PREFACE

IN the following pages I have tried to record the noble actions I have witnessed, and to describe the men I have been associated with. I have set down nought in malice, and therefore beg my readers to forgive what may be my prejudices.

WOLSELEY, F.M.
FARM HOUSE
GLYNDE
September 14, 1903

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The balance of his life can be summarized with...

Two years later Britain reluctantly decided to send an expedition under Wolseley to rescue Major-General Charles George Gordon, besieged at Khartoum in the Sudan by the forces of the Mahdī. Wolseley proposed “to send all the dismounted portion of the force up the Nile to Khartum in boats, as we sent the little expeditionary force from Lake Superior to Fort Garry on the Red River in 1870.” At his behest 390 Canadian voyageurs, among them Jean-Baptiste Canadien, were raised to join the expedition. Again the staff included Red River veterans, Butler and Frederick Charles Denison* among them. In December, with his troops moving ponderously up the Nile, the lack of progress obvious to all, Wolseley sent a desert column overland in an attempt to save Gordon, but the plan failed, Khartoum was lost, and the expedition was forced to retreat.

Although Wolseley’s last field command was unsuccessful, he was again thanked by parliament and on 28 Sept. 1885 became a viscount. The remainder of his career was spent as an army administrator. From 1890 to 1894 he commanded the troops in Ireland, being promoted field marshal on 26 May 1894. In 1895 he became commander-in-chief of the army. In spite of declining health he continued to push forward reform and to oversee Britain’s little colonial wars, but southern Africa came to dominate his time in office. He retired at the conclusion of his five-year term in 1900. He had continued to write, publishing, among other works, lives of Marlborough and Napoleon. At the end of 1903 he brought out The story of a soldier’s life, an incomplete autobiography in two volumes which included the Canadian years. In his last years his memory failed and he withdrew from public life.

Lord Wolseley was among the foremost of the Victorian generals. Forced by lack of family wealth to make his own way, he was also driven by ambition to reach the highest levels in his profession. Although he never proved himself as a commander of the first rank, for he never faced a first-class adversary using modern technology and never commanded the bulk of Britain’s army in the field, he was the right commander for success in a wide variety of situations throughout the empire. In addition he became identified with the progressive element in the British army and a spokesman for army reform at a crucial period in that institution’s history.

Wolseley’s time in Canada was an important formative period. His training skills benefited future leaders of the Canadian militia who came under his influence in the camps at La Prairie and Thorold. His talents for organization, planning, and personal leadership brought his expedition safely to Red River and enabled the Canadian government to impose its will on the prairies. For his part, Wolseley took from Canada experience in military innovation, which included the use of troops in unconventional roles and reliance upon a picked body of acquaintances as staff and subordinate commanders, both of which became regular features in his subsequent imperial campaigns.