One hundred and fifty years ago tomorrow, a valiant British soldier who was stationed in London during happier times died a hero at the Battle of Alma.
In the narthex of St. Paul's Cathedral, there is a massive and majestic memorial to Lt. Col. Harry George Chester and "the officers and men of the H.M. XXIII R.W.F." (the Royal Welch Fusiliers) who were killed in the first great battle of the Crimean War. Londoners deeply mourned those who fell in Crimea because of connections with soliders who had been garrisoned here and also loyalty to the empire.
It is timely, with the 150th anniversary of the battle at Alma, to tell a little of Chester's story.
It ends in a tragic, brave way in the hills by the Alma River on the road to Sevastopol in the Crimean peninsula. His last command had been to correct one of the first of many errors in the Crimea, a conflict for which Britain's army, living on the memories of Waterloo, was ill-prepared.
In a way, Chester's noble death is emblematic of the whole Crimean War (1854-1856). It was a stupid and misguided conflict fought by heroes in the midst of confusion, chaos and cholera.
It pitted Britain and France, enemies for centuries, along with the Ottoman Empire (Turkey), against Russia. After their costly victory at Alma, the British and French eventually succeeded in stopping the Russians from crossing the Black Sea and then driving toward India and the Middle East.
Chester died, says a letter from a British soldier, with the colours of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in his hand. "The Col took them (from a young standard-bearer who has just been slain) & was also killed with them in his hand," the letter says.
Just before Chester's death, his soldiers had been misled by another officer into ceasing to fire at an advancing formation. The other officer -- among the first of many fools who cost so many lives in Crimea -- loudly announced it was the French who were marching toward the Fusiliers.
One historian's account has Chester riding up and down the Fusiliers' line in a desperate effort to correct that mistake. He shouted that it was Russian soldiers -- and not the French -- who were advancing. He commanded his troops to fire on the Russians marching toward them. Then he fell with two shots in his chest. He was one of 2,000 British casualties.
Chester came from a military family. His father was an officer in the Coldstream Guards.
He had been with the Royal Welch Fusiliers since at least 1830. In that year, Chester was a lieutenant presented with a George IV pattern infantry officer's sword.
Chester was later a major in the British garrison stationed at London during the 1840s and 1850s. His regiment was stationed in London starting in 1847, before leaving to fight in Crimea.
Major Chester figures, briefly, in The Eldon House Diaries. The Diaries, published in 1994, are a selection from the words of five women in the Harris family who detailed life in and around their historic home, Eldon House. Chester is mentioned at least twice in 1850 entries.
The diary of Charlotte Owen Harris, one of the daughters of John and Amelia Harris, often mentions visits by the officers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers.
Major Chester is not one of the figures of Charlotte's romances. He is a family friend, not a lover.
When her father is recovering from an injury, Chester sends his servant "to look for him."
Later in the summer of 1850, Chester responded to an invitation from one of Charlotte's sisters. "We had a little dancing," Charlotte recorded before going on to the real business.
Capt. Frank Campbell asked Charlotte outside and proposed to her. Campbell was about to resign his commission and leave London for New Zealand. The reverie ended when Chester and another officer "(came) out to go home then we were obliged to part," Charlotte wrote woefully.
Since Campbell was to leave Charlotte and the engagement behind, Chester probably did her a favour by cutting short the sweet talk. A year later, she married another Fusilier.
But even this cheerful reading of Chester's night at Eldon House is touched with foreboding.
Both Charlotte and Chester were to die in 1854. Charlotte and her children drowned in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean in April of that year. Chester died at Alma in September.
Chester's memory is preserved in the motto "Ich Dien" on the monument at St. Paul's.
Known as the Prince of Wales' motto, it means "I serve."