Lesbia Newman (1889)/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII.
Retrospect—Marshalling the Forces.
A Retrospect here becomes necessary. The Irish Nationalists—that is, the vast majority of the inhabitants of the island—having abandoned all hope of getting their aspirations realised or even listened to while England was governed by the Bungling Coalition, had decided to take advantage of the quarrel to cast in their lot with the United States. Before this war, any one who might have suggested such a thing as the annexation to America of a small corner of Europe, would have been set down as a madman; but now that war had actually begun, the contingency came within the range of practical politics. If it could be achieved, it would repay the cost and risk of an expedition; and with the aid of France, its achievement seemed not impossible. Russia, too, would help the enterprise indirectly, by giving employment to all British forces which might otherwise have been drawn from the East. Lastly, the new dynamite rams, of which the American navy had as yet almost a monopoly, would render it practicable to transport a small army across the ocean to act as auxiliaries to a great French force held in readiness for a descent upon Ireland. Thus it came about that the first week in October an American expedition, with a great deal of manœuvring and but very little fighting on the high seas, accomplished the passage from New York to Brest, where the main French fleet from Cherbourg was awaited. Some little delay was experienced before the English Channel Fleet could be decoyed away so as to allow the junction of the Allies at Brest; but by dint of skilful feints appearing to threaten various towns on the English coast, the object was eventually attained. Immediately afterwards news was brought by a small steam yacht which had managed to slip out of Cork Harbour, that circumstances were favourable for a landing at that point.
After a calm dark night, the dawn of Saturday the 11th of October found the Allied armada—the united fleets being under the command of Admiral Brin, and the land forces under General La Roche—lying under the Irish cliffs a little east of Roche’s Point. By the aid of the local guides, a body of five thousand infantry taken from both armies effected a landing at the little hamlet of Goyleen, the spring tide being very high and the water perfectly smooth. Thence, according to preconcerted plan, they marched along the highroad westward, pioneered by a squad of bicycling carbineers, mounted on low safety machines and dressed in plain clothes. Under their noiseless escort, the column passed the cross road in front of Trabolgan lodge gate [ref. Chap. XIII.]. Thence defiling up the narrow lane, formerly described, which ascends the hill westwards, and passing the hollow which, as the reader will remember, intervenes between that hill and Fort Carlisle, they contrived to capture that important fort by a coup-de-main, effecting the escalade at a weak point, where the dyke had been left unrepaired. Thus the entrance to the harbour was at least half secured, and presently, in the grey of the early morning, the garrison of Fort Camden, on the opposite or western end of the narrow strait, had the astonishment of seeing foreign war-ships defiling into the harbour right under their guns, and still more of being suddenly shelled by their old familiar friend, Fort Carlisle. A few British inferior war-vessels were lying inside the basin, and were quickly overpowered by the unlooked-for onset of the enemy. Thus, by sunrise on the 12th, the way in was completely laid open across the enfeebled fire of Fort Camden; and, with the following high tide, the whole army of about one hundred and ten thousand men effected a landing in good order at the village of Whitegate [ref. Chap. XIII.].
The reasons for selecting as a battle-field the promontory formed by the land diverging generally eastward and north-eastward from Roche’s Point, were various; the principal being, in the first place, that Queenstown and Cork being friendly towns, it was not desired to inflict on them the damage of a fight; in the second place, the position of Roche’s Tower precluded the danger of being outflanked, water enclosing it on three sides. Certainly, this also precluded the possibility of retreat; but there would be no question of retreat in the deadly struggle contemplated; it would be a question simply of victory or surrender. Again, the Allied commanders were well aware that if those on the English side were to resist the temptation of attack, and to fortify themselves somewhere in the interior to await the invaders, the latter might stay and amuse themselves at Roche’s Tower until they were tired, and then advance against an enemy strongly posted and elaborately prepared for their reception. But from reliable information obtained through their Irish friends and aiders, they could count pretty surely upon provoking a pitched battle at once by the mere fact of their landing, and being attacked upon ground of their own choosing.
The only problem, therefore, was how to lay out the position to the best advantage before the enemy could come up. By the latest intelligence, they would have probably twenty-four hours at least, and could therefore set to work deliberately. After consulting his American ally, General Sackville, La Roche decided upon a plan made from a local map, which had previously been supplied to him from Cork.
The American contingent, only thirty thousand strong, and consisting wholly of infantry, was stationed at Whitegate; twenty thousand men in line holding that village, together with the wooded shoulder of the hill above it westward which commands a view of Queenstown [ref. Chap. XIII. ],and ten thousand being held in reserve, along with five thousand French cavalry, in the hollow behind, on the road by which it will be remembered our heroine and her uncle, in their excursion, walked up from Whitegate to Fort Carlisle. This force of thirty-five thousand occupying the left of the invader’s position, was placed under the American commander, whose special duty it was, aided by the fleet in the basin, to keep a firm grip upon the landing place.
The French then deployed along the whole ridge of the downs as far as Roche’s Tower, throwing up redoubts and strengthening by embankments the stone walls of the pastures, some of which they loopholed. Their central or main body, thus arrayed in line, was forty-five thousand strong, and before laying out his right wing, General La Roche posted his reserve, cavalry and infantry, fifteen thousand, in the hollow in rear, the centre of the line being directly in front of that hollow, or at the point where the western arm of the B
AΤC
D (B C) runs up from the main road between Whitegate and Trabolgan [ref. Chap. XIII.]; finally, the mansion, grounds, and woods of Trobolgan itself were held by a French force of twenty-five thousand men, which, forming the right wing and touching the cliff all along, effectually guarded that flank from surprise. As already said, the disadvantage of the whole position was that it admitted of no retreat. The ships were not ‘burnt,’ but they would be useless for the purpose of escape; in fact, Admiral Brin could only cut his way out of the basin through the enemy’s fleet. But the fact of being helped with heart and hand by a friendly population on shore makes a great material and moral difference to an invader.
This will appear the more vividly as we turn to see what the British Government was about. As soon as war with France was seen to be inevitable—or rather, as soon as the Bungling Coalition had decided upon it—General Lord Gurth Redhill was recalled in haste from Asia Minor, leaving Burnfingal and his ally Rhumbegar in the lurch. Nominally, they were ordered to entrench themselves well and hold their ground until aid could be spared, but they took these instructions cum grano, and commenced a prudent retreat. The Russians followed them up leisurely, and without harassing their rear. By this sorry expedient, the effective force for the defence of Ireland was raised to seventy-three thousand men, not more. With this insufficient army Lord Redhill marched by the most direct route from the Curragh toward Cork, while Admiral St George, with the main body of the Channel Fleet, steamed round to meet him at the harbour. The Admiral arrived first, and finding the allies already in possession of Roche’s Point and Fort Carlisle and the whole of that side of the entrance to the harbour, he stood out and lay in the offing to wait for joint action with the land forces in dislodging the invader.
He had to waste a day, for General Redhill had yet to learn how effective guerilla warfare can be. His rear was harassed by swarms of plundering camp followers of both sexes; bridges were broken down and rails taken up; and since none but false warning could be had, so many trains were wrecked and so many lives and stores lost, that he was obliged to desist and convey everything by road and lane as it would have been in old times. But this did not mend matters much: wherever trees grew across his route, they fell with a crash and blocked the way; very few of the scouts he sent forward on horse or bicycle came back; ammunition waggons blew up unaccountably, for no man was detected tampering with them; after dark, sudden volleys were fired into the troops passing narrow places, by bands of marauders who knew the country well and easily escaped; in short, the march was more or less of a fight and loss all the way. Eventually Midleton was reached, and the general position of the invader was ascertained. The wires of the south-western main line had not been destroyed, and the British commander sent a small body, escorting telegraph clerks, to hold Mallow Junction, that this means of rapid communication with England might remain intact. Meanwhile, on the night of the 11th, a boat had been got out with despatches to the Admiral, instructing him to force entrance to the harbour on the morning of the 13th, by which time the army should be ready to co-operate with the fleet.
As remarked before, these tactics were very rash. With an inferior force in an unfriendly country, defensive operations only should have been undertaken until the invader had been placed in straits. But that sort of thing was not to the taste of Redhill nor of hismen. Audacious foreigners were profaning the sacred soil of the kingdom, and they must be driven into the sea without ceremony; so caution was thrown to the winds, and glory was the order of the day.
Deploying from Midleton toward Roche’s Point, so as to rest his left upon the cliff south of and contiguous to Trabolgan wood, and his right upon the slanting, copse-sprinkled ground which descends irregularly from the S.E. to Whitegate, while his centre occupied the crest where the main road (A B), the eastern arm of the B
AΤC
D runs between Trebolgan lodge and Goyleen—the same road by which the enemy had advanced to capture Fort Carliske—Lord Redhill drew up in order of battle along the slopes opposite to the invader’s high ridge, the hostile armies having between their respective centres that part of the same road which runs from Trabolgan to Whitegate along the bottom of the valley [ref. Chap, XIII.]. It was dark on the 12th October by the time the various corps were in their appointed places on the field, and under the clear starlight the blazing camp fires and flashing signals of the opposing hosts marked their respective positions along the two hills.