Ferocious Opium War General
“Is he Lucky?” was the question Napoleon is reputed to have always asked before promoting an officer to the rank of general. Sir Hugh Gough, the commander-in-chief of the British army during the Opium War (1839-1842), was blessed with the luck of Irish; otherwise he would not have survived fighting in every major battle in the Peninsula War. This general never lost a single battle and won four colonial wars. He died at the age of 90 a field marshal and a viscount.
Born in 1779, Gough came from an Irish army family and was appointed the adjutant of Colonel Rochford’s Foot when a youth of only 15. Military historians and his contemporary generals tended to dismiss him unfairly as a poor strategist and inept tactician, but the basic strategy of the Opium War had already been established when he took command of the British army in China. There was a Royal Navy battle fleet of some 50 warships already in city when he arrived in China. It contained a couple of immensely powerful 74-gun men-of-war, which could blow a hole in the wall of any Chinese coastal city; however the navy’s secret weapon was its gunboats. The best known of these lethal paddle steamers was the Nemesis. She was called the “Nevermiss” by the British and the “Fire devil” by the Chinese. These gunboats could maneuver at eight knots in either direction and were brisling with cannon, rocket tubes and swivel guns. The Chinese had only a few slow-moving war junks that relied on wind power and so were hopelessly out gunned. China had not possesed a national navy for centuries.
