FIELD MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS, V.C., AUTOGRAPHED ''CURRAGH MUTINY'' PERIOD LETTER. One page, on Lord Roberts's personal ''Englemere, Ascot, Berkshire'' notepaper, dated 4th November 1913, typed, but...

FIELD MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS, V.C., AUTOGRAPHED ''CURRAGH MUTINY'' PERIOD LETTER. One page, on Lord Roberts's personal ''Englemere, Ascot, Berkshire'' notepaper, dated 4th November 1913, typed, but addressed in ink ''Dear Tydd'' and signed ''Roberts'', a brief 5 line message that ends ''I agree with you that it seems hopeless to pursue the matter further. We can only hope the Council may eventually make the Treasury see the error of its ways''. Frederick Sleigh Roberts (1832-1914) was the son of Lieutenant-General Abraham Roberts, of Waterford, one-time commanding officer of the 101st Royal Bengal Fusiliers (the post 1880 1st Battalion Royal Munster Fusiliers) and Isabella, daughter of Abraham Bunbury, of Kilfeakle, Co. Tipperary. Lord Roberts's family thus being Anglo-Irish on both sides. Roberts had a distinguished military career that began with his winning the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny for saving the life of a Sepoy, went on to see him taking part in numerous campaigns in India, Burma, Afghanistan and South Africa, commanding the British forces during the Boer War, 1899-1900, and culminated in his being appointed Commander in Chief of the British Army in September 1900. Roberts left the War Office in February 1904, when the position of Army C. in C. was abolished and its place taken by a seven man Army Council, consisting of three politicians and four military men. He had been in favour of this reform, but went on to clash repeatedly with the Army Council as champion of the two causes that came to dominate the final years of his life, military expansion and the fight against Home Rule. With great foresight, and as early as 22nd October 1912, when delivering a speech in Manchester, Roberts had predicted that ''war will take place the instant the German forces by land and sea are, by their superiority at every point, as certain of victory as anything in human calculation can be made''. This letter probably refers to the difficulty the Army Council was having obtaining funds from the Treasury for the defensive military expansion that the threat from Germany had led Roberts to press for. By November 1913, when this letter was written, Roberts was also deeply involved in the struggle against Home Rule, many contemporaries believing that he was ultimately responsible for generating the crisis in the army that came to be known as the ''Curragh Mutiny'', officers making it clear that they were not prepared to allow themselves to be used to coerce Ulster Unionists into Home Rule. The crisis had begun to simmer in the summer of 1913, and on the day that Roberts wrote this letter, 4th November 1913, Major-General (later Field Marshal) Hubert Henry Wilson wrote in his diary ''Sir John (French) had a long talk with me about Ulster. He is evidently nervous that we are coming to a civil war.. .. .. I cannot bring myself to believe that Asquith will be so mad as to employ force, it will split the Army and the colonies, as well as the country and the empire.'' The crisis boiled over in March of the following year, when the government, facing an all-out mutiny by officers at the Curragh, climbed down. Roberts was also responsible for suggesting the former Indian Army officer, Lieutenant General Sir George Richardson, as commander of the Ulster Volunteer Force. Biographical details of the recipient of this letter, Benjamin S. Tydd, with an address at Englefield Green, Surrey, not traced, although he was obviously a friend and near neighbour of Roberts, who addresses him with the familiar ''Dear Tydd''.

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