Ireland’s Imperial Moment: Wolseley and Roberts in Command

Sweeney, Loughlin

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-19307-2_4

Ireland’s Imperial Moment: Wolseley and Roberts in Command

Loughlin Sweeney²

Chapter
First Online: 06 August 2019

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Abstract

Between the Cardwell reforms of the 1870s and the end of the South African War in 1902, a great deal of the senior positions in the British Army were occupied by Irishmen. In this period the army had two Irish Commanders-in-Chief, Garnet Wolseley and Frederick Roberts. These men embodied conflicting visions of the officer corps: Roberts, a patrician figure, embodied the Victorian ideal of the plucky British imperial hero. Wolseley, the ‘modern Major-General’, was, by contrast, a middle-class, efficiency-minded professional officer preferring careful strategy and modern training to the dashing, vainglorious elan of the gentleman officer. This chapter discusses the patronage networks surrounding these two figures and the extent to which they represented a vector for the advancement of Irish officers’ careers. It also discusses differences between Irish officer communities in the overseas empire and on home service. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the growth of popular militarism in late-Victorian Ireland, with victory in the Boer War precipitating an ‘imperial moment’ in the popular imagination.

6 November: The Duke [of Cambridge] furious because I have recommended Brackenbury to be Depty. Adjt. Genrl. He forgets I strive to employ only the best men and don’t care whether they be My Lord Tom Noddy or Mr. Jones as long as I believe them to be the best men for the Public Service.

28 December: He [Brackenbury] is of quarrelsome overbearing temperament … Indeed, I have looked upon him as ‘not quite a Gentleman’. Neither has he the tact of the educated & experienced Gentleman.

—Diary of Garnet Wolseley, 1884

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Notes

1.
W. F. Butler, Sir William Butler: An Autobiography (London, 1911), pp. 111–112; Leigh Maxwell, The Ashanti Ring: Sir Garnet Wolseley’s Campaigns 1870–1882 (London, 1985), p. 232.
2.
F. B. Maurice, ‘White, Sir George Stuart (1835–1912)’, DNB.
3.
Cawnpore was, until the mid-1830s, administered as part of the Bengal Presidency. The Bengal European Regiment eventually became part of the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Childers reforms in 1881.
4.
Halik Kochanski, Sir Garnet Wolseley: Victorian Hero (London, 1999), p. 3.
5.
Byron Farwell, Eminent Victorian Soldiers (London, 1986), p. 149.
6.
Ibid.
7.
Even though Roberts did not complete his studies at Eton, his association with the school persisted throughout his life. See David James, Lord Roberts (London, 1954), p. 7.
8.
A. H. H. Maclean, Public Schools and the War in South Africa, 1899–1902 (London, 1903), p. 86.
9.
Hew Strachan. The Politics of the British Army (Oxford, 2005), p. 15; Robinson, Bryan Cooper, p. 44.
10.
Tim Travers, ‘The Hidden Army: Structural Problems in the British Officer Corps, 1900–1918’, Journal of Contemporary History 17 (1982), pp. 524–525.
11.
Anonymous (William Cairnes), Social Life in the British Army (London, 1900), pp. 19–20. For a more in-depth discussion of officers’ rates of pay and living costs, see Chap. 2.
12.
Ibid. p. 74; Steven Patterson, The Cult of Imperial Honor in British India (New York, 2009), pp. 89–91. There was a strict racial hierarchy inherent in the social structure of British India; while most Europeans enjoyed a privileged lifestyle, ‘Anglo-Indians’ of mixed parentage faced structural discrimination and were largely excluded from the precincts of European society. Elite Indians themselves, apart from royalty, were also systematically excluded until concessions to the movement for Indian independence began to manifest themselves in the 1930s.
13.
Oscar Gruzinsky, ‘Career Patterns and Characteristics of British Naval Officers’, British Journal of Sociology 26 (1975), pp. 35–36; P. E. Razzell, ‘Social Origins of Officers in the Indian and British Home Army: 1758–1962’, British Journal of Sociology 14 (1963), pp. 249–255.
14.
Garnet Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier’s Life (London, 1903), p. 1.
15.
Halik Kochanski, Sir Garnet Wolseley: Victorian Hero (London, 1999), p. 3.
16.
Garnet Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier’s Life (London, 1903), p. 8.
17.
Ibid. p. 10.
18.
Halik Kochanski, ‘Field Marshall Viscount Wolseley, a Reformer at the War Office’, unpub. PhD thesis, King’s College London (1996), p. 16.
19.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 16 April 1875, in Arthur, George, ed., The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley (London, 1922), p. 23; Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolsey, 20 September 1884, in Ibid. p. 121; Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 18 January 1905, in Ibid. p. 423.
20.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 18 October 1890, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, pp. 270–271.
21.
Colley’s downfall at Majuba during the First Boer War would serve as ammunition for those officers of the ‘old school’ who saw little utility in a professionalised officer corps. Colley’s death in 1881 on Majuba Hill was not the only tragedy endured by the family; thirty-one years later Colley’s nephew, Edward, was killed in the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
22.
Wolseley, The Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 282.
23.
C. A. Bayly, ‘Ireland, India and the Empire: 1780–1914’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2000), p. 389.
24.
R. G. L. von Zugbach, Power and Prestige in the British Army (Aldershot, 1988); C. B. Otley, ‘Militarism and Militarisation in the Public Schools, 1900–1972’, British Journal of Sociology 29 (1978), pp. 321–339; Spiers, The Army and Society, p. 6.
25.
Von Zugbach, p. 1.
26.
Otley, ‘Militarism’, p. 332.
27.
Spiers, The Army and Society, p. 6.
28.
Harold Perkin, The Rise of Professional Society: England Since 1880 (London, 1989), p. 6.
29.
Lawrence McBride, The Greening of Dublin Castle (Washington, DC, 1991), pp. 2–3.
30.
Catriona Kennedy and Matthew McCormack, Soldering in Britain and Ireland (New York, 2013), p. 10.
31.
McBride, p. 281; Garnet Wolseley to Sir H. Ponsonby, Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, 13 June 1893, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 304.
32.
Strachan, The Politics of the British Army, p. 101; Adrian Preston, In Relief of Gordon: Lord Wolseley’s Campaign Journal of the Gordon Relief Expedition, 1884–1885 (London, 1967), p. 141.
33.
Wolseley quoted in Kochanski, ‘Viscount Wolseley’, p. 123.
34.
Ibid. p. 110; Strachan, The Politics of the British Army, p. 111.
35.
Jeremy Black, A Military History of Britain (London, 2006), p. 92.
36.
Tim Travers, ‘The Hidden Army: Structural Problems in the British Officer Corps, 1900–1918’, Journal of Contemporary History 17 (1982), p. 525.
37.
Strachan, The Politics of the British Army, p. 103.
38.
Ibid. p. 7; Arthur Paget, the Commander-in-Chief at the time of the Curragh incident, had served in the Ashanti War with Wolseley, while the 5th Lancers, the regiment which played the major role in the incident, had served under Wolseley in Egypt, and Roberts in India and South Africa.
39.
See Chaps. 6 and 7 for an extensive discussion of this shift in the Irish political landscape.
40.
Robertson, Crowned Harp, p. 74.
41.
Leigh Maxwell, The Ashanti Ring: Sir Garnet Wolseley’s Campaigns 1870–1882 (London, 1985), pp. 232–233.
42.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 1 November 1890, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 272.
43.
Kochanski, ‘Viscount Wolseley’, p. 29.
44.
Cf. Rothenberg, ‘The Habsburg Officer Corps’; Vitarbo, ‘The Russian Imperial Officer Corps’; Screen, ‘Marshal Mannerheim’; Tim Wilson, ‘Ghost Provinces, Mislaid Minorities: The Experience of Southern Ireland and Prussian Poland Compared’, Irish Studies in International Affairs 13 (2002), p. 80.
45.
Garnet Wolseley, preface to The Soldier’s Pocket-Book for Field Service (London, 1871), pp. iii–v.
46.
Ibid. p. 123.
47.
Kochanski, Sir Garnet Wolseley, p. 121.
48.
Kochanski, ‘Viscount Wolseley’, p. 179.
49.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 6; Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, Pietermaritzburg, 18 February 1880, in Arthur, pp. 59–60; Preston, Wolseley’s Campaign Journal (London, 1967), pp. 86–87.
50.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 5; Kochanski, ‘A Reformer at the War Office’, p. 16.
51.
Ian F. W. Beckett, ‘Wolseley, Garnet Joseph, First Viscount Wolseley (1833–1913)’, DNB; Halik Kochanski, Sir Garnet Wolseley: Victorian Hero (London, 1999), p. 4.
52.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 20.
53.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 2 October 1890, in Arthur, The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 268.
54.
Wolseley to Spencer, Cairo, 6 June 1885, in Arthur, p. 83.
55.
Preston, Wolseley’s Campaign Journal, p. 77.
56.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 28 September 1882, in Arthur, George, ed., The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley 1870–1911 (London, 1922), p. 83.
57.
Preston, Wolseley’s Campaign Journal, pp. 56–57.
58.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 5 June 1895, in Arthur, The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 333.
59.
Preston, Wolseley’s Campaign Journal, p. 77.
60.
Ibid. p. 35.
61.
Adrian Preston, ed., The South African Journal of Sir Garnet Wolseley, 1879–1880 (Cape Town, 1973), p. 74.
62.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 69.
63.
For an examination of the loaded nature of the term ‘Irish’ in Victorian popular culture, see Roy Foster, Paddy and Mr. Punch: Connections in Irish and English History (London, 1995).
64.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 15 September 1896, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 354.
65.
Ibid. p. 30.
66.
Preston, Wolseley’s Campaign Journal, p. 18.
67.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 35.
68.
Karsten, ‘Suborned’, pp. 35–36.
69.
William F. Butler, Sir William Butler: An Autobiography (London, 1911), p. 183; Lennox Robinson, Bryan Cooper (London, 1931), p. 45.
70.
Butler, Autobiography, p. 351.
71.
Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 24 April 1884, in Arthur, The Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 116; Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 5 November 1884, in Ibid. p. 128; Garnet Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 17 March 1885, in Ibid. p. 207.
72.
Butler, Autobiography, p. 13.
73.
Throughout the period, an estimated 15–20% of Irish officers were Catholic. See David Fitzpatrick, ‘Militarism in Ireland, 1900–1922’ in Bartlett, Thomas, and Keith Jeffery, eds., A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), p. 380.
74.
Timothy Bowman, Carson’s Army: The Ulster Volunteer Force 1910–22 (Manchester, 2007), p. 57.
75.
Edward McCourt, Remember Butler: The Story of Sir William Butler (London, 1967), p. 254.
76.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 22 August 1890, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 266.
77.
Wolseley, Story of a Soldier’s Life, p. 81.
78.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 17 May 1891, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 282.
79.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 30 June 1894, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 317.
80.
Cf. Andrew Lycett, Kipling Abroad: Traffics and Discoveries from Burma to Brazil (London, 2010), p. 167.
81.
Lady Wolseley to Lord Wolseley, 2 August 1893, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 313.
82.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 18 October 1890, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 271.
83.
Bowman and Connelly, The Edwardian Army, p. 9; Crossman, ‘The Army and Law and Order’, p. 358; Dan Harvey and Gerry White, The Barracks: A History of Victoria/Collins Barracks, Cork (Cork, 1997), p. 38.
84.
Lord Wolseley to Lady Wolseley, 16 October 1890, in Arthur, Letters of Lord and Lady Wolseley, p. 270.
85.
Brian Robson, ed., Roberts in India: The Military Papers of Field Marshal Lord Roberts 1876–1893 (Stroud, 1993), p. 448.
86.
John M. Mackenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester, 1986), p. 181.
87.
Freeman’s Journal, 2 October 1895; Freeman’s Journal, 5 September 1896; Belfast News-Letter, 3 September 1896.
88.
David James, Lord Roberts (London, 1954), p. 251.
89.
Ibid. p. 260.
90.
Bowman and Connelly, The Edwardian Army, p. 173; John O. Stubbs, ‘Garvin, James Louis (1868–1947)’, DNB (OUP 2004, online edn. 2011); Heather Streets, Martial Races: The Military, Race and Masculinity in British Culture, 1857–1914 (Manchester, 2004), p. 131.
91.
Windham Wyndham-Quin, 4th Earl Dunraven, Past Times and Pastimes, vol. 1 (1921), p. 178.
92.
Obituaries of Roberts reported that he was ‘simply worshipped’ particularly by Indian troops. The Times, 17 November 1914; The Times, 18 November 1914; Illustrated London News, 21 November 1914.
93.
Andre Wessels, Lord Roberts and the War in South Africa 1899–1902 (Stroud, 2000), p. 11.
94.
Brian Robson, Introduction to Roberts in India: The Military Papers of Field Marshal Lord Roberts 1876–1893 (Stroud, 1993), p. xix.
95.
Roberts to Lord Lansdowne, 29 January 1900, in Wessels, Roberts and the War in South Africa, p. 47. Thomas Kelly-Kenny was a County Clare landowner and JP; John French was a landed officer with a deep family connection to Wexford.
96.
Sir George Stuart White’s private diary for 1886, BL Mss Eur F108/119.
97.
White to Gipps, 8 August 1893. White Papers, British Library.
98.
William Butler, The Great Lone Land (London, 1872).
99.
White to General Sir Robert Low, Simla, 30 August 1895. White Papers, British Library.
100.
White to Lockhart, Calcutta, 1 March 1896. White Papers, British Library.
101.
See Philip Ollerenshaw, ‘Businessmen and the Development of Ulster Unionism’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 28 (2000), pp. 35–64.
102.
James, Lord Roberts, pp. 83–84.
103.
Ibid. p 142.
104.
Chamberlain, no relation to the prime minister who shared his name, was on Roberts’ staff in India, and came from a military family with strong ties to the East India Company army. Following his retirement in 1901, he was appointed commissioner of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and was later forced to resign over his handling of police intelligence in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising.
105.
Hamilton quoted in Kochanski, ‘Viscount Wolseley’, p. 25.
106.
James, Lord Roberts, p. 182.
107.
Ibid. p. 237.
108.
Keith Jeffery, Henry Wilson: Political Soldier (Oxford, 2006), p. 107.
109.
Mark Coulter, ‘Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson: Imperial Soldier, Political Failure’, History Ireland 13 (2005), pp. 26–27.
110.
Jeffery, Henry Wilson, pp. 110, 114.
111.
Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, 1781–1997 (London, 2007), p. 219.
112.
Gifford Lewis, Somerville and Ross: The World of the Irish RM (New York, 1985), p. 162.
113.
Keith Surridge, ‘“You Soldiers Are What We Call Pro-Boer”: The Military Critique of the South African War, 1899–1902’, History Ireland 8 (2000), p. 29; Peter Donaldson, Remembering the South African War (Liverpool, 2013), pp. 140–143; Andrew Porter, ‘The South African War and the Historians’, African Affairs 99 (2000), pp. 634–635.
114.
Spiers, The Army and Society, p. 297. Scotland’s population in the 1901 census was just under 4.5 million, while Ireland’s was 4.4 million.
115.
Anthony Bruce, The Purchase System in the British Army, 1660–1871 (London, 1980), pp. 157–158.
116.
Strachan, The Politics of the British Army, pp. 103–112 passim.
117.
Ibid. pp. 111–112.

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Sweeney, L. (2019). Ireland’s Imperial Moment: Wolseley and Roberts in Command. In: Irish Military Elites, Nation and Empire, 1870–1925. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19307-2_4

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19307-2_4
Published: 06 August 2019
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