The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-25 00:00:00

STATE OF THE ARMY IN THE CRIMEA.

It is far from clear to our minds how a committee of
the House of Commons can institute a satisfactory in-
quiry into the condition of the English army before Se.
bastopol. All the best witnesses are on the spot, and
the available evidence is contradictory. Neither, for
the same reason, can " the conduct of those departments
whose duty it was to supply the wants of that army,"
be fairly judged at present. Still, Mr. Roebuck's
motion can hardly be termed premature or ill-timed ;
for it will, at all events, give rise to au instructive dis-
cussion, and help to clear the public mind of a
variety of errors and prejudices, which might other-
wise hurry our representatives into hasty and mis-
chievous conclusions. A contemporary who has
laboured but too successfully to degrade our mili-
tary character in the oyes of foreign nations, says that
the expedition of 1854 may as well be dismissed wholly
from our active speculations, and that we have merely
to address ourselves "to future wars ; to the campaign
of 1855, and to the sort of auspices under which we are
to connive at the departure of .another 50,000 men to
the East." This style of writing at such a crisis is fool-
ish as well as wrong. According to the last accounts,
Lord Raglan had more than than 28,000 men of a!l arms
fit for service, and the crowded state of his hospitals is
lwing to a succession of hard-fought action., like Alma,
Ba'a,klava and Inkerinan, as well as to the effects of the
eliinat.: and the inevitable hardships of a wintercampaign.
The prportioi.al number of sick we repeat is much smaller
than that which existed in the Duke of Wellington's
army a. few months before lie took Badajoz by assault
with the loss of (1,000 of his bravest troops., and won
the battle of Salamanca. In October, 1811, lie hid
25,000 men in hospital, of whom 19,000 were British
soldiers, including (as stated in his despatches) the whole
of the recruits last arrived from England.
To what extent General Canrobort's army has suffered
from the prevalent diseases of the Crimea, is involved in
mystery ; but from occasional indications we should
infer that the French have not been totally exempt from
hardship, exposure,'and disease. The `‘ special corres
spondent" whose gloomy pictures of English privation
as contrasted with French abundance have saddened
thousands of English homes, has been unconsciously
lured, by the temptation of telling a good story, into reve-
lations that cannot be reconciled with his more studied
accounts. In a letter published yesterday, he states
that " the instant a cart with provisions or spirits breaks
down, it is plundered by our active friends the Zouaves;"
and, ho adds, that one of these worthies broke cut as fol-
lows, in conversation with an English officer, who was
expatiating on the disagreeables of camp life in the Cri-
mea in winter time—" C'est vrai, mon ami ! En effet,
nous e'prouvons beaucoup de mis'ere. Regardez mei—
moi—premier basson du 3me Zouaves ! abve du Con-
servatoire, forc6 d'arracher bu bois de la term pour me
faire de In soupe." We must be excused for attaching
more importance to a passing illustration of this kind
than to the stereotyped recognition from head-quarters
of the " wisdom and foresight " of the Emperor. At
the same time it stands to reason that the French
with their arbitrary form of Government and their mili-
tary habits are superior to the English iu camp arrange-
ments ; and circumstances have given them an addi-
tional advantage, inasmuch as they have hitherto bad
comparatively little either of the hard fighting or the
hard work. All the worst suffering of the English troops
may be traced to their overtasked and consequently ex-
hausted state, which is owing to their inadequacy,
in respect of numbers, to perform the excessive
duties that have been imposed upon them. When
they first disembarked, they formed rather more than
half of the expeditionary armament, and they occu-
pied a corresponding position. They now constitute
less than one-third, yet they hold the same extent of
ground as if they still outnumbered their allies. If
we assist the French with ships to bring their rein-
forcements, they may surely assist us with horses and
carriages to bring up our guns, huts, and stores. There
is no degradation in such an interchange of services ;
and nothing is more lowering, either to nations or indi-
viduals, than to persevere in a ruinous course in the vain
hope of keeping up appearances. Do what we will, we
shall never be able to keep pace with Imperial Allies,
who can bring respectively half a million of disciplined
soldiers into the field.

An outcry, however, has been raised against the
Government for reducing Great Britain to the hu-
miliating necessity of playing a secondary part in
the war, as if they should, or could, have had fifty
or sixty thousand seasoned troops always ready by
way of a reserve for suck an emergency. Yet if
the writers and orators who are most clamorous in
pressing the charge would only be candid enough to
consult their own personal recollections, they must
acknowledge that no suspicion cf the rashness of the
expedition, er of the inadequacy of our resources, broke
upon them till after the affairs of Balaklava and Token
man. A Cassandra-like voice might have been heard
at rare intervals, but both of the allied nations were
looking forward to a speedy and easy triumph, and the
famous allusion to lee (insides axis shows to what extent
the delusion prevailed in the highest and best-informed
quarters in France. So long as it lasted, we do not
believe that the people would have submitted to
the sacrifices which must have been demanded be-
fore making the required addition to our regular
forces and our establishments, and we are quite
sure that it was morally and physically impossible to
raise or expand these to the required pitch within
the allotted time. All the most trustworthy authorities
are of one mind on this subject. Sir De Lacy Evans
reminded the Folkestone deputation that Great Britain
had never yet been able to do herself justice as a military
power till the third campaign. Sir Howard Douglas
praises the " wonderful promptitude" of the Govern-
ment in fitting out the expedition, but says that its
failure, should it fail, will be attributable to deficiencies
which " could not be provided at the eleventh hour by
any administrative talent on the part of this new de-
partment of war." Sir Archibald Alison thus prefaces
his recapitulation of the difficulties with which the Duke
of Wellington bad to struggle:— "Though the coat et had
now continued nearly eighteen years, the English Go-
vernment were still, thanks to our insular situation and
invincible navy, mere novices in the art ei'military war-
fare, and the subordinate functionaries in every depart-
ment required littrally to be taught their several duties
in the presence of the enemy. There is nothing sur-
prising is this ; it is the natural result of the peculiar
circumstances, unassailable power, nautical habits, po-
pular Government, and commercial character of the
people of England. In peace they invariably relax the
sinews of war ; no amount of experience can persuade
them to take any antecedent measures either to avert
disaster or to insure success. They constantly expect
that, without the least previous preparation, and with
greatly inferior numbers, their armies, newly raised,
uninstructed, and inexperienced, are to vanquish their
enemies in every encounter."
"It is in vain to ascribe these unhappy arrangements to
the fact of any particular body of men then entrusted
with the reins of Government ; they obviously arise
from general causes, for they characterise equally the
first years of every contest in British history."
Do they not characterise equally every prolonged con-
test on a foreign soil, in which the British troops were
not led by a heaven-born general, a Marlborough or a
Wellington ? Can anything short of moral courage, iron
strength of will, patient endurance, and fertility of re-
source, amounting to genius, counterbalance or compen-
sate for the disadvantages created by parliamentary
jealousy or economy, and by constitutional or depart-
mental checks ? We think not ; and the House of Corn-
MOll3 will not extricate itself from its embarrassments,
although it may soothe the national pride or gratify the
spleen of a faction, by holding the Commandr-in-Chief
or the Secretary of War answerable for not controlling
the elements, or for not revolutionising in three months
the most cherished institutions and ingrained habits of
their countrymen.— Morning Chronicle.