Selected Speeches Ed by Te Kebbel Author:Benjamin Disraeli General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1882 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: ABYSSINIAN EXPEDITION. [Speech on proposing vote of thanks to Her Majesty's forces, July 2, 1868. The motion was seconded by Mr. Gladstone, who pronounced a high panegyric not only on the troops but also on the conduct of the Government.] MR. DISRAELI: I rise to move that the thanks of the House be given to those who planned and accomplished one of the most remarkable military enterprises of this century. When the invasion of Abyssinia was first mooted, it was denounced as a rash enterprise, pregnant with certain peril and probable disaster. It was described indeed as one of the most rash undertakings which had ever been recommended by a Government to Parliament. The country was almost unknown to us, or known only as one difficult of access, and very deficient in all those supplies which are necessary for an army. Indeed, the commander of this expedition had to commence his operations by forming his base on a desolate shore, and by creating a road to the land he invaded through a wall of mountains. Availing himself for this purpose of the beds of exhausted torrents, he gradually reached a lofty table-land -- wild and for the most part barren -- frequently intersected with mountain ranges of great elevation, occasionally breaking into ravines and gorges that were apparently unfathomable. Yet over this country, for more than 300 miles, the commander-in-chief guided and sustained a numerous host, composed of many thousands of fighting men, as many camp followers, and vast caravans of animals, bearing supplies, more numerous than both. Over this land he guided cavalry and infantry, and -- what is perhaps...« less