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supported by an orderly. I looked in, but quickly withdrew. A young Russian officer, extended on a table, whose thigh-bone had been splintered by a ball, was undergoing amputation of the hip-joint. As I turned away, the booted limb was detached from the bleeding mass and laid on the ground. He died in an hour. Outside the same tent next day, I saw a guardsman making soup in a large campkettle, while within a stride of his fire lay the bodies of five Russians, in different postures, who had died of their wounds, and had been laid there for burial. The young officer's body was laid apart, covered with a blanket, and near it, covered also, but not hidden, was a heap of amputated arms and legs.

On the night of the 26th, a body of horse, galloping from the valley through the French outposts, up the Woronzoff road, rushed through the divisional camps on each side, and were supposed to be cavalry on some desperate errand, the darkness preventing it from being discovered that the horses were riderless. About a hundred were captured. They were completely accoutred, some for hussars, some for lancers. Bags of black bread hung at the saddle-bows. All were bridled, but the bits were out of their

mouths, as if they had broken from their pickets; and it was surmised that they had been startled by some rockets which the French had fired at troops passing along the valley.

On the 27th, a new parallel was opened as a place of arms in front of our left siege- battery, and a day or two later the French trenches were pushed to within two hundred and fifty yards of the place.

Great anxiety prevailed as to the officers and men missing since the action at Balaklava. It was said that the Cossacks had been seen riding over the field, transfixing the wounded with their lances. On the 28th,Captain Fellowes was sent with a flag of truce to ascertain their fate. He was civilly received-told that the dead were already buried and the wounded cared for-and that, if he would return next day, the names of the survivors should be ascertained and given him, with any messages or letters they might wish to send. On returning the day after, he learnt that only two officers were alive in the enemy's hands, and that but few prisoners had been made. The Russian general is said to have expressed his surprise at the desperate charge of the light brigade; saying, the English cavalry were always reputed brave, but this was mere folly.

Printed by William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh.

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"IF," says Shakespeare, "is a great peacemaker." It is so; and there is another word which is a great warmaker, and that word is, "REDUCE." If a man were to proclaim to the world, "I have £100,000 worth of plate and jewels in my house; I never travel without £20,000 worth of diamonds on my person; but I have such entire confidence in the justice, honesty, and pacific disposition of the whole people by whom I am surrounded, that I have sold all my firearms, taken all the bars off the doors and windows, and procured the dismissal of the whole police in the country," we all know what he might expect the first dark November night. Yet wherein would such preposterous conduct differ from that of Great Britain, which, during forty years of peace, has been continually boasting with reason of its vast and growing riches, its immense realised capital, its boundless wealth, and at the same time taking every opportunity to disarm its inhabitants, and expose its treasures, without protection or guard of any kind, to the depredation of its warlike and rapacious neighbours?

So equally has the blame of the insane conduct which has brought us into our present straits been diffused through all classes of the community, that no one has any title to lay it upon another. All classes, speaking

*

generally, were affected by the mania of reduction; the passion was universal. The few individuals who, like ourselves, never ceased to lift up their voices against the general delusion, were overlooked or derided; and every new Parliament was marked by successive reductions of the noble force which had brought the war to a glorious termination, and which, if kept together, would have rendered the country invincible. The urban constituencies clamoured for a diminution of taxation and a reduction of the standing army; their representatives in Parliament tamely submitted to be the organs of their insanity; the press almost unanimously hallooed on the same frantic course; Ministers, in their successive budgets, took credit to themselves for following out their injunctions, and shaping their estimates according to the universal wish. Amidst a chorus of unanimity and loud cheers from both sides of the House, the process of folly went on, with scarce any intermission, for thirty-five years, until at length the national defences were reduced to such a degree, that Sir Charles Adam, a Lord of the Admiralty, said in 1837, in Parliament, that it was 66 a mistake to say the empire was unprotected, for we had three sail of the line and three frigates to defend the shores of England;" and when Lord Hardinge was made

* See "Our External Dangers," Blackwood's Magazine, February and March, 1851.

VOL. LXXVII.-NO. CCCCLXXII.

I

Master-General of the Ordnance in 1849, he found just ten thousand men and forty-two guns left in Great Britain, after providing for the necessary garrisons, to save London from capture and the British empire from destruction.

While this deplorable system of infatuation was going on, various events occurred which might have roused even the most insensible to a perception of the enormous danger with which it was attended. A war broke out with China: it cost seven millions, and lasted three years instead of one, because we could only attack the Celestial Empire, with its 360,000,000 inhabitants, with six thousand soldiers. Dost Mahommed offered to submit to the East India Company, and put the military force of the whole Affghanistan tribes at their disposal for £50,000 a-year; it was refused by Lord Auckland, on the principle of saving every penny; and the consequence was, we were driven into the Affghanistan expedition, which cost £10,000,000, shook the Indian empire to its foundation, and induced a disaster unparalleled since the loss of Varus's legions. Lord William Bentinck, with the cordial concurrence of the Directors, reduced our native army in India from 280,000 to 180,000 men, and the consequence was, that we were reduced to the last straits in the war with the Sikhs; and the nation, which possessed the resources of 150,000,000 men, was brought to the verge of ruin by one which had only the military strength of 6,000,000 at its disposal. But for the heroic determination of Lord Hardinge and Lord Gough, and the invincible courage of 7000 British troops under their command, our Indian empire would have been irrevocably lost, from the system of reduction, on the field of Ferozeshah. And the military strength of the empire which had struck down Napoleon was, within five-and-thirty years afterwards, strained to the uttermost to put down the insurrection of 30,000 naked savages in Southern Africa, who never could bring 6000 men into the field.

These were the open and known perils which attended the system of economy and reduction during the last forty years; but the secret and less

known, but not less real dangers, of this eventful period, were still more appalling. When its annals come to be written, it will be seen that twice during that period we were on the verge of a war with France, and once with France and Russia united, and that at a time when we had scarce any force to oppose to the armaments of either of these powers, far less of both put together. The rupture with Egypt in 1840, which was ended by the bombardment of Acre; the dispute about Queen Pomarre, in Otaheite, a few years after—both brought us to the very edge of war with France; and in 1850 we were so near a war with France and Russia united, that the ambassadors of both of these powers had actually left London! We bullied ourselves into a quarrel with these great powers, by espousing a dispute of Mr Finlay and Don Pacifico with the Greek Government about £2000 or £3000, and only escaped out of it by abandoning the attempt, which had actually commenced, to extort damages from the Cabinet of Athens at the cannon's mouth, and submitting to the Russian proposal of arbitration. At the time when we incurred the enormous hazard of a war with these powers united, we could not have brought 12,000 men into the field to defend London and Woolwich, after providing, in the most restricted way, for the defence of the maritime fortresses. We now know what it is to maintain a contest with Russia, even with the aid of France, in the Crimea, for the conquest of Sebastopol; but what would it have been had we been driven singly to withstand the armaments of both these powers, in the Isle of Wight, for the defence of Portsmouth? Yet such a contest was not only probable, but imminent; far more so then than the one in the Crimea was a year ago. And at that time our popular orators, with "unadorned eloquence," were urging upon applauding multitudes, in London and Manchester, the propriety of selling our ships of the line, disbanding our troops, and trusting to the Peace Conference to settle the disputes of nations; and successive Chancellors of the Exchequer, amidst loud cheers from both sides of the House, and the

warm encomiums of the public press, were bringing forward estimates, cutting down to the very lowest point our military and naval establishments.

It cannot, at least, be said that this course was pursued without due warning. Sir Francis Head, and many military writers of distinction, pointed out the peril in the most emphatic manner; and if our readers will turn to Blackwood's Magazine for February 1851, they will find the following passage in an article on the "External Dangers of the Country :"—

"How rapidly will the scales one day fall from the eyes which have so long been blinded how bitter will be the regret at the inexplicable insensibility now to solemn warnings: how intense the indignation at the delusions, which, for the sake of present advantage to the deluders, have so long been practised upon men! The burst of indignation with which the appointment of the Lord Cardinal was received throughout England can afford but a faint image of the feelings of agony which will then wring the British heart; the frightful cry of distress which will arise up from famishing and anxious millions-the universal horror at past neglect, which will then send the iron into the soul of our whole people. Their efforts to redeem the past will probably be great; their struggles will be those of a giant; but it may be too late. They will be in the condition of the Athenian people after the expedition to Syracuse, or when Lysander cast anchor before the Piræus ; of the Carthagenians, when the legions of Scipio, in the last Punic war, drew round their walls; or of the Parisians, when "Europe in arms before their gates" demanded the surrender of all their conquests. They will be profoundly mortified, they will be cut to the heart, they would give half they possess for a deliverance; but they may be forced to submit; and to the annalist of those mourn

ful times will only remain the task of drawing the appropriate moral from the melancholy tale, and recording the peril and ruin of England, for the instruction of, and as a beacon to be avoided by, future times." *

The theory that wars are to cease; that pacific interests are to govern the world; that the angry passions are to be stilled, and every man is to enjoy the fruits of his toil under the shadow of his own fig tree—is amiable

from its pacific spirit, and will always be popular with the simple and unreflecting, from its seeming economical tendency. It is liable only to two objections; that it is utterly impracticable under the existing constitution and circumstances of human nature; and if it were practicable, that it would lead to the ruin and subjugation of the State. If, indeed, all men were of the same disposition, placed in the same physical, moral, and political circumstances, and actuated by the same interests, it might reasonably be the case. If all men were equally virbe expected that this would one day tuous and peaceful, and all alike inclined to pursue their own path without molesting or disquieting their neighbours, the Utopian vision might possibly be realised. When Moscow is as free and as dependent on commercial interests as Manchester, and Paris as London; when the Cossack ceases to long for plunder, and the Frenchman to sigh for glory; when women shall cease to be attracted chiefly by the halo of military glory; and the military spirit, when once thoroughly roused, shall cease to thrill through the inmost chords of the British heart, -we may hope for the cessation of war, but not till then.

In truth war, as men's minds are at present constituted, is an essential element in the moral government and With improvement of the world.

our eyes fixed, indeed, on the charnelhouse of Balaklava, the gory fields of the Crimea, the anguish brought into so many families by the loss of their bravest and their best, none can dispute the present evils and partial agonies of war. But observe, even at the moment when their sufferings are endured, the moral elevation and enlarged sensibility which war pro

duces. Behold the heart of a whole nation throbbing as that of one man at the call of patriotic duty! Behold our nobles standing forth, as their fathers did in the olden time, as the traditional leaders of the people, and casting aside all the follies and frivolities of peace to exhibit the patience and fortitude of war! Behold the people following them with alacrity to the combat, crowding with joy to

* Blackwood's Magazine, February 1851, Ixix. 201, 202.

the scene of danger, braving wounds and death in the cause of their country, and renewing on the fields of the Crimea the devotion of Thermopyla and Marathon! Behold a whole nation standing up with enthusiasm at the glorious spectacle, and making the shouts of their exultation and the thunder of their applause resound through the world; and every human being within it, from the Queen on the throne to the captive in the dungeon, uniting in deeds of gratitude, and in the expressions of thankfulness, and joining in the beautiful words of the Sovereign-"Let not any private soldier think he is neglected; his Queen thanks him, his country honours him." Let us think on these things, and compare them with the spectacle which the same nation exhibited a few years before, when selfish interests were alone predominant, when every man was trying to make a fortune at the expense of his neighbour, and we were raising statues, not to chivalrous heroes, but to railway kings! Let us think of these things, and bow with submission to the laws of Omnipotence, which have made war part of the destiny and the means of punishment and reformation to a corrupted being, and acknowledge that, if prosperity is joyful, "sweet often are the uses of adversity."

Even in an economical point of view this wretched system of reduction, which has so often been adopted by the English during peace, is as shortsighted and pernicious as it is perilous. It inevitably leads to the recurrence, and multiplies tenfold the cost of war. Deprived of all consideration and respect from the foreign powers by whom it is surrounded, a rich and renowned, but disarmed state speedily becomes the object only of envy and cupidity to its warlike and rapacious neighbours. Attack, attracted by riches, prompted by jealousy, suggested by ambition, is encouraged by the absence of defence, the prospect of helplessness. The prestige of former fame, the remembrance of past triumphs, may for a time protect it, and conceal present weakness by the halo of former renown; but that cannot be expected to last very

The inevitable time will come, hour of danger will arrive, when

the passions of ambitious and penniless rapacity will be let loose on the wealthy and unprotected state-and how is it then to be defended? Enormous efforts, gigantic expenditure, will be required to avert disaster or subjugation. Even if they are made, success can in the end be attained only at the cost of immense sacrifices of blood and treasure, and after the sufferings of a long, hazardous, and burdensome war. Four-fifths of the debt which now oppresses the industry and weighs down the national strength of England, has been occasioned by the selfish parsimony of former times. Danger is averted by preparation; war is often avoided by the inspiring of dread; if begun, it is shortened by the exercise of strength. Had four millions a-year additional been expended on the army between 1784 and 1793, Paris would have been taken in the first campaign, and nineteen years of subsequent most costly war, and the contraction of £600,000,000 of debt, would have been avoided. If we had had 100,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry and artillery, and 80,000 militia in the British Islands in the beginning of 1854, the Czar would never have ventured upon war; or if he did so, he might, with an able Government directing their attack, have lost Cronstadt and Sebastopol in the first campaign. It was the defenceless state of England which prompted the Emperor Nicholas to his invasion of Moldavia and Wallachia in July 1853. Had we been even moderately prepared, he would never have crossed the Pruth. If we would discover the real authors of the war, we shall find them in those who counselled admiring and assenting multitudes at Manchester that the age of war was passed, that we should disband our troops and sell our ships of the line. Their names are RICHARD COBDEN, JOHN BRIGHT, and JOSEPH STURGE.

Xenophon says that, if Athens had been an insular state, it would have conquered Sparta in the Peloponnesian war, because it could, with its command of the sea, have ruined its adversary, while its adversary could not have reached it. That advantage which Athens wanted England possessed; but it has been all but thrown away by the infatuation of our people

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