Chapter 10
Final Years
June 1852 to October 1872
When Harry embarked at Cape Town he had been alarmingly sick and exhausted, and Juana had been very close to a breakdown. The six-week-long, uneventful voyage did much to restore them both, but the nature of Harry’s dismissal and the anguish it caused them was never far from their minds. There was no escaping the fact that Harry was coming back under a cloud. In the eyes of the Whigs, he had not made a success of his Governorship. However, before they reached England, Lord Russell’s government had fallen and Earl Grey with it. Harry’s supporters, amongst whom there were still many who had never forgotten the hero of Aliwal, were quick to label Harry as the unfortunate scapegoat who had taken the blame for Grey’s inadequate administration of the Colonies. Harry had had significant problems – the convict question, the Representative Assembly, lack of sufficient seasoned troops, difficulties with the Boers and local levies – that were either simply not understood in Whitehall or ignored. The eighth Frontier War of 1850-1853 was, arguably, the most critical armed emergency in South Africa to the present day. Some will dispute that and cite the Boer War of 1899-1902 but, judged in the context of its time, the threat to the survival of white civilization in 1851 was more serious than any since. Sarcastic letters from Grey, a civilian half Harry’s age, were unhelpful. Some went as far as to say Harry’s treatment had hastened the Government’s collapse. True or not, it probably made him even more popular.
To Harry’s great credit, he made little of this and with characteristic equanimity he and Juana were determined to settle down after many years abroad. Juana had long since severed all ties with Spain, her family had dispersed or had died and she had nothing to go back for. Her life, as it had been since she was fourteen, was with her beloved Enrique. Harry was now sixty-five which, by most standards, even of today, was an age to consider retirement – not him though. The arid desert of retirement, divorced from his beloved soldiery, was something that he just simply could not contemplate. Charlie Beckwith echoed these feelings to him in a letter: ‘We should all die in our boots, with our spurs on, if possible; at any rate, the grand affair is to keep the game alive to the last.’ Harry’s sentiments exactly, no doubt reinforced by Juana, who realized that retirement would be the worst possible option for him. Harry most certainly intended to ‘keep the game alive’.
The day after their arrival at Portsmouth on 1 June, Harry and Juana were formally addressed by the Mayor and Corporation of the town, who expressed their admiration for Harry’s ‘capacity and fitness for command in unparalleled difficulties’. Whether the Corporation was in a position to make such a judgement is neither here nor there; the point was that they were demonstrating their strong disapproval of Grey’s judgement. Harry explained that he had been appointed ‘Governor without a Legislative Council and a Commander-in-Chief without a British Army’. The Portsmouth Times of 5 June 1852 reported that his speech at a subsequent public meeting of the inhabitants showed his magnanimous spirit towards the Government that had, effectively, sacked him. Indeed, this was very much his attitude thereafter. Despite the temptation to make much of his own case and criticize the now fallen Government, he displayed a generous and good-natured approach to politicians, particularly Grey, who, he felt, were only doing their duty. Later he wrote:
All England upon my arrival again received me with open arms. I was requested to stand as a member for Cambridge, for Westminster, for Edinburgh, for Glasgow. I declined to interfere with politics or to embarrass Her Majesty’s Government, which I say my position enabled me to do, had not my desire been ever to serve it faithfully and fearlessly.
After arrival in London, he was determined to follow this line to the extent of accepting an invitation to dine with Grey. The latter was particularly grateful for this generosity of spirit and wrote:
On a question of this kind we were not at liberty to consult our private feelings. This was fully understood by Sir Harry Smith himself, of whose most handsome and honourable conduct I cannot too strongly express my sense. He has shown no resentment against us for what we did, but has fairly given us credit for having been guided only by considerations of public duty. I feel individually very deeply indebted to him for the kindness with which he has acted towards me since his return.
Whatever criticisms were rightly levelled at Harry, lack of gentlemanly behaviour and good manners were not among them.
However, the invitation he really did appreciate was the one to a banquet from his beloved Duke to dine at Apsley House on 18 June to celebrate the Battle of Waterloo. This turned out to be the last ever held. Together with the Duke were Prince Albert, the Duke of Cambridge and thirty or forty generals who had distinguished themselves during the Napoleonic Wars. To his immense pleasure, the assembled company enthusiastically drank Harry’s health, and recollections and reminiscences flowed amongst the old soldiers.
Juana and Harry settled comfortably near Havant in Hampshire and eagerly awaited notification of Harry’s next appointment, which Harry was sure was imminent. In the meantime, he was invited over to Guernsey where his old friend, Sir John Bell, as Lieutenant Governor, persuaded Harry to address the local Guernsey militia. Harry was a great supporter of what we would now call the Territorial Army, having started his career in their ranks. He warmed to a favourite theme of the need, and ability, of locally recruited levies to defend their homeland. In a rousing speech he said:
In the mountains of the Tyrol, under Hofer, the militia peasantry of the country repelled the attacks of the well-trained battalions of Napoleon. In Algeria for nearly thirty years have the peasantry defended their country, which even now is not conquered, although 450,000 French soldiers have been sent there. In the Caucasian Mountains the peasantry have resisted for thirty years the efforts of 800,000 Russian soldiers to subjugate them, and the Russians have made to this hour no progress. In South Africa I have experienced what the determined efforts of an armed peasantry can do, for after having beaten the Kaffirs in one place, they immediately appeared in another. I state this to you to show what a brave and loyal people as you are, are capable of doing.
While they might not have relished being addressed as ‘peasantry’, they certainly would have been impressed at having this wartime hero in their midst.
To Harry’s great distress, he learned, when dining with the well-known Napier brothers, Charles and William, that the Duke of Wellington had died on 14 September. Harry had lost not only his mentor and idol, but also a genuine friend and active supporter. Wellington was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral with a State Funeral attended by a million and a half people. Harry rode in the procession as a standard bearer, his final tribute to an adored leader.
In January 1853, Harry was at last appointed to command Western District and to be Lieutenant Governor of Plymouth. With great enthusiasm, Juana and he set up house in Devonport and dispensed hospitality with characteristic generosity. The year 1854 saw the full gloomy impact of the Crimean War and troops were constantly being drafted from his Command and embarked through Plymouth, so he saw much of them. The frustration of not being on active service must have irked him, but he spent much time visiting and encouraging his units. Raw troops, anxious about their first taste of active service, would have been much impressed and heartened by this highly experienced veteran. Harry was still able to ride his beloved horse, Aliwal (see plate section, photo 15) and on an inspection they would charge the line of infantry he was reviewing, but pull up abruptly just short of the front rank in a flurry of hooves. This alarming trick must have initially surprised the soldiery, but the word soon got round that this odd little general behaved in this way. They were prepared for it and stood fast. Both Juana and Harry were immensely popular in local society where, from time to time, Harry would wear his Rifle green uniform, cutting a slightly quixotic figure with his small and spare build.
Characteristically, in the Rifle Brigade way, Harry never forgot an old soldier. There was a comradeship between officers and men in the 95th that was not widespread in the rest of the Army at the time. Johnny Kincaid, probably Harry’s oldest friend, called the 1st Battalion the ‘band of brothers’. Charlie Beckwith wrote to George Simmons, another survivor of the wars forty years before: ‘Our friends it is true are fast descending into the tomb and we shall soon follow; but we shall lay down by the side of brothers who loved us during our lives. [They] and a long list down to the rank and file were all united in one common bond of common danger and suffering. God bless them all!’ Here is Harry writing to an old soldier, Sergeant Himbury:
Government House, Devonport, May 20th, 1853.
OLD COMRADE HIMBURY,
I well recollect you. Upon the receipt of your letter of the 16th inst., I recommend your memorial to ‘The Lords and other Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital’ to have your pension increased to two shillings a day. There are few men now remaining in the British Army who have seen so much service and been in so many actions as yourself; and the fact alone, of your having been wounded when one of the Forlorn Hope at the important storm of San Sebastian, where we, the Light, Third, and Fourth Divisions sent our gallant volunteers, is enough. The Lords Commissioners are very kind to such gallant old soldiers as yourself, and, if they can increase your pension, I am sure they will. Let this certificate accompany your memorial, and let me hear that another, though not a forlorn, hope has succeeded. My wife well remembers your picking her up when her horse fell upon her, and again thanks you.
Your old friend and comrade,
H.G. SMITH, Major-General,
Colonel 2nd Battn. Rifle Brigade.
What Harry and his fellow officers understood was that men fight well when they are among their friends. Nebulous thoughts of fighting for the Country or their Division were too distant for many. What mattered to them was supporting the men about them and not letting them down. Their Platoon, Company and Regiment was what really mattered.
Harry, however, still champed at the bit and saw no reason why he should not be given a command in the Crimea. After all, he suggested, he was the same age as Raglan and there were others like Cathcart, who had relieved him in South Africa, who were not much younger. (Cathcart was subsequently killed at Inkerman.) Anyway, it was not to be and, of course, he had now also lost Wellington, his main supporter. This did not stop him, however, from writing to the new Commander-in-Chief, Lord Hardinge, whom he had well respected in the Punjab, to push cases of officers whom he had recommended for promotion for service in South Africa but had somehow missed out. By doing so, of course, he sought to keep his own name not far away from the Military Secretary’s in-tray. To his pleasure, at least, Harry now became a substantive Lieutenant General (he had only held local rank in the Cape) and on 29 September 1854 was appointed Commander Northern and Midland Military District. Not the Crimea perhaps but, nevertheless, an important Home command. So Juana and he left Devonport for Manchester where they were to live until 1857. One of his first and most enjoyable duties was to arrange a reception for Queen Victoria in Hull on her journey south from Scotland. He was one of her most devoted servants, like many of his generation and there was nothing he would not do for her. On another occasion, he was honoured to represent the British Army at the funeral of Marshal St Arnaud, who had died in the Crimea, at Les Invalides in Paris. Harry had an audience with the Emperor who told him,
You will see the Queen, and I pray you to assure Her Majesty how sensible I, the French Army and Nation are of the mark of respect paid to us by sending to attend the melancholy funeral of Marshal St. Arnaud, an officer of your rank and reputation with a Deputation of British Officers. The amicable relationship which existed between the Marshal and Lord Raglan renders his loss still more to be deplored.
Harry was now sixty-seven and, sadly, his friends were dying about him. His third ‘Waterloo’ brother, Charles, died on Christmas Eve 1854, followed shortly by Sir James Kempt, aged ninety. Sir Andrew Barnard’s death came soon afterwards. Charlie Beckwith, a man of unusually mystical attitude who had devoted himself to an impoverished community in Piedmont, Italy, wrote to Harry:
What a good old fellow Sir James was! I did not feel Sir Andrew’s loss so much, as they told me that his intellect had failed. I had a good letter the other day from Lord Seaton. All these men I regard as the patriarchs of all that is solid in England. These men and their fellows, the men of Alma, Balaklava, Inkerman, of the Birkenhead, and the Arctic Regions, I hold to be the foundation-stones of England. In them is incarnate the sense of duty and obedience as a fixed habit, not a sentiment or conviction, as the people say, but a true witness of the Omnipotent who wills it thus … Adieu. Love to Juana. We must expect to be rather rickety at the best, but we may toddle on. It is highly desirable that we may all go together as nearly as may be … take care of your old bones, remember me kindly to any old fellow that may write to you, and believe me,
Your affectionate friend,
CHARLES BECKWITH
Juana was still the effervescent and outgoing character she had ever been. She wrote approvingly of Harry’s adherence to the new regulation ordering officers to leave their upper lip unshaven: ‘His marvellous moustaches are growing very nicely, and I do think they become his dear old face’ (see plate section, photo 22).
On 29 June, the Queen visited the Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester, which had been opened by Prince Albert. As District Commander, Harry was responsible for military and security arrangements and, in procession, properly rode at the right rear wheel of the Queen’s carriage, a position of importance in Palace protocol. When the Queen was about to knight the Mayor, she turned to Harry and, asking for his sword, told the Mayor, ‘It has been in four general actions.’
On receiving it back, Harry pressed the hilt to his lips in salute to his monarch. Clearly impressed, the Queen said, ‘Do you value it very much, Sir Harry?’ Overcome, he presented it to her at once. Indeed he did value it – he had worn it since 1835 and it had been shot out of his hand at the Battle of Maharajpore. (Hanging beneath Harry’s memorial in St Mary’s Church, Whittlesey (see plate section, photo 20) is a sword, handed down through friends of Harry’s in the town (see plate section, photo 18). The hilt/basket of the sword is actually damaged (see plate section, photo 19). Could this be the one he had shot out of his hand at the Battle of Marajpore and which he subsequently presented to Queen Victoria? Highly speculative and very unlikely, since, in a letter to the Lambert family from the Keeper of the King’s Armoury, dated 5 July 1918, that sword, at the time of writing, was still in possession of the Royal Family.)
The summer of 1857 brought further gloom in the shape of the Indian Mutiny. This added to the worry and anxiety of people like Harry who had known the country and its soldiers so well. He had loved his Sepoys in the 1st Infantry Division who had fought so successfully in the Sikh Wars, and now this – he must have been in despair. That inveterate letter writer, Charlie Beckwith, continued to keep in touch with Harry, whom he admired as someone who he thought really knew what was going on in the world, whereas he confessed to relying on his own theories and the newspapers which he called ‘two fallacious guides’. However, he never forgot to send his fondest love to Juana.
In May, Harry was back at the forefront of international affairs again. This time he was part of the delegation to Lisbon to invest Don Pedro V with the Order of the Garter on the occasion of his marriage to Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern. Both Harry and Juana attended a Dinner and State Ball at Buckingham Palace to meet the Princess on her way to Portugal. In Lisbon, the King invested Harry with the Grand Cross of the Order of St Bento d’Aviz, which now hangs with Harry’s other Orders and Decorations in possession of his great-great-nephew (see plate section, photo 25). What thoughts must have gone through Harry’s mind when he recalled his convalescence there, forty-eight years before, when he was recovering from the wounds he received on the Coa. Sadly, on his return, he was told his other great friend, George Simmons, who had also convalesced with him, had died.
On 9 October 1858, Harry inspected, for what was to be the last time, the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He had them drawn up into a square and told them of his lifelong affection for the Regiment, what outstanding soldiers they were and, no doubt, a few soldier-like anecdotes, without deleting the expletives. There can have been few dry eyes on his departure.
Early the following year, Harry fell badly, cutting his knee. This was serious at his age – medicine being what it was in those days – and, understandably, caused Juana considerable anxiety. Beckwith, typically, made light of it and told him: ‘he would have profited from this martyrdom which would fit him better to fall in with the ranks of the celestial army.’ In fact, he very nearly lost his leg. The irony was not lost on him – it was the one the surgeons nearly removed after the Coa.
In September 1859, Harry’s five-year posting in Manchester came to an end and, despite pleading with the Duke of Cambridge for a further appointment, he finally retired. There were many friends who wrote farewell letters to him and he, of course, replied with his customary punctiliousness. But there was one parting which was the saddest of all – from his beloved horse, Aliwal, now twenty-two. Harry had ridden him at Maharajpore and all the Sutlej battles; he had been transported to England, then to South Africa and back again. A sad account comes from the daughter of Harry’s ADC, Major Payne:
My sister and I have a vivid recollection of the lovely horse, and how, when we used to meet Sir Harry when we were out walking and he was riding, he would call out, ‘Stand still, children,’ and then come galloping up at full speed, and Aliwal would stop at our very feet; and my mother used to tell us that on the anniversary of the Battle of Aliwal, when there was always a full-dress dinner at the General’s house, some one would propose Aliwal’s health, and Sir Harry would order him to be sent for. The groom would lead the beautiful creature all round the dinner-table, glittering with plate, lights, uniforms, and brilliant dresses, and he would be quite quiet, only giving a snort now and then, though, when his health had been drunk and the groom had led him out, you could hear him on the gravel outside, prancing and capering. The horse was now old, and Sir Harry, in his new house in London, would not be able to keep him; and though Sir Robert Gerard (now Lord Gerard) kindly offered him a home, Sir Harry feared that his old age would perhaps be an unhappy one, and he resolved to shoot him. My father and the faithful groom were with Sir Harry when he did so, and I believe they all shed tears.
On leaving Manchester, Harry and Juana took up residence in London. Harry was not, however, prepared to accept the quiet life. He immersed himself in Home Defence matters, wrote letters to The Times and exchanged forthright views with anyone who was prepared to listen. Even in February 1860, he was encouraging his old friends in Glasgow to establish a call-up system for home defence volunteers. Despite being seventy-two years old, he wrote: ‘Should any enemy have the audacity to attempt our shores, could he avoid our ever invincible Navy, I as a General of some experience in war, would be proud to command a combined force.’ In his heart of hearts, he knew this was not to be so. He disliked London and hated eking out an existence, counting his pennies. He worried about Juana when he had gone and wanted to ensure she had a pension appropriate to his rank. On 12 October 1860, his courageous old heart gave out. He was aged seventy-three.
Harry wanted to be interred at St Mary’s, Whittlesey, but it was now closed to further burials. However, his body was taken there and in a corner of the new cemetery he was laid to rest on 19 October. All business in the little town was suspended for the day, and some thousands of the inhabitants and those of the outlying district lined the route of the procession. The Rifle Corps of Ely, Wisbech, March, Ramsey and Whittlesey were represented at their own request, and with arms reversed preceded the hearse from the station to St Mary’s Church, and then to the cemetery. The coffin was borne by eight old soldiers who had all served under Harry and all wore their medals; the pall-bearers were six Whittlesey men, most of them his schoolfellows. Among the mourners were his surviving ‘Waterloo brother’, Tom, his nephew Hugh, Colonel Garvock, his Military Secretary in the Cape, and senior military officers. Three volleys were fired over the grave by the Volunteers. Over £700 was subscribed to found a memorial to his memory, and was spent on the restoration of the chapel at the end of the south aisle of St Mary’s Church, where he had received his early education when it was used as a schoolroom. It is now known as ‘Sir Harry’s Chapel’. On the south wall was erected a monument of white marble surmounted by a bust of Sir Harry (see plate section, photo 20). It bears the inscription:
This monument was erected and this chapel restored in 1862 by public subscription to the memory of Lieutenant-General Sir Harry G.W. Smith, Baronet of Aliwal, Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Colonel of the 1st Battalion, Rifle Brigade. He entered the 95th Regiment in 1805, served in South America, Spain, Portugal, France, North America, the Netherlands, India, and at the Cape of Good Hope, of which he was Governor and Commander-in-Chief from 1847 to 1852, and on the Home Staff to 1859, when he completed a most gallant and eventful career of fifty-four years’ constant employment. He was born at Whittlesey, 28th June, 1788 [sic – it was actually 1787], and died in London 12th October, 1860. Within these walls he received his earliest education, and in the cemetery of his native place his tomb bears ample record of the high estimation in which his military talents were held by his friend and chief, the great Duke of Wellington.
Coruna, Busaco, Fuentes d’Onoro, Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, Salamanca, Vitoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle, Nive, Orthez, Toulouse, Waterloo, Maharajpore, Ferozeshuhur, Aliwal, Sobraon, South Africa.
O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.
After her husband’s death, Juana lived in Hastings for a time, and then later at 79 Cadogan Place, London. Passionately cherishing her husband’s memory, she was much loved by all the members of his family and their many friends. Finally, on 10 October 1872, she died aged seventy-four, and she was laid together with her beloved husband in his last resting place at Whittlesey (see plate section, photo 27).
Throughout their lives, Harry and Juana appeared to be hard up, and Harry always seemed to miss out on the lucrative rewards which could descend on successful commanders. He had been particularly incensed when Napier – far junior to him – received £50,000 for the capture of Sind. To his dying day, Harry’s concern was for Juana, and he did all he could to ensure that if she outlived him, as was likely, she would be able to live in suitable style. Fortunately, both their wills have survived and they throw an interesting light on the true financial situation. Harry’s will, signed on 30 July 1860, and full of the legal jargon of the day, left everything, ‘all and singular, whatsoever and wheresoever’, and including all his military medals, ‘to my dear wife Juana’. Then, surprisingly, the next item is given to an Ellen Hermann – thought to be their housekeeper in Manchester – his gold watch and chain, together with twelve silver spoons and forks and a large gravy spoon. In addition, Ellen was to receive £500 if she outlived Juana. The will was witnessed by their old friend John Bell.
This gave little indication of the value of the estate, but Juana’s will, made in October 1872, is full of more interesting detail – which proved that she had indeed been well provided for. Juana appointed as Executors, General Holdich, who had been Harry’s ADC, and her nephew, Captain Lambert. Her main bequest of £1,500 went to the wife of Captain Lambert, who also received ‘my household linen and my Indian and other diamonds’. Juana, who had no direct relatives of her own, had always been warmly welcomed into the large Smith family in Whittlesey, and she had become a firm favourite to large numbers of nephews, nieces and godchildren. Her will includes £100 to her servant; £25 to each of five godchildren; £50 to her brother-in-law Tom; bequests of £50 or £25 to ten nephews and nieces, but ‘not to Eleanor because she is well provided for’. Finally, she divided the residue of her estate between six named nephews and nieces.
Of the other close friends and companions of Harry’s, Charlie Beckwith died in July 1862, among the Piedmontese whom he had served so devotedly, and Sir John Bell in 1876, having lived to the age of ninety-four. Of his family, Harry’s sister, Jane Alice, later Mrs Sargant (of whom it has been said that she was ‘the only person in the world of whom he was afraid’) – to whom he wrote copious letters, particularly from South Africa and India, many of which are in the National Archives at Kew – died in 1869. His youngest sister, Anna Maria, died in 1875. His brother, Tom, born in 1792, was commissioned into the 95th in 1808, and took part in Sir John Moore’s expeditions and the Battle of Corunna. Like Harry, he served with the Light Division throughout the Peninsula War up to the Battle of Toulouse, being badly wounded at the Coa. He was recommended for promotion for his conduct at Waterloo. He proceeded with his Regiment to Paris, and, riding as Adjutant at the head of the 2nd Battalion, was the first British officer to enter the city on 7 July 1815. On retirement he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath and granted a special pension. He died in London on 6 April 1877 and was buried in the cemetery at Aldershot. His medals are currently in possession of his great-grandson. Another brother, Charles, born in 1795, fought as a Volunteer (he was actually too young to enlist properly) with the 1st Battalion of the 95th at Quatre Bras and Waterloo, after which he received a commission as Second Lieutenant. Two or three years later he retired from the Army and settled at Whittlesey. He was a stalwart of local society becoming a JP, Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire and a Lieutenant Colonel in the Yeomanry, dying at Whittlesey on 24 December 1854. Tom’s daughter, Annie, married Wellesley Robinson. They had a son, Annesley, who in turn had a son, Christopher, born in 1930, who, as Harry’s great-great-nephew happily survives to this day.
So, what of the character of these two people? Harry was impetuous, headstrong and, without a doubt, courageous. So was Juana, which was extraordinary for a young girl of her sheltered and convent-educated background. They were both fiery tempered but resilient in adversity and able to put up with significant physical hardship. They leant on each other physically and emotionally to an unusual extent for their times.
Harry was also intolerant and arrogant, almost to the point of insolence – take, as examples of this, his treatment of General Lowry Cole in the Peninsula and his remarks to General Pakenham at New Orleans. He was self-opinionated and regarded his own views as virtually unarguable. His three memos during the First Afghan War would earn a present-day serving officer severe displeasure from his superiors. Nevertheless he was, above all, a charismatic leader. There are any number of instances where Harry led from the front in the battles we have described. He looked after his men in a way which was rare in those days. He realized that they needed serviceable kit and proper resupply, training and rest when exhausted. Men followed him because they respected this and knew that he would not ask of them something he was not prepared to do himself. He took risks, both for himself and for his men, which, by the criteria of our current army, would be unacceptable, but we must judge really devastating battles, such as New Orleans, Badajoz and Waterloo, by the standards of the day. Even so, Harry felt the losses most strongly and, personally, to a remarkable extent. Officers up to a very senior level physically led their men and the battles are littered with generals killed and wounded – Craufurd, Pakenham, Ross, Picton and the like. While Harry commanded various groups of men from time to time, and formally as a company commander, he never actually commanded a battalion or brigade before becoming a divisional commander in the First Sikh War. Today this would be impossible, yet Harry’s success is self-evident. He had learnt his skills by hard exposure to warfare and from others, rather than through a standard ascent up the military promotion ladder. At the same time, he also proved himself a consummate staff officer. Then, as today, to be a front-line soldier and administrator are not always the happiest of combinations. He relished his job as Town Major of Cambrai after Waterloo and then did remarkably well during the yellow fever epidemic in Jamaica. Of course he was ambitious, but so were his colleagues. Why otherwise did officers volunteer for the Forlorn Hope and relish battle since, bluntly, casualties produced gaps for advancement.
As a General, he had many of the skills and attributes that are easily recognizable today. He despised the frontal and manpower-expensive assault beloved by the unimaginative Gough at Ferozeshah and Ross at Bladensberg, preferring the indirect approach and the diversionary attack. Aliwal, now a relatively forgotten battle, was, at the time, considered a masterpiece of what we would now call ‘all-arms cooperation’. Harry deftly organized his infantry, cavalry and artillery to support each other at the right time and right place – a task which was beyond many of his contemporaries who merely saw battle as a hard full-frontal slog. He understood the importance of timing and the critical point at which to mobilize his reserve, despite the difficulty of communication.
His selection for the Governorship of the Cape can be easily understood, even by standards of today. Here was a triumphant General, idolized by the public (and media such as existed then), praised by no less than the Duke of Wellington and, above all, already heavily experienced in the South African scene. Not only that, he had written an assessment of the situation in the eastern Cape and how to deal with it, which was widely accepted. Whitehall and Cape Town could hardly have had a more suitable candidate. But his instinct and judgement, so successful as a soldier, failed him as a diplomat. His inability to deal with the machinations of political expediency, both within government at home and the tiresome local disputes, over, for instance, the convict question and parliamentary reform in the Cape, led, inexorably, to his recall. The eighth Frontier War of 1850-1853 was, arguably, the most critical armed emergency in South Africa to the present day. Some will dispute that and cite the Boer War of 1899-1902, but judged in the context of its time, the threat to the survival of white civilization in 1851 was more serious than any since. Harry’s judgement failed him and he remained mistakenly optimistic and overconfident. His assessment of people was not always sound and, despite his temper and irascible nature, he tolerated inadequate subordinates like Somerset, whom he should have removed at an early stage. He was, inevitably, then made the sacrificial lamb for a failing government in its last-ditch attempt to save itself. Was it really Harry’s fault or the selectors who put him there? There is an uncomfortable saying, still current in modern military parlance, that some officers are promoted to one level above their competence. Was this so with Harry? He was what we would call today a ‘soldier’s soldier’, an officer who was outstanding with his men and a master of his particular battlefield, but who, when promoted to the 6th Floor of the Ministry of Defence, finds himself outflanked and outwitted by clever civil servants, financiers and wily self-serving politicians.
Writers have blamed Harry’s drive and the perception of self-aggrandisement on his humble upbringing and lack of money, but there is little real evidence for this, as we have seen. Wellington himself was often short of money, and this is simply the way people lived in times of great uncertainty and appalling financial administration. As for Harry being ‘plebeian’, this is absolute nonsense. Of course, he was no aristocrat but, as a surgeon, his father was a pillar of local society and three of his sons deserved their Commissions as well as anyone. Foulmouthed and irascible? Maybe, but again, only a product of the time. ‘Black Bob’ Craufurd was idolized by his men and yet had to be personally rebuked for his profanity by Wellington.
As a loving husband, and with a love fully reciprocated by Juana, it would be difficult in those times to find better. We are lucky enough to have access to records of husbands, sons and fathers who wrote letters copiously when on active service, and Harry and Juana were no exceptions. They were lucky to have suffered little real separation (only America) even by today’s standards and no complications with children. Had they had any it is conceivable that things might have turned out differently. Juana gave up everything for Harry: country, family and friends. But she was happy to do so. They were generous with their money when they had it and easily made friends across the social spectrum. They were both equally at ease with the rough soldiery as they were with the crowned heads of Europe. They entertained well but not over-lavishly and much enjoyed other people’s company. So, not a complicated mixture, but a mixture nevertheless of courage, impetuosity, charm, not always the best of judges, but, above all, with a sense of humour and happiness in each other’s company.
Thus ends this extraordinary and enduring love story between two, on the face of it, ill-matched people: the distraught fourteen-year-old Spanish aristocrat fleeing the carnage of Badajoz, and the 25-year-old, combat experienced, worldly wise, English officer. They both had their tempers and tantrums, but like many that do, quickly made up and fell into each other’s arms. They attracted devotion from those who surrounded them, the classic example being Harry’s orderly, West. Juana endeared herself to the hard-bitten Peninsula soldiery amongst whom she slept, wrapped in a blanket by her horse, and with the Sepoys at Maharajpore, riding her elephant into battle. Harry properly concentrated on his job in hand but he always had Juana’s welfare in mind the moment he had a chance. He fully realized the anxieties she had when she knew he was away fighting. Juana was much loved by Harry’s family and it was a mark of their character that they took this Spanish girl in so readily and made her one of them.
Harry’s last thoughts were for Juana, her welfare and his great desire that they should be buried together.
They were, and were never again divided.