THE VICTORIES OF THE VANQUISHED.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12663, 17 September 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE VICTORIES OF THE VANQUISHED.

[BY touunga.]

In these days of wars and rumours of wars, when no nati& can feel quite secure, and the once well-named Pacific is becoming the cockpit of the world, it «nay be I comforting for us to remember that the world belongs not to those who can win victories, but to those who can rise triumphant from defeat. , The story of Robert Bruce and the spider 1 is the story of the ages. The history of the world is studded with the victories of the vanquished. In the end the battle goes to the people that never say die. It was a cross-bred Bantam, with ft dash of Game, which came to reside, one time, near to a stretch of vacant land that was the common of 1 the fowl of the neighbourhood. The suzerain ot the medley flocks was a burly bird, in which Cochin-China was dominant, and the moment the Bantam was let out, with hit- family, the lord oi the manor rushed truculently to assert his seigneurial rights. The Bantam stood to anus, was knocked down got up, was knocked down, got up, was knocked down, got up, was knocked down, and finally danced on. But when it got its breath it fought again, and still fought again. It was always beaten, for the big bird had only to bump against it to close the round, but it always fought, and it always got itsi beak well homo before it went down. It was a weary and draggled little bird before nightfall, but it was game to the tinging down of the lights. And, in the morning, as we still watched the battle of the birds, we noticed that the Cochin was not nearly as eager for the fray, and only occasionally rushed to battle. But the Bantam was as chirpy as ever, and beginning to be cheeky. And before the. week was over the 4it tie bird that came up full of fight after every beating was acknowledged lord of the paddock, and the big cowardly Cochin ran away as fast as ho had once rushed to bully." _ As with birds, so with mankind. It isn't any good whatever to win victories unless you can rise smiling from defeat. _ And this is matter of cold History. Our fathers wiped the French out in no less than three victories, of which each one appears miraculous and passing the power of mortal men. They were really each one of the same identical pattern, depending upon the possession by the English of a weapcn of which circumstances gave them the absolute monopoly. The longbow was she deadliest weo-pon known to the world before the invention and common use of gunpowder, and could only be handled by men trained to it from the cradle. 'lb e' French had about as much chance against English archery, as long as the English captain protected his bowmen from being attacked at close quarters, as a French football team would have today against our New Zealanders. 3recy, Poictiers, Agincourt, were victories in which England hardly lost a man, in which France was paralysed by the wholesale slaughter of her bravest. Agincourt seemed to lay France helpless aA the feet of England, yet fifty years after Agincourt - England only held of France the single town of Calais. For Joan of Arc brought courage to the vanquished, and, I before the upheaval of a nation, alien rule melted like frost in the sun.

; And we, ourselves, in our turn, recovered from the bitter defeat of Hastings, have not lost a single letter of our Saxon liberties, a single word of our Saxora speech. The alien Church that gave England to the invader ; has no; place- 'in' our nation, «ad over three, continents men speak .of Angio-Saxondom when they .: would describe the' ram that {is greater : than, any empire and wider than any government. Yet at Hastings. King Harold was slain, and the Saxon power seemingly humbled to the dust. That things are as 'they ■ are is a victory of the vanquished/ surely.-.' Somebody has pointed out very forcibly that many famous victories really have had no great influence upon the ultimate comae of events, that the great Greek victories, even the Macedonian conquest, did not prevent Asia from over-running in the end the Grecian; country, that all the victories of .Napoleon did not particularly alter the map of Europe, and that the early success of the Confederate States in the American Civil War never made doubtful the ultimate triumph "of the Washington. Government, provided the northern States eould endure defeat, as they proved they could. But there have been defeats in which the vanquished have been acknowledged victors, overwbelmings of heroes which have filled their countrymen with an enthusiasm such as no victory, however great, could ever inspire. De Wet beat our New Zealanders at Bothasberg, bat to them is the glory of having fought th© greatest fight of the South African war, and of having died, man after man, in the dark; holding their post to the end, "not one skulker among them." It is forgotten, seemingly, just a*? England forgets the Revenge and America the Alameda, but it will be remembered in the years to come, when we revive the memories of the heroic dead to iinspire again heroic action. And of the Revenge and the* Alameda we | shall always hear when Anglo-Saxondom is | imperilled, for iE these victories of the vanquished are the most beroio stories known, to mankind of the sea and of the land. To know them is to know how it is that defeat may be .more glorious than any victory. Tennyson hae sung of the Revenge, thres hundred yean s after Grenville or Devon fought it all day and all night against the mighty fleet o ( Spain. He nae set in stirring lines, so that all who can read may feel, and know, how the hundred English sailors waited tc get then sick aboard at the Azores, to save them "from th& thumbscrew and the stake" of the Inquisition, and then tried to win their way out through fifty-three ships of Spain. But he lies left to the imagination the effect upon Spain of that superhuman daring. Tha historians tell us that Spain recovered from the defeat of her Invincible Armada, but never held her head up on the sea? aftei her victory over the Revenge. He* captains and her sailors shrank from encountering seamen whose' seemingly insignificant little bark*, might individually .bag down a whole fleet ip the death-struggle. And if the Revenge is the greatest fight of the seas the Alameda is the greatest fight of the land, both by the English-speakers, !, both by a handful of men against over-I whelming odds. The epic of the Alameda is not yet written, but it took three hundred years to write the epic of the Revenge. It was in Texas in the '40's,,wher the Lone Star State had declared its independence of Mexico, and twenty thousand .nexicans followed Santa Anna over the Rio Grande to crush, the American settlers. To enable General Houston to raise the settlements, a hundred and forty mer- took an oath tc bar with their livcj the road of the Mexican army. A dozen or so more joined them in the Alameda, an old mission station, as the Mexican? came in sight. Bowie—of the bowie-knife—and two companions broke through tc them later. For three days these hundred and fifty frontiersmen withstood the furious assaults of the Mexican army. Their wounded fired rifles as they lay, or. loaded for the others. Innumerable assaults were repelled. Continual offers of life and liberty were rejected. And finally, its garrison almost annihilated, the Alameda was stormed. Three survivors stood back to back, refused quarter, and died fighting. Bowie lay with two broken thighs in a room, from whose loopholes he had fired upon the assailants, and is rumoured to have performed prodigies with revolver and knife before they silenced him. Over five thousand Mexicans are recorded as slain— not wounded —in this astonishing battle. Is it surprising that when Houston marched upon them they left Texas to its freedom with hardly another blow? Over the slain heroes was set the proudest of all martial epitaphs: "Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat; the Alameds. had none." We say defeat, but was it not one of the wonderful victories which may be. won by the | vanquished?