The Sun.
London, England, 1855-02-21 00:00:00

The causes to which the failure of our recent military
operations in the Crimea have been attributed are mani-
fold. Every speaker or commentator, in Parliament or
out of it, examines the subject by the light of his own pre-
vious ideas or prepossessions. According to one, the doc-
tors have been to blame ; according to another, the tran-
sport service. A third will tell yea that all Lord Raglan,
humanly speaking, mil( bo expected to accomplish was to
keep a register of the thermometric changes in the neigh-
bourhood of Balaklava amid the corpses of his former le-
gions. A fourth will have it that the Duke of Newcastle
was bound not only to remit stores to Balaklava harbour,
but to take such precautions that the unfortunate men fir
whose use they were intended might have reaped the bene-
fit of his labours and his foresight. The aristocratic cha-
racter of our service did all the mischief—or the dispropor-
tionate partition of the work—or the crass incapacity of the
motley Staff—or, finally, the inclemency of the seasons
and the act of God. Wo believe that the disappearance of
the British forces lately in leaguer before Sebastopol is due
to this one cause, which embraces all others—that there
has not been a single man in the high commands either at
home or in the Crimea who was a master in the art of
war. We say that it has been proved that neither
Lord Ragl an, nor the Duke of Newcastle, nor Mr. Sidney
Herbert, has shown himself competent to organise the
steps of a campaign in the Cabinet, nor to carry them in-
to effect in the field. They failed with the best intentions,
just as we should fail if we set about the composition
of an oratorio for the next Norwich Festival, or of a pic-
ture for the next Exhibition of the. Royal Academy. We
should fail in such tasks not only because we are devoid
of the inspiration which constitutes musical or pictorial
genius, but because we should be found deficient in the
mere technical rules of thorough bass and perspective. A
blue riband athwart the breast does not make a mart a
councillor, any mere then a red coat and a decoration or
two will imply talents for high military command. The
illustrious personages just named have failed in their ope-
rations—have allowed the armies of England to slip
through their fingers into an unlaurelled grave—through
absolute ignorance of the trade they professed. What-
ever Lord Raglan may have been in subordinate commands
under the orders of the Duke of Wellington, forty years
have elapsed since he obtained his distinctions; and, un-
fortunately, it is more easy to forget than to acquire.
There is no suggestion that our War Ministers at
home, either recent or present, ever learned their
trade ; or, indeed save we except Lord Paamure's
peaceful service at the War-office that they ever
had an opportunity of learning it. When the whole
chapter of prevarication, shuffling, excuse , and declama-
tion aeaiust everybody who has dared to censure their
acts had been exhausted, it is impossible to extract from
it any valid argument in favour of those who despatched
a large British force upon an expedition against a formid-
able fortress in the a ututnnwithout baying provided for the
contingency of a winter campaign. It was surely on the
cards that the walls of Sebastopol might net fall down as
the walls of Jericho fell of old before the blast of horn anti
trumpet, and, if the meditated assault was to be converted
into a siege, surely the troops engaged in it must be
victualled, lodged, and clothed in some form or other.
This is what was not done. Had it been done the mor-
tality before Sebastopol would have been reduced to a
small fraction of the actual loss. These who approved the
policy of the expedition are not to be blamed because our
War Ministers and Generals placed and retained our
troops before the town without food, shelter, medicine,
or clothes. The probability is, that had a corporal's guard
from the Coldstreams been directed against the windmill
on Wimbledon-common, and had it been so handled, the
corporal and his men would have perished by a fate similar
to that of the late British army before Sebastopol.
Now, had England bean a country which had re-
mained in a state of profound peace for the last forty
years there might be some excuse for ignorance of their
profession, such as our war councillors and military chief-
tains have recently displayed. Had there been no oppor-
tunity for gaining military knowledge we should have had
no right to be critical upon first failures. Where all are
blind the choice of a guide is but an affair of chance. But
it so happens that there is not a nation existing on the sur-
face of the globe which has enjoyed such ample opportuni-
ties of acquiring military experience as England—not
France in Algeria—not Austria in Lombardy—not Russia
in the Caucasus. British India should supply us with a
crop of practised soldiers for European use, but we will
have none of them. The letters " H.M.S." stand in the
light of the letters " H.E.1.C.5." " What ! ask the miser-
able hirelings of a trading firm"—we presume we must
stretch the facts—" to take the command over the Queen's
officers ! Perish twenty armies before each an indignity
as this !" Besides, of what does the public complain ? Can
anything be more gallant than the manner in which our
high-born officers ride their horses en the first signal
against parks of artillery on the blaze ? Can any
conduct be more worthy of admiration than that of
the British soldier, true and filithful even unto death
in the flooded trenches and oh the chill bivouac ?
Alas for that burning bet misdirected courage !
Alas for that touching but useless fortitude ! The one
and the other are equally thrown away, or serve but to
add to the enduring indignation with which every man
must think of so dismal a tragedy as the one Isidore Sebas-
topol. Had these fearless horsemen, had these brave, pa-
tient soldiers, been but intrusted to the care of competent
generals, they would not have fallen in a manner so useless
to their country, so fearful to themselves. England has
at her disposal the means of instructing her officers in
something more than regimental duties, but she will not
use them. Generals who do not understand the art of war
must be employed, and those who do understand the art of
war must not be employed, owing to the insane and suicidal
distinction which has been maintained between the Queen's
and the Company's service. To officers who have gained
experience we deny employment—to those who would gain
experience the means of obtaining it. Time and custom
blind us to absurdities ; but let us view our own practice
by a comparison of what might be in the French service if
in military matters the French were not a wiser and more
practical people than ourselves. Suppose, then, our
French friends to maintain a wall of ice between the
Emperor's and the Algerine service, and what would have
become of the French army before Sebastopol ? We
will answer the question, as all our readers will answer it
at once,—they would have been festering in hospitals or
rotting in their unhonoured graves, even lika our poor
countrymen. Take a list of French officers now employed
before Sebastopol and strike out the Algerine heroes—from
Canrobert, Bcsqust, Pelissier downwards,—who remains ?
General Peel put it well to the house on Monday night,—
"It was said we had no able Ganarals and no competent
Staff. Why, did not the house believe that it was our
own fault ? Did they not believe that these mon who made
such good regimental officers would make equally good
generals, and equally competent Staff officers ? To coin-
plain under such circumstance would be as if a man who
kept only a gig should turn round upon his servant and
complain because ho could not drive four-in-hand." The
British colonies are so many gigs, British India our four-
in-hand ; but we will not choose our long stagers from
that box. Was not Arthur Wellesley styled a General of
Sepoys ?

(Front the Morning Herald of this day.)

It will not do, and Lord Palmerston knows it. He has
proved himself not the man for the hour and the work. He
may well look harassed and disconcerted, for he feels that he
is being roughly told the truth in the house, night after night,
on each occasion more sternly. What did he undertake to
do? To reconcile an infuriate country—infuriate thongh
quiet- to the reversal of its judgment; who, having said,
we will not have these men to rule over us, are jauntingly
told that they shall. The clique, however, are crestfallen,
for they also find that the thing will not do. The sweetest
arrangements have been made, but, unfortunately, with-
out eonsulting the party chiefly concerned—the country ;
and on Monday night symptoms, not to be mistaken, ap-
peared of an approaching defection of some of their staunch
adherents.
It is " the old, old story," the same men, the same ped-
dlingdneasures, a mere incarnation of red-tapery. But the
thing is worn out. It is among the things that are gone ;
but Lord Palmerston likes it after all, or is made to ap-
pear to like it. He cannot change measures, because he
has not changed men ; for the slightly-variedaspec; of the
preseut Government, as compared with the same Govern-
ment under the Earl of Aberdeen, would seem like a de-
tected thief cutting off his whiskers, and sticking on a
pair of moustaches, in the very presence of the policeman
approaching to arrest him. So Lord Palmerston, before
the broad fierce eye of the country, cuts off an earl and a
duke, and pops in—Panmure and Peel.
We have weaned Lord Palmerston from the first, that
he might find, sooner than he dreamed of, that in his case
vaulting ambition had o'erlesped itself, and in rendering
other combinations impossible, in order to secure his own
primacy, he has only demonstrated the short-sightedness
of the attempt.
What the country wants at this moment is, as we in our
consciences believe, to see the Earls of Derby and Ellen-
borough, aid Mr. Disraeli promptly installed in power,
and inaugurating changes which the present men have al-
readymuseveryday—everyt e shownome
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during the last twelve months, having no motive for eon-
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vestigation ; and at the same time the will and the power
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will lose his temper, taot, and presence of mind in propor-
tion to his perception of the disheartening fact that he is
in a false and untenable position. But he is not the only
party that can get angry. The house is getting angry, and
all the angrier because it sees the country getting so angry
that it is almost inclined to lend its ear to revolutionary
teachings.
If Messrs. Cobden and Bright had not lost their popu-
larity by their un-English sentiments about the war—had
they sympathised with the people, the country would have
been by this time in the flames of agitation from John
e'Groat's to the Land's-end. But these trained and veteran
agitators are not wanted. The agitation is beginning ;
and the fatal foolery of Lord Palmerston, in sticking to
the old men and the old measures, is only adding fuel to
the fire which will quickly consume him.
Lord Palmerston, we have some reason to believe, is
meditating a coup d'etat—a dissolatien. A dissolution !
what for? To return the Peelite faction? To return any
one of those who have, as Lord Palmerston has, delibe-
rately and ostentatiously avowed their responsibility for
the frightful calamities which have befallen us ? To return
a Gladstone, who could se shamelessly misrepresent the
numbers of our army—Mr. Gladstone, who has mainly
brought about the misery and sufferings of that army—
Mr. Gladstone, with his doubled income tax, and whose
hateful emissaries are paying their compliments to us all
as income tax collectors, grinning as they take their
doubled quota, and think that next time that doubled will
be doubled.
It is not for nothing that the ill-omened Mr. Coppock
is at this moment in such activity ; but he cannot by all
his devices return Lord Palmeratou a, majority. England