The Sun.
London, England, 1855-01-15 00:00:00

have essayed in vain, the Sail should, at any rate,
bring down with it the system to which it is to be

attributed.

We have been favoured with the notes

of a distinguished officer now on active service in
the Crimea on many of these subjects, aud, though
some are of too minute and technical a nature for

the columns of this journal, and only fitted for the
pages of an exclusively military publication, there
are others to which we think we shall do good ser-
vice in drawing the attention of the public.
The infantry, in the opinion of our authority—
in which, we believe, he is supported by the una-
nimous assent of Europe—consists of the very
best material out of which soldiers can. possibly be

made. Their steadiness, their docility, their great
physical strength, and unfaltering confidence in
each other, render them susceptible of the very
highest discipline, and make their appearance on
parade and on the battle-field as splendid and im-
posing as their movements are solid and regular.
Their regimental organisation, also, we may add,
and the feeling of emulation between different
corps, give them a spirit and an energy unknown
to armies in which everything is referred to the
whole rather than to its subdivisions. But when

employed on outpost duty or in the camp—in a
large proportion, in fact, of those matters which go
to make up a soldier's existence during a campaign
—•the British Grenadier by no means maintains
the unquestionable superiority he evinces on a field
of battle. Confident in their personal valour, and
contemptuous of the prowess of all enemy to
whom they may be opposed, our soldiers are
accused of being negligent sentries and very
improvident pickets. They are, moreover, al-
leged to be deficient iu resource, and to want
altogether that intuitive perception and military
tact which enable the Frenchman to seize an °piper-
...

tunity, to cover a retreat, or to repair a' disaster.
Our soldiers and regimental officers, according to
the same authority, when on detached duty and
exposed situations, frequently allow the enemy to
take strange liberties with them, and are often
reduced to win back by great personal exposure
and loss advantages which a little care and dex-
terity would have secured to them. In camp the
same thing is observed ; soldiers and officers are
said to be very helpless in providing for their
wants, and to evince no aptitude in turning to the
best account the resources which every country
places at their disposal. We give the criticism as
we find it, and make no doubt, arguing both from
the experience of former wars as well as from cer-
tain indications in the present, and, indeed, from
the peculiarities of our national character, that it
has a foundation in justice. Our men, it is
added, know nothing of campaigning, and our
officers, whose duty it is to instruct them,
have no more practical, and, in general, we fear,
little more theoretical knowledge. Both will
learn these things from experience, but that
experience is acquired by immense suffering and
loss. So far as this fault exists; it points to a de-
fect in military education which it is quite possible
and highly desirable to correct. It would not be
difficult to give the soldier an idea of the ordinary
incidents attendant upon military life in the face
of an enemy, instead of confining his knowledge to
the rare occasion of a great battle, and to instruct
the officers, and through them the men, in the use
of those manoeuvres which constitute the tactics
and evolutions of la petite, guerre. Nor would it
be difficult, we should think, to teach both officers
and men, together with their drill, some rudiments
of the culinary art, together with some hints as to
the way of making the best of a bivouac or of tent
life. Certain sanitary rules might at the same time
be enforced with no little advantage to the health
and comfort of the troops.

We have given these criticisms as we found them,
believing from the experience of the late Kafir
war, and, indeed, of all occasions in which our
troops have been called, upon to display extraordi-
nary resources and ingenuity, that they are not de-
void of foundation. At the same time, we must
protest against these or similar criticisms being
accepted as accounting in any considerable degree
for the miseries of our army in the Crimea, or tend-
ing in the least to transfer the blame of their suf-
ferings and misfortunes from the heads of depart-
ments here and at the seat of war to the troops
themselves. No doubt our pickets have been
more than once surprised and our sentries bayonetted
by the pitiless foe, but these were men who had been
exposed during eighteen out of every twenty-four
hours to censtaat labour in the trenches, or at
the outposts, or in doing the duty of beasts of
burden in the conveyance of artillery and pro-
visions ; and overtasked human nature, and not
any laziness of the men, must bear the blame,
if the danger of instant death and the danger of
exposing the whole army to a surprise as dreadful
as that of Inkerman could not keep open eyelids
weighed down by such cruel and unceasing labour.
There is, indeed, one of our contemporaries, not
much prone to too favourable a consideration of
any one except her Majesty's Ministers, which has
revived against our army that charge of effeminacy
which Gibbon has brought against all modern sol-
diers, and, rather than admit the maladministra-
tion of officials, accuses their victims of being too
soft to bear up against the hardships incidental to
a state of war. Never was accusation more unjust.
In rags, in famine, in cold, in wet, in mud, and
in snow the English regimental officers and
soldiers have struggled on, under what fearful
inflictions let the death and disease which
have swept off their hundreds a-day testify
against these heartless critics. Nor in this cam-
paign can the soldier's want of skill be said
to have caused, though it may, in some degree,
have aggravated, his miseries. Our soldiers have
had hardly any implements for cooking, and yet
have been forced to feed on substances—raw coffee
and raw pork—to convert which into human food
a thorough cooking was absolutely indispensable.
Had every private in the army been a Soyer or a
Ude, he could not have made for himself a com-
fortable meal without firewood, with a dry spot to
kindle it upon, without a pot, a saucepan, a grid-
iron, or a frying-pan. That our soldiers are help-
less in these matters we believe, but in this instance
the helplessness of their commanders has monopo-
lised the whole blame, and withheld from the pri-
vate soldier all means of showing whether or not
the soldier is capable of providing for his own com-
fort. With this qualification, we accept our mili-
tary critic's observations on the private soldier and
regimental officer, and commend them, as the fruit
of long experience and attentive observation, to
those whose business it is to supply with fresh men
the rapidly thinning ranks of the army in the
Crimea.—Times.

SUDDEN DEATH Or SIR G. WOMBWELL, BART.--We
regret to announce the sudden death of Sir George
Wombwell, Bart., who was found dead in his bed yes-
terday morning, at his town residence in George-street,
Hanover-square. We aro nformed that Sir George re-
tired to rest at ten o'clock, apparently in his usual health
and cheerful spirits ; yesterday, at half-past eight, his
servant went as customary to his chamber to call him,
but not receiving any reply he approached the bed, and
discovered his master quite dead. Sir George's medical
attendant, Mr. Fuller, was soon at hand, but it was
thought life must have been extinct at least three hours
before the discovery was made. The deceased baronet
had died to all appearance without a struggle, as he
seemed to be in a sound slumber. Sir George was well
known in the circles of fashion, and his sudden dissolu-
tion will be regretted by a numerous body of friends.
Sir G. Wombwell was second son of Sir George, second
baronet, by Anne, daughter of Henry, Earl Falconberg,
and was born 13th April, 1792. He married first, 23d
Juno, 1824, Geergiana, youngest daughter of Mr. Orby
Hunter, of Crowland Abbey, Lincolnshire ; and secondly,
Eliza, daughter of Mr. J. E. Little, of Hampton. The
deceased succeeded to the 'baronetcy on the death of his
father, 29th October 1846, and the baronetcy and family
estates now devolve on the late baronet's son, Lieutenant
George Wombwell, of the 17th Lancers ; the other son
of the deceased baronet is also serving with his regi-
ment, the 62d, in the Crimea. The present gallant ba-
ronet has only recently been promoted for his distin-
guished gallantry at the memorable cavalry charge of
Major-General the Earl of Cardigan, at the battle of
Balaklava, when he had his horse killed under him, and
was taken prisoner by a Russian trooper ; while being
carried off the field, he succeeded in unhorsing his cap-
tor, fired his pistol and wounded him, and then rapidly
mounting the horse of the Russian soldier, made his
escape back to his comrades, by whom he was loudly
and heartily commended for his bravery. For this
gallant act he was promoted, a few days since, to a
lieutenantcy ha his regimekts