UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
AT LOS ANGELES

THE GIFT OF

MAY TREAT MORRISON

IN MEMORY OF

ALEXANDER F MORRISON

THE

INVASION OF THE CRIMEA

THE

INVASION OF THE CRIMEA

ITS 0RI(;L\, and an account of its riJOGRESS
DOWN TO THE DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN

A. ^Y. KINGLAKE

CHEAPER EDITION
VOL. IL

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS

EDINBUJtGH AND LONDON

M C M I

All Rights izseri:'i

no/

THE YEAR 1S58 AND THE I'EAR ls7fi.
A rilEFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.

(CONTINDED FROM Vol. 1. ^J. XV.)

Of all the impulsions wiiicli brought on the war of
1853, there Avas hardly any one more effective than
the fatal voice from this island, which invited the
Russian assailant to take heart and cross the border
b}^ causing him to imagine that he had nothing to fear
from Englaud ; and now once more private citizens
boldly planting themselves athwart the path of their
own Government, have been cheering liussia into
the mood for subversive enterprises. But there, the
parallel ends, and there, also, a wide contrast begins ;
for, though credulously listened io at St Petersburg,
the Peace Party men of 1853, who made bold to lay
England's abdication at the feet of the Czar, had no
following to support their pretensions; whereas tlie
denouncers of last autumn have not only proved their
strength, but perhaps, one may say, gained their
victory —a victory over their country, and in that

4327S9

Vl PUEKACE.

sense over themselves; for at a moment wheu the
State was pursuing its accustomed policy, they inter-
posed with a mind to shackle it, and I think it is in
vain to deny tliat during a period of several months
the State was shackled accordingly.

The truth is, that from the time when observers,
unallured by the charm of the East, began to cast
critical glances at the polity of the Ottoman Empire,
no one well — without smiling — could say it was other-
wise than grievously bad, and not many could even
see in it the germs of a much better system ; so that,
wheji superadded to the spectacle of public bank-
ruptcy, and the other abundant proofs that there were
of Turkish misgovernment, the outrages committed
last May in a part of what some called ' Bulgaria,' *
gave such weight, power, and substance to indignant
denunciations of the Sultan's rule, that a mass of
opinion in this country was brought into harmony
with that of the great Kussian people ; the distant
multitudes of the East and of the West being thus,
as it were, 'made kin' by the touch of a human feeling.
Despite intervening distance, the two multitudes were
both alike moved by the same pity, the same anger,
the same longing to inflict retribution, the same scorn
of any cold policy or any unwelcome prudence that
seemed standing in the way of their vengeance.

The Russian multitude, as I have shown, were not
without means of pressing their entreaties upon the

* The outrages occurred in villages occupied by Bulgarians, but
bituatc far south of the Balkan, in the country we cull Kounielia.

PREFACE. Vll

Czar, and pressing them, too, with great force ; * still
they necessarily uttered their prayer in general terms,
saying only, if so one may speak, that they were ready
and eager to begin and carry through a crusade. But
in England, the angry denouncers got a tighter grasp
of the subject. Including amongst them great num-
bers of gifted, well-int'uvmed men, with the prince of
all orators at tlieir head, they really were not com-
mon throngs, but thousands and thousands of Foreign
Secretaries, free from any tough doubt about anything,
and they entered upon the duties of the invaded De-
partment with minds unhampered by the traditions
of Office, nay even so unhampered by Policy that, if
reminded by some grey-headed clerk of the connec-
tion between Turkish ' independence ' and the burn-
ing question of 'the Straits,' they all said there was
nothing in that. They undertook a grave task.

To endeavour to govern the progress of domestic
legislation by loud utterances of the public voice —
this, we know, is a business familiar enough in our
islands ; but what the angry myriads last year
undertook to do was something of deeper moment.
Roused by just indignation, and helped a little, it
seems, by an almost ' syn-orthodox ' section of our
Anglican Church, but without the least aid from their
temporal institutions. Queen or Parliament, or Army or
Navy, they undertook — undertook in a few autumn
weeks — to change, nay even reverse, the once settled
policy of England ; and, the time, as I have sliowii,

* Vol. 1. p. xii. et seq.

viil I'KEFACE.

being ripe, they ilid iiiucli toAvaids acliievinj^ their
purpose. They certainly so far achieved it, that,
under the impulsion they gave, Lord Salisbury — side
by side with Ignatieff — was apparently busied for
weeks in assailing that very ' independence of the
' Ottoman Empire ' which England had long held to
be a blessing — a blessing so rich as to be worthy of
being fought for, and conquered at a huge cost of life
and treasure.

In the counsels of men numbered by myriads, there
could not but be a diversity of opinion. Some would
have liked that England should concur Avith Kussia,
or any other Power that might like such a service,
in putting force upon the Sultan, that is, making war
against him. Many more, however, desired that, in-
stead of helping to assail Turkey ourselves, we should
' leave her to destruction,' or in other words, stand by
approving, whilst Eussia destroyed or maimed the
victim. We were to form, with other like-minded
nations, what in the days of pugilism used to be called
a ' ring,' with the understanding, however, that, this
time, our vows were to be for the assailant against
the assailed — for the strong and against the weak.
There was a general impression in the assembled
crowds, that, when England engaged in the Crimean
war, she must liave been yielding lo tlie imjmlse of
some strange and misplaced afleotion which we bore
towards the Ottoman race, and accordingly the thou-
sands came forward with great zeal to protest that,
laever, never, never again should this country fight

PREFACE. IX

for the Turks. Certainly, if any statesmen had ever
engaged tlieir country in war to please the Turks, or
were plotting to do so last autumn, it might have been
well to denounce a policy so romantic, or rather
grotesque ; but whoever may do me the lionour to
read these pages, will see that our people were en-
gaged in the war of 1854, by what— whether rightly
or not — appeared to be the dictates of policy, rein-
forced, it is true, by their own warlike ardour, and
especially— as this volume shows — by their craving
for an adventurous enterprise. Of course, when under
those motives, our people had determined to fend off
Kussia from lands in which the Sultan held dominion,
they endeavoured to make the best of the mates with
whom simple Geography told them they must needs
be co-operating; but no one surely imagines that
Lord Palmerston, or the statesmen of his day, ever
dreamed of going to war for the sake of any Mah-
mouds, or Osmans, or Mustaphas. That there were
ways of maintaining the policy without resorting to
arms, I labour to show, and succeed, as I think, in
my effort ; but to decry the policy, because it in-
volved alliance with the ill-governed, ill-governing
Turks, is much like insisting that Wellington should
have abandoned Hougoumont to Napoleon, because
the owner of the farm was a Papist.

Still it is vain to deny that, whether wisely or other-
wise, a vast proportion of our citizens did in fact make
a public vow against all idea of going to war for the
sake of the Eastern Question ; and, since England can

X PREFACE.

scarce take up arms witliout the general concurrence
of her people, the effect of this protest was to place the
power of tlic country in a state of abeyance. Apart
from any logical or rhetorical merit it may have, the
cogency of any lecture inflicted by one State on
another must depend upon the supposition that it can,
if it will, at its own chosen time, adduce 'the last
' reason of kings,' and to send England into a great
diplomatic arena, after tlie scenes of last autumn, was
to send her disabled. If our Government, under the
stress of such circumstances, had consulted the dictates
of a seemingly becoming, though really perhaps false
dignity, it must needs have fallen back upon a policy
of inaction, and determined, though watchful reserve.

I have said that by the causes assigned, the feelings
of the two angry multitudes of the East and of the
West, were brought into harmony ; but in one respect
during the autumn, our English denouncers and their
gifted, impetuous leader struck deeper against the
cause of peace than Russia up to that time had done,
for they were the first to contend that the country
of the Bulgarians — ground including a great part of
Eoumelia — must be wrested from Turkish govern-
ance ; and, if it be true that agreement upon other
subjects of difference substantially lay within reach,
we shall have to confess that the single question which
has been threatening and still threatens to prove in-
soluble without a i-esort to arms was one furnished —
not by liussia but — England.

It so happened, however, that, besides the i)ulicy or

PRRFACK. Xi

the freak of 'leaving the Turks to destruction,' tlu!
Englisli multitude had highly approved another and
less bloody expedient. They proposed in effect tliat
tlie Turks should be scolded out of their country, some
thinking that the victorious tongues should drive off
all the Ottomans bodily, others saying with a thought-
ful air of moderation that, if all the rulers, high and
low, were extirpated, the Turks of private life might
perhaps be allowed to remain.

Whether in a spirit of grim cynicism, or to show
men the consequences of their interposition, our Piime
Minister heard the prayer of his people, consented to
try their expedient, and sent England into the Council
of assembled Europe with free scope to use her tongue,
but prevented from even seeming to be potentially
belligerent by the staring Neutrality badge which our
citizens had afSixed to her shoulder. The Turks, see-
ing the badge, declined to l^e talked out of Europe ;
and, whatever be the effect of this resolve upon their
own destinies, they have at all events maintained
for the moment that ' independence of the Ottoman
' Empire ' which our statesmen were accustomed to
prize and to cherish with infinite care, and have done
this too at a time when the pressure which tried their
firmness was in part applied by Lord Salisbury.*

As a lever for wresting from the Sultan the uoveru-

* It was distinctly for the ' independence ' of the Ottoman Empire
that the Crimean war was waged. See ' Invasion of the Crimea,'
vol. i. cap. xvii. The integrity of the empire was effectually vindi-
cated by Austrin.

xii PREFACE.

ment of his own provinces, the Conference has failed ;
and yet in other and better ways it has perhaps done
much good. It has apparently brought about a better
understanding than before between the Powers repre-
sented at Constantinople, and more especially between
Eussia and England, has given a strong impulsion to
the minds of those Turkish statesmen who are intent
upon reforming the polity of the country, and then
also by the mere effect of delay, interposed at an
opportune time, it has averted war — averted war
for the moment, but perhaps for weeks, perhaps even
happily for a period much further prolonged.

CONTENTS.

CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN THE
WAR AGAINST RUSSIA.

CHAPTER I.

The Czar annoiincing his willingness to abstain from further

aggression, ..........

Tiie negotiations apparently ripening towards a settlement ; but

rained by the French Emperor and the English Government,
Movement at Constantinople, ....

The use made of this by the Turkish Ministers,
They succeed in alarming the French Ambassador,
Composure of Lord Stratford, ....

His wise and guarded measures for preserving the peace of the

capital, ........

The French Emperor. His means of putting a pressure upon

the English Cabinet, ......

Violent urgency of the French Emperor for an advance of the

fleets to Constantinoiile, .....
Xeedlessness of the measure, .....
Its tendency to bring on war, ....

The English Government yields to the Frencli Emperor,
Fleet ordered up to Constantinople,
Want of firmness and discretion evinced in the adoption of th

measure, ........

Baron Brunuow's remonstrance, ....

EfiFect of the measure at St Petersburg, .

Count Nesselrode's sorrow, .....

7
7
8
9
10

10
11
12
12

XIV CONTENTS.

CnAPTFR I. — continued.

The Czar's tletiTniination t" retaliate with liis Rlack Sea fleet, 12
Error of the notion tliat the disaster of Sinope was a surprise

achieved by stealth, ........ 18

Ostentatious publicity of tlie Russian operations in the Black

Sea 13

Tidings of an impending attack by tlie Kussiau fleet, . . 14

Inaction of the Ambassadors and the Admirals, ... 15

The disaster of Sinope, 18

CHAPTER 11.

Chasm in the instructions furnished to the Admirals of the
Western Powers, . . . . . . . .19

Reception of the tidings of Sinope by the French Government,
and by the people in England, ... . . 20

The anger of the English di\-erted from their own rulers and
unjustly brought to bear on the Czar, .... 21

First decision of the English Cabinet in regard to Sinope, . 22
Proposal of the French Emperor, ...... 23

Danger of breaking down the old harriers between peace and

war, 23

Ambiguous character of the proposal, 23

The French Emperor ])resses upon the English Calnnet, . . 24

The Cabinet yields, 26

Orders to execute the scheme and to announce it at St Peters-
burg, 27

Lord Palmeistou's exclusion from office at the time when this
decision took place, 27

CHAPTEK III.

Terms agreed to by the four Powers ; and forced upon the
Turks by Lord Stratford, 33

Grounds for expecting an amicable solution, . . . . :i4

Friendly view entertained by tlie Russian Government of the
English Caliinet's first decision, ...... 34

Announcement at St Petersburg of the scheme finally adopted
by the "Western Powers, ....... 35

The negotiations are ruined, ...... 37

COx^TENTS. XV

Chaptkr Iir. — continued.

Kuptuie of diiiloiuatic relations, ...... 37

The Czar prepares to invade Turkey, ..... 38

Fleets enter the Ku.xinc, 38

CHAFrKlJ IV.

Military error of the Czar in occnpying Wallachia, . . 31»

Of this Omar Paslia takes .skilful advantaf^'c, .... 39

His aiitunui and winter campaigns, ... . .40

Embarrassment and distress of th(! Czar, .... 42

He resorts for aid to Pa.skievitch, ...... 42

Paskievitcli's counsels, ........ 43

Movement of troops in the Kussian Empire, .... 45

CHAPTER V.

Sir John Burgoyne and Colonel Ardent despatched to the Levant, 4il
Troops sent to Malta, ........ 47

Tendency of this measure, ....... 47

Jlinisters determine to propose but a small increase of the army, 48
Continuance of Lord Aberdeen's imprudent language, . . 48

CHAPTER VI.

The French Emperor's letter to the Czar, ... .50
Mission to St Petersburg from the English Peace Party, . 53

CHAPTER VII.

Temper of the English an obstacle to the maintenance of peace, 56

Their desire for war, ........ 5(3

Cau.ses of the apiiarent change iu tiieir feeling, . . .56

State of feeling in the spring of 1853, ..... 61

Effect of the Czar's aggression upon the public mind, . 61
Still in foreign affairs the nation looks for guidance to public

men, 62

Lord Aberdeen, ......... 62

ilr Gladstone, .......... 65

u

XVi CONTENTS.

Chapter VII. — continued.

Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone remained in office, . . 66
Effect of this in paralysing the efforts of those wlio wished to

prevent a war, ......... fi7

It was not for want of ample grounds to stand njion, tliat their

cause was brouffht to ruin, ...... 08

Not for want of oratorical power, ...... 69

Mr Cobden and Mr Ihiglit, 69

Reasons why they were able to make no stand, , . . 71

CHAPTEK VIII.

Meeting of Parliament, 76

The Queen's Speech, ... ..... 76

The erring policy which it indicated, ..... 77

Unswerving resolve of Austria (with the approval of Prussia)

to rid the Principalities of Eussian troops, ... 77

Proofs of this drawn from tran.sactions anterior to the Queen's

Speech, .......... 78

Proofs drawn from transactions subsequent to the Queen's Speech, 82
The time when the interests of Austria and Prussia began to

divide them from the "Western Powers, .... 89

From first to last Austria and Prussia never swerved from their
resolve to secure the Czar's relinquishment of the Princi-
palities, 90

CHAPTER IX.

Spirit of warlike adventure in England, . , . . 92

The bearing of this spirit upon the policj- of the Government, 93
England was under cngiigements with the French Emiieror, . 94
Into this policy the bulk of the Cabinet drifted, ... 95
The Minister who went his own way, ..... 95

His way of masking the tendency of the Government, . 105

Debates upon the Address, 106

Parliament still in the dark as to the real tendency of the Gov-
ernment, ...... ... 107

Production of the Papers, . 108

Their effect, 108

The question on which the judginent of Parliament should

have been rested, 110

CONTENTS.

xvii

CHAPTER X.

Austria's proposal for a licstile suiiniioiis to the Czar,
Importance of avoiding haste, .....

Pressure of the Fruncli Emperor, .....

Eagerness of the people in Englanii, ....

The Government loses its composure, ....

The summons despatched by England. ....

Instructions to the niesscnger, .....

And to Lord Westmoreland, ......

Austria not re(|uired to take part in the summons which she

had herself suggested, ......

The counter-proposals of Russia reach Vienna at the same time

as the English messenger, .....
They are rejected by the Conference of the four Powers, .
Austria and Prussia * support ' the summons, but without talc

ing part in the step, . . . .

The French summons, .......

France and England brought into a state of war with Russia
Message from the French Emperor to the Chambers,
Message from the Queen to Parliament, ....

Declaration of "War, .......

Difficulty of framing it,

The Czar's declaration and "War manifesto,
The Czar's invasion of Turkey is connnenced, .
Treaty between the Sultan and the "Westerij Powers,
Treaty between France and England, ....

112
113
113
113
114
114
115
115

115

116
116

116
117
117
118
119
119
120
121
121
122
122

CHAPTEE XL

Recapitulation, .......

Standing causes of disturbance, . . . .

Effect of personal governmejit by the Czar,

By the Emperor of Austria,

By the King of Prussia, . . . .

By the French Emperor, . . . . • .

Share which Russia had in bringing about the AVar,
Share which Turkey had in causing it, .
Share which Austria had, . . . . •
In other respects Austria discharged her duty.
Share which Prussia had in cau.sing the AVar,

124
124
124
125
126
126
127
131
133
135

i:}5

Xviii CONTENTS.

Chapter XI. — continued.

Ill other rcsiiccts Pruss-iii disfluuged her duty, . . . 137

As dill also the Gcrinaii Coiifeileiatioii, 138

Share whieh the Freiieh Goveiniiieut had in causing the War, 139

Share which Kiigland liad in causing it, HI

The volitions which governed events, Hi'

CHAPTEll XII.

The commanders of the French and the English armies, . 152

Marshal St A rnand, 152

Lonl Ftaglan, 1(54

Marshal St Arnaud and Lord Kaglan brought together at the

Tuileries, . . . . . . . . . .174

Conference at the Tuileries 179

Lord Piaglan's departure, ....... 183

The French and the English troops on the shores of the

Dardanelles, . . . . . . . . .183

Cordial intercourse between the two armies, . . . .183

St Arnaud's scheme for obtaining the command of the Turkish

army, . . . . . . • • • .184

St Arnaud in the presence of Lord Stratford and Lord Kaglan, 186
His scheme defeated, . . . . . . . .189

His scheme for obtaining the command of English troops, . 189

This also defeated, 190

Attempts of this kind checked by the French Emperor, . . 190
St Arnaud suddenly declines to move liis army towards the

seat of war, 190

Lord liaglan's disapproval of the proposed delay, . . .192
St Arnaud's sudden determination to take uj) a defensive posi-
tion in rear of the l>alkan, ....... 193

Lord Raglan's determined resistance to this plan, . .194

Lord Kaglan refuses to jdacc any jtart of his army behind the

Balkan, 198

St Arnaud gives way, abandons his plan of a position behind

the Balkan, and consents to move his army to Varna, . 198

The armies moved accordingly, 199

Bos([U('t's overland march, . . . . . . .199

TLe way in which St Arnaud's schemes escaped publicity, . 200

CONTENTS.

XIX

CHAPTER XIII.

Tidings which kiiullcd in Eiixhiml a zeal for the invasion of
the Ciiiiien, ........

Si^m; of Silistria, ... .....

Tin! l)attlr of Giurgevo, .......

Elfcct of the campaign of the Danube on the military asccn
dancy of Eussia, .......

The agony of the Czar, .......

Lord Kaglan'.s dislike of undiscijilincd combatants,

Importance to England of native au.\iliaries, .

202
202
210

215
217
218
219

CHAPTER XIY

The events on the Danube removed the grounds of the war,
Helplessness of the French people, .....

Course taken by the French Emperor, ....

Desire of the English for an offensive war,

Sebastopol, .........

The longing of the English to attack it, ...

The Duke of Newcastle, ......

His zeal for the destruction of Sebasto])ol,
Commanding power of the people M'hen of one mind,
Jleans of ft)rming and declaring the opinion of the nation.
Effect of political writings in saving men from the trouble c

thinking, .........

Want of iinijiortion between the skill of the public writer an

the judicial competence of his readers.
The task of ascertaining and declaring the opinion of the

country falls into the hands of a Company .
The opinion of the nation, as declared bj- the Company, de

niands the destruction of Sebastoj^ol, ....

The Government yields,

Xo good stand made in rarliament against the Invasion,
Preparation of the instructions addressed to Lord llaglan,
E.Ktreme importance of the language in which they were to be

worded, .........

Instructions sent to the French commander, .

221
222
222
223
224
224
22.';
227
228
229

230

230

233

241
24.'>
246
247

247
25U

CON TENTS.

CHAPTER XV.

Tlie Allies at Varna. Their .state of preparation in the middle

of July, 251

Their command of the sea, . . . . . . . 252

Information obtained by the Foreign OlVice as to the defences

of the Crimea, 253

Xo information obtained in the Levant, ..... 253
Lord Raglan conceived that he was absolutely without any
trustworthy information,, . _ . . . . . . 254

be given to

CHAPTEli XVI.

The instructions for the invasion of the Crimea reach the Allied

camp, .......

The nn^n who had to determine upon the effect to

the instructions, .....

Marshal St Arnaud,

Admiral Hamelin, ......

Omar Pasha, . .

Admiral Dundas, . . • .

Lord Kaglan,

The instructions addressed to him by the Home Go\
E.xtreme stringency of the instructions, .
Considerations tending to justify this stringency,
The power of deciding for or against the expediti

practically vested in Lord Raglan alone.
Lord Raglan's deliberations, ....
He requests the opinion of Sir George P>rown,
Lord Raglan's determination,
The grounds on which it rested.
His decision governed the counsels of the Allies
He announces it to the Home Government, .
The Duke of Newcastle's reply,
The Queen's expression of feeling, .

•ernment, .

on becomes

255

256
256
258
258
258
260
260
266
267

268
269
270
271
272
277
277
278
279

CHAPTER XVII.

Conference at the French headquarters, .
Lord Raglan's way of eluding objections.
Reconnaissance of the coast, . . . ,

280
281
282

CONTENTS. xxi

Chaptkr XVII. — continued.

Sir Edmund Lyons, 283

Kunioured change in the plans uf tlic Czar, .... 28.^

Second conference, ........ 286

The French urge tlie abandonment of Uie expedition against

the Crimea, ......... 286

Lord Kaglan's way of bending the Fivneli to the phnis of tlie

English Government, ....... 287

Preparations, 287

IncfFectual attempts of the Allies to deceive the enemy, . . 289
Lord Kaglau's appeal to our Home Government in favour of

the native Bulgarians, ....... 200

Fire at Varna, ......... 291

Cholera, .......... 291

Weakly coudition of the English soldiery, .... 294

CHAPTER XVIII.

Arrangements first made for the starting of the expedition, . 296

The embarkations, ........ 296

Failure of the French calculations in regard to their connnand

of steam-power, ......... 299

CHAPTER XIX.

Excitement and impatience of St Arnaud, .... 301
He is induced to set sail without the English, taking with him

all his sailing fleet and the troops on board them. . . 302

The naval forces of the Allies, 302

Duty devolving on the English fleet, ..... 302

Arrangements in regard to the English convoy, . . . 303

The forces and supplies now on board, 303

Troops and supplies left at Varna, 304

Departure of the English Armada and of the French steam-
vessels, .........

305

CHAPTER XX.

^Marshal St Arnaud without the English, .... 308
His anxiety, 308

Xxii CONTKNTS.

Chapter XX. — continued.

He sails back 308

Lord Kaglau's reproof, 309

Its Koo^l I't''*^^^ 309

Lord llnglan's increasing ascendancy, 309

The whole Allied Armada comes together at sea, . . . 30!>

But the fleets are again parted, ...... 310

Step taken bj' French olUeers with a view to stop the expedi-
tion against Sebastopol, ....... 310

Conference on board the Ville de Paris, ..... 311

St A rnaud disabled by illness, 312

L^^nsigned pajier read to the conference, ..... 312

St A rnaud leaves all to Lord Raglan, ..... 313

Conference adjourned to the Caradoc, . . . . .314

Lord Kaglau's way of dealing with the French remonstrants, . 316
His now complete ascendant, . . . . . . .316

The use he makes of his power, ... ... 317

The English fleet at the point of rendezvous, .... 317

Lord Raglan in person undertakes a reconnaissance of the coast, 317

He chooses the landing-place, ...... 318

The whole Armada converging on the coast of the Crinu^a, . 319

St Arnaud's sudden recover}^ ...... 321

The progress made by Lord Eaglan during the Marshal's ill-
ness, 3:il

CHAPTER XXL

Our ignorance of the country and of the enemy's strength, . 322

This gives to the expedition the character of an adventure, . 323

Occujiation of Eupatoria, ....... 324

The whole armada gathers towards the chosen landing-place, . 327

CHAPTER XXII.

The landing-place, .......

Step taken by the French in the night, .
Tliis destroyed the whole ]ilan of the landing.

Sir Ednnind Lyons,

His way of dealing with the emergency, .

New laudiiig-plaoe found for the Eugli.sh at Kamishhi.

328
320
330
330
331
331

CONTKNTS.

XXlll

Chapter XXI I. — continued.

Position of the Kiif,'lisli llotilla ailqitcd to tlic cliaiige,
Tlie cause and tlie naturt' of tlie change kejit .secret,
Position of tlie in-shore squadrons,.

Of the main Knglish llect,
Plan of tlie landing,
General Airey, ....
The first day's landing, .
Zeal and energy of the sailors,
Wet night's liivouac,
Continuation of the landing, .
Its completion, ....
I'.y the English ....
By the French, ....
By the Turks, ....

331
334
335
335
336
336
342
345
346
347
348
348
348
349

CHAPTER XXIIL

Deputations from tin- Tartar villages to the English head-

cpiartcrs, 350

Result of exploring exiieditious, ...... 351

The English army — its absolute freedom from crime, . . 352

Kindly intercourse between our soldiery and the villagers, . 352

Outrages perpetrated by the Zouaves, ..... 353

The duty of sweejiing the country for supplies, . . . 353
Airey's (juick perception of the need to get means of land-trans-
port, 354

His seizure of a convoy, ........ 355

His continued exertions, ....... 356

Their result, 35G

The Tartar drivers, 357

CHAPTER XXIV.

The forces now on .shore, 358

The nature of the operation by which the Allies were to make

good their advance to Sebastopol, ..... 358

Comparison between regular operations and the system of the

' movable column,' ........ 359

The Allies were to operate as a ' movable column,' . . 365

Perilous character of the march from Old Fort, . . . 367

XXiv CONTENTS.

Chapter XXTV. - covtinned.

Tlic fate of the whole Allied aiiny aciiciicU'iit upon the rinnness

of that portion of it which shouhl take the left, . . . 368

The French take the ri.^ht, .... . . otiy

Their trustfulness ami f,'oocl sense, 370

The advance begun, . . • • ■ . .3/0

The order of march, . . ...... 370

The march, ......•■•• 373

Sickness and failint; .strength of many of the .soldiers, . . 375

The stream of the LJulganak, 376

CHAPTEE XXV.

The affiiir of the Bulganak, .377

CHAPTEE XXVI.

Apparently dangerous .situation of the English army, . 383

Lord Raglan causes it to bivouac iu order of battle, . . 383

APPENDIX.

Note I. —Papers .showing the concord existing between the
Four Powers at the time when France and Eng-
land were engaging in a separate course of action, 387

Note II. — Lord Clarendon's despatch demanding the evacua-
tion of the Principalities, 404

Note III. — Correspondence between Lord Raglan and the Sec-
retary of State on the subject of ' Atrocities com-
' mitted by Turks in Bulgaria,' . . .405

Note IV.— Note respecting the torpor of the English Cabinet

on the evening of the 28th of June 1854, . . 407

Note v.— CoiTcspondence respecting the placing of the buoy
by the French in the night betwern the 13th and
1 4th of September, 412

CAUSES

INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND IN

THE WAE AGAINST EUSSIA.

ClIArTER I.

The Emperor Nicholas still sought to prolong the chap.
ambiguity of his relations with Turkey. On the '

31st of October, Count Nesselrode issued a Cir- announdng
■cular to the representatives of Eussia at foreign ',"esrto"'°"
Courts, in which he declared that, notwithstand- ^^,^^^^ '''■°'"
ing the declaration of M-ar, and as long as his ^ssrcssion.
master's dignity and his interests would permit,
liussia would abstain from taking the offensive,
and content herself with holding her position in
the Principalities until she succeeded in obtaining
the satisfaction which she required.* This second
endeavour to contrive a novel kind of standing-
ground between real peace and avoAved war was
destined, as will be seen, to cause fresh discord
between Eussia and the Western Powers.
* 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 226.
VOL. II. A

2 CAUSKS INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAT. The negotiations for a settlement were scarcely

^" interrupted, citlier by 'the formal declaration of

Tiicncgo- ^yj^j. Q^. ]jy tiig hostilities which were commenced

tuitions . ■'

Hpenh'?^' ^''L'th'e banks of the Tianube ; and the Conference
scttie7nent; ^^ ^^^^ ^0^^^" ^owcrs represented at Vienna had just
agreed to the terms of a collective Note, which
seemed to afford a basis for peace, when the Eng-
by\he'"^'^ lish Government gave way to the strenuous urg-
perorami"' Gucy of the French Emperor, and consented to a
Govfrnment. incasure which ruined the pending negotiations,
and generated a scries of events leading straight
to a war between Eussia and the Western Powers.
In the month of September, some weeks before
the Sultan's final rupture with the Czar, the pious
and M'arlike ardour then kindled in the Turkish
Movement Empire had begun to show itself at Constantino-
tinoiiie. ' pie. A placard, urging the Government to declare
war, was pasted on one of the mosques. Then a
petition for war was presented to the Council, and
to the Sultan himself, by certain muderris, or
theological students. The paper was signed by
thirty-live persons of no individual distinction,
but having the corporate importance of belonging
to the ' Ulemah.' Though free from menace, the
petition, as Lord Stratford expressed it, was
worded in ' serious and impressive terms, imply-
' ing a strong sense of religious duty, and a very
* independent disregard of consequences.' The
Ministers professed to be alarmed, and to believe
that this movement was the forerunner of revolu-
tion ; and Lord Stratford seems to have imagined
that their alarm was genuine. It is perhaps more

IN TIIK WAR AGALWST KUSSIA.

likely tliat tliey were skilfully making the most chap.
of these occunences, with a view to embroil their '

maritime allies in the approaching war, and tliat ^i^^g^^f
■when they asked the Ambassadors to take part in y,','rk^Ji/'"
measures for the maintenance of public tranquil- ^'""s^eis.
lity, their real desire was to see the fleets of
France and England come up into the Bosphorus.
They well knew that if this naval movement
could be brought to pass before the day of the
final rupture between Ivussia and the Porte, it
would be regarded by the Czar as a flagrant
violation of treaty.

A curious indication of the sagacity with which
the Turkish Ministers were acting is to be found
in the difference between their language to the
English Ambassador and their language to M. do
la Cour. In speaking to Lord Stratford they
shadowed out dangers impending over the Eastern
world, the upheaving of Islam, the overthrow of
the Sultan's authority. Then they went straight
to iSI. de la Cour and drew a small vivid picture
of massacred Frenchmen. They did not, said M.
de la Cour, conceal from him ' that the persons
' and the interests of his countrymen would be ex-
' posed to grave dangers, which they were sensible
' they were incapable of preventing, by reason of
' the want of union in the Ministry and the threats
' directed against themselves.' * This skilful dis-
crimination on the part of the Turkish jNIinisters
seems to show that they had not at all lost their
composure.

• ' Eiisteni Papers,' part ii. p. 115.

4 CAUSES INVOLVING FUANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. Eitlier by tliciv real dread, or by tlicir crafty
' simulation of it, the Turkish statesmen succeeded

hl'aiarmfng^ iu iufecting M. dc ha Cour with sincere aharm. lie
Am^7sador. "^^''"^^ easily brouglit to the conclusion that ' the
' state of the Turkish Government was getting
' worse and worse ; and that matters had got to
' such a state as to cause dread of a catastrophe,
* of which the inhabitants, Payahs or Europeans,
' Avould be the first victims, and which would even
' threaten the Sultan's throne.' * He called upon
the English Ambassador to consult as to what was
best to be done ; and both he and the Austrian
Internuncio expressed their readiness to join with
him in adopting the needful measures.
Composure Lord Stratford does not seem to have suspected
btra'tfoni. that tlic usc whicli the Turkish INIinisters were
making of their divinity students Avas in the na-
ture of a stratagem ; but, assuming and believing
their alarm to be genuine, he was still proof
against the infection, and retained his calm. In-
deed, he seems to have understood that a cry for
war on the part of the religious authorities was a
healthy sign for the Empire. He expressed to his
colleagues his readiness to act in concert with
them; but he said he was reluctant to take any
step which M'as not clearly warranted by the ne-
cessities of the case, and that he desired to guard
against mistake and exaggeration by gaining a
more precise knowledge of the grounds for alarm.
He deprecated any joint interference with the
Turkish Government, and was still less inclined
* 'Eastern rajicrs,' port ii. p. 115.

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 5

to join ill bringing up tlie squadrons to Constanti- chap.
nople without more proofs of urgent peril tli;iu ^'
liad been yet obtained; l)ut lie suofrested, as an "'s^ise

•' ' oo ' and guarilud

opinion of his own, that the representatives of the for'^pres'efrv-
niaritinio Powers should obtain from their respec- pe^^ceofthe
tive Admirals such an addition of steam-force as '^"i^"^'-
would secure them from any immediate attack,
and enable them to assist the Government in ease
of an outbreak threatening its existence, without
attracting any unusual attention, or assuming an
air of intimidation.* This was done.f A couple
of steamers belonging to each of the great Western
Powers quietly came up to Constantinople. Tran-
quillity followed. Every good end was attained
without ostentation or disturbance — without the
evil of seeming to place the Sultan's capital under
the protection of foreign Powers — and, above all,
without breaking through the treaty of 1841 in
a way which, however justifiable it miglit be in
point of international law, clearly tended to force
on a war.

But the moderate and guarded policy of Lord The French
Stratford at Constantinople was quickly subverted li'is means
by a pressure which the French Emperor found a pressure
means of putting upon the advisers of the Queen. KngUsh
Of course, an understanding with a foreign Power
is in its nature an abatement of a nation's free
agency ; and a statesman may be honest and wise

* The steam -force of the maritime Powers already in the
Golden Horn consisted of vessels which had passed the Dar-
danelles by virtue of exceptions contained in the treaty of
1841.

+ 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 121.

6 CAUSKS INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CUAP. in consenting to measures wliicli liave no otlier
^' excuse than that they were adopted for the sake
of maintaining close union with an ally. England
had contracted a virtual alliance ; and when once
she had taken this step, it was needful and right
tliat she should do and suffer many things rather
than allow the new friendship to be chilled. But
tliis yoke was pressed hard against lier. It was
not the wont of England to be causelessly led into
an action which was violent, and provoking of
violence. It was not her wont to rush forward
without need, and so to drive through a treaty
that many might say she broke it. It was not
her wont to be governed in the use of her fleets
by the will of a foreign Sovereign. It was not
her wont to hear from a Ercnch Ambassador that
a given movement of her ]\Iediterranean squadron
was 'indispensably necessary,' nor to be requested
to go to such a conclusion by ' an immediate de-
' cision.' It was not her wont to act with impas-
sioned haste, where haste was dangerous and
needless. It was not her wont to found a breach
with one of the foremost Powers of Europe upon a
mere hysterical message addressed by one French-
man to another. But the French Emperor had a
great ascendant over the English Government ;
for the power which he had gained by entangling
it in a virtual alliance was augmented by the
growing desire for action now evinced by the
English people. He knew that at any moment
he could expose Lord Aberdeen and his colleagues
to a gust of popular disfavour, by causing it to be

IN THE WAR AOAIXST UUSSIA. 7

known or imagined that France was keen, and CIIAP.

that England was lagging behind. '. —

When M. de la Cour's account of his sensations
reached Paris, it produced so deep an impression
that the French Emperor, either feeling genuine
alarm, or else seeing in his Ambassador's narra-
tive an opportunity ibr the furtherance of his
designs, determined to insist, in cogent terms, violent

o ' ' o urgeiioy or

that the English Government should join him in theFreuc!.

o ^ hinperor lor

overstepping tlie treaty of 1841, and ordering ana^vw'ce^
llie Allied squadrons to pass the Dardanelles J^J;',™*^""^^-
and anchor in the Bosphorus. On the 23d of
September, Count Walewski had an interview
with Lord Aberdeen and Lord Clarendon at the
same time ; and then, after speaking of the
crisis at Constantinople which J\I. de la Cour's
despatch had led the French Government to
expect, lie said that his Government thought it
' indispensably necessary that both fleets should
' be ordered up to Constantinople;' and his Excel-
lency added ' that he was directed to ask for the
' immediate decision of Ller IMajesty's Govern-
* ment, in order that no time might be lost in
' sending instructions to the Ambassadors and
' Admirals.' *

Now, at the time of listening to these peremi)- Neediess-
tor}'' words, the English Government had received mt-asure.
no account from their own Ambassador of the
apprehended disturbances ; but they knew that
the fleets at the mouth of the Dardanelles, being
already under orders to obey the requisitions of
• ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 114.

8 CAUSES IXVOLVIXG FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, the Ambassadors, could be instantly brouglit up
^' to Constantinople without any further orders for
that purpose being sent from home. ^Moreover,
the very despatch which brought the alarm showed
that the Ambassadors knew how to meet the dan-
ger, and that they had already called up that por-
tion of the lleet which they deemed it prudent to
have in tlie Golden Horn. From first to last the
power which France and England had entrusted
to their representatives at the Forte had been
used with admirable prudence ; and it is hard to
understand how it could have seemed right to
withdraw, or rather supersede, the discretion
hitherto connnitted to the Ambassadors, by send-
ing out an absolute order for the advance of the
fleets. As it stood, the fleets would go up the
moment they were wanted ; and what the French
Emperor now required was that, whether they were
wanted or not, and in defiance of the treaty of
1841, they should immediately pass the Dardan-

its teiKkncy elles. Eitlicr the Queen's Government had lost

to bring uii

war- its composure, or else, when they gave way to this

demand of tlie French Emperor, and consented to
a needless * measure which operated as a sharp
provocative of war, the Queen's Government went
through the bitter duty of taking a step not right
in itself, but forced upon them by the stringency
of the new alliance. -f*

* Needless, because the authority to call up the fleets when
they were wanted was already vested in tlie Ambassadors.

+ Lord Palinerston personally approved the measure ; and, in-
deed, if lie luul not done so, one can hardly believe that lie

IX TIIK WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 9

* I told Count Walewski,' says Lord Clarendon, c H a p.
' that no intelligence of the nature referred to by ^'
' M. de la Cour had been received from Lord
' Stratford de liedcliffe ; and that so long as the
' Porte did not declare war against liussia, and

• desire the presence of the British fleet, it was
' the intention of Her Afajesty's Government to
' observe the treaty of 1841 ; but Lord Aberdeen
' and I concurred in stating to Count AValewsld
' tiiat, under such circumstances as those reported
' by M. de la Cour, the provisions of any treaty
' must necessarily, and as a matter of course, be
' set aside.' And tlien, unhappily, Lord Aber-
deen and Lord Clarendon went on to tell Count The Engiisii
Walewski 'that they would without hesitation yieidrtd'ti'ia
' take upon themselves to agree to the proposal of Em"er'or.

' the French Government that the Ambassadors
' should be instructed to call up the fleets to Con-
' stantinople for the security of British and French
' interests, and, if necessary, for the protection of
' the Sultan.' *

In compliance with the promise thus obtained

would have allowed tlie Cabinet to Le tlnis jiressed, and ap-
parently guided by the French Emperor.

* September 23, 1853. 'Eastern Tapers,' part ii. p. 114.
In the opinion of Lord Stratford, this violent and inevitably
perturbing measure was unnecessary. After saying that he had
been content with the plan of calling up three steamers from
each of the squadrons, he writes : — 'I am still of opinion that
' assistance thus limited would have answered every purpose,
' unless, indeed, the Ottoman squadron had taken part against
' tlie Sultan, which was a very extreme case to SK]>pose. /

* vAshed to save Her Majesty's Government from any embarrass'
' mcnts llJccly to accrue from a premature pas^taje of the Dur-

10 CAUSKS INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, from him, Lord Clarendon on the same day ad-
^' dressed a despatch to Lord Stratford, saying,
dered°u"-.to ' Your Excellency is therefore instructed to send
consuuti- . f-Q,. ^^ijg British fleet to Constantinople' *—tlnis
depriving the Ambassador of the discretion which
had hitherto been nsed -with singular care and
wisdom, and with great advantage to the public
service. What makes the course of the English
w.intof Government the more extraordinary is, that they
discretion"' ruslicd iuto the hostile policy which is involved
thL"rdoption in this stringent order to Lord Stratford without
measure. having received any despatch of their own from
Constantinople, and without any knowledge of
the events which had been occuring except what
was conveyed by a telegraphic message from a
French Ambassador to his own Government. If
the English INIinisters had paused five days,-f they
would have received Lord Stratford's calm de-
spatch, showing that he looked with more plea-
sure than alarm upon the petition of the theo-
logical students, and that he knew how to avail
himself of force without using violence. If they
had waited four days more,J they would have
found that the hour was at hand Mhen tlie

' daneUes by Admiral Duiulas's squadron, and at llie same time
' to take precautious adequate to tlie appoaraure of danger, 1
' did not form my ojiinion in tliis rcsjiect without taking tlie
' opinion of Her ]\Iajesty's senior oiiioer in command in the
' I'.osphorus.' Cth October 1853. Ibid. p. 188.

* 'Eastern Papers,' jiart ii. p. IIO.

+ i.e., till 28th September. Ibid. ]>. 121.

t i.e., till 2d October. Ibid. p. Vll.

IN THE WAIl AGAINST RUSSIA. 11

fleets might enter the Dardanelles without any chap.
violation or seeming violation of treaty ; and, in '

fact, it happened that this ill-omened order for
the entry of the squadrons into the Dardanelles
was carried into effect at a moment when a delay
of less than twenty-four hours would have made
their entry clearly consistent with a due observ-
ance of the treaty of IS-il ; for they entered the
Dardanelles on the 22d, and on the following
day the Sultan, being then at war with Paissia,
was released from the engagement which pre-
cluded him (so long as he was at peace) from
suffering foreign fleets to come up through the
Straits.

Baron Brunnow romonsti-ated in strong terms Baron Bnm
against the entry of the fleets into the Dardanelles monsirauce.
as a breach of the treaty of 1841 ; but although
he was well answered by Lord Clarendon so far
as concerned the mere question of right, no en-
deavour was made to mitigate by words the true
import of the measure ; and, in truth, it was of
so hostile a nature as not to be susceptible of
any favourable interpretation ; for although the
apprehension of disturbances at Constantinople
might be a sufficing ground for the step, the
order to the Ambassadors was not made depend-
ent upon the occurrence of any such disturbances,
nor even upon any alleged fear of them, but was
peremptory and absolute in its terms, and was
made applicable, not to such a portion of the
naval forces as might be requisite for ensuring

12 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C II A P.
I.

Effect of tlie
iiieasuie at
St Peters-
burg.

Count Nes-

selrodu's

sorrow.

Tlie Czar's
determina-
tion to re-
taliate with
his Black
Sea fleet.

the peace of the city, but to the whole of the
Allied squadrons.

AVheu the tidings of this hostile measure
reached St Petersburg, they put an end for the
time to all prospect of peace ; and even Count
Nesselrode, wlio had hitherto done all lie could
venture in the way of resistance to his master,
now declared with sorrow that he saw in the acts
of the British Government a 'settled purpose to
' liumiliate Russia.' He spoke in sorrow ; and
his thoughts, it would seem, went back to the
times wlien he had sat in gi-eat councils with
Wellington. ' He spoke,' says Sir Hamilton Sey-
mour, ' with much feeling of the liorrors of war,
' and particularly of war between two powerful
' countries — two old allies like England and
' Eussia — countries which, whilst they might be
' of infinite use to one another, possessed each the

* means of inflicting great injury upon its antago-
' nist ; and ended by saying that if, for any
' motives known to him, war should be declared
' against Russia by England, it would be the most
' unintelligible and the least justifiable war ever

* undertaken.' *

The Czar received tidings of the hostile de-
cision of tlie maritime Powers in a spirit which,
tliis time at least, was almost justified by the pro-
vocation given. In retaliation for what he would
naturally look upon as a bitter alfrout, and even
a.s a breach of treaty, he determined, it would
seem, to have vengeance at sea, whilst vengeance

* ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 180.

IN THE WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 13

at sea was still possilile; and it was imdcr tlic CHAP,
spur of the anger thus kindled that orders for '

active operations were given to the fleet at Scbas-
topol* The vengeance he meditated he could
only wreak upon the body of the Turks, for the
great offenders of the West were beyond tlie
bounds of his power.

It was long believed in England that the dis- Enorofthe

. 1 1 •! J • 1 notion tliat

aster oi Smope was a surprise stealthily contrived tiie disaster

T^ -..-r- 1 1 1 • • • ofSinope

by the Emperor Nicholas, and it is certain that wasasur-

. . prise achiev-

the event fell upon the maritime rowers as a edbystcaitit
sudden shock ; but it is not true that conceal-
ment was used by llussia. On the contrary, it
seems that the attack was preceded by a long-
continued ostentation of naval force. In the
middle of the month of November, and at a time
when the Allied Squadrons were anchored in the
Bosphorus, the Sebastopol fleet came out, and was osteniatiou*

•'■ ' ^ publicity of

ranofed in a kind of cordon stretching from north the Russian

^ n operations

to south across the centre of the Black Sea. So •" tiic Biacij

Sea.

early as the 20th of November the Eussian
cruiseis captured the Medora, a Turkish steamer \-\

* This conclusion is drawn from dates. The hostile resolu-
tion of the Western Powers was known to the Czar a little
before the 14th of October, and about the midille of the follow-
ing month the Black sea fleet was at sea. If allowance be made
for distance and preparation, it will be seen that the sequence
of one event upon the other is close enough to warrant the
statement contained in the text. In the absence, however, of
any knowledge to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that the
Czar remembered his promise, and did not sanction any actual
attack upon the enemy unless his eonnnanders should be pre-
viously apprised that the Turks had conmicnced active warfare.

t ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 315.

14 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, and about tlie same time they boarded a raer-
' chantman, and relieved the captain of a portion
of his cargo and of tlie whole of his cash ; * and
the Russians were so far from entertaining any
idea of secrecy or concealment, that they seem to
have hailed neutral merchantmen for the purpose
of inquiring about the Frencli and English fleets
in the Bosphorus, and asking 'exultingly' if the
captures which the llussian fleet had effected
were known at Constantinople."!*
Tidings cfan FuU ten days I before the fatal .30th of Novem-

impending d • f- c Ml

attack by bcr, a iuissiaii lorce ot seven sail and one war-

the Russmn • ■ • • i , f. o- i

fieet. steamer was cruising in sight ot binope, and

hovering over the Turkish squadron which lay
there at anchor. An express despatched from
Samsoon by land on the 22d, bore tidings of this
to Lord Stratford, and it must have reached him,
it would seem, by the 25th or 26th. On Wednes-
day the 23d, the Commander of the Turkish
squadron descried a Eussian force of seven sail
and two steamers coming down under a north-east
wind towards Sinope. The Turkish ships were
cleared for action, but after some manceuvring,
the llussian force stood out to windward and
gained an offing. On the following day six
Russian ships of the line, with a brig and two
steamers, again made their appearance ; and three
of them, under easy sail, stood towards the port
of Sinope until the evening. 'In fine,' writes the

* ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 316. + lliid. ]>. 31.').

* Iliiil. So early as tlie 22il, the appearance of the squadron
was (le.scribcd as haviii_:^ occurred 'sume days back.'

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA, 15

Turkish Comraander, 'six sail of the line, a brig, chap.

I.

' and two steamers, are constantly off tlie port
' above mentioned, and at one time they lie-to,

* and another they beat about. From six to eight
' frigates and two steamers have been seen off the

* port of Bartin and Amasbre, and this news is

* certain. Besides, the great naval port of the

* enemy is near. He may therefore receive rein-

* forcements, or attack us with fire-ships. That

* being the case, if reinforcements are not sent to

* us, and our position continues the same for some

* time — may God preserve us from them ! — It
' may well happen that the Imperial fleet may
' incur disasters.*

The power and habit of concentrating all energy inaction of
in a sin^jle channel of action, was one of the sadorsand

° the Afl-

qualities which gave force and grandeur to Lord mirais.
Stratford in the field of diplomacy, but it also
seems to have had the effect of preventing him
from casting a glance beyond the range of his
profession ; and it is curious that, when the
exigencies of the time called upon him to perform
duties not commonly falling within the sphere of
a diplomatist, his mind refused to act. England
and France, without the wholesome formality of a
treaty, had glided into an engagement to defend
' Constantinople, or any other part of the Turkish
' territory, whether in Europe or in Asia, that
' might be in danger of attack.' f So much of this
grave duty as consisted in originating a resolve to
put forth the naval strength of the Allies remained

* 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 313. t Ibid. p. 143.

16 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

c n A r. committed to the two Ambassadors, but it was of
' course understood that any plans for active
measures would be concerted between them and
the Admirals ; and since the nature of the duty
Avhich they might be called upon to nndertake
■was known of course to the Admirals, it Avas evi-
dently incumbent upon them, as well as upon the
two Ambassadors, to take measures for ascertain-
ing whether the Eussians were preparing to oper-
ate against the coasts of Turkey. JMoreover, the
English Ambassador had been instructed by his
Government that, 'if the Russian fleet were to
' come out of Sebastopol, the Heets would then, as
* a matter of course, pass through the Bosphorus;'*
and, implicitly, this instruction required that
measures should be taken for ascertaining wliether
the Czar's naval forces were in harbour or at sea,
for, supposing them to have gone to sea, that
was an event which (according to the orders from
home) was to be the ground of a naval operation.
Yet, not only were no measures taken for ascer-
taining the truth, but the rumours of great naval
operations in the Black Sea, and tlie despatch of
the 22d, announcing that the Russian squadron
was hovering over Sinope, and even the despatch
containing the touching appeal of the Turkish
Commander at Sinope, all alike i'aiUnl to draw
men into actiun. This last despatch was com-
municated to Lord Stratford on the 29th. Even
then an instant advance of the steam squadrons
liiight not liave been altogetlier in vain, for though

• ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 1 13.

IN Till': WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 17

tlie attack coininenccd on the 30th, the liussiau chap.

lieet (lid not quit Sinope until the 1st of Decern- L__

her. Yet nothing was done. Nothing but actual
intelligence of the disaster was cogent enough to
lift an anchor. ^Vhat Lord Stratford says of the
causes of all this inaction ought to be stated in his
own words. Writing on the 4th of December, he
says : ' liuniours of Itussian ships of the line being
' at sea have occasionally prevailed for some time.
' Uncertainty of information, a wish to avoid as
' long as possible the chances of a collision, the
' arrival of a new rrencli Ambassador, and tlie
' state of the weather, were natural causes of de-
' mur in coming to a decision as to sending the
' squadrons into the Black Sea at this time of the
* year.' * But even supposing that there were
reasons which justified liesitation in sending the
squadrons to sea, the Home Governments of tlic
AVestern Powers were entitled to ask why some
humbler means of ascertaining the truth were
never resorted to, and why no measures followed
upon the receipt of the alarming despatch from
Samsoon, or even upon the appeal for help
which had come from the Turkish Commander
at Sinope.

On the 30th of November, Admiral Xachimoff,
with six sail of the line, bore down upon the Turk-
ish squadron still lying at anchor in the port of
Sinope. There was no ship of the line in the
Turkish squadron. It consisted of seven frigates,
a sloop, a steamer, and some transports. The
* 'Eastern Tapers,' part ii. p. 311.

VOL. II. B

18 CAUSES INVOLVING Fi;ANUE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. Turks were the first to lire, and to Lriiig upon

'• tlieir little squadron of frigates the broadsides of

six sail of the line; and although they fought

Thfl disaster without liopo, tliey were steadfast. Either they

"'°^'^' refused to strike tlieir colours, or else, if their

colours went down, the Russian Admiral was

blind to their signal, and continued to slaughter

them. Except the steamer, every one of the

Turkish vessels was destroyed. It was believed

by men in authority that 4000 Turks were killed,

that less than 400 survived, and that all these

were wounded.* The feeble batteries of the place

suffered under the enemy's fire, and the town Avas

much shattered.* The Russian fleet did not move

from Sinope until the following day.*

This onslaught upon Sinope, and upon vessels
lying in port, was an attack upon Turkish terri-
tory, and was therefore an attack which the French
and English Ambassadors had been authorised
to repel by calling into action the fleets of the
"Western Powers. Moreover, the attack had been
impending for many days, and all this while the
(leets of the Western Powers had been lying still
in the Posphorus within easy reach of the scene
of the disaster. The honour of France was
wounded. England was touched to the quick.

• 'Eastern rapers,' part ii. p. 305.

IN THE WAK AGAINST RUSSIA. 19

CHAPTER II.

EiTUEU from slieer want of foretlioiiglit, or else in chap.

II
tenderness to the feelinjrs of men who shunned L__

the bare thought of a collision, the Governments ullffnstruo
of France and England had omitted to consider iVishcdTo'
the plight in whicli they would stand, if, under ofliic west'
the eyes of their naval commanders, a Eussian *'^"
Admiral should come out from Sebastopol and
crush a Turkish squadron in the midst of the
IJIack Sea. It is true tliat this was not the
event which had occurred, for the onslaught of
Sinope was ' an attack upon Turkish territory,'
and was therefore M'ithin the scope of the instruc-
tions from home. But it is also true that the
Governments of Paris and London had not com-
mitted, either to their Ambassadors or their
Admirals, any power to take part in a naval
engagement against Paissia upon the open sea ;
and it was obvious that tliis chasm in the in-
structions furnished a ground of palliation to the
Ambassadors and the naval commanders ; for after
all the angry negotiations that had taken place
between Paissia and the Western Powers, a French

20 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C II A r. or an En<^]isli Admiral niiglit naturally be loth to

'. — go watching the movements of a fleet which, so

long as it was upon the open sea, he was not

empowered to strike, and might be honourably

reluctant to move out into tlie Euxine and run

the risk of having to witness a naval engagement

between the sliips of the Czar and of the Sultan,

without being at liberty to take part in it unless

it chanced to be fought within gunsliot of the

Turkish coast. Lut exactly in proportion as this

excuse for the Ambassadors and Admirals was

valid, it tended to bring blame upon the Home

Governments of France and England. The honest

rage of the English peoj^le was about to break out,

and there were materials for a rough criticism of

men engaged in the service of the State. Some

might blame the Home Government, some the

Ambassador, some the Admiral; but plainly it

would fare ill with any man upon whom the

public anger might light.

Reception of On the lltli of December the tidings of Sinope

otsiiioi.eby rcachcd Paris and London. The French Govern-

Govein- mcut fclt the bitterness of a disaster 'endured

bytho' ' as it were under the guns of the French and

England. ' English fleets.' * In England, tlie indignation

of the people ran to a heiglit importing a resolve

to have vengeance ; and if it had clearly been

understood that the disaster had resulted from

a want of firm orders from liome, tlie Government

would have been overwhelmed. But the very

weight and force of the public anger gave the

• M. Drouyu de Lhuys. *Ea.stcin Papers,' part ii. p. 299.

IN THE "WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 21

Government a means of eluding it. The torrent chap.
had so great a volume that it was worthy to be '

turned against a foreign State. The blaming of The anger of

, . ° ^ , o Uie English

Ministers and Ambassadors and Admirals, and fi>vcrtea

from ttieir

the endless conflict which would be engendered ""P '".''''s,

" and un.iusl ly

by the apportionment of censure, all might be I'lougiitto
superseded by suggesting, instead, a demand for czar.
vengeance against IJussia. The terms of Count
Nesselrode's Circular of the 31st of October* had
given ground for expecting that, until provoked
to a contrary course, the Czar, notwithstanding
the Turkish declaration of war, would remain
upon the defensive ; and the people in England
were now taught, or allowed to suppose, that
Eussia had made this attack upon a Turkish
squadron in breach of an honourable understand-
ing virtually equivalent to a truce, or, at all
events, to an arrangement which would confine
the theatre of active war to the valley of the
Lower Danube. This charge against Paissia was
unjust; for after the issue of the Circular, the
Government of St Petersburg had received intelli-
gence not only that active warfare was going on
in the valley of the Lower Danube, but that the
Turks had seized the Paissian fort of St Nicholas,
on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were
attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier.
After acts of this warlike sort had been done,
it was impossible to say, with any fairness, that
Piussia was debarred from a right to destroy her
enemy's ships ; and it must be acknowledged also,

• ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 226.

22 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCK AND ENGLAND

CHAP.
IL

First deci-
siun of the
English
Cabinet in
regard to
Siuope.

as I have already said, that tlie destruction of the
Turkish squadron at Sinope was not a thing done
in stealth. ]>at the jjeople of England, not know-
ing all this at first, and hearing nothing of the
Kussian fleet until they heard of the ravage and
slaughter of Sinope, imagined that the blow had
come sudden as the knife of an assassin. They
^vere too angry to be able to look upon tlie
question in a spirit of cold justice. It was
therefore an easy task to turn all attention from
the faults of public functionaries and fasten it
upon a larger scheme of vengeance. Ministers,
Ambassadors, and Admirals, went free, and in a
spirit of honest, inaccurate justice, the Emperor
Nicholas was marked for sacrifice. This time, it
was his fate to be condemned on wrong grounds ;
but his sins against Europe had been giiev-
ous, and the rough dispensations of the tribunal
which people call 'opinion' have often enough
determined that a man who has been guilty of
one crime shall be made to suffer for another.
There were few men in England who doubted
that the onslaught of Sinope was a treacherous
deed.

When first dealing with the question that had
been raised by this naval attack on the Turks,
our Government took it for granted that the
fleets of the Western Powers would forthwith
enter the Euxine, and considered that the in-
structions addressed to the English Admiral on
the 8th of October would be still a sufficient
guide, if they were now reinforced by enjoining

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. L'3

liini to prevent the recuiTcnce of a disaster sucli chap.
as that of Sinope. ^^-

But on the IGtli of December the ]^!lmperor of proposal ot
tlie French once more approached tlie Govei-n- tmijeror?'
ment of the Queen with his subtle and dangerous
counsels. The armed conflict of States in these
times is an evil of such dread proportions that it
seems wise to uphold the solemnity of a transi-
tion from peace to war, and to avoid those con-
trivances which tend to throw down the great
landmark; for experience shows tliat statesmen
heartily resolved upon peace may nevertheless be
induced to concur in a series of gentle steps
M'hich slowly and gradually lead down to why.
The negotiations for a settlement between Russia Danger of
and Tui'key had not only been revived, but were down'tili

r n !• L J.1 • ±- • • ■ old barriers

lar irom being at this time m an unpromising between
state; and it is probable that if Lord Aberdeen wTr?^^"
and Mr Gladstone had been called upon to say
M'hether they would observe peace faithfully,
or frankly declare a war, they would scarcely
have made the more violent choice. But the
alternative was not presented to the minds of
the Queen's Ministers in this ])lain and whole-
some form.

The ingenious Emperor of the French devised Ambiguous

1 r 1 • 1 • • •. , character of

a scheme or action so ambiguous in its nature theprorosai.
that, at the option of any man, it might be called
either peace or war, but so certain nevertlieless
in its tendency, that tlie adoption of such a
course by the maritime Powers would at once
blot out all fair prospect of maintaining peace in

2{ CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

c H A P. Eiirope. lie proposed to give Eussia notice ' that

. ' France and England were resolved to prevent

' the repetition of the affair of Sinope, and that

' every Russian ship thenceforward met iu the

* Eiixine would be requested, and, if necessary,
' constrained, to return to Sebastopol ; and that
' any act of aggression afterwards attempted
' against the Ottoman territory or flag would

* be repelled by force.' * This proposal involved,
M-ithout expressing it, a defensive alliance with
Turkey against Russia ; and if it were adopted,
the Emperor of Russia would have to see his flag
driven from the waters which bounded his own
dominions. It was so framed that Lord Palmer-
ston would know it meant war, whilst Lord
Aberdeen and 'Mv Gladstone might be led to
imagine that it was a measure rather gentle than
otherwise, which perhaps would keep peace in
the Euxine. Indeed, the proposal seemed made
to win the Chancellor of the Exchequer; for it
fell short of war by a measure of distance which,
though it jnight seem very small to people with
common eyesight, was more than broad enough
to afford commodious standing-room to a man
delighting as he did iu refinements and slender
distinctions.

The Frenfh The Enipcror of the French pressed this scheme
i.ressesupon upou the Euglisli Cabinet with his whole force.
Cabinet. ' Hc uot Only urgcd it by means of the usual
channels of diplomatic communication, but pri-
vately desired Lord Cowley ' to recommend it iu

• 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 307.

IX TIIK ^VAIi AGAINST RUSSIA. 2o

' tlic strongest terms to the favourable attention c ir a p.

' of Her Majesty's Government as a measure 1__

' incumbent upon himself and them to take ; '
and he avowed 'tlie disappointment which he
' shoukl feel if a difference of opinion prevented
'its adoption.'* This language is cogent — it
is also significant ; and, to one who can read it
by the light of a little collateral knowledge, it
may open a glimpse of the relations subsisting
between the Prencli Court and public men in
England.

On the 17th, the English Government had taken
a step in pursuance of the moderate decision to
which the Cabinet had come ; but on the follow-
ing day they were made acquainted with the will
of the French Emperor. It woidd seem that
there was hesitation in the Cabinet (as well there
might be) — hesitation lasting fully two days;f
but those members of the Government who would
have liked to maintain their former decision, had
against them our angry people, now joined in
their impatience by the French Emperor, and
apparently about to be led by one whose power
wnthin the last few days had seemed to be rising
high. It was at a meeting of the Cabinet on
Thursday the 22d, that the proposal of the French
Emperor closed in like a net round the variegated

* ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 307.

+ So late as the 20tli, and when within forty-eij^ht hours of the
decision, which went in an opposite direction. Lord Clarendon
evidently believed that the former determination of the Govern-
ment would be maintained. See 7505/ in footcote, p. 36, an
extract from his despatch of the 20th.

'J 6 CAUSES INVOLVING FIUNCR AND ENGLAND

CHAP, frroup which composed what remained of Lord
' Aberdeen's Ministry when their strongest man
yletdi*'"'"*'* ^^^^ ^^^'^ taken from them, and gathered them all
together in its snpple folds. Some submitted to
it for one reason, and some for another ; but the
pressure of the Preuch Emperor was the cogent
motive which governed the result. Still, this
time, though the pressure was inflicted by the
liand of a foreign sovereign, it was after all from
the English people themselves tliat the Erench
Emperor drew his strongest means of coercion.
Tlieir indignation at the disaster of Sinope made
him sure tliat he could bring rnin on Lord Aber-
deen's Administration by merely causing England
to know that her Government was shrinking
from the hostile scheme of action which he had
proposed.

The result, however, was that now, for the
second time, Erance dictated to England the iise
that she should make of her fleet, and by this
time perhaps submission had become more easy
than it was at first. The IMiliistry, Avith much
openness, acknowledged that they were acting
without the warrant of their own judgment, and
in deference to the will of the Erench Emperor.
' The Government,' said Lord Clarendon, ' having
' announced that the recurrence of a disaster such
' as that of Sinope must be prevented, and that
' the command of the Black Sea must be secured,
' would have been content to have left the manner
' of executing those instructions to the discretion
* of the Admirals, but they attach so much ini'

66'

Petersburg.

IX THE WAIJ AGAIXST IJUSSIA. 27

' portaucG not alone to the luiiied action of the chap.
* two Governments, but to the instructions ad- ^''
' dressed to their respective agents being precisely
' the same, that they are prepared to adopt the
' specific mode of action now proposed by llie
' Government of the Emperor.' * With the addi- orders to
tion of a proviso that for the present the Sultan .schemrana
should be engaged to abstain from aggressive HaTst""'''
operations on the Euxine, instructions exactly
in accord with the Erench Emperor's proposal
were forthwith sent out to the Bosphorus, and at
the same time the Erencli and English represen-
tatives at St Petersburg were ordered to com-
municate tliis resolution to Count Nesselrode.

But who was the statesman removed by some Lord Pai.
cause from our Cabinet before the critical day, cxXsion
and who again was the statesman then seen to be atTie^time
so clothed with power that the very apprehension decision*
of having him for an adversary weiglied heavily on °° ^ '"'*'
the decision of that Thursday (the 22d of Decem-
ber) ? The two were one. Only a few days before,
Lord Palmerston had been a member of the Gov-
ernment. Tliinking fit, and intending to meet
the desire of tlie Tuileries for a close and con-
certed action between France and England, he in
those days had power, great power over Louis
Napoleon ; and, unless for some reason of Jiis
own, he would hardly, I think, have allowed the
French Emperor to press indecorously upon any
Cabinet to which he himself belonged, still less to
apply such a pressure with the object of making it

* ' EusterD Papers,' part ii. p. 321.

28 CAUSES INVOLVIXG FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C 11 A P. reverse a decision already taken. Noiwitlistand-
' ing Lord Pabnerston's subsequently expressed
assent to the decision of the 22d of December,*
there is room, as I think, for surmising that, if
his tenure of office had remained uninterrupted,
our Cabinet would have stood by its former
resolve, and refused to break up the negotiations
then almost ripe for agreement by an act which
had the strange quality of being even more
offensive than war. At all events, it is certain
that, if only for his power of controlling the
French Emperor, and maintaining with him that
kind of concert which English statesmen might ap-
prove, Lord Palmerston had been a great source of
strength to the Government, On the other hand,
it seemed plain that if Lord Palmerston were to
be undergoing political banishment at a time
when his late colleagues could be accused of
flinching from the task of avenging Sinope, the
support of an indignant people, connecting every
symptom of ]\Iinisterial tamcness with his exclu-
sion from office, would make him more powerful
than the Queen's Government.

Now unfortunately it happened, though for rea-
sons which cannot yet be disclosed, that some
days before the ill-omened Thursday, Lord Pal-
merston was driven from office. Of the justice
or propriety of the measure thus taken against
him no one yet can be invited to judge, because its

* In a letter to his brother, published in llr Evelyn Ashley's,
most interesting Look.

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 29

grounds arc withheld.* Wlmt we all may kuow chap.
is that he found himself compelled to resign ;■{- ' ' .
that the Queen accei^itcd his resignation ; and that
the Council-day on wliich he would have to de-
liver up the seals of ofTice was duly fixed. But
no sooner had all this been done, than a sense of
Lord Palmerston's immense sterling worth as a

* Tlicy were eve'i witlilicUl, one iiioy sny, from tlio faitliful
Baron Stockinar ; for the Prince Consort's letter to liini on the
suLject -was not a real and thorough disclosnro. Whether the
curious outcry of those days against ' Prince Albert's interfer-
'ence'was in any way connected with the transactions above
stated, I do not undertake to say ; but it followed them with a
very close step. The outcry Avas one wrongly, nay, almost
absurdly directed, and was utterly silenced upon the meeting
of Parliament in 1854, by Lord Aberdeen and other public men,
who spoke out with unshrinking clearness upon what had
seemed until then a tender and delicate subject.

In saying that the outcry was wrongly or absurdly directed,
I am far from meaning to represent that it was baseless ; for I
think, on the contrarj'', that transactions appearing to have
resulted from the hostility of the Crown to Lord Palmerston in
the five or six middle years of this century, were a very fit sub-
ject for public inquiry, and in the meantime for that healthy,
wise uneasiness which awakens the care of Parliament. "What
Parliament ought to have asked, and ought to have taken care
to learn, was — not whether the Prince Consort, or any other
• Private Secretary,' or friend or courtier, had been giving
counsel to the Queen, but — whether any of her constitutional
advisers had been guilty of undue complacency to the Crown,
or of intriguing against a colleague.

If the life of the late Prince Consort in 1853 should be un-
reservedly imparted to the public, the 'grounds' above referred
to as wanting will not fail to appear. The December of 1853
was a critical month in the Prince Consort's political life.

t A difference with his colleagues on the question of ' Kcfonn'
was assigned by Lord Palmerston as a ground for his resigna-
tion (see the explanations in Hansard at the opening of the

30 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, colleague, and, along with that also, the thought
- of what might be his strength as an adversary,

broke in upon the minds of the Cabinet Ministers
still remaining under Lord Aberdeen ; and they,
some of them, likewise perceived that his with-
drawal had destroyed the equilibrium hitherto
maintained in a Government formed by coalition.
These last members of the Cabinet, with the assent
of some of their colleagues, effected, as it were, an
insurrection against the power which had driven
Lord Palmerston from office. They urged his
restoration ; and to the grievous mortification of
those who had compassed his fall, it proved on
the whole impracticable to resist their demand.
Lord Palmerston, I believe, took no part in pre-
paring the counter-movement which thus over-
came his assailants, and at first, perhaps, knew
nothing of it ; * but, when the progress of the
measure was at length made known to him, he
did not thwart its completion. Liking work in
the public service, and desiring, of course, so

session of 1854) ; and in his month the exphmation was a fair
one, because the 'difference' in question had been brandished
.ngainst liim in such way as to compel him to retire from tlie
Government. (See Lord Palmerston's letters in Mr Evelyn
Asliley's book.) But in the midst of those anxious December
(lays wlieii England was fast driving towards war, liow came it to
happen that a ' difference' on the then liat subject of poor old
' Reform ' was so used as to become the means of driving Lord
Palmerston from office ? Thai is the step of which I say in the
text that the 'grounds are withheld.'

* The Prince Consort writes as though he believed that Lord
Palmerston had himself originated the movement for effecting
bis restoration to office, but my information does not warrant
me in acceding to His Koyal Iliglincss's idea.

IN THE AVAR AGAINST EUSSIA. 31

imicli i)o\ver as would iiiiikc his labours efleclivr, chap.

II
he yet was so free from all jealous, all 'vaulting' .

ambition, as to be proof against the rniglity temp-
tation which seemed to be dangled before him
by his sudden exclusion from office ; * and being
moreover quite capable — perhaps almost scorn-
fully capable — of forgiving personal injuries, he
goodnaturedly consented to withdraw his resig-
nation, returning thus to the Home Office and
the Cabinet as though little or nothing had hap-
pened to var}"- his political life.f

How the course of events might have run, if
no enmity, whether righteous or otherwise, had
chanced to be assailing the strongest member
of the Government at the critical time of Sinopc
— this, of course, is a question which can only be
approached by conjecture ; but those who best
knew Lord Palmerston will incline to believe
that a proposal for bringing England into a state
of virtual war with Russia would have been dealt
with by him in the Cabinet upon its own merits,
without a suggestion of any such motive as the

* If proposing vigorous measures ngaiust Eussia whilst out
of office, Lord Palmerston would have had the advantage of
acting in virtual concert with the French Emperor, and of
being at the same time supported, with great force, by our
vehement people at home. It is probable that in such circum-
stances, and armed with the public favour, acquired by his
exclusion from office, he could hardly have helped becoming
Prime Minister in the first month of the then approaching
session

t If the operation was effected en rajJe, the acceptance of the
resignation, I suppose, must have been first withdrawn, or
treated as incomplete, and tlicn the Minister could withdrav/
his resignation.

32 CAUSES INVOLVING TKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, one his late colleagues avowed.* At all events,

I'- wG now see that the ill-omened decision of the

22d of December took place within the brief

period of Lord Palmerston's exclusion from the

Cabinet, f

* See Lord Clarendon's avowal, cited ante, ^ip. 26, 27.

+ There was a widespreail belief that if Lord Pahnerston
had not been driven from the Foreign Office, the war would
have been prevented. Of this the Prince Consort was aware.
H<'. writes, I see, to Baron Stockmar on the 19th of October :
' The Palmerstonian stocks liere have gone up imnienselj', ]ieople
' saying that if he had been at the F. 0., he would, by his
' energy, have brought Pussia to reason.'— 'Life of the Prince
Consort,' vol. ii. p. oiL

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSU. .^3

CHAPTER III.

After much labour, the representatives of the chap.
four Powers at Constantinople had agreed upon a "^'
scheme of settlement which they deemed likely to ^^™^ ^^
be acceptable to the Emperor Nicholas, and they po^ve^s*"'"^
pressed its adoption by the Porte. The warlike f.ponThp'^
spirit of the Ottoman people had been rising day LoM^^^at.
by day, and it became very hard and dangerous ^"'^'^
for the Government to ventui'e upon entertaining
a negotiation for peace. But Lord Stratford had
power over the minds of Turkish Statesmen ; and
he exerted it with so great a force that, although
it was now impossible for them to obey him with-
out the risk of having to face a religious insur-
rection, they obeyed him nevertheless. The fury
of the armed divines insisting upon the massacre
of worldlings, was less terrible to them than the
anger of the Eltchi. To his will they bent. Not
only the Turkish Cabinet, but even the Great Coun-
cil of State, was brought to accept the terms pro-
posed * The difficulty, nay the peril of life, which

* The terms wpre finally accepted on the 31st of December
lSr>3. ' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 362.

VOL. 11. C

34 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, had thus been encountered by the Turkish ^linis-
' try for the sake of making peace with Piussia — the
fxyecuns^^ succcss achieved at Sinope — and some victories
soiutiom*^'^ gained over the Turks on the Armenian frontier,
— all these were circumstances tending to assuage
the mortification inflicted upon the Czar by the
failure of Prince Mentschikoff's mission. Again,
it had long been plain that the time was ill-fitted
for the promotion of any scheme of Tiussian
ambition ; and it was known that the English
Ambassador had brought the Turks to the utmost
verge of possible concession. Moreover, terms of
arrangement, agreed to by the Turkish Govern-
ment, were about to be pressed upon the Czar
with all the authority of the four great Powers.
It might seem, therefore, that all things were con-
ducing towards an amicable settlement. Nor
was this hope at all shaken when the Government
of St Petersburg was made acquainted with tlie
first and unbiassed decision to which the English
Government had come after hearing of the dis-
aster of Sinope. Apprised by his private letters
of the tenor of this decision. Sir Hamilton Sey-
mour gathered or inferred that the Admirals of
the Western Powers, being enjoined to prevent
the recurrence of an attack like the attack of
Sinope, would assert the command of the Black
pvieii.uy Sea ; and when he imparted to the Russian

view enter- . .

tiineii by Govemmcnt the impression thus produced on his

the Russi.-in . , , .

GoveniMunt miud, his communication was received in a wise

oftlieKng. '

lisiiCabi- and friendlv spirit by Count Nesselrode ; for after

net's first J t J )

decision. hearing that the Western Powers would be likely

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 35

to assume the command of the Black Sea, the chap.

Count ' expressed his belief that the Kussian fleet '

' would, in consequence of the advanced season,

' be little likely to leave Sebastopol ; ' and he then

went on to suggest that, if the Eussians were to

be hindered from attacking the Turks, it would

be fair that the Turks should be restrained from

molesting the coast of Kussia. The rest of the

conversation related to the pending negotiations ;

and, upon the whole, it was plain that the first

decision of the English Cabinet was looked upon

as the natural result of the engagement at Sinope,

that it would certainly not lead to a rupture,* and

that at length the Eussian Government was in a

fit temper to receive the proposals for peace which

the four Powers (with the concurrence, this time,

of Lord Stratford, and with the extorted assent of

the Turks) were now again bringing to St Peters-

burg. But whilst this fair prospect was opened AnnouncA-

° i r 1 mental St

by the unceasing toil of the negotiators, there Petersburg

'' o G ' of the

were messengers then iourneving from Paris and ^ciieme

o J V o finally

from London to the Court of St Petersburg ; and fjl^'^estera
they carried an announcement that the Western Powers.
Powers were resolved to execute the harsh and
insulting scheme of action which (in the absence
of Lord Palmerston, and during the period of his
exclusion from office) had been forced upon the
acceptance of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet by the
Emperor of the French.f Of course it was not to

* 'Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 359.

+ Commentators have denied tliat Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet
waa pushed from the paths of peace by the urgency of the

36 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, be expected that the friendly spirit in which the

- Piussian Government had received the first and

unbiassed decision of the English Cabinet would

French Government. "With proofs of wliat I liave said about

this, the volnine, I think, abounds ; but see in particular the

avowal in distinct terms by Lord Clarendon, ante, p. 27. For

those who like to see facts and dates put closely together, it

may be convenient to glance at the following statement of tlic

way in which the lever acted upon England between Tuesday

the 20th and Saturday the 24th of December : —

Tuesday, 20th Dec. — Our Government having just determined

that no special instructions to the Admirals were

necessitated by the disaster of Sinope ('Eastern

Papers,' part ii. p. 304), and having up to this day

resisted the French proposals, Lord Clarendon is

able to ^^Tite of ' the unabated desire for peace by

' which the r>ritish Government will be animated'

[i.e., peace between Turkey and Russia], and to

assure Lord Stratford that the course which he waa

' taking with a view to the adoption by the Porte of

* pacific connsds is in accordance with the wishes of
' Her Slajc'sty's Government as lieing calculated to
' prepare the Porte to give a favourable reception
' to the proposals tvhich have been forwarded from
' Vienna.' — ^' Eastern Papers,' part ii. p. 320.

Thursday, 22d Dec. — Tlie Government no longer resists the
pressure applied (some of the words inflicting the
pressure are given in the te.xt), and adopts the
Frencli proposals.

Saturday, 24th Dec. — Lord Clarendon announces to Lord Cow-
ley tlie adoption by our Government of the French
proposals, and adds: — 'Her Majesty's Government
' have not hesitated to adopt the course which the
' honour and dignity of the country prescribe ; but
' at the same time they do not disgui.se from thcin-

* selves that it m.ay at no distant period involve
' Evfjland and France in war with Ilvssia.' — Ibid,
pp. 221, 222.

Thus, in the interval of three clear days between Tuesday
the 20th and Saturday the 24th, there is a transition from
peaceful language, and from obviously strong liopes of even

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 37

eveu for one moment survive an announcement of chap.
the scheme which only some ten days later our '

Government had been brought to adopt. It was
one thing for the Western Powers to enforce the
neutrality of the Black Sea, and another and a
very different thing to announce to the sovereign
of a haughty State that, even although he miglit
be bent on uo warlike errand, still, upon the very
sea which washed his coast — upon the very sea
which filled his harbours — he was forbidden to
show liis Hag.

On the 12t]i of January 1854, the Emperor
Nicholas was forced to hear — to endure to hear
— that, upon peril of an unequal conflict with the
combined fleets of tlie Western Powers, every ship
that he had in the Euxine must either be kept
from going to sea, or else must sail by stealth,
and be liable to be ignominiously driven back
into port. The negotiation, which had seemed to The nego-

•,■,,.„ . tiations ara

be almost ripe tor a settlement, was then rumed. ruineo.
The Emperor Nicholas did not declare war against
the Western Powers ; but, as soon as he received
the hostile announcement in a form which he
deemed to be official, he withdrew his represen-
tatives from Paris and London. The Governments Rupture of
of France and England followed his example ; and reiatiouu.
on the 21st of February 185-i, the diplomatic

ending tlie then existing war between Turkey and Russia, to
a very close prospect of a new war— a war involving England
and France; and tlie three days' interval in which this mo-
mentous change took place was marked by but one event— by
the determination of tlie Cabinet (on Thursday the 22d) to
adopt the French proposals.— .Vo^e to ilh Edition, 1863.

132729

38 OAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C H A P. relations between Kussia and the Western Powers
^^^' were brought to a close. Moreover, the Czar
prepan's'^ prepared to undertake an invasion of the Otto-
Tuikey!^" nian dominions.

Fleets enter Ou tlie 4th of Jauuarj 1854, the fleets of
England and France moved up and entered the
Euxine.

IN THE WAIl AGAINST KUS3IA. 39

CHAPTER IV.

In a military point of view, and upon the suppo- chap.
sition of there beino: no iinderstandingr between '

the Czar in
occupying
WaUachia.

liussia and Austria, the seizure of the whole e^or^oT
of Wallachia by a Kussian army is a dangerous
measure; for, after reaching Bucharest, the line
of occupation has to bend at right angles, ascend-
ing the northern bank of the Danube between au
enemy expectant and an enemy already declared,
till at length it touches the frontier of the Banat,
at a distance from Moscow of not less than a
thousand miles. To be in fitting strength at a
point thus situate would imply the possession of
resources beyond those which Russia could com-
mand.

The General at the head of the Turkish army ofthu
was Omar Pasha; and it chanced that he was a takes skuiui
man highly skilled in the art of bringing poli-
tical views to bear upon the operations of an army
in the field. He perceived that by protruding his
forces into Western, or Lesser Wallachia, tlie
Emperor Nicholas was not only distending im-
prudently his line of communications, but eom-

ad vantage.

40 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, mitting in other ways a great strategic fault ; and
^^' he also inferred that political reasons and imperial
vanity would make the Czar cling to his error.
He also knew that, for the rest of that year, the
Czar, being kept back by the engagements which
lie had taken, by his fear of breaking with the
four Powers, and above all, by the insufficiency of
his means, would abstain from any further inva-
sion of Turkey, and would even be reluctant to
alarm Europe by allowing the least glimpse of a
Eussian uniform to appear on the right bank of
the Danube. Omar saw that the river had thus
become a political barrier which protected the
Turks from the Eussians, without protecting tlie
Eussians from the Turks. He could, therefore,
overstep the common rules of the art of war; and
disporting himself as he chose on the line of the
'Danube, could concentrate forces on his extreme
left, without any fear for his centre or his right.

uis autumn Therefore, in the early part of the autumn,

ttud winter . ,. , i rn i • -i • i.^

cttinpaigns. a large portion ot the Turkish army was quietly
drawn to Widdin, a town on the right bank of the
river, in the westernmost angle of Bulgaria ; and,
on the lifth day from the declaration of war, Omar
Pasha was over the Danube, entrenching himself at
Kalafat, and so established that he faced towards
the east, and confronted the extreme flank of the
intruding army.* Trom that moment Nicholas
ceased to be the undisturbed holder of the terri-
tory which he had chosen to call his ' material

• 28th October 1853. The decluratiou of war became absolute
on the 23a.

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 4.1

' guarantee.' His pride was touched. Tortured by c H A p.

the thought that his power to hold the pledge was 1_

challenged by a Turkisli officer, he began to ex-
haust his strength in efforts to assemble a force
at the westernmost point of his extended flank.
This was the error which Omar Pasha wished him
to commit. At the close of the year, the Czar had
succeeded in pushing a heavy body of troops into
Lesser Walhichia ; and in the beginning of Jan-
uary the lines of Kalafat were attacked by Gen-
eral Aurep. The struggle lasted four days, but it
ended in the retreat of the Kussian forces ; and
considering the vast distance between the lines of
Kalafat and the home of the Eussian army, it
may be inferred that this fruitless effort of im-
perial pride must have worked a deep cavity in
the military strength of the Czar.

Moreover, Omar Pasha took another, and a not
less skilful advantage of the political considerations
which prevented the Pussians from passing the
Danube; for, during the winter, he fleshed his
troops by indulging them with enterprises against
the enemy's posts along the whole liue of the
Lower Danube from Widdin to Passova ; and
since these attacks were often attended with
success, and could never be signally repressed by
an enemy who had precluded himself from the
right of crossing the river, they gave the Turks
that sense of strenoth in fi"ht which is at the root
of warlike prowess.

Early in the winter, the Emperor Nicholas
came to understand the fault he had committed

42 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP.
IV.

Embarrass-
laent and
distress of
the Czar.

He rfisorts
for ai<l to
Fu«kiuviti'h,

in prescribing the Danube <as a boundary — a
boundary to be observed by himself, without
the least right for expecting that it would be
observed by his adversary. So now he would do
the contrary of what he had done. Because he
had corani-itted a military fault in forbidding
himself from all enterprises against the slowly
assembling forces of the Porte in 1853, he would
now, in 1854, undertake an invasion which must
bring him into conflict with the gathered strength
of the Ottoman Empire, and that, too, when it
had become certain that the armed support of
France and England would not be wanting to the
Sultan. But perhaps, after all, it was hardly
tolerable for a haughty monarch to have to stand
passive under the insulting coercion which was
now to be applied to him by the "Western Powers ;
and the Czar, having no means of hostile action
against the territories or the ships of either France
or England, could only strike at his greater foes
by striking at the ally whom they had undertaken
to befriend. Upon the whole, therefore, he could
not so school himself as to be able to abstain from
attempting an invasion of Turkey ; but the whole-
some trials which he had now undergone had so
far disciplined his spirit that at length, after
bitter anguish, lie felt and acknowledged to him-
self the want of a firm adviser.

Piussia owned a great General who had never
sanctioned by his counsels the error of the pre-
vious year; and now — baffled — agitated — driven
hither and thither by alternating impulses till his

IN THE WAll AGAINST KUSSIA. 43

brain had become a "uide more blind than chance CH a p.

IV

• — the Czar abated his personal claims to the con- '

duct of a war, and came for help and counsel to
the veteran Paskievitch. The evil was almost be-
yond the old man's hope of cure ; for how could
Enssia march upon Constantinople — nay, how iu
strict prudence could she march upon the Bal-
kan whilst England and France were iu full com-
mand of the Euxine ? But was the Czar then
simply powerless against Turkey ? Had his
million of soldiers been torn from their homes in
vain ? Had he not busied himself all his days in
organising armies and reviewing drilled men, and
grinding down his people into the mere fractional
components of an army, until the very faces of
soldiers in the same battalion were brought to be
similar and uniform? Had his life been utter
foolishness, and was the labour of his reign so
barren that he could not now make a campaign
against the simple Turks, who never took pains
about anything until the hour of battle 'i Had he
not spoken in the counsels of Europe as though he
were a potentate so gi-eat that the Empire of the
Ottomans existed by force of his magnanimity ?
And now, had it come to this, that at the mere
bidding of the Western Powers and without their
firing a shot, he was to stand arrested in the pres-
ence of scoffing Europe like a prisoner who had
delivered his sword ?

Well, Paskievitch, in a painful, soldierly way, Paskio-

. . vitch's

could tell him what would be the least imprudent coimsdt.
plan for attacking the inner dominions of the

44 CAUSES INVOLVING FEANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. Sultan. The principles of the art of war have a
__Hl_ great stability ; and altliough there is an infinite
variety in the methods of applying them, it results
that the invasion of one nation by another is re-
peatedly undertaken upon the same accustomed
route.

By the route which Paskievitch recommended,
the invader crosses the Dauube in the neighbour-
hood of its great bend towards the north ; makes
himself master of Silistria ; encounters and over-
comes the assembled strength of the Ottoman Em-
pire in front of the great intrenched camp of
Shoumla ; then, advancing, forces the difficult
passes of the Balkan as best he may ; marches
upon Adrianople ; and thence on — thence on, if
he can and dares — to the shore of the Bosphorus.
Erivanski * could hardly have believed that his
master's military power was equal to so great an
undertaking as that ; but if it succeeded only in
some of its early stages, diplomacy might come to
the rescue of the Czar, as it had done in 1829 ;
and the plan had this in its favour, that it placed
a broad tract of country between Austria and the
right flank of the invading army, and another
though less extended territoiy between its left
flank and the fleets of the Western Powers.

But in the counsels of a wise and faithful sol-
dier there is a pitiless candour — a dreadful pre-
cision. He comes in his hard way to weights, and
to numbers, and to measurements of space and of

* This was Paskievitch's title : it denoted that ho was the
conqueror of Erivan, a proviuce conquered from the Persians.

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 45

time. Without mercy to the vanity of his suf- chap.
fering master, Paskievitch defaced the cherished '

form of the ' material guarantee/ by insisting that
tlie Czar should cease from trying to hold the
Principalities entire, and that all his forces should
he quickly withdrawn from the Lesser Wallachia.
This done, he promised the Czar an invasion of
the Ottoman Empire ; but the carrying of the
enterprise beyond the valley of the Danube was
to be only upon condition that Silistria should
fall, and should fall before the 1st of May.*

So now the streams of battalions rumoured to Movement
be setting in upon the Lower Danube from the the Russian
confines of All the Eussias woke up the mind of ''^'"''''"
Europe, and portended a great invasion.

* Jfy knowledge of the counsels tendered to the Emperor hy
Paskievitch is derived from papers in the possession of the lata
Lord Raorlan.

46 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAPTER V.

CHAP. It has been seen that without treaty, and without

^' the advice or knowledge of Parliament — nay even,

Bur-o^Tie psrhaps, without a distinct conception of what it

and Colonel ^^^^g doinji — the English Government had been

Ardent cle- o o

thei^vaiit gradually contracting engagements which were
almost equivalent to a defensive alliance with the
Sultan. France, by virtue of her new understand-
ing with England, had come under the same obli-
gations ; and now that an invasion of the Ottoman
Empire was threatened, it became necessary that
the AVestern Powers should take measures for its
defence. At first, however, their views were
limited to the defence of the Sultan's home terri-
tories, and especially those which gave the control
of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. Two
Engineer officers — Colonel Ardent on the part
of France, and Sir John Burgoyne on the part of
England — were despatched to Turkey, with in-
structions to report upon the best means of aiding
the Sultan to defend his home dominions; and
almost at the same time it was agreed between
the two Western Powers that each of them should

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 47

prepare to send a small body of troops into the cif ap.
Levant. ;

Tlie En^dish force was collected at INIalta. Of Troops sent

'^ . to Miiltu

the Ministers who joined in adopting this measure,
some foresaw that the few battalions which they
were despatching to the East were the nucleus of
an army which might have to operate in the field ;
but others looked upon them as a force intended
to support our negotiations. This ambiguity of Tenriency
motive was a root of evil ; for the collateral measure,
arrangements which are requisite for enabling an
army to live, to move, and to fight, bear a vast
proportion to the mere business of collecting the
men ; and there is always a danger that a body of
troops, sent towards the scene of action with a
diplomatic intent, will be unsupported by the
measures which are requisite for actual war, and
yet, upon the rupture of the negotiations, will be
prematurely hurried into the field. On the other
hand, the councillors of a great military State are
so well accustomed to know tlie cost and tlie labour
which must precede the advance of an army, that
the mere protrusion of a body of well- equipped
troops, unsupported by the collateral appliances of
war, does not tell upon their minds as a proof of
an intention to act. By despatching a few bat-
talions to Malta, without instructing commissaries
to go to the Levant and begin buying up the agri-
cultural wealth of the country, we not only sub-
jected our troops to the danger of their being
brought into the field before supplies were ready,
but also convinced the Russians that we could not

iimrcasf of
tlie array.

48 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. l">e sincerely intending to engage in a war. ^forn-

• over, the slcnderness of the addition which the

Ministers Govcminent proposed to make to our army tended

(letennine '^ ^ •'

to propose ^^ prolonq,' the Czar's fond confidence in tlic ^veiffht

nut a. siiiall 1 C3 o

and strength of the English Peace Party ; and
perliaps this dangerous error was strengthened,
if Baron Brunnow was able to tell him that, in
proposing to the Cabinet a material increase of
our land-forces, the Duke of Newcastle stood al-
most alone.
Continuance The Prime Minister's continued persistency in
Aberdeen's thc usc of hurtful language was another of the

imprudent t-i •hit t i i /-\ iti

language. causcs wliich Still hclpcd to kccp the Czar blind-
fold. Lord Aberdeen abhorred the bare thought
of war ; and he would not have suffered his
country to be overtaken by it, if the coming dan-
ger had been of such a kind that it could be
warded off by hating it and shunning its aspect.
But it is not by intemperate hatred of war, nor
yet by shunning its aspect, that war is averted.
Almost to the last, Lord Aberdeen misguided him-
self. His loathing of war took such a shape that
he could not and would not believe in it ; and
when at last the spectre was close upon him,
he covered his eyes and refused to see. Basing
himself upon the thouglitless saying of a states-
man, who had laid it down that there could be no
war in Europe when France and England were
agreed, he seems to have imagined that, although
he was suffering himself to be drawn on and on
into measures which were always becoming less
and less short of war, still he could maintain

IN Till-: WAR AGAINST RUSSIA, 40

peace by takinrf care to be always along with cilAP,
the French Emperor ; and ho so clung to the '

paradise created by a false maxim that he could
not be torn from it. lie would not be roused
from a dream which was sweeter than all waking
thoughts ; and even now, to any man to whom
he chanced to s]:)eak, he continued to say that
there could not, there would not be war. Coming
irom a Prime INIinister, such words as these
did not fail to have a noxious weight with many
who heard them, l^aron Brunnow, wo have seen,
had looked deeper even at a much earlier period,
and now again, no doubt, he took care to warn
his master that Lord Aberdeen was under a pas-
sionate hatred of war which deprived him of
his competence to speak in the name of his
country : but by otlier channels the words of our
Prime jMinister were carried to the Emperor of
Prussia, and, being very welcome to him, and co-
inciding with his long - cherished notions, they
tended to keep him in tlie perilous belief that
Lord Aberdeen was speaking with knowledge, and
that England, still clogged by her Peace Party,
was unable to (m to war.

VOL. IL V

50 CAUSES INYOLVIA'G fllANCE AHL F^GLA^•D

CHAPTER VI.

CHAP. A NEW opportunity of making his way back to

'. peace was now thrown away by the Czar. The

Enfpcror's'' exigencics of a throne based upon the deeds of
theCzar the 2d of December were always driving tlie
French Emperor to endeavour to allay the remem-
brance of the past by creating a stir in Europe,
and endeavouring to win celebrity. When Europe
was quiet, he was obliged, for his life's sake, to
become its disturber ; but when it was at war, or
threatened with war, he was willing, it seems, to
take an exactly opposite method of attaining the
required conspicuousness ; for he was not a blood-
thirsty nor even a very active-minded man, and
there seems no good reason to doubt tliat, having
brought Europe to the state in which it was at
the close of January, he was sincere in the pacific
step which he then took. At a moment when
war was already kindled and seemed to be on the
point of involving the great Powers, the odd
vanity and the theatric bent wliich had so
strangely governed his life might easily make
him wish to conic upon the scene and bestow the

IN THE AVAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 51

blessing of peace upon the grateful, astonished chap.
nations. On the other hand, an English Minister ^^' ^
\vould be careless of this kind of celebrity, and,
so that peace could be restored to Eui'ope, would
be well pleased that the honour of tlie achieve-
ment should seem to belong to the French
Emperor.

There is no reason to doubt that the English
Government assented to the somewhat startling:
plan under which the French Emperor conceived
himself entitled to speak for the Queen of Eng-
land, as well as for himself; and certainly tlie
licence, however strange it may appear, was in
strict consistency with the spirit of the under-
standing which seems to have been established
between the two Western Powers.*

On the 29th of January tlie Fi-uncli Emperor
addressed an autograph letter to his 'good friend'
of All tlie Kussias. Tiie letter in many parts of
it was ably worded, and moderate in its tone, but
it was mainly remarkable for tlie language in
which the French Emperor took upon himself to
speak and even to threaten war in the name of the
Queen of England. After suggesting a scheme of
pacification, he said to the Czar : ' Let your
' Majesty adopt this plan, upon which the Queen
' of England and myself are perfectly agreed, and
' tranquillity will be re-established and the world
' satisfied. There is nothing in the plan which is

* See the inferred purport of this understanding as stated
in Vol. I. of ' The Invasion of the Crimea,' pp. 350, 351 of
the Cabinet Edition.

52 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND
CHAP. ' unworthy of your ^Majesty — nothing Avhicli can

VL

' wound your honour ; but if, from a motive
' diificult to understand, your Majesty sliould
' refuse this proposal, then France as well as
' England will be compelled to leave to the fate
* of arms ami the chances of war that which
' might now be decided by reason and justice.'*
The French Emperor permitted himself to write
this at a time wiien, so far as is known, no threat
like that which he chose to utter in the name of
the Queen had been addi-esscd by the English
Cabinet to the Court of St Petersburg.

With the feelings wliich niiglit be expected
from them, English Ministers of State have gen-
erally been slow to use threatening words ; and
they have been chary, too, in putting forward the
name of their Sovereign. Our Government could
not have been willing that England should be
thrust upon the attention of the world in a way
which the too fastidious Court of St Petersburg
^vould be sure to regard as grotesque. No one
can doubt the pain with wliich the members of
Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet must have seen the
French Emperor come forward upon the stage of
Europe, and pidilicly menace the Emperor of
Russia in the name of their Queen. The process
by which they were brought to suffer tliis is un-
known to me. What seems probable is that a
draft of the letter was submitted to tliem, ac-
companied with significant representations of the
• 'Annual Kogi.stcr,' 1S54.

IN THE WAU AGAINST KUSSIA. 53

importance which the French Emperor attached chap.

to it, and that the Cabinet yielded to the pressure, ^

because it feared that resistance might chill the
new alliance, and might even perhaps cause it to
be suddenly abandoned for an alliance between
Kussia and France.

The letter proposed an armistice, in order to
leave open a free course for negotiation. It
uould seem that, in a military point of view,
an armistice for a limited period, commencing in
the early days of February, could not have been
inconvenient to a Sovereign whose main difficulty
at that time lay in the immense marches wliich
he had to effect within his own dominions ; and,
on the other hand, to any one acquainted with
the French Emperor's personal weakness, it was
obvious that by a little harmless play upon his
vanity, Paissia might hope to obtain a great
diplomatic advantage, and to effect a decorous
escajje from her troubles. But the Czar was not
politic ; and, instead of seizing the proffered
occasion, he not only rejected the overture, but
aggravated his refusal by an unwise allusion to
the French disasters of 1812.

In Ids quest after this sort of fame the French Mission to
Emperor was not witliout rivals. "We have seen burg from
the share which the English Peace Party had had Peace Purty.
in misleading the Emperor of Russia, and tempt-
ing him to become a disturber by withdrawing
the wholesome fear which deters a man from
venturing upon outrage. Certain brethren of the

54 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. Society of Friends, who had been prominent
' members of this Farty, now thought it becoming
or wise to proceed to St Petersburg and request
the Emperor of all the Russias to concur with
them in preserving Europe from the calamity of
war.

A little later, and the Czar Nvould have stamped
in fury and driven from his sight any hapless
aide-de-camp who had come to him with a story
about a deputation from the English Peace Party ;
for the hour was at hand when his curses were
about to fall heavy on the men who had led him
on into all his troubles by pretending that Eng-
land was immersed in trade, and resolved to
engage in no war.* But at this time his hope
of seeing our Government held back by the
Peace Party had not altogether vanished, and he
resolved to give this strange mission a genial
welcome.

Of course, the political conversation between
the booted Czar and the men of peace was sheer
nothingness ; but what followed shows the care with
which Nicholas had studied the middle classes of
England. When he thouj^ht that the first scene
of the interlude had lasted long enough, he sud-
denly said to his piim visitors, ' By the by, do you
know my wife ? ' They said they did not. The
Czar presented them to the Empress. She charmed
them with her kindly grace. They came away sor-

• Tlie scene of violence here prospectively alluded to will bo
mentioned in a later volume : it occurred in the autuniu.

IN THK WAU AGAINST RUSSIA. ' 55

rowing to think that their wrong-headed country- chap.
men in England should be seeking a quarrel with ^^
BO good and well-meaning a man as friend Nicholas
Komanoff ; but perhaps what more than all else
laid hold of their hearts, was the thought that the
Czar called his Empress so naturally by her dear
homely title of wife.

50 CAUSES liiYOLVl^'G HtA:;Cli A^D E.NGLA^^D

CHAPTER VII.

CHAP.
VII.

Temper of
the English
an obstacle
to tlie main-
tenance of
peace.

Their desire
for war.

Causes of
the apparent
change in
their feeliUL'.

Welcome or unwelcome, the truth must be told.
A huge obstacle to the maintenance of peace in
Europe was raised up by the temper of the English
people. In public, men still used forms of expres-
sion implying that they would be content for
England to lead a quiet life among the nations,
and they still classed expectations of peace amongst
their hopes, and declared in joyous tones that the
prospects of war were gloomy and painful ; but
these phrases were the time-honoured canticles of
a doctrine already discarded, and they who used
them did not mean to deceive their neighbours,
and did not deceive themselves. Tlie English
desired war ; and perhaps it ought to be acknow-
ledged that there were many to whom war, for
the sake of war, was no longer a hateful thought.
Either the people had changed, or else there was
hollowness in some of the professions which ora-
turs had made in their name.

AVhen, by lapse of years, the glory of the great
war against France had begun to fade from the
daily thoughts of the people, they inclined to look

IX THE "WAR AGAINST EUSSIA. 57

mure narrowly thau before into the ori<an of taxes, CHAP.

. VII.

and were not unwilling to hear that their burthens '

were the result of wars which might liave been
easily avoided. INIoreover, it chanced that from
after Marlborough's time downwards, or, at all
events, from after the period of Chatham's ascend-
ancy, the wars in which England found herself
engaged had been originated and conducted for
the most part under the auspices of the Tory
party; and it followed naturally that the Whig
or Liberal party, being in antagonism to the party
which had long kept the country under arms,
should charge itself with the duty of expressing
a just hatred of all wars which are needless or
unjust. If speakers, in the performance of this
duty, often used extravagant or fanatical language,
they did not perhaps mean to inculcate much
doctrine, but rather to display the vehemence of
their hostility to the opposite faction. The ap-
jjlause which greeted these denunciations had the
same meaning. On the other hand, the Tories
declared that they did not yield to their adver-
saries in hatred of all needless wars ; and thus,
for near foity years, there was a chorus and
an anti-chorus engaged in a continual chant,
and denouncing wars in the abstract at times
when no war seemed impending. To men skim-
ming the surface of English politics it was made
to appear that the people had a rooted love of
peace.

These signs of a peaceful determination had
increased in abundance after the great constitu-

58 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND
CHAP, tional change which obliged the old ruling classes

VII O D o

., to share their power with the people at large ; and

thence it was inferred that the desire of England
to remain at peace was not the mere whim of any
Administration or of any political party, but was
based upon the solemn determination of the whole
people ; and it has been seen that the Emperor
Nicholas had deliberately founded his policy upon
this belief. A deeper knowledge might liave
taught him that a fiery, generous people is more
quick to plunge into war than a cold, worldly,
politic oligarchy ; and that, even if the policy of
England were as much under the control of the
masses of the people as he believed it to be, there
would be all the more likelihood of her being
})rone to take up arms ; because in States which
are much under the governance of the democratic
principle, a proposal to make war against the
foreigner is often resorted to by one of the
contending factions as a stratagem for baffling
the others. But these truths lay below ; and
what appeared upon the surface of English poli-
tics was a sincere devotion to the cause of peace.
Over and over again it was laid down, with the
seeming concurrence of unanimous thousands,
that war, if it were not for mere defence, was
not only foolish, but was also in a high degree
wicked.

But the English can hardly ever be governed
by a dogma; for although they are by nature
wise in action, yet, being vehement and careless

IN THE WAU AGAINST RUSSIA. 59

!n their way of applauding loud words, they chap,

encourage their orators, and those also who ad- L.

dress them in writing, to be strenuous rather
than wise ; and the result is, that these teachers,
trying always to be more and more forcible, grow
blind to logical dangers, and leap with headlong
joy into tlie pit which reasoners call the Absurdum.
Then, and not without joyous laughter, reaction
begins.

All England had been brought to the opinion
that it was a wickedness to incur war without
necessity or justice ; but when the leading spirits
of the Peace Party had the happiness of behold-
ing this wholesome result, they were far from
stopping short. They went on to make light
of the very principles by which peace is best
maintained, and although they were conscientious
men, meaning to say and do what was right, yet,
being unacquainted with tlie causes which bring
about the fall of empires, they deliberately
inculcated that habit of setting comfort against
honour M'hicli historians call ' corruption.' They
made it plain, as they imagined, that no war
which was not engaged in for the actual defence
of the country could ever be right ; but even there
they took no rest, for they went on and on, and
still on, until tlieir foremost thinker reached the
conclusion that, in the event of an attack upon
our shores, the invaders ought to be received with
such an effusion of hospitality and brotherly love
as could not fail to disarm them of their enmity,

60 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

and convert the once dangerous Zouave into the
valued friend of the family.* Then, with great
merriment, the whole English people turned
round, and although they might still be willing
to go to the brink of other precipices, they refused
to go further towards that one. The doctrine had
struck no root. It was ill suited to the race to
whom it was addressed. The male cheered it,
and forgot it until there came a time for testing
it, and then discarding it ; and the woman, from
the very first, with her true and simple instinct,
was quick to understand its value She would
subscribe, if her husband required it, to have the
doctrine taught to charity children, but she would
not suffer it to be taught to her own boy. So it
proved barren. In truth, the English knew that
they were a great and a free people, because their
fathers, and their fathers' fathers, and all the great
ancestry of whom they come, had been men of
warlike quality ; and deeming it time to gainsay
the teaching of the Peace Party, but not being
sldlled in dialectics and the use of words, they
imconsciously came to think that it would be well
to express a practical opinion of the doctrine by
taking the first honest and fair opportunity of

• I have 110 copy of tliis curious pamphlet before inc, but it
has been quoted (I believe by Lord Paliiier.ston) in the House
of Coniuioiis, and therefore the passage alhideil to in the text
might no doubt be found in Hansard, The writer, I remember,
■went further than is above stated. He argued that tlie French
people would be so shiinicd by the kindness shown to their
troops that they would never rest until they had paid us
a large pecuniary in<lemnity for any losses or inconvenience
which the invasion may have caused.

mind.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 61

engaging in war. Still, the conscience of the chap.
nation was sound, and the men were as well con- ^"'
vinced as ever of the wickedness of a war wrongly ^^''}:^°{

o J feeling in

or wantonly incurred. They were in this mind : o^il^'s'"'*
they would not go to war without believing that
they had a good and a just cause, but it was
certoin that tidings importing the necessity of
going to war for duty's sake would be received
with a welcome in England.

Therefore when the people gradually came to Effect of

, f xi f> . 1 , -r. . UieCzar'8

near oi the iierce oppression attempted by Prince ag-ression

iM/v> IT • upon tlie

Mentschikon, and the wise, firm, moderate resist- pu^^'ic
ance of the Turks, they believed that there might
be coming in sight once more that very thing for
which they longed in their hearts — namely, a just
cause of war. And when at length the seemingly
unequal conflict began, the bravery of the Turks
on the Danube, and the skill of their General,
quickly roused that sympathy which England
hardly ever refuses to a valiant combatant who is
weaker than his foe ; but when they came to
know of the catastrophe of Sinope, and to hear of
it as a slaughter treacherously and stealthily com-
mitted upon their old ally by an enemy who had
engaged to observe neutrality in the Euxine *
they were inflamed with a desire to execute jus-
tice, and nothing was now wanting to fill the
measure of their righteous anger except a disclo-
sure of the Czar's cold scheme for the spoliation of
the ' sick man's ' house.

* The erroTieousne.ss of tin's impression has Lecn already
shown. See ant'', pp. 13 and H.

62 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. But after all, and especially in questions cf
^"" foreign policy, the bulk of a nation must lean for
^riijin guidance upon public men ; and unless it appear
nation*iooks ^^^^^ tlid'e werc statesmen deserving the ear of
K'bi'if tlie country who faithfully tried to make a stand
'"^"^ against error and failed for want of public sup-

port, it is unfair to charge the fault upon the
people.

There were two Statesmen high in office, and
high in the confidence of the nation, who, more
than most other men, were known to be attached
to the cause of peace. To them every man looked
who desired that his country should not be drawn
into war without stringent need.

The impression" produced upon the Court of St
Petersburg by the heedless language of our Prime
Minister has been already described ; but the
effect which he wrought upon the public mind of
England by remaining at the head of the Govern-
Lor.i inent is still to be shown. Lord Aberdeen's hatred

of war was so honestly and piously entertained,
and was, at the same time, so excessive and self-
defeating, that in one point of view it had the
character of a virtue, and in another it was more
like disease. His feelings, no less than his opin-
ions, turned him against all war: but against a
war with Eussia — our ally in great times against
Napoleon — he was biassed by the impressions of
his early life ; and perhaps, too, he liad a dim
foresight of the perils which might be brought
\ipon Europe by a forcible breaking-up of the ties
established by the Congress of Vienna and riveted

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 63

by the Peace of Paris.* In an early sta^re of the CHAP.

dispute, he resolved that he would not remain L_

at the head of the Government unless he could
maintain peace; and he anxiously sought to choose
a moment for making his stand against the further
progress towards war. Far from wishing to pro-
long his hold of power, he was always labouring
to make out when, and on what ground, he could
lay down tlie burthen which oppressed him.
Every day he passed his sure hour and a half in
the Foreign OflSce, and came away more and more
anxious perhaps, but without growing more clear-
sighted. If he could ever have found the point
where the road to peace diverged from the road to
war, he would instantly have declared for peace ;
and, failing to carry the Government with him,

* I believed — and so wrote in former editions — that Loi-d
Aberdeen was also biassed by tlie feelings of ' mutual ' esteem
existing between the Emperor Nicholas and himself ; but this
was an error; for, although it is true that the Emperor Nicho-
las was accustomed to be loud and constant in his expressions
of regard for T>ord Aberdeen, the imperial esteem was not recip-
rocated. In his anger at the terms which Russia extorted from
the Porte at the conclusion of the war, Lord Aberdeen, on the
13th of December 1829, wrote a private letter to Lord Heytes-
bun,', at St Petersburg, which contained this passage : — ' Not-
' ■(\'ithstanding our opinion of the falsehood and ambition of the
' Emperor Nicholas and of liis Government, our desire to avoid
' any misunderstanding is as sincere as if we believed them to
' be possessed of honesty and principle.' And more than
twenty years afterwards, when out of oflice, Lord Aberdeen
wrote thus : — ' I have never been an admirer of the Russian
' Government and policy, and although the Emperor has been
' personally very gracious to me of late years, I believe he has
' always thought me an enemy at lieart, as indeed from former
' experience he had some right to do.' ,

64 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, would have joyfully resigned office, and for his
■ deliverance would have offered up thanksgiving

to Heaven, But his intellect, though not without
high quality in it, was deficient in clearness and
force. In troubled times it did not yield him
light enough to walk by, and it had not the pro-
pelling power which was needed for pushing him
into opportune action. In politics, though not in
matters of faith, he wanted the sacred impulse
which his Kirk is accustomed to call ' the word
' of quickening.'* Lord Clarendon's polished de-
spatches £0 forced his approval that he could
never lay his hand upon one of them and make
it the subject of a ministerial crisis. Yet day by
day, without knowing it, the Prime Minister was
assenting to a course of policy destined to end in
a rupture. Lord Clarendon's pithy phrase was
less applicable to the country at large than to the
Prime Minister. It was strictly true that Lord
Aljerdeen drifted.-f He steadfastly faced towards
peace, and was always being carried towards war.

* In the course of the ceaseless consultations about poor dear
England which were cairicd on between the two intelligent Ger-
mans, the Prince Consort and Baron Stockniar, Stockmarlaysit
down that the Queen's Prime Minister, LordAberdcen, was want-
ing in ' the productive energy which can develop a great lumin-
' ous thought.' — ' Life of the Prince Consort,' vol. ii. p. 543.

t Mr Gladstone, this year (1876), made a speech showing that
Lord Clarendon's famous expression was applied by him only to
the latter — and almost formal — stages by which the country
passed into a state of war ; but I do not think that people have
ungenerously sought to use Lord Clarendon's ](hrase as a con-
fps.iion. The truth is that, in reference to much of what is nar-
rated in this History, the verb ' to drift ' is so closely apt that
—having once been uttered— it could not but fasten.

IX THE WAR AGALVST KUSSIA. C5

He reinaiiied at tlio liead of the Government; chap.
and, the papers being witheld from Parliament, ^^^'
the country was led to imagine that all which it
was possible to do or suffer for the sake of peace
would be done and suffered by a Cabinet of which
Lord Aberdeen was the chief.

]jut there was another member of the Cabinet jii oiad^
■Nvho was supposed to hold war in deep abhorrence.
^Ir Gladstone was Chancellor of the Exchequer ;
and since he was by virtue of his office the ap-
pointed guardian of the public purse, those pure
and lofty principles which made him cling to
peace wei'c reinforced by an official sense of the
harm which war inflicts by its costliness. Now
it happened that, if he was famous for the splen-
dour of his eloquence, for his unaffected piety, and
for his blameless life, he was celebrated far and
wide for a more than common liveliness of con-
science. He had once imagined it to be his duty
to quit a Government, and to burst through strong
ties of friendship and gratitude, by reason of a
thin shade of difference on the subject of white or
brown sugar. It was believed that, if he were to
commit even a little sin, or to imagine an evil
thought, he would instantly arraign himself be-
fore the dread tribunal which awaited him in his
own bosom; and that, his intellect being subtle
and microscopic, and delighting in casuistry and
exaggeration, he would be likely to give his soul a
very harsh trial, and treat himself as a great
criminal fur faults too minute to be visible to the
naked eyes of laymen. His friends lived in dread

VOL. II. K

60 CAUSKS INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C 11 A P.
VII.

Lord

Aberdef-n
and Mr
Gladstone
remained
\u oUice.

of liis virtues as tending to make him whimsical
and unstaljle; and tlie practical politicians, con-
ceiving that he was not to be depended upon for
party purposes, and was bent upon none but lofty
objects, used to look upon him as dangerous — used
to call him behind his back a good man — a good
man in the worst sense of the term. In 1853 it
seemed only too probable that he might quit office
upon an infinitel}^ slight suspicion of the warlike
tendency of the Government ; but what appeared
certain was, that if, upon the vital question of
peace or war, the Government should depart by
even a hair's-breadth from the riglit path, the
Chancellor of the Exchequer would instantly re-
fuse to be a partaker of their fault He, and he
before all other men, stood charged to give the
alarm of danger ; and there seemed to be no
particle of ground for fearing that, like the Prime
JMinister, he would drift. The known watchful-
ness and alacrity of his conscience, and his power
of detecting small germs of evil, led the world to
think it impossible that he could be moving for
months together in a wrong course without know-
ing it.

Xow, from the beginning of the negotiations
until the final rupture. Lord Aberdeen continued
to be the Prime ^linister, and ^Ir Gladstone the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The result was that,
during the session of 1853, and the autumn which
followed it, the presence of these two Ministers in
tlie Cabinet was regarded as a guarantee of the
peaceful tendency of the Government; and wlien,

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. G7

after tlK3 cutastroplie of Sinope, it Lecamc liardly chap.
possible to doubt tliat war was at hand, the con- ^^^'
tinning responsibility of these good men seemed ^ly^j^,"^
to dispense the most anxious lovers of peace from [h^'^^rtf
the duty of further questioning ; for if Lord Aber- ^.'i,o'^f,),ed
deen continued to head the Ministry which was a^war"*^"'
leading the country into war, people Ihought he
must have attained a bitter certainty that war was
needed: and, on the otlier hand, it was clear that
]\Ir Gladstone, remaining in office, and taking it
upon his conscience to prepare funds for the
bloody strife, was giving to the public a sure
guarantee that the enterprise in which he helped
to engage the country Avas blameless at the very
least, and even perhaps pure and hoi}-. It was
thus that the conscience of the people got quieted.
It was a hard task to have to argue that peace
could be honestly and wisely maintained M'heu
Lord Aberdeen was levying war. Kone but a
bold man could say that the war was needless or
wicked whilst jNfr Gladstone was feeding it with
his own hand.

It was thus that, by the course which Lord
Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone had been taking, the
efforts of those who loved peace were parah'sed.
No doubt a cold retrospect, carried on with the
light of the past, may enable a political critic to
fix upon more than one occasion when, holding
the opinions which they did, these two jNIinisters
might have resolved to make a stand for peace ;
and it is believed that, long before his death. Lord
Aberdeen saw this and grieved : but if any man

C8 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

C H A P.
VU.

It was not
for want
of ani|ile
grounds to
stand upon,
that their
cause was
brought to
ruin.

will honestly recall the state of his own feelings
and opinions in the year 1853, lie will find
perhaps that he himself at the time was carried
down by the flood of events ; and when he has
submitted to this self-discipline, he will be the
better able to understand that others, though
honest and able, might easily lose their footing.
At all events, the errors of Lord Aberdeen
and Mr Gladstone, if errors they were, were
only errors of judgment. The scrupulous purity
of their motives has never been brought into
question.

But if these were the causes which inclined the
bulk of the English people to desire or to assent
to the war, they hardly yield reasons sufficing to
show why the lesser number of men, who honestly
thought that peace ought to be maintained, should
suffer themselves to be overpowered without mak-
ing stand enough to prove that they clung to their
old faith, and that England, however warlike, was,
at all events, not of one mind. The hottest de-
fenders of the war-policy could hardly refuse to
acknowledge that there was much semblance of
reason on the side of their adversaries. No one
could say that the interest which England had in
the perfect independence of the Ottoman Empire
was so obvious and so deep as to exclude all ques-
tioning ; and even if a man were driven from that
first ground, still, M'ithout being guilty of paradox,
he might fairly dispute, and say that the inde-
pendence of the Sultan was not really brought
into peril by a form of words which, during some

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 69

^veeks, had received the approval of every one of cuAP.
the five great Powers. ' .

But if these views were only plausible, there
■was another which was sound. It could be fairly
maintained that the intrusion of Russia into two
provinces lying far away on the south-eastern
frontiers of Austria was no cause why England
alone, nor why England and Erance together,
sliould undertake to stand forward and pierform,
at tlieir own cliarge and cost, a duty which at-
tached upon Austria in the first place, and next
upon Europe at large.

Of course, tlie actual and immediate success of Not for
any such struggle for the maintenance of peace oratorical
was grievously embarrassed in the way already
shown, by the course which had been taken by
Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone ; but it is not
the custom of the English to be ntterly disheart-
ened by political losses ; and it happened that
outside the Government Offices the cause of peace
was headed by two men who had been powerful
in their time, and who retained the qualities of
mind and body by which, in former years, they
had gained a great sway.

Mr Cobden and jNIr Bright were members of the MrCoMen

" and Mr

House of Commons. Both had the gift of a manly, Bright,
strenuous eloquence; and their diction, being
founded upon English lore rather than upon shreds
of weak Latin, went straiglit to the mind of their
hearers. Of these men the one could persuade,
the other could attack ; and, indeed, Mr Bright's
oratory was singularly well qualified for prevent-

70 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, ing ail erroneous acquiescence in the policy of the
. ^^^' day ; for, besides that lie was honest and fearless
— besides that, with a ringing voice, he had all
the clearness and force which resulted from his
great natural gifts, as well as from his one-sided
method of thinking— he had the advantage of
being generally able to speak in a state of sincere
anger. In former years, whilst their minds were
disciplined by the almost mathematic exactness of
the reasonings on which they relied, and when they
were acting in concert with the shrewd traders of
the north who had a very plain object in view,
these two orators had shown with what a strength,
with what a masterly skill, with what patience,
with what a high courage, they could carry a great
scientific truth through the storms of politics.
They had shown that they could arouse and govern
the assenting thousands who listened to them with
delight — that they could bend the House of Com-
mons— that they could press their creed upon a
Prime jNIinister, and put upon his mind so hard a
stress that, after a while, he felt it to be a torture
and a violence to his reason to have to make stand
against them. Xay, more : each of these two
gifted men had proved that he could go bravely
into tlie midst of angry opponents — could show
them their fallacies one by our — destroy their
favourite theories before their very faces, and
triumphantly argue them down. Now, these two
men were honestly devoted to the cause of peace.
They honestly believed that the impending war
with Russia was a needless war. There was no

IX THE "WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 71

staia upon their names. How came it that they chap.
sank, and were able to make no good stand for the !_

cause they loved so well ?
The answer is simple.
Upon the question of peace or war (the very Reasons

f. 1-1 ,1 n why they

question upon which more tlian any other a man wereai.ie
might well desire to make his counsels tell) these uo stand.
two gifted men had forfeited their hold upon the
ear of the country. They had forfeited it by their
Ibrmer want of moderation. It was not by any
intemperate words upon the question of this war
with Russia that they had shut themselves out
from the counsels of the nation ; but in former
years they had adopted and put forward, in their
strenuous way, some of the more extravagant
doctrines of the Peace Party. In times when no
war was in question, they had run down the
practice of M'ar in terms so broad and indiscrimi-
nate that they were understood to commit them-
selves to a disapproval of all wars not strictly
defensive, and to decline to treat as defensive
those wars which, although not waged against an
actual invader of the Queen's dominions, might
still be undertaken by England in the perform-
ance of a European duty, or for the purpose of
checking the undue ascendancy of another Power.
Of course, the knowledge that they held doctrines
of this wide sort disqualified them from arguing
with any effect against the war then impending.
A man cannot have weight as an opponent of any
particular war if he is one who is known to he
against almost all war. It is vain for him to offer

72 CAUSES INVOLVING FliANCE AND KNGLAND

CHAP, to be moderate for the nonce, and to propose to
' argue the question in a way which his hearers
will recognise. In vain lie declares that for the
sake of argument he will lay aside his own
broad principles and mimic the reasonings of
his hearers. Practical men know that his mind
is under the sway of an antecedent determination
which dispenses him from the more narrow but
more important inquiry in which they are en-
gaged. They \vill not give ear to one who is
striving to lay down the conclusions which ought,
as he says, to follow from other men's principles.
He who altogether abjures the juice of the grape
cannot usefully criticise the vintage of any par-
ticular year; and the man who is the steady
adversary of wars in general, upon broad and
paramount grounds, will never be regarded as a
sound judge of the question whether any particu-
lar war is wicked or righteous, nor whether it is
foolish or wise.

It must be added that there M-as another cause
which tended to disqualify ]\Ir Bright from taking
an effective part in the maintenance of peace.
For one who would undertake a task of that kind
at a time when warlike ardour is prevailing in
the country, it is above all things necessary that
he should be a statesman so truly attached to
what men mean when they talk of their country,
and so jealous of its honour, that no man could
ascribe his efforts in the cause of peace to motives
which a warlike and high-spirited people would
repudiate. INIr Briglit sincerely desired the wel-

IN THE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 1 ?>

fare of the traders and workmen of the United CHAr.

Kingdom ; and if he desired the welfare of the L_

other classes of the people with less intensity, it
may fairly be believed that to all he wished to see
justice done: so, if this worthy disposition of
mind were equivalent to what a man calls his
' love of his country,' no one could fairly say that
Mr Bright was without the passion. But in
another, and certainly the old and the usual sense,
a man's 'love of his country' is understood to re-
present something more than common benevol-
ence towards the persons living within it. For if
he be the citizen of an ancient State blessed M-itli
freedom, renowned in arms, and holding wide
sway in the world, his love of his country means
something of attachment to the institutions which
have made her what she is — means something of
pride in the long-suffering, and the battle, and
the strife which have shed glory upon his country-
men in his own time, and upon their fathers in
the time before him. It means that he feels his
country's honour to be a main term and element
of his own content. It means that he is bent
upon the upholding of her dominion, and is so
tempered as to become the sudden enemy of any
man who, even though he be not an invader,
still attempts to hack at her power. Now in this
the heathen, but accustomed sense of the phrase,
Mr Bright would be the last to say that he was a
lover of his country. He would rather, perhaps,
acknowledge that, taking 'his country' in that
sense, lie hated it. Yet at a time when the spirit

74 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CUAP. of the nation was up, no man could usefully
. strive to moderate or guide it unless liis patriot-

ism were believed to be exactly of that heathen
sort which Mr Bright disapproved. Thus, by the
nature of his patriotism, no less than by the im-
moderate width of his views on the lawfulness of
wars, this powerful orator was so disabled as to
be hindered from applying his strength towards
the maintenance of peace.

The country was impassioned, but it was not
so mad as to be deaf to precious counsels ; and a
statesman who had shown by his past life that he
loved his country in the ancient way, and that he
knew how to contemplate the eventuality of war
with a calm and equal mind, might have won
attention for views which questioned the necessity
of the war then threatened ; and if, in good time,
he had brought to bear upon his opinions a suffi-
cing power and knowledge, he might have altered
the policy of his country.* But outside the
Cabinet the real tenor of the negotiations of 1853
was still unkuov/n ; and Lord Aberdeen and Mr
Gladstone consenting to remain members of a

* This was in luiiit before that curious and interesting con-
firmation of my statement — my statement of the relations be-
tween the Peace Party and their country — which Jlr Cobdeu
lias since given to the world. Mr Cobdcn has said tliat at the
time of the war neither he nor Jlr l^riglit could win any atten-
tion to their views ; and he added that lie (Mr Cobden) will
never again try to withstand a warlike ardour once kindled,
because, when a people are inllamed in that way, they are no
better than 'mad dogs.' — Speech in llie aiduuui of 1862. He
sees no defect in the principles of a Peace Party which is to
suspend its operations in times of warlike excitement.

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA.

•war-going Goverunient, and ]Mr Cobden and j\Ir chap.

Bright being disqualified for useful debate by the 1_

nature of their opinions, no stand could be made.
By these steps, then, the English people passed
from a seeming approval of the doctrines of tlio
Peace Party to a state of warlike ardour; and it
■was plain that, if the Queen should send down to
the Houses of Parliament a message importing
war, the lioyal appeal would be joyfully answered
by an almost unanimous people.

76 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAP. When the Endisli Parlicament assombled on the

VIII ...
'__ 31st of January, there was still going on in

Padiameut. E^^i'ope a scmblance of negotiation ; but amongst
men accustomed to the aspect of public afl'airs,
there was hardly more than one who failed to see
that France and England had gone too far to be
able to recede, and that, by the very weight of
their power and its inherent duties, they were
now at last drawn into war. This condition of

The Queen's tilings was fairly enough disclosed by the Queen's
peecL gpeech, and ravliament was asked to provide for
an increase of the military and naval forces, with
a view to give weight to the negotiations still
pending. But the English Government was not
suffered to forget its bond with the French Em-
peror; and the Prime Minister, whilst still in-
dulging a hope of peace, consented to record and
continue the error which had brought him to the
verge of war. It seems that for good reasons it
was of some moment to the French Emperor to be
signally named in the Queen's Speech ; and Lord
Aberdeen asain submitted to a form of words

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 77

wliicli carefully distinj^aiislied the posture of chap.

France and England from that of the four Powers. 1_

The Queen was advised to say : ' I have continued
* to act in cordial co-operation with the Emperor
' of the French ; and my endeavours in conjunc-
' tion with my Allies to preserve and to restore
' peace between the contending parties, although
' hitherto unsuccesrsful, have been unremitting.'

Like the similar paragraph which had marked The erring

111 /.I T Jiolicy which

the Royal Speech at the close of the preceding it indicated,
session, this phrase, strange as it was, gave a true
though somewhat dim glimpse of the policy which
was leading England astray. In principle she
was marching along with all the rest of the four
Powers, and yet all the while she was engaged
with the French Emperor in a separate course of
action. If the aims of Austria and Prussia had
been seriously at variance with those of the West-
ern Powers, this difference might have been a good
reason for separate action on the part of France
and England. But the contrary was true. So
deep was the interest of Austria in the cause, and unswerving

resolve of

so closely were her views approved by Prussia, Austria
that althouoh for several months France and Eng- approval of

11111 • • 1-1 i''"ussia)to

land had been pressing forward in a way which n<i the

r o J Principali-

seemed to endanger the coherence of the quad- ties of

^ _ ^ Russian

ruple union, still even this dangerous course had troops.
hitherto failed to destroy the unanimity of the
four Powers. If the French Emperor sought to
use his alliance with England as a means of
strengthening his hold over France, and if Eng-
land was be^innins to love the thoufjht of war for

78 CAUSES INVOLVING !■ RANCH AND KNGLAXD

CHAP, war's sake, Austria, from motives of a liigher and

'__ more cogent sort (for she saw her interests vitally

touched, and her safety threatened), was eager
and determined to take such steps as might be
needed for delivering the Principalities. Prussia
agreed with her. It was nothing but the impa-
tience and forwardness of France and England
which relieved Austria from the necessity of
taking the lead ; for the wrong which had to be
redressed was one from which she of all the great
Powers was the most a sufferer ; and she had the
concurrence of Prussia not only in regard to the
existing state of things, but even as to the ulterior
objects of the war which her resolve might bring
upon Germany.
Proofs of The proofs of all this abound. By the repeated

tliis drawn t \ ■■, ^ ii jii

from trans- words of respousiblc statesmen, by despatches, by

actions ante-

riortothe collcctive notcs, by protocols, by solemn treaty of
Speech. offensive and defensive alliance against Pussia,
by peremptory summons addressed to the Czar,
and, finally (so far as concerns Austria), by the
application of force, the German I*owers disclosed
and executed their policy ; and the policy which
they so disclosed and executed was the same policy
as had been avowed by the Western Powers. It
has been seen that in that early period of the
troubles, when the Czar had scarce yet crossed
the Pruth, Austria took upon herself to endeavour
to form a league for forcing the Czar to relinquish
the Principalities;* and from that hour down to

• ' Invasion of the Ciiniea,' vol, i. pp. 208 ami 210 of Cab-
iu'it Eilition.

IX THE WAR AGAIXST EUSSIA. 79

the time wlien Nicholas gave way and re-entered chap.
his own dominions, her efforts to bring about this '^^^^'
end were unceasing and restless.

Of the spirit in which Austria was acting
tlirough all the early stages of the negotiations,
many a proof has been already given. With
time, her impatience of the Czar's intrusion upon
her southern frontier increased and increased. It
is true that she did not desire war : she anxiously
■wished to avoid it. She wished, if it were possible,
to achieve the end without war, but to achieve it
she was resolved ; and if a vestige of the mediat-
ing character which had belonged to her in the
summer of 1853, or her legitimate anxiety to spare
the Czar's personal feelings, was a motive which
tended to soften her language, it did not deflect
her policy. Count Buol declared that although,
in treating with Eussia, 'more management of
' terras ' * was required from Austria than from
the Western Powers, the objects sought by all the
four Powers were the same, and that they ought
to be compassed by ' a general concordance in the
' M-ay of putting them forward.' f But even the
notion of using a gentler form of expression than
the one employed by the AVestern Powers was
quickly abandoned, and Austria found no difficulty
in adopting the exact words of the collective Xote
framed by Lord Clarendon in concert with the
Prench Government. So anxious was Austria to
remain on the same ground with the rest of the
four Powers, that she came into every term of
'Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 231, f Ibid. p. 273.

• <i

80 CAUSES INVOLVING FliANCE AND ENGLAND

C u A P. tlie firm and wise sclieme of actiuii laid duwu by

Lord Clarendon on the IGth of November,* and

bitterly ofTended the Czar by agreeing, at Lord
Clarendon's instance, that the Porte should not be
even asked to accept any conditiou M'hich it
liad already rejected, and by affirming the de-
termination of the four Powers to intervene in
any settlement of the dispute between Russia
and Turkey.

Prussia also gave her imreserved adhesion lo
the plan of action laid down by Lord Clarendon,
and to the measures resulting from it.-f* By the
Protocol of tlie 5t]i of December 1853 both
Austria and Prussia joined with the Western
Powers in declaring that the existence of Turkey
in the limits assigned to it by existing treaties
was one of the necessary conditions of the Euro-
pean equilibrium.

By the Protocol of the 13th of January the
four Powers recorded their approval of the terms
agreed to by the Turkish Government, and re-
solved to submit them to the Court of St Peters-
burg. At the very time when the English Govern-
ment were framing the Speech from the Throne
which ostentatiously separated Prance and Eng-
land from the rest of the four Powers, the two
great Courts of Germany were sending back Count
Orloff and Baron Budberg to St Petersburg, with
not only a decisive refusal to promise neutrality,
but also a plain avowal that Prussia and Aus»

• 'Eastern Tapers,' part vii. pp. 238, 25S.

+ Ibid, part ii. p. 263. t \hU. p. 296.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA, 81

tria iuteuded to remain faithful to tlie principles CHAP,

M'hicli tlie four Powers had adopted in concert. '_

Prussia told Baron Jjudber<r that she should have
to devise means without liussia for maintaining
the equilibrium of Europe. In significant words,
the Emperor Francis Joseph told Count Orloif
that he should have to he guided by the in-
terests and tlie dignity of his Empire.

It is said that, by the tidings which forced him
to know that he was alienated from the Austrian
Emperor, the Czar was wounded deep. He had
conceived a strong affection for Francis Joseph,
and wherever he went he carried with him a small
statuette which recalled to his mind the features
of the youthful Kaiser. It would seem that his
affection was of the kind Mhich a loving and yet
stern father bears his son, for it was joined with
a sense of right to exact a great deference to his
will. Nicholas had been strangely slow to believe
that Francis Joseph could harbour the thought
of opposing him in arms ; and when at last the
truth was forced upon him, he desired that the
marble should be taken from his sight. But he
did not, they say, speak in auger. "When he had
spoken, he covered his face with his hands and
was wrung with grief.

What we are showing just now is the complete
nnion of opinion which was existing between
England and the two great Courts of Germany on
the 31st of January 1854, and in order to this, we
have already referred to a variety of diplomatic
transactions coming down to the time in question;

VCiL. II. V

82 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, but the policy of the Courts of Vienna and Berlin
L- at the close of the month of January is to be in-
ferred, of course, from the transactions which
followed this date, as well as from those which
preceded it ; and therefore it seems convenient
to go forward, as it were, a few paces in advance
of the general narrative, so as thus to bring
under one view the grounds on which I assert
that our Government was well supported in its
policy by Prussia as well as by Austria.
Proofs Day by day the joint pressure of the four

irawnfroni ^"^ -n, , -r,

transactions Powers became more cogent. By the Protocol ot

iubsequent "

to the the 2d of February the four Powers unanimously

.Jueen 3 *'

■jpeech. rejected the counter-propositions made by Pussia.
On the 14th of JNIarch both Austria and Prussia
addressed circulars to the Courts of the German
Confederation, in which they pointed out that the
interests in question were essentially German in-
terests, and that the active co-operation of Ger-
many might be needed. On the 18th of March
the King of Prussia asked his Chamber for an ex-
traordinary credit of thirty million of thalers ; and
he at the same time declared that he would not
swerve from the principles established by the
Vienna Conference, and would faithfully protect
every member of the Confederation who, at an
earlier moment than Prussia, might be called on
to draw the sword for the defence of German
interests.

Nor were these bare words. Austria, it has
been already said, was so placed that, whatever
dangers slie might draw upon ]>er other frontiers,

IX TlIK WAIt AGAINST KUSSIA. 83

she could act with irresistible pressure upon the chap.

invader of the rriucipalities. On the Gth and 22d L,

of Februar}'' she reinforced her army on tlie fron-
tier of Wallachia by 50,000 men, and thus placed
the Russian army of occupation completely at her
mercy. On the day when she sent that last rein-
forcement into the Banat, she had grown so im-
patient of the further continuance of the Russians
in the Principalities that she actually pressed
Prance and England to summon Paissia to quit
the Principalities under pain of a declaration of
war, and undertook to support their summons.*
Prussia was approving; and on the 25th, Baron
Manteuffel wrote to Count Arnim at Vienna ' on
' the subject of a more decided policy which
' it was supposed the Austrian Government was
' about to adopt in the affairs of tlie East, and ex-
' pressed the satisfaction of the Prussian Govern-
' ment at the interests of Germany on the Danube
' being likely to be so warmly espoused.'-j- On the
2d of March the French Emperor had so little
doubt of the concurrence of Austria and Ger-
many, that he announced it in his speech from
the Throne. ' Germany,' said he, ' has recovered
' her independence, and has looked freely to see
' whither her true interests led her. Austria
' especially, who cannot see with indifference the
' events going on, will join our alliance, and will
' thus come to confirm the morality and justice of
' the war which we undertake. We go to Con-
* stantinople with Germany.'

* ' Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 53. t Ibul. p. 60,

8-4 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. On the 20th of March the four Powers were so

1- well agreed that, when Greece sought to make a

diversion in favour of Eussia, the representatives
of Austria, Prussia, France, and England, all joined
in a collective Note, which called upon the Greek
Government, in terms approaching menace, to give
way to the demands of tlie Porte. On the very
day which followed the English declaration of
war, the Emperor of Austria appointed the Arch-
duke Albert to the command of the forces on the
frontier of Wallachia, and at the same time the
' Third Army' was put upon the war footing. A
little later,* the Emperor of Austria ordered a new
levy of 95,000 men for the defence of his frontiers.
Later still, but within one day-f- of the time when
France and England were making their alliance,
Austria and Prussia joined with France and Eng-
land in a Protocol, which not only recorded the
fact that the hostile step then just taken by
France and England was 'supported by Austria
and Prussia as being founded in right,' but went
on to declare that, 'at that solemn moment the
' Governments of the four Powers remained united
' in their object of maintaining the integrity of
' the Ottoman Empire, of which the fact of the
' evacuation of the Danubian Principalities is
' and will remain one of the essential conditions ; '
and that ' the territorial integrity of the Ottoman
• Empire is and remains the sine qjid non con-
' dition of every transaction having for its ob-
*ject the re-establishment of peace between the
• May 15. ^ + April 9, 1854.

IX THE WAK AGAINST RUSSIA. 85

* belligerent Powers.' Finally, the Protocol stip- chap,

ulated that none of the ' four Powers should L

' enter into any definitive arrangement with the

' Imperial Court of Russia which should be at
' variance with the principles declared by the

* Protocol without first deliberating thereon in

* common.'*

On the 20th of April Austria and Prussia con-
tracted with each other an offensive and defensive
alliance, by which they guaranteed to each other
all their respective possessions, so that an attack
upon the territory of one should be regarded by
the other as an act of hostility against his own
territory, and engaged to hold a part of their
forces in perfect readiness for war. By the Second
Article they declared that they stood ' engaged
' to defend the rights and interests of Germany
' against all and every injury, and to consider

* themselves bound accordingly for the mutual
' repulse of every attack on any part whatso-
' ever of their territories ; likewise, also, in the

* case where one of the two may find himself,
' in understanding with the others, obliged to
' advance actively for the defence of German
' interests.' f

By the Additional Article they declared 'that
' the indefinite continuance of the occupation
' of the territories on the Lower Danube, under
' the sovereignty of the Ottoman Porte, by
' imperial Russian troops, M'ould endanger the
' political, moral, and material interests of the
• ' Eastern Papers,' part viii. p. 2. f Ibid, part ix. p. 3.

86 CAUSES INVOLVING FRA2JCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP.

vin.

whole German Confederation as also of their
own States, and the more so as Russia ex-
tends her warlike operations on Turkish terri-
tory ; ' and then went on to stipulate ' that the
Austrian Government should address a commu-
nication to the Russian Court, with the object of
obtaining from the Emperor of Russia the neces-
sary orders for putting an immediate stop to the
further advance of his armies upon the Turkish
territory, as also to request of His Imperial
Majesty sufficient guarantees for the prompt
evacuation of the Danubian Principalities, and
that the Prussian Government should again, in
the most energetic manner, support these com-
munications.' Finally, the high contracting
parties agreed that, 'if, contrary to expectation,
the answer of the Russian Court should not be
of a nature to give them entire satisfaction, the
measures to be taken by one of the contracting
parties, according to the terms of Article II.
signed on tliat day, would be on tlie understand-
ing that every hostile attack on the territory of
one of the contracting parties should be repelled
with all the military forces at the disposal of
the other.' *
Of the intent and the meaning of this treaty,
and the use which Austria and Prussia were
about to make of it, no doubt could exist. Fail-
ing the peremptory summons which was to be
addressed to Russia, the forces of Austria alone
were to execute the easy task of expelling the

• * Eastern Papers,' part x.

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 87

troops of the Czar from the Principalities ; and in en Ar.

• VIII

order to withstand the vengeance which this step 1.

might provoke, Austria and Prussia together stood
leagued.

By the Protocol of the 23d of May, the four
Powers declared that both the Anglo-French
treaty and the Austro-Prussian treaty bound the
parties, in the relative situations to which they
applied, to secure the same common object —
namely, the evacuation of the Principalities and
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire.*

Now the mind and tlie solemn determination
of Austria and Prussia being such as are shown
by the Protocol of the 9th and the treaty of the
20th April, where was there such a difference of
opinion — where was there even such a shadow of
a difference — as to justify the Western States in
pushing forward and separating themselves from
the rest of the four Powers ? The avowed prin-
ciples and objects of the four Powers were ex-
actly the same. If they had acted together, the
very weight of their power would have given
them an almost judicial authorit}', and would
have enabled them to enforce the cause of right
without wounding the pride of the disturber,
and without inflicting war upon Europe.

Was Austria backward ? Was she so little
prone to action that it was necessary for the
Western Powers to move to the front and fight
her battles for her? The reverse is the truth.
The Western Powers, indeed, were inore impatient

* ' Eastern Papers,' part is. p. 1.

88 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCK AND ENGLAND

CHAP, than Germany was to go through the forms which

. L- were necessary for bringing themselves legally

into a state of war, but for action of a serious
kind they were not yet ready. Whilst they were
only preparing, Austria was applying force. On
the 3d of June, with the full support of Prussia,
she summoned the Emperor Nicholas to evacuate
the Principalities, Her summons was the sum-
mons of a Power having an army on the edge of
the province into which the llussian forces had
been rashly extended. Such a summons was a
mandate. The Czar could not disobey it. He
could not stand in Wallachia when he was called
upon to quit the province by a Power which had
assembled its forces upon his flank and rear. He
sought, indeed, to make terms, but the German
Powers were peremptory. On the 14th Austria
entered into a convention with the Porte, which
not only legalised her determination to drive the
Eussian forces from the Principalities, and to oc-
cupy them with her own troops, but which form-
ally joined Austria in an alliance with the Porte
against Russia; for, by the 1st Article of the
convention, the Emperor of Austria 'engages to
' exhaust all the means of negotiation, and all other
* means, to obtain the evacuation of the Danubian
' Principalities by the foreign army which occu-
' pies them, and even to employ, in case they are
' required, the number of troops necessary to at-
' tain this end.' * And since Russia could not in-
vade European Turkey by land without marching
• ' Eastern Fiipris,' part xii.

IN THE AVAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 89

through the Principalities, tliis iindertaking Ly chap.
Austria involved an enfraKeraent to free the Sul- _

tan's laud frontiers in Europe from Russian in-
vasion. Exactly at tlie same time * Austria and
Prussia addressed notes to the Powers represented
at the Conference of Bamberg, in which the
liberation of the commerce and navigation of the
Danube was held out to Germany as the object to
be attained.

Austria was upon the brink of war with Ptussia, The tim«

*■ wlien the

was preparing to take forcible possession of the 1,"^*?^^^^^/^^
Principalities, and had despatched an officer to and Prussia

r ' 1 began to

the English headquarters with a view to concert f/^'^^^he*™
a joint scheme of military operations, when the p^f^g^™
Czar at length gave way, and abandoned the
whole of the territory which, under the nauseous
description of a ' material guarantee,' had become
the subject of war. Other causes, as will be seen,
were conducing to this result ; but none were so
cogent as the forcible pressure which Austria had
exerted, by first assembling forces in the Banat
and then summoning the Czar to withdraw from
the invaded provinces.

Of course, when the object which called forth
the German Powers was attained, and when it
transpired (as it did at the same time) that the
Western Powers were resolved to abandon the
common field of action, and to undertake the in-
vasion by sea of a distant Eussian province inac-
cessible to Austria and Prussia, then at last, and
tlien for the fii'st time, the German Powers found
• Htli and 16th June.

90 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

dUA?.
VIII.

From first
to last
Austria and
Prussia
never swerv-
ed from
their resolve
to secure
the Czar's
relinquish-
ment of the
Principali-
ties.

that their interests were parting them from tlie
great maritime States of the West ; for in one and
the same week they were relieved from the griev-
ance whicli was their motive for action, and de-
prived of all hope of support from the Western
Powers ; but it is certain that from the moment
when the Czar first seized the Principalities to
that in which he recrossed the I*ruth, the deter-
mination of Austria to put an end to the intru-
sion was never languid, and was always increas-
ing in force. It is certain, also, that up to the
time when the relinquishment of the Principali-
ties began, there was no defection on the part of
Prussia ; * and that the minor States of Germany,
fully alive to the importance of a struggle which
promised to free the great outlet of the Danube
from Pussian dominion, were resolved to support
Austria and Prussia with the troops of the Con-
federation.f

* Prussia began to liang back, it seems, on about the 2l8t
of July ('Eastern Papers,' part xi. p. 1) ; and this was ex-
actly the time when her interests counselled her to do so ; for
by that day she knew that the deliverance of the Principali-
ties was secured and iu process of execution, and had also, no
doubt, learned of the deterniination of the Western Powers to
move their forces to the Crimea, thereby uncovering Germany.
-Austria, with similar motives for separation, was less inclined
to part from the Western Powers. See her Note of the 8th
August ISiii, and the various diplomatic transactions in which
she took part down to the close of the war.

+ 20th July 1854. The relinquishnuMit of the Principalities
virtually began on the 2Gth of June — tlie day when the siege
of Silistria was raised — and before the end of July the Russian
forces had quitted the capital of "Wallaohia. On the 2d of
August they repassed the Pruth.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 91

As soon as tlie Principalities were relinquished CHAP.

by the Czar they were occupied by Austrian 1_

troops, in pursuance of tlie convention wit)r the
Porte ; and thus the outrage, which during twelve
months had disturbed the tranquillity of Euroix),
was then at last finally repressed.

92 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAPTP^R LX,

en A p. For the sake of bringing under one view the

'- — course of action followed by the German Powers

down to the moment when their object was
achieved by the deliverance of the Principali-
ties, it has been nccessar}^ as we have said, to
go forward in advance of the period reached by
the main thread of the narrative. The subject
thus quitted for a moment and now resumed is
the policy which was disclosed by tlie English
Government upon the opening of Parliament.
Spirit of Distinct from the martial ardour already

Adventure kiudlcd in England, there had sprung up amongst
the people an almost romantic craving for warlike
adventure, and this feeling was not slow to reach
tlie Cabinet. Now, witliout severance from tlie
German Powers, there could pLainly be little pro-
spect of adventure ; for, besides that the German
monarchs desired to free the Principalities witli
as little resort to hostilities as might be com-
patible with the attainment of the end, it was
almost certain that the policy of keeping up the
perfect union and co-operation of the four Powers

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA.

would prevent war by its overwheluiiiig force. CHAP.
Like tlie power of tlie law, it would operate by '

coercion, and not by clangour of arms. This was a
merit; but it was a merit fatal to its reception in
England. The popularity of such a policy was Tiie bearing
nearly upon the same niodest level as the popu- upon the'"'
larity of virtue. All whose volitions were gov- uieuovein-
erued by the imagined rapture of freeing Poland,
or destroying Cronstadt and lording it with our
flag in the Baltic, or taking the command of the
Euxine, and sinking the liussiau fleet under the
guns of Sebastopol ; all who meant to raise Cir-
cassia, and cut olf the Muscovite from the glowing
South by holding the Dariel Pass, and those also
who dwelt in fancy upon deeds to be done on
the shores of the Caspian ; — all these, and many
more, saw plainly enough that separation from
the German Powers and alliance with the new
Bonaparte was the only road to adventure. Lord
Aberdeen was not one of these, but it was his
fate to act as though he were. He was not with-
out a glimmering perception that the firmly main-
tained union of the four Powers meant peace ; *
but he saw the truth dindy ; and, there being a
certain slowness in his high intellectual nature,
he was not so touched by his belief as to be
able to make it the guide of his action. He
seems to have gone on imagining that, con-
sistently with the maintenance of a perfect union
of the four Powers there might be a separate and
still more perfect union between two of them,
• 129 Hansard, p. 1(350,

94 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, and that this kiud of alliance within alliance was
^^' a structure not fatal — nay, even perhaps con-
ducive— to peace.
England was And, after all, England was not free : she was
gagemeiits bouud to the Frcnch Emperor. No treaty of
French alliance had been signed, but the understanding

Eiiipeior. , p

disclosed in the summer of the year beiore was
still riveted upon the members of the English
Government. They had been drawn into a
weighty engagement in 1853, and now they had
to perform it. In the midst of perfect concord
between her and her three allies, England had
to stand forward with one of them in advance of
the rest, and thus ruin that security for the main-
tenance of peace which depended upon the united
action of the four great Powers. As the price of
his consenting to join reluctant France in an
alliance with Turkey, the French Emperor was
justly entitled to insist on the other terms of the
bond, and not only to be signally coupled with
Eni^laud in a course of action which was to
separate her from the great German States, but to
have it blazoned out to the world beforehand
that, distinctly from the concord of the four
Powers, the Queen of England and he were act-
ing together. The Poyal Speech of January
1854 was as clear in this as tlie Speech of the
previous August. Both disclosed a separate
understanding with the French Emperor. In
both, as any one could see who was used to State
writings, the mark was set upon England with
the same branding-iron.

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 95

To a man looking back upon the past, it seems chap,
strange that a Cabinet of English Statesmen could ' .

have been led to adopt this singular policy. It |,oi°.y the
would seem that, with many of tlie Cabinet, the c"l!l„"t""
tendency of the measures which they were sane- '^"^'•^'^
tioning was concealed from them by the gentle-
ness of the incline on which tliey moved; and if
there were some of them who had a clearer view
of their motives, it must be inferred that they
acted upon grounds not yet disclosed to the
world. Of course, what the welfare of the State
required was a Ministry which shared and hon-
oured the public feeling, without being so carried
down by it as to lose the statesman's power of
understanding and controlling events. But this
was not given. Of the bulk of the Cabinet, and
possibly of all of them except one, Lord Claren-
don's pithy phrase was the true one. They
drifted. Wishing to control events, they were
controlled by them. They aimed to go in one
direction ; but, lapsing under the pressure of
forces external and misunderstood, they always
went in the other.

The statesman who Nvent his own way was one TheMinistM
whose share in the governance of events was not his own way.
much known. He was supposed to be under a
kind of ostracism, lie had not been banished
from England, nor even from the Cabinet ; but,
holding office under a Prime jMinister whose views
upon foreign policy were much opposed to his
own, and relegated to duties connected with the
peaceful administration of justice, it seemed to the

9G CAUSES INVOLVIXa rUAXCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, eve of the conniion observ^er tliat for the time he

IX.
. '- — was annulled ; and the humorous stories which

floated about "Whitehall went to show that the
deposed Lord of Foreign Affairs had consented to
forget his former greatness and to accept his Home
Office duties in a spirit of half-cynical, half-joyous
disdain, but without the least discontent. And, in
truth, lie had no ground for ill-humour. In poli-
tics, lie was without vanity. What he cared for was
power, and power he had. Indeed, circumstanced
as be was, at the time when he chose to accept
the Home Office, he must have known that one
of the main conditions of his ascendant in foreign
affairs was the general belief that he had none.
The light of the past makes it easy to see that
the expedient of trying to tether him down in
the Home Office would alleviate his responsibil-
ity and increase his real power. To those who
know anything of Lord ralmerston's intellectual
strength, of his boldness, his vast and concen-
trated energy, his instinct for understanding the
collective mind of a body of men and of a whole
nation, and, above all, his firm robust will ;
nay, even to those who only know of his daring
achievements — achievements half peaceful, half
warlike, half righteous, half violent, in many lands
and on many a sea — the notion of causing him to
be subordinated to Lord Aberdeen in Foreign
Affairs seems hardly more sound than a scheme
providing that the greater shall be contained
in the less. Statesmen on the Continent would
easily understand this, for they had lived for

IN TIIK WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 97

many a year under the cares brought upon tlieni chap.
by his strenuous nature ; but up to the time I '

am speaking of, he had not been called upon to
apply his energies in any very conspicuous way
to the domestic affairs of England. Besides,
he had been more seen in his own country than
abroad, and for that very reason he was less
known, because there was much upon the mere
outside which tended to mask his real nature.
His partly Celtic blood, and perhaps too, in early
life, his boyish consciousness of power, had given
him a certain elation of manner and bearing which
kept him for a long time out of the good graces
of the more fastidious part of the English world.
The defect was toned down by age, for it lay upon
the surface only, and in his inner nature there
was nothing vulgar nor unduly pretending. Still,
the defect made people slow — made them take
forty years — to recognise the full measure of his
intellectual strength. Moreover, the English had
so imperfect a knowledge of the stress which he
had long been putting upon foreign Governments,
that the mere outward signs which he gave to his
countrymen at home — his frank speech, his off-
hand manner, his ready banter, his kind, joyous,
beaming eyes — were enough to prevent them from
accustoming themselves to look upon him as a
man of stern purpose. Upon the whole, notwith-
standing his European fame, it was easy for him
at this time to escape grave attention in England.

He was not a man who would come to a sub-
ject with which he was dealing for the first time

VOL. II. G

98 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAI4D

CHAP, with any great store of preconceived opinions, but

L he wrote so strenuously — he always, they say,

wrote standing — and was apt to be so much struck
with the cogency of his own arguments, that by
the mere process of framing despatches he wrought
himself into strong convictions, or rather perhaps
into strong resolves ; and he clung to these with
such a lasting tenacity that, if lie had been a
solemn, austere personage, the world would have
accused him of pedantry. Like most gifted men
who evolve their thoughts with a pen, he was very
clear, very accurate. Of every subject which he
handled gravely, he had a tight, iron grasp.
Without being inflexible, his will, it has been
already said, was powerful, and it swung with a
great momentum in one direction until, for some
good and sound reason, it turned and swung in
another. He pursued one object at a time with-
out being distracted by other game. All that was
fanciful, or for any reason unpractical — all that
was the least bit too Iiigh for him or the least bit
too tleep for him — all tliat lay, though only l)y a
little, beyond the immediate future with which
ho was dealing — ho utterly drove from out of his
mind ; and his energies, condensed for the time
upon some object to which they could be applied
with effect, were brought to bear upon it with all
their full volume and power. So, during the
whole period of his reign at the Foreign Office,
Lord Talmerston's method had been to be very
strenuous in the pursuit of the object which might
be needing care at any given time without suffer-

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 99

ing himself to be embarrassed by what men call a chap.
'comprehensive' view of our foreign policy; and ' .

although it was no doubt his concentrative habit
of mind and his stirring temperament which
brought him into this course of action, he was
much supported in it by the people at liome; for
when no enterprise is on foot, the bulk of the
English are prone to be careless of the friendship
of foreign States, and are often much pleased
when they are told that by reason of the activity
of their Foreign Secretary they are without an
ally in Europe.

Other statesmen had been accustomed to tliink
that the principle which ought in general to
determine the closeness of our relations with
foreign States was * community of interests ; '
and that in proportion as this principle was
departed from under the varied impulses of
philanthropy or other like motives, disturbance,
isolation, and danger would follow ; but Lord
Palmerston had never suffered this maxim to
interfere with any special object which he might
chance to have in hand at the moment, nor even
with his desire to spread abroad the blessings of
constitutional government.

As long as Lord Grey was at the head of the
Government, the energy of the Foreign Office was
kept down ; and even after the first five years of
Lord jMelbourne's Administration, the disruption
towards which it was tending had made so little
way, that when in 1840 the Ottoman Empire was
threatened with ruin by France and her Egyptian

100 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, ally, Lord Palmerston, with a majority of only

___! two or three in the House of Commons, but

having a bold heart and a firm, steady hand, had
been able to gather up the elements of the great
alliance of 1814, and to prevent a European war
by the very might and power and swiftness with
which he executed his policy ; but at the end of
eleven more years, when his career at the Foreign
Office was drawing to a close, his energy had
cleared a space round him, and he seemed to
be left standing alone.*

His system by that time had fairly disclosed its
true worth. Pursued with great vigour and skill,
it had brought results corresponding with the
numerous aims of its author, but corresponding
also with his avowed disregard of a general guid-
ing principle. Without breaking the general
peace of Europe, it had produced a long series
of diplomatic enterprises, pushed on in most
instances to a successful issue ; but, on the other
hand, it had ended by making the Foreign Office
an object of distrust, and in that way withdraw-
ing England from her due place in the composition
of the European system ; for the good old safe
clue of 'community of interests' being visibly

* It is not forgotten tliat during a large portion of this last
period Lord Aberdeen was at the Foreign Oflice, but he was of
course mucli bound by what his predecessors liad been doing
before him ; and, speaking rougldy, it may be said that, from
the spring of IS^'> until tlie close of 1851, our foreign policy
bore the imjiress of Lord Paliiu iston's nnnd. In the period
between November 1830 and the autumn of 1834, it was much
governed by the then Prime Minister, Lord Gre}'.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 101

discarded, no Power, however closely bound to chap.

IX

us by the nature of things, could vSntury tCii'ely '

upon our friendship. States wliose interests in
great European questions .\v,e re exactly; thg p^pe
as our own, States which had always looked to
the welfare and strength of England as main
conditions of their own safety, found no more
favour with us than those who consumed much
of their revenue in preparing implements for the
slaughter of ]^]nglishmen and the sinking of Eng-
lish ships. They Avere therefore obliged to shape
their policy upon the supposition that any slight
matter in which the Foreign OHice might chance
to be interesting itself at the moment — nay, even
a difference of opinion upon questions of internal
government (and this, be it remembered, was an
apple which could always be thrown) — would be
enough to make England repulse them. From
this cause, perhaps, more than from any other,
there had sprung up in Germany that semblance
of close friendship with the court of St Peters-
burg which had helped to allure the Czar into
dangerous paths.

From the Emperor Nicholas Lord Palmerstou
was cut off, not only by differences arising out of
questions on which the policy of liussia and of
England might naturally clash, but also because
he was looked upon as the promoter of doctrines
which the Court of St Petersburg Avas accustomed
to treat as revolutionary. Even to Austria, al-
though we were close bound to her by common
interests, although there was no one national

102 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, interest which tended to divide us from her, he
"'"' had. ill this wh:y/ become antagonistic. He liad
too much lustiness of mind, too much simplicity
6t..j[xirp(r«e-, to-be capable, of living on terms of
close intelligence with the philosophical statesmen
of Berlin. To the accustomed foi-eign policy of
French statesmen — in other words, to the France
that lie had been used to encounter in the Foreign
Office — he was adverse by very habit. He spurned
the whole invention of the French Eepublic. But
his favourite hatred of all was his hatred of the
House of Bourbon.* In short, by the Ist of
December 1851, though still at the Foreign Office,
he had become isolated in Europe. But fortune
smiles on bold men. The next night Prince Louis
Bonaparte and his fellow- venturers destroyed the
French Eepublic, superseded the Bourbons, and
suppressed France. Plainly this Prince and Lord
Palmerston were men who could act together —
could act together until the Prince should advise
himself to deceive the English jMinister. Not
longer: not an hour beyond the time when the
momentous promise which was made, if I mis-
take not, before the events of December, should
remain unbroken.

So when the Czar began to encroach upon
the Sultan, there was nothing that could so
completely meet Lord Palmerston's every wish
as an alliance between the two Westei'n Powers,
which should toss France lieadlong into the Eng-

* This feeling j)roljably drew its origin from the business of
the 'Spanish Marriages.'

IN THK WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 103

lisli Policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire; chap.

and the price of this was a price which, far from '

grudging, he would actually delight to pay ; for,
desiring to liave the Governments of France and
England actively united together for an English
object — desiring to prevent a revival of the Erench
Republic — and, above all, to prevent a restoration
of the House of Bourbon — he was only too glad
to be able to strengthen the new Emperor's hold
upon France by exalting his personal station, and
giving him the support of a close, separate, and
published alliance with the Queen of England.
And in regard to the dislocation which such a
new policy might work, he seems not to have
set so high a value upon the existing framework
of the European system as to believe that its
destruction would be a portentous evil. If he
thought it an evil at all, he thought it one which
a strong man might repair.

Lord Palmerston had been at the head of the
Foreign Office during so many years of his life,
and he had brought to bear upon its duties an
activity so restless, and (upon the whole) so much
steadfastness of purpose, that the more recent
foreign policy of England, whether it had been
right or whether it had been wrong, was in him
almost incarnate. It was obvious, therefore, that
whilst he was in the Cabinet, he would always be
resorted to for counsel upon foreign affairs b)' any
of his colleagues who were not divided from him
by strong difference of opinion, by political an-
tagonism, or by personal dislike. Again, it was

104 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, scarcely wise to believe that tlie relations whicli
• liad subsisted between Lord Palmerston and the
President of the French Eepublic would be closed
by the fact that tliey had led to I^rd Pahnerston's
dismissal from the Secretaryship of Foreign Af-
fairs. On the contrary, it was to be inferred
that communications of a most friendly kind
would continue to pass between the French Em-
j)eror and an English Minister who had suffered
for his sake ; and the very same manliness of dis-
position which would prevent him from engaging
in anything like an underhand intrigue against
his colleagues, would make him refuse to sit dumb
when, in words brought him fresh from the Tuil-
eries, an ambassador came to talk to him of the
Eastern Question — came to tell liim that the new
Emperor had an unbounded confidence in his
judgment, wished to be governed by his counsels,
and, in short, would disi)0se of poor France as the
English Minister wished.

Here, then, was the real bridge by which French
overtures of the more secret and delicate sort
would come from over the Channel. Here was
the bridge by which England's acceptance or re-
jection of all such overtures would go back to
France,

Thus, from the ascendancy of his strong nature,
from his vast experience, and from his command
of the motive power which he could bring at any
moment from Paris, Lord Palmerston, even so
early as the spring of 1853, was the most puissant
member of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet; and when,

IN THE WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 105

with all these sources of strength, he began to chap.

TX

draw support from a people growing every day '

more and more warlike, he gained a complete
dominion. If, after the catastrophe of Sinope, his
colleagues had persevered in their attempt to re-
sist him, he would have been able to overthrow
them with ease upon the meeting of Parliament.

Therefore, in the transactions which brought on
the war, Lord Palmerston was not drifting; he
was joyfully laying his course. Whither he
meant to go, thither he went ; whither he chose
that others should tend, thither they bent their
reluctant way. If some immortal were to offer
the surviving members of Loi'd Aberdeen's Gov-
ernment the privilege of retracing their steps with
all the light of experience, every one of them per-
haps, with only a single exception, would examine
the official papers of 1853, in order to see where
he could most wisely diverge from the course
which the Cabinet took. Lord Palmerston would
do nothing of the kind. What he had done be-
fore he would do again.

Lord Palmerston's plan of masking the warlike nis way of
tendency of the Government was an application tendency of

/ . . 1-11 ^'"^ Govem-

to politics of an ingenious contrivance which the mcnt.
Parisians u.sed to employ in some of their street
engagements with the soldiery. The contrivance
was called a 'live l)avricade.' A body of the in-
surgents would seize the mayor of tlie arrondisse-
ment, and a priest (if they could get one), and also
one or two respectable bankers devoted to the
cause of peace and order. These prisoners, each

106 CAUSES INVOLVING FllANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, forced to walk arm-in-arm between able-bodied

IX
.* combatants, were marched in front of a body of

insurgents, which boldly advanced towards a spot
where a battalion of infantry might be drawn up
in close column of companies ; but when they got
to within hailing distance, one of the insurgents
gifted with a loud voice would shout out to the
troops : ' Soldiers ! respect the cause of order !
' Don't fire on Mr Mayor ! l^espect property !
' Don't level your country's muskets at one who
' is a man and a brother, and also a respectable
* banker ! Soldiers ! for the love of God don't
' imbrue your hands in the blood of this holy
' priest ! ' Confused by this appeal, and shrink-
ing, as was natural, from the duty of killing
peaceful citizens, the battalion would hesitate, and
meantime the column of the insurgents, covered
always by its live barricade, would rapidly ad-
vance and crowd in upon the battalion, and break
its structure and ruin it. It was thus that Lord
Palmerston had the skill to protrude Lord Aber-
deen and Mr Gladstone, and keep them standing
forward in the van of a Ministry which was bring-
ing tlie country into war. No one could assail
Lord Palmerston's policy without striking at him
through men whose conscientious attachment to
the cause of peace was beyond the reach of cavil.
Deiiaies Li tlio dcbatcs which took ])lace u])nn the Ad-

Address^ dress, the speeches of the iiuofhcial members of
Parliament in both Houses disclosed a strange
want of acquaintance with the character and spirit
of the negotiations which had been going on for

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 107

the last eight months. Confiding in llic peaceful chap.
tendency of a Government headed by Lord Al)er- ^^'
deen, and having JNIr Gladstone for one of its fore-
most members, Mr Bright, in the summer of 1853,
liad deprecated all discussion ; and, under his en- parliament
couragement, the Government, after some hesita- dark'L to
tion, determined to witldiold tlie production of tendency of
the papers. With the lights whicli he then had, inent°'^™'
Mr Bright was perhaps entitled to believe that
the course he took was the right one, and the in-
tention of the Government was not only honest,
but in some degree self-sacrificing; for it cannot
be doubted that the disclosure of the able and
high-spirited despatches of Lord Clarendon would
have raised the Government in public esteem. It
is now certain, however, that the disclosure of the
papers in the August of 1853 would have enabled
tlie friends of peace to take up a strong ground,
to give a new turn to opinion wliilst yet tliere
was time, and to save themselves from the utter
discomfiture which they underwent in the inter-
val between the prorogation and the meeting of
Parliament.

The Cabinet of Lord A1)erdeen was not famous
for its power of preventing the leakage of State
matters ; but the common indiscretion b}'' which
simple facts are noised abroad does not suffice to
disclose the general tenor and bearing of a long
and intricate negotiation. Besides, in the absence
of means of authentic knowledge, there were cir-
cumstances which raised presumptions o})posite
to the truth. Of course the chief of these was

108 CAUSES INVOLVING FPANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, the retention of office by two men whose attach-
^^' ment to the cause of peace was believed to be
passionately strong; but it chanced, moreover,
that publicity had been given to a highly-spirited
and able despatch, the production of the French
Foreign Office ; and since there had transpired no
proof of a corresponding energy on the yjart of
England, it was wrongly inferred that Lord Aber-
deen's Government were hanging back. Accord-
ingly, Ministers were taunted for this supposed
fault by almost all the speakers in either House.
What the Government were chargeable with was
an undue forwardness in causing England to join
with France alone in the performance of a duty
which was European in its nature, and devolv-
ing in the first instance upon Austria. What
they were charged with was a want of readi-
ness to do that which they had done. There-
fore every one who spoke against the INIinistry
was committing himself to opinions which (as
soon as their real course of action should be
disclosed) would involve him in an approval
of their policy.

Production But uow at last, aud within a day or two from

Papers. the conclusiou of the debate on the Address,
some of the papers relating to the negotiations of
1853 and the preceding years were laid upon the
table of both Houses. As soon as the more
devoted friends of peace were able to read these
documents, and in some degree to comprehend
their scope and bearing, they began to see liow

lueir offeot. their causG had fared under the official guardian-

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 109

ship of Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone. They chap.
began to see that for near eight months the Gov- '

crnnient had been foHowiiig a convsc of action
which was gently leading towards war. Thuy
did not, however, make out the way in which tlie
deflection began. They did not see that the way
in which the Government had lapsed from the
paths of peace, was by quitting the common
ground of the four Powers for the sake of a
closer union with one, and by joining with the
Erench Emperor in making a perverse use of
the fleets.

Mr Cobden fastened upon the 'Vienna Note,'
and, with his views, he was right in drawing
attention to the apparent narrowness of the dif-
ference upon which the question of peace or war
was made to depend ; but he surely betrayed a
want of knowledge of the way in which the
actions of mankind are governed when he asked
that a country now glowing with warlike ardour
should go back and try to obtain peace by re-
suming a form of words which its Government
had solemnly repudiated four months before. Of
course this effort failed : it could not be other-
wise. Any one acquainted with the tenor of the
negotiations, and with enough of the surround-
ing facts to make the papers intelligible, may
be able to judge whether there were not better
grounds than this for making a stand against the
war. The evil demanding redress was the in-
trusion of the Eussian forces into Wallachia and
Moldavia ; and it would seem that the judgment

110 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, to be prououuced by Parliament upon a Goverii-

__fll_ ment which had led their country to the brink of

war should have been made to depend upon this

question : —

The question Was it practicable for England to obtain the

theludi- deliverance of the Principalities by means taken

Puiiament in commoH with the rest of the four Powers, and

been rested, without rcsorting to the expedient of a separate

understanding with the French Emperor ? *

It may be that to this question the surviving
members of Lord Aberdeen's Administration can
establish a negative answer, but in order to do
this tliey will have to make use of knowledge not
hitherto disclosed to Parliament.

A belief, nay, even a suspicion, that there was
danger of a sudden alliance between tlie French
Emperor and the Czar, would gravely alter the
conditions upon which Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet
was called upon to form its judgment ; but, so far
as the outer world knows, no fear of this kind
was coercing the Government. Upon the papers
as they stand, it seems clear that, by remaining
upon the ground occupied by the four Powers,
England would have obtained the deliverance of
the Principalities without resorting to war.

* It will be interesting to know what light the furtlur
researches of the Prince Consort's biographer may be able to
throw upon this stage of the transactions.

IN THE WAR AGAIXST KUSSIA. Ill

CHAPTER X.

The last of the steps which brought on the rup- c fi a P.
ture between Paissia and the Western Powers ^'
was perhaps one of the most anomalous trans-
actions which the annals of diplomacy liave re-
corded. The outrage to be redressed was the
occupation by Eussia of Wallachia and Moldavia.
Of all the States of Europe, except Turkey itself,
the one most aggrieved by this occupation was
Austria. Now Austria was one of the great
Powers of Europe. She was essentially a military
State ; she was the mistress of a vast and well-
appointed array ; she was the neighbour of Ptussia.
Geographically, she was so placed that (whatever
perils she might bring upon her other frontiers)
her mere order to her officer commanding her army
of observation would necessarily force the Czar to
withdraw his troops. On the other hand, Prance
and England, though justly offended by tlie out-
rage, and tliough called upon in their character as
two of the great Powers to concur in fit measures
for suppressing it, were far from being brought
into any grievous stress by the occupation of the

112 CAUSES INVOLVING FEANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, far-distant Principalities ; and moreover, the evil,
' such as it was, was one which they could not dis-
pel by any easy or simple application of force.
Austria's It was in this condition of things that Austria

k hostiU; suddenly conveyed to France, and through France

summons to , . . . , . p -n i

the Czar. to England, the intimation oi the 22d ot February.
In conversation with Baron de Bourqueny, Count
Buol said : ' If England and France will fix a day

* for the evacuation of the Principalities, the ex-

* piration of which shall be the signal for hostil-
' ities, the Cabinet of Vienna will support the
' summons.' * The telegraph conveyed the tenor
of this intimation to London on the same day.
Naturally, it was to be expected that Austria
would join in a summons which she invited other
Powers to send ; and to this hour it seems hardly
possible to believe that the Emperor of Austria
deliberately intended to ask France and England
to fix a day for going to war without meaning to
so to war himself at the same time. Lord Clar-
endon, however, asked the question. Apparently
he was not answered in terms corresponding with
his question, but he was again told that Austria
would ' support ' tlie summons. Then, all at once,
and without stipulating for the concurrence of the
Power which was pressing them into action, the
Governments of France and England prepared the
instruments which were to bring them into a state
of war with Paissia.

Austria at this period had plainly resolved to
go to war if the Principalities should not be relin-
* ' Easteru Papers,' part vii. p. 53.

IN TIIH WAIl AGAINST RUSSIA. 113

quished by the Czar ; but, before she could take chap.
the final step, it was necessary for her to come '

to an understanding with Prussia. This she sue- of'rvoWin"
ceeded in doing within twenty-four hours from the *'*®*^'
period of the final rupture between Eussia and
the Western Powers ; but Prance and England
could not bear to wait. The French Emperor,
rebuffed by the Czar in his endeavour to appear
as the pacificator of Europe, was driven to the
opposite method of diverting France from herself;
and, although the crisis was one in which a little
delay and a little calmness would have substituted
the coercive action of the four Powers for an
adventurous war by the two, he once more goaded
our Government on, and pressed it to concur with
him in sending forthwith to Eussia a hostile, im-
perative summons. M. Drouyn de Lhuys declared pressure of
tliat, in his opinion, the sending of the proposed Emperor,
summons was a business which ' should be done
' immediately, and that the two Governments
' should write to Count Nesselrode to demand
' the immediate' withdrawal of the Eussian
troops from the Principalities — 'the whole to
' be concluded by a given time, say the end of
' March.' *

It must be owned, however, that the English Kaeemess
people were pressing their Government in the in England
same direction. Inflamed with a longing for naval
glory in the Baltic, they had become tormented
with a fear lest their Admiral should be hindered
from great achievements for want of the mere legal

* ' Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 53.
VOL. II. H

114 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP.
X.

The Govern-
ment loses
its compo-
sure.

Tlie sum-
mons des-
patched by
England.

formality wliicli was to constitute a state of war.
The majority of the Cabinet, though numbering on
their side several of the foremost statesmen of the
day, were collectively too weak to help being
driven by the French Emperor, too weak to help
being infected by the warlike eagerness of the
people, too weak to resist the strong man who
was amongst them, yet in one sense alone. It is
likely enough that statesmen so gifted as some of
them were, must have had better grounds for
their way of acting than have been hitherto dis-
closed ; but to one who only judges from the ma-
terials communicated to Parliament, it seems plain
that at this time they had lost their composure.

By the summons despatched on the part of
England, Lord Clarendon informed Count Nessel-
rode that, unless the Russian Government, within
six days from the delivery of the summons, should
send an answer engaging to withdraw all its troops
from the Principalities by the 30th of April, its
refusal or omission so to do would be regarded
by England as a declaration of war. This sum-
mons was in accordance with the suggestion of
Austria ; and what might have been expected
was, that the Western Powers, in acceding to her
wish, should do so upon the understanding that
she concurred in the measure which she herself
proposed, and that they would consult lier as to
the day on which it would be convenient for her
to enter into a state of war ; in other words, that
they would consult her as to the day on which a
continued refusal to quit tlie Principalities should

IN THK WAll AGAINST RUSSIA. 1 1 f)

hn'no- tlie Czav into astute of war witli Austria, chap.
Fraiic(i, and J^^uglaud. Instead of (aking tliis __Ll__

course, Lord Clarendon I'orwarded tlie snuinions
(not as a draft or project, but as a document
already signed and complete) to the Court of instructions
Vienna, and it was despatched by a messenger, senger.
who (after remaining for only a 'few hours' in
the Austrian capital) was to carry on the summons
to St Petersburg. Therefore Austria was made
aware that, whether she was willing to defend her
own interests or not, England was irrevocably com-
mitted to defend them for her; and instead of
requiring that Austria should take part in the step awi to Lord
which she herself had advised. Lord Westmore- knu.
land was merely instructed to express a hope that
the summons ' would meet with the approval ' of
the Austrian Cabinet, and that their opinion of Austria not
it would be made known by Count Buol to the takei.ait

iu tlie sum-

Cabniet of St Petersburg. Such a step as this on monswincb

" '- she liad her

the part of Austria was preposterously short of seifsug-
what the Western Powers would have had a right
to expect from her, if they had been a little less
eager for hostilities, and had consulted her as to
the time for coming to a rupture.

Of course, the impatience of France and Eng-
land was ruinous to the principle of maintaining
concert between the four Powers, and yet had
not the merit of springing from any sound mili-
tary views. It is true that the Western Powers
were sending troops to the Levant, and fitting
out fleets for the Baltic ; but there was nothing in
the state of their preparations, nor in the position

IIG CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP.
X.

The coun-
ter-pro-
posals of
Russia reach
Vienna at
the same
time as the
English
messenger.

Tliey are
rejected by
the Confer-
ence of the
four Powers.

Austria and
I'russia
'support'
\ho suin-
nioiis, but
ivithout
*Aklng part
m the step.

of the respective forces, which could justify tlieir
eagerness to accelerate the declaration of war.

It chanced that, simultaneously with the arrival
of the English messenger at Vienna, there came
thither from St Petersburg the counter-proposi-
tions of Eussia. Count Buol saw the importance
of disposing of these before the summons went on
to St Petersburg ; so, after persuading Lord West-
moreland to detain the English messenger, he
instantly assembled the Conference of the four
Powers. By this Conference the counter-proposi-
tions of Eussia were unanimously rejected,* and
the bearer of the summons carried this decision
of the four Powers to St Petersburg, together with
a despatch from the Austrian Government, in-
structing Count Esterhazy to support the sum-
mons, and throwing upon Eussia the responsibility
of the impending war.-f- The despatch, however,
fell short of announcing that the refusal to quit
the Principalities would place the Czar in a state
of war with Austria as well as with the Western
Powers. Prussia supported the summons in lan-
guage corresponding with the language of the
Vienna Cabinet. Baron Manteuffel's despatch to
St Petersburg ' was drawn up in very pressing
' language. It urged the Eussian Government to
* consider the dangers to which the peace of the
' world would be exposed by a refusal, and de-

* 'The Conference unaniniou.sly agreed that it was impossible
' to proceed with those propositions.' — Protocol of Conference of
March 5. 'Ea.stern Papers,' part vii. p. 80.

t 'Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 64.

IN THE AVAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 117

• clared that the responsibility of the war which chap,

X.

' might be the consequence of that refusal would
' rest with the Emperor.' *

The summons addressed by France to the Eus- The French

. , summons.

sian Government was in the same terms as the
summons despatched by Lord Clarendon, and was
forwarded at the same time.

After receiving the summons of the two Govern- France and
ments, Count Nesselrode took the final orders of bWht

. -I t r-i i r '"'^" * state

his master, and then informed the Consuls of of war with

Russia.

France and England that the Emperor did not
think fit to send any answer to their notes. A
refusal to answer was one of the events which,
under the terms of the announcement contained
in the summons, was to be regarded b}^ the West-
ern Powers as a declaration of war. This refusal
was uttered by Count Nesselrode on the 19th of
March 1854 The peace between the great Powers
of Europe had lasted more than thirty-eight years,
and now at length it was broken.f

* ' Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 72.

+ A writer in one of the Reviews said that the state of war
did not begin until the decharations of tlie Western Powers
were issued ; but that is a mistake. What brouglit the Western
Powers into a state of war, was the Czar's refusal to answer the
summons ; for the moment that refusal was given, it became,
in the mind of the Western Powers, as announced by the ex-
press words of their summons, a constructive declaration of
war by Russia. The English summons had these words : ' Tlic
' British Government, having exhausted all the efforts of ncgo-
' tiation, is compelled to declare to the Cabinet of St Peterp-
' burg, that if . . . [see the summons at length in the Appcn-
' dix], the British Government must consider the refusal or the
' silence of the Cabinet of St Petersburg as equivalent to a cle-
• claration of war.' — ' Eastern Papers,' part vii. p. 61. — Note
to ilh Edition.

118 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP.
X.

Message
fiom tlie
French
Kinperor
to the
Chanibeia.

On the 27t]i of March a message from tlio
Emperor of tlie French informed liis Senate and
Legislative Assembly that the last determination
of the Cabinet of St Petersburg liad placed France
and Eussia in a state of war. In his Speech from
the Throne at the opening of the session* he had
already declared that war was upon the point of
commencing. 'To avoid a conflict,' he said, 'I
' have gone as far as honour allowed. Europe

* now knows that, if France draws the sword, it

* is because she is constrained to do so. Europe
' knows that France has no idea of aggrandisement;
' she only wishes to resist dangerous encroach-
' ments. The time of conquests has passed away,
' never to return. This policy has had for its
' result a more intimate alliance between England
' and France.' It is curious to observe that only
a few hours after the time when England became
inextricably engaged with him in a joint war
against Eussia, and in the same speech in which
he announced the fact, the French Emperor ac-
knowledged the value and the practicability of
the wholesome policy which he had just then
superseded by drawing the Cabinet of London
into a separate alliance with himself; but when
lie was declaring, in words already quoted, that

* Germany had recovered her political indepen-
' dence, that Austria woiild enter into the alli-
' ance, and that the Western Powers would go to
' Constantinople along with Germany,' he had the
happiness of knowing that the baneful sunnnons

' March 2.

IN TJIE WAR AGAINST KUSSIA. 119

which was to bring France and England into a chap.
.separate course of action, and place them at last
in a state of war, had been signed by the English
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and was already on
the way to St Petersburg.*

On the same 27th of March a message from the Messase
Queen announced to Parliament that the negoti- Queen to
ations with llussia were broken off, and that Her
Majesty, feeling bound to give active aid to the
Sultan, relied upon the efforts of her faithful sub-
jects to aid her in protecting the states of the
Sultan against the encroachments of Eussia.

On the following day the English declaration Declaration
of war was issued. The labour of putting into
writing the grounds for a momentous course of
action is a wliolesome discipline for statesmen ;
and it would be well for mankind if, at a time
when the question were really in suspense, the
friends of a policy leading towards war were
obliged to come out of the mist of oral intercourse
and private notes, and to put their view into a
firm piece of writing. It does not follow that
such a document ought necessarily to be disclosed,
but it ought to exist, and it ought to be official.
In the summer of 1853 the draft of a document,
fairly stating the grounds of that singular policy
of alliance within alliance which was shadowed
out in the Koyal Speech at the close of the ses-
sion, would have been a good exercise for the
members of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet, and would

* The messenger hail reached Berlin on the day of the Freucli
Emperor's Speech from the Throne.

120 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND
CHAP, have protected them against tliat sensation of

X.

'drifting,' which was afterwards described by the
Foreign Secretary. It is known that when the
English declaration announcing the rupture with
Eussia was about to be prepared, it was found less
easy than might be supposed to assign reasons
Ditncuity of for the war. The necessity of having to state the
cause of the rupture in a solenni and precise form,
disclosed the vice of tlie policy which the Govern-
ment was following ; for it could not be concealed
that the grievance which was inducing France
and England to take up arms was one of a Euro-
pean kind, which called for redress at the hands
of the four Powers rather than for the armed
championship of the two.*

Of course the difficulty M'as overcome. When
the faith of the country was pledged, and fleets
and armies already moving to the scene of the
conflict, it was not possible that war \vould be
stayed for want of mere words. The Queen was
advised to declare, that, by the regard due to an
ally, and to an empire whose integrity and inde-
pendence were essential to the peace of Europe,
by tlie sympathies of her people for the cause of
riglit against injustice, and from a desire to save
Europe from the preponderance of a Power which
had violated the faith of treaties, she felt called
upon to take up aiin.'^, in concert with the Em-
peror of tlie Frencli, for tlie defence of the Sultan.

* The Qucfii's ailvocate coiiceiveil tliat upon the papers as
first supplied to him he couhl not frame a jiropcrDechiration of
War, and reipiired further instructions from the Goverimieut.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 121

On the lltli of April the Emperor of Kussia chap.
issued his declaration of war. He declared that '

the summons addressed to him by France and Jecw^on
England took from Eussia all possibility of yield- mani^fesio.
ing with honour; and he threw the responsibility
of the war upon the Western Powers. It was
for Central and Western Europe that diplomacy
shaped these phrases ; but in the manifesto ad-
dressed to his own people the Czar used loftier
words. 'Kussia,' said he, 'fights not for the
' things of this world, but for the Faith.' * ' Eng-
' land and France have ranged themselves by the
' side of the enemies of Christianity against Eus-
' sia fiditincj for the Orthodox faith. But Eussia
' will not alter her divine mission ; and if enemies
' fall upon her frontier, we are ready to meet them
' with the firmness which our ancestors have
' bequeathed to us. Are we not now the same
' Eussian nation of whose deeds of valour the
' memorable events of 1812 bear witness ? May
' the Almighty assist us to prove this by deeds !
' And in this trust taking up arms for our perse-
' cuted brethren professing the Christian faith, we
' will exclaim with the whole of Eussia with one
' heart, " 0 Lord our Saviour, whom have we to
' "fear?" "May God arise and His enemies be
' " dispersed ! " ' f

On the fourth day after tlie delivery of tlie TheCzar's

, . , , 1 -T^ • • (. invasion of

message which ijlaced Eussia in a state ot war Turkey is

. commenced

with Frauce and England, Prince Gortschakoff
passed the Lower Danube at three points, and,

* 23(1 April. + 21st February.

122 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCK AND ENGLAND

CHAP, entering into the desolate region of the Dobriulja,

X.

began the invasion of Turkey.*

Treaty be- Nearly at the same time France and England

twcen the . • i i n i i • i

suiunand entered into a treaty with tlie bultan, by which

the Western ' *^

Powers. they engaged to defend Turkey with their arms
until the conclusion of a peace guaranteeing the
independence of the Ottoman Empire and the
rights of the Sultan, and upon the close of the
war to withdraw all their forces from the Ottoman
territory. The Sultan, on his part, undertook
to make no separate peace or armistice with
Eussia.f
Treaty On the lOtli of April 1854 there was signed

France and that treat)'" of alliance between Erance and Eng-
land which many men had suffered themselves to
look upon as a security for the peace of Europe.
The high contracting parties engaged to do what
lay in their power for the re-establishment of a
peace which should secure Europe against the
return of the existing troubles; and in order to
set free the Sultan's dominions, they promised to
use all the land and sea forces required for the
purpose. They engaged to receive no overture
tending to the cessation of hostilities, and to
enter into no engagement with the Russian Court,
without having deliberated in common. They
renounced all aim at separate advantages, and

* 24th March. liy thus jiassincj tliat part ol" the river which
encloses the Dohrudja, a geiuTal docs }iot efi'cct much. Ho
must cross it at and above Kassova licfoie he can W fluid, in the
military sense, to have ' broken througli the line of the Danube.'

t 10th of iMarch.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 123

tliey declared their readiness to receive into their chap.

alliance any of the other Powers of Europe. "

This great alliance did not carry with it so re-
sistless a weight as to be able to execute justice
by its own sheer force, and without the shedding
of blood ; but it was a miglity engine of war.

124 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCK AKD ENGLAND

CHAPTER XI.

CHAP.
XT.

Recapitu-
lation.

Standing
causes of
disturbance.

Effect of
personal
government
by t)ie Czar.

The train of causes which brought on the war has
now been followed down to the end. Great armies
kept on foot, and empires governed by princes
without the counsel of statesmen, were spoken of
in the outset as standing elements of danger to
the cause of peace ; and their bearing upon tlie
disputes of nations has been seen in all the phases
of a strife whicli began in a quarrel for a key and
a trinket, and ended by embroiling Europe. Upon
the destinies of Eussia tlie effect of this system of
mere personal government has been seen at every
step. From head to foot a vast empire was made
to throb with tlie passions which rent the bosom
of the one man Nicholas. If for a few mouths
he harboured ambition, tlie resources of the State
were squandered in making ready for war. If his
spirit flagged, tlie ambition of the State fell lame,
and preparations ceased. If he laboured under a
fit of piety, or rather of ecclesiastic zeal. All the
liussias were on the verge of a crusade. He
chafed with rage at tlie thought of being foiled in
diplomatic strife by the second Oaiining; and in-

IN THE WAR AGAINST UUSSIA. 125

stantly, without hearing counsel from any living chap.

man, he caused his docile battalions to cross the '

frontier, and kindled a bloody war.

Nor was the personal government of the Em- By uic
peror Francis Joseph without its share or mis- Austru.
chief; for it seems clear that this was the evil
course by which Austria was brought into mea-
sures offensive to the Sultan, but full of danger to
herself. More than once, in the autumn of 1852,
Nicholas and Francis Joseph came together ; and
at these ill-omened meetings, the youthful Kaiser
bending, it would seem, under a weight of grati-
tude, overwhelmed by the personal ascendancy of
the Czar, and touched, as he well might be, by
the affection which Nicholas had conceived for
him, was led perhaps to use language which never
would have been sanctioned by a cabinet of Aus-
trian statesmen ; and, although it is understood
that he abstained from actual promises, it is hard
to avoid believing that the general tenor of the
young Emperor's conversations with Nicholas
must have been the chief cause which led the
Czar to imagine that he could enter upon a policy
highly dangerous to Austria, and yet safely count
upon her assent. The Czar never could have
hoped that Austrian councillors of state would
have willingly stood still and endured his seizure
of the country of the Lower Danube from Orsova
down to the Euxine ; but he understood that
Francis Joseph governed Austria, and he imagined
that he could govern Francis Joseph as though
he were his own child.

12G CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

Even in Prussia, the policy of the State seemed
to be always upon the point of being shaken by

of Pmss^i."" ^'^^ ^^''^^"^ *^^ ^^^^ ■'^^"S ; ^''^^ although, up to the
outbreak of the war, she was guilty of no defec-
tion,* it is certain that the anticipation of finding
weakness in this quarter was one of the causes
which led the Czar into danger.
By uie In France, after tlie events of the 2d of Decem-

Eraperor. ber, the system of personal government so firmly
obtained, that the narrator — dispensed from the
labour of inquiring what interests she had in the
question of peace and war, and what were the
thoughts of her orators, her statesmen, and her
once illustrious writers — was content to see what
scheme of action would best conduce to the wel-
fare and safety of a small knot of men then
hanging together in Paris ; and when it appeared
that, upon the whole, these persons would gain
in safety and comfort from the disturbance of
Europe, and from a close understanding with
England, tiie subsequent progress of the story was
singularly unembarrassed by any question about
what might be the policy demanded by the inter-
ests or the sentiments of France. Therefore the
bearing of personal government upon the main-
tenance of peace was better illustrated by the
French (government than by the Emperor Nich-
olas ; for in the Czar, after all, a vast people was
incarnate. His ambition, his piety, his anger,
were in a sense the passions of the devoted mil-

• It was more than three months after tlie outbreak of the
vrar that Prussia faltered.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 127

lions of men of whom be was indeed the true chap.

XI
chief. The French Emperor, on the contrary, '

when he chose to carry France into a war against
Eussia, was in no respect the champion of a na-
tional policy nor of a national sentiment ; and
he therefore gave a vivid example of the way in
which sheer personal government comes to bear
upon the peace of the world.

Perhaps if a man were to undertake to distri- siiare winch

ir>-r» T Hussia lj;ul

Dute the blnme of the war, the nrst rower he iu bringing

T • TT 1 • • fibout the

would arraign might be liussia. Her ambition, war.
her piet}^, and her Church zeal were ancient
causes of strife, which were kindled into a danger-
ous activity by the question of the Sanctuaries,
and by events which seemed for a moment to
show that the time for her favourite enterprise
against Constantinople might now at last be com-
ing. Until the month of March 1853, these
causes were brought to bear directly against the
tranquillity of Europe ; and even after that time,
they were in one sense the parents of strife, be-
cause, though they ceased to have a direct action
upon events, they had set other forces in motion.
But it would be wrong to believe that, after
the middle of March 1853, Eussia was acting in
furtherance of any scheme of territorial aggran-
disement ; for it is plain that by that time the
Czar's vague ambition had dwindled down into a
mere wish to wring from the Porte a protector-
ate of the Greek Church in Turkey. He had
gathered his troops upon the Turkish frontier, and
it seemed to him that he could use their presence

128 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, there as a means of extorting an engagement which
' would soothe the pride of the Orthodox Church,
and tighten the rein by which he was always
seeking to make the Turks feel his power. Tiie
vain concealments and misrepresentations by
which he accompanied this effort of violent diplo-
macy were hardly worthy to be ranked as exer-
cises of statecraft, for in reality, they owed their
origin to the clashing impulses of a mind in con-
flict with itself.

Originally, the Czar had no thought of going to
war for the sake of obtaining tliis engagement,
and least of all had he any thought of going to
war with England. At first, he thought to obtain
it by surprise ; and, when that attempt failed,
he still hoped to obtain it by resolute pressure,
because he reckoned that if the great Powers
would compare the slenderness of the required
concession with the evils of a great war, there
could be no question how they would choose.

As soon as the diplomatic strife at Constanti-
nople began to work, the Czar got heated by it ;
and when at lengtli he found himself not only
contending for his Church, but contending too
with his ancient enemy, he so often lost all self-
command, that what he did in his politic intervals
was never enough to undo the evil which he
wrought in his fits of pious zeal and of rage. And
when, with a cruel grace, and before the eyes
of all Europe, Lord Stratford disposed of Prince
Mentschikoff, it must be owned that it was liard
for a ])roud man in the place of the Czar to have

IX THE WAR AOAINST KUSSIA. 120

to stand still and submit. Therefore, witliout tak- cji a p.
ing counsel of any man, lie resolved to occupy '^^'
the Principalities ; but he had no belief that even
that grave step would involve him in war ; for
his dangerous faith in Lord Aberdeen and in the
power of the English Peace Party was in full
force, and grew to a joyful and ruinous certainty
when he learned, that the Queen's Prime Min-
ister had insisted upon revoking the grave words
which had been uttered to Baron Brunnow by the
Secretary of State. This illusory faith in the
peacefulness of England long continued to be his
guide ; and from time to time he was confirmed
in his choice of the wrong path by the bearing of
the persons who represented Erance, Austria, and
Prussia at the Court of St Petersburg; for al-
though in Paris, in London, in Vienna, in Berlin,
and in Constantinople the four great Powers
seemed strictly united in tlieir desire to restrain
the encroachments of the Czar, this wholesome
concord was so masked at St Petersburg by
the courtier-like demeanour of Count Mensdorf,
Colonel Eochow, and M. Castelbajac, that Sir
Hamilton Seymour, though uttering the known
opinion of the other three Powers as well as of
his own Government, \vas left to stand alone.

After his acceptance of the Vienna Note, the
Emperor Nicholas enjoyed for a few days the
bliss of seeing all Europe united with him against
the Turks, and he believed, perhaps, that Heaven
was favouring him once more, and that now at
last ' Canning ' was vanquished ; but in a little
VOL. II. I

130 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, while the happy dream ceased, and he had the
- torment of hearing the four Powers confess that,

if for a moment they had differed from Lord
Stratford, it was because of their erring nature.
Then, fired by tlie Turkish declaration of war, and
stung to fury by the hostile use of the AVestern
fleets which the French Emperor had forced upon
the English Government, the Czar gave the fatal
orders which brought about the disaster of Sinope.
After his first exultation over the sinking of the
ships and the slaughter, he apparently saw his
error, and was become so moderate as to receive
in a right spirit the announcement of the first
decision that had been taken by the English
Cabinet when the news of the catastrophe reached
it. But only a few days later, he had to hear of
the grave and hostile change of view which had
been forced upon Lord Aberdeen's Government
by the French Emperor, and to learn that, by re-
solving to drive the Eussian flag from the Euxine,
the maritime Powers liad brought their relations
with his empire to a state barely sliort of wa)'.
After this rupture, it was no longer possible for
him to extricate liimself decorously, unless by
exerting some skill and a steady command of
temper. He was unequal to the trial ; and al-
though, in politic and worldly moments, he must
have been almost hopeless of a good result, he
could not bear to let go his hold of the occupied
provinces under the compulsion of a public threat
laid upon him by England and France.

With the conduct of the Turkish Government

IN THE WAK AGAINST RUSSIA. 131

little fault is to be found. It is true tliat, in the chap.
early stage of the dispute about the Sanctuaries, ^^'
the violence of the French and the Russian Gov- ^''^'"^ ^'''';'»

rurkey Iia<l

ernments tormented tlie Porte into contradictory j" causing
engagements, and tliat the anger kindled by these
clashing promises was one of the provocatives of
the war ; but from the day of the delivery of the
Bethlehem key and the replacement of the star,
the Turkish Government ^\'as almost always mod-
erate and politic — and after the second week
of March 1853 it was firm ; for the panic struck
by Prince Mentschikoff in the early days of his
mission was allayed by the pi'udent boldness of
Colonel Pose, and the Czar with all his hoverin<r
forces was never able to create a second alarm.

It has been seen that, by their tenacity of all
those sovereign rights which were of real worth —
by the wisdom with which they yielded wherever
they could yield with honour and safety— by their
invincible courtesy and deference towards their
mighty assailant— and at last and above all, by
their warlike ardour and their prowess in the
field — the Turks had become an example to Chris-
tendom, and had won the heart of England. And
although it has been acknowledged that some of
the more gentle of these Turkish virtues were
contrived and enforced by the English Ambas-
sador, still no one can fairly refuse to the Ottoman
people the merit of appreciating and enduring this
painful discipline.

Besides, there was a period when it might be
supposed that the immediate views of the Turkish

132 CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. Government and of tlie EnHisli Ambassador were

XI

. 1_. not exactly the same; for as soon as the Turkish

statesmen became aware that their appeal to tlie
people had kindled a spirit wliich was forcing
them into war, it of course became their duty to
endeavour to embroil the other Powers of Europe ;
and tliey laboured in this direction with much
sagacity and skill. They saw that if they could
contrive to bring up the Admirals from Besica
Ba}^ the Western Powers would soon get decoyed
into war by their own fleets ; and in order to this,
we saw Eeshid Pasha striving to affect the lofty
mind of Lord Stratford by shadowing out the ruin
of the Ottoman dominion ; then, mounting his
horse, going off to the French Ambassador, and so
changing the elevation of his soul, whilst he rode
from one Embassy to the other, that in the pres-
ence of j\r. de la Cour he no longer spoke of a
falling empire, but pictured to him a crowd of
Frenchmen of all ranks cruelly massacred, on ac-
count of their well-known Christianity, by a host
of fanatical jNToslems. And, although the serenity
of Lord Stratford defeated the sagacious Turk for
the time, and disappointed him in his endeavour
to bring up more than a couple of vessels from
each fleet, still in the end the Turkish statesman-
ship prevailed ; for M. de la Cour, disturbed by the
bloody prospect lield out to him, communicated
liis excitement to the French Emperor, and the
French Em})cror, as we have seen, then put so
liard a presssure upon Lord Aberdeen as to con-
strain him to join in breaking through the treaty

IN THE "WAll AGAINST RUSSIA. 13.">

of 1841 ; and since tins resolve led straight into chap.

the series of naval movements which followed, _ j

and so on to the outbreak of war, the members
of the Sultan's Cabinet had some right to believe
that, even without the counsels of tlie great Am-
bassador, they knew how to govern events.

In so far as the origin of the war was connected share wiiich

•,in iT-- I •• 1 J • • Austria had.

witli Count Lemmgen s mission, Austria is answer-
able ; and although it must needs be true (for so
she firmly declares*) that the Czar's reiterated ac-
count of his close understanding with her in re-
gard to Montenegro \vas purely fabulous, she still
remains open to the grave charge of having sent
Count Leiningeu to Constantinople armed witli a
long string of questionable claims, yet debarred
by his orders from all negotiation, and instructed
to receive no answer from the Turkish Govern-
ment except an answer of simple consent or
simple refusal. This offensive method of pressiu"
upon an independent Sovereign was constantly
referred to by the Czar as justifying and almost
compelling his determination to deal with the
Sultan in a high-handed fashion ; and in this way

• I have a statement to this efTect. To those who have iiut
Leeu called upon to test the relative worth of statements com-
ing from diflercut parts of Europe, it may seem that I am facile
in accepting this one ; and the more so when 1 acknowledge, as
I do, that surrounding facts give an a]>pearance of probability
to the opposite assertion. The truth is, tliat, like our own
countrymen, the public men of Austria are much accustomed to
subordinate their zeal for the public service to their self-respect.
To undertake to disbelieve a statesman of the Court of Vienna,
is the came thing as to uudertake to disbelieve an English
gentleman.

13i CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, (even upon the supposition of there being no per-
- nicious understanding between the two Emperors)

Count Leiningen's mission had an ill effect upon
the maintenance of peace.

Again, Austria must bear tlie bh\me of employ-
ing servants who, notwithstanding the firm and
right part which she took in the negotiations,
were always causing her to appear before Europe
as a Power subservient to the Czar ; and especi-
ally slie ought to suffer in public repute for the
baneful effect produced at St Petersburg when the
Secretary of her Legation appeared at the solemn
thanksgivings which the Czar and his people
offered up to the Almighty for the sinking of the
ships and tlie slaughter of the Turks at Sinope.

There is also a fault of omission for which it
would seem tliat Austria is chargeable. The. in-
terests of Austria and England, both present and
remote, were so strictly the same, that for the
welfare of both States there ought to have been
going on between them a constant interchange of
friendly counsels. Our statesmen are accustomed
to proffer advice without stint to foreign States,
but it is remarkable that their frankness is not
much reciprocated by words of friendly counsel
from abroad. Yet there are times when such
counsels might be wholesome. It would surely
liave been well if Austria had advised the English
(government not to quit the safe, honest ground
held by the four Powers, for the sake of an adven-
ture with the new Bonaparte. There is no trace
of any such warnings from Vienna ; and indeed it

IX THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 135

would seem that Austria, tormented by the pres- chap.
eiice of the Russian forces on her southern frontier, ^^'
was more prone to encourage tlian to restrain the
imprudence of her old ally.

These were the faults with which Austria may in other
fairly be charged. In other respects she was not Austiiu
forgetful of her duty towards herself and towards iiei-auty.
Europe ; and it has been seen that, from the day
when tlie Czar crossed the Pruth down to the
time when he was obliged to relinquish his hold,
Austria persisted in taking the same view of the
dispute as was taken by the Western Powers, and
was never at all backward in her measures for the
deliverance of the Principalities.

In the nature and temperament of the King of share wiik-h
Prussia there was so much of weakness that his ii'caus'iDa'
Imperial brother-in-law was accustomed to speak
of him in terms of ruthless disdain ; and it seems
that this habit of looking down upon the King
caused the Czar to shape his policy simply as
though Prussia were null When he found his
Eoyal brother-in-law engaged against him in an
offensive and defensive alliance, he perhaps under-
stood the error which he had committed in assum-
ing that the policy of an enlightened and high-
spirited nation would be steadily subservient to
the weakness of its Sovereign ; but, until lie was
thus undeceived, or, at all events, until the failure
of Baron Budberg's mission in tlie beginning of
1854, he seems to have closed his eyes to all the
long series of public acts in which Prussia had
engaged, and to have cheated himself into the

13G CAUSES INVOLVING FKANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, belief tliat she would never take up sueli a ground
^^" as might enable Austria to act freely on her
southern frontier, and so drive him out of the
Principalities. And although, until after the
outbreak of the war between Paissia and the
Western Powers, Prussia did not at all hang
back,* it is nevertheless true that the Czar's
policy was shaped upon a knowledge of the
King's weak nature. Therefore the temperament
and mental quality of the Prussian monarch must
be reckoned among the causes of the war.

Prussia also, in the same degree as Austria,
must bear the kind of repute that was entailed
upon her by the conduct of her Secretary of Lega-
tion at St Petersburg, for he also sanctioned by liis
presence the thanksgivings oli'ered up for Sinope.
Another fault attributable to Prussia was her
invincible love of metaphysical or rather mere
verbal refinenients. When this form of human
error is brought into politics it chills all human
sympathies, and tends to bring a country into
contempt, by giving to its policy the bitter taste
of a theory or a doctrine, and so causing it to be
misunderstood. An instance of this vice was
given by the First jMinister of the Prussian Crown,
in a speech of great moment which he aildressed
to the Lower Chamber on the 18th of March 1854,
After an abundance of phrases of a pacilic tendency.
Baron ^Manteuffel said that Prussia was resolved
' faithfully to aid any menil)C!r of the Confedera-

• The state of Wiir began on the 19th of Jlarcli. Prussia
first began to bang back about tbe 21st of July. See ante.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 137

' tiou who, from liis geograpliical position, might chap.
* feel himself called upon sooner than Prussia to .

' draw the sword in defence of German interests.'
Now this, to the ear of any diplomatist, fore-
shadowed, or rather announced, an offensive and
defensive alliance with Austria against the Czar
for the delivery of the Principalities ; and accord-
ingly, tlie alliance so announced was actually con-
tracted by Prussia some four weeks afterwards.
But, iu the minds of the common public, a dis-
closure couched in this diplomatic phraseology
was smothered under the intolerable weight of the
pacific verbiage Avhich had gone before ; and the
result was, that a speech which announced a
measure of offence and hostility to Piussia was
looked upon as the disclosure of a halting, timid,
and worthless policy.

But, except upon the grounds here stated, there in ou.er
was no grave fault to find with tlie policy of pAllfs^
Prussia down to the outbreak of the war between herMuty.
the Czar and the Westein PoM'ers. Distant as
she was from the scene of the Czar's encroach-
ment, she was nevertheless compelled, as she
valued her hold upon the goodwill of Germany, to
be steadfast in hii)derin<4 Pussia from establishing
lierself in provinces which would give her the full
control of the Lower Danube ; and up to the
time of the final rupture, she always so accom-
modated her policy to the views of the Western
Powers as to be able to remain iu firm accord
with them, both as to the adjudication of the dis-
pute between Russia and Turkey, and as to the

138 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, principles wliich should guide the belligerents in
_i^_ the event of their being forced into a war by the
obstinacy of the Emperor Nicholas.

Of course the Czar's relinquishment of the
Principalities took away from Prussia, as well as
from Austria, her ground of complaint against the
Czar, and with it, her motive for action. Nor was
this all ; for by determining to quit the mainland
of Europe and make a descent upon a remote
maritime province of Eussia, the Western Powers
deprived themselves of all right to expect that
Austria and Prussia would favour a scheme of
invasion which they did not and could not ap-
prove. Down to the time when the Czar deter-
mined to repass the Pruth, the policy followed by
Prussia as well as by Austria was sound and loyal
towards Europe.
As aid also The German Confederation was brought into

the German . . a i • i -r> • i i.i

couf3dera- thc Same Views as Austria and Prussia ; and thus,
so long as the object in view was the deliverance
of the Principalities, the whole of Central Europe
was joined with the great Powers of the West in
a determination to repress the Czar's encroach-
ments. I repeat that the papers laid before
Parliament have not yet disclosed the ground on
whicli the English Government became discon-
tent with this vast union, and was led to contract
tliosc separate engagements with the Emperor
of the Erencli which ended by bringing on the
war.*

• TIii3 was published in 18C3, but writing now in 1876, I
inay still say tliat tlie blank remains ; the actual truth being

tiou.

IN THE WAR AGAINST RUSSIA. 139

The blaine of beginning the dispute which led chap,
on to the war must rest with the French Govern- '

inent ; for it is true, as our Foreign Secretary f,'e Fienc!'. ''
declared, that ' the Ambassador of France at Con- i^a.nJ,'caus'
' stantinople was the lirst to disturb the status '"'=''■'"' ^^'''"
' quo in which the matter rested ; and without
' political action on the part of France, the
' quarrels of the Churches would never have
* troubled the relations of friendly Towers.'* For
this offence against the tranquillity of Europe the
President of the liepublic was answerable in the
first instance ; but it must be remembered that at
the time France was under a free Parliamentary
Government ; and it is just, therefore, to acknow-
ledge that the blame of sanctioning the disinter-
ment of a forgotten treaty more than a hundred
years old, and of violently using it as an instru-
ment of disturbance, must be shared by an
Assembly which had not enough of the states-
man-like quality to be able to denounce a wanton
and noxious policy. It was the weakness of the
gifted statesmen and orators who then adorned
the Chambers that, like most of their countrymen,
they were too easily fascinated by the })leasure of
seeing France domineer.

But at the close of the year 1851, the France
known to Europe and the world was bereaved of

apparent!}' that the separate engagements with France were
either entered into quite wantonly, or else as means judged to
be needful for preventing the French Emperor fro!n tlirowing
himself into the arms of llussia.

* See 'Invasion of the Crimea,' vol. i. pp. 43 to 56 of Cabi-
net Edition.

140 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, political life ; and thenceforth her complex iuter-
■ ests iu the affairs of nations were so effectually

overruled by the exigency of personal considera-
tions, that in a little Avhile she was made to adopt
an Anglo-Turkish policy, and, as the price of this
concession to the views of our Foreign Office, the
venturers of the 2d of December were brought
under the sanctions of an alliance with the Queen
of England. It has been seen that, by super-
seding that conjoint action of the fo\ir Powers
which was the true safeguard of peace and justice,
the separate compact of the two became a main
cause of the appeal to arms. IMoreover, it has
been shown how, when once he bad entangled
J^ord Aberdeen's Government iu this understand-
ing, the French Fmperor gained so strong a hold
over it that he became able to guide and over-
rule the counsels of England even in the use to
be made of her IMediterranean fleet ; and Iiow
thenceforth, and from time to time, he so used
the English navy as well as his own, that at the
moments when the negotiations seemed ripe for
peace they were always defeated by an order sent
out to the Admirals. The real tendency of this
perturbing and dislocating course of action was
concealed by the moderation which characterised
the French despatches, and, in another and very
different way, by the demeanour of" the personage
who represented the French Government at St
Petersburg; so liiat, at the very times when Lord
Aberdeen was brought to consent to a hostile and
provoking use of our naval forces, lie was able

IN THE WAU AGAINST EUSSIA. 1 l I

to derive fatal comfort from tlic lanqiiage of chap.

XI

the French diplomacy; and, whenever the grave '

tone of Sir Hamilton Seymonr Avas beginning to
produce ■wholesome effect at St Petersburg, his
efforts wore quickly baffled by the prostrations of
his French colleague.*

It was thus that, by generating the oi'iginal dis-
pute— by drawing England from the common
ground of the four Powers into a separate under-
standing with himself — by causing a persistently
liostile use to he made of the ileets — and, finally,
by liis ambiguous ways of speaking and acting —
tlie Frencli Emperor came to have a chief share
in the kindling of the war.

The stake wdiich England holds in the world simrft whirii
makes it of deep moment to her to avert disorder iri"causing^
among nations; and, on the other hand, her in-
sular station in Europe, joined with the possession
of more than sufficing empire in other regions of
the world, keeps her clear of all thought of terri-

* For those wlio liave not hail ample means of becoming
acquainted with the donbleness which characterises the French
Emperor's liabits of action, it will be hard to believe in the
extent to which his Envoy at St Petersburg was suffered to
carry his adulation of the Czar. At the very time when the
French Emperor was pushing our Government into the adop-
tion of a measure of vengeance barely short of flagrant war,
his Envoy, M. Castelbajac, although lie could not actually
attend the public thanksgivings for Sinope in the Cathedral,
did nevertheless permit himself to wait on the Chancellor,
Count Nesselrode, and tender his congratulations for the
slaughter of the Turks at Sinope, and the sinking of their
ships. It is believed that he expressly desired to tender these
his congratulations to the Czar 'as a Christian, a soldier, and
' a gentleman.' — Note to ith Edition,

142 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CXI A P. torial aggrandisement in this quarter of the globe:

- '. And, although it is the duty of all the rest of the

great Powers as well as of England to endeavour
towards the maintenance of peace and order, yet,
inasmuch as there is no other great State without
some sort of lurking ambition which may lead
it into temptation, the fidelity of the Continental
guardians of the peace can always be brought into
question. Suspicions of this kind are often fanci-
ful, but the fears from M'hich they spring are too
well founded in the nature of things to be safely
regarded as frivolous ; and the result is, that the
great island Power is the one which, by the well-
informed statesmen of the Continent, is looked
to as the surest safeguard against wrong. Europe
leans, Europe rests, on this faith.

So, the moment it is made to appear that
for any reason England is disposed to abdicate,
or to suspend for a while, the performance of
her European duties, that moment the wrong-
doer sees his opportunity and begins to stir.
Thos^e who dread him, missing the accustomed
safeguard of England, turn whither they can
for help, and, failing better plans of safety,
they perhaps try hard to make terms with the
spoiler. ^Monarchs find that to conspire for gain
of territory, or to have other princes conspir-
ing against them, is the alternative presented to
tlicir choice. The system of Europe becomes de-
composed, and war follows. Therefore, exactly in
proportion as England values the peace of Europe,
she oufrht to abstain from cverv word and from

IN THE WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 113

every sign which tends to give the wrong-doer a chap.

hope of her acquiescence. _ .

This duty was not understood by the more ard-
ent friends of peace ; and they imagined that they
would serve their cause by entreating England to
abstain from every conflict which did not menace
her own shores — nay, even by permitting them-
selves to vow and declare that this was the policy
truly loved by the English race. Moreover, by
blending their praises of peace with fierce invec-
tive against public men, they easily drew applause
from assembled multitudes, and so caused the
foreigner to believe that they really spoke the
voice of a whole people, or at all events of great
masses, and that England was no longer a Power
which would interfere with spoliation in Europe.

The fatal eflect which this belief produced upon
the peace of Europe has been shown. But the
evil produced by the excesses of the Peace Party
did not end there. It is the nature of excesses to
beget excesses of strange complexion ; and just as a
too rigid sanctity has always been followed by a too
scandalous profligacy, so, by the law of reaction,
the doctrines of the Peace Party tended to bring
into violent life that keen warlike spirit which soon
became one of the main obstacles to the restora-
tion of tranquillity. Therefore England, it must
1)6 acknowledged, did much to bring on the war ;
first, by the want of moderation and prudence
with which she seemed to declare her attachment to
the cause of peace — and afterwards by the exceed-
injj eagerness with which she coveted the strife.

lit CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP. It was tlie plain duty of England to take part

'__ in preparing resistance to the encroachment of

the Czar ; and her errors lay — not in the object,
Ijut — in a choice of wrong means for attaining it ;
for she rejected the course of action which must
liave peacefully accomplished her purpose, and
adopted a turbulent plan distinctly leading to
war. In otlier words, she went wrong, because
she suffered herself to be drawn away from that
common ground taken up by the four Powers
which imparted a bloodless coercion of Eussia,
and adopted instead that separate understanding
with one of them which induced the appeal to
arms.

To distribute the blame attaching upon Eng-
land amongst her public men is not a very diffi-
cult task.

Loving peace, with a purity of motive and a
devotedness of heart which no man has ever
questioned, Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone
had the misfortune to remain members of a
Government which went out of the safe paths
of peace. They went wrong ; and, although it is
true they went wrong at a slow rate, they con-
tinued their deviation during a period of eight
months ; so that at last, to their grief and dismay,
they found they had been leading the country
into a cruel war. Deceived by the crude notion
that France and England, acting together, could
secure peace, they did not undeistand that the
way to maintain or restore the tranquillity of
Europe was to hold to tlic alliance of the four

IN THE WAR AGAINST IIUSSIA. 145

Powers, and to avoid impairing it liy a separate chap.
understanding with one of them. For want '

of this guiding principle, they always failed to
see the point at which they could make their
stand, and tliey never could choose the day on
which it would become them to retire from office
So they lingered on in a Cabinet which was,
becoming more and more warlike, and their
presence there was in two ways hurtful to the
cause of peace ; for even the more earnest friends
of peace were quieted by seeing that the trusty
champions of the cause M-ere still members of the
Government, and at last, when they could no
longer help seeing that this same Government
was going to a rupture with the Czar, the more
rational of them thought that there must really
be some great State necessity for a war in which
Lord Aberdeen and Mr Gladstone were reluc-
tantly engaging their country. Moreover, there
was a great and good portion of the community
Avho, retaining their theoretic disapproval of a
needless war, were nevertheless fired with a
secret longing for the clash of arms ; and these
men were relieved from the pain of a conflict
between duty and inclination by finding that
for the righteousness of the impending war
Lord Aberdeen and IMr Gladstone were their
sponsors.

It has been seen that, by his continuance in
oftice, Lord Aberdeen kept alive in the mind of
the Emperor Nicholas that dangerous notion which
has often been a source of European troubles

VOL. II. X

liG CAUSES I^■VOLVI^"G FKANCE Ax\D ENGLAND
CHAP. — the notion that England would not go to war;

■y I ^

, and tlie Czar's belief on this subject was so dear

to his heart, that perhaps nothing short of the
resignation of the Prime INIinister could have
undeceived him. Still, to a common observer, it
M'ould seem that some effort might have been
made to disperse his error ; and that, as tlie
danger was caused in great measure by the last-
ing effect of old impressions upon the mind of
the Emperor Nicholas, a special mission to St
Petersburg might have been usefully resorted to
as a means of rousing the Czar to a sense of
what might be expected from England. Nothing
of this kind was done ; nothing was done to
break the fatal smoothness of the incline.

But if the cause of peace was harmed by ill-
judging friends in the Cabinet, it was brought
to sheer ruin by the disqualification which our
country inflicted upon its popular leaders as the
punishment of their former excesses.

Mr Cobden and Mr Bright, as we have seen,
had shut themselves out from the counsels of
the nation. They were powerless. By their
indiscriminate denunciations of war in general,
they had destroyed the worth of any criticism
they could bring to bear upon the pending dis-
])ute. Their arguments, however well pruned
and shaped out to suit the occasion, were sure of
being treated by an English audience as the off-
spring of their doctrines ; and, their doctrines
being repudiated, they could make no good use
of their privilege of .'Speech. It was impossible

IX Till-: WAIl AGAINST RUSSIA. H7

to consult ■with them upon the question whether chap.

the country was bound in honour to take up '__

arms for the Sultan, because they had spent their
lives in teaching that the country could never be
bound in honour to take up arms for anybody.
If they had not thus disqualified themselves for
useful argument, they would surely have been
able to make a becoming stand against what
Count Nesselrode called ' the most unintelligible
' war ' ever known. But because they had been
extravagant before, therefore now they were nidi ;
and because they were null, the cause entrusted
to their hands was brought to destruction.

The Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen was answerable
for the strange course of action which brought
England to cast aside the blessings ensured by
the xmanimity of the four Powers for tlie sake of
what might be hoped from a separate understand-
ing with France ; and although it is true that
this policy, because novel, rash, and adventurous,
was highly approved by our people then glowing
Avith warlike ardour, and seeking for fields of
enterprise, one never ought to allow that in
questions of high policy, the complicity of the
public has power to absolve. A minister who has
fashioned out a new policy leading his coun-
try into a war ought to be able to show — not
necessarily that the policy was a wise one (for
man is of an erring nature), but— that at the
time of its adoption there were better grounds
than its mere popularity for believing it to be
right. That some such grounds exist may be

118 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, faii'lv imagined by those who have heard of the
XI . ^ .

' ability and the varied experience of the mem-
bers of Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet ; but hither-
to, so far as I know, these grounds have not
been disclosed.

Apart from the general policy of quitting the
concord of the Four Powers for the sake of a war-
like alliance with Louis Napoleon, blame attaches
in a more special form upon Lord Aberdeen's
Cabinet for yielding up its own better judgment
under pressure from the French Government, and
consenting to those hostile movements of the
Allied fleets which baffled the patient labours of
diplomacy, and twice rekindled the strife. "When
the warlike spirit in England had once arisen, the
French Emperor knew that he could at any
moment subject Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet to an
access of popular disfavour by causing or alloM'-
ing it to appear in England that the Government
of the Queen was less eager than himself in the
defence of the Sultan ; and it is true, therefore,
that although the hand which touched the lever
was foreign, the instrument of pressure was Eng-
lish. It is probably true, also, that the pressure
was never inflicted without the consent of at least
one great English Statesman. Still, because tliis
facile yielding to the Frencli Emperor in the
use of naval forces was popular, or rather was a
means of avoiding unpopularity, the propriety
of it is not the less in question. It is possible,
however, that the hitlicrlo unknown grounds on
which the separate understanding with France

IN THE WAU AGAINST RUSSIA. 1-19

may come to be defemled, will extend to justify cnAi».

the plan of deferring in naval transactions to the .

]Mnperor of the French, and consenting at his
instance to make our fleet an instrument for the
disturbance of tlie pending negotiations.

In so far as concerns the general policy of the
Government in these transactions, the merits of
Lord Clarendon must be tried, of course, by the
tests applicable to the whole body of the Cabinet;
but it has been seen that, personally, he was not
blind to the danger of allowing the Czar to con-
tinue in his belief of England's insuperable peace-
fulness ; and that his firm, wholesome words had
already flown off towards St Petersburg, when
unhappily they were arrested and revoked at the
instance of Lord Aberdeen. Lord Claiendon's
despatches were Avritten with so much of grace
and vigour, and in a tone so fair and manly, that •
any one who is familiar with them will under-
stand something of the process by which the
Prime jNliuister was from time to time forced into
what may be called 'a one b}^ one approval' of
these able writings, and in that way hindered
from finding the happy moment in which he
could establish his divergence from the govern-
ins minds of the Cabinet, and effect his retreat
from office.

Lookinf? back upon the troubles which ended in The voii-

, , „ , . , n , tinnsubi.-h

the outbreak of war, one sees the nations at first govum.a

evcuU.

swaying backward and forward like a throng so
vast as to be helpless, but afterwards fidling slow-
ly into warlike array. And M'hen one begins to

150 CAUSES INVOLVING FRANCE AND ENGLAND

CHAP, search for the man or the men whose volition was
, governing the crowd, the e3-e falls npon the tower-

ing form of the Emperor Nicholas. He was not
single-minded, and therefore his will was unstable,
but it had a huge force ; and since he was armed
with the whole authority of his Empire, it seemed
plain that it was this man, and only he, who was
bringing danger from the North. And at first,
too, it seemed that within his range of action
there was none who could be his equal ; but in a
little while the looks of men were turned to the
Bosphorus, for thither the Czar's ancient adver-
sary was slowly bending his way. To fit him for
the encounter, the Englishman was clothed with
little authority except what he could draw from
the resources of his own mind and from the
strength of his own wilful nature. Yet it was

O

presently seen that those who were near him fell
under his dominion, and did as he bade them, and
that the circle of deference to his will was always
increasing around him ; and soon it appeared that
though he moved gently, he began to have mas-
tery over a foe who was consuming his strength in
mere anger. When he had conquered, he stood,
as it were, with folded arms, and seemed willing
to desist from strife. But also in the West there
had been seen a knot of men possessed, for the
time, of the mighty engine of the French State,
and striving so to use it as to be able to keep their
hold, and to shelter themselves from a cruel fate.
The volitions of these men were active enough,
because they were toiling for their lives. Their

I\ THE WWi AGAINST liUSSIA. 151

efforts seemed to interest and to [)lease the lusti-
est man of those days, for he watched them from
over the Channel with approving smile, and began
to declare, in his good-humoured, boisterous way,
that so long as they should be suffered to have
the handling of France, so long as they would
execute for him his policy, so long as they would
take care not to deceive liim, they ought to be
encouraged, they ought to be made use of, they
ought to have tlie shelter they wanted ; and, the
Trenchmen agreeing to liis conditions, he was
willing to level the barrier — he called it, perhaps,
i'alse pride— which divided the Government of the
Queen fioni the venturers of the 2d of December.
In this thought, at the moment, he stood almost
alone ; but he abided his time. At length he saw
the spring of 1853, bringing with it grave peril to
the Ottoman State. Then, throwing aside with a
laugh some papers which belonged to the Home
Office, be gave his strong shoulder to the levelling
work. Under the weight of his touch the barrier
fell. Thenceforth the hindrances that met him
were but slight. As he from the first had willed
it, so moved the two great nations of the West.

CHAP.
XL

152 TKANSACriOi4S

lish armies.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAP. When it had been resolved that the Fi'euch
' and the English forces already despatched to the
n.am'iers'of East sliould Lc raiscd to a strength which might
and theEng- enable them to be more than auxiliary to the
defence of the Turkish dominions, the Erench
Emperor named an officer to the command of his
army in the field, and the General wlio was to
have charge of the Queen's land-forces had already
been chosen. It seems right for me now to say
something of tliese two commanders ; and, the
better to make each of them known, I am will-
ing to speak of some of the transactions which
brought tliem together between the time of their
meeting in Paris and the day when they received
their instructions for the invasion of the Crimea.
Marshal Tlic ofliccr entrusted with the command of the

French Army in tlie East was a INIarslial of
France, and was the person before spoken of who
liad changed his name from Le Eoy to 'St
• Arnaud,' and from James to 'Achilles.' He
impersonated with singular exactness the idea
which our forefathers had in their minds wlien

tit Arnaud.

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 153

they spoke of wliat they called ' a Freuchmuu ; ' chap.

for although (by cowing the rich, and by filling . 1_

the poor with envy) the great French Eevolutiou
had thrown a lasting gloom on the national char-
acter, it left this one man untouched. lie was
bold, gay, reckless, and vain; but beneath the
mere glitter of the surface there was a great
capacity for administrative business, and a more
than common willingness to take away human
life. In Algerine warfare he had proved himself
from the first an active, enterprising officer, and
in later years a brisk commander. He was
skilled in the duties of a military governor, know-
ing how to hold tight under martial law a con-
quered or a half-conquered province. The empire
of his mind over his actions was so often inter-
rupted by bodily pain and weakness, that it is
hard to say whether, if he had been gifted with
health, he would have been a firm, steadfast man ;
but he had violent energies, and a spirit so elastic
that, when for any interval the pressure of misery
or of bodily pain was lifted off, he seemed as
strong and as joyous as though he had never been
crushed, lie chose to subordinate the lives and
the rights of other men to his own advancement ;
therefore he was ruthless, but not in any other
sense cruel. No one, as he himself said, could be
more good-natured. In the intervals between the
grave deeds that he did, he danced and sung.
To men in authority, no less than to women, he
paid court vv^ith flattering stanzas and songs. He
had extraordinary activity of body, and was

154 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, highly skilled in the performance of gymnastic

L_ feats ; he played the violin ; and, as though he

were resolved in all things to be the Frenchman
of the old time, there was once at least in his life
a time of depression, when (to the astonishment
of the good priest, who fell on his knees and
thanked God as for a miracle wrought) he knelt
down and confessed himself, seeking comfort and
absolution from his Church.

He went through more than one career in the
army, first entering it in 1816 as a sub-lieutenant
of the Eoyal Guard, but soon plunging into a
course of life which was of such a kind as to
cause him to cease from being an officer. He
kept away from France for many years, and
became acquainted with several languages. For
a long time he was in England, and he spoke our
language very well ; but in later years he was
accustomed to be silent in regard to the time of
his exile, and there is no need to lift the veil
which he threw over this part of his life.

When the Revolution of 1830 broke out, he
returned to Fiance, and being then thirty-three
years of age, he again entered the French army
as a sub-lieutenant. He wrote some stanzas to
iMeunier, and gained a step by it. ' Tell me, after
' that,' said he, ' that songs are good for nothing ! '
His next enterprise was in prose. It chanced
that Bugeaud, then the General in command of
the district, had printed a small military work on
the camping of troops. St Arnauil or Le Ivoy (for
the time of the change of name is not certain)

PIIECEDIXG THE INVASION. 155

translated the Look into several languages, and chap.

presented the fruit of his labour, with, no doubt, 1_

an appropriate letter of dedication, to the General.
Bugeaud was pleased ; and from that time until
his deatJi he never lost sight of the judicious
translator. St Arnaud was immediately put upon
tlie General's staff", and soon became one of his
aides-de-camp. When the Duchess of Berri fell
a prisoner into the hands of the Government, M.
St Arnaud, whose regiment was on duty at the
place of her detention, found means to make him-
self useful to the Government without incurring
the dislike of his captive ; and he seemed to be
in a fair road to promotion. But again the clouds
passed over him.*

In 1836, being then near forty years of age, he
began yet another career by entering the 'Foreign
' Legion,' then serving in Algeria, with the rank
of lieutenant. Every man of the corps, St Arnaud
said, had passed through a wild youth ;f but
with comrades of that quality a man might enter-
tain better hopes of regaining renown than with
a mere French regiment of the line; and St
Arnaud at this time made a strong resolve. He
said, ' I will be remarkable, or die.' And he re-

* It must not be inferred that in tlie interval between Sep-
tember 1835 and November 1836 his name was (for the second
time) out of the Army List. lie seems to have been employed
at that time in the ' Gj-miiase Militaire ' (' Lettres du Marechal
de St Arnaud,' vol. i. p. 9'2).

t 'Jeunesse orageuse.' I translate this by the words, 'wild
' youth ; ' but I believe the phrase, in the mouths of Frenchmen,
generally implies that the things done by the person spoken o{
are of a less venial kind than mv translation would imjily

156 TRANSACTIONS

maiued so faithiul to tliis his covenant with him-
self, that even by acute illness he could uot be
kept out of action. When he lay upon the sick-
bed, if it chanced that the Arabs or the Kabyles
were offering any prospect of a fight upon ground
within reach of the hospital, he almost always
managed to drag his helpless, tortured body
towards the scene of the conflict ; and this lie
would do, not with an idea of being able to take
an active part, but simply in order that the list of
officers present might not fail to comprise his
name. At the storming of Constantine, however,
he really helped to govern the event ; for when
a great explosion took place, and many were
l)lown into the air, the French soldiers ran back
with a cry that all was ruined ; but Bedeau and
Combes, withstanding the madness of the common
terror, strove hard to rally the crowd ; and St
Arnaud having with him in his company of the
Legion some bold reckless outcasts of the North,
he bethought him of the shout, very strange to
the ears of Frenchmen, wliich he had heard in
other climes. Skilled in the art of imitation, he
uttered the warlike cr3^ Instantly from the
Northmen around him, Mhether Germans, or
Swedes, or Englisli, Scots, Irisli, or Danes, there
sprang their native ' Hurrah ! ' and with it came
the thronging of men who must and would go
forward. It was mainly the torrent of this new
onslaught by St Arnaud and liis men of the
'stormy youlli' whicli carried the breach, and
brought about tlie full of tlie city.

PKECEDING THE INVASION. ' 157

Even if, for tlie rccruitim/ of Lis Iicaltli, lie ciiAr

• • -I XII
were passing a few weeks of holiday in France, L

lie would still seek personal distinction with a
singular strength of will. If, for instance, there
chanced to be a fire at night, he would lly to the
spot, would scale the ladders, mount the roof
and contrive to appear aloft in seeming peril, dis-
played to a wondering crowd by the lurid glare of
tlie flames. Then he would disappear, and then
suddenly he would be seen again suspended in the
air, and passing athwart the sky that divided one
roof from another by the help of a rope or a pole.
In the early part of his service in Algeria, his old
patron, General Bugeaud, was in command there,
and was still a warm friend to him. Of course
this circumstance helped to open a path for him ;
and the result was that, first by acts of bi'avcry
and vigour, and then by a display of administra-
tive ability, the all but desperate lieutenant of
the Foreign Legion rose in eight years to be
entrusted with a General's command.* In 1845
he commanded in the valley of the Chelif ; and
he was so dire a scourge to the neighbouring
tribes, that the force which obeyed his orders was
called the 'Infernal Column.'

When first I saw him in that year he was mov-
ing with his force to wreak vengeance on a revolted
tribe, and he was to march five weeks deep into
the desert. He spoke with luminous force, and
with a charming animation ; and it seemed to me,
us we rode along by the side of the heavy-laden

* But up to that time witli the rank of Colonel only.

158 TRANSACTIONS - ..

CHAP, soldiery, that the clear incisive words in which he

XII

' described to me the mechanism of the ' movable
' column/ were a model of military diction ; but
his keen, handsome, eager features so kindled
with the mere stir and pomp of war — he seemed
so to love the swift going and coming of his aides-
de-camp, and the rolling drums, and the joyful
appeal of the bugles — he was so content with the
gleam of his epaulettes, half-hidden and half-re-
vealed by the graceful white cabaan — so happy in
the bounding pride of his Arab charger — that lie
did not seem like a man destined to be chosen
from out of all others as the instrument of a
scheme requiring grave care and secrecy. Yet of
secrecy he was most capable ; and at that very
time he had upon his mind,* and was concealing,
not from me only (for that would be only natural),
but from every oiHcer and man around him, a deed
of such a kind that few men perhaps have ever
done the like of it in secret.

We saw that, before the December of 1851, the
enterprising and resolute Fleury was in Algeria,
seeking out a fit African officer, who would take
the post of JVIinister of War, with a view of join-
ing the President in his plans for the overthrow
of the Republic. ^Tonsieur St Arnaud formerly
Le Roy had not so lived as to occasion any diffi-
culty in approaching him with dishonouring pro-
posals ; and there was ground for inferring that

* Tlic act here alluih.'il to is spoken of fuithcr on. It took
jilacc aljont six weeks before the time when I first saw Colonel
St Arnaud.

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 159

he might prove equal to the task which was to chap.

be set before him. The able administrator of a 1_

great district in Algeria might be competent to
head a department. The commander of the ' In-
' fernal Column ' was not likely to be wanting in
the ruthlessness which was needed ; and if his
vanity made it seem doubtful whether he was a
man who could keep a secret, there was a confi-
dential paper in existence which might tend to
allay the fear.

St Arnaud had warmly approved the destruc-
tion of life which had been effected in 1844 by
filling with smoke the crowded caves of the Dahra ;
but he had sagaciously observed that the popular-
ity of the measure in Europe was not co-extensive
with the approbation which seems to have been
bestowed upon its author by the military author-
ities. These counter-views guided M. St Arnaud.
In the summer of 1845 he received private infor-
mation that a body of Arabs had taken i-efuge in
the cave of Shelas. Thither he marched a body
of troops. Eleven of the fugitives came out and
surrendered ; but it was known to St Arnaud,
though not to any other Frenchman, that five
hundred men remained in the cave. All these
people Colonel St Arnaud determined to kill, and
so far, he perhaps felt that he was only an imitator
of Pelissier ; * but the resolve which accompanied
the formation of this scheme was original. He

* It is believed, however, that Pelissier left open some of the
entrances to the cave, and that he only resorted to the smoke a?
a means of compelling tlie fugitives to come out and surrender.

IGO TRANSACTIONS

CHAT, determined to keep the deed secret even from the

XII

; troops engaged in the operation. Except his hro-

tlier, and INIarshal Ikigeaud, whose approval Avas
tlie prize he sought for, no one was to know what
he did. He contrived to execute both his pur-
poses. ' Then/ ho writes to his brother, ' I liad

* all the apertures hermetically stopped up. I
' made one vast sepulchre. No one went into the
' caverns ; no one but myself knew that under
' there, there are five hundred bricrands who will
' never again slaughter Frenchmen. A confiden-
' tial report has told all to the Marshal, without
' terrible poetry or imagery. Brother, no one is so
' good as I am by taste and by nature. From the
' 8th to the 12th I have been ill, but my con-
' science does not reproacli me. I have done my
' duty as a commander, and to-morrow I would do
' the same over again ; but I have taken a disgust

* to Africa.' *

The officer who could cause French soldiery
to be the unconscious instruments for putting to
death five Imndred fugitive men, and who could
afterwards keep concealed from the whole force
all knowledge of wliat it liad done, was likely to
be tlie very persoii for whom Fleury was seeking.
He was brouglit back to Paris, and made IMinister
of War, with a view to the great plot of the 2d
of December. France knows liow well, sooner or
later, he answered to Fleury'.s best hopes. He
kopt liis counsel close until tlio appointed night,

• St Aruan'l's Letters, puMislicd 1>)- his lelntives aft<^r his
do.ith.

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 161

and then (whatever faltering there may have been CH AP.

between midnight and three in the morning) he was L.

out in time for the deed ; and before the daylight
came he had stabbed France through in her sleep.
Amongst men who make a great capture, there
Avill often spring up questions concerning the
division of the spoil. When he helped to make
prize of France, St Arnaud of course got much;
but his wants were vast, and he had earned a
clear right to extort from his chief accomplice,
and to go back again, and again, and yet again,
with the terrible demand for ' more ! ' He was
in such a condition of health as to be unfit to
command an army in the field ; for although, dur-
ing intervals, he was free from pain and glowing
with energy, he was from time to time utterly
cast down by his recurring malady. It is pos-
sible that, notwithstanding his bodily state, he may
have sincerely longed to have the command of an
army in a European campaign ; but whether he
thus longed or not, he unquestionably said that
he did ; and the French Emperor took him at his
word, consenting, as was very natural, that his
dangerous, insatiate friend should have a com-
mand which would take him into the country
of the Lower Danube. Apparently it was not
believed that, in point of warlike skill, M. St
Arnaud was well fitted to the command ; for the
French Emperor, as will l)e seen, resorted to the
plan of surrounding him with men who were vir-
tually empowered to guide him witli their over-
ruling counsels.

VOL. ii. L

162 TRANSACTIONS

u H A P. To try to understand the relations between the

XII
. 1_ allied Generals of France and England, with-
out knowing something of the repute in which
Marshal St Arnaud was held by his fellow-
countrymen, would be to go blindfold; and a
narrator keeping silence on this subject woidd
be hiding a fact which belongs to history, and
a fact, too, which is one of deep moment, and
fruitful of lessons. Paris stripped of the weapons
which kill the body, and robbed of her appeal
to honest print, was more than ever pitiless with
the tongue; and M. St Arnaud being laid open
by the tenor of the life that he had led, his
reputation fell a prey to cruel speech. The
people of the capital knew of no crime too vile
to be imputed to the new Marshal of France now
entrusted with the command of her army in the
field. Yet, so far as I know, they failed to
make out that he had ever been convicted, or
even arrested, on a criminal charge; and when
I look at the affectionate correspondence which
almost through his life M. St Arnaud seems to
have maintained with his near relatives, 1 am
led to imagine that they at least — and they would
have been likely to know something of the truth
— could have hardly believed his worst errors to
be errors of the more dishonouring sort. There-
fore there is ground for .surmising that the Marshal
was a man slandered. ]]nt in those times the
chief defence against slanders upon public men
is to be found in the award that results from free
printing; and the right of free printing in France

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 103

Marshal St Arnaud, with his own midnight hand, chap,

liad stealthily helped to destroy. Whether he !_

was a man bitterly wronged by his fellow-country-
men, or whether what he suffered was mere
justice, the state of his repute in the spring
of 1854 is a thing lying within the reach of
historical certainty. He had an ill name.

But State policy is a shameless leveller — is a
leveller of even that difficult steep which seems
to divide the man of high honour from those of
mean repute. The plotters of the 2d of December
had overturned the social structure of France.
They had stifled men's minds, and had made
their eloquence mute. They had forced those
who were of high estate by character, or by
intellect, or by birth, or by honourable wealth,
to endure to see France handled at will by persons
of no account, and to submit to be governed by
tliem, and to pay taxes into their hands, and to
maintain them in luxury, and in all so much of
pomp as can be copied from the splendour of
kings. The new Emperor could not but know
that he was breaking down yet another of the
world's barriers, and was carrying subversion
across the Channel, when he contrived that all
Europe should see him presenting his fellow-
\enturer of the December night to the appointed
commander of an English army.

But when he knew mIio the English General
was to be, he might well give the rein to his
cynic joy. fie could have been sure that the
General placed in command of our armv would

1G4 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, be an officer of unsullied name ; but he who had

XII.

been chosen was one whose life was mixed with

history — the friend, the companion of WellingtoiL
It is true this Englishman was known to be very
simple, very careless of self — a man hardly cap-
able of imagining that he could be humbled
by obeying the orders of his sovereign ; and it is
true also that the mass of the English people,
being eager in the war, and little used to lay
stress, as the French do, on the impersonation
of a principle, were blind to the moral import of
what their Government was doing. But the
French Emperor understood England ; and he
remembered that his coming guest was one of
a great and powerful body of nobles, who were
proud on behalf of this favourite member of
their class, and fenced him round with honour.
Eor the levelling of these heights, and for the
bringing down of those in Europe who were tall
with the pride which sustains man's old strife
between good and evil, no dreamer could dream
of a solenmisation more signal than the coming
together of Marshal Le Roy St Arnaud, and
him whom old friends still called Lord Fitzroy
Somerset. The French Emperor knew that the
mind of Germany and France would be swift to
interpret this public contact, and would see in it
the terms of a great surrender.
LorJ I conceive that in these latter times the scale

Kaglaii.

upon which we measure warlike prowess has
been brought down too low by the custom of
awarding wild violent praise to the common

PRECEDING TlIK INVASION. 165

peri'onnauce of duty, and even now and then chap,
to actual misfeasance; so, if I keep from this "
path, it is not because I think coldly of our
army or our navy, but because I desire — as I
am very sure our best officers do — that we should
return to our ancient and more severe standard
of excellence. There is another reason which
moves me in the same direction. Not only is
the utterance of mere praise a lazy and futile
method of attempting to do justice to worthy
deeds, but it even intercepts the honest growth
of a man's renown by serving as a contrivance
for avoiding that labour of narration upon which,
for the most part, all lasting fame must rest.

Too often the repute of a soldier who has done
some heroic act is dealt with by a formal report
declaring that he has been ' brave,' or ' gallant,'
or ' has conducted himself to the perfect satis-
' faction of his commanding officer.' The cheap
sugared words are quickly forgotten, and nothing
remains ; whereas, if his countrymen were told,
not of the mere conclusion that a man had done
bravely, but of the very deed from which the
inference was drawn, the story, however simple,
might dwell perhaps in their minds, and they
might tell it to their children, and the soldier
would have his fame. Now, this history will
virtually embrace the whole of the short period
in which Lord Raglan's quality as a General was
tried : and it seems to me, therefore, that if in
narrating what happened I can reach to near the
truth; if I give honest samples of what our

IGG TRANSACTIONS

CHAP. General said, and of what he wrote — of his

XII
^ manner of oommancling men, and his way of

maintaining an alliance ; if I show liow he dealt
with armies in the hour of battle, and how he
comported himself in times of heavy trial, — his
true nature, with its strength and with its human
failings, will be so far brought to light that I may
be dispensed from the need of striving to portray
it ; and, contenting myself with speaking of some
of the mere outward and visible signs which
showed upon the surface, may leave it to his
countrymen to ascend, by the knowledge of what
he did, to the knowledge of what he was. Where
I think Lord Raglan's measures were right, I
suppose I sliall allow my belief to appear ; and
where I tliink they were wrong, I shall be likely
to speak with an equal freedom : but it is not for
me, who am no soldier, to undertake to compute
the great account between the English people and
a General wlio commanded their Queen's army in
the field. Still, it must be remembered that the
less T take upon myself in this regard, the graver
will be the task of those who read. When the
countrymen of Lord Raglan shall believe that
they have in their hands sufficing means of know-
ledge, they will pass judgment, — not, as I should,
with the slender authority of a single bystander,
but with the weight of an honest nation, in time
of calm, judging (iinily, yet not ungenerously, the
career of a public servant.

Lord Fitzroy Somerset, afterwards I^rd Raglan,
was a vounger son of the fifth l^iiko of Beaufort,

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 167

and of a dauuhter of Admiral Boscaweu. He was chap.

XII

born iu 1788. He entered the army in 1804. _
In 1808, Sir Arthur Wellesley, upon sailing
for Portugal, attached the young Lord Fitzroy
Somerset to his staff;* and during his career
in the Peninsula he kept him close to his side
first as his aide-de-camp, and then as military
secretary. Between the time of the first restora-
tion of the Bourbons in 1814, and the Hight of
Louis XVIII. in the spring of the following year.
Lord Fitzroy Somerset was secretary of the Em-
bassy at Paris. It was during this interval of
peace that he married Emily Wellesley, a daugh-
ter of the third Earl of Mornington, and a niece
of the Duke of Wellington. When the war was
renewed, he again became military secretary and
aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington, and
served with him in his last campaign. At Water-
loo— he was riding at the time near the farm of
La Haie Saintc — he lost his right arm from a
shot. But he quickly gained a great facility of
writing with his left hand ; and, the war being
ended, he resumed his function as secretary of
Embassy at Paris There he remained until 1819.
He then returned to England, and became sec-
retary to the Master-General of the Ordnance.
In 1825 he went with the Duke of Wellington to
St Petersburg as secretary of h^mbassy. In 1827

* Lord Fitzroy Somorsut was not introduced to Sir Arthur
Wellesley until just as lie was startiiit,' for the Peninsula. Sii
Arthur Wellesley and Lord Fitzroy Somerset sailed in the same
shiis and they worked together at the Spani.sh language.

168 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, he was appoiuted military secretary to the Com-

If Tf

;_ mander-in-Chief at the Horse Guards, and there

he remained until the death of the Duke of
Wellington in 1852, After that event he was
made Master-General of the Ordnance, was ap-
pointed a Privy Councillor, and raised to the peer-
age. In February 1854 he became a full General.
Thus, from his very boyhood until the autumn
of 1852, Lord Fitzroy Somerset had passed his
life under the immediate guidance of the Duke
of Wellington. The gain was not without its
drawback ; for in proportion as the great Duke's
comprehensive grasp and prodigious power ol
work made him independent and self-sufiicing,
his subordinates were of course relieved from the
necessity, and even shut out from the opportu-
nity, of thinking for themselves ; but still, to
have been in the close presence and intimacy ol
Wellington from the very rising of his fame in
Europe — to have toiled at the desk where the
immortal despatches were penned — to have rid-
den at his side and carried his orders in all the
great campaigns — and then, when peace returned,
to have engaged in the labours of diplomacy and
military administration under the auspices of the
same commanding mind, — all this was to have a
wealth of experience which common times can-
not give.

But for more than thirty years of his life Lord
Eaglan had been administering the cuirent busi-
ness of military offices in peace-time, and tliis is a
kind of experience which, if it be very long pro-

PRKCEDING THE INVASION. 1G9

traeted, is far from being a good preparative for chap.

the coininand of an army in the held ; because ^

a military office in time of peace is impelled by
its very constitution to aim at uniformity ; and,
on the other hand, the genius of war abhors
uniformity, and tramples upon forms and re-
gulations.

An armed force is a means to an end — the end is
victory over enemies ; and this is to be achieved,
partly indeed by a due use of discipline and
method, but partly also by keeping alive in those
who may come to have command, a knowledge
and love of war, and by cherishing that unla-
belled, undocketed state of mind which shall
enable a man to encounter the unknown. In
England, however, and in mosf of the great
States of Europe, the end had been so much for-
gotten in pursuit of the means, and the industry
exerted in the regulation of troops in peace-time
had become so foreign to the business of war,
that the more a man was militaiy in the nar-
rowed sense of the term, the less he was likely to
be fitted for the perturbing exigencies of a cam-
paign. In one country this singular perversity
of busy, ' cold, formal man,' had been carried so
far, that an army and a war had been actually
treated as things antagonistic the one to the
other ; for the late Grand Duke Constantine of
Eussia once declared that he dreaded a war,
because he was sure it would spoil the troops,
which, with ceaseless care and labour, he had
striven to bring to perfection.

170 TRANSACTIONS

OH A P. It is to be observed also, that partly from the
— —i — way in which our military system was framed,
and partly from political causes, the sympathy
which England ought ever to liave with her
troops had been materially lessened after the
first few years of the peace. The Duke of "Wel-
lington, dreading lest our forces should be dan-
gerously reduced by the House of Commons,
made it his policy to withdraw the arniy as much
as possible from public observation. This method
had tended still further to dissociate the country
from its armed defenders : but naturally the
Duke of Wellington's view was law ; and it be-
came the duty of those who were employed in
the military administration, not to cause the
country to practise itself heartily for the eventu-
ality of anotlier war, but simply to maintain, as
far as they could, a monotonous quiet in the aimy.
For half a lifetime Lord Fitzroy Somerset was
engaged in preventing and allaying discussion,
and making the wheels of office run smooth.
Against the baneful effect of this sort of experi-
ence, and against the habit of mind which it
tended to generate, Lord IJaglan had to combat
with all the fire and strength of his nature.

Wlien Lord liaglan was appointed to the com-
mand he was sixty-six years old. But although
there were intervals when a sudden relaxation of
the muscles of the face used to show ihe impress
of time, those moments were few ; and, in general,
his well-braced features, his wakeful attention,
his uncommon swiftness of thought, his upright

PRECEDING THH liNVASION. 171

manly carriage, and liis easy scat on horseback, chap.

made him look the same as a man in the strong !l .

mid-season of life.

He had one peculiarity which, although it went
near to being a foible, was likely to give smooth-
ness to his relations with the French. Beyond
and apart from a just contempt for mere display,
he had a strange hatred of the outward signs and
tokens of military energy. Versed of old in real
war, he knew that tlie clatter of a General briskly
galloping hither and thither with staff and order-
lies did not of necessity imply any momentous
resolve, — that the aides-de-camp, swiftly shot oft'
by a word like arrows from a bow, were no sure
signs of despatch or decisive action ; and because
such outward signs might mean little, he shrank
from them more than was right. He would have
liked, if it liad been possible, that he and his
army should have glided unnoticed from the
banks of the Thames to their position in the
battle-field. It was certain, therefore, that al-
though a French General would be sure to find
himself checked in any really hurtful attempt lo
encroach upon the just station of the British army,
yet that if, as was not unnatural, he should evince
a desire for personal prominence, he would find
no rival in Lord Eaglan until he reached the
enemy's presence.

He was gifted with a diction very apt for
public business, and of ft kind rarely found in
Englishmen ; for though it was so easy as to be
just wliat men like in the intercourse of private

172 TKANiSACTlONS

CHAP, friendship, it was still so constructed as to be fit
_ • for the ear of all the world ; and whether he
spoke or whether he wrote — wliether he used the
French tongue or his own clear, graceful English
— it seemed that there had come from him the
very words which were the best and no more. It
was so natural to him to be prudent in speech,
that he avoided dangerous utterance without
seeming cautious or reserved.

He had the subtle power to draw men along
with him. To say that he was persuasive might
mean that he could adduce reasons which tended
to bring men to his views. His was a power of
another sort, for without pressure of argument,
his mind by its mere impact broke down resist-
ance for the moment; and although the easy
graciousness of his manner quickly set people
free from all awkward constraint, it did not so
liberate men's minds that, whilst they were still
in his presence, they at all liked the duty of try-
ing to uphold their own opinions against him.
This dominion, however, was in a great degree
dependent upon his actual personal presence ; for,
with all the power and grace of his pen, he could
not, at a distance, work effects proportioned to
those which he wrought when he dealt with men
face to face.

It is plain that, in one respect, his empire over
those who were in his presence was of a kind
likely to become dangerous to him in the com-
mand of an army, because it prevented men from
differing from him, and even made them shrink

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 173

from conveying to him an unwelcome trutli. chap.

Indeed, after the death of the Duke of Welling- L

ton, the proudest Englishman, if only he had
intellect and a little knowledge of his country's
latter history, had generally the grace to under-
stand that, unless he too were a soldier who had
taken his orders from the lips of Sir Arthur
Wellesley, he could hardly be the equal of one
whose mere presence was a record of England's
great days. Thence it followed that, without pre-
tension on the one side or servility on the other,
men who were with him had a tendency to become
courtiers. It was in vain that, so far as it had to
do with their personal contentment, his manner
placed men at their ease ; there was some quality
in him, or else some outward circumstance — it
was partly, perhaps, the historic appeal of his
maimed sword-arm — which was always enforcing
remembrance, and preventing his fusion with
other men.

In truth, Lord Eaglan's manner was of such a
kind as to be, not simply ornament, but a real
engine of power. It swayed events. There was
no mere gloss in it. By some gift of imagination
he divined the feelings of all sorts and conditions
of men ; and whether he talked to a statesman or
a schoolboy, his hearer went away captive. I
knew a shy, thoughtful, seniutive youth, just
gazetted to a regiment of the Guards, who had to
render his visit of thanks to the military secretary
at the Horse Guards. He went in trepidation ;
he came back radiant with joy and wholesome

174 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, confidence. Lord Fitzroy, instead of receiving
' • him in solemn form and ceremony, had walked
forward to meet him, had put his hand kindly on
the boy's shoulder, and had said a few words so
cheering, so interesting, and so free from the vice
of being commonplace, that the impression clung
to the lad, shaping his career for years, and
helped to make him the man he was when he was
out with his battalion in the winter of the first
campaign.* From the same presence the fore-
most statesman of the time once came away
saying, that the man in England most fitted by
nature to be at the head of the Government was
Lord Fitzroy Somerset; and he who so judged
was himself a Prime Minister.
Marshal St The euemies of the Imperial Government in
Lord" Raglan Fraucc had loug made it a reproach against the

brought to- ... . 1 ,,.

getheratthe En^Hsli that tliev wcrc loinm" ni close alliance

Tuileries. ° ./ ii o

with the midnight destroyers of law and freedom ;
but when Lord liaglan came to Paris — when he
went to the Tuileries— when he was presented by
the Emperor to INIarslial St Arnaud, — the notion
that such things could be was a very torment to
those of the Parisian malcontents who chanced
to know something of tlie English General : —
'You Englisli are a robust, stirring people, and
' perhaps every man of you imagines that he
' covers himself with dignity and grandeur by
' trampling upon the feelings of the rest of

• The young ofiicer licre iilliuU'd to is no more, and I may
venture to name liim — Alexander Mitelidl of Stow, who served
iu the Grcnndier fJuards.

PRECEDING THE INVASION, 175

' mankind ; but surely those men wrong you who chap.

' call you a proud people. Pride causes men to ^"'

' stand aloof, as we do, from that which is base ;
' and if ever again we call you haughty islanders,
' you may silence the calumny by reminding us
' of this 13th day of April in the year of grace
' 1854. It was not enough that, for the sake of
' this silly war, you should ally yourselves body
' and soul to " Monsieur de Morny's Lawgiver,"
' and that you should suffer him to drag you
' down into close intercourse with persons whom
' the humblest of us here decline to know ; but
' now, as though you really wished that your
' dishonour should be made signal in Europe,
' you send liither your General to be presented by
' " this French Emperor," as you call him, to his
' henchman, Mr Le Eoy St Arnaud, and the man
' whom you choose out for this great public sac-
' rifice is Eitzroy Somerset, the friend and com-
' panion-in-arms of your Wellington. You say
' that Lord Eaglan cares not with whom he associ-
' ates, so that he is under the orders of the Queen
* whom he serves, and in the performance of a
' public duty ; but because he, in the loyalty, in
' the high-bred simplicity of his nature, is careless
' and forgetful of self — is that a reason why you
' should fail to be proud for him — why you should
' forget to be careful on his behalf ? If the niod-
' esty of his nature hindered him from seeing
' the momentous significance of his contact with
' the people who have got into our palaces, ought
' you not to have interposed to pievent him from

176

TKANSACTIONS

CHAP.
XII.

incurring the scene of to-day. We imagined
that you knew how to honour the memory of
your Wellington, and that, after his death, when
you looked towards Fitzroy Somerset, or spoke
to him, or listened to his words, you looked and
spoke and listened like men who remembered.
Him, nevertheless, you now offer up. To have
brouglit you down to this is a great achievement
— the realisation of what they call here a " Na-
" poleonic idea ! " The prisoner of St Helena is
avenged at last. We are classic here, and we
strike commemorative medals. You will soon
see the honoured image of your Fitzroy Somerset
undergoing presentation at the Tuileries. Al-
ready our artists have caught some glimpses of
him, and they declare it is the colouring, the
glow of the complexion, which makes him look
so English, and that in bronze he will be grandly
Eoman. Those noble lineaments of his, that
upright manly form — nay, even the empty sleeve
which speaks to you of your day of glory — will
worthily signify what England was ; and then
the effigy of our counterfeit Ctesar receiving tlie
homage of a stainless Englishman, and joining
liim hand to hand with Mr Le Hoy St Arnaud,
this will show what England is. We hear that
you are well pleased with the prospect of all
this, and that, far from shrinking, your " virtuous
" middle classes," as you call it, is going into a
state of coarse rapture. For shame ! '
Lord Raglan, all unconscious of exciting this
kind of sympathy in tlie heart of the angry

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 177

Faubourg, had left England on tlie lOtli of April chap.

XII

1854; and on the following day both he and His L_

Royal Highness the Duke of Cambridge were
received in state at the Tuileries. The presence
of a member of our Eoyal Family was welcome
to the new Emperor : he understood its signi-
ficance. The Parisians love to see a momentous
idea so impersonated as to be visible to the eyes
of the body ; and when their monarch attained
to be seen riding between the near kinsman of
the English Queen and the appointed commander
of her army in the field — when on a bright spring
day he showed his guest some thirty thousand of
his best troops in the Champs de Mars, and the
scarlet of the ancient enemy sparkled gaily by
the side of the blue and the gold — the people
seemed to accept the scene as a fitting picture of
the great alliance of the West. Almost for the
first time in the history of France, the accustomed
cheers given to the Head of the State were mingled
with cheers for England.

But now the time for concerted action had
come; and though France and England were
already allied by such bonds as are made with
parchment and wax, it remained to be seen
whether the great rivals could act together in
arms. The conjuncture, indeed, drew them to-
wards each other ; but it was certain that the
coherence of the union would greatly depend
on one man. It might seem that he who had first
sworn to maintain the French Eepublic, and had
afterwards destroyed it by stealtli in the night-

VOLu II. M

178 TRANSACTIONS

time, would not be much trusted again by his
fellow - creatures ; but the alliance rested upon
ground more firm than the trust which one
Prince puts in another. It rested — not, indeed,
upon tlie common interests of France and Eng-
land, for France, as we have seen, was suppres-
sed— but upon tlie prospect of personal advantage
which was offered to the new French Emperor
by an armed and warlike alliance with England.
It being clear that the alliance was for his
good, and that, for the time, he had really the con-
trol of France, the only remaining question was,
whether he would pursue what was plainly for
his own advantage with steadiness and good sense.
Upon the whole, it seemed likely that he would ;
for, though he was not a man to be stopped by
scruples, he did not discard the use of loyalty
and faithfulness, where loyalty and faitli fulness
seemed likely to answer his purpose ; and tliere
was a persistency in his nature which gave ground
for hoj)ing tliat, unless he should be induced to
change by some really cogent reason, liis stead-
fastness would endure. Moreover, as we have
seen, he liad the faculty — very easy to apply to
geometry, but harder to use in politics — the
faculty of keeping himself awake to the distinc-
tion between the Greater and the Less ; and he
did not forget that, for the time, the alliance with
England was the greater thing, and that most
other objects belonged to the category of the
Ixiss. These qualities, supported by good-humour,

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 179

and ofteu by generous impulses, went far to make chap.
him an ally with whom (so long as he might find
it advantageous to remain in accord with us) it
would be possible, nay easy, and not unpleasant
to act.

Lord Raglan submitted to the publicity and con^nnce
ceremonial visits forced upon him during the Tuiieriw.
days of the 11th and 12th of April, and at one
o'clock on the 13th he had a private interview
with the French Emperor at the Tuileries. The
Emperor and the English General were not stran-
gers to one another. They had been frequently
brought together in London ; and, indeed, it was
by Lord Fitzroy Somerset that the heir of the
First Napoleon, deeply moved by the historic
significance of the incident, had been brought
to Apsley House and presented to the Duke of
Wellington. The Emperor showed Lord Eaglan
the draft of the instructions which he proposed to
address to Marshal 8t Arnaud.

It may be said tliat at this hour Lord Eaglan
began to have upon him the weight of that anxious
charge which was never again to be tin-own off
so long as life and consciousness should endure.
He had charge on behalf of England of the great
alliance of the West ; and since it happened that,
in this the outset of his undertaking, he followed
a method which characterised his relations with
the French from first to last, there is a reason for
now pointing it out. It seemed to him that in
the intercourse of two proud and sensitive nations

180 TKANSACTIONS

CHAP, andertakinsf to act in concert, one of the chief

XII

dangers lay in that kind of mental activity which

is generated by the process of arguing. He made
it a rule to avoid and avert all needless discus-
sion ; and he regarded as needless, not only those
discussions which spring out of abstract questions,
but many also of those which are generated by
men's anxiety to provide for hypothetical conjunc-
tures. He was very English in this respect, and
he was no less English in the simple contrivance
by which he sought to ward off the evil. When-
ever there seemed to be impending a question
which he regarded as avoidable, he prevented or
obstructed its discussion by interposing for con-
sideration some practical matter which was more
or less important in its way, but not unsafe.
And now, when there was perhaps some fear
that questions of an embarrassing and delicate
kind might be raised by the pondering Emperor,
Lord Kaglan kept them aloof by engaging atten-
tion to the choice of the camping-ground best
suited for the two armies. He seems to have
succeeded in confining all discussion to this one
safe and practical subject.

When the P^mperor at length brought his guest
back into the outer room, there were there assem-
bled Prince Jerome, the Duke of Cambridge,
Marshal Vaillant the Minister of War, Marshal
St Arnaud, and Lord De Eos. The vital busi-
ness of making arrangements best fitted to pre-
vent collision between the armies was anxiously
weighed. Marshal Vaillant, laborious, well in-

PKECEDING THE INVASION. 181

structed, precise, and rather, perhaps, fatiguing chap,

in his tendency to probe deep every question, '_

strove hard to anticipate the eventualities lilcely
to occasion difficulty in the relations of the two
armies, and to force a clear understanding before-
hand as to the way in which each question should
be dealt with. This he endeavoured to do by
putting it to St Arnaud in a categorical way*
to say what solution he proposed for each of the
imagined problems ; but St Arnaud, it then ap-
peared, was hardly more fond than Lord Eaglan
was of hypothetical questions, for after a little
while, his endurance of Vaillant's interrogatories
came to an end ; and he answered impatiently,
and in a general way, that when the conjunctuies
arose, they would be met, as best they might, by
the concerted action of the Generals.

Tlie period of the great French Eevolution has
gathered so much of the mellowness of age from
later events, that it seems like a disturbance of
chronology to be bringing into the joint council
of France and England, in the year 1854, a
brother of the first Napoleon. Yet Prince Jerome
was one of the speakers, and he spoke with sound
judgment upon the great problem of how France
and England should act together in arms. He
spoke, as might be expected, with less sagacity
when the subject of ' The Turks ' floated up into
notice. The whole French people, and many

* The Frencli verb ' poser ' would describe Marslial Vaillant's
labours ; the English verb active ' to pose ' ^vould describe the
eilect upon the patient.

182 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, even of the people of this country, imagine that

■ the wisdom and power of man are tested by his

proximity to the newest stage of civilisation : and
from those whose minds are in that state, the true
worth of the Osmanli, whether in policy or in
arms, must always be hidden. If he sustains re-
verses, their minds are satisfied, for in that
case, their little equation appears, as they
would say, to ' come right ; ' but, on the other
hand, his success disturbs their most deep-set
notions of logical sequence; and now, after all
Omar Pasha's achievements on the Danube, it
seemed to be the impression of Prince Jerome
and the French Marshals that the Turkish
General would be a source of trouble and
anxiety to the alliance. They looked upon the
events which liad been occurring as accidental
and anomalous, and tending to produce a wrong
conclusion. The Russians, as they well knew,
had carried the industry of military prepaiation
to the utmost verge of human endurance. The
Turks had provided themselves with a powerful
field-artillery, had kept their old yatagans bright,
and had cherished their ancient love of war; but,
for the rest, they had trusted much in Heaven.
Yet during some six or seven months these pious,
improvident, warlike men had been getting the
better of drilled masses. Their success seemed to
carry a dangerous lesson ; and the French Coun-
cillors thought it so important for the Turks to be
broken in to the yoke of a newer civilisation, that
they even said it might be advantagcious for Omar

PRECEDIJS'G THE INVASION. 183

Pasha to undergo the discipline of a few whole- chap.

*

XII.

some reverses.'

From all he observed in the course of these in-
terviews, Lord Raglan was led to believe in the
stability of the Emperor's character, and the value
he set upon the alliance.

After a few days, the arrangements detaining u.ia Kag-
Lord Raglan m Pans were complete, and he took ime.
his departure for the East.

The ioint occupation by French and English ThePrencii

P i 1 1 11 ,. 1 -r^ 1 and the Eiig-

troops 01 the ground on the shores ot tJie JDardan- lish troops

11 1 1 • 11 1 1 /^ ■ PI 1 on the shores

elles had yielded the first experience ot the rela- oftheDar-

1-11 1 • 1 1 • p ^ danelles.

tions likely to subsist between the armies ot the
two nations when quartered near to each other.
It quickly appeared that the troops of each force
could be cordially good-humoured in their inter-
course with those of the other. Canrobert, Bos-
quet, and Sir George Brown, all destined to take
prominent share in the coming events, made a cordiaiin
kindly beginning of acquaintanceship amid the between the
early difficulties and discomforts of Gallipoli; and
upon the departure of Sir George Brown from the
Dardanelles, there occurred one of those opportu-
nities for the display of good feeling on which the
Frencli are accustomed to seize with a quickness,
tact, and grace belonging to no other nation. Sir
George Brown was to bring up with him to head-
quarters two of the English regiments ; and the

* Some might imagine that this hoj^e must have beeu ex-
pressed in jest, but that is not the case. Incredible as it may
seem, it is nevertheless certain that this view was gravely put
forward.

184 TKANSACTIONS

CHAP. French — spontaneously, as it appeared, and from
' a simple impulse of goodwill — came down to aid
in the embarkation. They set themselves to the
work with all that briskness and gay energy by
which the French soldiery convert an operation
of mere labour and industry into a cheerful and
animating scene. The incident in itself was a
small one ; but, viewed as a sign of things to
come, it had greater proportions. It was ac-
cepted at the time by Lord Eaglan as a happy
omen — an omen which seemed to promise that
the alliance of the "West would hold good.
Bt Arnaud's But whilst the soldicr was giving the best of
obtaMng^ sanctions to the great Alliance, the Marshal of
inand'?f the Francc was putting it in jeopardy. M. St Arnaud
anny!^' had uot bccu long on the shores of the Bosphorus
when he entered upon a tempting scheme of am-
bition. General Bosquet, despatched to the head-
quarters at Sluimla, had brought back accounts,
which the Marshal at first could hardly credit, of
the good state and apparent effectiveness of the
Turkish troops ; and it was then, perhaps, that
St Arnaud first thought of the step which he
afterwards took. He conceived the idea of ob-
taining the command of the whole Turkish army.
The effect which this united command would have
upon the relations between the French and the
English General was obvious. The English Gen-
eral, with his strength of some twenty-five thou-
sand men, had always foreseen that he was likely
to be somewhat embarrassed in having to claim
due consideration for a force which was less by

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 185

one-half than the army sent out by the Frencli ; chap

XII

but if Marshal St Arnaud should be at the head, L

not only of his fifty thousand French, but of the
whole force of Turkey, it would obviously become
very hard, nay, even unfitting, for the Englisli
General to maintain an equality in council with
one who, in this case, would command altogether
nearly two hundred thousand men. Marshal St
Arnaud pressed his demand with the Ministers of
the Porte at Constantinople, and he seems to have
imagined that he had obtained their assent to his
demand. If, indeed, they did really give a seem-
ing assent to the proposed encroachment, they
could hardly have meant it to take effect. They
perhaps put their trust then where they had put
their trust before. They knew that Lord Strat-
ford was at Therapia, and they might well believe
that he would make the elaborate world go back
into chaos before he would suffer the armies of
the Caliph to pass, like the contingent of some
mere petty Christian State, under the orders of a
French Commander.

On the 11th of May, Marshal St Arnaud called
upon Lord Eaglan, and stated, in the course of
conversation, that the Turkish Government haf'
determined to place Omar Pasha's army under hia
(the Marshal's) command ; and that he was then
going to Keshid Pasha in order to have the mat -
ter finally settled. Lord Eaglan merely said he
believed the British Ambassador was not aware
of the arrangement. On the 13th, INfarshal St
Arnaud sent to propose that Lord Raglau would

186

TRANSAUTIONR

CHAf.

XIT.

et Amaud
in the yire-
sence of
Ijord Strat-
ford and
Lord
Baglan.

meet liim at Lord Stratford's, and intimated that
he had an important communication to make.
It was arranged that the English Ambassador
shouhi receive the Marshal alone, 'in order/ as
Lord Stratford almost cruelly expressed it — 'in
* order to make his acquaintance,' and that after-
wards Lord Eaglan should join them.

It jars upon one's love of fair strife to see
Marshal St Aruaud brought in cold blood into
the presence of the two men whom he ventured
to encounter ; into the presence of Lord Stratford
prepared and calmed by his foreknowledge of the
intrigue — and of Lord Kaglan, roused by his sense
of the danger which threatened the alliance. But
the interview took place. The Marshal went to
the English Embassy, and the operation of ' mak-
' ing his acquaintance ' was carried into full effect.
Imagination may see the process — may see the
light, agile Frenchman coming gaily into the
room, content with himself, content with all the
world, and charmed at first with the sea-blue
depth of the eyes that lightened upon him from
under the shadow of the Canning brow, but pres-
ently beginning to understand the thin, tight,
merciless lips of his host, and tlu'ii finding him-
self cowed and pressed down by the majesty
and the graciousness of the welcome ; for the
welcome was such as the great I'^Uchi would be
sure to give to one who (for im])evative reasons of
State) was to be treated as his honoured guest,
Ijut who was also a vain mortal, ]irctending to
the command of the Ottoman army, and daring

PKKGKDING TIIK INVASION. 187

to come with his plot avowed into the very pres- cijap.

once of an English Ambassador. Afterwards Lord _L 1_

liaglan carae into the room, and then the Marshal
began upon the business in hand. He said he
had required, and the Turkish Government had
consented, that Omar Pasha should be placed
under his orders; that a brigade of Turkish
infantry and a battery of artillery should be incor-
porated into each of the French divisions ; that
fifteen hundred of the Bashi-Bazouks should be
dismounted, that their horses should be turned
over to the French troopers, and that the Bashi-
Bazouks should be paid (it was not said by
whom), and then be sent baclv to their homes.

If this proposal had been then for the first
time made known to Lord Stratford, his iiery
nature would scarcely perhaps have suffered him
to hear with temper ; but he had been prepared
by Lord Raglan for what was coming, and he
seemed all calm and gentleness. After hearing
the proposal with benign attention, he quietly
asked the Marshal whether he had cognisance
of the tripartite treaty ; and then, turning to a
copy of the treaty which happened — not at all by
chance — to be lying within his reach, he read
aloud the fourth article : an article Avhich pro-
ceeds upon the assumption that the three armies
would be under the orders of distinct commanders.
The Marshal — ready perhaps to encounter the
more obvious arguments against the expediency
of the plan — was scarcely prepared for this quiet
reference to the twins of the treaty. Lord liaglan

188 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, then said that he thouglit a good deal of incoii-
^"" venieuce might result from the adoption of the
Marshal's plan ; that Omar Pasha was the ablest
of the Turkish generals ; that his services had been
recognised by the grant of the rank of General-
issimo and the title of Highness ; and that to
deprive him of the superior command, and to
dismember his army, at a moment when it was
in presence of the enemy, would not only lower
him in the estimation of those who looked up
to him with confidence, but would probably in-
duce him to throw up his charge in disgust,
and declare that he would not suffer himself to
be degraded.

But both Lord Eaglan and the English Am-
bassador were gifted with the power which is one
of the most keen and graceful of all the ac-
complishments of the diplomatist — the power of
affecting the hearer with an apprehension of what
remains unsaid. It is a power wliich exerts great
sway over human actions ; for men are more
cogently governed by what they are forced to
imagine than by what they are allowed to know,

* The Marshal,' Lord Eaglan wrote, ' saw that our

* opinions were stronger than our expression of
' them.' He gave way. He immediately declared
that, far from wishing to dimiiiisli the consequence
of Omar Pasha, he was anxious to add to it, to
u])hold him to the utmost, and to increase his
importance ; and he added that he saw the pro-
priety of deciding nothing until after a conference
with Omar Pasha. By the time that St Arnaud

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 189

passed out of the Embassy gate his enterprise was c f i a p.
virtually abandoned.

Some good perhaps resulted from the attempt ms^cheme
to bring the Ottoman army under French com-
mand. Of all the faults tending to impair the
value of Lord Raglan's advice to the Home
Government, there was none more grave than his
want of power to appreciate warlike people be-
lonwinjj to an earlier state of civilisation than that
to which he had been accustomed in his later
years; and although nothing could ever soften
his antipathy towards Turkish Irregulars of all
kinds, and especially to the Bashi-Bazouks, he
was by this incident drawn more than ever
towards the Turkish Generalissimo, and he al-
ways thenceforth did his best to defeat any
plan which tended to narrow the sphere of the
Pasha's authority.

So great was the elasticity of Marshal St niasc^iieme
Arnaud's mind, that, far from remaining cast tiiecom-
down under the discomfiture which he had under- English

troops.

gone, he very soon entered upon a scheme yet
more ambitious than the first. It seems he had
become possessed with the idea that great achieve-
ments were within his reach, if only he could
add to the powers which he already wielded the
occasional command of English troops. He pro-
posed that, when French and English troops were
acting together, the senior offictir, whether he
chanced to be French or English, should take the
command of tlie joint force ; and although this
proposal was so expressed that it might be re-

190 TJIANSACTIONS

CHAP, garded as applying only to the command of de-

^ •^"' tachments, it was surmised that (M. St Arnaud's

military rank being higlier than that of Lord

Eaglan) the control of the whole British force was

the object really in view.

The experience of the conference at the British
Embassy had proved the good sedative effect of a *
dry document ; and as the instructions addressed
to the English General chanced to contain some
words directing him to take no orders except from
the Secretary of State,* the clause was happily
put forward by Lord Raglan as an impediment
This also to the proposed plan. Marshal St Arnaud gave
" '^■''^' ■ way, and thenceforth desisted from all further
prosecution of his scheme.

So skilful was the resistance o])posed to these
enterprises of M. St Arnaud, and the character
of the Marshal was so free from all admixture of
spite and bitterness, that their frustration did not
create ill-feeling. It was plain, however, that re-
Attempts of currence to projects of this sort would be danger-
ch'e'cko'irby ous to the alliaucc ; and when the French Emperor
Kmpm.'r' knew that these schemes had been tried and de-
feated, he forbade all attempts to revive them.
8t Arnaud Hithcrto the cause which had been tlireatening
deciincs^to the coliesioH of the Alliance was M. St Arnaud's
nrmyto'-^ ambition. The next obstruction which Lord
rMtofwnr. Raglan had to deal with was one of a very dif-
f(;rent kind. Checked, as is supposed, by the an-

• The clauso, I iinagiiic, lind been inliodiuid in order to
negative th(!.siiii[)0.sitioii that the Ambassador nt ronstantinople
wjw to liave the control of tlie inilitar}' oj>erat ions.

PHECEDING THE INVASION. 191

thoritative counsels sent out to liim from Paris, chap.
Marshal St Arnaud suddenly announced that, for _^^'_
some time to come, the i>ench army could not be
suffered to move towards the seat of the war.

The measures for sending up the British forces
to Varna were in progress, and the Light Division
had been already despatched, when, at eleven
o'clock at night, Colonel Trochu presented him-
self at the British headquarters, and requested
an immediate interview with Lord llaglan. The
name of Colonel Trochu will recur in this narra-
tive, for he was an officer of great weight in the
councils of the French nrrny. He had come from
France so lately as the 10th of May, and although
his nominal office was simply that of first aide-de-
camp to Marshal St Arnaud, it was known that
he came out fully charged with the notions and
the wishes of the French Emperor. Colonel Trochu
was a cautious, tliiuking man, well versed in
strategic science, and it was surmised that it was
part of his mission to check anytliing like M'ild-
ness in the movements of the French Marshal.*
He stated that he had been sent by Marslial St
Arnaud to request that Lord Eaglan would post-
pone any further movement towards Varna, until
the Marshal should have an opportunity of satis-
fying himself that any considerable portion of
the French army was in a condition to take the
field.

Up to this moment no doubt had been enter-
tained of tlie forwardness of the French prepara-
* Moderer la fougue de M. le MarechaU

192 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, tions : and Lord liaglan, much astonished, ex-

XII

'__ pressed strong objection to the proposed delay.

Colonel Trochu replied that, upon his arrival
in the Levant, he had gone to Gallipoli in order
to see what degree of forwardness the prepara-
tions of the French army had really attained ; and
he had come, he said, to the conclusion that the
French army was not as yet so equipped and pro-
vided as to render it practicable, with anything like
common prudence, to attempt operations against
the enemy. He went on to justify his conclusion
by details, showing the deficiencies under which
the French army laboured : he said that he had
communicated the result of his inspection and
the opinion which he had formed to Marshal St
Arnaud, and that Marshal St Arnaud, entirely
adopting that opinion, had sent him to the Eng-
lish headquarters in order that he might pre-
vail upon Lord Eaglan to suspend the intended
movement.
Lord Rag- Lord Raglan observed that great inconvenience
approval of would rcsult from the proposed suspension of the
delay. movcment ; that the movement was one actually

proposed by the French and English commanders
to Omar Pasha, and by him, as well as by the
Turkish Ministers, entirely approved ; and that
thus the French and the l*'nglish commanders
stood pledged to Omar Pasha, and to the Porte,
at a moment, too, when much anxiety existed for
the fate of Silistria. Colonel Truchu admittted
all this; but he again urged the necessity for
delay.

PKKCEDING THE LNVASION. 193

The iuterview lasted till an hour after mid- chap.

XII

night, and Colonel Trochu's request was followed '

up on the ensuing day by written communicatious
from the French jMarshal. But the importance
of these discussions was superseded by a further
and more perilous change in the French counsels.

At seven o'clock in the morning of Sunday the stAmaud-s
4th of June, Marshal St Arnaud called upon Lord termination
Iiaglan, and announced that he had determined defensive
npon an entirely new ])lan of operations for his rear of the

T IP ■ I ■ n -^r Balkan.

array. Instead oi moving his force to Varna, as
had been agreed, he had resolved, he said, to send
there only one division, and to place all the rest
of his army in position — not in advance, but in
rear of the Balkan range. He was to have his
right resting on the sea at Bourgas ; his head-
quarters were to be at Aidos ; and he hoped, he
said, to be able to establish himself there by the
third week of June. He invited Lord Baglan to
conform to this plan, and to take up a position at
Bournabat, a part of the proposed position which
was the most remote from the sea.

Thus, at a time when the eyes of all Europe
were upon Silistria and the campaign on the
Danube, it was proposed tliat the armies of the
Western Powers should take up a mere defensive
— a timidly defensive — position, placing all Bul-
garia, a part of Boumelia, and the whole range of
the Balkan, between them and the scene of con-
flict ! What made the matter still more grave
was this, that Marshal St Arnaud did not come
to consult. He had already adopted this almost

VOL. II. N

101 TKAXSACTIOxXS

CHAP, incredible plan, and his troops -svcre then actually

YTT

.^ '__ in march for the new position.

It might now, indeed, seem that those were
right who had deemed the great alliance of the
West to be impracticable. For all the purposes
f.oKi Rns- of the campaign the proposed plan would have
m?ned*ie-'" caused the armies of the two Western Powers to
iiiis i-ian. become simply null. Lord Eaglan at once de-
clared his entire disapproval of it.

Tied, perhaps, to this singular plan by the
counsels ^^■hich Trochii had brought him, Marshal
St Arnaud, for the time, did not yield. But the
English Genera], as I have already said, had a
quality which made it difficult and painful for
men to maintain a difference with him whilst they
Avere in his presence. St Arnaud was under this
stress ; and as though he shrank from the ascend-
ancy of Lord Eaglan, and sought a respite from
the effort of having to oppose him in oral discus-
sion, he imagined the idea of bending over a table
and writing down what lie had to say. This he
did ; and when the writing was finished, he left it
with Lord Eaglan. But the Marshal seems to
have inwardly determined that Colonel Trochu,
wlio liad probably suggested this new })lan of
campaign, should himself be made to bear the
]iain of further sustaining it; for he took his
leave, saying that the Colonel should be sent to
Lord Eaglan on the following day.

In this curious paper, written by St Arnaud in
Lord Eaglan's presence, the Marshal said the
great advantage of the French and I'higlish having

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 105

only one division each at Yarna would be, that chap.
they would not get entangled prematurely in ^^^'
hostile operations ; for with such a small force
no one could taunt the "Western Powei-s for not
marching to relieve Silistria, or for not rrivin"
battle to the liussians ; whereas, argued the Mar-
shal, if the Allies were present in greater strength,
it was to be feared that they might suffer them-
selves to be carried away by the Turks. ' It is
' important,' said the ^Marshal, ' not to give battle
' to the Eussians, except with all possible chances
' of success, and the certainty of obtaining great
' results.' Then, after describing the supposed ad-
vantages of his intended position in rear of the
l^alkan, the Marshal reverted to his dread of beintr
carried forward by the warlike Turks. ' We must
' not,' said he, ' lose sight of this ; that we are
' here to aid the Turks — to succour them, to save
' them — but not by following their plans and their
* ideas. It is evident that Omar Pasha lias no
' other idea, but that of drawing on the allied
' army to give battle to the Paissians, and to re-
' lieve Silistria. The safety of Turkey is not in
' Silistria ; and it is necessary to aid and succour
' the Turks in our own way.'

No one perhaps will now defend a plan of cam-
paign which was to place the allied armies of the
Western Powers in a position some hundreds of
miles from the scene of any conflict, and to with-
draw them from the very proximity of the Otto-
man generalissimo for fear of his warlike counsels.
Still, such justice as is due must be rendered to

196 TRANSACTIONS

CITAP. the French strategists. France and England bad
XII

'__ sent to the East that portion of the two armies

which consists of combatants ; but neither of the
Western Powers had hitherto constituted on the
Dardanelles or the Bosphorus that vast accumula-
tion of stores, of munitions of Avar, and means of
ti'ansport which would enable it to live, to move
freely, and to fight. Both tlie armies had means
of subsistence for the next few days, and were so
equipped as to be able to fight a battle on the
beach ; but neither army had, nor could have for
many months, those vast warehouses of stores and
tliose immense means of land-transportwhich could
alone sustain regular and extended operations in
the field. They had not, in short, as yet, consti-
tuted their oriental ' base of operations.' There-
fore, if purely military views were to govern, and
if liussia were really the formidable invader of
Turkey that the world had believed her to be,
there would liave been some rashness in pushing
forward the combatants of llic two armies towards
tlie scene of conflict witli a knowledge that for
some time to come, tliey would be unable to move
freely in tlie field.

Tlic true ground for overruling the hesitation of
tlic French strategists lay in the now obvious fact
that (to say nothing of the armies of France and
P'ngland assembled on the Bospliorns, with vast
means of sea-transport at their command) Eussia,
ill-prepared for a great War in the South, driven
out of the Euxinc, threatened by Austria, and
fiercely encountered and hitherto repulsed by the

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 197

Ottoman forces, was not so formidable an invader chap.

XII

of European Turkey as to deserve that her de- L_

spairing struggles in the country of the Lower
Danube should be encountered with all the re-
sources of strategic prudence. Besides, the ques-
tion was not purely a military one. It was cer-
tain that the mere presence of the French and
the English forces in the neighbourhood of the
conflict would have a moral weight more than
proportioned to their actual readiness for offen-
sive operations. Finally, the question had been
settled. Tlie allied Generals, in their conference
with Omar Pasha, had engaged to move their
troops to Varna ; and the honour of France and
England stood pledged.

But if there was a semblance of military wis-
dom in the hesitation of the French to move up
to Varna, there was none in their plan for the de-
fensive line behind the Balkan at Aides ; for if
the want of means of land-transport threatened
to hamper the activity of the force even in the
advanced position of Varna, it is obvious that the
same cause would have reduced the French and
English forces to sheer uselessuess if they had
taken up a position at so vast a distance as Aides
is from the scene of the conflict. If the plan had
been followed, no French nor English troops in
that year would have seen tlie shape of a Russian
battalion. Yet Marshal St Arnaud, so far as
conceraed France, had determined thus to forfeit
all mihtary significance in the pending campaign,
and had done so, and had begun to carry the pluu

198 TRANSACTIONS

CHAP, into execution, without consulting his English

1- colleague.

How France was saved from this humiliation,
and how the great alliance was preserved, will
now be seen.

On the day following the interview with Mar-
shal St Arjiaud, Colonel Trochu came, as had
been agreed, to Lord Raglan's quarters. After
repeating what Marshal St Arnaud had stated the
day before — namely, that Bosquet's Division was
already in march for Adrianople — the Colonel
pressed the advantages of the position which
Marshal St Arnaud had proposed to take up in
rear of the Balkan.
Lord Raglan Lord Raglan heard all, and then simply re-

l*Bt'USG3 to

i.iaceany qucstcd Coloucl Trocliu to iufomi Marshal St

jiail of his

urmy i.eiiiiid Amaud that he, Lord Raglan, objected to place

tilt Balkan. . o ' J f

any portion of Her Majesty's army in Roumelia,

Lord Raglan added, tliat the movement which
seemed to him the best was an advance to the
front with a view to join Omar Pasha in an effort
to relieve Sili.stria ; and he said that if the Mar-
shal were not prepared for such a movement, he
(Lord Raglan) would keep his divisions on the
Asiatic side of the Bosphorus, and hold them
ready to embark at any moment for Varna.
8t Arnaud Fiminess conquered. On the morning of tlie
abandons ills 10th of Juuc, Colouel Rosc came to tlie English
i.osition headquarters, and announced that Marshal St

licliilid tlic 1 1 T 1 • 1 n

Uaikan, and Amaud uow conscntcd to abandon Ins plan of

CDnsenls lo . iiitu

move Ilia takinfr UD a defensive position behind the Balkan,

aiiny lu o i. j.

Varna. aud tliat, rcvcrtiug to tlie original determination

PliECEDT.NTt Tin: INVASION. 199

of the Allies, he would assemble his army at chat.

ir XII.

V aril a.

Thus the danger passed. Secrecy, it would
appear, had been well maintained ; and the world
did not know that, for all purposes of concerted
military operations, the alliance of the Western
Powers had lain in abeyance for five days.

Leaviuj;? small detachments at Galliuoli, the The armies

. ' moved ac-

French and the English armies were now moved cordingiy.
up to Varna. General Bosquet's Division, how-
ever, was made to feel the consequences of the
resolution adopted by the French strategists ; for,
this division having actually commenced its
march towards Adrianople in furtherance of the
tlieii intended plan of taking up a position be-
hind the Balkan, jNIarshal St Arnaud, it seems,
did not like to issue a countermand which A\'ould
have disclosed to a sagacious soldiery his double
change of counsels — nay, perhaps, might have
given them a glimpse of the almost ridiculous
destiny from which they had been saved by Lord
llaglan. So, whilst all the rest of the allied forces
were gliding up to Varna by water, Bosquet's cosquet'*
Division continued to follow the direction first march.
given it, and was brought into Bulgaria by long,
painful marches. If the warlike Zouaves compos-
ing part of the division had known that their
long, toilsome movement in the midst of the great
summer-heats was the result of a plan for placing
the French army in position at a distance of several
hundreds of miles from the enemy, they would
have solaced the labours of the march by tearing

200

TRANSACTIONS

CHAP.
XII.

The way in

wliich St

Amaud's

achemes

escuped

publicity.

the repute of the schemer who contrived it, and
making him the butt for their wit.

It is obvious that the premature disclosui-e,
either of Marshal St Arnaud's ambitious schemes
or of his faltering counsels, would have been
fraught with danger to the alliance ; and since it
used to happen in those days that tidings freshly-
entrusted to the English Cabinet were often dis-
closed to the world, it seems useful to show how it
was that Lord Raglan proved able to screen these
transactions of JNIarshal St Arnaud from the in-
quiring eye of the public. Apparently he did this by
being careful in the choice of the time for making
disclosures to the authorities at home. Except
when there was a good reason for taking a contrary
course, he liked to delay the communication of
affairs involving danger until the danger was
past. Thus, for instance, he would describe the
beginning of an intrigue, and also its final defeat,
at the same time; and the result was, that the
end of the despatch not only made the disclosure
of the earlier part of it comparatively harndess,
])ut even destroyed its value as an article of
'news;' for in proportion as people were greedy
for fresh tidings, they were careless of things
which ranged with tlie past, and the time was so
stirring that the tale of an abandoned plan of
campaign, or an intrigue already baffled and ex-
tinct, was hardly a rich enough gilt for a Minister
to carry to a newsman.

Thus were averted the early dangers whicl)

PRECEDING THE INVASION. 201

threateued the alliance ; and thus, after resolving c ir a p.

to take up a position some hundreds of miles dis- 1_

taut from the nearest Eussian outpost, the French
Marshal gave way at last to Lord Eaglan's ascen-
dant, and was soon pushed forward to a camping-
ground within hearing of the enemy's guua.

202

EFFECT riiODUCED BY TlIK

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAP.

XIII.

Tidings
wliich
kindled in
England a
zeal for llie
invasion of
tlie Crimea.

Siege of
BtlulriA.

The closing events of the summer campaign in
Bulgaria did so much to kindle that zeal whicli
forced on the invasion of the Crimea, that it
seems right to speak of them here, uot with any
notion of putting into the set form of ' lIi.story '
tilings which all Europe knew at the time in the
most authentic way, but ratlier for the purpose of
showing how the armies at Varna, and tlie states-
men and the people in England, were touched,
were stirred, nay, governed, by the tidings
which came from the Danube, rriiice Paskie-
vitch stood charged to execute with liis OAvn
hand the plan of campaign which his Sovereign
liad persuaded him to design;* and accordingly,
in the summer of the year 1854, he found liiiii-
self marching on the Danube at the head of tlie
I'ussian army then engaged in attempting an in-
vasion of the Ottoman Empire. lie had insisted,
as we have seen, that, as tlie needful condition of
a prosperous canii)aign, Silistria must fall by the
first of iNIay.i" It wiis not before the miildle of
• See anU', clmp. iv. + Iliid,

OPF.nATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 203

the month that he was able to appear before the chap.

place; but thenceforth he lost no time, and on 1_

the 19th he opened his first parallel.

The new defences of the fortress had been
planned by Colonel Grach, a Prussian officer in
the sei-vice of the Porte. He had brought to the
work a great deal of knowledge and judgment.
He was still in the place, and he continued to
lend the aid of his science to the garrison when-
ever he could do so without going out of his
dwelling-house; but adhering, it seems, to the
bare terms on which he had engaged his services,
he stiffly abstained from taking any other than a
scientific part in the struggle.

Prince Paskievitch pressed the seige with a
vehemence which seemed to disdain all economy
of the lives of his soldiery ; and the place being
weakly garrisoned, and seemingly abandoned to
its fate, its fall was supposed to be nigh. To
uphold tlie Sultan's cause three armies were af
hand, but no one of them was moved forward with
a view to relieve the place. Omar Pasha, shrewd
and wary, was gathering the strength of the Otto-
man Empire at Shumla, and it did not enter into
his plan of campaign to smooth the path of the
Piussian General by going forward in strength to
give him a meeting under the guns of the be-
leaguered fortress. On the other hand, France
and England were rapidly assembling their for-
ces in the neighbourhood of Varna, but, for want
of sufficing means of land -transport, tliey were
not yet in a condition to take the field.

204 EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE

Day by day the two armies at Varna were
moved by fitful tidings of a conflict iu which,
though it raged within earshot, they were suf-
fered to take no part. At first, few men har-
boured the thought that, without deliverance
brought by a relieving force, a humble Turkish
fortress would be able to hold out against the col-
lected strength of Russia and the most renowned
of her Generals. Soon, it was known that, of their
own free will and humour, two young English-
men— Captain Butler of the Ceylon Pdfles, and
Lieutenant Nasrayth of the East India Company's
Service — had thrown themselves into the place,
and were exercising a strange mastery over the
garrison. On one of the hills overlooking the
town there was a seam of earth which, as though
it were a kind of low fence designed and thrown
up by a peasant, passed along three sides of the
slope in a doubtful meandering course. This was
the earthwork which soon became famous in
Europe. It was called the Arab Tabia. The work
was one of a slight and rude sort ; but the ground
it stood on was judged to be needful to the be-
siegers, and, at almost any cost of life to his
])eople, Prince Paskievitch resolved to seize it.
]3y diligent fighting on the hill-side — by sapping
close up to the ditch — by springing mines which
more than once blew in the counterscarp and
levelled the parapet — by storming it in the day-
time— by storming it at niglit — the Russians
strove hard to carry the work ; but when they
sprang a mine, they ever found that behind the

OPEKATIONS ON TilE DANUBK. 205

ruins the Turks stood retrenched ; and whether chap.
they stormed it by day or by night, their masses ^'

of columns were always met fiercely — were al-
ways driven back with a cruel slaughter. Prince
Paskievitch, the General commanding in chief,
and General Schilders, who commanded the siege-
works, were both struck down by shot and dis-
abled. On the side of the Turks, Mussa Pasha,
who commanded the garrison, was killed ; but
Eutler and Nasmyth, now obeyed with a touch-
ing affection and trustfulness by the Ottoman
soldiery, were equal to the historic occasion
which they had had the fortune and the spirit
to seize. At one time they were laying down
some new work of defence ; at another, the two
firm lads were governing the judgment of the
Turkish commanders in a council of war. Some-
times, with ear pressed to the earth, they were
listening for the dull blows of the enemy's un-
derground pickaxes. Now and then they were
engaged in dragging to his place under fire some
unworthy Turkisli commander ; and once in their
sportive and English way, they were busy in get-
ting together a sweepstakes, to be won by him
who should name the day when Silistria would
be relieved ; but always when danger gathered in
the Arab Tabia, the grateful Turks looked and saw
that their young English guests were amongst
them, ever ready with counsel for the new emer-
gency, forbidding all thought of surrender, and
even, it seems, determined to lay rough hands
on the General who sought to withdraw with his

206' EFFECT PEODUCED BY THE

CHAP, troops from tlie famous earthwork* The pves-
XIII

.. _ ence of these youths proved apparently all that

was needed for making of the Moslem hordes a
faithful, heroic, and devoted soldiery. Upon
ground known to be mined they stood as tran-
quilly as upon any other hill-side. ' It was im-
' possible,' said Nasmyth's successor in the Arab
Tabia — 'it was impossible not to admire the cool

* indifference of the Turks to danger. Three men
' were shot in the space of five minutes while
' throwing up earth for the new parapet, at which
' only two men could work at a time so as to be

* at all protected ; and they were succeeded by the
' nearest bystander, who took the spade from the

* dying man's hands and set to work as calmly as
' if he were going to cut a ditch by the road-side.'
Indeed, the childlike trust which these men were
able to put in tlieir young English leaders, so
freed them from all doubt and question concern-
ing the wisdom of the orders given, that they
joyfully abandoned themselves to the rapture of
fighting for religion, and grew so enamoured of
death — so enamoured of the very blackness of the
grave — that sometimes in tlic pauses of tlic figJit
a pious jNIussulman, intent on close fighting and
blissful thoughts of Paradise, would come up witli
a pickaxe in hand, would speak some touching
words of devotion and gratitude to Butler and
Nasmyth, and then proudly fall to work and dig

• I take it tliat tliis is what was meant by Nasmytli's ex-
pression, 'peculiar inducement.' The man upon whom the
'peculiar inducement' wns brought to bear was one whom
Butler had dragged out bodily from his hiding-place.

OPERATIONS ON TH^ DANUBE. 207

for liimself the last home, where he charged his chap.
comrades to hiy him as soon as he attained to die. . 1_

Omar Pasha not choosing to march to the re-
lief of Silistria, but being unwilling to leave its
defenders to sheer despair, sent General Cannon*
(Behram Pasha he was called in the Turkish
army) with a brigade of irregular light infantry
and instructed him to occupy some of the wooded
ground in the neighbourhood of the place, with a
view to trouble the enemy and to encourage the
garrison. General Cannon, however, learnt, on
reaching the neighbourhood of Silistria, that the
hopes of the garrison had already ebbed very low ;
and therefore, though without the warrant of
orders, he resolved to throw himself into the
place with his whole brigade. This, by means of
a stratagem and a long circuitous night-march,
he was able to do. His achievement, as was
natural, gave joy to the garrison ; and, turning
to account the enthusiasm of the moment, he
administered, as is said, a direful oath to the
Pasha in command — an oath whereby the Turk
swore that, happen what might, he would never
surrender the place.

It was whilst General Cannon was in Silistria
that Captain Butler received the wound of which
he afterwards died. The Paissians had sapped up
so close to the ditch that, if a man behind the

* General Cannon was an oflicer of our Indian army who had
served with distinction in India, and in the force (the British
Legion) wliich operated in Spain under the orders of General
. Evans.

208 EFFECT PIIODUCED BY THE

CHAP, parapet spoke much above a wliisper, the sound

!_ of his voice used to draw the enemy's fire towards

the nearest loophole or embrasure. Captain But-
ler, it seems, with a view to throw up a new
work of defence, "was reconnoitring the enemy's
approaches through an aperture made in the
parapet, and was consulting about his plan with
General Cannon, when the General's aide-decamp
said something in a tone loud enough to be heard
by a Russian marksman. The sound brought
a rifle-ball in through the loophole and struck
Captain Butler the blow from which (being
weakened by toil and privation) he died before
the end of the siege.

For some reason which he deemed to be im-
perative— stringent orders, perhaps, from Shumla
— General Cannon marched out of the place with
his brigade on the 18th of June, and at his request
Nasmyth also went away for a time in order to
confer with Omar Pasha at the Turkish head-
quarters ; but meanwhile Lieutenant Ballard of
the Indian army, coming thither of his own free
will, had thrown himself into the besieged town ;
and whenever the enemy stirred, there was always,
at the least, one English lad in the Arab Tabia,
directing the counsels of the garrison, repressing
the thought of surrender, and keeping the men in
good heart.*

* The narratives of the siege of Silistria which appeared in
the ' Times ' were given, as is well known, bj' Nasmyth hini-
wlf, and by the o(Hcer who succeeded to him and to Butler in
governing the counsels of the garrison and helping to defend the
Arab Tabia. Therefore any other account of the siege which 1

OPERATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 209

Tlierc was a part of the allied camp where the chap.

French and the English soldiery could hear in '

a quiet hour the distant guns of Silistria. Day
after day they listened for the continuing of the
sound ; and they listened keenly, for they were
expecting the end, and there was nothing but the
booming of the cannon to assure them that the
fortress held out. On the 22d of June, and dur-
ing a great part of the night which followed it,
they heard the low thunder of the siege more
continuously than ever before ; but on the dawn
of the following day they listened, and listened in
vain. The cannonade had ceased, and it was be-
lieved in camp that the place had been taken.
The opposite of this was the truth. The siege
had been raised. The event was one upon which
the course of history was destined to hinge ; for
this miscarriage at Silistria put an end at once
to all schemes for the invasion of the Sultan's
dominions in Europe.

Whilst Europe was still in wonder at the
deliverance of Silistria, the French and the Eng-
lish armies at Varna were greeted with tidings
of yet another victory won by the Turks.

Hassan Pasha was at Eustchuk with a large

iiiight have founded upon the official materials in my possession
would have been obviously inferior to the newspaper in point of
authenticity. Accordingly, with the exception of two or three
minor facts drawn from the correspondence wliiuh is in my
possession, and the substitution of 18th June for 17th, which I
owe to General Cannon, all 1 have said of the siege is taken
from those journals of Nasmyth and his successor which were
printed in the ' Times' during the summer of 1851.
VOL. II. 0

210 EFFECT rUODUCED BY THE

CHAP, body of Turkish troops ; and at Giurgevo, on the
^"^' opposite bank of the river, General SoimonoCf
commanded twelve battalions of Eussian infantry,
with several squadrons of horse and some guns.
Both the Piussian and the Turkish commanders
desired that at this time there should be no
conflict; and it might be thought that in this
respect they would have their way ; for although
Ti.ci.aiuoof the forces at Rustchuk and at Giurgevo were near
to each other, the broad Danube rolled between
them. But the Ottoman soldiery are of so war-
like a nature that, when their enemy is at hand,
tliey are oftentimes seized with a raging desire
for the figlit ; and the one check which tends to
keep down tliis passion is a sense of the inco-
lierency which results from the want of good
officers. But so ready and so deep is their
trust in any of our countrymen who will take
the trouble to lead them, tliat, if Turkish soldiers
be camped within reach of the enemy, the coming
amongst them of a few English youths supplies
the one thing needed, completes the electric circle,
and in general brings on a liglit. Now it happened
that, besides General Cannon, who was on duty,
and in command of a Turkish brigade, seven
young Englisli officers had found their way to
the camp of Hassan Paslia. Two of these. Cap-
tain Bent and Lieutenant Burke, were officers of
tlie Royal Engineers ; Meyncll was a Lieutenant
in the 75th Piogimcnt ; Hinde, Arnold, and Ballard
(the last of them fresh come from Silistria), were
officers of our Indian army ; Colonel Ogilvy was

OPEIJATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 211

Geueral Cannon's aide-de-camp, Imt he gave his chap.

services freely ; and, indeed, it may he said that, _; '__

so far as concerns the part they took in the battle,
every one of these seven young Englishmen was
there of his own mere will.*

On the morning of the 7th of July it was ob-
served that the Eussians had struck their tents ;
and they were so posted that their numbers could
not be descried from the right bank of the river.
It was believed in the Turkish camp that Soimo-
noff had withdrawn the main part of his force ;
and it seems that wliat Hassan Pasha really
meant to do was to execute a reconnaissance, and
assure himself of the enemy's retreat. Be this as
it may, he ordered, or consented, that the river
should be crossed at two points ; and General
Cannon, embarking in boats with 300 riflemen,
and speedily followed by a battalion of infantry
under Ferik Bekir Pasha, succeeded in reaching
the left bank of the river without encountering
resistance. As soon as they had landed, the
Turks tried to gain a lodgment upon a strip of
ground where their front was covered by a long
narrow mere or pool of water. Soon, however,
they were attacked on their left flank by a body
of Russian infantry, which issued from an earth-
work placed above the western extremity of the

* The two Engineer officers, Captain Bent and Lieutenant
Bnrke, had been sent to the Turkisii camp with instructions to
advise and aid in the construction of militaiy works; but of
course they had not been ordered to lead the Turks into battle ;
and therefore I include them with the rest of the seven as men
taking part in the battle witliout professional sanction.

212 EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE

CHAP. mere. Cannon and Bent, with their riflemen, not

XIII

L_ only withstood this attack, but drove their assail-
ants back into the fosse from which they had
issued, and there, it seems, a good deal of slaugh-
ter took place. Afterwards the riflemen were
forced to give way, and fall back upon the main
body of the troops, which had effected their land-
ing ; but young Ballard led forward another body
of skirmishers, and kept the enemy back. What
was needed was, that the troops which had landed
should intrench themselves ; but they had como
without gabions or sand-bags, and nothing as yet
could be done towards gaining a firm lodgment.
There was a good deal of confusion amongst the
troops, and the enterprise seemed likely to fail,
when Ali Pasha, who was a brave and an able
officer, came over with fresh troops. He soon
restored order, and the men began to throw up
intreuchments.

Meanwhile two battalions, led on by Ogilvy,
Ilinde, Arnold, Meynell, and Burke, had crossed
the river higher up, in detached bodies ; and
although these small bands were left from first to
last without reinforcements — although they had
to move flankwise close under the guns of a
Russian battery, which killed very many — and
although they were sharply attacked and at one
time hard pressed by the enemy's infantry, as
well as by four squadrons of cavalry — the rem-
nant of these venturesome men fought their way
down along the river's bank, and at last made
good their junction with the main body, theu

OPERATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 213

intrenchinff itself beliind the mere. But before chap.

XIll

they attained to this they had lost a great proper- :_

tion of their comrades, and of their five youthful
leaders they had lost three, for ]>urke, Arnold,
and Meynell \vere killed.

Meanwhile fresh troops had been crossing the
river at the point opposite to the landing-place
first seized ; and at length there was established
on the ground behind the mere a force of some
five thousand men.

Upon either flank of this body the Russian in-
fantry came down in strong columns. Four times
the attack was made, and four times the Turks,
commanded or led on by Ali Pasha and General
Cannon, by Bent, Hinde, Ogilvy, and Ballard,
drove back their assailants with great slaughter.
With pious and warlike cries, the Turks sallied
over their new-made parapets, brought their bay-
onets down to the charge, forced mass after mass
to give way, and fiercely pressed the retreat.

At sunset the action ceased. All night the
Turks were intrenching themselves on the ground
which they had gained ; but when the morning
dawned there was no sign that tiie enemy would
hasten to renew the battle.

To keep a safe hold of the ground which had
been won, it was necessary for the Turks to ad-
vance in the direction of their left front, and
occupy a ridge which went by the name of the
Slobenzie Heights ; but Hassan Pasha dreaded
the blame which might fall upon him if the
movement should prove to be a wrong one.

214 EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE

CHAP. General Cannon pressed him hard — for some time

XIII
1_ in vain ; but at length the Pasha yielded, upon

condition that the English General would give

him a written warranty certifying the wisdom of

the step.

On the third day after the battle, Prince Gort-
schakoff came up with a force which was said to
number some sixty or seventy thousand men.
He had been set free by the raising of the siege
of Silistria, and he now appeared upon one of the
ranges of hills looking down upon Giurgevo from
the north-west. It seemed that he meant to
cover over the stain of the defeat sustained at
Giurgevo by driving tlie Turks back into the
river ; but before he camped for the night the
British flag was already in the waters beneath
him.

Lieutenant Glyn of the Britannia, with the
young Prince Leiningen under him, and thirty
seamen accompanied by a like number of sappers,
had come up by land, and now took the command
of some gunboats already in this part of the
river. Glyn quickly carried his gunboats into
tlie narrow loopstream which escapes from the
main of the river above Giurgevo and meets it
again lower down. By this movement Glyn
thrust his gunboats into the interval which
divided tlie Pussian aiiny from the Turks,* Gort-

• A critic used language which might seem to throw doubt
on the above narrative of Lieutenant Gl^'n's operations. So
proof may be useful. In a letter now before me, Lieutenant
(now Captain) Gli'u writes: — 'lie immediately threw across a
* large force, and ordered me to hold the creek between Slo-

OPERATIONS OX THE DANUDi:. 215

schaltofF perhaps overrated the force which had chap.

come with the British flag. At all events, he did

uot instautly move dowu to the attack ; and
whilst he seemed to hesitate, the Turks and the
English worked hard. Captain Bent and his
sappers, with the aid of our seamen and the
Turks, threw a bridge of boats across the main
stream of the Danube. This done, it was plain
that, if Gortschakoff were to attack, he would
have to do, not merely with the five thousand
Turks already established on the left bank, but
with the whole of the force which lay at Eust-
chuk. He resolved to avoid the encounter.
Retreating upon Bucharest, he no longer dis-
puted with the Turks for the mastery of the
Lower Danube.

In this campaign on the Danube, those who
fought for the cause of the Sultan were helped,
it is true, by Fortune, by the anger and unskil-
fulness of the Czar, by the assured support of
Austria, and by the impending power of England
and France ; but still there is one point of view
in which their achievement was a great one.
Military ascendancy is so closely connected with En-odofthe
military reputation, that to be the first to bring ^e"iS«
down the warlike fame of a great empire is to °"ry s'lceu-"
do a mighty work, and a work, too, which hardly uHsia?
can fail to change the career of nations. By
the time that Prince Gortschakoff retreated upon

' benzie and the town of Giurgevo with gunboats, which was
' done ; otherwise the Russians would have turned the posi-
' tion of Slobenzie.' — Note lo ilh Edition.

21 G EFFECT PRODUCED BY THE

CHAP. Bucharest, people no longer tliouoht of the Czar

XIII

. L_ as they thought of him eight months before ;

and the glory of thus breaking down the mili-
tary reputation of Eussia is due of right, not to
the Governments nor the armies of Fi'ance oi
England, but to the warlike prowess of the Otto-
man soldiery, and the ten or twelve resolute
Englishmen who cheered and helped and led
them.

The failure of the attempted invasion was
almost instantly followed by the relinquishment
of Moldavia and Wallachia. The Emperor Nicho-
las, as we saw, had been placed by Austria under
the stress of a peremptory summons requiring
him to withdraw from the Principalities; and the
demand being supported by powerful bodies
of troops, which threatened the flank of the
intruding army, the Czar was schooled at last,
and compelled to see that he must surrender his
hold of the provinces which lie had chosen to call
his ' material guarantee'

Thus, by the course of the events which fol-
lowed it, the Czar's last defeat on the Danube
was made to appear more signal than it really
was. Of course, men versed in war and in poli-
tics knew that causes of a larger kind than a few
hours' fight at Giurgevo were bringing about the
abandonment of the Principalities ; but people
who drew their conclusions from the mere ad-
vance and retreat of armies, and from the issue
of battles, were left to infer that the once-dreaded
Emperor of the Eussias was chased from the

OPERATIONS OX THE DANUBE. 217

country of the Danube L}' the sheer prowess of chap.

XI II

the victorious Turks. '__

It is therefore very easy to believe that tliis Tiie agony oi
discomfiture at Giurgevo was more bitter to the
Czar than any of the disasters whicli had hitherto
tried his fortitude. People knew, or affected to
know, what the troubled man uttered in torment,
and the words they put in his mouth ran some-
what to this effect : —

' I can understand Oltenitza — I can even

* understand that Omar Paslui should luive been
' able to hold against me his lines at KaJafat
' — I can partly account for the result of those
' fights at Citate — I can understand Silistria —
' the strongest may fail in a siege — and it
' chanced that both Paskievitch and Schilders

* were struck down and disabled by shot — but
' — but — but — that Turks — mere Turks — led on

* by a General of Sepoys and six or seven Eng-
' lish boys — that they should dare to cross the

* Danube in the face of my troops — that, daring
' to attempt this, they should do it, and hold fast
' their ground — that my troops should give way

* before them ; and that this — that this should be

* the last act of the campaign which is ending in
' the retreat of my whole army, and the abandou-
' ment of the Principalities. Heaven lays upon

* me more than I can bear !'

Many men in the Anglo - French camp were
fretted by the tidings of this last Turkish victory ;
for, besides that, with their natural and healthy
impatience of delay, they were stung by the

218 t:ffkct produced by the ■

CHAP, example of their Moslem ally, there was iu the

XIII .
L_ staff of the French and the English armies a

iM^sdisiTke pedantic dislike of wild troops. In this respect

"lined'coMi- ^ovd Raglan had no breadth of view. Far from

batants. understanding tliat the hardy, the fierce, the

devout, the temperate Moslems of the Ottoman

provinces were the rough yet sound material with

which superb troops could be made, he always

looked upon these brave men, but especially

upon the genus wliich people call ' Bashi-Ba-

' zouks/ with an almost superstitious liorror. He

was so constituted, or rather he was so schooled

down by long years of flat office labour, that it

shocked him to see a man bearing no uniform,

yet warlike, and armed to the teeth. Indeed,

from Bulgaria he once wrote and complained

quite gravely tliat every Turk he saw had the

appearance of being a ' bandit ; ' and the prejudice

clung to him ; for long after the period now

spoken of, and even in the very hour when the

fatal storm of the 14th of November was roaring

through his port and his camp, he found time to

sit at a desk and write down the Bashi-Bazouks.*

This hatred of undrilled warriors was the more

perverse, since England above all other nations

was rich in men (men like Ilodson, for instance,

or Jacob) who knew how to make themselves the

adored chiefs of Asiatic soldiers.

* Recent events in the villages iiihaLited by l5ul;,farians will
incline peojile to say how right I.onl Kaglan was in dreading
the commission of utroeitics by wild levies of this description;
but it does not follow that they might not have been brought
under proper control by men like our Anglo-Indian officers.

OPERATIONS ON THE DANUBE. 219

Besides, it must be borne in mind, that wlien chap.

XllI

an English Government luidertakes to wage war . L_

in a country beyond the seas witliout doing all it ["'EngUiuT
can to get soldierly aid from the natives, it does auxiliaifea.
not merely neglect a slight or collateral advantage ;
on the contrary, it throws away its power of act-
ing witli efficient numbers, and is in danger of
frittering away the nation'^ strength upon those
(often ill-fated) schemes which go by the name
of ' expeditions.' Witliout our Portuguese auxil-
iaries there would have been no great Peninsular
War, no successful invasion of France ; without
the native soldiery of Iliudostan there would
have been no British India ; without the German
auxiliaries who served under Wellington in his
last campaign, he could not have given battle
to Napoleon in the Netlierlands, and the course
of English history would not have run as it did.
The truth is, that (especially at the beginning of
a war) any body of English troops which our
Government brings together at one time and one
l^lace is in general so costly, and of so high a
quality, but also so scant in numbers, that to use
it, and use it singly, for all the work of the cam-
paign, is to consume and squander the precious
essence of the nation's strength without making
it the means of attaining any worthy result.

Therefore, whenever it is possible, a British
force serving abroad and engaged in an arduous
campaign, ought to have on its side, not mere
allies — for that is but a doubtful, and often a poor
support to have to lean upon — but auxiliaries

220 OPERATIONS ON THE DANUBE.

CHAP, obeying tlie English commander, and capable of

[ beinj? trusted with a lart-e share of the duties

required from an army in the field. Nor is this
an advantage Avliich commonly lies out of our
reach ; for in most of the countries of the Old
World the cost of labour is much lower than in
England ; and it is one of the prerogatives of the
English, as indeed of all conquering nations, to be
able to lead other races of men, and to impart to
them its warlike fire. I'y beginning its prepara-
tions at the right time, and by bringing under
the orders of some of our Indian officers a fitting
number of the brave men who came flocking to
the war from every province of the Ottoman Em-
pire, our Government might have enabled their
General to take the field with an army of great
strength — with an army more fit for warlike en-
terprises than two armies, French and English,
instructed to work side by side, and baflfled by
divided command.*

* The opinions wliich the Duke of Newcastle entertained on
tliis subject were sound, and liis efforts to give elieet to tlicm
were vigorous; hut he was tliwarted hy tlie curious antagonism
whicli conimonly shows itself at the beginning of a war — tlie
antagonism between views really warlike aud views wliich are
o ily 'military.'

ZEAL FOK AN ATTACK ON SEBASIOPOL. 221

CHAPTER XIV.

By their own prowess, with the aid only of a ^^^^^'
moral support from their great allies and the

-ri T 1 iti The events

actual presence of a lew youncj iingiish otticers, on the

^ , ,. , , ^^ ^ ,^ • • Danube ro-

the Ottoman soldiery had repelled the invasion; moved the

, . , . , , . grounds of

and, the defence of Turkey being accomplished in the war.
a way very glorious to the Sultan, and the deliver-
ance of the Principalities being secured, it sud-
denly became apparent that the objects for which
the Western Powers undertook the war had been
already attained. And since (by the mere act of
declaring war against the Czar) the Porte had
freed itself from the obnoxious treaties which
heretofore entangled its freedom, the condition
of affairs was such that a prudent statesman of
France or of England or of the Ottoman Empire
might have well enough rested content. And in
that condition of affairs the Emperor of Eussia
must have acquiesced ; for having now learnt that
he could not maintain an invasion of European
Turkey, and being driven from the seas, he was
cut off from all means of waging an offensive war
against the Sultan except upon the desolate frou-

222 ZKAL FOR A.t

CHAP, tiers of Armenia; and the prcssi.ic of tl\e naval

V TV"

_^ '__ blockade enforced against him by the Allies, to-

gether with the torture of seeing the Baltic and
the Euxine placed under the dominion of their
fleets, would have more than sufficed to make him
sign a peace.

If France had been mistrfss of herself, or if
England had been free from passion and craving
for adventure, the war wou d have been virtually
at an end on the day when the Eussian army
\ completed its retreat from the country of the

Danube and re-entered the Czar's dominions.

How came it to happen that, rejecting the
peace which seemed to be thus prepared by the
mere course of events, the Western Powers deter-
mined to undertake the invasion of a Eussian
province ?
Helpless- France was still lying under the men M-ho had

French got her down on the night of the 2d of Decem-
ber ; and it was in vain that her people at that
time chanced to love peace better than war, for
tliey liad no longer a voice in State affairs. The
French Ii^mperor still wielded the whole strength
of the nation ; and, labouring to turn away men's
thoughts from the origin of his power, he was
very willing to try to earn for the restored Empire
Course taken that kind of statiou and title which tlic newest of
erenrii Rm- dyuastics may acquire by signal achievements in
war. It was still of great moment to him to re-
main in close friendship with England, and to use
the alliance as an engine of war ; but he observed
that there was a spirit on this side of the Channel

ATTACK OX SEBASTOPOL. 223

which, springing from motives very unlike his
own, was nevertheless tending in the same direc-
tion ; and therefore, to draw England in, he no
longer needed to resort to those ingenious con-
trivances which he had employed against her in
the foregoing year. All that he had to do was to
encourage her desire to go on with the war, and,
if necessary, to make his own plans yield to those
of his ally. To do all this he was very ahle ; for
he had, as we have seen, at that time, the power
of keeping his mind alive to the difference be-
tween the greater and the less ; and after he had
once resolved to engage in alliance with England,
he did not allow his main purpose to be baffled by
differences on minor questions. Therefore, now
when it became known that the Paissian army
was in full retreat, he was so willing to defer to
English counsels, that virtually, though not in
terms, he left it to the Queen's Government to
determine what next step the Western Powers
should take in the conduct of the war.

England had become so eager for conflict that Desire of tiie
the idea of desisting from the war merely because auoflfensive
the war had ceased to be necessary was not toler-
able to the people. In the Baltic their hopes had
been bitterly disappointed ; and as soon as it
became clear that the defence of Tin key was a
thing already accomplished, men longed to try the
prowess of our land and sea forces in some enter-
prise against the Russian dominions. Already
they had cast their eyes upon Sebastopol.

With a view to the conquest of empire on the

224

ZEAL FOR AN

CHAP.
XIV.

Bsbastopol.

Bosphorus, the ambition of Eussia had taken ad-
vantage of the spacious port on tlie south-west
coast of the Crimea — had made there a great
arsenal, and furnished it with an enormous supply
of warlike stores. And having been warned a
quarter of a century ago * that, if he thus gathered
his strength in Sebastopol, he might have to count
some day with the English, the Czar Nicholas had
caused the place to be defended towards the sea
by forts of great power. In the harbour, barred
by these forts, his Black Sea fleet lay at anchor.
The longing Plainly it would be a natural and fitting consum-
"ishtoat-^ mation of a war in defence of the Sultan to de-
stroy those very resources which the labours of
years had gathered togctlier against liim. More-
over, tlie English, who hate the mechanic contriv-
ances which prevent fair, open fighting, could
hardly now boar that the vast sea-forts of Sebas-
topol should continue to shelter the Russian fleet
from the guns of our men-of-war. Those who
thought more warily than the multitude foresaw
that tlie enterprise might take time ; but they
also perceived that even this result would not be
one of unmixed evil ; for if Russia should commit
herself to a lengthened conflict in the neighbour-
liood of Sebastopol, she would be put to a great

Uckit.

* Despatch from Count Poz/o di P.oigo, dutcd tlic 28th of
November 1828. ' Althouf,'h,' writes tlio Count, 'it may not
' be probable tliat \vc shall sec an English fleet in the Black
' Sen, it will be prudent to make Sebastopol very secure against
' attacks from the soa. If ever England were to come to a
' rupture with us, this is the point to which she would direct
' her attacks, if only she believed them possible.'

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 22 0

trial, and would see her wealth and strength ruin- chap,
ously consumed by the mere stress of the distance L_

between the military centre of the Empire and
the south-westernmost angle of the Crimea.

The more the English people thought of the
enterprise, the more eager they became to attempt
it ; and it chanced that their feelings and opinions
were shared and represented with great exactness
by the jNIinister of War.

The Duke of Newcastle was a man of a san- The Duke oi

^ __ Kewcastle.

guine eager nature, very prone to action.* He
had a good clear intellect, with more of strength
than keenness, unwearied industry, and an aston-
ishing facility of writing. In the assumption of
responsibility he was generous and bold even to
rashness. Indeed, he was so eager to see his
views carried into effect, and so willing to take
all the risk upon his own head, that there was
danger of his withdrawing from other men their
wholesome share of discretion. lie threw his
whole heart into the project of the invasion ; and
if the Prime Minister and Mr Gladstone were
men driven forward by the feeling of the country,
ill spite of their opinions and their scruples, it
was not £0 with the Duke of Newcastle. The
character of his mind was such as to make him
essentially one with the public. Ear from being
propelled by others against his will, he himself

* I, of course, kno\v that this view will not be assented toby
those who found their opinion upon observation made in later
years ; but I am speaking of the summer of 1854, and I am
"very sure that the sentence to which this note has been ap-
jieuded is true.

VOL. 11. P

22G ZEAL FOR AX

was one of the very foremost members of the war-
like throng whicli was pressing upon the Cabinet
and craving for adventure and glory. He easily
received new impressions, and had nevertheless a
quick good sense, which generally enabled him to
distinguish what was useful from what was worth-
less. He seemed to understand the great truth
that, without being military, the English are a
warlike people, and that it is one of the great
prerogatives of a nation gifted with this higher
quality to be able to command other races of men,
and to impart to them the fire of martial virtue.
He also knew that when England undertakes M'ar
against a great European Power, she must engage
the energies of the people at large, and must not
presume to rely altogether upon the merely pro-
fessional exertions of her small Peace Establish-
ment. It was not from his default, but in spite
of his endeavours, that for several months people
lingered in the notion that our military system
was an apparatus sufficing for war.

But the degree of public confulence inspired
by the Duke was hardly, I think, quite propor-
tionate to the evident merits which a reader of
his despatches and letters would be inclined to
attribute to him. Perhaps the very zeal with
which he seized and adopted the ideas of the
outer public was one of the causes which tended
to lessen his weight ; for he who comes into council
with common and popular views, however likely
it may be that he will get them assented to, can
scarcely hope to kindle men's minds with the fire

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 227

that springs from a man's own thoiifiht and from CHAP.

. XIV.

his own strong- will. jNlorcover, it was by a kind L-

of chance rather than by intentional selection that
the Duke of Newcastle had become entrusted
with the momentous business of the war; and
this circumstance so much weighed against him
that, after a while, the propriety of his continuing
to liold the office was peremptorily brought into
question by one of his principal colleagues.*

From the first, the Duke of Newcastle, resist- niszeaifor

. tlie (lestnio.

ing all proposals for operating agamst Eussia on tionofse-
the side of Poland, had warmly shared the popu-
lar desire to invade the Crimea and lay siege to
Sebastopol. The Em.peror of the French, steadily
following his main policy, had long ago consented
to look to this enterprise as next in importance to

* "With liis accustomed frankness, Lord Russell has hini-
self declared tliat his only reason for insisting that the
Duke of Newcastle should be replaced by another min-
ister, was the one above shown. What I have above called
'a kind of chance' was brought about in this way: — Accor-
ding to the practice which was in force up to the sum-
mer of 1854, the Secretary of State for the Colonies was also
the 'Secretary of War.' Before the war, however, the public
hardly observed, and in fact hardly knew this, because in peace-
time (thanks to the labours of the 'Horse Guards,' the ofEce of
the Secretary at War, the Ordnance, and several other ofhces)
the duties of the Colonial Secretary, in his character as Secre-
tary of War, were very slight ; and, there being no prospect of
war when Lord Aberdeen's Ministry was forni'^d, the Duke of
Newcastle was of course selected with a view to his qualifica.
tions for the administration of the Colonies, and not witli any
consideration, either one way or the other, as to his aptitude
for the business of the War Department. AVhen the nipturo
with Russia occurred, it became apparent that, unless a chaiige
were made, the Llinister who happened to be the Colonial Secre-
tary would stand charged with tlie business of the war.

2-28 ZKAL FOR AN"

CHAP, the defence of the Sultan's territory; and in the

XIV
L_ early part of i\pril instructions to this effect had

been given to the French and the English Generals.

It would seem, however, that at first the Duke
of Newcastle was the only member of the Govern-
ment who was fired with a great eagerness fur tlie
destruction of Sebastopol ; and of himself he had
not the ascendancy which sometimes enables a
INIinister to bend other men to his purpose. Unless
by the help of a mighty force pressing from with-
out, he could not have bronght the Cabinet of Lord
Aberdeen to partake his zeal for the enterprise.

But — impending over tlie counsels of all the
ostensible rulers — there was an authority, not
deriving from the Queen or the Parliament, which
was destined to have a great sway over events.
It would be possible to elude the task ; but it
seems to me that a history would be wanting in
fulness of truth if it failed to im[)art some concep-
tion of this other power.
C'jm.uand- England was free ; and aUliough, whilst tlicre
iiic iicopie was indifterence or divided oianiun m the country,
Bii'i'iii." ""^ the Government liad very full latitude of action,
yet, whenever it chanced that the feelings of the
l)eople were roused, and that tliey were known to
be nearly of one mind, they spoke with a voice so
commanding that no Administration could safely
try to withstand it.

But the will of tlie nation being thus puissant,
who was charged to declare it ?

in former times almost everybody who could
was accustomed to contribute in an active way to

ATTACK OX SEBASTOPOL. 229

the formation of opinion. jMeii evolved ilieir own chap.
political ideas and drew forth the ideas of their

friends by keen oral discussion, and in later n.rmlngand
times by long elaborate letters. But gradually, ovmlon of '
and following somewhat slowly upon the inven-
tion of printing, there came to be introduced a
new division of labour. It was found that if a
small number of competent men would make it
tlieir calling to transact tlie business of thinking
upon political questions, the work might be more
handily performed by them than by the casual
efforts of people who were commonly busied in
other sorts of toil; and as soon as this change
took effect, the weighing of State questions and
the judging of public men lapsed away from the
direct cognisance of the nation at large, and
passed into the hands of those who knew how to
utter in print. What had been an intdlectual
exercise, practised in a random way by thousands,
was turned into a branch of industry and pursued
with great skill by a few. People soon found out
that an essay in print — an essay strong and terse,
but, above all, opportune — seemed to clear their
minds more effectually than the sayings which
they heard in conversation, or the letters they
received from their friends ; and at length the
principle of divided labour became so complete in
its application to the forming of political opinions,
that by glancing at a newspaper, and giving swift
assent to its assertions and arguments, many an
Englishman was saved the labour of further exa-
mining his political conscience, and dispensed

;o

ZEAL FOR AN

CHAP.
XIV.

Effect of
political
writings in
saving men
from the
trouble of
thiuking.

Want of jiro-
jiortion be-
tween llio
skill of tlie
public writer
and the ju'li-
cial compet-
ence of liis
readers.

from the necessity of luaving to work his own way
to a conclusion.

But to spare a man from a healtliy toil is not
always an unmixed good. To save a free-born
citizen from the trouble of thinking upon ques-
tions of State is to take from hiui his share of
dominion ; and although it be true that he who
follows printed advice is under a guidance more
skilful and dexterous than any he could have got
from his own untutored mind, he is less of a man
— and, upon the wliole, is less fair, less righteous
— than one who in a ruder fashion contrives to
think for himself. Just as a man's quality may
in some respects be lowered by his habitual re-
liance on the policeman and the soldier who
relieve him from the trouble and the anxiety of
self-defence, so his intellectual strength, and his
means of knowing how to be just, may easily
become impaired if he suffers himself to walk too
obediently under the leading of a political writer.

But the ability of men engaged in political
writing grew even more rapidly than the power to
which they were attaining, and after a while, they
so gained upon the ostensible statesmen that Par-
liament no longer stood alone as the exponent
of opinion, and was obliged to share its privilege
with a number of gifted men whose names it
could hardly ever liiid out.* Still, Parliament
had valour and strength of its own, and, except
in the matter of mere celebrity, it was a gainer

" In the ilays of which I write there was much more my.stery

thnii there is now as to the authorship of iiorioilical wiitings.

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 231

lather than a loser from the -wliolcsome rivahy chap.

XIV

forced upon it by its now and mysterious asso- '_

ciate. It was the public which lagged. Men
commonly take a long time to adapt themselves
to the successive advances of civilisation ; and
the people were backward in fitting themselves to
deal with the increasing ability and the increas-
ing knowledge of the public writer. They indeed
hardly knew the true scope of the change which
liad been taking place ; for whilst the writer was
a personage chosen for his skill, and acting with
the force which belongs to discipline and organi-
sation, the readers were men straying loose ; and
for their means of acting in anything like concert
with one another, they were dependent in a great
degree upon that very engine of publicity which
was fast usurping their power. jMoreover, these
readers of public prints were slow to understand
the new kind of duty which had come upon them.
They were slow to see that it became them to
look in a very critical spirit upon the writings of
a stranger, unseen and unknown, who was not
only proposing to guide them, but even to speak
in their name ; and they did not yet understand
that they ought to read print, not, perhaps, in a
captious spirit, but, to say the least, with some-
thing of the measured confidence which their
forefathers had been accustomed to place in the
"words of princes and statesmen. The blessing
conferred by print will perhaps be complete when
'the diligence, the wariness, and, above all, the
■'courageous justice of those who read, shall be

232 ZEAL FOR AN

CHAP, brought into fair proportion with the skill and
^^^' the power of those who address them in print.
Already a wholesome change has been wrought ;
and if in these days a man goes chanting and
chanting in servile response to a newspaper, he
misses the voices of the tens of thousands of
fellow-choristers who sang with him five years
ago. But certainly, at the time of the Eussiau
war, the common discourse of an Englishman was
too often a mere 'Amen' to something he had
seen in print.

For a long time there had remained to the
general public a vestige of their old custom of
thinking for themselves, because in last resort
they were privileged to determine between the
rival counsels pressed upon them by contending
journalists ; but several years before the outbreak
of the war, there had come yet another change.
The apparatus provided by the constitution for
collecting the opinions of the people was far from
being complete; and notwithstanding the indica-
tions afforded by Parliament and by public writ-
ings, the direction which the nation's opinion had
taken was a matter which could often be called
in question. Some could say that the people
desired one thing, and some, with equal boldness,
that the people desired tlie contrary. Thence it
came that the task of finding out the will of the
nation, and giving to it a full voice and expres-
sion, was undertaken by private citizens.

Long before the outbreak of the war, there were
livinjr in some of the English counties certain

ATTACK OX SEBASTOPOL. 233

widows and Mntlemen who were the depositories chat.

XIV

of a power destined to exercise a great sway over '_

the conduct of the war. Their ways were peace- Js^ctruinh.g
ful, and they were not perhaps more turned i','g thT'"'
towards politics than other widows and country uiTcouiury
gentlemen; but by force of deeds and testaments, )uinds°ofa'*
by force of births, deaths, and marriages, they had *^°"'i''''"y-
become the members of an ancient firm or Com-
pany which made it its business to collect and
disseminate news. They had so much good sense
of the worldly sort, that, instead of struggling
with one another for the control of their powerful
engine, they remained quietly at their homes, and
engaged some active and gifted men to manage
the concern for them in London. The practice
of the Company was to issue a paper daily, con-
taining an account of what was going on in the
world, together with letters from men of all sorts
and conditions who were seeking to bring their
favourite subjects imder the eye of the public,
and also a few short essays upon the topics of the
day. Likewise, upon paying the sum required
by the Company, any person could cause what-
ever he chose to be inserted in the paper as an
' advertisement ; ' and the sheet containing these
four descriptions of matter was sold to the public
at a low rate.

Extraordinary enterprise was shown by tlie
Company in the gathering of intelligence ; aud
during the wars following the French Revolution
they caused their despatches from the Continent
to reach them so early that they were able to

234 ZEAL TOR AN

CHAP, forestall the Government of the day. lu other
- • countries the spectacle of a Government outdone
in this way by private enterprise would have
seemed a scandal ; out the Englishman liked the
thought that he could buy and bring to his own
home as much knowledge as was in the hands of
a Minister of State, and he enjoyed the success of
his fellow-countrymen in their rivalry with the
Government. From this time the paper gathered
strength. It became the foremost journal of the
world ; and this was no sooner the case, than the
mere fact of its being thus foremost gave a great
acceleration to its rise ; fur, simply because it was
recognised as the most public of prints, it became
the clue with which anxious man went seeking in
the maze of the busy world for the lost and the
unknown, and all that was beyond his own reach.
The prince who was claiming a kingdom, the
servant who wanted a place, the mother who had
lost her boy, they all went thither ; thither Folly
ran hurrying, and was brought to a wholesome
parley with Wisdom ; thither went righteous
anger ; thither also went hatred and malice. And
not in vain was all this concourse ; for either
the troubled and angry men got the discipline of
finding that the world would not listen to their
cries, or else they gained a vent for their passions,
and brought all their theories to a test by calling a
whole nation — nay, by calling the civilised world —
to hearken and be their witness. Over all this
throng of appellants men unknown sat in judg-
ment, and — v'ioleutly, perhaps, but never cor-

ATTACK OX SEBASTOPOL. 235

niptly — a roiigli sort of justice was done. The chap

style which Oriental hyperbole used to give to L

the Sultan might be claimed with more colour
of truth by the journal. In a sense it was the
' asylum of the world.'

Still up to this point the Company occupied
ground in common with many other speculators ;
and if they had gone no further, it would not have
been my province to notice the result of their
labours ; but many years ago it had occurred to
the managers of this Company that there was one
important article of news which had not been
effectually supplied. It seemed likely that, with-
out moving from his fireside, an Englishman
would be glad to know what the bulk of his
fellow-countrymen thouglit upon the uppermost
questions of the day. The letters received from
correspondents furnished some means of acquir-
ing this knowledge ; and it seemed to the man-
agers of the Company, that at some pains, and at
a moderate cost, it would be possible to ascertain
the opinions which were coming into vogue, and
see the direction in which the current would How.
It is said that, with this intent, they many years
ago employed a shrewd, idle clergyman, who
made it his duty to loiter about in places of com-
mon resort, and find out what people thought
upon the principal subjects of the time. He was
not to listen very much to extreme foolishness,
and still less was he to hearken to clever people.
His duty was to wait and wait until he observed
that some ccmmon and obvious thouglit was

236 ZEAL FOK AX

CHAP, repeated in many places, and by numbers of men
^^^' who had probably never seen one another. That
one common thought ^vas the prize he sought for,
and he carried it home to his employers. He
became so skilled in his peculiar calling that, as
long as he served them, the Company was rarely
misled ; and although in later times they were
frequently baflled in their pursuit of this kind of
knowledge, they never neglected to do what they
could to search the heart of the nation.

When the managers had armed themselves with
the knowledge thus gathered, they prepared to
disseminate it, but they did not state baldly what
they had ascertained to be the opinion of the
country. Their method was as follows : they
employed able writers to argue in support of the
opinion which, as they believed, the country was
already adopting ; and, supposing that they had
been well informed, their arguments of course fell
upon willing ears. Those who had already formed
a judgment saw their own notions stated and
pressed with an ability greater than they could
themselves command ; and those who had not yet
come to an opinion were strongly moved to do so
when they saw the path taken by a Conipany
which notoriously strove to follow the changes
of the public mind. 1'iie report which the paper
gave of the opinion formed by the public was so
closely blended witli arguments in support of that
same opinion, that he wlio looked at the paper
merely to know what other people thought, was
seized, as he read, by the cogency of the reason-

ATTACK OX SEBASTOPOL. 237

ing ; and, on the other haiul, he who imagined CHAP.

that he was being governed hy tlie ibrce of sheer L_

logic, was merel}^ obeying a guide who, by telling
him that the world \vas already agreed, made him
go and flock along with his fellows : for as the
ntterance of a prophecy is sometimes a main step
towards its fulfilment, so a rumour asserting that
multitudes have already adopted a given opinion
will often generate that very concurrence of
thought which was prematurely declared to exist.
From the operation of this double process it
resulted, of course, that the opinion of tlie English
public was generally in accord with the writings
of the Company ; and the more the paper came to
be regarded as a true exponent of the national mind,
the more vast was the publicity which it obtained.
Plainly, then, this printing Company wielded
a great power; and if I have written with suf-
ficient clearness, I have made it apparent that
this was a power of more vast dimensions than
that which men describe when they speak of ' the
' power of the Press.' It is one thing, for instance,
to denounce a public man by printed arguments
and invectives which are believed to utter nothing
more than the opinion of the writers, and it is
another and a graver thing to denounce him iu
writings which, tliough having the form of argu-
ments, are (rightly or wrongly) regarded as mani-
festoes— as manifestoes declaring the judgment of
the English people. In the one case the man is
only accused ; in the other he seems to stand
already condemned.

238 ZEAL FOR a:;

CHAP. But though the Company lield all this power,

' their tenure of it was of such a kind that they
could not exercise it perversely or whimsically
without doing a great harm to their singular
trade ; for the whole scheme of their existence
went to make them, not autocratic, but represen-
tative, in their character ; and they were obliged,
by the law of their being, to keep themselves as
closely as they could in accord with the nation at
large.

This, then, was the great English journal ; and
whether men spoke of the mere printed sheet
which lay upon their table, or of the mysterious
organisation which produced it, they habitually
called either one or the other 'The Times.'
jMoreover, they often prefixed to the word such
adjectives and participles as showed that they
regarded the subject of their comments in the
light of a sentient, active being, having a life
beyond the span of moi-lal men, gifted with
reason, armed with a cruel strength, endued
with some of the darkest of the human passions,
but clearly liable hereafter to the direst penalty
of sin.*

* Tlie form of spcccli wliii;li thus impersonates a manufactory
ami its wares has now so olitained in our laiigua^^c tliat, dis-
carding the forcible cpitliets, one may venture to adopt in writ-
ing, and to give 'The Times' the same place in grammatical
construction as though it were the jirojjcr name of an angel or
a hero, a devil or a saint, or a sinner already condemned.
Custonr makes it good English to say: 'The "Times" will
protect him;' 'The "Times" is savage ; ' 'The "Times" is
crushing him;' 'The blessed "Times" has put the thing
right;' 'That d d "Times" has done all the mischief.'

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 239

On the Sabbath, Ennkuid liad rest : but in the chap.

. XIV.

early morning of all other days the irrevocable L

words were poured forth and scattered abroad to
the corners of the earth, measuring out honour to
some, and upon others bringiug scorn and dis-
grace. Where and with whom the real power lay,
and what was its true source, and how it was
to be propitiated, — these were questions wrap-
ped in more or less obscurity ; for some had
a theory that one man ruled, and some another,
and some were sure that the Great Newspaper
governed all England, and others that England
governed the Newspaper, riiilosophic politi-
cians traced events to what they called ' Public
' opinion.' With almost the same meaning women
and practical men simply spoke of 'The Times.'
]]ut whether the power of the great journal was
a power all its own, or whether it was only the
vast shadow of the public mind, it was almost
equally to' be dreaded and revered by worldly
men : for plainly, in that summer of 1854, it
was one with England. Its words might be
wrong, but it was certain that to tens of thou-
sands of men they would seem to be right. They
might be the collected voice of all these isles, or
the mere utterance of some one nnknown man
sitting pale by a midnight lamp, — but there they
were. They were the handwriting on the walk

Of the temper and spirit in which this strange
power had been wielded, up to the time of the
outbreak of the war, it is not very hard to speak.
In general 'The Times' had been more willing to

240 ZEAL FOR AN

CHAP, lead the natiou in its tendencies to improvement

XIV. . . .
than to follow in its errors : what it mainly sought

was — not to be much better or wiser tlian the
English people, but to be the very same as they
were — to go along with them in all their adven-
tures, whether prudent or rash — to be one with
them in their hopes and their despair, in their
joy and in their sorrow, in their gratitude and
in their anger. So, although in general it was
willing enough to repress the growth of any new
])opular error which seemed to be weakly rooted,
still the whole scheme and purpose of the Com-
pany forbade it all thought of trying to make
a stand against any great or general delusion.
Upon the whole, the potentate dealt with Eng-
land in a bluff, kingly, Tudor-like way, but also
Avith a Tudor-like policy ; for though he treated
all adversaries as 'brute folk' until they became
formidable, he had always been careful to mark
the growth of a public sentiment or opinion ; and
as soon as he was able to make out that a cause
was waxing strong, he went up and offered to lead
it, and so reigned.

I have said that, partly by guiding, but more
by ascertaining and following, the current of
men's opinion, 'The Times' always sought to
be one with the great body of the people; and
fiince it happened that there was at this period
a rare concurrence of feeling, and that the journal,
after a good deal of experiment, had now at length
thorouglily seized and embodied the soul of the
nation, its utterance came with increasing force;

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 241

and ill proportion as the growing concord of the chap.

people enabled it to speak with more and more 1_

authority, power lapsed, and continued to lapse,
from out of the hands of the government, until
at length public opinion, no longer content to
direct the general policy of the State, Avas prepar-
ing to undertake the almost scientific, the almost
technical duty of planning a campaign.

On the morning of the 15th of June, the great xiie opiuiou
newspaper declared and said that ' The grand uon, asaV
' political and military objects of the war could coini.aiiy,

* not be attained as long as Sebastopol and the destmciiou

of Sebas-

' Eussian fleet were in existence ; but that, if topoL

* that central position of the Eussian power in
' the south of the empire were annihilated, the
' whole fabric, which it had cost the Czars
' of Eussia centuries to raise, must fall to the
' ground : ' and, moreover, it declared, ' that the

* taking of Sebastopol and the occupation of the
' Crimea were objects which would repay all the
' costs of the war, and would permanently settle
' in our favour the principle questions in dispute ;
' and that it was equally clear that those objects
' were to be accomplished by no other means —
' because a peace which should leave Eussia in
' possession of the same means of aggression
' would only enable her to recommence the war

* at her pleasure.'

It was natural that some of the members of the
Government should have qualms. They knew
that Austria (supported for defensive purposes by
Prussia) was at that time on the point of joining

VOL. II. Q

242 ZEAL FOR AN

CHAP, her arms to those of the Western Powers: and

XIV

L_ they could not but know that if the French and

English armies were to be withdrawn from the
mainland of Europe in order to invade the Crimea,
the wholesome union of the Four Powers would
of necessity be weakened. The Prime Minister
M'as he who loved peace so fondly tliat, though
peace M'as no more, he had hardly yet been torn
. . from her cold embrace ; and though he lived
■ ■■'■ under a belief tliat the military strength of the
"■''•'' Czar was beyond measure vast, yet of the twelve

-^- • months which Paissia gave him for preparation

he liad only used three.* Having the heaviness
of these thoughts on his mind, he saw it declared
aloud, that tlie country of which he happened to
be the Prime Minister could not well do other-
wise than invade tlie Eussian dominions. To a
prudent man the measure might seem to be rash
— to a good man impressed with horror of war, it
might even seem to be very wicked ; for it was a
violent revival of a war which, unless this new
torch were thrown, would expire of its own accord.
But the print was clear ; like stern Anangkie, it
pressed ui)on feeble man's volition, for it was not
to be construed away ; and if an anxious jMinister
went back and looked again to see whether by
chance he could find some loop in the wording,

• Computing from the time when the Czar's determination
to seize the Princii)a]itics was known to our Government. If
the computations are to ho made from tlie time wlicn the hos-
tile character of Prince McntschikofTs mission became known,
several months more would have to be added. See Lord Aber-
deen's evidence before the Scbastopjl Committee.

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 243

and whether possibly he might be able to fulfil chap,

liis duty without besieging Sebastopol, he was !_

met by the careful negation which taught him in
four plain words that he could fulfil it 'by no
* other means.'

Before the seventh day from the manifesto of
the 15th, the country had made loud answer to
the appeal ; and on the 2 2d of June the great
newspaper, informed with the deep will of the
people, and taking little account of the fears of
the prudent and the scruples of the good, laid it
down that ' Sebastopol was the keystone of the
' arch which spanned the Euxine from tlie mouths
' of the Danube to the confines of Mingrelia,' and
that 'a successful enterprise against the place
' was the essential condition of permanent peace.'
And although this appeal was founded in part
upon a false belief — a belief that the siege of
Silistria had been raised — it seemed as though all
mankind were making haste to adjust the world
to the newspaper ; for within twenty hours from
the publication of the 22d of June, truth obeyed
the voice of false rumours, and followed in the
wake of ' The Times.' *

Of course there were those who saw great ob-
stacles in the way of the proposed invasion ; and
they said that, since Russia was a first-rate mili-
tary Power, it must be rash to invade her terri-
tory and to besiege her proudest fortress, without
first gaining some safe knowledge of the euemy'3

• The siege, as we saw above, was raised early on tlie morn-
ing of the 23J.

244 ZEAL FOK AN

CHAP, strength. But the iiairative, then comiuf' home

XIV •
'__ in fragments from the valley of the Danube, was

heating the minds of the people of England.

AVhen first England learnt that the Turks were
to be besieged in their fortress of Silistria by a
great Russian army under the renowned Paskie-
vitch, few believed that the issue was doubtful,
or even that the contest could be long sustained.
But as soon as it became known that, day after
day, the military strength of the Czar was exerted
against the place with a violent energy, and that
every attack was fiercely resisted, and always, as
yet, with success, our people began to give their
heart to the struggle ; and their eagerness rose
into zeal when they heard that two young English
travellers had thrown themselves into the for-
tress, were heading the Turkish soldiery, and
maintaining the defence day and night.

The English were not of such a mettle as to be
able to hear of tidings like these without growing
more and more eager for warlike adventure. And
in their hearts they liked the fact, that the few
young English travellers who helped to save Sil-
istria, and to turn away the war from the Danube,
were men who did these things of their own free
will and pleasure, without the sanction of the
public authorities ; for our ])eople are accustomed
to think more highly of their fellow-countrymen
individually than they do of our State machinery ;
and they can easily bear to see their Government
iji default, and can even smile at its awkwardness,
if all the shortcomings of ofQce are effectually

ATTACK ON SEBASTOPOL. 245

compensated by the vigour of private enterprise, chap.
Nasmyth has passed away from us. I knew ^^^'
him in the Crimea. He was a man of quiet and
gentle manners, and so free from vanity — so free
from all idea of self-gratulation — that he always
seemed as though he were unconscious of having
stood as he did in the path of the Czar, and had
really omitted to think of the share which he
had had in changing the course of events; but it
chanced that he had gone to the seat of war in
the service of 'The Times,' and naturally the
lustre of his achievement was in some degree
shed upon the keen, watchful Company which
liad had the foresight to send him at the right
moment into the midst of events on which the
fate of Eussia was hanging ; for whilst the State
armies of France and England were as yet only
gathering their strength, 'The Times' was able
to say that its own officer had confronted the
enemy upon the very ground he most needed
to win, and helped to drive him back from the
Danube in great discomfiture.

Thus, day after day in that month of June, the xiieoovere-
authority of the Newspaper kept gaining and "'*'"* ^^^^"'
gaining upon the Queen's Government; and if
Lord Aberdeen had any remaining unwillingness
to renew the war by undertaking an invasion of
Russia, his power of controlling the course of the
Government seems to have come to its end in the
interval between the 23d and the 28th of June.
He continued to be the Prime Minister. His
personal honour stood so high that no man at-

2-lG OIIDERS AND TEErAl^ATIONS

CIIAP. tributed his continuance in office to otlier than

XIV
. worthy and unselfish motives ; but for those who

lay stress upon the principle that office and power

ought not to be put asunder, it -was irksome to

have to mark the difTerence between what the

Prime Minister Avas believed to desire, and wliat

he was now consenting to do.

No good Parliament was sitting, and it might be im-

Btaiid made , , .

iuPariia- alined that there was something to say ajramst

inent against ° . ,. o ^ o

the invasion, the plan for invadiug a province of Eussia at a
moment when all the main causes of the dispute
were vanishing; but the same causes which I
have spoken of as paralysing all resistance to the
beginning of the war now hindered every attempt
to withstand its renewal ; for the orators who
were believed to be tainted with the doctrines of
the Peace Party were still lying under the ban
whicli they had brought upon themselves by their
former excesses of language. So now again in
June, as before at the opening of the session, the
counsels of these eloquent men were lost to the
world. They became as powerless as the Prime
Minister ; and the cause which they represented
was so utterly brought to ruin, that the popular
demand for an invasion, which carried with it the
virtual renewal of an otherwise expiring war, had
the sound of that voice with which a nation speaks
when the people are of one mind.

So now, in presenting to his colleagues this his
favourite scheme of an enterprise against Sebas-
topol, the Duke of Newcastle, with the strong
Palmerston at his shoulder, was upheld, nay,

FOR THE INVASION. 247

urged and driven forward, by forces so over- CHAP.
whelming, that scruples and objections and fears
were carried away as by a flood ; and when it
was proposed in the Cabinet to go and fetch, as it
Avere, a new war, by undertaking this bold adven-
ture, there was not one Minister present who re-
fused to give his consent*

Forthwith the Duke of Newcastle announced preparation
the decision of the Government to the General structi'dns
commanding the English army in Bulgaria, He LrdKagiau.
did this by a private letter written on the 28th of
June,7 and nearly at the same time he prepared
the draft of a Despatch,-}- which was to convey to
the English headquarters, in full detail and in
official form, the deliberate instructions of the
Queen's Government. This paper constituted the
instrument for meting out to the General in com-
mand the allowance of discretion with which he
was to be entrusted. A Despatch recommending Extreme im-
the expedition, but leaving to the General in com- theianguaga
mand the duty of determining whether it could uny wcie
be prudently undertaken, would not have been worded,
followed by any invasion of tlie Crimea; and that
which brought about the event was, not the de-
cision of the Cabinet already mentioned, but the
peculiar stringency of the language which was to

* The sitting of tlie Cabinet which thus adopted the mo-
mentous proposal to sanction an invasion of Crim Tartary took
place in Downing Street on Tuesday the 27th of June, and
lasted several hours. It was with anxious, with thoroughly
wakeful care that our ministers weighed and determined the
question then submitted to their judgment.

t The contents of this will he given in another chapter.

248 ORDERS AND TREPARATIONS

CHAP, convey it to the English headquarters.* It there-
^^^' fore seems right to speak of what passed when the
terms of this cogent Despatch were adopted by
Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet.

The Duke of Newcastle so framed the draft as
to make it the means of narrowing very closely
the discretion left to Lord Eaglan ; and it was to
be expected that the Duke might wish his De-
spatch to stand in this shape, because he was
eager for the undertaking, and very willing to
bear upon his own shoulders a large share of the
responsibility which it entailed ; but it is difficult
to believe that all the other members of the Gov-
ernment could have intended to place the English
General under that degree of compulsion which is
implied by the tenor of the instructions. It is
certain, however, that the paper was well fitted to
elicit at once the objections of those who might
be inclined to disapprove it on account of its co-
gency ; for it confined the discretion to be left to
the General with a precision scarcely short of
harshness.

The Duke of Newcastle took the Despatch to
Richmond, for there was to be a meeting of the
members of the Cabinet at Pembroke Lodge, and
he intended to make this the occasion for submit-
ting the proposed instructions to the judgment of
his colleagues.'!' It was evening — a summer even-

• The truth of tliis statement will lie sho\\Ti, as I thinlc, in
R future chapter, and, indeed, it is well enough proved by the
tfnnr of Lord Rafjlan's reply to the despatch.

+ Wednesday the 28th of June.

rOK THE INVASION. 249

ing — and all the members of the Cabinet were chap.

present, when the Duke took out the draft of his !_

proposed despatch and began to read it. Then
there occurred an incident, very trifling in itself
but yet so momentous in its consequences, that,
if occurring under the Olympian Dispensation, it
would have been attributed to the direct inter-
vention of the immortal gods. In these days,
perhaps, the physiologist will speak of the
condition into which the human brain is nat-
urally brought when it rests after anxious
labours, and the analytical chemist may regret
that he had not an opportunity of testing the
food of which the Ministers had partaken,
with a view to detect the presence of some nar-
cotic poison ; but no well-informed person will
look upon the accident as characteristic of the
men whom it befell ; for the very faults, no less
than the high qualities of the statesmen compos-
ing Lord Aberdeen's Cabinet, were of such a kind
as to secure them against the imputation of being
careless and torpid. However, it is very certain
that, before the reading of the paper had long con-
tinued, all the members of the Cabinet, except a
small minority, were overcome with sleep.* For
a moment, the noise of a tumbling chair disturbed
the repose of the Government; but presently the
Duke of Newcastle resumed the reading of his
draft, and then again the fated sleep descended
upon the eyelids of Ministers. Later in the even-
ing, and in another room, the Duke of Newcastle

* See Note in the Appendix.

250 OKDEUS AND PllEPARATIOJsS

CHAP, made anotlier and a last effort to wiu attention
^^' to the contents of the draft, Lut again a bliss-
ful rest (not this time actual sleep) interposed
between Ministers and cares of State ; and all,
even those who from the first had remained awake,
were in a quiet assenting frame of mind. Upon
the whole, the Despatcli, though it bristled with
sentences tending to provoke objection, received
from tlie Cabinet the kind of approval which is
often awarded to an unobjectionable sermon. Nob
a letter of it was altered; and it will be seen
by-and-by that that cogency in the wording of
the Despatch which could hardly have failed to
provoke objection from an awakened Cabinet, was
the very cause which governed events.

instnictions The iustructions addressed from Paris to the

sent to the -r-. ^ i i • i i -i • i

Fruncii com- i rcuch commanuer did not urge him to propose
the invasion of the Crimea, nor even to lend the
weight of his opinion to the proposed enterprise ;
but they forbade him from advancing towards the
Danube. If it should be clear tliat the English
were willing to undertake tlie expedition to the
Crimea, then the Inench commander was jiot to
be at liberty to hold back.*

* I (leiluco this conclusion, in an inferential way, from tlie
general tenor of the materials at my command, and not froiu
tkny one document distinctly warranting the statement.

FOK THE I^'VASION. 251

CHAPTER XV.

At tlie time when the instructions from the CHAP,

XV

Home Governments reached the camp of the

Allies, the Generals ^ye^e preparing for an active va^t""'**^
campaign in Bulgaria, and JMarshal St Arnand of prepay!
had around him, in the neighbourhood of Varna muidie of*
or moving thither, four strong divisions of infan- ^"
try, -with cavalry and field-artillery. He had no
siege-train.

Lord Eaglan had around him four divisions of
infantry, the greater part of a division of cavalry,
and of his field-artillery seven batteries. He had
also on board ship off Yarna the half of a batter-
ing-train, and the other half of it was nearly ready
to be despatched from England.

The French Marshal was receiving and expect-
ing constant additions to his force ; and Lord
Eaglan had been apprised that a reserve division
of infantry under Sir George Cathcart would
speedily reach the Bosphorus.

So long as the French and English forces re-
mained camped in the neighbourhood of Varna,
tlieir command of the sea-communication insured

252 OKDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, to them the arrival of the supplies which were
• sent to them; but the means of land -transport
were not yet within their reach. It was estimated
that, in order to move effectively in the interior,
the English army alone would require packhorses
or mules to the number of 14,000. To obtain
these was difficult, but not impossible; and at
the time to M'hich wo point, about 5000 had been
collected. By a continuance of these exertions
in Bulgaria, and by due activity in forwarding
munitions and stores from England, it is probable
that the English force, after a further interval of
about six weeks or two months, might have been
prepared to move as an army carrying on regular
operations ; but of course this would only be true
upon the supposition that the army should always
march through countries yielding sufficient forage.
The preparations of the French were not, per-
haps, quite so far advanced as our own ; but it is
probable that the two armies would have been
found ready at about the same time for an active
campaign in Bidgaria.
Their coin- The sliips of the Allied Powers were at hand,
and their fleets had dominion over all the Euxine
home to the Straits of Kcrtch. They had the
command of the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles, tlie
Mediterranean, of the whole ocean ; and of all the
lesser seas, bays, gulfs, and straits, from the Gut
of Gibraltar to witliin sight of St Petersburg.
The Czar's Black Sea fleet existed, but existed
in close durance, shut up under the guns of
Sebastopol.

mand of tlie
Bea.

FOR THE INVASION. 253

In the matter of Ktiinii'^' iufoniiation respect- chap,

. XV

ing the enemy's resources, our Foreign Office

had not been idle ; and a great deal of material, obSCi"d by
bearing upon this vital business, had been there omce"as'fo
received, and collated. It resulted from these of tiie '^"'''^
data, that, spread over vast space, Paissia might
nominally have under arms forces approaching
to a million of men; but that the force in the
Grim Chersonese, including the 17,000 men who
formed the crews of the ships, did not, at the
highest estimate, amount to more than 45,000 ;
and that, although there were a few battalions
which Eussia might draw towards Sebastopol from
her army of the Caucasus, she had no more speedy
method of largely reinforcing the Crimea than by
availing herself of the troops then in retreat from
the country of the Danube, and marching them
round to Perekop, by the northern shores of the
Euxine.

Neither the ambassadors of France and Eng- Noiuforma.
land at Constantinople, nor any of their generals cd in Uie
or admirals, had succeeded in obtaining for tliem-
selves any trustworthy information upon this
vitally momentous business. For their failure in
this respect more blame attaches upon the am-
bassadors than upon the military and naval com-
manders ; because the ambassadors had been in
the Levant during a period of many months, in
which (since the war was impending, but not
declared) they might have bought knowledge from
llussian subjects without involving their infor-
mers in the perils of treason. The duty of gather-

2u4 ORDEES AND PREPAEATIOXS

CHAP, iug knowledge by clandestine means is one so
^^' repulsive to the feelings of an English gentleman,
that there is always a danger of his neglecting it,
or performing it ill. Perhaps no two men could
be less fit for the business of employing spies than
Lord Stratford and Lord Eaglan. JNIore diligence
might have been expected from the French, but
they also had failed. Marshal St Arnaud had
heard a rumour that the force of the enemy in the
Crimea was 70,000, and Vice-Admiral Dundas
had even received a statement that it amounted
to 120,000; but these accounts were fables. In
point of fact, the information obtained by our
Foreign Office approached to near the truth, and
the Duke of Newcastle had the firmness — it was
a daring thing to do, but it turned out that he
was right — he had the firmness to press Lord
liaglan to rely upon it. It was natural, however,
that a general stationed within a few hours' .sail
Lord Raglan of the couutry lie was to invade, and yet unable
thaulewas to obtaiu froui it any, even slight, glimmer of
wHhout'a^ny knowledge should distrust information which had
informauou. travelled round to him (through the aid of the
Home Government) along the circumference of
a vast circle ; and Lord Piaglan certainly con-
sidered that, in regard to tlie strength of the
enemy in the Crimea and the land defences of
Sebastopo). he was simply without knowledge.

FOR THE INVASION. 255

CHAPTER XVI.

On the evening; of the loth of July Marshal St CIIAP.

XVI
Arnaud received a telegraphic despatch from his L.

Government. The despatch had been forwarded tions"orTh«

by way of Belgrade, and was in cipher. The tiiec'rhnoa

P , , , Tr> i. c icacli the

message came in an imperiect state, iart or Aiued cai:»F.
it was intelligible, but the rest was beyond all
tlie power of the decipherer; yet the interpreted
symbols showed plainly that the whole message,
if only it could be read, would prove to be one of
deep import. It forbade jNIarshal St Arnaud from
making any advance towards the Danube, and
told him to look to the event of his army being
conveyed from Varna by the fleet. This was all
that could be deciphered. There were the mystic
letters and figures which laid down, as was sur-
mised, the destiny of the Allied armies, and no
one could read. At night Colonel Trochu came
to Lord Raglan's quarters, and communicated all
that could be gathered from the telegraphic
despatch. The English General had just received
the Duke of Newcastle's letter of the 28th, but
had not vet broken the seal of it. Now, how-

2 5 6 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, ever, Lord lia<ilan opened the letter, and in a

XVI

. '__ few moments he was able to give M. Trochu the

means of inferring the niatter contained in the
illegible part of his despatch. Apparently it
was the desire of both the Home Governments
that the Allied commanders should prepare to
make a descent upon the Crimea and lay siege
to Sebastopol.

On the 16th of July the despatch of the 29th

of June was received at the English headquarters;

and a despatch forwarded from Paris at nearly

the same time reached the hands of Marshal St

Arnaud.

The men Siucc tliG proposcd expedition involved the em-

determiiie ploymcut of both land and sea forces, the duty

efiect to he of determining upon the effect to be given to the

gh-en to tlie . • /< i i t i ±^ i

insii-uciions. lustructions Irom home devolved upon tliose who
had the command of the Anglo-rrench armies and
lleets. These were three: Marshal St Arnaud
(having Admiral Hamelin under his orders), Lord
Juiglan, and Vice-Admiral Dundas.

Marsii.'ii St Marshal St Arnaud had not weight propor-
lioned to the magnitude oi las connnand. Ke-
puted at first to be daring even to the verge of
rashness, we have seen him so cautioned and
schooled into strategic prudence as to have deter-
mined to place hundreds of miles of territory, and
even the great range of the Balkan, between the
French and the Kussians ; and now, within the
last week, he had been almost reproved by his
Covcrnment for want of enterprise. Colonel
Trochu, admitted into consultation upon the most

FOR THE INVASION. 257

momentous affairs, seemed to wield great author^ chap
ity. At Constantinople and at Varna, no less ^^^-
than in Paris, the Marshal had been made the vic-
tim of unsparing tongues. Indeed at this time
two of his divisional generals openly indulged
in merciless invectives against their chief: and
soldiers all know that a general officer thus
setting himself against the commander-in-chief
is never without a great following. Perhaps, as
had been at first supposed, it may have been true
that boldness and craving for adventure were the
true lines of the Marshal's character ; but if that
were so, his native ideas had been overlaid by
much counsel, and bent into unwonted shapes.
After a while, as will be seen, his mind, fatigued
by advice, and now and then broken down by
bodily illness, began to lapse into a state which
rendered him almost passive in very critical
moments. ISTaturally, he had been cowed by the
result of his endeavours to have his own way
against Lord Stratford and Lord Eaglan. He was
without ascendancy in the camp of the Allies.

Colonel Troclm was a student of the principles
applicable to formal inland warfare, and it miglit
well be expected that, the more the obstacles to
the proposed undertaking were canvassed, the
more he would throw the weight of his scientific
advice into the negative scale.

Upon the whole, it resulted, from the composi-
tion of the various forces acting upon the mind
of M. St Arnaud, that, whatever opinion he might
lean to, he was not strong enough to be able to

VOL. u. a

258 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

ciiAP. act upon events. If the English should decide
^^^' against the project, he would be well content, and
perhaps much relieved. If, on the other hand,
the English should press for its adoption, then the
French Marshal would do his best to carry it to
a good conclusion.

Admiral The French fleet was commanded by Admiral

Hamelin. It was understood that he disapproved
the expedition, but being under the orders of Mar-
shal St Arnaud, he had not of course the weight
that his voice might have otlierwise carried.

Omar Pasha. It was Hot at that time a part of the project to
move any very large proportion of the Turkish
army to the coast of the Crimea, and therefore
the opinion of Omar Pasha would hardly become
a governing ingredient in the counsels of the
Allies. It was known, however, that he depre-
cated the proposed invasion.

Admiral The English fleet was commanded by Vice-

Admiral Dundas. Most of the Vice-Admiral's
latter years had been passed in political and
official life, and it was by force of politics that he
had now become troubled with the business of
war ; for his seat at the Admiralty Board, and
his subsequent appointment in peace-time to the
command of the INIediterranean fleet, were things
which stood in the relation of cause and effect.
He had not sought to return to scenes of naval
strife, but the war overtook him in his marine
retirement, converting his expected repose into
anxious toil. He was an able, a steadfast, a
genial man, and his square Scottish head, and hia

Dandas.

FOR THE INVASION. 259

rough, shrewd, good-humoured eyebrows, had chap.

grown grey in the faithful service of a political 1,

party. By nature, he was so stout-hearted that
he could afford to give free, manly counsel with-
out the least dread lest men should say he was
too cautious. His habits as a working, subor-
dinate member of Government, and perhaps, also,
his natural temperament, inclined him to take a
homely view of questions — a view recommended
by what men term ' common sense.' I am sure,
though I never heard him say so, that he believed
the war to be extremely foolish, and that the less
there was of it, the better it would be for the
Whigs, and for all the rest of mankind. He spoke
and went straight forward. He thoroughly dis-
approved the project of invasion, and he said so
in plain words. His opinion sprang, not from
dread of peril to the forces which he himself com-
manded, but from anxiety — anxiety in every way
honourable to him — for the safety of the English
army. That that anxiety was altogether vain, or
even that it was weakly founded, few men, speak-
ing with tlie light of the past, will be ready to say.
Still less will it be thought that the Vice- Admiral
was wrong in giving bold expression to his views.
Admiral Dundas's command was one quite
independent of the General in command of the
English army; but, the feasibility of the sea-
transit not being in question,* it was plain

* Dundas, I think, said faii-ly and bluntly, that he could
undertake to land the army on the coast of the Crimea, but
that he did not at all make sure of being able to supply it, or
to bring it back.

2C0

ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP.
XVI.

Lord
Raglan.

The instruc-
tions ad-
dressed to
him by the
Home Gov-
ernment.

that the decision would properly rest with
those who were responsible for the direction of
the land-forces. So, although he held stoutly to
his own opinion, the Vice-Admiral did not fail to
give assurance that, if the decision of the Gen-
erals should be in favour of undertaking the ex-
pedition, they might rely upon the aid of the
English fleet.

There remained Lord Eaglan: and now it is
time to give the words of the instructions which
had been addressed to him, as we have already
seen, by the Secretary of State.

The private letter which was the forerunner of
the detailed despatch ran thus : —

' Since I last wrote to you, events unknown
•' to you at the date of these letters have been
' brought to us by the telegraph, and the raising
' the siege of Silistria, and the retreat of the
' Eussian army across the Danube (preparatory,
' probably, to a retreat across the Pruth), give an
' entirely new aspect to the war, and render it
' necessary at once to consider what shall be our
' next move.

'The Cabinet is unanimously of opinion that,
' unless you and jMarshal St Arnaud feel that you
' are not sufficiently prepared, you should lay
' siege to Sebastopol, as we are more than ever
' convinced that, wiiliout the reduction of this
' fortress and the capture of the raissian fleet,
' it will be impossible to conclude an honourable
' and safe peace. The Emperor of the French has
* expressed his entire concurrence in this opinion,

FOR THE INVASION. 261

* and, / helicvc,^ lias written privately to the Mar- chap.
' shal to tliat effect. I sliall submit to the Cabinet _^*_.
' a despatch to you on this subject, and if it is

' approved you may expect it by the next mail.
' In the mean time I hope you will be turning
' over in your own mind, and considering with

* your French colleague, what it will be safe and
' advisable to do.' t

The promised despatch was in these words : —

' Secret.

' War Department, 2Wi June 1854.

' My Lord,

' In my despatch of the 10th April, marked
' " Secret," I directed your Lordship to make

* careful inquiry into the amount and condition
' of the Eussian force in the Crimea, and the
' strength of the fortress of Sebastopol.

' At the same time I pointed out to your

* Lordship that, whilst it was your first duty to
' prevent, by every means in your power, the
' advance of the Eussian army on Constantinople,
' supposing any such intention to exist, it might
' become essential for the attainment of the ob-
' jects of the war to undertake operations of an
' offensive character, and that the heaviest blow
' which could be struck at the southern extremi-
' ties of the Eussian empire would be the taking

* I need liardly saj' tliat tlie lUKlerscoving represented Ly
these Italics appears iu the original note.

+ Private letter from tlie Duke of Newcastle to I.orJ Raglan,
dated 28th June 1854.

262 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, 'or destruction of Sebastopol. The events which

XVI

' have recently occurred, and which have become

' known to Her Majesty's Government by means
' of the telegraph from Belgrade, — the gallant and
' successful resistance of the Turkish army— the
' raising of the siege of Silistria — the retreat of
' the Eussian army across the Danube, and the
' anticipated evacuation of the Principalities, —
' have given a new character to the war, and will
' render it necessary for you without delay to con-
' cert measures with Marshal St Arnaud, and with
' Admirals Dundas and Hamelin, suited to the

* circumstances in which these events have placed

* the Allied forces.

' The safety of Constantinople from any inva-

* sion of the Russian army is now, for a time at
' least, secured ; and the advance of the English
' and French armies to Varna and Pravadi has
' succeeded in its object, without their being
' called upon to meet the enemy in action.

' Any further advance of the Allied armies

* should on no account be contemplated. To
' occupy the Dobrutscha would be productive
' of no beneficial results, and would be fatally
' prejudicial to the health of the troops ; and
' even if the Russian army should not recross the
' Pruth, but continue in the occupation of the
' Principalities, it is the decided opinion of Her
' Majesty's Government that, for the present at
' least, no measures should be taken by you to
' dislodge them.

' The circumstances anticipated in my despatch

FOR THE INVASION". i!63

before referred to have, therefore, now arrived ; chap.
and I have, on the part of Her Majesty's Gov- ^^^'
ernment, to instruct your Lordship to concert
measures for the siege of Sebastopol, unless,
with the information in your possession but at
present unknown in this country, you should be
decidedly of opinion that it could not be under-
taken with a reasonable prospect of success.
The confidence with which Her Majesty placed
under your command the gallant army now in
Turkey is unabated ; and if, upon mature reflec-
tion, you should consider that the united strength
of the two armies is insufficient for this under-
taking, you are not to be precluded from the
exercise of the discretion originally vested in
you, though Her Majesty's Government will
learn with regret that an attack, from which
such important consequences are anticipated,
must be any longer delayed.

' The difficulties of the siege of Sebastopol
appear to Her Majesty's Government to be more
likely to increase than diminish by delay ; and
as there is no prospect of a safe and honour-
able peace until the fortress is reduced and the
fleet taken or destroyed, it is, on all accounts,
most important that nothing but insuperable
impediments — such as the want of ample pre-
parations by either army, or the possession by
Eussia of a force in the Crimea greatly out-
numbering that which can be brought against
it — should be allowed to prevent the early
decision to undertake these operations.

264 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. ' This decision should be taken solely with
'^^^^' ' reference to the means at your disposal, as

* compared with the difficulties to be overcome.

' It is probable that a large part of the Russian
' army now retreating from the Turkish territory
' may be j)oured into the Crimea to reinforce
' Sebastopol. If orders to this effect have not
' already been given, it is further probable that

* such a measure would be adopted as soon as
' it is known that the Allied armies are in
' motion to commence active hostilities. As all
' communications by sea are now in the hands of

* the Allied Powers, it becomes of importance
' to endeavour to cut off all communication by
' land between the Crimea and the other parts of
' the ItiiRsian dominions. This would be effectu-

* ally done by the occupation of the Isthmus of
' Perekop ; and I would suggest to you that,
' if a sufficient number of the Turkish army
' can now be spared for this purpose, it would
' be highly important that measures should be
' taken without delay for sending an adequate
' force to that point, and associating with the
' troops of the Sultan such English and French
' officers as would assist, by their advice, in
' holding permanently the position. Witli the
' same object, important assistance might be
' rendered by Admiral Dundas, if he has yet
' been able to obtain any vessels of a light
• draught whicli would ])revent the passage of
' Russian troops to the Crimea through the Sea
' of Azov.

FOR THE INVASION. 265

'It is unnecessary to express any opinion, at chap.
' this distance from tlie scene, as to the mode in __1__1_
' which these operations should be conducted, or
' the ])lace at whicli a disembarkation should be
' effected ; and as the latter will, of course, be
' decided with the advice and assistance of the
' French and English Admirals, it is equally un-
' necessary to impress upon your Lordship the
' importance of selecting favourable weather for
* the purpose, and avoiding all risks of being
' obliged by storms to withdraw from the shore
' the vessels of war and transports when only a
' partial landing of the troops has been effected.

' I will not, in this despatch, enter into any
' consideration of the operations which it would
' be desirable to undertake in Circassia or the
' coast of Abasia. The reduction of tlie, two I'e-
' maining fortresses of Anapa and Sujak Kaleh
' would be, next to the taking of Sebastopol, of
' the greatest importance, as bearing upon the
' fortunes of the war ; but not only is their fall
' of far less moment than tliat of Sebastopol, but
' the capture of the latter might possibly secure
' the surrender of the Circassian fortresses.

' In the event, ho^^•ever, of delay in undertaking
' these operations being inevitable, and the trans-
' ports being in consequence available for any
' other service, I wish you to consider, with liis
' Highness Omar Pasha and jNFar.shal St Arnaud,
' whether some part of the Turkish army might
' not be conveyed by steam from Varna, and, by
' a combined movement with the forces of Gen-

266

ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP.
XVI.

' eral Guyon and Schamyl, so entrap the Eussian
' army in and around Tiflis as to compel its sur-
' render to superior numbers.

' I have only further to express to you, on the

' part of Her Majesty's Government, their entire

' reliance in your judgment, zeal, and discretion;

' and their conviction that, whilst you will not

' expose the army under your command to un-

' necessary risk, you will not forget that to the

' gallantry and conduct of your troops their

' countrymen are now looking to secure, by the

* blessing of Providence, the great object of a

' just war, the vindication of national rights, and

' the future security of the peace of Europe.

' I have the honour to be,

' ;My Lord,

' Your Lordship's obedient humble servant,

' Newcastle.'

'General the Lord Raglan, G.C.B.,
* &c. &c. &c. '

Extreme
stringency
of the in-
•tructions.

In common circumstances, and especially where
tlic whole of the troops to be engaged are un-
der one commander, it cannot be right for any
Sovereign or any Minister to address such in-
structions as these to a General on a distant
shore ; for the General wlio is to be entrusted
with the sole command of a great expedition
must be, of all mankind, the best able to judge
of its military prudence, and to give him orders
thus cogent is to dispense with his counsel.

But in this war the united forces of France

FOR THE INVASION. 267

and England were under two commanders; and, chap.

. . XVI
besides, since the expedition was dependent upon !_

naval co-operation, the Admirals of the two fleets tions't!fndi"ng

would necessarily be taken into council. It is thii"strm-

true that the French Admiral was under the ^^"''^'

orders of Marshal St Arnaud, but there was no

corresponding arrangement in regard to the

English services, and our Admiral's command

was independent of the General commanding

the land-forces.

Thus it seemed to the Home Government that
the question, if left to be decided on the shores
of the Black Sea, would have to be weighed, not
by one commander, but by a council of at least
four, and to be actually decided by a council of
not less than three ; and it could scarcely be
expected that such a body, deliberating freely,
would come to that vigorous decision which
might easily perhaps be attained by any one of
them singly. On the other hand the two Govern-
ments were perfectly agreed. Upon the whole,
therefore, there was some ground for resolving to
transmit to the camps at Varna the benefit of
that concord which reigned between Paris and
London, and to subject the Generals and Admirals
to the overruling judgment of the authorities at
home.

Again, the chief reason which makes it unwise
to fetter the discretion of Generals— namely, the
superior knowledge which they are supposed to
have of the enemy's strength and of the field of
operations — was in this instance wanting ; for the

268 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. Generals in the camp at Varna liad absolutely no

XVI. .
^ trustworthy information except what came to

them from Paris or London ; and in their power
of testing the statements which readied them in
this way they were below the Home Govern-
ments, for they did not so well know the sources
from which the accounts were drawn.

Justice requires that these considerations should
have their weight, for they tend in some measure
to explain the extreme stringency of the instruc-
tions. The Minister who framed them had deter-
mined, with a boldness very rare in modern
times, to take upon himself an immense weight
of responsibility ; and, having brought himself to
tliis strong resolve, he rightly and generously did
all he could to simplify the task of the Genera'
whom he ventured to direct, and to make the
path of duty seem clear.
Thcpowerof But Lord Raglan had a station in the Allied

deciding for i-i i- t/vip itt

or against camp whicli made it very difficult lor the Home

the expedi- , i i • i i i i

tionbecornos Government to take his burthen ui)on themselves

practically

vested in by aiiy mere bold form of words. He commanded

l.or.l Haglati • -^

alone. the land-forccs, but he was clothed with a power

of older date than the Queen's commission. He
had been privy to the business of the wars which
England waged in tlie great days ; and if he had
seen how Wellington ordered affairs in the field,
lu! had witnessed too his endurance, and helped
him in the patient, unapplauded toil by wliicli
Ik; ])roi)ai'od the end. Men serving under Lord
Kaglan were none of them blind to the distance
which History herself interposed betwixt their

FOR THE INVASION. 2G9

General and themselves. There were none near chap

XVI

the chief who would not feel bitter jDain if they __! 1_

imagined that words or acts of tlieirs had thrown
upon his face a shadow of displeasuie. There
were no men near him who would not fly with
alacrity to execute his slightest wish. The
ascendancy of the English General over his
own people could not but reach into the French
camp. Upon the whole, Lord Raglan had so
great an authority in the camp of the Allies,
and amongst public men in England, that if he
had taken upon himself to resist the pressure of
the Secretary of State, he would not have been
left witliout support. On the other hand, if he
should determine to follow the will of the Home
Government, he would carry the French Marshal
with him. So, in effect, the power of deciding
for or against the expedition had passed from
Paris and from London, and was all concen-
trated in the English General.

Of the general officers in the English camp Lord nag-
there was one whom Lord Eaglan had always liberations
been anxious to have near at hand : this was Sir
George Brown. He was a Scotsman, sixty-four
years old, and had served, with a great repute
for his daring forwardness, in some of the most
bloody scenes of the Peninsular War. He was
of an eager fiery nature, and devoted to the call-
ing of a soldier. After the peace of 1815 he
began to hold office in the general staff of the
army at the Horse Guards, and in time he be-
came Adjutant-General. He- now commanded the

Brown.

270 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. Light Division. His zeal, and his lengthened

1_ toils in the Adjutant-General's office, had drawn

him too far in a narrow path, and he overplied
the idea of discipline; but he abounded in en-
ergy, and he was in many respects an accom-
plished soldier. He wrote on military subjects
with clearness, with grace, and seemingly with
a good deal of ease.
He requests After receiving the Duke of Newcastle's de-
of ir/G^orge spatcli Lord Raglan sent for Sir George Brown,
and expressed to him a wish to have his opinion
about it. He handed the paper to Sir George
across the table, and then went on with his
writing, leaving Sir George to consider its con-
tents at his leisure. When he had read it. Lord
Eaglan asked him to give him his opinion. Before
giving it, Sir George naturally inquired what
information Lord Eaglan had obtained in regard
to the strength of Sebastopol, and what force he
expected might be opposed to him in the Crimea.
Lord Eaglan's answer was, that he had no
information whatever; that neither he nor Mar-
shal St Arnaud knew what amount of force the
enemy had there ; that they believed and hoped
there might not be more than 70,000 men in the
peninsula; but that, in fact, it had not been
blockaded, and that no means had been taken to
procure information, and that, therefore, they did
not in reality know they might not be opposed
by 100,000 men, or even more.

Then Sir George Brown said: 'You and 1 are
* accustomed, when in any great difiiculty, or

FOR THE INVASION. 271

when any important question is proposed to chap.

us, to ask ourselves how the Great Duke woukl L

have acted and decided under similar circum-
stances. Now, I tell your Lordship that, with-
out more certain information than you appear
to have obtained in regard to this matter, that
great man would not have accepted the respon-
sibility of undertaking such an enterprise as
that which is now proposed to you ! But, not-
withstanding that consideration, I am of opinion
that you had better accede to the proposal and
come into the views of the Government, for this
reason, that it is clear to me, from the tenor
of the Duke of Newcastle's letter, that they
have made up their minds to it at home, and
that, if you decline to accept the responsibility,
they will send some one else out to command
the army who will be less scrupulous and more
ready to come in to their plans.' *
This suggestion did not at all govern Lord LordRag-
Eaglan's decision. -f* At the time he disclosed no tenmnatioB
opinion of liis own ; but he soon made up his
mind. His decision was governed by views

* One of my critics imagined that this piece of counsel was
the work of tlie Author's ' ingenious ' fancy, and remonstrated
with iiim for carrying his love of ridicule to the extreme lengtli
of putting 'unmitigated nonsense' in the mouth of a 'gallant
' and sensible ' old soldier like Sir George Brown ; but the words
attributed to Sir George Brown in the text are copied, with-
out the change of a word, from a written narrative of tlie con-
ference, which was handed to me by Sir George Brown him-
self.

+ All who were acquainted with Lord Raglan's nature will
acknowledge, I think, that his mind would liave refused ti

272 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, which must be explained. He believed that the
'_ enterprise was one of a very hazardous kind, and

was not warranted by any safe information con-
cerning the state of the enemy's forces. Having
that conviction, why did he not feel bound to
assert it, notwithstanding the urgency of the
Home Government ? Lord Eaglan was, as might
be supposed, deeply imbued with reverence for
TiioRiounds the authority of the Duke of Wellington; and,

on wUieh it ... . , , , . . . '

rested. rightly interpreted, that authority is surely the
safest guide that an English general can follow.
But there is a certain danger in the precepts of
the Great Duke, unless when they are construed
down to their right degree of significance by
applying to them the splendid context of his
deeds ; for he was accustomed to use sayings
founded on quaint and very literal readings of
our English law ; and tlie loyalty of his nature
rose so high above the reach of all cavil, that the
maxims which he uttered seemed to give a noble
simplicity to the tenor of his public life, though
in reality he rarely or never permitted them to
derange his policy, still less to confuse him in the
management of war. Naturally, therefore, men
were in danger of being misled by a too narrow

harbour, for one instant, tlie notion .subniittcd to liini by Sir
George P)ro\vii — tlic notion of engaging liis army in an impru-
dent undertaking from an apprehension of linding himself
superseded in the command by some one less scrupulous and
more ready to come in to the plans of the Government.

Lord Raglan, after this conference, was, I think, less inclined
than before to single out Sir George Brown as the one man
with whom to consult upon affairs of great moment.

FOR THE INVASION. 273

reading of liis precepts. Now, one of the Duke's
theories was, that an officer commanding an army
on foreign service owed obedience to the Secretary
of State — obedience close akin to that which a
military subordinate owes to his military chief.
If this precept were to be narrowly construed, a
Secretary of State who conveyed the wishes of
the Government to a general commanding forces
abroad would be in danger of finding that he had
shut out from his counsels the one man in all the
world who could best advise him ; and the lela-
tions of the Austrian generals with the old Aulic
Council at Vienna would have to be adopted as
a guide, instead of being valued as a warning.
Against this doctrine, understood in its narrow
sense, the Duke of Wellington's whole military
career in Europe was an almost unceasing rebel-
lion ; and it would be hard to find an instance in
which he suffered his designs to be bent awry by
the military opinions of the Home Government.
During the Peninsular War he did not surely pass
his time in obeying the Home Government, but
rather in setting it right, and in educating it, if
so one may speak, for the business of carrying
on war.*

* The fierce, wilful, and contemptuous way in wliicli the
Duke of Wellington dealt with a Secretary of State who ven-
tured to think he might take him at his word, and make him
obey his wish, must be familiar to every reader of the De-
spatches ; but I may refer to the specimen which will be found
in Sir Arthur Welleslcy's letter to Lord Castlereagh of the 5th
*f September 1 808. I mean the passage beginning ' In respect
' to your wish that I should go into the Astiirias, to examine
VOL. IT. S

CHAP.
XVL

274 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. It is knowiij however, that Lord Eaglaii ac-
• cepted the Great Duke's precept without much
qualification ; and when lie a})plied it to the de-
spatch which had come to him from the Secretary
of State, he saw, as he believed, where the path
of duty lay; for now, in all its potency, the
strange sleep which had come upon the Cabinet
on the 28th of June began to tell upon events.
But for this, or some like physical cause, it could
hardly have chanced that fifteen men, all gifted
with keen intellect, and all alike charged with a
grave, nay, an almost solemn duty, would have
knowingly assented to the draft of a long and
momentous despatch, without seeking to wedge
into it some of those qualifying words which
usually correct the imprudence and derange the
grammatical structure of writings framed in
Council. A few qualifying words of this sort
would have enabled Lord Eaglan to act upon
his own opinion. But the tranquil mood of
the Cabinet on the evening of the 28th of June
had prevented the mutilation of the despatch ;
and it retained so perfectly all that bold single-
ness of purpose which characterised the mind
of the framer, that it virtually directed the Eng-

' the country and form a judgment of its strength, I have to
' mention to you that I am not a draughtsman.' It happened
that, just six days before — namely, on the 30th of August —
Sir Arthur liad addressed to the same Secretary of State his
customary professions of obedience : — ' I shall do whatever the
' Government may wish ; ' but he never thought of suffering
himself to be hindered from penning an angry refusal on the 5th
of September merely because he had used a submissive phrase
on the 30th of August.

FOR THE INVASION. 275

lish General to undertake the invasion, unless chap.
it should happen that he had obtained fresh ^^^-^
knowledge of the enemy's strength — fresh know-
ledge of such a kind as would enable him to
controvert the statements sent out to him by the
Home Government, and say distinctly that the
Eussian forces in the Crimea were too numerous
to be encountered with common prudence by the
Allied armies. Now, Lord Eaglan had not suc-
ceeded in obtaining any information at all on
the subject, and, therefore, the one circumstance
which might have relaxed the stringency of the
despatch was entirely wanting. In the state of
things which actually existed, the Duke of New^-
castle's communication was little short of an
absolute order from the Secretary of State. The
English General determined to obey it.

It was thus that Lord Eaglan persuaded him-
self into the belief that he would be justified
in foregoing his own opinion, and acceding to
the will of the Home Government ; but perhaps,
though he knew it not, he was under the power
of a motive more heating than this bare process
of the reason. There were sentences in the de-
spatch which seemed as though they were meant
for the guidance of one not sufficiently prone to
action. The writer seemed to have busied him-
self in closing the loops by which a general
might seek to escape from the obligation of hav-
ing to make the venture. In reality, as we have
seen, the despatch had been framed with a view
of giving unanimity to a council of generals

276 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, and admirals, but it reached its destination at a

XVI
1_ time when (for the purpose of this decision) the

whole power of the camp at Varna was centred
in the English General. Whether meant for tlie
guidance of a council or not, the despatch was
addressed to one man — and that man was Lord
liaglau. Some may deem it wrong, and may call
it a plan of life too closely deriving from times of
chivalry ; but it is still the habit of the English
gentleman to think that his personal honour is no
part of the property of the State, and that even,
for what may seem the public good, he ought not
to do a violence to his self-respect. He has his
code formed in the time of his boyish conflicts or
of his early manhood; and if there be fire and
strength in Ids nature, he will not depart from it
merely because he has become responsible and
mature in years. Lord liaglun was of the bodily
nature of those whose blood Hushes hot to the face
under the sting of an indignant thought ; and
if mortal eyes could have looked upon him when
he revolved the contents of the despatch, they
would have seen him turn crimson in poising the
question whether he ought to resist the pressure
of the Queen's Government, — and to resist be-
cause of mere danger. AVhat the Duke of New-
castle meant was to do all he reasonably could
to enforce the invasion ; and, so intending, he did
honestly in making his order as peremptory as
possible ; but if, in any times to come, it shall
be intended that an English general commanding
ou a foreign service is to exercise his judgment

FOR THE INVASION. 277

freely and without passion, the Secretary of State chap.
must not challenge him as Lord Eaglan was ^^^'
challenged by the despatch of the 29th of June.

Lord Eaglan's decision governed the counsels His decision
of the Allied camp ; for although the Staff of the counsels of

-P, , */-iT TIT Tn-r. the Allies

Jbrench army* (mchidiug, as 1 believe, JNl. fet
Arnaud himself) were averse to the undertaking,
the Marshal's instructions were so framed that,
if the English should be ready to go forward,
he was virtually ordered to concur in the enter-
prise ; -f- and we have seen that he had not such a
weight in the French camp as would have enabled
him to oppose any valid resistance to the wishes
of his own Government and the determination of
the English General.

In announcing his decision to the Home Hean-
Government, Lord Eaglan thus wrote to the to the iiome
Duke of Newcastle : — ment.

'It becomes my duty to acquaint you that

* it was more in deference to the views of the
' British Government as conveyed to me in your
' Grace's despatch, and to the known acquiescence
' of the Emperor Louis Napoleon in those views,
' than to any information in the possession of the
' naval and military authorities, either as to the
' extent of the enemy's forces, or their state of
' preparation, that the decision to make a descent

* upon the Crimea was adopted.

* This will be shown b\- the narrative contained in a subse-
quent chajitcr.

t Lord Raglan had the advantage of knowing (by means of
a communication from Lord Cowley) that the ' Emiieror quite
' concurred in the views of th'^ British Cabinet.'

278 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. 'The fact must not be concealed that neither
^^^- ' the English nor the French Admirals have been

* able to obtain any intelligence on which they
' can rely with respect to the army which the

* Eussians may destine for operations in the field,
' or the number of men allotted for the defence of
' Sebastopol ; and Marshal St Arnaud and myself
' are equally deficient in information upon these
' all-important questions, and there would seem
' to be no chance of our acquiring it.'*

The Duke of The Dukc of Newcastle's reply to this despatch
repTy. was in full consistency with that fearless and un-

shrinking assumption of responsibility which had
marked his instructions of the 29th of June.

' I wish,' he writes, t 'that circumstances which
' are engrossing my attention this afternoon per-
' mitted my expressing to you the feelings of in-
' tense anxiety and interest which your reply of
' the 19th of July to mine of the 29th of June
' have created in my mind. I cannot help seeing,
' through the calm and noble tone of your an-

* nouncement of the decision to attack Sebastopol,
' that it has been taken in order to meet the views
' and desires of the Government, and not in entire

* accordance with your own opinions. God grant

* that success may reward you, and justify us !

* I wrote to the Queen the moment I received

* your despatch, and in answer she said : " The

* " very important news wliicli he conveyed to

* " her in it, of the decision of the Generals and

• 19th July.

t Private luUcr to Lonl Raglan, 3d August 1854.

FOR TlIK INVASION. 279

" Admirals to attack Sebastopol, have filled the chap.
" Queen with mixed feelings of satisfaction and ^^^'
" anxiety. May the Almighty protect her army Jx^r^ssfn '
" and her fleet, and bless this great undertaking of feeling.
" with success ! "

' Let me add my humble aspirations and prayers
to those of our good Queen. The cause is a just
one, if any war is just ; and I will not believe
that in any case British arms can fail. INfay
honour, victory, and the thanks of a grateful
world attend your efforts ! God bless you and
those who fight under you ! '

280 OUDEliS AKJJ PllEPAKATiONS

CHAPTER XVII.

CHAP. On the 18th of July a conference took place at

XVII

]\Iarshal St Arnaud's headquarters. It was at-

couference tended by the Marshal, by Lord Eaglan, and by
Jm^^^rs'"'^' Admiral Hamelin, by Admiral Bruat (who was
the second in command of the French fleet), by
Vice-Admiral Dundas, and by Eear-Admiral Sir
Edmund Lyons, who was the second in command
of the English fleet. It lasted four hours.

Perhaps most of the members of the conference
imagined that they were met for the purpose of
determining upon the expediency of undertaking
the invasion ; but Lord Eaglan had already
determined — not merely to support the wish of
his Government in the Allied camp, but — to cause
its actual adoption ; and he was so constituted
that he could bring the resources of liis mind
to bear upon the object in view with as much
iibuiidance and slreiigtli as if ]\o. liad liimself
approved or even devised it. Clearly a discussion
upon the expediency of undertaking tlie enter-
prise would have been fatal to it ; for no member
of the conference, except Lyons and (]')0ssibly)

FOR THE INVASION. 281

Briiat, could have couscientiously argued that the chap.

scheme was wise or even moderately prudent. L

How was it to be contrived that a council of war,
disapproving the enterprise, should be prevented
from strangling it ?

As almost always happened in conferences Loni uag-

■> ri. ],,j, J. way ol

where Lord Raglan had the ascendant, the grand eluding ob-
question was quietly passed over, as though it
were either decided or conceded for the purpose
of the discussion, and it was made to seem that
the duty which renuiinud to the council was that
of determining the time and the means. The
French had studied the means of disembarking in
the face of a powerful enemy. Sir Ealph Aber-
cromby's descent upon the coast of Egypt in the
face of the French army was an enterprise too
brilliant and too daring to allow of its being held
a safe example, for he had simply landed his in-
fantry upon the beach in boats, without attempt-
ing, in the first instance, to bring artillery into
action. It seems that hardly any stress of cir-
cumstances will induce a French general to bring
his infantry into action upon open ground with-
out providing for it the support of artillery.
Naturally, therefore, the French authorities at
Varna were impressed with the necessity of be-
ing able to land their field-guns in such a way
as to admit of their being brought into action
simultaneously with the landing of their battal-
ions ; and, having anticipated some time before
that a disembarkation in the face of an enemy
might be one of the operations of the war, they

282 ORDEKS AND PlIEPAKATIONS

CHAP, had already begun to make the boats required for
^^^' the purpose. These were flat-bottomed lighters,
somewhat in the form of pimts, but of great size,
and so constructed that they would receive the
gun-carriages with the guns ujDon them, and allow
of the guns being run out straight from the boat
to the beach. It was understood that the build-
ing of these fiat lighters would take about ten
days ; and it was determined that, in the mean-
time, a survey of the coast near Sebastopol should
be made from on board ship, in order to determine
the spot best suited for a descent.
Bcconnais- With a vicw to covcr the recoimaissance and
coast. draw off the enemy's attention, the Allied Ad-

mirals cruised with powerful fleets in front of the
harbour of Sebastopol ; and meanwhile the officers
chosen for the service went northward along the
coast in the Fury, seeking out the best place for
a landing. The officers of the land-service who
performed this duty were, on the part of the
French, General Canrobert and Colonel Trochu,
with one engineer and one artillery officer ; and
on the part of the English, Sir George Brown,
Lieutenant-Colonel Lake, K.H.A., Captain Lovell,
R.E., and Captain Wetherall, of the Quartermas-
ter-General's department. The Fury was com-
manded by Captain Tathani, and on board her
there also was one who had lent himself to the
enterprise of the Invasion with impassioned zeal.
In the moment when Lord Raglan determined
to treat the instructions of the Government as
imperative, and to put them in course for cxecu-

FOR THE INVASION. 283

tion, lie came to another determination (a deter- chap.

XVII

minatiou which is not so mere a corollary from '_

the first as men unversed in business may think):
he resolved to carry the enterprise through. He
knew that, though work of an accustomed sort
can be ably done by official persons acting under
a bare sense of duty, yet that the engine for con-
quering obstacles of a kind not known beforehand,
when they are many and big and unforeseen, must
be nothing less than the strong, passionate will of
a man. If every one were to perform his mere duty,
there would be no invasion of the Crimea, for a
rank growth of hindrances, springing up in the
way of the undertaking, would be sure to gather
fast round it, and bring it in time to a stop.

Amongst the English Generals there was no sir Edmund
one who had given his mind to the enigma which ^°^
went by the name of the ' Eastern Question ; ' but
Eear-Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons had been for
many years engaged in the animating diplomacy of
the Levant. In Greece, the activity of the Czar's
agents, or, perhaps, of his mere admirers, had been
so constant, and had generated so strong a spirit
of antagonism in the minds of the few conten-
tious Britons who chanced to observe it, that
the institutions called 'The Russian Party' and
' The English Party ' had long ago flourished at
Athens ; and since Sir Edmund Lyons had been
accredited there for several years as British ]\Iin-
ister, he did not miss being drawn into the game
of combating against what was supposed to be
the ever-impending danger of Russian encroach-

284 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, nient. Lon<^ am tliercfore, he had been whetted

fortius strife; and now that tlie 'Eastern Ques-

' tion ' was to be brought to the issue of a war in
which he had part, ho was inflamed with a pas-
sionate zeah Eesuming at once the uniform and
the bearing of his old profession, he cast aside, if
ever he had it, all semblance of diplomatic reserve
and composure, and threw himself, with all his
seaman's heart, into the business of the war.

Lord Raglan drew Sir Edmund Lyons into liis
intimate counsels. I know not whether this con-
cord of tlieirs was ever put into words ; but I
imagine that, at the least, I can infer from their
actions, and from the tenor of their intercourse,
a silent understanding between them — an under-
standing that no lukewarmness of others, no
shortcomings, no evasions, no tardy prudence, no
overgrown respect for difficulty or peril, should
hinder the landing of the Queen's troops on the
coast of the Crimea. From the time that Lord
Kaglan thus joined Lyons to the undertaking he
gave it a great moincntum. To those, within the
grasp of tlie Itcar-Adiniral's energy it seemed that
thenceforth, and until the troops should be landed
on the enemy's shore, there could be no rest for
man, no rest for engines. The Agamemnon was
never still. In the ])ainful, consuming passion
with which Lyons l(Mled, and even, as some im-
agined, in the anxious, craving expression of his
features, there was something wliich reminded
men of a greater name.

With the cordial approval of Lyons, Tathair

FOR THE INVASION. 285

carried the Fury * in so close to the shore that chap.

the coast could be reconnoitred with great com- '_

pleteness. The officers came to the conclusion
(a conclusion afterwards overruled, as we shall
see, by Lord Eaglan) that the valley of tlie Kat-
cha was the best spot for a landing.

We saw that the Czar's withdrawal from the Rumoured
Principalities would deprive the German Powers the ikns oi
of their main ground of quarrel with Ptussia, and
that our plan of engaging in a great marine ex-
pedition against Crim Tartary would cause Aus-
tria and Prussia to despair of all effective support
from the West, thus driving or tending to drive
them into better relations with Nicholas. Before
the 28th of July there were signs that this change
was beginning to set Russia free from the sti'aits
in which she had been placed by the unanimity
of the four Great Powers ; and tidings which
reached the camp at Varna made it appear
(though not with truth) that the Russian com-
mander had not only suspended his retreat, but
was commencing a fresh movement in advance.
To deliberate upon this supposed change in the
character of the war, a conference was held at the
French headquarters, and was attended by Mar-

* It seems that before retiriug to rest at night, Sir Edmund
Lyons simply directed Tathani ' to take the ship in as before,'
and that, this direction having been duly complied with, Lyons
found upon coming on deck the next morning that the Fury
was already ' close in.' Captain Tatham, a few days previously,
had carried the Fury in so near to Sebasto])ol as to come to au
exchange of shots with a part of the Kussian fleet, and it was
on that account that Dundas selected the Fury for this service.

286

OEDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP.
XVII.

Sftcoiul
conference.

Tlie French
urge the
abandon-
ment of the
expedition
against the
Crimea.

slial St Arnaud, Lord Raglan, General Canrobert,
Sir Edmund Lyons, General Martimprey, Sir
George Brown, and Colonel Troclni. The French
Generals grasped this as an occasion for bringin"
about the relinquishment of an enterprise which
they had always held to be rash. They sub-
mitted that the general instructions addressed to
both of the Allied commanders made it their duty
to provide, in the first instance, for the safety of
the Ottoman territory, and that, until that object
was secured, they were not warranted in attempt-
ing an invasion of a Eussian province far distant
from the threatened frontier of European Turkey ;
that the order to invade the coast of the Crimea
had been framed by the Home Governments, and
acceded to by the Allied Generals upon the as-
sumption that the armed intervention of Aus-
tria, then believed to be imminent, or, at the very
least, a continuance of her menacing attitude on
the flank of the Russian army would preclude
any attempt by the Czar to resume his war on
the Danube ; that tliat assumption now unfor-
tunately turned out to be unfounded; and that
the abandonment by Austria of the common
cause made it the bounden duty of the Allied
commanders to return to their defensive meas-
ures; because it was now plain that, if they
quitted Bulgaria, Omar Pasha, without aid from
any quarter, would have upon liis hands the
whole weight of the Russian army. Now tlien,
supposing the premises to be conceded, the French
counsellors had made out good grounds for aban-

FOR THE INVASION. 287

douing a resolution which, only a week ago, had chap.

been adopted by the Allied commanders. '_

Lord Raglan, however, was resolved that the Lord Ra--
enterprise should go on. From the moment he bending the
knew that the siege of Silistria had been raised the plans of

1 1 1 1 1 n T '''"' English

he never doubted that, lor that year at least, the Government
invasion of European Turkey was at an end. But
he knew that clever men who have taken the
pains to build up a neat logical structure, do not
easily allow it to be treated as unsound merely
because it rests upon a sliding foundation. With-
out, therefore, combating the French arguments,
he quietly suggested that the time which must
needs elapse before the embarkation might throw
new light on the probability of a renewed attack
upon Turkey ; and he proposed that, in the mean-
time, the preparations for the descent on the
Crimea should be carried on with all speed. This
opinion was adopted by every member of the con-
ference. The preparations were carried on with
increasing energy ; and the theory that it was the
duty of the Allied commanders to abandon the
enterprise was never put down by argument, but
left to die away uncontested.

Lord Eaglan had been struck with the value Prepara,

tiODS.

of the French plan for landing artillery on flat
lighters, and Sir Edmund Lyons and Sir George
Brown were despatched to Constantinople, with
instructions to do all they could towards supply-
ing the British army with means which would
answer the same purpose. They discovered that
a platform resting upon two boats might be made

288 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, to serve nearly as well as one of the French
^^"- lighters.* How they toiled the world will never
know, for History cannot pause to see them ran«
sacking Constantinople and the villages of the
Bosphorus in their search after carpenters and
planks ; hut before the appointed time, the whole
work was done. This was not all. Sir Edmund
Lyons and Sir George Brown propelled the ar-
rangements for buying and chartering steamers,
trampling down with firmness, perhaps one might
say with violence, all obstacles which stood in
the way. Of those obstacles one of the most
formidable was what was called in those days
the 'official fear of incurring responsibility.'
Lyons and Sir George Brown taught men that,
in emergencies of this sort, they should be pur-
sued with the fear of not doing enough, rather
than with the dread of doing too much. ' I can-
' not venture,' said a cautious official — ' I cannot
* venture to give the price.' ' Then I can,' said
Sir George Brown ; ' I buy it in my own name ! '
It is thus that difficulties are conquered. When
the restless Agamemnon came back into the Bay
of Varna with Lyons and Sir George Brown on
board, Lord Eaglan was at the head of a truly
British armament. He had the means, by steam-
power, and at one trip, to descend upon the

• I bflicvo that tlie merit of inakiug this discovery, and of
tlie irresistible energy by wliich it was carried into effect, be-
longed to Mr lioberls, late a Master in the Navy. See the
forcible exposition of Mr Kolierts's services, and of his cruelly
frustrated hopes, in a little work called 'The Service and th,e
' Reward,' Ijy Mr George John Cayley.

FOR THE INVASION. 289

enemy's coast, with all his divisions of infau- chap.

• XVII

try, with his brigade of light cavalry, and with '__

the whole of his field-artillery ; and he would
be enabled, if he landed in face of an enemy,
to bring his guns into action whilst his infantry
formed upon the beach.

When the allied commanders determined to ineffectual

attemiits of

execute the orders addressed to them, they saw the Auiea

_ _ , to deceive

the importance of endeavouring to veil their pro- the enemy,
ject from the enemy. With this view they tried
to induce a belief that Odessa was to be the object
of attack ; but the measures which they took for
this purpose were very slight and weak. To de-
ceive the enemy by the mere spreading of a report,
the first step for a general to takii would be that
of uttering the false word to some of his own
people. That would be a difficult service for Lord
Raglan to perform ; and I do not believe that he
ever could or ever did perform it.

Another contrivance for diverting the enemy's
attention from the Crimea was that of endeavour-
ing to alarm him for his Bessarabian frontier.
Partly to attain this end, and partly, as was sur-
mised, with the more ambitious object of striking
a blow at some of the Czar's retiring columns,
Marshal St Arnaud moved no less than three
divisions into the Dobrudja. But, in truth, all
secrecy was forbidden to the Allies. The same
power which dictated the expedition precluded its
concealment. It was in a council of the whole
people that England had resolved upon tlic enter-
prise ; and'what advantage there is in knowlcd;::e

VOL. II. T

2 DO ORDERS AND rREPARATIOXS

CHAP, of an enemy's plans, that she freely gave to Rus-

L. sia. It might seem that for the Emperor of the

French, who had shown tliat he was capable of
the darkest secrecy in his own designs, it must
have been trying to have to act with a power
which propounded her schemes in print. But,
happily, he understood England, and knew some-
thing of the conditions under which she moves
into action.
L-rd RnB- Lord Eaglau soon learnt that the native Bul-
to our Home gariaus abstained from coming in with their farm

Government . i , i i ^ • • n

in favour of producc to supply the ready market awaiting them

the native f,_,.|^'' . '' ,. ,,.

Bulgarians, m the English camp, and ascertaining that their
backwardness ai'ose from fear of their Turkisli
masters, combined, as he thought, with a hope of
being freed from the yoke they wore, he addressed
our Home Government on the subject in grave,
earnest, thoughtful language. Having observed
tliat the Kayahs went unarmed, whilst their mas-
ters, the Turks, stalked proudly under the burthen
of the many bright weapons they carried for cut-
ting, stabbing, and shooting their imaginary foes,
he warned the Secretary of State that, so long as
this inequality should be maintained, the condi-
tion of the people, kept down by such a distinc-
tion, must needs be very like tliat of slaves ;* but

* Pjivate lultur of Lord I!:iglan, 8Lh August 1854, to tlie
Duke of Newcastle. Lord Raglan's coiresiiondence on tliis
subject ■with the Duke of Newcastle bears so closely upon
a question which has Intcly been raised— a ([ucstion of great
moment to tho peace of Eurojio — that I ])lace it in the Ap-
l>endix. Veiy soon after writing his a])pcal of the 8th of
August, in favour of the Lulgarian Rayahs, Lord Eaglan was

rOK THE INVASION. 291

although his appeal drew a wavmly concurring chap.
response from the Duke of Newcastle, it produced

no other effect, and he himself when receiving it
was on the eve of embarking for the Crimea.

On the 10th of August a fire broke out in the rireat

,, . . , . ^_ - . . Varna.

J>ritish magazines at Varna, and a large quantity
of military stores was consumed.

But another and more dreadful enemy had now cuoicra.
entered the camp of the Allies. From the period
of its arrival in the Levant, the French army had
been suffering much from sickness. In the Brit-
ish army, on the contrary, though slight com-
plaints were not unfrequent, the bodily condition
of the men had been upon the whole very good ;
and so it continued up to the 19th of July. On
that day, out of the whole Light Division, there
were only 110 in hospital. But it seems that one
of the omens which portend the visitation of a
great epidemic is a more than common flush of
health. With the French, the cholera first showed
itself on board their troop-ships whilst passing
from Marseilles to the Dardanelles. It then ap-
peared among the French quartered at Gallipoli,
and followed their battalions into Bulgaria. There,
its ravages increased, and before the beginning of
the last week in July it reached the British army.

summoned away to a distant land; hut the exceeding earnest-
ness of his appeal gives me ground for believing that, if Bul-
garia had continued to be the theatre of war, Lord Kaglaii
would have persisted in his eflforts to raise up the subject
peoiile of the province, and obtain for them, if not good
government, at all events a much easier yoke than the one
under which thov tlien lived.

292 ORDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP, By the 19th of August our regiments iu Bulgaria
•^^^^' had lost 532 men. But it was amongst the three
French divisions marched into the Dobrudja, and
especially in General Canrobert's Division, that
the disease raged with the most deadly virulence.
In the day's march, and sometimes within the
space of only a few hours, hundreds of men dropped
down in the sudden agonies of cholera ; and out
of one battalion alone, it was said that, besides
those already dead, no less than 500 sufferers
were carried alive in the waggons. On the 8th
of August it was computed, by an officer of their
Staff, that out of the three French divisions which
marched into the Dobrudja, no less than 10,000
lay dead or struck down by sickness.

If the cholera had been confined to the land-
forces, the Generals would not, perhaps, have
allowed it to delay their embarkation ; but it
now reached the fleets. In a few days the
crews were in such a slate that all idea of at-
tempting to embark the troops was, for the mo-
ment, quite out of the question; and on the lltli
and 12th of August the Admirals put out from
their anchorage, in the hope of driving away the
disease with the pure breezes of the sea. But
they had scarcely done this when, on board some
of the ships, the mysterious pest began to rage
with a violence rare in Europe. The Britannia
alone out of 985 lost no less than 139 men.*

• In foinicr editions (owing to some mistake of figures Avliich
1 liavc not traced to its canno) I stated the lo.ss at only 105 ;
but act;oidiny to tlic btalLiiieiit furnished by Dr Rees, the

FOIi THE INVASION. 293

The number of those stricken, and of those at- chap.

tending upon them, was so great, that it was L.

impracticable to carry on the common duties of
the ship in the usual way ; and if the disease had
continued to rage with undiminished violence for
three days more there would have been the spec-
tacle of a majestic three-decker floating helpless
upon the waves for want of hands to Mork her.
This time of trial proved the qualit}^ of those who
remained unstricken. There was a waywardness
in the course of the disease on board British ships,
for which it is difficult to account, — it spared the
officers. On board British ships of war the sea-
man is accustomed to look to those who command
with a strong affectionate reliance ; and now the
poor sufferers, in their childlike simplicity, were
calling upon their officers for help and comfort.
An officer thus appealed to would go and lie
down by the side of the sufferer, and soothe
him as though he were an infant. And this
trust and this devotion were not always in vain.
Even against malignant cholera the officer seemed
to be not altogether powerless ; for, partly by
holding the sufferer in his kind hands, partly by
cheering words, and partly by wild remedies, in-
vented in despair of all regular medical treat-
ment, he was often enabled to fight the disease,
or to make the men think that lie did.

■Tirgeon of the Britannia, and, as 1 personally know, a most
able and excellent officer, the number was what I now state it.
Out of the first 60 cases 55 died, and of these, 50 died withiu
the first 20 hours.

294 OEDERS AND PREPARATIONS

CHAP. Almost suddenly the pestilence ceased on board
. • the British ships of war. The dead were over-
board, and the survivors returned to their accus-
tomed duties with an alacrity quickened by the
delight of looking forward to active operations
against the enemy. Instinctively, or else with
wise design, both officers and men dropped all
mention of the tragedy through which they had
passed.*

In a few days from the time when the cholera
had been raging with its utmost fury, the crews
of the fleet were ready to undertake the great
business of embarking the troops and landing
them on the coast of the Crimea.
Weakly con- In the camps of the Allied armies, at this
Eng^rsh '^ time, the cholera had abated, but had not ceased.
ery. "j^-^q^q -were fevers, too, and other complaints.
Grievous sickness fell upon that part of our
camp which had been pitched in the midst of
the beauteous scenery of the lake of Devna,
but the whole English army at this time began
to show signs of failing health. It appeared that,
even of the men out of hospital and actually
present under arms, hardly any were in the en-
joyment of sound health — hardly any were
capable of their usual amount of exertion.

This weakly condition of the men was destined
to act, with other causes, in bringing upon the
army cruel sufferings ; and it may be asked

• I was for several days on board the Britannia without
once, I think, hearing the least allusion to the pestilence

whi^li just four weeks before had slain 139 of the ship's crew.

FOR THE INVASION. 295

■whether, with the soldiers iu this condition of chap.

XVII

body, it was right to undertake an invasion. '_

The answer would be this : the medical author-
ities thought, and with apparently good reason,
that, for troops sickening under the fierce sum-
mer heats of Bulgaria, the sea voyage, the descent
upon another and more healthy shore, and, above
all, the animating presence of the enemy, would
work a good effect upon the health of the men ;
and, although these hopes proved vain, they
.seemed at the time to rest upon fair grounds.
And, after all, it is hard to say what other dis-
position of the troops would have united the
advantages of being better and possible. To re-
main in Bulgaria, or to attempt to operate in
the neighbourhood of the Danube, was to linger
iu the midst of those very atmospheric poisons
which had brought the health of the army to its
then state ; and, on the other hand, our people at
home would hardly have borne to see the army
sent back to Malta, and forced to recede from the
conflict, for the bare reason that some of the men
were in hospital, and that the rest, without being
ill, were said to be iu a weakly coudition.

296 THE EMBARKATION.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHAP. Our Admiral had at his command the means for

L conveying the British force to the enemy's shore

m^ntTfirst either in steam-vessels or in sailing-ships towed
SngVf'^ by steam-power ; and, until the eve of the em-
the^expecii- -jjarkation, the French believed that their resources
would enable them to achieve a like result. So,
at a conference of the four Admirals held on the
20th of August, it was arranged that the whole of
the French and English armament sliould move
from the coast at the same time under steam-
power ; and the 2d of September was looked for-
ward to as the day when tlie armament might per-
haps go to sea, but the exact time would of course
depend upon weather and other circumstances be-
yond the reach of exact calculation.
The em- On tlic 24th of August the huge operation of

embarking the armies had ah-eady begun. The
French embarked 24,000 infantry and 70 pieces
of field-artillery ; but, since they were straitened
in their means of sea-transport, tlie number of
horses they allotted to each gun was reduced
from six to four. Tlie French embarked no

barkatioDS.

THE EMBARKATION. 297

cavalry.* A large portion of the rrench troops chap.

were put on board ships of war,-|- and other por- z^

tions were distributed among a great number of
sailing-vessels. Some of these were very small
craft.

Attached to the French army, and placed un-
der the orders of Marshal St Arnaud, there was a
force of between 5000 and 6000 Turkish infantry.
These men were embarked mainly or entirely on
board Turkish vessels of war.

Sir Edmund Lyons was charged with the duty
of embarking the English forces ; and having first
got on board our 60 pieces of field-artillery, com-
pletely equipped, with the full complement of
horses belonging to every gun, he proceeded with
the embarkation of the 22,000 infantry and the full
thousand of cavalry whicli Lord Eaglan intended
to move from Bulgaria to the coast of the Crimea.
To put on board ship a body of foot-soldiers is
comparatively a simple process ; but the shipping
of horses involves so heavy a cost, so great an
exertion of human energy, that he who under-
takes such a task upon anything like a large scale

* They took with them from SO to 100 horsemen to perform
escort duty ; but of course I do not regard this as an exception
to the statement that 'no cavalry was embarked.'

+ Our naval officei-s are strongly opposed, to the practice of
putting troops on board ships of war. They are not the men
to set their personal convenience against the exigencies of tlie
public service, but they cannot endure that the eflBciency of a
man-of-war should be for one moment suspended. It is well
ascertained, too, that the presence of a great number of sol-
diers— men who, for the time of the voyage, are almost neces-
sarily idlers — is injurious to the discipline of a ship.

298 THE EMBARKATION.

CHAP, must needs be a man in earnest. On tlie other

.^ 1 hand, it was clear that, for an invasion of the

Crimea, a body of cavahy was strictly needed;
therefore a sagacious interpreter of warlike signs,
who saw that the English General was embarking
a thousand cavalry horses, and that the French
were embarking none, would be led to conjecture
that the English were resolved to make the de-
scent, and that the French were not. It will be
seen, by and by, that such a conjecture would
have been sound.

The time necessary for embarking a given num-
ber of foot-soldiers is small in proportion to that
required for getting on board an equal number
of troopers with their chargers. Nor is this all.
The embarkation of infantry is not necessarily
stopped by a moderate swell : the embarkation
of cavalry is rendered very slow and difficult by
even a slight movement of the sea, and is stopped
altogether by a little increase of surf. The
business of embarking the British cavalry was
checked during some days by a wind from the
north - east, and its consequent swell ; but
afterwards the weather changed, and the whole
force was got on board M'ithout the loss of a
man.*

Lord Eaglan could not repress the feeling with
which he looked upon the exertions of our naval

• The French were not so fortunate, for a painful accident
occurred in the course of their embarkation. One of their
Bteam-vessels ran down a boat laden with Zouaves. The men,
encumbered by their packs, could do little to save themselves,
and more than twenty were drowned.

THE EMBARKATION. 299

officers and seamen. ' The embarkation,' he wrote chaI'
on the 29th of August — ' the embarkation is pro-

' ceeding rapidly and successfully, thanks to the
' able arrangements of Rear- Admiral Sir Edmund
' Lyons, and the unceasing exertions of the officers
' and men under his orders. It is impossible for
' me to express, in adequate terms, my sense
' of the value of the assistance the army under
' my command derives from the Eoyal Navy.
' The same feeling prevails from the highest to
'the lowest — from Vice-Admiral Dundas to
' the youngest sailor ; an ardent desire to co-

* operate, by every possible means, is manifest
' throughout ; and I am proud of being associated
' with men who are animated by such a spirit,
' and who are so entirely devoted to the service

* of their country.'

Of course, the French, unencumbered with cav- Faimre of
airy, were on board before the English embarka- calculations
tion was complete ; but the steam-power at the their'coin-
command of the French fell short, and the ueces- steam-
sity of a variation from the plan determined upon
by the four Admirals was now announced. On the
4th of September, Admiral llamelin, and au officer
on the staff of the French army, informed Vice-
Admiral Dundas that their resources would not,
as they had expected, enable them to have their
sailing transports towed by steamers.

No explanation was given of the failure which
had thus suddenly crippled the French armament;
and yet, it must be owned, the discovery was one
that might well make men anxious, for they saw

power.

300 THE EMBAEKATION.

CHAP, that the whole flotilla would be clo^fred by tlie

xvin

slowness of the sailing-vessels in which the Mar-
shal's troops were embarked, and, accordingly, the
fate of the enterprise then appeared more than
ever dependent upon the accidents of weather.
Marshal St Arnaud sjrew restless.

TILE EMBAlvKA-TION. SOI

CHAPTER XIX.

We have seen that the 2d of September had chap.
been looked forward to as the time for the depar- ^^^'
tare of the united armaments, and on tliat day, fnd'impa"'
with military punctuality, Marshal St Arnaud stSud.
went to Baljik; but the wind and the waves are
still undisciplined forces, and the French em-
barkations were not destined to be completed
until the evening of the 4th. The IMarshal, there-
fore, was kept waiting at Baljik ; and meanwhile
sickness began to make havoc with his troops, for
they were densely crowded on board the transports.
The Marshal was much tortured by the anxiety
Mdiich he had had to bear during these three pain-
ful days, and (possibly to calm his mind) Vicc-
Admiral Dundas seems to have suggested to him
that, his sailing-vessels not being provided with
steam-power to tow them, he might as well cause
them at once to weigh anchor. By these causes,
joined to his irritation at what he thought the
backwardness of the English embarkations, the
Marshal was induced to determine, not merely
that he would act upon Dundas's suggestion, but
that he himself would wait no longer, and would

302 THE EMBARKATION.

CHAP, put to sea on the 5th of September with his sail-

XIX

__^J_ ing fleet; so when, on the same morning, Lord

^ucid'toset Ra-ghin reached Baljik, he was surpvised by the
theEngirsh! intelligence tliat the Marshal had already sailed
wm anT.il^' out on board the Ville de Taris.
and?he"'"* On the evening of the 6th the British arma-
boTrTthem. mcut was ready, and the arrangements for the
The naval voya^TC of the wholc flotilla complete. The French

forces of the ^ , , . , p^„ ■^ n i

AUies. fleet already at sea consisted of fifteen sail of the
line, with ten or twelve war-steamers, and the
Turkish fleet of eight sail of the line, with three
war-steamers; but the French and the Turkish
vessels were doing service as transports, and were
so encumbered with troops that they could not have
been brought into action with common prudence.
It was upon the English fleet, therefore, that the
Dutydcvoiv- duty of protecting the whole armada really de-
Engiishfleet. volvcd ; aiid, supposiug that the enemy were
aware of the helpless state of the French and
Turkish vessels laden with troops, and of the
enormous convoy of transports which had to be
protected, he might be expected to judge that it
was incumbent upon him to come out of the har-
bour and assail the vast flotilla of transports ;
for under the guns of Sebastopol the Paissians
had fifteen sailing ships of the line,* with some
frigates and brigs, and also twelve war-steamers,
though of these the Vladimir was the only
powerful vessel.-f- To encounter this force, and to
defend from its enterprises the rest of the armada,

* Some say sixteen.

t Unless the Bessarabia be countcil as a powerful steamer.

THE EMBARKATION. 303

the English had ten sail of the line (including chap.

. XIX

two screw-steamers), two fifty-gun frigates, and

thirteen lesser steamers of war heavily armed.

The anxious duty of disposing and guiding the Arrange-

'' ^ T-v 1 c • i^ients in re-

convoy was entrusted by Admiral Dundas to bir- gard to tiie
'' T I J • tngiish con-

Edmund Lyons ; and, under Sir Edmund s dircc- voy.

tions, Captain Mends of the Agamemnon framed

the programme of the voyage. On the evening of

the 6th the captains of transports were called hy

signal on board the Emperor, and tliere, Mends

read to them the instructions which he asked

them to obey. The captains thus addressed were

not in the Queen's service, but they were English

seamen, and their answer was characteristic. They

were not flighty men. They respectfully asked for

an assurance that, in the event of death, their

widows would be held entitled to pensions ; and

as to the question whether, of their own free

will, they would encounter the chances of a naval

action, they answered it with three cheers. It is

not by the mere muster-roll of the army or the

navy that England counts her forces.

With his force of horse, foot, and artillery, Lord iiie forcpn

Rao'lan had on board the transports (now all col- now on

. . board.

lected at Baljik)* the full number of ammunition-
carts required for the first reserve of ammunition,
the beasts required for drawing them, and sixty
other carts, also provided with draught - power.
But, in order to move so large a force at one trip,
it was found necessary to dispense with the b&t-

* At the time here spoken of there were two artillery trans-
ports lagging, but they were up in sufficient time.

304 THE EMBAKKATION.

CHAP, horses of the army, and the force was not provided

'__ with means of land-transport either for the tents

of the men or for the baggage of the officers.
There were also on board large supplies of field-
ammunition, of food for the troops, and of barley
and hay for the horses. In some of the horse-
transports there was an insufiiciency of the forage
required for the voyage. With that grave excep-
tion, all the arrangements seem to have been
good. Due means had been taken for insuring,
so far as was possible, the simultaneous transit,
not only of our ships of war, but of the whole
force which Lord Eaglan had embarked, together
with its vast appendage of warlike stores and pro-
visions ; for every sailing-vessel, whether she were
a ship of war or a transport, was towed by a suf-
ficiently powerful steamer. None of our ships of
war carried troops on board ; they were all, there-
fore, ready for action.
Troops an.i In addition to the forces and the means of land-
at Varna. transport which were actually on board, Lord Kag-
lan had in readiness for embarkation the whole
brigade of heavy cavalry, another division of in-
fantry, a siege-train, and some five or six thou-
sand pack-horses.* The sick remained in Bulgaria,
and such of the men out of hospital as seemed
to be in a very weakly state were left at Varna
and employed in garrison duty.

* Tho additional division of infantry (the 4th Division) was
at Varna ; the Scots Greys were on tlio Bosijhorus ; and the
rest of the lieavy cavalry in Bulgaria, wlicrc also the Lat-borsca
were left. Tiic sir^c-train was on board ofT Varna.

THE EMBAKKATION. 305

Vice-Admiral Dundas, commanding tlie whole CHAP.

XIX
British fleet had his flag on board the Britannia ; 1_

Lyons, in the Agamemnon, had charge of the
convoy. Each vessel had assigned to her the
place she was to take when the signal for mov-
ing should be given.

Before night, the whole of the English flotilla,
together with tliat part of the French and the
Turkish flotilla which had the command of steam-
power, was assembled in Baljik Bay, and in readi-
ness to sail on the morrow.

Men remember the beauteous morning of the Departure of
7th of September. The moonlight was still float- Armadlan.i
ing on the waters, when, from numberless decks, steam-

V6SS6lS

eyes straining out towards the east were able to
hail the dawn. A gentle, summer breeze was
blowing fair from the laud. At a quarter before
five, a gun from the Britannia gave the signal to
weigh. The air had become obscured by the busy
smoke of the engines, and it was hard to see how
and whence due order would come ; but presently
the Agamemnon moved through, and with signals
at all her masts, for Lyons was on board her,
and the colours, one after another, flying cease-
lessly out to the breeze, seemed to picture the
eagerness of a mind engaged in directing the con-
voy. The French steamers of war went out with
their transports in tow, and their great sailing
vessels formed line. The French went out more
quickly than the English, and in better order.
Many of their transports were vessels of very
small size ; and of necessity, therefore, they were
VOL. II. u

306 THE EMBAKKATION.

CHAP, a swarm. Our transports went out in five col-
^^^' umus of only thirty each. Then — guard over all
— the English war-fleet, in single column, moved
slowly out of the bay.*

Here, then, and apart from the bodies of foot
and artillery embarked by the French and the
Turks, there was an armament not unworthy of
England. Without combat, and by the mere
stress of its presence, our fleet drove the enemy's
flag from the seas which flowed upon his shoreSji*
and a small but superb land-force, complete in
all arms, was clothed with the power of a great
army by the ease with which it could be thrown
upon any part of the enemy's coast.}

Lord Eaglan had not suffered himself to be dis-
concerted by the departure of Monsieur St Arnaud,
and the consequent severance of the Allied forces.
No steamer was sent to re-knit his communica-
tions with the errant French Marshal.

* I did not reach the fleet till some three days afterwards,
when it was anchored at the rendezvous ; and my impression
of the scene in the Bay of Baljik is derived partly from some
MSS. which liave been furnished to nie, but partly also from
what struck me as a very good account of it, which I saw in a
printed book, by Mr Wood, a spectator.

t I am justified in speaking of the English fleet as the force
which kept the enemy's sliips in duress, because, as we have
seen, the French men-of-war were doing duty as transports, and
were not, tlierefore, in a state for going into action.

:}; I of course speak here of the inlierent jiowcr of such an
armament, without refirence to the fact that strictly-defined
instructions had been addressed to Lord Raglan, and that tlio
purport of these had become known to the enemy. The fixed-
ness of tlie i>lan of campaign, and the publicity which it had
obtained, reduced the power of the force to the level of its
actu.il numbers and il.s intrinsic strength.

VOYAGE OF TUE AKMADA. 307

CHAPTER XX.

We have seen that Marshal St Ainaiid, under chap.

feelings of some vexation, put to sea on the morn-
ing of the 5th of September. He could not but
know that, by his abrupt separation from the
British fleet and army, he had offended against the
English General. Upon reflection, he could not
but grieve that he had done this. But he had
put to sea, and had since heard no tidings from
the shore. No swift steamer had followed him
with entreaties to stay his course. He was left
free to pursue his voyage ; and the voyage was
growing more and more dismal.

' The Black Sea ' is a truer name than the
' Euxine.' Now, as in old times (if the summer
be hardly past), the voyager leaves a coast smil-
ing bright beneath skies of blue and glowing with
sunny splendour ; yet, perhaps, and in less than
an hour, the heavens above and the waters around
him are dark with the gloom and threatening
aspect belonging to the Northern Ocean.* Mon-

* The contrast between the climate of the Black Sea and that
of the countries Avhich suriouml it is one of the euitjinas to

XX.

308 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

CHAP, sieur St Arnaud encountered this change. The

^^' wind blew from its dark quarter. Every hour

Marshal -^yas Carrying the Marshal farther and farther into

Bt Ai-naud -^ <=>

the centre of the inhospitable sea, farther and
without the farther from the English fleet, farther and farther
English. fj^QYn Lord Eaglan. If he went on, there was no
junction to look for except at an imaginary point
His anxiety, marked with a pencil on the charts, but having
no existence in the material world ; and from the
wind and angry waves, no less than from his own
fast-cooling thoughts, he began to receive a dis-
tressing sense of his isolation. The struggle in
his mind was painful, but it came to an end. ' I

* am nearly twenty leagues,' writes the Marshal,
on the evening of the Gth, to Lord Eaglan — ' I
' am nearly twenty leagues north-east of Baljik,

* separated from the Euglish fleet, and from the
' part of my own convoy which was to sail with
' the convoy of the English fleet. Admiral Dun-
' das's last letter being worded conditionally, so
' far as concerns his sailing this morning, I am
' not sure of not seeing increased, in great propor-
' tions, the distance which separates me from you,
' and then there is reason to fear circumstances
' of wind or sea which would render our junc-
' tion difficult, and might compromise everything

H,,3i,, 'definitively. In this painful situation I decide
***■■''• ' to invite Admiral Hamelin (on his declaration

* that he cannot wait where he is) to return to
' meet the fleets and the convoy.' So the Mar-

wliich scientific men have applied tlieir minds ; but whether,
as yet, with success, I cannot say.

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 309

shal sailed back. Thus, happily, ceased the im- chap.
pulse which had threatened to sunder the fleets. '

Lord Eaglan's answer was stern. He removed Lord Rag-

. . lan'a reproof.

the grounds which the ^Marshal had assigned for
his departure, and then pointed gravely to the
true line of duty for the future. ' Thanks be to
' God,' he wrote, 'everything now favours our
' enterprise. Very soon we shall reach the
' appointed rendezvous, and then we shall have
' an opportunity of showing that our manner of
' acting together remains unaltered, and that the
' sincerity of whicli you speak will continue, as
' at present, to be our guide and our mutual
' satisfaction.'*

Coming from Lord Raglan, this language was
a reproof; but the result tends to show that it was
happily adjusted to the object in view. Thence- its good
forth there was no longer any tendency on the
part of Marshal St Arnaud to break away from
his colleague. From the hour of the first confer-
ence at the Tuileries, in the spring of the year.
Lord Eaglan's authority in the Allied councils Lord Rag-
had been always increasing ; and now, as we shall ingascen^^"
presently see, it gained a complete ascendant. ''"'^'

On the 8th the great flotilla, moving under Tiie whole

i 11" 1

steam, came up with the French and the Turkish Annada
sailing fleets which had left Baljik on the 5th ther\\ aL'
of September. The French fleet was in double
column, and tacking to eastward across the bow3
of the steam flotilla ; but upon being approached.

* Translated from the French, in wliieh the letter was
written.

310 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

CHAP, the French ships backed topsails and lay - to.
^^' Every one of the French vessels had kept its
position beautifully ; and the moment the signal
to lie-to was given, it was obeyed with a quick-
ness which was honestly admired by our seamen.
The Turkish fleet also lay-to, and for a while the
whole armada of the Allies was gathered together.
But tha But the English fleet, being moved by steam, kept
iigahi parted, ou to wiudward ; and presently the French and
the Turks began to sail off on opposite tacks.
Between the fleets thus disparting, the English
flotilla of transports passed through in five
columns.

The rendezvous was to be at a point forty miles
due west of Cape Tarkan, and thither moved the
three fleets with all their convoy,
step taken There were in the French army several officers
omfere^witii holding high command, and being otherwise men
stop The" of great weight, who had become very thoughtful
IgainsV°° on the subject of the contemplated descent upon
po . ^j^^ enemy's coast. Personally, they were men
quite as dauntless as those who gave no care to
the business in hand ; but being versed in the
study, if not in the practice, of the great art of
war, they had become strongly impressed with the
hazardous character of the intended enterprise.
It seems probable that, up to this time, they had
relied upon the mature judgment and the sup-
posed discreetness of Lord Raglan to prevent
what they regarded as a rash attempt. It might
well seem natural to them that two Governments
in the West of Europe, attempting to dictate an

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 311

invasion of a Russian province at a distance of chap.

3000 miles, would, sooner or later, be checked '__

in their project by the generals commanding the
forces ; and, of course, they would have liked
that the disfavour which unjustly attaches to
military prudence should fall upon the English
General rather than upon themselves or their
own commander. But in the course of the 7th
of September it became known to them that
Lord Eaglan was already at sea. They then knew,
or rather they then recognised the fact, that the
whole armada was really gliding on towards the
enemy's coast, and the ferment their minds under-
went now brought them to take a strange step.

Lord Raglan was on board the Caradoc ; and
on the 8th of September, whilst the fleets lay
near to one another, this vessel was boarded by
Vice-Admiral Dundas. He came to say that a
French steamer had conveyed to him the desire
of the Marshal St Arnaud to see Lord Raglan and
the Vice-Admiral Dundas, and to see them on
board the Ville de Paris, because the Marshal
himself was too ill to be able to move. It hap-
pened that the sea at this time was rough, and conference
the naval men thought that it would be difficult vniede
for Lord Raglan, with his one arm, to get up the
side of the three-decker in which the Marshal
was sailing ; Lord Raglan, therefore, deputed his
military Secretary, Colonel Steele, to accompany
Vice-Admiral Dundas on board the Ville de
Paris.

The Vice-Admiral and Colonel Steele found

312

VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

CHAP.
XX.

8t Amaiid
disabled by
illness

Unsigned
paper read
to the con-
ference.

the Marshal sitting up, but in a state of much
suffering, and they were informed that he was
very ill. He, however, sat at the conference ;
and tlie other persons present were — Admiral
Hameliu, Admiral Bruat, Admiral Count Buat
Wiliaumez, Colonel Trochu, General Eose, Vice-
Admiral Dundas, and Colonel Steele. The Mar-
shal took no part in the discussion which ensued.
It seems he could hardly speak.

It was stated that the meeting had been sum-
moned in order that a paper might be read to it.
The document bore no signature, and Marshal St
Arnaud was no party to it ; but it was stated that
it emanated from General Canrobert, General Mar-
timprey, and the principal officers of the French
artillery and engineers ; and it M'as said, too, that
General Eose* had furnished some of the ma-
terials from which it had been composed.

The document took it for granted that there
were three places for landing which merited dis-
cussion— the Katcha, the Yetsa, and Kaffa ; and
it then went on to show the advantages and the
drawbacks which would attend an attempt to
land at each of those three spots. The objections
to the landincr at the Katcha were stated with so

• Now, LordStralliiiiiini, the oflicer spoken of as Colonel Rose
in Vol. I. He was at tliis time accreditfd as British Commis-
eioner at the French lieadquartors. I have no reason for sup-
posing that he intended to give any sanclicn to the step taken
by the Fren('h remonstrants ; and I imagine that any materials
which he may liave put in their hands must have been confined
to maps or statements showing the physical character of the
country about to Le invaded.

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 313

much force as to show that the fiamers of the cilAP.

XX

document entirely disapproved it; and indeed .

they urged that any landing north of Sebastopol
would be surely followed by disastrous results.
The document also raised weighty objections to
a descent upon the coast near the Yetsa. The
only plan which was made to appear at all justifi-
able was that of a landing at Kaffa ; and although
the difficulties attending even that operation were
placed in a strong light, it was orally stated that
the framers of the document considered that plan
to be one nearly free from objection.

Now Kaffa was a seaport in the eastern part
of the Crimean peninsula, and divided from Sebas-
topol by many long marches over mountain-roads.
The autumn had already come. The landing at
Kaffa implied an abandonment, for that year at
least, of all attempts against Sebastopol. It was
to attack Sebastopol forthwith, and in the year
1854, that the great flotilla with all its precious
freight had been gathered together ; and now,
whilst the vast armada was moving towards the
enemy's coast, there came from the men of weight
and science in the French army this singular
protest — for that is what it really was — against an
enterprise already begun.

Marshal St Arnaud was in a painful strait. stAmaud

_ . , , . , , . , leaves all to

Being, as he knew, without ascendancy in the LordRagiaa
French army, he apparently thought that the
weight attaching to the combined opinion of all
the protesting officers was too great to warrant
hira in meeting their interposition with reproof

314 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

CHAP, or inattention ; yet, suffering as he did at the

XX •

time under bodily anguish, he was ill able to go

into the discussions thus strangely forced on by
the remonstrants. He found a solution. He
desired Colonel Trochu to say that he would con-
cur in any decision to which Lord Eaglan might
come.
Conference The confereuce, therefore, was adjourned to the
tiie Ciuadoc. Caradoc ; and Lord Raglan and Sir Edmund Lyons
were then present at it, together with all those
who had met on board the Ville de Paris, except
only Marshal St Arnaud.

Thus, then, the ebullition of prudence which had
broken out amongst the officers of the French
army came under the arbitrament of the English
General ; and with him, and with him only, it
rested to determine the movements of the whole
Allied force.

The business of the conference was opened by
Colonel Trochu. This officer, as we have already
seen, was supposed to be better acquainted than
any one else with the mind of the French Em-
peror ; and his counsels, no longer bending in the
direction of extreme caution, were now rather in
favour of enterprise. The Colonel had possession
of the document. He read it aloud ; and, as he
went on with the perusal, he commented upon
every point ; but he declared that he was no party
to the contents of the paper, and that he did not
sliare the anxieties* either of the army or the navy
as to the disasters which might be expected to
* 'Preoccupations.'

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 315

follow from a landing on the coast to the north of chap.
Sebastopol. '

Thereupon, Admiral Bruat repudiated the sup-
position of his being a party to the apprehensions
attributed to the Admii-als. Lyons also repudi-
ated it. Neither he nor Vice-Admiral Dundas
had known before the conference that any such
step as that of framing and presenting the remon-
strance had been imagined by the French officers,
and, as might be expected, they were both very
sure that nothing of the kind had sprung from the
British navy.

The inference which Lord Eaglan drew from
the document was, that it evinced 'an iudisposi-
' tion to the expedition amongst the officers who
' are supposed to be looked up to and to exercise
' influence in the French army ; ' and, ' in fact,' said
he, ' we were told as much at the meeting here
' on Friday.'

These, tlien, were the ' timid counsels ' * of

which the French Emperor afterwards spoke

when he ascribed the glory of overruling them to

Marshal St Arnaud. If it was right, as most men

will think it was, that these counsels should be

overruled, there was merit due to St Arnaud ; but

* 'TimiJes avis.' When this letter of the French Emperor
first appeared, it was imagined that the imputation of giving
'timid' counsels was intended to be cast upon some of our
Generals or Admirals ; but the Duke of Newcastle, with a
becoming spirit, determined instantly that this should not be
suffered to pass ; and the ' Moniteur ' was afterwards made to
explain ofScially that the ' timides avis ' were attributed by the
Emperor, not to any Englishman, but to some unnamed officeru
in the French service.

310

VOYAGE OF THE ARMAJ)A

CHAP.
XX.

Lord Rag-
lan's way of
dealing with
the French
remon-
Blrunts.

IIU now
complete
ucendaut.

Lis merit lay, not in any personal resistance which
lie was able to oppose to Lis counsellors (for he
was helpless, as we have seen, from bodily ill-
ness), but in the sagacity and good sense which
had led him to intrust the decision to his Eng-
lish colleague.

Lord Eaglau's method of dealing with the pro-
test of the French authorities was cliaracteristic
of himself and of the EnfrlisL nature. He did
not mucL combat tLe objections set down in tLe
paper, but Le passed tliem by, and quietly lowered
tLe debate from the high region of strategy to
a question of humbler sort — a question as to
what four steamers could be most conveniently
employed for a reconnaissance on the enemy's
coast.

So the conference whicli had been summoned
to judge whether the enterprise against Sebastopol
should not be brought to a stop, now found itself
only deciding tliat tLe vessels sent on tlie recon-
naissance sLould consist of one French steamer,
together with tLe Agamemnon, tLe Caradoc, and
tLe Sampson.

But, in trutL, tLe powers of tLe conference
had silently passed into tlie hands of one man.
Thenceforth the protest was dropped ; for, if its
framers had risen up against the notion of being
drawn on into what they thought a rash venture
by the mere effect of M. St Aruaud's acquiescence,
they were calmed when they came to know tliat
the whole force at last had a leader. 1 f still they
held to their opinions, they did so in a spirit of

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA, 317

clieerful deference, which prevented them from chap

• XX

throwing any further obstacle in the way of the 1_

enterprise. The armada moved on.

Again and again it has happened that mighty The use he

• f T 1 P n TO, makes of his

armaments, including the forces of several States power.
and people of diverse races, have been gathered
and drawn into scenes of conflict by the will of
one man ; but, in general, when such things have
been done, the compelling mind has been brought
to its resolve by the cogency of satisfied reason or
by force of selfish desire. What was new in this
enterprise was, that he who inexorably forced it
on did not of himself desire it, nor deem it to be
wise, nor even in a high degree prudent; and
the power which had strength to bend the whole
armada to the purpose of the invasion was, not
ambition inflamed, nor reason convinced, but the
mere loyalty of an English officer refusing to stint
the obedience which he owed to the Minister of
his Queen.

On the 9th, the whole of the English fleet with The English
its convoy was anchored in deep water at the poiutof
appointed rendezvous, a spot forty miles west of
Cape Tarkaud.

Lord Eaglan made haste to use the great powers Lord nagian
with which he was now invested, and he deter- undertakes a

reconnais-

mined to reconnoitre the coast with his own eyes, sanceof
At four o'clock on the morning of the 10th,
General Caurobert and the other French officers
who were to attend the reconnaissance came on
board the Caradoc. Lord Eaglan had with him
Sir Edmund Lyons, Sir John Burgoyne, and Sir

318 VOYAGE OF THE AEMADA

CHAP. George Brown. Not long after daybreak the
Caradoc neared Fort Constantine, aud then ap-
proached the entrance to the harbour. It was a
fair, bright morning, and the Sunday bells were
ringing in the churches when Lord Eaglan first
saw the great forts, and the ships, and the glitter-
ing cupola'd town. Afterwards, the vessel being
steered round off Cape Chersonesus, he could see
two old Genoese forts, and ridges of hills dividing
the great harbour from tlie southern coast of the
peninsula, WJiat he looked on was for him fated
ground, for the Genoese forts marked the inlet of
Balaclava, and the ridges he saw were the ' heights
' before Sebastopol.' But the future lay hidden
from his gaze.

The Caradoc was now steered towards the
north, and the officers on board her surveyed the
mouths of the Belbek, the Katcha, the Alma, and
the Bulganak, and the coast stretching thence
to Eupatoria. Of the sites thus reconnoitred,
General Canrobert thought the Katcha the one
best fitted for a landing. Lord Eaglan entirely
disapproved of the Katcha, and he did not at all
like the ground at the mouths of the other rivers;
but when, moving on in the Caradoc, he was off
the part of the coast which lies six miles north of
the Bulganak, he observed an extended tract of
beach, which seemed to him to be the gj'ound for
which the Allies were seeking. Without gener-
ating a debate upon the subject, he nevertheless
HechoosM elicited so much of the opinion of those around
place. "' him as he deemed to be useful. Then he declared

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 319

liis resolve. He said that the Allied armies chap.

XX

should land at Old Fort, '_

There are times when, to anxious, doubting
mortals, no boon from Heaven is so welcome
as the final resolve which is to govern their
actions. It was so now. Debating ceased, and a
happy alacrity came in its stead. That day our
fleet and the swarming convoy close gathered
around had been still lying anchored in deep
water at the point of rendezvous. To many those
long, peaceful Sabbath hours seemed to token a
wanton delay, or worse than delay — some falter-
ing in the great purpose of the Allies : but at
night the Caradoc came in ; and soon, though few
could tell whence came the change, nor what had
been passing, there flew from deck to deck a joy-
ful belief — a belief that in some way — in some
way not yet understood, the enterprise had gath-
ered new force.

The French and Turkish fleets, less amply pro-
vided with steam - power than the English, had
fallen to leeward ; but on the evening of the
11th they were anchored within thirty miles of
the British fleet, and the communication was of
course kept up by steam-vessels.

During the whole of Tuesday the 12th, the The whole
French, Turkish, and English fleets were slowly verging on .

, . , , , , . . , the coast of

drawing together and converging upon the theo-imea.
enemy's coast. Before sunset the armed navies
were all near together, and from their decks men
could make out with glasses the low cliff to the
north of Eupatoria. The English fleet anchored

320 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

CHAP, for the uii-lit. The French Admiral sent to in-
• timate that he would not anchor, but go on all
night, in the hope of being ready for the landing
the next morning. Vice - Admiral Dundas saw
that that hope was vain, because large portions of
the French convoy were still so distant that there
could be no landing on the following day. The
French, it will be remembered, were without
steam-power for their transports, and the breezes
were light. So, although every hour saw fresh
clusters of vessels slowly closing with the fleet,
the sea, towards the west, was always strewed
with distant sails, and, before the hulls of those
hove well in sight, the horizon got speckled again
with sails more distant still. So the English
Admiral anchored his fleet for the night.

The next morning, the 13th, the Ville de Paris,
under tow of the Napoleon steamer, had come
up ; and, although, so Lite as noon, some of the
French ships of war, and very many of their trans-
ports, were still distant, they were under such
breezes as promised to enable them to close before
long with the fleets. So, virtually, the moment-
ous voyage was over. The weather — and upon
that, in such undertakings, the hopes of nations
must rest — the weatlier had favoured the enter-
prise ; but the pest of modern armies had not
relented. The cholera had followed the men into
the transports. Many sickened on board the
troopships whilst they were still off Varna or Bal-
jik, and were carried back to die on shore. Dur-
ing the voyage many more fell ill, and many died.

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 321

But Marshal St Ariiaud, whose illness scarce chap.

XX

three days before seemed bringiug him fast to his '

end, was now almost suddenly restored, and on fua'^^u''"*^'^
the morning of the 13th he was like a man in ""ecovcry.
health. During the interval of five days, in The progrese
which the Marshal's illness had invested his Lord Rlgiau
English colleague with a supreme control, Lord MarsiTaVs

illiicss

Eaglan had used to the full the occasion which
Fortune thus gave him. In that time he had
repressed the efforts of the French Generals wlio
strove to bring the enterprise to a stop ; he had
committed the Allies to a descent upon the
enemy's shores — on his shores to the north of
Sebastopol ; he had reconnoitred the coast ; he
had chosen the place for a landing; and mean-
while he had drawn the fleets on, so that now,
when men looked from the decks, they could see
the thin strip of beach where the soldiery of tb.e
Allies were to land.

VOL n.

322 VOYAGE OF THE AltMADA

CHAPTER XXI.

ciiAP. Concerning the country which they were going
-1 — ^ to invade, the Allies were poorly informed. Of
rance^ouhe Scbastopol, the goal of the enterprise, they knew
ofthe'^^'*"^ little, except that it was a great military port
sirc'n'gth. and arsenal, and was deemed impregnable to-
wards the sea. Respecting the province generally,
it was known, by means of books and maps, that
Crim Tartary, or 'the Crimea,' as people now
called it, was a peninsula situate between tlie
Black Sea and the Sea of Azof ; and thei'c was a
theory — not perfectly coinciding with the truth —
that the only dry communication with the main-
land was by the Isthmus of Perekop. It was
understood that the north of the peninsula had
the character of an elevated steppe — that towards
the south it was rocky and mountainous — and
that the undulating downs which connected the
steppe with the mountainous region of the south
were seamed with small rivers flowing westward
from the summits of the highland district.* It

* A great body of most valuable information respecting tlie
Oriiiica had been imparted to the English public by General

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 323

was believed that tlie inhabitants were for the
most part Tartars, men holding to the Moslem
faith. Of the enemy's forces in this country, the
Allies, in a sense, were ignorant ; for although the
information which had come round to them by
the aid of the Foreign Office was in reality well
founded, they did not believe at the time that they
could at all rely upon it, and therefore they were
nearly as nmch at fault as if they had had no
clue. They knew, however, that the peninsula
was a province of Eussia — that Eussia was a
great military power — that, so long as three
months ago, the invasion had been counselled in
print — and that afterwards the determination to
undertake it had been given out aloud to the
world. From these rudiments, and from what
could be seen from the decks of the ships, they in-
ferred that, either upon their landing, or on some
part of the road between the landing-ground and
Sebastopol, they would find the enemy in strength.

But beyond this, little was known ; and the im- Tins gives
agination of men was left to range so free that, j.ediUo^n the
although they were in the midst of their ' nine- an^^vcu-
' teenth century,' with all its prim facts and statis-
tics, the enterprise took something of the character
of adventure belonging to earlier ages. Common,
sensible, fanciless men — men wise with the cynic
wisdom of London clubs — were now by force

(then Colonel) Mackintosh, and the Colonel had also addressed
important reports on the same subject to the military authori-
ties. What I intend to indicate in the text is, not that the
means of knowledge were wanting, but that they had not been
extensively taken advantage of.

324 VOYAGE OF THE AKMADA

CHAP, turned into venturers, intent, as Argonauts of old,

XXI • •
L_ in gazing upon the shores of a strange land to

which they were committing their lives. From
many a crowded deck they strained their eyes
to pierce the unknown. They could not see
troops. They saw a road along the shore : now
and then there appeared a peasant with a cart ;
now and then a horseman riding at full speed.
Neither peasant nor horseman seemed ever to
pause in his duty that he might cast a glance
of wonder at the countless armada which was
gathering in upon his country. At the northern
end of the bay there was a bright little town :
maps showed that this was Eupatoria.
ooeapatioii At uoou ou the 13th, the English tieet had
drawn near to this port of Eupatoria. There
were no Russian forces there except a few con-
valescent soldiers ; and the place being defence-
less. Colonel Trochu and Colonel Steele, accom-
panied by Mr Calvert the interpreter, were
despatched to summon it. The governor or head
man of the place was an official personage in a
liigh state of discipline. He had before his eyes
the armed navies of the Allies, with the countless
sails of their convoys ; and to all that vast arma-
ment he had nothing to oppose except the forms
of office. But to him the forms of office seemed
all-sufficing, and on these he still calmly relied ;
so, when the summons was delivered, he insisted
upon fumigating it according to tin; health regula-
tions of the little port. When he understood that
the Webtern Powers intended to land, he said that

lEnpatoiia.

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 326

decidedly they might do so ; but he explained that chap.
it would be necessary for them to land at the Lazar- ^^^'
etto, and consider themselves in strict quarantine.
On the following day the place was occupied
by a small body of English troops. The few-
Russian inhabitants of the place, being mainly or
entirely official personages, had all gone away,
but the Tartar inhabitants remained ; and al-
though these men did not exhibit, as some might
have expected, any eager or zealous affection for
the allies of the Caliph, they seemed inclined to
be friendly. Thoughtful men cared deeply to
know whether between these natives and the
Allies the relation of buyer and seller could be
established — for it was of vital moment to the
success of the expedition that the Allies should
be able to obtain supplies of cattle and forage in
the invaded country; and it was probable that
much would turn upon the success of the first
attempt to make purchases from the people of
the country. The first experiment which was
made in this direction elicited a curious proof of
the difficulty which there is in causing mighty
nations to act with the forethought of a single
traveller. It was to be expected that, at the
commencement of any attempted intercourse, the
willingness of the natives to sell would depend
upon their being tempted by the coins to which
they were accustomed ; because just at first they
would not only be ignorant of the value of foreign
money, but would also dread the consequence
of being found in possession of coin plainly re-

326 VOYAGE OF THE ARMADA

C H A P. ceived from the invaders. Yet the precaution of
^^^' bringing liussian money had been forgotten by
the public authorities; and when Mr Hamilton
of the Britannia was preparing to land, with a
view of endeavouring to begin a buying-and-sell-
ing intercourse with the natives, he had nothing
to offer except English sovereigns. It chanced,
however, that there were two or three English
travellers on board the flag-ship, and that these
men (foreseeing tlie likelihood of their having to
buy horses or make other purchases from the
natives of the invaded country) had supplied
themselves with some of the gold Russian coins
called ' half-imperials,' which were to be obtained
without difficulty at Constantinople. The travel-
lers— Sir Edward Colebrooke, I think, was one of
them — advanced as many of these as they could
spare to the public authorities ; and Mr Hamilton
being thus enabled to land with a small supply of
the magic half- imperials, and being, besides, a
good-tempered, humorous man, with a tendency
to make cordial speeches in English to all his
fellow-creatures alike, whether Eussian, or Tar-
tar, or Greek, he was able to make a merry begin-
ning of that intercourse with the natives which
was destined to become a fruitful source of
strength to the Allied armies. The gains made
by the first sellers soon drew fresh supplies into
the place from the surrounding country ; the com-
missariat afterwards began its operations in the
town, and in time a good lasting market was
opened to the invaders.

ACROSS THE BLACK SEA. 327

After receiving the surrender of Eupatoria on u u a p.

the afternoon of the 13th, the assembled armada '__

moved down towards the south. All day there Ti'e whoio

"^ arniada

were sailinsj-vessels approaching from a distance, ^-ithers

o irf o ' towards tlie

and closing at last with the rrencli fleet ; but ?''°s'l" '^"^
before night (with the exception, it is believed, of
two or three small lagging transports) the three
tieets and the host of vessels they convoyed,
were anchored near Old Fort in Kalamita Bay.
The united armada extended in a line parallel
with the coast, and in a direction, tlierefore,
not far from north and south. The French and
the Turkish fleets were on the south or right-
hand side ; the British fleet took tlie north, and
formed the left of the Allied line.

828 THE LANDING.

place

CHAPTER XXII.

CHAP. The ground chosen by Lord Raglan for the land
^^"- ing of all the Allied forces is five or six miles
The landing- nortli of the Bulganak Eiver. It gained its name
of ' Old Fort ' from an indication appearing on
the maps, rather than from any slight traces of
the structure then remaining. Along this part
of the coast the cliffs rise to a height of from 60
to 100 feet, and for the most part, they impend
too closely over the sea to allow much room for
the beach. Near ' Old Fort,' however, the high
grounds so recede that at first sight they appear
to embrace a small bay or inlet of the sea, but
upon a nearer approach it is perceived that the
inner part of the seeming bay is a salt-water lake,
and that this lake is divided from the sea by a
low, narrow strip of beach. A little further north
the same disposition of land and water recurs ;
for there, also, another salt lake, called the Lake
of Kamishlu, is divided fi'om the sea by a low,
narrow strip of beach a mile and a half in length.
The first-mentioned strip of beach — namely, the
strip opposite to Old Fort — was the one which

THE LANDING. 329

Lord Raglan had chosen for the landing of all the chap
Allied armies. ^-^'^^-

It was arranged that a buoy should be placed
off the centre of the chosen ground to mark tlie
boundary between the French and the English
flotilla.* The French and the Turkish vessels
were to be on the south of the buoy, the British
on the north ; and in the evening and night of the
13th tlie ships and transports of the three nations
drew in as near as they could to their appointed
landing-places.

But in the night of the 13th there occurred a step taken
transaction which threatened to ruin the whole Frencii in
plan for the lauding, and even to bring the har- '^ '"^ '
mony between the French and the English forces
into grievous jeopardy. During the darkness, the
French placed the buoy opposite, not to the centre,
but to the extreme north of the chosen landing-
ground ; f and when morning dawned, it appeared
that the English ships and transports, though
really in their proper places, were on the wrong
side of the buoy — or rather, that the buoy was on
the wrong side of them. Whether the act which
created this embarrassment was one resulting

* Captain Mends, Sir Edmund Lyons's flag-captain, thonglit
proper to write a letter to a newspaper on the 18th of March
1863, saying, 'It might suffice for me simply to say that I re-
' member nothing about a buoy ; ' but on the 5th of the follow-
ing April ho did me the honour to address a letter to me, in
which he said, 'It would seem there was a buoy.' See the
correspondence on the subject in the Appendix. — Note to i(h
Edition.

+ See the extract from Lord Eaglan's private letter on this
jiibject, which is given in the next footnote.

330

THE LANDING.

CHAP.

xxir.

This de-
Btroj-s the
whole plan
of the
landing.

Sir Edmund
Lyons.

from sheer mistake on the part of our allies, or
from their over - greediness for space, or from a
scheme more profoundly designed, it plainly went
straight towards the end desired by those French
officers who had been labouring to bring the en-
terprise to a stop. For what was to be done ? If
the English, disregarding the altered position of
the buoy, were to persist in keeping to their as-
signed landing-ground, their whole ilotilla, their
boats and their troops, when landed, would be
hopelessly mixed up with the French ; and what
might be expected to follow would be ruinous
confusion — nay even, perhaps, angry and violent
conflict between the forces of the Allies. To pro-
pose to move the buoy, or to get into controversy
with the French at such a time, would be to
delay and imperil the whole undertaking; and
yet the boundary, as it stood, extruded the Eng-
lish from all share in the chosen landing-ground.
It might seem that the whole enterprise was
again in danger of failure, but again a strong
will interposed.

From the moment when Lord Eaglan consented
to undertake the invasion, he seems to have acted
as though he felt that the belief which he enter-
tained of its hazardousncss was a reason why he
should be the more steadfast in his determina-
tion to force it on. Nor was he without the very
counsel that was needed for overcoming this last
obstacle. Lyons, commanding the in-shore squad-
ron of the British fleet, was entrusted with the
direction of our transports and the whole man-

THE l.AiNDLNG, 331

agemeiit of the lauding. Moving long before chap.

dawn in the sleepless Agamemnon, he saw where L

the buoy had been placed by the French in the l^eaiing wui.
night-time, and gathered in an instant all the genc'j"'*'^'
perilous import of the change. He was more
than a mere performer of duty, for he was a
man driving under a passionate force of purpose.
Without stopping to indulge his anger, he darted
upon the means of dealing with the evil. He had
observed that about a mile to the north of ' Old
' Fort' there was that strip of beach, before spoken
of, which divided the Lake of Kamishlu from the
sea. There, Lord Eaglan and he now determined New land-
that the landing of the Lritish forces should take found' for
place.* It was true that this plan would sever at KamWik

* One of the most conspicuous of my critics denied with great
confidence the wliole statement alDOve made in reference to the
buoy, and was supported (during a period of more than a fort-
night) by the testimony of Captain Mends. It therefore seems
right to give an extract from the private letter in which Lord
llaglan narrates the facts to tlie Duke of Newcastle : —

Extract from Lord Raglan's Narrative of the Lauding, ad-
dressed as a Private Conmiunication to tlie Duke of New-
castle, the Secretary of War, and dated 'Camp above Old
' Fort Bay, September 18, 1854.'
'The disembarkation of both armies commenced on the
' morning of the 14th.

' It had been settled that the landing should be effected in
' Old Fort Bay, and that a buoy .should be placed in the centre
' of it to mark the left of the French and the right of the Eng-
' lish ; but when the Agamemnon came upon the buoy at day-
* light, Sir Edmund Lyons found that the French naval officer
' had deposited it on tlie exti-eme northern end, and had thus
' engrossed the whole of the bay for the operation of his own
' army. This occasioned considerable confusion and delay, the
' English convoy having followed closely upon the steps of

332 THE LANDING.

CHAP, the French from the British forces during the
^^^^- operation of landing, but the evil thus encoun-
tered was a hundred-fold less grave than the evil
avoided — for, even in the face of an enemy, the
separation of the French from the English would
have been better than dispute or confusion ; and,
moreover, the observations of the previous day
had led the Allies to conjecture that the enemy
did not intend to resist the landing. The morn-
ing showed that this conjecture was sound: there-
fore, great as was the danger from which the
Alliance had been delivered, it turned out in the

' their leader, and got mixed with the French transports ; but
' Sir Edmund Lj^ons wisely resolved to make the best of it, '
' and at once ordered the troops to land in the bay next to the
' northward.'

I may add that all the many accounts wliicli I have seen of
tlie movements and counter-movements of tlie ships and the
transports on the early morning of the l-lth of September tally
perfectly with the above statement by Lord Ilaglan. In saying
this, I include Captain Mends's letter to the newspaper. See
the Appendix. It Avill be seen that the facts which he de-
scribes in tlie fourth and fifth paragraphs of that letter are ex-
actly those wliich would naturally result from the discovery
and the change of plan which Lord Kagbm communicates to
the Minister of War.

I may add that Sir George Brown was on board the Aga-
memnon ; that he was personally cognisant of the change which
Lord Kaglan described ; that many years ago he recorded what
occurred in language tallying perfectly with Lord Raglan's
account ; and, fmally, that he (Sir George I5rown) is still alive.
—Note (slightly altered) to 4th Kdilinn.

The kiudiiess of Captain Arinytage (who was first lieutenant
of tlio Iligliflier at the time of the landing) has now enabled mo
to give the words of the written order from Sir Edmund Lyons,
proving the absolute accuracy with wliich Lord Raglan wrote
when he said 'it had been settled that the landing should be
* effected in Old Fort Bay, and that a buoy should be placed

THE LANDING. 333

result that the immense advantatje of haviiii? two chap

XXTI

extended landing-places instead of one, was not .*

counterbalanced by any evil resulting from the
severance of the two armies.

In point of security from molestation on the
part of the enemy, both of the two landing-places
were happily chosen. Both of them were on
shores which allowed the near approach of the
fleets, and placed the whole operation under cover
of their guns. Also both landing - places were
protected on the inland side by the salt lakes,
which interposed a physical obstacle in the way
of any front attack by the enemy ; and the access
to the flanks of the disembarking armies was by
strips of land so narrow that they could be easily
defended against any force of infantry or cav-
alry. It is true that the line of disembarkation of
either army could have been enfiladed by artillery
placed on the heights ; but then those heights
could be more or less searched by a fire from
the ships ; and the enemy had not attempted to

' in tli£ centre of it to mark the left of the French, and the

' right of the English.' The order ran thus : —

' Light Division to be actually under weigh at 1 o'clock.

' 4th Division at 2 ,,

'1st ,, ,, 3 „

'2d „ „ 4 „

* Steer SSE. 8 miles. Rendezvous Lat. 45°. Not to go

' within 8 fathoms. Those vessels v hich iiave cast off are to

' make fast tlieir hawsers the moment they receive this note.

(Signed) Edmund Lyons.
Rear- Admiral.^

This order was received liy Armytage at 3 a.m. Tiie as-
signed latitude is 11' ][)" S. of Eupatoria. — Note to bth
Edition.

334

THE LANDING.

The cause
and the
nature of
the change
kept secret.

prepare for himself any kind of defence on the
high ground.

The necessity of having to carry the English
flotilla to a new landing-place occasioned, of
course, a painful dislocation of the arrangements
which had already been acted upon by the com-
manders of the transports; but after much less
delay and much less confusion than might have
been expected to result from a derangement so
great and so sudden, the position of the English
vessels was adapted to the change.

Meanwhile, few of the thousands on board un-
derstood the change which had been effected,* or
even saw that they were brought to a new land-
ing-ground. They imagined that it was the better
method or greater quickness of the French which
was giving them the triumph of being the first to
land. Both Lord Eaglan and Lyons were too
steadfast in the maintenance of the alliance to
think of accounting for the seeming tardiness of
the English by causing the truth to be known ;
and even to this day it is commonly believed

* Amongbt these uninformed thousands was Captain Mends,
Sir Edmund Lyons's flag-captain. See his letter to the news-
paper in tlie Appendix, containing {inter alia) those words : —
' It mi(jhl mffi.cc for me simply to say, I remember nothing about
' a buoy.' The placing of a buoy for fixing the anchorage of
each French column is officially narrated by the French in
these words :— ' Le Primauget, le Caton, et la Mouette ontpris
' les devants, avec la mission de placer, h. petite distance de
' la plage de debarquomcnt, des bouees de couleur differente
' destinees k indiquer par leur alignement le mouillage de nos
' trois colonnes que le Primauget a detwrmiue dans I'excursion
' de la vcille.' Narrative enclosed to his Government, and de-
clared accurate by Admiral Ilanielin. Note to Uh Edition.

THE LANDING. 335

tliat the English army effected its landing at Old chap.
Fort. ^^^^-

The bend of the coast-line at Kalamita Bay is Position of
of such a character that a spectator on board a squadrons,
vessel close iu-shore is bounded in his view of
the sea towards the south by the headland near
the Alma; but if he stands a little way out
to sea, the coast opens, and he then commands
an unobstructed view home to the entrance of
the Sebastopol harbour. So, whilst the in-shore
squadrons approached the beach so closely as to
be able to cover the lauding, the bulk of the Eng-
lish fleet, commanded byDundasin person, lay far of the main
enough out to be able to command the whole of °^ '^
the vast bay from Eupatoria to Sebastopol, keep-
ing up an unbroken chain of communication from
cape to cape, and always held ready to engage the
Russian fleet if by chance it should come out and
give battle.* Detached vessels reconnoitred the
coast, and practised their gunners upon every en-
campment or gathering of troops which seemed to
be within range. As though in the arrogant yet
quiet assertion of an ascendant beyond dispute,
one solitary English ship, watching off the Sebas-
topol harbour, stood sentry over the enemy's fleet.

* It has been already explained that the French men-of-
war were doing duty as transports, and were not therefore in a
condition to engage the enemy. There were people who
thoughtlessly blamed Duudas for not taking part with the
iu-shore squadron in the bustle of the landing. Of course his
duty was to hold his off-shore squadron in readiness for an
engagement with the Sebastopol fleet; and this he took Cflre
to'd...

336

THE LANDING.

CHAP.
XXII.

Plan of the
Icisding.

General
Airey.

Men had heard of the domiuiou of the seas, and
now, what they bad heard of they saw.

The plan of the English disembarkation was
imitated from the one adopted by Sir Ealph Aber-
cromby when he made his famous descent upon
the coast of Egypt; and was based upon the
principle of so ranging the transports and the
boats that the relative positions of the several
companies, whilst being rowed towards the shore,
should correspond with those they would have to
take when landed, and forming line upon the
beach.*

All the naval arrangements for the landing were
undertaken by Sir Edmund Lyons ; but to dispose
the troops on the beach — to gain a lodgment — to
take up a position, and, if necessary, to intrench
it — these were duties which specially devolved
upon the Quartermaster-General. The officer who
held this post was General Airey ; and, since it
was his fate to take a grave part in the business
of the war, and to share with Lord Eaglan his
closest counsels, it seems useful to speak here at
once, not of the quality of his mind (for that will
best be judged by looking to what he did, and
what he omitted to do), but rather of those cir-
cumstances of his life, and those outer signs and
marks of his nature, which any bystander in the
camp would be likely to hear of or see.

A strictly military career in peace - time is a
poor schooling for the business of war ; and the

* I abstain from giving a detiiiled account of the landing
ojieration, because it was nnt resisted by the enemy

THE LANDING. 337

rough change which had ouce broken in upon chap.
Airey's professional life helped to make him more ^^^'
able in war than men who had passed all their
lives in going round and round with the wheels.
Airey was holding one of the offices at the Horse
Guards when he was suddenly called upon by his
relative Colonel Talbot, the then almost famous
recluse of Upper Canada, to choose whether he and
his young wife would accept a great territorial
inheritance, with the condition of dwelling deep
in the forest, far away from all cities and towns.
Airey loved his profession, and what made it the
more difficidt for him to quit it was the favour
with which he was looked upon by the Duke of
Wellington. It chanced that he had once been
called upon to lay before the Duke the maps and
statements required for showing the progress of a
campaign then going on against the Cafires ; and
the Duke was so delighted with the perfect clear-
ness of the view which Airey was able to impart
to him, that he instantly formed a high opinion of
an officer who could look with so keen a glance
upon a distant campaign and convey a lucid idea
of it to his chief. Airey communicated to the
Duke of Wellington Colonel Talbot's proposal, and
explained the dilemma in which he was placed.
• You must go,' said the Duke ; ' of course you
' must go — it is your duty to go ; but we will
' manage so that whenever you choose, you shall
' be able to come back to us.' Airey went to
Canada. It had been no part of Colonel Talbot's
plan to smooth the path of his chosen inheritor.
VOL. II. Y

338 THE LANDING.

CHAP. He gave him a vast territory, but omitted to
•^^^^' give him a home.

So, left isolated in the midst of the forest, aud
with no better shelter than a log-hut half-built,
the staff-of&cer, hitherto expert in the prim tradi-
tions of the Horse Guards, now found himself so
circumstanced that the health, nay, the very life of
those most dear to him, was made to depend upon
his power to become a good labourer. He could
not have hoped to keep his English servants a day
if he had begun by sitting still himself and order-
m<y them to do the rough work to which they were
unaccustomed ; so he worked with his own hands,
in the faith that his example would make every
kind of hard work seem honourable to his people;
and being endued with an almost violent love of
bodily exertion, he was not only equal to this new
life, but came to delight in it. Clad coarsely
during the day, he was only to be distinguished
from the other workmen by his greater activity
and greater power of endurance. Many English
gentlemen have done the like of this, but com-
monly they have ended by becoming altogether
just that which they seemed in their working hours
— by becoming, in short, mere husbandmen. It
was not so with Airey. When his people came to
speak to him in the evening, they always found him
transformed. Partly by the subtle change which
they were able to see in his manner, partly even
by so outward a thing as the rigorous change in
his dress, but most of all perhaps by his natural
ascendant, they were prevented from forgetting

THE LANDING. 339

that their fellow -labourer of the morumg was chap
their master — a master to whom they were every xxii.
day growing more and more attached, but still
their master. He therefore maintained his sta-
tion. He did more: he gained great authority
over the people about him ; and when he bade
farewell to the wilderness, he had become like
a chief of old times — a man working hard with
his own hands, yet ruling others with a firm
command.

It was during a period of some three or four
years that Airey thus wrestled with the hardsliips
of forest life, but at length coming home to Eng-
land, he resumed his military career. Those who
know anything of tlie real business of war will
easily believe that this episode in the life of
General Airey was more likely to fit him for
the exigencies of a campaign and for the com-
mand of men than thrice the same length of
time consumed in the revolving labours of a
military department; nay, perhaps they will
think that, next to a campaign, this manful
struggle with the wilderness was the very work
which would be the most sure to set a mind
free from the habits, the bylaws, and the petty
regulations of office.

Before the expedition left England, Lord Eag-
lan had asked General Airey to be his Quarter-
master - General. Airey, preferring field duty
with the divisions, had begged that some other
might be appointed, and Lord Eaglan acceded
to his wish ; but when, on the eve of the depar-

340 THE LANDING.

CHAP, tiire of the expedition from Varna, Lord De lios
^•^"^ returned to England,* the Quartermaster-Gen-
eralship was again pressed upon General Airey
in terms which made it unbecoming for him
to refuse the burthen. His loyalty and affec-
tionate devotion to Lord Eaglan were without
bounds ; and he imagined that he was always
acting with a strict deference to the wishes of
his chief. But then Airey was a man of great
ardour, of a strong will : and having also a rapid,
decisive judgment, he certainly accustomed him-
self to put very swift constructions upon Lord
Eaglan's words. No one ever used to see him
in the pain of suspense between two opinions.
Either he really knew with minuteness Lord
Eaglan's views, or else he was so prone to take
a great deal upon himself, that in his zeal for
the public service he might almost be called
unscrupulous. Men who were hesitating and
trying to make out what was the path of their
duty, soon came to know that Airey was the
officer wlio would thrust away their doubts for
them ; because rightly or wrongly, whether with
or without due authority, he used to speak in
such a way as to untie or to cut every knotf
He was himself, it would seem, unconscious of
exercising so much power as he really did ; but
it is certain enough that those who complained

* Lord de Ros went home on account of ill-liealth. He
was so ill that he had to be carried on board.

t An illustration of this way of his (which was supplied to
me after the publication of the 3d Edition) will be found ;?o««,
in the note at the foot of p. 355.

THE LANDING. 341

of his ascendancy were not very wrong in believ- chap.

ing that he held a great sway ; for though, being _J L

guileless and single-hearted, he always liked to
receive his first impulsions from the chief, yet,
when once he was thus set moving, his strong
will used to burst into action with all its own
proper force, and very much, too, in its own
direction,

Notwithstanding this proneness to action, his
manner had all the repose which is thought to
be a sign of power. He did not, in general,
speak at all until he could speak decisively ;
and he was more accustomed than most other
Englishmen are to use that degree of precision
and completeness of language which makes men
content to act on it. Officers hesitating in the
pain of suspense used to long to hear the tramp
of his coming — used to long to catch sight of his
eager, swooping crest (it was always strained for-
ward and intent) — his keen, salient, sharp-edged
features — his firm, steady eye — for they knew
that he was the man who would release them
from their doubts. He was gifted by nature
with the kind of eloquence that it is good for
a soldier to have. His oral directions to those
in authority under him were models of impera-
tive diction ; but when he spoke of what he had
seen, the vivid pictures he drew were marked
with a sharpness of outline hardly consistent with
a perfect freedom from exaggeration — they want-
ed the true English haze. He was too eager for
action to be able to stand still weighing phrases;

342 THE LANDING.

CHAP, and I imagine that he did not even know how
•^^^^' to try the exact strength and import of words in
the way that a lettered man does. Upon the
whole, his qualities were of such a kind as to
make it impossible for him to be M'ithout great
weight in the army. His friends would call hira
a man plainly fitted for high command — his
adversaries would say that power in his hands
was likely to be used dangerously ; but all would
alike agree that, whether for good or whether
for evil, he had from nature the means of impress-
ing his own will on troops.
The first The arrangements of the French were like those

ing.^ '"' ' of the English; and at half-past eight o'clock
on the morning of the 14th of September 1854,
their first boat touched the shore. The English
had made such good haste to retrieve the time spent
in moving to their new landing-place, that very
soon afterwai'ds their disembarkation began.

The morning was fine ; the sea nearly smooth.
The troops of the Light Division were in the
boats, and the seamen were at tlieir oars, expect-
ing the signal. The signal was given, and in-
stantly, from along the whole of the first line of
transports, an array of boats freighted with troops
— boats ranged upon a front of more than a mile —
began to dart in towards the shore. It was said
that tlie boat commanded by Vesey of the "Brit-
annia was the first to touch the beach.* He Avas

* The question as to which of the English boats was the first
to land has excited more interest than it apparently deserves ;
for the lauding did not take place in face of the enemy. Per

THE LANDING. 343

an officer who would do all man could to be fore- chap.
most. ^^"-

As soon as the boats had landed, the soldiers
stepped ashore, and began to form line upon the
beach ; but presently afterwards they piled arms.
There were some Tartar peasants passing along

haps one of the causns Avhich led men to look at the question
with something more than mere cariosity, was tlie siu-prise of
finding that, notwithstanding all the charges of want of zeal
which had been brought against Admiral Dundas, a boat from
his flag-ship (the Britannia) was said, after all, to have been the
first to land.

According to one opinion. Captain Dacres, with the gig of
the Sanspareil, was the first to reach the shore ; and tliere are
antecedent reasons for supposing that this would be likely to be
the case ; for, besides that Captain Dacres was (as the work of
that and the four follomng days sliowed) an officer of great zeal
and ability, he had been entrusted with the naval command on
the beach (he was beach-master), and would of course be anxious
to reach the .shore as soon as possible. It seems that there got
to be, as it were, a kind of race between the Britannia boat and
the gig of the Sanspareil, and a race, too, which was a very
close one ; for although the Britannia boat, laden with troops,
could not match its speed with the gig, it liad a start just long
enough to make up for the superior swiftness of its rival. Cap-
tain Dacres never doubted that he, ^^-ith the gig of the Sans-
pareil, was the first to land ; but among tliose who were on
board the Britannia boat (and 1 speak now of soldiers as well as
sailors) the belief was that that was the boat which won.

On both sides the statements are positive, and on one side
they are also circumstantial. They are also rather interesting ;
and I would have given them here, if it were not that I am un-
willing to place men in an attitude of direct conflict with one
anotlier upon an unimportant matter of fact.

If Vesey, with tlie Britannia boat, was the first to land. Colonel
Lysons of the 23d Fusiliers must have been the first man of
the land service who touched the shore. If, on the other hand,
Dacres, with the gig of the Sanspareil, landed first, Sir George
Brown, I think, must have been the first English officer of the
land service wlio reached the shore of the Crimea.

344 THE LANDING.

CHAP, the coast-road with small bullock waggons. The
^^"- waggoners showed little or no alarm, and, knowing
that they could not move off quickly with bul-
locks, they did not attempt to get away. Ap-
parently they were not struck with any sense
of unfairness when they saw that the English
took possession of the waggons ; and yet it could
scarcely have been explained to them at that
moment (as it afterwards would be) that every-
thing taken by the English from private own-
ers would be paid for at a just price. One of
the waggons was laden with small pears, and
the soldiers amused themselves with the fruit
whilst the natives stood and scanned their in-
vaders.

After a while, many of the battalions which had
landed were ordered forward to occupy the hill
on our right ; and thenceforth, during all the day,
the acclivity was sparkling with the bayonets of
the columns successively ascending it. But what
were those long strings of soldiery now beginning
to come down from the hill-side and to wind their
way back towards the beach ; and what were the
long white burthens horizontally carried by the
men ? Already? already, on this same day ? Yes ;
sickness still clung to the army. Of those who
only this morning ascended the hill with seeming
alacrity, many now came down thus sadly borne
by thair comrades. They were carried on am-
bulance-stretchers, and a blanket was over them.
Those whose faces remained uncovered were still
alive. Those whose faces had been covered ovei

THE LANDING. 345

by their blanket were dead. Near the foot of the chap

XXII

hill the men began to dm graves. 1

But meanwhile the landing went merrily on. zeaiai'd
It might be computed that, if every man in the thesauors
navy had only performed his strict duty, the land-
ing would have taken some weeks. It was the su-
pererogation, the zeal, the abounding zeal, which
seemed to achieve the work. No sailor seemed
to work like a man who was merely obeying — nc
officer stood looking on as if he were merely com-
manding ; and though all was concert and dis-
cipline, yet every man was labouring with the
whole strength of his own separate will.* And
all this great toil went on with strange good-
humour — nay, even with thoughtful kindness
towards the soldiers. The seamen knew that it
concerned the comfort and the health of the sol-
diers to be landed dry, so they lifted or handed
the men ashore with an almost tender care : yet
not without mirth — nay, not without laugh-

* When it is seen that I conceive myself warranted in apply-
ing this language to the exertions of the navy at the time of the
landing, it may be asked whether there was not some one man
who had the merit of giving a right direction to the zeal and
energy of the seamen thus toiling on the beach ? There was.
The officer who commanded on the beach was Captain Dacres ;
and I believe one might safel}' echo the words of him who once
said to Captain Dacres, ' The 14th of September was your day.'
Both Dundas and Lyons were doing all tliat was right ; but, so
far as concerns the vast operation going on upon the beach, their
wisdom lay in the wise trustfulness with which they committed
the business to a fit man, and then left him alone, undisturbed
and unfrctted by orders. I believe that during the four days
and four nights which followed the commencement of the land-
ing. Captain Dacres never received any orders from Sir Edmund
Lyons. — Note to ilk Edition.

346 THE LANDING.

CHAP, ter far heard — when, a.s though they were giant

" ' maidens, the tall Highlanders of tlie 42d placed

their hands in the hands of the sailor and sprang

by his aid to the shore, their kilts floating out

wide while they leapt.

After mid-day the sea began to lose its calm-
ness, and before sunset the surf was strong enough
to make the disembarkation difficult, and in some
degree hazardous. Yet, by the time the day
closed, the French had landed their Ist, 2d, and 3d
divisions of infantry, together with eighteen guns ;
and the English had got on shore all their infantry
divisions, and some part of their field-artillery.

Wet nights Somc fcw of the English regiments remained
on the beach, but the rest of them had been
marched up to the high grounds towards the
south, and they there bivouacked. At night
there fell heavy rain, and it lasted many hours.
The men were Avithout their tents.* Lying in w^et
pools or in mud, their blankets clinging heavy
with water, our young soldiers began the cam-
paign. The French soldiery \vere provided with
what they call dog-tents — tents not a yard high,
but easily carried, and yielding shelter to soldiei's
creeping into them. It was always a question in
the Frcaich army wlietluir these tents gave the
men more liealth and comfort than they could
find in the upon air.

* This was because there were iio sufficing means of land-
transport for conveying the camp equipage towards Sebasto-
pol. After tlie 14lh the tents were landed, but they weio after-
wards reshipped.

THE LANDING. 347

The next morning was fine, but the surf had so OHAP.
much increased that for several hours the landing
was suspended. After the middle of the day it be- continua-
came practicable, though still somewhat difficult, to landing .
go on with the work ; and great eftbrts were made
to land the Engiisl] cavalry and the rest of the ar-
tillery with the appertaining horses and equipages.

Unless a man has stood in the admiring crowd
which gathers to see tlie process of landing one
horse upon an open sea-shore ; and unless, whilst
he carries in his mind the labour and energy
brought to bear upon this single object, he can
imagine the same toil gone through again and
again and again and again, till it has conquered
the whole assigned multiple, he will hardly know
wliat work must be done before a general can
report to his Government that he has landed upon
an open coast, with a thousand cavalry and sixty
guns all in readiness for either movement or com-
bat. By labour never once intermitted (except
when darkness or the state of the sea forbinle
it), and continued from the morning of the 14th
until the evening of the 18th, the whole of the
English land-force, which had been embarked at
Varna (together now with Cathcart's Division),
was safely landed upon the enemy's coast.*

The result then was, that under circumstances

* Cathcart's Division —the 4th — had been meant to con-
stitute a reserve for our army, and was tlierefore, as we saw,
left beliind when the invading armies embarked; but Lord
Raglan soon perceived the expedienc}' of having this force with
him in the Crimea, and the orders he therefore gave brought it
up by the time above shown.

348

THE LANDING.

CHAP.
XXII.

Its com-
l»letion ;

liy tlie
Bnglisli ;

by the
Trench ;

of weather which were, upon the whole, favour-
able, and with the advantage of encountering no
opposition from the enemy, an English force of
some 26,000 infantry and artillerymen, with more
than a thousand mounted cavalry, and sixty guns,
had been landed in the course of five September
days ; and, although the force thus put ashore was
without those vast means of land-transport which
would be needed for regular operations in the in-
terior, and was obliged to rely upon the attendant
fleet for the continuance of its supplies, it was
nevertheless so provided as to be able to move
along the coast carrying with it its first reserve
of ammunition, and food enough for three days.

The operation was conducted with an almost
faultless skill, and (until a firm lodgment had been
gained), it proceeded in the way that was thought
to be the right one for landing in the face of the
enemy. Though the surf was at times somewhat
lieavy, not a man was lost.

For Marslial St Ainaud, who had brought no
cavalry with him, the task of effecting his descent
on the shore was one of comparative ease ; and
he might have placed himself in a condition to
march long before the English were ready ; but
knowing that the disembarkation of a large num-
ber of horses must needs cost a good deal of time,
he had no strong motive for hurrying; and ac-
cordingly, during the whole of the five days
which our people consumed in the process, there
was always work going on at the landing-ground
used by the French.

THE LANDING. 349

The Turks did the work of landing very well ; chap.
and, indeed, they quickly showed that they had ^^^^-
an advantage over the French and the English in ^^J^^
their more familiar acquaintance with the mode of
life proper to warfare. They did not let the want
of land-transport prevent them from landing their
camp equipage ; for, with them, the carriage of
tents is a very simple business. Two soldiers, one at
each end, bear the pole of a tent between them, and
the canvas is carried by others in turns. So early
as the 15th, the first day after that on which the
landing began, the Turks were comfortably en-
camped on the ground assigned to them; and
whilst the young troops of France and England
were still sitting wretched and chilled by the wet
of their night's bivouac, the warlike Osmanlis
seemed to be in their natural home. Soliman,
who commanded them, was able to welcome and
honour the guests who went to visit him in his
tent as hospitably as though he were in the audi-
ence-hall of his own pashalic. He had all his
tents well pitched ; and his men, one could see,
were still a true Moslem soldiery — men with arms
and accoutrements bright, yet not forgetful of
prayer. He had a supply of biscuit and of cart-
ridges, and a good stock of horses, some feeding,
some saddled and ready for instant use. He was
not without coffee and tobacco. His whole camp
gave signs of a race which gathers from a great
tradition, going on from father to son, the duties
and the simple arts of a pious and warfaring
life.

350 KESOUllCES OBTAINED FROM

CHAPTER XXIII.

CHAP. When the people of the neighbouring district

■^^"^' came to see the strength of the armies descend-

Deputations j^-jf^ upon their coast, the head men of the villages

from 111 e Tar- ir> I ' c

[S'the En- hegan to present themselves at the qnarters of
"uartera ° ^^^^ Allics. The fiist of these deputations was
received by Lord Eaglan in the open air. The
men were going up to headquarters when they
passed near a group of officers on foot in blue
frock-coats, and they learned that the one whose
maimed arm spoke of other wars was the English
General. They approached him respectfully, but
without submissiveness of an abject kind. Neither
in manner, dress, appearance, nor language, would
these men seem very strange to a traveller ac-
quainted with Constantinople or any of the other
cities of the Levant. They wore the pelisse or long
robe, and although their head-gear was of black
lamb-skin, it was much of the same shape as the
Turkish fez. They spoke with truthfulness and
dignity, allowing it to appear that the invasion
was not distasteful to them, but abstaining from
all affectation of enthusiastic sympathy. They

THE INVADED COUNTRY. 351

seemed to understand war and its exigencies ; chap.
for they asked the interpreters to say that such
of their possessions as might be wanted by the
English army were at Lord Eaglan's disposal.
Pleased with the demeanour of the men, as well
as with the purport of their speech, Lord Eaglan
told them that he would avail himself of some
of their possessions, more especially their wag-
gons and draught animals, but that everything
taken for the use of the English army would be
paid for at a proper rate. Much to Lord Eaglan's
surprise (for he was not accustomed to the people
of the East), the head man of the village resisted
the idea of the people being paid, and anxiously
pressed the interpreter to say that their posses-
sions were yielded up as free gifts.

Pure ignorance of the invaded country gave Resuiioi-
charm to every discovery tending to throw light expeditions
upon the character and pursuits of the inhabi-
tants ; and if our soldiery had found in the vil-
lages high altars set up for human sacrifices, they
would scarcely have been more surprised than
they were when, prying into the mysteries of this
obscure Grim Tartary, they came upon traces of
modern refinement and cultivated taste. In some
of the houses at Kentugan there were pianos ;
and in one of them a music-book, lying open and
spread upon the frame, seemed to shoM' that the
owner had been hurried in her flight. But the
owners of these dwellings must have been oflQcial
personages. The mass of the country people were
Tartars.

352 RESOURCES OBTAINED FROM

CHAP. Ill the villages there was abuudauce of agricul-
^^"^- tural wealth. The main waut of the country was
water ; but General Airey caused wells to be sunk.
The English system of payment for supplies
rapidly began to bear its usual fruit, and the
districts from which the people came in to barter
with us were every day extending.
The English In their passage across the Euxine our battal-
abToVo'' ions had not yet been followed by that evil
from crime, horde who are accustomed to cling to an army
selling strong, noxious drinks to the men. There-
fore our army was without crime.* It was with
something more than mercy, it was with kindness
and gentle courtesy, that the people of the vil-
lages were treated by our soldiery ; and the inter-
preters had to strain the resources of the English
tongue in order to convey a faint apprehension
of the figures of speech in which the women
Kindly in- wcrc cxprcssing their gratitude. Their chief fa-
betw^nlur vouritcs, it secms, were the men of the Eifle
the'vniagcri Brigade. Quartered for a day or two in one of
the villages, these soldiers made up for the want
of a common tongue by acts of kindness. They
helped the women in their household work ; and
the women, pleased and proud, made signs to the
stately ' Kifles ' to do this and do that, exulting
in the obedience which they were able to win
from men so grand and comely. When the inter-
preter came, and was asked to construe what the

• This stateineut, broad aa it looks, i.s iiuaiit to bo taken
literally, and to be regarded as a .statement taken from tlie
ri"ht olficial source.

THE I^'VADED COUNTRY. 353

women were sayiufj so fast and so eagerly, it chap.

. . . XXIII

appeared that they were busy with similes and 1

metaphors, and that the Eifles were made out to
be heroes more strong than lions, more gentle
than young lambs.

A dreadful change came over that village : the outrages

-r^n -ii T 1 rr 11 perpetrated

lutles were withdrawn — the Zouaves marclied by the

Zouaves.

in. There followed spoliation, outrage, horrible
cruelty. When those tidings came to Lord Eag-
lau, he was standing on tlie shore with several of
his people about him. He turned scarlet with
shame and anger. The yoke of the alliance had
wrung him.

In general, it would fall within the duty of The duty of
light horse to sweep the face of the invaded ter- the couutry

, , . . , . , , -,, -for supijlie*.

I'ltory and bring m supplies ; but the 1 rench
M'ere without cavalry ; and although the body of
horse which we had landed was called ' the Light
' Brigade,' the Lancers, the Hussars, and the Light
Dragoons of which it consisted, were not troops of
such nimble kind, and not so practised as to be all
at once apt at foraging. Besides it was plain that in
advancing througli the enemy's couutry, the power
of the invaders would have to be measured by the
arm in which they were weakest, and a material
loss in our small, brilliant force of cavalry might
bring ruin upon the whole expedition. There was
the Commissariat. The officers of that depart-
ment were gentlemen taken from a branch of the
Treasury ; and although they could make requisi-
tions on the military authorities with more or les3
hope of a result, they had no force of their own
VOL. II. z

354

RESOURCES OBTAINED FROM

CHAP.

XXIII.

Alrey's
quick per-
eeiitiou of
tlie need to
get nicaii3
of land-
transi-ort.

with which to act. The regimental officers were
of course busied wdth their respective corps. Yet
it was certain that the power of operating effec-
tively with the English army would depend upon
its obtaining a large addition to its existing means
of land-transport. In the result, it was the chief
of one of the business departments of our Head-
quarter Staff who pressed forward into the gap,
and succeeded in achieving the work uj^on which,
in a great degree, the fate of the campaign seemed
likely to hinge.

From the first General Airey had seen that the
mere inert presence of armies in an invaded pro-
vince is a thing very short of conquest. Conquest,
he knew, must generally rest upon the success
with which supplies can be drawn from the in-
vadad province ; and he never forgot that, unless
the country could be made to yield means of land-
carriage, tlie Allies would have to creep timidly
along the shore, tethered fast by the short string
of carts with which they had come provided ;
therefore, even within a few minutes from the
time when the landing began, lie was alread}''
striving to gain — not the mere occupation of the
soil — not the mere licence for the troops to stand
or lie down on the ground — but that hold, that
military grasp of the country which would make
it help to sustain the invasion. When only a few
battalions of the Light Division had landed, and
were beginning to form on the beach, he had
hastened up to the high ground on our right.
There, at once catching sight of a long string of

THE INVADED COUNTRY. 355

Nvasiu'ons escorted by a body of Cossacks lie oL- chap.

. . XXIll

tained the aid of a company of the 23d Eusiliers

under JNIajov Lysons, and with these advanced ° a convoy
quickly in skirmishing order. The Cossacks tried
hard to save the convoy by using the points of
their lances against the bullocks, and even against
the drivers ; but, the Fusiliers advancing and
beginning to open fire, the Cossacks at length
retreated, leaving Airey in possession of just that
kind of prize which the army most needed — a
prize of some seventy or eighty waggons, with their
oxen and drivers complete. * Never ceasing to
think it was vital to have more and more means

* After the publication of the 3d Edition, I received from
Colouel Lysons a more detailed narrative of this incident than
is given in the text. He says: 'Shortly after landing, Sir
' George Brov.n ordered me to extend the company that was
' with me along the top of the ridge -which overlooked the
' landing-place. "While there, General Airey came up to me,
' and, pointing to a line of arabas which was moving across the
'. plain some way off, asked if I could take them. I answered,
' " Yes, but Sir George had ordered me to stay where I was."
' The General (Airey) then began to write on a piece of paper
' to ask leave to send me from my post ; but on looking up,
' and seeing that the waggons were already far off, he exclaimed,
' " "We shall lose them if you don't go at once. I will take the
' " responsibility on myself." So away I went in skirmishing
' order. On approaching a hillock, which screened the arabas

* from our view, I saw the long lances of some Cossacks waving
' iu the air. Fearing they might attack us, I closed my men

* to the centre on the march ; but as we cleared the top of the
' rising ground, these gentlemen (the Cossacks) galloped off to
' the arabas, on which we had gained considerably. A few
' minutes after, I saw the Cossacks making the drivers unyoke
' their bullocks, that they might drive them away from us.
' Knowing they would beat me at that game, 1 desired three
' old soldiers to fall out of the ranks and fire at the Cossacks.

* The first shot fell short. On the second being fired, I saw one

356

KESOURCES OBTAINED FKOM

CHAP,
XXIII.

His con-

tinucJ

exertious.

itelr result.

of tiausport, Airey afterwards despatched the
officers of his department in all directions to
bring in supplies. Sending Captain Sankey to
Tuzla and Sak, he thence got 105 waggons.
Sending Captain Hamilton to Bujuk Aktash, to
Beshi Aktash, to Tenish, and Sak, he got 67
camels, 253 horses, 45 cartloads of poultry, barley,
and other supplies, with more than a thousand
head of cattle and sheep.* At a later date, and
when the army was moving, he took 25 waggons
from a village near the line of march. One day,
moreover, it happened that General Airey sent his
aide-de-camp ISTolan to explore for water, and,
though he was without a cavalry escort, Nolan
boldly cut in upon a convoy of 80 government
waggons laden with flour, and seized the whole
of it. In all, some 350 waggons were obtained,
with their teams and their Tartar drivers.

' of the Kussians jump up from his saddle as though he was
' liit, . . . and forthwith tlie wliole jjarty scamiered away
' over the j)lain. The drivers then came running to us, and
' kneeling down and embracing our knees. I made them yoke
' their bullocks again, and took the train back, and handed
' them over to General Airey. On our way back we passed Sir
' George Brown.'

"We saw that (suitposing the Britannia boat to liave been the
first to touch the beach) Colonel I.ysons was the first English
soldier who landed in the Crimea, and the above incident enabled
liim also to say not only that the first shot fired by our soldiery
was fired under his orders, but that the first piize taken from
the enemy was taken by him — was taken by him in derogation of
the standstill commands which had been given liim by Sir
George Brown, but in obedience to the boldly-ventured order
by which General Airey unleashed him. — Note to 4ih Edition.

* In some, but not all of these expeditions, Sankey and
Hamilton had cavalry escorts.

THE INVADED COUNTRY. 357

In general, the appropriation of the resources en A P.

of the country is a business which ranges among 1

mere commissariat annals ; but in order to this
invasion, the seizing of means of land-transport
was a business hardly otherwise than vital. Even
as it was, the army was brought to hard straits
for want of sulficing draught-power; and without
the cattle and waggons which were seized whilst
the troops were landing, the course of events must
have been other than what it was.

Those Tartar drivers of whom I have spoken, The Tartar

drivers,

were a wild people, little fit, as it seemed, for the
obedience and patient toil exacted from camp-
followers ; but the descent of the Allies upon the
coast was the first military operation that they
had witnessed, and before their amazedness ceased,
they found themselves unaccountal)ly marshall-
ed and governed, and involuntarily taking their
humble part in tlie enterprise of the Western
Powers. j\Iany of them wore the same expres-
sion of countenances as hares that are taken alive,
and they looked as though they were watching
after the right moment for escape ; but they had
fallen, as it were, into a great stream, and all they
could do was to wonder, and yield, and flow on.
There were few of those captured lads who had
strength to withstand the sickness and the hard-
ships of the campaign. For the most part, they
sank and died.

358

THE ?LA2^ OF THE ENTERPRISE.

CHAPTER XXIV.

CHAP.
XXIV.

The forces
now on
Btore.

The nature
of tlio

operation by
whicli the
Allies were
to make
good their
ailvanco to
Subastoiiol.

There were now upon the coast of the Crimea
some 37,000 French and Turks,* with sixty-eight
pieces of artillery, all under the orders of jNIar-
shal St Arnaud ; and we saw that 27,000 Eng-
lish, including a full thousand of cavalry, and to-
gether with sixty guns, had been landed by Lord
Eaglan. Altogether, then, the Allies numbered
63,000 men and 128 guns. These forces, partly
by means of the draught animals at their com-
mand, and partly by the aid of the soldier himself,
could carry by land the ammunition necessary for
perhaps two battles, and the means of subsistence
for three days. Their provisions beyond those
limits were to be replenished from the ships. It
was intended, therefore, that the ileets should fol-
low the march of the armies ; and that the invad-
ers, without attempting to dart upon the inland
route which connected the enemy with St Peters-
burg, should move straight upon the north side of
Sebastopol by following the line of the coast.

• 30,204 Frenchmen and 7000 Turks, ncconling to the
French accounts. Lord Raglan, I believe, thought that the
French force was less, and put it at 27,600.

THE PL AX OF THE ENTERPRISE. 359

The whole body of the Allied armies, was to ^^f^
operate as a ' movable column.' *

Between an armed body engaged in regular Comranson
operations, and that description of force which the '^^^l^^^\^^^
French call a ' movable column,' the difference is ^^'^"^^ ^jf^^^^"
broad ; and there is need to mark it, because the :'^^';^^
way in which regular operations are conducted, is
not even similar to that in which a ' movable
' column ' is wielded. It is, of course, from the
history of Continental wars that the principle of
regular operations in the field is best deduced. A
prince intending to invade his neighbour's terri-
tory takes care to have near his own frontier, or
in states already under his control, not only the
army with which he intends to begin the invasion,
but also that sustained, gatherhig of fresh troops,
and that vast accumulation of stores, arms, and
munitions, which will suffice, as he hopes, to feed
the war. The territory on which these resources
are spread is called the ' base of operations.' When
the invading general has set out from this, his
strategic home, to achieve the object he has in
view, the neck of country by which he keeps up
his communications with the base is called the
' line of operations ; ' f and the maintenance of

* I make this endeavour to elucidate the true character of
the operation for the purpose of causiug the reader to under-
stand the kind of hazard which was involved in the march
along the coa.st, and also in order to lay the ground for explain-
ing {in a future volume) the causes which afterwards brought
upon the army cruel sufTcrings and privations.

+ This is generally, but not invariably, the same line as the
one by which he has advanced.

360 THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE.

CTIAP. this line of operations is tlie one object which
^^^^' must never be absent from his mind. The farther
he goes, the more he needs to keep up an inces-
sant communication with his ' base ; ' and yet,
since the line is lengthening as he advances, it is
constantly becoming more and more liable to be
cut. Such a disaster as that he looks upon as
nearly equal to ruin, and there is hardly anything
that he will refuse to sacrifice for the defence of
the dusty or mud-deep cart-roads which give him
his means of living and fighting.

On the other hand, the commander of a ' mov-
' able column ' begins his campaign by wilfully
placing himself in those very circumstances which
would bring ruin upon an army carrying on regu-
lar operations. He does not profess nor attempt
to hold fast any ' line of operations ' connecting
him with his resources. He says to his enemy:
' Surround me if you will ; gather upon my front;
' hover round me on flank and rear. Do not
' affront me too closely, unless you want to see
' something of my cavalry and my horse-artillery;
' but, keeping at a courteous distance, you may
' freely occupy the whole country through which

* I pass. I care nothing for the roads by which I
' have come ; what I need wliilst my task is doing
' I carry along with me. I have an enterprise
' in hand ; that achieved, I shall march towards
' the resources which my countrymen liave pre-
' pared for me. Those resouices I will reach or

* else perish.' If an army engaged in regular
operations were likened to an engine drawing its

THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 3G1

supplies by means of lons^ pipes from a river, the chap.

XXTV

principle of the ' movable column ' would be well .*

enough tokened by that simple sldnful of water
which, carried on the back of a camel, is the life
of men passing a desert.

Each of the two systems has its advantages
and its drawbacks. The advantages enjoyed by an
army undertaking regular operations are : the last-
ing character of its power, and its comparative
security against great disasters. The general con-
ducting an army in regular operations is constantly
replenishing his strength by drawing from his
' base ' fresh troops and supplies to compensate
the havoc which time and the enemy, or even time
alone, will always be working in his army ; and
if he meets with a check, he retires upon a line
already occupied by portions of his force, already
strewed with his magazines. He retires, in short,
upon a road prepared for his reception, and the
farther he retreats, the nearer he is to his great
resources. The drawbacks attending this system
are : the great quantity of means of land-transport
required for keeping up the communication,
and the eternal necessity of liaving to be ready
with a sufhcient force to defend every mile of
the 'line of operations' against the enterprises of
the enemy.

Tlie advantages of the ' movable column ' are :
that its means of land-transport may be compara-
tively small — may, in fact, be proportioned to the
limited duration of the service which it under-
takes ; and that, not being clogrjed with the duty

362 THE PLAN OF THE ENTEKPKISE,

CHAT, of maintaining a 'line of operations,' it lias, in
XXIV
L truth, nothing to defend except itself. But grave

drawbacks limit the power of a ' movable column.'
In the first place, it is an instrument fitted only
for temporary use; because, during the service in
which it is engaged, it has no resources to rely
upon except what it carries along with it. An-
other drawback is the hazard it incurs — not of
mere defeat, but of total extermination; for it is
a force wdiich has left no dominion in its wake,
and if it falls back, it falls into the midst of
enemies having hold of the country around, and
emboldened by seeing it retreat.

Then, also, a ' movable column,' even though it
be never defeated in any pitched battle, is liable
to be brought to ruin by being well harassed;
and very inferior troops, or even armed peasants,
if they have spirit and enterprise, may put it in
peril ; for, having the command of the country all
round it, they can easily prepare their measures for
vexing the column by day and by night. Again,
the 'movable column' cannot send its sick and
wounded to the rear. It must either abandon the
sufferers, or else find means of carrying theni
wherever it marches, and this, of course, is a task
which is rendered more and more difficult by
every succeeding combat. Again, if tlie ' movable
'column' is brought to frequent halts by the
necessity of self-defence, there is danger that the
operation in which it is engaged will last to a
time beyond the narrow limit of the supplie:?
which it is able to carry along with it.

THE PLAN OF THE ENTEKPRISE. 363

111 Alfforia the French had brou2;ht the system chap.

XXIV

of using small ' movable columns ' to a high state 1

of perfection. One might there see a force com-
plete in all arms, carrying M-ith it the bread and
the cartridges, and driving betwixt its battalions
the little herd of cattle which would enable it to
live and to ficrht ; mirdit see it biddiuf^ farewell
— farewell for perhaps several weeks — to all its
other resources, and boldly venturing into the
midst of a wihlerness alive with angry foes. But
the Arabs and Kabyles, though not without some
of the warlike virtues, were, upon tlic wliole, too
unintelligent and too feeble to be able to put the
system of the ' movable column ' to a test sufficing
to prove that the contrivance would hold good in
Europe.*

Upon tlie wliole, it may be acknowledged that,
for operating in a country where the enemy is
looked upon as at all formidable, the employment
of a 'movable column' is a measure which will
be likely to win more favour from those who love
an adventure, than from those who arc acquainted
"with the art of war.

lUit whichever of the two methods be chosen,
it is of great moment to choose decisively, taking
care that the operations are carried on in a way
consistent with the priuci})le of the system on
which they proceed. A general conducting regu-
lar operations must be wary, circumspect, and

* It was the custom of tlic Arabs to abstain rigorously from
night attacks, and this liabit of theirs was of inestimable advan-
tage to the French.

351: THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE.

CHAP, resolutely patient. The leader of a 'movable
^^^'^- ' column ' must be swift, and even, for very safety's
sake, lie may have to be venturesome ; for what
would be rashness in another may in him be rigid
prudence. The two systems are so opposite, that
to confuse the two, or to import into the practice
of one of them the practice applicable to the other,
is to rnn into grave tronbles and dangers. Yet
this is what the Allies did. When the English
Government committed to this enterprise a large
proportion of their small, brilliant army, and ap-
pointed to the command of it a General mature
in years, and schooled by his long subordination to
Wellington, they acted as though they meant that
the army should engage with all due prudence in
regular operations. Wlien they ordered that this
force should make a descent upon the Crimea
without intending to prepare for it a base of
operations at the landing-place, they caused it
to act as a ' movable column.' It will be seen
hereafter that, from this ambiguity of purpose, or
rather from this dimness of sight, the events of
the campaign took their shape.

Again, it is right to see how far it be possible
to change with tlio same force from one of the two
systems to the other. Upon this, it can be said
that an army engaged in regular operations may
well enough be able to furnish forth a ' movable
' column ;' but to hope that a 'movable column'
will be able to gather to itself all at once the
lasting strength of an army prepared for regular
operations, is to hope for what cannot be. It is

THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE. 3G5

true, as we shall see hereafter, that by dint of chap.
great efifort and the full command of the sea, ^^^^-
the two miglity nations of the west were able
in time to convert tlie remains of their ' movable
'column' into an army fitted for regular opera-
tions ; but we shall have to remember that,
before the one system could be effectually re-
placed by the other, the soldiery underwent cruel
sufferings.

The 63,000 invaders now preparing to march TheAiiies
towards the soutli M'ere the largest, and by far the atllsV^'^''
best appointed, force that the Powers of modern 'column.-
Europe had ever dared to engage in what (as
distinguishing it from regular operations) may
rightly be called an adventure. Their plan was to
advancs towards the north of Sebastopol, suffering
the enemy to close round their rear, and intending
to march every day to a new point of contact with
the fleet. It was only at the mouths of the rivers
that the cliffs between Old Fort and Sebastopol
left room for anything like a landing-place ; and
(except so far as concerned the mere interchange of
signals), the land-forces, whilst marching from the
banks of one river to the banks of another, could
not expect to be in communication with the fleets.
Moreover, the Allied Generals were stiJl in ignor-
ance of the numerical strength of the enemy whom
they were thus to defy. All they knew M-as that,
so far as concerned his numbers of brave, steady,
highly-drilled troops, the Czar was reported to be
the foremost potentate of the world ; and that the
publicity of the Allied counsels had given him a

366- THE PLAN OF THE ENTEKPRISE.

C n A P. good deal of time for reinforcing the garrisons of

Y XT V • o o

J '_ the invaded province.

It may be said tliat, since the Allied armies
were to be attended along the coast by their fleets,
they were not in the strictest sense a ' movable
' column.' Each night, no donbt, they expected
to be in communication with their sliips; but,
during each of the marches they were about to
undertake, their dangers were to be in all respects
the same as those which attend upon any other
' movable column ; ' for every morning they wgtq
to cast loose from the ties which connected them
with their resources, as well as with their means
of retreat, and were to ground tlicir hopes of re-
covering their communications upon their power
to force their way through a country hekl by the
enemy. In short, the Allied armies were a
'movable column;' but a movable column which
could hope to find means of succour, and, if neces-
sary, of retreat, by fighting its way to a point of
contact with the attendant fleets, and covering
its withdrawal by a victory. There is the more
need for showing this by dint of words, since it
happened that the true nature of the expedition
was obscured by the course of events. It passed
for a measure more prudent than it really was,
because Prince Mentschikoff, being wilful and
unskilled, did not take tlie right means for expos-
ing its rashness.

The march now about to be undertaken by the
invaders was of such a kind that an enterprising
enemy who understood his calling might bring

THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE, 3G7

tliein to a lialt whenever he chose; and, forcing chap.
them to tiy to convei't their flauk into a front, ^^^^'
inifrht compel tliem to liLiht a battle with their Penioua

o 1 o character of

back to the sea-cliff— to figlit, in short, upon }r^o'nJ'o[^''
ground where defeat would be ruin. "When, ^'"^•
therefore, on the 19th of September 1854, the
Allied armies broke up from their bivouacs and
marched towards the south, they were engaging
in a venturesome enterprise.

It seems that, although by human contrivance
a whole people may be shut out from the know-
ledge of momentous events in which its armies
are taking a part, there is yet a subtle essence
of truth which will permeate into tlie mind of
a nation thus kept in ignorance. To a degree
which freemen can hardly imagine to be possible,
the first Napoleon had succeeded in hiding the
achievements of the English army from the sight
of the French people; and since the French in
after years were little tempted to gather up by
aid of history the events which they had been
hindered from learning in the form of 'news,'
there was — not merely in tiie French army, but
even in all France — a verv scant knowledge of
the way in which the two mighty nations of the
West had encountered one another in the great
war. Yet, now that the time had come for test-
ing the faith which one army had in the prowess
of the other, it suddenly appeared that a belief
in the quality of the English soldier was seated
as deep in the mind of the French army as though
it were a belief founded upon historic knowledga

tbe left.

3G8 THE PLAN OF THE ENTERPRISE.

CHAP. This will be understood by observing the relative

^^^^' place which the French commander was content

to take in the order of march, and by looking at

it in connection with what then promised to be

the character of the impending campaign.

The fate of When oncc the invaders had landed and seized

the whole ■,• n • i-

Allied army tlic coast-road, the one line or communication

dependent . /> t i • i.1.

upon the which tlic Kussiaus could trust to for linking the

firmness of ■ i i -i

that portion oarrisoii of Sebastopol to the mainland was by

of it wliich ■= '- . ~ .

Bho'jw^take the great road which passes through Bakshi Serai
and Simpheropol. It was vital to the Eussian
commander to be able to hold this road, for by
that his reinforcements were to come. On the
other hand, he had to try to cover Sebastopol ;
but such was the direction in which the Allies
were preparing to march upon the place that, by
manceuvring with his back towards the great road
passing through Simpheropol, he could cling to
his line of communication, and yet be able to
come down upon the flank of the invading armies
whilst they wei'e marching across his front. In
this way he would cover Sebastopol much more
effectively than by risking his communications
in order to place his army like a mere inert block
between the invaders and their prey. INIoreover,
he was known to be relatively strong in cavalry,
and the country was of such a kind that the
Allies, advancing from Old Fort to the Belbec,
would have upon their left a fair, undulating
steppe, such as horsemen exult to look upon.
It was, therefore, to be expected that the whole
stress of the task undertaken by the invaders

THE PLAN 01' THE ENTEEPRISE. 369

uould be tlirowii, in tbe first iustauce, iipou that chap.
portion of the Allied force which might be chosen ^^^'
to form their left wing.

In the armies of Europe the riglit is the side of The French
precedence, and from the time that the AVestern right '*
Powers had begun to act together in Turkey, the
French had always claimed, or rather had always
taken, the right. Now, it happened that, both in
Turkey and in the Crimea, the side of precedence
was the side nearest to the sea, whilst the left was
the side nearest to the enemy. Lord Raglan had
observed all this, but he had observed in silence ;
and finding the right always seized by our Allies,
he had quietly put up M'ith the left. Yet he was
not without humour ; and now, when he saw that,
in this hazardous movement along the coast, the
French were still taking the right, there was
something like archness in his way of remarking
that, although the French were bent upon taking
precedence of him, their courtesy still gave him
the post of danger. This he well might say ; for,
so far as concerned the duty of covering the
venturesome march which was about to be under-
taken, the whole stress of the enterprise was
tlu'own upon the English army. The French
force was covered on its right flank by the sea,
on its front and rear by the fire from the steamers
and on its left by the English army. On the
other hand, the English army, though covered
on its right flank by the French, was exposed in
front, and in rear, and on its whole left flank, to
the full brunt of the enemy's attacks. If the
VOL. IL 2 A

370 THE FIRST day's MARCH.

CHAP. Itussiaii General should act in anything like con-
^^^' formity to the principles of tlie art of war, the
whole weight of his attacks would have to be
met, in the first instance, by the English alone ;
and althougli the French would have an oppor-
tunity of acting as a reserve, tliey would do so
under circumstances rendering it very difficult
for them to retrieve any check sustained by their

Tieir trust- Allies. In short, the French could not but know

good sense, that, if the enemy shoukl direct his enterprises
against the open left flank of the invaders, the
least weakness on the part of the English might
enable him to roll up the whole Allied force,
involving French and English alike in one com-
mon disaster. Yet so steadfast was the trust
which the French reposed in the English, so un-
shaken the courage and good sense with which
they committed themselves to the prowess of
their ancient foe, that they never for an instant
sought to meddle with the duty of covering the
march from an attack on tlie left Hank. They
planned that the English should be tliere.

The advance On the morning of the lOtli of September tlie
^^^' Allied armies began their advance towards the
south. On the riglit, and nearest the sea, tlie
French army marched in a formation adopted by
Marslial Bugeaud at the battle of Isly. The out-
line of the ground covered by their troops took
the shape of a lozenge — a lozenge, whereof the

Tbe order of forcmost apcx was fomicd by the 1st Division,
the angles on either flank by tlie 2d and 3d, and
the rearmost point by the 4th Division. "Within

THE FIKST day's MARCH. 371

the mascle or hollow lozenge thus formed, there chap.

marched the Turkish battalions and those portions 1

of tlie artillery and the convoy which were not
specially attached to one or other of the divisions.
Each French division* marched in two columns
consisting each of one brigade, and the artillery
and encumbrances belonging to each division
marched between the two brigades. Each brigade
was in regimental column at sectional distance.
The Allied fleets, slowly gliding along the coast,
covered the Erench army on its right flank, and
carefully reconnoitred every seam and hollow of
the ground in front which could be reached by
the eyes of men looking from the ships.

Since the English army was to advance in a
way which left it open to the enemy in front, in
rear, and on its left flank, Lord Eagian of course
deemed it likely that he would be attacked in
his march ; and that upon smooth, open ground,
his army would be called upon to defend both
itself and its trailing convoy against the assaults
of an enemy who was strong in the cavalry arm.
But this task was rendered less hard than it would
otherwise be by the quality of the English soldier,
and the peculiar order of battle in which he loves

* It was intended and ordered tliat tlio 1st and 4tli French
Divisions should effect a lozenge formation analogous to that
which characterised the general order of march, but the direc-
tion was not practically attended to. No one knows better
than an African General the art of enfolding the helpless por-
tions of a column in battalions of infantry ; but, the French
force being covered on all sides in the way already described,
no elaborate precautions were needed.

372 TUE FIKST day's M-VECII.

CHAP, to figlit. He fights in line; and therefore, with

XXT V

1 his moderate force of infantry and artillery, Lord

llagian was able to resolve that, from whatever
quarter the onset miglit come, he would be ready
to meet it with a front of bayonets and field-artil-
lery, extending along nearly two miles of ground.

In order to be able, at a few minutes' notice, to
show a front of this extent either towards the
south, the east, or the north, Lord IJaglan kept
each of his infantry divisions massed in close
column, and he disposed his 1st, 2d, 3d, and Light
Divisions in such a way that the whole body liad
both a front and a depth of two divisions. The
distances between the divisions were so arranged
that, without dislocation, they could form line
either in front or towards the flank. The artillery
attached to each division marched on the right or
seaward Hank of the force to which it belonged.

The advance-guard consisted of the 11th Hussars
and the 13th Light Dragoons under Lord Car-
digan. In rear of the small infantry advance-
guard, which followed the liorsemeii, there marched
a detachment of the Ifities in extended order.
Then, on tlie right, came the 2d Division ; and,
on the left, the Light Division. The 3d Division
marched in rear of the 2d, and the Light Division
was followed by the 1st Division. Of the 4th
Division, the 63d liegiment and two companies
of the 4Gth had been left (with a troop of the 4th
Light Dragoons) to clear the beach at Kaniislilu ;
but the remainder of tlie division, under Sir
Geoi'ge Cathcart, marched in rear of the 1st Divi-

THE FIRST day's MARCH. 373

sion. Along the left flank of the advancing col- CHAP.

X XTV

nmns, and at a distance from them of some 200 '_

yards, were riflemen in skirmishing order, and a
line of skirmishers from the same force closed the
rear of the infantry. On tlie left flank, and nearly
in the same alignment as the leading infantry
divisions, was the 8th Hussars ; and on the same
flank, but in an alignment less advanced than the
rearmost of tlie infantry columns, there was the
17th Lancers. The cattle and the baggage marched
in rear of the 3d Division, and so as to be covered
towards the left by the 4th Division. Then fol-
lowed the rear-guard, and then a line of Eifles
disposed at intervals in extended order. Last of
all came the 4th Light Dragoons, under Lord
George Paget.

Thus marched the strength of the "Western The march.
Powers. The sun shone hotly, as on a summer's
day in England ; but breezes springing fresh from
the sea floated briskly along the hills. The
ground was an undulating steppe alluring to cav-
alry. It was rankly covered with a herb like
southernwood ; and when the stems were crushed
under foot by the advancing columns, the whole
air became laden with bitter fragrance. The
aroma was new to some. To men of the western
counties of England it was so familiar that it
carried them back to childhood and the villajje
church ; they remembered the nosegay of ' boy's
' love ' that used to be set by the Prayer-Book of
the Sunday maiden too demure for the vanity of
flowers.

3T4 THE FIRST day's MARCH.

CHAP, In eacli of the close-massed columns which

XXIV
« L ■were formed by our four complete divisions there

were more than 5000 foot soldiers. The colours
were flying ; the bands at first were playing ; and
once more the time had come round when in all
this armed pride there was nothing of false ma-
jesty ; for already videttes could be seen on tho
hillocks, and (except at the spots where our horse-
men were marching) there was nothing but air
and sunshine, and at intervals the dark form of a
single rifleman, to divide our columns from the
enemy. But more warlike than trumpet and
drum was the grave quiet which followed the
ceasing of the bands. The pain of weariness had
begun: Few spoke — all toiled. "Waves break
upon the shore ; and though they are many, still
"'■■'""" distance will gather their numberless cadences
into one. So, also, it was with one ceaseless
hissing sound that a wilderness of tall crisping
herbage bent under the tramp of the coming
thousands. As each mighty column marched on,
one hardly remembered at first the weary frames,
the aching limbs which composed it ; for — instinct
v/ith its own proper soul and purpose, absorbing
the volitions of thousands of men, and bearing no
likeness to the mere sum of the human beings
out of whom it was made — the column itself was
tho living thing — the .slow, monstrous unit of
strength which walks the modern earth where
empire is brought into question. But a little
while and then the sickness which had clung to
the army began to make it seen that the columns

THE FIRST day's MARCH. 37 5

in all ilieir pride were things built with the bodies chap.

of suffering mortals. '

We saw tliat, before the embarkation, our troops sickness

iTPTT . r>iii T1 •'"'^ failing

nad lallen into a weaK state of health, and that, strength of

. manv oi tht

even of those who were free from serious illness, sowiers
there were hardly any Mdio had been able to keep
their accustomed strength. It had been hoped
that the voyage would bring back health and
strength, but the hope proved vain ; and Lord
Eaglan, knowing the weakly state of the men,
had ordered that they should be allowed to enfold
the few things they most needed in their blankets
and to land and march without their knapsacks.
Yet now, before the first hour of march was over,
the men began to fall out from tlie ranks. Some
of these were in the agonies of cholera. Their
faces had a dark choked look ; they threw them-
selves on the ground and writhed, but often with-
out speaking and without a cry. ]\Iany more
dropped out from mere M'eakness, These the
officers tried to inspirit, and sometimes they suc-
ceeded ; * but more often the sufferer was left on
the ground. It was vain to tell him, though so
it was believed at the time, that he would fall

* The officers were themselves so heavily hiden that they
could not get through the clay's march without having to en-
dure great fatigue; for the scantiness of tlie means avaihiMe for
land-transport had made it necessary for Lord Raglan to ask
that the officers -wouUl trust to their own bodily strength for
the carriage of all they required. This most 'unusual' demand
upon their fortitude was met at the time in such a S])irit that,
in narrating the fact to tlie Secretary of War, Lord luiglan waa
oUe to say, 'I have not heard a single murmur.' Published
Despatch, 23d S^'ptember 1854.

376

THE FIRST DAY S MAKCII.

CHAP.

XXIV.

The stream
of the

Bui 'anak.

into the hands of the Cossacks. The tall stately
men of tlie Guards dropped from their ranks in
great numbers. It was believed at the time that
the men wlio fell out would be taken by the
enemy ; but the number of stragglers at length
became very great, and in the evening a force
M'as sent back to bring them in.

During the march, the foot-soldiers of the Allied
armies suffered thirst ; but early in the afternoon
the troops in advance reached the long -desired
stream of the Bulganak ; and as soon as a divi-
sion came in siglit of the water, the men broke
from their ranks, and ran forward that they
miglit plunge their lips deep in the cool, turbid,
grateful stream. In some of the brigades a
stronger governance was maintained. Sir Colin
Campbell, for instance, would not allow that even
the rage of thirst should loosen the discipline of
his grand. Highland regiments. He halted them
a little before they reached the stream, and so
ordered it that, by being saved from the con-
fusion that would have been wrought by their
own wild haste, they gained in comfort, and
knew that they were gainers. A like discipline
was maintained by General Codrington, and pro-
bably by several other commanders. "When men
toil in organised masses, they owe what well-
being they have to wise and firm commanders.

It was on the banks of this stream of the Bul-
ganak that the Allied armies were to bivouac for
tlie night.

THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK. 377

CHAPTER XXV.

Early in the afternoon. Lord Eaglan, riding in CHAP.
advance of the infantry divisions, had reached ' '
the banks of the river, and, observing a group Jf\^i,e'^''''
of Cossacks on the brow of the hill towards the Buiganak
south, he ordered the squadrons which Lord Car-
digan had with him * to move forward and recon-
noitre the ground. Lord Lucan was present with
this portion of his cavalry force.

Where the post-road from Eupatoria to Sebas-
topol crosses the Bulganak, the ground on the
south side of the river rises gradually for some
hundreds of yards from the banks of the stream,
then dips a little, then rises again, then dips
rather deeply, and then again rises up to the
summit of the ridge wldch bounds the view of
an observer in the valley of the Bulganak.

Our reconnoitring squadrons went forward a
great %vay into the lower dip, and when they
were there, it was perceived that, confronting
them from the hill above, there was a body of
cavalry 2000 strong. Our four squadrons halted

• The 11th Hussars and 13th Light Dragoons.

318 THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK.

CHAP, and formed line. The Russian cavalry came

^^^'' forward a little, then halted, and, throwing out

sldrmisliers, attempted some long fruitless shots

with their carbines. Our squadrons also threw

out skirmishers.

But Lord Piaglan, who had remained with his
Staff on the northern side of the hollow, had now
discerned the formidable body of cavalry which
was confronting our four squadrons ; and General
Airey, being gifted M-ith a keen, far-reaching sight,
■. . r^."." was able to make out that the glitter which could
be seen between the second crest and the summit
was the })lay of tlie sun upon the points of bay-
onets, and that in the upper hollow, there were
several battalions. It was soon made plain that,
within a few hundred yards of our four squadrons,
the enemy was present with all three arms, and
in some force. lie had there, as we now know,
about GOOO men of his 17th Division, two bat-
teries of artillery, a brigade of regular cavalry,
and nine sotnias of Cossacks.

Lord Eaglan, whose army was still on its march,
saw that he must take care to avoid provoking an
action ; but also he had to provide for the retreat
of the fjur squadrons, which stood rooted in the
centre of the lower hollow, so near to an over-
whelming enemy's force of all arms, and so far
from their supports, that tlicy were in some dan-
ger. The problem was to extricate them, and to
do this, if possible, witliout getting into tliat sort
of conflict which would be likely to bring about
a serious engagement. Lord Raglan saw that

THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK. 379

what made the Paissians hesitate was the steadi- CHAP.

ness and the exact ceremonious formation of the '_

little cavalry force of four squadrons which tran-
quilly confronted them ; and that, if he were to
withdraw it before he had made arrangements
for covering its retreat, it would be pursued and
roughly handled by overwhelming numbers, lie
was anxious — for, small as was this little body
of horse, it was a large proportion of Ids wliole
strength in the cavalry arm ; but he saw that its
safety would be best provided for by bringing up
troops to its support, and allowing it in tlie mean
time to remain where it was, confusing the enemy
by its obstinate presence and its careful array.
He ordered up in all haste the Light and the 2d
"Divisions, the 8th Hussars, and 17th Lancers, and
afterwards the nine-pounder batteries attached to
the Light Division. When our infantry divisions
came up they were formed in line, and the cav-
alry supports took a position in left rear of the
advanced squadrons. All these operations the
enemy suffered to take place without resistance,
and when they were completed his opportunity
Avas gone.

So, all being now in readiness. Lord IJaglan
M'ished that the four squadrons should forthwith
retire ; and the more so as he Avas apprehensive
lest these horsemen, in their evident longing for a
combat, should be tempted to charge the body of
cavalry in their immediate front. Still he was
unwilling to embarrass Lord Lucan (close as he
then was to the enemy) by an order too precise

380 THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK,

CHAP, or imperative. In these circumstances General

XXV

L_ Airey galloped forward to give effect to Lord

Uaglan's wishes.

When Airey came up, he found that by com-
municating Lord Eaglan's wishes without deliver-
ing a positive order, he was supplying materials
for a debate between Lord Lucan and his briga-
dier. Yet for a wordy debate the time and the
place were ill-fitted, for the four squadrons, as we
have seen, were within but a little distance of
overwhelming forces. There is some obscurity as
to the exact way in which General Airey brought
his will to bear ; but he saw what was wanted,
and he said the force must retire immediately,
and by alternate squadrons. Though he spoke
in terms which might have meant that he was
only giving his own opinion, yet perhaps the
decisiveness of his speech and manner led to the
impression that he was delivering Lord Eaglan's
orders. Be this as it may, the result was quickly
attained. Lord Lucan understood that he had to
go forthwith to Lord Raglan. Lord Cardigan un-
derstood that the force was to retire immediately,
and by alternate lines. The operation instantly
commenced, and was conducted witli excellent
precision, for during tlie whole retreat there were
always two squadrons out of the four which were
showing a smooth front to tlie enemy.*

• Colonel Douglas, coinmaiiding the 11th Hussars, had the
tact to see tliat considering the close presence of the enemy, it
was expedient to depart from the usual practice, and to retire at
a walk instead of a trot. His wise deviation from the common
method made Lord Cardigan very angry. — Note tc 5(h Edition.

THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK. 381

The moment the withdrawal of our little cav- chap.

XXV.

airy force began, the enemy's artillery-teams, un-
seen before, came bounding up from the hollow,
and his guns, being quickly unlimbered, were
soon in battery upon the ridge. With these he
opened fire upon our retreating squadrons ; but
he saw that these horsemen, no longer isolated,
were retiring upon ample supports of all arms ;
he did not therefore venture to pursue with his
cavalry. Two men in our cavalry force were
wounded, and four or five horses killed. The six-
pounder guns attached to our cavalry replied to
the enemy's artillery without good effect; but
when our nine-pounder guns were brought into
action, they caused the enemy's artillery to lim-
ber up and retire. They also, it seems, inflicted
some loss upon the enemy's cavalry, for it was
said that as many as thirty-five of his troopers
were killed or wounded. The Russians were soon
out of sight.

The slight combat thus occurring on the Bul-
ganak was the first approach to a passage of arms
between Eussia and the Western Powers. The
pith of what had happened was this : — The Eus-
sians had been making a reconnaissance in force
at a time when Lord Raglan was making a re-
connaissance with only four squadrons ; and as
the nature of the ground concealed the enemy's
strength, our lesser force was exposed for some
minutes to a good deal of danger ; but the enemy,
being slow to take advantage of fortune, had
given the English general full time to extricate

382 THE AFFAIR OF THE BULGANAK.

CHAP, his squaJrous by the use of the three arms. Lord

'_ Eaglan was so well pleased with the success of

this last operation, and with the steadiness shown
by our cavalry, that, even on the night of the
Alma (when it might have been supposed that
the impressions produced by the battle would
have superseded the recollection of the previous
day), he spoke with complacency of this affair on
tlie Bulganak.*

* 111 speaking of tlie alTair of the Bulganak, Lord Kaglan's
despatch says : ' In the afLiir of the previous day, Major-Gen-
' eral the Earl of Cardigan exhibited tlie utmost spirit and
' coolness, and kept his brigade under perfect command.'
Published Despatch of tlie 23d of September 1854.— A'oi!« to
ith Edition.

TUE NIGHT OX THE BULGANAK. 383

CHAPTER XXVI.

When this affair was coucluded, Lord Eaglair chap.
began to prepare for a contingency of graver "

import. The enemy, as it now appeared, had a ^wfcnjii's^
force of all arms in the immediate neighbour- tife'En°?is°h
hood, and it was known that he had his whole ^'"'"^"
field -army within a few hours' marcli of the
Bulganalc. On the other hand, Lord Eaglan
was exposed to attack in front, left flank, and
rear; and even on his right flank he was without
immediate support, for the course of the day's
march had thrown an interval of a mile between
the French and the English armies. It was to
be apprehended that the enemy, issuing during
the night from his intrenched position on the
Alma, would place himself in sucli a position
as to b-c able to fall upon our army in front and
flank at dawn of day. Lord Eaglan, therefore, r.oni Ra-ian
determined that the troops should bivouac in bivouac iu°
order of battle, and so as to be rapidly able to battle,
show a deployed front to the enemy either in
front or flank. lie placed the troops himself,
fixing their exact position with minute care.

384 THE NIGHT ON THE BULGANAK.

CHAP. The first brigades of tlie 2d and Li'^lit Divisions

, L were drawn up in line parallel with the river,

and some hundreds of yards in advance of it.
The first brigades of the 1st and 3d Divisions
were placed in an oblique line receding from the
left of the Light Division, and going back to the
river's bank. The troops thus deployed formed,
with the river, a kind of three-sided enclosure, iu
which tlie principal part of tlie cavalry and the
encumbrances of tlie army were enfolded. The
second brigade of each of the divisions already
named was formed in column in rear of the first
or deployed brigade. The 4th Division and the
4th Light Dragoons were placed in observation
on the northern side of the river. Finally,
Colonel Lagondie, one of the French Commis-
sioners at our headquarters, was requested to
suggest to Prince Napoleon tlie expediency of
his drawing his division somewhat more near to
the English right.^

Our troops piled arms, and bivouacked in order
of battle."!* There was a post-house at the point
where the road crossed the river, and there Lord
Rnglan passed the night.

Upon the supposition tliat the Allied armies
might be promptly attacked on the morrow, their
situation during those hours of rest was certainly,
as all must see, critical ; but when morning

• Colonel LagonJio fulfilled his mission ; but on Lis return,
being a ncar-sighteil man, ho rode into the uiidat of a Cossack
picket, and was taken prisoner.

t See the I'lan.

THE NIGHT ox THE BULGANAK. 385

dawned, it appeared that the enemy having chap.
drawn off was attempting nothing against them. J 1.

It is common to attribute great results to care-
ful design ; but the truth is, that the Allies owed
tlieir prosperous landing and their tranquil march
to the forbearance of the Russian commander.

The enemy had fallen back to an intrenclied
position on the left bank of the Alma, and was
tliere awaiting his destiny.

VOL. n. 2 B

APPENDIX.

NOTE I.

Papers showing the Concord existing between the
FouK Powers at the time when France and England

WERE ENGAGING IN A SEPARATE COURSE OF ACTION.

Protocol of a Conference held at Vienna, February 2, 1851.

(Translation.)

Present : The Representatives of Austria, France, Great
Britain, and Prussia.

The Representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain,
and Prussia, have met together in conference to hear the
communication which the Austrian Plenipotentiary has
been good enough to make to them of tire proposition sub-
mitted by the Cabinet of St Petersburg in reply to those
wiiich he had undertaken, on the IStli of January, to for-
ward to the Imperial Government, and which were sanc-
tioned by the approval of the Powers represented in the
Conference of Vienna. The document which contains
them is annexed to the present Protocol.

The undersigned, after having submitted the above-
mentioned propositions to the most careful examination;

388 APPENDIX.

liavo ascertained that, in their general character and in
their details, they so essentially differ from the basis of
negotiation agreed upon on the 31st of December at Con-
stantinople, and approved on the 13th January at Vienna,
that they have not considered them to be such as should
bo forwarded to the Government of His Imperial Majesty
the Sultan.

It consequently only remains for the undersigned to
transmit the annexed document to their respective Courts,
and to Avait till they shall have taken their final reso-
lutions.

(Signed) BUOL-SCHAUENSTEIN.

BOURQUENEY.

WESTMORELAND.

ARNIM.

The Earl of Westmoreland to the Earl of Clarendon.—
{Received February 13.*)

Vienna, February 8, 1853.
My Loiiu, —

I have just left the Conference to which Count Buol
had this morning invited me, in conjunction with my col-
leagues. Upon our assembling, he stated that ho had no
proposal to make to us ; but in consideration of the per-
fect union existing amongst us upon the Eastern Question,
he thought he was forwarding our common objects by com-
municating the despatclies he had addressed to Count
Esterhazy, for the purpose of being submitted to Count
Nesselrode.

Count Buol then read to us tlicsc despatches. The first

• i.e., just one fortnight before England despatched the hostile sum-
mons which broucht her into a state of war.

APPENDIX. 389

gave an account of the proposal brought forward by Count
OrlofF, that the Emperor of Austria should, in conjunction
with Prussia, take an engagement with the Emperor of
Russia for the maintenance of a strict neutrality in the
war now existing with the Porte, and in which the INIari-
time Powers seemed likely to take part. Count Buol, in
liis despatch, develops in the clearest and most distinct
language the impossibility of the adoption by the Emperor
of any such engagement. He states, with all courtesy to
the Emperor Nicholas, the obligations by which the Aus-
trian Government is bound to watch over the strict main-
tenance of the principle of the independence and integrity
of Turkey — a principle proclaimed by the Emperor Nicho-
las himself, but which the passage of the Danube by his
troops might, by the encouragement of insurrections in the
Turkish Provinces, endanger. Count Buol, therefore, states
that he cannot take the engagement proposed to him. The
second despatch to Count Esterhazy relates to the answer
which has been returned to the proposals for negotiations
transmitted by Count Buol with the sanction of the Con-
ference on the 13th ultimo.

In this despatch, Count Buol states with considerable
force the disappointment felt by the Emperor at tlie want
of success Avhich had attended his recommendation in
favour of the Turkish propositions. He enters very fully
into the subject, and renews the expression of the Em-
peror's most anxious desire that the Emperor Nicholas
may still adopt the proposals which had been suV)mitted
to him.

The last despatch is one in which Count Buol replies to
the reproach which was addressed to the Imperial Govern-
ment, that by its present conduct it was abandoning the
principles upon which the three Governments of Russia,
Austria, and Prussia had hitherto acted for the mainte-
nance of the established interests and independence of the

390 APPENDIX.

clifrerent States of Europe, and that, by so doing, it was
endangering the established order of things in Europe, and
the security at present existing.

The answer of Count Buol to this reproach is very firmly
and clearly stated.

It is impossible for me to give your Lordship a more
detailed account, before the departure of the messenger, of
these despatches ; but I must add, that they met with the
entire approbation of the members of the Conference, that
they were looked upon as most ably drawn up, and that,
Avhile using every courteous and friendly expression to-
wards the Emperor Nicholas, they most clearly pointed
out the present position which the Austrian Government
would maintain with the view of upholding the principles
they had proclaimed, and the engagements which they had
taken for their support.*

Protoccl of a Conference held at Vienna, March 5, 1854.f

(Translation.)

Present : the Representatives of Austria, France, Great
Britain, and Prussia.

The undersigned, Eepresentatives of Austria, France,
Great Britain, and Prussia, having again met in Conference
on the summons of the Austrian Plenipotentiary, the an-
nexed document which had been communicated to the
Cabinet of Vienna by the Envoy of Russia, and which
contains the preliminaries of the Treaty to be concluded
between Russia and the Porte, was read to them, the

* The rest of the despatch relates only to a suggestion for an arrango-
ineut which came to nothing, and is therefore omitted.

t i.e., whilst messengers were carrying the hostile summons from Parii
Mid Loudon to St PetersUirL'.

APPENDIX. 391

Court of Austria being requested by the Cabinet of St
Petersburg to apply for the support of the two Maritime
Powers, in order to obtain the acceptance of these prelimi-
naries by the Sublime Porte.

After mature deliberation, the Plenipotentiaries of France
and Great Britain, taking as the basis of their examination
the previous documents which had received the sanction
of the four Powers, established the existence of radical
differences between those documents and the proposed
preliminaries.

1. Inasmuch as the evacuation of the Danubian Princi-
palities, which is fixed to take place after the signature of
the preliminaries, is made to depend on the departure of
the combined fleets, not only from the Llack Sea but from
the Straits of the Bosphorus and of the Dardanelles — a
condition which could only be admitted by the Maritime
Powers after the conclusion of the definitive Treaty.

2. Inasmuch as the document now under consideration
tends to invest with a form strictly conventional, bilateral,
and exclusively applicable to the relations of the Porte
with Eussia, the assurances relative to the religious privi-
leges of the Greeks — assurances which the Porte has only
ofi'ered to give to the five Powers at the same time and in
the form of a simple identic declaration. The assurances,
in fact, once inserted in the preliminary Treaty, must then
needs be reproduced in the definitive Treaty, and would be
accompanied, moreover, by an official note confirmatory of
the said privileges exclusively addressed to the Court of
Russia, a note which, in its turn, Avould be considered as
annexed to the Treaties ; that is to say, as having the same
force and the same effect.

3. Inasmuch as the preliminaries communicated to
Vienna are, by implication, withheld from any discussion
in Conference upon the modifications considered necessary
to make them correspond with the original text of the

392 APPENDIX.

Acts which had received its assent, and inasmuch as the
conclusion of the definitive Treaty contains no greater re-
servation for its inspection and interference.

4. Inasmuch as, Avhilst the propositions of the Porte ex-
pressly require the revision of the Treaty of 1841, so as to
make Turkey participate in the guarantees of the public
law of Europe, this condition is passed over in silence.

The Plenipotentiaries of Austria and Prussia, appreciat-
ing the force of the observations ofTored by the Plenipo-
tentiaries of rFrance aud of Great Britain, recognised in like
manner on their part the remarkable differences pointed
out between the Russian draft of preliminaries and the
Protocols of the 13tli of January and 2d of February.

In consequence, the Conference unanimously agreed that
it was impossible to proceed with those propositions.

(Signed) BUOL-SCHAUENSTEIK
BOURQUENEY.
WESTMORELAND.
ARNIM.

Protocol of a Conference held at Vienna, April 9, 1854.*

(Tmuslation.)

Present: The Representatives of Austria, France, Great
Britain, and Prussia.

At the request of the Plenipotentiaries of France and of
Great Britain, the Conference met to hear the documents
read which establisli that the invitation addressed to the
Cabinet of St Petersburg to evacuate the Moldo-Wallachian
provinces within a fixed time having remained unanswered,
the state of war already declared between Russia and the

• i.e., the veiy day before tlie Treaty of Alliance between England
and France.

APPENDIX. 393

Sublime Porte is in actual existence equally between Eus'^ia
on the one side, and France and Great Britain on tliu
other.

This change whicli has taken place in the attitude of
two of the Powers represented at the Conference of Vienna,
in consequence of a step taken directly by France and Eng-
land, supported by Austria and Prussia as being founded in
right, has been considered by the liepresentatives of Austria
and Prussia as involving the necessity of a fresh declara-
tion of the union of the four Powers upon the ground of
the principles laid down in the Protocols of December />,
1853, and January 13, 1854.

In consequence, the undersigned have at this solemn
moment declared that their Governments remain united in
the double object of maintaining the territorial integrity of
the Ottoman Empire, of Avhich the fact of the evacuation
of the Danubian Principalities is and Avill remain one of
the essential conditions ; and of consolidating in an interest
so much in conformity with the sentiments of the Sultan,
and by every means compatible with his independence and
sovereignty, the civil and rehgious rights of the Christian
subjects of the Porte.

The territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire is and
remains the nine qua non condition of every transaction
liaving for its object the re-establishment of peace betAveen
the belligerent Powers ; and the Governments represented
by the undersigned engage to endeavour in common to dis-
cover the guarantees most likely to attach tlie existence of
that Empire to the general equilibrium of Europe ; as they
also declare themselves ready to deliberate and to come to
an understanding as to the employment of the means calcu-
lated to accomplish the object of their agreement.

Whatever event may arise in consequence of this agree-
ment, founded solely upon the general interests of Europe,
and of wliich the object can only be attained by the return

394 APPENDIX.

of a firm and lasting peace, the Governments represented
by the undersigned reciprocally engage not to enter into
any definitive arrangements with the Imperial Court of
Russia, or with any other Power, which would be at vari-
ance with the principles above enunciated, without previ-
ously deliberating thereon in common.

(Signed) BUOL-SCIIAUENSTEIN.
BOURQUENEY.
WESTMO It ELAND.
AKNIM.

Treaty of Alliance, Offensive and Defensice, between
Austria and Prussia.

(Translation.)

His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and His IMajesty
the King of Prussia, penetrated with deep regret at the
fruitlessness of their attempts hitherto to prevent the
breaking out of war between Russia on the one hand, and
Turkey, France, and England on the other ;

Mindful of the moral obligations entered into by them
by the signing of the last Vienna Protocol ;

In the face of the military measures ever gathering on
btjth sides around them and of the dangers resulting there-
from for the general peace of Europe ;

Convinced of the high duty which, on the threshold of a
future pregnant with evil, is imposed, in the interest of the
European welfare, on Germany, so intimately united with
the States of the two High Parties ;

Have determined to ally themselves in an offensive and
defensive alliance for the duration of the war which has
broken out between Russia on the one hand, and Turkey,

APPENDIX. 39.3

France, and England on the other, and have appointed for
tlie conclusion of it the following Plenipotentiaries :

His IMajesty the Emperor of Austria, the Baron Henry
de Hess, his actual Privy Councillor, &c. &c. ; and the
Count Frederick de Thun-Hohenstein, his Chamberlain,
actual Privy Councillor, &c. &c.;

And His Majesty the King of Prussia, the Baron Othon
Theodore de INIanteuffel, his President of the Council of
Ministers, and Minister for Foreign Affairs, &c. &c.

The same having exchanged their full powers found to
be in good order, have agreed upon the following points :

Article I.

His Imperial Apostolic Majesty and His Majesty the
King of Prussia guarantee to each other reciprocally the
possession of their German and non-German possessions, so
that an attack made on the territory of the one, from what-
ever quarter, will be regarded by the other as an act of
hostility against his own territory.

Article II,

In the same manner the High Contracting Parties hold
themselves engaged to defend the rights and interests of
Germany against all and every injury, and consider them-
selves bound accordingly for the mutual repulse of every
attack on any part whatsoever of their territories ; like-
wise also in the case where one of the two may find him-
self, in understanding with the otlier, obliged to advance
actively for the defence of German interests. The agree-
ment relating to the latter-named eventuality, as like-
wise the extent of the assistances then to be given,
will form a special, as also integral, part of the present
Convention.

39 G APPENDIX.

Article III.

In order also to give due security and force to the condi-
tions of the offensive and defensive alliance now concluded,
the two Great German Powers bind themselves, in case of
need, to hold in perfect readiness for war a part of their
forces, at periods to be determined between them, and in
positions to be fixed. With respect to the time, the extent,
and the nature of the placing of those troops, a special
stipulation will likewise be determined.

Article IV.

The High Contracting Parties will invite all the German
Governments of the Confederation to accede to this alli-
ance, with the understanding that the federal obligations
existing in virtue of Article 47 of the final Act of Vienna
will receive the same extension for the States who accede
as the present Treaty stipulates.

Article V.

Neither of the two High Contracting Parties will, during
the duration of this alliance, enter into any separate alli-
ance with other Powers which shall not be in entire har-
mony with the basis of the present Treaty.

Article VI.

The present Convention shall be ratified as soon as pos-
sible by the High Contracting Sovereigns.

Done at Berlin, April 20, 1854.*

(L.S.) HENRY BON. DE HESSE.

(I..S.) F. THUN.

(L.S.) ]50N. OTir. THEOD. MANTEUFFEL.

• i.e., ten days after tlie date of tlie Anglo-Fretich alliance.

APPENDIX. 397

Additional Article to the Offensice and Defensive Alliance
between Austria and Prussia of April 20, 1854.

(Translation. )

According to the couditioiis of Article II. of the Treaty
concluded this day between His Imperial Majesty tlie Em-
peror of Austria, and His Majesty tlio King of Prussia, for
the establishment of an offensive and defensive alliance, a
more intimate understanding Avith respect to the eventu-
ality when an active advance of one of the High Contract-
ing Parties may impose on the other the obligation of a
mutual protection of the territory of both, was to form the
svibject of a special agreement to be considered as an
integral part of the Treaty.

Their Majesties have not been able to divest themselves
of the consideration, that the indefinite continuance of the
occupation of the territories on the Lower Danube, under
the sovereignty of the Ottoman Porte, by Imperial Eussian
troops, would endanger the political, moral, and material
interests of the whole German Confederation, as also of
their own States, and the more so in proportion as Russia
extends her warlike operations on Turkish territory.

The Courts of Austria and Prussia are united in the
desire to avoid every participation in the war Mdiich has
broken out between Russia on the one hand, and Turkey,
Prance, and Great Britain on the other, and at the same
time to contribute to the restoration of general peace.
They more especially consider the declarations lately made
at Berlin by the Court of St Petersburg to be an important
element of pacification, the failure of the practical influ-
ence of which they would view with regret. According to
these declarations, Russia appears to regard the original
motive for the occupation of the Principalities as removed
by the concessions now granted to the Christian subjects

398 APPENDIX.

of the Poi'te, which oflfer the prospect of realisation. They,
therefore, hope that the replies awaited from the Cabinet
of Eussia to the Prussian propositions, transmitted on the
8 th, will offer to them the necessary guarantee for an early
withdrawal of the Eussian troops. In the event that this
hope should be illusory, the Plenipotentiaries named on
the part of His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, Freiherr
Earon von Hosse and Count Thun, and on the part of His
Majesty the King of Prussia, Earon Manteuffel, have drawn
up the following more detailed agreement with respect to
the eventuality alluded to in the above-mentioned Article
II. of the Treaty of Alliance of this day :

iSiiigle Article.

The Imperial Austrian Government will also on their
side address a communication to the Imperial Eussian
Court with the object of obtaining from the Emperor of
Eussia the necessary orders, that an immediate stop should
be put to the further advance of his armies upon the
Turkish territory, as also to request of His Imperial Ma-
jesty sufficient guarantees for the prompt evacuation of the
Danubian Principalities ; and the Prussian Government
will again, in the most emphatic manner, support these
communications with reference to their proposals already
sent to St Petersburg. Should the answer of the Eussian
Court to these steps of the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin
— contrary to expectation — not be of a nature to give them
entire satisfaction upon the two points afore-mentioned,
the measures to be taken by one of the Contracting Parties
for their attainment, according to the terms of Article II.
of the Offensive and Defensive Alliance signed on this day,
will be on the understanding that every hostile attack on the
territory of one of the Contracting Parties is to be repelled
with all the military forces at the disposal of the other.

APPENDIX. . 399-

But a nuilual offensive advance is stipulated for only in
tlie event of the incorporation of the Principalities, or in
the event of an attack on, or passage of, the Balkan by
Russia.*

The present Convention shall be submitted for the rati-
fication of the High Sovereigns simultaneously with the
above-mentioned Treaty.

Done at Berlin the 20th of April 1854.

(Signed) HESS. (Signed) MANTEUFFEL.

THU:s\

Protocol signed at Vienna on the I'id of May 1854 hy the
Representatives of Austria, France, Great Britain, and
Prussia.

(Translation.)

Present : The Eepresentatives of Austria, France, Great
Britain, and Prussia.

The undersigned Plenipotentaries have deemed it con-
formable to the arrangements contained in the Protocol of
the 9th of April, to meet in conference in order to com-
municate reciprocally, and record in one common Act, the
Conventions concluded between France and England on the
one hand, and between Austria and Prussia on the other,
upon the 10th and 20th of April of the present year.

After a careful examination of the aforesaid Conventions,
the undersigned have unanimously agreed :

* Of course the contemplated marcli of Austrian troops into tha
Principalities (though undertaken with a view to expel the Russian
forces) could not be a 'mutual offensive advance.' The clause de-
fines the circumstances in which the two great German sovereigns
should be bound to attack Russia, and does not cast any obscurity
upon that part of the treaty which provided for the event in which
' one of the two may find himself, in understanding with the other,
• obliged to advance actively for the defence of German interest.'

400 APPENDIX.

1. That the Convention concluded between France and
England, as well as that signed on the 20th of April
between Austria and Prussia, bind both of them, in the
relative situations to Avhich they apply, to secure the
maintenance of the principle established by the series of
Protocols of the Conference of Vienna.

2. That the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and the
evacuation of that portion of its territory Avhich is occupied
by the Eussian army, are, and will continue to be, the
constant and invariable object of the union of the four
Powers.

3. That consequently, the Acts communicated and an-
nexed to the present Protocol correspond to the engage-
ment which the Plenipotentiaries had mutually contracted
on the 9tli of April, to deliberate and agree upon the means
most fit to accomplish the object of their union, and thus
give a fresh sanction to the firm intention of the four
Powers represented at the Conference of Vienna, to combine
all their efforts and resolutions to realise the object which
forms the basis of their union.

(Signed) BUOL-SCHAUENSTEIN.

r.OURQUENEY.
WESTMORELAND.
ARNIM.

Convention between His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Austria and the Ottoman Porte. Signed at Boyadji-
Keuy, June 14, 1854.

(Translation.)
His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, fully recognising
that the existence of the Ottoman Empire within its pres-
ent limits is necessary for the maintenance of the balance
of power between the States of Europe, and that, specifi-

"f

APrENDIX. 401

Ciilly, the ovacuatioii of the Danubian Principalities is one
of the essential conditions of the integrity of that Empire ;
being, moreover, ready to join, with the means at his dis-
posal, in the measures proper to insure the object of the
agreement established between his Cabinet and the High
Courts represented at the Conference of Vienna :

His Imperial Majesty the Sultan having, on his side,
accepted this offer of concert, made in a friendly manner
by His Majesty the Emperor of Austria ;

It has seemed proper to conclude a Convention, in order
to regulate the manner in which the concert in question
shall be carried into effect.

With this object. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of
Austria, and His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, have named
as their Plenipotentiaries, that is to say :

His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, ^I. le Earon
Charles do Bruck, Privy Councillor of His Imperial and
Poyal Apostolic Majesty, his Internuncio and Minister
Plenipotentiary at the Sublime Ottoman Porte, Grand
Cross of the Imperial Order of Leopold, Knight of the
Imperial Order of the Iron Crown of the first class, &c. ;

And His Imperial ^Majestythe Sultan, Mustapha Peshid
Pasha, late Grand Vizier, and at present his Minister for
Foreign Affairs, decorated with the Imperial Order of
Medjidi(^ of the first class, ifec. ;

Who, after having exchanged their full powers, found to
be in good and due form, have agreed upon the following
Articles :

Article I.

His Majesty the Emperor of Austria engages to exhaust
all the means of negotiation, and all other means, to obtain
the evacuation of the Danubian Principalities by the
foreign army which occupies them, and even to employ, in

VOL. II. 2 C

402 APPENDIX.

case tliey are required, the number of troops necessaiy to
attain this end.

AUTIOLB II,

It will appertain in this case exclusively to the Imperial
Commander-in-chief to direct the operations of his army.
He will, however, always take care to inform the Com-
mander-in-chief of the Ottoman army of his operations in
proper time.

Article III.

His Majesty the Emperor of Austria undertakes, by
common agreement with the Ottoman Government, to re-
establish in the Principalities, as far as possible, the legal
state of things such as it results from the privileges secured
by the Sublime Porte in regard to the administration of
those countries. The local authorities thus reconstituted
shall not, however, extend their action so far as to attempt
to exercise control over the Imperial army.

Article IV.

The Imperial Court of Austria further engages not to
enter into any plan of accommodation with the Imperial
Court of Russia which has not for its basis the sovereign
rights of His Imperial Miijesty the Sultan, as well as the
integrity of his Empire.

Article V.

As soon as the object of the present Convention shall
have been obtained by the conclusion of a Treaty of Peace
between the Sublime Porte and the Court of Russia, His
Majesty the Emperor of Austria will immediately make
arrangements for witlidrawing his forces with the least pos-
eiblo delay from the territory of the Principalities. The

APPENDIX. 403

details respecting the retreat of the Austrian troops shall
form the object of a special understanding with the Sublime
Porte.

Articlb VI.

The Austrian Government expects that the authorities of
the countries temporarily occupied by the Imperial troops
will afford them every assistance and facility, as Avell for
their march, their lodging, or encampment, as for their sub-
sistence and that of their horses, and for their communi-
cations. The Austrian Government likewise expects that
every demand relating to the requirements of the service
shall be complied Avith, which shall be addressed by the
Austrian commanders, either to the Ottoman Government,
through the Imperial Internunciate at Constantinople,
or directly to the local authorities, unless more weighty
reasons render the execution of them impossible.

It is understood that the commanders of the Imperial
array will provide for the maintenance of the strictest dis-
cipline among their troops, and will respect, and cause to
be respected, the properties as well as the laws, the religion,
and the customs of the country.

Article VII.

The present Convention shall be ratified, and the rati-
fications shall be exchanged at Vienna in the space of
four weeks, or earlier if possible, dating from the day of its
signature.

In faith of which the respective Plenipotentiaries have
signed it and set their seals to it.

Done in duplicate, for one and the same effect, at
Boyadji-Keuy, the fourteenth of June, one thousand eight
hundred and fifty four.

(L.S.) V. BuucK. (L.S.) Keshid

404 APPENDIX.

NOTE 11.

Lord Clarendon's Despatch demanding the Evacua-
tion OF THE Principalities.

The Eakl of Clat.endon to Count Nesselrode.

Foreign Office, February 27, 1854.

M. leComte, — As the ordinary channels of communica-
tion between England and Enssia have been closed by the
recent interruption of diplomatic relations between the two
Courts, I am under the necessity of addressing myself
directly to your Excellency on a m<atter of the deepest im-
portance to our respective Governments and to Europe.

The British Government has for many months anxiously
laboured, in conjunction with its allies, to efiect a reconci-
liation of differences between Eiissia and the Sublime Porte,
and it is with the utmost pain that the British Government
has come to the conclusion that one last hope alone remains
of averting the calamity which has so long impended over
Europe.

It rests with the Government of Eussia to determine
whether that hope shall be realised or extinguished ; for
the British Government, having exhausted all the efforts
of negotiation, is compelled to declare to tlic Cabinet of St
Petersburg, that if Russia should decline to restrict within
jnirely diplomatic limits the discussion in which she has
for some time past been engaged -with the Sublime Porte,
and does not, by return of the messenger who is the bearer
of my present letter, announce her intention of causing the
Russian troops under the orders of Prince Gortschakoff to
commence their march with a view to recross the Pruth,
so that the Provinces of Moldavia and "Wallachia shall be
completely evacuated on the 30th April next, the British

APPENDIX. 405

Government must consider the refusal or the silence of tlie
Cabinet of St Petersburg as ecj^uivalent to a declaration of
war, and will take its measures accordingly.

The messenger who is the bearer of this letter to your
Excellency is directed not to wait more than six days at
St Petersburg for your reply; and I earnestly trust that
he may convey to me an announcement on the part of the
Russian Government that by the 30th of April next the
Principalities will cease to be occupied by Russian forces,
— I have, &c.,

(Signed) CLARENDON.

NOTE III.

Correspondence between Lord Eaolan and the Sec-
retary OF State on the subject of 'Atrocities com-
' JUTTED BY Turks in Bulgaria.' *

Lord Raglan to the Seci:etahy of Siate ecu "Wak.

[From Varna], 8th August 1854.
My Lord Duke, — The way in which the Christian
population is treated by the Turks in Bulgaria has come
so prominently under the notice of Her Majesty's officers
since the army has been stationed in this neighbourhood,
that I think it my duty to bring the subject under the
official notice of your Grace ; and with this view, I beg to
lay before you copies of three despatches which I have
found it necessary to write to the Ambassador : the two

* Tbis heaJiug looks as if it belonged to the present day — January
1877 — or to the summer or autumn of last year ; but it is couched in the
exact words which were used by Colonel Steele (the Military Secretary)
when he docketed and labelled the answer to the above despatch in tha
year 1854.

40G APPENDIX.

first, containing representations of atrocities committed in
the vicinity of his camp, by Lt. -General Sir De Lacy Evans,
and the last forwarding a letter from Lt.-General the Duko
of Cambridge, with a detailed Report from the Assist.-
Adjutant - General of the 1st Division, Lt. -Col. Honble.
Alexander Gordon, who was directed by H.RH. to ascer-
tain, with the assistance of an interpreter, how it aroso
that the Lnlgarian peasantry manifest such reluctance to
bring supplies to our camps.

The reason is now obvious. These unfortunate people
dare not appear there. They are liable to be robbed on
their return home, and to be ill-used as soon as it is known
that they are in possession of any money ; and they are
fortunate if they are not carried oflF, and, if not ransomed
at the price demanded, murdered, as the accompanying
jjapers show to have been tlio case in more tlian one
instance.

Hence it is that the Christian inhabitants of the pro-
vince hail any change as preferable to the yoke under
which they are now being crushed ; and it may be relied
upon, that so long as the Turks are allowed to load them-
selves with arms, and the Bulgarians are not permitted to
carry any, the existence of the latter will be, to use the
language of Colonel Gordon, little better than that of
slaves.

The treatment of these poor creatures has excited a most
painful impression in the army under my command.

TnR Duke of Newcastle lo Loud PAniAN.

{Private.)

Osborne, 2'2d August 1854.

IMt dear Lord Raglan, — Amongst your official de-
spatches received yesterday, there is only one, [ think,
which requires any particular answer. I allude to your

APPENDIX. 407

tlpspatcli of tlio 8tli August, complaining of tlie infamous
treatment of the Christian population of Bulgaria by the
Turks, I quite agree with you that Ave cannot permit
such atrocities to be committed under the eyes of the
troops we have sent to protect the perpetrators from
foreign aggression, and that we must resort not merely to
strenuous remonstrance, but to something stronger, if neces-
sary. Either the Turks should be disarmed, or the Chris-
tians permitted equally with them to bear arms. Indivi-
dual acts of atrocity must be expected in time of war in
any country ; but equality of laws and the right of self-
defence may be conceded by a Government, however
unable to repress outrage by its own arm. I will write to
Lord Clarendon with the vicAV to a formal application to
tlie Porte through Lord Stratford, and you shall have a
copy next mail.

NOTE IV.

Note respectixq the Torpor of tub English Cabinet
ox THE Evening of the 28th of June 1854.

When a man has been set to sleep by a document, he com-
monly imagines that he was awake all the time, and that
he ' heard every Avord.' A firm impression of that sort is
one of the known phenomena of sleep in a chair ; and it is
obvious, therefore, that any of those who slept tlie sleep of
which I have spoken may honestly contradict the state-
ment in the text without, however, being entitled to expect
that their contradiction will have any weight. Eut though
the accuracy of the statement Avill be denied — and denied
in perfect good faith — by those Avho slept, it will not, I am
sure, be questioned by any of those who remained awake.
Of course the deliberations of a Cabinet ought to be kept

408 APPENDIX.

secret ; but sleep is not deliberation, and there is no rule
nor principle wliicli precludes a Minister from describing
any natural phenomenon which he may have observed at a
Cabinet meeting.

I own that, to me, the assenting disposition of those who
remained awake (for they were anxious, careful, laborious
men) is harder to account for than the condition of tliose
who were in a complete state of rest ; and I incline to the
solution which I have spoken of as likely to be ofTered by
the analytical cliemist, because his theory (that of a narcotic
substance having been taken by some nuschance) would
account for a torpor which affected all more or less, though
in different ways and in different degrees.

That I am right in the view I take as to the inexorable
stringency of the Despatch, is shown, I think, clearly
enough by the effect which it instantly had upon the minds
of the tAvo men who first saw it Avhen it reached the camp
— namely. Lord Eaglan and Sir George Brown. Lord
Eaglan's letter of the 19th of July (p. 277) shows clearly
that he submitted to act with soldierly readiness under in-
structions whicli he looked upon as imperative, or, at all
events, violently cogent; and Sir George BroAvn gives his
interpretation of the Despatch (p. 271) with a bluntness
which precludes all doul)t about the light in which lie re-
garded it. The Government, he considered, were resolved
that, at all hazards, the expedition should proceed ; and if
Lord liaglan should not consent to lead it, he thought they
would instantly send out some one (dse who would.

It may be said that this sleep of the Cabinet is one of
those things which, however true they may be, it is better
not to disclose. Certainly no one is obliged to go and
state a thing thoughtlessly, or without a j)urpose, merely
because it happened. But I have to account for a great
transaction — the invasion of a Eussian province. I ascer-
tain that this invasion was caused, and caused entirely, by

APPENDIX. 409

the peculiar wording of a despatcl). ]Jut why was it tliat
a despatch so worded received the approval or the tacit as-
sent of a Cabinet? It would be unfaithful for me to stop
sliort at that point in the chain of causation unless I were
brought to a stop by the want of knowledge, or by the want
of a right to disclose what I know. It so happens, how-
ever, that neither of these excuses is available to me. I
know the truth, and I learnt it under circumstances which
gave me a full right to disclose it. — End of Note to \d
Edition,

It is now, I believe, declared that, before the opening of
the momentous Despatch, some long tiresome papers on other
matters were read out to the Cabinet, and that the sound
thus produced was the real narcotic. — Note to 4th Edition).

The Despatch of the 29th of June 1854 was no ordinary
document. It directed the venturesome invasion of a
Kussian province in language evincing an unusually bold
assumption of responsibility on the part of the Guvernnient,
and besides, had the literary merit of being extremely Avell
penned. The writer of such a State mandate might fairly
expect that some one or more of his colleagues would be
startled at the wording of a Despatch which went so far in
the exercise of authority as to leave barely any discretion
to the commander of our distant army ; and on the other
hand, it would have been natural for him to imagine be-
forehand that the mere composition of this historic paper,
upon which great issues depended, must needs provoke a
few words of praise from the men who were to have it
read out to them. To expect a reception of that keenly
critical, yet laudatory, kind, and to find instead that his
words were sending the hearers to sleep — this might Avell
disappoint any author ; and accordingly, in describing the
scene at Pembroke Lodge, the Duke of Newcastle used to
speak in a way which showed, as T thought, that he had
been personally vexed by the torpor of his colleagues.

4 1 0 APPENDIX.

Both the sleep of those wlio slept, and the dead acqui-
escence of those fewer members of the Cabinet who did
not fall into a state of unconsciousness, may be partly, as
I now think, accounted for, when one hears of the foregone
conclusion at winch they had arrived by mistake at the
Cabinet of tlie previous day. Having there well weighed
and adopted the proposal then submitted for approval, and
having also, I believe, heard there read to them a draft of
tlie Duke's private letter, they, some of them, if not all,
imagined that they had already approved the substance of
tlie instructions which were to be sent out to Lord Raglan,
and accordingly took it for granted that the new, lengthy
draft of Despatch which the Duke brought down to Pem-
broke Lodge was virtually a mere repetition (in expanded
official form) of the private letter of the 28th — a paper
lead out to tlicm fur form's sake, but not seriously de-
manding a renewal of that anxious care and attention that
tiiey had bestowed upon the subject, in Cabinet, on the pre-
vious day. I have a letter before me from one who was a
111 ember of Lord Aberdeen's Government, and present at
the Cabinet of tlie 27th in Downing Street, as well as at
tlie Cabinet meeting of the following day at Pembroke
liodge, in which the writer insists upon the completeness
of the deliberation on the first of those days as sufhciently
accounting for the inattention of the niembei-s of the
(jabiiiet on the day following, and for the actual sleep to
which most of them yielded.

Of the soundness of the view thus insisted ujion, all
who handle this volume can judge. If they think that
the Duke of Newcastle's private letter of the 28th (with
the substitution of ' IMy Lord ' for the words * My dear
* Lord Eaglan ') would alone have sufliced to make Lord
llaglan undertake the expedition against the dictates of
Ids own judgment, they may consistently go on to say
that the phenomenon of the sleeping Cabinet, however

APPENDIX. 411

curious or interesting to the collector of small trifling
anecdotes, was not an event really fraught with any his-
toric consequences. That conclusion, as is seen hy the
text, I have not myself reached ; for it seemed, and still
seems to me, that what really obtained Lord Raglan's
assent to the behest of the Government was — not the bare
intimation of its desire (which the private letter alone
would no doubt have sufficed to convey), but — the pressure
applied by those sentences — those stringent, elaborate sen-
tences which abounded in the Official Despatch. In other
words, I have judged that the almost irresistible cogency
of the instructions sent out to Lord Eaglan was not im-
parted to them by the mere decision of the Cabinet of the
27th, but by tlie wording or, as Frenchmen would say, the
' redaction ' of the Despatch of the 29th ; and the conclu-
sion of course is obvious, because the expediency of adopt-
ing that same cogent wording or ' redaction ' was the very
question which lulled the Ministers assembled at Poni-
bruke Lodge.

After all, as I have now come to learn, the phenomenon
of a sleeping Cabinet is not one so entirely unheard of as
many perhaps might suppose. The truth is, that at an
anxious time, and when Parliament is sitting, our ^Minis-
ters often tax their strength to the very verge of what is
possible ; and, when they strive to do yet more, nature puts
her gentle veto on their attempted excesses, and makes
them sleep the sleep of the weary instead of pressing on
with their toils. There have been brought to my know-
ledge several instances of Cabinets endeavouring to de-
liberate in the later hours of the evening, and succunibing,
as on the 28th of June 1854, to the narcotic eifect of a
voice reading out a lengthy document. — Note to 6lh
Edition.

412- APPENDIX.

NOTE v.*

Correspondence respecting the placing of the Buoy by
THE French in the night between the ISth and 14th
OP Septembep..

FIRST LETTER

Captain Mends on the sihjed of the Btioij.

TO TUK EDITOR OF TUE 'TIMES.'

SiK^ — jVIay I ask the insertion in your columns of the
following remarks'?

As I have been referred to by many as to the truth of
Mr Kinglake's statement, in his ' Invasion of the Crimea,'
' that the landing of our army at Old Fort was materially
* delayed by the wilful misplacement of a buoy by the
' French,' I feel called upon, in justice to the French naval
service, to state the facts which came under my own ob-
servation ; and here I desire to observe that, during two
years of very close intercourse with that service, their
whole conduct, so i'ar from being such as to bring oui
harmony into grievous jeopardy, was that of chivalrous,
loyal allies.

As I am the officer who, by the direction of Sir Edmund
Lyons, planned the whole of the details connected with
the embarkation, transfer, and landing of the army, it
initjht suffice for me ainipJi/ to sai/ that J rememher iiothiinj
about a buoy ; that Mr Lower, the master of the Agamem-
non, who conned the ship under my orders, remcnihers
nothlufj about a buoy ; and that Captain Spratt (who then

* The imblicalion of the above coiTesi)ond(.Mii.e as an ' Addunduiu' to
this socoiid volume takes place with tlie assent of Captain Mends. For
the purpose of indicating passages vhich seem to me to be among the
most important in regard to the rpiestiou of fact, 1 have taken the
liberty of causing some portions of Captain Mends's letters to be printed
in italics.

AITKNDIX. 4 1 3

coiiimaiiJcd llic Si)itlirc, aiul, as tlic .senior surveying
officer, was usually entrusted with such delicate and im-
jmrtant duties), remembers nothivg about a buoy ; hut I
will not take upon myself to state positively that there
was no buoy in question, as it is rot impossible that Sir
Edmund Lyons may have entered upon a confidential
agreement with the French Admiral that the duty of plac-
ing a buoy on the coast selected by the Allied Admirals
and Generals during the final reconnaissance on the 10th
should be kept in the hands of the French, to be laid by
them during the night preceding the landing, in order to
prevent so significant a mark of the designed locality be-
coming known to the enemy; but it is passing strange that
Sir Edmund Lyons, in Avhose confidence I was, and who
had entrusted the whole of the arrangements to me, shouhl
have given me no instructions relative to it, if he attaclied
importance to it.

The Agamemnon, having weighed from Eupatoiia at 1
A.M., accompanied by the Sanspareil, Triton, and Spitlire,
and followed by all the transports, Avas the advance ship,
by a long way, of the Allied flotilla. Sir Edmund Lyon.?,
in his eager desire to be in the van, pushed on to the
southward of the beach, behind wliich lay Lake Kamishli,
the southernmost of the three lakes marked on the maps,
until we arrived ofi' the rocky headland lying between two
sliallow bays, Avithin which lay the beaches, one having
Lake Kamishli at the back of it (being that on Avhich the
British ultimately landed), the other and more southern
beach (on which the French landed) having no lake behind
it, and being circumscribed in its limits.

When off the Point, Sir Edmund Lyons, who was anxi-
ously scanning the coast, desired me to stop the engines ;
while thus hove-to, with the ship's head brought round to
tlie N.E., or inshore, the French Admiral, heading his fleet,
came up, and passing close to us, hailed to say we worn

4 U APPENDIX.

too far to the southward ; upon which a conversation en-
sued between Sir Edmund Lyons and the French Admiral
from the poops of thviir respective ships nntil the onward
movement of the French ship terminated it, whereupon a
French naval officer came on board immediately Avith a
message from his Admiral to Sir E. Lyons to say tliat Ave
were too far to the southward, the Point off which we then
Avere being the line of demarcation between the armies.
During this short suspense I called the attention of Sir
Edmund to the approach of the transports, and pointed out
that they Avould fall into confusion if ho did not quickly
decide upon his anchorage, as the Spitfire and Triton, the
two steamers told off to anchor as the points Avithin Avhich
our flotilla had been instructed to bring up, Avere looking
to the Agamemnon for position. Sir Edmund instantly
gave me orders to steer back to the nortliAvard of the Point,
and close in Avith the beach as near as possible. ^Eean-
Avhile the Agamemnon's boats had been hoisted out and
the artillery rafts put together, so that on the moment of
anchoring, Avhich we did about half-past six, Ave Avere ready
to commence the operation of landing, Avhich Sir E. Lyons
desired to do at once, but Sir George BroAvn, avIio Avas on
board the Agamemnon, Avished to await the decision of
Lord Eaglan, Avho was approaching on board the Caradoc.
The French had by this time many men landed, for seeing
no prospect of opposition they began to disembark tis fast
us their ships got to the anchorage. As soon as the Cara-
doc closed. Lord Kaglan came on board the Agamemnon,
and flfter a short consultation Sir Edmund Lyons desired
me to make the signal to land, and we commenced imme-
diately.* Thus it Avill be seen that the French were the

• A careful reader will observe that all the movements backwards and
forwanls, and the conferences hero described, are exactly such as might
have been expected to occur upon the su])position that Lord Rjiglan'i
account, as jjivcn in the next page but one, is strictly accural^.

AlTEiNDIX. 415

cause of no serious delay, as Eritisli tiansports Lad never
even arrived at the Point, to the southward of which a
buoy is said to have been pLiced. If the choosing of the
beach was left in the hands of the Freiieh, they certainly
gave us the advantage of position, our landing-place hav-
ing the lake at the back, and being less circumscribed.

Had it been decided to land both armies in the bay
selected by the French, the space on the beach would not
have sufficed for the work, and serious confusion would
have ensued, while the anchorage would have been too
limited for the assembling of so many vessels.

T am, Sir, your obedient servant,

^Y. R. ilENDS. Captain, 11. N.

United Service Club, Pall Mall,
March 18.

SECOND LETTER.

M)- KiiKjlaJce to Caj'jfain Mends.

VI St James's Place, April 4, 1S63.
Sir, — I have the honour to enclose an extract from that
part of Lord Eaglan's private letter to the Secretary of
AVar which relates to the affair of the buoy.

Since the appearance of your letter to the newspaper,
you have probably received some communications on the
subject ; and if there be anything in those communica-
tions, or in the enclosed extract from Lord Eaglan's letter,
which is calculated to modify the impression under which
3'ou thought it your duty to come forward and question
my statement, I feel certain that you will take the course
which your own sense of fairness must dictate.

I have the honour to be. Sir, your obedient humble
servant.

(Signed) A. W. KINGLAKE.
Captain Mknds, Pv.N., kc. kc. &c.

416 APPENDIX,

Enclosure accompanying Mr Kinglahes Lciter.
INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.

THE PLACING OF THE BUOY BY THE FRENCH IN THE NIGHT
BETWEEN THE 13th AND 14tii OF SEPTEMBER 1851.

Captain Mends having stated (in a letter wliich ho
thought proper to address to the Editor of a newspaper)
that he remembers nothing about a buoy, it may be con-
venient for readers of the book which was tlie subject of
Captain ]\Iends's remarks to have before them the words in
Avhich Lord Raglan described the transaction.

Extract from Lord Eaglan's Narrative of the Landing,

addressed as a Private Communication to the Duke of

N'ewcastee, the Secretary of War, and dated ' Camp

' above Old Fort Bay, September 18, 1854.'

' Tlie disembarkation of both armies commoneod on the

* morning of the 14ih.

' It had been settled that the landing should be effected

* in Old Fort Bay, and that a buoy should be placed in

* the centre of it to mark the left of the French and tlie
' right of the English ; but when ilie Agamemnon came
' upon the buoy at daylight. Sir Edmund Lyons found
' that the French naval officer had deposited it on the ex-
' treine northern end, and had thus engrossed i,he whole of

* 1.1 le bay for the operation of his own army. This occa-
' .sioned considerable confusion and delay, tlie English
' i-onvoy having followed closely upon the steps of their
' leader, and got mixed with the French transports; but
' Sir Edmund Lyons wisely resolved to make tlie best of
' it, and at once ordered the troops to land in the bay next
< to the northward.'

APPENDIX. 417

THIRD LETTER.*

Capiain Mends to Mr Kinglake.

Blooufielu Crescent, Harrow Road, W.,
5th April, 1863.

SiE, — In reply to your communication of the 4th instant
enclosing an extract from Lord Raglan's private letter to
the Secretary of War, which relates to the alfair of the
' buoy,' I have the honour to acquaint you that, since writ-
ing my letter to the * Times ' of the 18th ult., I have heard
nothing which is calculated to modify the impression
under which I wrote it ; for though it toould seem there
was a buoy, and though I differ from Lord Eaglan, whose
memory I so highly respect, I aver that not the slightest
inconvenience, confusion, nor delay, was occasioned to the
disembarkation of the British by any act of the French,
I never heard of the buoy until I saw your book ; and 1
feel satisfied that were Sir Edmund Lyons alive, he would
be one of the lirst to do justice to the chivalrous conduct
of his colleague. Admiral Bruat, whose heart and soul were
in the success of the undertaking, and whose example was
cordially followed by every officer under his command;
that in my opinion, luherever the buoy loas placed, none but
the most upright motives prompted the act, and the most
sound practical reasons warranted the selection of the
spot.

I have the honour to be. Sir, your obedient humble

servant.

(Signed) W. R. MENDS.

A. W. KlNQLAKE, Esq., jM.P., &C. &C. &C.

— Note to ith Edition.

* It seems right to say that this copy has been carefully compared

with the original, and found to be strictly correct. In the original, the
words ' by any act of the French ' ai'o vuiderseorcd.

VOL. II. - i>

I'RINTKii BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD ANU faOISS.

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