The Press. — London, England, 1857-09-26 00:00:00

THE PRESS, SEPTEMBER 26, 1857. he desired to fix the attack at two a.m., and 1 without the preliminary bombardment—four hours earlier. To this change Lord Raglan, after much vain argument, most unwitlin4ly assented. His aides-de-camp were sent galloping over the country, and the troops were started at two o'clock in the morning instead of at six. Some clue to this remark able conduct on the part of the French may be found in this fact:—The Emperor Napoleon, anxious that General St. Jean D'A ngely should be appointed to the command of the assault ing columns charged with the capture of the Malakoff, telegraphed instructions accord ingly to Pelissier, which, necessitating impor tant changes in his arrangements, male the French general-in-chief so savagely indignant at being interfered with that confusion and contradictory orders on both sides became the chief features of that semi-night attack, in which both French and English most signally failed, and from which they neither of them won honour or glory, or obtained any solid or substantial result. The failure broke Lord Raglan's heart, for he felt that in altering his plans, and in yielding to the instructions of Marshal Pelis sier, lay the main cause of failure. A few days had only elapsed when Lord Raglan fell ill, and died, unexpectedly to all save a few who saw huw exertion, anxiety, and sorrow had in a day shattered him, so as to leave but little how! of his recovery. Cetait un grand personnage, used to be the constant remark of the French. His manner and address, gentle and winning, with all the highborn politesse and prestige of a "Rohan." was united to a great heart which, both in the Peninsula and Crimea, despised danger and death, when duty and honour were before him. It Sir James Alexander slurs over the causes which led to the failure of the 18th of June, he suppresses in the most unaccount able way for an independent officer all mention of the criminal blunder of Sir James Simpson, who, in submitting to Pelissier, relinquished the claim of the British army for a share in the capture of the Malakoff. Sir James Alex ander consoles himself for our defeat in the Redan by attributing it to a decree of Divine Providence. This is a ready consolation, and an easy way of avoiding detail, but there was not a man in the British army who did not feel most acutely our position on the Bth September. There was but one answer to have been given to Pelissier when he proposed that we should take the Redan and the French the Malakoff? " Non, non, Monsieur, we have for months " been shelling the Malakoff for you ; we " have for months been working in the right " attack under a heavy fire night after night "in the Quarries and fifth parallel. More " than a year ago Sir J. Burgoyne said, the " Malakoff once taken the town must fall. " Let us share the cream of the enterprise as " ww•e have had a full share of its dangers up "to the present time. Let the attack on the " Nlalakoti be a mutual one. Let the assault " ing columns be formed of English as well as "of French We will try alone at the same " time to take the Redan, but we insist upon " a share in the glories of the Malakoff." This should have been Sir James Simpson's reply. Every motive of justice and dignity, policy and prudence, dictated such a demand. Alas ! Sir James Simpson could not muster sufficient French even to say Non, and we need not dwell upon the result. The French took the key of the position, and, in consequence of guns not having previously been opened on the Redan, to silence those four accursed Russian guns which swept the glacis (a measure of vital consequence to us, but left undone, because it would have aroused every soul in the Malakoff, and made it a very different place fur the French to take), the heads of the companies of our force which tiled out of the fifth parallel were destroyed in detail. The embrasures of the Redan were glutted with our best and bravest blood, the Malakoff was captured, and we were driven out of the Redan. We have done now with Sir James Alex• ander, and in parting with him we would earnestly recommend those writers in posse upon the Crimean war, of which we have said Sir James Alexander is a fair type, to take design, so brilliant in execution, but hazardous in the extreme, and only successful through the terror Alma had atruck to the hearts of the Russians. In connection with this flank march we may mention, upon distinguished authority, an anecdote we have not yet seen p u blished. After the battle of Alma it was at 'first contemplated to attack the north forts of Sebastopol; but before this design could be carried into execution, it was necessary that two redoub is not far from the Katcha should be captured. They formed the only serious obstacle to the success of the proposed plan of attack. Lord Raglan indicated distinctly the locality of these forts to St. Arnaud, and pointed out to him that, as they lay directly in the French line of march, it was the duty of the French to take them To this proposal Ikl,irshal St. Arnaud returned a direct nega tive, unless Lord Raglan would give him the Guards, and it was only on receipt of this re quest, which of course he refused, that Lord Raglan determined (as without these redoubts being taken the attack on the north forts was impracticable) to attempt the flank march, and which, ‘v'th the good fortune in war ever favouring audacity, he accomplished without loss and with glorious success. Had the French done their duty in the assault and capture of those redoubts, and the passage of the Katcha been forced, the north forts would have fallen at a blow, the war would have been commenced and concluded with a " clap of thunder," and, as we have since heard from the Russians, Sebastopol would have been captured in as many days as it afterwards took months to reduce its weaker half. Time sore on : every one knows now what Lord Raglan suffered from the vacillation of our allies, their constant failures, the obstinate adherence to every view but the right one, their rejection of Sir John Burgoyne's sound proposal for the capture of the Malakoff as the key of the position, and their fruitless efforts • against the Flagstaff and Garden batteries. At length the battle of Inkermanu was fought, and never to his dying hour will Marshal Canrobert forget his sensations on the close of that tremendous day, when, in spite of the entreaties of Lord Raglan, the Russians were permitted to slip through our fingers, and the most glorious opportunity of the whole war lost by a fatal dread of responsibility. With the eye of a great general Lord Raglan seized upon the critical moment for an advance; he urged it uponCanrobert. An advance musthave crushed or captured the entire Russian army. Canrobert first hesitated, then refused, and, when it was too lute, comprehending the huge prize he had lost, in a tempest of mortifica tion cried out:—" J'arais tort, j'avais tort, " ideals tort ! Had I followed the Russians, I " should have secured for myself glory and " honour, and a triumph for the arms of France " for ever: J'avais tort, j'arais tort 1" Let it not for a moment be supposed that we undervalue the bravery of the French troops. We merely cite the errors into which their commanders were led in self defence, for too many writers have striven to attribute the Crimean suc cesses mainly to the French, urni to cast a shadow on the lustre of the British arms, because failure attended them when under taking feats far beyond what common fore sight or prudence should have entertained as practicable. But to return to Sir James Alexander, who tells his story of the siege without sequence or design, and sums up the failure of the 14;11 June as follows : It was understood that there was to have been three hours of severe bombardment on our part and that of :he French before they attempted the Malakoff, sud, it falling, then the English to go at the Redatn. "It was understood" ! Why, we thought it was tolerably well known that the whole pro pet failed entirely from the mismanagement of the French. Sir James Alexander does not seem to be aware of the facts connected with the attack of the ISth ,Tune, and if the follow ing is new to him we hope he will profit by it, destiny " grant him a second edition. That attack, for days before, was fixed to conic off at six in the morning, and, on the night of the 17th, Lord Raglan received a message from Pelissier, stating that "impor tant reasons" (which were never given) in duced a change to be made in the hour; and 945 counsel fro►n this poor publication, and ab- stain from pen, ink, and paper, unless they have a good story to tell, are capable of telling it, and can throw some light upon the real causes which led to such disastrous results to us upon more than one occasion before Seb is• topol. A French baron and a Russian officer have given us their views of the conduct of the Crimean war. Its real history has yet to be written by an Englishman. NEW POEMS. 1. It would be preposterous to deny to Mr . Jones the possession of some share of true poetic fire. Absurd as is his political philo sophy, and laughable his bombastic egotism, there are, nevertheless, in this poem, as in others we have seen from his pen, lines of real power and beauty. Writing of the loss of our Indian dominions, he speaks of our flags inscribed with Sobraon, Aliwal, and Meanee as Like ghosts of victories round an Empire's tomb ! This is certainly a happy thought Again, in the following, though nothing can be in our opinion more silly than the prophecy it con tains, there is real vigour of verLitication Daira's thousand skeletons wlvance, With calcined fingers pointing guilty France ; And. dire allies ! to make their vengeance sure, Behind them tower Oge and L'Ouverture. Now dreadful ravage ! from the babbling main Bursts the black horror on the coasts of Spain. Laugh Mexico ! and clap thy hands Peru Old Montezuma! break thy charnel through. Delight sour lamps, poor Vestals of the Sun! That you may see Pizarro's work outdone ! Upsurges Europe in lberia's aid — Rebounds from swarthy ranks the white crusade ; Near and more near, and fiercer and more tierce, East, west, and south, the sable legions pierce ; Drive through Justinian's capital the steel, And spurn Mahomet's dust with haughty heel ; Tunis!" " Algier !" and " Tripoli ! " they cry, Prone at the sound behold a nation die! On ! to the site, where ancient Rome once rose, And modern towns in meaner dust repose. tip, Ennus ! up, and Spartaeus ! awake ! Nnv, if sou still can feel, your vengeance slake. What bleeding form around you column crawls" The gladiator looks, and smiles, and tails. See ! where in doubt sublime yon wrecks remain, If Coliseum once, or Peter's fane, With shrieking laugh, a kingly phantom soar; " Oh, venal city ! worth a price no more !" Mr. Jones tell us this poem was written in his own blood on the torn leaves of a prayer-book, while confined in prison in Iµ4 t-9. We are surprised such a scorner of creeds and churches should have polluted his vital fluid by committing it to the pages of a prayer-book. And we must say that the liquid in question is of a somewhat less masculine tinge than we should have expected from a Chartist hero and champion of physical force. 2. Mr. Derry seems to have a cultivated taste and some power of composition ; hut, a!as ! that we should have to apply to him the rough old truth, poets nascitur. Still he ranks very creditably among the mass of •` minor minstrels" with which our table is just now overloaded. 3. Mr. Matson is at present a very melo dious verse-writer. Whether he may ever be anything more is we think a speculation not to be rashly dnided in the negative. His mastery over the mechanism of his art is re markable, and where this is found in so young a miter there is always promise. Of Nos. 4,5, and fi we cannot say more than the above. They seem to be written by men who because they like poetry fancy therefore they are poets ; and who, because they have plunged without guide or compass into that politico-metaphysic quagmire of which the last quarter of a century has seen the birth, believe themselves great original thinkers. Such, at least, is the impression created by " Uriel." 7. Mr. Low has given us a very prett7 drawing-room edition of the " Farmer's Boy.' The illustrations by Messrs. Birket Foster, 1. The Revolt of llinck)stan. 13y Ernest Jones. London: Effingham Wilson. 2. Sebastopol, and other Poems. 11) T. Derry. London : Virtue. and Co. 3. A Simmer Evening Reverie. and other Poems. By William Tidd Matson. London: Bateman. 4. The New Dance of Lhath. By C. Boner. London : Chapman and flail. 5. Footprints of Life, and other Poems. By Alsager Hay Hill. Loudon : 11..11. Virtue, and Co. 6. Uriel. and other Poems. London: John Chapman. 7. The Farmer's Boy. By Bloomfield. illustrated. London: Sampson Low.