Battles of the nineteenth century .  Page 447

The Bombardment Of Alexandria

            I do know precisely how many years it is since the fringe of the East became a fashion for a man with the coupons; but I am convinced that fashion has done very little for Alexandria.  It may be that the finer glories of Cairo and the Pyramids have conspired with the keepers of the most expensive hotels in the world, to rob the city of the Ptolemies of her due share of eulogy and of cheap trips; it may be that the tourist is unwilling to admit the lesser fascination when he was experienced the greater.  Certain it is, however, that he permits himself to be hurried from the bazaars of Alexandria, and carried swiftly fro the streets while yet his eyes are dazed with the first and unsurpassable impressions of the East.  “All this you shall see, and more when you come to Damascus.”  The claim is true-it is also misleading.

            My own memories of Alexandria are chiefly those of ’87-more particularly, they cling about a fast run I made upon a schooner yacht from Malta to the Pharos of the later-day bur remembered Ptolemy.  We were then in charge of the exceedingly careful amateur, who sailed his own ship, and was not a little proud of the exactness of his mathematics.  I remember well the language he provoked when he fetched us out of bed at three o’ clock in the morning to assure us we had made the light at the precise moment of his promise.  We had gone to bed with the dark surging water of the Mediterranean for out horizon.  No ship was to be seen; no point of sight but the dull and gloomy clouds looming up heavily from the African coast.  But when we came on deck at the invitation of the master, the scene was beautiful beyond experience.  A generous moon made lakes of golden light upon the darker background of the resting seas; a big steamer, whose many lamps shone like the lights of a moving city, flashed by on her way to Malta; the glowing lantern of the Pharos stood up like a beacon on a hill. 

           “Gentlemen,” said the skipper, waving his arm with a lordly sweep, in sublime unconsciousness of the fact that he wore a dressing gown,” yonder is the city of Cleopatra.  I will put you on the quay when the sun rises.”

           To step from the boat of a yacht to the quay at Alexandria is to step from the West to the fringe of the East.  All about you are porters, guides, beggars, loafers, thieves, cutthroats, and impostors.  Bales of cotton, barrels, hampers, trolleys lumber the wharves.  The din and babble are beyond description.  A hundred rogues strive and push if thereby they may touch the hem of your garment and claim baksheesh.  Pass through the customs, and so out to the native quarters and to the bazaar, and the scene is scarce to be described.  Men of every Eastern nation seem here to congregate.  Turks curse Greeks; Greeks, in their turn, curse Jews and Copts, Hindu’s, Nubians, and Albanians.  The blaze of colour is dazzling, yet ever picturesque.  Dirks are sheathed in gorgeous girdles; the butts of pistols protrude upon richly embroidered vests and amazing tunics.  Black men and white men, brown men and yellow men; some with jackets, some with long flowing robes, some almost naked, urge you to deal or throw themselves upon your pity.  Donkey boys hasten to show you how well they understand your tongue, in the polite and well-meant invitation to “have a donkey, sir.”  Often you step aside to avoid the lurch of the camel; your eyes follow the stately swing of the Arab from the desert as he paces some narrow alley, with head bent and his long gun in his hand.  Priests abound Greek priests, Coptic priests, Roman priests.  No nation seems unrepresentative in the medley of sound and strange colours; of narrow, crooked, unpaved lanes and gorgeous modern enterprises.

            If this were a description rather of the Alexandria of fifteen years ago than of the Alexandria of today, it is the better suited for the purposes of my paper.  Any endeavour to make clear the sequence of events which led up to the bombardment and subsequent sack of the city must include some attempt to describe that curious coupling of West to East which has been a teature of the place since Mehemet Ali sought to restore its greatness, and to rear up a new fabric upon the ashes of decay which the Turk had left.  In the year 1882 you found many races in the seat of the Ptolemies; but a broad line of demarcation between the two forces was clearly laid down.  While Corps and Greeks and Hindu’s and Arabs swarmed in the bazaars, and a first impression was one of many peoples and many creeds, a rough division was easy to make Christian and Mohammedans-between these lay the Egyptian question, so far as the city was concerned with it.  Side by side the strongholds of the two powers stood- one, the dirty unpaved streets, the booths, and kennels and bazaars; the other, the great square of Mehemet Ali, with the cafes and commercial buildings, the Palais de Justice, the churches, the theatre, and the houses of the merchants.  Everything, which tends to promote racial hatred and national instability, was here to be discerned, when in the earlier months of the year 1882 the dangerous problem became ripe for partial solution.  A national party strove for so-called freedom; a Christian party strove for many stable guarantees.  Arabs hated Greeks and Copts; Christians warred against the Arab in turn, and went in fear of him.  Year by year the beacons of revolution were plied, until, in the last moments of Arabi’s power, the flicker of a crisis was sufficient to light them; and these beacons being kindled, gave the signal for the Egyptian campaign of 1882.

           I am not concerned in this paper with the defence of Arabi Pasha, or with the discussion of those large claims made on his behalf by Mr. Scawen Blunt and others at the beginning of the Egyptian war.  It is sufficient for me to remember that he was War minister to the Khedive in the earlier months of each year 1882, and that he was the spokesman of all those turbulent elements of Mohammedan dominion, which threatened at one time to make him the most successful dictator of the latter half of the century.  Patriot possibly he was; but that pure patriotism was not the ultimate goal of his ambitions all the events of that strange year made manifest.  No doubt, the antipathy to European influences, and general hatred of the European colony in Egypt, helped Arabi largely in his demand, in the year 1881, for a general increase of the army, and for a more popular and purely Egyptian ministry.  But once he found the Khedive pliant in his hands, the step from agitation to action was a short one.  Early in the next year we find the weak Prince Tewfik nominated by the Powers, and Arabi setting up practically as the dictator of the Egyptian peoples.  His cry that the foreigner should be driven out of the country brought thousands to his banner.  That he had the sympathy of his countrymen there can be no question.  That it was impossible for us as a Power to submit to his authority, and to the government by arms, which he sought to set up, was equally apparent.  Thus in June of the year 1882 we found ourselves fighting for the Khedive against his own minister of War, and engaged in an undertaking which could end only in our final expulsion from the country or our temporary occupation of it. 

            The first sparks of war were to be observed in Alexandria in the June of the last named year.  A sudden rioting and massacre of Christians principally Greeks-added to an insult to the British Consul, sowed the seeds of that which was to mature so quickly.  For many weeks our Mediterranean fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour, lay off the harbours of the city as a visible token of our determination to uphold the Khedive against Arabi, and of our intention to protect the Christian population.  Hundreds of the latter meanwhile fled from Alexandria-some to Greece, the majority to Italy.  It became dangerous for a European to venture abroad alone even in the earlier hours of the day.  Robberies were frequent, and assassinations common.  Arabi himself waxed bolder every day.  He boasted that he could, with the forces at his command, hold the city against the fleets of all Europe.  He busied himself with the training of engineers; he began at the last to strengthen the forts and to throw up new earthworks.  It was an anxious moment for “Jack” when, on the night of July 6^th, 1882, the search light was turned upon the fortifications near the Ras-el-Tin Palace, and two hundred of Arabi’s sappers were seen busy with pick and shovel.  The result was the immediate demand for the cessation of all works upon the forts, and finally, for the temporary surrender of them.  Arabi, seeking discreetly to temporise, neglected to furnish the necessary guarantees met us practically with a point blank refusal.  Our reply was the issue of an ultimatum on the morning of July 10^th.  Either the force was to be surrendered, or the city was to be bombarded.  Arabi chose bombardment, and our ships were cleared for action.

            This was the situation in the town; let us see what was our position in the harbours before it.  Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour was then in command of eight battleships and of eleven gunboats; the latter principally of the smallest class. Nearly all these ships would be regarded as more or less obsolete today, though the flagship Invincible carried four 80-ton guns and boasted a speed of 12.6 knots an hour.  Of the others, the Inflexible was the largest, this being the biggest ship in the engagement, and one, which carried, like the flagship, four 80-ton guns.  With her were the Sultan the Superb, the Alexandra the Temeraire, the Penelope, and the Monarch.  The latter ship, built in the years 1867 and 1868 respectively, were then comparatively old’ but the Superb, the Inflexible, the Temeraire, and the Alexandra represented us in our then most recent naval phase.  That was the day of a belief in big guns.  Europe had watched the building of 68-, 80-, and even 100-ton guns, and had asked expectantly, “What of the result?”  The revolt of Arabi promised us that which we had speculated upon, the discussed, and weighed up for forty years-the spectacle of our fleet in action.  When at last the crisis came-when the ultimatum went forth, and French, American, and Italian warships steamed from the harbours of Alexandria, while refugees fled from the city as from a pestilence-the excitement waxed strong.  As for our own Jack Tars, they were sick with hope.  For weeks they had been saying, “Tomorrow, tomorrow is the day!”  For weeks they had borne with disappointment and postponement as they lay under the shadows of the great forts, and waited for the booming of the signal gun.  But now, surely, the hour was at hand.  Small wonder of they doubted that such a good thing could ever be.

            For the fuller understanding of the engagement of the famous July 11^th, let us take our stand upon the flagship Invincible, anchored outside the harbour of the city.  If we study the map, which accompanies this chapter, the scene will be clearer to us.  We see at a glance that there are really two harbours before us-an inner harbour and a large outer basin defended by the breakwater.  To the southeast there stands up the great Marabout fort, this forming the southern point of the bay, whereon the city is built.  To the northeast is the Pharos fort, boasting more than a hundred guns of all calibres, and conspicuous for its massive tower roughly speaking, you may regard the shape of the shore of the Alexandria of today of that of a pair of horns sticking out into the sea with the Pharos Light as the north tip and the Ras-el-Tin Palace and lighthouse as the southern tip.  Southward of this palace, and in the curve of the southern bay, lie the famous Mex forts, and from these to Fort Marabout the whole of the shore bristles with guns.  It was against these guns that our men thirsted to try their luck, when on the night of July 10^th they turned in like excited children, and almost prayed that the morrow would find them listening to the music of the great artillery. 

            The Condor was the first ship to be about on the following morning, but long before six o’clock the whole fleet was moving and active.  At that hour the men were already stripped to their flannel jerseys, the great guns were charged; the decks were cleared for action.  All now knew the admiral’s plan.  He had determined upon three attacks-the Invincible, the Monarch, and the Penelope to begin work from the harbour; the Inflexible to attack the Mex forts; the Superb, the Sultan, and the Alexandra to centre their first upon the harbour, and to centre their fire upon the forts by the Ras-el-Tin Palace, and then, steaming to the northeast, to demolish Fort Ada and the Pharos.  As for the puny gunboats, they were to lie behind the warships, and to act as occasion required.  That they were permitted soon to depart from this inglorious position the whole six records makes manifest.

            Six o’clock in the morning, and the men were at the stations.  Forbiddingly and majestically, the dark hulls of the eight ironclads stood up above the sunlit water.  Scores of merchantmen, which had showed their heels to the harbours directly, bombardment was threatened, now lay securely at anchor to be spectators of so glorious a sight.  On shore no unusual signs of activity were at first apparent.  There was no ostensible signal of truce.  Lieutenant Smith, who had been sent to report upon the truth of the story of Arabi’s men were busy with armaments near the Slaughterhouse, returned to tell of active work and of sappers busy.  Throughout the fleet, excitement was at its zenith.  Jack had stripped himself for the fray with the zest that a schoolboy strips for football.  Wound up by long weeks of expectation, he scarce dared to believe that the cup was at his lips, even though the muzzle of the 80-tonners showed grimly above his decks, and any moment might bring the thunders of discharge.  For nearly an hour stood at his post, hoping against hope.  Half past six came, and still the guns were silent; a quarter to seven was marked, and no note of command was heard.  Ten minutes later, and in a measure unexpectedly the Alexandra fired a shell at the Pharos, and the bombardment had begun.  The smoke of this shot had scarce floated away on the breeze when the flagship hoisted the signal “All vessels engage batteries.”  Such a signal was like the bell of a prompter rung to raise the curtain upon a stage play.  In a moment the quiet and the expectancy had given place to the thunder of cannon and the heat of battle.  An American officer, who witnessed the action from a warship in the offing, declared that a hurricane of sound seemed to rush up over the sea.  Instantly, clouds of smoke and leaping fire began to veil the forts.  Crashing reports, the sharper noise of smaller guns, even the singing of bullets, made the music of the morning.  While our own heavy guns were fired at long intervals, while there were pauses when you might have said that the fleet was resting, the rolling reports from the shore were never still.  Fort Marabout, with its two 18-ton guns and its host of smaller weapons, emitted a continuing cloud of fire; the guns by Ras-el-Tin-two of them of twelve tons-pounded bravely at the Superb, the Sultan, and the Alexandra.  The heavy weapons of the Pharos, joined anon to those by the Ras-el-Tin, belched smoke and flame unceasingly.  Our own attack was concentrated upon Fort Marabout, the Mex forts, and the fortifications near the palace.  At this time the value of fore and aft guns upon our big ships was illustrated humorously.  The mighty Inflexible, standing off the outer harbour, thundered away with her fore guns at Ras-el-Tin, while from her stern she pounded Marabout.  If the shooting of some of the ships was not particularly good, that of others was admirable.  Every shot from the Invincible either burst in the forts or struck the parapets heavily.  Clouds of dust and earth, heavy lumps of stone rolling seawards, spoke eloquently of the accuracy of her gunners.  A middy, named Hardy, tucked up in her maintop, helped with signals whose value was beyond praise.  Never did a marker at Wimbledon follow the path of a bullet with keener eyes than those with which Midshipman Hardy watched the flight of the great shells.  Though a hail of shot fell all about him, and the smoke was so heavy over the decks that the gunners were like men walking in the dark, the accuracy of the lad’s judgement was unfailing even the admiral thanked him; and as hit after hit was recorded, the whole crew fell to cheering with voices that were heard be every sailor in the fleet.  “It was Eton and Harrow over again,” said an observer.  And that was true.

           If this plucky lad deserves a line of special eulogy, we must not forget that others were at the same time displaying courage worthy of the highest traditions of Jack in action.  The story of the Condor has been written many times.  It will bear writing again and yet again whosesoever the record of our Navy is laid down.  I have said that this gallant little ship, whose only armament was two small 64-pounders and one 7-inch Woolwich rifled gun, had been the first to be moving on that memorable day.  She was also the first of the gunboats to get into action.  Though the instructions of the admiral were that the gad-flies should be more or less spectators, acting as the occasion required, it was not many minutes before Lord Charles Beresford determined that the occasion required him to try his three small guns upon the massive fortifications of Marabout.  The idea, bold to the last point of courage, was not lacking method.  It was lord Charles’s notion that the Gatling might tickle up the gunners of Marabout and send so many of them to an honourable grave that the bigger guns would find no servants.  With this in his head, he took a liberal view of the general instructions, and bringing the Condor to within twelve hundred yards of the fort-the shoal prevented him from getting nearer- he began his merry attack.  Never did a crew follow a daring skipper more resolutely.  The men of the Condor had been near to shedding tears of rage in the early morning when an order from the flagship compelled them to go to the assistance of the Temeraire, which had floundered upon the shore.  They had thought that they must do the work of a mere tug, and miss such glorious fun as was to be had in the neighbourhood of Arabi’s guns.  From that degradation Lord Charles saved them swiftly.  The rattle of the Gatling, the Crack of his larger weapons, seemed at first like the music of a mere farce.  His shot, said observers would be as a hail of peas to the gunners in the great fort.  That the gunners took the same view was proved by their action.  They continued to concentrate all their fire upon three warships, which were troubling them.  As for that toy boat which menaced them, they regarded it as a fine stimulant to laughter. 

             It is not recorded how soon these laughter loving gentlemen changed their opinion.  Certain is it that three of their guns were disabled, and that many of them must have paid the penalty of their humour when at last they awoke to the situation, and concentrated all their fire upon the wasp whose sting they had felt so sharply.  Shell after shell then hissed over the plucky little ship.  One struck her heavily, but not in a vital line.  Shot seemed to rain near her decks, and still she stuck to her work, while other gunboats came to her assistance, and the Bittern, the Beacon, the Decoy, and the Cygnet were all barking merrily.  Soon the fire from Marabout began to slacken.  The telling shooting from the Invincible, whose huge shells went home, every time, coupled to the merry attack of the gunboats, finished the work.  The admiral signalled, “Well done, Condor.”  Cheer after cheer-British cheers-rang over the waters.  The Inflexible took up the cry.  Men roared like savages in their delight.  The fleet declared that a deed of surpassing bravery had been done that day.

            The hour of action is not the fitting hour to meditate upon individual deeds, and the attention of Jack was soon called from the Condor to new scenes.  It was plain to him that the hours of “Horrible Pasha” were numbered in Alexandria.  Marabout was done with; the guns of the Mex Forts were so far silenced at one o’clock that a force was despatched to land and, is possible, finish the business speedily.  This force consisted of Lieutenant Baron Bradford in command, of Flag-Lieutenant the Hon. Mr Lambton, of Lieutenant Poore of the Invincible, of Major Tullock, and of Mr. Hardy.  So great was the impatience of its members to get ashore, that Major Tullock sprang from the launch and swarm to the outworks-an act of bravery surpassed by no act upon that memorable day.  But the Egyptian soldiers made no reply; a fact for no one has accounted satisfactorily to this day.  While our men expected every moment to hear the hiss of their bullets, or to see them sweeping to the charge, not a sound was raised nor a uniform discerned.  Dexterously and quickly the two 10-inch guns were burst and the others spiked.  A shot from the Invincible had already destroyed the powder magazine, and half past two had not come when Mex was done with.

            From that hour until half past four, when the career of “Horrible Pasha” in Alexandria was practically closed, the account of the bombardment is chiefly an account of the silencing of Fort Ada and of the Pharos.  To the Inflexible was given the greater part of the latter task, and right well did she acquit herself.  The shells from her 80-ton guns thundered upon the doomed town like a visitation from the heavens.  Earth and mortar and debris rose in blinding clouds.  The neighbouring buildings suffered heavily; even the English Consulate was threatened.  Anon, a terrific explosion spoke of the wrecking of her powder magazine.  Two hundred men, an authority computed, were killed by that single discharge.  The Superb, the Sultan and the Alexandra helping the end, rained great shot upon the rapidly succumbing forts.  When two bells in the first dogwatch were struck, the voice of Arabi was no longer to be heard.  The admiral caused the “Cease fire” to be signalled.  The bombardment of Alexandria was a victorious fact.

            We can well imagine in what spirits Jack turned into his bunk that night.  To say that he was excited is to use a commonplace where a commonplace will not suffice.  Few in that fleet had been a shot fired in earnest from a great battleship.  Few had been permitted to witness a beaten and cowed city in the first hours of its destruction.  When Jack turned in, flames were still to be seen in the European quarters of the town.  Like beacons of the defeated, they flared up at many points, kindled as much by the looters, whom Arabi had left as his legacy, as by the shells which our guns had dropped.  While they burned, and after the question, “What of tomorrow?”  Jack fell to discussing today.  Already it was whispered that the fleet had lost only ten men.  Two were killed upon the Sultan; which had been hit no less than twenty-three times.  The Alexandra, who had fourteen shells in her, had lost one man.  The Superb and the Inflexible each mourned one brave fellow.  Of wounded there were twenty-seven; the unfortunate Sultan nursing of these, the Invincible six, the Alexandra three, the Inflexible two, the Superb one.  To the list of dead, unhappily, there was added subsequently the name of Lieutenant Jackson, who was struck and mortally wounded by the same shell, which killed the carpenter of the Inflexible.  But, viewed in any light, the loss was amazingly small.  Granted that the gunners of Arabi were unworthy of the officers who led them so gallantly, none the less did it seem miraculous that our ships should face the fire of some hundreds of guns for ten hours, and that three of them should not have a dead man to show.  The little Condor had no casualty of any sort.  The crews of the other gunboats were without a scratch.  Jack told his mates this, and his jubilation was unbounded.  Nor could he forget that rewards were ripe for plucking.  The name of Lord Charles was among many tongues.  Midshipman Hardy was a hero of the night.  Major Hardy was a hero of the night.  Major Tullock’s plucky swim through the surf before Fort Marabout, the daring of his comrades when spiking the guns, was things to tell and tell again.  It was good to hear that Gunner Harding, of the Alexandra, had picked up a live shell from his main deck and soused it in water, with the coolness of a man rinsing a rag.  None knew at that time Arabi had withdrawn his forces and retired upon Rosetta.  “The morning gun will be a signal for resumption,” said Jack.  In which hope he lay down at last upon a night to be forever memorable among the nights, which he would live.

            On the morning of the 12^th an early observation made it clear that the survivors of Ariba’s force had not been altogether idle during the night.  Fort Moncrieff, whose two-barbette guns, mounted on the Moncrieff system, had offered such a stubborn and lasting resistance to the fire of the Alexandra, the Superb, and the Sultan, obviously had been repaired.  Elsewhere, however, there was no sign either of activity or of truce; and when this was plain, the Inflexible and Temeraire opened fire again, their first three shots practically laying low all that Ariba’s men had done in the night.  With these shots the whole work of the morning ended.   A white flag, displayed upon Ras-el-Tin, caused the admiral to signal the “Cease firing” almost with the echo of the first gun.  For the rest of the day our men lay idle, while in Alexandria herself awful scenes of massacre and of pillage were being prepared for.  Nearly the last act of Arabi had been to let loose his so called Bedouins-in reality cutthroats and robbers of the finest brand.  When night fell on the 12^th, these men were already busy.  How many Christians they slaughtered in the streets, what was the sum total of their pillage, will never be known.  All that our men could surmise was the story of the leaping flames, which rose up in clouds of lurid fire from every quarter of the city.  Alexandria was burning destroyed by those who had boasted of their desire to become a nation and to save their country.