Baden Powell of Mafeking - ebook

Contents

Introduction. TO THE MAN IN THE STREET

Part I. BADEN-POWELL—THE MANNER OF MAN HE IS

I. The Boy and His People

II. "Bathing-Towel"

III. Learning the Trade

IV. Scout and Sportsman

V. The Kindly Humorist

Part II. AN EXPEDITION AND A CAMPAIGN

I. The Ashanti Expedition, 1895-6

II. The Matabele Campaign, 1896

Part III. THE STORY OF THE SIEGE OF MAFEKING, 1899-1900

I. The Warm Corner

II. Warmer and Warmer

III. Sitting Tight

IV. The Last Days

V. The Relief and the EmpireINTRODUCTION

TO THE MAN IN THE STREET

It may well and fittingly be complained that of late years we English folk have shown an unpardonable spirit of curiosity about things which do not concern us. We have brought into being more than one periodical publication full of gossip about the private life and affairs of folk of eminence, and there are too many of us who are never so much pleased as when we are informed that a certain great artist abhors meat, or that a famous musician is inordinately fond of pickled salmon. There was a time when, to use a homely old phrase, people minded their own business and left that of their neighbours’ alone–that day in some degree seems to have been left far behind, and most of us feel that we are being defrauded of our just rights if we may not step across the threshold of my lady’s drawing-room or set foot in the statesman’s cabinet. The fact is that we have itching ears nowadays, and cherish a passion for gossip which were creditable to the old women of the open doorways. We want to know all–which is to say as much as chance will tell us–about the people of whom the street is talking, and the more we can hear of them, even of the things which appertain in reality to no one but themselves, the better we are pleased. But even here, in what is undoubtedly an evil, there is an element of possible good which under certain circumstances may be developed into magnificent results. Since we must talk amongst ourselves, since we must satisfy this very human craving for what is after all gossip, let us find great subjects to gossip about. If we must talk in the streets let us talk about great folk, about great deeds, about great examples, and since our subjects are great let us talk of them in a great way. There is no need to chatter idly and to no purpose–we shall be all the better if our gossip about great men and great things leads us to even a faint imitation of both.

We English folk possess at this moment a magnificent opportunity of talking and thinking about the things and the men which make for good. It may be that ever since the Empire rose as one man to sustain the honour and glory of England we have glorified our fighting man a little too much. It may be that we have raised our voices too loudly in the music-halls and been too exuberant in our conduct in the streets. But after all, what does it mean? We are vulgar, we English, in our outward expression of joy and delight–yes, but how splendidly our vulgarity is redeemed and even transformed into a fine thing by our immense feeling for race and country! What is it, after all, that we have been doing during this time of war but building up, renewing, strengthening that mysterious Something which for lack of a better word we call Empire? War, like sorrow, strengthens, chastens, and encourages. Just as the heart of a strong man is purified and made stronger by sorrow, so the spirit of a nation is lifted up and set on a higher pedestal by the trials and the awfulness of war. Heaven help the people which emerges from a great struggle broken, sullen, despondent!–Heaven be thanked that from the blood of our fellows spilt in South Africa there have already sprung the flowers of new fortitude and new strength and new belief in our God-given destiny as the saviours of the world. It is as it ever was:–

“We are a people yet!
Tho’ all men else their nobler dreams forget,
Confused by brainless mobs and lawless Powers;
Thank Him who isled us here, and roughly set
His Britons in blown seas and storming showers,
We have a voice with which to pay the debt
Of boundless love and reverence and regret
To those great men who fought and kept it ours.”

We have a voice!–yes, and is it not well that at this juncture it should be raised in honour of the men who have mounted guard for us at the gates of Empire? It is well, too, that our ears should listen to stories of them–surely there is no taint of unpardonable curiosity in that, but rather an inquisitiveness which is worthy of praise. No man can hear of great men, nor think of brave deeds, without finding himself made better and richer. It is in the contemplation of greatness that even the most poorly-equipped amongst us may find a step to a higher place of thought.

Here then is an excuse for attempting to tell plain folk the story of Baden-Powell (no need to label _him_with titles or prefixes!) in a plain way. It is a task which has already been attempted and achieved by more than one person: the only reason why it should be attempted again is that a good story cannot be told too often, and that in its variations there may be something of value added to it by the particular narrator. It seems to me that this story of Baden-Powell finds its great charm in its revelation of character, and as being typical of the British officer at his best. I do not find Baden-Powell so much a prodigy as a type of the flower of a class which of late has been much maligned. We have been told, over and over again since we became involved in our struggle with the Boer, that our officers are badly trained, incompetent, and careless. It is not to be denied that there is room for improvement in their military education and training, but I think we shall have hard work to improve them in one matter of some slight importance–their cheerful, brave, steady devotion to Duty. When one comes to think of it, seriously, what a great quality that is! To be ready to go anywhere, to do anything, or to attempt its doing with all the strength one possesses, to face whatever a moment may bring forth with the cheery pluck with which a schoolboy goes into a scrimmage–are these not qualities which make for greatness? It seems to me that they are found in the British officer in an extraordinary degree, and that the life of Baden-Powell as we know it is typical of the results of the possession of them. I do not mean to say that every British officer is a Baden-Powell, but I cherish a strong conviction that Baden-Powell himself has said, more than once, when overwhelmed with congratulations, “Oh, any other fellow would have done the same!” Of course, that is all wrong–we all know that not every other fellow would. But I believe every other fellow would have Tried–and to Try means a world of things. After all, the greatest thing in this world, and the surest passport to happiness in the next, is doing one’s Duty, cheerfully, fearlessly, and confidently, and it is because there is so much evidence of the way in which the British officer attempts to do his, in the story of Baden-Powell’s career, that I make no excuse for begging the man in the street to read it again, and again, and yet again–whoever writes, or tries to write it.

J.S.F.
East Hardwick, Yorks
September, 1900I

THE BOY AND HIS PEOPLE

If it seems something of an impertinence to write about the life of a man who is still alive and apparently determined to be so for many years of energy and activity, it appears to be almost in the nature of a sacrilege to draw aside the veil which ought to shroud the privacy of his family life. Most English folk, whether they show it or not, are deeply in love with the sentiment expressed in Browning’s lines,–

“A peep through my window if some should prefer,
But, please you, no foot over threshold of mine”–

but in the case of the Baden-Powell family many feet have already crossed the threshold, and many hands have drawn aside the curtain. It is not often that the lifting of the veil which usually hides English family life from the world’s gaze reveals as charming and instructive a picture as is found in the contemplation of the people to whom the hero of Mafeking belongs. We all know that it is not necessary to spring from a great family in order to be a great man; we all know, too, that many a great family has produced a great fool. But when a great family does produce a great man the result is greater than could be obtained in any other way. Baden-Powell comes of a family-stock great in many ways, and were there reason or time for it, nothing could be more delightful or instructive than to endeavour to trace the connection between the main features and characteristics of his life and the hereditary influences which must needs have acted upon him. His ancestors have done so many fine things that one feels something like amazement to find their present day representative still adding lustre to the family name. According to the ordinary laws all the strength and virtue should have been exhausted in the stock ere now, but just as Baden-Powell himself is in certain ways a mysterious contradiction to things in general, laughing where other men would weep, and rising to great heights where most men would turn back to the valley in despair, so his family, after many generations of great activity, contradict the usual laws by increasing in strength and giving evidence of that growth and development which, as Dr. Newman told us in a remarkable sentence, is the only evidence of life.

Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell was born at 6, Stanhope Street, London, on the 22nd February, 1857. He was the seventh son of the late Rev. Baden-Powell, sometime Savilian Professor in the University of Oxford, and of Henrietta Grace, daughter of Admiral W.H. Smyth, K.S.F. Of his father the future defender of Mafeking can have known little; Professor Baden-Powell died when his seventh son was only three years old. He was a man of great talents, widely known as a profound student in the physical sciences and as an exponent of broad and tolerant theology, a frequent contributor of learned papers to the transactions of the Royal Society, and a whole-hearted lover of nature and of the sights and sounds of country life. One would like to know more of him, and of such intercourse as existed between him and his children. They, however, were separated from him at an early age and were left to the sole guidance and friendship of their mother. It is rarely that children have a mother so well equipped for the performance of a difficult task–Mrs. Baden-Powell is in all respects a great woman and eminently fitted to be the mother of a hero. She, like her husband, came of a stock eminent for its qualities. Her father, Admiral W.H. Smyth, was a well-known seaman of his day, and his children have all achieved eminence in one way or another. One of his sons, Warington, became Mineral Inspector to the Crown; another, Fiazzi, Astronomer Royal for Scotland; a third, General Sir Henry Smyth, after a distinguished military career, was Governor and Commander-in-Chief at Malta from 1890 to 1893. Of his two daughters, the younger, Georgina Rosetta, was married in 1858 to Sir W.H. Flower, the eminent scientist; the elder, Henrietta Grace, had previously married Professor Baden-Powell.

A Merciful Man.

It is often said that a boy is what his mother makes him, and no one will deny that there is a certain amount of truth in the saying. A boy naturally turns rather to his mother than to his father when he first feels the need of sympathy, and it is well for him if his mother has not merely sympathy but perception and understanding to give him. Mrs. Baden-Powell appears to have been singularly fitted to help her children with her love, sympathy, and tact during the earlier years of their youth. Herself a brilliantly clever woman, she recognized intuitively the workings of dawning talent and ability in her own children, and she encouraged and helped them as only a woman of great gifts could. As a linguist, an artist, a musician, a mathematician, and a lover of science and of nature, Mrs. Baden-Powell has many attainments, and it must be evident to the most obtuse that her children received a liberal education in merely knowing her. When Professor Baden-Powell died his widow was left with a responsibility from which the bravest woman might well have shrunk. She had been married fifteen years, and there were ten children of the marriage, and the eldest was not fourteen years of age. That Mrs. Baden-Powell had no shrinking, that she devoted herself to her task with courage, determination, and skill is proved by the results with which the world, for its good, has been familiarized. The training of her children, as far as one may speak of it with reserve and respect, seems to have been marked by the greatest good sense. She took an interest in everything that interested them; she inculcated a strict regard for honour in their minds; she taught them to bear pain as strong men should; above everything she strove to bring all the influence of nature into their lives. Such an education as this could scarcely fail to produce men well fitted to do something, and Mrs. Baden-Powell’s sons have done much. Her eldest son attained considerable distinction as the author of an important work on the Land Systems of British India, and occupied a high judicial post in that country ere his death. Her second son, Mr. Warington Baden-Powell, after serving some years in the navy, turned from the sea to the atmosphere of the Law Courts, and is now a Queen’s Counsel of eminence. Her third son, the late Sir George Baden-Powell, who died in 1898, was, until recent events brought his younger brother’s name more prominently before the public, the best-known member of the family. His record was a particularly brilliant and useful one. He took the Chancellor’s Prize at Oxford in 1876. He was private secretary to the Governor of Victoria, 1877-78; Joint Special Commissioner in the West India Colonies, 1882-84; Assistant to Sir Charles Warren in Bechuanaland, 1884-85; Joint Special Commissioner in Malta, 1887-88; British Commissioner in the Behring Sea Question, 1891; and British Member of the Washington Joint Committee in 1892. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and an LL.D., and represented the Kirkdale Division of Liverpool in Parliament from 1885 until his death. He wrote several important works and papers on scientific, economic, and political subjects, and was created a baronet in 1888. Other sons of this fortunate and gifted mother are Mr Frank Baden-Powell, who, after a distinguished career at Oxford, became a barrister and is well known as an artist of great merit, and Major B.F.S. Baden-Powell, of the Scots Guards, whose invention of war-kites was of great value during the operations at Modder River. Of the seventh son it is the province of this book to speak more fully and particularly than of his brothers, but this brief reference to Mrs. Baden-Powell’s family would be incomplete if it did not include some notice of the sister of all these clever boys, who, clever and brilliant herself, must needs have watched the development of their lives with true pride and affection. I ventured to ask Miss Baden-Powell the other day two questions which seemed to me peculiarly pertinent to the matter I had just taken in hand. The first arose out of a passage in General Baden-Powell’s work on the Ashanti Expedition of 1896, wherein he declares that “a smile and a stick will carry you through the world.” I asked Miss Baden-Powell if this saying formed a sort of keynote to her brother’s character as she knew it. She replied that she found it impossible to conceive of his using a stick in any case. So, in my estimate of him, whatever it may be worth, the stick disappears from Baden-Powell, but the smile remains and has gained much in potency. My second question had perhaps a much deeper significance. I asked if in his sister’s view–and it has been my experience, founded on much cynical observation of things, that if one wants honest criticism of one’s self one can get it, in all truth, from one’s sister–the future warrior was in his boyhood at all phenomenal, if he gave, as some embryonic geniuses unfortunately do give, any notable evidence of the greatness that was coming. And I rejoiced to hear that he did not, that he was a human boy, neither precocious nor a prig–just a healthy, fun-loving English boy, full of kindliness and of delight in the joys of life’s morning.

That is exactly what one likes to feel about Baden-Powell’s boyhood. From what one can gather from many sources about his early days they appear to have been marked chiefly by the sunniness of his own disposition. His education was conducted under a tutor at home until he was eleven years old, and he spent much of his time in outdoor pursuits. He learned to ride at a very early age, and was fond of exploring unknown regions in company with his brothers. Much of the future scout’s boyhood was spent at a country house near Tunbridge Wells, and in the neighbouring woods he lived many hours of glorious life. But he appears to have had almost as many pursuits in boyhood as he has shown himself fond of in manhood. He began to draw and paint at a very early age. Before he was three years old he executed a pen-and-ink drawing of camels and camel drivers, the execution of which was wonderful for so young a child. It was quickly perceived in the family circle that he used his left hand, which he has always used throughout his life with equal facility to his use of the right, and his mother consulted Ruskin as to the advisability of checking this propensity. Ruskin advised her to let the boy use his left hand as freely as his mind wished, with the result that he has always been able to work at his sketches and drawings with both hands at the same time, drawing with the left and shading with the right–a performance which is surely rarely equalled. Another of his boyish amusements was to play with dolls, and to make their clothes; another, succeeding, one supposes, the doll era, was to take part with his brothers in the performance of plays. He has always been passionately devoted to dramatic art, and showed his love for theatrical matters at a very early age. It is only what one would expect from his extraordinary versatility to hear that he used to write the plays himself, invariably fitting himself with a “fat” low-comedy part.

Although he was in no sense of the word that most unspeakable thing, a precocious child, Baden-Powell showed in his boyhood some signs of the inclinations which were working in him. Nothing pleased him so much as to explore new ground in the shape of woods and fields; it was an exquisite delight to him to get lost in an unfamiliar part of the country and to be obliged to find a way out. He showed great pleasure in drawing maps and charts, with which he took infinite pains, and he was very fond of cutting figures of animals out of paper, and of imitating the cries and calls of birds and voices of animals. Then, again, he showed at an early age the resourcefulness and dependency upon self which have been such marked characteristics of his military career. He entirely dispensed with the services of a nurse before he was three years old; he kept a very careful account of the expenditure of his pocket money, and in everything seems to have shown a wisdom not at all out of keeping with his light-hearted disposition. It may be that much of his light-heartedness has unconsciously sprung from his thoroughness in doing things. It was fortunate for him that he possessed a great friend in his brother, Mr. Warington Baden-Powell, who, being ten years his senior, was able to give him not merely advice but excellent example. In company with his brothers the future soldier lived a great part of his holiday-time as a sailor, roughing it in small yachts around the coast and over the seas. The yachts were designed by Mr. Warington Baden-Powell, who also acted as skipper, and were managed entirely by himself and his younger brothers. Now and then the small craft and its crew happened upon tight places, and on one occasion, while off Torquay in a ten-tonner named the _Koh-i-noor_, they had an experience which would have frightened most boys to such an extent that the sea and its perils would have been eschewed for ever. A violent storm broke over them one dark evening, raged throughout the night and far into the next day, and necessitated a battling with wind and wave which only the bravest dare face. But Baden-Powell and his brothers appear to have been boys of infinite bravery and resource. They travelled extensively about the English and Welsh coasts, and spent some of their holidays in Norway, and wherever they went they depended upon themselves for whatever was necessary to be done in the way of cooking, repairing, and boat-mending. No better schooling than this, developing as it did the priceless qualities of energy, self-reliance, and confidence, could have been devised for the boy who was destined in after years to safeguard the honour of England in beleaguered Mafeking.II

“BATHING-TOWEL”

After being under the care of a tutor until he was eleven years old, Baden-Powell was sent to a preparatory school at Tunbridge Wells, and remained there for two years, leaving it at the end of that time with the sincere regret of his master, who had found him an admirable example to his fellows. In 1870 he was admitted, on the Duke of Marlborough’s nomination, to the Foundation of Charterhouse, then in its ancient quarters near Smithfield. Two years later he went with the Foundation to its new home near Godalming, and there remained, an inmate of Mr. Girdlestone’s house, until 1876. Of these six years of Baden-Powell’s life it is necessary to say something, if one wishes to form an accurate idea of their importance in moulding and strengthening his character. School-life exercises a vast influence upon a boy’s future career; it may make or mar it; it is certain, indeed, that he cannot go through it without receiving influences of the most paramount importance. All the world knows now what manner of man Baden-Powell is; all the world has no doubt wondered what sort of boy he was in his days of school-life.

I recently visited the Charterhouse in order to ask Dr. Haig-Brown, who was Headmaster of the Charterhouse School from 1863 to 1897, and has since then been Master of the Charterhouse, if he would tell me something about his old pupil. There was a certain amount of satisfaction in setting foot within the precincts of a place so closely associated with one of the men of the moment; there was a strong and restful sense of relief, too, in escaping from the whirl and roar of London’s crowded streets into so delightful a haunt of peace as that which lies in their very midst. Between the noise and bustle of the much-thronged thoroughfares about Smithfield and the cloistral quiet of the Master’s Lodge in the Charterhouse there was a difference intensely welcome to a lover of quiet places, and I could not help thinking as I sat in Dr. Haig-Brown’s study, with the noise of the outer world reduced to a low and easy murmur, that there must have been moments during the siege of Mafeking when Baden-Powell’s mind turned to the grey walls and quaint gables of his old school with perhaps a little longing for the peace which broods there always. It was easy to see that the thought and memory of the old Carthusian was cherished there. In Dr. Haig-Brown’s study hung a picture of the face now familiar to all of us through the medium of innumerable illustrated newspapers and magazines, the good-humoured, strong face, shadowed by the big hat, and in one of the drawing-rooms stood a small table gaily decorated with red, white and blue ribbons, whereon had been gathered together a collection of little objects–some of them the penny wares of the London street vendors–associated with the name of the hero of Mafeking. It was easy to see, too, that Baden-Powell was deeply placed in the affections of his old schoolmaster. Dr. Haig-Brown spoke of him in simple words which showed more feeling than the mere sound of them implied. He spoke of his great truthfulness, his love of fun and of sport, of his self-respect, and of his interest in his old school. He showed me a volume of the school magazine, _The Greyfriar_, which contained several contributions, literary and artistic, by the man who has so ably sustained all the best traditions of a great school, and has thought of it when far away and busily engaged in fighting his country’s cause. And perhaps no greater tribute could be paid to Baden-Powell’s greatness than Dr. Haig-Brown paid him in a few words, words which convey a great and deep meaning–”He was a boy whose word you could not doubt.”

Dr. Haig-Brown was kind enough to give me a copy of an article on Baden-Powell which he wrote for a recent number of _The Church Monthly_, and to allow me to make use of any of the remarks which he there made as regards his old pupil. It is an article which shows that in the opinion of his schoolmaster the recent brilliant achievements of Baden-Powell were foreshadowed in his early youth. Quoting Wordsworth’s famous line,

“The child is father of the man,”

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