The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-17 00:00:00

SEBASTOPOL INQUIRY COMMITTEE. THE committee continues its daily sittings, and has examined a large number of witnesses during the week. The following is among the mass of testimony collected. His Royal Highness the Duke of CAMllltmoz said : I joined the army in the East on May 10. I first touched at Gallipoli, but my division—the First—had then gone on to Scutari, where I joined it. We embarked for Varna on the 13th of June. The men were then in good health. At Varna no particular preparations had been made, but the troops immediately took up their camping ground. The first case of sickness, 1 think, occurred about the middle of July—the 17th 1 think. The weather was then very warm. The sickness which then broke out was cholera. Had you a sufficient number of medical men in your division ?—I think we were short of medical men, but a great many medical men fell ill themselves directly we landed. We had one surgeon, and two assistant-surgeons to each regiment. My impression is that we ought to have had three assistant-surgeons, as the regiments now have, I believe. I cannot say whether there was any defi ciency of medicines at Devno—my division suffered so much that I had little time to look after any other. Sir J. PAKINOTON.—What was the total loss of your di vision by death and invaliding ?—I cannot answer that question. I attribute the sickness to the climate, but I think the great mortality in the Guards, so far as I can judge, arose from the men not being able to get porter, a beverage to which they were particularly accustomed. They did have porter at Scutari and at Varna, but not afterwards. We landed at Old Fort on the 14th of September. When we marched from Old Fort the tents were returned into store, and we had none until the 4th of October. When you made the flank march to Sebastopol, had you any baggage-animals at all?—None. The men carried all the baggage, as did also the officers. The latter were worse off than the men, being unaccustomed to carry any like the weight of the great-coat and blanket. You were at halaklava when your division arrived ?—I marched with them, and we were about the first who ar rived at llalaklava. Did the troops commit any devastation on entering the town ?—There was a certain amount of damage ; but con sidering there had been firing there was as little disorder as could be expected, and, on the whole, it was creditable to troops who had come to attack a town. I saw a large house in the town which Lord Raglan occupied when he remained in the town. After he left I don't believe it was occupied by any one, though it was offered to some people, and to me when I was taken ill. That was long afterwards?—Yes. At the time it remained unoccupied the sick men were lying in tents. My division, up to the time I left it, had never been a day without their rations. They may have been once or twice short of rum, but always had their bread and meat. Does your Royal Highness attribute that to the care and circumspection of the regimental officers, or to the activity of the commissariatdepartment ?—1 think to both. I was very well served by the commissariat officers of my division. They were particularly good. They were young men, and at first wanted experience, bat were attentive and zealous, and whenever any difficulty of the department occurred they always carried out my instructions. You speak of difficulties of the department ; from what did they arise ?—I think the departments are not suited for operations in the field. They are exceedingly incon venient, throwing difficulties into everyone's way, instead of removing theta. The horses before Sebastopol were very irregularly fed, which I attribute to the head-quarter commissariat. 1 know the commissanat officers attached to my division did all in their power. I laid down a rule to have always three days' provisions in store, but in the Crimea we were not able always to observe that rule. am not aware of any store of forage being formed at Varna. I should say that forage could be obtained from the districts around the Black Sea. If stores had been formed the troops might have been regularly supplied therefrom ?--I don't see why they should not. A steamer can run from Varna to Balaklava in from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. 1)o you attribute to any one the nonforrnation of those stores ?—I presume to the Commissary-General and his department. I saw no stores at Constantinople, and am not aware there were reserves anywhere. Do you conceive the troops before Sebastopol were over• worked ?—There can't be two opinions about it. I con ceive they were worked to such a degree that no men could stand it without being seriously affected in health. Were the hospital tents visited by the staff officers ?—I went constantly, and General Bentinck, too, I think. Did the general staff officers—the head-quarter staff— visit them ?-1 never saw any of them. There is a distiiic tion between the personal staff and the general staff. The personal staff is usually selected from those officers who are known to the general, in whom he places confidence, and whom he considers best suited to carry out his instruc tions. The general staff of the army I conceive to be men who are more immediately called upon to supply the usual wants and necessities of the troops in the field. Had your Royal Highness any reason to complain of your medical staff?—No, I had a very good medical staff. As to my personal staff, it is right to say that no general officer was ever better served. - - - Did your Royal Highness ever see Mr. Filder?—Yes. He never came to examine into the state of the division. I think he should have done so, considering it was a new force. Mr. LATAHD. —Were the Guards fit for action on the morning of the battle of Inkermann ?—I consider that at the battle of Inkermann the Guards were in a very unsatis factory state to go into action. Half the men had been on duty the previous night, and the men had not had their breakfasts. Some of the men had just come off picket duty when they went into action. My division had not fur- ftli. THE PRESS. nished any parties for the trenches for four or five days before the battle of Inkermann. In answer to questions from Sir J. PAXTNGTON, his Royal Highness said, most of the guns went into action at the battle of Inkermann with only the ammunition in their limbers. As to the supply of medicines, he had heard, since he left, that there was a considerable deficiency. When he was with the army the supply was not so good as could have been wished, but there was not up to that time any actual want of medicine. The tools supplied for working parties were very bad, especially the billhooks, which rendered the obtaining fuel still more difficult, as the men had nothing to cut it with. They had been corn• plained of at Chobham. Mr. LAY•RD.—Taking into the many in- ventions of modern science, do you think the state of the army has been kept up to what it might have been ? I have no doubt many improvements might have been made that were not made. No modern improvements in clothing have been intro duoed into the army, such as waterproof coats and sheet ing ?—No. Then, generally, the army is in much the same state as in the Peninsular war ?—I think generally there has not been much change, except in the arms of the troops, in which there has been a great improvement by the Minie rifle. Has there not been a change in the character of the men ?—Very great. There has been a wonderful change in the men, even in my time. Can you say how the regimental officers performed their duties ?—ln a manner that reflects the greatest credit on them. Do you know what was the strength of the army after the battle of Inkermann ?—About 15,500 bayonets, but I cannot say exactly. Might not much of the sickness have been prevented if the reinforcements of young soldiers had not been sent in such small numbers and driblets ?—No doubt of it. The young soldiers who arrived from England suffered more than the old soldiers. Colonel Wu.sou of the Coldstream Guards : In what state was the clothing of the men when you left? —lt was becoming very bad ; it was getting very thin. The men were dressed in all sorts of things, and one could hardly tell they were English soldiers. Very many of the men wore Russian trousers. He had heard that some clothing for the army was lost in the Prince ; but no new clothing of any kind had been distributed. The officers were us badly off as the men; from the 14th of September till the 26th of November he had never changed his clothes ; there were many others in the same condition. He did not obtain his baggage till he arrived at Con stantinople; he never took off his trousers till be got on board ship ; he had sometimes taken off his coat. He had nut a change of linen, nor had the men ; he never heard there was any expectation of there getting any. Have you been in the field hospitals ?—Yes. The men were lying on the bare ground, and much crowded; had heard them complain, but not frequently. Indeed, one re markable thing with regard to the troops was the rarity of complaints from them. He did not know which to praise most, their surpassing bravery in action, or, when under great suffering, their almost pious resignation. He attri buted much of the disease to want of fresh meat and over work. What the medical men called scorbutic diarrhoea was brought on by want of vegetables. You were at the camp at Chobham ?—Yes. He under stood the camp at Chobbam was formed for the purpose of testing the efficiency of the dress of the soldiers, and other matters, and that reports had been made on those points. No improvements were made in consequence of the expe rience at Chobham ; the regiments embarked exactly as they were then, except that before landing in the Crimea the bearskin caps had been cut down. Captain KELLOCK, late commander of the Himalaya steamer, said The Himalaya was a screw vessel of 3,550 tons and 750- horse power. She did belong to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company, but was sold to her Majesty's Government for, as he heard, 130,0001. Go vernment bought the ship in July. At Cork he em barked 402 horses, and he landed them all at Varna. The vessel under his command had conveyed altogether 1042 horses, of which only two were lost. The Himalaya took the horses of the ambulance corps to the Crimea. The men of that corps were very inefficient — old men and pensioners, and much addicted to drinking. There were above 406 horses belonging to the corps; they would have been well adapted to the purpose had they been well fed. They were attended to by the men of the corps, but he was frequently obliged to get the crew of the ship to clean the stalls out. The horses were always put on board by his own men. The Himalaya also took charcoal from Constantinople to Balaklava. There were about 650 sacks. It was much wanted by the army, and was pressed for the service of the Government. When he arrived with it at Balaklava it was not landed because Captain Christie would not receive it, and he took it back to Constantinople again. Witness was extremely anxious about the charcoal, and offered Captain Christie, if he would receive it, to land it by his own boats and with his own crew. It was not re ceived, and witness carried it backto Constantinople again. There he delivered it to Admiral Boxer, who sent lighters to land it. 111 Did you make any representation on the subject ?—He did report the existence of great mismanagement to the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company; he was still in the pay of that company, and his crew also, he believed, in consequence of an arrangement with the Go vernment. They had on board also some Moorsom shells and engineering stores for the steamers of the fleet. Every thing was landed except the charcoal. He took convales cents from Scutari to the Crimea ; they were still mostly very sick and ill ; he remonstrated with Majot Banbury on the absurdity of taking such men to the Crimea again, SATURDAY, and twenty-five of them were landed and sent back to the hospital. Dr. Hall was on board with these men as a pas senger. The greater part of them were landed at Bala. klava in the gun-vessel, the Arrow. He was not at Bala klava during the storm of November. The anchorage out side that port was exeeedingly dangerous. He had spoken of the dangerous character of the place, but not in the way of remonstrance. Every sailor could see the objections to the place as an anchorage. In a south-west gale every ship must go on shore; a steamer might easily get off the coast. He had daily opportunities of examining the state of the harbour. It was in a very beastly condition, with offal floating about, thrown over from the ships. The burial•ground had become very offensive indeed ; it was not four hundred yards from the harbour. The graves were dug too shallow ; he buried some of the sailors of the Himalaya there, and paid some soldiers half-a-crown each to dig the graves deeper. The offal floating in the harbour could easily have been removed. The quays were in a shocking state. He did not know whose business it was to keep order in the place. He never saw any order kept at all. The Himalaya required 1,200 tons of coals, and from the want of system at Constantinople they were often seven days being put on board ; at Malta they could have been shipped in twenty-four hours. He thought, if proper representations had been made by Admiral Boxer and the British Minister, the Turkish Gouernment would have gladly allowed all the colliers to pass up above the two bridges of the Golden Horn, and the steamers might have gone up and coaled alongside them, without the expense of landing the coals first and hiring lighters to bring them off to the steamers afterwards. AR this was not done, it would have been better to send the steamers to coal at Malta. The Earl of LUCAN:— He complained that the commissary officers were inex perienced men. When his division arrived at Varna there were great delay and difficulty experienced in obtaining a sufficiency of forage. On the 31st of August they embarked for the Crimea, but previously lost 150 men and 85 horses. He embarked the whole brigade, consisting of 1,100 horses. During their sea-passage from Varna there was a fearful amount of sickness among horses and men. He had 600 sabres and lances at the battle of the Alma. Although there was no difficulty as regarded the supply of forage, he had never more than one day's store on hand, co that they lived from hand to mouth. They could have obtained stores at Balaklava. There were ships full of barley in the harbour, but they did not get it because the commissariat officers said they could not land the barley. No hay was served out to them until the end of October. They got no chopped straw, and the horses for a short time were fed entirely on barley. They suffered in consequence from that kind of food, and became deteriorated in condition. He (the noble earl) had had considerable correspondence while iu the Crimea on the subject of the commissariat, and " this book, said his lordship (holding up a book of considerable size), is full of them." The correspondence went to show that the officers of the commissariat depart ment were totally unfitted for their duties. At first he used to make verbal complaints to Commissary-General Filder, but subsequently by letter, thinking it safer. The non supply of forage continued the entire time. He (the noble lord) had no answers to most of these representations ; but one from Lord Raglan stated that he very much re gretted it, and he hoped it would not continue. Such was their want of forage, between the 14th and itOth November, that General Canrobert was kind enough to furnish them chopped straw sufficient for thirty days. In January the French were short of forage, but they complained that this was caused in consequence of our commissaries not fulfil ling their engagements, and returning the chopped straw they lent to the English. The cavalry were not supplied with nose-bags and other requisites, and, in consequence, the diffi culties they encountered were indescribable. A great deal of forage was lost in wet weather. In October the heavy and light brigades had 1,844 horses fit for duty, but on the 81st of December both brigades had only 1,153 horses left, and of that number 300 were hors de combat. The larger amount of them died from sickness, exposure, and overwork. The cost of a cavalry horse was 751. He wrote to Lord Raglan, stating that he could obtain baggage-mules from Asia Minor for 51. a-head for the work the cavalry horses were being sacrificed for, and which they ought not to have performed. He also adverted in his communica tion to the humiliation the officers of his division felt at the position they were called upon to fill. A great sacrifice of horses arose from the deficient character of the commis sariat. He calculated that 800 cavalry horses were worth 00,000/. He could, from the internal resources of Turkey in Europe and Asia, have formed an efficient transport service apart and independent of the commissariat, and made a proposal to Lord Raglan to that effect, but no step was taken in the matter. The first huts raised for the horses were by himself. He fetched his planking with a few baggage-horses attached to his division, but his greatest difficulty at first was a want of nails. There were ambulance waggons, of course, but a worse organised corps he never encountered. He did not consider the ambulance carriages were well adapted for the purpose to which they were applied. Indeed, when the roads became bad they were quite use less, and the men were dependent upon the French and other means which were devised for their removal. The commissariat were boys from the Treasury, who had no experience in the field. He told Mr. Filder that not only his division but the public interests were suffering from the management of the commissariat, but his repre sentations to Mr. Filder were never attended to at any time. He always thought the ambulance corps ill arranged for thejservice. They consisted of invalids and men without constitutions, totally unfitted for the service. THE number of Russian deserters now in the Grand Duchy of Posen amounts to more than 30,000.