Victorian Worthies: Sixteen Biographies. George Henry Blore
is a good example of how a well-trained soldier of original mind can, when left to himself, impress his character on a semi-civilized people, and may be compared with the work of Sir Harry Smith in South Africa, or Sir Henry Lawrence in the Punjab. The practical reforms which he initiated in law, in commerce, in agriculture, are too numerous to mention. 'Expect no letters from me', he writes to his mother, 'save about roads. No going home for me: it would be wrong to leave a place where so much good is being done. … My market-place is roofed. My pedestal is a tremendous job, but two months more will finish that also. My roads will not be finished by me.' And again, 'I take no rest myself and give nobody else any.' To his superiors he showed himself somewhat impracticable in temper, and he was certainly exacting to his subordinates, though generous in his praise of those who helped him. He was compassionate to the poor and vigorous in his dealings with the privileged classes; and he gave the islanders an entirely new conception of justice. When he quitted the island after six years of office he left behind him two new market-places, one and a half miles of pier, one hundred miles of road largely blasted out of solid rock, spacious streets, a girls' school, and many other improvements; and he put into the natives a spirit of endeavour which outlived his term of office. One sign of the latter was that, after his departure, some peasants yearly transmitted to him the profits of a small piece of land which he had left uncared for, without disclosing the names of those whose labours had earned it.
During this period, in visits to Corinth and the Morea, he worked out strategic plans for keeping the Turks out of Greece. He also made friends with Lord Byron, who came out in 1823 to help the Greek patriots and to meet his death in the swamps of Missolonghi. Byron conceived the greatest admiration for Napier's talents and believed him to be capable of liberating Greece, if he were given a free hand. But this was not to be. Reasons of State and petty rivalries barred the way to the appointment of a British general, though it might have set the name of Napier in history beside those of Bolivar and Garibaldi; for he would have identified himself heart and soul with such a cause, and, in the opinion of many good judges, would have triumphed over the difficulties of the situation.
From 1830 to 1839 there is little to narrate. The gifts which might have been devoted to commanding a regiment, to training young officers, or to ruling a distant province, were too lightly rated by the Government, and he spent his time quietly in England and France educating his two daughters,[13] interesting himself in politics, and continuing to learn. It was the political crisis in England which called him back to active life. The readjustment of the labour market to meet the use of machinery, and the occurrence of a series of bad harvests had caused widespread discontent, and the Chartist movement was at its height in 1839. Labourers and factory owners were alarmed; the Government was besieged with petitions for military protection at a hundred points, and all the elements of a dangerous explosion were gathered together. At this critical time Charles Napier was offered the command of the troops in the northern district, and amply did he vindicate the choice. By the most careful preparation beforehand, by the most consummate coolness in the moment of danger, he rode the storm. He saw the danger of billeting small detachments of troops in isolated positions; he concentrated them at the important points. He interviewed alarmed magistrates, and he attended, in person and unarmed, a large gathering of Chartists. To all he spoke calmly but resolutely. He made it clear to the rich that he would not order a shot to be fired while peaceful measures were possible; he made it equally clear to the Chartists that he would suppress disorder, if it arose, promptly and mercilessly. With only four thousand troops under his command to control all the industrial districts of the north, Newcastle and Manchester, Sheffield and Nottingham, he did his work effectually without a shot being fired. 'Ars est celare artem': and just because of his success, few observers realized from how great a danger the community had been preserved.
Thus he had proved his versatile talents in regimental service in the Peninsula, in the reclamation of an eastern island from barbarism, and in the control of disorder at home. It was not till he had reached the age of sixty that he was to prove these gifts in the highest sphere, in the handling of an army in the field and in the direction of a campaign. But the offer of a command in India roused his indomitable spirit, the more so as trouble was threatening on the north-west frontier. An ill-judged interference in Afghānistān had in 1841 caused the massacre near Kābul of one British force: other contingents were besieged in Jalālābād and Ghazni, and were in danger of a similar fate, and the prestige of British arms was at its lowest in the valley of the Indus. Lord Ellenborough, the new Viceroy, turned to Charles Napier for advice, and in April 1842 he was given the command in Upper and Lower Sind, the districts comprising the lower Indus valley. It was his first experience of India and his first command in war. He was sixty years old and he had not faced an enemy's army in the field since the age of twenty-five. As he said, 'I go to command in Sind with no orders, no instructions, no precise line of policy given! How many men are in Sind? How many soldiers to command? No one knows! … They tell me I must form and model the staff of the army altogether! Feeling myself but an apprentice in Indian matters, I yet look in vain for a master.' But the years of study and preparation had not been in vain, and responsibility never failed to call out his best qualities. It was not many months before British officers and soldiers, Baluch chiefs and Sindian peasants owned him as a master—such a master of the arts of war and peace as had not been seen on the Indus since the days of Alexander the Great.
First, like a true pupil of Sir John Moore, he set to work thoroughly to drill his army. He experimented in person with British muskets and Marāthā matchlocks, and reassured his soldiers on the superiority of the former. He experimented with rockets to test their efficiency; and, with his usual luck in the matter of wounds, he had the calf of his leg badly torn by one that burst. He would put his hand to any labour and his life to any risk, if so he might stir the activity of others and promote the cause. He convinced himself, by studying the question at first hand, that the Baluch Amīrs, who ruled the country, were not only aliens but oppressors of the native peasantry, not only ill-disposed to British policy, but actively plotting with the hill-tribes beyond the Indus, and at the right moment he struck.
The danger of the situation lay in the great extent of the country, in the difficulty of marching in such heat amid the sand, and in the possibility of the Amīrs escaping from his grasp and taking refuge in fortresses in the heart of the desert, believed to be inaccessible. His first notable exploit was a march northwards one hundred miles into the desert to capture Imāmghar; his last, crowning a memorable sixteen days, was a similar descent upon Omarkot, which lay one hundred miles eastward beyond Mīrpur. These raids involved the organization of a camel corps, the carrying of water across the desert, and the greatest hardships for the troops, all of which Charles Napier shared uncomplainingly in person. Under his leadership British regiments and Bombay sepoys alike did wonders. Who could complain for himself when he saw the spare frame of the old general, his health undermined by fever and watches, his hooked nose and flashing eye turned this way and that, riding daily at their head, prepared to stint himself of all but the barest necessaries and to share every peril? He had begun the campaign in January; the crowning success was won on April 6. Between these dates he fought two pitched battles at Miāni and Dabo, and completely broke the power of the Amīrs.
Miāni (February 17, 1843) was the most glorious day in his life. With 2,400 troops, of whom barely 500 were Europeans, he attacked an army variously estimated between 20,000 and 40,000. Drawn up in a position, which they had themselves chosen, on the raised bank of a dry river bed, the Baluchī seemed to have every advantage on their side. But the British troops, advancing in echelon from the right, led by the 22nd Regiment, and developing an effective musketry fire, fought their way up to the outer slope of the steep bank and held it for three hours. Here the 22nd, with the two regiments of Bombay sepoys on their left, trusting chiefly to the bayonet, but firing occasional volleys, resisted the onslaught of Baluchī swordsmen in overwhelming numbers. During nearly all this time the two lines were less than twenty yards apart, and Napier was conspicuous on horseback riding coolly along the front of the British line. The matchlocks, with which many of the Baluchī were armed, seem to have been ineffective; their national weapon was the sword. The tribesmen were grand fighters but badly led. They attacked in detachments with no concerted action. For all that, the British line frequently staggered under the weight of their courageous rushes, and irregular firing went on across the narrow gap. Napier says, 'I expected death as much from our own men as from the enemy, and