Hugh Dawnay and John Gough.

I have dedicated this volume to the memory of John Gough and Hugh Dawnay, not solely on grounds of friendship, but also because from both I received, at different times, much help, advice, and criticism—from the latter when the original Memorandum was in course of being drafted—from both when it was being reconsidered with a view to publication. Whether either of them would agree with the statement in its present form is more than I can venture to say, and I have no intention of claiming their authority for conclusions which were never seen by them in final shape.

In the first instance (November 1912-March 1913) Dawnay[2] and I worked together. His original notes and memoranda are to a large extent incorporated in Parts III. and IV.—so closely, however, that I cannot now disentangle his from my own. The calculations as to numbers and probable distribution of the opposing forces, were almost entirely his. I have merely endeavoured here—not so successfully as I could wish—to bring them up to the date of the outbreak of war.

Dawnay took out his squadron of the 2nd Life Guards to France early in August. Already, however, he had been appointed to the Headquarters General Staff, on which he served with distinction, until early in October, when he succeeded to the command {xxvii} of his regiment. He fell at Zwarteleen near Ypres on the 6th of November 1914—one of the most anxious days during the four weeks' battle.

His friends have mourned his death, but none of them have grudged it; for he died, not merely as a brave man should—in the performance of his duty—but after having achieved, with consummate skill and daring, his part in an action of great importance. On the afternoon of this day General Kavanagh's Brigade of Household Cavalry[3]—summoned in haste—dismounted, and threw back a German attack which had partially succeeded in piercing the allied line at the point of junction between the French and English forces. This successful counter-attack saved the right flank of Lord Cavan's Guards' Brigade from a position of extreme danger, which must otherwise, almost certainly, have resulted in a perilous retreat. The whole of this Homeric story is well worth telling, and some day it may be told; but this is not the place.

Dawnay was fortunate inasmuch as he lost his life, not as so many brave men have done in this war—and in all others—by a random bullet, or as the result of somebody's blunder, or in an attempt which failed. On the contrary he played a distinguished, and possibly a determining part, in an action which succeeded, and the results of which were fruitful.

He was not merely a brave and skilful soldier {xxviii} when it came to push of pike, but a devoted student of his profession in times of peace. The mixture of eagerness and patience with which he went about his work reminded one, not a little, of that same combination of qualities as it is met with sometimes among men of science.

Hunting accidents, the privations of Ladysmith followed by enteric, divers fevers contracted in hot climates, and the severity of a campaign in Somaliland, had severely tried his constitution—which although vigorous and athletic was never robust—and had increased a tendency to headaches and neuralgia to which he had been subject ever since boyhood. Yet he treated pain always as a despicable enemy, and went about his daily business as indefatigably when he was in suffering, as when he was entirely free from it, which in later years was but rarely.

Dawnay had a very quick brain, and held his views most positively. It was sometimes said of him that he did not suffer fools gladly, and this was true up to a point. He was singularly intolerant of presumptuous fools, who laid down the law about matters of which they were wholly ignorant, or who—having acquired a smattering of second-hand knowledge—proceeded to put their ingenious and sophistical theories into practice. But for people of much slower wits than himself—if they were trying honestly to arrive at the truth—he was usually full of sympathy. His tact and patience upon great occasions were two of his noblest qualities.

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In some ways he used to remind me, not a little, of Colonel Henry Esmond of Castlewood, Virginia. In both there was the same hard core of resistance against anything, which appeared to challenge certain adamantine principles concerning conduct befitting a gentleman. On such matters he was exceedingly stiff and unyielding. And he resembled the friend of Lord Bolingbroke, and General Webb, and Dick Steele also in this, that he was addicted to the figure of irony when crossed in discussion. One imagines, however, that Colonel Esmond must have kept his countenance better, and remained imperturbably grave until his shafts had all gone home. In Dawnay's case the sight of his opponent's lengthening face was, as a rule, too much for his sense of humour, and the attack was apt to lose some of its force—certainly all its fierceness—in a smile which reminded one of Carlyle's description—'sunlight on the sea.'

The following extract from a letter written by one of his friends who had attended the War Service at St. Paul's gives a true picture: "A sudden vision arose in my imagination of Hugh Dawnay striding down the choir, in full armour, like St. Michael—with his head thrown back, and that extraordinary expression of resolution which he always seemed to me to possess more than any one I have ever seen. His wide-apart eyes had more of the spirit of truth in them than almost any—also an intolerance of falsehood—or rather perhaps a disbelief in its existence...." This is true. He was one of {xxx} that race of men whose recumbent figures are seen in our old churches and cathedrals, with hands clasping crusaders' swords against their breasts, their hounds couching at their feet.


In physique and temperament Hugh Dawnay and John Gough[4] were in most respects as unlike a pair of friends as ever walked this earth; but we might have searched far before we could have found two minds which, on most matters connected with their profession, were in more perfect accord. Dawnay, younger by four years, had served under Gough in trying times, and regarded him (an opinion which is very widely shared by seniors as well as juniors) as one of the finest soldiers of his age. Though Dawnay was slender and of great height, while Gough was rather below the middle stature, broad and firmly knit, there was one striking point of physical resemblance between them, in the way their heads were set upon their shoulders. There was something in the carriage of both which seemed to take it for granted that they would be followed wherever they might chose to lead. In Lord Roberts, and also in a strikingly different character—Mr. Chamberlain—there was the same poise, the same stable equilibrium, without a trace in it of self-consciousness or constraint. It may be that the {xxxi} habit of command induces this bearing in a man; or it may be that there is something in the nature of the man who bears himself thus which forces him to become a leader.

Gough took no part in the preparation of the original Memorandum; but in March 1913 he discussed it with me[5] and made various criticisms and suggestions, most of which have been incorporated here. His chief concern with regard to all proposals for a National Army was, that the period of training should be sufficient to allow time for turning the average man into a soldier who had full confidence in himself. "When war breaks out"—I can hear his words—"it's not recruits we want: it's soldiers we want: that is, if our object is to win the war as speedily as possible, and to lose as few lives as possible." Under normal peace conditions he put this period at a minimum of two years for infantry; but of course he would have admitted—and did, in fact, admit when I saw him last December—that under the stress and excitement of war the term might be considerably shortened.

His chief concern in 1913 was with regard to shortage of officers. He criticised with great severity the various recent attempts at reforming our military {xxxii} system, not only on the ground that we had chosen to rely upon training our national forces after war had actually broken out (in his view a most disastrous decision); but also because we had not taken care to provide ourselves against the very emergency which was contemplated, by having a reserve of officers competent to undertake the training of the new army in case of need.

I went to see him at Aldershot on the Friday before war was declared, and found, as I expected, that he regarded it as inevitable. He had undergone a very severe operation in the early summer, and was still quite unfit to stand the strain of hard exercise. It had been arranged that we were to go together, a few days later, to Sweden, for six weeks' shooting and fishing in the mountains. He was very anxious to return to England for the September manoeuvres. His surgeon,[6] however, forbade this, on the ground that even by that time he would not be fit to sit for a whole day in the saddle.

He was in two moods on this occasion. He was as light-hearted as a boy who is unexpectedly released from school; the reason being that the Army Medical Officer had that morning passed him as physically fit to go abroad with Sir Douglas Haig, to whom he had acted as Senior Staff Officer since the previous autumn.

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His other mood was very different. The war which he had foreseen and dreaded, the war which in his view might have been avoided upon one condition, and one only—if England had been prepared—had come at last. I don't think I have ever known any one—certainly never any anti-militarist—whose hatred and horror of war gave the same impression of intensity and reality as his. Not metaphorically, but as a bare fact, his feelings with regard to it were too deep for words; he would suddenly break off speaking about things which had occurred in his own experience; in particular, about loss of friends and comrades. He was an Irishman, and had not the impassive coldness of some of the great soldiers. But most of all he hated war when it was not inevitable—when with foresight and courage it might have been averted—as in his opinion this war might have been.

In radium there is said to be a virtue which enables it to affect adjacent objects with its own properties, and to turn them, for a time, and for certain purposes, into things of the same nature as itself. Certain rare human characters possess a similar virtue; but although I have met with several of these in my life, there is none of them all who seemed to me to possess this quality in quite so high a degree as Gough. He was an alchemist who made fine soldiers out of all sorts and conditions of men, and whose spirit turned despondency out of doors.

The clearness of his instinct and the power of his {xxxiv} mind were not more remarkable than his swiftness of decision and indomitable will. There are scores—probably hundreds—of young officers who fought by his side, or under him, at Ypres and elsewhere, who years hence, when they are themselves distinguished—perhaps great and famous—and come, in the evening of their days, to reckon up and consider the influences which have shaped their careers, will place his influence first. And there are boys looking forward to the day when they shall be old enough to serve in the King's Army, chiefly from the love and honour in which they held this hero, with his winning smile and superb self-confidence.

He has left behind him a tradition, if ever man did. You will find it everywhere, among young and old—among all with whom he ever came into touch. Nor is the tradition which he has left merely among soldiers and with regard to the art of war, but also in other spheres of private conduct and public life. He had strong prejudices as well as affections, which made him sometimes judge men unfairly, also on the other hand too favourably; but he banished all meanness from his neighbourhood, all thoughts of self-interest and personal advancement. Duty, discipline, self-discipline, and the joy of life—these were the rules he walked by; and if you found yourself in his company you had perforce to walk with him, keeping up with his stride as best you could.

We value our friends for different qualities, and would have their tradition fulfil itself in different {xxxv} ways. Those of us who counted these two—'Johnnie' Gough and Hugh Dawnay—among our friends will wish that our sons may be like them, and follow in their footsteps.

F.S.O.

CHECKENDON COURT, OXFORDSHIRE,
1st June 1915.

[1] The Round Table (quarterly Review). Macmillan & Co., Ltd. Of the articles referred to the chief are: 'Anglo-German Rivalry' (November 1910); 'Britain, France, and Germany' (December 1911); 'The Balkan War and the Balance of Power' (June 1913); 'Germany and the Prussian Spirit' (September 1914); 'The Schism of Europe' (March 1915). It is to be hoped that these and some others may be republished before long in more permanent form.

[2] Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay, D.S.O., b. 1875; educated Eton and Sandhurst; Rifle Brigade, 1895; Nile Campaign and Omdurman, 1898; South Africa, 1899-1900; Somaliland, 1908-1910; 2nd Life Guards, 1912; France, August-November 1914.

[3] This Brigade was known during the battle of Ypres as 'the Fire Brigade,' for the reason that it was constantly being called up on a sudden to extinguish unforeseen conflagrations.

[4] Brigadier-General John Edmund Gough, V.C., C.M.G., C.B., A.D.C. to the King; b. 1871; educated Eton and Sandhurst; Rifle Brigade, 1892; British Central Africa, 1896-1897; Nile Campaign and Omdurman, 1898; South Africa, 1899-1902; Somaliland, 1902-1903 and 1908-1909; France, August 1914-February 1915.

[5] At St. Jean de Luz, when he was endeavouring, though not very successfully, to shake off the after-effects of his last Somaliland campaign. He was then engaged in correcting the proofs of the volume of his Staff College lectures which was subsequently published under the title Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville (Rees)—a most vivid and convincing narrative. In the intervals of work and golf he spent much of his time in visiting Wellington's adjacent battlefields and studying his passage of the Bidassoa and forcing of the Pyrenees.

[6] Gough's many friends will ever feel a double debt of gratitude to that distinguished surgeon, Sir Berkeley Moynihan, who by this operation restored him, after several years of ill-health and suffering, almost to complete health; and who once again—when by a strange coincidence of war he found his former patient lying in the hospital at Estaires the day after he was brought in wounded—came to his aid, and all but achieved the miracle of saving his life.