Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South AfricaDu Moulin, Louis Eugène
History
Two Years on Trek: Being Some Account of the Royal Sussex Regiment in South Africa
Du Moulin, Louis Eugène
Great Britain. Army. Royal Sussex Regiment; South African War, 1899-1902 -- Regimental histories -- Great Britain
_He served in the Black Mountain Campaign of 1888, in the Chin-Lushai
and Manipur expeditions of 1889-91, and in the Tirah Campaign of
1897-98. Alike among the dark pine woods of the Himalayas, in the dense
jungle of Manipur, or on the bleak, stony ridges of the Hazara country
the name of du Moulin became a byword in the Regiment, and far beyond
the Regiment, for restless energy, never-failing resource and cool
daring. He became known all over India as a musketry expert. Many of his
ideas were adopted, and are in universal use by those who may never have
heard his name._
_Perhaps his real genius was for organization. This quality came
conspicuously into notice in South Africa during the war. Many men who
served in the 21st Brigade under General Bruce Hamilton had reason to
bless the forethought and unstinted labour of the man who carried out so
thoroughly the idea of the Brigade commander, and supplied the Brigade
with those welcome additions to bully beef and biscuit which were
obtainable at the Brigade Canteen. Often after a hard day's march and a
tough fight have I admired the unselfish spirit in which, disdaining
fatigue, he would set to work with his coat off to open stores and
arrange the wagons lighted with "dips," which served as a "coffee shop"
for famishing Tommy._
_A tall, spare man, with keen, dark eyes, a courageous nose and a
harsh-toned voice--such was the outward du Moulin. Feared not a little,
loved greatly by those under him, afraid of no one, despising precedent
and precaution, dependent only on his own iron will and keen intellect,
he had a brilliant career before him when he fell gloriously at
Abraham's Kraal on January 28th, 1902. He had gone through the campaign
from the advance to Pretoria of Lord Roberts' army, down to the pursuit
of De Wet and of the broken commandos after De Wet's time, without a
wound, and, as far as I can remember, without a day's sickness--and with
very few days' rest from marching and fighting._
_He always knew what it was he wanted and how to get it, and how to make
others help him to this end._
_One anecdote I may here relate:--
Worn out with much marching, ragged and hungry, the half battalion under
du Moulin halted at Kroonstad to refit. Supplies, and especially
clothing and boots, were hard to get. Some tired subaltern returned,
repulsed from the Ordnance Store, empty handed._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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