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Soon after his return to England Sir Colin Campbell
vacated the command of the Ninety-Eighth and went on half-pay. He had
earned a modest competence, and after those long years of campaigning
abroad he considered himself at the age of sixty-one entitled to enjoy
peaceful repose at home for the rest of his life. But this was not to
be; there was still before him much arduous and active service in the
field before he went to his final rest.
Kinglake in his War in the Crimea pays Colin Campbell a
fine tribute—not less fine, however, than deserved; a passage from which
may fittingly be inserted here
“After serving with all this glory for some forty-five
years, he returned to England ; hut between the Queen and him stood a
dense crowd of families extending further than the eye could reach, and
armed with strange precedents which made it out to be right that people
who had seen no service should be invested with high command, and that
Sir Colin Campbell should be only a colonel. Yet he was of so fine a
nature that, although he did not always avoid great bursts of anger,
there was no ignoble bitterness in his sense of wrong.
He awaited the time when perhaps he might have high
command, and be able to serve his country in a sphere proportioned to
his strength. His friends, however, were angry for his sake; and along
with their strong devotion to him, there was bred a fierce hatred of a
system of military dispensation which could keep in the background a man
thus tried and thus known.”
The time was soon to come when such a man as Colin
Campbell could no longer be kept in the background. England and France
had formed an alliance in defence of Turkey against Russia, and in the
end of March, 1854, war was actually declared. English troops had
already been despatched to the East; Lord Raglan had been appointed to
the command of the expeditionary force, and Sir Colin Campbell had been
nominated to a brigade command. He embarked for the East on the 3rd of
April accompanied by Major Sterling his brigade-major and Captain
Shadwell his aide-de-camp. On the 23rd he reached Constantinople, where
on the arrival of Lord Raglan a few days later he was appointed to the
Highland Brigade consisting of the Forty-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and
Ninety-Third regiments. That brigade and the Guards formed the First
Division, of which the Duke of Cambridge had the command. The Highland
Brigade was completed in the second week of June by the arrival of the
Forty-Second.
Although himself a Highlander, it had never until now
fallen to the lot of Colin Campbell to command Highlanders. But he
understood the Highland nature, which has its marked peculiarities; and
he speedily won the respect and goodwill of the fine soldiers whom he
was privileged to command. A thoroughly good understanding soon grew up
between him and them; not only was he commanding officer of the brigade;
he was also regarded as somewhat in the character of the chief of a
clan. He was fortunate in finding in the commanding officer of the
Forty-Second, the son of his old chief Sir John Cameron of the Ninth,
and not less fortunate in being able to avail himself of Colonel
Cameron’s long experience at the head of a Highland regiment in many
important details connected with the internal management and economy of
the brigade.
In accordance with the scheme of operations agreed upon
by the English and French commanders in conference with Omar Pasha at
Varna, the allied armies were gradually concentrated about that place
and inland therefrom in support of the Turkish army at Schumla. The
position at Varna was found unhealthy and the Duke of Cambridge marched
his division on to the plateau of Aladyn, where it was visited by Omar
Pasha who expressed his great admiration of the magnificent appearance
of the Guards and Highlanders paraded for his inspection. But tidings
arrived that the Russians had raised the siege of Silistria and
recrossed the Danube, and presently the troops of the Tsar withdrew
altogether from the Principalities, The object for which the allied
armies had been moved into Bulgaria no longer existed; and on July 18th
the resolution was taken to make a descent on the Crimea and assail
Sevastopol. The preparations for this daring enterprise were at length
completed, and the Highland Brigade embarked at Varna on August 29th.
Sir Colin sailed in the steam-transport Emu. He was now at length a
Major-General after a service of forty-six years and one month; the date
of the promotion was July 10th. “This rank,” he remarks philosophically,
“has arrived at a period of life when the small additional income which
it carries with it is the only circumstance connected with the promotion
in which I take any interest.”
The voyage across the Black Sea, the landing on Crimean
soil, and the advance to the Alma, are familiar history to every reader.
Campbell had given up his journal before the landing, and all that he
wrote of his personal experiences in the battle of the Alma is contained
in two letters, one to his sister, the other to his friend Colonel Eyre.
The former is a mere sketch, alluding to the fine courage exhibited by
his young Highlanders and to the circumstance, mentioned with
characteristic modesty, that “he was supposed to have made a disposition
and an attack of importance which led to results of considerable
advantage.” He thus concludes, “I lost my best horse—a noble animal. He
was first shot in the hip the ball passing through my sabretasche, and
the second ball went right through his body passing through the heart.
He sank at once, and Shad well kindly lent me his horse which I
immediately mounted.”
The letter to Colonel Eyre is more detailed. “When,” he
writes, “ the Light Division was ordered to advance, we (the First
Division) followed in close support. My brigade was on the left of the
Guards. On the face of the slope immediately in front of the Light
Division, the enemy had made a large redoubt protected on each side by
artillery on the heights above and on either side, covered on flanks and
front by a direct as well as an enfilading fire. This artillery was
supported by numerous large masses of troops near their guns, and also
by other large masses in rear on the inward slopes of the heights. These
heights extended far to the enemy’s right, with a hare slope without
hush or tree to afford cover down to the bank of the river, on which we
had to form and advance to the attack after crossing.
“The vineyards and garden enclosures in the narrow valley
through which the river runs, completely broke the formation of the
troops. They crossed necessarily in a disorderly manner; but the left
bank being high, I was able to collect my right regiment (the
Forty-Second) under its cover. On gaining the top of the bank I observed
a large portion of the Light Division advancing to attack the redoubt,
which was a good deal to the right of my right regiment I hastened its
formation, the other two regiments being still struggling through the
difficult bottom from which I had emerged. . . The Forty-Second
continued its advance, followed, as I had previously ordered, by the two
other regiments (Ninety-Third and Seventy-Ninth) in fchelon, forming in
that order as they gained in succession the summit of the left bank of
the Alma. On gaining the ascent we found the enemy who had withdrawn
from the redoubt, attempting to form on two large masses of troops
advancing over the plateau to meet the attack of the Forty-Second. The
men were too much blown to charge, so they opened fire while advancing
in line, an operation in which I had practised them, and they drove
before them in confusion with cheers and a terrible slaughter both
masses and the fugitives from the redoubt.
“Before reaching the inner crest of the heights, another
heavy mass of troops came forward against the Forty-Second, and this was
disposed of in the same manner as the two first we encountered. I halted
the regiment on the inner crest of the heights, still firing and killing
more of the enemy as they were descending the inner slope, when two
large bodies came down from the right of the enemy’s position direct on
the left flank of the Forty-Second. Just at this moment the Ninety-Third
showed itself coming over the table-land, and attacked these bodies,
which did not yield readily. The Ninety-Third, which I had great
difficulty in restraining from following the enemy, had only time to
inflict great loss, when two bodies of fresh infantry with some cavalry,
came boldly forward against the left flank of the Ninety-Third,
whereupon the Seventy-Ninth made its appearance over the hill, and went
at these troops with cheers, causing them great loss and forcing them
away in great confusion. The Guards during these operations were away to
my right, quite removed from the scene of this fight which I have
described. It was a fight of the Highland Brigade.
“Lord Raglan came up afterwards and sent for me. When I
approached him I observed his eyes to fill and his lips and countenance
to quiver. He gave me a cordial shake of the hand, but he could not
speak. The men cheered very much. I told them I was going on to ask of
the Commander-in-Chief a great favour,—that he would permit me to have
the honour of wearing the Highland bonnet during the rest of the
campaign, which pleased them very greatly, and so ended my part in the
fight of the 20th inst. . . . My men behaved nobly. I never saw troops
march to battle with greater sangfroid and order than those three
Highland regiments. . . . I write on the ground. I have neither stool to
sit on nor bed to lie on. I am in capital health, for which I have to be
very thankfuL Cholera is rife among us, and carrying off many fine
fellows of all ranks!”
This description is not in Kinglake’s style, but in its
soldierly curtness it may strike the reader as having the valuable
attribute of greater directness and lucidity, and it was written by the
man who not only controlled every movement on his own side of the fight
on the left of the great redoubt, but also watched with cool, keen eyes
every evolution of his adversaries. He had need to be on the alert, if
ever man had; for he had to his hand but three battalions, and he had in
his front no fewer than twelve Russian battalions each one of which was
numerically stronger than any one of his three. Nor were his opponents
raw militia or reserve battalions such as confronted Prince Napoleon’s
division. The Russian regiments on the British side of the great road,
the Vladimir, Sousdal, Kazan, and Ouglitz, constituted the Sixteenth
Division, the division d’dite of the Tsar’s troops of the line; that
same division which three and twenty years later won for Skobeleff his
electrical successes. It was twelve battalions of this historical
division against whose massive columns Colin Campbell led his brigade in
the old two-deep British line formation with the result he has told in
his quiet sober manner. No wonder that Lord Raglan’s eyes filled and his
lips and countenance quivered” as, too much moved to speak, he shook the
hand of the commander of the Highland Brigade.
“So ended my part in the fight of the 20th inst,,” writes
Sir Colin in the soldierly and modest narrative of his share in the
victory which he sent home to his friend Eyre. That narrative, lucid
though it is, is also almost provokingly curt Fortunately, thanks
chiefly to the industry of Kinglake, there exists the material for
supplementing and amplifying it. According to that writer during the
last of the halts on the march on the morning of the Alma, while the men
were lying down in the sunshine, Sir Oolin, the provident soldier of
experience, quietly remarked to one of his officers, “This will be a
good time for the men to get loose half of their cartridges;” and
Kinglake adds that, “when the command travelled along the ranks of the
Highlanders, it lit up the faces of the men one after another, assuring
them that now at length, and after long experience, they indeed would go
into action.”
It does not appear that Colin Campbell ever made any
reference to an incident which Kinglake mentions. The brigade of Guards
before crossing the river was exposed, it seems, to a fire of artillery,
which, as is not uncommon with that arm, struck down some men. There was
a tendency to hesitation, when, according to Kinglake, some weak-kneed
brother in the shape of an officer of “obscure rank” had the
pusillanimity or the impertinence to exclaim, “The brigade of Guards
will be destroyed; ought it not to fall back” “When Sir Colin
Campbell heard this saying,” says Kinglake in his high-strung manner,
“his blood rose so high that the answer be gave—impassioned and
far-resounding—was of a quality to govern events:— ‘It is better, sir,
that every man of Her Majesty’s Guards should lie dead on the field than
that they should turn their backs upon the enemy!’ Doubts and
questionings ceased. The division marched forward.”
Mr. Kinglake owns that he did not himself hear the words;
and it is permissible, therefore, to doubt whether they were uttered.
They certainly are not in Colin Campbell’s manner. It would have been
more like him to express himself in strong and frank vernacular to, or
of the officer of “obscure rank” who had evinced a propensity for
“falling back.” No doubt he was with the Duke of Cambridge in front of
the left of the Coldstreams when the Guards were encountering obstacles
among the vineyards before reaching the river. In that position the
Highland Brigade would be under his eye. Sir Colin Campbell, a soldier
inured to war, certainly was of great service on the advance to the
brigade of Guards, scarcely a man of which had ever seen a shot fired in
anger. He remained near the Duke of Cambridge until the Guards had
crossed the river; and when the Light Division was retreating in
disorder on the brigade of Guards he advised His Royal Highness to move
the latter somewhat to the left, to avoid the dislocation of his line
which otherwise would be occasioned by the rush of fugitives. After the
momentary confusion caused by the retreat of the Light Division behind
the advancing Guards to reform, the Duke thought it would he well to
make a short halt for the purpose of dressing his line, but Sir Colin
earnestly desired him to make no such delay but to press forward on the
enemy with the initial impulse, and the advice was followed with
triumphant result.
It fell to Sir Colin Campbell and his Highland Brigade to
protect the left flank of the British army, with three battalions to
vanquish and put to flight eight Russian battalions, and to compel the
retreat of four more. The arena of this exploit was the slopes and
hollows of the Kourganb terrain to the Russian right of the great
redoubt from which the British Light Division had been forced to recoil
with heavy loss. On the extreme Russian right flank and rear stood three
thousand horsemen, and to protect his own left Campbell had given the
order to the Seventy-Ninth, the left regiment of his brigade, to go into
column. But a little later, when he had ridden forward and so gained a
wider scope of view, it became apparent to his experienced eye that he
need fear nothing from the stolid array of Russian cavalry on his flank.
He therefore recalled his order to the Seventy-Ninth and allowed it to
go forward in line. His brigade after crossing the Alma fell into
direct khelon of regiments, the Forty-Second on the right being the
leading regiment of the three, the Ninety-Third in the centre, and the
Seventy-Ninth on the left. Just before the Guards began their advance on
the redoubt which the right Vladimir column was still holding, Sir Colin
Campbell was in his saddle in front of the left of the Coldstreams
talking occasionally with the Duke of Cambridge. When the Guards began
their advance Sir Colin also proceeded to act. He discerned that by
swiftly moving a battalion up to the crest in front of him, he would be
on the flank of the position about the great redoubt where the right
Vladimir column was confronting the Guards. This attitude of his would
probably compel the retirement of the Vladimirs; if it did not, by
wheeling to his right he would strike the flank of the Russian column
while the Guards were assailing its front. He had the weapon wherewith
to effect this stroke ready to his hand in the Forty-Second, which
having crossed the river now stood ranged in line.
Before his brigade had moved from column into line
Campbell had spoken a few straightforward soldierly words to his men,
the gist of which has been commemorated. “Now, men,” said he, “you are
going into action. Remember this : whoever is wounded—no matter what his
rank—must he where he falls till the bandsmen come to attend to him. No
soldiers must go carrying off wounded comrades. If any man does such a
thing his name shall be stuck up in his parish church. The army will be
watching you; make me proud of the Highland Brigade I,s And now, when
the time had come for action and that rugged slope had to be surmounted,
he rode to the head of the “Black Watch” and gave to the regiment the
command “Forward, Forty-Second!”
He himself with his staff rode rapidly in advance up to
the crest. In his immediate front there lay before him a broad and
rather deep depression on the further side of which there faced him the
right Kazan column of two battalions, on the left of which was reforming
the right Vladimir column whose retreat from the vicinity of the redoubt
had been compelled by the pressure of the Guards on front and flank.
Both columns had suffered considerably; but assuming their previous
losses to have been one-third of their original strength, they1 still
numbered three thousand against the eight hundred and thirty of the
Forty-Second. And when Campbell looked to his left, he saw on the neck
bounding the left of the hollow another and a heavier column consisting
of two perfectly fresh battalions of the Sousdal regiment. This last
column, however, was stationary, and notwithstanding that the men were
out of breath Sir Colin sent the Forty-Second, firing as it advanced,
straight across the hollow against the Kazan and Vladimir columns. The
regiment had not gone many paces when it was seen that tho left Sousdal
column had left the neck and was marching direct on the left flank of
the Forty-Second. Campbell immediately halted the regiment and was about
to throw back its left wing to deal with the Sousdal advance, when
glancing over his left shoulder he saw that the Ninety - Third, his
centre battalion, had reached the crest. In its eagerness its formation
had become disturbed. Campbell rode to its front, halted and reformed it
under fire, and then led it forward against the flank of the Sousdal
column. The Forty-Second meanwhile had resumed its advance against the
Vladimir and Kazan columns.
Before the onslaughts of the two Scottish regiments the
Russian columns were staggering, and their officers had extreme
difficulty in compelling their men to retain their formation, when from
the upper ground on the left was seen moving down yet another Russian
column, —the right Sousdal column—and heading straight for the flank of
the Ninety-Third. It was taken in the flagrant offence of daring to
march across the front of a battalion advancing in line. At that instant
the Seventy-Ninth came bounding forward; after a moment’s halt to dress
their ranks, the Cameron men sprang at the flank of the Sousdal column
and shattered it by the fierce fire poured into its huddled ranks. And
now, the left Sousdal column almost simultaneously discomfited by the
Ninety-Third, and the Kazan and Vladimir columns which the “ Black Watch
"had assailed being in full retreat, the hill spurs and hollows became
thronged by the disordered masses of the enemy. Kinglake brilliantly
pictures the culmination of the triumph of the Highlanders:—“Knowing
their hearts, and deeming that the time was one when the voice of his
people might fitly enough be beard, the Chief touched or half-lifted his
hat in the way of a man assenting. Then along the Kourganfc slopes and
thence west almost home to the Causeway, the hillsides were made to
resound with that joyous assuring cry which is the natural utterance of
a northern people so long as it is warlike and free.” It is curious that
nowhere in his vivid description of the part taken by the Highland
Brigade in the achievement of the victory of the Alma, does Kinglake
make any mention of the bagpipes. It is certain that they were in full
blast during the advance of the regiments and throughout the fighting,
and their shrill strains must have astonished the Russians not less than
did the waving tartans and nodding plumes of the Highlanders.
Sir Colin, careful ever in the midst of victory, halted
his brigade on the ground it had already won, for his supports were yet
distant; and mindful of his situation as the guardian of the left of the
army, he showed a front to the south-east as well as to the east. The
great Ouglitz column, four thousand strong and still untouched, remained
over against the halted British brigade. Chafing at the defeat of its
comrades, it moved down from its height, striving to hinder their
retreat and force them back into action. But the Ouglitz column itself
had in its turn to withdraw from under the fire of the Highland Brigade,
and to accept the less adventurous task of covering .the retreat of its
vanquished fellow-columns.
After the flank march to the south side of Sevastopol the
allied forces took possession of the Chersonese upland, and the Highland
Brigade, leaving the Ninety-Third at Balaclava, encamped with the Guards
in rear of the Light Division. Lord Raglan was solicitous regarding the
port of Balaclava which had become the British base of operations, and
measures had already been set on foot to protect it by a series of
batteries and fieldworks. On the 16th of October Sir Colin was assigned
by the Commander-in-Chief to the command of the troops and defences
covering the port, and he promptly undertook the important and
responsible duty of protecting the rear of the army. The inner defences
of Balaclava consisted of a series of batteries connected by a
continuous trench extending from the sea eastward of the port round the
landward face of the heights to the chapel of St. Elias near the road
from Balaclava to the Traktir bridge. This line of batteries and trench
was held by some twelve hundred marines landed from the fleet with a
weak detachment of marine artillery. About Kadikoi, on the low ground at
the head of the gorge leading down to Balaclava, were several batteries,
and in front of that village was the camp of the Ninety-Third
Highlanders -with Barker’s field-battery on its flank. The exterior line
of defence consisted of a chain of redoubts on the low ridge dividing
the southern or inner plain from the exterior or northern valley, along
which on the 25th of October the British light cavalry brigade was to
make its memorable charge. Those redoubts, which were still unfinished
on the day of the battle, were very weak. They were garrisoned by Turks,
and their armament consisted of but nine guns in all. It was to the
assault of those poor redoubts that Liprandi’s field army, some
twenty-four thousand strong, advanced across the Tchernaya at daybreak
of the 25th. Doubtless the Russian general had ulterior designs,
comprising the discomfiture of Campbell’s Highlanders and an attempt
against Balaclava.
Riding with Lord Lucan in the early morning of the day of
Balaclava, Sir Colin Campbell witnessed the advance of the Russian
columns, and it was by his advice that the cavalry chief refrained from
taking the offensive. One after another of the four easternmost redoubts
fell into Russian possession. The Turks garrisoning No. 1 made a gallant
and stubborn defence; but they were only six hundred against eleven
battalions with thirty guns, and after losing one-fourth of their number
they fled towards Balaclava followed by the garrisons of the other
redoubts. The Turks rallied for a time on either flank of the
Ninety-Third, which stood drawn up in line in front of the knoll before
Kadikoi. Sir Colin’s active share in the further proceedings of the day
was soon over. He sums it up in a few sentences of his official
report:—“When the enemy had taken possession of the redoubts, their
artillery advanced with a mass of cavalry and their guns ranged. The
Ninety-Third Highlanders, with one hundred invalids under Colonel
Daveney, occupied, very inefficiently from the smallness of their
numbers, the slightly rising ground in front of No. 4 battery. As I
found that round shot and shell began to cause casualties among the
Ninety-Third and the Turkish battalions on their right and left flanks,
I made them retire a few paces behind the crest of the hillock. During
this period our batteries on the heights manned by the Royal and Marine
artillerymen made excellent practice on the enemy’s cavalry' which came
over the hill in our front. One body of that cavalry, amounting to about
four hundred, turned to their left, separating themselves from those who
attacked Lord Lucan’s division, and charged the Ninety-Third, who
immediately advanced to the crest of the hill on which they stood and
opened their fire, forcing the Russian cavalry to turn to their left;
after which the latter made an attempt to turn the right flank of the
Ninety-Third on observing the flight of the Turks who had been posted
there. Upon this the grenadiers of the Ninety-Third under Captain Ross
were wheeled up to their right and fired upon the enemy, and by this
manoeuvre entirely discomfited them.” The. erratic charge upon him of
four Russian squadrons gave the old infantry commander very little
concern. That approach he confronted calmly in line, —the “thin red
streak tipped with a line of steel” which a brilliant phrase-maker has
made historical. When it was a subject of remark in his presence that
the Ninety-Third never altered its formation to receive the Russian
cavalry in a period when the square was the approved formation in which
to meet an onslaught of horse, he said in his genial way, “No—I did not
think it worth while to form them even four deep.” His concern was in
the fact that his regiment was the only infantry body on the British
side in the field, while the Russian chief was the master of many
battalions.
Those six companies of kilted men, with a few guns, were
the sole protection of the port the possession of which alone enabled
the British army to remain in the Crimea It was in the consciousness of
a momentous responsibility that, as he rode along the face of his noble
regiment, he judged it wise to impart to the men the gravity of the
occasion. “Remember," said he, “there is no retreat from here, men! You
must die where you stand!” The cheery answer must have gone to his
heart—“Aye, aye, Sir Colin; we’ll do thatI”
There were a great many young soldiers in the ranks of
the Ninety-Third, and it needed to be controlled with a firm hand. As
the Russian squadron approached, the impetuous youngsters of the
regiment, stirred by their northern blood, evinced a propensity to break
ranks and rush forward to meet the Muscovite sabres with the British
bayonet; but, in the words of Kinglake, “In a moment Sir Colin was heard
shouting fiercely, ‘Ninety-Third, Ninety-Third! damn all that
eagerness!’” and the angry voice of the old soldier quickly steadied the
line.
The main mass of the Russian cavalry, from which the four
squadrons which were repulsed by the Ninety-Third had detached
themselves, rode up the north valley until it was abreast of the
abandoned redoubt No. 4, when it inclined to its left, crossed the low
ridge and moved down the gentle hither slope falling into the inner
valley. It was there met by the charge of the British heavy cavalry
brigade; and during the short hut warm encounter Barker’s battery, at
Sir Colin’s order, opened fire with round shot on the Russian centre and
rear, The Ninety-Third watched with keen rapture their fellow-countrymen
of the Scots Greys slashing their way through the graycoated mass of
Russian troopers; and when the enemy’s column wavered, broke, and then
fled in disorder, Scarlett’s victorious troopers were greeted from afar
by the ringing cheers of the delighted Highlanders. When the brigade had
completed its triumph, Sir Colin Campbell came galloping up to offer his
congratulations. As he approached the Greys he uncovered and spoke to
the regiment. “Greys! gallant Greys!” he exclaimed, “I am sixty-one
years old, and if I were young again I should be proud to be in your
ranks.” Sir Colin does not appear to have seen anything of the
subsequent charge made by Cardigan at the head of the light cavalry
brigade, which was made down the north or outer valley, on the further
side of the ridge on the crest of which were the abandoned redoubts.
In the afternoon the troops which had moved down from the
plateau in the morning returned to their camps, but the Forty-Second and
Seventy-Ninth passed again under the command of their own brigade
commander. The contiguity of the enemy’s forces in such great strength
made very welcome the accession to Sir Colin’s scanty means of defence.
During this critical night the Forty-Second and Seventy-Ninth held the
ground between the Ninety-Third camp and "the foot of the Marine
heights, and Vinoy’s French brigade was sent to the high ground
overlooking the Kadikoi gorge to strengthen Sir Colin in the defence of
his position. He was so apprehensive of a night attack that he placed
the Ninety-Third in No. 4 battery, half the men posted behind the
parapet, the other half lying down with their loaded rifles by their
sides. He himself was on the alert throughout the night, moving about
among the men; his anxiety was great, for he was not aware of the
distaste of the Russians for night attacks. Amidst his cares it was
pleasant to receive and promulgate the following general order
complimenting himself and the Ninety-Third on their conduct on the 25th:
“The Commander of the forces feels deeply indebted to Major-General Sir
Colin Campbell for his able and persevering exertions in the action of
the 25th; and he has great pleasure in publishing to the army the
brilliant manner in which the Ninety-Third Highlanders under his able
directions repulsed the enemy’s cavalry.”
For weeks, while the Russians were so close, Sir Colin
never relaxed his activity and vigilance. Not for an hour did he leave
the position. He was awake and about all night and' the little sleep he
took was by snatches in the daytime. By constant industry and with many
devices he laboured to strengthen and improve his defences. The first
relief from toil and anxiety which he experienced was when on December
5th the Russian field-army withdrew across the Tcher-naya to Tchorgoum.
“Then,” writes Shadwell, “that night for the first time Sir Colin lay
down with his clothes off in the house; but even with a roof over his
head h'e was restless; and such was the tension of his nervous system
from the continuous strain of long weeks of anxious watching, that an
officer who shared his room was startled in the middle of the night by
his chief jumping up and shouting, ‘ Stand to your arms!’” Towards the
end of December the Seventy-First Highlanders arrived and joined his
command, and on Christmas Day he received the notification of his
appointment to the colonelcy of the Sixty - Seventh regiment.
Towards the end of January, 1855, Sir Colin was able to
have nearly all his troops hutted. Before the end of the first week in
February the whole brigade was comfortably in huts; and he was able to
spare daily large fatigue-parties for the carriage of shot and shell to
the front. An experience he underwent on February 20th illustrates the
risks and vicissitudes attending an attempt to effect a combined
movement in the darkness of a winter night. Sir Colin had received
instructions to support, with four infantry regiments and a force of
artillery and cavalry, the movement of a considerable body of French
troops under General Bosquet, with the object of surprising the Russian
troops on the right bank of the Tchernaya behind the Traktir bridge. It
was a bitter night of snow and frost, but the English details duly
rendezvoused and marched to the named point without seeing anything of
Bosquet’s people. Sir Colin covered the bridge and left bank with a
couple of battalions, holding the rest in reserve; his troops were in
position before daybreak. He was not entitled to take the offensive save
in combination with the French, of whom there was no appearance. The
Russians as day broke were seen taking up positions, but they remained
on the defensive. Sir Colin stood fast until 8.30 A.M. expecting the
arrival of Bosquet; then, concluding tbat the expedition had been
countermanded, he prepared to return. His conjecture was correct; a
countermand had been despatched which had duly reached Bosquet, but the
messenger charged with the countermand for Campbell had lost his way and
did not arrive. As the British force was about retiring the French
general Yinoy appeared with his brigade. He had learnt at daybreak that
no countermand had reached Kadikoi, whereupon the gallant Frenchman,
unsolicited and on his own responsibility, hurried with his brigade to
support bis English comrade who, isolated as he was and with an
overwhelmingly strong force in his front, might well have found himself
in difficulties. Vinoy’s kindly and helpful action was heartily
appreciated by Sir Colin’s soldiers.
In the end of February the brigade of Guards came down to
Balaclava from the front, and Sir Colin, who had succeeded the Duke of
Cambridge in the command of the First Division, now had the whole of it
under him. By steadfast labour and attention he had very materially
increased and developed the strength and scope of the Balaclava lines.
When he contrasted the existing with the early state of the position, he
frankly owned that for a great part of the time he “ had held the lines
by sheer impudence.” In May he experienced a great mortification in not
being allowed to accompany, on the expedition to Kertch, bis Highland
Brigade and other details of his original Balaclava command. Lord Raglan
tried to pay him a compliment by explaining that he could not be spared
from the position which he had guarded so long and so well; but Campbell
felt the disappointment deeply, nor was it mitigated when a
newly-arrived Highland regiment with detachments for the Brigade was
sent off to join the Kertch expedition. On its return the First
Division, now again reunited under his command, moved up to the front in
the middle of June. It was in reserve and not engaged in the
unsuccessful assault on the Eedan on June 18th; and thenceforth for a
time it took its regular term of duty in the trenches. But Sir Colin was
soon to undergo another disappointment. He had heen cherishing the hope
that the division, which was in full efficacy and high morale, would
take a prominent part in the final assault on Sevastopol, and he had
prepared a scheme of operations in case the conduct of the assault
should he committed to him. But he had now to endure the disruption of
his command. The Highland Brigade was withdrawn from the First Division
and formed into a separate division, the complement of which was to he
made up "by the addition of other Scottish regiments. The nucleus of the
new Highland Division, consisting of the Forty-Second, Seventy-Second,
Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Third regiments, was sent down to Kamara in
support of the Sardinians, and remained there until September when it
returned to the front to serve as a reserve to the troops taking part in
the final assault. The British assault on the Eedan unfortunately
failed, and Sir Colin took up the defence of the trenches with his
Highland regiments on the withdrawal of the troops employed in the
abortive affair. The same evening he was desired by the
Commander-in-Chief to hold himself in readiness to make a renewed
assault on the Eedan with his Highlanders on the following day. But
during the night the Eussians -withdrew to the north side. A patrol of
the Ninety-Third entered the Eedan at midnight and found it abandoned.
The long siege was over, and Sevastopol had fallen at last.
Sir Colin Campbell was a man who could admire a brave and
skilful enemy. He wrote: “The Russians, it must he acknowledged, made a
noble defence; and surely never was a retreat from an untenable position
so wonderfully well-managed, carried out as it was in the face of a
powerful enemy and without any loss whatever, while the withdrawal of
the troops from their defences through the town and across a single
bridge was being effected. I cannot conceive anything more perfect and
complete in every detail than the manner in which they accomplished the
withdrawal from Sevastopol and the transport of their troops across the
harbour. . , , While they fired all the other magazines along the line
of their defences, they did not touch those in the Great Redan—an act of
great humanity, for the whole of our wounded who remained in the ditch
and our trenches would have been destroyed. Indeed, before the Russians
left the Redan some of our wounded were carefully dressed by them and
placed in safety from the fire of our own shells.”
Campbell’s position in the Crimea had become exceedingly
uncomfortable. Before the final assault General Simpson had informed him
that he was desired by Lord Panmure to offer him the Malta command, an
offer which appeared an indirect attempt to remove him from the army.
Later he became by virtue of seniority second in command, and it was
known that Simpson was about to vacate the chief command. The tone of
the press was emphatic in favour of the employment of a younger man in
that position, and the Government followed the lead of the journals. Sir
Colin could not hut realise that his presence with the army in the
Crimea was no longer desired by the War Minister. Having seen the
Highland Division comfortably hutted for the winter during which no
active operations in the field would be possible, he took farewell of
his troops and sailed for England on November 3rd. Three days later was
announced Sir William Codrington’s nomination to the chief command; and
with that despatch came a letter from Lord Pan-mure to Sir Colin, the
contents of which he did not learn until he visited his lordship on his
arrival in London on November 17th. This letter, in Campbell’s own
words, “ contained an appeal to my patriotism of the strongest nature,
to induce me to accept a command under Codrington.” To his old friend
Lord Hardinge, now Commander-in-Chief, Campbell frankly said that he had
come home to tender his resignation. “But,” he added, “if her Majesty
should ask me to place myself under a junior officer, I could not resist
any request of hers.” He was promptly commanded to Windsor; and, to
quote General Shadwell, “the gracious reception accorded to him by the
Queen and the Prince Consort struck a responsive chord in Sir Colin’s
heart. It completely dispelled all angry feeling from his mind, and in a
true spirit of loyalty he expressed to her Majesty his readiness to
return to the Crimea and ‘to serve under a corporal if she wished it/ ”
At the Queen’s request he sat for his photograph, and by her Majesty’s
special desire, “the gallant and amiable old soldier was asked to have
it taken in the uniform he wore at the Alma and at Balaclava.”
On his way back to the Crimea he visited Paris where he
was presented to the Emperor and Empress, and where to his great joy he
found his genial Crimean friend General Vinoy. When he returned to the
Crimea he found that the division of the army into two army corps, the
Government’s intention to carry out which scheme Lord Panmure’s letter
had intimated to him and to take the command of one of which it was that
he had returned to the East, had not been effected, and that Sir William
Codrington did not intend to carry out the arrangement until immediately
before the army should take the field. The Highland Division was placed
under him with the understanding that it should contribute the nucleus
of an army corps to be formed later if hostilities were to be
prosecuted. He quartered himself at Kamara with his division, resolved,
as he wrote—“to accommodate himself to all that might happen, and that
nothing should disturb the cordiality which ought to exist between
himself and the commander under whose orders he was to serve.” He had
not long to practise patience. By the end of February, 1856, an
armistice was arranged and in the beginning of April peace was
proclaimed. Before finally leaving the Crimea Sir Colin assembled the
regiments of the original Highland Brigade that he might take farewell
of the soldiers who had served under him since the beginning of the war.
He was not much of an orator, but when he was moved he could be eloquent
in language which went right to the hearts of soldiers. His farewell was
uttered in the following words worthy alike of him and of them.
“Soldiers of the Forty-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and
Ninety-Third!—old Highland Brigade with whom I passed the early and
perilous part of this war, I have now to take leave of you. In a few
hours I shall be on board ship, never to see you again as a body. A long
farewell! I am now old and shall not be called to serve any more; and
nothing will remain to me hut the memory of my campaigns, and the memory
too, of the enduring, hardy, generous soldiers with whom I have been
associated, and whose name and glory will long be kept alive in the
hearts of our countrymen. When you go home, as you gradually fulfil your
term of service, each to his family and his cottage, you will tell the
story of your immortal advance in that victorious ichelon up the heights
of Alma, and may speak of the old brigadier who led you, and who loved
you so well. Your children and your children’s children will repeat the
tale to other generations, when only a few lines of history will remain
to record all the enthusiasm and discipline which have borne you so
stoutly to the end of this war. Our native land will never forget the
name of the Highland Brigade, and in some future war the nation will
call for another one to equal this, which it never can surpass. Though I
shall he gone, the thought of you will go with me wherever I may be, and
cheer my old age with a glorious recollection of dangers confronted and
hardships endured. The bagpipes will never sound near me without
carrying me back to those bright days when I was at your head and wore
the bonnet which you gained for me, and the honourable decorations on my
breast, many of which I owe to your conduct. Brave soldiers, kind
comrades, farewell! ”
This address, delivered with much feeling, was received
with manifest emotion by the troops, who regarded as final the
separation from the chief they had learned to regard with affection.
They did not know that the farewell was to be but temporary, and that
ere long the three regiments would be under his command in another
continent, ready there to display the same soldierly virtues which had
already earned them the gratitude of their chief and countrymen.
In the summer of 1856 Sir Colin was appointed to the post
of Inspector-General of Infantry in succession to the Duke of Cambridge,
who became Commander-in-Chief of the army on the resignation of Lord
Hardinge. In December of that year he was sent to Berlin as the
representative of her Majesty, on the errand of presenting to his Royal
Highness the Prince of Prussia (afterwards the Emperor William the
First) the insignia of the military Grand Cross of the Order of the
Bath. During the first half of 1857 he was actively engaged in the
official duties of his important position. Beginning with the depots in
the south of England, he then spent some time in his inspections in
Ireland, whence he visited Scotland and returned to London in the
beginning of June. How retentive was his memory for faces, names, and
events, is illustrated by the following incident told on the authority
of the gentleman to whom Sir Colin related it “While,” said Campbell, “I
was inspecting the depot at Chichester, I noticed that an old man,
evidently an old soldier though in plain clothes, was constantly on the
ground and apparently watching my movements. As I was leaving the
barrack-yard at the end of the inspection, he came towards me, drew
himself up, made the military salute, and with much respect said, ‘Sir
Colin, may I speak to you! Look at me, sir! do you recollect me I5 I
looked at him and replied, ‘Yes, I do.’ ‘What is my name?’ he asked. I
told him. ‘Yes, sir and where did you last see me?’ ‘In the breach of
San Sebastian, I replied, ‘ badly wounded by my side,’ ‘Right, sir!’
answered the old soldier. ‘I can tell you something more,’ I added—‘you
were No. — in the front rank of my company.’ ‘ Right, sir! ’ said the
veteran. I was putting my hand into my pocket to make the old man a
present, when he stepped forward, laid his hand on my wrist, and
said:—‘No, sir; that is not what I want; but you will be going to
Shorncliffe to inspect the depot there. I have a son in the
Inniskillings quartered at that station, and if you will call him out
and tell him that you knew his father, that is what I should wish.’ ”
The anecdote is a typical sample of the kindly and
self-respecting relations of the men of the old army with their
officers, before the era of short service set in. When Colin Campbell
commanded the Ninety-Eighth he knew the face, name, and character of
every man in the regiment. When he was Commander-in-Chief in India,
which position he was now immediately to attain, he could recognise by
name all the Crimean men of his favourite regiment the Ninety-Third
Highlanders. |
