Published: Civil and Military Gazette, 12 October 1887.

Attribution: In Scrapbook 4 (28/4, pp. 3–4).

Text: Civil and Military Gazette.

Notes: Unrecorded and unreprinted. The Third Anglo-Burmese War of November 1885 and the work of ‘pacification’ following into 1887 were without drama or grand spectacle, as one officer here reminds a fellow officer – one ‘General’ to another – pointing out that where no drama exists it is necessary to invent it.

* * * My contention is, and of this I feel sure your calmer judgment will approve, that there was no “fizz” in it; and “fizz” – as you ought to have long since learnt – is everything in these days of war correspondents. Gus Harris gave me the tip, that is to say, communicated the information to me, privately before the Egyptian business, and I think I made good use of his advice. But that is neither here nor there. What I want to impress on you, old man, is the disgracefully thickhided way in which you threw away your opportunities. I doubt now, if one single allusion to Bohs and Dahs, or what ever you call them, would raise a titter on a London stage; whereas – but you were at home I think when “Arabi” was a safe draw with any gallery. You may answer that it is not exactly professional for a General in Her Majesty's Army to popularize his enemies. As I have always said, your Afghan education has spoilt you completely from the point of view of the G.[reat] B.[ritish].P.[ublic]., who, after all, is your master and mine. I had only sand and rocks to work with. They made a dull background, but I contrived to raise some very fair scenic effects notwithstanding. You, on the other hand, had all the luxuriant wealth of tropical or sub-tropical greenery – I have forgotten which, but the Daily Telegraph knows all about it – to help you forward; and, best of all, a river which, I should conceive, would be absolutely unrivalled in the opportunities it offers for a torch-light procession of steamers with their flats – quorum pars magna fuisses! You see I have not yet quite forgotten my latinity. Your only disadvantage, and this, I admit, was a serious one, was the absence of any decent ground for cavalry to manoeuvre over.