[Footnote 2:  Now Major-General Sir Edwin Collen, K.C.I.E., Military Member of the Governor-General’s Council.]

[Footnote 3:  Now General Sir Edward Lechmere Russell, K.C.S.I.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER XXXVII. 1868-1869

Sir Robert Napier to command—­Defective transport —­King Theodore commits suicide—­First A.Q.M.G

It will, perhaps, be as well to recall to the reader’s mind that the object of the expedition in which we were taking part was to rescue some sixty Europeans, who, from one cause or another, had found their way to Abyssinia, and been made prisoners by the King of that country.  Amongst these were four English officials, Mr. Rassam, and Captain Cameron, who had at different times been the bearers of letters from Queen Victoria to King Theodore, and Lieutenant Prideaux and Dr. Blanc of the Bombay Army; the rest were chiefly French and German missionaries, and artisans, with their wives and children.  The prisoners were confined in a fort built on the Magd[=a]la plateau, 9,150 feet above sea-level, and 379 miles inland from Annesley Bay.

The repeated demands of the British Government for the restoration of the prisoners having been treated with contemptuous silence by the King, Colonel Merewether, the Political Agent at Aden, who in July, 1867, had been directed to proceed to Massowa and endeavour to obtain the release of the captives, and to make inquiries and collect information in case of an expedition having to be sent, reported to the Secretary of State that he had failed to communicate with the King, and urged the advisability of immediate measures being taken to prepare a force in India for the punishment of Theodore and the rescue of the prisoners.  Colonel Merewether added that in Abyssinia the opinion had become very general that England knew herself to be too weak to resent insult, and that amongst the peoples of the neighbouring countries, even so far as Aden, there was a feeling of contemptuous surprise at the continued long-suffering endurance of the British Government.

On receipt of this communication, Her Majesty’s Government, having exhausted all their resources for the preservation of peace, decided to send an expedition from India under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir Robert Napier, the Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Army.  After carefully considering the distance along which operations would have to be prosecuted, and the necessity for holding a number of detached posts, Napier gave it as his opinion that the force should consist of not less than 12,000 men.[1]

Profiting by the experience of the Crimean War, the Government was determined that the mobility of the force should not be hampered by want of food and clothing.  Stores of all descriptions were despatched in unstinted quantities from England, and three of the steamers in which they were conveyed were fitted up as hospital ships.  But food, clothing, and stores, however liberally supplied, would not take the army to Magd[=a]la without transport.