The Project Gutenberg EBook of Deeds that Won the Empire, by W. H. Fitchett

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Title: Deeds that Won the Empire
Historic Battle Scenes

Author: W. H. Fitchett

Release Date: September 12, 2006 [EBook #19255]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE ***

Produced by Al Haines

DEEDS THAT WON THE EMPIRE

HISTORIC BATTLE SCENES

BY W. H. FITCHETT, LL. D.

LONDON: JOHN MURRAY

FIRST EDITION (Smith, Elder & Co.) . . . November 1897
Twenty-ninth Impression . . . . . . . . October 1914
Reprinted (John Murray) . . . . . . . . September 1917
Reprinted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . February 1921

PREFACE

The tales here told are written, not to glorify war, but to nourish
patriotism. They represent an effort to renew in popular memory the
great traditions of the Imperial race to which we belong.

The history of the Empire of which we are subjects--the story of the
struggles and sufferings by which it has been built up--is the best
legacy which the past has bequeathed to us. But it is a treasure
strangely neglected. The State makes primary education its anxious
care, yet it does not make its own history a vital part of that
education. There is real danger that for the average youth the great
names of British story may become meaningless sounds, that his
imagination will take no colour from the rich and deep tints of
history. And what a pallid, cold-blooded citizenship this must produce!

War belongs, no doubt, to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side
of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line
about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it.
What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of
heroic daring, but of even finer qualities--of heroic fortitude; of
loyalty to duty stronger than the love of life; of the temper which
dreads dishonour more than it fears death; of the patriotism which
makes love of the Fatherland a passion. These are the elements of
robust citizenship. They represent some, at least, of the qualities by
which the Empire,