1855.] DEATH OF LORD RAGLAN. 641 persuaded by Pélissier to sanction a combined attack on these strongholds. The ablest practical soldiers in the British camp declared that the Redan could not be taken by direct assault, though it must fall if the Malakoff were captured. Raglan was of that opinion himself. But he yielded to his French colleague, and the result of the combined attack on both places was a painful failure. French and English were alike repulsed, and the loss of life which this blunder caused was sickening to contemplate. "Cries of 'Murder!"'" writes Mr. Russell, the Times correspondent, "from the lips of expiring officers have been echoed through the camp, but they have now died away in silence, or in the noise of active argument and discussion." Heartbroken by this defeat, Lord Raglan took to his bed and died on the 28th of June. The shock of Raglan's death silenced at the time all just criticism on his career. The most that can be said for him is said by Lord Malmesbury in his "Memoirs of an Ex-Minister." "I knew him well," he writes, "and cannot recollect a finer character. He was the Duke's right-hand man through the Peninsular war, and was greatly esteemed by him. Handsome and high-bred in person, and charming in society, he was one of the most popular of its members. He was remarkable for his coolness under fire, and St. Arnaud, in his famous despatch after the battle of the Alma, says of him: Il avait toujours ce même calme qui ne le quitte jamais."" It is, * The War, by W. H. Russell, p. 498. London: Routledge and Co., 1855. alas! not given to every man to wield the Arthurian brand Excalibur, end whatever he may have been in the Peninsula under Wellington, in the Crimea Raglan was almost as incompetent as St. Arnaud, Canrobert, and Menschikoff. His blunders were as follows: (1), According to Sir T. Martin, he approved of the invasion of the Crimea in utter ignorance of the ground, when the campaign was proposed by the French Emperor.* (2), He consented to invade the Crimea after he had discovered that it was a mad project, and when the discretionary clause in his instructions from the Duke of Newcastle gave him an opportunity of remonstrating with the Cabinet. (3), He invaded the Crimea without an organised Transport Corps. (4), His blunders at the Alma, Balaclava, and Inkermann have been already noted. (5), Till pressure was put on him by Prince Albert, he concealed the miserable state of the army from the Government. (6), By neglecting to make a road between Balaclava and his camp he brought all the miseries of the winter of '54-55 on his troops. (7), By attacking the Redan when he knew quite well it was impossible to capture it, he doomed his troops to useless and avoidable slaughter. No defence has been made for him except on the last two counts of the heavy indictment against him. He did not make a road from Balaclava to the camp, says Mr. Kinglake, because he had not enough men at his disposal. This is an explanation rather than a defence. was to connect his camp with his base. he ought to have abandoned his position. But is not Mr. Kinglake's defence just a little absurd, taken in connection with the Homeric episodes of the war? Had anybody enough men to do anything great or valuable in the Crimea? Campbell had not enough men to turn the tide of battle, in our favour at the Alma. But he did it. He had not enough men to save our base at Balaclava-but he saved it. Scarlett and Cardigan had not enough men to break through the Russian columns in "the Valley of Death"--but they broke through them. The Duke of Cambridge had not enough men to hold his ground at Inkermann--but he and his Guards held it, till it was positively soaked and saturated with their blood. Mr. Kinglake's advocacy, indeed, provokes one to say that scarcity of men never kept Lord Raglan back from any enterprise, when, as at Balaclava and the Redan, the only attainable end was the purposeless butchery of his battalions. The feeble attack on the Redan has been justified on the ground that, as Pélissier was determined to assault the Malakoff, and was certain to be beaten, he was * 66 His first duty as a general If he was unable to do that, Napoleon III. was abjectly ignorant of military geography. At the council of 1854, said Persigny to Lord Malmesbury, his Majesty "announced the attack on Baltic." Persigny asked if he meant Cronstadt. 'No, of course not, it would require 100,000 men, cavalry included,” said the Emperor, loftily. "But," replied Persigny, "Cronstadt is an island." "No, it is not," said the Emperor, as he went for a map. Everything, said Persigny, was done with the same ignorance and carelessness. Yet it was a campaign-devised by this charlatan against the opinion of his best officers, that Lord Raglan, according to Sir T. Martin, approved! See Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. II., p. 15. 1855.] CHARACTER OF LORD RAGLAN. 643 equally certain to attribute his defeat to the timidity of the English, unless they co-operated with him. It is, however, the business of an English general to win battles for his country-not to lose them in deference to the childish petulance of a foreign colleague. At the same time, it must be admitted that Raglan was greatly embarrassed from the first by his French coadjutors, and it is because some of his errors sprang from enforced concessions to their views, that these have been omitted from the present catalogue of his blunders. The truth is, that Lord Raglan was really a diplomatist, and his diplomatic ability was essential to the consolidation of our military alliance with France in the field. That was the sole justification for his appointment as Commander-inChief. His personal courage-rivalling that of antiquity, said St. Arnaud-was the only soldierly quality he possessed. "He was a very perfect gentle knight," too sweetly graceful for the rude ravishment of war, or the weary travail of a siege. His generosity of heart, his charm of manner, his exquisite tact, his serene temper, his chivalrous sense of honour, his high and courtly bearing, rendered him worthy of "The goodliest fellowship of famous knights, though not worthy to hold the post to which he was appointed in the Crimea. But if he was not a great general, he was a great gentleman; and so, when he passed away, the hand of censure fell very lightly on his career. CHAPTER XXXII. ROYALTY AND THE WAR. Financing the War-The Queen and War Loans-A Dreadful Winter-Distress in the Country-The "Devil" in Devonshire-Bread Riots-War Loans and a War Budget-The Queen and the Wounded Soldiers-Her Condemnation of the Hulks"-Presentation of War Medals at the Horse Guards-Visit of the Emperor and Empress of the French-A Plot to Capture the Queen-Councils of War at Windsor-The Grand Chapter of the Order of the Garter-Imperial Compliments-Napoleon III. in the City-At the OperaThe Queen's Birthday Gift to the Emperor-Scarlet Fever at Osborne-Prorogation of Parliament-A Court Intrigue with Dom Pedro of Portugal-The Queen Visits Paris-Her Reception at St. Cloud-The Ball at the Hôtel de Ville-Staring at the "Koh-i-noor"-At the Tomb of the Great Emperor-Prince Bismarck's Introduction to the Queen-Home again-Lord Clarendon on the Queen's Visit to Paris How the Prince of Wales Enioyed himself-At Balmoral-The Bonfire on Craig Gowan-Sebastopol Rejoicings-"A Witches' Dance supported by Whisky"-Courtship of the Princess Royal-Prince Frederick William of PrussiaHis Proposal of Marriage-Attacks of the Times-Visit of Victor Emmanuel-His Reputation in ParisMemorial of the Grenadier Guards-Fresh Charges against Prince Albert-His Vindication of the Crimean Officers. EARLY in 1855 her Majesty became anxious, not to say nervous, as to the plans that were to be adopted for financing the war. Her personal prepossessions were all in favour of Mr. Gladstone's policy-which was that of meeting expenditure out of current revenue. But then the cost of the campaign was now so enormous that it was impossible to increase taxation so as to cover it. The winter had been severe. Though the end of December and the first thirteen days of January had been like summer, during the night of the 13th, says Sir F. Hastings Doyle, "the wind shifted suddenly to the N.N.E., and a savage frost came on which lasted at least two months without intermission or abatement."* Outdoor workers found themselves without employment. Gangs of hungry-eyed labouring men began to parade the streets of London, levying black-mail on well-to-do householders. Ultimately mobs of roughs attacked and plundered the bakers' and chandlers' shops in the East End on the 21st and 22nd of February, and in Liverpool, where some 15,000 riverside labourers were out of work, terrible scenes of riot and outrage were enacted. It was a time when the abstraction of capital from the country by raising a war loan would be a slight evil, compared with that which might follow from the imposition of heavy war taxes on a discontented and suffering industrial population. It was therefore decided that the cost of the war should be met by a loan. Sir George Cornewall Lewis brought forward his Budget on the 30th of April. He could estimate for a prospective revenue of £63,000,000. This, however, still left him with a deficit of £23,000,000, which he raised (1), by a Three per Cent. Loan of £16,000,000; (2), by an addition to taxation which brought in £4,000,000; (3), by raising £3,000,000 on Exchequer Bills. "The additional taxes,” Sir George Lewis wrote to his friend Sir E. Head, "were, however, assented to without resistance by the House, who feared a larger addition to the Income Tax, and thought that if they objected to my proposition, taxes which they disliked still more would be substituted." As for the loan, the Money Market, he says, "was in a state favourable for such an operation; for at present there is an abundance of money, but a want of profitable investment for the purpose of trade." The loan of £2,000,000 to Sardinia was sanctioned without much demur, but the loan of £5,000,000 to Turkey was violently objected to— especially by the Tories and Cobdenites. It was raised under the joint guarantee of France and England—an arrangement which many people thought might create disputes between the guarantors. Lord Palmerston, in fact, only carried the loan through by a vote of 135 to 132. Lord Aberdeen's followers opposed the transaction, and their opposition was resented by the Queen, who had already concluded and ratified the arrangement with the French Emperor for guaranteeing the loan. * Reminiscences and opinions of Sir F. H. Doyle (Longmans, 1886), p. 414. There was a terrible snow storm in Devonshire this year. It was made memorable by the footmarks of some creature which nobody could identify. These created a sort of panic in the West of England, for the people thought that the devil was abroad among them. + Letters of Sir George Cornewall Lewis, p. 295. His additional taxes were, (1), 38. per cwt. on sugar; (2), 1d. per pound on coffee, raising the duty from 3d. to 4d.; (3), 3d. per pound on tea, raising the duty from 1s. 6d. to 18 9d.; (4), equalisation of duty on Scotch and English spirits, bringing the former from 6s. to 7s. 10d. per gallon; (5), increase of duty on Irish spirits from 4s. to 68.; (6), increase of 2d. on Income Tax, raising it from 1s. 2d. to 1s. 4d. in the £. |