BRITAIN’S GREAT 19TH CENTURY SOLDIER
Sir Garnet Wolseley has largely been forgotten, but during a career spanning nearly 50 years, he became one of the most celebrated British generals of the Victorian period. His victories contributed to maintaining Britain’s rule in North America, Africa and Egypt. When he died in 1913 he was laid to rest in St. Paul’s Cathedral with two of his country’s greatest war heroes, the Duke of Wellington and Admiral Horatio Nelson.
“DURING A CAREER SPANNING NEARLY 50 YEARS, HE BECAME ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED BRITISH GENERALS OF THE VICTORIAN PERIOD”
Wolseley stepped forward again, anxious to reclaim his pride. This time the storming party successfully penetrated the stockade, routing the enemy defenders, but not before Wolseley fell wounded. Despite having a piece of metal in his left thigh with blood oozing all over, he experienced “unalloyed joy and elevating satisfaction”. He earned promotion to lieutenant, while the other officer who stormed the stockade with Wolseley was killed.
Lieutenant Wolseley transferred regiments for a third time in 1854. This time it was to the 90th Perthshire Light Infantry, destined for service in the Crimea. War had erupted between the Russians and Ottomans, leading to the intervention of the British and French. Wolseley volunteered for service with the Royal Engineers, aware that their assignments in the trenches surrounding the Russian-held Sevastopol were among the most dangerous. He suffered the loss of sight in the same eye as Admiral Nelson when he was severely wounded by a Russian shell. His bravery, energy and resourcefulness gained the notice of his superiors.
After Crimea Wolseley and three companies of his regiment were detained on their way to China when the sepoys mutinied in India in 1857. He joined Sir Colin Campbell’s army, taking part in the relief of Lucknow. He made sure he was the first man to reach the besieged Residency. But the ambitious officer gained censure rather than praise from his superior for superseding orders. He finally made it to China in 1860 as a member of Sir James Hope Grant’s staff during the Second Opium War,
“HE SUFFERED THE LOSS OF SIGHT IN THE SAME EYE AS ADMIRAL NELSON WHEN HE WAS SEVERELY WOUNDED BY A RUSSIAN SHELL”
taking part in the assault on the Taku Forts and the obliteration of the Summer Palace. By the age of 25 Wolseley was a major with a collection of medals dangling from his breast.
Wolseley took two months leave in 1862 and travelled to the United States to observe the civil war being fought between the North and South. He tagged along with General Robert E. Lee’s Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. Wolseley admired General Lee and declared that, “I have met but two men who realise my ideas of what a true hero should be: my friend Charles Gordon was one, General Lee was the other.” He criticised the “inefficient manner in which both he [Lee] and his opponents were often served by their subordinate commanders, and how badly the staff and outpost work generally was performed on both sides”. Wolseley always prided himself on having an efficient and tight-knit staff, nicknamed the ‘Wolseley Gang’, though sometimes they could be quarrelsome and over ambitious.
Wolseley conducted his first independent campaign in 1870. A Métis leader named Louis Riel led a revolt and established the Republic of the Northwest in the Red River Colony when the Hudson’s Bay Company turned over the land they were living on to the Canadian government. They refused to become Canadians. Riel’s followers captured Fort Garry, a station of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and established their new capital. Riel took it a step further when he ordered the execution of a cantankerous surveyor named Thomas Scott.
Wolseley, who was serving in Canada as a quartermaster general, was selected to command the army to be sent into Western Canada to secure British sovereignty. This would be no typical military campaign. He would have to transfer 1,400 Canadian militiamen and British regulars across nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) of impenetrable wilderness and down swollen rapids and rivers to reach Riel’s base at Fort Garry. Half of the journey had to be made through territory few had navigated before. Lieutenant William Butler of the 69th Foot, who joined Wolseley, declared that the expedition would require a combination of brains, skill and muscle. Most thought it would be impossible.
Wolseley got to work organising and methodically planning the expedition – a Wolseley trademark for future campaigns.
Those around him were inspired by his energy, confidence and determination. He hired
Indians and Canadian voyageurs to man the boats assigned to transport his soldiers. All provisions required had to be calculated before departure and transported with the army. Wolseley inspected all equipment and added items he thought appropriate to make his
men’s job easier and make them more efficient, in one instance replacing the army-issue axe with a more effective American design. Butler, impressed by his meticulous planning, wrote that Wolseley had “the best and most brilliant mind I had ever met in the army”.
The campaign was a work of genius.
His army successfully travelled by railway, steamer, boat and on foot through the nearimpenetrable territory to reach Fort Garry on 24 August after a three-month journey, but Riel had fled to the United States without offering any resistance. Wolseley established British sovereignty without losing a single man or firing a shot, at the cost of a meagre £100,000.
The logistical challenges overcome during the expedition proved to be greater obstacles than any opponent Wolseley could have met on the battlefield. He was knighted for his success.
In the aftermath of the Red River expedition, he worked with the Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell to reform the British Army. He called for reforms such as abolishing purchased commissions, shortening the term of service, improving education and creating the modern army reserve. Wolseley, who had made his way up the army hierarchy without purchasing a commission, understood how this hindered reliable officers from advancing. Like most change, it generated controversy and resistance in the ranks of the army. The Duke of Cambridge, the commander-in-chief of the British Army, criticised Wolseley for being too radical. Wolseley was ahead of his time.
In 1873 Major General Wolseley was dispatched with an expedition to West Africa in response to Ashanti aggression. Under the leadership of King Kofi Karikari, an Ashanti army of 12,000 men defeated local tribes in the British protectorate and marched on the British base at Elmina. A detachment of British soldiers and marines successfully defended the town. Wolseley handpicked 35 officers, the “best and ablest men” he could muster from the empire, to accompany the expedition to punish the Ashanti king.
Wolseley laid out a clear plan and made the necessary arrangements. The hostile climate in West Africa was a greater threat to his men than the enemy, so he had to get his men in and out of the jungle as quickly as possible. Struck down by fever, he nevertheless led an army of 4,000 composed of locally raised levy troops, British regulars, marines and West Indies troops over 160 kilometres (100 miles) towards the Ashanti capital of Kumasi in January 1874 – the least hazardous time of year for his men. He won a decisive victory at the village of Amoaful on 31 January. He reached Kumasi by 4 February and proceeded to burn the capital and demolish the king’s palace. His quick success caused King Kofi Karikari to agree to pay the British 50,000 ounces of gold and to consent to other humiliating demands. Wolseley was invested with the Grand Cross of the Order of St. Michael and St. George and was made a knight commander of the Order of the Bath.
Wolseley bounced between administrative posts following the Ashanti campaign. He served as the chief administrator of Natal and commissioner and commander-in-chief of soldiers in Cyprus. He was sent to take
command of the forces in South Africa to relieve Lord Chelmsford following the disaster at Isandlwana, but he arrived around the time the ousted general won a decisive victory at Ulundi. Wolseley afterwards fought a campaign against the Bapedi under the leadership of Chief Sekukuni, bombarding him into submission at his mountain fortress. For this, he received the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
He spent a brief time serving as adjutant general before being dispatched to Egypt to crush Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi’s nationalist revolt in 1882. The British backed the ineffective Khedive Tewfik in order to protect their financial interests in the country. Wolseley, who was by now a national hero, was chosen for the task. He arranged for 40,000 soldiers and 41,000 tons of supplies to be shipped to Egypt. He deceived ‘Urabi on where he would conduct his landing by feeding false information to the British newspapers.
He landed his army at Port Said and moved inland towards the entrenched Egyptian position at Tell-el-kebir. Wolseley planned to march 13,000 men to the outskirts of ‘Urabi’s entrenchments during the night and strike his position at daybreak, hoping to catch the 26,000 Egyptians unprepared. Timing and the element of surprise were crucial. Few thought this bold manoeuvre could succeed. On 13 September 1882 Wolseley’s column struck and routed ‘Urabi’s army after a fierce struggle.
Wolseley once again was the hero of the hour. But his next campaign, in the Sudan, would be his last. On 4 August 1885 Parliament voted to send an expedition to rescue General Charles George ‘Chinese’ Gordon, who was
“GORDON’S DEATH WAS A NATIONAL CALAMITY, AND WOLSELEY BECAME A SCAPEGOAT. HE NEVER AGAIN HELD A FIELD COMMAND”
besieged in Khartoum by the Mahdi’s army. It was a race against time to reach Khartoum, over 2,200 kilometres (1,400 miles) from Cairo. The expert at directing this kind of operation was called on again to rescue Gordon.
Everything was meticulously planned for and prepared by Wolseley. He intended to take his army up the Nile by boat to Khartoum, similar to his Red River expedition. Wolseley had ninemetre (30-foot) boats built to navigate the Nile’s cataracts. He even recruited crewmen from Canada and Africa to man them. Thousands of men and their supplies were then transported up the Nile towards their destination in Sudan.
But Wolseley’s column moved too slowly. It seemed as if everything that could go wrong did. He sent a desert column to reach Gordon before it was too late, but its commander,
Major General Sir Herbert Stewart, was mortally wounded at the Battle of Abu Klea. “The sun of my luck set when Stewart was wounded,” Wolseley later wrote. A less aggressive officer, Sir Charles William Wilson, assumed command of the relief column. Wilson reached Khartoum less than 48 hours after it was stormed and Gordon killed. Gordon’s death was a national calamity, and Wolseley became a scapegoat. He never again held a field command.
When the Duke of Cambridge stepped down in 1895 Wolseley assumed the role of commander-in-chief of the British Army. But the position had been stripped of its authority, to the disgust of Wolseley. He finally retired in 1901 as his brilliant mind was slowly being destroyed by Alzheimer’s disease.
The master of Queen Victoria’s wars drifted into ignominy even before his death. The outbreak of World War I would wipe out his memory altogether, replacing him with new heroes like Kitchener, Haig and Churchill. He complained before his death that he wished to die like Nelson in the heat of battle, not in a bed “like an old woman”.
He most likely would have been recognised today as Britain’s greatest soldier of the 19th century had he died like Nelson, at the apex of his career.