Beresford - The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

Charles Beresford, Admiral
Charles Beresford, Admiral

WITH TWENTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS

FOURTH EDITION IN ONE VOLUME

METHUEN & CO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published (2 vols.).... October 6th, 1914
Second Edition.... November, 1914
Third Edition.... December, 1914
Fourth Edition (1 vol.).... September, 1916

TO
MY BROTHER OFFICERS
OF THE
ROYAL NAVY

PREFACE

This work is a record of my life from the year 1859, when I entered the Royal Navy, to the year 1909, when I hauled down my flag and came on shore.

For the Introduction and the Notes, which have been written in order to amplify the personal narrative and to connect it with the historical events of the period, Mr. L. Cope Cornford is responsible.

I have dedicated the book to my brother officers of the Royal Navy.

As luck would have it, my career has been of a singularly varied character. And my hope is that, in reading its story, boys and girls, as well as their elders, may find pleasure.

CHARLES BERESFORD
Admiral

1 GREAT CUMBERLAND PLACE, W.
June 1914

CURRAGHMORE
CURRAGHMORE

CONTENTS

CHAP.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

VII.
I. TO THE ANTIPODES

VIII.
II. MY TWO FAITHFUL SERVANTS

IX.
III. TAHITI AND THE SANDWICH ISLANDS

X.
IV. OLD JAPAN. NOTE

XI.
V. WITH THE DUKE IN JAPAN

XII.
VI. THE HOMEWARD VOYAGE

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.
I. THE BEGINNING OF TROUBLE. NOTE

XIX.
II. THE BOMBARDMENT OF ALEXANDRIA

XX.
III. CHIEF OF POLICE

XXI.
IV. GARRISON WORK

XXII.

XXIII.
I. SUMMARY OF EVENTS. NOTE

XXIV.
II. HOW WE BROUGHT THE BOATS THROUGH THE GREAT GATE

XXV.
III. UP THE CATARACTS AND ACROSS THE DESERT

XXVI.
IV. THE FIRST MARCH OF THE DESERT COLUMN. NOTE

XXVII.
V. THE DESERT MARCH OF THE FORLORN HOPE

XXVIII.
VI. THE FIGHT AT ABU KLEA

XXIX.
VII. THE FIGHT TO REACH THE RIVER

XXX.
VIII. DISASTER

XXXI.
IX. THE RESCUE

XXXII.
X. THE EFFECT OF THE ACTION OF WAD HABESHI

XXXIII.
XI. THE RETREAT

XXXIV.
XII. SEQUEL AND CONCLUSION

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.
I. WITH THE MEDITERRANEAN FLEET

XXXVIII.
II. THE SALVING OF THE SEIGNELAY

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

XLII.

XLIII.

XLIV.
I. CHINA

XLV.
II. JAPAN

XLVI.
III. THE UNITED STATES

XLVII.

XLVIII.

XLIX.

L.

LI.

LII.

LIII.
I. RIDING AND DRIVING

LIV.
I. SHOOTING

LV.
III. FISHING

LVI.

POSTSCRIPT.

(The "Notes" are by L. COPE CORNFORD)

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

.. Frontispiece
From a photograph by Heath

From a photograph by G. D. Croker

From paintings at Curraghmore

From a photograph

From a painting in the possession of the Author

From a photograph

From a photograph by J. Russell & Sons

From a photograph

From a photograph

From a photograph

From a photograph

From a chart drawn by the Author at the time

From a drawing by Frederic Villiers

From a drawing by Frederic Villiers

After a drawing made on the spot by the Author

From a photograph by Hallen, New York

"RUNNING THE GAUNTLET"THE ACTION OF THE SAFIEH
AT WAD HABESHI, 4TH FEBRUARY 1885
From a painting in the possession of the Author

From a photograph by Elliott & Fry

THE AUTHOR SPEAKING IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS ON
HIS TWENTY-ONE MILLION SHIPBUILDING PROGRAMME,
13TH DECEMBER 1888
From the drawing by J. Walter Wilson in the possession
of the Author

From a drawing by Phil May in the possession of the Author

From a photograph

(Design of Cover by HAROLD WYLLIE)

THE HOUSE OF BERESFORD

Lord Charles William de la Poer Beresford, born in 1846, was the second of five brothers, sons of Sir John de la Poer Beresford, fourth Marquess of Waterford. Lord Charles's elder brother, Sir John Henry de la Poer Beresford (to give him his full title), Earl and Viscount of Tyrone, Baron de la Poer of Curraghmore in the county of Waterford, and Baron Beresford of Beresford in the county of Cavan, in the Peerage of Ireland, and Baron Tyrone of Haverfordwest in the county of Pembroke, in the Peerage of Great Britain, Knight of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick, succeeded to these titles in 1866. Sir John joined the 1st Life Guards. He died in 1895, and was succeeded by his son (nephew to Lord Charles), as presently to be noted.

Of the other three brothers, Lord William de la Poer joined the 9th Lancers and became Military Secretary to five successive Viceroys of India, was a patron of the Turf, and died in 1900; Lord Marcus de la Poer joined the 7th Hussars, took charge of the King's racehorses, an office which he still fulfils, and was appointed Extra Equerry to King George; Lord Delaval James de la Poer (sixteen years younger than Lord Charles) ranched in North America and was killed in a railway accident in 1906.

The five brothers were keen sportsmen, hard riders, men of their hands, high-couraged, adventurous, talented in affairs, winning friendship and affection wherever they went. Lord John-Henry, fifth Marquess, the eldest brother, inherited the family tradition of good landlordship. There was never any oppression of tenants on the Waterford estate. In the House of Lords and in the country, Lord Waterford took a strenuous part in the troubled and complex issues of Irish politics; although during the last years of his life he was crippled and helpless, the result of an accident which befell him in the hunting field. Lord William won the V.C. by an act of cool and audacious gallantry in the Zulu war of 1879; renowned for reckless hardihood, there was hardly a bone in his body which he had not broken; and it is probable that his injuries, diminishing his powers of resistance, caused him to succumb to his last illness. Lord Charles has broken his chest-bone,a piece of which was cut out in his boyhood, leaving a cavity,pelvis, right leg, right hand, foot, five ribs, one collar-bone three times, the other once, his nose three times; but owing to his extraordinary physique and strict regimen, he is younger and stronger at the time of writing than most men of half his age.

The family home of the five brothers was Curraghmore, a noble estate lying some twelve miles west of Waterford. The great house stands in a cup of the hills, whose slopes are clothed with woods of oak, the primval forest of Ireland. The oak woods adjoining the house were planted with the design of supplying timber to the Royal Navy. Built foursquare, like most houses in Ireland, the mansion faces upon a vast gravelled quadrangle, closed in on left and right by the long ranges of stables. Beyond the lawns of the terraced garden, beyond the hanging woods, the bony shoulders of the mountains of Comeragh hunch upon the changing sky; nearer hand, darkens the lone hill of Croughaun; and day and night the noise of running waters, the voice of the Clodagh River, flowing through tawny shallow and sombre pool, breaking white-maned upon rock and fall, rises upon the quiet air. Looking westward from the bare summit of the hill above the deer-park, you shall view the rich valley parcelled into garden and farm and paddock, which are set among deep groves; in the midst, flanked by a gleam of water, the house darkens upon the westering sunlight; and beyond, the sparkling landscape fades into the profound and aerial blue of the mountain wall. Eastward, the rounded bosses of the forest clothe the hills; and in the valley's gentle opening, the river Suir, like a scimitar laid on cloth of tapestry, glimmers dark and bright upon the plain, which, studded with woods and dotted with white specks of villages, stretches to where the dim sea-line merges in the sky.