The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-07-16 00:00:00

We condense the following account of the Windsor
Review from an interesting description in The Times of
Monday :

It may at once be said of the great Volunteer
Review held at Windsor on Saturday, that whether
regarded as a mere military spectacle or as an attempt
to mobilize the Volunteer force of this country on a
gigantic scale, it was a magnificent success—the
crowning achievement of the Volunteer move-
ment

The plan of the War Office was a sufficiently am-
bitious one. It was to call between 50,000 and
60,000 Volunteers to arms in all parts of the country,
not excepting such remote counties as Northumber-
land and Pembroke, and to throw them into
Windsor within a period of less than twenty-four
hours—in other words to effect such a mobilization
of the Volunteer force as a sudden invasion of our
shores by a foreign enemy would demand. Accord-
ing to the official programme, not a battalion was
to stir before Friday evening with the exception
of the Ist Pembrokeshire, which for considerations
of traffic, no doubt, was timed to leave Camarthen
Junction shortly after noon on Friday, and to arrive
at Slough the same night. The Northumberland men
were not timed to take train at Newcastle till 6.40
on Friday evening. All the Midland and West of
England corps were timed to begin their journey
at midnight, or later, and those from London,
the home counties, and the south and eastern coun-
ties were, without exception, to be transported to
Windsor, on the day of the review. A magnificent
programme truly, well calculated to satisfy the
most ardent Volunteer ! If t has been carried
out to the letter there is no small credit due to
the railway companies, and especially to the
Great Western and the London and South-
Western companies, upon whom the great burden of
conveying the troops to Windsor naturally fell. Of
course it would be easy to exaggerate the importance
of the feat thus accomplished with regard to the capa-
bilities of a Volunteer force in actual war. The ab-
sence of guns and stores which in war it would be as
essential to transport as troops simplified matters con
siderably, and there was besides ample time for ela-
borating the railway arrangements upon which the
successful movement of the troops depended. Windsor
too is much more favcurably situated in respect
to railway accommodation than any spot where
the presence of a Volunteer army is likely to be
required to repel an enemy. A glance at the map will
show that Windsor Park lies, so to speak, in the
hollow of a horse-shoe formed by the London and
South-Western Railway, with its cluster of stations—
Datchet, Egham, Virginia Water, and Ascot—and
that it is in close contact with the Great Western
system by means of the stations at Windsor and
Slough. But, allowing for these circumstances, a
large share of credit still remains to all who were in-
strumental in carrying out the review.
All the stations named, surrounding Windsor Park
as they do on three sides at distances varying from
three to five miles, were utilised as points of arrival
from which the troops could converge upon their
rendezvous. The review ground proper was the fine
stretch of verdant lawn lying between the Long Walk
and Queen Anne's Ride, but a much larger area was
set apart for the previous mustering of the troops by
brigades, divisions, and army corps. To the south
and east of the review ground there are endless ex-
panses of lawn and glade which could easily swallow
up the whole population of London. Into this beauti-
ful scene the troops began to pour from all sides at
early morning, the earliest arrivals being the regi-
ments from distant counties who had been travelling
the whole or the greater part of the night. It was
arranged to form two army corps.
[The Times then gives a list of the various corps forming
the brigades.]

According to the official estimate, these various
corps were to muster 52,240 men, but many regiments
exceeded their estimate by 50 and 100 and few fell
under it, so that on a moderate computation the total
force assembled was not less than 55,000 men. The
railway arrangements were calculated with extreme
nicety
From six in the morning till three in the afternoon
the influx of troops went on, the military trains fol-
lowing each other at the various stations with wonder-
ful rapidity and punctuality None of the
regiments were more than an hour and a half late,
and the great bulk of them not more than half an
hour. The men, on arriving upon the ground, were
numbered and exercised and then allowed to "fall
out." None of them had camp equipage, so that if the
day had been wet, they would have been in a sorry plight,
the earlier arrivals especially. As it was, they enjoyed
a beautiful sylvan landscape at its very best. They
squatted on the grass, and as they lolled about and
lunched upon the contents of their haversacks, it was
difficult to realise that one was not assisting at a huge
picnic. Yet the presence of these men on the ground
involved in many cases a great amount of self-denial
and devotion to the Volunteer cause. The rank and
file of the distant corps were mostly artisans who had
left their work on Friday night to step into the train
which was to con,'ey them through a longand fatiguing
night-journey to their destination. In the Lancashire
regiments, for instance, the men were working in many
cases till 8 or half-past 8 on Friday night, and were
on their journey by midnight, with no prospect of
zeturning to their homes or getting a wink of sleep
for 48 hours. The Northumberland men knocked off
work at half-past three on Friday afternoon, and were
in the train at Newcastle by seven. . . . The Volun-
teers mostly brought provisions enough with them to
last till their return home, and the water-tanks and
troughs erected at the rendezvous of each division
gave them a copious supply of cool, sparkling water.
The commanders of some few regiments had contracted
with caterers who provided the men with the rations
thpy rpguired. Some regiments combined both
systems, the men bringing food in their haversacks
and also getting supplied on the ground. . . .
It was satisfactory to find that, notwith-
standing the fatiguing journeys which so many of
the regiments had made and the extreme youth of
many of the Volunteers, rome of whom, properly
speaking, were only growing lads, there were compara-
tively few instances of men falling out of the ranks,
and the ambulance and field hospitals had not more
than a score of anything like serious cases to deal with.
There was no heat to cause any risk of sunstroke, and,
besides the men during the hottest part of the day
were all able to find shelter under the noble elms and
oaks which were plentiful at or within a short dis-
tance of their rendezvous. There was no restriction
upon the freedom of the Volunteers to wander about
during the long hours which many of them had to
wait; but their military instinct kept them mostly
within the bounds of their own division, ready to obey
any call to arms.

It was not till three in the afternoon, by which time
the last corps were marching in from the railway sta-
tions' that the strictly military portion of the day's
work began. A single gun fired by the Hon. Artillery
Company was the signal for all straggling Volunteers
to fall in. At 3.15 a second gun sent the whole force
in motion towards the ground marked out for the
troops to occupy while being inspected by Her
Majesty. The 2nd Army Corps lined the Long Walk
from the Castle to the Double Gates and the Ist dis-
posed itself by brigades in two parallel lines of quarter
columns on the noble expanse of lawn facing the
saluting base at the Victoria oak. Meanwhile the
spectators massed themselves behind this point, where
the Queen was to take un her stand for the march
past. The crowd looked a mere handful, altogether
out of proportion to the 1,200 police who were sent
down to keep them in order. It takes a great many
people to make much show in the vast spaces of
Windsor Park, where the eye can sweep miles of green
sward; but still the crowd was surprisingly small con-
sidering the importance and the interest of the occa-
sion. The reason, no doubt, was that the people of
London, knowing that the traffic on the two railways
for the day was to be entirely subordinated to military
considerations were chary of attempting to get to
Windsor whence it might be impossible for them to
return till Sunday, and so the energies of the rail-
way companies, as regarded the conveyance of gene-
ral passengers, were by no means severely taxed,
There was a special train for members of Parliament,
which left Paddington at noon, and so well had all
the arrangements worked up till that time that it
had an uninterrupted run to Windsor. About 100
members of Parliament availed themselves of this
accommodation, but a much larger number appeared
in the enclosure which at the last moment had been
set apart for them at the saluting point. A second
special train conveyed the Prince and Princess of
Wales. There was also a good attendance on the ground
of peers and of members of the Four-in-Hand Club,
who likewise occupied special enclosures. After
the two Army Corps had taken up their positions
for inspection, there was a long period of waiting
—nearly an hour, the military authorities, in their
anxiety to prevent a hitch, having allowed a too
ample margin for delays. The Volunteers, in fact,
moved into their appointed positions with the pre-
cision and regularity of veteran troops. Drawn up
before the saluting base at a distance which dwarfed
the men te pigmy-size, and which, consequently,
allowed the eye to range over an entire Army Corps,
the long line of serried battalions with their varied
uAiforms—scarlet, gray, and dark which either
by accident or design were arranged in the
most picturesque fashion presented an ex-
ceedingly pretty sight against their back-
ground of forest foliage. The brigades stationed
on the level, wide-stretching lawn looked like so many
blocks of little tin soldiers upon a table. In this posi-
tion they were rapidly inspected by the Duke of Cam-
bridge, who was in supreme command, and the Army
Corps commanders, who rode along the line to see that
everything was right. The massing of the troops
in this order afforcied the spectators a good oppor-
tunity of comparing the different uniforms, from
the sharpshooters' point of view., Scarlet was of
course the most conspicuous, but it did not offer a better
target than the dark greens and the dark blues which
showed up in sharp relief. The gray, especially the light
gray, was the most indistinct in outline though on a
green background it is no more apt to be confounded
with its surroundings than red. Gray, as it happens,
is the colour which is least affected by Volunteers.
Most battalions were clad in dark uniforms, but
scarlet appears to be growing in favour. At former
reviews it was almost entirely absent. On the pre-
sent occasion there were masses of that colour at
frequent intervals along the line, and when, as in the
case of the Lancashire regiments, it was combined
with a fine soldierly bearing on the part of the men, it
was difficult to detect any difference between the
scarlet clad corps and "Regulars."

The hour of waiting was evidently a source
of souse embarrassment to the commanding officers of
regiments. Some, taking in the situation at a glance,
allowed their corps at once to rest themselves upon
the grass, while others kept their men for some time
under arms, the result being that the line had a some-
what ragged appearance, but ultimately all the men
were allowed to lie down.
At ten minutes to five, egun, the first of a salute of
21, from the Hon. Artillery Company's battery,
announced that the Queen had left the Castle and
the men at once sprang to arms, remaining in a state
of most perfect immobility during the time required
by the Royal party to drive along the lines of both
Army Cores and take up their position at the
saluting point. Meanwhile, the sky, which had been
clear the whole day, became overcast. The guns
brought down a few drops of rain, and a heavy, black

cloud coming up from the south-west threatened a
deluge. But, fortunately the danger passed off, leaving
a cool, freshening breeze, which rendered the march-
past less fatiguing to the men than it would otherwise
have been. The Queen was in an open carriage drawn
by four grays without riders, and was accompanied by
the Princess of Wales and the Crown Princess of
Prussia. In a second carriage was the Princess Louise,
the Princess Christian, the Princess Beatrice, and
the Duchess of Connaught. A third carriage con-
tained the Duke of Albany, the Duchess of Teck, and
Prince Waldemar of Sweden, and a fourth the
Princesses of Hesse. Mr. Childers, M.P., also
drove down to the ground from the Castle. The
Royal carriages were accompanied by a brilliant
group of horsemen, in which were the Duke of
Cambridge, the Crown Prince of Germany, wearing
the white uniform of the Prussian Cuirassiers, Prince
Christian, Prince Louis of Hesse, and one or two
foreign officers.