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feelings of an English gentleman,' he says; | view Lord Raglan concurred, but his deciand no two men could be less fit for the sion was precisely the opposite to that at business of employing spies than Lord which the Duke of Wellington would proba Stratford and Lord Raglan!' More dili- bly have arrived. He determined to act gence,' adds Mr. Kinglake with his usual un- against his own better judgment and deliberworthy sneer at our allies, might have ate opinion. Mr. Kinglake believes that been expected from the French.' As well the fear of his personal courage being called might he say that it is unbecoming in an into question if he decided otherwise weighEnglish commander to deceive the enemy by ed upon him. When the thought crossed a false move, or mislead him by well-devised his mind, if mortal eyes could have looked strategy; or that Lord Raglan's great master upon him they would have seen him turn in war had never used a spy! If Lord crimson,' a habit in which Lord Raglan, Raglan had any such morbid feelings of according to Mr. Kinglake, was wont to honour, he was surely not fit to command an indulge. army. Although the Allied Generals were The Allies having determined that the exwithin a few hours' sail of the Crimea, the pedition should take place, Admiral Dundas only information they received as to the declared himself openly against it. Mr. Kingstrength of the land defences of Sebastopol lake having now to deal with a friend and a they received from home; and as Lord host, and not with a Frenchman, actually Raglan altogether distrusted such informa- declares that the Admiral was quite right in tion, he was, as Mr. Kinglake observes, giving a bold expression to his views!' 'simply without knowledge.'

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Mr. Kinglake asserts that the Duke of Newcastle's despatch was so stringent that gave no latitude to Lord Raglan. There were through the strange sleep of the Cabinet-no qualifying words' (p. 117). And yet he publishes extracts* from the despatch itself, in which the Duke of Newcastle, though strongly urging the expedition to Sebastopol, distinctly says, three times over, that it was to depend upon Lord Raglan's opinion of the sufficiency of the Allied armies, their preparation to meet the Russians, and the means at his disposal (vol. ii. p. 108). When Lord Raglan received the despatch, he tossed it somewhat contemptuously across the table to his friend Sir George Brown, who, Mr. Kinglake is careful in telling us, was sixty-six years old (adding, we believe, a couple of years to the age of the gallant veteran), and went on with his writing. When Sir George had read and considered its contents, he suggested that they should ask themselves how the great Duke would have acted and decided under similar circumstances.' In this

(vol. ii. p. 101.) He, unfortunately, did more. By designed negligence he would seem almost to have set himself to frustrate the operations of the allied armies. Whilst the French were making their preparations, and were buying and building flatbottomed boats and lighters, the English Admiral was idle.* Lord Lyons remonstrated against this fatal delay. At length, angry and impatient, he went himself to Constantinople, and bought some vessels and boats at his own risk.

The inadequate preparations made by Ad. miral Dundas retarded the embarkation of the English army. On the other hand, St. Arnaud, anxious to remove his troops from the fatal valley in which they had been struck down by cholera, had placed them on board the French fleet, and had put to sea with the intention of cruising in the neighbourhood of Varna until the English were ready, hoping thus to restore the health of his suffering men, and acting upon the advice of Admiral Dundas, Mr. Kinglake actually declares that the French Marshal had purposely broken away from his col

*See 'Staff Officer,' p. 39.

* At length, in this third edition, Mr. Kinglake prints the whole of this despatch, because, as he as- Amongst the many inaccuracies in this part of serts in an Advertisement,' 'the reason which made Mr. Kinglake's work he states (vol. ii. p. 60) that it a duty to withhold some portions of it has ceased Lieutenant Glyn and the Prince of Leiningen, with to operate.' Will our readers believe that this docu- thirty seamen and as many sappers, went up the ment was printed at full length in the evidence taken Danube with some gunboats. This would have been before the Sebastopol Committee in 1855 (3rd Re- impossible. They went on ponies. At p. 132 ho port, p. 116). Of the passages which were omitted, says that St. Arnaud marched three divisions into the first suggests the occupation of the Isthmus of the Dobrudja. He only, we believe, marched one, Perekop, in order to cut off all communication by that under General Espinasse. It is very significant land between the Crimea and the other parts of the that Mr. Kinglake does not even allude to Lord CarRussian dominions; the second touches upon opera-digan's unfortunate reconnaissance in the Dobrudja tions in Circassia and in Georgia; and the effect of the whole is certainly adverse to Mr. Kinglake's opinion that the despatch left no discretion to Lord Raglan.

one of the many instances of suppression of facts which shake all confidence in his narrative. At p. 144 he says that an English division was left behind at Varna. No division was so left.

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league,' hoping all the while that Lord Ragnaud wrote to his brother: 'My opinion is lan would send back for him, and that he not changed, and I am still in favour of a left the English General without tidings of landing "de vive force" at the Katcha. The him a statement at variance with fact. English have not thought it practicable. Disappointed, he returned ashamed and have yielded: we will land at the Old Fort.** abashed, for he had offended against the Lord Raglan's objection was, that as a conEnglish General,' and was exposed to the siderable body of Russian troops had been stern reproof' of Lord Raglan. Even Mr. observed in the valley of the Katcha, ready Kinglake might have felt some sense of to dispute the landing, it would be imprudent shame when penning such passages as these, to attempt it with raw troops. St. Arnaud had he remembered the generous words did not sneer at the courage or the motives written by St. Arnaud at that very time of the English General, although even after 'Quand je t'ai souligné la loyauté de Lord the disembarkation at the Alma he was conRaglan, ce n'était pas un doute que j'émet- vinced that the Allies ought to have landed tais, mais un double. affirmation. Lord at the Katcha, and could have effected the Raglan est la loyauté même; plus on ap- operation without serious difficulty; but he prend à le connaître, plus on l'apprécie. writes with an honourable delicacy of feeling : Nous sommes au mieux sur tous rapports,Je ne fais pas trop sentir aux Anglais que et je le considère comme un ami.'*

j'avais raison.'t Even Englishmen of no mean authority believe that, had we landed as St. Arnaud proposed, Sebastopol would have fallen on the same day.

Up to the last moment some of the French Generals, and probably one or two of the English, doubted whether it would be prudent to attempt to disembark near Sebas- The plan and details of the landing topol, and proposed a landing at Kaffa. Mr. had been carefully prepared by an admirable Kinglake ascribes this misgiving to 'an ebul-officer and Sir E. Lyons's Flag Captain, lition of prudence' on the part of the officers Mends. Although Mr. Kinglake does not of the French army; and yet he tells us that in Lord Raglan's own judgment the venture was a most hazardous one, and was only persisted in by him because he considered it his duty to obey the orders of the Secretary of State; and that the Emperor's express intruction,' as communicated by Colonel Trochu, and the opinion of the French Admiral Bruat, were in favour of the enterprise. A last council was held when the combined fleets were at sea. St. Arnaud, broken down by the agony of his disease, showed a confidence and trust in Lord Raglan which a generous writer would have hastened to acknowledge. He left the decision to his English colleague.

The decision having been taken to land to the north of Sebastopol, Lord Raglan proceeded in the 'Caradoc,' accompanied by some of the French Generals and Admiral Lyons, to examine the coast, and to choose a suitable place for the landing of the armies. The French were in favour of the valley of the Katcha. The reason for the selection was obvious. A small stream furnished an abundant supply of fresh water. The beach was particularly favourable. A short march would take the Allies to Sebastopol, and the strong position of the Alma would have been turned. On the 11th September, when off Cape Tarkan, St. Ar

* 'Lettres,' vol. ii. p. 452. There was an admiration for and an absence of jealousy of Lord Raglan in St. Arnaud, which are singularly at variance with Mr. Kinglake's estimate of the character of the man.

describe these arrangements, a little incident of no real importance, but which enables him to malign the French, is related with painful minuteness, and is exaggerated to the dimensions of an international difficulty. Lord Raglan, he states, understood that the small bay to the south or right of Old Fort was to be the landing-place of the Allied armies. A buoy placed in the centre of this bay was to mark the limits between the two fleets. It was to be laid down by the French Admiral. When the 'Agamemnon,' with Sir E. Lyons on board, conducting the English flotilla to the place of disembarcation, arrived early in the morning upon the coast, it was found that this buoy was farther north, and in front of a low bluff point which divided the bay supposed to have been chosen from a second bay of larger dimensions. Mr. Kinglake unhesitatingly declares that this was a sheer act of treachery on the part of the French Admiral, Bruat, who, wishing to oust the English from the spot selected for their landing, had deliberately, in the dead of the night, laid down the buoy in the wrong place, and thus violated his engagement with the English General. Lord Raglan thought that the buoy had been wrongly placed, but he does not, nor does Sir E. Lyons, appear to have attached

*Lettres,' vol. ii. p. 483.
+ Ib., p. 488.

This story of the buoy came to be so much misunderstood, that the 'Staff Officer' says the French 'took up one of our buoys as [on?] their left' (p. 55).

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Mr. Kinglake describes with pride the English fleet sailing in the open sea and keeping watch and ward over the vast crowd of transports from the Bay of Eupatoria to the entrance of the harbor of Sebastopol. But this was not the duty assigned to it. It had been agreed, as part of Captain Mends's plan, that the whole of the boats of the men-ofwar should aid in the landing. Admiral Dundas did not leave Eupatoria until late in the morning, and some hours elapsed before any except a small portion of the boats of the fleet were employed in disembarking the troops. Had Admiral Dundas performed his part in the arrangement, the great bulk of the army would probably have been landed before nightfall.*~

any importance to the circumstance, or to to complain. The truth must be told. It have called for any explanation. Captain was the English Admiral who was to blame. Mends, who had the general direction of the landing, was not aware that any arrangement had been made with the French; nor was Captain Spratt, who commanded the 'Spitfire,' and whose duty it was to mark the place for the anchorage of the convoy. A glance at the plan of the bays, furnished by Mr. Kinglake himself, will show that the French (if the French be responsible) were right in the selection of a position for the buoy. To have placed it in the middle of the small bay and to have landed the three armies there would (whether the landing was resist ed or not) have led, as Captain Mends has truly stated, to the most hopeless and fatal confusion. The French officers probably thought they had a discretion in the matter, and we have Mr. Kinglake's own authority for the opinion that the immense advantage of having two extended landing-places so essential to men marching in hot and instead of one was not counterbalanced by any inconvenience resulting from the severance of the two armies.'

*

The disadvantages of the Old Fort as a landing-place were soon apparent. Water,

sultry days-for the summer weather had not yet passed-was wanting. Cholera, which had been checked for a time by a change to the sea air, but had not ceased, broke out with fresh virulence in both armies.

Mr. Kinglake says that 'Lyons without stopping to indulge his anger darted upon the means of dealing with the evil,' and that he and Lord Raglan determined that the At length, on the morning of the 19th landing of the British forces should take September, the Allied armies commenced place on the beach to the north of Old Fort their march. Then, says Mr. Kinglake (p. 170). This is not quite correct. Lord boastingly, 'The belief in the quality of Raglan did not join Sir E. Lyons until some the English soldier was seated so deep in time after the incident, and when the trans- the mind of the French army,' that it quiet. ports were already taking their places. ly and resignedly placed itself under the The French had landed by the evening of protection of the British troops, and sought the first day (Sept. 14), No doubt they the safe side, next to the sea, leaving the had fewer troops than the English, and no post of danger, and of course of honour, to cavalry. They offered to lend us their flat- the English! Lord Raglan, with something bottomed boats. The offer was only partly like archness, remarked that although the accepted. On the second day a light breeze French were bent upon taking the prececaused a surf on the beach, which for some dence of him, their courtesy still gave him hours prevented the boats from approach the post of danger.'. He might have exing. It was only on the fifth day that the plained to Mr. Kinglake, that the reason English were ready. St. Arnaud had been why the English army had taken the left or impatient to advance. He had been inces- inner side was the fact of its possessing cavsantly urging Lord Raglan to do so, and alry, in which arm the French were entirely had even threatened to march without the deficient. Would it have been seemly that English. He felt that precious days were the English, with a thousand sabres, should being lost by our backwardness, and, as we hug the sea,' leaving the French exposed afterwards learnt, he was right. Had we during the march to the attacks of the enadvanced at once, the Russian army at the emy's cavalry on their flanks? Alma would have been less, some say, by 20 battalions and 36 guns. He felt, too, as he touchingly writes, that his own hour was fast drawing near. And he had good cause

*Colonel Adye, in his sensible and impartial work, A Review of the Crimean War,' bears witness to 'the admirable arrangements' of the French (p. 36).

'Lettres,' vol. ii. pp. 481, 489. Avec mes souffrances dix neuf sur vingt seraient au lit, moi je

The description of the march of the Allies towards the Alma is one of the best in

suis à cheval, et je commande une armée; mais tout se paye, la corde se détend un jour, et alors . . . . à la volonté de Dieu.'

....

The delay caused by Admiral Dundas, breaking through the arrangements expressly agreed upon by himself is mentioned by the 'Staff Officer,' p. 55. Mr. Kinglake has carefully kept this fact out of sight.

Mr. Kinglake's book, although the order of last the columns reached the Bulganak, in the the march is not accurately or intelligibly waters of which the troops, as they came given.* We pass over his elaborate ac- up, slaked their thirst; and on the further count of the very simple affair of the Bul- side of the stream the camp was formed for ganak, where shots were first exchanged the night. Mr. Kinglake's description of with the enemy; his explanation of all the that encampment is probably correct in the thoughts which passed through Lord Rag- main. We are a little surprised, however, lan's mind; Lord Raglan's delicacy as to is that an historian who affects to be so misuing an order which was necessary to extri- nutely accurate should have forgotten to say cate a portion of his small cavalry force from in a single sentence where and how the pickdanger: the happy interposition of Airey, ets were placed; for we cannot suppose that who never needed an order; and Mr. King- a Quartermaster-General so transcendently lake's obliging allusion to the not very friend- able as Airey omitted, in a position so critily relations of Lord Lucan and Cardigan. cal as this is assumed to have been, to cover his own front, and to connect himself with the French by a line of outposts.

While these things were going on in front, the main body of the army continued its progress. In an evil hour Lord Raglan had There was a post-house at the point where consented that the infantry should leave the road crossed the river, and there Lord Ragtheir knapsacks on board ship. He seems lan established his head-quarters. Mr. Kingto have been persuaded into this by the re- lake has made it the scene of one of the most presentations of men none of whom had extraordinary occurrences of which we ever ever seen war before; and who, thinking read. Late in the evening Marshal St. Aronly of the burden to be carried by the sol-naud, attended by Colonel Trochu, presented dier, overlooked the importance to the man himself to Lord Raglan, in that post-house. of always having at hand the means of shift- He came to concert with his colleague a ing when he is wet. But the arrangement, plan of attack upon the enemy's position which proved one main cause of all the sub- for the morrow. Was there anything unsequent misfortunes, failed even thus early, becoming in this? Was it not exactly the to produce the desired results. Though course which it behoved one or other of loaded only with their blankets, in which these two Generals to take? each being in which were wrapped up a few light articles, separate command of his own army, yet such as socks and bits of soap, the men soon both acting in concert. Mr. Kinglake, and, began to fall out. Some dropped from according to his showing, Lord Raglan, apsheer exhaustion others in the agonies of cholera several died where they fell. At

liberately to deceive the other, and to send him away, after a lengthened conference, relying on the execution of certain movements which were not to be executed at all? Such, however, must have been Lord Raglan's treatment of Marshal St. Arnaud, assuming Mr. Kinglake's account of the interview to be correct; for what else could be the effect of a general's 'assenting or not dissenting' when a plan of operations in which

pear to have considered the course as unbecoming in the extreme. Mr. Kinglake, seems to be of opinion, and so, if we may * What really did happen was this: After pro- battle arranged beforehand are the work of believe him, was Lord Raglan, that plans of viding in the usual manner advanced guards of cavalry and riflemen, with flank patrols, Lord Raglan pedants and coxcombs. But is Mr. Kinglake ordered that the mass of the infantry should move likewise of opinion that it is praiseworthy in such order as would afford ready means of de- in one of two generals acting in concert deploying to the front, while at the same time a line, four deep, could be formed rapidly to the left, should danger threaten from that quarter. The nature of the ground, an open undulating plain, with the known superiority of the Russians in cavalry, suggested these precautions, and the army was accordingly disposed into two great double columns of companies. These double columns were formed at half distance on the centres of the second and Light divisions, the third division following the second, and the first following the Light, in the same order; while the fourth division followed the first in single column of companies, covering the convoy of reserve ammunition, and the small quantity of provi- he is to take part is submitted to him? sions which the army carried in its train. Had Lord Now, we are free to confess that if driven Raglan disposed his army, as Mr. Kinglake tells us to choose between two conclusions, both of that he did, in close columns, a rapid formation to them unsavoury, we must believe Mr. Kingthe flank, at least, would have been impossible. But by arranging his double columns at half dis- lake to be inaccurate rather than that Lord tance, the wheeling up of the sub-divisions of the Raglan was dishonest. That Lord Raglan left brigade, and the prolongation of the line, by the may have expressed to Marshal St. Arnaud successive formation on its right of the other bri- a general approval of his plan is exceeding gade, would have given him in a few minutes a form

ation combining the solidity of the square, with ly probable. It is equally probable that, such a front of fire as neither cavalry nor infantry not having himself had an opportunity of attacking in column could have long withstood. reconnoitring the position of the Alma, he

would approve with caution. But that Lord latter, at least, respectful consideration. Raglan, while his colleague was explaining Whatever else may have been arranged behimself, sat quiet, with governed features, tween the Marshal and Lord Raglan, it was restraining, or only, perhaps, postponing certainly agreed that Bosquet and his divihis smiles; listening graciously, assenting, sion should advance at five in the morning, or not dissenting, putting forward no plan and that two hours later the rest of the Alof his own, and, in short, eluding discussion;' lied forces should begin their march upon that 'he followed this method, deliberately the enemy's position. and on system, in his intercourse with the The morning of the 20th dawned. St. French; that he dealt as though he held Arnaud, at least, was true to his promise. it to be a clear gain to be able to avoid en- The day had scarcely broken when the trusting the Marshal with a knowledge of French troops were wending their way. what our army would be likely to under- along the road near the coast. Suddenly take;' that he either insulted Marshal St. the order came to them to halt. St. ArArnaud by his manner, or sent him away naud looked wistfully towards the English anticipating results which the English Gen- lines: there was no sign of movement. eral had determined should not come to The determination as to the time for marchpass;-all this we utterly disbelieve. Lord ing was almost the only fruit which St. ArRaglan was too courteous, too much of a naud drew from the interview,' says Mr. gentleman, to mock even an impertinent in- Kinglake (vol. ii. p. 243). But even that truder thus. To have so dealt with the was taken from him. Instead of marching Commander-in-Chief of the French army un- at seven o'clock, as agreed the previous der the critical circumstances in which the evening, it was nearly eleven before the Allies were then placed, would have been English troops were in line with the French. not only discourteous, but base. We can- Mr. Kinglake explains the delay by statnot see the slightest impropriety in the Mar-ing that the position taken up by the Engshal's submitting to his colleague the plan lish for the defence of the Allied armies of operations which appeared to him most on the Bulganak' (a sneer at the French) suitable. Lord Raglan had withdrawn for required a show of front towards the east, the night into the post-house on the Bul- which had to be effected by a long and toilganak, to all practical purposes ignorant of some evolution before the divisions so emthe whereabouts of the Russian army. That ployed could be brought into the order of they could not be far distant, and might pos- march; and that in consequence of the relasibly attack him before daylight next morn- tive positions of the two armies the English ing, he knew well enough. But he had not had to make a longer march than the French had an opportunity of looking at the position to come into line with them. Moreover, of the Alma; he could only know by reports Lord Raglan insisted upon waiting until the from the fleet that such a position existed baggage-train, left exposed by the required and that it was occupied. Marshal St. Ar- movements, was placed under proper pronaud, on the other hand, had not only satis-tection. But surely all this was known, or fied himself of these facts, but, as the event ought to have been anticipated, by the Engproved, he had taken a tolerably accurate lish General the night before, and should measurement of the position itself. He have been communicated to the French Comknew, for example, that the Alma was ford- mander. To justify Lord Raglan to some able near its mouth; that the heights on the extent, Mr. Kinglake endeavours to throw Russian left, though perpendicular towards the blame upon somebody else, and Sir the sea, were accessible in front by more George Brown is accused of blundering than one road, and that the occupation of stupidity. Because an order given the night these heights, if successfully achieved, would before to march at seven o'clock was not render untenable the range of hills which repeated in the morning it was not obeyed! trended off from them to the right. He Upon such ground as the English army then came to the conclusion, therefore, that the occupied, an order to march, not specifying weight of the French attack should be the direction in which the movement was to thrown against the extreme left of the Rus- be made, would have been an order which sian position, and in this he judged correctly. it was impossible to obey, and therefore a Whether or not that portion of his plan was equally judicious which urged the English to turn the enemy's right is another question. But surely there was nothing in the proposal to stir the bile of the English General or the English historian. It deserved, what it has certainly not received from the

mere nullity. But our persuasion is, that no order of the kind was ever issued. All, indeed, that seems to be known upon the subject is, that Lord Raglan did not communicate with any of his Generals of division after he had seen Marshal St. Arnaud, and that although the troops were under