The Press.
London, England, 1856-03-22 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

venturous and enduring. When the allies first
sat down before Sebastopol he declared that he
would, at any cost, be in at the death,—in
other words, witness the capture of the town,—
and he kept his word. Ho was in camp
during the assault on the Bth of September,
and next day, despite all obstacles, entered
the captured city, and explored its ruins. He
was at Alexandria, returning from Upper
Egypt, in February, 1854, when the news
came that 10,000 British troops had been
ordered for Malta. As soon as Lord Raglan
arrived at Constantinople he solicited employ-
ment, but received only au evasive answer;
and, seeing no prospect of speedy hostilities,
ho left for England. He makes (i., 225-6)
some sensible observations on the expediency
of affording to officers who have recently left
the army .encouragement to re-enter it in a
time of actual warfare. Officers who quit the
profession in time of peace because they
desire a more stirring life, would be the most
desirable class when hostilities have broken
out, and activity and enterprise, combined with
experience, ate required. Yet, " when ex•
" officers asked fur employment, their applica-
" tions were discouraged." The difficulty,
says the author, " lies in our abominable
" purchase-system." No doubt this is one of
its inconveniences, as, except in peculiar
cases, it would be impossible to give rank to a
gentleman who had lately obtained the value
of his commission. An ex captain would
scarcely like, we imagine, to re-enter us an
ensign ; yet he could not be granted a higher
rank without injustice to %those over whose
heads he would be suddenly set. . _ .

The author's testimony a;.; to points of mis-
management is trustworthy, as he was disin-
terested, had military experience, had many
friends in his old regiment, the 95th, and from
his lengthened stay with the army, without
official duty, had excellent opportunities for
observation. The war, he shows, was un-
dertaken in a spirit of blundering or insincerity,
ab initio

The Government, too, although they had Sir Hamilton
Seymour's correspondence with Lord John Russell staring
them in the face—so that they ought to have been in no
error on the subject—made no greater preparations for
going to war with an empire like Russia, than if she was
only a third-rate power. 'l' hey sent ten thousand men to
Malta to overawe Russia! Put they took no steps to place
the army Con a proper war footing—witness the absurd
way in which they drafted men from one regiment to
another, afterwards having to send out those very regi-
ments which had been deprived of numbers of their best
men, and rendered comparatively inefficient. This
measure alone was sufficient to show that they were not
equal to the emergency. When the war began, any num-
ber of men might have been raised at a low bounty, and
militia would have volunteered by thousands, but they
were rejected. Soldiers were then cheap in the market;
and the Government would not buy them—they waited
until they became dear; and men could not be induced to
enlist witholt increased bounty and pay.

It is the deliberate opinion of the author
that the accounts contained in our newspapers
of the terrible sufferings of our troops during
the winter of 1854-5, were not in the slightest
degree exaggerated. " The wonder is, not
that the men died during winter, but that any
of them survive it." One is proud to read the
following testimony to the fortitude of our
troops :
There is one thing which has been ever present
to my mind from the first day I landed in the Crimea. I
speak of the fortitude with which our army, officers as
well as men, have sustained the great hardships and
sufferings to which they have been exposed. I have never
beard a tourmur ; and they submitted with cheerfulness
to the greatest privations whenever they knew they were
necessary or unavoidable, but they justly and naturally
complained of the imbecility of those through whose igno-
rance and obstinacy they have undergone so much unne-
cessary suffering. But amid all their distress their cou-
rage is unsubdued. I look back with pride upon the year►
I passed in the army ; and am glad to feel, though having
sold my commission in a time of pr►found peace, and
now, contrary to my own wishes, unemployed, I am still in
spirit a soldier.

The author witnessed the various opera-
tions of the Bth of September. His account
of our failure at the Redan is, we believe, cor-
rect in all material points The cause of that
failure is to be summed up in few words. The
attack was made with the wrong troops, and
the attacking party was far too weak in point
of numbers. Without saying that General
Simpson should have used his best troops in
the first instance, there can be no doubt that
he should have used troops which could be
depended on. Mr. Taylor writes :

SATURDAY,

As all said, we had attacked the Redan with too small I
force. General Windham commanded the storming party
of the second division, and he with some of our men got
in at the salient angle; but in rear of this was a breast.
work, behind which the Russians rallied, brought up heavy
reserves, and drove so small a force out again. Not only
was the attacking column too week, but being nearly all
wiling, very young, soldiers, they would not follow their
officers, and drooped for shelter into corners of the
trenches as they were advancing, into shell•holes, or
behind any covers they could see : so all said, even the
very officers who were themselves with the storming par.
ties. Nor was this all. When they got into the Redan
they could not be induced to advance : a panic seized
them ; and a cry was raised that mines were going to be
sprung, and they retreated. Even the men in the ad.
vanced trenches caught the alarm. " The Russians are
coming out," was the cry. They turned and bolted.; and
so great was their hurry that they did not wait to keep
under the cover afforded by the trenches, but ran straight
over the open ground. Some officers placed themselves in
the way, and threatened to cut down any who ran ; and at
last order was restored. The whole concern was a series
of blunders. Why did we attack the Redan with two
used•up divisions, like the second and light, who had 1, at
their best men long ago, having men engaged in every
battle, attack, and sortie? Moat of the regiments con.
sisted of raw recruits who hardly knew their own officers.
Many of the officers themselves were so young that from
want of experience they were unfit to be employed on such
arduous service. Being such, it was not likely they would
hold the Redan.

To send these two divisions—who had been so frequently
expended on former occasions—to the attack, was not oily
the surest means to entail failure, but was unfair to them
and to the army. It did not give the survivors of so many
hard-fought actions a chance of their lives. It appeared
as if they were to be utterly exterminated. I have often
heard men and officers of these divisions say that they
hoped other divisions would come in for the next assault.
They naturally wished to be spared on this occasion. The
third division, whose exertions had hitherto been confined
to the left attack—by far the easiest of the two—and the
Cemetery affair on the 18th June, would have been glad of
an opportunity of distinguishing themselves, and. being
mostly old soldiers, would have carried the Redan and kept
it to a certainty, if they had been properly supported.
The reason assigned by General Simpson in his
despatch for selecting the second and light divisions, is,
that they had defended the right attack for so many months,
and were intimately acquainted with the ground. If this
reason teas good, and warranted the selection, why was not
a sufficient force employed? What an absurdity to send
an aggregate force of 1,520 men at such a place, and leave
them unsupported at the most critical time. The covering
party was 200, the ladder party 320, and the assaulting
column 1,000. Four times the number were not more
than enough to do the thing properly, and make success
certain. The French attacking force, with reserves,
amounted I believe to 24,000 men, and they went at it en
maw, instead of sending a few at a time.
I have obtained the opinions of many—than whom none
are more competent to decide—and I believe that had we
attacked with the first and third divisions, the former of
which did not labour under the disadvantage of not know-
ing the ground, we should have hell the Redan ; and, by
bringing up lield-batteries and turning sonic of the Russian
guns, have prevented the retreat of the Russians from
the Karabelnaia into the main part of the town, and taken
them prisoners. Our loss would of course have been
greater, but our success would have been more complete ;
and, as Pelissier observed, " one cannot make omelettes
without breaking eggs."

Mr. Taylor's volumes, though necessarily
going over ground previously well-worn, are
distinguished for good sense and frank speech.
On the calamities of the winter 1854.5 he
remarks :

The only remedy against such disasters for the future is
for England to have an efficient army instead of a mere
collection of regiments, and a reserve which will supply
something better than raw recruits in a case of emergency ;
and until John Bull has his eyes opened to the real state of
affairs, there is no chance of improvement.
I have no patience with those people who say that,
although such a thing may be true, yet it is not ad-
visable to publish it. I believe that no harm ever yet
came of telling the truth, but that we owe a great deal of
misfortune and mismanagement to a contrary policy:
There are some sound suggestions in the
book. One is. that there is far too much cor-
respondence in military matters. We quite
agree with Mr. Taylor that the first duty of a
commander is to be in his saddle, engaged in
the real business of the field, not poring over
his desk. Military secretaries should relieve
him from all the trouble of correspondence.
The author is of opinion that political power
has iu reality departed from the race of
(Minima. On this point some difference of
opinion exists. We confess we think that Mr.
Taylor is right. For ourselves we have con-
stantly spoken of the integrity of the Turkish
territory as distinct from the integrity of the
Ottoman empire. Through whatever muta-
tions the Government may be destined to
pass, it is essential to the peace and safety of
Europe that the present territorial limits of
Turkey as an independent State should be pre-
served. Many curious instances of the
governmental weakness of Turkey are given

MescH 21, 1856.

by Mr. Taylor, and as in other trustworthy
books we find some most revolting cases of
Turkish barbarity ; one's blood curdles at read-
ing s•lrh stories as the following :
A Turkish officer walking through the town (Kertch),
with, as usual, a soldier in attendance upon him, entered
a house in which were a woman and a child. The latter,
being frightened, ran into a sort of closet in the room.
The officer proceeded to offer violence to the woman, who
resisted, upon which he spoke some words to the atten-
dant soldier, who went to the closet, drew his sword, and
pinned the child to the wall with it!
For other instances of a like kind the reader
may consult the works of Mr. Woods and of
Dr. Sandwith. We would not palliate the
cruelties committed by Russians in this war ;
but surely it is only fair to recollect that our
semi-barbarous ally. Turkey, has committed
as savage enormities as our semi•barbarous
foe, Russia.

Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzkerbert; with an Account
of her Marriage with H.R.H. the Prince of
Wales, afterwards King George the Fourth.

By the Hon. Charles Langdale. London :

Bentley.
THE present volume is not a biography, and
the public will be disappointed if they expect
to find in its pages any of that interesting in-
formation which a life of Mrs. Fitzherbert
might be expected to furnish. It is the work
of a devout and conscientious Roman Catholic
gentleman, who has come forward with ances-
tral chivalry to vindicate the fame of a lady.
His brother, Lord Stourton, was the champion
elected by herself, as the following extract
from a letter to him will show
MY DEAR LORD STOURTON,

" I trust whenever it pleases God to remove me from
this world, that my conduct and character, in your hands,
will not disgrace my family or my friends."

Paris, Dec. 7, 1833.
And Lord Stourton in his declining days de-
posited the trust in the hands of Mr. Langdale.
On the publication of Lord Holland's " Me-
moirs of the Whig Party," this gentleman
seems to have imagined that the time had
arrived for proving himself worthy of the con-
fidence reposed in him. He considered Lord
Holland's account of Mrs. Fitzherbert's con-
nection with the Prince as derogatory to her
honour, and resolved at once to give to the
world a full statement of all the facts relating
to it. With this object, he applied to the
Hon. and Rev. Mr. Keppel, executor of Mrs.
Fitzherbert's last surviving trustee, Lord
Albemarle, to obtain possession of certain
papers which had been deposited at Coutts's
after the rest of the correspondence between
that lady and George IV. had been by mutual
agreement destroyed. These papers consisted
of :-1. A mortgage on the palace at Brighton ;
2. The certificate of the marriage, dated, Dec.
21, 1785; 3. A letter from the late King, re-
lating to the marriage, signed, George IV. ; 4.
Will written by the late George IV. ; 5 Memo-
randum written by Mrs. Fitzherbert, attached
to a letter written by the clergyman who per-
formed the marriage ceremony. Mr. Keppel's
fival decision WaS as follows :

Quidenham, Attleborough, March 28, 1835.
Sir,--In reply to your letter of the 13th instant. allow me
to my, that I cannot object to your making public, as you
propose, the purport of our correspondence ; and can only
regret that I have, with the advice of others, not felt
inself at liberty to comply with your wishes in all respects.
1 repeat that the papers-should have been at your disposal,
had they afforded any contradiction to Lord Holland a im-
putations. He does not dispute the tact of o.e Prince's
marriage with Mrs. Fitaherbert, so the documents (as far
as I can judge from the memorandum of their contents,
which I have in my possession) cannot answer Lord Hob
land and his ungracious imputation. These can only be
rebutted by their own inherent unreasonableness.
I am, Sir.

latthfully yore,
EDWD. S. KEPPEL.

Hon Charles Langdale.
Mr. Langdale has therefore availed himself of a
written memoir by his late brother, Lord Stour•
ton, and such other private information as he
possessed, to give an authentic account of the
connection between George IV. and Mrs. Fitz-
herbert, and to rebut the charges which he
believes to have been brought against that
lady's character. The following is the outline
of Mrs Fitzherbert's history up to her union
with the Prince :
The subject of the present memoir, Mary Ann Smythe,
i‘ss daughter of Walter Smythe, Esq., of Brambridge, in

MescH 21, 1856.
by Mr. Taylor, and as in o
books we find some most rt
Turkish barbarity ; one's bloc
ing sich stories as the follow
A Turkish officer walking through
with, as usual, a soldier in attendanc
a house in which were a woman and
being frightened, ran into a sort of
The officer proceeded to offer violenc
resisted, upon which he spoke some
dant soldier, who went to the closet,
pinned the child to the wall with it!
For other instances of a lit
may consult the works of M
Dr. Sandwith. We would
cruelties committed by Russi
but surely it is only fair to r
semi-barbarous ally. Turkey,
as savage enormities as oui
foe, Russia.
Memoirs of Mrs. Fitzkerbert;
of her Marriage with H.R.
Wales, afterwards King Gg
By the Hon. Charles Lan
Bentley.
THE present volume is not
the public will be disappoint(
to find in its pages any of th
formation which a life of
might be expected to furnisl
of a devout and conscientious
gentleman, who has come for
teal chivalry to vindicate th 4
His brother, Lord Stourton, tt
elected by herself, as the 1
from a letter to him will show
MY DEAR LORD STOURTON,
" I trust whenever it pleases Go
this world, that my conduct and char
will not disgrace my family or my frie
Paris, Dec. 7, 1833.
And Lord Stourton in his d
posited the trust in the hands
On the publication of Lord
moire of the Whig Party,"
seems to have imagined tht
arrived for proving himself w
fidence reposed in him. He
Holland's account of Mrs.
nection with the Prince as 4
honour, and resolved at ont
world a full statement of all
to it. With this object, he
Hon. and Rev. Mr. Keppel,
Fitzherbert's last survivinf
Albemarle, to obtain posse
papers which had been depot
after the rest of the corresp4
that lady and George IV. had
agreement destroyed. These
of:-1. A mortgage on the pa
2. The certificate of the man
21, 1785; 3. A letter from tl
lating to the marriage, signed
Will written by the late deorF
nuiduni written by Mrs. Fitz
to a letter written by the clef
formed the marriage ceremon
final decision WaS as follows :
Quidenham, Attleboroui
Sir,--In reply to your letter of the 1
to say, that I cannot object to your
propose, the purport of our correspon
regret that I have, with the idyl(
myself at liberty to comply with your
repeat that the papertshonld have
had they afforded any contradiction
imitations. He does not dispute tl
marriage with Airs. Fitzherbert, so t]
as I can judge from the meniorand
which I have in my possession) cam
land and his ungracious imputation.
rebutted by their own inherent unres
I am, Sir
!Faith
Hon Charles Langdale.
Mr. Langdale has therefore av
written memoir by his late bi%
ton, and such other private i
possessed, to give an authent
connection between George I'
herbert, and to rebut the c
believes to have been brou
lady's character. The follow
of Mrs Fitzherbert's history
with the Prince :
The subject of the present memoi
was daughter of Walter Smythe, Es