English officers who were present, and know the spirit in which the Not that it is likely any testimony will affect this historian's views. He has declared his infallibility: has even discarded the pretence of searching for truth, having informed the public in a late preface that he has not altered a word of the text, without perceiving the strange mark of vanity and shallowness this announcement bestows. Why, here are all we Crimean campaigners, comparing testimony, searching out dates, referring to one another, hunting up old note-books, and addling our brains to turn out the real truth of what happened at the revived seat of war, and humbly confessing that we can do no more than record a personal version. Did Lord Cardigan scamper back from the Balaklava battery? Only Mr. Kinglake knows-sailing high above personal animosities and partisan views. So the world awaits the oracle. "The mind delights in springing up to the most general axioms, that it may find rest," says Lord Bacon; and some such human element as this will always supply a dogmatic man with admirers. The advantage of contemporary history the writer has already dwelt on: it elicits living criticism; but when this contemporary history is in the hands of a fanatic, however brilliant, who declares that his bigotry alone is right-who does not recognise that truth is learnt humbly, and in no spirit of arrogance-then the work to mankind is hardly less aggravating than some splendid imposture of priestcraft, and the more urgent is it to depose a few fragments of truth. If Mr. Kinglake had been writing the Crimean History in any other spirit than the ultra-Bazancourt style, he would not have exultingly devoted four pages and an express plan to magnify an allusion of Lord Raglan's, in a private communication to the Duke of Newcastle. Recalling the very soul of honour and chivalry that Lord Raglan was, it is piteous to observe into what reckless unscrupulous hands his private papers have fallen. The charge made of the French having misplaced the buoy which was to mark off the landing-places of the two nations, turns out to be quite unauthorised. Before Lord Raglan would have allowed such an assertion to go publicly forth, he would have taken every means to be certain of its truth, and two steps would have discovered its error. The fact is this. There was a slight misunderstanding about the portions of beach for the respective armies; but, according to all procurable evidence, there was no buoy of demarcation laid down, however much this evidence be hooted down by Mr. Kinglake and his fellow-conspirators. The acrid attacks made on Captain Mends, because he came forward and spoke the truth about the buoy, form a sufficient comment on the spirit which animates the fraternity who persist in administering their literary bolus. Joining Captain Mends, who, as director of the landing, would have known something of the arrangements made, is Captain Spratt, principal surveying officer of the expedition, and intimately connected with the naval minutiae of the 14th, and Mr. Bower, the master of the Agamemnon ; to which also may be added the recollection of this writer--present from earliest dawn at the scene of operations. may What gave rise to the idea of there being a special buoy, and into the detail of which it was unnecessary for Sir Edmund Lyons to go with Lord Raglan, was that the French had placed three different coloured buoys along the line of anchorage, as indications to their own three columns, and in so doing had assumed an anchorage farther north than Sir Edmund Lyons anticipated; but it happened that this left a better anchorage and position to the English, Lord Raglan having that "long, narrow strip of beach" which he had himself selected. If Sir Edmund Lyons's understanding was that the two fleets were to be closer, then it is clear that the French officers entrusted to mark off the ground found that any such plan adopted would cause the fleets and armies to be dangerously clubbed. If Sir Edmund Lyons had been in their position, he would, doubtless, have formed the same conclusion. It is certain he never dreamed of the temporary misunderstanding being converted into the deliberate charge Mr. Kinglake has adopted. To learn what sort of good faith this gentleman brings to his history, there can be no better clue than a comparison between Lord Raglan's unhappy half-dozen lines and Mr. Kinglake's incubation therefrom, extending, as mentioned, to four pages and a plan. It is lucky, at least, that the public have been referred to the original matter. The object of the story, beyond indulging his spleen against the French, seems to be to afford an escape for Admiral Dundas from the disgraceful mismanagement by which the British share of the landing was reduced very nigh to a fiascho. It was no shift of landing-places that retarded and confused the English, but it was the sloth of the admiral commanding, and the tardy arrival of the ship Mr. Kinglake was on board-the Britannia-with the fleet she was steering. The dates of arrival off the landing-place have been recorded above. To the intense humiliation and annoyance of the group collected on Agamemnon's poop, it was very soon perceived that English honour was about to receive a fatal blow. All hope of promptitude and celerity of landing, or of any successful rivalry with the French-so arduously rehearsed and so confidently attended-was destroyed by a glance at the position of squadrons. At 8h. 30m. A.M. the French flag rose on the enemy's shore, and at that time it was the Britannia (while moving slowly in to the distant anchorage) signalised "Hoist out all boats, and send them when near convoy.' These were the boats that Lord Raglan, Sir George Brown, and Sir Edmund Lyons had been awaiting, in a state of anxiety which may be more easily imagined than told, for three long hours. Strenuously and rapidly the officers of the fleet laboured to compensate for the short-coming of their chief. As the boats were seen approaching, the generals sanctioned the troops being put into the in-shore boats, having detained them hitherto until meaus arrived for landing the smallest number of men they would have been justified in throwing on an enemy's coast. What is Mr. Kinglake's version of this, upon which the writer is prepared to make an affidavit? He mischievously attributes our delay to the French, and with cool inference relates, "It was said that the boat commanded by Vesey,' of the Britannia, was the first to touch the beach." So would it have been had the boats landed at noon, for the reason that it was for this officer (without attributing any blame to him) we patiently waited, or, rather, for the boats that he brought. The impracticable anchorage taken up by Admiral Dundas is also patronised by Mr. Kinglake, who says, in a note, "There were people *Britannia's log who thoughtlessly blamed Dundas for not taking part with the in-shore At 9h. 30m. A.M. only, the first line of English boats pulled in for the beach, still short of various boom-boats that were yet toiling their way from the far-off fleet. Baffled in the race of priority, every nerve was now strained to the recovery of lost time. By the evening, the whole of the infantry was landed, one or two batteries of artillery, besides some cavalry. For achieving this nothing could have been more propitious; a calm sea, and the same peaceful circumstances as would have attended a disembarkation on Southsea beach. The blue-jackets made a regular holiday of it. Boating and the beach have been ever their recognised ground of recreation. That shelving of the boat on the beach after the dull monotony of ship life, has a music in it that none "save he whose heart hath tried" can realise: the crumbling shingle, the keen scent of recovered shore, the limitless space and solidity, invite a sort of indulgence to the seafaring man that is not far removed from the converse sentiment with which the inland dweller finds himself filled upon arriving at the glorious sea-brink. When there is added to this condition the zest of enterprise such as accompanied the beach expedition of the 14th September, 1854, it may be imagined with what sort of spirit the crews fell to their work. The soldiers were carried merrily on shore, the wading seaman careful of his very boots-when might the poor fellow change them?-the horses were coaxed and conquered in some strange, seemingly kindred fashion, while guns were lightly trundled up in a manner provocative to gunners. Then there were two small steamers, purchased by Sir Edmund Lyons, christened the Minna and the Brenda. These boats, drawing but a scant number of inches, would run a thousand troops alongside the strand, * Britannia, Queen, Trafalgar, Albion, Vengeance, Bellerophon, Rodney, and the frigates Arethusa and Leander, the latter especially appointed to cover the landing, and now withheld. the where a flat, improvised as a pier, landed them dryshod. In the afternoon the sea became less smooth, but the slight difficulties of the beach merely served to stimulate exertions. Regiment after regiment, as it landed, formed, and then moved up the heights on the right, which commanded the beach. By 6h. 30m. P.M. there were no more to land. The boats returned to the fleet with a snug sense of comfort, and much commiseration for the unsheltered army, which was left to stand up or lie down, as it best might, in the wet, dripping night that now set in. Mr. Kinglake, commenting on the dog-tents with which the French soldiery were provided, remarks," It was always a question in the French army whether these tents gave the men more health and comfort than they could find in the open air." He is, however, wrong, as far as the writer's experience goes; there is not much question of their advantage in the French army, where the matter is pretty well decided. Their adoption in the English army has, however, been a hotly argued question ever since the Crimean campaign. Prejudice, with its habitual front, opposes the idea with the solitary argument of their additional weight, but no man who has drawn his cloak over him night after night under open heaven, and then crept into the kennel or dog-tent, will deny the palatial comfort which this edifice may comparatively afford. The English army was without canvas only during the very earlier portion of the campaign; it was then the writer's luck to visit both bivouacs, and consequently to carry to this day a vivid contrast of the comfort yielded by the French dog-tent. This came into bad repute later, because it would cover the brow of a hill by the side of the substantial English bell-tent, with which it of course bears no comparison; but this was misapplying the purpose of the dog-tent, which is only intended to afford portable and temporary shelter in some flying expedition, when the heavy bell-tent cannot accompany. The latter supersedes it directly transport service is resumed. The sum of the French landing on the first day amounted to three divisions and some guns; their fourth division, accompanied by a few men-of-war of both nations, proceeding to make a feint of landing at the Katscha, while the real operation was taking place above. This division returned in the evening, and together with the Turks was landed next day. Mr. Kinglake indulges his partiality for the latter by noticing that, "Whilst the young troops of France and England were still sitting wretched and chilled by the wet of their night's bivouac, the warlike Osmanlies seemed to be in their natural home. Soliman, who commanded them, was able to welcome and honour the guests who went to visit him in his tent as hospitably as though he were in the audience-hall of his own pashalic." The 15th was employed by ourselves in the disembarkation of artillery and cavalry, the operation being much delayed by a somewhat rougher sea and accompanying surf. Monsieur Bazancourt, whose acidity towards the English is at times as highly flavoured as our English historian's to the French, charged us at this point with causing much delay: "On the 17th the English are not ready to begin their march." "On the 18th fresh delay caused by the English. Come what may, the marshal is resolved to march on the following day." Then quoting from St. Arnaud's letter, "I have just written to Lord Raglan that I could wait no longer."* Mr. Kinglake is far too grand to notice Monsieur Bazancourt's existence, or he might have replied to this cavil by saying that some little time was necessary for landing cavalry, of which the French brought none. Admiral Dundas had lost that precious calm weather, when the time for unloading each branch of service was a matter of arithmetic computation; the sea had now risen, boats and rafts tossed alongside, were often stove in; while nervous horses, swung out by the yard-arm, descending amid motion and turmoil, could hardly be reconciled to their disturbed footing; some sprang overboard, while others were only managed by dint of extreme patience and delay. The energy, skill, and method prodigalised by our seamen found themselves under such circumstances placed within inexorable limits. That splendid ship the Himalaya might be lightened of two hundred and forty horses in a single day, but there would yet be one hundred and forty to be cleared on the following. Only by the 18th, at two P.M., was the landing of horses, forage, and material so complete that the army was pronounced fit to march. Mr. Kinglake's description of the mode in which we were received by the people of the country, of the introductory features of our traffic with them, of the manner in which they wondered, yielded, and accepted the strange order of things which had befallen, is one of the best parts of the book. In fact, the pleasanter reading commences from the time that the army finds itself landed on the Crimean shore. Jealousy of the French still breaks out on every possible occasion, and there are errors concerning the English which any but a self-sufficient man would gladly rectify. But, at the same time, the version that the author chooses to adopt is illuminated in a manner that must make all other versions undergo a certain period of hopelessness. Although a passionate partisan, Mr. Kinglake is a consummate word-painter. There are few artists can equal the following description of the first march: "The colours were flying, the bands at first were playing, and once more the time had come round when in all this armed pride there was nothing of false majesty; for already videttes could be seen on the hillocks, and (except at the spots where our horsemen were marching) there was nothing but air and sunshine, and, at intervals, the dark form of a single rifleman, to divide our columns from the enemy. But more warlike than trumpet and drum was the grave quiet which followed the ceasing of the bands. The pain of weariness had begun. Few spoke. All toiled. Waves break upon the shore; and though they are many, still distance will gather their numberless cadences into one. So also it was with one ceaseless hissing sound that a wilderness of tall crisping herbage bent under the tramp of the coming thousands. As each mighty column marched on, one hardly remembered at first the weary frames, the aching limbs which composed it: for-instinct with its own proper soul and purpose, absorbing the volitions of thousands of men, and bearing no likeness to the mere sum of the human beings out of whom it was made—the column itself was the living thing-the slow, monstrous *The Crimean Expedition. By Baron de Bazancourt. |