Journey to the East
Born at Suirville, Co. Tipperary, Ireland, 31 October, 1838; died 7 June,
1910, was the son of Richard and Ellen Butler. The great
famine of 1847 and scenes of suffering and eviction were amongst
his earliest recollections. He was educated chiefly by the Jesuits
at Tullabeg College.
In 1858 he received a commission
in the 69th Regiment, which he joined at the depot at Fermoy, and
after two years he was sent to Madras.
On the ship, the leaky Coldstream, as well as three officers
and one hundred and twenty men of the 69th, were sixty men and three officers
of the Royal Irish Regiment. The ship was also carrying an illegal
cargo of railroad tracks, which kept it low in the water and compelled the
crew and soldiers to continually man the pumps--there was no Plimsoll
line in those days. The trip to India took four months.
After a few months Butler was assigned to Burma and explored the region
around Rangoon. On his return voyage to his ship, being towed by a steamer,
ran into a hurricane, the hawser was cut by the steamer's captain, and
when they eventually limped into port, found that they had been given up for lost.
The soldiers stationed at Madras were plagued with cholera, which carried
off many, and their families, without warning. Butler explored as much of the area
as he could, and wrote sympathically of the lives of the natives and the hardships of
the colonisers.
The regiment returned to
England in 1864, and on the way Butler visited the Island of St.
Helena, led thither by his profound veneration for Napoleon. In
1867 he visited Canada for the first time, and went back there
again after a brief visit to Ireland, with a mission from Colonel
Wolseley to find out the true state of feeling in the Red River
settlement. In October, 1870, he was intrusted with a fresh mission
to report on the need of troops, the fur trade, the Indians etc.,
in Saskatchewan, following the course of the Saskatchewan River
from Carlton to the Rocky Mountains. The story of this winter
journey and his share in the Red River expedition is told in "The
Great Lone Land", first published in 1872.
Sir Garnet Wolseley made his famous expedition to Ashanti in West
Africa in 1873. To Butler he entrusted the task of intercepting
the Ashanti Army whilst retreating across the River Prah. This
proved impossible, for though he induced 1400 Akims to move forward
with him to within 20 miles of Coomassie they took alarm at the
last moment and went home. The full story of his share in the
Ashanti War is given in "Akim-foo, the History of a Failure"
(London, 1875). Wolseley reported of him: "He has effected a most
important diversion in favour of the main body and has detained
before him all the forces of one of the most powerful Ashanti
chiefs." He was now promoted major and made a Companion of the
Bath. The opening months of 1875 saw him start for Natal on the
staff of Sir Garnet Wolseley, who had been sent out as governor and
high commissioner. Butler was named protector of Indian immigrants
and had to report on the land system then existing in the colony.
To the insight then gained into South African problems he
attributes, to a great extent, the accuracy of certain warnings of
his a quarter of a century later before the outbreak of the Boer War.
At the close of 1875 he joined the staff of the War Office, and in
1877 he married
Elizabeth Thompson
His wife painted "After the Battle" (see detail on left), showing the victors returning,
but Butler hated it. Tel-el-Kebir was not a battle at all, he said, it
was a slaughter of the ignorant and innocent. Later, in one of his most
moving passages, he saluted the men forgotten in life and death--the
humble fellaheen of the Egyptian Army.
After the campaign he returned to England and started once again for "the great prairies and the pine forests" of Canada. He visited many of the scenes of his earlier travels, but within a few months was back in London, and was discussing with Lord Wolseley the various routes by which the garrisons at Khartoum might be reached, and General Gordon saved. To Butler were entrusted, when at last the relief expedition was a certainty, the procuring of 400 boats, and the getting of these boats, with their troops and provisions, up the cataracts of the Nile. This was effected by almost superhuman efforts against time and the unfavourable state of the Nile, then rapidly falling. His task accomplished, he was sent on under General Earle, who led the river column of advance upon Khartoum. He took part in the heavy fighting at Kirbekam, and indeed the success of that action has always been attributed to his foresight. After the fall of Khartoum, he was left in command at Meroe, and brought the troops stationed there in safety to Dongola.
In September, 1885, he was in command at Wady Halfa, and successfully kept the forces of the Mahdi at bay till re-enforcements arrived from England. He commanded the division of Gen. Stephenson's army engaged in the action at Ginniss and was mentioned in the highest terms in despatches.
Finding no appointment open to him in England on his return, he betook himself to Brittany with his family, where he wrote "The Campaign of the Cataracts" (1887) and "The Life of General Gordon" (1889), and subsequently to Ireland, where he made the acquaintance of Parnell. During his stay in Brittany he was made K.C.B. (Knight Commander of the Bath) for his services in Egypt and the Sudan. In 1890 he returned to Egypt to take command at Alexandria, and was promoted major-general in 1892. During the intervals of leave from his duties at Alexandria he travelled a great deal, visiting, amongst other places, the sacred sites of Palestine, which had always had a deep interest and attraction for him. From 1893 to 1896 he commanded a brigade at Aldershot, being transferred in the latter year to the command of the South-Eastern district of England. In the autumn of 1898 he went to South Africa as commander-in-chief and high commissioner during the absence of Sir Alfred Milner. In the latter capacity he strove to avert a war which he saw was bound to result in calamity both for England and South Africa, and as commander-in-chief he tried to show the Government the inadequacy of their preparations and what a war with the Transvaal would really mean. His attitude did not find favour at home and he was severely criticised for having stated in his capacity as high commissioner that he considered South Africa in need of "no surgical operation".
In September, 1899, he resigned his command and came home. He saw no active service during the war, remaining in command of the Western District of England. He also commanded at Aldershot and in the Southern District. In 1903 he headed the commission of enquiry into the scandals connected with stores and supplies during the war, and in October, 1905, having reached the age limit of sixty- seven, he was placed on the retired list. The few years of life which remained to him he spent in Ireland, devoted chiefly to the cause of education. He was a frequent lecturer both in Dublin and the provinces on historical, social, and economic questions. He was a member of the senate of the National University of Ireland, and a commissioner of the Board of National Education. In June, 1906, he was appointed Knight of the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and in 1909 he was made a member of the Irish Privy Council. He was buried with full military honours at the remote little cemetary of Killardrigh, Co. Tipperary. Besides the books already mentioned, Sir William Butler was the author of several important works, chief among which are the military biographies of Sir Charles Napier (1890) and Sir George Colley (1899).
A little poem was found among his papers after his death, entitled "A Request".
Give me but six-foot-three (one inch to spare)
Let it be hill where cloud and mountain meet,
I loved them all-the vale, the hill,
But more than hill or valley, bird or moor,
Little I did for them in outward deed,
So give me Irish grave, 'mid Irish air,
Of Irish earth, and dig it anywhere;
And for my poor soul say an Irish prayer
Above the spot.
Or vale where grows the tufted meadowsweet,
Or "boreen" trod by peasants' shoeless feet:
It matters not.
The moaning sea, the water-lillied rill,
The yellow gorse, the lake-shore lone and still,
The wild birds' song.
More than the green fields of the river Suir,
I loved those hapless ones, the Irish poor,
All my life long.
And yet be unto them of praise the meed
For the stiff fight I waged 'gainst lust and greed.
I learned it there.
With Irish grass above it-anywhere;
And let some Irish peasant say a prayer
For my soul's care