The Press.
London, England, 1855-09-15 00:00:00

yittraturt.

The War : From the Landing at Gallipoli to the
Death of Lord Raglan. By W. H. Russell,
Correspondent of the Times. London :
Routledge.
AWARE that considerable diversity of opinion
exists as to the value of these letters, we turned
to them with much interest to see how far
upon a reperusal they justified either the ex-
travagant praise, or the derisive criticism
which has been bestowed on them. In some
quarters their author was disparaged ap-
parently because he was " a mero journalist,"
and elsewhere he was lauded from strong sym-
pathy with the literary calling. In giving our
opinion, we shall not be influenced by per-
sonal considerations of any kind.
Never before had one of the correspondents
of the public press so prominent a station as
Mr. Russell. At the time of the Peninsular
war journalism had not the strong organisa-
tion of the present time, nor had any newspaper
then such resources as the Times can now place
within the reach of its special correspondent.
Whoever narrated in its columns the daily
proceedings of our Crimean army was sure to
know that he had readers by the million, and
that Courts and Cabinets would scrutinise his
statements. Unlike the unknown persons who
are behind the customary " we " of the poli-
tical writer, Mr. Russell had the advantage of a
distinct recognition of his individualism. He
was ex officio a most important person, and at
least in prasenti his functions made him
a most interesting literary character. He had
resources confessedly superior to those of
the representatives of the other daily organs,
and he had abundant means for procuring a
variety of knowledge.
Such being the case, the question now
arises how far these letters can be accepted as
fulfilling what the reading and political public
might not unreasonably expect from the
representative of so great an organ as the
Times In answering that question we shall
state what Mr. Russell did, and we shall also
indicate what he has not done.
The first thing that strikes us on critically
examining his performance is the literary tour
de force which he has exhibited. This thick
and closely-printed volume contains five hun-
dred pages, with an average of fifty-two lines
to the page, and an allowance of eleven words
to each line ; and, on a fair computation, the
quantity of manuscript which the writer
furnished within fifteen months (March 6,
1854, to June 29, 1845) may be set down, in
round numbers, as three hundred thousand
words, which would make about four octavo
volumes, containing three hundred and ten
pages each, and averaging twenty-six lines to
the page. He had to perform this work in all
kinds of weather, and under most disagreeable
circumstances ; and the fact that he has writ-
ten with unfailing vivacity, and that his com-
position has shown such elasticity and hearti-
ness, is perhaps the most brilliant feat he has
performed. He had also to transact no ordi-
nary amount of affairs, and what has come
before the public, is far from being all the
labour that he performed.
it In saying this, however, we do not forget
that his subject was ready made. He had
only to keep his eyes and ears open, and what
journalists technically call " topic " was end-
lessly before him. He had not to cram, and
"get up " his matter ; and we think his suc-
cess as a recorder of the war would have been
more satisfactory if he had trusted less to his
facility of description, and taken more pains
to attain a really circumspective view of things
as they occurred. If to present a striking
literary panorama of the most showy events of
the campaign—if to show uncommon skill in
producing the wordy picturesque, and in using
the arts of a sensuous style in a subject of
dreadful reality—if to give a vivid sense to
the distant reader of the external appearances
of the Crimea—if these were all that were to
be expected from the correspondent of so
great a journal as the Times, then Mr. Russell
has brilliantly succeeded. His pictorial power
is stamped on every page. His photographic
facility is beyond all dispute, and the uncom-

THE PRESS.

mon brilliancy of eome of his pictures—
Gallipoli, the Bosphorus, the Balaklava charge,
and the hurricane—could only be disputed by
some purblind professor of " the cant of criti-
cism." We cordially admire the realisation of
external nature seen in Mr. Russell's descrip
tions. He is a Stanfield of the pen. His
tossing waves, his fleecy mists, his louring
clouds—all the tints of the distant landscape—
the broken foreground of the camp—the con-
trasts of the allied armies—the long lines of
the tents—the clang of arms and tramp of
troops—all that sort of subject finds in Mr.
Russell's style most vivid and effective deli-
neation. In his peculiar qualities he displays
a power which in some departments of letters
would confer on him considerable fame. _

But such results, and the exhibition of such
vivid qualities, are not what might be properly
expected from the war correspondent of the
Times. Did its representative show keen
power in scenting what was coining in the
distance? Did he attend enough to what
journalists call " the actuality " of passing
events? Did he judge characters well, and
wa3 his mind suited for grasping a political,
as distinct from a picturesque, view of a great
occasion ? Could he balance eventualities,
and had he tact in indicating probabilities ?
Or, in briefer terms, was he sufficiently matter
of fact in the discharge of his important
duties ? . . _

We must frankly say that in our opinion
these questions can be only answered in the
negative. Mr. Russell looked upon the cam-
paign more with the eye of a painter than the
mind of a political observer. He wrote to
amuse, to interest, to excite, rather than to
inform and minutely record. From first to
last there was wanting that anticipation of
likely consequences which a journalist might
have shown, though military lips could not con
vey them to the public. He had unequalled
facilities for procuring knowledge, and he was
furnished with an abundance of pecuniary
and social resources; and we do not think
that he ever kept his readers sufficiently " up "
in the daily life of the army. Description,
and not discussion, was his forte. " Will it
print well?" seems to have been his constant
question. Such qualities of mind would not
be adequate to the discharge of the duties of
one of the Paris correspondents of the press
during a period of revolution. Literary pho•
tographs of the striking scenes on the boule-
vards in 1830 or 1848 would not have answered
the public desire for knowledge, facts, specu-
lations, political secrets, and curious gossip.
It is plain to anyone that in these functions of
a correspondent's duty Mr. Russell has often
been surpassed by journalists connected with
the Times and others of its contemporaries.
Mr. Russell, it seems to us, should be
classed with retrospective describers rather
than accurate narrators ; and to us it appears
that the public during the progress of a cam-
paign would be better served by journalists
eminent rather for their discerning sagacity
than for their descriptive powers. In the long
run, also, the picturesque style becomes mo-
notonously fanciful, and readers become
suspicious of the spells of a brilliant rhetori-
cian. It was often a pleasant relief to turn
from the scenic effects of Mr. Russell's letters,
and contrast their panoramic arts with the
detailed touches and unpretending, yet in-
teresting, style of Mr. Wood of the Morning
Herald. We shall not make any comparison
between the writers, for their merits were of
the most opposite kind ; but if Mr. Russell
has in some quarters been praised too much,
we do not think that adequate recognition has
yet been given of the qualities by which Mr.
Wood's letters were distinguished. We know
that in the clubs of Pall-mall they were read
with sustained interest, and also in high
political circles. The Times, also, on one
occasion most handsomely acknowledged the
literary abilities displayed by Mr. Wood, who
is comparatively young in the profession of a
journalist.
Turning from these points to the peculiar
qualities of Mr. Russell as a proficient in
graphic description, we must heartily praise
his mingled facility and power. His contrasts
are rapid, varied, and dramatic ; his sentences
roll along with the impetuous energy of an
oratorical nature; his point of view is artisti-

SATURDAY,

tally chosen ; the outlines of his design, if
careless, have the vigour of conscious strength,
and his colouring is rich and deep. Many
parts of his descriptions remind us of the
writings of Mr. Macaulay, General Napier,
and Mr. Ruskin. His picture of Gallipoli ad-
vertised his descriptive talents to the whole
world, and at once rivetted attention on his
letters. Yet there is a tone of humorous
exaggeration in it, and the artifices of the
professed word-painter place ajudicious reader
on his guard. We prefer to quote here, as a
sample of his special powers, the following
description of the Bosphorus :

No voyager or artist has yet done justice to the beautiful
scenery of the Bosphorus. It has much the character of a
Norwegian fiord. Perhaps the rounded outline of the hills,
the light rich green of the vegetation, the luxuriance of
tree and flower and herbage, resemble more closely the
banks of Killarney or Windermere. For thirteen miles
the waters escaping from the Black Sea, now compresaed
by swelling hillocks to a breadth of little more than a mile,
then expanding into sheets of four times that breadth,
gush along in a blue flood, like the Rhone as it issues
from the lake of Geneva, till they mingle with the Sea of
Marmon, passing in their course by a succession of wood
and dale, ravine and hillside, covered with the profusest
carpeting of leaf and blade, while kiosk and plesaure-
ground, bastion and loopholed curtain, gay garden, villa,
mosque, and noble mansion stud the banks in unbroken
lines from the very foot of the forts which command the
entrance up to the crowning glory of the scene, where
the imperial city of Constantine, nsing in many-coloured
terraces from the verge of the Golden Horn, confuses the
eye with its masses of foliage, of red roofs, divers-hued
walls, gables, and fretwork, surmounted by a frieze of
snow-white minarets with golden summits, and by the
symmetrical sweep of St. Sophia. The hills strike
abruptly upwards to a height varying from 200 feet to 600
feet, and are bounded at the foot by a line of quays, which
run along the European side, almost without interruption,
from Pera to Bujukdere, about five miles from the Black
Sea. These quays are very numerous on the Asiatic side
also. The villages by the waterside are so close together
that Pera may be said to extend from Tophane to the
forts beyond Bujukdere. The kiosks and residences of
the pachas, the imperial palaces of the Sultan and the re-
treats of opulence, line these favored shores; and as the
stranger passes on, in steamer or calque, he may catch a
view of some successful plunderer of a province, some
hoary pacha, or unscrupulous ex-governor, sitting cross•
legged in his garden or verandah, smoking away, and each
looking so like the other, that they might all pass for
brothers. The windows of one portion of these houses
are mostly closely latticed and fastened, but here and
there a bright flash of a yellow or red robe shows the
harem is not untenanted. These dwellings succeed each
other the whole length of the Bosphorus, quite as nume-
rously as the houses on the road from Hyde-park Corner
to Hammersmith; and at places such as Therapia and
Bujukdere they are dense enough to form large villages,
provided with hotels, shops, cafes, and lodging-houses.
The Turks delight in going up in their caiques to some of
these places, and sitting out on the pletfoams over the
water, while the chiboque or narghile confers on them a
zoophytic happiness; and the greatest object of Turkish
ambition is to enjoy the pleasures of a kiosk on the Bos-
phorus. The waters abound in fish, and droves of por-
poises and dolphins disport in myriads on its surface,
plashing and playing about, as with easy roll they cleave
their way against its rapid flood, or gambling about in the
plenitude of their strength and security, till a sword-fish
takes a dig at them, and sets them off curvetting and
snorting like sea-horses. Hawks, kites, buzzards, and sea-
eagles are numerous, and large flocks of a kind of
gregarious petrel (I imagine), called by the French
`• times damnees," and which are said never to rest on
land, keep constantly flying up and down close to the
water.

That vivid passage was evidently dashed off
currente ealamo, yet its effect is decisive. He
raises expectation at the start by saying that
the scenery has never been done justice to,
and be then produces an extraordinary sense
of teeming variety and many-tinted colours.
But he does not stop there. Towards the
close he peoples it with life, and his introduc-
tion of the birds and fishes is a masterly
stroke. A pen capable of such intensely-
vivid delineation must be wielded by no
common powers of mind.

Several of Mr. Russell's descriptions were
written with that sonorous power which pro-
duces much effect when read aloud, as many
of them were, to anxious and excited listeners.
The commanding tone of the style, while it
imposed upon one class of readers, grated
upon the prejudices of others, who did not
like the dictatorial tone of the writer. There
was not that judicial balancing of pros and
cons which is one of the first qualities of a
political correspondent. On the most serious
conjuncture at the commencement of Decem-
ber, when there was such grievous ladies, the
following passage reads weakly, and the even-
tualities are not indicated :

The army is suffering greatly : worn out by night-work,
by vigil in rain and stout), by hard labour in the trerallesb

SEPT. 15, 1855.

they find themselves suddenly reduced to short allow-
ance, and the excellent and ample rations they had been
in the habit of receiving, cut off or miserably reduced.
For nine days there has been, with very few exceptions,
no issue of tea, coffee, or sugar, to the trgops. These,
however, are luxuries—not necessaries in military life.

The direct cause of this scarcity is the condition of the
country, which, saturated by heavy rains, has become
quite unfit for the passage of carts and arabas ; but there
is also a deficiency of supplies, which may be attributed
to the recent gales at sea. There is, therefore, a difficulty
in getting food up to the army from Balaklava, and there
is, besides, a want of supplies in the commissariat maga-
zines in the latter place. But, though there is a cause,
there is no excuse for the privations to which the men are
exposed. We were all told that when the bad weather
set in, the country roads would be impassable. Still the
fine weather was allowed to go by, and the roads were left
as the Tartar carts had made them, though the whole face
of the country is covered thickly with small stones which
seem expressly intended for road metal. As I understand,
it was suggested by the officers of the Commissariat De-
partment that they should be allowed to form depots of
food, corn, and forage, as a kind of reserve at the head-
quarters of the different divisions ; but, instead of being
permitted to carry out this excellent idea, their carts,
arabas, waggons, and horses were, after a few days' work
in forming those depots, taken for the use of the siege
operations, and were employed in carrying shot, shell,
ammunition, &c., to the trenches. Consequently, the
magazines at headquarters were small, and were speedily
exhausted when the daily supplies from Balaklava could
no longer be procured. The food. and corn, and hay, pro-
vided by the commissariat, were stowed in sailing vessels,
which were ordered to lie outside the harbour, though they
had to ride in thirty or forty fathoms of water on a rocky
bottom, with a terrible coast of cliff of 1,200 feet in per-
pendicular height stretching around the bay, and though it
was notorious that the place was subject at this season to
violent storms of wind. A hurricane arose—one of unusual
and unknown violence—these ships were lost, and with

them went to the bottom pmyen.der and food for fully
twenty days of all the horses in the army, and of many of
the men.

More detailed knowledge should have been
then advanced ; and the letters during the
famine time are not equal to the occasion, nor
was there a practical view taken of the con-
dition of the army. Even in the trying period
of January 19th we meet with writing of the
following style :

Tt is inexpressibly odd to see Captain Smith, of the
Foot, with a pair of red Russian leather boots up to his
middle, a cap probably made out of the tops of his
holsters, and a white skin coat tastefully embroidered all
down the back with flowers of manycoloured silk, topped
by a head-dress a la dustman of London, stalking gravely
through the mud of Ralaklava, intent on the capture of a
pot ofjam or marmalade. Do you wonder why we are all
so fond of jam ? Because it is portable and comeatable,
and is a substitute for butter, and butter is only sent out
here in casks and giant crocks, one of which would ex-
haust the transport resources of a regiment. Captain
Smith is much more like his great namesake of the
Adelphi, when, in times gone by, he made np for a
smugglar-burglar-bandit, than the pride of the High-street

of Portsmouth, or than that hero of the Phceniz•park, with
golden wings like an angel, before the redness of whose
presence little boys and young ladies trembled. All this
would be rather facetious and laughable, were not poor
Captain Smith a famished wretch, with had chilblains, ap-
proximating to frost-bites, a touch of scurvy, and a severe
rheumatism. Many of our men have been crippled by the
cold, and of our officers, Captain Strong, of the Coldstream
Guards, has been obliged to go down on leave, with one
foot badly frost-bitten.

Surely that is not the sort of matter—if such
it can be called—that the correspondent of a
great political journal should furnish. From
the fanciful picture of Captain Smith, of the
—th, the writer jumps off to a living person,
Captain Strong, and raises doubts whether he
is not playing with his readers Even in the
extremely vivid description of the hurricane,
the reader's imagination is perpetually ap-
pealed to by the fancy of the writer. Thus we
read :

Not to digress too much, and to return to the pleasant
coup d'cril before us this morning, let the reader imagine
the bleakest common in all England, the wettest bog in
all Ireland, or the dreariest mnir in all Scotland, overhung
by leaden skies, black as ink, and lashed by a tornado-
sleet, snow, pelting drizzle, and rain—a few broken stone
walls and rot,fiess huts dotting it here and there, roads
turned into torrents of mud or water across it, and then
let him think of the condition in which men and horses
must have been placed in such a spot on a November
morning, suddenly deprived of their frail covering, and
exposed to hitter cold and wet, with empty stomachs and
not the remotest prospect of obtaining food or shelter till
the storm ceased. Think of the men in the trenches, the
covering parties, the patrols, and outlying pickets and sen-
tries, who had passed the night in storm and darkness, and
who returned to their camp only to find fires out and tents
destroyed. These were men who dared not turn their
backs for a moment, who could not blink their eyes, on
whose vigilance the safety of our position depended, and
of whom bad been feu• eight or ten hours in the rain
awl cold. These are trials which demand the exercise of
the soldier's highest qualities. A benighted sportsman
caught in a highland storm thinks no misery can exceed
his own, as fagged and drenched and hungry be plods
along the hillside, and stumbles about in the dark to•