VEGETABLE FOOD IN STORE. 441 for the use of the hospitals, to be issued, on requisition, as a medical comfort. "WE ARE NOT AWARE OF ANY SUFFICIENT REASON WHY SOFT BREAD MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN BAKED AT ANY TIME FOR THE USE OF THE SICK, AND ALSO FOR THE WHOLE ARMY. The French army has been regularly supplied with fresh bread; and the erection of a sufficient number of ovens was not an operation involving any great expense, or requiring much skill or much time, if it had been undertaken by the proper public departments. THERE WERE BAKERS ENOUGH IN THE REGIMENT TO HAVE WORKED MANY MORE OVENS THAN WERE REQUIRED TO SUPPLY THE WHOLE ARMY; AND IF THESE COULD NOT BE SPARED FROM THEIR MILITARY DUTIES, THERE WAS NO DIFFICULTY IN PROCURING BAKERS FROM CONSTANTINOPLE. BUT THERE APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN AN INDISPOSITION TO MAKE THE ATTEMPT. THE COMMISSARYGENERAL UNDERSTOOD THAT A FLOATING BAKERY HAD, FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, BEEN IN PREPARATION IN ENGLAND, AND IT WAS CONSIDERED UNNECESSARY, OR IMPOSSIBLE, TO DO ANY THING TILL IT ARRIVED." —Report, p. 9. When the suffering was at its height, and men were dying, literally like rotten sheep, for want of food, by hundreds daily, will it be credited that the following quantities of farinaceous and preserved vegetable food were lying in store at Scutari and Balaklava? From Ib. From lb. From lb. From At Balaklava.. 74,574 15 Nov. 32,468 1 Nov. 51,000 16 Dec. 23,120 1 Jan. And there were lying in store at Scutari, ready to be brought over as the above supplies be came reduced 296,001 Nov. 6,010 1 Oct. Nil. 42,726 1 Dec. And about half that quantity from the 1st of October. "AMONG THE RESERVE SUPPLIES AT SCUTARI, which were not brought over to the Crimea, at a time when they might have been of the utmost service to troops labouring under scurvy and insufficient nourishment, WERE 147,088 GALLONS OF PORter, WHICH REMAINED IN STORE THERE FROM THE 1ST OF DECEMBER, 1854, TILL APRIL OR MAY LAST. It might have been impossible, considering the inadequate means of transport, to carry any portion of this porter to the head-quarter camp, BUT THERE APPEARS NO REASON WHY IT SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ISSUED ΤΟ THE TROOPS IN THE VICINITY OF BALAKLAVA, AS WELL AS THE WOULD ALSO The same utter disregard for the health of the troops prevailed with respect to the supply of fresh meat. December, when scarcely any but salt meat was issued, the Commissary-General declared that he had 8,000 head of cattle secured (p. 11); and yet the supply was conducted after the following niggardly penny-wise and pound-foolish fashion:: "The army appears to have been supplied with a sufficient proportion of fresh meat whilst in Bulgaria; and, during the latter days of September, and nearly the whole of October, the cattle obtained in the Crimea, either by capture or purchase, furnished the troops with a considerable proportion; but after the beginning of November, they were dependent upon the cattle imported. From that time to the month of March the supply of fresh meat was not sufficient to maintain the health of the troops. During the interval they sujfered to an ala. ming extent from diseases of the bowels, to which there was a general predisposition; and the medical officers, of all ranks, are of opinion, with hardly one exception, that the continued use of salt meat aggravated those diseases and increased that predisposition. "With reference to this subject, we have obtained returns from all the regiments employed in the Crimea, showing the quantity of salt and fresh meat issued to each of them respectively during the winter, an abstract of which has been submitted in the Appendix. A return was also furnished, at our request, by the CommissaryGeneral, from which it appears that the average quantity of fresh meat issued to each man of the five divisions composing the army, including the sick in camp, was in December 6 lbs. 4 oz., in January about 9 lbs., in February 8 lbs. 2 oz. ; but several of the issues which go to make up this amount were in small quantities, for the use of the sick only, to whom a preference was given in almost all instances; and it is probable that the men for duty did not actually receive more than 3 lbs. in December, 5 lbs. in January, and 4 lbs. in February. Some of the corps received even less than that quantity, and there is hardly any difference of opinion as to the evil consequences.”—Report, p. 6. DEFICIENCY OF FUEL. 443 Destructive as this sparing supply of fresh meat was, WHEN THERE WAS A HERD OF 8,000 CATTLE at hand ready to be slaughtered, which would have probably saved the lives of a third of the British army, bad was made worse by the abominable system of cooking, which was permitted to prevail. Upon this head, as well as with respect to want of fuel, the Commissioners' observations will be read with the most painful interest: "One of the causes of sickness in the army, to which all the witnesses refer, is defective cooking. On the march from Old Fort to the Alma, and during the battle, most of the men threw away or lost their camp kettles. Some divisions did not preserve even one in ten of the regulated number, viz., one to every five men. When the army arrived before Sebastopol it was, therefore. impossible to organize the established regimental system of cooking, which is by companies, telling off a certain number of men per company as cooks. Each man had to cook for himself in his small mess-tin or canteen, to procure his own fuel, and to light his own fire. For a time there was little difficulty in procuring firewood; but after the brushwood in the vicinity of the camp was consumed, fuel could not be obtained except by digging up roots, an operation which, to unskilful hands, involved great labour, and, in bad weather, much exposure. When there was snow upon the ground, and during frost, the men, who were inadequately supplied with tools, and who, from want of skill in using them, soon spoiled or broke such as they had, often found it impossible to procure enough of fuel. In wet weather the inexperienced, who composed the great majority, had much difficulty in getting the green or wet wood to burn. Men who had been all night in the trenches, up to their ankles in mud, and who returned to the camp exhausted and benumbed, could not cook food for themselves without first grubbing up roots for fuel, which, in many cases, were to be found only at a considerable distance. Many of them wanted either energy or strength enough to undergo that labour, and contented themselves with their biscuit and rum, adding, in some cases, a bit of raw pork. Many more made the attempt to cook their meat: but in consequence of the difficulties just referred to, the process was often very imperfectly performed, and the meat was eaten half-raw. Even after kettles had been procured, which in most regiments was not until some time in January, and after men had been told off to cook for companies, the labour and exposure undergone by the fatigue parties sent out to obtain fuel was a serious addition to the other severe and harassing duties which they had to perform. "The Commissariat maintained that it was not the practice of the service to issue fuel to troops in the field; that a soldier was not entitled to a ration of fuel unless in barracks. Lord Raglan, however, on the 11th of November, instructed the CommissaryGeneral to provide a sufficient supply of fuel for the ensuing winter; and by a general order, dated the 4th December, directed the issue of rations of fuel to the troops. But although it appeared that, even long before the 11th of November, the CommissaryGeneral had provided a depôt of fuel at Scutari for the use of the army when in barracks, he was not prepared to issue fuel in the field when it was ordered on the 4th of December. "To provide and issue fuel was no doubt a considerable addition to the duties of the Commissariat, and the difficulties arising from the deficient state of the land transport, the narrow space for landing stores at Balaklava, and the great amount of labour which the other duties of that department involved, in the peculiar circumstances of the army, may have led the Commissary-General to insist upon the alleged previous practice in the Peninsula and elsewhere, of leaving troops in the field to find their own fuel. But the circumstances of the army before Sebastopol were obviously exceptional, and an appeal to precedent was out of place. In consequence of the representations of the Commissary-General, however, the order of the 4th December appears to have been modified, and it was not until the 29th December that the troops in and near Balaklava received rations of fuel. This apparent want of alacrity on the part of the Commissariat to provide fuel for the army in the field, could not have arisen from any difficulty in procuring firewood. The southern coast of the Black Sea is wooded down to the shore for hundreds of miles; firewood could have been procured there in unlimited quantity: but the resources of that coast had not then been explored. Wood has more recently been obtained from thence at little more than onefourth of the price paid for it during the winter at Scutari and Constantinople. Unfortunately, after fuel had been provided at Balaklava, the want of land transport made it impossible to carry it to the front, except in small quantities for the use of the hospitals; and being issued only in the vicinity of Balaklava, it was of no use to the soldier on the heights, unless he could find the means of carrying it to the regimental camp. From what has been stated, it appears that the diet provided for the troops was not well calculated to preserve their health in any circumstances, and that, instead of tending to counteract the other causes of disease to which they were exposed, it tended rather to aggravate those evils. And the same unvarying diet of salt meat and biscuit, without a sufficient supply of vegetables, acting upon constitutions debilitated by the other causes previously referred to, produced scurvy, which, there is reason to believe, complicated and rendered more fatal almost every other disease by which the troops were attacked in December and January." We have hitherto taken SIR JOHN MC NEILL'S and COLONEL TULLOCH'S Report, as to the insufficiency of food, defective cooking, and want of fuel. Let us now see what they add about the distribution of warm clothing. SUPPLY OF WARM CLOTHING. 445 "Exclusive of the Artillery, for whom separate warm clothing was provided, the whole force in the Crimea, at the end of November, appears to have been about 23,000 or 24,000, and the supplies which had arrived from England in the end of November and beginning of December, for the purpose of equipping them with clothing suitable for the winter, were as under : "Had all these supplies come safely to hand, they would have furnished about three woollen frocks and three pairs of socks or stockings, as well as half that proportion of drawers, and an extra blanket to each man. There were also enough of rugs, paillasses, and great-coats, or watch-cloaks, to have furnished about one of each for every two men, which would have been sufficient; because, owing to the duty to be performed, only a proportion of the men could be in their tents at the same time. "Unfortunately, the 'Prince' was lost on the 14th November with all her supplies, but an officer was immediately dispatched by Lord Raglan to Constantinople for the purpose of making purchases to replace them, who succeeded in obtaining the quantities specified in a list given in the Appendix. "Of these, a portion was sent over immediately by the 'Brandon,' 'Valorous,' and Sidney.' The Queen of the South' also arrived from Malta, on the 18th November, with further supplies, so that there was available for distribution in the end of November and beginning of December (by which time the thermometer had not fallen below the freezing point), the following articles : This vessel arrived at Kamiesch on the 15th, but did not proceed to Balaklava till the 21st November. VOL. XXXIX. G G By Brandon, Total. |