The Press. — London, England, 1856-11-01 00:00:00

NOVEMBER 1, 1856. time that all these urgent necessities had to be encountered in the middle of the month of November, without any previous warning I now propose to read passages contained in the London Report, which relate to the subject of butting ( namely, the 52nd, s:lrd, 5-lth, 153 th, and sUth paragraphs of the Report) as follows : " 5.2. When it became necessary, in consequence of the advanced state of the season, to provide some better shelter than tents for the troops, great difficulties presented themselves. The whole of the country, within the narrow limits occupied by the army, had already been denuded of wood for the sake of fuel; most of the houses of the former inhabitants had been destroyed for the same object ; and even the loose surface-stones had, in most places, been used up in building low walls, to afford a slight shelter for the regimental horses, or for cooking-places. Consequently, few materials of any kind were available, except what could be imported. " 53. N 1 scarcity of wood existed along the shores of the Black Sea, but the difficulty was to provide it at the camp in sufficient quantities for building purposes. Hired labour could not be obtained, and the demands for the services of the troops in the trenches, and for other military duties, were such that they could not be spared to prepare it, even had they been capable of doing so. "54. As soon as it was decided, therefore, that the army was to winter in the Crimea, vessels were despatched by Lord Raglan to several of the ports in the Black Sea in the hope of obtaining boarding and scantling of such dimen sions as to admit of being cut into the required lengths to afford shelter. Contracts were also entered into in England, about the middle of November, for wooden hats, of which the parts were so fitted that, with the aid of the printed directions and lithographed plans which accompanied them, the whole might be put together even by unskilled workmen. "55. These huts were framed of the lightest material that could with safety be used, the boards being only about three-quarters of air inch in thickness. They were twenty eight feet long, sixteen feet wide, and from eleven to twelve feet in height to the ridgepole, with a gradual slope to about six feet at the side, and calculated to contain from twenty to twenty-five persons, though under ordinary cir cumstances they would scarcely have been considered sufficient for half that number. The men were raised from the ground by sloping floors, on each side, of inch plank, leaving an unfloored space of about three feet wide down the centre, in which there was a stove for the purpose of cooking and warmth. The total weight of each but, in cluding the ironwork, was about two and a half tons. Of these, nearly fourteen hundred were sent out. Another description of wooden hut, but less complete and formed of heavier timber, was obtained from Trieste, to the number, it is understood, of nearly one hundred. Con sequently, there can be no doubt that a sufficiency of hot accommodation, or building materials, was provided for all, had it only been practicable to make it available. . . " stl. The difficulties which subsequently arose in regard to land transport do not appear to have been contemplated when these huts were ordered, otherwise it must have oc curred to the authorities that when the whole land trans port of the army was insufficient to carry to the trcnt the supplies necesary fur the subsistence of the men, the arrival of 2300 tons of building material was more likely to add to the confusion of a crowded harbour and crowded wharfs than to diminish the sufferings of the troops. . . " Even now it is doubtful whether - the labour undergone by the men in carrying these huts to the heights during the months of January and February was compensated by the advantages derived from them, though these were ad mitted to be great. " Some of the commanding officers declined to employ their men on that duty, believing that the evils were greater than the advantages." In fact, the duty of ordering the requisite matetials for hutting 10,000 men (the utmost possible number that we could even hope to provide for) and 3,500 horses was fully performed by the Quartermaster General's Depart went, and the Commissariat speedily succeeded in execut. ing these orders to the extent of importing the materials into the harbour of lialaklava, but, from want of land transport, it was long before they completed the perform. ance of their duty by dragging the timber up to camp. Let every man bear his fair burden of blame. We have no peculiar interest in exonerating Sir Richard A irey, or any other of the Crimean officials, civil or military, but we ask any man of ordinary common sense and candour what were the authorities to do ? Nothing short of a miracle could have accomplished the desired ends ; but Sir Richard Airey could not re clothe the bleak hills of the Crimea — Desert and bare, unsightly, unaOrned— with forests of "stately trees" by simply putting on his wishing•cap. Lord Raglan was no Neptune to call up a regiment of transport horses from the womb of the earth by merely smiting it with his sword. " Oh, but," people say, " a great general would have been equal " to the occasion—he would have done some " thing." These vague insinuations win, how ever, only proceed from such minds as are willing to acquire a reputation for wisdom without the trouble of thought. A great general does not show his genius by perform ing impossibilities, but by not getting himself into situations where subsistence is impossi ble. If a military commander either willingly or by compulsion violates the rules of war, he THE PRESS. must pay the penalty, though gifted with the talents of Hannibal or Turenne. Napoleon could not save his soldiers among the snows of Russia, nor Frederick the Great prevent them being mowed down by the cannon of Cunersdorff. An absolute sovereign at the head of his own army can of course incur these risks if he chooses, but an English general, whether he ultimately win or lose, must make up his mind for no small share of obloquy if he is ever induced to disregard such considerations : witness Sir J. Moore, between whose character and Lord Raglan's the resemblance is by no means small. No body will stop to inquire whether he acted of his own free will or not, whether the popular clamour did not vociferously demand that line of conduct which it now so vociferously con demns. If the English lose their men, and their money, and their prestige, woe to the reputation of all those who were actively con cerned in the affair, with whatever impunity the real authors may escape. For our own part, we have no faith in extempore heroes. We must consider that there is a difference between real and apparent impossibilities; and that when we say a man is so great that nothing is impossible to him, we can only mean that he is the first of his generation to detect this difference wherever it exists. His conduct will seem like sudden inspiration to those who have never considered the nature of the affair in which he may happen to be engaged ; hut in himself quickness of decision will only be the lawful result of habits of close observation, and a patient study of his pro fession. From the hutting we pass on to the mar quees : On the 26th of September the British army occupied Tlalaklava. and recovered its communication with the sea. The restoration to the army of the re•embarked tents and marquees depended of course upon naval as well as mili tary arrangements, but it was speedily and successfuly effected. and in a very few da:?s, and long before any dis agreeable westher set in, the troops and the hospitals were all under roof or canvas. Both tents and marquees. how ever, several being old when sent out from England, had suffered from wear and tear in Bulgaria. and from the repeated process of landing and embarkation. I considered, therefore, that many would soon require renewal. Accordingly, on the 11th of October I gave instructions for bringing up from Malta 283 bell tents reported to be in store there, and on the 19th October I gave another order for camp equipment. I was anxious, also, to be prepared for the renewal and increased supply, when necessary, of the hospital mar• queees, and I succeeded in bringing up from Varna twenty of the reserve marquees which lay there in store. • • • • • • • I have stated that within a very few days from the occu pation of Balaklava, on the Uth of September, the whole of the British troops, and all the hospitals, were under roof or canvas, and they continued to be thus sheltered until the 14th of November. On that day there blew a hurricane, and the whole British encampment was swept down. The tents and mar• quces did not merely fall and collapse, with broken poles (not easily to be replaced), but were snatched from the ground, and whirled and torn by the blast. The Commissioners state that they could not account for the absence of several Jf the hospital marquees origin ally provided. An inquiry into the effect produced by the hurricane of the 14th of November, would have helped to solve the difficulty. In his report, dated the 20th of November, Dr. Hall, the principal medical officer, says:— " The storm of the 14th blew down all the hospital mar quees, and damaged many, some to sneh a degree that I question whether they can be repaired or not." This loss, added to the twenty-nine hospital marquees reported damaged and incomplete, or condemned as unser viceable, and added also to the number of hospital marquees left with the numerous sick at Varna, would. I apprehend, account for the fact that the number of serviceable hospital marquees with the force in the Crimea became reduced to the number stated in the Report. As soon as the deficiencies were discovered, a requisition was sent to England for a further supply, the issue of which has been already noticed. We subjoin, however, a few lines of a letter from the Secretary of the Board of Ordnance to the Under-Secretary of State for the War Department. It is dated Ordnance office, April 18, 1855, Sir Richard's requisition having been made, as the reader will recollect, on the 28th of November, 18:i4. The letter goes on to say : The contractors fur tents were unable to finish them in sufficient numbers to meet the pressing wants of the set• vice ; and however strongly urged by this department to increase the supplies, they were unable to overcome the difficulties encountered in procuring the assistance of experienced hands in carrying cn the manufacture of such articles which the expeditionrequired, the demand for teuts 1049 previous to the war being very limited, and not leaving sufficient skilled labour in the market to meet the addi- tional heavy demands consequent upon the war One thousand circular tents were shipped fur the Crimea in the William &chef on the 28th of March, that vessel having been appointed by the Admiralty upon an applies. tion from this department, dated 13th January. So that even the first consignment of tents was not shipped from this country for exactly four months after the date of the requisition. Whether, indeed, it is true that on so fearful an emergency workmen could not be found to construct one thousand tents in less time, we cannot undertake to say. But the more it is admitted that Government did the best which was possible under the circumstances, the more complete is the acquittal of the officers stationed in the Crimea. If, as Sir Richard Airey well puts it, such obstructions could occur in London, " the greatest commercial " mart in the world," what must have been the difficulties encountered by those " who were " suddenly called upon to provide for a winter " campaign amid the snow and the clay of the " Chersonesus !" Finding that supplies did not arrive from England, Lord Raglan lost no time in availing himself of such resources as might present themselves nearer the scone of war. He " authorised the purchase of any number of " tents which could be purchased or procured " from the Turkish Government at Constanti " nople." And that his exertions met with some degree of success we must presume. from the fact that the troops were under canvas during the winter, and that none was sent out from England earlier than the end of March. Of Colonel Tulloch's scheme for sheltering the horses under canvas, Sir Richard Airey writes : The scheme, as I understand it, is this :—To strip the QuePn's navy of its spare sails and studding sails; to con fiscate or buy from the captains of merchantmen all the " spare sails ;" to obtain from Constantinople the canvas which Constantinople could not supply ; to obtain, we know not how, the timber required for supporting these acres of canvas ; to land these vast and bulky materials, to drag them up by some unexplained agency to the pla teau ; and when this was done—when all these hundreds of tons of imaginary materials were brought by imaginary means to the required spot, what then—what then was to be the next step ? Simply this : "to send for the carpen ter." Send for carpenters to Constantinople ! The admirable evidence of Sir Edmurd Lyons must, I am sure, have satisfied the board not only of the want of carpenters at Constantinople, but of the impracticability in all its stages of this extraordinary process. With regard to the alleged misbehaviour of Sir Richard Airey towards the Commissioners themselves, we can only refer our readers to the volume. His reply to this charge is too long and too continuous to admit of explana- tion by extracts. Briefly we may state that Sir Richard Airey declares it was impossible to send in answers to the questions submitted to him within the time required by the Com missioners ; and that, when he did send them afterwards, he was in several respects ignorant of what the intention of the Commissioners had been, and had in consequence confined his answers within a narrower compass than he should otherwise have deemed expedient. We must hasten on to the question of the issue of stores to the troops, a department in which routine and neglect were said to have exercised a most injurious influence on the health and comfort of the soldiers. How does the ease stand? Again we have to fall back upon one of the two primary sources of the whole calamity,—want of transport. When the supplies arrived at Balaklava there was frequently no means of landing and placing them in the commissariat stores. And then, after they were landed and stored up, the regiments were frequently without means of conveying them to camp. No change of pro cedure in the two inculpated departments could have mitigated the force of either diffi culty. The machinery employed in the issue was as simple as was consistent with economy. Even the Commissioners admit, while deplor ing the mismanagement owing to which the troops were freezing for want of great-coats, and the great-coats were rotting in harbour for want of wearers, that the delay does not seem in any degree attributable to the Quartermaster-General's department. Then to whose department was it attiibutable ? Not to the Commissary-General's any more than Sir Richard Airey's ; for the " latter shows