britain. That is the lion's share.

A million American soldiers are in Europe. They have arrived safely and in the nick of time. Side by side with their French and British comrades, they await at this moment the furious onslaught of the common foe, and that is an event which in the light of all that has led up to it, and in the light of all that must follow from it, seems — I say it frankly — to transcend the limits of purely mundane things. It is a wonderful event; it is a prodigious event; it is almost a miraculous event. It fills us, it fills me, with a sense of the deepest awe. Amid the carnage and confusion of the immense battlefield, amid all the grief and destruction which this war is causing and has still to cause, there comes over even the most secularly-minded of us a feeling that the world is being guided through all this chaos to something far better than we have ever yet enjoyed. We feel in the presence of a great design of which we only see a small portion, but which is developing and unfolding swiftly at this moment, and of which we are the honoured servants and the necessary instruments in our own generation. No event, I say, since the beginning of the Christian era has been more likely to strengthen and restore faith in the moral governance of the Universe than the arrival from the other end of the world of these mighty armies of deliverance. One has a feeling that it is not all a blind struggle; it is not all for nothing. Not too late is the effort; not in vain do heroes die.

There is one more thing I ought to say, and it is a grave thing to say. The essential purposes of this war do not admit of compromise. If we were fighting merely for territorial gains, or were engaged in a domestic, dynastic, or commercial quarrel, no doubt these would be matters to be adjusted by bargaining. But this war has become an open conflict between Christian civilization and scientific barbarism. The line is clearly drawn between the nations where the peoples own the governments and the nations where the governments own the peoples. Our struggle is between systems which faithfully endeavor to quell and quench the brutish, treacherous, predatory promptings of human nature, and a system which has deliberately fostered, organized, armed, and exploited these promptings to its own base aggrandizement. We are all erring mortals. No race, no country, no individual, has a monopoly of good or of evil, but face to face with the facts of this war, who can doubt that the struggle in which we are engaged is in reality a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil? It is a struggle between right and wrong, and as such it is not capable of any solution which is not absolute. Germany must be beaten; Germany must know that she is beaten; Germany must feel that she is beaten. Her defeat must be expressed in terms and facts which will, for all time, deter others from emulating her crime, and will safeguard us against; their repetition.

But, Ladies and Gentlemen, the German people have at any rate this assurance: that we claim for ourselves no natural or fundamental right that we shall not be obliged and even willing in all circumstances to secure for them. We cannot treat them as they have treated Alsace-Lorraine or Belgium or Russia, or as they would treat us all if they had the power. We can not do it, for we are bound by the principles for which we are fighting. We must adhere to those principles. They will arm our fighting strength, and they alone will enable us to use with wisdom and with justice the victory which we shall gain. Whatever the extent of our victory, these principles will protect the German people. The Declaration of Independence and all that it implies must cover them. When all those weapons in which German militarists have put their trust have broken in their hands, when all the preparations on which they have lavished the energies and the schemes of fifty years have failed them, the German people will find themselves protected by those simple elemental principles of right and freedom against which they will have warred so long in vain. So let us celebrate to-day not only the Declaration of Independence, but let us proclaim the true comradeship of Britain and America and their determination to stand together until the work is done, in all perils, in all difficulties, at all costs, wherever the war may lead us, right to the very end. No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong — that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918; that is the Declaration which I invite you to make in common with me, and, to quote the words which are on every American's lips to-day, "for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour."

EASTER CUSTOMS IN OLD ENGLAND

Extracts from: The Holidays: Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide: their social festivities, customs, and carols, by NATHAN B. WARREN, ILLUSTRATED BY F. O. C. DARLEY. PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON NEW YORK in 1868. Pages 99-109


CHAPTER X
EASTER.

The term Easter is derived, as some suppose, from the Saxon "Oster," to rise; this being the day of Christ's rising from the dead. Others, however, maintain that this Queen of Christian festivals, takes its name from Eoster, or Easter, a Saxon goddess whose religious rites were celebrated in the beginning of Spring. Soane suggests that the Saxon Easter or Eoster, the Greek Áστήþ, the English Star, and the Hebrew Ashtaroth, have all come from the same long-forgotten original, perhaps Phoenician, word signifying "Fire."

It was anciently the custom in England to put out all the fires and relight them on EasterEven, from consecrated flints preserved in churches specially for that purpose. The popular belief was that holy fire, obtained in this manner, would prevent the effect of storms, etc. Fosbrooke, quoting Rupert, says, "The flint signified Christ, and the fire the Holy Ghost."

The custom of putting out the fire in the hall also at this season, appears to have been connected with this ecclesiastical observance. The "Festival" (1511), referring to this domestic usage, says: —

"This day (Easter) is called, in many places, Goddes Sondaye; ye know well that it is the maner at this daye to do the fyre out of thp hall, and the black Wynter brandes, and all thynges that is foule with fume and smoke shall be done awaye, and there the fyre was, shall be gayly arayed with fayre flowres, and strewed with grene rysshes all aboute."

Dr. Drake in his work, "Shakespeare and his Times," says that, "Easter was formerly a season of great social festivities;" and also that, "it was customary for the common people — even as they do still in Ireland — to rise early on Easter morning to see the sun dance." Metaphorically considered, that thought may be termed both just and beautiful; for as "the earth and her valleys standing thick with corn" are said to "laugh and sing," so, on account of the glory of the Resurrection, the sun may be said to "dance" for joy — the natural rising of the sun being, as it were, typical of the rising of the Sun of Righteousness from the darkness of the grave. The earth also, awaking at this season from its death-like wintry slumber, seems to make an appropriate response to this celestial demonstration of joy by its own most beautiful Easter offering of Spring flowers.

This idea has been happily expressed by Paulinus, Bishop of Nola (431): —

"Sing praises to your God, ye youths, and pay your holy vows.
The floor with many flowers strew, the threshold bind with boughs;
Let Winter breathe a fragrance forth, like as the purple Spring;
Let the young year, before the time, its floral treasures bring,
And Nature yield, to this Great Day, herself an offering."

The use of these flowers at the Easter festival has of late gradually become more and more popular. Our forefathers, in addition to this pious use of flowers, had besides, even in their holiday recreations, an allusion to this fundamental doctrine of Christianity.

Some of the sports and pastimes referred to appear to us childish and absurd, but in other times, before the world had become so very wise as at present, they may have been, to simple-minded people, very edifying. One of the most curious of these popular observances is that of "lifting" or "heaving," as it was called, a custom which still lingers in some counties in England. The ceremony has been thus described: —

"On Easter-Monday the men lift the women; and on Easter-Tuesday the women lift, or heave, the men. The process is performed by two lusty men, or women, joining their hands across each other's wrists; then, making the person to be heaved, sit down on their arms, they lift him up aloft three times, and often carry him several yards along a street. At the end of the ceremony the person lifted is duly kissed by the lifters, and a forfeit claimed. Sometimes, instead of crossed hands, a chair or bed is used."

The custom is supposed to be a vulgar representation of the Resurrection. Perhaps also the Lesson for Easter Even might have suggested this singular species of merriment, for there we find that, "Corn shall make the young men cheerful, and new wine the maids." Indeed the Church services seem often to have suggested to the people similar jocular ideas. Mr. Ellis inserts in his edition of Brand's "Popular Antiquities," a letter from Mr. Thomas Loggan, of Basinghall Street, London, in which he says: —

"I was sitting alone last Easter-Tuesday at breakfast, at the Talbot Inn, Shrewsbury, when I was surprised by the entrance of all the female servants of the house handing in an arm-chair, lined with white, and decorated with ribbons and favors of different colors. I asked them what they wanted: their answer was, they came to heave me; it was the custom of the place on that morning, and they hoped I would take a seat in their chair. It was impossible not to comply with a request very modestly made, and by a set of nymphs in their best apparel, and several of them under twenty. I wished to see all the ceremony, and seated myself accordingly. The group then lifted me from the ground, turned the chair about, and I had the felicity of a salute from each. I told them I supposed there was a fee on the occasion, and was answered in the affirmative, and having satisfied the damsels in this respect, they withdrew to heave others. At this time I had never heard of such a custom; but on inquiry I found that on Easter-Monday, between nine and twelve, the men heave the women, in the same manner as on the Tuesday, between the same hours, the women heave the men."

This custom, it appears, is of undoubted antiquity, for we find from a roll in the custody of the Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London, that certain ladies and maids of honor received payment for taking King Edward I. in his bed at Easter: —

"To the ladies of the Queen's chamber 15th of May; seven ladies and damsels of the Queen, because they took (or lifted) the King in his bed, on the morrow of Easter, and made him pay fine for the peace of the King, which he made of his gift by the hand of Hugh de Cerr (or Kerr), Esq., to the Lady of Weston, £14."

Perhaps the nursery pastime of "making a chair," still in vogue among children, is a relic of this ancient custom.

The game of hand-ball, however, another of the Easter sports, appears to have had a very different fortune, and to have developed itself into those most manly of athletic sports, the modern base-ball and cricket.

In ancient times, say the Ritualists Belethus and Durandus —

"The bishops and archbishops on the Continent used to recreate themselves in the game of hand-ball with their inferior clergy; and in England, also, the game appears to have been made a part of the regular Church service at Chester. Bishops and deans took the ball into the Cathedral, and at the commencement of the antiphon, began to dance, throwing the ball to the choristers, who handed it to each other during the time of the dancing and antiphon."*

Nor was it uncommon in England for corporate bodies to amuse themselves at this game, with their burgesses and young people. Such was once the custom, says Mr. Brand, at Newcastle, at the Feasts of Easter and Whitsuntide, when the mayor, aldermen, and sheriff, accompanied by great numbers of the burgesses, used to go yearly at these seasons to the Forth or little mall of the town, with mace, sword, and cap of maintenance carried before them, and not only countenance, but frequently join in, the' diversions of hand-ball, dancing, etc. There was also in the ancient city of Chester a similar Custom, when at the great Festival of Easter, "The mayor and corporation, with the twenty guilds established in Chester, with their wardens at their heads, set forth in all their pageantry to the Rood-eye (an open meadow by the river side), to play at foot-ball. The mayor with his mace, sword, and cap of maintenance, stood before the Cross, whilst the guild of shoemakers, to whom the right had belonged from time immemorial, presented him with the ball of the value of 'three and four-pence or above,' and all set to work right merrily." But as too often falls out in this game, "great strife did arise among the younge persons of the same cittie," and hence, in the time of Henry VIII., this piece of homage to the mayor was converted into a present from the shoe-makers to the drapers, of six gleaves or hand-darts of silver, to be given for the best foot-race; whilst the saddlers, who went in procession on horseback, attired in all their bravery, each carrying a spear with a wooden ball, decorated with flowers and arms, exchanged their offering for a silver bell, which should be a "'reward for that horse which with speedy runninge should run before all others." These silver bells were in the seventeenth century converted into cups, or other pieces of plate, which still continue to be the "trophies of victory" at horse-races.

But the ordinary prize at games of ball during Easter, was the Tansy-cake: —

"At stool-ball, Lucia, let us play
For sugar cakes and wine;
Or for a tansy let us play.
The loss be thine or mine.

"If thou, my dear, a winner be,
At trundling of the ball,
The wager thou shalt have and me,
And my misfortunes all."

These cakes were made of flour, butter, sugar, sherry, cream, and tansies; whence they derived the name of "tansays," or "tansy-cakes." The tansy having reference, says Selden, to the bitter herbs used by the Jews at the Passover, though at the same time, "'twas always the fashion, for a man to have a gammon of bacon to show himself to be no Jew." The Jews themselves, however, says Brady, in his "Clavis Calendaria," "long since contrived to diminish the bitter flavor of the tansy, by making it into a pickle for their Paschal Lamb, from whence we borrowed the custom of taking mint and sugar as a general sauce for that description of food."

Another custom which prevailed, in the olden time, and which is still kept up both in England and Ireland, and even in this country, is that of presenting children with eggs, stained with various colors in boiling, and curiously ornamented with devices and mottoes; they are termed "paste," or more properly "Pasche Eggs." In the Greek Church likewise, says Brady, "Eggs still continue to form a part of the ceremonies of the day; and there also, presents of eggs, from one individual to another, are considered as pious attentions." This observance appears to have arisen from a belief that eggs were an emblem of the Resurrection. On this custom Mr. Brand has well observed that —

"The ancient Egyptians, if the resurrection of the body had been a tenet of their faith, would perhaps have thought an egg no improper hieroglyphical representation of it. The exclusion of a living creature by incubation, after the vital principle has lain so long dormant or extinct, is a process so truly marvelous, that if it could be disbelieved, would be thought by some a thing as incredible, as that the Author of Life should be able to reanimate the dead."

In the "Ritual" of Pope Paul V., which was composed for the use of the British Isles, there is this prayer for the consecration of eggs: —

"Bless, O Lord, we beseech thee, this thy creature of eggs, that it may become a wholesome sustenance to thy faithful servants, eating it in thankfulness to thee, on account of the Resurrection of our Lord."

In Lancashire and Cheshire, children still go round the village and beg eggs for the Easter dinner, accompanying their solicitation by a short song, the burden of which is addressed to the farmer's dame, asking for "an egg, bacon, cheese, or an apple, or any good thing that will make us merry; " and ending with, "And I pray you good dame an Easter egg."

The observance in Lancashire of "Pace-egging," as it is there called, is a custom limited to the week preceding Easter Day, commencing on the Monday and finishing on the Thursday before Easter Day.

"Young men in groups, varying in number from three to twenty, dressed in various fantastic garbs, and wearing masks, some of the groups accompanied by a player or two on the violin, go from house to house singing, dancing, and capering. At most places they are liberally treated with wine, punch, or ale, dealt out to them by the host or hostess."

The origin of this custom of collecting "Pasche eggs," may have been the resumption on the part of our forefathers of eggs and of animal food at Easter, on the termination of Lent. It seems, moreover, that at this season extreme caution was to be used in partaking of food of all kinds, and nothing was to be eaten which had not been previously blessed, or had not at least the sign of the Cross made over it; for the faithful were thought just then to be particularly subject to the attacks of evil spirits. Durandus gives a lamentable instance of the fatal consequences arising from a neglect of this precaution, and of which he was himself an eye-witness: "Two devils got possession of a young girl, and tormented her for three years," a miracle which, says Mr. Soane, "is often renewed in our own days, but with this especial difference, that when the devil now possesses a woman, he does not torment herself but others." "However, on this occasion, a cunning exorcist drove the fiends out at last, having previously made them confess that they had been lying perdu in a melon, which the girl had incautiously eaten without first making the sign of the Cross."

There has been a revival in modern times, even in this country, of the old Easter custom of "pace-egging." We refer to the usage of presenting one's friends on the morning of Easter Day, with a basket of pace-eggs. A dozen of these, of various colors, with mottoes and emblematic devices, artistically arranged in a fancy basket, make indeed a very appropriate Easter decoration for the drawing-room table, seeming to greet us with that most ancient of Easter salutations (still retained in the Greek Church), "Christ is risen!"


* Dancing was at first, and indeed during some thousands of years, a religious ceremony. In the Temples of Jerusalem, Samaria, and Alexandria, a stage for these exercises was erected in one part, thence called the choir, the name of which has been preserved in our churches, and the custom too, it seems, till within a few centuries. The Cardinal Ximenes revived in his time the practice of Mosarabic Masses in the Cathedral of Toledo, when the people danced, both in the choir and in the nave, with great decorum and devotion.

A LADY'S WARTIME LIFE ON THE SUDANESE COAST IN 1883

Excerpts from: Three months in the Soudan, by Ernestine Isabella Sartorius. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1885.

AS the cholera epidemic had passed away in Egypt, and it was considered quite safe to return there, my step-daughter and myself took passages by the British India line of steamers, and on the 14th of November, 1883, started from the Royal Albert Docks, in the Eldorado. I must say, she was not a good specimen of the line, for she was very dirty, and the food was very badly cooked.
* * *
Before leaving the island we heard the great and unfortunate news of the defeat of General Hicks's army in the Soudan, and the total massacre of his troops. This news much excited us, for we thought it might have some effect on my husband's future movements.
* * *
Before quite leaving off all notice of the great salt-water Canal, I could not help thinking what a splendid instance this was of the late Khedive's power of will, and how lucky it was for the world he had this will, for without him the Canal could not have been made. It is as well not to look too closely at the history of its construction, nor the lives lost over it, amounting to hundreds of thousands. The Bulgarian atrocities did not cause more misery. The poor wretched gangs of fellahs starved and driven by the Koorbash to work to their last gasp, present an awful picture of misery that is almost too painful to think about in spite of the great results obtained. His magnificent extravagance is well exemplified in the small palace he built for the Empress Eugénie, and which has never been occupied since. Here, too, an instance of thorough Oriental arbitrariness occurred. The Empress, while thanking the Khedive for the magnificent reception he had given her, happened to say that the only thing she had not seen was an Arab marriage. "Indeed," said the Khedive, "this shall soon be remedied." So he sent for his A.D.C., gave him one of his Circassian slaves from the harem, presented him with a large dowry, and told the astonished official that everything was to be ready in two days. Accordingly, on the second day there was a grand marriage à l' Arabi. The Empress was greatly pleased, and the A.D.C., a man far more European than Egyptian, and who spoke several European languages, splendidly found himself indissolubly attached to a Mahomedan wife, while all along it had been the dream of his life to marry a European lady, one educated like himself, and with whom he could associate. But he knew he dared not refuse, and so an accident settled his whole future life.
* * *
We, my step-daughter and myself, went to see the vice-queen, who lives in the Palace of Ismailia. The entrance to her apartment is the one on the left of that going into the Khedive's. As usual in all Mussulman buildings, there are no openings from or to the outside except those absolutely necessary, and however nice the inside may be, nothing of it can be seen by outsiders. The vice-queen's residence is no exception to this rule, for the Khedive is, above all things, a most strict Mussulman. From the outer entrance the carriage goes on about fifty yards, and then turns to the right through an archway, into first an outer and then an inner courtyard. In both these eunuchs are posted at every door. My husband left me when the carriage entered the archway mentioned above. We entered the harem by a double flight of splendid steps meeting in the centre, about fifteen feet above the level of the ground, and then on through a fine hall into the reception-room, to which we were conducted by some white women servants, who were all dressed very plainly, but in bright colours, green and red predominating. The vice-queen herself was seated on a sofa towards the far end of the room, ready to receive her guests. She is very stout, but at the same time very pretty; has fair hair and skin, with dark eyes and eyebrows. Her hands are particularly small and white, and she looks very aristocratic. She wears on her fingers some very handsome rings. Her hair is arranged according to the present fashion on the top of the head, with a few curls on her forehead. She was dressed in a very striking purple velvet brocade with long train, the whole trimmed with exquisite lace. Her manner was most engaging, quiet, ladylike, and pleasant. When we came in, she rose, shook hands, and asked us to sit down on a sofa near her. She speaks Arabic, Turkish, and French, and is very fond of seeing foreign ladies if they can talk French with her. She began to talk about matters in general, concerning which she seemed to be well informed.
* * *
On July 31 mention is made of Mr. O'Donovan, the celebrated correspondent of the Daily News, having arrived at Khartoum. Also of Mr. Power, of the Pictorial World.
August 15 he writes about the difficulties they are under as regards the carriage of water; it is well worth perusal. As to the reinforcements he speaks of, it is quite true that they were the most miserable, weakly set of men. They were brought down from Upper Egypt in chains, and encamped at the barage of the Nile, about thirty miles below Cairo, and there remained till after the cholera was over.
"The force will most likely march into Kordofan the beginning of September, but the route has not been decided as yet, or if it has, it is kept secret. The great scarcity of water throughout Kordofan makes the marching of an army through the country a matter of great difficulty. During the rainy season water at some places collects in the hollows of the ground, but the rains are not like the monsoon of India. A heavy downpour once a week, and lasting for about two hours, is about what takes place, but this year there has been but little rain, and even where it usually collects in pools there is scarcely any water. The soil is sandy, and there is no underlying impervious strata, so the rain is absorbed, and water not to be obtained even by digging wells. So the force will have to trust to known watering places where there are wells. But these wells are very few in number, three or four, generally 30 to 40 metres deep (say 90 to 120 feet), and on the approach of an enemy the Arabs always fill them in. Anyhow, if they were left unfilled, the difficulties would be great, as the following calculation will show. As water has to be carried on several marches, it is necessary to take a large number of transport animals, say 6,000 animals to 6,000 men, counting all. Each horse, bullock, or mule drinks a gallon and a half of water at a time, and takes three minutes to do so. To water 6,000 animals twice a day, 18,000 gallons of water are required. To water 5,000 camels once a day, and 1,000 horses and mules twice a day, 7,500 + 3,000 = 10,500 gallons. Add for 6,000 men, at one gallon each, 6,000 gallons: total 16,500 gallons daily. Say each skin draws up 1 gallon, the well 30 metres deep, one minute to let down and draw up, five skins working at a time, 5 gallons would be brought up every minute, 15 gallons in three minutes (time taken by animals to drink). Ten animals could therefore be watered at a time, or 200 in an hour, and 4,800 in twenty-four hours. One well, 30 metres deep, with five skins working, each lifting 1 gallon, taking one minute to let down and haul up, will furnish 300 gallons an hour, or 7.200 gallons in the twenty-four hours. So it would take two days and eight hours to give the force one day's supply of water. Three wells working twenty-four hours would, allowing for waste, supply the force. Nine wells working eight hours would do the same, each, be it remembered, having five buckets always at work, and no wells running dry, which incident generally occurs. The wells are so narrow that it is doubtful if five buckets could work at once. We have no chain or other pumps, and if we had the wells would be too narrow to work them in, if not too deep. So, you see, the water supply is a hard nut to crack. It can only be met by taking the force up by degrees in small parties. Thus, with the quality of troops we have, it is dangerous. The Arabs are bold and brave. However, we fully calculate upon success. A very obstructive old gentleman, Suleiman Pasha, the Egyptian general, has been removed; and Aladdin Pasha, the governor-general, will accompany the army as nominal commander-in-chief, General Hicks's orders and disposition being obeyed and carried out under instructions received from the Khedive to that effect. The reinforcements which arrived from Cairo were inspected to-day by the general. We are thankful that they will remain in garrison, for they are a miserable-looking lot of men, mostly old and bent double. General Sir Evelyn Wood, when he inspected them before their departure, removed a number from the ranks. They are no doubt perfectly wretched: they have been seized in their villages, and sent off to what they look upon as transportation for life. No one but a Pasha ever returns from the Soudan; he does so with his pockets well lined, and unfortunately there are many Pashas."
* * *
The much-looked-for spy has come in from Sinkat. He had got his letter doubled up inside a leather amulet, of which these people have always two or three on their arms, containing usually a verse of the Koran. I at once took possession of it, and keep it as a great curiosity. He says that when approaching Sinkat at night he had to hide for several hours behind a big stone, while just on the other side of it, and within four or five paces, were a circle of the enemy, whose conversation was by no means reassuring, as they declared their intention of chaining and then cutting the throat of anybody who was coming to help the beleaguered garrison. He dared not move for a long time, but at last, creeping away, keeping the stone between them, he took refuge some distance off in a small cave. There he lay until the next night, when, making a wide circuit, he managed to pierce the enemy's lines on the other side. Early in the morning, approaching the fort, he called out "Tewfik, Tewfik!" Tewfik Bey happened to be close by, and ordered him to be allowed in. On his return, he was actually caught. By good luck, Tewfik Bey's letter was not found, but, suspicion being strong, he was tied up and got a severe beating. He no doubt had a narrow shave, but, luckily for him, some of his relations were amongst the rebels, and at night they secretly untied him and let him go. Such was the cause of his long delay, and in proof he showed the very visible marks of his beating. But whatever risk he ran, the twenty dollars he got seemed fully to make it up, as far as he himself was concerned.
* * *
THE Ranger came in on the 5th of February at 3 p.m., bringing the news of the defeat of General Baker's army. We had had lunch, our mess having been reduced to Colonel Harington, who was commanding the garrison, Mr. Brewster, my step-daughter, and myself, and had ensconced ourselves in long chairs for a doze, when Lieutenant Philips from the Euryalus came in, saying that the Ranger had arrived from Trinkitat, and that the admiral wished to see Colonel Harington; but he would tell us nothing else. Colonel Harington accordingly went off, and we were left in great suspense, though we did not expect any bad news. We then went on to the balcony, and were watching for about half an hour, when we saw Captain Goodall coming up in one of the ship's boats. As he neared our landing-place, he called out, "Mrs. Sartorius, your husband is safe!" and then I began to think there must have been some severe fighting; but when he had landed and taken me into the drawing-room, telling me he had something very important to tell me that for the present no one else must know, I felt there had been some disaster, and so it proved. He then explained General Baker's defeat; how the Egyptian soldiers had become demoralized, and had even laid down their arms and allowed themselves to be butchered by the rebels. I could not help feeling what a sad termination it was to all our hopes, for though we had great doubts as to the Egyptians really fighting, still we did not expect such a complete defeat. In continuation, Captain Goodall showed me the names of those who had fallen, amongst others poor Colonel Morice Bey, little Abdul Russak, Captain Walker, and Dr. Leslie. It was exceedingly sad, for it seemed like losing relations, we had been so intimate with them.
About 5 p.m. my husband arrived, and I was very glad to see him safe and sound, and to hear that General Baker and Colonel Burnaby were equally so. By-the-by, they say about Colonel Burnaby and General Baker that one is as plucky and cool as the other; and everybody knows what a compliment it is to be thus compared to General Baker. I hear that if the rebels had followed them up, hardly a man would have escaped. General Baker also returned about 6 p.m. with the rest, as he feared an immediate attack on Suakim, and therefore wanted to mass his troops here. It was a most painful sight to see these wretched men land, all in a fearful plight, many of them only half clothed, having thrown away their things to run all the faster from the enemy. Horses without any owners passed our house, some wounded, others tired out. One poor horse had a spear-wound through its nose. Instead of going on to camp, it wandered into our farmyard, where we gave it water and food, and had its nose washed; but in spite of our care the poor brute died the next day. By the time the men had landed the news had reached the camp, and crowds of Soudanese women rushed down to meet their husbands. It was really most painful to see the emotion of these poor creatures. On finding that their belongings were not amongst the survivors, they screamed and yelled, threw up their arms, and got so excited that I began to cry in sympathy with them. One woman sat down in the road, and was with difficulty raised and taken into camp by her people. I hope never to see such a sight again; once in one's life is quite enough.

With Napoleon in the Middle East

Excerpts from: MEMOIRS OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, Complete. By LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE BOURRIENNE, His Private Secretary. Edited by R. W. Phipps Colonel, Late Royal Artillery, 1891 (Click on images to enlarge them.)

HEADQUARTERS ON BOARD THE "ORIENT," The 4th Messidor, Year VI.[1798.]

BONAPARTE, MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE, GENERAL-IN-CHIEF.

SOLDIERS--You are about to undertake a conquest the effects of which on civilisation and commerce are incalculable. The blow you are about to give to England will be the best aimed, and the most sensibly felt, she can receive until the time arrive when you can give her her deathblow.

We must make some fatiguing marches; we must fight several battles; we shall succeed in all we undertake. The destinies are with us. The Mameluke Beys who favour exclusively English commerce, whose extortions oppress our merchants, and who tyrannise over the unfortunate inhabitants of the Nile, a few days after our arrival will no longer exist.

The people amongst whom we are going to live are Mahometans. The first article of their faith is this: "There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet." Do not contradict them. Behave to them as you have behaved to the Jews--to the Italians. Pay respect to their muftis, and their Imaums, as you did to the rabbis and the bishops. Extend to the ceremonies prescribed by the Koran and to the mosques the same toleration which you showed to the synagogues, to the religion of Moses and of Jesus Christ.

The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here customs different from those of Europe. You must accommodate yourselves to them. The people amongst whom we are to mix differ from us in the treatment of women; but in all countries he who violates is a monster. Pillage enriches only a small number of men; it dishonours us; it destroys our resources; it converts into enemies the people whom it is our interest to have for friends.

The first town we shall come to was built by Alexander. At every step we shall meet with grand recollections, worthy of exciting the emulation of Frenchmen. BONAPARTE.
* * *
On the morning of the 1st of July the expedition arrived off the coast of Africa, and the column of Septimus-Severus pointed out to us the city of Alexandria. Our situation and frame of mind hardly permitted us to reflect that in the distant point we beheld the city of the Ptolemies and Caesars, with its double port, its pharos, and the gigantic monuments of its ancient grandeur. Our imaginations did not rise to this pitch.
Admiral Brueys had sent on before the frigate Juno to fetch M. Magallon, the French Consul. It was near four o'clock when he arrived, and the sea was very rough. He informed the General-in-Chief that Nelson had been off Alexandria on the 28th--that he immediately dispatched a brig to obtain intelligence from the English agent. On the return of the brig Nelson instantly stood away with his squadron towards the north-east. But for a delay which our convoy from Civita Vecchia occasioned, we should have been on this coast at the same time as Nelson.
It appeared that Nelson supposed us to be already at Alexandria when he arrived there. He had reason to suppose so, seeing that we left Malta on the 19th of June, whilst he did not sail from Messina till the 21st. Not finding us where he expected, and being persuaded we ought to have arrived there had Alexandria been the place of our destination; he sailed for Alexandretta in Syria, whither he imagined we had gone to effect a landing. This error saved the expedition a second time.
Bonaparte, on hearing the details which the French Consul communicated, resolved to disembark immediately. Admiral Brueys represented the difficulties and dangers of a disembarkation--the violence of the surge, the distance from the coast,--a coast, too, lined with reefs of rocks, the approaching night, and our perfect ignorance of the points suitable for landing. The Admiral, therefore, urged the necessity of waiting till next morning; that is to say, to delay the landing twelve hours. He observed that Nelson could not return from Syria for several days. Bonaparte listened to these representations with impatience and ill-humour. He replied peremptorily, "Admiral, we have no time to lose.
Fortune gives me but three days; if I do not profit by them we are lost." He relied much on fortune; this chimerical idea constantly influenced his resolutions.
* * *
It was one o'clock in the morning of the 2d of July when we landed on the soil of Egypt, at Marabou, three leagues to the west of Alexandria. We had to regret the loss of some lives; but we had every reason to expect that our losses would have been greater.
At three o'clock the same morning the General-in-Chief marched on Alexandria with the divisions of Kleber, Bon, and Menou. The Bedouin Arabs, who kept hovering about our right flank and our rear, picked up the stragglers.
Having arrived within gunshot of Alexandria, we scaled the ramparts, and French valour soon triumphed over all obstacles.
The first blood I saw shed in war was General Kleber's. He was struck in the head by a ball, not in storming the walls, but whilst heading the attack. He came to Pompey's Pillar, where many members of the staff were assembled, and where the General-in-Chief was watching the attack. I then spoke to Kleber for the first time, and from that day our friendship commenced. I had the good fortune to contribute somewhat towards the assistance of which he stood in need, and which, as we were situated, could not be procured very easily.
It has been endeavoured to represent the capture of Alexandria, which surrendered after a few hours, as a brilliant exploit. The General-in-Chief himself wrote that the city had been taken after a few discharges of cannon; the walls, badly fortified, were soon scaled. Alexandria was not delivered up to pillage, as has been asserted, and often repeated. This would have been a most impolitic mode of commencing the conquest of Egypt, which had no strong places requiring to be intimidated by a great example.
Bonaparte, with some others, entered the city by a narrow street which scarcely allowed two persons to walk abreast; I was with him. We were stopped by some musket-shots fired from a low window by a man and a woman. They repeated their fire several times. The guides who preceded their General kept up a heavy fire on the window. The man and woman fell dead, and we passed on in safety, for the place had surrendered.
* * *
On reaching Damanhour our headquarters were established at the residence of a sheik. The house had been new whitened, and looked well enough outside, but the interior was inconceivably wretched. Every domestic utensil was broken, and the only seats were a few dirty tattered mats. Bonaparte knew that the sheik was rich, and having somewhat won his confidence, he asked him, through the medium of the interpreter, why, being in easy circumstances, he thus deprived himself of all comfort. "Some years ago," replied the sheik, "I repaired and furnished my house. When this became known at Cairo a demand was made upon me for money, because it was said my expenses proved me to be rich. I refused to pay the money, and in consequence I was ill-treated, and at length forced to pay it. From that time I have allowed myself only the bare necessaries of life, and I shall buy no furniture for my house." The old man was lame in consequence of the treatment he had suffered. Woe to him who in this country is suspected of having a competency--a hundred spies are always ready to denounce him. The appearance of poverty is the only security against the rapine of power and the cupidity of barbarism.
* * *

We had no communication with the army until the 23d of July. On the 22d we came in sight of the Pyramids, and were informed that we were only about, ten leagues from Gizeh, where they are situated. The cannonade which we heard, and which augmented in proportion as the north wind diminished, announced a serious engagement; and that same day we saw the banks of the Nile strewed with heaps of bodies, which the waves were every moment washing into the sea. This horrible spectacle, the silence of the surrounding villages, which had hitherto been armed against us, and the cessation of the firing from the banks of the river, led us to infer, with tolerable certainty, that a battle fatal to the Mamelukes had been fought. The misery we suffered on our passage from Rahmahanie'h to Gizeh is indescribable. We lived for eleven days on melons and water, besides being momentarily exposed to the musketry of the Arabs and the fellahs. We luckily escaped with but a few killed and wounded. The rising of the Nile was only beginning. The shallowness of the river near Cairo obliged us to leave the xebec and get on board a djerm. We reached Gizeh at three in the afternoon of the 23d of July.
* * *
When the news arrived of the loss of the fleet, discontent increased. All who had acquired fortunes under Napoleon now began to fear that they would never enjoy them. All turned their thoughts to Paris, and its amusements, and were utterly disheartened at the idea of being separated from their homes and their friends for a period, the termination of which it was impossible to foresee.
The catastrophe of Aboukir came like a thunderbolt upon the General-in-Chief. In spite of all his energy and fortitude, he was deeply distressed by the disasters which now assailed him. To the painful feelings excited by the complaints and dejection of his companions in arms was now added the irreparable misfortune of the burning of our fleet. He measured the fatal consequences of this event at a single glance. We were now cut off from all communication with France, and all hope of returning thither, except by a degrading capitulation with an implacable and hated enemy. Bonaparte had lost all chance of preserving his conquest, and to him this was indeed a bitter reflection. And at what a time did this disaster befall him? At the very moment when he was about to apply for the aid of the mother-country.
* * *
The pleasing illusions which were cherished at the outset of the expedition vanished long before our arrival in Cairo. Egypt was no longer the empire of the Ptolemies, covered with populous and wealthy cities; it now presented one unvaried scene of devastation and misery. Instead of being aided by the inhabitants, whom we had ruined, for the sake of delivering them from the yoke of the beys, we found all against us: Mamelukes, Arabs, and fellahs. No Frenchman was secure of his life who happened to stray half a mile from any inhabited place, or the corps to which he belonged. The hostility which prevailed against us and the discontent of the army were clearly developed in the numerous letters which were written to France at the time, and intercepted.
* * *
A grand dinner was afterwards served up, at which the guests sat on carpets, with their legs across. There were twenty tables, and five or six people at each table. That of the General-in-Chief and the sheik El Bekri was in the middle; a little slab of a precious kind of wood ornamented with mosaic work was placed eighteen inches above the floor and covered with a great number of dishes in succession. They were pillaws of rice, a particular kind of roast, entrees, and pastry, all very highly spiced. The sheiks picked everything with their fingers. Accordingly water was brought to wash the hands three times during dinner. Gooseberry-water, lemonade, and other sorts of sherbets were served to drink, and abundance of preserves and confectionery with the dessert. On the whole, the dinner was not disagreeable; it was only the manner of eating it that seemed strange to us.
* * *
On the third the insurrection was at an end, and tranquillity restored. Numerous prisoners were conducted to the citadel. In obedience to an order which I wrote every evening, twelve were put to death nightly. The bodies were then put into sacks and thrown into the Nile. There were many women included in these nocturnal executions.
I am not aware that the number of victims amounted to thirty per day, as Bonaparte assured General Reynier in a letter which he wrote to him six days after the restoration of tranquillity. "Every night," said he, "we cut off thirty heads. This, I hope, will be an effectual example." I am of opinion that in this instance he exaggerated the extent of his just revenge.
Some time after the revolt of Cairo the necessity of ensuring our own safety forced the commission of a terrible act of cruelty. A tribe of Arabs in the neighbourhood of Cairo had surprised and massacred a party of French. The General-in-Chief ordered his aide de camp Croisier to proceed to the spot, surround the tribe, destroy the huts, kill all the men, and conduct the rest of the population to Cairo. The order was to decapitate the victims, and bring their heads in sacks to Cairo to be exhibited to the people. Eugene Beauharnais accompanied Croisier, who joyfully set out on this horrible expedition, in hope of obliterating all recollection of the affair of Damanhour.
On the following day the party returned. Many of the poor Arab women had been delivered on the road, and the children had perished of hunger, heat, and fatigue. About four o'clock a troop of asses arrived in Ezbekye'h Place, laden with sacks. The sacks were opened and the heads rolled out before the assembled populace. I cannot describe the horror I experienced; but I must nevertheless acknowledge that this butchery ensured for a considerable time the tranquillity and even the existence of the little caravans which were obliged to travel in all directions for the service of the army.
* * *

On his return to Cairo the General-in-Chief had no longer any doubt as to the course which the Porte intended to adapt. The numerous class of persons who believed that the Ottoman Porte had consented to our occupation of Egypt were suddenly undeceived. It, was then asked how we could, without that consent, have attempted such an enterprise? Nothing, it was said, could justify the temerity of such an expedition, if it should produce a rupture between France, the Ottoman empire, and its allies. However, for the remainder of the year Bonaparte dreaded nothing except an expedition from Gaza and El-Arish, of which the troops of Djezzar had already taken possession. This occupation was justly regarded as a decided act of hostility; war was thus practically declared. "We must adopt anticipatory measures," thought Napoleon; "we must destroy this advanced guard of the Ottoman empire, overthrow the ramparts of Jaffa and Acre, ravage the country, destroy all her resources, so as to render the passage of an army across the desert impracticable." Thus was planned the expedition against Syria.
* * *
We arrived, about four o'clock in the afternoon, at Messoudiah, or, "the Fortunate Spot." Here we witnessed a kind of phenomenon, which was not a little agreeable to us. Messoudiah is a place situated on the coast of the Mediterranean, surrounded with little dunes of very fine sand, which the copious rains of winter readily penetrate. The rain remains in the sand, so that on making with the fingers holes of four or five inches in depth at the bottom of these little hills, the water immediately flows out. This water was, indeed, rather thick, but its flavour was agreeable; and it would have become clear if we could have spared time to allow it to rest and deposit the particles of sand it contained.
It was a curious spectacle to behold us all lying prostrate, digging wells in miniature; and displaying a laughable selfishness in our endeavours to obtain the most abundant source. This was a very important discovery to us. We found these sand-wells at the extremity of the desert, and it contributed, in no small degree, to revive the courage of our soldiers; besides, when men are, as was the case with us, subject to privations of every kind, the least benefit which accrues inspires the hope of a new advantage. We were approaching the confines of Syria, and we enjoyed by anticipation, the pleasure we were about to experience, on treading a soil which, by its variety of verdure and vegetation, would remind us of our native land. At Messoudiah we likewise possessed the advantage of bathing in the sea, which was not more than fifty paces from our unexpected water-supply.
* * *
We were not more than about six leagues from Jerusalem.
I asked the General whether he did not intend to direct his march by the way of that city, so celebrated in many respects. He replied, "Oh no! Jerusalem is not in my line of operations. I do not wish to be annoyed by mountaineers in difficult roads. And, besides, on the other aide of the mountain I should be assailed by swarms of cavalry. I am not ambitious of the fate of Cassius."
We therefore did not enter Jerusalem, which was not disturbed by the war. All we did was to send a written declaration to the persons in power at Jerusalem, assuring them that we had no design against that country, and only wished them to remain at peace. To this communication no answer was returned, and nothing more passed on the subject.
* * *
On the 4th of March we commenced the siege of Jaffa. That paltry place, which, to round a sentence, was pompously styled the ancient Joppa, held out only to the 6th of March, when it was taken by storm, and given up to pillage. The massacre was horrible. General Bonaparte sent his aides de camp Beauharnais and Croisier to appease the fury of the soldiers as much as possible, and to report to him what was passing. They learned that a considerable part of the garrison had retired into some vast buildings, a sort of caravanserai, which formed a large enclosed court. Beauharnais and Croisier, who were distinguished by wearing the 'aide de camp' scarf on their arms, proceeded to that place. The Arnauts and Albanians, of whom these refugees were almost entirely composed, cried from the windows that they were willing to surrender upon an assurance that they would be exempted from the massacre to which the town was doomed; if not, they threatened to fire on the 'aides de camp', and to defend themselves to the last extremity. The two officers thought that they ought to accede to the proposition, notwithstanding the decree of death which had been pronounced against the whole garrison, in consequence of the town being token by storm. They brought them to our camp in two divisions, one consisting of about 2500 men, the other of about 1600.
I was walking with General Bonaparte, in front of his tent, when he beheld this mass of men approaching, and before he even saw his 'aides de camp' he said to me, in a tone of profound sorrow, "What do they wish me to do with these men? Have I food for them?--ships to convey them to Egypt or France? Why, in the devil's name, have they served me thus?" After their arrival, and the explanations which the General-in-Chief demanded and listened to with anger, Eugene and Croisier received the most severe reprimand for their conduct. But the deed was done. Four thousand men were there. It was necessary to decide upon their fate.
* * *
The third day arrived without its being possible, anxiously as it was desired, to come to any conclusion favourable to the preservation of these unfortunate men. The murmurs in the camp grew louder the evil went on increasing--remedy appeared impossible--the danger was real and imminent. The order for shooting the prisoners was given and executed on the 10th of March. We did not, as has been stated, separate the Egyptians from the other prisoners. There were no Egyptians.
Many of the unfortunate creatures composing the smaller division, which was fired on close to the seacoast, at some distance from the other column, succeeded in swimming to some reefs of rocks out of the reach of musket-shot. The soldiers rested their muskets on the sand, and, to induce the prisoners to return, employed the Egyptian signs of reconciliation in use in the country. They, came back; but as they advanced they were killed, and disappeared among the waves.
I confine myself to these details of this act of dreadful necessity, of which I was an eye-witness. Others, who, like myself, saw it, have fortunately spared me the recital of the sanguinary result. This atrocious scene, when I think of it, still makes me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it; and I would wish it were possible for me to forget it, rather than be compelled to describe it. All the horrors imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would fall short of the reality.
I have related the truth, the whole truth. I was present at all the discussions, all the conferences, all the deliberations. I had not, as may be supposed, a deliberative voice; but I am bound to declare that. the situation of the army, the scarcity of food, our small numerical strength, in the midst of a country where every individual was an enemy, would have induced me to vote in the affirmative of the proposition which was carried into effect, if I had a vote to give. It was necessary to be on the spot in order to understand the horrible necessity which existed.
War, unfortunately, presents too many occasions on which a law, immutable in all ages, and common to all nations, requires that private interests should be sacrificed to a great general interest, and that even humanity should be forgotten. It is for posterity to judge whether this terrible situation was that in which Bonaparte was placed. For my own part, I have a perfect conviction that he could not do otherwise than yield to the dire necessity of the case. It was the advice of the council, whose opinion was unanimous in favour of the execution, that governed him, Indeed I ought in truth to say, that he yielded only in the last extremity, and was one of those, perhaps, who beheld the massacre with the deepest pain.
After the siege of Jaffe the plague began to exhibit itself with a little more virulence. We lost between seven and eight hundred, men by the contagion during the campaign of Syria'
* * *
The siege of St. Jean d'Acre lasted sixty days. During that time eight-assaults and-twelve sorties took place. In the assault of the 8th of May more than 200 men penetrated into the town. Victory was already shouted; but the breach having been taken in reverse by the Turks, it was not approached without some degree of hesitation, and the men who had entered were not supported. The streets were barricaded. The cries, the howlings of the women, who ran trough the streets throwing, according to the custom of the country, dust in the, air, excited the male inhabitants to a desperate resistance, which rendered unavailing, this short occupation of the town, by a handful of men, who, finding themselves left without assistance, retreated towards the breach. Many who could not reach it perished in the town.
* * *
The siege of St. Jean d'Acre was raised on the 20th of May. It cost us a loss of nearly 3000 men, in killed, deaths by the plague, or wounds. A great number were wounded mortally. In those veracious documents, the bulletins, the French loss was made 500 killed, and 1000 wounded, and the enemy's more than 15,000.
* * *
Almost every evening Bonaparte and myself used to walk together, at a little distance from the sea-shore. The day after the unfortunate assault of the 8th of May Bonaparte, afflicted at seeing the blood of so many brave men uselessly shed, said to me, "Bourrienne, I see that this wretched place has cost me a number of men, and wasted much time. But things are too far advanced not to attempt a last effort. If I succeed, as I expect, I shall find in the town the pasha's treasures, and arms for 300,000 men. I will stir up and arm the people of Syria, who are disgusted at the ferocity of Djezzar, and who, as you know, pray for his destruction at every assault. I shall then march upon Damascus and. Aleppo. On advancing into the country, the discontented will flock round my standard, and swell my army. I will announce to the people the abolition of servitude and of the tyrannical governments of the pashas. I shall arrive at Constantinople with large masses of soldiers. I shall overturn the Turkish empire, and found in the East a new and grand empire, which will fix my place in the records of posterity. Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having annihilated the house of Austria." After I had made some observations which these grand projects naturally suggested, he replied, "What! do you not see that the Druses only wait for the fall of Acre to rise in rebellion? Have not the keys of Damascus already been offered me? I only stay till these walls fall because until then I can derive no advantage from this large town. By the operation which I meditate I cutoff all kind of succour from the beys, and secure the conquest of Egypt. I will have Desaix nominated commander-in-chief; but if I do not succeed in the last assault I am about to attempt, I set off directly. Time presses,--I shall not be at Cairo before the middle of June; the winds will then lie favourable for ships bound to Egypt, from the north. Constantinople will send troops to Alexandria and Rosetta. I must be there. As for the army, which will arrive afterwards by land, I do not fear it this year. I will cause everything to be destroyed, all the way, to the entrance of the desert. I will render the passage of an army impossible for two years. Troops cannot exist amoung ruins."
* * *
We proceeded along the coast, and passed Mount Carmel. Some of the wounded were carried on litters, the remainder on horses, mules, and camels. At a short distance from Mount Carmel we were informed that three soldiers, ill of the plague, who were left in a convent (which served for a hospital), and abandoned too confidently to the generosity of the Turks, had been barbarously put to death.
A most intolerable thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat, and a fatiguing march over burning sand-hills, quite disheartened the men, and made every generous sentiment give way to feelings of the grossest selfishness and most shocking indifference. I saw officers, with their limbs amputated, thrown off the litters, whose removal in that way had been ordered, and who had themselves given money to recompense the bearers. I saw the amputated, the wounded, the infected, or those only suspected of infection, deserted and left to themselves. The march was illumined by torches, lighted for the purpose of setting fire to the little towns, villages, and hamlets which lay in the route, and the rich crops with which the land was then covered. The whole country was in a blaze. Those who were ordered to preside at this work of destruction seemed eager to spread desolation on every side, as if they could thereby avenge themselves for their reverses, and find in such dreadful havoc an alleviation of their sufferings. We were constantly surrounded by plunderers, incendiaries, and the dying, who, stretched on the sides of the road, implored assistance in a feeble voice, saying, "I am not infected--I am only wounded;" and to convince those whom they addressed, they reopened their old wounds, or inflicted on themselves fresh ones. Still nobody attended to them. "It is all over with him," was the observation applied to the unfortunate beings in succession, while every one pressed onward. The sun, which shone in an unclouded sky in all its brightness, was often darkened by our conflagrations. On our right lay the sea; on our left, and behind us, the desert made by ourselves; before were the privations and sufferings which awaited us. Such was our true situation.
* * *
Bonaparte took a rapid view of the destroyed ramparts of the town and returned to the hospital, where there were men whose limbs had been amputated, many wounded, many afflicted with ophthalmia, whose lamentations were distressing, and some infected with the plague. The beds of the last description of patients were to the right on entering the first ward. I walked by the General's side, and I assert that I never saw him touch any one of the infected. And why should he have done so? They were in the last stage of the disease. Not one of them spoke a word to him, and Bonaparte well knew that he possessed no protection against the plague. Is Fortune to be again brought forward here? She had, in truth, little favoured him during the last few months, when he had trusted to her favours. I ask, why should he have exposed himself to certain death, and have left his army in the midst of a desert created by our ravages, in a desolate town, without succour, and without the hope of ever receiving any? Would he have acted rightly in doing so--he who was evidently so necessary, so indispensable to his army; he on whom depended at that moment the lives of all who lead survived the last disaster, and who had proved their attachment to him by their sufferings, their privations, and their unshaken courage, and who had done all that he could have required of men, and whose only trust was in him?

Bonaparte walked quickly through the rooms, tapping the yellow top of his boot with a whip he held in his hand. As he passed along with hasty steps he repeated these words: "The fortifications are destroyed. Fortune was against me at St. Jean d'Acre. I must return to Egypt to preserve it from the enemy, who will soon be there: In a few hours the Turks will be here. Let all those who have strength enough rise and come along with us. They shall be carried on litters and horses." There were scarcely sixty cases of plague in the hospital; and all accounts stating a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence, complete dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their approaching end. To carry them away in the state in which they were would evidently have been doing nothing else than inoculating the rest of the army with the plague. I have, it is true, learned, since my return to Europe, that some persons touched the infected with impunity; nay; that others went so far as to inoculate themselves with the plague in order to learn how to cure those whom it might attack. It certainly was a special protection from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to cover in some degree the absurdity of such a story, it is added that they knew how to elude the danger, and that any one else who braved it without using precautions met with death for their temerity. This is, in fact; the whole point of the question. Either those privileged persons took indispensable precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism is a mere juggler's trick; or they touched the infected without using precautions, and inoculated themselves with the plague, thus voluntarily encountering death, and then the story is really a good one.

The founder of the Boy Scouts talks about Spying

Excerpts from: MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY BY LIEUT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, K.C.B., Illustrated by the Author's Own Sketches, LONDON,
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD, HENRIETTA STREET, W.C., 1915

TACTICAL AGENTS.
In addition to finding out military details about a country, such as its preparedness in men, supplies, efficiency, and so on, these agents have to study the tactical features of hills and plains, roads and railways, rivers and woods, and even the probable battlefields and their artillery positions, and so on.

The Germans in the present war have been using the huge guns whose shells, owing to their black, smoky explosions, have been nicknamed "Black Marias" or "Jack Johnsons." These guns require strong concrete foundations for them to stand upon before they can be fired. But the Germans foresaw this long before the war, and laid their plans accordingly.

They examined all the country over which they were likely to fight, both in Belgium and in France, and wherever they saw good positions for guns they built foundations and emplacements for them. This was done in the time of peace, and therefore had to be done secretly. In order to divert suspicion, a German would buy or rent a farm on which it was desired to build an emplacement. Then he would put down foundations for a new barn or farm building, or—if near a town—for a factory, and when these were complete, he would erect some lightly constructed building upon it.

There was nothing to attract attention or suspicion about this, and numbers of these emplacements are said to have been made before war began. When war broke out and the troops arrived on the ground, the buildings were hastily pulled down and there were the emplacements all ready for the guns.

Some years ago a report came to the War Office that a foreign Power was making gun emplacements in a position which had not before been suspected of being of military value, and they were evidently going to use it for strategical purposes.

I was sent to see whether the report was true. Of course, it would not do to go as an officer—suspicions would be aroused, one would be allowed to see nothing, and would probably be arrested as a spy. I therefore went to stay with a friendly farmer in the neighbourhood, and went out shooting every day among the partridges and snipe which abounded there. The first thing I did was to look at the country generally, and try to think which points would be most valuable as positions for artillery.

Then I went to look for partridges (and other things!) on the hills which I had noticed, and I very soon found what I wanted.

Officers were there, taking angles and measurements, accompanied by workmen, who were driving pegs into the ground and marking off lines with tapes between them.

As I passed with my gun in my hand, bag on shoulder, and dog at heel, they paid no attention to me, and from the neighbouring hills I was able to watch their proceedings.

When they went away to their meals or returned to their quarters, I went shooting over the ground they had left, and if I did not get a big bag of game, at any rate I made a good collection of drawings and measurements of the plans of the forts and emplacements which they had traced out on the ground.

So that within a few days of their starting to make them we had the plans of them all in our possession. Although they afterwards planted trees all over the sites to conceal the forts within them, and put up buildings in other places to hide them, we knew perfectly well where the emplacements were and what were their shapes and sizes.

This planting of trees to hide such defence works occasionally has the other effect, and shows one where they are. This was notably the case at Tsingtau, captured by the Japanese and British forces from the Germans. As there were not any natural woods there, I had little difficulty in finding where the forts were by reason of the plantations of recent growth in the neighbourhood of the place.
* * *
CATCHING A SPY.
Spy-catching was once one of my duties, and is perhaps the best form of education towards successful spying. I had been lucky enough to nail three and was complimented by one of the senior officers on the Commander-in-Chief's staff. We were riding home together from a big review at the time that he was talking about it, and he remarked, "How do you set about catching a spy?" I told him of our methods and added that also luck very often came in and helped one.

Just in front of us, in the crowd of vehicles returning from the review-ground, was an open hired Victoria in which sat a foreign-looking gentleman. I remarked that as an instance this was the sort of man I should keep an eye upon, and I should quietly follow him till I found where he lodged and then put a detective on to report his moves.


From our position on horseback close behind him we were able to see that our foreigner was reading a guide book and was studying a map of the fortifications through which we were passing. Suddenly he called to the driver to stop for a moment while he lit a match for his cigarette. The driver pulled up, and so did we. The stranger glanced up to see that the man was not looking round, and then quickly slipped a camera from under the rug which was lying on the seat in front of him, and taking aim at the entrance shaft of a new ammunition store which had just been made for our Navy, he took a snapshot.

Then hurriedly covering up the camera again he proceeded to strike matches and to light his cigarette. Then he gave the word to drive on again.

We followed close behind till we came to where a policeman was regulating the traffic. I rode ahead and gave him his instructions so that the carriage was stopped, and the man was asked to show his permit to take photographs. He had none. The camera was taken into custody and the name and address of the owner taken "with a view to further proceedings."

Unfortunately at that time—it was many years ago—we were badly handicapped by our laws in the matter of arresting and punishing spies. By-laws allowed us to confiscate and smash unauthorised cameras, and that was all.

"Further proceedings," had they been possible, in this case would have been unnecessary, for the suspected gentleman took himself off to the Continent by the very next boat.

But it took a good deal to persuade my staff-officer friend that the whole episode was not one faked up for his special edification.

It is only human to hate to be outwitted by one more clever than yourself, and perhaps that accounts for people disliking spies with a more deadly hatred than that which they bestow on a man who drops bombs from an aeroplane indiscriminately on women and children, or who bombards cathedrals with infernal engines of war.
* * *
A SECRET MESSAGE.

These hieroglyphics contain a secret message which can be easily read by those who know the semaphore signalling code. This signalling consists of swinging two arms in different positions, either singly or together. The dots indicate where the letters join. For example: The semaphore sign for N consists of both arms pointing downwards at an angle of 90 degrees ^. The letter I is shown by both arms pointing to the left at the same angle >. The next N is shown again, and the letter E is a single arm pointing upwards on the right at an angle of 45 degrees /.

In each word you start at the top of the signs and read downwards.

This form of secret message was frequently used in the South African War.
* * *
CONCEALING A FORT IN A MOTH'S HEAD.
Another example of this method of making secret plans is shown here.

This sketch was made, giving all the particulars that I wanted. I then decided to bury it in such a way that it could not be recognised as a fortress plan if I were caught by the military authorities. One idea which occurred to me was to make it into the doorway of a cathedral or church, but I finally decided on the sketch of the moth's head. Underneath in my note-book I wrote the following words:—

"Head of Dula moth as seen through a magnifying glass. Caught 19.5.12. Magnified about six times size of life." (Meaning scale of 6 inches to the mile.)
* * *
FOOLING A GERMAN SENTRY.
On another occasion I wanted to ascertain what value there was in the musketry training of a foreign infantry. Also it had been reported that they had recently acquired a new form of machine gun which was a particularly rapid firer and very accurate in its effects. Its calibre was known, and its general pattern (from photographs), but its actual capabilities were still a matter of conjecture.

On this occasion I thought the simplest way would be to go undisguised. Without any concealment I went to stay in garrison towns where I happened to know one or two officers. I obtained introductions to other officers, and gradually became their companion at meals and at their evening entertainments. They mounted me on their horses, I rode with them on their rounds of duty, and I came to be an attendant at their field days and manoeuvres; but whenever we approached the rifle ranges I was always politely but firmly requested to go no further, but to await their return, since the practice was absolutely confidential. I could gain no information from them as to what went on within the enclosure where the rifle range was hidden.

Two of my English friends one day incautiously stopped at the entrance gate to one of the ranges, and were promptly arrested and kept in the guard-room for some hours, and finally requested to leave the place, without getting much satisfaction out of it. So I saw that caution was necessary. Little by little, especially after some very cheerful evenings, I elicited a certain amount of information from my friends as to what the new machine gun did and was likely to do, and how their soldiers could of course never hit a running target, since it was with the greatest difficulty they hit the standing one at all. But more than this it was impossible to get.

However, I moved on to another military station, where as a stranger I tried another tack. The rifle ranges were surrounded by a belt of trees, outside of which was an unclimbable fence guarded by two sentries, one on either side. It seemed impossible to get into or even near the range without considerable difficulty.

One day I sauntered carelessly down in the direction of the range at a point far away from the entrance gate, and here I lay down on the grass as if to sleep, but in reality to listen and take the rate of the shooting from the sound and also the amount of success by the sound of the hits on the iron target. Having gained a certain amount of data in this way, I approached more nearly in the hope of getting a sight of what was going on.

While the sentry's back was turned I made a rush for the fence, and though I could not get over, I found a loose plank through which I was able to get a good view of what was happening.

While engaged at this, to my horror the sentry suddenly turned on his tracks and came back towards me. But I had been prepared against such eventualities, and jamming back the plank into its place, I produced from my pocket a bottle of brandy which I had brought for the purpose. Half of it had been already sprinkled over my clothes, so that when the man approached he found me in a state of drunkenness, smelling vilely of spirits, and profuse in my offers to him to share the bottle.

He could make nothing of me, and therefore gently but firmly conducted me to the end of his beat and thrust me forth and advised me to go home, which I did in great content....
* * *
A SPY IS SUSPICIOUS.
The practice of spying has one unfortunate tendency: it teaches one to trust no one, not even a would-be benefactor. A foreign country had recently manufactured a new form of field gun which was undergoing extensive secret trials, which were being conducted in one of her colonies in order to avoid being watched. I was sent to find out particulars of this gun. On arrival in the colony I found that a battery of new guns was carrying out experiments at a distant point along the railway.

The place was by all description merely a roadside station, with not even a village near it, so it would be difficult to go and stay there without being noticed at once. The timetable, however, showed that the ordinary day train stopped there for half an hour for change of engines, so I resolved to see what I could do in the space of time allowed.

We jogged along in the local train happily enough and stopped at every little station as we went. At one of these a Colonial farmer entered my carriage, and though apparently ill and doleful, we got into conversation on the subject of the country and the crops.

At length we drew up at the station where the guns were said to be. Eagerly looking from the window, my delight may be imagined when I saw immediately outside the station yard the whole battery of guns standing parked.

Everybody left the train to stretch their legs, and I did not lose a moment in hurrying through the station and walking out to have a closer look at what I had come to see.

The sentry on the guns was on the further side from me, and therefore I was able to have a pretty close look at the breech action and various other items before he could come round to my side. But he very quickly noticed my presence, and not only came himself, but shouted to another man whom I had not so far seen behind a corner of the station wall.

This was the corporal of the guard, who rushed at me and began abusing me with every name he could lay his tongue to for being here without permit. I tried to explain that I was merely a harmless passenger by the train coming out to stretch my legs, and had never noticed his rotten old guns? But he quickly shoo'd me back into the station.

I betook myself once more to the carriage, got out my field glasses, and continued my investigations from the inside of the carriage, where I had quite a good view of the guns outside the station, and was able to note a good deal of information painted on them as to their weight, calibre, etc. Suddenly in the midst of my observations I found the view was obscured, and looking up, I found the face of the corporal peering in at me; he had caught me in the act. But nothing more came of it at the moment.

My farmer friend presently returned to his place, the whistle sounded, and the train lumbered on.

When I resumed conversation with the Colonist I remarked on his invalid appearance and enquired about his health. The poor man, with tears running down his cheeks, then confessed to me it was not illness of body, but worry of the mind that was preying upon him.

He had utterly failed in his attempt at making a successful farm, and had entered the train with the idea of cutting his throat, and would have done so had I not been there to prevent him. Life was over for him, and he did not know what to do. I got him to talk about his losses, and offered suggestions to him based on the experiences of a friend of mine who was also a farmer in that country, and who for ten years had failed until the right method came to him in the eleventh year, and he was now making his business a huge success.

This put hope at once into my volatile companion. He bucked up and became cheerful and confidential. Finally he said:

"You have done me a good turn. I will do something for you. I know that you are a German spy, and I know that you are going to be arrested at the station where this train stops for the night. You were spotted by a non-commissioned officer at the last station, and while I was in the telegraph office he came in and sent a telegram to the Commandant of the terminal station, reporting that a German spy had been examining the guns and was travelling by this train in this carriage."

I at once laughed genially at the mistake made, and explained to him that I was not a German at all. He replied that that would not avail me—I should be arrested all the same if I went on to the end of the journey.

"But," he suggested, "I shall be getting out myself at the very next station to go back to my farm, and my advice to you is to get out there also. You will find a good inn where you can put up for the night, and to-morrow morning the early train will take you on clean through that very station where the military commandant will be on the look-out for you to-night."

I replied that, as an Englishman, I had nothing to fear, and I should go on.

At the next station accordingly he got out, and after an affectionate farewell, I went on. But there was yet another station between this and the night stop, and on arrival there I took the hint of my friend and got out and spent the night at the little inn of the place. Following his advice still further, I took the early train next morning and ran through the place where they had been looking out for me. I had not got out when he invited me to at his station lest his invitation might merely have been a trap to test whether I was a spy; had I accepted it, no doubt he might have had friends at hand to arrange my arrest. As it was, I came away scot free with all the information I wanted about the new gun.