rorkesdriftvc.com :: View topic

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:38 pm

AMB

God's speed and safe home, mon brave.

M

p.s. And keep your powder dry.

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:02 pm

Colonel,

Interesting times this side.

Am trying to start Saul David's Zulu, but have yet to find the time even to open it.

Dust every where!

AMB

Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 7:09 pm

Rich

I can only suggest nailing it to the table; that should thwart the blighter!

Coll

Remains a possibility. We are working out a programme of work at present. I can confirm that there definitely was a COI and I already have access to lots of interesting post-battle material.

In Into the Jaws look out for the dispositions of the 66th on the firing line and the assignment of officers to companies - all new material which does not appear anywhere else. I exposed it in an article to a special interest group a few months back; they really know their stuff and have been through my reconstruction of those issues with a fine tooth comb. I met with them the other day and they tell me it all holds water nicely. Phew.

Also I have been able to assign numbers to the RHA subdivisions i.e.. Lt Maclaine commands Nos 5 and 6 guns. [Writing off the top of the head here, so double check with the book - I had to give my last copy away today and won't have a new one for a few days]. I've also included the christian names of all the officers who appear in my battle narrative. All in all you should find a level of detail there that hasn't been pulled together in one place before.

I wonder who your Maiwand favourite will be - not that anybody can ever dislodge you know who from No.1 position in Coll's top ten Victorian heroes!!

As ever

Mike

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:52 am

Mike

I have been reading about the two court martials and desperately seeking details of the C.O.I. in the Times. The newspaper seems to ignore the enquiry completely. Was the matter hushed up or did the details just not appear in the English press ?

The two court martials seem to have been a farce from the beginning. The evidence of both Nuttall and Burrows seemed flimsy to begin with and fell completely apart under questioning. The Times even commenting that it was an "Ill judged attempt to shift the blame to others"

Did the court of Enquiry find the same problems with Nuttall and Burrows evidence ? I do know that their reports after the battle were found wanting.

Yet amazingly, Burrows managed to get himself promoted soon after the Maiwand affair. Malcomson and Currie must have bit their tongues when they saw this happen.

Graham

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 4:57 pm

Mike

Thanks for the details.

With having only read 'My God ! - Maiwand', your book will make the situation more clearer, as it has been 20+ years since it was written.

As for a favourite, or hero figure in Maiwand, I don't know, and with such little detail so far, nobody's name has arisen.

I don't know if any of the participants wrote an autobiography, or had a biography written about them, which would allow readers to know them more, their personality, characteristics and abilities ?

Do you have any idea who I might opt for, considering I tend to choose those who stand out, sometimes for the wrong reasons ?

However, I'm thinking it'll not be Burrows.

Graham

With so little known about Maiwand since, less than Isandlwana, makes me think it was hidden or kept quiet, at least from the press and in that the general public themselves.

If Burrows got a promotion not long after, when he had been the commander in charge of this disastrous engagement, one wonders the outcome of the C.O.I. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to be the one to tell the British public about it.

Perhaps they came to the conclusion the forces were outnumbered and outmanouvred, in a no-win situation, through nobody's fault. Although this would be extremely difficult to believe.

I'm truly a novice in the study of this battle, but there is a great deal to be discussed about it, I think.

Coll

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 8:37 pm

Coll

It was the way that the press attacked Burrows after the two court martials fell apart, which virtually accused him of living in a dream world. To quote a couple of sentences :-

1) If the two trials have made anything clear, it is this - that Genreal Burrows had wholly lost his head, and was during the battle of Maiwand and the subsequent retreat, in a state of absolute confusion and indecision

2) It is impossible not to be painfully impressed with the light which the enquiry throws on the conduct of General Burrows.

This is damming evidence that General Burrows had lost control and was desperately trying to shift the finger of blame pointing at him. I don't know who requested the two court martials, but suspect that Nuttall and Burrows were involved, as they both appeared as witnesses for the prosecution.
The two accused officers were basically charged with cowardice - and if convicted would have had their careers ruined. Yet after the evidence of Nuttall and Burrows proved to be totally false, nothing seems to have been done about this matter, and Burrows actually gained promotion. In any other walk of life, it would have been the finish of the man.

Graham

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 9:24 pm

Graham

Yes. I understand. (I think)

If the C.O.I. had gone in Burrows' favour, the court martials may not have taken place. Unless, of course, they were requested by someone else, as some kind of follow-up to the C.O.I.

It's the idea of Burrows getting a promotion afterwards has wrong-footed me, as I find that quite odd, considering. Confused

Maybe I'm just missing something, the mechanisms within the military, or perhaps Burrows is another high-ranking officer with influential friends !

I'll definitely need to read Mike's book.

Coll

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2008 11:09 pm

Hi chaps

The mystery of the promotion is easily cleared up - this was still the age of promotion by strict seniority - hence no mystery at all. Past the rank of colonel, all one had to do to reach major general, in the Victorian Army, is stay alive long enough.

Burrows and Nuttall were the prime movers in the laying of the charges but I have a theory that somebody else may have egged them on, or at least agitated in the margins shall we say, because, as I read it, Burrows was stupefied with exhaustion and dehydration for most of the retreat, and some of the charges actually refer to that period rather than to the battle itself. Based on personal experience of soldiering in such extremes of climate, and having studied what Burrows had been through that day, I would be surprised if he was capable of stringing a (sensible) sentence together until the following day. That he was in a poor physical condition is cooroborated in CM testimony - in suitably diplomatic language of course - but nonetheless it's there to be read between the lines.

Burrows undoubtedly fought a poor tactical battle, but at the operational level there is some excuse for what took place - after all he was ordered by Simla (Govt of India/Army HQ summer station) to attack Ayub Khan come what may - the telegram in question is in the book. General B certainly shared the same after action delusions, which I perceive to have settled over Lord C post Isandlwana. Neither man could accept that he was primarily to blame for exposing his command to defeat in detail.

As I read it there were reasonably good grounds to be dissatisfied with the performance of the cavalry, but it's a huge leap from there to court-martialling both regimental commanders for cowardice. I can see no real grounds for doing so, though there has to be some uncertainty hanging over the general's claim that he ordered Major Currie to make a charge at one point and was ignored. Currie's defence was that he didn't hear any such order. He produced witnesses (two I think) who were with him at the time, who also said they weren't aware that the general had given such an order. But it's a strange thing for Burrows to have made up completely.

There was a significant time lag between the battle and the laying of the charges which Malcolmson exploits well in cross examination - how come if you thought I was a coward you didn't relieve me of my command during the siege of Kandahar sort of thing. Telling point. It's also clear that Nuttall was dragged along in pressing a prosecution by Burrows - there is a decided whiff of collusion in advance of the trial. And Nuttall was a terrible prosecution witness - suggesting that his heart wasn't in it. Partly I fancy because he knew he hadn't handled the cavalry brigade very well and was as much to blame for its poor performance, if not more so, than the regimental commanders.

Good nominations for hero of the hour, Coll, have to be the two VC winners. Also Risaldar Dhokal Singh who had saved Evelyn Wood's life in the Mutiny, and was again dashing about riding double with wounded officers behind him. Or what about Captain William McMath who some years before appears to have killed a panther with his bare hands! Wow.

As ever
Mike

Posted: Sun Mar 30, 2008 10:39 am

It is surprising that General Burrows even attempted to bring such charges against the two officers.

Evidence given at the court martial by General Burrows suggested that he came out of the action smoking a cheroot, whilst a witness for the defence swore that he was lying insensible across Ward Major's horse !

When asked if he (General Burrows) had fired an artillery shell at British cavalry at Deh Koja, he replied with the statement that he knew nothing about the matter.

If this was the case, the accusations brought against the two officers must have been totally unfounded.

Perhaps an editorial published in the Times after the two court martials, summed up the public opinion to the two Generals :-

"The result of the enquiries has been to aquit the incriminated officers and to leave Generals Burrows and Nuttall in no very enviable position. In both cases their evidence was that on which the prosecution chiefly relied. In both cases it signally failed to sustain the charges preferred, and was materially shaken on cross examination. When an officer is censured for a certain line of conduct, and virtually contends that the fault is at least partially attributed to others, and when those others are formally tried and honourably acquitted, it is enevitable that the censure should recoil with added force on the officer who originated incurred it.
Rightly or wrongly, the blame for the disaster at Maiwand was attributed to Generals Burrows and Nuttall.
If it was hoped that a scapegoat might be found in Major Currie and Colonel Malcomson, such a hope has been dissipated by the verdicts of the two court martials.
The public will certainly be disposed to ask with some curiosity, how it happened that charges against the two officers supported chiefly by the evidence of Generals Burrows and Nuttall so completely broke down on enquiry, that in both cases the prosecution suddenly collapsed, and the prisoners were honourably aquitted"

I can only suppose that both men had to live with this for the rest of their lives.

Graham

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 1:44 pm

A Review by John Elliott, published in The Soldier Magazine (April 2008)

From time to time over the past 350 years Britain has asked too much of its Army, especially when it has been deployed with too few resources to make war in faraway places.

In the face of thrifty politicians largely insensitive to their needs, brave soldiers have improvised, adapted and, for the most part, overcome.

�Only at times of crisis does the wider public begin to comprehend what extraordinary demands have been made on the military and what miracles are being worked in its name by tiny handfuls of soldiers,� writes Lt Col Mike Snook, R Welsh, in the preface to his new book on the military blunders of the late Victorian era.

The author, currently serving at the Defence College of Management and Technology at the Defence Academy, Shrivenham, is an expert on the Zulu Wars, on which he has written three well received books.

He concludes that military disaster is almost always traceable to political indifference or the neglect of the high command. All too often one or other is exposed by the fact that extreme adversity usually brings out the best in British soldiers. Where others might withdraw, they fight to the last bullet,
for which reason the British public takes �a peculiar pride in the
Army�s off-days�.

Occasionally, however, military disaster is an indication of systematic failure, no more so than in the last years of Queen Victoria�s long reign and particularly in the Boer War.

Mike Snook's clinical analysis of heavy defeats at Colenso and Spion Kop points the finger of blame at generals who had little grasp of what they were getting themselves into.

Of Gen Sir Redvers Buller, the C-in-C, and Lt Gen Sir Charles Warren, who commanded at Spion Kop, he writes of their failure to think ahead: ��
it is extraordinary that no follow-up plan was laid, either by Warren or Buller. It is such a fundamental omission that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that we are dealing with men who, while they enjoyed the pay and laurels of general officers, possessed few of the requisite attributes.�

Hard on the heels of humiliation at Colenso, their miscalculations, confusion and inept leadership at Spion Kop cost the lives of hundreds of their soldiers, particularly of the Lancashire regiments, who were left exposed to lethal Boer artillery despite occupying the supposedly battle-winning high ground. Ironically, the British losses were mirrored among the ranks of the burghers, who were streaming away from their side of the hill as Warren�s badly mauled battalions scrambled down theirs.

A golden opportunity to smash through the Boer line along the Tugela River and relieve besieged Ladysmith was lost.

The men who died in their trench on Spion Kop - the iconic photograph reproduced above was taken on the day after the battle - lie there still, buried where they fell in a war grave tended today by the Republic of South Africa.

The author reserves some of his strongest criticism for Field Marshal Lord Wolseley (�undeniably a nasty piece of work�), whose hand-picked �ring� of generals owed their appointments to his patronage. Three - Buller, Colley and Butler � �came within a hair�s breadth of losing South Africa�, concludes the author. But the defeats took their toll and the Wolseley Ring was seen to have had its day. The defeat of the Boers fell to a man Wolseley hated as a �scheming little Indian�, Field Marshal Lord Roberts, and to his newly appointed chief of staff, Maj Gen Lord Kitchener of Khartoum.

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 3:00 pm

So Mike regarding the tactical failure of the battle....what did you think of Burrow's decision to fight it out where he was? Operationally, why do you think the British high command did not elect to fight it out at Kandahar instead of having Burrows contest Khan's move on really an open field that gave him hanging flanks that eventually would have to be protected? Perhaps then Burrows army could have been saved rather than practically destroyed?

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 7:49 pm

Rich

Good question. As I read it Simla had taken it into its collective governmental head, presumably on the basis of inaccurate or indifferent intelligence, that Ayub intended to have a pop at the town of Ghazni, which can be reached by swinging through a mountain pass which lies well west of Kandahar and north of the Maiwand battlefield. Ghazni would then be used as a stepping stone on to Kabul. Burrows therefore had to stay out in the countryside to the west of Kandahar in order to deny this option to Ayub. In fact Ayub had no such intention and was always set on Kandahar, but the British misread the runes. Personally I find it a strange piece of logic because Sir Donald Stewart and 'Bobs' were both at Kabul with the cream of the Anglo-Indian force and would have panned Ayub had he been so cheeky as to try a direct challenge for the capital. Kabul in my view would have taken care of itself. The greater threat, it seems to me, was always to Kandahar which had only a small garrison drawn from Bombay Presidency troops, which were perceived under the prevailing 'martial races' theory of the day to be inferior to the Bengal Presidency outfits. Even the small garrison it did have had been denuded by the despatch to the west of Burrows's and Nuttall's respective brigades. But governments think like governments do, and no doubt they thought they were doing the right thing by trying to interdict Ayub before he could swing north on the Ghazni-Kabul axis.

There is evidence that some of the officers with Burrows thought he had taken up position too far to the west, an opinion which is perhaps vindicated by the fact that Ayub had indeed almost bypassed the Brits when the meeting engagement that became Maiwand began to unfold. A good general would have known exactly where Ayub's main body was throughout, and indeed there is always merit in striking into an enemy's flank, or if you time it a little bit later, across his lines of communication - which are thus rendered inoperative. So the effect Burrows achieved was not necessarily a bad one - but clearly it happened more by chance than design. So the real cock up was in his final choice of ground on which to fight a decisive engagement. It seems to me that if he had halted the infantry and baggage on the home bank of the Mahmudabad ravine, rather than crossing it into the open plain, he could have turned the two villages into mutally supporting (by means of artillery fire) strongpoints, which would have been nigh on impregnable. Each village would have been defended by a battalion and a half plus a battery of guns, with the cavalry doing whatever seemed best as the action unfolded (probably staying out ouf it until the main hullabaloo was over and then making the enemy's life a misery as they retreated).

But what musn't be forgotten, or blended with in any way with some of the more amateurish Isandlwana hypotheses, (you know - all that 'if only they'd formed square from the outset they'd have been alright' tonk), is that unlike the Z's, Ayub had 30 well-served pieces of artillery. If you have only 12, then you have a problem whichever way you slice it. Perhaps a well handled cavalry brigade, manoeuvring rather more effectively than Nuttall seems to have been capable of, might have been able to neutralize the artillery, to some extent at least. (Ayub's numerical superiority in mounted troops was not that marked - so their cavalry counter-options against the Indian horse would have been limited). But sad to say, it was not to be...instead he raced into the plain...even then he had a good deal of time to realize that was not the place to be and to organize a withdrawal to more favourable ground. And here's where the clever part of the Zulu victory, a year or so earlier, really comes into play - Pulleine was shrewd enough to know he was in the wrong place and tried to do something about it - but was given no time - he and Durnford were caught off balance and kept off-balance by the enemy's formidable use of speed, momentum and manoeuvre, whereas Burrows was given shedloads of time in which to react, but seems to have been too dense to realize he was in the wrong place!

As ever

Mike

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:57 pm

Mike...
Before ITJOD, I wasn't knowledgable about Maiwand, now I'm pretty much set that I can fight the battle.. Wink

....
Your reply here is so clear and incisive. I have to say that if you were there there had to exist a much higher statistical probability that you would have fared much better out there than Burrows et al and maybe even capturing the old boy Khan himself!

"A good general would have known exactly where Ayub Khan's army was throughout"....

Shades of Isandhlwana again... I think Chelmsford got faked out too out on the dongas and lost the initiative like Burrows. If he only would have had GPS trackers on those wily Zulus who knew the decisive advantages of how to use ground in attack.

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 5:45 am

This seems to tie in rather neatly with some of my other meanderings and shows a period opinion that shares much, but not all, with Mike's and Rich's above.

An extract from "Kurum, Kabul & Kandahar: Being a Brief Record of Impressions in Three Campaigns Under Roberts" by Lt. Charles Gray Robertson, 1881, under the chapter "The Lesson Of Maiwand" -

"Admirals, extoll'd for standing still,
Or doing nothing with a deal of skill ;
Generals, who will not conquer when they may,
Firm friends to peace, to pleasure, and good pay.
Cowper.

The defeat which called General Roberts into the field for the third time is without parallel in English military history in the East. The story of it is cruel reading. If it is good to write or speak of it at all, it is not to indulge in illogical whining, but to search rigorously for the cause of the disaster. When the present Quartermaster-General of the army, who combines all the ardour of a Reformer with the technical skill of an expert, has publicly stated that the army has entered upon a dangerous stage of transition, when all may depend on the stamp which the new mould receives, it is hardly the time to mince matters fine enough to spare all personal susceptibilities.

The advance on the Helmand began under bad auspices. Much stress need not be laid upon the fact that reinforcements were applied for both by General Primrose and his Lieutenant." [Sound familiar?] "The despatches of English Generals might not seldom be made up of such applications ; and the knowledge that if one man refuses to take a brigade to the devil, a dozen are ready to take his place, is a most healthy stimulus to the service. But the instructions which sent General Burrows half-way to meet his enemy, and then forced him to halt and appear to hesitate, have another significance. There are two ways of treating uprisings in Afghanistan : to stamp out the flames where-ever they appear, or to wait to see if they will ever reach you. Either course, followed out with persistance and indifference of fate, will probably cow Asiatics into submission. To order a Commander not to advance is to deprive him of his best weapon.

Unhappily if General Burrow's responsibility can be lightened here, its load is grievous enough in the end. For once, the critics have undisputed possesion of the field. It could hardly be maintainted that the reconnaissances before the defeat were boldly conceived and vigorously carried out ; or, when the column stumbled on the enemy at Maiwand, that the position was turned out to good account, either for the attack or the defence. When General Burrows is described forming up his men in the old-fashioned line of battle, I cannot help thinking of Colonel Jenkyns at Charassia, shaking out his little force, trusting to a few good rifles to cover all gaps in his line, yet never leaving himself without a small reserve. It was not Ayoubs's artillery that won him the battle" [Capt. Mosley Mayne's account would beg to differ, at least as far as the cavalry were concerned! http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/campafghan1878maiwand.htm ],"but the Ghazis, who got our men in their toils, and then delivered their terrible charge.

There is one redeeming feature in the affair--the unflinching courage shown by the soldiers concerned, from the unfortunate General downwards...the conduct of the little company of sappers, who died fighting to a man ; of the 66th, who rallied round their colours...of the gunners who closed the that terrible retreat so patiently...

What followed...the precipitate retreat...abandonment of thousands of pounds' worth of property...the state of depression and demoralization...cannot be here discussed.

...if a soldier cannot conceive of a great action, it is improbale that he will ever perform one."

The over-all parallels of this battle to Isandhlwana are to my mind uncanny (including the pyrrhic victory). Burrows, like Pulleine and even Lord C, had never commanded a combined arms battle previously, nor, unless I have so far missed something (a very real possibilty!) was it even taught at Staff College at the time. It's not easy for an officer brought up in one arm to really know the intricacies involved in commanding the other two. [The three being of course infantry, cavalry and artillery.] I've recently come across a reference to a general who had called a cease-fire and re-deployment in a battle and hearing the artillery continuing to fire charged over to them and berated the poor artillery captain because the general didn't even know that guns had to be discharged prior to moving them!

The lack of proper reconnaisance at Isandhlwana, Maiwand and too many other battles around that time reflect a lack of working knowledge that, to me, must be owned more by the system that produced officers than the individual officers themselves.

It is interesting to note that the above extract could, nearly word for word, have been written in response to Isandhlwana which had occurred a year and a half earlier but goes unreferenced while in an uncited passage from the above work that decries the lack of capable generals due to the lack of merit promotion states "Sir George Colley, though over-sanguine and over-matched, was certainly able." Which is of course true but neither Colley, Burrows, Chelmsford or even Pulleine seemed cognizant of the most basic rule of warfare which is to know how strong your opponent is and his exact location and heading before committing to battle.

[And if lacking the above ability for whatever reason, you'd better have a real good 'plan B' ready to roll!]

Best

Michael

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 11:50 am

Mike

I know what you look like now.

After a quick glance, the book looks great, with plenty of photographs.

Looking forward to reading it soon.

Coll