the army in the far east—1819–75

the minor wars outside the main peninsula of hindostan have been caused either by the expansion of the empire of india in the only possible direction—eastward—or for the purposes of colonisation or trade.

a series of points on the road to the pacific were gradually obtained, usually by purchase, between 1786 and 1824, such as penang, and the land opposite in the straits of malacca, with singapore and malacca farther south. these guarded the sea-road to china, with whom we were eventually to be engaged in war.

but before that happened, alompra, king of ava, had played into the hands of those who were willing to add still more realms to those already under the british flag. he had conquered much of the southern peninsula, and, fancying himself irresistible, had raided our cachar territories which bordered on his. he had seized the island of shapuree and driven out the british guard there. reluctant as was the east india company to engage in further war after the costly campaigns with the mahrattas, they had little choice. prestige is all-important with semi-barbaric nations, and force alone wins respect. so this first expansion of empire into the burma-siamese peninsula began as a punitive expedition.

it commenced with an outbreak of mutiny, which future events in india rendered ominous. the 47th bengal regiment refused to embark for burmah, lest they should lose caste. it is possible that their scruples were sincerely conscientious, and their contract of enlistment does not seem to have337 contemplated their employment beyond the seas. it was bad management to select those whose religious antagonism might be roused; but the order had been given, and on the continued refusal of the men to embark, they were fired on by european infantry and artillery and massacred.

then the expedition started, on a three years’ campaign, in which the 1st royals, 13th, 38th, 41st, 44th, 47th, 54th, 87th, and 89th shared, as did also the forerunner of the present 102nd or 1st battalion royal dublin fusiliers, besides numerous regiments of madras sepoys.

there had been some skirmishing with the invaders of cachar, in the north-west, where general shuldham was on guard, but the physical difficulties of forest and mountain rendered military operations extremely difficult; so that the second step was the occupation of arracan by general richards, with the 44th, 54th, and seven sepoy battalions. little else was done in that province, and the troops suffered terribly from sickness. soon after rangoon was taken by sir a. campbell, who had the 13th, 38th, and 41st regiments, with a large force of sepoys, as well as the remains of the 44th and 54th line battalions, and this formed the base of all the future operations. the war throughout was peculiar. the chief villages and towns were on or near the banks of the irrawaddy and its tributaries, and the whole district was covered by dense forests and marshes through which ran poor tracks which could scarcely be deemed roads. the enemy fought with bravery, but rarely ventured to meet the invader in the open, basing their defence on skilfully constructed stockades, which they rapidly erected. the physical difficulties were great, and led to delay, which in its turn led to a steady decimation of the white troops. between june 1824 and march 1825, out of an average force of about 2800 men nearly 1400 had died. it was jungle fighting under the most severe conditions, and the whole strategic plan of attack was the successive assault and possession of the chief towns until the capital itself was reached.

but little headway was made at first. the first attempts on kemmendine and donabu failed; raids on tavoy,338 mergui, tenasserim, martaban, and yé succeeded. there were constant skirmishes round rangoon, in which the 38th and 13th especially distinguished themselves; and as havelock says, in his memoirs of the three campaigns, the enemy “acquitted themselves like men. they fell in heaps under the bayonet.”

but until 1825 began, the only result of the operations had been the possession, more or less, of the coast line. early in that year a famous burmese general, one maha bandoola, who had marched through arracan bearing with him heavy gold fetters wherewith to bind and make captive lord amherst, appeared before rangoon. the “lord of the golden foot” who ruled in ava was exasperated at the capture of the place. his first order had been: “british ships have brought foreign soldiers to the mouth of the river. they are my prisoners. cut me some thousand spans of rope to bind them.” the burmese army therefore took up and entrenched a strong position at kokaing, whence rangoon was harassed; but, attacked in rear by cotton with the 13th regiment (which lost 53 men and 7 officers killed and wounded, out of a total of 220) and some sepoys, and in front by campbell with a force in which were the 38th, 41st, and 89th (recently arrived), the enemy, 25,000 strong, was badly beaten by about 1500 men, and fell back on donabu. the 47th and royals having arrived as reinforcements, campbell pushed on toward sarawak, but cotton, attacking donabu, was not in sufficient force to carry out his object; so the two wings united and attacked the place a second time, and after desperate fighting carried the defences of the town, and bandoola was slain. he was a man of an inquiring disposition, and was anxious to see the properties of the common shell, one “with a very long fuse having been projected by the british. the live ‘creature’ was brought fizzing at a dreadful rate to him; and he, at some distance, surveyed with great curiosity the unfortunate men bringing the fiery fiend along. another second or two and it burst, killing the carriers and every one beside it! bandoola was thunderstruck, and for the whole of that day339 his courage left him.” the stockades were “made of solid teak beams about 17 feet high driven firmly into the earth. behind this wooden wall the old brick ramparts of the place rose to a considerable height, affording a firm and elevated footing for the defenders. on the works were 150 cannon and several guns. a ditch surrounded them, and the passage of it was rendered difficult by spikes and great nails planted in the earth, by treacherous holes and other contrivances. beyond the ditch were several rows of strong railings; but in front of all was the most formidable defence, an abattis of felled trees, thirty yards in breadth, extending quite round the works.”

this will give a good idea of the burmese defences at that time.

the next post of importance occupied was prome, still farther up the river, and here, though the lower part of the country was now in the undisturbed possession of the british, the burmese army was not yet cowed, and 60,000 men assembled to blockade prome. but, assisted by the fleet which accompanied the advance, the british pushed on, though opposed step by step, in a series of skirmishes in which the 87th and 41st showed distinguished gallantry; and after a more determined battle at melloon, and another at pagahan-mew, within forty-five miles of ava, a treaty of peace was concluded in february 1826, whereby arracan, yé, tavoy, mergui, and tenasserim were added to the indian empire. the war had cost the lives of 3222 europeans and 1766 sepoys, and placed “ava” on the colours of the 13th, 38th, 41st, 44th, 45th, 47th, 87th, and 89th regiments of the line, as well as the madras european regiment, afterwards the 102nd foot.

but the treaty of yandaboo, granting safety to merchants and opening the country up to trade, was never really kept. so much did the native insolence increase, that in 1852 the foreign inhabitants of rangoon embarked in the proserpine, and the occupation of burmah was temporarily suspended. but the marquis of dalhousie, then governor-general, saw the danger of having a hostile state on our340 borders, especially if flushed with the idea of strength. in april of that year, therefore, an army in which were the 18th, 51st, and 80th, under general godwin, proceeded to burmah, and successively occupied, after but slight resistance, martaban and rangoon. in these operations the fleet as before were usefully employed. so terrible was the heat that many men, and major oakes, who commanded the artillery, perished from sunstroke; but the key to the position, the golden pagoda, was carried by the 80th and royal irish, after some stout fighting and comparatively little loss. soon after, bassein was again taken by the 51st and garrisoned while the enemy made an ineffective attack on martaban; but the resistance in this war was by no means so vigorous as in 1825; and when pegu, which had been subdued and partly destroyed during alompra’s conquests, was taken by one company of the 80th and some madras troops, the army advanced unopposed as far as prome, which was taken with a loss of one man killed and one wounded. so hostilities ceased without any formal treaty; but pegu was annexed, and a military road was commenced to unite calcutta with prome.

the final subjugation of burmah presents few features of military interest. the feeble rule of the king necessitated his deposition, and the country was annexed therefore. since then its pacification has steadily progressed, and the military operations have mainly consisted of moving against the bands of disbanded soldiery, or dacoits, which successively formed in the country.

the last operation undertaken in the peninsula was the expedition to perak in 1875, which, formerly ruled by siam, had after 1822 been independent.

our possession of the country began in the customary way. internal disturbance led us to assist one side, and place a resident, mr. j. w. birch, in the country; and here again the usual results followed—his murder, and a punitive expedition. the small war was identical with those of the neighbouring state of burmah, the ostensible reason for it the inadvisability of having a disturbed, internecine war-torn principality near341 our own possession of wellesley province, opposite penang. the operations, similarly, were conducted along the perak river; the country itself was heavily jungled and morassed; the enemy fought us behind stockades. the jungle was “so dense and dark, that during all the time not a vestige of sun or sky was visible overhead; and during the advance [on kinta] they were without cover of any kind, and slept in the damp, dewy open.” the regiments, or portions thereof, employed were the 10th and the 3rd buffs, with ghoorkas and other native troops, aided by engineers, artillery, and naval brigades.

of these latter there were three. captain butler, with some of the men of the modeste and ringdove, accompanied general colborne on the perak river, which was patrolled by the boats of the navy, and incursions from the north bank thereby prevented; captain garforth, with bluejackets of the philomel, modeste, and ringdove, was with ross in the larut district; and captain stirling of the thrush co-operated with colonel hill in sunghi uhjong.

the physical difficulties and the food supply, the want of roads and the climate, were the chief obstacles; but after a series of severe skirmishes between the perak and kinta rivers, at kinta, kotah lama and rathalma, the malays accepted the inevitable, and fighting ceased. one remarkable result may be recorded. as soon as british rule was established, the malays flocked in numbers to the settled land, and “under british sway these have increased until they numbered 120 souls per square mile, while in the states governed by native sovereigns they have sunk down to about seven souls in the square mile.” the districts annexed, and righteously governed, had recently, as sir andrew clarke stated, been “huge cockpits of slaughter.” the end here unquestionably justified the means.

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the expedition to china was the natural outcome of our commercial expansion, as others had been produced by colonial expansion. the innate conservatism of china was342 at its highest about this time. freedom of trade was not; and merchandise, etc., filtered only through the one doorway of canton and macao. smuggling was rampant, especially in opium, and this was extensively imported into the country, notwithstanding the objections raised by the chinese government, which had, twenty years earlier, prohibited its use. from mere threats they proceeded to active measures. some twenty thousand chests of opium were seized, and british merchants trading in the drug were imprisoned. early in 1840, therefore, a combined naval and military expedition was fitted out, the latter consisting of native indian regiments, together with the 18th, 26th, and 49th, and later on the 55th and 98th. the attack on the unwieldy empire was more or less coastal; its aim exhaustion rather than occupation of large areas of territory, the seizure of great towns rather than a connected campaign. the island of chusan was chosen as the primary base of operations, and the whole coast line, as far north as the yangtse, was blockaded, but the loss from disease was far greater than that caused by battle, and the cameronians were soon reduced from 900 to barely 300 strong. the resistance offered was of no great value. each success was followed by negotiations which led to no result beyond the tedious prolongation of the war.

thus, in 1841, detachments of the 18th, 26th, and 49th landed and took chuenpee, the bocca-tigris forts were destroyed, and canton fell. the squadron from hong kong harbour then captured amoy, the marines and 26th occupying kulangsu on the left of the entrance, and the 18th and 49th the great battery on the right, or city, side.

the flank of this long, low, coast battery was covered by a crenelated wall, and when the royal irish swarmed over it, the “tiger braves,” so called from their uniform and the tiger’s face on their huge wicker shields, endeavoured to frighten the invaders by yells and jumps. but it had little effect, and we “picked ’em off,” said one soldier, “like partridges on the wing.” this was the first campaign in which the percussion musket was employed.

343 chusan was abandoned for a while, but reoccupied later by the 18th, 49th, and 55th; and shortly afterwards the seaport of ningpo was taken, together with chinghai; while the following year chapoo and woosung, at the mouth of the shanghai river, were destroyed, and a severe battle took place at chin kiang, which placed the whole of the most important ports of the chinese littoral in british hands.

the tartar troops fought with desperation at chin kiang, and, according to a barbarous custom, based possibly on dread of ill-treatment to prisoners, they murdered their wives and children before retreating. one deep draw-well was full to the brim of drowned tartar girls, some well dressed and of the higher class.

the fall of chin kiang, and the threat to advance upon nankin, had brought the emperor to his senses, though probably he had been deceived up to that time as to the result of the invaders’ efforts. he sued for peace, therefore, and obtained it at the expense of the cession of hong kong, the opening of five ports to trade, and the payment of an indemnity of four and a quarter millions sterling. for this campaign the regiments engaged bear the dragon, with “china,” among their badges.

there was a further small ebullition of hostility to the “fan kwei,” or “foreign devils,” in 1847, in which the 18th was employed to quell the disturbance, but it was not of much military interest.

but in 1856 hostilities again broke out on a more serious scale. the chinese had seized the arrow, a small trading vessel, and taken a man out of her, on the ground that he was a pirate. the insult to the flag could not be permitted, and the refusal of apology led to a second declaration of war. the 59th regiment was already on the china station, and with the assistance of the royal marines, early in 1857, bombarded and stormed canton; it also served in the expedition to the white cloud mountains and at the capture of nantow in 1858. but the gravity of the situation in india was too profound to admit of the despatch of reinforcements to the far east until the great mutiny was quelled.344 it was not until 1859, therefore, that active operations were resumed, and these met with a disastrous check at the first move; for the fleet, in attempting to destroy the forts which the chinese had erected at the mouth of the peiho, was decidedly repulsed. in 1860, therefore, a serious combined naval and military expedition was planned. the former was commanded by admiral hope; the latter by sir hope grant, and consisted of the 1st dragoon guards, a battalion of the 1st royals, the 2nd queen’s, the 3rd buffs, and the 31st, 44th, 60th, 67th, and 99th regiments, together with the royal marines and indian troops, including the famous “fane’s” and “probyn’s” horse. but, in addition, we were allied with a french force under general montauban, and, as is not uncommon in such allied operations, the small french contingent was often rather a drag than an assistance, totally unprovided as it was with regular cavalry.

a landing was effected near the mouth of the peiho, at pehtang in the gulf of pecheli, and the army marched towards sinho. the taku forts were of considerable size, strongly armed and surrounded by wet ditches and lines of bamboo pickets. but they were stormed none the less, after a brief skirmish on the way at sinho, the works on the north side being first assailed, as being least formidable and commanding the southern fort, which was, moreover, to be bombarded from the sea by the french and british gunboats. but the fall of the first north fort attacked, where lieutenants rogers of the 44th and burslem of the 67th showed great gallantry in carrying the colours of their regiments, led to the abandonment of the rest. unlike the previous war, this was undertaken with the definite strategic plan of bringing pressure to bear upon the emperor by the seizure of his capital. leaving the buffs at taku, and despatching the 44th to shanghai, the army marched to tientsin, whither the lighter vessels of the squadron also steamed. the route taken was along the south bank of the peiho, by tientsin, chan-chia-wan, and palichaio, where the river was crossed, and then, after a detour to the summer345 palace of yuan-ming-yuan, the capital was reached, and preparations made to breach its massive walls. no serious resistance was offered until the army had reached chan-chia-wan, where there was a sharp skirmish, and the enemy abandoned his entrenched position, with 74 guns, within a few miles of pekin; and exasperation was added to the desire for attacking the chinese by the unwarrantable seizure of captain brabazon, lieutenant anderson, mr. norman, mr. bowden, and mr. (afterwards sir harry) parkes, who were taken prisoners, and with the sole exception of parkes, barbarously murdered.

one last effort was made to cover pekin, before the emperor fled, at the bridge of palichaio, and here the french attacked with the greatest vigour the chinese imperial guard, and drove them back with loss, taking 25 guns. this obtained for general montauban the title of comte de palikao. the further advance was practically unopposed. the summer palace was looted and finally burned; the main gate of pekin surrendered to avoid bombardment.

the plunder in the summer palace was immense, but the french, less scrupulous than the british, began it, and had the best of it.

“in the room,” says an eye-witness, “we proceeded to examine the imperial curiosities, as we might have done those in a museum, but the french officers proceeded to ‘arracher’ everything they took a fancy to, gold watches and small valuables being thrust with amazing velocity into the capacious side pockets of their voluminous red pantaloons. though the general asserted that nothing was to be touched till sir hope grant arrived, yet the ‘looting’ of the famous summer palace went on. one french officer found a string of gorgeous pearls, each being the size of a marble, which he afterward foolishly sold at hong kong for ￡3000. others had pencil-cases set with pure diamonds; others watches and vases thickly studded with pearls.”

again, “in an outhouse two carriages, presented to the emperor taon-kwong by lord macartney, were found;346 and such a quantity of gold fell into the hands of the 15th punjaubees that one officer alone got ￡9000.”

the wilful destruction of the palace was a stern necessity. as sir garnet wolseley, in his account of the war, says: “the destruction of the palace appears to have struck the pekin authorities with awe. it was the stamp which gave an unmistakable reality to our work of vengeance, proving that lord elgin’s last letter was no idle threat, and warning them of what they might expect in the capital itself unless they accepted our proffered terms.”

there is one incident regarding the conduct of one of the brave men who fought in this campaign, which is worth recording. private moyse of the buffs was, with some indian troops, taken prisoner near sinho, and led before the tartar general. here the prisoners were ordered to kow-tow, the usual salutation from the lower classes in china to the higher classes, and which consists of kneeling down and touching the ground several times with the forehead. the native soldiers obeyed. private moyse refused, and was at once killed. the story has been touchingly poetised by sir f. h. doyle, under the title of “the private of the buffs.”67

“last night among his fellow roughs, he jested, quaffed, and swore, a drunken private of the buffs who never looked before. to-day, beneath the foeman’s frown, he stands in elgin’s place, ambassador from britain’s crown, and type of all her race.

poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught, bewildered, and alone; a heart with english instinct fraught, he yet can call his own. ay, tear his body limb from limb, bring cord or axe or flame, he only knows that not through him shall england come to shame.

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347 yes, honour calls, with strength like steel he put the vision by; let dusky indians whine and kneel, an english lad must die. and thus, with eyes that would not shrink, with knee to man unbent, unfaltering on its dreadful brink to his red grave he went.

vain, mightiest fleets of iron framed, vain, those all-shattering guns, unless proud england keep untamed the strong heart of her sons. so let his name through europe ring, a man of mean estate, who died as firm as sparta’s king because his soul was great.”

the battle of palichaio practically terminated the war. the conquerors refused to come to terms unless pekin was itself occupied, and, when this was agreed to, peace followed in due course. the chinese had to pay an indemnity of ￡100,000, open the port of tientsin to trade, and add the island of kowloon, opposite hong kong, to the british possessions in china.

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in the area of the south pacific there had been little employment for the army except as the national police. no resistance had been offered to our occupation of the islands in the southern seas, with the sole exception of new zealand. the war that broke out here was remarkable for the great courage shown by the natives, and for the stubborn resistance offered to the troops engaged in what were lightly called rebellions. in such campaigns there could be no very connected plan. it was essentially bush fighting, against isolated bodies or tribal headquarters, very skilfully entrenched and stockaded.

it began in 1847, three years after the island had been declared a british colony, and arose from the gradual colonisation of the territory and the occupation of the tribal lands. this was contrary to the national feelings of the maoris, and was bitterly resented. the country was much348 wooded, and the natives warlike and cannibal. like all such contests, the wars were prolonged and embittered. the first one lasted more or less from 1849 to 1856, and from time to time kept fully employed the 58th, 65th, 98th, and 99th regiments of the line.

the second continued from 1860 until 1869, and employed at intervals no less than thirteen regiments of the line, which, therefore, bear “new zealand” on their colours; and afforded many opportunities for distinguished bravery, which gained colonel m’neill, doctors manley and temple, lieutenant pickard, sergeant m’kenna, sergeant-major lucas, ensign down, and drummer stagpoole the honour of the victoria cross. the regiments referred to are the 12th, 14th, 18th, 40th, 43rd, 50th, 57th, 58th, 65th, 68th, 70th, 96th, and 99th, and at one time there were altogether some 25,000 men under arms, of which 10,000 were regulars; while, on the other hand, the enemy are said never to have been able to muster for battle at one time more than 600 men! the positions selected for defence were, as a rule, well chosen, and protected with well-constructed rifle-pits, and they communicated with each other by fire signals by night, and steam produced by pouring water on heated stones, by day. the general plan of operation was necessarily dislocated. as districts were cleared of the enemy, so redoubts were made and garrisoned to hold in awe the land.

the fighting was at times terribly severe, well sustained, and at times chivalric. at rangiriri, where the british loss was 15 officers and 117 men killed and wounded of the 40th, 65th, 12th, and 14th regiments, the maoris surrendered, and at once fraternised with their late opponents, and in a speech said, “we fought you at koheroa, and fought you well; we fought you at rangiriri, and fought you well, and now we are friends for ever, for ever, for ever.” similarly, at the “gate pah” the enemy had entrenched himself, and threatened the station of tauranga; so the garrison was reinforced by the 68th and detachments of the 12th, 14th, 43rd, and 65th regiments, with a force of marines and bluejackets,349 with nine guns and six mortars, and advanced to drive the maoris from their strongly-entrenched position. the flanks rested on marshes, and “on the highest point of the neck the maoris had constructed an oblong redoubt, well palisaded and surrounded by a strong post and rail fence—a formidable obstacle to an advancing column, and difficult to destroy with artillery; the interval between the side faces of the redoubt and the swamps was defended by an entrenched line of rifle-pits.”

this will give a fair type of the maori method of defence, and is sufficient evidence of a natural military eye for ground.

the attack was checked at first with heavy loss, and the enemy escaped during the night. on the field were left 14 officers killed and wounded, and 97 non-commissioned officers and men. for when the stormers entered the work, the enemy had concealed themselves in subterranean hollows or casemates, which both protected them from the artillery fire and hid them from view, and from this cover close and heavy volleys were fired by a concealed adversary at a range where every shot told. the sudden panic so created spread to the supports, and hence the disaster which fell so heavily on the gallant “fighting 43rd.”

the desultory fighting continued until the maoris were exhausted, and a better understanding between native customs and european methods has led to prolonged peace.

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many improvements had been made in the army during the years comprising the period under review. rifled artillery had entirely superseded smooth-bores after the franco-austrian campaign of 1859. the enfield rifle was converted into the breech-loading “snider” soon after the value of the new mechanism had been proved in the austro-prussian war of 1866; but even as late as the china war many of the indian regiments were still armed with the old flint “firelock” or “brown bess.” the act of 1867 had been passed, making the length of army service twelve years,350 with power of re-engaging for twenty-one years for pension. an effort was made to create a reserve.

the system of payment, too, was altered in 1824, and men were paid daily. previous to that time a certain amount of petty cash was issued weekly, and the balance at the end of the month.