Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
Produced by Eric Eldred, Andy Schmitt and PG Distributed
Proofreaders. HTML version by Al Haines.
CAMPS, QUARTERS AND CASUAL PLACES
BY ARCHIBALD FORBES, LL.D.
NOTE
My obligations for permission to incorporate some of the articles in
this volume are due to Messrs. George Routledge and Sons, Mr. James
Knowles of the _Nineteenth Century_, Mr. Percy Bunting of the
_Contemporary Review_, and the Proprietor of _McClure's Magazine_.
LONDON, _June_ 1896.
CONTENTS
1. MATRIMONY UNDER FIRE
2. REVERENCING THE GOLDEN FEET
3. GERMAN WAR PRAYERS
4. MISS PRIEST'S BRIDECAKE
5. A VERSION OF BALACLAVA
6. HOW I "SAVED FRANCE"
7. CHRISTMAS IN A CAVALRY REGIMENT
8. THE MYSTERY OF MONSIEUR REGNIER
9. RAILWAY LIZZ
10. MY NATIVE SALMON RIVER
11. THE CAWNPORE OF TO-DAY
12. BISMARCK BEFORE AND DURING THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
13. THE INVERNESS "CHARACTER" FAIR
14. THE WARFARE OF THE FUTURE
15. GEORGE MARTELL'S BANDOBAST
16. THE LUCKNOW OF TO-DAY
17. THE MILITARY COURAGE OF ROYALTY
18. PARADE OF THE COMMISSIONAIRES
19. THE INNER HISTORY OF THE WATERLOO CAMPAIGN
MATRIMONY UNDER FIRE
The interval between the declaration of the Franco-German war of
1870-71, and the "military promenade," at which the poor Prince
Imperial received his "baptism of fire," was a pleasant, lazy time at
Saarbrücken; to which pretty frontier town I had early betaken myself,
in the anticipation, which proved well founded, that the tide of war
would flow that way first. What a pity it is that all war cannot be
like this early phase of it, of which I speak! It was playing at
warfare, with just enough of the grim reality cropping up occasionally,
to give the zest which the reckless Frenchwoman declared was added to a
pleasure by its being also a sin. The officers of the
Hohenzollerns--our only infantry regiment in garrison--drank their beer
placidly under the lime-tree in the market-place, as their men smoked
drowsily, lying among the straw behind the stacked arms ready for use
at a moment's notice. The infantry patrol skirted the frontier line
every morning in the gray dawn, occasionally exchanging with little
result a few shots with the French outposts on the Spicheren or down in
the valley bounded by the Schönecken wood. The Uhlans, their piebald
lance-pennants fluttering in the wind, cantered leisurely round the
crests of the little knolls which formed the vedette posts, despising
mightily the straggling chassepot bullets which were pitched at them
from time to time in a desultory way; but which, desultory as they
were, now and then brought lance-pennant and its bearer to the
ground--an occurrence invariably followed by a little spurt of lively
hostility.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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