THE CRIMEAN WAR.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."
SIR,—May I be allowed to enter a protest against certain assertions in an article in the Spectator of October 19th as to the conduct of the Crimean War? You speak of it as marked by a "wretched muddle made by all the supply Departments." "The responsible managers," you go on to say, "were so in- efficient, so timid, and so ignorant of business that corruption went on unchecked." In the heat of the dismay caused by the sufferings of our army in the Crimea, such charges were, as was natural, vehement and plentiful. The Sebastopol Committee was appointed to investigate, and sat for nine months. An enormous mass of evidence was taken. Every- thing was against the accused, for the chief of them were absent at the war and undefended. Yet it may confidently be asserted that no one with an impartial mind and capable of estimating evidence can rise from the perusal of the evidence in the Sebastopol Committees Report without a conviction of the zeal, intelligence, and faithfulness with which the Queen was served, not only by officers of the Army and Navy, but by all classes of officials and contractors from the highest to the lowest, under circumstances of the utmost difficulty, and of which they had had, with rare exceptions, no previous experience. A very few amongst so many were shown to have been unequal to the duties of their position, or rather to the emergencies arising out of it. But of wilful misconduct or corruption, or even of neglect of duty through indifference or indolence, there was from first to last no evidence whatever.
The Sebastopol Committee evidence is too enormously voluminous to be likely to be read by above one man in a million. But why will not people at least read their Kinglake before they write or speak about the Crimean War? It is the one record of facts which stands uncontradicted and unassailable, whatever may be said of the opinions expressed. And
even Kinglake, I suppose, is too long for ordinary readers, and hence the hallucinations which are abroad. May I there. fore venture to sum up his conclusions in a few sentences?
The expedition to the Crimea was rash and hazardous in the extreme. Lord Raglan warned the Government that it was so. It was forced on by an ill-informed and irresponsible public opinion. The power of England and France cora- bined was inadequate to attack Sebastopol with any assurance, or even probability, of success. In spite of repeated victories against enormous odds, such as could not have 'been anticipated as probable (the numerical superiority of the Russians at Inkerman was between three and four to one), the position of the victorious, but utterly inadequate, army was one of great peril. This inadequacy was, in the main, the one simple cause of the sufferings it underwent. That it was not driven into the sea by the force of overwhelming numbers was due to Lord Raglan's perfect generalship and personal ascendency over both the allied armies, seconded by an especially well-chosen and efficient staff and the heroic constancy and courage of all ranks. In a word, the history of the Crimean expedition is that of a huge mistake, a great under-estimate of the difficulties by the British public, Press, and Cabinet, which was only saved from causing an overwhelming disaster by the conduct of the public Services, doing, under adverse circumstances, and hi the midst of impatience and calumny, far more than could reasonably have been expected of them. Are there not analogies, as well as contrasts, between the histories of the Crimean and of the present war ? I would venture to ask those who are tempted to minimise the difficulties of our army in South Africa, and to speak impatiently of those who are toiling in hardship while we are sitting by our fire- sides, to read their Kinglake and be sparing of their criticism, lest they repeat the grave errors of the critics of
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