Kipling: Imperialist or Soldier’s Friend?  

With Beijing flexing its muscles on the Tibetan border and New Delhi rattling its sabres, this might be as good a time as any to reflect on the futility of war and ask why physically and mentally shattered soldiers who return from war zones (in South Asia, Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Iraq) are often ignored, unrewarded, and (if American) might even be derided by their Prez as “losers” and “suckers!”

I must thank my friend KK and her husband Kannan for sending me poet Rudyard Kipling’s lesser known “The Last of the Light Brigade” (see complete text at end of this blog). Kipling’s poem is a sequel to the famous “Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (text also at the end) who wrote so eloquently about the military action in the Crimean Peninsula. 

In the Crimean war, Britain and its allies fought for control of the very same region that Russia controversially reoccupied six years ago! The war lasted from 1853-1856, with the Russian Empire on the one side and, on the other, the Empires of Britain, France, the Ottoman Turks, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. 

The Charge of the Light Brigade

The famous charge of the British light cavalry brigade took place at the Battle of Balaclava on October 25, 1854. The aim was to pursue a Russian artillery train. Instead, owing to a failure to properly communicate, the brigade was sent into a frontal assault against a heavily armed and better prepared Russian defense. The British were cut to pieces and retreated with 118 out of 620 killed. 

Legend has it that the Russians were so afraid of the cold courage of British troopers, that they never dared face them in open field again! Whatever the truth of that, the Russians lost the overall war.

Tennyson, then the British poet laureate, wrote his poem on the heroic actions of the unit. It was published in the Examiner to major acclaim. Upbeat and positive, it is considered one of his best works.

Kipling’s poem, on the other hand, is dark and somber with a note of suppressed rage. He wrote it in 1890, 36 years after Balaclava. His goal was to expose the hardship and destitution faced in old age by the last 20 surviving soldiers. They were immortalized in verse by Tennyson, but ignored in real life.

Disregarding Soldiers, Glorifying War!

The poem describes a visit by the soldiers to Tennyson (then 80 years old) to ask him to write a sequel about how they were being treated. The visit was probably invented by Kipling to draw attention to the wretched conditions of the veterans. He mourns the fact that Britain glorifies the act of war while cruelly disregarding the actors of that war who were disabled and penniless!  

Kipling’s poem represents a significant moment in Britain's military misadventures and zeal to colonize. It expresses scorn at how soldiers are treated on the home front and concern over challenges they face in adjusting to civilian life. Unlike Tennyson's celebrated poem, Kipling's did not create a stir.

Leftover Troopers of the Light Brigade

It says in Kipling’s poem that the 20 surviving veterans lacked a bed for the night: no food, no money, no jobs. They decided to go to the poet who’d once crowned them as heroes and ask him to write another poem describing their plight. After they left, the poet:

“... wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,

Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.”

There is, in fact, no record that the larger British public felt any “shame” or guilt at the way the veterans were treated! They were indifferent!

This narrative is applicable to all soldiers who fought in wars throughout history: every country sends their men to war but many fail to provide for them when they return.

An article published in The New York Times, November 2, 1913 - on the death of Sir George Wombweil, the last survivor of the charge - reported that the fund that had been set up to help the Crimean veterans was first used to assist convicted Irish rebels and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, with only the balance left to go to the veterans. Although this claim may have been unverified, Kipling dwells on it with bitterness: 

“They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;

They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog...”

A Controversial Imperialist? 

Kipling, who was born in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in 1865 and who vividly captures the essence of the country in many of his books, will forever be associated with India. He knew the country more intimately than any other British writer. 

He was also a product of his times, which can excuse the less enlightened views and acts of famous historical figures (such as, the keeping of slaves by America’s founding fathers)!

Like other writers and thinkers of his era, Kipling is usually faulted for his belief in imperialism. He wrote the controversial poem “White Man’s Burden” about the colonizing of the Philippines by the U.S. In it, he welcomes America to the family of great powers whose responsibility it is to help poor people better themselves. He felt it was the moral duty for rich (white) nations to help poor ones. In this context, “white” could mean decent or rich; it doesn't necessarily refer to skin color.  

The poem could thus be viewed either as propaganda for imperialism or as a satirical warning against the dangers of imperialism.

Kipling’s political views became more strident in later years. He was opposed to Indian nationalism and began to  champion a more aggressive style of British expansion. 

Whether Kipling was or was not the “jingo imperialist” described by George Orwell, there is no denying his great narrative gifts! He wrote verse with a skill that few could emulate. His children’s books and short stories were instant classics. In 1907, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. 

Pioneer Newspaper

In his early 20s, Kipling worked as a journalist at the Pioneer newspaper in the central Indian city of Allahabad. This was during the late 1880s. The Pioneer was an Anglo-Indian newspaper founded some 20 years earlier. 

With a weekly and a daily edition and a circulation of more than 5,000, the Pioneer was successful. It moved from Allahabad to Lucknow and was revived in the early 1990s when it was purchased by the Thapar Group and became a national newspaper.

On a personal note, I was the Washington correspondent for the Pioneer for much of the 1990s. I recall being intrigued by the rumor that both Winston Churchill and Kipling wrote for the Pioneer - and that both were fired! (The firing stories might have been apocryphal!)

Victoria Memorial Museum, Calcutta 

There used to be a life-sized portrait of Kipling at the Victoria Memorial Museum in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). I must have been 10 years old when I saw it for the first time. I recall the tour guide asking who this was and being taken aback when I said Kipling - I’d been reading “Kim,” so no biggie!  

Growing up in a former British colony, Kipling was considered mandatory reading (the “Jungle Books,” “If,” “Mandalay,”“The Man who would be King,” “Gunga Din,” “Captains Courageous,” “The Seven Seas,” the “Just So Stories”).

One may belittle his political beliefs in these more informed, more politically correct times but, not many British authors have managed to be as accomplished as he in both poetry and prose. In his essential craft, Kipling had few peers.

Ludi Joseph

Washington, D.C.

September 10, 2020

Enclosures:

“The Last Of The Light Brigade" by Rudyard Kipling read by Jonathan Jones - YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=544Avsvy-eg

THE LAST OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE 

by Rudyard Kipling 

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,

There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.

They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;

They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,

That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.

They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;

And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;

Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;

And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes 

The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,

To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song; 

And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,

A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighen the toil-bowed back;

They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;

With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,

They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,

"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.

An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;

For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an' we thought we'd call an' tell.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write 

A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight?

We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how? 

You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.

And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn." 

And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,

Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame.

They sent a cheque to the felon that sprang from an Irish bog;

They healed the spavined cab-horse; they housed the homeless dog;

And they sent (you may call me a liar), when felon and beast were paid,

A cheque, for enough to live on, to the last of the Light Brigade.

O thirty million English that babble of England's might,

Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;

Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made - "

And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade! 

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Half a league, half a league, 

Half a league onward, 

All in the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

‘Forward, the Light Brigade! 

Charge for the guns!’ he said: 

Into the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’ 

Was there a man dismay’d?

Not tho’ the soldier knew 

   Someone had blunder’d: 

Their’s not to make reply, 

Their’s not to reason why, 

Their’s but to do and die: 

Into the valley of Death 

   Rode the six hundred. 

Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon in front of them 

   Volley’d and thunder’d;

Storm’d at with shot and shell, 

Boldly they rode and well, 

Into the jaws of Death, 

Into the mouth of Hell 

   Rode the six hundred. 

Flash’d all their sabres bare, 

Flash’d as they turn’d in air 

Sabring the gunners there, 

Charging an army, while 

   All the world wonder’d: 

Plunged in the battery-smoke 

Right thro’ the line they broke; 

Cossack and Russian 

Reel’d from the sabre-stroke 

Shatter’d and sunder’d. 

Then they rode back, but not 

   Not the six hundred. 

Cannon to right of them, 

Cannon to left of them, 

Cannon behind them 

   Volley’d and thunder’d; 

Storm’d at with shot and shell, 

While horse and hero fell, 

They that had fought so well 

Came thro’ the jaws of Death, 

Back from the mouth of Hell, 

All that was left of them, 

   Left of six hundred. 

When can their glory fade ? 

O the wild charge they made! 

   All the world wonder’d. 

Honour the charge they made! 

Honour the Light Brigade, 

   Noble six hundred!