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THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW. UARTERLY

ART. I.-The Life of General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. By Alexander Innes Shand. Second Edition. Edinburgh and London, 1896.

HE sword,' observed Don Quixote, 'hath never blunted

"THE the pen; nor the pen, the sword,' and in one sense the

saying is evidently indisputable. The literary faculty is not the monopoly of any one class; nor is its cultivation forbidden by an active military career. From the days of Xenophon and of Cæsar to those of Napier and of von Moltke, there have been frequent instances of distinguished soldiers who have wielded the pen with power. Nevertheless, it must be admitted that the habit of mind which tends towards literary excellence is not easily attained by the conscientious performer of military duties, and that the intellectual atmosphere of a garrison is not well calculated to stimulate the imagination. To lead a twofold life, with aims and interests often painfully incongruous, requires a rare mental balance, and the pen of the soldier and the sailor has generally achieved its best results when the burden of official routine ceased to oppress. To hindrances of many kinds, direct discouragement must frequently be added. At the beginning of this century, military opinion was stifled in the Prussian Army, and, as Bulow pointed out, a general poverty of ideas was the natural result. Jena followed, and the blind worship of an effete system stood hopelessly condemned.. The regenerated army which arose from the wreck of 1806 was largely the creation of Scharnhorst, whose warnings had fallen unheeded before the catastrophe. It was natural therefore that thinking, and writing its necessary complement, should not merely come into favour, but receive a marked impetus. Of late years authorship has been recognised as conferring claims to distinction in Germany, and no army has produced so wide and Vol. 184.-No. 367.

B

rich

rich a military literature. In France, where capable military writers have succeeded each other for fully two centuries, the growth, since the disasters of 1870, of thoughtful publications dealing with every branch of the science of war, has been phenomenal. In England, the soldier who is known to possess literary gifts is still regarded with a certain measure of suspicion, and the astute aspirant to high position will restrain or severely regulate his pen until his rank is assured. Time will, however, change all this, and it will come to be understood here as elsewhere, that power of expression and of analysis, together with originality of opinion, even when forthcoming in the comparatively junior ranks, are not incompatible with military efficiency.

The Life of Sir Edward Hamley derives peculiar interest from its dual aspect. On the one hand, Hamley was unquestionably the most brilliant writer that the British Army has produced. On the other hand, he was a keen soldier, whose record in the field, both as a young Staff-officer and as a General of Division, clearly showed that he possessed in a marked degree the qualities of a military commander. The literary and the military instincts existing side by side, with points of contact yet sometimes mutually repellent, supply the clue to the right understanding of a complex nature and a notable

career.

Of the four sons of Vice-Admiral Hamley, the three who entered the service all gave evidence of great literary gifts. All became valued contributors to 'Blackwood's Magazine' in its prime; and at the very time when Edward, the youngest, was writing the masterly Letters from the Crimea, Charles was forwarding admirable papers from the Baltic. Their mother,' states Mr. Shand, 'was a woman of intellectual ability as well as of high education; and . . . they always considered they derived their literary faculty from her.' The Hamley family, on the other hand, had produced a succession of soldiers and sailors. Admiral Hamley rendered excellent service during the French war, and distinguished himself on several occasions by great personal gallantry. Thus the twofold bias of the genius of the brothers seems to have been directly inherited.

Edward Bruce Hamley, born in 1824, entered the Royal Artillery before he was nineteen. Joining his first battery in Ireland, he accompanied it a year later to Canada, where he served for nearly four years, returning home to be quartered successively at Tynemouth and Carlisle. Promoted to be captain in 1851, he was ordered to Gibraltar, where he remained till the outbreak of the Crimean war. For twelve

years,

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