to sustain existence; who, never getting coals except in charity, search the neighbouring commons and hedges for furze and sticks wherewith to cook their meagre meals; who lie down hungry and cold at night on a miserable pallet, to shiver till cheerless morning, and will then remember that to all these privations were added want of shelter from drenching rain, and sleet, and frost, he will be able to realise the condition of the troops in front of Sebastopol after the end of October.

These facts, once known in England, excited sympathy entirely unbounded, and, with the supplies sent to our relief, the public poured forth indignant questions as to how our straits had arisen. Why had the expedition been delayed till so late in the season? When so long delayed, why was it attempted? Why had provision not been made for a winter campaign? Why was our force not more commensurate with the difficulty of the proposed achievement?

It is evident that so long as Silistria was likely to fall—that is, till July— the most important object was to check the progress of the hitherto successful invader towards the Turkish capital. Soon after the Russians had retired across the Danube, and before the preparations necessary for assuming the offensive in this new aspect of affairs could possibly be completed, the cholera broke out.

But the English public, through the press, were clamorous for immediate action. Taunts on the inactivity of the forces, pictures of the success which awaited bold and sudden measures, invidious comparisons between such generals as were supposed to be in favour of delay and those eager for enterprise, depreciating estimates of the enemy's resources, and exaggerated statements of our own,—these formed the staple of the articles of the public journals, and to these were added frequent false reports that the enterprise so insisted on was already commenced. Seldom has the British public been more clamorous for any one thing than for the expedition to the Crimea.

Thus urged, the allied army, enfeebled by sickness which continued to pursue it, completed in all haste the most necessary preparations, and to invade a country concerning

which, for all purposes of war, a remarkable degree of ignorance prevailed. Travellers who had hastily traversed these regions suddenly found the notes and observations made for their own amusement or profit become information of the first importance. A reconnoissance of the coast had enabled us to select a suitable spot for the landing, but had left us as completely in the dark as to the obstacles interposed between us and our object as were Jason and his companions when they sailed in search of the Golden Fleece. The maps showed us three rivers between the point selected for landing and the city aimed at, any or all of which might be strongly guarded; the numbers and resources of the defenders of the soil could be only guessed at; and the city was surrounded by fortifications, of the nature and strength of which no certain intelligence existed.

Landing unopposed, we overthrew the enemy at the Alma, when such a shout of triumph arose in France and England that the mere reverberations were mistaken for fresh pæans of victory, and on the 18th of October the men in front of Sebastopol read what seemed to them the bitter mockery of its reported fall. It is not easy to suppose that the confident anticipations, thus rife at home, of the speedy accomplishment of the enterprise, should have been without effect on the efforts made to provide for the contingency of a protracted siege. Nevertheless, before the middle of November, a supply of warm clothing arrived, which unfortunately was lost with the steamer Prince. Other supplies following were landed and distributed as soon as possible to the troops, the greater part of whom, however, remained without drawers, flannel shirts, or new clothes till January, when these articles began to arrive in a profusion quite beyond our means of transport, which, at first inadequate to the wants of the army, had diminished every day.

Offering the foregoing remarks as in some degree explanatory of why the enterprise had been delayed, why it had taken place, and why better provision was not made for a winter campaign, I now come to the other question, as to the inadequacy of the expedition to accomplish its ends.

Experience daily strengthened the conviction that the radical deficiency to be lamented in the British army was in the means of transport. It was in vain that supplies were landed at Balaklava, while no medium of conveyance existed from thence to the already over-taxed troops in camp. The baggage animals originally left behind at Varna had been brought to Balaklava, but the losses among them were so numerous and constant, that sufficient horses, ponies, and mules did not remain to bring up the necessary provisions and supplies of ammunition. Thus it happened that we had the mortification of seeing ships lying in the harbour at Balaklava, containing clothing to warm and huts to shelter the suffering troops, yet of no more avail, for want of means to transport them, than if they had been a thousand miles off. It is an old complaint that British troops in the field, in Europe, have been always deficient in means of transport, and never was the fault more apparent, or more severely felt, than in the campaign in the Crimea. Light capacious carriages, drawn by strong, well-fed animals, and driven by persons in whom there was no necessity for demanding the same physical requisites as in soldiers, would have been invaluable. The troops would have been regularly supplied, clothed, and housed, and a great number set free to lighten the military labours of the siege; guns would have replaced those disabled in the batteries, and ammunition would have been accumulated in sufficient quantity for a sustained attack.

The efforts made to supply the constant drain of the English army left Gibraltar, Malta, Corfu, and the British Isles denuded of troops. As efficient soldiers cannot be raised at short notice, it seems that the want of men now felt was altogether owing to the small number of troops which the national jealousy of a military force allowed to be kept on a peace establishment. The army in all its branches of cavalry, infantry, artillery, and medical staff, being systematically kept down to the very lowest point consistent with affording the appearance of garrisons to our colonies and fortified places at home and

abroad, while baggage and hospital trains are absolutely unknown, must of course be always found insufficient, and its arrangements defective, in a first campaign against a powerful enemy. Doubtless, to the British people, proud of the achievements, and deeply moved by the privations of their army, it appeared impossible that they were themselves the authors of the disasters they deplored. Yet how long is it since oracles who proclaimed the impossibility of future European wars, and denounced our army as a useless and expensive encumbrance, commanded attention and applause? How long is it since the officers now held up to the world as heroes were considered fair targets for daily slanders and abuse, while the public looked on, applauding and amused? And when did any minister, charged with the office of seeing that the nation got present substantial returns for its expenditure, venture to propose an augmentation of the forces now proved to be inadequate in all except what the public cannot bestow, to maintain those interests which have so long engrossed the energies of our thriving people?

The naval portion of our armament was splendid. Our ships of war, our fleets of powerful steamers and huge transports, commanded the admiration and respect of the French. No signs of national frugality or shortcoming were visible there. But a very cursory glance at the condition of our military force, when the war began, will show its utter inadequacy to our rank and pretensions in the scale of nations. In all our garrisonsat home and abroad the troops were barely sufficient to supply the necessary guards. At Gibraltar we had 800 guns, and 500 artillerymen to work them. At Chobham we thought we had done great things when we assembled 10,000 men to play at soldiers, while foreign potentates laughed in their sleeves at the display. Our cavalry force was absolutely ridiculous in its weakness, fitter numerically for some petty principality than for a mighty monarchy. Regiments appeared in Turkey, admirably equipped, but inferior in numbers to a respectable squadron. The artillery, that complex arm, involving duties so various, and

which demand so much time in acquiring, has been always kept at a strength below its due proportion in an army such as is now in the field. Batteries at Woolwich for years consisted of four guns and four waggons, each drawn by four horses, with gunners and drivers in proportion; whereas, in the field, each battery has six guns, drawn each by eight horses, and seventeen waggons of various kinds, ammunition, store and forge waggons, with three times the number of horses considered necessary on the peace footing. The horses, both of artillery and cavalry, always accustomed to be separated by stalls, at the beginning of [the campaign perpetually kicked each other as they stood at their picquetropes, and numbers of them were thus crippled for weeks, and some permanently injured. The train of carriages with the supply of smallarm ammunition for the infantry was devised at Woolwich when the war broke out, and the vehicles were constructed in such a fashion that the animals of the country we were employed in could not draw them, and they were left useless at Varna; which could not have happened had our field equipments been systematically kept as efficient as those of Continental armies. And, in mentioning Continental armies, I do not mean to draw any comparison unfavourable to our own troops and our own system, so far as they go. We have little to learn in war from any nation, and the superiority in the internal management of the French army is principally due, in my judgment, wherever it really exists, to the ample supplies of men and material which, maintained and practised in time of peace, respond with ease and efficiency to the requirements of war.

Probably all this will now be remedied. Soldiers will be enlisted, transport procured, surgeons commissioned, and the glory of England maintained in a fashion worthy of her unrivalled resources-and then

will come peace. And with peace will return our habit of considering that alone valuable, the value of which can be measured by the comtandard: the army will skeleton its members

will be again the object of jealousy and taunts-until, in a new war, we shall again learn our deficiencies from our misfortunes. In our first campaigns, our victories will remain unimproved for want of cavalry; our supplies of all kinds will fail for want of transport; and our troops, suddenly transformed from popinjays to heroes, will be called on to make good with blood and sweat the parsimony of the repentant nation.

Lastly, to consider what course of action, having for its object the capture of Sebastopol, would have been preferable to that we had adopted, or rather, into which we had been urged.

If, landing in July, we had been conducted by the same sequence of events to our present position, where should we have been in September? The garrison would still have fortified the south side as fast as we could erect batteries to assail it. Our rein. forcements could arrive no more quickly in summer than in winter— the command of the sea made the seasons equally available to us. But with the enemy the case was different. Myriads of troops, marching from the interior, would have thronged the roads of the Crimea. Supplies, not merely sufficient for the present, but for any future emergency, would have been accumulated in Sebastopol and the neighbouring towns. The garrison, secure of help, would have been encouraged to double efforts-and when that help arrived, it would have been so effectual as, eventually, no matter how gallant and desperate our resistance, to penetrate by force of numbers our position, and drive us into the sea.

If the enterprise had been delayed till the spring of 1855, it is quite possible that our landing would have been no longer unopposed or cheaply effected. The Russians, alive to the danger, would have intrenched their coast line, reinforced the garrison, and augmented their forces in the Crimea. It may be said that we, too, would have been better prepared to sustain the enterprise. It might have been sobut, to learn wisdom or precaution in the conduct of a war, from anything but disaster, would have been contrary to our national custom. It is more likely that the army, inactive for a year in Turkey, would have been

the fertile theme of leading articles, sarcastic, indignant, or abusive-that public zeal, exhausting itself in invective, would have left us little better provided for the enterprise in 1855 than in 1854-and that, if not baffled by the obstacles interposed by the forewarned enemy, our successes would have been purchased at a cost of life still greater than that we deplore. Therefore it seemed to some that, though our losses and sufferings had been great, we had not paid too dearly for our foot-hold on the enemy's soil, if the capture of Sebastopol should

produce effects permanently crippling to Russian power. Those losses and those sufferings were due to the timehonoured policy of our nation. Our troops were Englishmen, brave and indomitable, therefore victorious; few, and ill provided for war, therefore sorely distressed. But the nation was aroused, and relief was, it was trusted, at hand. A little more endurance, a little more misery borne with cheerfulness, and we should see the prize in our grasp while the Czar, impotent to succour, would witness, with fruitless rage, the fall of the illustrious city.

The sick forming so large a portion of the army, as stated in the last chapter, it becomes a matter of interest to see how they were disposed of.

A soldier seized with illness generally lay a short time in the hospital tents, large and lofty marquees, round the sides of which the patients were ranged on wooden stretchers; while sick officers remained in their own tents, which were in nowise superior, except in privacy, to those tenanted by the men. Nothing could well be more desolate than the interior of the tent of an officer who had landed with the army, and whose baggage might be on board a transport not yet arrived in Balaklava. A pallet of cloaks and blankets in one corner-a couple of bullock trunks or pormanteaus serving as tables on which to arrange the tin platter and cup which constituted a Crimean service of plate or two huge bags of Russian leather, purchased in the bazaar of Constantinople, as more portable and more easily packed than trunks, these formed the only spots of furniture on the grassy or mudspread floor. Those officers who joined subsequently from England were better provided, bringing portable beds and chairs, and other conveniences of camp life, as well as plenty of warm clothing. The men of the companies of artillery which arrived from England in December had strong serviceable long boots, and warm great-coats and under-clothing, which rendered them the envy of their halfclad comrades.

But the generality of tents, both of officers and men, were very comfortless,

and afforded little chance of recovery to the sick, who were therefore sent, the slighter cases to Balaklava, where they were placed under roofs-or on shipboard, the more serious to the great hospitals at Scutari, where they remained till either fit to return to the camp, or invalided to England. The ambulance waggons, long omnibus shaped vehicles, containing brackets on which those unable to sit up could be laid, stretchers and all, as on shelves, and seats dos-à-dos with supports for the arms and feet, the whole eased by high springs, were much more comfortable and better adapted for invalids than the French ambulance mules, with a seat for a man on each side, but were far too few to accommodate the host of sufferers daily requiring removal. Most of them were, accordingly, sent down mounted on cavalry horses (another heavy, though most necessary, tax on our feeble means of transport), and few sights can be imagined more melancholy than that of a troop of cadaverous, feeble, suffering beings, wrapt up in their blankets, swaying to and fro on the saddle, or crouching on the necks of the horses which bore them slowly towards the longed-for haven, where they might hope for some remission of their misery. Too often it happened that, on reaching the beach, no sufficient measures had been taken for conveying them on board, or accommodating them in the ships. Many died before being laid in the boats, and many more on their passage to Scutari; while a voyage across the stormy Euxine must, to a great num

ber, have been more terrible torture than all they had previously undergone.

In the middle of January I was despatched to Constantinople in the Sphinx, a war-steamer, to send up a number of transport animals, equipped with waggons, clothing, and drivers, for the service of the army. Riding down to Kamiesch in a thick blinding snow-storm, through which the track was hardly discernible, I embarked; the ship started at once, as she waited only for the despatches which I had charge of, to deliver to the Queen's messenger at Constantinople, and, after a stormy passage with a head wind, we reached the mouth of the Bosphorus in thirty hours. The next morning saw us anchored off the Tophana.

I had last seen the city and the banks of the sea-river clad in all the warmth and brilliancy of summer. The white walls would then have been too dazzling in the hot sunlight, but for the lavish relief of trees, whose cool foliage or gay blossoms every where spotted the glare: while the light blue water, unrippled as a lake, was so transparent that the caïques hung as if balanced in air on their own reflections, "floating, a double light, in air and wave." On each side jutted, farther and farther off, and still becoming more fairy-like in their indistinctness, the green and flowery banks of the Bosphorus, till a low line, purpled by distance, closed the view; and every where the white birds, the white sails, or the white tunics of the boatmen, specked brightly the blue or the green.

Going on deck on a bitter cold morning (the 15th of January), I saw close before me the city, dreamlike as ever, but of a character altogether changed. Every dome and roof was covered with snow, the grey shadows melting into the grey background of sky. An icy purity had taken the place of the brilliant glow,-the minaret points sparkled with a cold glitter, the mosques rose like huge twelfth-cakes, frosted and fretted, above the snowclad roofs, and the buildings on the Stamboul side of the Golden Horn looked faint and sketchy against the sky. Keen squalls whistled down the Bosphorus, casting shadows like stains on the slaty water, and making

the caïques reel and dance, while the whitened waves marked the hasty footsteps of the blast. Upward and downward cold shores stretched whitely and mistily out between the dull sky and dark water, the black stripes of cypresses giving solidity to the else vapoury landscape. The boatmen had exchanged their white tunics for warm brown jackets, and had wound shawls round their skullcaps; the caïques, faded and dim in colour, seemed to think it no longer worth while to look at themselves in the water, and floated shadowless.

Going on shore, the change from poetry to prose was sudden as ever. Constantinople is like the well-painted drop-scene of a theatre. Beautiful and imposing at the right distance, a closer view reveals the coarse texture of the canvass, and the rudeness of the daubing which has produced so excellent an effect. The sun, struggling forth at noonday, sent the dissolving snow in floods from the spouts of the houses, which, mingling with that already blackened by the tread of the passing throng, poured down the steeper streets and settled in pools along the level ones; and every projecting stone that offered a friendly means of transit was disputed by elbowing Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and English and French soldiers and sailors. These latter had become somewhat noisy and troublesome in their visits ashore, and some frays had ensued, in which lives were lost, between them and the inhabitants. I saw a drunken English merchant seaman persist in an attempt to fight a French officer, because the latter had declined to join him in singing "Cheer, boys, cheer." The Frenchman showed much dignified goodnature, and the rascal was dragged away by his comrades. The same day I saw a French soldier, very drunk, holding in his left hand a drawn sword, which he flourished in the faces of the passengers, proclaiming vociferously his devoted friendship for the English and his disapprobation of the Russians. This respectable ally also was disarmed and quieted by his comrades.

The hotels were filled, for the most part, with military men, some come down sick from the Crimea, some arriving from England and France on