THE SOLDIERS' FRIEND
Human nature is a noble and beautiful thing; not a foul nor a base
thing. All the sin of men I esteem as their disease, not their
nature; as a folly which can be prevented, not a necessity which
must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are at their
worst, is always at the height which this human nature can
attain.--RUSKIN.
"What the horrors of war are," wrote Miss Nightingale on her way to the
Crimea in May 1855,[189] "no one can imagine. They are not wounds, and
blood, and fever, spotted and low, and dysentery, chronic and acute, and
cold and heat and famine. They are intoxication, drunken brutality,
demoralization and disorder on the part of the inferior; jealousies,
meanness, indifference, selfish brutality on the part of the superior."
Then she goes on to deplore the drunkenness she had witnessed at the
Depot, and the seeming indifference of the staff to it. And yet, as her
experience had shown, the men were quickly susceptible to better
influences. "We have established a reading-room for convalescents, which
is well attended; and the conduct of the soldiers is uniformly good. I
believe that we have been the most efficient means of restoring
discipline instead of destroying it, as I have been accused of. They are
much more respectful to me than they are to their own officers. But it
makes me cry to think that all these 6 months we might have had a
trained schoolmaster, and that I was told it was quite impossible; that
in the Indian army effectual and successful measures are taken to
prevent intoxication and disorganization, and that here the
Convalescents are brought in emphatically _dead_ drunk (for they die of
it), and officers look on with composure and say to me, 'You are
spoiling the brutes.' The men are so glad to read, so glad to give their
money." This passage serves to introduce us to a side of Miss
Nightingale's work which occupied much of her thoughts and activities
during the latter portion of her sojourn in the East. Her work in
tending the sick bodies of the soldiers is that which is best known, but
her work in appealing to their moral and mental nature was not less
admirable, and hardly less novel. A high authority, who had been through
the war, said of her at the time, "She has taught officers and officials
to treat the soldiers as Christian men." Not every officer needed thus
to be lessoned, but Miss Nightingale's example, and the practical
experiments which directly or indirectly she set on foot during the
Crimean War, did much to humanize the British Army. She deserves to be
remembered as the Soldiers' Friend no less than as the Ministering
Angel.
[189] In continuation of the letter quoted above, p. 255.
Miss Nightingale, like all moral and social reformers, believed in the
nobility of human nature. She had seen in the hospital wards at Scutari,
and in the trenches before Sebastopol, the heroism of which the common
soldier was capable. She refused to believe that the vices to which he
was prone were inherent in his nature. "I have never been able to join,"
she wrote to Lady Verney from Scutari (March 1856), "in the popular cry
about the recklessness, sensuality, and helplessness of the soldiers. On
the contrary I should say (and perhaps few women have ever seen more of
the manufacturing and agricultural classes of England than I have before
I came out here) that I have never seen so teachable and helpful a class
as the Army generally. Give them opportunity promptly and securely to
send money home and they will use it. Give them schools and lectures and
they will come to them. Give them books and games and amusements and
they will leave off drinking. Give them suffering and they will bear it.
Give them work and they will do it. I had rather have to do with the
Army generally than with any other class I have ever attempted to
serve." It was a common belief of the time that it was in the nature of
the British soldier to be drunken. The same idea was entertained of the
British nurse.[190] She utterly refused to believe it, and she set
herself, in her determined and resourceful way, to put measures of
reform into practice.
[190] See above, p. 273.
II
Miss Nightingale, as I have already explained (p. 215), had the ear of
the Court, and she took an opportunity of laying her views before the
Queen. The immediate sequel is told in a letter from Lord Granville to
Lord Canning:--
_Dec._ 21 [1855]. In the Cabinet an interesting letter was read
from Miss Nightingale thanking the Queen for a handsome present,
and discussing the causes and remedies for the drunkenness in the
army. Pam thought it excellent. Clarendon said it was full of real
stuff, but Mars said it only showed that she knew nothing of the
British soldier.[191]
[191] Lord Fitzmaurice's _Life of the Second Earl Granville_, vol. i.
p. 133.
But Lord Panmure, though a believer in the original sin of the soldier,
was moved none the less by the forces thus set in motion to sanction
some useful measures of reform. Miss Nightingale, however, had not
waited for official action. That was never her way. When she wanted a
thing done, she showed on such scale as was possible to her how to do
it.
Her first endeavour was to help and encourage the soldiers in sending
home a portion at least of their pay. She formed an extempore Money
Order Office, in which, on four afternoons in each month, she received
the money of any soldier who desired to send it home to his family.
About £1000 was thus received monthly in small sums, which, by
post-office orders obtained in England, were transmitted to their
several recipients. Her uncle, Mr. Samuel Smith, undertook the English
agency for her. After the Cabinet Council, just described, Lord Panmure
wrote to the Commander of the Forces in the Crimea, adverting to Miss
Nightingale's "cry," and remarking that if a soldier wanted to send
money home he could do so through the Paymaster, but adding that it had
been decided to increase the facilities. In the following month (January
1856) the Government accepted the hint of Miss Nightingale's private
initiative and established offices for money orders at Constantinople,
Scutari, Balaclava, and "Headquarters, Crimea." "It will do no good,"
wrote "Mars," convinced against his will; "the soldier is not a
remitting animal."[192] But in fact, during the following six months, a
sum of £71,000 was sent home.[193] Miss Nightingale felt much
satisfaction in having been the means of "rescuing this money from the
canteen." She was instrumental also in establishing a rival house,
named, after a soldiers' battle, the "Inkerman Café." This was
pleasantly situated close to the shore of the Bosphorus, midway between
the main hospitals at Scutari. Miss Nightingale devoted much attention
to the details of this coffee-house, and framed the list of prices. In
all such work for the good of the soldiers, she found a cordial
supporter in Sir Henry Storks, who had succeeded Lord William Paulet in
the command at Scutari in the latter part of 1855. Sir Henry agreed with
her, as he wrote, "that drunkenness can be made the exception, not the
rule, in the Army"; and in later years he referred in grateful
recollection to the time when "we served together at Scutari."
[192] _Panmure_, vol. ii. p. 28.
[193] _Statement_, p. v.
Her personal influence with the men was great. "I promised _Her_ I would
not drink," or "I promised _Her_ to send my money home," they would say,
"in such a tone," as Mr. Stafford recorded, "as if it were ingrained in
the very stuff of them." A curious and, as I think the reader will agree
with me, a pretty illustration of this side of Miss Nightingale's work,
was brought under my notice during the preparation of this Memoir. On
January 23, 1856, Miss Nightingale wrote the following letter from
Scutari to the Rev. R. Glover, then Chaplain to the Forces at
Maidstone:--
In reply to yours of Jan. 10--I have the pleasure to inform you
that I have just seen Thomas Whybron, 12th Lancers, and that he has
promised me that he will not only write to his wife, but transmit
money to her through me after 1st of next month, when he will
receive his pay. I trust he will keep his word. She had better also
write to him herself, and send her letter through me. He tells me
that he has had _one_ letter from her. However he is well, but he
has been in debt. However he sends his wife a kind message of love,
which he begs me to give her through you, and to beg that she will
not come out here. I am myself of this opinion. Independently of
the fact that, at this moment, I could not possibly receive any
more nurses, there are many reasons against bringing out more
soldiers' wives here, which you will readily apprehend. With regard
to the Regiment, I consider the 12th Lancers the most "respectable"
Regiment we have. They send home more money and put it to better
uses than all the other Regiments here put together. And I hope
that Whybron will improve in it.
In January 1912 Lieutenant-Colonel Clifton Brown, commanding the 12th
Royal Lancers, then quartered at Potchefstroom in the Transvaal, bought
the original of this letter, "beautifully written, not a blot or a
scratch in it," framed it with glass on both sides, and presented it to
his regiment. Thus may an echo of Miss Nightingale's care for the
British soldier and pride in his good name roll from soul to soul, and
grow for ever and for ever.
III
Then Miss Nightingale set herself to establish and equip reading-rooms
and class-rooms. She took measures to let her schemes be made known in
England, and the popularity of the heroine led to a speedy and generous
response from all classes--from the Royal Family to the humblest
printer's boy. Miss Nightingale's relations at home received, and
transmitted to her, the gifts. Her cousin, Mr. Henry Bonham Carter, was
especially useful. "Harry Carter," she wrote (Jan. 6, 1856), "must be a
man of business; for I can assure you that the boxes he sent me are the
only ones which have not lost me hours of unnecessary labour, because he
has given me invoices of the contents of each box and bills of lading."
Her sister was receiver-general, and from Lady Verney's letters we
obtain a lively account of the work:--
(_To Miss Ellen Tollet._) [_Nov._ 1855.] I don't know whether Mrs.
Milnes told you how hard we worked to send off boxes for F.'s
education of the army! let me tell you, Ma'am, to instruct 50,000
men is no joke. Seriously tho', my love, it is small things any one
can do amid such a mass, which made one the more anxious to enable
her to do what she could, and we have sent a dose of 1000
copybooks, writing materials in proportion, Diagrams, Maps, books
illustrated and other. _Macbeth_ (6) to read 6 at a time, and the
music in the interludes, which Mr. Best (a pattern man whom I love
more even than the Dean of H.) recommended as having been
successful in his village. Chess, Footballs, other games, a magic
Lanthern for Dissolving views, a Stereoscope (very fine!), plays
for acting, music, &c. &c. Finally I thought a little art would be
advisable, and had a number of prints stretched and varnished which
are to be my subscription towards the improvement of the British
army!
But, my dear, you can't conceive how pretty the sort of help is
that everybody poured in; the P. & O. says, nothing is to be paid,
Miss N.'s things all go free.
(_To Florence Nightingale._) [_Nov._ 16, 1855.] Please, my dear,
acknowledge a print which the Queen sends you for the soldiers. She
heard thro' Lady Augusta Bruce that you had asked for one of her
for the "Inkerman Café "; and she accordingly sends you the one of
the Duke of Wellington presenting May flowers to the little Prince
Arthur his godson; which is very pretty of her, for it combines so
many things. It is sent to you to do what you like with, so I have
said you most likely will wish to have it at Balaclava for your
Reading Room plans. We have been racking our brains to get together
amusing things for your men.... To mitigate the science I have
slipped in the Madonna of the Sedia; which, my love, is domestic,
if you please, not Popish. The Duchess of Kent sends a capital lot
of books; she has been so pleased to be of use.
Both in the Crimea and at Scutari Miss Nightingale carried on, as
opportunity offered, what her sister laughingly called "the education of
the British Army." But it was at Scutari, where she principally stayed,
that the effort took the largest scope. Outside the Barrack Hospital a
building was bought by Sir Henry Storks, on behalf of the Government, to
provide a reading-room and a school-room. The reading-room, opened in
January 1856, was supplied by Miss Nightingale with books, prints, maps,
games, and newspapers. The other room was used as a garrison school; two
schoolmasters were sent out; and evening lectures and classes were
given. A second school was conducted in a hut between the two large
hospitals at Scutari.[194] For the convalescents, Miss Nightingale had
at an earlier date established reading-huts in the Barrack Hospital,
furnishing them with books, newspapers, writing materials, prints, and
games. In all the reading-huts the men attended numerously and
constantly, their behaviour when there being, Miss Nightingale added,
uniformly quiet and well-bred. The good manners, no less than the
uncomplaining heroism of the common soldier, made an indelible
impression upon the Lady-in-Chief.
[194] I take these particulars from a Memorandum, found among Miss
Nightingale's papers, by the Rev. J. E. Sabin, Senior Chaplain at
Scutari.
It was out of her experiences in the Crimean War that grew her love for
the British soldier, to whose health, care, and comfort, at home and in
India, she was to devote many years of her long life. In extreme old
age, when failing powers were not equally alert to every call, she would
sometimes, I have been told, show listlessness if her companion talked
of nurses or nursing, but the old light would ever come into her eye,
and the faltering mind would instantly stand at attention, upon the
slightest reference to the British soldier.