Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/618

 suppression of a rising of the Gaikas in the north-east of Cape Colony. In this campaign Wood commanded a column with the ability and resolution which the army had learned to expect of him. Hardly was this work completed, when the rising of the Zulus under Cetywayo took place. In the invasion of Zululand Wood was again in command of a column, which escaped the disaster of Isandhlwana (22 January 1879). This disaster to one column made the position of the others precarious, but Wood's resolution was unshaken. Having occupied with his force the Kambula Mountain he sallied out to attack the Zulus in Inhlobana (28 March), and after defeating them returned the next day to Kambula, where he beat off a determined attack. This gave Lord Chelmsford, as Thesiger had now become, time to reorganize and receive reinforcements, and a fresh invasion of Zululand ended in the complete defeat of Cetywayo's army at Ulundi (4 July). During this campaign the Prince Imperial, the only son of Napoleon III, was killed, while on a reconnaissance, in circumstances which were not creditable to the officer in charge of the party. Wood, who had a great affection for the young prince, conducted the Empress Eugénie to Zululand (1880) to see the place where her son had been killed, and so began a friendship which lasted until Wood's death. For his services in the Zulu War Wood was many times mentioned in dispatches and was created K.C.B. (1879).

After a short interval in command at Chatham, Wood was again sent to Natal early in 1881. The Boers of the Transvaal, resentful of the terms of the annexation of 1877, had revolted, and a field force under Sir George Pomeroy Colley [q.v.] was sent to Natal. Wood served as Colley's second in command, but was not present when Colley was killed and a portion of his force driven from Majuba Hill (27 February 1881). Again, as after Isandhlwana, it fell to Wood to retrieve a dangerous situation. The British troops were shaken by the death of their commander and by the losses at Majuba Hill, and Wood informed the government that he could not attack the Boers with success for some weeks. Strong feeling was expressed in England that no settlement should be concluded with the Boers until the disgrace of Majuba had been wiped out; but Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet was not disposed to subordinate peace to the restoration of military prestige, and directed Wood to open negotiations with the Boers. Wood, after pointing out to the government that he could attack the Boers successfully by the middle of March, loyally carried out his instructions, came to terms with the Boers on 21 March 1881, and was thereafter appointed one of the royal commissioners for the settlement of the Transvaal. He was attacked by the parliamentary opposition for being a party to what they termed a disgraceful surrender, but maintained stoutly that in matters of policy a soldier's duty is to carry out the orders of his government unless in his opinion the safety of his troops would be prejudiced by doing so, a question which in this instance did not arise.

On the conclusion of the work of the royal commission, Wood left for good what he termed ‘the land of his fortunes’, and resumed command at Chatham in February 1882. He was promoted major-general and created G.C.M.G. for his work in the Transvaal. During his command at Chatham (Sir) William Robert Robertson, who later was to succeed to Wood's baton as field-marshal, served as a lance-corporal in the 3rd Dragoons in charge of his mounted orderlies. In August 1882, on the outbreak of Arabi Pasha's rebellion in Egypt, Wood went out with Sir Garnet Wolseley in command of the 4th brigade, and had the dull but anxious task of keeping the Egyptian forces around Alexandria occupied, while Wolseley, with the main body, went down the Suez Canal to Ismailia and Tel-el-Kebir. In December 1882 he was appointed first British sirdar of the Egyptian army, which had been disbanded after the rebellion and which it was his task to recreate. This he did in a remarkably short space of time, and the foundations which he laid have endured. The greater part of the force with which (Lord) Kitchener defeated the Mahdi at Omdurman was organized in the main on the lines designed by Wood. While he was still in Egypt, General Gordon was isolated and besieged in Khartoum; and in September 1884, when Lord Wolseley came out to attempt the relief of Gordon, Wood was appointed to the command of the long and difficult line of communications.

On the conclusion of the Nile campaign, Wood came home to be appointed, first, in April 1886, to the Eastern command with head-quarters at Colchester, and later, in January 1889, to the Aldershot command. Both at Colchester and at Aldershot he was busily engaged in giving practical application to Lord Wolseley's plans for 592