The Sun.
London, England, 1855-03-03 00:00:00

THE RECALL OF LORD LIICAN.

"The Earl of Li:TAN—The circumstances under which
I appear before your lordships are painful to myself, and
are, I may say, 'extraordinary, if not altogether unprece.
dented. I trust, therefore, that I shall receive your
kind indulgence while I read to you some papers which
will explain why I present myself to your lordships, and
why I am not where I should be—at the seat of war.
When I have read these papers it is not my intention to
utter one word of comment on them, for on my arrival
in England I instantly communicated with the com-
mander-in-chief. I addressed myself to that noble lord,
and asked him to have my conduct investigated by a
court-martial. So long as I can hope—and at present I
do confidently hope—that my conduct will undergo a
thorough investigation from officers of the army, who, I
believe, are the most competent judges of it, I shall be
silent in this house, and I only hope that such silence
will not be misinterpreted. On Wednesday, the 16th
of February, the three following letters were handed to
me by a member of Lord Raglan's staff. The first letter
is from Lord Raglan, addressed to myself
Before Sebastopol, Feb. 12.
"My Lord,—Having transmitted to the Minister for
War the letter which your lordship addressed to me on the
3ith of November last for that purpose, I have now the
honour to forward to you the copy of a despatch which I
received this evening from the Duke of Newcastle, with
its enclosure from General Viscount Harding°.
" Your lordship will perceive that the Queen has been
pleased to approve the recommendation of the General
Commanding-in-Chief that yon should be recalled, and
that, in communicating to you this decision, the Ithuister
for War has instructed me to inform your lordship that
it is her Majesty's pleasure that you should resign the com-
mand of the cavalry and return to England.

" I have the honour to be, my lord, your lordship's most
,bedient humble servant, " RAGLAN.

"Lieutenant-General the Earl of LUCall."
Along with this there was also a private letter from
Lord Raglan. The next is a letter from the Duke of
Newcastle to Lord Raglan, dated the 27th of January ;
and I beg your lordships' particular attention to this
date :

"War Departtnent, Jan. 27.
"My Lord,—l have to acknowledge your lordship's
despatch, dated the 16th of December, enclosing the copy
of a letter addressed to you by Lieutenant-General the
Earl of Lucan, and submitting to me observations upon its
contents.

"-Upon the receipt of that despatch I felt that the pub-
lic service and the general discipline of the army must be
greatly prejudiced by any misunderstanding between your
lordship, as the General commanding her Majesty's Forces
in the field, and the Lieutenant-General commanding the
Division of Cavalry ; but, desiring to be- fortified in all
matters of this nature by the opinions of the General Com-
manding-in-Chief, I submitted, without delay, your lord-
ship's despatch and the letter of the Earl of Lucan for the
consideration .of General Viscount Hardinge.
" I have now the honour of enclosing, for your lordship's
guidance, an extract from the reply wich I have this day
(26th of January) received from Lord Hardinge, and which
has been submitted to and approved by the Queen.
"I have, therefore, to instruct your lordship to commu-
nicate this decision to the Earl of Lucan, and to inform
his lordship that he should resign the command of the ca-
valry division and return to England.
"In performing this painful duty I purposely abstain
from any comments upon the correspondence submitted
to me ; but I must observe that, apart from any consider-
ation of the merits of the question raised by Lord Lucan,
the position in which he has now ylaced himself towards
your lordship renders his withdrawal from the army under
your command in all respects advisable.
"I have, &c.,

" NEWCASTLE.

"Field-Marshal the Lord Raglan, G.C.8., Stc."
With this was enclosed this extract from the letter of the
Commander-in-Chief to the Duke of Newcastle :
"Horse Guards, Jan. 26.
" My Lord Dake,—Lord Lucan in his letter of the 30th
of November, objects to the terms used by Lord Raglan
in his public despatch, that his orders for the Light Bri-
gade to charge were given under a misconception of the
written order, &c.
"He declines to withdraw that letter, and adheres to
the construction he has put upon the order, that it com-
pelled him to direct a charge.
" The papers having been referred.by your grace to me,
I concur with Lord Raglan that the terms he used in his
despatch were appropriate ' • and, as a good understanding
between the Field-Marshal Commanding the Forces in the
field and the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Cavalry
Division are conditions essentially necessary for advan-
tageously carrying on the public service, I recommend
that Lieutenant-General Lord Lucan should be recalled;
and if your grace and her Majesty's Government concur in
this view, I will submit my recommendation to her Ma-
jesty, and take ker Majesty's pleasure on the subject.—l
have, &c., " HARDINGE.
" His Grace the Duke of Newcastle."
It was my intention to read to your lordships the letter
which I addressed to Lord Raglan in November, which
letter, I may say, contains my offence ; but I have no
doubt most of your lordships have already had an op-
portunity of perusing it. I think it right to observe,
my lords, that this letter has not been sent to the press
by me, though I no doubt gave away many copies of' it
to my friends before quitting the army ; for I did not
think it safe to leave the Crimea under the imputation
of having been recalled for writing that letter without
allowing my friends to see it previously to My depar-
ture. I believe that in giving copies of that letter, atter
my recall, I only did what was due to my own honour
and reputation. (Rear.) That letter has now appeared
in the newspapers, and I will therefore spare your lord-
ships the trouble of listening to it. (Cries of "Read.")
Certainly, if it is your lordships' desire that I should
read it I will do so. It is as follows, and I particularly
desire your lordship to remark this date also : -
" Balaklava, Nov. 3fl, 1854.
" My Lord,—ln your lordship's report of the cavalry
action of Balaklava of the 25th ult., given in th'e papers
which have just arrived from England, you observe, That
from some misconception of the instruction to advance, the
Lieutenant-General considered that he was bound to at-
tack at all hazards, and he accordingly ordered Lord Car-
digan to move forward with the Light Brigade.' Surely,
my lord, this is a grave charge, and an imputation reflect-
ing seriously on my professional character. I cannot re-
main silent. It is, I feel, incumbent on me to state those
facts which I cannot doubt must clear me from what I
respectfully submit is altogether unmerited. The cavalry
was formed to support an intended movement of the in-
fantry, when Capt. Nolan, the aide-de-camp of the Quarter-
master-General, came up to me at speed, and placed in my
hands this written instruction :--
"'Lord Raglan wishes the cavalry to advance rapidly
to the front, follow the enemy, and try to prevent the
enemy carrying away the guns. Troop of Horse Artillery
may accompany. French cavalry is on our left.
" Immediate. " R. AIREY.'
"After carefully reading this order I hesitated, and.
urged the uselessness of such an attack and the dangers at-
tending it. The aide-de-camp, in a most authoritative
tone, stated that they were Lord Raglan's orders that the
cavalry should attack immediately. I asked him, Where,
and what to do?' as neither enemy nor guns were within
sight. He replied, in a most disrespectful but significant
manner, pointing to the further end of the valley---` There,
my lord, is your enemy ; there are your guns.' So distinct
in my opinion was your written instruction, and so posi-
tive and urgent were the orders delivered by the aide-de
camp, that I felt it was imperative on me to obey, and I
informed Lord Cardigan that he was to advance ; and to
the objections he made, and in which I entirely agreed, I
replied that the order was from your lordship. Having
decided, against my conviction, to make the movement,
I did all in my power to render it as little perilous
as possible. I formed the brigade in two linos and
led to its support two regiments of heavy cavalry,
the Scots Greys and Royals, and only halted them
when they had reached the spot from which they
could protect the retreat of the Light Cavalry in the
event of their being pursued by the enemy, and when,
having already lost many officers and men by the fire from
the batteries and fort, any further advance would have
exposed them to destruction.
"My lord, I considered at the time—l am still of the
same opinion—that I followed the only course open to me.
As a Lieutenant-General, doubtless, I have discretionary
power ; but to take upon myself to disobey an order writ-
ten by my Commander-in-Chief within a few minutes of
its delivery, and given from an elevated position com-
manding an entire view of all the batteries and the posi-
tion of the enemy, would have been nothing less than di-
rect disobedience of orders, without any other reason than
that I preferred my own opinion to thit of my General,
and, in this instance, must have exposed me and the
cavalry to aspersions against which it might have been
difficult to defend ourselves.
"It should also bo remembered that the aide-de-camp,
well informed of the intentions of his General and the ob-
jecte he had in view, after first insisting on an immediate