The Sun.
London, England, 1863-05-21 00:00:00

The Sole Military Highway to India.

The near approach to the completion of oar sys-
tem of trunk railways next cold season renders it
necessary at once to come to a decision on many
important military questions. The most patent re-
sults of that completion will be economy of military
expenditure, increase of the health of the army, and
the consequent greater stability of our rule. We
shall be able to hold India with a smaller-number
of men than 73,000, and the smaller number will
be in a higher state of health from the facilities for
visiting sanitaria. But a question more immediately
pressing than these is, the best mode of transport
for our reliefs and invalids to and from India. The
present system of transport, in sailing ships by the
Cape of Good Hope, is barbarous on every ground,
political, financial, and military. If nothing else
could convince us of this the example of our French
allies ought to be sufficient to do so. They use Egypt
and the overland route alone as their great highway
to India, Anam, and China. They have organised
a system of transports by which in a few weeks a
force of many thousand men could be landed on our
Eastern shores from Aden to Shanghai. We are
within the truth when we say that any moment a
force of from 3,000 to 6,000 men will be found at or
near to Alexandria. On the outbreak of an Euro-
pean war they, united with the large staff of the
Suez Canal, and supported by the defensive works of
the late Pasha, such as the Barrage Fort, could shut
the English out of Egypt, could cut India off from
Europe. We do not blame our allies, but we cannot
but condemn our own folly, which sees a system so
evidently so valuable in itself and so powerful for
purposes of aggression without attempting to check
or imitate it. We have reason to believe that the
eyes of both the Indian and English authorities are
open to the fact. Years ago Dr. Gordon, C. 8., urged
it. The friendliness of the new pasha, so much of
whose revenue is derived from the transit through
Egypt, and his known dislike to French intrigue,
render the present time especially favourable for
coming to a decision on this all-important point—
how India shall cease to be threatened with being
cut off from the base of its operations and the source
of its supplies. We might well liken our empire to
the human body. England is the brain, India the
great trunk, and the overland route the thin silver
cord of spinal marrow which it is so easy to destroy,
so impossible to restore. Let us state the case. Tak-
ing our Indian army at 73,000 men, the number
who must pass to and from India every year is
20,000. Annually, at least five corps of infantry, 950
strong, and one of cavalry 450 strong, with 10 per
cent. of women and children, must be sent to India.
Adding to those the recruits to fill up gaps in the
corps in the country, the best authorities reckon the
total annual supply of English soldiers to India at
12,000. At present it costs £l9 to send each of
these out by the Cape. Returning from India to
England there is au annual number of 8,000, each of
whom costs for passage £25. As a rule these men
going and coming spend 120 days, which to the
young recruit and new corps is a time of military and
sometimes moral degeneracy. The men are idle
and get into difficulties, while the less that is said
of the new families the better. Moreover, these 20,000
men for four months every year are lost to the em-
pire; they are away on a tedious and distant voy-
age, beyond the power of recall by letter or tele-
graph, should their services be required in such an
emergency as 1857; their pay is lost to the nation ;
adding that, military financiers estimate the total
cost of sending men to India at £25 155., and of
those returning at £3l 15s. On the other hand, if
these 20,000 men were sent by the overland route
from Malta to Bombay or Kurrachee the distance is
reduced from 14,000 to 4,000 miles, the time from
120 to 20 days; and the political advantage of such
large bodies of men passing through Egypt and
down the Red Sea is not to be estimated. They
could do so all the year round, certainly for nine
out of 12 months ; and as to cost, a special steam
service would take them at £25 a head from Eng-
land to Bombay, in addition to the £1 10s. charged
for the Egyptian transit. The same service would
take officers at half the Peninsular and Oriental Com-
pany's rates ; or our naval transport ships,such as the
Himalaya,might be employed advantageously in the
duty. The advantages—military, sanitary, political,
and economical—do not admit of a moment's discus-
sion. As Kurrachee, Bombay, and Beypore troops
could be landed for all the presidencies,those for Ben
gal being sent by railway to Jubbulpore, and three
years hence to any station from Calcutta to Delhi
and Mooltan ; if the railway break from Kotree to
Mooltan were an objection. At Ceylon, or else-
where, all the invalids of our force in the East
might be periodically collected and despatched to
the Mediterranean from time to time, a course
gthreeat which would would save many valuaboleulrivEesa,srteeprnreEsemntpiinrge
so much money, to the army-
chances
threatens mloartee,antdo Moros
gweinilciaesiwlaikves thatbe s uobfj el,3Btot o, a tsh
we
erlilske s
to
of a European war which
to gather round the Porte andw wag
se
tOO
ostern question.
In 1857 the Court of Directors implored the Ca_
binet, but in vain till it
out
Regimenttroops
did
dy s
aiEgypt.l
from
Malta When
through
men passed
with all their arms, n plain Ith es,
packed in cases. The pand kits
Pasha laughed
scrupulousness, and told at our
us they might
through with their arms, march
as the French have
always done. India
was familiar with the
route as a pathway overland
for troops to
When, in the Europe before 1857
D summer of 1854, the 10th and 12th
Dragoons, consisting of 1,400 horsesand
1,600 men,
e
went from India to the ' •
accoutrements,g yPt
ti
ofinally
i e2lltlhd
Alexandria
Crimea, they passed through
Egypt in the hottest months ,;and
„and were so:healthy
and Efficient in the campaign that Lord Dalhousie
directed this route to be strictly adhered to in the
event of any further transit. And
who has forgotten
Sir David s d
B •air' d' • expe mon in 1801 P Landing at
Kosseir in May and June, he crossed the Desert to
Kherie, on the Nile, in nine days, sailed down the
riser, and garrisoned A!exandria. Next year, in
the month of June, several regiments returned to
India through Egypt. No less than 5,000 men,
with cavalry, artillery, and treasure, marched
across the Desert, from the Lake of Pilgrims near
Cairo to Suez, in four days, with the greatest ease.