The war, if it may be so termed, was fought in 1873, and the letters were published in "Blackwood's Magazine." The Ashanti had invaded Fantiland, then under a British protectorate, and the troops commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley were presumably defending their friends. This particular officer expressed his sense of the situation in a fervid hope that when the Ashanti were beaten, as they deserved to be, the English would then come to speedy terms with them, "and drive these brutes of Fanti off the map."
It is a sentiment which repeats itself in more measured terms on every page of history. The series of "Coalitions" formed against Napoleon were rich in super-comic, no less than in super-tragic elements; and it was well for those statesmen whose reason and whose tempers were so controlled that they were able to perceive the humours of this giant game of pussy-in-the-corner.
