The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-09-11
3 cRIMEAN WAR SCANDALS.

Why lord Aberdeen's Ministry Was
Forced Out by Public Indignation.
The New York Herald of Sunday repro
duces a number of cartoons from London
Punch, published in 1S54-5. These pic
lures are intended to show how the British
army in the Cfalnea suffered from the i'm
becilty of the hospital and commissary
management. Commenting upon this his
tory the Herald says:
The CriTnea war, the last great Euro
pean conflict in which England took
hand, had many and curious points of
similarity with our own war just closed.
Most remarkable of all was the parallel
ism between the hospital and commissary
mismanagement in the British armies of
1S54-5 and the American armies in 1898.
In England a great storm OF popular in
dignation grew out of the revelation of
lesser and less eulpable abuses than those
which are now being daily brought to Light
by our newspapers
1t resulted in the overthrow of the coali-
ton ministry under Lord Aberdeen. Yet
in talent and parliamentary influence the
coalition cabinet was at its formation con-
sidered, one of the strongest governments
ever known in English history.
The cabinet derived it's name from the
fact that it was a coalition Of Wings and
Peelites. Lord Aberdeen, the, premier,
was Peelite; Lord John Russell, the sec
rotary of foreign affairs, was a Wing;
Gladstone, the chancellor of the exche-
quer, and the Duke of Newcastle, secre-
tary of state of war, were Peeltes.
Lord Aberdeen's attitude at the begin
ming of the Crimean war had been not I'M
like President McKinleys. A devout
Christian, profoundly Influenced by the
principles of the peace party, he yet could
not resist the pressure of popular opinion.
Forced by circumstances into a policy of
which he disapproved, Aberdeen was I'M
6ble TO feel any enthusiasm about the war
The government soon lost public favor.
The msfortunes due largely 10 defects
in the military system of Great Britain
were all blamed upon the administration.
Lord Aberdeen, the Duke of Newcastle
his secretary of war, and Viscount Har-
dinge, commander-in-chiefo of the British
army, were made the scapegoats of the
popular wrath
The Crimean war lasted from Septem-
Der, 1854, to February, 1856 or Just five
times as long as our Spanish-American
war The climatic influences We're The
exact contrary of those which our troops
have had to suffer. In Cuba the oppres-
SiVe heat, yellow fever and typhoid proved
more disastrous than Spanish bullets
Subsequent acknowledgement in the home
camps has increased the appalling total of
disease and death. In the Crimea, on the
other hand, the cold was so bitter that
| men could not touch any metallic sub
stance without leaving a portion of skin
behind. Cholera and other diseases caused
eC fomented by insufficient food. insult
| ficient clothing and insufficient housing
| were rife.
Stories of rightful suffering drifted back
! to England all through the winter of 1851
| The people were patient under tales of
tents torn from their pegs and blown
| away and of officers and men exposed TO
| stormy blasts. These terrible in them
selves, were but the fortunes of war But
! they began to murmur ominously as in
| stance after instance came to light of
/ Official incompetency or corruption. The
| most extraordinary blunders were con-
| stantiy being reported. Stores of medi-
| cines went to waste where NOBODY wanted
| them, while men were dying by hundreds
| in tents or hospitals for lack of them
| Ample provisions had been got together
| and paid for, and when they came to be
needed nobody knew how to get at them
An ominous roar of angry laughter
| greeted the story that a large consignment
| of much needed boots had turned out
when landed. to be of no value, because
/ they were all lefts. "a similar story on a
smaller scale has been recently told by
Mrs. Julian Hawthorne of her sons ex-
perience in the Santiago campaign.) But
| what most stimulated the satirists was
| the fact that coffee had been sent over
| unground to camps which had no facilities
! for grinding it, and, worst of all, I'M
roasted. Green coffee for army tents pro-
voRed some of Punch's favorte gibes.
Shameful frauds were found to have
been perpetrated in contracts for pre-
served meat. lone mans meat" said
| Punch bitterly, iYis another mans poison -
All these things the special correspond
ents of the Times and other papers con-
tlnued to din into the public ears.