Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala

In January 1860, during the Second Opium War, Napier assumed command of the 2nd Division of the expeditionary force under Sir James Hope Grant. In the Battle of Taku Forts he led the assault on the main northern fort on 21 August 1860[1] where he counted six bullet holes in his clothing and equipment.[6] The Anting Gate in Peking was surrendered to Napier on 13 October 1860[7] and he was responsible for protecting Lord Elgin's line of march into Peking on 24 October 1860.[8] He was promoted to brevet major-general on 15 February 1861[9] and to the substantive rank of colonel on 18 February 1861.[10]

Napier became the military member of the Council of the Governor-General of India in 1861, acting for a short while as Governor-General after the sudden death of Lord Elgin.[1] He assumed command of the Bombay Army with the local rank of lieutenant general on 7 February 1865[11] and received promotion to the substantive rank of lieutenant-general on 1 March 1867[12] before taking command of the punitive expedition to Abyssinia July 1867.[6]

"The British Expedition". Caricature by Spy published in Vanity Fair in 1878.

Napier achieved his greatest fame as an army officer when he led the expedition of 1868 against Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia.[13] The Ethiopian ruler was holding a number of Protestant missionaries hostage, in his mountain capital of Magdala, as well as two British diplomats who had attempted to negotiate their freedom (Tewodros had unwisely taken them hostage as well). After months of planning and other preparations, the advance guard of engineers landed at Zula on the Red Sea to construct a port on 30 October 1867; Napier himself arrived in Zula on 2 January 1868, and on 25 January 1868 led his troops south into the Ethiopian Highlands.[1]

The expedition involved crossing 400 miles (644 km)[14] of mountainous terrain lacking roads or bridges occupied by local people with a known history of hostility towards outsiders. The expedition overcame the first obstacle, the terrain, by thorough logistical planning and engineering ability. Shrewd diplomacy dealt with the second obstacle, local opposition.[15] On the one hand, Napier made it clear to the Ethiopians that the sole intent of the British force was to rescue the imprisoned Europeans—not conquest; on the other, Napier met with local potentates such as Ras Kassa (the future Emperor Yohannes IV) and arranged to purchase needed supplies with the 4.35 million Maria Theresa thalers (the preferred currency of the area) the British had purchased from the mint in Vienna. What helped Napier was the general disaffection with, if not hostility to, Tewodros, and a desire to replace him, held by several native leaders, as well as a general sense that his hostage-taking was bound to lead to trouble.[16][17]

Napier's troops reached the foot of Magdala on 9 April 1868.[18] The next day, Good Friday, he defeated the 9,000 troops still loyal to Tewodros at the Battle of Magdala for the loss of only 2 British lives. Although Emperor Tewodros surrendered his hostages and made repeated efforts for a negotiated surrender, the distrustful Napier pressed on and ordered an assault on the mountain redoubt on 13 April 1868. The British captured Magdala, and Emperor Tewodros killed himself, leaving a grandiose statement that he preferred to "fall into the hands of God, rather than man."[19] Napier then ordered the destruction of Tewodros' artillery and the burning of Magdala as revenge for Tewodros's hostage taking; his palace was sacked by members of the expedition.[20][21]

After the Ethiopian campaign, Napier was made a Fellow of the Royal Society[22] and a Freeman of the City of London.[1] He was also elevated to the peerage as Baron Napier of Magdala on 11 July 1868[23] and granted an annuity for life.[24]

Napier became Commander-in-Chief, India, with the local rank of full general in April 1870,[25] and having been promoted to the substantive rank of full general on 1 April 1874,[26] he became Governor of Gibraltar in June 1876.[27] In February 1878, however, he was recalled to London and appointed to command an expeditionary force which was being prepared in anticipation of a war with Russia.[1] When war did not break out he returned to his duties in Gibraltar. In November 1879 he represented Queen Victoria at Madrid as ambassador extraordinary upon the occasion of Alfonso XII of Spain's second marriage and in December 1879 he became a member of the Royal Commission on the organization of the army.[1] Standing down as Governor of Gibraltar,[28] he was promoted to field marshal on 1 January 1883.[29]

Napier was also honorary colonel of the 3rd London Rifle Volunteer Corps[30] and colonel-commandant of the Royal Engineers.[31] In January 1887 he was appointed Constable of the Tower of London.[32]

Napier died of influenza at his residence in London on 14 January 1890. He was given a state funeral and buried in St Paul's Cathedral on 21 January 1890.[1][33]

In 1883 the British government installed one Armstrong 100 ton gun in a battery in Gibraltar that they named the Napier of Magdala Battery[34] and in 1891 a statue of Napier on horseback by Sir Joseph Boehm was unveiled in front of Carlton House Gardens in London: it was moved to Queen's Gate, Kensington in 1920.[35]

The descendants of the Third City of London Rifle Volunteer Corps are located within Napier House Army Reserve Centre, Grove Park, London; the building is named in his honour.[36]

Napier's honours included:

• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB) – 27 April 1868[37] (KCB – 27 July 1858[38])
• Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Star of India (GCSI) – 16 September 1867[39]

Coat of arms of Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala

Crest On a mount Vert a lion passant Or gorged with a collar Gules and a broken chain reflexed over the back Gold supporting with the dexter forepaw a flagstaff in bend sinister Proper therefrom flowing a banner Argent charged with a cross couped Gules. Escutcheon Gules on a saltire between two mural crowns in pale and as many lions passant in fess Or a rose of the field. Supporters Dexter a soldier of the royal engineers; sinister a Sikh sirdar; both habited and each holding in his exterior hand a musket; all Proper. Motto Tu Vincula Frange[40]

In June 1840 Napier married Anne Pearse; they had three sons and three daughters before his wife died in childbirth in 1849.[3] In April 1861 he married Maria Cecilia Smythe Scott: they had six sons and three daughters.[6]

• Fa, Darren; Finlayson, Clive (2006). The Fortifications of Gibraltar, 1068–1945. Gibraltar Museum. ISBN 9781846030161.
• Heathcote, Tony (1999). The British Field Marshals, 1736–1997: A Biographical Dictionary. Barnsley: Leo Cooper. ISBN 0-85052-696-5.
• Pankhurst, Richard (1968). An Introduction to the Economic History of Ethiopia. Addis Ababa: Haile Selassie I University. ISBN 978-0283354687.
• Rubenson, Sven (2003). The Survival of Ethiopian Independence. Hollywood: Tsehai. ISBN 978-0435942410.
• Stanley, Henry (1874). Coomassie and Magdala: the story of two British campaigns in Africa. New York: Harper & Brothers.
• Vibart, Henry (1894). Addiscombe: its heroes and men of note. Westminster: Archibald Constable. pp. 405–413. OL 23336661M.
• Wolseley, Garnet (1862). Narrative of the War with China in 1860. London: Longman Green Longman and Roberts. ISBN 1357525575.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Napier.

• Portrait by Lowes Cato Dickinson
• Works by or about Robert Napier, 1st Baron Napier of Magdala at Internet Archive