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INTRODUCTION
This book invites the reader to cast the mind a hundred and fifty years back to a short span of time between 1829 and 1842. This was an exciting period when Britain’s might, demonstrated to the world at Trafalgar and Waterloo, was fortified by leadership in steam technology and was given a new direction by the liberal philosophy that British statesmen, thinkers and poets proclaimed at home and abroad.
From the material point of view it was a prehistoric age, when a letter from England took three months to reach India and live sheep were embarked on ships to provide fresh meat for the voyage. But despite changes in ways of life and forms of expression, the spirit of the times was not unlike the world we live in today.
The Euphrates expedition was an attempt by well intentioned British governments to achieve a geopolitical end by a technological means. The objective was to halt Russian expansion in the Near East, where some observers saw a threat to Britain’s control of India. The instrument would be a flotilla of iron-hulled paddle-wheel steamboats that would patrol the long stretch of the river Euphrates from the Anatolian mountains to the Persian Gulf. Two steamers were sent out from England in early 1835 to confirm that the river was navigable for such vessels.
New technologies, which in one way or another extend the reach of man beguile politicians with a prospect of instant, relatively effortless results that can bring fame and favour to their sponsors. More cautious men are wary of new-fangled inventions until the test of time has shown their limitations as well as their powers. Even when a technology appears proven its application in a new environment often creates unanticipated problems that call for quick decisions by the managers of the project in which the technology is employed.
Britain’s efforts to navigate the Euphrates provide a case history for these truisms. The steamers, assembled in a makeshift shipyard in a primitive country, functioned well. Technical failures occurred, not because of faulty equipment, but due on one occasion to exposure to the unimagined stress of hurricane winds and on another to overworking the engine. After a third attempt had proved that the design of the vessels was inappropriate to the conditions along the river, the entire experiment was abandoned.
In the present age of instant communication, it is hard to imagine a project of national importance being undertaken when it required two or three months for reports from the scene of action to reach London or for the ministry in charge of the project to issue new instructions to the people in the field. The men on the spot were, inevitably, blamed for failing to achieve the desired results: but it is clear from the dates on which various letters were sent and received that the managers of the project made little provision for contingencies that might have been foreseen.
Politicians from both of the leading parties in Britain had been in charge of the Euphrates project. Consequently, after its abandonment there was no grand inquest but a tacit understanding that the project should pass quietly into oblivion. Historians have accepted this verdict and an occasional reference to the Euphrates expedition dismisses it as an irrelevant sideshow.
Yet sideshows are conducted by real people of flesh and blood who reveal their strengths and weaknesses at each step of the story. In this instance, a wealth of official papers and correspondence, supplemented by some published material and a meagre but rewarding file of contemporary prints and private letters, enables the reader to participate in the triumphs and tribulations of what one member of the expedition termed ‘no mean undertaking’.1
I am most grateful for the access to official documents granted by the Public Record Office, the India Office Library and Records and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, as well as for the helpfulness of the staff at these institutions. Transcripts/translations of Crown copyright records in the Public Record Offices and unpublished Crown copyright material in the India Office Records reproduced in this book appear by permission of the Controller of Her Majesty's Stationery Office. I am also grateful for similar permission from the French Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres, Division Historique des Archives Diplomatiques.
I am much obliged to the authorities in the Turkish and Syrian republics whose kindness enabled me in 1988-90 to retrace the route of the expedition from the Mediterranean coast to Birecik and to travel along the roads that run parallel to the Euphrates from Rumkale to Abu Kemal. Regrettably, I was unable to follow the course of the expedition to Iraq and the Persian Gulf, though parts of that region were familiar to me from previous visits.
In addition to the libraries in Britain, Germany and the United States which have granted me access to their collections and their photocopy facilities, I should express my special thanks to the Gloucestershire Records Office, which holds the Estcourt Papers, and to the Royal Artillery Institution, where Chesney’s uniform may be seen.
I should also acknowledge my gratitude for the encouragement and advice I have received from many kind individuals (none of whom bears any responsibility for the contents of this book). Among them I am pleased to cite: Major H. C. Blosse-Lvnch: Frank O. Braynard: Dr. J. F. Coakley: Rev. Christian Dienel; Dr Nuri Eren; David H. Finnie: my cousin Desmond FitzGerald, Knight of Glin: Mihai H. Handrea: the late Dr W. J. Hanna; Sir Donald Hawley, KC.MG; F. William Hulton: Prof Nicholas A. Joukovsky; Mrs Pamela Linton; Dr Ertugrul Zekai Okte: Mr and Mrs Morris Reilly; Sarah Searight; Prof. David Shoenberg FRS; A. M. Smith and Sigrid Troger.
Special thanks are due to Mr Fred M. Walker of the National Maritime Museum, who looked over the manuscript of Chapters 1. 2 and 9 and made a number of useful suggestions. As regards the remainder of the text, I hope that sailors and steamboaters will pardon the mistakes of a writer whose nautical experience is limited to windsurfing.
Perhaps my greatest debts of all are owed to my wife, who tolerated my frequent absences from home in pursuit of elusive records, and to our dear daughter Cornelia, who edited my entire manuscript and put it in shape for publication.
John S. Guest
Fishers Island, New York
July 1990
Chapter 1
Peacock’s Dream
Thomas Love Peacock, civil servant and man of letters, was born in 1785, the only child of a London glass merchant, who died when the boy was still, quite young. His mother. Sarah Love, moved with her son to Surrey to live with her father, who had retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of Master after losing a leg at the battle of The Saints in 1782.
Peacock was educated at a small private school near his home. At the age of thirteen he went to work in London as a clerk. But as he grew up he discovered that his real interests were poetry and the study of Greek and Roman civilization.
His first volume of poetrv. Palmyra, anil oilier Poems, was published when the author was twentv vears old. The title poem, revised, shortened and reissued in 1812, is an ode in memory of the ancient city in the Syrian desert that once handled the flow of merchandise from India and the Far East to Mediterranean ports. In its hevdav (the third century AD) Palmyra was a wealthy buffer state between the Roman and Persian empires; its queen, Zenobia [Zeineb], maintained a lavish court and a school of Greek philosophy. But Zenobia's attempt to conquer Egypt and other provinces in the Near East led to her defeat by the Roman emperor Aurelian. Captured in flight to a fortress on the Euphrates, she was taken to Italy and died in captivity. The emperor accepted the submission of Palmyra, but when the inhabitants revolted the Romans sacked the city, much of which still stands in ruins.
Later, Peacock dismissed Palmyra as a ‘juvenile production’.1 But most reviews were favourable and when the revised version appeared the poet Shelley wrote to the publisher that ‘the conclusion of Palmyra [is] the finest piece of poetry I ever read’.2 Shelley and Peacock first met towards the end …
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