CHAPTER XXX.

WAR.

The War Fever in 1854--Attacks on Prince Albert--Aberdeen’s

Correspondence with the Queen--The Queen’s Opinion of the

Country--“Loyal, but a little mad”--Stockmar on the

Constitution--Prince Albert’s Position at Court--The Privileges of

a Reigning Queen’s Husband--Debates on the Prince’s Position--The

Peace and War Parties--Mr. Cobden’s Influence--A new Vienna Note--A

Challenge to Russia--The Russian Ambassador leaves London--Recall

of Sir H. Seymour from St. Petersburg--Russian Intrigues with the

German Powers--The Czar’s Counter-Propositions--His Sarcastic

Letter to Napoleon III.--An Austrian Compromise--Lord Clarendon’s

_Ultimatum_ to Russia--The Czar’s Reply--Declaration of War--Omar

Pasha’s Victories in the Principalities--The Siege of

Silistria--Evacuation of the Principalities--The Rising in

Greece--The Allies at the Piræus--The Allies occupy

Gallipoli--Another English Blunder--Invasion of the Crimea--The

Duke of Newcastle and a Sleepy Cabinet--Lord Raglan’s Opinion on

the War--The Landing of the Allies at Eupatoria--Battle of the

Alma--Death of Marshal St. Arnaud--Russian Fleet Sunk at

Sebastopol--At Balaclava--The Siege of Sebastopol--Battles of

Balaclava and Inkermann--Mismanagement of the War--Public

Indignation against the Government--Mr. Roebuck’s Motion--Fall of

the Coalition Ministry.

No writer has described more effectively than Mr. Cobden the sudden

change that hurried the country into the military alliance with France

against Russia which was made operative in 1854. Suppose, he said, an

invalid had been ordered in the spring of 1853 to go to Australia and

back for the benefit of his health. When he left home he must have noted

that “the Militia was preparing for duty; the coasts and dockyards were

being fortified; the Navy, Army, and Artillery were all in course of

augmentation; inspectors of artillery and cavalry were reported to be

busy on the Southern coast; deputations from railway companies, it was

said, had been waiting on the Admiralty and Ordnance to explain how

rapidly the commissariat and military stores could be transported from

the Tower to Dover or Portsmouth; and the latest paragraph of news from

the Continent was that our neighbours on the other side of the Channel

were practising the embarkation and disembarkation of troops by night.

He left home amidst all these alarms and preparations for a French

invasion. But he returns, and, supposing he has not been hearing or

giving heed to tidings from Europe, in what condition does he find his

country? He steps on shore at Liverpool, and the first newspaper he sees

informs him that the English and French fleets are lying side by side in

Besika Bay. An impending naval engagement between the two Powers is

naturally the idea that first occurs to him; but, glancing at the

leading article of the journal, he learns that England and France have

entered on an alliance, and that they are on the eve of commencing a

sanguinary struggle against Russia.”[135] He would have also found the

Tory organs of public opinion vieing with the demagogic Press in

denouncing the Queen’s husband as a traitor to his wife and as a servile

spy of Russia; from which, if he had been a shrewd man, he would have

inferred that the Queen had been again guilty of the atrocious crime of

differing from Lord Palmerston, and that Prince Albert had been

criticising rather too plainly his bellicose Foreign Policy.

During the first few weeks of 1854 society, indeed, could talk of little

else than the “treason” of Prince Albert. The Queen’s vexation found

frequent expression in letters to Lord Aberdeen, and that amiable

Minister did what he could to comfort her. The Prince, however, treated

his slanderers with well-simulated contempt, but, in spite of that,

their injustice stung him to the quick, and he suffered much both in

health and spirits. Yet nothing could be done in his defence till

Parliament met, and the Queen was, therefore, fain to believe that the

country, as she says in a letter to Stockmar, was “as _loyal_ as ever,

only a little mad.” Long and ponderous essays from Stockmar on the

Constitutional prerogatives of the Crown, and the political functions of

Prince Albert, as her Majesty’s private secretary, did little to dispel

the gloom that settled over the Court. The fact is that Stockmar

slightly erred in imagining that the hostility to the Prince was really

due to wrong ideas on these interesting points. As Prince Albert bluntly

put it, one main element in the agitation against him was the hatred of

the old High Tory Party towards him, in the first place, because of his

friendship with Peel, and, secondly, because of his success with the

Great Exhibition.[136] The grumblers of the military clubs, too, joined

in the cry against his Royal Highness because, when Adjutant-General

Browne resigned, after quarrelling with Lord Hardinge, the

Commander-in-Chief, about the weight of the soldier’s knapsack, the

Prince was supposed to have taken Lord Hardinge’s side. The masses, too,

had never seriously thought out the question of the position which an

able man who was husband of a reigning Queen was certain, through the

mere dictates of nature, to take in the counsels of the Sovereign. It

struck them like a galvanic shock when they discovered that for fourteen

years the Prince had been actively helping to govern them, whilst the

omniscient flunkeys of the Press were almost daily smothering him with

adulation for his “wise abstinence from politics.” Having stupidly

deceived themselves as to the precise influence which the Prince

wielded, they were in the right state of mind to be deceived by the

Prince’s enemies as to the influence which he did not wield, and which

he never sought to wield. These reasons, and not the dubiety of the

British Constitution as to the political rights of the husband of an

English Queen, gave rise to much of the foolish clamour of the hour.

It need hardly be said that when Parliament met on the 31st of January,

the leaders of both parties in both Houses summarily disposed of the

falsehoods which had been uttered to the discredit of the Court. The

Debates on the Address on this occasion are of high historical and

Constitutional importance, because they defined with great precision the

position of the consort of a queen regnant in the British Constitution,

establishing beyond doubt his right to assist the Sovereign with advice

in all matters of State. The address of Lord Campbell may be usefully

referred to as giving the legal view of the question; but the speeches

which delighted the Queen most were those of Lord John Russell, who, she

says, in a letter to Stockmar, “did it admirably,” and “dear, excellent

Lord Aberdeen, who has taken it _terribly to heart_.” It was, however,

Lord Campbell’s address which gave most satisfaction to Prince Albert.

The common-sense view of the question obviously was, that if the husband

of a queen regnant in England embarrassed her Majesty’s responsible

Ministers by unconstitutional interference, the fault must be theirs and

not his. The Constitution places in their hands the formidable weapon of

resignation, and resignation in such circumstances simply means that

government is rendered impossible till the unconstitutional interference

which is objected to is stopped.

Nobody has stated with greater correctness the political situation of

the country at the beginning of 1854 than Sir George Cornewall Lewis.

“If,” said he, in a letter to Sir Edmund Head, “war is averted, there

will be a Reform Bill, which is likely to lead to an early Dissolution.

If war arrives, the Reform Bill and all other similar measures likely to

produce party struggles and divisions must be postponed.”[137] The

Tories had, therefore, one strong temptation to encourage the War Party.

Those Whigs who, like Lord Palmerston, dreaded Reform, were in like

case, except Lord John Russell, who, with a Reform Bill on the anvil,

was foolish enough to share with Palmerston the leadership of the War

Party in the Cabinet. As the war would be one against Russia, the

mainstay of despotism in Europe, the Radicals, mindful of how the

revolution was stamped out in Hungary, were for once on the side of war.

Nobody, in fact, had any genuine desire for peace save the Queen, Prince

Albert, and the Peelites, who desired “peace with honour,” and the

Cobdenites, who seemed to desire “peace at any price.” The Peace Party

was strong in brains and common-sense, but weak in numbers. The

strength

[Illustration: THE OUTER CLOISTERS AND ANNE BOLEYN’S WINDOW, WINDSOR

CASTLE.]

of the War Party lay in its numbers, and it would be absurd to assert

that, with leaders like Derby, Disraeli, Palmerston, and Russell, it

lacked intellectual ability. As usual, numbers won the day, and an

abnormal alliance of “the classes and masses” rendered the Peace

Party--sadly weakened in moral authority by the Moravian fanaticism of

the Cobdenites--utterly impotent. Mr. Cobden cherished the illusion that

his influence had strengthened the Peace Party. Yet, with the exception

of Lord Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Lord Derby, and Lord Lyndhurst,

no public men did more to make peace impossible than Mr. Cobden and Mr.

Bright, the tone of whose pacific speeches acted on the pugnacious

temper of the country as soothingly as a sting on an open and irritable

wound.[138]

As might be expected, the Eastern policy of Ministers was fiercely

attacked in both Houses of Parliament. But to understand the point of

these attacks and the relation of the Queen to them, one must explain

what was done after Sinope drove England into a frenzy of anger only

comparable with that of the Danes when Nelson destroyed their fleet at

Copenhagen.

To rightly appraise the criminal blunder of Russia at Sinope, it is

necessary to remember that when that “massacre” occurred, the European

Powers had agreed on a new Note embodying what they considered an

honourable settlement of the dispute between Russia and Turkey. That was

the Note of the 5th of December, and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, under

orders from Lord Clarendon, persuaded the Porte to accept it. This was a

great step towards peace, for all that remained was to induce the Czar

to be equally reasonable. But on the very day (the 13th of January,

1854) when the Powers, in concert at Vienna, decided to press this

settlement on Russia, Sir Hamilton Seymour was instructed by Lord

Clarendon to intimate to Count Nesselrode at St. Petersburg that England

and France had lifted the gage of battle flung to them at Sinope. Russia

was informed that the English and French fleets had sailed for the Black

Sea, charged to “require” every Russian ship they met to put back to

port. This irritated the Czar, who professed to regard it as “a flagrant

act of hostility.”[139] Yet the Czar, or rather Nesselrode--who, like

Lord Aberdeen, was braving infinite obloquy on account of his pacific

proclivities--was willing to condone the act, if England would only

state formally that she would impose on Turkish ships the same

restrictions she imposed on those of Russia. Lord Clarendon, in his

despatch, dated the 31st of January, did not make this statement, and

accordingly, on the 4th of February, the Russian Ambassador in London

announced that he and his retinue must return at once to St. Petersburg.

On the 7th of February Lord Clarendon ordered the British Ambassador at

the Court of the Czar to return to England; the French Government took

the same course, and thus the rupture between Russia and the Western

Powers became complete. It was in such circumstances hopeless to expect

that the Note of the 5th of December, which had been accepted by the

Porte, and which the Four Powers agreed to recommend to Russia on the

very day that the despatch of the allied fleets to the Euxine was

notified to Count Nesselrode (the 13th of January), would be accepted by

the Czar. Indeed, but for Nesselrode, it would have been ignored with

contempt.[140] Russia, however, temporised. Taking advantage of the

false step of England and France in sending their fleets to the Euxine

without consulting Austria and Prussia, Russia artfully attempted to

detach the German States from the European Concert. Having failed in

this, the Russian Government sent two replies to the Protocol of the

13th of January, transmitting the settlement which the Powers had agreed

upon, and which the Porte had accepted.

The proposal of the Powers provided, amongst other things, for (1) the

evacuation of the Principalities as soon as possible; (2) the renewal of

the ancient treaties; (3) a formal guarantee by Turkey to all her

non-Mussulman subjects of their spiritual privileges, which should

likewise be communicated to all the Powers, including Russia,

“accompanied with suitable assurances” to each of them; (4) a pledge

from the Porte to reform its system of administration; and (5) the

customary promise on the part of the Sultan to uphold the old rights and

immunities granted to his Christian subjects by existing treaties.

Russia rejected these proposals, and committed the blunder of extending

her demands in her first series of counter-propositions.[141] But

subsequently she submitted a second series of propositions, in which she

withdrew the stipulations as to political refugees, and her ungenerous

demand that the Porte should negotiate terms of peace at St. Petersburg,

or at the Russian headquarters in Moldavia. The Powers decided that the

Russian settlement could not be recommended to Turkey, their main

objection being, that while their terms embodied a recognition of the

principle that the Turkish concessions and guarantees were given to

Europe as well as to Russia, the Russian terms proceeded on the

assumption that they were given to Russia alone. The Czar here was in

the wrong. In the war on the Danube the Turks had been victorious. He

insisted, however, that they should sue for peace, as if they were

prostrate in defeat. On the other hand, the Four Powers proposed terms

which did not imply that victory or defeat rested with either

belligerent. The only defence that can be made for the obstinacy of the

Emperor Nicholas in thus refusing to cross the golden bridge of

honourable retreat built for him by the Powers is, that the War Party in

Russia was as rabid as the War Party in England. “The Emperor,” wrote

Sir H. Seymour to Lord Clarendon on the 2nd of January, “is infinitely

more moderate than the immense bulk of his subjects,” who denounced

Nesselrode “as an alien, a traitor, and a man bought by English

gold”--precisely the language which the same kind of people in England

applied to Lord Aberdeen. In fact, the Czar himself was rapidly losing

his popularity and authority because of the deference he was showing to

the Powers, and it is probable that if he had made further concessions

he would have been assassinated. But inasmuch as Nicholas himself, in

spite of the advice of his three ablest servants,[142] had roused the

fanaticism and fury of his subjects by his policy, even this defence,

though it explains, does not justify his conduct.

[Illustration: RUSSIAN REPULSE AT SILISTRIA.]

[Illustration: LORD RAGLAN.]

Yet, by a strange stroke of fortune, war between Russia and the Western

Powers was still avoided. War with Russia was hateful to the French

people--almost as hateful as a military alliance with Turkey. But the

Emperor Napoleon III., for dynastic reasons, was committed to such a

war, and on the 29th of January he accordingly wrote a pacific letter to

the Czar couched in language certain to provoke his wrath. Nicholas

answered it with infinite _hauteur_, two contemptuous sentences in his

reply stinging the Bonapartists into rage.[143] France now had her War

Party rampant, and this did not improve the outlook. Still, one last

effort was made in the cause of peace. On the 22nd of February the

Austrian Minister, Count Buol, told the French Ambassador at Vienna

that if England and France would only fix “a delay”[144] for the

evacuation of the Principalities, and agree to keep the peace till that

term ran out, Austria would join them in sending Russia a summons to

retire across the Pruth. It was tolerably certain that what Austria did,

Prussia would do, and here again the European Concert was united in

putting irresistible diplomatic pressure on Russia. Lord Clarendon,

hearing of this, very naturally asked the German Powers how they would

act if the joint summons were ignored by the Czar. Clarendon seems to

have taken it for granted that they would in that case join England in

going to war, for, without waiting for their reply, he sent to St.

Petersburg on the 27th of February an ultimatum to Russia, demanding the

evacuation of the Principalities under threat of war. When the replies

from the German Powers arrived on the 28th of February, Lord Clarendon

found that Austria merely promised to support England in sending the

summons, but not to support her in any action she might take in the

event of its being ignored; whereas Prussia, though she thought the

summons a good thing to send, was not quite sure if she would join the

other Powers in sending it. Thus the English Government, by Lord

Clarendon’s impetuous indiscretion, again broke up the European Concert;

but now under circumstances of supreme peril, for he had positively

committed England to enforce alone against Russia, a proposal which not

only originated with Austria, but in the enforcement of which the

interest of Austria, menaced by a Russian occupation of Moldavia, was

obviously greater than that of either England or France. France joined

England in this foolish step, and the German States, well pleased to see

the Western Powers fighting their battles, and relieved from

responsibility by Lord Clarendon’s precipitate action on the 27th of

February, astutely kept out of the fray. The Czar instructed Nesselrode

to inform Consul Michele at St. Petersburg on the 18th of March that he

did not think fit to reply to Lord Clarendon’s ultimatum,[145] and thus,

with France as an ally, England went into the war--for the evacuation of

the Principalities.

The case of the Tory Opposition in Parliament against the Government was

now unanswerable. Their leaders had systematically blamed the Government

for not warning Russia at the outset that the invasion of the

Principalities would be a _casus belli_. Had that been done, Russia

might have held her hand, whereas it was not done till retreat for

Russia meant humiliation.

But, strange as it may seem, the English Government had still one more

blunder open to them. The Turks, under Omar Pasha, had not only held the

line of the Danube against Russia, but they had won important victories.

In May, 1854, the Russians, under Paskiewitch, attacked Silistria; but

the Turks, animated by the heroism and admirably served by the skill of

some English officers, beat off the enemy, and on the 22nd of June the

Russians raised the siege. Two weeks afterwards Gortschakoff was

repulsed at Giurgevo, and the Russians were soon driven back across the

Pruth.

The evacuation of the Principalities, to bring about which England had

gone to war, was thus achieved. The one blunder which was now left for

England to commit was to ignore this fact and refrain from taking

advantage of it. And this was precisely what England did. Yielding to

the popular passion of the hour,[146] the Government found a new object

to fight for, namely, the destruction of Russia as an enemy to Mankind.

And yet, with this amazing fact on record, there are still people on the

Continent who aver that England is a practical nation, which never

fights for an idea!

War was declared by England against Russia on the 28th of March, and by

France on the 27th, the military alliance between the two Powers being

signed on the 12th. Lord Raglan had been appointed to command the

British army, whilst Marshal St. Arnaud headed that of France, and the

British troops had departed for the seat of war on the 20th of February,

amidst scenes of great excitement and popular enthusiasm, which

naturally inflamed the bellicose feeling of the metropolis. On the 30th

of March the French occupied Gallipoli, in European Turkey, a little

above the point where the Dardanelles expand into the Propontis or Sea

of Marmora. The English detachments began to arrive on the 5th of April.

The allies threw fortified lines across the peninsula, so that if Russia

had driven back the Turks from the Danube and, crossing the Balkans to

Adrianople, had made a dash for Constantinople, as in 1829, the Turks

would have been paralysed by the allied forces on their right flank. But

the pride of England as a maritime Power had to be gratified, and, as

the ice was breaking in the Baltic, it was decided to order a great

fleet to reduce Cronstadt and let the Czar hear the voice of England

thundering from her cannon at the very gates of his capital. Sir Charles

Napier, the Admiral appointed to command the magnificent Armada at

Spithead, was entertained at an absurd Reform Club banquet on the 7th of

March. There he, Lord Palmerston, and Sir James Graham, delivered

themselves of flippant, vaunting orations, which Mr. Bright, in the

House of Commons, denounced as “discreditable to the grave and

responsible statesmen of a Christian nation.”[147] Very different was

the feeling of the Queen when, on the 11th of March, she reviewed the

stately procession of war-ships at Spithead, as they steamed past her

yacht, while she waved her handkerchief to the Admiral and crew of the

colossal _Duke of Wellington_, which brought up the rear. Before leaving

town she wrote to Lord Aberdeen, “We are just starting to see the fleet,

which is to sail at once for its important destination. It will be a

solemn moment.[148] Many a heart will be very heavy, and many a prayer,

including our own, will be offered up for its safety and glory.”[149] On

the 12th of April Napier sailed from Kiöge Bay and completely blockaded

the Gulf of Finland. Russia was thus paralysed when she evacuated the

Principalities. Omar Pasha kept her at bay on the other side of the

Pruth. Napier locked up her fleet and shipping in the Baltic. The allied

armies covered Constantinople. The allied fleets swept the Euxine. The

“material guarantees” which she had seized for the purpose of forcing

her terms on Turkey were wrested from her hands, and as war abrogates

all treaties, she had even lost the shadow of a claim to exercise her

old rights of protection over the Sultan’s Christian subjects. Russia

was now at the mercy of the Western Powers, and had they simply remained

passive, she would soon have been compelled to sue for peace on their

terms. But the War Party in England, disappointed that this supreme

advantage had been gained without gilding British arms with glory,

scoffed at the idea of settling the original dispute between Russia and

Turkey on these terms. The British Government accordingly resolved, not

merely to bring Russia to reason, but to humiliate her and punish her in

such a manner that her power in South-Eastern Europe would be utterly

broken. As it was this determination which led to the calamitous

invasion of the Crimea, it may be well to trace the diplomatic history

of such an astounding blunder.

On the 9th of April, after war had been declared, the four

Powers--England, France, Austria, and Prussia--signed a Protocol at

Vienna which bound them (1) to remain united in maintaining the

integrity of Turkey, and in safeguarding, under the guarantee of Europe,

the liberties of her Christian inhabitants by every means compatible

with the independence of the Sultan; (2) to enter into no arrangement

with Russia or any other Power which might be inconsistent with this

object without first of all discussing it in concert. On the 20th of

April Austria and Prussia concluded an offensive and defensive alliance.

In separate Notes they summoned Russia to evacuate the Principalities.

On the 29th of July, when Omar Pasha was just about to drive the

Russians back to their territory, Count Nesselrode replied to Austria

stating that the Czar accepted the principles of the Protocol of the 9th

of April. But before evacuating the Principalities, he requested the

Cabinet of Vienna to give

[Illustration: THE QUEEN WAVING FAREWELL TO THE “DUKE OF WELLINGTON”

FLAG-SHIP.]

him some guarantee that hostilities would cease.[150] Austria was

willing to persuade England and France to agree to the condition which

the Czar thus made, a condition _sine quâ non_ of evacuation, but Count

Buol Schauenstein instructed the Austrian ambassador at St. Petersburg

to warn Nesselrode that if the Maritime Powers remained obdurate,

Austria must still insist on the withdrawal of Russia from Moldavia and

Wallachia. Prussia, however, refused to take part in a Conference which

Austria suggested might advantageously be held to consider the Russian

terms. King Frederick William and Manteuffel thought that in offering to

evacuate the Principalities, Russia had made a sufficient concession to

the interests of Germany. But Lord Clarendon was of a different

opinion.[151] England, he saw, would no longer be content with the mere

evacuation of the Principalities, which was the sole object of the war.

Imitating the initial blunder of the Czar, he insisted on getting a

“material guarantee” against any future molestation of Turkey. The

exclusive right of Russia to protect Moldavia and Wallachia must, he

said, be abolished, and instead of it a European Protectorate

established. Russia must also cease to control the chief mouth of the

Danube. The ill-defined relations of Russia to the Christian subjects of

the Porte, embodied in the Treaty of 1841, must be defined in the

interests of the balance of power in Europe, and the independence of

Turkey. Russia must finally renounce her claim to exercise any

individual or official right of protecting Turkish subjects, no matter

what their religion might be. The position of Russia as a naval Power in

the Black Sea must also be modified.[152] The Czar rejected these

terms[153]--indeed, if he had accepted them when as yet he had not

suffered any crushing defeat from the Western Powers, his life would not

have been worth many days’ purchase. Austria and Turkey concluded a

Treaty on the 14th of June, in virtue of which Austria was to occupy the

Principalities on behalf of the Sultan. On the 23rd of August the

Austrian army entered Wallachia, thus setting the Turks free to

co-operate with the Allies for the defence of Constantinople. But at

this point the war passed from the defensive to the offensive stage, and

it will therefore be convenient to trace the movement of opinion in

England which powerfully influenced the change in our plans.

The attacks on Prince Albert created an unusual interest in the opening

of Parliament on the 30th of January, 1854. When the Queen passed in her

State procession from her palace to the House of Lords, the route was

lined by a seething crowd of enthusiasts, who cheered her wildly as she

went by. She was evidently more popular than even the Turkish

Ambassador, who was the idol of West-End mobs in these mad, foolish, and

to us, the rising generation, far-off days. The Speech from the Throne

referred somewhat hopefully to the diplomatic negotiations which were

then going on between the Powers. But it contained an ominous intimation

that her Majesty thought it necessary to increase the strength of the

army and navy, “with the view of supporting her representations, and of

more effectually contributing to the restoration of peace.” She

announced a comprehensive programme of domestic legislation, comprising

a Reform Bill, with Bills to remodel Parliamentary Oaths, to reform the

methods of selection for the Civil Service, to change the law of removal

and settlement, and to renovate the tribunal for trying disputed

Parliamentary Elections. If Ministers imagined that they would thus

divert attention from the Eastern Question they were mistaken. In both

Houses the Opposition attacked the Speech bitterly. They denied that the

Government had used its best efforts to preserve peace, because its

policy was a tangle of vacillation and inconsistency. They complained

that the part played by England had been shrouded in secrecy and

mystery, so that the country had to look to foreign sources for such

scraps of information as had come to it. Ministers had shown such lack

of energy that the Emperor of Russia had been led to regard them as his

instruments, or, if that were not the case, as men who had not the

courage to vindicate British honour by British arms. Were we at war with

either or both of the belligerent Powers--Russia or Turkey--or were we

not? If not, why send our fleet to the Black Sea to enforce against

Russia a compulsory armistice? If we were, why was war not waged boldly

and with vigour? Was it not foolish to dissipate the energies of the

country in Reform controversies when it might any day find itself forced

to make war in real earnest? The Vienna Note was denounced as a betrayal

of Turkey, and the aggressive policy of Russia was unsparingly

condemned. The Ministerial defence was weak and spiritless.

After the Russian Ambassador left London the Government was pressed to

divulge what it knew of Count Orloff’s suspicious mission to

Vienna,[154] as to which it was wondrously secretive; and various

debates sprang up, notably one in the House of Commons on the 17th of

February, which was raised by Mr. Layard on the official papers that had

been published. To remove the impression produced by adverse criticism,

Ministers seemed to think that the more bellicose they made their

speeches the better.[155] “We mean to fight, so do not weaken the hands

of the Government unless you are prepared to take its place”--this was

the gist of the Ministerial rhetoric. As to their policy of protracted

negotiation, Ministers argued, reasonably enough, that forbearance in

the circumstances could not be a crime. Mr. Hume and Mr. Roebuck took

this view, and, on the whole, the debates, together with the Blue-books,

may be said to have won for the Government a favourable verdict from the

country. Mr. Cobden, however, had the audacity to challenge this verdict

and to oppose, on what to the present generation seem sensible grounds,

the whole policy of the war. His long speeches and pamphlets on this

subject can be summed up in three sentences. Either we were going to

fight Russia for the sake of Turkey, or for the sake of protecting the

liberties of Europe from the encroachment of the Russian autocrat. If we

were fighting for the sake of Turkey, we were fighting in a cause that

we ought to be ashamed of. If we

[Illustration: MARSHAL ST. ARNAUD.]

were fighting to protect European civilisation from Russia, we ought to

let the Powers nearest to the source of danger--Austria and

Germany--begin first. This argument was indeed the only one that had the

least effect on the House. Members were, however, so completely

frightened by the clamour of London Society and the London Press, that

even those who agreed with Cobden did not dare to say so.[156] His

simple but lucid exposition of the Turkish system of Government which we

were asked to maintain, had unexpectedly disturbed the minds, not only

of the Nonconformists, but of many good Churchmen

[Illustration: FORTS ALEXANDER AND PETER THE GREAT, CRONSTADT.]

also. It was, perhaps, slightly emphasised by the taunt of the Czar in

his Manifesto of the 9th of February to the effect that England and

France were fighting for Islam against Russia, who was striving to

protect Christianity. The War Party feared that there might be a

reaction against them, and accordingly they very cleverly induced Lord

Shaftesbury, on the 10th of March, to answer this portion of the

Manifesto, and not only to prove that the Grand Turk did more than the

Czar to advance the progress of Christianity, but also to defend the

righteousness of making an alliance with any Power, heathen though it

might be, to maintain “the cause of right, justice, and order, against

the aggressions even of professing Christians.” Of this speech Lord

Shaftesbury says in his Diary that nothing pleased him more than the

statement of Lord Clarendon that the debate which he originated “was

most opportune.”[157] From a Ministerial point of view it was opportune.

Mr. Morley complains that the Nonconformists, who “have so seldom been

found fighting on the wrong side,” were now so seriously divided that

they did nothing to help Mr. Cobden to resist the warlike policy of the

Government.[158] Their neutrality explains why Clarendon was so effusive

in his congratulation to the Peer whose influence over this section of

the community was supreme.

But the whole question soon passed out of the region of debate. On the

27th of March, the Queen’s message proclaiming war--though oddly enough

the word war is not mentioned in it--was read to both Houses of

Parliament; and on the 31st a loyal address agreeing to it was duly

moved and carried, after a debate which was worthier of such an occasion

than many others that had preceded it. The Opposition leaders seem to

have been sobered by the solemnity of the moment, and all parties

practically supported the Government with the helpless unanimity of

despair. In the Upper House, Lord Grey alone uttered a strong protest

against the war. In the House of Commons, Mr. Bright and the Marquis of

Granby were the only speakers who were for peace. The violent

Russophobists found in Mr. Layard an energetic champion. He condemned

the Government, first, because it had not coerced Russia immediately

after the massacre of Sinope, and secondly, because even now Ministers

did not specifically declare that the object of the war was to lock up

Russia within well-defined limits, so as to cripple her for ever. The

Tory leaders were more cautious. They naturally made capital out of the

Secret Correspondence,[159] already referred to (pp. 546-7). They had

little difficulty in convicting the Government of misleading the Czar as

to their rooted objection to his Turkish policy. Lord John Russell had

not rejected the Russian proposals with the sternness of one who had

serious hostility to them. He had, indeed, admitted the very claim which

he and his colleagues were now about to rebut by war.[160] A “hybrid

policy of credulity and connivance,” as Mr. Disraeli once called it,

could have no other result than that of tempting the Czar to advance

pretensions which he could not withdraw without prejudicing his Imperial

position, and it is strange that this aspect of the affair was dealt

with somewhat leniently by the critics and enemies of the Ministry. The

questions that seemed to be of supreme interest to both Houses were

really two--What was the object of the war? Where were our allies? To

the one question the answer was vague. To the other the reply was

neither frank nor candid. Lord Clarendon said that the object of the war

was “to check and repel the unjust aggression of Russia”--which, as

things stood, meant to force her out of the Danubian Principalities.

But, he added, to ask what was the object of the war was to ask on what

terms peace would be made?--a question the answer to which must depend

on chances nobody could forecast. As for allies, it was easy to say that

France was with us. The difficulty was to say what the German Powers

would do. Ministers felt that Cobden had pierced their armour when, in

the adjourned debate on Mr. Layard’s motion (20th Feb.), he asked

whether it would not be sensible to let those Powers who were nearest

Russia--and must therefore suffer first from her aggression--begin the

fighting. Parliament must therefore be cajoled into a belief that

Austria and Prussia would join us. Both Houses knew that though Austria

and Prussia had concurred with England and France in recommending Russia

to evacuate the Principalities, they had not pledged themselves to

co-operate with us in war. Still, said Lord John Russell, when Austria

was asked what she would do in the event of war breaking out, “the

answer was at the time satisfactory,” and if Prussia had only fallen in

with her views, he would have had a most satisfactory statement to make

to the House. Though Prussian views seemed to Lord John “too narrow,

taking in German interests alone,” he (Lord John) trusted that a short

time would bring Prussia “to the conclusion that the disturbance of the

balance of Power and the aggrandisement of Russia were matters of

concern to Prussia as well as to other Powers.”

Lord John Russell unscrupulously deceived the House of Commons and the

country on both points. The whole course of the negotiations had shown

first, that Prussia considered the Czar’s final concessions sufficient,

and, secondly, that Austria, though regretting that Russia did not do

more to mollify Lord Clarendon, refused to admit that a declaration of

war was necessary for that purpose. Lord John Russell’s statement as to

Prussia was not only untrue, but the dates of the official despatches

prove that he and his colleagues must have known it to be untrue.[161]

When it was made in the House of Commons by him, and virtually in the

same form in the House of Lords by Lord Clarendon, neither Austria nor

Prussia had given any direct answer whatever to the question as to what

they would do if war broke out. The Prussian Minister, indeed, said he

did not think that Prussia would join the Powers in such a

[Illustration: OMAR PASHA.]

war.[162] But a still grosser deception was the delusive assurance that

Prussia would yet come to our assistance. The Government knew too well

that the views of Prussia were such as to absolutely destroy this hope.

The King of Prussia looked upon war against Russia on the issue raised

as a crime, and he had written an autograph letter to the Queen, a fact

which was concealed from Parliament, saying so in the plainest words. He

reminded her of what it is to be feared the Queen, like most of her

countrymen, did not then sufficiently realise--the agonies of a great

war such as that of 1813-15--agonies that he had seen, but which, alas!

her Majesty and the new generation had only read about. Yet that was a

war worth the horrors of its sacrifices. Was this one now impending

worth similar sacrifices?

[Illustration: MAP OF THE CRIMEA.]

Hardly, argued the King, for even England had at last become ashamed of

the cause she had taken up--that of the Turk, and her endeavour now was

to persuade herself and the world that it was for another cause--the

equilibrium of Europe, menaced by the preponderance of Russia--that she

was about to draw the sword. “The preponderance of Russia,” he writes in

this letter, “is to be broken down! Well! I, her neighbour, have never

felt this preponderance, and have never yielded to it.” It was war for

an idea, and, adds the King with intense earnestness, “Suffer me to ask,

‘Does God’s law justify war for an idea?’” He implores the Queen to

reconsider the Russian proposals in a friendly spirit, sifting what is

really objectionable from them, and pledges himself that if a golden

bridge is built to save the Czar’s honour, the Czar will cross it. But

one word the King craves leave to speak plainly to the Queen: “For

Prussia and myself,” he writes, “_I am resolved to maintain a position

of complete neutrality_; and to this I add, with proud elation, _my

people_ and myself are of one mind. They _require_ absolute neutrality

from me. They say (and I say), ‘What have we to do with the Turk?’

Whether he stand or fall in no way concerns the industrious Rhinelanders

and the husbandmen of the Riesengeberg and Bernstein.” Russia, he

admits, might have perhaps pressed hard on the Turk. However, “it was

the Turk, not we, who suffered, and the Turk has plenty of good

friends, but the Emperor is a noble gentleman, and has done us no harm.

Your Majesty will allow that this North German sound practical sense is

difficult to gainsay.” Yet it was with such a letter in their possession

that the Government led the country to believe, first, that Austria, who

could not possibly move without Prussia, would join us in the war; and,

second, that Prussia would also draw her sword for a cause which she

declared we ourselves were even then ashamed of!

On the 17th of March, 1854, the Queen, nettled by the rough practical

“North German sense” in this letter from the King of Prussia,

endeavoured to answer it--her draft being submitted to Lord Clarendon

and Lord Aberdeen for approval. Her answer, according to Sir Theodore

Martin, indicates a “firm hand” and “admirable tact.”[163] To the

political student of the present day it indicates neither the one nor

the other. There was no tact in scoffing at the King’s “North German

sound practical sense” by saying, “Had such language fallen from the

King of Hanover or of Saxony, I would have understood it,” and there was

more weakness and sentimentality than firmness and statecraft in the

hand that added, “But up to the present hour I have regarded Prussia as

one of the five great Powers which, since the Peace of 1815, have been

the guarantors of treaties, the guardians of civilisation, the champions

of right, and ultimate arbitrators of the nations; and I have for my

part felt the holy duty to which they were thus divinely called, being

at the same time perfectly alive to the obligations, serious as they

are, and fraught with danger, which it imposes. Renounce these

obligations, my dear brother, and in doing so you renounce for Prussia

the status she has hitherto held.”[164] If the example thus set by

Prussia--that of making the interests of the Prussian people the supreme

object of her policy--should find imitators, the Queen contended,

“European civilisation is abandoned as a plaything to the winds; right

will no longer find a champion, nor the oppressed an umpire to appeal

to.”

Such was the reply which the Queen made to what Sir Theodore Martin

calls “the amiable but most mischievous weakness” that pervaded the

letter from the King of Prussia. Such was the appeal which she made to

what Sir Theodore calls “a sentiment higher than the short-sighted and

selfish policy which it announced.” The King’s letter was perhaps

amiable--but it was not weak. Its policy was perhaps selfish--a

Sovereign who draws or sheathes the sword, save from motives of national

selfishness, is guilty of a crime against his people--but it was not

shortsighted. As Mr. Lowe, in his biography of Prince Bismarck, says,

“Every one is now agreed, in the words of Leopold von Ranke, that his

(the King of Prussia’s) neutrality during the Crimean War was the

condition precedent of the great achievements which afterwards made

Germany one.”[165] Prussia, in fact, was at this moment master of the

situation; and it is amazing that the Queen, through her German

connections, did not know it. Herr von Bismarck had been sent on a

secret mission to the minor German States. His intrigues had rendered it

certain that if Austria joined the Western Powers in war, Prussia would

step into her place as the dominant power in Germany.[166] In fact, but

one excuse is given for the grave error of the English Court in not

seizing the opportunity offered by the letter of the King of Prussia for

building the “golden bridge” over which his Majesty pledged his word the

Czar would even then have gladly retreated. The Queen’s reason in her

reply was that the resources of diplomacy--its Protocols, Notes,

Conventions, &c., &c.--had been exhausted, and that “the ink that has

gone to the penning of them might well be called a second Black

Sea.”[167] A sanguine and proud young Princess must not be too harshly

judged by History for a light jest, even on such a momentous issue. In a

few brief months it was wiped out with her tears and her people’s blood.

Moreover, her Majesty, as will be seen later, did not forget the hard

stern lesson read to her by this “war for an idea,” when she saved

England from a similar calamity in the dispute between Germany and

Denmark over the Duchies.

Only one thing now vexed the hearts of the War Party. The Address in

answer to the Queen’s Message announcing war was carried. But the debate

did not definitely commit the Government to a war for the purpose of

breaking the power of Russia.

There was, however, an insurrection in the Greek provinces of Turkey,

which gave promise of bloodshed, for early in March Nesselrode had

authorised the agents of Russia to support the insurgents. King Otho of

Greece gave them unofficial support. The atrocious cruelty of the

Turkish Bashi-bazouks, according to one party, had caused the rising,

whilst another party held that it was due to Russian intrigue. Doubtless

it was due to both causes, more especially as it was the hope of getting

rid of the torture of Turkish misrule, that led the Greeks to listen

eagerly to the Russian intriguers. The insurrection was easily strangled

by the Allies who occupied the Piræus on the 25th of May; but one of its

incidents was the expulsion of the Greeks from Constantinople. Now, as

the Greeks in those days carried on nearly all the trade of Turkey,

dealing with Manchester and Glasgow to the extent of £3,000,000 a year,

a strong attack might have been made against the Ministry. They could

have been taunted with going to war for British interests in support of

the Turks, who were destroying our trading agencies in Turkey. Mr.

Cobden saw this point clearly, and though he put it before the House of

Commons, he spoilt it by foolishly arguing, on sentimental grounds, that

we ought not to support an act as barbarous as the Edict of Nantes. Lord

John Russell won an easy victory over him by virtually ignoring the

question of English commercial interests, and showing that there was no

parallel between the expulsion of Frenchmen from France on account of

their religious opinions, and the expulsion from Turkey of the subjects

of a foreign Prince who was fomenting rebellion. As for the atrocities

of the Turks, the House of Commons was, of course, told that they were

the natural results of Russian ambition, “for which there was scarcely

one apologist but Mr. Cobden!”

[Illustration: THE BARRACKS HOSPITAL, SCUTARI.]

In the meantime the war had to be financed, and the country reconciled

to increased taxation. Mr. Gladstone’s ordinary, as distinguished from

his War Budget, was introduced on the 6th of March, when his position

was this.

[Illustration: ODESSA.]

He had collected £54,025,000 of revenue, or £1,035,000 in excess of what

he had counted on. He had spent £51,171,000, which, in spite of military

operations, was less by £1,012,000 than he had estimated. His balance in

hand from the past year was £2,854,000. For the coming year his

estimates must necessarily be increased by additional military

outlay,[168] which would bring up his estimated expenditure to

£56,189,000. As the revenue he could depend upon from existing taxes was

only £53,349,000, he had therefore a deficit of £2,840,000. Had there

been no need to increase his estimates,[169] he might have had a surplus

of £1,166,000 for the remission of taxation. As things stood, how was

the deficit to be met? Not by a loan, answered Mr. Gladstone, because no

nation had mortgaged its industry to such a frightful extent as England,

whose National Debt of £750,000,000 exceeded that of all countries in

the world put together. Without pledging themselves to pay all future

war charges out of the revenue of each year, Mr. Gladstone said it was

as yet possible for the House of Commons “to put a stout heart upon the

matter, and to determine that so long as these burdens are bearable, and

so long as the supplies necessary for the service of the year can be

raised within the year, so long we will not resort to the system of

loans.” The expenses of a war, he observed, “are the moral check which

it has pleased the Almighty to impose upon the ambition and the lust of

conquest that are inherent in nations.” He therefore proposed to

increase the Income Tax by one-half, but to collect the whole of the

increase in the first six months of 1854; in other words, he doubled the

tax in the first half year. He was assailed on two grounds. The Tories

protested against the doctrine of meeting war expenditure out of current

revenue, and they taunted him with the failure of his scheme for the

conversion of the debt,[170] which, they pretended, had been disastrous.

“The next Party conflict,” wrote Prince Albert in a letter to Stockmar

on the 18th of April, “will be upon finance. Gladstone wants to pay for

the war out of the current revenue, so long as he does not require more

than ten millions sterling above the ordinary expenditure, and to

increase the taxes for the purpose. The Opposition are for

borrowing--that is, increasing the debt--and do not wish to impose in

the meantime any further burdens on themselves. The former course is

manly, statesmanlike, and honest; the latter is convenient, cowardly,

perhaps popular. We shall see.”[171] This is a masterly summary of the

great financial controversy that raged throughout the Session of 1854.

It leaves nothing more to be said save this, that when Mr. Gladstone

explained his second or War Budget (8th of May), after war had been

declared, his eloquence carried the country in favour of his policy. He

obtained his war expenditure by doubling the Income Tax and increasing

the duty on spirits and malt, and he pointed to the rapidly-growing

trade of the nation as a proof that it ought not to adopt the course

which Pitt found ruinous,[172] and which Prince Albert so justly

described as “convenient and cowardly.”

Perhaps the first Budget in February had slightly sobered the

country--at all events, the 26th of April was set apart for a day of

Fast, Humiliation, and Prayer. Over this a slight controversy had broken

out. The Queen was a little offended that Lord Aberdeen had announced,

without consulting her, in the House of Lords, on the 31st of March,

that such a Fast would be proclaimed. She thought Fasts of Humiliation

were resorted to too often, and that it was hypocritical to publicly

confess in the stereotyped form that “the great sinfulness of the nation

had brought about this war.” Therefore she desired that the Fast should

be called a Day of Prayer and Supplication, and urged Lord Aberdeen “to

inculcate the Queen’s wishes into the Archbishop’s mind, that there be

no Jewish imprecations against our enemies.” Her desire was to adapt the

prayer in the Church Service, “To be used before a Fight at Sea,” to the

occasion.[173] According to Mr. Greville, bankers in the City pointed

out that if the word “Fast” were omitted, Bills would be payable on that

day and not on the day before, as Masterman’s Act provides in such

cases. The Queen was, therefore, persuaded by Lord Aberdeen to proclaim

“a Day of Solemn _Fast_, _Humiliation_, and Prayer, to be kept on the

26th.” It was observed solemnly in the United Kingdom, India, and the

Colonies, by British subjects of all races and creeds.

When it was found that the object for which the war was undertaken--the

evacuation of the Principalities--had been effected by the retreat of

the Russians across the Pruth on the 28th of July, there was some fear

lest the taxpayers, who were painfully digesting Mr. Gladstone’s War

Budget, might consider enough had been done to bring Russia to reason.

Russia, it has been shown, was now in such a position that her

surrender, under the passive pressure of the Powers, was inevitable, so

as a matter-of-fact enough _had_ been done. But the growth of this

feeling had to be stopped, for the War Party insisted that Russia must

be rendered incapable of again disturbing Europe. It was a curious

revival of a policy, the practicability of which Napoleon I. had ruined

himself to illustrate. Yet on the 19th of June Lord Lyndhurst invited

the House of Lords to preside at its resurrection. The long, virulent,

and passionate harangue by which he endeavoured to excite the hatred of

England against Russia, his indictment of her as an enemy of the human

race, his appeals for her destruction in the sacred interests of liberty

and civilisation, drew forth cheer after cheer even from that frigid

Assembly of patricians. It produced a prodigious effect on the country,

and forthwith Englishmen worked themselves up into a belief that unless

a mortal blow were dealt at Russia, Europe would be overrun by Cossacks,

and every honest man in England would be buried alive in Siberia. Lord

Aberdeen ventured to protest against Lyndhurst’s extravagant and

scurrilous abuse of the Czar, and to remind the Peers that in 1829, when

Turkey was at his mercy, he had not seized Turkish territory, but had

been content with the Treaty of Adrianople. For this Aberdeen was

denounced as a tool of Russia, who desired to patch up a hasty and

dishonourable peace.

[Illustration: HEIGHTS OF THE ALMA.]

[Illustration: SIR JOHN BURGOYNE.]

Mr. Layard, on the 23rd of June, gave notice of motion in the House of

Commons, “that, in the opinion of this House, the language held by the

First Minister of the Crown was calculated to raise grave doubts in the

public mind as to the objects and results of the present war, and to

lessen the prospect of a durable peace.” Even the Queen wrote to the

aged statesman a letter scolding him because he had annoyed the public

by “an impartial examination of the Emperor of Russia’s conduct.” She

admired Aberdeen’s courage and honesty, but expressed a hope--in the

circumstances her “hope” was a command--that in any explanation of his

unlucky speech “he will not undertake the ungrateful and injurious task

of vindicating the Emperor of Russia from any of the exaggerated charges

brought against him and his policy, at a time when there is enough in

that policy to make us fight with all our might against it.”[174] What

Aberdeen said was that he objected to Russian aggression on Turkey, but

as for Russian aggression on Europe, he did not fear it in the least.

There was nothing in that to cause offence, except to those who,

suddenly finding that Russian aggression on Turkey had been repelled by

Omar Pasha, supported by the hostile demonstrations of the Western

Powers, were now at a loss to discover another form of Russian

encroachment, real or imaginary, to repel. There must therefore, cried

Lyndhurst and the War Party, be no talk of peace till the Russian fleet

in the Black Sea was destroyed, and the walls of Sebastopol razed to the

ground. “For the future,” exclaimed Lord Derby, “it was impossible to

permit the Black Sea to be a Russian lake, or that the Danube should be

a Russian ditch, choked with mud and filth.”[175] A great army had been

sent to Turkey; but the fighting and the glory had fallen to Omar Pasha

on the Danube. As Lord Hardwicke said, in the debate in the House of

Lords on a Vote of Credit (24th of July), “if the present campaign

closed without some great deed of arms equal to the power and dignity of

this country, Her Majesty’s Government would lie under a heavy

responsibility.”

Lord John Russell, in defending this Vote of Credit in the House of

Commons, said that the Government had now three objects in view besides

the evacuation of the Principalities: (1) to place Turkey under the

protection of the European Powers, to whom, and not to Russia alone, she

should be asked for the future to guarantee the privileges of her

Christian subjects; (2) to deprive Russia of her special right of

protecting the Principalities under the Treaty of Adrianople; (3) to

reduce the power of Russia in the Black Sea, so that she should not be

able to menace Turkey. In connection with this third aim, Lord John

threw out a sinister allusion to the destruction of Sebastopol, which

Mr. Disraeli protested he heard with “consternation,” and which Lord

John vainly endeavoured to explain away. The German Powers objected as

much to the occupation of Russian territory by England or Turkey, as to

the occupation of Turkish territory by Russia. Lord John Russell had,

therefore, emulated Lyndhurst in his eagerness to give Austria and

Prussia a pretext for refusing England and France their co-operation.

It was in truth easy to whet the fashionable appetite for adventure and

glory. The country sulked over the inaction of the British fleet in the

Baltic and the army at Varna. Yet the fleet under Napier, though it

failed to make good the foolish vaunting of its commander when he

started, did some useful work. It found the frowning fortifications of

Cronstadt impregnable,[176] but at all events it shut up the Russian

navy in their harbours, and swept their commerce from the sea. Captain

Hall’s daring reconnoissance of Hango Bay in the month of May, elicited

a tribute of admiration from the Grand Duke Constantine himself. Admiral

Plumridge destroyed Bomarsund, a fortress built to dominate the Gulf of

Bothnia. But in the Pacific the Allies were decidedly less successful in

August in their attack on Petropaulovski. The English Admiral, Price,

had committed suicide, and was succeeded by Sir F. Nicholson. On the 4th

of September an attempt was made to take the place in the rear, but

owing to the treachery of two guides, our men were misled and repulsed.

They were driven over a precipice 70 feet high which lay between them

and the shore, many of them being killed, and still more being wounded

in taking a headlong leap for their lives.

In the Black Sea the record was more brilliant. The first shot fired in

the war was at Odessa, which was bombarded for ten hours on the 22nd of

April, in revenge for an outrage committed by the Russians, who fired on

a flag of truce. This was followed by a challenge to the Russian fleet

in Sebastopol, which was not accepted. On the 12th of May the _Tiger_

ran aground off Odessa, and had to strike her flag. Her crew were made

prisoners, but treated with the utmost kindness and courtesy by the

Russians. The captain (Gifford) died of his wounds on the 19th of June,

and the lieutenant (Royer) was sent to St. Petersburg by order of the

Czar, who at once set him free. Captain Parker, on the 8th of July,

destroyed the Russian works at the Sulina mouth of the Danube.

In May there were 20,000 French on the European and 10,000 British

troops on the Asiatic side of the Danube. Gallipoli was fortified, and

works thrown up in order to check the Russians had they crossed the

Danube. Constantinople was also fortified, and then the Allies

concentrated at Varna, ready, if need be, to carry war into the enemy’s

territory. They were encamped at a spot which was saturated with the

germs of malaria, and which was chosen with a reckless disregard of

sanitary considerations. During June and July malaria, dysentery, and

cholera decimated their ranks. They sat brooding listlessly in the

shadow of death all through that fatal summer, chafing, as did their

countrymen at home, over their inglorious fortune. Cardigan’s

reconnoissance of the country up to Trajan’s Wall on the confines of the

Dobrudscha alone broke the monotony of their existence, and on his

return they were cheered by his news of the disastrous retreat of the

Russians on Bessarabia. On the 26th of August a Council of War was held

at Varna, and the rumour that the army was to be led to the invasion of

the Crimea flew through the disheartened camp like tidings of great joy.

It has been shown by what steps the English Government was lured on to

this fatal decision. Yet it is due to Lord Aberdeen’s Cabinet to say,

that it was not at first unanimous as to the expediency of widening the

area of conflict, and attempting to break the power of Russia, “by

razing Sebastopol to the ground.” Mr. Kinglake[177] has stated that this

enterprise was sanctioned at a Cabinet meeting held on June 28 in Lord

John Russell’s house (Pembroke Lodge). Mr. Kinglake, at a loss to

explain to posterity how a number of intelligent men could have approved

an act of such stupendous folly, has invented an ingenious theory. The

Duke of Newcastle, as Secretary of State for War, subsequently blamed

Lord Raglan for mismanaging the campaign. But Mr. Kinglake has

constituted himself Lord Raglan’s champion, and he accordingly

endeavours to lay as much blame as possible on the Duke. The Duke came

to the meeting, says Mr. Kinglake, with a ponderous despatch, which he

proposed, with the approval of his colleagues, to send to Lord Raglan

ordering him to invade the Crimea. As he went on reading it, one

Minister after another fell asleep. When he finished, they awoke, and

sanctioned the Duke’s instructions without knowing what they were. It is

unfortunately not possible to save the reputation of the Aberdeen

Ministry by making drowsiness an excuse for blundering. Sir George

Cornewall Lewis, in one of his letters,[178] gives the flattest

contradiction to Mr. Kinglake’s amusing fable, and so does Sir Theodore

Martin.

[Illustration: PEMBROKE LODGE, RICHMOND.]

[Illustration: CODRINGTON’S BRIGADE (23RD ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS) AT THE

ALMA.]

An eccentric Member of the House of Commons, Mr. H. Drummond, in one of

the debates on the War, said that there was a division of labour in the

operations, for whilst we found the money, the French Emperor found the

brains. The project of wounding Russia in a vital point by invading the

Crimea, was originated by the French Emperor, who possibly thought his

illustrious uncle’s experiment at Moscow needed no verification. The

French Emperor’s plan was submitted to the Queen on the 14th of March as

one approved of by Lord Raglan, Lord de Ros, Lord Clarendon, and the

Duke of Newcastle. It was dropped because some sensible person suggested

that it would be hardly safe to leave Constantinople, then covered by

the allied troops, at the mercy of the Russians. But after

Constantinople was fortified against attack, the mischievous idea was

revived. On the 28th of June it was embodied in the draft despatch

containing the instructions to Lord Raglan, which was sanctioned by

that fatigued Cabinet, the Members of which, according to Mr. Kinglake,

fell asleep. One other fact may be cited against Mr. Kinglake. The plan

was opposed by certain Members of the Ministry who, though they thought

something should be done to limit Russia’s opportunities of interfering

with Turkey in future, felt sure that an invasion of the Crimea must end

in failure. They complained that nobody knew what could be done with the

Crimea even if it were taken, or how the Russians could be stopped from

rebuilding Sebastopol, except by another war, after it was destroyed.

But why has there ever been any controversy over the point at all?

Simply because the project was such a mad one, that everybody who had

anything to do with it, has been anxious to blame somebody else for

originating it. The Ministry and their apologists declared that they

left the whole affair to the discretion of Lord Raglan. He was only

instructed to invade the Crimea if as a soldier he thought an invasion

practicable. Lord Raglan and his friends declared that he had no

discretion in the matter, and that the instructions of the Cabinet

amounted to an order from the Secretary of State for War, which he as

the General in command had no option but to obey. Lord Aberdeen’s

account of the matter to the Queen was that, “although the expedition to

the Crimea was pressed very warmly” on Lord Raglan, “the final decision

was left to the judgment and discretion” of Raglan and St. Arnaud,

“after they should have communicated with Omar Pasha.” Sir George

Cornewall Lewis, in the letter already quoted, says he does not think

that the Cabinet could have given Raglan a wider discretion, because

they would have probably thought they were throwing too much

responsibility on him. But the obvious truth is that, as the Cabinet and

the General had approved of the plan in March, they were alike

responsible for it, and that if it had not been disastrous to their

reputations, they would have each claimed credit for it.[179] Mr.

Kinglake says that St. Arnaud was also opposed to the invasion of the

Crimea, but it was his Imperial Master’s plan, and he had to adopt it

against his better judgment. Possibly, Raglan’s doubts, confided to Sir

G. Brown at Varna, sprang from conferences with St. Arnaud.[180]

The order to invade was dated the 28th of June, and two months were

spent in preparing for the expedition. At the last moment it was found

that there was no means of embarking and disembarking the cavalry and

artillery. This difficulty was cleverly overcome by Mr. Roberts, a

master in the navy. “Roberts did more for us than anybody,” said Lord

Raglan to Admiral Lyons. He set the Turkish caïques in rows, and built

great pontoons on them buoyant enough to support the enormous weight of

horses and guns.[181] On the 13th of September the expedition sighted

the shores of the Crimea. The allied troops skilfully disembarked

without loss or confusion at the Old Fort, a spot twenty miles south of

Eupatoria. Twenty thousand French and twenty thousand English soldiers,

with a powerful artillery, were thus thrown upon a hostile coast in

perfect marching order in one single day. On the 19th of September they

moved southwards, and got touch of the Russians under Prince

Menschikoff. These were 40,000 strong, and they held a fortified

position on the heights of the Alma, a little river which flowed between

them and the Allies. On the morning of the 20th the battle began. St.

Arnaud was to attack, and if possible turn the Russian left. When that

had been done, the English were to dash at the right wing of the

Russians. St. Arnaud was farther away from his objective point than our

men, and before he completed his manœuvre, he seems to have asked Lord

Raglan to advance. Abandoning the original plan of the battle, Raglan

moved forward on the swarming masses of Russians in front of him, and

drove them from their position. In this contest one sees nothing

admirable save the rough masculine vigour of the English attack, and the

skill with which the battle was planned by St. Arnaud. Lord Raglan’s

conduct was likened by the Secretary of State to that of the Duke of

Wellington. As a matter of fact, at the outset he seems to have plunged

into the river with his Staff, dashed on into the enemy’s lines, till he

found himself on the extreme left of the French, without any control

over his army. It was really led into action by his Generals of

Divisions, who, till after the crisis of the battle was over, seemed

scarcely conscious of the existence of their Commander-in-Chief.[182]

The French attack was dashing, but somehow it did not succeed

quickly.[183] As for the Russians, they were clumsily handled.

Menschikoff chose a good position--so good that he staked his field

defence of Sebastopol on it. But he manœuvred in massive columns, so

that his front did not nearly cover all his ground. He seemed nervously

anxious to meet attacks in detail, hurrying regiments from point to

point wherever he thought his troops were being hard pressed, to the

utter confusion of his formation. His subordinates were so stupid that

they did not even think of bringing their strongest arm, the cavalry,

into action.

[Illustration: GENERAL CANROBERT.]

Curiously enough at this point, the expedition, owing to Menschikoff’s

bungling, had success within its grasp. The defence of Sebastopol was

staked upon the army of the Alma. The stronghold lay at the mercy of the

Allies after that army was routed, and could have been taken next

morning by a _coup de main_. Raglan, to do him justice, was eager to

press on, but St. Arnaud held him back. The Allies then spent three days

in burying the dead, and by that time the Russians had considerably

strengthened their fortifications. Raglan again urged that the city

should be attacked, but, as St. Arnaud was unwilling to risk an

assault, it was agreed that the invaders should march round to the south

of the citadel, and attack it from that aspect. On the 29th St. Arnaud,

whose health and brain had been long failing him, died, and Canrobert,

an equally sluggish soldier, succeeded to his command. Whilst the Allies

were, at Raglan’s instigation, marching round to the south of

Sebastopol, they were for a whole day exposed to a flank attack from the

enemy, which, had it been delivered, would have simply cut them to

pieces. Menschikoff’s incapacity saved them from this disaster, and on

the 28th of September the Russians, who had been looking for an attack

from the north, to their surprise found their feeble works on the south

at the mercy of their enemies. Some of the divisional commanders, like

Cathcart and Campbell, were eager for storming the place at once, and,

had they done so, they could have captured it with hardly any

appreciable loss. Sir John Burgoyne--then supposed to be infallible as a

military engineer--and General Canrobert thought the risks too great,

and said that the army must wait till the siege-train was brought up.

Raglan yielded to Canrobert’s hesitancy and Burgoyne’s ignorance.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE TO BALACLAVA HARBOUR.]

The Russians, who expected every moment to see the enemy swarming over

their walls, must have looked on the unintelligible paralysis of the

Allies as an intervention of Providence on their behalf. Oddly enough,

when Raglan was making his flank march from north to south, Menschikoff,

instead of springing on him and destroying his army, was marching with

equal stupidity from the south to the north.[184] Here the allied attack

was looked for; here all available troops were hurried. Nachimoff, who

remained on the south bank of the harbour, had just 3,000 troops to hold

indefensible works against an army of 40,000 men. He behaved with high

spirit; he sank his ships so as to block the channel. Admiral Korniloff

hastened from the north side to his aid and took command, and filled the

troops with his own determination to hold out to the last, no matter how

heavy were the odds against them. Colonel Todleben--whose master mind

was about to revolutionise the art of fortification--accompanied him,

and these two perfectly dauntless men, profiting by the blunder of

Canrobert and Burgoyne, simply wrecked the expedition of the Allies. The

time spent in waiting for the siege-train was precisely what Todleben

prayed for.

Inspirited by Korniloff’s enthusiasm, and guided by Todleben’s genius,

the Russians toiled like galley-slaves to strengthen their

fortifications. Korniloff succeeded in inducing Menschikoff to march

25,000 troops into the town, so that on the 17th of October, when the

siege-train of the Allies had arrived, Sebastopol, which had been at

their mercy on the 25th of September, was virtually impregnable. On the

17th of October an attempt was made to demolish the earthworks of the

enemy by a general bombardment, after which it was the intention of the

Allies to dash forward and storm the southern half of the town.[185] The

English batteries did not fail, for they seriously damaged the Redan

Fort of the enemy. Nachimoff’s sacrifice of the sunken fleet, however,

prevented our ships from getting far enough up the harbour to assist our

land force, and though the sea batteries were open to attack, shoal

water prevented our ships from getting close enough to them to do them

much harm.[186] The failure of the bombardment was followed up by a

series of attacks on the position of the Allies, the results of which

may now be summarised. The great flank march from north to south had

left every road from Russia open to the enemy. Reinforcements swarmed

into the Crimea, even from the Russian Army of the Danube, which was

liberated when the Austrians occupied the Principalities. The English

army at the end of October numbered 25,000. The French had 40,000 in the

field. But 120,000 combatants had rallied to the standards of Prince

Menschikoff. They held not a fortress but a great entrenched camp,

defended by impregnable works on which, says Lord Raglan, plaintively,

in one of his despatches, “an apparently unlimited number of heavy guns,

amply provided with gunners and ammunition, are mounted.” Now, it is a

rule of warfare that the besieging force should be five times as strong

as the besieged. No general with a grain of prudence will attempt to lay

siege to a stronghold unless his force is three times as strong as that

of the garrison, and unless he has an army of observation besides to

protect him from molestation. Before Sebastopol the besiegers were only

half as strong as the besieged, and they had no covering force whatever.

Like the Athenians at Syracuse, the besiegers had become the besieged.

If Lord Raglan did not complete the parallel by sacrificing his army to

an eclipse of the moon, he did his best to emulate that historic

achievement by sacrificing it to the flank march from the Belbeck to

Balaclava.[187]

In these circumstances the Russians promptly adopted offensive tactics.

Menschikoff ordered Liprandi to march round to the rear of the British

position and attack Balaclava, from which we drew our supplies, and on

the 25th of October the Russians suddenly drove the Turks from the

redoubts that formed one of our chief defences. This gave him the

northern half of the Balaclava valley. The British cavalry were

withdrawn from the southern half westwards behind redoubts, which were

still in our hands, and the road to Balaclava, with all our shipping and

our stores, was clear. Yet not quite clear. Sir Colin Campbell and the

93rd Highlanders were in the way, and his consummate skill and their

stubborn valour saved our base of operations. At a glance Campbell saw

that Liprandi meant to annihilate the Scots, by hurling against them

overwhelming masses of cavalry covered by artillery. To such an onset a

single regiment in square formation could obviously offer no effective

resistance whatever. In an instant Campbell conceived the novel and

daring project of receiving the Russian cavalry in line.[188] Such a

[Illustration: SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.]

manœuvre could be possible only where a commander and his troops had

implicit confidence in each other, and where officers and men, instinct

with barbaric strength and courage, went forth to battle under the iron

discipline of civilised warfare. In grim silence the Scots obeyed the

stern, curt orders of their leader, and formed the famous “thin red line

tipped with steel,” on the solidity of which, for a moment, the fate of

the army depended. Their flanks were covered by the Turks who had fled

from the redoubts. A hundred sick men, who crawled from the hospital to

rally round their chief, were formed under Lieutenant-Colonel Daveney as

“supports.” The Russian commander, with great ability, modified his plan

of attack and struck swiftly not only at the centre, but strongly at

Campbell’s right flank, where the Turks were posted. The dense masses of

cavalry first reeled and then broke up when they came within the central

zone of fire, but the Turks fled, leaving the “thin red line” uncovered

on the right. The Russians, feeling that the game was now in their

hands, charged again, confident that they could roll up the line at this

unprotected spot. Campbell was, however, equally alert. When the Turks

ran away he ordered his grenadier company to wheel to the right. It went

swiftly and silently round, with automatic precision, like a door on a

hinge, and met the

[Illustration: BALACLAVA--“THE THIN RED LINE.”

(_After the painting by Robert Gibb, R.S.A., in the possession of

Archibald Ramsden, Esq., Leeds._)]

Russian squadrons with a scorching storm of fire, that sent them flying

in confusion from the field. “During the rest of the day,” said Sir

Colin Campbell, with a touch of grim humour in his despatch, “the troops

under my command received no further molestation from the Russians.” A

still more formidable body of Russian horse, however, had swooped down

on our Heavy Cavalry (Brigadier-General Scarlett). The Scots Greys and

Enniskilling Dragoons sprang forward to meet them, tore through the

first and second lines of the enemy, and, supported by the Dragoon

Guards, broke up their heavy masses in utter rout. At this moment Lord

Raglan ordered Lord Lucan, who was in command of the cavalry, to advance

his Light Brigade and prevent the Russians from carrying away some of

the guns which the Turks had abandoned in the redoubts. When the order

was carried to Lucan by Captain Nolan, Raglan’s aide-de-camp, the

Russians had recovered from their reverses and had completely re-formed

on their own ground. Raglan’s order, therefore, had come to mean that

Lucan was to hurl his slender Light Cavalry Brigade, utterly devoid of

supports, against a great army holding a strong position, flanked and

covered on all sides by murderous artillery. For a moment he hesitated,

appalled by the hideous madness of the order. A taunt from Nolan stung

him to the quick, and he spoke the word that sent Cardigan into the

“valley of death” with the far-famed Six Hundred.

“Long shall the tale be told,

Yea, when our babes are old”--

how they rode onward--through the smoke and fire that belched forth from

the iron throats of the Russian cannon--how they clove their way through

the Russian masses and cut down the gunners at their guns--how they cut

their way back, “stormed at with shot and shell,” a broken remnant of

wounded and dismounted troopers, who had to report that they had failed

to do that which even the demigods of ancient legend would not have been

reckless enough to attempt. Nolan was killed at the very first

onset--whilst riding far in advance cheering on the Brigade.[189] “It

was magnificent, but it was not war” was the comment of the French

General Bosquet, on this horrible sacrifice--a sacrifice so horrible

that, when it was over, even the Russians ceased firing and stood

motionless and awe-stricken, gazing at the sickening scene. They claim

Balaclava as a victory. Certainly they took more than half the field

from us; but on the other hand, thanks to the obstinate tenacity of the

93rd Highlanders, we repelled their attack on our base of operations,

which was, of course, their objective point.[190]

After this fight the Russians concentrated an overwhelming force and

planned an attack on our position at Inkermann. Its weakest point, in

spite of the warnings of Lieutenant-General Sir De Lacy Evans, had been

left badly protected, and on the 5th of November the Russians surprised

our pickets. Having driven them in they fell on our Second Division, who

had barely time to stand to their arms when they found themselves

struggling with overwhelming masses of the enemy. Pennefather was in

command, for, unfortunately, De Lacy Evans was disabled. Instead of

retiring in order and attempting to ward off the attack by artillery,

Pennefather hurried up little mobs of troops to his outposts, and there

waged a dreadful hand to hand fight against an army ten times as strong

as his own. It was “a soldiers’ battle” that raged through the morning

on these misty heights--a confused _melée_, in which officers lost their

men, and men lost their officers--in which, when ammunition failed, the

English troops fought with bayonets; when these broke or bent, with

stones; and when these failed, with clenched fists. Column after column

of Russians was hurled at our little force--but without avail. No man

could be moved from his position till he was shot or cut down, and the

indomitable courage of the Duke of Cambridge and his Guards--for his

Royal Highness, though he lacked skill and knowledge, never lacked

pluck--held the Russians in check so long, that the French had time to

come to the rescue. Then the enemy beat a retreat. We retook the

positions we had lost, and once again demonstrated that the English

infantry were without a rival in the world. The Russian plans were so

laid, that it was a mathematical certainty our army must be driven into

the sea. Two sons of the Czar had been invited to witness this

catastrophe. And, in spite of the splendid fighting qualities of our

men, the catastrophe must have happened, had it not been for two

blunders which the Russians committed. In the first place, Menschikoff,

who seems to have been even a stupider person than Raglan or Burgoyne,

attacked in massive columns. This so reduced his fighting front that our

weak detachments formed in line decimated them with their fire, and when

our artillery came into action every shot and every shell also told on

them with deadly effect. The Russian sortie from Sebastopol, moreover,

was mismanaged. The commander lost his way in the mist, and instead of

falling on us, he found himself entangled with the French far away on

our left, so that he gave no real aid to the main attack.

The Russians lost 12,000 men in this battle, the French lost 1,800, and

the British lost 2,600. It was therefore clear that the siege must be

raised, or that the Allies must enter on a winter campaign. Up till now

the troops had suffered very little hardship; but, alas! when winter set

in they were doomed to cruel suffering. A terrific storm on the 14th of

November blew

[Illustration: VALLEY OF INKERMANN.]

down their tents and destroyed twenty-one vessels in Balaclava Bay laden

with supplies. It rendered the valley from Balaclava to the camp--a

distance of nine miles--almost impassable. Two-thirds of the transport

horses died, and there was hardly any forage obtainable for the

remainder. Cholera--the germs of which had been carried to the Crimea

from Varna--raged in our lines, and those who escaped it fell victims to

scurvy, dysentery, or fever. “Between the beginning of November,” writes

Mr. Spencer Walpole, “and the end of February, 8,898 British troops

perished in hospital. At the last of these dates 13,608 men were still

in hospital.”[191] The state of the hospitals was so bad that men died

there more quickly than on the field. Part of the ghastly tale of

mismanagement had been told by Mr. W. H. Russell, the special

correspondent of the _Times_, when Parliament met on the 12th of

December, and empowered the Queen to raise a foreign legion and utilise

the Militia for foreign service--measures forced on the Ministry by

Prince Albert. But soon after it separated the cry of distress from the

Crimea grew too loud to be stifled. When it rang through England the

people turned on the Government in furious anger, and called them to

account for their gross mismanagement of the war. The Duke of Newcastle,

being Secretary of State for War, was blamed because he was alleged to

be incompetent. Aberdeen was blamed because it was said he was at heart

a Russian. The scurrilous charges against Prince Albert were revived,

and he was accused of impeding the operations of our army by his

treacherous interference. As a matter of fact, these charges were all

untrue. Prince Albert, Aberdeen, and Newcastle were the three men who

alone had courage to face the situation, when they suddenly discovered

that the military system of England had failed them, and that the

military machine which they inherited from Wellington had broken down.

They had toiled long and wearily to mend it when the distinguished

persons who afterwards attacked them were away enjoying their holidays.

But when Parliament reassembled on the 23rd of January, 1855, the

gathering storm broke on the head of the Government. Mr. Roebuck gave

notice of a motion for the appointment of a committee to inquire into

the mismanagement of the war; Lord John Russell deserted his colleagues

and resigned. The Ministry, who resisted Mr. Roebuck’s motion, were

beaten, on a division, by 305 votes to 148, and the Coalition Government

resigned on the 31st of January, 1855. The army was starving, with

abundance of supplies within its reach, through the sheer stupidity of

those whose duty it was to feed it. Its camp was a hospital, and its

hospitals were pest-houses. The nation was utterly humiliated. As for

the War Party, which was really responsible for the invasion of the

Crimea, it naturally destroyed the Ministry which had stooped to be the

instrument of its braggart passions and its ignorant policy.

[Illustration: THE STORM OFF BALACLAVA.]