The Press. — London, England, 1856-10-25 00:00:00

= 1024 in France. His character towards the close of his life is touchingly described:— There was a feminine element perceptible in his whole character,—the natural gentleness, the affectionate playful. ness, the quick, nervous perception, the unworldly aspira• tion, and the want of tact in dealing with the world ; the impulse to seek happiness in a domestic life belonged to this part of Agrippa's nature, and to the same part of it belonged his scolding of the monks and courtiers. There may have been much of the man's vigour put into his way of speech, but 1 think that Cornelius resented wrong and cruelty much as a true woman might resent it, and that the hard fighting to which he betook himself at last was not that of a man by nature violent, but—paradox as it may seem to say so—the inevitable issue to which he was led by all that was most truly amiable in his nature. In the last letter of his on record he is found inviting the moat learned Dryander to a supper, in the name of the Archbishop of Cologne, and he writes his invitation while beset by sore distresses, in a genial, airy tone, that speaks to us of the man who, twice married, never let a sun set on dispute with either wife; who won entire love in his Ilome, clung to his friends, and fondled his dogs even foolishly. in France he found not shelter, but a prison. He was arrested by order of Francis, and when released he was cast abroad homeless and penniless. He had tin intention, it is sup posed, of reaching Lyons, that he might pub lish his works, but he died before he could carry his intention into effect. Mr. Morley says in one place that he died in Lyons, and in another that he died in Grenoble. We pre sume the latter statement to be correct, from its greater particularity : Coraelins reached Grenoble and died there, as his perse cutors said with triumph, at a mean place, suffering from sordid want. Yet the same men asserted, that when travelling he had the skill to pay his way with what ap• peered to be good money, but changed afterwards to hits of horn and shell. The truth is, the sick man was received into the houseof a friendlygentleman, 31.Vuelton, Receiver General of the Province of Dtuphine. The house is in tne Rue des Clercs, and afterwards belonged to the family of Ferrand. There die] Cornelius Agrippa, forty-nine years old. If spirits walk when restless in their graves, his may have done so, for they buried him within a convent of Dominicans. After his death those stories were promul gated by the monks which represent him as a magician in constant correspondence with the devil. Fortunately his papers were pre served by a friendly hand, and from them has Mr. Morley constructed this sad instructive addition to the large volume of " The Calami• ties of Authors." Addresses of Major-General Sir Richard Airey before the Board of General Officers at Chelsea Hospital. London : Murray. "TAE people of England," says the Duke of Wellington in his despatch to Lord Liverpool after the retreat from Burgos, " so happy as " they are in every respect, so rich in resources " of every description, having the use of such " excellent roads, &c., will not readily believe " that important results here frequently de " pend upon fifty or sixty mules, and a few " bundles of straw to feed them." The events of the last two years, and the tone of comment adopted by a large portion of the public to wards the conduct of their armies in the field, form a striking illustration of the above re mark. Eighteen months ago it was no uncom mon thing for sensible and well-informed men to meet together, and condemn the incapacity of our generals because business was not con ducted on the heights of Sebastopol, or among the raging storms of the Euxine, with the same precision and regularity as in Thames street or the London Docks. They could not believe that what they saw done every day in their crowded warehouses and wharfs, with the aid of the best mechanical appliances, a well-appointed staff of servants, and foremen trained from boyhood in the daily exercise of their duties, could not be done equally well when all those auxiliaries were removed. They could not travel out of the range of their ordinary ideas. An Englishman not able to make a road ! An Englishman not able to convoy a train of provisions! An Englishman not able to build stabling for his horses ! The thing seemed preposterous. But the fact was so, as the Duke says, "notwithstanding their incredulity." In addition to this national characteristic, we must remember that the English are as a nation thoroughly unac quainted with war in its practical details ; and also that the public equanimity was naturally tried most severely by the provoking behaviour of the Russians, who declined to be "crumpled THE PRESS. up " like a sheet of paper, for the noble pur pose of demonstrating the weakness of des potism. The public was determined to be angry with some one, and chose rather to libel our gallant and hardworking soldiers, than acknowledge itself in the wrong. If we are any judges of evidence or sound reasoning, our posterity will discover in the volume before us abundant grounds for dis trusting the verdict of their progenitors. The prejudices of the present day are too deeply rooted, and the minds of the people too violently inflamed, to permit of our hoping for an immediate reversal of judgment. But we cannot conceive it possible that the lucid and temperate statement of facts which Sir Richard Airey has given us, and the logical and equita ble construction which he seeks to put upon them, should fail;to exercise a most powerful influence on the nation, when men's minds shall have regained their usual composure, and social and professional jealousy have ceased to operate. We propose to notice seriatim the Quarter master-General's answers to several of the most serious charges which were brought against his own department, as well as against those which by popular ignorance were con founded with it; for his addresses, though ostensibly and directly a vindication of him self, tend in realty to the exculpation of the whole body of Crimean officials, whose errors, he maintains, never exceeded those for which the general infirmity of human nature is pro perly accountable. There can be no doubt that the fundamental error which underlaid the whole of our subse quent disasters was the protracted uncertainty on the subject of winter quarters. This led to the employment of what deserved to be called little more than " a moveable column " on enterprises suitable only for a regularly ap pointed army. That the reader may judge of the magnitude of this difference we subjoin Sir Richard Airey's own words : It was estimated that, to move as an " army," the British force alone would require 14,000 beasts of transport. Yet the force landed with only seventy transport animals for the Commissariat Service, and the additional quantity ob tained in the neighbourhood of Old Fort did not, I believe, swell the whole quantity of land transport animals for commissariat purposes to more than between three and four hundred. The French, I believe, landed with no transport animals except for their ambulances, and only obtained a small number in the country near the landing-place. Yet they would have required (even with their then strength) as much transport as ourselves, if they were to operate as a regular " army." It may be said, therefore, that the transport required for the whole force which landed would amount to 28,000 animals. The allied columns advanced through a province of Russia with their little string of—a few hundred ( instead of 28,(00 )—beasts of transport, and on three sides,—and during the flank march on all sides—the Cos• sacks rode freely round us. Ido not of course mean to say that it would have been useful or practicable to employ a large quantity of land transport in such an operation as that which the allies were then effecting ; and I only point to the diflerence between a few hundred and twenty-eight thousand as a means of indicating one of the many broad distinctions which exist between the regular operations of an army and those of a moveable column. Had the design of wintering at Sebastopol been even conceived of by any person sharing in the management of the expedition, no such blunder•, we should imagine, could have been committed ; but, misled, as it would seem, by the positive nature of their instructions, the allied generals made no provision for an emergency which nothing had led them to anticipate. It was not till after the battle of Inkermann that the resolu• tion of wintering on the heights was finally taken. But, as that resolution was the in evitable result of an attempt to reduce Sebas topol by a regular siege, the blame must rest upon those who first of all counselled so hazardous a plan of operations. Who this Was, is not clearly understood. But it was just one of those occasions when the supreme military genius has room to manifest itself. That power of foreseeing all possible con tingencies, and balancing their respective perils, so characteristic of the Great Duke, was evidently wanting in those who ordered a blind rush against this enormous fortress when the autumn season was nearly half over, with a numerically interior force, and even those few destitute of the proper equip ments. Wellington's despatches after the retreat of Massena from Torres Vedras, and SATUEDAY, after the last successful siege of Badajos, form a marked condemnation of the prevalant tone of English criticism immediately after the battle of the Alma. The determination to reduce Sebastopol being, however, once taken, the depart ments set about making the best of a bad job. In his present defence, Sir Richard Airey first addresses himself to the business of defining what his own duties really were, and at what point they were taken up by the Commissary and Adjutant General. In regard to transport and fatigue parties—the two most prominent subjects of dispute on the present occasion, and the failure in which was the proximate cause of all the suffering endured—the office of the Quartermaster. General is entirely subordinate to the two last mentioned departments : I entirely agree with the commissioners, Sir John M'Neill and Colonel Tulloch, in the conclusion to which they appear to have come, namely, that the sufferings of the troops during the winter of MI 5 are traceable to two causes—over•wurk and want of transport. It is, therefore, of great importance to me to remove a misapprehension which seems to have prevailed on this subject, and to show that the Quartermaster•General'a Department has nothing to do either with apportioning the labour of the men, or with the very important business of supplying the transport of the army. The first of these duties belongs entirely to the department of the Adjutant- General ; the last, that of land transport (until after the formation of the Land Transport Corps in 18:35), apper• tallied to the Commissariat. And:— And here, as an instance of the complete control over all the means of transport which was exercised, and properly exercised, by the Commissariat, I may mention an incident which occurred at the landing of the forces in the Crimea on the 14th of September, 1834. At the commencement of the operation, and when only a few battalions had landed anti formed on the beach, I rode up to the high ground on our right, and there at some dis tance I perceived a large convoy of carts protected by a body of Cossacks. I rode back to the beach, got Colonel Lysons to give me two companies of the 2:ird Fusiliers, and with these advanced quickly in skirmishing order. The Cossacks laboured hard to save the convoy by violently urging the bullocks--and even the drivers—with their lances; but, the Fusiliers advancing, and beginning to open fire, the Cossacks retreated, leaving us in possession of a great part of the convoy—l think of about seventy or eighty bullock carts laden with flour and wood. Ilefote the army moved, Mr. Commissary Adams, of the Commissariat Department, claimed all the carts and ani mals which had taken, as falling at once under the control of his department. Now I confess that, as I anticipated the want of transport for my camp equipage, I thought that the circumstance of my having had the fortune to effect the capture gave a fair claim of preference to my department, and accordingly I pressed that claim, and succeeded with difficulty in obtaining the use of some of the captured carts for the transport of hospital tents, hospital comforts, and intrenching tools ;but even the carts which I succeeded in having thus used fell immediately under the custody and management of the Commissariat, and all the rest of the captured carts were used by the Commissariat for such purposes as they thought proper. Of course this question between me and Mr. Commissary Adams could not have occurred if the department of which I was the head had been really responsible for the supply of transport, for here was an instance in which, by a piece of good fortune, I obtained for the army that supply of transport which it so much required, and I had no sooner done so than the Commissariat, as the proper manager of all transport business, assumed, and properly assumed, the custody and management of the carts and bullocks which I had taken. On the subject of " Army Works " Sir Richard explains : It is only by requisitions that tho department can operate in this direction. Thus, if the army be moving. and it is perceived that a bridge should be thrown over a river, to facilitate the march of the troops, the Quartermaster- General of the Farces makes a requisition upon the officer commanding the engineers, and requests that he will cause the works to be duly executed : or, again, if the Quarter master General desired to have any work done which can be performed by the unskilled strength of men, he would make his requisition upon the Adjutant• General for fatigue parties. - - Having in some measure disentangled this intricate question from the mystery in which it was enshrouded from the eyes of civilians, Sir Richard proceeds to inform us what success attended their respective exer tions. He presents us with the fruits of his experience in a tabular form, containing the dates of applications to the Home Government, and the period which elapsed before they were finally complied with. Thus it appears that of 2,000 tons of hay applied for by Mr. Filder as early as the 13th of September only 228 arrived before the ensuing February, and that the whole quantity was not completed before the month of June; that the organisation of a regular transport brigade was recommended in June, 1855, and was not begun to be exe-